#which is double stupid because it's something that happened in game that i have screenshots for!

[mathlann]

Huge spike in "writing about Cas" energy, but only in the AU-> AU goofing accidentally hits a Character Point about Canon Cas-> Puts thoughts in draft to post-> Brain motivation dies before I can expand on thought🔁

[lucy90712]

Wilbur Soot- MCC

Request: Can u make a part two of MCC when ur on ur period I would love to see Wilbur! Also love ur HC!

Warnings: female reader implied, periods and cramps mentioned 

~ I have been looking forward to this MCC since it was announced because I finally get to be in the same team as my boyfriend we have both won separately and the people we are teamed with are also really good so expectations are pretty high which has me nervous. I've been training extra hard as well to try and make my weaknesses less obvious so that the rest of my team won't have to carry me on certain games. All of this training however has made me super tired because I stayed up practicing and streaming last night which was kind of stupid of me but I can just drink a red bull or something to wake me up.

Wilbur has been super excited too because he has wanted to be on a team with me for a while and has been begging Scott to let it happen and he must have finally gave in. I love that he's excited to team with me and not have to be against me but I feel like there is more pressure because he really wants us to win together but its so hard to tell if that will happen. I would love to be quietly confident but there are some really strong teams although we do have George and Phil as well who are both pretty good (did I just make an elite team like imagine adding Dream as well) so we may have a good chance.

He pulled me up in the afternoon after I had been trying to catch up on my sleep to go on a walk before we will be stuck in our offices for ages. Wilbur has his office in an office building but I have mine at home because I like being able to just watch tv or get a snack when I'm working but its kind of good because it means there will be no echo from the both of us talking at the same time but we won't be able to celebrate together if we win.

On our walk my back started to really hurt as well as my stomach and immediately I knew what was up, I'm starting my period. I knew it was due but I was hoping it wouldn't be today because my performance will be even worse if my stomach hurts the whole time which I know it will. Wilbur could tell there was something wrong with me when I moved my hand over my stomach and walked quicker to get back home and sort everything out.

"You ok there?" He asked

"I'm good just cramps" I said

"Aww I'm sorry do you want to go home?" He asked

All I had to do was nod slightly and we were on our way home and Wilbur had an arm around my waist proving a bit of warmth to sooth my cramps a little bit. He has seen me doubled over with pain and sometimes get nauseous with how bad they can be so he knows that MCC tonight is going to be a struggle hence why I don't ever stream when I've got cramps because I will just curl up in a ball in pain if I do. We got home and when I had been to the bathroom Wilbur was waiting with painkillers and a heating pad to make it a bit better and he cuddled with me on the sofa until he had to leave to go to his office.

Once he was gone I needed a distraction so I started my stream to get a bit more practice in while just talking to my chat, they were concerned when I kept wincing after a wave of pain but I assured them everything was fine and I just wasn't feeling my best. Soon enough Wilbur joined the team vc and we interacted on stream for the first time in quite a while, the other joined soon as well and we headed into the main server for the start of the event. MCC is one of my favourite streams to do because everyone gets behind the whole team and cheers us on plus its a good chance to interact with new people, the viewers also love it each time which keeps me going even when its a game I don't like.

Half way through we were doing pretty good sitting comfortably in second place which is right where we wanted to be but next is ace race which is Wilbur's least favourite game and I'm not very good either plus with the new map we are all struggling. Getting into the game I was so nervous because I've been doing really well so far and have been sitting on 4th overall for the past 2 games and I would love to stay there but that probably won't happen. Phil is pretty good at ace race so I tried following him around but I quickly lost him and was going round with Wilbur instead both of us swearing when we couldn't make it through a particular part or our elytras were playing up.

"Fuck sake I hate this stupid jump pad" I said

"You bastard" Wilbur said

If anyone was hoping for a swear free stream then that went out the window very quickly, the combination of me, Wilbur and ace race is not a good one for no swearing. I can't even count how many times we both swore throughout but I imagine it was a lot although in the end it was worth it because I finished in 7th which is the best I ever did and Wilbur was 10th so we did really well. Coming out of ace race I went straight to the build with the leaderboard to see how I was doing and I'd moved up into 3rd in the overall so of course I took a million screenshots and got Wilbur to join some of them.

"You are doing so good I'm so proud of you" he said

"Thank you you're doing good too you're in 8th" I said

The last game soon came and finished and the nerves as we went into the hub to see our final placement were sky high especially because I did awful in survival games because my cramps started to get worse again and I just couldn't concentrate. We all loaded in and looked at the leaderboard and we were still in second, that means dodgebolt which I'm normally pretty good at but its just not going to happen today.

I'm so excited because we could actually win like Wilbur and I wanted but this is the hard part and with me not at my best I don't know how well it will go, people often target me too because I'm good at dodgebolt so I might get knocked out pretty easily. Wilbur was texting me during the break to see how I was doing and was reassuring me through discord that we could do this, he was also ready to come home right away and told me to stay streaming so we could celebrate together if we win and if not just to give the viewers a bit of content.

Dodgebolt got underway and we won the first game with a bit of ease so my confidence was rising as my cramps were getting worse. Game two started off badly when me and George got knocked out pretty quickly with Wilbur following not long after but Phil pulled through and won us the tournament.

"Well done everyone you all did really well" I said

"You did great too" Phil said

"Great job everyone but I'm gonna go home, y/n I'm coming for you" Wilbur said

With that he left the call and was on his way back while the rest of us celebrated and talked to friends on other teams or people who joined our vc to talk. It's been a while since I've won MCC so it was nice to feel that sense of achievement again and my chat are happy which is what I always want. I had a lot of Wilbur's viewers too as they joined to see him when he got back but honestly we share a lot of the same audience so it didn't feel bad only having this amount of viewers because of him because they are kind of my viewers too.

Eventually Wilbur got home and burst through the doors to my office arms wide open wrapping the round me and the back of my chair before giving me a chance to get up and let him sit down. I sat on lap and we talked to chat for a bit while he had his hands on my stomach slightly massaging it to help my cramps which was much appreciated. We celebrated our win together and promised to show off our coins when we get them before ending stream and climbing into bed.

When in bed I laid on top of Wilbur because it was comfy and he was warm while he rubbed up and down my back soothing me until I fell asleep while whispering cute things in my ears.

[thesimperiuscurse]

THE CHALLENGE — show a certain part of your story process based on you being tagged by other creators. 

Thank you @herpixels for tagging me in your wonderful challenge! Here’s a behind-the-scenes essay for En Pointe ❤

WRITING PROCESS — show us a part of your script or explain how you write your scenes. do you write in screenplay format or novel format?

I write in novel format, and have a very methodical process. I have a Planning Notebook which covers all the general elements of the story; cast list + descriptions, main plot, themes, overviews of all chapters, timeline, world + settings information, research links, and a massive section with all my notes on relationships, character styles, history, writing goals, arcs, and most crucially, what to avoid from the absolute fucking mess of Fallen Angels. 

At the smaller scale, before writing, I plan out each chapter in my Chapter Workbook. First is the Outline, which is a synopsis of the main events. Going off that, I write a list of Chapter Shots which describes in writing all the pictures; what kind of shot it is (long, over-the-shoulder, etc), the location + atmosphere, and what the characters are doing. Corresponding to these I list the Poses, for each character and what expression they have. I then write a To Do List for what sets to build, new sims to make, number of poses to create, the cc I have to find or make. The final section is Details, which notes down all the little things I have to remember; running gags, nuances, and themes; current state of relationships and character arcs to keep track of their development; what my aims are for character perceptions + issues I need to fix from the last chapter. This section is super important to make sure the story unfolds smoothly and revelations make sense, or else I get something abrupt like Mako x Raven, because I didn’t foreshadow clearly or early enough in advance. Here are snippets of what this looks like:

Once I finish all this planning (the current word count of the two documents is 20k lmfao), then I begin writing. It’s a lot less structured because I just start with the most exciting scenes or ones I’ve been thinking about for a while. I organise the paragraphs according to the Chapter Shots. A bit of light editing then the writing is ready to publish! 

SCENE BUILDING — show us you in the middle of scene building through pictures, gifs, or a video. explain what is the best thing about scene building and what is the worst!

I dislike scene building because TS3′s weak ass makes everything so tedious. I have a Pinterest board to inspire the settings. The worst part is definitely when the game moves at 0.001 m/s and crashes, which happens far too often and pisses me off. Here’s a screenshot I accidentally took when setting up the big family dinner scene in Chapter 8. I tried my best to minimise the amount of sims that were actually there because I take shortcuts whenever possible. Crowd scenes suck. 

CC + POSE MAKING — do you make your own cc/poses for your scene? If so, what is your process like to create? do you just go off the top of your head? do you use reference photos?

I make all the poses that aren’t singular and ‘normal’, due to height differences and also so I can achieve my exact vision. Depending on the length of the chapter, this can range from 20-50 poses, which is looking to be around 700 poses by the story finale. I try to find reference photos (essential for ballet poses) when I can to make them look natural. I also convert or mesh clothing + objects, but I’m lazy so I often cheat with Photoshop. 

GETTING IN THE ZONE — what do you do to get in the zone to work on a scene? examples include: show us your playlist you use when working on a scene, what’s your go-to scene snack/drink, etc.

I don’t actually have anything for this. If I don’t feel like doing a particular task on the To Do List I just try something else. Sometimes I listen to Eva and Mako’s playlists when working though, and there are certain songs I associate with certain parts of the story which help me when I’m thinking of them. 

SCREENSHOT FOLDER — give us a look into your screenshot folder to show us just how much goes into one scene for your story. scrapped pictures encouraged!

I also have a linear method for pictures. Firstly, I create the poses, and test them in a blank background, which is when I figure out the most flattering angles, and edit the poses if needed. After that I begin series of test shots in the actual set, redoing up to three times until it looks passable. Since I use natural light almost every shot has a double (or even triple), with outdoor lighting for the environment and controlled interior lighting for the sims, which is then spliced together along with other atmospheric editing. There’s a lot of screenshots to ‘build’ the final visual but I rarely have alternative or scrapped finals because that would be a terrible waste of time. Why do I do this ridiculously tedious process? Because I’m stupid. 

CAPTIONS — are you a caption on the picture kind of storyteller or captions in text box type of storyteller? why? do you do both?

I don’t do caption format, because for me, it removes lots of detail and nuance. Long prose means my audience is much smaller, but I wouldn’t be able to convey half the things just by still visuals and dialogue. As you might be able to tell from the aforementioned question, picture taking is also just immensely tiring.

EDITING — explain and show us your process editing a scene through a video, gif, or picture. a before and after will suffice if you aren’t in the middle of editing a scene as you answer this.

Corresponding to the Screenshot Folder question:

I no longer rely on Reshade for post-processing, except for DOF, but even then I blur in editing. Lately I’ve been trying to create a more realistic, atmospheric look with strong DOF, bloom, motion blur, and smoothing out light + shadows with exposure brushes. 

THROWBACK — show us an ancient story scene you done in the past and explain how you would do the scene differently today!

You mean every scene I’ve ever done before En Pointe LOL If we’re talking ancient, I might as well go back to the very beginning of The Kingston Legacy, in 2015. It’s the classic legacy opening of the founder moving to a new town, with basic writing and terrible low-setting-no-cc pictures. I would do literally everything different. I can’t even begin to describe so here’s something to laugh at. 

I tag — @lazysunjade​ (watch her post it 1 second later) @amys-snapshots @notjustabooksims @simnights ❤ Please check the challenge post for the full and original format, and anyone else who wants to participate can also reblog it as an ask game! 

[itubainaretro]

oh no, don’t mind me, i’m just out here thinking about a parallel universe in which robbe is a tik toker and sander is his best friend that always appears on his tik toks because he’s an angel like that and can’t ever say no to robbe so he always goes along with whatever robbe wants them to do 

and the thing is: robbe’s had a crush on sander since forever but he doesn’t know how to tell him so one day he decides to go to hell with it and film the electric love challenge when they’re chilling in sander’s room and altough sander’s always on robbe’s tik toks he doesn’t have one so he has no idea what the challenge is so when robbe presses play and the song starts playing sander goes along with it, bopping his head to the song, lip syncing it because he knows the lyrics, practically serenading robbe, making him smile dumbly at him even though he’s a nervous wreck because he’s about to kiss his best friend and he’s afraid this will ruin everything, but he musters up enough courage and as soon as the song goes “and all i need is to be struck by your electric love” robbe comes closer and kisses sander and sander pulls back because he’s surprised and robbe wants to die because this is it, this is where their friendship ends and he’s already thinking about how he’ll apologise when he looks up and sander’s smilling, his eyes going from robbe’s eyes to his mouth, up and down countless times, and he thinks he’s never seen sander look at him like that and he doesn’t know what’s going on but then suddenly sander’s hand is coming up to his cheek, angling his face up, closer, cradling his face like he’s something precious, and he kisses robbe again and robbe feels like he’s in heaven and maybe he’s about to pass out and this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him and he wants to wrap himself up in this feeling, in sander, in how much love he feels for this boy right here and the feeling is obviously mutual because sander can’t let go of him once their lips finally touch again, moving his hand to the back of robbe’s head, playing with the hair there, then touching his neck, smiling into the kiss, softly biting his lip before pulling back and resting his forehead against robbe’s once they’re too out of breath to keep properly kissing

they only remember the tik tok they were filiming some time later, when they’re laying in bed, side by side, trying to get their lungs back to functioning properly after spending way too much time making out after they confessed their feelings to each other and became official boyfriends, and robbe’s phone vibrates against sander’s thigh, where it ended up with how much they moved around on his bed, and he hands it to robbe and robbe smiles at it, seeing the video playing on an endless loop on the screen and asks him if he should post it or not. sander says he has no problem with robbe doing so and if he feels like it he might as well post it. robbe doesn’t have that many followers so he presses the button, posts it, checks his messages, locks his phone and goes back to laying down with sander, accepting cuddles and kisses and settling in for the night

the video blows up, of course it does, and he gains thousands of followers after that, robbe and sander becoming everyone’s favourite tik tok couple, even though robbe’s the only one with an actual account

they make the most out of it and film the most ridiculous tik toks, just to indulge everyone and each other, incluinding one where robbe tries to teach sander how to skate and another one where they try to get on robbe’s skate jumping together, falling down countless times before they finally succeed and land on it perfectly; one of robbe on his way to annoy sander while the first notes of where is the love? by the black eyed peas plays and he goes jumping around to the beat of the song; one where robbe calls sander bro just to see his reaction and sander calls him bro back and they end up the video laughing out loud; and also one where robbe’s looking at the camera with a sad face while saying “so my boyfriend told me he doesn’t love me anymore today” and sander saying off screen “baby, i did not tell you this”, so robbe turns the camera around and films sander rolling his eyes when he says “then what did you tell me?” “i told you we couldn’t get a dog, at least not now” and the camera goes back to robbe’s face when he says “same thing”

sometimes sander steals robbe’s phone and films some cute tik toks too, because he got sucked into that world now but he still refuses to have an account of his own, and he films some challenges because he wants to see robbe’s reaction to them, like the one where sander interrupts robbe playing videogame with his friends to cuddle him and robbe’s reaction is the cutest thing ever, dropping the controller as soon as sander settles down on his lap, taking his headphones off and hugging sander back asking “you okay, baby?” and dropping a kiss to his head when sander nods; or the one where sander opens the blanket in front of robbe and as soon as robbe sees it he jumps in bed with sander, showering him in kisses and cuddling him saying “best thing ever after a long day, i love you”; or one where sander and robbe are facetiming and sander pretends to fall asleep while robbe’s playing some game and his reaction is the softest when he looks down at sander and double checks when he realises he fell asleep, pausing the game and screenshotting the moment, with sander looking all cuddled up in his blankets and robbe looking stupid in love with his boy; an lastly one where they’re just being total goofs dancing around with each other in the middle of a desert street late at night and when it starts raining they stay there, still dancing and kissing each other while it pours down rain, making everyone go soft at the movie like scene

later on they decide to turn robbe’s account into a sobbe one - giving into the ship name their followers gave them back then, when they were just best friends doing stupid tik toks for a laugh

so yeah, don’t mind me

[dat-carovieh]

Got some interpretation on Hank’s character that got prompted by some discussion on Discord about the stickers on Hank’s work desk. They all seem to somehow send a message about some boomer guy who is racist about androids, hates his ex-wife, is in general a grumpy asshole who is a prick to everyone. But is he really and if not, how do you explain the stickers?

