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occamstfs · 13 hours

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Gacha Bro

Jk here's an actual video game TF haha! Bit of a trade with @artificial-transmutations ! Hope you enjoy this spin on a barbarian TF! -Occam

Erik wouldn’t label himself a gamer really, sure he threw on a stream every so often and tried to at least keep abreast of what’s popular, but he just never really found a game to care all that much about. He is fairly confident that the game his friend Jack just sent him Achillean Dreams was sure to be another in a laundry list of mediocre games he’s had a go at. It looks like a standard Gacha game which he’s never really cared for, they’re quite pay-to-win and predatory. Though he supposes that a few of his friends quite enjoy Genshin Impact? Maybe it’ll be a little fun?

Jack says he needs Erik to download the app and start playing so he can get a free pull, and after grumbling that this is precisely why he hates gacha games he downloads the app from Jack’s link and starts at it. He’s greeted with a grandiose generic animation sweeping through some fantastical setting before being deposited at his first draw. Rolling his eyes that this is just a lottery app he clicks and watches as he grows slightly curious to what, or who rather, he would pull. The screen flashes a few times before light bursts from the screen before he hears a burly voice shout “Graugh! Let’s Go!” as a barbarian burst onto his screen swinging an axe. It zooms into his face through a mist of sweat to land on his rage filled eyes and a barbaric smirk as text reads Congratulations! You Pulled Enki the Barbarian! The screen changes once more, this time showing Enki’s model just standing and posing with his axe, flexing at the camera as if to challenge the player. Erik blushes before grimacing.

On the rare occasion he does decide to game he would never choose to play any kind of melee fighter type guy. He taps through the menus to get to the gameplay so he can get this over with. Jack didn’t say exactly how much he needs to play but Erik is sure it’ll be clear. He starts maneuvering Enki through the world of the game, finding the controls incredibly intuitive as he finishes the tutorial and levels up. Doing so gives him a slight high, just enough of a rush to keep going. Might as well play a little longer considering he’s sure to never pick this game back up once he puts it down.

Entering the true starting area he goes around killing slimes and large spiders to get some experience points and level up. Each time he does so he finds himself growing more and more invested in the game, he can see why people like this after all, with each kill of some weak monster his warrior only grows more powerful which in turn helps him level up faster. He looks hungrily at his muscular character as he hears the chime of another level up and sees what new aspects and skills he has new access to.

In no time at all Enki is already level five and Erik uncharacteristically pumps the air in excitement before he shakes his head in shock at himself. He blushes as he sees Enki’s figure stretch in impatience on the level up screen. Man though, no wonder Jack wanted another pull in this game, it’s already quite addictive. He then hears his stomach grumble and is taken aback. He just ate didn’t he? He looks to the clock to confirm as the hunger overtakes him regardless of when his last meal was. He gets up to go grab food and finds himself shockingly sore. Jesus he needs to exercise more, or is he dehydrated? Just like Enki he stretches as he begins to make his way over to make a sandwich.

He feels tensions familiar and new as he feels the pleasure in stretching his body to its limits. The hem of his shirt sits just a bit higher on him, exposing his thin waist and small treasure trail as his stomach grumbles once more. Alright already, he thinks as he throws together a meal and starts playing the game once more, just walking around and seeing what all the game has to offer. On the horizon he sees villages and castles that pique his interest as he struggles within his mind not to get too invested, he doesn’t want to throw money at this game.

Beginning his mindless grind for XP once more as he levels up his soreness starts to arise once more as he grumbles and adjusts his position. The couch creaks as his weight ever so slightly begins to increase, before once more his stomach demands his attention. “Jesus Christ! Why am I so hungry!?” He finds his blood starts to race as the irritation starts to rise. Perhaps he should give the game a rest. Deciding against having another meal he opts for junk and grabs a pint of ice cream. He’ll just hit the gym tomorrow.

Picking up a book he is taken aback as he realizes that thought just pushed itself into his mind. He has no gym membership, he’s never had one? He must have meant he’ll go for an, uh, hike or something? To distract his mind from that oddity he turns to start his book, quickly finishing his pint of ice cream as he struggles to sink his teeth into this book he thought he liked? He was quite invested last time he picked it up but at the moment he finds himself picking up and checking his phone an inordinate amount. His mind keeps thinking back to Enki’s muscular body as he impatiently taps his foot. He can’t seem to sit comfortably on the couch, be it the soreness or a rising anxiety in his body at sitting and reading this boring book. Ah, this book he quite liked, rather. He groans in irritation, and closes his eyes as he tries to work out what is going on with him.

Soon enough though, distraction arrives as Jack calls. “Dude you’ve gotta play more to get me my pull.” Erik opens his mouth to answer before noticing Jack sounds off, he asks, “Do you have a cold?”

He scoffs, “Erik, c’mon bro you just gotta get to level ten so we can both get good!” Erik again pauses as he listens closer to the other line, Jack is clearly amped about something more than this stupid little game, he then hears a familiar slapping sound and a deep grunt come from his friend and he calls out, “Jack dude! What? Are you mast-” Jack quickly interrupts him, “Chill bro of course not! Just, just uh. Here watch this level up thing and you’ll do it super fast, trust.”

The line goes dark as Jack apparently hangs up before sending a link to an ad for Erik to watch. Refusing to engage with the fact he was pretty sure his friend was masturbating just now he plays the ad and is shocked to find out it's for a partnership with a local gym!? His head sears with pain as he struggles to think of how weird this paired with him thinking about the gym earlier, but he is unable to make that leap as his eyes drink in muscular men pumping iron at the gym. It ends with a message saying players get a month trial. “God that’s bizarre.”

He grimaces once more as he changes into pajamas and jumps into bed before taking advantage of his level up boost. He starts completing missions and defeating mobs as he approaches level ten at a rapid pace. He doesn't notice as his pajamas catch weird on his body as he lies there, his feet suddenly sticking out from beyond the blankets as he flexes his toes, not feeling as they surge a bit larger. As soon as he hits the milestone he lets out something between a yawn and a groan as he stretches, not noticing as he echoes deeper than he has ever sounded before. He finds no comfort in rest as he quickly drifts to sleep, his body tossing and turning in bed as he accidentally leaves his phone on, leaving Enki to accrue passive experience as continues to level up well into the night.

The root of Erik’s soreness makes itself apparent as he shifts in his bed, muscle starting to make itself known through his increasingly tight pajamas. He sweats completely through his clothes and leaves a deep pile of drool on his pillow as, unaware to him, he starts getting hard in his sleep as his cock grows larger than he has ever seen it before, his balls growing larger and hanging lower as he dreams of open fields and intense fights.

After no time at all however he wakes up with a start rocketing sweat into the room and tearing his pajama top. He is absolutely raring with energy that he needs to make use of. Before that though he sees a notification on his phone. Oh yeah, he didn’t use his pull did he. He smirks as he wonders what kind of hero he is to get next as he clicks through to roll hsi new character. As the light glimmers once more he hears a familiar grunt though as Enki once more dervishes with an ax through villains.

There is a slight disappointment in him as he sees he has somehow gotten this standard barbarian once more. Though seeing his stats improve as he now apparently has two starts sets him right as rain. His pulse races with excitement as he imagines how much better he will be. He quickly jumps out of bed, not noticing his pajama pants now rest at his mid-calf, and throws on some clothes to race to the gym to get his apparent free membership.

He neglects to take an uber or a bus however as he instead just starts to jog to the gym, not pulling up directions either as he somehow is able to intuit his way. In a lingering act of curiosity at what other heroes he could have pulled he clicks through the mages and thieves and smirks as he is suddenly glad he didn’t get such weak looking characters. He feels his shoes tighten as his feet surge larger once more carrying him to his destination. Besides denigrating the classes he usually enjoys playing he finds his eyes also catch on one named “Sir Gilgar” some kinda kingly paladin type who is apparently close with Enki. He tilts his head with interest at this man as he arrives at the gym.

Standing still he suddenly notices that he forgot to put on deodorant at home. He sniffs at his pits wondering how much of an issue it is to be, he definitely smells worse than usual, though it’s definitely not worth the trip back home. He is called over by the man at the front desk who bears an odd resemblance to the bear of a blacksmith from the game. “Yo bro! You play A.D.?” Erik nods his head as the receptionist continues, “Enki yeah?” Erik stumbles back in confusion, “Uh Erik actually?” to which the man just laughs “hah, oh yeah that’s what I meant. You’re friend told me you might be in.”

There is then an arm around Erik's shoulder, though heavier and higher than any of his friends could possibly have. Before he can turn to see however he notices that his less than pleasant musk is immediately overshadowed by the stink coming from this pit right next to his face, and finds himself taken aback once more as he is jealous, at the stink, whispering “what the fuck?” as he turns to this mammoth of a man.

The man before him is, familiar? He squints his eyes as he sees the chiseled chin and long wavy hair. Ah that’s why, he looks just like that paladin Erik just saw in game doesn’t he what was his name? “Gilgar?”

The man smiles and laughs heartily, a deep rumble that makes Erik blush as he looks down and pats him on the back. “Huhuh no bro,it’s me Jack! Thanks for downloadin’ the game dude it’s really helped me get uh, bigger? Yeah, huhuh! I was playin’ it all night.” Erik continues to stare the man up and down, struggling to find anything to reconcile that this is his friend Jack. As he does so though his memories quickly change as he hungrily stares at his defined chest and weighty biceps, this is actually what Sir Jack’s always looked like though? He then shakes his head to respond, “yeah I can tell dude, you certainly didn’t shower.”

“Huh” Jack grunts as he raises his arm to smell his pit, exposing a deep bush that Erik can’t help but stare in to with a hungry jealousy. He laughs once more, this time though there is something more sinister in it as Erik realizes that he has been staring down back at him the entire time, with something ulterior in his eyes. Before he can start to inquire or investigate what that is though Jack messes with his hair and heads for the showers, “why don’t you go and get started Erik, gonna need a lotta work to catch up with me huhuh!”

He turns and leaves Erik alone, as he feels a fire burn in his chest. He should use this. Erik puts the game away as he throws on a workout playlist and he starts going all out lifting weights and going at the machines. He doesn't wonder how he so perfectly knows how to carry his body and expertly perform flawless exercise at every turn. He smirks as his pulse continues to race as he goes all out to try and sculpt his body like Gilgar, er Jack did. There is an itch on Erik’s chest as he does so, hope it’s not a rash he thinks as he continues about the workout. He scratches at it as below his shirt hair begins to push out in the middle of his pecs. It swirls around aiming to cover them entirely as a similar itch starts winding his way up his stomach as his treasure trail expands thicker and darker, rising higher to connect his pubes to his increasingly expansive chest hair. The music on his phone changes without his notice to the songs from the game. Enki’s theme starts to rise in pitch as his grunts deepen with every thrust and pull of his workout. The deepest itch yet starts to emerge in his pits as he throws weights down to scratch at them His hands absolutely rank with his pit sweat as he brings his hand to his nose and smirks as he looks down to his darker hair, smirking as he already feels more like a man.

