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unclewaynemunson · 1 year

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Okay so @willowworkswithwords sent me this fucking perfect prompt about Steve casually mentioning how much of an asshole his dad is is during a movie night at the Munsons and Wayne immediately shifting into Concerned mode, and I almost finished the thing but then tumblr glitched and i lost it to the void forever. I learned my lesson to never save anything to tumblr without backup ever again, buuut here it finally is:

Wayne first met Steve Harrington long before Eddie officially started dating the boy. He figured out that his nephew was head over heels before Eddie himself did. He hadn't been too thrilled about it, at first. In his experience, boys like Steve Harrington, with his big car and neatly ironed polo shirts, could only want two things from boys like his Eddie: drugs and secret encounters in the dark before he'd finally follow the path that was perfectly mapped out for him by his parents. But it didn't take him too long before he admitted that he had misjudged the boy. He noticed it even before Eddie himself did: Steve Harrington had fallen like a brick for his nephew, and he was in it for the long run.

He mostly met the boy in passing, whenever he'd come home from his night shift while Steve was just leaving the trailer park, or when he'd be heading out to get to work at the same time as Steve came by to pick up Eddie for a date or to hang out with that group of freshmen that Eddie would never stop talking about. The boy was always perfectly polite to him, calling him things like Sir and Mister, apologizing for being in his space and thanking him for the most ridiculous little things. Wayne thought it was a bit much, but he supposed that it was just how the boy had been raised, all formal and uptight. There was something behind it, however, a certain guarded look in his eyes, that always gave Wayne this uncomfortable feeling in his gut. He didn't quite understand what that was all about – until the three of them were having a movie night in the trailer on one of Wayne's nights off.

The two boys were all over each other on the couch, their legs entangled and their fingers intertwined, with their heads as close together as if they'd die if they wouldn't be breathing the exact same air. It made Wayne wish he had a camera on him; instead, he tried to imprint the picture into his memory.

He didn't care too much for the movie, which was about some rich teenage girl trying to break free from the restrictive uptown life that was suffocating her by getting herself some no-good boyfriend in a leather jacket – who Steve and Eddie enthusiastically agreed was a “hot piece of ass.” The main bad guy was the girl's dad, a character who checked off all the rich asshole dad stereotypes: suit that made him look bigger than he actually was, wife who let herself be bossed around by him at all times, and that kind of undefinable charisma, which made everyone else feel like all the air had left the room whenever he'd walk in.

'He kinda reminds me of my dad,' said Steve while leaning forward to get himself a handful of popcorn. It was just an innocent, offhand remark, and sounded perfectly nonchalant – but as he said it, the camera zoomed in on the girl's face to convey one single emotion: fear.

Steve leaned back into the couch and stuffed his mouth full of popcorn, getting crumbs all over his shirt and seemingly not noticing how both Wayne and Eddie had frozen by his remark.

Wayne met his nephew's wide-eyed gaze over the top of Steve's big hair. Wayne wasn't exactly a talkative person, and over the years in which Eddie had been living with him, they had perfected the art of silent communication, not needing more than some looks and gestures to have complete conversations with each other.

Wayne raised an eyebrow at Eddie, which meant something along the lines of Did you know about this?

Eddie responded with a barely-visible nod.

Wayne made a sideways movement with his head. Why didn't you tell me?

Eddie shrugged. It wasn't my place to tell, that meant.

Wayne nodded at him and turned his gaze back to the screen, but he was too preoccupied with other thoughts to properly shift his attention back to the plot.

'You wanna stay over?' Eddie asked Steve when the movie was finished.

Steve's eyes immediately flashed to Wayne's corner, that familiar guarded look in them. 'Um... Would you – would it be okay if I stayed the night, sir?'

'You can stay whenever you like, son,' said Wayne. 'And stop calling me sir, alright?'

'Alright, yeah, okay, sorry sir,' Steve stammered, which made Eddie burst into loud laughter. Wayne merely shook his head and got up from his chair.

He never sat Steve down for some official talk about his asshole dad – that wasn't his style anyway. He preferred conveying the message by little gestures: calling him “son” whenever he had the chance, refusing to be called “sir” ever again, giving him a key to the trailer, inviting him over to watch basketball together, taking him fishing when they both had a day off work... After a while, that guarded look finally disappeared from the boy's face. But it returned a couple months later, when Steve accidentally called Wayne “dad” in a distracted moment. Wayne didn't say anything about it; he merely gave the boy a pat on his shoulder to let him know it was okay. He didn't mind getting called “dad” by Steve Harrington for one bit.

#don't mind me rambling about stranger things #willow thank you so much for sending me this prompt i really loved it #wayne munson my beloved #ficlet #stranger things #wayne munson #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #fruity ficlet

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sanctus-ingenium · 2 years

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WIPs of some of my drawings where i made a full little painting for the sketch to nail colours or values first. i thought it would be fun to do a Behind The Scenes and also show u how some drawings changed, what i kept and what i discarded and at what point i just started adding unplanned details

all these were done using a mixture of sai and procreate

more comments on The Process under the cut

eye of the otherworld is inspired by a real photo i took two weeks ago!

i soooo wanted to draw water that looked like this, weeds and all, so the original colours of that sketch were picked direct from the photo. but i wasn’t satisfied with it so i changed it using a gradient map (you can see it’s crunchy on the borders between colours). for the final, i re-painted everything again using the sketch colours as a guide so that i would not end up with the crunchy edges a gradient map will give u, and so that i could add in extra contrast over the top. the black swirl pattern in the final was an ad lib lol but i’m really happy with how it gives the impression of water or liquid even if it’s not realistic... i will try again to recreate something like this photo tho because i am obsessed. the birds were originally swans but the necks were driving me crazy i needed a bird with a shorter neck and grebes are associated with this location in canon so it was perfect. they have very funny feet. the last detail i added to this was the white flashes in their primary flight feathers (which do not occur in nature btw)

hanged man was an interesting one because it’s based on a sketch i made in 2020 when i first wrote this fun impalement scene

here is félix being impaled for the first time in 2020 by a rusted harpoon that essentially rips his human disguise off to reveal the black carapace underneath

for the coloured sketch in the photoset i re-lined this exact sketch in sai to update it to match my current lineart style, but as you can see i realised the pose itself needed work and not just a re-line so i completely redid it in procreate to exaggerate the pose and gestures. i went into this one already knowing exactly what bg colours i wanted so that was no issue but the hardest part was weirdly figuring out what he was going to be standing on. in canon he is standing on top of a very high wall and leaning back over a fatal drop. the black pencil lines in the clouds and the bird were ad libbed but i liked the idea of throwing the bird in as some extra symbol of freedom the likes of which you will not experience if you have been shot with a harpoon. the green was not working at all so the swap out to more purpley pink tones was last minute. i unified the different colours by using a colour-shifting brush (you’ll see that his gaiters are different colours - i didn’t hand pick those, the colour jitter did)

for Big Pascal... originally it was going to be a confrontation between the guy on the ground and pascal but i wasn’t feeling the standing pose and it ended up being... if not restful then at least maybe a little more benevolent than the shadow of colossus shit it was before. the white cracks in the sky were originally going to be black but it just didn’t work. a lot of people tag this one as some form of cowboy aesthetic which is funny to me. there’s no cowboys here

i do like the lens flare effect in the b&w thumbnail tbh and i think i kind of lost the low camera angle effect in the final

i drew a bonus comic of the two characters interacting during this scene (mostly the lil guy just trying to ignore what’s happening in the sky)

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worldsokayestmagicalgirl · 2 months

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The first batch of pictures for Amoré's character journal are here! Also I have been so super sick that I've literally had nothing to do but to work on this for like almost 2 weeks so...

The cover to cover tour officially starts here. All I can say about the front & back is that I lament my lack of experience with my Cricut when I made these decals. I only had 2 "fun" colors to work with at the time & I was still getting comfortable drawing in Procreate, so my silhouette art leaves a lot to be desired compared to some stuff I've made recently. I also found it's incredibly easy to burn this leather book.

But she's volume one, everything with her is a learning experience, & I realized as much as it helps to have a mini heat press for tight corners & small spaces, the cloth barrier they suggest you use between the vinyl & the iron tends to make things harder to press on this scale. So instead I gotta quickly tap straight on the transfer film & hope I don't burn anything around it :(´◦ω◦｀):ﾟﾟ

So at the risk of thoroughly exposing my inner theater kid, Amoré set the precedent with how I went forward creating campaign characters. I started off collecting 5 songs to make a mini story arc (almost like a show choir set list 🙃) that helps me figure out an outline for the kind of story I wanna give them.

Somehow Amoré ended up with a truly horrendous blend of rock & theatre. Absolutely incredibe. No wonder she's always such a dramatic bitch.

It was a lot easier to go in & add little decals around these lyrics. I'm definitely cursed with the Too Much™ gene, but I enjoy the little pops of color they give ✨ plus it justifies me hoarding all these vinyl scraps printing stuff this small lol.

Stat sheet!

In all honesty, as my first character I had no fucking clue what I was doing when I placed these & if I could go back & change one thing I'd probably swap her Intelligence & her Wisdom. She’s definitely more people smart than book smart.

