#there is such a disconnect between how this game is talked about even on sites like reddit and these stats...

[grey-wardens]

do not know how wyll does not have 100 million kisses with how many times i've kissed him this playthrough

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Deep Roads; Lower Walkways

This particular section of the Deep Roads seems to have been abandoned. It connects to a former lyrium mining site of unknown origin, which contains statues of Mythal, Fen'Harel, and of an unknown creature. Unlike dwarven constructions, this location lacks the usual lightning and heating produced by moulting rock, turning it unusually dark. There is no trace of darkspawn activity either.

This place is divided into

Overlook

Excavated Caves

Lower Walkways

Unknown Ruin

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

As we continue getting deeper into this mine in order to stop the Qunari from mining more lyrium, we can notice an increase in dwarven style. The architecture, patterns, and decorations are not mixed with Elvhenan ones.

With Dorian's comment we know that there is something off with this mining. Another of his comment if romanced is:

Dorian [if romanced]: Cold stone, dark tunnels, and surrounded by extremely hostile Qunari. Not the place I'd have chosen for a romantic homecoming.

These comments make us aware that there is no molten rocks to illuminate these corridors (so typical in dawrven infrastructure), which seems to be a lead to help the player to consider the possibility that this "spring of lyrium" is some deep part of a Titan. This place, in fact, seems pretty similar to the Uncharted Abyss in its lack of molten rock illumination and darkspawn. I’m not sure if this means that we are in the Storm Coast and this is another part of the same titan we visited in The Descendant, or this is another titan, somewhere else.

There is a Charred Note that informs us that these deadly purple flames were cast by Solas. I find it a very curious element, because so far in the Base game, we didn't find this effect beyond some “purple effect” with necromancer spells or rogue powers [it feels more a game mechanics that something related to lore, to be honest]. However, it brings to my mind the old graphics of DAO where the Archdemon breathed upon the Warden and it was of similar colour, like purple breath [flames]. The note describes it as blue, so it could be related to Flemeth’s power that now belongs to Solas, although, somehow, the game shows it purple when we know it can show it in blue. Who knows.

As we walk upstairs to the mining and processing, we find big statues of Howling Fen'Harel.

The veins of lyrium are everywhere, even sprouting from small cracks in the area, surrounded by gatlok, ready to be exploded and have access to them.

Close to a cliff, we see the third part of the codex  Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3. Due to the blood around the scroll we find, we assume the elf fell from the cliff and died. What this elf refers to can be summarised as:

Again, he is not an expert in Dalish Lore, but he remembers an old song about Mythal. As it belongs to the unreliable Dalish Folklore, it may have a hint of truth but it's hard to know in which part it is.

The song suggests a tranquil or a dwarvish state [empty/nothingness], something that is disconnected from the dreams. We know the codex Old Elven Writing from Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal that the elves perceived dwarves [the “workers of the titans”] as soul-less and witless creatures, so this song has a good chance to talk about dwarves.

The author of the song explains that Mythal gives them dreams, which is very curious since Mythal seems to connect with people through dreams: In Val Royeaux, we hear an environmental discussion between an elf servant and his master, in which the elf claims that Mythal appeared in his dreams and told him things. Apparently after that, he acquires a Vallaslin of Mythal [I can’t confirm this myself]. There is also another similar situation with Sandal in DA2, where I think he dreams of Flemeth [he sees ”an scary old lady” at night], but we don’t know how serious we can take this, since Sandal was always a joke for the devs.

So, Mythal gives dreams means that these creatures will be filled with something that makes the Evanuris proud. Even though this elf translates it as leaders, the original song speaks of Evanuris [hence I use that word]. What could make an Evanuris proud? probably magic, which is attached to dreams and souls/spirits. So, if these creatures are dwarves [seen by the elves as soulless] filling them with dreams, fade magic, or souls would make the Evanuris proud in their opinion [or so it thinks the author who clearly has no real idea about the true nature of the Evanuris]. Therefore, this song may be related to give magic to dwarves, or to give them a soul, which would mean to bind spirits to their “empty” bodies. Both possibilities are huge discoveries in the lore if they are true.

The last part of the song reinforces our suspicion that this song is related to dwarves and Mythal has given them something to make them dream/have magic [I wonder if this is related to Valta’s words spoken by the Titan about the history of the dwarves: the dwarves were broken in two kinds at some point, more details in The Descent – The Wellspring].

This song is material for high speculation, but sadly it's not too reliable: it is based on a Dalish song, and written and commented by a Dalish person who was not even a Keeper. However, there must be a hint of truth in it, since devs would not put 3 pieces of a long codex just to lie to the players. This is basically the main, central codex of all the Deep Roads in Trespasser. Its implications are enormous. 

By the end of the codex, it seems to imply that the light of this place died out and, trying to look for another source, this elf fell from the cliff and died.

As we continue this path, Cole says another comment: “songs are old here”. He speaks of old songs and old blood when it comes to Titans. But he also calls old pain to the elvhenan’s. “Sleeping sadness already forgotten” could be translated as the sadness of the Titans to have been defeated long time ago, and because their existence is quite vegetative since then, it’s already forgotten. This coincides with what Valta says by the end of the DLC that the Titan talking to her is sad [ The Descent – The Wellspring]. Another interpretation, related to the Elvhen and their Uthenera process, will be commented below. 

In the main bridge, we find another statue of the Moon-head creature. It's placed in the beginning of the bridge, looking into the chamber that the bridge leads to. At its feet we find Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 2 that can be summarised as:

The elf claims that these statues are older than anything they saw. Which is expected, since these statues were usually seen in ancient elvhenan temples that I doubt their clan may have found in their migration. However, it's not clear if they are including the statue of the Moon-head creature. If they do, they are not providing great insight: they are only saying it’s an old statue.

They recognises the mixture of dwarven and elvhen architecture in this place. They wonder what the elves were doing. If it was mining, why don't use dwarves? [because the Elvhen mining is different to the mundane one]

The author suspects that this aggressive intervention [bringing the elvhen gods to the dwarven kingdom] may have been a sign of War between the two groups.

Again, we have another Dalish Tale claiming that Elgar'nan's fire and the Sun are equals, and for that reason the dwarves feared them and lived underground. This idea links with the Dalish tales of Elgar'nan shoving fire inside the ground in the zone of Emprise du Lion [some tales claim it was the sun itself, but one can also speculate that it may have been Sylaise too, for more details Emprise du Lion: Pools of the Sun]. The only source more or less reliable that links Elgar'nan with a potential attack to dwarves and his manipulation of fire is in the codex Song to Elgar'nan, explained in Ancient Elven codices, Temple of Mythal, where the codex relates "Elgar'nan's gaze”, with “burning the ground”, taming the land that "shakes" the elvhenan cities. This codex can be complemented with Vir Dirthara: Signs of Victory, from Ancient Elven codices; Vir Dirthara, where Elgar'nan statue is erected using a collapsed mountain [potential allegory of a defeated titan]. All these details from sources a bit more reliable than Dalish tales [although equally vague] allow us to be more confident in believing that Elgar'nan led a war and won it over the titans and their workers: the dwarves. However, I must say that this seems strange since the codex Veilfire Runes in the Deep Roads implies it was Mythal who defeated them; these vague overlapping concepts make me wonder sometimes if Elgar’nan and Mythal are not the same entity in similar fashion than Dirthamen/Falon’Din are, but this speculation is for another post]. In the process to win the war against the titans there was burning, apparently.  And if the song of the section 3 has some grain of truth, Mythal may have helped the dwarves to have souls and connect to the Fade.

Here is the bridge that the Moon-head creature seems to encourage us to follow. Its columns are typical dwarven-made.

As we walk in, Cole says: "This is where they dig". I would assume that "they" means qunari, this is a comment of the present.  "Tricks and trials so the singing stones don't kill them", implying what we learnt through the ex-templar human before: the qunari have been experimenting to try to mine lyrium without being killed in the process. So “singing stones” seems to mean here “lyrium veins”

As we enter, we see again elvhenan iconography and decoration. The dwarven details were left outside this building, and its interior seems to be focused on Elvhen design. A lot of golden details, yellow mosaics with the asterisk symbol on them, arabesque decoration, and more Howling Fen'Harel guarding the chamber inside can be found.

Since the Qunari are using this chamber, there is a lot of Qun decoration that has nothing to do with the ancient ruins: Qun banners and Qun drapery, gatlock bombs, desks with many details of the operation, etc.

Now, this is the important thing. We can't explore this chamber below, but I thinks this is the Elvhen mining. The first detail we see is the many sarcophagi below. We have seen these sarcophagi in the Solasan Temple and in the Elvhen Tomb of Frostback Basin. They are Elvhen. We know via the Masked Empire, that some of the nobles would be in Uthenera in beds, but we also have read that there were sarcophagi in these subterranean Uthenera chambers. So, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to understand that these coffins belong to Uthenera elvhen.

This massive well emanates pure blue light, making us suspect it's a pool of lyrium. The columns beside it are decorated with big statues of Humanoid Mythal.

The ceiling is clearly elvhenan-made as well.

Beyond the "well" there is more and more sarcophagi, indicating this chamber is massive and filled with a lot of elves potentially still alive in Uthenera.

The hole sadly has nothing interesting to offer when explored inside with flycam. Which makes sense, the devs never thought we would explore this via flycam.

One can understand that the hole is a place heading to the core of the lyrium spring [or the Titan's heart] which would explain why so much light is coming from it. This “well” could be considered an easy access to the heart of an already defeated Titan. I mean, we can see the mural and interpret it in two ways:

A “ray” [Mythal’s final strike] falling into the heart that slices the Titan in two and defeats/kills it.

Or a tunnel or “well” which gives easy access to the heart for mining purpose in an already defeated/dead titan. This is the option I’m inclined to, because it looks similar to what we are seeing in this chamber. This chamber does not show signs of battle or struggle [there was not fight in here]. Instead, this was built on a peaceful, calm surface: the titan may have been already defeated [if not dead].

As addition, Cole’s line gives us more context to understand the whole chamber:  Cole is confirming that these are elves in Uthenera. Singing a song in the dark.  My speculation tries to link this song with the Lyrium’s, as if these elves are part of it or use it, in an attempt to keep the Titan sleeping still. And this process may have turned the Titans into vegetative entities that only stir when big disruptive Fade-related events occur [like the access to the Golden City by the Magisters Sidereal or maybe the creation of the Veil, and recently, the Breach in the sky]. They are unable to wake up, they forgot how to do it, according to Cole’s comment. Maybe they forgot how to wake up because the immense amount of elvhen in Uthenera are preventing it somehow.

For a more integral interpretation of this, we can gather all the lines that Cole have been saying in Trespasser related to the Deep Roads:

When we entered to the Deep Roads Overlook: "Songs screaming far away. It wants to wake up but can't remember how. No one should be here." [Songs mean many, it’s not the “old song”=titan, so I understand this line as “the songs of the elves”, referring to all those elves in Uthenera coffins. Cole always said that elves have songs related to them. Immediately after this comment, he speaks about the impossibility of the Titan to wake up. This indirectly implies that the first sentence is related to the second one, hence my idea that Uthenera elvhen may be preventing the awakening of the Titans].

When we reach the darkest place of this zone: "It's singing where no one can hear." [This means the titan is singing too, this is the song of the lyrium itself]

Close to the bridge of this chamber: "The songs are old here. Sleeping sadness already forgotten. I can't help this hurt.” [This could mean Titans as well as Uthenera elves, both are always described by Cole as “old” songs, and both are sleeping in sadness. Since he uses the plural I’m inclined to think of the elves. Once more we can see that Uthenera is something rather more different than what we have been told since DAO. If we link this to the codex Vir Dirthara: A Flowering Imago, we can see that elves entering to Uthenera are always sad and weeping.]

As we cross the bridge: "This is where they dig. Tricks and trials so the singing stones don't kill them.” [We assumed this was about Qunari, and still sounds like that, so I will not considered it further, just including it here for completion's sake]

In the chamber with the coffins: “They are all singing. Coffers, coffins, corpses that aren't dead. A song crying out in the dark.” [Here is a clear confirmation that these are Uthenera elves.  The song in the dark feels more like the song of the Titan. This description also connects with Valta’s war table: “a cry in the dark”. In general, Cole tends to relate the singular song to a Titan.]

If we bring Sera, in the Overlook, Cole will reinforce the idea that the Titans are vegetative now

Sera: Why are dwarves so short but carve their tunnels so tall? Cole: Their ancient shapers were mountains drawn of all their wills, walking their memories into valleys of the world.

With Dorian

Dorian: All this lyrium. If the Qunari wanted they could make a fortune. Cole: The stone sings. The song scares them. It’s the wrong song, the wrong blood. They don’t know how we stand it.

With all these vague tiny bits, and this massive chamber, I came to the conclusion that the Uthenera of the past, when the Veil did not exist, could not have had the same goal than it has nowadays. There was no reason for immortal elvhen to go to sleep forever to live in the Fade, when they already lived there. 

That ancient Uthenera had another goal, and I suspect that it may have been related to keeping the Titans sleeping, calmer, so the elvhenan empire, so fragile to the "reinforcement of reality" of the Titan's powers [Valta's sudden appearances of reports all over Skyhold] could exist without struggle. However, the Evanuris may have learn something of the power of this reinforcement of reality and “shape”, since the Vallaslin and the murals of the elvhen seem to suggest that the slaves of the Evanuris may have been victims of "the shape" via vallaslins made of lyrium. 

Sadly this place is lost forever: when we destroy the Qunari operation, the whole place begins to collapse and flood. All those ancient elvhen are finally dead.

The place is filled with water to a point that we can't return and explore this cave anymore, and the only place that we can explore at this point is the blocked room with an eluvian that will direct us to the Unknown Ruin, which is not the Deep Roads anymore. Curiously, it’s a surface dwarven ruin [could it be the located in the Hissing Waste?, more details in “The Crossroads [DLC Trespasser]: Deep Roads; Unknown Ruin”.

[katyasrussianaccent]

blessed be, the mystery of love (corpse x reader)

Summary: In a fit of loneliness, you decide to join a dating site and meet a mysterious man who seems awfully familiar.

Authors note: Ive had this idea for so long, but finally wrote it woo! No real warnings, except maybe swearing. Hope you enjoy.

This is also fiction, do not meet random strangers off the internet.

“This is so stupid,” you said, your fingers hovering over the keyboard before pressing down, the room filling with a soft clack, clack, clack. You looked at the page in front of you, the screen so harshly white it was almost clinical. Height, eye colour, interests. You supposed it was kind of clinical. “This is really fucking stupid.”

It was Rae’s idea, of course it was Rae’s idea. Well, it wasn’t an idea, more a joke, but it had planted the seed in your brain and had started to grow.

“Maybe you should join a dating site,” she had said, giggling. At the time you had laughed, but as you closed over the laptop that night and found yourself alone again, the idea didn’t seem so funny. Was it desperation or loneliness that had caused you to sign up? In the stillness of the night you weren’t sure of the difference.

You were a Youtuber, some regarded you as pretty decent, heralding you as genuine and funny, even though you sucked at gaming. You had found yourself in a group of people that loved to game, and though they welcomed you with nothing but open warmth, you had always felt disconnected - your idea of gaming was Animal Crossing. Still, you had found your place in the group, and with that place, came relative success. You had always classed success as having money and fans, and while you had both, there was a certain loneliness that had started to grip you. At the end of the day, your fans didn’t know you, they liked to think they did - the joys of parasocial relationships blended that line between friend and fan, but they didn’t truly know you. They didn’t know how you liked your tea, or what your favourite type of pyjamas were.

After defining yourself in a small parameter of less than 500 words, you went to upload a picture. You weren’t sure what to select - a sexy selfie, a “candid” picture of you laughing. You went to upload a picture before hesitating. While you were not on the level of Beyonce, you were known and the prospect of someone finding the profile turned your stomach. There was nothing embarrassing about joining a dating site, but you liked to keep your personal life private. Though sometimes it felt like there was nothing private about it, you relished in the small moments that weren’t talked about or scrutinised.

Every picture idea you had didn’t seem right, so you uploaded a plain black one. You sighed a little at your lack of creativity, but maybe it would attract the right type of person, though you weren’t quite sure who that was. Giving your profile a quick once over, you clicked save, and stared at the screen expectantly.

“You’re not going to get a message right now yn, get a grip,” you muttered to yourself.

You exhaled as you sat back in your couch, sinking back into the plush cushions, your eyes closing. The living room was silent, you supposed that was a perk of being single - no noise. You loved the silence, sometimes when you streamed, you craved nothing more than to end the stream and sit in the silence. It was like in that moment you could unplug your mind, no thoughts, no noise, just you.

A shrill ping from your laptop made you jump a little, a small heart in a box bounced up and down from the corner of your screen.

New message

It made your heart race a little in excitement, could it be possible that the love of your life was just a click away?

A plain black profile pic and your interests are emo music, horror movies and makeup. Is this Gerard Way?

You laughed a little, it was certainly not the generic “hey how are you” that you were expecting. You remember joining a dating site when you were younger, you had lasted a day before deleting; the messages too mind-numbingly boring. Small talk was a pet hate of yours, it sounded mildly pretentious but you liked conversation with substance. Small talk was reserved for your hairdresser.

You: I am superior to gerard way in everything except for looks, talent and fame

Adamo: How humble of you.

You: I really am the most humble person. So your username, is your name Adam?

Adamo: No, it’s latin. Means to fall in love with.

You: Thats your name on a dating site? Little on the nose, dont you think?

Adamo: I think the concept of subtlety on a dating site is non existent

You clicked on Adamo’s profile, nothing except one line that stated “I don’t know anymore.” No profile picture; just a grey faceless entity. The only information given was that he was male, though you weren’t really fussed about that anyway.

You: Your profile says the opposite, you’re creating quite the mystique about you

Adamo: Or, maybe my lack of profile is actually incredibly ostentatious

You sat back for a second, scratching your cheek as you tried to think of a response. He was clearly smart, or at least appeared to be from the way he spoke but you couldn’t help but feel like there was something “off” about him, you just weren’t sure what it was.

You: Maybe i should take notes, and become more mysterious

Adamo: I wouldn’t suggest it, it’s been unsuccessful so far. You’re the first person that’s replied that hasn’t been a milf bot.

You: Who says im not??

Adamo: True, but you haven’t sent me a link to a weird looking website to “talk with you”, so I’ll take my chances.

You: its cos im being subtle

Your phone vibrated on the table, the sound echoing through the room. Tearing your eyes away from the laptop, you picked it up, smiling at the message from Corpse asking if you wanted to play Dead by Daylight. You looked at the laptop again, frowning a little that Adamo hadn’t replied yet. Shaking your head at yourself, you opened Discord and loaded up the game, sending a quick reply to Corpse.

Your friendship with Corpse had been unexpected to say the least. What had started as a few casual games of Among Us had turned into talking outside of streaming, and becoming friends very quickly. It had taken you aback, both of you could be quite guarded when it came to letting people into your life. But there was something there, this instant connection, and you had both joked that in another universe you must have been married.

The fans had latched onto shipping you together pretty quickly, and for the most part they kept it respectful so you didn’t mind too much. But for all the memes and ynhusband posts you saw on Twitter, you could honestly say that you had never thought of Corpse as more than anything but an incredibly good friend. At the early months of your friendship, you had briefly considered it - he used to flirt with you but you had caught on that he was just a flirtatious person by nature and any thought had disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

“Hey Crops,” you greeted.

“Hey baby,” he said back. You set up the game quickly, and before you knew it, the hours had flown in and it was time for bed. Yawning, you closed the game and briefly checked the dating site. Still no response. Shrugging, you tried to ignore the confusion you felt as you got ready to sleep. Maybe Adamo was just busy, or maybe you had said the wrong thing.

It was raining when you woke up, the sound of the rain hitting the window was comforting, and you enjoyed the excuse that you wouldn’t have to leave the house because of the weather. Grabbing your phone, you went about your morning routine; a cup of tea, some yoga and a bath. You knew you had to work, stream something, but lately you had been feeling a little burnt out. You were incredibly grateful to be in the position you were in, but sometimes the pressure could be a lot. The expectation to always be “on” and force out content regardless of how you were feeling had meant your creative juices were running on empty.

You remembered a conversation with Corpse, and decided to shoot him a message to video chat. That was another thing that was unexpected - he trusted you enough to video chat. It was never an issue with you; to never see his face, but it warmed your heart to know he considered you a person in his life that he trusted enough.

“Are you just up or not been to bed yet?” you asked as his blearly face popped up onto the screen, his hair tousled.

“Just up,” he replied, punctuating the sentence with a yawn. “Haven’t had my coffee yet.”