Erik then has the brilliant idea that if he switches to the treadmill where he’ll be able to play the game while still getting his blood pumping. Once he sets the treadmill going and pulls out the app, ignoring a picture sent from his friend, he sees that after starting his membership he has gotten another pull in game. He crosses his fingers this time desiring nothing more than to get himself, no, his Enki once more. He could not care about the improbability of it all as after the bright flash he hears the familiar grunt of Enki as he whispers under his breath along, still racing faster than he’s ever run before on this treadmill.

As he elevates his hero to three stars he finds himself running even faster on the treadmill. His stomps growing heavier as he continues to race faster and faster on the machine without lifting a finger or pushing a button to speed it up. He exhales through his nose like a bull as he feels his blood course through him, spreading a heat through the whole of his body. He clenches the arms of the treadmill just to exert further force upon it as his vision begins to grow red as he begins to outpace the fastest setting on the treadmill. Tears appear in his shoes and his thighs burst larger, absolutely tearing his shorts to shreds as he slams step after step into the track of the machine. He grasps at the knob of the treadmill trying to ratchet it faster than it’s max to little avail.

His blood burns in his veins as he twists the button off the shoddy machine and every muscle in his body tenses and surges larger as he feels rage become impossible to control, displacing every thought in his mind. His shirt strains and then bursts as his chest flexes larger exposing the newly hairy curls on his still growing pecs as each expansive breath surges deeper and heavier.

He strains to restrain himself from enacting violence in the middle of the gym as he sees his phone fall to the floor, somehow midway through yet another pull without his input. He feels spit on his chin dripping through a beard he didn’t even notice he started growing as he breathes through his clenched teeth. It begins to push out even further, his jaw itching deeply from every angle as his stubble becomes a dense beard, thicker than he would have thought ever possible as Enki’s familiar theme begins to blare from the phone dropped on the floor.

He pants as he struggles to hold back his rage though as the seconds pass he starts to wonder why he would ever do so, he is En- no he is Erik. He is a formidable, ugh. He clenches at his head as his legs push him higher into the air. He sees thick veins surge down his arms as they force themselves larger, hair darkening them up from his wrist and spreading up his biceps as his chest hair spreads to connect to his dense pits. His body begins to shake with the rage barely restrained.

At this moment there is once more a friendly arm around his shoulder and a familiar musk immediately breaks through his mindless anger as he turns to see his friend. His rival? It is not worth interrogating, he closes his eyes and smells the musk of his long companion Sir Gilgar. He turns to look him directly in the eyes, finding himself directly at eye level despite being well below it when he first stepped into the gym. There is a cocky smirk plastered on his face as if he were used to being the most impressive man in the room. Erik finds himself readily agreeing with this assessment, as long as of course Enki himself does not hold the position, shaking his head as he flexes groans as his body struggles to expand even further.

Erik shakes back to reality as he sees that Sir Gilgar has been talking to him, his eyes inscrutibly somewhere between a haughtiness and a hunger as he continues, “Sorry Enki are you not listening?” Erik feels his check burn and he groans as he responds, “I, I am Erik not ugh.” He feels his mind grow confused as he sees his friend, his bedfellow in front of him. Thoughts fly through his head from two worlds and he struggles to remember who, Erik is.

Seeing Erik’s eyes grow blank as drool begins to pool in his mouth Gilgar kneels to grab the phone and begins tapping through the menus of the game. Taking a moment to stare and smirk at his own reflection in the screen before navigating to a purchase menu for Erik. He sees the bulge in Erik’s shredded pants begin to grow heavier as he hands his phone to him and asks, “Why not get this over with Enki, just embrace it. Don’t you want to be with me? All you need to do is hit one button.”

Erik’s eyes blast back to focus as he grunts and his cock surges even larger in his underwear at the thought of being with the man in front of him. Without a thought he purchases one last pull and doesn’t even watch as he knows what is to occur. He feels his pulse begin to race as an itch spreads through his veins, every tendon and muscle in his body warms as he almost vibrates with energy. Gilgar leads him to the locker room as he continues to convulse and grow.

Memories of his life before this game fade without contest as he recalls life as Enki, the barbarian, the warrior. Pride surges through him as he remembers countless victories and the beyond countless days of training to ensure this. He recalls being the pride of his village, of his people, of Sir Gilgar’s eye. He remembers the fateful day they met and the wrestling match that ensued, the contest that locked them together ever more, and the subsequent wrestling matches that devolved into something even more primal.

These memories continue to surge into his head as he continues to follow his companion into the locker room. His suddenly confused at why he is in such a bizarre place, he is a warrior is he not? Enki scratches at his pit and sniffs the musty air before deciding not to care, thinking was more his friend’s purview. The only thing he is truly concerned about at the moment is the increasing weight in his crotch. Seeing Gilgar start to disrobe in the corner of this tiled room Enki’s lust grows beyond any ability to fight it as he pounces, not even thinking to remove his underwear as his cock pushes beyond the bounds anyway. The two then begin wrestling as they often do before it turns into the frotting that it always does these days.

Enki does not know or care for the game that he awoke obsessed with this morning. Nor will he ever again. In fact there are few things at all as he prefers to do anything but think. Though somewhere beyond his rage, beyond his lust, he will be grateful for that link sent by his companion for it has allowed him to experience truly mindless pleasure evermore.

#male tf #mental change #masculinization #muscle tf #jockification #hair growth #male transformation #musk tf

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markadoo · 2 years

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The pornographic genre of JOI (jerk-off instructions) is stagnating. It needs to expand its horizons, come up with new ideas to appeal to new audiences and to keep the old audience from wearing out. Here are some ideas I've come up with. Not all of them appeal to me specifically, but I think there's something in here for everyone.

Tutorial: Considering that it's called "jerk-off instructions", they're really missing the opportunity for some instructiveness. Why not have a JOI that teaches you how to fist yourself, or stimulate your non-genital erogenous zones, or do electrostimulation, or use a spindle, or any one of the many masturbatory practices other than "put your hand on your dick and move it up and down".

Hecklers: You're performing a standup set, and you're bombing big-time. One guy in the audience stands up and mockingly shouts "Why don't you jerk off for us, funny boy?" The rest of the crowd backs him up. You haven't rehearsed this, but a comedian must play to his audience, right?

Hey Check This Out: You ever had someone show you how to press that one nerve that makes your hand curl up, how to wobble your kneecaps, how if you shine a red flashlight in your eye for a minute the world looks dull afterward, something like that? This is like that. Your platonic yet undeniably attractive friend is walking you through the steps to stand up masturbate in a very particular way, and if you do it right, and you close your eyes when you cum, you should feel like the floor is rising. Cool, right?

Female Instructor Roleplays as Someone Other Than Stepsister: When it comes to JOIs aimed at straight men, the only roles roleplayed are "nonspecified dominatrix" and "stepsister", with an occasional appearance of "doctor", "girlfriend", and "stepmother". But what if they roleplayed someone else? You know the story where the fisherman catches the magical fish that gives him a wish, and he wishes for a bigger house, and then becomes unsatisfied, and he catches the fish again, and asks for an even bigger house, and is still unsatisfied, and catches it again, and so on? What if the fish was a woman, and it told him to jerk off? That would certainly be novel.

Song: What if you made a parody of the Cha-Cha Slide called the Hoo-Ha Slide? Do You See Where I Am Going With This.

#unsafew #posts

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thankskenpenders · 7 months

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So I wrote a whole long thing about Amy's tarot cards, but what about, you know... the rest of the Sonic Frontiers DLC? The new alternate story route, the hours of new gameplay, all that?

Having now played it, I'm not sure Sonic has ever had this specific combination of good ideas that make the future of the series look bright, and execution that I fucking hate.

(Full spoilers ahead.)

The good

There's a lot to like here, conceptually.

First and foremost, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are finally playable in a new mainline 3D Sonic game for the first time since 2006! Seventeen years! We've been begging for this for so very, very long. Nature is finally truly healing from the fallout of Sonic '06. Early on I hedged my bets and expected them to be locked to Cyber Space or something like that, assuming that there was no way they'd be fully playable in the Open Zone. But sure enough, while they're a bit limited compared to Sonic, they're still all full-blown characters with skill trees to unlock and lots of exploration to do.

We also got a more bombastic alternate final boss fight, after the first take on The End kind of underwhelmed. And it's obvious that Sonic Team has listened to our pleas to focus on the 3D platforming over the forced 2D sections, and to reduce the amount of automation in the level design. This update is chock full of Actual Platforming. Wow! I can only pray this means we never get an area as agonizing to explore as Chaos Island again.

Sure, there's still some jank - especially with Knuckles' movement, which is kinda rough. But if this is the stuff they're trying out so that they can refine it further for the next game, then I'm really excited.

On the other hand, good fucking lord is The Final Horizon tedious. And that tedium sapped most of the fun out of it for me.

The frustrating

The new scenario massively increases the difficulty over the base game, seemingly out of a desire to give the hardcore players who were posting speedrun videos and whatnot more of a challenge. It's the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of Sonic. This difficulty comes in many forms throughout your playtime, some worse than others, and continues to ramp up over time.

Rather than giving you a tutorial level, the new scenario dumps you directly into a remixed version of the final island and makes you do some fairly precise platforming with Amy, Knuckles, and Tails - new characters with new movesets that you won't have any experience with. You'll also need to find character-specific Koco that give you free levels, because Sonic's friends all start at level one and certain locked moves in their skill trees will be mandatory to progress. They don't even have Cyloop unlocked at the start. And because they're all low level, that means you'd better steer clear of the beefed-up bosses scattered around the map, which will absolutely annihilate Sonic's friends. (I honestly just avoided them and never bothered beating any of them, not even with my high-level Sonic. I have no idea if they're beatable with the others.)

None of this is explained to you particularly well. I spent my first few minutes with Amy wondering why the attack button did nothing, only to eventually think to check her skill tree and realize that I had to unlock her basic attack. If you don't bother to take the time to read through the skill trees, you'll very quickly find obstacles you have no way of getting past with no clues as to what exactly you're supposed to do.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that objective markers often tell you to go half a kilometer into the sky, and you'll have no idea how to get up there because all of the relevant platforms are out of your draw distance. Many objects seem to only pop in for me when I'm within about 60 meters of them, which isn't a long distance for a high-speed open world platformer like this. I was having this problem running the game with high graphics on PC, so I can only imagine how obnoxious it is on Switch. I'd frequently find myself poking around nearby clusters of platforming objects and praying that they'd lead me to a spring, rail, or cannon that would eventually point me in the direction of the floating objective marker.

