#that round 4 thing is real btw

[rickysvxr]

nsfw a to z - ricky

warning - just smut, ricky x f!reader

MDNI MDNI MDNI MDNI MDNI

a - aftercare

ricky's the sweetest when it comes to aftercare. he would immediately turn into lovelicky :(( he would ask you if you're alright and if he didn't hurt you too much. he would definitely clean you both and make some food. if you prefer sleeping - he would cuddle you to sleep and sing for you.

b - boobs

ricky's a boob guy - you can't tell me otherwise. when he sleeps he's cuddled into your boobs. he really likes squeezing them. while you ride him he likes sucking on your nipples and leave some hickeys.

c - cum

he would cum into your pussy unless you don't want him to. ricky wants you to be comfortable with anything he's doing. also he's really into cumming into your mouth or on your face.

d - daddy kink

he will definitely make you call him daddy. or maybe sir??? he'd be so into roleplay. he'd call you his little kitten or something. call him daddy and he'd immediately get hard.

e - experience

you both weren't really experienced but ricky knew what to do to make you feel the best. he's open to trying new things.

f - fingering

he'd finger you while you're visiting your family.. he's such a bitch and he knows that. he's also into fingering you when you're studying/working. he really needs your attention :((

g - gagging

he knows you can't take his whole dick to your mouth so he won't force you to anything and he would try not to hurt you. if he would - he'd do it unintentionally.

h - hickeys

for him - he likes leaving them on your boobs or tights so places that only him (and you) can see. you like giving him hickeys on his neck (right on his tattoo 🙈).

i - intimacy

when it comes to real sex he'd like to do it in your bedroom so you both have that private place. but he would also fuck you in the backseat of his car.

j - jerk off

he would definitely send you videos of him jerking off. he would tie a little ribbon on his dick :((

k - kinks

overstimulation, praise kink, daddy kink, pet names (idk if it counts), scratching, roleplay.

l - locations

bedroom, his car, couch, floor.

m - making out

ricky likes to make out late at night when he wakes you up just to make out with you :(( you'd be so sleepy but he loves it so much.

n - no's

he definitely wouldn't force you to anything. ricky wouldn't like to make you cry :( but besides that he's open to anything that you want to try.

o - orgasms

ricky would cum A LOT. it doesn't matter how you make him do that - he would cum a lot. he does at least 3 or 4 rounds (it's minimum for him btw).

p - pet names

baby, darling, sweetheart, my kitten, good girl, princess, sweetie, cutie, slut.

q - quickie

he'd be so into quickies. like before his performance? he would really love it. but still he likes to take his time with you.

r - relationship

in the bedroom - he's really wild and hot. he'd be the bitchest bitch to ever bitch. still he would give you whatever you want (he likes teasing a lot tho).

outside the bedroom - he turns into lovelicky. he's the sweetest person on the earth and you want him to know that! you both love when you're babying him. just give this man some attention and he'd be the happiest person in the world.

s - stamina

as i said before - ricky would do 3 or 4 rounds with you and it's his minimum! he would literally fuck you all day if you both could 😭 he still makes sure he's not hurting you or something. he always asks you if you want to go for an another round.

t - toys

vibrator and that's it. he doesn't like when something other than him is making you feel good. and he lets you know that.

u - unfair

he would make you cum every time. he doesn't like leaving you unsatisfied - it just hurts him. he's into teasing but he'd definitely make you cum before he's done.

v - volume

he likes when you moan so loud - it's music to his ears. he would groan and sometimes even moan. but don't expect it from him unless you're on top.

w - i can't think of any, sorry 😭

x - x-ray

he's BIG. and he knows that. (still he fits perfectly into your pussy).

y - i can't think of any!!!

z - zzz...

he won't fall asleep before you. he always makes sure that you're sleeping, then he would go to sleep. (he's so sweet i can't 😭).

#ricky shen #ricky #zb1 ricky #ricky smut #zb1 smut #zb1 x reader #zb1 imagines #zerobaseone

[applejuicewerewolf]

"You shouldn't savescum in BG3, it's not something you can do in real DnD games either!" Well yes, but unlike in BG3, i can actually talk to my DM to clarify things, so we're both on the same page.

Like, I've spent the last hour or so trying to break into the Foundry in Act 3. I made my entire team invisible, entered turn-based-mode, and we snuck around the lower floor full of enemies, until we found the giant door. This door is both locked and also requires an INT check for your character to understand that it's rigged. Said check is a whole cutscene, which will turn off turn-based-mode. Also, invisibilty lasts only 10 rounds, of which I had 3-4 left by the time I came to the door.

So if I interact with the door, it both takes me out of stealth and eventually breaks my invisibility. If I had an actual DM here, we could communicate what exactly happens here, how the mechanics work, etc. Instead, the "DM" is like "yeah so as a real-life person you took 18 actual seconds to roll your dice, which is technically 3 rounds of combat, so your spell fades and your team gets discovered. Roll initiative."

As a DM I can tell you: We work together with our Players, not against them. Communication is key. If I had a person like that as my DM, I'd quit the game because they're a pedantic and sadistic asshole.

This is not critique on Larian's design btw. I realize that this game is MASSIVE and I am impressed by the way they managed to code all this small little differences that affect the story. I believe they did the best they could. What I am saying is that a computer programm can not and never will be able to adapt the way a human would. I cannot tell the computer "whoah hold on, you're being kind of a dick right now." A computer does not know about the Rule of Cool.

So I do the second-best thing I can. Reload the save, using the new information my digital DM gave me, and try again according to their rules.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #larian studios #dnd #dungeons and dragons #meine keime #this got very long #but it made me think about how I'd handle this part. #the role of a DM is to challenge the players. not torture.

[yamchaisawesome]

PENNY IS TRANS AS FUCK: An Essay.

WARNING, SPOILERS FOR POKÉMON SCARLET ABD VIOLET

So I saw some TERFs getting mad at someone headcanoning Penny from the new Pokémon games as trans saying they’re intolerant because they, and I paraphrase “headcanon every vaguely gnc person as trans.”

Anyway I, a cis man, am out here like: Did we play the same fucking game? So I’m going to compile every bit of evidence that I can find in support of this gal being trans.

Let’s start with what I like to call Trans Evidence Lightning Round. These are things I can’t write ridiculous amounts about but still feel important to include. These include but are not limited to: 1.Her wearing a large hoodie (possibly a dysphoria hoodie)

2. Her terrifying proficiency with coding and hacking. (Note, this is in no way dismissing cis women in coding or stem as a whole. The trans girl coder stereotype is just really common and Pokémon loves its shorthand)

3. She has a FUCKING SYLVEON (literally has the trans flag colours as the colour scheme) as her ace when you battle her.

4. She says “Shine bright like the starry sky and become who you really want to be!” When terrastalising said Sylveon, which can be taken in a number of ways.

5. The fact that none of the team star bosses knew her name before she left, only referring to her as “The Big Boss”

I’ll probably add more later. Now, onto the juicy stuff. Some of this doesn’t fit together but they all seem to imply the same thing and they’re all there.

It is revealed later on that, like the rest of the team star members, Penny was bullied relentlessly. It got so bad that she eventually just shut herself inside and never left the house. This isolation was so intense that up until the end of the Starfall Street story, none of her closest friends (the team star bosses) ever saw her real face. This isn’t the strongest bit of evidence but we’re never given a particular reason like we did with Eri or Atticus, so it’s in no way out of the question that the bullying could’ve been transphobic in nature.

Ortega’s Tutor (the director of the academy before Clavell took over) refers to the “Big Boss” (AKA Penny) as a he before sending her back to Galar as “punishment” for 1.5 years. Now this could just be a mistake on the devs’ part, but that seems like it gives us a rough timeline of eggcrackery, intentional misgendering (which seems out of character for the guy), or it could simply be that he had never met Penny due to the aforementioned social isolation and based it off of the student database which in my experience rarely updates this kind of stuff.

Nemona doesn’t recognise her. I repeat, NEMONA doesn’t recognise her. The most extroverted of extroverts, the super popular girl who’s on the student council and could probably look at the student database if she wanted to, the girl who has been at the school for AT LEAST two years for the simple reason that the events of the main story is not her first treasure hunt does not know this girl despite her being there before. There are many ways someone could write this off, including the aforementioned social isolation and her not knowing too much about team star in general but that is still really weird considering that this is NEMONA that we’re talking about. This could easily be supporting evidence for her transition over the 1.5 years in Galar.

And let’s say you’re still not convinced and you think she’s cis. That’s fucking fine. Nobody is going to judge you for that. But don’t be a piece of garbage and get mad at someone for headcanoning her as trans. To me and many others, she’s a genuinely cool trans character that doesn’t shove that fact in your face. Seriously, anyone who does this (btw if any of you TERFs stayed up to here, thank you but why?). Y’all get mad that “The media shoves trans shit in my face” then when there’s a character who either isn’t trans but resonates with trans audiences or is more subtle about their identity you get angry when anyone calls them trans. It’s very contradictory and I dare say hypocritical.

#pokemon penny #transgender #lgbtq+ #transfem #Pokémon #pokémon scarlet and violet #Penny #pokemon #fuck TERFs #important

[twig-tea]

BL/QL Ask game : The Ugly, the Bad and the Worst

Thank you for the game, @clara-maybe-ontheroad! And thanks for tagging me @clara-maybe-ontheroad and @lurkingshan! I started out by saying to myself that I'm going to do my best to ignore my urges and just answer the first thing that comes to me rather than treating this like a quiz. And then I went into a fugue and worked on this for >5 hours. WHOOPS.

Original version here for anyone else who wants to play!

Also quick warning, this is asking about the worsts, so TW for mentions of horrific plot points below.

Worst soundtrack / weirdest song choice in a BL

Ohhhhh man, ok so the first thought that came to mind was Never Let Me Go, which mostly had fantastic background music, and that's maybe why when it didn't hit it stood out so badly (sorry to my man Pond, not all BL actors should be singers! And having his OST play over their kiss in Part 7 4/4 was just mean). For the record I love this show (actually maybe it should go in one of the below categories because so many tumblr folks dislike it) but this was rough.

Most cringe-inducing line (cute)

These don't tend to stick with me...there are so many, and I am allergic to sincerity so everything earnest is various levels of cringe to me. So with that in mind, basically everything Gavreel ever said in Gameboys counts.

Most cringe-inducing line (actually bad)

Anytime someone said "Once I start I won't be able to stop" or some variation.

Most stupid decision made by a character

Jun Ho deciding to die rather than bite Min Hyun in Kissable Lips. Min Hyun was offering. it would have made Jun Ho human. He could have had his friends around to make sure he didn't go too far and kill him. Instead he decides to fade away in his arms like a dick. WHY.

Special mention to NuengDiao going back to his hotel where his murderous uncle is waiting with no plan other than to walk in wearing a suit and a cocky expression in Never Let Me Go.

[@bengiyo and @wen-kexing-apologist are correct about Teh giving up his spot to Oh Aew in I Told Sunset About You as the actual correct answer, btw]

Worst plot line

Every penultimate episode crises resulting in the leads splitting up so that they can reunite in the finale that are not earned and significantly detract from my enjoyment of a series [this list is not comprehensive]: 2Gether, Minato's Laundromat S2, Enchanté, Love Class, Plus & Minus.

