#this could be about anything but it’s mostly animal crossing and sims in my heart

[waspgrave]

Thinking about how good games could be if not for the crunch and corporate greed

[yellowocaballero]

Jon & Sasha Arson fic

Little fragment of an idea that never went anywhere. No reason for it. Just thought it would be funny. I was right. Rest under the cut. 

Most people who were unlucky enough to meet Jonathan Sims assumed he had no friends.

This was true, up to a point two weeks after Jon became a researcher at the Magnus Institute: afterwards Jon had no friends, except for Sasha James.

Sasha James was attributable to arson.

Most people who were unlucky enough to meet Jonathan Sims assumed he had no friends. 

This was true, up to a point two weeks after Jon became a researcher at the Magnus Institute: afterwards Jon had no friends, except for Sasha James. 

*******

Sasha James was attributable to arson.

Arson was attributable to a bookshelf of Leitners, humming strange songs and spewing toxic energy into the air in rhythmic hissing motions. The Leitners were attributable to Artifact Storage, a testament to mankind’s hubris and a modern-day tower of Babel where a group of underpaid academics found themselves stress testing kevlar and fire suppression systems each day. Artifact Storage was attributable to the Magnus Institute, where Jon had managed to land a job after three months of desolate post-graduate unemployment. And the Magnus Institute was attributable to - well, probably Jonah Magnus, but Jon found that it was likely a bit of a reach to blame a long dead Regency gentleman for all of his problems. 

Jon needed this job. London was expensive and so were funerals, and he couldn’t keep living on life insurance forever. It was even a good job, with decent pay and the exact kind of limp, half-hearted academia that the private sector promised disillusioned English mastery holders. His coworkers were nice - well, Tim was nice, everybody else seemed to hate him for the same reason that everybody else hated him, likely intimidated by how smart he was - and the commute was short. He couldn’t afford to lose this job. Spiritually, metaphysically, and literally. 

Which was why he should stop staring at this piece of paper. The follow-up research to a statement given by some idiot unlucky enough to cross paths with what was certainly a Leitner. 

‘ORIGINATION OF PHENOMENA ISOLATED’, the page read out professionally, yet chipperly, like a young woman in a new office job. ‘ITEM QUARANTINED WITHIN ARTIFACT STORAGE (46B.1)’. 

Hm. 

Jon pushed down on the floor, rolling himself a meter to the left.

“Say, er, Mr. Stoker.”

Tim “I’m only four years older than you, please call me Tim” Stoker, who had been thumping away on his cheap plastic keyboard either writing up a report or messaging someone on one of those infernal casual sex websites, pulled down his headphones and blinked at Jon owlishly, before splitting his face into a grin. Jon could practically hear the David Attenborough-style narration within his mind: ‘After long weeks leaving out food for the wild Simothan, the feral yet gentle animal approaches the researcher of his own volition. A win for scientists everywhere.’

“Yes, Jon?” Tim asked, in an uncanny yet hopefully unintentional RP drawl. 

“What’s Artifact Storage?”

“God, I wish I was you,” Tim said feelingly. But he nodded sagely anyway, milking his ‘wise senpai’ thing for all it was worth. Jon could practically feel Tim calling himself a senpai. It was kind of embarrassing. “You know the shady room locked deep within the basement that exudes a terrible aura of malice and hatred towards you specifically?”

“The gender neutral bathroom?” Jon asked, confused. 

“No, the one that always smells somewhat of blood. You hear screams sometimes?”

“The Archives!”

“Yes, but no! It’s Artifact Storage. If the researchers dig up any creepy shit from a statement, or if a statement giver brings in something that melts the metal detector, then we dump it in Artifact Storage and let those miserable fucks take care of it.”

“Is it more of a containment facility, or would you say that they conduct experiments?”

But Tim just shrugged. “My source down there tells me that they do some experiments to justify their budget, but it’s mostly unscientific. Poke this and I’ll give you twenty quid, that kind of thing. They say that if you really want a sick day, all you have to do is touch a mysterious rock and whisper your mother’s name -”

“Fantastic, thank you for your help, must go back to filling now,” Jon said quickly, skittering back to his own desk. He tried to distract himself from the terrifying thought of the basement full of supernatural nuclear bombs underneath his feet by trying to remember his mother’s name, but he was stuck on if it was Marjorie or Margaret. Mary Anne?

Maybe Tim’s personal Meerkat Manor series of Jon’s life had paid off - Sims Shack? - more than Jon would like, because Tim squinted at Jon in an unsettlingly familiar way. As if he knew exactly what Jon was thinking about the literature of mass destruction, and he really wanted Jon to be thinking literally anything else. 

“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you, Jon,” Tim warned, sounding a little like a horror movie trailer. “Bushy tailed college grads who go down there don’t come out the same as they went in.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Stoker.”

“For the love of christ call me Tim!”

It really was a pity - Jon had actually liked this job. 

*******

It was remarkably easy to commit arson in central London.

Jon had done it once or twice. Three times, actually, although when you think about it arson was a criminal charge and only truly existed so long as someone was charged with it, so technically you could say that Jon had done arson zero times. In his defense, you try making it through Oxford without doing anything embarrassing. 90% of your time was in class or schoolwork and 10% of it was being hazed. At least Jon hadn’t fucked any pigs. 

Jon hit up the usual stores, and stashed the usual implements in his rucksack. It was a careful week after his conversation with Tim, as he couldn’t afford for the older man to connect the dots. He made a show of going home at a timely five pm, startling everybody around him, and paced in a tight circle around his flat until he gave up and watched mindless telly until the clock struck midnight. 

He took a cab to the park a few blocks down from the Institute, and walked the rest of the way. It was a cool, dim night in London, and the foot-traffic had slowed down to a steady trickle of young people in tight clothing. Jon pulled down his baseball cap on his head, fished a key out from his pocket given to him by a helpful and friendly janitor, and took a back entrance into the Institute. 

Said helpful and friendly janitor, whose allegiance had been won because Jon was a “nice young lad” and “I always wanted to burn down the place myself, I’m happy to see the next generation give it a go” had helpfully told Jon that there were no security cameras inside the Institute. A grievous oversight, but good luck for Jon tonight. He took the stairs down to the basement, zipping his jacket up tight against the inescapable chill, and pushed his hat further down his head as he navigated his way towards Artifact Storage.

He unlocked the door with the janitor’s key, hands shaking, and slipped inside into the dusky and unlit room. 

It was pitch-black, and Jon quickly fished a torch out of his backpack. He flipped it on, letting it slowly scan the room. It was the lobby into Artifact Storage, familiar from his stake-out missions: you walked in, met the bored woman behind the desk, checked in or checked out what you wanted, and if you needed to go inside she would press the button that unlocked the heavy climate-controlled door and let you into the hallway inside. The only other door in the lobby was to the office of the Director of Artifact Storage, a terrifying short and squat woman with silver hair pulled into a bun. 

Jon leaned over the counter and jammed the button, holding his breath until he heard the door click open. He quickly twisted the handle, swung the heavy door out, and slipped inside, taking care to grab one of the chairs in the lobby and prop it open. Quick escapes were necessary. 

He was in. 

The torch lit up a map taped up to the wall, and Jon squinted at it. Section A, Section B, Section C...he remembered the classification from the document he read a week ago, and slowly walked down the hallway until he found the heavy climate controlled door marked ‘SECTION B’. He carefully wrenched it open, taking care to grab a rolling cart and using it to prop the door open, before stepping inside. He fished the canister of gasoline and the lighter out of his backpack, giving the gasoline a good shake. 

It was a library. Small, and instead of shelves there were long metal racks with filing boxes stretching long into the darkness, but Jon knew a library when he saw one. Each box had a clipboard attached to it, and most boxes had very large and terrifying stickers on them painted sickly yellow or dangerous red. 

The only thing in the library that wasn’t a filing rack was a battered and beat couch. And the only person in the room besides Jon was a woman, blinking up at Jon blearily from where she had been passed out on the couch. 

“Er,” Jon said. 

The woman sat up, squinting at Jon’s torchlight until he guiltily aimed it just to her left. She had a wild mane of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pencil skirt and ruffled burgundy blouse. A blazer was folded at one end of the couch, clearly being used as a pillow, and she looked strongly as if Jon had just woken her up from a very nice nap. 

“Whuh,” the sleepy woman said. 

“My mistake,” Jon said, “this isn’t the loo. Go back to bed, this is - er, a very bad dream, goodnight.”

“Whutuhiseet,” the woman slurred. 

“It’s - very late, go back to bed.”

“Alright,” the woman said, falling back on the couch. After a second, her snores echoed through the room again. 

Jon very slowly crept backwards. Actually, on second thought, his mission could wait for tomorrow. Bit of a cock block, this, but that was alright - 

“Hey! Who are you!”

Jon, hand on the handle of the door, squeaked and turned around. 

The woman was back up again, and this time she seemed actually awake. She was frowning mightily at Jon, and was already sliding off the couch in stocking feet to glare at him. Jon was aware that he did not look like an innocent person in these events. The gasoline did not help.

The woman’s eyes trailed to the gasoline, then widened. Jon ineffectually tried to hide it behind his back. 

“You’re trying to burn down Artifact Storage!” the woman accused, somewhat fairly.

“Not all of Artifact Storage,” Jon said guiltily, “just the Leitners.”

The woman stared at him further, as if she was a special guest on Tim’s Sims Shack nature documentary. 

“Why,” the woman said slowly, “would you want to do that?”

Despite himself, Jon found himself puffing up in indignation. “They’re evil, nasty little books that shouldn’t exist. Forget studying and - and containing them, we should be making sure no more of them ever disgrace the world again. We should be burning every one we see. They’re pure evil given literary form, they are a disgrace to books and libraries, and if I ever met Leitner myself I would beat him to death with a rusty pipe for subjecting me to his fucked up books.”

The woman stared at him. 

Finally, she said, “I’m Sasha James. Want some help?”

“I - er, wouldn’t that get you in trouble, Ms. James?” 

“I like this job but I hate Leitner and his fucked up books more,” Sasha said gravely. 

Jon, having found a kindred spirit, held out the lighter. 

Sasha James took it, a wide grin splitting her face. 

*********

Jon didn’t remember much else of that night. 

There was definitely arson involved - or, seeing as they hadn’t gotten caught, just some good old-fashioned fire starting. He had the sense that they had both been so giddy with adrenaline that they had immediately joined the raging uni students in the late night bars, toasting their success in toasting. There had probably been quite a bit of alcohol.

When he woke up the next morning, it was in his narrow and uncomfortable bed, face to face with an unfamiliar snoring woman. For a second, two, Jon was briefly convinced that he had done something so drastically out of character it meant that a fucked up book had body swapped him with Tim. Bodyswapping was more likely than him having casual sex. 

Then Jon remembered the arson, and he exhaled in relief as his life made sense again. 

“Ms. James,” Jon whispered, poking her in the arm. She snuffled and muttered something. Jon poked her harder. “Ms. James, we have work.”

Sasha turned around, turning her back to him and pulling up the blankets. “Go back to bed, Tim.”

Ti - oh god. Jon felt like he was in a CW drama. This was why he didn’t interact with people, far too much likelihood that he would accidentally end up interacting with somebody who had sex.

“Ms. James,” Jon hissed, extremely embarrassed, “you have to get up!”

“Mergh mergh fuck off,” Sasha James said. 

Jon, like a true gentleman and hero, got up and made them both strong tea. He squinted at Sasha, recalling everything he knew about her (slept a lot, liked arson, hated Jurgen Leitner) before digging out some instant coffee and making some of that too. Finally, after shoving a hot cup of sludgey black liquid at the woman, she grabbed the cup and chugged it until she was able to sit up and open her eyes. 

She blinked at Jon, who was already picking his hair in an attempt to get ready for work. He could clearly see the thoughts ‘you aren’t Tim’ run through her brain. Hah! He could be the narrator of the nature documentary for once!

“Uh,” Sasha James said, “I’m sorry, did we…?”

“Commit arson? Yes.” Jon paused a beat. “But as I don’t believe we were caught, call it an indoor campfire.”

Sasha James drank more of her coffee. Jon grabbed his clothing and disappeared into the loo to get changed. 

When he re-entered his bedroom, she snapped her fingers at him. “Right! We got pissed after! Good times, mate!”

“I have to assume,” Jon said politely. He was doing his very best to be very polite, because Jon knew he was rude and didn’t want his new coworkers to know that until his probation period was over. Maybe he should have waited until after his probation period for the arson? Would it look bad on his annual review? “Do you need to borrow some clothing? I think we’re about the same size.” Oh, no, was that rude to say to a woman?

Sasha James squinted at him. “It’s like you’re not hungover at all. How old are you?”

“Twenty five?” Be polite, Jon! “And you’re...thirty seven?”

“I’m thirty one, asshole!”

Oh no. Women hated it when you called them old. “You don’t look a day over twenty seven!” Jon cried, panicked. 

“Have you met a woman?”

“I had a grandmother?”

“I’m going back to bed,” Sasha James said. 

Unfortunately, Jon knew that it would be very suspicious if they both skipped, so he forced Sasha into one of his suits that...looked much nicer on her than him, but whatever, and hustled them both to work. Now that the adrenaline had worn away and the sense of purpose in his holy mission had burned up with the cleansing flames, Jon found himself biting his nails in agony in the Underground. 

They had to know. Someone must have caught them. Maybe there were secret CCTVs in the Institute. Maybe Sasha was going to rat him out - but she had helped, so wouldn’t she just be ratting out herself? Was she a double agent? Mr. Bouchard was never going to forgive him, no matter how nice he was and how much he seemed to like Jon to the point where he rather wished someone had given him the ‘Stranger Danger’ speech as a child so he would know what to do. Jon was going to go to jail, or worse - get fired. 

Sasha, cooly sipping her coffee and looking somewhat fly in sunglasses and his suit, did not seem disturbed by any of this. Jon’s rapidly spiralling panic attack must have been obvious, because she casually flicked a finger on his forehead. Jon yelped with pain. 

“Take it easy, mate. If they catch us, I’ll just say that the books made us do it.”

Jon scowled at her, rubbing his smarting forehead. “The books?”

“Sure.” She waved her fingers spookily as the Underground rattled forward into the heart of London. “Brainwashed us to do their evil bidding of -”

“Destroying them?”

“There’s a lot of arson Leitners,” Sasha James said sagely. “Trust me, this is just a normal day in Artifact Storage.” She clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder, and Jon fought a blush. “Don’t worry. We performed a public service, kiddo. St. Peter’s gonna give us a medal when we get to the pearly gates.”

“I’m an adult,” Jon said, scandalized. He had gray hair!

“Well, I guess, but I don’t know your name, so…”

 Jon squinted at her. She squinted at him back. 

“You’re thinking that if you don’t give me your name I can’t rat you out to the feds,” Sasha said flatly. 

Jon pursed his lips. 

Finally, he settled on, “You don’t rat me out to the feds and I won’t tell them that you’re in an illicit relationship with Mr. Stoker.”

“Mr. - how did - what!”

“It’s Jonathan Sims,” Jon said gruffly, crossing his arms. He was slightly hungover and his nerve were jittery and he had set fire to his workplace the previous night, but somehow Jon thought that his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest for a different reason. Somehow Jon felt as if his heart couldn’t stop thumping behind his sternum because Sasha James was staring at him, head cocked, as if he was a mystery she was interested in finding out. “That’s my name.”

Sasha James stared at him, as if surprised, before her face broke into a wide and happy smile. Jon hunched his shoulders up, embarrassed, faintly aware he was blushing. “It’s nice to meet you, Jonathan!” Then she grabbed him by the collar, shaking him slightly. “And there is nothing illicit about me and Tim, and there is nothing between me and Tim at all, we are just friends, so get that out of your little head -”

The train rattled on towards the Magnus Institute, and towards the slight smell of smoke in the air. 

*******

Sasha: are you coming 2 the pub w/us 2nite?

Sasha: come onnn you should comeee don’t feel awkwardddd 

Sasha: I know you hate a) group settings b) drunk people c) Tim in a group d) drunk Tim and e) Tim drunk in a group but that’s no reason not to come!

Sasha: Tim is physiologically incapable of not adopting men 3-5 years younger than him it’s in his blood you can’t escape his affection

Sasha: or at least I find it funny so I’m not letting you

Sasha: Jonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Jon: Yes I’ll come, I need to talk to both of you.

Sasha: WAHOO

Sasha: wait

Sasha: really?

Sasha: did you commit ars*on again

Sasha: wait if you did don’t tell me the courts can request text transcripts

Jon: No, I just need your advice on an urgent matter.

Sasha: do you need to be drunk to do it

Jon: ...maybe.

Jon: ....Mr. Bouchard offered me the Head Archivist Job?

Jon: Which is stupid because I’ve worked here for barely four years and you’ve worked here for about ten years I think. And you’ve published five papers in parapsychological research. I know I helped you figure out that this place is a weird trauma mill but it was really mostly you. It’s completely ridiculous to promote me and I’m afraid it’s favoritism. For potentially heinous ends? This feels awful because it’s such an honor but I would never stop feeling stressed and guilty because I know so many more people (like you) are so much more qualified. Or qualified at all.

Sasha: holy shit

Sasha: ...do you remember the speech I gave you on stranger danger?

Jon: I’m afraid to mention this to Tim because he might beat up Mr. Bouchard for both my honor and yours.

Sasha: Jesus at this point I don’t even want a fucking job anymore. What bullshit. I’m never going to get promoted and I just need to accept that. This isn’t your fault, Jon, seriously, thank you for telling me. 

Sasha: we can talk about this at the pub

Sasha: in private. Off the radar. 

Jon: Looking forward to it :)

Jon: did I use the emoticon right?

Sasha: Yes, Jon, you did everything right. 

[kasumi-core]

An oc development blog for Kasumi, my fnf oc. Ran by @peachypupp 

Verses (Marked ones are main verses):

#au: lil funkers ****

Her main verse atm since I’m still working on inserting her in canon. The only au where she is a significantly different age than her other aus (4 rather than 16/18) AU blog is @lilfunkers-fnf

#au: Kasumi.exe ****

A modified version of canon, takes place after week 6. Her soul is in hating sim after someone nearly kills her thanks to Sen and Spirit.

#au: Funkers Breach

Canon Divergent Fnaf: Security Breach au crossed with her lil funkers version. 8 years old.