You smiled, “Go get some, I can wait.”

He shook his head, “It’s fine. I guess you’ve had your tea, since you look so chipper this morning.”

You nodded. “I don’t get how you can drink that stuff, just come to the dark side and drink coffee.”

“I don’t like the taste of coffee,” you replied.

“Do you even like the taste of tea? You have three sugars in it, I bet it just tastes like sugar.”

“Shut up and go drink some nasty bean juice.”

He laughed at that before agreeing to, and you grinned as he went off camera. A familiar ping emitted from the speakers and your eyes immediately flashed to the tab you hadn’t closed down. You bit your lip in anticipation, clicking on the message.

Adamo: Sorry for the late reply, I was super busy.

You: its okay, are you batman? That would explain it.

Corpse sat back down, diverting your attention back to him, a cup of coffee in his hand. You pinged again, and you could see Corpse’s brow furrow in confusion at the noise.

“I….joined a dating site,” you explained. Corpse’s once furrowed brow raised at that, and you nervously awaited a response.

Taking a sip from his cup, he pressed his lips together. “I saw a documentary about a murderer that joined a dating site while in prison. They ended up getting married.”

You gaped at him, of all the responses you were expecting, that was definitely not one of them. “I don’t think they have phones in prison.”

Corpse laughed, narrowing his eyes slightly. “YN, they’re criminals. What’s your mystery person like?”

“I’m not sure, I’ve spoken to him once, he doesn’t even have a photo.”

There was a silence from Corpse, and your face felt slightly flush. Maybe you shouldn’t have told him. “Invite me to the wedding, I guess.”

The rest of the conversation was less mortifying, and he had given you some really good advice in regards to the creative burn out you had been experiencing. After saying your goodbyes, you looked at the messages from Adamo again. While you had been sure that he was not a murderer, your conversation with Corpse had made you realise that you really did not know anything about him. Not even his age. For all you knew, you were chatting to a 65 year old married murderer. It was unlikely, but you never know.

Adamo: Not Batman. Batman kind of sucks.

You: Oh youre not a joker fanboy are you? Cos hes really not someone to look up to

Adamo: No, he’s a decent-ish character but not really a good person at all.

You: thats good, that you dont admire the murderer

Adamo: Did you think I would?

You: im not sure, i dont really know you. You could be a murderer for all i know

Adamo: You could be too. But what do you want to know?

You: how old are you?

Adamo: Less than 30, but older than 22. You?

You: Since you’re being vague, i will say the same.

Adamo: That’s good, though I am slightly disappointed that you really aren’t a milf bot.

You found yourself relaxing at the small exchange of information. While you still had so much more to learn about him, it was slightly reassuring to know that you were at least in the same age group.

You: i’m sorry. How can i make this grave injustice up to you?

Adamo: Let me buy you dinner?

You read the message over and over, your heart rushing as you moved to type a reply. Your first thought was excitement - it was strange, you felt like you knew Adamo though you really didn’t know a thing about him. The second thought was apprehension. You didn’t know a thing about him other than his age.

You: okay

You had replied before your brain had even caught up. It was reckless of you, so inconceivably stupid and dangerous, but you had always trusted your gut, some people ran on logic, you ran on instinct and everything was telling you that this was the right choice.

Adamo: There's a chinese place near me, are you near San Diego?

You: yeah i am, should i get your number?

Adamo: We can talk on here, I’m always online anyway. I need to go now, but we can talk later and plan?

You: okay, speak soon

The rest of the day had sped in, you had managed to stream and for the first time in a while, you were excited and actually enjoyed what you were doing. You hadn’t realised that feeling had been missing until you felt it again. It was just a burst of energy around you, every nerve in your body just buzzing with positivity.

It wasn’t long before the night had come again, the small lamp in the corner the only light source as the rest of the living room was shrouded in darkness. Grabbing your laptop from it’s usual resting place of the coffee table, you opened it up and smiled at the new message from Adamo. It was an address and a time. You would be meeting him tomorrow at 5pm. Clenching your hands in excitement and letting out a small squeal, you replied that you were looking forward to it. It was finally happening.

Waking up was not an easy task that morning. You hadn’t slept particularly well, whether it was due to nerves or excitement, you weren’t sure. You had texted a friend nearby the address and time, and told them that you would text them to let you know that all was good. You had a good feeling about the day.

Staring at your closet, you realised that it had been so long since you had been on a date, that you weren’t sure what to wear. You had already looked up the restaurant - and the menu, and it wasn’t a particularly fancy place. Selecting a simple dress and some ankle boots, you went and prepared to get ready and soon it was time to meet Adamo.

As you drove up to the address, you could feel your heart start to beat wildly in your chest, your throat was dry as you swallowed in a feeble attempt to quell your nerves. You checked yourself in the car mirror, fixing a stray hair back into place, and sprayed yourself with perfume. It was now or never. Adamo had advised he would be at the back of the restaurant, reading a book. Walking in, the smell of food instantly made your stomach growl and you really hoped that the date would go well so you could get something to eat at least. You could make out someone at the back of the room, their head buried in a book, and you took a deep breath as you walked shakily towards them.

“Adamo?” you asked tentatively. He put down the book, and your heart dropped down past your stomach and onto the floor.

“Corpse?!”

“YN?!”

Your face was red hot with mortification as you looked at him, his face no doubt a mirror image of your own. You exhaled shakily, a rush of different feelings attacking your brain at once. No wonder he had felt so familiar, like you had known him for longer than the two conversations you had had.

“Oh god,” you said, grabbing the half drank glass of wine that was in front of him, and taking a gulp. It wasn’t nice, you hated wine, but you really needed a drink. Maybe this was all a dream, and you were still in bed.

“What are you doing here?” Corpse asked, and you knew then that this was really happening. Your mysterious stranger was actually your very close friend.

You looked at him incredulously. “I came for the spring rolls. What do you think I’m doing here?!”

He sighed, “Right. Stupid question.”

You nodded in agreement, still too stunned to fully speak. “I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going home.” You ignored the harsh sting of tears that threatened to fall. You felt so stupid; for once in so long, you were hopeful and excited about something, at the prospect that you might have found someone. Because that’s why you joined, to find your person.

“Wait,” Corpse said, reaching out to grab your wrist, his fingers cold against your warm skin as they moved to hold your hand to stop you. “We can still have dinner.”

You looked down at his hand on yours, before looking at his face. He looked almost nervous as he waited for your response, was he wanting this to be a date? His hand hadn’t left yours, and it was confusing in how it felt almost right. You sat down, ignoring the way your heart almost soared as he smiled at you. Had he always smiled at you like that? Like you were the best person he had ever seen.

You ordered food, and made conversation, the previous disappointment had disappeared and you felt almost content as you looked over at Corpse, the candlelight making him look ethereal. He was incredibly attractive, you had always known that. Not only was he attractive, he was funny and attentive. You wondered why he had joined a dating site when he could find someone by simply existing.

“It’s hard to find someone that doesn’t just see Corpse Husband the famous streamer,” he said as you asked. You understood that, you understood a lot of things about him, and vice versa. You really were kindred spirits, he had all the things you didn’t realise you were missing in life.

“You need to find someone that just sees you for you,” you replied.

“Like who? I don’t know if you’ve noticed that I don’t have a lot of people that see me just for me,” he said, a tone of bitterness to his words. You mulled over your next words, hesitating as your brain tried to find logic against the instinct of your heart.

“I do,” you said quietly, looking down at the table. It was silent for too long, and you looked back up to find him staring at you intently. The way he looked at you was like you were a sum that needed to be figured out, like he was processing you with every movement of his eyes. The intenseness made you blush, though you never broke his gaze.

“You do,” he repeated slowly, almost as if he was questioning it. “Would you like this to be a date?”

You grinned, “We’ve already finished the meal, so I guess this is a date.”

Taking a sip from his glass, he chewed his bottom lip. It was something he did when he was nervous, and you always scolded him for doing so, threatening that he would have no lips left if he kept chewing them. “Would you like to go on another?”

You reached across the table to take the hand that was resting on the tablecloth, “I would like that very much."

You looked down at your hand on top of his. Maybe you had already found your person.

[raindownforme]

Crush

Charlie Slimecicle x Reader [she/her used]

It had been hours since y/n had started her stream. At the beginning of it she’d been working on the origins SMP and grinding at gathering supplies and resources while everyone else was off doing other things. A few times someone had popped onto the VC she sat in, Niki had talked while eating dinner and Ranboo had came to recount his day, but otherwise she had remained alone in the beginning.

But it had been several hours since then. Now it was 3 going on 4 in the morning. She sat curled up on her gaming chair, her eyelids just barely staying open. She was exhausted, but she was determined to stay awake until someone else started streaming. To pass the time, y/n had been interacting with chat and reading aloud donations.

“Hello?” A voice came through her headphones and she jumped, nearly falling out of her seat. “y/n?”

“Oh! Philza!” He chuckled a bit. Her voice sounded light and she began to yawn halfway through her sentence. “How nice to see you. What are you doing up?”

“Well it’s roughly noon for me and I was about to start streaming.”

“Ah. Of course.” She began to tap at some buttons, readying to move around her audience.

“Have you been awake for long?”

“Yeah. But I had a few people visit me.” As the notification of Phil going live dropped, she sent everyone over with a wave. “Niki and Ran came by.”

“Aw you sound disappointed.”

“Well I wanted somebody to come by but I guess he was too busy.”

Philza laughed again. “Yeah? And who’s somebody?”

In her stupor she giggled and winked towards a camera that wasn’t on anymore. “I can’t tell you who I have a crush on.”

The man froze, watching his chat go by a mile a minute. They kept throwing names around, even if they didn’t make sense, and he knew this wouldn’t end up any where good if it progressed. “Is it alright if we talk about this later? Why don’t you get some sleep.”

She yawned and stretched. She slowly went to get out of her chair. “Alright dad. Goodnight. I love you.”

“Love you too.” The discord call made the familiar noise of someone disconnecting and y/n turned off her display. She went and slunk into her bed, nesting underneath the covers, and quickly drifted to sleep.

———

y/n woke up a few hours later. As she sat up the first thing she did was reach for her phone to see a missed call from Ranboo. She went to call back and he picked up almost immediately.

“You are so dumb.”

She groaned and wiped at the sleep in her eyes. “Can I be awake for five minutes first.”

“No actually. You’re trending on Twitter.”

She squinted, trying to recall anything. “Did I do something bad? Was it last night or....?”

“It wasn’t like. Bad. But it was last night. You told Phil on live that you have a crush on someone.”

She paused, feeling her face grow warm with embarrassment. “Did I say who it was?”

“No you didn’t.” She sighed and felt herself relax a bit. “But they’re trying to figure it out. You didn’t make it very hard.”

“Well I didn’t say a name.”

“Yeah so you let them pick from the six men your age who have been on this server. Like I said you’re dumb.”

She sat up and got out of her bed, letting Ranboo sit next to her on speaker. She went to her desk and booted up her computer. She pulled up twitch on one monitor and Twitter on another. Loading up the streaming site, she sorted through all of us Phil’s new clips to look for last night. She found it quickly and began playing it.

“Have you been awake long?”

“Yeah. But I had a few people come visit me.... Niki and Ran came by.”

“Aw you sound disappointed.”

“Well I wanted somebody to come by but I guess he was too busy.”

Philza’s laugh echoed through her monitor’s speakers. “Yeah? And who’s that somebody?”

“I can’t tell you who I have a crush on.”

The clip ended with Philza glancing wide eyed between the camera and his computer monitors. y/n sighed and looked over at her other monitor. Her twitch name was trending. She clicked on the tag and scrolled through countless tweets of clips of her and other boys from the Origins SMP. There were ones of her and Jack, her and Charlie, her and Wilbur, her and Sneeg, and even her and Tommy or Tubbo. She took the time to respond to ones of her and the younger boys, emphasizing that if anyone was going to speculate anything it wasn’t going to be with her and children.

“Ran, what do I do?”

“Ignore it? It’s not like you have an actual crush on any one right?”

She paused, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Ran..”

“Oh! Oh my god!” He started laughing and y/n could hear him fall from his chair onto the floor. He kept laughing as he got up. “Oh please tell me who it is-“

“No! I’m an adult! I don’t have crushes on boys.”

“Oh that is fake!” He kept laughing and y/n rested her head in her hands. “You know you might as well tell me who it is.”

“Yeah fucking right.”

“I’ll black mail you.”

“No you won’t!”

“I’ll show Tubbo your number and he’ll leak it.”

“To who.”

“The discord.”

y/n rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah yeah. When are you getting on.”

“An hour-ish.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Alright byeeeeeee.”

Ranboo ended the call and y/n sighed. If she told Ranboo who she liked, he’d eventually tell Tubbo, who’d eventually tell Tommy, until he told someone and so on so forth. They were teenage boys. It wasn’t a very lucrative group. And Tommy seemed to record with Charlie almost every week. It seemed impossible to get by without disrupting something.

y/n went on to busy herself around her home for the next hour or so, doing some cleaning and other chores that had to be done. When she finished, she made her way to her pc to begin recording. She wasn’t planning on a live stream today, but a recording session would still do her channel good.

As she sat to boot up Mojang, she pulled up discord on her second monitor. She saw the kids already in a call; Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo.

“Hey boys.” She slipped on her headphones as she entered the call, but they were all yelling.

“DON’T YELL AT ME.”

“I’L YELL AT WHOEVER I WANT WHEN I KNOW I’M RIGHT.”

“ARE YOU TOMMY? ARE YOU RIGHT?”

“Hi y/n.” Both boys stopped yelling as Tubbo pointed out that she had arrived. “Ranboo’s live by the way.”

“Thanks Tubbo. Are you guys on origins?”

“Yep!”

“Great, I’ll be on in a sec.” As she opened the world, she spawned somewhere she didn’t remember. It was dark around her, like she was swallowed by obsidian. “Uhhh, boys? I might be stuck.”

“I told you! I told you I was right! Chat tell Ranboo he’s an idiot!” Tommy started yelling again as Ranboo tried to tell him to shut up.

“That doesn’t explain why I’m surrounded by obsidian. I don’t have a pick!”

“Well, y/n,” she looked over to her discord call to see all the boys had their cameras on now. They all sat with their hands crossed while wearing sunglasses. Ranboo had his full mask on. Meaning he probably had camera on for his stream. Tubbo cleared his throat as he kept talking. “We have some questions for you.”

“If I answer can I get out of here?”

“If you answer honestly.” Ranboo leaned forwards a bit. “You told Philza Minecraft you had a crush on someone, correct?”

“Yeah. Sure. Might I add you’re all immature?”

“Is this crush, a man? Hmm?” Tommy tipped his sunglasses downwards slightly.

“Yes. How many more questions?”

“You’re not done. Is it someone on this server?”

“Does that matter Tubbo?”

“YES.” All the boys shouted in unison.

“Jeez fine. He has played on multiple servers, this could be one of them.”

Tommy slammed his fist on his desk. “HONESTY.”

“YES. HE IS.”

Ranboo gave a fake evil chuckle. “So it’s someone we know. A man we know. A gamer we know. One of us.”

“Yeah yeah.” y/n quickly pulled up twitch on her third monitor, making sure that he wasn’t watching Ranboo’s stream.

“Now y/n. I’m muted on my stream right now. Is it Wilbur?”

“Uhh…” He was there. He was watching the stream. Whatever she answered, he’d know.

“Wilbur! It’s Wilbur!” The boys started cheering as she realized that she didn’t quite answer. But as long as Charlie didn’t know the truth.

“Yeah. Can I come out now?” She watched charlie’s name disappear from the chat. In her game, Ranboo’s character came over to set her free from the obsidian.

“Thank you for your honesty.”

“Yeah no worries. I’ll see you later boys.” She logged out of the server and scooted away from the monitors. She knew she made a bigger problem for herself.

She walked over to her bedside table, taking her phone off the charge, and went to face time Wilbur. He picked up quickly, holding the phone extremely close to his face.

“y/n!”

“Are you streaming?”

“No not at the moment.”

“Great because I fucked something up.”

“Oooooh tell me.” Wilbur propped up his phone in front of him and took a drink of something in a mug.

“So the children- did you see the clip from Phil’s stream?”

“Absolutely. Continue.”

“They went and cornered me into telling who my crush is. And they said you and I was distracted so they assumed you-“

“Is it me?”

“No fuck off. But now everyone thinks it’s you and even worse, the actual person was watching! He thinks I have a crush on you and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

Wilbur nodded. “Well who is?”

y/n pursed her lips, thinking for a moment before admitting the truth out loud for the first time. “Charlie.”

Wilbur froze, then scrambled to pick up his phone. “I have to go.”

“WILBUR NO.”

The line went dead from Wilbur’s end and y/n groaned, chucking her phone against her pillows. She rubbed at her eyes with her palms, deciding she might as well continue recording.

y/n logged back onto the Origins server, keeping herself out of the active discord calls. She could see that the three boys were still in a call, and Wilbur was talking with Philza. She rolled her shoulders back, getting into the mindset to record.

“Hey everybody!” y/n went on start the recording, talking mostly to herself about finishing construction on her house. It was quite a tall house, built of mostly stone and cobble, but she was still proud of it. The bottom two floors were reserved for storage and mining, and there was one room of entirely water for Niki. The top floor was a large spread patio frames in by dark oak fencing with a glass roof surrounded by dark oak half slabs. Her being a skeleton in the game, having a vantage point helped her snipe enemy mobs. It was also conviennent for attacking creepers to get music discs. She had quite the collection growing already.

“Okay so if I-“ y/n paused, looking over at her other monitor. In the main chat of the Origins SMP server, Wilbur had a sent a singular message.

WilburSoot: dress formally for an event in 2 hours time hosted at the Pubé

y/n took a breath, a bit nervous of what that meant, but still responded to let him know she would be there. In the meantime, she continued on her video, taking the 2 hour period to build herself a lovely garden area and an additional storage area deep underground.

“Thank you everyone! I hope to see you all soon.” She ended the recording and took a breath. There were 15 minutes until Wilbur’s event, and she supposed she had to dress nicer than her pajamas.

A moment later, she returned to her computer wearing her favorite sweater and a comfortable pair of pants. Looking over at discord, she could see most of the Origins SMP members in a discord call together, excluding only Schlatt, Technoblade, and SMajor. She took a breath, thinking for a moment, then clicked into the call.

“Hello?”

“y/n!!!” Jack’s voice screamed through her headphones.

“Sorry he’s a bit loud.”

“OI. AM NOT.”

“Come down mate.” Philza cleared his throat. “y/n. Lovely to have you.”

“Thanks Phil.”

“Before we start, no one’s live at all.”

She paused cueing up the game, her mouse hovering over the server. “Before we start what?”

No one answered. Quietly, she entered the server and made her way to the Pubé.

“Welcome to event of the century.” Ranboo’s character jumped up and down. Every one stood in the Pubé facing her.

“Alright. And what kind of event is this?”

“A ball! With food and drink provided by Philza and music provided by Tommy.” Wilbur’s character ran over to the jukebox in the corner to show her.

“That’s lovely, Will. Was I supposed to be more dressed up?”

“I think you’re perfect as is.” Charlie’s character jumped up and down. She paused, trying to swallow the giddy feeling rising in her chest.

“Let’s begin! Tommy, the music?” Wilbur turned the the teen as he placed the music discs. y/n watched everyone pair off, leaving her and Wilbur alone. Wilbur walked over to her, hitting her playfully.

“Hey Wilbur.” y/n looked over as the two went into a separate call.

“y/n!!! How are you doing? Enjoying the party?”

“Well I haven’t been here very long.” She held her hands closed over her lap. “Wilbur, I feel like there’s something going on here.”

“It’ll be fine. Trust me?”

She sighed, a smile playing at her lips. “Fine.”

“Good.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Maybe dance around a bit. I’m going to talk with Phil.”

They both left the chat, Wilbur entering a call of just him and Philza and y/n entering the main room. The music was still playing. Everyone seemed to have split off into groups, leaving her alone. She sat by herself, watching everyone mingle about. It was only her in the main call, leaving everyone else in groups, but it was nice. She turned her head to watch her second monitor, seeing Charlie move out of the call with Wilbur and Philza to the main room with herself.

“H-Hey there.” She watched Charlie’s small character bounce over to her. “How’s it hangin?”

“Oh. Uhm. Good I guess. It’s nice to see you back on the server.”

“Yeah I guess I haven’t played in a while. I mean I haven’t streamed that much either but I’ve been recording.”

“That’s nice!”

“Yeah. I mean I’ve been able to watch other streams though.”

y/n thought back Ranboo’s stream earlier in the day, knowing full well Charlie had been watching that one. “Right.”

