#took me all weekend just to get all my mods to work together and i just HFJEHW

[wooldawn]

have some more pointless pics because thats my GIRL

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not inviting my transfem friend to my all girls skinny dipping/camping weekend with my cisfem friends? TW for talking about rape

Okay, so the title leaves out a lot of info, so please read through this before making a judgement. There are four friends in total including me and said tranfem friend who I will call Lilly. I will refer to the other two friends as Nicole and June. This all took place not too long ago.

Also, if you are going to judge me in the comments please call me Nick because I keep getting OP confused with the mod whenever I read through other AITA posts and it hurts my brain [e.g. "Nick you're an AH/NTA/etc" vs "OP you're and AH/NTA/etc"]

Now, onto the story.

The thing about this skinny dipping/camping weekend is that it isn't really a vacation trip but an exercise that Nicole, June, and I have planned as a way to help us get over the hatred and toxic self sexualization of our own bodies that we all develop as a result of rape.

The skinny dipping part is meant to give us a safe space to see other ciswomen with similar bodies in a nonsexualized space, and and to simply have fun while embrace our bodies as something to used to have fun with, not just a disgusting useless object for sex to be acted upon on. The camping part would be for us to regoup, share how we are feeling, if this exercise is working, etc, and to cry together if need be over some smores and hot chocolate.

Lilly, who we didn't know at the time if she is or isn't also a survivor [she isn't], did not know that this is an exercise rather then a get-away. Since telling her was an exercise would out all of us as survivors to her, we elected to just not tell her about the trip all together since we didn't want to hurt her feelings and think she was being excluded from one our girl weekends. However, the day before we left for the trip she found out from Lilly's brother gossiping with her. She texted me asking to be invited, which left me in an very awkward spot.

Not only did I not budget food for a fourth person, but well, even though we could make it work, I know if I invited her we'd have to cancel the exercise aspect and turn an outing that was ment to be healing into just another weekend because while she is a women, she does have penis, which is a body part that is extremely triggering for myself and likely Nicole and June to see. I know that I alone, even in an innocent, fun, platonic environment, seeing a penis no matter who's it on would just cause me flashbacks and a panic attack. Who knows what kind of reactions it would cause Nicole and June.

I felt bad, but not wanting to cancel the exercise and not wanting to tell her it was an exercise because I don't want her to know that I'm, or to out Nicole and June without their permission, as survivors, I just gave her the excuse that I didn't have the money to feed four people and that I will save up a lot this month so next month all four of us can go camping together. She was understandablely hurt since she just thought she was being excluded, and I tried to reassure her, but it didn't really work. I contemplated a way to vaguely tell her it wasn't a typical girl's night, but it all sounded like toxic backtracking and so I just left it as it was.

I told Nicole and June about this and though they felt bad too, none of us saw how else to handle this because none of us want Lilly to know we're survivors. We agreed to take Lilly out to dinner and a spa when got back, and told her these plans, then went on our trip.

It was a very healing exercise for me and Nicole and June, and though all of us felt guilty for lying and excluding her, we all agreed afterwards we needed the trip.

However when I found the time to meet up with Lilly alone for lunch a day after we got back, she understandablely called me out for what see saw as being unreasonablely excluded. She yelled at me, called me toxic, a bad friend, etc, which I don't blame her for because if i was in her shoes, I would have felt just as betrayed and hurt.

I tried to calm her down though and use the budgeting excuse, but she just wouldn't stop yelling which is huge trigger for me. After two hours; being kicked out of the restaurant, driving her home, and brought inside her home, all of which I continually being yelled at, I just couldn't cope any more and broke down into tears while in a half panic and told her that it was a trip for me to heal as a rape victim and Nicole and June we're just there as support to help me since they were the only ones who knew [I didn't want to out them] even though I didn't want her to know because I was so desperate just to not be yelled at and berated anymore.

Lilly calmed down after that then told be she understands but that I'm the asshole for not telling her sooner because while she isn't a survivor herself she would have loved to be there to support me. I tried to tell her I wasn't ready for her to know but she said that was just an excuse to go behind her back and excluded her, and that sometimes I need to suck it up and let people know what's going on. I tried to being up that I really, really wasn't ready, but she just kept calling it an excuse and told me to leave once I apologized a few times. I went home, cried for a while and once I was through having panic attacks I called Nicole and June and told them what had happen.

We talked for a while, and Nicole agreed with Lilly that I should have sucked it up and gave her the story that the trip was for me and they were there for support from the start, and June agrued that Lilly shouldn't have yelled and pushed and accepted that budgeting excuse because sometimes it is that way in real life, where a friend gets excluded in one thing, and that we already told her before we went on the trip that we'd make it up to her.

I feel like an asshole though even now, but with Lilly not responding to any texts or calls for a few days now, and Nicole and June still arguing about who was in the right, and me still feeling extremely emotional and raw from being screamed at, I don't know who to trust to be the judge of if I'm in the wrong or not.

Also while Lilly's yelling does sound kind of bad after writing it down, she does have abandonment issues and us seemingly excluding her likely triggered them. Please don't judge her on that, it wouldn't be fair since I broke down crying and made a baby of myself due to my own triggers and I have learned a lot more coping skills then she has. I promise she is a very sweet and kind person, she just hasn't learn ways to cope with her triggers yet.

I'm not asking if she was the asshole because I know I earn that yellling for triggering her even if it ended up trigginger me, I'm just asking if I'm the asshole for not telling her the trip was for me to heal rather then making an excuse about budgeting being why she couldn't come. Please only judge me, my friends are all great and it's only me who possibly messed up since I'm the one who lied!

What are these acronyms?

[tomurasmoleunderhislip]

Shouta in love headcanons:

Ignore my grammar mistakes/shitty English

It would be pretty easy to notice when he is in love, because yk he's grumpy with everyone else until you appear. Please you can see him relaxing his shoulders, his tone being more gentle, calm and that little soft blush creeping on his face.

He didn't notice at first that he's in love with you until Hizashi pointed it out how he's looking at you and becoming all soft when you are talking to him. I can imagine him telling Hizashi to shut up and would probably deny it all as well he would rather bury himself alive than admit he's in love with you.

I feel like he would be pretty insecure and become a little distand because he thinks he has no chance with you and that you deserve better, but still he would be really sweet towards you.

Mic would mock him 100% and tease him until Shouta smacks him in face with his scarf 💀💀💀.

But yeah he would help you two get together since y'all both are insecure bitches scared of rejection and thinking they deserve better me fr🔥🔥.

One day when school day was over and weekend was starting, Shouta walked up to you and awkwardly asked "Are you free this weekend? If yes would you like to go out with me?"

You were pretty surprised, took you a while to process what was happening 💀

but you accepted ofc and asked him where you two would meet up.

I just know y'all's first date would be either at cat cafe or cinema, and he would pick you up at your place with his car. At first he thought about inviting you at his place but than he changed his mind and thought who tf has first date at eachothers place 😭. Okay but your other dates would be at eachothers place when you two become closer.

He definitely won't confess first since he's awkward as hell, so you will have too. When you confess to him how you feel towards him, man is out of words literally, and suddenly his brain stopped working, wait, so you telling him you felt same this whole time?! Y'all insecure fucks. You got scared for second by his reaction and asked him is he okay. Shouta would be red and embarassed as hell when he realizes he looked like a dumb goat staring at rainbow door. But ya after all that awkwardness you two ended up together finally somehow 😻.

Of course all that awkwardness and shyness will go away after some time dw. If you are introverted like him thas 🔥🔥🔥 he won't have to worry and overthink his ass where would you like to go out on other dates. Like I said other dates would be definitely at cafe or at eachothers place. You two would usually have movie night and stuff like that and it's cheaper so better 💯.

At first he isn't really affectionate would take some time but not too much ofc for him to get comfortable finally. His love language is probably quality time and when together alone psychical affection <3. He doesn't like PDA but it's alright since I don't like it as well.

Likes more to show you his love with actions than with words.

Anyways now for nicknames/pet name's I see most of people saying that he would call his s/o kitten, sorry y'all but I cringe so badly when I hear or read that and I feel like he would be too uncomfortable to call his s/o like that I mean it's so weird and like, yes he's cat person but not a fkn furry or discord mod LMFAO💀.

I kin him so Idgaf what y'all say and this is my opinion 🖤, it would be more accurate that he'd call his s/o: darling, sweetheart, my little bat 🦇 and shit like that, I'd do the same so yasss 🤡.

Napping and cuddling all day together 24/7. He loves spooning you, hugs you from behind while laying together and buries his face in your neck/hair or you just lay your head on his chest. Doesn't mind you spooning him too, he just wants to be with you and nothing else matters, you are the only one keeping him sane.

I feel like Shouta would love it sm when you would shower his whole face with kisses, only when you two are alone ofc. And he gives me a feeling that he'd like to kiss his s/o the most on their forehead, neck and nose but lips too. His kisses are soft and quick most of time yeah. Usually gives you them when going to sleep or work <3.

He doesn't get jealous easily, but can be a little bit protective sometimes. If someone makes you uncomfortable in front of him, he'll put his arm around your shoulder/waist and just stare into their soul, It always works. He just wants best for you <3.

Also where's Aizawa fans? Most of them just disappeared 💀 but okay, hope y'all like this <3.

Writing shit about my comfort charachers becoming my coping mechanism now literally.

[withlovefromsimtown]

Lifa's Life Update (+Sims Progress)

Well it's been a minute, but We're still here & I don't mind.

Things roughly in order:

I fully remapped onto a custom SC4 terrain & rebuilt an entire Sims 2 BG neighborhood to update it to UC (any guesses?), started working on clothing defaults for the aforementioned neighborhood.

Started 2 huge TS2 projects that I may someday finish, completely unrelated to all of that, because I was in Milkshape & I can't control myself.

Had my partner's friends over A LOT, like it seemed like every couple weeks for awhile someone would be crashing in the guest room. (They're my friends too they just... started off as partner's friends lol.)

Barbecued & grilled a lot, because friends & food.

Went to a VNV Nation show with my friend (things that are on the Elder Goth Bucket List lol), made a whole Yeet Weekend outta it & also went to Ikea, Fivebelow, Spirit Halloween, a local outdoor market, & a snowcone stand.

The fucking holidays.

Got sick, part 1.

Surprise, my cat has diabetes & needs 2x daily insulin shots!

More of the fucking holidays.

Got sick, part 2.

2x/month cat checkups to check blood sugar & adjust the dose, for like 3 months.

TX freezes, local friend doesn't have sufficient insulation or central heating in their home to deal with the temps, because TX, & comes to stay with me (with their cat) for a week because I have central heating.