There were always complaints about the art direction in Frontiers and the way it relies on floating rails and prefab platforms that are visually disconnected from the natural scenery of the islands, but it's even more dire here. The new platforming sections are dense and complex, but they seemingly didn't have the budget to change the topography of Ouranos Island at all, so it all takes the form of these prefabs. It very strongly gives the vibe of a Forge creation in Halo 3, back when there were no blank canvas maps and people just had to make "new maps" by jamming a bunch of shipping containers and barricades together in the sky above one of the default arenas.

I was still more or less having fun, though, despite the jank. It's a big creative swing, I told myself! They're trying stuff out! They're experimenting!

And then I hit the towers.

The towers are agonizing because they're SO close to being great. The logical part of my brain understands why some people love them, but god, I just fucking hate them. The platforming there IS cool! These layouts are cool! The individual challenges along the way are a bit tough, but totally doable. You know what's not cool? Making one mistake and slowly falling 800 meters all the way back down to the ground, forcing you to start over. Because none of these towers have checkpoints. For me, this one decision transforms what should have been a fun set of platforming challenges into a massive, unfun difficulty spike.

I enjoy some masocore platformers, but those are typically games with quick deaths and restarts like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV. Hell, the Mario games tend to get way more difficult than the average Sonic game, and those are obviously all great. Quite frankly, unlike those games, Sonic Frontiers is nowhere near tight or polished enough to make this difficulty feel fair. Bits of jank that I could ignore in the base game due to its lower difficulty are now matters of life or death. Missing a jump because I boosted off an incline in a way the game didn't like for reasons I don't understand is not fun. Falling off a tower because the camera was pointing in the wrong direction while I was in midair and I couldn't see the next thing I was expected to homing attack is not fun.

And it's such a jarring spike when moving from the base game to the DLC that it feels like the game is suddenly quizzing me on skills it never bothered to instill in me. Maybe if you've spent the last year labbing out the movement tech in this game this is all a no brainer, but for the average returning player it's a kick in the dick.

I'm sure I could've beaten these towers normally if I gave them enough tries. They aren't the hardest thing in the world. But I very quickly decided I had better things to do with my life and turned on easy mode, which adds tons of extra springs and homing attack balloons to make all of the platforming piss easy. I wish there was a middle option between Only Up: Sonic Edition and this extreme hand holding, but when given the choice between the two I gladly picked baby mode. I just wanted to see the story.

(The new Cyber Space levels are also long, challenging, and devoid of checkpoints, not unlike the towers. But I only ever found the entrances to two of them. So I only did two. They're theoretically required, because they give you "Lookout Koco" that you need for... some reason? But in a rare act of mercy, Sonic Team put Cyloop treasure spots that give you free Lookout Koco all over the map.)

As I continued, so many little things started adding up to piss me off. Why do you only reveal like five tiny squares of the map at a time? I would've loved to find all the new 1-on-1 dialogue scenes, but not if I had to do dozens of hard mode versions of the stupid little puzzles and challenges to reveal the whole map. Why does every character need their own unique collectibles? What is this, Donkey Kong 64? Why can't I just grab this EXP for Amy when I find it as Tails? Why can I only manually swap characters by talking to an out-of-the-way NPC unlocked right before the final boss? Why is fast travel disabled? Why are the new vocal themes you hear when playing as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so monotonous, with a single verse repeating over lo-fi beats ad nauseum? Why is the jukebox feature completely disabled throughout the DLC, even after rolling the credits? Why can't Tails homing attack? Why do I have to wrestle with the camera so much while also holding the jump button to fly as Knuckles and Tails? How many right thumbs do they think I have? Why is this animation for picking up animals in the Cyber Space levels so incredibly slow, and why can I still take damage while it's playing? Why does the stupid starfall event have to make it so hard to see what I'm doing when climbing these towers? Why does this shitty combat trial have a popup that makes it seem like I should be using the Cyloop when the actual strategy revolves around repeated parries? And on and on and on...

The story

What about the new story? Well, there sadly isn't much to chew on here. Most of the DLC has the cast running around and finding different macguffins for arbitrary reasons, as part of some sort of plan to divide up the work on the last island so that Sonic can go train with the spirits of the Ancients and harness the power of his cyber corruption. What the fuck is an Impact Form? I don't know, but Knuckles needs something to do, so go find one.

It's a thin excuse plot meant to make you do platforming challenges around Ouranos Island, with little room for Ian to add any real flavor of his own, even though he certainly tries. Having Sonic meet the spirits of the Ancients who controlled the Titans, who are revealed to directly parallel the personalities of him and his friends, is kinda neat, I guess? It's something. The optional conversations seem to have some fun bits, including both conversations between the supporting cast and additional lore. But again, I only found a few of those because of how tedious filling out the map was.

The writing is also let down by the voice acting - or I guess the voice direction, because I know this cast can do better. Roger's voice continues to be weirdly, distractingly deep as Sonic, which was clearly something that was requested of him just for this game. (For a recent example of him going back to his regular Sonic voice, see this LEGO trailer.) The performances of Sonic's friends are also WILDLY mismatched. This is most clear when they start feeling the effects of the cyber corruption. Knuckles seems to be barely affected at all, Tails sounds like he's moderately hurt and low on energy, and Amy starts completely overselling her pain out of nowhere. The extremely strained performance makes it sound like Cindy's literally being tortured in the fucking booth. I have no idea what's going on over there.

The final challenges

People have debated whether or not things like the towers and the new Cyber Space levels are fair challenges. What's not up for debate is the fact that Master King Koco's Trial is complete and utter bullshit, and I can't believe they shipped this.

Before you can fight the new final boss, the game forces you to do a boss rush of the first three Titans - INCLUDING the pre-Super Sonic climbing sections - with a hard limit of 400 rings. For all three lengthy, heavily scripted fights. Back to back. You can't even cheese it with the leveling system, because you're forced to do this at level 1. This all but forces you to look up speedrun strats for the Super Sonic fights so that you don't run out of rings and fail the trial.

And the real kicker? They changed the parry just for this trial! Originally, you could just hold down the bumpers endlessly and Sonic would ready himself to parry the next attack, whenever that may hit. Now it requires you to do a "Perfect Parry" with specific timing. And you HAVE to hit those parries if you wanna clear this trial and get to the new ending. Miss a few and you're probably fucked. You just have to reset. Time to go through all those fights, all those climbing sequences, all those QTEs, and all those unskippable mid-fight cutscenes all over again. This is by far the most egregious example of the DLC deciding to quiz you on new skills that the base game never required of you, and it's one of the most absurdly unfair things I have ever seen in a Sonic game.

Easy mode does make this trial easier by making the timing window for Perfect Parries much more generous, but that's all the help you get. It's still easy to lose time failing to parry Wyvern's hard-to-read animations, or to lose rings by getting hit on the climb sections, or for things to just fuck up because these fights were always kinda jank. I gave it a few shots. I looked up guide videos. I tried the Quick Cyloop and stomp combo strat that seems all but mandatory. But I quickly decided that, again, this wasn't a worthwhile use of my time. It just sucks. And I really, REALLY didn't want to overwrite all my fond memories of these Titan fights, some of my favorite setpiece moments in any Sonic game, with memories of this shit ass boss rush.

So I cheated! And if you're on PC, you should too.

With the worst hurdle out of the way, I turned cheats back off and moved on to the new final boss. It was pretty cool. It's much flashier than the original fight against The End, that's for sure. It's still kinda annoying, and it requires you to do very specific shit without properly telegraphing it, but it's nowhere near as bad as the preceding challenges. I was hoping for one last new metalcore song to go with the new fight, which we sadly didn't get, but at least the new version of I'm Here is good.

The ending is... mostly the same, with a couple altered scenes that don't really change anything in the long run. But overall the new finale was pretty good. I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to get there.

Closing thoughts

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon wants to be three things:

A patch that adds a new alternate ending that was probably supposed to be in the base game in the first place.

An experimental take on making Tails, Knuckles, and Amy playable again, presumably testing things for the next game. And...

An official Kaizo Sonic Frontiers mod for the sickos.

The thing is, the people showing up for #1 and #2, the main things that Sega hyped up about the update, are not necessarily going to be down for #3. If they had announced some uber-hard new Cyber Space levels for the arcade mode or whatever, I'd be like, neat! And then not play them. I would never touch Master King Koco's Trial if it was an optional challenge. I would leave that for the sickos. But instead, they made the hardest content mandatory for anyone who wants to see the new Good Ending where the final boss gets an actual budget.

I'm mostly left in a state of shock that it shipped like this. I cannot believe they playtested this and decided this was the state The Final Horizon should be released in. That this should be the note Frontiers ends on. That this should be how we remember those Titan fights. That this should be the lingering taste in our mouths as we wait however many years for the next 3D game.

Armchair devs always love to say that things would be "easy to fix," but like... there really would be easy fixes for the insane difficulty and general tedium here! Add a few more tutorial popups explaining what the game expects of you with Sonic's friends. Give the Cyber Space stages and the towers a couple checkpoints. Give the combat trials more generous time limits, especially on the lower difficulties. Remove half of the map puzzles, and make the ones that remain uncover twice as many squares. Skip the startup animation for Knuckles' glide. Let me turn on the goddamn jukebox. Since so much of this update was designed around fan feedback, I can only pray that Sonic Team is still listening, and that they tweak at least a few of these things with a balance patch.

But still, after those many, many paragraphs of complaining... this still somehow makes the future of 3D Sonic seem pretty promising?

Sonic's friends are FINALLY playable again, and the focus is back to proper 3D platforming, rather than railroading players into awkward forced 2D sections in what's otherwise an open world. These are the things that they hopefully want to carry over to the next game. The difficulty? Well, that's just because it's the postgame DLC that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game. It's just an unreasonably cruel one of those - an example of how designing and balancing for a vocal minority of your fanbase can really hurt your game. But Sonic Team is onto something here, and I hope that they can learn the right lessons from this expansion and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

#tkp post #other media

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boringbones · 10 months

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Bring The Sims 3 into 2023 with my new lighting mod that does something no other mod does: it improves the water quality of lakes and oceans, making them more defined, reflective, and improving the overall appearance of lighting, ambience, clouds, and fog!

Follow my optimization tutorial and ansel filter suggestions to amplify the result this mod provides. It's time to experience a new horizon

*The Public Download will be available to everyone by the end of this week.

#sims3 #thesims3 #ts3 #sims3cc #EtherealGlow #Sims3Lightingmod #Lightingmod #Sims3Overhaul

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idrellegames · 1 year

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Wayfarer Dev Log 2023.03.06

Hi friends!

It’s been a while since my last proper update in January. I am recovered from illness and mostly back to normal; with the days getting longer and actually having sunlight now, it’s easier to stay focused than it was in the winter. A lot of developments have happened in the interim, so I’m hoping this dev log will serve to get you caught up on things I’ve been keeping under wraps until now.