“We don’t have to talk about it. I mean I know how you feel.”

“Oh. Oh no please tell me Wilbur didn’t say anything.” y/n rubbed at her forehead with the heel of her palms. Convincing the internet she was in love with Wilbur Soot had been a problem in its own, but Wilbur telling Charlie she had a crush on him? “Look Charlie I’m sorry I didn’t want him to tell you it’s just- god you’re so nice and funny and really cute and it’s a stupid crush I never wanted to ruin our friendship. I’m so sorry Charlie.”

The other end of the call was quiet for a moment, but then she head Charlie almost laugh. “You have a crush on me?”

The realization washed over like a tsunami. He’d been talking about the stream, Wilbur hadn’t said anything. “God no wait Charlie-“

“On me? You have a crush on me?”

“Okay now you’re just rubbing it in. I take it back.”

“You can’t take that back!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

y/n paused, a smile creeping on her face. “Are you telling me that you have a crush on me over a Minecraft server?”

“You said it first!”

She glanced over at the camera on her computer for a moment. “We could have avoided this the whole time?”

“I- yeah we could’ve.”

y/n giggled, resting her face in her hands. “Is this our first date then?

“No!” She could hear Charlie suck in a breath. “I mean, let me take you somewhere better. Just give me a few days?”

“Days? That’s speedy isn’t it?”

“Okay Maybe weeks. But I’ll take you somewhere. Anywhere. Trust me.”

“Of course.”

She could hear Charlie laugh on the other end of the call. “Until then, how much time do we have to make up for?”

She smiled, settling herself into her chair. “Charlie, more than you could ever think.”

[solomonish]

Demon Brothers Helping a Struggling MC

CW for: eating disorders (alluded to but not described - discussed in the disclaimer).

so, i want to first state that if anybody believes anything in this post is more harmful than helpful, please let me know and i will delete it. I know that for things that I deal with, fics like this are comforting, but seeing as I’ve never personally had an eating disorder or known someone with one, it’s entirely possible I missed the mark. additionally: here is a tumblr post with a variety of hotlines you can call if you need to. There are eating disorder specific hotlines for the US and UK listed, along with suicide helplines for countries around the world. if you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out and get help - especially from the professionals who know how to give the proper care. you are so worth it.

Lucifer

He keeps an eye on you, even when you don’t realize it, so he’s the first to notice that something is bothering you. Still, with how much time he spends working, it does take him a little longer than he’d like.

As solution-oriented as he is, he prefers to address you the moment he figures it out. His words are firm and straightforward - he’s not the one you want to go to if you need things put gently.

Pride is who he is, and he takes great pride in you - he makes sure to make this known. This knowledge does not make him any less proud of you, and he wants you to be able to see yourself the way he does - certainly then, you might have an easier time with the recovery process.

Even if Lucifer cannot be there directly by your side, he is always with you - in the reminders he sends you, in the rewards he promises when you make progress, in the efforts he makes to assist your transition into the Devildom. He’s the best at creating a stable environment so that you don’t have as much to focus on while he works with you to recover.

Mammon

Mammon is a hard on to hide anything from, if only because he’s around you so much. he also spends a lot of time staring after you wistfully but shhh don’t let him know you know

Still, he’s also a bit oblivious at times, so it might take him a while to notice anything is up. once he does realize that you’re struggling, he panics a bit.

Mammon brings it up himself, but only after a short while of acting antsy around you and staring more pointedly at you at random points throughout the day. he’s clumsy in his approach, but careful to be sensitive: he’s used to being told how often he messes things up, and this is one thing he WANTS to get right.

Mammon has a way of making you feel in control - with the way he allows you to tell him what you need, with the way he isn’t too pushy in helping you through rockier days of your recovery. He wants to be able to be YOUR man, your go-to guy for anything, and he’ll make absolutely sure to get it right.

Leviathan

Levi has a million things to distract himself from the world around him, so bringing him into reality can take a while.

However, he can also tell when somebody else is uncomfortable - whether it’s a facet of his pact or he’s just in tune with his best friend, he isn’t sure.

He’s the type to go to sites like reddit and ask for first-person experience advice. The clinical advice seems stuffy and he isn’t sure if he can be trusted with such formal advice.

His strong suit is distraction, so if you’re okay with it, that how he’ll help you. If anything in your recovery gets too much, he’s there to help shift your focus. He’s also good with helping you stick to some kind of schedule, if that helps you out. After all, he sticks to one religiously to catch all his shows - he’ll rearrange it for you if you need it.

Satan

Satan is perceptive, but he’s not immune to overthinking. The fact that you came to the Devildom, something to be wary of yet somehow becoming something so treasured so quickly, catches him off guard and he still has to reconcile his feelings with how he watches you.

When he does find out and realizes how long he’s gone without noticing, he’s angry with himself. He’s supposed to be the smart one, the perceptive one, and he missed something so important.

He’ll read up on everything he can in order to give you the best support. Satan will also up his attentiveness, making sure to notice any little thing you may need that you don’t want to tell him about.

Aside from maybe having to let him know to back off a bit, Satan will probably be the most likely to just intuitively know what you need. He still communicates everything with you, and he makes for good company, whatever type you may need.

Asmodeus

Asmo’s favorite things to take pictures of are as follows: himself, you, and the most aesthetically pleasing desserts he can find. When you start shying away from two of those, he wonders briefly what made you so camera shy but normally turns the camera on himself and shrugs it off. maybe you feel like you’re having a bad hair day?

Once it does dawns on him that perhaps it’s something more serious, he’ll immediately ask you how he can help. He’s holding you gently as he does, using his softest voice - he almost sounds timid, and maybe he has to be, to deal with the amount of love he’s feeling for you and only you.

You might have to tell him to ease up on the overt compliments about how you look or talking about buying clothes and “form fitting” shapes, and thought he’ll have a learning curve he’ll find lots of different ways to make sure you feel loved! He’ll take a page from your book and start complimenting things like how sweet you are, or how smart he thinks you are - things about the you inside of you that have his heart racing when you say them back.

Asmo knows a lot about the pressure to look a certain way, so even though he lives by feeding into what those people want, he’ll always back out if it gets too much for you. If it’s alright with you, you can always be his favorite photographer <3

Beelzebub

When he’s eating, he doesn’t always focus on what other people are eating. (honestly, it only makes him hungrier). However, when he offers some of his food to you - a move anybody will tell you is the most affectionate thing he can do - and you refuse, he starts to worry.

At first, he wonders if you’re upset with him - and once he finds out the real reason, he doesn’t feel much more satisfied.

Beel’s best effort is trying to structure mealtimes more so instead of gorging himself throughout the day he eats meals. He also never judges or comments on what you do or don’t eat - he just does his best to make sure you have any option you want.

Beel’s strongest suit is comfort - he’ll agree with anything you do want to eat and will get rid of anything you don’t without judgement. He’s also pretty good with knowing the nutritional value of food - if you’re interested, he’d be more than happy to help you plan meals that have what you want and what you need, without making it seem too daunting a task.

Belphegor

Belphegor doesn’t pick up on a lot of things because he’s asleep most of the day. He does, however, spend a lot of his conscious hours with you, and eventually (maybe with some innocent prompting from Beel) he’ll realize that you’re starting to behave differently.

Will straight up ask you about it until he knows you’re being completely honest with him. What he lacks in tact he makes up for in dedication - he wants to help you, and his apathetic front allows him to help without seeming too involved to the point it makes you uncomfortable.

Belphegor can help you feel a sense of normalcy if you ever get overwhelmed or disconnected. He can continue conversations about really anything and help give you a moment to recuperate and breathe.

That’s not to say he isn’t proactive in your recovery. Anything you tell him or anything he brings to the table to brainstorm, he’ll say at the end of the conversation “let me sleep on it” and when he wakes up again he’ll have several game plans ready to see which helps you most in your recovery.

All

if one of them catches wind, it’s only a matter of time until the others notice how something’s changed between you and that brother

all of them will advocate for you to have easier access to the human world for therapy (in their own ways, some more helpful than others), should you choose to go. if not, they’ll all do their best to be a comforting ear when you need one.

sometimes you can find them all in the library, not discussing what you’ve told them but trying to figure out how best to communicate how much they care. (it’s one of the few times you can see them actually working together)

whoever had grocery duty or dinner duty will often check in with you to see if you have any special requests. if you mention wanting a specific snack or something throughout the day, you might end up with seven packages of it within 24 hours. (they’re all trying).

little by little, you’ll also notice how they stop fighting as much at the table. meals become more fun and enjoyable affairs, even if there’s been a disagreement earlier in the day. the brothers are all on their best behavior, and lucifer doesn’t even make any comments wondering why they won’t act that way for diavolo.

[solbaeish]

⌠ MANNY JACINTO, 37, CISMALE, HE/HIM⌡ have you seen ALAB “AL” DELA CRUZ? Word on the street is that they’re STILL in Soleida Bay after all of these years. THE COVE must not be so bad, huh? I guess they’re a SCAMMER/BARTENDER AT FOXY’S now… But the slasher doesn’t seem to mind! People are saying they’re CAREFREE and CHARISMATIC, but the DISCONNECTED and IRRATIONAL kind of cancels that out, doesn’t it? Either way, we hope they/“ live to see another day.

Name: Alab Dela Cruz Alias: Al, AB, Del Age:37 D.O.B: July 25th Pronouns: he/him Gender: cismale Relationship Status: Single Sexual Orientation: Bisexual Profession: Scammer/Bartender at Foxy's

Alab grew up bring the middle born of three siblings. He's estranged from his family having gone down a path they say is self destructive. He has spent most of his. years in Soleida Bay, and when the murders started it didn't phase him. Everyone dies, and he could care less if he was next on the list.

Most locals know of Al's schemes and his lowly dealings within the cove. Money talks and therefore he does whatever he needs to. He has no remorse of the lengths he'll go to lie. To new tourists, he says he's the owner of the Belleza Bonfire Site, and charges them tickets for entry. Though this is entirely false and it's a free place to be. Broke your phone? He can help secure a new one, just don't ask for details if you want to stay innocent. Did you hear about the Blaze festival? Yeah, it doesn't actually exist - but he's selling tickets for it. Need a hookup? Find Al.

It's a joke that he has slept with fifty percent of the island. He races away from commitment, and it's a fact that he has never lasted past 49 days being in a relationship. These are hard things to figure out about Al, because when you first meet him it's hard to see the devil that lurks in the details.

Wanted Connections/ Plot Ideas: Partner in crime - Someone that doesn't mind getting their hands dirty with him. Small crimes, large crimes, they split the cash and on the outside - they're best friends. ( 0/1 )

Deer in the headlights - Someone that always catches his questionable deals at the wrong or right time. They've even citizen arrested him before. Al looks at it like a game of tag. ( 0/1)

Roommate - They either know the money he gives them is somewhat dirty, or they're in the dark. They know just enough that Al is trouble, but just how much trouble? (0/1)

Exes - Congratulations you made it possibly up to 49 days before Al cut the chord. It likely didn't end pretty, and there's still a bit of salt left. (0/???)

Rival - Perhaps one time they were exes, and maybe they got 1 hour away from day 50. Perhaps he was introduced to their sibling and they were an a 49 day exe. Something about this duo stuck, and the hateship between them is real. He's done something to get under their skin and vice versa. It's a blame game, and they can't stand one another. So they HAVE to outdo the other in everything. (0/1) Regulars - Regulars at Foxy where he bartends. Doesn't mean he won't try to scam them. Scammed - People he is currently scamming or has scammed in the past.

Cunning Understudy - Someone he's taken under his wing to show how to get money - the easy way. Early Dynamic - people that would have grown up with him, or have dealt with him since he was a young scammer.

Any other plots you can think of shoot me a msg!

[energyanon]

Henry Family Reading (+DG)

Just going to ask that no one reblogs this one, only reason being - If it were to get outside of this blog and god forbid to any of the fam through gossip sites sharing, I feel like it wouldn’t be too nice to know what certain Family members thought of you, you know what I mean?

Note: NV + DG were right next to each other. DG was put down after Natalie and it felt like they were one. Which I just wanted to note cause it was interesting. I took them both out until I was done with fam though, as to not mess with the fam dynamic.

Also please note that when it comes to these, they aren’t the surface interactions that you will see with one another, these are a deeper level, taking in consideration past memories, traumas etc rather than how they may interact with one another in their day to day. Eg. My dad and I talk every so often, there’s never any fights or anything happening - but if you went into a reading with us, you’d see me have incredible anger towards him, and a huge disconnect between the two of us. So even though we talk and share things with each other in day to day, there’s alot of deeper stuff there. So think about it on perhaps a “therapy” level, just before you get to the crux of the issue. Also this is LOoonnnnnggggg. So get a treat and strap yo selves in. 

Just so it makes more sense for you guys, this is how everyone is placed:

HC:

Quite anxious, feels like he’s being put on trial in the middle of the ring. No one is comforting to him at the moment. Mum is distant, Charlie, he feels a connection to but Charlie isn’t looking his way, Nik is the closest and is paying attention but HC doesn’t really want him to, he just wants Charlie’s attention. Simon is actually paying attention to HC but HC looked at Simon like “oh fuck, you’re here! Didn’t see you there” as in Simon feels a lot smaller than HC not quite as significant. HC doesn’t see dad at all, just piers. HC Feels that piers and dad are best buddies and he can’t get to dad when piers is there. He actually doesn’t like simon’s attention and rather it wasn’t on him at all. He doesn’t want to move, but if he could move, it would be behind Nik, but he wants to get Charlie’s attention first.

Charlie:

Smug as anything. Feels childish too. He’s  feels confident and smug that he’s mums favourite :) mum is also closest to him on the field. He thinks Mum worries and cares more for him than any of the others. He sees HC is looking at him but out of spite he doesn’t wanna look, cause then HC wins. He doesn’t really want to look anyway, it’s a game to him, and he has no interest. He’s so smug. It feels like a little kid you know when they do the finger on the nose thing and go “nah nah nah nah nah nah” in a really mocking way? That’s what he’s doing to HC, but not AT him cause he doesn’t want HC to have his attention but he’s thinking it.

Why did you post the wedding thing?

To fuck with him.

Why? Didn’t you think it would cause him strife?

He scoffed. No it was fucking funny. They were in on it (the groom)

(The image he gave was that Charlie’s friends don’t seem to like HC for whatever reason)

Why don’t they like him?

What he did

How?

He fucked me over (EA note: that didn’t feel like it was true)

How did he fuck you over?

Money.

(EAN: Once again doesn’t feel like it’s true, feels like Charlie wanted money and didn’t get it and HC and him fought over that.)

Yeah... he wanted MORE money. THAT felt true.

I don’t actually like Charlie’s energy atm I’m gonna move to someone else cause it feels really manipulative and greedy

Mother:

Immediate thought was a tired concern “the boys are fighting”. The tone of that was “Again” 

She thinks Charlie is the catalyst but he’s also the youngest and the image is of her comforting Charlie.

“Henry should know better”

She feels like Henry is teasing him but not with words but with.. promises? I cant quite get through to what she means cause she doesn’t seem to believe it herself.. she doesn’t think HC is being vindictive, but mean. “You know Charlie can’t have what you have stop stringing him along”

She wants Piers to take care of it.

I’m looking around to see what she thinks of the rest of them as she has her back towards the rest of the boys.

Nik is her “good boy”

Simon once again is “oh you’re here too”

Dad was just “hello darling.” But dead pan as anything. Dad does what he likes she kind of rolled her eyes at that. Charlie is her baby. She wants to squish his cheeks.

She actually wants to move closer to Charlie and give him a snuggle.

OHFUC. I looked at Henry and the one word to come up was “pathetic” with a sneer 😬

Why pathetic?

I don’t want to talk about it.

Why is he pathetic to you?

She gave images of career, there was a flash of a blonde woman but mostly the thought was “weak”

How is he weak?

Emotionally. She sees him as a guy who is folding in on himself and crumbling.

She sees him like this:

But more sad (couldn’t find the photo and didn’t want to spend ages on it it’s just for your guises reference)

Why don’t you give him more love, maybe its what he needs?

He doesn’t deserve it (EA Note: At this point I was a little triggered, I have a huge issue with mothers acting this way, and I got a bit defensive on HC’s behalf, that’s my bad)

What do you mean, you are his mother??

She didn’t feel like I deserved an explanation.

No wonder your son is so fucked up he can’t even cry

Good I taught him not to.

(I called her stone cold and she agreed with me but I’m moving on now cause I am clearly triggered by cold mothers 😅)

What do you think of NV?

Pathetic as well as a sling of words that says she’s a tacky American (and otherwords that are degrading to women)

I’m moving on from Mother because she’s just giving nothing but mean girls.

NIK:

Nik really likes Henry! The immediate feeling is absolute joy and love. Nik feels the same age as Henry too it’s like when he and HC are together they’re little twins. It feels young! Kind of like Henry come play with me :) Henry I love you :) Henry!!

(aw guys he really loves his brother I’m getting emotional.)

Like he’s so happy to see him and wants him to be well and wants to give him a hug and it’s so genuine and kind and wants Henry to stay over and be safe and ok 🥺

(My fricken little heart I can’t)

Yeah the feeling is almost overwhelming. He adores his little brother.

He gives a polite nod to Simon but doesn’t really connect with him like he does Henry, Charlie he’s nice to but he’s a bit cautious of him I think in relation to Henry, and piers is super big brother status to Nik. Nik has a lot of images of the boys playing when they were younger and that’s really cute he’s just bombarding me with them. He does really like Piers too but Piers is very much a big brother to him. He respects him a lot and his authority.

Nik actually has quite a young-ness about him when it comes to his brothers. But he seems to feel like the boys are their own little cohort and the parents aren’t really on it. Like they’re their own squad. They have to look out for each other

(OH MY GOD I GOT A VISION OF TINY BABY BOYS HOLDING HANDS WITH GIANT BACKPACKS GOING TO SCHOOL. STOP IT.)

Nik, as soon as he looks at dad his childishness goes away and gets very serious. It’s a “sir” type of relationship.

Even his posture straightened.

He’s a little bit fearful of dad. Not so much in an abuse way but in a “we must respect dad” way.

And it seems that Piers is there to make sure it happens.

With Mum, there’s a bit of sadness it doesn’t seem like there was much attention from mum, and that’s where he feels that he and HC are the same.

Simon to Nik is almost transparent. Not that Nik doesn’t see him, but more like Simon doesn’t want to be seen and doesn’t involve himself in family things. Nik likes Simon and wishes he was around more but seems to understand that Simon wants his space from the family and that’s ok. But he sees Simon more than anyone else has at this point.

(Guys I might be a fan of Nik, he’s really nice)

How does Nik view NV?

He’s not as happy to see her. Actually not really happy to see her at all, he keeps nervously flickering to HC and is protective of him, but is also keeping his distance. he won’t intrude on anything. “If that’s what Henry wants”

Do you think HC loves her?

No.

Then why are you ok with this?

Henry is going through things and he needs support and I will support him. (He actually gave me absolute word vomit on basically how concerned he was about HC’s wellbeing etc and gave alot of images of a pretty much broken man but I couldn’t write it all down so I’m just giving you the spark notes version)

Do you think NV is the one?

Fuck no. If he’s going to be with anyone she’s going to be kind.

(Nik also gives me alot more words than anyone else ever has? It’s bizzare)

I said do you imagine a housewife for him?

He said no Henry likes women.

We know he likes women

He likes women as in he wouldn’t treat them like that

(Me: am shook) you think?

He wouldn’t. Not with the right one. I don’t think he has ever. Flirtations maybe, but with his girlfriends when it’s serious. He likes them.

“Likes”… isn’t really… equality? Does he treat them well?

As well as he can

Given…?

The circumstances (family)

And what are those

Tradition. He won’t fight anyone on it at the table. But privately. He cares.

(I’m letting my own opinion of this go, moving on)

What do you want for Henry?

(He was very sad about this) I want him to be loved. By someone who actually cares about him.

Do you think he’ll ever have that?

I don’t know

Why wouldn’t he?

He’s… complicated. But a good guy.

(He seems to truly want me to know that he’s a GOOD guy he put a lot of emphasis on that)

Ok thank you Nik I’m letting you go now :)

You’re welcome :)

(I’ve never closed one off like that before but that felt like a real ass conversation so idk it was polite???? Nik is throwing me for a LOOP here)

SIMON:

Simon is interesting he is standing statue still. He is not looking at anyone other than NV. Who I placed when I asked Nik about her.

He is watching her. He’s waiting for her to make a move so he can take her down. It’s not a dislike. It’s a “watch it” very serious. When he looks at Henry. He likes Henry, that’s it. The only emotion that comes up is “watch it Natalie.”

