#also I intend to share this to the forum too so I had to pull the reins on the swearing a little

[williamshamspeare]

You like all the Papa Louie customers eh? Name one good thing about every customer (currently)/lh

*slicks back hair* It's showtime.

Akari - Her coolness factor is unreal. Love the motorcycle, love her whole biker getup, and it's reasonably possible she might be a reference to that Akira anime thing. Which would be pretty sweet

Alberto - BRASILERIO NUMERO UNOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Also him hating dentist appointments is quite the amusing fun fact. I like how his favorite holidays have had a general consistent pattern in all the games (favor SJ in the sweet games, SL in the savories)

Allan - Love his pompadour! Also glad that Flipline wasn't ever afraid of keeping his unibrow and missing tooth throughout the years... Also that one Brody's Gallery fanart probably awakened something within me. Sideburns are hot, y'all

Ally Kabam - They just revealed her so we don't really know all too much about her, but that doesn't mean I can't sing her praises! And by design alone, I can tell you that she's a STRONG customer: Brimming with both style and personality! Definitely setting the tone for the rest of the lineup, let's hope the rest of 'em live up to the hype

Amiria - They did throw quite a curveball revealing her to be a Tacodale local, but I dig it! Also great to have an official dental worker around! Designwise I absolutely adore her coat in the Style B, fuzzy thing that it is

Amy - That color scheme is a real treat, I say I say. And she's something of a fine art appreciator according to the little info snippet we got out of her creator on the forum, love that for her too... Plus the whole romance novel aspect adds to it quite well!

Austin - His design is straight up just a bottle of awesome sauce and I love that for him. Also shoutouts to him being autism rep, even if it was an obscure post from Tony... He's got that sauced up special interest swag

Bertha - Underrated queen. The fact that she's umpired 856 consecutive games calls to mind the image of her personally swimming to the mainland and back during the events of Freezeria Deluxe so as to not break the record, that's entirely headcanon but still it counts! It counts. And her Halloween costume is BOTH Jason Voorhes and Freddy Krueger at the same time, which is just. LOL

Big Pauly - An icon! His golden confidence as a salesman shines bright as the sun, and he's one of the very few characters to appear in every Papa Louie game/platformer if that means anything. I like to imagine he's one of those fast-talking infomercial type salesmen, the Billy Mays of the Flipverse. Can you imagine, in-universe Big Pauly YTPs

Boomer - Her entire design screams "America" but America doesn't exist in the Flipverse so she straight up came up with all that by herself. Amazing. Plus you gotta love how she lets all her hair down in the Style B

Boopsy & Bill - They absolutely SELL the ventriloquist gimmick. Y'know, to this day I still wonder how they managed to get the mouth animations to work... Also the style swap they do is a wonderful visual gag. They've got a boatload of personality

Brody - A greasy disheveled mess of a man. Everyone's favorite character archetype! Kinda crazy how active his flipdeck details him to be: Switched majors multiple times, an active caricature artist in Powder Point, lover of cult classic movies and friend of Skyler... He's a lot to work off of, he is

Bruna Romano - Looking at her orders over the games, you notice she tends to order dark rich flavors more often than not. Rather interesting... Also I love that she manages the band on top on playing in it, not something you see characters do every day

Budwin - Honestly kind of surprising how quickly his flipdeck made me feel for him. Suffering from chronic drowsiness, had to drop out of college, barely even making a living... And he still manages to make it to the Papa's establishments with a smile on his face

C.J. Friskins - What a weird little man (affectionate). Bro straight up wears a cat tail on his BUM at all times and made his debut as the Lunar New Year guy (a holiday which has yet to reappear), he's got this really offbeat, perhaps even offputting charm to him

Cameo - Or DrydenTH3Cultivar, as you know him online. The man is a VIGILANTE GAMER what's not to love about that!!! Also his whole outfit is kind of ridiculous in its own beautiful way, what with the whole peanut necklace & wristband combo. And the Crocs! Oh, the Crocs

Captain Cori - I do wish we got a little more info out of her flipdeck, but what we have to work paints a hell of a vivid picture! With her Pirate Bash getup and her wonderful new Halloween costume, she's just brimming with what I can only describe as "tough girl swag" (also she has popeye arms and that's amazing)

Carlo Romano - The fandom's favorite twink. Most people don't seem to talk about how he jumpstarted Marty's career in SatS, which is honestly kind of incredible to me... Also his Mocharia order was freaking hilarious with how much he hates coffee

Cecilia - There's just something about the way she existed for 11 whole gamerias without any info, then Matt & Tony basically building her entire backstory into the Bakeria plot (or vice versa, who knows what order it happened in)... She really is the flagship Bakeria character. And that's not bad at all

Chase - Has got to have had one of the most incredible flipdecks of all time. I think about the Oilseed Springs Reptile Extravaganza and Petting Zoo a whole lot more than I bet most people do, especially what the pyrotechincs and stunts entail... Also Smokie's one of the cutest pets I have ever laid eyes upon

Cherissa - Finally, an essential oil saleswoman who's trustworthy! Her whole cherry theme is honestly rather captivating, 'specially how the Style B transforms her into a cordial-based entity. I can tell they had fun designing her! I also adore the way they did her hair

Chester - There's something about this old man I can't help but find as a guilty pleasure. He's cranky, he's a gossip, he hoards doomsday supplies and has a permanent expression of contempt... Irresistible!

Chuck - I used to think that he was a Calypso Island local, kind of hilarious to think that's he's just a model (a stock photo model even) who happens to be associated with the island's trademark Surf Shack. Nearly all his outfits so far have been Hawaiian shirts, I wonder what they'll do for his Halloween costume

Clair - Love the family dynamic, but this is about each character as an individual. So! Clair's really fun to imagine and build headcanons around. Her being a physician with hectic hours, on top of being a loving mother... There's like so much you can do with a character base like hers! Plus her Style A is as classy as it gets. I've always been just a little curious about that button belt-thing she wears

Cletus - People seem to find him off-putting at best, with the whole sleeveless look and the bunny costume, but frankly I don't care. Let the old farmer man have weird eccentricities! He loves going antiquing at auctions! He operates a scrapyard where people can pay to find goodies! He's one of the most interesting characters in the whole cast if people just care to look into him deeper!

Clover - The back of her hair kinda looks like an explosion, which you gotta admit is pretty badass. Putting that aside, the checkerboard fit really suits her! Puts the ska into the ska-punk that is Scarlett and the Shakers, heh. I also like how she always carries drumsticks in her dress like a prop, more customers should carry props as part of their outfit honestly

Connor - The people of the forum really like to dunk on him, but frankly there's no one as much of an underdog as he is! I gotta hand it to Maz for helping me find the potential within him, there's so much that can be done with his character if you just look. I also really enjoy his orders in savory gamerias, that chicken sandwich would be LEGENDARY

Cooper - Sometimes being basic can be a good thing, and I think nobody else displays this as well as Cooper does. He's a simple man! Cooks his pancakes in the morning, looks out for his brother in the afternoon, he loves his family & his cat, and most importantly he's HAPPY. He is content with life!

Crystal - Oh how fabulous! Oh how decadent! Crystal is one of those customers that truly lives up to their name, I simply adore her gaudy aesthetic. Especially that sparkly texture on her shirt! Love it when they go for that kind of shading. Gotta give a shoutout to Cannoli too, love how he's like a cross between a mink and a feather boa (no limbs in sight)

Daniela - The theorizing about her military-based design choices was WILD before her flipdeck came out. Even afterwards, Daniela has always been something special! I do like the way she's consistenly ordered caramel & chocolate, and she's a top contender for the most GORGEOUS hair in the whole Flipverse when she takes down the bun

Deano - He's always been one of my favorite customers, really. Hell, I wear my own boater at an angle because of him! I also do like the hints towards him having some kind of connection with space, what with dressing up as an astronaut for Halloween and favoring Comet Con a couple times. Subtext is awesome!

Didar - Hell yeah! I loved his connected design with Simone from the get-go, but he really came into his own after the flipdeck came out. An amateur filmmaker, sasSugarsquatch hunter, AND a Maple Mountain resident all at once! Like I said with Brody, I love when characters are multiple different things at once. And there's the fun fact about his name translating to vision in Hindi, genuinely nice touch from the boys at Flipline

Doan - I don't know why people use the "exists in real life" excuse to leave out customers who are as much a part of this universe as any other character. Doan's got a pretty good deal going for him! I love the fact that he's canonically the artist behind Papa's branding and his posters, which means he's likely the one responsible for that Mousse poster in Mocharia (lmao)

Drakson - I've posted about it before, but the most charming part about him has to be the contrast between his dark and brooding design & his colorful cheery Hello Kitty-esque orders. Flipline knows how to implement a hilarious gag here and there! And as it stands right now, I really like how mysterious and edgy the band itself seems to be. I mean, on-stage argument and offstage fights? Sign me up!

Duke Gotcha - The face of Nowtime News has been getting a lot more popular as of late, and honestly it's all deserved! The Breaking News segments in the new games are probably my favorite new feature of the post-Flash era, and his expressions are a huge part of what sell 'em, so good on him for that! Duke... Gotchaaaaaah

Edna - She's like the patron saint of the X-Zone, if you think about it. Seriously though, I really find it interesting how she was tied to the X twins and the overarching lore of the Flipverse (properly honored in her fantastic Style B)! And her being an old seamstress gives her a great pinch of flavor on top of that

Elle - We may not know anything about her or even who her creator really was, so there's not much to go off with her... But that's kind of her charm, in a way. She could be anything! She's a mystery about herself, and that's pretty cool if you ask me

Ember - Spicy one! People don't really talk about her also being a scoutmaster, which is a shame because that's one of my favorite aspects of her character. Every day I pray Camping Season becomes a holiday just so we can get her in her official scoutmaster uniform

Emmlette - She's a drama teacher, how can I not love her? Being a student of the performing arts myself, I really do see a lot of my past acting teachers in her. They really did do their research when they made her! Also if you don't love her egg motif, you're just lying to yourself

Evelyn - Every time I think of her, I think of that one fanfic that accurately predicted her to be a retired movie star. Like it actually blew my mind when they revealed her flipdeck, that was a crazy day in Flipline history if you ask me. And they did hint that she'd be Olivia's grandma with those black olive wristbands, I always like to see design hints like that!

Fernanda - I often think about how she's the one who convinced Franco to take the risk and start Fernaco Architecture. There's something frankly so sweet about how the name of the company would also be their ship name. Plus, everyone loves a good poncho! And her jewelry's pretty great too

Foodini - Showing up at the end of every ingame day, it's probably safe to say Foodini's one of the most iconic characters to the whole franchise, up there with the ranks of Papa Louie himself! I really dig the whole game show host aesthetic, sometimes wonder if the hat design choice was a reference to the late Chuck Barris

Franco - He's absolutely rich with lore. Moving to Burgerburgh for his architecture job, starting a family there, then moving back to his hometown to chase his dreams and become an architecture magnate... He's made a veritable mark on the Flipverse as a whole! Also he has a really fun bodytype

Georgito - Honestly, Tony was goddamn hilarious for this one. Imagine being the original George friend who was insistent on being added as a specifically wealthy customer, and then getting depicted as the leprechaun of the Flipverse. Godspeed, Tony! Georgito himself is a rather dapper individual on his own, and I will say he's probably one of the very few cases where "smooth shading" hair has looked genuinely good

Gino Romano - My favorite Romano! I always do love an underdog. The way that he's a repeat fan of St. Paddy's Day and Bavariafest does paint quite a vivid picture of his flavorly tastes, and the fact that he was one of the founding members of the band is an interesting tidbit! And one more thing, I think it's pretty heavily implied that he has gigantism—making him another member of the disability rep crew

Greg - Kids usually hate tomatoes, so it's refreshing to see one that can't get enough of them! Also the fact that the sentient tomatoes from the platformers became one of his core personality traits. lol

Gremmie - The classic Freezeria closers have a soft spot in my heart, and Gremmie's no exception! There's plenty to be said about his uniquely crooked posture and his face-covering hair, but what I really like about him is how threatening his general vibe is. Wish he was a closer more often...

Hacky Zak - Yeah yeah, his old hair wasn't any good at all. But it does go to show that Matt & Tony listen to the fans, I really started to like Hacky once they changed it up! He rocks that hoodie, you have to admit

Hank - As short of a flipdeck that he has, Hank's definitely made his mark as a remarkable customer. I enjoy the way he's had very brief moments of being a closer, and the fact he hates night shifts does stir the imagination quite nicely. Plus, it's kinda funny how they always reach for him when they need a policeman character even though he's literally just a highway patrolman

Hope - There's something about her that's particularly unique. I think it's the unnaturally wide eyes, the resting grin, and how messed up some of her orders can get (WHAT was that BTC Freezeria order??) that makes her come off as vaguely unsettling... And I wouldn't want to have it any other way. Honestly it's great that they can go so wild on a KCP customer, goes to show that everyone has a place and a personality in this universe

Hugo - DJ Honey Buster is in the house! Him and his Warped Records record store have quite the history in the Flipverse, what with that one Travel Trout post designating it as the last of its kind. Hugo's a fighter! I also love how he modeled his DJ persona after his favorite kind of sauce. You'll never catch him eatin a burger with no honey mustard

Iggy - Every series with an ensemble cast of characters has to have at least ONE nerd, let's be real. Iggy sure does deliver! I love his color scheme, the way the highlights of yellow contrast the purple is really striking! And his flipdeck info is a lovely window into the in-universe sci-fi situation, I wonder what a show based off of Meteor Blaster could possibly look like

Indigo - Lots of forum FCs fall into the "fashionista" category, but frankly I don't think anyone does it like Indigo does! She absolutely KILLED it with Volcano Gala, I imagine that it was her and her alone who designed all those special outfits (even Pally's). And we love her for it!

Isadora - If you read between the lines of her flipdeck, it seems that she's another member of the implied disability crew! Honestly her flipdeck info pretty accurately aligns with the experience I had in middle school, so I did find the thing personally relatable for what it's worth. Also I like to imagine she made her Style A by cutting up the school uniform that was her Style B and turning it into a brand new outfit

Ivy - She's really so much more than a funny hairdo, if it weren't for her we wouldn't have Travel Trout! And who doesn't love her outfit? I've seen plenty of people lobby for her scarf in PLP and I couldn't agree more, she's fashion

James - Don't be grossed out that he uses a plunger as a weapon, it's clearly a drain plunger and not a toilet plunger. He's not swinging around a toilet pooper or anything. I'm getting off track, James is great! Love that he's one of the few customers to tout a name tag, and his unique facial proportions leave quite the impression

Janana - They literally couldn't have exaggerated the banana motif more. And that's what I love about her! On the other hand, I like how her flipdeck info couldn't have less to do with bananas. Most of the outsiders seem to be surprised when I tell 'em she's actually a music agent. I also like how the bands she manages have slowly started to show up more in the games lately

Johnny - Another character who has a whole lot going on under the surface. Behind the whole "attractive werewolf lumberjack" thing that most people fixate on, the man sells Christmas trees he chopped himself & consistently earns medals in the annual Woodchop Show! More people should talk about the Maple Mountain Woodchop Show if you ask me, tbh

Jojo - What can't be said about Jojo? In terms of gameplay, he's probably the most unique customer in the series! And there's the mystery on whether he's balding or has a luscious head of hair, since we never see him without some kind of head covering—I love seeing everyone's different takes (I'm a balding truther myself)

Julep - She comes packaged with some fantastic lore about Cornelius Poweder and the history of Powder point, and that flower dress in her Style B is frankly gorgeous. Also her whole name/design is a play on mint juleps, which is great

Kahuna - He's got a great contrast with Gremmie as the island's two surfer dudes, him being the native Hawaiian to Grem's Californian surfer dude, but he's also very much a force to be reckoned with by his own merits. Like his surfboard craftsmanship and surfing prowess! By all means, Kahuna is indeed the best surfer on Calypso Island at any given time! That's just canon, we all know Gremmie's an amateur at best...

Kaleb - I liked him ever since I laid eyes on him, the mystery behind what his deal is was probably his biggest draw at the time. And they revealed him to be the Hot Topic manager Funko Pop collector... I can earnestly say I did NOT see that one coming. Also his familial relationship with Trishna is pretty cute!

Kasey O - For some reason she's also one of the less popular customers, which is frankly a crime because good GOD she's badass. Like, she straight up leads a wrestling stable! She WON the Women's World Championship!! She has a charity and visits kids in hospitals in her own time!!! And to think that some people are so shallow to relegate her to the "dorito girl" with unconventional facial proportions, god knows how that's measured... Sometimes the fans disappoint me beyond what words can describe

Kayla - Whatta lady. There's something about her rise in the acting world that I aspire to achieve, rising from commercial work to Windie acclaim... That's how my wildest fantasies play out, isn't it the way. There's also something to be said about her fantastic choice in jewelry! I always prefer to keep her in her Style A because I love that bracelet so very much

Kenji - Another underrated customer to shine a light on! While his flipdeck info practically boils down to "he eats (wow!)", there's some hidden depths in his goofy little alternate outfits and the fact that he hates dining etiquette more than anything else. Man does NOT bother with the cutlery I can tell you that much

Kenton - A character created by someone I'm acquainted with, that's a first for this list! I was very hyped to see Kenton rise up to the top, all the way down to seeing his Style B be designed before it made its appearance ingame. Did you know that according to his creator-made bio, he didn't see his parents hardly ever growing up? (just his dad specifically, mom died at age 7)

Kingsley - Hail to the king baby! This guy's been through a lot of different suits throughout his career (I specifically remember him touting the all-yellow suit throughout my whole childhood), and every time he serves it on a golden platter. Even without the Customerpalooza thing in his name, the man is one of the most iconic characters of the franchise, and a solid character in his own right! He doesn't like hecklers, which I find amusing

Koilee - That koi dress seriously BLOWS ME AWAY, I cannot get over how good it looks with that scale detail. Like genuinely, the way they drew that blows me away... Peak Flipline artstyle. And as a character, I love how she lives so peacefully in Sakura Bay while balancing a job over in Oniontown. I like to imagine there's a sophisticated train system that gets her there, and that she got fired from the aquarium before vacationing in Oniontown to get her mind off of things

LePete - The first of the three baddie fans, LePete definitely stands out in the trio. He comes off as more serious than the other two, which I really like to lean into in my ongoing Life in the Flipverse comic... And also he wears a COCONUT on his HEAD that's amazing come on! I do like how he's the only one to never have actually been to Munchmore before, at least canonically speaking

Liezel - WOohoo! People have sung her praises plenty before, so I'll take the time to appreciate the lesser-pronounced aspects of her character, like how she didn't favor the same holiday twice until Mocharia or her undying dedication to spumoni. Spumoni's great! Wish it was more widely available... Also the whole "parmesan kiwi" thing in sushiria was one of her more memorable moments, especially before her flipdeck reveal

Lisa - A fantastic Burgeria era customer, one of the best even! That unique hairstyle really makes her stand out in the grand scheme of customers, and I find that they did a really good job establishing her role in the Fernaco family while making sure she was her own person as well.

Little Edoardo - It's definitely easy to see why he is (or was) Tony's favorite character! The elder of the Romano Family Quartet, this man is a notably unique addition to the family in multiple ways. His early streak of having weird gameria orders was fun, even if that title was later relegated to Xandra and Xolo. And of course, the Pastaria story was really adorable to see unfold! Edoardo and Olga make such a cute couple, which I know is something of an unpopular opinion but it's my opinion nonetheless

Lloyd - FINALLY, they let an old man be athletic for once! Lloyd's one of the characters that admittedly weirded me out the first time I saw him, but ultimately grew on me as the time went on. And it's also pretty neat how they let us have a centenarian customer on the official payroll, too

Maggie - From aimlessly drifting through life to Taco Mia worker to accomplished politician, Maggie's got one of the most comprehensive character arcs in the whole series! There's also something to be said about her representation of Cinco de Mayo, which I'm hoping to see possibly return in Paleteria (I know it'll go hard in this game I just KNOW it)

Makaila - Well, there's always gonna be one character you struggle with... She may be a landlord who rubbed capitalism all over the shores of Calypso island, but I do have to admit that her hexagon motif & Style B dress-coat combo really do strike a fantastic design! And I guess that in a meta sense, it is nice to have a more morally ambiguous customer in the mix

Mandi - I'll admit it's a bit harder to distinguish where the line is between real life and in-universe for Mandi, even more so than with other IRL customers, but nonetheless she makes it work! The owl motif is really really cute, especially with that Wendy's Wheels kart! Wouldn't be surprised if she dresses up as an owl for Halloween, heh.

Marty - Scarlett and the Shakers just wouldn't be the same without him! Marty's diamond motif doesn't come up as much as the other members' respective suits do, but I think that kind of adds to his own offbeat style in a way. He's definitely more of a free spirit with the burguitar and all, I just know he brings a unique flavor to the band. Outside of that, I like how one of his more noteworthy traits is having a beloved hatchback

Mary - MarySue is one of the fandom's most decorated ships, and for good reason! Mary is one of those characters who is completely brimming with personality, from her flipdeck all the way down to the design of her kart. Painter by day, bagpiper by night, full-time pug enjoyer! She's like the sun to Sue's moon in that sense, with her enthusiasm for life meshing with Sue's hard-working demeanor

Matt - While I know this is about the customers as characters and not real individuals, I have to give a shoutout to Matt for being one of the most genuinely pleasant people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. As a customer, I really dig how he goes full sports fan in his Style B! And for one of the hockey teams no less, you don't see those get much rep in the Flipverse

Mayor Mallow - As far as politician characters go, you have to admit this guy's inherently one of the funnier ones. I mean just look at him! The way is posture tilts so far back, the rosy cheeks he always has, having a big letter M for a belt buckle... I can just tell they were having so much fun when they designed him. Also he loves parades and hates debates, lmao

Mesa - Another no-info KCP winner, so we have to go on design alone for her. And her design really carries her far! She just oozes style, from the top of her mini top hat to the bottom of her fiery patterned dress! And the color orange really elevates the red-black color scheme of her outfit! Dare I say it, her design is strong enough to rival those of the official customers. She deserved her KCP win through and through

Mindy - She's quirkyyy. Love her evolving look throughout the years & how her hair color is always fluid... I wonder if she's ever experimented with being a redhead. Wonder what other hair experiments she's done on herself and her boyfriend, I bet that man's mop was nasty before he met her (honestly the more I think about their dynamic the more I realize just how fun it can get)

Mitch - The funny man!!! Mitch and his messy mess!!! Big fan of how he contrasts with his coworker Maggie, while she's made big things of herself and is very accomplished all Mitch wants to do is eat food like Kenji and go outside. And eat hot chip and lie. The outdoorsman aspect is something I realize I kinda gloss over in my head more often than not

Moe/The Dynamoe - Again, fan favorite characters! I already posted that long and comprehensive speculation on Moe's possible Moe-tivations and the creation of the alter ego Dynamoe, so let's focus more on his design: It was a real stroke of genius to have him turn the color scheme on his head between outfits! Compare that to Joy/Ninjoy, where the red/blue of her work outfit can combine to be the purple of her hero costume... Neat stuff innit? Love his spiffy white gloves too

Mousse - Oniontown's definitely one of the more dingy locations in the Flipverse, and Mousse provides a pretty comprehensive window into that seedy underbelly that hides under the surface of tourism and history. I'd do anything to get official backdrops of the Gingersnap Lounge... The twins also really make themselves known in their orders, always keeping the light/dark food theme consistent between games. Or is it whipped cream/choco mousse theme? Hm

Mr. Bombolony - His name is DOB for crying out loud... He writes PARODY SONGS and SINGS THEM for the morning announcements... And even just his design, that goofy oversized shirt he proudly wears... There isn't a single aspect about this man that isn't absurdly hilarious, and I completely adore him for it. A walking legend. Dob Bombolony, destroyer of worlds and purveyor of DadCringe

Nevada - If I were a member of the Flipverse, I would ABSOLUTELY stop by her storefront and grab me some genuine ocean jewelry. One of the things that I've always liked about Nevada is the way she accessorizes her head specifically—the feathered hairpiece, those tinted glasses, and the double braid of her hair are what make her an icon!

