#new tr game looks great

[eurodynamic]

RESIDENT EVIL 4 REMAKE (2023) dev. Capcom Leon Croft - Osiris

#resident evil #resident evil 4 remake #leon kennedy #gamingedit #residenteviledit #re4edit #userwolfkissed #zevrans #uservee #usermichi #userfarllee #usercynti #userfaarkas #userbrujah #aartyom #* #new tr game looks great

[obxologies]

𝘠𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘖𝘯 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘖𝘸𝘯, 𝘒𝘪𝘥  𝘑𝘑 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘬

warnings: angst, unrequited love

requested?: no

author's note: this based mostly on like the first verse of the song. hope you guys enjoy this, been in a bit of a slump with writing lately. also i didn't know how to stop it so sorry it's so awkward at the end lmao

JJ Maybank may not have seemed perfect to most of the people around him, but to y/n he was everything she had ever wanted.

JJ was y/n's first friend. None of the other kids had bothered to talk to her, but the energetic blonde boy ran right up to her and asked her to join him and his friends soccer game so the teams would be even, and from that day on he would never let her sit alone.

It was almost inevitable that y/n would soon grow feelings for the boy. y/n had been alone for just about her whole life. Her parents rarely payed much attention to her, and no one bothered to make friends with the quiet girl, so JJ's kindness was special to her and she didn't want to lose him. She kept her mouth shut about her crush. It wasn't worth losing him over, but it still hurt to watch him fall in love with someone else. That someone else being their friend, Kiara.

y/n knew the moment JJ started to have a crush on Kiara. She knew him better than anyone and that boy was infatuated with the kook turned pogue. It crushed her the first time she figured it out and it hurts just as much two years later which is why the acceptance letter in her hand that stated she would get the chance to study abroad her senior year of high school felt like a breath of fresh air. Until JJ found out.

"You're leaving?" JJ asked making y/n look up from her phone over to JJ who stood by the desk on the other side of her room. He held up acceptance letter with a confused look on his face. "What the hell is this?"

"It's nothing, J. Don't worry about it." y/n said standing up from her bed walking over to him. She reached out for the piece of paper, but he moved it out of her reach.

"You're moving away." JJ said eyeing the paper again. "In a couple months." He looked back up at her. "Were you going to tell anyone?"

"Of course I was, J." y/n said. "I just got the letter yesterday."

"Where are you going?" JJ asked.

"London. They have a really good program and it would be a great opportunity for me, y'know?" y/n smiled softly.

"Yeah, that's great for you." JJ nodded. "Just leave us all behind and go start a new life." He said annoyed.

"JJ, it's not like that." y/n shook her head. "I'd come back before graduation, and I'll keep in touch with you guys-"

"Until you won't." JJ interrupted her.

"What?" y/n questioned.

"C'mon, y/n. Don't act stupid." JJ said making her frown. "You'd keep in touch with us until you find new friends and then you'll forget all about us while you're living it up in London."

"JJ, that's not true. You guys are my friends. You are my best friend. I'd never just abandon you guys." y/n insisted.

"Well, it kind seems like that's what you're doing." JJ scoffed. "Why did you even apply for this? Why didn't you tell anyone, huh?"

"I didn't even know if I'd be accepted." y/n said. "I just needed to," She paused.

"Needed to what?" JJ raised a brow. He rolled his eyes when she looked away from him. "Yeah, whatever. Have fun in London." He said spitefully. He crumbled the paper tossing it at her before storming out of her room.

Maybe it was for the better that he hated her, she thought to herself. This way it wouldn't be as hard to leave.

JJ hadn't spoken to y/n in three days. He was avoiding her like the plague. It didn't help that he had told all the pogues. Fortunately, they were more supportive and understanding than he was.

"He'll come around, y/n/n." Pope patted her back.

"Yeah, hopefully." y/n gave him a small thankful smile. Her eyes trailed over to JJ who stood with Kiara running the keg. "I think I'm gonna head home for the night though." She said finishing the rest of her beer before tossing it in the trash bag.

"Okay, see ya later." Pope waved her off which she returned.

y/n glanced at JJ one last time before heading up the beach. She sighed to herself, shoving her hands into her pockets grabbing her phone out of her pocket to check the time seeing she had only been at the party for an hour. She stopped with a huff trying to decide if should go home.

"y/n!" She heard his all too familiar voice call from behind her. She turned around seeing the blonde boy jogging towards her.

"Hey." She said walking a few steps closer.

"Are you leaving?" JJ asked stopping in front of her.

"I think so." y/n nodded looking around avoiding his eyes. "Do you need something?"

"No." JJ shook his head.

"Okay." y/n trailed off. She slowly turned to leave, but JJ spoke again.

"Did I do something?" JJ asked. "To make you leave. I, I just wanna know why you didn't tell me about anything." He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"It's really complicated, JJ. I don't wanna make things worse." y/n said.

"I don't think it matters right now." JJ stated making her frown.

"Look, JJ. I don't have anything here for me, and I just want a fresh start. I wanna go somewhere where I'm more than just a kid from the cut." y/n explained.

"You have us." JJ scoffed. "Unless we don't mean anything to you."

"You guys mean more to me than anything else in the world, JJ. You mean more to me than anyone or anything." y/n paused staring at him sadly. "I'm in love you, JJ. I know you don't feel the same, okay? And that's fine. I know you and Kie like each other and that's fine because all I care about is that you're happy."

"You're leaving because of me?" JJ frowned.

"I'm leaving because of me." y/n said. "Because I need to get out of this stupid town or nothing good is going to happen for me. So please don't make me leave on bad terms with you, J." She said as tears started to fall down her cheeks.

"You're in love with me?" JJ furrowed his brows.

"I always have been, JJ." y/n gave him a small smile.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." JJ looked away.

"It's not your fault, J." y/n shook her head. "You've always been the best friend I could ask for."

tags: @thejuleshypothesis @jjmaybankswifes-blog

#obxologies #outer banks #obx #outer banks x reader #imagines #jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank fanfics #jj maybank fanfic #jj maybank oneshot #jj maybank imagines #jj maybank x fem!reader #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank oneshots #jj maybank one shot #jj maybank fic #jj maybank x pogue!reader

[piggycyberwarrior]

TR- what it’s like to date Manjiro ‘Mikey’ Sano

Summary: what it’s like to date him!!

Requested: nooope.. 

warnings: none.. well i didnt proof read that shit ....

characters: Mikey

a/n: sorry for being offline for so long I had a tough time but i am backkkk. Make sure to drink enough water!!! love you all. Request are open btw XD

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

To be honest... Mikey is touch starved. that's a fact. He had lost so many people and meeting you was one of the best things that could have happened to him. You picked up his pieces over and over again and put them back together. Very carefully with a lot of love... and Dorayaki. 

When he finally had the courage to tell you how he felt, he was so nervous... poor baby. He didn't want you to reject him because then he wouldn't be able to look you in the eye anymore. when you said that you like him too, he was so relieved. three words: bone crushing hugs.

Mike would make a great boyfriend. Sure, it's a little exhausting sometimes to see his people following you around on your lunch break and he always has someone checking up on you, but you know he's only doing it to protect you and with that in mind it's easier to be accompanied by gang members. 

 CUDDLES! I can't say it enough. Mikey kind of loves to touch you? (Definitely has a thing for thighs) so it's only understandable that he's always glued to you (I mean have you seen him with ken-chin???) it’s even worse with you. He's like a little kid. Always grinning and always wanting to hold your hand. 

I think Mikey has nothing against PDA. He would kiss you in the middle of thousands of people or make out with you if he wanted to.(draken told him that if you were embarrassed about his actions, he should take that into account, so now he would hold back in public if you were uncomfortable with showing affection in puplic.

. Would definitely and I mean definitely! tackle you if you were careless... you'd just walk around the living room and poof! you'd be on the couch with an almost sleeping Mikey on top of you. 

I think Mikey is someone who also likes to be held. So either he's lying on top of you with his face pressed into your chest and his hair wildly splayed over your nose so you have to hold back a sneeze or two. His arms wrapped tightly around your middle. Or he would like to lie on your lap and put your hand in his hair again and again when you stop playing with it.

would love it if you would ride his bike with him at night. It's always so quiet and peaceful at that time. just you, him and his bike.

also a huge fan of lazy make outs! when you just got up and see that gorgeous blonde boy looking at you and grinning lazy “good morning baby~” he hummed as his lips ghosted only an inch away from yours. You smiled happily “Morning bubs. Slept well?” you asked as you stared at his pretty lips. “Y’know I always sleep good when you’re with me” he smiled as he cupped your cheeks and pressed a tired kiss on your lips. “I love u” he whispered as he kissed you again. Your lips moving in sync with his. Matching his slow rythym and inviting his tounge as it licked your sugary lips. “I love you too, Darling” oh how he loved that nickname when you said it a little bit breathless like that. 

If you have siblings (it doesn’t matter how old they are) he tries to get along with them. Playing princess with your little sister or playing video games with your brothers. Even joining the gambling night were your whole family attends. There he sees a new side of you. A simple game easily turns into war with you. 

he enjoys seeing you living your best life. If you’re happy he is happy too. Anyway he expects you to accept his family too. And with family I mean emma and his gang. Escpecially draken... but that shouldn’t be a problem. You’re friends with ken-chin.

WILL call you things like “Y/n-chin” or “baby” even things like “Potato” or “doll”,”Mouse” and so on. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING WHEN I SAY YOU THAT THIS! MAN! LOVES! AND I MEAN LOVES!!! WHEN YOU CALL HIM OLD FASHIONED OR DUMB NICKNAMES!!!!! hit that bish with things like “Darling”, “love” “bubs” “beloved” “cutie” “Pizza face” “Chippy” “gentleman” I could continue for HOURS. 

“hey darling could you go grocery shopping with me?... I am buying you some dorayaki too” he hoped you would not see the blush adorning his face as he listened to your voice full of love for him

if someone EVER tried to mess with you ohohohoooo (they’re dead or beaten till they cant walk anymore :)

baby if you are insecure... i’m sorry but that boy won’t have a CLUEEE unless you directly tell him... he is just a precious baby that loves everything about you so he wouldn’t ever think about the fact that you dont like your body or something else about yourself. But if you were the one to tell him he would be SOOOOOOO supportive of you. always cheering you on when going to the gym or kissing every imperfection, scar or stretchmark (you are beautiful bubs, i love you) and telling you how much he loves you

#tokyo revengers image #tokyo revengers mikey x reader #tr images #tr headcanons #tokyo revengers headcanons #manjiro sano x reader #mikey x reader image #tokyo revengers manjiro sano x reader dating #tr x reader dating

[antisocialmia]

Dr. W. Afton headcanons

sfw and nsfw mentioned -> mdni

gen!neutral reader, just silly thoughts and mostly sweet (I hope) probably not readproof so sorry for any writing mistakes.

Dr. W. Afton from the game 'Thats Not My Neighbour'

Disclaimer!! I dont own the character or anything. Just trying to support the creators.

Art credits: @_.calitryx on TikTok

Appearance

probably about 5'11 to 6'0 tall

takes really good care of his facial hair (the maximum it gets are two days before he shaves again)

see him something between slim and yet muscular, sleeper build

slim waist and his shoulders on the broader side

Cake. Thats it.

his hands are rather on the rough side but he tries to take care of them

long fingers and takes the cleaning of his hands very seriously??

he has defined features but not like too sharp

Random

he has knee issues

addicted to coffee, also his very first thought after waking up

has a habit of sleeping in when he has a day off

or so he says ─ the first time you slept over he was awake at 7.

takes a lot of time for his hair in the bathroom

was insecure about his nose in his teens but learned to accept it nonetheless

he's left-handed

randomly mutturs out some facts throughout the day

he needs to push up his glasses pretty often because he once broke them by sitting down on them but refused to get them fixed

"its only a little bent." Yeah, a whole 90 degrees

he has a picture of you in his wallet

probably all his colleges know about you at this point

he's such a yapper once talking about a topic he enjoys maybe just a little too much ─ but you let him because who can say no to someone like him?

notices the tiniest changes of literally anything

going from things laying somewhere else in his apartment to the act of a person he's talking to

also the type of guy who watches you look at something a little too long and buys it for you as a present later

he remembers everything, literally has the brain of an elephant. 'I remember you saying you wish you had that so I got it for you.'

Style

you might actually mistake him for a phyics teacher (that damn checker pattern)

closet is mostly filled with linen shirts and some suit pants

'thats all he ever needed' ─ his words

color variates, he has almost every color but those bright ones.

of course he has some home clothes (you love to steal)

comfortable sweats and cozy sweaters

great taste when it comes for comfortable clothing ─ always manages to get the most fluffy ones too.

for jewlery, he only wears his watch around his left wrist

Activities

he probably has a gym membership but never actually goes

if you go tho, he might join you

in his freetime he loves to jog

loves to explore new things, like new recipes to new games (If mobile or not)

playfights usually end up with him laying down on you with his full weight

always has a stupid grin on his face when he does that

Apartment

he's completely clean, not freaky clean tho

there's not a single dust grain

but hes not too pressed about it ─ he simply enjoys tidying his apartment

gives him some sort of comfort

you can also find sometimes his clothes over the couch or laying on the ground, which is rare but it happens

his job doesnt require too much of his time so he has plenty of time at home

Relationships

like said before, he had some insecurities

confidence wasnt his thing in his teens (He was probably one of those 'uhm actually' kids but unintentionally.)

changed in his 20's ─ went out regulary but never found anything that could have gone further

which changed when you came around

so, he indeed was experienced but you taught him things aswell

love language is physical touch and acts of service (also words of affirmation)

loves random hugs and gives them too

huge on pda and shows it too

he really loves to just embrace you and cuddle with you on the couch or in bed while watching a movie or show

sleeping with him is hell

he's tussing and turning all night long, but only If you arent in his grasp

once youre trapped in his arms there's no way out and he wont move a single inch

small snores, but only once in a while ─ barely noticable too.

has all sorts of nicknames for you 'baby' , 'love' , 'honey' , 'sugar' , 'cupcake' you name it.

