#just dropping these potato pixels here

[remarkingonit]

#just dropping these potato pixels here #It was about time #Marina shower sex scene #We waited 84 years #LOOK AT THEM #station 19 #maya bishop #carina deluca #marina #maya x carina #carina x maya #station 19 edit #danielle savre #stefania spampinato #mine

[judithan-fr]

Tutorial: How I Render Accents

PART 2: COLORS

I usually do not recommend 'pixel hunting' aka going over your work with a fine tooth comb and picking out stray pixels to erase. However, for setting up a proper base layer for accents it is imperative to do so.

To explain my method of color blocking: I select everything outside of the lines, invert that selection, then fill in. This does a more accurate job than going into each and every section and filling them all in individually, and is also significantly faster. Only downside is small sections like above where you can see bits of the green (which I use bright green against a dark grey background to contrast the base color, lines, and background) poking out, as well as the inner section where it filled in a spot I did not want filled in. Getting all of this right in this stage will make your life easier as you go. (It's also the method I use to color block all my work, even beyond accents)

Now this where my style of rendering color may come off intimidating and, tbh it might be. I do gradients first and then I color over them with "normal" blend layers. I typically don't use multiply layers unless I'm shading something that has a lot of textures. If this scares you, it's okay I'll keep walking you through it. Here, my gradient goes from a pastel but deep periwinkle, to a soft more cyan blue, then to a lighter pastel green. Skipping steps and going from the periwinkle to green will give it a different look. There's also hints of a pinkish tone as an accent color.

So as I said, these additional layers are done with regular "normal" blend mode layers. I've placed one in between the butterfly line art and the line art for the rest of the flowers, and then an additional layer under everything else. This allows me to create a glow effect specifically around the butterflies, and then specifically under the flowers. Going back and forth with the proper amount of opacity (by using the airbrush transparently) helps to make it glow but not be Too Loud. Also checking it against a dark background can help to check for spots where it spills past the borders, as well as really gauge how Bright it is. I've also color matched the butterflies with the flower pits and the bulbs. This adds extra cohesion and makes them all look uniform but different enough with the gradients.

The stages of how I render gems/dew drops. Take the base color, make it a bit darker and less saturated (as well as changing the hue a bit depending on what the default color is. For yellows I go more orange/red, for blues I go more purple or even pink. It depends), add a small drop light at the bottom thats a fairly saturated version of the base color, and then a stark white/ near white highlight. That's it. Don't over complicate it, it will not matter when it gets shrunk down. Note that I do not use multiply/overlay/screen layers for these types of things as it adds too much bulk to the files and doing it manually helps to strengthen your color theory skills.

For shading and rendering, again, I create a "normal" layer and simply. Draw over what exists. Color picking and hand blending allow me to create the exact shades and effects that I want that multiply/screen/overlay layers may not be able to achieve. (which isn't to say I dont use them! i just don't use them for the main meat and potato part of my coloring) All of what is shown here is also achieved with the CSP asset SOIPEN (which can be found for free in the asset store)

another example. The one on the right is showing how the layer looks without the gradient base layer under it. All of this is rendered by hand. I also specifically put a highlight color around where the butterfly is sitting to give a better illusion that it is properly sitting on the flowers rather than just in front of them.

Next is changing the color of the lines, if needed. A method i'll use is I color just the sections I want (on a separate clipping layer) then lock that layer's alpha setting to them add in a gradient. It's a small and subtle effect that adds more depth without doing a lot of effort. (work smarter not harder)

Now we get to the Polish Layers!

first image is how it looks as a base. second image is with an overlay layer applied. I've used some dark purples and mid tone desaturated greens to push the values a bit further (especially evident on the top left wing) Third image is with a screen layer applied, highlighting the inner most part of the flowers and adding some additional bounce light.

An important thing to note about making accents vs making full coverage skins: OPACITY AND LAYER TYPES MATTER OVER TRANSPARENT SPOTS. What I mean by this is that if you use a soft, light grey to shade with a multiply layer, don't clip it to anything, and have it go outside the lines - that will no longer appear as a 'shadow' when it comes to the final result. Instead you will have a section of soft light grey that is simply laid on top of whatever the image under it is. The same applies for overlay/screen/add layers and so on. If i use a very dark color on a screen layer (to give a soft highlight) and airbrush it over a bunch of stuff and don't clip it, it will end up with this horrible dark splotch over everything that isn't opaque. To this end, mastering normal layers is imperative to having well rendered and convincing accents.

Another thing of note: when it comes to sparkles/small details, note how 'large' the sparkles behind the butterflies are. They seem a bit chunky, yeah?

this is what they look like at proper size. If anything, I could have gone larger on the small metal beads connecting the dew drop jewels to the lace.

Another trick I also like to do is this:

a slight hint of transparency! It's just enough to let the dragon's lines underneath show through but not enough to be super noticable. I like to do this a lot when it comes to sparkly and magical effects.

Next is the worst part of all: destroying all that beautiful hard work with the shadow and line art layers! (sobbing)

This stage always agonizes me. This is my first pass of the shadow/line layers and let's hope it's dark enough.

But yeah that's a start to finish look at how I create my accents. Unfortunately a lot it devolves into needing to know, yknow, line weight and silhouette importance, color theory and the ways that drawing applications actually apply color to a png vs how its rendered in app. All of these things impact the finesse of the accent, and are things you do have to learn gradually over time, but hopefully this has given yall some additional insight and perhaps some helpful tips.

And this should also explain why I get so mad when people go 'hey can I get this accent in another color' no! no you literally can't!

#flight rising #dragon share #my accents #custom umas #user made accents #fr fae

[csphire]

BG3 Patch 4 woes

Update: *waves a white flag* Puts all my mods back into the game and most of the old saves. Even after removing the mods, reinstalling the game, and updating my graphics card the damn kiss still doesn't work. So. I. GIVE. UP!

I only have the kiss on Anna so, after weighing all the pros and cons, I'm just going to keep my mods and progress. Given Anna's game was started waaay back when the full game dropped, and all the patches she's been through, I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps the kiss only glitched with just her. Cautiously optimistic Larian will fix the kiss for everyone eventually. Until then I'm just going to just play and try to enjoy the rest of the game.

....

Previously:

(Just venting here. Feel free to ignore it.)

Yesterday, after I noticed we got hotfix for patch 4, I decided to load up my oldest save with Anna and tried to kiss Astarion. As usual, since patch 4 dropped, I got nothing. Frustrated, I changed Anna's hairstyle back to her old default one and tried to kiss him again. Nothing. I then created a new save and closed the game. After I removed all my mods I loaded up that new save and discovered I can't even click on anything now.

"Great, just fucking great!" I mutter to myself as I created another save after removing all the mods. I then shut down the game, booted it back up, and reloaded the "fresh save" in the hopes that would fix it.

Nope! Of course, it did not work. Again, I couldn't click on anything. I next tried to make a new game. I got the infamous half-a-dozen naked guys around the Dragonborn Durge chilling in the astral area bug. Never in my life have I been so disappointed at seeing so many pixel dicks at once.

So yeah, at this point, I'm pretty sure I've lost everything. Still, I try not to cry about it. Instead I look at it as a chance to start fresh. To widdle down all my Tav's and Durges I made to my top favorite five. Plus since I made a habit of taking lots of photos during character creation I figured, "Hey at least I can easily recreate them and this time avoid some of the mistakes I made in the past."

Silver lining and all, right? Before uninstalling, I did try to verify the integrity of the game's files, to no avail. So, I bit the bullet and reinstalled the game. I did back-up my old saves, but I doubt they will work even after the reinstall.

My only complaint is the waiting. It's been well over 15 hours, and the game has still not finished downloading. I'm currently at 61%. Yaaah for potatoe download speeds. If this reinstall doesn't work, I might cry then. As I'll have to uninstall again, dig into the folders, and make sure all files have been purged.

Due to this headache, I think I'm going to run a vanilla mod-free game for the foreseeable future, which sucks because at least two of my fav Tavs/Durges use mod heads.

Rest in peace my lovely favorite Tavs and Durges, at least for now. <3

Vincent: Mod head, hair, and gear. My grump Durge that I won't be able to recreate anytime soon. ;_;

Gustav: Mod hair and gear. I can recreate him, but I'll miss his lovely fluffy hair and fancy outfits.

Anna: Just mod hair with her and my oldest play through with the least amount of mods active. She also had the pre-patch 3 dye looks I will dearly miss. The one plus side is I can recreate her in my sleep since I've made her dozens of times over since EA. But she was the only playthrough I had in Act 3 with a repeatable kiss option.

Tav: Mod head and gear. My other playthrough I won't be able to recreate until BG3 updates slow down or at least stop breaking mods so damn hard.

"Dammon"

Dammit, okay for him... I might break down and install two mods-but only the two! One that unlocks his eyes for character creation and another that lets me turn any of the companions into him. My thirst is strong for Dammon. I need more of him in my game. This is not negotiable.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #patch 4 woes #larian critical #so frustrated #game issues #bugs #just venting #don't mind me

[satoshi-mochida]

Maid cafe adventure game Maid Cafe at Electric Street to be published by PLAYISM

Gematsu Source

PLAYISM will publish Adventurer’s Tavern-developed maid cafe adventure game Maid Cafe at Electric Street, the companies announced. It will be available for PC via Steam. It will launch in 2024.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

Maid Cafe at Electric Street is a leisurely maid cafe adventure set in the otaku haven of Nipponbashi, Osaka. The protagonist of our story quits his job at an extremely toxic workplace and finds himself at a run-down maid cafe tucked away in a quiet part of Nipponbashi. There, he meets the maid Shiro. One thing leads to another, and he eventually gets appointed as the temporary cafe manager and put in charge of the management of the maid cafe. As the new manager, his first task is to scout cute girls to work at the cafe. Time to explore Nipponbashi and all the otaku stuff it has to offer!

Key Features

Get to know the four unique main girls: Shiro, Miyu, Favna, and Honoka, all voiced.

Immerse yourself in lighthearted stories about everyday life with the cute maids.

Enjoy the modern and gorgeous pixel art graphics depicting even the finest details, including the meat buns next to the convenience store cashier and the figures on the shelves of an anime shop.

Go on fun dates at Nipponbashi, from anime shops to arcades to the cinema!

The Four Main Girls of Fuwa Fuwa

Shiro – “Um, please be the new manager of the cafe!” A maid who loves Fuwa Fuwa Cafe. A huge otaku for anime and video games, she talks really fast when she’s gushing about the things she loves, and often splurges on merch without thinking whenever she visits an anime shop. A little clumsy, but works hard every day to become the cute maid she’s always wanted to be.

Miyu – “Hey Mr. Manager, thanks a bunch for hanging out with me today~☆.” A game otaku and gyaru with a big appetite. Loves both eating and cooking, and apparently really enjoys serving her cooking to customers at Fuwa Fuwa Cafe. Is actually Shiro’s friend on the online game Magic Angel, so they knew each other before actually meeting in real life.

Favna – “I am the Slayer of the False God, the Queen of the Kingdom of Darkness, the All-Seeing Oracle, the Guardian of the Dream of All Things—.” A mysterious girl dressed in gothic Lolita fashion. Speaks in riddles and demands the protagonist become her familiar. She sometimes accidentally drops the edgy act when she’s taken by surprise though, so maybe she’s just got a serious case of chuunibyou…?

Honoka – “Ya want a thrivin’ business? That there sounds like a job for our shrine!” A girl with a Kansaiben dialect who works as a shrine maiden at her family shrine. Practically in charge of the shrine, she is reliable and very good at handling money, and has a strong sense of responsibility to boot. On top of that, she’s also the only glasses girl at Fuwa Fuwa Cafe!

Support Your Maid Cafe Employees as the Manager!

As the cafe manager, it’s your job to allocate work to your maids. Make sure to give the right girl the right job! For example, Shiro is always enthusiastic to serve customers, and Miyu is great in the kitchen. Of course, you can’t just sit there while they work. During opening hours, you’ll also have to make coffee and help out on the floor, so it’s not as easy as it sounds!

The Stunning Sights of Nipponbashi

In order to recreate the atmosphere of the real Nipponbashi, the game features several real stores you can find there, such as Surugaya, Sofmap, Dragon Star, Super Potato, and Karaoke Rainbow, among many others. Don’t forget to pay them a visit when you’re shopping or taking one of your maids on a date!

Collectable Gachapon

If you’ve been to the real Nipponbashi, you’ll know that there are gachapon machines all over the area. In this game, you can also try your hand at collecting your favorite gachapon series and experience that unique gacha thrill of not knowing what you’re getting. As you collect more gachapon, you can even bring them up in conversations with the girls. Keep cranking those machines until you’ve collected them all!

Watch a new trailer below.

Publisher Announce Trailer

#Maid Cafe at Electric Street #Adventurer's Tavern #Playism #Simulation Game #visual novel #Gematsu #Youtube

[geryuthespacesquid]

Hi I'm a nobody asked digital artist, here's my thoughts on all the digital art programs I've tried. These are based entirely off my own memory, and I'm not picking up any of these programs again to test them. Just going off vibes.

Autodesk Sketchbook - Mobile:

This is more or less the definitive Draw You In To Art program. No exaggeration, I think if you asked maybe 50 digital artists in the modern day, most of them would've tried this one at least once. It projects an illusion of polish to distract you from a number of critical missing features, but overall, it's not even remotely bad to start out with. I think if my mobile tablet had a halfway decent degree of pressure sensitivity I could make something okay with it.