#au: minus ****

Takes place in the minus verse where minus Sen is a prince and she is his knight. 18 years old

#au: Bsides

Kasumi’s b side version

#au: B3

Modified B3 Au where Senpai is basically Otacon from MGS and Kasumi is Snake. 18

#au: D sides

Modified au where Senpai is based on a shonen game like MHA and Kasumi is a supporting character. 16

#au: Neo ****

Mostly canon compliant aside from Senpai using the design from before 4.0. 16

#au: Soft ****

Mostly canon compliant au where Kaity is Sven’s adopted little sister. 15. Ask Blog is @dxmxn-slxyxr

#au: Saturday Night Swappin

(Swaps with Lila) Brake and Boss’ babysitter she’s pretty overprotective of them, but welcomes BF into the family with open arms.

#au: Friday Night Flippin

(Swaps with Sky) a girl who is in love with Senny and is jealous of Lemonfriend. Not because of romance or anything, she just wants to have any sort of relationship like they have bc of the hurt in her life.

#au: Starcatcher ****

#au: Starcatcher Minus ****

#au: Hellbeats

#au: Corruption

#au: Monday Dusk Monolith

The original creator of Senpai.virus who originally made him to be her little desktop assistant to keep her company. Unininfected but that could change if needed.

#au: magic mafia

Original AU by @moonlightalpha666 I just inserted Kasumi into it bc I think it would be a nice dynamic

#au: circus night funkin

Original AU by @prismtheartweirdo 

The circus’ full time knife target and part time animal caretaker (off stage), she ran away early on and considers the whole crew her family. Before they discovered her amazing talent at flinging and dodging knives, she used to run a snake charming act (a ball python mind you, he’s still around even after they retired the act bc she keeps Simba and him in great condition)

#au: Personality Swap

Original AU by @rainbow-neko-artblog

Basically a composite of Darnell and Nene, assists Badboy!Sen in his hits n stuff. Did in fact have to deal with the uberkids situation. Once in a while babysits Lemon Kid with him. 

#au: Friday Night Prayin

Original au by @tsuki-99

A demon/vampire hunter who often crosses paths with the main trio. She doesn’t mind Pico and GF since she knows they’re harmless to the general human population

#au: Crystal

A heavily separated from canon au bc the creator is a pos and I wasn’t letting such good Sen and Spirit potential go to waste

#au: Static Memories

All anyone knows about her is that she’s a patient of Heartpoint hospital and the only person she trusts is Dr Heart.

#au: Steampunk Funk

Account

Cassius’ friend/roommate/sword fighting mentor.

#au: Inventin

Account

A mad scientist in the fun way. Constantly thinking of ways to make the world better.

#au: Plush Buddies

Original AU/Inspired by: @wolftails-funkin-arts

Kasumi’s family ran a cult and attempted to use her as a sacrifice for their dark god. In an attempt to get some form of comfort, she attempted a spell to bring her beloved plush to life like she had watched the others do. Except she summoned a demon… actually scratch that she summoned the dark god they were attempting to. And he did not take kindly to how they treated such a sweet thing. After destroying the rest of them, he now possesses her doll and makes her think that her spell worked, not wanting for her to learn that the very demon that was messing with her life ended up protecting her. Demons do have morals after all.

[sparxwrites]

(first tma fic, kids, let’s go!! set at some ambiguous point in s3 or something, idfk. massive thank you to @capitola, @hoodienanami, and @ladyofrosefire for beta’ing / looking this over and reassuring me it wasn’t terrible. massive thank you also to mr sims for my life lmao.)

cw for minor body horror, and eyes in places they shouldn’t be

[ao3]

There’s a light on in Jon’s office.

It’s not a bright light, just the soft glow of a desk lamp spilling out from under the door, but still. It’s well past midnight. No one should be working – hell, Martin’s only in the Archives because he’d forgotten his phone when he went out with the others for drinks. And sure, Jon’s known for his late nights and early starts, but verging on one in the morning seems ridiculous even for him.

Martin hesitates outside the door for a full minute before knocking, once.

There’s no response, but Jon’s definitely in. Or someone is, at least. There’s a voice – muffled, but still audible, speaking continuously – from inside the room. Statements, then, probably. Though why Jon would be reading statements at this time of the night is beyond Martin, especially when he’s been at it all day, too.

He hovers for another minute, another two, but the voice doesn’t quiet. The light doesn’t go off. He’s half tempted to leave his weird boss to his weird work hours and just not interfere in what could be some weird Beholding ritual for all he knows. That would be the sensible thing to do, really.

After a cumulative three minutes of worrying, Martin resolves to open the door. Just a little. Just to check if Jon’s okay.

It’s not locked, which – given the hour, and the Archives’ track record with murder attempts and/or supernatural infiltration – seems like a safety hazard. Martin pushes it open, gingerly, nudging his way into the doorway and peering inside, fully prepared to get snapped at for intruding.

Jon’s sat at his desk, which is normal, and has a half-drunk glass of whiskey by one elbow, which is not. His hands are laid flat on his desk, either side of a sheet of paper, and his face lit in strange, sharp angles by the desk lamp’s single point of light. The ever-present tape recorder whirs away in front of him, hungry for his soft words.

It’s a fairly typical scene, other than the lateness. And the whiskey. And the strange energy in the air, prickling, not the usual light touch of being watched, but the heavy weight of something present. He’s trying not to think about that one, though.

Martin watches, silently, unwilling to interrupt. Jon doesn’t appreciate being interrupted mid-statement, he’s found. Besides, it sounds like the statement’s ending anyway – something about an improbable underwater fire at an oil rig, as far as Martin can piece together from the closing remarks.

Politely reminding Jon of the twin values of sleep and of locking his office door can wait until he’s finished.

“…Statement ends,” concludes Jon, voice soft and flat in that way it only ever gets when he’s recording statements. The real statements, that is, the ones that will only go on tape. His eyes are unfocused, distant. He doesn’t even seem to be looking at the paper in front of him, which… unusually, for a statement, seems to be mostly blank. Instead, he’s staring unseeingly at the wall opposite his desk, perfectly silent and perfectly still.

It’s not like Jon’s never worked late before, and it’s not like Martin’s never found him reading statements at some god-awful, unsociable hour of the night or morning, but this… Something feels different about this. Something feels weird, and Martin’s gotten pretty confident in trusting his gut about weird feelings.

“Jon?” he says, softly, nervously. He’s still hovering in the doorway, uncertain, unwilling to cross into the room proper on sheer animal instinct.

He gets no response. Instead, Jon flinches, like he’s been stuck with a needle.

It’s an oddly restrained motion, given he doesn’t seem to be entirely present, a sort of full-body twitch accompanied by a quiet hiccup of sound. Like he’s swallowed down a sob. His breath stutters in his chest, hitches. A high-pitched, drawn-out noise of pain strangles itself in his throat, escapes through his nose instead in a long whine.

His eyes don’t refocus. His hands never move from their place settled flat against the desk. His expression doesn’t change.

“…Statement of Mrs. Anisha Singh,” he says, eventually, his voice still level and calm. It would be almost soothing, if not for that fixed stare, the line of tension in his shoulders, the whiskey on the desk. If not for that strange, heart-stopping moment of quiet agony. “Regarding the disappearance and return of a beloved family pet. Statement begins.”

Now Martin’s looking for it, he can hear the note of strain that colours the edge of each word, pain or exhaustion or some other ragged, aching thing entirely that even… whatever it is that’s keeping him blank and still can’t quite exorcise entirely.

“Jon,” says Martin, a little more firmly, because this is– weird. Even by Jon’s standards, even by the Archives’ standards, this is really, really weird.

“We’d had him for years, you see. Mr. Kibbles, I mean.” Jon’s voice softens as he slips into the statement, pitches up a little into something more female than his usual tone. There’s the slightest edge of an accent to it, though Martin isn’t sure what accent. “Years and years, and he was always so sweet. He was a rescue cat, so of course there were some issues at first, but–”

Martin hesitates and then, swallowing hard, crosses the room and scoots around the desk, until he’s standing at Jon’s elbow. “Jon?” he says again, without much hope. When he gets no response, he sets a hand on Jon’s shoulder, and shakes him, ever so gently.

“–why we thought it was strange, when he went missing,” says Jon, still staring straight ahead, hands still flat on the desk. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t respond, doesn’t so much as blink.

Martin shakes him, again, a little harder. Then his nerves run out, so he switches to sort of awkwardly rubbing Jon’s shoulder, his back, as insistently as possible. Even through Jon’s customary jumper and shirt, he can feel– bumps, almost, strange raised nodules that he thinks must be scar tissue. Must be from the worms. He shudders at the thought, and distracts himself by calling Jon’s name again, louder than before.

Nothing. It’s like Martin’s not even there.

“Okay,” says Martin, as easily as he can manage when everything in his nerves sings wrong, when there’s a prickle on the back of his neck like Jon’s staring at him. It’s ridiculous, Jon's eyes aren’t even focused, but… “Okay, right.” He unwinds his scarf from round his neck, and shrugs his jacket off, his motions jerky with unease. “I’m– I’m going to go make us some tea, then.”

It seems a bit pathetic, when he says it out loud. But it’s not like there’s any employee manual segment on what to do if your boss gets possessed by his god in the early hours of the morning, and he figures making tea can’t hurt the situation. Perhaps the warmth and steam of a cup on his desk might help… bring Jon back to himself, or something.

At the very least, doing something with his hands might stop them from shaking.

He makes the tea on autopilot, mostly, drifting from sink to kettle to cupboard, retrieving mugs and teabags and milk. His brain is too busy whirring, turning the image of Jon over and over in his head, to concentrate on the process all that much. He’s desperately trying to work out if this is okay, if this is normal capital-A Archivist business, or if this is something new, or something dangerous, or something…

The tea’s oversteeped, by the time he remembers to take the teabags out. Not that it matters, really. Only one of the cups is getting drunk, after all, and Martin’s too strung-out on nerves for overly bitter tea to be anything other than a laughable distraction.

By the time he gets back, Jon’s nearly done with the statement. He hasn’t moved an inch, hands still on the damn desk, eyes still fixed unseeing on the far wall. Martin sighs, and sets the tea on the desk a few inches from the whiskey nonetheless. “There you go,” he says, and immediately feels guilty – because Jon’s doing a statement, the tape recorder’s still running, because he’s ruining the recording.

He figures, as he retreats to a chair tucked against the wall, next to one of the bookshelves, that his priorities probably say something about how badly this job has messed him up. Boss might be possessed? It’s probably fine. Ruining a statement, though? Unforgivable.

“–know what I’m going to tell the kids,” says Jon. “They loved the cat. They were so happy when he came back. But they didn’t see it. Not like I did. They didn’t see what those fleas had done to him. They wouldn’t understand, if I told them what I had to do.”

Martin winces, and takes a sip of tea to try and stop from thinking about that too hard. It scalds his tongue a little. He’s missed the bulk of the statement, but he’s got a pretty good idea of what bugs can do to a person – or a cat, as the case may be. And he’s got a pretty good idea of what Mrs. Singh might have had to do to get rid of them.

“I’d suggest we go to the local rescue this weekend, get another cat to replace Mr. Kibbles, but… I don’t know if I’m ready to have another pet right now, after all this. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to have another pet again.” Jon pauses, unblinking, unmoving – and when he speaks again, his voice is back to his own, albeit still coloured by that awful, artificial flatness. “Statement ends.”

And again he flinches, like he’s been stuck unexpectedly with something sharp, hunching in on himself. He hiccups out another sob, another aborted hitch of sound, and then keens. It’s an awful noise, a long, drawn-out whimper so full of pain that Martin’s on his feet before he can even think about it.

He’s not sure what he can possibly do to help with this, especially when he doesn’t even know what’s going on. But it seems wrong to just sit there, to just watch, with Jon hurting in front of his eyes.

Before he can take another step, though, the skin of Jon’s neck starts to– shift. It’s not a warping or a melting, exactly, nothing like the things the Desolation does to human flesh. It’s more of an unfurling, skin parting and opening as though that was what it was always meant to do. Except it’s that’s not right, because that’s a neck, because skin doesn’t move like that, because necks don’t open–

Jon’s whine finally, finally cuts off, with a frantic gasp.

“Oh, god,” says Martin, faintly, frozen in place with his hands white-knuckled around his mug – because there, on the side of Jon’s neck, is a wide, brown eye.

It blinks, slowly, its thick black eyelashes brushing across Jon’s skin. Then it spins in its– socket? God, in whatever’s anchoring it into Jon’s skin, and Martin really doesn’t want to think about that– and settles its wide and fixed gaze on Martin.

When Martin takes a tentative step to the side, it tracks his movement, smooth and unblinking. He thinks about the bumps under Jon’s jumper, oddly soft beneath his hand, and is abruptly overcome with nausea.

How long has this been going on? How long has Jon sat here, unnaturally still, giving statement after statement with no paper to read from and no pause between? …How many of these eyes are there, under Jon’s collared shirt and long-sleeved jumpers and carefully pressed trousers, scattered across his ribs and stomach and thighs?

From the presence of the whiskey, Martin has an awful feeling that this isn’t even the first night this has happened. That this is something Jon had braced for, from prior experience.

The idea of Jon sat alone in his office, blank paper and a waiting tape recorder in front of him, grimly downing spirits in anticipation of the pain to follow, sets Martin’s chest in an abrupt and unrelenting vise.

“A-aah. Statement–” starts Jon, and there’s a definite waver to his voice now, an unsteadiness apparently even the Beholding can’t eradicate. There are fine tremors starting up across his shoulders, and wetness around the rims of his human eyes. “–o-of Mr. Gregory Freeman, regarding th-the circumstances of his daughter’s death on a family hiking trip. Statement– begins.”

Four statements later – a young woman ravenously hungry for her own flesh, a house that seemed to shrink with every passing day, an elderly man with a sudden and violent phobia of cameras, a woman who had started leaving cobwebs on everything she touched – and Jon is still going. Martin’s made another two cups of tea for them both, out of sheer anxious energy, replacing the undrunk and cooling mug on Jon’s desk each time.

Four more statements. Four more eyes emerging somewhere on Jon’s body. Four more points of pain, sending him flinching and sobbing between each statement.

Martin watches them all and clutches his empty mug, white-knuckled, helpless. He watches Jon finish each statement, watches him weather the pain, watches him start up once again– and he goes to get more tea. There’s nothing else he can do, but be witness to this, whatever this is. Be a witness to Jon’s suffering.

Jon finishes a fifth statement, and is halfway into a sixth, before he starts crying. Thin trails of tears start to drip down his nose and cheeks, over his constantly moving lips. They’re barely visible in the half-darkness, just a faint gleam as they catch the raking light from his desk lamp. His expression doesn’t change, nor his tone, but he cries silently nonetheless. The eye on his neck is not so much as damp.

Martin cries with him, softly, for a while.

No other eyes show up on his face or neck, despite the endless statements, the endless gaps between. One does form on his wrist, though, right over the bone of it, pale blue and half-hidden by the cuff of his shirt. It blinks once, indolently, at Martin, before rolling to stare fixedly at the doorway to the room. Quietly watching.

The one on Jon’s neck still stares at Martin, unblinking, single-minded. He gets used to it, after a horribly short space of time.

The time passes strangely, elastic. Martin drinks his tea, makes another cup, and drinks that too. He replaces Jon’s whenever it gets cold, out of some weird sense of duty that Jon will have at least warm tea when he snaps out of whatever’s going on. He dozes, at some points, lulled into an uneasy sleep by the soothing sound of Jon’s words. He’s inevitably reawakened when the statement ends, though, by Jon’s noises of pain, louder and less restrained each time. By the end of, he’s crying out openly with each new eye, voice hoarse and raw in a way that never carries over to his statements.

It’s six in the morning, by the count of the clock on the wall, before Jon finally stops. “Statement ends,” he says, and Martin waits, patient and exhausted, for him to start again with statement of – but it never comes.

Instead, Jon– collapses. Crumples over his desk with an unsteady exhale, like a puppet with its strings cut. Out of the grip of the eye, the shaking is worse – violent, shocky, like he’s about to fall apart.

Maybe he is.

For a second, Martin’s worried he’s having a seizure, or some more eldritch equivalent. Then he realises Jon isn’t just breathing, jerky and unsteady and on the edge of sobbing. He’s speaking, still, muttering soft and frantic to himself.

“No more. No more. No more. Please. No–”

“Jon?” says Martin, as gently as he can manage, because he can’t bear it a second longer. “Are you–”

Jon goes silent in a heartbeat, and as still as he can with the tremors still running through him. “Martin.” His voice is wrecked, but he still cuts Martin off with such authority. “What– what are you doing here? God, what– time is it?”

He’s slurring a little, under the hoarse rasp, but Martin’s not sure it’s anything to do with the whiskey. There’s a giddy edge to it that rubs up against the exhaustion, like he’s overstimulated and wrung out all at once. Perhaps he is, after a night of being force-fed statements directly into his brain.

Jon drags himself upright again, slowly, painfully, until he’s at least slumped in his seat rather than collapsed over his desk. There are dark bags under his human eyes, and his hair’s a mess, and that wide, brown eye in the side of his neck is still staring. Martin really wishes it wouldn’t. Wishes that it would at least stare at something other than him.

The eye, as though reading his thoughts – and god, for all Martin knows, it is – blinks. Just once.

“I, um. It’s about six, I think. In the morning. I, I came in last night, and you were– aha, well, um, I don’t really know what you were! But it seemed kind of weird, so I thought… I’d better keep you company. In case it got weirder, you know?”

It feels stupid, when he says it like that. What did he do, other than sitting there, watching, making tea? It was ridiculous of him to have thought he could help in the first place.

Jon opens his mouth as if to reply – but his eyes catch on the lukewarm cup of tea by one elbow, and he stops. Swallows. Closes his mouth. “…That was– thoughtful of you, Martin,” he says, in the end, which isn’t quite a thank you but is remarkably close. He grabs the mug of tea, and downs half of it in one long swallow, before reaching up to scrub a hand over his face, his neck. “I suppose it goes without saying that this–”

The moment his fingers touch the eye, he freezes. Then he slaps a hand over it, almost guiltily, and stares at Martin with wide, wild eyes.

“…It’s been watching me all night,” says Martin, and winces as he watches Jon’s expression crumple. “Look, don’t– here.” He grabs his scarf off the back of his chair and stumbles over to the desk, shoves it towards Jon in a bundle. “You can cover it up or something, if you want. And… please don’t freak out, but– there’s one on your wrist, too.”

Jon stares at the scarf for a long, long moment, before laughing hollowly. When he reaches across the desk to take it, he uses the hand that was covering his neck, and that wide brown eye stares accusatorily back at Martin. He doesn’t put the scarf on – just sits there, holding it, fingers white-knuckled against the soft wool.

“I was doing so well,” he says, and he sounds exhausted. When he reaches for a drink again, it’s from the half-full glass of whiskey. “I was doing so well, keeping them covered…”

There’s a comment to be made about drinking on the job, and also about the ill-advisedness of whiskey at six in the morning, but Martin bites his tongue. “Maybe they want to be uncovered…?” he offers, and winces immediately. “Just. You know. Eyes, and all that. Maybe they want to be able to see.”

