#i went over 1k with this snippet pls

[kalosian-woods]

I know I already sent one but. The Bonds of Mega Evolution. The flower arranging scene but from Serena’s perspective. I beg of you. Her thoughts on being praised over Ash and Korrina who are everything she admires. Mabel’s analyses. I have so many thoughts -W-

(ps I had to do this one because my mind would not let go even through my busy day, but dw i'm still filling out the other asks + extra dw because i love this one and i can go for maybe 1 more extras from others as well if yall want... might just take a while lol but i'd rather pace myself with these and build up my writing rather than rush)

The flowerfields of Pomice Mountain were so incredibly pretty it was almost unreal in its ethereality, like a delicate watercolour painting set up in the most protected portion of Lumiose Museum and protected from human hands.

Serena looked behind her, noting the… very long distance that they made on their own legs. Well, that she made on two legs, considering how Fennekin was still a little finnicky about tracking mud sometimes. Letting the fox down, she crouched on the tip of her toes and smiled as she watched her partner frolic in the flowers. “I'm glad you like it, Fennekin!”

Coming up here was a good choice. No doubt that the likes of Ash and Korrina would travel far, but not even they would come all the way up here for a few flowers. And if Serena really wanted to impress Mabel, she had to make sure that her bouquet was as unique as can be!

Fennekin yipped at her after coming back from her moment of exploration, tail wagging happily. A small giggle came out of Serena’s mouth then as she picked out a few petals that stuck to the Pokemon’s ear. “Found something you like?”

“Fenne!” It didn’t hurt that she had Fennekin by her side. That fox was a master at ordering things, and Serena started to defer most organising details (that are doable by Pokemon) to her fuzzy little friend. It was fun and nice and such a big help to have Fennekin go through the Pokepuff ingredients, especially now as there were more tastes to account for (and more bellies to fill); just as much as there was the need to track down lost clothing blown off the clothing line or what flowers to use for their flower crowns. Fennekin started to trot forward, mouth split in a wide and toothy grin as she rounded the small hill with Serena at her heels.

Serena kept pace, letting her gaze rove over the magnificent landscape. She couldn’t believe all of her friends would want to leave this place as soon as possible: it was almost an insult to the natural beauty blooming all around them. Sure, they were here to help Korrina and Lucario master Mega Evolution, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t relax and have some fun on the way.

Nothing was a waste of time, including now.

And breathing in the fresh mountain air, Serena couldn’t imagine it to be any other way.

· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── · ·. 

There was a certain type of aura that can be sensed when it comes to ikebana.

With the bright and showy demonstrations, Mabel can already see the youth that shone brightly in all of her new wards—even the scientific young lad had that spark of childishness that was separate to what his Chespin had. Moving across the room, she shook her head; it didn’t matter if they nailed the technique for flower-arranging as it was.

Even though she was expecting Gurkinn’s granddaughter Mabel had opened her door to all of Korrina’s friends, and so, she would judge them all equally.

“Haha, d’you like it? I tried my best with Pikachu, but then a Ursaring came outta nowhere and started chasing me for picking some of—”

Ash was a spirited fellow, for certain. Some may say that danger followed him, as she had heard from the group’s late-night talks, but Mable thought differently. Was it relevant to his bond with his partner Pokemon? If it were Pikachu, certainly not—their joint work showed a sort of oiled-quickness to their every move, every kink that was possible ironed out for the most part. But still… there was a certain kind of disconnect between the pair: the tall and towering flowers alongside the more bushier and stout ones were telling in their own way. Ash longed for height, for growth, for greatness beyond everything he’s ever known. Pikachu wants the same, but there was some distance between that primal urge that were bared with every cut-up petal and splintered wood. She internally filed those observations and moved forward, coming to face a very vibrant display by a very familiar face doing a very unfamiliar pose: bowing.

“How do you like our work now, madame?”

Mabel chuckled once, using her cane to nudge up Korrina’s chin. There was no need for her to flatten her pride now, not without cause. Appraising the work, she can see some improvement this time—at least the plants used weren’t from two completely different fields this time. She gave a surreptitious look towards Lucario, who let out a surprised bark before turning away, and Mabel grinned. Of course, youth rarely liked to be challenged, and this young lady was still desperately scrabbling for some approval. The Lucario too. It’s clear that there is much work to be done in regard to the two of them, but at least they are moving a little closer to the true intent of the activity here, and that’s what counts for today. Refocusing lens takes time, after all.

“I’m so sorry, I was working on the Little Flower Arranger 2.55—”

“Why’s it called that?”

“Ash, let him finish!”

