#but you GUYS i actually spent all day playing sims and enjoyed it the whole time it was wild

[pocketclowns]

hope y’all like pancakes, meet amelia! 🥞

[dooandpoo]

Boo’s clown thoughts about Dan

I just re-watched the Heartthrob video from 2018. I have listened to Dan and Phil playing Heartthrob in 2021. I have watched compilations of Dan and Phil’s liveshows and ✨ gay moments ✨ throughout the years. I am officially qualified to make reaching assumptions about Dan’s psyche, and his taste in men 💅. (I am a clown.)

Dan hides many of his feelings under sarcasm. This essay is predicated on a combination of assuming many of his jokes are actually his real feelings, and also taking into account things he has said with sincerity.

First, he wants to fix people. His whole perspective of Bobby changes when the card “never been kissed” is added — Dan gets all soft and literally says “that’s a game changer”. Phil thinks the same, suggests that everything else of Bobby is bravado, to which Dan heartily agrees. Dan loves himself some 💪 meaty men 💪, but gravitates more to the men that seem soft or personable. “Never been kissed” is a big deal for a cool sexy rich guy in high school, and Dan just knows that he could take care of him. It brings Bobby back down to earth, makes him feel real, makes him someone that Dan could relate to. Dan is obsessed with cleaning, takes forever to plan things, gets worked up when things aren’t perfect, must be in control. But he’s drawn to the imperfect, knows that he can do something with it. Someone that’s already perfect isn’t interesting to Dan. But Bobby, who’s rich and sexy but never been kissed? That’s interesting to Dan, that’s someone he can work with.

Dan is a gold-digger 💷💰 (let me explain). Even before the kissing detail is learned about Bobby, Dan chose him to go to the party with just because he’s rich, because his house would be cool, and Dan could pretend to like him for a night of luxury. Dan is a minimalist, he enjoys things to be simple in his life (as stated in the pizza mukbang video), but he loves opulence .... but not for himself. This is fascinating — Dan doesn’t parade his current wealth around, actively works against it. But. He wants to go to a party at a fancy house with a pool, hang off the arm of some cool guy. He wants to have a “team of stylists” for red carpet events to choose his outfits and dress him up all pretty for the world to see. He loves his fancy trips to beautiful places. He gives his Sims elegant and gaudy accessories and furnishings, splurging in a way he never would in real life. This boy loves him some extravagance and attention, wants to parade around looking like a snack, even though most of the time he prefers being low-key.

Dan loves cultivating a specific image for himself. He spent much of his teenage and young adult life trying to fit in, making sure his hair is perfect, making sure his photos are from the perfect MySpace angle, not being “gay”. His Instagram is a wall of black, broken up by only a few things. This is partially because he doesn’t like choice, can’t commit to things when it’s his decision. He can’t choose something “wrong”. See the mukbang video where Phil suggests just picking different clothes from along the line in his closet, and Dan says “that’s how you get ensembles that look like this” indicating Phil’s absurd get-up. Dan can’t imagine just throwing things on willy-nilly, he must present a completely unified vision of himself to the world. In the Attitude shoot, he was devastated that he couldn’t wear the cool boots, that his hair was too long. He secretly wished that it was a nude or horny photoshoot, joking about this during their first Stereo, because he wants to be noticed in that way. He wants to be seen as sexy and cool, he loves it. He wants positive attention. His mid-2020 thirst post on Instagram is a perfect example of this, playing it off as silly when he clearly was really into it. He does this with most of his photos, needing to look a certain way so that the world sees him as cool and sexy even when he’s masking it behind sarcasm. He knows he’s cute, and flaunts it, even though “flaunting it” means he has to be in control of everything all the time.

Let’s go back to the 2018 Heartthrob. One of the boys’ personality traits is revealed to be “can’t wait to have kids”, and Dan is not having it. 🙅‍♂️ Now, Dan would describe that as his fear of commitment. But let’s look closer. Earlier that year, Dan and Phil met Louise’s newborn baby. Both boys go completely gooey the entire time, entranced by her. Dan gets this look in his eye when he hands Pearl to Phil. He watches Phil closely to make sure he’s holding her correctly, hovers and touches her, needing to protect and feel the inherent trust of a baby. He and Phil keep smiling, and then Dan — out of the blue — gets a far away look and comments that there will be phanfiction of him and Phil adopting a baby. Dan was thinking about having a baby with Phil. But he’s scared, because even though Dan would take care of his baby so well, he’d probably worry his ass off making sure the baby has everything. It’s not just the fear of commitment, it’s that he can’t trust himself to do it “correctly”. Even though he’s been with Phil for years, I think Dan second-guesses himself constantly. A baby, or even a dog, for that matter, would send his anxiety into overdrive, because he can’t be in complete control (even though he’d be the best dad and partner ever).

Time to think about thot Dan. In the end, Dan is horny. He visibly reacts to each of the Heartthrob boys that have their “guns out”, and doesn’t easily deny that he’s interested in Bobby for his arms. And Phil knows that. When Dan asks Phil why he thinks Dan chose Bobby ... Phil stalls. Phil does his best to justify his guess that Dan likes Bobby because of his random personality traits, because Dan would like being driven around in a nice car and to ask Bobby about his dream of being a secret agent, but Phil clearly thought Dan would choose Bobby because he knows Dan loves the meaty lads. Phil knows Dan well enough to know that this boy loves him some skin and some muscle showing. (Hmm, interesting that Dan likes his boys meaty 👀, and frequently refers to Phil as such, even at the beginning of this very Heartthrob video …. hmmmm ... says he’d like to receive a lapdance 💋 from Phil “for the spectacle” .... hmmmmmmmmm.)

Back to “commitment” 💍 issues. During a liveshow from the early danisnotonfire days, Dan is asked for relationship advice. Here, he is surprisingly honest and serious. He says to not stay in a relationship where you’re not happy. It seems simple, but Dan really digs deep here. Dan says that if you’re not going to marry a person, don’t stay with them for even a day longer. Dan said that. Dan is scared of trusting others, he is constantly sarcastic and talks about himself disparagingly, but he is self-aware enough to know that he wants commitment. He wants someone to love him forever, to be by his side. That’s why he says there’s no point in remaining in a relationship if you and the other person can’t see yourself together in 50 years. And Dan had been with Phil (in whatever way that means for them) for a few years at that point, completely comfortable with each other. They were already making huge decisions together, like living together and moving to London and starting a radio show and considering moving to New York together. Dan had committed to Phil at this point, knew that he could see himself still with Phil in 50 years. And Phil had committed to Dan, regardless of if Dan felt sure of that or not.

Even earlier than that, Dan had told a fan on formspring that he loves sleeping in the same bed as other people, not even in a sexual way. He loves human contact, sharing space 😌. We know this because he’s so open to hugs with his fans, wants people around to make him feel safe (by people I mean Phil), and is so exasperated by quarantine because he needs more touch and contact. (Tangent — Phil also loves physical touch, as stated in an old liveshow when he said he prefers cuddles to kisses, and is very handsy 👐 with Dan.)

This doesn’t end in physical touch though. He needs other people around. He wants a companion through life. He misses Phil when he’s gone because he’s scared of the house being empty, because Phil makes him feel safe. He wants another person in his bed because it feels nice to be with someone, knowing they’re there. He wants to have someone to work with, to connect with, to make music with, to share moments with. And now this boy has all of that. He has for the last ten-odd years. But this is scary. Dan isolated himself growing up, built barriers between himself and everybody else. He needs to be control of the situation at all times, embarrassed when he’s not. Dan uses self-deprecating language constantly, complains about his inability to connect with people. But he has Phil. Every day they’re together, I think Dan accepts just a little more that he can deserve happiness, that he won’t lose Phil, that Phil is not temporary. Phil shows him that he is worthy of affection, physical and otherwise, that Dan is allowed to reach out and it’s safe to do so. Dan doesn’t have to be alone anymore, he can reach out and Phil is there.