“They can see whether they’re covered or not,” mutters Jon, sourly. “They’re not– this,” he gestures to his neck, “is just another, another test, or some kind of sick game, I know it. It’s just–”

“How many are there?” blurts Martin, because Jon’s starting to spiral, and it’s the first thing that springs to mind. “–Oh, god, you. You don’t have to answer that, just forget I asked, really. Really.”

Jon hesitates, before standing up abruptly enough that his chair screeches against the floor. “Oh, damn it,” he mutters, setting the scarf down on the desk and knocking back the rest of the whiskey. He pulls a face at the burn of it, but his hands are already fumbling with the hem of his jumper, tugging it off over his head and immediately going for the buttons on his shirt. “Damn it all–”

His hands are shaking badly enough Martin almost wants to help, but the situation is weird enough already without offering to help his boss strip, so he… doesn’t. Instead, he just stands there, awkwardly, as Jon fights to get the buttons on his shirt open.

When he finally manages it, Martin can’t quite hold back a sharp, panicked intake of breath.

“There’s more lower down,” says Jon, quiet misery in his wrecked voice. “And on my back. And my arms, and– I don’t know how many. I… I haven’t counted. Maybe– a hundred? More?”

The dozens of eyes across his torso don’t blink, but they do shift, pupils contracting in the sudden light and darting around for something to focus on. They’re different sizes, shapes, colours, peppered across his skin and overlapping with his many scars as though competing for space.

Jon prods at a red-rimmed, newish-looking one on his stomach, scowling, and hisses out a breath of pain at the unpleasant, yielding contact between eyeball and finger. It blinks in retaliation, and somehow manages to look annoyed.

For a strange, nauseating second, Martin isn’t sure whether he wants to run, or to step closer, to fit his hands against the curve of Jon’s too-prominent ribs and feel the soft brush of eyelashes against his palms. In the end, thankfully, he does neither – just stands there, dumb, staring, as Jon reaches for his shirt buttons and starts to dress himself once more.

“You– you should sleep,” he offers, unsteadily, as Jon tugs his jumper back over his head. “I can go set up the bed, if you like. You know, where I slept, when…”

Jon finishes wrestling the jumper into submission, and collapses back into his chair, sighing. “I… yes. I suppose I should,” he says, and the slur is stronger now, without the anger and panic to camouflage it. The trembling, never quite banished from the line of his shoulders, is coming back stronger again. “Sleep would be– nice.”

There’s something bitter in the way he says it, almost sarcastic, but Martin’s too tired to call him up on it. “Okay,” he says, instead. “Okay, I’ll go, um, I’ll go set up the bed then. You just wait here, and, and maybe… drink some of the tea? Might help your throat. Definitely no more whiskey, though, please.”

Jon huffs out something that might almost be a laugh, though it sounds raw and rasping. “No more whiskey tonight– this morning,” he agrees, groping across the desk for the by now rather cold mug tea. “The pain’s fading now, anyway, I’ll be fine.” The words seem to slip out of him, an admission of vulnerability he’s too hurting and exhausted to hold them back. “…Thank you, Martin.”

The hand not currently curled around the mug of tea has found the wool of Martin’s scarf again, fingers curled absently into the softness of it. Martin’s not sure if he’s getting that back. He’s not sure he minds, either.

“It’s no problem. Really!” he says, with a small smile – and, despite the night full of confusion, and worry, and far too much oversteeped tea, he means it. He means it with all his heart. “You’re– you’re welcome.”

[nooblet-sims]

Simblr Community Challenge

The wonderful @lilleputtu tagged me!! Thaank you :D I do love a good tag game XD

How long have you been playing the Sims?

I first experienced the Sims when I was about 6-7 so about 20years ago! I got my own copy from Pizza hut in 2006 (I was 11-12) LOL. They had a deal where if you got 2large pizzas, a garlic bread, and a large soda you also got Sims2+University EP XD. So I begggeeddd my dad for pizza hut so I could get Sims2. I’ll let you work out the rest of the math XD.

How long have you been a Simblr, and why did you become one?

Ohgosh, a bit over 3years? I became a simblr originally because I had just started my youtube channel. I was looking for even more creative outlets, so naturally I turned to posting sims pictures on tumblr XD.

What type of Simblr are you?

The inactive kind, ayyeeee LOL. I’m sorry my jokes are bad. Life hit me hard and I’ve just not had the motivation to edit and queue anything sims related. It also doesn’t help that when I do get free time I play pretty much anything but the sims 😅 At the moment I’ve been obsessing over Genshin Impact (it’s free to play, check it out), animal crossing, stardew valley and well yes like I said anything but the sims. 

When I do post things I like to think I’m a fairly chill simblr? I like bright and colorful stuff so I like to think most of my screenies are that sort of vibe. I’m not much of a writer but I do like giving a narrative to my sims.

Despite been well very inactive in my posting, I have been lurking around  O: as there is so much talent in this community! My RSI doesn’t like when I try to heart everything though so I’ve had to chill on that haha.

Which generation of Sims do you primarily play?

Mostly Sims4! However I have been playing Sims3 lately and I really like it. I enjoy Sims2 as well but I find it the least relaxing as it is definitely harder.

Rules - Tag some people, and let the community bonding commence! Tagging anyone who wants to do this or is also going to call themselves out as an inactive simblr lmao.

[kasu-meow]

⭐SE Headcanons - The Main 10 and what type of games they would play:

Raquel:

Is not a big gamer, but definitely owns some sports games

Specifically, football games like PES or Fifa

Is that one person who “ironically” plays Wii sports but… not that ironically lol

Occasionally plays 1st person shooters and is decent at them

I can definitely see her trying out some dating sims if someone introduced her to them

“This is my character? *whistles* I’m a hottie!”

She would probably want to see how many characters she can score and go the “hoe route” for as long as she can

 Claire:

When she was little, she definitely had Nintendogs and Petz

She doesn’t really play games, but she would love to try some if you recommended them

Would never tell you this, but she tried Surgeon Simulator once because she thought it was a serious simulator

She was shocked

She would be into calming and cute games, like Stardew Valley, The Sims, Harvest Moon, or… ANIMAL CROSSING

She strikes me as someone who would also find the Atelier series interesting

I can also see her playing Theme Hospital

 Karolina:

Karolina would never admit this, but when she was very young, she agreed to play games with Tegan every once in a while

Knows the entire Mario series like the back of her hand

When she was little, she also had some of those horse games on her DS, and a couple other Barbie games

She would definitely never admit this, but she also had Kira Kira Pop Princess, and she loved it

Needless to say, she is not much of a gamer nowadays

But if her S/O insisted enough… she might show them how a real Mario Kart player looks like

She lived with Tegan after all, she got plenty of training

 Neha:

Another horse girl right there

I can also definitely see her having games like Style Boutique, or Art Academy

She tried playing Animal Crossing too, and she enjoyed it to a degree

However, she wasn’t much of a gamer then, and she is not much of a gamer now

The least-of-a-gamer out of the main 10, she even beats Karolina

If she had to play something, she would prefer classic board games

She used to play them with her family from time to time, and she still treasures those memories, so she would gladly play some with her S/O

 Ellie:

She loves horror games

When she was in middle school, she played Doki Doki Literature Club and was never the same after that

She would play Animal Crossing just to make the weirdest, most harrowing dream towns ever

I could see her being a big fan of the Danganronpa series

Anything that has a mystery or is absolutely shocking and terrifying, she will play

She plays the occasional shooting game at times, but isn’t that good at them

She grew up on Ace Attorney and it shows

 Tegan:

Oh boi

Tegan would play anything as long as he found it fun

He played all the most obscure and disturbing games on the internet

But he also regularly plays mainstream games, popularity doesn’t really matter to him

He grew up on Zelda, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Pokémon and still plays all of them to this day

Tried out an R-rated game once, just for kicks, and he died immediately

Not his character, his irl self. He just imploded

 Tyler:

He likes games as much as the next guy

Mostly plays mainstream titles, or whatever Tegan ropes him into playing that night

I can see him having Art Academy and Minecraft as a kid and he still plays the latter sometimes

He also has Project Diva don’t @ me

Is that one guy who would buy the sequel to a game he used to play when he was a kid out of nostalgia, but he wouldn’t enjoy it as much

Much like Tegan, he has played his fair share of cursed games

Likes a good board or card game too, and is that one person who takes Uno too seriously

 Tadashi:

Prefers board games to videogames, but let’s face it, he doesn’t really have the time to play either

Finds Monopoly quite interesting and would consider buying the digital version

Is that one guy who would build an empire in The Sims, he just has so many, and is determined to bring each one of them to financial success no matter what it takes

He strikes me as someone who would like games like Ace Attorney or Professor Layton… if he knew what they were lol

Once he discovers Brain Training, it’s over for you b*tches

He takes it very seriously; he pays attention to all the explanations and looks over all the data to back up the explanations of Dr. Kawashima

Has not missed a single day of training in years, and would be destroyed if he did (or if his weekly mental age test resulted in an age 21 or higher)

 Axel:

He used to play Pokémon on his Gameboy when he was a child

If you bring it up, he will get nostalgic and will definitely want to play

Tyler made him play Piano Tiles at a party once, and he was absolutely furious

He tries to play rhythm games a couple more times, but he gives up on them. “I am a rock star, why is this so hard??”

He is decent at games like Call of Duty, or car games like Burnout, but he gets tired of them after a while

If you give him Nintendogs as a present, he will be hesitant at first but then he will never shut up about it

His virtual dog is now his best friend

 Alistair:

Not a big gamer, but is used to playing with his siblings

He likes Wii Sports and pretty much every other sports game

He has played Fortnite with his siblings more than once, but he didn’t love it

Does not understand the appeal of shooting games, too nice to just go on a killing spree every now and then

Also doesn’t get the appeal of most horror/nonsense/meme-y games

Another one who prefers board games night with the whole family (plus Tadashi if it’s Monopoly)

Always lets his siblings win, and will definitely let his S/O win all the time, too

[the-magnus-archives-archiver]

Burnt Offering

Case: 0090608

Name: Jason North Subject: The Discovery of an alleged ritual site found near Loch Glass in Scotland Date: August 6th, 2009 Recorded by: Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London

[Archivist (John): Tell me again.

Martin: Again?

Archivist: I want it on tape.

Martin: What? Why?

Archivist: I just want a record. To make sure I have something I can check.

Martin: Okay, fine. There were two delivery men. They were big, and they spoke with cockney accents that might have been fake, and they delivered a package for you. I don’t remember anything else about what they looked like.

Archivist: Nothing at all?

Martin: [Exasperated] They looked normal. Like you’d expect. They looked like two, huge, cockney delivery men. I don’t know what else you want?

Archivist: What about the table?

Martin: I didn’t see the table. I guess Rosie must have signed for it. I mean, it’s her office on the way to Artefact Storage, that makes sense.

Archivist: She says the same as you. Two men, doesn’t know how they got in, too intimidated to ask, looked “exactly like you’d expect”. Useless...

Martin: Sorry... Look, John, I do think we should destroy the table, though. I mean, if it’s the one from Amy Patel’s statement. Just in case.

Archivist: Elias told me the same thing. Luckily he phrased it as advice rather than an instruction, so for now I’m more inclined to keep studying it. We’re not in the business of destroying knowledge.

Martin: I suppose. Can I go now?

Archivist: Yes, go on.

Martin: Thank you.

[DOOR OPENS]

Look, you need to get some sleep.

...

I’ll see you later.

[DOOR CLOSES]

Archivist: Waste of tape, really. He’s right. Might as well get some use out of it. Statement of Jason North, regarding the discovery of an alleged ritual site found near Loch Glass in Scotland. Original statement given August 6th 2009. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.]

I just need to know if you can save my son. I’ve asked and asked and your people only ever tell me to write my statement. Put it down on paper for investigation. Is that going to help? No. Of course it isn’t. Even if you had the power to do something, would you? Or would you rather watch my son burn so you can take notes.

I’ve been drinking. You can probably tell from the stains. Well, I don’t plan to apologise for ruining your precious paper, and I don’t plan to stop. Only way to keep the fear from settling in. If I’m scared I’m going to lose Ethan like I lost everything else, then I’ll curl into a ball and never get up. I won’t be able to do anything to stop it. I won’t let my son burn, even if you cowards don’t have the guts to step up and do something.

I’m sorry. I know. There’s no-one to blame by my own stupid self. Blundering in where I had no right to go. But yes, I know, you want the whole goddamn story, don’t you? So you can look over it in ten years and go “Hmm, interesting” long after Ethan and me are dead. Well, fine. There’s not much to it, really. For everything it’s done to me, I didn’t really do anything at all. Just messed around in the wrong clearing.

I’m an ecologist. Was an ecologist. Working for the Forestry Commission up in Scotland. It was a great job. For me, at least. I suppose if you don’t like hiking or being alone you’d have a hard time with it, but for me it was a great fit. Now, up in the north of Scotland, the bit without all the people, there are plantations of evergreen trees. Huge ones. And their job is the same as pretty much any other tree – to get cut down for wood. Trouble is, a lot of animals make their homes in and around those trees. Badgers, red squirrels, even pine martens. Do you know what a pine marten is? It’s a wee bear. An adorable wee bear that needs to be protected. Because the pine marten, like a lot of other species that live in those areas, is protected by conservation laws; can’t be legally killed without the sort of special permissions logging companies rarely have. So it was my job to walk through all these plantations with a clipboard and note down what animals had made their homes where.

You don’t need me to tell you that the job can me a long way from civilisation at times. Some of these plantations are... off the beaten track. Everyone gets so caught up on how small Scotland is compared to other countries, but it’s still huge compared to a single idiot wandering through the forests. And there aren’t so many people, so you have large areas all but devoid of human life. It wasn’t uncommon for me to find myself an hour or more away from a town or main road or any other human life at all. I didn’t mind being alone, though, because I knew I had my little boy Ethan waiting for me back at home. Four years old and already sharp as anything. And my wife Lucy. She used to be waiting for me as well.

You see... plenty of strange things out here. That far from anywhere, a lot of folks use it as their own personal dumping grounds. Fridges, microwaves, barbed wire, all sorts. Occasionally strewn throughout the forests and over the hills. I even found a corpse once. Not as exciting as it sounds – they were far too decomposed for me to tell anything about the death. Could have been a mafia hit or could have been a hiker having a heart attack. Result was the same for me: radio it in and then lose two hours of light babysitting a dead guy while I wait for someone to get up and take charge of it.

So when I saw the clearing in the trees near Loch Glass I wasn’t worried. I figured I’d seen everything messed up the forest had to offer. Heck, I even saw a friend of mine get impaled on a falling tree once. I reckoned there was nothing left to shock me. It didn’t matter that the hairs on my arm began to stand up, or that I started sweating through my coat in the middle of February, or that that dry acrid taste at the back of my throat made me want to gag. I still headed on over to investigate this odd-looking clearing. 

It wasn’t man made, or at least nobody had cut trees down to make it. It looked as though the trees had been deliberately planted in a circle. If that was the case, judging by their growth they must have been planted like that almost fifty years ago. In the centre was a large piece of stone, crudely hacked into what looked like a small seat or... maybe an altar. As I stood there on the edge, I realised the trees around me were completely silent, and after a few seconds of examination saw that it didn’t look like there were any animals at all around this clearing. It was... unsettling, sure, but it also meant that I had all the information I needed for my survey of that area. I could tick the boxes and move on. I didn’t need to enter the clearing. But I did. 

The moment I crossed that threshold I knew I had made a mistake. It was like an electric shock rushing through my body, and my already warm skin began to prickle and burn. I stripped off my jacket with sweat dripping from my fingers, and reached for my water to try and get rid of that foul taste in my throat. I pulled the cap off and took a long swig... half a second before I realised the water was boiling hot. I screamed; well, it was more a gurgle, really, and fell to the floor in agony.

I lay there for almost half an hour, collecting myself and just breathing in the cold winter air of the Highlands, waiting for the pain to die down. Eventually, I managed to compose myself and stagger to my feet. The strange sensations were still there, but I was able to mostly choke them down, at least until I had a proper look around the clearing. The altar was the focus of the whole thing, but in many ways it was the least interesting part. Clean, smooth stone. No markings of any sort, nothing on top. Just... a rock. Around it, though, on the ground were scorch marks. They didn’t seem to radiate out from any one angle, they just covered areas of the forest floor. There was no ash, though, or debris, or anything that might have meant a fire, just the burn marks.

It was following these scorches that led me to the really messed up stuff, because what I saw around the edges of the clearing put them to shame. See, it looked like there were animals in that place once, but now each one lay just beyond the edge. On all of them, the fur or feathers had been burned away, and all that was left was their skin, scalded a vivid, angry red, like they’d been badly sunburned. They were dead, every one of them, though none seemed to have decayed any more than their compatriots. Either they had all died together, or something in that place was keeping them fresh. Neither option sounded grand to me.

Finally, I looked at the trees. There was nothing wrong with the trees themselves, not exactly. Driven into the trunk of each one was a heavy-looking iron nail. I didn’t count how many there were in total, maybe a couple dozen. Each suspended a worn and dirt-caked glass milk bottle that had clearly seen better days. My eyes fell on the string used to suspend them, and I couldn’t help but notice it seemed far cleaner and newer than the bottles or their contents.

What was inside each one seemed to vary, some had pine needles and twigs, some were full of dirt, and one or two even held what appeared to be rainwater, though looking closer I could see that it bubbled very gently inside those bottles in an endless simmer. In each I could also see a small photograph, half-buried in dirt or almost boiled clean. They all looked to be the same photograph, though it was hard to tell for sure. An old woman, probably in her fifties or sixties, wearing reading glasses and grey hair curled into a tight bun. She stared out disapprovingly from every bottle.

Weirdest of all, on the bottom of each was tied a lock of hair. It was long and grey, in poor condition, and I reckon it must have belonged to the woman in the photograph. It was tied up with the same new string as held the bottles, except for the fact that it was burned, ever so slightly at the ends.

I was still in quite a lot of pain from the water earlier, but I’ve always been too curious for my own stupid good. I took a few pictures on my phone, but I wanted some clear shots of the photograph inside to show my friends. God knows I should have just left; it’s not like there weren’t plenty of warning signs. I just chose not to pay attention. I picked up one of jars filled with twigs and took it off the nail, trying to angle it in my hand to get a better shot of the contents. 