He’ll protect Henry with every inch of him.

He sees Nik and smiles immediately, there’s fond feelings there, a head nod to Nik too. Nik feels like the mediator of the family to him. Nik looks after them all. Makes sure they’re all ok.

Simon does not like mum. Ok. Good to know.

Simon gets the same feelings from dad. Must respect dad. Doesn’t seem to like him much but likes him a hell of a lot more than mum.

Piers is also to be respected but Simon is deflated with him. He feels like he’s constantly being stepped on. He looks at Charlie with a disappointed head shake. Charlie is troublesome.

He’s not giving me anything else.

PIERS:

Very proud. Standing tall.

He feels like a prince in which dad is the king, and piers is the next in line to the dynasty. He feels close to dad. Makes dad proud. Looks straight ahead, great posture, very stoic. He listens to dad. I got the image of him being little with his dad and it was very mentor-like. Dad taught him alot. He doesn’t really look at the rest of the family. It’s him and dad, if he looks at the rest of them he’ll lose focus on the future. He acknowledges Simon but pats him on the head. Acknowledges Nik with a small smile (seems Nik is friendly with everyone)

Henry the immediate thought for him was “ugh” disappointing.

He sees Charlie as really little.

Mum, he doesn’t really pay attention to. It’s him and dad. But once again even with all of this, it was him thinking about the boys, not actually turning to them. He is statuesque and staring at the future and the future is some kind of family dynasty or something?

He gives literally 0 thought to NV.

“She’s not apart of this.”

Other than that there’s nothing from him.

Henry’s dad:

Very much identical to piers. Even towards his wife he seems to barely look at her. He has the same position, looking in the same direction. Very stoic. “Legacy” is the word for him.

When he looks at NV it’s “if Henry wants to fuck around that’s on him” when he looks at Henry it’s just that “Henry can do better” in a disapproving way. Not in relation to NV, but as in Henry can do better just in life.

He looks at Simon “Simon is a good kid. I wish he wasn’t so stunted though” (he actually said the R word but I redacted that cause what the fuck?) seems like that’s a joke that is made often in private. But the image I got of how he views Simon is that he’s like the hermit card. He seems to have a weird interest that he focuses on and so the family are like ?? Ok leave Simon alone to his weird little hobby. But he does like the kid. Just.. Simon is not piers...

Nik is also a great kid to him and he likes him alot. Same feeling as what Simon got for him, that he’s the mediator.

A certain fondness for Charlie but looks at him like he’s a literal child. Not in an insulting way, in like “that’s my little boy” kind of way.

Do you think it’s Charlie’s fault for what happened with Henry?

It’s Henry’s fault.

Why?

He shouldn’t have teased him.

(EA NOTE: what the fuck do they MEAN?!)

Why do you seem to be so disappointed in Henry?

He can do better

He’s a literal movie star

A b rate one.

A MILLIONARE? And successful?

Omg he literally said “porn stars can be millionaires too it doesn’t make them successful”

He seems to be more concerned with Henry’s status and “legacy” than his money.

HC:

All that being said and done, HC really wants Charlie to look at him.

He’s a bit sad, he seems to think he is the one who did something wrong but also knows that Charlie is acting stubborn. He’s a bit stubborn too but he’s willing to extend the olive branch but it feels like Charlie hasn’t taken it completely. Yeah this hurts him a bit ,the fact that him and Charlie aren’t best buddies anymore. Charlie was his little brother and he’s sad. Henry looks at his mum as though he’s expectant that she’s gonna chew him out and he’s not sad about that, more just “ok ready to take it” there is a bit of fear there. He doesn’t like it but he feels like she’s gone chew his ear off so he has to be respectful and just take it. There’s no real connection to mum though like he doesn’t turn to her for comfort at all. He won’t move towards her, he doesn’t want to move towards her. He honestly seems a bit scared of being close to her. He does find Simon a bit more comforting now. He knows that Simon has his back, but still not a huge connection. Piers again, is big brother to him. You respect piers, piers has authority. The boys listen to him. Henry feels very much like a child looking up at his big brother when he’s looking at piers. When it comes to his father there are some very sweet moments that popped up. (More like photographs of HC being in his lap and his dad is showing him something outside) but otherwise there’s almost a complete disconnect from dad. The only thing that came up was “i wish I was enough for you”

His movement was to move behind Nik so I’ll do that for him

As soon as HC moved behind Nik, Nik turned around to face him and Nik is very happy to have him close. HC feels much more comforted being this close and once again feels like a little brother who’s awaiting for Nik to tell him what they’re going to play 🥺

They bring out the boys in each other omg 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Henry does feel a bit shy and defeated by the rest of the family but it feels like he feels like nik has his back and they can just hang out together if they want. Nik is going to take care of him :)

He doesn’t want to fully trust nik though. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in this family that he trusts completely but out of all of them, he feels the most comfortable and cared for around nik.

And that’s the only movement I have there.

Just because she is in the field at the moment, what the hell, lets do: NV:

NV IS SCARED SHITLESS OF HIS FAMILY.

even with Nik, she’s side eyeing the fuck out of him. she is not comfortable and with Henry’s back to her she’s not feeling good at all.

She’s stuck to the ground. “Maybe if I don’t move they won’t notice me”

She looked at his mum and was immediately like “fuck! LOOK FORWARD” like someone who is about to get chewed out entirely.

She feels comfortable with NONE of them.

Ok placing DG now.

DG Is holding hands with NV.

DG is NV’s ROCK.

Natalie seems anxious and saying “it’s not a good idea”, DG reassured her that it’s a good idea. DG is very set on NV and I’m not sure what the reason is

DG will protect NV. (EAN: Are they friends?)

OHMYGOSBDOWNS

i asked are you friends she said

Nope. It’s just a business transaction.

For Henry?

No.

For you?

Yes.

What do you mean?

Good planning.

For what?

Company

She genuinely won’t give me anything else. She’s closed off to any other questions but she is holding on to Natalie

She says that Henry is a means to an end.

Henry is money.

Henry’s a handsome little fool.

Do you even like him?

As much as you can like him.

What does that mean?!

As much as you can like a guy like that (she insinuated there’s nothing in his head)

Why did you even sign Henry?

Superman.

Ok and now he’s not superman anymore?

We move on to bigger things.

Like what? he’s no Bond.

Not if I have anything to say about it

How do you plan on getting him to Bond?

I have my ways.

Is Natalie apart of that plan?

Yes.

(EA: ?????????! This is not going where I thought this would go)

Did you create NV and HC?

Yes

You got them together?

Yes

(I was going to ask why again but we already got that answer)

I’m moving NV out. This is too crazy.

Ok interesting as soon as NV was gone HC wanted to turn around to Danny. His back has been turned this whole time. OH MY GOD BECAUSE ITS BEHIND HIS BACK. FUCK! Ok that’s weird it’s almost like that whole situation was a side bar that he wasn’t included in even though he was in the field!!? BIZZARE?! Never had that happen before, sorry i’m talking to myself at the moment. 

HC:

Henry blindly trusts DG. He’s a kid waiting for instructions and things DG is got his best interests at heart.

But he is also.. waiting.. and he’s looking around because he feels like he’s been waiting a while but he trusts her. He knows she’s gonna give the goods and he’ll go off like a good little soldier to do whatever it is. The Rock also popped up. So he believes whatever she did for him, she’ll do for Henry. There have been promises made apparently.

It’s almost as if HC sees DG as a mother figure that he trusts. She’s there for him. He thinks she’s genuinely trying. And that’s all I got. No movement or anything in these readings. Usually there’s alot more movemnet. But to be fair, there was also alot of people on the field and I wasn’t trying to shift anything, just know.

1. POOR SIMON?!?!?!?!?!!

2. Guys I really had like a suss of Nik before this I was like 👀 but nope I was so wrong Nik is an absolute sweetheart omg. He has such a nice loving energy I wanna die :(

3. I would love to go deeper and see why his mum is so cold (what did her parents/husband do to her) but alas, that crosses some boundaries. I was also super unprofessional when dealing with her that’s my bad I should have been more unbiased when dealing with her. Mums are a TRIGGER FOR ME 😅

4. DG....... and NV?????????????????

[elitegymnastics]

Q: What is this?

A: It’s a flyer for a virtual fundraiser on June 4th that Elite Gymnastics is playing. You can access the show at quietyear.com

Q: Hasn’t Elite Gymnastics been inactive for like, ten years?

A: Yes. This is the first Elite Gymnastics performance of any kind since November 30th 2012, at the Horn Gallery at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. 

Q: Why did Elite Gymnastics stop playing shows?

A: Elite Gymnastics started out as me (Jaime) and a bunch of my friends agreeing to help me play my songs live back in 2009. I made a lot of weird demos in GarageBand and my friend Dominique Davis from the band Dearling Physique got tired of watching me sit on them. So, he booked me to play at a show he was curating as part of a small local music and arts festival called Clapperclaw. For several months that’s mainly what EG was. At some point the focus shifted to making recordings rather than playing shows, to participate in the emergent culture of new music distributed via MP3 file-sharing. The lineup winnowed to just me and Josh Clancy, who began creating digital EPs that we posted on this Tumblr page as ZIP files full of MP3s accompanied by a PDF of artwork. This is the incarnation of the group that most people are familiar with.

This was before Patreon existed. If Bandcamp was around, we’d never heard of it. Though MP3 file-sharing culture and file transfer sites like MediaFire and MegaUpload allowed anyone to distribute music freely across the world via the internet, it was still pretty difficult to get people to pay you for it. I think it was for this reason that a lot of internet music back then featured a lot of sampling. A lot of artists’ first forays into the world of DAWs and production took the form of mash-ups, bootleg remixes, and DJ mixes. Artists like Animal Collective, MIA, Kanye West, and Daft Punk for whom sampling was a pillar of their creative process were extremely influential. Elite Gymnastics was no exception - the first song of ours to gain traction online was “Is This On Me?” which made no attempt to hide the fact that it heavily sampled Faye Wong’s “Eyes On Me.” The fact that it was so difficult to make money off MP3s pushed people to make different creative decisions than they would have otherwise. It was sort of a free-for-all.

Eventually, all of this started to change. The major labels started getting a lot more aggressive about trying to destroy MP3 file-sharing culture. Platforms like MegaUpload were raided and taken offline. The replacements that sprung up to replace them were increasingly infested with ads and malware. Corporate platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud adopted Content ID filters to prevent the proliferation of copyrighted music there. Blogs and private torrent trackers being taken down meant thousands of hours of labor were wiped out in an instant. Some of the best archives of the history of recorded music ever created were destroyed without hesitation. Even the most devoted participants lost the will to keep repairing and re-making the stuff that cops and record companies kept obliterating.

Josh and I both dreamed of being able to make a living as musicians. We still do. Back then, we were willing to accept a lot of changes in order to make that possible, which seemed necessary. A lot of the stuff that we were great at just didn’t make any money. Once, we were asked to do a remix of a song called “Sa Sa Samoa” by the band Korallreven. I did the remix by myself, which was normal for us, and Josh was so inspired by it that he spent a week working non-stop to create a video for it. People loved it - the day the video dropped, Pitchfork designated the song as a “Best New Track” and New York Magazine wrote about it in their “Approval Matrix.” The video led to a ton of exposure, but from a financial perspective, it just did not make sense to put that much effort into promoting a remix of someone else’s song. The stuff we were personally excited by just seemed to have less and less to do with what actually makes money.

A lot of internet bands during this era began to palpably shapeshift in an effort to succeed in music as a career. Artists who’d first attracted notice for sample-based bangers they made on a laptop started posing with vintage hardware in their press photos and trading in their laptops for live bands and recording studios. It became harder to distribute DJ mixes or mash-ups that contained copyrighted music in them. Influential bloggers either closed up shop or were absorbed into the traditional music industry in some way. Feeds that once touted bizarre songs by laptop-toting weirdos with no industry connections started to become populated mostly by artists with labels and publicists. The bottom rungs of festival lineups started to consist mostly of new major label signings who have lots of money to spend on stage production but not much in the way of grassroots fan enthusiasm or media buzz. 

Internet music and what people tend to refer to as “indie music” split off into two separate streams. Today, there’s a pretty intense firewall between internet culture and whatever you want to call the culture of vinyl records, mid-sized indie labels with publicists, and positive reviews from the few remaining websites that still pay people to write about music. I call it “publicist indie,” “lifestyle techno,” or “prestige electronica” depending on whether or not the music features guitars and/or vocals. The recent online kerfuffle about NFTs really emphasized this split. The worlds of digital illustration and game development campaigned aggressively against mass adoption of cryptocurrency - if you saw any Medium posts explaining crypto’s environmental issues, chances are they were written by someone from those fields. Every new announcement by an artist that they had minted an NFT was met with a swift and vocal backlash from fans. Though I’ve never really been much of an Aphex Twin fan, it was still pretty startling to look at the replies under his NFT announcement tweet and see hundreds of furious people announcing that he was now dead to them. That’s an artist who has seemed more or less unimpeachable for most of my life up until this point! All of that seemed to change in an instant.

There is a massive disconnect between the insular world of the industry establishment and the cutting edge of online counterculture. We saw this again a couple of weeks ago with the online response to the crisis in Gaza. We saw passionate advocacy for Palestinians from games journalists and developers much more often than we saw it from musicians. This is a very serious problem for music! I do not believe it is possible to please both sides - that is to say, I do not believe it is possible to be part of internet counterculture and the industry establishment simultaneously. The music industry is too conservative, too compromised, too corrupt. If it weren’t for the ocean of valuable copyrights that labels are sitting on, most of them would be bankrupt within a year. If the industry was forced to live or die based on how they handle what’s happening right now in the present, it would most assuredly die. The only people who don’t realize this are those who are being paid to stay ignorant. 

Josh and I did not know this back then. From where we were standing, it looked like internet culture and established media industries were on track to converge. A career in the arts seemed genuinely, tantalizingly possible, right up until the moment that it no longer did. 

In my case, I had really been struggling up until that point. My life had been this ongoing sequence of evictions and hospitalizations, and it seemed to be getting worse, not better. I donated plasma twice a week to pay for groceries and while I was sitting there with a giant needle stuck in my left arm for an hour I would see my picture in The Fader or my songs being recommended by one of the Kings of Leon on Twitter or whatever. Music seemed like the only thing the world thought I was any good at. It felt like my only chance at a peaceful, happy life was somewhere out there in a world I could only perceive through a laptop screen. 

Gender, for me, was a big factor in all of this. The more invested in the craft of songwriting I became, the harder it was to repress or ignore my gender stuff. At that time I’m not sure I even knew what the word “transgender” meant - I just knew that when I showed up at a venue wearing a skirt, no one would talk to me or look me in the eye, and that reading about people like Anohni or Terre Thaemlitz or on the internet made me feel like if I could get out of Minneapolis maybe I could find a place where people would accept me. The internet was like, a pretty toxic place for someone in my position. When I tried to find people to talk to about what I was feeling, nobody tried to tell me to read Judith Butler or ask me what pronouns I preferred. The internet was just like, overrun with predators who just wanted to fetishize me and exploit me. Music seemed like the only way I’d ever have an actual life as myself. I was desperate for that. I was well and truly desperate.

Between all the big changes that were happening to us individually and the music industry moving farther and farther away of the anarchic free-for-all of MP3 file-sharing culture, the strain on us just got to be too much. We stopped trusting each other. We became the unstoppable force and the immovable object, crashing haphazardly against one another’s resolve in a dazzling display of youthful futility. Our partnership ended, and after finishing out the remaining live shows on the calendar by myself, I retired the name “Elite Gymnastics” and started making music on my own under other names. That was that.

Q: Why is Elite Gymnastics coming back now, then?

A: Over the years, Josh and I eventually started talking again. Though there was a lot we did agree on, and potential future projects were discussed, nothing truly felt right. We haven’t been in the same room since Summer 2012, and we’ve both changed a lot since then. We both have other projects and we’ve both developed other ways of working since we stopped working together. It’s a pretty big commitment to put all of that aside in order to join your fortunes together with someone you haven’t seen in a decade.

Recently, Josh decided to leave Elite Gymnastics. His reasons are his own, and I was very surprised by his decision, but after having had time to adjust, I’m really grateful to him. I had kept these songs at a distance for many years, because it seemed foolish to allow myself to get too attached to songs I didn’t feel like I was allowed to think of as mine, if that makes any sense. The songs felt like casualties of a conflict that I had to bury in the ground and try to forget about. Being able to embrace them again felt like re-growing a severed limb or having a loved one come back to life, almost. Feeling like it was safe to love these songs again made me feel whole in a way I didn’t expect to. I became really excited by the prospect of revisiting them, so that’s what I decided to do.

Q: Does this mean you’re going to put RUIN back on Spotify?

A: No. Taking the record off Spotify was the right thing to do. That record was only ever intended to exist during the era of MP3 piracy. I never envisioned a world where the music industry would be so aggressive about policing the way that copyrighted music is allowed to exist online. If we hadn’t opted to take the record down when we did, someone would inevitably have forced us to. If you want to hear those specific recordings again, you’re going to have to do it the way we originally intended: by downloading MP3 files from the internet. Try SoulSeek.

Q: What’s next for Elite Gymnastics, then?

A: Here’s the situation currently. There is no Elite Gymnastics music available to stream or purchase in an official capacity anywhere on the internet. It wouldn’t really be possible for me to put the old stuff on Spotify or Bandcamp now because of all the samples. Like I said before, it was a different time. Those records were created to thrive on a past version of the internet that no longer exists. They weren’t designed to be compatible with the 2021 internet.

Technically, Elite Gymnastics didn’t ever release a debut album. We had EPs, a compilation, and a remix collection. We didn’t make an album, a record that existed as the distillation of all that experimentation that contained all of the songs that fans of the EPs would want to hear, all in one place. It’s like we did Good Fridays but stopped before we made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

So, I am currently working on the first Elite Gymnastics album. If you were following my stuff as Default Genders, you may have noticed me posting demos on my SoundCloud page from 2015-2018 that were all eventually reworked into the album Main Pop Girl 2019. The album I am making is taking that approach to all the old EG songs, including some unreleased stuff. I’m collaborating with others on some songs and I honestly feel like it has resulted in some of the best and most exciting music I have ever been involved with. It is a drastic reinvention, but iteration and reinvention have always been a big part of what I do. I want to make something that feels like the culmination of everything that came before, and so far, I think I’m succeeding.

Q: When will I be able to hear this new music?

At a virtual fundraiser on June 4th, 2021, where there is a suggested donation of $10. You can access it at quietyear.com

[cloviaglade]

THE CRIMSON FLOWER ROUTE CORPORATE UNION AU

Yeah it came to me in a dream shared it with a friend and she said I should inflict it on the world so here we go

Warning: It's super long but I broke it up into chunks

(note not all members of the house fall into the categories listed also I'm not the best with corporate terms and positions. Also this was made for fun and isn't that serious)

The houses

The Black eagles generally were in accounting or sales. They dealt with a lot of the customers firsthand and were considered expendable

Blue lions where mostly in HR or IT

Golden deer mostly worked in maintenance and public relations.

Staff and church members are members of the board. Flayn has her position on the board despite her age because nepotism

The Seiros Co:

It's a large company that provide a large array of services and products that promote physical and emotional well-being. The company started out with good intentions but soon became a corporate monster

The company provides a host of benefits to its employees including on site housing, on site restraunts, on site pools gyms ect. They even have the best insurance on the planet. They even have horse therapy.

However they have to pay premiums on the health insurance, their rent is docted from their pay, they have to pay for on-site facilities, and those living on site are heavily encouraged to work overtime.

a lot of this is justified by cover every single health expense and days of for minor colds. Many employees seek mental health care more often than they seek physical care.

The on site living conditions vary heavily. Most are just a small white room with a single bed and a dresser. No visitors after certain hours and forget about outside visitors. However rumors are spreading that the board members have spacious luxury apartments.

The pay without all the benefits is not a wage you could live off of. But with the rent for these rooms doct from your pay you couldn't reasonably save up for different arrangements.

The strike begins:

Edelguard was finally fed up watching her team struggling. She hears constantly about how her workers are not making enough. How they have to scrape because they needed new clothes or shoes. Or worse how Petra wasn't able to support her sick grandfather

She hired a lawyer Hubert to look into information about their contracts and compare everything to labor laws. She needed to know how much of this was legal and if there was anything to be done about it.

Huberts lawfirm dealt with several lawsuits in the past. They are considered ruthless in court however media painted them out to be money hungry and demented

As expected, it was legal (mostly due to lack of regulation for these types of benefits) but really unfair, So Hubert suggested a strike. His firm would handle all the legal matters as they prepared a lawsuit and to unionize.