During that week that my friend was here, Mr Diabetes Cat decided to a) eat all the dry kibble out of every bowl, b) refuse wet food at shots time because he was full of dry kibble, & then c) throw up kibble & turn around & pee all over my carpet right after throwing up, which resulted in him not getting his shots that night--they have to be given with food---& getting scheduled an urgent vet visit in the morning. (He's fine, just expensive.)

On the day it actually warmed up outside before it went back to 20 degrees, friend & I did a mini-hike together. We also had food from the Generic Asian Cuisine place (yeah I know, it's Texas though) where we got Pho, Lumpia, & a tofu stir-fry.

I regret having to work during the freezy times, unfortunately.

Partner obtained me a uhh... knockoff Steamdeck handheld? Rog Ally? so I can keep Win7 on my monster computer & also play my dumb ancient murder-aliens 4x RTS game on Steam that I like, but I haven't fixed my mods for it to play it, because I...

Got sick, part 3.

While sick, took Mr Diabetes Cat to his very last 2-week checkup; we're on 3-month checkup schedules now! Because he's stable! Yay!

The entire house is a disaster & I'm still not 100% but I'm back to cooking/cleaning a bit between work at least.

Working on more of the necessary clothing defaults for the TS2 neighborhood I redid.

Planning for March when the entire zoo needs to be vetted again for vaxxing, just gonna wrap the diabetes checkup into that & do everyone's bloodwork at that time also unless something drastic happens. (We do like 2-3 cats at a time over the course of 2 weeks, & then the dog on her own, we're not like... hauling a van of animals to the vet all at once...)

Need to get some of the soft mesh transportation prisons for the cats before then, because the big crate with the lid is about to disintegrate.

[atomarium]

oh my GOD the grinder is so cool, actually the coolest mod ive EVER seen for rainworld yet, its quality and aesthetic and EVERYTHING is so so so cool. holy shit. the music absolutely rocks, the color scheme is haunting, the sound effects gave me nightmares, i love every bit of this region.

how long did it take to make? were there any particular bits that gave you a lot of trouble, either with coding or with rendering etc?

genuinely incredible work, i cant believe how high quality this region is, its just so cool.

I'm so glad you asked I wanted to share this a lot.

The mod took me about two-two and a half months to make. I must note tho I worked my ass of. Working every day 5-7 hours when I had no work and the entire day 16 hours on the weekends. Wouldn't recommend.

The rainwold modding community was pretty damn solid and the resources and tools even more so (thanks mer). Making animated holograms was difficult (thanks mer) took me a day to figure out how to.

The hardest part was the creativity.

I wanted to put more music in, but it remained unused. Out of 7 tracks I myself composed only one got in. And out of 2 Ren made only 1.

I definitely could have added more, I could have made so much more cooler rooms that are more unique. There is an entire subregion scrapped because I couldn't get it the way I like. The "Corrosion". My original idea was an RGB region

Red the crucible

Blue the power rail

Green the Corrosion

Ultimately it was to boring and didn't add a lot so I scrapped it.

There are definitely more hight quality regions. Quality as in how smooth the play and how well they function. If you read the region wiki you will find in trivia that it's held together by hopes and prayers.

The pistons could be better, but I'm not messing with the collision code.

A lot of playtesters on my server had trouble with that.

The rooms could be better. But I deemed them all to be good enough.

There could have been, just like more stuff. Many people want more.

I should defenetly post the unused music

[batgirlzine]

Hello, Batfans!

Mod Kye here.

First and foremost, thank you so much for your patience, and my sincerest apologies for how long this has all taken to wrangle together. I have a handful of long-awaited updates below on previous delays, digital copies today, wrap-up and leftover sales, so please read carefully!

To start, I'd like to issue an apology for the delays this project has suffered over the course of its run and offer a bit of transparency. This year was unexpectedly very hard personally and health-wise, and without going into detail about illness for the sake of sensitivity, took me out of contact on several weeks-long stretches and occasions, leaving my team in the dark without news—and by extension all of you. Such long radio silence and delays are not what you want in a project that deals with people's money, trust and time, and I know it's been frustrating, and for that I'm so sorry. My lack of communication was difficult and monumentally unfair for everyone involved, and I wanted to take a moment to thank Mods Ari and Michi, as well as Kait, for working behind the scenes to keep things running, to update all of you when they could, and for going above and beyond in ways there aren’t words for, when I was unable or unwilling to step up. If any readers are in the zine scene (as regular buyers, or as contributors yourselves) and see them on a project in the future, please check it out, because they’re a force like no other, and will make an amazing experience out of anything they run. They are, quite frankly, the only reason this project was started and finished, and deserve all the support you guys have sent and more for what they went through and accomplished despite the difficulties I caused them, our contributors, and our timeline to you, our customers.

Order Fulfillment

All customer orders were mailed out June 2nd. As I was unable to update BigCartel with tracking at the time, it meant that most of you were not notified. I’m incredibly sorry. I’ve spoken to a handful of folks about their packages this week, but from our internal shipping system, it appears everything was safely delivered. If you have not received your package, or have had any issues with your delivery, please touch base with me at batgirlszine@gmail.com about your order!

Contributor bundles will be going out this weekend, which means it’s time for…

Digital Bundles

An email with a direct link to our wonderful digital bundles will follow this update that just went out in about an hour just to please email spam servers, so please keep your eyes peeled and on your inboxes if you're waiting on that! If you have any issues receiving it, make sure you check spam/junk folders first and then reach out so I can help ensure you receive it!

And Finally, Leftovers!

Last but certainly not least, a final announcement for anyone with a friend or loved one eagerly awaiting getting their hands on the cool book and wicked merch they saw you get recently. Our leftover sales will be opening Wednesday, September 20th! If you know someone who missed out on sales the first time around and would love to support this incredible project, please spread the word—or if you’d like to grab an extra keychain for your collection, we’ll see you then!

A separate post with a full announcement will be made tomorrow to circulate just so it doesn't get lost in the update here.

Thank you so much for reading this far, and for sticking with us and supporting this project.

[elvenbeard]

I was at Phantom Liberty Tour Cologne and this is how it went!

Img: A screen showing Johnny Silverhand with tickets to the Phantom Liberty Tour Cologne and the title "Phantom Liberty Tour - 25. August 2023 Köln"

The following is 100% an expression of my personal views! I experienced the Phantom Liberty Tour event in Cologne as overall extremely positive, I had been very hyped about it in the weeks and days before, and CDPR did not disappoint me in any way shape or form with what they put together! For transparency, I didn’t have to pay for anything beyond my own travel costs and accommodation, everything else was included solely in my application for the event being accepted.

This post is intended as a way to give a glimpse into the experience to everyone who couldn’t go or whose application wasn’t accepted -and I just wanted to share my thoughts xD It was a very small and exclusive event with very limited tickets, and I still feel super priviliged to have been able to go there. I’m aiming to share my experience with everyone reading this now and give you at least a little peek behind the scenes of it all!

We didn’t have to sign any NDAs or such, we only weren’t allowed to take pics/videos or make audio recordings of the showcased gameplay!

If you’re also going to one of the upcoming events in your respective countries, maybe wait reading this until you’ve been there to not ruin any potential surprises! And also, if you don’t wanna be spoilered about anything Phantom Liberty as such, meaning, the actual game and story, but still wanna know about what the event was like: I will put a warning onto sections that contain spoilers for the gameplay, so you can skip those!

How me and my sibling even got invited in the first place

I only learned about this event more or less on accident when my sibling sent me a screenshot of an Instagram post about it XD So, big props to them for giving us both this chance! XD That was back in May, the post said “tell us why we should invite you to the PL tour in Cologne” in its sign-up form. I did, and then waited patiently to maybe hear back from them. Originally, after sending my submission, I received a reply saying that “if you’re invited, we (CDPR organizer team) will get back to you until August 4th “. In my submission I wrote something along the lines of that I’m relatively new to the game and fandom, but it quickly evolved into my new favourite video game and unlocked so much creativity for me, so that I’m making my own mods for it now, create art, and write. My sibling was a fan of the first hour, preordered the Collector’s Edition for PS4 back then, and now we can both simultaneously get hyped for Phantom Liberty. It would be an amazing opportunity if we could also attend this event together!

When I hadn’t heard back by then I accepted that I hadn’t been selected, was a bit sad, but it was alright. But then, a few days later while I was at work, I got an email with the headline “Hey Choomba” and I was like wtf? So, turns out, due to the insane amount of submissions they pushed back the notification day about a week. Around 1,500 people sent applications that the organizers all looked at individually, and only around 250 guests plus team members and special guests were actually present that night. I didn’t know about the delay in response, because I’m not active on social media beyond Tumblr… lemme tell you though, that was such a nice surprise, and I was super happy and would’ve been none the wiser had I not been picked xD

Due to the shorter timeframe though it was now a little harder to find a hotel still, as the PL Tour took place during Gamescom week. So, half of Gaming Europe was already in Cologne for that convention and hotels were scarce. On the one hand, it obviously made sense they put the date this weekend, so the devs already in Cologne anyway could swing by with ease. On the other hand, if you were, like me, definitely not from Cologne or the general area, a little more prep time ahead would’ve been nice.

Still though, my sibling and I still found a somewhat reasonable hotel and drove to Cologne in the early morning hours of August 25th!

Img: The door to the venue with a bright red "Phantom Liberty Tour" banner above the entrance

(cont. below the cut, long post with many pics, beware!)

The Venue, the Queue, the Delay, the Tickets

The sole information we had in advance was an address, to bring our ID cards as they’d make sure we are on the guest list and are 18+ years old. The event would start at 6pm and last until 12am. It said that "cosplays are very much appreciated" so I went in casual cosplay as Vince, because why the hell not XD But that was it in terms of what we knew about what was going to happen.

At around 5.20 p.m. we were at the location given to us via E-Mail. Parking was eh, but alright, we found a space close by, and as we drove past the venue, they were just in process of setting up their flag and banner. So yay, we’re in the right place! :D

Img: The black CDPR flag above the entrance :3

I was so fucking hyped, I couldn’t last in the car a second longer, so we just joined the queue and waited despite the occasional rain shower. We got talking a little bit with the people around us, there were some fellow modders, everyone was wearing some kind of merch, there were lots of fantastic cosplayers, too! Miles Tost, CDPR level design, was there and briefly talked to us all waiting patiently. Then we were informed that sadly there would be a little bit of a delay. I think at around 6.30 or so the queue finally started moving and at around 7 my sibling and I were inside the venue :D The reason of the delay is and was unclear, we learned later though that the guy responsible for the organization had set up something like this for the first time iirc, and therefore I’ll happily forgive the slight delay. Overall, the night was fantastic and I sure as hell couldn’t have done it better!