So, let’s first have a look at who Hank interacts with throughout the game to see if he really is a grumpy prick like the stickers suggest. We will get to the stickers later. I will not include Connor for now, because I think that has been talked about a lot also this post is already a novel. But let’s talk about side characters.

We have of course his co-workers. Most memorable is probably Gavin. He clearly doesn’t like Gavin and Gavin clearly doesn’t like him. Gavin is pretty shitty to Hank, despite Hank being his superior. So I think Hank calling Gavin an asshole and not being friendly with him makes sense. How about other co-workers, we don’t see a lot. I can only think of Ben and Chris. They seem to be respecting each other. In Partners Hank arrives, gets greeted by Ben, has a polite conversation about what happened, Ben teases him a little, Hank does not get rude about it, maybe a bit grumpy, but well he’s annoyed about his new partner. He than walks around the crime scene and asks questions. When he talks, he is polite to the person he talks to. He talks to Chris in public enemy (Please excuse if I forget instances, I have played the game a couple of times, but my brain isn’t perfect) He enters, he makes a joke, in my opinion it’s funny and in no way rude, he’s annoyed with the FBI, yeah but I think that’s normal. He asks Chris questions, listens to him, polite conversation, they seem to clearly respect each other and have a good and professional relationship. Later Hank is clearly really affected by what happened to Chris, no matter if he got killed or not.

Jeffrey is a little harder. They do yell at each other, it’s not really pretty, there are clearly issues between them. They go way back and I can imagine they butt heads a lot because Jeffrey is disappointed in Hank for letting himself go and giving in to his depression and alcoholism. I can imagine he had tried to help Hank and he resisted a lot, Hank seems like the type. So there is a lot of tension that comes out between them.

I mentioned the FBI earlier, so clearly, we have to talk about Perkins, THAT MOTHER FUCKER. Yeah, I hate him, he’s an asshole, Hank thinks the same. But honestly Perkins was super rude from the beginning. Chris introduced them and instead of a “Hello” or whatever his first words were “What is that” about Connor. Yeah, fuck off Perkins. Hank has actually been really polite with him there, if you take in the circumstances.

Let’s move to the Eden Club. Who does he interact here? Ben, briefly, polite professional, he calls Gavin an asshole, when he’s not there, he doesn’t really say anything to Gavin when they’re in the same room, despite Gavin being a little shit again. Eden Club owner? He’s polite as he questions him, he does mention that he likes his dog more and more the more he learns about humans, which honestly, if you look at why he says that, understandable. Then the Traci, this is easily missed, I only saw it on my fourth playthrough, he is trying to gently let her down and it’s incredibly adorable. The guy who supposedly absolutely hates Androids and thinks they’re just machines tries to not hurt this android sexworker’s feelings even though he believes she doesn’t even have feelings.

We see a little bit of his private life at Chicken Feed where he meets Pedro, a guy who apparently gives him questionable betting advice and last time Hank apparently lost quite a bit of money with Pedro’s advice. But he’s not mad. He mentions it but he is quickly convinced to bet again and he’s in general super friendly to Pedro. Gary, the guy who owns Chicken Feed, him and Hank also seem to have a good relationship. Someone who wouldn’t want to interact with humans and who is annoyed by them (like me sometimes) wouldn’t actually built a connection to the guy you buy your food from. I’m talking from personal experience here. Yes, I’m always friendly to service workers I interact with but I don’t really say more than greeting, thanking, wishing a good day and anything important for whatever I’m buying. Hank clearly knows him better and talks to him. Jimmy is less clear but the way he says to him “Wonders of technology, make it double” it seems like they know each other, they chat on occasion. And I think that extends to other Service workers. He would be friendly at the grocery store when something doesn’t work out r at the restaurant when getting the wrong dish. You know like millennials are, because he is a millennial.

That we go to Kamski. I’m not sure why he seems nervous while talking to Chloe because I’m pretty sure with all his experience he doesn’t get nervous in front of a pretty woman, that seems like it would be really bad for the job. I don’t know what’s with this, maybe cause she’s an android and he’s not sure how to interact with her? But he is very polite to her, greets her and asks for Kamski. Despite her being an android, he supposedly hates. He is less polite to Kamski, but he’s a little shit, who honestly is wilfully withholding information from the police, which is a crime, but he’s rich so I guess he gets away with it.

 So, what about the Stickers than? Let’s have a look at the Stickers and see what we have.

I’m just gonna list what we see there, so you don’t have to get through my grainy screenshots and also, it’s accessible for screenreaders.

We have three categories, let’s start with anti Android: -“We don’t bleed the same color” -a blue triangle, crossed out, underneath it says: “No more androids”

That’s it, only two, we know he doesn’t like androids but like mentioned before he is still really polite to them, well his relationship with Connor is starting bumpy and based on player choices might get bumpier. But what is it, he hates? He doesn't like androids in their non-deviated state because of what humans want them to be, he hates that humans basically built human shaped slaves. And honestly, I kinda get it. Connor shoots the Tracis? Hank likes Connor less. Hank shoots Chloe, Hank is mad. Connor spares them? Hank tells him he did the right thing. Connor asked him why he didn’t want him to chase Kara across the highway and the first thing he says is “You could have died” before he remembers he’s supposed to hate androids. Yes, he gives positive feedback when Connor shoots the kitchen android but he was actively threatening all of their lifes.

Next, we have a sticker mentioning an ex-wife, only one. It says: “If I wanted to be ignored I’d talk to my ex-wife” There is something else there but it’s blocked by another sticker.

Seems like classical boomer humour “Haha I hate my ex-wife” or it’s ironic. There is no other instance of an ex-wife being mentioned. For all we know, he might have never been married. Hell he might be gay. Cole might have been adopted. The sticker might be ironic. Or he got it from somewhere and just sticked it on or he did it very shortly after the breakup when he was pretty mad.

Third are the grumpy ones. We have more from them. -“If you’re not a bartender, go away!” twice -“How is my driving? Call: 1-555-IDONTCARE” twice -I’m not grumpy. I just don’t like you.” -“Warning, to avoid injury, don’t tell me how to do my job” -“If you have a complaint, please do to hell.” -“Happy people make me sick”

This screams edgy millennial to me. Also the fact he has stickers twice seems like he just got them somewhere and slapped them on because he found them funny. He didn’t buy them specifically.

The bartender ones? Don’t we all like to make fun of our mental illnesses? He knows he’s an alcoholic, might as well make fun about it. The ones about driving? Wouldn’t you stick them on your car? Why is this in the office? Because they’re stupid but somehow funny, just slap them on there. I’m not grumpy? I would totally say that as well. And I believe people told them he’s grumpy so he probably saw this as fitting. I have to admit I don’t have a specific interpretation to telling him hoe to do his job and the complaint one. The one about happy people? This man is heavily depressed, that’s a coping mechanism, it’s again making fun of your own mental illness. But yes, all in all they boil down to edgy millennial.

 I’m well aware that this is probably not what David Cage intended but to be honest I don’t care what David Cage intended. He tried to push boomer Hank on us with these stickers but the Hank we got was different. I don’t know if that’s Clancy’s doing or if this is just another plothole. But that is my interpretation of Hank, nobody asked for.

Anyway, I love Hank and I’m making it everyone’s problem.

[mylordshesacactus]

An Exhaustive Blow-By-Blow Analysis Of The ‘To Catch A Jedi’ Warehouse Duel That Was Definitely Asked For And Desired By People Other Than Us: An Essay By Alex And Jo

Or: It Is The Year Of Our Lord Two Thousand FUCKING Twenty, And Yet Here We Are, At The End Of All Things, Still Analyzing Barriss Offee’s Terrible Life Decisions.

Yes we’ve been saying we’d do this for the past five years minimum yes we’re girls what about it.

Before we begin, a moment of acknowledgement. Of all the people she’s faced, with all her skill and cunning and strength in the Force, the one and only character we have ever seen completely get the drop on Asajj Ventress--take her out without even giving her time to go for her lightsabers, stone cold, no duel no banter no challenge—

Is BARRISS FUCKING OFFEE. DEPENDABLE BARRISS™. LUMINARA UNDULI’S KID. THE NERD WHO MEMORIZED THE ENTIRE INSIDE OF A GEONOSIAN LABYRINTH, YOU KNOW, JUST IN CASE.

WITH A PIPE.

In the library.

And once she’s done that, this happens:

...and Jo and Alex spend the next seven years going absolutely feral. 

A brief moment now where we drag Ahsoka for failing to notice that in the last ten minutes Asajj Ventress has somehow managed to lose about six inches of height. But of course she doesn’t; the entirety of To Catch a Jedi is spent establishing that Ahsoka is firing on zero cylinders. She’s exhausted—she’s probably been awake for over 24 hours at this point—she’s confused, she’s scared, her entire world is crumbling all around her and she doesn’t understand why. So we see her make slip-up after slip-up, making a lot of stupid mistakes that get her noticed by the Coruscant police, and also briefly forgetting how elevators work.

“I, uh, guess I’m not exactly on my game these days.”

So...yeah. She doesn’t notice Asajj’s height loss or the real damning difference: Barriss is completely silent the entire fight, and Asajj never shuts the fuck up.

Of course, Barriss doesn’t need this deception to be perfect. She just needs to make it believable enough. This little Makashi salute—a duelist’s formality, something that screams Dooku—is the first little Ventress-y quirk she throws in, and that’s relevant, because it’s central to her entire motivation for this fight.

Barriss isn’t here to kill Ahsoka.

Barriss is here to save her life.

...Like, she’s bad at it. She’s making horrible decisions that keep getting worse. But there’s a reason she’s disguising herself as Ventress—Ventress is the perfect catspaw, and Barriss desperately needs a catspaw right now, because Ahsoka was never meant to take the fall for the bombing.

Letta went off-script and came within inches of naming Barriss—who, going by the timing, was almost certainly already infiltrating that secure facility (which...gotta respect the skill that took, at least) to silence her—or free her, we don’t know what Barriss intended but we’re not giving her that much benefit of the doubt right now. If she hadn’t called for Ahsoka as quickly as she did, Letta would have died alone in her cell, killed by a nameless Force-user, and the trail would have gone cold.

Instead Ahsoka was there, and when Barriss was faced with a choice between her actions being exposed and letting Ahsoka take the blame, she took the latter. But then Barriss breaks her out, with every indication being that something...went very wrong, as the situation spirals out of control. It’s obvious that Barriss is in the vents during that escape because the clones in Ahsoka’s path keep mysteriously dying and their wounds are fresh, and also there’s no more convenient interference once she gets outside. So now Ahsoka’s free but the subject of a planetwide manhunt that makes her look even MORE guilty…which wasn’t meant to happen.

Remember that Ahsoka is the one who contacted Barriss for help, and Barriss clearly wasn’t expecting it. She spends most of this episode desperately flailing for something, anything to do to fix all this, and she’s lost until she discovers Ahsoka is now with Ventress.

Ventress. Ventress is a darksider. If Ventress is linked to this at all, people will believe it. Ventress could easily have gotten into that prison—through the vents, someone would inevitably have suggested, and probably discovered whatever lightsaber sabotage Barriss used to get in. Case closed. 

So all Barriss has to do to fix this without coming clean is frame Ventress believably. Then the person being executed will...well it’ll only be Asajj Ventress, and she deserves it, right? 

(Asajj Ventress--and all those clones Barriss killed in the breakout. And that’s very telling. Barriss who memorized 800 junctions of a Geonosian labyrinth for one singular mission, because “other people’s lives” depended on her success, doesn’t seem to have factored in the lives of those clones. They don’t seem to be registering in these calculations.)

The point is that Ahsoka’s name will be clear and Barriss’ will never have been in danger.

If you watch that short opening bout, before Ahsoka kicks her away, it’s...well, in Luminara’s words, amateurish and sloppy. All the blows, including that ostensibly fatal double-overhead strike, are DRAMATICALLY telegraphed. In a few cases, she is visibly missing on purpose:

This strike right here? This strike is HILARIOUSLY transparent in slow motion. She has an opening and instead sweeps her lightsabers ALL THE WAY back on the opposite side; and when she brings them down again…

Apologies for the motion blur but—Ahsoka moves to block and MISSES, which doesn’t matter because the blades were like a full foot away from actually making contact with her body. Barriss is striking at her lightsabers half the time for this first flurry of action, before letting Ahsoka break away for that salute. And this is not an animation error. TCW has plenty of those, but they know how to choreograph a lightsaber duel.

So the goal of this fight is very clearly not to kill Ahsoka. It’s to LOOK like she’s trying to kill Ahsoka, while mostly just trying to attract attention and act as much like Ventress as she possibly can.

As a result, Barriss spends a lot of the fight creating space. She pulls a sheet of metal down at Ahsoka, while gesturing dramatically to telegraph her intentions and give Ahsoka plenty of time to dodge:

And then she runs away to a higher level, letting Ahsoka pursue and then hiding.

This fucking pipe trick is NOT a Ventress thing, mind. This is 100% Mirialan using-the-environment bullshit and also, Barriss, a massive bitch move. We’re pointing it out mostly because of how dramatically Ahsoka JUMPS here. Because...listen, she’s better than this. She’s a wartime Padawan. She’s Anakin Skywalker’s wartime Padawan. She has way more duelling experience than a Jedi of her age normally would, and in a vacuum—in a normal sparring situation, where they’re both rested and prepared for it—Ahsoka would probably beat Barriss nine times out of ten in a duel.

This is anything but a vacuum. As we established, Ahsoka is firing on zero cylinders, she’s exhausted, she’s in the midst of a complete mental breakdown, she’s lost her offhand blade, and she doesn’t know the layout of the area like Barriss does. Ahsoka may be a more skilled and experienced duellist, but in this situation that means exactly fuckall. So Barriss runs rings around her.

So after the pipe trick—again a “cinematic” detail, something to ramp up the tension and sell the deception that otherwise has massive holes in it—Barriss gets in ONE solid blow.