The most problematic show you've watched

I've seen literally all of them so this feels like an unfair question lol there are layers of problematic; like, is it even worth considering all of the problems with A Round Trip to Love, or The Shortest Distance is Round, or What the Duck s2? I wrote out summaries for these and then decided no thanks. If anyone wants to know they can DM me.

In terms of series that are problematic but not often considered problematic, I'm calling out Love Area the series. It hits two of my pet peeves: shitty treatment of a poor character by an oblivious rich love interest that directly affects their sources of income, and an ableist subplot. I think it also has an unearned separation in the penultimate episode but honestly I remember thinking they should stay split up so maybe it was earned.

A show people love but you find bad

Vice Versa. Sorry to all who love that show. I wanted to like it; the colouring and cinematography are beautiful and the alternate universe was neat worldbuilding. But the plot makes me so, so angry.

Ditto Cutie Pie the series. I just can't enjoy it.

A show people find bad but you will defend

Honestly there are several, but the one that is most disliked that I will ride hardest for is probably Secret Crush On You (which I argued ended with one of the most healthy relationships in a BL here LMAO). I get why people find this show hard to watch, the cringe is real. But the gender expression! The found family! The "he's a weirdo and that's why I love him" dynamic! The mutual lusting! The body dysphoria! The fact that both start by playing into BL tropes and it's only by throwing those out that they can actually have a meaningful relationship! The way both characters have real growth! And like yes Toh is a fanboy stalker but that is problematized in the show! It gave us the growth from fanboy to faen that Be Mine Superstar didn't. I have a lot of emotions about this show.

ALSO because I cannot stop, I will forever to my dying breath defend Color Rush. I don't care what you say about dead fish kisses I can't hear you over the incredibly powerful metaphor about the queer experience!

A show that is just objectively bad but you enjoyed it

Bahahhaha. Um. So many, my friends. OH I'm going to take this chance to shout out the lesser-known webseries Discipline Z: Vampire (Korean, YouTube, 2020). It's ostensibly a sequel to Discipline, but the only thing they share is a single character so you don't need to watch it to understand what's happening in Discipline Z (they are entirely different shows in every way; Discipline is more youth slice of life with a queer story as part of the ensemble). Listen, I'm talking about this show in this category for a reason; it's about a vampire who falls for a street dancer, whose motley crew of hacker friends help rescue the vampire from an evil corporation that wants to experiment on him to understand his immortality. It is BAD.

But. BUT! I love it. Everyone is so pretty. There is a cute hacker girlie. There is scifi nonsense to explain immortality. There is a good kiss. There are characters willing to sacrifice to do the right thing. I am a simple woman. [Fair warning to my happy ending only pals: this ending is ambiguous at best; there was supposed to be a follow-up epilogue for the couple, but it never got filmed.]

Bonus, En of Love was absolutely trash and it has a very special place in my heart. It's not good (like, at all), but it's great.

A bad show that you kept watching because you were intrigued/fascinated

Let's go with Physical Therapy the series. At some point I just kept watching like a car wreck to see how bad it could get. Also shout-out to Dinosaur Love, which was...similarly bewildering.

A bad show that you kept watching because you were horny

@lurkingshan already stole my first answer for this, but oh man I stay a Why R U apologist for the Fighter/Tutor chemistry. I actually think somewhere in there is a really interesting show, if the pandemic hadn't made it impossible for them to film the ending that they wanted to, but based on the Korean version and the parts that we were told had to be cut, maybe it would have actually made it worse. But just to get on my soapbox for half a sec, Tutor was in debt, working himself to exhaustion, and Fighter (after he got over himself) protected him at his one job, joined him to help him meet his sales targets at another, hired him for a third, paid off his debt collector to take the pressure off, and then took him on vacation to help him relax--twice. I have issues with depictions of poverty in BL but at least my man secured the bag while also pursuing love or whatever. Also he whispers "get inside me" while they're making out, sorry, Tutor will forever be a fave of mine.

Since that's taken, I'm going to use this as an excuse to shout out the hotness of My Day the Series. It was predominantly not great but the heat moments....

A bad show that you kept watching because of that one character

I'm giving this to Noey Watplu from I Will Knock You. I was obsessed with him. I want his confidence so badly. I love how he's essentially a dork in cosplay but gets away with it because of his rizz. Truly iconic. This man decided he was being seduced and said "bet". I really enjoyed this show because of him and him alone.

A bad show that you would still recommend

I'm going to put Ghost Host Ghost House here. It's "bad" in the sense that it had low production values (like, really bad, so bad the time of day changes at random because they lost the light while filming). But the romance was cute, the story around the romance was interesting, the worldbuilding around the merit credits was fascinating, the side mystery was so heartbreaking, the various characters actually had a lot of difficult emotions to portray, and overall I think this show is underrated.

I also already have and will again recommend YYY as a fun and fascinating watch to anyone who asks about it, @waitmyturtles is correct on that call.

The character that ruined a show the most

There are several annoying sides in BL, but I'm giving this to the side hets in My Oxygen. A fujoshi who records people without their consent for online clout is bad. A doctor using his role as a doctor to get closer to his patient is really bad. Pretending to be interested in his friend because the girl he likes is a fujoshi is worse; then using her brother as his friend's stand-in when his friend won't put up with it anymore is the WORST.

Most awful character that you hated

I mean, Lhong in TharnType takes it for not only arranging the gang rape of Tar, but being forgiven for it in the series. Neung in Tonhon Chonlatee comes a close second for attempting to rape Chonlatee and then claiming the moral high ground against his homophobic "friend". Tony in History 5: Love in the Future doesn't get enough hate for trying to murder someone just because he was his love rival. Namning in La Cuisine had her love rival bullied, beaten and who knows what she was going to do with that gun. Also shoutout to @wen-kexing-apologist's answer of Korn, in KinnPorsche, he was so insidiously evil, it was so well done.

Most awful character that you loved

I'm going with "awful" as not necessarily (just) morally bad but that people didn't like: Jaime from Win Jaime's Heart. Objectively he's a fuckboi of the worst calibre. He agrees to go on a webshow in which he dates Heart so that he can seduce the creator of the show Winston. And Jaime is so charming that I don't care about his bi wrongs (partially, to be fair, because the premise is ridiculous so it's hard to take too seriously).

Special mention (because it's not a series) to Wine in Red Wine in the Dark Night. I love a murder twink (speaking of, things are looking really good for me to stay in love with Ai Di from Kiseki if it keeps on this track).

If we're interpreting "awful" as characters that other people don't like, it'll probably go to Toh from Secret Crush on You or Gus in Diary of Tootsies. They're flawed, they're femme, they're fantastic.

A character that wasn't awful but that you just don't like

Can in Love By Chance and the sequels. Tinn is an asshole and knows it; Can is an asshole but is also self-righteous, but in all honesty his biggest flaw for me is that he's not competent and I have little patience for that.

A hero that should have been a villain

Tempted to give this to Ko from Love Poison for essentially trying to love spell date rape his love interest--this is only not that bad because magic isn't real so of course it doesn't do anything.

Possibly Athit (Boun's character) from Even Sun? I put a question mark there because this was so convoluted and hard to follow I'm not even 100% sure I remember it right, but from what I remember, this was not a romantic story at all.

Taking a totally different approach to the question, Joke from Hidden Agenda should have been a secret villain (in the sense that he should have been scheming and sociopathic but hiding it, ineffectually, from Zo) in order to make the series make sense, but apparently I can't have nice things.

And finally, special mention to Phu in The Promise for being the villain for so many of us already.

A morally bad character you're into

Zhu Zi Shu, canon war criminal and child murderer from Word of Honor. He thought he was doing bad things for good reasons (protecting the people he loves), realized he was just doing bad things and the people he loves were all dead anyway, and crafted a convoluted plot to get out of the secret society rules that he created to prevent anyone from leaving. And then he wanders aimless until he meets Wen Ke Xing and becomes as loyal to this equally morally dubious man as he was to his secret society. I love him (and them) so much.

Same type of deal, different scale of crime: Akk from The Eclipse. I have a soft spot for this trope.

A morally bad character you're not into and you wish people would stop being into

Xue Yang from The Untamed. Also a mass murderer, but doing it just for the vibes/to avenge his finger, so he gets zero love from me. People woobify him just because he's sassy it's...rough.

The show that disappointed you the most

From hype to execution? So Much in Love / Ni Yam Ruk. I slogged through such awful subs TWICE (because they claimed they redid them, but they are still terrible) to try to give this show a chance, because the premise sounded right up my alley. I still think there's a show in there that I would have liked, but it is literally unwatchable.

Most disappointed from what the show seemed like it was doing at the start to what it delivered in full is a tie between The Shipper and Step By Step.

The Worst Show of Them All Because of Your Own Reasons

That's My Candy. I've only ever dropped/not finished I think 3 or so shows? And this was the most painful and the one I am least likely to ever finish. The pairing was overplayed, the comedy was heavy handed, and the plot was absolutely cringe inducing. It was literally torture trying to watch this.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!

Tagging @visualtaehyun @nothingsbetterthancoffee @lurkingteapot @snidgetwrites @formayhem @slayerkitty @respectthepetty @ginnymoonbeam no pressure as always! And if you play and I didn't tag you but you're reading this, tag me anyway! I love reading everyone's answers.

#worst bl shows the ask game #ask game #tag game #thanks for the tag! #this was a fun mental exercise #multi bl

[gayest-persona-character]

this barbie hasn't gotten over round 3 and 4! take my dramatization of the kou vs yosuke poll

"I have to win!" Kou declared. "I have to make it far enough to beat that dumb Akechi guy!"

"No! This is my victory!" Yosuke retaliated. "You don't have anything going for you! You're just some dude who said one slightly gay thing! That, stacked up against all the shit I've done, it's nothing!"

Kou scoffed in disbelief. "You liked a girl."

"So did you!"

Kou's face contorted into an expression of anger.

"You just don't get it, do you?! I need to win this!"

"Too bad," Yosuke sneered. "because I'm the true winner here. I see it, you see it, everyone sees it. Just take one look at how things are going. You're not coming back from this!"

All that could have been heard was the sound of the two boys breathing loud enough to contain the agonized screams they longed to release, all that could have been felt was a pregnant silence full enough to distance them from each other hanging in the air.

Kou was the first to cut through the quiet.

"You just... don't get it..." Kou's voice was barely above a whisper, wavering with a tacit tension. "I need to do it for... him..."

"Him?" Yosuke inquired.

"N...Naoki... that... god damn Akechi... who does he think he is...!?" Kou raised his head and his voice, glaring with a newfound burning hatred towards something. Not clear who. Akechi? Yosuke? Himself?

Either way, Yosuke felt a sinking feeling within him, watching this poor boy get torn apart at the seams.

"Who do you think you are!?" Kou screamed, stepping closer to Yosuke and jabbing his finger at his chest. "You don't understand any of it, alright!? You haven't gone through the same shit I have! It's been so easy for you to just drift through this whole tournament, but you haven't ever stopped to think about your friends that lost! About the lover that lost!"

Yosuke's eye twitched.

"...I have."

"Huh?"

"I lost him too... my... b-boyfriend."

Kou's expression shifted from fury to surprise.

"I- I get it. I really do." Yosuke sniffled, wiping a tear from his eye. "I saw how bad he lost. Naoki. It's just... Yu... he put up a real good fight, and he still lost. Neither of those are good fates, so... I get it."