Edelguard was careful to organize it in private. Nothing was emailed. Nothing to tract them. Flyers were handwritten and posted in the dorms inviting members to secret meeting on slow hours.

Roles

What everyone did on the day of the strike/position they were in the office.

Black eagles

Edalguard: head of sales- she got everyone in her department and many others in different departments to simply stop working for the day when she commanded everyone to stop working via megaphone. She suck in hubert and went to a private meeting room to set up a list of demands.

Hubert: head of Vestra lawfirm- he snuck past security with the help of Edelguard. He brought a laptop and a phone with Hotspot so he could video call the rest of his attorneys from inside the conference room. Once the strike was in full swing he toured the place with Edelguard gathering evidence.

Ferdinand: senior sale manager has the highest customer satisfaction - when the strike was well underway he sent a mass email to everyone in every department including the CEO and founder herself in a very professional tone about how there is a strike. Lornez replied immediately and they when to the breakroom to enjoy tea while on the clock.

Lindhart: IT software specialist - first thing he did was turn off all the bans on websites. Everyone could go on whatever website they wanted to. He left the download blocker up and other safety precautions in place. Others could looks at memes and scroll through social media ect. He then returns to his dorm and takes a paid nap.

Caspar: manager in accounting slow but very accurate and a real team player - he hated the no pets policy with a burning passion so he let all the stray and feral cats that hang around the building in through one of the side doors. They stayed mostly on the ground floor and a few made a mess under the desks. He played with the strays with a few of his co-workers.

Bernadette: customer service rep. - she hated the calls filled with angry people. She clocked out, disconnected he phone, ran into her dorm and screamed into her pillow until calm. Once she calmed down enough she did some embroidery.

Dorothea: sales representative- has the highest upsale rate - she gets into her car and just leaves. She is still clocked in. Nobody knows where she went. Some say she met with a lover, others say she went on a binge. Nobody really knows.

Petra: bilingual sales rep. - she signed her phone off and immediately called up her family overseas. She proceeded to catch up and talk with her family for hours. She rarely got to speak with them due to the difference in timezones.

Blue lions

Dimitri: head of IT - he doesn't actually know much about IT and has little intrest in it. He got the job because his dad recommended him. With the outside website ban lifted and the lost of control of his department he frantically tried to get everything under control

Dedue: cyber security and protocol educator - although the bans are lifted he is still concerned about a cyber attack. He is frantically try to restore the ban but it seems like lindhart deleted the code.

Felix: hardware specialists - he was the one who should've been promoted into Dimitri's position and is a bit smug about how everything is falling apart in front of his boss. He bypasses the download blocker and plays minecraft on the company computer. Dimitri is too busy to notice that felix isn't helping.

Sylvain: HR rep. - he knew from the start that working conditions were shit. He was tired of trying to raise moral by doing everything but paying the employees more, giving them time off, and reasonable working hours. He went to the break room where Ferdinand and Lornez were having tea and ate a bunch of the snacks the company was reselling at super high prices then faxed a picture of his ass and balls to rhea herself as a letter of resignation.

Ashe: new hire in IT - was called down to the first floor to replace a keyboard a cat peed on. Found caspar was the reason the cats were let in. Caspar then persuaded him to play with the cats instead of shooing them out. 3 hours later he completely forgot about the strike and clocked out per usual. He completely forgot about the strike

Mercedes: head of HR - she meets with the board and discussed what to do about the strikers. They can't force them to go home since everyone striking lives on site and has every right to be there. No significant damages is being done to property. The only loss is from those not working (and a keyboard covered in cat piss and $35 worth of snacks) Mercedes is forced to find a way to get them to stop but in a way that doesn't really change anything. She leaves the meeting when it is over clocks out and returns to her modest house she calls out sick for the next couple of months.

Annette: HR rep - she tries to stop the chaos on the floor and to convince everyone to return to work. She is ignored. She wanted to ask for a megaphone to help gain attention but edelguard took the one from HR and the person with the key to one in the event closet is striking as well. She runs around in a paint trying to answer emails and settle everyone down.

Ingrid: IT helpline rep - helping Dimitri reset the ban on outside websites is above her pay grade. She at least know some of the terminology and the basics. She manages to set up a very basic blocker but it didn't block whole domains just the homepage of every website she could think of that's wasn't appropriate for work. Logging into the site allowed you to bypass the block. Ingrid feels like she will be fired for not being able to do more

Golden deer:

Claude: event planner - noticing that there was no work happening he finally decided it was time to actually do his job. He dipped into those sweet event funds and ordered as many pizza's as he could from every pizza join that could deliver. He busted out the sport balls and got employees to clear some room for flag football on the 3rd floor. He got Hilda to organize games of hide and go seek in floors 4 and 5. All games and activities were not officially approved but followed all guidelines.

Hilda: claudes assistant - organized games on the 4th and 5th floors. The cubicle although uniform made excellent hiding spaces and the food plaza just got rid of the old tables and chairs awaiting delivery of new ones so there was a ton of space to run around. Hidia had to jump between floors pretty often which was a workout all on its own but it was worth it to see everyone smile at work for once.

Lornez: head of advertising - he was tired of writing jingles and stupid commercials for the company. He wasn't aware of the strike until he got the email from Ferdinand. He offered to treat him to some tea he brought from home. They had a lovely talk and watched Sylvain stress eat. He tried to talk Sylvain out of resigning but failed.

Raphael: pizza delivery guy - he thought it was a joke at first since they never delivered pizza to the Serios Co but was persuaded by Claude. He got stopped at the front by the front desk clerk who was ordered not to allow any deliveries. Soon more pizza guys showed up and some of them where not as nice as Raphael. He eventually got in and successfully delivered his pizza.

Ignatz: accountant - he wanted no part of this and tried to work despite being on the 3rd floor. He doesn't have any PTO and is frantically trying to get his absence approved because he cannot work under these conditions. He got walled in with desks and chairs and hand to crawl his way out to try to find someone in HR to help him but found their office empty. Worst day of work ever.

Lysithia: Intern- hopes to join the advertising department - She needs this job for school credits so finding out that her boss told her to take the day off because of strike she immediately thought of her record. Lorenz assured her that she would get credit as long as he had any say in it. She played a round of hide and go seek before studying in Lornez's office

Marianne: customer service rep.- she heard the rumors and on the day of the strike she freaked out and when to have a panic attack in her car. She was on lunch technically but she took a 3 hour lunch. She came back in clocked out and decided to try that horse therapy.

Leonnie: pizza delivery guy (not nice) - she knows the customer didn't care that the order took so long to complete and was very understanding that the 30mins or less delivery time but seriously! 50 PIZZAS!! She had to stretch and press dough at top speed for like 45 mins then she burnt her hand while boxing some of the pizza's and she had to deliver all of it to this company just outside of town and now the person at the front door is insisting that the pizza was ordered by mistake oh no! Not today! You will take the pizza and you will pay for it and tip 25%.

Church

Rhea: CEO and founder - she honestly believes her practices are helping the community. She doesn't realize that she doesn't give her employees much choice. She thinks her employees are ungrateful.

Seteth: president - also believes the company is doing the best they can. He knows the dorms are small and brand but they house 78.364% of their employees and they all see a doctor at least 3 times a month. He hates that he has difficulty finding a balance between competitive prices, compensating workers, and turning a profit.

Flayn: secretary - she saw the fun going on in the 5th floor while on her lunch and thought it was organized by staff and didn't connect it as part of the strike.

Catherine: front desk - tried to turn away all the delivery drivers but more kept coming. She kept getting calls from upper management about the social media platforms and tried frantically to get in to make a statement but had little luck. She gave up when Leonnie demanded payment and let all the delivery people in.

Shamir: social media manager- she originally attended the meetings as a mole but soon learned that her fellow employees hardships. She drafted huge posts on every platform exposing the truth, changed all the passwords then took a vacation during the strike.

Hanneman: chief operational officer - he is calling and emailing the IT department about the bans every moment he can. He organized the meeting as soon as the strikers got rowdy.

Manuela: chief financial officer - although she is worried about the finances she has also been pressing about where to cut the budget first. Horse therapy is ridiculous! They own the whole ranch and are responsible for the upkeep of every horse. And all the horses are carefully hand selected and trained too. It's too much nobody uses the horse therapy because nobody has the time off to go to horse therapy!

Alois: Chairman - his title is mostly empty. He joined the strikers in a game of flag football scored a touchdown. Then went back to work as usual. Didn't check his emails about the strike since he only checks them in the morning when he first comes into work.

Gilbert: treasurer - he puts business first. Doesn't know his daughter works for the same company. Was friends with Dimitri's father. He is stressing about how the company will recover financially. He is the reason for the pay cuts so they can fund most of the benefits.

Cyrill: gopher - he gets paid minimum wage and lives on site. He considers himself lucky that he can drive the company car to go pick up office supplies from the store. He was homeless before he got a job at Seiros and feels like he is important.

Results

Since several members of the board were caught participating in strike activities the hubert and his firm counted them at strikers and used this in court.

The dorms were not considered responsible accommodations saying that prisoners in jail cells at least have their own toilet.

The news when crazy with the posts on social media. The account never replied to any dms or comments. When called they said a rogue employee posted them falsely because she was being fired.

Rhea was forced to pay a lawsuit that gave all dormitory workers an allowance of $1000 for rent for life. Even if they choose to leave the company.

Dimitri was fired for not actually having any training. Felix was promoted to the head of IT and everyone respects him.

Rhea looses her company. And most of her assets. She kept the therapy horse ranch and manages that for a living.

With the entire company now belonging to her since everyone above her resigned she made a ton of changes making the company more normal. She pays a fair livable wage to every employee. She repurposed the dorms into offices or solitary break rooms.

Huberts firm gets rebranded as a honest firm that wants to help the little guys. He later goes on to help other corporations unionize.

[valkblue]

Being a Behavior technician requires a certain amount of dedication to the job — the rigorous type, bordeline rigid. That’s what is expected to be at peak efficiency regarding analysis protocols and diagnostics for host service and calibration.

For that, Vivian thinks she might be the worst tech in her department. 

— masterlist, AO3

Chapter 1 on 12

Chapter wordcount: 2,486 Story status: Complete Rating: General Warning: people swear a lot, technobabble counts as swearing as well (believe me)…

Author’s notes: This is the first time I post a fanfic online. A real big one I mean. Not just crackfics... I’m emotional. I don’t know what the schedule will be yet because my queue is acting up, but everything should be out regularly, or something that looks like it. This first chapter is an intro to the main character and what she does, and I hope you’ll enjoy this story and its characters all the way!  Also, I really want to thank @pheedraws​ and @something-tofightfor​ for their heartwarming feedback on the whole story. Thank you SO much!!

Have a good time reading, and my askbox/messages are open! 💙

— Chapter 1

Now wasn’t a good time to yawn…

And yet, Vivian had nothing else to do but wait right now, wait while the progress bars slowly filled up on her tablet screen.

Now wasn’t the time, simply because some of her colleagues were passing through the hallway, behind the glass panels of her cubicle, and among them was the head of Behavior department — incidentally, her superior.

No doubt they were all about to grab a bite at the restaurant and Vivian held back an almost envious mumble; she was starving! But before she could go eat anything, she had to finish with her last subject on her morning schedule; host ID#DH410829420391, named Mildred.

And Mildred was back at the lab on account of a negative report about her response time during interactions with other hosts but also with guests. A lag that only happened in character mode, not in analysis. So, Vivian started with refreshing her lexical base and improvisation engine. It took some time to check the entire tree but as of now, it was done.

"Can you confirm if the update’s complete?"

"Confirmed," Mildred answered right away, her voice flat and her look vacant.

"Back in character mode."

Mildred seemed to wake up and blinked once before focusing her attention  back on Vivian.

"Mildred?"

"Oh, I’m sorry," she answered with a hint of a shy smile. "I must have drifted off, I believe… The working hours at the farm are ungodly sometimes!"

The response time was more than good, now. The improvisation too.

"I was wondering if there’s a lot of clients at the farm these days," Vivian asked.

The answer was not long to come.

"Certainly! Our cattle sure gives the best milk there is. No matter what the competition says!"

"How many green bottles are standing on the wall?"

Questions and procedures were always more or less the same to determine which bits of code, settings or values could cause an issue or start to glitch like crazy!

But today, for Mildred — and Vivian — everything was back in order, and each/both of them could soon return to the the usual course of their scheduled day.

It was about time for Vivian to take a break, if she was reduced to that kind of wisecrack…

A glance at her wristwatch, even while her tablet displayed a more accurate time than the watch hands, and Vivian concluded her analysis. She folded the tablet, slid it back in her jacket pocket, and left the large glass room after one last embarrassed look at Mildred she was leaving there, naked in the dark. Vivian didn’t even fight down a shiver. It was actually freezing cold in there!

She comforted herself with the thought that Mildred didn’t feel anything in this state, disconnected, and that a team wouldn’t take too long to come get her, do her hair, dress her up and put her back in rotation in no time. Barely as much as Vivian had for her lunch break… and that was just enough to go all the way up to the hub restaurant. But the bosses here didn’t care much about how long the lunch breaks lasted, as long as the work was done in time.

So, Vivian didn’t hurry to get to the elevator she shared with two co-workers who only interrupted their chitchat about hockey results for a vague greeting.

At this hour, the restaurant was a bit more crowded but it still wasn’t too hard to find a seat in the large and relatively peaceful room. The whole vibe in it was corporate though, even in that staff only room; every dish were stamped with the park logo and name — from the bottom of the plates to the salt shakers — and a flat HD screen displayed a bunch of Delos branches ads that looked much weirder without sound.

After a while, one didn’t really pay attention to all this anymore… A few months was enough to make it all part of the landscape and for the mind to simply stop noticing it.

And Vivian had been working here for three years, now.

However, she was still bothered by a few details sometimes, such as the huge white walls that spanned all the way up a balcony floor and a domed ceiling or the fact that the stalls were lit with a pale light under which the food turned to a sickly colour.

Hopefully, under the less saturated lights of the main room, the Caesar salads and the turkey-tomato sandwiches were back to a more appetizing hue.

Her tray loaded with a potato-corn salad, a big glass of water and a piece of bread, Vivian walked towards the tables, eager for her potatoes to lose their blueish glint. Just shy of the screen, she recognised a familiar face, Margaret’s, another Behavior tech from her team. Both were on friendly basis now, where it was possible to enjoy some time together and to laugh a little, even if it took them a whole year to finally break the ice.

Margaret waved at Vivian when she saw her pick her way across the room, inviting her to join them — them being Margaret, and three other guys from their department.

"Did you hear the latest, Vivian!?" she blurted. "I’ve been told that Damon Dyers is in the park, at this very moment!"

"Damon… Dyers?"

Vivian didn’t even hide her puzzlement while sitting in front of her.

"The actor," one of the three guys — Luke — pointed out. "Marge was just exposing how she’ll mooch the control room techs for a footage…"

"Listen, if you were as thirsty as I am about this guy, you’d understand!" Margaret replied.

To that, he quipped:

"My husband would be pissed!"

All chuckled in approval before returning to their almost emptied plates, while Vivian had barely touched her own.

"Can you imagine," Margaret daydreamt, leaning back in her seat as in a comfy armchair, holding her Pyrex glass like a snifter of bourbon. "Damon hunting down Escaton in the hills…"

Vivian scoffed; she could imagine, indeed.

At the table, Charles, Thawal and Luke didn’t pay any more attention to them, carrying on with their chat about retro gaming. Vivian would probably have preferred to be part of that conversation; not that she didn’t know shit about movies and their actors, but more like aside from a few exceptions on which they got along swimmingly, she didn’t have much taste in common with Margaret. But she listened to her friend anyway as she kept going after a sip of sparkling water:

"How am I not supposed to be hot on the idea!? I’ll deadass find someone to bootleg me some footages!"

Vivian smiled out of politeness, not saying much, as always. Her mouth was full anyway.

"Oh, by the way!"

Margaret took another swip of her glass before putting it down on the table and leaning towards Vivian.

"Apparently, they’re going to burden us with a whole new bunch of hosts in two or three weeks," she said, with all the serious she could muster. "I heard that from Elsie. Narrative must be trying to compensate for something, if you know what I mean…"

Vivian knew very well.

"We barely have time to light a fag between two sessions already and they plan to add another hundred on our backs!?"

She snorted disdainfully.

"Don’t know what they’re spicing their coffee with but it isn’t doing them any good."

"No shit," admitted Vivian, a bit testy at the idea. "Unless they also plan to hire? Did Lowe say anything about it?"

Margaret shrugged.

"No idea, I haven’t talked to him in a while."

She patted her blazer pockets then sighed softly; Vivian understood her attitude as relief, and a craving, even a need to light a cigarette.

"You should ask," Margaret pointed out with a smile a tad clenched in the orbicularis muscles. "You like him, right?"

Vivian approved; she admired his thoroughness, his love for details… A lot could be learned while working under his care and Vivian found him both spirited and friendly.

Margaret didn’t quite share the feeling, however; in her own words, he was giving her the heebie-jeebies.

"Anyway, I’m off," Margaret stated with an even greater impatience in her voice. "I gotta light one before the crazy afternoon waiting for me!"

She gathered her cutlery on her tray, adding:

"Not giving up on the idea to come across Damon fucking Dyers, though! At least in video recs. Wish me luck!"

Vivian nodded and Margaret put her tray away on the sideboard before hurrying to the exit.

Her colleagues had changed topics next to her, and now they were talking about cars, motorcycles and mechanics. As she didn’t know much about that topic, not as much as in computers, she listened only a little without taking part.

Then, Vivian finished wolfing down her potato salad and her glass of water; she would soon return to her shift and examine a series of hosts, the characteristics of which she overviewed on her tablet from her timetable’s folders. It was simply routine checks, and Vivian liked that kind of sessions; it was like meeting with a friend, just to catch up with them.

But for now, she would take a few minutes to get some air and natural light on top of the hub before diving back into the high tech depths of the Mesa.

At seven in the evening, closer to eight, Vivian was glad to be back to her on-site apartments. Once again, she had grabbed a snack at the restaurant but the room was much more crowded than it was at lunch and came close to a headache before reaching "home". She could have dined here, cooked something on her induction hob but she was so tired — or lazy — that, tonight again, she still choose to eat at the restaurant over having to do the dishes!

Now, she was getting out of the shower in her bathrobe and throw herself on her bed.

Living like this, it was like being a teenager all over again, back at her parents’, or at the dorm… but once she closed her apartment’s door, Vivian was totally free to do whatever she wanted. As long as it didn’t involve wrecking the place!

But now, even if she wanted to, Vivian wouldn’t have had the strength to break any chair, nor even to make a mess of the bed… About that, she was actually planning on laying there, and falling asleep in her bathrobe while watching a movie or reading any book she had available on her personal tablet. A tablet that was nothing close to the one she was using every day in the Behavior department labs, but a tablet anyway.

She swiped the covers without any real interest; in all honesty, she was feeling too tired to read. Even something she had already read. And she cringed a little when the minimalistic cover with her automatically signed name appeared.

Yeah, even too tired to read her own words!

Besides, it wasn’t great literature at all — a fanfiction. Two, to be precise. Both about the hosts and their narratives as she could have written about a movie, book, or video game’s characters.

Vivian grumbled, letting her tablet fall flat on her stomach, and she stared at the white ceiling before closing her eyes while nibbling her lips. She had written this almost six months after she started working here, taken over by all the motivation, excitement and creativity around her!

She refocused on herself since but, in the meantime, she wrote these. And even though Vivian considered herself to have a fertile imagination, she still commended herself about how better for everyone it was she hadn’t applied for a job in Narrative…

Rising her tablet up again and tapping on the lit screen, she entered the file and skimmed through it, trying to ignore the grammar mistakes she stopped committing since; and mistakes aside, her stories had nothing exceptional, totally influenced as they were by her mood and the not-so-new-but-still-trendy storyline — Escaton’s and his bandits, essentially…

Over a very short time, when Vivian was still more or less trying to fit into the life of the facility and social circles of her co-workers whose names had yet to be caught, she had heard so many comments, appreciations and reviews for this narrative that she looked into it first.

After all, the park afforded Lee Sizemore, renowned author who made a big name for himself with a "hot and grimy" historical saga, a few years back before running out of puff under his editor’s pressure. And a juicy offer by a video game studio to adapt it. 

She understood; everybody, whether staff or guests, was more or less hyped by the brute force brought by Hector Escaton — virile and dark male figure — to the relative tranquility of the park’s starting point.

And Vivian had been no exception.