But everything else is...very accurate. She has all the upper body strength of a chicken nugget. Plus on top of the (already) negative I traded disadvantage on everything DEX for magic crystal shoes that can be periodically harvested. Just a way for her to carry around the family fortune without actually having to return to the vault✨

For something that started so average, her CON became a monster & always comes in clutch for her alcohol tolerance. I've played variations of her across a few different one shots & I always manage to roll well for anything alcohol related. The dice do respect a bit 🤣

Spells on the other hand, I floundered with a lot at first because we’re not a combat heavy game, but then I found Chaos Bolt & that was that. It’s essentially Amoré in spell form & I’ve had a ton of fun with it over the years. Also Mage Armor cuz my girl is SO DISTRESSINGLY SQUISHY.

Cantrips were more or less a bit of a toss up. Message was fun for the sheer idea of her using it to talk shit during social events without being caught. But aside from Light serving fun backstory purposes the other 3 are kinda just what looked fun ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ unless you count the idea that she would absolutely delight in zapping handshakes.

From there, I wanted to extend the world map made by our wonderful DM @cappierong into a full scroll. Ya know, for the aesthetic ✨

Our campaign started in Civania, where Amoré's main Estate is. I just wanted a quick mock up to reference, so I edited a preexisting picture I found that checked all the boxes (large, on a plateau, accessible only by bridge) and then absolutely smothered it in flowers.

But anyways... This is primarily where Diana & Amoré grew up together in their decade of backstory ✨

There was probably waaaay to much back & forth trying to keep the continuity between stuff I've already drawn & this big reference. But I think it turned out pretty ok? Not like if I make a mistake anyone will really know lol.

Scaling was also another big issue I had, & I moments where I thought something was too big I just kinda handwaved it away like "ehhhhh she's from a stupid rich family." But now I have a NEED to draw baby Diana & Amoré around like, the statue gardens or something cuz I feel like certain parts of this place are definitely ominous 👀 especially for children...

And lastly we have the back cover & the High Noble political relationship map! I normally have this closer to the front but for layout purposes it'll be here. I kinda feel like I need to do more for the decoration of it but I can’t think of anything else to add at the moment.

Sam if u read that no you didn't.

But now! Other than a family portrait that I've always wanted to draw, I think I'm ready to move onto the art for Season 1 : Arc 2. It's a pretty hefty amount of art in comparison to others, so I gotta get busy. Especially since I think I'm gonna have to draw a few comics *sobs*

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! I'm always excited to talk out our little idiots so thanks for indulging me ❀(*´▽`*)❀

#duo rong #dungeons and dragons #dnd character scrapbook #duo chronicles #amore bellridge #diana blackthorn if you squint #dnd #dnd character #dnd pc #dnd oc #character creation #character study(?)#dnd backstory #season 1 #dnd art #dnd campaign #campaign art

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martyrmystik · 2 months

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I think Tumblr needs to know about my dumbass Poppy Playtime AU I literally JUST made today so uhm... Here's the AU I've been hyperfixating on-

More information under the cut!

This is the first half of the Smiling Critters references (I loved making their designs omg)

Basically to summarize why they are a significant part in this AU:

This is an AU where the Smiling Critters survive, using anything and everything they can to continue to do so. It's a small resistance group (hence the AU name, "RESISTANCE") trying to fight against The Prototype! They still have their dynamics and everything else but they have more freedom to express themselves (hence, the clothes and accessories. And how Kickin' Chicken is wearing two bandana's because yes, he is extra.) AFTER the events of The Hour of Joy. By that time they were like what? 1st-2nd graders considering the experiments that were done? Now they are more like teenagers in this AU since I still follow the plot-line of the actual Poppy Playtime story taking place 10 years later-.

As for how the group works, everybody has their own little role and is in charge of something, they aren't made useless as it is a group based off of teamwork and friendship (despite the casualties.) Here's some of the roles they fall into:

(IF I SEE ANYBODY SEXUALIZE THESE CHARACTERS ISTG. THATS ICKY AND GROSS and I will make sure you get smited by lightning, because even if these guys are aged up THEY ARE STILL MINORS!!!)

Kickin Chicken: The vice president if you will, the leaders right hand man. (Because Dogday is the leader.) He's kind of full of himself but the confidence and pep talks help the team keep motivated, even if he is a bit self-centered

Bobby Bearhug: Assistant to Kickin Chicken (although they have a rivalry.) and also the medic. Is also the one who helps Dogday with anything considering in this AU he still has half of him torn off. (More on Dogday in his own section sometime later)

Hoppy Hopscotch: Basically explores the facility in any area at any time to gather new information on ways to try and get out (all of them are actively looking to escape btw!)

Craftycorn: Maps out stuff (maps, plans, other things) using her drawing abilities, although she also acts as the therapist friend because her art is soothing to others.

Bubba Bubbaphant: THE LITERAL. EMBODIMENT. OF. THE NERD EMOJI. He is a actual know-it-all which can come in handy but that makes him seem like a dick sometimes because of his knowledge.

Picky Piggy: I don't really have anything important to add to her, since I want to keep some of her lore a secret [might be revealed through the ask page I just set up for the AU on my page] HOWEVER she is the chef of the group and is literally the only one that can cook, if anybody else tried they'd all get food poisoning LMAO.

Here's some extra things in this AU that won't go in my other posts about this AU (maybe):

(So take notes if you want.)

- Catnap is redeemed, but it takes a VERY long time for him to get out of "old habits" as I'm going to word it. (Without spoiling too much of what I have planned.)

- I don't know what to plan for The Prototype yet but I'm talking with a couple of my mutuals on discord so maybe I'll figure it out eventually

- Dogday can normally stand and do other things because of the belts he has, however he can't put them on for too long (for like at max, more than 4 hours a day.) because they will wear into the plush, and he needs to put the belts on tight or they will come loose. He only uses such method when the group goes to hunt for food or similar activities, otherwise, he just uses a wheelchair when in the groups safe environment (the Playhouse!)

- This is going to be a shock to some people, but there is NO player character in this AU, not only is this a what if the Smiling Critters survived, but it's also a what if the player character never returned to Playtime Co.! This does come with some issues, like on how the asks are going to work, but trust me, I got everything taken care of when it comes to that!

- There also isn't really any shipping in this AU at all, I'm focusing on the story/friendship dynamics more than that, so if somehow you were looking for Dogday X Catnap this is, unfortunately not the place for that.

- This AU also has the personal interpretation of Dogday being part of the experiments some of the orphanage kids faced, as I don't really vibe with the idea that Dogday might be a Playtime Co. worker??? I don't know, I'm sticking with my idea for now but I will be keeping a close eye on canon if anything confirms or denies it, and I may adjust the AU accordingly if that's the case.

- Future posts may or may not contain other Poppy Playtime characters but the main focus is the Smiling Critters and The Prototype.

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

References of Dogday and Catnap are already done but I may wait a bit on Tumblr to see how well this AU is being received :)

(I spent 6 hours on all references in total 😭😭😭)

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 3 months

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tuesday again 1/30/2024

a good 60% of my brain is screaming in unemployment terror at all times so these will be somewhat abbreviated until that situation resolves itself

listening

sleeping on the ceiling by friday pilots club. this is a song by a five-piece alt-rock band from chicago that could EASILY open for mid-aughts fall out boy. i would like to think it is from the point of view of a freshly-turned vampire. listen this slot isn't about the best song i heard this week it's about the one that got stuck in my head the most

Hey, I swear I'm okay Honey, I been sleepin' on the ceiling all day Yes way, like hey I swear I feel great Looky, looky, love the feeling of being okay Yes way

spotify.

youtube

reading

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick. it was in a dollar book bin and i got it as a joke gift for a friend. mike resnick is a remarkably prolific writer who's done a lot of tie-ins. i don't have anything particularly notable to say about his star wars books but they are a sort of minimum viable product? they feel star warsy and don't annoy me on every page.

this book was published in 2003 and treats the people of the Nile delta and their beliefs with all the delicacy you might expect from a 2003 video game tie in novel. i do think the twist is being telegraphed way too hard. perhaps i should say instead of sending a telegram mr resnick has simply set the telegraph office ablaze as a signal fire. the titular triangle-pointed woman herself ms croft is VERY insistent she's just as good as the boys. this is pretty on par for my experience of 2003 empowering womens' feminism AND my experience in a male-dominated field so i can't really ding it too hard? aside from the racism, in the notably racism-free fields of archaeology and video games and archaeology video games, this book is aging a little strangely overall. i do not know if i will finish it before i mail it out to my friend, but despite its sins it is a very fast read.

watching

watched the four dungeon meshi episodes. it's cute! ProzD was an unexpected delight! it made me want to make something fancy for dinner but alas i still have to go food shopping!

some posts on my dash were talking about how the episode with the mollusks inside the living armor really got them hooked and i have to agree. i also saw the full potential of the show's speculative biology unspooling before me. i don't know if i currently have the brainwidth for the manga but it is going on my reading list for after i finish berserk. which is kind of like saying i'm going to watch chopped after i finish up hannibal

playing

forgot i had an original gen switch, given to me through a complex series in a complex series of friend barters back in uhhhh late '21? early '22? i got through 3/4 of the divine beasts the first time around and then could not crack the camel. it was well past time to create a new switch profile so i could start a new game without losing the old one.

omg twinnsssssssss

i did forget how goddamn big the map is. i have just now unlocked the camera and the memory quests, i have not really. done much more than basic tutorial and beginning of game stuff.

making

anxiously junebugging between a whole bunch of shit. finally figured out the correct charger/extension cord setup for my bedroom. replaced all the fluorescent lightbulbs and took them to be recycled. fixed the hall door enough so it latches closed and an irritated cat can't claw it open. tidied up the balcony and patio and repotted the surviving houseplants.

in textile news, started this cross stitch. this is a Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy Star Wars themed sampler, i have made two as gifts and had to throw out a mostly-completed one i made for me bc of the moths. but i now know exactly where this will go in this apartment and i already have the frame and i bought all the floss pre-being fired, so might as well? the real bitch of the situation here is backstitching the buildings. it's so start and stop. it's so much tan. i talked about this on the weekly siblingchat facetime and now my brother has requested one lmao. that's his christmas gift settled. i suppose.

i had somehow forgotten how loadbearing textile crimes are for me. i haven't done much of anything since the moth debacle, and that was almost two years ago. last night i found some suspicious holes in a camisole and i'm really really hoping it's just cat claws and not moths or carpet beetles or any other fun things that eat clothes.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #feeling unsettled. feeling petulant.