After checking our IDs, the lovely people by the entrance handed us our numbered tickets! One of the staff then asked us if we’d already played Phantom Liberty at Gamescom, which we hadn’t, so we also received one of those yellow plastic throwaway bracelets. Those who had already played it got a red one. The reasoning here was that they only had a small play area upstairs, so not everyone would be getting a chance to play the demo of the game, and people who hadn’t seen it yet would be preferred, to keep things fair. During the night some people with yellow bracelets would then be randomly approached by a member of the team and invited upstairs with a “mystery ticket”. I sadly didn’t get to play the game myself, neither my sibling, but we still got to see the gameplay anyway :3 We’ll get to that in a minute.

Img: Mine and my sibling's tickets, front and backside respectively; the bottom text on the backside says "be careful not to damage this section as you may still need it over the course of the night!", both tickets feature prominent circuit board and barcode designs

CDPR also invited us to free drinks with little tokens, and there was a broad selection of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages at a small bar! I would’ve loved for there to be something like a Johnny Silverhand or Jackie Welles to order, but I guess it wasn’t the Afterlife after all. Still though, free drinks, even if generic, pretty cool :D

Activities within the Venue

While we were queuing outside still, we’d also heard about various activities that had been offered at the Warsaw station of the tour, and those were different from what we could do in Cologne!

After receiving our tickets and everything we were free to explore the location for a bit, as the actual show wouldn’t start until 8pm (originally 7 pm but well… delays :D).

There was the main floor with a big, convention center style setup with rows of chairs and some bar tables. There was the huge screen, the bar, and a really cool netrunner chair for taking pictures that the cosplayers rightfully loved :D On the left side were also a small Xbox play area where you could test out some Xbox game pass games XD The event had tons of sponsors contributing something cool.

Img: The main area of the venue right before the show begins, an industrial-style interior with bright red and white lights, and many people looking at a big screen at the wall featuring Johnny and a welcome text in German and English respectively

Next door was a little secluded area for a podcast to be recorded later during the night, as well as a booth where visitors could record video messages for the devs (I missed my chance here and that’s what I regret most about not doing during that night ;A; but I think/hope a lot of others present seized the opportunity to send some love to Poland for this amazing game and team <3).

Img: A small square room with four high-end gaming PC stations sponsored by NVIDIA; the screens are currently showing the main menu screen of Cyberpunk 2077 - can I just take one of these home with me please?

Then there was the upstairs area with the gaming corner, as well as another little recording studio set up by an independent German filmmaker team who were documenting the development of Phantom Liberty! We could’ve also contributed to that, if we had wished to, but I preferred to stay behind the camera this time around xD Looking forward to watching the documentary though once it’s out!

Img: a Netrunner chair replica surrounded by screens and gadgets

There was also an outdoors courtyard area serving as a chillout zone with food (vegetarian options available) and a really cool live medieval folk band playing songs from the Witcher OST :D The various walls on the inside were decorated with photos showcasing German cosplayers and works of fan artists, and those of them who were there that night were allowed to take their photos home as a little extra special keepsake!

Community Love

The community love was so, so real and despite being comparatively new to the game and fandom still I felt super at home and comfortable and welcome. Kind of like, “I’m in the right place”, if that makes sense XD

Speaking of community… while we were still outside in the queue my sibling pointed out to me that there was a Kerry cosplayer in the line behind us, and lemme tell you, I was fucking hyped and made it my mission to greet them over the course of the evening xD I’ve been to a few smaller, less gaming-focused cons this year and there were few Cyberpunk cosplayers, no Kerry so far, so this was my chance!

Turns out, the Kerry in question was none other than fantastic @ophani (you can follow her on Instagram as well and check out what she’s working on atm!) who had been one of the first Cyberpunk people I’d ever followed on tumblr after becoming more involved in the fandom xD So yeah, the fanboy moment was even more real once I’d realized that. Also, there with her, amongst others, was @korribancosplay (also on Instagram!! Go check out his fantastic work <3) who actually recognized me first for being there looking sorta like Vince. He recognized that specific V with that hair and tattoos from my art xD I was like whaaaah! Honestly, that was my highlight of the night hands down in regards to meeting fellow fans :D Again, big shoutout to you two for the lovely conversation and everything, we’ll definitely stay in touch, and I hope I can venture over to NRW again in the future to meet up! xD

Img: Left, ophani as Kerry Eurodyne in his 2023 appearance <3, right, korribancosplay as Goro Takemura - I wish I'd brought a proper camera, blurry phone pics that I tried to somehow save through editing ftw :D

There were a lot of other amazing cosplayers, accompanying the two mentioned, and others as well that I didn’t all get to talk to but yeah… it was amazing seeing them all regardless and the love everyone poured into their costumes! Really got me hyped about getting back into cosplaying as well!

Let the Show Begin

But then it was finally 8pm and everyone gathered in the main showcase area.

None other than male V’s German VA Björn Schalla opened the show with a little speech (“I guess I don’t have to say who’s speaking right now”). That already sealed the deal for me in terms of “okay yeah, CDPR not playing games (figuratively), this is gonna be an amazing night if literal fucking Voice-of-V is here as a special guest”.

Then the German community managers joined for a little introduction and walkthrough of the schedule, as well as all the devs and CDPR team members present for the night came on stage to kick off the event officially with a big selfie. Shame on me for not really knowing who exactly everyone was, I’m too new and not as well versed in the who-is-who yet, but there were some very big names that people got super excited about so o.o

Img: Left, Björn Schalla aka German voice of male V, giving a little introduction speech reading out loud some randomly picked names from the guest list; right, the CDPR team and devs at the venue on stage together

Pretty much immediately afterwards, Miles Tost came back on stage, and we got to experience about an hour of gameplay of Phantom Liberty! If you don’t want spoilers for the expansion, skip the next section until the “Spoilers end here” line! I will try not to take too much away, but I want to give an honest and thorough review of what I’ve seen!

SPOILERS START HERE

The Game Showcase – Public Demo

The way this worked was, Miles stood on the front stage and narrated through the gameplay shown on the big screen, while the German community manager (iirc) Ryan played the game following a predetermined route I assume. He very strictly showed specific features, locations, and took a few very specific dialogue choices, always omitting the blue optional ones and just going with one of the generic yellow ones. The V in the demo was a male corpo, and Ryan never chose any of the plentily available Corpo dialogue options (and I’m very thankful for that, so we as players get to explore those ourselves somewhere further down the line :3).

Miles mentioned that the build shown to us was around three months old, and the first half hour of the game we saw revolved around Songbird guiding V through Dogtown prior to Myers’ plane crashing. They showed some minor NPCs running shops, the new Ripperdoc interface, and so on and so forth. I liked the new Ripperdoc animation but would’ve loved it to be even more expansive than it was in that build XD It was more a “sits down, selects cyberware to buy, then sits back up again after a short black screen, wiggles briefly then ventures forth” moment. Not comparable to the first scene with Viktor, when V gets their optics installed in the main game, but it still adds a little immersion!

V was also wearing very funky purple tights (the same level of tightness as a netrunner suit, but textured sort of like crocodile leather? I have a mighty need for them), and very sporty white sneakers that I also didn’t recognize from the main game. Everyone in the room very much loved his extravagant fashion sense XDD

So far so good, V walks through Dogtown a bit more and has some fun banter with Songbird who is not there physically, but also not quite on the phone… Then the president crashes into Dogtown kind of how it was shown in one of the trailers, and V has to go and save her, obviously, fighting Kurt Hansens forces! Up until this point of getting to and saving Myers from the wreckage was part of the publicly available demo that could also be tested at Gamescom and that I think was also showcased in recent dev streams.

The Game Showcase – Extended Demo

BUT THEN we got to a screen that said “extended demo unlocked” and got to experience some more, so far unseen content!

There was a bit of a time skip, V now traveling with President Myers and trying to get her to safety. Then we quickly got to a scene I had been kind of anxious about: V having to take an oath to become a special agent working for the NUSA. Thankfully though: you didn’t actually have to take the oath as shown in the trailer, and I was relieved, because being forced to do that that would’ve ended the expansion for my V then and there XD You still get to work for Myers though, and then V actually ventured out to find Solomon Reed! :O

We got to see quite a bit more of Dogtown, which is much bigger than I had assumed o.o Like, big buildings, proper streets, etc. etc. - not massive, but also not small! It seemed to sort of seamlessly blend into Pacifica, maybe… But in the showcase we didn’t venture far enough to the limits of the area to really be able to tell how exactly it is integrated into the world. Also, no visuals on the new Badlands areas or anything beyond this little story mission, but I think for a showcase like this that would’ve been too much! Mr. Hands called about a gig though that he maybe shouldn’t have, interrupting Miles' speech a little XD I don’t recall the exact details, but it sounded like a "SOS: Merc needed" type gig. I’m super excited about that, too, there's tons to do in this area!

They also showed the new phone interface, as well as the completely reworked skill trees, which is something @darcidarlin asked me about!

For the phone interface I’m so so thankful! It was so much bigger and organized, much easier to handle and read.

About the skill trees I’m super torn in a way… they’re different and simpler now, but sometimes simpler isn’t necessarily better imo. I’m used to my current build and skills, I like the attributes, and I don’t really see yet how my old playstyle is gonna translate into this new version. Basically, what they did (or at least how it seemed to me) was replace the attributes with "Skills". There is a "Relic" skill, an "Edgerunner" skill, and so forth, at least I saw nothing labelled "Cool", "Strength", "Tech" in the way I'm used to, but the glimpse we got was too short and superficial to really get a good idea of the new menu layout and contents.

The combat they showcased looked very fun, but it was all very centered around hands-on fighting, guns, swords, heavy cyberware. They showed very little stealth and no hacking/tech, and me being a predominantly stealth/hacking/tech player I was a bit “meh” and beginning to wonder if I’ll still have fun with what’s to come in the same way I do now. They kinda quickly flicked through the skill trees and I almost had the impression they completely remodelled Tech into a Cyberware skillset now, with armor fully tied to cyberware as well… I really don’t know XD Right now I can do a tech-heavy build without getting chromed up to my teeth, and I’d like to keep it that way… But I’m not sure if it’ll still work out like this in 2.0. Not much info on Cyberpsychosis either, only that again, with Tech perks, you can increase your threshold in terms of how much chrome V can stuff into their body before suffering an "overload". My low-on-chrome but otherwise tech-loving V is crying a little bit about this change XD

But yeah, this build was 3 months old. And my impression of the skills way waaaay to brief, so it's likely I'm getting upset about nothing XD Specifically for getting a closer look at combat and skills I would’ve needed to test the game out myself, so take everything about this with a big grain of salt!

