#those headshots were really fun to do too

[funkylilfr0g]

New year same brainrot

Sketch dump under cut bc there's.. quite a few (^^ゞ (selfship incoming i'm crazy i'm crazy)

these 3 specifically are inspired by anqilyn's really cool style :3 They're on TikTok and Insta!! (their tiktok has a lot more posts)

[nouvxllev]

skill issues

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x G!p!Reader

Summary: in which you got reeled into a bandwagon of a fps game by mindy, anika, and chad.

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: smut. just pure smut.

a/n: i just love the idea of tara carpenter being a clingy partner (also my first time writing just a chapter full of smut.)

masterlist.

The clock ticked midnight. Probably even pass that. Actually, you didn't know anymore. Whatever was on your mind was completely erased and replaced by tiny pixels moving in your screen.

Ever since you've joined Tara's friend group, you've also been reeled into a bunch of activities they do on a daily basis. To binge watching scary movies you've begged them not to drag you in, to playing games they recommended to you.

You regret participating in the latter.

It's not like you were having fun, hell, you were having too much fun with this simple FPS mobile game they pulled you in, but the deep dark circles under your eyes were starting to show and you don't really eat anything except for the meals Tara cooks for you. Which are greatly appreciated by a kiss.

"Y/n, what the fuck!? I told you to cover me!" Mindy yelled over your headphones. Actually, it was Tara's headphones desperately lent over to you after days of quiet shouting that didn't really help.

You crouched in reply, knowing Mindy was spectating your character.

You killed, not one, not two, not even four people, but six at once in a group! 3 headshots and 3 body kills. You were pretty proud of yourself, honestly. You just started the game a few weeks ago and you're only getting better and better, you wanted to brag to Tara but she was fast asleep beside you. She was always beside you whenever you play those games with the group, cuddling you as you hold your phone up in the air, but she always ends up falling asleep when you do.

Chad laughs over his mic, "damn, we should've invited Y/n a long time ago. She's good at this game."

You laugh in response, bringing your voice to a whisper. "Even I didn't know I had this in me."

Ever since you and Tara finally made it official, you packed your things and said good riddance to your home and lived together with Tara. It was unexpected, even she was surprised by the spontaneous decision, but the two of you were happy in paradise. Not until you got dragged into the whole 'gaming with those two dipshits™ (by Tara Carpenter, of course.)'

"Anika—! Anika—Wait, shit Anika!" You scream, regrettably, while shooting the opposing team down. Obviously, the luck you had earlier had worn out and you were now staring down at your dead character, groaning.

"I didn't know they were there!" Anika apologized.

"Skill issue." Mindy chimed, you could tell she was leaning back in her chair, looking smug.

"Definitely." Chad blurted, a huff of air he let out.

You rolled your eyes. "Those who didn't carry the team with their 6-kill streak should actually shut up." You went back to the home screen after gg'ing the other team

"Another round?" You exclaimed, and the others cheerfully agreed in the background.

You forgot, for a split second, you were beside one of the most lightest sleepers in the world; your marvelous girlfriend Tara Carpenter. Someone could breathe in her vicinity and she'd almost immediately wake up. Which is why she's staring you down, burning holes in your neck, unimpressed look on her face.

"Y/n," she groaned, "I thought you'd be done by now."

You turned to look at her, and you could only hope it was the darkness fooling your eyes since Tara looked like she was about to scream if not for her reminding herself that you were her girlfriend.

You muted your mic, "One more round, I promise."

"You always say that." She whispered, her arms wrapping around your waist as you were sitting up and you almost melted in her arms, a sigh you let out.

You let your other hand let go of your phone and let your hand relax on her head, soothing her worries of you being on the verge of being one of those mentally unstable gamers who discarded their whole entire life.

Tara was still awake, you could tell by how she tilted her head slightly to look up at you and back to whatever game it is you were so engrossed in.

It was only a few seconds later before Mindy, Anika, and Chad were screaming into the mic and telling eachother to "defend, defend, defend!" or just curse at eachother.

And you, of course, was just resting in paradise while your girlfriend watches over you with half-lidded eyes. But you could tell she was trying to be awake.

You were getting into that headspace where your luck with getting kills increased, and damn were you so happy you could basically convince yourself you were the next top player at this game.

That was until you fumbled over a sniper shot, your finger slipping and your character dying. Your friends were yelling, laughing, but you couldn't focus. Not when Tara's hand was placed firmly on top of your cock.

You froze in place, your eyes, not focused on the screen anymore, but focused on somewhere in the darkness of your room. Her fingers tracing lazy circles around your clothed bulge, only getting larger the more she teases you.

You muted your mic, your hands clutching your phone as you suck in a moan. "Tara, wait, I'm—"

"—Playing?" She finished, looking up at you with her doe-eyes you knew you could never resist. "I'm sure you can play perfectly fine." She replied, her fingers sliding into the waistband of your shorts. You ultimately regretting, and thanking, that you weren't wearing anything underneath.

You were big, you haven't measured it yourself, but Tara worshipped it like it was (and is) so that was enough for confirmation. The tip of your cock was immediately leaking with pre-cum, and it didn't help when Tara kept stroking it, taking her time to graze her thumb along the head.

"Aren't you going to continue playing?" She looked at you, doe eyes and all as if she wasn't giving you the most perfect and maddening handjob you've ever received.

There was something in her voice, something that made you go fucking insane. And something that made you click that respawn button, playing it off as if nothing was happening down below.

You were desperately trying to get a kill, the amount of times you've pressed that damn respawn button was embarrassing. But how could you focus when the most prettiest girl was wrapping her warm lips around the tip of your dick, her hands taking care of the inches that wasn't in her mouth. Yet.

She removed her mouth away from your cock, a soft whine escaping your lips at the loss of contact, but then she adjusted her position. Her body going in between your thighs as she spreads them apart.

You almost, almost, went to heaven when she immediately reattached her soft lips to your dick and slowly started to go deeper.

It was almost pathetic how your hips bucked and your head was thrown back, your eyes rolling in pleasure.

And only a few seconds passed until she was bobbing her head up and down on your cock, her free hand tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Fuck, that turned you on even more.

You contemplated throwing the game, hell, even your phone, but Tara dug her perfectly manicured nails into your thighs when you were starting to put your phone down.

"Y/n, you're getting out of your game!"

"Noticed."

"I bet 20 bucks she's getting laid by Tara, right now."

The three of them, in order, Chad, Anika, and Mindy all teasing you for getting your dick sucked in the middle of the game. But you didn't care, at all. You didn't have enough trust in yourself to unmute and to deny all sayings, that were 100% true by the way, without having to hold back a moan.

"Fuck, Tara..." You manage to say in a whimper, your hand, which was supposed to be playing the game, was grabbing a handful of Tara's hair. Helping her take in what's left of you, and soon enough, her nose reached your chest, gagging a little bit in the process.

You were going crazy.

It was then you couldn't take it anymore. You grabbed her hair, a bit more forcefully, and started to shove yourself back and forth into her mouth. Your hips bucking and gradually getting speed. You could see how her eyes and jaw widened to take more of you. Spit and pre-cum dripping all over her mouth as she looked at you, tears staining her eyes while she closed them whenever she hit the base, gagging all over your cock.

You can feel your legs begin to shake, your head throwing back and your eyes rolling. But that didn't stop you from absolutely railing Tara's mouth against your dick until you've emptied yourself inside of her, forcing her to swallow all of your load.

A minute passed before you slowed down your movements, pulling an exhausted Tara out of your cock. She looked at you dumb, your own cum smeared all over her lips as a grin adorned her abused lips.

"I guess we can say I'm better than that stupid game you're always playing." She rasped, her voice hoarse.

"You did this because you were... jealous of me playing a game?" You chuckled, clearly out of breath. It was cute if you weren't so turned on by the fact Tara was looking at you like that.

She brought her hand up to her mouth, wiping away the excess cum with her thumb and licking it off. "I just wanted to tease you, baby."

You thought that was the end of it, not until Tara threw your phone and headphones away and started to climb on top of you, your still hardened cock right on top of her clit. You didn't even notice she wasn't wearing anything underneath as well until now.

"I'll get you a new one—" she breathed, "I promise. Just, please." She whimpered, god, fuck, you were going insane. "Just fuck me."

And that was everything you needed you hear.

You immediately flipped her around, "Y/n, what the FUCK!—" she screamed as you drilled your cock into her, your hips pulling out your dick and fully slamming it back into her pussy. A broken moan coming out of her lips.

"Shit... Tara, you're driving me crazy." Was all you could mutter before you went faster, your hands going to her hips to hold her steady, and your eyes were focused on your cock easily sliding in and out of her puffy folds, taking all of you at once while Tara could only moan, a new freshly coat of cum taking over your dick.

The way she squeezed around you, milking your cock for all it's worth, made you dizzy and your head start to spin. But that didn't stop you from completely destroying her bit by bit, aiming to break her down.

You pulled her closer to you, your hands going up to her shoulders and aggressively ramming her body against your shaft as if it wasn't so deep enough already. Tara couldn't say, mutter, or even speak a single sentence at this point.

You were fucking her dumb, and shit you loved it.

Your hands slithered up from her shoulders to her neck, lightly choking her before turning her head to you.

"You're so pretty like this, baby. So gorgeous and perfect." You muttered in her ear, every word coming to a hard thrust as Tara's mouth opened, attempting to say something but only coming out as a pathetic moan. "You wanna be fucked like a slut? Be fucked dumb out of your mind?"

Sliding your hands on her back, you pressed down firmly to create the perfect arch as her head was buried into the soft mattress, her hands curling up into a ball as she sobbed with pleasure. You can hear her moaning your name over and over again, screaming and sobbing muffled by the soft pillow under her.

"Answer me, Tara."

"Yes, please!" She pleaded, "God, oh my god." She gulped, her head falling back as she reached her second orgasm, her walls clamping down on your cock and cum dripping down from her abused and assaulted pussy.

Her legs gave up, but you didn't. You continued to ram into her, without a care that she was near peak exhaustion and her sobs were becoming more frequent. Your freehand that wasn't pressing down on her back going over to her clit, overstimulating her.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cum," you groaned, "Tara..."

"Cum'n me." She said, breathless, "please. Please, please, please, please—"

After that last plead, you came in her. Your body still thrusting into Tara as you lean towards her, "I love you. I love you so much, my favorite girl." You muttered, pressing kisses all over her cheeks and lips as she breathed for air. But that sweet moment didn't stop you from resuming to pound into her as if it was your last day on earth.

You kept your cock inside of her, pistoning it in and out as you stretched her pussy till it's limit. Until it recognized the shape of your dick, which, you succeeded. The both of you continued until Tara reached her actual peak of exhaustion and collapsed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Tara woke up, she was sore. Sore as fuck. Everything up and down from her head to toe was just relentless pain everywhere. That is, until she turned her head to see you just gazing at her. Softly. As if you didn't ruin her to pieces just hours before.

"Hey," you greeted her, a smile gracing your lips. Tara didn't realize, but you drew her a bath the second she passed out and took care of her yourself. Even changed her to her favorite outfit whenever she just wanted to lay around.

Tara smiled. Despite her sore legs, her sore everything actually, she still managed to cling onto you like a koala. Her arms crushing you as you hugged her back. "Hey." She whispered in your ear, kissing you gently. "Thanks, by the way. For taking care of me." She hugged you even tighter, which you reciprocated.

The two of you sat there for a few minutes, basking in eachothers presence and warmthness. Until you broke the silence. "Tell me the real reason." You pulled back from Tara's tight hug. (You tried to, she was unbudging.)

"I was." She raised an eyebrow, which you also reciprocated.

You chuckled. "I've been your girlfriend and bestfriend for a total of 3 years, Tara. You can't fool me."

She could almost roll her eyes right now if she wouldn't regret it later. "We haven't had sex in a while." She confessed, avoiding your eye contact. "Like, a whole month."

The adorableness there was to Tara Carpenter, the amazing girl you're blessed with, was beyond you. "You could've told me, Tara." You tucked a loose strand between her ear, "you know I like talking with you. Especially about something personal, or maybe something about in our relationship."