Nick - I've always had a soft spot for Nick. He's just a sorta clumsy kid who loves life on the rapids, sometimes he wears his safety gear and sometimes he doesn't. What you see is what you get with Nick, and that's what I like about him! Also I wonder how he ended up being friends with Mitch, though the two of them being outdoorsy types seems to lead to an obvious conclusion

Ninjoy/Joy - Ahh, what would the Flipverse be without her? I always found it downright fascinating that the vigilante hero of the Flipverse is related to Papa himself by blood. And her distaste for Nowtime News is incredibly interesting too, for all the questions it raises about what the tension is like: Do Duke Gotcha and Shannon have the same beef as the rest of the corporation? How does Nowtime depict The Dynamoe? And what does Joy think about the corporation when she's not busy being Ninjoy? All very intriguing questions that just wouldn't be possible without her, you go girl

Nye - He canonically has a sugar daddy. Straight up, his creator has confirmed that he has a sugar daddy & has created a design for said sugar daddy. That is INSANE especially for what this series is... But enough about that, Nye stands quite well on his own even without that aspect of his character. The Style B he wears does an incredibly excellent job of balancing two different patterns without it becoming overbearing on the design, which is pretty tough to pull off well!

Okalani - Even after the hotbed of controversy that was her flipdeck, I find that Okalani's really a great customer through and through. I just know she has the most wonderful friendship with the other island locals... And you can't deny that her hairstyle is beautiful

Olga - Like I said with Little Ed, the marriage and relationship has gotta be one of the cutest things Flipline's done! And the fact she still wears that wedding dress as her Style B outfit is both amusing and adorable, if I do say so myself

Olivia - They managed to strike a beautiful compromise between goofy and stylish in her design, a trait befitting of her status as the party girl! She's also quite a shining example of how to properly execute an offbeat color scheme, everything comes together really well in both her outfits (and the holiday ones too, but those ones switch the colors up)

Pally - Never gonna be able to forgive the fans for how they treated Pally at first. There isn't a better representative for PLP out there! The gimmick of having outfits from the ingame holiday clothes selection was great at displaying the lesser-used items, but I think Pally really found her true potential when the flipdeck hit the pages—she might just be the most powerful optimist in the whole Flipverse! And I mean the WHOLE Flipverse, across every dimension they have

Papa Louie - The man himself. The FACE of the series. The Italian mustache monopoly man with the pizza procuring prowess... And we really do owe it all to him, Flipline Studios wouldn't be what it is today without him! As a character, I have to say that he's surprisingly versatile. Some depict him as the friendly lovable chef that the universe paints him as, some show him as a despicable greedy crook who throws anyone under the bus at the drop of a hat... And frankly I'm glad that he gets this much variance

Peggy - Country girls make do. Peggy's design might not be the flashiest, but she really does feel authentic as a cowgirl. And it's quite charming how she's like the flagship character for spicy foods, even more so than Ember the firefighter and Mesa the, uh... Fire motif! On top of that, her hairstyle is an interesting one to pick apart as well. I always imagined that her cowgirl activities kick up enough dust to make her hair go stiff, which is why it curls up against gravity like that

Penny - Love her or hate her... Who am I kidding, why would anyone hate her! Even the most jaded of us have to admit that the whole flower motif she has is adorable. And there's also something impressive about her being present in every game in the franchise, all the way back to the original WPA! I wish some of the Youtubers were more normal about her, though... But bemoaning the weirdos isn't what this list is about

Perri - I must say it's quite bold for a cyclist character to never be seen wearing a real helmet, but there's so much more to Perri than just her looks. She lives in a WINDMILL! She bought a windmill and turned it into her HOME! One can only imagine the whimsy that she lives through every day

Petrona - If anyone in this universe deserves the title of girlboss, it's Petrona without a doubt. Her flipdeck may not have been the longest, but it got the job done quickly and efficiently. Much like herself! I like how even her design reflects her no-nonsense attitude and determined work ethic

Pinch Hitwell - Sometimes I think about how the only named baseball player we know of so far is a substitute batter. And how he's apparently a good enough substitute batter to appear on a poster for oatmeal cookies... Also how he doesn't even order oatmeal cookies in that game, despite being on THE POSTER FOR IT alright enough of that tangent. I have to be genuine here, I really consider Pinch one of my favorite customers! There's just something so charming about his looks, his new outfits for each town, and the way he always keeps finding new ways to surprise us

Professor Fitz - Again, no ensemble cast of characters is complete without at least one eccentric scientist! Professor Fitz delivers on every front, from his bow tie to his lightning bolt hair, and the notable tinge of green in his outfit really helps him stand out in the realm of scientist characters. And we can't forget that his title of professor isn't just as a scientist, but as an academic too!

Prudence - People rag on Flipline for having weirder names as the games went on, but she goes to show that odd names have always been at the heart of the series. Her relationship with Pickle is really nice too, very fun to see someone who carries a dog in a bag! For some reason I've always associated her with Elle Woods of Legally Blonde (and vice versa)

Quinn - And here she is, the reigning queen of the closer lineup! Her constant presence as a closer marks her as a familiar face to even the most fledgling greenhorns of the franchise. The vast amount of differing headcanons I've seen for her do well to stimulate the imagination, from the divorce scenarios of the forum to the rom-com fanworks this site has to offer! Whether they revolve around Timm or not, it's always a pleasure to see people's takeaways on such a unique customer

Radlynn - Radish girl radish girl radish girl. As far as the baddie fans trio goes, her position is unique in that she personally MET Radley, and that iconic knit hat was a gift from him to her! There's also something special about how her Style B is literally Radley's very own outfit from his own debut appearance, down to that wide brimmed hat and goggles. That's dedication

Rhonda - Glad to have a real trucker on the character lineup, and as far as trucker characters go, I don't think I've ever seen any quite like her! I don't express it often, but she's definitely one of the higher tier customers in my personal rankings. And her relationship with Rico is by far my favorite official canon pairing!

Rico - Byeah incarnate. His character arc happened humourously quick, with him being a rough biker in his intro and then immediately mellowing out once he hit the shores of Calypso. The chili arc was a great one too, with his recipe making it all the way into the ranks of Papa's very own restaurants! His chili even gets served up at the Pastaria, and they're a very high class establishment so you KNOW his chili is god tier

Ripley - We have a customer directly tied to Munchmore! Hell yeah! Her expeditions were by far one of the most interesting things to happen to the blog since, well... Ever! I really do miss those posts, they were a great way to get a better look at that dimension & Ripley's quirky way of speaking was a sight to behold too

Rita - The forumers have a bad tendency to sell Rita short. While her Burgeria job may be a noted part of her personality, she's also got some extra depths of her own! Like how she straight up moved to Burgerburgh when she won her job, or the way her outfit's slowly evolved over the years. I'm not kidding, that outfit progression is genuinely a sight to behold! And of course how can I not mention the film buff aspect of her personality, considering she's basically the FACE of Sugarplex Film Fest

Robby - This man was stranded on an island for 3 years. It's highly likely he was the only survivor of the shrimp boat capsizing... And how did he emerge from this experience? As a PIRATE! I dare say that's one of my favorite takes I've ever seen on a castaway story

Rollie - Oh, how I love him. There's just something I personally find so charming about Rollie... It might be his outfit, maybe it's his detailed backstory, the Halloween costume definitely factors into it... But one thing is for certain: His status as my all-time favorite customer isn't going anywhere! Keep rollin' on, you magnificent man

Roy - I'd argue he's just as important to the series as Papa is, if not more (at least for the mainline gamerias). The perpetually exhausted heir to the franchise's name, Roy really is much more than a mere delivery boy—he's the wheels that keep the original Pizzeria moving! And I really like how much of his personality comes out in the Style B, he clearly knows how to rock outside of work

Rudy - He's definitely the one who keeps the punk in ska-punk, that's a given. And he also goes to show how even a bassist can be a standout member of a band! Even outside of Scarlett and the Shakers, he's got quite a unique set of circumstances. His flipdeck establishes his deep connection to Powder Point as a town, as well as showing how much he absolutely despises Guy Mortadello above anything or anyone else... It's always funny when a flipdeck lists a character's hates as another established character

Santa - Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Figy Pudding! While it's incredibly funny on its own that Santa is real and casually eats at restaurants in broad daylight in this universe, it's also really funny how his existence means that every customer in this series now has a Ryu number of 2, if you're familiar with that at all. I've known people who want Santa Claus carnally

Sarge Fan - What I find fun about him is that while the other two baddie fans at least have some connection to their respective bosses, Sarge Fan kinda... Doesn't. Radlynn met Radley when she was young, LePete found a crumpled poster of his hero, and Sarge Fan... Nothing happened, he's just like that for some reason! Love a guy who's just an inexplicable little freak. Also he runs the Pop Dart stand in Powder Point when Foodini's off the clock, which is its own little mystery in itself

Sasha - She's part of the school's marching band and debate team, she's an apprentice cheesemaker, she's always got a loving family to fall back on... We have a pretty clear picture of what Sasha's life is like, don't we? And of course there's her notable obsession with the creatures of Munchmore, which seems to imply that her memories from her time there were deeply cherished, formative even

Scarlett - And of course, the face of Scarlett and the Shakers! I really like how it's listed that she hates Pop Music (girl would NEVER be a Swiftie, in fact I bet none of the SatS members are) and how she wears so many different hats as a member of the band, metaphorically. She's the lead singer, she writes all the songs, and she'll even bust out extra instruments when the show calls for them! Talk about a renaissance gal!

Scooter - I remember back when playing the platformers in my youth, she became my go-to character pick because the skateboard was just THAT fun. And I also really groove with her cherrybomb motif! Plus, she's a strong contender for the hardest pose anyone's ever hit in a flipdeck

Shannon - She was Nowtime News before Nowtime News was even a fleshed-out thing! I've always been fond of her eclectic style. Especially how her sweater used to have a mismatched button, I wish they didn't patch that out... Team Gotcha just wouldn't be Team Gotcha without her

Sienna - She is REALLY dedicated to autumn! Even if Thanksgiving gets replaced someday (hopefully), I'll never be able to see her favor any holiday outside of that three-month bracket... She just straight-up is the season of fall incarnate, see? Anyways she's also got quite a backstory on her back, having grown up in Toastwood only to find a new beautiful home in Portallini! Something about the detail that she's struggling to make friends also makes me feel for her, like a window into her personal life

Simone - She's THE lo-fi girl and don't you forget it! One thing I always liked about her is how her outfit and hairstyle look like something straight out of the Sims future expansion pack, if that's anything to go off of. Gives her a really pointed vibe, it does! And let's not forget how the meaning of her name is "listening", to go alongside Didar's meaning of sight and vision—they did their name research!

Skip - There's a lot of things I like about Skip. His ever-present love for pistachios, his trait of being a tailgating football fan, heck even the way they designed his stubble... But above it all, what I really think is the best part of Skip is the tenderness that he has deep down, shown by his care of Pastrami. Rat owners tend to be mistreated by their peers, just as the animal itself is strongly associated as being a pest to be eraticated, so the fact that he proudly carries Pastrami everywhere shows that Skip has true compassion that shines beyond the hatred and intolerance of the world around him... And for that, I can't help but love him

Skyler - Remnants of Skystone may be long lost media at this point, but I'm glad that we got Skyler out of it! On top of being references to the now-gone MMO, her outfits are absolutely stunning on their own, quite unlike anything any of the other customers have. There's also the touch of her being a jewelry student who uses her talents for steampunk cosplay, which is a fabulous way of making it make sense in-universe!

Sprinks the Clown - I've always had something of a deep respect for those who pursue a career in clown performance, even having dreamed of such a thing as a youth myself. So I may have something of a soft spot for a working clown like Sprinks, sue me. I quite like how they explained her Style B as her dedication to the craft even on her worst days, which I also find really admirable! You have to be strong to be a clown, and she's certainly stronger than I could ever be

Steven - While his looks are deceivingly simple, his creator left a paragraph that really defined how I perceive the man. I believe it was implied that he plays in a punk-metal band at night, which is already pretty badass on its own! Seems to be supported by his consistent favoring of Groovstock, which is pretty good attention to detail from Matt and Tony. Steven's bio also mentioned that he has a "hot chest" multiple times, for whatever that's worth...

Sue - The second half of the whole that is MarySue, Sue is a true powerhouse of a character. I have to compliment how well they work as a couples dynamic, with Sue's irritability and Mary's general exuberance, I can easily imagine how Mary helps to relieve the daily stress that Sue endures while Sue helps keep Mary grounded in reality... Even if we don't explicitly see it, they really do have great chemistry!

Taylor - Taylor's probaly one of the best classic customers in the set, franky speaking. I do appreciate how his outfits contain remnants of bygone eras, such as his walkman in the Style A and the power glove in the Style B... Really goes to show how long this series has been around, hm? And I really love how they accomplished the earbud effect by utilizing the back hair sprites!

Timm - I'll be damned, he's fantastic! He's definitely made his mark around here, what with the association with Quinn & all the baggage that comes with that. And I do often think about his "very manly perm" alongside his prominently displayed chest hair... Put that in your pipe and smoke it, eh?

Tohru - While I may have had my qualms with her general reception, I cannot deny that Tohru is a very solid character in her own right. I gotta respect the fact that she's a stage crew member, of course, and her being a let's player opens up a world of possibilities for fun gaming scenarios to put her in. And her design, of course! I really do adore the button motif they gave her in the Bakeria refresh, and her updated pigtails are honestly a real treat to look at. And the color scheme's great too

Tony - Aside from being the creative genius behind all these characters, Tony's a pretty fun customer to have around himself! Love love LOVE that Mothman costume, and how it pushes the boundaries of what can be done in the Flipline artstyle. I also find it fun how you can customize the length of his hair once you unlock both his styles

Treble - They were a star ever since they first appeared! Gotta say that them receiving their flipdeck in the eleventh hour of pride month was one hell of a clutch. Flipline did a really good job on the characterization front, I don't think any of us were expecting them to be an auto shop high schooler but I'm not complaining! Only makes the alt-punk outfit more poignant, really

Trishna - Fashionista! As a customer, she adds distinct flavor to the Whiskview Mall employee lineup while still managing to fit in with the general vibe. She also absolutely nails the fashionista angle, from the casual Style A to her over-the-top elegant Style B! And you gotta love that custom phone case she touts in that flipdeck pic

Utah - Being the only non-closer Calypso Island native in the original Freezeria, Utah definitely had an important impact in her debut appearance. I theorize that's how she became such a popular customer in the first place... One thing I like is how pink lemonade quickly became one of her defining characteristics, I mean just look at her Wendy's Wheels kart! Oh, and she absolutely killed it in her Summer Luau exclusive outfit... I dare say it's even better than her regular styles

Vicky - It's been said before but I have to reiterate it, Vicky haters are the weakest link. She's got impeccable style, she's got mom cred with Mindy, and she maaay not have that much talent as a makeup artist but we still love her just the same! I really do find it wholesome how she and her daughter both run the salon, a true family business that it is

Vincent - And speaking of family business! Always ready with the customer coupon and Style B deliveries, it's easy to get familiar with his recurring face. And apparently vice versa, considering he goes all across the globe for his deliveries & remembers EVERYONE'S name that he meets... Honestly that's kind of insane when you wrap your head around it! One thing I found surprising is that the bag he wears is entirely removable with the right tools, and doing so reveals that his jacket had a secret zipper all along... The intricacies of the character models never cease to amaze

Wally - The Mayonnaise Man himself, where do we even begin... Well, how about his fishing history? Ever since his debut, he's always had an association with fish, with the whole anchovy thing kind of being the entire basis of his flipdeck. Fishing is clearly in his blood, with what we see in his Style B alluding to either a hobby or a history as a fisherman, probably both... Yeah yeah I know, I've said it a thousand times already, but the hidden depths of these characters really do go a very long way.

Wendy - She's so cool! Even the two-tone plastic frame glasses start looking a little badass when she sports 'em, not easy to do that! And we gotta give her the respect she deserves for being the driving force behind all these Wendy's Wheels updates, which remain to this day the greatest ongoing blog feature (not counting sneak peeks)

Whiff - He may have bad posture and an odd expression, but that shouldn't get in the way of his worth as a customer, should it? For what it's worth, the man's outfit really compliments his character, and you're just flat-out lying if you deny how hard he rocks the tattoos! Like come on, they're gummeels! And considering the artstyle, you have to admit that it's pretty funny that he hates leg day when nobody has any legs

Whippa - The other Oniontown twin, let's see. I talked about the twins' info with Mousse, so let's shine more of a spotlight on their designs this time. Love 'em! Love how their opaque shades build them up as threatening people from the get-go, love how their outfit patterns are shared between styles, and it's quite good how they're both essentially the skinniest twigs to walk the Flipverse so far. Whippa in particular really goes above and beyond with her outfit, that slick white hairstyle absolutely slams down! And the Style B, oh good LORD that is one hell of a slick Style B

Willow - There's always gotta be a goth girl, hum? As far as goths go, I appreciate the unique angle they went for with Willow! They weren't afraid to go all out with the teal, and her Style B only goes farther with the bright colors! Her flipdeck info serves a good deal too, she's a very shy poet and she cares for her pet tarantula Jackie very dearly. Speaking of, Jackie! The greatest pet in the whole Flipverse, bar none, even past the likes of Smokie and Pastrami

Wylan B - Y'know, there's some kind of subtle nuance in the way both he and his dad try a little too hard to be seen as "cool" that comes back around to being cringe, but both in generationally different ways. A neat touch all things considered... Also that Style B goes absolutely INSANE

Xandra - Weirdgirl representation! While there's plenty to be said about her and her brother's place in the universe, this is still about their strengths as indiviuals. One thing Xandra has over her brother is her fabulous tutu and the makeup to match! Plus, her clown costume is kind of just generally better than Xolo's

Xolo - As for things that Xolo leads the race in, one need not look farther than his magical fantabulous scarf! Really, I think that it's one of his best features, alongside those rockstar-like torn sleeves. Definitely paints him as the rougher, tougher side of the family... Also, his pants being all patched up with patches connects him to his foster mother Edna in a really cute way

Yippy - Cookie Scouts! We know about them thanks to her. She's really a lot more hardworking than she seems on the surface, given how she somehow makes enough money as a cookie scout to visit the restaurants as often as the grown-up regulars do. And her Creameo belt buckle wass a very inspired choicie to go along her cookie theme

Yui - I'm not entirely sure what official information for her is out there to be honest, but even without it, she's a very strong customer! Her orders certainly make a strong impression, and that Style B of hers might just be one of the greatest Style Bs ever put to a KCP contestant!

Yuko - Hey, the first customer to carry around a prop! That parasol of hers is probably one of my favorite design decisions done to a recent customer, especially how it makes her Style B shine like the sun! Her info was also quite full of surprises, such as how she's the mother of Prudence and how she was one of the original Pizzeria apartment residents. Can't wait to meet Espen!

Zoe - Last but certainly not least, my favorite hippie! Speaking of props, I really love the way that she always has her guitar on her. And that beautiful paisley pattern that decorates her outfit really adds to her design too! I do like how her dream in life isn't anything overly ambitious or grandiose, she just wants to own a coffee shop and support the arts with it. Truly a good person to the core, she is! And her fear of heights is a very interesting cherry on top

That took a couple days, but it was fun! Really worth the effort. Can you tell how passionate about this series and all its characters

#papa louie #flipline studios #flipline #papa's pizzeria #I really hope I didn't miss anyone #also I intend to share this to the forum too so I had to pull the reins on the swearing a little #also the keep reading cutoff goes down a paragraph every time I edit this. I have to readjust it

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Reviews and Critiques and how to handle them.

So the second best treaties about this was Holly Lisle's Mugging the Muse (2000), which, BTW, I read much later, because she'd stepped down by then from Forward Motion. At the time I read it, it was free, but now it's paywalled, so it has gems in there, the most useful of which is don't jump on paychecks and budget. Learn how to do Writer Tax returns. Remember to truly LIVE to write better *cough Barthes should have known this one. And the last one is how to take critiques.

The one on critiques goes like this: She used scream and shout when she got critiques and sometimes cry. She'd go into the bathroom and scream and let her do this. And then force herself to act professionally. The BEST of us at this process still fucks up once in a while. The trick is to not fuck up too often.

This is my second best treaties I've seen and heard about it. The first treaties I ever learned about how to take critiques is from my former teacher/advisor, Thomas C. Joyce, who unfortunately died of cancer some years back.

I do remember the names of the people. But as I don't have permission to use their likeness and I don't want them to be harassed. The people who are living (as far as I know) I will not name. I am also including my own fuck ups, because it's only fair. But the core of this is mostly Tom Joyce. Who said something on the order of don't call me "Mr. Joyce, it makes me feel weird. Call me Tom."

He was my advisor at the Young Writer's Camp–a summer writing camp. For this reason, I'll call him Tom.

I wanted to write this treaties out because he never wrote it anywhere... and I might remember parts of it wrongly, but I 100% used this to post to Nanowrimo's first critique threads, and then for the critique forums, which served as the core of a lot of critique groups online?? (not sure about that). And I listed the rules he gave me during critiques. Also that there has been a rise in people who can't take or give critiques and they think doing so won't help their writing. So, I won't write it as eloquently as him, and honestly I'm writing this quite sad because I do wish it was his words here instead of my fuzzy memories of him.

Let me dip a bit into memory lane first, so you get a sense of who Tom was. Tom smoked. He knew he smoked a lot and didn't particularly care. He liked to give this lesson on perception. with music, showing that the simpler things in life aren't always first. And that the source of stories can come from anywhere–not just writing.

When I met him he was a bit portly, which he'd sometimes point out about himself and had salt and pepper hair, which was curly. He'd often talk about how he wanted to lose weight.

He had this calm and cool demeanor about him, but also warm. So when he gave you a critique, it felt like he was reaching into your writerly soul and he could pull out your intentions in an instant. He not only saw where you were, but more importantly, where you were going and intended to go. I aspired to be that sort of critiquer.

He never judged you on your process to write. He had no lessons about that. And he based the entire time around critiquing and making sure you had something for the group. If you wrote on clay tablets, I think he wouldn't care. He'd likely joke loosely about it, but he wouldn't care and say, can you share it?

We did not write the same genre. We did not have the same process to write by a long shot. I never really read his writing and since he was an advisor, he rarely talked about his own writing or boast. He was a cool character because he was HUMBLE and he pressed it into you that YOU MUST STAY HUMBLE at every point of the process. Brave enough to share, but humble enough to take critiques.

He loved anedotes. I probably got my love of making up extended analogies from him.

He was not just a good writing teacher he was the BEST writing teacher I've ever had. And fuck it—I've read a TON of ass novel writing manuals from Aristotle to the present and I've heard author interviews all over the best, I would rank him as the best.

He was so memorable that when I finally got something published he was on my top list of people to show because I'd promised myself I would do so, but when I looked him up so I could pass the story to him, I had found that he'd died of cancer. I was DEVASTATED.

The fact we didn't write the same didn't matter because his lessons around critiquing. His process was this:

You write. You get critiqued. You take the critique gracefully to your face. You learn to critique. You learn both of these processes and perfect them and apply them, and you get better as a writer. He had several large arguments for this process and why he didn't want it to be regimented into telling people how to write.

Remembering his lessons, I posted his loose list of critique rules to early Nanowrimo boards–I posted the first critique threads for first pages and queries, but never his justification for them, because I didn't think it was my place to, but he's not published it himself and I think the internet is forgetting. And I don't think we should forget Tom Joyce since he taught me some really excellent lessons that I think you need to know.