✦ New Blog Reveal

My blog’s desktop theme has been redesigned and updated! Huge thank you to @ethereal-themes for taking this on, I am in love with the new look.

Desktop theme

About

Navigation (with updated tags!)

FAQ

Character Roster (updated with Episode 2 characters + sortable, including by romance type)

These pages cannot be viewed in the tumblr mobile app, but they can be viewed by inputting the link into your mobile browser. Mobile versions of the updated FAQ information and tag list are forthcoming.

Many thanks to @memaidraws for my new blog portrait of Alexia. 💕

Additionally, I am no longer tracking the tag "wayfarer" for community content. The tag has become overrun with bots that makes it very difficult to filter. If you've created something you'd like me to see, please use the "wayfarer if" tag or tag my blog!

✦ The Public Build

A new patch should be coming sometime in March to fix lingering bugs and issues in Episode 2. This patch will require a full restart of the game. Once it releases, you should not use old saves otherwise you may encounter continuity errors and bugs in later episodes.

✦ The Alpha Build

Work on the next alpha update is progressing. I am still writing slower than I usually do, but I am coming up on the end of a major branch. There should be a new alpha release later in March that will cover one half of Episode 3 Part 1.

Even though not all possible routes will be included, the update will add over 300,000 words of new playable content to the game.

✦ Development Changes

Until recently, Wayfarer was planned to be a free game. This is no longer the case. Though I am not ready to announce the full details yet, the game will be eventually be moving to a free demo + paid full game model later in its development cycle.

Act 1 (which includes the Prologue and Episodes 1-3) will remain free to play. Future pricing for non-Patreon early access to later episodes while the game is in development is TBD.

Because this change impacts some behind-the-scenes things, I am need to gauge how much of Wayfarer’s playerbase plays the game on their phone versus a computer.

If you would like to help me out, check out this poll here and let me know what device you regularly play on!

✦ Wayfarer 2023 Pin-Up Calendar

The Wayfarer Calendar is now closed! A huge thank you to our contributing artists and everyone who donated. Altogether, we raised $1094.54 USD. These proceeds were donated today to the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

I am so honoured that the calendar was a huge hit. On behalf of our organizers, I would like to thank everyone for their passion and excitement for this project. It’s too soon to announce whether we will do something like this again for next year, but there may be another calendar on the horizon…

If you’ve enjoyed Wayfarer, used my tutorials, or would like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Patrons receive access to the alpha build, a private Discord server, exclusive previews, bonus content, side stories, and other benefits.

(Please note that if you are pledging solely for access to the alpha build, the alpha and the public build currently contain the same content.)

Wayfarer is a passion project and creating it is a full-time commitment. Any little bit goes a long way to help me bring it to fruition.

If you aren’t in a position to support financially, reblogs, shares, ratings and comments, and spreading the word about the game are much appreciated and do a lot to help me out! 💕

#wayfarer #wayfarer if #dev log #interactive fiction #interactive novel #twine #twine game #indie game #cyoa #announcements

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yichuuonvenus · 2 months

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Graceland Too- IV

Ethan Landry x Reader

Tainted Love- Chapters

~Warnings~

Rape/Non-con, Loss of Virginity, Cock Warming, Dacryphilia, Knifeplay, Forced Orgasms, Corruption, Murder, Blood, Nightmares, Stalking, Underage Drinking, Attempted assault, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Forced Relationship, Dacryphilia, Isolation

You blinked a couple of times trying to readjust your vision. The white sterile walls made it even brighter than it appeared. You stared across at the boy on the bed. You took a deep breath and remembered that he was fine. He was still breathing you and he was safe. The doctors told you that he would be fine since the knife barely touched any organs. You were glad Ethan was going to be okay… but you couldn’t help but feel as though you had a hand in his attack.

You closed your eyes again and inhaled deeply. You weren’t going to cry again, you already did it on the way to the hospital. You felt bad enough because of how much Tia had to console you. You didn’t want to put your hurt onto anybody but Tia kept reassuring you that it was okay. You tried your best to remember that.

“Hey, I’m going to drop off Mindy and Anika. Are you going to stay here?” Chad whispered.

You nodded and stifled a yawn as you adjusted yourself in the chair, pulling the blanket that was on you closer.

“Give me a text when he’s awake,” he smiled, leaving you alone with Ethan.

He was sleeping. His face looked so relaxed, you hoped he was having a nice dream. He deserved it after the night he just had. To be honest you wanted to lock yourself away forever. You felt responsible for everything. You knew it wasn’t your fault but a part of you believed that maybe if you didn’t come with Sam and Tara none of this would’ve happened. Rylan was dead… and Ethan thankfully survived. You stared at his face again, thoughts you couldn’t stop roaming throughout your brain.

What if Ethan didn’t live? What if he died?

You saw him bleeding all over the white floor. What if he didn’t make it? The thought terrified you. You’ve gotten so close to him and now because of you, they were after your new friends, they were after him. You were close to the bed but you leaned it a bit, grabbing his hand. You didn’t know why but you felt like you should. Ethan clutched your hands, and you looked up to find him smiling at you. It was a goofy one. One that didn’t even look like he was stabbed 4 times.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, his voice was strained.

You didn’t know you were crying again when his hand wiped away a tear.

“Nothing…” you quietly said. Ethan was about to open his mouth again but you quickly changed the subject. “The weather looks nice today.”

He chuckled a bit, “Yeah it is, isn’t it?”

You both stared outside. The sun was just coming up making the horizon appear like a painting out of a Bob Ross tutorial.

It was like that for a good couple of moments before Ethan asked again.

“What’s wrong?”

You looked back at him. He was already looking at you, his eyes pleading he wanted to know. He still wanted to help you even when he was the one hurt.

“I… I don’t- I almost lost you…” there was a tremor in your voice like you were about to break down sobbing right then and there.

“And.. Ry-,” You couldn’t stop the tears then. An innocent boy was murdered because he was friends with you. He just wanted to know you. You were mad at yourself. You should’ve never talked to him. He would've been alive if it wasn’t for you.

His parents wouldn’t have to grieve the loss of a child… if you never came into his life.

“Hey, hey!” Ethan softly said. “Look at me.”

You refused with a shake of your head. You couldn’t look at him. You failed him as a friend. You failed to make yourself believe you could have any friends. Everyone you love is endangered because of you.

“Please look at me,” he whispered this time you did. He gave you a tired smile. “Do not blame yourself for what happened.”

You cried even harder as he held your face.

“Please,” he sounded so heartbroken trying to console you. It made you feel even worse. Nothing ever happened to you. You should be the one consoling him.

“We shouldn’t be friends…”

He held you tightly to him, shushing you.

“None of this would’ve happened if we weren’t friends.”

He said your name sternly, making you look at him.

“There’s nothing and I mean it nothing you could’ve done, even if we weren’t friends. What matters now is that I’m living and I’m not going anywhere.” He said it in a way that made you believe him. You took a deep breath and sighed.

“You promise?” You grabbed his hand, raising an eyebrow with a smile.

Ethan smiled back, lightly squeezing your hand, “I promise.”

. . .

“Ethan!” You gasped as you stared down in front of you.

He had already beaten you 6 times in your card game. You stared at him angrily as you threw down the cards.

“This isn’t fair, you were definitely cheating.”

Ethan was laughing as he started to clean up the game, “I told you I was a god at this game and you didn’t believe me.”

“I thought you were bluffing,” you replied. You were both on the bed, sitting criss-crossed.

Ethan gathered up the rest of the cards and sat them on the table next to the bed.

“As you can see I wasn’t,” he said while he flexed. You playfully pushed him and he groaned loudly.

“I’m so sorry!” You almost forgot his wounds were still healing.

“I’m just kidding,” he proudly announced.

You wanted to shove him so badly again but you felt bad if you did. You playfully furrowed your eyes at him. His arms enveloped you, causing a slight yelp from you. He laid you both on your sides. You couldn’t help but scoot closer to him.

“How are you feeling?” Ethan asked, face so close to yours you felt like you were going to stop breathing.

“I feel like I should be asking you that…”

“It’s okay… we both just went through something traumatic. I'll be here for you like you have with me,” he whispered.

“I’m… okay. It’s just tough to even try to move on from it. You- you were,” you felt like you were about to cry again. “You were on the floor dragging yourself and Rylan… I saw his body bag.”

“It’s okay… it’s okay, princess.”

You smiled at the nickname but it was gone as quickly as it came. You both held each other and for once it felt like you were at the safest place in the world.

It has been like this for a few days. His healing process has been great but you couldn’t leave him. You’re afraid of Ghostface coming and finishing Ethan off. So you stayed there with Ethan, keeping him company. Sam, Tara, and Quinn came by now and then along with Chad and Mindy. You recalled how Mindy came in suddenly while you and Ethan played the same card game, she was going on about how it couldn’t be Ethan since he was the one stabbed. You remember giving Ethan a look and he returned it with a laugh.

After Mindy left you were in each other's arms, drifting off to sleep. It was dark and it was the last day of his stay. You stared at Ethan. His eyes were closed and his breathing was still. You smiled at him as you smoothed over his hair. You were on his chest limbs entangled with one another.

It was nice being this close to someone, though it scared you. You didn’t know what you would do tomorrow. You wanted to be like this forever. Safe and sound with him next to you. You furrowed your eyebrows and laid your head on his chest hearing his heartbeat. You didn’t know how you felt towards Ethan. He was nice to talk to. Nice to hold. It was nice being so close to him. So you let yourself take in the moment, forget that anything bad ever happened to you both.

. . .

You stared at the wall along with listening to your neighbors above. You didn’t find any interest in the wall but you did find that you could forget about everything and just focus on the wall. You were like that for a day or two after Ethan left the hospital. You didn’t want to be overbearing so you haven’t texted him since.

You stared at the wall until you got a text. You didn’t look at it at first, you waited until you were ready to see it. You looked down and saw his name. Ethan’s name. He wanted to come over.

You smiled at the text and sent a quick reply back.

As quickly as it was sent, you started to hear a knock at your door. It must have been barely two seconds. When you opened it was Ethan with that same toothy grin he wore on his sleeve. He lived in the same dorm as you and on the same floor. A great surprise at the beginning of the year that Chad was near you so could come over whenever to bother him.

Now you have two people to bother.

“Hey,” Ethan said as you widened the space for Ethan to come in.

“Hi,” you replied as you shut the door. You looked at him with your arms behind your back. For some reason, you felt too awkward to even move even though Ethan had been to your room so many times prior.

“Do-.”

“How-.”

You both laughed at the fact you were both starting to speak at the same time. The ice broke just from his laugh alone and you couldn’t stop the smile that started etching its way onto your face.

“You can ask first,” you said walking a bit closer to him.

“No no you go first I’m in your room,” he chuckled.