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grimvestige · 4 months

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2023 Summary of Art!

This year was full of experimenting and trying new things, and I think it really paid off in the end. I'm getting more comfortable with pixels, I finally have a way of painting I can do reliably, and I feel like I refined my main cel-shaded style a lot! I also feel like I improved on fundamentals just a bit more, with more solidly constructed anatomy (which I want to get even better at in 2024), and shading that actually makes more sense.

I feel like I'm finally getting to a point where I like my art - and a huge part of that is my partner picking up the habit of asking me what I like about a piece whenever I showed him something I made this year. It was super hard when he started, but now I can find at least one, maybe two things that are my favorite. I used to feel really, really neutral to bad about most of my work. I just did it and it was done, and on to the next piece. I knew I was "good" at art, but never really in the way I wanted. Now I'm daring to set my own work as my desktop and phone wallpapers.

I also finished a yearly challenge for the first time ever! Not that I completed every day of it, but I tasked myself with drawing a "Daily Snake" each day - as in Metal Gear, not the creature. It was sort of like those year of Miku challenges, but with Snake that left me room to draw any version of him. It was a fun thing because at the end of the day it ended up being like a little diary of my art, I could tell how I was feeling, whether I had lots of time to draw, all that. I think there was one time when I drew Liquid, there was an ACAB Snake in there, and also a trans one for fun.

Going into 2024 I have three big overarching art goals I want to work towards.

I want to learn and improve my anatomy enough to be able to solidly construct a body in perspective without needing to grab reference. (Not that I'll stop using reference, this is meant to be a goal that forces me to learn even more anatomy to feel confident with it)

I want to push my colors to be a lot wilder and more interesting. Rather than just picking the correct "local" color and working with light, shadow, and gradient maps to tweak colors, I want to be able to make interesting color choices right off the bat.

I want to at least try to start figuring out 'the style' for ttrpg art. (That nice rendered painting style you see in core books!) I'd really LOVE to start working on those projects, but I know most of them shoot for a different art style than I have.

The general plan is to keep doing studies, with the first half of the year being anatomy, the second half being color, and the ttrpg style thing being spread out throughout.

Thank you to everyone who's supported me and hung out on Tumblr! It genuinely means a lot, as this has been my go-to site when I'm down, and the one where I feel most comfortable sharing my art because the platform itself isn't predatory. I hope 2024 brings everyone lots of comfort and joy this year 💕

#art summary #2023 summary #my art #tw blood #tw body horror #daisy rambles

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haste-waste · 2 days

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WIP: Wisdom, Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Wisdom is coming soon! In it, Zelda and Link kill time by climbing the Hebra Mountains. I made a path of their journey on a blank map for planning and plot purposes. What obstacles could be in their path? Can you see where I forgot what cave a certain relic resides in lol?

They also talk a lot in this chapter. An excerpt of one of their chats is below the cut. Enjoy, and expect a full update in the coming days.

She stirred the fire with a stick as they settled in for dinner, and another question came to mind.

“What was the most surprising experience you’ve ever had?”

Link had an immediate answer. “Shrine of resurrection.” He took a bite of stew, a mix of venison, beans, and chili peppers.

“Figures,” she said casually. He’d experienced many surprising things on his journey. His comment from the other day regarding loneliness lead her next question. “How about with another person?”

He pointed at her with his spoon, prompting her to stop writing and start eating. She did, and the stew began to warm her cold, tired limbs.

He fished out a sizable chunk of venison with his spoon, and split it in half along the inner wall of the bowl. “My first kiss, probably?”

Zelda choked mid-swallow on her stew, and she made a pathetic, lilted noise when she tried to fight it down. It didn’t work; it escalated to a full-on coughing fit that burned in places that shouldn’t normally burn. Or sting. Or tingle.

“You alright?” He sat up in alarm.

Her eyes watered. She had gotten some up her nose. It stung just as much as her growing sense of embarrassment. At least she regained her ability to breathe after a few moments.

“Fine,” she rasped, then slammed some water to fight the residual burn in her throat, nose, and throughout her face, which must have been the same shade as the stew at this point. Her mind raced at the context. He felt willing to share that information? With her? Goddesses, he was willing to share the story of his first kiss? Who was the recipient? It had to be Mipha. It had to be. Absolutely. “Fine now, sorry.”

He gave her a sympathetic look, and mercifully continued with his meal.

What had she gotten herself into? The beginnings of panic and abashment began to stir, but she shook her head internally. This was her fault to begin with. Additionally, he was the one who initiated this excursion into delicate subject matter. It was her responsibility to be open and non-judgmental to his responses like all the others he had given. Besides, this was a chance to learn about him, and she'd take it regardless of her reservations about delving into his private life.

Link paid no mind to her internal justifications. “I must have been eleven? Twelve?” he began.

After all the fuss, she finally gave into her nosy ways and prepared to listen. He looked at her, waiting for a reply, and she beckoned him to continue with a raise of her eyebrows, taking a passing bite of stew in the process.

“Okay,” he said shyly. "Well..."

#wip #fanfic #zelda #botw #zelink #pre totk #renewal #maps

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spiribia · 2 months

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player freedom to do whatever the F you want has been a core tenet of GW2 from the start, but as genuinely neat as this can be, I think this is also my biggest issue with approach to map-wide metas. here is a huge event for anyone that happens to be around when it occurs - jump in if you want! - but often these actually pertain to the main story and are intended to slot linearly somewhere in between main story quests, and along the course of the main storyline itself it may not be extremely clear at what point it would be accurate to attend the meta.

let's say you've followed the main story to the Dragon's Lair map (which I just made up) for the first time. plotwise, you must set up camp with the NPCs and make preparations before embarking to destroy the dread dragon - but since you set foot on the new map, you are concurrently seeing information on your screen about a meta with an end goal to Help Bobby storm the Flame Gate and slay the Infernal Lieutenant. "OK," you say, "I don't know who Bobby is, and those things don't sound suited to my current phase of the story, so I don't have the context to participate in this meta yet." shortly after the NPCs may conclude that preparations are finished and the march on the dragon can begin - Quest Complete. you get a prompt to meet with the same NPCs to proceed with the next instance. this could be a traditional single player instance where the NPCs rally and begin their descent. It could just as easily open with the NPCs going "With the battle won and the barrier disabled, the dragon is vulnerable now - let's finish it off!", as though you've missed a step walking down the stairs.

the main story when beelined is full of little discombobulations like this - it's not impossible I've historically just missed out on relevant cues, but I do know with some certitude it's not a uniquely me issue to experience slight "do I know these side characters? when did they get here?" tier stumbles from time to time, even when I have completed the relevant material at the relevant time, due to further factors like multiple branching paths in metas. I understand that the format of GW2's living world is that you are naturally not going to be present for everything that occurs - it moves and breathes regardless around you - but this creates a disjunct with the linear main story About You when it plays it safe and acknowledges extracurricular activities or paths you *may* have done with a certain level of assumed familiarity for these characters and situations.

the game has no way of controlling what the player has broadly witnessed beyond the journal quests themselves, and also has no interest in being the boss of the player over this - yet there is still a structured developer choice of what from this broader content is utilized in the linear story, and how. the narrative may not ever force you into situations where you are exposed to a particular NPC - however, it WILL make you witness the NPC's emotional death in the main story with equal gravitas whether they were your mentor figure or whether they were some person shown in a cutscene for 2 seconds before dying.

the game doesn't seem to want Isolated Pocket Instances For Important Story and Overworld Map For Sidequests. i understand this, and moments where main story is integrated in a massive map-altering event with 50 other players in collaboration with each other is genuinely a wonderful experience when it does land correctly. the main issue is that for me the thrill of these event chains is not necessarily 'narrative i've gleaned from playing through them.' they're loud, dialogue is drowned out, the screen is visually plastered in flashy effects, you're focused on dodging AOEs and healing your ten simultaneously downed comrades. because of the spontaneous nature of these events you may have missed the first 3/4 of the NPC's conversation and so don't even really know what their banter is about even if you can stop to read the chat log for it. there is a meta where rox admits that she is thinking of joining the olmakhan, and if you don't happen to be around her when she says it you will miss that extra bit of context - yet as most other metas do, gameplay wise, this meta encourages players to split up and be in different places, most of which will not be near her.