"I didn't know how to like," she paused, "really, really, express it." She explained, "also I couldn't since you were on that damn video game for weeks now!"

Yeah, you had to blame yourself for that. Or maybe the crew. "I solemnly swear to not play that game. Well, atleast that often." You held up your pinky, making a pinky promise that you always, always never broken in your life.

Tara chuckled, taking your pinky into hers. "Also your phone has been buzzing like crazy for the last few minutes."

"It's just Mindy bragging about she got rich because she was betting over our sex life."

"What!?" The younger Carpenter screamed.

"Don't worry too much about it." You shrugged it off. "Just a skill issue." You joked.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a/n: just needed to get this off my brain. idea popped into my head one random day and i've been thinking about it actually doing something about it, and it's probably something i need to do to take of my writers block!!

[uncouth-the-fifth]

i'd like to report a crime - Leon Kennedy/Reader

read it on Ao3.

Pairing: Agent!Leon/Detective!Wife!Reader Tags: anxious work stress + leon comfort!!, leon being a fucking goober Notes: when i'm at work I'm always picturing him swooping in to save me...... leon kennedy if you can hear me please protect me from 9-5 hell... and like I said before, I would LOVE requests or prompts for this fic, I have so many ideas but I can't commit to any of them lol.

Standing in the bullpen at work today, you had a thought. Maybe they called it “medieval torture” because that was a whole lot catchier than “a shitty day at the busiest police precinct in Washington DC.”

It certainly felt like medieval torture to you. Before you’d even stepped into your big girl pants this morning, you knew that today was going to suck. Plain and simple. Suck. Yet another presidential event was bringing the Secret Service’s jurisdiction into your already hectic station, meaning that big square dudes in suits were going to be breathing down your neck until quitting time. You had three huge active cases that needed your attention. One of those cases came pre-packaged with a deeply annoying lawyer, who, in your professional opinion, has his head shoved a foot up his ass. He will absolutely be showing up to bother you today.

And worst of all: in your haste to get to work (Leon had put some serious effort into making you late), you’d accidentally worn a pair of super uncomfortable shoes! So now every waking moment of your existence was bonafide torture.

Clamping your jaw, you glance up from the paperwork in front of you and check your watch. Three o’clock. Right, okay, you can work with that.

You slap your hands down on your desk as you push out of your seat, and it gets a satisfying yelp out of the man sitting cross-legged beside it. He bristles up like a porcupine and nasally complains, “Where are you going, Detective Kennedy? You said we could—”

“Coffee, Douglas,” you bite back to said lawyer.

The last thing you want right now is some of the lousy, watered-down coffee from the station’s breakroom, but taking mini-breaks at your desk is just not an option anymore. Douglas has been camped out there from the moment you clocked in, and since you both refuse to budge, he’s going to stay there. Breakroom it is. You wince the whole way there, cursing your shoes from hell.

Someone forgot to start another pot of joe, so you have the absolute pleasure of doing it yourself. A small blessing in disguise, really. You give the glass pot your best thousand-yard-stare the whole time it heats the water, and just when the outline of it is starting to burn behind your eyelids, you’re jolted out of your glazed reverie by a cheerful, “Detective Kennedy!”

The officer appears at your side like she was there the entire time, and you wouldn’t put it past her—Giana is the latest in a long line of rookies who have imprinted on you over the years. Good kid, but a little on the overeager side.

She gives you a sympathetic frown and launches into way too much bubbly talking for your aching head to handle. “Heyo! Man, it’s crazy today, huh? You look beat, detective. Hey, think of it this way—just a few more hours and we’ll be home free! Any fun plans tonight?”

The question triggers a movie-style flashback sequence in your mind, complete with black-and-white visuals and some tasteful dream fog. Leon, your husband, boredly poking around the aisles of a new Target by your place. Leon discovering the boys' toy section. Leon, your beautiful, amazing husband, going starry-eyed at the massive NERF Elite Titan CS-50 Toy Blaster, which you’re pretty sure you need a license to operate.

He’d tapped the Nerf box like a boy on Christmas morning. “150 foam bullets, baby.”

But it would take a lot of energy to relay all of that to Giana. So instead of explaining that you’re having an epic Nerf duel with Leon when you get home (no headshots, loser makes dinner), you cooly answer: “...Spending time with my husband.”

Giana hums. “It’s so weird to me that you’re married…” (Thanks.) “I can’t even picture you not grinding away at some case.”

The coffee machine burbles out its last sad spit of coffee. You pour a good amount into your mug, smiling, “Oh, Leon’s just as bad. We’re both married to our work. He’s just my favorite mistress, s’all.”

Giana opens her mouth to launch into another cheery tirade you can’t catch up with. You like the girl, but on top of being way too eager, she’s also painfully see-through. For example, you don’t even have to turn around to know that a gloriously hot guy has just walked into the bullpen behind you. It’s written all over Giana’s owlish look over your shoulder. Hell, you can even clock that he’s heading straight this way—not only does Giana cross herself to bid away impure thoughts of the stranger, but she evaporates into smoke out of pure shyness.

“Look out!” She stage-whispers.

Aw. Poor girl, you think as she waddles away. Considering who’s going to be unloading a clip of foam bullets into you later this evening, (what a strange double entendre), you’re basically immune to hot guys. You can handle this.

“Excuse me, detective, I’d like to report a crime?”

All sense of professionalism poofs off your face at that familiar voice. You whirl to face your husband, and in one swift slash, the ten ton weight of your stress is slapped clean off your back.

Leon’s resting stare has slowly been absorbed by his Serious Agent Face. But today, he’s smoldering less in the business way and more in the off-duty model way. In a white tee, jeans, and racing-striped leather jacket, he certainly looks the part, clean-shaven and dewy-skinned. Fuck him and his unblemished skin. What Umbrella moisturizer was he using back in the day, dammit?

You’re capable of joking again and fall flawlessly into the bit. “Of course. What kind of crime, beautiful?”

He isn’t really able to look flustered, but you think you get close to the impossible with the way his head tilts at that line. You notice that he’s hiding something behind his back.

“A theft,” he answers. The tiniest smirk twitches on his mouth. “My heart’s been stolen.”

…What a fucking cornball. The tragic part is that you find the joke pretty funny, and not completely in the ironic way. He waits for you to giggle and twirl your hair or what-the-fuck-ever, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction, ducking into his quick hug to grin into his shoulder.

You groan at his awful joke. “Jesus. You need a fork for all that corn, Leon?”

“I take mine off the cob,” he drawls in your ear. With that voice, he could make anything sound suggestive.

You’re about to pout at him for failing to return your hug, when you draw back and see that his hands are full. It’s then that Leon presents his bounty to you, bowing his head and holding his trophies aloft like a knight giving respect to his princess: in one hand, one of the stupid expensive coffees you like, and in the other… your comfiest work flats.

“How?” is the first thing your fish brain manages to say. Because, truly, how does he always know? The coffee, the shoes— “Did you put a tracker in me? One that tells you everything I’ve been complaining about all day?”

You go slumping down into the nearest seat, mystified by him. Leon sets the still-steaming coffee down in front of you and kneels, stooping to help you out of your shoes-from-hell. The strap around your ankle has rubbed the bone raw even through your tights. He gets the clasp loose on the first shoe with little fussing, then soothes the skin with tender brushes of his thumb.

“Mhm,” he hums. All you can see of him from this angle is the layers of color in his hair, deep browns and ash blondes blending into one another. The smug pride in his voice is obvious—he loves knowing he’s read you well. “Tells me when you’re hungry, too. Have lunch with me?”

Please god, your body begs. Just picturing it loosens some of the tension in your neck. Like last time, the two of you would play-fight over where to eat, and your cute little delivery boy would go pick up the winner. That way, you wouldn’t have to waste a single moment of your allotted thirty-minute lunch. Leon would pull up a seat at your desk (maybe scare Douglas off with a flash of his badge), and you’d get a blissful, uninterrupted dose of him. Enough to get you through the rest of your shift.

He’d be too deep in Professional Agent Mode to babble like he does at home, but Leon’s raspy chuckles and his hand on your knee would tide you over til’ five.

…But no, the universe is never that kind to you. You wince at Leon’s offer and drop an apologetic hand to his shoulder, still knelt at your feet and working on your other shoe. He’s too good to you. “M’ sorry, baby, but I think I’m gonna have to work through lunch if I wanna get home on time. Rain check?”

He doesn’t mind. He throws a squinty warning stare your way, not happy that you’re getting dangerously close to overworking yourself, but he understands.

A sly smile creeps onto Leon’s face as he helps you slip on a flat. “I could talk to your Captain. What if you were pulled away for a ‘federal emergency?’”

“Then I think me and my Captain would implode from stress,” you laugh. “He’d think I’d been drawn into some national crisis or something.”

Leon scoffs. “That’s only happened, like, once.”

The other flat welcomes your poor, aching foot like a jacuzzi hot tub, and you take a deep magical sip of the overpriced coffee he got special for you. It trumps the watery breakroom joe any day.

For a minute you’re so stupidly happy that you could easily punch a boulder clean off a cliff. Hell, you might even twirl your hair.

“One too many times!” You groan. Since he’s being all cute and kneeling at your feet, you can’t resist poking him a couple of times to be silly. In the chest. In the cheek. In the heart. Stage-whispering, you accuse, “I think you just like having excuses to work with me.”

Leon finishes helping you into your shoes, but he’s in no hurry to leave his spot. One of his rough hands finds yours in your lap and toys with your wedding band, twisting it, testing the groove where it’s been sitting for a few years now. Those big blue eyes fix on your face. You’re married to the guy, but something about being the subject of all his naked attention makes you feel like shrieking into a damn pillow. He’s the best. Judging by that mean little smile on his face, he knows it’s true.

He gives your hand a little squeeze and points out, “I was your partner before anyone else. We never got our buddy cop beat—so yes, I will shove myself into your world since I can’t pull you into mine.”

You’re grateful he still thinks that way. Getting him to talk about Raccoon is harder than pulling teeth, but this—your partnership, whether that be as cops in an imaginary second life, or as husband and wife—never fails to pry him right open.

You’d been asked before if it was frustrating, how your paths had split after the city had blown. The two of you had come from the same spot and endured the same things, but where Leon had soared up, you’d kept to what you knew. No part of you envied him for it. In his mind, the two of you were still the same unit you’d been then, endlessly loyal to one another. You watched Leon’s back and—clearly, he watched yours.

“You’re my favorite,” you tell him, sweetly petting his chin. “I’m gonna fucking destroy you at our Nerf duel when I get home.”

All the buttery tenderness wipes from his face, and in an instant he’s on his feet, clapping a scarred hand down onto your shoulder and bending to whisper fiercely in your ear. “I’d like to see you try.”

He smushes a kiss to your cheek, waves a friendly, “See ya,” and melts back into the current of the rowdy bullpen. You hate to see him leave, but by god, you love to watch him go.

A few seconds after Leon says his goodbye, Giana, your rookie, peers around the open door of the break room. Her patchy blush goes all the way down to her uniform collar. “...Nevermind. I can definitely picture you married, Detective Kennedy…”

-

Ask to be added to my Leon taglist!

[supernova41st]

hiii ‼️‼️ I was wondering if you could do tf2 boys (any characters you want) with Mercy from overwatch reader 😭.

Heroes never die 🪽

Tf2 x Mercy!Reader

Scout/medic

A/n: SHES BAAAACK YUH YUHH BOOM SHACKALACKAAAAA YES GODDDD. Idk what else to say other than I hope y’all missed me!! Idk what my ‘schedule’ will be but just expect more posts in the future

Medic

Do I need to say anything? You don’t fw him at all. The differences are pretty clear, moral and sanity wise.

At first he was pretty interested to have another doctor on the team. But he quickly got jealous because the mercs took more of a liking to you than because of your gentleness.

“You’re with me doctor”

“Jou got it”

“Not you ya four-eyed twap! The angel”

“Oh, thank you ☺️”

Resurrecting heavy

“Doctor! We must try this resurrection thing!”

“You too???”