Next up Ryan made a savegame and they showed the reworked police system a bit. Calling his vehicle in the middle of Dogtown was hilariously difficult, as it kept glitching and crashing into some parked cars the AI just didn’t seem to recognize, always ending up lying on its roof xD Miles joked “Oh no, some glitches just persist no matter what we do… but I bet your car can’t do this!”

Once Ryan had finally managed to get into his car though he started shooting. When you commit crimes in Dogtown, the NCPD will actually not come after your ass, but instead Kurt Hansen’s Barghest, which is neat! They are similarly equipped and will put up a bit of a fight for sure. There is now basically a 5-star system like I know it from GTA, and as soon as you reach 5, MaxTac will show up and whoop your ass. And man, they did not mess around XD MaxTac is not unbeatable, V put up quite the fight and managed to take down a couple of them, but in the end he got overwhelmed and taken down xD It did take a considerable amount of effort and destruction and killing though to even get to five stars, so much so that both Miles and Ryan were getting a bit desperate about it taking so long. So yeah, you really kinda have to put some actual effort into even getting MaxTac’s attention was my impression, and I do like that a lot to keep it balanced!

After this little demonstration of the police system, V went on to find Solomon Reed and damn, the first encounter with him is so fucking cool… I will not spoiler it here, because yeah. Wait and see! I really loved it, Spy-Thriller vibes over 9000, they definitely hit the mark on that XD

There is also so so so so much lovely new banter with Johnny. He was very present throughout this second part of the demo and had a lot to say on his past as a soldier, which I was really hoping for!! So, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how deep it’s gonna get and even more so how it’s gonna end o.o

So much though to the gameplay I saw and my impression on it! There are more details I can share on request, so hmu via DM or ask if you wanna know more! There definitely were a lot of little choices in dialogues, and there seem to be a lot of choices that you can mess up that then have consequences, too :o High risk, high reward vibes, fitting for the high stakes this story seems to have.

One other random sidenote: the music is insanely beautiful o.o There was a new sort of action-packed background track for finding President Myers in Dogtown. And at the end of the demo there was another new song playing that was sort of… “dreamy, but in a dreadful way” sounding? A female vocalist, no actual lyrics, electronic music with similar vibes to the “V” main menu song, but quieter and calmer and sadder. My sibling found it annoying after a while XD But I really enjoyed it, and I kind feel like it could’ve been Songbird’s theme!

I got a question by @cheapcheapfaker about updated character models and animations that kinda fit into this section of the post! So… sadly I cannot answer it for sure because we only got to see the expansion characters and never ventured out of Dogtown (and I didn’t get to play the game myself to test out if it would’ve been possible to go and meet somebody else). What I can say is, I personally didn’t notice much of an update of Johnny’s appearance or facial animations at all actually. I know others did in regard to the same build of the game I got to see. There was no opportunity to ask, and a lot of questions that went sort of deeper into the territory of technical or story stuff, Miles wasn’t allowed to answer at that point. I think they played the game on the highest graphics settings, too, with path tracing on, which was also was something I’m not used to seeing with my rig. Johnny looked somewhat different to me actually, but not in an improved or updated way, more in a higher/different settings way.

What was confirmed during the Q&A though that followed on a different topic later (I made a post about it here already), was that they did go back and fix some voice lines in the main game that turned out weird in the German dub. And I read somewhere else before that “no system was untouched” for making Update 2.0, so maybe the other characters also received some minor updates and final polish. But nothing concrete sadly that was said or came up during my experience of the evening!

SPOILERS END HERE

Meet and Greet with German V

After the showcase of the game was over and some people had received mystery tickets to test Phantom Liberty on their own time, the crowd dispersed across the venue for a variety of activities. I tried to get into the “leave a message to the devs” booth, but it was occupied quite permanently, so I went back and then sat and waited for the Q&A, because that was super-duper down my alley, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. In the podcast room next door some devs had come together to talk a bit more about the expansion as such, too, including Miles.

I had to gather all the fucking courage in my body, and I think being sorta sleep deprived and pumped full of adrenaline helped, but before the Q&A started, I went up to Björn to ask for an autograph and we very briefly talked. I got to tell him that I loved the way he played V so so much, lol XD I wasn’t very coherent, but he was very kind and funny, super chill guy!

Img: My ticket now signed "Für Elven, von 'V'" and Björn Schalla's autograph - need to get a fancy frame for it asap xD

I’m so glad that after the Q&A, of which you can find the detailed content in this separate post I made already, I went up again to get a pic done with him and Localization Director Mikolaj! :D So yes, this was definitely my personal highlight of the evening’s program, maybe even more so than seeing the new exclusive gameplay!

Img: Left, the Q&A with Björn and Mikolaj, right, Mikolaj and me and Björn XD

Raffle and Goodies

Towards the end of the night the live band that had been playing outside joined us in the main room (because, of course, the neighbors had complained about the noise… the peak Germany experience, the organizers got threatened with “we’re gonna call the cops if you continue playing music outside after 10 pm” x’D). But like this those of us who had been mostly inside watching the show at this point also got to experience the music a bit, which was very nice!

We were getting close to the end of the night already, and then people with goodie bags started walking in from all corners :O So I ventured forth once more to score one, but I think there definitely was enough for all, and at the end of this post I’m gonna show you what was inside :3

Img: Me holding my roughly letter-format sized Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty paper goodie bag :3

The last item on the agenda was called “Quiz and Raffle”, due to the delayed start of the night though they decided to skip the quiz, or rather, do a quick run of some of the questions they had prepared. It was all something like “What was the name of the character that X called to take over his shift?” or “What was the sign above the location V had to go to during X section of the gig?”, so nothing super hard. You just had to pay a little bit of attention during the game showcase. But yeah, the quiz was skipped and instead the raffle prizes were handed out a bit more freely and damn… there was a lot o.o Displate had gifted a super limited edition illuminated poster, as well as several of their tarot card metal posters. There were gaming keyboards, custom Cyberpunk themed PC cases, some leftovers from the Gear store, figurines, and so on and so forth. Some of the bigger prices were given out via random number generator, where our individual ticket numbers were important again, others were just handed out a bit more freely.

Ryan: “Damn, I have so many gaming mice left, what am I gonna do now…” Random Audience member: “Can I have one?” Ryan: “Sure! :D” *hands them a mouse*

Img: Ryan and Carolin of the German Community Management team at the end of the event with some closing words on stage

This part of the night was honestly just very lighthearted and funny, and I really felt entertained from start to finish XD There were no boring moments or situations where I was like “urgh, I wish we could just continue now” because even during the breaks I talked to people or was still recovering from a previous encounter or experience XD

The End of the Event

The event then ended pretty much on time a short while after midnight, some people had left a bit early to catch their trains, some lingered a little while longer. Lemme tell you, I didn’t wanna leave, I just wanted to move in and live with all these people forever in an amazing little Cyberpunk bubble. But I was also running on like 3 hours of sleep at that point, was extremely overwhelmed with so many positive experiences and impressions, and so we then left after taking some final snaps here and there and walking through the venue once more.

Img: The exit of the venue late at night with the Phantom Liberty Tour Banner now glowing

10/10 would go again, it was a blast, and I wouldn’t have minded for it to go on another six hours xD Not that I managed to sleep much anyway that night, because my brain was still going BRRR from all the impressions and conversations and encounters (still is to a degree right now, but I’m slowly getting calmer again xDD)

The Goodie Bag

Finally back at the hotel I got a proper look at the goodie bag!! All of this was also included in us just *being* there, like, whaaat...

Img: an overview of a variety of items featured in the goodie bag!

The goodies everyone got: a t-shirt with the Barghest logo in front and the Phantom Liberty Tour locations on the back. It was available in a lot of different sizes that you could ask for quite easily, and I hope there was one available for everyone and every body!

Img: A bright red, VERY WRINKLED t-shirt with a graffiti-style Barghest logo on its front in orange, and a white and orange print with the Phantom Liberty Tour locations on the back

The shirt is 100% cotton and made in Poland, but it smelled really really bad, coming out of a plastic bag XDD Not gonna put that on before it goes through the wash. But the quality seems very decent, and the color and print are really nice ;A; Could wear this casually under a shirt or zipper hoodie without anyone even being able to tell it’s gaming merch, and I love me a versatile piece like that!!

Then there was a Phantom Liberty themed sticker sheet with a nice rainbow holo effect :3 Some factions, some people and places, some more generic stickers. It’s very pretty and I think I might actually just frame it together with my signed ticket XD

Img: A holographic Phantom Liberty themed sticker sheet including faction and Night City logos amongst others

What I really really really loved though were these two Cologne-unique pieces: another sticker and a patch :O These seem to be 100% exclusives to the Cologne event, and I figure you can get something similar at the other events as well! Will treasure these like hell <3

Img: A blue and orange fabric patch and a holographic black and white sticker showing the same design: Phantom Tour Cologne below a stylized moth

And finally, everyone got a little mystery bag within their mystery bag, containing one of 6 keyboard cap thingies (don’t even know wtf they’re called but they’re cute XD). They were modelled after the various ingame factions, even including Barghest I believe! :O You can swap them out with any key on a mechanical gaming keyboard. I got Maelstrom, my sibling had the Mox :D So you could’ve definitely swapped with someone else for your fave faction, but I was actually quite pleased with Maelstrom :3

Img: Two small keyboard key replacer thingies... I don't know what to call them. One is red, featuring the head of a maelstromer on top, the other is blue, featuring the pink skull-head with bob haircut and bow of the Mox

So yes… that was my Phantom Liberty Tour experience! I apologize for the insanely long post, but I do hope you enjoyed reading it!

I tried to keep it somewhat concise and coherent and could definitely go more into detail about the gameplay elements we saw, the venue, the people there, and so on and so forth. So, don’t hesitate to hit me up with your questions :D And obviously, thanks so much for reading to the very end <3

[sekritjay]

Been the bad kind of busy for me, the kind that keeps me away from tumblr, one of the few ways I get something resembling social contact in my life for a couple of reasons

First is BG3 (thanks Moose!) - starting an honour mode playthrough but because I'd been playing with the more companions mod (for that juicy, juicy banter) it completely breaks the difficulty in half. A full party, even without Wither's Jaegering a dead body is capable of taking out bosses within a couple of rounds but honestly I feel like I'm only getting half a game if I'm only hanging around with three other degenerates.