Mabel sighed good-naturedly as she looked around Clemont’s waist to the creation that he made alongside Chespin while the rambling flowed on above her. Normally, she would expect a Grass-Type to know their plants, but she was sorely mistaken when the other day Chespin had contracted a rash from sleeping on some poison ivy. Clemont seemed to balance out his Pokemon well with his worried nature, but they have yet to learn how to cater to both without leaving one side wanting, which could be expected if one knew of his adolescent Gym Leader status and focused Typing. Today seemed to be more of a Clemont-day, with the machine’s smoking remains blowing up a small portion of flowers and leaving the ground smoky and charred. At least he had some extras on hand to fill up the empty space—she can appreciate readiness whenever it appears, in all of its forms.

“Hey, look, Dedenne! It’s our turn now!”

Bonnie may be too young to be a Trainer yet, but she held some very interesting insights alongside the Pokemon of her choice. Their bouquets always held the most changes and variation, with some surprises being found around whenever they came back with their flowers. Yesterday was a freshly plucked Budew that they played around with while waiting for her to come around. Today seemed to be the pebbles that they arranged in a smiley face on top of the soil, with both of them mirroring the face. It was a very charming attempt, and if the group wasn’t on a quest for Korrina’s sake, Mabel might’ve indulged in her own desire to work with her as it was. The difference between this young girl and her brother was as clear as night and day, and yet, there were always the one clue (straight stalks this time). Patting the child’s head, she moved onto the final stop.

· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── · ·. 

Serena held her breath next to Fennekin, heart pattering in her chest as she held her hands in front of her. It was her turn to present their work of art, and bearing her and Fennekin’s heart to someone so critical… it was a lot different than just running around in the fields and doing whatever they wanted.

It felt like being on a stage.

Terrifying… and yet, exhilarating as well.

· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── · ·. 

As usual, a bright smattering of gold and crimson in her work. Serena was different to the others, as she didn’t strive for big or showy or even imitations of famous works from long ago. Her creations always were related to something around her—the rainy sky yesterday, the Pokemon battle on the first day the group came, and today, it seemed to be based on Fennekin itself. It’s clear that the Pokemon approved of it with the bite marks on some of the stems, but there were signs of a human hand plucking some of the flowers as well. While both Pokemon and person shared similarities, there was a focus with the delegation of each task—finding the flower, placing it, arranging it. It was unique. It was the product of them, with the skills they both displayed.

· · ────── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ────── · ·. 

“Wonderful and in sync,” Mabel murmured, too quiet for anyone but the two of them to hear.

Serena’s breath caught, and her right hand slowly rested on her chest as Fennekin shot a triumphant look towards Chespin’s dour face.

With two claps of her hand, Mabel called out, “Good work as always, everyone! See you all tomorrow!” and it was all Serena could do to stop herself from jumping up with a shout.

The first time she actually got praise, before Korrina or even Ash. It felt… thrilling, to know that she can surpass them in this way. In her own way.

Grabbing Fennekin, she quickly made her way out of the doors before she shared a conspiratorial giggle with her partner.

[theredtours]

Pls spill the tea this is my new niche rabbit hole of knowledge

Anonymous: GIVE ME THE DETAILS BESTIE

Okay, so here's how it all went down, below the cut, because it's a lot:

A couple weeks ago, someone (assuming hiloy, as they're like the main character for the rest of this stuff) had played both All of the Girls and Need over a discord call. A sneaky second person then recorded said discord call and leaked bits of the songs to Twitter.

Cue the insanity. The leaks sent some people into a blind fury trying to find the rest of the song, while also simultaneously upsetting those who had been vaulting it. One such vaulter was, as previously mentioned, hiloy. They then took to a site for leaks and started trying to get a sale going.

Initially, they were trying to get an individual person to buy, but when the price was too astronomical, and after several days of back and forth, hiloy finally settled on allowing a group buy to happen. Now, I've never been part of a group buy before, so naturally, when I was sent a link to the discord server where it was all happening, I was intrigued. Here was my first glimpse at how the trading/selling world works. To stay in the server, everyone had to donate at least $5. The set goal was $2600, and that was going to purchase both "All of the Girls" and "Drama Queen."

Easy peasy, I thought. Man, I was wrong. The server blew up almost immediately, with people threatening the seller, demanding they leak other songs or get reported. Within a matter of hours, people had donated over $1k, and with that, hiloy leaked a small snippet of "Forever Winter," as a treat. Then, the server got nuked.

Thankfully, they had a backup. As soon as the back up was, well, back up, everyone was re-invited and the madness continued. In the middle of it all, "Forever Winter" leaked. While it wasn't true that it was hiloy who had leaked it, the person who did so did it under that name, so HUNDREDS of people flocked to the server to donate. The rest of us just ran with it, saying things like, "Yeah, they leaked it to prove that they have the goods." Was it dishonest? Yeah. But did it work?