A more detailed explanation of my thoughts is hard, but to sum it up, this program bombards you with a million brushes for free, something rarely done by digital art programs, but, it also has extremely limited layer behaviors, you can't change canvas size anymore, and the stablizer is pits. I won't say it's bad. It's not. It's just not good. 5.8 out of 10.

Ibis Paint X - Mobile:

Comedically simple, this is the program you pick up when you're doing digital art a little better, and want to actually have fun. Bread and butter of the mobile digital artist. It has literally everything you need, it's just not fancy in any way. Getting every brush isn't worth paying for, but you'll live. They recently tried to step into AI and got punched in the gut so hard they stopped, which I like.

In general, this program doesn't do anything in particular extremely well, but it also doesn't do anything poorly. It's well rounded. I'd say if you're gonna do digital art on mobile, you'll always find yourself coming back around to this. It's just too solid. 7.8 out of 10.

Medibang Paint - Mobile:

I am biased against this program. I just don't like it. Maybe I was using it wrong, or maybe the mobile version is just worse, but it felt like drawing with mashed potatoes and gravy. Also it seems to be no longer available on my tablet, so fuck it.

In truth, my memory on this program is hazy despite me using it probably the second most out of all of these. No clipping mask, limited layer styles, an extremely limited number of brushes, no way to get more on mobile, anti aliasing made everything pixelated, and I don't think it can change canvas sizes, or if it can, I never figured out how. I just don't like anything about how the program feels. 3 out of 10.

Clip Studio Paint - Desktop:

Goddamn. I wanna recommend it. I really do. But. You have to know things.

First and foremost, the new subscription model for CSP essentially means that after a year, whatever version you have is obsolete, and won't even get updates while you have it. You have to pay a yearly subscription to get the updates for your current version. if you pay for the 3.0 version when it drops in march, it will be 10 dollars extra to get any of the updates to the 3.x version until 4.0 drops, when you can pay 25 dollars to upgrade to that and get all the 3.x updates, plus whatever came in 4.0. On top of that, it can cost anywhere from 25 to 200 dollars depending on which version you get, and if it's on sale.

But goddamn. It's pretty worth it. The brush engine is fluid, works great for making your own, I've never seen the program fail to do something. It has limits, but I've never hit them. 8 out of 10.

Rebelle 5 - Desktop:

Listen to me carefully. This one is extremely specific. You have to WANT a digital art program that replicates IRL media PRECISELY. If you don't care about that, this program is not worth it. I got it on sale for 10 dollars. Can I reccomend it at that price? Heartily. But at the near 200 dollar price point it usually goes for? FUCK NO. Rebelle caters to a specific demographic. Nothing else matters.

That said. When it works, it works well. I do like how rebelle feels and works. But not enough for me to ever tell someone to get it for full price. 4 out of 10, but if you really want to replicate traditional media, 9 out of 10.

Corel Painter - Desktop:

Never before has a program sent me on such an emotional rollercoaster as this one. It's just so much. It's a midpoint between Rebelle and Clip Studio, but for the worst. It's expensive beyond comprehension, you can't make your own brushes, only pay for new ones, it's a yearly format meaning a new, barely distinguishable version goes on sale every year for another 300+ dollars, and I only got it as part of a Humble Bundle for 25 dollars, and I still feel like I wasted my money.

And you know what? I didn't just dick around in this program. No, I made a full drawing in it. Nothing spectactular. Just a simple drawing. And I felt accomplished. and I went to export it, to share. Only to find out you can only email images to the email associated with your account to get a regular image version. Now. This made me irrationally angry, but, I calmed down, and tried it.

It only works with microsoft emails, and I have a gmail account associated with my Corel account.

This program is 300 dollars, and lacks the functionality to simply export a png to your computer. 2 out of 10.

#squidzard.txt #squidzardart #art #artists on tumblr #digital painting #digital art #digital illustration #art programs #rant

[hungnitan]

Hello again! Genshin anon here again after almost an entire update xD

It pleases me to share that I was able to play Genshin after all! Although it was on my phone... and it is horrible lol xD My phone is strong enough to run the game smoothly... as long as it looks like literal pixels lmao, on that aspect it really is a potato phone (◞‸◟；)

But today I come to ask for advice, please! Wether or not I will be able to play the next version, I wanted to decide if I should pull for Wriothesley or Neuvillette. Right now I'm more inclined to pull for W because: 1. I need more Cryo charas than Hydro charas right now and 2. Even if he is going to the standard banner only god knows when I get him if I even get him (I'm still Diluc-less after all this time TᴖT ) But Neuvillette is still making me doubt myself so please help! 🙏🏻

For a bit more context, right now I have one guaranteed character since I thankfully "lost" the 50/50 to Keqing while getting Freminet lol and I have around 180 wishes saved. With the best of luck (which I don't have xD) I could get them both, but I also wanted to save for a future Ayato hehe. Thank you in advance and have a happy day! 🌸

Hello genshin anon-chan ! (I gonna called you that lol) good to know or maybe unfortunately you literally just saying that you can't move on from genshin curse at all 😅 then again I really suggest you should buy another device for phones or add more storage for your computer since it only destroy your potato phones sooner or later...

First of all nope Wrio not gonna added into standard banner, and if you asked some opinion then again it depends on your preference of ikemen (lol). I play genshin from 1.1 pulling on Zhongli banner and next pull on 1.4 Xiao banner so in between that I know the real hard on playing this game based on ikemen instict 🤣 but despite that it's pretty fun since looking at those ikemen face kinda heals me (oh makes me remember using Chongyun Razor without knowing superconduct reaction means at that time🤣)

Then since you also want Ayato, well bad luck for you he gonna rerun on second half 4.2 😅 which means you need to sacrifice one of those three with your current pity...

In term of gameplay I suggest to drop Neuvillete, he's too self centric middle range dps which means vaporize can't do much dmg like Tartaglia national, pretty picky for artifact building and it's different than Ayato which kinda flexible to use (just good luck with those kairagi farming) but in term of ikemen it's really depend on yours, maybe you want putting KamiyanOno gay chara in one teams (believe me I watch Durarara Kurobas AoT lol) or don't forget Akira Ishida in roaster too~

PS : when you Diluc less for longest time then gets him, you just feeling so hollow later (lol)

#genshin impact

[roadkiii]

Entry 1.4.7-1 - Farming Simulator

Welcome to my blog. I’m not tagging anything but entry #, so sorry if my unrelated mess somehow ends up in your search.

1.4 is the first named minecraft update (if we don't count Adventure) which is cool I guess.

Our big goals this version are to create a large crop field for the three existing crops (two new ones :D) and to kill the wither three (3) times.

As I've been thinking toward the future of this world, I've realized I need to revamp my goals a bit, especially since I won't be able to open any naturally generating chests until 1.20 if I want to try to get armor trims faster. I've got a complete running list of goals here :)

I'll be killing a lot of zombies to try to get carrots and potatoes, which I'm not complaining about since I'll need a Lot of experience to enchant all of my armor if I want to survive.

oh nononono fuck no fuck that I'm not redoing everything.

I just double checked and there isnt even a new achievement it just decided to wipe. (update: achievements are linked to all worlds, so I can just get them back in a different creative world lmao)

......yeah I think some kind of barn will also need to be constructed, my sheep refuse to be contained. This'll be a full on barnyard farm I guess.

Okay first a quick distraction, forgot maps got improved and item frames were added. Idk when this will be properly displayed but here's a current look around our little village :)

Spent a night in the swamp north of the village (those maps are helping my sense of direction So Much) and while I didn't get any crops, I'm so happy slimes spawn here now.

Now that I've got 30 levels, let's see if I can't get my hands on a nice new pick enchantment

>:V

I've started putting down pens for my sheep, I'm thinking I'll have several of each color so that I can dick around with pixel art or carpets or whatever later. Currently i've got about 6 pens, trying to cover up some water so I can make it 8 (4 on each side) with maybe 2 colors to a pen? or I can resize them to be 16 individual pens but I'm not sure yet.

I've made some good progress on the farmland, I have four 9x9s of 3x3 farming spaces just so I'm prepped for when Beetroot is added. I think I'll have sugarcane and the stalk crops growing along the pathway between, but I still need to finish getting wood for these frames (excuse my floating leaves)

It's been kind of a pain getting the potatoes and carrots to drop from zombies though, maybe I should turn that dungeon from 1.0-2 into a grinder

Okay maybe I'll be fine without the grinder. Also got another disc finally.

Also went ahead and relocated my sheep, it was difficult to get them sorted (god I cannot wait for leads to be added) but I'm not 100% what I plan on doing with all of the overhead space. i need to finish the floors up there, but maybe I'll just throw some hay bales up? Unsure.

Still no carrots BUT I can now say the only discs I'm missing are Mellohi and 11. There won't be another disc added until Pigstep so it's exciting that I'm so close this early on. (also RIP my helmet. and basically all of my armor.)

Maybe next part I will make that zombie grinder. I could convert it into Drowned grinding for copper later too.

next (1.4.7-2)

#1.4.7 pt1

[ace-in-a-shopping-cart]

Love On Open Waters: Chapter 2: Failure

Chapter 1

Word Count: 1,027

The first few days Patton was in that cabin, he was barely able to stand with the rocking of the ship beneath him. After a while, he got his sea legs under him and was able to stand and walk around, not that there was much to do in such a small space.

About a week after his capture, Apollo came to give him his meal and told him that he was allowed on deck after he was done with it. Patton, overjoyed at the thought of feeling the sun on his skin and getting some fresh air, hurriedly ate the meager helping.

He followed Apollo out onto the deck. The sun felt warm on his face and he took a second to close his eyes and just enjoy it. The winds buffeted him and almost pushed him over but he opened his eyes and caught himself against the cabin wall. When he got his bearings, he took a few steps and leaned against the railing. 

The peace of the open water lasted just a few moments before Patton looked to his side and found a sailor with a weapon. He thought back to when Thomas had insisted he learn to at least protect himself if he was going to be wandering the castle and it’s grounds so late at night. Keeping that sailor in his periphery, he scanned the side of the boat and found a small dinghy tied to the side.

Launching himself into action, he barreled toward the armed sailor. He slammed into the man, causing them both to fall backwards. Patton struggled to pull the sword from its scabbard, lamenting the lack of a weapon he was familiar with. Just as he got it out of the sheath, hands were grabbing at him and trying to pull him off.

He struggled and shouted but was eventually pried off the sailor. Large hands pulled the sword from his grasp and let it drop to the deck with a clang, strong arms wrapped around his waist and threw him over a shoulder. He had a good look at the back of the captain’s green coat as he was brought, kicking and shouting, across the deck and deposited back into his cabin, all while being carried as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes from the cellar.

⚓⚓⚓

Remus was at the wheel when Apollo approached him. “Should I let the prisoner out now, Cap’n?”

Squinting against the glare of the sun, he pulled the brim of his hat lower. “Go ahead. But keep an eye on him or it’s your head that’ll roll!” He called the last part as the pirate scurried away.

He watched Apollo head down to the kitchen, come back up with a tray of food, and go into the cabin they were using as a brig. His hands steady at the wheel and no other ship in sight, he kept an eye on the cabin door. His first mate, Susan Webb, commandeered his attention to start planning their next cargo drop off. A shout and clatter brought his focus to the deck just in time to see their captive tackle Asher.

Remus handed the wheel to Susan and rushed to join the fray. Jericho and Apollo, the two closest, aided him in hauling the prisoner off their gunner. Remus threw the man, who seemed intent on causing at least one pirate harm, over his shoulder and marched him to his cabin where he deposited him on the bed.

The prisoner, Remus made a mental note to learn his name as this was getting tiring, shot up and tried to run past Remus but he caught his arm and pushed him back as gently as he could. Still, the man’s back hit the partition hiding a portion of the bed from the rest of the cabin.

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Remus stared the man in the face.

He twisted his lips into a scowl. “What does it look like I’m doing? Trying to escape!”

“And how were you going to do that? Steal the dinghy? Where do you think you could go from there?” Remus took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair before shoving the hat back on. “You would have starved before you got anywhere!”

The prisoner scoffed and turned away. “I would have dealt with that when it came to it. Even so, I would rather die of starvation than be kept a prisoner.”

“You’ve got spunk, I’ll give you that.”

Remus finally calmed down and took the time to actually look at the man he was keeping captive on his ship. His skin was slightly darker than the wood beside him, hair as black as tar. His light blue shirt was rumpled and his grey jacket was skewed slightly. Remus could have sworn he’d had glasses when he was kidnapped but they weren’t on his face now. Earrings glinted on his ears, simple silver loops that made him look sophisticated.

Remus ran his hand through his hair again. “Still, you’re going to stay in here until I’m sure you’re not going to try to pull a stunt like that again.”

“And what if I do?”

“Then you can stay in here until we can agree on something. You don’t try to maul my crew, I won’t let anything harm you during your stay.” Remus turned on his heel and exited, locking it behind him.

His crew had picked themselves off the deck and restored some semblance of order. The ones involved in the scuffle stood as close to attention as they could, all lined up and ready to get reprimanded. Instead, Remus just sighed. “Did anyone get seriously injured?”

They exchanged looks, Apollo tossing his husband a questioning tilt of an eyebrow and Jericho responding with a quirk of the lips. Finally, Susan spoke up. “No one’s hurt, Captain. We’ve just got some bruised egos is all.”