Ahsoka’s off-balance, she’s blocking with both hands, Barriss could use her primary to slice under her guard—

At which point she does a FUCKING CARTWHEEL over the point of contact, which is not REMOTELY a Ventress thing, that is all Luminara Unduli all the time. That is the Mirialan Unnecessary Acrobatics Bonus Action.

And then again, a sloppy midsection slash that was nowhere near connecting and serves entirely to create space. A few more standard telegraphed blows.

And then what we generally refer to as the first turn in this duel.

Barriss roundhouse-kicks Ahsoka in the ribs hard enough to send her flying through a stack of boxes and bounce off the wall behind it. And that was an actual, solid injury. Ahsoka takes a moment to get back to her feet, clutching her side like she’s broken ribs, and her already-poor form takes even more of a dive after this. If Barriss wanted to, she easily could have killed Ahsoka here, but instead...

She backs off. Slowly and deliberately, making what’s very nearly a come-hither gesture with her offhand lightsaber. 

And again—Ahsoka is better than this. She is smarter than this. This is such, such glaringly obvious BAIT. She’s being drawn deeper into the factory; Barriss is absolutely herding her, and she falls for it, because she’s not doing great right now.

(And of course Barriss is herding her. Thus far, there’s no actual evidence that Ventress was here except for Ahsoka’s word. For this deception to work there have to be witnesses. She has to attract attention.)

So she does a bunch of flippy bullshit (#Mirialans) to knock those barrels off, slowing Ahsoka down and tiring her out some more.

And when Ahsoka’s done playing Donkey Kong, she COMPLETELY crits on her spot check and does the exact thing that will get Anakin brutally dismembered in about a year. She flips onto the upper level, right past Barriss, who’s just sort of politely waiting for her to land and get her feet under her.

It...is genuinely heartbreaking, honestly, how out of it Ahsoka is during this fight.

And this is actually the second turn, because while it’s impossible to get a high-quality screenshot, this is the first moment where Barriss begins to show that she’s...getting a little too into this. Ahsoka flips onto the platform, and for several seconds she’s slashing wildly around herself while Barriss dodges...completely unarmed.

There’s a few more halfhearted exchanges of blows, culminating in Ahsoka’s only near-hit in this episode. And it comes CLOSE, too; she’s still Ahsoka Tano, after all. Barriss dodges this blow by inches, and Ahsoka impales her saber to the HILT in that support column.

At which point Barriss dodges around the other side of the column and, again, just...waits, for Ahsoka to come at her again.

(We honestly have no idea how so much of the fandom misses how INCREDIBLY staged this whole thing was, because it’s not subtle. The animators are brilliant. It’s fast-paced enough that it’s believable that AHSOKA would believe it, but when you actually watch what’s happening...)

Barriss does ANOTHER FUCKING backflip and they exchange a few more strikes, at which point Barriss pulls what’s actually the bitchiest move she pulls in this whole fight. But it’s also...one of the most interesting and lowkey AWFUL things. Because right now, she is still trying to be Ventress.

She slashes the gas canister open to set up the upcoming explosion, but she also times it so that Ahsoka gets blasted in the face with hot compressed gas that staggers her and briefly impairs Ahsoka’s vision. And that is...a move that we have seen Asajj Ventress use, onscreen, before.

Against Luminara.

The only possible way Barriss could know about this little compressed-steam trick of Ventress’ is through her master. 

Barriss was not there for this fight. Barriss did not see this happen. But Luminara has, out loud, credited Ahsoka for saving her life in this fight—and rightly so, because Ventress came within inches of killing her multiple times during that fight and this was one of them. And Barriss would have to know that. And she just used it against Ahsoka.

In a fight, Luminara is a graceful Lady of War. Barriss Offee, on the other hand, is a stone-cold fucking bitch.

By the time of this arc Barriss is convinced that all of the Jedi have fallen, that they’re all in service to the dark side and just don’t see it, and in a lot of ways she’s right. But the fact is that Barriss Offee herself has fallen to the dark side personally in a way that most individual Jedi have not, and what happens next shows it.

Barrels Offee over here uses the Force to shove a bunch of explosives over the red-hot wounds left by her lightsabers and gets the pyrotechnics she was looking for.

And this is the final turn. Earlier, we noticed Barriss getting a little too into this fight, toying with Ahsoka, taunting her with that unarmed dodging; but she was still focused on her objective, still laying a stage for the most part.

And this is it. This is the objective.

By creating that explosion, she caught the attention of local authorities. There will be witnesses any moment now who will see her, wearing Ventress’ mask and holding Ventress’ lightsabers, standing in a munitions factory that Letta Turmond can be tied to. Ahsoka will testify that she went to investigate and Ventress came from behind to kill her, and suddenly everything will make sense.

Ahsoka...is out of the fight. She’s barely stirring, she’s not getting up. She doesn’t even have the strength to lift that sheet of metal; the only reason she’s able to BARELY get onto her hands and knees is that Barriss uses the Force to lift it off her.

Barriss got what she wanted.

And then she keeps going.

This is Barriss in the FULL grip of the Darkside Tango over here. She’s angry and scared and angry and something about that explosion was cathartic, and this is the point where the duel takes a sharp turn. Something...has changed, about Barriss’ demeanor, here.

She doesn’t appear to be thinking anymore.

This is the point at which this fight is...honestly, just hard to watch. It’s a beatdown. Barriss is now hurting Ahsoka on purpose, and for no other reason than to hurt her. She puts her ALL behind flinging a ragdolling, half-conscious Ahsoka into the wall so hard it shakes some of the steel loose. It’s brutal, and Barriss’ body language is cold and confident the whole time.

She is completely lost in the sauce on the Dark Side at this point.

The absolute worst thing from here on in is the way Ahsoka just…Keeps. Getting. Up.

She can barely stand at this point. She’s got her saber up trying to hold a guard position and she physically can’t. This is legitimately the worst Ahsoka’s ever gotten beaten in a fight in her life, and she knows it. She’s staggering. Her eyes aren’t even fully in focus.

Barriss doesn’t bother with actually fighting, because she doesn’t need to. She hits Ahsoka with a casual Force push to knock her back off her feet, and Ahsoka just cringes in anticipation of it because she knows she can’t defend herself properly.

And then there goes her lightsaber, tumbling over the edge, and she never holds it again until the Siege of Mandalore. That Weapon Is Her Life, and we never see it in its current form again.

And Ahsoka GETS UP AGAIN.

Ladies and gentlemen, our hero.

She is DOWN. She’s dead on her feet, she can’t even walk; she just sort of stumbles across the floor with her own momentum. But she is still SOMEHOW trying to square off with “Ventress.”

And this, right here? This is how we know exactly what Barriss’ mindset is right now, because Ahsoka never gives up. She just doesn’t. She’s the biggest cockroach in a universe containing Darth “Just A Flesh Wound” Maul. Ahsoka doesn’t just lie down and accept her fate. She doesn’t just let people win.

And Barriss...has.

There’s a viciousness in the way she ends this fight. Like, it’s Barriss—all of her fights are a little bit vicious. She is a BITCH when the chips are down. But this is...vindictive. From the moment Ahsoka trembles to her hands and knees after that explosion, the overwhelming cold cruelty Barriss shows from that moment until she spin-kicks Ahsoka down like two and a half stories of broken slats onto solid concrete is raw, bitter:

Will you just STAY DOWN for once in your FUCKING life?!

And we want to take a moment to give Ahsoka the dignity of acknowledging that she still doesn’t.

And then the GAR shows up, and Barriss really shows her true colors. Because the moment she hears Republic forces arriving...

Barriss runs.

We worry sometimes that because Barriss is our favorite character, people will think that means we think she’s justified in her actual actions in this arc, or that her worst actions are somehow not her fault. But let us be very clear: Barriss Offee fucked up royal and is entirely responsible for that. 

The fact that it’s very clear she didn’t come into this fight with intent to kill, the fact that her actions are calculated to clear Ahsoka’s name, is the FURTHEST thing from absolution. Even as she tries to find a solution throughout this episode, it all stems from her original decision to frame Ahsoka for Letta’s murder rather than let Letta spill the beans. There’s a very, very simple solution to this mess, a simple way to clear Ahsoka’s name and make amends for the attack that Barriss regretted almost the moment it happened. But she consistently refuses to even consider it as an option.

Barriss Offee does not want to face the consequences of her actions.

She came into this to fix things, but when push comes to shove—she wants to save her own life. She wants to be a radical dissenter and still get to be the Jedi Padawan poster girl, and the security that comes with it. She doesn’t stick around to make sure she’s seen by witnesses because as evidenced by that brutal beatdown, she’s...stopped caring, that much. She doesn’t value Ahsoka’s life enough to risk her own anymore.

So when this fails, when the clones don’t see her and there’s no evidence to back up Ahsoka’s story that Ventress was the one behind it, when three words from Barriss would save her from a death she doesn’t deserve, Barriss says absolutely nothing until she’s compelled at lightsaber-point.

At the end of the day, this whole elaborate deception was only ever about one thing, and it wasn’t Ahsoka. It was the fact that Barriss Offee doesn’t want to get caught.

[spicyfoodboi]

a spell to keep boys away

Genre: fluff

A natsume sakasaki x reader

a/n: hey guys! This is my first enstars fic so please go easy on me! Thanks, anon for the wonderful request. Thanks to @luxrionne-sakamaki for your support! might have strayed away from the request oops- (which was about a jealous natsume, i was stupid and didn't have a screenshot of it to crop so im sorry-) Hopefully, you guys enjoy this. I would be happy to do more! Requests are open for haikyuu and enstars so please don't be shy in sending anything! Let's get on with it ❤

You always wanted to be a producer. You joined yumenosaki private academy a month after anzu. You weren't as popular since the hype came down with girls in the idol's course. Well, it's also because you stayed in the shadows and let anzu take the spotlight. You were always there to divide her work with you and help any way you can. That's how you met switch's magician, natsume sakasaki.

You were helping out 2wink with a new proposal in the library when the ginger ascended from the floor. You were speechless, who wouldn't be? A guy came out of the floor. He walked over and smiled. "you’re the new female student right?" he asked, leaning over the table to take you in. you nodded, closing your laptop so you can have a proper conversaion. "oh well, in that case, can you go out with me?" he said with a smirk, lending a hand out for you to take. Your face suddenly got hot but you didn't hesitate to gather your things and take his hand.

That brings you here, in the game research clubroom, where switch usually meet for meetings and practice. You became their main producer and the magician's lucky charm and significant other. You had your notebook out, jotting down ideas anzu was suggesting so you could implement it to their next concert. Sakasaki enters the room with a big smile on his face. He was holding a small potion bottle, mixing it around in one hand, he approached you and patted your head before sitting on a chair besides sora so he could watch what he was playing. Natsume was about to share the new song for the upcoming s2 when the door burst open, revealing a figure, catching his breath, and leaning on the doorframe.

It was tsumugi, he pushed his glasses up and sped over to you, taking your wrist and pulling you along out the room and into the hallway. Natsume was looked at the scene, his usual playful smirk fading into a small frown as he handed sora the lyrics and continued with the announcement.

You were tasked in planning the s2 this time and tsumugi volunteered to help you set it up. He was by your side while you did research and gave feedback to ideas which you were very grateful for. Unfortunately, natsume didn't feel that way. It's been days since the last time you talked to him. He kept to himself and stayed in the secret room when he has free time, working on something. The only time he would come out of the secret room was when switch had scheduled unit practice. He didn't make retorts and stayed serious about their performance. You were starting to get worried. He was always a hard-working guy but he doesn't have a playful tone anymore. What happened?

The day of the s2 finally arrived. You were backstage, making sure switch was ready to perform. You were about to pull aoba aside to double-check if you got everything correct for all the other units when sakasaki got to you first, pulling you away from the other members of his unit.

"natsume what's going on?" you said, holding the clipboard close to you. He pulled you by the wrist and pressed his lips against yours. You missed this. Feeling his lips move against yours made your heart flutter. He pulled away and pushed a test tube with blue liquid inside it and a pink crystal necklace in the shape of a heart. "drink the potion. The spell and necklace would keep other boys away." he said with a small pout. You smiled, opening the test tube, and drinking it. It tasted like blueberries. You put the necklace on wrapped your arms around him. "I'm sure your magic would work but you don't need to worry about that. You know why?" you whispered into his ear. "why?" he whispered back.

"because I love you and only you. I don't need a spell to tell me that. I'll stick by you no matter what." you smiled, kissing his cheek and pulling away from him, going back to work. That kiss was lucky since they won the s2 by a landslide. Proof that you are natsume's lucky charm.

I may or may not went overboard but I enjoyed what I did! Hope you guys did too and that I didn't make him ooc. Again, requests are open so please don't be shy to request! Love you guys ❤💖😘

this is a reupload!

this was posted 4 days ago and i just realized that it disappeared from the tags so i decided to repost it!

[zairapvrker]

oookay, so i made the rookie mistake of deleting post this before it was finished and had to delete it, so the ask got lost. luckily i had screenshotted it, i hope you’ll see this anyway dear anon! thank you for requesting and i hope you’ll like this💕 (unedited)

masterlist

This dance around your feelings was softly killing you both. When you were with him you felt like flying and falling at the same time, knowing that he wouldn’t be there to break the fall but choosing to jump anyway. Calum had been a friend of yours for forever, and since you could remember you’d always wished you two could be more. What you did not know was that he felt the same - but the two of you were always too blind to see it, always afraid of losing each other.

If the two of you were together, you didn’t care for the rest of the world at all, alienating yourselves and entering your own little world. 

There had been a few close calls, a few times when either one of you had almost crossed that invisible line drawn in between your hearts, but out of fear it never really went where you were both hoping it would.  Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that you were meant to be, not the two of you though. 

The crowd was the same as always, that Saturday night, when you got to the bar where you were supposed to meet your friends. You saw them occupying your usual booth in the far corner of the room as soon as you walked in, your eyes trained to go that direction almost automatically. The night was going great, everyone had a few drinks in their systems and you were currently playing the most fun game of pool of your life, probably because none of your friends was getting it right. You doubled over in laughter as you saw one of them miss their shot and almost fall onto the table and disrupting the game. Everything was good, you even liked the music blasting through the speakers. That’s when you saw him. Calum, wrapped up into the arms of somebody you didn’t recognize, so close your gut wrenched as you felt your heart drop to the pit of your stomach.

Surely you must be mistaken, you must be jumping to conclusions. But they had smiles that, you thought, shined twice as bright than yours when you were together. Calum was making her laugh, the unmistakable glow you loved lighting up his features as well. You refused to listen to reason, the small voice in your own head suggesting why you shouldn’t be letting your heart break over an assumption. But you wouldn’t listen to yourself.  He wasn’t even yours to begin with, why should you be sad? But the heart has its reasons which reason does not know.

You bid goodbye to everyone, pretending to be tired, as you spared Calum one last glance. His eyes met yours from across the bar, just one second was enough to make you tremble. You left without looking back.

It had been a week since then and you’d let yourself focus on your work and nothing else to keep your mind from replaying the image you had of him with her in your head. That obviously meant ignoring Calum as well.