NSFW -> mdni

a complete switch

service dom

lives to do what you tell him to

to the location -> probably everywhere in the apartment when youre up to it

high-sex drive and probably lasts atleast 2 rounds

gets super touchy when he's worked up and just hints what he wants instead of saying it directly

he's shy! Just catch up to what he's implying.

knows the difference between harder and faster

also, not exactly into hard bdsm but isnt shy to explore with you either

praising to the top with him

you wont catch him letting out one word that would degrade

loves physical touch so this is his time to shine

body worshiping

kisses every inch of skin his lips can reach and then again

always tells you how good youre doing and how proud he is of you for taking him that well.

he's not.. exactly small either

a true mystery how he keeps it hidden beneath those forbidden pants

he loves to mark you, not for claiming and only for his eyes to see (maybe on the nape of your neck but not further)

basically, he does it how you want it. Romantic, slow and tender? He's in with all at it. Rose pedals even.

in the mood for something more rough and- ahem- man handling? Sure. He's in. But expect a godly aftercare ─ he can't stand the thought of hurting you

Aftercare

whenever, he's all sweet and gentle

acting as If youre made out of glass and will break any moment

once again he'll do anything you ask him to do.

a bath? 'Of course, my love.' Just a simple glass of water? Its already on your nightstand. Cuddles? Thats already happening before you had the thought. A massage? 'Just relax,'

a dream, literally.

he'll clean you both up without a second thought and wont let you lift a finger

if you do, youre met with a pouty expression on his face.

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it. A little rushed.

#thats not my neighbor #headcanon #dr w afton #smut #D.D.D. #actually made for my friend?? #physicist #down bad #thats not my neighbour Dr. W. Afton

[mashpotatoequeen]

WHO DUNNIT TMBS CHALLENGE: petrichor

Despite the early hour, the day is starting to grow dark. It’s close enough to winter that the dusks have started to chase the horizon, the light fleeing quickly in a never ending game of tag. Still, it is autumn enough that it’s raining instead of snowing, the earth swallowing up the rainwater in great greedy gulps. Fallen leaves cling to the pavement.

Sticky walks through it carefully, avoiding puddles on the slick sidewalks and shuddering down to his core whenever he edges his way around a worm that has been called to the surface by the vibrations. 

(He used to read more books about entomology and the phylum Annelida and arachnids. He doesn’t anymore.)

Even though his sweater is slowly getting more and more drenched, his socks are dry and warm inside his wellies because of his caution. It’s something he appreciates, and holds in almost quiet smugness; Constance- who has sloshed through every tiny body of water she could find with great gusto- has been complaining of cold toes for almost half an hour now.

She keeps splashing through puddles anyway, water filling her new red rain boots, droplets arching through the air gravity defying moment by gravity defying moment.

“George Washington,” Constance says, her voice high and loud and just this side of grating in the ways that only the voices of small children can be. Sticky sighs, and looks at her, and makes sure his polishing cloth is in easy reach: there has been no end to her litany of complaints. She has grumbled about the long walk and she has whined about being hungry and she has positively moaned about the dipping temperatures as the sun gets lower and lower in the sky.

If she’s calling him George, she must be in an onry mood indeed.

(It might be the cold toes. She’s been trying to convince him to give her his socks these past few minutes, and his refusal to consider the prospect might necessitate revenge in her small, strange world.) 

Sticky never does like when Constance is feeling ornery. She’s unpleasant and brash and loud, and makes a point of pushing all his buttons. It’s a battle with his patience that he always, always loses.

All around them, the rain comes trickling down.

“Yes, Constance?” he says, and tries to sound calm and curious and not full of pre-set frustration for whatever escapes the little girl’s mouth next. Reynie is good at it, but Reynie is good at most things. Sticky consoles himself that he must at least be better than Kate, who doesn’t even try to hide it. He nods to himself and trudges onwards. They must be getting close to home by now; there is only so long you can walk before you get somewhere. 

“Why are you so boring?” Constance asks, and Sticky feels his lips purse. He deftly side steps when she splashes into another puddle.

“I’m not?” he says, and is a little bit annoyed at himself that his tone comes across as more questioning than firm. He walks slightly faster, taking advantage of his longer legs, but she makes no hurry to keep up. Instead, she stops entirely to crouch down and investigate a worm with a disgusted look on her face. 

Forced to admit defeat, Sticky stops, too, a safe few feet away. He blinks a few times to clear water from his eyelashes. 

Constance shoots him a side-eye. “You are, though,” she says, quite calmly, like it’s not something incredibly rude, like you can just say those things to people, and the storm cloud on Sticky’s face just grows bigger. He grasps desperately for his teetering patience. 

“What makes you say that?”

She groans, a little, and pops to her feet. She stomps over, each step sending water skittering across the pavement, uncaring of puddles or cracks but careful enough to avoid stepping on any worms. “We’ve been walking for nearly half an hour and I’ve not seen you go puddle hopping even once.”

Sticky blinks.

Usually, when someone declares him boring, it’s because he doesn’t want to play sports, or hasn’t seen the latest television show. It’s because his words trip out of his mouth- faster and faster- eager to share something new and interesting that he’s read only to discover that everyone around him has long stopped listening. Sticky knows he’s boring, is the truth of it. Dull and dreary seem to be labelled neatly onto his skin for everyone to see.

But he has never been called boring for something as inconsequential and reasonable as not wanting to get wet. 

Sticky takes off his glasses and swipes his polishing cloth over them, once then twice and then three times. The rain speckling the lenses gives him an easy excuse. The moment’s pause gives him time to balance himself on his tightrope of patience. He says, a little sharp, “Not everybody likes to get wet, Constance.”

Constance raises her tiny hand and smacks him on the side, producing a muffled, sodden sound; the wool has been slowly absorbing the rainwater over the last half hour, getting heavier and heavier. “You’re already wet!” she declares, with a victorious grin, and then smacks him again for apparently just the fun of it. 

It doesn’t hurt. Sticky feels prickly over it anyways, drawn tight and sharp and a little angry. There is a worm, some feet away, slowly squirming its way closer. Constance’s eyes are very blue. It hasn’t stopped raining, and they’re out in the open, and he’s cold. 

Sticky Washington is many things, but a tightrope walker is not one of them. He takes two jerky steps forward, moving out of her reach, and then just keeps walking. It’s better to walk than to snap and say something mean. He keeps his focus on avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, one step after another. The earthworms are given wide berths. 

The clouds above them are still grey and drooping, and the rain does not stop. People have their lights on, inside their houses, probably attempting to keep the gloomy weather at bay. Sticky wishes he was back at Mr. Benedict's house, dry and warm. He wishes that it wasn’t raining, or that he hadn’t forgotten the money for the bus fare, or that he’d never agreed to let Constance tag along with him to the library in the first place.  

Sticky wishes, a lot. He wishes he wasn’t scared of bugs and things that crawl and squirm. He wishes that getting caught in the rain didn���t make him feel like this, all small and drawn and anxious. He wishes that he was clever, like Reynie, or brave like Kate. He wishes that he could go about his day just not caring about all the tiny inconsequential things that always seem so worrisome to his strange tangled mind, the way Constance does.

Constance, who has to jog to keep up with him. Constance, who reaches out and snatches the fabric of his sweater, tugging as hard as she can, her bright red rain boots skidding across the wet pavement.  Her tiny brow is pinched. Her face is as red as her shoes, painted in a scowl.

“Sticky,” she says, and maybe it's the use of his name, or the tone of her voice, but he stops and looks at her. He would raise an eyebrow at her if he knew how, but he doesn’t, so he just quietly waits instead. 

After several long moments, the rain still falling down all around them, Constance sighs. “I just want to understand,” she murmurs, and lets go of his clothes. Her hands fall small and limp by her sides. “I don’t get why you don’t do it when everyone else does. Even Number Two!”

“Jumping in puddles?” he asks, and she nods. Her wet hair frames her face like a sticky curtain, strands clinging to her cheeks. It makes her look young.

Well. Younger.

Sticky sighs. His hands fumble for his polishing cloth, and through the soothing repetitions of cleaning his spectacles he manages to murmur, “I really do like staying dry.”

She doesn’t whack his clothes again, but she does poke him a little, where the fabric is wet and soggy. 

“And?” she prompts.

“And I suppose, when I was a child, I wasn’t typically allowed. So possibly I’m just not used to it.” The words are hard to get out, each one like a heavy stone that just wants to follow gravity’s course as far down as they can, to somewhere deep and dark and safe. He says them anyway, and remembers the press of neat little outfits against his back and sides, the way his parents would hurry him along down the streets to catch the next competition, the next gameshow, the next opportunity to show off their son and win their next prize

T.V. hosts don’t tend to appreciate contestants with wet socks, is the quiet truth of it. Homeless boys tend to appreciate it even less, when you only have one pair of socks to begin with. Sticky knows, intimately, what it is to be cold and wet and with nowhere to go. He wishes he were better at not thinking about it. About not being scared.

The rain falls, and falls, and falls. 

Constance’s fingers are small and wet and warm, when she grabs his hand.

He blinks at her, a little surprised, because Constance so rarely instigates physical touch with anyone who isn’t Reynie or Mr. Benedict. She ignores this, and holds on tighter. She gives his hand a little shake, like she’s annoyed at him. “You’ve very silly, Sticky Washington,” she says, and sounds self assured and exasperated both. “You still are a kid. And your parents aren’t here.” She jiggles his fingers one more time, and grins just a little sharp. “And you’re already wet, and we’re almost home.”

Sticky breathes, and then he breathes again. It smells like rain, wet minerals and the decomposition of organic compounds deep in the soil. He read a book about that, once. He’s answered quiz questions about it, too. Petrichor, he recalls, the smell of rain on dry earth. 

There is a puddle collecting on the road, just off the ledge. It’s deep enough that he can’t see the bottom. It’s big enough that if a car were to pass by, they would become more thoroughly soaked than they already are. Sticky turns to it, and considers.

Constance sees this, and her hand squeezes his own. She huffs, just a little, maybe in impatience, but she says nothing at all. The kindness of it echoes, just a little, upwards and outwards and out. 

It is not far to jump. The curb of the sidewalk is a few inches, at most. Kate would be able to tell for sure, but the point is that the distance is practically insignificant.

It feels momentous, regardless.

Sticky considers.

It will still be cold, is the thing. There will still be worms and there will still be a lingering, quiet sense of unease. A leap of faith cannot take away from that, no more than wishes can bend reality. Sticky is under no illusions that hopping in puddles will make him right. He has lived too long, strange and scared, to think that.

But here he is. And it is something. It will always be something, to be brave through your fear. To try. Sticky is learning that, he thinks. It's a small and gentle reminder he is tucking away into the corners of his mind.

Constance is right; they’re close to home. He has more socks, and no one to stop him from doing this but him.  

He breathes, and he squeezes Constance’s hand-

And they jump. 

The leap lasts less than a second. The leap feels like it lasts a minute, an hour, an entire day. Then the water bursts upwards into the air, displaced by their weight one after another. Sticky could explain why easily, the physics behind it all, but it is nice, in this one moment, to see it as something close to magic. 

A huff of a laugh comes bubbling up from somewhere in his chest, and maybe that’s its own sort of magic, too.

The grin on Constance’s face is bright and pleased. She kicks the puddle with all her might, sending a spray of water into his shin and thigh. It’s shockingly cold. Sticky hesitates, then smiles right back, his boot awkwardly skimming the top to create an unpracticed wave.

It reaches her neck quite easily. Afterall, she is rather small.

Sticky grins. Constance sputters. “No fair!” she shouts, but something like a laugh is hiding in her voice. His grin grows wider, tentatively, and he splashes her again.

Seconds slide past, one by one by one. They pass in a blur of movement and water and competition, in Constance growing more and more indignant at his unfair height and Sticky growing more and more practised at using it to his advantage. A car passes, and gives two quick honks of its horn. 

They pay it no mind. 

This is what it is, maybe, to find healing. To do silly ridiculous things that maybe have no importance to anyone who isn’t you. To do the silly ridiculous things just because you can, because a small part of you wants to reclaim something that was lost. 

(To do it not alone. That’s something Sticky is learning, too.)

Dusk starts to descend properly, light slipping away past the horizon in spits and spurts and starts. They are making their way, slowly, back home, but they keep getting distracted by the temptation of large puddles and Constance keeps getting distracted trying to rescue the worms. Sticky lets her, mostly, standing a few feet away. (He thinks that this might be okay, too; this bravery in increments. He is trying to let it be okay.)

Overhead, the streetlamps flicker on one by one by one.

“There you are!” a voice cries, and both Sticky and Constance glance up. Kate comes peeling down the street, a huffing Reynie several paces behind her. “And look, Reynie,” she says, and something mischievous sparks in her eye. “There we were, doing all this worrying, and they’ve been out here having fun! Without us.”

Reynie wheezes. 

“I agree, Reynie,” Kate says with false aplomb, and her smile seems to just keep growing, scrunching her eyes up. Sticky throws Constance a look, a bit wary of whatever Kate has planned. Together, they brace themselves. 

“We must seek our revenge!” Kate calls, and practically throws herself into the puddle beside them. The force of her landing sends water flying high and skittering, and a few drops splash against his cheek. 

Reynie releases a breathless chuckle, and then he comes sloshing in after her. Once enemies, Sticky suddenly finds himself turning to Constance as an ally. As one, they sweep their feet through the water and send a great huge wave of it in their friends’ direction. Reynie yelps at the cold. Kate laughs.

Constance’s hand slips into his own, tugging urgently towards higher ground, and they start to run.

His socks are thoroughly soaked. 

Sticky, for once, finds that he doesn’t mind at all.

#tmbs #the mysterious benedict society #who dun it mbs challenge #guess who's back back again

[beardedmrbean]

Not too long after Feminist Frequency shuts down Brianna Wu has her DMs leaked revealing her to be a two-faced hypocrite. What's Zoe Quinn been up to lately? And anyone else vocally opposed to GamerGate for that matter. By the way, since not everyone knows this, Brianna Wu is trans, so anyone claiming she's a transphobic cis woman are wrong.