Remus nodded. “Susan, call Brian up and tell him it’s his turn at the wheel. I’m going to The Room for a while.” With that, he descended into the bowels of the ship.

Chapter 3

Main Taglist (Send an ask to be added or removed!): @antisocial-xxxpert, @more-fandon-than-friends, @vindicatedvirgil, @star-crossed-shipper, @the-sympathetic-villain, @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun, @punk-academian-witch, @sarcasmremovedsoul, @private-snippers, @mygenderisidiot, @mistythegenderqueermess, @5-falsehoods-phonated

LoOW Taglist (Send an ask to be added or removed): @cute-and-angsty-princess, @im-an-anxious-wreck, @lonelyanxiousbean, @akatsuki-no-katira, @pixelated-pineapple, @winterwynd, @acetatertot, @viva-la-pluto-dam-you, @pansexualpuppet,

#loow #remus sanders #patton sanders #dukeality #pirates #pirate!remus #beauty and the beast au #ace writes

[mymarifae]

any neat thoughts on noelle…. love ur headcanons!

omg thank you!!

i was really surprised because i didn't think i'd like noelle! i reallyyyyyy dislike christmas, so right off the bat i was like "ick.." but she's such a charming character... how could i not love her... she's funny and sweet and really well-written, and ofc her crush on susie is about the cutest thing ive ever seen. her friendship with kris is so precious too... the way they instantly settle into being comfortable with each other, like almost no time has passed. my god. they love each other 😭

umm something that really fascinates me about her is the constant references to angels in regards to her. obviously in snowgrave when that addison calls her Angel, but also during her ferris wheel with susie when she says she'd like to grow angel wings and fly way up high and far away from it all... okay i guess it's not Constant. but it feels really, really purposeful and important

ik it's more likely shading but i like to think the little blue pixels by her hood are meant to be very tiny angel wings... i mean, her dark world outfit is pretty reminiscent of stereotypical (western, christian) angel imagery. a simple long sleeved white robe.......

i'm convinced this will eventually tie in to the angel's heaven catastrophe ralsei talks about in ch1 - it's also worth noting that hometown's church worships some undefined Angel, apparently. remembering all those theories from the days ch1 dropped about Us being the Angel... and Us bringing about the angel's heaven... i feel like that particular conversation has kinda been forgotten because ch2 has thrown so much at us, but. hmmmmm!

(side note: can we also talk about how the roaring and the angel's heaven are absolutely not the same fucking event? ralsei? Ralsei??????)

i can't say for sure like, how. we're too early in. it's just one of those things i have a feeling will eventually be connected. i personally suspect that the angel's heaven is what happens when there's not enough darkness to balance out the light and with every fountain and dark world we destroy, we're one step closer to it. but this doesn't provide any insight into noelle eventually having something to do with it all.

im very curious about the repercussions of a snowgrave route and the divergences we're gonna start seeing as the chapters go on.

that's one of my biggest thoughts about her.. with no conclusion... i could probably sit here and force one out but i think what we saw in chapter 2 is simply the framework for something that is, frankly, unpredictable as of now.

some other thoughts about her for fun:

she is a trans lesbian ^^

if you've seen my WIP height charts you know but im so goddamn serious she is TALL. she and susie are almost the same height. she can also carry kris around like a sack of potatoes. kris loves their super tall monster friends sm

she is trying so hard to be goth. she thinks it's fun. her mom says no to most of the clothes she wants but she has found some pretty decent work-arounds for that...

speaking of. she's on the verge of a huge rebellious phase. well i shouldn't say phase - because It's Not A Phase Mom! more like, she's finally going to start growing into herself instead of timidly bowing her head to the expectations of others, whether they be her peers or the adults in her life

this is instigated by the dark world events, regardless of what route the player took. noelle after snowgrave will definitely take a more extreme approach to her teenage rebellion, though

she and kris are like... soulmate besties. it's like they were born from the same stardust, or some corny shit like that. no matter how much time passes and no matter how much they seem to drift apart, put them in a room and within 5 minutes they'll be laughing and joking like nothing has changed at all. they'll always Get each other. they both know this

i dont watch horror movies i dont have a good tolerance for that so i dont have any examples, but i think her favorites are the ones with practical effects and especially sick ass puppet work... i think she actually grows up and pursues making that kinda stuff for horror films and Maybe other genres... mostly horror

she and berdly are also really close. it's so fucked up that their care for each other shines through most clearly in a snowgrave route but they Are very good friends. they go on morning runs together ^^ (im Convinced berdly is the sporty type of nerd and in my brain he's on the cross country team too)

noelle sweetie please ask susie out you're killing me here

#mailbox #if i keep babbling about deltarune like this i'll need an essay tag like i have for cr hehe

[leechonspeeddial]

Midnight Shift: Singer's Blood

Summary: Something wicked might have come to the Burger King. Either that, or someone really needs deodorant

wc: 1.7k

Read on ao3

"And just like that? I'm in your game?"

"Eh, 'just like that' is like not it, Gucci, but basically. Yeah, dude," I watched as sprite mini-me walked all over the map — a pixelated version of East Laddle's last remaining Burger King, complete with a rat king decomposing in the parking lot and Not Kevin's monster of a car covering an old blood stain.

"Call me Gucci again and I'll burn down your secret edibles stash"

"Nah, dude. The invitation for your family's gala was written in gold, and the card was imported from France. I think I'm entitled, yeah?" I rolled my eyes and cursed as the date to Alice's stupid party drew to a close. Two more days before the humans unknowingly walked into a vampire lair.  

It was cliché to say that I just wanted to be a normal kid, and there was a part of me that would be happy to explain everything I felt with the cliché. But I knew that wasn't it — spending a decade in high school made you realize how stifling normal could be. What I truly wanted was to be left alone; I was fed up of Alice treating my like one of her dolls and everyone enabling her. I was tired of having no thought that was truly for myself and Edward violating my privacy on a whim. It hurt to see Rosalie go from a doting mother to a distant figure when I no longer looked like a child, much like it hurt to see Bella see me as an extension of her beloved husband. 

Being able to hear all of them have sex only made everything much worse.

"Whatever. Just show me my final boss form. You said your roommate was hardcore into Junji Ito"

"Alright, but we only have the concept art for it, though. Abby got super pissed at us for smoking her artisanal weed, so she's not like making the sprite until we get her more, 'kay?" Straight Kevin minimized the game and navigated through his discord server. I left him to his search so I could refill my mello yello; it was always a good shift when Gay Kevin and Not Kevin were away from the store. They were objectively entertaining men, but they also got a little too intense about work here. Neither would let us blow off work in favour of our personal projects. 

Not since Wrestlemania Condimentalooza.

I slurped at my drink and absentmindedly wiped at the counter. Straight Kevin had his phone hooked to our sound system and he was blasting his playlist. His taste in music was…was one would call eclectic if one was feeling charitable – and boy, did I feel like I was making a million dollar donation. In the past hour alone, we had listened to swedish rap, some Nancy Sinatra, Blackpink, Tibetan throat singing, quebecois death metal, and Maroon 5. 

Fucking Maroon 5. 

But none of that compared to the song that was currently playing. It was less of an auditory experience, less of a musical treat, and more like being forcefully turned into a robot that was in the middle of short circuiting. Not only could you feel the beat, but you could see it too. It looked like flashing lights, and I was certain in that moment, that if it continued I would soon be able to taste sound.

And it was during that assault of my senses that I smelled it. Something unlike anything I had ever smelled before and an immeasurable sense of dread washed over me. The pit in my stomach felt like a black hole as I stood ramrod straight and saw a man I had never seen before enter the building alongside Jeremiah.

Nothing about him particularly stood out. He looked like any other white guy that just got out of the office. He was tall though, taller than anyone else here. Not unnaturally tall, mind you, but...something about his aura felt dangerous. I was on edge and no longer breathing, was this how it felt to be near il tuo cantante?

I made eye contact with the man and tried to place the smell, the flavour of it. It didn't taste enticing, if anything the rat king out back called to me more than the man did. But if this was what Bella smelled like when she was human, I had many questions for Edward.

"How's it hanging, Carrot top? Still working on that game, I see Shaggy," Jerimiah appeared oblivious of my behavior. Then again, glaring to our customers wasn't uncommon for me.

I looked away from the man and I saw Jerimiah set up a chess game on his table. Oh no.

"My man C.J. here is buying me lunch, so you can tell your anxious manager not to have a panic attack over more 'non-paying customers'"

"Nah, it's all cool, dude. Kev and Not Kev are on a supply run. Another of our suppliers dropped us like a hot potato"

"Cello beach, that's what they say, no?" Jeremiah shrugged and the man tilted his head.

"C'est la vie?" He questioned using a register of voice I had not expected. I hated it.

"Languages were never my thing. Math, now that's my jam," he dropped onto his chair and I decided I needed to clear my airways. I needed to get out of here. 

Now.

"Kev, take their order. I'm going to deal with the raccoons"

I didn't even wait for a response before I hauled ass out of there. Luckily, I had enough self control to not vampire yeet myself. 

Once outside I took a deep breath.

It was a deeply offensive smell, but at least it was a familiar one. Trash, raccoons, and decay, baby. 

Though, on second breath. Way less raccoons than last week. Significantly less. Maybe Gay Kevin had finally bested them, which shame if true. 

I leaned on the dumpster and tried to focus. It was important for me to figure out what the hell was going on, because damn if some paper pusher was the reason we left East Laddle. The Cullens would jump at the opportunity to decrease my autonomy if I ate some guy. 

Which, yeah. Murder shouldn't be taken lightly, but I'd never be able to have as much freedom as I did now.

God, it'd be fucked. They'd make me go back to school and somehow rationalize that decision as a good one. Somehow surrounding me with hundreds of humans after murdering one would make sense because they'd be there to keep an eye on me...

I was getting sidetracked again, back to the matter at hand. 

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, that man stank. Second, there was a part of me – and I didn’t know how potent that part might be – that wanted to murder him in cold blood. And third, I was deeply and irrationally terrified of him.

A trash can fell over with a loud clang and a empty jug of bleach rolled pass my feet. My eyes widened in realization – Jake had once told me that to him, the smell of vampires made his nose burn. It was an unpleasant odor that clung to everything a vampire touched. Similarly, Alice had gone on at length at how much she didn't like how the shifters smelled like.

The man didn't smell like a shifter, which only served to make me more uneasy. He clearly wasn't a vampire, his eyes were bright blue and I heard his heart beat, but my nose felt like burning back there. 

The more I stood in our nearly empty garbage zone, the more questions I had. The last time I felt this level of terror, the freaking Volturi had crossed the Atlantic to personally execute me. It was horrifying.

And exciting. This was something new and unheard of, a break from the monotony of the past 15 years. I needed to solve this mystery and I needed to do it stat. Not only because this was potentially life threatening – and I didn't mean just the vampires, whatever that man was could be a danger to the whole town – but also because the moment the Cullens found out about it, we'd be out the Minnesota, nay, the States, before I could even think to protest. 

I was so not letting the Cullens ruin this for me. This could be my Riverdale moment; Betty who? Resentment Cannibal was on the case. 

...

Ok. That was a bit cringe, but fuck it. I walked back in to the building with a mission in mind. I also washed by hands with our heavy duty soap for at least 20 seconds.

"–that incident he got kicked from kitchen duties. Which sucked, cuz CJ has some wicked knife skills," Jeremiah's voice carried to the back of the kitchen and I mentally prepared myself to go back to ground zero. 

"How didn't you notice the taste? Catfish smell so bad when you rupture their guts"

I walked to our registers just in time to see the man shrug. The chess game was still on going and they had pushed another table besides Jeremiah's to make space for the food. There was only one meal on the tray.

"You should have seen Tammy's face. She wanted to blow up so bad, but she couldn't because Susan was there," Jeremiah pitched his voice up and put on the worst British accent I had heard in my life, "'Oh, it's fine Mr. Singer. No big deal. Not a problem. Honest mistake. Happens to everyone!'" 

He took a bite from his burger before continuing. "That woman is so gone on CJ it makes her look stupid."

The man made a face while Straight Kevin laughed.

"She isn't 'gone' on me"

"'Oh Mr. Singer, is that a new coat? Did you do something new with you hair, it looks spiffing! What a nice strong man you are,'" Straight Kevin dissolved into giggles while Jeremiah kept up his imitation. "You have to tell her your taken, man. For all of our sakes"

I stepped forward to join the conversation, when my phone blew up, vibrating as if its life depended on it. I would have ignore it, but the notifications just kept coming. The three men looked back at me.

Fuck.

I fumbled as I took the phone out from my pocket and I checked the messages, all of the Cullens had send me a text and they all said the same thing.

Family emergency. Alice had a vision. Come home.

Double fuck.

#twilight #twilight saga #twilight renaissance #my writing #midnight shift #renesmee cullen #twilight fanfiction

[theconqueeror]

Selling cheap Steam games

300+ games. They’re either super cheap or just old games removed from steam (that can still be activated and played, just not bought directly from the store).

If you want to level up your library & hoard tons of games, here’s your super cheap chance! 1 game for $1. Or bundles, 10 games for $8, 20 for $15, etc. 

All the games are listed under “keep reading” and if you have any questions just shoot me a message!