These nonsense ramblings are just to say that Dan has the perfect life partner in Phil. Phil balances him out, lets Dan be himself loudly and quietly, jokes when Dan is too serious. Phil will never leave him, proving that every day, making plans with Dan in mind. Phil is confident and self-assured where Dan is not. They ease each other’s anxieties, approach their fame in similar ways. They genuinely enjoy being together, not just in their personal life, but professionally as well. They are a perfect match, soulmates. 💕

[kaylynn-langerak]

Simblr Community Challenge

I was tagged by @arielovessims , @limejellysims , @oliveandgrimshouse , @janika31 , and @penig ! Thank all of you so much for tagging me! Apologies for the absolute wall of text, I'm a rambler.

Simblr community challenge by Amelettes!

How long have you been playing the Sims?

Since 2000 or 2001, (so like 2/3 of my life) sometime after Livin’ Large came out, but before House Party. I was 10 or 11, and me and my mom went to K-Mart (RIP), where I discovered Livin’ Large. She also thought the game looked fun, so she bought it for me. I was so excited to play and spent the whole ride home looking at the box, only to not be able to play it because we didn’t realize that it was an expansion pack and that meant we had to have the base game. I’m certain I cried. But within a week or so she got me the base game, and I was instantly addicted. My mom used to let me skip school on new expansion release dates, and had to drive an hour to the nearest GameStop to get them. She did the same thing for TS2, which I started playing the day it came out.

How long have you been a Simblr, and why did you become one?

I think I started this blog in July 2017. After my ex burned my house down in September 2016, I discovered that one of the few things to survive the fire were my TS2 discs. But after I let my pc dry out for a while and got it running again it turned out my disc drive no longer worked, so I started looking for an “alternative” source for the game and discovered that Ultimate Collection was a free thing I could get. I’d already been following some simblrs on my personal tumblr for a while (I was lurking on you guys!), and decided to make one of my own to post screenshots from my game, but rather than make a side blog I made a new email and account so my dash would be nothing but sims!

What type of Simblr are you?

A sporadic one? At first I just posted random gameplay stuff, I’ve dabbled in stories, and I make cc. I’d love to get back into writing stories, and share cc more often like I used to, but my mental health is, well let’s just call it “not good”, so I struggle to even do things I enjoy. I still have a desire to do things, and I do write down a lot of ideas, but it’s just hard for me to actually do the thing. I’ve pretty much been in a state of “be back soon - struggling right now!” for like 2.5 years and it sucks. I feel bad.

Which generation of Sims do you primarily play?

TS2! TS1 might have been my first love, but TS2 is my true love. I do wish I could play TS1, but my pc hates it. I really need to just sit down and fight it until I can make it work. TS3 has also been growing on me the past year or so. It does have some really awesome features, but is also just a general mess in other ways? That’s another one that I need to just sit down and take the time to figure out what mods to get, how they work, where to get the fixed worlds and content, etc.. Something I never liked about it was how the actual sims themselves look? Like potato-y but also uncanny? Or is that just me? But I’ve seen really beautiful TS3 sims that don’t look like that at all, so again, if I could just put the time and effort into making pretty faces and fixing the glitches/annoyances I think I could get a lot more into TS3. TS4 doesn’t really interest me? My grandma got me the base game years ago, and it lives on the shelf with all my other sims games but I never installed it, not that my sad old pc could handle it anyway. My boyfriend got Xbox Game Pass recently, and they have it on there so maybe I’ll mess around with it on console? I do like looking at other people’s TS4 though, and I love 4t2 conversions.

Rules - Tag some people, and let the community bonding commence!

I tag @asimplevampire , @withlovefromsimtown , @thatmultifandomteen , @sixamese-simblr , @frauhupfner , @furbyq , @silverspringsimmer , and anyone else who wants to do it, just say I tagged you! Feel free to not do it if you don’t want to, or already have!

[hangryandlazy]

africa jul 19

wow lol it’s taken me 2 years to actually put this post together. a LOT has changed since then and it makes me immensely happy to recognize how lucky we were that we’d had 2 insane years of travelling right before the pandemic hit. but this post is not to dwell on that, so let’s get on with it!!

this was our amazing 2019 africa trip~

jun 30, 19 ••• we make our way from hong kong to the netherlands on klm airlines. i distinctly remember how impressed i was with the quality of service and the comfort of the 12ish hour flight. after around 16 hours of commute, we just want to stay in and chill, so we order room service and call it a night early. i recall wearing a fun t-shirt that read, “not to be rude, but shut the fuck up” which i personally find hilarious and endearing, but which made the guy at the front desk quite uncomfortable. lollll oops!

jul 1, 19 ••• yay! we had a full day alone in amsterdam. we (i) decided to walk from the hotel to the town center, because it’s fun experience new cities by exploring them on foot!! why not? you come across many things that you just couldn’t have planned to find.

look how beautiful the canals in amsterdam are! anywhere you turn, it’s picturesque.

we had lunch at wagamama because i saw that the avant garde vegan, gaz oakley, had done a collaboration with them at some point, so there are some guaranteed vegan options. we then walk around the bloemenmarkt and find our way to the cannabis college, which had 2 verdampers for rent! yesssss! i was so happy. 

we explored and walked around more, then stopped by a coffee shop to smoke a bit more. there was a lovely vegan cafe right next door, which i’d been eyeing when we went in to smoke, so we had a top up on coffee and matcha there. we saw a cute frenchie across the road and missed the dogs so...

we had dinner at this place called cafe frijdag (which means Friday!) which was delicious! so happy that amsterdam had vegan options for me

jul 2, 19 ••• we got up bright and early to meet my parents for breakfast and we go to the airport to catch our flight to kigali. about 10 hours later, we were buying sim cards at the kigali airport. we then checked in to the radisson for the night, and it was feeling very surreal to be in africa. i remember feeling anxious.

jul 3, 19 ••• today started on a somber note. we went to the kigali genocide memorial. i cried a lot, especially at the exhibit with the photographs of only a fraction of the victims during that time.

then we drove at turtle speed to our next hotel, which was a loooong long way away. we arrived at the lake kivu serena hotel in time for a very late lunch. the cuisine here consists of rice, tortilla-like wraps and papadum-esque crispy rolls.

this fruit tastes disgusting... it looks like a tomato but isn’t sweet at all. i only remember spitting it out, trying another piece from another plate, and still hating it.

thankfully everyone wanted to relax and take it easy, so we ordered in for dinner and spent the rest of the night chilling.

jul 4, 19 ••• we drove out to see the border between rwanda and the democratic republic of congo. we were told to be very careful about taking photos of the police officers there, so we were. it felt strange to take photos of the border, i’m clearly very ignorant of the relations and history. it was a very busy juncture, with a sea of people crossing this way and that, lots of cars bumbling about and a lot of fruit, as i recall. hahah.

we then drove out to see a makeshift hot spring. we were asked if we wanted to take a dip, but none of us wanted to..... felt bad saying no, but really not worth it, sorry.

https://vimeo.com/568059672  (okay, i’m unable to embed more videos so links will have to do until i figure out something better...)

we took a boat ride along the lake, but there wasn’t that much to see around there, it was pretty dirty and murky... reminded me of the hong kong harbor, with trash floating around. it was also freezing, so i wasn’t having any fun at all.

we went to the gym and worked out a little bit because there was a lot of time to kill in between returning to hotel and our private pre-planned bbq dinner on the beach. we were lucky enough to enjoy traditional rwandan dancing which was absolutely gorgeous.