Alec Holowka's death is on her, that's from 2019 though so no clue what might be next on the menu for her.

The Wu thing is news to me, gonna look real quick.

These guys are a subsidy of Reuters based in India, going with trustworthy enough.

Went over to her twitter to see, just googled it since I don't want the algorithm to think I want anything to do with her, this it what it gave me.

It starts out great and I thought is was gonna be her making excuses for herself because the preview just gave me the first sentence.

So we can see how it's totally different when it happens to someone else. I have no clue what happened with jonah hill and I really don't care context is for losers at this point.

ohh and the other person is a transmedicalist, had issues with blm, and all kinds of other stuff.

Chris here is gonna be all kinds of popular now too I bet.

how thrilling it all is.

#anonymous #brianna wu #transphobia #is anyone surprised at this point #but how will she blame #gamergate #for her own words

[tinylilemrys]

Lonely In London

Relationship:

Trent Crimm/Ted Lasso

Additional Tags:

Angst and Romance | Romcommunism | Friends to Lovers | Romantic Comedy | Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Summary:

Henry, worried about how lonely his dad seems to be in London, writes into an advice podcast for some help. A podcast run by an ex-colleague of Trent's – one that he listens to religiously. If Trent falls a little for 'Lonely In London' because he reminds him of Ted, well that's just coincidence. An homage to romcommunism, largely based on 'Sleepless In Seattle' with a few others thrown in for good measure.

Next Chapter

A/N: I'm posting at least the first two chapters on Tumblr, because I have no idea when AO3 is going to be back on its feet and I know I'm looking for fanfic on here too. 💛

CHAPTER 1

It starts one relatively normal weekday in June. Henry is in the living room, with his iPad and new Richmond-branded headphones, a welcome-back-to-England gift from Jamie. Ted is a few feet away at the kitchen table, putting together his plan for the upcoming season.

He's not supposed to be working. Not yet. He's been ordered by Rebecca to take the month to focus on rest and spending as much time with Henry as possible. It's his reward for an incredibly hard-fought season.

Unfortunately Ted's never been one to take much of a break. Not when there was so much still to do.

If he's being honest, a lot of it has to do with Nate's betrayal. It stung then and it stings now and the only way Ted can think of dealing with it is by being better than they were last season. He wishes Nate all the best on his new adventure with West Ham, he really does, but it would be great to succeed in the face of Nate's spiteful turn.

He can't stop thinking about how it had cost Trent his job, and that, more than anything, makes Ted furious. The club would recover, but he could never go back to being Trent Crimm, The Independent.

His train of thought is interrupted by an excited shriek from Henry, who up until that point, Ted assumed was playing games on his iPad.

"Dad! Dad! Guess what? They used my question!" he yells, bounding up to his dad and handing him an earbud. Ted laughs, partly in confusion, partly because Henry is so earnestly excited.

"Whoa, hold on now, Bud. I'm gonna need you to take several steps back in this conversation so I have context." He pops the earbud in. "Who are you sending questions to?"

"It's this podcast called 'Help, I'm So Sad'," Henry explains. "They take questions from people who are sad and give them advice."

Ted's stomach plummets. Both he and Michelle knew it was a risk, having Henry come to London for the whole summer. The idea was to give Michelle a break to spend some time with Doc-- with her new boyfriend, while giving Ted some quality time with his son. Throw in the promise of one-on-one training with Henry's hero, Jamie Tartt, and it seemed like a solid plan, albeit one with the potential to go terribly wrong. Henry has never been away from home as long as that, and now, barely a month into his time here, it seems like Henry is so sad he had to write into a podcast about it.

"Oh, Henry," Ted manages to choke out when his breath returns to his lungs a bit. "I love that you're admitting you need help. That's a very important step that not even a lot of grownups get to. I just wish that you knew you could talk to me about these things too. What's got you so sad? Do you want to talk about it or do you just need a hug right now?"

"No, Dad, it's not for me." Henry giggles as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, and Ted feels some of the sensation come back to his hands. Maybe he's not a complete failure as a father after all. In fact, he's so relieved that his son isn't sad to the point of getting write-in advice about it, that the next sentence completely blindsides him. "I wrote to get advice for you."

Oh. Well. Shit.

"Now that was mighty thoughtful of you, Bud," he says, measuring his voice, trying not to panic. The earnest smile on his son's face tells him that all of this was done with the absolute best of intentions. He'll have to course correct on where the healthy boundaries are when it comes to personal struggles, but he can't rightly be mad at his son for something that was done out of kindness. "What did you write to them?"

"Listen," says Henry, scrubbing back a bit in the episode. Ted obeys, heart hammering against his ribcage, the foreboding bubbling up inside him, turning his stomach.

"Smidge," says a woman with a clipped English accent.

"Bits." says a voice in response.

"Lauren says we're going to love this next letter."

"Ooh, I'm listening," Her accent sounds Scottish. At least Ted won't struggle to tell their voices apart.

"It's from 'My Dad's Sad'… aged nine and a half."

Smidge gives a small squeak.

"Oh, we're not going to survive this, are we?" she says.

"Probably not," laughs Bits. "Okay here it goes. Dear HISS. My friend told me about this show. Her mom listens to it a lot, even though we're in America and you're in England. My dad is also in England, so I was hoping you would be able to give him some advice since you're right there.

"He's been very sad ever since him and my mom got divorced. My mom has a new boyfriend and they seem to be happy, but my dad is still sad. He says that he's happy with work and even though he has a really cool job that he's very good at, I can see that he isn't happy. He pretends to be and I think most of his friends at work think he is, but I know he isn't. Even though we still play catch and Minecraft and build LEGO like we used to, I can tell the whole time he's not enjoying it like he did before. He doesn't ever go out on dates or even talk to anyone except his work friends. I don't get to see him a lot, since I don't normally live in London with him, so I don't know how to help. How can I make my dad be happy again like he used to always be? Love, My Dad Is Sad, nine and a half."

"Oh bless him," says Smidge. "Well, My Dad Is Sad, I think in this case the only advice we can really give you is to talk to your dad about it. He probably doesn't know that seeing him unhappy is upsetting you as much as it is."

"Yeah, I agree," says Bits. "And maybe he hasn't given himself the permission to let the old times go yet. I know when my parents got divorced, my mum struggled a long time with letting go of what we used to be. She didn't date for ages afterwards because she said she didn't want to introduce too much change into my life, but it was really her excuse for not wanting to move on herself. And you know what, My Dad Is Sad? He sounds like a really good father even though you don't get to see him a whole lot. Sounds to me like if you talked to him about this, he would be willing to listen."

"Of course I would," says Ted, who has tears streaming down his face despite his best efforts to keep it together. He removes the earbud and pulls Henry into a tight hug. "Oh man, I didn't realise you were so worried about me, Champ."

"I try not to be," says Henry, and Ted can hear by the wobble in his voice that he's also crying. "I just wish things could be like they used to be."

"I know, I know. I do too," says Ted, rubbing Henry's back soothingly before pulling away to look him in the eyes. "But, hey, look, I need you to know that I am getting help, alright?. I have a great therapist who's helping me work through a whole bunch of things I've never ever thought to work through. Things I'll be able to explain to you properly when you're a bit older. So even though I might be sad now, and even though it might not ever go away completely, I want you to know I'm working on getting better, okay?"

"Okay," nods Henry. He wipes his arm across his eyes. "Sorry for crying so much."

"Hey now, ain't nothing wrong with a good cry," says Ted. "And in any case, I started it. So you don't get to be sorry about it even if you wanted to be."

"That's not how it works, Dad." Henry smiles a little and it's better than the sun peaking between the clouds on a rainy London day.

"Oh, shoot, you're so right." He slaps his forehead for comedic effect, this time even drawing a little giggle from his son.

I really do owe you so much, Kiddo, he thinks to himself.

"Look, would it count as a start if I wrote into these kind ladies to say thank you for the advice?" Henry nods enthusiastically and Ted laughs. "Well, that's settled then."

He saves and closes the report he was working on and opens his email.

"Dear Smidge and Bits," he says out loud as he types. "And Lauren too I guess…"

He begins typing up the email, Henry leaning against his shoulder until he gets bored and goes off to play on his iPad some more. Once he's sure that Henry's engrossed in his task again, Ted decides to give his letter a bit more context, so that they understand he's not a completely lost cause.

After reading and rereading the message again, he sends it off, taking a deep breath as it moves from his outbox to his sent folder. The afternoon sun is striping across the living room floor and Ted realises they've been too cooped up all day. It's time to head down to the Green for a kickaround.

"Hey, Bud, boot up. We're heading out."

***

It doesn't matter how many times Trent leaves Anabelle, it never gets any easier. She looks so genuinely distraught that he feels physically ill looking at her. She loves Shaun, Trent knows she does, but she's still so little, and he knows she doesn't understand what's happening to her. When Trent deposits her into her other father's arms and turns to leave, and she screams like she's being subjected to the deepest betrayal, Trent feels his heart break that little bit more.

After one last glance back at the house, where Shaun has finally managed to wrestle the door closed behind him and the screaming four-year-old, Trent sighs, sets his satnav from "Shaun's Place" to "Home" so he doesn't get lost, and reluctantly pauses the complete Bluey soundtrack. He's about to get going when he remembers that he's promised to text Ted that he's safely in Aberdeen.

He doesn't usually text Ted his whereabouts. It was all down to a chance encounter a few days ago out on the Richmond Green. He'd bumped into Ted and Henry kicking a football back and forth and when he explained that he was taking Anabelle to get her favourite ice-cream, Ted asked if he and Henry could tag along.

Trent wasn't about to find a reason to say no even if there was one.

Despite the growing pit of dread in his stomach at having to leave his daughter, he'd had a surprisingly good afternoon. While Henry and Anabelle had giggled together about whatever kids find funny at that age, Ted and Trent had talked about everything and nothing. About Trent's firing and Richmond's chances in the upcoming season. About Henry staying for the summer and about how it was Anabelle's other father's turn to take her. Trent could have spent all day there, but a huge chocolate-stained yawn from his daughter had told him it was time to say his farewells.

"Hey, I know we're not on best bud terms yet," Ted had said and Trent had smiled at the word 'yet'. Like it was an inevitability that they would be one day. "It's just I know it's a long drive to Aberdeen and it would set my mind at ease to know that you made it there safe."

"I'll text you when I get there," Trent had replied, trying to ignore the way his stomach flipped at the idea that Ted was that concerned about his safety.

"I'd appreciate it, Mr Independent." Ted had offered the most devastating wink then, and Trent knew there was no way he wasn't going to do as promised.

It's nice to have a somewhat positive excuse to text him for a change. The past few texts back have all been Trent delivering bad news, including the latest one informing Ted that he'd accidentally locked his keys in his car. Okay, maybe that had been worse for him.

Hi, Ted – in Aberdeen safely. I'm just stopping at a service station to get a coffee and a bite to eat and then should be on my way back to London. Thanks again for your concern. Hope you're having a lovely Saturday with Henry.

By the time he gets to the nearest service station, there's a voice note waiting from Ted.

"Hey TC! Thanks for the message! Glad to hear you made it to Scotland safe. Hope you're holding up okay? I know it doesn't get any easier to let go of your kiddo, no matter how many times you do the handover. Holler if you want to talk about it. Or even if you want someone to take your mind off it. I have it on good authority that my ability to talk for hours about absolutely nothing is practically a superpower."

Trent gives a little huff of laughter at the direct quote from one of his Ted Lasso articles.

"At the very least, please let me know when you're back in London again, no matter what time of the night it is. Drive safe and I'll see you around."

He probably won't – not with Trent no longer covering AFC Richmond – but it's a lovely thought all the same. As is the idea that he has an offer to call Ted for the sake of just talking to him for a bit of company. He can't imagine working up the nerve to actually take him up on it, but it's fun to imagine.

He reacts to the message with a heart emoji, and then, panicking how that might come across, changes it to a sunflower instead. Friendly. Happy. Safe.

He really is such an idiot when it comes to Ted.

Fuelled up on coffee, an overpriced BLT, and, well, actual fuel, Trent loads up the latest episode of his friend's podcast and begins the long journey back to London.

He refers to Help, I'm So Sad as his friend's podcast, but he's not sure he could actually classify Lauren as a friend. Certainly, they were colleagues for many years and she was one of the people he hated the least. She worked in a different department, covering high society. Until one day as legend had it (Trent had been covering a match that day) she'd declared loudly to everyone in the cafeteria that she couldn't take it anymore, strode out of the building, and never came back.

Though he was convinced at the time that it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard someone do to their career, he couldn't help but admire the nerve it must have taken. Now, with the hindsight of his own firing, it seems even cooler. He wishes he could have left The Independent with his head held high, instead of with his eyes on the carpet, trying to balance the embarrassment of his dismissal with the lack of regret he felt at treating Ted like a decent human being..

In any case, Trent finds her podcast quite entertaining and listens to it as often as he can. What better remedy for his own foul mood could there be than listening to other people's problems for an hour?

At first, it's not particularly effective. The voices seem to blend into the sound of rain beating against his windshield as Trent wonders if Anabelle has stopped crying by now. If Shaun's remembered to take out her favourite bath time toys. If he still remembers all the words to her special lullaby.

It's only the phrase 'My Dad Is Sad' that draws him out of his lull.

"…then we have an exciting follow up for you," says Bits. "My Dad Is Sad's sad dad reached out to the show after hearing his son's lovely little letter."

"Ohhhh my god," says Smidge. "I'm going to be a wreck."

So am I, thinks Trent. He'd cried at the kid's letter last episode.

"Well buckle up then," says Bits. "Sorry, listeners. This one's a little on the long side, but if you're anything like us, you won't care all that much. Here we go."

Bits starts reading the letter, and Trent, indeed, doesn't care that it's longer than normal because it's perfect.

Dear Smidge and Bits (and Lauren too, I guess)

He can't help but smile at Lauren being included.