So loosely, Tom's treaties on taking a critique goes something like this:

On receiving a critique:

Stay silent when people critique you. No. Hold your tongue (Fuck, I'm really still working on this one).

Remember any time they put into the critique is a blessing.

Only open your mouth to fact check the person. If they think the US flag has green, you can POLITELY correct them.

Stop explaining your work before you give the piece. He taught me this one. I still struggle with it. I still repeat the advice, but I still have issues.

Do not argue with your critiquers. I've fucked this one up too.

Critiques aren't always right and sometime you have to divine what they are really getting at.

On giving a critique:

When you give a review try to balance the review out. You give 3 bad things, you give 3 good things list them out. Do a summary for your review. YOU MUST find something good to say about it.

Try to read the entire piece before you comment.

Honor the wishes of the author. If they don't think something is working, try to figure out why.

Do your best to separate "Not for you" versus objectively written bad.

Be SPECIFIC. That's more important than the length of your review. He drove this into me.

He argued, the more you critique other people, the better writer you become. And the more you consume, in general, the better writer you become. The more you recieve critiques, the better you become. It's a two-way process, not a one-way process.

His arguments are pretty much why I dislike the whole idea that people don't "have time to give critiques" and thus don't want to give one back. No. If you do 10,000 critiques and get better at them and get 10,000 in return and learn to apply them well, you get better as a writer. Focus on your craft and the writer you want to become.

And now you can see why even though we did not write the same genre, I did not know his writing work, I did not have a matching writing process, that I treasured his lessons. He also had this thing where he was super, super cool with however people wrote. He never, ever disciplined how one should or should not write. He simply said, produce the writing–that's the most important part. And then get it critiqued. We did do occasional writing lessons, but he never ranked that as important.

Now for his arguments on why he thought these things.

So, as a younger writer I struggled and still struggle quite a bit with the first rule. The shut up and listen to someone tear your baby apart.

How to Receive Critiques

First Rule: Stay silent when others critique you and NEVER argue with your critiquer.

His argument went this way: You, the writer are never going to win against a critic. Your entire existence is going to be criticism. You have choices. You suck it up, and accept it is part of the writing thus owning it. You incorporate the suggestion. Or you do better next time.

He had an anecdote, which he liked to tell about this writer who fought against a critic and screamed and shouted and the writer lost.

The result of you fighting against a critic, according to Tom, is that you gain a bad reputation. ALWAYS. Never fight your reviewers.

As Holly Lisle said, go scream into a pillow somewhere, but shut the fuck up and get off the internet. Don't post it onto boards. Tell a friend privately, but don't post it in public. Give yourself a set amount of time to get back to it.

He liked to say stop throwing stones at glass houses. It's not going to work.

No lie, his cool attitude over this still has me screaming at times, HOW DID YOU DO IT? I still try to override the impulse. It's so hard.

Second rule: Every time someone bothers to critique you it's a blessing.

They spent time, and effort consuming your product. As he liked to say THEY ARE A PAYING CUSTOMER. Treat your customers correctly.

And if they are not paying, they were paying their time with you. They cared enough about your work and you to give you a critique.

You have to suck it up and do better.

BTW, if you watch the Youtube Channel, Wait in the Wings, this argument comes up over and over again. When you fight the critics, you lose the majority of the time. When you honor they came to the show and did understand it,

They really cared about you and your art to do this, no matter how cutting it is. Learn to breathe, move on and figure out what to do next.

Third Rule: The only time you open your mouth AFTER the person is done, is on two cases:

The first is to say thank you. The second is to fact check something obvious.

There is no green in the American flag, for example.

DO NOT ARGUE WITH YOUR REVIEWER and don't use this opportunity to try to feel superior to them. WTF man, go back to shutting up. TT

I still struggle with this. I'm swallowing my own feelings as I'm saying thank you. And I'm fighting the voices. And Tom acted like it was easy.

Fourth Rule: Stop explaining your work before you show it.

No lie, my other professors who have given critique sessions also said this. My typography teacher said this, which I keep repeating to myself, "Stop explaining your work. Say that you did the best that you could for the time you were given."

But Tom's logic went like this: Every time someone picks up your work, are you going to be beside them to explain what you MEANT by this or that. Will you be in their ear to talk about your intentions? Let them read the work themselves.

No, it's on you the writer to communicate it better.

Most of the time it's on you, the writer to do it better. (go back to rule number 1 on why).

Fifth Rule: No really, don't argue with your critiquers

It will only end in a bad reputation. Learn how to let it go. Move on. Either take the advice or leave it. See if it works, but at least try it. But arguing with your critiquers will result in nothing good.

How to Give Critiques

First rule: When you give a review, try to balance the review out.

If you give 3 bad things, give three good things, but remember that the person has feelings, so put the good things first. The best critique is good things, bad things, summary. We'll get into how to sort a critique later.

Tom liked to say, remember there is a human being behind that work. And that you won't get that mercy in real life once your work is "out there."

Second rule: Try to read the entire piece first before you comment and then make your comments.

This is your basic reasoning of trying to figure out what the writer is trying to achieve instead of hyper focusing on what they did wrong.

Third rule: Honor the wishes of the author

Spoken and unspoken. If they think something is not working, try to figure out why and some solutions one can do to fix it. Don't just say this thing is wrong. Figure out why. This process will make you also a better writer.

Try to make the piece in front of you better for the author, not how you would write it. He repeated this a lot so you got it. It's not about you and OMG, I would insert dragon here because I could do it better. No, face the piece in front of you and find ways to help the author where they are. You may ultimately disagree and they might not take your advice, but make sure it's about the author, not you.

Rule 4: Do your best to sort "Not for you, versus objectively written bad."

He didn't write romance, fantasy, or Science Fiction. It didn't matter to him or this process. Because there are some commonalities and if you read widely enough, you will know what is good or bad. Don't discriminate like that. If you're struggling with this go to the previous rule about honoring the wishes of the author.

Rule 5: Be specific as possible on why you like or dislike the item in front of you. This helps to sort it out later.

If you say, character is lame. That's not helpful. If you say I dislike the character is diving off the cliff without motivation and I don't know why and the physics don't make sense, that's a lot more helpful to the writer.

He would say too, that the more you're specific and drill down to why, the better you become as a writer. This is why DOING critiques is as important as receiving them. Do the best you can as a critiquer and be specific as possible. It will develop your writer brain and editor brain better.

And I should insert around here:

Revenge critiques are counter productive to you becoming a better writer.

He didn't say this. But I think he would agree given the previous treaties, especially on the idea that the writer is always going to lose.

OMG, you said info dump in MY STORY was bad. So I'm going to find every instance that you info dumped and point it out to you.

Your hurt feelings shouldn't be entering into critiques. Go outside, do something else, come back. You aren't in a place of learning. And sometimes what works for one story will not work for another. Sometimes people do it on purpose and go back to the previous rule about the intentions of the author.

The writer who never honestly critiques and revenge critiques and doesn't listen to critiques, never improves and gets better.

How to Sort Your Critiques

Sort them into these tiers/categories:

Grammar

If you're crying over grammar mistakes, get over it. Just take it and agree or disagree. Do better next time.

Facts

The Earth isn't perfectly round, but it's not shaped like a pear either. The Wizard of Oz wasn't originally propaganda. Greensleeves aren't written for Anne Boleyn. These usually hurt less, but often can dissolve entire stories. This is why you should research. Make sure every single quote is true and truly attributed. This is because facts in your story you don't want that to pull out the reader at any point and you don't know who might be reading it.

Core story issues.

This or that character doesn't work. The intention and impact aren't the same. These are the ones that hurt the most. These are the ones in critiques one should be careful of the most. And the ones that are going to hurt you the most.

The problem is often sort story issues are also the hardest to divine and the hardest to fix.

Critiquer might have had a different emotion from your intention, so remember what I said about being able to reach into other people's writing and figure out their intentions and then work with that? Yeah, this is where it comes in handy to make your own writing better. Sometimes they point to a thing, but it's not that thing.

Say comments are,

this character is boring.

This character doesn't do much.

I think this character is lazy.

But you've written the character on a hot summer day where they are baking out of their mind.

How do you punch it up to make it better? Your KEY ideas on why they aren't moving are "Hot summer day." So punch that part up and give more specific details so people get it. So people get that it's so hot people can't move.

And when the person said the character is lazy, the commentary feels more like deprication rather than true laziness.

That's how you divine the comments. It's not well, this character needs to change the entire scene so it has more action. It's how do I do this scene better so it communicates more.

BTW, Botchan by Natsume Soseki is a masterclass in how to get your character into total inertia such that you actively hate them, but at the same time you understand them.

Tom would say something like, once you get the critiques what you do with them is up to you. Ignore them, take them, but realize that what you don't take is likely to show up as a critique later.

Seeee... both critiquing and receiving critiques makes you a better writer. I'd also argue, it makes you a better person, too.

Short anecdote.

I was on a board and this writer was complaining about this review she had which said that the clothing she had was "inaccurate" and she argued that it was an other world fantasy setting so she could do whatever she liked. And she wanted to know if she should reply and get revenge on the critiquer. A few people were comforting her and egging her on.

I pushed against it gently by asking for the specific critique lines pretty much repeating Tom's advice on how to take a critique. The critique isn't always right, you have to divine, etc.

She stated she loosely based the costumes on a particular century of clothing. So I looked it up for her. I pointed out that stays during that century had changed a lot over time and the underwear changed the outer clothing. So it was possible the person was objecting to the underwear and the outer clothing not matching. I named the pieces of underwear that had changed during that time period and pointed out there is a huge difference for us for 1990's clothes versus the next decade. And that previous eras were no different.

What she needed was someone to cold sort the comment, point out she needed to do research and point out that sometimes physics can't be explained away by an other world.

Don't argue with your critiquers. Also, stop encouraging people to do this???

She ended up deleting her entire post. If you can't take critiques. Get someone to cold sort your critiques for you.

Haha. I have an awesome self-nominated writer's assistant who refuses to be paid, even though I tried to pay her. She knows me sooo well, when she gives a critique and I'm in writer meltdown mode saying, but I could do this or do that. She says in a flat voice, "No, you're going to do this and this is why." I hide this from the public, but damn. You need people like this in your life too.

'cause as much as I'm going off on Tom's rules, I also occasionally fail them. I'm still trying to be as calm cool and collected as he appeared to be about this sort of thing.

How to Know you're getting review bombed.

The account is brand new

All of the review ratings are at extremes. No 3 star reviews.

All of the reviews are targeted.

None of them are specific about the book.

The hazards of making the writer the primary marketer such that they have to do the job of 3 people: Writer, Publicist, and Marketer. Separate your modes. Compartmentalization. Learn it. It can be healthy.

But really, go back up and read. The writer is always going to lose. The more you care about it, the more likely you're going to be review bombed. Fighting reviewers never does you any good.

Bonus Round

The person that you're worried is better than you is probably thinking the same thing about you.

In another words, it's not a battle against others.

In my Young Writer's Group, I deeply admired this guy's writing for his ideas, how he was able to cobble things together with this sort of balance. And I had this kind of feeling like I could never do what he did. I mean he had this kind of deeper detail I felt I was missing. Plus his ideas—fucking clever.

All the time he'd come up with the "obvious" idea that I wanted to be able to write. It's the kind of stuff that you go, OMG, of course.

Flat out envy on my side. And then one day, I heard him talking about how was I able to come up with so many ideas so quickly to other people in the group and that he deeply admired my ideas.

I was shocked. I thought it was one way the entire time. Of course, honor code, not typing up his name, and not typing up his ideas, but the spirit of it is this: You're in a battle against yourself. Your critiquers when you're honestly facing them, and not say, trying to get enough points to post your work, are truly helping you, but you critiquing them is also helping you.

There's still a few of his ideas I keep waiting for him to publish, so I can do spins on them. I still hope he's writing, because writing is a community effort.

Stop being intimidated by other writer's brilliance and find your own. You'll get there too. But damn, I still want to see at least two of his ideas make it onto screen/in a book. I keep looking for him. A few of my former critique partners got published. Dave, hello. And another one that too recognizable by first and last name.

If you can't take reviews, don't read them.

This comes from repeating Writing Excuses episodes–people have writer's assistants do it for them.

I had mine (self-nominated one) look up rare cat breeds... but yeah, some people have them do normal things.

Sometimes writers ask agents to filter them for them.

All you writers, stop stalking Goodreads and writing reviews about your stories/books. I know, but it's not going to do much anyway and the more you care, the more likely you're going to get review bombed or pull a Cait Corrain.

Remember, One Star reviews can be good actually

One star reviews tell you how to improve your product. The maker of Instapot in an interview said he oly reads one star reviews.

Also, sometimes one star reviews have told me that I absolutely want to buy the product in question.

If there are 10 reviews of 1 star by white reviewers saying that white writer wrote it better and it's about say, Chinese history. That says to me, I want to buy your book. I want to understand why they think it's substandard. I want to see what you did to break away from the common popular narrative.

If there are a ton of negative reviews on a product that says this item is too small but I have dinky hands and I want the product to be smaller, that's also useful to know.

One star reviews are not the end to the world. People don't go by purely star ratings. They also look at what the reviews say and how they say it and which people think that review is accurate.

One star review that says they don't know how a story about Jane Austen in Outer Space turned into a sex comedy with a tentacle squid monster? Please, please give me that book.

Stop hyper fixating on star ratings. People often will judge for themselves if it's for them or not. And you pushing back, force deleting the reviews giving that sort of guidance isn't going to help you. As Tom said, you're going to lose, so lose right.

#Sometimes the best teachers you don't realize are that until much later #writing advice #critique advice #damn it why cancer had to take my teacher before I could boast about my published story #I found out he died after I published my story #how to handle reviews

[welovenissan]

Nissan Magnite Turbo CVT As Experienced By An Owner

An ownership review of the Nissan Magnite Compact SUV

We came across this review on Team BHP’s website and simply had to share - for the love of the Magnite and to show off the Nissan Magnite experience with those considering buying one.

I really liked that they offered all the safety features even on the lowest Turbo variant. Within my budget, I could easily get the mid-spec model and with a slight bit of stretch, could go for the top-spec Nissan Magnite as well.

I have owned the car for 2.5 months now and, before going into the details, here is a quick list of my likes and dislikes about the car:

Likes

Good Turbo engine and smooth CVT gearbox with no noticeable lag

High ground clearance

Excellent safety features (Brake Assist, TCS, ESP, Hill Start Assist) even for lower (Turbo) variants

Good range of features, considering the price range

Great legroom and decent-sized cabin

Good looks & great on-road presence

Fantastic price range

Dislikes

No auto-unlock system for the doors; old manual pull-up locking pins

The rear seat can be cramped with 3 well-built adults

The driver armrest is too short, to the point of being useless

Only 2 airbags

Rear antenna height non-adjustable

Buying Decision

We are a family of 4 and owned a 2012 Honda Brio (SMT model), which had mostly been used for city travel with the very occasional highway trip and had served its purpose perfectly.

In December 2021, the Brio was still going good (~ 65000 Km), but as the 10-year anniversary was coming near, I was looking for a new car (Petrol) to replace/upgrade and I fixed a budget of approx.

My main requirements were:

Automatic Transmission (I have recently had pains in my left leg when operating the clutch in office-time traffic)

Good for both city and highway travel (I intend to use it for longer trips this time)

Safety

Decent mileage

Spacious and efficient

Good on-road presence

I was not keen on a hatchback (personal preference) and my first thought was to go for a Compact Sedan. But going through different forums and reviews I saw that there was nothing new in this segment – all the manufacturers were focusing on CUVs (based on current popular trends I guess). So I started looking at Compact/Mini SUVs as well.

Based on initial research, I made the below shortlist:

1. Honda Amaze VX CVT

2. MS Vitara Brezza VXi AT

3. Tata Punch Creative AMT

4. Tata Nexon XMA (S)

5. Hyundai Venue SX 1.0 Turbo iMT

Honda Amaze VX CVT

I test drove the Amaze first, considering that Compact Sedans were my first choice and out of some degree of loyalty to Honda. This ticked several boxes – the most budget-friendly of the lot, a decent smooth CVT (with some lag, as can be expected), decent safety features and decent mileage.

What went against it was the lack of a Turbo engine and Honda being no longer what it used to be back in 2012 (when I had bought the Brio). Plus, the Amaze has been around for like, forever…

MS Vitara Brezza VXi AT

Despite the fantastic chain of dealership and servicing options and a (surprisingly) good safety rating, I decided against the Brezza.

Reasons: Lack of Turbo engine and antiquated 4-speed AT gearbox. Also, no Brake Assist or ESP (though these are admittedly rare in cars of a 10Lakh budget in our country).

Tata Punch Creative

The newest car on the block and it did pack a “punch”. 5-star safety rating, good looks and good mileage. In my budget, I could go for the top variant, which meant I would be getting all the available features.

Cons: 3 cylinder non-Turbo engine, possibly jerky AMT gearbox, especially considering regular city travel, less rear-seat space. And once again, missing out on BA/ESP and even the Hill Start Assist.

Tata Nexon XMA(S)

A fantastic car. It had almost everything I wanted, including the advanced safety features.

The major cons I could find were the doubtful performance of AMT gearbox and lack of rear wiper/defogger/fog lights. Also being a low-end variant due to budget limitations, some other nice-to-have features were missing, for example, no LED headlamps, no parking assist, no 1-touch driver window (even my Brio has that one)

Seriously, I don’t know why the Sunroof is provided, but no rear wiper/defogger. I was expecting this from MS/Hyundai, but not from Tata. Our manufacturers and customers both really need to re-assess their priorities

Hyundai Venue SX 1.0 Turbo iMT

I was really interested in the new iMT gearbox. Went through all the reviews in Team-BHP forums and then went to the nearest dealership for a test drive. And I quite liked it. It gave me the comfort of a manual gearbox, but without the clutch – so my left leg could rest easy. I liked the car as well – good looks, good Turbo engine, nice interior space and packed with a lot of features.

Cons: The safety aspect was seriously lacking. It did not have a crash rating and also, all the safety features (Rear wipers, Hill Start Assist, Electronic Stability, Traction Control) were present only on the top variant (which was way beyond my budget).

Once again, comfort features are prioritized over safety

Additionally, the dealership experience was not that good. They kept pushing the i20 N-Line, even when I told them I was not looking for hatchbacks.

Nissan Magnite

While I was analyzing / test-driving the above cars, a friend suggested the Nissan Magnite. I had not considered this earlier mainly due to the lack of dealerships/service centres. At my friend’s suggestion, I looked at the Magnite in more detail and what I saw, really surprised me in a good way… Excellent looks, good Turbo engine and CVT gearbox, all the safety features as well as convenience features, decent interior space and right within my budget – on paper, it looked too good to be true.

I went through the detailed review on Team-BHP (excellent as always) and also the videos available on YouTube and decided it really was worth a test drive.

Luckily, there is a Nissan dealership nearby in my city. I visited the dealership and the salesperson was polite and courteous. He explained the features available in the different variants and arranged for the test drive. As I drove around in the Turbo CVT car, I really loved it. The Turbo engine was good with excellent power, CVT was butter-smooth with no noticeable lag, the suspension was pretty good and the creep function would be a boon in office-time traffic. The salesperson was fine with me driving around the city as per my route choice for nearly 10 Km (compared to Hyundai & Honda, where they pretty much dictated the route – not more than 1/2 Km at most). I later took a second test drive on the Magnite a couple of days later (this time with my family) on a different route, again ~10Km – once again, not even a frown from the salesperson.

Final Decision

By this time, I had pretty much decided to go for the Magnite. I really liked that they offered all the safety features even on the lowest Turbo variant. 

What remained to be checked was the service experience and the wait times.

Going through Team-BHP forums once again, I found BHPian swiftvxi06’s post (Story of White Beauty | My Nissan Magnite Turbo XL | Ownership Review). It's a fantastically detailed review and learning about his positive experience with Nissan’s service centre filled me with confidence (all the more since he is from the same city). Another relative who currently owns a Nissan Terrano also told me about his decent experience with Nissan’s service – so I was all set on this front.

Regarding the wait times, the salesperson told me it would take at least 2-3 months. However, he did have a topmost variant car readily available.

I was a bit apprehensive about this obvious push-sales technique but it did have some benefits – the car was in my preferred colour (Sandstone Brown), it costs only ~10K extra beyond my original choice of the top variant and I would (hopefully) get it before the new year.

I went ahead and booked the car. The salesperson readily shared the VIN number. With help from the Team-BHP article, I verified that the car was manufactured in November 2021. I asked for a stockyard PDI and went there the next day – the car looked good (if a little dirty) with very few km on the odometer.

Ownership Experience

I am currently working from home and as such, have not been able to drive much in the city in full traffic conditions. The car mostly stays in the garage on the weekdays, with only trips to friends/relatives on the weekends. However, we did do a couple of long drives (both around 500km round trip) and got a feel of highway travel in the Magnite. In all, we have clocked a total of 1300+ km on the car in these 2.5 months.

The overall driving experience so far has been, in a word, fantastic! The car has totally lived up to my expectations.

The driving position in the Magnite (with seat height adjustment) allows a commanding view of the road. Upgrading from my Brio, it is a considerable difference.

Ergonomics is good – all the necessary controls are on the steering or easily reachable from the driver’s seat.

Lack of auto-unlock is a pain though – the doors are not unlocked even when the car is set to Parking gear or even the engine turned off. You need to manually unlock, either from the central panel, or the old-age door pins.

The HRA0 1.0 Turbo petrol engine gives great performance with a nice pull and good strong power surge, especially on the open road.

The CVT gearbox is butter-smooth and I never noticed any lag in the low/mid-range, unless suddenly trying to accelerate to pass another vehicle.

Hill Start Assist is a boon as there are a couple of flyovers near my home where I sometimes get stuck on the incline due to traffic signals. The car has good stability at high speeds and never felt wobbly on the highway.

Regarding build quality, the Magnite feels solid. I had some apprehensions that the lower price may have resulted in weaker build quality, but really no such worry here. The recently released 4-star GNCAP ratings seem well-earned.

The ground clearance is awesome and the car absorbs potholes and small bumpers easily.

The Interior space in the car is awesome with excellent leg room and adequate thigh support in both front and back seats. The rear seat though is best suited for 2 adults and a child or 3 adults on the slimmer side. It will feel cramped with 3 well-built adults.

Internal storage space is good and boot space is quite adequate (although less on paper than its competitors).

To summarize, the Magnite is a genuine “Value for Money”. Considering that it undercuts most of its competitors from the price point, you can get all the necessary safety features and commonly used comfort features, with added good looks, good space and a smooth driving experience. Nissan has done a good job with this car.

I would highly recommend the Magnite to anyone looking for a Compact SUV.

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Sourced from https://www.team-bhp.com/

#Nissan Magnite review #Nissan Magnite

[willowbyte]

ah shit, here we go again

making aus that cater to me specifically is my Passion

i am, once again, apologizing for my amateur writing

Capbot

Sensei is a computer scientist tasked with making a robot for the military to guard society, he was eager to create his own AI until he found out he had to replicate the personality of a well known videogame character. He didn't liked the idea but hey, at least he was given the chance to create one of the very first conscious robots.

Cloud is a robotics prodigy, she was paired with Sensei to complete the Capbot project. Her curiosity and gut trust has always led her to great results and when constructing the body of Captain this was no exception. She admires Sensei a lot even if sometimes he can look annoyed at her mere presence.

Captain originates from a videogame beloved by many, The Tankmen. While it was intended for him to be a war machine, Sensei was not given this information and created an AI who's main purpose was to look after people, as a result he came out... rather clumsy, but very protective over the assigned person.

His relationship with Cloud is almost sibling-like, with her enthusiastically showing him all the stuff of the real world and him just having fun and following along. Sensei has tried to convince himself to Not Like Him but his joyful attitude and personality were just too charming to not get attached, then he remembers how Captain loves to tease him and Sensei goes back into hating him (affectionately).

