#this is about as philosophical as i'm gonna get on this blog

[theoryandahalf]

I feel like Mat will still make cameos on the channels occasionally/

I feel the same, I'm sure he'll be on to promote merch or give more attention to LoreFi. I think he probably has one more appearance on the FNAF musical (because otherwise they left it on not!Afon pulling a double Luke Skywalker on himself for no reason).

At the same time, I hope he doesn't for a long while. Not just to give Ash and Sam a chance to succeed. But also, as much as I love the man, every single time he talks about his feelings about retirement I end up feeling sorry for him.

Yes, cry for the multi-millionaire, I know. But like when he's talking about how he finally gets to work on himself now and put himself first, but then in the same breath he goes on to say "I get to go ICE SKATING!" or "I get to be a human being and play with my kid", its like, my good sir. You don't need to just touch grass. You need to rub your whole face in it. Breathe in the grass.

Like, if your job prevents you from doing even the most basic thing like going outside for a walk...you deserve a new job. No matter how rich you are. Even movie stars get a break between films. Rock Stars have to stop to record new music. The constant go go go of YouTube is just fundamentally at its core inhumane. The more MatPat talks about how his whole adult life has been Performance first, human man second, the more I'm ready to show him the door.

Its the opposite of the Mr. Beast ethos, please stop grinding yourself into oblivion for likes.

Be the MatPat. Go touch that ice.

[auxiliarydetective]

To all the people making One Piece OCs after the Live Action, I love all of you and I have some important info for you!

I'm here as a seasoned manga/anime fan to give you some tips and resources on names and devil fruits that live action only fans probably don't know, so stick around! :)

Edit: I now have an entire blog dedicated to spoiler-free One Piece resources @onepiece-oc-archives so if this post helped you, maybe you'll find more there!

Keep in mind that these are things to make your OC fit into canon, which I think is pretty important, but not a must. Making OCs is about having fun, after all. If my tone seems a little pointed, take it in the light of my hyperfixation and personal opinion. These are all offers and ideas, not requirements.

There are 8-ish paragraphs in this post and I'm just gonna give you a quick outline so you can find everything more easily:

Names (Please read this, this is about a "mistake" I see lots of people making!)

The D. in Luffy's name

Devil Fruit Names

The Uniqueness of Devil Fruits (REALLY important, please read this)

What if my Devil Fruit is taken? (Follow-up to 4.)

Creature-related Devil Fruits

Devil Fruit Fun Facts (little details that could spice up your OC)

Final message/What if my question isn't in this post?

First of all, I've seen some people seemingly confused about the naming schemes of the characters. One Piece names work with the Japanese naming scheme, so the family name comes first! Roronoa Zoro means Zoro is the guy's first name and Roronoa is his last/family name. I think you can see it best with Monkey D. Luffy and SPOILER FOR LATER EPISODES Monkey D. Garp. They have the same family name, that being "Monkey D.". No, there are no exceptions and I'm begging you to keep that in mind for your OCs as well. Not all characters have a first and last name, in fact most of them don’t, by the way, and names can sound like Greek philosophers or Disney sidekicks or whatever else you want a name to be, so feel free to get creative

Sort of halfway adding to that though I've seen nobody doing it: The D. "D" stands for "Don’t give it to a character unless you know what it means". So, before you name your character "Original D. Character", look up the D. You can still do it, it might even be really awesome, just look it up, but only look it up if you're willing to take spoilers. Otherwise, you can always add the D. later.

Second topic of this post: Devil Fruits! I highly recommend you think about the Japanese name of your fruit, simply because it's fun! Eichiiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, loves naming his devil fruits after puns or onomatopoeia (meaning things like "moo moo" in English, but Japanese has a lot more and a lot cooler ones). For example, Buggy's fruit, the Chop Chop Fruit, which is called Bara Bara no Mi in Japanese. Barabara is Japanese onomatopoeia for something coming apart. To avoid spoilers, I'm gonna use my own original fruit as the second example: It’s the Sew Sew Fruit, or Chiku Chiku no Mi, chikuchiku being the sound of a needle piercing through fabric. As you can see, the onomatopoeia or pun usually doesn't carry over to the English name, which is why I suggest the Japanese. Just for funsies. If you want something like that for your fruit, here are some resources I found:

https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-onomatopoeia/ (<- ordered by theme, makes things easy to find)

https://gist.github.com/UserUnknownFactor/093a2296c5a4d9ef7b404728ebde94a3 (<- ordered by alphabet, things are harder to find but as a LOT more stuff; maybe read the first link first so you know where to look)

Another thing about devil fruits which they kinda touched on in the show but never clearly stated: Every devil fruit power only exists once in the whole world. So much for what the live action said. But what they didn’t say is that the person currently possessing the power has to die for the fruit to reform and another person to eat it. What that means for you is: Your OCs cannot have powers that are already in use by canon characters. Of course, to figure out if your fruit of choice is taken, you'd have to do research and risk spoilers. BUT if you don't wanna do that, just ask me. I'll either be able to tell you straight away or do the research for you problem solved!

What do I do if my devil fruit is taken?

You get creative. The exact same power may not exist twice, but there are variants like ice and snow, fire and lava, kilo and ton... Taking my own fruit as an example again, the power of stitching things together was already taken, so I widened the spectrum of my devil fruit to be generally sewing-themed. Canonically, the only real limit to what devil fruits can exist is a person's imagination, so you have explicit permission to go wild.

And finally, one last thing about devil fruits: You don’t have to limit yourself to typical "powers". There is a whole category of devil fruits that lets the user transform themselves into a living being, usually an animal. This includes mythological creatures! So, once again, go wild! They work a little differently than other devil fruits, but the basics are: You have your fully human form, your hybrid form and your animal form. These types of devil fruits are named a little differently, going after a scheme of Animal Animal Fruit, Model: Subtype/Breed/etc. Yes, there can probably be a Dog Dog Fruit for every type of domestic dog breed. Yes, you can make a cat girl. As an example for what you can do with these types of devil fruits that goes more in the whacky direction, one of my manga OCs has the Kami Kami no Mi, Model: Shikigami. Seriously, go wild. This is the fandom for it.

As sort of an extra fun fact while we're on the topic of devil fruits: Devil Fruits have the potential to alter a person's appearance when they eat it. It doesn't always happen, but it can. For example, there's a devil fruit that freezes your aging as a side effect and one that makes you lose any excess weight when you eat it. This also sometimes happens with the animal types. Maybe that’s something you can use for your OC. Also, clothes usually transform with the user when they use their powers, but not always. So, use whatever version you want for your OC.

And one final message: I love all the new fans coming in and I love seeing what you create! If you ever have any questions or need help fitting something you came up with into the OP universe or something, feel free to send me a message or, if you're too shy to do that, hop into my ask box on anon - or without anon. Or if you just wanna ramble to someone about your OCs or literally anything else, you can also just come to me. I'd love to hear from you!

Also, one more thing, if you think there's something missing here that I should touch on, tell me and I'll add it in a reblog or make a new post. This post is already long enough XD I've been thinking about making this a thing on my blog, not just for One Piece, where I just generally give resources and spare people the often spoiler-riddled or tedious research

[tadpoles-and-daydreams]

Hey there! Hekate has pointed me toward your blog and I just wanted to say hi 💞

I do have a question though, have you ever had deities help you with motivation and executive functioning skills? I've got ADHD and the "laziness"(🤢) or what I call "going slug mode" (staying in bed all day, no motivation to shower, etc) really commands my life.

My periods of deity work tend to coincide with my periods of productivity and energy, but I often fall off when, well, everything else falls off. So I guess I'm also looking for advice or at least to connect with someone who's had similar experiences.

(I've also connected with Aphrodite and Loki! Other gods I've worked with in the past are Mother Hathor and Brigid)

First off, I may or may not have had so many feelings upon seeing "Hekate has pointed me towards your blog" because the idea that my blog can be useful enough that a deity would go "go look at what that dude has to say" just brings me so much joy.

Second off, OH THIS IS ABSOLUTELY SOMETHING I SHOULD SCREAM ABOUT THANK YOU. I can't believe I haven't already made a post about this!!

I, too, am an ADHD motherfucker and I have always had so many issues with keeping up with my craft. I will absolutely be calling it "slug mode" from now on, that's the best fucking way to put it. I've had deities help me with executive function at times, but if I'm honest I've forgotten lately that I can ask them for help with that. More often than not it looks more like nudging me towards a task than giving me the energy- but that doesn't mean you can't ask! It just means I forgot I could, lol.

This is gonna be a chonker post, so I'm breaking this post up into two parts; 1, why accepting "falling off" was the best thing I could have done for myself and 2, how to still connect with your craft (and deities) through those times anyway.

So for one, you're not broken or a failure, and your deities fuckin' love you.

Call me philosophical, but hear me out; I've always worked in cycles. Cycles of insane productivity, cycles of tiredness, cycles of hyperfixation on one thing, then another, then another. I'm just someone who works that way, and I've always viewed it as a problem to be fixed. I've always viewed MYSELF as a problem to be fixed, which really started with the school system but that's an unrelated rant. So, apologies for getting a bit intense especially since this may not apply to you personally, but just in case:

You're not a problem. You don't need to fix yourself. The world works in cycles. Seasons, reincarnation if you subscribe to that belief, the water cycle, and a billion other things I've forgotten- working with cycles is just a natural way of going about life that I think shouldn't be forgotten. I have intense periods of growth in my craft, and I have periods where I don't do much and instead play my favorite video game for eight hours straight- and that's okay! One of the best things I did for myself and my craft was give myself permission to do that. I, and you, are not failures as witches for "falling off" and our deities love us anyway. Not in spite of it, either, because of it. They know how to work with the cyclic nature of things; people are no different.

So honestly, there's a chance that none of this will make sense to you- but there's a chance that you, and maybe others seeing this post, might find that giving yourself permission to go through cycles might be the best thing you could do.

Okay, now that I've yelled about that, here's ways that I keep myself connected to my craft and my deities during my less witchy periods.

I give myself permission to use witchcraft for "dumb shit." I have at least one post on this, but witchcraft can BE childish, playful, "dumb-" it doesn't need to be serious all the time. So I'm learning to let go of what I think it should look like and recognize that sometimes the way to stay connected is to lay in bed and draw a sigil on my phone as a mini-spell to manifest a nice little treat or a thing I want in a video game.

This isn't deity work, but it had been huge for me: SIGILS. Sigils my beloved. I don't often have the time, energy, or supplies to do what most people think of when they talk about spells. So instead, if I'm feeling like I could do a spell for something but that's just too much, sigils can be done on my phone or computer while just chilling. Also, if you're like me and a writer, I just write spells too. Literally the same way I write statements for sigils, but a bunch of 'em.

Personally I just talk to my deities. I would like to do this more, actually. You don't need to have a big reason for calling them in, just ask them to sit with you and talk about your day or infodump about a special interest. They're not going to deem it unimportant; you're important to them.

Turn anything into a devotional activity if you want. Any self-care. Not just the typical stuff; I mean food, meds, literally any sort of "maintenance" to keep your body and mind running! If you can't do those, play music you associate with them, or watch a show/play a game and invite them to just sit with you. Whatever you're already doing, you can just ask them to do it with you. If that's literally just laying in bed doing nothing but feeling crappy, I can assure you I've asked them to sit with me during those days too and they've been more than happy.