I can't say I know much about your show, other than that my sweet boy decided you were the right people to talk to about my overwhelming sadness for the past few years. I have a smart kid, and I trust his judgement, so as such, I have to thank you for the kind advice you gave him.

I want it to be known that I am in therapy and I'm working on getting myself back up on my feet. There's a lot I've been struggling with that I didn't know I was struggling with, even beyond the divorce, and as I'm working through it, I'm starting to slowly return to myself. That's not to say I have it all figured out. More than anything I'm still trying to figure out how to be a good full-time dad when I only get a fraction of the time I want with my kid.

Trent's stomach does a little somersault. As silly and parasocial as he knows it is to feel things for a person who for all intents and purposes isn't real, he can't help but be taken by this man and the way he talks about getting better for his son's sake. It's why he'd insisted on couples therapy when he was still married. It's why he immediately found a therapist for both Anabelle and him after the split. After the disaster of Shaun, there's nothing Trent finds sexier than a man who's serious about his mental health.

And that's not even touching on my love life, the lack of which seems to be causing my kid a deal of concern. It's not for lack of trying. My job makes dating a little more complicated than it is for most folks and I realise that after 20 years of being in the same relationship, I don't have the game I once thought I did. I've been in a bit of a situationship with a lovely lady on and off for the past couple years and when I tried to shift it over into the relationship zone, I was soundly and correctly shut down.

"Sounds like a mistake to me, Ma'am," mutters Trent, chastising himself even as he does. He's being ridiculous. The man could be a serial killer for all he knows. She might have actually made an incredibly intelligent decision. He doesn't know and he shouldn't care.

Now, I have a crush on a guy that it would be way too complicated to date.

Bisexuality? Now that is a plot twist. And it's not doing anything to stop the surge of affection he feels for this random anonymous person.

Not between the two of us, mind. I think we'd get along like a house on fire. We do get on like a house on fire. But it would be a bit of a PR nightmare and I don't want to put our burgeoning friendship in the line of fire like that. For that reason, I've decided tamping down my romantical feelings so I can just focus on being his friend. I think it's something we both need.

That's pobably for the best, honestly. Trent has been witness to and involved in his own fair share of PR disasters throughout his career. It rarely ends well.

All that to say, as much as I'm working on getting better, I'm honestly still pretty lonely. It's not helped by being a fish out of water in a country that only just now seems to be warming to me. I guess if I could ask any advice from my own perspective, it would be: how do you start again and put yourself out there after 20 years of being so firmly off the market, you tried to believe the market didn't exist?

Sincerely,

Lonely in London.

Smidge and Bits immediately set about providing all the advice they can, but Trent isn't really paying attention anymore.

He feels for this man. He knows what it's like to be so lonely it aches. Even in his marriage, things had been so fraught that most nights he lay next to Shaun feeling like a shell. There was always something inside him reaching out for something life sustaining that he was fundamentally lacking – like lungs trapped underwater gasping for air.

And he knows firsthand how London exacerbates that feeling. People who'd sooner spit in your face than ask you how you're doing. Cold modern buildings that make you feel insignificant in comparison. Grimy old structures that remind you the city's history spans millennia and your story is barely a blip on the radar. The contrast of windows glowing gold at night against the icy blue of the streets, reminding you that there are people that don't feel the same crushing isolation.

And, sure, Anabelle is a lifeline against the crushing loneliness, but what is he supposed to do when she's an eight hour drive away? He can't even imagine being on a different continent to his child altogether.

This is how Lonely In London consumes his thoughts for hours. Trent finds himself scrubbing back in the episode to listen to the letter again, until he practically has it committed to memory, each time feeling a deeper connection to this complete stranger.

If this man is Lonely In London, he's Isolated in Islington, and he's never related to anyone more.

If you were being honest, a nasty voice says in his head at about the four hour mark, you would admit that the reason you feel like you fancy this guy is because he reminds you of Ted.

With that final unhelpful thought, Trent knows it's time to change the subject. He finds one of his old faithful football podcasts and decides he won't spend another second more thinking about Lonely In London or Ted Lasso, even when he's brought up in discussions about Richmond's chances this season.

It's almost two in the morning when he finally gets back to his flat. He's too tired to even change out of his clothes, instead collapsing face-first onto his bed and toeing off his shoes over the side. He's about to let himself slip off to sleep when he remembers he promised Ted he'd text him when he got home. Groggily, he picks up his phone and types a quick message.

Home safe. Smooth drive home. Thanks again for the concern. Sleep well.

It's barely a minute later when his phone buzzes. Did Ted wait up for him?

Glad to hear you're home in one piece. Sleep tight, Trent Crimm. 🌻

It's only the next morning that he fully notices the sunflower and decides that with Ted Lasso around, perhaps London is a little less lonely than it used to be.

Next Chapter

#tedependent #tedtrent #ted x trent #trent x ted #ted lasso #trent crimm #ted lasso fanfic

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Saturday, May 13th

BUFFY: Uh, so, did anybody ... uh ... last night, you know, did anybody, um ... burst into song? Giles stops chewing. Everyone stares at Buffy for a moment. XANDER: Merciful Zeus! Willow, Tara, and Anya rush over. Everyone talks at once. WILLOW: We thought it was just us! GILES: Well, I sang but I had my guitar at the hotel... TARA: It was bizarre. We were talking and then it was like- BUFFY: Like you were in a musical! TARA: Yeah! GILES: That would explain the huge backing orchestra I couldn't see and the synchronized dancing from the room service chaps. WILLOW: We did a whole duet about dish washing. ANYA: And we were arguing and, and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and the dance with coconuts. WILLOW: There was an entire verse about the cous-cous. XANDER: It was very disturbing.

~~Once More With Feeling~~

The Sunnydale Herald is looking for at least one new editor. Contributing to the Herald is a great way to get your Buffy on! Find out more here.

[Drabbles & Short Fiction]

Bargaining Better by debris4spike (Buffy/Spike, not rated)

go on to the new place by eagle_eyes (Angel/Cordelia, T)

I Got Love, I Got You, Love by MadeInGold (Angel/Spike, T)

You can't start a fire without a spark by xxsummixxx (Faith/Tara, M)

(I Might Like You Less) Now that You Know Me so Well by thoughtsofahouseplant (Buffy/Spike, E)

sisters by truetrashbag (Buffy & Dawn, not rated)

A catch-up between brothers by AragornIIElessar (Lindsey, Leverage crossover, FR15)

when that three-way mirror meets your eye (on a slow night) by womanaction (Buffy/Spike, G)

[Chaptered Fiction]

With The Girl At The Rock Show, Chapter 4 by GrimCityGirl (Willow/Tara, M)

Secretly Submissive, Chapter 11 by Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89 (Angel/Spike, E)

Charmed: Another Halliwell, Chapter 53 by BrennaLynn (Buffy/Dawn, Charmed crossover, T)

Divide & Conquer, Chapter 34 by Removes_and_Cleans_Glasses_00 (Buffy/Giles, E)

The Potters, Chapter 48 by BrennaLynn (Buffy & Dawn, Buffy/Willow, Harry Potter crossover, T)

Charming Sunnydale, Chapter 5 by QuillBard (Buffy/Faith, Charmed crossover, M)

Game of Tag, Chapter 4 (complete!) by watcherless (Buffy/Faith, E)

Stargate: Valkyrie, Chapter 13 by BrennaLynn (Buffy/Xander, Stargate and other crossovers, T)

La passion anime nos cœurs, Chapter 13 by AngelicaR2 (Willow/Tara, T, in French)

Potter Twins, Chapter 6 by BrennaLynn (Buffy/Ron Weasly, Dawn/Ginny, Harry Potter crossover, T)

Vampire/Slayer, Chapter 7 by Nonkosherian (Buffy/Faith, T)

In The Dark With You, Chapter 8 by Geliot99 (Buffy/Spike, R)

The Neighbor's Point of View, Chapter 9 by the_big_bad (Buffy/Spike, PG)

Hello from the Other Side, Chapter 5 (complete!) by Soulburnt (Buffy/Spike, R)

Harmless Fun, Chapter 2 by MaggieLaFey (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

Faith and the Jolly Red Giant, Chapter 6 (complete!) by Luna (Faith, Lord of the Rings crossover, FR15)

An Iron Love, Chapter 6 by Buffyworldbuilder (Dawn, Iron Man and Stargate crossover, FR7)

Harmless Fun, Chapter 1 by MaggieLeFay (Buffy/Spike, NC-17)

[Images, Audio & Video]

Icons and banner: Buffy/Spike by debris4spike at seasonal_spuffy (worksafe)

Artwork: Giles by defiant-art (worksafe)

Artwork: Giles on vengeful kamikaze mode after Jenny’s death by jhurrart (worksafe)

Artwork: Buffy by phoebeebies (worksafe)

Manip: Spike with snakebite piercings by DirtyAim FanStuff (worksafe)

Gifs: The Gift by gehirnfussel (worksafe)

Cartoon: Angel, Spike, Buffy and Dawn by Paul Gadzikowski's The Hero of Three Faces (worksafe)

Collage: A Buffy inspired collage my partner made by gourdhaver (worksafe)

Fanvid: The Way It Ends-Buffy Summers by GothamPond

Fanvid: Buffy & Angel | See you again by Rachie Edits

Fanvid: Brutal | Buffy Summers BtVS by peachily

Fanvid: Perturbator vs Buffy - Night Slasher II (unofficial music video) by TRS Darsh (Hush episodic)

Fanvid: Buffy and Angel - "Wrong" Music Video Tribute by Fan Films Factory

Video: Xander vs. Harmony - Lego Recreation by Trevor Carlee

Video: Buffy Breakdown with Coleman Shook - S02E07 - Lie to Me - Alley Vamp Fight Scene Re-creation by Buffy Breakdown

Music: Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Episode 7 "Angel" Final Confrontation Rescore by David Müller

[Reviews & Recaps]

Rewatch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (S1Ep1) by mothman-rewatches

Rewatch: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “The Harvest” by mothman-rewatches

Buffy S6 and Angel S3 by tuiyla

Just finished my first full watch by dmjpain

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Season 1 Review and Analysis by your cult boyfriend

Video: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Season 2 Review and Analysis by your cult boyfriend

Video: Normal Again Is The Most Annoying Episode Of Buffy Ever - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episode Review by CrasHNburN

Video: The Origins and History of Buffy The Vampire Slayer by Mösyö Pikselans

Podcast: Smashed S6 E9 (Buffy and the Art of Story) by Lisa M. Lilly

[Recs]

BTVS comic/media recommendations? by phoebephile

[Fandom Discussions]

buffy and oz should have gotten more screen time together by froggierboy

did ANY of the women on angel or buffy have close realtionships with one another? by i-know-you-wanna-kiss-me

Spike for character ask game by Kitkatt0430

A few times in the Buffy tie-in books, Buffy has definitely been being interested in having children with Angel by oveliagirlhaditright

The fandom seems to assume Buffy and Angel got back together after “Amends” by oveliagirlhaditright

Buffy wanting to be an evil soulless vampire by oveliagirlhaditright

I wish the show had given us more glimpses into Xander and Anya’s relationship away from the rest of the gang by petpluto

My NUMBER ONE BTVS fix it probably is not having Anya and Xander be a couple by wolfstrong

Buffy’s, Angel’s, Spike’s and Faith’s realizing of and coming to terms with their bisexuality by steyria

Who saw the show (BTVS) end live? 20 year anniversary coming up! by watcherless

Couplet’s tree demon - one of the weirdest and most interesting monsters on Angel? by American Aurora

Mentions of Buffy and Angel in other contemporary TV shows by American Aurora

25 Years of Becoming by PuckRobin

Vengeance Demons subject to their own spells? by American Aurora

In season 5, do the main cast recall Jasmine? by ComprehensiveFlan638

What is your least-favorite multi-episode [AtS] storyline? by queenrosybee

S2E12 Blood Money by MzHydra-Nix

So how does no one in the Buffyverse know about demons?! by Mitogi

Is it possible that Bram Stoker knew Angel, Spike, Darla & Dru? by wallstreetliam

Motivation for S7 by FollowTheBlueGiraffe

Dead Man's Party by boredgeekgirl

Earshot s3 e 18 by gamerboredomgirl

Favorite song that turns you into a puddle? Walk Through Fire for me by dabzandjabz

Was Buffy’s depression arc the best depiction of mental health in television of all time? by dabzandjabz

What is your saddest moment of the show? by evolutionarywolfpup

Thoughts on Angel returning in the penultimate episode of the series? by InfiniteMehdiLove

What would’ve happened if Dawn indeed was a potential? by Buffybitchslay

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#buffy the vampire slayer #btvs #angel the series #ats

[devsgames]

Interested In Getting Into Tabletop RPGs?

If anyone is looking to learn Dungeons and Dragons 5e (or tabletop roleplaying games in general) I'm trying something new and starting a paid campaign specifically focused on teaching new players.

I've got about 12 years experience GMing tabletop games, most of which is focused on onboarding and teaching new people so it's a pretty natural fit. 🙂 Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, and check out the link below for more details!

#ttrpg #tabletop games #tabletop roleplaying #ttrpg community #dungeons and dragons #dnd #d&d #d&d rp #d&d movie #dnd5e #tabletop #gaming #games

[sicksweetcreamy]

HEROINES GAME VOL 3 SUMMARY

A cruel tale of great beauty! Heroines Game is a game in which heroines from fairy tales kill each other! Red participates in the game to resurrect her grandmother, but the Little Mermaid kills her out of jealousy. Alice of Hearts becomes the Heroine, and we finally discover her story... The trial of Alice will open: What is her crime and what will be her punishment?!

A casual summary of Heroines Game Volume 3. Summary of Vol 1: [X] Summary of Vol 2: [X]

NEWS: Heroines Game has been officially translated into English! (eBook only though) If you've liked what you've read, please go and support the author by purchasing the eBooks online.