He hates you now, you’re not really fond of him either. Not only does he practice medicine with no license but his procedures are so inhumane compared to yours.

“Thank my medical professionalism, Ludwig.”

“Oo Klugscheißer, miss perfect!! Fuck you.”

He genuinely thinks you’re an Angel here to make his life more difficult cuz from what I heard he’s had his fair share of dealing with satan.

He’s interested in your work but will never EVER ask you about it because of his pettiness. Will try to recreate your resurrection skills however it looked less like a resurrection and more like dragging a zombie out of its grave.

When he showed it off to you you were terrified

“Now if we just grunt just help our little subject on his feet, he’ll be as good as new!”

“Celestial! Ludwig please put him out of his misery!!”

“Vhat? Nonsense, he’s fine!”

*he says as his his subjects body collapses

He got so thirsty for you when he saw you pistol whipping an enemy scout for him, it startled him so he thought it was hot

“Whew, careful out there Ludwig”

“…please, please take my heart. I vill have it taxidermied for you and everything!”

“What 🙁”

Now he’s become obsessed, pockets you every round and the team is not thrilled about that. It is fun to see you fly around landing headshots at the enemy team tho

Scout

This man had ZERO fucking idea you were even on the team until he began a mission with you. So when he was on the edge of dying and you flew over to lend a helping hand he frl thought god sent an angel to save him.

He didn’t even say anything he was just in shock like

‘😦..I’m the chosen one’

When he got back to the base everything felt so surreal to him, but then he immediately started bragging about it cuz it’s scout.

“Omgg do y’all have a guardian Angel? 🤭No? Fucking losers”

“Are you talking about y/n?”

“Who?”

“Hello”

“..oh”

He was so let down 😭 he had a genuine ‘I’m special’ moment there

You get so tired of him so fast. It’s always something with him, he’s like a little boy always getting injured and crying to his mom to pull out the first-aid kid

“Y/n, I lost a friggin’ tooth again”

“Seriously scout? This is the fifth one this week! Next time you’re going to medic for this.”

Free my boy, he didn’t do anything wrong 😞

Loves it when you resurrect him, makes him feel like a ‘newborn baby’

“Did it hurt?”

“Scout I’m busy I don’t have time for your pick up lines.”

‘:(‘

This bitch will do ANYTHING but stay still so you can heal him. It’s like he’s running away from you??

“🏥🏥🏥🏥🏥”

“SCOUT PLEASE GET DOWN HERE!!”

“THEYRE SHOOTING 🏥”

“YOU THINK THIS IS NEWS TO ME?”

Will try hopping on you when you’re flying, it didn’t go well.

“Are you gonna heal my legs now?”

“No! That’s on you for being stupid”

“When are you gonna give me a pair of those wings doc? I was born to fly 👽”

[87foxeninaboxen]

When I first watched this scene I couldn't tell if Char was making fun of Garma here or not, but after watching it a few more times, it really strikes me how "because he was a spoiled kid/because he was a brat" is so much more personal than "blame this on the misfortune of your birth." One puts no personal blame on Garma in the worst way possible, whereas the other personally implicates him. "Because he was a spoiled kid," in particular, puts Garma beneath him when they're both the same age. Why didn't Char say this to Garma when he was taunting him, was he particularly trying to twist the knife by telling him his death was personally meaningless?

It's tempting to say this comment is him personally trying to justify a betrayal he feels bad for, "you died because you were too spoiled/naive to see the world as it is," but I really don't know. The scene is so short and the line delivery so straightforward it's hard to tell. That being said, if that reading is the case, there's nothing I think Garma could have done to subvert Char's revenge plan. Even if he hadn't been naive, even if he personally turned against his family and all they stand for, I still think Char would have killed him. His motivations are so self-serving and unshakeable he would have just thought up a new reason.

Then there's the fact Char misses Garma's funeral when we know from Kycilia's comment he was expected to be there. Why, would it not make sense for Char to want to see the consequences of his actions in person? I think it's interesting that at Garma's funeral, something he should be happy about, he's instead drinking alone in a bar not looking particularly celebratory.

I do believe Char was being genuine when he called Garma a friend, though I don't think he cared about him in any way that mattered in the grand scheme of things. Of course he cares about Sayla a great deal more, but it feels similar to how he cares about her, just not enough to set aside his revenge plan to be with her.