Well, we hit the goal within I think like, 10-ish hours? So I'd say so. Everyone was cheering and partying it up in the group chat and then... right afterward, the server was nuked again. And so was the backup. And the backup backup. I then took to the leak site, and tried to get re-entry. I even messaged hiloy on twitter. Everyone just told me to wait for the leak. So overall, I was not impressed and felt pretty scammed. In all honesty though, I felt worse for the big donators. Someone had dropped almost $300 and then lost all access.

Fast forward to today, after a few days' silence (which I am told is pretty normal; transactions apparently usually get converted from funds to crypto), they just... Showed up on the leaks site. But the problem was, "All of the Girls" was not HQ, like it was promised. The backlash was almost immediate, with people calling out hiloy left and right for misinforming the server and trying to scam everyone out of their money. Hiloy then had the nerve to turn around and tell some of the donators that they should be grateful to have even received what they did.

And then all hell broke loose, again. See, the part I didn't tell you was that, provided all went well with this first group buy, hiloy was going to be selling off "Need" and "This is What You Came For (Demo)" to another group buy next. I guess this really unnerved someone else who had them, because basically right afterward, we got the second leak out of nowhere. My best guess was that they leaked "Need" and "TIWYCF" to keep hiloy from being able to make any more profit off those who just want the songs.

I'm sure I missed some of the drama, but that's honestly like the shortest summary I could give of it. It was absolute chaos. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, though.

[heartbeatsinme]

23

Well, I just wanted to write a recap of the first day of my birthday weekend. Somehow I convinced my girlfriends to do a suicide mission to Las Vegas and then down to SD for LED. 

We started off the weekend at 11AM on Friday 2/15, and set off to Vegas from LA. We were supposed to see Illenium that night but only two people would actually make it to his set.

Ari ended up getting kicked out of the club for REASONS YET UNKNOWN and the world may never know exactly what she did.

The pieces of this night have been relayed to us by the more sober members (Felicia and Naomi) of the crew and other sparse anecdotes from each of us.

When we got to our table, I specifically remember the bottle service girl handing me a fat pour of a vodka cranberry and me turning to Carissa and saying “yo, if I drink this, imma be fucked” and ofc my friends were all like “hahahahahhahahha drink it, bitch” so I slammed that shit and the rest of the night escapes me. Apparently shortly thereafter I put my head down and Felicia felt something wet on her leg and she was like “wtf bitch” and realized I was yacking so she and Naomi grabbed the ice bucket (yes, the one they serve the chase and bottles in) and I threw up in the ice bucket. Lo and behold, I was not immediately escorted out by security but we also knew it was only a matter of time before the guards came closing in to take me away, so we went to the bathroom in case I needed to throw up more, or to rinse out my mouth I’m not sure. On my way to the bathroom however, Felicia says I, and I quote “ate shit” as I was walking up the slope, and the crew quickly hoisted me up as to not get my drunk ass thrown out of the club. We went into the bathroom and I realized I had some yay hidden on my person that could serve as a revival mechanism, and I tried to sneak Aria and Felicia into a stall with me so we could partake. However, the attendant noticed Aria and hustled her out of the bathroom, but Felicia and I managed to get into the largest stall.

What follows is a true horror story for any cokehead. Apparently I told Felicia to rack out a line, and when she said where, I gestured and said “over there” so she proceeded to pour out yay onto the METAL TOILET ROLL DISPENSER YES THE ONE THAT THEY PROBABLY NEVER CLEAN AND IS PROBABLY COVERED IN FECAL MATTER DATING BACK TO THE 20TH CENTURY. And GUESS WHAT. I DID IT ANYWAY. With no straw, or bill, or other snorting device. Just my nose and the cold steel of that TOILET ROLL DISPENSER. AND SHE LET ME. Yes, indeed this was the first lapse of judgment my dear drunk pledge sister would experience this night.

Obviously following my yack attack into the ice bucket we couldn’t go back to our table, so we decided to find our friend Dbai’s table, as he was also at Omnia for the night. So we went to DBai’s table so he could wish me a happy birthday and by this time, my dear, I was blacked the FUCK out. I don’t remember seeing him at all, I definitely don’t remember drinking with him. And I believe that this was the last known location where the entire crew was together at once. Somewhere along the line, Ari and I got separated from the rest of the girls and DBai asked the rest of my girlfriends to not come back to his table. I believe it was around this time that Illenium went on and Naomi was able to catch a short snippet of his set before they set off to find Ari and me.