Chapter 13: The Story of Rapunzel The Little Mermaid has just killed Red and Prince Charming is shocked. LM repeatedly confesses her love to Charming, and the word "love" sets him off... and it is revealed that Prince Charming... was actually Rapunzel, with the Hair of Resentment, in disguise! And this is her story...

Kidnapped as a baby by a witch, raised in a tower, a prince ascends the tower and confesses his love, only to use her and leave despite promising to one day return. This happens again and again, with other different princes, until she realizes nobody had ever truly loved her. Hatred arose in her, and she would now kill any person who dared to ascend the tower.

Since there was no Prince Charming who would truly love her, she decided herself she would become one. But.... there were no maidens for her to save, and she was incapable of becoming a kind and fair prince either. So the only thing she can do, is kill. After all, they are participating in a killing game, and both her and LM have a talent for it, no?

Chapter 14: The Return of the Queen Rapunzel entangles LM with her hair, and then stabs her with her sword, but it just phases through LM since she's water-based. "Humans are the cruelest...!" and she screams, disorienting Rapunzel. But LM's song of hatred won't work on her, because Rapunzel is the embodiment of hatred, and she stabs her hairs into LM's tongue, and drains her of her vitality, until she crumbles into parts.

Rapu walks over to Red, and she's actually still alive! But it would be better to die like than be inevitably defiled, so she goes to strangle Red to death... But then a guillotine falls and chops off a huge chunk of her hair. Alice has escaped, and she's in her Queen mode, led to Rapu and Red by Puss in Boots. She declares that Red is her prey, and the bells toll, signifying the end of this round. Rapunzel walks off, looking forward to the next round.

Alice stands over Red, remarking how the positions have changed since her first match. She should be furious she didn't make it to the end, but stories are always cruel, and Alice prepares to off Red, as Red sheds one final tear before a peaceful expression falls on her face.

And then Wolf jumps out and rips her body apart. Okay, not like complete dismemberment, but he violently rips out Red's heart from her chest. Alice prepares to decapitate him, but he then offers to make a trade.

Chapter 15: The Wolf Pact A deal you say? That's it! Let's make a deal! A deal...like the deal you made with Red? Flashback to Red's past. She asks Wolf to guide her in the forbidden forest, to an odd place in its depths that grants wishes. She wants to revive her granny, and once her wish is fulfilled, he will have the right to devour her. But Rapunzel killed Red before that happened, so the treaty was nullified. He asks Alice to make a deal with him, and he can make her dreams reality. Alice laughs and asks if he knows what her wish is, and he obviously wouldn't know what it is. Alice's dream is to become a top idol! And then... but what comes after? She stumbles and Wolf asks what's wrong, she hasn't said a word. Could it be she can't say it out loud? And she's unable to utter the words.

Then Cat emerges from the heart hole in her chest and steals Red's heart from Wolf and runs off. Queen Alice de-transforms back into regular Alice, and Wolf realizing it's the cat that lets her do that, jumps into Alice's heart hole, and she transforms back into Queen mode. Puss in Boots witnesses this all and how the two have now joined forces.

The two chase after, and find the rest of the Heroines asleep at Tea Time, taking place in a rose garden. They're the last to arrive, and the last slice of cake is waiting for Alice. She eats it, and surprise, surprise. Alice has been chosen as the Heroine of the next game.

Chapter 16: Welcome to the World of Alice The scenery morphs into an Alice in Wonderland themed world. The only way for the Heroine to win is to avoid being killed. Fight or flee, it's her story after all. By the time the ending bells toll, will she still be left standing?

Everybody will be coming for Alice, so she has to do is wait for them on her throne.

Meanwhile, Puss has picked her restraints, but not Match Girl's, betraying her and leaving her to rot. We never hear from her again. Puss will survive by allying with the strong.

Puss finds Alice with her sense of smell and claims to not be an enemy, having protected her from Match Girl the last game, which Wolf rightfully calls her out for as being a lie. Puss wants to swear allegiance to Alice, and she is reminded of Rina swearing to be her ally and admirer of her conviction to make it as an idol.

She sentences Puss in Boots: GUILTY.

We cut to Snow White and Cinderella, trapped in a room with no exit and only a single capped bottle. They suggest the other to drink, and then start throwing hands, and attacking the walls as well. But they haven't left a mark. Snow White reads the label of the bottle, and Cinderella reads it out loud. "The 'link'..?"

Puss in Boots has been decapitated and killed. Wolf admonishes her for being too hasty, but Alice justifies it as condemning another criminal. That is all. Chapter 17: The Cheers of Tragedy Snow and Cinderella throw hands. Snow pockets the bottle in between her bosom and pulls out her poison apple, filling the room with a poison gas, but is then interrupted by the Cat barging into the scene and scampering around. It leaps into a gap between books of fairy tales on a bookshelf and Cinderella grabs at it, getting sucked into the gap as well. Snow voluntarily jumps in too.

Snow finds a circus tent and walks in. The art style changes into a Tim Burton-eque art style. The Wonder Princesses are performing on stage to a crowd of mascot-type bears.

Snow finds Cindy and they question their changed appearances. Alice is firing a fellow idol, and claiming to not need a heart if she wants to be the best. Anthro-Cat Rina says she's being a little harsh.

A fellow idol in a rabbit mask claims to agree with Alice's ideals, and holds her hand, we'll become the best together. But when she's alone, she takes off her mask revealing herself to be a snake, posting Alice hate on social media on her smartphone. Fellow members take off their rabbit masks, revealing predator faces and join in on spreading hate.

The mascot bear fans fall in and take of their mascot costumes, revealing themselves to be actual ferocious bears, screaming for Alice to quit. The other idols drag Alice out onto the stage.

She only wanted to become an idol... She is an idol, she is! The atmosphere heats up and Snow and Cindy depart as the tent catches on fire and burns down. The game is based on the stories of the Heroines, and this is Alice's story.

Chapter 18: The Orphans' House Alice gives Wolf permission to eat Puss in Boot's corpse, but she also won't get up from her chair, and Wolf can't reach since he's residing in her heart cavity. Her attitude's changed completely, he thinks. He also has a question that's been on his mind for a while, and asks Alice: "Who's the real you, between the one you are now and the one who's so scared? "...I'm... Alice." And they leave it at that.

We cut to Sleeping Beauty, remarking that she fell asleep again, and that the forest she's in is so nice. She still appears to be asleep, but the eye headpiece on her head looks around and spots a chipmunk holding a bottle. Her vines race towards it and rips it apart from the bottle. "The 'dream'...?". the tag on it says, and somebody comes up and smacks her. She yelps but does not wake up. The surroundings transform into an orphanage, and she asks who the person who hit her is, and where she now is.

The person is the Duchess and they're in the orphanage. She yells at her to get up and drops The Cat on her lap, telling her to take care of them. The Cat transforms into two crying babies, who the Duchess hits, telling Sleeping Beauty to get to shut up. The two babies transform into two children, and a scene begins to play.

Child Alice is crying because she got beaten up by people who didn't want to see her orphan face, and Child Rina comforts her. She reads Alice the story of Cinderella, and tells Alice she was abandoned because she's actually a princess, just like in the fairy tales. Alice takes this to heart.

She gets beaten up by other kids but doesn't defend herself because she's a princess. Her shoes are dirtied and people talk badly about her, but she studies hard, because if she makes an effort, she will be happy.

Teen Alice is out and about, when she's approached by a recruiter. She brushes him off, but then he asks if she would like to become a princess, and she hears him out. He's an idol recruiter, and when Alice tells Rina about it, she promises to support her.

Sleeping Beauty, watching it all, remarks that they're stupid. "Not all princess are happy!" and she impales them with her vines. The mirage fades and The Cat smirks. She impales the cat too, but it's also a mirage. Snow and Cinderella are being led by the Cat to somewhere, and Maid Maleen wakes up at the Mad Hatter's tea party, with the Cat snoozing in front of her.

Chapter 19: The Tea of Those Who Want to Die Maleen is surprised to wake up at a tea party, after having already partaken in teatime. Mad Hatter, who looks like Alice, waits silently. Maleen gets bored and asks... him(?) to tell her something interesting.

Once there was a princess locked up in a tower because she fell in love. Nobody came to rescue her, and death was her salvation.

Seems you know me well... then are you going to be the one with the heart to end my life? Hatter wouldn't mind doing so, because gathered here are those who want to die. Cat is curled up around a bottle with the tag, "desperation". The March Hare, Alice in a rabbit costume, says everything here is poisoned, and Maleen excitedly eats a tea cake and passes out.

Alice holed herself up in her room for days, afraid of the growing criticisms against her. Rina knocks, saying she'll always support her and that Alice hasn't done anything wrong. A princess wouldn't give up from something like this!

That's the phrase that gets Alice to open the door, and she agrees. She's an idol, and they'll fight together.

Maleen wakes up and eats another cake, and passes out again.

Alice continues her idol duties, but she's called to the manager's office. We don't hear what he tells her, but it's not good news.

Maleen wakes up and eats another cake, desperate to die.

The Wonder Princesses are performing, and Alice makes an announcement. She's leaving the group, and quitting showbiz altogether. This comes a surprise to everybody, including Rina. Alice wanted to become a super idol, and was willing to do anything for it, and she hurt many people along the way. But... Tell me big sis, if I can't become a princess, doesn't that just mean I was some common orphan all along?

She can't accept that reality, and she takes out a bottle, the same style of every bottle the Heroines have been finding, and drinks from it. She collapses and instantly dies. Rina rushes onto stage and screams.

Maleen wakes up, and the Hatter and March Hare have turned into skeletons. That was Alice, for sure... so does that mean Alice is already dead? The Cat runs off with the bottle, and Maleen chases after, in hopes that it contains poison for her to drink.

Alice is sitting on her throne when the ceiling roof falls down on her. She jumps out of the way, and Rapunzel has found her, rather quickly as well. But it works out for them. Wolf charges and entangles her, and Rapunzel scowls, Red's body hasn't even cooled and he's already changed his heart...

A flashback to Red's corpse, and Wolf retorts it's so that he can kill her. But can he, Rapunzel asks? And tears him to shreds with her hair. Alice was going to let Wolf deal with Rapunzel, but since he can't, she'll have to step in and condemn this criminal

But you think you have the right? Because you too lie about who you are, Rapunzel states!

Chapter 20: The False Heroine Cinderella catches the cat, but it slips away. Her, Snow, Slee, and Maleen have all been led to the same location: a dilapidated stadium. Alice and Rapunzel tussle, and Rapunzel says Alice isn't Alice at all. Alice is about to kill Rapunzel but the Cat pushes away Alice's scythe's blade with its paws.

Rapunzel regales the tale of two sisters, Rina the older and Alice the younger. Alice took her own life but Rina could not accept it. "If I hadn't said all that to her... it's all my fault... I don't deserve... to live." And Rina drank the rest of the poison Alice failed to drink. Carrying Alice on her back, Rina's soul wandered and arrived at a large door. The rabbit guard informed her, this is where the Heroines Game takes place, a fight for true happiness. But only Heroines may participate. So who are you? And Rina states, I... am Alice.

That's right, Rapunzel lectures. You condemned others when you don't even have the right to be here at all! And Lepus pops up, and agrees. A criminal disturbing a sacred battle, RinAlice must be judged! But she won't go down so easily. She's fighting for her dreams.

The Final Chapter: The Story of Alice Lepus sentences her the death penalty. Rabbit guards surround her, but Wolf interrupts. Rina did all of it for her sister, to save somebody she cares for, and Wolf also... did the same. So RinAlice has good reason to be here, because she's like him. But Wolf no longer has a place in Heroine's Game, and he gets vertically Danganronpa-style dragged into the shadow realm on a hook. With her heart chamber empty, Queen Alice de-transforms into regular Alice.

Everybody begins to grill RinAlice. What was the point of saving her, asks Cinderella. She was cruel to everybody, says Snow. She died for stupid reasons, says Maleen. She never would have been able to become a princess. You gave her false hope and she was crushed, says Slee. RinAlice refuses, she's Alice. But it's all her fault Alice believed she had to be a heroine or else she'd have been a common orphan all along, Cinderella says. RinAlice can't take it anymore, and gives in. She only did it because she wanted Alice to be happy. It's the only thing she ever wanted. Lepus approves this as a statement of admission. RinAlice is Rina, and she will serve her sentence. RinAlice is dragged up, but the chain is grabbed and stopped... by Wolf?! He was able to return because somebody gave him back Red's heart. The Cat also shows up, and jumps into RinAlice's arms and slobbers on her face. RinAlice is confused, and Wolf has to spell it all out for her. The cat that's been by her side the entire time... is Alice.

RinAlice denies it at first, but Cat nuzzles against her face, like the forehead bumps they would do and she feels Alice's presence. She apologizes for having lied, she must be angry at her and its all her fault Alice died. Rina doesn't have a heart, but she'll bring Alice back to life, she swears.

AliCat shakes its head, and then rips out its own heart out of its chest, surprising RinAlice. AliCat crams it into RinAlice's heart cavity, and she hears Alice's voice. "Big sis Rina... I'm giving you my heart. I'm not mad at all. Thank you for everything. This is my wish, for you to keep on living, and doing what's best for yourself. I'll always be with you and taking care of you.", and AliCat fades away.

RinAlice comes to terms with it. Then, Alice is dead... Lepus thanks RinAlice for her words, and that Alice can finally rest in peace. But Rina must still serve her sentence, and will now be handed a punishment even worse than death....

We cut back to a indie venue in modern day Japan, amateur idols are having a concert, a poster says. Rina's not sure how much time has passed since then, and that she came to, backstage. This is the story of her punishment, after sacrificing everything, she chose hell over death. "Your group is up next!" "Okay!"

Here, we're in hell. In a race that will never end... but... "My name is... Alice!" Rina is an idol, following in Alice's footsteps and taking on her name as well.

So this is how the story of Alice ends, Lepus remarks. I can't wait to meet the next Heroines....

HEROINES GAME - Fin

#heroines game #manga #manga translation

[eddieheart]

DR.SINCLAIR

(Part 1)

Fandom: Stranger Things

Pairings: NONE

Words: 910

Description: Dr. Willa Sinclair comes home for a break.