At least with Honour Mode I do have to put in a token amount of thinking before I twin-Haste Lae'Zel and Karlach in to alphastrike Denver Gortex before he can summon Daddy in to give him a hand

Second reason I can't really be around is because on the 1st of January I took the decision to completely shut down the restaurant

It's taking me more than a month to disentangle all the legalities and administration of winding down a 40 year old business while trying to bat away all the creditors asking for money on top of doing things like redundancy payments. Only just untangled my electricity bill and I'm actully glad that's over because they wanted me to drop £8,000 to settle arrears instead of the 10% we eventually agreed upon. And somehow my gas company just shrugged and let the bill lapse instead of chasing me for it

Ironically and bafflingly, the most persistent debt chasers have been the music licence people and my credit control leasers - My bills for energy, water and redundancy payments came to just over 20k, of which I'm only really paying in full for the redundancies

For the music licence and CC lease? £300. They're sending the bailiffs over £300. I'm inclined to let them come since they'll be sending collectors to force me to hand over all the nothing that company is left with. They're certainly not legally able to come after my money and even if they were I can claim that taxes and the 'property lease' take legal precedence

My main concern however is personal. The money is... painful but ultimately all these people are after the company's money. There's a certain degree of apathy and clarity in knowing that the money men can't get me to sink any lower. No, in my case it's that fact that I've been involved in the family business in some capacity since I was 14 years old. 20-odd years, 12 in management, and six years doing 60 hours 7 days a week... and it ends with a whimper

How do I move on not knowing anything else other than this life? I don't know what I'm good at, nor where I could go. Don't know who to talk to, or what I could do next. I don't even know what weekends are for, or indeed really what else to do with all the time on my hands beause historically my time off.... wasn't

I really oughtn't put all my eggs in the Canada thing, but at the same time it's the only thing I've truly wanted in... over a decade I guess. Despite knowing it's a miniscule crumb of a chance. And I dread what would happen if it doesn't work out. Or indeed, if it does

FIrst steps is getting my unemployment benefit sorted. That'll be difficult since I was self-employed. Next would be to decide between getting a job, a career or scrape together some cash from... somewhere and go study... only I don't know what I'd like to do

Ffffffffssspspsppssss. At least tumblr is a sympathetic but disinterested ear to vent to. I honestly am clueless what to do

[savelockwoodandco]

Hi! First thanks to all of you for the help and the hard work.

I would like to ask (I'm honestly not very informed): There are any previous netflix shows that were cancelled and picked up by another service?

Thanks for the question and for the kind words, Anon! It's a labor to be sure, but a labor of love, so all is well.

There are only a few examples of this, sadly. Netflix used to be known as The Place Where Shows Get Saved -- it's amazing how quickly the stereotype changed to The Place Where Shows Get Cancelled, honestly. It gives me whiplash to think about it.

One Day at a Time was the first example...ever, I believe -- I'd love to be wrong, if anyone knows of an earlier one. Its first 3 seasons were on Netflix, which cancelled it on March 14th, 2019. Pop (also known as Pop TV, owned by Paramount) renewed it on June 27th, 2019, and the fourth season started airing March 24, 2020, being simulcast on TV Land and Logo TV (both owned by Paramount).

An unfortunate time to be picked up, honestly. Due to the pandemic, production had to stop in the same month the show started re-airing, and ODAAT got half a season, ending in an animated special airing in June of that year. The show deserved a final wrap-up, but the circumstances of the unfortunate fourth season were more due to the pandemic than to anything else.

The only other example I'm aware of is Uncoupled, the Neil Patrick Harris rom-com show that we've mentioned a few times on this blog. It premiered on Netflix on July 29, 2022, and was cancelled in January 2023. A month later – February 2023 – Showtime (part of Paramount+ now) un-cancelled it by picking it up. Netflix removed the show from its site (aka lost distribution rights) on May 1st, 2023 – just shy of a year – and it starts filming for its second season on May 30th, 2023.

This does demonstrate a few things; not only does it showcase why Paramount+ is this mod's preferred home for Lockwood and Co (not that we're picky at all -- whoever ends up picking it up will earn both my love and my money), as Paramount has been the standalone in helping Netflix shows get a second life, but it also shows that it is wholly possible to save shows from Netflix.

ODAAT took 5 weeks from its season 3 premiere to cancellation, and 13 weeks later, it was rescued.

Uncoupled took 1 week shy of 6 Whole Months from its premiere to cancellation (which...well, us mods have Feelings about the Uncouth Nature of the timeframe there), and 3 days short of a month to be rescued.

To compare, Lockwood & Co took 15 weeks from premiere to cancellation, and we're sitting at 2 weeks exactly from cancellation right now.

It may seem tempting to give up -- two whole weeks, after all! -- but as we've been saying from the beginning, this is a marathon, not a sprint. A little bit of consistent effort every day is far, far more effective than an angry 5-day burnout.

All in all, if L&Co got renewed tomorrow (a trifle unlikely, given that it's the weekend, after all) we'd be very, very far ahead of the curve. Virtually no show going to have Brooklyn 99's next-day pickup (which anyone could tell was going to happen, it was one of the stupidest things I've seen a network do in the last decade). Even Lucifer took a month, and that was one of the most involved, intense, and in-person campaigns I've been in.

When you start feeling discouraged, look at the numbers. We're doing well, and it's very early days.

We can do this, and we will do this -- together.

[thenewfuture]

Where I've been + Update Scheduling(?)

Heyyyyy everyone, what's uuuupppp! It's Mod Freeze here!

Now I know these last few weeks have been hysterical. Updating, and then stopping, and then updating again, and then nothing again, and then updating a tad, and then more of nothing and so on and so forth. So I bet the question on everyone's mind is:

What happened to me? Well, I'll tell you...

As I'm sure many of you are aware, It was my birthday not too long ago followed by Thanksgiving. So of course, I had to spend time with family, and my video games playing through TOTK & Spider-Man 2, cough! And that took some time away from here, and even almost a month later, barely anything, what gives?

Well....I think I recall saying on here I was in process of looking for a new job. While I didn't get the one I was initially after, I did just score a full time job at the post office. I've been getting things together, preparing, and essentially started this week. It's required me to get up early in the morning and by extension not be up so late, which is usually when I post stuff. So, there will be some big changes going forward.

Normally my first job required me to work nights and I would usually get home around half past midnight/1 AM my time and I would update the story then, and sometime in the afternoon when I was much more available and motivated. And the post office is a day time job this time around, and I've even looking to see trying both jobs for some months to earn some more money and maybe even buy a new car. I am still seeing how my official schedule plays out, but what will probably end up happening is more than likely...even less updates unfortunately...

Now I'm not cancelling this blog, far from it. I'm just....stepping back for a bit to focus on the gross adulting world for the time being. But when will I be able to update...well....

My initial schedule was....nonexistent and still isn't. I usually update and post whenever I feel like it. A "It gets done when it's done" mentality that I've had my whole life. And again, I can't say for certain is this new schedule will be true...buuuuuut....

Weekdays are a busy sort for me, and will probably not be updated. Maybe two out of the five weekdays at best, but can't say for certain.

Weekends free me up some more, so posts could potentially be greater on these days than the weekdays.

I know this was essentially a non-answer, but I figured I keep you guys in the loop about what's going on. I apologize that this arc is taking so long to get through, but that's what happens when you're an adult. I hope I can make some more progress soon. And if you don't hear from me until after the holidays. Then I hope you all a have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year!

-Mod

[mareenavee]

Hi first time sending in an ask but I always love reading your replies to others! I wanted to ask, How did you get involved with Skywind? It’s such an amazing project!

Hello! Good to hear from you (:

I agree! Skywind is a ton of fun, and a huge labor of love. I've learned a lot from the time I've been on the project, which in the grand scheme of things, hasn't been that long. The people I've worked with and written with have been stellar and supportive, and I'm so lucky to have stumbled into this opportunity!

How did I get involved specifically? Well. I was taking a Javascript class and one of the co-teachers suggested we look for volunteer opportunities to skill-build. I did look through to see what I could find, and saw Skywind. I applied both with some web dev basics (super basic, so that didn't fly lol I still need more practice) and with my writing, because...why not? I love writing. It was before I started my fanfic, and most of what I had on hand for samples were flash fiction and things I'd written for Dungeons & Dragons games.

It took a bit, but eventually a lead contacted me and told me she really enjoyed my written work and had me complete a few tests. One of which was a critique and a discussion of an example quest. Another was to create an example NPC (which was probably my favorite lol) and another was to write example item descriptions. I managed to pass! I was pulled onto the team to write more item descriptions and did for a couple weekends.

Then there was an opportunity to review an old quest and make some changes. I volunteered to edit that and help with proofreading. It kind of morphed into this whole new quest with the help of my amazing cowriters and leads on this particular quest team. Now I'm writing dialogue for a famous NPC and creating written material for enemy journals and thinking through sequence breaks... and most of all learning what it takes to put a quest together with a team for a video game. I'm over the moon, really. Writing is such a lonely sport most of the time, but in games writing, it's all collaborative, all the time.

I know this is just the surface of what I could say about such a project. I'm thrilled to be a part of it, thrilled to have met some wonderful, talented people I hope to stay in contact with moving forward, and absolutely cannot wait until you all get to see how much love has gone into this mod.

Honestly? If you think you might be able to help us out, there's plenty to do. All of it is volunteer based, and the more hands we have with the skills that we need, the better we can be. So if you're curious, here's the page where you can check out how to apply.

[whoslaurapalmer]

look. I love good things come in threes and I packed a lot of stuff in it and it's like quietly one of my fav twin peaks fics I've written because of all the little world building things and I have notes I've held on to about how I wrote it

-sometimes I do think the fic is a little slow -- but not. In a terrible way?? In a sweet way. It's supposed to be a slow little afternoon. Just a little time

-ed has a tammy wynette tape bc he and norma listen to her in the pilot.

-there was a line I really wanted in there – “so you’re gonna stand by your man her into a prom date?” but it didn’t really tonally hit anyone’s dialogue, which I was having a hard enough time with. harry and hawk and ed are out there sharing a braincell and hawk has it 100% of the time

-the Fall Football Game Of Some Renown, where, according to the access guide, hawk ran the wrong way, and according to the secret history, hank fumbled a play, took place in fall 1968, so this fic takes place a couple weeks before that. I was imagining it as like a, thanksgiving game or something, bc the schools where I live always have a high school thanksgiving day game (or they USED TO), and the fic takes place like, early october.

