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beescake · 2 months

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PLEASE PLEASE MEGADUMP THE ARASOL!!! PLEAAASEE MR BEESCAKE I AM ON MY KNEES BEGGING YOU

HFHGHD GLADLY aaa i’ve been adding notes to it here and there for months but just hesitant to post it bcs im 🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂️🧍‍♂

also this is just my own takeaway of the events, it doesn’t necessarily comply to the Ultimate Truth of Canon-Alignment or represent the actual facts of what hussie intended! v sentimental smh but hopefully its still interesting to read

i love when characters inform each other by proximity, it's one of my fave things to see in media :') it feels even more significant when two characters deliberately choose to stick together, so that when one operates, you can tell the other is similarly aligned in associative solidarity.

sollux is a keystone of this trope — whoever he aligns with is a wordless statement, a nod of approval. this stood out to me bcs the main four humans were alr friends by default, but once you reach hivebent you realize the trolls can actively choose who they want to hang out with.

and as we all know, after assessing every troll's biases/loyalties, sollux is the only one who maintains his selective preference for innately Good 👍 people.

aradia is such a beautiful character honestly, she evokes such incredible feelings in me. she might not have been consistently written with care but the best parts of her character are truly stunning. i think it's easy to remember sollux as the self-sacrificing one bc he's so open about it (and his friends frequently react to his Moments) but when you compare him to aradia, it's always struck me

how much more. raw it is

to be so alone as an agent of time, having to orchestrate immeasurably harrowing events nobody understands or gives a fuck about

with your role painted in the story as one who must tend to the needs of the narrative, responsible to match every next note

because when you're given the capabilities, it becomes your duty to carry it out.

it becomes expected of you to keep experimenting and arranging the machinations to work for everyone, dusting off hundreds of necessary failures to keep going

and having to be so unwavering in your drive knowing miserably that there's no one who can help you but yourself.

or alternatively: to make things fun! so other people won't think twice about letting you go off on your own.

sure she's had some very good buds, notably thanks to Team Charge v Team Scourge antics.

and yet, at the end of the day, the one friend that kept choosing her time and time again was the friend with the highest standards.

i can see why people like to define arasol as moirails/matesprits but surprisingly i find the nondescript, unlabeled aspect of their relationship more straightforward to understand.

there's no shortage of people who would accommodate sollux. most of the surviving trolls are his oldest friends bcs he’d chosen them well. his transparency with his feelings had built him strong friendships that won’t falter or break, regardless of how much of a dick he can be. they’ve already seen and accepted him at his worst, and they still like him for who he is.

contrast that with aradia, who'd been so approachable, friendly and reliable in her exchanges it was super fun to talk to her. but the moment she became depressed, all her connections broke down.

her friends became hesitant to interact with her (until she became god tier, “happy” and amicable again) because her gloom and resignation didn’t serve them. she dealt with it alone.

there’s def something of note here abt the disparity between the way male & female characters are written+perceived in homestuck (esp parallel arasol with davejade) but i won’t go into that lmaoo

with this in mind i like to think of sollux as a gift to her, a loyal companion given to complement and commend her resolve. she's capable of doing so much alone but hussie took the time to build her and sollux's relationship as one of a unit; a set.

the ambiguity of their status does complicate things, but i do believe it makes sense with their characters. aradia's relationship with romance is a rocky one, the dubious stringalong equius had with her is a pointed reminder that her feelings of attraction are ultimately controlled by the author writing her.

unlike the other trolls who can openly address and own up to their crushes, aradia had romantic emotions forced upon her (especially when hussie implies 'she kissed equius back on her own volition'). and it seems like her character is so intrinsically neutral abt attraction that even when forced by the almighty powers above, she's unable to retain it wholly.

however, looking back to pre-game when she could actually "choose" her own feelings, she did have a crush on sollux.

their soft spots for each other were so obvious to the point where other people could see it.

taunting aside, when vriska comments on their unit as bf/gf it actually informs the audience that arasol's relationship is romantic in nature despite not aligning with the quadrant system.

even while dead, aradia could still describe her care for sollux, expressing that she would like to see him happy. if they had more time to explore their relationship on alternia, it's possible they could've settled in a quadrant once they grew older.

but going back to the lack of labels, their dynamic was affected once more when aradia became god tier.

to me, her ascension was both the perfect culmination and possible closure of her character. it's the light at the end of her journey toiling through countless of timelines where she had to actively assess and participate. that's why it's cool to see her being silly and having fun giving guidance, passively exploring and watching other people do their parts.

and yet the joy of her freedom makes it hard to explore further introspection. if we take her by her word, she'd already come to terms with the hurt she's been through and forgiven those involved.

i can't help feeling attuned to how impersonal and detached it can be, to devote and meld your identity so completely with your designated position as Maid of Time until you've become hard for your old friends (and even some readers!) to personally connect to.

idk post-canon but i assume there’s some degree of similarity to be bridged here with aradia's god tier and how the hs2 humans' Ultimate forms was described as a consolidation of all their possibilities. since aradia's classpect is inherently of service to Time, going god-tier may have elevated her beyond personhood with the "game construct" possessing her entirely. sollux doesn't realize the extent of it bcs he's still mortal, but a part of him may have subconsciously understood this.

i think there is a core aspect to aradia that was lost to the dehumanizing glory of god tier — a core aspect that may have contained an element of why sollux enjoyed talking to her in the first place.

to him, aradia hadn't just been a nice girl, she was a cool girl. despite not having much in common, he's still willing to chill next to her so she's not alone while she does what needs to get done.

back on alternia, they held a mutual and equal-level regard for each other that could've definitely settled into something permanent. but now, he's placed himself in a position where he can be kept around or left behind at will. the parameters of the relationship are largely in aradia's court, so any label she suggests to identify their relationship with he's likely to accept.

but that's why it's so difficult to label it. because god tier aradia may not necessarily Want quadrants or relationship labels. rather than the initial romantic attachment, their commitment to each other had evolved into one fundamentally of companionship.

no label? ok fine. no matter what, he still thinks she's a good soul worth latching on to. the best, actually. aradia > everyone else.

even if it gets stilted at times. there's an unexpected struggle to connect when sollux's go-to default for talking points is his feelings about things, and aradia may not want to talk about emotions all the time.

not to mention god tier aradia became an observer, especially of chaos. but sollux's avoidance of involvement comes partially from his innate pressure to get involved if something goes wrong. and he can't always tell when something goes wrong, because aradia doesn't mind if things go wrong anymore.

it's a non-negotiable preference that causes them to take the occasional time apart, a new boundary that wouldn't have existed before the game and aradia's god tier.

but just like how his friends tolerated his moods, sollux accepts aradia as she is. with no quadrants, their connection doesn't break down because there's no implicit romantic expectations to be disappointed by or resentful over.

sometimes when i see hs content that deliberately distances sollux from aradia, i assume this is the dissonance people might have felt. people might find it "easier" to be cynical about them bcs of this strange tension.

but idc lmao. grab that shit by the neck

lack of easy resolutions and cleanly tied ribbons is pretty standard of homestuck and imo it doesn't make arasol's dynamic any less incredible. with the right affection and consideration, there's still so much potential to develop the nuance of their relationship outside of the popular quadrant-based depictions.

hs has a lot of really great character compatibilities but the way aradia and sollux are in their own special orbit is why i can write this much about them in the first place. it's that frail innocence between first loves that makes it so sweet to me, two kids who grew up too fast playing guesswork without being clear where they're going.

ultimately i do think you're meant to feel a little tragedy for just how much they care for each other, even if they can't quite establish it in simple terms.

maybe they keep taking breaks to progress their own paths. maybe they remain as anchor partners while seeing other people. but even if you decide to separate them, they're still (awkwardly) texting each other updates all the while. and when they reunite it feels like coming home.

and well. more than anything, i like to believe that they do want to be exclusive.

they're just afraid. after all, they're still learning how to love, beyond the projections of the foursquare quadrant system they had inadvertently distanced themselves from since young.

they might not have everything figured out, but they'll get there eventually if you just hold them together and write them there.

optional post-canon segment:

one of the limitations of main hs is that (monogamous) relationships are often written as the go-to solution to wrap up character growth; it's an easy "patch" to imagine characters getting their happy ending because they have a partner, and those who don't end up with someone don't get that closure (most notably jade).

hs2 reaffirms this by suggesting that aradia's character cannot progress without letting sollux go, because happily settling in a relationship automatically locks your potential.

that pathetic panel of sollux staring emptily into the sky is still my fave hs2 spoiler ngl i find the impact of their parting so emotionally provoking precisely bcs they were written in original hs to be each other's forever, coming back together again and again

but now, they're subject to the decisions of the post-canon authors who might choose to deviate from that.

it's not new for them to part, but now there's an underlying worry that her dropping him off this time might be the last time. while i think the prospect of shattering their stability to make them grow separately sounds fun on paper, no amount of me desperately hoping for a good execution is gonna guarantee it

idk. i guess prediction-wise im expecting sollux in classic dramatic-hs2 fashion to tell dave to back off aradia LMAO. otherwise it's just gon be sollux and karkat pathetically watching aradia and dave from a distance swimming in their unresolved feelings for narratively-powerful time players smh obvs it sounds corny as hell but who knows its still plausible

srsly tho i hope they take the opportunity to develop arasol's relationship in a fresh direction that doesn't hurt me too badly...... and i hope they force sollux out of his comfort zone. i like watching him struggle :-)

#sorry if this isnt fully accurate heh its just my personal impressions/feelings #despite best efforts to simplify my annotations the wall of text still ended up massive #there's also a comparison i wanted to make abt characters who “broke up” from romantic expectations losing a lot of what they had before #dave(sprite)/jade‚ karkat/terezi‚ dirk/jake etc = which is why i think arasol was rescued by hussie on purpose. arasol endgame truth #ngl there mightve been more moments that shouldve been mentioned but i have no memories of... limited cloud storage #long post #ask #anon #homestuck #arasol #aradia megido #sollux captor #arapostings #2024 #vioart #not disqualifying acespec/qpr reading i think its also possible :]#if anything i dont understand fanon killing off aradia for their sollux ships haiyaaa why is this trope so damn popular #every time i open a slkt fic and aradia is dead i go outside and burn a tree. global warming could not come sooner #slkts who treat aradia like dvkts treat jade…. i punt u football style

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sprout-fics · 1 year

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request for ghost 👀 ghost x medic!reader that is basically the opposite of him. super gentle and docile, they’re the sunshine of the team (affectionately named by Soap). ghost is infatuated but refuses to believe someone as good hearted as them could ever be interested in him. like he feels like he’s not good enough for reader but reader is scared of rejection so they also don’t say anything. basically two idiots in love pining for each other

Sunshine (Simon "Ghost" Riley x GN! Reader)

Rating: M

Word Count: 2.5 k

Warnings: Explicit mention of murder, blood, and injuries, I have not played any of the games so if Ghost is OOC then shoot me I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Summary:

“Sunshine” They called you. It was a bit of a misnomer, all things considered. While your sweet, gentle personality was quietly adored off the field, your laser focus and scorching gaze locked that part of you away on mission. Soap had teased you once in the early days as you stitched his arm in a safehouse, saying you had the sweetest, gentlest touch on a medic he’d ever felt.