You smiled before speaking up, “Well… do you want anything to drink or food maybe?”

Ethan thought about it for a second and then spoke up, “Actually can I have water?”

You immediately smiled and nodded, “Of course!”

You got a bottle but when you turned around he wasn’t there. You tilted your head, then you heard a sound. It was a low sound one that you could barely hear. You tried to listen again as you walked closer to your door. It sounded like low clicks on the door. It was as if something was knocking against it. You slowly turned the knob and when you did Ethan’s voice was right in your ear. You jumped as he touched your shoulder, you turned your head and you were right back where you started. You looked around a bit confused.

Ethan softly said your name, his eyebrows were furrowed in concern and his lips made a frown, “Are you okay? I was calling you for like 4 minutes…”

“You were?” You said. You were unable to even look at him.

“Hey, I can go if you need me to…”

You only shook your head, you didn’t want to be alone right now. Not like this, not when you were having trouble staying in the present.

“Please stay… I just… did you go somewhere?”

“I went to the bathroom and then I saw you standing there just holding the water bottle.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry Ethan. If I creep you out you can go,” You tried to muster up a fake laugh but it didn’t work with your tears surfacing.

“No, it’s okay. I’m here for you, princess.”

You tried to smile as he brought you into a hug. You couldn’t stop crying as he held you. When you finally calmed down you were in your bed. Ethan decided it was a good idea to start playing a movie. You and Ethan remained close on the bed. You could feel your eyes closing and your breathing slowing.

It wasn’t before long that you were sleeping.

The sleep was dreamless for once you didn’t wake up from a nightmare. Ethan was holding you, his arm was draped over your waist holding him close to you. It was intimate. You could feel your heartbeat pounding against your chest. You felt wrong for having Ethan so close to you.

Maybe it was because he was almost murdered or maybe it was because of the thought of betraying Wes… you haven’t thought about him once this whole week. To be honest you were thankful.

Ethan had become much more than a friend to you.

He was your lifeline.

. . .

You were in your room getting ready. Mindy and Anika were planning something for tonight. Chad and Tara were going to be there. So it was basically just you and the couples. You were a little bit upset because you wanted Ethan to come but he told you he needed to do something important.

You sighed as you threw on a cute outfit, something warm enough for the weather. You did the finishing touches to your makeup and left without another thought. You turned to see that Chad and Tara came down the hall.

“No Tia?” Chad asked since it was just you. Odd number and all.

“Yeah, she couldn’t come because of homework.”

“Dude, same as Ethan this semester is kicking our ass.”

You walked down the hall with them to the elevator. Talking about the homework you all had for your core classes.

Anika and Mindy were outside smiling and waving. You all greeted each other and waited at the bus stop.

“Is Sam with that guy?” You whispered.

The bus pulled up not a second later and you were glad that you all left when you did. The app said a bus wasn’t coming for another 20 minutes. You loaded on and Tara sat right beside you.

“Oh um, Danny. Yeah, they have been getting kinda serious.”

“Serious..?” You looked at Tara and she could only smile. Sam deserved to have someone she’s done so much for you all. You were glad Sam found that special someone.

“Dude, with my Chem class. There's no way I’m gonna pass,” you heard Chad say to Mindy.

“Like I said before, you need to learn how to study. Get Tara to study with you,” Mindy laughed.

“I’ve literally asked if you wanted to study with me,” Tara chuckled.

“Yeah but I don’t think we would do much studying,” Chad said.

You all looked at each other before laughing.

“You’re gross Chad,” Mindy looked over at Tara who was trying to hide herself in your hair.

. . .

“See ya guys,” you said as you waved at Chad and Tara before opening your door.

Tia was on the other side standing still you jumped a bit from her just looking at you.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She appeared stressed like something was about to jump out of the door.

“No, it’s okay,” you immediately said, “are you okay?”

“Um no yeah I'm fine,” she forced a smile before going back to her room. You stood there trying to reason why she was standing there watching the door.

You felt your phone buzz and looked down. Ethan was texting you about an apology for not coming but to make it up to you a movie was showing at the student center a film he knew you’d both liked. You agreed immediately and smiled down at your phone.

. . .

You stared at your outfit. You were just seeing Ethan. You didn’t know why it was so serious for you but it was. You decided to get your underwear first while still in your towel. You shuffled through your drawer not finding any of your underwear or ones you really liked. You guessed that laundry day was coming up. You decided just to wear your gray ones with cute cats. It was like that for your bras too. Some of them were gone and you didn’t really wash them as often as you should’ve. You grabbed a black one and went back to the outfits.

You picked one out and threw it on. You were about to text Ethan before you heard a knock. You fixed your hair before walking towards your door. Ethan stood there with a smile.

“I was just about to text you,” you said as you let him in. “I don’t know how you always know when I’m ready.”

He chuckled as he went into your room, “I guess I have a sixth sense.”

You both laughed as you shook your head and went to your sock drawer.

“You should wear those.” Ethan pointed at a pair with a cute print.

You smiled and put them on. You threw on your shoes and walked into the common room with him. Tia was standing in there too getting water. She didn’t greet Ethan as she greeted you. You furrowed your eyebrows a bit as Ethan greeted her and she simply ignored him. It grew awkward with all of you just standing there in silence. Ethan smiled before his phone started to ring, he excused himself and stepped into your room leaving you and Tia alone.

“Where are you guys going?” She asked, voice quiet, and her tone sounded like one of worry which confused you.

“Oh um… we are going to see a movie at the student center,” you said quietly too. You weren’t sure why because Ethan was the only one there but you felt as though Tia had her reasons.

“Okay…” she said and as Ethan opened your bedroom door she hugged you tightly and whispered making sure that you were the only one to hear her. “We need to talk as soon as you get back.”

You nodded as she sent you a worried look. You said your goodbyes and Ethan tried to too but Tia already shutted her door before it reached her ears.

Ethan frowned a bit and stared at you. You shrugged, you didn’t know why Tia was so cold now. It didn’t make sense before she would tease you about Ethan liking you and now… she wouldn’t even spare him a glance. You both made your way downstairs choosing to ignore it.

. . .

You smiled when you walked into your room. It was fun tonight being with Ethan and seeing him walk around and being his fun nerdy self. You were glad he was still the same. You were glad Ghostface didn’t scare him off. You knew it was selfish to want him to stay. Why would anyone stay after being stabbed? But Ethan did. He stuck by you and still wasn’t deterred from being your friend.

When you turned around to go back into the common room you found your roommate there. She was quiet as she stared at you.

“So… um what did you need to talk about with me?” You asked. You were kinda hesitant to even ask mostly because you were scared that you might’ve upset her.

“Y/n…” she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. You were worried because how she didn’t look in your eyes once after coming into the common room. “I think… I think Ethan broke into our dorm a few nights ago.”

“What-”

“I know- I know it’s crazy… but I saw someone in your room when you weren’t there and they looked kinda like Ethan.”

You shook your head and turned away from Tia.

“There’s no way… that’s- why would he even do that?”

“I don’t know but I swear-”

“Ethan wouldn’t… I believe you but I don’t think it was Ethan.”

“Maybe... maybe it wasn’t but someone has been in your room going through your stuff. I just think you should be careful with how close you are with him,” she quietly said.

“Y- yes of course,” you said as you stared at the ground. You didn’t know what to do. The only thing you could think of was telling Sam but you didn’t want to worry her. The thought that Ethan might be the culprit wasn’t a thought in your brain at all. Why would Ethan break into your room? It made no sense Ethan was one of your best friends now. He was a good guy, he wouldn't even hurt a fly so there wasn’t a possibility that Ethan was the culprit.

You knew it had to be Ghostface because who else would it be?

Who else would break into your room just to get to you?

Previous Chapter?

Next Chapter?

#dark!ethan landry #dark!ethan landry x reader #ethan landry x you #ethan landry #ethan landry x reader

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ladamedusoif · 10 months

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Visiting - Chapter 5: This Must Be The Place

(Moodboard by the wonderful @cutesyscreenname)

Pairing: Professor!Ben (College AU) x OFC Lydia/fem!Reader (reader POV/2nd POV)

Summary: Seeking a change of scenery after her life falls apart, Lydia crosses the Atlantic and arrives in a small New England town, to spend a year expanding her intellectual horizons as a visiting professor of art history at a small liberal arts college. Her growing friendship with Ben Morales, professor of Hispanic literature, forces Lydia to confront the fallout from her past - and raises unexpected questions about the future.

Chapter summary: Lydia turns 42, parties with her colleagues - and now she knows for sure.

Word Count: 4.9k

Rating: Mature, will be Explicit in future chapters

Content (chapter specific): Professor Ben College AU; smaller-than-usual-for-this-fandom age gap (Lydia turns 42, and Ben is 47); canon is not a thing here; slow burn; strong language; alcohol consumption; weight and body insecurity; self-confidence issues; a little bit of angst; a lot of yearn.

A/N: Title of the chapter is taken from 'This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)' by Talking Heads, which features in the chapter. Further A/Ns after the chapter to avoid spoilers.

See the Series Masterlist for an outline of Lydia's story and background.

Thanks, as ever, to @lunapascal and @julesonrecord for screaming along about these Beloved Dorky Idiots and approving important fashion and music choices.

Taglist: @lunapascal, @julesonrecord, @cutesyscreenname, @tessa-quayle, @vermillionwinter, @iamskyereads, @tieronecrush, @perennialdoll247, @love-the-abyss, @imaswellkid, @intheorangebedroom, @javierisms, @fuckyeahdindjarin, @littlemisspascal, @khindahra, @pedrostories, @readingiskeepingmegoing

You knew for sure on your 42nd birthday.

It wasn’t anything dramatic that confirmed it. No great thunderclap or parting of the clouds to bathe him in a divine light. No diving in front of an errant student frisbee to protect you as you gazed up at him in adoration.

Then again, you were old enough to know that such dramatic realisations only existed in the movies, on TV, in books. The truth was that, though you felt (and sometimes acted on) immediate physical attraction, it was more usually a case of a small, glowing ember finding kindling in order to become a steady flame.

He was in your office for one of your routine afternoon coffees, and feeling a bit stressed and disheartened over a particularly poor batch of student assignments. He reached over for another butter cookie.

“It might be that mid-semester slump, but no matter how long I do this job I always feel like this is my fault.” He sighs. “Like I didn’t do enough with the preparation, or with tutorials, or that I made the assessment too difficult. You know what I mean?”

His soft, dark eyes look at you, seeking acknowledgment that he wasn’t alone - and a kind of reassurance.

“You have to know it’s not your fault, Ben. I know how many tutorials you did with them - and, if you’ll recall, how you were worried about the lack of uptake for the one-to-one sessions. That’s not on you.”

“I just wish I could shake the feeling that I could have done more.” He shakes his head and takes another bite of his cookie.

