#a lot of the time but in game. hes just the funniest most peculiar fucking character as everyone in deltarune is. yea hes overhyped but

[naggingatlas]

you dont think its possible to feel like youre having a heart attack from a deltarune animation set to living fucking tombstone wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong

[vioisgoinginsane]

Actually, this needs a separate post for people who don't follow me

The idia and Rook essay you didn't know you needed in your life

Idia plays video games. Rook likes theatre plays. *trombone sound*

For once, the pun isn't how i thought of this. I can elaborate but it will take a couple of minor spoilers.

Basically, Theatre is like the grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather of video games. most modern video games have an overarching story, and every kind of storytelling medium, literature, film, TV, games, comics, Musicals, influences your view of the world and, most tellingly, your vocabulary and speech patters.

Idia talks Like This™ and Rook talk....in

That Peculiar Manner of Speech

Not a single one of the students in this school is normal about their interests and I could probably point out other examples, I don't think I'm even trying to draw any parallels between these characters but they were the first I thought of so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they're getting the over thinking treatment.

Anyways, obsessing over storytelling mediums is a bit different than other interests. It shapes our worldview, how we try to understand it, relate to it and interact with it.

Idia's favorite game influenced his desire to be a hero and go on an adventure in the outside world and we know that Rook was not expressive till he was moved to tears by one of Neige's performances.

I guess games are a more self centered game since most of the time you play as a protagonist and interact with characters and do things to push the story forward. Meanwhile with plays, as an audience, you merely observe a story. This, most notably, draws our attention back to Rook's observant nature. He want to observe things very closely, as a hunter. In Idia's case I think I could say it's sort of a hint that despite his near paralyzing social anxiety he did have longing to be the protagonist of his own story.

The funniest part is that Rook navigates a social situation with confidence despite being so fucking weird (and sometimes worthy of a restraining order), and Idia's a socially anxious mess. But hey, that IS exactly what you would expect from a theatre kid and a gamer, isn't it? (No Offence to theatre kids, Rook's various restraining orders got nothing to do with being a theatre kid) and I thiiink this is something that just comes down to one's very core nature and not any influence.

BUT we know from Idia's online chats with lilia (while having no idea it's lilia) that he is better articulate- well, he's GENERALLY better articulate in writing) but he is, dare i say... Sweet to his gamer homies?

Guys, this is the same Idia that roasted everyone that tried to save him in the ghost bride event. It really kicks me in the gut that lilia was like "too bad we're saving idia so i have no motivation" like people would NOT BELIEVE their ears if they knew.

To draw the line, gaming gave Idia a way to make friends, without whatever hindrances him in IRL interactions like idk insecurities about his hair and interests.

Do you guys think Rook had any friends before meeting Vil?

*cricket sounds*

Yeah I know, I honestly can't tell either way. Like, having an interest is a way to make friends but Rook is just too weird even by Theatre kid standards... Also we know he used to not care much about his appearance so... Idk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ᵐᵃʸᵇᵉ he looked scarier (?)*shrugs again*

And. I know that one CANNOT just go to Vil and tell him "I am the biggest Neige simp that ever was" but I occasionally get the sense there's a part of his enjoyment of that hobby that he likes to keep between him and himself.

I thought of this mostly cuz in one of the birthday lines he says he used to spend his birthdays going to theatre shows literally ALL day, but like. You could always just choose to spend your birthday like that, get the felicitations and gifts in the mail, I don't really think i can use it as proof of anything.

There's a lot stuff about Rook that's just "???????" As to why he is the way he is. Why is he french?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" "why does his family have all these teleporting mensions?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" "why does he stalk people?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" mostly cuz he dislikes talking about himself and actively avoids it, changes the subject, distracts you, or even outright lies about it.

With Idia we have his whole backstory layed out in the main story so I can do stuff like trace his cynicism back to that traumatic event that happened the one time he tried to follow his dreams, meanwhile "Why is Rook such a romantic?" "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

[roseate7]

The Pittsburgh Penguins treat their players like shit and that is the worst organization in the NHL. If you want a role model organization you should look up to other teams not that POS that run players out of town such as Pouliot, Oleksiak, Brassard, Reaves, Cole, Hagelin, etc. You run more players out of town that other teams. Fucking embarrassing.

The funniest part of this ask  - apart from you being the anon who doesn’t know anything about hockey who keeps trying to stir up shit in a fandom you’re not in - is that you… like, literally do not know how trades work. They happen, my guy and they happen a fuck ton more across the league than just on the Pens. 

This team’s stellar core famously accepts less than their worth compared to the rest of the league in order to leave cap space for nurturing other talent on their team. They’re not cliquey or snobby and don’t meddle or whine about their lines, sometimes in a lot of fans’ opinions, to their detriment. The whole “Crosby is a coach killer thing” was written in exactly the same vein as people who thought he was washed up the year before starting the teams’ back-to-back wins. It’s no wonder that the coach they have now is the one who listens the most, and the the right coach for them is someone who acknowledges someone like Crosby’s hockey smarts and vision rather than butting heads with him for no reason. 

