#the original was a bit fancier but it's whatever

[royalarchivist]

Pepito: fofoca???

Pac: Fofoca? You know, uh, me and Fit are dating, that's the - like, the last fofoca I can tell you

Mike: YOU STARTED DATING?!

Mike and Pepito react to Pac's news about dating Fit.

[ Subtitle Transcript continued ↓ ]

-

Pac: Yeah, right? Like, I said to you - [stammers] Y- you - you cut my hair, man!

Mike: No no no no– You said- you said that you- you had met, but you didn't said you were dating, bro! What the fck.

Pepito: QUEEEEEEEEEEEE CUENTAME (WHATTTTT TELL ME)

Pac: Yeah, like, I think after like the first date, I think I'm dating, it's not how that- the things work, right?

Mike: I'm gonna- I'm gonna ask- I'm gonna ask Fit.

Pac: Ask Fit, ask Fit.

[Mike runs off to question Fit]

Pac: Fit like, invited me to... to dinner yesterday, Pepito.

Pepito: mi primera boda :-D (My first wedding :-D)

Pac: Cal- calma, calma, calma, calma- You know? We are– we are baby steps. [Laughs]

Pepito: PASITO A PASITO COMO PEPITO. (Little by little, steps like Pepito)*

Pac: Yes! [Laughs] "Little by little, steps like Pepito." [Starts singing "Despacito" then laughs again.]

* "Pasito a pasito" can also be translated as "little by little" or "step by step," but given the context of what Pepito's saying, "Little by little, steps like Pepito" is a closer translation to what Pepito's actually trying to say.

[dreamii-krybaby]

Hi, please let’s take appreciation for the smallest details that Murder Drones have

I love how despite having the same idea of somewhat decorating their lockers, they still show a bit of their different personalities

Nori has color in it, a lot of emotion too, with the exclamation marks and the little angry face, clearly not wanting people to mind in her business with her “STAY OUT!” message. The colors and the fact she has hearts and a dolphin (?) shows she does like cutesy stuff but enjoys edgy things thanks to the skull (?) drawing. Her hand writing is in bold and in all caps but is a rather round lettering

She is giving a bit of “that one girls who did the most decorated and messy-in-a-pretty-way school notes” vibes

Yeva on the other hand surprisingly does show a bit personality but not as much as Nori, its all in black, no color. Her lettering is much more sharper and even fancier in a way, and the words aren’t 100% in bold, her name isn’t in all caps, except for her “DO NOT DISTURB!!” Message. Which tbh is so silly she opted to words things like that. Has slightly poorly drawn stars and flowers doodles, a cutesy vibe in comparison to her sharp lettering.

I originally thought that her “do not disturb!!” message was misspelled, to show that she struggles writing in english, but then I realized it was written properly, its just the words where faded out and worded in a peculiar way. She makes it sounds that she uses the locker to sleep in it and she doesn’t want ppl to disturb her (if these are indeed lockers and not rooms). Or maybe she does struggle a lil when wording in English, who knows?

Its also interesting how the dolphin drawing, the stars and flower doodles are all from the outside world, from nature. Yeva and Nori probably know and have seen these things somewhere but I doubt they saw it in person or saw it daily while they lived on the labs/camps, its kinda cute and sad

And again is a bit sweet that despite their awful and dire conditions they still tried to have fun in some way. 

But it’s so tragic at the same time bc they where probably women with interesting and cool personalities with aspirations but where forced in a horrible situation and livehood.

And then, whatever kinds of horrors it definitely changed them permanently as people, and not in a good way.

[bonefall]

Warrior Bites: Tunnel Buns

For the Warrior Bites series, also check out: The Rules, and The Tools!

[Image ID: Three rabbit-shaped baked goods. The first two have ‘ears’ that connect at the back. The third is darker, shinier, and fancier, with ornate markings.]

"It’s not enough that WindClan has a warren for a diet, all their food has to look like rabbits too!”

Clan of Origin: WindClan

Occasion: Travel ration, trade good

Requires: Oven

An old recipe originally made for Tunnelers, to have a ration that wouldn’t get filthy from all the dirt underground. Unleavened dough is molded into the shape of a rabbit, stuffed and baked with mincemeat and spices, and then fastened to a belt by the ‘ears‘ of the tunnelbun.

Traditionally, the tunnel bun was cut open by a claw and the stuffing was licked out, the dirty crust discarded underground. Since tunnel buns survived the death of tunneling, sometimes the crust is now eaten in bites along with the stuffing. These are a valued good for trade, as WindClan is the only Clan that can create dough.

Step 1: WindClan’s Dough Quest

[Image ID: Breezepelt from Warrior Cats, a solid black cat with yellow eyes, gathers wheat in his mouth. Behind him is a field and blue skies. He is smiling and winking.]

Rye, wheat, barley, and oats are all candidates to create the dough, but the one that WindClan chooses is mostly dependent on what's available. Grains grow best on WindClan territory, but often escape nearby twoleg farms to grow wild which is how WindClan gathers them...

But there are, occasionally, hard years with low yield where the warriors will risk swiping stalks. They try not to take too much, having noticed that twolegs are more likely to invest in dogs when they steal too much.

So, in an attempt to be honorable and polite, WindClan warriors will leave a “gift” at the doorstep of a farmer who they’ve taken some wheat from. Usually a rat or a crow. This seems to work, resulting in less loose dogs and thrown boots and more of the twoleg sound of friendliness, ‘pspsps.‘

Step 2: The Bakening

[Image ID: A batch of tunnelbuns is on a stone slab, ready to roll into a stone oven. Mudclaw, a brown tabby cat, is rolling dough flat with a stick. His brother, Torear, a gray tabby, is sitting off to the side, smiling. They are at the border of WindClan territory, with Fourtrees in the distance.]

WindClan’s general diet consists of an obscene amount of rabbits and they’re always seeking new ways to make rabbit meat taste different.

Tunnel Buns used to just be stuffed with marinated mincemeat, whatever they happened to have laying around after taking the best cuts for other things. Organs, toes, shredded ears, tossed in gravy and baked.

WindClan's oven is specially designed to accommodate making an entire batch of Tunnelbuns all at once. The stone tray rests on a wooden lean, so the edge of the stone is never too hot to grab and roll out.

This oven is considerably more advanced than the simple ones of the other Clans, thanks to the savviness of Tunnelers contributing to an early problem-solving culture and WindClan's unique access to grains for flour.

Step 3: Specialization

[Image ID: 3 traditional tunnelbuns and 2 fancy tunnelbuns are arranged in a row. The white paw of Scourge is reaching for one that has distinctive tabby markings, a notch in one ear, and a stripe across the nose.]

“Traditional Tunnelbuns” were made with function in mind, with clearer emphasis on the ‘ear loop’ to feed through a belt. In the modern, post-Tunneling era, this dish has a WILD amount of variation.

Even the simplest, plainest ‘traditional tunnelbun’ usually has a stylized “face“ so you can tell at a glance which one was made BY whom, and FOR whom. Mudclaw would be very upset if he bit into the wrong tunnelbun and got a mouthful of bug meat, his brother Torear’s favorite!

“Fancy Tunnelbuns” are made to be immediately eaten in camp, and as such, the ‘ear loop‘ is more of a decoration. They’re distinguished by being ornate, and usually full of higher-quality cuts of meat. These ones are also shiny, having been washed with egg during the baking process.

Because they’re traditionally eaten by slicing the bun open from tail-to-chin... there is a new, beloved joke about them after Tigerstar’s defeat.

Tunnel Buddies

[Image ID: Three baked goods in the shape of various animals, including a deer, duck, and large fish.]

WindClan and Tunnelbuns are as synonymous as RiverClan and Fish. No other Clan can access the grains to make them. You could say tunnelbuns are the Clan equivalent of hotcakes; everybody wants them.

So WindClan often makes fancy tunnelbuns in the shapes of other animals, in bigger sizes. Non-rabbit tunnelbuns are colloquially referred to as “Tunnelbuddies.“

They make appearances in trades, festivals, and other multi-Clan events where WindClan is looking to make a display of friendliness towards honored guests.

[egcdeath]

someone in the crowd

pairing: joel miller x popstar!reader

summary: you and joel found your start as local musicians thirteen years ago, but ultimately drifted apart. after seeing him again, the two of you embark on a night of questionable decisions. 

word count: 10k

warnings: ANGST. angst, angst, angst, alternate universe: no outbreak, an emotional rollercoaster, a bit of fluff, right person/wrong time, no use of y/n, cursing, alcohol consumption, kinda emotional infidelity but kinda not, mentions of cheating, mentions of heated situations, everyone makes questionable decisions, a surprise guest ;)

author’s note: this fic has been my baby for the past few weeks. i really really hope you enjoy reading it as much as i’ve enjoyed writing it because it’s probably something that i’m most proud of writing in a really long time :))

— — — —

Your heart pounded brutally against your ribcage and perspiration slowly began to form along your hairline the same way it always seemed to do before any of your shows. While you still found yourself anxious in anticipation of performing in front of an audience, your nerves now were far better now than they were thirteen years ago, when you had to find a shot of something strong to soothe your racing mind before going onto the stage of a dingy bar, then dispersing your leftover adrenaline by making out with your partner in the alley of the bar where you’d just sung your heart out. 

But your nerves weren’t the only thing that had changed since then. In the time that had passed since you first began your artistic pursuit, you’d gone from open mics at bars where you reluctantly sang covers of whatever was popular on the radio to performing your own original work to sold-out arenas. While your career had changed drastically within the past thirteen years, your love life had also shifted significantly, as  you’d finally managed to settle down after what felt like a lifetime of fleeting encounters with a man you’d met at one of your earlier shows. 

Tonight, the many aspects of your growth seemed to come to an intersection: performing in your hometown of Austin, in a sold-out arena full of fans anxious and eager to hear you perform live. Amidst the sea of strangers and devoted fans, your husband and daughter had flown out to watch you perform as well. Despite the nerves that being in front of a crowd brought to you, the knowledge that your family would be right there, cheering you on brought you a profound sense of comfort. The idea of curling up on the couch in a fancier-than-usual hotel between your husband and daughter after a night of giving your all to perform sounded particularly appealing, especially with the exhaustion of being halfway through your tour beginning to set in. 

As you stood in the wings, your stage manager straightened up your outfit and dabbed away a bead of sweat on your face before giving you a friendly smile. She wished you luck as she adjusted your earpiece, the decrescendo of your opening act encouraging the crowd to scream out in anticipation of your show. You took a deep breath, closing your eyes as your lungs expanded, and felt the vibrations from the cheers of the exhilarated crowd. 

You began your show as you always did, your nerves dissolving into pure adrenaline as the screaming crowd gave you all the encouragement and confidence you needed to find your footing, and more importantly–to have fun. You sang and danced hard, putting on an extra show as you knew the hoops your family had to jump through to specifically come out to see you. It was far easier to give it your all knowing that the people you loved most and hadn’t seen in months were there standing in the crowd, grinning at your every move. You just hoped that you’d be able to see them in the sea of faces below you and with the harsh strobe lights beaming above you. 

Unsatisfied with being almost halfway through your set and still not being able to identify the people you were specifically looking for, you took the opportunity to sit by the edge of the stage while performing a slower, acoustic song. Sure, it wasn’t the safest, and your security often recommended against it, but it was always a hit for your fans, and always a good opportunity to scope out the crowd. 

As you began to play the first few notes of a song that you’d written nearly a decade ago, but was always a fan favorite, your eyes floated across the crowd. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, you finally spotted your husband, your daughter on his shoulders as the two of them grinned adoringly at you. You couldn’t help but smile, your chest filling with warmth at just the mere sight of the people you loved, but hadn’t seen in such a long time. At just one glance, you were ready to toss the guitar down and throw the whole tour away, just to spend the rest of your life with your family.  

But that wasn’t the only face you noticed that caught you off guard as you sang. Like your eyes were magnetically drawn to him, your eyes fell on a familiar, yet slightly older face. At first, you didn’t believe it–but you knew you would know that face anywhere, regardless of how much time had passed. It wasn’t hard to recognize the same soft, yet sad eyes, scruffy beard–albeit a bit grayer—and angular nose that looked back at you, paired with a teenager by his side singing along to your every word. Locking eyes with him in that moment instantly sent a flood of emotions over you. Your mind temporarily blanked from the lyrics you should’ve been singing—your mind suddenly filled with Joel Miller. 

Joel Miller who you’d met at a bar over a decade ago. Joel Miller who sang covers of Neil Young and swayed along to whatever songs you’d sang that night before singing your praises into the shell of your ear. Joel Miller who you’d fallen in love with in record time—who you spent hours with talking in diners until the sun rose, and walking around the city showing each other your favorite spots and daydreaming about what it might be like when you two grew old and successful together. Joel Miller who broke your heart for the first time when he broke the news to you that he was becoming a father. Joel Miller who kickstarted your career by giving you a fresh, new set of emotions to draw on when writing and producing your first album. Joel Miller who you hadn’t seen or thought of in over thirteen years, except for the fleeting ‘what-ifs’ that occasionally plagued your mind as you fell asleep at night. 

You stuttered as your brain caught back up with the performance at hand. You were still slightly reeling from the dichotomy of seeing your own husband and daughter, to your former lover and his own kin, the weight of it all throwing you off just the slightest bit for the rest of the night. 

— — — —

This was wrong. You should’ve been in your hotel room, lounging in a soft robe and eating overpriced room service with your family while watching a stupid movie—just like you’d been planning to do since your husband had told you that he and your daughter were coming to visit. They had flown out specifically to see you from halfway across the country, and yet, here you sat picking at the peeling booth of a diner you’d spent many late nights in a whole lifetime ago with your mind scattered–yet on anything but your family. 

The staff was all different now, except for an older woman working the register who had worked there before you learned of the diner and would likely work there long after you forgot about it. The hideously checkered floor—one that you’d made fun of with your former companion on many occasions—had a few more cracks in it than you remembered, but other than that, the building felt much like a time capsule. Down to the untouched menu, it was all perfectly preserved in time. It was hard not to think about the many late nights you’d had there, talking, drinking shitty, stale coffee and splitting a plate of overly sweet pancakes until the sun rose to celebrate a successful tiny gig with Joel. 

So many of your memories in the city were tied to the man, and yet every other time that you’d returned to Austin, you hadn’t ever felt like this. It was a consistent stop on all of your tours, regardless of how far and wide you were traveling. At first, part of you had always hoped that you would see Joel again, especially in the first few years after he’d left you to go raise his child. You’d lost hope of ever reconnecting with the man quite soon after, only to find a light in the tunnel with a new love of your own. 

Things had obviously changed since then—with you moving on and falling in love with someone else, even having a child with him. Yet, part of you still fondly reminisced on those younger days when you were so naïve and hopeful for the future. Where in all versions of your future, you were spending your life with Joel—before it all came crashing down with the shocking confession that he was just weeks away from bringing a child into the world. 

Despite each visit to the city making you feel further and further removed from your past, the diner where you sat, paired with the haunting picture of Joel with his daughter at your show tonight made you take a rather long stroll down memory lane–a street that felt entrenched with memories and emotions of the past.

You nibbled on cold fries as you lost yourself in thought. You really should head back to your hotel now. Your husband was probably tired of waiting for you, your daughter likely fast asleep by now, and this whole trip down memory lane had been nothing short of juvenile—an unrealistic fantasy that you shouldn’t even have been entertaining. You flagged down your waitress for the bill and left her a hefty tip, fully prepared to get up and close this chapter of your life for good.

As you gathered your bearings and began to scoot out of the booth, your eyes stopped on a familiar, yet aged, face for the second time that night. For a moment, your face fell as you were overcome with every emotion you had been fighting off for the last few hours—hell, the emotions you had been fighting off for the past thirteen years.

His eyes had that same sad look in them that you remembered from the last time you saw him– the night he told you he was going to be a father. His eyes had that same sad look that yours had now, filled with thirteen years of festered hurt and guilt from the knowledge that you should’ve moved on by now. The knowledge that you did move on, but still had your resolve break with one simple look at the man. 