Literally most of my offerings are just random food. As we speak, I have a little tiny thing with a few sips of soda because I give Loki some when I drink some. If you don't have the time or energy to put it on the altar, literally just drink it with the intention that you're drinking it "for" them. When I did a reading and Kali visited for it, she asked for a graham cracker of all things. It doesn't have to be associated with them. Virtual offerings too! If you can, I've seen people just scroll through pinterest/google images and pick images to offer to their deities.

This might not be something you struggle with, but this is definitely something I would need someone to tell me so: ASK. PLEASE. ASK FOR THINGS. They're not going to riot if you ask for things!! Let them help!! Ask for things, unapologetically if you can muster it!!! I am using excessive exclamation marks for a reason, I swear. My deities are in a constant state of telling me to just ask for things.

Be gentle with yourself. Genuinely, I think one of the best ways to honor your deities doesn't even require them to be there at all; just try not to hate on yourself for being the way you are, because they wouldn't want you to.

Overall, my only advice is just... throw away what you "should" be doing and find out what you LIKE doing. What works for you? It's a hard question to answer, but it gets a lot easier when you start looking away from what "should" work. Your deities are working with you, they wouldn't be working with you if they didn't accept every single part of you. That includes slug mode.

As always, my DM's and asks are open if you have any more questions/just want to connect because being a neurodivergent witch sometimes just feels isolating at times! If you actually read this whole post thank you, I hope some of it helped!!

[raccoonfallsharder]

hii! i just wanted to say i love your blog sm. your fics are amazing and your fanart as well😩 your work has such a good emotional depth that’s so nice to read/see. you have a way like the movies did of showing the attention to detail with their worlds and other worldly cultures and shit it’s so interesting to read <3. i didn’t know if your taking requests but this was just a random thought that would be so cool to see you write. no pressure ofc but i thought it’d be so cool to see rocket more introduced to like more music/Terran pop culture references😭. i feel like rocket would like goth music like the cure and shit and tbh lady gaga i feel like also😭😭. it’s so cute to think of him getting shown like classic horror and stuff, he’d probably think a lot of them as comedies or shit😭. i jsut had these thoughts to share lol. your writing has me daydreaming i swear <3. i hope you are having a good day <33 : D

you are absolutely the sweetest little bundle of love nonnie. cups of tea, midnight bonfires, and golden autumn leaves. that's you. thank you so much for the kind words. they truly made my last two weeks. and i'm so sorry for the delay - the start of the schoolyear has been kicking my ass to knowhere and back, and then this… got away from me. it’s really unforgivably fucken long for mostly just being a list ~

but i hope you enjoy it anyway ♡♡

oh btw i linked some related headcanons that might interest you at the end!

to be honest i don't think i go through a single commute to or from work without thinking about how rocket would respond to the latest bit of terran culture you're showing him. when he was spending time on terra during the snap, he noticed steve’s little pocket-journal checklist of movies and books and shows to get caught up on. well, he didn’t just notice it — he might’ve maybe possibly swiped it — and once he trusted you enough to know you weren’t gonna fuckin narc on him, he decided to show it to you. he asks questions about the various titles, and steve’s notes scrawled in the margins. the two of you started there.

rocket isn’t quite as prejudiced against actors as many of his fellow guardians, but he does approach the idea of movies and tv with a healthy dose of skepticism. you probably start out with some documentaries, and he loves those. he’s enthralled by the ones about outer space — appreciating what they’ve gotten right and snickering about what they got wrong, getting a little weepy when the narrator makes some poignant philosophical observation. he stares at the screen with something that wrenches at your heart when you turn on the nature docs, those cut-ruby eyes turning into something soft and molten, silvered over with a yearning you’re sure he doesn’t even recognize inside himself.

you might think he’d be a fan of true crime, but no — not unless it’s someone scamming a big corporation or stealing from some hubristic rich bastard, or maybe the occasional murderer who accidentally confesses his crimes on a hot mic. the truth is that rocket’s already personally familiar with some of the worst true crime in the galaxy and he just sort of assumes that’s how things operate at large. why’s he need to watch people talk about?

it’s this kind of thinking that impacts the kind of fictional shows and movies he ends up liking, too — once you finally convince him that acting is more about storytelling, and less about lying or trying to wear someone else’s skin. you’d think he’d be super-into horror but he’s very — selective about it. murderers, slashers, and body horror (especially of the medical variety) are not in his wheelhouse. he gets anxious in the worst sort of way: impatiently twitching on the couch next to you, chewing on his claws. he rolls his eyes but his shoulders stay tense and his tail is puffs up three times it’s normal size. he might occasionally snort and scoff at how fake things look but again, that’s only because he knows.

and he wishes he didn’t.

supernatural horror is much more palatable to him, and alien-based horror is usually hilarious as far as he’s concerned. space dramas and adventures have an unpredictable impact. he says star wars is too dramatic (wild coming from someone who has since decided he loves reality dating shows) and gets weirdly emotional about star trek. and you have to repeatedly remind him that neither the aliens franchise nor killer clowns from outer space are documentary series (he has some weird hang-ups about terran clowns and will dryly tell you that he’s pretty sure they’ve tried to kill him in another life). he’s extremely and overly fascinated by some of the weirder terran horror and horror-adjacent media: cult classics from the 80s and 90s, Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone — some of those weird old fantasy movies too, like the labyrinth and company of wolves. you always indulge him, trying to remind him of what’s fiction and what’s not, and what loosely straddles the line of being based on a true story (even though sometimes you have to fight with the urge to roll your eyes when he points at the screen and says, no, that’s real, i been to a planet like that!).

you learn he has an uncanny eye for CGI. looks weird, he grunts every time something rendered crosses the screen. very into practical effects, though. he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make a claymation sequence of the collapse of ego — the living planet, that is; not some great philosophical metaphor — and took over your kitchen for two months to do it. you’d expected him to get bored of it quickly, but you’d misunderstood just how fixated he’d been. he’d stopped taking pete’s comms for the entire last three weeks and had barely slept at all till it had been done.

he’s equally selective about games. classic shooters bore him — why bother when you can go do the real thing with any despot-of-the-week? — but he kind of loves cozy games. he enjoys horror games as long as they follow his horror movie rules, too — minimal lifeform-on-lifeform torture, heavy on the supernatural or other weirdness. poppy’s playtime is a current fave. he loves dnd, of course. once he figures out the mechanics he always wants to dm because he’s got more control issues than a freighter full of ravagers, but you haven’t missed the fact that that he’s got a recurring favorite character that he pulls out regardless of which side of the dm screen he’s on — a shockingly wise and kind aquatic sorceress named lylla, with the gentlest healing vibes. it rattles you the first time he plays her — so at odds with his normal snark — but you decide it’s just his way of letting his soft side shine through when he normally tries to hide it under prickly defensiveness.

it might surprise you (or maybe not), but he’s far less picky about music, to be honest. sure, he’s got preferences — certain songs he’ll play on repeat, or jam out to, or weep over. but he’s just as excited to clone a taylor swift record as he is to get his hands on some iron maiden. he’s got something surprisingly positive to say about every single song you ask after.

that one’s real catchy, he’ll say, bopping along to dolly’s 9 to 5 — only to then croon his way through the lingering notes of jolene. then the next time you see him he’s asking how he can secure more tupac albums.

he gets all teary-eyed over the sweeping strings of sometime around midnight, then later tilts his head, ears flickering, to drink in the light starlit notes of single acoustic guitars and lonely pianos. he’s as greedy for 90s grunge as he is for screamo and post-rock. sometimes he steals your phone and it’s usually just to download a nirvana album you once had him listen to, but just last week you realize he’d blown a sizable portion of your grocery budget by buying the entire babymetal discography.

he explains it to you one late autumn evening when you’re in your room with him, introducing him to seventeen seconds. the two of you are just chilling. he’s traded in his jumpsuit for the kids’ sweatpants and the hoodie you bought him — the one with the ears — and of course you very wisely don’t tell him how stupidly cute it is. the sun’s going down and the room is slanting and pooling with blue-and-gold shadows slowly deepening into purple, and you’ve lit a couple caramel-apple candles for the vibe. maybe you’ve got mugs of warm spiced apple cider or cocoa or something. he’s sprawled on the rug on your floor and you’re leaning over the edge of the bed, with the entire musical archive of the cure, woven liberally with a random joy division album, some merciful nuns, and other collections from your personal library of favorites.

he’s super-into it, of course.

this sound is somethin’ else, he tells you as he stares up at the shadows. The candlelight is reflecting off some unknown surface in your room, casting flecks of fractured light across the deepening dark of the ceiling. his blunted claws tap a steady rhythm on the floor beside him.

you say that about every song, you tell him drily, and he shrugs.

but i mean it, he tells you in the gold-flickering darkness. there’s a long silence, and you think he’s just listening to the music — but halfway through dope, he suddenly breaks his silence.

i ain’t exactly the most emotionalistically-intelligent, he says quietly into the room. don’t trust myself to know when someone’s good or bad. there was a guy, when i was a kid — well. anyway. it’s frickin hard to trust anybody, myself most of all.

you wait to see if he’ll go on — but he doesn’t. at least not till you say, i get that. there’s good people out there, but the worst are usually so good at tricking us. and then it’s easy to second-guess ourselves — forever.

from the corner of your eye, you see him nod emphatically.

not in music, though, he says quietly. you hear him swallow — painfully hard. i think — music’s when people tell you most about what they are. even when it’s hard to understand at first. when there ain’t any words.

you tilt your head, allowing him the privacy of not looking directly at him. instead, you study the flickering candlelight and shadow, painting amber and dark-velvet patterns on the ceiling. that’s why you like every song? you ask at last.

that swallow again, hard as a rock in his throat. i dunno. maybe it means something, when someone gives a part of ‘emselves like that. to you — a stranger. just — serve themselves up like a gift for your judgement.

ah, you think. the vulnerability.

as if he’d heard you, he snorts. me personally? i’d never risk it.

even now, you can feel him watching you uneasily from the corner of his eye — waiting for you to mock him, maybe. but you only hum an agreeable note.

i never thought of it that way, you admit, but it’s true. you smile at the ceiling. and you said you weren’t emotionally intelligent.

he huffs, but the sound is more relieved than annoyed. i ain’t, he snipes. and then — more tentatively — maybe that’s part of it too.

you feel your eyebrows raise, but you still don’t look his way — cradling the back of your head with your hands while the music continues in around you, and smell of warm caramel apples fills the soft shadows between you. what do you mean?

softer now — almost nervous — he confesses to the darkness and the gold light and the sound of lady gaga’s voice. every time i listen to a new song, s’like I find something in myself i didn’t have before. or didn’t know i had before. or that i thought had died.

your heart stills in your chest and your breath catches, and everything in you suddenly aches. before you can say a word — before you can think — he spits a scoff into the air.

never mind. i was kidding. that’s fuckin’ stupid—

no, you interrupt quickly, and it takes everything in you not to turn over and catch his eyes and hold them. not to reach out and hold his hands, because you know he’s not willing to accept that level of comfort.

not yet. but soon.

so instead, you make your voice into the softest thing you’ve ever imagined. no sharp edges, no corners to cut himself on. just downy well-worn blankets and soft crumpled love-notes, happy welcome homes and the warm caramel of autumn apples. you will it go wrap around him and give him all the comfort he won’t let himself accept any other way.

no, you repeat. i get that.

i get that.

headcanons & imagines masterlist | navigation | fanfiction masterlist

related headcanons: rocket's movie & television tastes ✶ what if rocket finds the mcu movies? ✶ music and rocket & adam, pete & jason ✶ rocket & coloring ✶ rocket & origami ✶ rocket & lava lamps ✶ rocket & sudoku, crosswords & word-searches ✶ rocket & hanayama puzzles ✶ rocket sings

raccoon & star dividers by @/thecutestgrotto support banners by @/saradika-graphics

[silverdune]

the purgatory papers | introduction: part two

"enter.. we have much to discuss."

minors dni. ageless blogs dni. blank blogs dni. you'll be blocked. <- part one | main masterlist | part three -> character(s): gn!reader, kim hongjoong, choi san, park seonghwa, kang yeosang; (minatozaki sana, myoui mina;) tags: explicit language, light banter, slight hostility, alcohol, references to drinking alcohol to cope word count: 5.1k summary: with only a vague idea of what lies ahead of you, you take a trip to both hell and heaven to speak with the people involved. in doing so, you start to get a glimpse of just what exactly you're dealing with.. a/n: i initially intended to this just be one long introductory chapter, but i'm actually gonna split this into three parts because this second part ended up way longer than i thought it was going to;😭 i hope you enjoy!