jul 5, 19 ••• we spent most of our morning in the car, having crossed the border to the republic of uganda. we stopped by a cute cafe along the way for lunch, but it was a grueling 4-5 hour car ride to mahogany springs, which was our hotel for the gorilla trekking. we managed to arrive around 715pm, by which time it was pretty dark and scary outside. the other car had broken down twice, once in the dark as well, so spirits were low and there was a lot of muttering and grumbling done under people’s breath. everyone was ravenous by the time dinner was served, but despite how late it was, it was absolutely delicious and i was happy! (also grateful for our car not having broken down)

jul 6, 19 ••• we woke up VERY early in anticipation of gorilla trekking. we waited around the hotel lobby after some coffee and biscuits for breakfast. it was an awful lot of waiting, but i didn’t sense anything wrong until i saw how pissed off our tour guide looked. it turns out our permits had gotten stolen! probably bribes.

here we were mucking around, still anticipating gorilla trekking.

we didn’t let it slow us down though. i actually am grateful for how things turned out because we wouldn’t have gotten to experience uganda like that without this turn of events. we joined a community tour that showed us how tea is harvested, how coffee is grown, harvested and round, as well as how bananas may be used to make juice, beer and gin! very cool

african tea leaves

jackfruit??

these are flowers from the coffee tree

the different stages of the coffee plant

this is henry, he owns this coffee plantation. here, henry shows us how to the use this contraption, the purpose of which is to grind coffee beans into powder

here henry is, sifting the coffee powder

here are my parents, having the time of their life (lol at my dad)

fresh bananas

these are the different stages of a banana’s life: from raw to ripe to fermenting. it can be made into juice and liquor.

we then visited a local school, where we were entertained by kids from kindergarten to 6th grade. we learned about their mission and goals to educate the younger generations by providing classrooms and a dining hall and even dorms for boarding. the singing and dancing was BRILLIANT. loved every single second of it. wish i’d joined in and not cared about what anyone thought.

we stopped by a women’s community center and saw a lot of cool crafts and art. that was on the way to the batwa pgymy tribe. we learned how they integrated with the batwa community. they showed us some dances they have dedicated to the gorillas, for which they are very grateful because it brings tourists in and therefore gives them an income. they showed us how to use a bow and arrow to hunt, and how they weave baskets and make handicrafts.

alan with the leader of the pgymy tribe

one of our guides spotted 2 chameleons, which was super impressive. he even brought the chameleon down close to us so that we could see it. i won’t ever understand how he was able to spot it in the wild, and from so far away as well.

we returned to the lodge and had lunch. the veggie stir fry was pretty dang good. it was served with posho, which is a maize bread, beans, and also matate (???) which reminded me a lot of plantain. back at the hotel, we chilled (without tv or wifi) until dinner. alan fell asleep, and i kept myself busy sorting out photos. dinner was early, and our night was early because we were promised gorilla trekking in the morning!

delicious!

jul 7, 19 ••• we were up and ready to leave by 7am. we were in the clear! we drove a little bit to the bwindi impenetrable national park for some entertainment (dancing and singing) from local students and a hilarious briefing on what to expect and do’s and don’ts of the trek. 

we then had separate meetings within our trekking groups. ours was quite big, with 10 tourists, because michael and our guides had spent HOURS the day before handling our stolen permits. an exception was made to accommodate us all, so our group consisted of the starke’s, alan, kerstin, a couple from oregon, and an english family. we had to get in another car and drive a bit to the mountain, where we met our porters and then began our trek!

the hike up was difficult, and at times i legit feared for my life because the mud/rocks were loose and one wrong step would have had us tumbling down the edge of the mountain... and that was me at age 28!! cannot imagine how my parents were feeling...

alan with meddie

as we made our way to the gorilla family, we encountered a solo young male who was soooo friendly, he cut across our group, like right down the middle, and he even reached out and touched my mom on her jacket! it was wild that a gorilla was that close to us, and then he left as quickly as he had joined.

this is the photo my mom managed to take when the young gorilla male was right next to her

we kept on hiking and found a large. our guide, meddie, told us that we were lucky to have found such a large family doing a whole bunch of different activities: we saw mothers nursing their babies, babies swinging from the trees and playing with one another, sub adult males beating their chests and other members of the family eating and feeding. we even got to watch as a silverback gorilla pulled a very healthy poop out of its butt, and we ran into him snacking again later on.

on the way down, it started raining a little bit. we all slipped at one point or another, but it was especially dangerous for my dad so we all had to slow down our pace a little bit to match his speed. thank god he had a porter there to help him out and save him. 

we returned to the same place as where we had started our morning for a debriefing, and we each received a certificate to show that we had been on this trek. we waited around a little bit for the other group to arrive, and were once again very grateful that our experience was much more pleasant. one lady in the other group had to leave the trek on a stretcher, and the others were caught in the rain on their way to the gorillas, so it must have been a cold and awful experience on their end. 

us after the successful completion of our gorilla trek!!

we headed to a local inn nearby where we had a late lunch and could change into dry clothes. we then drove a bumpy 4 hours to mweya safari lodge, located inside queen elizabeth national park. we made a couple of stops along the way (one of which was in the middle of nowhere so that people could go pee out in the open where animals are potentially roaming around?!?!?) and when we finally arrived, it was already 830/9ish pm.... we insisted to order room service because we were pooped, and we got showered and hit the hay.

this cute sign was outside the lodge!

this super old school cash register was at the lodge too

jul 8, 19 ••• today started off with a game drive, early in the morning! 

we drove around the gorgeous park and saw elephants, warthogs, antelope, eagles, all sorts of bird and butterflies, buffalo and weird-looking lemur or ferret creatures. we thought it was great, but some other members of the group were underwhelmed. 

this is the view from the car we sat in for the safari

this gorgeous tree houses sooo many bird’s nests! do you see them?

cute antelope we saw on the tour

after lunch at the hotel, we went on a boat tour around the kazinga channel. i think it was called lake edward? we saw many animals again, including crocodile, elephants, buffalo, all sorts of birds, and hippos.

favorite photo of my parents ¨̮

we followed a few elephant cuties along the bank. it drizzled for a little bit in between.

dinner was delicious. it was a great buffet, although i was severely grossed out by the ants that joined us on the dining table.

there were so many animals on the grounds of the lodge. don’t be fooled by how cute these guys look, we saw them fight over raw meat at some point! we also saw a warthog stroll around.

jul 9, 19 ••• we were up bright and early today for a quick breakfast before heading right on out. on the way to entebbe, we stopped by a local motel for lunch. the service was SUPER slow (maybe because we had such a huge group together!) but it was delicious and worth the wait! i ordered a coleslaw and avocado vinaigrette (this was THE HUGEST AVOCADO i’ve ever seen in my life?!?!?), a veggie biryani and some of paul’s aloo matar. we then filed back into our cars for several more hours of “african massage” to the next destination. had an early night, i think we ordered room service to the hotel room and tried to get our butts to bed as early as possible because it was another EARLY day the morning after.

we stopped at the equator in uganda to take some photos, of course!

i was sooo happy to be able to order room service! we felt like we were finally back to civilization... 🥺 we had wifi and tv and hot water... ugh it was amazing

jul 10, 19 ••• my alarm was set for 4am this morning.... 🥲😅 we left the hotel at 5am for the airport and obviously i was tired and grumpy and just in a crappy mood overall hahahah. our first flight was barely 45 minutes.... to mbarara i’m guessing?? i was assigned a middle seat on my own originally but no one was in the aisle seat so i moved over woohoo! our first layover was 2-3 hours, not too bad. we hung around at the lounge area. 

our second flight was to harare. alan and i managed to snag 2 joined seats towards the back end of the plane so that we could watch conan’s traevel shows on his ipad. there was a pretty scary drop when we were descending imto harare. i think we just stayed on the plane for about half an hour so some people could get on the plane and join.