-the mod squad (which also had peggy lipton) had indeed just started airing at the end of september that year, and the fugitive (which also had a one-armed man) had indeed started airing four years previously (and ended in 1967).

-oh! so i wanted them watching unsolved mysteries, but that aired too late in the timeline. then i wanted them watching the untouchables, but that would've just ended right before fall 1964. so that was how they watched the fugitive, because it started airing fall 1964. they're likely watching the first ever episode.

-oh, was that a weekend? i don't think it was, but. that's where my attention to detail conks out.

-okay the thing about time here. harry and hawk and ed are born in 1950. the fall football game is 1968. that makes them 18, seniors, and they will graduate in june 1969.

-frank is harry's older brother.

-FRANK IS INEXPLICABLY LISTED AS AT THAT FOOTBALL GAME.

-BUT HE CAN'T BE???? BECAUSE HE WOULD'VE GRADUATED?????? I'M???????? i'm still screaming. anyway in this fic frank is in college.

-hand to god I probably attended at least one “under the sea” themed dance in my school career, although I never went to homecoming. i don't even remember what the themes were. i think one prom was like???? a night in paris????? do NOT remember.

-the point is also that time repeats.

-i have never in my life seen the good the bad and the ugly, but it has that Classic Whistle-y Theme, which I figured they’d know. didn’t know if peaks was big enough to have a movie theater or drive in?? and I wanted to pull in the nearby town of newport (where hawk buys a car during high school).

-i picked the 1960 chevy impala bc it’s a cute ass car. love a good old car. that interior?????? to die for.

-guys just Loving their super inexplicably terrible cars is one of my favorite things. Ed's car is inspired by like 3 men I've known I swear to god who were just THAT into their terrible sad little cars. It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, you know!!!! It's the car!!!! It's the memories!!!!!! You can't put a price or value on sentiment and what even a not well working car means to you. and.....it still WORKS. just needs a lil love.

-a group of guys banding together around their terrible little car and having a ROUTINE to get it to work is also. so good to me

-there's a lot of 'just needs a little love. Is it enough' in the fic bc that's how Harry feels about the town. That's what the town does. The love is not enough. But these friends love each other and are doing their best

-shout out to my mom for coming up with ed fishing out the cassette tape from inside the seat

-I cannot resist mentioning Diane Shapiro. I think it's a fun idea, if she and hawk are vague high school sweethearts and write letters to each other.

-harry has this vague deja vu (???) feeling of s1e6, where coop and hawk and harry and doc hayward go into the woods to find jacques renault’s cabin and find margaret’s first, bc I can’t resist some good time shenanigans

-harry thinks the cabins change because that was the only way I could rationalize them going into the woods in s1e6 and NOT RECOGNIZING MARGARET’S CABIN.

-you wanna tell me they'd never seen her cabin before??? they'd never been there????? really????? in all the years they've lived in twin peaks, of all the years harry's been sherriff????? they don't know that's margaret's cabin?????????????

-especially bc like, look at harry's face in that scene. he and margaret have looked each other dead in the eye and shenanigan'd before.

-anyway.

-the cabin that harry thinks is missing is jacques renault’s.

-the road with the controlled burning on one side and the forest fire remains on the other is 100% real. they do controlled burning where i live in late winter/early spring, to decrease the amount of stuff around in the event of a fire. and you can always see remnants of it for months after, just these scorched little baby trees and the bottoms of tree trunks. but over the summer there was an enormous forest fire, burned for like, three, four days?? smoke lingered for WEEKS after. (no structures were hit, which was good. and i think it did manage to jump the river??) and if you drove through the area, you could see this distinct split where the fire had hit, where stuff was just burned, leaves dead, everything orange and brown. and then just on the other side of the road, there'd be the controlled burn remains, these black branches against the most lush summer green leaves.

-my fav part is harry's flashback to the other fires -- just my favorite parts to write, I think there's a lot in there about. The town and the bookhouse mentality and failures that don't read as failures and. Everything, yknow

-fuck hank, btw, he's just. such a fucker. Harry loves him such a terrible amount here

-the 'good things come in threes' is bc the good things are harry and hawk and ed. They mean a lot to each other. Not you, hank. And harry is gonna have to learn that and it's gonna suck

[silverspleen]

RENT INCREASE ISN'T BAD AT LEAST.

I gotta fuck with voter ID stuff, updated my ID, and worst of all...

The mini professional conference for work that I'm supposed to do a 4 minute case study on this weekend that's run by one of our big docs at work, but they didn't get together with us until two weeks until the conference and it turned out I didn't do exactly what they wanted (vague af instructions you literally just wrote "AS and AI case" on there that could be any number of cases but NOPE you wanted a mod AS mod AI case and exploration of the continuity equation? Which I barely remember?) and now there's less than a week left because it took forever to get the senior staff to help me filter the studies list (I cannot do this alone) and I'm scrambling because I misplaced the sticky notes detailing exactly what they wanted.

Like fuck damn you should have told me four weeks ago that what I did was wrong I would have found something else!! I would not be scrambling!! This shit sucks!!! Why did I have to corner you in the hallway and ask you if we were meeting you are in CHARGE of the CONFERENCE this is like a group project from HECK.

hm the boot of adult deadlines is coming down on my neck and not in the fun kink way

[itlivesproject]

could we get a peek at the writing process for ILW? like did you make character playlists? pinterest moodboards? storyboards about how scenes will play out that you then have to write or anything like that? are there any abandoned plotlines you initially wanted to add but they didnt make the final cut? and who was the first person to want to create this project? was anyone at all friends before or everyone was atrangers? when did the project start? did yall have zoom meetings or sorted everything out on tumblr through text? sorry for the amount of questions! its ok if you dont want to/cant give answers to everything, i just really admire the ILW team for coming up with this masterpiece a lot haha

Ooh this ask looks fun! I'm gonna add a read more because this is getting long.

So once upon a time in the summer of 2020, the choices fandom was getting more active (I think) because of COVID. A bunch of people were bored and lonely and playing choices. So I got involved in the fandom and replayed It Lives, and it got me thinking about a book 3. I became obsessed with the craft of telling a choice based story. I was analyzing choices books, noticing things I thought they could’ve done to make more impactful choices, trying to figure out how to go from novel writing to VN novel writing where there are multiple paths, etc. So I started talking to my sister who also plays choices and we came up with the basics of ILW. We created the bare bones - character sketches, basic lore, potential endings, etc. I then downloaded renpy and started to teach myself coding.

Cut to January 2021, when It Lives 3 was officially canceled. I made this post:

I got my original recruits from this post, including mod maggie and mod eri! Aside from my sister and me, none of us knew each other before the start of the project, aside from being vague acquaintances, though I think maggie and I were actually mutuals at that point because we'd bonded over noah x mc a couple of times. Once the project was further along, we ended up getting more writers/artists/programmers who are active on the team now, including mod sugar, mod m, mod evie, and other members who aren't mods on this blog.

Anyway, after I got some recruits, I made a discord server and shared google folder. The server has a million channels, channels for each writer, artist, for backgrounds, for music, for characters, for programming, for nonsense. In our drive folder, we have different folders for art, planning, writing, and each writer has their own folder where they put their scenes into. Once their scenes are finished, I copy the scenes into a compiled folder where I put everything together and we can freely edit the scenes.

When we first started, the most important part was planning and sequencing out the story. We didn't start writing until we had everything planned from beginning to end (mostly). We had the endings and figured out how everything would work, we planned out all the lore docs and complex background lore. The only thing we didn't fully plan out beforehand are scene details, but we had the general arc/main point of each chapter from the beginning. While planning, we used to talk basically nonstop every day. We had voice calls on discord once or twice a month on the weekends, and we made a chart with google sheets that had everyone's time zones so we could plan times that everyone could attend.

Anyway, once the planning stages were ready we made the outline. We took the different arcs and interspersed them through chapters. We try to make each chapter have a mostly cohesive arc as well. The outline has the short version, which is split by scene with a small description and an assignment of who's supposed to write it. Then we have a detailed outline that the writers refer to before starting their scenes. In the detailed outline, it has more information about what's going on in the scene. For example (ch 8 spoiler) the short outline scenes were:

Scene 1 - Linc shows up at Matthy's house/argument - Lindsay

Scene 1A - Lincoln diamond scene - Lindsay

Scene 1B - Abel diamond scene - Maggie

Scene 2 - Annie convo - M

Then if you go to the longer outline, there are more fleshed out descriptions. However, often times there's just a short paragraph explaining the scene, like "Linc shows up and gets mad that rowan is with matthias. you find out matthias is lincoln's dad, rowan can either side with him or not. they get back to the cabin, linc and abel get into an argument about matthias, and again you can either side with linc or abel or neither." So important plot points are mentioned in the scene description, but it's still up to the assigned writer to flesh out the scenes. Often times, in our personal writer channels, we'll ask other team members to help us come up with ideas, figure out how to make things happen, improve dialogue, etc.

In addition, we often have little writing parties on the weekends. We have a bot that does word sprints for us, and the winner of the writing retreat will sometimes get some kind of reward from yours truly. You know, to increase motivation and whatnot.

We don't really have pinterest boards, moodboards, or playlists. I just don't bother with that because it's not something that particularly interests me I guess, and I haven't seen anyone else do any of that either. Mostly we just talk a lot and when we finally sit down to write, we're constantly messaging each other in the channels haha.

There are some things we were thinking about including that have been cut or changed. But I feel like for the most part, we surprisingly have somehow managed to keep a lot of our original ideas. I guess a lot of them just evolved from one form to another, so even if it's not the same thing as the original idea, I feel like it is because I was there for the process of how it changed.

Anyway, hope this answered your question! It was fun to write up <3

[thedamageofherdays]

This week's (16-08-2021 - 22-08-2021) reading log is here. This week's reading log is super duper long and filled with lots of good things (my apologies for the long post, I really could not find a good spot to do a read more). I discovered some new favourites and re-read some old favourites and while I had an intense week personally at least the fics I read were absolutely phenomenal. I do recommend checking out the warnings as some fics are a bit heavier/angstier and you might wanna be prepared. Most of these fics are Stucky but there are a couple of other ships in between.

If you are looking for more fun and/or good things make sure to check out the @marveldisabilitycelebration as well to see all the awesome art, fics, meta, etcetera people created! And while I am mentioning events I am a mod for let me also just quickly mention that sign-ups for the @stuckygiftexchange are still open until the end of the month <3

Favourites are marked with a 🌻 Fics that are only available to AO3 users are marked with a 🔒 and Tumblr fics are marked with a 🍀

🌻 The Bends by dreamsinthewitchouse @dreamsinthewitchouse [Danbeau, side Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

Memory is not a house you can just walk back into after finding the key you thought you’d lost. It’s a thing you wade into and out of, rewriting it as it rewrites you.