I think the biggest scene that points towards Char actually caring about Garma is the infamous Kycilia headshot - "Garma, I'm sending your sister to join you." It's easy to read this as Char mocking Garma one last time, and I think that's an aspect to it, but it's also very telling that at this moment where his revenge is practically complete, he's thinking about Garma, not Degwin or his father. I think a part of him was genuinely saying a final goodbye to Garma here.

~~~

Also there's all the side media like Char's Daily Life and Gihren's Greed but those are super not canon so I'm not including them sorry this post is disjointed as hell

[simslegacy5083]

Not So Berry (Straud Descendants) Gen 9

Today's (9/5/2024) Episode: Dinner and Dancing

At the reception Luigi kept his drone recording as everyone gathered to enjoy the seafood feast he’d helped prepare earlier that afternoon.

Bonnie, who was flying solo as usual, was seated across from Noemi. Now that she understood the bride’s own social struggles, she was willing to admit “Leroy’s “demanding job” isn’t really the reason he never comes to these things. He’s socially awkward, and crowds make him anxious.” 

“I totally get it.” Noemi sympathized, “I’ve come to accept this zoo…” she waved to indicate the crowded table “as “part of the package” with Lu’s close knit family, but its awesome you’re willing to let Leroy enjoy his solitude.” She leaned in closer. “I’m a little jealous, I wish I was home right now too.”

Lu himself was happily telling Grandpa Don “PrimSim gave us a bonus for our little Harvestfest collab, no doubt due to your expert lead…”

 Don held up a hand to stop Luigi from making the offer he knew was coming “That’s great! You can consider it an extra wedding present.”

In lieu of dessert champagne was poured and both sims of honor rose to give a toast.

Amaya went first “At the last wedding Luigi and I attended I told him I never wanted to see him again. Then I stumbled into friendship with his pretty momma as we were both learning to be better mommas to our incoming bundles of joy. Ain’t life strange? You did good hot stuff – but if you let my girl down you best believe I’ll be the one kicking your butt!”

Denton followed up with “Luigi and I got off to a bit of a rough start…” “To be fair,” Luigi hollered back to the crowds delight, “we WERE toddlers…”

“… but we grew up to have a lot in common.” his cousin continued with a smile. “Noemi, much as we both love him, it’s clear that he doesn’t quite deserve you. We’re all so very glad you eventually agreed to marry him anyway!” Luigi nodded happily, leaning over to give his wife a quick kiss.

Bellies full and hearts light everyone made their way to the dance floor after dinner.

For their first dance the newlyweds had picked an upbeat funky tune. The pair shimmied onto the floor and proceeded to boogie down, performing an adorable duet to the quirky retro love song they both felt perfectly captured the essence of their story and their love for one another.

🎶For so long, You and me been findin' each other for so long… I want you layin' in the love I have to bring, I'd do anything to be your everything🎶

When their song finished the pair invited everyone to join them and “get this dance party started!”.

Luigi of course was in his element, but Noemi surprised herself by how much fun she was having.

Surrounded by the large crowd of family and friends she’d come to know so well, on one of the happiest days of her life, she felt nothing but joy as she swayed in time to the music.

All good things must come to an end, and as Luigi and Noemi’s party ended, he was approached by Professor Silva.

“Care to autograph this for me? I’d love to hang it on the “wall of fame” in my office”. His old advisor handed over a headshot from Luigi’s days as co-captain of Foxbury’s E-Sports team. As Luigi worked, he added “I was sorry to hear about your Carpel Tunnel, but glad you’re taking it seriously.”

Luigi, remembering that his coach’s own stress injury had kept him from going pro, nodded. “Thanks. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s given me a chance to put those leadership skills you taught me to good use.” He handed back the picture and promised to check up on the professor’s current team soon.

Once their guests had all departed Luigi snuggled Noemi close “So, wife of mine… man I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of saying that… I know that both of us are “seldom sleepy” these days. You up to have a little more fun before bed?”

“Absolutely” she replied “After all, it’s a rare treat not to have anyone but ourselves to worry about. Carpe Diem!”

Luigi laughed “well OK then, let’s go!”

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[fuckterfs-deactivated20221212]

Hello fellow tumblrinas of all genders or lack thereof, unless I messed something up with the post scheduling today is the third of june.

It is not often that I make serious posts myself, if something is serious and important I usually don't have the necessary know-how nor the time to make my own posts and just reblog posts about those topics, like recently the palestinian genocide or the fact that deserts shouldn't be turned into green forests or lawns, or anything to do with USanian politics. Some of you may have seen one or two of my posts about german politics such as the new Selbstbestimmungsgesetz that will allow trans people like me to change their legal name and gender without a million gates to get past first.

All this to say, this post is not about the most important thing in the world, but it is about something I know about and that is important to me.

About sixteen, soon seventeen years ago, VALVe released a class-based team shooter with a cartoony style that they not much later made free to play. Anyone, so long as they have a steam account, can download this game named Team Fortress 2, and start playing. In it, you can buy clothes, weapon skins, weapon sidegrades and silly dances for real money, and making any purchase enables voice chat and normal chat as well as fundamental game mechanics like calling for a medic. The nine classes are interesting to play and play against, and along with the unlockable sidegrade weapons this game provides lots of variety when it comes to play styles.

But in its current state I can't recommend you to try it.

There are two(ish) ways to play the main game modes:

Casual matchmaking, which is free, the option at the top of the menu and managed by VALVe on their game servers as well as "protected by VAC"

(competitive matchmaking, which if I recall correctly costs money and is mainly people who are pretty good at the game and not those playing for the first time)

Community servers, which are further down the list of ways to play and only accessible through a very unintuitive community server browser, they are usually moderated by real human moderators using a functional anti cheat

(there's also "Training" but it's not against other real players and tbh sucks)

If you start up the game you're most definitely going to start queueing into a casual match, let's say Capture the Flag, because it's on top of the list of gamemodes, but it doesn't really matter what game mode you choose.

And maybe half the time you're going to join a Double Cross match full of other players from all over the world, containing queer people, actual racists, trolls, and one or two people only typing in Cyrillic. These games are fun, you'll learn stuff about the game, about the classes, about how annoying snipers and spies can be, about how much fun it is to airblast an enemy into the abyss, about good spots to put a sentry and about bad spots to do so.

The rest of the time you will join a 2fort match where most people are named something like ESCAPETHEMATRIX, and you will learn about how free to play players can still hear their distorted voice chat music on loop, about how it feels to get headshot by a slow moving sniper who doesn't even look at you every time you leave spawn, about getting vote kicked by five bots and not being able to do anything about it.

Sometimes you're lucky. Sometimes the real players outnumber the bots and you can vote them out one by one.

But until that is done, unless that is done, the game is unplayable.

There are many problems with TF2. Two years ago, during the first #SAVETF2 event a lot of those problems were voiced. But that was part of the reason that attempt failed. There was too much focus on updates lacking content, weapon balance being less than perfect in some places, free to plays not being able to use core features of the game, so that most important problem, the bot crisis, hasn't been in focus enough. It's okay that the game is not getting update-sized updates like Minecraft or Fortnite are. It's okay that some unlockable weapons are pretty much always better than stock. Those are imperfections, but they don't make the game unplayable. Maybe the problem started with the name.

#FIXTF2

That's the name this time. And it's true, TF2 doesn't need saving, it's already broken. We demand that VALVe fix the biggest issue with TF2.

We want a functional anti cheat.

VAC aka VALVe Anti Cheat is supposed to prevent cheaters and bots from ruining the game. It has not done that for many years, and is, according to people with more technical knowledge than me, merely a suggestion, and not a real anti cheat software. Community servers have found ways to eliminate cheating and bots entirely in their games, without the funding of a billions-of-dollars company that makes a lot of money off of TF2.

Creators like Megascatterbomb have made efforts against the bot problem, compiling lists of bot accounts and publishing them, and while VALVe profits off the bot hosters, these bot hosters have harassed, doxxed and even framed him at local authorities for domestic terrorism. This man wanted to help keep his favorite game playable and instead he got investigated by the police for allegedly planning to bomb a university.

How do I know that VALVe profits off of those bot hosters? Well the bots use voice and text chat, meaning they have to have made a purchase for each account.

Some of you reading this might already know about all of this, some of you might have made your own post today, but others may not even know TF2 exists or thought the problems got solved two years ago because VALVe made one (1) twitter post.

If you haven't already, please sign the petition at https://save.tf/ , maybe get more info at https://fixtf2.tf/ where you can also find links to more informative youtube videos. The petition will be delivered to VALVe HQ along with the tens, possibly even hundreds of thousands of names belonging to people who signed.

Thank you for reading. It would be nice if you reblogged this, the only way we can get TF2 fixed and stop it from being abandoned is if lots of people know about this.

[flieslikeamoron]

WIP WEDNESDAY

I went in my WIP folder and dug out a little something for the steddies. I'm not actively working on it right now, but I think it's the one steddie WIP I haven't shared anything from before. It's a Jury Duty AU where Eddie is one of the actors and Steve is the one guy who doesn't know he's on a tv show. I never got much farther than this, but it was gonna be that thing where you have a spark with someone and it could really be something, but they have no idea you're playing a character on a tv show.

--

Eddie Munson never set out to be an actor. He came to L.A. with rock star dreams. He was going to play The Roxy. He was going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. But in L.A. big dreams are a dime a dozen. And they don’t pay the rent. 

He dreams smaller now. He’s not so much shooting for the cover of Rolling Stone as steady session work. A couple regular gigs that don’t pay in beer and “exposure” seem almost as unattainable as The Forum. He makes rent by filling the gap with his part-time bartending gig and whatever else he can scrounge up. That’s where the acting comes in. It’s mostly background work, but he’s pulled a couple lines in a regional car commercial, a couple low budget horror things he’s not sure ever got released, a bad roommate on a sitcom that thankfully got cancelled after five or six episodes, and the prime role of “stoner” in a medium popular Melissa McCarthy movie. 

He has an imdb page. Which is kind of embarrassing. Not just because seeing his pathetic credits listed out like that makes him feel pathetic. But also because even the shitty little parts he gets are parts people with big acting dreams are desperately fighting for. Scrambling for any foothold. And he doesn’t even want them, not really. He’s just taking what he can get to keep his music career on life support. 

He kept putting off getting that SAG card, and yeah, partly it was the fucking $3,000 fee. But he could’ve scraped the money together if he sold some of his gear or took on more shifts at the bar. The real reason he kept putting it off was because sinking that much money into acting would be admitting the music’s never going to take off. That all those dreams have been reduced to a line on the back of his headshot. Special skills: Plays guitar. 

He shouldn’t complain. He’s had plenty of friends who washed out back to the small towns they were running from. Or ended up at the dreaded nine to five, dying inch by inch behind a desk. His life isn’t what he thought, but it beats where he came from. And it’s not boring. He’s met interesting people. He’s done weird shit. 

This new job, though. This has to be the weirdest thing he’s ever done. And he played a killer in a hot dog outfit once, so he knows from weird. He still isn't even totally sure how he got it. The callback was mostly improv. He’s never done improv. He did used to play a ton of DnD back in his misspent youth, so maybe that helped. Apparently whatever he did was good enough because he got it.

The shoot is over a month long. It'll be the most money he’s ever made on a single gig. But it’s- He doesn’t even know how to explain it. They didn’t even explain it to him until he got the job because the whole thing is so top-secret. It’s a reality show, but not really. The most elaborate and expensive prank Eddie’s ever heard of. All to trick one poor rube into thinking he’s doing jury duty. To see how he reacts to a bunch of people he doesn’t know are actors throwing absolutely ridiculous shit at him for weeks at a time.

The rehearsals were kind of fun. Meeting the other actors. Figuring out how they’re going to pull this off. The scope of it still boggles Eddie’s mind. Production has built an entire alternate reality for this guy, whoever he’s going to be. But the thing you don’t really think about when you’re on the Truman Show, and you’re not Truman, is all the actors are going to be living it too. He’s going to have to be on all day, every day like some kind of weird improv endurance challenge. 

When they finally hand out the dossier on the mark (there’s a fucking dossier) Eddie starts to get cold feet. He can’t back out now, not really. He’s contractually obligated to go through with it at this point. But he looks at the picture of the guy. Steve. He’s a good-looking guy. Pretty smile. He’s a real person. And Eddie’s going to have to lie right to this guy’s good-looking face for weeks. 

Eddie’s not even a real actor! How is he going to pull this shit off? He can bullshit with the best of them, but there’s never been an entire production resting on his ability to sell a lie. What if he’s the one that blows it? Ruins this entire thing, all this money and effort. All these jobs down the drain, everything wasted. The whole thing is crazy. He can’t do it. 

But there’s the contract. And there’s the money. Enough to buy his own studio time, work on his own music.

“Is this freaking you out?” Eddie asks Sandra over lunch. They’ve spent the morning walking through the crucial jury selection scene, the first test of whether the guy's gonna figure out something's up right from go. It’s a hybrid of scripted, but flexible to accommodate the fact that Steve’s not scripted. Steve could do anything. And it’s on all of the rest of them to not freeze up. To be natural, but guide him as close to the planned bits as they can. To convince him that nothing weird is going on when something weird is so going on.