we flew about 3 hours more to cape town, and we were EXCITED to arrive. it was a hell of a time checking in, and it was a nicer hotel in a nice area so we decided to just stay in and order room service again. we had a slow night and it was SOOOO needed. cape town felt a lot closer to the first world and we were enjoying and appreciating it to the max. we even started playing pokemon go and its harry potter-themed equivalent (oops forgot the name), but to be fair, we didn’t get cell phone service everywhere we went, so it would cut on and off.

jul 11, 19 ••• eek, cape town was COOOOLD! luckily i brought a jacket along, we really really needed to cover up and stay warm! got to sleep in a bit, we left by 830am to drive to the pebble beach by the water to take some gorgeous photos. we stopped by chapman’s peak for another photo op, then drove to boulders beach in simon’s town to see the penguins!! it was such a dream, loved every second of it.

i believe this was chapman’s peak??

what a model

this was at the pebble beach at the cape of good hope. 

saw a cute ostrich on the way somewhere

next we went to cape point. we took the funicular to the top, then hiked up to the lighthouse. we took pots of great pics but omg it was EVEN MORE freezing there. we had lunch at the two oceans restaurant. fancy and delicious! the calamari was bomb, the arancini was alright, but the main of chickpea and mushrooms was delish. after lunch we headed right on back to the hotel.

when i said it was cold, i wasn’t joking... it was FREEZING at the top. i had a horrible time because i don’t do that well in the cold

alan and i walked over to woolworths to get water and makeup remover and snacks. on the way back we stopped by PLANT for dinner. i was sooo excited to try out their vegan fast food, so i ordered a lot of the menu. we got the quinoa salad, mac and cheez, seitan lasagna, schawarma, pot stickers, siu mai, spag bolognese, tiramisu, milk tart and a bunch of other random vegan snacks. i was in HEAVEN. even though some of the stuff was cold by the time we got back to the hotel and ate, it still tasted DELICIOUS. i was soooo impressed.

this was the lasagna. omfg i need an encore of this restaurant one day!!! wish i knew how to cook like this

jul 12, 19 ••• today we went to a wine blending workshop at grande provence winery. the first step was to blend 3 different mixtures. after tasting them all, we decided the last blend was the winner, with 40% zinfandel, 10% shiraz and 50% cabernet. so then we blended up a big bottle of it, corked it, thew on a hand-signed label, and then walked around the beautiful indoor and outdoor art galleries.

this was our group!

wine blending is literally mixing different wines together in different proportions and figuring out which you like the taste of the best

there was a lot of cute art at the winery! i loved all the dogs and greyhounds around the property. these 3 dancing pigs came a close second

we drove a little way for lunch at another beautiful vineyard. i had a charcoal ciabatta, tomato quinoa salad, root veggie risotto and steamed veggies on the side. we skipped the wine tasting because our lunch overran a bit and our bus driver buford said that the traffic would be pretty heavy on a friday afternoon and it wouldn’t be worth it to be stuck on the bus. so we just walked around the cute little town we were at, franschhoek (??)

there was a lot of cute art and small local shops around this town! we strolled around and got some souvenirs ¨̮

love this

we had a dinner booked way ahead at fyn restaurant. it was stunningly delicious. i loved every single course and was thoroughly impressed.

UGHHHHH just soooo good.

jul 13, 19 ••• FINALLY we had a day to sleep in!!!! we let our group know the night before that we didn’t want to join the walking tour around the city. we woke up and made our way to the company’s garden, which was directly next to our hotel. we played harry potter wizards unite and ran into the tour group. my mom told me later on it was a good decision of ours not to join haha.

we walked to addis in cape for an authentic ethiopian meal experience. we washed our hands at the table, ate the whole meal with our hands, and finally i was able to taste injera. it was 100% teff injera and it did not disappoint. i ordered a vegan platter while alan got a combo. the amount of food was PERFECT for us, we finished every single thing. 

we ordered dessert but the hot berries never showed up and the ice cream was interestingly very gummy and very very sweet. the coffee was strong and served with a beautiful platter.

after that, we needed to walk our full tummies off. we headed to the waterfront, where there were many shops and stalls in indoor and outdoor malls. it was just a really good time walking around there and we saw soooo many things. there was bubble tea in south africa, a yogurt bar that made me sooo happy, dogs were up for adoption, and a bootleg jabbawockeez performance at the city square. we walked back to the hotel after that and got ready for bed.

jul 14, 19 ••• we woke up at 430am to head to the airport by 530am. we caught our first flight from cape town to johannesburg, then transferred to a direct flight back to hong kong. it was a TIRING trip but wow, the memories!! really want to go to back soon

[glowyjellyfish]

Gather round, children, for the legend of Grimwood Abbey

(that’s the tiny pre-MCC I mentioned the other day. I only came up with this concept, oh, over a year ago. Dropped it to play a nice easy modern Megahood. I don’t have much wherewithal.)

...so I have spent two days on the weekend so far just working on getting my CC sorted out so I can consider starting this. Yesterday the big issues were a. realizing it was super inefficient to delete stuff in-game one by one even though it’s nice to be able to see it, and becoming paralyzed with indecision about whether to take the time to hunt down unidentified files by hand, or continue spending time deleting dozens and dozens of recoiled by hand… eventually I did a little of both, but boy I gotta use some kind of tooltip renamed now huh… b. I am not good at Delphy’s Download Organizer. I don’t understand it. Why is there no “how to use” documentation. So then I set it to scan for orphans or duplicates, stare hopelessly at the results unable to figure out what is the best course of action, and then quietly quit it to yet again… move files around manually. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to use it to shove several file types into correct folders, but my real issue would be so easily solved if there was a thoroughly explained duplicate scanner that I was able to trust. Ugh, I probably should have started by moving all the files to one big folder and sorting them from there but WHATEVER.

Because, you see, like many simmers, I have been collecting my cc since roughly 2004. I legit cannot remember if I have lost the whole thing and had to start over, but this collection can certainly be traced back to my first laptop that could run the Sims 2. For the longest time, I merely collected a big pile of everything shiny and cool that caught my eye, resulting in a big mixed-up mess combining modern and medieval fantasy and sci-fi and random fandoms and steampunk and everything I ever enjoyed. That… was not sustainable. I tried keeping individual folders within Downloads for specific genres, with the idea that I could swap them in and out for different hoods. Alas, that was too time-consuming for my taste, and I ended up with the same basic downloads folder but very lightly sort of organized but not really.

Sometime within the last ten years, I started trying to cultivate different downloads folders of broad genre categories, all neatly saved on a big flash drive. That’s all well and good, but copying and backing up that shit took away precious hours I could be using to play. Not only that, but it was very rough trying to separate my downloads folder properly—some stuff worked well for multiple genres! So I ended up making copies of the whole downloads folder to build these alternates, which I could then whittle down to only the stuff I actually wanted in there. This medieval alternate downloads folder therefore also contained the folder I’d labeled Medieval CC in my last attempt at organizing, and just to be sure I copied everything over and back repeatedly. And you know how it goes—every time I got excited about the idea of an MCC, I had to go out and download anything new or shiny. And oh yeah, had to stock up on defaults because now I could be using a solely medieval downloads folder! And this new CC would get plonked right into the DL folder, nary a care for organization because I needed to play before I lost interest!

So I had at least two, possibly three copies of all the same content in a collection of medieval CC that’s been building for, let’s call it 15 years more or less. I can’t trust the download organizer—like sir are you showing me all of them? do I throw all these out or leave one behind?—and doing it by hand is extremely tedious, carefully removing all txt and preview files to improve my load time. And actually playing a year-old story concept is delayed yet again.