it's simple enough to talk about these points - i understand it's much harder in practice to make cohesive. as with most mmorpg storylines, there is a jankiness here that i ultimately am willing to overlook because of the rapport the game has otherwise established with me.

it's not even that I mind spoilers, but because so many things are occurring regardless of if you were there for the context or even if you're at the right point of this chronologically at all, the map becomes this morass of random things that you can feel a bit detached from. if you see your main story NPC friend needing escort so they can set up pylons - is this related to a future plot event, or did you just miss the first section of this mini event where they said "I just discovered we have a rat problem in our storage, I need help setting up these rat pylons to repel rats"? are you 'meant' to be here - if not by the game's standards, by your own sense? and for those who do mind spoilers, you're seeing Help Bobby Use Crystals To Shatter The Field Protecting The Dragon Lieutenant on your screen from the moment you set foot on the map.

i'm always in favor of more guidance along optional material - more "(Optional) complete the meta of this map" objectives appearing at the appropriate time, more achievements for completing the meta before proceeding to the next quest, more concrete pointers where

#talks #for a year i keep sitting down to articulate my thoughts on the storytelling and it always ends up five million unfathomable #paragraphs long #i can never nearly explain it all. my I Could Probably Fill a 45 Min Long Youtube Essay topic.

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jasminedragonart · 1 year

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We're gonna do Treasure Planet because I love Treasure Planet.

Okay, first off, we all know this is based off Treasure Island so the plot is quite well known and, honestly, Disney knew that once the muppet version was released they could do nothing to compete against it so they had to go a different route which is how we got this beautiful movie.

I love the steampunk vibe. It's giving dystopian, it's amazing and you can really see the animators were having fun with experimenting with the character design.

We'll start with Silver. I liked his character design. In a lot of movies and adaptations they make Silver very capable and very mobile. They don't do this in Treasure Planet. Like you can tell this is a disabled man (cyborg) He has a very dog looking face, which is interesting in terms of symbolism because we could say he's like a dog with a bone, he won't give up until he gets this treasure but he's deteriorated along the way. You can tell that this quest has taken a lot out of him, not only his mind but his physical appearance. Like this man is half machine at this point and he doesn't shy away from that. Again, we see him struggle with his leg, he needs to take breaks which means, to the audience, that we don't expect a lot out of him physically. This is why we're quite surprised that he is very mobile when he needs to be such as when he's fighting Jim for the treasure. Mainly, however, Silver is made like this because we need to appreciate his mind rather than his physicality. We listen to Silver because he has very little else to offer in terms of character design, his words are what are important here not his strength. This is shown by him taking a leadership role when the mutiny occurs. Very rarely do we see Silver fight, again, he talks, he connives, he looks after Jim. And I did love that we saw Jim and Silver bond. Like you feel their connection in this film, they didn't gloss over that, they made it a struggle for him and it pays off, we are sympathetic to Silver at the end of the movie.

We'll move onto Jim. Why did they have to give us that song when his father goes off to sea? I feel like weeping every time I hear it, it's so sad and powerful and fits so well with the story because you can see this is a moment in time that has really affected Jim, he really loved his father and he wanted to go to sea with him, he's desperate for that paternal relationship. That's not to say he doesn't love his mother either. Like you can tell he does, he loves his mother so much but he's acting out because he's hurting and she doesn't know what to do with him. She doesn't have time because she needs to keep him safe by keeping a roof over his head. I love the parallel of his surf board thing being a hinderance in the beginning of the movie and then coming in handy at the end. I loved that. I thought it was poetic and it shows us as an audience that Jim isn't stupid. Like he has potential, but he's wasting it by getting into trouble. He made that board by himself, he literally attempts to fix Billy Bones's ship by himself and succeeds. Jim is actually really smart and it's quite nice to see that we can pick up on that within the first couple of minutes into the film. It makes the rest of the film, how Jim figures out the map and how the portal works actually plausible because Jim is capable of figuring things out, he's, again, not a stupid protagonist and we're shown this from the offset. It's very interesting that Jim's one of the only 2 humans in this film as well. They could have went full alien, but instead they made Jim human so he relates more to those at home who might also be feeling the way he does, aka abandoned and out of place in the world. It's also interesting because it does help to show just how alone Jim is. He literally only has his mother, there are no other humans but her in this film. It's very isolating.

Onto the professor and the captain. I liked them together. I liked the joke. You know, he's a dog, she's a cat, they're fighting like cats and dogs, it's funny. I liked all the star trek jokes they slid in there too 'I'm a doctor Jim!' like it works. It was great, their mutant babies were kind of cute, I liked it.

The crew was very interesting too. Like this film did a great job in making you feel for when the characters died. That guy who died, I don't remember his name but his rope was cut, I felt that, I really did. The sense of loss in this film is amazing. Like it is not easy to get an audience to empathise with characters, especially minor characters who die. But you feel it because it was a completely unnecessary and preventable death. It was murder, and that spider guy? Terrifying. I felt fear when he was on the screen, which is props to the colour and character design. He's red, which is our first immediate warning. Red is usually a colour associated with danger and blood so when he stands out and we see him we know that he's a bad guy. Also, he's a spider. A lot of people aren't fond of spiders and by creating this monster of a guy, like, yeah, I was scared when he was hiding in the ceiling, I still can't watch Jim looking for the map on the ship without feeling apprehension at what's going to happen. It's such good framing and storytelling, like it was an actual scary sequence.

The plot, again, we love it because it's Treasure Island and they did a great job in adapting it. You know it's a good film when you feel happy at the ending, and Jim ending up at the Naval Academy, Silver's constellation in the sky? It was great, I loved it. I love this movie, it's so good.

#treasure planet #disney

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somethingwittyandweird · 3 months

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So I finished Sea of Stars today (as anyone with me on their dash will find out as soon as they scroll past this post). Long story short, I loved it! It was a really solid experience from start to finish, and I'm going to take a moment here to sing some praises.

Early on the first thing that charmed me was the environment design- it felt like I could follow my character's journey visually on the world map through the zones when I entered and exited them, which just testifies to how well made the overworld map is. The environment designs were just great in general- every place was visually interesting and some of the backgrounds were absolutely jaw dropping.

I liked the combat system! It's not hard by any means but it's fun. It starts out slow to ramp up the interesting features and many times in the early game I felt like combats were over before I got to use any cool moves, but by the time you unlock all the mechanics it's a really dynamic system. I like the choice to flatten the MP bars and skill costs and put an emphasis on alternating spending MP on two-three skills and then basic attacking to replenish it. The live mana system gives another dynamic angle that ended up feeling a lot like Octopath's BP system in execution (again, setting up a cadence of small attacks to charge -> big damage attack -> repeat) but also interacted well with the lock system. The combo attacks are a highlight and the elemental lock system encourages nearly all of them to enter the rotation. The only gripe I have is that the Obligatory Indie RPG Timed Hits Like Paper Mario, while they do have good feel once you get them down, *really* could have used a timing example on first appearance, or someplace to practice using them. When a new party member showed up with a completely different attack pattern, it took me several fights of pressing A at random times during the animation to figure out where the right timing window was. Turning on the modifier that gave feedback on perfect timing was helpful to know when I had it, but I didn't like having to guess what part of the animation I was aiming at in the first place.

The characters were excellent- though I don't have much to say about some of them, others of them felt like they were aimed directly at me and the types of character I like. There were multiple times that I was delighted to see a new character get to join the ensemble and not just remain in place. I think they were all treated well by the story and most importantly, all had their moments to shine. On that, the story in this one was also excellent- some good twists and some *really* heartfelt plot beats that will stick with me. One visually shattering moment in the middle gave me that awe-struck "oh to experience that again for the first time" feeling whenever I passed through that area thereafter. Just an overall good story well told.

Like I said in my last post, I enjoyed the gamefeel of traversal, which is surprising since JRPGs aren't really a movement focused genre. But again, with the addition of verticality, climbing up ledges and rock walls, and later on the grapple hook to cross gaps, I was pretty engaged even when backtracking- though there was very little backtracking, since the world and environments were designed as very straightforward and easy to navigate. The collectibles and sidequests were at a good challenge level where they weren't free but they also didn't take dozens of hours to scour the world for the hidden door, etc. The game also gives you a modifier that gives a radar for collectibles too making it easy to get that nice shiny completion star. And the sidequests were all worthwhile too, especially the late game character-specific questlines. The full completion reward true ending surprised me at first, but I settled into it once the feelings started to flow.

It wouldn't be fair to the game to not mention the way it wears its love for Chrono Trigger and other SNES-era JRPGs on its sleeve. If "Guest Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda" wasn't enough of a clue, the story is tucked full of easter eggs and references, combo attacks and enemies and environments and plot beats that fans of Chrono Trigger would identify easily. But I think it handles the inspiration well, being an homage that still keeps up its own identity. The lore tying it to the studio's other game, The Messenger, helps with that. It's not just "hey let's remake this game we're all nostalgic for beat for beat" and more "hey let's do our own thing but throw in a lot of nods for us and for other people who are nostalgic for this."