That almost all of the players you just listed have been on the trading block before the Pens got them - ie, they weren’t wanted on those previous teams. Apparently all of those teams “run more players out of town” than the Pens, bud. Pretty embarrassing for your favorite teams, eh?

But what’s even funnier is that the guys you just listed? Adored the team. Got on amazingly and very quickly. Felt pulled into the fold and given good line positions from the start. Trips away, plane and bus buddies, dinners out, help getting settled in the area, you name it. Which made it not at all fuckin’ fun when the team had to suddenly say goodbye to these guys. 

So here’s a lesson for your budding interest in hockey: GM’s make trades. Not players. 

Locker room situations like Karlsson in Ottawa or Seguin in Boston (as it was) are extraordinarily rare in that they can actually affect a player’s or GM’s decision about their contract. That’s why those situations are so newsworthy: they’re rare as hell and have to be extremely dramatic. (One such case, Phil Kessel, again debunks your theory about the Pens running guys out of town because he’s among the long list of players essentially rehabilitated from their old homes. The Pens do that a lot, actually.) Sorry to dash your Penguins-hate fantasies but that’s never been the case in the Pens locker room. There’s no creepy image-keeping and nobody in the core is threatening bodily harm of anyone else, nor is their spouse. 

And the biggest pieces of Pens news that I’m guessing you won’t have seen to utterly debunk your own ask: 

- GMJR traded Hornqvist’s literal best friend in the whole damn world right after Hagelin’s wife had their baby and the two families wanted to be together most. And he did it to make a point. Sure, Hags production wasn’t stellar at the time but to this day that feels ice cold and I’m not really sure it’s paid off.

- GMJR also left the entire team and two new trades scrambling literal minutes before a huge game against Tampa. Both new guys, Bjugstad and McCann, have been rattled but happy with their hasty integration into the team and McCann especially fared well against his old team. But holy shit was that a wildly stressful thing to throw at a team.

So yeah, if you want a villain out of the Pens then it’s solely on Rutherford, and trust me he’s not popular lately with Pens fans either. But blaming the team would be like saying the Dallas Stars locker room is to blame for how ownership treated Benn. Or that the entire Sens locker room are on Karlsson’s hate list now because of how one player and his wife and terrible management treated him and his own wife. 

This ask isn’t really written for someone like you obviously, but it’s a good backstory for what I wrote here about the peculiar situation in Pittsburgh of the superstars not being more removed from the newer or younger guys on the team. A few folks were interested about that so it’s handy to both laugh at you only just realizing how sports players are traded and it’s A Thing That Happens at varying degrees each season, but mostly as an example of how the Pens - the team - are one of the most welcoming to hard-working humble players but whose legacy and expectations (from fans and management) are intensely high and I honestly believe hurting the entire team to a certain, if small, degree. It’s way too intense - as Brass said, being on a team with that level of expectation and blowback when they lose, it’s too much. It’s expecting old hockey results in modern hockey’s league.

Also, while Sprong may become mature and grow out of not being the next Guentzel (which is Sprong’s own fault, not Guentz’s or the Pens) but that “what about meeeee?” attitude was never going to fly in Pittsburgh. And if you can become friends with and then completely turn on a thorough sweetheart like Olli, then you are definitely the problem. It doesn’t matter if fanboys and hockey media jerk off over Sprong’s still-mediocre production, he would never have found the kind of solo spotlight he wanted on a team where 3-time Cup winners don’t even throw their weight around. 

[thehappiestandunluckiest]

The Time We Went on a Saga Holiday

Now, where do I begin with this one?

A SAGA holiday. Saga holidays are organised holidays for people aged 60+ and there are so many types. Cruises, excursions, couples exploring, and the best one, singletons holidays.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Back in 2016, we’d had a hard year (a little foreshadowing here, if we thought that was hard just wait a couple of years…). We couldn’t afford to go on our usual summer holiday but it was getting towards the end of the summer and we needed a break. So my mum and dad went searching and found this little summer town on the coast of Spain, only 3 hours away from us and they were having an end of season sale – perfect!

So we book, pack our bags for this two-night getaway and we’re off.

Looked it, booked it, fucked off! *it’s an inside joke*

So ever oblivious we wiz down to Spain in our beloved fiat 500 – far too fast, my dad likes to pretend he’s in fast and furious. And we get to the town.  It’s empty. It’s a ghost town! Now we didn’t care, after all, we live in the Algarve and we had had enough of tourists so some clean sheets, food and sun was enough. We rock up to the hotel, it's huge and promising, but! Now side note, my life seems to be filled with BUT’S and not the nice kind like Channing Tatum's butt- the bad kind, like when your mum says you can leave the table, but you have to take the rubbish out kind of but.

So outside this towering hotel that's guarded with palms and bird of paradise are 2 buses. Big buses. And swarming out of them is an army of 60 to 80-year-old Spanish men and women. 