The poor boy had no idea what had happened, if he’d done something to upset you and he was starting to worry. At the beginning, all that he could get out of you were short answers, telling him that you were busy and couldn’t talk, couldn’t meet. Then that had turned into complete silence and he was about to combust. He’d been fidgety and tense all week, distracted and worried. You’d been on his mind all day everyday, but then again, when weren’t you? Calum took it upon himself to go and check on you, still remembering where your spare key was hidden. He had a bunch of snacks with him and was ready for whatever issue you were going to throw at him. Or so he thought.

Before he could even look under the potted plant of your nextdoor neighbour, where your key was, you opened up the door and a man he didn’t recognize came out, waving you goodbye. He froze.  As soon as you saw Calum you did too, not expecting him to be at your house. You looked at him confused. “Calum” you let out in a sigh.

“Hi” he said through gritted teeth. “Is him why you’ve been avoiding me?” before he could even realize what he was going to say his mouth spoke for him.

Anger built up inside of you. He was one to talk. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“Oh, you heard me the first time” things were excalating quickly and before he could add anything, you’d pulled him into the apartment, slamming the door shut.

“What are you even going on about?” you exclaimed, throwing your ands up and walking to the living room, Calum hot on your trail.

“You’ve barely talked to me all week long, only sparing me yes or no answers and pathetic excuses” his voice started to raise, his bottled up emotions finally being let free.

“I told you I was busy” you retorted, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Bullshit!” you’d barely ever seen Calum like this, and you never wished for this to happen again. “Or maybe, yeah, you were busy with him” he mirrored your stnce, his chin pointing to the direction of the front door.

That was a low blow and it hit you where it hurt, you’d refrained speaking to him in fear of speaking words you could never take back and he had the nerve to come to you just to yell at you? You weren’t having it.  “And even if I was? That’s none of your damn business” 

He scoffed to hide the pain he was feeling, not allowing you to win this yet. “It’s my business alright! I’m your best friend and you won’t even talk to me”

Those two words stung even more than what he’d said before, but you didn’t know about the bitter taste left in Calum’s mouth after he’d spoken them. “Well I could say the same” you said.

“You’re the one who’s keeping secrets and ignoring me” he knew he was being childish, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah, says the onewho hasn’t told me about his new girl” this was hurting you more than you wished it did.

“What girl?” he asked dumbfounded. You scoffed.

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me” you snickered. “I saw you two at the bar, last week” you spat, the image of them still fresh in your mind.

Calum had to stop and think for a second, almost not understanding what you were talking about. “That’s a friend of Mali’s, she asked me to show her ‘round” he replied, recalling the events of the week prior. “If you hadn’t bolted out of the bar I would’ve introduced her to you”

“Yeah, and I’m supposed to believe that when she was all over you” 

“She wasn’t all over me” he defended. 

“Was too” 

“Was not!” you were about to speak again, before he cut you off. “Will you listen to yourself? You’re being a child”

“You’re one to talk after coming here to yell at me over my fucking neighbor asking for some sugar!” the silence was heavy, your words ringing in the air.

After what felt like forever, Calum finally spoke. “That was you neighbour?” you just nodded, not even wanting to keep the conversation going. He remained quiet a while longer, before speaking again. “I still don’t know why you haven’t talked to me in a week”

You sighed, hiding your head into your hands as you sat down on the couch. Calum was mindful of sitting further away from you than he usually would. You looked at him right in the eye, seeing expectation in them, but you didn’t want to adress the elephant in the room yet. “I still don’t know why you seem to hate my neighbour” you spoke, voice quiet and throat burning lightly from  the screaming match that had just ended. 

Calum figured he had nothing to lose right now, apparently you were avoiding him anyway. “I got jealous” he said it in a whisper. Your breathing stilled as you waited for him to go on. “I hadn’t heard anything from you in a week and I was worried something happened or that I’d done something, then I come here to make sure everything’s alright and he comes out of your apartment and you’re smiling and I’m not the reason-” he cut his blabbering short, inhaling deeply as you waited again, sure he could hear the frantic beating of your heart.

“I guess I just really like you” Calum looked at you, ready for you to start laughing and tell him that he might as well just get out, but he was met with utter surprise.

“You like me” you repeated, shifting your gaze from him to the floor. 

“I do” he confirmed, trying to calm down. “Please say something”

But how could you? You were sure you were going into shock. You looked at him again after interminable moments, a shy smile adorning your lips. “I guess I just really like you to” 

It was Calum’s turn to be shocked, as you explained why you didn’t give him the chance to stop you a week prior at the bar, the huge misunderstanding that led you to ignore him for days on end in hopes to shield yourself from heartbreak without him ever having to know. 

You were both idiots, you concluded as you started laughing at your stupidity. He shifted closer to you on the couch, his eyes bright and searching for yours, finding them moments later with just as much glee in them. Calum lifted a hand to lightly place on your cheek, stroking the skin softly with the pad of his thumb. “Can I kiss you?” he asked trembling in expectation. 

You just smiled and nodded, bringing your face closer to his until your lips crashed, knowing right then and there that he’d always be there to break your fall.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

this DLC has me FUCKED UP and i keep screaming

spoilers for Bounty of Blood under the cut, keep reading at ur own peril. Also some Guardian Takedown spoilers for anyone who hasn’t beat it yet

tl;dr: a comparison between something taken from BL2 and a thing taken from Bounty of Blood. more spoilery tl;dr below the cut.

also the siren thing is not spoilers so i’ll share it here for anyone curious, it’s just this: siren tattoos are blue but when lily absorbs eridium in 2, they turn pinkish/purple. just like how vaults do from bl1 to bl2. they’re white/blue in bl1, then purple-pink in bl2 (and tps), y’know, after Eridium begins erupting from the ground. just a neat little detail i noticed that im not entirely sure was intentional but im gonna believe it is.

tl;dr: Gythian Blood = Core and the Ruiner is of Eridian Origin even tho everyone in the DLC likes to say it was created with Jakobs’ bioengineering. disclaimer: idk if I’ve found every hidden ECHO so I may be missing a few things but I have done every side quest and took ample screenshots of all important dialogue in the DLC : )

“man i just sat here for like 15 minutes staring at my keyboard mentally comparing core and eridium like the dumb bitch i am. 

it's not like we can do an actual comparison because we have no idea what the natural fauna of gehenna was like before jakobs came and mutated everything with core unlike pandora where we know what skags and rakk and shit were like BEFORE the eridium crust erupted. 

altho!!! there's a neat comparison between joey ultraviolet and rose. like obviously he wasn't getting tattoos and was just doing lines of crushed up eridium but the point stands they both have glowy eyes and unique powers so i don't necessarily think this means rose is a siren just because she has magic powers especially when we know she got the whistling passed down to her from her grandmother. 

especially because we've never seen a siren interact with core before. altho that leaves the question we have seen core tattoos now what are eridium tattoos like? actually rose's tattoos were on her right arm obviously she isn't a siren as we know them right now (I saw a post on reddit where people thought rose was a siren) 

of course that brings up the point perhaps siren tattoos ARE eridium tattoos. but then we hear the general's log about how the devil riders were tattooing a man with core and blood so obviously they're not ‘naturally’ occurring unlike siren tattoos. so odds are they're probably not equivalents but something interesting i thought of while thinking about this is how well siren tattoos compare to the Vaults from borderlands 1 and borderlands 2″

anyway. this is all ive been thinking about. yes yes i know guardian takedown post but! >:( im still salty even tho this update has been lovely (outside of Blane not getting his correct damage scaling ‘till today......). so i’ll do that at my own damn pace. now let me elaborate so i can sleep at night lmao

Eridium

refinement produces slag, which weakens people and can mutate things

has mutating properties, mostly with imbuing elements into shit- possibly causes insanity

seems to be connected to another dimension, likely the one the Eridians are from

Core

has a secondary form of Infused Core

has mutating properties, mostly regarding a thing’s body and mind

apparently radioactive

there are some things i wanna note

1) People throughout the DLC say the Ruiner was created by the Jakobs corp (the company) thru bio-engineering but I’m 99% sure that’s not true. The paperwork seems to me like they found the egg somewhere on Gehenna and decided to roll and experiment with it like all corporations do when they find weird alien shit. so maybe they experimented with whatever was inside the egg, but I don’t think they actually created it entirely

“Excavated from [REDACTED] ... Local legends speaks of a [REDACTED]. This theory is not endorsed by our research personnel.

2) The Ruiner’s design reminds me a lot of the Warrior.

3) Core immediately reminded me of Gythian Blood from Guns Love and Tentacles and I don’t think that’s coincidence to have 2 back-to-back DLCs where the big bad is focused on green death juice. I think Gythian Blood and Core are of the same stuffs.

4) Therefore, I think the Ruiner is (mostly) of Eridian origin (if you haven’t already guessed). 

This gives us an amazing look into how the Eridians actually create their beasts!!! And I’m so happy they showed us this.

(side note, Interitus Regina (the long name for Ruiner) literally means Destruction Queen and I think that’s beautiful <3)

i mean the idea that they plunge them from orbit to create an explosion similar to a nuke is fucking horrifying (but holy shit I love it so much ahhh it’s so cool!!!!)

the one side line from Oletta about how the company couldn’t control the Ruiner deffo makes me double down on this theory. I’m not entirely sure how Rose’s grandma knew about the whistling (I don’t think I’ve found every echo log in that area YET), but I would bet it was part of the testing given how many fuckin’ tape players they have throughout the facility. The Warrior was controlled by verbal commands via Jack, so it’s possible that the Ruiner was intended to be controlled similarly, but Jakobs intervention (or something like the way Rose hatched it) fucked it up.

now we know the Warrior was created to protect the Vault of the Destroyer (hmm.) so what the heck was the Ruiner created for? Ruiner is a name given to it by Jakobs/the people of Gehenna so we can’t really assume, but then again the monster names are pretty apt in this series even tho they probably technically shouldn’t be. 

it was only an egg, so maybe it was another test of Core? A Vault Monster incubating until it was ready to protecc and attacc but was never hatched because the Eridians ‘sacrificed’ themselves before it could? (I’m still not convinced the Eridians are the good guys. Listen. LISTEN. The guardian takedown is something to think about, BUT it doesn’t disprove that theory and I’ll stand by it because I 100% trust the Overseer more than bitchpants mcgee over here who thinks he’s soooo special for no reason fuck you and your dumb ‘I did what the Watcher could not’ bull you haven’t done shit.) ok sorry im done he just angers me. stupid guardian man. your whip is stupid and you should feel bad. oh also I totally called us actually being Guardians thru Guardian Rank before the game came out aha yeah.

I definitely think Gythian was a test/use of Core from the Eridians. We see in Bounty of Blood that core seems to mutate more the physical (and occasionally mental) parts of people, like with the crew challenges u do for Juno with all the weird hybrid people and whatnot. Gythian had the whole ‘the heart still beats’ thing going on (which is definitely a physical mutation if i’ve ever seen one), plus the whole, you know, mind control and shit. Which is p similar to what the menta gnats can do when charged with Infused Core. And keep in mind in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what happens to test subjects when injected with Gythian Blood. They mutated physically and went insane.

What im saying is Sirens and Eridium and Elements are connected, so what does Core equal? body/mind sure but are there unique creatures for core (yes holy shit I’m not talking about h2o au for once and FINALLY they gave us a canon name for the green stuff!!!). If not, I’d love to see a Siren interact with Core to see what it does to them. seriously why hasn’t tannis interrupted us yet. horrible excuse for a science lover (kidding kidding, I love her). I’d also really love a fuller rundown on what the hell Rose’s powers were. Because the whistling thing seemed to just be her grandma’s thingie passed down to her from her mom

but the core stuff

her gun seems to be infused with it. So did her sword thing. I didn’t really get a good look at it i was too busy trying to see thru my blurry tears of LOVE for this DLC.

Strangely while her tattoos are (mostly) green I actually don’t know if they’re core infused bc look at this

n look back at hers. hers aren’t very lime.

anyway

her eyes

I’d love to know if the core gives her immediate future sight or just increased perception or reaction times. there’s a huge difference but she seemed to be able to shoot the gun outta the sheriff’s hand near immediately and it seems kinda implied its because of the core (or at least because her eyes are glowing green)

there’s a possibility she has some unique core powers/possibly implants because of her relations to the project in the first place, or as leader of the devil riders after looting the facility. it’s really hard to say without more info and like i said im not sure if i missed an ECHO or two or not regarding her backstory :( 

Her hair is also green which I just noticed. Maybe she has core powers bc her grandmother got suuuuuuuuper irradiated/influenced working on project horizons and it passed down thru her n Rose’s mom, to Rose. Tannis does have a line about Sirens having unique hair colors and, if Sirens are linked to Eridium, perhaps those linked to Core also have unique hair color. Could also explain why only Rose seems to have those whistling powers. That said we don’t really see anyone else trying that whistling thing out afaik and idk if it was, like, a special ability or a certain tone/ditty or w h a t. 

i know being vague with everything gives them more creative freedom to create amazing characters and scenarios, but dammit I want A N S W E R S.

All THAT said man I’m so glad magic is real in the borderlands universe. oh, sorry, “magic”. It’s magic. Science it, tannis, I dare you. either way, I win. Either it’s magic and H2O AU is canon, or it’s science and I finally get my goddamn answers. Hey gearbox can you make a book just explaining all the science and eridian stuff. please. I’d love you forever. please. pleaheheheheaaasseee it’s all i’ve ever wanted.

oh also can i just say, suuuper disappointed we didn’t learn anything about anshin. Really wish non-fan favorite corporations would get the spotlight/lore for once. Like, I like Jakobs as much as the next guy, and I get WHY they did it (can’t have a corporation looking too good!!!) but they now have 3 DLCs (Jakobs Cove, GLaT, and Bounty of Blood) and also a hefty chunk of the main game. Like... we all know Jakobs fuckin sucks, look at what they did on Pandora. I really just want info on a medical corporation 😭 I have to do everything my damn s e l f. but SERIOUSLY IMAGINE the possibilities that could come from a medical corp getting its hands on eridian tech. like, yeah obviously the weapons corps are gonna use it for weaponry and stuff BUT WOULDN’T THE MEDICAL CORPS MUTATING PEOPLE MAKE MORE SENSE??? ldfhgldfshg I have to do everything my damn self...

anyway all that aside, this is definitely by favorite borderlands dlc by a LONG shot. Nothing comes close. Ahhh the lore, the nuclear aspect, the a e s t h e t i c (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Trigun???), the art, the music, the cryoslinger, the fact I can bust out going beeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAans like Ray Chase at any time and it will MAKE SENSE. I love all of it.

oh, also, Rose is totally not dead. C’mon, they couldn’t find her body. She pulled a Lilith. “Are you sure she didn’t just suffer a wound that LOOKS fatal, only for her to come back in a blockbuster sequel...?” is a line from mr Jones himself (the movie guy)

I just hope when she comes back she gets to meet Captain Scarlett. I’d love to watch their interactions plus pirates and or ninjas. That’s 2 DLC villains now that have vanished without a trace. And I like Captain Scarlett way more than Rose (seriously I spent the entire beginning of the DLC complaining about how her voice bothered me- I was so happy she was a villain, I was hoping that was the case).

oh yeah, reminder, the people of vestige were living next to highly radioactive egg for likely years. i feel really bad for them :(

also!!!

this made me smile

[listdepot]

Top 10 Indie Games of the Decade (10 - 6)

Boy oh boy, video games sure did happen this decade, huh? A lot of stuff with a whole lot of video games and, most importantly, the independent game scene became far more pronounced, previously just confined to PC, the increasing presence of the online marketplace on consoles has greatly expanded the scope to which indie games reach players, putting these games on the same level as AAA. Anyway this is 10 of this games that I liked this year.