Overall, playing the game was great to end 2023 and finishing the game is a killer start to 2024! A very hearty recommend from me.

#sea of stars #i talk a lot tag #long post #do i have too much to say in these sorts of posts?#nah it's my blog and readmores are my friend #i wish i could have said more about the characters and plot beats even #but everything else about my favorite moments is spoilers so i can't elaborate here #edit: oh yeah funniest thing about the endgame was that the credits had a button to multiply the scroll speed #and once the kickstarter backer section appeared another button appeared to super-multiply the speed

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franckyfox2468 · 4 months

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Francky's top 5 games released in 2023

So with 2023 ending soon I decided to make a little list and a top 5 of the games that I enjoyed and played that came out this year

Though i will be limiting myself to games/remakes released this year so while i greatly enjoyed Sonic Frontiers and AI the Somnium files this year, they wont make the lsit sorry.

I will start with the honorable mention of games that i still enjoyed but didn’t make it to the top 5.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Like a Dragon: Ishin

Ishin is the last Yakuza game I've played that was made by its longtime director, Toshihiro Nagoshi. And after playing Like a Dragon Gaiden, it helped me realize how much of a difference a new direction can make and how much I have taken the quality of the series for granted. Ishin wasn’t the worst nor the best Yakuza game I've played imo. Which makes sense given it was made right in between one of my least favorite games in the series (yakuza 5) and one of my most favorites (yakuza 0). Its story is perhaps not something you would be used to compared to the rest of the series but it is based on a tale that is as old as time itself that is still quite enjoyable for what it is and while it has some annoying bits (like substories always getting in your way during important event or gun fights), Ishin is still a quite enjoyable game with some fun stories, fun combat and fun minigames. And honestly the funniest version of Baka Mitai somehow.

BombRush Cyberfunk

I decided to check out bombrush cyberfunk after it was absolutely snubbed over in the same award show that decided to promote a JetSetRadio game and I figured I would finally get around checking what it was about before the year ended. I haven’t finished the game yet. I haven’t played JSR so I can't exactly make a full comparison but through some of its rather painful and counterproductive input mapping/options and some frustrating platforming here and there, BRCF is still a game with a very charming, silly and engaging presentation with its story, art and music.

Robocop: Rogue City

Rogue City is not a perfect game, and a quite short one at that. But it is a really good and enjoyable game for what it is. It's not something I would recommend to someone who hasn’t seen the two first movies as they would absolutely get lost in just what the hell is going on and potentially get spoilers from both movies. While the final battle was a bit underwhelming in contrast to what the plot was potentially leading up to with it and some fights could get absolutely tedious, the game to me is in line with the telltale back to the future game or the atari ghostbusters where it can easily serve as a new chapter for the mainline film franchise but through a really good game.

TOP 5:

#5: Baldur's Gate 3

Don’t get me wrong, Baldur’s gate is an excellent game and a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone who likes RPGs of any sorts with ease. But part of the reasons it is so low on my list are, 1, i did not finish it unlike every other game on that list, 2, all of the fun and your will to plan a future character and playthrough is absolutely drained out by the time you reach act 3. I played explorer mode as I am not exactly a tactical rpg person myself and wanted to put more focus on the story, which is absolutely great. Every party member is fantastically written and voiced characters, each with their own tastes, goals and views upon the world and situation around you that makes them very likable and fun to have. Honestly some of the more fun companions i've seen in an rpg. The game really does a great job at emulating the sense of playing through a real DnD campaign with a ton of hilarious optional dialogues and where your actions and picked skills will matter in the end, as well as how you synergize them with the rest of your party (without the dogshit power hungry dm or the potential constant in-fighting of other players), the way you are introduced to most of the main party members so early into the story really helps to that feeling of your DM making a scene to make sure all of the players are quickly gathered together and introducing each others’ characters.

For most of the game creativity with your spells, tools at hand and strategy are absolutely rewarded and if you bring in some friends for co-op it can get hella chaotic for better or worse. But by the time you reach the third arc, the story and paths you can take in combat are really narrowing down and not exactly for the better as each fight and situations you start being put through really ties your ends and forces you to be quite careful and specific with what you do even on the easier modes. It's gotten to a point where I kinda haven’t played the game in a long time because doing literally anything done by that part of the game feels like a goddamn chore. But BG3 is still a fantastic game that I do intend to get around to finishing someday as I still think quite positively of it for the most part.

#4: Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-fi rush is simply a fantastic game. A game that involves platforming and combat while mixing rhythm game mechanics could have easily been a blunder but this game manages to succeed at every aspect it does on top of its fantastic artistic presentation. The art, the animation, the music, the writing… It's all fantastic. The only thing that really left to be desired is the ending kinda falling flat on its message and just going back to the situation the world was in despite the systematic issues still being there but the good guys are on top of it now so that makes it okay i guess? But with that aside, I would say the game might not be for everyone as some of the rhythmic elements can be quite tight and unforgiving in some aspects and fights but overall it was one of the more enjoyable and absolutely hilarious games i’ve played in awhile.

#3: Trepang2

On the surface, Trepang looks like a dull military shooter game with some horror elements that are inspired by FEAR. But the problem is that going into detail about why it is so much more would spoil a fantastic experience that absolutely caught me off guard with how good it was. As someone who has never played FEAR, the combat, if anything, was a lot more reminiscent of Titanfall 2. Sure you don’t have cool giant robots but trust me it makes up for simply how absolutely bonkers and high octane it can get. It just feels absolutely amazing from start to end. This is one of the best single player fps games i have played in a long while and i am absolutely looking forward to the story dlc they have announced coming in 2024.

#2: Street Fighter 6

I have a love hate relationship with this game. I hate it because this game has caused some severe damage to my hands and at times I had to take a month long break from it because of how much it was starting to hurt. On the other hand, this is one of the most fun, enjoyable and accessible fighting games that I have ever played and definitely my favorite to this day. And i don’t simply mean because of its different control scheme. SF6 does an excellent job at giving all of the information the players need to better understand the game from within the game as well as official reading material like frame data and such provided by the devs themselves. And even if you aren't into fighting games or multiplayer games, I would absolutely still recommend SF6 for its world tour alone. While it does not have the most phenomenal story imaginable, it is a really goofy and enjoyable experience that perfectly blends rpg and fighting game mechanics for all to enjoy. And the best part is that every dlc release comes with free content and the ability to learn techniques from dlc characters you do not even own. Which honestly despite some of its issues with the monetizations is a huge W on the part of the devs regarding this game. Honestly despite some of its issues SF6 is the real first fighting game i started to feel like i was able to take seriously with how much resources and content you get, and it helped me get even closer to some friends as well as meeting some quite friendly people. I love SF6. But what could possibly beat it then?

#1: Pizza Tower

S rank is for Street fighter, which is pretty good. P rank is for Pizza Tower, which is perfection to me. I’ll admit I nearly gave up on this game because of some initial frustrations but pizza tower is a game you can ALWAYS get better at, even if you managed to finish the whole game. The best way to describe it is… it's the best Nintendo game not made by nintendo. Not because it tries to do something fans always wanted or replicated an aesthetic. But it's through just how polished and tightly designed the game is but it does so in a way that doesn’t punish experimentation with all of its crazy movement mechanics and it doesn't try to streamline anything for you except perhaps how player damage is handled, which feels like quite the opposite of what Nintendo does with a lot of its game nowadays. Everything feels so samey, streamlined, slowed down but the dated tired shit like extra lives and such are here to stay and you have to deal with it, while the new fancy stuff rarely brings benefits and usually are more so gimmicky annoyances (at least this is my feeling towards a lot of more recent Kirby games). While the game definitely has some of its downside and it's a quite hard game, it is honestly one of the best 2d platformers I've played and I'd easily put it aside to a game I would deem legendary like DKC2 or Super Mario World. Every level is well defined, well designed, you always get something new and fun at each of them. And that is not even mentioning its absolutely wonderful and hysterical art, animation and this absolute banger of a soundtrack.

I am ultra excited for the upcoming character dlc as it will give me a reason to replay the whole game with some new mechanics to add some spice to it all. Pizza tower is excellent.

#2023 #goty #goty2023 #pizza tower #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #trepang2 #hi fi rush #sf6 #street fighter 6 #robocop #yakuza #ishin #BRCF #bomb rush cyberfunk

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scorchieart · 1 year

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I hope I'm doing this right!

Luke / 5 / adventure / second 💜

Characters: Luke Randolph & F!Reader

POV: 2nd person Genre: Adventure

Prompt #5: “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want a distraction from it?”

Wordcount: 998

A/N: Hiya Violet, thank you for the request! I was super duper close to turning this into Luke's Pokemon journey, but maybe we'll leave that for another day.

Sand immediately seeped into the tears in your pants as you collapsed onto your knees, coarse and grainy against raw flesh. You heaved breath after breath, clutching your searing chest with quivering fingers, as briney salt invaded your nostrils, the scent unfamiliar and painful.

You peeled the heavy pack off your sweaty back just as another figure collapsed beside you. Luke landed eagle-spread in the sand, green hood obscuring the top half of his stung, sunburned face, giving him the appearance of a sliced watermelon shriveling under the sun.