It’s not without its rewards, either - recovering a memory about Maria and Monica, about her life, feels better than socking a thousand bad guys in the face, better than all the photon blasts in the world.

Then again, realising there’s still memories she can’t access, even after all this time, feels like drowning in space.

Not the one out there - the one inside her.

🌻 Sweet & Salty by musette22 @musette22 [Stucky, 3k words, Teen]

Idiots in love. That's it. That's the fic.

When life gives you lemons by moonythejedi394 @moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 34k words, Explicit] (11/15 chapters)

Or 13 Terrible Things to Do With Lemons Other Than Making Lemonade

Steve Rogers is a home health nurse. He works for an agency, which assigned him to the aging Winifred Barnes, the one and only Silent Era Hollywood darling. As her needs increased, she requested the agency assign Steve to her full-time. She could pay for it, so she got it. Steve then moved in with her, becoming her caregiver; he cooked, he cleaned, he managed her medications, he made sure she was comfortable.

Winifred's children treated him less than ideally. He was the help, after all. And then Steve had the audacity to go and turn out to be eldest son James Barnes's soulmate. No one saw that coming.

🍀 SamRhodey Tumblr Fic by ipoiledi [SamRhodey, ? words, Teen?]

“Wilson, this is Rhodey; Rhodey, Wilson,” Tony Stark says, and suddenly some six foot tall sexy guy is shoved right in front of Sam, and they both stumble a little, bumping into each other. This is a crowded party. “You guys have things in common, right?” Stark asks. “Uh, Army stuff. Talk about that. I hate wallflowers; stop wallflowering and talk to each other.”

Shorteralls by moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 6k words, Explicit]

The first time Bucky ever saw Steve Rogers, he was struck by how Neanderthal-like his response was. It was immediately followed by a bout of mental scolding. The second time was just about the same. The third time, it was actually appropriate for Bucky to start a conversation with him, at which point he was determined to be the gentleman.

No such luck. Steve Rogers is, always has been and always will be, a relentless flirt. These days, Bucky's Neanderthal-ist feelings about Steve are consensual and highly appreciated. More so now that they're having a baby.

what the fuck are perfect places anyway by tigerlilycorinne [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

Steve clears his throat and stands. “Well, I should head in. I might want to begin packing.”

Bucky stills. “You won’t,” he says, trying to sound commanding. It only comes out uncertain. “Don’t.”

Steve shakes his head. “Maybe not tonight,” he says, and Bucky knows they’ll be discussing this again soon.

“Then stay. Play… play cards with me or something.”

Steve’s eyebrows jump up, his mouth tugging up in another of his bemused smiles that do things to Bucky’s insides, but he drops his hand from the doorway and steps back into Bucky’s room. Somehow, Bucky feels as if he’s won—not the war, just the battle.

Steve won’t stay forever. But he’ll stay for cards.

Steve and Bucky, on the run after Civil War (with a few alterations to canon), are laying low in Wakanda. But they can’t stay there forever.

🌻 honestly thought i’d be dead by now, but what you can trust is that i need your touch by moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 105k words, Explicit]

Bucky is 37 years old; he’s unmarried, hasn’t had a Sub of his own, is definitely not ripped, comfortable at his job as an Advanced Practice RN at Brooklyn General ER, and just got his Five Years coin from AA.

Steve is 26 years old; he’s unmarried, his last and only Dom has Alzheimer's, he's worryingly muscular, uncomfortable in his job as the government’s poster Alpha for masculinity and strength, and worries more than he should about his BMI.

Unfortunately, Steve and Bucky meet initially in a not-cute moment. Bucky’s tired as shit thanks to the sudden alien invasion that shook New York and Steve is tired as shit because he hasn’t slept more than 20 minutes at a time in – well, since 1936, probably. Bucky’s Alpha instincts get irritated at the sudden presence of another "Alpha" into his territory and Steve’s suppressed submissive tendencies latch onto this grumpy bachelor Alpha and he only suppresses it further.

Bucky’s grumpiness and Steve’s duckling impressionism aside, both of them are a mess. But since both of them are a mess? Their messes seem to fit pretty well together.

Deep Sea Diving by Aida Ronan [Stucky, 5k words, Explicit]

Steve's wallowing in heat-related misery under a shade tree in Central Park when a man walks by in bright red booty shorts and a crop top. RIP Steve Rogers. It was nice knowing you.

honey, make this easy by steebadore [Stucky, 8k words, Explicit]

Bucky likes the way he looks. His silk button up with the tiny gold polka dots feels soft on his skin and is tailored perfectly; no pulling at his chest or belly. His hair falls in shiny dark waves and his skin is smooth and dewy. He looks expensive. He looks taken care of. He looks like Steve’s.

🌻 let's take it back to the start by howdoyousleep @howdoyousleep3 [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

How it all began.

This sleepwalking through my life. by barthelme [Stucky, 1k words, Explicit]

The internet is an interesting place and when Bucky came home (or, when he came to live with Steve), Steve did a lot of research. Apparently, it’s not safe to wake a sleepwalker. He assumes that waking a sleepwalker with traumatic dreams and PTSD is beyond just being frowned upon.

And he tells himself--has told himself--that this is safer for Bucky. That if he were to stop him and wake him up, that Bucky would be mortified to be slurping on his best friend’s cock. That all of the improvements he’s made would be lost, would be repressed, would be just--

They’d be back at square one.

So he lets Bucky do it.

🌻 the way i've been craving by howdoyousleep [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

"Lunch break at 12:30. My office. Hope you’re hungry…"

It’s the ellipsis that sends Bucky’s insides swimming warmly, his heart beating twice as fast against his ribs where he sits in class. Senator Rogers is concise, direct, to the point. Without an ellipsis this is lunch, this is a meeting. With it though?

This is a booty call.

nasty but classy by howdoyousleep [Stucky, 4k words, Explicit]

“No, you don’t have to know the purpose, that doesn’t matter. Nat showed me this challenge where couples drink a lot of wine and get drunk together but they can’t touch each other. And whoever touches the other first has to...has to give the other head.”

🌻 Put It on Repeat, It Stays the Same by giselleslash [Stucky, 20k words, Explicit]

Steve and Bucky have a one night stand that turns into a friends with benefits situation. A weekend snowed in at Bucky’s apartment brings to light how much that really doesn’t suit either one of them.

Greetings to the New Brunette by victoria_p (musesfool) [Stucky, 10k words, General]

"You said he should have a hobby. That it would help."

"I meant, like, knitting or coin collecting. Motocross, if he was feeling antsy. A baby's not a hobby. It's lifetime commitment."

🌻 Rogers & Barnes: Partners by triedunture [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

Steve and Bucky have to pose as a couple for a mission. Nat insists it really is the only option. She's checked.

The complication: unbeknownst to even Natasha, Steve and Bucky's friendship has been rocky ever since Bucky confessed his tender feelings and Steve left him out in the cold. Can asexual, completely-in-love-with-his-angry-best-friend Steve complete the mission and win Bucky's heart?

(The answer is yes. Yay!)

this will be our year (took a long time to come) by biblionerd07 [Stucky, 4k words, General]

Bucky's therapist is worried he's using Steve as a crutch and wants him to try going on outings without Steve. It wouldn't be terrible, honestly, if Bucky could just manage to open his mouth and say something to Steve.

I'll hold my breath by Little_Lottie (tfwatson) [Stucky, 8k words, Mature]

Sometimes Bucky’s hands flex in Steve's direction. Neither of them knows exactly why, but at least one of them has a hunch.

Bucky touches everything but Steve, even though Steve is all he really wants to touch.

Start from the Beginning by Mumble_Bee [Stucky, 13k words, Explicit]

What about a sex pollen fic where the pollen-ed one doesn’t remember getting hit in the face with a sex flower, and wakes up midway through the depollenating?

Or: the one where Steve wakes up on his back with a stranger buried balls-deep in his ass.

Match by emphasisonem [Stucky, 4k words, Mature]

The situation’s actually kind of funny from the right perspective, Bucky thinks as he reads the message for what feels like the hundredth time. He’s finally matched with a hot, funny guy. Tall and broad and clean cut. An absolutely breathtaking smile. Bucky’s walking wet dream. And he’s good. They haven’t messaged on the app, but Bucky already knows him.

He knows him because Steve Rogers is an art history professor at his university. His art history professor.

Best friends and married since childhood by StuckySituation [Stucky, 1k words, General]

Inspired by @/peterssquill's post in tumblr: "bucky and steve got married on the playground when they were like eight and though neither of them would ever admit it to anyone, even each other, they still consider it official"

~♥~ ♥~ ♥~

“Natasha, stop trying to set me up with every woman you meet, I’m-”

“Too shy? Too scared?”

“No, I’m-”

“Too busy? You’re mostly retired these days, not a good excuse anymore.” Natasha smirks and then drawls: “Or just too gay?”

Steve flushes at that, even if isn’t true -- he’s bisexual, not gay. “Let it go, Nat, I’m not looking for anything. I’m already married, for fuck’s sake.”

Clearly not what she expected. “What.”

Steve grimaces. He didn’t mean to tell anyone that, ever.

“Sorry, can’t talk about it right now!” he says and jumps out of the plane.

Nobody Should Be Alone on a Holiday by emphasisonem [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

“So, um-” Bucky begins speaking again, pulling Steve from his less-than-work-appropriate thoughts. The brunet has shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks, and he’s shifting from one foot to the other as he smiles shyly. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot,” Steve grins, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his broad chest. Bucky swallows deeply as one of his hands comes up to pull at the collar of his button-up, and Steve can’t help following the motion of his Adam’s apple.

“I was, uh-” Bucky continues- “That is, I heard you don’t have Thanksgiving plans?”

In which Bucky finds out that Steve's going to be alone on Thanksgiving and invites his coworker to spend the holiday with him.

🌻 It's Been A Long Season Through by thiccbuckybarnes @thiccbuckybarnesfic [Stucky, 49k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes is in desperate need of a change in scenery, which is why he makes the foolhardy decision to quit his job, leave his asshole of a fiance, pack up his life, and move to his grandfather’s old farm all within a single day.

He expects confusion, hardship, and maybe even failure. But love? He wasn’t expecting that.

--

Or, a Stucky Stardew Valley AU that nobody but me wanted and that’s ok.

oh, peach pit, where'd the hours go? by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 10k words, Explicit]

Can't see the forest for the trees.