“Oh-“ you exclaimed, not really knowing what to do or what to say. There wasn’t exactly a playbook for talking to your first love and first real heartbreak over a decade later. In fact, you weren’t even sure that he had any interest in interacting with you. 

“Uh,” Joel began with a stutter, clearly just as frazzled as you. You immediately began to feel dread grow in the pit of your stomach, the deer-in-headlights look in his eyes making you fear that he wanted nothing to do with you. 

“Hey,” you greeted, not quite sure how to approach the situation. Part of you wanted to run away; to get up and leave as you planned, effectively leaving behind your history with Joel in that diner booth. But the bigger part of you–surely ruled by your heart rather than your brain–wanted to stay. Invite Joel to sit with you, talk about life and all that you two had missed in the last decade until the sun rose and pulled you away from your reverie. 

“Long time, no see,” Joel commented, the startled look on his face not even leaving for a moment. You wondered if he was going through a similar internal conflict as you, torn in half by his head and his heart. You wondered which one he would listen to. You wondered which one you’d listen to.   

“Yeah, I guess it has been a while,” you agreed, the sensible side of you pushing you to make dry, awkward small talk, as if the two of you weren’t entrenched in an extensive history. For a moment, the logical side of you seemed like it might win. The night was still young, and you’d already had the chance to at least say hello to Joel. That had to be enough closure for you. Now, you could go home, curl up next to your daughter and husband, and make up for the time you’d lost with them while being on tour.

But things were never that simple, were they? Not with Joel, at least. 

“Do you want to sit? Catch up?” you offered, words a bit rushed together as if if you didn’t say it quickly, you would lose your opportunity altogether. Between not knowing what Joel’s response would be, and the war waging on between your heart and your head, you knew that you couldn’t take the moment of boldness for granted. As much as it would make sense for you to get up and move on, you weren’t sure that you could handle yet another what-if hanging over you for the next however long. Your family would still be in that hotel room when you got back, but you might never get another chance to see Joel again. 

“Sure, I guess. Do you want me to sit?” Joel asked, the cautious and slightly uncomfortable smile on his face and tense itching of his neck letting you know that he was open to sitting with you, but still felt a bit off. You supposed you felt similarly, the gray area of wanting to give into your heart, who was begging and urging you to see the man once more, and your brain that was screaming at you to be smart. To remember that you had a happy family and successful career waiting for you back at home. 

“I mean, I wouldn’t have offered it if I didn’t want you to. Do you want to sit? Because you don’t have to if it’s gonna make things weird,” you attempted to reason, not sure if you were more so giving yourself or the man across from you an out. 

“I think I already made things weird,” Joel commented as he slid into the booth across from you, rubbing his hands on the front of his jeans as he did so. “As long as ‘weird’ doesn’t get me detained by your security detail.”

Joel’s joke didn’t quite land; a comment that felt like being woken up from a deep sleep by a freezing bucket of ice water. A reminder of just how far you’d drifted—the fact that it truly had been years since the two of you had been together, and in that time, your lives had gone down two very different routes. 

You couldn’t even force yourself to let out a stifled laugh. You just gave Joel a sad, pressed smile. One that obviously wasn’t real, and one that he easily saw through. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his big, brown eyes expressive as always. Such a loaded word coming from the man you’d loved a lifetime ago, before things ended so abruptly. Somehow you understood that his apology was for more than just making a joke that was in slightly poor taste. Those two words almost felt like a lifetime of built up emotion, words that you’d desperately been waiting to hear since you had been told that Joel was bringing a baby into the world. 

You shook your head, not even being able to find the words to respond to something you found to be so heavy. Instead, you much rather prefer to move on from the topic at hand. “It’s fine,” you dismissed, a fake smile finding itself on your lips. 

“I can’t believe we both had the same idea,” you chuckled awkwardly, trying your best to change the subject and loosen the thick tension that had fallen over the two of you. The sooner you finished catching up with Joel, the sooner you could give your head and your heart closure. This was for the best, right? Besides, with how awkward this conversation was shaping out to be, you were sure that you would never wonder how things might’ve worked out with you two again. 

“Yeah. They did always have good coffee here,” Joel teased, looking to you for some sort of affirmation which was granted once you laughed aloud—maybe a little harder than what was warranted. But that was just how things always were with Joel. Even after all he put you through, and after all those years apart, he still made your heart swell in a way that everything just felt better. You forgot that when you were together jokes were funnier, music was more beautiful, and you were just… happier. It had been a while since you’d felt like the person you were when you were around him.

“You are such a liar,” you laughed out, feeling just the slightest bit more relaxed as the two of you fell into a familiar, almost comforting rhythm. You could’ve sworn that you’d had this very conversation with him a number of times before. “You know that pot has been sitting there untouched for hours.”

“Just how I like it,” he commented before gesturing for a waitress and ordering himself a mug of said old coffee. You couldn’t help but grin as you shook your head and rolled your eyes at him. After all these years, he still was the same little shit you always remembered him being. After all these years, and the different ways your lives ended up being, he was still Joel, and you were still you, and after one short interaction, you were beginning to wonder if you were still in love with him in the way that you had been all those years ago.

“Well, what’s new with you?” you asked as the waitress dropped off his mug of lukewarm coffee. This was safe, pleasant small talk. Nothing meaningful or weird, just two friends catching up. 

“Where do you want me to start?” Joel asked with a raised brow. You had no way to be completely sure, but it seemed as if he was beginning to feel a bit more comfortable in the way that you also were. 

“Wherever you see fit. I need to know what I missed out on after I left,” you leaned forward the slightest bit, attempting to push down the thoughts and emotions that were beginning to bubble in you just below the surface. 

“Always so nosy,” he chuckled, taking a hearty sip from his mug. “Let’s see. Where did we leave off?”

“Uh, here, actually, I think. You just finished playing at The Lounge, we came over here, you told me you had to tell me something, and I swore you were gonna ask me to move in or something. You were really nervous,” you paused to laugh a humorless laugh, not because it was funny, but because you were impressed by just how naïve you’d been. “We sat down, ordered pancakes to split like usual, and you told me you got someone pregnant, and that the baby was being born soon. I couldn’t fucking believe you, so I asked you some questions before I left. I think maybe that’s where we left off.”

Almost immediately you regretted the words pouring out of your mouth. You guessed you hadn’t realized just how hurt you still were from what Joel had done to you years ago, but you especially hadn’t realized how hard it would be to hold back once you started. 

“Good memory,” he replied, looking down into his mug to avoid eye contact with you. You shrugged nonchalantly, as if you hadn’t rerun that night in your mind thousands of times, and as if it wasn’t painfully obvious in your recap. Maybe it was petty to bring up something that you both clearly regretted, but you had a feeling that it was going to exit your system eventually. You hadn’t exactly taken the breakup well, and you had been discovered by a label so quickly that you never had the chance to go back and hash things out with Joel. 

“Please don’t like, feel bad,” you immediately tried to correct, noticing the hurt written across the man in the booth’s face—whatever brief satisfaction you gained by airing out your qualms with him was immediately replaced with regret. “I’m fucking with you, Joel,” you lied, hoping to preserve his feelings. This clearly wasn’t something he was proud of, and it was wrong to throw the mistakes he’d made back into his face, especially when he didn’t exactly deserve it. “It was just a shitty joke. I’m sorry.”

“We’re just on a roll tonight with bad jokes, I guess,” he seemed to sigh, despite the humorous front he was attempting to put on. “You don’t still hate me, right?” His question felt genuine and remorseful, and for a second, you felt a pang in your gut for ever making someone you loved feel like you hated them.

“Of course not,” against your better judgment, you reached across the table and set your hand on top of his. “I never hated you. Really. I mean, you hurt me pretty badly, but I don’t even think I have it in me to hate you. Trust me, I tried.”

The two of you shared yet another slightly awkward laugh, one that broke the tension between you, but also was thinly veiled with the sadness and remorse of your past. Bringing your hand back to your own lap, you rubbed your now slightly clammy palms on your pants. 

“Can we just start over? I don’t want things between us to be…like this… forever,” Joel explained, a sheepish look on his face.

“Like what?” you asked, having an idea, but still genuinely curious to see what the man across from you thought was going on. 

“Like we’re dancing on eggshells, or something. I miss when everything we would say wasn’t followed by ten seconds of awkward silence and an apology.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, before scoffing and shaking your head. “I mean- I didn’t mean to do what you just said you didn’t want us to do. It’s just hard to be normal when… you know, we happened.”

“I get it,” Joel agreed. “What if we just… I don’t know… Pretend? That things between us were fine for the night? Just old friends reuniting after a long time?”

“Sure,” the deal sounded like the perfect way to stay mostly detached, while still giving yourself the opportunity to reconnect with Joel. A compromise that allowed your logical and emotional side to win. Reunite with Joel, but not cross any boundaries, just like old friends did.  “Friends,” you agreed. 

“So ‘friend’ I cut you off earlier. What’s new with you?” you asked. 

Joel smiled as you spoke, seemingly happy with the agreement you'd settled on—to be civil as friends. “Well, I had a daughter, Sarah. She’s thirteen now, and she’s genuinely the light of my life. I’ve got a lot of regrets, and she’s not one of ‘em. Other than that, not much has changed. We moved into a new house. Expanded the contracting business a bit. That’s pretty much it.”

“And how’s Sarah’s mom?” you asked curiously, anxious to know if Joel had moved on with his life in the way that you’d forced yourself to. But then again, the two of yourselves found yourselves in a diner that held so many memories of you two, and that had to mean something. 

The man across from you shook his head as he seemed to recall the events that must’ve transpired between them. “We tried to make things work for years, but it just wasn’t the same. There wasn’t any real love between us. Not like-“ he cut himself off before saying anything more, but the knowledge of exactly where he was going felt like a quick dagger to your chest. You tried to ignore the way your breath briefly hitched at the information. “We got married after Sarah was born, and divorced a few years later. I only see her on holidays or to drop Sarah off on her weeks.”

It almost gave you a sense of perverse satisfaction that things never worked out with the mother of Joel’s child. Knowing that you’d been pushed to the sidelines, only for things to work out with her. To know that Joel still got some sort of karmic retribution for what he put you through. You wondered if Joel curled up at night and thought of how he could’ve done things differently, and for some reason, that image of a desperate, pathetic, and remorseful Joel brought you an inkling of contentment. 

“I’m sorry about that,” you said simply, knowing damn well that even after all of these years, you were pleased that the pain Joel had inflicted on you had come back to him. 

Or maybe—a voice in your head began—you were pleased that Joel likely still thought about you. Wished he’d done things different with you. Prayed every night that he’d just get to have another shot with you, a chance to make things right. Of course you were pleased. Clearly you were just as not-over Joel as he was not-over you. 

But were you really not over Joel? Sure, he passed your mind from time to time, but it wasn’t like you were actively unhappy with your relationship and family. You were finding yourself to be more and more conflicted with every second you spent in this booth with the man. 

“It’s fine. That’s life,” he flashed you a smile that fell flat and almost felt more like a frown. “But what about you, Ms. Superstar?”

“Oh,” you chuckled stiffly, “It’s not really like that. But uh, I got a pretty great record deal right as everything went down with us, got to record some music and I guess people listened to it. The rest of that is history, I think. I met my husband through a mutual friend on my first tour—well, I guess someone else’s tour. I was just opening. But we had a daughter a few years ago. She’s pretty great too,” you shrugged. 

Talking about your family brought on a bout of profound guilt, one you worried would stay with you for a long time. You really shouldn’t be here, indulging yourself with fantasies of Joel. Not when the father of your child was just an Uber ride away, and waiting patiently to see your face again.

“That’s all great. So I assume things are going well with you?” Joel asked, a general presumption about everything you’d just told the man. Yet somehow, it almost felt like he was curious about your love life, the same way you had been moments before. The truth was that your love life was great. Sometimes almost too great, making that anxious part of you wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Part of you was beginning to worry that staying here too long was going to end up the catalyst that led the other shoe to drop. 

“They are. Really good,” you smiled politely, despite feeling a bit off. “Hey, I’m sorry to cut things short, but I think maybe I should get going,” you suggested, the guilt that had been quietly eating away at you all night finally beginning to rise to the surface. You pulled your wallet out and began to dig around for enough cash to cover Joel’s coffee, but were pulled away when Joel exclaimed something above you.

“No!” Joel yelped out almost involuntarily, “No,” he repeated, this time a little quieter and a little more level headed. You were surprised by the enthusiasm, but slightly intrigued. Given his little outburst, you peered at him curiously, raising a brow before he spoke once more. 

“I just think we still have a lot to catch up on. I mean, definitely leave if you want to. I’m not gonna stop you, but when is the next time we’ll get a chance to talk like this again? I don’t… I want to hear everything. Not just the sparknotes version. I guess if I wanted that, I could go on Wikipedia or something.”

“You’ve looked me up on Wikipedia?” You laughed, as if that were your only takeaway from what he’d just said. Guilt be damned, if Joel felt like he needed to talk to you so badly, maybe you needed to listen. If you left him now, you’d be wondering forever about what he wanted to talk to you about. 

“Obviously not,” he scoffed, although you saw right through it. “That’s not the point, though.”

“You’re right,” you agreed. “Fine. I’ll stay with you, but we need to do something else. This booth is starting to hurt my legs,” you kicked your legs out forward, accidentally brushing against Joel’s knee. “How about a walk?”

“That sounds perfect.”

— — — —

The walk was something that sounded much better in theory than it actually was in practice. Just a few minutes after stepping outside of the diner, and you’d already had a fan spot you and ask for a picture–an awkward predicament for Joel, who had somehow become the photographer of the night. The awkwardness of your little photoshoot had somehow found itself replicated into your conversation, where a heavy, awkward silence had put a roadblock in the flow of your conversation.

“So…” you trailed off, unsure of where to even start with Joel, especially after the loaded conversation you’d had just minutes prior. 

“So,” he mimicked right back to you, similarly unsure of where to begin with you. 

“Did your daughter drag you out to my show or vice versa?” you asked, toeing the line between joking and curiosity. Part of you wondered–or maybe even hoped–that you still came to mind every now and then in that same way that he still occasionally popped up on yours. 

Joel chuckled to himself, looking away from you as your eyes curiously bore into him. “I didn’t realize you could actually see faces up there with all those fancy bright lights in your eyes and such. But Sarah’s been a big fan for years now.”

“Yeah, you’d be surprised,” you chuckled stiffly, trying to fight the slight disappointment of the letdown that maybe Joel had never attempted to listen to you again, despite music being something that the two of you connected so strongly over. “She ever force you to listen to anything?”

“Force me?” Joel asked, glancing over at you. “I don’t know if I would say that, considering I introduced her to your music in the first place.”

“You’re kidding,” you laughed out in disbelief, and maybe even a bit of delight. Maybe he had been thinking about your music even after all this time. You wondered if he’d ever listened to your older songs, the ones clearly inspired by him and the feelings he’d put you through, and thought about how things might be different if you two were different. 

“Serious as a heart attack,” Joel said, almost proudly. If you were being completely honest, it made you feel a little proud too. Joel had truly watched you find success, and it almost seemed like he'd been supporting you the whole way–from shitty local gigs to sold-out arenas. 

“And she liked it?” you asked, although the fact that she had come out to your concert in the first place seemed to answer that very question.

Joel shrugged, but the smile on his face and raise of his brows told you everything you needed to know. “She did try to get a spot as close to you as possible.”

“Does she know? That you and I…?”

“Were a thing back in the day? Nope. Maybe I’ll tell her when she’s a little older. But when that day comes, I need to know, did you ever write any songs about me?” Joel asked, looking at you mischievously, as if he already anticipated the answer. “So I can let her know which songs she should take off her playlist, of course.”

“What do you think?” you shot back, deadpan, a bit embarrassed to be confronted with the person who had inspired so much of your work asking if he had inspired any of your work. “Okay,” you stopped him before he could answer, hoping to spare yourself just a bit of embarrassment. “I don’t write my own music,” you lied.