“I’m nervous,” she admits. “I don’t want to be the one-”

“That fucks it up,” Eddie finishes.

“Exactly that.” 

[stars-n-spice]

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

Thanks for the ask!

🧠 What do you like most about the OC?

Jung:

What I like most about Jung is I guess the relationship he has with Hunter and just him as a character. I don't post about him much but I have so many ideas about him–character motifs, arcs, symbols, etc–that I think about a lot and how him being a former Jedi Temple Guard plays into that. His relationship with Hunter is one thing because there aren't a lot of Queer Platonic relationships with clones that I see–much less ones with clones like Hunter–so I guess that's something that's fun to explore.

Viram:

What I like most about Viram (outside of her design and how fun it is to draw her) is that she's also a bit of an emotional punching bag for me too? Like me, she's also part of the gifted kid burnout club and the eldest of a handful of siblings so I like being able to project my frustrations over those aspects of my life onto her. Like I grew up thinking that anything less than an 'A' in terms of grades wasn't enough and it took me a LONG time to accept that being a student isn't everything and it's still something I struggle with, so it's nice to have a character who has those same struggles and is learning how to heal from everything that comes from those expectations.

Khea:

What I like most about Khea is knowing that if she was like a canon character she'd be the type of character that people hate just because she's a woman, yet if she were a man those same aspects of her character would be praised or whatever. Idk, I think it's stupid when that happens to female characters and I think there should be more characters like that just to spite those people. I also really like drawing her fluffy hair and I think her color scheme is neat too. I can't see something purple without thinking about her now.

Tay:

What I like most about him is that despite everything I put him through (because he's really just an emotional punching bag for me at this point, lol) is that he hasn't let it completely corrupt him. Like he definitely could've snapped and just become the biggest piece of shit ever or a monster of a man, and yet he didn't. Like, he's not perfect, and he still makes mistakes, but the things his moms taught him about life and love persist. That and he's fun to draw.

🎓 How long have you had the OC?

Jung + Viram + Tay:

I made this trio all around the same time of March of last year. It was while S3 of TBB was still going and Crosshair was going through it, so I was like "Hm, I should give him a boyfriend to cheer him up" and then I made Tay. And if you give a mouse a cookie... After making Tay, I decided to complete the set (since Phee and Khea existed) and made Jung and Viram shortly afterward!

Here are their original sketches!

Khea:

I scrolled through all my Google photos to find when I initially made Khea because I know I've had her for about two years but didn't know the exact date. Now I know - sometime around May 2023 was when I like did my initial headshot sketches for her

Which are these ones!

Again, thank you for the asks! I really appreciate i!

Here's the OC Ask list if y'all want it! 🩵💫

[stoopid-turtle]

made-up mbti types for dd and gg

So the GQ event that dd attended recently (you know, the one with the love hat) was supposedly gonna share his MBTI type with us. I don't think they ever did, probably because dd just didn't do the test thing. I'm not surprised we never got to see his mbti type, but I did have my own guess as to what he'd score, so I figured I'd share here.

(As a note, MBTI is pretty much junk science but it's fun. Just don't take it too seriously. I used to be really into it in a fannish sense and it's the closest I get to woo-stuff. If you don't know what MBTI is, here have fun.)

Cut to the chase: I'd guess dd is ISFP. My reasoning below the cut.

Introvert - The best way I've found to describe the difference is that introverts recharge by being alone. That is, a weekend full of social engagements is something they need some alone-time after. For an extrovert, social events, themselves, recharge them. Being alone is what's exhausting and what they try to avoid.

DD's probably rarely fully alone, given his busy schedule and the life of a celebrity. But introverts have ways to introverting, even among a bunch of people. I think sometimes people conflate "introvert" to mean "shy", but they're not the same. I don't think dd is particularly shy. It's just all about where your energy comes from.

Sensing - This one is about how you process information.

As an illustration, my bff and I were on a road trip once. She's the type who liked to literally pull over a smell the freaking flowers. And she could name every single flower/plant/tree she came across. Her eye for detail and ability to describe things with precision is always boggling to me, because to me, the most I can say is something like "It was sunny and the trees are green". Very vague. All about the overall impression rather than the details.

In MBTI terms, my bff would be Sensing while I'm Intuition (this is the N. Just go with it). Intuition folks are thought of as the big picture, abstract thinkers while Sensing is about the details and about the Facts of the World.

I mentioned before that dd strikes me as a pretty literal thinker, and that type of thinking overlaps with Sensing more than Intuition.

Feeling - People get confused by this one. It's not about whether the person expresses emotions or anything like that. It's about decision-making. When making a choice, does this person weigh the pros and cons? Try to come to a reasonable and sound decision? Or do they go by gut, following their emotions like animes tell them to?

This is hard to assess because we don't know much about how dd goes about making the decisions he makes. We don't know what went into his decision to go into idol training, say, or why he put his hat in the ring for The Untamed.

I'm making a guess that he's more driven by emotion than thinking. This isn't to say he acts blindly without any thought or that he never makes rational decisions, but he weighs his feelings highly. He'll pursue a gay romantic relationship with another celebrity, despite the risks, because he's in love and, you know, he follows his heart. His decision to submit his headshot for The Untamed, especially, strikes me as being Feeling-driven. Given his career at the time, acting in a BL adaptation was off the beaten path and risky. He lost fans because of it.

I think both gg and dd make a feelings-based decision to drop candies for turtles. There's no rational business case to do so. It's simply because they value having a group of fans who recognize them as a couple and they want to keep those fans with them.

Perceiving - This one's about how you plan or organize your time (or don't).

Judgers are the type to have a planner with a set schedule a routine. They have trouble adapting when their schedule gets disrupted. Perceivers are more go with the flow, able to take things as they come. When taking vacays, they would rather not have a packed itinerary bc they want the freedom to go where the moment takes them.

This is also something I don't feel I have a lot of insight on. DD's schedule is heavily managed and heavily packed, and he spends most of his time diligently following along with that schedule. That's part of his job, though. On his own, would he be inclined to keep to a schedule? I kinda don't think so.

I'm just going based on his...um...general chaotic energy. That and his tendency to do his KPI social media posts all at the last minute. Classic Perceiver move.

***

So, ISFP. In truth, each of these traits is a spectrum and people show examples all along the different traits at different times (for instance, dd's decision-making in SDC is typically strategic rather than based on feelings). Most things are based on context. But this feels right to me, overall.

For gg, I haven't watched near as much of him as I have of dd, but a guess would be INFJ.

Feel free to share your own ideas. Or squee about the love hat. Whatever. 🐢🐢🐢

[tbnrpotato]

Our Own Choices

Chapter 2

Clone forces rally. As the war escalates in the Outer Rim, the Jedi Knights are spread thinly across the galaxy.  Many new clones are rushed into service to support their Jedi generals. Unfortunately, because of the relentless demands of battle, many young clones must join the struggle before their intensive training has been completed. These clones, manning a vital network of tracking stations, are all that stand between the Republic and invasion.

I gotta admit, training isn't fun. Rex says it's hard at first, but I'll get used to it. Rex and some other troopers from the 501st train me, and physical training is a literal nightmare. When I wake up the next day my limbs feel like they're gonna fall off. To be honest, it would be better if they did.

I haven't seen Kix after that first time we met, and I haven't interacted with any of the other clones either.

"We want as few clones as possible to know that you were a deserter," Rex says.

"What's a deserter?" I ask him.

"Someone who left the army without permission. People like you."

"But I'm back now, right?"

"Still, we should be cautious."

Most of the time Rex isn't around for my training, he's planning battle strategies with the Jedi Generals and out in the field. 

There's one time Rex comes back from the Battle of Christophsis and he tells me General Skywalker has a new padawan.

"She really thought since she was a commander she outranked me." Rex and I sit on a bench at the side while I'm taking a break from my training. 

"I'm guessing she doesn't, because-"

"In my book, experience outranks everything."

"In your book, experience outranks everything."

Rex and I say it at the same time. Rex chuckles and pats my head. "I see you've at least learned something from me."

"How could I forget that one line you say at least once a week?"

"You got a point kid."

"If experience outranks everything, then why won't you let me get out in the field to get experience?" I ask, probably for the 4th time that week.

Rex's expression hardens. "We had this conversation before, kid. It's too dangerous out there for you for now, you gotta focus on your training first, and when I say you're ready to get out there, you can join me and the boys in the 501st. Got it?"

I roll my eyes, sighing. "Fine."

Rex hands me a few credits. "Go get yourself some new clothes when we land on Coruscant tonight, okay? Your old ones are getting a bit tight." And then he pats me on the back and walks off.

I put the credits in my pocket and get back to training.

I'm still better using a knife than a blaster, but I'm pretty decent with a sniper as well, my long-distance aim with a pistol is shitty, but in close range I can get a good headshot in. 

Rex let me keep my knife, and he even got me a larger one which looks a lot more like a sword, the orange highlights on it match the ones on my old knife. 

Recently, Rex and Cody have been checking the Republic outposts for inspection, and I haven't seen Rex in weeks. 

When Rex finally arrives back on Coruscant, I'm already standing at the hangar waiting for him, crossing my arms.

"What took you so long?" I ask.

"I told you that it was gonna be a few weeks," Rex sighs. "Nice hoodie you got there, by the way."

"Thanks. And what did you say about teaching me how to use those deflector pucks for trick shots before you left?"

"I said that was after you mastered shooting a pistol." 

"But I already have! I can get a headshot from like 3 meters away." I protest.

"3 meters isn't far. You'll be shot down by clankers before you could even get that close."

"Aw cmon, captain, at least give me a demonstration," I smirk. I know he hates it when I call him "captain".

"No time for that. Commander Cody and I are going to the Rishi outpost in a few minutes, I was just checking in on you."

"Oh, how kind of you," I reply, before walking away.

Once I see Rex turn his gaze away from me, I run behind a box near the ship, and wait for Rex and Cody to get into their ship. As the door of the ship starts to close behind them, I slip in at the last second quietly and hide in the darkness, hoping that no one heard me.

As the ship lands on Rishi, the lights at the back of the ship, where I am, turn on. I draw a quick breath, there's nowhere to hide, and Rex and Cody are coming. So I stand up and smile awkwardly.

"Hi guys."

"Kid, what are you doing here, I told you to stay on Coruscant and train," Rex sounds annoyed.

"Who's the kid?" Cody asks.

"Hey commander, name's Aris, I'm basically like the captain's secret trainee," I say, casting a quick glance at Rex, who puts a hand to his forehead and groans.

"I never thought Rex would personally train a kid like you," Cody says. "Where'd he find you?"

"We-we can explain that later, let's just get this inspection over with first," Rex says hastily.

"Just don't get in the way, alright kid?" Rex asks, not waiting for a reply and walking out of the ship with Cody. I follow behind them.

They're busy complaining about having no deck officers on duty here at the outpost, and that the clones here are sloppy. I don't think they are. Something feels off. I can see faint lights coming from behind the boxes, and I don't really think that's normal. I quicken my pace and move closer to Rex.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Cody says as the door to the outpost opens and a clone walks out.

"Welcome to Rishi, commander. As you can see, the outpost is operating at peak efficiency. Thank you for visiting, and have a safe trip back," the clone says, with some weird-ass hand movements. Something's definitely off, and both Rex and Cody glance at each other.

"We need to inspect the base just the same," Cody says.

"Uh, there is no need," the clone says. "Everything is fine and fully operational."

I pull at Rex's arm. Rex nods back at me.

"Take us to the sergeant in command," Rex says.

"Roger roger."

Rex and Cody look at each other, and I'm slightly confused. Suddenly, I see a flare rising up behind us.

It's a droid attack flare, I was just taught that a few days ago.

"A droid attack flare," Cody and I say at the same time. Rex shoots that clone in the head, and he falls to the ground.

"Woah, Rex, what the heck are you doing?" Cody sounds alarmed.

I don't say anything as Rex goes to inspect the body.

"Relax," Rex says as he takes the helmet of the clone, revealing a lifeless commando droid under the helmet. "Looks like one of those new commando droids."

"That flare must have come from the survivors," Cody says.

Suddenly, blaster shots come from all directions and Rex and Cody start firing.

"Get behind me kid," Rex says as he dodges a blaster bolt. I don't protest, staying as close to Rex as I can. Just the sound of blaster bolts whizzing over my head is enough to make my blood run cold. It's not the same as in training. If I get shot here, I will most likely die.

Some of the commando droids are using the boxes to shoot from the high ground. Cody manages to get a few shots on one of them, but they just get back up again.

"Those clankers have tough armor," Cody exclaims. 

I run as fast as I can behind a box to take cover, covering my ears and closing my eyes tightly, curling up into a ball. I can almost feel the shot on my shoulder again. My breathing quickens.  Rex and Cody go to take cover where I am.

"We're cut off," Cody says, he and Rex keep firing at the droids. His voice sounds muffled in my head.

"Get me outta here...get me outta here..." I whisper to myself, pressing my knees to my forehead.

And then I hear the sound of grenades landing near our area and Rex grabs my arm, shoots a grappling hook to the platform and lowers us down to the ground. Cody's next to us as I hear an explosion.

When my feet touch the ground, I lean against a rock to stabilize myself, my legs are shaking, my shoulders are tensed, I just stare straight ahead, breathing heavily.

"Kid, are you okay?" Rex puts a hand on my shoulder. "Are you hurt or anything?"

I look down at the ground, avoiding eye contact. 

"Aris? Look at me. Are you okay?"

I look up at Rex. "I shouldn't have come."