I’ve got a Megahood set up that I can start converting to medieval whenever I get my act together, and I still that that sounds like fun but also waaaay too big a project for me (latest issue: wait if the capulets and montagues are traditionally alike in dignity is it wrong to make the Capps gentry and the montys merchants? But if I make them both gentry it’ll be an entire damn subhood of nothing but gentry!). I also have the same old MCC hood I started building a year ago, restarting after years of having the concept ready (this one is Algary and it is the one i was building a castle for; it has a few interesting rolled families to start with such as the gentry family having no sim older than teen and me choosing to set that up as the direct heir and some cousins, and a peasant family that involved two elderly ladies who were in love and joined households after their obligatory husbands died, pooling resources to care for their families, but one of them was gonna feel obliged to head off to the church and repent while the other cared for the kids and became a midwife). And then there’s the new guy, Grimwood Abbey, whose concept is only a year old but I sure hope I can follow through on it because it is quite small. Even then I can’t decide yet whether to start with one household (everybody living together for protection!), two households (the church vs the knights), or several households (each knight beginning in their own household with their squire). The latter would make it easier for each knight to earn their own money and compete to purchase gentry approval from the church… but idk.

Anyway. After all that I am really hoping I am about ready to actually play a bit. Even just making some sims and buildings. Today I need to progress further in weeding out CC, try to find a way I can do that more efficiently, maybe find some nice standardized set of makeup and default eyes and skin to use rather than the haphazard collections I barely touch (I prefer to lean toward maxis match over Shiny Realistic skins where everyone has auto makeup, but I’m sure there is something nice out there that suits my needs), and I unfortunately saw some nice medieval clothes I don’t have while downloading a whole fresh set of Sun&Moon Star Factory stuffs (which, I had multiple copies of! Didn’t know what was updated and what was outdated or what! So I threw out everything I had and re-downloaded the entire collection, which may have been a bit drastic but it definitely worked. Also, why is there no complete user guide for this. A “how to get started” or something. Whatever.), so I also gotta download that. Then maybe I can make a test sim to make sure defaults and stuff work okay, and then maybe download some medieval lots to speed up the building process? And then I can play one of my various hood concepts finally actually? Maybe?

TLDR: I am getting frustrated because I have so many downloads, many of them duplicates within folder within the main folder, that it’s taking me all weekend just to straighten them out (and even then I might not be able to finish, despite it being a 3 day weekend where I live). I swear, it would be faster just to throw it all away and start over, except I can’t do that because I am clearly a CC hoarder and I might need a piece of CC that can no longer be downloaded.

...thus goes the preliminary legend of Grimwood Abbey and the horror story of Getting It Set Up. Someday, someday...

[plumboballama]

Guess What; It’s My Birthday!

Hello everyone! Today is my birthday if you didn’t know...so I decided i would do something fun and share some info on the previous heirs you guys didn’t get to see!

Meet Caroline Lynn, the founder of the Lynn Legacy! She was extremely clumsy, funny and she always had something to say. She started out in a small (not really) house alone, where she made some new hobbies and friends. Her first friends (that lasted AGES) were Cameron Fletcher and Julia Wright. On her first week of being a founder, she met a guy called Enzo. She decided it would be a good idea to just kiss him right after meeting each other. Unfortunately, he took it the wrong way. He was all over her for months, even when Caroline broke the news that she was pregnant. One day in Willow Creek’s park, at 8pm, Enzo proposed to Caroline (Or Cazz as I called her). In about 3 sim days after that they actually had the wedding in San Myshuno. While exchanging vows, Enzo admitted to only marrying her to be part of the legacy - and right there and then Cazz yelled at him and cancelled the wedding. The very same night, Cazz gave birth to a little baby named Dominique Cassandra Lynn. There were plenty of fun times. Around the time she was pregnant with Dom (Dominique) she met a guy named Andy. Just before her wedding with Enzo, he confessed love to her - and she confessed love to him. Ever since that day Cazz and Andy became utterly inseparable. They had two beautiful babies called Trisha (eldest) and Rian (youngest). Andy was a chef so he decided to give Cazz the nickname ‘Calzone’. Cazz also took up the journalist career as since day 1 she had loved writing. That is Carolines story!

This is my favourite heir so far, Dominique! Ever since toddlerhood, Dom spent her days running around and getting as fit as absolutely possible. In her childhood, a boy from school called Max came home with her to do some homework. The whole session was actually spent playing, but if I’m being honest Max was the only one playing as Dom was busy staring at him in complete awe. Over a few sim months, Dom and Max grew closer and closer until the day Dom aged up...when Max proposed to her. Of course she said yes, but when she told her mom...she didn’t get the best response. Cazz found out Max was a premade, and we all know premades and heirs don’t mix! She was forced to break up with him...so in all her depression, she ran away to Enzo’s house where he was living with his fiance....Julia Wright. When Dom eventually went back home, she met someone called Lauren Mills. She and Lauren quickly became best friends and decided to move out together. By this time, Dom had found herself a very gorgeous girlfriend, Makenzie Spears. She and Makenzie had an unbreakable bond, hence Makenzie moving in with them on the second day they arrived at their new home. Over a whole sim month, Dom, Kenzie and Lauren were challenged to solve the mystery of Canyon Ville (formerly Strangerville.) They completed it no bother, and it brought them closer. Makenzie proposed to Dom after they had solved the mystery, so nothing got complicated. After the wedding, Dom and Makenzie were challenged to find out how to have children together. But one day, Makenzie broke the news and told Dom she was pregnant! In a few sim days, Dom and Makenzie gave birth to Tressa Lorenzo Anderson Lynn. Lorenzo being after Enzo, her grandfather, and Anderson being after Andy her step-grandfather. Live went pretty smoothly after Tressa was born, Dom and Lauren finished college (which was somehow quietly maintained while the mystery was going on), Dom went from level 10 athlete to level 7 in the military. Kenzie became an astronaut and became the first sim on the save to visit Sixam. And on a lovely ending note, Dom became the Grand Marshal of the Canyonville Military Services.

Meet Tressa, Style queen and fashion vlogger of Evergreen Harbour! Since Tressa’s story is veeeery long (and it’s late here) I will only share some fun facts about her. 

1) Tress has been famous since she was a teen

2) She has had 6 children 

3) She got pregnant with Ivy on the day she aged up into a YA

4) She has moved homes 3 times

5) She cheated on her husband

And Ivy, the paranormal queen we all know and love! Here are 10 facts about her;

1) Ivy had the active trait, but the watcher used cheats to change it when she was a child

2) Ivy has had the same hairstyle since she was a toddler

3) Ivy has only had one romance in her life

4) Ivy was very sadly diagnosed as infertile and her role as heir was passed to Makenna Lynn

5) Ivy unexpectedly became pregnant with their miracle child, Quinn

6) Ivy has the power to communicate with the dead without a seance table or circle

7) Ivy is believed to have telepathic powers

8) Sulani believes she is the goddess of the afterworld

9) Ivy loves country music

10) Ivy was a coffee addict but stopped her obsessiveness when she was pregnant

I hope you all enjoyed hearing these little stories behind all my heirs! 

[maxismatchccworld]

Hey you lovely Simmers! It is time for our new Spotlight of the Month. Please give a warm welcome to Sandy aka @aroundthesims​. 😊 I literally have content for all of my 3 Sims games from her. What about you?

Hello, lovely Simmers!

I’m Sandy and I’m running Around the Sims 4, a site with CC for Sims 4, mostly objects, though there’s also few pieces of clothing or make-up here and there! :)

Meet Sim-Sandy!