An honorable mention goes out to Firewatch because I still don’t know what is Firewatch.

10. Stacking

Double Fine are undoubtedly my favorite game company. Tim Schaefer’s company has not only created my favorite game of all time (Psychonauts), but all their games have such a fun creativity to them. Whether its a turn-based RPG where children fight based on their Halloween costumes or an action/strategy game set in a world based on hard rock and metal, Double Fine have proven to be such a company that embraces fun and whimsy, that Sesame Street of all people let them develop their most recent game.

Stacking, as you can tell from the screenshot, is a world populated by matroyshka stacking dolls, and you play as Charlie Blackmore, the smallest of all the stacking dolls, who sets out on an adventure to stop an evil Industrial Age baron called The Baron, who has enslaved his siblings. To do that, he stacks into other dolls, only able to go up in size one at a time. Most characters have their own unique abilities and Charlie uses those abilities to solve adventure game puzzles. And that’s where Stacking gets really cool.

Every single puzzle in the game has multiple solutions, if you can’t figure out one version of how to do it, there’s usually two more solutions. While you only HAVE to do one, the puzzles reset once you finish them, letting you take your time trying to figure the others. Its an adventure game that forgoes classic tropes of that genre, also replacing your standard point and click with the quick to pick up stacking mechanic that lets you pick and choose how you want to do things. Its a game that combines interesting ideas with an anticapitalist story and visually is both early 1900s set design while those sets are comprised of everyday household items. Its like playing a diorama from 1915. Not a lot of games are like that.

9. The Stanley Parable

The story of The Stanley Parable is simple. A narrative-driven walking simulator, you control Stanley, a boring office drone that’s tasked with monitoring data on a computer, pressing buttons and not asking questions. One day, that monitor goes blank and Stanley goes to fix it, suddenly discovering the office he works in is completely empty.

But that’s not the real story of The Stanley Parable. The narrator that describes Stanley’s actions, storybook-style, doesn’t control Stanley’s narrative. You do. And you have every opportunity, every step of the story, to go against the grain of what you’re told happens.

The Stanley Parable is a game that, as soon as you do anything it doesn’t want you to, begs you to continue following the path laid out for you then berates you for not following that path then continues to just complain to you, trying to regain control of the story. Every variation of Stanley’s story is maybe 10 - 15 minutes long but each one is a fun and weird surprise and Kevan Brighting’s soft friendly British narrator is an all time great voice acting role. One so good, Valve’s DOTA 2 MOBA game features an announcer pack that fully replaces the game’s announcer with Brighting’s narrator. DIGITAL SPORTS.

8. Observer

A digital plague called a nanophage has infected and claimed the lives of countless augmented people in this cyberpunk hellscape of Krakow, leading to war and rampant drug use. The Chiron Corporation stepped in soon after and took control, turning Poland into even more of a nightmare than it had been, condemning those on the lower rung of society to poorly kept together tenement buildings, while also creating a police force known as Observers, detectives given free reign to hack the minds of citizens. Its 2084 and you are Daniel Lazarski, an Observer who receives a message from his estranged son Adam to come to a tenement, where he discovers Adam’s body, dead from long before the call was made. And that’s when things get weird.

The more I think about it, the more I think Bloober Team’s more recent horror game, Layers of Fear 2, should take the place on the list. The only issue is I only played Layers 2 a month ago and, no matter how much I love it, my first exposure to this company was through Observer, and more than that, this was a game I did not stop thinking about for like a year and a half. While Layers 2 plays with color and black & white in a game about the early days of film, Observer is clearly influenced by classic works of cyberpunk (the most obvious being Blade Runner), the bright neon buzzing endlessly in this dark, miserable nightmare. 

Even the real stars of this game, the minds of the dead you dive into as you solve this murder mystery, embrace that look as your setting is warped around you constantly. Rooms that look normal start stretching endlessly, doors open into other memories. And as Dan gets deeper into the mystery, the line between the real of the world around him and the memories of those he’s probing begin to blend until his own memories get mixed up among them, showing what lead to the current sad life he lives. Its a game that oozes misery even as it tries to jumpscare you around every corner. And its why it still keeps showing up in my thoughts.

7. Gone Home

What exactly is a walking simulator? Dumb, that’s what. The idea that a game isn’t a game simply because it follows more of an adventure game aesthetic without any real challenges is absurd and, frankly, a childish view of what a game can be. And no game broke gamers’ brains more than the “walking simulator” Gone Home.

In 1995, Katie Greenbriar returns from a trip overseas on a stormy night to find her family home completely abandoned, moving boxes still unpacked. The unnerving quiet of the house mixed with the constant rain and occasional thunder feels like something out of a Resident Evil game. But instead of horror, the game uses this to make you feel confused, something to make you want to solve what happened. And it turns out its not a horror story, but a love story.

As Katie progresses through her house, she finds plenty of objects she can interact with, many that often unlock other areas in this large rural Oregon home. Along with many of those unlockables comes narration from Katie’s sister Sam, who details the awkwardness of moving into this new house, frequently thought to be haunted, and her life in a new school where she can’t connect with too many other people. Until she meets Lonnie. The two young women bond and fall in love. And the more you explore the home, the more this story gets fleshed out. Gone Home is a pure delight of a video game and one that not only spawned the pejorative term of “walking simulator” but became a gold standard for them, a term that the gaming industry has since embraced. There is no shame in using interactive media to simply tell a story, and Gone Home knows it.

6. Jazzpunk

Its the late 1950s in the country of Japanada and Agent Polyblank must-  I’m going to be honest with you guys. I don’t know what Jazzpunk is. I’m not entirely sure what its about. I’ve played it multiple times and loved every moment of it but I’m not going to pretend its a game that makes any sense. And that’s just what it wants to be.

Heavily adopting the style of mid-century spy and cyberpunk fiction, Jazzpunk is a game that overly prefers making you laugh over any qualitative form of actual gameplay. Sure there are puzzles to solve to move the story along, but those puzzles task you with collecting giant spiders that are better rendered than anything else in this game, or hacking into a Soviet consulate which involves using a telephone to dial “Kremlin 2: The New Batch”. 

And the puzzles that make up the story stuff isn’t even 1/5th of the general dumb garbage you can do in this game. Jazzpunk exists for gags like the wedding cake that opens into a console that lets you play the multiplayer wedding-based FPS Wedding Qake. Jazzpunk exists to make you help a woman swat down flies in her store of very expensive vases. Jazzpunk will make you suddenly stop what you’re doing to do a first person version of the car bonus stage from Street Fighter 2, or suddenly put you into a cyberpunk heist in a Blade Runner-like city. 

Jazzpunk is Saul Bass on laughing gas. An intentionally stupid and disorienting experience purely designed to have you explore every inch of this weird world just so you can dig up weird crap on the beach with a metal detector and experience a pizza-themed Evil Dead 2 parody. Jazzpunk exists to be Jazzpunk. And in a lot of ways, it fully lives up to its nonsense name. Its a game of subversion in a way so impossibly dumb that it entirely feels improvised. That’s Jazzpunk.

[silenthillmutual]

Well, sure, I also thank you for saving my life, kind sir. Hats off to you... “I’ll have a chance to put my life to good use in the near future.” That’s what they all say, right?

Jesus Christ there’s a lot to unpack with this. I want to go from the bottom up, because I actually screenshot most of this conversation with him.

It wasn’t I that have saved your life, Mark Immortell. I want everybody to hear that! I would have killed you if I could.

There’s so much animosity and contempt in this line, directed to a guy I’ve spoken to I think a total of three times - by which I mean an actual conversation was held, as opposed to opening a dialogue that goes nowhere.

Is this just because of the pantomimes he directs? I can’t imagine this is a special dialogue option because I opted to take Artemy’s ending. Are we supposed to get the impression Daniil actually tried to kill Mark and found that he couldn’t? 

Farewell, puppeteer. Best of luck in your creative endeavours ...Is that how my line is supposed to sound, right?

I know this option was probably just meant to be in response to seeing himself portrayed in the pantomimes at night, but this certainly makes me feel A Way about how Mark as a character is used in Pathologic 2. Like Daniil has gained self-awareness. 

I still don’t get it. You are an entirely different creature - how come you’re in the same boat with the Utopians? 

What is there not to get, oh esteemed and wisest of bachelors?

So I guess the contempt is mutual. 

You were a puppeteer. Your Masks foretold our future - or maybe they imposed it upon us, in all honesty, I don’t see the difference. All this time I was absolutely positive you were connected to the plague.

I wish they’d actually explored this answer in-game in Daniil’s route instead of just sort of dropping this in out of nowhere at the end. I guess they assume the idea will cross your mind at some point in time, and it does make sense for Daniil to think this given that the mechanics of the game are explained to you by the executors and tragedians, who then show up later in the game when the Theatre is being repurposed, outside of peoples’ doors when they’re sick, and then, of course, as pantomime actors. 

(I also think it’s kind of interesting that Daniil doesn’t see a difference between having your future told to you, and having it imposed on you. I think he sort of has a point: if you tell someone what they’re going to do, you’ve put the idea in their head. If they follow through, retroactively it’ll look like you managed to predict something, when it’s just as likely you’ve put your will in their mind. You didn’t necessarily know anything, you just brought it to life through manipulation.)

I thought that the whole point of the Utopians’ ideology was neglecting the laws of fate and the limits it imposes upon us.

So in other words, Mark doesn’t fit as a Utopian because he was the one directing fate and imposing its limits. 

Which means that the Utopian ideology is fake. Daniil’s attachment to it is based on the fact that he wants people to be able to pick their own fates, down to being able to decide for themselves when it’s their time to die. Isn’t that supposed to be what the Polyhedron represents to him? The fact that stands and exists when it shouldn’t be able to is meant to be proof that limits can be overcome, but like with Aglaya’s reassurance that no one here can really tell the future - a segment that further proves Daniil’s point that Mark simply imposed his will on the world - this suggests that there must be a much more mundane explanation for the Polyhedron’s existence. 

The Utopians are all charlatans. Peter can’t explain to you how the Polyhedron works, Andrey doesn’t really do anything to protect his brother or Eva despite his bold claims that he can and will do anything - something you can call him out on, Maria can’t really predict the future (wasn’t she the one giving you your list of Bound? isn’t it just a little too much that she happened to put herself, her family, and the people she needed to use to reach her end goals on the list? and that there’s absolutely nothing you can do to save Eva, because Maria makes sure to get her out of the way?), Georgiy is lying to you, Victor doesn’t even want to be there, and Eva is now dead. 

I think this circles back to Artemy & Daniil’s bickering in the opening dialogue. Artemy says “Any choice is right, as long as it’s willed,” which didn’t really leave any impression on me when he first said it because I thought, ‘Aren’t all of their actions willed?’ And, to a degree, they are; but Daniil’s actions aren’t his own will. He’s acting on someone else’s plans, and has been for the entirety of the game. His whole route is about being manipulated, and once you can unravel it from this conversation, you can take that string a lot farther. Aglaya does mention that it seems a little too convenient for you to arrive when you did, and she doesn’t buy The Powers That Be’s claims that you & her & Block being sent there was for completely unrelated reasons to them hating all three of you.

But you weren’t sent here by The Powers That Be. Their timing was serendipitous. No, you came here because your colleague sent you a letter that seemed too good to be true and was certainly too relevant to your work for you to ignore, right when you needed it most. And when you get there, both your proof and your colleague have died, and conveniently your continued existence relies entirely on a family that desperately needs you to run all their personal errands.

Does anyone else question the legitimacy of the letter you receive from Isidor? Georgiy claims both that they were unaware Isidor had sent a letter to you, and also that Simon was preparing to meet you. Then later on, he also says that they’ve been following your work in the Capital. Isn’t that a little, hm, suspicious? Your timing isn’t just great for The Powers That Be who want to get rid of you, it’s also fantastic for a family that wants to make a power grab and needs someone completely ignorant of local customs and politics on their side. Clara says, “Those who favour hard logic and direct action are bound to be misguided” - and she’s right, because your “unbiased” approach to the Town and the issues at hand make you easy for the Utopians to manipulate to their cause. Artemy says, “You will act justly, but your justice will blind you” - and he’s also right about that. Daniil isn’t lying or wrong when he says he’s going to follow the truth and restore justice: the problem is that, as an outsider, he isn’t going to get the full truth from anybody. He has shreds of the truth that he can follow, and the fact that he can’t access an entire story also makes him easy for everyone - all of the ruling families, the other healers, the Bound, Aglaya - to manipulate, and they all do. 

The reason saving the Polyhedron isn’t the “right” choice isn’t just about morality, it’s also about the fact that it isn’t your will to do that. You haven’t been acting on your will for any part of the Bachelor’s route. You haven’t been an active participant in the story, you’ve been an object. You’re just an instrument someone else is using. 

But I also want to make this clear: as many jokes as I see about this, I don’t think it’s fair to use this as evidence of Daniil being evil or stupid, etc etc. But I’ll get into that elsewhere.

You are correct, oh the keenest of the astute! So what? I have cognized this side of Existence from backstage, so to speak; from where the strings go and the machinery is hidden - and yet I willingly swore allegiance to the Utopia. Does that tell you nothing?

That you think you’re god? Are you aware you’re a toy, and trying to overcome that?

I don’t believe you’ve changed. And you being with them is fearsome to me. You are an alarming tone in the jubilant orchestra of creators. 

Is this Daniil realizing for the first time that he’s been manipulated?

It doesn’t tell me enough. You are, as always, a double-dealer...

Interesting. I wonder if he’ll talk more to the other characters in their routes that will make this have more sense to me.

Pff... You know, I’m glad you’re leaving. You are a dangerous person, dealing with you would be and arduous task...

Seems like he’s admitting that, for as easy to manipulate as Daniil was, he’s not entirely stupid. Like Daniil would be a threat if he stuck around longer, had the full story. But this is also a hint that the Utopian ending isn’t actually Daniil’s ending. After all, he’s leaving. He’s not a part of the end at all.

You’re back to being annoyed already? And I was just planning to ask as to what you’re going to do with your life.

Me? Hahaha... That’s ridiculous! And it’s very tactless of you to ask me a question like that! Oh no, no offence taken... by me; you haven’t offended me, after all - you’ve offended the Scarlet Mistress herself. My life belongs to Maria now... And I am merely her humble servant... always at her service.

This loops back into implying that the entire route has been orchestrated by Maria, proving Aglaya’s point - and Daniil’s - that she can’t tell the future, and that foretelling the future is indistinguishable from imposing it on people. Maria did what she could to make sure things went her way. By “telling” the future, she made it happen. 