Accurate Segmentation 3 Ace Of Words Achievement Collector: Cat Achievements Printer Adva-lines Adventures of Heroes Again? AironBall: The Floating Lands AI War: Fleet Command Alien Bubble Destroyer Alien Invaders All Guns On Deck aMAZE (5 games for $3! includes: Double, Easter, Classic, 3D, Lunar) Another Otter AppleSnake2 Arcane ReRaise + Arcane PreRaise Archery Practice Aviation Hurricane Storm BACK TO EBATORIA BAIKO BAIKO Baikonur Space Beer Bar Behind The Door Beyond Reality Bitcoin Clicker BitRay Bizango Blast Blackwater Bayou Blockstorm Blonde Driver Blood of Old Bomber Crew Braveland Breezeblox BoneBone: Rise of the Deathlord Boons Farm Build buildings Bunnyrama Capture the monster Caramba! Caravan Castle Rencounter Cave Adventures Caveman Alive Caves! Chocolate makes you happy Chowderchu Circle Pong Click and Manage Tycoon City of Chains Cludbugz’s Twisted Magic Countryballs: Over The World CRACKHEAD Crankies Workshop: Grizzbot Assembly Crash Drive 2 Crazy Alien Crazy Pirate Crypts of Anak Shab Crystal City Cube - The Jumper Cunning Fox Dangerous Skies 80’s edition DarkEnd Dead Bits Dead Pixels Adventure! Death Penalty: Beginning Debtor Deep Blue Defend the planet Demon robot runner Direwolf Disco Zombie Rampage 2 DISTRAINT: Deluxe Edition Dodge Dummy DOKA 2 Dolphins-cyborgs and open space Double Stretch Douche Bag Dracula’s Library Dragon Perception Draw Rider 2 Dropping of the Dead DRUNK WIZARDS Dungeons of the dead Dungetris EGO PROTOCOL Egyptian Senet El Matador Enclave Endorlight Energy nodes Epic drag puZOOls Epic PVP Castles Epic roll Fable Rush + OST (DLC) Fall Of Light Far Cnight FastGo Running Figure Quest Finder Five Rooms Flotus Fruit Pop II Furry Stories: Alpha-Male G-DINO’S JUNGLE ADVENTURE GAI travel GALAXY 3D SPACE DEFENDER Glitch Simulator 2018 God vs Zombies Gold Rush! Classic Golf Extreme Gomo GooCubelets (3 random versions of the game for $1.5! Includes: GooCubelets, GooCubelets 2, The Algorithm, OCD, The Void) Grandpa Grav Blazer Gravity puzzles Greeng 2D Dungeon Grunt1914 Guns of Icarus Alliance H.I.S.T.O.R.Y T.O.R.C.H.K.A 2 Hard Rock Zombie Truck Head Shot Heaven Island VR Heckabomb HellCat Hentai Shooter 3D Art Collection DLC Hero Quest: Tower Conflict Heroic Dungeon + OST (DLC) High Cats Huntsman: The Orphanage Hurricane Ship Ghost In The Fighting Incoming Forces Infinite Fall Infinite Road Injured by space Joumee The Hedgehog Jump to the circle Kamikaze Cube 2 King Killer Backflip 5 Knife Battles Laggerjack Learn to Drive on Moto Wars Light Gravity Cube LittleBigSoko Loader Lock Parsing 2 Lord VS Nas Vai Lost in the tomb Lost Moon Lost with Dinosaurs Machine With a Big Gun Mad Dagger 2 McPixel Measurement Problem Melting World Online Mid or Feed Mind Portal Mini Gold Coop Mission Wolf Monarch of Greed Act 1 Monsters & Anomaly Monsti Mr.Jezko Neonicum Ninja from Hell vs. Reptiloids NitroRage Noise Normality Occult Raise Ochkarik Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee Oh My Gore! OneScreen Solar Sails One Tank to Rule Them All Outer Space Outrunner 2 Overcast - Walden and the Werewolf Overhead Owen to have fun! Pain Train Paint Skills Park the Car Particula Perimeter Pixel Hentai Mosaic Platypus II Police Adventure Potatoe Poultry Panic Pressure Princess.Loot.Pixel.Again x2 Psi Project 2 Psychedelic platformer Psychonauts Puzzle Agent Puzzle Chambers Quadrant M4 Qvabllock Rage Parking Simulator 2016 Raccoon Hero Under The Sea Range Ball Ranger in Spider’s den Rats - Time is running out! Red Risk ReX Rise Up RKN - Roskomnadzor Banned The Internet RKN Simulator Robot Chase Robot Squad Simulator 2017 Rolling Sun Running Man 3D Russian world cup battlegrounds Ruthless Safari Safeguard Garrison Space Colonies SAMOLIOTIK Santa Runner Save President From Rebels scram: scrammunism DLC Septerra Core Shooting Stars Silent Tweets Simple Story – Alex Sky Road Slayer Of Traitors Sleengster Snail Racer EXTREME SNIPER TANKS Soccer Versus Sometimes: Success Requires Sacrifice SPACECOM Space Chaos Spaceguy 2 Star Shield Down Star Wolves 2 Stickman - Killer of Apples Story: Heaven & Hell (Complete Edition) Street Racing + OST (DLC) Suicide Guy Suicide Guy: Sleepin' Deeply Super Furi Puzzles Super Inefficient Golf Survival Tycoon Symbiotic Overload Tanks!!! Tank Game Teenager vs.Tropical Mutants Temptation The 39 Steps The Battle for the Hut The Best Of MagiCats The Crypts of Anak Shaba The Culling Of The Cows The Dark Stone from Mebara The Deed The Deed 2 The Deer The Last Mission The Last Photon The Last Tower The Life of One Dog The Momo Game The Ninja Path The Official GamingTaylor Game, Great Job! The Orb Chambers II The Prison Experiment The Putinland: Divide & Conquer The Rare Nine The Wanderings Dragon Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 THREE CANDYBERRY MATCH Torch Cave 2 Torture Chamber Totally Mayhem Treasures of the Ancients: Egypt Trials of Illuminati Assorted Jigsaw Trials of Illuminati Sea Creatures Trials of Illuminati Christmas Time Jigsaw Trials of the Illuminati: Cityscape Animated Jigsaws Trials of The Illuminati: Snack Time Jigsaw Puzzles Trials of Illuminati Women of Beauty Trio Tritan Initiative Turn the bridge Uganda know de way Unknown Battle Uriel's Chasm 2: את Vault of Honor Vickinachi Viking's drakkars WAR_WAR_WAR: Smiles vs Ghosts Warlords Awakening Weird Dungeon Explorer: Defender Weird Dungeon Explorer: Run Away WildGooChase Why So Evil 2: Dystopia WIN THE GAME: DO IT! Woodle Tree Adventures World War III: Black Gold World of Tea WWII – TD Yellow: The Yellow Artifact Your Car Shooter ZAMBI 2 KIL Zatwor trilogy: Absconding Zatwor, Break Into Zatwor, Fiends of Imprisonment ZiL Truck RallyCross Zimbo Zombow

#steam codes #steam games #steam sale #steam keys #cheap games

[madasthesea]

Love, hate on

By @madasthesea for @the-dust-of-stars

Part of the @friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: G

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Original Female Villain, Original Male Villains

Summary: She’d planned for this moment for two years, seven months, and eighteen days: As she’d stood above her daughter’s freshly dug grave, she’d decided that Tony Stark would die by her hand. And now was her moment.

She had only intended to grab Stark, tell him what he’d done that merited the punishment she was going to give, and kill him fast before anyone started looking. But here was this kid, an act of providence.

She didn’t have to tell Stark now, she could show him. She could make him suffer like she’d suffered, make him pay for his crimes. An eye for an eye, a child for a child.

Mara Shepherd crouched silently in the back of a gray van, eyes fixed on the surveillance footage playing on the little laptop screen in front of her. Any minute now, Tony Stark would be walking past her van.

She’d planned for this moment for two years, seven months, and eighteen days: As she’d stood above her daughter’s freshly dug grave, she’d decided that Tony Stark would die by her hand. And now was her moment.

He appeared on screen, his goatee making him instantly recognizable even on the pixelated screen.

“Go,” she barked to Elliot and Greg, the two henchmen she’d coerced into helping her. People who hated Tony Stark were in no short supply.

The van doors snapped open and the two men leaped out, one with a black bag at the ready, the other with a baseball bat. Mara stayed in the van and watched.

Stark jumped into action immediately, throwing a right hook at Greg’s face that caught him square on the jaw.

“Hey!” A young voice shouted, and Mara looked up to see a teenage boy only a few paces behind Stark. He, too, darted forward, his fists balled as if he was ready to fight.

“No, kid,” Stark gasped, trying to shake off Elliot’s grasp on his arms. Greg came back into the fray, his baseball bat prepped. “Look out,” Stark yelled, his voice strained as Greg swung at the unsuspecting teen, who was trying to pry Elliot off of Tony.

The kid managed to duck the first swing, whirling with wide eyes to see his attacker, but he wasn’t ready for Elliot to drop Stark like a sack of potatoes, grab the kid by the back of the shirt, and throw him into the side of van. He connected head first and slid to the ground, blinking dizzily.

“Mr. Stark,” the boy said, trying to stand up.

“Just bring the kid,” Mara snapped, very aware that someone might come around the corner any second.

Elliot grabbed the bat from Greg’s hand, swung, and connected. The kid went limp in the gutter.

“No!” Stark shouted, his voice hoarse. Greg took the opportunity to punch Tony in the temple, making him crumple to the pavement. The bag went over his head, the men collected their prizes, and they were back in the van, hurtling away from the scene.

Mara had bought the storage unit ten months ago. The company had since gone out of business, but she’d made copies of the key, came back regularly to make sure she could still access it. It was the perfect place for an execution.

She had Greg and Elliot set the two up in chairs facing each other, tightly bound with zipties. Then they all sat back and waited.

She didn’t know what to do about the kid. As far as she knew, he was just a passerby who’d recognized Iron Man and wanted to be his hero’s hero. Not necessarily a condemnation, but now that he was here, a witness to her crime, she couldn’t just let him go. It was a complication, and she spent the quiet minutes puzzling out what to do to fix it.

Stark started coming around first, squinting at the three of them in the bad fluorescent lighting, and cursing emphatically. Then he saw the teenager sitting across from him and his expression fell into something serious and angry.

The kid groaned only a couple seconds later and Mara watched as Stark’s attention immediately snapped toward him.

“Hey, kid. Kid.” The boy looked up, blinking blearily and seemed to struggle to locate Stark. Maybe Elliot had been a little more aggressive than she’d thought. When he did, they stared at each other for a long minute, as if having a silent conversation.

“You ok?” Stark finally asked.

“Um, I guess. What—what’s going on?”

“Just some people without any manners wanted a chat with me. But we’ll be on our way to lunch any minute, don’t worry, kid.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Mara purred. Stark glanced at her, sizing her up quickly, just like he’d done with Elliot and Greg. “Cute kid, Stark. Is he yours?”

Stark rolled his eyes. “No. Some new intern. Great first day on the job, huh, bud?”

The kid gave a nervous laugh, craning his head to look at Elliot in the shadows.

“N-not quite what I expected for an orientation, Mr. Stark.” The boy closed his eyes as if in pain and Mara wondered again how hard Elliot had hit him. Stark seemed to notice as well.

She stepped back, watching as Tony eyed the kid up and down. His lips were pursed, his eyes dark. Perhaps it was merely impersonal concern—he was a supposed hero, and protecting innocent children was in the job description, even if he was a failure most of the time. But there was something familiar in it, an ingrained worry that was routine, habitual. She was a parent, too, she knew what to look for.

Stark may say he’d only met the kid today, but he was nothing if not a liar. She knew better than to believe him.

She had only intended to grab Stark, tell him what he’d done that merited the punishment she was going to give, and kill him fast before anyone started looking. But here was this kid, an act of providence.

She didn’t have to tell Stark now, she could show him. She could make him suffer like she’d suffered, make him pay for his crimes. This wasn’t a complication, it was an opportunity.

Mara smirked, and sauntered towards the kid.

“Well, look at you,” she purred, reaching out and caressing the boy’s face before tilting his jaw up. Stark watched, emotionless.

The boy looked up at her, brown puppy dog eyes on full display. She could feel his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed nervously.

“What’s your name?” she asked gently.

The boy’s eyes darted toward Stark, then back. He shook his head minutely.

“No?” Mara asked, rounding the chair so she was behind the kid. She smiled at Stark, then grabbed a fistful of dark curls and yanked the boy’s head backward. A muscle in Stark’s jaw jumped. “How about now?”

“N—”

She cut the kid off. “Not asking you, sweetie. Tell me, Stark. What’s his name?”

Tony exhaled in a rush. “I don’t remember.”

Mara slapped the boy across the face. The smack echoed for a moment of shock before Stark strained against his bonds, a barely contained snarl of rage turning his mouth for a heartbeat before he schooled himself.

“Don’t make me hit him again,” she warned softly. “Just tell me his name.”

“I barely even know him,” Tony snapped, rolling his eyes.

Mara ground her teeth, quickly losing her patience. As if she couldn’t tell, as if the love Stark had for this boy wasn’t written in every line on his face.

The kid glared at her as she turned to him, sighing heavily. She backhanded him and his head snapped to the side, a red mark already forming on his pale face. When he turned back to her, his eyes were burning with anger. She stared back for a moment, memorizing the color of his irises. It was a pity he had to die; he really was a cute kid.

She turned back to Stark. “His name,” she said coolly.