“Feels like fuckin’ sunshine, corporal.” He slurred, heavy off painkillers as you tended to the bullet in his shoulder. “Best hands I’ve ever had on me.”

You had given him a sharp pinch for the innuendo, but the nickname had stuck anyways.

It had taken some time to earn the trust of the group. They had been burned one too many times to take in a new member without a healthy amount of suspicion. It was only after you had managed to patch them up half a dozen times each that they grew accustomed to your steady, reaffirming presence.

Most of them, at least.

Ghost was a quiet one, living up to his name as he lingered in the shadows, haunting like a specter at the corner of every scene. When he spoke, it was only to issue orders, to patch into the comms and relay intel. Like a wraith, his broad form occupied the corner of your mind, his voice a rough hard scrape like soot against your fingertips. His eyes watched you from afar, deadly, precise, ever true to his aim.

You never see his face.

“Don’t worry, he’s just got a bad chin.” Soap whispers conspiratorially to you as you both lay low over a rooftop that looks over your target. “Like one of those goddamn Hapsburg royals.”

“I doubt that.” You snort, eyes never leaving your scope.

Still, you do wonder sometimes. You can’t help it. There’s something inside you that gravitates towards him like being pulled in by a black hole. The very presence of him draws your eyes to his, dark, unflinching, cold. Sometimes you feel like he can see straight through you, as transparent as a phantom.

“Sunshine, on me.” He barks, and damn if you two don’t make quite the duo- bright sunlight and a dead man walking.

The only times you get glimpses of him are when he’s injured, which is rare. You pull up his sleeve to reveal his forearm, thick, muscular, veiny. For a moment you want to trace your fingers over it, nails scraping against the dark ink in contrast to his skin- a skull.

Ghost’s eyes never leave you as you work, and you don’t notice the way his gaze lingers over your lips, your lashes.

You talk to him as you clean the cut- a sharp slice of a knife from a terrorist who got too close. He had been a step to your left, and you had raised your gun but Ghost had gotten him first. You didn’t even realize the hulking soldier was in your shadow until his knife was buried into the man’s neck and a curse tore from his throat at the blade lodged in his own arm.

The blood drips red across your gloved fingers as you try to distract him from the pain, and yourself from the strange flutter that echoes low in your stomach. Inside, you try to quell whatever this is- this want, this need inside you for him to be even closer, to hear his voice whisper across your skin.

Your nimble fingers work over the wound, neatly gathering the edges. It’ll leave a scar, and you wonder for a moment just how many he has, exactly. What are the stories that tie them to his flesh? The history woven into the sinew of his muscles?

“I’m sorry.” You offer, and your voice is quiet somehow, unable to fill the scant space between you. Sorry that you had been too slow, sorry he had gotten hurt as a result, sorry for having feelings despite yourself.

“…It’s fine.” The Lieutenant offers after several long heartbeats. “I’m fine.”

It’s not fine, not really, but you accept his words regardless.

“Thank you.” Ghost manages after you’re done, and his voice is uncharacteristically subdued. His eyes avert from you, as if he doesn’t want to meet your gaze. That shiver inside you swoops low with uncertainty at his hesitation, but before you can part your lips to speak he’s gone as if he was never there at all.

---

It’s only after a close call that is far too close that things change.

The sniper catches you by surprise, having managed to circle around your group and catch you from behind. The bullet goes straight through your shoulder, and if you hadn’t turned to listen to Price just a millisecond prior you know it would have been through your skull. The impact topples you forward onto the rubbled concrete below you, and the world is spinning, ringing as Price is shouting orders seconds before the rapid pop of gunfire erupts around you.

“Sunshine!!”

You try to stand, to reach for your weapon but it feels like your lungs are caught between a hydraulic press. There’s blood splattered across the ground under your hands and it blurs as your vision tries to right itself from the pain. Someone is calling your name but it sounds like it's coming through water, garbled and distant.

The world around you shifts abruptly, tilting on its axis as a pair of thick cut arms lifts you like you’re no heavier than a sack of flour. Hands reach across you, removing the strap of your rifle from your form and you catch a glimpse of the blood that’s soaked through it, dark and glistening.

“Got ‘em.” A voice gravels next to your ear, and it takes you more than one second to realize its Ghost who’s got you slung over his bulking shoulders, his gear digging into your ribcage as you wheeze and try to ground yourself against the nauseating wave of pain that bubbles up your throat, thick and red.

“Go!” Price barks, and you dimly are aware of the fact that he sounds oddly afraid. “We’ll cover you.”

The world is jostling, turning, shifting, and the sudden dizziness of it all crashes over you as your vision turns black.

---

The next hour comes in flashes of black and red, and you learn later that the bullet narrowly missed an artery- a fatal blow. Your entire left side is soaked in blood by the time you wake, but you’re alive, drowsy, laying down on a cleared off table at the safe house with the dusty kitchen light shining brightly down on you.

You hiss at the brightness and try to move to press a hand to the wound, only for an iron-rod grip to settle your wrist back onto the flat surface under you.

“Don’t.”

You blink for a few moments, turning your head to meet the white skull mask next to you. The lieutenant looks comically too large for the chair he’s sitting in, and with his size his gaze is still above you, gazing down with that unblinking stare

“You lost a lot of blood.” Ghost relays calmly, his grip still on your wrist. It’s nice, the warmth of his hand spilling through his glove onto your clammy skin. “Thought we lost you.”

There’s a tenderness in his voice that surprises you, and you can’t tell if it’s the painkillers helping you imagine it. The fact that he’s sitting here, with you, instead of with the voices that filter in from the other room, should tell you something. Your senses are too cloudy, heavy and weighed down by whatever they gave you for the pain.

“ ‘M not dead.” You manage, voice a hard scrape in your throat. “It’ll take more than that to make me a ghost.”

Maybe it’s the painkiller after all, but you swear you hear him chuckle.

---

You’re haunted after that.

Ghost’s figure is too large for your own shadow, but he stays there nonetheless, dark and omnipresent like a curse. In some ways it is. The constant presence of him forces you to constantly push down that flutter in your stomach, to make sure your eyes don’t linger on his for too long, to not say his name like the soft sigh that it is in your heart. You catch his eyes and feel a rush of warmth creep up your neck under your gear, feel the phantom of his touch skim across your wrist.

You’ve fallen for him.

Fuck.

That itself is not a problem- well, it is, but not as bad as the issue it presents. You can’t say anything. He’s your superior, you’re part of his team, and there are clear boundaries that can’t be crossed in wartime.

More than that though, is the fact that he probably doesn’t feel the same. Ghost has never mentioned anything about romance, even to Soap, who he seems closest with. When you had gently queried the sergeant for intel on the topic he had merely looked at you as if you expected him to know the secret of the afterlife itself. You count your blessings that Soap is dense when it comes to that sort of topic, otherwise he’d be pestering you for weeks about your little secret.

So, you try to contain it, this infatuation of yours, spoon feeding yourself lies about how it’ll pass, how it’s just a phase, that you two were never meant to be. It’s difficult to do just that when he’s always there, crowding into your space like your own personal attack dog, wordlessly present at all times. His eyes trace you as you pass, and you feel the chill of them carve into your bones and leave you trembling and weak.

It's fine, I’m fine. You tell yourself, more than once a day at this point, forcing down the rush of warmth when your eyes meet, when you hear his voice speak your name, when you feel him right fucking behind you.

On top of it all, Ghost starts putting you in the backseat, starts holding you from rooms until they’ve been cleared, and starts treating you like a goddamn rookie. The part of you that is hopeless over him thinks at first he’s being overprotective, watching your six and making sure there will never be a repeat of the incident that nearly cost you your life. You know better than that though, know that Ghost likely doesn’t have feelings for you, that he’s putting you on the back burner deliberately to teach you a lesson over not paying attention- and that pisses you right off.

It takes a while but you manage to corner him back at base after a successful mission where you all but sat on your ass the entire time while he and Price took the lead. You find him lurking in a back hallway, and you can’t contain your uncharacteristic anger as you stride up to him, plant your hands on either side of him on the wall and gaze furiously up at his masked face.

“What.” You grit. “-the fuck was that?!”

Ghost, for what he’s worth, actually looks surprised. The expression is foreign to you, his eyes usually cold and dead, calculating and precise. He stiffens, and even though you barely reach his collarbone with just how gigantic he is, manages to look like he’s actually a bit apprehensive of your stance towards him. In any other situation it would be borderline comical, with how you’re trying to physically intimidate a man much, much larger than yourself, with your arms barely able to box him in on either side.

“Watch your tone corporal.” He replies at last, and there’s a warning in his voice you don’t heed.

“Not until you tell me exactly why you’ve decided to treat me like I don’t know which end of the gun to shoot with.” You snap back, and the look your words earn you is chill inducing. Even so you don’t back down. “You have me being baby-sat during these missions like you can’t trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

The words spill out before he can catch them, and the confession has you both startled and blinking at each other wide-eyed. You feel shock spill across your chest, electric and dazzling for all of a moment. You aren’t surprised at the fact that Ghost trusts you, it’s the fact that he went so far as to say it out loud, voicing a rare instance of his inner thoughts to you in your confusion.

“Then why?” You ask, and you hate the way your voice sounds almost desperate, pleading for an answer.

Ghost stiffens, and you feel his muscles ripple as they brush against you.

“…I couldn’t have you injured again.” He speaks at last, and you know he’s trying to school his voice into a cold indifference, but you can hear the little note of shame there, of guilt.

“I’m going to get injured no matter what. That’s the job.” You point out, unable to contain the bite from your words.

“No.” Ghost manages, and his voice is tight, choked. “Not like that.”

You blink up at him, caught off guard by the sudden vulnerability in his voice, the way he seems to almost be pleading with you.

Yet your entire world screeches to a halt at his next words.

“Because it’s you.”

Your heart beats against your chest like a trapped bird, and suddenly you’re stumbling back from him, back braced against the opposite wall of the hallway as you try to reconcile his words with reality.

Because it’s you.

“Why…why didn’t you say anything?” You croak, hands coming up to your face to massage your temples. “All this time, you…you didn’t say anything.”