You inhaled a final shaky breath and pulled the map out of your shirt. Several new creases had formed since you hastily stashed it away, but Rio’s markings still showed clearly. Verdant Jungle: fire ant, tic, bee infestation. Avoid green-bark trees. Salt water good for stings.

Something buzzed nearby and you swatted your neck. The smushed remains of a fuzzy black bee, and purple venom oozed down your fingers when you pulled back. Great, that made seven stings. That you knew of. Of course they wouldn’t be honey bees, you thought, shooting a contemptuous glare at the panting Luke. You hadn’t seen a single living flower in days.

You absentmindedly flicked the carcass and scratched your neck as you studied the map again. Scribbled just below the jungle, right on the bottom edge of the paper, was a pair of the goofiest faces smiling up at you. Sapphire Shores: hideaway paradise.

Your breath caught in your throat as you looked up. The sand extended a fair way ahead then stopped abruptly to be replaced by the largest slab of blue you’d ever seen. You knew it was water, of course the ocean was full of water, but the stillness of the air and the trees against the roaring waves turned the scene into a semi-living being. Like an unfinished painting and you had front row seats to each new brushstroke.

Flecks of warm ocean spray hit your tingling cheek as you opened your pack. You produced the rose stalk, what was left of it anyway, and slipped off your boots. The sand scalded your blistered feet as you approached the water, but the moment you stepped in the glistening puddles, it was as though a silencing spell had fallen. Cool, slippery foam pushed and pulled between your toes, and though your exhausted body threatened to collapse into its depths, for the first time in a month you felt strangely balanced. At peace. In control.

You plucked the final scarlet petal, let it fall, and watched the waves drift it out to sea. A tiny crab scuttled along the shallowest part of the shore, and you trained your eyes on its precise movements as it expertly maneuvered around pebbles and shells.

Leon would make a good king. He already had experience as a leader and the people really liked him. Plus he was sincere, earnest, and easy to talk to… a little too easy. But you couldn’t count Chevalier out. He could command a room just by entering, and his actions were based on decades of knowledge and calculations. He was dominating and honest… but perhaps too much so.

The crab encountered a cracked pink shell. It could easily pass around it, but for some reason it halted and stared, as though transfixed by the chipped swirling patterns.

Any prince would be excellent. And it’s not like the ones who weren’t chosen would simply cease to exist; of course they’d remain and help their brother. That was something even young children could expect. Yet they still expected you to make that choice.

The crab remained in place. Farther out at sea, the rumbling of a new wave burbled.

One month was hardly enough time to learn about a person, let alone eight. And select from among them a king? They were asking the impossible from you. A miracle. It’s like they expected you to fail. It’s like they anticipated a fail safe.

Rushing water enveloped your view as the wave crashed, soaking you up to your waist. Your hair frizzed as airborne froth stuck it out unevenly, but you still managed to locate the poor crab, rocking and kicking its limbs madly in the air. You crouched and tipped the crab back onto its legs with the tip of your rose stalk. It hurriedly scampered off without a backward glance.

“Amazing,” whispered a voice. Luke now stood beside you, bare feet submerged, staring at the horizon.

“First time in the water?” you asked. It was at that moment you realized that though you spent the past month traveling together, this was the first question you asked of him. All the golden opportunities to know more about this competitor for the throne, and you wasted them insisting on this perilous journey south. Truly, Sariel made a mistake selecting you as Belle.

Your mind drifted to Rio and how he slipped you the filled pack with the map and rose the very night you were brought to the palace, and how he insisted he stay behind for “damage control” despite your protests. You’d encountered Luke at the city gates with nothing more than a broadsword and his own pack. You thought of the nights spent in dubious inns where you were sure Luke barely slept a wink. You thought about how that wasn’t his most peculiar behavior; about the time he’d fallen off a stool when an old man in an eyepatch drunkenly collapsed on your breakfast, or how he’d somberly whisper names in the few instances he did sleep, like a sinner possessed.

“No,” Luke replied, “I used to visit a lake with my mom and stepdad.”

“And Leyla?” you asked hesitantly, and Luke’s gaze sharpened on the sea. You watched the welts on his face throb as you swirled lazy circles in the water with your hands, feeling at last the pain starting to quell.

It was almost comical; two outcasts escaping the crown, hopping the border, surviving a perilous journey usually only accomplished by highly-trained adventurers, and yet you still struggled to look each other in the eye.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you started, cupping some water in your hands, “Or do you want a distraction from it?” You splashed Luke and took off deeper into the ocean. He shook his head and began to follow, only to trip and fall face-down into the water. He picked himself up, removed his coat, and tied the sleeves and ends to a spherical shape. Your hearty laughter turned to squeals of panic as he scooped water into his makeshift bowl, a triumphant grin spreading across his features.

The next few requests will be more light-hearted, don't you worry guys :)

Tagging:@atelieredux @queengiuliettafirstlady @violettduchess @venulus @thewitchofbooks @leonscape @rhodolitesrose @venti-tangents @dear-sciaphilia @ikesenwritings @myonlyjknight

If you would like to be added or removed from my tag list, please send me an ask or a message.

#ikemen series #ikemen prince #ikepri #luke randolph #ikepri luke #scorchie writes #grab-bag prompt list

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sreegs · 2 years

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I’ve been GMing Cyberpunk games for about 4 years now with a regular group of people with others cycling in and out. My first campaign took 3 years to complete (lol) with about 50 sessions at about 3 hours each, though there were a number of side quests I made up along the way. That started off as a Cyberpunk 2020 + Homebrew rules, but 2/3rd of the way through we switched over to RED and converted everything since it was much faster session play.

That campaign was a slog, but it was a lot of fun. It started out very local (PCs were a group of friends in Northside who foiled a robbery on their favorite hangout) and blew up into an adventure that crossed state lines into Nevada, and eventually ended up in orbit with a climactic battle against the big baddie. It was worth it for the experience of just completing a grand campaign from start to finish. I started out with lots and lots of prep and by the end, I got my system down.

Though I short-circuited the plot a bit to save on time, I ended up being able to tell the full arc. It was a satisfyingly cyberpunk story: shadowy org of rich people using drugs to disperse nanites into people to control their behavior. This, of course, was unraveled bit by bit by the players. Started with “hey what’s this weird new street drug” and ended up in space. Bog standard, right?

Anyhow, I’m excited about my new campaign. Start from scratch, Cyberpunk RED, year 2045. We’re only two sessions in, but I’m trying something very different. I found that what I enjoyed most about Cyberpunk was the character arcs, rather than some big plot. This campaign is very different. I have no grand story to tell. Instead, it takes place almost entirely within a high-rise, all-in-one megabuilding in Night City. A place called “The Sydney” that promises to cater to your every need without having step out of the building. Apartments, retail, restaurants, etc. All under one very, very tall roof. Like V’s apartment in the Cyberpunk 2077 game.

Of course, the promise of luxury living in a cyberpunk dystopia is never going to be fulfilled. The building is a microcosm for the city at large: class divide amongst the lower and upper floors. Gangs fighting for turf from one floor to the other. Schemers and schemes abound.

I’m a heavy map maker. I think I really enjoy mapping more than anything, because I often find myself unable to start writing a story until I see the space in which it takes place. So what’s great about such a large recurring setting is that, I can re-use existing maps multiple times, the players become familiar with the map, and I can have empty floor plan templates to take out the groundwork of every new map. I’m using Foundry VTT hosted on the Forge. I used to do Roll20, but I found Foundry to be a much better virtual tabletop.

Here’s a screenshot of (some) of the players’ floor. My players are on Tumblr so I can’t spoil much in my posts. Here, three PCs (the tokens without names, top right) are standing outside their elevator in the central shaft that runs up the whole building. Some residents are hanging out near the edge of the terrace. There are apartments along the left and top edge of the screenshot.

I write every session as a one-off, with the goal of letting my players fill out their characters story the way they want. They’re usually simple stories. My first session was about the players’ floor experiencing power outages, it turned into an investigation to figure out who kept tripping the breaker, and it was a crypto scheme that they decided to break up with the help of a cyberpsycho.

The next session is soon, and the inspiration for the story struck me from just regular, daily life I experience living in my own apartment building IRL. It’s an interesting setting and I’m excited to see where it goes.

#cyberpunk red #cyberpunk 2020 #tabletop #rpg

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yaminerua · 6 months

Text

I'm thinking for much of the rest of smegtober I'll have to switch to drawings because the writing part of my brain is getting fatigued lol but I managed to churn this last one out tonight ahead of the other one I have ready for tomorrow;;

As always, prompts are by @a-literal-toaster-wtf

Today's prompt was Test, which of course immediately calls forth images of Rimmer and his many examination attempts;;

Words: 4137

****

Rimmer had done it again. He had smegging gone and done it again.

Somehow, despite all the meticulous planning and obsessive timetabling, despite having carefully mapped out every hour of every day for the last few months to optimise his revision and maximise his chances of success, here he was again on the last night before the exam feeling no better prepared than he had been before he’d even started.

