#also there are poly options here but they're a surprise for later

[blood-choke]

[reineyday]

finished the last season of manifest and some ship thoughts!

ive been saying it since drea showed up but seriously, mick x jared x drea ot3 come on!!!! poly detectives pls let hope have three parents 2k24

i was surprised they gave benvi a canon moment but i was here for it :') that one episode where saanvi kisses him for a cover but ben doesnt even seem phased and only gives her a Look at the end of the episode has very strong "this never occured to me before but actually this makes more sense" vibes from ben 😂 like even his reaction after they kissed for cover felt so platonic (imo) but then later on he realizes that subconsciously he's been heading there this whole time and he has an "oh" moment, but it's more like an "oh, duh" moment

niche but that scene where jared gives joe's kid a hug and then later on in the season when joe is so lovingly showing jared (and the stones) photos of charlie makes me think jared x joe would be cute, esp cuz jared wants kids so bad and he was so good with charlie

EAGAN AND ADRIAN AM I RIGHT????? man i was already thinking they'd be funny to ship together because they're both kinda self-serving disasters that have hearts deep, deeeeeeeeep down, but that moment when they held hands with the necklace between them? and then starting a business together when they land back in 2013??? so many options for them 😂 even just adrian showing up to angelina and eagan being married and being like dude wtf??? with the added emotional plot of being lowkey jealous and not sure why is a really funny fic idea

ultimately, i liked what they did w the ending tho! it was really cute what they did with tj and the girl older!cal dated, esp cuz both their s.o.'s kinda de-aged on them 😂 i also really love drea so im glad they had jared meet her right then, and it was cute how mick searched the cabs for zeke :') and it's not often we see a bi girl end up with the girl in her love triangle so that was nice for saanvi too yayay 🥰🥰

[speakergame]

Poll Results

at this time, I've gotten an overwhelming 309 responses to the poll! I'm going to keep it open so folks can continue answering at their leisure, but here are the results so far:

Witch Route vs Detective Route is an exact 50/50 split! However, the Witch's Chaos Crew (65%) and Detective's Distraction Team (87%) have run away with the votes. I may have underestimated y'all's love of chaos, and I'll be keeping this in mind going forward

56% of you had a childhood crush on Li! An additional 42.4% were their best friend, and less than 2% of you chose to be mere acquaintances.

A whopping 94% of you drank the coffee. I admire your lack of self-preservation instincts.

The Jeep has stolen the show as favorite car, taking almost 30% of the vote:

this is so interesting to me, because the jeep wasn't part of the original car lineup. it was added for my bestie, so y'all can thank her for that 💙

Sebastian is by far the most popular partner in the Carmichael fight, with 46% of the vote. Li is right behind him with 43.8%. Azalea and Kana trail behind with only 6.2% and 3.9% respectively.

The fight results are pretty close, with 54% of you getting Carmichael to change back on his own, and 46% having to knock him out.

92% of you chose to ride with Li and Sebastian back from Cammore.

86% of you decided to listen to the little girl and wear the necklace Anya gave you. 14% put it in your pocket instead, and at this time no one has voted to leave it in your room!

the routes heading into Chapter 4 are currently a 75/25 split, in favor of Team Shapeshifter!

92% of you chose to check in on Sebastian after learning about his dad, with 6% of you choosing to give him space, 1.6% staying mad about it, and 0.4% choosing to just ignore the situation entirely for now.

And then finally, to my surprise the Bas/Li poly route is currently the most popular:

considering there was a time that I was on the fence about including it, this is very interesting to me. I'm not surprised that Li and Sebastian's individual routes are popular as well. I'm curious how the numbers might change once we start getting to know Rory and Kana better 😉

lastly, I wanted to comment really quick on some of the suggestions y'all have made! these are anonymous and I don't know who they're from, but there are a few things that I saw mentioned a lot and I just wanted to take a moment to address some of them. putting it under a read more, to save this already long post from getting longer:

a lot of you asked about picking a clothing style and things like tattoos/scars/body hair and other body features. this is something I'm already planning for, and will be coming up later in chapter 4!

I've gotten some great suggestions for things to add to the cc and room styles in chapter 3, and I'll work on implementing those as well. some of them will be easier to code in than others, but I'll try and get to as many as I can (and add others in the future, if I can't get them all this month)

I also got quite a few requests for more car customization, and this is something coming up in chapter 4 as well. on the Siren route, it'll come up before you hit the road again. on the Shapeshifter route, it'll be a Rory bonding experience 😁

and I don't want to call anyone out individually, but I don't know how else to respond to this: for the person who requested an arcade-ish room, there's already an option (pick black walls, then "but the rest of the furniture is brightly colored") that is described in-game as looking like an arcade from the 90's! it specifically mentions a busy carpet pattern 💙