Ghost shifts where he stands, and you know him well enough at this point that he’s fighting the urge to walk away, to blend into the shadow and pretend like this conversation never happened.

“You don’t feel the same.” He says bluntly, voice detached and empty as he braces for what he thinks is your inevitable rejection. “And even if you did, I…don’t deserve someone like you.”

Your eyes shoot up to meet his, and you shiver at what you find there. Hurt, longing, desire dark and deep and barely tamed.

“You-“ Ghost manages, and you can feel the discomfort radiating off of him, this brute man built like a tank but taken down by a few tender words. “You’re too good, sunshine.”

Slowly, the pieces fit together, like skin mended together by the seam of a stitch.

He thinks he doesn’t deserve you, bright and radiant as you are. You’re sunshine and he’s Ghost, he’s shadows and darkness and blood and the whisper of death with every bullet. He’s afraid that if he even touches you he’ll dye you dark at the seams, stifle that brightness within you.

He doesn’t know that light illuminates the darkness.

“Ghost.” You manage at last, and there’s a laugh on your lips, sweet and bitter all at once. “You’re so fucking stupid.”

You yank him down and kiss him through his mask, and something radiant glows inside you both.

#simon ghost riley x you #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ask box #requests #oneshots

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saltydkdan · 6 months

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hey salty! i've been a fan of the channel for a little while now, and i just wanted to tell you that you've inspired me to get out of my content burnout (even though i've only made streams as of now but it's whatever). your videos are super funny, and it's made me want to get into editing more than ever. i just wanted to ask how you made certain aspects in your videos, like having the little characters pop up and make them super expressive like in the HYAAs and the friendlockes (the new one was super good btw!) or the way you edit stuff in general. i just like how much care and effort is made for these videos and i wanna do something like it. sorry for the long ask btw it's not intentional lmao

Thanks so much omg, and I’m glad your diving deeper into editing!

It’s kind of difficult ro fully dive into with a simple Tumblr ask, and I’ve been meaning to do some short form editing tutorials on the side channel, but I’ll try my best to make a brief overview so you can look up the proper terms on your own for now!

There’s 3 different ways I can make stuff move and shake.

The simplest are Plug-Ins. I use Adobe Premiere for editing, and you can use free templates and plug ins and drag them onto images/footage on your timeline to do pre-made edits.

For shaking, I use these plug-ins that were made for the original Deadpool movie! Really cool that these are available for free online, super cool and accessible for anyone! And while they are made for premiere, I’m pretty sure there are other software that can also use it!

https://premierepro.net/deadpool-handheld-camera-presets/

Then there’s Keyframing. This is a bit more complex and nuanced, but most editing softwares have the feature. It’s basically the manual moving of assets. The best thing about certain software, is for keyframing, all you have to do is set the points you want the image to move and the application does the rest for you and fills in the movement.

Like, if I place one keyframe on a picture where it’s on the left of the screen, and one keyframe where it’s on the right side of the screen, the software will make the picture move from left to right!

Finally, After Effects!

Compared to normal editing software, After Effects has a heavy focus on shorter visual edits instead of entire videos, but using it in combination with normal editing software can lead to some more complex edits! However in turn, After Effects can feel much harder to learn.

In After Effects, you can program/set a “Wiggle” effect on clips to get the sort of movement I have during “Have You Heard About” videos where the avatars wiggle around! I’ve made my own reusable transparent clips of each Avatar wiggling for ease of access and editing each episode.

Hope that this short break down points you in the right direction! Again, I’d love to talk more in specific about this stuff in some unscripted side channel videos, so I’d anyone has any questions on how to do stuff, let me know! I’m not a “massive brained” editor or anything, but I can def showcase how to do some stuff in the future!

Have a good one!!

#saltydkdan #salty asks #friendlocke

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yourlocalrandombisexual · 15 days

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alright so i’ve been seeing the watcher posts and gathering my thoughts so i’m gonna put all my watcher stuff in one big post under the cut cause it’s gonna get long and i need to get this out of my head.

i will say 99% of the fandom was expecting a fun, exciting, omg can’t wait for it type of announcement and seeing the title and thumb nail for the first time made me really nervous.

also, side note, why on earth would they choose a thumbnail of the three of them sitting on a couch like that with the title “goodbye youtube”?? just the imagery alone makes you think of the try guys and their now infamous video like why would you want that comparison right out the gate before you even say anything?? super weird choice.

then the video is all nostalgic and wistful, clips of steven’s, ryan’s, and shane’s, pre-buzzfeed youtube videos and i’m thinking “did someone die cause this feels like a video obit” none of this calmed my nerves and made me more anxious about what could be coming. and then we all know what happened next, they announce that they’re paywalling everything yada yada yada

and after seeing everyone else’s takes and the general vibe of the fandom being “fuck watcher” it continues to baffle me why they thought this was gonna go over well. because to me it feels like they went from “yay we have our own youtube channel” to “give us your cash we’re a media empire” and missed A LOT of steps in between.

and i dunno maybe watcher did try to change things and tweak their business model and things weren’t getting better but as a fan and someone who watches a lot of different youtubers you kinda see this one coming. like creators drop little crumbs beforehand to gauge how people will take it or they try weird series/shows that have like 3 episodes to see what their audience is more interested in. there are a signs as a fan you can see but i think one of the reasons this went so badly for watcher is because it was so far out of left field. there was never a hint that the youtube model wasn’t working for them.

but again maybe they did try x, y, and z without it working or being transparent about it and if they were trying things why not lean into that to garner compassion from fans? we all know the youtube algorithm sucks and if they had started the video talking about the things they tried and how nothing was working and how much it sucked to leave youtube i think people would’ve understood. then they could’ve had shane talk about how subscriptions suck and there are too many of them and they tried to find another solution but couldn’t. now not only do i have sympathy for what there going through i had my feelings validated. then they could’ve gone into why this is better and what i’m going to get out of it as a consumer.

like it’s not that hard. but instead the vibe i got from them was a real palpable relief that they were leaving youtube which felt like a slap in the face.

and while i don’t agree with the steven bashing at all i do think it’s a little bit funny that they kinda dug themselves into that hole with their end of the year behind the scenes video they put out last fall. they really painted steven as a genius ceo while ryan and shane are just on screen talent. so while i feel for what steven is going through they kinda put themselves in that position.

all of this to say that it doesn’t feel like they hired anyone to field this idea by or do any kind of market research at all and the vibe that i’ve always kinda gotten from watcher is one where they want to jump over the messiness and growing pains of being a new small business and be established. be this huge force a la dropout/college humor without putting in the time to get there. and i do think watcher showed it’s true colors here where they only think of fans as cash cows they can deposit whenever.

and just the arrogance of thinking their fans will follow them to a subscription and trying to spin it as it being the same thing as leaving buzzfeed drives me up the wall. it’s not the same.

anyway i think that’s it. if i think of anything else ill edit this post ✌️

#watcher

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juniperss · 1 month

Text

“First Steps First” Jessamine ‘Lark’ Waterson (OC) x Neil ‘Chick’ Harding

A/N: so I’ve really been wanting to write something for Jessamine and Chick for a while but was super anxious and self conscious about it for a couple of reasons. The first being that I don’t write much fanfiction anymore and the second is because I’m not wholly convinced I nail the atmosphere of period shows/movies. But this idea just wouldn’t leave my head so I’m biting the bullet and swallowing my doubts!

This fic takes place in episode 4 during Dye’s celebration party (I can’t get over Harding saying “single fillies”, okay?) and inspired by the song “First Steps First” from the musical Bandstand. The song they dance to is “It’s Been a Long Time” and I don’t care that this version came out in 1945, it’s my favorite LOL

also hey autocorrect pls stop changing Chick to Chuck, thanks

Word count: 1,730 words (😧)

Warnings: none, other than the fact I don’t know how the military works so please ignore inaccuracies🤡😂 this is about the FICTIONAL version of Col. Harding

I saw that you said it was okay to tag you in OC stuff @rosies-riveters, so I hope this is alright and that you enjoy!

“Pardon my brashness, dear

Seeing you standing here

Dancing's more customary

For a soirée."

As much as Jessamine Waterson took pride in her work as a nurse on the Thorpe Abbots base there was no denying the fact that it was grueling, emotionally draining and often went without the accolades that came with other roles in the war. And while most days she was just fine with that, today had been particularly tiresome and Jessamine was glad for the change of pace the evening’s festivities allowed. The anxious energy that had gripped every person on the airbase had been exchanged for easy laughter, jokes, and celebration. After all, it wasn’t every day a pilot and crew successfully flew 25 missions.

As she sat with Beth and Ginny, an American nurse and mechanic respectively, who had become two of her fastest friends, listening idly to them chat about the dances they’d returned from moments ago, it took much of Jessamine’s will to avoid allowing her gaze to linger for too long on the man who had just entered the room. She had spent months chiding herself for the way her heart started racing at the mere thought of Colonel Harding being so near and despite the effort she put into acting completely normal on the instances their paths crossed, she feared her feelings were all too transparent.

It was inconvenient to have a crush during war and even more inconvenient that it was on a man who was not only a good handful of years older than she was, but compounded by the fact that he was an American soldier. An American soldier who was dashingly handsome and confident, who had just looked in her direction and caught her staring. Jessamine busied herself with the drink in front of her trying to ignore the heat burning in her ears.

“Oh well that was just adorable.”

Beth’s voice with it’s charming southern accent was usually a source of soothing reassurance and good advice, was now riddled with mischief and good natured humor now that the two women’s attention was focused on their friend. “You know there’s no shame in a little flirting, a little conversation. Why don’t you go ask him to dance?”

Ginny nodded in agreement, leaning across the table, “It’s not like you’ve never spoken to him before,” before turning conspiratorially to Beth, “remember how she gave him pain medication for his headache that one time.”

Jessamine’s hands came up to cover her face, the full weight of her body resting on her elbows as she suppressed a groan and a laugh. Of course the two of them remembered the first time she had met the Colonel; a simple exchange of names and him asking for something for a headache. Jessamine, partly sleep deprived and partly fighting off the butterflies in her stomach fumbling with the bottle before spilling a handful of pills across the floor of the nurses station.

It certainly wasn’t necessarily the most romantic or charming first meeting on her part, but Col. Harding had only smiled before kneeling and helping her gather the runaways. There had been a quip about how she could’ve just said no that resulted in flustered laughter from her and another grin from him. And her friends hadn’t let her live it down since she confided about it to them the following day over breakfast.

“I’m surprised he said anything to me after that.” Jessamine admitted and revealed her face to her friends. Though there had been more interactions with the Colonel after that, they remained confined to mostly professional settings save for a few pleasantries while off duty. “And to answer your question, Beth, I’m certainly not going to bother him and ask for a dance!”