Then my fingers slipped and I dropped it. I watched it plummet towards the hard winter ground, willing it not to shatter, not to break. It was falling so slowly, but I was even slower. It exploded into a thousand glass shards and instantly I knew that I had meddled with something I should have left alone. I turned tail and ran, stopping only to reach down and pick up the photograph. I don’t know why, I suppose it felt so weird all of a sudden that I didn’t think I could get any more cursed. And I wanted a copy of that picture just to prove to myself that what I had found was real. It was real. You can have the damn thing now, though. I’ll leave it with my statement. I know in my heart getting rid of it will make no difference but I have to try.

Because from that moment on, everything I love and value has burned or been destroyed. My car overheated on the way back to the Forestry Commission, and I barely got out before the engine caught fire. My house was a smouldering heap of blackened rubble before the end of the week. Electrical failure. I don’t want to talk about what happened to Lucy. I don’t want to think about her face at the end.

Now there’s only one thing I have left that I value. That I love. And I cannot lose him. I can’t lose Ethan. I shouldn’t be in this mess. It’s absurd. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just dropped a bottle. That’s all! I don’t deserve this. I don’t.

I asked about who might have gone to the area, but aside from some middle-aged businessmen on a hiking trip no-one’s been anywhere near that clearing for years. There is no reason this is happening, but I’m still going to lose everything. I am so scared.

Archivist Notes:

He didn’t, in the end. Lose Ethan, that is. Ethan North is currently a healthy eleven-year-old boy living with a loving foster family in Inverness. They declined to give an interview. I can’t say I blame them. The rest is a standard muddle – Tim couldn’t find evidence of the clearing, Sasha established all the accidents that befell Mr. North and his loved ones appeared mundane in nature. The set-up of the clearing matches rituals or spells in both voodoo and Wicca but nothing definitive and there is no hard evidence of anything supernatural occurring. 

There’s no reason to believe that when Jason North doused himself in petrol on August the 10th 2009, then lit himself on fire, he was doing anything other than acting out the delusions of a paranoid alcoholic. Paramedics took him to Raigmore Hospital, where he died three days later. He never regained consciousness.

I suppose there is one piece of evidence. Mr. North did include with his statement the picture he found in the bottle. It is a photograph of Gertrude Robinson, my predecessor at the Magnus Institute, circa 2002 as best I can tell. I have no idea what this means. I have no idea what any of this means. I’m very tired.

[endorstoiii]

todas as asks que não foram feitas

1:Full name.I don’t like to share my full name online so I just go with Marina Sakai (that’s enough).

2:Zodiac sign.Taurus

3:3 fears.cockroaches, drowning and burning to death.

4:3 things I love.Music, drawing, movies.

5:4 turn on’s.Music, people who are similar to me, trips and playing The Sims (how random is this?).

6:4 turn off’s.Stupid people, soccer, math and being obliged to do something I don’t want to.

7:My best friend?I don’t think I have one best friend only, I have a few close friends… you are one

8:Sexual orientation?Straight.

9:My best first date?hahaha lol

10:How tall am I?1,62cm I guess.

11:What do I miss?A very good friend I made on tumblr. For some reason she is gone :(

12:What time was I born?At 6:40 am or something.

13:Favorite color?Well I have a holy trinity of colors, but I’d say purple.

14:Do I have a crush?As long as band members exist, I will have a crush LMAO.15:Favorite quote?“My world is turning pages while I am just sitting here” - Kevin Parker, Apocalypse Dreams.

16:Favorite place?Paraty (beach).

18:Do I use sarcasm?Me? No, never.

20:First thing I notice in new person?

21:Shoe size?35 in Brazil too lazy to search it for other locations :p

23:Hair color?Black.

24: Favorite style of clothing?I don’t know, I like to mixture things.

25:Ever done a prank call?Not that I remember.

26:What color of underwear I’m wearing now?Yellow with lilac stripes

27:Meaning behind my URL?It’s a song by Tame Impala. Me + the lyrics = accuracy.

28:Favorite movie?Too hard… but let’s say it’s The Babadook.

29:Favorite song?TOO HARD, but hum… at the moment it is Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down by Interpol (which I’m listening to right now!!!) ((but also Leif Erikson and Tidal Wave and ughhhhh)).

30:Favorite band?Sorry, I cannot choose only one so here it goes my Holy Trinity: Tame Impala, Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire. But I am extremely obsessed with Interpol, so yeah.

31:How I feel right now?Shitty for having a week off and doing nothing.

33:My current relationship status.The same as always: single.

34:My relationship with my parents.It’s good with my mother, and ok with my father.

35:Favorite holiday.Festa junina because food.

36:Tattoos and piercing I have.None, yet.

39:Do I and my last ex hate each other?who?

40:Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night” texts?Sometimes good night from my mother and my ex sister-in-law.

41:Have I ever kissed the last person I texted?No.

42:When did I last hold hands?God… when I was a child, maybe, with my parents, to cross the streets lmao seriously I have no idea.

43:How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?The whole morning lol an hour at least.

44:Have I shaved my legs in the past three days?No. Call me disgusting.

45: Where am I right now?Dining room.

46:If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?This could only happen if I go out with my friends, none of them would go out to get drunk though hah but they would help me, I’m sure.47:Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?Mostly reasonable level, but you know sometimes you gotta turn it louder for that one part… other times, the whole song lol48:Do I live with my Mom and Dad?Yes.

49:Am I excited for anything?Some of my fave bands will release new stuff this year, so yeah. Also, MGMT are coming to play here and I hope to go!!!50:Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?No.51:How often do I wear a fake smile?70% of the time maybe.52:When was the last time I hugged someone?I hugged someone? I think it was 14 days ago because it was my friend’s birthday and I went to her house for a surprise party.

53:What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?I would feel nothing.

54:Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?I don’t think so.

55:What is something I disliked about today?The whole day, I spent it doing chores and I am dead now.

56:If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Kevin Parker, love of my life. And many other band members.

57:What do I think about most?Music lol hum, I try to focus on my life, my future… but I can’t seem to succeed.

58:What’s my strangest talent?If I had one I can make 3 waves with my tongue, just like Daniel Radcliffe.

59:Do I have any strange phobias?I don’t know if they are strange, but I am afraid of dolls (automatonophobia) and trypophobia.

71:Do I spend money or save it?Save it… to spend it HAH (taurine with ascendant in Taurus).

72:Can I touch my nose with a tongue?Nope.

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me?Yes, there is a rose quartz, a pink tsuru (origami), a bed sheet, a sculpture of Our Lady of Aparecida, a small fake flower that my ex sister-in-law gifted my mom for Women’s Day.

74:Favorite animal?I also have a holy trinity for this lol: cats, elephants and deers (any kind).

75:What was I doing last night at 12 AM?Massaging my mom’s feet cause I’m a good daughter.

76:What do I think Satan’s last name is?Devicari LMAO ok this is an internal joke with my friends

77:What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?Signs of Life by Arcade Fire78:How can you win my heart? Buy me concert tickets and food.

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?Embrace disgrace. I have just decided this haha I like the word embrace and I always say disgrace, in English, to my sister. And these two words rhyme lol80:What is my favorite word?In Portuguese, it probably is saudade because of the feeling, but there are some others that I like the pronounce, not necessarily the meaning (like resiliência, recíproco, melancolia), and I chose it by the meaning. There’s also eita, which is a perfect word, omg, I don’t know what I would do without this word. In English, one of them is embrace as I said above. But by the pronounce, it is vortex in British accent. Good af. 81:My top 5 blogs on tumblr?OH MAN, I don’t have fav blogs, I have fav people! So this is the criterion to choose. This is not in order. I AM SO SORRY1. @warpaint-impala2. @14thandeuclid3. @sastrugie4. @roger-sultrey5. @streetofthoughtinallyourbones (this one is inactive, unfortunately, but there’s so much gold in there!!!) ((she is @ourblogtoadmire))

82:If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?hahah… hum… I would say @ all the band members who destroyed my life how much I love them.  As everybody in the world is listening to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

83:Do I have any relatives in jail?Not that I know.

84:I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?Mental power, just like Professor Xavier, but with telekinesis too. Oh, and being able to fly.

85:What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?Hum, I can only think of “y/n” type of question, which would be very obvious… so I guess the question would be “what would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?” LOL

86:What is my current desktop picture?The best gig of my life, aka Tame Impala. For some reason I can’t add the picture here :/ so I’ll post it later separately.

87:Had sex?what is it?

88:Bought condoms?lol

89:Gotten pregnant?When seeing some certain pictures? Oh hell yes!

90:Failed a class?Yep, Chemistry classes mostly. I may have missed some classes, but my shitty teacher could never be patient and a good professional so I could never really learn a thing.

91:Kissed a boy?Unfortunately yes (not because he’s a boy, but because it was bad as fuck).

92:Kissed a girl?Nope.

93:Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?No. 

94:Had job?Yes, I’ve already been an English teacher for kids (imagine how dumb these kids became when they had classes with me lmao I’m sorry girls)

95:Left the house without my wallet?No, never.

96:Bullied someone on the Internet?No.

97:Had sex in public?lmao what does sex mean?

98:Played on a sports team?Yes, I used to play handball at school.

99:Smoked weed?No.

100:Did drugs?No.

102:Drank alcohol?Yes, today. But I never went out to drink, neither had a single alcoholic drink only for me.

103:Am I a vegetarian/vegan?Nope. 

104:Been overweight?No. I mean, never been in an unhealthy way.

105:Been underweight?Possibly when I was a child and had anemia.

106:Been to a wedding?Yes, the last one was on April 2017. It was my friend’s sister wedding.

107:Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?I think so, playing The Sims lol I love this game.

108:Watched TV for 5 hours straight?Probably… I’m not sure.

109:Been outside my home country?No :( (not yet!)

110:Gotten my heart broken?Yes because my fave band members havE GIRLFRIENDS!!! Ok, hum, I have had my heart broken by a “real person” once (and only time). But this person is one of the best people I have ever met and my heart was broken because we could never fit; he is not a bad person at all, we just are from different realities.

111:Been to a professional sports game?No.

112:Broken a bone?No.

113:Cut myself?Yes, once.

114:Been to prom?No.

115:Been in airplane?Yes, a long time ago, and I don’t remember how many times. Maybe 2 or 3. 

116: Fly by helicopter?No, but I want to!

117:What concerts have I been to?I have a list of it here! I have seen some native bands too, which were pretty cool.118:Had a crush on someone of the same sex?Not a crush properly, but a little attraction. 

119:Learned another language?Yes, English. But I want to learn others, like Japanese and Russian! 

120:Wore make up?For weddings, graduation and this kind of event. And sometimes to go out, but very, very simple.

121:Lost my virginity before I was 18?LMAO

122:Had oral sex?why so many questions about sex? I still don’t know what this mean!!!

123:Dyed my hair?Never, but I’d like to.

124:Voted in a presidential election?My first time will be this year, in October. And I have no idea in who to vote!!! :)

125:Rode in an ambulance?No.

126:Had a surgery?No.

127:Met someone famous?I didn’t meet him, but I once went to an event and Beakman (from Beakman’s World) was there… but this is just like seeing a band live: you only see them, you don’t meet them.128:Stalked someone on a social network?Hahahahah hell yes

129:Peed outside?Outside what? In public, like, in the street? In a bush? No, never!

130:Been fishing?Yes, twice.

131:Helped with charity?Yes. 

132:Been rejected by a crush?I had only one crush and he didn’t reject me, neither accepted.

133:Broken a mirror?Yes.

134:What do I want for birthday?My birthday was exactly 14 days ago I wanted a new pair of sneakers, and also money for gigs.

135:How many kids do I want and what will be their names?If I have a good financial condition, I want two. If not, only one. I don’t think too much about names, but can you believe I thought of it earlier today? Yes! Male names I like are Julian and Edwin. And female, Elizabeth/Elise, Amélia/Amelie (just like I said here) and also Helena. 

136:Was I named after anyone?No, my grandfather suggested this name for me and my mom liked it.

 137:Do I like my handwriting?Not anymore. It is really ugly now, it used to be better.

138:What was my favorite toy as a child?Barbie dolls, always.

139:Favorite TV Show?Decora. It’s a Brazilian tv show about renovating and decorating rooms.

140:Where do I want to live when older?Perth, Australia (thanks Tame Impala for destroying my life).

141:Play any musical instrument?Unfortunately not, and I hate this!!! I really, reaaaally want to play some! Hopefully I will in the future.

142:One of my scars, how did I get it?I have two scars on my right arm. My sister really wanted the tv control I was holding… yeah, she tried to get it from my hands and scratched my arm.

143:Favorite pizza topping?K E T C H U P! LMAO SO PAULISTAN

144:Am I afraid of the dark?No.

145:Am I afraid of heights?Yes.

146:Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?Yeah, I remember once when I left the laundry room (I was alone there) and I didn’t hold the door, so it shut and it was loud, and I said it was my brother’s fault, though he wasn’t even there. My mom was getting in the laundry room and she saw it all. LOL.147:Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?Always? lol hum, yes, it happens a lot.

148:What I’m really bad at.Everything. Ok, hum, I would say that I am really bad at being positive.

149:What my greatest achievements are.Seeing my Holy Trinity live; saving the life of some pets (my last dog and the three current cats I have) and I don’t know what else.

150:The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me.basically everything my father says to me hum my father used to call me useless a lot of times.

151:What I’d do if I won in a lottery.Help my family, move to Perth and try my life in there.

152:What do I like about myself?Nothing…………….-my music taste, and the fact that I am an open minded person.

153:My closest Tumblr friend.you (@warpaint-impala).

154:Something I fantasies about.LMAOOOOOOOOOO sorry but nope hah

155:Any question you’d like - would you read my text?Yes, I will read it.

Glenda, muito obrigada, mas nunca mais faça eu responder todas as perguntas. Por favor. Te amo

[ourlittlebitofnothinguniverse]

All for the video game ask. (do I need to mention only if u r comfy w/ it at this point). Love you!!

alright u done done it now bitchhhhhhhh are u READY 4 THIS SHIT (dshfa;lkj thamk i am so pumped ur my biggest enabler) i already answered a couple of these for anon but i’ll go ahead and answer them here as well

1. First game you played obsessively?hmmmm i wanna say the legend of spyro the eternal night? i played it so much i could beat the whole game in four hours. i’ve heard lots of ppl actually hated the legend of spyro trilogy but honestly they can suck my ass i loved them

2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc.uh besides my answer for anon of skyrim not many games have actually just straight up influenced my art style but i’ve been playing this game called Fe (not fire emblem just Fe) and i really want to draw fanart for it bc it’s super cute if that Counts as influence?

3. Who did you play with as a kid?if this is meant in terms of co-op games nobody bc we didn’t have anyif just in general, my sister for the most part. i’d watch her play things like resident evil and she’d help me with the hard parts in medievil and crash bandicoot warped (read: racing levels)

4. Who do you play with now?myself lmao i don’t rly like co-op and multiplayer games and i prefer to play most games by myself

5. Ever use cheat codes?like i told anon, no bc i don’t know how they work and i’d probably only use them for the sims anyways

6. Ever buy strategy guides?not really? once we bought the collectors edition for diablo II when i was little and it included the strategy guide which i stayed up all night to read (bc i had run out of other reading materials in the house) but like i don’t really use them idk

7. Any games you have multiple copies of?the sims three and i know you know the reason why but in case anybody else wants to know: i didn’t know they had actually completely changed the game since i had played it last probably a decade ago so i bought it @ walmart this year and then i got mad bc it apparently SUCKS ASS now so in search of a copy of the original version i bought a second one from amazon bc the Image being used WAS of the original case but it really was the new version so now i have two SHITTY SHITTY VERSIONS of a game i used to love that i will never play bc it’s shit except maybe i will bc apparently it has real life music in it just replaced with sims language which is amazing and this response is far too long for the question but i asked u if u were ready so u signed up 4 thisi also have an xbox version of it tht i got for like christmas or smth years ago and a,,,,,, ds version??? that i got last year bc somebody was selling “the original version of the game including every expansion pack” for only like $30 and it definitely said disk version but when i got it it was this Pre-owned Dirty Ds Cartridge Covered In What Looked Like Strawberry Jelly and when i tried to contact them they shut their page down so there’s that which equals four shitty shitty copies of the sims three and i will never be more mad about anything than i am about this

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?uh well back when i had a job i spent A Lot of money (to me it was a lot) to get the collectors edition of the last guardian so that would be my most expensive. other than that i would have to say one of the hardest to find (maybe not rare but not common)games i have currently is medievil for ps1 bc it took me like a week of searching to find a copy in good condition online for sale bc i rly wanted to own it again since we had to sell all my old games when we moved to oregon which sucked bc we had a Bunch of cool games (mostly early ps era)

9. Most regrettable purchase?did you see my rant about the sims three for answer 7? yeah

10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours?never lived in an area where that is A Thing

11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games?i wanna make a homestuck joke here (srsly probably not like i said i don’t rly do any type of co-op or multiplayer games so)

12. Ever get picked on for liking games?not really?? is that a Thing?

13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has?uh idk literally any COD game, basketball games, Fallout games, overwatch, anything that’s co-op, shooter games or sports related etc idk i’m a simple fellow these types of games don’t appeal to me

14. Favorite game music?idk what this means? like genre-wise??? idk abt stuff like that i just like good game music but i’ll tell you the fuck what, hiveswap music fuckin SLAPPED

15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick?fuck shit idk man i don’t rly want a tattoo maybe uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh smth that could be vague

16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL?idk rip lmao

17. Ever lose a friend over a game?Nah man i can’t even imagine smth as dumb as that unless they’re screaming racist or sexist slurs bc then friendship is terminated but otherwise like wtf it’s just a game,,,

18. Would you date someone that hates gaming?i mean?????? sure????????????? they don’t have to game with me??????????? unless they tell me I can’t game bc they don’t like it in which case Bye u controlling piece of shit

19. Favorite handheld console?u kno those games that used to come in sonic happy meals? yah (jk uh i don’t have much experience w/ handheld consoles besides nintendo ds-es and they’re cool)

20. Game that you know like the back of your hand?like i said i played spyro the eternal night so often i could beat it in four hours so probably that one.