“Don’t lie to me. I still have lyrics that just happened to end up in a song on a cocktail napkin.”

“You kept that?” you asked, laughing as you looked at Joel. 

“Is that stupid?”

“No, I just… you could probably auction that off on eBay or something.”

“I’ll remember that next time money gets tight,” Joel teased. “But really. It’s a nice reminder of the old days.”

After a long period of silence, Joel finally looked to you as he popped a question. “Do you ever think about how things might’ve been if…?” 

He didn’t need to finish the question for you to know where he was going. 

“No,” you lied swiftly, thinking of your husband and child back in your hotel room, probably watching a movie as they waited for you to come back, or playing one of your daughter’s new favorite games. For a second, you thought about what it might be like if it were Joel and Sarah sitting in that room. But you and Joel were just friends for the night, and friends didn’t fantasize about how things might’ve been different if you took things a step further. 

“Never?” Joel asked, clearly not believing you. 

“Joel,” you sighed exasperatedly. “I’m married,” you attempted to shut down the conversation with a flimsy argument, but by the look he was giving you, you knew that not even he believed that you believed what you were saying. “Fine. When you left me, I thought about it a lot. You’d promised me so much. We were supposed to travel the world on a sold out tour together. Record albums together,” you lamented almost involuntarily. What came out of your mouth almost felt like a desperate plea, “Do you even remember?”

“How could I forget?” Joel replied quickly, almost sentimentally. You couldn’t be sure if he meant it like that, or if that part of you who reminisced on all of the ways that things could have been different were projecting onto him. 

“We were so stupid,” you muttered, kicking a pebble that appeared by your foot. You felt even more stupid in the moment, trying to connect with a lost love when you had someone you currently loved waiting back home for you. You covered your face in shame hands over your eyes as if not being able to see would be able to absolve you of your negative feelings. 

“We were kids,” Joel corrected, not appreciating the way you degraded your past selves, “and you did record albums. You got to travel the world with shows sold out on your own. That’s infinitely more impressive than whatever I ended up doing.”

“Raising a whole human being is pretty damn impressive,” you argued. “And a well adjusted one, at that.”

Joel scoffed at you, looking over at you in disbelief. When he noticed that your hands were covering your face, he gently nudged it away so that you would look at him. It was almost embarrassing how the most simple, brief touch still sent sparks down your spine and brought you back to when you were an unsure twenty-something, needing a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder from Joel, or getting your ass squeezed tenderly in a makeout session far too heated for the back of a bar.

“You’re doing both,” he argued. 

You laughed aloud, “Barely. I’m barely home long enough to see her. It’s my husband doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to raising her. I just FaceTime her every now and then,” you sighed. “I missed her first steps. Her first tooth growing in and her first tooth coming out. First day of school. All of these firsts I missed by being on the road, that I’m never gonna have the chance to redo again. It sucks, because I love what I’m doing, but I don’t love not getting the full experience of motherhood. It almost makes me wonder,” you cut yourself off, but had a feeling Joel already knew where you were going with that thought.

“I bet you’re doing better than you think you are. I mean, what kid can say that they grew up with their mother being an international star? All my daughter can say is that her dad was a failed local musician.”

“You need to give yourself more credit, Joel,” you gently punched him in the arm. “You’ve always been more talented than me. If you didn’t retire so early, you’d probably be bigger than me.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that,” he explained, genuinely seeming to believe that he wasn’t in the same league as you when it came to talent. “Besides, you’ve always been the more palatable artist of the two of us.”

“You’re plenty palatable. Back in the day, you had that group of middle aged men who showed up every Saturday night at Bitter Pint just to hear your covers of Steely Dan songs? They loved you.”

“They were only there to avoid their families and get drunk every week, and you know it,” Joel squinted, raising a brow at you skeptically.

“But your 70’s dad rock was always a plus for them. Why else would they come to that same bar?” you smirked, feeling as if you’d gotten him with that answer. You truly felt like he deserved to know just how talented he really was. 

“Fair point,” Joel finally conceded, a smile creeping up onto his face as he thought about some of the more fond memories from your shared past. 

“You can’t rewrite history with me, Joel. I was there, remember? I could probably tell you the name of all the regulars and their opinions on us.”

“Oh yeah? Why don’t you prove it. Remember Jessica Simmons?” Joel challenged you, as if your memories from that time of your life could have ever faded.

“Oh my god,” you laughed as you began to recall, “as if I could ever forget her. She had the biggest crush on you ever, to the point where it got kinda embarrassing. She thought you were so hot, and so talented, and the amount of times I had to hear her slur, ‘Ohmygod he’s so sexy and he’s sooooo good at guitar’ to her friends was frankly a little ridiculous. She also hated me.”

“Despised you,” Joel corroborated, laughing as he did so. “I remember, you thought you had this genius scheme of getting her to walk in on us in some nefarious position.” 

“Don’t act like it wasn’t genius. She never bothered me again after seeing us in that bathroom.”

“She also screamed like she was being axe murdered until we all got kicked out,” Joel added, making the two of you burst out in laughter.

“Ah,” you finally gasped out once you finished catching your breath, nearly keeled over from the pain of such hard laughter in your stomach. “I wonder what she’s up to these days.”

“Definitely not coming to your shows, I can tell you that much,” Joel teased.

“Woah, what happened to me being palatable?” you teased right back.

“I mean, not everyone has the same palate,” Joel explained, sending you right back into a fit of laughter.

“Do you still play?” you asked out of the blue once your laughter had subsided and a comfortable silence filled up the air.

“Eh, not really since Sare was born. It’s hard to be a single, working dad and still have time to do things like that.”

“Even now that she’s a little older?” you asked, trying not to hold on too much to the fact that Joel was still single. He may have been off the market, but you were very much not. 

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’. “I play for her sometimes. Some of her friends when they beg me to during sleepovers. But other than that, I’m really rusty. I’d be booed if I ever dared to play in public again.”

“Are you kidding?” you asked, not really believing it at all. Joel had always been extremely talented, which was part of what drew you to him in the first place. You were sure some things had changed or faded with time, but you had a hard time believing that his talent was one of them.

“No?” Joel said, sounding a bit confused. Despite the confidence he had when it came to performing, he never seemed to have that same confidence when it came to actually believing in his ability.

“Oh my god, Joel. You know what we should do?” The idea struck you by surprise, and it probably wasn’t the greatest idea in the entire scheme of things, but you’d already pushed down your guilt and inhibitions so far that night, that you couldn’t even stop yourself from suggesting what you were about to suggest.

“Absolutely not,” he said, already sensing where you were going with that train of thought.

“Oh, c’mon. Let’s just go back to the bar. They’ve been open since the dawn of time, so it’s not like they’ve been shut down. They probably still do open mics too. You can go up there and sing!”

“No way,” he immediately shut you down. 

“Yes way. I bet you’re not rusty as you think, and you’ll see just how much fun you’re missing out on.” You remembered just how much Joel liked being on stage, just how comfortable he was and truly how good he was. His performances always felt effortless, and you always genuinely admired both his stage presence and aptitude for singing. 

“I don’t...” Joel began to trail off, genuinely sounding quite unsure about himself. He’d always been a bit less confident than you when it came to believing the praise and affirmation that he was, indeed, good at what he did.

“Please? I’m only gonna be in town for one night,” you attempted to bargain, despite you having a little more time than you told him about. The truth was more like you were giving yourself one night with Joel. Just one before you went back to the real world, and had a chance to think of the implications of what you’d been doing. “Just think about how much fun you used to have. How much you used to love it?”

“I don’t know,” Joel groaned. “I don’t know if I loved playing as much as I loved the company.”

“That is a bold faced lie,” you scoffed. “I see right through you, Joel Miller. C’mon. Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, he agreed once more, still, to this day, not being able to tell you no. Like everything that seemed to surround Joel, that seemed to thrill and frighten you at the same time. 

— — — —

If you thought you needed to stop entertaining this idea of what-if while you were sitting alone in a booth, reminiscing on Joel, you certainly needed to stop entertaining whatever it was that was happening now. Yet somehow, being around the man made you act in ways that you never would have acted otherwise, which was how you ended up in that same bar where things began with the two of you, and taking shots of vodka like you were twenty-somethings once again.

“Hey, don’t forget why we’re here in the first place,” you reminded Joel, passing him a tumbler of whiskey that you’d just taken from a bartender. 

“And what would that be?” Joel asked, feigning ignorance as he brought the glass up to his lips. “Drinking?”

“Singing, you goof,” you nudged him, feeling far more loose after a night of breaking the tension and an hour of consuming liquid courage. 

“Oh, I don’t remember that being part of the deal,” Joel lied, the mischievous little smile on his face making you roll your eyes playfully.

“Liar,” you laughed. “C’mon. You told me you would sing, so you should go sing,” you suggested, now with a mischievous look of your own on your face. Was it so wrong to want to hear your former lover perform all these years later? You remembered how much Joel used to enjoy it—perhaps even more than you—yet he’d told you that he hadn’t done it in years. 

“Nooo,” Joel laughed, gently pushing you back. “Why don’t you go up there and sing? You’re the professional here.”

“Nuh-uh. I already performed once tonight. I don’t have another one in me,” you argued back. “Why don’t you show me you still got it?”

Joel sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, his exasperation only egging you on. 

“You didn’t really think you could bring me to the bar where we met, and not expect me to want to hear you sing,” you couldn’t help but smirk as you spoke to him. “Pleaseeee?” you begged making a poor attempt at puppy dog eyes and sticking your bottom lip out in a dramatic pout.

“Fine,” Joel finally conceded, downing the majority of his glass and passing it to you before pushing himself off of his barstool and looking to find the stage manager. 

You were rather satisfied for yourself, partially because you hadn’t thought about the real world in hours at this point, but mostly because you were getting a chance to see Joel perform after years of being estranged from him. As you ordered yourself a water, you were caught off guard by hearing the sound of Joel’s voice through a speaker, prompting you to turn around and look at the stage. 

Joel checked the microphone to see if it worked, tapping it twice before settling down in the seat in the middle of the stage before leaning forward slightly to speak into the mic.

“This is dedicated to my former partner in crime. If I’m a little rusty, feel free to dedicate all of your hate, anger, and rotten tomatoes towards her, as she forced me to come up here,” he pointed you out in the crowd and you shook your head to yourself, a smile sneaking up onto your face before you could even help it.

As Joel began to play the first few notes of his song, it became concerningly easy to get lost in a new fantasy. With the light shining on him as he sat on a little stool, his knee angled to support the instrument, and his raspy singing voice beginning to filter through your ears, it was difficult not to imagine how things might’ve turned out in a different world. 

A world where Joel had told you about his child as soon as he saw that pregnancy test, and a world where you decided to stay and work things out. A world where the two of you kept working together, eventually being discovered, and using each other to help boost your individual careers. A world where you would bring his infant daughter to his tour bus, and he’d bring Sarah to yours. Maybe after a while, you’d even go on tour together, your devoted fans in love with the love you two so obviously had for each other. A world where you two would take a break after your big breaks to expand your family even further. One where you two held hands in the audience of the Grammys while you received your first, and well earned awards.

A world where you still would’ve ended up in this very bar, celebrating years on the road together, and how far you’d managed to come from where you started. A family you adored and careers you were passionate about. You’d watch Joel on stage with watery eyes, heart full with the knowledge that you truly couldn’t have made it this far without the man performing in front of you. 

But this wasn’t that world. Joel had let you down one too many times in the course of your relationship–and no matter how good he made you feel temporarily, it didn’t negate the heartbreak he brought upon you. It didn’t change the fact that there had been someone else by your side through every milestone and important moment in your career. It didn’t change the fact that Joel wasn’t the one there to help you mend your heart after shattering it into pieces, and he certainly wasn’t there when you needed him in the same way that others in your life had been. The reality was harsh and brutal, but it was the truth. 

As you stood in the crowd with watery eyes, you concluded that it would never be that world—and that maybe that was for the best. 

Once Joel returned, you were nursing a new drink in your hands, trying to snap out of the whiplash that both your fantasy and reality had brought to you. By now, the glassy look on your eyes was gone, and you were feeling slightly better about the whole ordeal, but something felt undeniably off.

“Not too bad for being rusty,” you teased once Joel came back. It was far too easy to fall back into old patterns of endearment with him. 

Joel flushed, somewhere between flattery and the liquor catching up to him. “Thank you. I forgot how much I liked it up there. I think they really liked me!”

“So much for not being a crowd pleaser,” you winked, setting your drink back down on the bar. 

“Oh, stop it. I’m blushing,” the two of you laughed, and for a moment, you caught your reflection in the mirror. It suddenly became very surreal, seeing yourself in the same bar in the same place you’d been all these years ago, yet in a totally different position in life. For a second, you swore you saw a flash of your younger selves, warm cheeked as you teased each other after a performance. For a moment, you yearned to be back there once again. To do it all over, with the knowledge and experience that only years of life would’ve given you. What would you tell your younger self? That girl who could place the minute your entire world had fallen apart? Would you tell her that things got better? Or would you tell her that years later, you were still naively a fool for the man who broke your heart?  

“Well, you already got what you wanted from me. Now to get even, I’d like to request a dance,” Joel extended his arm out to you and you accepted it, lost in the moment as much as you were lost in your thoughts. In all honesty, it wasn’t exactly the best idea, but what was one more bad idea in a night full of them?

“Well, a dance is only fair,” you agreed.

The next artist who went on stage picked a slower song, one that you and Joel had danced to together a lifetime ago. The two of you slowly swayed, his arm draped around your neck and your arms wrapped around his hips, as if he were in danger of slipping away from you. 

“You know, I never loved anyone the way I loved you,” Joel all but mumbled seemingly out of the blue. The two of you swayed gently, the music in the background fading as you zeroed in on the feeling of Joel’s arms around your waist, and the familiar comfort and nostalgia it brought you. 

His confession felt like yet another bucket of cold water dumped on you, pulling you back to the real world for a moment, and making you realize that the gap between the two of you was slowly beginning to close. 

“Joel…” you cut him off, not sure if you could handle taking that information in. Not when you knew you had a life waiting for you back home, a man who put your broken pieces back together patiently waiting for you, ready to love you unconditionally.

“It’s not too late, you know,” he added with a whisper.

With his nose pressed against yours, you finally mustered up some self control, telling your heart no for what seemed like the first time that night despite the longing deep within your chest and the loosening of inhibitions given to you by the amount of alcohol you’d consumed. 

“It is,” you whispered right back, looking away and pulling yourself away. “I don’t love you anymore.”

The admission shocked even yourself, with the words seeming to tumble from your lips before you could stop them. As much as you wished it were a lie, you knew that the truth was in the statement somewhere—or else you wouldn’t have said it. That small part of your heart that still aches and yearned for Joel that had been lying dormant but was reawakened by a night of reunion vehemently disagreed with your statement, but the majority of your heart now belonged to someone else. One night with an ex couldn’t change that. 

“You don’t have to love me,” he practically pleaded with you, his eyes wet and twinkling under the soft lighting of the bar. “Just pretend with me tonight.”

“I’m sorry, Joel. I can’t do that.” The confession and your reaction seemed to sober you up quickly. Here Joel was, asking you to betray everything you knew over a few fleeting feelings and uncomfortable what-ifs. Your reaction was almost a visceral one, slipping out of Joel’s arms as you thought about your younger self. You’d probably be delighted by the proposition in the same way that Sarah’s mom was delighted by the proposition. But things were different this time. You had things to lose now. You loved your partner. You loved your daughter. That, you knew for sure. You couldn’t be any more sure that you loved Joel as much as you were sure that you loved the mystery that surrounded him. 

“Please,” he begged you, just wanting you to play along with him for just a little while longer. Maybe an hour ago, you would’ve indulged him one last time, but somehow, things suddenly felt infinitely different.