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You give the mortal world exceedingly less credit than the folks in Heaven would, but it’s not lost on you that the configuration of Heaven, Hell and purgatory are exactly how they’ve envisioned it for thousands of years. For the nth time it makes you chuckle as you descend the staircase into the cavernous pit, recalling how you once joked with Yunho that the mortal world is basically the living room, and that they would sometimes refer to Heaven and Hell as upstairs and downstairs respectively.

One thing that is slightly off is that purgatory still, in part, exists as a liminal space above the sphere as well as below it. The area in which you live means you often refer to it as downstairs.

As for Hell, that’s the basement.

And much like the mortals, no trip to the basement is a fun one.

The temperature is known to increase, but you yourself don’t feel it much, bar the odd sweat beads that form across your hairline. As you approach the door to Hell, the air does become noticeably stuffy, and you wonder if they upped the fire resources in the last century and why exactly they felt the need to bask in more heat than necessary.

Then you recall how the temperature is governed by the overseer’s temper - hence temperature - and it all starts to make sense.

Old Horns’ feathers have been ruffled in greatly unfortunate ways.

There’s a single security guard standing by the door to Hell, someone you’ve strangely become good friends with since you first met two centuries ago. Her eyes light up at your arrival, and her smile invites you to smile back. However reluctant you felt to take on this job, it’s always nice to see her again.

“Well, well, look who it is!” she teases. Embers of orange dance around the curls of her auburn hair, her black, backless dress trailing the floor. “Never one to stay a stranger, hey?” She smirks, knowing full well why you’re here, but opting not to say the quiet part out loud.

“Business as usual,” you nod, then exhale deeply, “for the last time.” Sana’s face falls instantly. You didn’t think such an expression would sting so much. “Oh. So, that means you won’t be paying any more visits to Hell.” She says it so matter-of-factly, as if she already understands how this is going to work, but there’s still a tinge of sadness in her voice. It makes you feel genuinely awful.

“Well-” You trip over your words in an attempt to placate her. “Not necessarily!” you perk up. “I can still pay you a visit!” you say. Sana grins again, so bright and effervescent. It actually brings you joy to cheer her up about this. A strong heart lies dormant in your dwelling soul after all. “And besides, no more business means I’ll have more free time.”

“We can do the stairwell picnic we talked about!”

Ah, the stairwell picnic. Meet halfway along the staircase and eat snacks while waxing philosophical about the mortal world.

You smile. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Sana claps her hands excitedly. “Excellent! Well- ahem- enough chit-chat.” She opens the door to Hell. “Welcome to the fire!”

“Speaking of that,” you mutter into her ear as you walk past, “have you noticed that it’s warmer down here? If I’ve noticed, then you’ve surely noticed.”

Sana coughs weakly, trying to ignore what is so clearly a bothersome elephant. “Well.. Um, yeah, to be honest, it’s not really my place to make a comment,” she whispers in response. “But.. it is.” She seriously lowers her tone for that last part. You swallow the lump in your throat and nod. Sana’s smile then returns and she almost nudges you into Hell. “Have fun!”

The door shuts behind you, and the noise is thunderous. Most of the residents here turn to see you, and they hone their eyes at your presence.

You’re not their favourite member of the band.

Without a second to waste, you depart for the corridor to Hongjoong’s office.

Not a single eye leaves you as you speed down the narrow halls of the overseer’s domain. Many of them begin to chat among themselves; you know they’re talking about you.

The two guards outside Hongjoong’s door straighten their backs as you draw near. One holds up their hand and speaks in a low, harsh voice. “Excuse me, this area is out of bounds.”

“I have express permission from Hongjoong himself to speak with him.”

The guards exchange looks. They turn back to you, and the other speaks, his voice rougher than the first. “Is that so? Do you have any identification to prove this?”

“I have this red card,” you announce, pulling the item out of your inside jacket pocket. You hand it to the first guard, and they both inspect it diligently, before bursting into laughter.

“Nice try, but this is, for lack of a better word, bullshit,” chides the second guard. He evaporates the card with a single toss in the air.

You groan internally and try again, “Listen, I know this is completely unheard of, but Kim Hongjoong has specifically asked for me to speak with him on a very important matter.”

The first guard stutters over his laughter, “What? You’re joking, right? The High Devil doesn’t speak to anyone unless he has given the word.”

“Yeah, if he wanted to speak to you, he would’ve informed us,” says the second guard.

“If that is the elder of purgatory, let them in.”

The sound resonates through the door, startling the three of you.

“Uh-”

“Um-”

“But- But Your Highness-”

“Did they present you with a red card?”

The guards eye one another. You lift a brow at them as if to say, see, what did I tell you?

In an instant, the second guard restores the item to its former glory and hands it over to you with a mouthed apology. You take it with a shameful shake of the head and fold your arms.

“Um, yes, Your Highness, they did.”

A beat passes, and the door opens, seemingly by itself. The two men part in the centre and stare straight ahead, assuming a stoic position despite the dread coursing through their veins.

“Enter, N. We have much to discuss.”

You take a deep breath in and let go. With your shoulders pushed back, you pass by the guards and enter the office of Hell’s overseer.

The second you’re through the door, it slams shut behind you, making you jump. You place a hand on your chest - a habit you picked up from the many times you’ve manifested, mortals seemed to do that when something surprised them - and exhale through your nose.

Ahead of you, the High Devil paces back and forth in front of his desk.

You take a moment to have a good look at the place. It’s the first time you’ve set foot in this room. The ceilings are so high you can’t see where they end, but the room itself is surprisingly small for such a figure like Old Horns.

The walls are draped with burgundy curtains and there are candles everywhere. To most people, this room would be unbelievably dark, but you are able to see Hongjoong very clearly. His desk almost takes up the total width of the room and seems to be carved from mahogany or oak.

You clear your throat quietly and remind yourself that you’re not here to admire his decor.

Hongjoong stops when he notices you. “Ah.” He quickly disappears in a cloud of smoke beneath the desk then reappears on the other side, already sitting in his chair, a motion that doesn’t phase you. “Take a seat.”

There’s a passive sense of magnitude inside you; this is the first time you’ve ever met Hongjoong, the first time you’ve ever stepped into his office, something strictly forbidden unless he specifically requests it. Over the course of the three millennia that you’ve spent in purgatory, that occasion is so rare that you notice three distinct plaques affixed to the wall behind him denoting these moments as some sort of achievements.

You assume this meeting will add a fourth to that collection.

Eventually, you take a seat opposite and slowly descend into the chair. Perhaps that feeling isn’t so passive after all.

Everything that you’ve understood about Hongjoong over the centuries is now taking full effect right in front of you. He doesn’t make eye contact, doesn’t seem particularly pleased with social interaction, and the embers don’t so much dance around his hair as they do shift erratically around his entire form.

Neither of you speak for a time. What do you say? Do you even say anything at all? Yunho hadn’t exactly debriefed you on the appropriate etiquette for talking to the High Devil.

Uncomfortable silence spreads through the whole room until eventually, Hongjoong shifts his gaze to the side and speaks. “I am sure you understand why I have asked you to come here.”

Understand is probably not the word you’d go for, but for the purposes of getting this over and done with you agree. “Yes.”

“Good. Because as you can probably tell, I am up to my fu- God- .. neck in it.”

You blink a couple of times. Old Horns not being partial to the odd cuss? Colour yourself shocked.

You spare him any quippy remarks, you’ve never met the man before, after all, and instead simply say, “..Yes.”

“This feud, this-” He tries stalling his anger by clenching a fist and resting his lips against it. “I’ve been Hell’s overseer for thousands of years. I’ve seen things come out of this amorphous realm that I couldn’t begin to describe to you. But this?”

“Somehow worse than that?” you stutter, nervous even still of stepping a single syllable out of line.

He swallows. He breathes out. He looks up at you.

Kim Hongjoong looks up at you.

Your entire being turns to stone as he maintains eye contact with you.

“It’s a level of spite and vitriol that I can’t possibly comprehend.”

Your resolve shatters. This all makes sense. Of course Hongjoong has seen shit that no one else has ever seen, he’s the goddamn leader of Hell.

But this.. this is something he can’t comprehend.

And it’s your job to cipher an explanation. It’s your job to help Hongjoong understand.

He’s typically never cared for the feuds. Anything that goes on between the residents of Heaven and Hell has nothing to do with him.

But now he is directly involved.

And for whatever reason, this has stoked a fire so strong it’s caused him to increase the temperature.

You brave a question that’s been on the tip of your tongue for the last minute or so. “What is it about this animosity that you cannot comprehend?”

Hongjoong leans forward, not breaking eye contact with you for a second.

“Why the elder in question didn’t take things up with Seonghwa while he had the chance.”

Seonghwa. The de-facto leader of Heaven.

Why for the love of all that is good is Seonghwa involved?

You hold back on making a comment but your face says it all. Hongjoong scoffs, “Yeah. I know. Trust me, getting in touch with him was not on my to-do list.”

“You- You got in touch with him?” you hesitate to say. Hongjoong nods solemnly.

Why didn’t Yunho mention this? Did he even know?

You chew the insides of your bottom lip and ponder for a while; Yunho and Seonghwa have never met.

But if this is as big and as serious as Yunho said it is, as Hongjoong is currently claiming it is, to the point Seonghwa of all people is in the know, then why were you not informed?

Why didn’t Seonghwa tell you?

You and Seonghwa had been friends for quite a while, ever since you were merely a dweller. He had not long become the leader of Heaven, though Heaven never really had a leader. It was simply a placeholder title, the illusion of someone with authority beyond the pearly gates, but Seonghwa doesn’t rule in the way Hongjoong does. He mainly acts as a figure of guidance, a literal guardian angel as the other residents had joked. Heaven did have space for a sense of humour.