21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now?the only games i didn’t like as a kid i p much still don’t like now

22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories?i am Poor

23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?currently skyrim or stardew valley

24. First Pokemon game?I didn’t get to play any pokemon games until this year actually but i got myself pokemon y and ultra sun so those are my first two! although you Could technically say pokemon go bc i played that for the first time like One month before i got y and ultra sun but like idk if tht counts so *shrug emoji*

25. Were you ever an arcade game player?i never lived where arcades were a thing tbh

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?Why

27. Game that makes you rage?there’s this absolutely adorable and INFURIATING game called so many me that’s a puzzle platformer but the controls are so ridiculously precise that it’s absolutely the WORST to play bc unless you do it just right at just the right millisecond you will die over and over and over

28. Ever play in a tournament?nah

29. What is your gaming set up?the livingroom tv and my mom’s xbox one or my bedroom with my ps4 i got for my birthday and my xbox 360 that i got like 7 years ago

30. How many consoles do you own?alright so If ds-es count i own,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly seven? i have my new ps4 i got for my birthday last year, my 7 year old xbox 360, another xbox 360 i bought from a kid @ school, a ps1 i bought last year for the Nostalgia that’s in rly good condition, a rly old ds lite a rly old 3ds and my new pokeball 2dsxl. i would also say that the ps3 my aunt left when she died is mine bc my mom never used it and she had bought most of the games For Me and Her to play together anyways so the idea that she left it to my mom is,,,, Weird but my mom claims it was left to her so Shrug emoji

31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches?“virtual boy” i love it omg. uh not really i don’t use my ds-es that often bc i don’t have a just wild amount of games but when i do use them it doesn’t rly mess w/ my brain or eyes too much

32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic?probably not?

33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games?i don’t think so tbh

34. Do either of your parents play video games?my mom does but she really only plays like three games (the newest assassins creed, skyrim, and stardew valley)

35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop?nope

36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game?man have u ever heard of brotherhood a tale of two sons? mom told me abt it and she didn’t warn me abt how it ended and i had to leave the room and cry bc it broke my heart

37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination?i didn’t know that was a thing

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?i can’t think of any tbh. oh wait i take that back sonic unleashed it’s terrible but i love it

39. A sequel that you would die for them to make?maybe not a sequel but they rly need to come out with another stardew valley type thing or maybe expansions or smth so that you can talk to and befriend more ppl and stuff

40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls?never been able to try them but they look super fun and i can’t wait to see how they improve the technology

41. A genre that you just can’t get into?multi-player games period. also first person shooters and sports games. there’s more but i can’t remember the title of the game bc i don’t know what genre it would be lmao

42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness?i assume this means game related nerdiness not just my inherent nerdiness in general so probably the very first spyro game

43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else?all the time my dude

44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters?none

45. How are you at Mario Kart?probably shit i’m not good @ steering in games

46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon?i love them! i have like 100+ hours logged into stardew valley and i only got it in like november of last year

47. Do you like competitive games?not really

48. How long does it take your to customize your player character?so long. i either have to make them gorgeous or beautifully hideous

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character?yah tbh lmao. i have like eight thief stone khajits in skyrim rn

50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create?i have a Lot of ideas and not all of them are good

51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep?forgetting to sleep, yes. forgetting to eat? no 

52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid?i was a very sheltered kid i didn’t know about new games coming out when i was little bc we didn’t have any way for me to find out About Them. i’m making up for it by begging as an adult for ni-no-kuni II and the new spyro trilogy remastered

53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days?depends on the game tbh some of it is good and a lot of ppl who make mods are rly talented but sometimes the big companies just make dlc to make more money so it can be rly shitty so it’s kinda a 50/50

54. Do you give in to Steam sales?heck yes rn i’m waiting for house flipper to go on sale bc i’ve been waiting for it to come out since i found out abt it

55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them?no my style of playing the sims was more along the lines of make a hundred houses that are all P Much The Same House and making a hundred familys and never playing literally any of them hadflskja;sdfjdslkhja i just liked building stuff and that’s why i’m pissed abt how much they changed the sims three bc it used to be Way Better

56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?we didn’t have it but i did have zoo tycoon and i’d release the dinosaurs sometimes

57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements?legend of spyro the eternal night

58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick?uh!!! that’s too much pressure and i would get so bored playing them for the rest of my life even if i loved them so i will not choose

59. Do you play any cell phone games?sort of? i’m big into abyssrium and i like viridi if those Count?

60. Do you know the Konami Code???????????????????????? guess not

61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever?keep them forever!

62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game?i got the last guardian before getting the ps4 does that answer ur question? (jk that is not the only reason i wanted and got the ps4 but it was One big reason)

63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? nah

64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming?not really? i just use whatever i currently have bc i am lame

65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file?nope

66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it?not a nokia but we had this one handheld thing that had a bunch of games in it that included snake i just can’t remember what it was it had like letters and numbers and it needed like regular batteries and you could only play the games that came programmed on it 

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?i cannot think of any right off the top of my head even though i know i played a lot of video games and loved them when i was little. hm it might not count as like a gaming-related childhood memory and more of just a memory of a game but we did have one really interesting little game that i absolutely loved i think we only rented it but u were a scientist who could turn into a mouse and it was absolutely amazing i loved it i have no idea what it was called hm

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?not really we didn’t have arcades around where i grew up

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? there are a lot of rly good ones i can’t choose a best game

70. Very first game you ever beat? like i told anon i’m p sure it was crash bandicoot warped

WHEW this was rly fun thank u for enabling me it took me like two hours to answer this i’m so happy. ilu 2 man hope ur day has been rad!

[briteboy]

(circumstantial name by @earnoodle)

IT’S FINALLY TIME FOR THE POST YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR (or maybe just that one anon)

there’s a LOT in here, newer questions are generally first so if you asked something a while ago and you’re only interested in that, scroll towards the bottom. also doing wcifs separately (errr i’m gonna try my hardest to ok don’t crucify me)

this mass anons post includes topics ranging from Very Sweet Things Said To Me That I Don’t Deserve, nitpicking stranger things, crying over ramona, lou theories, Cillian Is A Fucking Creep theories (true), and completely unhelpful reshade advice

let’s f0cking do this

You're right, apart from carrying his stupid brain, Santi's head didn't do anything to any of us. I apologize for anon.

I'm pretty sure I said that already but I love Rooney and Santi's relationship so much I literally have no words for it

ME TOO LIKE IT’S JUST SO PURE TWO NOT-KIDS SCARED OF THE ADULT WORLD TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT WITH THEIR WEIRD BRAINS TOGETHER ;__; i love them

YO i didnt know u were a demigirl!! im a demiboy nb Buddies

hell fuckin yeah dude!! we are starting a demi club

Ok but like I really want werewolves. Like I know it sounds stupid but we have vampire and while yes I love my bat babes, I want a giant pupper friend. I have story written out and plans for a cabin to build. Now I’m waiting for EA to give me my big hairy babes.

DUDE i want more supernatural stuff too, mostly witches like I NEED MY WITCHES AGAIN!!! ts3 witches were so good. i didn’t like ts3 werewolves much but i feel like they’d be super cool in ts4, knowing how the vampires came out. i NEED it

hihi! i've been very quietly (??) following your blog for some time now and i just fawn over your characters way too much ?? anywho, i've been wanting to start my own little simblr story but ,, i'm not entirely sure where to even start? i have so many stories that i'd love to get out there, and i have the means.. butt, how did you go about starting out?? so sorry this is so long but i look up to you a whole ton!!! ty ily! :-)

i’m the (??) lmao that’s me always but ahdhghdfkshg thank you so much!!!!! i’m so glad you love them, it means the world to me ;-; and listen, that was me, i had no idea how i was going to do it because i’d only seen ts3 stories up to that point and i thought there was like a set Way to tell stories but i had no idea what i was doing so i was like y’know what...i’m just gonna do it how i feel comfortable doing it and i’m gonna figure it out as i go along. so honestly try to roughly plan out what your stor(ies) will entail and if you get stuck on planning and can’t figure it out, just jump right into it, try to make a few scenes or get the ball rolling somehow, even if it’s just random posts (i mean that’s all my blog was until i decided to commit to santi’s story.) it’s always gonna feel weird and awkward at first, but you’ll get comfortable the more you do it and it’ll figure itself out, trust me!

I read through most of your story posts the other day and now I’m rereading it again just to torture myself some more (and maybe catch up on some posts I may have missed). I honestly don’t think I’ve come across a sims story that’s so beautifully written & includes such evocative pictures as yours. I’m really at a loss for words, it’s all so stunning. & after a nearly two-month long creative block, it’s planted the smallest seed of inspiration in the back of my mind, so thank you for your art.

AHHHH AHSDHKGKDSJG WHAT!!!!! it’s always crazy hearing that 1) people actually care about my stuff, and 2) that it inspires them. like i really cannot believe that, stilL!! thank you so so much, i’m so happy you enjoyed it (as torturous as it was, lmao) it seriously warms my heart that you’re getting your groove back in the creative world, that means more to me than ANYTHING!! good luck with your art or whatever you decide to do with that inspiration!

 can i pls have your editing skill please and thank you

i owe most my editing at this point to reshade so honestly get reshade and u will probably become better than me

o added u on animal crossing and when you added me back i was so happy,, your little person is sooo adorable ((:

OMG!! thank you!! everyone’s person on there is adorable i cry i love them all so much i’m so mad tho it won’t let me add any more friends!!! it probably cuts off at like 100 friends or something STUPID

First of all, I love you. Secondly, I love your photos so much. I'm legit about to just ditch sims 3 for 4 now because of your amazing posts. 😖

LMFAO no but really THANK YOU I LOVE YOU!!! if you can manage playing both i admire u, i’ve invested too much time and effort into ts4 to ever fully go back to any other sims games tbh

The new patch made my game unplayable! I'm crying, I miss my doggos...

NOOOOO!!! hopefully by now you’ve found a fix, i’m prayin for u

long time listener, first time caller yoooo. i like everyone love your stories and your sim aesthetic so so so much and just tbh i was offended on your behalf about that ask from that person wanting to novelize your stories. like you were way too nice. this is your intellectual property and it's fucked up that someone would think it'd be okay to duplicate it as long as they used a different medium. this is prob a bad one to repost just wanted to you to know you're an awesome, singular voice

omfg lmao this is a radio show now *z100 voice* tellem why ya mad euhhh first of all i can’t believe someone even ASKED that, i’m in shock because like what this is so foreign to me. people want to write about MY characters WHAT! like that alone...takes a long time to process. and like i know i should say no but then i feel mean but they’re also my creations so like idk. it warms my heart that you feel so strongly and would stand up for me like that i’m cryin thank u for calling in i love u

I JUST FINISHED YOUR ENTIRE STORY AND I'M NOT OK WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE PUTTING ME THROUGH THAT SHIT IT'S AN EMOTIONAL ROLLER COASTER AND I FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE ABUSED MY (NON EXISTENT) INNOCENCE WOW

I’M SO SORRY U HAD TO GO THROUGH THAT ALSO I APOLOGIZE FOR STEALING YOUR INNOCENCE I NEVER MEANT FOR THIS TO HAPPEN OSDAFKJDSK BUT THANK YOU FOR READING I’M GLAD YOU ENJOYED IT EVEN IF IT HURT YOU!!!

I've been up all night and it's now 11am. I'm completely binging on your stories bc I am in LOVE and need a Molly in my game asap. Do you think you'll ever upload her?

omG my freaking story inciting insomnia i’m so sorry for ur sleep schedule first of all, but at least that makes you identify with santi even more omg tho ;___; (how many times will i say ‘omg’ i wonder) i don’t think so because she is so dear to me and makes my heart ache, she is just so special, i dunno if i could ever release her into the wild like that lmao. i haven’t even shared her with my friends (not that i really ever had a reason to) but like yeah. maybe in the future that’ll change but right now, no, i’m sorry <3

To change the topic: Idk if you watch stranger things but I only managed to get to episode 3 of season 2 before I stopped watching lmao it was so bad and Billy (a certified Cunt) ruined the whole show for me

YEAH I DID! omg. i have a LOT of issues with this season (mostly in how badly they tried to retcon nancy and everyone else not caring about barb’s death, how bad the writing was in the realm of nancy and steve breaking up and then her and jonathan getting together...holy fuck it was so uncomfortable with that 40 yr old conspiracy theorist guy i couldn’t even enjoy my ship getting together lmao) also ur right, max and billy honestly did not offer anything to the story...like i loved max too but what was the point...billy acted like their presence and the reason they had to move was so dramatic when it was really nothing...unless they’re saving that for season 3 but like. the whole situation with billy was so anticlimactic. he was like a walmart version of henry from IT. like boohoo ur dad’s an asshole and then he beat up steve. good character arc. i liked max standing up for herself but really...that whole thing was so lackluster, i didn’t care about it at all. ALSO I HATED THAT THEY DIDN’T LET MAX AND ELEVEN BE FRIENDS!! i’m sure it’ll happen in season 3 but like c’mon...that would’ve made the max character feel a little more important to the story. anyway yeah fuck billy and i don’t get why everyone is lusting after him or his actor they’re both ugly! thanks for listening

I just got the sims 4 + city living and I’m so excited! I was really inspired by your stories and style in general... I was wondering what packs do you have and also what are your favourite sims 4 hairs? I’m having trouble finding ones and I love your style!

YAY I’M EXCITED FOR YOU!!! omg aww it warms my heart so much when people say i inspire them because i never anticipated that kind of response, thank you so much <3 hmmm i think i have all of them except glamour stuff and fitness stuff. and pretty much all the hairs i download are here or here. (or the subsequent ‘tf’, ‘cf’, ‘tm’ and ‘cm’ tags as well, according to age)

UHM a 19 year old and a 13 year old? Poor baby Lou... Also youre a brilliant writer i cant

😬😬😬  stay tuned ajasdhjhjsahd thank you so much!!!

My stan levels for you have increased so much? like thanks for being a good ally, clAps for femmesim!

lmao thank you, i don’t really deserve praise tho i’m just passing on the knowledge of those patient enough to teach me. just trying to do what i can with my privilege u know. ily

How do you have teeth showing in so many of your pictures of Lou and Molly, do you PS them in?

i’ve gotten this question before and it’s usually just the poses used! i do have some lipsticks that have teeth on them but i mostly use them for just rooney.

Honestly, a fight between Santi and that new guy (srry, forgot his name while typing this) would be so hot. Like, I hope Santi would win but like just watching Santi fight him for Lou would make me happy!! Also, I live for your stories💞

omG i’m about to call up vince mcmahon they both need to fight on smackdown it’s gonna happen. they’ll both be shirtless too ok and THANK YOU ILY

boi poc can be PREJUDICED against white people but there is no such thing as reverse racIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIiiiIIIIsm

Lemme just say that you must be feeling so stressed rn. I love you and your simblr!!! Your posts light up my day!! <3333

OMg kind of. this week has taken A Lot out of me and i really just want to chill at home and play my freaking GAME but obligations. u know. here’s hoping i get a day off this week. i’m mad i’m probably gonna miss gianni’s birthday too (it’s on tuesday) and i wanted to do something for it!! i’ll probably do it late like i did last year too lmao i’m so sorry baby g ANYWAY u didn’t ask to hear about any of this...thank you for this sweet message i love you <3

why,,,, are people... coming to your blog to discuss race you are a fucking simblr WHAT

the real question is why do people go to you like its your job to educate them lmao like theres so many resources out there

SHAWDY u aint wrong reverse racism is literally a joke i am so sorry you have to go through all of this keep stepping on white feelings we deserve it

I was wondering would u consider Asians to be POC?

yes

I just finished Strange the Dreamer and it was fucking amazing. I cried so much and I laughed and I sat in absolute amazement at the world Laini Taylor has created. 100/10 would recommend

ahhhh i really need to read it apparently!! i’m like 10% away from being done with a dance with dragons (and then i have to wait for the next book like a peasant HURRY UP KING GEORGE) anyway this one is definitely on my list!

omgomg!! I just met this girl in my class who has eyes just like ramona's!!! But like instead of being brown w/ a little bit of blue, they were blue w/ a little bit of brown!!! Dude I was so shook I rlly didn't think ppl had eyes like that!

OMG!!!! that’s amazing! and yes heterochromia is a real thing haha. i’ve only met one person with it and he had the same color combo as ramona too, only his was full heterochromia, not sectoral.

*me in the background screaming* nO yOU LEAVE HER ALoNE baD-DAD-MaN!

ME TF TOO

every time i read some of your stories i get an ache in my heart that doesn't go away until i either cry or sleep so interpret that as you like

OMG ;_____; ok me too tho my heart literally hurts thinking about my characters sometimes...mostly santi...i hate him (no i don’t :{ )

hey uhh idk if you've answered something like this before but do you have a spotify or something bc your music taste is GOLD

THANK YOU!! you were the first person to ask about this haha and hopefully you saw my answer to the other question about it! i just made one and it’s here!

hi hi ! i’m seeing all the drama on da blog and i really want to read the whole story but i can’t get to it on mobile so i was wondering if you could link the beginning and tell me what the best order to read it in is ( i’m so confused because i’ve seen sm people y’all about a parallel story so idk if i’m being dumb !! ) i hope this isn’t any inconvenience also your sims are so beautiful sjajsjajs

hey on mobile the link is just: http://femmesim.tumblr.com/tagged/story/chrono i would honestly just recommend that order haha, it makes things simpler and it encompasses ALL story posts, or posts that give context. there are parallels in my story, lou’s is kind of a parallel of santi’s, only different...well...you’ll see. but yeah sorry this is so late! and thank you!!!

TU HISTORIA ES TAAAAAN BUENA POR DIOOOOS (YOURE STORY IS SOOOOO GOOD OMG) <3 <3 *OO* *cries in spanish*

MUCHAS GRACIAS ENCANTADORA PERSONAAAA <333

lou is wendy right? i mean, a wendy complex is someone who is overly mothering to partners, and lou is already a mother and ik that doesn't really count as foreshadowing but it seems like it could be a link to me. it'd make sense too, considering guys that go after younger girls (ew) are usually immature ie peter pan complex. it'd make the most sense that those two go together then.

heheheheh that is a VERY good observation...that’s all i’m gonna say!!

This has nothing to do with what's happening in the story rn, but whatever. I was wondering if you were going to mention lou's struggles with being a single mom and the stigma surrounding single motherhood? As a single mother myself I'd really enjoy seeing you take on the issue. Personally, my biggest problem was overcoming the generalizations people put on you when you're a single mom. People always assumed that I that I was stupid and uneducated because I had my son when I was 17.

yes! that will definitely come up. i will focus a lot on her struggles as a single mom. so far i’ve mostly just peppered in some stuff about money troubles, and that will come up again, and the issues you mention will be pretty central to her character as well. i’m sorry you have to endure that, it’s not fair. people don’t even realize how strong and dedicated single mothers are.

when you say Peter Pan, do you mean the Disney stuff or the og creepy stuff?

i mean the general themes of the story and how that translates into a peter pan complex: boy who never grows up, feels like he fits in more with younger people (haha...yikes), read the message above because that anon described the other half of the equation better than i could

Wait, hold up. That dude is cute but I feel like he’s coming onto Lou way too strong. I have a bad feeling.. Lou is like 13 there and he is 19 I mean I’ve seen bigger gaps between people, but she is not legal yet.. Where are you going with this? 🤨😅

yyyyyyep that feeling is warranted! i am going a way i don’t think you guys expect me to go...i think you’ll be very confused at the end of this part lmao. that being said, i’m not putting any of this in for shock value or to romanticize inappropriate relationships like this. (i’m probably going to be repeating that a LOT for this story but please just keep that in mind)

Hey mom wanna hear a fun as hell story? I just got back from the ER bc I fell on my razor after showering, and practically cut my nipple in half. (I am in so much pain hELP)

OMFG NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOUR POOR NIPPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M SO SORRY I HOPE IT FEELS BETTER PLEASE UPDATE ME ON THE NIPPLE STATUS

U gotta watch sense8!!! Apart from the v awkward sex scenes it's v good, has a lot of representation and shit Just watch that shit show, u won't regret it (And if you do I cut your throat oops)

i’ve heard it’s good! i remember when it first came out and everyone was like Wow The Representation so honestly anything with diversity has already got me hooked pls don’t murder me.