--

Or, Steve learns that just because he and Bucky got their happily ever after, it doesn’t mean the past won’t come back to bite them.

I'll find my way by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 725 words, Teen]

Steve had watched Bucky fall, and nothing had been the same since.

AU-gust day 19: Daemons

special delivery by glim @glim [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

It's not that Steve's bad at taking care of himself when he gets sick; he just wishes he didn't have to all the time.

At least he can order most of what he needs online. That's some small comfort, that he can have soup and ice cream and everything else brought to his door.

at first chance i'd take the bed warmed by the body by spacebuck @spacebuck [Stucky, 8k words, Explicit]

This close, Steve can see exactly how beautiful his hands are. He’s never really noticed before, or at least he’s never really had a reason to notice, but the man’s hands are large, tanned like he works outside all day. There’s an endearing callus on the heel of one of his palms, and Steve can’t quite work out when calluses became endearing.

Steve pauses the video. Swallows hard. Casts his eyes around for anything that’ll keep his mind off the hands on his screen, off the words inked into those hands, the delicate shape of a bird’s wing, the curling edge of a vine.

He looks down. The name of the channel is right there, blaring the man’s name right into Steve’s brain until it feels like he’s known it all along.

Bucky Barnes.

OR: the one where Bucky's a youtuber who solves puzzles on camera, and steve's smitten and horny

🌻 Rock On! by millesable @marvelousescapism [Clintasha, 700 words, General]

“Hey, Romanoff!”

He lifted his hand, index finger and pinky finger raised, thumb out, all other fingers tucked. Their secret sign; their confession for the world to see, safe in the knowledge that the world wasn’t listening.

“Rock on!”

🌻 You Like the Way I Look by dontcallmebree @iamthe-wo-manwhocan [Stucky, 2k words, Explicit]

Bucky sidles up to him, hand boldly coming to rest on his chest. “What about you, big guy? Care for a dance?” Steve watches Bucky’s eyes twinkle with satisfaction, somehow already knowing he’s got Steve on the hook.

A decade out of the ice, Steve Rogers returns to New York. Reeling from a battle against the Chitauri, a night with the troublesome Bucky Barnes might be just what he needs.

Join the Rebellion by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 765 words, Teen]

Bucky knew he shouldn't be out after curfew, but he couldn't resist the urge. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew it was where he wanted to be.

AU-gust day 20: Dystopia

🔒 Five Days in December by mywingsareonwheels @mywingsareonwheels [Evanstan, 4k words, Teen]

“Shit shit shit shit...” muttered Chris to himself, glad that the sound of piped Christmas carols was drowning out his swearing amid the picture books. Most of the store was heaving even though it was Sunday, he’d been recognised at least three times, finding presents for all of his nieces and nephews was proving far more of a headache than expected, and he’d just sent a pile of copies of "Strictly No Elephants" tumbling off the bookshelf.

He scrambled about trying to pick them all up, and then dropped them again as someone bumped right into his backside. He lost his balance, caught himself against a bookcase, and a landslide of "Carter Is a Painter’s Cat" joined "Strictly No Elephants" on the floor. He yelped.

“Ah fuck, I’m so sorry… Chris!”

* * * * * * * * * *

London, December 2021. Amid cats, books, and the cold English drizzle, Chris finds everything he was hoping for and thought he would never have.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Reaching for Fire by dixons_mama @dixons-mama [Stucky, 7k words, Explicit]

Bucky has always felt a fire in his heart (and other body parts) when it came to his boss, Steve Rogers, but he's made sure to never feed those flames. When he finds out about Steve's second job, though, he's tempted to let that fire out.

i've been dreaming of a face like yours by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

Bucky is about to busy himself with making a small dinner for himself when he stops in his tracks at the figure drinking a cup of coffee in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and smirking at him.

It’s Steve.

“Surprise, sweet boy,” he says before setting his cup down.

--

Or, PWP reunion sex

🌻 Somewhere, Under Your Skin by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 16k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes treats himself to a one-night stand after having a very bad no good day.

The sex is good--great, even. Might be the best sex of his life.

But Bucky wouldn’t have slept with the guy if he had known that he was going to continuously run into him every day for the next fucking month.

--

Or, a Big Grump Bucky has a hot one night stand with a college kid who is popping up everywhere in his everyday life and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

(Written for HYBB Bingo Square: Grumpy Bucky)

i've played heartstrings before but not in your key by thiccbuckybarnes [Stucky, 11k words, Explicit]

He glances down, seeing a folded couple of papers, before peering up at Bucky. The older man is biting his bottom lip, making it pretty and red. Steve wants to run his tongue across where his teeth are digging into his flesh.

"What's this?" Steve asks, setting his phone down, emails forgotten. Bucky shrugs and looks away.

"I dunno. You tell me, genius," he says, sounding bratty enough that it makes Steve's dick twitch in his pants. Jesus, there has to be something wrong with him.

Steve glances once more at Bucky, who now has his arms crossed against his chest and is pointedly not looking at Steve, before picking up the stack of folded papers. He opens them, seeing a collection of maybe five or six sheets of paper. His eyes immediately land on the list of familiar words with negative next to each one. -- Or, Steve Rogers is a jealous, possessive little shit that wants nothing more than to mark up his boyfriend and stake his claim. And Bucky knows it. (And he likes it.)

🌻 I'm Home (With You) by BonkyBornes @padfoot-and-the-marauders [Stucky, 2k words, General]

In any other circumstance, the apartment would've been perfect. But it was today, and the fact that he was here meant he wasn’t out searching. He knew they hadn’t had any leads for weeks and he knew Natasha was right; all three of them were exhausted and a break would do them good. It just felt wrong to Steve that he was comfortable while Bucky was still out there—somewhere. Probably cold. Probably hungry.

The knock came again. Sighing, Steve unwrapped his hand from the dog tags and remembered how to move. Cold wind and snow greeted him when he opened the door. The solitary figure was walking down the steps, collar popped against the chill.

“Did you need something?” he called.

The person stopped. They were still. And then they turned. *

Or, the Christmas Steve deserved after Winter Soldier.

The portrait by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 915 words, General]

Steve Rogers has a Gift. He can help people find their soulmates, all he needs is some art supplies, a quiet place, and eye contact.

AU-gust day 21: soulmates

Maybe A Muse by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 2k words, Mature]

When Bucky Barnes needs extra money, he’s appalled that his best friends think he should become a model for the art department on campus. Shy, nerdy, and socially awkward, he’s not sure that’s something he feels comfortable doing. Still, he needs money, and he likes the idea of becoming someone’s muse. The problem is he had no idea two things would happen. First, one of the students in the class is exactly his type; second, he has to model nude.

[jumblejen]

Changing

Suptober21 Day 29: Chrome Chassis

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34805581

“Dean do we have plans this weekend?”

“Not yet. Sam said he didn’t need any help with that haunting in Iowa and Eileen went with him, so not hanging out with them. And nothing on Jack’s schedule. Or mine.”

Cas smiled wide. “So we have time to work on my truck?”

Dean looked at Cas’ smile and smiled back in reflex. “Yeah we can work on your truck. Is it running rough or something?”

“No. It’s running fine.”

“Then what do you wanna do with it? I mean, I can show you how to do more maintenance stuff on it, I guess…” Dean trailed off as Cas shook his head.

“I was poking around on youtube and there were all these videos about tricking out trucks. I especially liked all the chrome…”

“Lemme get this straight. You want to. Trick out that old pickup?” Dean looked at Cas incredulously.

Cas fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “I miss the Lincoln.”

“You what?”

“I know you hated it, but I loved driving that car and some of the mods they talked about on the videos reminded me of the hydraulics on the Lincoln and I just thought we could do it. Together.”

Dean blinked at Cas a few times, at a loss for words. “I’m not sure we can do much in a single weekend, Cas. But if it’s important, sure. We can work on it.”

Cas crashed into Dean with a hug that turned into a kiss that turned into a few minutes of making out.

“What was that for?”

“I didn’t think you’d say yes.”

Dean blushed. He hated thinking about how big of an asshole he’d been to Cas over so many trivial things. Well, he can’t fix the past but he’s been working hard at not being that guy anymore. “Sorry Cas. Can I ask you something though?”

“Of course.”

“Do you wanna look for a new Lincoln instead? I mean, obviously not a new Lincoln, but, like, another one?”

Cas tilted his head in consideration his arms still firmly encircling Dean. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Alright. What did you have in mind.”

“I really didn’t think we’d get this far.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to work on the truck?”

“No, I’m just savoring this.”

“What?”

“Having you. Knowing you’re mine and I’m yours. And that we’re going to take care of each other.”

“Well I shoulda taken care of you a long time ago. Been better for you.” Dean pressed his forehead to Cas’ forehead.

“There are reasons it didn’t work out that way. We’re here now.”

Dean and Cas stood together breathing and quiet. Dean’s thought swirled thinking of all that could have been if things were different, like if Mary hadn’t died or if John had died too. If he’d been brave enough to run away with Sammy, or if John had actually ditched them at Bobby’s for good. If he hadn’t left Sonny’s. If he’d figured out how to just exist in his own skin comfortably when he was twenty instead of still struggling with it in his forties. If he’d been honest about his feelings for Cas in Purgatory. Or any other time he found his angel again or before he’d ever lost him.

“Dean, you’re squashing me.”

Dean relaxed his hold a little. “Sorry Cas. Just thinking about those reasons.”

“I’m still not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I. But maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“A little bit after Jack was born, but, uh, before you came back we had this case. With a shapeshifter.”

Cas looked at Dean expectantly, knowing not to rush him.

“Anyway, she was a good person. She helped people with, um, closure.”

“She was a therapist?”

“Sort of. Yeah.” Dean took a deep breath. “I was thinking, someone like her, she’s already part of our world. Maybe she could…help.”

“Help?”

“Help. We all know I’ve been carrying around all kinds of things in my head since I was four years old. And I don’t exactly have healthy coping mechanisms. Maybe she could be a chance to start working on some of that.”

“Would you being a hunter be a problem?”

“I don’t think so. Well, maybe, but we did help her get rid of her ex. He’d been killing her clients and stalking her. So she’d probably at least hear me out.”

“Are you going to call her?”

“Nah. Figure that the week after next, Sam and Eileen are taking Jack, so maybe road trip?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“We can still work on the truck this weekend.”

Cas kissed Dean on the cheek. “Can I show you my pinterest of truck improvements?”

“As you wish.” Dean hugged Cas tight. Maybe things could be okay. At the very least, it was time Dean tried something new.