“I don’t—”

“Stop lying!” Mara screamed, her hands clenched in fists at her side. She wanted to tear him apart, she wanted to see him bleed, but she knew his type. Physical pain meant nothing to him, to his pride. He would never break for his own sake. And now that the possibility has presented itself, she didn’t just want to see him dead. She wanted to see him broken.

She stepped forward until she towered over Stark, until she can lean forward and grab his face in her hand, her nails digging into his jaw.

“You think I can’t see the fear in your eyes, Stark? I’ve felt that fear. I’ve lived it. And it was your fault.”

She took a shuttering breath. Tony looked up at her, a terrible understanding in his eyes.

“And guess what,” she whispered, bending low and tightening her hold on him. “Losing him will be worse than you ever imagined.”

Tony thrashed against her hold, a snarl caught in his throat.

“Ah, ah, ah.” She stepped aside, just enough to let Stark see Elliot pulling a knife on the kid.

Tony stilled instantly, uncaring of the bruising grip Mara still had on his face. She yanked his face back around to her, but he still glanced back to the kid every second.

“Now tell me what his name is and I might make it quick,” she said.  

Stark’s glare was so icy, Mara nearly shivered. She covered it up by stepping away, back toward the kid. She cast a glance at Elliot and he lowered the knife to the boy’s throat.

“Well?”

Tony hesitated for another half-second, then his shoulders slumped. “Peter,” he finally murmured.

Peter watched Tony, waited until the man looked up, and gave him a reassuring smile that reflected, distorted, off the knife under his chin.

Tony just looked heartbroken.

Mara took a deep breath and forced the memory of her daughter’s smile from her mind.

“Peter,” she repeated, nodding. Peter looked up at her, defiant. She circled his chair slowly and he turned his head to keep her in his sight as much as possible.

“Do you want to know what my daughter’s name was, Peter?”

“Yes.”

“Eliza,” Mara sighed, closing her eyes as she savored the name. “My little ‘Liza. She was seven when she died.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it, and she regretted again that the only way to get through to Stark was to kill his kid.

“Do you know what happened to her?”

Peter shook his head.

“He happened.” She let all of the anger and hatred she’d felt in the last two and a half years come to the surface, let it burn behind her eyes as she turned to the man that had cost her everything.

“Do you remember August 9, 2015, Stark?”

Tony looked up at her, thinking for a moment.

“There was a break-in. At the tower,” Tony finally said. “We caught them before they could take anything. They shot their way out. Four injuries, two deaths.”

The way he rattled the information off like they were statistics, like those weren’t real people made Mara’s blood boil.

“Yes,” Mara snarled. “My daughter and I were in Midtown that day. Running errands. She wanted to see Avengers Tower, to see where her heroes lived. And then she got shot and in the panic someone knocked me over. By the time I got to her she was already gone.” Her voice broke.

Stark’s expression was pinched.

“I remember,” he whispered. “I offered to pay for the funeral and you refused.”

“I don’t want your money,” Mara yelled. “I needed your help! You were there and you didn’t help!”

“I was trying to stop them from hurting anyone else. I didn’t notice in time. I’m sorry.”

“Save your useless apology, Stark. It’s two and a half years too late.”    

“Then why am I here?” Tony asked, his voice resigned, like he knew that she wanted him dead. But she wanted more than that, too, and that hadn’t occurred to him yet.

“You are here,” she hissed, “to watch.”

His face fell, his eyes flicking to Peter. His heart started beating so hard she could see his pulse in his throat.

“No.”

Peter’s eyes went wide at the guttural denial that ripped out of Tony’s throat. He looked at Mara and she watched the comprehension dawn on his face as well.

“Oh,” he mouthed, his face very pale.

“No, please,” Stark begged, straining against his bonds. “Please, he has nothing to do with that, we hadn’t even met yet, he—”

“You love him,” Mara interrupted. “That’s all that matters.”

“Please, just kill me,” Tony whispered, looking up at her with a desperation on his face that she knew only too well.

“Oh, I’ll get to that,” she assured him. “You think I’m not going to kill the man that killed my baby girl? But first you have to feel it, Stark. The grief. The agony. You have to know what it feels like to watch your child bleed out in front of you.”

“Ma’am,” Peter said quietly. She turned to look at him. “I’m so sorry about your daughter. But... but that wasn’t Mr. Stark’s fault. He would never let anyone die if he could help them.”

“He’s a weapons developer,” Mara scoffed.

“He isn’t anymore,” Peter argued, shaking his head. “Besides, revenge won’t make you feel better. And it won’t bring Eliza back.”

Sighing, Mara leaned over him. She reached out to brush his bangs off his forehead, but he pulled away, looking affronted.

“My daughter deserves vengeance,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I do,” Peter insisted, looking up at her pleadingly. “My uncle was killed in front of me. And I had the chance to go after his killer, but I didn’t. You can choose not to, too. Right now. You haven’t hurt anyone yet.”

Mara shook her head. “It’s not the same. I am sorry he brought you into this.”

“You brought me into this,” Peter snapped, any forgiveness gone from his features. Mara hummed, then turned back to Tony, who’d watched the exchange in silent panic.

“I’m not a complete monster,” she told him. “Elliot is a very good shot. It will be painless for him.”

Tony made a choked noise, clenching his hands around the armrest of the chair. His eyes were wet with unshed tears.

“I’ll even give you what I never had, Stark. I’ll give you time to say goodbye.”

Mara nodded to Elliot and Greg where they were lurking in the corner and they each stepped forward to undo the bindings holding Peter and Stark in place. The second they were loose, they both instantly spilled forward onto their knees.

Peter crashed into Tony, tucking himself under Tony’s chin and clutching at his t-shirt. Tony responded in kind, putting a hand on the back of Peter’s head and holding him close, his hand threading carefully through the boy’s dark curls, avoiding where the bat had connected earlier.  

The safety of a gun clicking off made them both look up—Tony’s arms tightened protectively around Peter, his expression fierce as he saw the gun Elliot was now pointing at Peter’s head.

“Just in case you get any ideas of trying something,” Mara said simply. She knew better than to underestimate Tony Stark.

Tony glared at her for a second, then ducked his head, his attention focused solely on the child in his arms again.

“Peter,” she heard him murmur, his voice low. She listened closely as words poured out of him, quick and desperate. “Pete, I don’t know what to do, I don’t—I’ve got nothing, kid, I—”

Peter cut him off, but his voice was so low and muffled by Tony’s shoulder that Mara couldn’t hear. She watched Tony’s face as he buried his face in Peter’s hair, his expression pinched in a pain that she knew intimately. The pain of losing a child was something you never recovered from. Not that Stark would live long enough to realize that.

They continued talking for a moment, the words lost to Mara. Peter nodded almost frantically as Tony whispered to him, his hand still cradling Peter’s head.

“Time’s up, Stark,” she finally snapped, her chest aching with want as she thought about hugging her daughter.

“No. No, no,” Tony gasped, capturing Peter’s face in his hands as Elliot and Greg stepped forward. He pressed their foreheads together, crowding impossibly closer to the boy.

“It’ll be ok,” Peter whispered. He wrapped his hands around Tony’s wrists.

Mara’s heart beat faster, her blood racing hot through her veins. She was so close. At her word, Tony Stark would watch the child he loved die, just like she had. Her Liza had been feet from her as she took her last breath. She’d watched the light fade from her daughters eyes just as she’d watched those eyes open for the first time.

And Stark had been there, mere yards away, and had done nothing. And now she would stand and do nothing as his boy bled out in front of him, even if the loss of his life pained her. An eye for an eye, a child for a child. There was no other way.

Elliot seized Peter’s collar while Greg wrapped an arm around Stark’s throat, effectively holding him still.

“No!” Stark screamed, clawing at Greg. “Don’t touch him!”

Elliot dragged Peter a few feet away, kicking the boy’s legs out from under him when he tried to struggle to his feet.

“Hey!” Tony snarled as Peter growled, still fighting against Elliot’s hold. Elliot used the handle of the gun to hit the back of Peter’s head, making him collapse, crying out in pain. “Stop!”

“Elliot,” Mara said. The man dutifully wrangled the kid onto his knees, facing Stark. He held his gun to the back of Peter’s head.

Tony was practically hyperventilating. “Oh, go—Please,” he panted. “Please, no. Please just kill me. Please, please, I’m sorry.” Tears dripped down his cheeks as he watched, helpless.

Elliot pulled the hammer of the gun back, the click of it echoing oddly loudly in the concrete room.

“Tony,” Peter said. Tony’s breath caught in his throat as he looked at the kid, agony written all over his features.

Against all of Mara’s expectations, Peter smiled, his eyes bright. His voice was steady when he spoke. “Meeting you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Peter,” Tony breathed. Elliot put his finger on the trigger.

And then Peter was moving, faster than Mara had ever seen anyone move. He threw himself backward, throwing one hand up and shoving the gun toward the ceiling in the same motion. The crack of it firing was deafening and Mara cried out as a chunk of concrete fell toward the floor from where the bullet hit.  

A heartbeat later, Tony was throwing Greg over his shoulder, twisting his arm behind his back until it was ready to snap.

Peter spun to his feet in a flash and threw a single punch at Elliot, catching him on the jaw. The man fell to the floor and didn’t move.

Mara backed up to the wall, heart pounding. She hadn’t realized... Stark hadn’t been in his suit, and he was older, but she’d taken precautions. She’d been so careful.  She’d known better than to underestimate him, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind that the kid, who was small and thin and fragile, could ever pose a threat to her plans.

Tony quickly frisked Greg, found his gun, and pistol-whipped him. He, too, went limp, instantly unconscious. Then he turned toward her, the gun still in his hand.

“Tony, you ok?” Peter panted, rolling Elliot over and checking his pulse.

“Will be in a minute, kid,” Tony said, his voice low. Peter looked up and watched him stalk forward, his eyes going wide.

“Tony.”

Tony raised the muzzle to directly between Mara’s eyes.

“You said you’d kill the person that killed your kid,” Tony hissed. “What makes you think I won’t do the same?”

Mara swallowed, her eyes flicking between the barrel of the gun and Stark’s face. His expression was totally blank, but his eyes were lit with a furious fire that sent shivers up her spine.

“I-I,” she stammered, unsure how to tell Stark that she had been relying on his grief to incapacitate him. She’d been assuming that he wouldn’t care about dying when his kid was a corpse in front of him.

And, if she’s honest with herself, she’d been relying on his sense of honor. She’d known that even with her planning and contingencies, there was no way she could guarantee she would succeed. The risk had been worth it, but if something had gone wrong, she had assumed that he would never willingly kill someone, that he would never hold a gun to someone’s head out of anger. She didn’t know how to say that despite thinking he was a villain, she’d expected him to act like a hero.

“You held a gun to a sixteen-year-old’s head and told yourself you were giving your daughter justice. But if you had succeeded, all you would have done was kill an innocent child.”

“And what about you?” she snapped back. “What are you doing right now?”

“You’re not a child,” Tony said coolly, his finger on the trigger. “And you’re certainly not innocent.”

Mara sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and prepared to see her daughter again.

“Mr. Stark.”

Her eyes snapped open to see not the cold barrel of a gun, but Peter’s back.

“Come on,” Peter said softly.

Mara risked leaning just far enough to see Tony’s face soften, his eyes lose their fire.

Tony’s mouth quirked up in a half-hearted, crooked smile. He quickly lowered the gun, showing Peter the side of it.

“Safety’s still on, kid.”

Peter’s shoulders loosened. “Oh.”

“Come here, Pete.” Tony bent and dropped the gun on the ground at his feet, then kicked it away, almost like a peace offering to Peter. As soon as the gun was a few feet away, Peter dove forward and was engulfed in a tight hug. Mara slid to the floor, legs numb from adrenaline.

“You did great, buddy,” Tony muttered, keeping an eye on Mara as he ran a hand over Peter’s back as if to check for injuries. “No extra points for the dramatic flair, though.”

“You’re one to talk,” Peter scoffed. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you crying.”

Tony sniffed, squeezing the back of Peter’s neck as he pulled back. “Yeah, well. I’m never going to get the picture of you with a gun to your head out of my mind. Like I needed more nightmare fuel.”

Mara couldn’t see Peter’s face, but his voice was bashful. “Sorry.”

Tony pushed the bangs back from Peter’s forehead in a display of gentility she’d never expected him to possess.

She couldn’t stand it.

“No!” She screamed. They both jumped like they’d almost forgotten she was there. “No!” Tears burned in her eyes and spilled over. “You were supposed to die! You were supposed to understand what you did to me. My baby is gone. You needed to lose yours.”

Tony scowled down at her.  

“I didn’t kill your daughter,” he said. Then he glanced at Peter and his face softened. “But I understand wanting to do anything to bring justice for your child. I am sorry.”

Mara spat at him. Peter looked indignant, but Tony just sighed, pulling him away and using Elliot’s phone to call 911. Feeling as if she’d lost her Eliza all over again, Mara just curled in the corner and wept while they waited for the police to come and arrest her.

Peter and Tony watched her be put into the police car, her hands cuffed. As the car drove away, she saw Stark pull Peter into his side and kiss his temple, his eyes closed as he held the boy close.

She’d known from the second she’d seen them together that Peter was more than the intern Tony pretended he was. It was obvious in the way they looked at each other, protected each other. She’d seen, and others would too. Tony Stark might still get the punishment he deserved. Even if she wasn’t the one giving it.