I'm calling it now. He's Fi's dad. and he's a FUCKING CREEP!! Bitch you are 19!! LOU IS 13!! BACK THE FUCK OFF YOU PERV!!

no spoilers or anything but honestly i’m with you @ cillian die

Are they gonna fucc, o no

right now? no. that would be Very Bad

bABY ITS COLD OUTSIDE

oh same

Hi ! Your lastest edit (graveyard girl) is truly amazing, how did you make that bokeh behind her ? 😱😍

thank you so much!!! it’s reshade (with matso DOF)!

You've probably got this question a lot of times but i can't find the answer for it. What reshade do you use?

i gotta add this to my faq, it’s one i created myself but i started out with this one (it totally doesn’t resemble that one anymore but i think it’s a good starting point)

how do you make good looking male sims? mine always look the same and kinda girly..

hmmm longer faces, prominent chins and jaws, smaller eyes, bigger noses...generally yeah

What do you mean 9 + alt?

you gotta turn bb.moveobjects on and then press alt + 9 when an object is selected to move it upward. so what i did with those poses i made was, i selected a teleporter and pressed alt + 9 until it was at a spot i liked on the roof. that’s why releasing those poses would be tricky, ‘cause every build is different so there’s no set way to place them, you just kinda have to play around with them

You mentioned GoT so naturally, I have to chime in and express my love for Jon. Honestly, he won me over ever since the first season? I'm at season 5 now and people have already warned me so now i'm silently weeping, waiting for something to happen to my precious bby help

JONNY BOY!!!!!!!!!!! i loved his emo ass since the beginning but his arc with qorin halfhand (was he in the show??) was probably the best arc in book 2 and then his book 3 arc was just...SO GOOD, SO MUCH happens to him and i just felt like i was watching my son go through it all...i love that boy so much ;-; i’m almost at the end of the last book and i’m scared for him because of the one spoiler i know lmao and you’re at that point too so GET READY we’ll go through it together ok

So there's this game I'm playing where someone talking about another character says 'maybe you can break him from his ouroboros of self-fladulation' (I know I probably butchered those spellings but I'm not a bright egg and autocorrect isn't helping rip) and tbh it made me think of Santi. (Also I'mma scream of you get this reference jsyk)

OMG THE FACT THAT YOU THOUGHT OF HIM ;-; and it’s okay u are the brightest egg in the bunch to me. I’M SORRY I DON’T GET THIS REFERENCE BECAUSE I’M NOT A VIDEO GAME PERSON BUT I’LL PRETEND I DO KNOW WHAT UR TALKING ABOUT anyway yes santi is currently in the process of breaking his self-flagellation and embracing the oneness of the ouroboros (as opposed to letting the cycle repeat itself until he’s worn down to nothing)

do you have any favorite pose creators?

answered

do you have any tips for taking good screenshots in game? like how to get the good angles and good quality? i play on ultra but i think when i zoom in and then use the arrows on my keyboard to move around, the pictures gets less clear and looks kinda blurry. how should i do this?

well if you’re already using ultra, there’s not much you can do lmao. sims 4 is just bad with textures in general. it also depends on the objects as well, some are better quality than others. if i zoom in far on a sim’s face, i generally know there will be some pixelation and i can clean that up in photoshop with topaz clean and the smudge tool. i am very reliant on photoshop sometimes lmao. it sounds like you already have the basics of taking good screenshots, it’s just sometimes you have to fight and work with sims 4′s less-than-hd quality.

burn it down by daughter reminds me of santi & i'm in pain

ouroboros!!! death! birth! death again! birth again rinse repeat! also santi breaking the cycle because third time's the charm

The tattoo is an Ouroboros. It originated in Egyptian iconography, and it symbolizes recreation. My boy's recreating himself, I'm so proud.

ouroboros, the dragon eating its own tail. it's a sign of eternal renewal

i saw the post of child molly and just started BAWLING i miss her what the fuck she's my fave character i'M CRYING

ME TOO BICH!! ME FUCKIN TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i just read all of A Serious Case Of The Novembers so far and theres still tears on my face. some of the best stuff ive read in a while, great job on everything

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! ALSO I’M SORRY FOR MAKING YOU CRY

every time you write about molly and her in heaven it makes my heart swell, like the characters were answering asks and someone asked her what heaven was like and even though it was so small short lil answer it still pulls at the heart strings, basically what im trying to say is that your writing is so good! <3

omg ;_______; me too, i feel like she has such a simple way with words and although her descriptions of heaven are brief, they are also complex and beautiful, and even just writing it chokes me up ;-; thank you so much tho i’m so glad you like it!!

Molly: out Molly tatto: also out

why did this remind me of this post:

How did you edit in the fire in the last post? Looks cool

i searched things like “bonfire” and pasted parts of it that i wanted on the pic to make it look more realistic, then put a layer mask on the pasted pic and erased the edges and stuff to make it blend in better. the sparks and stuff i added by pasting it onto a new layer and changing the blending mode to screen! 

idk if you have every watched grey anatomy but Lou's backstory is starting to remind me of Jo (Jo is a character from the show) like Jo was in a abusive relationship and she is married to the guy but she cant get divorced or he will come and find her. So like if Lou didn't tell Fiona's dad he was a dad and Lou was married to him and cant escape the marriage (cause abuse), plus it would explain Lou's kink with being choked ;) full circle *god-like heaven music with tiniest violin is playing now*

ooh no i don’t but that’s interesting and i’m excited you even made a connection like that! i will say that it’s not lou who likes to be choked (the very opposite actually lmao) but otherwise the situation does kinda fit. i’m the violin

I have a freakin bio pre ap test tomorrow on photosynthesis and i have no idea what it is im going to fail save me

I’M ANSWERING THIS VERY LATE BUT I HOPE YOUR TEST WENT WELL!!!!!! *spongebob voice* photosynthesis

last time I installed reshade I couldn't get it to open the controls or shaders or anything in game :///// any tips?? I love they way reshade looks too!!

hmmmmm well i know the control panel opens when you press shift + f2, and then you check the boxes of the effects you want on them. i haven’t heard of this problem so i dunno what other advice to give i’m sorry :{ if it’s your first time installing it, you might have to wait a little to get it to load up.

Da puppy is so cute!!!

That dog and Romona are so adorable, I might cry

Ramona's cheeks are so big im in love

NAJKSDJGKJSD THANK YOU i love her and her chubby cheeks ;-;

OMG TOTORO IS SO BEAUTIFUL I LOVE GHIBLI UGH FKSJFJANFB

SAME!!!!!!! if i could only watch ghibli movies for the rest of my life i’d be totally fine with that

THE DOGGIE HAS EYES JUST LIKE RAMONAS IM GONNA FUCKIGN CRY

ME FUCKGN TOO!!!!!!!!!! it was fate (aka me creating the wolf pup to look just like her shh i am fate)

Hope I'm not bothering you but i wondered if you knew how to make Tamo sims eyebags work on a toddler? Do I just click in s4s to work for toddler on the "age and gender flags" when looking in My CC or do I have to do something a little more than that please? Thank you.

for any skin detail or makeup, you have to go into s4s and open the package up, go to one of the tabs (honestly i don’t remember which one because i don’t have it open rn lmao) and you’ll see the different age groups and you check the box for toddler. and then save it of course. (there’s probably a better guide on how to do this somewhere lmao)

Hey :) Sorry to take up your time, I was wondering if you use win7, win8 or win10? I'm trying to decide on one and people seem to have very strong feelings about it. Also what web browser do you use? I've used Firefox, but I had some problems on CC websites. Thanks<3

i use windows 10 because it came with my laptop lmao i honestly don’t know much about windows systems at all!! and i use google chrome because it’s never failed me (even though windows keeps pressuring me to use the new internet explorer called “edge”)

i just finished all of novembers in a sitting and 1. i'm Sobbing, 2. your music taste is bomb

THANK YOU!!! my music taste is like one part indie shit, one part rap and hip-hop, twelve parts emo middle school bands

what is the size of the original unedited screenshot?

1920x1080

For reshade when your first install and select the reshade you want to use do you have to edit the settings? Cause last time I tried to (I didn’t know what most of the things meant lmao) but it kept saying error or something so I couldn’t play the game so I ended up taking out reshade

do you mean the preset you want to use? i mean no you can just play with that preset, you don’t have to change anything about it. i’m not sure what you mean but i followed this guide for setting it up

Will you ever share your preset?? Or maybe a preset made be you??

i’ve answered this before but the answer is Maybe

Hi!!!! How do you make the rays of light you have in your photos?? THANK U BBY <3333

that’s actually in my editing tutorial but here you go <3

is reshade only available on windows + do we need to pay for it

yes and no

Hello love! I was wondering (and maybe it's a dumb question, idk) but what life span setting do you use? I would assume you turned off aging for your story but maybe I'm wrong ;w; Thank you!!

i do actually have aging off ‘cause i’m a coward lmao even in the ts3 days when i wasn’t doing story stuff and literally just playing i had it off for the most part and just aged sims up when i wanted because i like to be in control of Everything (aries)

I really just wanted to say that I’m new I your tumblr but your stories are amazing and I love them so much!!! Keep doing what you’re doing💞👏🏼

hey thank you!!! you are so kind and i’m glad you’re enjoying everything!!

In your reshade settings where have you set it to save your SS's to and which key please? I can't find mine after setting it to desktop/screenshots :(

i just set mine to ts4′s screenshots folder because it’s what i was used to and it works for me haha. hmmmmmm did you copy the exact address or whatever it’s called of your folder’s location and then paste it into the reshade box? try doing that with another location and see if it works. if anything you can do what i did ‘cause it worked for me 

ok SO i came across this music video for this like spanish/english speaking indie band called The Marías and the song was déjate llevar and literally everything about the music video reminded me of rooney and gianni

OMMMGGG i love this so much, i cry @ music suggestions and this is so them ;-; i think i’ve heard of this band before actually!!

a little life is going to fucking ruin you,,, just a warning

great! i look forward to it

can a steal ur talent

have it i don’t need it

What app are you using to make them cool edit things??

i tagged it but it was doodle face

omg Strange the Dreamer is so freaking amazing! It’s literally one of my favorite books of all time; You’ll love it. The writing is absolutely delightful

you guys are really singin the praises for this book!! i have so many dang books to read i swear

[mininecro]

Current Hibari characterization is butchered by the tyranny of the masses. Will you adapt? Or will you perish like a dog? *read more link* *10k meta essay*

how to write hibari????? I can't seem to grasp his character so any tips? 

show me the hibari meta. im ready 

i hate all of you

Entry level: 

Hibari's tendency towards animal metaphors isn’t ever made clear - he obviously considers them animal metaphors, considering his ‘bite you to death’ and how he frames crowds as herds, but their actual extent is up in the air.

However, what we do know about it is that Hibari uses the “herbivore” moniker specifically for cowards. If he hates someone who isn’t a coward, he gives them a title or nickname (like with Yamamoto, Reborn, and Gokudera, who he refers to by their most identifiable traits, Dino, who he gives a sarcastic nickname, or Xanxus, who he just straight-up insults). If he respects someone, he refers to them by their name. He does this to Yamamoto later in the story, and his future self does this for Tsuna. 

At no point does he ever refer to someone as a “carnivore”, because he respects brave warriors, and if someone is brave and strong enough to earn his good favour, they earn the privilege of being taken seriously, by being referred to as their given name.

Hibari currently refers to Yamamoto by his full name and Kusakabe Tetsuya by just his name. He might be taken to referring to Reborn and Shouichi by their names if endeared to them. It’s unclear how he’d refer to Gokudera. He’d never refer to Xanxus by his name because their desires are fundamentally at odds.

There’s a notable exception in Tsuna, who Hibari doesn’t really respect, but understands enough about his strength that he’s unwilling to call him a herbivore. Tsuna’s ingenuity and raw power outranks his “cowardice”, so Hibari would prefer to call him a Small Animal. Hibari also loves small animals and wants to care for them, so this is also pretty gay

I haven’t reread the series in a while so I’m missing a few details. But you know

Intermediate Level: 

He is just as much of a theatric edgelord as Mukuro is and thats why they can never get along. They both eat that “mortal enemies who cannot stop until the other is defeated” except they fundamentally misunderstand what the other considers a “mortal enemy” - Hibari’s objective is to Win, while Mukuro’s objective is to control, and both of them just misunderstand each other to be on the same page. If Hibari Won, he’d completely blow Mukuro off, because his mental dramatic character arc has been completed. Hibari and Mukuro are the edgy version of the Gokudera/Yamamoto dynamic and it’s a greatly underutilized comedy routine. How dare Amano reduce it to 1 panel in the Rainbow arc, like a coward

ANYWAY, Hibari is a fucking chuunibyou and since no one believes me I’m back with receipts

Volume 2, chapter 16:

Hibari talks a lot. He has something to say every time he’s prompted. It’s incredibly important to him that he’s the most important thing in the room and he has the respect of everyone around him, and having a dominant personality is key to that image. The difference between him and a Fucking Chuunibyou is theoretically nothing, but in execution it’s more that he makes good on his threats. 

But they’re still theatrics, because immediately after asserting dominance, he does this: 

His goal was just to dominate everyone with the minimum possible effort. Tsuna got smacked, so he’s been Adequately Dominated, but the other two fought back, so they needed to be knocked out. Since knocking out is dangerous, though, he’s made sure to take care of them afterwards.

Hibari isn’t a wild animal or anything. He meticulously cares for anyone he “bites”. If they’re fine, like Tsuna ends up being, he’s like “yeah, just sit on the couch for a second and rest for a little bit”. It’s only after Tsuna crosses him again that he goes back to violence. 

Hibari isn’t a rampaging delinquent, he’s a selfish asshole who associates violence with control, and that’s why he’s an abuse survivor in all my shitty AUs

But back to the theatrics and him being a chuuni fuck

Volume 6, Chapter 43: 

hhHFHAHGAHGSKJGKGSGKSHFAH

Hibari just, clearly likes peaceful time alone? Looking at the trees? There’s no reason for a human being to say shit like this without blinking unless they think it sounds cool. Hibari curates his self-image meticulously. 

Before I move on to exaggerate the point, here’s some other micrometas:

hibari is attractive enough to be sexually harassed by Hetscum, King Of The Restraining Orders, making him one of the only few characters explicitly handsome, which is important because Amano draws everyone hot and I need some sort of justification for the cold sweat I broke into when I saw 10YL Hibari for the first time

(also he looks like a pretentious nerd in these early chapters so its worth noting in general)

Hibari’s entire character arc is literally the fact that he has the exact same problem. It’s possible that the reason Dino pisses him off so much is because he feels embarrassed at the implication of hypocrisy. 

The fact these 2 expressions happen in abrupt sequence is so fucking funny I love him (also, proof again that he isn’t a wild violent animal intent on abusing others - being contradicted doesn’t anger him, he just assumes Winning will solve the problem, because, I’m sorry to say, Hibari is not a thinker, which I’ll get to later)

BACK TO THE CHUUNI ISSUE

Volume 5, Chapter 38: 

And then he doesn’t do anything to Tsuna.

I don’t even have to comment on this. Hibari’s just a weirdo

Volume 34, Chapter 330:

Hibari has, at this point, witnessed Tsuna recover from a snapped neck and kill god. He saw this with his own two eyes. Tsuna asserted dominance over the closest this series has to the literal devil, eater of dimensions, and he only a few chapters earlier explicitly told Tsuna that he respects him so much that to defeat him in battle is a grand ambition of his and complimented him on his ingenuity and specialized power.

Hibari is lying here. He is lying through his teeth. He has finally entered tsun territory. He knows this conflict is important to Tsuna and is affording it to him, but because he painstakingly maintains self-image, he has to make it out to seem like he’s doing this for entirely selfish motives. “Wait for you to be killed”? What could that possibly afford him? Nothing, but it sounds cool, so that’s what he goes with.

it’s worth nothing that he’s functionally identical to Mukuro in this respect, except while Hibari communicates that he cares for Tsuna through Manly Warrior Affordances, Mukuro straight-out attacks Tsuna and compensates for his feelings with constant hostility. Both are funny but Hibari’s is full of more warmth and companionship so that one’s the best.

Anyway, god I forgot how cluttered and ugly the paneling had gotten during this arc

Chapter 335:

It’s not as if he’s giving Tsuna special treatment, either, because he does the exact same “I could...BUT I WON’T” half-hearted dismissal when he comes upon a somewhat exhausted Mukuro. Everyone knows that Hibari hates Mukuro and wants to fight him, but Mukuro has just defeated the enemy as an ally, so he chucks a tonfa at him and says “reaction time is shit, get some sleep”. Hibari was slighted by being defeated, but he has garnered respect for Mukuro, but he can’t tolerate having these opinions concurrently, because he’s incredibly straight-forward and it doesn’t mesh with his “character”

Look at his dumb face. He’s entered Full Tsun.

Expert level: 

Hibari is super fucking Autistic and loves his friends

I mentioned before that he’s not a thinker. It’s not as if he doesn’t try - his observational skills are actually pretty good, and he composes a lot of reasonable conclusions based on the evidence he’s provided. For example, after fighting Daisy:

But he often falls into logical stopgaps, and his method of resolving these are...less than ideal.

Situation: Hibari meets with a conflict to his worldview, image, or judgement

Conclusion:

He hits it until it stops being a problem.

Hibari is like a Sims character that will scream at the wall that used to hold the door they were about to walk through for 30 minutes instead of rerouting. He doesn’t care about being crossed, because he can easily understand it and control that variable, but he is hideously offended by contradiction. If his worldview is challenged, he gets pissed off.

This is the primary reason he and Dino struggle to get along - the entire basis of teaching Hibari is the assumption that Hibari isn’t already right about everything. Dino has to challenge everything about Hibari’s preexisting notions, and Hibari hates him for it. Dino’s lessons excel the most when he feeds into Hibari’s view of things, which is why the 2 things that got through to him by the end is “anger is power” and “flexibility is strength”.