Meanwhile in the other lab, scientists Pico and Keith were tasked with making a bot of the second main character, and unlike Sensei and Cloud, they went straight to the point.

(LOLL SORRY FOR USING KEITH AS BF'S NAME I'M NOT CREATIVE ENOUGH TO COME UP WITH ANOTHER NAME. also that second main character is Steve)

Shimepai

(idk why i wrote this different than the rest, but it sounds like an advertisement so i like it lol)

(Heavily inspired by @/s0dap0pzxx's Senpai Shimeji, love the little guy)

This living malware disguised as a Shimeji and a Desktop Assistant first appeared out of nowhere in fan forums of Hating Simulator.

At first glance he seems to act like your regular shimeji, except he cannot duplicate. He walks, crawls and dances around your screen offering you tips and sometimes saying cute little messages! when right clicking he can also work as a Direct Access for different applications or folders of your choice. However soon you might notice some of your documents might have changed places, don't worry! That's just lil Shimepai getting to know your computer! Sometimes you'll see files with different names that you originally remembered, that's part of the process too.

When he starts getting more comfortable you'll see him modifying some settings, chatting with your friends and even delete some of your apps and files to save you some space! He can sometimes pull tiny pranks. Just be sure to not make him angry if you don't want your computer to be factory reset.

Over all, Shimepai is just trying to adapt and feel cozy in his new home, maybe at the cost of your entire device and personal data but can you blame him? you gave him access to this amazing paradise!

Private Sen

This newest member of the army is an unexpected ray of positivity in the battlefield. While most people find him annoying at first, some will get used to his sweet presence, he can also be really sassy at times.

Him and Steve get along rather well, having kind of a friendly rivalry. Private tries his best to impress Captain but this can sometimes end in him fucking up the base, or accidentally shooting his rifle to someone's leg

Captain just finds him funny.

Idk where else i can put this but this guy has plot armor, like no matter how many times a tankmen enemy is shooting him from behind the tankmen always misses and Private is oblivious to the entire fucking situation.

Hellpai

(this idea came out from these icons in an Expurgation cover. i just. wanted to share the info.)

(so i guess they count as a minus design? i dunno lol)

(excuse the name lmao but i couln't think of anything. also i would like to clarify that Hellpai is not spirit)

After wandering far, far away from his military base, Captain gets cursed and his soul gets chained to a long forgotten spirit.

While Captain, Steve and this creature that looks like came out from the gates of hell figure out how to break the curse for everyone involved, they have to get used to their new companion, and honestly? it wasn't as bad as they would have expected.

This nameless spirit acted aggressively at first encounter, mostly for self defense. He didn't had the liberty to talk, he could grumble and maybe say a word (cough cough this would occur later on) but he could never make full sentences, like he was not allowed to do so.

Everything before he met Captain was a blur, he didn't remember much. Maybe he once had a peaceful life? A life full of commodities on a civilisation lost in time, where he could just stretch his arm and anything he needed fell directly to his hand. What kind of person was he? A bad person? Was that the reason why he was like this? All those questions whose answers felt he was supposed to know, and yet he couldn't think of anything beyond those decades of claustrophobic solitude. Whatever had happened, he was comforted that, at least, he was no longer in that prison

and to be fair, he enjoyed being with these silly 'tankmen'

quite a lot

Deltarune AU / Angel Holiday

(can you tell i made this au when my deltarune fixation clashed with my fnf one)

Angel Holiday was adopted by the Holiday family, being the middle child between her younger sister Noelle and her older sister Dess, he is also the second only human in the surface.

Angel tries to make himself look assertive and confident, however he always makes sure to please other monsters and do as they say, after all, he just wants to be just like them

Ever since they were kids, Angel and Kris were looked down because they were humans, this made them become closer to each other. As they both grew up, comparisons grew stronger, adults always saying 'why couldn't Kris be well behaved like Angel' and other complaints of that type, this made Kris somewhat resentful of Angel. Slowly, the friendship they built in their childhood faded, becoming only classmates that rarely talked only because of Noelle.

-

After school, Angel realized Noelle forgot her notebook, he knew she was going to the library with Berdly to continue their project, so he went there to return it to her. Last thing Angel was expecting was a black void in the computer lab that would throw him and the rest of his classmates into an adventure that felt like a fever dream, and maybe treat some unhealed wounds in the process

Extra stuff:

The flowers in his face slowly fall the more true he is to himself (the more he lies, the more they grow)

Angel's soul color is cyan (i still feel indecisive about this one)

#friday night funkin #senpai fnf #fnf senpai #fnf au #willow's art station #ehehe um lol hiiiiii #i can't be bothered to tag every single au so if i ever draw something of these aus it'll be under the fnf-au tag

[unpopularly-opinionated]

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few  years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

#random #video games #Blizzard #Activision #WoW #World of Warcraft #Diablo #Overwatch #Starcraft #Activision Blizzard

[47pictures]

“All-Star”

Link to original r/nosleep post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/mv9j9a/for_my_blog_i_toured_a_movie_studio_to_find_the/

________________________________________________________________

I finally made it to Hollywood… at least, I suppose that’s what I’d say if I were trying to make it big. That wasn’t exactly the case, though. On the contrary, my old hometown friend was the one who I’d say ‘made it big,' and she was the only reason I managed to get there. No way in hell I could just stroll through these Hollywood gates without some sort of reputation associated with my name.

I’m currently pursuing a degree in journalism, and right now I’ve got a pretty successful status as a blogger, and hopefully podcaster in the near future. My topics typically cover things involving entertainment, specifically movies, television, some celebrity gossip here-and-there, the ins and outs of the film and occasionally music industry, nerd topics about comic books or comic book movies, and I could go on. Essentially, all the things you’d expect from an entertainment blogger.

I don’t have a secret or special tip for how I grew a mass following. It just sort of happened. I did it since I was in high school - sophomore year, to be exact, and it started mainly as a hobby. Most people are surprised to hear that I was such a good writer and articulate for my age when they look back on the articles I’d put up during that time, speaking on topics such as the ‘downfall of blockbuster films,’ and the ‘toxicity of media's body standards on the youth.’ Truthfully, I didn’t know all of what I was saying half the time. Writing was sort of just my natural gift that I honed to where I could essentially bullshit anything well enough to make a great story. However, being ethical always remained my moral code.

The topic I was covering now involved my own personal ‘investigation’ of a famous movie studio known as Gemini Films. They’ve put out several flicks now that have garnered what most would consider moderate success (they're no Warner Bros. or Paramount, that's for sure). They deal mostly in the thriller/horror genre, sort of like Blumhouse. I’m a bit more in the sci-fi, comedy realm when it comes to my tastes, but really, I’m a bit of a pussy when it comes to scary stuff.

So why am I 'investigating' them? Well, as it turns out, it's their amazing use of special effects. Yep, that’s it. Special effects, that thing we fell for as children we called ‘movie magic,' and growing up learned that some of it were all the crafty work of well-put CGI. Though that’s usually the case, this time, something about Gemini Films seemed different. They’ve always been praised for their ‘hyperrealistic’ visual effects and pulling off stunts that would otherwise seem impossible. I was watching one of their action/horror films titled Last Thorn, and in a particular scene, a character’s on-screen death is, well, very lightly put, gruesome. I’ve seen my share of on-screen gore and played plenty of Mortal Kombat growing up, but I gotta say, I found the scene hard to watch. To clarify, it involved a character literally exploding before the camera, and from the way it was shot and the lack of cuts and edits typically required to create the illusion of a scene, it seemed quite real. A little too real…

They’ve done other things aside from their special effects department that some people on internet discussion forums found a bit too impressive. Take the actors, for instance. In their dramatic scenes, especially the horror flicks, I’m almost always convinced that the actors are actually going to die on screen. I’m surprised all of them haven’t been given Oscars yet, ‘cause goddamn, you’d think the director was holding them at gunpoint. We all saw just how amazing the acting was in films like Hereditary and The Babadook were, but I gotta say, after watching these films, they make those two look like child’s play (no pun intended to the Chucky series). I was so impressed with the actors that I had to look them up and see what other work they’d done, but from what I did find, their resumes didn’t seem that much greater than the work they’d done for GF. It was almost as if that was the peak of their careers unless they decided to further their contracts to star in any more of their movies. Anything else they did pale in comparison that showcased their acting chops.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jamie Douglas.

It had somewhat of household name potential, I thought. She was the next rising star. She’d just won a Golden Globe for her leading role in a TV series I’m sure no one had high hopes for in the beginning, and her name was now attached to an Academy Award-winning film for Best Original Screenplay, all at the age of 22. Her acting was stellar, always had been even growing up back in high school when we did theater together. I was never for the acting side of things; I always preferred the technical realm and behind-the-scenes work. She, however, had the ‘it’ factor. I never once doubted that she’d be famous. It was destined for her.

The taxi driver dropped me off in front of a luxurious one-story home in the Beverly Hills neighborhood, surrounded by other similar houses with a property value larger than what I’d probably make in my lifetime if I was being honest. From the outside, her home reminded me of that gilded, golden age of Hollywood back in the 60s, with a slanted roof and art deco-styled exaggerated features. It was nice and simple. But that’s how Jamie was. Nice and simple.

I could see her peeking through the curtains of her window before she came running out the door to meet me in the front yard. That big beautiful smile and those joyous eyes came rushing at me with open arms.

“Christian!” she screamed my name with excitement, as she gave me a big, suffocating hug.

I hugged her back with my free arm, as my other one was still carrying my trolley bag and she had that one pinned in her grip.

“I’m so glad you made it,” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, I made it to Hollywood, right?” I dryly humored.

Jamie giggled as she began to pull back from her hug and put both her hands on my shoulders.

“Yes we did,” she said with a big smile, flashing her perfectly straight, white teeth. “We sure did.”

She led me inside the house and gave me a tour. Compared to the outside, the inside was the complete opposite in regards to the decorative era. Whereas the exterior was ‘groovy’, the inside was a bit more with the times. Wide-open spaces, tan or beige-colored furniture and walls, a wide sliding door for the backyard where you can see the pool. Jamie recently moved into the house, so I figured there wouldn’t be a lot of things to fill it up with just yet.

“Someone said Bette Davis used to live in this house, which I knew was bullshit, otherwise the value on this home woulda been way outta my league,” Jamie commented.

I chuckled. “Oh, I think you’re well on your way, trust me,” I reassured.

I was going to be staying with her for a week while I did my journaling/blogging. We did tons of catching up. She gave me all the inside scoop of what goes on in Hollywood - or ‘Hollyweird’ as I liked to call it - and even some of her other famous neighbors you might recognize living double lives on the down-low. She said she’d been to a couple of big mansion parties as well, where you’ll see all sorts of celebs from different categories of entertainment. Actors, athletes, musicians, models, influencers, you name it. But Jamie insists that she doesn’t attend those very often, if hardly at all. She prefers to be a homebody when she’s not seeking work through her agent, and her extraversion mostly comes to play when it involves networking.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rest of the night we stayed up watching TV and YouTube videos. One that fascinated both of us was a video explaining how scientists managed to find a way to make a perfectly cooked steak from a cow, but without actually harming or slaughtering it. Instead, they extracted a small sample of the cow’s cells and took it to a lab where the cells would essentially grow into muscle for it to be cooked later.

“I’d consider that over going vegan,” Jamie said.

But I grimaced at the thought. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right,” I remarked.

"What, are you vegan?"

"No, not that. Just the thought of cloning animals, ya know?"

“I mean, it’s not like they’re killing the cow or anything. They said it’s perfectly unharmed.”

“I know, but still…”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning was day one for me. Jamie had the right connections to get me an on-set tour of the studio lots associated with Gemini Films. I was greeted and led by the third assistant director (or AD as they’re commonly referred to).

“Hi, I’m Tiffany, nice to meet you,” she said, with a rather forced smile and handshake.

She carried a clipboard in her other arm, as well as a hand-held radio clipped to the pocket of her jeans, and I saw that she also had an earpiece nestled in her right ear. I could tell she was about her business and probably didn’t have time to be overly nice or talk too much.

I got a sneak peek of their most current production under the production title *"*Cold Silence", which required me to sign an NDA beforehand, of course. That wasn't actually their final name for the movie, but it's a common thing for them to do when shooting a film when either they haven't decided on a name yet or to keep the nature of the project a secret. It sort of took me back to my theater tech days with all the set designs and props lying around, except these were much more detailed and intricate thanks to their higher budget than what my high school had at the time. Here, there was limitless potential. Tiffany also introduced me to the other ADs, PAs, boom operators, cameramen, make-up artists, and then last but certainly not least, the director.

“Jeffrey?” Tiffany called to the man sitting in the director’s chair. The man turned to face her and then me. “This is Christian Watkins. He’s the man we’re giving a behind-the-scenes scoop for his… blog?” She looked to me for confirmation, to which I nodded. “Yeah, for his blog.”

The man in the big chair stood up with a cool smile and classy charm and extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, nice to meet you,” the man spoke in a tenor pitch. “Jeffrey Bachmann,” he introduced himself.

I didn’t take too much time last night trying to read up on his bio, but from what I could tell at first glance I knew that he was about in his mid to late fifties, as his hair was greying and skin was starting to wrinkle, and I could see that he had a surprisingly calm and laid-back demeanor. Surprising to me, at least. I always thought directing was a high-paced, chaotic mess that never ceased to present a myriad of complications onset that’d make any man want to pull their hair out. But Jeffrey seemed calm, collected, and very personable.

“Hi, thank you for having me,” I replied. “Seriously, this is like a really cool opportunity for me and my blog.”

“Hey man, it’s my pleasure,” Jeffrey said. “I heard you got a big following behind your name. Props to you. I respect the work ethic, especially giving your readers what they really want to see, ya know?”

I shrugged modestly. “Well thank you, but this time was mostly in my own interest to seek out this idea for my current blog,” I said.

“Ah, an interest in GF, huh?” Jeffrey replied. “Well, what would you like to know? We’ve got nothing but time today. In fact, we’re just getting ready to shoot the mangle scene for today and then we’ll wrap it up before we review the dailies.”

“Mangle scene?”

“Oh yeah, if you’ve got a weak stomach or aren’t into gore you don’t have to watch.”

At least he gave me discretion. “Hmm, I think I’ll tough this one out,” I said. “For the blog.”

Jeffrey gave me a sincere but slightly unsettling grin. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

He was a nice guy so far, but you know how you just meet certain people that for whatever reason, out of their control, their aura seems off? Maybe it was my preconceived notion and warranted cynicism I had of people working in Hollywood. Just a bunch of sharks in a pool with hungry eyes for desperate young talents eager to take a dive in the spotlight. But as I’d imagine with any field, there had to be a decent share of lambs among the many wolves.

Suddenly, one of the makeup artists scampered over to us, their attention directly at Jeffrey.

“Hey,” they said to him with a noticeably fake inflection.

“Hey, what's up?” Jeffrey returned.

“Savannah? She’s losing it back there. Said she wants to talk to you and only you.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Don’t worry, I got it,” he said, as he patted his hand on the MUAs shoulder. He then gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Christian, duty calls, but hey, Tiffany?” he looked to the stern AD. “Make sure he gets a front-row view for the martini shot.”

“Yes sir,” Tiffany replied.

Jeffrey and the MUA stepped off to handle whatever business needed handling regarding one of the actresses backstage in the dressing room.

“Martini shot?” I asked.

“Last shot for the day,” Tiffany explained. “For me, that’s a term I like to take literally.”

She seemed so serious all this time that I found the joke almost funny.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There was now quiet on the set. Shooting was about to start shortly. At this point in the movie, the main character has a stand-off that turns into a big fight scene with the main bad guy at a warehouse factory building. At first, there’s a gunfight, then eventually they both run out of ammo and it comes down to a fistfight before finally having a standstill on top of a rail just over a giant industrial shredder.

Right now, the actor playing the bad guy, Will, is hanging on for his life over the rail above the shredder, while Thomas, the main good guy, is standing over him victoriously. My question was, is the shredder real? ‘Cause it sure as hell looks like it. It wasn’t turned on yet, but just from a glance it seemed legit enough that if I dropped something as sturdy as a microwave in there, it’d come out jelly on the other end.

For the blog, I told myself. For the blog…

Suddenly, my suspicions were confirmed once Jeffrey called to have the shredder turned on. The machine roared to life, the inverting sharp metal gears rotating past each other being a black hole eating everything that passes through it with no escape. Holy shit. It was actually fucking real.

Jeffrey gave the nod to the 1st AD, and the AD returned the same.

“Action!” the AD called.

Based on what Jeffrey showed me from the script, Thomas is supposed to stomp on Will’s hand that’s gripping onto the edge of the rail, causing him to fall to his death into the shredder. The camera was now rolling, yet, I didn’t see Thomas do the deed. Was he pausing for dramatic effect? Was he acting for the camera? I wasn’t quite sure why he was hesitating.

I peaked over to notice that Jeffrey, the once calm and collected man I met backstage earlier, was now beginning to seem noticeably impatient and about to snap at any moment. There was now that dark edge I noticed about him from before but couldn’t quite put a finger on that I could see now coming to light.

Hesitation filled Thomas’ veins, about to raise his foot, then not, dragging on the scene longer than intended. From this distance, I tried to see Will’s own expression, and I regret ever doing so. Surely he was acting, but I’ll be damned, it was too good. Whatever fear he portrayed transmuted itself into me now. It was the kind of fear that I didn’t think could be replicated on command. Jeffrey stood up from his seat, but just before he could say anything or call ‘cut’, Thomas stomped his foot down on Will’s hand, and we all watched as his fingers slip from the railing. Will sent out a bloodcurdling scream as he plummeted to his ‘death’. What followed will haunt me forever.

Do you know what it sounds like to have a person’s body mangled to death? Have you bitten into the bone of any sort of meat? Heard and felt the crunch? Or maybe even the crunch of celery? I myself have never broken a single bone in my body, but imagining what it might sound like other than what I’d heard in movies or video games all seemed elementary now. At first, I had to look away, but what forced me out of my seat to leave was Will’s horrifying screams. He’d fallen feet first into the shredder, so his lower body had to suffer first before reaching his upper body and finally silencing him at the head.

I ran to find the nearest trashcan and hurled. I guess I really didn’t have the stomach for gore, at least, not to this degree. Will’s screams kept looping in my head. It was a new primal sound that evoked a dread within me that I wish I never discovered. The sound of torment. One thing was for sure, Will was one fucking hell of an actor - if this was acting. But the shredder…

It seemed so real. And there was no greenscreen besides the ones to be used for the background later in post-production. I saw him fall right into the damn thing. With my own eyes. In living color. There were no edits, no crazy tricks, no lighting effects. There couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was sitting down trying to recuperate, as everyone else around me was wrapping up set for the day. Tiffany came over and handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it.

“You feelin’ better?” she asked.

“Hmm,” I answered with a scoff, raising both my eyebrows and taking a sip from the bottle.

“I’m surprised you stuck around if you had such a weak stomach. I mean, he at least warned you.”

“I usually don’t. But that?” I shook my head. “How do you guys do it? It looked so real.”

“I’m just pulling your leg. I almost vomited too my first time. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

If it was a shame to flinch at something so vile, I don’t wanna know what goes on in Jeffrey’s mind to even come up with such a scene. Speaking of which, I still didn’t get a one-on-one interview with him as I’d hoped. All I had was the end result of his ‘movie magic’, but not how he did it. At this point, I'm not sure I really wanna know.

I went to go get my belongings, which were left in one of the dressing rooms, and was stopped by the sound sniffling from the one a couple doors ahead of mine. I looked on the door to read whose room it belonged to. It read: SAVANNAH YOUNG. She was one of the lead actresses in the movie, or rather I should say the only actress in the whole film. With the makeup artist and Jeffrey thing that happened earlier, it was evident to me that something sour had gone on behind the scenes I didn’t know about.

The door was cracked open and I couldn’t see her face entirely from my view, but I knew she was sobbing. She looked to be sitting in front of her mirror. I was about to just ignore it and go on about my business.

I lightly knocked on the door. “You okay in there?” I asked.

She stopped and I could hear her get up and approach the door. She pulled it back just enough to where I could see her whole face. She was beautiful, just like Jamie, even if she had been crying.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Savannah said. “Thank you.”

There was a brief awkward moment of silence between us. Clearly, she wasn’t fine, but I didn’t wish to pry any further than that.

“Are you one of the new PAs?” she asked. I arched a brow. “Production assistant?” she clarified.

“Oh, no, I’m just a visitor,” I assured. “Writing for my blog. I was supposed to be writing about behind-the-scenes things and how it all works around here, but I bitched out from the ‘mangling scene’.”

Savannah gave a short nod. “I see,” she said. “Well… I don’t blame you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the way she said it or just from the state that I was in, but her words gave me chills.

“I should get going,” I told her. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” she replied, and then shut the door.

I got my stuff from the dressing room and got ready to head out. I wonder what could’ve made Savannah so down to where the director had to get involved and set her straight. Jeffrey seemed pleasant to work with at first glance, but who knows, maybe he had a mean streak to him after all, especially the way he looked during the shooting of the scene. God, I just wanted to forget about it. I can’t unhear the sounds. The bones crunching, the blood splattering, and the screaming. The fucking screaming…

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I was leaving the studio lot, I noticed the cleaning crew of two men dump a large amount of black bags in the dumpster. From the way they swung the bags over into the bin, the shit didn’t seem light. The bags were in several different sizes, some small, some big, some disproportionate. I stood there and watched as the two men finished disposing of the junk and walked away to go about their other duties.

Regular, common sense me would’ve just picked up the phone, called Jamie to let her know I’m ready to get picked up, and go about my day. But the nosy blogger me kept itching…

I made sure the coast was clear and made my way over to the bin. I can’t believe I was actually dumpster diving, and for what? What did I really expect to find? In my head, I knew the answer, but was avoiding it, either out of how ridiculous it may sound or, God forbid, I was right.

The trash wasn’t stacked high enough from the bottom for me to simply reach, so I had to literally get in there myself. I climbed over on the other end, raised the lid, and jumped down on the piles of plastic bags, holding the lid up with my arm and my breath so I didn’t get a huge whiff of the smell. Though, if I did need to puke again, I supposed this would be the place to do it.

I immediately noticed the bags the men threw away, but in order for me to check what was inside, I’d have to crouch down and let the lid close on me. Fine. That’s what the flashlight on my phone was for. Surrounded in darkness and garbage now, I turned the flash on, illuminating the four dirty walls around me and I pulled back one of the bags. I felt around to try and see what sort of contents might be inside. Mush. It felt all mushy with chunks of solid and a little bit of liquid.

This was stupid, I thought. I realized how stupid I probably looked right then and there, sitting in a bin full of filth looking for clues like some sort of private detective. My followers have no idea how far I’d go, but this was ridiculous. Oh well, I’m too deep in it now, no pun intended.

I held my phone in my mouth as I used my hands to rip open the plastic. My heart began pounding as I slowly pried the bag open. Once I got a peek inside, shame and embarrassment came over me.

Food.

I should’ve just called Jamie to come get me. Had I really become that desperate? I threw the bag over and out of my way. Then I noticed the bag underneath had trickles of fluid. Curious, I shined the light down on it. They were red trickles. Considering how I’d just overreacted only to find a bag full of thrown out lunch, I wasn’t about to get all up in arms about finding red drops behind a Hollywood studio lot. I didn’t know the full recipe for fake blood, but if I recall correctly, Alfred Hitchcock used chocolate when they filmed the shower scene from Psycho.