Ginny rolled her brown eyes and tossed her head back in a sign of exasperation, looking up to the ceiling pantomiming someone experiencing a great tragedy which in turn caused another round of laughter at the table. “Well, if he asked you to dance, would you say yes?” Beth finally asked. This time all the hints of teasing had left her friend’s tone and there was nothing but curiosity and sincerity.

Jessamine nodded slowly, allowing the fantasy to tease at the corner of her mind just for a moment but unable to answer because just as she parted her lips to reply another voice cut in.

“Excuse me, ladies.” Colonel Harding’s voice sent a rush of heat through Jessamine’s body and she felt her posture straighten. She pried her eyes off of Beth to glance up, up, up at the tall soldier now standing beside their table and found that, despite him addressing them all, he was looking determinedly at her alone. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I was wondering if I could steal Miss Waterson for a dance.”

“You’re not interrupting at all, sir.” Ginny chimed in, eyes flitting from the Colonel to Jessamine, “In fact, we were just talking about how much Jessamine was wanting to dance.”

Oh, that Ginny was going to get stern talking to later, Jessamine promised herself, but at that moment she was already standing. Hardings’ hand reached out and enveloped hers as he guided her to the dance floor.

"Isn't the band sublime?

And as it happens I'm

Just in the mood to do

A two-step, Do step

Out on the floor with me.”

The two of them found a place surrounded by three or four other couples just as the band changed from the upbeat, two step to a slower tune that made Jessamine’s heart pitter faster. If Harding felt any nervousness at the now much more intimate situation the change of song put the two of them in, he didn’t show it. Instead he wrapped an arm around her waist with the ease and confidence of a man who knew what he was doing. Her breath hitching just slightly before she felt him placing the flat of his hand lightly, respectfully against her back.

Every nerve was firing at once, each hair on her arms standing on end, she was sure of it as her mind raced. She was trying to remember just how one slow danced fighting through the nervousness, when she felt the firmness of her foot under her own.

“I’m so sorry, colonel.” The apology came out high pitched and squeaky and with the attempt to pull away from the man in front of her. But Harding kept his gentle grip and shook his head.

“It’s not the first time someone’s stomped on my foot. At least this time it wasn’t on purpose. And Neil is fine, or Chick if you think Neil is too familiar.”

There he goes again, Jessamine thought, being so effortlessly charming and saving me from my own awkwardness. Sometime in the desperate squeak of an apology she had been repositioned to properly be dancing. One soft hand held in his much larger one, the other placed on his shoulder, and her face precariously close to his as she found herself peering up at him. The rhythm was easy to find with Neil leading and the familiar trumpet crooning at the stage and Jessamine had to fight to keep her eyes from closing.

“Might you be charmingly coerced

No need to be so shy

Take reassurance, I

Know how to guide you through

The worst steps, first steps first

“It’s not too late to admit you picked the wrong dancing partner.” Jessamine finally found her voice and the confidence to add just a bit of a teasing tone to it, a smile itching at the corner of her lips. Her cheek had come to rest just slightly against his shoulder as they swayed to the music and as a result her voice was slightly muffled by the material of his dress shirt.

“You’re selling yourself short. It’s been at least a minute since we’ve had another incident. You’re a natural.” Each time he spoke she could feel the rumbling of his chest against hers and her head felt dizzy with the warmth and solidity of him.

“And I’m certainly not going to say that after I finally got up the guts to come ask you for a dance in the first place.” Neil’s confession took Jessamine by surprise and she pulled back to look him in the eyes searching for any signs of jest but only finding an intensity that sent her stomach exploding into a storm of butterflies.

“You...you had to work up the courage to ask me?” The image of Colonel Neil Harding having to work up the nerve to ask anything of Jessamine was too comical to be taken seriously but there was no denying the truth behind his statement. “You’re a beautiful woman, Jessamine. And smart and successful. Hell, you’d have every reason to reject a dance from an old colonel like me.”

This was almost too much for Jessamine to take and she struggled to wrap her mind around his confession. All she could do was blink dazedly up at him as her cheeks flushed bright red. A smile broke out across Neil’s face and he laughed, arm tightening around her waist for a moment. “I hope that wasn’t too out of line and that I haven’t just read this entire interaction incorrectly. But your friends made it pretty clear to me earlier that you felt the same about me.”

Oh…oh…oh it was all coming together now.

Jessamine couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up from her chest and she leaned forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder. His own rumbling laugh was mixing with hers and soon Jessamine had relaxed with the words of his confession replaying in her mind. The song faded and another slow ballad picked began, nothing but their breathing and the shuffling of shoes on the floor mixing with the music to fill the space between them. “So,” Neil murmured, dragging Jessamine’s attention to his face once again, “you do feel the same?”

This time, Jessamine didn’t shy away from the intense and earnest way he was looking at her. Instead she lifted herself up on the tip of her toes just enough to bring her lips to his cheek.

She would have words with Ginny and Beth about this. But later…after another dance.

Yes, after another dance with Neil.

#my writing #🏷️ my writings #oc: Jessamine ‘lark’ Waterson #jessamine x neil #mota ocs #mota oc #mota x reader #mota x oc #masters of the air x oc #Neil Harding #chick Harding #masters of the air #mota

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orionlancasterr · 22 days

Text

15 lines of dialogue

I was tagged by @adelaidedrubman and @8bitpizzacoupons I am also suuuper late so i'm not gonna tag anyone myself lmao

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture their character/personality/vibe. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you’re free to include those as well.

Noose

“Gob were you ghoulified by a direct nuclear blast or by gradual exposure? I was talking to Moira and she said that those were the two ways to become a ghoul but I found a government study in the national archives about how they were trying to make ghouls before the war because they thought that they would survive the bombs better but since ghouls are sterile it wasn’t much of a good option so they only made a few of them and- Gob are you a pre-war ghoul? I mean it’s unlikely but I’m taking notes because I heard that there was a doctor in necropolis who studies ghouls and- oh sorry.”

“Oh my god Rust is gonna love you guys, she’s a total nerd, I think she’s read the user manuals for the T-45’s like a million times.”

“Vault 87 is actually kind of interesting because from what I read it wasn’t even originally supposed to be a research site but I couldn’t find any records on what the original experiment was supposed to be despite the fact that it was changed last minute…and of course it’s awful that its right behind your town of course and the super mutants have been killing your people for years, right. Sorry.”

“I’ll come find you in Bigtown in few years, promise.”

“Jesus, RJ is running a whole town by himself and you wont let me leave Megaton without what, an armed body guard? I’ve been shot, stabbed and blown up just this month alone and I’m still standing. I can handle myself.” (They are 13)

“Feel like a big man, killing a kid for a poker chip?”

“Just my fucking luck.”

“You’re a smart guy Arcade what do you think happened- OW Shit!”

“We’re gonna walk right on in together and see just how much your legionnaires care about you.”

“The NCR, the Legion, House they’re all the same and you’re too stubborn to even see it! All these people want is control, they don’t care about any one person, hell at least the legion is transparent about it. I mean do you think if you kill enough kids and old women that Kimball will come all the way from Shady Sands to personally suck your dick, Boone? What did you think would happen? I’m fucking talking to you, asshole!”

“Kill yourself.” 12 “I read about this place once, in the DC Library. It was supposed to be a top tier resort for a bunch of rich people. I don’t think it ever opened before the bombs fell.”

“I wanted to be an archivist when I was a kid. I loved collecting information like you love collecting spare parts…I wonder if we’d have met when we were little, if we’d grown up together if we’d have worked out.”

“Who did you say you were waiting on? MacCready? Like, RJ? From Little Lamplight?”

“I’m tired.”

#I’m not very good at dialogue

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mylevisdontfitanymore · 7 months

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Hear me out king

Himbo Steve that accidentally dresses super slutty

So like I’m imagining like a college au w ex jock Steve being Bucky’s roommate that’s used to just wearing what he has so he’s just wearing some running shorts but he wears that and like an old college t shirt but he’s aware enough to know he’s gotten fat but oblivious to the fact that he now looks like a blimp, so his ass is straining the poor shorts (also leaving a good amount of bulge on display in the front) and his shirt fits in the morning pretty snug ,but by the afternoon it’s riding up and he’s completely unaware so he’s just in his dorm ass fully over filling his shorts , his gut hanging out of his shorts , and his bulge just there , and Bucky comes back (maybe from class ig) but he just comes back to Steve sprawled out on their futon everying fully on display a beer or two maybe by Steve’s feet (and purely just for visual purposes you know how Chris gets that pink kinda flushed look when he’s kinda drunk, anyways I’m imagining that carrying over into Steve) and poor baby is just unaware how much of a slut he looks like (I also imagine him just adjusting his crotch in his too tight shorts but the touching just leaves him like half hard so he’s constantly readjusting but basically playing with himself) anyways Bucky sees Steve like this and it’s absolutely the final straw and he just puts his stuff down on his desk and just practically pounces on him and starts making out w him (and obviously Steve’s into it but he’s thinks it’s just out of no where still unaware how slutty he is )

Anyways can you tell I’ve been getting college ready 🤓

I have had this prompt for so long. I'm so sorry 😅😅 so hopefully you stuck around to see this request get filled and please enjoy if so!

Warning for stucky belly kink ahead. Always unbeta'd. Stuffing, weight gain, tight clothes, kink discovery, etc. all ahead!

"You-you're going out like that?" Bucky feels like his brain has blue-screened, staring at Steve as he stumbles out of the bedroom in their tiny box apartment not too far from campus.

"Like what?" Steve inhales hugely in preparation for his equally massive yawn, his belly swelling enough that the seams at the sides of his shirt audibly strain to contain him. Once he's done yawning, covering his mouth with one big hand, he smooths that hand down the dome of his belly over the thin, worn fabric clinging to him like a second skin. He's wearing the college shirt he bought their first year before their first term even began. It's gone from being white to practically transparent.

Transparent and... the shadow of his belly button is... 🥴 it's present.

And it's too early for this shit.

Why is he wearing that shirt!? 😫😫😫

The shirt he bought in school spirit and excitement before their first term even began as freshmen - before Steve stopped working out cold turkey, too much studying to keep up with his routine from football. Besides, he's not playing football in college, so why should he keep going to the gym? He doesn't need to!

He was actually a size medium, back then, but he always crammed himself into smalls. Back then, his muscles threatened to burst the seams of his shirts. And now...