[memoriesofthefuckingbullshit]

I’d like to preface this with a personal note:

I do not want to write these posts. I absolutely hate that there is a need for it and it’s been chewing me up. It’s taken me the better part of a month to round up all the evidence (I had to be sure and double-check my sources) and to put this together, in bits and pieces so as to not overwhelm my own mental health. 

I loved the Underfell Fangame community. I briefly met Mania at ATLANTALE early 2018, before I even knew about the project. I became a patreon supporter because he seemed to genuinely love the community and Undertale and the game he was working on. I joined the Underfell community in March and made a second home there. 

I considered him a friend. Looked up to him as a fellow creator, game developer. A fellow community admin. And I thought it was really cool the way he did the whole community server events Ink vs. Error stuff. I loved the concept and have been passionately involved in it since its start over a year ago. I’m closely involved in the development of the comic series based on these server events, called Memories of the Multiverse War and have spent countless hours dedicated to expanding the world our comic takes place inside the Doodlesphere.

I have since learned much is a horrific farce. And I’m really unhappy about it. 

But if I don’t do or say something before I go I could never live with myself. 

There are so many victims already. And more than a few look up to me like their big sib. 

There are good ways to make the audience cry.

This is not one of them.

It hurts me knowing the other Event Masters put their heart and soul into creating fun content, intended for people to enjoy, while Mania twists their work into ways to torment people, and even drags them to emulate his behavior. How much more will get swept under the rug, if I don’t speak up? 

It boils down to: 

Mania knowingly emotionally abuses server members, most of whom are children between the ages of 13-19. 

He shows no remorse for it. 

Our Mental Health is a Joke to Him Part 1*  (xFrisk debacle; please take trigger warnings seriously) 

Our Mental Health is a Joke to Him Part 2  (Fallout from the xFrisk debacle)

Ink Was Never Going to Die  (He just liked fucking with us)

No, He Really Hasn’t Changed, And Won’t Be Anytime Soon*  (xPapyrus introduction, and all this matters)

*If this much reading overwhelms you, prioritize this post and starred pages above.

Important:

Event Masters are not the ones at fault here. They’re just doing as they’re told to play out the story Mania calls for, and probably do not even realize the impact their actions have on people since they’re told it’s all just for pretend. When they are aware, they’re under threat by Mania to keep quiet.

Abuse through role play is particularly insidious. Yes, the server events are a form of role play, by definition. Pretending to be a character, or otherwise assuming the role of as a way to interact with others is fundamentally role play. 

In terms of power balance, the server events are more like a D&D campaign than traditional online roleplay. We even have “Event Masters” to parallel the “Dungeon Master” who has nigh god-like power over what happens in the dice-based roleplaying game. 

There are dozens of articles about proper DM etiquette, and how to tell a uniquely engaging story to invoke high emotions in effective ways:

There's no shame in manipulating your players' emotions, because that's part of your job as a storyteller. But, like anything else, it requires a deft hand. Be mindful of how your players react, and be careful not to go too far. If anyone at the table starts to feel uncomfortable about the situation you're presenting, it can quickly start to take people out of the game. Be mindful of your players' limits, and give them the option of saying when something isn't going over well with them. But once you start to get the hang of it, you can turn a night of goofy dice-rolling over drinks into a tense situation, or provide a moving, emotionally honest moment for your characters.

In short: It was mere storytelling until the moment the characters reacted to and responded to the players. At that point, it is role playing and the concept of consent comes into play, because real people with real feelings are part of the story, which, curiously, is canonically enforced: 

And it’s it’s our fault for taking hurtful things that characters say and do personally?

Jerking player emotions around for laughs isn’t just an asshole thing to do; it’s straight up bad storytelling. 

There is no excuse for choosing abuse.

End of story.

I am hesitant to come forward with this, as I do not have evidence compiled other than the threat itself, and considering the nature of the issue there are privacy concerns regarding the victims. He has a tendency to target 17-19 year old girls, as a 28-year old. This was sent to me while playing minecraft while in server voice chat on June 16th, 2019. 

I’m including it because this is a perfect example of how he’ll backtrack and play upsetting things off like a joke. The threat has since been deleted so I’m glad I grabbed a screenshot while it existed. He has a habit of deleting things that could be used as evidence. 

hahahahahahaa no sir you do not get to drop a threat like that on someone and then play it off like a joke, particularly when “if you didn’t hear it doesn’t matter” 

It does matter. 

They matter.

All those kids are important. They matter and so do their feelings and all the grief they’ve experienced at your hands. The event may be more like a D&D campaign setting, in terms of balance of power, but this article does a great job breaking down the cycle of online roleplay abuse. 

Here’s an excerpt:  

Some people roleplay to heal their wounds, others play for fun or to escape. Any way you cut it, a good chunk of roleplayers have personal investment in their roleplay.

The human brain is a curious silly fickle sort of thing, a person who is capable of empathizing can empathize with anything that has human traits, be it a brave little toaster, a cartoon dog, a character in a book,crying at a movie, or screaming at the little man on playing sports ball on the television. People feel empathic sadness from witnessing sadness of others,people can feel empathic excitement by watching sports, in some cases to the point of violent outbreaks after their favorite sportsball team wins the big game.

Human beings are capable of immersing ourselves in the situation of others, and we are capable of feeling a wide variety of emotions as we endure the human experience of whatever we immerse ourselves in. This experience of emotional stimulation is not just a flaw in emotions or an inability to tell in character from out of character. Feeling this way does not make someone insane, weak, or flawed.

It is, in fact, a physiological chemical reaction in the human body. It’s chemistry, it’s oxytocin, it’s cortisol, it’s adrenaline, it’s dopamine, it’s serotonin, it’s estrogen, it’s testosterone, and who knows what else. When things happen in online roleplay we really feel it. (This is why consent is so important.)

In both roleplay and interpersonal interactions in online communities, and the feelings we feel when engaged in these things are real,are chemical, and they are not in our head.

Online community narcissists engage in their own flavor potentially insidious psychological abuse and manipulation, and it can cause real life distress, depression, anxiety, all in a situation where people are trying to escape, to relax, to have fun, and to heal wounds.

More importantly, this serves to validate the feelings of that the narcissist’s victims, be it ex-roleplay partner or a storyteller silenced.

You are not overreacting to a video game. Your pain is valid. The people you are interacting with on the other side of the screen are real; you are having real interpersonal interaction. The emotions you are experiencing are real chemical reactions in your body not a personal flaw. You are not crazy or stupid.

It is okay to cry about stupid online drama. It is okay to talk to your therapist if you have one. Know that even if you feel isolated and alone, even if you think everyone hates you. The truth is that outside of the narcissist’s circle, there is going to be people who do not even know of you let alone hate you, who do not care or believe the bullshit the narcissist tried to feed them.

—Credit to @zanpyr​. Thank you for this wonderful article.

Now. All of you, on the server, who’ve been subjected to all this fucking bullshit over the months or years you’ve been in the community: It’s not your fault. Your feelings and heartache are valid. You matter, and you deserve better than how we’re made to feel through this series of fucking bullshit. You’re not weak for caring about these characters; caring about characters is WHY we loved Undertale so much. You’re not stupid for getting hurt by someone you trusted and considered a friend. You can get through this and you’re gonna grow up and do great, okay? 

And any other adults who’ve been emotionally manipulated too: It’s not your fault. You’re no more at fault than the kids for falling for his tricks because guess what: you’re human and you have empathy. Those aren’t bad things. 

I know from personal experience that online interactions can be clinically traumatic, as in, diagnosable trauma response symptoms that should be taken seriously. I’ve already been talking people through their thoughts and feelings about this stuff and I recommend you do the same. Sorting out all the self-blame from guilt-tripping is important and if you have signs of trauma related to this event, please please please seek treatment even if it seems silly to be that affected by “a fucking discord event.” Gaslighting from any source messes with your perception of reality and doubting your ability to perceive the world can have lasting effects that topple like a domino effect. 

Once you’ve developed trauma response symptoms, you become more vulnerable to developing further symptoms by more common disturbing events. Don’t do like I did and let it go untreated for over a decade of accumulating traumas and Traumas. Many of you are already suffering with depression, anxiety, and existing trauma. The sooner you seek treatment the better. 

Outside Sources:

Quoted/Linked in Article: 

How To Manipulate Your Players (Into Having Emotions)

Wikipedia  - Gaslighting 

Abuse Through Online Roleplay 

Adventures In Random Roleplay: Safety/Consent Tools in Gaming

Additional Reading:

Lovebombing, Gaslighting, Benching, and Ghosting

Three of the Easiest Ways to Manipulate Someone

Gaslighting Definition, Techniques, and Signs of Being Gaslighted

Emotional Abuse in Non-Romantic Relationships

Signs an Abuser is Twisting Your Reality

Trauma: Big “T” and little “t”

20 Tips For Becoming A Better DM: Lessons Learned At The Table

One final addendum: 

As vindictive as I may feel after slogging through so many horrific conversations, I absolutely do not condone any attempts to actively harass him. Hold him accountable for his actions but do not send him hatemail, threats, or any other shit like that. He’s a fucked up human being but he’s still a human being and this whole effort has been to call attention to how much online interactions affect our mental mental health. Don’t do that shit to anyone, even if you think they deserve it. And don’t be a flying monkey, please.

Okay, that’s it. 

Stay safe everyone. 

[fly-pow-bye]

ThunderCats Roar - “Driller”

Co-Executive Producer: Victor Courtright

Supervising Producer: Nate Cash

Producer: Marly Halpern-Graser

Story by: Victor Courtright

Teleplay by: Marly Halpern-Graser

Directed by: Jeremy Polgar

Is it killer, or is it filler?

This episode begins with Panthro doing repairs on that mighty ThunderTank. I never really talked about its looks, as this is one of the first good clear shots of it. This ThunderTank looks even more like a cat than the original, with a big red nose and a cat-like mouth, and it has a perpetually sticking out tongue. It's not as fierce looking as its original counterpart, but considering this is more of a comedy than an action show, it's fitting.

Panthro finishes the job, as indicated by the ThunderTank shining, and he talks to himself about how it must have been so long since he didn't have to fix something. He really must like to tempt fate with that one, that kind of saying is usually followed by everything breaking at the same time.

Surely enough, everything starts to break, all at the same time, and it's all because of his teammates. Cheetara broke the ThunderTread by exceeding its maximum speed it can handle, and the ThunderKittens broke the ThunderFridge trying to get that sweet ThunderCake.

Even the ones that are usually more competent than the others are involved with this massive breakage, as Snarf, the robot cat-dragon-thing with an intelligence level of 20 according to the first episode, is messing around with some wiring like it's a ball of yarn. Panthro doesn't even know what it is, and one thing I'm thinking of is that I'm surprised they didn't pull out a "samoflange" joke yet. As for Tygra, the usual straight man, he's just the victim of a falling ThunderSecurity Camera.

Suddenly, Sadako shows up, calling out to Panthro, presumably telling him that his 7 days are up, and he has to pay for that one month of Youtube TV whether he likes it or not.

No, that's just Lion-O drawn with much longer hair than usual for the sake of the Sadako gag, and he needs his blowdryer fixed. Not a ThunderBlowdryer, just a regular blowdryer. For a second, I thought he was melting, too, but that's actually his fur. They are cat people, after all.

All of the other ThunderCats come in, and Panthro tells them that he'll get to work on all of those problems, and the only repayment he'll need from his teammates is the appreciation he gets for doing everything. Que Lion-O throwing that fixed blowdryer to a wall, breaking it immediately! Get it, because Lion-O is selfish.

It's quite clear, even with Panthro's assurance that it was a easy mistake, that this is getting to him. It doesn't help that he hears something else breaking just outside. He assumes it must be yet another one of his teammates...except they're all here.

The alarms go off, and Lion-O knows what the ThunderCats should do in this situation as their great leader.

Lion-O: The lair is under attack! ThunderCats...PANIC!

(everyone panics)

See, it's funny because this isn't normally what happens! All of the ThunderCats search through various rooms, seeing that someone has been drilling through all of it, leaving giant holes everywhere. Worst of all, whatever is causing this has taken Lion-O's cake! Tygra shows up to tell Lion-O that he found it. No, not the cake, much to Lion-O's chagrin, as he'll never know the truth about that. Alas, poor ThunderCake.

The drilling came from this new robotic man with a drill for a lower body, named, appropriately, Driller. This was a character who first appeared in the eighteenth episode of the original. In the original, he was a mercenary who accepts diamonds as payment, which he will use to sharpen his mighty drill. At the very least, he confirms his want for diamonds in the first minute of his appearance, as the first thing he does is scan if those strange cat people have them.

Tygra tries to stop this new potential threat with a "stop right there, miscreant" and an all important pointer finger, and the miscreant just says no and continues drilling. He doesn't say "no" like a villain would say "never", just an uncaring "no".

There are higher stakes. According to Panthro and what looks like a portable video game console, Driller is heading towards the lair's Thundrillium core! If that gets destroyed, the rest of the lair goes with it. This comes much to the shock of everyone...except for Lion-O, who has a stupid face on throughout this speech. Lion-O only seems to care when Panthro clarifies that it's his stuff that's on the line, too. Get it, because Lion-O is selfish.

So they all try to fight him, but it's no use. Even with his need for diamonds at the time, his drill is still powerful enough to spin both Cheetara and the ThunderKittens out of the way. It takes Panthro's super strength to do any kind of stopping, but Tygra tries his best to be useful with his special ability to have a bola whip. I could take this as confirmation that they just got rid of one of the ThunderCat's special powers, though I doubt disappearing would have helped this situation. It almost seems like all is lost and Tygra is about to get a hole in the head, all until the Bola whip eventually makes his drill stop.

They take him in for questioning, and he properly introduces himself as Driller, and he drills. One point that ends up being a sticking point for Lion-O is that he's trying to get diamonds so he can sharpen his drill, which he uses to drill for more diamonds, and even his tiny little brain can admit that is an unending cycle with no real point.

He compares this to shampoo, which has the specific instructions to lather, rinse, and repeat, but one shouldn't repeat forever. Nice to see that blowdryer scene is relevant to the rest of the episode; he seems to know his hair products. He knows enough to know that shampoo is pointless, just like drilling just for the sake of drilling.

While the former is certainly wrong, as Tygra points out, Driller does not take that advice too well. He looks at the diamond on top of his head, which pops out instantly, and he tells himself that he is pointless. He lies down on the ground, clearly saddened of this realization, and this makes everyone else sad too. There is one exception, who boasts that he is glad to help. Here's a hint: it's funny because he's selfish!

Panthro tries to calm his senses, saying that his life is also an endless cycle: he fixes things, his teammates break them, he fixes them again. Driller then gives him his own bit of foresight.

Driller: So Panthro is pointless too?

I always wondered what that guy from that one Radiohead music video was talking about. And yes, Lion-O never gets this, either. Even in the end, he just kind of gets told to do the right thing eventually.

One week passes, and the Lair is still just as holey as ever. Tygra decides enough is enough, and something must be done about it, but Lion-O is happy about this new home arrangement, as he can jump straight from his living room to the kitchen in one jump. The ThunderKittens are happy too, as Lion-O made them a toy out of the shower curtain to cover up one of the holes, a...