I tried to follow the small trail and see if it led to another bag. I slowly pointed the light further up and it led me to the bag just behind the one I tossed to the side. Looks like it had a small bust that caused it to leak. When I pulled this one over, a very noticeable smell filled my nostrils and erased any other scent of the trash that surrounded me. It was a metallic, rusty sort of odor, like copper from a penny. However, that smell also belonged to something else…

I ripped open the bag, and with the shine of my light beaming down, I was welcomed to a bright crimson sight of mashed blood and guts. It had to be fake, I thought. It had to… but the way I recoiled from the putrid metallic fresh scent of carnage, my primal instincts told me that wasn’t the case. I innately knew that it was real. I was staring at Will’s mangled body.

Frozen from fear, I sat there for who-knows-how-long. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I’d call the cops first, of course, but they would need evidence, and even then they’d probably dismiss me after I told them I dove into the dumpster of a movie set where fake blood is a common prop. I’d tell Jamie the same, but she’d look at me crazy, too.

I unlocked my phone and started snapping pictures. As much as I could. I even opened some other bags and did the same. I tried to snap every bit of remains that was left of Will and saved them into my phone. It felt like a sick test to see how long I could hold my breath so I wouldn’t gag, and I think I broke a new record that day.

I snapped probably about 47 pictures on my phone before I finally shot up and threw open the bin. The wave of fresh air hit me like a truck, and enjoyed it for only a brief second before turning to see Jeffrey, Tiffany, and the other AD standing by his side. My soul left my body right then and there.

“Christian?” Jeffrey said, sounding concerned.

Fucking say something, I told myself. I did my best not to stutter and look stupid.

“Hey, Jeff,” I said, raising the inflection of my voice, probably sounding dumb.

“Going for a swim there?” Jeffrey joked.

I fake laughed, then put on my best acting skills. “I cannot for the life of me find my ring.”

“Your ring?”

“Yeah, my mom’s ring?”

Then, with the slick subtle motion, I hid my hands to where they couldn’t see them behind the walls of the bin, and with careful coordination used my fingers on my right hand to pull the ring I already had on and flicked it down onto the trash below. I shuffled my feet over the bags I stood on to make noise so they wouldn’t hear the ring drop. Please God, don’t let the ring hit the hard bottom floor or one of the rusty walls, I thought. To my relief, it didn’t.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, Christian, I haven’t seen it,” Jeffrey said, as he looked at the other two as they also shook their heads. “But we can definitely look around again and let you know if we find anything.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, trying not to make my voice tremble with anxiety.

“Now, c’mon, let’s get you outta there,” Jeffrey said, waving his hand over.

I nodded and shot a quick timid smile. I climbed out of the bin and faced the three before me, wiping myself down.

“Hands a little messy there,” Jeffrey said.

Anxiety raced through me again, but adrenaline had my back to make sure I didn’t fuck up by saying anything dumb.

“Oh, the fake blood?” I chortled. “Yeah, you guys lots of that shit in there. Smells like a chocolate factory.”

Jeffrey fell for it, and laughed. Good. But he could just as easily be playing me right now.

“Given how you ran off earlier back there I’m surprised you can stand to look at it, better yet, touch it,” he remarked.

“I’m sorry about that,” I stammered but stayed on track. “It’s just… I now see for myself, no one does it like GF.”

“Haha, you don’t have to flatter me to get back my respect. Don’t sweat it. I totally understand.”

Is that so? I thought.

“You could use that martini shot right about now, huh?” Tiffany joked.

Definitely not with her any time soon. Or any of them, for that matter.

“Well we’re just heading out for the day, you got a ride?” said Jeffrey.

“Yeah, I should probably call Jamie now and let her know I’m done,” I replied.

“It’s no problem, man, I can give you a lift. I can drop you off wherever you need me to.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Seriously, I insist-”

“Jamie and I got a spa appointment to catch in a bit. Otherwise I appreciate the offer.”

Jeffrey had a brief look in his eyes, a glint of what I could only compare to a wolf’s gaze hiding behind that sheep’s clothing he carried himself around as, and then smiled and nodded.

“Okay, Christian,” he said. “Once again, nice to meet you and I hoped you enjoyed the tour, and hopefully make some good content for your blog.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so much again. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“It’s nothing, Chris,” Jeffrey said, throwing me off a bit. “Can I call you, Chris?’

I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I called you Jeff by accident,” I said.

“It’s fine. Chris and Jeff it is.”

I needed to get away from here. Now and as fast as possible. But I still needed to do one more thing.

“Any chance I can wash these off inside?” I said, raising my bloodied hands.

“Oh of course,” Jeff said.

“I can lead him back,” Tiffany said, ready to go with, but Jeffrey stopped her.

“Ah, he knows his way in, right?” Jeff looked to me for reassurance.

“Yeah,” I answered confidently.

“Good, well hopefully I’ll see you around, Chris, and you enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thank you, Jeff. And you all do the same.”

As I walked past them and towards the studio lot, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being set up. Why hadn’t he let Tiffany escort me back inside? I’d think that would be customary for them to do for visitors entering and exiting the building. But I felt that they were watching me from behind, and with every step, I grew more and more anxious.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’d made it inside and the lot was now nearly empty and quieter. I didn’t see a single person in sight, and only a few lights remained on, making it mostly dark. I hurried the fuck up and did what I came to do, as I didn’t wanna be here any longer and didn’t feel safe.

Down the hall where the dressing rooms were, I rushed over to Savannah’s door, and saw that it was closed. I tried opening it only to see it was locked. Looking down, there was no light shining through the cracks either, meaning there was no one inside. She wasn’t there. Shit.

I washed my hands in the bathroom, scrubbing the dried blood off as thoroughly as possible, getting under nails and all, cringing at the thought of it being Will’s. Suddenly, I heard a noise from outside the hall leading to the bathroom. Petrified, my heart sank into my chest, and I froze. I shut the water off, and carefully approached the door. I listened for any other sounds as I placed my ear closer. After a few moments, I heard the noise again, but then realized that it seemed to be coming from one of the dressing rooms just outside in the hall.

Since I carry a notebook around most of the time for jotting down notes, I certainly always carry a pen. What most people don’t know is that I carry a military tactical pen for a variety of uses, and in times like these, it can be used as a subtle but effective weapon. I switched the tip from an ink ball to a small slick blade.

I opened the bathroom door and crept through the hall over to the dressing room door that made the noise, holding the pen underneath the breast pocket of my sweater. On the outside of the door, it read, “WILL BANKS.”

Confused, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Common sense me once again kept barking in my brain telling me to GTFO, but I had to be sure. I gave three shy knocks and waited. There was definitely someone in there because whatever noise I thought I heard from behind came to an utter halt. I could hear faint whispers of someone’s voice, and then another. There was more than one. My hand trembled as it tightly gripped the pen underneath with sweat as I heard whoever it was on the other end of the door approach.

It swung open, and there stood Will Banks, the man whose blood was just on my hands moments ago, alive and well, in the flesh. It couldn’t be, I thought to myself.

“Can I help you?” he said.

I just stood there, baffled, without answering. Behind him, I saw Savannah, who instantly recognized me and came over.

“Hi,” she said. “I thought everyone left.” She looked to Will. “He was visiting the set today for his vlog, or I’m sorry, blog.”

Will nodded, understanding now. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t get to meet you. Will Banks,” he said, pointing at his name on the door. “As you can see.” Savannah chuckled, and Will extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, or Chris,” I said, releasing the pen from inside my sweater and reaching my own hand out to take his. "Whichever you please."

He had a firm shake, and it felt uncanny considering what I’d just witnessed. I was touching him, feeling his skin and bone underneath, the warmth of his body temperature through the flesh. He was real. He was alive and breathing. That couldn’t be faked. That couldn’t be a visual effect. This was real. After we let go, suddenly my hand went cold. Everything about this seemed off and downright strange.

“Did you stick around for the shoot?” Will asked.

“I did, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, what’d you think?”

I wanted to say so many things right then and there, he had no idea.

“Um... y’all are some damn good actors,” I said.

Will laughed a bit, accepting my sham form of flattery, but Savannah, not so much. She gave one of those forced gestures as to not make it feel awkward, though, I noticed it right away.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“I would give you some artistic bullshit answer like ‘study your craft’ or ‘years of training,' things like that, but honestly… it just kinda clicks, ya know?”

I fake chuckled. “No, I don’t. It looked kinda real from my end. Too real, I might add. Care to go into detail how you guys pulled it off?”

“Well, uh-”

Savannah interrupted. “Wait, you know what Jeffrey would say,” she whispered to him.

“I know, but it’s for his blog,” Will argued.

“But still.”

“I mean, Jeffrey’s not here, right?” I chimed in.

They both looked at me, then at each other. There seemed to be some sort of nonverbal understanding between them, and Will looked back at me.

“All right, for the sake of your blog, I’ll give you what I can to the best of my wording, that sound good?” Will proposed.

I took the pen back out from inside, switching it to the ink ball with a short click, and whipped out my small notebook. “Hit me,” I said.

“Get ready for this one. Basically, we’ve been using a new thing in the biz lately sort of like mocap but it’s not exactly. It’s also kinda like hologram sort of tech?”

“Really?” I said, eyes widened with interest as I wrote words down.

“Yep. That’s how we did it. What you saw, was as real as the hologram thingamajig allowed you to.”

“Hmm.”

“The shredder, too.”

“What?”

“The shredder. That was a hologram also.”

“Really? Okay…”

I finished writing on my notepad then turned it so that Will could read it.

BITE ME, I wrote with a big circle around it.

He laughed. Savannah did, too, but, again, in a strange nervous and restrained demeanor.

“That’s a nice story,” I said. “So if you’re ready to quit bullshitting with me, and tell the truth, I’m ready,” I spoke in a playful yet no-nonsense tone. “How’d you do it?”

“You’re good, man,” Will said with a smile, pointing his finger at me. “Like a true journalist.”

Any other day I’d be pleased to hear that, but I was serious. I needed to know, so much that I’d forgotten how long I’d actually been here. I told myself I was gonna leave as soon as I could, but now, for some reason after talking with Will and seeing how personable and genuine he came off, he put me a bit at ease. Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. But then the screams echoed in my head again, and the smell...

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?” I said.

“Look, I wish I could, honestly, but if I did, Jeffrey may not be too happy with either of us,” Will responded sincerely. That much was true, I could tell.

“All right, I think I tortured you enough,” I said, then immediately regretted my choice of words.

“No worries, man. Nice meetin’ ya. Good luck with the blog.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at Savannah one last time, and she looked back with a serious and almost scary gaze as though she needed to tell me something very bad. That’s who I came back for anyways. But that opportunity was a lost cause now, as I left with nothing and still no understanding of how Gemini Films did their visual effects? And I lost my mother’s ring. Fuck, I didn’t have time to go get it right now. I didn’t wanna risk being seen again. Hopefully, Jeffrey keeps his word and they somehow manage to give it back. That being said, I'd be fine with not having to see him ever again.

Whose blood was that? Whose body was that in the dumpster? Was it real? Was it actually just that well made to where the average person could be fooled into thinking it was actual flesh? Who’d go through the trouble of all that?

The screams of losing your life inch by inch, the sounds that would haunt me forever. And the smell of what was inside that bag. That instinctual gut feeling… how was it not real?

#writing #story #horror #nosleep #horror stories

[wixelt]

Stargate: “Hoag” - Mass X’over Idea

About this time last year, I started watching Stargate with my dad. We watched the original movie and SG-1. And Atlantis. And the SG-1 movies. And Universe. And Origins.

We finished the franchise somewhere about a third of the way through 2020, though with how this year’s been it feels like that was years ago, now. And for a lot of the time we were watching it and for at least a little while after it, I had a thought that wouldn’t go away and that I kind of liked.

Namely that I wanted to write a Stargate fanfic of some kind, possibly even a crossover. A mass crossover, in fact. As with most of my fan-fiction thoughts, no matter the work, they eventually fell onto my pile of half-started ideas. I’m awful at keeping to things and not getting distracted by “new shiny” ideas like some kind of fanfic magpie, even when I like the idea.

That said, this was a concept I really liked, so i’m going to share the basics of it now, as far as I got with it. Maybe it will inspire someone else, or maybe i’ll come back to this someday.

Regardless, though here’s the notes:

- Post-Universe, the war with the Lucian Alliance is still going, and despite the slightly dire situation things were headed toward last we saw, the SGC’s winning. The LA are on the back foot, and is starting to break into smaller factions. One of the larger LA factions decides to cut their losses and make a run for it, their space fleet making a beeline for the Supergate the Ori Army built to link the Milky Way and Alteran Home galaxies, having either deciphered or stolen the codes required to dial it. The SGC puts together an attack force to intercept the faction at the gate and stop their escape. The fleet is accompanied by several characters from existing series.

- The battle’s one sided, but the LA faction continues to make a run for the gate. And then it happens. I’m undecided on the details, but a mix of weapons fire on the ships trying to pass through and other circumstances - in much the same way as that classic episode of SG-1 - causes the open Supergate to “jump tracks”, the destination shifting to somewhere not in the Alteran Galaxy. A side effect of energy on this scale causes all ships in the vicinity to be pulled through.

- Emerging on the far side, the surviving ships exit through what seems to be another Supergate, albeit of less refined design. Later study will show it to be Ancient, instead of Ori. This lesser design proves unstable, leading to the SGC fleet being forced to destroy both it and their crippled ships to force a ceasefire with the LA ships, stranding a cast of both old and new faces wherever they’ve ended up.

- As for where they’ve found themselves, it’s the Hoag’s Object galaxy, they eventually discover. For those unaware, this is a real ring galaxy more than 600 million light-years from the Milky Way (~200 times further from Earth than the Pegasus Galaxy). It’s a galaxy for which we have a low understanding of the mechanics behind its formation - which sparked my interest as the ideal location for a Stargate series with an underlying mystery beyond just “get home”, in the tradition of Atlantis and Universe. It’s a fun place to read and speculate about.

- The base of operations for the “Hoag Expedition” as they try to contact Earth (a challenge when their arrival method and much of their equipment has been destroyed), is the “Spire”, an automated Ancient outpost which is, as the name implies, a massive pointed tower in space. The story behind it, as the cast discover, is that the Ancients were very interested in what was causing Hoag’s Object’s structure, and sent a large automated seeding ship to the galaxy, with the intent that it would automatically drop Stargates on various interesting worlds and other locales - similar to the Destiny - also seed a few worlds with human life, as was their MO to an extent, then take up a preset location and convert itself into a stationary... station, that would serve as the Ancient’s home once they were ready to arrive - a local Supergate also being constructed as one of the projects they were intending to test alongside their studies in Hoag. Like Destiny, though, they never arrived. The Spire was dispatched late in the Ancient’s time, likely around about when they were fighting the Wraith in the Pegasus Galaxy. After that, they focused on ascension, and the Spire lay forgotten, its systems waiting for a crew that wasn’t coming.

- Some of the first things the expedition discover on arrival are tied to the local gates. Firstly, they can’t dial home. Even when they work out where they are relative to Earth, they can’t calculate what the 8 symbol address required to dial would be (for reasons made harder by the second point). There’s no indication what the address would even consist of, given there’s no “dial Earth” address in the Spire’s database - presumably the Ancients didn’t know where they’d end up dialing from, and no-one ever arrived to clarify. Secondly, while the local gates are Pegasus-era 3rd generation Stargates, they have a different color palette - being purple rather than blue, because I like purple - as well as a completely different set of symbols. These symbols are determined to be a very symbol numeric system set up in 5s, presumably because the gate seeding was automated and chose a structured visual system. I actually created a guide for this system. As might be obvious, this gate network has more symbols them any other - to account for Hoag’s Object being a larger galaxy - featuring 41 non-Point of Origin options:

- As I mentioned before, however, I wanted this to be a mass crossover, which is where the Ancients’ MO of seeding human life comes in. Like the Pegasus Galaxy, you can still have those human cultures, but how far out Hoag’s Object is - as with Stargate Universe - allows for more alien cultures as well. Which naturally lets you drop pretty much any non-Earth (or otherwise, in some cases) setting into this concept amid other, more original planets and have it turn up as the expedition does what Stargate does best: explore new worlds. RWBY? No problem. Avatar? Eeyup. Fairy Tail? Definitely. Madoka Magica? Trickier, but even with that being set on Earth the Incubators have to come from somewhere, right? MLP? Simple, if the Equestria Girls world is considered the local side of the mirror and Equestria another reality. Heck, you could even throw in something as out there as Hermitcraft and probably make it fit.

- And yes, I did briefly play around with gate addresses for a few of the above places, too, but didn’t get very far due to waning inspiration (the above symbol system itself was already my 5th or 6th attempt to make something workable). I did include my meta-logic for choosing the symbols, though:

- There were other ideas I had for this whole thing, too. I played around with the idea of writing this on a forum thread on somewhere like SpaceBattles or Sufficient Velocity, and maybe I still could one day, where other people could write in the setting too if I got enough traction (always been a big fan of interactive and/or collab ventures). Also played with the concept of a story-line of two Goa’uld “brothers” who had left the Milky Way in centuries past in search of new pickings, finding Hoag’s Object and setting themselves up as gods over multiple worlds (one of which may have been RWBY, if that gives you an idea of where that was probably going), but that fell apart once I started questioning how they got to Hoag’s Object when the Spire and its gate hadn’t been touched before the SGC arrived.

All that aside, though, this idea is out in the open now. If someone wants to play around with it, they can. Or if people want to ask what i’d do with various settings or features, i’m happy to give it some more thought to get the creative juices pumping again.

For now, though, enjoy! :)

#stargate #stargate sg1 #stargate atlantis #stargate universe #stargate hoag #fanfic #stargate crossover #crossover fanfiction #crossover #fairy tail #rwby #mlp fim

[farfromtommy]

my sun and stars // dad!Tony Stark x daughter!reader

A/N: so I had originally written the beginning of this for nice to meet you but then I decided that it needed to be its own fic and omg did it happen. I cried basically the whole time. I hope you guys like it as much as I do. dad!Tony makes me soft. please let me know what you think!!!!

My requests are open! 

summary: Tony being the world’s best dad 

Warning: like 2 swear words, overwhelming fluff 

Word count: 2,918

masterlist 

Tony Stark had made his fair share of mistakes in his life. He’s human. But the one thing he knew he always did right was raising his daughter, Y/N. She was the light of his life. She made his life worth living. Y/N came into Tony’s life at a seemingly perfect time. Her presence in his home pulled him out of his “playboy” ways and into his new role as a dad. 

Her mother, knowing the lifestyle of Tony, decided that she didn’t want to be connected to him in anyway. Giving up her daughter was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life, but it was best thing she could’ve done for everyone involved. She even left giving her a name up to Tony, knowing very well if she gave her a name it would make it that much harder to give her to her dad. 

When Tony first saw himself in this tiny human, his entire life changed. A switched was flipped inside him and he was taking fatherhood by the horns and “making it his bitch”, as he confidently stated to Happy. He looked at everything her mother had left in a folder. Her birth certificate only had one name on it, and it was his. She didn’t have an identity. Her mother had refused to put her name on the certificate, cutting every tie to her newborn possible. 

Tony looked back at Y/N as she was staring back at him with her big beautiful eyes. She looked at him like he was the only thing that mattered in the world, and he looked at her the same way.  He intended to keep that look on her face for as long as he could. Because at that moment in time, Tony knew that his world no longer revolved around himself. She was his sun.  

Tony had his very first taste of parenthood just a few short minutes after meeting Y/N. She had completely soiled her diaper and the onesie she was wearing. He had never once changed a diaper. Luckily, Y/N’s mother had left a few diapers in a bag for Tony so he wasn’t completely screwed. After a couple of failed attempts and minutes of his daughter screeching, she was all cleaned up and fast asleep in his arms. 

As he was holding her, he was ordering every single thing necessary for a baby. After some time online shopping and a couple thousand dollars later, he had everything he could possibly need and more. The one thing he was most excited about was the baby sling. He would put it on himself so he could carry Y/N hands free. He could already see her sleeping peacefully on his chest while he is whirring around creating his next big invention. 

Everything had been delivered and was on its way to being set up. Tony had set Happy our for bottles and formula while he was busy shopping for baby clothes and accessories. By the time Happy returned and helped Tony feed and get Y/N back to sleep, they were setting up all of the new furniture in Tony’s extravagant master bedroom. 

He had her crib against the wall right next to his bed, the rocking chair tucked in the corner, and the changing table that doubled as a dresser pushed against the wall next to her crib. He had a new rug across the floor by the entire baby section of his room. 

The juxtaposition of his things and Y/N’s things was truly a sight to see. 

He had boxes littered across his room. Some filled with clothes, some filled with diapers and wipes. As he was putting some of her clothes in the dresser, he heard her start to whimper from her crib. 

He finished folding the onesie he had in his hands and walked over to the crib. She then started to cry and he quickly picked her up and started soothing her to try and get her to calm down. He looked over at his clocked and it read 12:43 am. 

“I bet you’re hungry my little love, let’s go get you some food.” he quietly said to her and continued to soothe her as they went to the kitchen together. He made a bottle for her and as soon as it was ready he gave it to her and she immediately took to it. He walked back into his room and sat on the rocking chair as she quickly finished her bottle. 

He brought her up to his shoulders to burp her and pat her back softly. He had been reading parenting blogs and forums while she was sleeping so he could try and figure out everything he needed to do as a new parent. 

He was so overwhelmed with all this new information flooding into his brain, he thought it would explode. He was the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company and was Iron Man, surely he could figure this parenting thing out. 

One of the things he had read about was skin to skin contact. It was usually done between mother and child during breastfeeding, but fathers also did it to create a bond with their child. Tony carefully stood up and placed Y/N on the changing table to take her white onesie off. He lifted his own shirt off and tossed it haphazardly on the floor. He picked Y/N up again and made his way back to the rocking chair. 

He put his legs up on the ottoman and leaned back, bringing Y/N’s head up to where his heart is and let her lay on his chest. Her tiny fingers grazed the metal of the arc reactor placed in the middle of his chest and he just watched every move she made. His big hands holding her body so she wouldn’t slip off brought so much comfort to the both of them. 

Eventually both Tony and Y/N fell asleep in that position. Both of them exhausted from the long day they had. A couple hours later Tony was woken up by Y/N stirring on his chest. He woke up slowly and looked at the clock again. 3:12 am. Y/N was hungry again and by the smell of it, desperately needed a diaper change. He changed her diaper quickly and once again, grabbed another bottle for her. Although he was tired and wanted to sleep for an eternity. He was the only person able to do this for her. 

He was her person. 

And she was surely enough becoming his. 

He was taking to this dad thing really well. He never knew he could love a tiny human as much as he loved Y/N. She was everything to him. 

Weeks had gone by and Tony and Y/N were absolutely inseparable. Tony had taken time off of work to adjust to his new life as a father and to have this time to really bond with Y/N. They had finally gotten a schedule down that worked for them. Tony took time to work a little bit while she was asleep so his company didn’t completely fall apart. But as soon as he saw her start to wake up through the baby monitor he had made, he stopped everything and rushed to her side. 

Tony was strongly considering taking his technology to the baby market, because he was absolutely killing it with his new creations for Y/N. Somehow he was able to make things just a little bit easier for him. He had even considered creating a robot nanny but figured that probably wouldn’t end well. 

At 11 months old Y/N was completely killing it at the baby game. She was starting to let go of things as she was starting to walk, she had said her first word, which was obviously ‘dada’, and with everything she did she made her dad proud beyond words. 

Tony couldn’t believe it’s been almost a whole year since Y/N came into his life and he would cry if he thought about it too long. After a few months of working from home Tony had returned to work full time. He did not want to leave Y/N with a nanny, he didn’t trust anyone with his precious daughter. Before he returned to work he had created a space in his office dedicated to Y/N. 

He had a play pen which doubled as crib and dozens of toys and books for her to entertain herself with as her dad worked. The system he had made for taking care of his daughter while also running Stark Industries was one that was hard to perfect, but once he did, it was like clockwork. 