It isn't his muscles that Bucky is focused on drooling over, staring through the transparent fabric. Far from it. It's his belly button. Shadowed. Deep. And always stretched by the end of the day from the food he shoved down his throat, piling up under the soft fat that's expanded out like a balloon under his shirt. Bucky is staring through the transparent shirt, not at his muscles, but at his pink, round, hard nipples. Bucky can just barely see them around the logo of the name of their school. But he can. He can definitely see them. He can see his nipples and the puffy mounds of his pecs-turned-moobs because all the excess weight he's put on stretches the logo out. It's not really obviously readable anymore - that logo. Bucky's not focused on staring at his muscles through his transparent shirt, he's drooling over his arched spine when he shrugs, "yeah, 'course," and walks around Bucky. Walking away from Bucky.

Oh, God.

Watching him walk away is worse than seeing him, soft and so, so unaware as he stumbles out of bed.

His ass in those fucking pants. Jeans. His ass in painted-on blue jeans.

His backside is ripe. It's huge. It jiggles when he walks. His thighs rub together like they did before, but it's not solid muscle anymore that doesn't shake and move so easily. Thick. Hard. It's softness. Fat. Jiggly, bouncy, rippling fat that's widened his thighs and his ass and even his whole entire waist.

Widened to the point that it makes the bottom hem of his shirt cling to his muffin top deliciously.

Bucky hasn't had breakfast yet. He could devour a dozen muffins, he thinks, and he doesn't have Steve's gluttonous appetite. He never has. Steve doesn't just have a hollow leg to store the excess food he stuffs himself with; all of his body is hollow, and it's all so stretchy. He stretches big. Wide. Fat.

"Why?" Steve's sleepy mind finally catches up to Bucky's odd, struck-dumb behavior. Questioning him.

"'Cause, because, 'c-cause," he swallows all the spit that's gathered in his mouth. He really can see the line of Steve's spine through his transparent shirt. He can see the way it's been pulled forward and pushed back to compensate for all the weight he's got on his front and all the weight on his back. His belly. His boobs. His ass.

Bucky feels faint.

"Because?" Steve prompts, lazily going about his breakfast routine - making himself an an exorbitantly sweet, exorbitantly sized protein shake, helping himself to a protein bar (or two) to snack on while he waits for the blender to be done with his shake, and two (or three) bowls of cereal with (full-fat) milk. No wonder all of his clothes look painted on. No wonder he's blown up after high school football like a blimp.

A fat, delicious blimp.

"Because someone is gonna, gonna try to pull some moves on you," Bucky pushes out a stupid excuse. A shitty little pick-up line. What he really wants to say is because one of your professors is gonna kick you out of their class for indecent exposure! I can see you're... you're... all of you!

Steve smirks around his chewing. He's already got a mouthful of protein that his body clearly doesn't know what to do with anymore, and it's only 10 in the morning. Early for their college-student asses. His throat contracts, swallowing a big chunk of it, a fattening chunk, "you think so?" Again, he smooths his hand down his front.

Is he trying to torture Bucky this morning?

Bucky nods stiffly when he realizes Steve actually wants an answer.

Steve smiles so wide that his dimples appear on his chubby cheeks.

Oh, God.

He's so hot and he's so sweet. Literally. All he seems to eat (besides everything) is sugar.

Bucky makes a strangled noise and stiffly walks around their apartment, picking up his books and binders and pencils and unplugging his laptop from its charger, loading his bag up so he can get to his first class on time.

Bucky allows himself to steal one more look at his stupid hot, stupid boyfriend before he leaves. Hand on the doorknob, looking over his shoulder, he gets the perfect eyeful of him from the side as he chugs his protein shake. Fuck. He has curves for days. He's shaped like a fucking S. Fat tits, looking irresistible in his impossibly tight shirt. Huge, round belly defying gravity, sticking straight out. Mounding asscheeks trying to bust out of his stretched jeans. He nearly lets a moan slip.

Every swallow leaves his throat bobbing and his tummy swelling larger.

"Later," Bucky calls, voice strangled.

Steve stops chugging for long enough to lick his lips, wipe his hand across the shining, wet surface of his plump lips, burp unashamedly, and say, "yeah. I'll see you for lunch?"

"Uh-huh," Bucky forces out, his voice nearly audibly wrecked. Lunch. Yeah. Like Steve needs lunch. Just look at him. So. Big. Or, actually, no! Don't look at him! Bucky ends up slamming the door and shoving his hands into his pockets to hide the semi he's now rocking.

Jesus Christ.

Bucky hears Steve rip one more, loud burp as he's shuffling away from their front door. Palms sweaty. Lightheaded.

Thanks, Steve.

...

They meet up for lunch at their usual spot on campus. Today, Steve is a little late, but Bucky wouldn't change that little fact for the entire fucking world. He's sitting at a table, bouncing his knee, half paying attention to his phone, waiting for Steve to dig into his meal when--

"Oops, that was close!" Steve's cheerful voice cuts in. "Sorry! My bad!"

Bucky sets his phone on the table, next to his tray, and looks up.

Steve has his own tray. It's dangerously full, nearly overflowing. Especially dangerously full because as he was approaching the table, a huge smile on his face, excited to eat and excited to see Bucky, he apparently wasn't paying attention and nearly ran into another student.

The other student grimaces, also apologizing. But then slips away without further incident and...

Bucky is forced to watch, in seemingly slow motion, Steve strut toward the table. His hips, so wide now, sway. His thighs swish, swish, swish, rubbing together as he walks. It's no wonder two pairs of jeans have worn through at the thighs already. His moobs bounce with each step. His belly, too. It's so round. Rounder than Bucky remembers it being this morning. How-? Has he been snacking in class? How much did he eat for breakfast after Bucky left?

Bucky is struct dumb by the idea of Steve leaning against the fridge, chugging his protein shake that's practically a fucking milkshake or sugary smoothie at this point, head tipped back, throat working, belly growing. Then, on top of that thick, sugary drink, barely a drink more a thick slurry, shoving down a whole box of cereal. Also, tipping the sugary, crunchy food straight back into his mouth. Chewing through it. One hand rubbing his tight, tighter belly. And when that's not enough, he throws the empty cereal box aside with an unsatisfied growl, turning his huge ass around, pulling open the fridge with all the elegance of a starved grizzly bear, then bending over, sticking his fat ass out, belly hanging underneath him, and using both hands to grab anything edible and shove it straight into his face.

Shaking himself out of the fantasy, Bucky bites his lip. His stomach growls. The sound of desire has nothing to do with the food on his plate or even all the food piled onto Steve's plates. It has everything to do with Steve himself. Steve crammed into his fucking clothes. They look like they might burst at the seams at any moment, like that soft-yet-firm fat could come bursting out, pale except where he's being squeezed the tightest, red lines cutting into him.

God.

Steve looks impossible good. Impossibly good standing, walking, then, even better sitting down.

When he sits down, his belly jiggles like extra firm jello and expands even further into his lap. Taking up a lot, lot of real estate. Bucky would like to take up the rest of the space on his lap. He'd like to get up and fall over onto Steve. Straddle his lap. Press himself like a cat against his round, overfull tummy. And he'd like, more than anything, he'd like to feed him every crumb of food sitting on the plates on his tray. He wants it so much that he feels like crawling out of his skin. Bucky is on the edge of his seat and this close to falling off, drooling as Steve scratches his belly, now seated, and finds his shirt rucked up enough to expose a few inches of his delectable belly that puffing out over his pants.

"Hey, Buck, you havin' a good day so far?"

Bucky swallows, his voice suddenly rougher than gravel, "yeah." His day has been... fine. But, now it's great.

It's great.

...great watching him nod and instantly wrap his big mitt of a hand around his fork and scoop up his food, straight to his mouth. So eager to eat. Feed himself. It's great. It's definitely not torturous for Bucky to watch him swallow mouthful after mouthful, eating with the efficiency of a competitive eater, making pushing all that fuel down into his already swollen belly seem easy. Where the fuck is he putting it?

Bucky can barely hold into his own fork. He can't really hold onto any thread of conversation Steve starts, talking around his constant mouthfuls of food, either. He's entirely consumed by Steve's consumption.

His painted on clothes just get tighter and tighter and tighter.

He drops some sauce on his huge, puffy moobs, and it causes Bucky to choke on his water. He nearly does a spit take.

Steve whines about it, upset about ruining his shirt.

"We'll bleach it," Bucky says all too quickly. As insane as Steve is making him, he can't get rid of that shirt. He just can't! It's so transparent, and it's the closest he can get to watching Steve blissfully stuff himself shirtless, spilling sauce over his big, strained boobs.

Steve frowns but nods, too.

His appetite is far from ruined.

Bucky pretends to need something from his backpack so he can lean down and peer under the table. Those inches of dough-bursting-from-a-cardboard-biscuit-tube fat are on display again. He's swelling. With every mouthful, his gut is growing. Wider. Fuller. Bigger. He's bloating. He looks like a blimp.

Bucky doesn't know how he's going to get up from his chair to go to his next class, he looks so heavy, but he would pay a million dollars he absolutely doesn't have to watch it happen. He wants to film it and replay it again and again and again until the tape wears out so he knows each and every jiggle, so he can see every place his clothes roll up or ride down, so he see can memorize the entirely satisfied, pleased expression on his handsome, chubby face.

Bucky nearly bursts himself, thinking about it, so he doesn't know what's going to happen when Steve does have to get up. He'll combust if Steve gets up to get seconds.

Steve will probably get seconds. He can't imagine Steve sitting through an entire two classes without his big belly grumbling if he doesn't have at least a few more plates.

Oh, God.

When did his boyfriend get so fat?

And when did Bucky start liking it so much? 😳😫

...

Bucky gets just a glimpse of Steve in their apartment after class before he's off to work. And it's a... a lot.

Steve nearly doesn't see him. He's studying, so focused that he's mindlessly snacking. He has to snack. Otherwise, he can't focus. That, or, he focuses by nearly chewing holes in his cheek and lip. He's always had some kinda oral fixation. His football mouthguards always ended up with teeth marks in them, same with his yellow, #2 school pencils, and every year for his birthday, he gets Steve a pack of weirdly flavored gum for him to try alongside whatever regular gift Bucky got.

Bucky is relieved and pained by Steve's transition from non-edible (or not swallowable (gum)) oral fixation to completely, only edible items. Relieved because he doesn't have to tell him to stop chewing on shit he shouldn't and pained because...

Fuck.

Just looking at him hurts.

It... hurts. 😳

Steve parked his fat ass on their couch - putting a big dent in the middle, thanks to his weight - and as he studies, he's working his way through a pile of snacky, easy-to-eat, processed food. Wrappers are everywhere.