Kou's expression shifted from surprise to sincerity. To sorrow. To understanding.

Yosuke continued. "He... he's special to me, y'know?"

Kou nodded. He understood.

So he took it. He took the loss with grace.

But he took it with understanding.

21.9% / 78.1%.

Thank you so much for this, I love it. Truly a wonderful thing to come back to after my little midterm hiatus!

(which btw I did not announce, but I should be back for the next round on Saturday!)

#gayest persona character tournament #not a poll #poll asks #persona 4

[astxrwar]

ties that bind [5/x]

SUMMARY: Quentin Beck– your old college biology professor– is still a bastard. Apparently, you’re kind of in to that.

RATING: M

WORD COUNT: 7k+

CONTENT + WARNINGS: Emotional manipulation (a given,,,). The general vibes associated with that. Sex scene will be chapter 6 because it got too long, this one is just plot and developing the AU + character. I take liberties with RC because you kinda have to in long-form works; if you're an experienced cook no you're not and if you're allergic to sesame seeds no you're not.

If you're still reading this series we're married now btw. love u babes, mwah.

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | [PART 5]

Beck says nothing else between the car and the elevator, nothing as he presses the only slightly-tarnished silver button for the third floor, still nothing as the doors glide open and nothing when they close, either. The silence begins to coalesce like its own entity, something that pulses and breathes, alive, expanding to fill the rest of the too-small space of the elevator car; something he is, of course, unaffected by. Whatever tension is building inside of you feels precarious, uncontrolled, like a shaken-up can of coke in the seconds before an unsuspecting hand cracks the tab open, an unchecked ignition system with the fuse dwindled all the way down to nothing but a fine powder of ash, the silence before something explodes, because it has to, pressure building too high for too long, until there’s no other recourse or hope for respite. It’s nerves, and you know that, the feeling, but it’s not like anything you’ve ever felt before, better and worse and more, now, in ways that you still can’t fully comprehend or explain.

Beck studies you wordlessly from the opposite side of the elevator car as it moves upwards, the motion so fluid that if it weren’t for a small digital panel above the door, the floor numbers ticking by in glowing fluorescent red, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was even moving at all. 

“Have you eaten?” He asks, cutting clean through that silence. It calms whatever tumultuous thing is coiling in your belly, even if only temporarily, the mundanity of the question striking and strange enough to draw your attention away from it for the moment.

“No,” you answer, quieter than you’d meant to, eyes flitting up to meet his and then glancing away again of their own accord, skittering back to the panel with the glowing red two now displayed and then to the doors, gleaming and reflective, the carpet, brand-new, only faintly discolored along the common path into and out of the car, a dappled pattern of overlapping shoe prints beginning to wear into it there. “I have my wallet, we can order something, if you want—“

Beck makes a sound; not a laugh, more just a particularly harsh exhale, dismissive and uninterested. “I’m making dinner, you can get yourself whatever you’d like if you won’t eat real food.”

The display panel ticks over to three and the doors slide open, a pleasant, bell-like chime announcing the stop; you follow him out into a carpeted hallway that’s painted a bland shade of steel blue and lined with wall-mounted lamps, like a hotel. There are windows on one side, spaced evenly down the length of the wall, and from this height you can see past the lines of barren, skeletal trees, the lights of cars as they trawl like beetles along the winding length of the road in the distance. 

“What do you think I usually eat, then, if I don’t eat ‘real food’ ,” you say, instead of any of the other things that you’re thinking about— your nerves, still, trembling like the wings of a bird in the hollow of your throat, or the strangeness of him offering you dinner, or the entirely predictable way he can make that, even, sound like it’s a dig at your expense.

“Takeout,” Beck answers pointedly, mouth twitching up at the corners; you’ve arrived at his door, the numbers 34 pasted in neat silver leaf below the rounded inset glass of the peek-hole, reflective and glinting in the light from the hallway, and as he rummages in the pockets of his coat for his key and slots it into the lock you can hear your own pulse thrumming loud in your ears. “Frozen pizza, boxed mac and cheese, microwave ramen, anything they sell at the dollar store,” it clicks, and the door handle turns, and he looks at you, grinning in earnest now,  “Hot pockets, probably.”

“Oh my god,” is all you can really say to that— because, yeah, he’s described to a T the off-campus-student-with-no-meal-plan diet, and you’re not even really any good at lying to him even when you’re not feeling some dubious combination of off-balance and dangerously out of your depth, so you decide that you’re better off not even trying. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

“I’m actually not trying to be, this time,” he replies, amused, as he pushes the door open and moves into the darkened foyer, hand sliding along the wall until he finds the switch and the hall is illuminated by the artificially-white glow of the ceiling light. “I was also a grad student once; I do still remember it.”

 As you pass the threshold and press the door closed behind you, he follows with, “Take off your shoes.”

You do, stepping on the heels of your well-worn sneakers to slide them off, one foot, and then the next, stacking them in the tray by the door next to his impeccably-clean and perfectly-polished black oxfords. There’s another set of sneakers there, too, much nicer and much newer than yours, and a pair of thick-treaded black winter boots, the laces wound up together in a neat little ring, tied off to keep them from unraveling, tucked in behind the tongues of the shoes. 

Ahead of you, Beck has moved further into the apartment; he sheds his coat and hangs it in a small closet at the end of the hallway, his laptop bag, too, and gestures for you to do the same with your backpack. There are other doors, one on each side of the hall, and you wonder briefly what might lay beyond them as you trail behind him, your footsteps muted and the hardwood floor cool through the relatively thin barrier of your socks. 

He flicks on another set of lights, brightening the kitchen enough for you to see the whole of it; a high ceiling and low-hanging light fixtures and clean granite countertops, the two-section sink and drying rack both empty of dishes, a keurig machine and a toaster and a blender and other assorted appliances all pushed back against the wall, spotless and free of dust. His apartment looks like a showroom, like some sort of facsimile edition of a place where real breathing people live, and you mean to say that to him in a way that you intend to be insulting, but you find when you go to speak that your mouth is dry and your tongue is uncooperative and the words don’t even arrange themselves correctly inside your head, anyways. All of this feels suddenly very real, the cool stone countertop when you press your fingers against it, the faint draft of air moving through his apartment, drawn from the windows lining one side of the wall– and his eyes on you, something you can feel without even having to look at him, like a warm, solid weight on your shoulders.

Behind you, you hear the sound of some door pulling open, the rush of colder air against your back; the fridge, probably. 

“What are you making?” you say without turning, suppressing that nervous tension, forcing it down inside of you as deep as it will go.

“Nothing complicated,” he replies. “Stir fry. Probably one of the easiest things, actually, if you ever decide to stop eating garbage.”

“Didn’t we just establish you also ate like shit during grad school?” You do turn, at that, so that he can see your face when you pointedly roll your eyes. “Besides, I just– I don’t really have time to cook. Or the energy, honestly.”

“Cooking doesn’t take much time or energy, that’s a poor excuse,” he replies, and you’re halfway through formulating a more-than-slightly-defensive response when he continues, “Learning to cook takes time and energy. You don’t have time or energy to learn , right now.”

The abrupt transition from what you’d assumed would be another insult to a gentle and even understanding correction– it makes something inside of you lurch like the feeling you get when you miss a step walking down a staircase, your balance thrown off and your center of gravity ending up somewhere unexpected.

“Really unnecessary amount of semantic nitpicking,” you say, the words tumbling out uncertain and unsteady, not sure if the warmth you feel is irritation or something else entirely.

He grins, one of those calculating ones that makes you feel like he knows something you don’t.  “It’s necessary if one statement is true and the other isn’t.”

You don’t respond to that, and in the silence you move further into the kitchen, taking residence on a bar stool on the side closest to the living room. You hadn’t seen, before, what Beck had taken from the freezer, but you can see it now; a block of tofu, semi-defrosted, dripping beads of condensation onto the countertop.

“You’re vegetarian?” You can’t keep the note of incredulity out of your voice, and you don’t try, either, knowing by now that he’d notice regardless.

Beck moves to the counter space by the sink, pulls a shining silver knife from the block on the counter and a cutting board from one of the cabinets below. “No,” he says, “But I don’t eat meat frequently. I assume you know enough about epidemiology to figure that out for yourself.”

He doesn’t say it like a compliment, more like a basic and trivial fact, but it still kind of– registers as one. That he just expects you to know things. You’d thought his general opinion of you to be markedly worse than that. “Lifestyle disease?”

He hums in affirmative—that, too, sounding expectant and unsurprised— unfolding the block of tofu from the plastic wrap which he discards, and placing it on the cutting board. “Bodies aren’t miracles, they’re machines. Machines need to be treated well if we want them to last.”

“Nice rendition on the much simpler ‘you should eat healthy because it’s good for you’,” you say, through something that you are deciding to call a snicker instead of a giggle, for– reasons. “You are so not beating the Patrick Bateman allegations.” 

Beck finally looks up at that, and his face does the same thing it did in the car– the mask, or whatever annoyingly impenetrable facade he maintains, it slips, for second, his face relaxes and his mouth twitches up and his eyebrow raises a little, maybe unintentionally, the sum of his features far more expressive than you’re accustomed to, surprise and amusement and something else you don’t recognize flickering across them in quick succession. “Allegations,” he repeats, nonplussed, almost a question, and then, with an undercurrent of humor, “You’ve seen American Psycho ? That movie is almost as old as you are.” 

“Not beating the allegations- it’s just a saying. It means, like, you’re living up to a stereotype.” You register what might have been a jab at your age a few moments too late to even really react to it, and you think that it should probably make you feel uncomfortable or uneasy or anything, really, but it doesn’t– which does make you uncomfortable. Because you should care. Presumably. “And, yeah, I had a computer. I think I pirated it when I was like, fifteen.”

“I had it on VHS, for a while, when I was in high school; I was too young to see it in theaters when it came out.” Beck has already turned back to the task at hand, moved to another set of cabinets under the counters further from you to pull out a large, high-walled pan. You can see, though, from the light in the kitchen, the way that his mouth tugs up at the corners still, like he can’t quite suppress it completely. “You think I could be a serial killer, and you still willingly came to my house?”

“Do I need to explain the concept of a joke to you?” you reply, intending for it to be sardonic and scathing but finding that it really just sounds like you’re teasing him. The way a friend might. And god, that’s–

(Weird. Bad. Maybe neither— is that worse?)

(You’re not going to think about it.)

He doesn’t say anything back, just hums under his breath, low and amused and barely audible, and takes out a set of bowls from a cabinet above his head that he places on the counter.

“Go in the pantry and grab me the soy sauce and sesame oil,” he says after a moment, fixing you with a look in the seconds before it registers, “I’m not your personal chef, you’re going to help.”

It still takes a moment, after that, for the request to click. Even when you do get up to do as he’d asked, you take a moment to stretch out, first, before moving anywhere, reaching your arms up to the ceiling– he looks sidelong at you and you think his eyes might linger on the revealed expanse of your stomach where your sweater had risen up, and something low and warm inside of you is fucking satisfied by that.

“You say that like you wouldn’t still be doing this if I weren’t here,” you say when he looks away.

“I would,” he acknowledges as you approach him, and tips his head towards the closed door to his right. “But since you went and lost your keys and are now intruding on my weekend, the least you can do is make yourself useful.”