JUMP PAD!

Yes, with a choir, too. It doesn’t work too well, though, as it eventually breaks, and we get this overly long joke about how they have to wait for WilyKit and Kat to hit the ground. Lion-O assures the rest that they have to hit the ground sometime. Don’t worry, they turn out to be okay, because nothing has to make sense in this wacky comedy.

Even Lion-O admits that something has to be done. The problem is that Panthro is still depressed and feeling pointless, and he doesn't want to do anything. They do bring up one thing they've been ignoring until now: what about the Ro-Bear Berbils? They built this whole lair from scratch, certainly they would be available to re-build the lair without having to do anything!

Unfortunately, they're busy working on Castle Plun-Darr. Interesting diversion from the original, and it's also interesting to watch this after the episode of the original that explained the origins of that series' Castle Plun-Darr. At least this species is okay with being slaves, because that means they can build something. They didn't want payment from the people who would pay them.

...actually, come to think of it, they probably wouldn't have any Third Earth money, and it wasn't until this episode where they realized they had diamonds. Hmm, let's let something else distract from this, shall we? Cheetara manages to find Panthro, who was literally under her feet, but he's still depressed and unwilling to just fix what will eventually be broken. Even when our favorite baby king begs him to, he won't budge, so he makes a great plan.

To finally give him a point, Lion-O decides to trash the one room of the Lair Driller didn't destroy: that room with the Thundrillim in it! Now he can fix everything he broke, including that unimportant circle thing he was told would blow everything up! Admittedly, that one wasn't intentional, and Lion-O finally has an expression other than pure happiness over the silly things he does. It might have been more than alarm than anything else, though.

See, as he's basically a kid, he only seems to feel remorse whenever something really goes wrong. The original Lion-O had the excuse that he was a kid. Roar Lion-O is just a really, really silly character in a really, really silly cartoon.

They go to Driller, who is eating popcorn, watching an episode of Building with Berbils. They are really using those Berbils this episode; they must be making up for their lack of appearances since the first episode. Also, how is he even enjoying that popcorn? Is that an alternative fuel source? Whatever.

Panthro, having dots for eyes for no real reason other than they didn't want to finish drawing the ThunderCats, begs Driller to drill, as only drilling can solve this problem somehow. Lion-O tries to handle it, because that worked so well for the rest of the episode, with a speech about drilling.

Or, since Driller is a robotic being, Panthro can just rewire his positronic brain to bypass all of his emotions. Thanks to this rewiring, Driller stops caring about anything, being happy all the time, and he doesn't mind this at all because he's always feeling good. See, all we had to do was essentially brainwash the guy to be good. That's what heroes should do!

To make a long story short, Panthro fixes everything, just as he always does. To make a short story long again, he has the unwillingly-happy Driller drill directly to the core, and then pushes his "Reverse" switch. Somehow, for reasons that are surely different than "this episode needs to end", this stabilizes the core. Even the show is aware of how silly this is.

Lion-O: He stabilized the core by unstabilizing it in reverse!

Tygra: That's how science works!

SCIENCE!

It's no Respek Knuckles. At this point, I honestly expected a scene where Driller goes backwards, somehow causing the holes to disappear. Maybe that's what happened, but they didn't animate it.

In the end, Driller becomes his...

NEW FRIEND!

Oh hush. As payment for helping him find his point again, not only does he accept his new head rewiring, he offers to fix Panthro's head wiring with his head drill! I guess that's one bit of comeuppance, even if he never gets to do it.

Lion-O reassures Panthro that he will continue to have a point too, as he broke everything already, and the rest of the ThunderCats and Driller laugh at how he has learned nothing. Driller then teleports, and Cheetara asks what was the point of him even being here. I don't really get it.

How does it stack up?

The creep factor of this episode's solution aside, this isn't a terrible episode. Most of it is just Lion-O being silly and not really being that funny outside of maybe a handful of jokes, and the rest is unnotable at worst. It's adequate. Three cats.

Next, unicorns! Yup, they did exist in the original, believe it or not. Honestly, I'd be surprised if they didn't exist in a universe with cat people in it.

← Prank Call 🐈 Secret of the Unicorn →

[mistytpednaem]

okay, so i’ve finished the great ace attorney! some overall spoiler-free thoughts before i move on to case-by-case remarks:

it waaaaas a good experience overall, but unless i’m mistaken, this game has the weirdest, if not actually the worst pacing out of the entire series? like, i was warned about plot threads not reaching a conclusion since this game was made with a sequel in mind from the get-go; that’s not what i’m talking about. i’m talking about redundancies in the writing and just... bold decisions in how long certain parts of certain cases go on for, i suppose you could say?

still, as long as you’re prepared for that and are ok with it, it’s still absolutely a worthwhile experience. i mean i love ace attorney so of course i’d say that but still. this game has a really strong cast and i can’t wait for the sequel to get a thorough fan translation as well, so great job and thanks to studio scarlet (EDIT: wait no. it’s scarlet study) for helping people enjoy this game!

OKAY. more specific and spoilery observations under the cut:

case 1: I’m gonna be honest I played a lot of the early bits of this game in bed right before going to sleep so my judgement may not be the best because i was only half-conscious at times w-whoops. this one’s a fine intro case, even if it starts to run a bit long towards the end. great intro to our anxiety boy, hosonaga did not disappoint. obviously, now that i’ve played the game, i can no longer say he was the first de killer... ... he’s just OBVIOUSLY shelly’s actual blood ancestor. like, hello?? the gumption? the dedication to his job??? please do not die of tuberculosis, hosonaga. also asougi’s hair is dumb but his theme is really good and oh no he shares his VA with bruno bucciarati oh no

case 2: i cannot in good conscience dislike this case, which is honestly kind of impressive considering it’s All Investigation. :V but maaaan, it really started dragging towards the end. :( the climax just felt... drawn out and unsatisfying, unfortunately, and i feel like that’s a symptom of this game’s format being so different from all the rest - there’s a much larger focus on telling a long, overarching story. and that’s not necessarily wrong, and i appreciate them trying out something new,  but... if it’s not broke... i’m honestly surprised by how much i liked sherlock, haha. i mean susato is also great but i was just not expecting to be so amused by holmes?? what a great take on the character. also the Deduction bits may not be particularly challenging - and, yes, suffer a bit from the game’s overall weird pacing - but honestly i love them. love holmes being a ham,  love naruhodou joining him

case 3: this fucking case shook me to my core. i happened to examine the omnibus close to the end of the first part of the trial, and then close to the start of the second part, which meant the details were still fresh on my mind AND the alarm signs started going way the fuck off in my head from early on. it’s a fun play on the old ace attorney gambit of “oh no our defendant looks shady but surely he must be good” - it adds the conclusion of “oh FUCK NO oh my GOD eat the RICH.” i’m still sad barok’s name wasn’t ultimately romanized as baroque, but alas, that doesn’t detract from my big awful crush on him. i may or may not still blush when i think of him stretching his leggy out and i’m glad his rampant xenophobia seems to be something that might get character development’d out. ALSO the new juror thing is fun too! i really like all (... or most) of the new mechanics in this game. shame most of the jurors don’t get names, though, especially since so many of them are so much fun - capcom ripped off my oc and didn’t even give him a proper name?? no dignity OH YEAH SPEAKING OF ROMANIZED NAMES: i still think HURT VORTEX is superior but i’ll take hart vortex too

case 4: welp, there’s usually ONE downer in these games and this one’s mine. i’m not even saying it’s objectively bad, but between the fat jokes and the spousal abuse jokes, by the time the truth was becoming clear, i’d reached 2-3 levels of “NO SHUT UP THIS IS STUPID”. shame, because I actually quite like the garridebs’ character designs, and souseki is great fun - you all know i’m a fan of taking real dudes and having fun with them in fiction. it... didn’t help that i got very drowsy during chunks of the whole thing ultimately, i think one of my favourite parts of this case was one that wasn’t connected to the case itself, and that’s not great praise, haha :V;; (”what’s the big deal with the grim reaper anyway we won that trial just fine” “yeah but is megundal alive” “wh-” “IS HE ALIVE, BOY”) ALSO another symptom of the weird, bbbbbold pacing and writing decisions in this game: this one... shakespearean dude who just showed up for two minutes and then fucked off for the rest of the game?? hello??  sir???? what????? WAIT DOUBLE ALSO was this the case where barok just flung his bottle behind his back for the first time because the first time i saw that animation i had to stop and laugh for a second and i love it when these games do that to me

case 5: this case is extremely good because a) the pacing is super fucked (it takes like an hour for a crime to even happen and it gets up to INVESTIGATION 4 before the trial starts, jesus) and i still had fun and b) chekov’s cat flap gun is objectively dumb and i don’t even mind. it bothers me way less than Knife Drop actually so. disclaimer. i’ve thought “egg benedict” was incredibly handsome from the moment i first saw a screenshot of him, so obviously i’m biased, but to no surprise he’s my favourite culprit in this game w-whoops. the ones i wasn’t expecting to ALSO love were the tinpillars, holy shit, what a power trio. i was in fact a little disappointed that rupert (... robert? i’ve seen a couple of different romanizations of his name) was not the long lost third tinpillar brother, but then the credits had them pose together and i felt so much joy in my heart (also, extremely unusual for the true culprit of a case to be in the credits, but i’ll take it??? especially for the GROUP POSING i seriously can’t overstate how happy i was)

anyway, these thoughts are a little disjointed, i know, but i always have a little trouble getting my shit together when i’m talking about a game like this, haha ;v; feel free to ask me stuff or just casually hit me up if you wanna chat, though!

“wait, naem! you said you liked ALMOST all of the mechanics in this game! what’s the exception?”

........ well

it’s not so much a matter of not LIKING it, i just

i cannot, for the life of me, get magic eye pictures to work

yes i know how to cross my eyes. yes i have read how to do it multiple times. at this point i’m convinced my eyes are just fucked in some particular way that doesn’t let me Get It

i will never, ever know the unabated joy that case 5′s juror 3 experienced...........

[jjkfire]

taehyung x reader // fuckboy!taehyung // 2k words

You stare at the piece of paper before you. You’re so close. All you need is the middle tile and you would hit double bingo.

Wait, bingo? Why did you care for bingo?

See it wasn’t just any game of bingo. It was a special one. Each tile was a specific challenge, one you would have to complete and post on social media as proof. The challenges ranged from correcting your professor during lecture to kayaking to the middle of the enormous lake on campus to scaling the beloved statue right in the middle of the quad. Granted, you’ve picked the easier ones to complete but you think you’ve done pretty well so far. You’ve already managed to complete 8 of them. 4 straight across and 4 up. Almost forming a cross but you needed that middle tile, badly. Why? Well, this game of bingo boasted a prize of a semester’s supply of free burgers and fries. If that isn’t music to a broke college student’s ears, you’re not sure what is.

So, you’re one away from double bingo, only the middle tile standing in your way and maybe right now, you regret choosing this formation. Perhaps you should have gone for one of the rows or columns that didn’t have the middle tile… but, striking the middle tile meant you had to do one less challenge. Considering the fact that your professors are really beginning to pile on the coursework, you didn’t have the time to complete any more than one silly challenge. You groan about your predicament to Lisa, your closest friend who was this close to throwing you into the lake herself if you make her film anymore of your stupid videos for the bingo challenge.

“But that’s easy,” She laughs looking at the paper in your hand.

“Easy? It’s the middle tile for a reason,” You grumble.

Get 3000 likes on an original post that has some academic relevance.

Now how were you going to do that? It’s been weeks and you and well… the 10 other people who still bothered participating are still trying to nail that very tile. Considering that only 5 people follow you on Instagram, 3 of which are spam accounts… you don’t think you’ll be getting 3000 likes on anything, much less a post that was academically relevant.

“Just get a picture with Taehyung,” She hums. “He rakes in likes by the thousands.”

“It has to be academically related, you ninny,” You grumble, poking her in the forehead. “Taehyung and academics don’t really go hand in hand.”

See, Kim Taehyung is Beta Tau Sigma’s beloved fratboy. Loved, or rather lusted after by many, but also hated by many… usually, scorned women, of course. You’ve heard stories of him, many in fact, but they’re all the same. It’s always the same story about how they had a one-night stand with the handsome boy, how he oozed confidence, how he had them crawling back for more and of course, he obliges but it’s never really more than sex. The boy wears his fuckboy badge loud and proud and you guess you always found it quite ridiculous that the girls would come crying, bawling over the fact that he didn’t want to be exclusive. Of course he didn’t, you snort. It was practically written on his face. But you don’t understand, they would say. He was so sweet, he was so… different. But fuckboys are fuckboys, you smile. If you had a face like his, you’d probably do the same.

“Okay, but what’s the criteria? You just have to look like you’re doing homework or something, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s easy! I’ll get you your 3000 likes so I don’t have to follow you around campus and watch you make a fool out of yourself anymore.”

“Okay, but how? How does Taehyung fit into this? Just so you know, me roleplaying a schoolgirl while Taehyung smacks my ass doesn’t count as an academically relevant post.”

“That’s… actually better than what I had in mind but, you know that’s what Pornhub is for and unless you’re thinking of delving into amateur porn, I think we can skip that idea,” She laughs. “Just bring your notes with you to Beta Tau this Saturday and I’ll sort the rest of it out.”

“You’re not going to make me flash a tit in front of him are you? Because I absolutely won’t—”

“It’ll be PG, sort of… anyway, don’t worry,” She huffs. “Just, remember to be there, okay?”

You say yes and she reminds you a few more times during the week but as usual, when the day comes, you’re nowhere in sight. It’s only when your phone rings, the bass thumping in the background of Lisa’s call that you actually remember where you’re supposed to be.

“Please tell me you’re on your way here.”

“I… Yeah, I am,” You mumble, as you answer one of the last few questions on your online Chemistry quiz. “But look, I need to finish this quiz first because once I start it, there’s a time limit and—"

“You better get here in 20 because Taehyung is getting awfully antsy about being held back from his usual… activities.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there!” You yell as you attempt to change your outfit and answer the quiz questions, all at the same time.

There’s only 20 minutes left on the clock and you struggle to answer the quiz while you’re sat on the bus heading towards a frat house of all places. With one question left and only 8 minutes to go, you arrive at the front door of Beta Tau Sigma, pushing past the front door, ignoring the freshman that attempts to stop you from going in.

Lisa spots you instantly, dragging you towards the couch where Taehyung is seated. He looks absolutely annoyed, a deep set frown on his face with a solo cup in one hand and phone in the other. When you stand in front of him, he barely gives you the time of the day. He puts his phone away before he taps at his thigh, as if he was asking you to sit.

“Are you just going to stare at me all day or are we going to get this thing moving?”

“Sorry?” You question, unsure what he had meant by that and you turn to your friend for help. “Lisa, wait what are we—”

“Where are your notes, Y/N?” She asks before her gaze lands on the laptop in your hands. “Oh my god, you idiot. I meant like bring your physical notes not your online lecture slides,” She groans.

“Lisa, you said this would take 5 minutes,” Taehyung grumbles from behind you. “It’s been almost half an hour.”

“Okay, okay. 5 more minutes, I promise,” She sighs. “Anyway, quick introduction. Taehyung, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Taehyung. Okay, now sit on his lap.”