It always ended up like this. Every time exam season came around he would work tirelessly, relentlessly, trying to find a study pattern that worked, subdividing his free time evenly into rest periods and study periods, allocating every subject and topic its own slot to prioritise information retention. It should have been a flawless method, workshopped to the nth degree, sharpened and improved to perfection after so many attempts and yet even after all this effort, after all this time, the result was always the same; complete and utter humiliating failure.

Of course, the fact that much of this revision time was usually eaten up by preparing the timetables themselves in the first place was an important part of why he always found himself in this situation but he was loathe to do anything to change the habit, somehow convincing himself that it had only failed because he hadn’t found the perfect routine yet and that once he figured that out and constructed the timetable to end all timetables he would be golden and he could finally kiss the lowly rank of Second Technician goodbye.

The definition of madness, as they say, is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Huffing out a distressed, agitated breath, Rimmer dug the heels of his palms roughly into his eyes, rubbing vigorously until he saw stars. He had no idea what time it was anymore. The concept of time itself seemed to have faded into the background of his mind, locked away in a box he didn’t want to have to open because at this point knowing just how long he had left was likely to do nothing more than send him tipping fully over the edge of anxiety and into a full-blown panic attack and he knew from past experience that if he let that happen his shot at success would be over then and there.

He was virtually running on fumes at this point, the last few nights a desperate haze of stressed, sleep-deprived revising – if staring manically at an open textbook and taking absolutely none of it in for hours could really be called revising – and his eyes were positively burning with the effort it was taking just to keep them open.

His head ached. It was as though his very brain itself had swollen up in his skull, pressing up against the insides and throbbing profusely from the exertion of trying to cram multiple textbooks’ worth of knowledge into it in the space of a few hours. The pressure alone made him thankful for the relative silence of the bunkroom.

Lister was out. Some time ago he had disappeared off with the rest of his brainless gang of hooligan friends to drink himself to unconsciousness and dance until the early hours of the morning with whoever could stand to be around him. With any luck he might hit it off with some desperate tart who would take him off to her quarters and spare Rimmer the trouble of having to put up with a drunken Lister staggering his way back and breaking his concentration.

It was the only silver lining this whole situation had at the moment. With Lister out and suitably occupied for the night Rimmer didn’t have to battle against his textbooks while enduring the torture of listening to Lister utterly murder a halfway decent song with his toneless singing or his even more unbearable guitar playing.

Aside from the background hum of Red Dwarf all around, there wasn’t a single other disruptive sound to complain about – which also meant there wasn’t an adequate distraction to blame his imminent failure on if it came down to it later.

Removing his hands from his face, he blinked the room slowly back into focus and hunched forwards over his textbook again, feeling the tension in his neck and the ache between his shoulder blades from too long spent in this exact position.

He felt as though he had been stuck trying to read the same sentence for hours, as though his brain had stalled and he couldn’t move past it until it started up again. Oh sure, his eyes would skim the letters and recognise the shapes and the words were certainly words he knew individually but as far as the meaning of the sentence as a whole and the information it held were concerned, Rimmer had absolutely no idea what he was reading.

It was as though the part of his brain that registered new information had gone on strike. Nothing was getting through and all that he seemed to be achieving by continuing to try to force it to was making his head and eyes hurt even more.

He needed to rest but there was no time for rest anymore. Frankly he was terrified that if he even so much as allowed himself the briefest moment to nap then he would sleep right through the exam and have to go through this whole nightmare all over again. He wasn’t prepared for that. Revision was key right now and sleep could wait. He would have plenty of time (not to mention peace of mind) to be able to catch up on the rest he’d missed once the exam was over and he’d passed the stupid smegging thing.

Frowning down at the page he blinked furiously, finding it more and more difficult to keep the lettering clear and sharp in his vision. Everything was starting to smudge at the edges, to bleed into the space around it as though there was something in his eye that wasn’t budging no matter how much he tried to blink or rub it away.

He shook his head, leaning further forwards towards the textbook, squinting to see if maybe that would help sharpen things by narrowing his field of view but it was no use.

The harder he stared at it, the more desperately he attempted to take in so much as a single solitary sentence, the more the words on the page swam dizzyingly just to spite him, rippling and distorting before his very eyes until they better resembled a particularly unappetising-looking kind of alphabet soup than anything comprehensible.

He dropped his forehead down to rest between the pages of the textbook, eyelids scrunching shut as he groaned plaintively into the quiet of the room. Why was his brain conspiring against him at this hour? He only had hours left and it was betraying him. Why was he wasting time wrestling with himself like this when he only had a limited window of opportunity to make some good, solid progress before Lister came back and crashed unceremoniously through his focus with all the grace of a hippo let loose on an ice rink? He didn’t have time for this!

Just to drive home exactly how much the universe had it in for Arnold J. Rimmer, the moment that desperate thought had so much as flitted miserably across his mind his ears picked up the tell-tale distant hollers of giddy, raucous laughter emanating from somewhere outside, growing steadily louder with every drunken, staggered step.

Pass by, don’t come in. Pass by, don’t come in… Rimmer thought fervently, repeating it over and over, beseechingly, in his head like some sort of desperate mantra, praying to whatever god might exist out there to take pity on him for just once in his smegging life but as had been well-established by now, if there was a god they certainly didn’t have a heart.

The door to the sleeping quarters slid open with a harsh, piercing hiss and in staggered one extremely wasted David Lister, an open can of Leopard Lager in his hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

With great difficulty he co-ordinated a clumsy wave to the retreating backs of Petersen and the others before he finally turned his attention to Rimmer, who had by this point straightened up stiffly at his desk and was doing his level best to try to pretend that he wasn’t secretly weighing up the pros and cons of throwing Lister out an airlock and blaming it on his own drink-addled mind. Unfortunately he didn’t think the ship’s CCTV would be on his side there so he begrudgingly had to shelf that idea.

As Lister stumbled his way towards him and leaned in far too close over his shoulder, the stench of beery breath and tobacco met his nostrils and he grimaced. “Lister, go away,” he hissed through tightly gritted teeth, every muscle in his body tightly clenched to resist the urge to swat at him and push him back. “I’m trying to revise.”

“Smeg, Rimmer, you’re such a bore!” Lister said, entirely too loud and entirely too close to his ear, his words slurring pathetically together. “You need to live more!”

Rimmer sniffed indignantly and finally deigned to press the back of his hand to Lister’s front and push him firmly away. “I’ll have plenty of time to do that once I’m an officer,” he said matter-of-factly, ignoring how hollow he felt inside as he said it. “For now my priorities lie elsewhere.”

Lister snorted and he took a long swig of his can of lager. “Yeah, bein’ a bore,” he muttered, staggering back over toward his bunk, humming tuneless snippets of Lunar City Seven as he went.

Rimmer could throttle him, honestly, but he bit back the impulse, however inviting it may have been. Instead he remained as he was, staring bitterly, contemptuously down at the infuriating textbook in front of him, taking nothing in while he listened to the rustling and shuffling of Lister moving about behind him, hopefully getting ready for bed.

He heard the discordant squeak of the ladder as Lister clambered his way up it and the tell-tale creak of the top bunk as it took the full weight of Lister’s body on it and he heaved a premature sigh of relief at this inconvenient interruption hopefully being only a brief one.

Before long, just like he hoped, the movement behind him stilled and Lister grew silent – or as silent as he could be given his tendency to snore – and Rimmer finally allowed himself to release some of the tension he had been holding. Maybe the brief distraction might have helped in a way, might have cleared his head enough for him to return his attention back to what was actually important.

He was mindful, agonisingly so, about how very little time he had left now. Since Lister had come back that meant that time had progressed considerably while he hadn’t been paying attention to it and he surely only had a measly handful of hours left at the most to fill his head with enough knowledge to pass. He flexed his fingers nervously, hyper-aware of the sweat beading on his brow as he considered opting for the last resort. It was the only hope he had left.

Glancing shiftily at the door and warily back over his shoulder, he watched Lister’s sleeping form for a good long moment, trying to ascertain for sure whether he was absolutely asleep and unaware of his surroundings. The last thing he needed was Lister of all people waking up and potentially ratting him out. That would be a fate worse than death.

Seeing that, for now, the coast was clear, he swallowed thickly and reached slowly, shakily, into the right hand pocket of his trousers, procuring from it a small, nondescript packet of little white pellets. Learning pills were strictly not allowed on board Red Dwarf. Rimmer knew that well. He had on numerous occasions in the past reprimanded countless other crewmates who he had spotted with the offending little things, scoffing obnoxiously at their pathetic need to rely on something illegal to help them succeed, all the while holding onto them himself instead of turning them in in case of a rainy day. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

He opened the cap quietly and, with a trembling hand, tipped two pills out onto his palm before hurriedly stowing the container away again. He stared down at them apprehensively, heart hammering in his chest and stomach churning at the sickening, depressing realisation that it really had come to this. If he wanted any chance of passing they were his only hope.

With one last quick, anxious glance back at Lister, he popped them in his mouth before he could change his mind and washed them down hastily with what was left of his almost-forgotten glass of water.

He waited a few moments for the panicked surge of nerves to subside, giving the drugs some time to hit his stomach and begin to make their way into his system. He wasn’t entirely sure quite how good an idea it had been to take them on an empty stomach when he was as sleep-deprived and physically exhausted as he was but he had done it now and his fate rested with them.