“I do know how you feel, you know? I do this too - it’s automatically my fault, no one else’s, I need to fix this, etc.” You smile at him. “In your case I think it’s because you’re a very good and conscientious tutor. And a good person.”

You feel your face heat a little, noticing that the tips of Ben’s ears have turned pink. He breaks away from your gaze for a moment.

“Thank you, Lyd. So are you.”

There’s a little crackle in the air. You speak before it becomes too strong.

“Anyway, this’ll cheer you up. Today, a student came into my office and just looked at me and said, ‘Alan??’”

His eyes widen and he starts to giggle. “Alan?!”

“ALAN.” You recount the rest of the story, recreating your confused facial expressions and the student’s mounting annoyance that you are not, in fact, Alan.

“So then I said: what’s Alan’s surname, I could look like them up? And the student says: I dunno?”

At this, Ben laughs so hard that he sends his glasses flying off his face, landing somewhere at the bottom of your desk. He doesn’t seem to notice at first, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

“Fuck, Lyddie, I definitely didn’t laugh this much at work before.”

You do a little bow from your desk chair and sip your coffee triumphantly. “Said it would cheer you up. Uh - since when did the staff lounge coffee taste this good?”

He sits back down, having recovered his glasses from the floor. His expression is a little hesitant.

“Well, the thing is - it’s not staff lounge coffee. I - god, I’m a cliche - I bought an Aeropress. And this is the first batch I’ve made in work, and I thought…” He looks at you and half-smiles, a little twinkle in his eyes. “I thought you shouldn’t have shitty staff lounge coffee on your birthday.”

Oh, wow. This soft, kind man.

“That’s such a nice thing to do. And - how did you know it was my birthday?”

Ben’s eyes widen and his expression shifts to one of panic. “Ohhhh, shit.”

“You better not tell me you track our birthdays.”

He huffs a laugh. “Do you think I’m organised enough for that?? No, it’s - shit. I shouldn’t have said anything. Don’t tell Evan.”

“Tell Evan what, exactly?”

“He’s planning to bring you out for birthday drinks at the weekend. Nothing fancy!” He holds up a hand, as if to reassure you. “Just some drinks at Murphy’s, maybe some dancing? You know their jukebox is pretty good.”

You widen your eyes and nod in agreement. “They’ve got the tunes, alright.”

He grins. “Well, that’s the plan. But I think Evan wants to surprise you with the invite. So… maybe work on that, reaction-wise?”

You do your best “surprised and touched” face. Ben chuckles.

“Perfect.”

He’s got a class to get to, so he says his goodbyes and heads off down the hallway, greeting a group of students with a little wave.

The glass panel in your office door frames his broad body as he walks away, an empty coffee mug in each hand. You watch the way his navy pullover fits just so over his shoulders, the way his rolled-up sleeves make visible the muscles of his forearms, flexing as he carries the mugs. You smile involuntarily when he reaches his office door and turns to open it: if you were being honest with yourself, you’d been quietly admiring that handsome profile for a while now, ever since you really noticed it for the first time that day at the beach.

It would be easy to insist to yourself that Ben Morales was simply a good friend who happened to be nice to look at, and nothing more.

The problem, though, was the way you were suffused with warmth and affection when you looked at him - and the yearning ache in your chest that occurred simultaneously.

So now, you knew. 42 years old, far from home, and trying to deal with having the kind of feelings for someone you swore you’d never have again.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Now let us in, we’re jonesing for some champagne.”

Evan is first through your apartment door, brandishing a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and wearing a leather jacket over a wildly patterned shirt. David and Ani follow close behind, both embracing you in turn.

“Cass was hoping to get up this weekend but she’s stuck in work,” Ani explains, looking around your apartment. “Where’s Ben?”

You feel the familiar twinge in your chest. “Virtual conference,” you explain as you head into the kitchen to retrieve some glasses. “Said he’ll meet us at Murphy’s once he’s done.”

Evan opens the champagne with a dramatic flourish, taking off his leather jacket as he pours the fizz into the crappy wine glasses that came with the apartment. He eyes them up with disdain. “Feels wrong to put Veuve Clicquot in these.”

You raise an eyebrow accusingly. “I have vintage champagne coupes at home. In any case - I won’t take advice from a man wearing that shirt.”

“This is an exact replica of the shirt Leo wore in Romeo + Juliet and you will respect that,” Evan whips back as he hands you a glass of champagne. “Happy birthday love youuuuuu!”

David and Ani join in the toast. “To Lyd, queen of obscure film facts, tote bags, and the messiest office I’ve ever seen,” Ani pronounces. “Happy forty-fucking-second birthday.”

You roll your eyes and grimace. “And I’m looking every single one of those years. Cheers.”

David shakes his head while Ani tells you off. “You shut the fuck up, you beautiful baby-faced creature.”

You take a sip, and close your eyes as the bubbles of the champagne burst deliciously on your tongue.

Murphy’s is a pretty standard small-town dive bar with a distinctly above-average jukebox and playlist. It’s the preferred drinking hole for staff, mostly because the majority of the student body have deemed its usual crowd “too old”. Evan has extended a pretty open invitation, by the looks of things - most of the clientele that Saturday night are colleagues from the faculty. Some wave cheerfully in your direction, mouthing “Happy birthday!”; others come over to say hi and offer to buy you a birthday drink. It’s a nice reminder of the warmth of the welcome you’ve had here.

You are having a nice time: sipping your vodka tonic, bopping gently to the eclectic mix of everything from classic 50s rock and roll to indie and grunge hits from the 1990s that’s playing on the bar’s sound system, chatting to colleagues. It’s nice. But you keep watching the door, waiting for him, wondering at times if he’ll show at all.

He doesn’t owe you anything. Conferences are tiring. Maybe he needed an early night.

Maybe you miss him when he’s not around.

You’re talking animatedly to Jen’s wife, Rachel (who is as stunning as Ani had insisted), when you feel a gentle tap on your shoulder.

“I’m so sorry I’m late! Panels ran over and then I couldn’t get a cab and then I took my bike and - anyway. Here now. Happy birthday, Lyddie.”

Ben pulls you in for a warm embrace. You fight to suppress the urge to really lean in: to hold your cheek a little longer against the softness of the check flannel he’s wearing, to linger in the comforting warmth emanating from his solid frame.

But you pull away. “No worries! I’m just really glad you’re here.”

Bit much?

He tilts his head slightly to the side and smiles at you. “Wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Not when I’ve got the chance to see your moves out there.” He nods in the direction of the ‘dancefloor’, a small, cleared space located near the back of the bar, before turning back and winking at you.

Fuck.

“Dude, it’s been a long time. I suspect I don’t have any moves any more.”

He looks sceptical. “Hmm. Let’s see about that. But first - let me buy you a birthday drink.”

You stare in the bathroom mirror at your reflection as you tidy your hair a little and reapply your favourite lipstick, the vivid red of MAC’s Lady Danger popping against your skin.

Forty-fucking-two. It’s probably the vodka and tonics, or maybe just the buzz of the bar and your colleagues and friends having a good time, but - for once in your life - you find yourself thinking you might look…not bad? You’re wearing a soft blue denim blouse and black jeans, teamed with a pair of bright red cowboy-style ankle boots that exactly match your lipstick. Red drop earrings and a bright necklace complete the look.

As long as you didn’t concentrate on the greying strands of hair, or the perpetually tired look on your face, of course. And you couldn’t see all of your body in the small mirror - a bonus.

But that was for Tomorrow Lydia to deal with. For now, you were enjoying yourself.

As you blot your lipstick, you hear the opening chords of an upbeat, familiar slice of power pop:

I want you to want me

I need you to need me

“Fucking Cheap Trick! YES!”

You fling open the door to the bathroom, already bopping slightly in time to the music. Nothing could have prepared you for the sight that greets you on the tiny ‘dancefloor’.

It’s Ben.

Ben, dancing, with Susan, the usually no-nonsense faculty administrator.

And not just the half-hearted shuffling or pogoing you’ve usually witnessed from men of your generation, either. He’s pretty good: moving with Susan in a sort of loose jive, perfectly in time, occasionally twirling her under as she giggles like a teenager rather than a woman in her late fifties. And he’s clearly having a whale of a time, too, his unmistakable grin wide and enthusiastic as he mouths along to the song.

It’s all you can do not to let your mouth drop open in astonishment as you hustle over to the bar to join Evan, David, and Ani.

“Um…what the fuck is happening??” You ask, tilting your head towards the dancefloor.

Evan chuckles. “Oh, that. Yeah, Ben has some moves, believe it or not.”

Ani nods in agreement. “Susan’s husband is a sweet man but he fuckin’ hates dancing. So he fully endorses the idea of our Benjamin Button over there getting Susan’s dance fever out of her system, so he never has to bother.”

Evan leans his head to one side, thinking for a moment. “Normally we only see this kind of dancing at the holiday social at the end of the semester, and even then after a wine or two - and he’s not drinking at all tonight. So something’s put him in a really good mood.”

“He’s not drinking?” you ask, curious in spite of yourself.

“He said something about ‘being in charge of a vehicle’,” David explains. “His bike, I think.”

Ani sips their drink. “You’re right, though, Ev. He’s always been a happy sort of guy but of late? He’s sunshine personified. He’s even less stressed when the copier eats his handouts.” They suck at the inside of their cheek. “I don’t know what’s changed.”

You become conscious of a petite blonde woman standing on the fringes of the group but who’s clearly been listening attentively to the conversation. It’s not that you don’t like Amy, Susan’s second-in-command in the faculty administration office. She’s just…a lot. And her penchant for gossip, however wildly inaccurate, was notorious.

She turns to face the rest of you, a look in her eyes that screams “gossip incoming”.

“Ooooh, guys… what if he’s finally met someone?? Makes sense, right??”

David’s eyebrows shoot up over the frames of his glasses and he takes a large sip of his whiskey soda.

Ani scoffs. “Bit of a fucking leap, Amy, no? All the time we’ve been here and never known there to be the slightest suggestion of him seeing anyone seriously - he’s like the ‘married to the job’ cliche. And now you think that’s why he’s so happy lately? Some mystery new person?”

Amy looks put out. “Think about that statement, Ani. It’s been ages, there’s no other obvious explanation, therefore I call Benny’s getting coupled up!!!!!” She sucks at her rum and coke gleefully, eyes wide and excited. “Oh my GOD I wonder who it is? Do you think it’s someone on campus? I mean, where else do you guys meet anyone, hahaha! And he’s so hard-working and committed. Maybe I can ask Susan and find out if she’s seen him hanging out with anyone in particular. Or maybe if he’s been out of town more, y’know? Oooh, exciting! I love a good romance!”

She swans off in the direction of her table as the song winds to a close.

Fuck. Too late, as usual, Lyd. As if you ever stood a chance to begin with.

You notice David trying to catch your eye, but you turn to the bar and signal to the bartender. “Hey, who wants tequila shots?”