Given your history, it feels like something Seonghwa would have relayed to you during your monthly catch-ups. Heck, your last catch-up was only a fortnight ago, so is this an incredibly recent thing? Could he not have sent a message, was the information too confidential to risk a telegram?

There’s a flood of questions drowning every cell in your brain to the point it almost leaks out of your ears. You grip the rests of the chair until your fingers hurt, which to your surprise, concerns Hongjoong.

“Um, N? Is there something on your mind?”

You gaze up at him, foregoing any distant regret at the act. “Seonghwa never told me.” Hongjoong sits back in his chair. “I feel like- y’know you’re probably not aware of this, but, we’ve been friends for a while-”

“I am aware,” he reveals, “Seonghwa actually conceded that I ask after you in order to sort this situation out.”

You let go of the arm rests and place both hands on the desk. It’s cold to the touch, remarkable for such a sweltering space. “Y’know, not to make this about me, I just.. It’s weird, y’know, unless this happened in the last week, then I guess that makes sense, but-” Hongjoong’s words finally register. “He- He said what?”

Hongjoong sighs. “Seonghwa conceded that we ask after you. Full disclosure, this has been going on for a while, but it only really came to a head in the last week or so. He confided in me that he has been going back and forth in his brain over whether or not to send you a message himself, but that changed when I knocked on his door.” Sparks are firing off every inch of your body. The room is suddenly much hotter, and your nerves are somehow flying through the very tall roof of this office.

“I- Fucking hell-”

A hand flies to your mouth. Lower-case hell, and yet, it still stings on your tongue when you remember where you are.

Hongjoong shrugs it off, even managing to crack a smile. “Honestly, N, that does not phase me one bit.”

Your hand falls. “I- ahem- I’m sorry.”

“Worry not, N. I hear that sentiment all the time down here.”

The conversation has become calm out of nowhere. For a small moment, you forget yourself, but you immediately spring back when the embers return and Hongjoong’s eyes harden.

“Trust me, this situation is relentless on all fronts. I have an elder stewing in his own hatred and guilt, and there’s an angel upstairs he’s got it in for.”

“And you need me to scope this out?”

Hongjoong looks at you. “Yes. Please. If you would be the kindest.”

Taking a deep breath, you rest your forearms back on the desk. “Okay. Give me the details, and I’ll pay a visit to Heaven and talk to Seonghwa.”

“Good idea.” Hongjoong clicks his fingers once and a sheet of paper appears between his thumb and forefinger. “Here’s all the information you’ll need. I know that Yunho didn’t give you much, but that’s because I had all of it.”

You glance at the paperwork. At the very top, you see two names.

Choi San and Kang Yeosang

Choi San being the devil. Kang Yeosang being the angel.

Reading through the paperwork is an absolute trip. It’s all still so vague and yet you have your work cut out for you.

San - Elder. Four millennia. Mysterious past - possible connection to Heaven? Long history with Kang Yeosang. Seonghwa knows him of old, but the two never got along. San was never an angel, but has a history with Heaven. Yeosang - Divine. Two millennia. Harbouring a secret that no one in Heaven knows, not even Seonghwa. hates San with a burning passion. The facts - San and Yeosang have a long history. There are connections between the two of them via Heaven and Hell, but they have no connection to purgatory. Only they know why they feel the way they do, except Seonghwa has a theory that either one of them used to be residents of the other. The questions - Why didn’t San tell Seonghwa about this situation? What is the history that connects San to heaven, despite him never being an angel? Was Yeosang once a devil? Was San the reason he left Hell, or was Yeosang the reason San left Heaven? What do the other residents know of their history? Is there anything that San’s closest friend in Hell, Jung Wooyoung, can tell us about their past? Why has their feud caused such a terrible rift?

Your brows knit at a name you don’t recognise. “Jung Wooyoung?”

Hongjoong scoffs the meekest smile. “Ah, Wooyoung. The true definition of a daredevil. He has been here for two millennia, good friend of San. He likes to manifest to the mortal world a lot, so he doesn’t often spend time in Hell.”

You tilt your head. Interesting.

Hongjoong senses your gears turning and explains further, “I only added that question because something tells me he might know something. I mean, the two of them clicked almost immediately when they first met. Wooyoung had been there for a few centuries by that time. San was in a bit of a mortal world phase so he wasn’t around when Wooyoung first arrived.”

As Hongjoong speaks, you store all the necessary mental notes and remind yourself to jot them down in your notebook once you’re back.

“I see. Thank you for letting me know.”

Hongjoongs nods once, very politely, then shuffles the remaining papers in front of him. “So, with that, I believe that concludes our meeting. Do you have any questions?”

Yes, and no.

“I don’t think so,” you tell a half-truth. Or is it closer to a lie? You’re not sure.

“Well, if anything changes, send a telegram through Yunho and I will reply as promptly as possible.”

“But what if by that point I’ve manifested to the mortal world?”

Hongjoong hums, then strokes his chin. “Good point.” He then smirks a little. “In that case, do it the old-fashioned way.”

You make a face you can hardly believe you’re making in the presence of the High Devil, and he laughs, though it comes out as more of a heavy rumble. “Nobody has done that for hundreds of years.”

“Well then, perhaps you can start a new wave.”

You stand up, take the piece of paper, then fold it before putting it in your jacket pocket. “It has been quite the bizarre honour to speak with you, Your Highness.”

You can’t exactly say the meeting was amicable, but it certainly wasn’t hostile either.

Hongjoong regards you reverently. “And I you, N. Take care, and make yourself scarce.”

Exactly what Yunho had said. Not quite two peas in a pod, but close enough.

Upon leaving the office, you bypass the two guards with ease and make your way to the entrance.

That is until you are stopped by one of the devils.

“Excuse me, what were you doing speaking to the High Devil himself?”

You glance at the devil. His short, black hair is swept back off his forehead and stiff, as though held back in place with gel. You know of mortals styling their hair in various ways. Perhaps this is a look this devil picked up from one of his visits. “The meeting between us is strictly confidential, now please excuse me.”

You skirt around him and head for the door. He turns in place and yells after you, “Hey! We know why you’re here, don’t pretend like we don’t. We’re not fucking stupid, y’know.”

“San..” you hear another mutter.

San.

Shit, that’s San?

If you make your business known, he will know it’s him you’re getting the scoop on.

“You’re just here to get another article in your miserable paper. Haven’t you had enough of that?” he chides.

You swallow the lump in your throat and leave, not even sparing Sana a glance, regrettably so. Sana watches you ascend the stairs, and the door to Hell closes behind you.

Halfway up, you reach the doors of purgatory, your proverbial home, and take a few deep breaths.

Nothing has ever left you feeling so stilted. Residents of purgatory have no room for such strong emotions, and being an elder yourself, it’s astonishing that a split second confrontation with another elder has left you more winded than an entire meeting with Hell’s overseer.

His words turn somersaults in your mind as you continue your journey up to Heaven. All the while, you wonder if talking to Seonghwa will calm you down, you are friends after all, but then you remember his involvement in this feud.

And by the time you get to Heaven, the familiar face you’ve come to know as Mina, who much like Sana, acts as a security guard to the gates, is full of thunder in a way you have never witnessed before.

“Mina..” you inaudibly breathe out.

“N, good gracious, am I ever pleased to see you.” She approaches you and immediately wraps her arms around your shoulders, a gesture uncommon for her, and you awkwardly return the hug before she pulls back. She grabs your arms and looks you dead in the eyes, “N, there is no polite way for me to say this, but Seonghwa is beyond inconsolable.”

You sigh deeply and look askance. “Don’t worry, I have some idea.” “I thought you might,” she replies, letting go of your arms. “You have the face of someone who’s called at Hell already and hasn’t had the best experience.”

“You would be shocked to understand why.” Mina flexes a brow. “My meeting with the High Devil went pretty smoothly, actually,” - Mina then lifts both brows in shock - “I know. It was what happened after that that caused this.” You gesture vaguely to yourself and Mina exhales sympathetically.

“Oh dear. Did someone make a pointed remark?”

“Only one half of the party involved, no big deal,” you shrug it off sardonically, and Mina’s head falls in her hands. “The silver lining is that I don’t think he recognised that what I’m helping out with concerns him, so I think I’ve bought myself some time.”

“Any time is better than none,” Mina concedes. “But it is also of the essence, specifically in regards to Seonghwa.”

You glance at her, “Do you know the full extent of what’s going on?”

“Goodness, no. Not my business, not my place to ask. But I just know it’s another disagreement, and this one is so bad it’s made him so upset to the point I’ve been dragged into calming him down.”

You reach for her hands, tucking them into your own. “You have my sincerest apologies, Mina. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Worry not, dear, it is out of your control. I just hope things clear up eventually.”

“So do I. Okay, let’s go find Mr. Sad Wings.”

Mina stifles a laugh with a shake of the head, then hesitantly opens the door to Heaven.

You create a shield over your eyes with your hand; how do you constantly forget how bright it is in Heaven?

From afar, you notice a swath of angels surrounding a boldly disgruntled figure, fanning his face with their own wings and replenishing his cup with a dark red liquid.

You stop in place and cock a brow. Trust Seonghwa to unleash his inner amateur dramatics.

Seonghwa then notices you, and within seconds tells every angel to flee his presence. “Ah! N! Precious N, my dearest friend, how pleased I am to see you, my goodness.”

“Seonghwa,” you bluntly reply, dissatisfied with the performance.

He notices this and places a hand on his chest, genuinely offended by your attitude. “N! Can you not see I am in the greatest distress?”

“I can see you’re donning your I wish I was on Broadway slacks again.”

Seonghwa instantly halts the act and glares at you. “Fine.” He stands up, sets the cup aside and walks towards you. “You’re here, finally.”

“Finally?” you utter, taken aback.

Exasperated, Seonghwa exhales deliberately. “Listen, N, I am truly sorry, but the past 48 hours have been an absolute nightmare.”

“I can see, I can tell, and I know. You don’t have to say anything to me I haven’t already heard from Old Horns.”

He blinks at you. “Wait, you mean to tell me you went there first?”

You shrug, “Thought I’d get it out of the way, and honestly I’m glad, he was the one that ended up telling me about your involvement in this mess.”

He reflexively closes his eyes with yet another frustrated sigh. “Do not get me started, I have not caught a break from this since all- of it started breaking loose.”

Folding your arms, you shift to the side. “So much so Hongjoong had to get in touch?”

Seonghwa’s eyes open and he stares at you. “He told you that too?”

“Of course he did, Seonghwa. Hongjoong filled me in on everything he felt I needed to know, including this..” You pat the left side of your jacket discreetly, alluding to the information within, and Seonghwa pushes his shoulders back nervously. “You know me, I’ve been quite successful at my job, and if it means managing to help both leaders of Heaven and Hell at once, I consider it a bonus.”

“Hey! I am not the leader, you know how I feel about that.”

“De-facto leader.”

“Not even that! I don’t like being associated with the term, it makes me feel like a deity.” He adjusts his outfit, closing in on himself more as he stares at the cloudiness that covers his feet.