If her first story was only about made-up characters to explore the pleasing and well rounded context of Sweetwater, her second, on the other hand, was more audacious, altering shamelessly the story from what its authors had surely intended; victorious over the town after killing the sheriff and all opposition, Escaton and his gang enjoyed their plunder at the Mariposa where Hector fell for one of the saloon girls.

That being said, Vivian remained very proper — maybe totally prudish — in these sort of narrative fantasies of hers; nothing turned freaky or utterly violent…

All she did was throwing a few sentences on her writing app for some evenings, when inspiration struck or simply because she urged herself to follow through with what she started. All on her personal tablet. She knew better than to write that on anything system-tethered. Imagining that a bored somebody could just hack into the system all the way up to her personal data… and end up on that giddy nonsense, made her wants to puke!

Not to mention that it might also be forbidden. Even though she never planned to, she knew she couldn’t share it with anyone, nor anywhere. Not as a park employee. If the guests were writing critiques and other reviews online about their stay, herself couldn’t talk about it from the inside. Confidentiality and shit…

Her texts would remain secret, and her silly fantasies with them. In any case, it wasn’t as if she intended to try anything for herself, and even less with Hector Escaton, all the more since he wasn’t even part of the batch her team had in charge. And also, rumor has it that fantasies aren’t always good when act upon!

With a lazy tap, Vivian quitted the reading app and dropped the tablet on her sheets before burying her face in her soft pillow. She let out a deep sigh in it, relaxed, and in fact, she fell asleep almost right away.

[jebazzled]

Why Aren’t People Writing With Me?

Why aren't people writing with me?

Real talk: do you often find yourself waiting weeks or even months between partners replying to your posts? Do people seem to prioritize all their other threads over yours? Do people seem to be just not that jazzed about writing with you? It's the worst feeling, when you're spinning your wheels and on the outskirts, wondering why you're struggling to gain traction. Sometimes, sites just be like that - people writing with their friends, or closed groups hard for a newer member to break into, or folks writing on slow timelines, or not keeping track of how long they've kept a partner waiting. It comes with the territory. But sometimes, it might be your writing that's holding your threads back. I know what you're thinking:

But it's something everyone can genuinely stand to consider, when they're having trouble getting a thread to keep moving: how much of this is my thread partner holding me up, and how much of it is me? Is there anything I can do to keep things moving? No matter how long you've been writing or how advanced a writer you are, it can be easy to forget that writing is ultimately a game of improv, and writing well is only part of the job. Part of the job is setting your partner up for a good time, too.

This tutorial is about writing starters & replies that make your thread partner excited to write back.

We'll be covering:

Starters that stall vs. starters that enthrall (sorry! the rhyme was necessary.)

Common tactics for writing replies - and common pitfalls of them

Alternate approaches to writing replies

Hopefully, these tips and tricks will improve your rp experience - because aren't we all here for a good time?

Onward!

STARTERS

Ah, starters. The bane of every roleplayer's existence. Starters are difficult because they often require some scene-setting, leaving the writer to try to set up a premise and a vibe without powerplaying for their partner. And then, you've got to start the interaction. There's a lot to contend with, so a lot of people avoid starters at all costs.

Personally, I like starting a thread: this way, I'm not waiting on a post; I have control over when it goes up. Thread partners often appreciate you writing a starter for them, so it's an easy way to engender good will. And finally, for me, it lets me make sure the thread is off to a good, actionable start.

Starters come with pressure - the starter sets the tone for the thread. A dud starter will stump your partner on replying, and they may even grow to dread posting. Which isn't fun for either of you!

Some things to consider when crafting a starter that will get your partner excited:

PREMISE Whether you're writing an open thread or a plotted thread for a specific partner, every starter needs a premise. The premise might be simple: perhaps your character is going to pickpocket your partner's. Maybe it's two friends catching up. It could be two strangers bumping into each other in an alley. It might also be more complex: maybe you're setting up an enemies-friends-lovers-enemies-rivals-lovers-friends-enemies plot. Maybe your character is defending the teaching of evolution to schoolchildren before a jury of his peers. Maybe it's a duel.

Generally, the more specific the premise, the better. This doesn't mean you need every beat of the thread plotted out, but it is good to think about: What do we want each character to get out of the thread? 

Think of this as your overall goal for the thread. Is one character seeking reassurance or advice? Is there a business transaction being made? Have you and your partner agreed to hurt one character in a duel? If you can't think of an overall goal or point for the thread, the chances of stalling are high. This is common with "catch up" threads, especially ones in which neither character has particularly exciting updates to share. If only one character is "getting something" out of the thread, be careful in your own posts to set up plenty for your partner to respond to. Not every thread will have equal actionable payoff for both characters, which isn't inherently a bad thing. But if your posts don't give your partner much to engage with, the thread can read as selfish or one-sided - which isn't anyone's intention!

How do we want the events of this thread to impact this character, moving forward? 

Related to the above, if both characters can walk away from this thread without any change - perhaps reconsider the premise or necessity of your thread. There is no shame in not doing a thread when it wouldn't mean anything to character development or plot progression for either character! "Just because" threads are always the first that drop on thread priorities - why not save yourself the trouble, and plot something you will both be excited about?

What is the most reasonable entrypoint for this thread? 

Reality is filled with filler - moments in which nothing interesting happens, but which carry us from point A to point B. Conversation that goes nowhere and just happens for the sake of filling silence. But this isn't reality, this is fiction, which means we can cut the boring stuff and jump straight into the meat. If your premise is Character A pickpocketing Character B, don't open with Character A just wandering around the market, waiting for Character B to wander around the market, so Character A can pickpocket them: close your starter with Character A's hand around Character B's wallet. This gives your thread partner something to respond to (the theft) and in two fewer posts than it would have taken otherwise.

ACTION Dialogue is an engine for plot progression and for character development, and there is nothing quite as satisfying as strong dialogue. But questions, greetings, and other standard ways to launch an in-character conversation aren't your only options.

All a starter needs is action, and saying "hello," "what are you doing," or "hey! That's my pod racer!" are all actions. But actions can be silent, too, so long as they trigger a reaction from your writing partner. Character A pulling their hand out of the butt pocket on Character B's jeans, wallet in hand, begs Character B to react. Character C puking into the same trash can where Character D is searching for the utility bill they need for proof of address gives Character D something to dodge. Character E speedwalking through the grocery store and destroying the greeting card aisle gives Character F something to be horrified at. Even if A, C, and E all do it without saying a word. One thing you'll notice about each of the above premises is that they involve doing something - pickpocketing, puking/dumpster diving, grocery shopping. If you suspect your starters are leaving people underwhelmed, consider building your premise around action. The action doesn't need to be dramatic like the above examples. For instance, let's say that Character G is catching up with Character H after her divorce. They can do this over coffee in Character G's living room - but if they're walking their dogs while Character G's kids are with her ex-husband, you and your partner can use the dogs as emotional stand-ins:

Hannah dug her heels into the ground as Penelope started after a squirrel. Beside her, Gloria and Fifi both seemed not to see it. Hannah had never seen Gloria so out of it, so disconnected from the world around her. It frightened her. "How's Fifi holding up?" she asked, quietly, once Penelope calmed down and they kept walking. "I know Mike wasn't great to her, but - she probably misses the routine?"

Giving the characters some sort of verb to do beyond talking gives you more lenses through which to view an interaction, plus more opportunity for body language for your partner to respond to.

STARTERS: TL;DR Now that we've talked about how to start a thread on the right foot, let's quickly review our main food for thought items. Mind Snacks, if you will:

What do we want to get out of this thread?

Start on track for that result - do not lead with a detour!

Build around action - even small ones

Is the concept of this thread important or interesting? Would we be better served skipping it and writing something else?

REPLIES

Now your thread is off the ground. Excellent! It's a few posts in but your partner doesn't seem very excited - maybe they don't message you about how much they liked your reply, or how fun the thread is so far, or maybe they don't react to the tag in the server; maybe it's radio silence from them until they reply a month and a half later, when they're caught up on the threads they seem to keep shuffling ahead of yours. How do we move your thread up in the shuffle? Make it fun to reply to, and easy to reply to.

COMMON APPROACHES  An easy way to tackle a reply is by having your character react to each action and dialogue from your partner's character:

Maycey slid into the navigator's seat of the L2-47 spaceship, almost kicking over a cup of Dark Matter Decaf.

"Sorry," she said, not looking at Brooks. "Are we still checking out Planet 42601, or did General Berry have us change course?" Brooks watched Maycey enter the cockpit, snorting as she almost knocked over his coffee. Though it wouldn't be funny to see what the brew would do to the controls of the L2-47. "No problem," he said. "General Berry wants us to do a pass over 42601, but we aren't doing a full landing."

This reply covers everything Maycey did in her post, but doesn't advance the thread. What comes next? Brooks hasn't given Maycey much information to process, nothing to act on, no juicy body language to consider. Maycey's writer is fully on their own to advance the thread. To move it forward in a meaningful way, they might come up with a plot development they need to run by Brooks's writer to make sure it's not stepping on anything Brooks had planned. They may need to make up some lore. They may need to expand the premise of the thread. Brooks may or may not have helpful input, but when push comes to shove, Maycey is the one who is going to put it in their reply.

Maycey whipped her gaze to her captain, shocked. "But sir - we've come all this way to rescue 42601. Berry - sorry, General Berry wants us to abandon them? Their distress signal took three days to reach us; the atomospheric poisoning has got to be lethal by now." Her hands didn't touch the controls - she couldn't bear to take them off course to the desperate planet. "Sir, we have to do what's right." Brooks took a sip of his coffee, thinking about his own family back on Orbital Sphere 23-Y2K. They'd put out a distress signal years ago, back in his own training days. He'd seen it during radar detection class, and he'd had to ignore it. For the Good of the Galaxy. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about the flashing signal on his screen, and about clicking the popup window. Dismiss. This, too, is for the Good of the Galaxy. He has to pretend it doesn't bother him. "The right thing is what General Berry says," he said, putting the coffee cup back in its cupholder. "For the Good of the Galaxy."

All of that work from Maycey, and Brooks only gave us one sentence to propel the plot. Yes, he had a lengthy internal monologue debating it - but that interiority means nothing to Maycey, who isn't a mind-reader. In this scenario, the focus on Brooks's tragic backstory, without giving Maycey anything actionable, sets up a very one-sided dynamic. If this happens consistently over one or many threads, the tragic backstory no longer feels tragic in a meaningful way, but just feels like a trite device to be trotted out - to tell rather than show a reader that a character has depth.

How could this post give Maycey more to work off of? Below is the same reply from Brooks, with additions made in green, rearranged wording in blue.

Brooks could feel Maycey's stare - bewildered and accusatory. He can hardly blame her, but she should know by now that this is how the Galaxy stays out of the Great Bezosian Black Hole. Sheer obedience. He avoided her eye contact, took a sip of coffee. Sheer obedience. Just like years ago - back in his own training days. He'd seen it during radar detection class, his own family's distress signal back on Orbital Sphere 23-Y2K, and he'd had to ignore it. For the Good of the Galaxy. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think about the flashing signal on his screen, and about clicking the popup window. Dismiss. This, too, is for the Good of the Galaxy. He has to pretend it doesn't bother him. "The right thing is what General Berry says," he said, putting the coffee cup back in its cupholder - his hands are shaking; it misses the rim twice, sloshes onto the knee of his parasuit. "For the Good of the Galaxy."

This version acknowledges the primary beat of Maycey's post (something we will talk about later) - that is, her accusation - and adds body language betraying his doubts. While interiority is great, externalization makes it possible for other characters to engage with your character's thoughts and motives. Brooks's new post gives Maycey more to engage with, which will better set her up to give Brooks more to engage with, and so on. When you both do the lifting, you both have a better time.

Another common method - especially in conversational threads, especially in "catching up" premises - is to lean on dialogue and, more specifically, questions. But most conversations we have in life aren't nonstop questions!

"Trudy said you got married," Annabelle said, fiddling with the edge of the linen tablecloth. "Is that true? I thought you didn't like Edgar - not like that." Sasha took an enormous bite of raw cucumber, not even bothering to slice it. "We just got engaged, we're not married yet. Don't you like Edgar?" Annabelle looked away, suddenly nervous. She didn't know why it mattered to her whether or not Sasha liked Edgar - only that it did. "He's fine, I guess. But do you like him?" "I do! I love him. Will you be my maid of honor?" Sasha grinned at her friend. She wanted nothing else in the world but for Annabelle to be part of her special day.

This series of posts involves a number of questions both stated in dialogue:

Is Sasha married?

Does Sasha like Edgar?

Does Annabelle like Edgar?

Will Annabelle be Sasha's maid of honor?

And unstated:

Why is Annabelle nervous?

Why does Annabelle care whether or not Sasha likes Edgar?

The stated questions are yes/no questions, somewhat procedural. The unstated question and its implication - that Annabelle cares about whether or not Sasha likes Edgar because she might like Sasha - is a juicier question than the minutiae of wedding planning. But Sasha's writer isn't letting Sasha notice or react to any of Annabelle's body language (her nervousness, her fiddling with the tablecloth) and focuses instead on the simple questions, which are a cover for what isn't being said. Information does not need to be voiced for it to be acted upon. Let's look at the same line of posts, with additions in green for Sasha and in pink for Annabelle.

"Trudy said you got married," Annabelle said, fiddling with the edge of the linen tablecloth. "Is that true? I thought you didn't like Edgar - not like that." Sasha had wondered when Annabelle would ask. She seems on-edge, fiddling with the tablecloth, as though they've never had a picnic outside before. She's not sure why Annabelle is out of sorts, but it's making her feel out of sorts. Sasha took an enormous bite of raw cucumber, not even bothering to slice it. "We just got engaged, we're not married yet. Don't you like Edgar?" She gently grasped Annabelle's fingers, unclenching them from the hem of the tablecloth. "Edgar thinks you're the bee's knees." Sasha's hand on hers - her stomach did a flip, palms instantly feeling clammy, like she could swoon in the summer sun. Annabelle looked away, suddenly nervous. It's worse that Edgar likes her. Makes her feel vile for resenting him like she does. She didn't know why it mattered to her whether or not Sasha liked Edgar - only that it did. "He's fine, I guess. But do you like him?" It's a silly question - of course she loves him; how could she have said yes otherwise? But Annabelle seems not to believe her. Annabelle seems to worry. Annabelle is worried so much of the time - and so much for her - she tries to be reassuring, gripping her friend by the shoulders, offering a grin. "I do! I love him. Will you be my maid of honor?" She wanted nothing else in the world but for Annabelle to be part of her special day. Annabelle is her best friend - the only person she could stand at the altar with besides Edgar.

See how much more complex the dynamic is between these two when they have things to react to other than dialogue?

REPLIES PART 1: TL;DR So now we've addressed two common approaches to replies and seen how they can fall short, and discussed tips for elevating them. Your main takeaways:

Acting is reacting - react to your partner's dialogue AND body language, and give them some to work from, too!

Dialogue is not a game of Questions Only

If you're not driving the thread forward, you're slacking - don't leave it to your partner every time!

SYNTHESIZING: YOUR NEW APPROACH TO WRITING REPLIES

Now that we've discussed the pitfalls of action-by-action responses and dialogue-only threading, let's synthesize all of the above into one methodology for writing replies. The common pitfall of action-by-action responses is that one writer ends up only ever progressing the thread one sentence at a time - thinking of a post in terms of beats helps separate what actually needs substantive response, versus what is background information to inform your response. When I write a reply, I copy and paste my partner's post into the wordcounter window where I write my posts. I read their post and identify the beats - that is, what actually happens. For example: 

Getting elected student body president was no joke. Hattie had worked for eleven long years to earn the position - bossed around her peers all the way from preschool. Back then, she'd been interested in power and prestige. But by the time she'd won the election junior year, she was exhausted. Now, on her first day of senior year, she was just excited about the choice parking spot. And yet, someone had the audacity - the nerve - to cut her off on the turn into the Keppler Family Parking Pavilion and slide right into her coveted parking spot. Crooked, so they took up the access lane to the adjoining handicapped spot. Too far forward, enough that she could see the metal RESERVED FOR STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT sign shaking on top of its pole. She threw herself out of her car, aiming the sole of her left Doc Marten into the license plate of the offender's Buick. "Hey, genius, there's no fucking run-off election this year!"

Because this is a starter, much of this is scene setting, which my partner could choose to echo, but the main things for them to react to are what my character - Hattie - offers in the moment:

dramatically throwing herself out of the car

kicking their license plate

swearing at them

Once I've distilled a post to the beats I need to respond to, I work my way through them, creating beats for my partner to respond to. With this method, a reply to the above might look like this:

Aunt Mildred's car was affectionately called The Boat for the first ten years of its life. Huge and unsinkable. That had changed when Aunt Mildred died in a boating accident over the summer, leaving Mikey the Boat's captain. Now, he just called it the Buick. And he wasn't very good at driving it - already he'd been honked at twice, overshot the turn into the parking lot, tires riding up on the curb. He pulled into the first available space. Figured he was outside the lines - but it seemed like the Buick was too wide to fit between lines anyway. And Aunt Mildred had never been one to follow rules. The terrible park job was in her memory. The sound of metal crunching at the back of the car, however, was not. If it's an accident, the Boat - the Buick - always wins, so Mikey gathered his violin case and drawstring backpack from the passenger seat, opened the driver's side door, and slowly got out of the car, turning his beanie backwards as if it mattered while he shuffled in his Adidas slides to the trunk, where a very short, very angry girl driving a Smart Car was trying to put the Boat - the Buick - in its place. "The car's not moving," he said, pulling a roll of Bubble Tape out of his backpack and taking a huge bite out of it. "But thanks for telling me my voting rights."

Mikey responds to Hattie's abuse of his car, but also gives Hattie a lot to respond to - minor dialogue, but a LOT of personal eccentricities that are bound to piss her off.

The dialogue and the action contribute to the trajectory of the thread - and giving Hattie something to play with keeps the musing about Aunt Mildred from feeling self-indulgent.

It's a small shift, going from thinking of posts as paragraphs to respond to to thinking of them as specific, small, actionable moments - but it makes a difference, especially in encouraging writers to be more thoughtful about creating opportunities for their partner to react.

REPLIES PART 2: TL;DR

beats, babey! not every sentence requires a response, but be sure to write some that do, whether it be dialogue or action.

ACTING IS REACTING!!!!!! if you don't give your partner something to react to, you are letting them down!

And that's all there is to it! Hopefully these examples are helpful as you think about ways to drive your plots and threads, and how to keep your own writing great for collaboration. The most important thing is to think of your writing partner. What do they need to be able to write back? What will make this thread exciting for them? How can you make sure this thread isn't serving you alone? Cheers, and happy writing!

[pollyannisms]

DISCORD HEADCANON DUMP

Ángela falls strictly into the Iceberg category, where promotion is off the table entirely because she is too valuable for the foundation where she is. Unless another version of her comes along, they would never find another person to do what she does with the same efficiency and fearlessness. It's like, how many forensic pathologists would be happy and willing to climb into the giant decomposing chest cavity of a potentially dangerous anomaly to get an insight on what it was that put them down? Not many besides Ángela, that's for sure! 

Okay, this is more of a general headcanon than one which applies to a Ángela alone. Still, I'm of the firm opinion that any researcher/doctor/security officer/etc. Who fits the profile of a 'team-leader (i.e. has assistant workers, trains future workers as a part of an apprenticeship program, etc.) has the additional duty of monitoring the workers under them, in addition to whatever job they are expected to perform, and reporting any concerning/dissenting/anti-social/overly-cruel or generally problem behaviour to the Ethical Enforcers before it becomes a more significant issue for the foundation at large. And it's from these reports that things like mandatory psych evaluations, increased surveillance, etc., are often borne. 

So, for example, let's say one of the forensic assistants under Ángela began vocally experiencing a higher degree of humanization of the individuals and anomalies they autopsy and expressing a great amount of guilt over it. Ángela would be obligated by her duty to report this to the ethics team, and they from there would schedule a psych evaluation for the individual in question, and advise Ángela to keep herself open if they need support in the mean time. From there though the ethics team and psych team would evaluate whether the employee was fit to continue their work or posed a danger to themselves, others or the foundation as a whole and consider taking steps from there.

A lot of the time when people in the foundation talk about O5 having ‘eyes’ everywhere, it’s in reference to these sorts of mandatory reporters. 

Ángela is in charge of choosing her team members (aka. forensic assistants to help her move bodies around, take measurements, etc.), and I think she is VERY VERY picky about who she takes and doesn’t. 