"Yea, you shouldn't have. But you're here now, and you're still alive, so I'd count that as a win," Rex smirks.

I nod, trying to slow my breathing down, my shoulders relaxing slightly. 

"This is just like training, okay? Don't worry about it."

Rex turns to Cody. "Well this sure complicates things, Commander. No worse than that time on Tibrin."

"We had jedi with us on Tibrin," Cody says as we stare at the flaming wreckage of the ship. "They helped."

"What...happened on Tibrin?" I speak up in a small voice.

"Not now kid," Cody snaps, and I go quiet again.

3 clones walk towards us through the smoke of the wreckage, and Rex and Cody raise their blasters at them. "Hands above you heads. Take your sun bonnets off."

I think he means helmets. But seriously? Sun bonnets? You couldn't come up with something better?

My hand reaches for the pistol at my belt as I stand behind Rex and Cody, wondering if I should follow them and point my gun at the clones.

"Uh, sir?" One of the clones sounds confused.

"Take them off. Now!"

The clones raise their hands in surrender, take their helmets off, and they're not droids.

Suddenly, an really big eel-like thing crashes through the rocks at our side and roars at us. I stand there frozen while Rex shoots the thing and kills it in one shot.

Rex takes off his helmet and goes to check whether the eel is dead. 

"Nice shot," one of the clones says.

I back away from the eel's body but behind me is darkness and I don't wanna get ambushed by any more droids, so I just stay close.

"The name's Rex," Rex says as he checks the eel's body. "But you'll call me "Captain" or "sir"."

"Sir, yes sir!"

I really don't wanna talk to Rex when he's like this. I have a slight fear or superior authoritative figures.

"I'm commander Cody, your new boss," Cody says as he takes off his helmet.

I smile awkwardly and wave at the 3 clones. "Hi..." 

They ignore me. 

"My designation is trooper 27-5555, sir," one of the clones says. 

"We call him Fives. I'm Hevy. This is Echo." Hevy points to the last dude.

"Where's your sergeant?" Cody asks.

"Dead, sir. We're all that's left," Echo says.

"Looks like we got a batch of shinies, commander," Rex says as he walks up to the clones.

"Shinies, sir?"

"That's right. Your armour, it's shiny and new, just like you," Rex says.

At least they have armour.

"Sir, me and my batchers are trained and ready. We'll take back our post, shiny or not."

"There's hope for you yet, rookie," Rex says.

"Hey kid. You're not supposed to be here. It's dangerous."

I look up, Hevy's talking to me.

"I know, I was following the captain along without his permission, cause I thought I could get some experience here, but..." I look down, my voice is soft.

"It's scarier than you thought it would be?" Echo asks.

I nod. "I wanna go back."

"Well, you can't get everything you want, kid. And if you're looking for some experience, you're sure gonna get a lot of it here," Hevy says. "What's your name?"

"Aris."

"Like the leader of the 504th Legion?" Fives asks.

"Rex named me after her."

"You look like a clone. Are you?" Echo asks.

"Mhm. Female clone. Wasn't meant to exist, but here I am. Made to be physically weaker than the others." I chuckle, looking down. "But I'm definitely not weaker. I'm equal to them."

"Alright boys, keep quiet and follow me," Rex says, before starting to climb up a ledge. 

The others all follow, and I'm at the back. 

Okay. You can do this. Just like training.

I take a deep breath and start climbing.

Don't look down, don't look down, there's no harness, just don't look down and don't fall or you're gonna become a piece of roti prata and die-

I cling onto the rock that I'm climbing on tightly, and I make the mistake of looking down. My whole body tenses up, and I draw a few quick breaths before looking back up again. I can feel the sweat running down my face. My arms are shaking. All I can hear is my heartbeat now.

After what seems like forever, we make it up to the top of the ledge, and Hevy helps me up. My breaths are shaky as I wipe the sweat off my face.

"Look sharp, rookies," Rex says. "As long as those tweezers occupy this post, our home planet of Kamino is at risk."

I look up. Kamino? 99's still there, isn't he?

"But there's so many of them," Hevy says.

"Doesn't matter, kid. We have to retake this base, so we will retake this base."

"How do you propose we get through those blast doors, Rex, old boy?" Cody asks.

"I have a few ideas."

I gently tug at Rex's arm.

"What is it, kid?" Rex asks, turning to face me.

"Can I...sit this one out, sir?"

"Look kid. We need all troopers for this. Including you."

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna die. I'm scared."

Rex puts both hands on my shoulders. "You're not gonna die kid. You'll be fine. What happened to getting experience, hm?" He playfully punches my shoulder. "You'll be okay. I promise. Just remember your training, okay?"

I take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves. It's not working, but I don't show it, and I nod. 

We reach the front blast doors of the outpost and Cody and the others hide at the sides, so I follow them, pistol in one hand and my vibrosword in the other.

Rex walks up to the front door.

"Unit 2-6, is that you?" the commando droids in the outpost ask. 

"Roger roger," Rex says.

"You sound strange. Is something wrong with your vocabulator?"

"Roger roger."

"Take off your helmet. Let me see your faceplate."

"Roger roger."

Rex ducks and uses the commando droid's head from just now and shows it to the camera.

"This is never gonna work," Cody puts a hand to his helmet.

The blast doors open and Rex holds up his pistol.

"Clones!"

"Roger, Roger."

Rex takes out the droid in the middle and the others take out the remaining 2.

"Right, let's move."

The others run into the main room and take cover at the sides, shooting at the droids. I stay behind and take cover from the main hallway, not looking behind me. I can see blaster bolts whizzing past me, but they're not going to hit me.

I hear Fives getting shot and Cody telling them to focus. I look back and see Rex in the main room, where a commando droid is trying to melee him.

I draw my vibrosword and run into the main room as Rex dodges the swings of the droid, and I slice the droid in half from behind. The others take out the last 2 remaining droids and the room is clear.

"Thanks kid," Rex gives me a downwards nod of respect.

I sling my sword back onto my back and lean against a wall at the side while the others roast the droids that they just shot down.

"Get to the window. It looks like we have more visitors," Cody says.

We all run to the window and look outside.

"It looks like a separatist fleet."

"That's why the commandeered the outpost," Cody says. "They're mounting a full-scale invasion."

"We have to warn command," Rex says.

"Shouldn't we hide? If they're gonna mount a full-scale invasion we don't stand a chance," I speak up, and everyone stares at me. "What? I'm telling the truth."

One of the clones goes to try and transmit a signal. 

"Those clankers sabotaged our transmitter, and they hard-wired the all-clear signal. It'll take time to-"

"We don't have time. Look."

A ship is descending in front of the outpost.

"Guys we really should go," I'm making my way towards the vent, ready to run.

"Well kid, you're gonna get a lot of experience from here," Echo says.

"We can't protect the outpost long against that army of clankers," Cody says.

"Then we'll destroy the outpost instead," Rex says.

"But sir, our mission is to defend this facility at all costs."

"We have to warn the Republic about the invasion. They'll take notice when the all-clear signal stops."

"That's right. When they stop receiving our beacon, they'll get the message something's wrong," Fives says.

"We'll need every thermal detonator in the inventory," Rex says.

I slowly open up the vent cover, ready to slip inside.

"It'll take more than a few detonators to destroy the outpost."

Then someone suggests an idea to blow up the outpost using liquid tibanna.

"Good. Bring the tanks here and prime the detonators," Rex orders.

Just as I'm about to slip into the vent and run away, Rex notices me.

"Hey kid, don't think about going anywhere."

I freeze, looking up at him.

"I have no interest in dying today," I reply. 

"I thought you weren't weak?"

So I help the boys carry the explosives to the main room as I hear the battle droids marching towards the front gate.

When we manage to get it all to the main room, Rex and the others gather around, and I stand behind Fives, Echo and Hevy.

"Alright listen up. There's only one target of interest in this sector: Kamino. It's the closest thing we clones have to a home. Today we fight for more than the Republic. Today we fight for all our brothers back home. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

Rex looks at me.

I take a deep breath and steel myself for the high possibility of dying. "Sir, yes, sir." 

We head into the weapons room where the others take their weapons. My hand rests on my pistol, and the other on my vibrosword. I turn to Rex, who's making his way to the main room. He nods at me.

I can feel my heart in my throat now, and it must have been pretty obvious to Cody, because he puts a hand on my shoulder and says,"We're gonna survive this kid. Trust me.

Hevy goes to the front and takes out a bunch of battle droids with that gatling gun of his, and then Cody, me and the others come in. 

I shoot at the droids with my pistol and blaster bolts narrowly miss me, and everything's going so fast, I can't comprehend what's going on.

One of the clones throws a grenade at the battle droids, knocking most of them off the platform while the rest of us fall back, closing the blast doors.

They get blown up from outside and the battle droids enter, still shooting at us, and I run into the main room, with the others following behind after a few moments.

I hear Rex say that the handset wasn't linking up with the detonator, and Hevy says he'll handle it, telling us to get out of here.

We run to the vents and crawl through them, with Rex leading the way. We reach the outside in a few minutes, hiding behind a ridge.

"Hevy, hit the-" Rex looks behind, and Hevy isn't there.

"Where's Hevy?"

Echo and Fives shake their heads.

Rex talks into his comlink. "Hevy, get out of there."

"The remote isn't working," Hevy reports. "I have to detonate it manually."

I move to run back into the vents and try to make it back to the outpost, the others follow me. I'm running as fast as I can, and crawl into the vents, trying to make it back.

I hear the others trying to contact Hevy, but they're not in the vents yet. I gotta get there.

And then I hear the sound of explosions and debris falling, the vents shake, and I curl up into a ball, covering my head.

When the shaking stops, I open my eyes, and I see Rex pulling me out of the vents.

"You okay kid?" Rex asks.

I nod, staying close to him as we head back to the others.

Hevy's gone.

"We've got those tinnies on the run," either Fives or Echo says, I can't really tell. 

"Thanks to Hevy."

I hear the sound of gunships descending.

"We're getting of this crater boys," Rex says.

We all get on the gunships, and I remain silent for the whole trip back to the cruiser.

Fives and Echo are getting some random award thing from General Skywalker, and Rex says he's considering adding them to the 501st. I head back to the barracks and just chill there for awhile, thinking about everything that's just happened. It all feels so fast.

About an hour later, Rex comes in.

"Hey kid, how're you doing?"

I remain silent.

Rex sits down next to me.

"Yknow if it wasn't for Hevy, we wouldn't be here right now," he says.

I nod, staring up at the ceiling. "I shouldn't have come."

"Yea, it's a lot more different than training, isn't it?"

"It's so...scary, my mind just goes blank, and I forget everything I learned during training. Being a soldier's hard."

"The first few battles are always like that, but...you'll get used to it."

"I'm not gonna be in another battle. I'll just stay on Coruscant and continue training. That's what you want, right?"

"Hm. I could let you come on some of the less dangerous battles, how about that?"

I hesitate. I can almost imagine the sickening feeling in my stomach when the outpost blew up, when I realised that Hevy was gone. I can almost feel my heart pounding in my head every time I see live fire whizzing past my head, when I narrowly miss death by an inch.

I sit up and look at Rex.

"I don't wanna go."

Rex looks at me, confused. "What?"

"I'm done with being in battles. I'm not going to fight out there in the field anymore. I'm done. I'm leaving."

Rex sighs. "Look, ad'ika-"

Fives and Echo come into the barracks. 

"Hey kid, how're you doing?" Echo asks. "You were pretty good out there with your knife and your pistol."

I look up at him.

"I know what you're thinking, kid. You wanna leave after your first skirmish, and to be honest, I can't argue with that. It's a hard life, being a soldier."

I nod.

"But we're fighting for the Republic, for a cause that we believe in. Out there, we gotta be strong, we can't show weakness, and we show those clankers what we're made of, got it?"

I nod again, and Echo and Fives walk away.

Can't show weakness. They always said I was made to be weaker than the others. Gotta prove them wrong.

I turn to Rex.

"Maybe I'll take a few weeks on Coruscant to train and prepare myself, and then maybe I'll consider coming along on those less dangerous battles."

Rex smiles, and nods. "Okay then ad'ika, we've got a ship leaving for Coruscant in a few hours, and I'll see you in a few weeks."

"What does ad'ika mean?" I ask.

"You already know, kid. All clones do."

I roll my eyes. "Fine. Cya, captain."

Rex groans.

"And for the last time, DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

[quickdeaths]

@more-than-a-princess

With the person she was intending to meet running late, Shinobu sat upon the bench at the train station, waiting. Too often did loitering in a public place seem to others as an invitation to approach her with confessions or date requests, so looking occupied was a (mostly ineffective) attempt to stave off such behavior. In this instance, they held their phone in their hands, trying to determine what sort of message might be appropriate for the situation at hand. For now, at least, she recognized the importance of composing the message in full before ever typing, rather than subject the recipient to the endless triple dots should she happen to be looking.

[Yaguchi]: Miss Nevermind, I wanted to express my appreciation for the chocolates you sent me the other day. They were both thoughtful and delicious. [Yaguchi]: I regret that I couldn't see you on the day in question, but as you may have heard, there was a certain unpleasant incident that kept me rather occupied well into the evening. [Yaguchi]: I'd hoped to see you and convey my appreciation in person later, but it seems it's been quite the busy week for both of us. [Yaguchi]: Ideally, I'll be able to meet with you and Anzu later tonight, but in the event that it's impossible for me to do so, I wanted to speak with you before the distance between then and now became too great, and I appeared ungrateful. [Yaguchi]: In any event, I wish you and Anzu a pleasant evening.

The message was regrettably long, but there wasn't much Shinobu could do about it. There were enough things that warranted mentioning that it simply required a series of messages. Still, even after saying that much, Shinobu wondered if there was yet more to say. "Shinobu-san!" The introspective moment was broken by the sound of a familiar voice. It seemed there would be no time for further messaging, with Shinobu looking up from her phone to see the person she was meeting disembarking from the train. "I hope you weren't waiting for me long. Are you ready to go?"

"Girls' night!" Anzu declared with a small laugh, walking behind her new friend with a cheery, carefree expression. "I'm glad we could do this, Sonia-san. It's gonna be so much fun!" With the majority of her friend group being 'old people who worked at the theater' and 'Shinobu-chan exactly,' it wasn't like there were many people who would come with her to a host club, or really anywhere she liked to go. She really enjoyed the nightlife, and while there was a limit to the kind of messy fun she could get into when accompanied by Sonia, whose reputation was important enough to be worth protecting, it was still nice to have a friend around.