The remark is so at odds with the series of events that had brought you here in the first place and in such direct contrast with his own behavior that the slight doesn’t even really register; rolls right off, like water. “Right, because this is such an inconvenience to you.” 

A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth, and there’s that new strange feeling again, like somebody’s filled your whole body with buzzing TV static. 

You find the pantry at his earlier direction, open the door and scan the rows of shelves, as spotless and impeccably organized as everything else in his apartment. The sesame oil and soy sauce are just below eye height and next to each other among a neat line of various other ingredients– cooking wine and white vinegar and molasses and more that you don’t take notice of in the time it takes to grab what he’d asked for and close the door again. 

“Fridge,” he says when you place the bottles on the counter beside him, having finished cutting the tofu into neat squares that he sweeps off the cutting board and into a bowl with the flat of his knife. “Broccoli and green peppers, they’ll be in the bottom drawer on the left.”

His fridge is one of those massive gleaming silver ones with the double-doors and built-in water and ice dispenser, and it, like everything else, is pristine and neatly kept; you find both items where he’d directed you, still wrapped in those paper-thin plastic bags from the grocery store. 

“There’s beer in the door, by the way, if you want any.”

True to word there are bottles lined in the trays on the left inside shelf— wheat and fruit varieties, mostly, light and tolerable and kind of surprising; you’d have pegged him as a snobby IPA type— though you decide that, despite his often incomprehensible devotion to being an asshole at all times, you still can’t abandon the weird sort of obligations that come with being a guest in someone else’s home. Namely, the feeling that it was somehow improper to accept an offer not also indulged in by the host. “Do you?” 

He considers it for a second. “Yeah, I’ll take one.”

“Anything specific?”

“No,” There’s that edge, again, more teasing than anything else, and you ignore that, too— the difference, the lack of overt malice— with an ease that should probably be concerning, “I like all of them, that’s why they’re there. Pick one and come here, you’re making this more difficult than it needs to be.”

The words come here, because you’re pathetic, they drag that winding coil of tension in the pit of your stomach back to the surface, but then the fridge begins to beep at you–you’ve kept it open for too long, presumably– and so you push the thoughts back down and blindly pick two from the bottom rack, allowing the doors to fall closed again. 

At the counter he’s already portioned out snap peas he must have pulled from the freezer earlier, and mixed what you assume to be a sauce together in another bowl.

“Start cutting them up,” he says as he takes one of the bottles from your outstretched hands, nodding towards the vegetables you’d grabbed from the fridge, and then the cutting board, moved further down the counter to a spot where you’d have the space to stand alongside him. Beck doesn’t wait for your response; he turns and flicks on the stove and pours sesame oil down the sides of the pan, not bothering with measurements, just eyeing it with a practiced and familiar ease. He’s rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, cuffs neatly folded and edges creased, probably while you were in the fridge, and the tanned and solid expanse of his forearms— you’re not staring, not exactly, but you’re aware of it as you rinse the peppers and the head of broccoli in the sink, the sight of him in your periphery. The oil crackles in the pan, browns and aromatizes, fills the kitchen with the smell, fragrant and rich like salt and nuts and caramel; your eyes keep getting drawn back to him, the muscles and the tendons flexing in his hands as he moves to add the already-prepared ingredients, sprinkles salt and red pepper, lifts and shakes the pan to toss the contents of it— 

“If you want to be of any use to me, that needs to be done before this is,” he says, tone deceptively mild. You’re barely halfway through cutting the broccoli up into approximately bite-sized pieces, and at his comment your eyes flicker away from where they’d drifted to him again.

You don’t say anything in response, just try to focus more intently on the task, slower and more clumsy and comparatively unskilled as you are at it; it’s not like it’s difficult, really, it’s just one of those things that’s borne out of practice, of which you had little, considering your circumstances. Begrudgingly, you acknowledge to yourself that he’d been right, before, about the challenge being less the actual cooking than the learning of it, something you had next to no energy for– much less the desire to do– as a seemingly perpetually-busy grad student. 

Some time during your finishing dividing up the broccoli and setting a pepper on the wooden surface of the cutting board he must have turned the stove down, set the pan aside; you feel him behind you before you really even know that he’s there, the air changing, growing warmer with his presence. 

“You’re going too slow.”

You hum, in response, before you try to speak, making sure your voice isn’t going to betray you and crumble the second you say anything in return, “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, unconcerned, and for whatever reason that, too, feels like– something. Something weird.  “You’re learning.”

When he moves closer, his head above your shoulder, his arms bracketing yours and his hands lingering somewhere near your wrists, your breathing catches and your pulse picks up and that thing inside of you— the thing that had never really gone away in the first place, hadn’t ever faded or lessened at all since you first got out of his car, that ever-widening chasm of your own want like a fucking fault in the earth that you’d just somehow been managing to ignore this whole time— it rears its head again, dizzying, requisitions the bulk of your attention span to the point where you nearly nick your fingers. 

“Wow, actually, maybe you’re not learning,” he murmurs, gently mocking, low in your ear as his hands move down to overlay your own, steadying your grip on the knife. “So much for making yourself useful.”

“I’m not great at tuning out distractions,” you tell him, and in your head you imagine you say it with enough bite to imply that he’s being annoying, but in reality it just comes out soft, plaintive– a confession rather than an accusation.

“Oh, really? Couldn’t tell.” You can hear the smile, bleeding into the tone of his voice.

With him directing you, it goes much faster, turning with one hand and cutting with the other, the movements methodical and clean; rationally, you know it must have been no more than a minute or two, but it feels like so much longer and so much shorter, somehow, your perception defying all sense of logic, your entire body thrumming with the awareness of him, the broad span of his chest and the places it’s almost touching your shoulders, his hands, steady and warm and rough, his breathing, too, the rhythm of it against the shell of your ear, the goosebumps it sends prickling across your neck—

“There,” he says when it’s done, when he steps back and the air goes cold and that stupid thing inside of you twinges with an embarrassing amount of disappointment, “Not so hard.”

Beck returns to the stove, cranks the heat back up; you swallow and steady your breathing and reach for your beer on the counter, the top already having been cracked open for you; when he’d even had time to do that, you have no idea, but you murmur a quiet thanks as you reach for it and drain a long sip, if only to have something to do.

“Garbage is the drawer on the left by the wall,” he says over his shoulder, “Just throw out what’s left over and put the dishes in the sink. The bottles away, too,” he jerks his head towards the sesame oil and the soy sauce, “And then you’re good.”

“And then I’ll have made up for ‘ intruding on your weekend’ ?” you reply, still far softer than you’d intended it to be as you move through the tasks, tossing the seeded pepper cores and the stump of broccoli in the garbage alongside the scraps from the cutting board, placing that and a stack of bowls in the sink.

His answering chuckle is soft and low, the particulars of his expression blocked from view by the pantry door as you replace the items you’d pulled from there. “No, honey, then you’ll have helped with dinner. Making up for intruding on my weekend–” When he laughs again, the sound is a lot less kind than before; and maybe he’s amused by the reference, or maybe the circumstance, or maybe something else entirely, some other thing that only he knows about, a punchline to a joke that you’re not in on. “You will.”

It’s the way that he says it, probably, or the particulars of the words– the difference between you will and you can that seems impossibly large and unfathomably significant in this context– but it makes your breath catch and your pulse tremble and that warmth– the heat– it rages back before he’s even really finished speaking, searing and unavoidable like somebody had turned the gas on a stove up to the very top or just gone and broken the dial off completely. You could blame what happens next on the effect of all of a half a beer on an otherwise-empty stomach or the terrible realization of both being so far beyond outside of your depth and having lost control of whatever tenuous hold you ever really had on your own desire, but–

The last bottle– does not even matter which one it is and you don’t fucking care anyway– slips from your fingers a centimeter from the edge of the shelf, and though you catch it before it hits the ground and return it, more carefully, this time, to its’ place, you know— you just do, even though you can’t see him, even though he can’t see you, even though he’s ostensibly busy, preoccupied, not paying attention — that he still somehow notices it, too.

You don’t eat at the table, because he does not, strictly speaking, have one. What he has instead is just one of those chest-high dividing walls that acts to partially separate the kitchen from the currently unlit living room, outfitted with enough counter space to hold dishes for maybe a grand total of four guests. The food cools in the pan until the sound of crackling oil fades and then goes silent completely, leaving just the steam to rise from it and spiral up towards the ceiling in wavering lines; Beck brings it over to the bar, then, uses a fork to fill both plates, and sets the pan in the sink. 

You mumble a thanks, to which he responds with a noncommittal, wordless hum; you eat mostly in silence, perched on the stool you’d sat in before, on the end of the bar outside the kitchen. He sits across from you and you try not to look at him too often, but you’re certain you don’t succeed, as much as you’re certain that he must know, somehow, must be keenly aware of each and every time that you glance up at him— at his forearms, his sleeves still rolled to his elbows, his chest, too, the first two buttons of his shirt undone, the heat of the stove having softened the crisp, pressed lines of it, his tie gone, discarded at some point. He looks more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him, more at ease, and you are affected by that, apparently.

He finishes eating before you, and you watch him then, too, as he moves around the kitchen, slotting his plate and the silverware and the used bowls into the dishwasher, scrubbing clean the cutting board, setting it to dry, washing the knife by hand with a sponge in the sink and returning it to the block on the counter.

“You’re so organized,” you blurt out, without meaning to, suddenly aware that your beer is less than half full, probably less than a quarter, and you’d drank most of it well before you’d eaten anything. 

“I take it I’m still not beating the Patrick Bateman allegations, then,” he replies, with a grin you could only really describe as conspiratorial. For a second you don’t realize he’s actually made a joke that wasn’t at your expense– one that was, actually, weirdly, at his own– and when it registers you’ll blame being halfway drunk for the involuntary and genuine and utterly helpless burst of laughter that escapes you before you can even so much as think to stop it. 

Whatever emotion passes briefly across his face in response to that seems almost pleased. But it’s late and you’re tipsy and unthinking and it’s easy to just not worry about it, any of it, to just let yourself react like you would in any other interaction with anyone else, for once unconcerned with the machinations of whatever game he’s always playing. 

“I was actually– ” you start, the words stumbling to a halt when you find yourself laughing again, and when they start back up they come spilling from you faster than your brain can comprehend, a precarious situation that results in far more honesty than you intended.  “That was— it was kind of a compliment.”

“A compliment,” he repeats, the tone of his voice mocking and sly; his expression has shifted to one of those pointed and intentional looks, the corners of his mouth curled up, not a smile and not even really a nice thing at all, but the rush of warmth that floods your face in response is still immediate and abjectly fucking damning. “And here I thought you would sooner drop dead than ever entertain so much as a positive thought about me.”

Part of the flush in your cheeks, you reason, is probably the alcohol, another part the way it’s gotten warmer in the kitchen with the stovetop on, but there’s still some that’s just due to whatever thing that’s been simmering inside of you this whole time– the way it’s buzzing, right now, nervous and flighty and alive as you watch him move back towards you. He’s grabbed two more beers from the fridge, with his empty, and yours nearly there; the thought occurs to you to decline, in the interest of preserving whatever remains of your ability for clear-headed and rational thought, but–

You realize, with far less shame than you figure you should be feeling, you don’t actually want to preserve that at all. 

“I don’t have to like someone to recognize they can have good qualities,” you say, flippant, more relaxed than you feel, “Everyone does. You’re still a human being, even if you do get on my nerves.”