“No Joel,” you argued, beginning to pull away from his grip that was beginning to feel too suffocating. “Don’t you get it? This is the same attitude that landed us here in the first place. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. That’s not how the world works. That’s how you end up with an accidental pregnancy with someone you had a one night stand with while being in a relationship with someone else. I don’t mean to be rude or upset you, but we’re not twenty somethings anymore. We’re adults, and actions have consequences. I can’t let you tear my marriage apart because you regret how you did things last time.”

“But things aren’t the same this time,” he pathetically argued, frown lines deepening on his face.

“You’re right. They aren’t,” you agreed, not elaborating, but briskly wiping away a tear that had slipped down your face in the midst of your lecturing. “I think I should go.”

“Okay,” he agreed, not bothering to argue with you this time around. In your final look at Joel, you caught a stray tear roll down his face and watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallowed lump of emotions. 

You bit the inside of your cheek as you stared out the backseat window of the cab you’d called, hoping to be able to hold back the array of emotions this night had brought upon you. Against your best attempts, a steady stream of tears burned your eyes and stained your face as you attempted to process all that had gone down. It should’ve been no surprise that your night with Joel ended up crashing and burning, but it didn’t change the fact that you just wanted to get back to your hotel room and pretend that everything was normal. You desperately craved to be held, a lifetime of exhaustion feeling like it was creeping up on you 

If it weren’t so pathetic, it would almost be ironic; at the beginning of the night, you’d set out to bring yourself peace and closure over a failed relationship and lost love, yet somehow, by the end of it you had somehow felt even more disgruntled.

Tipping your cab driver and wiping your face with your sleeve, you stepped out of the car, greeting the doorman at your hotel before trying to collect yourself once more in the elevator.

Finally feeling like you had made it back to Earth after years out in Space, you gently shut the hotel door behind you, doing your best not to wake up your daughter, as she was a light sleeper. You crept further into the room, discarding your clothes as you did so, and fighting away the gnawing guilty feeling growing in your stomach. You squatted by your suitcase, quickly throwing on a ratty old pajama shirt and loose shorts before stepping into the bathroom to splash your face with some cold water to really ground yourself. As you approached your bed, your heart warmed with the view presented in front of you. 

What you were looking at was nothing short of a picture of domestic bliss. Your daughter clung to your husband’s side, clearly having fallen asleep in bed with him at some point in the night. A children’s book was splayed over his chest, and reading glasses were still perched on his nose. You grabbed both of the items, setting them aside on the nightstand, and waking up your similarly light sleeper of a husband in the process. 

“Hi honey,” he muttered sleepily, turning his head slightly to give you a sleepy kiss as you held yourself above him. 

“Hi,” you greeted him, the simple peck he gave you paired with the domestic moment you almost felt like you were interrupting reminding you after everything tonight, that you really weren’t missing out on anything. “Missed you, Frankie,” you muttered quietly, doing your best not to stir your daughter as you found your place in bed next to the two of them. 

“Missed you more,” he replied, bringing a hand to your cheek to gently cup it. “What time is it?” he asked. 

“Late,” you replied simply, swallowing the guilt-flavored bile creeping up your throat. You’d wasted a whole night going down memory lane when your family had come out specifically to spend time with you after not seeing you for months. “‘m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We have the whole day tomorrow together. Get some sleep, okay?” he suggested, rubbing his free hand up and down your arm, as if he sensed something off in you. 

“Okay,” you agreed, trying to extinguish some of the awful feelings burning brightly through your mind. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he closed his dark eyes once more, and the sleepy, content smile on his face let you know that he meant it. Despite everything that had transpired that night, the room felt like a little slice of normalcy, leaving you to feel like the only thing that had changed. Frankie was quick to drift back off to sleep, leaving you to get comfortable in bed. You maneuvered yourself in a way that wasn’t exactly ideal for your already sore hips and back, but allowed you to cuddle your daughter, while also having some physical contact with your husband–both of which you desperately needed after such a whirlwind of a night. 

As you closed your eyes, your mind drifted off to a far away place. After an exhausting day of performing, and an even more draining night of reconnecting with your ex, being overcome with sleep felt like a welcome relief to all that you’d put your body through during the day. Warmth filled your body once more, a concoction of pleasant endorphins releasing in you as you could only really think about one thing. 

Joel. 

[beatrice-otter]

Alternatives to AO3

With the recent revelations about the OTW's internal dysfunction (and the effect that has on AO3's functioning and abuse of volunteers), a lot of people are all of a sudden looking for alternatives in a way they haven't for years. I think AO3 is here to stay, and I think they will (eventually) manage to get their shit together, (and I also think that a little failure might actually be good for them in the long run) but I also firmly believe that fandom should be less centralized than it currently is. I think it's unhealthy to rely on One Major Archive. I think there should be lots of alternatives, and I think people should post their fanfiction in multiple spaces. I lived through the era when entire archives could vanish overnight. Backups are a very good thing. (AO3 won't vanish overnight; the nonprofit structure means that most of the things that nerfed the older archives can't happen to AO3. It would take a long, slow decline for AO3 to die, with plenty of warning.) Anyway! Here are some other things to consider. OTW-style archives There are actually TWO other archives using the same software as AO3! It is open source. Now, it is deeply unfriendly to use, and has a lot of things that are hard-coded that shouldn't be, so it takes a bit of work to make it work. But two people have gotten it up and running: Squidgeworld. Squidgeworld is a multifandom archive that is the current iteration of an archive that started in 1994. Squidge has been around for a long time, and they just recently converted into a nonprofit to ensure that even if the original founder steps away or dies or whatever, the archive will continue on. Pretty much anything you can post to AO3, you can post to Squidgeworld. Ad Astra. Ad Astra is a Star Trek archive that's been around since 2009, and was formed from even earlier Star Trek fan spaces. It only accepts Star Trek fanfic. Crossovers are fine, RPF is fine (consider time travel fic) as long as the person has been dead for at least 50 years. Personal fanfiction websites Do you want to have a place where you completely control how your fanfiction is presented? It's actually pretty simple to create your own website!

melannen has a tutorial. And there are people creating old-style fanfiction webrings to link peoples' personal fic pages together. If you want something slightly fancier,

tobli has put together a set of Python scripts to function as a static site generator.

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[skarloeyspa]

it's finally here! RWS-inspired uniforms for my SR main six! Also wanna thank @/glowynviator for the inspiration! Go check out their designs they're super lovely!!!!!

Design notes below as always!

1864 - 1910s

Taking heavy inspiration from the dude in the blue hat and purple/pink vest in all these illustrations

Their uniforms are fancier based on the initial reason for Skarloey and Rheneas' purchase - developing Skarloey as a tourist attraction, namely a spa (wonder where I've heard that before...)

1910s - 1960s

(goofy dudes in the first pic lmao)

So the tourism thing didn't last very long and the railway became more reliant on its original venture, which was its quarries

This was also the time when the railway's main income came from its quarries

Their uniforms became more quarry-appropriate. But since they still had the occasional passenger train, they still had finer clothing like a blazer and tie and hat

The gloves are cotton! Intended for outdoor work!

The pictures featured are Welsh slate workers and I have no idea where the overalls idea came from

1960s - Present

Revenue began increasing during this era with the newfound slate and Book of Sir Harald, which brought in more passenger traffic

With more passenger traffic the railway reintroduced more formal uniforms for their engines

I had a lot of fun doing Skarloey and Rheneas because this was basically the whole reason I took on these designs hehe

So obviously the colors! Bright red livery and blue lining! It wouldn't look too nice if I just made everything bright blood red so!

Buttons are buffers! Their painted names are golden embroidery! Ties are their TVS liveries (because I said so!)

Speaking of TVS, Sir Handel, Rusty, and Duncan are wearing their TVS boots! Having regained their footing, the SR introduced a more formal uniform but they still had some freedom in their uniform (as demonstrated by Duncan)

Sir Handel's blazer is a bit long...not because he's short or anything!

Peter Sam wears a knitted vest instead of the waistcoat that everyone else has because...it just suits him...Duncan isn't even wearing a vest so there you go!

Everyone's number is a badge on their hat. Since Rusty's hat is more functional than decoration, they wear their number as a little badge on their lapel! Their name is still embroidered tho :)

I promise the railway can afford whatever nice shirt Rusty is wearing BECAUSE I SAID SO I WILL IT TO BE I'M THE RAILWAY MASCOT I AM (miscellaneous rodent scritching)

Engines with longer hair are required to tie them up for tidiness! Big L for Sir Handel as always.

Skarloey is wearing a ring! Because of the brass ring on his funnel!! I will make you aware of this detail!!!

And that's it I think! Thank you as always for reading to the very end :] It means a lot to me that people find my designs interesting enough to want to read my rambles on them lmao

Anyway!! Since you're here...I'll tease a bit about my planned projects! I want to share some refs for other standard gauge characters I've designed! I also have some ideas for an animatic or two similar to the one I made for Ryan last year :]

[possumsinpeoplesuits]

Holy shit I was working on this since late October, and I'm the most proud I've ever been of a picture I've drawn?

Details and graffiti transcriptions below the cut! 'Cause I worked on that shit for like three entire days, and I'll be damned if I don't show off some environmental storytelling word crimes.

So, first we have a couple closer looks of Sasha! Their outfit was pretty fun. I haven't done modern outfits in... probably ever, and it was nice having a lot more references to work off of.

Their sefirot necklace was fun to draw because I have one almost exactly like it. The flannel was the first time trying to do plaid by hand with a new little technique (Base colors+Multiply layer for dark stripes+Overlay layer for light stripes) but it went way faster than the god damn quilt?

All in all, my favorite detail was doing cosmetics, because I got to do little chips missing in the nail polish, and that's probably the first time I've drawn eyeshadow and willingly shown the result! : D

Next we have the little rat family in the background, with the wall-dwelling Rat King peeking through the wall, which is where I did dipped into tracing a couple photos instead of just looking at references.

Generally my process has been doing anatomy lines over a reference, then working off of those for about... three to four layers for body->clothes->hair->Full sketch, then another with whatever brush I wanna do the lineart with (usually a watercolor detail brush from one of two sets on Krita), but I'll note where I skipped that process and committed some art crimes.

The two background rats (Pestis and Mortar) are from a pair of stock photos from Getty, while the one in the foreground (Yersinia) is a mix of a pic that pops up in meme dumps from time to time of a smoking rat and a few bits that weren't in the original image. (Jewelry, the legs that were covered by an ash tray in the original pics, the "Buns and Roses" lighter she clearly stole from Sasha.)

Time for some graffiti transcriptions! Most of the variation in the graffiti came from switching the size of my brush and trying to mix up my handwriting, but there's a few segments where I use a font, then outlined the font with a 2px across brush to make it fit more into the art. Mostly, this was through screenshotting google docs, but some of the fancier fonts are from cooltext.com.

Top:

This is really high

No it's not?

Top Right:

A drawing of a clown that clearly used to be titties

"What's wrong with Bipo's eyes?" (Referring to the tape over the nipples)

"Their titties, bro"

"What about them?"

Top Left going down:

"Hail Satin" written next to a six pointed star

"Rong star, dumass"

A sticker reading "Apologize to your English teacher"

"Yeah, get a brian, morans!"

"You're just as bad as the other two!"

<The URL for the Wikipedia page on sarcasm>

Bottom Left:

Gazebos ate my ass

Bottom center:

"My sister turned into a bird but no one believes me."

"That's rough, buddy."

Bottom right:

A sticker of a possum with "Live Weird" written on it.

A sticker of a more poorly drawn character wrapped in blankets with "Seep eeps" written on it.

...So I made up a fake BDSM club for this one and named the majority of the bands dirty jokes, but I will die on the hill that there should be an all-trans metal band called "The Book of Dead Names."

CHOKE POINT

PRESENTS

LIVE MUSIC

THIS SUNDAY

CUNT MUNCHIES

THE BOOK OF DEAD NAMES

SOME GUY NAMED STEVE

FIST FUCK DUMP TRUCK

WOLFGANGBANG

THE PENIS MIGHTIER

A sticker with a set of vampire fangs that says "Got Blood?"

"Parasitic fucks"

"U got beef w/ Count Chocula?"

"Bro, vamps suck."

"Duh"

"So does your mum.

A sticker of a cross made out of a bunch of interlocking parts with some mirrored Hebrew in the middle. (I'm really proud of making this shape up on the spot. I had an idea for a religious monster hunter group named after the Watchers from Enoch, but I've got no idea if this story will ever happen.)

"Your Hebrew is backwards, you twatwaffle"

A sticker reading "Deus Vult"

"I fucking love Powerwolf"

"VULT DEUS NUTS, GOTTEM!

A cut off poster telling people to vote for, I presume, their favorite chainsmoking rat, clearly.

A sticker of the Autism Creature

"Rizz 'em w' the Tism" with the last S being the one everyone draws in school, but also backwards.

"It's like if Kirby was a centaur"

"I will never unsee that."

"It looks nothing like my vaccuum"

A paper with "Missing Printer" and a cut off phone number written in sharpie.

A meme of a bear in a suit (Partially a trace of the actual meme template) with "You have seasonal affective disorder because you need Vitamin D. I have seasonal affective disorder because one of my ancestors fucked a bear. We are not the same"

"Is that how it happens?"

"Oh, sure, this dude's ancestor fucks a bear, he gets a meme, BUT WHEN I-"

"Going insane by yourself, handsome?"

Three pieces of paper with "Yes" "Yup" and "Yass" written on them, two stuck on with tape, while the third is stuck to a wad of chewing gum.

"You guys seriously pay to print out memes just to vandalize shit?"

"No, I stole the printer, too."

"YOU"

"Paulie never died"

A sticker of the Mothman

"TAX FRAUD"

A large printout with a dramatic portrait of Mitch McConnell with "ARE YA BREEDING YET?" written below it. Several tear off strips are missing, but the remainder all say different variations of "Yes"

A cut off sticker of a smiley face

A sticker of a machete

"BURGLE TURTS"

A sticker of a crying laughing emoji.

A sticker of a pot leaf

A sticker with a picture of bigfoot with pasties on her boobs walking up to a stripper pole with "I want to believe" written in the X-Files font

"Whoever gave Bigfoot tits will never enter the Kingdom of God"

Three notes pointing to the previous message with "Noticed the tits first" "Weirdo" and "Your preoccupation with cryptid mammaries betrays your discomfort with your own sexuality. Consider meditation, therapy, or possibly fucking yourself!"

"Weirdo" pointing to the previous paragraph before being crossed out and replaced with "BASED"

"K, but y tho?"

"No one insults the Bigfoot big naturals on my watch"

(She has them in the Patterson-Gimli footage, too)

"BIGFOOT BIG NATURALS" "NOW LORE ACCURATE"

A swastika being covered up by a peace sign

"Degenerates should be purged" "AMEN" "U FIRST."

A drawing of a penis that's been turned into a weasel in a familiar pose with "Dick weasel" and "Had to do it to 'em" written next to it

A sticker of a stalk of corn labeled "CORN"

"See? Iowa is with us!"

And, finally, "Does reading this hurt your back, too?" which was the last thing I added because I literally spent two days just doing graffiti for this shit.

So, the map behind Sasha is made up on the spot, with some inspiration from a map of the Seattle Bay. Kinda proud of just how dirty this fucking place is, but the final, and greatest achievment in making this picture look grimy...

THE RUST

I didn't exactly nail the perspective on some of these (The sketchy layer for the floor grating was done once, then dragged into place and warped with the perspective... and then completely fucked that up) but god DAMN do I love texturing the fuck out of things!

There's like six Multiply layers scattered about because it turned out it's a phenomenal way to make the shading of multiple textures make sense without losing that texture, and I feel so god damn powerful!

Oh, right, the posters.

Not much to say about them. The righthand one was 95% traced from a mafia stock photo, while the hands in the left came from another stock photo.

Honestly, I drew the frames, then had no idea what to put in them. There was briefly gonna be a pic referencing a cosplay photo I have of myself, but eh...