You down a shot with Evan and Ani, eyes scrunching up as you suck the lime wedge and try to halt your crazy train of thought. It’s a familiar melody of guitar, bass, and keyboard that eventually distracts you, though, as the opening bars of “This Must Be The Place” by Talking Heads float from the bar’s sound system.

You gleefully tap Evan on the arm and start to shimmy in place, still facing the bar. “Fuuuuuck, man! I love this song! C’mon, let’s go dance.”

Evan’s gaze is trained on the dancefloor. “Much as I’d like to, babygirl, I think your dance card has already been filled for this one.” He nods and points behind you.

All you can do is laugh. Ben, having clearly noticed your excited reaction to the song, is moving towards you, hips swaying in time to the music, and making a cheesy “reeling you in” gesture with the dorkiest of smiles on his face.

“Time to see those moves, birthday girl!”

Evan gives you a shove, sending you almost colliding with Ben’s broad chest. You force the awkward thoughts and feelings down deep inside you.

“Well, seeing as I’ve just learned that you have moves, sir, I guess I should see them up close.”

He grins and pulls you to the floor proper.

Even with the help of the cheap tequila, you are a little stiff for the first few moments, exposed and unsure of yourself as you try to keep moving in time to the rhythm without giving away everything that was racing through your mind.

Ben’s dark eyes are warm and bright as he mouths along to the lyrics and takes your hand, gently encouraging you to let go and relax a little more:

Feet on the ground, head in the sky

It’s okay, I know nothing’s wrong

You feel your body locking into the rhythm with his. A genuine smile creeps over your face as the song enters the first chorus and you both join in with David Byrne’s vocal. He takes both your hands during the next instrumental, pulling you in a little more.

You lean in close to his ear, keeping up the rhythm but not letting go of his big, warm hands. “I love this song so much, but I’ve never actually got to dance to it before - this is so cool!”

He smiles softly and leans close in turn. “Well, now I’m really glad I got to make that happen.” He lets go of one hand and puts his arm around your waist, bringing you into a more traditional dance hold. “Happy birthday, Lyddie.”

Deep down, there’s a tiny voice inside you that wonders whether he’d do this - dance with you, like this - if he was actually dating anyone else. But then you remember how open he can be with friends, and you tell yourself it’s just one friend dancing with another.

He twirls you in and out as the song enters the final chorus. For a moment, you let yourself slip into an unspoken, unrequited romantic fantasy as you sing along together, smiling and eyes shining:

And you love me til my heart stops

Love me til I’m dead

In that moment, where you allow yourself to imagine this as real, as something that could be, you feel happier than you have in years.

Closing time rolls around. Ani and Evan are tapping on their phones to arrange cabs, and you’re pulling your coat on and chatting to David when Ben approaches, bike helmet in one hand and a little kraft paper gift bag in the other.

“Lyddie, can I -”

“BENJAMIN!” He’s interrupted by the arrival of Amy, three sheets to the wind, and clearly hellbent on proving her theory right. “I need to talk to YOU about your secret.”

Ben’s eyes widen as he stutters in response. You make an executive decision. Dumb and all as this might be, you are not going to hang around to hear him say the words, to confirm that he’s taken.

“Oh man, really need to go to the bathroom before I go okay yeah see you in a few?”

You lock yourself in a cubicle and try really hard not to cry.

“Amy, I was in the middle of talking to Lydia and -”

Amy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Pfffft. This is more important. Now: who are they?”

David closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and exhales. Ben looks completely confused.

“Who’s who, Amy?” His eyes continue to search the back of the bar, trying to spot you when you’ll eventually emerge from the bathroom.

“Don’t play coy with me, Professor Morales. You’re like a new man lately. So - who’s responsible? Who’s the lucky person?”

The penny finally drops. “Amy, do you… are you asking me… do you think I’m seeing someone?”

Amy jabs a finger at his chest triumphantly. “Aha!”

“I’m not… seeing anyone. Okay?” He tries to break away from Amy and nabs Ani as they’re walking past. “Where the fuck is Lyd, Ani?”

“Jeez, calm down, dude. What the fuck? Give her a Benjaminute. She’s in the bathroom.”

Amy reappears at Ben’s side. “I don’t believe you.”

He’s a patient man, usually. But this shit, coupled with the way you disappeared all of a sudden? He’s done.

“Amy - so help me god, I’m not with anyone or fucking seeing anyone. Okay? I’ll send a newsletter update if it ever happens. Now, please - where the hell did she go?”

He finally gets you alone - kind of - outside the bar, while you’re waiting for cabs to show up.

Your imagination ran riot while you were on your own in the bathroom stall. But you’d concluded that this was for the best, one way or another. Better that he wasn’t available. Better that he wasn’t interested. Better that you just resisted what you felt. Better that you were just here for the year.

Everything you ever touched, relationship-wise, turned to shit. You couldn’t do that to Ben - even if a man like him would ever want a woman like you.

“Lyd?” He’s quiet, eyes searching yours for an explanation as to why you fled when he approached earlier.

You smile up at him, hoping the redness around your eyes doesn’t show too much. “Hey. Sorry about earlier, I just - didn’t want to get stuck on the way home.” You pull a goofy face to try to lighten the mood, and he smiles gently, but can’t help but shake the feeling you’re being a little stand-offish with him.

“Just wanted to give you this.” He hands you the little gift bag. “Don’t get excited, it’s a really small gift! But I saw it and thought of you.”

In a rom-com, he’d meet your gaze, trail a thumb across your cheek, and lean in for a soft, chaste kiss. Or you’d catch his hand, look up at him through your lashes, and press your lips to his.

On a cold November night in New England, though, it’s just you smiling and thanking him profusely while trying not to cry. Or to kiss him in front of everyone.

“You okay, Lyddie?”

You nod. “I probably shouldn’t have done the tequila shots earlier. Just a bit woozy and tired now, I guess.” You look down at the pavement, and back up to his handsome face. “Thank you so much. This means a lot.”

He leans forward and for a split second you dare to hope. To no avail. A tiny, soft kiss to the cheek.

“Happy birthday.”

Ben cycles off, bike lights bright in the darkness, and you hop in a cab with Evan and David. Evan sits up front, while David sits in the back with you. He sees the way that you hold the little gift bag in your lap, and notices the pervasive sadness in your body language and expression.

“Hey, Evan?” he prompts his boyfriend. “Who was that crazy blonde lady that kept harassing Ben about his personal life?”

You can almost hear Evan rolling his eyes. “Fucking Amy. She’s fine, most of the time, but once she’s convinced of something - hoo, boy. Dog with a bone.”

David turns to you, a somewhat knowing look on his face. “When you were in the bathroom she accosted Ben about her conviction that he’s got some sort of secret partner and that’s why he's been so cheery lately.”

You fight to keep your expression neutral. Does he suspect something?

“Oh, okay. I heard her theorising it earlier on.”

Evan continues ranting. “He TOLD her, he wasn’t with anyone? Like, if he was seeing anyone or interested in anyone I would know. I would be able to tell.”

David reaffirms the key detail. “So he did say he wasn’t seeing anyone?”

Evan scoffs. “Babe, you were there. He said he wasn’t and then he got pissed off because he couldn’t find Lyd.”

David turns to you with a little smile on his face, and shrugs gently, as if to say: “See?”

You wipe off your makeup in the harsh light of your tiny bathroom, the fluorescent glare seeming designed to highlight every grey hair, every wrinkle, every trace of ageing. The confident woman in her bright red lipstick has been replaced by someone else entirely.

You put on a fresh pair of pyjamas, and climb into bed. In many ways, it had been a really great night. It’s just that you had to go catching feelings for him, and now everything was being filtered through that lens.

David had been trying to make it clear to you that Amy’s fantasy was bullshit, that much was obvious. But if Ben wasn’t seeing anyone, and if he was so keen to dance with you and laugh at your jokes and give you gifts, then why didn’t he try even the slightest thing with you? There was only one conclusion: he wasn’t interested.

It’s better this way.

The little brown gift bag catches your eye, sitting patiently on the nightstand for you to finally open it. You take a deep breath and reach over for it.

The bag contains two packages and a card, addressed to “Lyddie” in Ben’s distinctive handwriting. Card first.

“Fuck me, you’re such a dork.”

The card features a Venn diagram of three intersecting circles, one marked ‘Life’, the other ‘Universe’, and the third ‘Everything’. Little drawings of a potted plant, a whale, and the planets surround the number ‘42’ at the centre of the diagram.

You giggle in spite of yourself. You could have bet that Ben Morales would give you a Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy-themed card for being 42.

To Lyddie

Wishing you a very happy birthday - now, you are the answer to the Ultimate Question.

PS Explanatory post-its on gifts

“Explanatory post-its? Such a dork,” you whisper to yourself as you reach for the little packages.

The first parcel’s note reads:

I saw that you had a few of these in your office. Thought you might like a memento from here. Can also provide useful symbolic film prop. Rosebud!

You open the wrapping paper carefully to reveal a small cardboard box. Inside, there’s a miniature snow globe in lurid colours, a kitschy souvenir of the fading resort town near the Barrow College beach house on the coast.

You turn it upside down, gently, and watch the light catching the glitter as it settles slowly over the old boardwalk and ferris wheel inside.

The second package is, unmistakably, a DVD. This time, the note reads:

If you get inspired and make a timpano sometime, I’ll be there.

It’s a copy of Big Night.

Ben Morales cycles up to his garage door and wheels his bike inside, carefully removing the front and rear lights (two each - he knows one isn’t enough at this time of year) and placing them on a shelf along with his bike helmet and reflective armbands.

The garage is separate to his house, which he bought a year or two after he got the job in Barrow. His siblings were surprised at the time, expecting him to just buy a decently-sized apartment rather than an entire house, but once he’d seen it he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

He’s lived alone for a very long time, so he’s used to returning to an empty home. It feels emptier than usual tonight, though: the quiet weighs heavier, and the fact that he’s on his own seems more obvious. Must be after the bar, he guesses. All that noise and music and conversation. Of course the house would seem lonely after that.

He thinks about putting on a movie, but - unusually for him - he can’t think of anything he’d like to watch. He pours himself a small glass of whiskey, sipping from it as he scans his shelves of records until he finds the one he’s looking for. He slips the vinyl from the cover and places it on the turntable, propping up the record’s brightly-coloured slipcase against the wall.

He’s about to drop the needle on the final track on side 2 when his phone buzzes on the dining table. It’s a message from Ani, sent to a group chat you’d set up for your closest work friends, and they’ve attached some photos from tonight.

Ben starts the record going and gently drops the needle in the right place. As the familiar melody plays from his speakers, he settles himself and his glass of whiskey in a chair and opens up the pictures.