#Irondad and Spiderson #Tony Stark #Peter Parker #MCU #brotp: speaking of loyalty #my writing #fic

[witchcraft-in-wonderland]

The Rose Prince (Pt.3)

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

Roman spent most of the trip trying to focus on the feeling of Logan's fingers running through his hair, he felt light-headed and dizzy, as though he'd been dreaming this whole time.

"Welcome home your highness, I assume your trip went well?" Roman perked up as he heard a voice from outside the carriage.

"We have much to discuss in terms of the trip, for now I want Prince Roman escorted to his room and given as big of a meal as he can handle," came the reply from Janus.

"Of course your highness," said the voice from outside the carriage. Roman sat himself upright and took the hand of the coachman to get down from the carriage, Logan hooked an arm around his waist soon after.

"But I'm not hungry-" Roman murmured, he felt like he might faint soon, everything hurt so badly.

"Nonsense, I saw the food they were giving you, it would hardly feed a child, let alone a full grown prince," Janus said matter-of-factly.

"Just trust us, whatver's going on back there isnt normal, you need help Roman, and like it or not we're going to give it to you," said Logan, Roman could almost feel his gaze centering on the bruised wrists.

"Yes sir," Roman responded, finally deciding it was best not to argue in case they sent him back for disobedience. He wasnt really sure if they could do that, but he certainly didnt want to find out. He heard Logan let out a sigh as he followed him into the castle.

Soon enough he found himself seated at a small table in the kitchen, there were so many different smells that he couldnt quite place, and they were all wonderful.

"Anything specific? Any allergies?" Said a voice from behind Roman. Roman turned to find a short man with wide lilac purple eyes and wild purple hair hair holding a notepad.

"Oh uh- no- nothing that I can think of-" Roman replied, the shorter man rushed off, looking back at Roman occasionally, almost like a frightened animal.

Soon enough a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, and a few types of vegetables was placed in front of Roman. It looked and smelled delicious, but Roman couldnt seem to reach a hand out to grab the fork and eat it.

"Is it not good?" Came the voice of the man who'd made the food.

"No it's not that- its- I dont-" Roman went quiet.

"I'm sorry. . ." Roman muttered.

"Here, I'll eat something with you so you're not alone," said the man, grabbing a few things off the shelf.

It was a few more moments before another meal was made and the man sat in the seat across from Roman.

"I'm Virgil by the way, Virgil Liddell," he said.

"Roman Prince-Duke," Roman replied.

"You're not stuck in there anymore you know, you can do what you want, they cant take you back," Virgil said as he started to eat.

"How do you know?" Roman said, taking a careful bite of his food, as though he might drop dead if he ate it to quickly. Virgil merely shrugged.

"Prince Janus is very worried about you you know, I havent seen him this frantic since Logan nearly broke a leg the day they got married," Virgil said calmly.

"He shouldnt worry, I'm fine. . ." Roman muttered.

"I highly doubt that," Roman froze as he felt Logan's arms around him.

"Good afternoon Prince Logan," Virgil said, not looking up from his food.

"I thought you were busy?" Roman said as he looked up.

"Janus is talking with his advisors, I've got nothing else to do besides dote on you," Logan said, pressing a kiss to Roman's forehead.

"You dont have to do that," Roman mumbled, biting his lip as he felt tears burn the back of his eyes.

"What if I want to?" Logan replied.

"You shouldnt," Roman said hoarsely.

"To bad, I'm going to," Logan said, pressing another kiss to Roman's forehead.

Roman almost whined when Logan moved to sit down next to him instead.

"I'm eating. . ." Roman mumbled.

"Good, you need to," Logan said, smiling and running a hand down Roman's back. Roman shuddered slightly at the touch.

It seemed like hours before Roman finally finished the meal. It felt strange, to actually be able to finish something for once, and not feel sick.

"Are you tired now my love?" Logan said as Roman let out a yawn.

"A little. . ." Roman mumbled.

"Come on then, let's get you into something comfortable," Logan said as he stood up.

"Virgil, you can go now if youd like," Logan turned to Virgil for a few seconds before holding an arm out for Roman to grab.

"Why do you call me that," Roman mumbled as they walked away.

"Call you what my love?" Logan said, turning his head slightly toward Roman.

"Call me 'my love', you've only just barely met me," Roman responded.

"I find that calling someone by an emotion makes it much easier to identify, and as we are married, calling you 'my love' makes the most sense to me, because I should certainly be able to love you, shouldnt I?" Logan answered.

"Oh. . ." Roman said quietly.

"Is something wrong?" Logan said, raising an eyebrow.

"No-" Roman responded quickly.

"Alright, let's get you into something comfortable, do you mind if I assist you?" Logan said as he opened the door to Roman's room.

"If you wish," Roman answered.

He didnt focus much, simply felt the fabric move away from his skin and the cold air rush toward him.

"Would you like me to leave so you can take that off my love?" Logan said. Roman snapped back into focus and realized he was gesturing to the white binder around his chest.

"Oh- Uhm- yes- thank you-" Roman answered. He watched as Logan scattered a few articles of clothing on the bed, and then left.

Roman sat there for a few moments before he began to change, the cloth felt soft against his skin, he tried to avoid looking at the scars and bruises littering his arms, he hoped they'd go away soon.

He just barely heard the door creak open as he buried himself in the covers, and he welcomed the embrace of the Crown Prince as he drifted off yet again.

"Dont worry my darling, you're safe and sound here," Janus muttered, Roman let out a low groan.

"I know it hurts darling, just go to sleep now, get some rest," and Roman fell into yet another dreamless sleep, clouded with something he couldnt identify, wishing for something to fix the pain in his gut.

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

Tag list:

@thefivecalls

@willowaudreykeyes

@pricklyfish777

@the-sad-strawberry

@itsnithbabey

@private-snippers

@extercs-experiences

@rich-flower-17

@theonetruebeepboop

@mycatshuman

@teamplutoforlife

@melodiread

@meowthefluffy

@frawkeye

@cemmy

@nerosdayinhell

@thecolorfulolive

@frog-candy-bee

@psychedelicships

@pixelated-pineapple

@bullet-tothefeels

#cori writes #rose prince au #ts virgil #ts sides #ts roman #ts logan #ts janus #roloceit #romantic roloceit #romantic roceit #roceit #loceit #romantic loceit #logince #romantic logince #tw abuse #tw scars #tw bruises #tw blood

[outerloop]

Porting Falcon Age to the Oculus Quest

There have already been several blog posts and articles on how to port an existing VR game to the Quest. So we figured what better way to celebrate Falcon Age coming to the Oculus Quest than to write another one!

So what we did was reduced the draw calls, reduced the poly counts, and removed some visual effects to lower the CPU and GPU usage allowing us to keep a constant 72 hz. Just like everyone else!

Thank you for coming to our Tech talk. See you next year!

...

Okay, you probably want more than that.

Falcon Age

So let's talk a bit about the original PlayStation VR and PC versions of the game and a couple of the things we thought were important about that experience we wanted to keep beyond the basics of the game play.

Loading Screens Once you’re past the main menu and into the game, Falcon Age has no loading screens. We felt this was important to make the world feel like a real place the player could explore. But this comes at some cost in needing to be mindful of the number of objects active at one time. And in some ways even more importantly the number of objects that are enabled or disabled at one time. In Unity there can be a not insignificant cost to enabling an object. So much so that this was a consideration we had to be mindful of on the PlayStation 4 as loading a new area could cause a massive spike in frame time causing the frame rate to drop. Going to the Quest this would be only more of an issue.

Lighting & Environmental Changes While the game doesn’t have a dynamic time of day, different areas have different environmental setups. We dynamically fade between different types of lighting, skies, fog, and post processing to give areas a unique feel. There are also events and actions the player does in the game that can cause these to happen. This meant all of our lighting and shadows were real time, along with having custom systems for handling transitioning between skies and our custom gradient fog.

Our skies are all hand painted clouds and horizons cube maps on top of Procedural Sky from the asset store that handles the sky color and sun circle with some minor tweaks to allow fading between different cube maps. Having the sun in the sky box be dynamic allowed the direction to change without requiring totally new sky boxes to be painted.

Our gradient fog works by having a color gradient ramp stored in a 1 by 64 pixel texture that is sampled using spherical distance exp2 fog opacity as the UVs. We can fade between different fog types just by blending between different textures and sampling the blended result. This is functionally similar to the fog technique popularized by Campo Santo’s Firewatch, though it is not applied as a post process as it was for that game. Instead all shaders used in the game were hand modified to use this custom fog instead of Unity’s built in fog.

Post processing was mostly handled by Unity’s own Post Processing Stack V2, which includes the ability to fade between volumes which the custom systems extended. While we knew not all of this would be able to translate to the Quest, we needed to retain as much of this as possible.

The Bird At its core, Falcon Age is about your interactions with your bird. Petting, feeding, playing, hunting, exploring, and cooperating with her. One of the subtle but important aspects of how she “felt” to the player was her feathers, and the ability for the player to pet her and have her and her feathers react. She also has special animations for perching on the player’s hand or even individual fingers, and head stabilization. If at all possible we wanted to retain as much of this aspect of the game, even if it came at the cost of other parts.

You can read more about the work we did on the bird interactions and AI in a previous dev blog posts here: https://outerloop.tumblr.com/post/177984549261/anatomy-of-a-falcon

Taking on the Quest

Now, there had to be some compromises, but how bad was it really? The first thing we did was we took the PC version of the game (which natively supports the Oculus Rift) and got that running on the Quest. We left things mostly unchanged, just with the graphics settings set to very low, similar to the base PlayStation 4 PSVR version of the game.

It ran at less than 5 fps. Then it crashed.

Ooph.

But there’s some obvious things we could do to fix a lot of that. Post processing had to go, just about any post processing is just too expensive on the Quest, so it was disabled entirely. We forced all the textures in the game to be at 1/8th resolution, that mostly stopped the game from crashing as we were running out of memory. Next up were real time shadows, they got disabled entirely. Then we turned off grass, and pulled in some of the LOD distances. These weren’t necessarily changes we would keep, just ones to see what it would take to get the performance better. And after that we were doing much better.

A real, solid … 50 fps.

Yeah, nope.

That is still a big divide between where we were and the 72 fps we needed to be at. It became clear that the game would not run on the Quest without more significant changes and removal of assets. Not to mention the game did not look especially nice at this point. So we made the choice of instead of trying to take the game as it was on the PlayStation VR and PC and try to make it look like a version of that with the quality sliders set to potato, we would need to go for a slightly different look. Something that would feel a little more deliberate while retaining the overall feel.

Something like this.

Optimize, Optimize, Optimize (and when that fails delete)

Vertex & Batch Count

One of the first and really obvious things we needed to do was to bring down the mesh complexity. On the PlayStation 4 we were pushing somewhere between 250,000 ~ 500,000 vertices each frame. The long time rule of thumb for mobile VR has been to be somewhere closer to 100,000 vertices, maybe 200,000 max for the Quest.

This was in some ways actually easier than it sounds for us. We turned off shadows. That cut the vertex count down significantly in many areas, as many of the total scene’s vertex count comes from rendering the shadow maps. But the worse case areas were still a problem.

We also needed to reduce the total number of objects and number of materials being used at one time to help with batching. If you’ve read any other “porting to Quest” posts by other developers this is all going to be familiar.

This means combining textures from multiple object into atlases and modifying the UVs of the meshes to match the new position in the atlas. In our case it meant completely re-texturing all of the rocks with a generic atlas rather than having every rock use a custom texture set.

Now you might think we would want also reduce the mesh complexity by a ton. And that’s true to an extent. Counter intuitively some of the environment meshes on the Quest are more complex than the original version. Why? Because as I said we were looking to change the look. To that end some meshes ended up being optimized to far low vertex counts, and others ended up needing a little more mesh detail to make up for the loss in shading detail and unique texturing. But we went from almost every mesh in the game having a unique texture to the majority of environment objects sharing a small handful of atlases. This improved batching significantly, which was a much bigger win than reducing the vertex count for most areas of the game.

That’s not to say vertex count wasn’t an issue still. A few select areas were completely pulled out and rebuilt as new custom merged meshes in cases where other optimizations weren’t enough. Most of the game’s areas are built using kit bashing, reusing sets of common parts to build out areas. Parts like those rocks above, or many bits of technical & mechanical detritus used to build out the refineries in the game. Making bespoke meshes let us remove more hidden geometry, further reduce object counts, and lower vertex counts in those problem areas.

We also saw a significant portion of the vertex count coming from the terrain. We are using Unity’s built in terrain system. And thankfully we didn’t have to start from total scratch here as simply increasing the terrain component's Pixel Error automatically reduces the complexity of the rendered terrain. That dropped the vertex count even more getting us closer to the target budget without significantly changing the appearance of the geometry.

After that many smaller details were removed entirely. I mentioned before we turned off grass entirely. We also removed several smaller meshes from the environment in various places where we didn’t think their absence would be noticed. As well as removed or more aggressively disabled out of view NPCs in some problem areas.

Shader Complexity

Another big cost was most of the game was using either a lightly modified version of Unity’s Standard shader, or the excellent Toony Colors Pro 2 PBR shader. The terrain also used the excellent and highly optimized MicroSplat. But these were just too expensive to use as they were. So I wrote custom simplified shaders for nearly everything.