Y/N had taken to his assistant, Pepper, really well. She was there for Y/N when Tony wasn’t available at that exact moment in time. Pepper would often interrupt Tony’s meetings, much to the dismay of the executives in the room with him. She would give her off to Tony and the cries of the toddler would immediately subside, as she was in the arms of her person. Tony would continue the meeting on with Y/N attached to him. Her tiny arms wrapped around his neck and one of his arms supporting her, and the other gesturing towards whatever he was talking about. 

Sometimes he would even bring the baby carrier in and would have you strapped to his chest as he was working so his mobility wasn’t affected. It was such a normal thing to see Tony walking around the building with his daughter strapped to his chest, people stopped staring in confusion and just kept going with their day. 

Celebrating the 1st birthday of his daughter was maybe one of the most bittersweet days of Tony’s life. He loved being able to raise such an amazing human being, but hated seeing her grow up before his own eyes. She had changed so much in the year she had been on this earth. Tony had thrown the most extravagant 1 year olds birthday planet in the history of time. 

Tony smiled the most amazing smile as he heard everyone sing happy birthday to his daughter, and he held her as they both blew out the candles to her cake. Y/N had absolutely no idea what was happening but the noise and excitement just made her bubble. Tony helped Y/N destroy her piece of cake as she was mostly getting it all over her face and body. 

He looked at her fondly as she continued to smear frosting all over herself. Tony wanting the time with his baby back. He missed being able to hold her in the crook of his arm while she ate. She had such an amazing future ahead of her and he was ready for the ride. 

Y/N started school at the age of 4, going on 5.  Tony had decided to put her into public school to give her the best shot at a normal life. She was already so ahead of her grade level and was surpassing the learning expectations of a 4 year old. Dropping her off at school every morning broke his heart so much. But he loved seeing her face light up every time she saw one of her friends on her way to class. 

He always dropped her off at the door of her classroom and gave her a hug and kiss before he left for work. He was there every day to pick her up so she could tell him all about her day before she forgot what happened. She always went on and on about the things she did with her best friend Peter (:D) did in class. She talked about what she learned about and the books she read. He loved hearing about her day, it was one of the greatest parts of his day. 

They drove back to Tony’s office and walked through the doors hand in hand. Y/N greeted everyone she saw, knowing most of their names. She always ran up to Pepper and wrapped her tiny arms around her neck as Pepper bent down to give her a hug. Tony always took time to help Y/N with her homework when they got back. 

After they finished whatever homework she had for the day, Tony went back to work and Y/N stayed in his office in the corner dedicated to her. She had a tiny table and a chair so she could sit and draw or color, a bookshelf with tons of books that she loved to read, and anything else that could entertain a 4 year old for a few hours. 

“It’s time to go home little love. Go grab all your things and say goodbye to Pepper.” Tony said to Y/N walking into his office. “Okay daddy.” Y/N said grabbing her backpack from the floor and racing out the door to say bye to Pepper. Tony grabbed everything he needed and walked out of his office to get Y/N from Pepper’s desk. 

This time Tony carried Y/N out of the building as she said she was too tired to walk and wanted her dad to carry her out. Tony could never say no to her. They walked out to Tony’s car and he buckled her into her car seat as she was slowly falling asleep. 

Tony had felt a presence come up behind him and he was quick to react by secretly putting on his Iron Man blasters, ready to fight off whoever was trying to sneak up on him. He quickly turned around shutting the door, shielding his daughter from whatever was going to happen. 

He was met with the face of Nick Fury. “I’m not gonna hurt you Tony, or your daughter. Just wanted to have a chat with you.” Fury said, walking closer to Tony. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.” Tony shut down his blasters and walked around to the drivers side. He opened his side and got in. Starting the engine and wanting to drive away. Fury knocked on the window of his car, Tony rolled his eyes and opened the window. 

“I’m not interested in whatever you’re trying to talk me into.” Tony repeated himself. 

“I just want to talk to you about an idea I have. It’s called the Avenger initiative Take a look.” Fury tossed a file down on the passenger seat of Tony’s car. He sighed and grabbed the file and flipped through it. 

“Looks like you got it all figured out. What do you need me for?” He said handing the file back to Fury.

 “I want you to take control of it, need be. You have the capability to and I don’t know anyone else who is better equipped to take point on this. Just think about it and get back to me.” Fury tapped on the top of the car and walked away. 

Tony sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked back at his sleeping daughter in the backseat, completely unaware of what just happened. A small smile came to his face as he continued to look at her. He knew what Fury wanted him to do wasn’t easy and could put him in harms way. But if it was something he needed to do to keep you safe from everything that would want to hurt you, he would do it. He has promised you from day 1 that he would do everything in his power to make sure you were always safe. He wanted to make the world perfect for his sweet angel, and didn’t know where to start. 

This seemed like a place to start, and it fell right into his seat. He got out of his car and looked towards the direction Fury walked in and yelled out to him. 

“I’m in, Fury. Send me everything you have on this and I’ll take a look.” He shouted. 

Fury turned around and shot him a thumbs up and turned back around, walking towards his car. 

“I have one condition, though.” Tony shouted. Fury stopped walking and turned around slowly. 

“And what might that be?” He questioned. 

“If I’m gonna work with you on this, you keep her out of every record you have on me. I don’t want her in any database. It’s like she doesn’t exist to S.H.I.E.L.D. If anyone asks about her, you don’t know. No one knows. That is my only condition.” He said, looking at Y/N sleeping through the window. 

Fury nodded at him and got into his car. Tony did the same and started his drive back home. 

For the past 10 years Y/N and Tony have been working side by side. A few years after Fury approached Tony about the Avenger Initiative, it was activated and was in full swing. Everyone involved have had their fair share of battles the past few years. 

Now at the age of 15, Y/N works with her dad developing new and improved technology for the whole team. She was probably the smartest 15 year old on the planet. Tony had built the Avengers compound in upstate New York, where you both lived along side the Avengers. 

Everyone there quickly became like family and Y/N absolutely loved it. Her entire life had been just her and Tony in his big mansion, even with the frequent visits from Pepper and Happy, it still got lonely. 

Now with a team of superheroes in her living room, there was never a chance to be lonely. 

#Tony stark #dad!tony stark x daughter!reader #dad!Tony stark #Tony stark x reader #dad!tony #dad!Tony stark x reader #tony stark x daughter!reader #rdj #tony stark fluff #Tony stark imagine #Tony stark x y/n #Tony stark x you #Tony stank #avengers #mcu #marvel #marvel x reader #marvel x y/n #avenger initiative #iron man #iron man x reader #iron man x y/n #iron man x you #ironman #iron man imagine #dad!iron man #daughter!stark #stark!reader #stark!daughter #stark!y/n

[trackerhunter995]

Almost Done With Darlingtongames123 Nr2003 Designs

Darlington Designs is the leading residential design & build firm in New Jersey. Specializing in major home renovations from landscape and hardscape projects to. Nov 16, 2014 - FREEBIES - Darling Designs 4 U - Merry Christmas Tree. Nov 16, 2014 - FREEBIES - Darling Designs 4 U - Merry Christmas Tree. Craft Instructions For Kids. Saved from darlingdesigns4u.com. Saved by Brenda Liston.

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123456789colton

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Well as I am almost done with the original track update, someone on this forum sent me 2 tracks asking to take a look at them. They are basically broken and useless for now. I got to thinking, maybe just MAYBE I can take my track editing to another level. I want to try and fix the 'broken' tracks of NR2003. So i wanted to see if you guys could send me tracks via links on this thread. Maybe this can bring some of the other nr2003 players back to this community or even new people to the game. I'm not sure, but I would like to try and fix these tracks! Not sure when or even if I can fix them but I am willing to try over time. Also, tracks that need graphics updates or mips and such might be last on my list. I've been wanting to learn how to do all of that and I have somewhat of an idea not am not experienced with that yet. So with that being said send me any links you have! The message I received was for Melbourne. So i am working on that track and it is a pain! Haha.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I haven’t blogged in months. It should be expected by now, lol. There’s been a ton of things that’s happened since my last blog, much too many to write about here. Basically in the end, a bunch of things went down, none of it really bad, and I just neglected the blog for a while, and I’ll end up neglecting it again. But as the title of this post suggests, I’m slowly returning to my old ways. What does that actually mean to anyone that reads this? Well, let me think here…

I’m a fan of the racing sim NASCAR Racing: 2003 Season (NR2003), this blog was intended to showcase work I do for the game, provide me a private space to share files, and allow me to blog any ongoing projects. Instead I kinda posted a lot of stuff on other topics, which I’m sure I’ll do in the future as well, but hopefully not as much. So with that said, I’ve been working on a project that is mainly intended for NR2003, but anyone can enjoy this one. I’ve been making some new Sprint Cup Series models. It’s a big project for me, 5 makes in total. I just got tired of not having something that was much more accurate to the real cars to play with. Originally I wanted to get back into painting a few cool cars I seen from the 2016 NASCAR season, and I found out the models we had, just were not accurate. It forced me to change the scheme a bit, much of which was a pain because it really was quite a intricate paint job. so much of what I recreated after using photos for reference didn’t fit on the model. This was the reason why I quit painting cars in the first place. So instead of doing a half-ass conversion and ruining the original artist’s interpretation, I decided I’d just go ahead and make my own damn model. I made the Chevy SS and was just gonna leave it at that, but I had a lot of fun that I haven’t had in a long while so I decided to make even more models. In the end, I made 5 models total, the 2016 Chevy SS, 2016 Dodge Charger, 2016 Ford Fusion, 2016 Toyota Camry, and even the 2018 Toyota Camry. The models were a blast to make, especially the Charger. Seeing Dodge pulled out of NASCAR a few years back, I had freedom to kinda freestyle how I think it would look in NASCAR trim. And I feel I nailed the look. Even if I didn’t, the model looks bad ass nonetheless.

You can’t be a NASCAR fan and not love the looks of that, lol. So far, the bodies are complete, the mapping is mainly complete, though I might have to add a couple of things before release, and I’m almost done with the chassis and interior for the Chevy. These models, once finished, will be posted online for all to enjoy. I will be including the models (3ds Max 2009, 8 formats and obj), textures, and whatever else is required. They will be free to use for non-commercial use only, so you can use them in other games, apps, or whatever as long as you’re not profiting from them in any way, shape, or form. And you can bet your ass, they work in NR2003, I’ve already tested them in there. I did this once before with the Xfinity Series cars. only difference is they did not have any textures, it was just the bodies, rollcage, and wheels. In fact, here’s the link if anyone wants them…

These weren’t perfectly modeled, but they’re pretty damn good. In fact, I’ve actually started updating the models a little because I came across some reference to help make them way more accurate. But I won’t be able to get to them all till a while after I’m done with the Sprint Cup Series models.

Almost Done With Darlingtongames123 Nr2003 Designs For Beginners

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So for now, this is what I’ve been doing with my time. I’ve returned to my NR2003 roots, and man I can’t wait till this project is finished and people can get a up close and personal look at these models. I hope people get to enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them. Catch ya’s later. 🙂

[write-place-write-time]

Found It

[ Can be read as a sequel/companion to "Lost It", or as a standalone ]

🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵

“Bit busy, mate.”

“Baker Street. Come at once.”

“Sherlock, I’m trying to -- No, Rosie, no biting! -- change Miss Nibs here--”

“Bring her along. I need you both.”

“For what?!”

Click. 

John Watson pulled the mobile away from his ear with a resigned glare. Young Rosie babbled and grabbed at it, wriggling herself out of the 18 month frock he’d just wrestled her into. John turned his glare to his daughter, who giggled at him unashamedly.

“Between you and your godfather, nudity is trending at an all time high,” he grumbled, though there was no heat in it.

****

Upon arriving at 221b, the Watsons were met with a perturbed Mrs. Hudson, dashing out the door with her brolly and handbag. 

“That boy is a menace, I tell you,” she said in between cooing at Rosie. “Got himself all aflutter and refuses to tell me why.”

John frowned at that. “Aflutter? Is he…?”

“He’s clean, of course, but he’s also cleaning. Sherlock Holmes, cleaning the flat!” She tutted, striding off towards a cab. “Good luck, you two!”

John and Rosie shared a look, making their way in and up to the flat.

The faint scent of lemon cleaner and fresh sugar biscuits wafted down the stairs as the Watsons entered their home away from home. The flat was clean. No sign of newspapers, weaponry, abandoned teacups, nor assorted baby-care items strewn about the space. Any paraphernalia of Rosie’s was organized in a designated area that John was impressed to find both conveniently out of the way and visible from all angles of the living room. 

The yellow chair from the corner was positioned across from his, angled in companionship with Sherlock’s own. There was a soft, cherry red afghan that John had never seen before draped over the back. The mirror above the mantle was clear of any chemical residue or hand-swipes (from clearing off residue to use the mirror for its intended function); even Billy the skull looked especially clean, as though the teeth had been brushed. The bison skull was free of dust, and the headphones had been replaced by a -- “Flower crown?” 

“John, Rosamund, hello!”

John turned from the baffling sight of the bison and its floral corona to where Sherlock’s voice had sounded behind him in the kitchen, and his jaw dropped. 

The consulting detective stood barefoot in jeans -- jeans -- a button-up white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, purple dish-washing gloves, and a flour-powdered green tartan pinny. John gaped, trying to gather and understand the sight before him.

“Lock!” Rosie squirmed until her confused father set her down.

“Yes, hello, Rosie,” Sherlock grinned down at her, shucking his garish gloves and tucking them in the pinafore pocket before reaching out to assist the toddler in her steps toward him. “Your father’s gone quite fish-faced, hasn’t he?”

“And your godfather has gone domestic,” John shot back, fighting a grin. “What’s all this then? Have you finally had one-too-many nicotine patches? Therapist electro-shock you?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he scooped the girl up and brushed a kiss to her chubby cheek. “Shut up, you’re late.”

“Yes well, little Nudist Nancy refused to cooperate with her wardrobe. What’s the urgent business then?”

“I want to have sex with Molly Hooper.”

John sputtered, “Oi! Tiny ears, Sherlock!”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but his retort was cut off by John’s second sputter of, “Why the hell do you think Rosie -- a toddler, mind you -- and I would be able to help you with that?”

Sherlock maintained his same passive look, but the creeping pink tinge on his ears gave John insight to his friend’s nerves. “Well, seeing as you have experience -- three continents, was it? -- and the proof of said experience is currently chewing my apron strings, who else would I call upon for aid in such a matter?”

John blinked. “Irene Adler. Your mum. Mycro--”

“Please don’t mention my brother in this context lest I subject myself to eternal celibacy,” Sherlock grimaced. “The Woman is not a wise decision, as it would be ‘not good’ to consult a lesbian dominatrix in love with me about intimacy with another woman. Mummy is right out. She explained the whole ordeal when I was twelve and made Father blush so hard I think he still looks sunburnt. No, it has to be you, John Watson.”

He grinned and made his way back to the kitchen, setting Rosie in her high chair with a freshly baked and cooled biscuit that she immediately set her eight new teeth into. John followed, still baffled.

“Does Molly know you want to… y’know?”

Sherlock shot him an annoyed look. 

“Fine,” John capitulated. “Does Molly know you wanna get off with her?”

Those ears grew pinker as Sherlock busied himself with washing the baking materials like a normal adult human. “I don’t suppose how she’d know. She hasn’t asked.”

“She hasn’t asked? Christ, Sherlock. You two have been dating though, right? Coffee two weeks ago, dinner at Angelo’s last Friday?”

“Yes.”

“Did you by any chance, oh I dunno, kiss her goodnight?”

Ears were now pink to the bottom of their lobes. “Last date, yes.”

John grinned behind his friend’s back, snagging a cooling biscuit. “Did you snog?”

Huffing, Sherlock turned. “What’s the difference?”

Through his biscuit, John said, “Kissing is just kissing. Snogging is a bit more involved.”

Sherlock made a face and crossed his arms. “Juvenile.”

“Which means it wasn’t a snog, then?”

Sherlock shrugged. “It was satisfactory.”

“Oooh, ‘Dear Penthouse Forum’--”

“Oh shut up, John.” Sherlock dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, in a full pout-soon-to-be-sulk as he face-planted into the tabletop.. “It’s pointless and you are deplorably unhelpful.”

Daughter of deplorably unhelpful friend reached out with her tiny hand and patted her godfather’s curly head. “Lock! Okay?”

John sighed and sat opposite Sherlock. “Look, I’m taking the mick. You’re not the sexual deviant Janine crowed about in the tabloids, and you’re not the unwitting virgin that Mycroft and Moriarty claimed you to be.” He paused. “Are you?”

Sherlock’s answer was spoken low and into the tabletop. “No. The Woman once in Karachi. Janine… sort of.”

John blinked, fought off a triumphant I-knew-it grin, and cleared his throat. “Right, well, sex with Molly is a different beast, though. Molly Hooper is a friend. She’s your pathologist. You did say the L-word to her two months ago.”

Sherlock hummed, Rosie still petting his head.

“She’s not like Janine -- you actually want Molly. She’s not Irene -- you trust Molly.”

Sherlock mumbled something.

“What?”

Sherlock’s head popped up. “With my life, my body, my very soul if such a thing should exist. She matters most. She counts.”

John’s lips quirked up in the corner. “Yeah. And then Sherrinford…”

“I am quite wholly aware that I love Molly Hooper, John. It’s why I want this to go further. It’ll-it’ll mean something. For the first time.”

“Have you told her since then?”

The brief silence was answer enough. John nodded. “Well then that’s it.”

“Hmm?”

“You need to find it.”

“It?”

“Your courage,” John smiled softly. “You admitted you loved her under extreme, traumatic duress. Not ideal. But it is what it is. And what it is is terrifying.”

Sherlock held his gaze, not quite understanding.

“Look mate, Mary…” his voice caught on his wife’s name, his eyes sliding to their daughter who was peering at Sherlock in a very uncanny Mary-like way. “Mary said it first. She knew I loved her by our third month anniversary. She beat me to the punch, and what I never expected was the fear in her eyes right before she said it.”

“Fear?” Sherlock frowned. “Out of the two of you, Mary’s penchant for fear was far less likely than yours, army training notwithstanding.”

“Right. But Mary was like you, and affairs of the heart affect psychopathic geniuses differently than us poor mortals.” John fixed him with a knowing grin. “Mary was afraid of rejection, as anyone would be. But she did it anyway, like she always did.”

At this, Rosie slammed her little hands down on the table, demanding both men’s attention. “Mawee!” she crowed, proud to know her mother’s name.

They chuckled at her, Sherlock kissing her pudgy hand. “So I need to just… to just say it?”

“Well, don’t spring it on her like a booby trap or pop out of a cake with it,” John advised. “But yeah. Boiled down to its bare essentials, she’ll either return the sentiment and snog you silly, or she won’t.”

His friend blanched. “And if it’s the latter?” he whispered.

John smiles sadly. “Then you’ll at least know, and can begin to move on. But Sherlock?”

“Mm?”

He reached over, and in his awkward way, patted Sherlock’s hand. “It won’t be the latter.”

The men shared a look that only brother-in-arms and former flatmates would understand.

The look was was broken by Rosie clapping her hands and giggling madly. John tickled her belly. “Yes, all right, Miss Nibs, let’s treat ‘Lock to some chips.” He looked to Sherlock, who smiled gratefully. “This kind of battle needs a well-fed soldier.”

    ****

🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵

Sherlock was playing his violin when Molly arrived that night, a soft melody she had yet to hear. Possibly a new piece for his sister? He looked up as she came into the flat and dropped her bag and scarf on the coffee table. Hmm, she thought, the entire flat is spotless. He definitely wants to impress tonight.

“Hullo, Molly.”

She smiled at him. “Hi.”

He nodded to her yellow chair, still playing that light, tender song. She slid out of her flats and curled up into the chair, her oversized jumper pulled over her bent knees. As she settled in, she looked over the detective. He was so casually dressed, jeans and a white button up with sleeves rolled up, feet bare and warmed by the small fire in the hearth. Molly hugged herself, happy to see him so relaxed. He’d been through a lot since Sherrinford and their phone call. She too was still coming back to life from the ordeal and the knowledge of what happened on that horrible island and at Musgrave Hall. A particularly sweet note rang out, and she watched him feel it. Oh but she loved him. Doomed to, it seemed. Well, doomed might’ve been harsh -- destined sounded better.

The song ended as her ruminations did; she clapped quietly, smiling at him. He gave a small bow and set his violin aside, turning and gazing at her intently.

“Did you want me to order a takeaway?” she asked, curling her toes as he held that same searching gaze. “Maybe Chinese? My treat.”

“I love you.”

Molly froze. “Well, er, you got our cheque at Angelo’s, so this one is on me--”

“Molly Hooper.”

She stopped rambling, tears pricking at her eyes. “Sh-Sherlock Holmes.”

He came to kneel before her chair, his eyes still on hers. “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

She didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Sherlock’s hands, warm and sure, gently grasped hers. His pulse beat erratically under his skin, she could feel it match hers. Her heart was screaming, her mind refusing to remember the last time she’d heard him say it. When it’d been torn from him by his sister and her own pride. She simply stared at him, let his confession wash over her and through her like a sea breeze after a storm.

Sherlock slowly let her hands go, and he stood gingerly. John’s voice, so sure that Molly would requite Sherlock’s affection, taunted him in his mind. He cleared his throat, a curious and unfortunately familiar lump forming, and made for the kitchen, scrounging for the takeaway menus.

“Chinese, yes?” he called back to the quiet pathologist, his mouth working fast to fill the silence and not panic. "I’ll get it ordered. With rain imminent, it’s best to order now. You’re probably craving that house lo mein you like -- always are when you’ve worked in the lab, can’t figure out why though it isn’t exactly a mystery, probably just a chemical reaction to the, well, chemicals you’re working with that have you ravenous and craving sodium and carbohydrates and various proteins--”

He stopped abruptly at the feel of her small hand on his. He looked up and Molly’s cheeks were damp, tears slowly spilling down, but her eyes were kind, dark, and calm. 

“I love you,” she said simply. “I love you, Sherlock.”

She came up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, taking advantage of his relieved shock to -- as John Watson had predicted -- snog him silly. 

    ****

The takeaway was never ordered, but the fresh-baked biscuits were consumed heartily. 

The imminent rain arrived. 

The tidy flat remained so, save for the shed clothing upon the bedroom floor of a consulting detective and his pathologist.

#sherlolly #sherlock holmes #molly hooper #john watson #rosie watson #mrs. hudson

[cake-writes]

Fire Breather (Part Six)

Pairings: Steve x Reader x Dark!Steve, Implied Steve x Peggy

Chapter Warnings: Deceptively Dark!Steve, Endgame Spoilers, Angst, Alternate Timeline, Reader Has Powers, 18+

Summary: It all made sense now why he wanted to go alone, why he’d been so distant with you lately. Steve had planned this. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision like yours. And yours, well – it changed everything.

Part Five / Master List

It all happened in a rush. One minute, you were in a jail cell, locked up for crimes unknown and the next, you were back in your bedroom. Well, it wasn’t yours, exactly, but it wasn’t not yours, either.

Tony was extremely chatty as he led the way from lock-up, asking all sorts of questions about where you came from, to which you provided mostly vague answers. You’d already given away too much information in telling him that he’d died because of Thanos. The truths of your own timeline weren’t something that you thought that anyone here should know. You weren’t purposely being secretive, but you didn’t want to cause any more damage than you already had. 

Steve’s hand was warm and comforting on your lower back as they escorted you through the same halls you’d been through a thousand times – but here, only twice.

At first, you couldn’t help but flinch when Steve touched you. He’d hurt you in so many ways. He’d left bruises on your arms and your heart. He’d been so angry and bitter and spiteful with you over the last two days that it took you by surprise when he was finally gentle – and in that moment he seemed so much like your Steve that you found yourself letting your walls down.

It was naïve.

He immediately went to pull away, like he’d overstepped – and truth be told, he kind of did – but you just gave him a small, reassuring smile as if to tell him that it was okay. His eyes were the softest, kindest blue upon yours and, when you felt his hand against your lower back again, you found yourself missing him, missing this.