“Well, how should I refer to you if not by your name?”

“As I always have since I became an elder: an elder.” Seonghwa looks about the place then back at you. “Everyone here calls me a leader, it’s unnerving.” He shivers in the place at the mere thought then exhales. “So, you have all the information you need, you know exactly what you’re dealing with, why exactly have you come to see me?” he asks.

“Oh, am I not allowed to see you anymore?” you tease lightheartedly. Seonghwa rolls his eyes at your comment and explains that it isn’t about that, but that maybe you wouldn’t want to loiter around considering the sincerity of the situation. You ponder this and concede his viewpoint, but then you remember the feelings laying in the far back of your mind and scratch the nape of your neck. Honesty is the best policy. “Well, to be frank, when Hongjoong told me that you were a part of this, I wondered why you hadn’t said anything to me.” Seonghwa listens, but looks at the floor almost shamefully. “I just.. It just seemed a bit weird, since we’ve known each other so long and we talk about basically everything.”

“I see where you’re coming from,” Seonghwa replies, eventually gazing up at you. “It was never my intention to withhold anything from you, there was no malicious foresight.” You didn’t think there was, but continue to listen anyway. “I suppose I didn’t say anything right away because I just knew this would result in something that you’d be asked to get the answers on in a professional manner.”

“So it didn’t feel right to confront me on a personal basis?”

“Exactly.”

You hum in understanding. “Makes sense.”

“Trust me, N, this is well beyond both mine and Hongjoong’s imagination. I reckon it was quite odd for Yunho to discover as well.”

This takes you aback. Seonghwa rarely, if ever, references your boss directly, much less so by name.

You bite your tongue and decide not to dwell on it. “Oh, trust me, he was as shocked as anything.”

Seonghwa nods knowingly. “Well, to be honest, that is all I really understand about the situation. Anything you could possibly glean from my knowledge is contained in that paperwork, I can guarantee it.” He indicates your jacket pocket then clasps a hand over the other wrist, settling it on his abdomen. “I wish you the best of luck on his endeavour, and for the good of all that is gracious, don’t cross any wires.”

You lift a brow. “Meaning?”

Seonghwa goes to turn his back in a very defensive fashion. “Once you start divulging, it will all make sense.” Without another word, he walks away from you, lifting his cup and taking a sip of the wine within.

You feel the most bizarre interaction you’ve ever had with your closest friend has come to a rather unnatural conclusion, and instead of saying goodbye, you simply bow your head and turn to exit Heaven.

Before you can reach the gates, however, Seonghwa has another message for you.

“Be careful on the way down. It’s risky business.”

You stop in place. The same thing he always says before you go on a new adventure.

A smile cracks through the plaintive neutrality of your expression, and you leave, knowing that Seonghwa is smiling too, and that no matter what, you will always have each other’s best interests at heart.

×-×

Seonghwa moves through the courtyard of Heaven and takes a seat on one of the grey, velvet chairs in the corner of the room.

In the corner of his eye, he notices a certain other angel approaching.

The angel takes a seat beside him. Seonghwa lowers his cup and rests it in his lap.

“Was that N, perchance?” wonders the angel.

Seonghwa knows the residents of Heaven and Hell are aware of N, but they’re not always aware of what N is up to. Seonghwa peers over the cup, not sparing him a glance. “Yes, it was.”

The angel looks askance towards the floor. “Must be up to something exciting.”

The words get clogged in Seonghwa’s throat, so much so he cannot take another sip of his wine. He keeps himself occupied by running his finger around the rim, hoping to goodness that the angel doesn’t prod him for any more answers.

The divine looks back at him. “More wine, dear leader?”

Seonghwa almost coughs up the lump in his throat and shakes his head. “No, thank you, Yeosang.”

Yeosang nods his head and leaves him be. A cold shadow follows the divine as Seonghwa watches him go.

Yeosang heads to the other side of the room and sits beneath a silver canopy. Crossing one leg over another, he quietly observes the other angels.

An unsettling thought creeps into the back of his mind. He needs his own drink.

taglist: @bikerjongho × @lavishloving

× silverdune (ave). do not repost. ×

[l0velyrand0m]

Old Soul - The First Avenger

Third chapter, here we go.

I've gotten a reblog and a few likes, so I figured the third chapter was in order. Maybe theres people actually enjoying this, yknow?

As always: The full story in it's entirety is on Wattpad (l0velyrand0m) and there may or may not be a second book in the works? This is all mostly for my enjoyment, there's no demand or anything, I'm just addicted to fictional men punching people.

The prior chapters are on my blog, the first chapter is pinned and the second chapter was posted not too long ago.

"Faster, ladies! Come on! My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul!" Peggy shouted at the soldiers lined up doing push ups on the ground. Eliza watched and observed the men. Erskine had given her the task of watching out for the "least fit" in the group. No idea why, but she was sure it was her brother. Until she overheard Phillips.

"You're not seriously thinking about picking Rogers, are you?" the Colonel asked the doctor next to him, who simply nodded.

"I am more than just thinking about it. He is the clear choice. I'm hoping our Nurse friend over there agrees," Erskine replies. Eliza was thoroughly confused.

"When you brought a ninety-pound asthmatic onto my Army base, I let it slide. I thought, what the hell? Maybe he'd be useful to you, like a gerbil," Colonel Phillips explained. Somehow him referring to her brother as a "gerbil" made Eliza almost offended for him. "I never thought you'd pick him."

Eliza walked over to the two men and joined the conversation. "Gentlemen," she greeted. Erskine offered her a small smile.

"Up," Peggy commanded the boys once she saw Erskine, Phillips and Eliza gathered together.

"Doctor Erskine, forgive me," Eliza began. "What is the Super Soldier breed exactly?"

"A Super Soldier is a highly advanced superhuman, given abilities from a serum I invented. It's highly intuitive - made to make the weakest man stronger. But it only amplifies what's already there. Give the serum to the wrong person, and you've just made them more of themselves." Erskine's explanation made Eliza nearly sick to her stomach. She wasn't entirely convinced that Steve would survive such a thing. "Rogers is a perfect candidate. Determined, clever. The serum will do him well."

"You stick a needle in that kid's arm and it's gonna go right through him!" Phillips exclaimed. Eliza almost wanted to agree.

They glanced over to the recruits scurrying to straighten up at Peggy's command.

"Look at that. He's making me cry," Phillips scoffed.

"I am looking for qualities beyond the physical," Erskine says. Eliza was starting to dislike his philosophical speeches.

"Do you know how long it took to set up this project?"

"Yeah, I know."

"All the grovelling I had to do in front of Senator What's-His-Name's committees?"

"Brandt," Erskine corrected. "Yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts."

"Then throw me a bone. Hodge passed every test we gave him," Phillips says. Eliza wrinkled her nose. She didn't want to have to work with Hodge anymore than she already had to. "He's big, he's fast, he obeys orders. He's a soldier."

"He's a bully," Erskine corrected Phillips again.

"You don't win wars with niceness, Doctor." Phillips reached into his pocket and pulled out a hand grenade. "You win wars with guts."

Phillips threw the grenade into the area where the men were training. "Grenade!" and all the men scattered.

Except for Steve.

Steve jumped on the bomb and covered it with his body. Eliza's heart dropped. Peggy stood wide eyed at the boy.

"Get away! Get back!" Steve yelled. He waited for the bomb to go off, but nothing ever happened.

"It was a dummy grenade." Eliza whispered, and looked to Phillips.

"All clear! Back in formation." an officer waved all of them back into line.

"Is this a test?" Steve asked, peering up at Erskine, Phillips and Eliza.

"He's still skinny."

•••

Eliza laid silently on her bunk. She couldn't believe the nerve of Steve earlier. But at the same time... she was astonished. Proud, even. That her brother would think to do that. Suddenly she understood what Erskine meant about choosing Steve over Hodge. Whatever was in the serum wasn't just enhancing the physcial stuff. It would enhance him mentally, too.

A knock at her door drew her attention back.

"It's just me, are you decent?" Steve asked from the other side of the door.

"Decently mad at you, sure," Eliza remarked. Steve sighed. "Yes. It's fine if you come in."

The door opened to reveal her twin brother. She wanted to question how he got over here in the first place, but then she noticed Erskine behind him and assumed the german doctor had something to do with his arrival.

"You have five minutes, then you must return to your barracks. I need to speak with Miss Rogers as well."

Steve nodded and closed the door. "Look, Liza, I never meant to piss you off this bad, I just-"

"You saw an opportunity and you took it. I understand. How do you think I'm here, Steve?"

He smiled slightly. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk, and not listening to you when you were only trying to protect me."

"I should've realised you didn't need protecting. You're not a 16 year old kid in Brooklyn anymore. You're grown up. And I'm proud of you."

Her words sent a stab of remorse through Steve's heart. The words, coming from her, meant the world to him. But he was only recieving them because he made her feel like the bad guy for doing the right thing.

"Thank you, Eliza. I'm proud of you too."

"Five minutes are up, Steven," Erskine said, opening the door. "Say your goodnight and goodbye so I may speak with her."

"Bye, Elizabeth, have a good night."

"You too, Steve," she said, watching him walk out the door.

"Miss Rogers, it's come to my attention that Steven is your twin brother?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've had a knack for taking care of him. So I have a promotion for you once our project starts. You'll be his personal aid. I'll teach you everything I know about the side effects of the serum and what to watch out for starting tomorrow. Are you interested?"

•••

"I know this neighborhood," Steve wonders, looking out the window of the car. "I got beat up in that alley. And that parking lot. And behind that diner."

Peggy stared at him cluelessly. "Did you have something against running away?"

"Yes. Yes, he did," Eliza chimed in.

"You start running, they'll never let you stop. You stand up, push back. Can't say no forever, right?" Steve pondered. Peggy's expression changed from confused to curious.

"I know a little of what that's like. To have every door shut in your face."

Eliza nodded. "It's annoying."

"I guess I don't know why you'd wanna join the army if you're a beautiful dame," Steve wondered aloud. Peggy raised a brow at him, and Eliza looked over with a look of "what the hell". Steve immediately tried to recover. "Or a beautiful... a woman. An Agent! Not a dame. I mean you are beautiful but-"

"Please, for the love of God, shut up, Steve," Eliza groaned.

"You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?" Peggy snickered.

"This is the longest conversation I've had with one. Woman aren't exactly lining up to dance with a guy they might step on," he shrugged.

"You must have danced?"

"Well asking a woman to dance always seems so terrifying. And the past few years didn't seem to matter that much. Figured I'd wait."

"For what?"

"The right partner."

The car pulled up by an antiques shop. Peggy and Eliza exited the car, Steve trailing behind, completely clueless. Eliza was too, but she trusted Peggy enough to follow her without question.

"This way," Peggy instructs him.

"What are we doing here?" Steve asked.

Peggy smirked. "Follow me," she says, guiding Eliza and Steve into the shop.

"Wonderful weather this morning, isn't it?" the shop owner asks Peggy.

"Yes, but I always carry my umbrella."

The shop owner nods, and Peggy leads the twins to a basement. It opens up into a large circular laboratory. Erskine's team was huddled around the center and around different machines. Steve was lead to the center of the room, however, where a pod was fixed in the floor.