“I’m supposed to do what now?”

Lisa doesn’t even answer you, simply pushing you onto his lap before she snatches your phone from you. Taehyung lets out a soft groan of pain before his arms circle your middle to keep you from falling off.

“You want your 3000 likes, don’t you? Well, we’re gonna get them.”

You don’t even know what to say because first, you didn’t even know what the hell was going on. You look down at your screen and you almost let out a scream as the countdown timer shows 3 minutes left.

“Look, I just need to finish this quiz question real quick and then we can—”

“Neat, you’re already in character,” Lisa smiles as she begins recording. “Yeah, just focus on your laptop. Pretend you don’t care,” She directs, to which you nod to, albeit a little confused.

Her friends stand behind her with their phones out and their flash on to provide lighting Lisa says. It’s certainly a bizarre sight to say the least. You’re in the middle of a dimly lit living room, everyone around you already half past drunk and the soft bass thumping from the basement where the main party is happening does little to help you concentrate on your quiz.

“There’s no need to be nervous, babe,” Taehyung whispers and you assume it’s because you’re practically shaking in his lap but what he doesn’t know is that it had absolutely nothing to do with him but everything to do with the fact that you now only had 1 minute left and you can’t quite figure out the question.

You hear Lisa say something akin to alright, action! but you have no idea what she’s really talking about. It doesn’t take you too long to figure it out though because within seconds, Taehyung is pressing open mouth kisses from your collarbone to your neck, his tongue leaving behind a trail as he slowly works his way up. You gulp, when he nips at your skin and you shut your eyes in an attempt to focus on the question instead, softly mumbling to yourself but it’s a mistake because you hear him let out a low groan as he presses you down harder into his lap, his hips grinding upwards. It’s soft but Taehyung smirks because he swears he hears you stifle a moan. His hand pulls you closer to him, his thumb just under your bra and he grumbles because he finds all the layers between you and him… annoying. Lisa is practically laughing as panic flashes across your face, obviously enjoying this more than you, but seconds after, it’s like you have a lightbulb moment and you smile as you move your finger across your trackpad, selecting your choice before you hit submit.

You turn your screen towards the camera pointing at your score as you grin.

“Ten out of ten,” You beam, surprising Taehyung who pulls away with his eyebrows furrowed.

“What?” Lisa asks, confused. “What do you mea—”

“I only had 20 seconds left too!”

“Oh my god, was that a real quiz?” Lisa queries as she steps closer. “You dumbass! You should’ve just used a screenshot and faked it! I can’t believe you—”

“Well I was trying to tell you that I had an actual quiz to finish but you didn’t want to listen,” You frown and Lisa doesn’t even look at you, simply typing away at your phone.

“You know sometimes it feels like I’m the only one with functioning braincells in this friendship,” She sighs. “Anyway, you’re welcome. That’s going to be 3000 likes easy,” She hums as she hands you your phone.

“Really?” You question as you watch the video, the clip starting with just Taehyung’s lips on your neck, your head thrown back as you have your eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed but it gradually zooms out to show your laptop in your hands and finally, you pointing to your screen and Lisa midway scolding you before it cuts to black and repeats. It’s oddly a lot funnier than you expected… even if maybe that wasn’t quite what Lisa was going for originally.

“Just the thumbnail alone would probably get you 1000 likes,” She smirks, but the way her lips curl up has less to do with her statement and more to do with the way Taehyung seemed to be undressing you with his eyes.

“Nice. Here’s to hoping we get our free burgers,” You grin, shutting your laptop before you tuck it under your arm. You tap at Taehyung’s hand that’s still around your middle, holding you in place. It’s a silent gesture to ask him to let go but he only clicks his tongue at you.

“And where do you think you’re going?” He asks, his lips ghosting the shell of your ear, his thumb smoothing out against the fabric of your crop top.

“Well, home, preferably,” You smile as you pull his hand away to stand up, hoping you look confident despite the way the low timbre of his voice had sent shivers down your spine.

“But what am I going to do with this?” He questions as he points to the tent in his pants. The boy was absolutely shameless.

“That seems more like a you problem and not a me problem.”

“But you caused it,” He frowns.

“From what? Sitting on your lap?” You question before you turn to Lisa. “So this is the fabled Kim Taehyung?”

“Fabled?” He asks. “Tell me, what do they say about me?” He smiles, hands resting at your waist, as if he was waiting for permission to pull you onto his lap again.

“I’m sure you know,” You sigh. “Though they neglected to mention that you’re the type that would come after just one stroke.”

Lisa lets out a low whistle, laughing silently at the way Taehyung’s jaw ticks. “I’d be careful if I were you, Y/N. This one doesn’t do too well with jokes.”

“I’m just playing,” You smile, patting the hand he had on your waist before you peeled it off. “I’m sure you’re everything they say you are,” You wink, taking a seat on the arm of the couch as Lisa hands you a drink.

“Why don’t you come find out for yourself?”

“I should, shouldn’t I?” You hum, sipping on your drink. “But there seems to be quite the line for that,” You laugh, using your cup to point towards a few of the many girls who were currently eyeing him up and down.

“Well, looks like you’re first in line to me though.”

You smile, loving the attention. The boy is smooth, you’ll give him that.

“Maybe next time,” You smile, before you lean down to whisper. “You’ll wait for me, won’t you?”

You don’t stay to hear his answer, sauntering off before he gets the chance to reply.

“Make sure to like the video, yeah?” You say, turning back just to flash him a grin and he simply answers with a thumbs up.

He smirks to himself as he watches you walk away, your hips swaying from side to side. Hmm, Taehyung wasn’t exactly a patient man… but, he’ll wait. In any case, you’re refreshing. It’s been a while since he’s had some fun.

[lovelyirony]

Checkmate

@thormlm

Tony Carbonell was good at what he did. He knew it, no one else did. Why? Because again. He was good at what he did. Tony stole stuff. Not snacks from the convenience store, not jewelry from an old lady’s home. 

Documents that incriminated some syndicate. Paintings that no one in public had seen them. (Van Gogh had a crazy other side to his paintings, it was wicked.) And mostly, scammed enough people into forgetting his face. He was John Howard, Arno Stark, whoever he needed to be. He was not Tony Carbonell. He was just another face in the crowd. That’s how it was meant to be. 

There’s a new cop in town. “Corrupt,” or so they say. Not corrupt, just a little bit more willing to get criminals in jail than most. They call him Captain. He’s also known as Steven Grant Rogers, served in the army for three years, honorably discharged. Awards and honors out the ass, a degree in art history, and a talent for making posters for local events on the side. 

Captain is smart. He knows exactly where Tony’s kind hangs out, where they get information, and just what they call Tony. 

They call Tony “Iron Man.” It’s a stupid nickname, earned a few years earlier when Tony did a job involving a safe. No one knew how he did it. How the safe was opened, because no one had accessed it in months. And then, of course, they don’t look at who accessed it all those months before. Who pays attention the morning cleaners? 

Tony got in, he got out. No combination, just DNA processing. They don’t know how he did it, because a.) the man was dead, and it requires a recognizable strand of DNA to be done. b.) there were no relatives that thieves knew of. 

Keyword: knew. 

Tony robbed his own father, which really most people would have a problem. But as it turns out, Howard Stark was a piece of shit, and Tony really thought that the ruby cuff links and stacks of cash deserved to see the light of day and not rot in an iron safe in some “secure” bank. 

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that Tony has to deal with Black Widow texting him “lol ur in deep shit” with a screenshot of Steve Rogers texting someone that he would get Iron Man. 

Which, you know, is great. Wonderful. Tony loves that he’s being pursued by a man with more resources than he needs to catch Tony. He loves knowing this all before he gets his coffee, the one that’s flavored Amaretto, and just sitting in his kitchen saying “shit.” He loves life. Wow. Tony wishes he could live forever, this is amazing news! Great, Tony might die! 

Fact: criminals who are convinced that they will never get caught are the worst. Tony has met many criminals who boast and say they will never get caught. He smiles, says “okay”, and watches from the back of the courtroom as they get sentenced to forty years in prison, rotting. Tony knows that eventually, he may get caught. But he’ll get to that when he gets to it. 

Tony calls Pepper first. She is his lawyer that he loves more than life itself, even though she has called him “an inconvenient goblin” and “really, Tony? This again?” She loves him, though. He knows that she does. So when he calls her and says 

“Hey Pepper, I’m in deep shit! Fun!” She knows Exactly what’s going to go down. Someone is onto Iron Man. Which means that she is on standby just in case things go haywire. 

“You might want to call Jim,” Pepper says. “You know how he gets when people threaten you.” 

“Overprotective?” 

“Careful,” Pepper suggests. “He’s not overprotective, you’re just reckless and paranoid.” 

“Those who aren’t paranoid die, Pep. Consider me an expert on that.” Once upon a time, Tony had not been paranoid. 

Then there was a car crash. An uncle who smiled and said it was so unfortunate, would Tony like to go on a trip to forget about it? Dubai, maybe? And then Tony ended up in Afghanistan where he was supposed to die. 

But that’s the thing, sometimes, about Paranoia: it gets you out of some weird situations. Tony was supposed to die. But he’s just paranoid enough of dying that it didn’t happen. 

Tony calls Rhodey up anyway. “Hello Rhodey! How are you today? I am doing Fantastically Wonderful, It’s So Nice Outside, What? No, I’m Not Bullshitting You--” 

“Yeah, you are. What’d you do?” 

“It’s more of what I’m about to do.” 

“If you’re finally buying that Danny Devito cardboard cutout, I’m legitimately cutting you out of my will.” 

“You can die?” 

“This life around? Yes. What’s your point?” 

“The Captain is coming after my ass.” 

“Like...in a sexy way?” Tony splutters. 

“You are Unbelieve, no, not that way. I cannot believe you thought that within, like, two months of knowing about the Captain, that he would even look my way.” 

“So he’s looking your way,” Rhodey says. “But in a ‘I might be murdered’ type of way?” 

“Exactly,” Tony responds. “So I may die in a couple of months to a year.” 

Rhodey laughs. “You’re so stupid, no you’re not. You ate an egg roll from a gas station in the middle of nowhere and you survived. It’s fine.” 

“I really feel like you’re not getting the severity of the situation,” Tony says. “The Captain is trying to catch me. And he knows more than enough about the criminal world to actually get the job done. He knows people.” 

“Like who?” Rhodey says. “The guy’s in the police force. He just got awarded for rescuing a cat, I hardly doubt that the people he knows can actually pull this off.” He’s kind of laughing. “I got your back.” 

“Against the Winter Soldier?” 

Silence. 

“Oh fuck. You’re screwed. You’re so screwed. Do you know how screwed you are?” 

“Screwed as a nail,” Tony mutters. “So I’m going off the grid. I’ll catch you in a year or something. I don’t know. Off-the-grid schedules are tricky.” 

“Don’t do anything weird, okay? Don’t, like, blow up the White House or something to escape.” 

“I don’t have access to that much C-4,” Tony quips. “Bye, honey bear.” 

Line goes dead. Phone gets smashed. Easy peasy, lemon whatever. 

Tony has fine taste. He’s not gonna deny that much. He has Italian leather shoes, pants specifically tailored for his legs and ass, and a passion for the finer side of thread-counts and furniture. All acquired through a man who goes by Bruce and Bruce only. He used to be a radiation scientist, Tony actually knows about him. But then something went haywire, he has anger issues, and refuses to talk about deep-seated issues. Can you believe? 

But Tony walks to the store, unassuming and beige with everything else. Ugh. Tony hates beige. 

“Bruce! I have a favor to ask!” 

“Yeah, what is it?” Bruce says. “If it’s murder, I charge money for my no-doubt-eventual-counselling sessions.” 

“Nonsense,” Tony says. “I’m not doing murder, and the only thing I need for you to do is deny that I’ve ever shopped here.” 

“Why?” 

“Bruce, only scientists ask questions like ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and the damning ‘why’. You don’t need to know.” 

“You forgot the ‘how’, Tony.” 

“Damn your perception,” Tony says, light and cheery. He’s actually teetering between the line of “Is this Okay or is it Anxiety Time,” which is better than a lot of other lines he’s teetered on. (One was literal, too, which is not good for your state of health if you’re not trained to go on tightropes, by the way.) “Anyway, promise not to tell anyone that you sell me good cotton sheets?” 

“Sure,” Bruce says. “But you also can’t tell anyone where you got the sheets.” 

“Never have, probably never will,” Tony says cheerily. “Talk to you maybe later!” 

And then comes a text. I’ve been assigned to come after you. Headstart of one hour. 

Well, fuck. Just because you’re friends with Black Widow doesn’t actually mean that she refuses to take jobs referring to Iron Man. She hasn’t refused any, but she also hasn’t been given any. 

I’ll double the sum they’re paying. 

They have blackmail on me, you can’t double that. They know more about me than you. 

Even that you like cherry-nut ice cream? 

Less than one hour, Iron Man. 

So then, Tony has to do something drastic. He may have told his driver/friend/low-key criminal hitman Happy to pose as him, buy a ticket to France, and actually get on the plane. Natasha doesn’t kill those she isn’t assigned to. And she’s real good with faces, so she’ll know when he turns that it isn’t Tony. 

Tony actually gets to an apartment in Brooklyn. It’s his back-up apartment, technically owned by his mother. His mother hates Brooklyn, refuses to go anywhere near the area, and doesn’t technically know that she owns an apartment in Brooklyn. Tony finds it funny. 

He’s wearing a t-shirt that he likes, jeans that he hates, and lugging some boxes in. Maintain the cover. 

“Hey,” comes a voice behind him. “Looks like we’re neighbors. I’m Steve.” 

It takes everything in Tony’s willpower to not just whip the knife out of his pocket, but you can’t do that to neighbors you just met. Even if they signed a contract with Black Widow to get you and maybe-kill you. 

“I’m Tony,” Tony says, because he is an Idiot Under Stress. “Nice to meet you, Steve.” 

They talk. For an hour. Steve is surprisingly funny for a guy who wants to kill him. Steve likes appetizers at restaurants, does art as a hobby, and wants to own a dog. He also used to be allergic to peanut butter but isn’t anymore, and isn’t that the Funniest thing? Tony half-laughs and says “yeah, it is,” and then Steve says it. 

“So, what do you do for a living?” 

Tony does a lot of things. He stole a Renoir. He also has sixty thousand dollars in an off-shore bank account. Which actually isn’t a bank account because Tony doesn’t like banks, but more of a dresser in a house in Manhattan Island. 

“I’m, um, tech support,” Tony says. 

“Really? I’m sure that’s interesting,” Steve says. “A lot of asking people to reboot their computers, huh?” 

“You have no idea,” Tony mutters. “Well, as lovely as it has been getting to know you, I need to get everything set up. See you around?” 

“Definitely!” 

Tony shuts the door, sits on the couch, and looks out the window. 

He can do this. It’s like a game of chess: you just need strategy. Tony used to play all the old guys in Central Park in chess, you could probably call him an expert at this point. Maybe. He’s not exactly sure of all the rules, some old guys made up their own. But still. He could do this. 

(Rhodey would be laughing at him right about now if he could see this predicament.)