Beck goes quiet and still for a second, takes a long, slow sip from his beer, and then fixes you with this look that’s so intense it’s unsettling. “So, what, you don’t like me, then?”

Something in your subconscious prickles at the question or maybe just at the fact that he’d even asked it; he doesn’t sound offended, or upset, or even like he cares much at all either way, which doesn’t surprise you. But you can’t figure out exactly why he would be asking, otherwise. You take another sip of your beer, finishing the bottle; wordlessly, Beck reaches across the table for the second one, and cracks the top open on the edge of the counter; you murmur a quiet thanks as he sets it beside you.

“I mean– you definitely don't like me, so I don’t see how that would be unexpected,” you say after a while, not really answering outright, unsure you would even be able to. Not knowing for certain what the answer even is, anymore. 

Beck blinks, expressionless for a second, before he breaks out into another smile, this one markedly unkind, suspended somewhere between derision and incredulity. “Of course I like you,” he says, in a tone like he’s talking to a particularly stubborn or particularly stupid child, and if he were saying anything else right then maybe you would have remembered to be irritated at him for that. “You’re— god, sometimes you’re so obtuse. I mean, you’re smart as a whip, really, but you’re just– clueless.”

And–

None of that makes sense to you, and you get the feeling that the alcohol isn’t to blame, that even stone-cold sober you would still be left parsing this same inexplicable and fundamentally contradictory amalgam of facts and secondary emotions– one, he thinks you’re smart, really smart, even, and there’s a part of you that does something awful and pathetic like fucking preens at that, and two, he also apparently and simultaneously thinks you’re stupid, which isn’t that much of a surprise, and three, perhaps most confusing of them all–

“What the fuck do you mean, you— you like me?” 

Beck exhales, this long-suffering sound as if you’ve proved his point by even asking, and says, “Really, just– it’s not complicated. Exactly what it sounds like.” He drains probably a quarter of his second beer, leans forwards on his elbows, and shrugs. “You said that I dislike you, and I’m saying that you’re wrong.” 

“Okay, I don’t–” you tear your eyes from him, stare hard at your plate, pushing a browned piece of broccoli around the mostly-empty edges of it with the tines of your fork, certain you can feel the actual cogs inside of your head as they turn, uselessly, stuck in place and uncomprehending. “That doesn’t make any sense. You– I mean, you’ve basically had a vendetta against me since I was in undergrad.”

“No,” he says, that patient, vaguely annoyed quality still lingering in the word, and when you look up again his eyes are fixed on you, dark and unreadable, “I had an interest in you.” 

“An interest in, what– bothering me?”

“Something like that.” The barest traces of humor infiltrate his otherwise still indecipherable expression. “You’re easily bothered, honey.”

“So, what, you—“ you stop to take another sip of your beer, head spinning, “You bother me on purpose, for years, and then you’re confused that I actually might not have liked you very much? At all, even?”

“I knew full well you didn’t like me. It didn't matter and it still doesn’t,” he says, with a level of disregard that you know, objectively, should concern you, “I’m not asking about then. I’m asking about now.”

Whatever your immediate response to that dries up as soon as you open your mouth, like your thoughts are flying by so quickly you can’t hold onto them long enough to figure out how to say them. You know, somewhere, deep down, that you should be angrier than you are about this. That you should be a lot of other things, too, things that are stronger and more important than anger– you should feel victimized, probably, violated , even, uncomfortable and uneasy and unsafe , knowing that he’d had some sort of fixation with you and with garnering your frustration for what amounts to numerous actual years. A subconscious part of you, though, might have already known a lot of that– or at the very least suspected it– since the very beginning of whatever the fuck this whole thing has even become, and there was that to contend with, too. But right now he’s admitting to it, all of it, explicitly; the intentional provocation and the unabashed harassment and the fact that he hadn’t cared at all about your feelings or your opinions or anything you thought that whole time– because it didn’t matter to him, not when what you felt had no direct impact on his ability to get what he wanted from you. He’s admitting that, presumably, the reason he feels some approximation of care– no, not even, just interest, cold and objective and impersonal– regarding those things now is because now it actually can impact things. What you feel about him now could absolutely stop him from getting whatever it is that he wants from you– sex, presumably, though he clearly still enjoys getting under your skin, too-- because now you have no contractual obligation to even so much as exchange pleasantries with him anymore, much less be here, in his house. You could leave, easily, never see him again if that’s what you wanted, if you really disliked him that much. 

He doesn’t want that, you realize, with a dawning understanding. He does not want you to dislike him, at least not enough to drive you away. Not now, because now– now it runs counter to his own interests.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, looking up at him and feeling unsteady just in doing it, not sure whether your instincts should be telling you to do now– because they aren't telling you to do anything more than what they’ve pretty much always done every time you’ve so much as seen him in the last four months. You still want him, the maddening and terrible way that you feel like you always do just at the sight of him alone, that desire simmering right under your skin, and maybe in the moment you could blame the one-and-a-half beers or the time or the circumstance, but none of that would really even be true. Your survival instincts, what little of them you even possess to begin with, have always, always been next to nonexistent when it comes to this. 

Him. 

Whatever.

God, none of this would be an issue if the sex was worse. If it was even just average. Or even–

“So you don’t, then,” he replies, and as soon as he speaks it’s like your awareness snaps to him, narrows and refines like adjusting a microscope, everything falling outside the edges of the lens drifting out of focus. Your thoughts; your ability to reason, too, probably. This was a terrible, terrible idea, you had thought that in the hallway in the biology building what feels like actual lifetimes ago, and you’d been right, then; you should not be here. 

It’s alarming, the way that you can’t even seem to summon up the will to care.

“I said I don’t know.” That horrible iniquitous thing in your belly coils itself tighter, twisting in on itself like a snake, hollow and starving, like it wants to sink teeth into him, and would do it, too, if he were closer.

“Right. And maybe you don’t,” Beck replies, as if to say, I do , a hard gleam of satisfaction in his eyes that betrays the otherwise light, conversational cadence of his voice. 

You don’t respond to that. In your belly, that heat pulses and burns brighter. 

There’s a silence, then, drawn out and excruciatingly unbearable, and during it you drain the rest of your beer, maybe just to do something with your hands, relieve that nervous itch in your fingers. Maybe to chase the feeling of being somewhere beyond your own control– because that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Because– well,  presumably because there is something fucking wrong with you.

“Thank you,” you say, after a long while, “For dinner.”

Whatever you see in his expression then; it seems like enjoyment. Like he’s pleased. And while you could almost understand all the rest of the things you’d just seen from him–

You don’t understand that.

“It’s late,” he says, with a casual nonchalance, taking your plate from you to the dishwasher and waving a dismissive hand at your protests, you being an adult who is perfectly capable of putting your own dishes away, and all. 

When he turns back, you rise from the bar stool and meet him halfway, in the middle of the kitchen. Like this, you have to tip your head back to look at him, just a little, and whatever shameless thing inside of you that you try so hard to repress when you’re not tipsy and unthinking is way too into that, but seeing as you are both of those things at the moment, you don’t care. That feeling, the climbing, steady warmth; it just spreads further, sweeps through your limbs and fills every part of you, until you think it must overtake every cell in your body. Until it’s all you can think about.

He looks at you, for a second, and one of those slow, sharp smiles curves across his face. When he moves past you and towards the living room,he steps into your space to do it– on purpose, you know it’s on purpose, if there’s ever anything you’re absolutely sure about when it comes to him it’s that everything is always on fucking purpose– and you can’t stop any of the things that you know must happen; the way your body must go tense and strung taut with anticipation or how your breathing must catch somewhere in your throat or how your pupils must dilate, the breadth of your irises reduced to just a tiny sliver of color–

“Come on,” he says, without looking back, voice unbearably even. “I’ll put something on the TV.”

And–

That feeling inside of you– it pulses and trembles and wants, and then it doesn’t really matter what you do or don’t understand or what little sense you could ever make of his behavior or motivations, because–

You understand this, at least.

#ties that bind #quentin beck x reader #mysterio x reader #ohhh this was a fun scene. this dynamic is deeply enjoyable to write he's such a weird fucked up guy

[lily-orchard]

Playing BG1, what spells should I pick for a sorcerer?

I know you said BG1, but I did all of them.

Pick spells that will remain useful for as long as possible because unlike a Mage, you're not getting those spell slots back.

These spells are in order you should take them BTW

Starting Spells

Shield - Lasts for 10 minutes (real time) and gives you armour equivalent to Splint Mail against Melee weapons and Plate against Missile weapons.

Blindness - Lasts a long time, takes an enemy out of the fight, works all the way through Throne of Bhaal.

Sleep - Alternative to Blindness. An AOE sleep that leaves most enemies who don't save vulnerable. While asleep or stunned, all attacks made against an enemy are a guaranteed hit. However, it's usefulness falls off severely in BG2 onward.

Now you might be thinking "Hang on, Lily. There's no offensive spells there. I'm defenseless at the start of the game!"

Well first of all - Imoen.

Second of all, as a Sorcerer, Intelligence doesn't matter to you. So you can put your stats into Strength or Dexterity to make use of Slings or Darts. Dexterity (and therefore Darts) are more ideal because you get higher armor class. But ideally you should be using a stat roll to get 18/19 in both.

Moving on

Level 1

Magic Missile - Nuke spell that remains relatively decent all the way through the game. Good for everything, especially if you're using sequencer scrolls to machine gun these things off.

Chromatic Orb - Alternative to Magic Missile. Deals damage and has secondary effects that scale with your level.

Spook - Disabling spell that makes the enemy flee and causes saving throw penalty. Scales with level, eternally useful.

For your fifth spell, you can take Protection From Petrification, or Charm Person (Only useful in BG1).

DO NOT TAKE FIND FAMILIAR OR IDENTIFY! You can use a scroll for Find Familiar later on, and you can use scrolls and vendors to identify items, as well as your other arcane users. Imoen herself has a high enough Lore stat in BG2 to identify most items automatically.

Level 2

Web - Disabling spell that stuns enemies and leaves them open to free attacks. Also effects allies that don't have Free Action, so be careful with casting.

Mirror Image - Creates mirror images that take attacks in your place, allowing a buffer between you and your limited health.

Invisibility - Turns you invisible until hostile action is taken. This can be put on Imoen to scout and disarm traps without triggering enemies, it can be put on Thieves in the middle of combat so they can backstab, being invisible has a ton of uses. It can also prevent being waylaid by enemies between maps because it lasts for 24 in game hours.

Detect Invisibility - Detects invisible or stealthed creatures around you. Limited usefulness as few enemies use invisibility.

Blur - Self buff to AC, stacks with others, and gives a small saving throw bonus.

Alternatives - Melf's Acid Arrow (Web), and Vocalize (Detect Invis)

Level 3

Slow - Causes enemies to move and attack at half their usual rate and reduces their AC, and enemies save at a penalty. This both makes an enemy easier to kill and reduces the harm they can cause to your party. This will also negate Haste.

Spell Thrust - Alternative to Slow. Dispels low and mid level spell protections, as well as a few high level spell protections. Probably better on other characters.

Skull Trap - Leaves a floating skull that explodes when a creature gets near it, dealing Magic damage.

Fireball - Alternative to Skull Trap. Same effect, but Fire Damage (more commonly resisted) and harder to avoid hitting your party members.