His transparent, stained shirt has rolled up past the few inches of his thick lower gut all the way to his belly button. Huff. The "small" of his is back exposed as he hunches over, reading the textbook in his lap. His chunky love handles are visible as well. Jesus. Bucky bites his own lip, suddenly also in need of something to do with his mouth. Steve's pants have been exchanged for gym shorts, and they're forced down loooow on his hips. There's too much stacked weight on them for them to sit in the right place. Woof.

"See you later," Bucky rasps, staring at Steve's thick back. As he looks, he imagines Steve's front, though. He's leaned forward, so his gut must be crushed into stretched, thick rolls. It must look extra round and big between his chest and thighs and--

Stop thinking, Bucky. Stop imagining, Bucky. He tells himself. It's not good for him. He's not gonna be able to function at work. Shit.

Steve lifts his head, "huh?" There are crumbs on his face. His chubby, messy cheeks will be the death of Bucky. "Oh, yeah, Buck, see you. You'll be back for dinner?"

"Yeah," Bucky coughs, "dinner."

He eyes Steve's exposed tummy now that he's turned in his seat. Round. Getting rounder. Impossibly rounder. How is he still getting rounder? Still bloating and growing and swelling. Ripening. Marked with red and pink and white lines. Growing fatter faster than his skin can take it. Ballooning out of his clothes and his own body.

Hnnng.

How does he fit it all in there?

How does he not notice?

He's growing out of... everything!

Bucky spins around before he can pop a boner, "dinner!" He squeaks and speeds away.

...

Steve. has. already. visibly. grown. by. the. time. Bucky. returns. from. work.

Visibly grown.

By now, he's so round he's almost fucking spherical.

He's so big that he's massive.

He's pink with heat and satisfaction, a lazy, little smile on his face, and he's reclined fully back on their couch, the TV playing in the background - some football game Bucky couldn't give less of a shit about - one hand resting over his dick and cupping his balls under his gym shorts and underwear while the other is wrapped around a beer can.

Bucky doesn't make words. He just growls. It escapes his throat.

He's had a few. The cans are sprawled messily around the coffee table with evidence of more snacks. Not just thoughtless snacks for studying. Deliberate snacks. Snacks enjoyed while relaxing in the light of the TV. Nuts. Meats. A few sweet treats.

"B-ugh-ck!" Steve hiccups in the middle of his bright greeting.

Bucky still can't speak. The TV is on full volume, but he can't hear it; it doesn't matter that there's anything playing on it. All he can hear and see is Steve.

Steve.

Steve, in his stupid, too small shirt that's rolled all the way up to his motherfucking tits by now. It's a bra. The shirt looks like a bra now, stretched tightly over his moobs but not covering them. Bucky swears it's even more see-through now. His nipples are hard. Pink. Round. Hard. Hard like his drum-tight, globe of a gut.

Steve hiccups drunkenly once more, staring at him, patiently waiting for any sort of response. He jiggles and jolts; he sloshes with alcohol.

"You eat without me?" Bucky can hardly get the words out.

"Nah, nah, just-" he broadly gestures toward the mess in front of him, the beer, the snacks, the GUT fat and full in his lap, monopolizing the space, "-relaxing."

Bucky shivers, "yeah." He licks his lips, "you know... work wasn't so good for me. You gonna help me relax?"

"Ov-" Steve stifles another hiccup behind his fist, "oof," he puffs, pulling his hand out of his pants to settle his sloshing belly, digging into the taut side, "of course!"

Bucky swallows, "'kay," his mind is reeling, "stay there." Not like he could get up even if he wanted to. "I'm, I'm gonna... I'm gonna get what I want to relax."

"M'kay," Steve smiles into his next sip of beer despite still dealing with his belly-jostling hiccups.

Bucky goes to the kitchen, places an order for pizza, a lot of pizza, using his phone, but comes back with the box of cupcakes Natasha sent him home with after work. Working for a heartless, large corporation like Starbucks can have its perks, as it turns out.

Steve has finished his latest beer, and he tries to throw it onto the coffee table but misses. It rolls across the carpet instead. Bucky can't hold it against him. Bucky can't hold anything against him. Not when he's like this. Big. Huge. Hiccuping. Sloshing. Stretched tight. So tight that every time he burps, he groans. Thighs splayed out as wide as he can get them to give his huge, huge, bare belly space to breath. His tits barely covered by what used to be a shirt - what was a shirt just this morning.

"Oooh, gimme," Steve reaches out his hands, making grabby hands for the box. He knows it contains something sweet.

"Jesus," Bucky can't help but murmur. How does he still have room?

"What?" Steve asks, making a greedy sound that goes straight to Bucky's own uncomfortably tight pants. "You wanna relax by living through me vicariously?"

"Sure," Bucky rasps. "You'll work through 'em in no time," he nods toward the cupcakes. Steve takes a bite from the first one, getting frosting on his nose and nearly choking as he moans around the taste, his eyes rolling back, then closing in bliss. "Your metabolism."

"Yeah," Steve moans, arching his back, trying to shift some of the weight off of his lap, "couple'a sessions and they won't mean nothin'."

Bucky is stunned. He genuinely doesn't know if Steve is drunk enough on beer and food and sugar to think he still works out or if Steve just somehow knows that Bucky is throbbing at the sight of him and is going with it. "Yes, and"ing.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

The sight of him.

Fuck.

Overfed.

Ballooning.

Fattening.

Steve swallows the first cupcake. The second. The third.

"Ugh," he smacks his lips, they're sticky with sugar, "do you want me to eat them all."

"Mmm-hmm, big guy," Bucky smiles, trying his hardest not to crack. "There's pizza on the way, too."

"Ohh," Steve moans. He moans! At the thought of pizza.

What. the. fuck.

He doesn't just moan, though, he wiggles in his seat. His gut is so hard, packed to the brim, that it doesn't really move. Bucky swears he can see the jump of Steve's pulse in the stretched, tortured skin. It looks so heavy. So full. He wiggles like he's trying to find room, but it's obvious to Bucky that there is none. It would be obvious to anyone who had the pleasure of seeing Steve like this. Anyone but Steve himself.

Steve, who's groans and gurgling and has his eyes so heavily lidded that they're practically fully shut. Yet...

He's making steady progress.

He swallows the fourth and fifth cupcakes in practically one bite each. Bucky sees the thick, moist cake go down his throat in a big, bulging gulp.

Steam is about to shoot out of his ears. Fuckfuckfuck. This is his wet dream that he didn't know he had.

Steve hiccups, he's not even closing his mouth all the way as he chews now. He's breathing too hard to do so, and so he keeps making these lip-smacking, sighing, exhausted sounds. But he also keeps eating. Bucky doesn't even have to prompt him. He just does it.

How?

What?

Why?

He looks inflated.

No wonder he's gotten so fat!

He'll be fatter tomorrow.

Bucky would bet money that this shirt won't get over his swollen pecs in three weeks, in a month, tops. He's just blimping up too fast.

"Gimme the last one."

"What?" Bucky startles.

"G-guh," Steve groans, rubbing his hands on his ball-shaped stomach, massaging, like he can work the fullness and tightness away. "Gimme the last one."

"The, uh, the cupcake?"

Steve cracks open one eye, "yeah, duh," he says.

"Okay."

Bucky's hand shakes as he grabs the last cake, unpeels the wrapper, and extends his arm, shaking more and more the closer he gets to Steve's mouth.

Steve's fingers wrap around his wrist, steadying him, and he leans in the last half inch, tilting his head to the side, his eyes slipping shut and his sweet, sticky, pink lips part. It happens in slow motion. He bites in slow motion. He moans, "mmm, yeah," around the delicious cake, his fingers grasping tighter, locking Bucky in place as he takes bite after bite until it's gone.

He licks Bucky's fingers clean.

Bucky

Bucky doesn't

Bucky can't -

Bucky can't function.

Steve's long eyelashes flutter, "that's the stuff," he groans, fully satisfied and sounding like it.

Bucky is sweating.

"The cupcakes, sure," he puffs, "but I dunno if I can work off a whole pizza, Buck," when he turns his head to the side to look at Bucky where he's sitting next to him, his chin doubles. Bucky almost moans out loud.

Instead, he shakily gets out, "n-no one said anything about an entire pizza?"

Steve whines, digging his fingertips into his gargantuan tummy. It looks fake, he's so round. Like he got a fake, heavy, silicone pregnancy belly - overdue pregnancy belly and stuck it on himself. "But you knooow I can't control myself around pizza."

"I don't want you to!" The words explode out of Bucky.

Steve jolts in surprise. He hiccups painfully, wincing, "huh?"

"I don't want you to control yourself. Fuck, Stevie, I can't fucking take it. I gotta - I, I, you-! You make me crazy. God. I can't get over this. I don't want you to control yourself, and I don't want you to work anything off. I want you, I want you to -" he can't say it out loud.

He can't say, I want you to get so, so much fatter. Bigger. Heavier. I want you bursting out of the next size up in clothes, too. I want you waddling. I want you always stuffed and satisfied. I want you so big that when I fuck you your tummy hangs and jiggles and you moan about how anything else, any little extra bit will make him pop, even just Bucky's come in his ass.

"Over what?" Steve's eyebrows crease together adorably.

"This!" Bucky groans, "oh, God, all of this," he gestures to the globe of Steve's belly.

"I'm," Steve licks his lips, "I'm just bloated, though."

Bucky moans, "you're not." He does what he's been dying to, he digs his hands into that fat, he pinches Steve's heavy, stacked sided, "you're not just bloated, baby. And I love it."

Steve makes another confused noise, he stares down at himself, trying to wriggle and getting nowhere as his chest heaves with the effort to move all his weight. "Oh."

The doorbell rings.

Pizzas here.

They stare at each other, both of them breathing hard, just for different reasons. Steve's fat fucking gut is weighing on his lungs, compressing them and every time he tries to move, he can't. Bucky's on the edge of orgasm, just watching Steve glut himself, and his lack of breath isn't helped by his frantic admission.

"You don't have to-"

Steve slides both hands down the apex of his rooooound gut, he leans back into the sofa, seemingly reveling in the feeling, really truly taking in the feeling of his bloat, of his fat, for the first time. "Feed it to me."

"What?"

"I don't think I'll be able to get anything else in if I have to do it myself. So. You're gonna stuff me."

"What?"

"Buck, please, stuff me. I want it," his voice is raw. He moans needily, "stuff me."

How can he resist?