The group chat now consisted of a frantic Carissa sending “wya help” “help” “pls help”, Felicia asking “where’s Em??”, Aria’s unintelligible texts trying to help, and a text coming from Ari’s phone reading “Your friend Jane is now with Omnia security. She is being escorted to the paramedics.” The group located Ari, who was outside with Omnia security, who informed the girls that unless Ari stood up by herself, they would be taking her to the paramedics.

“Ari, yo, stand up” said Naomi. “Okay,” said Ari, remaining sitting. At this point, the crew noticed I was gone. Like gone gone. Like, we thought she was with Ari but she isn’t, gone.

NOT SURE WHY NO ONE WAS PANICKING BUT I guess they thought I went back to the hotel EXCEPT NOBODY NOTICED THAT ARI WAS HOLDING MY FUCKING PHONE. So I had no phone, no money, no room key, no ID. Just my dress, heels, and birthday sash. And thus begins the forking of the fellowship.

Em’s story:

From what I can remember, I walked throughout Caesar’s Palace looking for directions to the Palazzo and was accosted by many strange men who asked me if I was lost or wanted to join them for whatever, to which I determinedly replied “No, I’m meeting up with my friends, I know where I’m going” BUT I DID NOT. IN FACT. KNOW WHERE I WAS GOING. I walked the entirely wrong direction across the length of Omnia (toward Mandalay Bay, if I remember correctly) before I realized I was going the wrong way and turned tail all the way back to Omnia where I saw signs for the Palazzo and went out onto the streets of Las Vegas. I walked in the cold, barefoot, across the land bridges and up escalators and through into the Palazzo hotel lobby, at which point I realized I would need a guest key to get up to the hotel suites. I don’t know why, at this point, I did not ask hotel security to phone my friends who were in the room, nor do I know why, at any point, I did not stop and ask qualified authoritative figures such as hotel security or bouncers for help or directions, but I just knew I had to get up to the hotel suites. I spotted an Asian family and darted in behind them past the hotel lobby security and up to the room, where I found my bewildered friends waiting.

Everyone else:

So everyone made the collective decision to wait for me back home, as there was nothing else they could really feasibly do. They notified hotel security that I was missing, and called an uber. However, this uber cancelled on them, and they ACTUALLY GOT INTO A STRANGE MAN’S CAR INSTEAD. They LITERALLY hopped into a random dude’s car and said “hi is this our uber” to which he replied “no, but if you give me cash I can take you wherever you need to go” and Ari was like “I HAVE CASH” and Felicia was like “okay cool let’s go in this guy’s car” he’s probably not like a HUMAN TRAFFICKER OR ANYTHING GOOD CALL FELICIA

So they get into this random guy’s car but somehow Ari and Naomi have gotten caught up in the bathroom or something, so no one has cash when they arrive at the Palazzo. Obviously nothing can really be done so the four members of the fellowship (Felicia, Jess, Carissa, and Aria) head back to the hotel without paying the guy.

Little do they know, Aria’s left her phone in the guy’s car.

Fortunately, Jess gave her number to the guy (BUT WHY WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR NUMBER TO THIS COMPLETE STRANGER POSSIBLE SEX TRAFFICKER WHO KNOWS WHERE YOURE STAYING) so he calls and lets them know that he’s got Aria’s phone. He’s pretty salty that they haven’t paid him for the ride though, so he hedges around about meeting up to get the phone back to them. This guy must not be the brightest person in the world because he had like a 1k phone on his hand and no way of us really finding him as long as he turned the phone off but luckily he wasn’t a total piece of shit.

Around this time, I arrived back at the hotel and after YEETING my underwear into the tub out of frustration that I had to walk home from the club barefoot for two hours (I really don’t know why it took me so long or why I didn’t just…ask for help…honestly…) and YEETING my earrings somewhere onto the counter, I went down with Aria to collect her phone. We got the phone back but the guy was like “so y’all are really not gonna like, pay me?” and Aria begrudgingly gave him $20 cash, which is better than losing her phone for the whole weekend/forever so I guess it’s fine.

The screenshots of our texts from the group chat are priceless. This whole experience was priceless. The number of random leg bruises and face planting and falling on our asses was countless. Pieced together by the various unreliable, drunken anecdotes from each of the seven members of our fellowship, I had one of the funniest weekends of my 23 years. Boys really have this wronged perception that girls go off to Sin City to get fucked up and hook up with rich guys in hotel suites or finesse daddies at the club for drinks, but really, I think this story is an exemplification of what REALLY fucking happens when you put a group of girls and a copious amount of alcohol together in Vegas for even just one night.