The environment objects use a simplified diffuse shading only shader. It had support for an albedo, normal, and (rarely used) occlusion texture. Compared to how we were using the built in Standard shader this cut down the number of textures a single material could use by more than half in some cases. This still had support for the customized gradient fog we used throughout the game, as well as a few other unique options. Support for height fog was built into the shader to cover a few spots in the game where we’d previously used post processing style methods to achieve. I also added support for layering with the terrain’s texture to hide a few places where there were transitions from terrain to mesh.

Toony Colors Pro 2 is a great tool, and is deservedly popular. But the PBR shader we were using for characters is more expensive than even the Standard shader! This is because the way it’s implemented is it’s mostly the original Standard Shader with some code on top to modify the output. Toony Colors Pro 2 has a large number of options for modifying and optimizing what settings to use. But in the end I wrote a new shader from scratch that mimicked some of the aspects we liked about it. Like the environment shader it was limited to diffuse shading, but added a Fresnel shine.

The PSVR and PC terrain used MicroSplat with 12 different terrain layers. MicroSplat makes these very fast and much cheaper to render than the built in terrain rendering. But after some testing we found we couldn’t support more than 4 terrain layers at a time without really significant drops in performance. So we had to go through and completely repaint the entire terrain, limiting ourselves to only 4 texture layers.

Also, like the other shaders mentioned above, the terrain was limited to diffuse only shading. MicroSplat’s built in shader options made this easy, and apart from the same custom fog support added for the original version, it didn’t require any modifications.

Post Processing, Lighting, and Fog

The PSVR and PC versions of Falcon Age makes use of color grading, ambient occlusion, bloom, and depth of field. The Quest is extremely fill rate limited, meaning full screen passes of anything are extremely expensive, regardless of how simple the shader is. So instead of trying to get this working we opted to disable all post processing. However this resulted in the game being significantly less saturated. And in extreme cases completely different. To make up for this the color of the lighting and the gradient fog was tweaked to make up for this. This is probably the single biggest factor in the overall appearance of the original versions of the game and the Quest version not looking quite the same.

Also as mentioned before we disabled real time shadows. We discussed doing what many other games have done which is move to baked lighting, or at least pre-baked shadows. We decided against this for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was our game is mostly outdoors so shadows weren’t as important as it might have been for many other games. We’ve also found that simple real time lighting can often be faster than baked lighting, and that certainly proved to be true for this game.

However the lack of shadows and screen space ambient occlusion meant that there was a bit of a disconnect between characters in the world and the ground. So we added simple old school blob shadows. These are simple sprites that float just above the terrain or collision geometry, using a raycast from a character’s center of mass, and sometimes from individual feet. There’s a small selection of basic blob shapes and a few unique shapes for certain feet shapes to add a little extra bit of ground connection. These are faded out quickly in the distance to reduce the number of raycasts needed.

Falcon

Apart from the aforementioned changes to the shading, which was also applied to the falcon’s custom shaders, we did almost nothing to the bird. All the original animations, reaction systems, and feather interactions remained. The only thing we did to the bird was simplify a few of the bird equipment and toy models. The bird models themselves remained intact.

I did say we thought this was important at the start. And we early on basically put a line in the sand and said we were going to keep everything enabled on the bird unless absolutely forced to disable it.

There was one single sacrifice to the optimization gods we couldn’t avoid though. That’s the trails on the bird’s wings. We were making use of Ara Trails, which produce very high quality and configurable trails with a lot more control than Unity’s built in systems. These weren’t really a problem for rendering on the GPU, but CPU usage was enough that it made sense to pull them.

Selection Highlights

This is perhaps an odd thing to call out, but the original game used a multi pass post process based effect to draw the highlight outlines on objects for both interaction feedback and damage indication. These proved to be far too expensive to use on the Quest. So I had to come up with a different approach. Something like your basic inverted shell outline, like so many toon stylized games use, would seem like the perfect approach. However we never built the meshes to work with that kind of technique, and even though we were rebuilding large numbers of the meshes in the game anyway, some objects we wanted to highlight proved difficult for this style of outline. 

With some more work it would have been possible to make this an option. But instead I found an easier to implement approach that, on the face, should have been super slow. But it turns out the Quest is very efficient at handling stencil masking. This is a technique that lets you mark certain pixels of the screen so that subsequent meshes being rendered can ask to not be rendered in. So I render the highlighted object 6 times! With 4 of those times slightly offset in screen space in the 4 diagonal directions. The result is a fairly decent looking outline that works on arbitrary objects, and was cheap enough to be left enabled on everything that it had been on before, including objects that might cover the entire screen when being highlighted.

Particles and General VFX

For the PSVR version of the game, we already had two levels of VFX in the game to support the base Playstation 4 and Playstation 4 Pro with different kinds of particle systems. The Quest version started out with these lower end particle systems to begin with, but it wasn’t enough. Across the board the number and size of particles had to be reduced. With some effects removed or replaced entirely. This was both for CPU performance as the sheer number of particles was a problem and GPU performance as the screen area the particles covered became a problem for the Quest’s reduced fill rate limitations.

For example the baton had an effect that included a few very simple circular glows on top of electrical arcs and trailing embers. The glows covered enough of the screen to cause a noticeable drop in framerate even just holding it by your side. Holding it up in front of your face proved too expensive to keep framerate in even the simplest of scenes. 

Similar the number of embers had to be reduced to improve the CPU impact. The above comparison image only shows the removal of the glow and already has the reduced particle count applied.

Another more substantive change was the large smoke plumes. You may have already noticed the difference in some of the previous comparisons above. In the original game these used regular sprites. But even reducing the particle count in half the rendering cost was too much. So these were replaced with mesh cylinders using a shader that makes them ripple and fade out. Before changing how they were done the areas where the smoke plumes are were unable to keep the frame rate above 72 fps any time they were in view. Sometimes dipping as low as 48 hz. Afterwards they ceased to be a performance concern.

Those smoke plumes originally made use of a stylized smoke / explosion effect. That same style of effect is reused frequently in the game for any kind of smoke puff or explosion. So while they were removed for the smoke stacks, they still appeared frequently. Every time you take out a sentry or drone your entire screen was filled with these smoke effects, and the frame rate would dip below the target. With some experimentation we found that counter to a lot of information out there, using alpha tested (or more specifically alpha to coverage) particles proved to be far more efficient to render than the original alpha blended particles with a very similar overall appearance. So that plus some other optimizations to those shaders and the particle counts of those effects mean multiple full screen explosions did not cause a loss in frame rate.

The two effects are virtually identical in appearance, ignoring the difference in lighting and post processing. The main difference here is the Quest explosion smoke is using dithered alpha to coverage transparency. You can see if you look close enough, even with the gif color dithering.

Success!

So after all that we finally got to the goal of a 72hz frame rate! Coming soon to an Oculus Quest near you!

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2327302830679091/

[darlinrogue]

His chest aches, his cheekbone throbs with the imminent development of a bruise. (How? He doesn't remember, as faint as he is. Adam had fought, and he fought hard.) But Kenny is the one victorious. Victorious, but all he's able to do is kneel, half collapsed, his hands against the canvas for support. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know why, but he kisses him, lips to the forehead of the man he—. He kisses him. He walks away. He touches the bruise on his cheekbone, and he smiles. It still hurts.

Kenny Fucking Omega 

w/ the sad yeehaw man

He didn’t hook the leg. 

Adam rolled through the snapdragon and countered with a firm elbow to Kenny’s jaw. He put Kenny on his feet and then lifted the other man by the thighs, over his shoulders. Deadeye, right to the back of the head, a knock-out for a lesser man. Except Kenny Omega was Kenny Fucking Omega, and he kicked-out. The match rolled on, Adam lost, he’d seen the ending twenty-thousand times. The One-Wing Angel was a punctuation point at the end of a statement. Yet, each time he watched through the recording he paused on that one pin after the Deadeye. Adam had Kenny stacked, his full weight on his shoulders. The bell should’ve rung. Except Adam only hooked the left leg. He only hooked the left leg on Kenny Omega. He only hooked the left leg on Kenny Fucking Omega. The best pin he got the whole match. Right after Omega ate: a half-dozen elbows, too many chops to count, a starching power bomb on the ramp, three boots to the face, and got dropped on his head from four feet in the air. The planets aligned, the Scorpio was in Aquarius or whatever, and Adam only hooked one leg. 

“It was the-- it was the right leg!” 

Tony’s voice shuttered through the phone in Adam’s lap. The screen paused on the collapsed forms of the combatants in the ring. Adam face down in the fore-ground and Kenny clutching his leg not far behind. In that moment he hadn’t thought about the right leg. Kenny had kicked out by some miracle but it wasn’t sheer luck. Kenny exploited Adam’s error.  Of course, unbeknownst to Adam the comms were carefully picking-apart Adam’s critical mistake. The legs weren’t neutralized. Kenny could swing his right leg and leverage his weight-out. If Adam had hooked both legs the match would be over, he’d be facing Mox. Instead, he made a stupid mistake so obvious even Tony Schiavone, who would break his hand before he could throw a good punch, pointed it out. 

A headache formed behind Adam’s eyes. He tore his gaze from the screen and glanced-out the window. The dark night streaked black, reflecting back his hotel room and his bedraggled body propped-up in bed. A limp hand fluttered out to find his bourbon on the night stand. He lifted the glass to his lips and found no relief for his parched throat. Adam scowled and returned the glass to where he found it. The bottle was empty too. He couldn’t tell if he was buzzed, drunk, or hungover. Just a dullness, settling in with the ache and exhaustion. Adam used the tip of his finger to edge the glass away from him. A final statement that he was done for the night. He slid down from his upright position against the pillows and sprawled out the bed covers The fan swirled in lazy circles above him. After months of blistering heat Florida had cooled to a tolerable temperature but this room was cooking him alive. His hair was still damp from the shower. He glanced at the clock, 1:43. No phone calls, no texts, no twitter updates, he put his phone on airplane mode hours ago. It was just him, the recording of his life’s greatest failure, and an empty bottle of bourbon. 

Adam lifted his phone from his side. He turned onto his cheek to glance at it again. He hit the play button and the recording rolled. The two men recovered, Adam was up first. He set-up for the buckshot but Kenny anticipated it and rolled him into a crucifix. He was so fucking predictable. Adam used a boot between the ropes to stuff Kenny’s charge three times that night. No wonder he had his leg well scouted. That twisting move on his knee obliterated his chance in the match. Can’t stand, can’t fight. Oh, Adam had a couple more signs of life in him but two knees to the face, well. He was up on Kenny’s shoulders now. Kenny caught the head and Humpty Dumpty took a great fall. The leg hook was a formality. Adam wasn’t even sure he was conscious for this part.  One, two, three, and Adam paused the video again. He haphazardly tossed the phone and it clattered off the edge of the bed. Adam had a life proof case for a reason. 

There was no point in watching any further. 

For a head-spinning minute, Hangman Adam Page was somebody. He was the tag team champion, alongside Kenny Fucking Omega. He was on top of the world. It was all so good. Training with Kenny, fighting with Kenny, sometimes, fighting with Kenny. Getting distracted by another tag-team-- No, Kenny literally dropping Adam like a sack of potatoes was inevitable. He had held Kenny back, made stupid fucking mistakes, hit his partner on accident, got drunk and wandered around arenas like a moron. Bickering with the bucks and ruining his friendships. Adam was an arsonist, he only burned down bridges and never built them. Now he was alone on his Island, just like he always wanted. And he had a lost tournament to prove how ‘accomplished’ Adam Page truly is. Matt and Nick were right about him. For all his bluster, all his big talk, believing in himself when no one else would. Empty words, Adam could talk the talk, but he couldn’t walk the walk. Because he ran-up against someone like Kenny Fucking Omega. 

And he forgot to hook the left leg. 

He didn’t need the video for the next part. Kenny’s head and hand lifted high. Kenny, haloed like an angel of death by the Dally Place lights. Kenny, knelt above him like a prayer at the altar. Cheeks blushed in rose, breath spilling from his chapped, pink lips. Curls like spun gold, framing his sculptured features. Like something out of a renaissance art painting. Out of a great tragedy, Lucifer, Achilles, Gabriel. His lips against his forehead in a kiss as delicate as a flower petal. Paul Turner helping Adam limp out of the arena. Fuck Hangman, and then taking the Uber back to his hotel alone, in utter silence with the guy working the graveyard shift. Alcohol, shower, alcohol, video self-pity marathon, alcohol. He wished his dog was here. Wait, what was that last bit?

Adam lunged across the bed. Kicked into action as if bitten by a Hell Hound. Belly against the comforter his hands searched the floor until he found his phone lodged by the head board. Half-his chest off the bed he hit the play button. Adam slammed against the ring mat. The fall-out, the replay, the play-by-play, the comms chattering, (”Kenny came out the better man”), blah, blah, blah. Paul Turner helped Kenny up. Then he was back down, knelt over Adam, and with great reverence, Kenny stooped to kiss Adam’s forehead. The he rolled out of the ring. Adam paused the video. Then he played it back. Then he paused the video and then he played it back. he paused the video, he played it back. Inch-by-inch Adam slid off the mattress until he was slumped against the floor, legs hooked on the bed above him. He watched that little end sequence on loop until it was emblazoned against his memory. It was so quick the comms didn’t even mention it. 

 A kiss. Kenny kissed him. Kenny Fucking Omega kissed him. Adam laid his hand over his sternum. His heart shuttered in his chest, pounding, tight, and agonizing. Pure pain, looking at the blurred pixels on his phone screen. It wasn’t near enough, the taste of it was like a morsel of food for a starving man. Kenny lingered over Adam in nothing but obscure pixels. What was his expression like? What did he do with his hands? And most important, something the phone could never tell him, why? 