#ask #mylevisdontfitanymore #belly kink #text #bucky barnes #steve rogers #stucky #chubby steve #fat steve #weight gain #stuffing #kink discovery #tight clothes #intox kink #alcohol consumption

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wip · 1 year

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hey, i’ve been using the alt text function lately, because i want my blog to be accessible, but i have to say alt text on mobile really is a pain to write.

the option is hidden in a kebab menu so that i feel like half the people don’t even know it exists and still type image descriptions in the captions and the box in which to input text is so small that it’s almost impossible to review what you’ve written let alone fix a mistake.

for example when i try to scroll to the beginning of my text, i keep hitting cancel and closing the window which is super frustrating. i also find it annoying that you cannot at once see the image you’re describing and the input box. do you have any plans to improve mobile alt text? i think this would be major in improving the accessibility of tumblr :^)

Answer: Hello there @delicatepointofviews!

So it would be nice if we could see the image while writing alt text, but that would be a pretty big change, and we just do not have the engineering capacity for that right now. To be transparent with you, we think the hard part would be finding the team to pick it up and if this is more important than the mass of whatever work they’re already doing. Personally, we feel that improving this and all accessibility features is no doubt important. And something we want to take a good look at when we have the time, space, and people power. In truth, we need a thorough plan to be able to tackle accessibility issues in the future, but right now, it’s going to be a bit difficult to prioritize.

That said, there may be some quick fixes we can look at to help some of the issues you’ve outlined here. Thanks for your question, and leave it with us. We will see what we can do in the short and longer term.

—April, Caroline, Lara, Cyle, Dave and Eli (Tumblr Engineering)

#feature #alt text #accessibility #posting #backend #tumblr feedback

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crescencestudio · 1 year

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“Would you choose me in every lifetime?”

Announcing “intertwine,” a short visual novel coming to otome jam 2023 🪡

Hi my friends 💖 I’m adding some Alaris updates under the cut to reassure you of development in case you’re worried about otome jam + Alaris!

I’ve been going back and forth on whether to post this or just keep it to myself, but I thought for the sake of transparency, communication with fans, and just normalizing the harder parts of game dev, it would be better to talk about this.

This is NOT bad news about Alaris, so please don’t freak out! But as you all may or may not have figured from my devlogs, I've been struggling with working on Alaris for the past... 2 months? I've made progress on it as much as I'm able to, but I've often found myself coming up against a creative wall and/or burnout. And I often feel like I'm disappointing you all because of it. There are a couple of internal deadlines I had set for myself that I just haven't been reaching lately, and while I know no one is actually rushing me, I feel like I'm dropping the ball.

This is common for a lot of indie developers, but I'm a solo developer. While I have a small team who helps me polish Alaris (i.e., editors, BG artist, GUI artist), at the end of the day, I'm the one who is in charge of everything. I don't have a separate person who can handle building out the art assets, or someone who oversees the writing, etc. And so, to feel like I'm making sufficient progress on Alaris, I'm constantly working on it, whether that's reviewing edits, creating CGs, writing the script, approving art assets/creating briefs for those assets, etc. And I do have a day job haha.

For most of Alaris's development, Alaris was my creative hobby, so I didn't really mind putting so much work into it. But lately, I think because I've been revamping the demo, I feel like I've been in this ~game dev thang~ for two years with no complete product to show for it. And having to go back and redo the demo two years into development is like an extra knife to the gut since it feels like... backward progress almost? Even though I know that's not true.

So while an otome jam project might feel inappropriate given I have Alaris to work on, it's something I've wanted to do since becoming a game dev. And after some encouragement from dev friends, I decided to take the leap because having a different creative outlet might resolve some of my struggles with Alaris. Getting to have one complete project would also be a super huge motivation booster for me!

I'm super happy to say that intertwine has been just what I needed. I've felt more motivated to work on both intertwine and Alaris and my dissertation lmao. As I've mentioned, Druk's route has been giving me a hard time, but I recently made a lot of progress on it. Overall, the creative process has just been coming to me more smoothly. So I'm excited to bring you all a complete game by the end of June as well as, what I hope to be, a lot of really nice progress on Alaris <3

#intertwine #wow a new game tag #otome jam my fated love we will be united this year!!!

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snickerzanddoodlez · 1 month

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LONG POST WARNING!!

As someone who also works on the project, I have to say that I also have an issue with the organization. I was afraid of bringing it up since I was afraid of coming off as rude but just to let you know I do mean the following in this in the sincerest and nicest way possible~

I know the goal is to be flexible and accommodating for everyone, but I think a downside to that is inconsistent progress in the show. For instance, when there isn’t a deadline, since there’s no timeframe to finish a task it can be tempting to either set it aside to procrastinate or focus on other things.

At the same time, while I know life can happen and sometimes it is absolutely needed, setting a deadline only to then set it back leaves to question commitment and reliability. It’s certainly made me a bit doubtful about the project and where it’s going. Same can be said for the story, as I’ve seen lots of ambitious ideas being mentioned in the server that will happen later in the series, but without an established & solid plan for the plot it feels a bit overreaching.

I understand that this is a fan project, but I think that a bit of structure would not only be nice to have but would totally help with the show production! And while I do believe that it’s important that it’s fun for everyone, I think that having some level or organization and accountability (like achievable goals and deadlines + a clear plan with an end) would be super helpful to provide clarity and make the production flow a lot more smoother.

Again I was nervous to bring this up since I felt like it was maybe just me making a fuss (ironically a task without deadlines actually stresses me out more), but I’m also a firm believer in being transparent and clear too. Just something that’s been sitting with me for a bit.

- 🫐

Didn’t see this until now, I’ll definitely see what I can do! Thanks for the feedback, it means a lot genuinely ❤️

And you aren’t coming across as rude at all! (I get you though, dude, I am so anxious it immobilizes me if I need anything ever. If I were staying at a friend’s house for a few weeks

I’ll admit I’m so paranoid about accidentally creating a sweatshop in my discord server that I often cause things to just…not progress. I’m 16 and learning 😔 and it’s thanks to feedback like this that I’m able to do that, so thank you so much!

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formulinos · 2 years

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man. this round was genuinely tiresome. until 10 pm my time, we had a total of 5049 votes, of which i considered 3778 valid. if you guys have been keeping attention, this is much more than we usually get per round, especially since i got shadowbanned. i legit thought the tournament had died down a bit, and i still do! but it's ok.

given that the semifinals matches weren't easy at all, a group of people decided to vote as much as they could. at first i even suspected they were bots, but after i asked them to signal their raid voting sessions, they kept their word and they spent literally all day today at it. since i never said it was forbidden and i'd just discard bot votes, that was fair play of them and i truly appreciate how much they care and took their time to vote. it would be super unfair of any of us to call them out or throw a fit because they played fair and square, so don't do it! however, i have to admit i never considered the hypothesis of only one or two particular groups voting so strongly that it overtips the scales of the tournament, since last year no matter what happened voting was pretty heterogeneous. so, as A Scientist, i think that a possible suggestion for future tournaments would be indeed to limit the number of votes so that we get a proper view of what f1blr feels. but I won't host another tournament next year HAHAHA so that's on whoever feels like doing one! anyway, just wanted to give you guys some explanations as i've tried to keep things as transparent as possible, any questions the ask box is open!

before i give you the finalists, i also wanted to tell you i'm making a Hall of Fame, in order to give some of the other drivers some love! a lot of your suggestions were already written in my notebook, and i'll add later on the form who suggested the ones i hadn't considered (it's over midnight now and i legit need some sleep as i worked all day and then watched elvis, shit movie). i'm sorry for not being able to take hottest livery and hottest TP, but with the exception of one category i wanted to focus on the nominees that we had this year. here are your new categories:

Best Girl Hottest Classic Driver Hottest Striker Hottest Y2K Driver Hottest Liberty Media Driver Hottest Forgotten Driver Hottest DILF Hottest Twink Hottest FE Driver Hottest Senna

and, without further ado, here are your finalists (does the gif of the guy throwing fries inside a pan filled w boiling oil that catches fire)

i wish you all a happy voting. we end at 8 pm (GMT+1) on monday, and the results will come out at 9 pm (also GMT+1). remember that this tournament doesn't mean a lot to the guys, so have fun during this weekend, go out and enjoy a bit of our summer break as well!

VOTE HERE NOW

#hottest drivers tournament 2022 #i'll be mostly out this weekend because i legit need to finish my work and also run some errands so behave #if anything goes sour pls dm me i'll do my best to help #thanks and happy voting!

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lemonzestywrites · 2 months

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Tell me more about “go on running (straight into my arms)” 💜

i know i mentioned it here before like ages ago but tbh i don't remember exactly what i said but full transparency this is just like...super emotional smut. also some werewolf!buck and vampire!eddie

====

“Down, boy,” he lightly chides against Buck’s lips. “We’re not going to be able to get to any of the fun stuff if you fuck me up against the car before we even start.”

Buck huffs, a dissatisfied pout already formed across his features as if to say, ‘I hate when you’re right’. He takes a step back, allowing the frigid chill of the night breeze to reclaim the space between them. The cold stings at Eddie’s skin, hovering over where the warmth once was.

It won’t be like that for long, he reminds himself.

Buck glances up at the moon. His features are painted with a nostalgic expression, tinted with the slight red excitement from his eager attempt earlier.

Both of their relationships with the moon are ones that have definitely evolved since being together. Eddie knows he used to have his own issues with bright and filling nights like these; he knows Buck did too. But there’s something pleasant about it now, being able to watch Buck’s shoulders lax, to see such a steady calm being brought to him now. It’s interesting in a way. He looks at it like he’s reuniting with an old friend. Familiarity settling in beside him like a second skin.

He glances back over to Eddie. “You ready?”

“I’ve been ready all day,” he replies back. The response he gives isn’t one meant to come out as impatient. Really it isn’t. But somewhere along the lighthearted banter they share, Eddie feels that keen itch under his skin beginning to flare up. Wanting. Waiting.

Thankfully, though Buck seems to understand, sharing about the same amount of enthusiasm as well. The fire behind his eyes flares up for no longer than a fraction of a second. A brief but wild flash. But just as soon as it had arrived, it’s gone. Not entirely, though, just…muted.

Instead, a sweet smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he playfully nudges Eddie with his shoulder. “Isn’t that usually my line?” he teases.

#literally they fuck nasty in the woods #but also it gets really emotional cause im a sap #hoping to release this one around halloween #911 #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie #zestywrites #go on running fic

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maxwellander · 9 months

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Making a Roguelike adventure (for Himbos!)

A few months ago a young man put up 38 transparent neon NES and super NES game cases on marketplace. I bought them, completely unsure of what I would do with them, but sure i had to have them. Obviously, my first thought was “limited print rpg something something”. I’ve also wanted to release something to support Himbos recently since it’s, like, a really good game and it deserves my love and attention. So maybe something video game inspired? Like a classic RPG style project? No, that’s been done a lot by people more attached to those old game than me. I knew I also didn’t want to just make a dungeon because I have a back burner project that is a big dungeon for Himbos that I’m hoping to get out by the end of the year. SO THEN WHAT.