Her name is Dr. Willa Sinclair, that's right, Doctor. It isn't easy, in fact it's quite fucking difficult. Not only does she have every guy doctor telling her she'd be better in the kitchen, but she had ever white doctor thinking she shouldn't even be allowed in the program.

Will is a surgical resident, she loves her job and she's good at it too. But every once and a while she needs a break. Well, truthfully she didn't need a break, but because of an unfortunate incident at the hospital involving a psych patient and a pair of scissors, she was given leave.

She was fine, really, she was, it wasn't a big deal. At least she got to see her family, right?

Two younger siblings, Lucas and Erica. They meant the world to her. Everything Willa had done she'd done for her siblings, to show them that they could do anything, no matter what they looked like, no matter what anybody said.

Will approached the front door nervously, bag of clothes in one hand and car keys in the other. Her parents would be worried that she was home, they always worried, about everything.

With a shaky hand, Willa rang the doorbell and stepped back. The door opened to reveal her mother, clad in a flour covered apron. She smiled brightly at the sight of her eldest daughter.

"Willa! My baby, you're home! How are you? What are you doin' back here hun? You alright?" She asked, softly petting the side of the young girls face.

"I'm fine momma, I swear. I just took a few weeks off to see you guys. As a surprise." Her mother pulled her into a tight hug, practically crushing her.

"Oh my baby, I missed you." Sue said, squeezing the girl tighter.

"Charles! Honey! Guess who's home!" She said in a sing song voice. Her father came walking out to the front door with an even brighter smile.

Just as Willa pulled away she was brought into another bone crushing hug, by her father this time.

"The kids are still at school, Erica will be home any minute now but Lucas has a basketball game tonight. We were all gonna go, you're coming too right?" He asked kindly while pulling away from the hug.

Her mother lead both Willa and her father into the living room, gently strutting the front door.

Willa was shocked, Lucas, her geeky, nerdy, dnd loving little brother was a basketball player? She could barely believe it.

Just as Willa sat down the front door could be heard swinging open. She quickly walked towards the door and called over to her other daughter.

"Erica we have a guest, come say hi!" Sue smiled as a clearly unamused Erica walked into the room.

"Hello, yes it's me Erica it's- oh my gosh! Lila! When did you get home!" She cried out as she ran over to the older girl.

"I took a vacation and decided to come see my favourite sister! How are you?" Willa asked.

"Great now that you're here. Are you coming to the game tonight?"

"You know it."

—-

"Seriously Erica we need to get you some new tapes, really. I like tears for fears just as much as the next guy but I draw the limit at 25 times a day I do." Willa said laughing, holding up her sisters tape and gesturing to it.

"Oh shut up." Erica replied jokingly.

"Girls, language." Their mother said while laughing. They pulled into the school parking lot and got out of the car.

They were only a little late, shuffling into the gym and quietly finding a seat at the bleachers. Other people gawked and stared at them, parents whispering to their children, holding them closer.

Will shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked for Lucas. She didn't know a lot about basketball, actually she knew nothing. What she did know was that getting a ball in the opposite basket was good and Lucas was doing a lot of that.

The game didn't last that long, and when it was done Lucas came rushing over from where the rest of the team sat.

"Hey, Lila." He said, softly pulling her into a brief hug.

"Hey Lu, you did well out there." She tried to compliment him the best she could with her limited knowledge of the game. He chuckled and thanked her.

Everything was fine until they got home, firstly Erica insisted that Will help with her biology homework, then Lucas replied that no, she wasn’t going to help Erica because she was going to help him.

“Well I need help with biology Lucas, suck it up. It’s my turn with her anyway!” Erica sassed.

Lucas crossed his arms and glared back at the younger girl.

“You’re turn? You had her already! I might’ve hurt my leg during practice! I could need a splint!” Erica scoffed.

“You don’t need a splint Lucas! You have a bruise at best!” Willas eyes widened, clearly this was escalating way too quickly.

“Hey, woah, woah, I can do both. Lucas, I’ll look at you leg on the couch, Erica, I can help you in the living room okay? Okay.” She lead the pair to the living room with a sigh.

She’d kind of missed this, in a weird way. Missed the background bickering, the loving way they teased each other. It was nice, instead of her usual background noise of her roommates fucking around.

@buggylad

#fanfiction #fanfic #stranger things #orginal character #original female character #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #sue sinclair #charles sinclair #original Sinclair oc #sinclair siblings

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

NITA STRAUSS Reflects On 'Really Bad Advice' She Got Early In Her Career

During an appearance on the latest episode of Knotfest's "She's With The Band", the show hosted by Tori Kravitz and Alicia Atout aiming to amplify the voices of women on stage, backstage and in the business, former Alice Cooper and current Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss was asked about "a jaw-dropping misstep" early in her career and the lessons she learned from it. She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Early in my career, I got a lot of really bad advice. I was a young guitar player. I started this career really, really young. I did my first national tour at 15 and dropped out of high school at 17 to try to do this full-time. And at the time, I had so many people telling me what I needed to do in order to be successful in this industry — people saying, 'You need to show more skin'; 'If you have a boyfriend, you can't say that you're dating anybody because you need to appear available'; all this kind of stuff. And looking back, obviously, that's not the kind of attention that I wanted to get; I wanted to be known as a guitar player, and that was it. So once I realized that, I went the complete opposite way and I started really dressing down. I dyed my hair darker — not 'brown brown' but darker, darker blond — to stand out less. And I'd wear a men's large t-shirt onstage and baggy cargo shorts and started touring with heavier bands. And I was, like, 'I don't wanna be a hot chick. I just wanna be a guitar player.' And that's not who I am either. And I kept getting pulled back and forth through this dichotomy of, like, 'No, you have to be the sex symbol,' and, 'No. You don't wanna be known for that. You have to just be a serious musician.' And the reality is where I am doesn't fit into either of those molds. And it wasn't until I started just dressing how I wanna dress and acting how I wanna act… And, yeah, if I have a boyfriend, I'm gonna tell the world about it because I love him. And I don't need to appear single and I don't need to have fans think they have a chance with me in order to be respected and have people coming to my shows. And once I just started embracing who I actually am as a person, that's when great opportunities and great successes started coming to me. And when I was trying to just fit into some mold or another mold, I was just chasing something that wasn't authentic; it wasn't really who I am. So I just wish that I could go back and tell my younger self, 'Stop trying to fit into what other people tell you you should be, and just be who you are.'"

Last October, Nita dropped a new single and accompanying music video, "The Wolf You Feed", featuring the vocal talent of Alissa White-Gluz of ARCH ENEMY. It was the second song Nita had released featuring a star guest vocalist, the first being the enormously successful "Dead Inside" which featured guest vocals from DISTURBED's David Draiman and saw Nita become the first ever solo female to have a No. 1 hit at Active Rock radio. She also returned to her instrumental roots earlier last year with the release of single "Summer Storm".

Nita made her live debut with Demi in July 2022 with a performance of Lovato's single "Substance" on ABC's Emmy Award-winning late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".

Strauss had been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker's former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.

Nita released her debut solo album, "Controlled Chaos", in 2018 to mass acclaim from fans and media alike, with Metal Injection calling it "a great debut that — as its creator intended — leaves no doubt", and Guitar World stating "'Controlled Chaos' is a panoramic view of Nita Strauss's many strengths".

As well as performing with Cooper, Nita has also played with R&B star Jermaine Jackson, early MTV darlings FEMME FATALE, video game supergroup CRITICAL HIT and popular tribute band THE IRON MAIDENS.

In April 2020, Nita launched "Rock Guitar Fundamentals" — a three-module online guitar teaching program suitable for learners of all levels. The course is available at www.iwanttoplayguitar.com.

#Nita Strauss #2023 interviews

[anamoon63]

REMINISCING ABOUT THE SIMS

SHARE HOW YOU DISCOVERED THE SIMS FRANCHISE & THE VERY FIRST SIMS GAME YOU PLAYED  (E.G. TS2)

Thanks dear @nocturnalazure for the tag, my apologies for the delay.

Let's see, the first time I saw The Sims game was in an Office Depot store around 2002. I went with my husband to buy computer stuff.

At that time I only played Tomb Raider, and I was always looking for a new TR game, but then I found The Sims De Luxe... The pictures on the box caught my eye. You know, I'm an adult, well over 30 at that exact time, but as a child I always liked paper dolls, barbies and dollhouses, and I liked to make stories while playing, so I thought The Sims would be something similar, but for people my age, lol. So I didn't think twice and bought The Sims not knowing that this purchase would change my life completely.

At the beginning I just played (no storytelling). One of my first sims was called Johnny Dreams (which was a sim with Johnny Depp's face, imagine that). Remember in The Sims 1 you could literally paste the face of an artist to your sim, almost all my sims were famous people, but Johnny was the first one, lol.

Chatting with my sister one night, I told her about The Sims and what happened in my game. She knew how much I love to write so she told me: 'Why don't you write a story with all that happens to your sims?' And I said: 'That's not a bad idea!' But I didn't immediately start cause at that time I was writing a novel.

That's how I discovered The Sims and which was the very first sims game I played. If you are interested in what happened when The Sims 2,3 and 4 arrived in my life, continue reading under the cut, just be warned it's a veeery long story.

When The Sims 2 came out I became obsessed with taking pictures of my game, thought I could make stories out of them and share them with other players. So I joined a forum and introduced my sims there. Before I knew it, I had my own story thread with lots of views and comments. Unfortunately, in 2009 I had problems in that forum so I had to leave after almost five years of activity.

Then came The Sims 3, with its open world, and its thousands of possibilities. And - not immediately - but it got me.

A friend and I had promised that we would never stop playing The Sims 2, that The Sims 3 would never replace it, but TS 3 was too good to be true! My friend wouldn't accept it despite the novelty of the open world, he thought nothing could beat TS2, so he would stick with it.

I was still fond of my Sims 2 characters, it was hard for me to leave them cause you know how you get attached to your sims, and they were already 3 generations. I tried to create them in TS3, but it didn't work, so I thought it was better to create new characters and stories in The Sims 3. Those characters grew on me and I ended up getting attached to them.

That's how, around 2011, I started the foundations of the 6-generation game that I'm still playing, from which my main story From the Desert to the City as well as my other stories were born.

I still wanted to share my photos and stories, but I was no longer in the forum (plus that forum didn't exist anymore), so, in 2013 approximately I started my blog Los Sims de Ana (Blogger, in Spanish), which I managed at the same time as MyPage in the site thesims3.com where I had made some new friends with whom I shared the Memories of my game. It was precisely this TS3 Memories option what gave me the idea of publishing photos of my game in real time. That's how my story " The Travels and Adventures of Tony Langerak" emerged. The blog also included downloads of my sims and an occasional tutorial. Some of my friends from thesims 3.com. subscribed and used to leave kind comments. For about a year everything worked great for Los Sims de Ana. But then...

Yes, The Sims 4 arrived, and all my (few) subscribers left to go play the shiny new game. I bought it myself, tried to play it, like really tried, but something didn't feel right so I immediately went back to The Sims 3 and then later on I made me a Tumblr account to continue sharing stories and gameplay with other TS3 fans.

In 2018 I tried to go back to The Sims 4, recreating my TS3 characters, but it turned out to be a disaster. I stopped playing it for good in October 2019. I haven't opened it since, except to do the updates and see that everything works fine.

Don't get me wrong, TS4 is quite entertaining, and the characters funny, but I feel like its style doesn't go with my stories, (cause for me the game isn't just about playing but about making stories!) It's a shame, but TS4 just didn't work for me.

Around that time I repurchased the complete collection of The Sims 3 on Steam and said goodbye to Origin. Since then I've played The Sims 3 exclusively while I wait for The Sims 5, although I don't have high hopes for the latter.

Now, that's all. Sorry for the wall of text. I'm not tagging anyone cause I think everybody has already made this post, but if any of my mutuals hasn't and wish to do so, consider yourself tagged. 😊

#the sims 3 #sims 3 simblr #ts3 #text post #reminiscing about the sims #los sims de ana #get to know me

[autolenaphilia]

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (review/analysis)

Tomb Raider: the Last Revelation, the fourth game in the series, is probably its peak. It is set entirely in Egypt and features Lara back in more familiar environments of ancient temples and tombs after the modern high-tech and urban environments from the previous game.

That Core design stuck with the same basic game engine for four more games past the first might have been viewed as stagnation at the time, but that meant they could improve and fine-tune it over the course of years. The small improvements added over the years really show themselves in this game. There is better lightning and even mist effects. Lara’s model is now more detailed. In-engine cutscenes allow for lip movements and blinking. The graphics are still blocky and the textures often grainy, but thanks to great art design this game looks really nice and adds a lot to the atmosphere.

Gameplaywise, the major expansion is the ability to go back and forth between levels. In prior TR games, level progression was completely linear (even if TR III experimented by giving you the ability to choose which order to do each section in). You went from level 1 to 2 to 3 and so on. This is not always so in TR IV. In this game, you can go back and forth between levels. Certain sections still have traditional linear level progression, most notably the beginning and the end of the game. But the bulk of the game, the Karnak, Alexandria and Cairo sections are this interconnected sets of levels. You have to go back and forth to find items and solve puzzles in order to progress.

They are essentially gigantic level complexes, perhaps each section is best viewed as one giant level. The level changes are functionally just loading screens between each area. This enables the level design to function on a scale that wasn’t possible in earlier games. The basic building blocks of the level design hasn’t changed, it is just spread out over these massive level complexes now.

The end result can be both impressive and frustrating. It can be a lot of fun to explore these large interconnected level sets and solve its puzzles and challenges. It helps that the graphics and art direction are the best of any game yet. They makes even the largest and most complex levels of previous games look tiny in comparison.

It also means the levels are far more challenging than before. The sheer amount of area you have to explore if you are stuck to find a key item or puzzle solution can be tiresome. And going back and forth between levels naturally involves some backtracking, especially if you are trying to find the right solution. Some of the puzzle design is admittedly overly cryptic too, with the clues far too well hidden. There are at least two puzzles where you have to look up into holes in the ceiling with the binoculars and turn on the binoculars lighting to see the clues, which is far too obtuse.