The rats and the guy in the wall were originally referencing a Vampire the Masquerade character I had named Pretty Paulie, who was a mafioso turned nosferatu who dubbed his crew the Rat Pack. I figured if there was some kind of dramatic, Scarface-esque movie about him, he'd definitely find a way to keep the poster nearby, and I wanted to slap in one of those "Give blood!" posters from the Red Cross except... not from the red cross.

I don't really feel like I put in much effort into these (compared to the Graffiti-a-thon with several subplots), but hey... they covered the tile, which before shading was boring and very flat, so they did their job.

I'll leave you with some zoomed in textures, because I do feel proud about those! I make them via a combo of oil paint and watercolor brushes, usually with a whole lot of different coats of varying opacity until it looks like the thing it's supposed to be. :)

I've only just started drawing again this year (I've been editing a looooot longer) so there's a lot of spaces where I have hiccups, but I'm figuring out the areas I do well in.

...Also sweet Jesus this started as me trying to figure out what a character looked like. It says 3 full days worth of editing was done in Krita on this file, and I don't think it's counting the idle time.

[kittykatrattie]

"CJ is a stoner" Oh ur appealing to my stoner ass? You want my stoner headcanons?? Fine whatever twist my arm, here ya go

David and Gwen: David was the kid who fell hard for the DARE program propaganda and for ages firmly believed weed was a gateway drug and could kill you from one joint. It takes a lot of convincing from Gwen (and later Max) for him to realize weed is kinda safe. Still refuses to even try it until it's legalized recreationally. Gwen smoked in college to relieve stress and have fun but hasn't smoked since because she lost her plug. Starts smoking again when Max tells her that the Wood Scouts are selling

Max: Resident Camp Stoner. Started smoking occasionally at 14 and then every day when covid lockdown started and he was stuck at home with his parents. It's mostly him "self medicating" his depression and having a higher tendency towards addiction (addict father, ADHD and BPD). Smokes regularly for pretty much the rest of his life. Has One (1) tolerance break before he gets his top surgery. He doesn't exactly take great care of himself

Neil: Only takes edibles (smoking isn't exactly Great for his asthma) and only occasionally. Until he's 18, he only really gets high at camp because he doesn't want either of his parents to know or find out. As an adult, he gets high for parties and concerts with Max (to keep himself from having meltdowns or panic attacks) and for hanging around at home. When he lives with Max, he gets high about once or twice a month to relax

Nikki: SOCIAL SMOKER ONLY. She's down to do whatever with her best friends (this is how Max doesn't even have to talk her into trying shrooms or other drugs with him. She just loves adventures) but never thinks about it herself. She gets even more energetic when she's high, somehow

Preston: Prefers wine (it's fancier and he's Italian) but likes smoking too. Varies throughout his life but he enjoys getting high with friends or if he needs a creative boost

Harrison: For the longest time he was scared of trying any drugs until the others peer pressured him into it. Once he gets over the Catholic guilt, he has fun and likes that it lets him unmask a bit. They have a rule that he's not allowed to do magic while high. He can't control it very well

Nerris: Mostly does edibles, only rarely smokes. Xe doesn't like the smell. Likes going on "adventures" (aka to the store, running around town, going to the park) while high with friends

Misc: Nurf eventually tries a little bit of everything (even more so than Max, who at least avoids the hard stuff) before quitting anything stronger than weed. He focuses more on his career as a prison therapist but still occasionally smokes. Ered rarely got high before it was legalized because Cop Dads made that difficult, and then she only smokes to Look Cool. Space hotboxes its helmet whenever it smokes. Max has definitely stolen said helmet many times to hoxbot himself

The Wood Scouts and the Flower Scouts originally had a bitter rivalry over who got to be the Lake Lilac dealer, until they realized they have different clienteles because the Flower Scouts only sell edibles and the Wood Scouts only sell smokables. They cut a deal so the Flower Scouts can buy bud cheap to bake into cookies or brownies and the Wood Scouts get cheap edibles

[wannaeatramyeon]

Welp that was a failed ask on the thicc y/n, soooo.

What is the favorite instant noodles of every character (like Goo favorite is instant Yakisoba with Korean BBQ)

Hi anon! I'm so sorry I did have a think and I literally googled what ara ara means and I still don't know.

Oh my, this is specific though. I can't believe reading Lookism led me to researching ramen.

Before we jump into this.. erm why TF does Crystal need to calorie count and restrict for her second body but Daniel can eat whatever he wants with his second body and it stays the same!!

Lookism Fave... Ramen

Daniel: something like shin noodles with eggs. It reminds him of his momma cooking for him.

Jay: I know it's super popular in South Korea... But instant ramen? Sorry what's that? I always gets mine freshly prepared. But Daniel what instant ramen are you eating? Can I take a bite? (Waits for Daniel to feed him)

Zack: something with stronger flavours like cheese so he can mix in protein powder and it'll help to mask it. Man that sounds gross.

Vasco: this guy has the vibes of trying to cook and burning the house down so something as easy as possible. Instant tteokbokki in a cup.

Brekdak introduces him to some Thai flavours though, and he enjoys Tom Yum.

Johan: beggars can't be choosers. Whatever is on clearance

Crystal: The ottogi low calorie ramen for second body, full army stew in her original body

Mira: not really instant but she loves rose noodles

Zoe: one of those fancier nissin tonkotsu noodles type (piggy ♥️... Wait)

Vin Jin: he tells everyone that it's the 3x buldak noodle.. "yeah I like them... Bit bland though". This is a lie. He can't take heat at all

Mary Kim: legit the 3x buldak noodle with extra chillies on top

Jake: he hates noodles. He doesn't eat them all the time because he likes them, it's cheap and hits his calorie needs so it means more money for Big Deal. Bibimmen/cold noodles if he really has to pick though (cos the man's too hooooot ba-dum-tss)

Jerry: can't take spice at all either. Something like teriyaki soba with some fried eggs

Sinu: jjajangmyeon! With extra pickled radish

Samuel: also jjajangmyeon but he'll only eat it when he's feeling extra nostalgic and willing to open those floodgates

Gun: the fancy Japanese ones that are developed by Michelin star chefs - Nakiryu Dan Dan

Goo: keeping the instant yakisoba with Korean BBQ, this guy is obnoxious as fuck though. Yeah you're supposed to slurp your noodles, but he is the loudest messiest guy ever. Noodles flicking everywhere, soup or sauce getting all over his glasses and anyone within splattering range (Gun. It's always Gun)

Eugene: kimchi shin. He gives me huge kimchi vibes, not sure why. Eats more ramen than you'd expect with his crazy busy work

Eli: he didn't used to like these as much but something like instant tempura udon, non spicy cos Yenna would always want a bite. Otherwise he prefers to make a proper japchae so she will eat her veggies

DG: sorry but this man is soggy no flavoured noodles in room temperature water to me ☠️

[rullakebu]

Foxey Lady (F/M, tickling, fur, JoJo's)

I finally finished this story based on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

I want to thank Goddess Youko for letting me use her for this story. This story is dedicated as a tribute to her.

Some of you might not know what a "Stand" is. They are manifestations of their users' fighting spirits. They can interact with people, but people cannot interact with them. Only other Stand users can see Stands. They are invisible to regular people.

The protagonist is Jean Pierre Polnareff and his Stand Silver Chariot.

This is Youko's Stand. She is called Foxey Lady, as in the Jimi Hendrix song. I am aware the name is already in use in Steel Ball Run, the seventh part of the series. However this name was too perfect to pass up, not to mention this takes place in the original universe. You'll get to learn what she's capable of in the story ;).

Jean Pierre Polnareff, the silver-haired Frenchman, breathed in the warm, tropical air of Singapore. Fresh off his victory against the sinister Devo the Cursed and his treacherous Ebony Devil, the fierce wielder of Silver Chariot felt a rare moment of peace. His tense muscles finally relaxed as the vibrant city buzzed with life around him. The dazzling skyline of Singapore beckoned him to indulge in its nightlife—a well-deserved break after the intensity of battle.

After informing Mr. Joestar of his plans, Polnareff was pleasantly surprised when Noriaki Kakyoin, ever the enigmatic companion, expressed interest in joining him. The two shared a knowing smile. Beneath the calm surface of their friendship lay the shared weight of the journey they'd undertaken not so long ago, but tonight, they intended to let that burden slip away—at least for a little while.

As they made their way through the neon-lit streets, Polnareff’s mind wandered, the sounds and smells of the city creating a welcome distraction from the battles yet to come. “Here, Kakyoin! Look at all these food stalls!” Polnareff beckoned, feeling his hunger grow by the second.

Kakyoin, calm and composed as always, crossed over from the other side of the street with a slight smile. “Singapore is renowned for its food culture, Polnareff,” he explained, a glint of appreciation in his voice. “To Singaporeans, food isn’t just sustenance—it's part of their heritage. A symbol of unity, diversity, and passion.”

Polnareff grinned widely, clearly less focused on the cultural insight and more on the endless variety of dishes before him. “Heritage or not, I’m ready to try everything!” He approached a nearby stall, seeing the food being cooked right in front of his very, famished, eyes. Wiggling his fingers, he reached for an unguarded meat skewer.

Kakyoin, a bit irritated, quickly slapped Polnareff’s hand before he could touch the savory treat. “Excuse him, mister. We’ll take two of those!” He informed the cook, lifting his index and ring finger up, signifying the order.

Polnareff rubbed the back of his hand, pouting slightly. “You didn’t have to hit me, you know. I’m just hungry!”

Kakyoin sighed, shaking his head but unable to suppress a small smirk. “It seems you’re always hungry, Polnareff. But some of us like to show a bit of restraint before digging in.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Polnareff dismissed with a chuckle, brushing off Kakyoin's scolding. Without a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed one of the skewers and took an exaggeratedly large bite, savoring the smoky, grilled flavor with a satisfied hum.

After finishing their meal, Polnareff stretched contentedly. “That was great! But now, I need a drink to wash it all down. How about we find somewhere a bit fancier, Kakyoin?”

Kakyoin smirked. “A change of pace? Fine by me.”

They made their way to a sleek, upscale bar nestled between towering skyscrapers, its polished glass exterior glowing with a soft, amber hue. Inside, the ambiance was refined, the air filled with smooth jazz, and the soft clink of crystal glasses. Polnareff’s eyes sparkled as he took in the luxurious décor—velvet booths, low-lit chandeliers, and bartenders expertly crafting cocktails behind a marble bar.

“Where’s the guy checking IDs?” Kakyoin asked, scratching his head as they entered.

Polnareff waved him off with a grin. “I don’t know. And I don’t care,” he replied, already eyeing the bar. “Don’t worry about pointless things, Kakyoin. This is a night to relax, not to play by the rules.”

Kakyoin shook his head but smiled at Polnareff’s carefree attitude. “Relaxing seems to be your specialty,” he muttered as they made their way inside.

Polnareff patted his friend in the back. “See? You’re getting the hang of it already.”

The duo approached the bar, and Polnareff ordered a whiskey on the rocks while Kakyoin opted for something a bit more refined—a cocktail with an exotic name neither of them could pronounce. The drinks arrived with a flourish, and Polnareff raised his glass in a toast.

“To battles won, and drinks well-earned,” he declared, clinking glasses with Kakyoin.

After a few sips, Kakyoin set his glass down and stepped back. “I think this is where we part ways for the night. I’ve got some things to take care of,” he said with a casual wave, but there was something in his tone that suggested he had more on his mind.

Polnareff raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Don’t go getting yourself into trouble, Kakyoin.”

Kakyoin smirked. “That’s your job, Polnareff.”

With that, Kakyoin turned and slipped out of the bar, leaving Polnareff to enjoy the evening on his own. As Polnareff nursed his drink, his eyes wandered around the bar, taking in the elegant patrons and the soft glow of the chandeliers.

As Polnareff took another sip, the seat next to him shifted, and he turned to find a striking woman slipping into the booth beside him. Her dark hair fell in soft waves, and she wore an elegant black dress. Finishing her ensemble was an enormous silver fox fur coat, cascading down her form and shimmering under the bar’s lowlights. Her presence was magnetic, commanding the room without effort.

“Enjoying your night?” she asked, her voice smooth and sultry. She was Japanese by the sound of it.

Polnareff, ever the charmer, flashed her a wide grin. “Even more now. Jean Pierre Polnareff, at your service.”

“Youko,” she introduced herself as her red lips curved into a smile as she glanced at him sideways. “Such flair, you’ve got,” she murmured, her fingers gently tracing the rim of her glass. “And what brings you to a place like this?”

Polnareff leaned back, clearly pleased with the attention. “Just enjoying a break from my travels. A bit of adventure, a bit of relaxation,” he said, trying to keep his composure.

She chuckled softly, her gaze steady. “Adventure, you say? It seems you have a knack for finding it, wherever you go.”

Polnareff’s interest piqued. “Oh? And what makes you say that?”

She adjusted her fur coat, its hairs wiggling in the air slightly as she set it back properly. Youko’s eyes twinkled with mystery. “Just a hunch. Sometimes, the most intriguing people have stories that go beyond what meets the eye.”

Polnareff saw a glimpse of skin as she adjusted her coat. Her shoulders were tattooed, one having flowers and butterflies and the other something scaly, resembling a snake or a dragon. He felt a flicker of caution from her words but couldn’t help but be drawn in. “You’ve got me curious. What kind of stories do you think I have?”

Her smile deepened, enigmatic. “The kind that might involve unexpected challenges…or perhaps encounters with interesting characters.”

Polnareff leaned forward, captivated. “Interesting characters, you say? I can certainly relate to that.” He gestured to the bustling bar around them. “Just look at this place—full of stories waiting to be uncovered.”

Youko tilted her head, considering him thoughtfully. “And yet, it seems you’re the most intriguing of them all. There’s a certain energy about you, Jean Pierre Polnareff. It’s hard to ignore.”

He chuckled, trying to play it cool despite his nervousness. “What can I say? I’m a man of many adventures.”

“You might say that,” she replied, her voice lowering slightly, drawing him in. “But every adventure has its shadows, doesn’t it? Challenges that test our limits.”

Polnareff nodded, a more serious note creeping into his tone. “True enough. But it’s how we face those challenges that define us.”

She leaned in closer, her eyes locked onto his, revealing a flicker of something deeper beneath her playful facade. “And what defines you, Polnareff?”

He hesitated, the weight of her question settling over him. “I like to think it’s a bit of everything. I’ve faced my share of darkness, but I always find a way to fight back.”

Youko’s expression hardened slightly, as if she recognized the exact meaning in his words. “A fighter, then. I admire that. It takes strength to stand tall against the odds.” She said, a hint of insincerity in her voice.

“Strength, courage, honor and a bit of luck,” he added with a wink, trying to lighten the mood. “What about you? What’s your story, Youko?”

She smiled, but there was a flicker of something shadowy in her gaze. “Ah, mine is still being written. Let’s just say I’ve had my share of unexpected turns as well. But tonight, I’m more interested in your chapter.” Youko’s attention sharpened, her demeanor shifting slightly. “Sometimes, the past has a way of catching up with us. Just be careful who you trust, Polnareff.”

His instincts kicked in, and he followed her gaze, the playful banter momentarily forgotten. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh no, not at all,” Youko said, her demeanor suddenly brightening. “Just a little intuition, that’s all. I’m the curious type, and sometimes curiosity can lead to exciting stories.”

Polnareff studied her, sensing the shift but still feeling a flicker of caution. “Exciting stories, huh? Is that your way of saying trouble might be on the horizon?”

“Not trouble, just… possibilities,” she replied with a playful grin. “Life is full of unexpected twists. Isn’t that what makes it thrilling?”

He couldn’t help but smile back, drawn in by her infectious energy. “You certainly have a way with words, Youko. But I’d prefer to avoid any actual trouble tonight.”

“Oh, come on! Sometimes a little trouble can lead to unforgettable experiences,” she teased, her eyes glinting with mischief. “You might even find it enlightening.”

Polnareff raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Enlightening, you say? What do you mean by that?”