Remove Magic - AOE Dispel that effects enemies only and can strip away most protective buffs.

Melf's Minute Meteors - Bread and Butter spell. Gives you 1 meteor per level. The meteors act as +5 weapons, and deal 7-10 fire damage per hit, and the mage can throw five per round.

Protection From Fire - Complete invulnerability to Fire damage.

Level 4

Stoneskin - Gives layers of protection per level that gives immunity to physical damage and removes one layer. Best defensive spell in the game.

Greater Malison - AOE Saving Throw reduction for enemies. Later in the game this is practically mandatory.

Spirit Armor - Direct upgrade of Shield. Sets your AC to 1, and gives a +3 Save vs Spell bonus. You take 2-8 damage when the spell expires.

Improved Invisibility - Direct upgrade of Invisibility, but lasts less time. However, you remain invisible after attacking and can't be directly targeted by spells (friendly and hostile), and melee enemies suffer penalties when attacking you. Furthermore, Thieves can backstab repeatedly under this spell.

Haste - AOE spell that makes allies move and attack faster.

Level 5

Breach - Single target dispel. Very powerful, useful for stripping stubborn enemies of protection.

Spell Immunity - Makes you immune to a single spell school.

Lower Resistance - Reduces Magic Resistance in an enemy. Different from Saving Throws. Less useful the less arcane casters in your party.

Cloudkill - Alternative to Lower Resistance. Deals AOE damage per round to all creatures inside the cloud.

Chaos - Alternative to Lower Resistance. Hard CC on enemies within a radius.

Spell Shield - Protects you from the very next Magical Attack (Spell Thrust, Breach, Spellstrike, those kind of spells)

Level 6

Improved Haste - Single target Haste. Doubles movement, attack speed. I love casting this on Korgan, Hexxat, or Imoen because they'll demolish someone in a single round.

Protection From Magical Weapons - Makes you invulnerable to any enchanted or blessed weapons. Pairs well with Stoneskin.

Protection From Magic Energy - Makes you invulnerable to Magic based attacks like Magic Missile, Horrid Wilting, etc.

Pierce Magic - Removes anti-magic spells, like Spell Immunity or Spell Turning. Also lowers Magic Resistance. Different from Breach.

Level 7

Spell Sequencer - Lets you store three spells of Level 4 or lower and activate them all at the same time from the Special Ability button. This can be used to store defensives, or to store offensive spells. Example being three Skull Traps for massive damage, dispelling spells to make an enemy vulnerable, whatever combination you can think of.

Ruby Ray of Reversal - Removes one spell protection, starting from the highest level.

Project Image - Creates a clone of the caster with the same hit points and the same ability to move and cast the same spells you have. The original caster cannot move, and if the caster takes any damage the spell is removed.

Spell Turning - Causes spells equal to 12 spell levels (so a Level 9 and Level 3, or twelve Level 1 spells) to rebound to the caster.

Level 8

Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting - AOE Damage that effects enemies only. Deals 1-8 damage per level of the caster (Sorcerers get their first Level 18 spell at Level 16, so it deals 16-128 damage when you first get it) in a 15 foot radius. Enemies who save take half damage. Plant creatures and Water Elementals have a -2 to saving throws if hit by this spell. This is an absolutely devastating spell that can cause entire groups of enemies to die almost instantly. Especially deadly when paired with Chain Contingency.

Spell Trigger - Same as Spell Sequencer for Level 6 spells and below.

Power Word: Blind - Makes an enemy blind for 6 rounds with no saving throw. Direct upgrade to Blind. Disables enemies for a significant portion of a fight.

Level 9

Chain Contingency - Stores three spells of any level to go off on a certain trigger at a target. The triggers are being hit, seeing an enemy, health threshold, being CC'd or poisoned. And the targets are Self, the last thing that hit you, or the nearest enemy. This is limited only by your creativity, but the most common use is to stack 3 Horrid Wiltings (54-432 damage at the level you get Chain Contingency) on an enemy once you see them or once you're hit.

Time Stop - Stops time for 1 round (3 rounds to the player) and lets the caster act as they'd like during that time. All spells cast will go off when time returns to normal, letting the Wizard cast three spells at once. This is once again limited only by your own creativity. Especially useful with Improved Alacrity.

Imprisonment - Instant kill.

Wish - Gives you a genie that gives you a choice of a wish. The chance of a spell backfiring (because genie) is based on your Wisdom. If you have high Wisdom, take it. If not, don't.

Spellstrike - Another Dispel. The best.

High Level Abilities

You'll end up getting all of them, but the most important is Improved Alacrity. This removes the round-based cooldown from casting spells. Pair this with something like Robe of Vecna and you can chain cast for the entire duration.

[hollow-knight-fights]

Hey btw just so everyone knows. I might be slowing down in either updating fights or propaganda. I'm working one fulltime job, a part time job, trying to save up for college (again lmao), working on an ep, recovering from some severely emotionally distressing personal events, as well as working on 3 other huge personal projects that i finally got resources to work on.

Just between the two jobs the only real days and times i'm able to do anything are friday evenings and weekends (if nothing from my second job comes up). I'll still stream if I have the time, that's probably the most "relaxing" thing i have outside of reading, and I'll still try and get propaganda stuff out when I find the time, but it might be slowing down.

Anyways, I super appreciate all of yall. I do read everything you put on the fights, I honestly really like the responses to the silly one day polls I put (the valentines one was fun especially), and this whole adventure has been absolutely nothing but a good time for everyone involved.

So super thank you, everyone, all my little pollbugs (HA found a time to use it!) for being so chill and making this as fun as it is. Round 3 ends tomorrow, round 4 will also be out tomorrow. Love all of you <3

#pollmaker speaks #quick update #just lettin yall know. im trying to take care of myself :) and ngl i was in a really bad place when i made this so the amount of just #kindness and enthusiasm has been so so good for me

[mttmurduck]

BRUCE BANNER COMIC APPEARANCES RATED

no one was kidding when they said bruce banner had no consistent appearance. this is me failing to reconcile each one i’ve come across. send me more if you want me to rate them.

Matteo Scalera - Indestructible Hulk #9

point for looking fucked up. not a fan of the short hair, but maybe that’s because of the whole prisoner of SHIELD thing, so whatever. 1/10.

Ryan Ottley - Hulk (2021) #1

-10000/10 WHO IS THIS???? NOTHING TO INDICATE THIS IS A MAN OF SCIENCE, EVERYTHING TO INDICATE THE DIVE IN PLOT AND CHARACTERIZATION.

Derec Aucoin - Spider-Man Family #9

THE super nerd. a little young, but hides behind a thin veneer of calm well. the tweed and bowtie is an interesting choice. hope he doesn’t mind if they get ripped. 8/10.

Veronica Fish - Spider-Woman (2016) #11

a bit of a heart-throb???? looks like a long suffering grad student more than a man who’s been running from the military for years. where are his glasses? 4/10.

Lee Garbett - Immortal Hulk #6

super grizzled and super tired. trust me, this issue was exhaustion to the max. this is the haunted (hunted) man, and i’m honestly digging the flannel. gotta show those midwestern roots somehow. unfortunately all of these pluses don’t add up to an iconic bruce banner look, unless he was trying to steal wolverine’s. 5/10.

Adam Kubert - The Incredible Hulk (1968) #466

the scientist! prideful and yet kind, hiding a deep well of sadness and anti-military sentiments. 10/10.

Stefano Caselli - Avengers Assemble (2012) #9

glasses! scientist! a little tired but doing better :) 10/10.

Alan Davis - Totally Awesome Hulk #8

the smile! a very fresh bruce banner. looks like just some guy. 8/10.

Joe Bennett - Immortal Hulk #2

unfortunately i’m not a big fan of the detailed, almost grotesque art style. but, i concede that it’s fitting for this run. anyway, this is a very expressive and tired bruce that still tries. 7/10.

Tom Fowler - Hulk Season One

a dangerous bruce. a scientist and a loner that is intimately aware of the potential to do both harm and good. the glasses are used really well in this comic, trust me. 100/10.

Salvador Larroca - Avengers (2013) #28

okay, i think im going to get some flak for this, but i really like this bruce. dangerous, but still looks like a guy off the street. the hair has the perfect amount of flop. i’ll forgive the lack of glasses and round up. 10/10.

Larroca again! This time from the previous issue.

this alternate universe bruce is soft. a real deceptive one here. and tragic. he steals 616 bruce’s sandwich btw. that’s all i’ll say. 10/10.

Stefano Caselli again! This time from Avengers World #5

really showing us how even the same artist will draw the same guy differently. this time, Stark (tm) edition. unfortunately this means he fits the “asshole engineer” profile more than the “scientist” one. 6/10.

Mike McKone - Avengers: Endless Wartime

a scientist with sadness in his eyes, but he still finds things to smile about, maybe. probably more of a nervous smile. 9/10.

#bruce banner #616 bruce banner #marvel #i literally just started reading comics and this was amusing to me #i havent read all of these btw #but i think my opinions on the ones i have read have leaked a little #my criteria is that a good bruce looks like he could be a scientist #some guy #a dangerous man #and someone who would push a kid out of the path of a gamma bomb again #long post

[seungs]

every month of 2023 🥳 / i was tagged by @euijin. thank you for always tagging me in these carly.. i do enjoy look back on sets 😀 tagging: @foxinys @hyunsung @yangjeongin (hi mary) @huiracha as always u dont have to but id like to see... sorry if you're getting tagged again btw 🤍

january / popular. i rmr this clip being unavoidable for like a month...... 🚶‍♀️ anyway surprise to no one. vs favorite. ok but this has to be one of my favorite sets 4 ever. the day seungmin showed up with bleached bangs was beautiful.... i do rly love how much fun they had with it....😔

februrary / popular. omg moment of silence for mahagrid these clips were really fun. also this guy continuing to haunt my most popular sets. vs favorite. omg im doing 2 for 1 (1,2) cause i can't pick and really had fun giffing con and i think they came out rly cool 😁👍

march / popular. i do not know why. omg actually i do. it's the hair isnt it. vs favorite. wooho 😿😿😿😿😿😿 omg. they rly were cute together. this really was my favorite but i'm including miroh cause i really liked how it came out 😺

april / popular. you will never guess who this is! okay but i wholeheartedly agree i love when he is like a mop 🤍. vs favorite. 2min(:

may / popular. i can't believe this was late may.. look where we are now. who would have thought. but hyuji is very cute. vs favorite. omg this one is an easy jisung fav. he looked great. no idea why i went w these dimensions for the gifs but jisung im a fan 👍

june / popular. yeAHHHHH fucking finally and also Deserved. i loved sclass cause finally it was a mv i had fun giffing again and also seungmin looked great. and i love this set. fun mv. vs favorite. omg this one cause i rmr having fun with it 😿 also liked how it turned out. just silly guys boxing and dancing. but shout out to koms seungmin because i had to include him naturally..... 🥲

july / popular vs favorite. nothing happened on this blog in july apparently. but still i agree. come back seungracha.....

august / popular. solid....he looked good. i rmr this being a bother to color tho. vs favorite. popular 🤝 japan cb 🤝 favorite. i rmr this also being a bitch to color but now i really like how it came out 😸

september / popular. been a second. but 100% real.... might actually be one of my favs of the year overall too (sets and things that happened). vs favorite. wait i might have peaked in sept cause this is one of the best sets i ever made in my life im p sure 😭😭😭🚶‍♀️🚶‍♀️(to never be able to recreate ever again)

october / popular. heh(: 2min. vs favorite. omg bitch ass set to make.... was so close to being deleted for good but she deserved to escape the trash i think. at least i can say an attempt was made 😶‍🌫️

november / popular. right. im with the people on this one 👈 vs favorite. 😕🙁☹️😣 man. circumstances and insanity of deciding to do this aside. im happy with how it came out and i cant believe i stuck with making these sets his entire mc career 🧍‍♀️

december / popular. at least for now. i agree though. vs favorite. actually this one might as well be my favorite of the month too.

oh. i forgot. bonus round cause i decided but this is one of his best styling ever.