I’m also running Around the Sims 3… and Around the Sims 2, and Around the Sims… Because, yes, I’ve been creating custom content for the Sims forever. So long ago that some of you weren’t even born when I released my first set. Phew! I feel like a dinosaur! :D

The weirdest thing, I think, is that I was SO enthusiastic about creating stuff I could use in my game, that I actually started making stuff for Sims 1 even before I got the game (I was expecting the french Mac release, that occurred several months after the US Windows release. Oh yes, if you hadn’t guessed from my weird syntax, you would have from my accent, but you can’t hear it so..; I’m french!). Of course, none of my first CC was usable in game because I had no idea of what I was doing, but it says a lot about my addiction at creating CC! :D

Hadn’t I told you I’ve been making CC for VERY long time? 😂

I think I started a site then (before DSL and such, guys… A dinosaur, I’m telling you!) because I was spending so much time at creating stuff that sharing them was making me feel less guilty, like “OK, I’ve spent two weeks at working on this love bed (old Simmers will know… :D), BUT it’s not just for me, so it’s not lost time if other people can be happy with my stuff!“

I’m still amazed by the fact I can get an idea, mesh it and few hours (or days… or weeks, depending how silly the idea was!), I can play with it in my games.  I’m a player, even if I spend way more time at creating CC than playing, but somehow, creating CC is also a way of playing because I always make stuff with my game in mind. It’s how I end up with two “specialties” in my CC making, directly inspired by my way of playing: community lots and clutter.

I really enjoy playing with community lots because one of my favorite things in game is to gather lots of Sims on a place, and just observe them interacting together. So, these places can be bars or cafes, of course, but also shops, a laundromat, schools, a park… Whatever. And as I play with a lot of Sims (I don’t play legacies, but a whole town), I need a lot of various places to satisfy everyone. I like to imagine a favorite shop and a favorite place to go out for each of my Sims. Believe me, this makes my “community lots projects” list pretty long! :D

Some CC made for community lots

My second obsession is clutter. Decorating is a thing, but I love adding a bit of clutter that will tell a whole story. I tend to thing that the little thing that lies around your sofa, may it be a book, a remote control, a yogurt, a sock, a basket of yarn, whatever, says more about you that the sofa itself. I like to imagine all those little details about my Sims: what they eat for breakfast, what are their hobbies, what’s in their bag, or even what do they use to wash their clothes. A good and silly example of that if my timers set. *lol* I ended up by having a dizains of them just because I thought to all my Sims who would use a timer… and of course, everybody would have one’s favorite… :D

That’s what I love about the Sims: its diversity. You can create so many different characters, from ages, ethnicity, incomes, social classes… And I haven’t even still explored the supernatural aspect of the game, I’m still rather realist, that’s how you can find various detergents on my site but no  vampire’s skin product (though you know, now that I mention it, I like the idea… Well, you MIGHT find some vampire’s skin product at my site at some point… :p)

Some clutter!

I’m not sure this addiction to CC and to the Sims will ever stop. You might have to bare with me for still a long time! ;)

[yakumtsaki]

Alright you guys, sorry for the delay, I’ve had to restart this post 20 fucking times because my changes weren’t being saved in the draft and then I kept getting the ‘upload failed’ error. In case you don’t remember wtf is going on you might wanna re-read the last update (I certainly had to) which is apparently from JUNE 2018. Jfc I suck so hard. Now this was gonna be really long but tumblr wouldn’t post it so I’m breaking it up in 3 parts, part 2 to be posted tomorrow. For those that don’t feel like reading back, general recap of the last couple updates:

Jojo cheated on Wyatt with Max Flexor and my solution to that marital crisis was to adopt our first dog ever, a puppy hilariously named Maxx.

The puppy grew up to be an asshole and is constantly beating up the cats, who have turned into giant pussies (no pun intended) and are losing every fight to him despite the fact they’re named after Mortal Kombat characters. They’re a fucking disgrace to Alegra’s/Victor’s/Ronroneo’s memory and I haven’t settled on a cat heir yet because they both suck.

Jojo is perma miserable, I don’t even remember how much money away from his 100k LTW, and still not a werewolf despite my pathologically persistent attempts to make him friends with the wolf.

Fucking useless Wyatt didn’t get promoted while Komei was alive providing us with his 100 townie friends, we spent 20 updates befriending every rando that crossed our lot to secure his promotion, and then finally on the day he was supposed to become Captain Hero, Wyatt got, of course, fired and is now on track to take longer to complete his literal career based LTW than Komei took to get 6 pets on the top of their careers.

Absolutely everyone hates noogie addict Shajar, she got a Kylo Ren makeover, and we still don’t know what her sexual orientation is thanks to her ridiculous fitness/fatness turn ons and cleanliness turn off.

Golden child/10 nice points freakshow Cyneswith grew up, rolled romance with the most disturbing turn-ons/offs possible (grey hair/mechanical & charisma turn off) and the 20 simultaneous lovers LTW.

Wulf grew up into a kid, got an Amadeus makeover, is officially a Wyatt clone and the only member of this family I don’t completely hate yet.

Now I’d like to begin the first Union post in more than a year by requesting you do me a solid and lower your expectations for this thing as far down as humanly possible. Like really try to recreate the Jules Verne classic “Journey to the Center of the Earth” with your expectations here, because my brain is so fucking fried that there’s a 20% chance I randomly start citing sources at some point during this post. This grad school crap has seriously been the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever. And speaking of bad trade deals, let’s get this update rolling with the man, the myth, the legend, the husband who managed to make Komei look like a dreamboat in comparison..

..Wyatt fucking Union, née Monif. It’s been a long time, but I’m not gonna lie to you Wyatt, not nearly long enough. Looking good man, just one small question, where the fuck are your eyebrows?

-You àccidéntally deléted thém, imbécilé, et I cannôt exprèss my irritatiόn prόperly becausé I hàve non eyebrôws!

Did your selective French accent get thicker this past year or is it just me?

-It géts thickér whén je suis distrésséd, givé moi mon eyebrôws bàcc!!!

No can do, brother. Actually can do, but I think the Mona Lisa look is working for you, and more importantly I still hate you, so I’m just gonna hardcore ignore you for the rest of this post if that’s ok. Talk to me when you finally get promoted, aka never the way this shit is going.

-Non! NON! MON EYEBROWS!

It’s been lovely catching up.

Jojό I mean Jojo, goddammit Wyatt, is spending most of his time building robots in the mausoleum (sweet hipster band name alert)..

..giving financial advice in Shajar’s room (inb4 what’s the difference between the mausoleum and Shajar’s room)..

..building evil snowmen alone in the middle of the night, like all mentally healthy middle aged men with 3 kids are wont to do..

..and getting the piss harassed out of him by the cat ghosts in the bathroom (sweet hipster band name alert #2). How is this like the fourth time this happens in the exact same spot, will you just stop autonomously cleaning the bathroom after midnight? It’s obviously where the cats hang out, give it the fuck up already.

-I’m actively TRYING TO DIE you absolute moron, what does a guy have to do to get killed around here?

Yea can’t say that I blame you but not happening, you can commit suicide by Ghost Alegra after the kids fuck off to college, ok? I promise.

-Oh like you promised me being heir was a route worth pursuing??

Um obviously you too need to go back and re-read your own life story, because I spent the entirety of our “““cherished””” time together telling you heirship is a shitty gig at generation 2. And then to top it off you went and married Wyatt to ensure maximum shittiness, so there you go, fucking enjoy. God I am so sick of both of you losers and we’re only 5 pics in. Let’s check in with your spawn, I’m sure they can’t possibly be more annoying than their parents-

-oh right, I forgot, this is the generation with 10/10/9 active points where the party never stops. Cyneswith are you somehow twerking to classical music?

-How else am I gonna attract all those hot senior citizens per my grey hair turn on and 20 lovers LTW?