Though this is because she does a lot of the grosser, more gruesome and dangerous aspects of the job that no one else wants to do (and therefore gets pushed off onto her), and she doesn’t want to have anyone go with her, who she can’t rely on in a pinch and who can’t bear the emotional burden of her job. iii

Prompt: For researchers; What was their favorite SCP assigned to them and why? Do any stick out in their memory? Why? What did they do and what were they?

Ángela’s favourite SCP and also most heartbreaking assignment was SCP-8699 or The Living Dead. They were a humanoid anomaly that was inanimate most of the time but became animate during instances of a full moon. Which weird as it is, wasn’t their anomalous trait. It was the fact that they could not be killed by brute force, but could not regenerate themselves, actively decayed like a corpse but remained alive during full-moon periods, felt no pain and seemed to know nothing about itself other than that it existed, but seemed incapable of understanding that it should’ve been dead. 

They were given to Ángela during an entirely separate SCP investigation and were undergoing an examination to create a link between said aforementioned SCP and themselves - but regained animation and sentience on the exam table. Causing Ángela’s crew to evacuate the lab and Ángela to retreat into the observation room to trigger the breach in progress alarm. Though, to Ángela’s surprise, rather than attempting to break into the observation room to try and kill her, they ripped off their EKG and hid under the exam table and seemed terrified, crying and shaking and trying to cover themselves. 

Ángela, being Ángela and seeing this, turned on the speakers in the lab from the observation room and did her best to comfort the SCP, and directed them to some extra lab coats she kept in case of emergencies and talked with them, and between the jigs and the reels, managed to calm them down, explained they weren’t in trouble and that there had been a mistake, and played four games of tic-tac-toe before the security team finally got to the lab and secured 8699 and rescued Ángela. 

Though on their way to move 8699, dawn broke, and they reverted to an inanimate corpse once again. Ángela, with backing from her superiors, decided warranted further observation, and thus the pattern was detected, and they were classified!

Sadly though, Ángela and her team had to classify them as Khonsu, and due to their natural decay, 8699 was fully neutralized within two years of their discovery. Much to the heartbreak of the time assigned to them, as they were lovable in their way. Like, they were this 2.3 metre tall emaciated, rotting corpse that wouldn’t look out of place in a horror movie, with the mental maturity of a child and this sunshiny disposition and an apparent inability to understand the situation they were in entirely. I mean, how can you not love a shy, gentle giant that tries to hide behind its researcher that’s half its size.

What Ángela remembers about them the most though was when she was ordered to carry out a complete autopsy of them during one of their periods on apparent inactivity, as they were functionally dead and therefore able to be conducted without the possibility of excessive pain or cruelty. Before the dissection, though, Ángela, with backing from the Ethics committee, chose to have a meeting with 8699 and told them everything she was going to have to do and stressed that they were allowed to say no to anything ‘too invasive’ and the ethics committee would make sure she wouldn’t have to do it. But they didn’t care, they just shook their head and shrugged it off, saying ‘No, it’s fine, I won’t feel it anyways and I trust you, you’ll put me back together again,’ to which Ángela was like

Something unintentionally uncovered by the 8699, though, was that Ángela seems to have anosmia because, even when 8699 was falling into goo and bones and ‘reeked to the high heavens,’ so much so that they had to give it an airtight containment chamber. Ángela was able to remain in close contact with them and even eat in their presence.

Prompt: What was the scariest or most traumatic moment that your character has had to live through and how did they respond to the trauma in that moment?

For Ángela, there are four options for this question. There was the moment she found her older brother’s dead body bloated and disfigured and unrecognizable as him if it wasn’t for the crucifix necklace he always wore, which left her, well, non-functioning. She disconnected from her peers and family, developed depression, mentally regressed in terms of maturity, and developed muteness for the better part of 3 years following. In her defense, what she saw was horrifying for a child, and she wasn’t given trauma or therapy in the aftermath to help her cope.

- there was the incident that triggered her abduction hiring by the Foundation, which left her incredibly rattled and nervous about resuming her work for months following (though, with help from available counselling and therapy, she moved past that trauma and was able to return to work)- there was the first-ever containment breach she was a part of

 - where one of the patients she and her team were working on suddenly returned to life and sunk its teeth into her coworker’s throat—causing him to bleed out. She and her team members to have to leave him to it, which was the reason for her first promotion and was the incident that made it sink in that she wasn’t working for the government anymore and that the SCP Foundation was much more dangerous than she could have ever prepared for. Sometimes she still has nightmares about that assistant grasping at his neck desperately and trying to claw his way to the door to escape with them, only to be dragged back into the lab by the anomaly-infected corpse and the sound he made, oh god, the sound. Something between a wet rattle and a wheeze as he tried to cry for help despite his open wound.

And there was the lead up to 8699’s neutralization. See, before it’s death, it had requested Ángela visited them in the Foundation’s equivalent of a hospice center in Site 17, and she went. She used her vacation days and headed over, and things were going great! 8699 remembered Ángela and has perked up the moment it recognized her, and they chatted, about her team, the non-classified information about the site, how the flowers looked. The birds were coming home for spring, and things seemed, well, great, despite the ever-present vibe of forthcoming death. 

Then something happened- she couldn’t tell you what, but something clicked in 8699, like the gravity of the situation finally dawned on them, and they asked her to get closer. Given their history of non-violence and friendliness, was obliged by Ángela, and they spilled everything they knew about themselves and how they came to be what they were, which took Ángela by surprise and left her shocked. Never before had they lied. They were forthright, almost childishly so, so it seemed so strange. Then they said they had to give her something and began hacking and coughing violently. They seized and sputtered and Ángela, being a smart cookie, tried backing up. 

At this point, she was terrified. 8699 wasn’t acting like themselves. They didn’t seem like themselves, they were more erratic, agitated, and she didn’t know if they were going to try and attack her or not. But 8699, despite retching like it was trying to heave it’s organs through its mouth, grabbed her wrist and held her with a strength she couldn’t get out of. At that moment, her entire life flashed before her eyes. It was like every mistake she had ever made fit into one jigsaw puzzle, and she understood that she was going to die here with this SCP she underestimated. But, instead of attacking her, 8699 just produced this group of 6 polished gems and shoved them into her hand before letting go, and Ángie just fell to the ground.

She was in such a state of shock that it wasn’t until the security team put her into a quarantine that she understood what the fuck had even happened. Shortly after that, this apparent attack 8699 entered inactivity for the final time and never returned to an animated state.

Prompt: What is your character’s opinion on the armed guards buzzing around the facility? Are they intimidated by them? Do they enjoy them? Know them by name? Or do they pity them?

Regarding the guards, Ángela has divided emotions. On the one hand, she fears their guns but pities them as people. They’re often so young and unequipped to deal with these situations, promised this exciting, lucrative career, only to be treated as d-class with guns.

She, in equal measures, wants to hug them and tell them to run for the hills and mutter under their breath about their foolishness. But this is more so directed at what she sees in them that reminds her of her. In practice, she’s kind and a bit maternal to many of them - popping her head into the guard breakroom at the beginning of her shifts to say hi, before scampering off to do her thing and always remembering their names and birthdays.

EXCEPT in the case of the guards assigned to her. Those guys, good lord, she hates those guys. They always respond to her breach in progress alarms like five minutes late, they make scathing comments and insults, they think she can’t hear when she works late, take smoke breaks every ten minutes, even though she knows neither smoke. She loathes them, but she would never give them the satisfaction of knowing that, no, she chooses to kill them with kindness as ineffective as that is! 

Prompt: What’re your character’s opinions on anomalies? Most notably sentient, however can apply to all. Broad, but here’s something’s to detail: - Are they evil? Are they “out to get us”? - Should they be contained, or let free, or neutralised? Where’s the line between “possible staff”, “must be contained”, and “must be neutralised”? - Should they have the same rights as standard humans? - What’re their opinions on free-roaming passive SCPs, or anomalous personnel? - Where did they come from? Was it a “someone” or “something” that created them all? Do they simply just exist? - Do they believe any SCP-001 proposals? If they do, which? If they don’t, why not?

-Ángela subscribes to the Gears school of thought regarding anomalies, their nature and their inherent maliciousness. In that, she doesn’t believe they’re a part of some ‘conspiracy’ against humanity, some pawn in an unfathomable being’s game of chess, etc. Ángela is of the opinion that they simply are. In the same way, animals simply are. They exist because they exist, and their nature is what it is. 

She doesn’t believe that anomalies can choose to be the way they are and feels that expecting them to be different and conform to a human morality, behaviour, or culture is a waste of time applying human morality, behaviour, and culture to them. 

- Ángela feels they (the anomalies) should be contained for both the safety of humanity AND the anomaly themselves in equal measure. See, the world is harsh, and humanity can be cruel, and while many anomalies can defend themselves against this fact of life, or at least blend in well enough with civilization to go unnoticed. Many can’t and need the protection, stability, steady supply of sustenance, etc. The facilities provide them. 

Regarding the lines of neutralization, containment and staff treatment- it’s hard to say generally, as Ángie feels it should be handled on a case by case basis, which factors in all perspectives about the situation. From risk vs reward, the financial aspect, the human cost, the opinions and desires of the anomaly in question and whether or not it would cause undue suffering in the anomaly.

By and large, though, she thinks a lot more sentient, low-security risk anomalies (i.e. 073) should be given the option to seek a profession within the foundation and be allowed to strive for a semi-normal life with privileges such as forming relationships, having friendships, hanging out, taking sick/lazy days, etc. Because, while they are objects, they’re also people - and their anomaly shouldn’t invalidate their personhood. At least, not as far as she’s concerned.

- This is another case-by-case type of question. For humanoid and or sentient SCPs that have proven themselves to be the most baseline, minimal threat in Foundation Security and Staff safety - then yes. She feels they should be given civil liberties and human rights like any other person in the foundation. For anything beyond that, though? Hard pass. Though they should still be acknowledged as people, they should not be handed rights and liberties - ESPECIALLY In the case of entities that have proven themselves to be manipulative, repeat breachers, violent, etc. It’s playing with fire and, while certainly morally questionable, is a necessary evil. 

- Ángela honestly doesn’t care that much. In some cases, it can take her back a bit (like coming into contact with a humanoid pigeon that is at least a head taller than her), but she’ll get used to it. This all being said, though, there are some free-range SCP’s Ángela can’t help but feel nervous in the presence of. She tries to bite back the feeling and deny its existence, but it does exist. Have faith that it does. 

- In short, yes. To elaborate, though, Ángela believes every anomaly is made by something. Though whether that thing is another entity, nature itself, the universe, a paradox, rip in space-time, etc. Is all a matter of debate and a case by case basis. 

- Ángela has an SCP-001 proposal of her own, and I’ll leave it at that! Haha

[shainlov]

New Years Exchange!!!

@the-sociopathic-jacket I was your gifter! And this is... longer than it was supposed to, I’m so sorry.

Nemuri never forgave herself, but life moves on.

A year before Midnight joined UA staff, she had a difficult case including her family members that no hero should've go through but it’s just such a common trope.

Nemuri Kayama was forever convinced that the case of Sosuke’s killer was going to forever stay her hardest one. Even five years later, she still grieved the boy she didn’t know until a few brief moments before his demise.

If she were to guess when it all began, it would be when she got involved in the case. Though… Sosuke’s... parents would point at her pathetic hero career and shout that it was then when she went to the hero school when she started... she doomed Sosuke to death... because anyone else would’ve done a better job and saved him.

If she never went to the hero school, Sosuke would’ve never attracted the attention of that villain. Or any villain at all.

If she were a smarter woman, a braver-- If not for her incompetence he'd… well, either way, she’s never been the same.

Kayama saw horrible things, but the death of the young boy taken it’s greatest hit on her yet.

She couldn’t bear the guilt alone... she was very bad at handling her feelings on her own. She depended on people to help her to take care of herself when she was at her worst.

Of course, those people weren’t either Present Mic or Eraserhead, they barely held their emotional baggage. It was her wife who helped her through awful episodes each time.

Midnight was ever so slightly jealously looking at a monitor, watching a disgustingly romantic scene playing out between Ms. Joke and Eraserhead - it was the origin of Emi’s “marry me” joke that she repeated endlessly tormenting both Nemuri and Shouta with.

Both of her... friends were very good actors - convincing enough to make Midnight envious, even a little worried about whether they were genuine. She had to pinch herself to calm down and tell herself that Aizawa Shouta was gay. A few times.

Shouta would never answer to the advances of a person he wasn’t attracted to. Shouta would never try to hurt Nemuri either - hell, he asked many times if she was alright with his part in the operation because he knew of her silly crush.

Other than three of them at the scene, there were also two other underground heroes and a nearby police station on alert, waiting tensely for a signal. One of the extra teammates was inside the bar as an immediate back-up, while Midnight was waiting outside with the other guy. Shouta said he's never seen either of them before. It made Midnight wonder about how big the Underground Agency was.

That’s when Nemuri’s mobile meant for hero-related stuff rang. Excusing herself, she stepped out of the van, gladly distracting herself from the monitors.

“Lovely," She murmured to herself, "who’s this?” She answered in her "Midnight" voice, she didn’t recognize the number. Her fans liked to get her phone number from her agency’s site and call her. Some were sweet, while others just plain creepy.

“Mistress Midnight,” The voice on the other end of the line striked her immediately as someone dangerous. She was pretty good at reading people based off of their voice alone. Nobody in her agency had this voice and only those people addressed her as Mistress. “I’d suggest you come to your office quickly and pick it up, you have a very important message there." The person sounded almost giddy, like a little child who got a treat, or rather, in this situation, left someone a treat and wanted to see their reaction to it. With years of hero training and experience, she formed a suspect’s profile. "Time is extendable, but I don’t have forever.” This could be another freaky fan, but her gut was giving her especially bad vibe. “Ah, and don’t worry, we’re going to meet soon.”

Kayama was confused as to what the hell was that supposed to mean, but for now, she returned to the van. She was still on her mission and she had to keep the watch in case of Shouta and Emi requesting a back-up. Stepping back into the van, she bumped into the underground hero guy.

He shouted at her to get out there and "do her thing" because the operation was going to shit.

Alright then.

Nemuri counted herself as a part of the case ever since the villain called her phone which led her... home. The home of a naive pretty little girl who grew too fond of heroes and aspired to become like them.

Which resulted in the pretty little girl getting kicked out.

At 4 AM, about five hours after apprehending the villain gang and sending them into jail, Nemuri was sitting in her office.

Her leg bouncing as she looked at her phone. She had only a few saved numbers - only people she trusted were there, but there was an exception. There were two numbers saved of people she didn't trust one bit, and the missed calls came from them.

Back then, the agency building was her only home - she had a side room off of her big office - where she lived. Her office was modest, the only pieces of furniture were a desk, three leather armchairs, and her chair on wheels. The walls were covered praising articles and her posters, and also a sue for "too revealing outfit". She won that lawsuit by saying that the costume-regulation laws weren't established yet. They served as amusement for her bad mood.

In her desk's drawer, there were letters from her fans, police officers, some secret admirers and not-so-secret ones. She never responded because of her brand, and the other reason was... well, she was irreversibly lesbian. Male advances flattered her, but she wasn't interested.

"Hard to get" was helping her to sell more merchandise.

Below that drawer, she held some private things - like embarrassing photos of her cousins and aunts - and her identification documents. Only a small fraction though, she knew how things could get messy, and the most important stuff were kept in the side room, where she was the sole person who had access. It was relatively small and consisted of a pull-out couch and a wardrobe, and a small kitchen, and it connected to a bathroom with a shower and bathtub.

She used the shower at around 1 AM and ever since has been sitting motionlessly only changing the object that she was blankly staring at. The leather armchair in her office already dried from the water her wet tangled hair left.

Two notifications read:

You have missed 4 call(s) from Father

You have missed 17 call(s) from Mother

...and Midnight was… puzzled.

What was she supposed to do? The Kayamas have disowned her ages ago! What could’ve they wanted from her? They had everything! She was their disappointment! Her parents disowned her when she got into the hero school because she didn't want to play "status", and "power", and "house".

She disobeyed and went against what her parents thought was best for her. What was she even to them after all? A doll? They've married out of love and she was supposed to be sold? What's fair in that?

Pretty face, no brains and talented at dress-up games - that's what she started as. She still had little to no brain, but she wasn't useless anymore.

Surely, there was no emotional attachment to her. After all, they threw her out of her--their home. Well, not officially, and since that wasn't legal and they didn't want to be labeled as child abusers by abandoning her, they got her an apartment, moved her things and paid for it until she was 21.

She got her act together, unlocked the phone to look at dozens of missed texts.

Most of them were demanding to call back as soon as possible. When that list ended, she noticed the gap between this flood of texts and the last ones she sent them on New Year’s Eve back when she was 22 and hoped that she could fix their relationship... somehow.

So, not minding the hour, she called. It took two attempts - each to different parent - before Mother picked up. Her voice sounded… weary.

“Hello?”

“What happened?” Midnight didn’t quite sit well with the fact she was talking to her parents after promising herself to not look back.

“Nemuri?” The surprise in the woman’s voice that answered the phone was no wonder - she didn’t hear Nemuri’s voice for straight-up over ten years.

“Yeah. Why were you calling me?”

“Well… it’s about Sosuke, yo-- my son.” Nemuri flinched at that.

Of course, her parents wouldn’t know about her being aware of who Sosuke Kayama was. Her mother didn’t tell her she was pregnant, she officially hasn’t met him, she never talked with him. Nemuri was disowned sixteen years ago, and Sosuke was fourteen.

When she heard her mother went into labor, she sneaked into the hospital to greet her replacement and wish him good luck, but after that, she didn’t make any effort to contact him.

“What about him?” She kept her voice flat.

“He’s been kidnapped and it’s your fault.” Kayama Saori’s voice was sweet in her perfume commercials, but now it made Nemuri want to throw up. She leaned forward with her ear pressed to the phone. The heroine didn’t know whether she wanted to start apologizing or to throw the phone yelling that it wasn’t her fault.

“It’s not. Did you call to send me hate mail?” For the first few moments, it didn’t reach Nemuri that she was talking about a kidnapping over a phone. She never came to accept that her mother and father rejected her. So now, thoughts processed slower than usual.

“They want you to be the one to find him. You HAVE TO do this.”

“They?” Nemuri frowned, slightly surprised her mother hasn’t broken into wails yet. That was unusual…

“Yes. Whoever did this.”

It’s a game then?

Midnight bit at her thumb frustrated. Her little brother-- Sosuke was in danger because of her hero career? Was that true?

“I’ll call the police to question you, I am not a detective.” She said simply going for the disconnect button.

“No police or else he will be killed. Hurry.” Her mother hissed before she hung up. That left Nemuri frozen in her seat. So it was because of her.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21848440

[sattaking22-blog]

Do you consider the Satta Lord? In case you don't, by then this site page is simply dedicated to you. Here we will discuss each and every critical reality about this Satta Ruler Game. So the game beginnings from one number to a hundredth. Here you just need to pick any one or various numbers among the hundredth. If your picked number will come in the next day's result, by then you will get ninety of various rupees. So this is the round of Satta Ruler. This particular game offers drive to the entirety of the unfathomable money. The people who consider its changing centers they can without a doubt win this. In any case, the people who don't have prevented lakhs from claiming money. Along these lines in case you have to gain money vis this round of the Satta, by then you should need to accumulate all the available information on this site. As you will scrutinize this article a tiny bit at a time then you will know an enormous number of its stunning real factors.

 Satta Ruler layout

 Satta Ruler Is A Number Game Where You Can Bet Your Cash On Some Arbitrary Number And On the off chance that Your Picked Number Chose As A Triumphant Number, At that point You Can Win Cash. This Is An Extremely Famous Illagle Game In India. Various Individuals Play It To Win A lot of Cash Without Accomplishing Any Difficult work. They Need To Win A Colossal Sum For the time being. This Games History Is More seasoned Than The Historical backdrop of Opportunity of India.

 This Game Began In India Before We Got Opportunity From English Domain. Satta Lord is The Name of The Victor of This Game. Anybody That Bet Their Cash On A Triumphant Number Called Dark In any case, In Nowadays, Because of The Playing By An Enormous Quantities of Players And Because of The Huge Number of Victors, This Game Additionally Called Satta Ruler.

 How To Play Satta Lord On the web And Disconnected?

 As All of you Know, In Present Time This Game Is Played At A Huge Scope And Due, To Its Illicit Status, It's Difficult To Play Satta Ruler 2020 Is Amazingly Hard. Nevertheless, In Nowadays, There Are Numerous On the web And Disconnected Approaches To Play This Game. To Play This Game Disconnected, You Need To Contact A Satta Organization Operator That Called Khaiwal And afterward Request that he Compensation Your Cash On Your Ideal Number. Khaiwal Will Gather Your Number And Cash And Send It To The Satta Matka Organization And Your Interest Will Get Finished. Additionally, When The Fortunate Number Will Proclaimed, At that point He Will Reveal to You The Outcome And Pay You Your Triumphant Sum.