"Good morning!" Erskine greeted the twins happily. He takes Steve's hand and shakes it as someone takes a picture. Eliza hated being in pictures. Something about people seeing her long after she was gone, and there was nothing she could do to tell them not to look. She didn't like that sort of thing. "Please, not now," Erskine shooed the photographer away. Steve looked at the pod curiously.

"Are you ready?" Eliza asked him. Steve only nodded.

"Good! Take off your shirt," Erskine instructed him. Steve did so, and climbed into the pod, laying down on a table. "Elizabeth, go assist Mr Stark, please."

"Yes, sir," Eliza nodded. She walked over to the man, and then it hit her who Stark was. Howard Stark. The genius inventor. "Mister Stark, my pleasure."

Howard turned around to look at her, a smile falling on his face. "You must be Elizabeth Rogers."

"How'd you know that?"

"Erskine was talking you up earlier. Apparently you're a really good nurse?" he comments with a smile.

"Well, I don't like to brag," she shrugged. "But I wouldn't mind the compliment."

"Mister Stark, how are your levels?" Erskine shouted across the room.

"Levels at one hundred percent," he answered. "So is that your brother? Steven?"

"Good!" Erskine replied.

"Yeah, my twin," she answered.

"Interesting. The twin sister of a super soldier, huh? How weird has that gotta be?"

"It's not quite set in yet. He's still gonna be a twig in my mind forever."

"Hope you didn't pick on him when you were younger," Howard smiled. Eliza recalled her mother's sayings, not to pick on him because one day he'll be bigger than her. Though she wasn't sold on it, and she definitely wasn't ready for that to be the case artificially. "We may dim half the lights in Brooklyn, but we're as ready as we'll ever be."

"Elizabeth! Come here!"

"Gotta run, Stark. Nice conversation."

"Yeah.. Yeah let's do this again sometime. Maybe under different circumstances?"

"Maybe."

"How do you like your coffee?"

"Elizabeth!"

"Cream and extra sugar."

Eliza ran off back to the table where her brother lay. Erskine handed her a needle, of what she assumed to be penicillin. "Inject him with this, then come back with me."

"Hey, Steve," Eliza said calmly as she walked over with the needle. "I'm here to inject you with the euthanasia."

His eyes went big before he realised she was joking. "Oh, haha."

She squeezed his skin gently and gave him the shot.

"That wasn't so bad," he said softly.

"That was penicillin."

Steve's mouth formed an "o" as she took the needle away and Erskine came back to his side.

"Serum infusion beginning in five, four, three, two, one," Erskine counted. Eliza wished she could hide in the viewing room with Peggy and Phillips. But here she was. Watching her brother and best friend get experimented on. Steve winced as the serum was injected into him. "Now, Mister Stark."

Howard pulled a lever, and Steve was upright in the pod as the doors closed. Eliza wandered back over to Mister Stark's side as he amps the procedure.

"That's ten percent," he informed Erskine, but pointed it out to Eliza. "Twenty percent. Thirty."

Eliza could start to hear Steve's pained screams as the vita rays transformed his body. She lowered her head slightly and watched the numbers raise with intent on focusing more on Howard's numbers than Steve.

She had focused so hard, that she blocked out all the noise in the room until she heard Steve yell in response to the scientist. "No don't! I can do this."

"Eighty. Ninety. That's one hundred percent."

The power in the lab overloaded, and Stark rushed to open up the pod and get Steve out. Eliza's breaths were shallow as she waited to see what happened to her brother.

Suddenly everyone came rushing out of the observation room and into the lab. She steeled herself and turned her head to look at her brother.

She was shocked. Steven Rogers was now the first successful Super Solider.

[karamazovposting]

Ivan!

I was hoping someone would ask me about Ivan (duh), thank you very much.

First impression:

I was lowkey in love with him at the beginning, when he didn't remind me of myself and my own psychiatric diagnosis yet lmao, and I remember being surprised because he was so different from what other people described. Also I could already sense he'd become my favorite.

Impression now:

This whole blog is basically an Ivan Karamazov stan account so yeah there's no need for me to elaborate.

Favorite moment:

When he pushes Maksimov off the carriage with no explanation. It's such a small thing and I know he has many other more significant and objectively better moments but I remember that striking me. And it was basically the start of my bipolar Ivan Karamazov agenda.

Idea for a story:

Considering his very open ending, something about what happens to him after the events of TBK I guess. But on a more original note, I'd like to know what happened with Lise, what their conversations were about and what they were like; if I was a better writer and a not so mediocre philosopher I think that's what I'd write about. Maybe something about his days as a student too, there's a lot of potential.

Unpopular opinion:

I've noticed the general consensus is that Ivan is a believer who wants to be an atheist while I think he's an atheist who wants to believe, but it also depends on the definition of atheist we're going with. Personally, I think the end of his talk with the devil makes him an atheist.

Favorite relationship:

I really like his dynamic with Pavel and his relationship with Alyosha, but I've been vicariously rereading TBK through a friend of mine and I've found myself being fascinated with the relationship he has with his father so I'm gonna go with that. He seems to be the one who has the most ambivalent relationship with Fyodor out of all the brothers: he hates him to the point of wanting him dead, yet they can have civil conversations with each other and Ivan even told him about Katya (which reminded me of a tweet I saw some time ago that said something like when your life gets so bad you open up to your parents lmao); Ivan is said to have a particular influence on his father and to be the only person who can stop his nonsense by both Alyosha and the narrator, yet Fyodor doesn't even remember he was also Sofia's son and doesn't really care about him. There's indeed a lot going on here and it's very interesting.

Favorite headcanon:

I like to think that, just like Alyosha, he resembles his mother a lot, but in a different and more subtle way than his brother does. While people see Alyosha and can immediately tell he's Sofia's son even at first glance because of how much he looks like her, it takes a while for them to see all the little pieces of her in Ivan: her mannerism, her eyes, her walk, her smile, her laugh (if only Ivan smiled and laughed more often, they'd instantly be able to tell).

[trans-advice]

Hey y’all. This one’s gonna be kinda philosophical/deep/possibly beyond the scope of this blog, so, if it’s too much, just ignore.

TW: mention of past suicide attempt

I grew up in a Christian family. I consider myself a Christian (and not just because my parents are), and I really want to follow Jesus. I love God, I love my family, and I really want to live the life everyone wants/expects me to.

That said…I’m trans. I have known that for about three years now. And I’m also gay (in my case, attracted to men).

I feel like I’m lying to everyone by acting like I’m this good “girl,” and toeing the line, and nodding along when everything is heteronormative, and playing this part I feel like I can never live up to. I’m sick of feeling like there’s two halves to me, and it’s tearing me apart.

I tried to commit suicide a few months ago because it was just too much. I survived, obviously, but the whole thing just made me question everything. I’m not suicidal now, but the problem that led to my attempt still hasn’t been solved.

What would you do if you were me?

So as for Jesus, look into lgbtqia+ affirmative branches of Christianity. Metropolitan Community Churches are iconic for that, but there are other denominations & communities of lgbtqia+ people in unaffirming denominations such as lgbtqia+ catholics. If you have safe access to the Internet (vpn, device settings, etc), then maybe use incognito mode to view services of various churches from affirming denominations.

For the 2 halves, I'm not sure if you mean something like a public/private divide or if you mean you need to help nuture your man side/transition, but basically you'll want to stock up on affirmations in order to combat being gaslit. You'll want to do some subtle steps like using scents or such that you like that also give you gender euphoria in order to have a transition that centers you. Or do more than that.

Personally, I put dating on the back burner because it can be so complicated, so I'll just say you should probably get around more lgbtqia+ people (especially trans people) before you start dating as a gay trans man because they can probably give you better advice.

I'm not sure what your family is like and I want to apologize for not having much to say for that.

Readers any feedback?

Good Luck, Peace & Love,

Eve

[mizziix]

Yknow what I can use this blog for whatever I want so I'm gonna ramble about my WoD oc's

So I got two big ones rn. That's a lie I actually have like half a dozen owod mages and equal that number awakening mages with a smattering of others but yknow these two are new.

Both of these characters were made in a free form server that allows for high power characters, so that's how I got away with any of this if you're wondering. DM me if you want an invite, it's public

The first one I got is Andrei Nichols, a 7th gen Lasombra. His backstory is that he was embraced some time around the last turn of the millennium in Scandinavia. He did a bunch of shit in the following 600 years like secure the Sabbat's hold on Scandinavia and become an Abyss Mystic but none of that really matters because in the 1600's he was captured and sealed inside a pillar of jet black granite and obsidian glass. It had a habit of bleeding.

This pillar of bleeding obsidian was passed around various Tremere chantries in Western Europe for a couple of centuries, until a mishap in the 1800's sent the thing sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Andrei Nichols, for his part, is aware of precisely none of that. As far as he is aware, the seawater rotted away the stake in his heart granting him consciousness again, he drifted onto the shore of Jewel city in 1982, and that's where his life began. With no memory, no connections, limited ability to speak english (read: none), and no resources for himself, Andrei's introduction to Jewel City unlife was rather uneventful. Andrei spent a good number of years just fucking hiding, feeding from people in back alleys and picking up scraps of language from stalking people. Sticking to back alleys and shadowy underbellies, he learned the language fairly quickly and made limited contact with some of the kindred of the area. Knowing what he was but not where he came from, he was introduced to the culture of the area and allowed to fend for himself. So, he took a job as a waiter to get by, renting an apartment next to an abandoned construction site. In recent time, he's taken a liking to the place, wandering its abandoned halls in his off time and exploring the basement. The fact that things have gotten ever darker there so far hasn't set off any alarm bells.

He's so fun to play because he's just A Guy. He's uninvolved with politics, works odd jobs as a night shift waiter, and is by most accounts normal, but at the same time is a supremely powerful abyss mystic Lasombra on the fucking Road of Kings, but still none of that registers to him, he is only himself. If you pointed out all the eldritch horror that surrounds him, like the fact that nobody else lives in the empty burnt out apartment building he lives in, or the fact that the shadows near him constantly writhe and his eyes foretell doom and decay... he'd be confused. Like, all of it just doesn't register to him because That's Just Normal. He *could* go for a power play and get power, but... he's got rent to pay. So, who cares?

The other fun angle is, being an entirely self indulgent character, he's friends with a number of mages. The main place he works at is essentially a magical femboy hooters run by a Euthanatos Archmaster. This leads to a lot of fun philosophical talks and some very interesting developments in his own Abyss Mystic practice. Namely, I wanted to have some fun approaching the idea of Mage from another splat's perspective. Mages deal with the idea of consensus fairly regularly, the idea that the world isn't actually what it seems to be is part and parcel. But for a *vampire,* the idea that the world doesn't actually exist as people think it does, and that the forces of the universe are just chaotic figments of imagination that can and do change.... is terrifying! It's a slow, creeping existential dread that he doesn't know how to deal with! It rocks.

My other guy in really excited about is Vincent Heikkilä, Void Engineer, Pan Dimensional Corps, Archmaster.