Now, imagine this, you walk into a lobby, ready to dump your bags, change into a swimsuit and relax but instead, you're greeted by about 200 Spanish buzzing, imperial leather smelling, silver taloned old people. Now I don't want to offend anyone who’s of the 60 plus era, nor do I want to get the wrath of any angry Spanish people, but god it was a lot to take it. Now I have a Spanish godmother who I love dearly – shout out to Angela being the only godparent to stick by my side! But Latin blood boils FAR hotter than any other blood and the more mature the person – the worse. 

So my dad goes up to reception dodging the Spaniards like mines in a warzone. The reception is immediately so apologetic and transfer us to their sister hotel that’s 5 stars and just across the street. That’s great we drive over.

Oh -  but how the gods were against us on this one – or at least we thought that at first.

This lobby, equally as bombarded with OAPs* was a parallel universe to the last hotel but the difference was – they were single, 60 + year old Britons. This was going to be fun.

If I were to briefly and very broadly describe these lovely people, it would be like this. 

Some wore shell suits – they must have been jocks when they were younger, maybe they were playboys that never settled down. They leant against the walls chatting up the ladies. It was honestly very peculiar to watch and I did wonder what their pick up lines would be like? “My arteries are the only things that have hardened” *gags*

Then you have your cargo shorts, bright coloured polos and socks with sandals men - Now I’m not sure who the hell thought it was ok to send grandpa off with that many bad ideas in one suitcase, but they did. I would also like to take some time here to mention that MEN CAN GET CAMEL TOES TOO AND IT BURNT MY 16-YEAR-OLD EYES!

Next, we have similar to the last cargo shorts, socks and polos men but with trainers – now this is a special breed, the polos are usually less irritating to the eye (usually white or blue), they wear a belt a little too tight, and socks halfway up their calves. Usually, this specie is a university professor or a small town business owner. They don’t carry viagra pills with them everywhere and ask you about your family not your bra size like the jocks do.

Women. Now as most men would be able to confirm, explaining: describing; and understanding any woman ever, is like solving quantum physics formulae with a blindfold on whilst the room is on fire, but the women were mainly wearing fluorescent colours, lots of shawls and hot pink lipstick and ridiculously oversized beaded jewellery. They giggled like teenage girls talking about Harry Styles naked.

So, my brother and I had never gone on an all-inclusive holiday, and this was probably for our own good as we very quickly got on a sugar high that turned to a steep fall low off of all you can eat milkshakes and burgers.

 Literally, kids in a sweet shop.

It got to the evening and we went to the only restaurant open (my mum got food poisoning on our last day). We went back to the hotel for a nightcap – exhausting doing nothing all day. 

In the bar they were playing…. guess…go on……guess what they were playing…..BINGO!

Now the ever-competitive family we are, we had to join.

“TWO FAT LADIES- 88” “CLICKETY CLICK- 66!” – you’d think that’s what they were saying but no, that's not what they were saying. 

The two very Spanish hosts did not really speak English. Now if you speak very little of a language you usually don't know how to say 76, 89, you'd be lucky if you know 12, but god bless them, they were trying. They would pick the small bingo ball look at it to see if either of them knew how to pronounce it, shake their heads and choose another instead. It was very amusing. 

We were sat next to a sweet old man who, my best way of describing him is by saying – he was an exact look-alike of the pirate from SpongeBob square pants. So we are having that good old fashioned British banter with a stranger – super normal, but then he popped his eye out.

 HIS EYEBALL. 

OUT OF NOWHERE! 

Now we didn't know how to react to a strange old man passing us his glass eye with no context so we did the only feasible thing to do - grab it and inspect the ball itself but also the crater he just scooped it out of. God, I’m getting queazy just picturing him scooping it up out of his orbital socket like some rum and raisin icecream. *ew*

Minor distraction averted we win the game – more specifically my dad won the game and made sure everyone knew about it, and if looks could kill….

The grandmas weren't happy that he won a bottle of sparkling wine that costs about 6 euros to buy at the store and that you could get at the bar FOR FREE! Because it’s an all-inclusive holiday, but at the end of the day the famous saying goes ‘its the winning that counts!’ (that’s right, right?)

The rest of the night consisted of us talking to another family from the midlands who were actually on an intervention for their 40-year-old son who had lost his wife, custody of his kids and job to a gambling and alcohol addiction. He cried. A lot. It was very bizarre.

We went off to bed. At breakfast, we tried to avoid eye contact with the strange characters we had met the night before.

And left for home the next day.

Now, remember when I mentioned we travelled in our beloved fiat 500, which is the most glorious lawnmower motored vehicle to exist. Well, we didn't realise that we had to pay for parking and it got quite expensive. But oh so luckily the car is so small, that it fit on the sidewalk so we drove the car around the barrier on the sidewalk, ditched a small fortune and drove off into the sunset like the little parkour gangsters we are.

And that was the story of the family holiday that made my mum get food poisoning, my brother and I hate milkshakes and realise that we are in fact very lactose intolerant, and my dad win a very competitive game of bingo. This was the cheapest holiday we had ever been on and by far the best and funniest. We laugh about it often and its one that I can imagine sitting around the table 20 years from now still laughing at.

E. L. Wilson