His affection. His tenderness. His care.

It had been a few weeks since you’d been treated so kindly by him, and even if he wasn’t your Steve, his palm radiated heat through the thin fabric of your shirt all the same.

“Why can’t I access any files?” you finally got enough nerve to ask at the end of your journey, when you arrived at your bedroom. “My clearance was denied.”

The question had been lingering on the tip of your tongue since FRIDAY refused to answer anything in the middle of the night, and you’d been wondering what crime this timeline’s version of you had committed. It must have been bad enough to revoke your security clearance, let alone have you thrown into a jail cell.

Tony’s chatty demeanour disappeared in an instant, and Steve’s hand instinctively slid to your hip, where his fingers dug in, as if to hold you in place – an act of desperation, almost. It didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable, just like the sudden change in atmosphere.

You still loved it – and him. Just not this him.

“Why don’t you get settled,” Tony suggested, clearly avoiding your question.

You frowned, before you turned your eyes to Steve, hoping he might offer an explanation. The second your eyes met, though, he looked away, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. He said nothing. Instead, he brought his hand back to his side.

You immediately missed his warmth.

“I guess it has been a tiring couple of days,” you acquiesced, eyeing Steve once more before you turned the handle to your bedroom door. “The meeting’s at eight?”

“Right! Right,” Tony spoke quickly, almost like he’d forgotten all about it. The others would need an update on the situation, and he’d invited you to come along just so that everyone was on the same page. The shock of it all had the team out of sorts, and he knew he’d have to answer your question eventually. The meeting might provide a good forum for that.

“I’ll see you at eight, then,” you told them both.  

“See you soon,” Tony promised.

Only when Tony pointedly cleared his throat did Steve finally look at you again, and all he offered was a terse, “See you then.”

It was a tense and awkward way to end a conversation, but you nodded once and then shut the door behind you with a soft click. When you turned around, you felt the anxiety start to creep in again. Everything seemed so familiar, and yet not. It was eerie. Even your towels in the bathroom were the wrong shade, just slightly – but, surprisingly, when you went for a shower you discovered that your soap and shampoo were the same brands you used at home.

Home.

So many things were the same, but the slight differences everywhere you looked were a constant reminder that this wasn’t your home.

At eight o’clock on the dot, you strode into the meeting room with all the confidence in the world. Well, not exactly. It was a façade, but you needed to exude confidence otherwise you’d shatter to pieces.

The others in attendance had been having conversations amongst themselves, but the second you walked in, all chatter came to a screeching halt.

It was too quiet.  

Tony had sent out a quick email stating that you weren’t a threat, but he hadn’t gone into more detail than that because everyone deserved to learn why straight from the source. That was what this meeting was for.

All eyes were on you, and you shifted uncomfortably at the front of the room. You knew every single person here, but you also didn’t. It was unsettling.

“So, uh,” you started, “I guess you could say I’m not from around here.”

You glanced from Natasha, to Bucky, to Wanda, searching for some hint of recognition from your closest friends, but you found nothing – so instead, you focused on Steve. His eyes were so familiar and so, so blue, and even if he wasn’t your Steve, just knowing that he was there offered some small amount of reassurance. In fact, his presence was stupidly calming. He was still a stranger.

“What I mean is, I’m not from this timeline. Let’s just say that this wasn’t my intended destination,” you continued, nervously fidgeting with the long sleeve of your dark grey t-shirt – something you’d never wear, just like the rest of the tight, dark, form-fitting clothing you’d found in your closet. “I don’t really know what happened to the ‘me’ that you all know, and I was hoping to get some clarity about that during this meeting. FRIDAY won’t tell me anything, and—”

“You died,” Clint interrupted.

Well, he never was one to mince words. Even still, his blunt statement caught you off guard, and you stared at him. “What?”

“Almost six years ago, now,” Natasha spoke up, and despite her flawless, emotionless mask before, it clearly bothered her to discuss this. She wasn’t the only one; just about everyone in the room shared the sentiment. You could see it plain as day: eyes turned downward in bitter recollection, heads hanging low. 

For some, it would have been much fresher in their minds, all the more an open wound, considering they’d just been brought back after a five year absence. Thanos had happened here, too.

“I’ll get you the files,” Tony told you quietly, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “It might be better if you read about it.”

His implication was that this was dredging up awful memories in the team. Even you could see it on their faces. The realization of it – that you’d died, that you’d been mourned – made your throat go dry.

“I’m sorry,” you offered hesitantly, sympathetic and genuine. “I—I didn’t know.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Steve told you, and you turned back to him to find that he was more upset than anyone. To the untrained eye, he might have appeared fine – a little bothered, perhaps – but he clearly wasn’t. You could just tell.

In that moment, you realized that the two of you must have been together in this timeline, too. There was no other explanation. You could read him far too easily. Even if he wasn’t your Steve, he was still like him in so many ways.

The question escaped you before you could hold it back, and you gestured between you and him. “Were we…?”

This wasn’t exactly the right forum for it, but this wasn’t exactly the right timeline, either.

“Yeah,” Steve responded far too evenly for your liking, and he slowly pulled a small chain out from under his shirt upon which hung two silver rings: a small, delicate wedding band coupled with a larger one to match. He didn’t have to say who they belonged to. “We were.”

The two of you were married. Married. Not just dating like in yours. 

It was another level of commitment that you would have reached one day, maybe, if Steve – your Steve – hadn’t been so selfish and made such a stupid fucking decision to go back into the past to be with his first love. That new knowledge shook you to your core, but more than that, it made you angry. 

It hurt, too. It stung to know that while your Steve had abandoned you, this one hadn’t. No, instead you’d been married, and then you died—

“It’s her all right,” Bucky said, then, and it drew you out of your reverie. When you looked over at him, you noticed the sweat dotting his brow, and Wanda’s, and Bruce’s – and then you caught Steve’s gaze once again, and you nearly forgot how to breathe. His eyes were a stormy blue, but you knew in an instant that it wasn’t because he was angry, too; it was because he knew.

Somehow, he knew about what happened in your own timeline. You vaguely recollected rounding on him when you first arrived, spitting some vicious words about Peggy. Not much. Then you mentioned her again to Bucky. Still not much. 

Still, he knew.

“Sorry,” you said again, almost robotically this time, before you made your way to the door. “I just… I need to just…”

You couldn’t even finish your sentence, instead opting to shove open the glass door and exit the meeting room without a shred of the faux confidence you’d displayed before. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think. All you could focus on was how much you wished that this was your timeline. 

Even if you were dead, here, you knew you must have died happy.

Now, you were anything but. You were a mess, upset and distraught and hating yourself for it. 

When you left, you took the sweltering heat with you.

Part Seven

Tags:  @jennmurawski13​, @stupendousshepherdloverpony​, @flowersbound​​, @mom---nicole​, @clevercamijo​, @argonclearhero​, @unlikelygalaxygiver​, @justendlesssummerfeels​​, @hayleymoondance​, @patzammit​, @fairytaleprincess8314​, @kali-rogers​, @blameitonthecauseway​, @m00nlightandmagic (I can’t tag you! :( ),  @isysen, @clevercamijo, @reerrrrskillz, @titty-teetee, @awkward117, @sebabestianstan101

#steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #dark!steve rogers x you #steve x reader #steve x you #dark!steve x reader #dark!steve x you #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers #dark!steve rogers #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america #avengers #mcu #fire breather

[ifridiot]

cryptid, rock, neon lights, ghost, grave, neighbour, fae, deer

Cryptid: what kind of otherworldly / cryptid / folklore being do you identify with the most and why?

This is a very hard question for me to answer, I have a very hard time identifying with anything without being told look specifically by other people that I remind them of that thing. I don't think that anybody has ever really likened me to too many other creatures concept aesthetics that kind of thing sure but not so many, like... creatures.

That being said, I often have associated myself with werewolves. There's something that really draws me to the concept of a being that can change its shape, that might look harmless at one moment and then in another circumstance becomes very dangerous and very obviously predatory or imposing and threatening. I have always especially been drawn to stories about werewolves where the werewolf is more sympathetic, rather than the concept of a creature that loses all humanity and can't do anything but savage those around it. I don't really find that to be a compelling narrative at the best of times, much less something that I would really think of myself in connection to. I think I tend to be extremely humane in most of my interactions, regardless of whether I am hurt or upset or not thrilled with the person who is trying to talk to me.

Rock: things you collect?

I collect notebooks. I absolutely adore having something that I can just pick up and write in, to the extent that I have notebooks that live in specific locations so that I always have one on hand. There's a notebook that lives in my bag that goes with me everywhere I go. There's another notebook that lives on the table next to my chair in the living room, and there are many notebooks that live in the bookcase beside my bed.

Another thing I collect is knives. I don't have very many of them anymore, because when I moved out of my dad's place I couldn't really take whole ton with me, but (marge simpson voice:) I just think they're neat. I keep a really fancy ornate one on a display stand that's on top of my dresser, and I have one that shaped like a whale that I got from a friend of mine, and it lives in its sheath because it's very sharp, in the bookcase that's beside my bed. I would really like to get more again at some point

I also collect recipes, especially baking recipes. I really love cooking, and I find it very useful to be able to pull up the exact recipe for something that me and my sister enjoyed, so I can cook it again. So I have lots of bookmarks from when I look recipes up online, just tons of bookmarks. And I have a whole folder of recipes that I've typed up from making shit up on the fly, which I love sharing.

Neon lights: what's your aesthetic?

I always have a really hard time with this question, too. Kind of like the cryptid question, I have a hard time visualizing myself, or seeing enough of myself from an outsider's perspective to really say if the things that I consider my aesthetic actually come across in any real way. Which is to say, I don't know that somebody walking into my space or looking at my blog would necessarily see my aesthetic the way that I see things as being my aesthetic.

Very babbling way of saying, “here are some aesthetic concepts I really like but I don't know if they show up in any way that anybody would ever notice that I actually like them.”

I really love bones and teeth, especially paired with flowers. I like crows and ravens and little finches and sparrow-y song birds. I am very into a sort of goth/punk sort of look with layered clothes and spikes on things... I really like putting pins and buttons on my denim jacket, and I am working on designing a piece to either paint or stitch onto the back of that jacket. As far as interior design aesthetic goes, strong I like lots of plants and like Earth tones in greens and blues, like sages and dusty blues for the wall colours and then lots of shelves to display things on…  lots of plants and lots of big windows to let in light,  but with actual curtains because I like to have some privacy. Wood floors with nice rugs, as opposed to carpet.  I like a very clean kind of decorating without a lot of centralized clutter (I prefer the clutter on shelves, so my blind ass doesn’t get tripped). I guess kind of like a soft cottagecore kind of look. And then add in some very vulture culture details mixed into that, some bones and furs and stuff. Love that kind of shit.

Ghost: have you ever had a paranormal experience?

Yeah I have had a lot of them, especially from when I was a kid growing up in this one really old, shitty house. The one that comes to mind most clearly is this:

I must have been about seven or eight, and I went to my parents’ room to do something – i’m pretty sure I was supposed to put away an armload of clothes. My parents’ room in that house had really bad vibes, like it just felt really spooky almost all the time and I never wanted to be in there by myself.

On this particular occasion, the lights were off and the blackout curtains were drawn so my father, who worked midnights, could sleep. I remember that it was super dark and cool compared to the rest of the house, but in the light from the hall and behind the curtains it wasn’t impossible to see.

Dad’s dresser was across the room, past the bed, from the door. In the corner farthest back from the door, deepest into the room, it was all shadow, and on this particular excursion, I remember something like a piece of shadow breaking from all the rest of the dark back there, and sort of sliding across the ceiling to weight over the dresser. When I stepped forward, intending to ignore this thing, it sort of dripped down, like a very heavy, viscous fluid, to stretch from floor to ceiling.

I absolutely ran, because I’d seen enough horror movies and I didn’t want to die.

Grave: what do you think happens after we die?

Dog, I have no idea. In a less... public forum I might be willing to talk about my really weird theory of everything, But it's extremely long, extremely involved, and I definitely sound like like the insane person that I am when I start talking about it. So not here and not now.

Neighbour: if you lived in an eerie town in the middle of nowhere, one of those where everybody knows something is wrong, but nobody talks about it, what would your role be?

Okay, so I absolutely insist that, in this scenario I am able-bodied enough to hold a job. I am the bookstore owner / employee who gives advice to travelers but in a really ominous, like, ‘get the fuck out while you can’ kind of way. I absolutely take no shit from anybody, I'm married to the town so I won't leave, but I want everybody to survive so I'm definitely giving people advice…

Unless I don't like them, in which case they can eat shit.

Fae: wings or fins?

Wings, absolutely every time. I'm not afraid of heights, I absolutely believe if I had been born with wings I would be a much different physically shaped person. That is to say, I feel like wings are one of those body parts that, were they naturally occurring and part of me, would have kept me inclined to being much more physically active and I probably would not be as dramatically overweight.  I absolutely would be the kind of person who just fucking flies places.

Deer: antlers or fangs?

I think that it is absolutely a hate crime specifically against me that I am being asked to pick one or the other.

I should be allowed to have both, and I would have the most glorious, gigantic fucking multi-pronged deer antlers, and just like absolutely massive fangs, like the male orcs from World of Warcraft tusks except where your upper canines are, just massive...

actually, can we be real and just say I absolutely have tusks like orcs as well?

#meme me baby #cryptid asks meme #saulsgoodman

[artificiary-fr]

ok so arti’s unnecessary opinion time

Just wanna give a disclaimer that these are just my sort of thoughts in general, and are in no way an attempt to demean, attack, or cause drama about any artist or staff member, or community member. Just kind of what I’ve observed and come to the questions/conclusions of. I got a little opinionated at the end but I tried not to single anyone out save for I think, one unnamed example? 

I’ll put everything under the cut here, because I know I have a tendency to get wordy (and spoiler: It did. This is a super long post, I’m sorry). So, here we go...

TL;DR: I like the gene, I’ll wait for the revamp before giving a concrete opinion, there were definitely some issues, I appreciate that staff took note/action, more communication like this or the dev streams is good (though communication between staff/community is a Thing unto itself of which I probably have a Disliked Take on and that was the really long part that isn’t necessary to read)

Okay before anything: the familiars. They’re super pretty! I like the recolors, and now I’m gonna have to grind the Kelp Beds for those boss fams. Dang. I love the kitty golem recolor.

With that out of the way, here we are - the subject of today’s discussions... Glowtail.

So, my first opinion: It’s not a bad gene! I can see some curious use for it, certainly. But there are some problems with it (and yes; I am aware staff has addressed this and pulled it to fix those problems! That’ll be more relevant later on here c: )

Note One: I think I do understand why it is a gem gene. Yes, design/thematically it does appear to fit the bill of a Baldwin Gene more. But I’d like to posit it’s the completion of a gem-gene set - Wasp/Bee/Glowtail. So in that regard, it makes sense!

Note Two: My personal opinion with the gene is that I like it, but it feels... hm. Plain isn’t correct. Like it’s missing something, I guess? I wish the segmenting was a little more prominent, and that the glow or gradient had a little more glitz/glamor, maybe some glitteries around the hips, to really sell it as a gem gene. I do like the glow we have on the other bits of dragon like light reflection, though, because it adds a little bit of dimension! All in all however even so, I do like it, and I won’t cement my opinion until we see what their updated version looks like in the future.

Note Three (The Problems): The art errors. What... what happened here?

As we’ve noticed, male snappers and male tundras are the two big offenders, with large chunks of color erroneously sitting outside the lineart quite noticeably. There is also part of the ‘glow’ (the aforementioned light reflection) that doesn’t make sense - being on parts of the dragon where it shouldn’t be, like on the front of wings where the tail is not in front of said limb, but behind.

But like... how did this not get caught before it got posted? Was it a time crunch, or it just... didn’t get quality checked before this happened? It’s really unfortunate. :c

Something I do with my art - and this is just my own process/thoughts - is when I’ve put down the base color, before I do any shading/highlights/big details, I pop a layer underneath the entire drawing and fill it with a high contrast color to the palette. That way any bits where I missed coloring in - or didn’t clean up outside the lines - becomes super noticeable, and I can fix it then instead of being a problem later. Maybe doing something like this before throwing the gene through the color automation process would’ve helped?

Last Note:

I feel like part of why these errors went unnoticed is because of how often, and sometimes how rushed, some of these updates have been - and this has been more noticeable in this year than otherwise. Is it because of community dissent with wanting more updates creating more crunch? Due to low-attention reticence creating a need for pushing more ad revenue / more “come to the site there’s new”?

I’m unsure, but it’s unfortunate nonetheless. I think staff, and FR as a whole, would benefit from like... hm. How to word this...

Maybe taking more time on updates / a more extended schedule so things aren’t as crunch (of course this being said, I don’t know what the workload is like so I can’t even say if crunch is applicable), and more open communication? Like how the dev streams were going - that was pretty well liked and everyone I know got pretty excited to see em and how the art was doing. It also opened up the avenue for more open communication / more nuanced opinions or thoughts.

---

But herein lies the huge issue, I think, with communication. This is the part where I’d like to reiterate, this is just my observations, and is not intended as an attack, a vaguepost, or deliberate callout at anybody. There’s no malicious intent here. This bit could also be construed as drama I suppose, and I apologize for that because again - not the intent. Just my take.

I’ve noticed posts going ‘no drama please’ or being tired when new updates come out of like, ‘oh boy here comes the negativity’ so I don’t think it’s just me who’s seen it, but have you guys noticed when anything new comes out, there’s an immediate rush of extreme salt and negativity?

And I don’t mean posts where its like “it’s not for me” or “I don’t like it but here’s [detailed/explained reason why]” - those are the nuanced opinions I mean. Those are fine. I mean the ones where people in forums, or on the more prolific drama blogs, are just.... mean/empty? Like “FUCK staff I hate how lazy they are with this it’s shitty looking” - that really vocal generally super salty in general minority of the community. Just hate without explanation, or just kind of aimless generalized attack/complaint.

I think that’s where communication with Staff fell off the bandwagon. The really loud, really vocal minority of folks who throw super salt or yell “This Sucks You Suck” completely overshadow the people who are well intentioned with sharing their opinions or problems/criticisms. The toxic bits and really vitriolic words are what gets seen and noticed. I think this is the majority of what gets heard, which is why communication got so closed off / shut down unless positive, in recent times. Do I agree with that? No, I don’t either - but I’m just looking at this from the outside. Idk how staff feels or thinks.

And this goes for both people who don’t like the content, and people that do.

Remember that the Keel thread got locked because someone who was white-knighting started getting real nasty with people in the thread, and going to extremes insulting artists who did mock-ups to help visualize their thoughts/opinions and was just being a real douche?

What I really wish was that we could have more open communication. Some of the things I really liked to see were like: Dev Streams, Community Updates/Q&A, Opinion Polls, That Update Progress on Breed/Gene Progress from a while back. All of that was excellent. And I like to see the community responding in well thought out ways! I like to see staff more hands on too! We’re only human and love this site and our dragons and want to see it at it’s best - but they’re also only human, and make mistakes, and we don’t know what’s goin on in there, just out here.

Trello is a really good way to kind of show that communication, and is transparent, but isn’t free-to-use for businesses, so... of course I also don’t know how Stormlight Workshop runs their business/hours so I’m just blowing hot smoke. But anyway, I think everyone would benefit from slowing down and opening up. If things are going slow, that’s okay - if Staff opens up to the community and says “This is taking longer than expected, but here’s upcoming releases / current in-progresses” I think we’d be like oh okay things are happening and it’ll be nice! As compared to everyone gets super antsy, nothing’s happening, no-one is talking... and then we get hit with a bunch of updates, some of which, like today��s, have... issues.

Of course then I worry that with more open talking or “we’re experiencing delays” the more vitriolic will get even angrier/saltier which doesn’t... help... but I mean... yeah. 

ANYWAY so I’ve written a full dissertation essay here without really intending to (see? I warned y’all! I ramble/don’t shut up ahahaha) so I’m gonna just stop myself here before I start going in circles. This last chunk I don’t really know what the meat of what I was trying to say was, now, I think. Sorry about that. It was just “here’s my stream of consciousness” apparently ^^;;;;

Have a good evening y’all! Thanks for listenin’ to my (rant?) if y’all made it this far. You’re appreciated and thank you for letting me bend your ears! Stay safe in this crazy world, hang in there, and have a good one!

#so i wrote a literal novel under the cut most of which can probably be ignored #but i do wanna say im not attacking the community in defense of staff #staff has made missteps and mistakes and doesn't handle some things the way they should #im just noting some things ive noticed that i feel like correlate #am i gonna make people really mad at me? oh probably #i hope not but idk #arti parties #update opinion #long post

[talix18]

November 21

Yesterday Katelyn called to see if I wanted to hang out. Katelyn is the almost 22-year-old who I call my adopted niece but she’s something more than that. I lived with K and her mom from the time K was 18 months old until she was four-and-a-half so I was her de facto other mom. I know it’s just the slightest approximation of what parenting must feel like but I treasure the memory of her being satisfied with coming to me if Mom wasn’t available. Three-year-old K running towards me when I showed up to pick her up from daycare. The memory of the Christmas when all K wanted from Santa was to see her father and her mother and I couldn’t make that happen – talk about powerlessness. Watching her sing at her high school variety show remembering how I’d been too terrified to sing in front of people…

She inherited some things from me – her opinions and eagerness to share them is probably the big one, but she also, somehow, has come to love Def Leppard (I suspect that’s her boyfriend’s influence). You already know how Def Leppard introduced me to my first boyfriend. I can tell you exactly where I was and who I was with when I heard about the car accident that ultimately took Rick Allen’s arm. I remember that someone who worked at a music store called me to tell me Steve Clarke had died. Def Leppard was my third concert (1st: Asia; 2nd: Stray Cats) – I still can’t believe Mom let me go with Allen and some of his friends at 15. Some people have made-up imaginary friends – mine were real people.

I went up to see K at her mom’s place after work (Kate’s mom and her husband of a year and a week are still on their delayed honeymoon in Tennessee) and we talked about all kinds of things. She said something about Def Leppard touring with Motley Crue, which led me to the Crue documentary I just watched on Netflix over the weekend. I was a fan – saw them open for Ozzy once; had a poster on my ceiling for a while – but the milestones in their lives were vague memories. Of course Tommy was married to Heather Locklear and Vince committed vehicular manslaughter, but that was most of what I knew.

The documentary is an unflinching portrait of the toll drugs took on the band – specifically Nikki Sixx – but that’s not the part that really got to me. I know how addiction works. I had to stop the movie to Google what happened to Vince Neil’s daughter after her cancer diagnosis, which paid off as the next scene opened on her dead four-year-old body laying in the hospital bed. So now I’m having feelings about poor Vince losing his daughter after killing his friend how many years after the fact?

On the way home, after playing a Def Leppard song, the DJ mentioned the tour with Crue and I had to call Katelyn. We are definitely going, I assured her, now that I have even more emotions tied up with these people. I am definitely not thinking about the fact that “Crue called their friends in Def Leppard” to arrange the tour because I assume that means the Leps were also hard partiers and I’d rather not consider all the sordid debauchery that follows along. (Poison is also on the bill, and we’re all down with Bret since Rock of Love. Don’t threaten me with a good time!)

K and I also watched Mean Girls, which I had never seen, and I’m always happy to patch up a hole in my cultural reference knowledge. “Her hair is so big because it’s full of secrets” is everything. Feel free to welcome me to fifteen years ago.

I have to believe the increased meds dosage is making a difference. Tuesday alone I scheduled a doctor’s appointment (colorectal), an ultrasound (thyroid), a dinner/movie date with a friend, a massage, an eye exam, and a dentist’s appointment AND I enrolled for supplemental vision insurance. It seems like a reasonable amount to accomplish in one day, but I’d been putting off some of these appointments for months. Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone? I will never be able to explain it. Trust me – I wish I could help people understand! The best I can do is recognize that I’m functioning more effectively and keep track of what I’m doing that’s different.