Ok great yea I see how this is gonna go, you’re trying to entice people into voting you for heir based on how torturous playing this fucked up LTW is gonna be for me, well forget it, my readers are intellectuals and completely above such petty entertainment. (istg mofos, don’t even think about it, i already did Komei’s 5 pets career shit, i will burn this place to the ground if you saddle me with Cyneswith banging the elderly for 30 years)

-No need to worry your stupid little head, I will beat Cyneswith for HEIR just like I beat her HAIR up daily! HAHA!

Shajar no offense but you’re a fucking war crime of a sim, nearly everyone who’s ever met you hates you including your parents, and the fact that you’re the alternative here is really not helping my situation in any way. Also how the fuck are you gonna be heir when the only thing you seem to be attracted to is giving noogies, you’re like one week away from college and I still don’t even know if you’re str8 or gay or bi or w/e the fuck you are. You have Jojo’s personality combined with..

..yes exactly, DANIEL’S SOCIAL ABILITIES. I mean I was joking with the whole ‘Shajar’s the spawn of Satan’ thing, but this combo of traits was clearly drawn up in Hell’s boardroom.

ANYWAY. It’s a snowy Sunday morning, and anyone who has been a teen knows what that means:

Time to go clubbing! Man I remember being like 15, waking up on a freezing Sunday morning and my mom making me a cup of hot chocolate before I drove off to the club. Those were the days.

-Uh, Shaj, when did you learn how to drive?

-Don’t be stupid, Cyneswith, people don’t need to ‘learn’ how to drive.

-They absolutely do, actually.

-Well what can I tell you, the dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.

-Here we are, safe and sound! Celebratory noogie!

-YOU RAN OVER 9 PEOPLE

-How many times to I have to explain this to you, Apartment Life townies are not people.

Can’t argue with that logic. Let’s just go in and find out what Shajar’s sexual orientation is once and for all so I can spend the rest of this update aggressively promoting Wulf’s candidacy.

Now I consider ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ one of the dumbest sayings there is, but even I have to concede that this particular picture truly is worth a thousand words. Quick poll, what is more horrifying, Shajar’s literal Joker face or Cyneswith, whom I’ve never seen read a book ever, autonomously pulling one out in the middle of the dance floor, in what I can only assume is an attempt to attract old perverts with the schoolgirl routine?

And I know what some of you are thinking, you’re like ‘bro, you’re just reaching to make a bad joke bro, Cyneswith is just a sweet nice introvert and not like other girls, she doesn’t feel comfortable in the club’, well to that let me reply with another picture that is worth a thousand words:

Yea that’s right, on the first minute of our first time out WE RUN INTO THAT ONE ELDER TOWNIE THAT HAS WRINKLE MAKE UP ON. GODDAMMIT CYNESWITH

Do you guys remember how Jojo was obsessed with Stephen Tinker as a teen? Are you seeing the connection here?? Those kids have literally inherited the worst possible traits from both their parents turned up to 11, it’s fucking unreal.  

Right after I get over Wrinkle’s presence I turn around and what do I see, those 2, who have never had a non-noogie physical interaction, autonomously doing the family kiss thing. I didn’t even catch it on time because I was loling irl, we came out here so these assholes can find age-appropriate partners, and instead they’re kissing each other. Seems about right with this family, and clearly Striped Scarf’s dumb ass ships it.

-They look so much alike, it’s meant to be!

Yes, and they even share the same last name! Talk about written in the stars.

Thankfully Abhijeet is here to save us from incest by perving on Cyneswith. GTFO ABHIJEET. Anyone like ‘bro townies just autonomously come to greet your sims on community lots regardless of age, stop calling them perverts’, see you in about 5 pics down.  

I try to have Shajar chat up Striped Scarf and suffice it to say Shaj ~stole her heart~ and presumably put it on this stick to wave around.

NO. CYNESWITH NO. I’m seriously having déjà vu of all the times I was like ‘NO. JOJO NO’, jfc.

Shajar is unsurprisingly exhibiting no interest in socializing with anyone around her, instead she’s trying every activity this terribly lit place has to offer, and she looks demented while doing it:

I’m feeling a primal urge to photoshop Darth Vader’s melted helmet on the bowling ball here, someone please remind me to do it for the heir vote photoshoot.

-HA. SUCK IT DENISE JACQUET

That’s Denise Jacquet?! I can’t tell who anyone is for shit anymore. The default replacements are a scourge upon premade brands, I’m getting rid of them pronto. Speaking of scourges, where the hell is your sister?

-Who cares?

I wanna say ‘me’ but we both know that’s a lie.

Oh ok, THERE SHE IS.

-So you see Cyneswith, just because something is technically ‘illegal’, doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong-

Yea yea fascinating stuff, now get out of the hot tub or I will fucking neuter you, I don’t know if a eunuch mod already exists for medieval games but I will make one if it doesn’t.

Here, Cyneswith, drink some water, have a nice G-rated convo with your sister about violins and stop pissing me off. 

-First of all this is straight vodka.

Great.

-Secondly Shajar is talking about Mozart’s coprophilia.

-I sure am.

Amazing. Well, I guess it’s at times like these when you need to look inside your heart and truly ask yourself, what did you expect from Jojo’s children.

ABHIJEET ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME DID YOU EVEN HEAR ME TALK ABOUT CASTRATION

-Ha, I went home and put on my most elderly-looking formal wear!

-I hate to see you go but I love to watch you leave Ab <3

CYNESWITH SHUT UP. I can’t believe you people are actually making me miss Gunther’s teenage whoring, at least he kept it age appropriate.

-Is some random lady pressing her breasts against my head?

She most certainly is, Shajar, because it is now crystal clear that this bowling alley doubles as the site of annual perv townie convention and we walked right into it-

-and it’s also clear we have serious issues and are enjoying ourselves. Shaj I legit don’t know what to tell you, this is the first time you get along with someone right away and it just had to be the adult with the bad haircut and the flasher’s trench coat???

-You’re damn right it did.

Alright then, I’m officially going to nope out of this situation, safe in the knowledge you’re a noogiesexual and nothing will actually happen with this freak, so I’ll focus on Cyneswith instead who is much more of a loose canon. 

Here Cyn, talk to this guy, who I’m 90% sure is the same guy your father rejected in favor of stalking Stephen Tinker when he was your age.

-Ohhhh, he’s dreamy!

Omg really?? Halleluj-

-oh never mind, you were of course referring to adult ass Brandon Lillard. I do like that our townies have recurring roles each generation, we should make rejecting Blondie a rite of passage in this family. We should also officially gtfo because this is happening:

-Um, now that I’m looking at you in harsher lighting, it’s gonna be a no from me dawg. 

Oh, thank the fucking lord.

-Let’s celebrate the fact we didn’t get hopelessly obsessed with any adults here by doing the traditional Dance of Normality!

-We beat Dad’s genes, we beat Dad’s genes!

-We’re normal!

Yes, and we’re definitely showing it. Can we please leave now so I can make sure I’ve uninstalled Inteenminator and turn off free will? 

-Nop! Venue change!

-Got-out-of-the-car celebratory noogie!

-Made-it-to-the-door celebratory noogie!

Shajar you unironically have a noogie addiction, I’m not kidding in the slightest, you need to see a doctor.

Great, great, not another teen in sight and to top it off Denise followed us here to ensure maximum elder presence. I feel comfortable officially declaring this day a complete waste of time.

God, the vintage pink dress and the pink alcohol combo is some straight up current era Taylor Swift nonsense. That’s it, we’re outta here, back home where no one is lurking, waiting to strike at us-

-SOPHIE NOOOOOOOOOOOO💔💔💔💔💔

-The Lord is my shepherd.

NO HE ISN’T EVERYONE KNOWS YOU CAN’T HERD CATS PLEASE DON’T DIE

-Nop, I’m over it. Goodbye heathens, it’s been nice, hope you don’t find your paradise. 