#yeaaaah. there we go. #every month

[ribbononline]

I absolutely love the sprites you've been posting! They're so good! Do you have any tips for spriting? I'd like to get better at it, but it's not easy :'D

Thank you so much! and oh my god im so sorry for how long this took me to get to Truthfully infinite fusion helped a lot to get me into it myself haha. Not because of anything about the concept, but because it eased me into it with editing existing sprites. That way you don't have to do a lot at the start yourself yet, but you DO have to really look at how the shading is constructed to edit things together. Maybe hand draw a new leg or alter the expression a bit- again, not a ton of work, but it'll force you to deconstruct how the sprite was made to match the style!

That is probably THE best tip I can give to anyone. Find a (preferably somewhat simplistic- video game sprites r great here) style you like, and start off by working in that. Simple edits etc arent a big bang beginning, but theyre great for learning the basics.

Now for random tips I can have. Be mindful, these are just how I personally work ! Genuinely there are so many different styles and ways of working with pixel art as with any medium- you can break any rule and still have things come out amazing!

Dont worry as much about having distinct sketch/lineart/colors/shading phases. Technically you can work this way? But I find it makes me focus too much on how each individual phase looks when most of the time (at least for me) a sprite doesnt pull together until the very end. it WILL look slightly mad until then its simply part of the process. I tend to put a rough base with some beginning colors and then simply refine from there. wips vs finished attached below for visuals

Also, careful with stuff like dithering! It can be very fun , and some styles have a ton of it which works fine and can look good! But from what I can see at least in the IF disxord a lot of ppl will slap it on anytime anywhere at the start which makes things look... messy. I personally mostly use it for fabrics. (Also, get a dithering brush. Love yourself, dont do that by hand, especially on bigger sprites)

Limit your colors! This is a general tip and not tehcnically that important, but I find it really helps me.

I tend to stick to 3/4 shades per color max. Some of the darkest shades of a color can also be the lightest parts of the outline for that color! Pic below I used the browns not just for the hair, but also for the gold shading and for the darker parts of the skin. It just helps pull a pallete together easier when youre reusing it where you can.

Dont be afraid of using the outlines color to shade with either for dark shades btw ! It is fun it is fresh

Only real warning for outlines Ive got is to be careful of jaggies. Like the upper line reads 'smoother' then the lower one because the longer pixels all follow eachother gradually. Jaggies can be useful especially in folds and whatnot, but when something is supposed to look smooth or round- no jaggies usually show!

#not art #i hope any of this is useful at all KDHFSJD #IM SO BAD AT ADVICE IM SORRY

[eikaprime]

I know I should have asked this ages ago but, what does Lucky actually look like? (both before and after her tentacles were cut) I've looked through your fic a few times (Still the best thing I've ever read btw) but I'm still unsure

Her ink's a light blue, specifically robin's egg blue, but I'm not gonna fuss about finding that specific ink color for ya. She changes it as she needs to, like most inklings.

For most of the series, she uses one of the default inkling styles, specifically the one known as 'wave': long on one side, short on the other. (Images from the Splatoon Wiki, <https://splatoonwiki.org/wiki/Player_Settings#Hairstyle> )

After her somewhat disastrous tentacut's fixed a little, her tentacles don't have rounded ends or suckers (not enough time/ink to shape the ends properly for one) and the ends just brush the tops of her ears; by the end of (Un)Lucky they may reach the bottoms of her ears.

Height, she starts the series about 4'11 and ends it maybe at 5'1 (two inches over 11 months, still the shortest NSS member). Weight's never given, but she is a serious athlete who plays turf and rank for 8 hours 5 days a week without any problems (and plays more than 8 hours if there's no one there to stop her. And plays less than 8 hours on Mondays, when she also has patrol. And saw a private trainer January-May). She also shows a tendency to cut back on food to save money in early fics, and not eat much to be polite (Lucky Charm, first meeting with the Sepias) or occasionally be denied food as a punishment when at home. With all that, she's probably a muscular twig. Add in how much dodge-rolling and speedwork she does, she must have a build very similar to a professional gymnast.

I've never given Lucky a set skin color. I do picture her as light skinned, but that's at least in part because I live in Whitey White land and am 100% aware I don't know enough about other cultures or what life looks like with another skin color to be comfortable having a Main Character with those challenges. Research, empathy, and hope is enough for secondary characters and background, but I'm well aware I've got prejudices I don't even know about and I'm not inflicting them on the world by mistake.

Now for the complicated part.

For those who aren't aware, Lucky is more than half (more than 3/4) flying squid. In my world, that means she gets flaps. In squid form, those are on her head, positioned similarly to Real Life flying squid's flaps, and she can move them mostly at will to serve as rudders, extra fins, or otherwise assist her. This is part of why she's such a great athlete (though she wouldn't be half as great without all that practice). In kid form, though, they're on her neck. Which brings about some issues.

I picture them somewhat similar to bat wings, but with pure muscle where the bones would be; this allows additional flexibility. They're also attached at the neck at a slight angle, so if they were to flap, they'd propel her forwards/slightly upwards, and a breeze would go behind her/downwards.Here, have some bad art:

In kid form, they wouldn't do that much to help her, though at that size she could theoretically wrap them around a can of soda to carry things. They can give her a bit of extra speed/precision with turns, though. More commonly, since they're not completely under her control--and tend to stiffen or move because of her emotions--they can cause... problems. They cross behind the neck in the back, probably ending roughly where a human's shoulderblades would be. Have more bad art:

There's a reason she tore that turtleneck Callie got her in The Twelve Days Of Squidmas. And why she's very careful with shirts in general. Skin and muscle and ink, plus surprise, does a number on fabric when it moves fast.

In any case, I hope this helps. I've gotten some amazing fanart from people, but I won't link any of it because they didn't say I could, so you get to suffer through my art skills instead.

#splatoon #fanfic #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #agent 4 #lucky #character design #original character #forgive my art #ask and I shall answer #writing

[ursifors]

anyway taking a break from other aus because i've been thinking about my fallout au a lot lately! i'm currently building Eventer in fallout 4 to get pic refs but that'll take me quite some time. for now, an updated version of the au framework!

i wrote this: "since we have joe, bk, and ky now i have to add them! i think bk and ky were traveling together for awhile, both of them being from a recently opened vault. joe i think is someone from a different settlement that takes a shine to michael and follows him to Eventer." in a different post but i already want to change that so *scribbles over it* REDO god this au has so many retcons already

i had to read more this bc i started fucking RAMBLING

gavin is not a vault dweller, he is a mr. handy who was put into a synth body (like curie) this explains his british accent and also i think it just fits. i have a wip of a fanfic of them doing the procedure to transfer him into the synth body that maybe one day i'll finish and post here, who knows.

YOU KNOW I GOTTA ADD THE NEWBIES <33 it will be very hard for me to not make joe "guy who gets inexplicably attached to michael and follows him everywhere" in every single au i make but for this i think joe might be a vault dweller (for reference, jeremy and previously gavin before i retconned him were the only vault dwellers) i just think being a vault dweller can give you that kind of new baby but quickly learning the ropes feel that joe has for me still

bk is definitely a shop owner or caravaner that eventually just moved in because she made so many friends. she has such a big and friendly personality i really see her making a lot of social connections and being on good terms with most people who caravan or have stores. i think in eventer she runs a weapons store!

ky i can see as almost like, the unofficial mayor of eventer. she brings everyone together and makes the community closer! she's great at organizing events (heh) remembering important things about what the community needs or wants, ect. she isnt "in charge" as no one really has all the power, but i think her jack and trevor are the ones most respected and who people go to when they need a town wide decision made.

speaking of, i decided i wanted to have trevor and alfredo sort be what valentine is and make them detectives! i want to incorporate more red web vibes in my aus and fallout is a perfect place for that as there are canonically aliens and cryptids in the fallout universe, as well as. you know. murder and such.

as far as who lives together and their roles in the community the updated version would be:

michael and lindsay live together and run a general goods store and as such are involved in trade with other towns and farms nearby. lindsay is a ghoul in this au btw. because i couldn't not make someone a ghoul and i think ghouls are fucking badass so its them, as the most badass person in ah.

gavin lives alone but has several cats. he is the doctor and runs a small clinic out of his home.

jack lives alone and is the radio dj! mostly playing music but also settlement wide announcements when necessary and covering the news ect, like most fallout radio djs do.

trevor and alfredo live together and run a detective agency. when they don't have any cases, trevor builds stuff to help the community and alfredo picks up guard duty rounds as he is one of their most competent with a gun.

matt and jeremy live together! matt works with their livestock (which is just a handful of brahmin and also a radstaag they cant get to leave) while jeremy is more of the "main character" since i made this au because of him, so he goes off an adventures the most. of course he comes back at least every 2 days because of his cats! who if you'll remember, are an eye bot (zipper), a tiny securiton (booker), and 3 real cats.

bk and ky live together - bk runs a weapons story which i am electing right now to call Friendly Fire because thats their team name but also it FITS SO WELL OMG - anyway ky helps with this sometimes when she's not busy planning a cookout, or helping matt set up something for the animals, or giving jack news updates to talk about ect.

EDIT I FORGOT TO ADD JOE: joe lives alone and i think is the head guard like he patrols and keeps the town safe bc its very open. he also delegates patrolling schedules ect. cannot stress enough how he is not a cop tho. he is guarding the town from mole rats and raiders not arresting ppl for crimes.

#fo au #logan speaks #posts this at 3am and scampers away #achievement hunter #main tag bc im feelin wild

[lamentationsofasinner]

best things abt cornwall: ( a very unserious post)

1: PIRATE FM!!!!

i'm not even joking, johnny off pirate fm raised me. and their little segments, omg! i'm so good at where are we to it's not even real, and daytime in the duchy is the best programme ever. and before you ask, pirate's been bred into me. so much that ik their hotline number. 01209313900 just in case you were wondering. and you can get a pirate windscreen sticker. genius.

2: falmouth packet

i'm from falmouth, and when i tell you that the falmouth packet is the most quality piece of journalism out there i'm not exaggerating. the reports from the truro crown courts are just TOO FUCKING GOOD and the headlines are so overwhelmingly shit! i kid you not, one week the front page was 'pig becomes stuck in house' . journalistic gold.

3: the blanket hate of tourists!

this is a hate shared by every single cornish person, even though tourism brings in shit tons of money to our communities. we all gripe and bitch abt your quba sails coats and your teslas and range rovers and god help you if you have even the slightest northern accent. i am praying for you as i write this.