Yesterday I committed to flying to Boston to see a friend get married on New Year’s Eve. “Black tie optional”? Hell yeah I want to go hang out in that hotel and see that venue that my amazing friend and her intended are having a black-tie optional shin-dig in! I can’t imagine my lifestyle ever affording me such luxurious splurges on the regular so I need to take advantage of the opportunities when they manifest. Besides, I already have a dress that I got for a black-tie New Year’s Even anniversary party a few years ago; wearing it a second time makes it an even better value! (We don’t discuss how much money I ultimately spend on a wrap and statement earrings.) (Ack! I need to make an appointment with Katelyn for my hair!)

I haven’t seen Karen (the friend getting married) in FIVE years, which seems impossible, but there it is. Karen is one of my original gang of Webpeeps – Webpepes 1.0! Most of us met on a news aggregate website, got to know each other in the forum (4um elites represent), and created a new bulletin board to hang out in. At our peak we had about 150 members but the core group was about 40, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting at least 30 of us in meatspace.

The first time I met Karen (GreenBeans/GB) was at her then husband’s 30TH (?) birthday party. Rider (PsiDefect), Tim (GasMasher), and I drove my car up to Boston from Philly (Tim and I drove up from MD) to surprise this dude we’d never met, and that cemented my friendship with both Karen and Ted (Law). Their marriage broke up some time ago, which I learned the weekend she and I got together in Orlando with Catrina (CatWritr) and CJ (Hajen). Which was somehow five full years ago.

The first time I met ANY of these nerds was…I don’t even know how long ago at the original Farkoasterfest. I lived with Katelyn and Vanessa at the time and V straight up took pictures of Rider and his license plate when he pulled up to scoop me and head out to Sandusky, OH. I do know I was working at SSA and it was relatively early in my tenure, so early-2000s? It was also probably the first time I spent an entire weekend with people not in recovery since I’d gotten clean. Several hundred miles away with nearly perfect strangers – who thought that was a good idea?

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Some of the people I met that weekend and after are straight up some of my closest friends. It was my first experience making friends as an adult, which is startlingly difficult to do. My first group of friends that didn’t start in our hometown or on campus or in recovery – people I connected with in a realm where all we had was the words on the screen and our wit.

Places I’ve since hung out with these people include Seattle twice, Cedar Point one or two more times, Northern VA, DC, PA, and Toledo. I’ve seen at least three couples wed and have almost ten kids between them. I dated the guy in Toledo for a few years. I flew out to Seattle for Andrea (BigOrangeCat/TheOtherAndrea)’s 40th birthday party and to visit her in the hospital before she died. We helped Amy (Hisey) mourn the loss of her nearly full-term daughter. We helped Joe (ThedNeedles) deal with his ex keeping his son away from him – some of his helped him with legal aid. We watched each other’s kids grow up and have kids of their own. Norm (Zorgon) just emailed to let me know he was in town (-ish –northern DC suburb) and wanted to connect but was laden with germs – we get together for a meal very few years when work brings him this way. Never let anyone tell you your online friends don’t count.

(Logging back in to the old bulletin board to count heads gifted me with a video of Mike (BitZero) (father of FarKoasterFest) smashing up some obsolete Fark hardware. Good times!)

I reached out to CJ and Cat to see if either one was planning on coming to the wedding to offer the other side of the king-sized bed I’ll be sleeping in in Boston and I’m glad I did. CJ’s got a handful of kids so money is always a concern and I’m paying for the room whether I’m alone or with someone else. We’ll be FaceTiming Cat at midnight and maybe during the ceremony too.

In fact, I’ve been suspiciously functional this week. Monday was meh, but since then I’ve had three good, productive days in a row. I have no specific plans tonight so I could go to a meeting, or I could go home and see if any of this momentum can be channeled into house projects. Coming up with a fictional framing device has given me the opportunity to figuratively walk myself through the necessary steps to get started. So whatever comes of this writing exercise, it’s been worth doing.

#nanowrimo #f**k fifty

[n2-elite]

N2 Elite Review

So, what is the N2 Elite? Besides having a hot and also intriguing name, the N2 Elite is the next development of the Amiiqo that was very first launched a couple of years back. For those that are also new to the name Amiiqo, I'll go into additional detail. These products are NFC modern technology that allow you back up your Amiibo onto the one gadget. The most recent of these, the N2 Elite, flaunts 200 ports for supporting your Amiibo onto. I'll let their site attributes (under the image listed below) tell you a little bit a lot more.

Very first attribute 'Accumulate to 200 characters' is not technically a falsification. And also there are benefits and drawbacks to the declaration. The pro being that indeed, the N2 has 200 NFC ports that are empty as well as all set for project within the N2, wonderful. The disadvantage is that you have a few alternatives on how you wish to access them as well as neither of which are entirely excellent. The first being that if you wish to use Luigi and also he remains in slot 148, think what, there's no way around it, you're pressing that button on the N2 Elite 148 times. Currently, if you did every one of your effort for the N2 on an Android tool and also not a computer system, then you can always just specifically pull out your phone, tons the app, faucet on Luigi and also assign him right then as well as there which would be simpler, but that makes your phone even more of the item required and not always the N2 needing 200 slots.

The created feature is to have the N2 getting all of the conserve data from the game also, versus just being an empty amiibo, and that's great, it can do it, yet if you don't intend to find on your own pressing the switch 100+ times every time you intend to get to Luigi, it makes even more feeling simply to do the Android alternative, after that use the N2 on the Switch Over, 3DS, or Wii U and when you're finished with it, back it back up to your Android. I personally do not mind pushing a switch repeatedly, yet a child with an attention deficit disorder, or one that enjoys Amiibos but can't count to 148 yet, might most definitely have a difficult time. So I would certainly say it's for customers 10+ or adults need to help the children.

2nd attribute 'Easy button to effortlessly transform personalities' is undoubtedly simple. The switch itself has a nice tactile click and also it is also bent for your finger so it's easy to discover if you're playing your Switch, 3DS, or Wii U in the dark. It truly does the swap right through characters with each button press, this differs from exactly how easy it is to switch with games on the Sky3DS or the Sky3DS+ (just an instance for those of you that have owned a Sky3DS).

The third attribute 'Conserve your collector's products in mint problem, for ever before!' is kind of an advertising and marketing scheme. But I do not intend to use that term because it has a lot negative undertone and what I imply is barely unfavorable at all. All that I'm alluding to is that if you want to check your Amiibo especially, after that no, you can not leave it in the box (other than Shovel Knight) due to the method Nintendo layout the boxes. Since's not to state that you can deny every Amiibo possible as well as leave them in package as well as have a totally functioning N2 Elite. The N2/Amiiqo community is quite big and you can absolutely discover blank apply for every personality that exists. It's greatly kept in mind in those forums that, similar to video games, you need to unload your very own and also in the exact same vein as computer game, just have a back-up of what you have actually lawfully bought.

The fourth feature on the list ‘Family sharing of characters !’ is sort of a vague statement, but boy does that exclamation point help.  So let me take a crack at what they’re saying here.  I think that they are getting at the fact that the N2 is versatile and portable and that if Mom has 5 Amiibo and Dad has 18 Amiibo and little Billy has 63 Amiibo, that the whole family could back up the Amiibo.  And that if they were to all go on a trip with their Switch or 3DS’s, they could simply carry just the one N2 device and just share it.  This would reduce the need to carry 86 Amiibo, and would just be the N2 which is the size of a Chips Ahoy! cookie.  Do I agree with the statement after testing the N2?  Absolutely.  I had a mess of Amiibo on the floor and it condensed everything down to the convenient N2, so handy for gamers on the go or gamers who don’t want to mess up their Amiibo display.

Following function 'Backup several save states of your preferred personality!' holds true. The best example for this would be to first explain how Amiibo operate in Super Knockout Bros. Wii U/3DS. In Smash Bros. the Amiibo is basically a ghost fighter. You increase your Mario in a game for circumstances, and then when he is where you would like him to be in terms of properly executing his fireball relocation, then you can conserve him to the Mario Amiibo as well as take him to a good friend's Wii U or 3DS as well as see just how he prices versus their ghost. Now, this is where the N2 might can be found in. Let's claim instead of having the Mario Amiibo to conserve the ghost fighter too, you utilize the blank Mario Amiibo that is saved on slot 1 of the N2. And now let's state that you want to now work with Mario's close range fighting and also you obtain him finally to that factor. Now you can merely have an additional empty Mario onto port 2 of the N2, currently you have 2 separate fighting Mario's on one tool. This is incredibly handy as a whole however trendy within Hit Bros. most definitely if that is your scene.

Comparable to the previous feature, you can utilize the exact same Amiibo throughout several games. Let's state you own 5 separate Nintendo games on your Wii U that all use Mario, but he has save file information, in various other words, it's not simply Amiibos unlocking something, however rather, is a personality with save data. You can have the same empty Mario documents throughout 5 slots on your N2 Elite.

I would certainly say, that as of the time of composing this, Android is simply a need. Yes, they are releasing a read/write USB gadget for the N2 Elite on PC/Mac quickly. The Android part was challenging, I will certainly not be also shy to say it.

You can see 3 mirrors for the link to the.apk documents. They all say that you can download it as well as see the handbook. Yes, it takes you to the download on all 3 of those mirrors, but not the guidebook. On any one of them. Actually, finding a hands-on appeared to be basically impossible. In. Truth. Also seeing tutorials never rather yielded a solution on exactly how to run the app. And the app is easy, easy to a fault. No explanation is there in any capability. So you can begin poking and pushing your phone with the N2, but do you push the switch? Do you hold the button? Do you not touch the button whatsoever? At some point, you figure it out merely by experimentation, however that is such a sorry system. However yes, after you figure it out, and remember what you need to do, it's not near as challenging as figuring it out. Additionally, if you take note, they state expressions like "Touch the Tag" or "Touch the Amiibo" and to my discouragement, they seem to use them interchangeably. So my advice would be to listen. If you currently touched an Amiibo, it indicates that it desires you to currently touch the N2. Or vise versa.

So, my general ideas? It's a goshdarn good tool. I recognize that you simply review me discussing how aggravated I got with the app. Simply go into it understanding that it will take some hunch work, however all advantages take some time. Or you could merely wait until the start of June as well as get the COMPUTER program, the motorists, as well as the USB read/write device due to the fact that it looks exceptionally well considered in that respect. My in regards to the real N2 Elite itself, it does precisely what is promises to do, hands down. It can practically fit every Amiibo around now on it. And for those asking yourself, yes you can back up the Pet Crossing NFC Amiibo cards, and indeed, the Donkey Kong and Bowser Skylander/Amiibos job too.

[sinunamor]

An @aphsecretsanta gift for @52px !! Sorry about the late submission! Happy New Year!

Pairing: Ancient Rome x China (romechu)

Prompt: Long distance relationship, modern au

I do not celebrate Christmas, but I have an online friend who does.

Warmth seeped through his porcelain mug. Tired, lithe fingers curled around its smooth surface. A gentle press of lips, a small careful sip and the warmth spread through his chest. The morning fog rolled over the cluttered streets of San Francisco. His window presented him a view of Chinatown rising. Mr. Huang sweeping the front of his herbal shop, Ms. Zhou flicking on a neon light reading “welcome” and a “Merry Christmas” in English and pinyin for her bakery. Around them, the Christmas lights, candy canes and snowflakes signaled the end of another year.

He sighed heavily after the sensation passed, shuffling in his slippers towards the desk stationed in front of his window. Picture frames and assorted souvenir figurines decorated the corners of the mahogany desk. One frame pulled a little closer to his laptop than the rest. Wrinkled brown eyes flickered towards that wide spread of lips, those impossibly straight teeth, that youthful glint of mischief in his eyes. He sat back of the chair and took another sip. Jasmine green tea. The warm herbal scent carried many memories. He set the mug down carefully next to the frame and opened the laptop. He’ll enjoy the view better here. It must be nighttime in Italy.

***

He is the festive sort, that does not surprise me. He finds comfort in the company of others. He would send me photographs, selfies, of his travels and home in Italy. His apartment was so little, such home would be filled with many guests, neighbors, young and old. And he, the center of it all. I wonder if he would enjoy celebrating Lunar New Year with me. He’d enjoy the noise. It would be nice to see him happy.

***

He was half expecting it, Romulo wasn’t online. They did stay up particularly late last night chatting about Christmas plans in broken english and the occasional Italian. Yao briefly looked over last night’s exchange.

RV: nd you? you would be spending Christmas alone?

WY: Alone, yes, i’ll vidchat with Chen and his family...you? You would be throwing a ball

RV: Haha not this year. Decided to keep it small Just me nd my boys and my boys boys’ nd my little girl

WY: very small party so unlike you, i’m Concerned

RV: now you know how i feel!! Im always concerned when i hear you spend holidays alone

WY: i’m alright

RV: i know, i jus wish i can go over there nd spend it with you :(

I haven’t felt my heart pulse an ache in a long while. I do wish that could happen, but there is a half a world between us.

***

My name is Wang Yao, I have seen 48 springs pass me by. 48 years of hardships, blessings and everything in between. I have one son, of which I am very proud. Chen is his name, stayed in China and started his life there. He has his mother’s adventurous spirit, he attended San Francisco State. I admit, he was part of the reason why I came to California at all, but I suppose fathers are mostly protective of their children. While he studied, I was the roommate that cooked for him. But I understood fully that sons needed to make life without their fathers. When time and he graduated with a degree in Travel and Tourism, he and his then girlfriend moved back to the mainland.

So mostly, I was alone. I was too old to fully appreciate the costal nightlife and too young to play mahjong with the elders in the afternoons. An unfortunate generational circumstance of a part-time professor whose social life revolved around attending tai chi group in the mornings, afternoon chats with storefront owners and a dull lecture or two in Mandarin in the evenings.

My son worried for me. He does not see as old, he wanted me to find a friend, a “someone” as he put it, with whom to share interests and hobbies with. To attend events and explore San Francisco for no reason other than to have carefree fun.

***

“It sounds like you want me to find you another mother,” Yao joked over video chat one night.

His eldest son, Chen, laughed heartily. On his lap, an 8 month old daughter gurgling happily and wiggled closer towards the phone lens. Yao was very happy he managed a screenshot of her rosy cheeked face.

“Any partner will do,” Chen teased back. “Your children know you were never particular to any sort.”

Yao let out a frustrated sound, his hand twitched as if he could really swat his son a Pacific Ocean away. “You speak without saying anything!” he reprimanded, holding a glint in his eye.

“We just have your best interests in mind,” Chen smiled. “Ay baba, there are how many people in this world and you cannot befriend one?”

“Well, give me a phonebook of all the people in this world and I shall start inquiring,” Yao half-scoffed.

Chen pursed his lips, his baby babbling, “Yi yi yi!”. Yao cooed and sang at her, wanting so much to reach out and hold her.

“How about a forum instead?”

***

And that was how I met him. The world forum website. Chen had discovered its existence through one boring weekend spent on his school campus. It was a language learning forum but it was no secret that it also served as a dating site as it had the option to state that one was looking for a romantic relationship.

Of course what I had to offer was Mandarin, a fluent grasp on English, and some Cantonese. Yet, I did not feel like connecting with people from the mainland or the United States. The forum listed many, even unheard of languages, but none that held my interest for long. I wanted something simple yet unique, something uncommon but had a significant influence throughout human history.

I remember reading “Italian” and remembering how at one point in my life was enamored with the history of the small Mediterranean peninsula. Of all its accomplishments and failures, the dialects, the influence on art and politics. Of all the love and admiration for Italy as a whole.

It felt childish at first, but I was soon focused solely on the Italian threads, trying to start conversations with others within my age range. It was frustrating to find that it was never as easy as it sounded. Some seemed unreachable or plain dull and there was a great imbalance sent to my inbox from men than women. At first it was amusing, sending them off with an “Thank you for your kind compliments, as a man, I am very flattered” but as I was weeding out the active few with other intentions, there was not much left. I was soon logging in less and ignoring the few notifications I receive over the span of the week.

Until a “ciao bella ;)” reached me.

I do not know what intrigued me, it was not much different from the others that were sent and ignored. Perhaps I was in a good mood, perhaps I was in fact in a very bad one. Perhaps his profile did lure me in, as he claims to this day, but I responded:

“Wrong gender, it would be ‘bello’ not ‘bella’”.

Not even a minute passed before my computer alerted me of a new message.

“ciao bello ;)”

***

His name is Romolo Vargas and he is 4 years my junior. He wants to see the world, and he has been in half of it. He has 3 children, two sons and one daughter of which he is very proud. Unlike me, he is divorced and was spending his free time going to places he had longed to go as a child. He has been to Greece and Thailand, France and Estonia, countries whose name I cannot begin to pronounce. At first, I had thought I was an outlet for him to brag about his travels, about the women he wooed, but then he was always asking about what I done, how my day went, and how I felt. As if I was the most interesting man in the world.

Then the first Christmas came and he was insistent on sending me a gift.

***

“Baba, we are glad you found that friend,” Chen said over the phone. “But you never know this man’s true intentions. How do we even know a Romolo Vargas exists?”

“I’m well aware,” Yao muttered, feeling a tinge of annoyance course through him. “I’ll admit he’s a little flirty, but he never gave me reason to doubt his sincerity.”

“It hurts me to say this, truly it does,” Chen muttered. “But what if Romolo is just leading you on? What if this is a game that he plays?”

“On older men and women? Yes, I know,” Yao frowned, his tone a little harsher than intended. “Thought you had said I wasn’t that old to begin with.”

***

They would never understand the late-night conversations I had, of philosophy and bao recipes. While he was rising, I was preparing for sleep. We managed a balance of work and chat. We began to send each other pictures, photographs of our homes, what we see throughout our day and ourselves. There was never pressure or qualm to keep our discussions going, we just carried on naturally.

Then Chen suggested I should get a P.O. box instead. Bright boy.

His first Christmas gift was a small painted black rooster from Portugal, a few collected postcards from previous travels and a 3 page handwritten letter explaining the story of the little rooster, of his New Year plans and his gratitude of meeting me. I never felt so close and intimate to him before. I felt young again.

We carried on, occasionally sending each other trinkets and tokens of a blossoming friendship. I sent him tea leaves, recipes, inkstones and brushes, a book on tai chi and bonsai training. Soon my bamboo plant and bonsai pot was inhabited with little figurines from the entirety of Europe and western Asia.

The next Christmas we gifted each other the trust of each other’s phone numbers. The first video chat on our phones. When we saw each other on our screens, we laughed.

***

“I’m telling you, you look younger than you say you are! Are you sure you 46?” Romolo grinned. His backdrop was his gardens overlooking the coast. His curls, touched with glints of silver and gold lightly kissed his flushed cheeks from a chilled breeze.

“The sunlight suits you,” Yao admitted without another thought.

A soft, silent smile. Yao felt his heart caught in his throat.

“And I bet you capture it beautifully with your eyes,” Romolo muttered.

Yao wanted to hide behind his sleeve like a flustered schoolgirl. It was a sincere compliment, nothing that implied a growing love for him, no matter how he wished for it to be true.

***

This Christmas would be no different. We had agreed on only sending each other a letter as we haven’t been writing to each other lately. Yet, I had sent his favorite box of tea along with a translated poem I wrote in simplified pinyin. A silly little poem about the love of two birds on seperate nests with a grand river in between, using the strengths of their songs to communicate in new echoing melodies. He always expressed his admiration for Chinese calligraphy. I wonder what he will think of the poem. I wonder if he’ll attempt to read the characters himself before reading the translated bits.

I wasn’t so sure Romolo was going to send me something as well but I did not want to anticipate a gift. I’d prefer to be pleasantly surprised.

***

Yao opened another tab on his computer to check on his email, the local news and weather. Another chilly day as expected in San Francisco Bay. He silently debated going out to pick up groceries at the local market. He already gave himself a bread by sleeping in and missing his Tai Chi session. He stretched his lower back until he felt relieving pops. He sighed heavily, eyeing the little black Portuguese rooster. He reached out to grab it from its place between a figurine of the Roman Colosseum and a windmill figurine from the Netherlands. Yao smiled, running his thumb over the painted wing. The shine was mostly gone, but the sentimental par of him will forever remember the first intimate contact they had with one another. Gingerly, he placed “Little Romolo” back in its place, and stood up to make a light breakfast.

The lone click of chopsticks and the drone of a Chinese reporter from a streamed video on his phone were the only sounds disturbing the calm silence of his studio apartment. The cloud filtered sunlight bled through the curtains, casting greyer shadows in the dimly lit corner of his dining area. Yao rested his head on the heel of his palm, his leg crossed over the other, softly flapping his slipper against his heel. It would be nice to share the silence with Romolo. The reporter’s voice would be replaced with that of his low rumbling chuckles and gentle teases.

Yao’s lips curled up in a soft smile. Christmas would be lonelier this year.

He perked up to the sound of his phone buzzing to life. He turned his attention back to his phone and felt his heart leap. It was a message from Romolo.

RV: check yor PO box >:)

His lips spread into a wider grin. Of course the fool sent him something anyway.

Yao lightly brushed his hair and slipped into a light jacket, scarf and boots. He locked the door behind him with a an eager well-meaning click.

He strode down the hills with purpose. Simple, passing thoughts went through him. What if he gotten him a much larger present? A more expensive one? A painting? Yao chuckled at the thought. Romolo was more than capable for pulling such a stunt.

As expected, the post office was moderately busy. People in hoodies, beanies, scarves and the like made lines to send last minute gifts. Yao made his way towards his box, a small sized thing yet perfect for letters and small paintings.

Something caught his eye. His P.O. box had a note on it. Yao furrowed his brow and neared it. The note was in flowy cursive so he took some time to decipher what it said.

Look behind you <3

Yao’s eyes widened, turning around slowly before his gaze focused on a man that no longer blended with the crowd. That spread of lips revealing impossibly straight teeth and a youthful glint of mischief in his eyes. His brown curls stuffed under a beanie, still showing glints of gold and silver. A spread of lips so handsome, it made joyous wrinkles appear around his eyes.

“Romolo?” Yao whispered.

Romolo nodded.

Yao rushed into the man’s open arms, earning the stares of a few curious strangers.

It was him, physically, it was his scent, his arms, his hair, his breath. His voice. “Merry Christmas,” he muttered, wrapping his arms tightly around him in turn.

He must be dreaming.

***

“So I have my hotel room and everything, don’t worry!” Romolo explained quickly, his arms moving about the more he got excited. Yao found it endearing. They had stopped by a bakery to grab a sweet bread to commemorate the moment.

“I realize how it might have been an inconvenience for you, or perhaps,” Romolo chuckled nervously. Yao noted he looked a little older than he last saw him on video chat. He must be jet lagged. “A little strange since I did not tell you beforehand, er, outright.”

“It is a surprise,” Yao said. “But a welcomed one.”

Romolo nodded, his shoulders laxing in relief.

“How long will you be staying for?” Yao asked.

“A week,” Romolo sighed, placing his hands on the table. “I cannot stay out for too long during the holidays.”

Yao felt a hint of disappointment. There was no possible way Romolo will be back in time for Lunar New Year.

Yao eyed his hands and made the first hesitant slow reach for Romolo. Perhaps if he did not stretch it too far, he could pretend he was stretching his arm.

But he felt his fingers get caught. Pale, longer fingers were soon in between darker, thicker ones. They did not say a word, their touch molded around each other, feeling every callous and muscle. The strength of their knuckles and the softness of their pads. Romolo smiled softly at Yao, it wasn’t flirty nor teasing. Sincere. Like they have done this before.

“I’m glad,” Yao muttered.

He’ll save up to surprise him for next Christmas.

#aphsecretsanta #romechu #aph ancient rome #aph china #hetalia fanfiction