Youko leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s just say I have my own way of exploring those ‘unexpected twists.’ Some might even call it… a profession.”

“Profession?” Polnareff echoed, curious yet cautious.

“Yes,” she said with a sly smile. “I’m a dominatrix. I explore the boundaries of desire and challenge people to embrace their hidden sides.”

Polnareff blinked, processing her words. “Well, that’s certainly unexpected! You’re full of surprises, Youko.”

She laughed lightly, enjoying his reaction. “And you’re not the least bit intimidated?”

“I am, but also intrigued,” he admitted, the thrill of the night growing. “So, what kind of adventures do you have in mind?”

Youko leaned in, brushing Polnareff’s cheek with the sleeve of her fur coat. The soft hairs of silver fox fur caressed his skin, sending a shiver down his spine. He felt a rush of warmth and excitement at the intimate gesture, a spark igniting within him.

Youko saw him squirm slightly and chuckled to herself. “Do you like fur, Polnareff?”

His cheeks flushed, and he cleared his throat, trying to maintain his composure. “Well, I can’t say I dislike it,” he admitted, a hint of vulnerability in his voice.

Youko leaned closer, her breath warm against his ear. “There’s something enchanting about it, isn’t there? The softness, the feeling…” She brushed her sleeve against his cheek again, the fur gliding slowly, teasingly.

Polnareff felt his heart race, a mix of excitement and arousal bubbling within him. “It’s definitely… captivating,” he managed to reply, his voice a touch breathless.

“Tell me how it feels… How does the fur feel?” Youko asked, her eyes glinting with curiosity.

Polnareff swallowed, his pulse quickening. “It feels… incredibly soft,” he began, his voice steadying as he leaned into the moment. “Like a gentle caress against my skin. It’s warm, almost inviting. It almost tickles.”

Youko’s smile widened knowingly, her eyes squinting in mischief, almost looking triumphant. “Tickles, you say? Tell me more,” she urged, leaning in closer, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper. “How does it tickle?” The closeness of her presence sent a rush of warmth through Polnareff, and he felt a thrill at the intimacy of the moment.

He swallowed, trying to keep his composure while his heart raced. “It’s the way it brushes against my skin,” he began, his voice shaking slightly. “It’s light and teasing.” As he spoke, he could feel the electric tension between them, the air thick with unspoken possibilities. The warmth of her breath mingled with the softness of the fur as she let it trail along his arm, heightening his senses in a way that felt intoxicating.

“Would you say you’re ticklish, Polnareff?” she teased, her tone laced with curiosity, as if waiting for a cue. He could feel his cheeks flush as he contemplated the implications of her inquiry, wondering if this was her way of pushing boundaries, enticing him further into a realm of playful intimacy.

“Yes,” he admitted, the word slipping out with a mix of vulnerability and a hint of daring. There was something exhilarating about the admission, as if he was letting her in on a secret. The air between them thickened, charged with tension.

A smirk played on Youko’s lips. “Good.” But just as the thrill of their playful banter hung in the air, the atmosphere shifted dramatically. Without warning, a loud crash echoed through the bar as glass shattered, shards flying in every direction. The playful tension dissolved in an instant, replaced by a surge of adrenaline. The customers and bartenders quickly evacuated the venue, startled by the transpiring commotion.

Polnareff’s instincts kicked in, and he instinctively stepped back, his body tensing as he prepared for the unexpected. He could see Youko’s expression shift from playful seduction to fierce determination. She rose from her seat, adjusting her glimmering silver fur coat once again. 

A radiant glow enveloped her as a Stand materialized beside her, an imposing sight that commanded attention. It resembled a feminine figure, its tones a mesmerizing blend of dark and silver, shimmering as if woven from starlight. Around its arms and shoulders floated what looked like a long, thick, double-sided fur stole, its luxurious texture giving the Stand an air of elegance and danger.

“Meet Foxey Lady,” Youko announced, her voice imbued with pride and challenge. The Stand moved with a fluid grace, every gesture exuding predatory elegance, its presence both captivating and intimidating. Polnareff felt a rush of adrenaline, the atmosphere thickening with the weight of the impending confrontation.

“You’re a Stand user,” Polnareff stated, his voice steady despite the surge of adrenaline coursing through him. “What’s your Stand’s ability?” He focused on her, trying to read her intentions, but the playful glint in her eyes suggested she relished the mystery of her powers.

A mischievous smile danced on Youko’s lips as she regarded him, her confidence unwavering. “Let’s find out together, shall we?” The challenge hung in the air like a taut string, ready to snap at any moment. Foxey Lady moved with an almost hypnotic grace, its sleek form a testament to Youko’s own allure, and Polnareff felt a thrill of apprehension mixed with eagerness.

With a firm resolve, Polnareff summoned Silver Chariot, the familiar rush of power surging through him as the armored figure manifested by his side. Its gleaming blade caught the light, reflecting the intensity of the moment and igniting a fire within him. He felt the connection with his Stand, the bond forged through countless battles, ready to take on whatever challenges lay ahead.

“Silver Chariot!” Polnareff cried out, sending the knight-like Stand forward with a powerful thrust. The air crackled as Silver Chariot surged into action, its movements fluid and precise, darting toward Foxey Lady with the speed and grace of a skilled warrior.

Before he could realize, Foxey Lady launched the fur stole toward Silver Chariot, the strands weaving through the air like a serpent, aiming to ensnare Polnareff’s Stand. He slashed toward the fluffy accessory, but it evaded his attack with ease, twisting and gliding just out of reach. In a blink, Foxey Lady sprang forward, passing Silver Chariot’s right side, then snuck behind him in a blur of motion.

Suddenly, he felt an unexpected sensation as Foxey Lady began scribbling her nails into Silver Chariot’s armpits. Polnareff burst into laughter, unable to keep his composure amidst the sudden ticklish onslaught. The moment caught him off guard, and he realized that Youko had taken the battle in a direction he hadn’t anticipated. 

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WHAT THE—” he exclaimed between fits of laughter, but his words were cut short by the sight of the fur stole flying toward his face. Before he could react, the soft stole coiled around his head, enveloping him in its plush embrace. The velvety texture teased his skin, and his laughter became muffled as the stole constricted slightly, obscuring his vision.

Polnareff's hands shot up instinctively, grasping at the fur with growing frustration. But his fingers passed through it as if it were smoke, unable to grab hold of anything solid. Panic flashed through his mind as he realized this was no ordinary fabric—it was a manifestation of Foxey Lady, a part of Youko’s Stand, and as such, he couldn’t physically interact with it. His inability to touch the Stand made him feel powerless, a sensation he rarely experienced.

“DAHAHAHAHAMN IHIHIHIT!” he cursed through his predicament, the sound barely audible beneath the thick stole. The tickling sensation continued to play havoc on his senses. His body still trembled with lingering laughter, but his mind was racing, desperate to find a way out of this trap. He couldn’t call Chariot back, alas he was under Foxey Lady’s ticklish barrage.

Youko’s voice cut through the haze, playful and taunting. “You seem to be in a bit of a bind, Polnareff,” she cooed, her words dripping with amusement. “How does it feel, being wrapped in such softness? Quite luxurious, isn’t it?”

Polnareff felt his knees buckling beneath him as the impossibly soft fur stole tightened its grip around his face. The plush fabric pressed closer, almost suffocating in its embrace, as if every fiber was designed to tease his senses and drain his strength. He could feel the fur stroking across his skin in waves—warm, soft, and maddeningly delicate.

“Give in, Polnareff,” Youko’s voice came, soft and insidious, weaving its way into his thoughts like the fur around his face. “There’s nothing more you can do.”

He fell to the floor in an exhausted crash, the impact jarring but not enough to snap him out of the daze clouding his mind. His vision blurred, the plush fur tightening around his face, making each breath a struggle. “No! No, I can’t lose here!” Polnareff screamed inwardly, desperate to fight against the encroaching darkness. He couldn’t let it end like this. Not smothered by some cursed, luxurious fur. Not humiliated by this seductive trickster.

Before he knew it, Polnareff fell into a deep, involuntary slumber, the overwhelming softness of the fur wrapping around him like a weighted blanket, pulling him down into unconsciousness. It was as if the very fur was seeping into his thoughts, wrapping itself not just around his body but his mind, draining his will to fight back.

Snap—Polnareff’s eyes shot open, his heart racing as he gasped for air. He blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of his surroundings. The familiar plush velvet of the bar was gone, replaced by a dimly lit bedroom that stirred an unsettling sense of familiarity within him. Confusion hit him like a wave as he sat up, glancing around.

"Where am I?" he muttered to himself, his voice feeling unusually strained. Instinctively, he brought a hand to his throat. "Whaaat!? Why is my voice so... squeaky!?" He yelped, a squeal escaping his lips, shocking him into silence. He jumped to his feet, darting his eyes around the room, searching for any clues that could explain his predicament.

It was a small room, furnished with floral bedding and lacy curtains. Polnareff's eyes finally locked onto a wall calendar. He squinted at the year printed in bold letters: 1982. His heart skipped a beat.

“I’m 18 again?!” Polnareff exclaimed, his voice still annoyingly higher-pitched than he remembered. Panic gripped him as fragments of a long-buried memory began to resurface. He knew this room. It belonged to his friend’s mother, a woman who had always treated him with a warmth that felt maternal. A shiver ran down his spine as he recalled what had happened before this bizarre twist of fate.

“But wait! If I’m here then that means…” Polnareff recollected, as he saw the bedroom door open.

Creak!

The door swung open, and in walked his friend’s mother, draped in a luxurious golden island fox fur coat that glowed under the soft light and swayed elegantly with her movements.. Her presence filled the room with an unexpected mix of warmth and authority, her heels clicking on the floor as she entered. Polnareff’s heart raced; he was caught in a moment he had hoped to forget.

“Jean Pierre! What a surprise to see you here,” she said, her voice disappointed yet teasing, and laced with that unmistakable maternal tone. “I didn’t expect to find you in my room, of all places.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she caught sight of the magazines strewn about, the very ones that had piqued his curiosity moments before.

Polnareff’s cheeks flushed crimson as he stammered, “I—I was just looking for something!” He knew full well he had been caught red-handed, and there was no escaping the consequences of his actions.

She closed the door behind her, the sound echoing ominously in the small room. “Oh really? You know it’s not polite to snoop, especially in a lady’s personal belongings,” she chided, stepping closer. The playful glint in her eyes made him feel dread. He knew exactly what this was.

Before he could react, she lunged toward him, her fingers wiggling with a teasing intent. “Let’s see if I can teach you a little lesson about respect!” 

She pinned him down on her bed, straddling him and her fingers finding his sides and beginning their relentless assault. “No! Not this again!” he gasped, laughter bursting forth uncontrollably. “HAHAHAHA! STOHOHOHOHOHOP! HAHAHAHA!”

She only laughed more, clearly enjoying his predicament. With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she reached over to the nearby nightstand and picked up a pair of handcuffs. “How lucky I am that my husband is a police officer!” she mused, twirling the cuffs playfully.

Polnareff’s heart raced as he felt a rush of panic and embarrassment. He couldn’t resist as she clicked the handcuffs around his wrists, securing them above his head and around a pillar of the bedframe. The cold metal sent a shiver down his spine, making him acutely aware of his vulnerability.

“Now you’re really in trouble,” she teased, leaning down to meet his gaze, her face inches from his. “Let’s see how long you can last without begging for mercy!” Her fingers danced teasingly over his sides, reigniting the tickle torture.

The tickler’s fur coat cascaded around Polnareff’s legs, wrapping him in a soft, plush cocoon that heightened his sense of vulnerability. It felt as though he was ensnared in a fluffy trap, each strand of fur teasing his skin and adding to the sensation of helplessness. The combination of the intense tickling and the enveloping warmth of the coat sent shivers coursing through him, making it nearly impossible to focus.

“IS THIS? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FOXEY LADY’S ABILITY? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Polnareff screamed out, the realization hitting him amidst the whirlwind of laughter and sensations.

“That’s right,” Youko’s voice appeared suddenly, like an ethereal echo. “This is my Foxey Lady’s ability. It takes you into your most intense and excruciating memory of tickle torture and makes you experience it for as long as I desire.” Her words dripped with playful malice, a reminder of his helplessness.

Polnareff’s laughter intensified, desperate. “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS! YOU’RE GOING TO KEEP ME HERE LIKE THIS? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” he gasped, struggling against the cuffs, but they held firm.

“Oh, but I can,” she replied, a teasing lilt in her tone. “And I intend to have my fun. You see, the magic of Foxey Lady is that it amplifies your sensations, making everything feel even more intense. Every tickle, every brush of fur—it’s all heightened. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“NO! HAHAHA! THIS IS TORTURE!” he cried out, laughter erupting uncontrollably as he squirmed beneath her playful onslaught. “YOU’RE JUST GOING TO KEEP ME HERE FOREVER?”

“I told you I’m a dominatrix, Polnareff,” she informed him, her voice smooth and dripping with confidence. “I utilize my Stand in my profession. It works on non-Stand users too; they just believe they’re hypnotized. I control every aspect of my Stand—how intense the tickling is, slight adjustments to memories, and how long the tickling lasts.”

His mind raced as he processed her words, a mix of disbelief and dread washing over him. “THIHIHIHIHIS IS INSANEHEHEHEHE!” he thought, the laughter spilling uncontrollably from his lips.

“Usually I stop in time with my submissives, but with you I’ll make an exception, darling.” Youko teased, adding to Polnareff’s dread. Her Stand materialized partially, glowing slightly over the figure of Polnareff’s tickle torturess. “I am going to keep tickling you as long as it takes. To stop your heart, that is…”

Polnareff’s blood ran cold at her chilling declaration.

“I am going to tickle you to death, darling.”

Panic surged through him, mixing with the laughter that threatened to spill out again. “NO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! HAHAHAHA!” he gasped, desperation creeping into his voice as he squirmed against the bed.

“Oh, no, but I can, darling. DIO is paying me handsomely for this, my weak little tickle slave,” Youko replied, her voice dripping with mockery. “To think one of you is going to die to something as ridiculous as tickling. Isn’t it deliciously ironic?”

His heart raced as he processed her taunts, the gravity of the situation sinking in. “I WON’T LET THIS HAPPEN! HAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS!” Polnareff shouted, though the laughter spilled forth uncontrollably, betraying his resolve.

“Aww, darling,” she teased, her fingers expertly dancing over his sides, reigniting the relentless laughter that bubbled up from his core. “Every gasp, every plea, only fuels my desire to keep you right where you are—helpless and utterly at my mercy.”

Foxey Lady's fingers traveled up Polnareff’s sides, traveling up his sides towards his vulnerable armpits with ruthless precision. Her nails moved like a blur, skittering over his skin with untold speed, creating an barrage that felt like a sandstorm of relentless tickle torture. When Foxey Lady arrived at Polnareff’s armpits, she unleashed a flurry of tickling that sent him spiraling into fits of laughter.

“Tickle, tickle, Polnareff~” Youko teased, her voice playful and mocking, as if she were serenading him with his own helplessness. Each stroke of her Stand’s fingers sent electric signals of ticklishness throughout his body.

“SILVEHEHEHEHER CHARIOHOHOHOHOHOT!” Polnareff cried out, between gasps of laughter. He felt as if he had manifested his Stand, but it was nowhere to be seen. “WHAHAHAHAHAT? WHEHEHEHEHEHERE IS IT? WHEHEHEHERE IS CHARIOHOHOHOHOT!?”

“Oh, sweet Polnareff,” Youko cooed, her tone dripping with mock sympathy, “your Stand can’t help you now. Foxey Lady has you trapped in your own memories, where I hold all the power.” Foxey Lady leaned in closer, her breath warm against his ear, being a part of the stand. “Just let go. There’s nothing you can do but laugh. Tickle, tickle!”

The laughter poured out of him, a reaction he couldn’t suppress, his body betraying him to the soft, relentless tickling that consumed his senses. “I won’t give in! I’ll find a way out of this!” he thought desperately, even as the ticklish sensations clouded his mind.