So even if it is in my opinion the best game in the series, it is perhaps not where beginners to TR should start. Granted, the difficulty curve of this game is actually reasonable, at least compared to TR II and III. The combat is also more forgiving than TR III, there is poison in this game but far less enemies that can give it.

Still, this game is the longest and most complex game in the series. And it is due to these interconnected levels, meaning there is a lot more opportunity to get lost and stuck on some puzzle. Despite a sensible difficulty curve, with Karnak the game reaches a level of complexity that previous games weren’t even capable of reaching. Beginners might find it far more frustrating than the comparatively simple TR I.

The gameplay is also expanded in other ways. This game has the first enemies that can jump and do platforming. Which is something truly new to the series, Lara’s ability to jump was previously one of her greatest advantages to her enemies. There are some enemies she can’t just avoid by jumping a gap anymore.

There are also minor expansions of Lara move-set, the most important is probably being able to shimmy around corners on ledges. It makes her move-set feel more natural.

Lara can also hold on to and swing from ropes now. She can also aim manually by using scope sights on her guns. The actual execution of these mechanics are however not great.

The rope-swinging mechanic is infamously bad. The controls for it are just clunky and finicky. Which is a major problem as you have to make a lot of minute adjustments to Lara’s position and direction on the rope to have any success with it.

Manual aiming guns with the scope is also difficult. There is no mouse control, just keyboard or joystick and that is not ideal for aiming guns. There are some fun implementations of the scope, but they just serve to illustrate the problems. The most annoying is the shooting gallery puzzle, where you have to shoot down a large amount of targets on a timer. And this is almost impossible to do, at least on a keyboard. So it is easiest to cheat and use explosive arrows with the crossbow to blow up all the targets with one shot. There is a fun easter egg where you can blow the head off the skeleton warriors with a scoped shot and they will walk around aimlessly, often falling off ledges. But this is very difficult to do, because the skeletons are moving targets which are very hard to hit with the clunky controls. The only enemy that the scope is really useful against are stationary sentry guns if you get behind them, because of them being stationary.

Despite these faults, the end result is an impressive achievement, the longest and most epic Tomb Raider game. And we actually get a story to match that.

In fact we have an actual story in this game, one that you can actually take somewhat seriously. We have themes, I’m not kidding. I’m gonna go into some detail here, so spoilers for a game released 22 years ago.

Instead of Croft manor as a tutorial, this game begins with a 16-year old Lara, in 1984. We get to see her first adventure, an exploration into Angkor Wat for a weird artifact called the Iris. The tutorial is given by her mentor, “the renowned archaeologist-adventurer Werner von Croy” (his own words). They banter a lot, but soon we see a darker side of Von Croy. According to him “the root of all adventuring” is “the craving to win”. Lara finds an inscribed warning by the iris, promising “vengeance on those who remove it”, and says they “should lend it some respect”. Von Croy takes no heed of such “superstitious hocus-pocus” and tries to remove the iris nevertheless. This sets off a massive trap that ends with him trapped in the tomb. This is the end of flashback.

We rejoin Lara as an adult exploring a tomb in Egypt. Lara is in search of an ankh, the amulet of Horus. But upon removing it from a sarcophagus, it turns out that it is a very special amulet, one which keeps the god Seth imprisoned. Seth is evil in this game, and this means literally the end of the world. This would also mean the end of Lara’s artifact collection, so she decides to stop Seth. Problem is, Von Croy did survive his entombment, and he is also after the amulet. So now there is a race to avert the apocalypse.

It is still a cartoonish story, of course. Werner is just a much of a caricature as characters in earlier games, with a ridiculous Austrian accent, with even more ridiculous pompous dialogue. One thing that literally happens in the Cambodia sequence is Werner wants Lara and him to race at one point, on the count of three, and then he starts running at two, like a literal small child.

But this is a much deeper story than we have got in this series up to this point. There is an implied criticism of the arrogance of adventure genre protagonists, removing ancient artifacts without caring about the consequences. It’s a probably mandatory course correction after the sheer amoral nature of TR III, with Lara massacring English museum guards and tribespeople just to gain some meteorite shards.

In TR IV, there is even subtext. It’s fairly obvious, but the script doesn’t explicitly state them so it is subtext nonetheless. The writers clearly expect you to pick up on the irony of adult Lara committing the exact same mistake as she chided Von Croy for as a kid without them explicitly telling you this. This is of course isn’t exactly super-complex storytelling, but it is way more than the series has expected of its audience up to this point.

Lara feels way more human here, like she is a character with a past that is elucidated beyond the manual booklet. And one who changes over-time, grows arrogant and makes mistakes. I joked earlier about her only trying to save the world to save her collection, but this game makes a much better job of making us believe that she is trying to do the right thing. Especially as she possibly ends up paying a heavy price in the end.

She even has an actual friend here, beyond the much-abused butler Winston. It is the first person that Lara is shown to have feelings of friendship for, and adds to the humanization she is given in this game.

The friend is Jean-Yves, an archaeologist who is heavily based on real-life archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur. Empereur discovered the remains of ancient Alexandria in the harbour of the present day city, and it is clear that the developers drew on his work and life. Empereur sued the developers for including his likeness and he was well-justified. In fact there is nothing in the game to suggest that the character isn’t literally Empereur.

This is just an amusing anecdote, but the fact that the developers looked at real-life archaelogical research (which was quite fresh at the time of development) says something about the research put into the environments in this game.

The whole game, barring the opening tutorial-flashback is set in Egypt. It is partly an attempt to course correct from TR 3, which had a lot of modern industrial and urban settings. In this game we get Lara back into raiding ancient temples and tombs for the bulk of the game.

The Egypt setting was used for a section in the first game, but that was just four levels. TR IV outdoes it by dedicating the bulk of a fairly lengthy game to it.

The problem of setting the game in just one country is that it can constrict the variety of environments. And sure, you get a lot of sand and Egyptian mural textures in this game. But the developers did some research in an effort to find a variety of Egyptian history to draw from.

For example, to give the player a break from the use of pre-macedonian traditional “pharaonic” imagery, the game’s Alexandria section goes full into ancient Greek imagery, and it ends with Lara finding Cleopatra’s palace. That Egypt had a Hellenistic period is of course not obscure knowledge, but it speaks to the effort that went into this game’s image of Egypt, there is clearly more effort than your standard Egypt-set adventure story.

The game’s approach to Egyptian history and mythology is loose at best (Set being an evil bringer of the apocalypse is the most obvious), but there is a borrowing of real locations and concepts from Egyptian history that adds richness to the game’s depiction of Egypt. You get to play Senet and use canopic jars to solve puzzles, for example. You get a whole section set in Karnak, with the Great Hypostyle Hall and the sacred lake being literal levels in the game. And while you get the “greatest hits” of Ancient Egypt in pop culture, you also get some sign of deeper research. Not just the great sphinx, but also Lara reading from the dream stele. Not just Khufu’s great pyramid, but also Menkaure’s pyramid and the Queens’ pyramids.

This use of real history made the game a mind-expanding experience to play as a kid. Without being meant as educational, I was learning things. This long, complex and challenging game felt even more imposing when you learnt from looking things up that concepts like senet were real. Even today it feels impressive that the developers did put this kind of effort into it. Even today these tidbits of actual history adds to the variety and richness of the game’s environments.

Not that the real life locations depicted in the game are at all intended to be accurate. The game sets the tone right away with its approach to real locations with Angkor Wat, which is turned into an adventure genre temple filled with dart traps. Karnak is given a similar treatment, as is the Giza pyramid complex. It is all in the name of making a fun game. Yet the usage of real locations as the starting point for the fantasies of this game’s level design works to add a sense of realism to the game. It is one thing to explore a complete fantasy Egyptian temple, quite another for Lara to explore and discover fantastical things within the very real Karnak.

The game’s apocalyptic theme is also really well-made, especially as things starts to get weirder and more supernatural as the game progresses. It begins with strange rivers of blood and reanimated mummies after the ankh is removed. Yet the supernatural stuff stays safely within tombs for most of the game. There are then reanimated skeletons in a beach near Alexandria, as a first sign the supernatural is spilling over into normal reality. It is finally in the penultimate section, Cairo, that the player can really see that the end of the world is literally near.

Cairo in the game it is far from normal. Supernatural creatures has taken over the city, Egyptian soldiers are fighting a losing battle against insect swarms, giant beetles, a minotaur and a dragon-like creature. The sky has taken on unnatural colours, and is green and perpetually overcast. All the bizarre supernatural stuff you might expect from a Tomb Raider game, but it taking over a modern city like this is actually quite scary. Even the human antagonist Von Croy is possessed by Set, with the story implying his ruthless nature (even before his possesion he kidnaps Jean-Yves to pressure Lara into giving up the artifacts she tries to use to stop Set) makes him vulnerable to such a possesion.

I also like the story in this section, which has Lara team up with an Egyptian army officer, Sergeant Azizas. Their mutual respect for each other is quite touching and humanizes Lara further. His sacrifice to defeat the dragon-like creature helps foreshadow Lara’s own eventual sacrifice.

The final section is Giza, where the apocalyptic mood continues and giant scorpions, one of the most memorable enemies in the game, are introduced. Giza returns the game to a mostly linear structure, it may seem a bit disappointing but after Alexandria and Cairo there was no way to turn up the complexity further. And there are still fun bits. The game makes the pyramids into intricate platforming puzzles, and while it is sometimes hard to tell which tile is sloped so Lara will slide off it, they are fun in my opinion. The final section before the encounter with Set has you solving water pouring puzzles with the threat of being eaten by Ammit if you fail, it’s great.

Whereas throughout much of the game there was some sense of Lara going through Egyptian history in chronological order, with going from Karnak to Alexandria to Cleopatra’s palace to modern day Cairo, this time the game goes back in time to one of the oldest monuments in Egypt, the great pyramid. Yet it feels appropriate thematically, the Cairo section proved the present inadequate to stand up to Set, so you have to go back to the past to solve it.

And in fact, even Lara is unable to defeat Set directly, your weapons are useless against him because he is literally a god. Lara’s only option is to just seal him inside the great pyramid with the Amulet of Horus. It means she has to leave the amulet behind, Lara having learnt her lesson about ruthlessly taking artifacts from ancient civilizations. If there is a Last Revelation in this game, that is probably it.

And it seems it is truly her last revelation too. The game ends with Lara buried as the corridor in the pyramid leading outside collapses. A reformed Von Croy, now no longer possessed, tries to rescue her but fails. It is an ironic mirror of the scene from the opening. There Von Croy is trapped because of his greed and arrogance despite Lara warning and trying to rescue him. And in the ending Lara is trapped because of an act of altruism. Rocks falls on her, and it is implied she dies. This game actually has Lara acting unambiguously altruistically for once, and it proves it by her making the ultimate sacrifice.

This was shocking back in 1999, even Core’s own boss Jeremy Heath-Smith was shocked and angry at what writer Andy Sandham and the other developers had done. It was an expression of tiredness at the near-constant crunch Core had experienced to the pressure from Eidos of developing sequels to Tomb Raider. Yet the game doesn’t have a tired feeling at all.

In fact, viewed as the end of Tomb Raider, its sheer ambition and scale makes it feel like a fitting finale. The massive level complexes taking the design principles established in the first game to their absolute limit. The very setting takes the series back to its roots, the focus is Lara is exploring ancient tombs and temples again, and indeed Egypt was visited in the first game. And the comparatively serious story, which actually does some interrogating of the very premise of the series is also appropriate for a grand finale. If this was the end of Tomb raider, it could hardly have gone out on a more appropriate note.

Of course it wasn’t the end at all. Lara returned in a fifth game, Chronicles, the very next year, and a proper sequel followed in 2003. Yet Tomb Raider IV still feels like an end of sorts, it is the last proper classic Tomb Raider game. Chronicles still used the basic engine and control system from TR I, but it was always meant as a side-venture to tide the fans over until a proper sequel, Angel of Darkness could be released (of course that plan didn’t work out).Chroniclesis a short game of episodic vignettes from Lara’s past, not a sequel proper. After that came the more or less unfinished Angel of Darkness, and then the Crystal Dynamics would completely re-invent Tomb Raider and abandon the classic style and engine.

So The Last Revelation is perhaps not the last revelation, but it is the last fully-formed Tomb Raider game by Core Design, after this everything changed, and not necessarily for the better.

#tomb raider #my reviews #my writings #tomb raider: the last revelation

[quaddmgd]

I've been playing Tomb Raider I-III Remastered since its release. I managed to beat TR1 + Unfinished business and I'm 1/3 through TR2. It takes me longer than I thought, mostly because of work and exhaustion, but I'm having so much fun. Let's talk about TR1 then!

I've never actually finished a Core Design Tomb Raider before. I really wanted to start from the first one, but no matter the version, MS-DOS, Windows or PS1, the jumping felt delayed to a point of being unplayable for me. Which... was really weird. Normally I enjoy playing older games and not many ever felt 'too old' for me to learn playing them. Remasters felt like my last chance to try and beat them and, well, turns out jumping in original TR1 is dependant on animations - cinematic platformer-style. The new release actually fixed that and it feels very responsive on a keyboard. That's the most important change for me.

TR1 feels so different from the Legend and Survivor trilogies. Compared to newer games, platforming requires an ungodly amount of precision to pull off and feels very rewarding in the process. Instead of being action-oriented it prioritizes being a puzzle-platformer first, while enemy encounters remain sporadic and rather unwelcome due to their jankiness. TR1 ends up being a really atmospheric, quiet and isolating experience, making you feel like you're really the first person to visit these locations in thousands of years - I really appreciate that.