As they approached the club, Anzu pointed out the sign, a large, fancy, silver banner over the entrance that read SHOOTING STARS in English, with NAGAREBOSHI in smaller kanji between the two words. A moderately classy display beside the door featured the establishment's social media accounts, testimonials from local entertainment figures (including, perhaps, a certain Kohaku Goto XII herself) and headshots of the most popular hosts. It was the photographs in particular that most drew Anzu's attention.

"That's one of our classmates in 77-B," she explained, pointing to the only woman among the hosts, a handsome girl with short blue hair and a classy vest over a short-sleeved button-up shirt. "Rui-kun! She's the Ultimate Host." How exactly an underage girl had won that title two years ago, Anzu wasn't sure, and wasn't going to question. In a lot of cases, HPA students were just that exceptional, to the point where normal rules didn't seem to apply to them. Or maybe it was the case that rather than the 'talent' that everyone talked so much about, the core of being a Hope's Peak Academy student was more about 'going so far as to accept no obstacles in the way of one's dreams.' Or not. Anzu wasn't smart enough to think about those kinds of questions.

"She and Shinobu-chan don't really get along, but she's not a bad person," Anzu explained, taking one last look towards the display before leading her friend into the club. Shinobu didn't get along with most people, so Anzu didn't necessarily think of it as a disqualifying factor. The club's interior was cleaner and more presentable than many others of its kind, not that Sonia might have much to compare it to. Rather than the neon pinks or sultry reds of a lot of clubs, Shooting Stars kept a comfortably mellow blue aesthetic, paired with classy blacks and clean whites. Comfortable plush booths surrounded small, round tables that nearly sparkled, the ceilings dotted with perhaps too many chandeliers. A presently-unused stage sat in the back of club, and at this early hour, only a few seats were filled with women in dresses or businesswear, some looking like they may have come straight from the office. The working men, similarly, presented a fairly unified image - nice clothes, trendy haircuts, far more jewelry than most men.

Standing at the front of house was an older man by the standards of the district, likely around 30, with glasses, a dark suit, white gloves, dark hair pulled back into a short ponytail. "Welcome, treasured guests, to Shooting Stars," he said with a smile and a polite nod, first to Sonia, then to Anzu. "Anzu-san, it's been too long. Thank you for thinking of us, and bringing a friend." Anzu nodded, beaming. "Hey, Monsieur. I have an appointment tonight, with Rui-kun." At that, the man's smile faltered only a bit. "Ah... I'm afraid your prince is in another castle." That the actress showed no reaction to the reference seemed to dampen his spirits. "Er... Rui-san is, unfortunately, out tonight." He leaned in, speaking more quietly. "Her younger siblings are ill, and she seemed concerned about them. I sent her home, rather than have her worry all night."

Anzu frowned. "Oh... Well, I guess that's a good reason." The man straightened back up. "I'm sorry for you and your friend to have come all this way, but if you'd like to stay, I'm happy to offer you a small discount?" He motioned towards one of the nicer-looking open booths. "If the two of you would like to take a seat, I'll join you in a moment to figure out what we can do for you instead." Disappointed though she was at Rui not being there, Anzu nodded. "Alright. Thanks, Monsieur." Leading Sonia towards the offered booth, she sighed. "Sorry, Sonia-san. I wanted you to meet Rui-kun, but I guess she's not here tonight. Did you think any of the guys on the display were especially hotsexy?"

[lacomandante]

im sure you explained it somewhere, but how did you end up getting the chance to stay and work with assumpta? that is just amazing!

It's a really weird story, but I made a post (I forget which site it was, maybe insta) about how much I liked Teresa and the Sharpe series, and Assumpta's husband, Scott, ended up finding it LOL. He was really kind and sent me her email to reach out to her...which took me about 8 months to write (and Sam of course edited the email so I wouldn't sound cringe :P). Assumpta got it and from there added me and followed me and naturally I was freaking out LOL. I would always be so nervous and have no idea what to say, or if what I wanted to send was fine (and it literally was completely normal I was just freaking out over getting the chance to talk to her LOL). She wanted to meet for coffee when I came to Spain, we planned for it in the spring of 2020.

Which...did not happen. It wasn't until last year I got to go. I had been saving up since 2018 so that was like 5 years of waiting. Since 2018 though I had been collecting a lot of her films because I was rping Teresa (this is technically an rp blog for those who've recently followed me and don't know LOL). I wanted to find new films for icons, and I was learning Spanish, so it was really helpful and immersive for me. So that's how I started collecting her really hard to find films. I sent a few to her and she hadn't seen them since they premiered in the 90's, and she was so happy I made it my goal to find as many as I could!

Over the years she kept asking me when I was coming, and my voucher for my airline ticket was expiring soon, so Sam and I made plans to go in spring of 2023 :) The offer of coffee changed to dinner at their place. I ended up giving her a big hard drive of all the films I had found (and other gifts), in chronological order, which amounted to like, 80+ films and television shows, from 1976-1995. Instead of shock, she held the checklist I made for her and noticed the one's that were missing. She was like "Oh, I have that one. And that one. And that one too." They led me to their bedroom office and to a giant treasure trove of shelves filled with nothing but boxes and boxes full of her works, her call sheets, headshots, etc, soooo much stuff. It turns out she really did have those missing films, but they're in formats that are so old now there's not many places that can convert them into a watchable format :(

But there was so much to go through, and we had dinner with them twice, that they offered to let me come back in the fall of 2023 to organize and archive a lot of it, so that's what I did! I was there for about two and a half weeks in their apartment, working day and night essentially to try and organize and scan things. But with film negatives and slides it's difficult to get the technology to digitalize those things, so it was a slow process. But yeah! It was really fun, even though we were working most of the time (she's a super busy person) we got to go out and do things and have a lot of fun. I'm going back in the spring to help out some more cuz there's still so much work to do!

I just think it's very funny to see my transition from "omggg she's FOLLOWING ME she called me a FRIEND!" to "we have a groupchat and i am completely normal about it now and we work together" LOL.

[shmowder]

SHMOWDER IT WORKED I have successfully replaced the portraits in P1 with the P2 portraits ♥️♥️♥️ My head was spinning at first because my only modding experience has been installing Sims mods, which has prepared me for basically nothing. But I followed a guide, spent a while resizing pictures, and I truly wasn't expecting it to work when I launched the game but IT ACTUALLY DID.

Ngl I wasn't exactly having the time of my life in P1 yesterday. I haven't yet mastered the art of not getting stabbed to death, and I learned that you WILL get infected by plague clouds unless your immunity is at 100% and even then it's a possibility, which is not only evil but also rude, and all the immunity boosters that I have will lower your health and I barely have any bandages, and half the drunks I try to trade with aren't even carrying anything!

I spent so much time save scumming. Before combat, in infected districts, in the burned district (I'm on day 4) because those looters are even worse than the bandits you get at night; I can only deal with them with the shotgun and I don't have much ammo so it's really only worth it if there's a loaf of bread on the first floor.

To add insult to injury I found a girl with a shmowder but I didn't have enough junk to trade!! I did find many more trash cans and bins, and it's really fun to break into and loot regular houses.

In other words, I'm having the typical Pathologic experience :P I will persevere. I feel energized now that I got the portrait thing to work. Some of them were ok but it's just that I need to see my little pixel babies at all times actually safdsjfja; and this may be dumb af but now that I'm playing P1, I don't want P2 to be like... overwritten by it in my mind? Idk, I have a sneaking suspicion that's an unhinged thing to say but whatever.

-

Hehe thank you kindly for mentioning Victor and Yulia when you talked about the traits you assign to each character when writing smut. Getting ahead of me before I could ask lmao. Because I most likely would have >:)

So, Stakh is the least vocal in bed? Yeah, I can see that. Who do you think is the most vocal?

🐿️ anon

Hell yeah! Great job <3 I'm so happy it worked! Moding can be really confusing and exhausting, especially for an older niche game like P1 omfg you must have the patience of a saint to figure it out.

It is kinda surreal hearing you talk about your P1 experience, I never thought I'd really get anyone to play it besides myself. I'm just so happy! I hope you see all the love that was clearly poured into it, I hope you understand just why I fell in love with it, I hope your experience is touching and unique.

And dw, you'll get the hang of everything in time. I struggled a lot, too. Hell, some mechanics I still can't quite master but that's okay. The game surprisingly gives you leeway? There are multiple ways of earing food/money necessary for survival and each of them come with their own costs.

The house looters are much harder than to deal with yeah. Here is my tip, there is usually just one on the first floor. Q.Save outside the door, then get in and try to headshot him while he runs at you. Then Q.save again. Loot the whole ground floor and Q.Save before going up the stairs.

When on the stairs, just make sure to step on the second floor once before immediately rushing downstairs and waiting at the end of a long hall or in a room. Briefly touching the second floor once is enough to alarm the enemy AI of your presence and the looters will go down the stairs to chase you after a short pause.

Sometimes they get stuck on the stairs and you get lucky and can kill them from far away! Other times, they come down normally. But because you're anticipating them at the end of the hallway, headshooting them becomes much easier.

A headshot from a rifle or a shotgun is fatal, but not from a pistol. I know it's annoying to try an aim, constantly having to Q.Save and Q.Load to avoid wasting bullets but it's necessary for your bullet economy to not use more than one bullet per person. using 2 every now and then is okay, although save it for emergencies. However, using 3 is absolutely horrifying and an instant Q.Load.

A loaf bread is actually really worth it. It removes 25% of your hunger, the same as raw meat and raw fish. While being at only a fraction of the price and more commok to spawn. Don't bother eating anything than bread, raw meat and fish. Everything else just sell or trade for herbs. Yes the worms accept food too for herbs and not just human organs! Then after collecting 50 herbs, go to Andrey and trade him for a shotgun which you can sell and buy food with the money.

The immunity thing is true, you can still get infected at 100%. Save your yellow immunity pills however, DO NOT sell them. You'll need around 50 or so for a quest later on.

Don't bother with infected houses until late game when you actually have decent protective gear that prevent plague clouds from infecting you with one touch, you'll still have to evade them tho. Two touches and you're done.

But. If you want to bother with the infected houses for the tasty bullet loot inside. Simply outsmart the system.

Plague clouds and looters positions reset when you exist a house. All you have to do is Q.Save before enterting a house, normally loot the place, even if you get infected dw just ignore the plague clouds and act casual for now. Memorise where the cabinets with the good loot are located inside the house, then Q.Load.

Now be as stealthy and swift as a tiger and immediately run towards the most valuable loot cabinets. After emptying one single Cabinet, rush outside the house before the plague clouds can corner you and Q.Save again. Rinse and repeat after every Cabinet, it will be easy peasy lemon squeezy bc the plague clouds position will reset and grant you more leeway each time.

For knife/fist fighting. Remember to press hit before moving towards the enemy, like much much before it, there is a 1.5 seconds delay between your hit press and when the knife actually lands. Also the place you aim with your vision effects your dmg btw.

So if the crosshair is positioned on their head/neck, the knife will do more dmg and kill them faster.

But if it's on their chest/shoulder, you'll do very little dmg and have to hit them more times.

You also need to immediately back away as your hit lands bc they will attempt to slash you. It takes practice but eventually it becomes a second nature, and trust me mastering mele combat is very important to the Haruspex route.

Never sell your shit to Bad Grief, he always lowballs you. Likewise never buy shit from him that you can buy from other stores.

The tailor above Maria's wing of the crucible pays the most for your items! It's like a 25% margin profit which comes in handy.

Teensy, the shmowder kid, only accepts nuts, flowers, needles and hooks. Try not to trade those items and save them for her, you'll need 10 of each for a shmowder except the nuts which are valued at 2 so you'll need 5. BUT the peanuts are the only nuts which are valued at 1, so you'll need 10 of them unlike the other nuts.

The crowbars you get from killing looters can be traded with the small black haired boy for bullets, it also can be traded with gaurds for raw meat but that offer goes away when the army moves in.

Rifle's bullets are the cheapest to buy, then comes shotguns and finally pistols. Sell any pistol bullets you find, preferably at Maria's tailor and never Bad Grief.

The map lies to you sometimes about certian fences and shortcuts.

Shops inventory are rerolled the first time you enter them for the day, then become permanent until you enter them the next day. You can savescum your way into making shops give you the items you want if you Q.Save before entering them, but after that you'll need to wait for a daily reset at 12am in order to reroll again.

Nuts stay relatively cheap even when the prices rise, and since groceries are useless throughout the game after the first day, I used this method to force each one of them to give me at least one nut. That's like 7 nuts perday if not more. Which guarantees me a shmowder perday without having to scarifice my needles or hooks for teensy since she is the only kid which values nuts at two while trading them with anyone else will come at a loss bc they value nuts at 1.

I'm on day 3 and I already have 6 shmowders! Yes I had to reroll for teensy inventory, which that method works too! but it's ah a bit more complicated? Basically certian numbers of npcs are predertimed to spawn outside once you enter a building, so even if you savescum before existing, it will always be the same npcs.

Which means if you save on a street with two teensy, you can reroll until one of them gives you a shmowder which is a 1/10 drop chance... well in P2 it is 1/10. In P1, it felt more like 1/15 or 1/20 tbh.