Lowering his gaze down to the Astro-Navigation textbook again, he sucked in a shaky breath and let it out slowly, trying to channel what little mental energy he was still clinging onto into focusing on the words in front of him, praying that the learning pills would aid him in retaining the information. Even if all they managed to do was hold the knowledge in his head long enough for him to regurgitate it all out during the exam and then forget all of it immediately afterwards that would be fine. He just needed it to last for a few hours.

Evidently he had left resorting to this final option a little too late. They ought to have invented pills that helped him focus as well.

Maybe it was the tiredness, maybe it was the stress, maybe it was a combination of both but it didn’t matter how hard he tried, how much he squinted and strained his eyes to try to make sense of any of the words in front of him. His mind had clearly shuttered itself off and was simply not allowing anything more in. He could stare at this page and all of the words written on it for the rest of the day and it would simply never make it through. He was doomed.

Raking his hands raggedly through his hair, Rimmer let out a low, tortured groan, dropping his head onto the table and clenching his eyes tight shut so he didn’t have to see the textbook anymore, didn’t have to look hopelessly down at the same stupid page he had spent most of the night so far stuck unable to get past. It was going to take a miracle to get anything of use to enter his brain now, even with the aid of learning pills.

He must have looked pathetic, sitting there slumped with his head on the desk and his hands in his hair. He had made an absolute mess of himself by now, his usually neat, severe side parting completely unravelling, the forcibly tamed curls freed from the submission they were usually brushed harshly into. He looked thoroughly dishevelled, as though he had been pulling his hair out all night. In many ways, that probably wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

Breathing out roughly, he let his head roll miserably to the side, sliding his eyes open to gaze dolefully, enviously, over at Lennon and McCartney, Lister’s stupid robotic goldfish that he’d brought back from his last shore leave trip. They were swimming slowly, mesmerisingly, around their bowl in repetitive, mindless little circles without a single care in the world, without a shred of responsibility or expectation or disappointment weighing down on them and as Rimmer watched them absently, dazedly, as though he were hypnotised, he felt something hollow and mournful settle unpleasantly behind his chest.

God, he wished he was a fish…

He remained like that, utterly entranced, his mind far away, for the next four hours and although he wasn’t exactly asleep, when the intercom finally sounded and Holly’s monotonous voice droned out the important morning announcements, it was as though he was dead to the world and he didn’t hear a word of it.

“Will all entrants for the Astro-Navigation exam please make their way to the teaching room. The exam will begin soon.”

On the top bunk, Lister stirred slightly, his face scrunching up as the loud chime of the intercom pierced through the deep veil of drunken sleep he had been nestled in and rudely stabbed his hung-over brain like an arrow.

Peeling a tired eye open, he squinted groggily over at the desk where Rimmer was still sat, hunched over and seemingly asleep. “Rimmer?” he called out, his throat hoarse after the night’s antics. “You awake?”

There came no response, which was an answer in and of itself. Lister groaned, rubbing his eyes vigorously before lifting his head with great difficulty up off the pillow. “Rimmer,” he said again, a little louder this time.

When Rimmer still failed to have any reaction at all, Lister rolled his eyes and with great effort, begrudgingly heaved his heavy aching body up into a sitting position, clutching his head momentarily as it swam dizzyingly from the change in posture. He didn’t want to have to be awake yet and would rather have slept off the rest of his night out until well into the afternoon but he knew that dealing with a hung-over headache from a premature wake-up call would be far more preferable to the absolute monster migraine Rimmer would give him for failing to wake him up in time for his exam.

Stumbling over towards him, Lister reached out to shake him by the shoulder and froze when he realised that Rimmer didn’t seem to be asleep after all. In any case he certainly had his eyes open though whether he was still conscious remained to be seen. For now he was staring unblinkingly over at the fish tank, his expression completely vacant like some kind of lifeless zombie. It was more than just a little bit disconcerting.

“Hey, Rimmer, man,” Lister said uncertainly, waving a hand tentatively in front of Rimmer’s face. “You okay?”

The reaction was almost instant. The moment Lister’s hands came into view, Rimmer’s expression crumpled like a tin can subjected to tremendous pressure, his eyes snapping shut as he brought a hand up to rub at his face. “Ugh,” he groaned, pulling himself stiffly back into an upright sitting position, his neck and shoulders aching.

Lister watched him warily, an eyebrow quirked with mild concern. He’d seen Rimmer work himself up into an exhausted wreck before but never quite like this. “You alright?” he asked again.

“Of course I’m alright, you gimboid!” Rimmer snapped irritably, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose tightly, wincing at the sound of his own voice in his ears. “What do you want?”

Lister’s face creased into a frown and he crossed his arms moodily over his chest. So much for a grateful morning greeting. “Just thought I’d wake you,” he said, glancing at the clock on the sink beside the bunks. “Since it’s exam o’clock now and all.”

Rimmer looked like he had just been force fed a particularly sour and putrid lemon.

“WHAT!?” he cried, horrified, leaping to his feet suddenly and nearly knocking the chair he had been sitting on over in the process. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I wasn’t awake!” Lister said, holding his hands up innocently. “I just woke up meself!”

Rimmer wasn’t paying any attention to him anymore. He was in an absolute panicked frenzy, scrambling for his comb and attempting to carve his forgotten side parting back into existence before gathering up the rest of his things.

Lister watched him, bemused, and had to stop him at one point when he spotted that Rimmer was about to squeeze foot cream onto his toothbrush. Handing him the correct tube, he fixed him with a dubious stare. “You sure you’re alright, man?” he asked. “You were starin’ at me fish all in a trance just there.”

“That was intentional, Lister!” Rimmer stated, but the projected confidence was an unconvincing façade. “I had finished revising everything and was simply taking a break to let the information settle in my brain!”

Lister wasn’t fooled in the slightest. “Uh huh,” he said flatly.

Rimmer clicked his tongue and curled his lip, fixing Lister’s reflection with a contemptuous, dark look. “You wouldn’t understand, Listy,” he sneered, straightening up his tie and giving his hair a final firm comb through. “You’ve never put the slightest bit of effort in in your entire life. As for me, the only way is up! Up, up—”

“Yeah, yeah, Rimmer,” Lister cut him off, waving a hand dismissively before transitioning it into a mocking impersonation of Rimmer’s usual elaborate salute. “Up, up the ziggurat lickety split.” He punctuated that last word with a sharp slap to his forehead. “I know.”

Rimmer shot him a look, cold and hard, and then turned back one last time to check his appearance over in the mirror. The intercom sound rang out hollow and daunting into the bunkroom again and Lister saw Rimmer’s entire body stiffen immediately.

“Last call for the Astro-Navigation exam. Will all entrants please make their way to the teaching room. The exam is about to begin.”

Rimmer swallowed thickly and flexed his fingers and for all the affected confidence and false bravado he put on, Lister could still see the petrified, haunted look behind his eyes that belied his true feelings on the matter.

“Listen, man,” he said gently, sincerely, feeling almost sympathetic towards the man all of a sudden, fighting the urge to reach out and give him an encouraging pat on the arm. “Good luck.”

Rimmer bristled and his expression creased into a forced, stretched smile. “Luck, Lister?” he echoed, rocking anxiously on the balls of his feet. “I don’t need luck. I’ve got everything I need to succeed right up” – he brought a hand up to tap a finger quickly to his temple – “here.”

“Yeah,” came Lister’s doubtful, sarcastic response. “Good luck.”

He raised his eyebrows, fixing Rimmer with a look that said “Trust me, you’re gonna need all the luck you can get.”

Rimmer seemed to pick up on it, the plastered smile on his face faltering slightly as his adam’s apple bobbed nervously in his throat. “Right,” he said stiffly, tensely, hands balled tightly into fists at his sides. “Well, then. Goodbye, Lister.”

There was a maddened look in his eyes, something wild and desperate and beseeching, as though he was almost begging Lister to do something to stop him from walking out there to his inevitable doom even if it meant he had to resort to knocking him unconscious.

He stood there awkwardly, frozen in fear for another uncomfortably long number of seconds, rocking back and forth on his feet before he finally accepted that no miraculous divine intervention was coming and he was going to have to just go for it.

Picking up his pens and popping them neatly in his pocket, he gave Lister one final, incredibly rigid nod of acknowledgement and strode swiftly, almost robotically out of the room with such a grave look of dread on his face he might as well have been on death row.

Lister watched him go with an almost pitying look of gentle compassion pulling on his face. He didn’t like Rimmer – no-one did – but he couldn’t help but feel just a little bit bad for the guy. He had been putting himself through these exams since long before Lister had ever even met him, driven by something he couldn’t relate to, a burning urge to make something of himself no matter how long it took even when it was probably pointless.

Maybe he didn’t deserve the power that advancement up the career ladder would give him, maybe it would turn him into even more of an insufferably unbearable smeghead, but if just so that Lister wouldn’t have to endure another night of Rimmer drowning his sorrows and cursing the universe for being out to get him, he hoped this time that something would go different.

Whatever he had been hoping, whatever he had been expecting, an exam paper scrawled with nothing but ‘I am a fish’ had absolutely not been it.

Oh well. There was always next time.

#smegtober2023 #Red dwarf #After tomorrow I’ll switch to drawing for the rest of the month I think!

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