 To Play Satta Lord Game On the web, You Need To Visit A Satta Ruler Organization Site And afterward You Need To Make A Record On That Site. There You Need To Choose Your Ideal Number And The Wagering Sum And afterward You Need To Pay It Through Any Online Exchange Strategy. At the point when You Pay The Sum Your Interest Will to be Get Affirmed And In the event that You Are A Victor of This Number, At that point The Triumphant Sum You Will Get In Your Record. You Can Pull back It In Your Ledger. Along these lines, It's a Finished Guide On the most proficient method to Play Satta Lord Game On the web And Disconnected.

 Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes

 Various Satta Lord Results Sites Are Accessible Over Web And They Are Giving You Day by day Satta Ruler Results. Regardless, A few Sites Give You Complete Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes. There You Can Watch Satta Matka Results As indicated by The Long stretch of the multi Year. In this manner, You Can Utilize Those Sites To Chek Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes.

 Some of Them Contains More established Years Results Additionally Like Satta Ruler Results 2019, Satta Lord Results from 2018 And so on. Along these lines, On the off chance that You Are A Satta Matka Player And You Regularly Pay This Game Then The More seasoned Game Information Is Exceptionally Useful For You. You Can Utilize This Authentic Information To Discover The present Satta Ruler Number And The Triumphant Number of Forthcoming Games.

 Satta Ruler Desawar Gali Ghaziabad Faridabad Result time table.

 In case we talk about a part of the rounds of Satta Lord, it is an acclaimed game, they live in a lot of discussion about their time, their time is fixed and all the while they exhibit their results to the people. As we talk, the hour of the Desawar Ghaziabad Gali Faridabad game is totally fixed, never misses your time. At the fix time, people show them their correct results and their time table, I have given you inside the table

 Various Individuals Confounded Between The Satta Lord And Satta Matka Game. Regardless, Here I Will Educate You Concerning Both. These Both Are Similar Games. In any case, Because of This Game History And The Here and now Thinking, This Game Has two Names.One Is Satta Ruler And Second Is Satta Matka. It's Called Because of The Victors Title As Satta Ruler And Because of The Utilizing of Matka (Picture) In Beginning It's Called Satta Matka. At the outset, A few Slips With Numbers Were Placed In A Pitcher And afterward The Cash Will Be Wagd On A Number. By then An Individual Pull back The Slip For The Matka (Pitcher) And Inform Everyone Concerning The Triumphant Number. Along these lines, Because of The History, It Is Notable As Satta Matka. Thusly, There Are No Issues And Contrast Between The Satta Ruler And Satta Matka. These Both Are The Name of A Solitary Game. In any case, As indicated by The Area And The States, Its Calling Name Is Extraordinary.

 How To Dominate Satta Ruler Match?

 There Are No Demonstrated Method To Win A Satta Ruler game. Ruling This Match Is Simply Rely Upon your Karma. No one Know, Which Number Will be Proclaimed As Winning Number Yesterday. Also, There Are Not A Realized Method To Know, How They Pick The Triumphant Number.For more data click here. In any case, As indicated by Certain Bits of gossip, Satta Ruler Number Will is Picked By The Pursued Cash On A Specific Number. The Number Which Has The Base Pursued Sum. Thusly, Organization Has Most extreme Benefits And They Need To Pay Least Add up To The Champ.

 Regardless, Its Not Formally Affirmed. Regardless, Numerous People groups Have Inside Connections In The Satta Organization. The Will Approach The Organization For The Triumphant Number And Give That Number To The Players. They Will Likewise Bet Your Wager On The Triumphant Number And Furthermore Take The Assurance that They Will Without a doubt Reveal to You The Triumphant Number. Thusly, To Win A Satta Lord Game, You Need To Simply Contact With The Any Satta Number Supplier OR you Need To Do A Profound Exploration On Chronicled Result To Locate A Triumphant Number. Regardless, As I State Effectively, Winning Is Absolutely Rely Upon Your Karma.

 Is Satta Ruler Unlawful?

 Satta Ruler Is Illeage In Numerous Conditions of India. Not many out of each odd State Govt. Will Permit Their People groups To Get Took an interest In These Sort Games. Regardless, Some State Govt. Will Permit These Sort Games. Regardless, They Put An Enormous Assessment On The Triumphant

 Total. Mostly Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Delhi, And Rajasthan Govt Announced This Game As A Criminal behavior. Regardless, The Information Are Amazing, These Are The Expressed Where This Game Played At A Huge Scope. In any case, The Govt of These States Can't Stop The Players And The Coordinators. This Game Will Running Easily In These Satiates And Even Its Came to In Ghetto Zone Too. Along these lines, By and large You can Say, In spite of the fact that This Game Is A Criminal behavior Yet Its Developing Step by step In India And Some Specific States.

 Satta Lord Birthplace

 Satta Lord Began In 1960 In India And In Early Time It Began In Kolkata. Where Works And The Some Others Will Wage Their Cash On The Bombay Stock Trade Cotton Value Hole And Soon Numerous People groups Will Remembered For This Game. In Time The Strategy for This Game Was Changed, Presently In Present Time The Triumphant Number Will be Proclaimed By The PCs Yet in Past It Was Totally Rely Upon A Harsh Gauge. Soo, A few People groups Changed The Strategy for The Playing Game. They Expressed Another Game Guideline, As indicated by This, A few Slips Were Placed In A Pitcher And Each Slip Contain An Extraordinary Number. These Numbers Were Lies Between 0 To 99 And The Members Will Wage Their Sum On Their Ideal Numbers. Right when Each member Will Present Their Wager, At that point On A Pre Chosen Time, An Arbitrary Slip From Pitcher Pulled back By An Individual. The Number That Composed On That Slip Announced As The Triumphant Number.

 Be that as it may, Soon, This Technique Additionally Get Old And New Strategies Were Likewise Remembered For This Game. In Beginning This Game Was Sorted out By Just A Solitary Satta Organization However In Present Time Numerous Organizations Compose Satta Games In Various Pieces of India.

 In Beginning Just a single Fortunate Number Will be Pronounced In A Day Yet Now Its Three Time A Day. Taj, Deshawar, Gali, And Are Some Famous Satta Organization That Sort out Satta Game In All Over India And They Have A Huge Player Base. Along these lines, It's an Itemized Information On Satta Lord Game Beginning.

 Satta Ruler Graph – Data And Where To Discover It?

 Satta Lord Graph Will Contains Organized And Very much Designed Aftereffects of Satta Ruler Games. Here You Will Get Total Information of Winning Quantities of Different Satta Organizations And A Diagram As per The Time, Date, Month And Year. You Can Without much of a stretch Comprehend And Contrast Each Organization Information With Locate The Up and coming Winning Numbers As indicated by the Date, Year, And Month. This Will A Straightforward The Old History of A Satta Lord Organization Results. Layouts Can Likewise Keep The Planning And Data of A Satta Organization. Their Every day Sorted out Games And Their Day by day Winning Numbers. You Can Discover Satta Ruler Diagram On Different Site., Satta ruler First, Likewise One of Them That Will Give You the Satta master Graph. Here You Will Locate The Previous Month And Years Satta Lord Victor Numbers In An Oversaw Manner. This Site Is A Confided in Wellspring of Checking Satta Ruler Diagram 2020. If You Are A Satta Lord Player And Need More seasoned Information, At that point You Can Visit This Site. Sattaking Where Can I Discovered Satta Lord Online Outcomes?

 SattaKingFirst.in Is A Dependable And Confided in Site To Check Satta Ruler Day by day Results On the web. Here You Will Get Information of Day by day Fortunate Numbers That Proclaimed As Winning Numbers. Here You Can Likewise Check The Consequences of Famous Satta Organizations Like Desawar, Taj, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, And Gali. At the point when These Organizations Announce Their results, We Will Refresh Them Here. This Site Is A Best Source To Get Satta Ruler Online Outcomes. To Get Quick Outcomes Just Bookmark This Site And Visit It An opportunity To Time. We, Will, Update Each Organization Results quickly. Hence, You Can Check Your Outcomes Immediately And Can Guarantee Your Cash Quick. Along these lines, On the off chance that You Are Searching For Satta Ruler Results On the web, At that point You Have No Compelling reason To Go Anyplace.

[satta-king-blr-blog]

satta king || sattaking

Do you consider the Satta Lord? In case you don't, by then this site page is simply dedicated to you. Here we will discuss each and every critical reality about this Satta Ruler Game. So the game beginnings from one number to a hundredth. Here you just need to pick any one or various numbers among the hundredth. If your picked number will come in the next day's result, by then you will get ninety of various rupees. So this is the round of Satta Ruler. This particular game offers drive to the entirety of the unfathomable money. The people who consider its changing centers they can without a doubt win this. In any case, the people who don't have prevented lakhs from claiming money. Along these lines in case you have to gain money vis this round of the Satta, by then you should need to accumulate all the available information on this site. As you will scrutinize this article a tiny bit at a time then you will know an enormous number of its stunning real factors.

 Satta Ruler layout

 Satta Ruler Is A Number Game Where You Can Bet Your Cash On Some Arbitrary Number And On the off chance that Your Picked Number Chose As A Triumphant Number, At that point You Can Win Cash. This Is An Extremely Famous Illagle Game In India. Various Individuals Play It To Win A lot of Cash Without Accomplishing Any Difficult work. They Need To Win A Colossal Sum For the time being. This Games History Is More seasoned Than The Historical backdrop of Opportunity of India.

 This Game Began In India Before We Got Opportunity From English Domain. Satta Lord is The Name of The Victor of This Game. Anybody That Bet Their Cash On A Triumphant Number Called Dark In any case, In Nowadays, Because of The Playing By An Enormous Quantities of Players And Because of The Huge Number of Victors, This Game Additionally Called Satta Ruler.

 How To Play Satta Lord On the web And Disconnected?

 As All of you Know, In Present Time This Game Is Played At A Huge Scope And Due, To Its Illicit Status, It's Difficult To Play Satta Ruler 2020 Is Amazingly Hard. Nevertheless, In Nowadays, There Are Numerous On the web And Disconnected Approaches To Play This Game. To Play This Game Disconnected, You Need To Contact A Satta Organization Operator That Called Khaiwal And afterward Request that he Compensation Your Cash On Your Ideal Number. Khaiwal Will Gather Your Number And Cash And Send It To The Satta Matka Organization And Your Interest Will Get Finished. Additionally, When The Fortunate Number Will Proclaimed, At that point He Will Reveal to You The Outcome And Pay You Your Triumphant Sum.

 To Play Satta Lord Game On the web, You Need To Visit A Satta Ruler Organization Site And afterward You Need To Make A Record On That Site. There You Need To Choose Your Ideal Number And The Wagering Sum And afterward You Need To Pay It Through Any Online Exchange Strategy. At the point when You Pay The Sum Your Interest Will to be Get Affirmed And In the event that You Are A Victor of This Number, At that point The Triumphant Sum You Will Get In Your Record. You Can Pull back It In Your Ledger. Along these lines, It's a Finished Guide On the most proficient method to Play Satta Lord Game On the web And Disconnected.

 Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes

 Various Satta Lord Results Sites Are Accessible Over Web And They Are Giving You Day by day Satta Ruler Results. Regardless, A few Sites Give You Complete Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes. There You Can Watch Satta Matka Results As indicated by The Long stretch of the multi Year. In this manner, You Can Utilize Those Sites To Chek Satta Ruler 2020 Outcomes.

 Some of Them Contains More established Years Results Additionally Like Satta Ruler Results 2019, Satta Lord Results from 2018 And so on. Along these lines, On the off chance that You Are A Satta Matka Player And You Regularly Pay This Game Then The More seasoned Game Information Is Exceptionally Useful For You. You Can Utilize This Authentic Information To Discover The present Satta Ruler Number And The Triumphant Number of Forthcoming Games.

 Satta Ruler Desawar Gali Ghaziabad Faridabad Result time table.

 In case we talk about a part of the rounds of Satta Lord, it is an acclaimed game, they live in a lot of discussion about their time, their time is fixed and all the while they exhibit their results to the people. As we talk, the hour of the Desawar Ghaziabad Gali Faridabad game is totally fixed, never misses your time. At the fix time, people show them their correct results and their time table, I have given you inside the table

 Various Individuals Confounded Between The Satta Lord And Satta Matka Game. Regardless, Here I Will Educate You Concerning Both. These Both Are Similar Games. In any case, Because of This Game History And The Here and now Thinking, This Game Has two Names.One Is Satta Ruler And Second Is Satta Matka. It's Called Because of The Victors Title As Satta Ruler And Because of The Utilizing of Matka (Picture) In Beginning It's Called Satta Matka. At the outset, A few Slips With Numbers Were Placed In A Pitcher And afterward The Cash Will Be Wagd On A Number. By then An Individual Pull back The Slip For The Matka (Pitcher) And Inform Everyone Concerning The Triumphant Number. Along these lines, Because of The History, It Is Notable As Satta Matka. Thusly, There Are No Issues And Contrast Between The Satta Ruler And Satta Matka. These Both Are The Name of A Solitary Game. In any case, As indicated by The Area And The States, Its Calling Name Is Extraordinary.

 How To Dominate Satta Ruler Match?

 There Are No Demonstrated Method To Win A Satta Ruler game. Ruling This Match Is Simply Rely Upon your Karma. No one Know, Which Number Will be Proclaimed As Winning Number Yesterday. Also, There Are Not A Realized Method To Know, How They Pick The Triumphant Number.For more data click here. In any case, As indicated by Certain Bits of gossip, Satta Ruler Number Will is Picked By The Pursued Cash On A Specific Number. The Number Which Has The Base Pursued Sum. Thusly, Organization Has Most extreme Benefits And They Need To Pay Least Add up To The Champ.

 Regardless, Its Not Formally Affirmed. Regardless, Numerous People groups Have Inside Connections In The Satta Organization. The Will Approach The Organization For The Triumphant Number And Give That Number To The Players. They Will Likewise Bet Your Wager On The Triumphant Number And Furthermore Take The Assurance that They Will Without a doubt Reveal to You The Triumphant Number. Thusly, To Win A Satta Lord Game, You Need To Simply Contact With The Any Satta Number Supplier OR you Need To Do A Profound Exploration On Chronicled Result To Locate A Triumphant Number. Regardless, As I State Effectively, Winning Is Absolutely Rely Upon Your Karma.

 Is Satta Ruler Unlawful?

 Satta Ruler Is Illeage In Numerous Conditions of India. Not many out of each odd State Govt. Will Permit Their People groups To Get Took an interest In These Sort Games. Regardless, Some State Govt. Will Permit These Sort Games. Regardless, They Put An Enormous Assessment On The Triumphant

 Total. Mostly Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat, Delhi, And Rajasthan Govt Announced This Game As A Criminal behavior. Regardless, The Information Are Amazing, These Are The Expressed Where This Game Played At A Huge Scope. In any case, The Govt of These States Can't Stop The Players And The Coordinators. This Game Will Running Easily In These Satiates And Even Its Came to In Ghetto Zone Too. Along these lines, By and large You can Say, In spite of the fact that This Game Is A Criminal behavior Yet Its Developing Step by step In India And Some Specific States.

 Satta Lord Birthplace

 Satta Lord Began In 1960 In India And In Early Time It Began In Kolkata. Where Works And The Some Others Will Wage Their Cash On The Bombay Stock Trade Cotton Value Hole And Soon Numerous People groups Will Remembered For This Game. In Time The Strategy for This Game Was Changed, Presently In Present Time The Triumphant Number Will be Proclaimed By The PCs Yet in Past It Was Totally Rely Upon A Harsh Gauge. Soo, A few People groups Changed The Strategy for The Playing Game. They Expressed Another Game Guideline, As indicated by This, A few Slips Were Placed In A Pitcher And Each Slip Contain An Extraordinary Number. These Numbers Were Lies Between 0 To 99 And The Members Will Wage Their Sum On Their Ideal Numbers. Right when Each member Will Present Their Wager, At that point On A Pre Chosen Time, An Arbitrary Slip From Pitcher Pulled back By An Individual. The Number That Composed On That Slip Announced As The Triumphant Number.

 Be that as it may, Soon, This Technique Additionally Get Old And New Strategies Were Likewise Remembered For This Game. In Beginning This Game Was Sorted out By Just A Solitary Satta Organization However In Present Time Numerous Organizations Compose Satta Games In Various Pieces of India.

 In Beginning Just a single Fortunate Number Will be Pronounced In A Day Yet Now Its Three Time A Day. Taj, Deshawar, Gali, And Are Some Famous Satta Organization That Sort out Satta Game In All Over India And They Have A Huge Player Base. Along these lines, It's an Itemized Information On Satta Lord Game Beginning.

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[blazehedgehog]

What do you think of Dunkey's recent video (or previous part also) regarding game critics?

Maybe I’m in the wrong head space to be writing about this right now, because in the last, say, 48 hours, I have slept about five hours. And this is a huge, complicated issue that can’t really be unpacked in a single blog post, because it spans multiple kinds of topics and honestly even on a good day the scope is undoubtedly beyond my comprehension.

I’ve talked about it before, but there’s a very clear disconnect between a lot of the people who read the game press and those who are involved with the reporting of game news.

As a reader, it’s very easy to let yourself fall in to a trap of resentment against these kinds of people. I’ve certainly been one of those guys, who complains about Kotaku, or Polygon, or whatever for saying or doing something dumb.

And at the exact same time, I think the game press can definitely lose sight of what it was like to be a consumer. You spend enough years going to press events, seeing games early, getting games for free, and being totally immersed in that culture that you forget what it was like before that happened.

It creates this endless battle where I don’t think either side really understands the other.

Readers don’t understand things like deadlines, quotas or NDAs. In some cases, readers don’t even understand the concept of a “byline.” They see an article posted to IGN, and that’s who wrote it – IGN. Not a person, not a name, a corporation. So, when an individual makes a mistake, it casts a long shadow on the entire publication, even if it was an accident or the problem is dealt with (as in, the person is fired or whatever).

In addition to what I said earlier about slowly losing touch with their audience, I also think the game press can sometimes treat their audience like garbage. I know that can often be in response to idiots acting like idiots, but I’ve definitely been on the reader end of things, where I’ll often get unfairly treated like a type of person I am not just because I happen to be a guy leaving a comment on an article. There is kind of a built-in hostility towards the readership inherent to a lot of this stuff that I’d argue doesn’t need to be there. Every time they make fun of a pretend-neckbeard strawman they’re setting a bad precedent and setting the tone of all future conversations to be weighed against this example. That’s not how you open a healthy conversation.

All of this being said, however, lately my opinion on the matter has been skewing more in the favor of the press. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve written for TSSZnews.com for literally over a decade at this point, or maybe it’s the fact I’ve watched some friends land a job or two at some pretty large and publications, but I think readers are often harsher on the press than they deserve.

A lot more goes on behind the scenes than I think most readers realize. Again, it’s that mentality of only seeing the corporation and not the people. Articles don’t get written in a vacuum, wholly separate from each other. There is a context and a personality behind everything. And when you think they’re dumb, sometimes they feel dumb, too, because their source turned out to be bogus, or the information they got from the publisher was wrong, or because it was their last article of the day and they were just tired. This is a job, after all, and I’m sure literally everyone has had a day where they did not (or could not!) give 100% to their work. It happens. That doesn’t mean it’s okay or should be the norm, but it happens.

Think of them as waiters at a restaurant or somebody working the register at a supermarket. Most of them are just as tired and frustrated as you are, so try to be nice.

I feel like Dunkey, especially in his first video, falls more on the consumer end of things. He makes some good points about decentralization and how a site like IGN doesn’t have a clear voice, but that’s also he himself not really paying attention to the bylines, you know? He mentions film critic Armond White by name, but all throughout that first video he never once says the name of an editor at IGN, or Gamespot, or anywhere else. That doesn’t invalidate his complaints about systemic issues with the review scale, but it is a little weird, and makes him part of the problem.

And part of me almost wonders if part 2 is some amount of atonement for that, because it’s obviously turning the crosshairs to the other side and focusing on, as he calls it, “internet noise.” People who complain for the sake of complaining, often hypocritically, and without purpose.

The issue is both more simple and more complex than you think it is, and I think Dunkey’s two videos kind of highlight that, at least a little bit. Everyone, even Dunkey, is contributing to this problem and the whole thing has turned in to a big, weird, ugly mess.