Vincent is actually native to the void, not earth. Vincent was born on a colony orbiting the Orion Nebula deep in the heart of space. Growing up in this environment gave him from a young age an instinct for space travel and navigation, when your first spacewalk was at seven learning to pilot shuttlecraft is kinda like getting a drivers license. He started his career as a teenager, starting as an unenlightened tech/data analyst in a work study position. However he enlightened (aka awakened) abs started making unprecedentedly fast progress, earning a position as a junior officer by 19.

Befitting a Void Engineer, he saw a lot of strange things and wolf action throughout the long years spent in the depths of space; dragons, alternate timelines, black holes, spatial anomalies, eldritch horrors that would make a vampire (read: Andrei) cry, actual literal Gods, he saw and dealt with it all. Eventually his career, published works on Dimensional Science, and experience with logistics and command earned him the position of rear admiral of one of the admittedly smaller fleets of VE battleships, working with the ETD on a number of expeditions against various threats to the Union. It was in these years that he saw and did some heinous things. There's really no good way to justify glassing a planet's surface to yourself, even if you knew it had to be done. After a long career, he made one hell of a persuasive argument in favor of shore leave and petitioned to go somewhere that he had never managed to travel to before, something stranger than he had ever seen, full of sights that even an Archmaster like himself had never experienced.

He took a vacation to earth.

Vincent is fun to play because he's this hyper competent space cowboy gunslinger with enough knowledge to justify my unhinged ramblings about the nature of the universe, but he also just doesn't know what a Gamecube is. He's a hardened soldier but... that's behind him. He's possessed by a joie de vivre and this deep enjoyment of the mundane that was strong enough to give him Fae Affinity (note, that's typically impossible for Technocrats but idc). He's not interested in participating in the Ascension war, even if he could beat nearly anyone in a quick draw duel he's too busy discovering what a crepe tastes like when it hasn't been 3d printed. He's piloted fighter craft and warships, but this is the first time he's been on a roller coaster. He's just such this fun, troublemaking rogue, it's great.

His current plans are very simple right now, just make friends. Experience the city not like a reality shifting demigod of technology but just as a dude. He might show off a bit, he might take one or two of his friends up into space for a joyride, but really I'm keeping all the incredibly powerful magic (or, ahem, enlightened science) just for prop comedy and shits and giggles. Also to drive off some of the annoying vampire elders in town, but that's neither here nor there.

Please feel free to ask more questions about either of them, or for stuff about other characters. Thank you for reading this long lmao

[brain-on-lisdexamfetamine]

Intro post

Hi, it's me. Ari Making this to sorta ramble about what I want this blog to be in the format that most of the posts in this blog are gonna take. So like, a month ago now I started taking stimulants for my ADHD, biggest change I noticed was that I was actually riding my trains of thought to their natural end-points. What became interesting about that is I'm now way more likely to stumble into rabbit holes and have short but intense hyperfixations on specific ideas. Since the ideas are small and specific, the fixation doesn't usually last long, and the idea tends to fit in about the space a blog post would take. Neat thing is, I've been writing them down. They ARE blog posts, essentially, just not posted anywhere. That is until today!! >:) So yeah, welcome to "My Brain on Lisdexamfetamine" I'm gonna be posting the most random, unconnected nonsense in here, and almost all of it will take longer than the average internet-users attention span lasts to read. We got: - Rants on FFXIV game balance - Random Media Analysis - Thoughts on Gender - Unprompted political opinions (those'll be fun if this place ever actually attracts a following) - SCIENCE!!! (I am in a research program...) - Unprompted philosophical opinions - And of course, whatever else ends up popping into my now-medicated skull So uhhhh..... yeah! have fun getting a glimpse into the silly thoughts in my head. :3c >:3c

[slocumjoe]

do you think you'll ever do fnv or fo3 requests too?

TDLR; No for both, because I like New Vegas enough that I don't feel like it needs dissecting, and because I don't like Fallout 3 at all.

warning for cringe nv circlejerking and fo3 negativity...which shouldn't surprise anyone, given other things I've said on this blog

If one could take a good, long look at all the fandoms I've ever been in, the one consistency is potential. This could have been incredible, this almost was a fascinating story, this had everything to be a masterpiece.

For example, Fallout 4. It has so many different aspects that could have made a good game and story...they just didn't flesh any of them out.

The Commonwealth is under the totalitarian, but shadowed hand of the Institute, a hidden organization that treats the land and its people like playthings, for unknown goals. Their latest venture; the synth. A man made of flesh and bone, made as if he were mere machine...and made in the image of anyone. Someone you love, your settlement leader, you. Whatever the Institute had planned, it is at the cost of what remains of humanity, and you must stop—wait, sorry, hold on...yeah, no, Todd says we're going back to the baby thing.

You are a pre-war Vault Dweller, frozen for centuries, when a mysterious man cracks open your spouse's cryo pod and steals your infant son from their hands. Now, you must journey into a land so familiar, but completely alien, to find him, and figure out what forces took him, and for what purp—wait, wait, nevermind, actually we're gonna...those aforementioned forces made androids and have been replacing people with them, go figure that out, decide what color flag you want on their blown up hideout.

The Minutemen are an interesting concept, too, as we haven't really seen a purely altruistic faction, really. If we have, they've escaped my memory at the moment. Say NCR/Lyons and I'm deleting Tumblr, the website. But the Minutemen are treated as nothing more than barebones context for why you would engage with the settlement building.

Railroad...ugh. That's a whole essay. A reference to a historical organization, made purely in response to the Bladerunner reference, and then put together with tape and soda box cardboard. Ugh.

Brotherhood...reused because Bethesda has little imagination of their own. The Brotherhood doesn't do anything, they just hang around and say stuff about containing technology. They lack substance in a different way than the other three factions.

The Institute has some bones on it. You could get something out of the idea of, even after the bombs, there being a shadow government controlling the Commonwealth and its people. Instead, it exists purely because of a throw-away reference to Bladerunner in Fallout 3, and Bethesda tripped over itself trying to justify it.

So, Fallout New Vegas...

Lots of themes, pulling from real history and philosophy without dickriding it and refusing to look the current in-universe reality in the eye.

Fallout New Vegas wasn't something that left me thinking. Wondering what it could have been. There's a psychological phenomenon that, when you put down a task or puzzle, your brain doesn't let it go. It keeps that tab running, so to speak. Fallout New Vegas, the story and writing was so complete, that when it ended, I didn't have anything else I wanted to know. No questions, no feeling of dissatisfaction. The puzzle was finished, everything was exactly as it should have been.

NV has more potential, yes, but not because it failed or pulled its punches; they didn't get enough time or resources to work on it. Even then, what they were able to do, they made sure it wrapped up nicely and had enough meat to satisfy everyone. Any discussion I take interest in is political or philosophical; I don't feel like any characters were shafted. They all felt realized, crafted rather than slapped together.

But...Fallout 3 was literally nothing.

Fallout 4 has aspects that could work. Fallout 3's plot is just...so uninspired, constantly yawning as it tries to be grandiose and sentimental. It's about this about this one kid of this scientist. This kid's dad leaves the Vault for some reason, the kid fucks around doing busywork so people tell them where he went, they find him, he dies, stuff with Eden and Autumn, the kid dies pushing some buttons. Yay...I'm so invested in this teenager, this old dude who is nothing but 'dad' and 'scientist', and the two brotherhood of steel ladies who take over telling me what busywork to do...

So, yeah. The killing blow is that I didn't like any of the Fallout 3 characters.

First Companion I met was Jericho. I learned he was a rapist and I killed him. The game told me I lost karma for murder...despite giving me karma for killing the Tenpenny guy in the bar five minutes ago. I killed everyone in Paradise Falls and got good karma. No desire to recruit Clover. I only traveled with Dogmeat and Fawkes. Butch's archetype is boring and Charon...fine, I guess. Stoic, maybe? Honor-bound, as he says. Sure, that's something. I had to Google the other companions.

And I think that demonstrates the problem with Fallout 3 companions. People never say they like Clover, or Jericho. It's Butch and Charon. I saw Star Paladin Cross mentioned by another human being once, IRL. Once. Do you really want to know what Jericho would do for Halloween? Do you really care about what RL-3 would think about the Lone Wander finding a baby and keeping it? Does the thought of Star Paladin Cross wearing a tanktop on weekends thrill and excite you? No. Why would it? Do you even remember Cross's gender? What Jericho looks like? What weapon Clover uses?

I don't feel like writing New Vegas because I don't see anything to write. They're good characters, good writing, I was happy with how it all turned out.

I write Fallout 4 because that puzzle never finished for me. I never got to see the likable, interesting characters reach their full potential, and it got me wondering.

I won't write Fallout 3 because there wasn't anything I found redeeming in it. I finished the puzzle and I was happy only because it was over.

[gingeredmink]

Hey! You're post about YNFGs was spot on! Interesting I read a philosophy article on a similar topic (earthbound-likes and pokemon-likes) and some indie person who was seething about Omori. TL:DR: games have a ontology leading back to a part of experience. Eventually you get a point where your ontology is 5 frames of other people's subjective experience layered on top with no "real" at the point. Pokemon, for example, was based on a guy's childhood memory of catching bugs vs rapid urbanisation. Then 20 years later you get a pokemon clone that's someone's experience of smogon battles, on top of someone's experience for playing pokemon, ontop of whatever the current layer is. You end up getting a hollow "shell" of layered improvements but "self-expression" is lost in a hall of mirrors of repeated frames of an experience. I hope this sort of makes sense, I'm not a philosopher but this has been a growing concern in a wider gaming philosophy not just YNFG. P.S. I've found a lot of good music through your blog. Probably wasn't the intention but .flow still lives rent free and now so does a playlist of songs Keep drawing and look after yourself!!!

THANK YOU! I was worried I was throwing out incomprehensible word salad and the point wouldn't be clear so I'm glad to hear it came across. The way you worded it makes perfect sense, and was more or less what I was trying to say in post.

Not pointing fingers or trying to make them look bad, but I think YNO and large collaborative games like 2kki really expedited this issue. Some people get into ynfg through online 2kki and so their experience is more of a weird/pretty dream exploration game with friends instead of something with loneliness at heart. It's a completely different experience that lacks a lot of what made people so fond of the original [dealing with loneliness and being withdrawn, indirect story telling and theory crafting, stuff like that.]

Like it's great that new players have such an easy way to play the games now and I'm happy more people are finding out about them via YNO and such, it's just you gotta be aware of how different it is from the original if you're gonna make a fangame.

AYE good to hear! Music is a big passion and I tend to listen to non-mainstream stuff so it's cool getting other people into it. Hell yeah!