I often have intrusive design thoughts while falling asleep. Things like “pvp face-off game” (vis-a-visage) or “time travel discord message editing game” (someday). A few weeks ago, the intrusive thought of the night was “Roguelike adventure generator”. Roguelike adventure generator? What do those words even mean. How does adding Roguelike to the classic idea of adventure generators change what it does? Well, it turns out im gonna try and figure it out. Or rather, I have been trying to figure it out.

For me, the thing about Roguelike video games, is the balance between the overarching narrative, buffs/powerups that make you feel like your progressing and random obstacles/environments/problems that occasionally repeat elements. The generation part is the easiest for me, breaking down the elements that an adventure needs to go brrrrr. For me this came down to Landmarks (fun environmentmental elements), Problems (adventure hooks), NPCs, Events/Complications, and then some Critters. What I didn’t want to do was just make a bunch of tables to roll on. I love a good table, but one of the things I love about randomly generated video games is the potential for a level to be strangely easy or just really overwhelming, so I wanted a way to change the amounts and rations of the elements being generated. I suppose i could have done something where you roll a d4 for each element to determine how many of them to include in a run, but that feels so uninspired and why not over complicate something when you can!

Enter custom tokens. Any tokens could do, really, but the idea of tossing a bunch of tokens onto a table to generate an adventure brings me joy! Originally, I thought this would just mean gleaning information from face up or down, each type of token representing one of the elements involved, giving a randomized number of NPCs or Problems and such. I then realized that there was another axis that could be accessed, that of rotation. The tokens could be read like tarot, as upright or inverted. Face up or down could also indicate a different state beyond simply present or not.

Ok, great, so level (adventure) generation sorted. But what about the overarching quest. How do you finish the whole thing?

I’ve recently started playing a game of Apocalypse Keys by Rae Nedjadi. It’s a great game, that takes the mystery mechanic from Brindlewood Bay, which I have priory been associated with through playing The Between. I love it. Everytime I encounter it I am reminded that, as a player, it is the single most fun I’ve had interacting with a mechanic in any game in recent memory. Each game does it a little differently, but the idea is simple - the players collect clues or hints, and when they feel like they have a good idea of what’s going on, they present their theory and then roll to determine how right they are. In Apocalypse Keys, the clues are extremely evocative vignettes that are all themed to the mystery at hand. But I’ve always wondered what happens if they were completely random. The wonderful thing about the mechanic is that the players will absolutely figure out a way to work each clue into their theory, they will justify that most seemingly random bit of information is ways previously unimaginable. So, it might actually work if random, or, for the application in this design, as more broad and less specific to the scene at hand. The clues have now become the reward for finishing the level at hand, and because giving your players a unique and special piece of equipment is always fun, i’ve linked them to Objects Of Power the entity causing the glitch has left behind. It’s important to remember that all this is for Himbos of Myth & Mettle so OoPs are things like a small box that emits exciting foley sounds when your character is in combat and the visions (clues) that you see when you grasp it for the first time range from images of rat kings to slightly more lewd moments between hidden figures.

The loop as it stands now - Generate level through tossing tokens and rolling on appropriate tables, characters hunt for Objects of Power, and the clues they hold to the larger mystery of the regenerating, repeat until characters feel confident they understand (again, Himbos, the theories will be wild), roll to see if right, and if so move on to a final confrontation with the entities they’ve designed, or they fail and must return to collect more clues till they come up with another idea.

I finally got around to printing some test tokens and attempting to generate a level. Behold, the first session of Bugbears of Unusual Size and Other Tales:

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meikuree · 6 months

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20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @chocochipbiscuit! thanks for the opportunity to ramble at length

tagging @acerinky @bothzangetsus @pretty-rage-machine @metamatar @leksaa90 @rose-gardens @liesmyth @themorikelife and anyone else who wants to join in! (template at the end)

answers below:

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

about 45, across my two accounts

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

~130,000 words across > 3.5 years

3. what fandoms do you write for?

used to be monofannish, but I began branching out after joining the multifandom exchanges scene (aka BFE).

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

sidewalk reinventions [nimona (2023), gen]

the runaround [SNK, pieck/yelena]

blood to gold [SNK, pieck/hange]

more than a grain of sand [SNK, mikasa/annie]

small foreign faction [SNK, pieck/yelena]

a different picture emerges when I sort these by top fics from 5 different fandoms:

sidewalk reinventions [nimona (2023), gen]

the runaround [SNK, pieck/yelena]

the crimson cusp of evening [JJK, gojo/geto]

docile, unkind, fraught [the locked tomb, harrowhark/ianthe]

the sun coming out [squid game, jiyeong/saebyeok]

5. do you respond to comments?

in short: yes, but it can take months (or - I'm looking at years now) due to real life.

sometimes I prefer to 'reply' by reading and commenting on commenters' fic in turn since it's easier for me to gush about others' writing than my own; this is also a partly a matter of self-consciousness, because it (personally!) feels narcissistic for me to talk on about my own fic in comments.

6. what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

plenty of fic I write is angsty, but I usually mix even total darkness with slants of hope or more often ambiguity. you rarely get a pure distillation of atmospheres or tones in my fic, by design or not. (I'm not super married to labels like 'angst' or fluff either because they’re convenient but can also be limiting and/or simplified boxing-in categories.) the fiercest calm or to walk along the edge probably takes the cake, however.

7. whats the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

the sun coming out.

8. do you get hate on fics?

no, luckily! i'm an unknown name but it also means I rarely attract unwanted attention.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

for sure. if you know my side account (which isn't much of a secret), you'll know exactly what kind. I'm transparent and unashamed of my id and like to revel in it. let's just say I like power dynamics, complicated and unconventional queer relationships, and older women.

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

no :(

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I'm aware of!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, and it's always flattering. <3 both my pieck/hange fics got translated into chinese: 从鲜血到黄金(blood to gold) and 和缓的修复(the slow mending).

I've translated Chinese fic into english and knowing what the translation process is like from the opposite direction, I'd consider my fic a translator's nightmare, so I'm grateful if anyone makes the attempt. I’ve read the translations and been amazed by the artistry, the linguistic agility in them. the translator was really skilled at carried across the nuances of the original text and adapted to differences in linguistic norms.

this might be cringe, but to quote an example (from the slow mending):

the original:

A fully uncharted ground. There’s no script for this, for a reconciliation between an erstwhile commander and a Warrior. But a meaningfulness to it all the same, perhaps: that here, at the world’s end, the ruins of everything they know, they can still reinvent themselves, and what they mean to each other—not as a clean slate, not as a forgettance of the past, but a desire to make something new of its wreckage.

[…]

Out upon the rudderless horizon, the sun is flaring like a wildfire, a thousand years’ worth of fury braided into its light. But they might survive this, after all: Hange feels hopeful, for the first time in a while.

and the translations:

这是一片全新之地。关于帕拉迪亚的指挥官与马莱战士的和解，完全没有既定的剧本。但这一切也许都有意义：在这里，在世界的尽头，在一切的废墟上，他们仍然可以重塑自己，以及他们对彼此的意义——不是纯白的新地基，不是作为对过去的遗忘，而是在残骸中创造新事物的热切希望。

[…]

在漫无边际的地平线上，太阳像野火般地燃烧着，光线中编入了千年的愤怒。但她们也许都能活下来：这段时间以来的第一次，韩吉感到了希望。

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, and I might be open to it if time and energy weren’t limiting factors.

14. whats your all-time favorite ship?

I'm a major multishipper and this is hard to answer. at the moment -- this is cheating because it's a gen relationship, not a ship -- zenin mai & zenin maki.

15. what's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

perhaps my pieck/yelena cosmic horror WIP, and other SNK ones (ymir/historia, pieck/hange) -- I'm not attached much to SNK any more.

16. what are your writing strengths?

i've joked that 80% of comments of my fic will invariably include one of these words: gorgeous, poetic, beautiful. the runners-up are 'incisive' and 'sharp'. this sounds braggy; I'm always flattered, and I'm just listing these because I think those are the immediate data points at hand for my strengths.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

dialogue, immediacy, and uh... this sounds glib, but tropey plots. plot in general. writing anything that cuts to the quick; my style tends to be somewhat repressed. writing long(ish) fic; my longest wordcount stands at 8.8k.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done this (for a fic for Zen Cho's Black Water Sister), for Hokkien, Bahasa Melayu, and Manglish. in line with the author’s original choice I avoided giving any glossaries or explanations. plenty of readers in the global south infer the meaning of foreign words/brand in Anglo-American settings all the time, from context. who’s to say the reverse can’t be done? I’m also not a fan of italicising foreign words and try to do the opposite: italicising English words instead. neither do I really enjoy any arguments that foreign media should be localized for Anglo-American palates; I prefer when something is specific to a culture instead of universalised, even if it may come off weird or incomprehensible.

romanisation’s a different matter. I’m fine with romanised dialogue for Malay and Japanese but with Chinese romanised dialogue (via hanyu pinyin) can be harder to parse — I’m fluent in Chinese and used to reading in Hanzi. this changes, of course, with dialects or other writing norms.

in the Chinese media/fiction I’ve read where English dialogue is what’s foreign instead, writers have written English dialogue wholesale (as in, in English words) without translating it into Chinese or translated it into Chinese.

I’m from an ex-British colony in Southeast Asia and how dialogue is conveyed and handled is one of those things that can indicate right away an author’s biases and assumed cultural defaults. even reading fic set in my or other southeast Asian countries by diaspora writers can feel strange if foreign dialogue (among other elements) is Pointed Out and made into an event; I prefer when many things that would be the default in people’s milieu here and simply baked into people’s worldviews can be written and let to pass without comment. in Black Water Sister my one petty comment is that the (Malaysian Chinese-American) main character’s initial cluelessness in Malaysia was jarring (and stereotypical), but I get that that’s part of the premise (and it was handled smoothly after). and of course, the universal bromide applies. no media ever has to cater to my taste, she typed in jest.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

snk/attack on titan.

20. favorite fic you've ever written?

hard to answer because i love most of the ones I've written for multifandom exchanges but some of my favourites are the sun coming out, a map of the broken world, and lantern-black, the pitch of light.

(not a coincidence perhaps that 2 of these were written for @bothzangetsus!)

template:

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

3. what fandoms do you write for?

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

5. do you respond to comments?

6. what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. do you get hate on fics?

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you've written?

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. what's your all-time favorite ship?

15. what's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

16. what are your writing strengths?

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

19. first fandom you wrote for?

20. favorite fic you've ever written?

#meikuree talks #ask game #snk #pikuhan #saebyeong #zenin mai #zenin maki

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