Adam and Kenny were out. Now that his obligations to the tag title were done, Kenny returned to the single arena. Tired of dragging dead weight, tired of the noose around his throat. Kenny walked out on the tag team Adam prayed to stay in. Adam screwed over the Bucks. He spitefully entered a tournament to prove he didn’t need Kenny anyway. Adam didn’t even shake his hand at the start of the match. Not just because he was angry --Adam was pissed in that unshakable focused way-- but because he was afraid. Taking Kenny’s hand, never letting go, too tempting a possibility. The longer he stared at the screen the longer this shameless act of devotion eluded him. 

For the first time in hours Adam turned his phone off airplane mode. He shuffled through the deluge of notifications by dismissing all of them without reading any. He pulled-up Kenny’s contact, drafted a text message.

“Hey, man, good fight today-- well, yesterday, I guess. I just wanted to ask, out of curiosity, did you kiss me at the end? I mean, it’s no big deal. I was just wondering is all like i thought it was a little odd is all. Are you ok? You know you can always count on me, no matter what. I’m sorry i’ve been such an ass. I need to start drinking less, much less. It’s just that everything, the tournament, the belts, it’s been getting to me, I only wanted to prove to you guys I could keep up. I want you to know, I feel the same.”

Adam paused, his thumb hovering over the send button. The last line stained in black font against his vision. He then selected the entire text, cut it, and pasted it into a note’s app. Adam sighed and turned off his phone. His arm slung over his eyes. Five minutes later he was passed-out cold, still on the floor, snoring, and with the lights on. 

#ofgrief #‘The Hangman’ || Adam: IC #‘Deals with God’ || Adam: Verse #if adam was in a better head space or had better coping mechanism #he would rephrase this #such that the only thing standing between him and Kenny Fucking Omega #Kenny Fucking Omega who is easily one of the best in the world and has 8+ more years of experience than him #is a single minor error #if Adam had hooked that leg #he would've won the match #he was that close #instead he's stucking in this negative downspiral thinking about how terrible and awful he is #glass half empty #instead of seeing actually #his glass is 9/10 full and he's bemoaning a quarter inch of emptiness

[splat-dragon]

I find myself somewhere I—I never thought I'd be What do I do now? So much has changed ~Nothing I've Ever Known, Bryan Adams

For one of the first times since she’d woken up in West Elizabeth, it wasn’t raised voices that woke her, but soft voices and hoofbeats. It was hot, but not nearly so hot as she’d grown used to, and so she allowed herself to enjoy it, blinking slowly awake. She yawned, tongue unfurling in that way of a dog’s, before licking her lips, finding them dry and rank of morning breath—oh, but she missed toothpaste!

The voices that continued to speak outside were familiar, so she didn’t hurry as she stood, stretching luxuriously, bones and joints popping in a way that had her sighing—she’d been so stiff, it felt so nice!—before bracing her paws and shaking herself off, working out the last of the kinks in her joints. While the shack was more comfortable than the dirt, it wasn’t too nice on her bones.

“What were you thinkin’?” an old man’s voice grunted suddenly, and her ears had perked up as she’d raised her head to see a familiar freeloader standing in the doorway looking back over his shoulder, clearly not having seen her or, at least if he had, not paying her a lick of thought.

“I don’t know… she said she wanted it!” and she couldn’t help but to snort. Even when she’d been playing the game, however-long-ago, before she’d gone back to a Chapter Two save to roam because there was nothing to do in the epilogue and she missed the gang, she’d thought that had been damn stupid. Abigail had admitted that she hadn’t seen a picture, that she had only read about it in the newspaper (well, had someone else read it to her, but potato potahto), John could have easily gone and found another ranch, one she would have loved even more, one that wasn’t a shack in the middle of a field of dying grass, one that wasn’t near cougar and puma spawns, and wasn’t a stone’s throw away from a forest filled with Skinners, cougars, and grizzly bears. It would be more expensive, sure, but in the long run the cost would be far less, and even when she’d been playing as John and Jack was little more than a handful of pixels the thought of him near that cougar spawn made her anxious.

Then again, if he had bought any other ranch, the epilogue would be a hell of a lot shorter than it already was, but still.

“She ever seen it?” ‘Exactly!’ she thought, nodding her head. She’d never been one to hate Uncle like a lot of players did, never one to hit the antagonize button, preferred to just ignore him if anything—he was lazy, for the most part useless, but in the end he gave his life for the Marstons and so she couldn’t hate him. But here she agreed with him wholeheartedly. “What are we gonna farm here? Rocks?” and that brought a snicker from her chest, and she wondered idly what it sounded like—clearly they couldn’t understand her, else she’d probably have ended up shot, being a talking dog and all, though considering the strange things that John had seen maybe not, but those men from before surely would have set her brains to leaking out on the dirt. Trotting forward, she stuck her head out the open doorway, momentarily blinded by the harsh sunlight, only to find she hadn’t been missing much as she made out Uncle’s broad form, ass pointed her way, stooping down to pick up a stone.

“We?” John echoed, and for the first time she recognized the resignation in his voice.

“You don’t have a hope here, without a wise hand at the tiller.” she tilted her head as she looked between the two, realizing for the first time that she had no clue what a tiller was. Whatever it was, though, Uncle was useless at it, whatever it was, considering he was useless at everything except for the very end of the first game. Around the ranch he did nothing, from what she could recall, and only caused trouble in town. But she liked him because, in the end, he cared for the Marstons, willing to give up his life for them if he had to.

She took no small amount of amusement out of watching them argue, jaw hanging open in a dog’s grin, the drunkard of an old man simply saying ‘no’ as the young gunslinger tried to force him to leave. John was younger, much more dangerous, and could have hauled him off the property, so watching Uncle no-sell him was hysterical.

Living with them, she supposed, wouldn’t be so bad.

“So, you think I’m an idiot?” John grunted, glaring at Uncle as though he’d thrown horse-shit at him, not just a rock.

Yes.’

She ducked out of Uncle’s way as he walked into the shack, half expecting a blow, but he only raised a bushy eyebrow and laughed, “No… I know you’re an idiot!” moving to sprawl out on the floor and grab one of the half-empty bottles of whiskey the dead men had left lying around. She wrinkled her nose, trying not to think about what might be floating around in it, cigarette butts and dead flies and ants and other bugs, and who knew what else besides.

How in all hell had Uncle survived to be so old?

She retched as she saw something float down the neck of the bottle and into Uncle’s mouth, and hurried out of the shack before she could see anything else, stopping to look for John. He was scowling as he gathered up Rachel and Nell the… she was pretty sure IV, leading them by the reins to the tree she’d spent the last few days tied to, and just the sight of it had her fur standing on end, and though she knew he wasn't like them, and that they could pull their reins free from the low branch he was tying them to, it put a sour taste in her mouth.

Not caring to go anywhere near the tree, she waited for him to approach the shack before trotting up to him, wagging her tail and offering a friendly “whuff!”, finding it much deeper than she’d expected, although then again she hadn’t exactly been expecting anything.

John looked at her in surprise, eyebrows raised, and asked “So you stayed, huh girl?” and she lolled out her tongue, dropping on her haunches and thump-thump-thumping her tail on the ground to try and make sure that she came off as friendly—considering that John was a tall man, and she came eye-to-hip on him, she knew she was a big dog, and a big dog with a deep bark was an intimidating dog, and she’d survived days of starvation, dehydration, and near heatstroke, and didn’t care to be shot dead the next day by the man who’d saved her, thank you very much. Slowly, ready to jerk back if she tried to bite, he reached out, and she couldn’t help but to sigh as he scratched under her chin, oh, oh!, but that felt good! Her tail wagged violently enough to throw up puffs of dust and, as he dug his fingers in deeper, her butt began to move with it. That, that, was pure pleasure.

But, of course, all good things have to come to an end. And it was her own stomach that put an end to this one, rumbling so loudly that even John, with his weak human ears, could hear it. He snorted a laugh, withdrawing his hand, and she absolutely did not lean forward, seeking the touch, no sir, asking “Ya hungry, girl? Bet they didn’t feed ya much, did they?” And, okay, she really was. She hadn’t eaten since waking up in… Red Dead Redemption? The Epilogue? West Elizabeth? Whatever you want to call it, she hadn’t eaten since waking up in it, and now that she wasn’t so distracted by the heat and her own thirst, her empty stomach was screaming at her, was all she could think about.

A strange sound pulled her from her musings, flopped-over ears perking up as she watched John dig through his satchel—he could pull anything out of it or, at least, she thought so. Was this world following the game’s logic? Could he somehow fit fifteen squirrel carcasses inside it with plenty of room for other things? Or did it follow real-life logic?

If she didn’t find out from him, she’d have to test that, because the curiosity was killing her.

And then, joy of joys!, he pulled out a handful of dried meat. Her eyes locked on it as she began to drool, tongue lolling out and saliva dripping to the ground as though she were some common street cur, a whine spilling from her throat without her meaning it to. He chuckled, unwrapping the rags that held them together, and tossed it to the ground at my paws, throwing up a cloud of dust. Very, very slowly she looked up at him, glaring as though he had done so just to hurt her, though really she couldn’t blame him. Even though she’d been nothing but well behaved, she’d been half out of her mind most of the time he’d known her, so how was he to know that she wasn’t bad tempered? And, besides, feeding a stray dog can be dangerous; you never knew if they were food aggressive, and in a time without rabies shots being bitten by a stray could be fatal.

So, sighing, and still looking at John as though he’d betrayed her, she took the dried meat in her mouth and beginning to chew, finding it surprisingly hard— seeing as most of her teeth were different from what she was used to, and made for sheared, not chewing, at that. The meat was tough, dry, tasteless and filthy but she was so hungry that, at that moment, it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted.

“If you’re gonna stay,” John said suddenly, and she gulped down the last few bites of the mystery meat (maybe venison? She’d never had it before, so she couldn’t say, but the meat had so little taste she wouldn’t be able to say what it was even if she had, “then I suppose you’re gonna need a name.”

‘Oh,’ she thought, licking her lips to try and get the sand off of her muzzle, plopping down on her haunches and looking up at him. Well, she couldn’t exactly tell him her name, could she? If she tried to write her name in the dirt then who knew what would happen? Sure, he was John, but even he would know that a dog shouldn’t be able to write!

...at least, she really hoped so.

Besides, knowing Uncle, he’d probably try to earn money by putting on shows of the ‘Amazing Writing Dog’ or something like that. No thank you.

Well, she sighed, bringing a hindpaw up to scratch behind her ear, she hoped he picked a good name for her or, if she was lucky, he’d manage to stumble across her real name. Probably not, her luck didn’t tend to run that way. As most could probably guess, considering she’d been turned into a dog, sent into a video game, and damn well nearly killed.

Although, considering he’d named his horse ‘Rachel’, she didn’t have high hopes for a good name.

He tried a handful of names - Brownie, which she refused to even acknowledge, Floppy, which was just insulting, Pepper, which she actually liked but surely he could do better? Wait, what was she thinking- Greenie? Wow, and she’d thought Brownie was bad. John sighed, running his fingers through his greasy hair, “Jesus, I’ve never met such a picky animal before!” ‘Well, get used to it!’ “Abigail named Jack, and Old Bob as old as dirt and a Bob through and through.” she looked up at him, and blinked slowly in a manner more befitting a cat than a dog. Still not impressed, John. Old Bob had had a mostly human name, Rachel had a human name, try a human name on her other than Pepper! Please? At least one? Cain had had a human name, it wasn’t like he’d never known a dog with a human’s name. And, she remembered, Rufus had a human-ish name too, so why was he so averse to giving her one, too?

Aw, hell, she remembered then that Jack-or was it Abigail?- had named Rufus.

‘Please, God, why me?’

He looked, suddenly, deep in thought, and she wondered what he’d come up with this time. Fluffy, maybe? Was she fluffy? Seeing herself in the puddle was only a vague memory, hazy and faint considering she’d only been half-conscious, so she needed to find somewhere to get a good look at herself.

When he spoke, it was under his breath, “What was the name of that woman in Jack’s book?” and she tilted her head in aroused curiosity—which book? In the game (at least, in the epilogue) she’d only ever seen him reading about King Arthur, but of course he’d have read plenty others off-screen, so all she could do was look at him like, well, a curious dog. “Gin… Guinev-Guinevere?”  The rather extravagant name was rough on his tongue, stuttered and awkward, a five-dollar word in a fifty-cent mouth, but it was a name she liked , much better than Brownie, Greenie, Floppy or even Pepper, and she feared what other names he might come up with, so she perked her ears and showed her interest, looking at him intently. She could live with that name, quite happily in fact. It was extravagant, far more-so than the one she’d had in her other life.

“Of course that’s the one you like,” he sighed, the surprised expression on his face turning resigned, “who comes up with those names, anyways?” 

“Not you, clearly!” and he better use that name, she refused to answer to anything else he came up with. “Fine, Guin… shit, you’re gonna need a nickname, that’s a hell of a mouthful. Ginny, I’ll call ya Ginny.”

Ginny, she could live with that.

#silent savior #i can't quite remember just what guided me this way #Red Dead Redemption #red dead redemption 2 #splat #splat dragon #splat_dragon #splatdragon #splatdragonff #john #john marston #uncle #red dead epilogue #rdr2 epilogue #red dead redemption 2 epilogue #guinevere #ginny