Hibari’s forthright, carefully maintained image also affects how he communicates with people. He talks a lot, sure, but it’s usually to talk at people about how fucking cool and above them he is. He rarely actually communicates his interest in others, which is why him talking to Tsuna about what he likes about him is so important.

It’s also why this tiny panel-and-a-half is one of the best Hibari moments in the series:

Since when?? Have you respected Yamamoto?? He’s given zero indication of being fond of him until now. There’s absolutely no basis for this immense respect he’s solemnly presenting. He’s been mostly scornful of Yamamoto during the Daily Life arc. Hibari says this with such assuredness that he definitely thinks that liking Yamamoto Takeshi is in line with his character, unlike with Tsuna or Mukuro, who he also secretly grew fond of but is unwilling to admit as much, but Hibari just flies this like a fact.

Hibari Kyouya is fully capable of being friendly with others, but he struggles to operate outside of camaraderie. He definitely cares for Kusakabe, and they grew close over the years, but the first thing he says when he sees Kusakabe (10YL) “herding” up with a bunch of unconscious teenagers is “you’re fired”. 

Again, great basis for my AU fanfic where he’s an abuse survivor, especially when Mukuro, a canonical abuse survivor, has the same problem (with a different way of coping), but it also says a lot from the perspective of someone with Autism - he wants to become close to others, but communicating basic ideas like that is entirely beyond him. Hibari only operates in his comfort areas, and is hostile to being forced out of them. 

And yet Dino, who is the only character besides Kusakabe who has spent a significant amount of time around him, described Hibari to be similar to his ancestor, and when he gives reasons for that conclusion, he also mentions...

And this is observable! Because Hibari's reactions are missing from scenes he has no engagement in, like this one:

We can actually pick out scenes where he mentally checks off people as “worthy”, like this one:

This is also where it’s more apparent that Hibari respects strength/bravery. Shouichi is obviously a cowardly mess of a person, but when he says “we are WINNING”, Hibari makes note of him.

Anyway in conclusion Hibari is a gay autistic chuuni and I love him. Here’s Hibari getting mad at Squalo for being around without permission, something he previously expected of his friends

“mu.”

[adorkablephil]

Fic: The Camouflaged Pupper

Title: The Camouflaged Pupper Word Count: 1.4K Rating: G Summary: Dan, Phil, and a little black dog Tags: Cute Doggo, Tooth-Rotting Fluff Author's Note: Just a quick little something for @phancy-phandom, because she's sweet and she wanted a fic about Dan and Phil getting a dog. Thank you to @agingphangirl and @inkyhowlter for some last-minute britpicking re: where UK folks might adopt stray dogs. (The RSPCA is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.)

The Camouflaged Pupper

Dan had been planning a relaxing day of Mario Kart and leftover pizza. The weather was still a bit hot, but not hot enough to warrant turning on the air conditioning, so he planned to walk around in his pants and just avoid the world, and he wasn't ashamed a bit.

But Phil obviously had other plans. He'd been sitting on the couch with his laptop, watching Cat's video over and over again, making happy noises and constantly interrupting Dan's Tumblr scrolling with comments like, "Sigma is so cute!" and "Remember how soft he was?" and "He was so wiggly!" and "Remember when he licked your face? Look how happy you were!"

Dan sighed every time Phil spoke or tried to get him to watch the video. "Yes, Phil." He replied each time in a monotone. "The puppy was cute. I remember."

Phil patted his shoulder excitedly. "We could go to the RSPCA today! Just to visit. Just to get some puppy time! I'm sure they have puppies. Wouldn't it be nicer to pet actual puppies than just watching videos of them? Wasn't it great getting to hold Sigma? We could do that today! Just ... visit. Come on." He was begging now.

Dan sighed more heavily. "You're asking me to put on actual jeans? And get off the couch? And leave the house? Go outside?" He gave Phil his best put-upon expression. To be honest, cuddling some puppies sounded kind of fun, but he wasn't going to give in that easily.

"You know, the puppies at the RSPCA are probably really lonely. We would be doing them a favor by spending some time with them. It would be like ... contributing to charity," Phil argued, nodding seriously.

Dan wasn't fooled by Phil's nonsense after this many years of living with it every day. He rolled his eyes. "That is the most transparent excuse I've ever heard. If I let you into an animal shelter, you're going to beg to bring a dog home. I know you, Phil. You're going to want to get one, and we finally have this new flat where everything is neat and tidy and clean and just the way we want it. A dog would completely ruin that."

"We won't actually get one. I promise. We can just go look." He smiled, trying to look innocent. He crossed a finger over his heart. "I swear."

"I don't trust you for a second, you soft-hearted dork. And you know we aren't ready to own a dog. It's a lot of responsibility, and we travel so much..."

"If we did get a dog..." Phil began, "you know, not today, but ... someday ... Felix and Marzia could doggysit! Our doggo could go have a sleepover with their doggos!" He grinned.

Dan shook his head at Phil's faulty logic. "Felix travels to a lot of the same events we do, Phil. And are you really just volunteering Marzia to dogsit without even asking her? That's pretty rude."

"Well ... she and I may have sort of ... talked about it the last time we visited them." He looked at Dan with big contrite eyes that begged Dan not to be angry.

Dan shook his head, but couldn't help smiling a little with unsurprised fondness. This guy!

Phil Lester has the superpower of being able to exert the most effective peer pressure of any human being on the planet, and so Dan somehow found himself at the RSPCA shelter a couple hours later.

And, just as Phil had predicted, the shelter housed several offensively cute puppies. Phil had, of course, immediately taken to the saddest-looking one in the place.

"She had a rough start in life," the RSPCA worker told them. "She's the runt of her litter, and her mother started attacking her before her eyes were even open, because it's better for the whole litter if the runt doesn't take milk that could go to the pups with a better chance of survival."

"Her mother actually attacked her?" Phil whimpered, eyes wide. He sat down on the ground and lifted the tiny black puppy into his lap. The pup curled up immediately on Phil's leg, dwarfed by Phil's gigantic size.

The RSPCA worker nodded. "We had to take her out of the cage. We don't have the resources to bottle-feed infant animals, so we weren't sure she was going to make it. But then a sweet dog mum was brought in with a litter of newborn pups and she took this little girl in with her own and fostered her.”

Phil looked as if he might actually burst into tears. Dan tried to harden his heart. The little black puppy had ears far too large for the rest of her body. Sitting on Phil, she looked up at Dan and cocked her head, as if considering him thoughtfully.

Phil too looked up at him from his seated position on the floor and cocked his head in unconscious mimicry. Puppy and Phil were both looking at him, and something squeezed his heart in his chest. No. They absolutely did not need a dog complicating their lives.

The puppy wagged her tail as she gazed up at him.

Well, fuck.

No. No way. No dog. He would just have to convince Phil to put the puppy down and walk away. Walk away from the ... incredibly ... cute ... adorable ... little ... black puppy. "I thought you wanted a corgi or a shibe, or even a pug," he argued desperately. "This one is just a mutt."

Phil hurriedly covered the puppy's giant ears, looking distressed. "She isn't just anything. She's perfect exactly the way she is. She can't help who her parents were! Her abusive parents! Don't shame her for something she can't change!" He took his hands off her ears and stroked her head comfortingly, leaning down to whisper softly into her humongous ear while he glared at Dan. She licked Phil's fingers in response, making him giggle.

"Our entire apartment is white," Dan sputtered, beginning to lose hope. "She'll leave black fur everywhere."

Phil smiled in obvious triumph. "But the fur will match all your clothes, so it won't show!" He stroked the puppy, and she wriggled, rolling onto her back so Phil could pet her stomach.

It was horrifyingly adorable.

The RSPCA employee offered, "The staff here have been calling her Tabitha. She's so young you could easily change her name if you want, though."

Phil's eyes lit up even more. He held up the puppy to look into its face and implored, "Did you hear that, Dan? Tabitha! Just like our Sim! It's fate!"

Dan rolled his eyes again. This was just getting ridiculous. They could not get a puppy. They would not get a puppy. "It's just a coincidence, Phil."

"It's a sign!"

"It's nothing but..."

"Here. Hold Tabitha a minute." Phil shoved the black puppy into Dan's hands. She gazed into his eyes, and then he maybe cuddled her. Just a bit. Maybe.

She nuzzled her head under his chin and went limp against his chest with a high-pitched little breathy sigh.

"Awww," Dan sighed in return before he could prevent himself. Phil grinned at him in triumph. Dan cradled the vulnerable little body in his hands—she was so light! she hardly weighed anything!—and rubbed the top of her fuzzy head with his chin.

However much he hated it, he knew when to admit defeat.

"Hey pupper," he crooned to the warm little weight lying so trustingly against him. "Wanna come shed on some black clothes and scratch up some hardwood floors running around in a fancy new flat?"

Phil bounced with excitement but knew better than to say anything. He let Dan just continue in this promising direction.

Dan balanced the tiny body in one hand—that’s how small she was—and stroked her soft fur with the other. "Are you already asleep?" he whispered, not wanting to wake her if that was the case. The pup nuzzled against his neck again and let out a little snuffling snore. Dan looked at Phil helplessly.

"Well fuck," he whispered again. "I guess we've got a dog."

Phil leaned over to stroke a gentle finger along Tabitha's soft fur, not wanting to wake her. "Welcome to the family, Tabitha Howlter," he cooed in the quietest, happiest voice Dan had ever heard.

End Note: I'm still mostly not posting fic publicly and am instead temporarily only sending new fic to my mailing list of nice people. I'm not sure how long that will be going on, but this little fic just had to be posted for @phancy-phandom, so it brought me out from under my rock for a moment. :)

[randomstarmuffin]

You are???? an absolute gem????? And I'd be happy to talk to you whenever!!! Tell me more about what you liked about rune factory! Who did you marry? Did you marry one person or a collection of people (and if you did marry a collection of people, do you have a favourite??)

Omg????? I am not entirely sure when you sent this but I am so sorry I didnt see this until just now!! Ahhhhhh thank you so much???

Uh ok. Well, you asked and you shall receive - beware of a loooong post incoming lol. I could talk about RF for days and no one I know plays it so you’ve really opened the floodgates here haha

So full disclosure I’ve actually only had one rune factory spouse thus far and it was Doug! I got… a little too attached the first time I played (4 was my first rune factory game!) So I decided to try to complete the shipping list in my first save file (still have not accomplished that…) and played for just. Hours and hours and hours. And never actually got around to a second playthrough. When I first started, I had thought I might marry Vishal bc hes just so sweet but then Doug ended up stealing my heart (what can I say, hotheaded redheads/dwarves with a heart of gold and a tragic backstory are my weakness). So yeah, he’s definitely my favorite bachelor in 4. I also dont think it’s necessary for my enjoyment of a marriage option but I really liked how his whole deal was connected to the plot. I went into the game totally blind on the whole thing aside from having looked up the basic profiles on the bachelors/bachelorettes and I somehow didnt notice on my own so I had no idea that his FP was locked by story events until after the fact, but I loved how the plot was tied to him allowing himself to open up more. In a matter unrelated to the plot, and definitely dumbly cheesy, I found out about how some people had trouble with getting the random events and stuff required for marriage right around when I was getting ready to officially decide who to pick (tho it wasn’t a hard choice for me at that point) and I literally got all of Doug’s events so, so easily. I didn’t have to do any of the dreaded reloading tricks or anything, and even though I was also technically dating Vishnal and Arthur, Doug was the first one I got all the events for and the first marriage event to just happen naturally in-game, so I’d like to think it was just meant to be (lol). I’d love to someday play through as Lest as well and finally romance one of the girls, maybe Forte or Dolce… or Xiao Pai… these games have TOO MANY great characters in them I swear, it makes it hard to pick just one!

I have played a good portion of 3 as well, but I wanted to get everyones events done, esp the wooly reveal events, and I’ve just been so focused on other things, I guess, that I still havent finished it - heck, I havent touched it in like 7 months :( I should really do that actually… Anyways, 3 is going to be hard for me to pick a spouse bc, again, there are so many good characters. I think I’m leaning Raven not necessarily bc she’s my all around favorite but because weirdly I ship her the most with Micah? I’m not sure if that’s how you’re supposed to play these games but one thing I really value with the Rune Factory series in particular over, like, Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, is that the protags get to BE characters, and not just cardboard stand-ins!!! I know they’re mostly written fairly neutrally so you can play how you want, but they all *Definitely* have their own quirks and I absolutely love that. Theres certainly a time and a place for self inserts but honestly I personally tend to find myself more drawn into a game when the protagonists have their own stakes in the world besides I, The Player, Am Playing A Game In A Fantasy World That I Do With As I Please. Even if it’s just in what sort of dialogue choices you’re given or something, which HM/SV also dont really have as much of. (Cough unless the game in question is Animal Crossing. I guess they’ve really got me there. Cough) So, not that I dont like Raven in her own right, but I just really love their whole plotline together? RF3 does a really great job with character growth that, coming from someone seeing the series in reverse, I think RF4’s system of town events kind of mitigated, with the whole randomness factor meaning they couldnt link as many characters to any one overarching series of events. And I really love how Raven and Micah’s events go and i think ending them in romance is just super sweet. It should also be noted that I AM a sucker for a quiet-badass-who’s-sort-of-sassy-in-a-blink-and-you-miss-it-way x literal-sunshine-and-everyone-loves-them-and-they’re-always-in-everyones-business dynamic, for sure. As far as my actual favorite rf3 bachelorette, I think maybe Marian might take the cake? She’s so wacky and out there but her whole insecurity thing really touched me. That might change whichever way the wind is blowing on the day you ask me, though. To be quite honest with you, I fell hard for the whole town of Sharance and I could probably write essays on every single one of the marriage options in 3. Also though, I ended up shipping like all the bachelorettes with each other, sooo… my bad, Micah, my bad, lmao.

I also own Tides of Destiny, but my Wii started freaking out not long after I got it and I usually prefer to play handheld games anyway, so I started it but I never got too far. Someday I’ll play it. (I’m really hoping to get my hands on 2 sometime soon though because the idea of marriage rivals is SO up my alley - I’m sure it’s a pain to program but I wish more dating sims would do that!!! Maybe it’s just bc I’m someone who loves to ship just as much if not sometimes more than to see my own playable character have their romance play out, but I think it’s a super fun idea and makes the whole thing more grounded in the setting, that things can happen and relationships change outside of the protag’s involvement, too.)

So yeah. GREAT questions, my friend. I do love farming sims and non-NSFW dating sims in general and add onto that dungeon crawling and monster taming??? Plus it has a plot (even if it’s an albeit fairly simple one)?? Rune Factory really has it all, man. BUT if I’m being totally honest I think the best part of Rune Factory for me has always been the characters. I dont know how they manage to make the towns feel so alive and balance out all the personalities so well but they’ve really got it down. Maybe they have a secret formula somewhere… I’d love to see it :P

And!! I’d love to hear YOUR favorites as well??? Thanks again for the ask! I dont get a lot so I dont check super frequently and I really hope this hasn’t been sitting in my box for too long. You’re more than welcome to talk to me whenever too! :)

[acindra]

We Only Want To Have A Good Time (1/?)

Chapter 1 | 2

Pairing: Jeremy Heere/Michael Mell

Words: 1.871

Summary: “You’re right.”

“Of course I am. I’m amazing.” Michael said, promptly.

This startled laughter out of Jeremy. “And so humble.”

(Jeremy asks Michael on a date to the Relay For Life)

Read on AO3 or under the cut

Jeremy ran a hand through his hair and frowned at himself in the mirror. He was nervous. “You can do this. It’s just Michael.” he told himself.

The butterflies in his stomach disagreed.

“It’s just Michael. Michael who plays video games. Michael who likes 90’s soft drinks. Michael who forgave you when you were a massive dick to him. Michael who’s loyal and awesome and really fucking cute. Why is he so cute?”

His reflection did not provide him any answers.

“What’s the worst that’ll happen?” he asked himself. “He’ll just say no… and that he hates me and that I’ve ruined our friendship forever- oh god I can’t do this.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket, alerting him that he had received an email.

“Oh! I could text it to him instead!” He pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Michael.

There was a solid three minutes that he stared at his phone, trying to type out the words.

“This was a stupid idea.” He muttered as he locked his phone and stuck it back in his pocket. “Plus, I’m already here, I might as well ruin everything ever in person.” He ran a hand through his hair one more time before exiting the bathroom.

The door to Michael’s bedroom was mostly plain and unassuming except for one thing- it had a poster for Jeepers Creepers on it.

Jeremy stared at the eye in the poster.

The eye stared back, judging him silently.

He considered going back to the bathroom.

The sound of footsteps approaching drove him to open the door and enter Michael’s room; he didn’t want one of Michael’s parents to catch him loitering indecisively in the hall and, god forbid, ask him why.

As he made his way down the stairs, he caught sight of Michael lounging sideways on a beanbag, playing some video game.

He got so distracted he missed the last step and tripped.

Luckily, he managed to regain his balance after wobbling a little and windmilling his arms.

“Watch out, we just put that step there.” Michael remarked, laughing a little.

“I meant to do that.”

“Sure you did. Actually, look.” He pointed at his tv screen where his Animal Crossing character was pushing a gorilla villager into a pitfall trap.

The gorilla wiggled around in the pit for a few seconds then flipped back out.

“See that? You looked just like Peewee. Less buff, though. You should really work on that.”

“I’ll take that under consideration.” Jeremy said, dryly. “Is his name really Peewee?” he asked, incredulously.

“Yup.” Michael popped the p loudly. “So what can I do you for?”

“Well I came out to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now.”

“Pew pew.” Michael mimed shooting him with a gun.

Jeremy mimed getting shot and collapsed against the wall.

“I see… I see a light.” he said, stretching his arm out towards the imaginary light.

“And it’s like the fog has lifted.” Michael sang, watching as Jeremy pretended to die. “Well, shit. I gotta hide a dead body. Better call my best friend for help- oh wait.”

“Aw, you’d call me to help you hide a body? I’m touched.” Jeremy picked himself off the floor and went to perch himself on Michael’s desk chair.

“Wait!”

Jeremy froze, halfway to sitting on the chair.

Michael leaned forward off the beanbag and tapped Jeremy’s hand. “Boop.” He sat back. “Now you’re touched. As you were.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and sat down.

“If you want, we can play a game together. You just gotta wait for me to put in a code with Nook and save.”

“A code?”

“Project Hyrule, man!”

“What, like Zelda in Animal Crossing?”

“Not really. It was a forum or something a long ass time ago- like in the early two thousands- that posted universal codes for items in the game if your town was named Hyrule. I’ve been using it to get thirty thousand bells so I can pay off my mortgage.”