Suddenly Foxey Lady stopped, as Polnareff saw the figure of his friend’s mom turn around, still straddling him. The fur of her coat brushed against his chest, soft, luxurious and teasing, obscuring his vision and heightening his helplessness. “Remember this, Polnareff? It’s really about to tickle, darling!” Youko exclaimed. As her Stand’s nails skittered along his suddenly vulnerable feet, he felt a fresh wave of laughter bubbling up inside him, pushing against the walls of his resolve.

“NO! HAHAHAHA! PLEASE, NOT AGAIN!” he gasped, laughter spilling from his lips as he writhed beneath her. The feeling was maddening—he was trapped in a world where laughter was both his punishment and his prison.

The soft golden fur brushed and teased against Polnareff’s face as he squirmed under the coat, covering him in a cocoon of warmth that felt both inviting and suffocating. The duality of comfort and torment was overwhelming, and he could feel the edges of his sanity blurring. In this moment, every tickle sent jolts of dread coursing through him, forcing him to confront not just the laughter but the memory of his own helplessness. He couldn’t escape, and the laughter continued to pour from him.

“Does it tickle, Polnareff? I can keep this up as long as I want,” Youko taunted, her voice oozing with evil delight. “You’re completely at my mercy. Just imagine how long I can prolong your laughter.” The playful menace in her voice only intensified the sensation, and he could feel the weight of her words pressing down on him like the plush fabric surrounding him.

Foxey Lady’s nails found their target, skimming over Polnareff’s ticklish arches with a relentless precision. The delicate yet ever-so-intense touch sent him into fits, his body reacting involuntarily as the sensations overwhelmed the nerves in his feet, spreading up his legs and throughout his whole body. Each skimming tickle was like millions of feathers, light yet insistent, dancing across his skin in a manner that felt both maddening and strangely intoxicating.

“Tickle, tickle, darling,” Youko purred, her voice a sultry tease that echoed in the plush cocoon surrounding him. “How does it feel to be so utterly at my spell?” Her Stand continued its exploration, fingers deftly weaving between his toes and tracing the sensitive contours of his feet. Polnareff squirmed beneath his tickler, laughter bursting forth uncontrollably as he tried to pull his feet away, but the restraints held him firm.

“I can only imagine how much it tickles, Polnareff,” Youko teased.. “Do you like the way her fur coat brushes against your face? Is it soft, teasing?” The words struck his psyche like a rapier, amplifying his embarrassment.

Foxey Lady’s fingers continued their relentless dance, the soft fur brushing against him creating a cocoon of overwhelming sensations. “Admit it, darling. You’re done, nothing to do, nowhere to go,” Youko purred, watching him squirm, enjoying the torment played across his features. Each giggle and squeal only seemed to encourage her, pushing her to prolong the ticklish torment that held him captive.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you finally succumb to the tickling,” Youko said, her voice dripping with a mix of amusement and sinister delight. “Just imagine it—seeing your life ebb away as you laugh your last laugh.”

Polnareff’s heart raced, a mixture of fear and exhilaration coursing through him. “YOU CAN’T! I WON’T LET IT END LIKE THIS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” he shouted, though the desperation in his voice was undercut by another fit of uncontrollable laughter as Foxey Lady’s nails found a particularly sensitive on his soles.

“You can’t escape, my tickle slave,” she continued, reveling in his torment. “Each giggle brings you closer to the end. Just let go and embrace it. There’s nothing left but laughter now.” Her fingers danced with renewed fervor, drawing out every bit of resistance he had left.

“Think, Jean Pierre! Think!” he urged himself, struggling to clear the haze of laughter clouding his mind. “There’s got to be a weakness!” He could feel the tickling sensation overwhelming him, but amid the chaos, a flicker of determination sparked within.

“My Stand has no weakness, Polnareff,” Youko taunted, her voice laced with confidence as she continued her relentless assault. “Her ability is to exploit every inch of your vulnerability, and you’re far too caught up in your own laughter to even think of escape, I’m afraid.”

But in the depths of his mind, Polnareff was fighting back. “There has to be something!” he thought fiercely, gritting his teeth against the ticklish sensations that swarmed over him. “Even the strongest Stand has a limit.”

“Let go, Polnareff. Nothing you do can stop Foxey Lady. The tickling is so overwhelming. Can you feel your heart? The way your lungs ache?” Youko's voice was a seductive whisper, dripping with satisfaction as she pressed her advantage.

Polnareff’s heart raced, not just from laughter but from the determination within. “I won’t give in!” he shouted defiantly, though the words felt weak against the storm that bombarded him so ticklishly. Each touch of Foxey Lady's nails sent shockwaves through his body, making it hard to think clearly. He felt himself teetering on the edge, the line between surrender and defiance blurring with every passing moment.

“Do you think the demons in Hell are watching? Do you think they’re waiting for you? Do you think they’re going to keep tickling you forever and ever, never letting up?” Youko's voice dripped with mockery, each word laced with an enticing malice that only fueled his despair. “Imagine it, Polnareff. Being tickled forever, knowing you cannot die? That your reality is tickle torture… forever?”

He could almost picture the demons and succubi, cackling as they reveled in his helplessness, their sinister laughter mingling with his own. The very idea was maddening, and he felt the edges of his sanity fraying as the laughter spilled from his lips uncontrollably.

“Come on, Jean Pierre! You have faced worse than this!” he urged himself, his mind racing as he sought a way to turn the tide against the merciless tickling. “There has to be a way to break this cycle!”

Foxey Lady let up the tickling on Polnareff’s feet, granting him a brief moment of respite. The figure of his friend’s mom faded away completely, in her place, Foxey Lady materialized fully, her ethereal form shimmering with a seductive allure. The fur that had previously obstructed his vision no longer clouded his sight, allowing Polnareff to take in the full majesty of the Stand before him. He noticed that the fur stole that had accentuated her was no longer there.

��Actually, I feel like I’m getting impatient, Polnareff…” Youko mused, her tone playfully mocking as she surveyed him with a smirk. Polnareff's heart raced as he watched in horror as Foxey Lady transformed, sprouting two extra arms, making a total of six. The Stand’s presence intensified, each arm moving with an unsettling grace, fingers poised for a new wave of torment, wiggling menacingly.

“Tickle, tickle! Time to die!” Youko declared, her voice playful yet chilling. Polnareff's heart raced as the six arms of Foxey Lady advanced, fingers wiggling like a swarm of playful serpents, each one eager to find its target.

She struck with precision, her tickling fingers darting into his armpits, his sides, and his hips simultaneously. Polnareff erupted into a chorus of laughter, the sound echoing off the walls like a desperate plea for mercy. The sensation was overwhelming, each touch igniting a fire of ticklish agony that spread through his body, rendering him completely vulnerable.

“Is this really how you want to go out, Polnareff?” Youko taunted, her voice laced with mock sympathy as she watched him squirm. “Tickled to death, all while begging for it to stop?”

“NO! HAHAHA! NOT THERE!” he howled, squirming beneath the relentless tickling. Every stroke felt like a jolt of electricity, a reminder of his utter helplessness. The laughter poured out uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face as he writhed under the merciless onslaught.

“Give in, Polnareff! Just let it happen,” Youko taunted. “You’re only prolonging the inevitable.” The six arms moved with a terrifying efficiency, ensuring that there was no escape, no relief from the laughter that consumed him. The tickling was all encompassing, complete, overwhelming. It was the pure definition of tickle torture.

“Think! Why can I feel my Stand manifest? Where is Foxey Lady’s stole? There has to be something!” Polnareff shouted inwardly, desperately searching for a way to regain control. As the relentless tickling continued, he felt the familiar energy of Silver Chariot stirring within him, its presence reminding him that he still had power, even in this bizarre dreamscape.

Suddenly, the chaos of laughter and torment began to crystallize into clarity. He recalled how Foxey Lady’s fluffy fur stole had enveloped him earlier, a key component of her Stand's ability to trap him in this memory. If he could break the connection, perhaps he could turn the tide.

“She mentioned something about hypnosis…” Polnareff thought, a flicker of realization igniting in his mind. Then it clicked. It was all an illusion. “HAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU’RE DONE, YOUKO! YOUR STAND ABILITY IS HYPNOSIS! HAHAHAHAHA! IT’S PURELY VISUAL! AND THE THING KEEPING ME IN IT IS YOUR FUR STOLE!” he yelled, his laughter now infused with defiance rather than despair.

Youko's victorious attitude faltered for a moment, surprise flickering across her features as Polnareff's laughter turned from helplessness to determination. “What are you talking about?” she retorted, though a hint of uncertainty crept into her voice.

With renewed vigor, Polnareff focused on the fur wrapping around him, visualizing it as a barrier rather than a prison. “I can break this illusion!” he declared, channeling the energy of Silver Chariot. “HAHAHAhAHA! IHIHIHIHIT’S JUHUHUHUST A TRIHIHIHICK! I WON’T BE TRAPPED IN YOUR GAMES ANY LONGER!”

As he gathered his strength, he imagined Silver Chariot materializing, cutting through the fabric of the illusion with the same precision it wielded its blade. He could feel the connection between himself and his Stand strengthening, a tide of energy rising within him, ready to shatter the confines of Youko’s hypnotic grasp.

“SILVER CHAHAHAHAHARIOT! CUT THEHEHEHE STOLE AWAY!” he cried, his voice ringing with newfound determination. In that moment, he felt Silver Chariot respond, the familiar rush of power surging through him, igniting a fierce resolve that overshadowed the laughter.

With a swift, decisive motion, he envisioned Silver Chariot’s blade slicing through the illusions that bound him, severing the connection to Youko’s fur stole. The air around him shimmered, the fabric of the dreamscape rippling like a mirage.

Foxey Lady stopped dead in her tracks, staring blankly for a moment, her multiple arms frozen mid-motion. The atmosphere around them crackled with energy as Polnareff's command took effect. Then, in an explosive burst of ethereal light, Foxey Lady shattered into a cascade of shimmering particles, the remnants of the illusion scattering like autumn leaves caught in a gust of wind.

Polnareff rose to sit, scratching his head in a daze as the remnants of his bizarre experience lingered in his mind. The bar was a mess, shattered glasses and broken bottles littering the floor, evidence of the chaos that had unfolded. He glanced around, expecting to see Youko, but she was nowhere to be found. The air felt heavy with the aftermath of their confrontation, and the chatter of patrons resumed, oblivious to the battle that had just occurred.

“Where did she go?” Polnareff muttered to himself, his heart still racing. He felt a mix of relief and frustration; he had escaped her grasp.

Gathering himself, he stood up, carefully stepping over the debris scattered on the floor. As he made his way to the bar, he couldn’t help but replay the encounter in his mind—the way her Stand had toyed with him, the soft, teasing nature of Foxey Lady, and the chilling realization that he had nearly succumbed to her power.

“I need to be more vigilant,” he thought, determination solidifying within him. “But I trust she will not try any of us again, since the secrets of her Stand were so easily uncovered.”

Polnareff scanned the room, contemplating his next move. “I need to warn the others,” he thought, remembering the bond he shared with his friends. They needed to be prepared for whatever came next.

[voxxisms]

@staticintone is working with the vee's for a day !! [ cont. ]

     TWENTY - FOUR  HOURS  WAS  PLENTY.  it would be no small feat trying to show his work in a way properly to alastor,  but he had him on his side for the time being.  it might not have been entirely willing,  but he also at least hadn't been the one to issue the command.  just the one asking him to be nice.  he  ...   could pretend.  he could pretend it would all be nice  &&  dandy later,  too.  for now,  he could just appreciate having his presence in a place that he'd always hoped to have him.

        ❛  well,  there's a pretty robust schedule we can slot you into,  but i figure it might be best to just keep you with me rather than making you head off on your own.  the whole place can be a little bit of a maze,  if you don't wander around much to learn it.  so i got an extra desk set up around my office.  ❜

he led them both to the elevator,  pressing the button to take them up to it.  it was a quick ride,  &&  already vox was being bombarded when he reached the floor.

❛  vox,  sir,  the client for sixty - eight wants to ask you about the budget.  ❜

        ❛  tell them to check in on my availability with the receptionist.  ❜

❛  there's been a malfunction with channel six,  the tech agents aren't there right now,  who should we send?  ❜

        ❛  pull one of the interns from the basement,  &&  the lead from channel five,  i know they're on break,  tell them they'll get an early leave if they handle it within thirty minutes,  &&  i'll approve that saturday off they wanted.  ❜

❛  vox,  the newest client is demanding to speak to you now,  on the phone.  ❜

     vox sighed heavily,  pausing in his beeline for the office door.  so close.  he took the phone from the worker,  put on a bright smile  &&  voice smoothing over the clear irritation.  his hold on the frequency was less than it usually was,  given their recent talks,  so it did echo the true feelings fairly obviously.

        ❛  laurence,  hello,  you snagged me!  what can i do for you?  ...  no,  no,  that isn't going to be possible,  you know the schedule of that set location better than i do.  no,  no,  there is nothing i can do to change their mind,  i already did my best to.  ❜    the answer seemed to displease him,  &&  the shouting was easy to hear outside of the phone,  too.    ❛  look,  how about this?  i will move a few things around,  snag us an extra week there instead of longer hours in the day.  i know very well how to simulate the look you want,  i know it isn't perfect,  but it also wasn't originally in your package,  &&  since they're being so stubborn,  i'll toss it in with minimal upcharge.  yes,  exactly.  i'm glad we can reach a compromise,  thank you.  i will see you next week,  then.  ❜    he dropped the phone,  now ended with the call,  into the waiting hands of his worker,  who quickly skittered away to do some other job.

        ❛  sorry about that.  where were we?  right,  i have desk space for you set aside.  ❜

he was finally able to open the door to his office,  his wall of monitors  &&  shark tanks illuminated by light as they entered.  there was already an extra desk set up here,  with plenty of space,  a decent chair,  several things to make his job easier. 

        ❛  you're welcome to pick  &&  choose what you prefer to do.  i have some meetings to attend,  if you'd like to tag along,  that would be fine,  otherwise there is quite a lot to manage on the day - to - day.  there's a stack there that essentially lists out options for you,  &&  whatever you need,  you only need to send a message here or to me  &&  it'll be taken care of.  ❜    he handed him a small phone,  nothing fancier than what one may have had in the early 2000s.  there was only one contact,  labeled assistant.

[morethanaloveinterest]

A Heartbroken Review of Leia's Costumes in the Sequel Trilogy

Let's talk about what our space princess wears in her final appearances.

We are first introduced to Leia wearing this jumpsuit in this trilogy. It is similar to her Hoth look from ESB but obviously with some changes to reflect being in a warmer place. It sets itself apart from her original iconic white dress and shows us that Leia is no longer the princess we first met in ANH. The jumpsuit is still a light color but with a darker vest - probably the darkest thing we've seen her wear before. Overall, it is a very practical outfit that matches her role as general of the Resistance.

Female representation: 10/10 Jumpsuits are always great, what can I say? She looks much like her colleagues in the Resistance and that is perfect for her. As a sequel to an old property, it shows a clear effort to indicate how she has changed over the years (without making her a crone or whatever).

Practicality: 10/10 Again, can't go wrong with a jumpsuit. I like the fancy belt buckle - she always liked belts, while otherwise being fairly plain.

This is the dress she wears at the end of the Force Awakens. I'm not crazy about the cutout in the bustline but it is nice to see Leia in a fancier dress, somewhat reminiscent of any of Padme's dresses. It's also a new color for her and definitely a flattering one. It represents the hope that the Resistance now has and matches the water world where her brother is hiding (as we see with Rey arriving at the end of the film).

Female representation: 10/10 Older ladies do not uh exist in many franchises, but they usually do not get cool dresses to wear when they do. I enjoy the jumpsuit but I also really like that we get a glimpse of regal Leia here, too.

Practicality: 9/10 Less practical than a jumpsuit but still pretty great. I am sure she is able to command the Resistance wearing this just as well as in anything else.