I will do my best, life can be a struggle sometimes heh. Hope you take care as well~

[botzachary]

an introduction

welcome to my new blog. my hope for now is that i will find some time at least once a week, to just write. anything that's on my mind, life, music, cars, put something down and be passionate about it. no more excuses for putting off my dreams, just do something. and this is that thing.

a lot of the time i will be posting about cars. i am a massive fan of formula 1, and will be talking about the races, the technology, and the drama of the sport. if you don't know anything about it, you are my target audience for how i will write. i want to see people with passing interest having resources to learn the basics, and find passion for the nuance, or just teach them a new thing that they move on with.

i also own a 1987 mazda rx7 gxl project car, that i've been progressively restoring over the past couple years. it's a roughed up and well driven machine, 273k miles before my ownership, and i have been dailying it after i had the engine rebuilt. progress has been slow, life's struggles like to get in the way. i'm gonna push myself to get more done, so i can post about it here.

but who am i? i'm zachary. there's isn't much to it. i don't try to put labels on my identity, because those divided boxed tend to hold you back from expressing yourself to your truest. and who is my truest? i'm still finding that out every day. always thinking, always learning. recently i've been learning more about being a mechanic. i want to be able to spend more time fixing and maintaining my car myself, as one day i desire to be a machinist/fabricator. buy classic cars and use those skills and tools to restore these pieces of art to their original vision, and be enhanced with my own modern vision for it.

in regard to being my truest self, lately i've had some sort of spiritual awakening. if there's any truth to enlightenment, i may have found it. i've always disagreed with religion conceptually, but i still had a feeling that there was something beyond that powers us, and i've really connected to the spirit of nature. it's a level of faith as strong as a devout churchgoer. it's a belief in the spiritual energy that nature provides us so we can shape this world, and connects us as humanity. it's a feeling that perpetually evolves in myself as i understand life more. staying static in your mentality is limiting. if you can open your mind to your desire and passion, and express that comfortably, you will find peace through the heartaches of life. you will find hope. that's what i've found.

now that my inner hippie has scared off the losers, it's just us cool people. hungry minds with open eyes. if you find any desire to learn more about someone's passion for car design and motorsports, give me a follow and sometime soon i'll write some more posts. this stuff will be interjected with other philosophical, or spiritual posts. just kinda whatever i'm feeling.

i am also open to asks, if anyone is curious about anything i've talked about, especially if you'd like me to explain any advanced formula 1 technology and concepts

peace love and plants <3

[ticklish-touch]

Alright. I have a confession to make. I've been wanting to talk about this for a while, but it is another big reason that my Backrooms story is being delayed and why I'm less active.

(TW for w*e*e*d mention/subst*nce use, as well as N*S*F*W themes).

Last year, I started taking cannabis edibles for the first time in my life. They're legal in my state, and I was just... So at the end of my rope with trying to find something, anything, that would help my anxiety and help my brain shut off or wander off at night to take my thoughts away from the mental & emotional trauma I've been through in the last year. I took advice from a couple friends who take edibles, I still catalogue my reactions to it like a fucking scientist to try and be careful not to let myself go too wild.

CBD and THC hybrid gummies have been a lifesaver for me. I feel so much more relaxed after work. I can fall asleep so much faster. I feel so pleasantly lucid, and I can imagine so much more to my music.

I've also found that Sativa, especially when not combined with my CBD gummies, sends my imagination into overdrive like I wouldn't believe. And at first, I LOVED it!! I thought "oh holy shit I can use this energy to write more, faster!"

Until I realized that along with my ideas, it also amplified my ADHD. My thoughts and ideas bounce around off of each other SO MUCH that I need to scramble to get them written on Google Docs. I become beyond existential when lost in thw sauce. And not in a bad way! I have actually been able to work through a LOT of emotional and mental baggage that I've been carrying, simply by dumping my philosophical ramblings and self-pep-talks/ self-criticisms on Docs. And that's why, in spite of me not focusing as much on this big project, I feel like it's been important for me to get these thoughts out. They could be potential ideas for books, comics, short stories etc.

BUT needless to say, it is a reason that I can't stay focused on one chapter after another. I have four chapters left, and I keep bouncing back and forth between them. Because, spoiler, my last couple chapters are going to be as trippy as a drug trip. I'm gonna incorporate elements similar to Doctor Strange, Quantumania and Spiderverse.

But overall, I'm going to listen to my Muse, and strike while the iron's totally blitzed. 👍 I feel like, if I try to force myself to work on a chapter or drawing, I'll lose passion for it. It's not fizzling out, it's just on the backburner, collecting flavor and thoroughly cooking.

(N*S*F*W*): A slightly more... Embarrassing reason, is that, because I'm over-imaginative and horny on main, my libido also gets massively enhanced by edibles 50% of the time. So I end up dumping some of the naughtiest concepts I've ever had about my OCs or canon characters, or absolutely paralyzing myself with lee/switch moods by listening to songs, playing spooky games, watching videos with Ler vibes, that all activate my fear kink & tickle kink. And it's... A very good outlet. I may never share some of these writings, but it's helped me get over that last bit of shame I've carried with me ever since the first Tumblr purge and since the "ew kinky people r gross, tickling shouldn't be s3xual" uprising of SFW tickle blogs.

BUT ALL IN ALL, I do take CBD for legitimate anxiety reasons. My anxiety meds have not done shit since this January, when everything at work started going to hell. CBD relaxes my body and actually helps me fall asleep like nothing else ever has.

Meanwhile being on sativa and caffeine can keep me up til 6 in the morning. Like right now as I'm writing this. 😃 But again, it gets the huge dam of thoughts to break and flow freely.

So yeah. Weed has been better therapy for me than actual therapy. For thirty fucking years of my life, I have been desperate to find some kind of coping mechanism, or outlet, or medicine, to help my disorders. And these edibles, along with my antidepressant and creative mind, have worked together pretty damn nicely. And I can now say along with MANY of my friends and peers, fuck anyone who says that medical marijuana should not be legal. Hell, imo recreational weed should also be legal just about everywhere in certain doses, but I'm not gonna get into politics.

I understand if you don't personally approve of the use of recreational drugs. But please, if you're going to judge me, or anyone who uses weed to help calm their mental issues, kindly keep it to yourself. I don't want another situation where an abusive fuckhead tried to mock a friend of mine for smoking pot. Or a dude on a server I'm modding getting childishly preachy about how everyone who uses it will end up fucked in the head and that proper diet and exercise is the cure-all for mental issues.

I'm a grown adult, I know my limits. Sometimes I slip a little and take them 4 nights in a row. Other times I take them maybe twice a week. But I know myself well enough to know that when I set a boundary for myself, I'm fucking stubborn about not breaking it. IF I feel myself slipping, I will reach out for legit help. I also know I can't blow too much money on eddies each month. But I need yall to understand that I've needed this.

TL;DR: I've been taking cannabis edibles and it's helping redirect my mind into places that I didn't realize I needed to explore, and it's been very helpful to me physically and emotionally, so I'd rather go with the flow and not force myself to work on my projects.

So, either way, if you've read this, thank you so much for sticking around. ❤

[citycrows]

ABOUT ME

I'm a whole grown ass adult and my idea of a wild Friday night is getting philosophical about fiction

Famous for making art but never rendering and getting all the details wrong because I✨never remember to use reference pics✨

I can mod any game within an inch of its life but I can't figure out how to use tumblr

You can call me Crow

ABOUT MY BLOG

I almost exclusively prefer pro AUs (Pro-Hero, Pro Sorcerer, Pro Volleyball Player ((Hajime Iwaizumi (27) athletic trainer )). Please always assume that my concepts include aged up characters.

My art inspiration comes from words - Fanfics, novels, poetry, sometimes song lyrics. But one thing that fuels my art more than anything is sharing ideas about our mutual interest, so please feel free to interact with me!

Having said that, I have no technical art skills or training (please manage expectations)

I can't write for shit but I'm gonna fucken try

I will post NSFW - either art, literature or a rant I'm particularly passionate about.

TAGS

Art tags will go under citycrows.art

[sinister-faye]

Gamedev update

The good, the bad, and the revelation.

Hello my fellow artists, gamedevs, and other folk who stumbled upon this.

Tldr; I have to stop Armageddon ignition til I have more time and a team, but I have other things I want to release to help me get funds to help with both problems.

Here is the long version:

It's been a spell since the last update. The delays are complex and fairly personal. But the conclusions I've come to on the other side of my chaotic life are going to shape what this solo dev project will ultimately become.

The good

So for the longest time I kept hammering away at my game while having some blinders on. One core belief I held was that I was going to do this all solo. While writing and planning a game that I needed 12 voice actors for at a minimum. (The full weight of that dichotomy crashed over me later, don't worry.) Watching my first in game cutscenes and hearing either a soulless bot spit out the lines, or my own attempts at doing multiple voices, raised some flags in my mind. But I still pressed on. I just needed to work on the game every day.

I also wasn't seeing as much growth in followers with my various blogs or twitter. Sure I made posts. But they seem to blather about nothing and I never have anything other than a screenshots to hype my game.

Life then forced a large break on my time. A month and a half long break that was personal, and a little painful still. This forced break I took helped me see my process and allowed myself to do some introspection on my marketing, presentation, and my goals.

The good news is the game is still gonna happen, and I'm still going to develop it. But...

The bad

Because of this vague event in my life my time is now strained In a way that will prevent me from working on this game enough to make any meaningful progress. And this time constraint won't loosen for at least a year. I want to come back to it. And I have a plan to come back stronger.

During my month long interlude I had some time to think about each thing I could improve on.

1. Better content: guys I'm verbose. And I'm sorry I'm verbose. I really should have been a writer or a philosopher. The accounts I see with the most growth get that growth from .gifs. if I can't sell the idea in a gif I won't post it. Unless it's a bigger how to, or post mortem.

2. Solo development for a game is only good if the game I am making has 1 or less voice actors.

3. Art as a medium is under attack and we need to build groups to make it through. Solo dev only helps a solo person. Team efforts can help teams of people.

4. I talk a lot of talk. Boy do these words I say allude to a lot, without revealing a thing. Even this post assumes that there is a major audience clamoring to hear any small update. I need fans first.

Through all the navel gazing, the most important thing I Learned is that I need to start building a community, but the life event left me a little despondent . Most of my time was spent healing and getting back a good headspace. Now I'm refreshed and ready to use what little free time I have towards making a studio that is a group effort.

The revelation.

During my break I saw the writers strike, I saw the actors strike, I saw rights being pillaged from our livelihoods inch by inch. And I saw people win to get a fairer share. In order to complete Armageddon ignition I'm going to need money to properly pay some voice actors, I want to get more people involved. I finally started a game that I think will see the light of day. But I no longer want to be a hermit about it. And I want a team with more perspectives than my own to help me.

There are too many companies bleeding creative teams dry for "content", there are too many ceo's who look for tools or pipelines that completely remove humans to save a buck for the next quarterly earnings.

My goal has shifted from producing a game as a solo creative to building a company. A group of people who share in the earnings of their product, rather than some white dude who went to Yale and learned that slashing jobs makes the next quarterly earnings look a little better and gamed his own paycheck to give him more money than they ever "saved".

But I don't have the funds now, nor do I want borrowed equity for this thing. If I'm going to build up an organization that is more artistic focused, rather than profit focused. I can't do it on debt that can be leveraged to destroy a queer, story driven studio.

So in order to get a cash flow started I found something that I can do with my much leaner free time. This is going to be an animated project that can, on paper and not just in my head, be developed and maintained by a solo artist.

This time I'm going to release the videos and let the work speak for itself, rather than wax on before it's even done. Once I have some time back I'll try to make a post mortem.

So as far as timelines go. This is going to push back this game indefinitely. But I hope to utilize this time to actually build something that can benefit the game industry. And build a better game in general.

The next blog should be coming with enough detail to sell you on what I have cooking.

See you soon