Jeremy watched as Michael’s character initiated a conversation with Nook.

“WB2…” Michael muttered as he input the code from memory.

“Why do you know this?” Jeremy asked, incredulous.

“Internet.”

“Ok, obviously. But how did you get from regular internet browsing to memorizing secret codes for a fifteen year old game?”

“I don’t know. I was up late the other night and found it. That’s why I broke out the gamecube, to be honest. It’s actually pretty fun, if a little bit isolated. Kinda reminds me of playing the early Sims games.”

“Gotta get your massaging heart bed on.”

“Speaking of babies in the Sims. Did you know you can have a child live by themself in Bustin’ Out if you kill off the parents? If you get good grades you get a hundred dollars from your grandparents and can then buy pizza or eat snacks instead of cooking food.”

“Bustin’ Out?”

“It’s one of the gamecube Sims games.”

“Did you have to look up the child thing, too?”

“No, that was an accident. I set off a firework too close to a carpet and… well. Fire.” He imitated a large flame with his hands.

“Amazing.”

“I know I am.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“You’re just jealous.”

Jeremy scoffed. “Of what?”

“I got the brains, the looks, and the skillz- with a ‘z’. I’m the whole package.” Michael boasted.

Jeremy agreed. But he would never let Michael know that. “You certainly are a whole lot of something.”

“Like I said- you’re just jealous.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“I will.”

Jeremy watched as Michael steered his character up to the gyroid outside his house and saved the game. “Sooo…. Michael.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“Are. Um.” Jeremy picked at the chair. “Do you… er. Are you... busy… on. Uh...”

Michael looked up at him, curiously. “Are you ok?”

Jeremy could feel his face turning red as he struggled to get the words out. “Whatareyoudoingonsaturday?” He rushed out. He fidgeted awkwardly as Michael processed his words.

“Saturday? Uhhh… Probably playing video games? Why?”

“Do you- I mean, only if you want to- d’you wanna go to… um… the Relay for Life? With me?”

“Relay for… Life? What’s that?”

“Oh! It’s. Um. A fundraiser. For cancer research. A-and like all of the clubs at school participate. It’s kinda like a festival? I- I think it goes until, um, six in the morning?” He ran a hand through his hair again. “That’s- actually really late.” He stared down at his hands as he wrung his fingers together. “You don’t want to do that. You’re right, it was a silly idea. I’m sorry I brought it up. Forget-”

“Sure. I’ll go with you.”

Jeremy looked up. “Really?”

“Yeah! It sounds fun. It’s a date!” He joked.

Jeremy felt relief course through him. He couldn’t fight down the pleased smile that broke over his face. “It- it is!” He nodded.

Michael tilted his head. “Wait- is it?”

“What?”

“Is- are you asking me on a date?”

“Y-yes? ”

“Jeremy!” Michael exclaimed, sitting up excitedly.

Jeremy startled a little.

“I’m so proud of you!” Michael pulled himself up onto his knees and half collapsed onto Jeremy to hug him around his middle.

Jeremy blinked in confusion even as he automatically patted Michael’s back. “What?”

“I know how hard it is for you to express yourself when it comes to liking someone. Usually you run away or- wait.” He pulled away slightly to look up at Jeremy. “This isn’t a joke is it? Cuz that’s really mean and I will get you back.”

“Wh- No it’s not a joke. I. Uhm. Ireallylikeyou.” If he wasn’t red before, he certainly was now.

Michael eyed him, suspiciously. “You aren’t making fun of me, right?”

“What would I be making fun of?”

He gave him an incredulous look. “I’ve had a crush on you? For, like, forever?”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“How?” Michael poked him in the stomach. “Like, are you serious? Are you fucking oblivious? I wasn’t even being subtle after we hit ninth grade.”

“I don’t know! You know I’m really bad at feelings.” Jeremy defended himself, catching Michael’s hand so he’d stop poking him.

Michael looked at Jeremy’s hand holding his and hooked his pinkie over his fingers. “You’re really asking me out?” he asked quietly.

Jeremy’s heart hurt at how vulnerable Michael sounded in that moment. “Yes.”

Michael gave him a lopsided smile. “Cool.”

They smiled at each other for a few seconds.

Jeremy fidgeted, breaking the eye contact and releasing Michael’s hand. “Well... This is awkward. I- I should go.” He made to swivel the chair so he could get up.

Michael grabbed the back of the chair to prevent him from moving. “No! Don’t go. You just got here.”

“But…”

“Please stay.” He made puppy eyes at him.

Jeremy’s stomach rumbled.

“See! Now you have to stay! I’ll feed you!”

“Okay, okay. How can I pass up free food?” Jeremy asked, a little sarcastic.

Michael slapped his hands down on Jeremy’s knees and hauled himself up to standing. “Don’t you worry. I will provide for my man.” He winked and offered a hand to him.

“Your man?” Jeremy laughed a little as he let Michael pull him up.

Michael furrowed his eyebrows. “We’re- but we’re going on a date? So that means we’re dating? Right? Did I get that wrong? I’m sorry! I just thought-”

Jeremy put his hands up in a placating motion. “I didn’t, uh, think about it. Before.” He waved his hand vaguely. “B-but if you want to be, um, b-boyfriends, I… I’d like that.”

“YEAH!” Michael shouted, excited. “Uh. I mean yes. Yes, I want that. Of course I want that.”

Jeremy looked down. “I’ve never had a b-boyfriend before.”

“I’ve never had an anything before.” Michael pointed out.

“I just mean. I don’t know how good I’ll be. At this.”

“Jeremy-”

“And like what if I do something stupid or wrong?”

“Jer-”

“What if someone tries to hurt us because we’re together and-”

“Jeremy!” Michael clapped his hand over Jeremy’s mouth. “I’m gonna stop you right there. We haven’t even gone on our first date and you’re already worrying. Stop it.”

Jeremy’s reply was too muffled to make out. He reached up and tugged Michael’s hand off. “You know I can’t help it…”

Michael sighed. “I know. But you know I’ll always be here for you.”

“Yeah…”

“You’ll be fine. If you do something stupid or wrong, I’ll tell you and we can fix it. If someone tries to hurt us I’ll kick their ass. Plus, we don’t have to tell anyone we’re together. And whatever happens- we can deal with it. Together. Because that’s what we do.”

“You’re right.”

���Of course I am. I’m amazing.” Michael said, promptly.

This startled laughter out of Jeremy. “And so humble.”

“If you got it, flaunt it.” He shrugged. “Anyways- let’s go get some food in you before you shrivel out of existence.”

“Ok.” Jeremy followed him up the stairs.

“And if you’re good, I’ll feed you by hand. It’ll be gay! I mean great.” He paused for a second to contemplate it. “No. I meant gay.”

[entergamingxp]

Someone should make a game about: Circuses • Eurogamer.net

If asked to name the first thing to pop into your head when someone says “circus,” I expect a lot of people would instantly shout out “The Greatest Showman,” and for good reason. Leave your desire for historical accuracy on the bog-like field surrounding the cone-topped tent of wonder, and it’s almost impossible not to be taken in; enraptured by the musical’s lavish production, emotionally manipulative story, and catchy song and dance numbers. Even as a man who has shaped an entire career around being po-faced, certain scenes tug the heartstrings so well they could be used as a real-life Voight-Kampff test. But no. My mind doesn’t immediately leap, like a buoyant fawn, to The Greatest Showman. All I can think about is danger.

I see danger everywhere. I’m the parent in the playground who grabs a child mid-swing to avoid another being catapulted into the climbing frame; I’m the person left alone at a pedestrian crossing as I stubbornly wait for the green man; I genuinely believe lettuce is a dangerous thing to eat. Growing up in and around circuses did not play nicely with this mostly useless and less-than-brilliantly calibrated superpower. I can’t really explain how little I enjoyed sleeping underneath my wantaway-dad’s poisonous spider terrarium or cleaning out his snakes. For the latter, imagine the finale of The Crystal Maze inside the dome, but with snakes instead of tickets and a life-long phobia as the grand prize.

The Greatest Showman. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Of course, it would have taken an immense level of skill to build a toe-tapping number for use in The Greatest Showman that, instead, centred on the kind of abominations more suited to a grimy 90 minutes of indulgent and brutal survival-porn. And this is where video games come in. Someone should make a game about the circus, but it should be a survival horror of sorts, not a twee, how many sticks of candyfloss do you want, what colour should the bear’s bowtie be, management sim. I get it, most people love the thrill of the circus, but just think about it for a moment.

I spent many summers living on a circus, either in a caravan or a tiny campervan. My family is a circus dynasty. I know the terror the Big Top brings. I’ve heard the tales, witnessed the scars, and been part of what can only be described as a world where I wish health and safety had gone mad. Watch a few minutes of any sensational Cirque du Soleil show and there will be a moment that sends your heart straight to your mouth. Old fashioned circuses did the same, but the heart’s journey (up your oesophagus?) was lined with razor blades.

To cover the ins and outs of this circus game a little, the lead character could be anyone. Danger is everywhere at the circus, but most people don’t see it. To a child, a circus is a place of wonder, and for a time I loved it. The variety acts inside the ring were captivating, unlike anything I’d ever seen, and it was happening feet from my seat. Little did I consider the risks, such as a tiny slip up sending a knife into a woman’s head or a missed grab resulting in a trapeze artist meeting a hardened floor with neck bones that weren’t in on the act. I didn’t have a clue about all the grisly things that happened. At least not at first.

The story of the man crushed to death by an elephant’s foot has always remained with me, firing into my subconscious like Dumbo’s trippy dream. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, and this is beyond comprehension these days, you could see elephants performing in a ring, practically within touching distance of the audience. How were people not having panic attacks at shows every day? As soon as I heard about elephant stomp man I refused to sit in the front row, despite my family’s desire to get me to be in the ring – presumably to show off just how little of the showbiz genes I’d inherited.

Not really like Planet Zoo and no poo – more violent injuries and danger.

Back in game land, the goal wouldn’t be so much to react to ghastly events, but spot the signs that things are about to go wrong. Final Destination is a great film series for this, throwing everyday objects at the audience like glass-covered curveballs, with only a few being on target to deliver the final blow. What is the real danger and how can it be avoided so people can carry on living oblivious lives?

If you do manage to maintain the full head (and shoulders) of that person who was getting too friendly with a six-ton elephant, don’t rest on your laurels. Look out, that lion looks up for a mauling. Lion taming is legitimately what I’d likely be doing right now if my life had gone a slightly different direction. I don’t fancy it (I’ve heard the stories). Good luck tapping the correct button combos to break free.

Don’t get me wrong, circuses aren’t all about on-edge wild animals forced to perform (and almost exclusively aren’t in the UK anymore), but a lot of my fears stem from them. Hell, I was casually encouraged to hug a bear when I was a child. A bear. An actual bear! Have you seen Grizzly Man? Or more likely, The Revenant? If only I could have pressed A to back away.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/someone-should-make-a-game-about-circuses-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=someone-should-make-a-game-about-circuses-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[ladytitanium]

1,2,7 to 17, 19 to 23, 25 to 70

OKAY SO this got suuuuper long and I’m gonna answer it under a readmore but thank you so much for asking!

1. First game you played obsessively?

Definitely Minecraft. I got it around 2012 and played it whenever I could, although shortly afterwards I moved on to playing a lot of TF2 with some online friends.

2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc. 

TF2 and Portal 2 were the first things I ever wrote fanfic for, so I’d say those two are big and important for sure. More recently, though, Transistor and Pyre have been inspiring me to pursue more art and music.

7. Any games you have multiple copies of?

I have Portal 2 for xbox 360 and PC.

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?

I had a copy of Link to the Past in great condition, but my ex stole that and my entire SNES so :/

9. Most regrettable purchase?

No Man’s Sky is the obvious answer but I think I have some steam games lying around that I bought and played once, or just never touched. Not sure which ones, though. Usually if I’m going to spend actual money on something, I try to make sure it’s good first.

10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours?

No, but I’d like to someday.

11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games?

Not in the sense of meeting people in an mmo or anything, but I’ve definitely bonded with people I’ve met over a mutual love of games.

12. Ever get picked on for liking games?

Nah, not really. I’ve been picked on more for not having played enough games, honestly.

13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has?

I’ve never played Overwatch or most online competitive games, or any MMOs aside from like 5 hours of gw2.

14. Favorite game music?

Anything Darren Korb, the composer for Supergiant Games, has made. Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre OSTs will always have a special place in my heart. Honorable mention goes to the Portal 2 soundtrack.

15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick?

I……. have a triforce tattoo…….. on my left wrist……………

16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL?

I tend to like watching people play games rather than doing competitive or couch coop type things, so it’s hard to say. I used to hang out with my friends while we all did playthroughs of the Mass Effect trilogy, though, which was wonderful.

17. Ever lose a friend over a game?

Nah. Had some arguments over the Souls games, though.

19. Favorite handheld console?

3DS, definitely, although I do have some nostalgia for the good ol’ GBA.

20. Game that you know like the back of your hand?

Portal 2, although it’s been a few years since I’ve played so I might not be as familiar with it as I once was. Barring that, Stardew Valley.

21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now?

I can’t think of any, honestly, since I almost never played anything as a kid.

22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories?

The occasional Zelda t-shirt, and my old Aperture Science tanktop. I’d wear more if I owned more.

23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?

TF2, I think? I used to play for hours every evening.

25. Were you ever an arcade game player?

Sadly, no. My mother thought arcades were giant wastes of time and money and would corrupt me and make me stupid. 

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?

No, I don’t get competitive much. 

27. Game that makes you rage?

Any kind of roguelike makes me angry just thinking about it. I hate losing progress. Really difficult platformers make me frustrated and angry too.

28. Ever play in a tournament?

Dear god no.

29. What is your gaming set up?

Currently, none. I have a shitty, half-broken laptop.

30. How many consoles do you own?

I own a Switch and a 3DS. I have access to an XBONE though.

31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches?

I’ve never tried a Virtual Boy, but leaving the 3D on high on my 3DS is something I’ve only done once due to the nasty headache it gave me.

32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic?

I don’t think so, no.

33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games?

I had a Sonic handheld game from a happy meal, does that count?

34. Do either of your parents play video games?

My dad does, a lot. Mostly MMOs. I think my mother did too, but mostly Civ, some ancient Egypt themed MMO, and Guild Wars, from what I can recall.

35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop?

I worked in a game store for about six months late last year/early this year. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game?

Oh, tears, absolutely. Plenty of games have made me cry. FFXV, Persona 5, Transistor, Portal 2, the list goes on.

37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination?

I actually have played it! Perks of working at a game store that sells Ataris. I was utterly baffled by it, so I think “worst game ever made” is a fair title.

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?

I really enjoy all the walking simulators/art games I’ve played. I know a lot of people say they aren’t real games or whatever but I think most of the ones I’ve played are genuinely enjoyable experiences.

39. A sequel that you would die for them to make?

...Portal 3, but with the same writers+VAs+team in general. I know that’ll never happen now but I need it like I need air.

40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls?

Motion controls can be hit or miss. I think they need to be integrated well and very functional to be enjoyable. Like, wii sports and stuff? I loved it. Those tilt puzzles in the shrines in BOTW? Absolutely horrendous. As for VR, I really want to try it someday. I think it’s neat.

41. A genre that you just can’t get into?

Roguelikes, Souls-like (where the only purpose of the game is to be as difficult as possible so people who master it can be snobs about it), and any realistic online-only FPS things like Call of Duty are the three main things I will never, ever touch.

42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness?

Pokemon Ruby, absolutely.

43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else?

All through the second half of high school, tbh.

44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters?

I’ve never actually gotten to play arcade games much.

45. How are you at Mario Kart?

I’m only decent at Mario Kart Wii, because I played it a lot.

46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon?

Absolutely! Animal Crossing New Leaf and City Folk are games I love dearly and have spent a LOT of time on over the years.

47. Do you like competitive games?

Almost never. I only ever played TF2 with friends, and that pretty much extends to any competitive game I might play. Only with friends, and only sometimes.

48. How long does it take your to customize your player character?

So. Long.

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character?

Yeah, mages are kind of my thing. I get jumpy when I have to do a bunch of melee so I tend to prefer to stand back a little. I always went full biotic in Mass Effect for that reason.

50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create?

That’s a tough one. I’ve had a few concepts over the years, but none that have really stuck with me.

51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep?

Yeah, definitely. I lose track of time really easily if I’m absorbed in something.

52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid?

All Pokemon games from gen 4+5.

53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days?

Any DLC that adds characters or plot necessary for the full enjoyment of the game should be free imo. Skins/weapons/maps/non-essential quests and missions can be behind a paywall. Like, ME3′s From Ashes DLC should have been free, and I go back and forth between whether it was cool to have Citadel and Omega DLCs behind paywalls, but all the weapons/armor/alternate appearance packs I’m totally fine with being paid DLC.

54. Do you give in to Steam sales?

Only when I have money.

55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them?

I never played any Sims games.

56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?

Never played Roller Coaster Tycoon either.

57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements?

Minish Cap, I think? I tried to 100% Super Mario Galaxy but I couldn’t ever quite do it.

58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick?

Oh, shit. Uh. Animal Crossing New Leaf, Pokemon Sun (or Moon), and... I can’t pick a third one. Probably something with multiplayer.

59. Do you play any cell phone games?

Yeah, but most of them are just little time-wasting puzzle games.

60. Do you know the Konami Code?

Yes!

61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever?

I’ve never traded in a game but I might if I bought a physical copy of something I didn’t like.

62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game?

Does the Switch count, since till Splatoon 2 came out I only had BOTW on it? I’ve considered getting a PS4 just for P5 and Horizon Zero Dawn.

63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? 

I went to GenCon a few times when I was really young but I barely remember it, and I’ve tagged along to a handful of Warhammer 40k tournaments with my dad, but that was also like 10 years ago. So no, not really.

64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming?

I’ve never bought a TV or monitor myself.

65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file?

I had an Action Replay for shinies in X and Y.

66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it?

No, my first phone was a Windows phone when I was 14 because my mother hated technology and wanted to control me so a phone was way too much freedom and entirely out of the question :/

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?

I remember the first time I beat Portal 2, sitting on the floor in front of the TV and crying tears of joy. That was pretty great.

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?

I wanted to, but didn’t go to arcades enough.

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? 

Transistor. Can’t think of a single bad thing about it, honestly. Persona 5 and Horizon Zero Dawn are near-flawless too.

70. Very first game you ever beat?

The first game I beat was Pokemon Ruby, but idk if that counts since I shared with my brother, and I think my dad had to help us beat the Elite 4 because we were young and didn’t grind enough. I took turns with Portal 2, too. Portal 1, maybe?