She wears this dress at the beginning of the Last Jedi until she is rescued from space. The color change from blue makes sense because things are much more dire for this film - they are fleeing the First Order and she has lost her husband. The simple design of the dress also makes sense for her (most of her dresses are of fairly simple constructions). The overdress adds a note of authority as she directs the Resistance from the bridge. She has added some jewelry, which is nice.

Female representation: 10/10 Absolutely a fantastic costume for an older lady to wear, and for our princess to wear as a mature woman. It still reflects the femininity of a character who mostly wore dresses in her younger days and conveys her status as a senator and head of the Resistance.

Practicality: 9/10 While it seems surprisingly practical for her time spent in space (it's warm, presumably), it is not as practical as her jumpsuit. It does not inhibit her movement, however, or expose her to the elements, so it's great.

This is the outfit she wears at the end of the Last Jedi. The collar is very dramatic and I love that we get a scene of her using it as such. From what we can see, the dress underneath is fairly simple and the overdress adds even more flair than the previous one. She has different jewelry on, and of course carries a blaster again, which is wonderful. Again, her color is gray because things are still a bit dire but there is hope at the end.

Female representation: 10/10 Again, these outfits are all fantastic. The neckline is a bit lower on the underdress than the previous one but she obviously pulls it off.

Practicality: 9/10 While she gets up to a lot more in this dress than the previous one, it can't be as useful as the jumpsuit.

Okay, I'm not sure how to really talk about this one since obviously it was using footage that wasn't used for the Force Awakens. But it is a dress that seems to be the same color as the one she wore on Cloud City, covered with a long vest. She still has the fancy belt and some jewelry. It's definitely in character and I like the cowl neck we haven't seen her in before.

Female representation: 10/10 I mean, I have Thoughts on how the movie itself treats her, but it's a lovely outfit that she would definitely wear in this current iteration of her. I just wish she'd gotten more than one in this movie.

Practicality: 9/10 It seems to be just as practical as the other dresses, while being just as lovely.

If you enjoyed this, check out my Star Wars for the Girlies Series (Leia episode out now!)

[lifetimeshipper]

My Little Dancer

Chapter 4

~~~~~~~~~~

You followed me back?

Of course I did, I wasn't going to stay where I was after becoming aware.

It feels weird talking to you like this when you're inside my processor. We haven't had any connection in so many years…

I'm not the only one who blocked off our bond to hide secrets, Arcee.

Arcee had already walked away from the rest of her team so she could be alone and think things over. She's debating on if she should tell her team that Megatron followed her back.

I could easily take over your body and make you do things that could really humiliate you in front of your team. I could even make you pleasure yourself in front of them… Arcee's spark quickens, she wouldn't be able to look her teammates in the optics ever again. Actually, I wouldn't do that, I will never allow any other mechs a peek at what is for my optics only.

And to think that you used to be a really kind mech…

XXXXXX

Arcee is sitting at the table with Megatronus drinking as much Energon as her body can take. When she has her full she feels relieved. "Satisfied?" Megatronus asks as he watches her. She just nods. "Good." He pays for the Energon and they head out.

They make their way over to their original destination that they were heading to at first, where Arcee can scan a vehicle form. "How come you never scanned a vehicle form?"

"They didn't allow us to, they figured that if we could transform into vehicle mode then we could escape a lot easier, and they wanted to prevent that."

"How did you end up with them?"

Arcee went silent again, she wasn't sure if it was a good idea to tell him too much about herself. But she didn't need to worry about that anyway since they had arrived at their destination. She finds a hover motorbike that is perfect for her size and she chooses that to be her vehicle form. As soon as she transforms she takes off, leaving Megatronus looking a bit dumbfounded. Once he regained his senses he transformed and chased after her.

"I thought you didn't know how to transform," Megatronus says when he catches up to her. Arcee remained silent. Megatronus pulls in front of her and comes to a stop, making her come to a stop as well. "Listen, I'm trying to be nice here but I'm not gonna let you just run away from me after I bought you! I want to help you, that's the main reason why I bought you! I could tell that there was something off about that old couple and I didn't like the thought of you being involved in whatever they were doing. Now, we're going to go back to my place and recharge and then we will have a discussion tomorrow."

Arcee was silent as she followed him to his place, she wondered if he was telling the truth when he said that he wanted to help her. When they arrived at the place where he was staying she was surprised, it's a nice place but not the kind of place she imagined a gladiator would live in. With how much credits he has she expected him to be living in a much fancier place. His place is a one-floor house that looks big enough to fit maybe two to three bots, but it's still a lot nicer than any place she's been in.

Megatronus showed her to the room where she would be sleeping and then showed her the washroom where she could wash, wax, and polish her armor if she needed to. He starts to head for his room but Arcee stops him, "Were you telling the truth when you said that you wanted to help me?"

Megatronus looks at her, "Yes, as I said, it's the main reason why I bought you."

"Thank you for helping me get away from them, but I still need to find my parents. They took me from them when I was a sparkling. Ever since we left the club all I've been thinking is that I need to find them again. That's why I drove off the way I did, I just want to reunite with my parents and make sure they're okay."

The more Megatronus heard about that couple the more they made his Energon boil. They have no right to take any sparklings away from their parents. Even though he doesn't want to let Arcee go he knows that he can't keep her caged, "You're free to leave in the morning to go look for your parents, just get some recharge first."

For the first time, he saw Arcee smile, which just made her look even more beautiful. He realizes that this femme has him hooked and he doesn't care. "Thank you, Megatronus. I will return, I promise."

The next morning she was gone, and Megatronus felt an ache in his spark.

XXXXXX

Don't expect me to be like that again.

I already know that you're far from that.

But know that my love for you never changed.

Arcee didn't know what else to say so she went silent. Eventually, she decides to tell Ratchet and Optimus that she keeps seeing Megatron and Ratchet thinks that it's from being in his head and maybe even from being sparkbonded with him, so he puts her in induced power down to let her processor rest and recover. But that didn't deter Megatron, he forced Arcee out of power down and made her go to the place where he knew there was a Dark Energon shard.

Arcee keeps fighting to regain control of her body but it's no use. Stop controlling me!

I will once I have revived my own body. And once I do I will make sure that you stay with me and be by my side as you were supposed to be from the beginning, but you went against me and became an Autobot instead!

You were turning into a tyrant!

She had already made it back to base with the Dark Energon shard in her servo and when Ratchet tried to question her about it she punched him. Jack had been watching the whole time, trying to figure out what was going on with her. Still under Megatron's control, Arcee opens up a Ground Bridge to where Optimus, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee had gone and she made her way to the Nemesis.

She makes her way through the ship with ease, fighting any Vehicons that get in her way, obviously using strength and fighting skills from Megatron. She gets to the room where Megatron's body is and she uses the Cortical Psychic Patch again to connect her to Megatron. Ratchet comes running into the room with Jack to stop her but Arcee manages to take him down with ease. When Jack tried to intervene and stop her she just swatted him away, she felt bad for hurting them but she wasn't in control.

After Arcee had put the Dark Energon shard into Megatron's body to revive it, Megatron returned to his body and woke up. Arcee and Ratchet watched in horror as Megatron got off of the medical berth. She couldn't believe that he used her to help him revive his body.

"Decepticons, your rightful lord and master has returned!" Megatron looks over at Arcee and Ratchet, he grabs Arcee's arm and starts walking off. Arcee tried to protest as she tried to get out of his grip but he refused to let her go, "Dispose of those pests," he said as he walked past the Vehicons. Ratchet grabbed Jack and ducked for cover as he looked for a way to get off of the ship.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 1

Next Chapter

[tanetime]

20. Does Wyneer have any interesting facts regarding his creation?

This turned into me just rambling about making Wyneer and I'm so sorry.

I made Wyneer because me and some friends at the time decided to make DST mods together. My design prompt was "a jack of all trades." I pieced together inspiration from some old noh actor OCs of mine and imagery from a song I was obsesed with at the time and got Wyneer out of it.

The face on his mask used to be a lot smaller, and his hair less angular. You can see him become more DST-animatic-like over time... it's like putting a normal dog next to a pug.

His original outfit (not pictured bc the art sucked) was a lot fancier and later became the basis for his original guest of honour skin.

Wyneer originally had no name or gender or personality at all. He was supposed to be a blank slate and exaggerate certain personality traits through his masks...

...The problem was that I didn't have any masks. It took like six months for the first ones to get concept art. In that time, Wyneer developed an identity of his own. So the masks had to change into being different 'people'.

Wyneer himself hasn't changed very much, but his masks changed a lot. Under the cut I'll talk about the masks who made it into his mod, but here's two that didn't:

A kelp based mask, who was supposed to be used during seafaring. I think they got more stats from eating raw fish to allow them to stay at sea longer? They were very creature and liked to just sit in ponds.

A beefalo-wool mask who had an affinity toward animals. I don't have a whole lot of concept art of them because I drew them once and went "that's it that's the design."

Both of these masks got cut because ultimately I couldn't come up with anything for them to do that justified them existing. I don't think they'll ever come back.

As for the ones that made it in...

now let's talk about

The Masks

Here's some quick-fire things.

1. Fright n Flight, Brave Face and Laborious were the first masks I made, and I made them all together. Fright was the first to get modded in, Brave was the first to get sprites, and Lay was the first to develop an individual personality that wasn't part of Wyneer.

For the longest time the masks in his mod looked like this because they had no designs (that's Fright on the right):

2. Brave Face and About Face only exist because their names are puns, and their mechanics are based on those puns. Boutey was supposed to be a comedy/tragedy mask until he became whatever the hell he ended up as.

3. Going back to Brave, if you'll remember I said that Wyneer's masks added to his personality originally. Back then his masks had more abstract designs and weren't designed to emote. For a very small period of time, Brave was a dragon!

There's nothing left of this iteration other than his sharp teeth.

Fright was also a monster for a bit, but this was around the time I decided to make the masks people, so they became more reminisent of human faces instead.

Brave was the hardest mask to design. He used to be blue and green and resemble actual artefacts that were supposedly made by Celtic tribes, but the colours 1. looked bad digitally 2. bore no resemblence to any materials in Don't Starve. His final design was colour-picked from Wigfrid's Winged Victory set for cohesion.

It pains me that he's now a typical movie interprenation of generic Celtic things but it does make sense that Wyneer mistakenly thought that was what he should look like...

4. About Face and Jet Black were originally the same mask. About Face was originally "a rogue that becomes a tank" so his high sanity form couldn't be noticed by enemies unless he attacked them first.

It was a bit much, and I was debating making a crow feather mask, so I split that half of Boutey into Blake's original version. It got coded in but I ultimately didn't like it and removed it.

5. Wyneer had a whooole upgrade pyramid of masks involving different seasons. The idea was that there were four masks that had a season that suited them, and you could combine the masks together to sets of pairs to ultimately form a mask that consolidated all of their perks.

I got as far as making Crimson and Azure (summer and winter) before realising that the idea sounded cool on paper but introduced a lot of masks that were going to be redundant.

Wyneer did design Jet Black with the intent of him consolidating Crimson and Azure's abilities, but that's not quite what purple gems do.

6. Nightmare Face used to glow magenta, like the other Ruins stuff. However, DST's colour cubes wash out magenta into a disgusting grey colour under certain circumstances, so I changed it to red.

Klei later did the same thing with the Nightmare Werepig. I wonder if the same realisation happened to them.

7. The masks were originally supposed to have slightly different hair and wear Wyneer's clothes differently. I did the former for Brave and Boutey and immediately realised that it would be a nightmare and stopped doing it for the remaining masks.

8. Several of Wyneer's masks are based on venetian masks.

9. Wyneer's masks had a crafting tab icon before Klei nuked it. I still think it looks cool.

10. The masks in Wyneer's mod are fully animated and have a disgusting amount of sprites. I wanted each one to feel unique, so I drew them all from scratch. It took so long to make them all that you can see me getting better or rustier between each one... it was a lot of work, but I really enjoy searching for an emotion and seeing how each one looks.

11. Wyneer's masks are so unique that they broke the Modded Skins API and as of this post the hyperspecific glitch that effects him has not been fixed. Thanks Wyneer.

...I could go on forever, but this post is way too long...

As a sendoff, here are the beta inventory icons for the masks, for no particular reason.

[smuppetshowmovie]

date: February 1, 2023 caption: Choreography! project: The Smuppet Show

Rambling about choreography under the cut

It was about a week before filming this scene that I had to face up to the reality of doing a show with multiple musical numbers. I'd made my way through the first few with just some very basic stick puppet bobbing around, but I wanted to level up a bit for this next song.

I started out doing internet searches for crash courses in choreography but then I remembered a technique I'd learned back when I was devouring everything I could get my hands on in terms of indie filmmakers talking about their process. In film-making, it can be very effective to just straight up attempt to copy elements of something else (usually another film, but sometimes just the colors or composition of a painting or photo). In some cases, people may recognize the reference and get excited over the clever homage. In others, the copy attempt is so poorly executed that no-one recognizes it, but at least it's different from whatever your default style usually is, so maybe folks get excited over the originality of the cinematography. A win-win!

I brainstormed a bit on the best place to find iconic choreography and soon landed on music videos. I grew up in prime MTV years and have so many music videos that fill me with nostalgia. I also remember my joy in watching DVDs from "The Work of Director ..." series (Spike Jonze, Jonathan Glazer, and Mark Romanek to name my favorites). This was back in the day when Netflix mailed out physical DVDs; my how time flies! Back then I watched all of their music videos and felt I was really starting to understand the mark a director leaves on a work (as distinct from actor or writer). Very illuminating!

Once I began re-watching the videos I remembered as compelling, I realized they were all very complex on a technical level. I needed to find a more achievable reference! I tried searching for more recent examples, but budgets and effects in music videos have only gotten fancier over time, so that didn't pan out.

No discussion of music videos would be complete without Mr. Astley's iconic contribution to the genre. I started studying it, and found it a perfect fit for this scene. I spent some time breaking down the people and the moves and the shot sequences. A main singer, a pair of background dancers, and a few inset shots of solo dancing. Each location only had a few different set-ups / angles, and a lot of the visual interest was just cutting quickly back and forth and cycling through the carious locations. Soon I had a shot list and was ready to film. Progress!

[motheatencrow]

for some reason i thought queen bianca's wings were dyed to look like stained glass windows but ig i was just remember her literal dedicated window in ant kingdom kjsfhkjs

(upon reading the wiki, apparently she originally Had stained glass wings)

i was gonna go on this whole thing where bees (and other bugs too but its mostly a big thing with bees) participate in a thing called "wing-dyeing"

lol just kidding i Will talk about it

its usually a delicate process (i would assume since wings are delicate) so it costs quite a bit. usually more "noble" bees would have their wings dyed because of the cost and because of that, dyeing your wings was also a sort of way to declare your status. (though i dont know if status is a Thing in the bee kingdom since canonically queen bianca is all the bees moms in the hive but irl bees also have certain jobs based on their age so idk; the lore in this game is kinda confusing sometimes)

queen bianca would have both her wings fully dyed because. shes the queen

it would roughly look something like this??? idk maybe lighter colored and the queen probably has fancier patterns or just a smoother look to her dyed wings but im lazy skjfhkj

but thats what somebodys wings would look like full dyed. typically fully dyeing your wings is a bit of taboo in the bee kingdom because again. its kinda reserved for the queen

sometimes/maybe queen bianca would invite bees to get their wings dyed if they have a certain bond/connections with her (like jaune has some parts of her wings dyed yellow [and because her name means yellow] because shes one of the queens personal artists and vi has a small part of her wings dyed purple since shes jaunes closest sister [and her full name is violet])

but again its not like only bees who dye their wings but it may have started in their kingdom and spread around. some bees/bugs do it for status (if they still have wings. that are clear. well maybe the moths have their own kind of wing-dyeing. scale-dyeing?) while others just do it for the looks

i mostly just ran whatever was in my head so a lot of this is probably incoherent but this is my scrambled take on wing-dyeing 👍