And those are good odds! Coming from a gambling addition revoveree who rerolled gacha games for the 0.1% chance of landing an SSR character in the first ten pull. One time I rerolled for a 0.015% dropchance character and somehow got it.

Eitherway! If this is overwhelming then don't worry about any of what I just said and play however you want. But if you truly want tips and to improve then I'll gladly help <3

And... yeah, your fears are true. The two games will muddy each other in your brain and you'll mix up events from them. I was telling something to a friend about Aglay before realising I was completely talking about P1 when they've only played P2. Even I forget where certian info came from anymore.

You can always replay P2, tho. Appreciate the convince of well designed streets. Looks like Yulia actually earned her degree this time around rather than buying it off of amazon.

[this-should-do]

i cant keep my mouth shut about this publically, it is crazy how badly they fumbled halo 4,

like i just got done playing all of halo mcc in less than a wekk, and after going thru everything where at worst the plot felt like a surprise when i got to the end of the game becjz it was so short in the mainlines, or a really cliche divorced man and woman plot, they were always really fun and coherant

but halo 4 jesus christ, the plot felt really bad on so many levels, cortanas arc just felt like it was doing a "ooo scary multiole personalities" ableism, the whole chief is the worlds specialist boy prophecy plot without it even being plot relevant outside one instance becuz of how fast the game goes since they didnt tie it in with the actual climax of the game, and also how badly they keep retconning cortana after the many different directions and strings the ither games left for her, and what the fuck was even up with humans being space faring over a millenia ago, and the way the flood tied in directly co tradicts what the lrevious games set up, and the villain was just so oit of place in the schema of what the halo games are like wow one guy instead of the main antagonist being the ever churning cogs of war and how zealotry forces people to fight eachother rather than those that act as a ruling class (tho ofc theres lits of american militarism exceptionalism inherant to the series so it cant go super hard on that but i can pick up a few pieces) so the villain ehose there for like 5 minutes total in the 8 hour runtime (beat the game in one sitting) and just the everything and the ending just being wack, and theres also issues with how humans vs covenant tie in with the forru ners it just muddies everything really

and god not to mention how ass the ending fight was, completely ofrcing you to fo stuff against the instinct that comes from years of syandard end gight training from even the past halo games, u Have to piddle your way like a pussy killing every enemy you see or you die, and the weapons you have in that section are way worse than other weapons you would normally have access to and the enemies Need headshots or they just dont go down plus the everything of how the prometheans function as enemies that just make them a slog to fight, like halo 4 had some highlights but the games writing really just bogs it down, like it couldve been good cuz it showed eveidence that they really wanted to lean into how being groomed as a child fucked uo spartans and how they viee themselves as people and what theure allowed to feel and bond with others, but there are like one or two total lines about it across the game and then they lay it on way too heavy at the end of the game in a cutscene that it just feels out of place and the callback to the one line about it in an internal "monologue" of chiefs just felt cringe more than anything like, somehow halo3 with its cortana visions felt more effective as a exploration inobtrusively to plot progression of the game of how chief places the worth of others over his life even at the cost of his own if it comes to that and just shows more effectively how fucked his past is as delivered in a expositional way yhan what halo 4 had becuz it was integrated and paralleled the gameplay and was a consequence of the continuous plot of 2 and 3 rather than being 2 whole moments of woag emotions dump that didnt tie in with the story, plus while it was cool having the cool opening cut scene at the beginning of 4 with the whole look child grooming and indoctrination, that plot with the stuff going on with halsey and whatever was going on there just didnt have any closure on her end and the execution of the idras abouy spartans humanity just falls flat, like argh,, 4 sucked ass overall

[midnight-light]

My Persona 5 Royal Experience (Palaces!)

I FINALLY finished playing Persona 5 Royal today and decided to write my thoughts down in a post. I'll start with the Palaces/storyline and THEN get into the character stuff, because that's a lot of stuff to cover I'll split this into two posts, one for the palaces, one for the characters. We'll start with the Palaces. Note, with the palace talk I'll likely end up talking about each palace ruler anyways sooo, yeah. Also, these are just my opinions, I'm not saying you have to agree with me. you've been warned. (HUGE SPOILER WARNING FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T FINISHED PERSONA 5/ PERSONA 5 ROYAL DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOUDO NOT WANT SPOILERS) Kamoshida's Palace!

-Okay, deep breath to contain the burning hatred I have for this man- - With this palace, it was the first palace so I wasn't sure what to expect... - And then I saw the eyesore that was the cognitive Kamoshida in nothing but a cloak and a pink speedo- My eyes have never been so offended by a sight. - Akiren's awakening was really epic though and really got me to start sinking into the game. - I loved the overall look of this palace, it was really good as a beginning palace but maaay have raised the bar a tad too high for the others with all the build up. - Shiho's suicide attempt had me prepping my shotgun in a hurry though, I wanted that man dead after that happened. - Alright time to get this infiltration route- annnnd there's Ann, god we're developing a bad habit of accidentally taking people to the metaverse with us aren't we? - Note, I also made a LOT of "We're in prison Vegeta" jokes during the entire playthrough. - The boss battle tho, THE ABOMINATION that Kamoshida's shadow turned into. - MY EYES, if I thought Shadow kamoshida was bad? THIS WAS WORSE. He was THE MOST disgusting shadow I'd ever SEEN. - Overall though loved this castle, it really set the stage for what was to come.

Madarame's Palace

-Alright onto Madarame, this one was...interesting.

-Getting it out of the way now, the nude painting incident had me in TEARS from how hard I was laughing.

-The sheer defiance of gravity that building displayed though certainlly left an impression.

-Unlike Kamoshida's palace, which quickly made me feel a burning need to destroy kamoshida almost immediately and increase as progression into the palace continued...

-This was a delayed urge to murder.

-I mean yes- he did plagarize and use his own students work, but by my standards, NOT the scummiest thing you can do. -Now when I learned about the stuff with YUSUKE'S mother, all bets were off, I was MAD after that. Not to the levels of Kamoshida, but mad nonetheless.

-Yusuke's drop in outta nowhere gave me a good giggle, particularly with him getting headshot by mona after managing to stick the landing. Also accidental team member count; 2 - The first treasure being a red herring was definitely a bit of a twist, but the bigger twist was seeing the true form of Sayuri because for me, that's what made the pieces fall into place. - Also shadow Madarame's transformation didn't freak me out as much as Kamoshida, probably because by that point my brain had become accustomed to weird sights at this point, but that's aside my point. - That point being that I just didn't find Madarame's shadow to be quite as freaky as the first.

Kaneshiro's Palace!

-Welcome to the bank folks! I'm starting straight off the bat with the fact that this palace automatically gets a thumbs up from me because we get Makoto here.

-Also I got one of my favourite personas here, Ame-no-uzume. I used her for quite a bit before I let her go for stronger personas because she had good elemental coverage.

-I found the bank asthetic fun becuase it kinda felt like I was doing an old fashioned bank robbery.

-between breaking security cams and stealing keycards it was pretty fun, until the large rotating lock right at the end of the palace.

-My saving grace is that I was using a guide when I played this game due to it being my first time with a persona game. That and I was recommended to use one while playing by my siblings who had either seen the gameplay and or played it themselves.

-the guide saved me a lot of time with the puzzles in general.

-Oh dear god the boss battle though, I think the piggytron bot gave me trauma.

-Hits like a semi truck and if you don't guard in time say goodbye to your team. - Overall it wasn't a bad palace, I just didn't have the same rage towards the shadow as I usually do. Futaba's Palace

-This palace-

-WHO GAVE THIS PALACE THE RIGHT TO MAKE ME ACTUALLY EMOTIONAL?!

-The fact that we were going into the palace of someone who was willingly let us change their heart was quite different

-but ohmygod the story hit me in my FEELERS

-When you start seeing the pieces of the story and how Futaba was gaslit into blaming herself for her mother's death

-How she sees her room as her tomb, and how heavy the guilt of her mothers death has weighed on her.

-Only for during the boss fight futaba comes INTO her own palace and faces the truth for herself

-Revealing that not only was it not futaba's fault, but that her mother's death wasn't even suicide.

-Seeing her finally face the truth and awaken her persona had me nearly crying

-Little lion girl got her fight back.

Okumura's Palace

-Oh boy, This palace... was a doozy.

-Once I had dealt with Mona having an emo phase this palace became much less stressful

-Holy shit Haru's awkening actually startled me though, I was not expecting CANNONS underneath her personas dress, in hindsight I should have.

-The fact that all of the 'workers' are robots in his cognition says something about how he saw them.

-though I found it so funny that the workers were so pissed with their higher ups that they gave away their bosses weakness and the others weaknesses.

-Dog eat dog work enviroment much?

-The boss fight took SEVERAL attempts for me unfortunately.

-Tbh though I half did NOT believe his apology when he started apologizing. Something just wasn't sitting right with me.

-Turned out THAT wasn't what I should have been worried about, it was the masked person showing up and well, killing Okumura.

-Well, if it isn't the consiquences of my actions?

Sae's Palace

-One of my favourites as the timeline was getting oh so close to the present~!

-I mean, I got to have Akechi in my party (Even if it IS the boring princely facade version) So that was an automatic win.

-Sae showing up basically off the bat and calling us down scared me half to death.

-Also fair my ass she rigged all the games-

-A lot of the games in the casino were interesting to play and simple enough that it wasn't hard to play.

-Though the dark maze was a bit of a pain, relying on the minimap was the easiest way I found to navigate in there.

-Sae: "The amount to cross the bridge is now one million chips!"

Me: BITCH MOVE SAE!!!

-I was mad for all of one minute though as Akechi just broke out the extra card he was told to dispose of.

-The boss battle was interesting, what with the roulette wheel of elements and CHRIST she hurts.

-Oh yes, did I forget to mention the police showing up after you defeat shadow Sae?

-Running from the police was so much fun despite the fact that you've technically already done it at the beginning of the game.

-and also despite the fact that you know in the end you'll just get caught.

-Overall love this palace.

Shido's Palace

-This palace was quite the experience for me.

-For some context, at an earlier point in the game I'd spitballed the idea that Akechi and Shido were perhaps related. Not thinking much of it because I didn't have alot of evidence at the time.

-I was also NOT expecting to get turned into a mouse but it was so cute and fun to run around as mice versions of the phantom thieves that it made up for not being able to defend myself or open doors in that form. At least for me.

-but then the AKECHI confrontation happened, and when he confirmed that Shido was his father, my brain BROKE. I had in no way thought my theory was correct.

-Also, I gotta say it, FERAL AKECHI! I LOVE HIM TO BITS!

-Seeing his second persona and outfit was so epic, I was screaming. DESPITE the fact that I knew Akechi was the one in the black mask for quite sometime thanks to the pancake conversation.

-and the fact that his persona is LOKI THE GODDAMNED TRICKSTER GOD was so perfect for his second persona!

-Then the waitohgodNO- hit as cognitive Akechi showed up, and the real one cuts us off from him.

-THE BOSS BATTLE OHMYGOD-

-I was headbopping the whole time I played that boss fight hearing Rivers in the desert SUCH A BANGER!

-The several different phases to the battle and me sitting there after the final stand like; "Is he down now? okay good."

-The escape had me momentairly scared, because OH GOD NO RYUJI NOT MY GOOD BOI!

Mementos Depths

-Getting it outta my system rq; YALDYBALDY.TM

-Full disclosure? If I saw one more floor puzzle in that place I was going to bash my head in.

-The palace itself was pretty linear and simple to get through, but the boss battle was where it was AT. - winding the way through the depths of mementos full of weird cells and and...zombie people? was strange enough.

-and then that's when I see the golden cuppie that can...talk??? Okay this got weirder, yet interesting.

-OH. Golden cuppie is god? Oh dear. I see how it is. *Pumps shotgun* Not the first time I've thrown hands with god.

-Mementos combining with the real world created what I could only describe as the elephant graveyard from lion king. It was disturbing yet epic.

-When I saw Yaldabaoth's full form though, HOLY SHIT that was actually intimidating!

-I failed this battle at least three times before I finally gave in and picked up a certain persona known for Myriad Of Truths-

-and then the grand finale when joker summons what is basically satan and SHOOTS YALDYBALDY STRAIGHT IN THE HEAD. Screaming went through the ROOF!

-Overall the palace was kinda meh for me, but the boss fight made it worth it.

Dr.Maruki's Palace

-Time to fite god again.tm

-This palace felt different because the palace owner was TRYING to make a positive change.

-But Maruki, being the blind idiot he is, seriously did not see how flawed his plan was.

-tbh though the first few days before I was even in the palace I thought I was on a crack trip. Much confusion. Such wow.

-Another Akechi appearing award. Third semester Akechi is SO good.

-Extra thumbs up for getting to travel through the palace with FERAL Akechi!

-Learning that Kasumi was actually Sumire though got me with my pants down.

-*Sweat drops as I see the large plant bridge maze*

-Surprisingly it wasn't that painful tho, I had expected worse.

-The puzzles in the palace weren't overly annoying and were kinda enjoyable tbh.

-Then there was the garden of eden at the top of Maruki's palace, that was a sight to behold.

-and it also ended up making me think of something else entirely unrelated to persona.

-As sad as Maruki's story was... all bets were off when he tried to make that deal mentioning what would happen to Akechi.

-Yeaaaah that made me mad.

-The boss was on point though, Azathoths appeance was disturbing yet felt kind of fitting in a way.

-and the way it transformed when Maruki managed to evolve his persona into Adam Kadmon

-Eventually followed up with a final bullet to the head, the build up was SO delicious and the ending was satisfying, even getting to physically punch the CRAP out of Maruki before you can escape the palace.

-It, and Persona 5 Royal, was an amazing game.

ALRIGHT FINALLY FINISHED THIS. This ended up way longer than I thought and makes me glad that I chose to put the characters in their own separate post. Hope y'all enjoyed.