Now, being a 1996 game, TR1 always looked stellar to me and if it weren't for my issues with platforming, I would've probably beaten the original a long time ago. That being said, I really appreciate the art direction this remaster goes for. It's a nice mix between somewhat cartoony models and the original level design allowing for gameplay to remain intact. It's not without issues (some spaces can be too dark, some items are harder to spot and hd textures don't blend that well together compared to the original pixel art - some of that was apparently fixed in a patch, but it'd have to go back and check), but its lighting system makes up for any flaws. To be honest lighting does all the heavy lifting in creating atmosphere and the way environment reflects colored light on Lara reminds me of RT global illumination solutions used in modern games, but retains the feeling of playing a forgotten early 2000s gem with an HD texture pack installed. I love it.

The photo mode is a nice addition too. I managed to snap a few pics and the ability to switch between old and new graphics helped with making side-by-side comparisons.

There are a few meaningful flaws, unfortunately. FMV cutscenes didn't get a proper upscale, but instead just a blurry filtering, making them look worse than the original ones. Some achievements appear to be broken as well, which can be a bummer as some of them are really hard to pull off. Switching to OG graphics caps frame rate to 30fps with a funky framepacing, NG+ is not NG+ but a hard mode, and all-new modern controls have already become infamous for limiting Lara's movement compared to tank controls and making the camera bug out in tight spaces. I encountered more issues, but most of them got fixed in a 1.01 patch, so overall I'm pleased with the state of the game.

Now there are communication and update accessibility issues I'm planning to touch on, but since they don't seem to affect the experience of actually playing the remasters, I'm going to do so in a separate post.

Playing through TR2, I noticed the bigger focus on action, which I heard will be also a thing in TR3, but aside from that it seems to be a great sequel!

I already made a wishlist of what I want to see in future patches (including a working wardrobe and outfits from other TR games hehe), but I have fun playing it and that's the most important thing about this collection. It was obviously made with love and I hope that updates will make it a perfect visual remaster in the future.

#text.qd

[toreplacemydrunkenramblings]

Trev biog, 2013

‘St. Francis of St. Andrews’ was born in the 19th of April 1954, 13 years before the summer of love, in the city of Plymouth. He was spotted by Birmingham after scoring 800 (yes, 800) goals at schools level, and duly packed his bags to join Fred Goodwin’s second division Blues in 1969, aged 15. “You looked at Trevor and saw everything you want as a footballer,” Goodwin said very early on. “If a manager is lucky, he comes across a youngster like this once in his career. Looking for comparisons, I’d say Jimmy Greaves, Denis Law and that’s it. Francis is in this exclusive scorer’s bracket.”

By October 1970, he had made his debut, and, well, it’s safe to say that as debut seasons go, his was more eventful than others.

Let’s cut to the chase, he scored 15 goals in his first 15 games, and inspired a reasonably rubbish Birmingham side to 9th in the second division. And it’s particularly noted for his part in one of the most talked about games in the history of Birmingham City.

It was the 20th February 1971 and it was a match between 2 mid-table teams, Birmingham and Bolton, at St. Andrew’s. In the 16th minute, a Gordon Taylor flick on fell in to the path of the 16-year-old Francis, who rounded the keeper to score. 3 minutes later Francis had made it 2, and by the 78th minute the match was won and ‘all the fans wanted to round off a great afternoon was to witness a history making hat-trick goal from the schoolboy’. They were rewarded. Francis added another poacher’s goal to become the youngest scorer of a hat trick in the history of the football league. To finish off proceedings he added a 4th with a header 7 minutes from time. The game ended 4-0 to Blues and the 16-year-old kid had scored all 4. It was something that quite simply had never been seen before at St. Andrew’s. Nat Lofthouse called him ‘an astonishing player’. The Birmingham Mail talked of ‘an incredible performance’, ‘unbelievable exploits’, and led with the headline ‘what a performance, what a player, what a game!’

Blues finished 9th with Trevor grabbing 15 in 22, but it’s in 71/72 that they really begin to make their mark on English football. After a stuttering start they went unbeaten from New Years’ Day and on the final day of the season they overtook Millwall to finish 2nd, the first time they were in the promotion places all season. This was backed up by an excellent cup campaign that saw them finish 3rd in the FA Cup. A semi-final defeat to Leeds was followed by a win over Stoke City on penalties in the lesser spotted FA Cup 3rd-place play off. It was also the first penalty shoot-out in FA Cup history. Trevor managed 12 goals in 39 as he was overshadowed by the great Bob Latchford. Nevertheless, in the autumn of 1972 he was to begin a 10-year spell in England’s top division.

After their promotion, Blues were reasonably comfortable playing amongst English football’s elite. They were more reliant on Latchford than young Trevor in the first couple of seasons; however, once Latch was sold to Everton for a British record fee, Trevor stepped in to the limelight. In 1974-75, Birmingham reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, still under Freddie Goodwin. They were beaten in the last minute of extra time in a replay by Fulham, after a famously unlucky goal involving a Fulham player smashing the ball off keeper Dave Latchford’s face and in to the back of the net. But Francis was not to be deterred – between 1974 and 1978 he scored 76 goals in 142 games, which, y’know is more than one in two for a mid-table First Division team. In this spell, he famously scored one of the greatest goals in the history of the club, against the QPR of Stanley Bowles and Frank McLintock in 1976. The Mail takes up the story:

‘However, Blues, and Trevor Francis in this form were a match for anyone, and with half time approaching, the most memorable moment of the game came. It had international class stamped all over it [this is when they were strong campaigns from Blues fans for Trevor to be in Don Revie’s side], and of course it was produced by the Blues number 8. Archie Styles took a quick throw in to Francis on the right; he evaded the challenge of [Frank] McLintock with breath-taking ease. McLintock recovered and closed in on the Blues striker again, this time with the help of Clement. Francis merely dropped his right shoulder, rushed to the left and left the Scot beaten for dead. The pace beat Clement leaving Francis with a clear chance to centre the ball, pulling back his right foot he instead unleashed a crisp low shot which whistled past Parkes and smashed in to the bottom corner.’

And so, Revie cannot put off the England calls for much longer, and Trevor Francis makes his England debut in 1977 against Holland. England lost 2-0 to one of the best teams in the world ‘but Francis put in a cool, level-headed and occasionally deft debut, emphasising his immaculate touch on the ball and eye for both a pass and a shot.’ He scored his first goal against Luxembourg a short time later.

Back at Blues, he scored a staggering 29 goals in 1977-78 in a topsy-turvy season briefly under Alf Ramsey that took him past 100 league goals for Blues.

The 78-79 season was to define his career, as well as the careers of a lot of other people. (I should mention at this stage in the summer of 1978 he went to NASL and scored 22 goals in 19 games. Standard.) The season started badly. World Cup Winner Alberto Tarantini was signed by Jim Smith, he proceeded to kick the shit out of as many people as possible, and Blues began to slide towards relegation. After an injury-hit season, by February 1979 it was clear that Blues were in trouble and Jim Smith began to consider the interest from Jimmy Hill’s Coventry and Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest. Clough was a known admirer, and in the days before agents, he rang Jim Smith, they agreed a base fee, which is believed to be £975,000, and then met with Francis for talks and that was it. They agreed that Francis could spend the next summer with Jimmy Hill’s NASL franchise Detroit Express, where he had scored 22 in 19 the previous summer. That was the only snag. On the 9th of February 1979, Trevor Francis joined Nottingham Forest for a VAT-increased £1,150,000, the first British player ever to be transferred for more than 1 million pounds.

It more than doubled the previous record. It was a third of Nottingham Forest’s turnover. Some would say it said a precedent for modern football transfers. It certainly changed Forest forever. Brian Clough, though, had other things on his mind. He turned up to the press conference dressed for a squash game he was about to have, insisting that he needed to get away and hardly stopping to sit down in the press conference. One thing I will say is that as much as I love Brian Clough his style of management meant he never really said anything nice about Trevor. But anyway. On to more pressing matters.

Francis scored 6 goals in 20 games from the right wing for Forest, as they stormed up the league and in to the latter stages of a bizarre European Cup. They beat Koln after a sensational 3-3 draw in the first leg, and an excellent away win Germany. Unbelievably they would face Swedish side Malmo in the final, and they were well-fancied to lift the trophy.

The game remains a slightly odd one – it seems as though most of Europe had hardly heard of the two sides, the Olympiastadion in Munich wasn’t even full, but that wasn’t to put Francis – who had been banned from European competition after the transfer for 3 months and who would be making his European debut - and Forest off. Malmo were playing a very Catenaccio style, and Forest’s pressure would surely tell. In the 45th minute, John Robertson skipped down the left wing, crossed it past the despairing dive of the keeper, and Trevor arrived, diving past the defender, to head the ball in from 4 yards and send the Forest fans in to absolute delirium.

The second half was a non-event. Malmo did not have the quality, and Forest held on. Clough’s tactics had worked. Forest had won the European Cup for the first time and it had been won by Francis with a diving header. A diving header to win a European Cup Final? I could just end it there I suppose.

Francis finished his Forest career with 28 goals in 70 games, mainly from the wing in a much-debated spell which come call successful and others do not. He missed Forest’s 1980 European Cup final victory and Euro ’80 due to injury after scoring in the quarters and semis of the European Cup. Oh, and I should mention he went back to NASL and scored 14 in 14, placing him on NASL’s all time top scorer list, one place above some bloke called Pele. He was sold to Manchester City for a year in 1981, where he scored 12 goals for a struggling First Division side. It was enough for him to make the cut for the England squad for World Cup ’82, however.

Trevor found himself in the team, playing in the hole behind Paul Mariner, as England began the tournament with an impressive victory over France. Francis was to score against Czechslovakia and against Kuwait, with a classic goal as he brought the ball down, skipped past the last defender and fired the ball in to the back of the net. He started both games in the second group stage, but could not find a way through as England, being England, drew both their games 0-0 and crashed out by one point. By the end of the tournament he was finally a proven international forward, and it was only a matter of time before someone plucked him from cash-strapped and struggling Man City.

And the team that did just that was in Italy. He joined Sampdoria as part of the British invasion of Calcio. I’m gonna level with you, I didn’t realise how loved he was there. He spent 4 seasons there, famously leading them to their maiden victory in the Coppa Italia in 1985 against Milan. In fact, talking of Milan:

Francis also played alongside Liam Brady. Yes. Francis, Brady and Souness IN THE SAME TEAM. NOT EVEN IN ENGLAND. Francis recently returned for the Derby della Lanterna against Genoa, and paraded a Samp shirt with ‘Francis 9’ on the back to great acclaim around the magnificent Marassi in Genoa. He also showed off his Italian in a couple of interviews which you can find on the internets.

During his spell with Samp, his England career wound down under Bobby Robson, who initially preferred him but was reluctant to pick him on account of him being 32 when the ’86 World Cup would take place. Thus, Peter Beardsley took over, but Francis managed to reach his 50th cap against Mexico and his 52nd and final cap against Scotland in the Rous Cup. He managed 12 goals, and, according to journalist Matthew Rudd: ‘History says that he only occasionally fulfilled his potential as an England player, but when he did, it was on the biggest stage and earned him the many admirers his talent deserved’. Which is nice.

Francis then began a nomadic couple of years which saw brief spells at Atalanta, Rangers with Souness, and Woolongong City in Australia, taking the number of countries he played in to 5. In 1987 he joined Queens’ Park Rangers where he scored a sensational perfect hat trick at Villa Park. He became player manager in 1988 and signed the likes of John Scales and Peter Reid, but soon left in 1990.

He joined Sheffield Wednesday soon afterwards to begin an eventful spell. As a player he helped them gain promotion in 1991 and reach the League Cup final, where he was an unused sub as they sensationally defeated Manchester United. He then took over as player manager and led them to an excellent 3rd place finish. In 1993 they reached (and of course lost) 2 cup finals in one season, after which he retired as a player. He even managed to make 6 appearances in the Premier League, despite his career beginning not long after the 1960s finished. He was sacked – many say harshly – in 1994 after they finished 13th in the League. Wednesday have hardly finished above that since.

There was of course, one thing he had left to do before he retired from football. In 1996, he took over from Barry Fry at St. Andrew’s, his spiritual home. Fry, well, he’d fucked them up a bit, Francis famously said: ‘I had 47 players when I started, then 49 2 weeks later when I found 2 more in a cupboard’, but he was tasked with guiding Blues from a talented 1st Division side to the promised land of the Premier League. There were several unsuccessful play-off attempts, but it’s one night in February 2001 that all Blues fans remember him for.

Blues had made the League Cup final that year, where they would take on Houllier’s Liverpool.

The final was not a classic but Birmingham play brilliantly. They sent the Premier League team to extra time after Darren Purse’s late penalty, and they should have another in extra time. But penalties it was. Martin Grainger and Didi Hamann miss. Sudden death. Carragher sticks his away. Andy Johnson…doesn’t. Liverpool sneak the Worthington Cup 5-4 on penalties, and Birmingham have played out of their skin.

He’s a broken man but his legacy lives on. He resigns in October of that year, Steve Bruce takes over and the rest is history. Birmingham beat Norwich in the play-off final as home town boy Darren Carter sticks away the winning penalty. He finishes his career after a brief spell at Crystal Palace.

So, the legacy of the man clearly lives on, especially in our house. My dad has been a Blues fan since about 1965, he’s only 2 years younger than Trevor. He was there that day he scored 4 as a 16 year old boy, and he was there when they played so brilliantly in the League Cup final. I watched that game on the telly and it’s probably my earliest football memory apart from Euro 2000. When you’re that age you don’t really understand what’s going on, hence why I can’t remember much of the game but I associate it with the most incredible sadness. Fucking Robbie Fowler.

Anyway, it was quite hard to dig a quote out as most Blues fans see him as, well, God in footballer form as I said. He’s the greatest player in Birmingham City history. Hands down. I could end with the quote in which Fabio Capello said he was the best Englishman ever to play in Calcio, but instead I’ll end with this from my own dad. I asked him if he was there on that day when a 16-year-old Francis scored 4 in one game, and he responded with a quote that I think sums up both the career of Francis and a life of supporting Birmingham City:

‘Fantastic…I mean…it was so good, it made it on to the radio at about twenty past five that evening’