4: poldark

i'm going to keep this short and sweet. WHEN HE GOES OFF RIDING TO TRURO HE IS RIDING THE WRONG FUCKING WAY!!!!

5: david fucking barnicoat.

let's face it, if you're from falmouth, you either love him or you hate him. basically, david barnicoat is the local busybody, but we love him sm. he also used to do a very good column in the falmouth packet abt the shipping movements at the docks.

6: the pronunciation of fowey

some ignorant twats pronounce fowey 'foewee' because they're annoying and stupid. these people are so prevalent that studies say that the pronunciation of the place is literally changing. pronounce it FOY folks!

7: regarding anywhere beyond the tamar as 'foreign'

if you're not cornish, you'll need this explained, but the tamar is the river between devon and cornwall, and there is an ongoing joke between the cornish that anywhere not in cornwall is foreign. my lovely gorgeous amazing friend eliza is from exeter and i call her a bloody foreigner. btw we're not being offensive, it's a joke before people start getting all anti-discriminatory.

8: we laugh at your clocks that say 'dreckly'

we don't actually say dreckly anymore. merchandise has cruelly robbed it from us.

9: TRAGO

absolutely fucking brilliant department store, and the best one is in falmouth, not newton bloody abbot. it may be in a castle, but you can't find a fucking thing in there. you can buy anything in trago (the falmouth one) because it is just too good. but they sell the randomest shit, like in the sports department, you can buy guns and crossbows. like wtf. buuuutttt, they have the best christmas display, that is set up in like late september, so your perception of time is all fucked up. honestly, when they set it up for the first time it feels like november. i forgive them tho because they have a little train THAT GOES ROUND ON TRACKS. INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS.

also they have the best advert on pirate ever. *headbangs* wHaTeVeR yOu wAnT -DUH DUH- wHaTeVeR yOu LiKe -DUH DUH-

TRAGO IS LIFE

thanks very much for listening to my totally unserious post abt cornwall. david barnicoat, you won't be reading this but if you are, i'm sorry!

#cornwall #cornwall live #pirate fm #sophie rants #tamar #devon #tourists #mining #falmouth #trago #im a trago stan

[somewherebetweenrage]

🎶✨when you get this you have to put 5 songs you actually listen to, publish, then send this ask/tag 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool) 🎶✨

oh heck okay here we go, in no particular order:

1. You Are in Love - Taylor Swift

Fav lyric: Morning, his place, Burnt toast, Sunday, You keep his shirt, He keeps his word, And for once you let go, Of your fears and your ghosts

A fairly recent discovery for me, there’s just something beautiful in this song and the music - together they somehow completely epitomise the early days of falling in love with someone, and I find that incredibly addicting to listen to. Honestly can’t put into words how this song makes me feel.

2. Happier Than Ever - Billie Eliish

Fav lyric: I don’t relate to you, I don’t relate to you no, Cause I’d never treat me this shitty (look i love the whole of that bit okay don’t make me choose)

I love the musical build in this, it’s absolutely gorgeous - the second bit when it picks up is my favourite, but it needs the first quieter bit to have the impact. And the way the anger is expressed is so beautiful - it paints such a picture of building resentment and newly discovered emotional maturity, I just love it.

3. Way Less Sad - AJR

Fav lyric: Don’t you love it don’t you love it?, No I ain’t happy yet, But I’m way less sad

I discovered AJR when I was going through a really rough time, particularly with my mental health, and this song (especially the live version where they speak in the middle) really resonated with me. I had lots of downs and I was trying to be honest with people about them, but the frequency with which I’d get asked ’how are you’ and the other person’s eyes were filled with hope that I’d say I’m better - that got frustrating pretty quickly. Hence this song.

4. Shivers - Ed Sheeran

Fav lyric: And when they say the party’s over then we bring it right back, Into the car, On the back seat in the moonlit dark, Wrap me up between your legs and arms, Ooh I can’t get enough

I basically just love the energy of this song - the celebration of being attracted to someone and them being attracted to you, the happiness in being together and enjoying doing things together. It’s happy, and it lifts my mood.

5. Achilles Come Down - Gang of Youths

Fav lyric: But be real and just jump, You dense motherfucker (you’re worth more Achilles), You will not be more, Than a rat in the gutter (so much more than a rat), You want my opinion, My opinion you’ve got (no-one asked your opinion), You asked for my counsel, I gave you my thoughts (no-one asked for your thoughts, Be done with this now, And jump (get) off the roof, Can you hear me Achilles?, I’m talking to you

I found this a while ago on a muse playlist (fits them to a T btw) and I just find it so musically gorgeous. I’ve no idea what the French in it is, but it weaves a beautiful and tragic story of the inner war between suicidal thoughts and those thoughts that tell you to keep going, imagined within the context of mythology. IT is just a beautiful piece of music and now it’s going to be going round in my head for hours. (Long fav lyric sorry, it’s a duet bit.)

tagged by: @survivorofhellskitchen  tagging: @defectivexfragmented , @wcrriorhearts , @shieldretired & anyone else who wants <3 (shush pretend i don’t have to tag 10)   

#ooc: out of patience #it me #mental health tw #queue: we are the future

[silvertsundere]

Silver Talks AniManga (07/05/23)

jump is finally back baby let's go!!! next week marks the last week of this serialization round but very much looking forward to the tall girl

ended up not watching more anime like I said I would last week, there were still 4 more I wanted to check out, but currently watching 5 airing which I think is pretty good considering I hadn't watched anything in almost 4 years, plus all those other shows I wanted to check out are all manga adaptations so I'm putting no hope in them being fully adapted so I don't feel as bad putting them aside

I want to catch up on another manga next but, after that, I want to go through my "watching" list and clean it up of stuff that's been left hanging there for these years, and then make my way through stuff I wanted to see from seasons I missed in that time ANYWAY

blue - finale/completed green - new series/new to me

Anime

Uma Musume - Road to the Top Ep4 (Finale)

what can I say that I haven't already. I love it obviously. I rate things on my mal for personal enjoyment but I usually have a "real" rating for it (like I did for jigokuraku not that long ago), but I can't do it in this case, horses just got too much power over me. I think I teared up in all 4 episodes (maybe not 1 but). it's good, period. the art is good, the animation isn't that special most of the time, but it has a lot of little character acting moments that hit really good, and let's not forget that maenami cut I was gushing about. the music isn't memorable but it served it's purpose, and the voice acting was really good ofc, I especially loved tokui sora's performance as opera, it's nice to see her getting to flex her range instead of always being yazawa nico, but ofc ayabe and topro were really good too. anyway really good, left me really hungry for S3 coming later this year tho I still have to go and watch S2 and even finish S1 tehe

Megumin Ep5

honestly this ep felt a lot like a finale, tho there's still 7 more left anyway the explosion scene was pretty cool also megumin x yunyun is quite good, good to see they'll keep feeding me since they'll be goofing around together for a bit longer

Imas CG: U149 Ep5

good episode (ofc), was wondering where they'd take it with risa being such a daddy's girl but she surprised me also the insert song was beyond the starlight (deresute's 1st anni song) so I was losing my gourd as soond as I heard the first couple notes god bless

Mashle Ep5

decent episode, dot's explosion magic looked decent enough, tho speaking of him I didn't expect him to sound like this at ALL, I thought it was gonna be something more high pitched like bakugou. also they teased the lang baddies, which is when this starts shifting more into an action series with a sprinkle of comedy instead of the opposite, which is nice, even if they're all over the op lol

Pokemon Horizons Ep5

nice little ep, the roy scene before this pic was cute. next ep should be more exciting, including the appearance of a brand new mon, like riko's pendant turtle from before

Jigokuraku Ep6

good episode, was really nice to finally see sagiri's first time to shine, and now they're finally at the village, I forgot about the rokurouta fight so I thought they were getting here earlier tehe. it also ended on the gay sex scene so that was very nice I figured the village was gonna be the cliffhanger but that's a really good one too, they really went IN on animating the tongue-fu, anyway curious to see who'll voice mei, she's very cute

Manga

Do Retry Ch1

that line in the pic below is the title of the one shot for this btw anyway. nice first chapter, the art is really striking with it's thick outlines which makes sense since the author was an assistant to matsui too. it's also a period piece which would be funny if it was cause of matsui too. good solid first chap, no complaints for me, did it's job of setting up the story, the main character and his motivations without getting too distracted with other things. we haven't had a sports manga in a while (I don't count blue box as one) so we'll see how long it'll stay around, or how sportsy it'll be in the first place lol

Dandadan Ch104

the vamola backstory continues, I thought this was gonna be the last ch but I guess not. it's been decent tho it could've been shorter imo

Show-ha Shoten! Ch18

VERY good chap, one of the best so far tbh, it's nice to see azemichi making a stand for himself, even if he's stumbling a bit. next chap should be pretty exciting but waiting a whole month is painful

One Punch Man Ch181

just an aftermath chap of the saitama tatsu fight, not really much going on. however I did read the jp raws for the next chap and it has a buncha cute tatsumakis so that's very good

Pension Life Vampire Ch4 - 5

apparently I completely missed ch4 OOPS. anyway, cute chaps like usual, going even more in on the yuri cause of this new girl here. it's nice that eri's moving in, opens the door for a lot more Situations

Tokyo Underworld Ch39

ok chap tho not much happened, the action was p dece but that's about it. the ending cliffhanger is something tho

The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins Ch23

another eh... chap, they show him waking up but considering the previous pages it's gotta be not real right? anyway it needs to hurry up and end already, feels like it's just dragging on on purpose now

Fabricant 100 Ch20

the final battle is finally here, not much more left now, prob just enough to finish filling a vol

Witch Watch Ch107

GREAT chap, I didn't expect them to continue straight from the last one, much less to go this far right away, very excited to see what happens next week with that ending

Kill Blue Ch3

nice chap overall, not much to say, good to see we'll have some more action next week too

Blue Box Ch99

TAIKI MY BOY they grow up so fast 😢, I was already hyped for ch100 but with them dropping this right at the end I'm even more pogged up now holy

Cipher Academy Ch22

as much as I like cipher this felt a lot like a final chap, and it's been doing badly in ratings lately, so there's probably no hope of it making a comeback like medaka did back in the day it's sad that jump readers can't appreciate nisio's work and we get things like roboco running for a billion years instead sigh

Mashle Ch154

good chap, had that good balance of action and comedy that mashle is really good at, still gonna be a handful more chaps of the final boss

Tenmaku Cinema Ch4

nice chap, it's always nice to see someone's passion for something be apparent in their work like it has been in tenmaku

Undead Unluck Ch157

nice chap, like I said last time it's good that not everything is going according to fuuko's plan and seeing her struggle and overcome these unexpected situations is good. looking forward to the (possible) addition of a milf to the cast

Sakamoto Days Ch117

good to see them learning from sakamoto's example tho this being a flashback arc is annoying cause we know rion dies so every time something happens I'm just expecting it to be now argh

The Elusive Samurai Ch108

very good chap, good to see tokiyuki make up with yorishige after that argument a couple chaps ago and in such a meaningful way too also the colour page is beautiful but I'll put it on it's own post

Akane-banashi Ch60

good chap as usual, I've been waiting a long time for the dad to come back into the fray since he's such a big deal for akane's whole character, excited to see where this goes and her growth from it

Ayakashi Triangle Ch129

good chap, especially with those plot complications at the end making things not as simple as they seemed at first

#silver talks animanga