You, sipping champagne at home while making a face at Evan’s lurid shirt. David and Ani sticking their fingers up to the camera, evidently caught unawares by Evan. Evan reenacting various poses from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (Ben knew the shirt seemed familiar). Ani and you dancing, back to back, arms flung in the air and joy written all over your faces.

One of you, big eyes shining and red lipstick immaculate, wearing a hairband that proclaims “IT IS MY BIRTHDAY” and holding a cupcake with a single candle in it. He can tell you’re trying not to laugh. He wonders if it would be weird of him to save it.

Him, “reeling you in” for a dance. “Fuuuuuck,” he grimaces, sipping more whiskey as he cringes at himself. And then you and him, dancing, first at a slight distance, then hand in hand, then -

The music triggers the memory of his hand in yours, an arm around you, and the smile on your face.

I can’t tell one from the other

Did I find you, or you find me?

Maybe he should say something to you.

Another message. You, this time. A photo of what he presumes is your nightstand, with the snow globe, Big Night DVD, and card on display.

LYDIA: I LOVE them so much. I don’t know how you remembered the movie and the snow globe is perfect. I promise not to drop it unless for dramatic and cinematic purposes as determined by Orson Welles.

Another message.

LYDIA: Really, such thoughtful gifts. I’m so touched. L.

The song ends. Ben takes a last sip of his whiskey.

Maybe he should just tell you.

(bookshelf divider by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more; other dividers by @cafekitsune)

Further A/Ns: For those unfamiliar with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer to the "ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything."

This is the card Ben gets for Lydia.

#visiting fic #visiting masterlist #mr ben snl #professor ben x OFC #mr ben #professor!ben x ofc #pedro pascal character fanfic #professor!ben #mr ben x ofc #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #Spotify

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doubutsu-no-mori · 1 year

Note

how do you make custom acnh villagers? i want to try my hand at making one, but all the tutorials that pop up are for new leaf, not new horizons, and im a bit confused as to where to get started

Heres a tutorial playlist for how to make villagers

Assuming you already know how to use mods

Heres a video for items which is similar

youtube

#ask

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boobaloof · 1 year

Note

I know this is way early but what your predictions for horizon 3?

Hello anon!! Ooh what a nice question. It is early, indeed, but with Horizon forbidden west fresh on our minds its the perfect opportunity to talk about them possibilites ✨

Hold on because this is gonna be long!

(Spoilers ahead)

Lets start with tribes:

I don't quite expect Aloy having to personally visit ALL the tribes to rally them, since it would take a massive amount of time and it would be a little repetitive. So, I have this sort of idea of how it would be:

Quen:

If a horizon dlc doesn't touch upon it soon, I predict Aloy might travel to Quen lands sometime after defeating the Zeniths, in order to talk them over to help with nemesis (And just because I want more of Alva. I want to meet Federa so bad and I'd love to see if the food issues are still going on over there. ALSO her actress uploaded a pic on her insta of her wearing a mocap suit some time ago, so I'm 👀 LOOKING)

That might be the closest next thing, seeing as a DLC about the Quen could be the perfect opportunity to touch upon the new tribe. I'm super curious about them!

Nora, Carja, Utaru and Tenakth:

In general, I have this silly idea Aloy will want to travel back east first to rally the hzd tribes.

The Tenakth are almost already in, that tribe and Aloy are in great terms after she helped uniting the clans, so all there is to do was is let Kotallo some talking with Hekarro and we're IN, baby. The Utaru chorus is still a lil bitter but I'm sure Zo will manage, too. Both Zo and Kotallo are stationed on their respective tribe settlements after the ending of hfw, so rallying them could be a 'in between games' thing.

On the way to the Sacred Lands, Erend could drop by Meridian so he can brief Avad on nemesis and give focuses to the sun-king, Marad, Uthid, Vanasha and Talanah while Aloy continues further east with Beta and Zo to visit the Nora. (If Erend didn't like, send his resignation letter via Aldur and Joruf lmao. It would be akward as shit.)

Once they're with the Nora, Aloy could tell Sona about Varl's death, and have Zo meet her, too. Zo could tell Sona about her being pregnant with her son's child, etc. (I'd LOVE to see what Sona's reaction would be, since the Nora Matriarchs have to give their blessings before couples have the right to bear children. 😬)

Also as a side note I hope Zo's pregnancy isn't developed enough for her to get shelved for hz3. I want her to be able to follow everyone for the last fight!

I hope to see Teersa and Teb again, too. Teersa was honestly such a great help to Aloy back in hzd, I'd hate it if that was the last thing we saw of her, she was so nice! And, Aloy could make a quick stop to pick up more focuses over at Eleuthia-9 and check on gramma and introduce her to Beta, too. (If Beta does want to venture out of the fucking basement, of course.)

Not only that! But the hz3's tutorial could be Aloy teaching Beta how to use the focus to hunt, and if it were in the same place where Rost taught Aloy to hunt, it would be just DELICIOUS writing.

(Also... there's this thing where every character that stars with Aloy in the tutorial bit of the game uhhhh fucking dies? So lets not do that guerrilla.)

They could visit Rost's cabin and resting place one more time, then after telling the Nora about nemesis they could head back, pick up Erend from Meridian (and Talanah too if given the opportunity. There's one more empty bunk at base so 💅. We're lacking a Carja member at base to complete the set.)

I don't have any clue as to how they will add the Banuk in, but I hope they don't leave them behind.

After the Carja, Utaru, Tenakth and Nora are in, (and maybe the Quen, if that has already happened) there's only one more place to visit.

🕯️ THE CLAIM 🕯️

Listen. LISTEN. Why the candles, you ask? Its bc Im praying. MANIFESTIN.

The claim is the only tribe territory we haven't seen yet, and Im foaming at the mouth at the idea of getting to see them.

The Oseram npcs have been a delight all over the map in both hzd and hfw and just makes sense for Aloy to go to 🕯️ The Claim 🕯️ in hz3.

And I think they'll be next because after Singularity, if you talk to Erend over at Hidden Ember he will have some voice lines that hint at the Claim, like:

"You know. One time I'd like the two of us to go on an adventure where angry Oseram aren't trying to kill us." OKAY SIR.

And:

"There is a lot of work ahead of us. But we'll make sure my people stand with you when Nemesis shows up."

Aloy could not only go to rally them, but like a friend pointed out on the Ereloy server I'm in, there are a LOT of new possible ruins and other old ones stuff we could see, too.

Elysium, Vast Silver, more cauldrons where Hephaestus could be hiding. The possibilities are endless.

Its no secret that I love the Oseram, so the possibility of seeing more of them? Delightful. Straight up buffet for me.

And all the mischief and disaster that Aloy could make when she meets the old, stubborn, and patriarchal ealdormen of the tribe?

SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

Finally, with all the tribes rallied, I imagine having a huuuuge map for the third game, a mix of the hzd one and the hfw one (plus the new places we'll visit for hz3.) Having the possibility of traveling via sunwing from the start, of course.

Next, Characters:

No more deaths. Thats illegal now. The first two games had enough of that, and grief showing up again in hz3? Nah, I'm good. (Plus I love them all pls I want them to be happy.)

There are many different ways for Aloy's arc/ writing could go in hz3, like how she hasn't had a decent cry like, ever. I want her to have a huge breakdown, to finally process everything she's gone through, to think about what she wants to do when its all over, etc. She has friends by her side now, what if she's scared from losing them, and everything she's worked so hard to achieve? Man, the possibilities. I think we all can agree that by the end, she deserves nice things. I hope she gets to choose what she wants next, instead of having to run from one side to the other all the time.

Then, for Beta I'd love her to get her own arc, learn how to live in this new world she's in. To have fun and learn and go out and see sunsets and waterfalls and deserts and everything this world has to offer. If she stays hidden in the Base for all the game amma be mad. Beta meeting Aloy's other friends from outside the base would be incredible! Seeing everyone's diferent reactions would be nice. When the game ends, I'm sure she and Aloy will stick together. She has a family now!

Then regarding the rest of Aloy's companions, i think the stage is set for Erend, too. With the possibility of going to 🕯️ The Claim 🕯️ and seeing as it seems he's Aloy's second in comand now there could be nice things for his arc, because I can tell guerilla isn't quite done with him yet! (Also blorbo brainrot, haha.)

In my opinion his writing in HFW was kinda lame but I'm just jotting that down as covid related issues the studio had, bc John Hopkins (Erend's va/face model/mocap actor) didn't even get to do any of the scenes himself with Ashly Burch, so that could explain why his character was kind of shelved/all over the place. (Erend's base dialogue my beloathed.)

Also... did he resign from being Captain of the Vanguard? He sounded bored of it when you meet him at the Daunt, so thats a thing. He literally just left Avad a message that he'd be gone for a while to help Aloy but like, he's supposed to be the king's personal guard..? Boy has his priorities straight it seems. I'd love to see a little bit of Aloy questioning him about that in hz3. Same with his relationship with the claim and his family bc the hzd guide mentioned him having an abusive father so I'm looking out for his backstory.

Also where the fuck is his helmet guerrilla??Give it back!!

Then Sylens. SYLENS. I love him. He has so much potential. I like that he stayed at the end, he's one of my faves and I would love it if he had a major role for hfw. He'd be super helpful when Nemesis arrives, and seeing as he's has a certain change of heart, I wonder how that will play out, too.

Like I said earlier, I hope Zo doesn't get left behind at base because of her pregnancy. She was such a great character in hfw and I just want to see a bit more of her in battle! I have no idea of how long hz3's timeline will be, but if she has her kid at the end and names her Vala I'll cry. Also I'd love to see some Auntloy!!

Kotallo and Alva... I gotta admit Im kinda worried for.

Alva could have some major role if the Quen are involved, but that depends if its a DLC or in-game for hz3. If they get a DLC, then great! But what would she do in hz3? Same with Kotallo.

I have no idea what their roles would be for the next game, I can only think of Kotallo rallying the Tenakth, at most? But other than that, not much. Maybe he could be a Tenakth ambassador to the Carja, but I don't know if the tribe's alliance will have a major role or impact on the story just yet.

Overall, I hope they don't shelf neither of them. Both are great characters, and I gotta admit that Kotallo and Alva's dynamic is just so good.

But anyways, thats all I can think of for now!

I just hope guerilla focuses a bit more on their story writing and their characters, hfw's gameplay was incredible, It'd be amazing if the story got the same treatment. (As in better, not bigger.) Now that covid is more manageable, I'm sure things will only get better and better.

My hopes are definitely up, I am super excited as to what comes next for Horizon, and maybe soon we'll get a dlc, too!

#thanks for the ask!!#I love that I can finally get these ideas out of my brain #SUPER HYPED!!!#I also have some ship theories but thats for another time #horizon forbidden west #hfw #aloy #hzd #horizon zero dawn #hfw spoilers #bab-ask #erend #zo #beta #sylens #kotallo #alva

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