UGH SOPHIE, my beloved Westboro lunatic, the last gangsta generation 1 cat we had.. I can’t believe you’re gone and all I’m left with is stupid Goro and D’vorah who can’t even beat up the fucking dog. This is truly painful.

Yes, pets, I agree, Kaylynn is completely to blame for Sophie dying of old age. The time has now come to decide on a cat heir-

-and since Goro ran away like a little bitch after Sophie’s death despite the fact he didn’t even like her, he’s automatically disqualified and will be going off to live on Melody and Daniel’s farm once returned to us. Congratulations to D’vorah I guess, on being the least terrible of two terrible options. 

On the topic of terrible heir options, Cyn has non-stop wants to go on dates and have her first kiss and all that crap, and since our Sunday morning clubbing was a bust we invite over the matchmaker.

-Hello there young Union, I see your house has been upgraded since I was last here.

Oh right we haven’t required your services since Daniel was a teen and we lived in a trailer, well we are flush with cash now!

-Hopefully your payment reflects that.

It will!! Just please give us someone good, I can’t deal with single teen Cyn for one more second.

-Oh my, what a beautiful BLANK PIECE OF PAPER.

WHAT!? NO THAT’S 5K IT’S JUST A SNOW GLITCH 

-What do I look like to you, a money thawing service?

Does such a service.. exist??

-It does not, so I have to go home and use a hairdryer on this!

Just come inside and we’ll give you non-frozen money!

-No, no, you’ll get what you paid for..

-Have a magical time!

...

.........

......................

Lakshmi this was so fucking evil that I almost want to age you down and see if you and Shajar hit it off. 

-As if, the whole neighborhood knows what you did to Komei.

Helped him achieve his insane 6-pets-career LTW?

-Turned him into a servant while your sim was lounging around all day!

Oh yea I did do that. But Wyatt was also a townie and he does literally nothing, Jojo is the servant now!

-Only because Wyatt is too fucking stupid to do things! Word has gotten out, no townie will ever marry in this family again unless they’re brain dead, so it’s Wyatts only for you from now on, sister!

Well this has been a complete fucking disaster. It was great seeing you again, Lakshmi, thanks for the dream date with the adult farting machine, 5k well-spent.

Pretty sure it was you bro, and yes, how about we don’t do that again.

Wyatt has brought over Amanda from work! (Aka Victoria’s only friend and subsequent lesbian lover, who is really pretty and is definitely getting married in at some point, preferably after the brown hair genes have been weakened so we can go back to being gingers.)  

-Wow Shajar, your grandmother, God rest her soul, mentioned you were her favorite and now I can see why! Loving the Kylo Ren look!

-Is someone being genuinely nice to me?! What is happening?

-Yes, please stop being nice to her, Amanda, we don’t want her getting used to it.

Jojo istg.

-Cyneswith dear, tell Amanda all about how much money your grandmother left you so she can stop being nice to Shajar. 

-Soooo much money, Miss Amanda!

-Ah, what a polite child I’ve single-handedly raised.

-Now, Cyneswith, you really need to get back on the dating scene so you have ample time to find the perfect spouse and continue our line, since you’re clearly the only one of my children that is remotely heir material. 

-Dad, Shajar and Wulf are right next to you.

-Oh they are? I’m wearing my special contact lenses that make those disappointments invisible to me, but even better, they need to hear this. Shajar is a noogiesexual and thus incapable of reproduction, and Wulf is not even a Union, I mean have you seen that kid? Wyatt reproduced by himself like the amoeba he is. Now, your grandmother-

-YOU MENTIONED ME 3 TIMES AND HERE I AM

OH FUCK VICTORIA, deleting the default replacements gave you base game hair!!!!

-That’s the part you’re scared by, not my Beetlejuicesque entrance?

There’s literally nothing scarier than your ghost sporting this haircut for all eternity, I’m re-downloading that default immediately. 

-Oh mom, so good to see you! Let me just hug my beloved child, Shijer-

-Shajar, dad.

-SHAJAR, let me hug Shajar, like I do all the time. 

-I’m glad to see you’re not picking favorites among your children like I did, the way I treated David-

-Daniel, mom.

-DANIEL, is the one thing I’ve truly been regretting in the afterlife. That and not skinning Marisa Bendett alive when I had the chance. 

-Well, as you can see by Shajar’s totally normal and not at all shocked reaction to my hug, I am a wonderful, fair, and emotionally available father. 

(Bruh this freaked me out so much when it happened, I mean I KNOW it’s an animation glitch but I was convinced my sims had become sentient for a good while after)

-Is your grandmother’s ghost still on the premises?

-Yup. 

-When will this nightmare end, paying attention to you is the worst. 

-Ok she’s gone.

-FINALLY. Now it’s back to the crypt for you, and don’t you dare go complain to her urn!

-Ah, Stephen, Stephen, my life is crap and I can’t even🎵

And with the knowledge you have composed a theme song for Stephen Tinker, part 1 of the Union comeback update is concluded. Will Shajar’s sexual orientation reveal itself? Will Cyneswith find true love? Will Jojo become a werewolf? Will Wulf continue to be the only dignified member of this family? Will D’vorah have kittens? Will Wyatt do literally anything worth mentioning? Tune in for parts 2 & 3 to find out, unfollow button on the upper right corner for those who need it. 

[nikatyler]

Simmer - Get to Know

I was tagged by @mysimsloveaffair​, @poisonfireleafs​ and I believe @desira-sims​ too, but my activity feed just isn’t showing it at the moment. Thanks guys!

Your name: Veronika

Languages you speak: Czech, English, Slovak and a little bit of German

Are you a mermaid: It would suck if I was one because we don’t have a sea in my country D: Love swimming tho

Your play style: Pausing every five seconds to get a screenshot, yelling at my game to stop lagging

Your Selfsim picture: (guess what, she played with the fire)

Stories or gameplay, builds, lookbooks, edits or cc: Stories and gameplay

Your favorite age state: In the game? Young adult. In my own life? Make me a toddler again and send me to like 2002 please

Your favorite season: Summer

Your favorite holiday: Christmas

How was your day: Not bad! I’m at my grandma’s house and I pretty much spent the whole day playing with her dog.

Your favorite career: I really enjoyed the Scientist career when I played it in NSB, even though it got a bit repetitive with time.

Your favorite aspiration: I'm not sure. But I use the creative ones a lot.

Your favorite EP, Sp or GP: EP - Seasons, SP - maybe Movie Hangout? idk, GP - Parenthood or Vampires, don't make me choose haha

How old is your simblr: It will turn four this August! Though technically its 4th birthday is in January or February, it just took me a few months to actually find the courage to post.

Have you woohooed: Lmao nope. Neither did my simself. I'm not even all that interested to be fair. Shoutout to all my followers who are also somehow under the ace umbrella! I love you and we’re valid!

Your favorite skill: Guitar, painting and...singing is fun, even though the first few levels are painful.

The size of your Mods folder: 2.0 something GB and we’re going down babey!

Your 3 favorite mods: MC Command Center, UI Cheats Extension and Pose Player. Where would I be without you, honestly.

Your interests (other than sims): drawing, writing, reading, history (especially 20th century), pilates and music (not making music, just listening to it and reading facts about musicians and genres and whatnot, I'm actually not musically talented at all)

Your favorite sim (picture if possible): I have a few but ultimately I think I have to say Tyler.

Which Sims games you have played (including mobile games): TS2 (two or three times in my life), TS3, TS4, The Sims Mobile (on the day it was released, then never touched it again) and that game that was on Facebook like ten years ago - The Sims Social it was called, I think? God my cousin and I were obsessed with that

Propose a crazy scheme: How about we don't accidentally leave vampires in the sun? :o

Best part of simblr: The fact that I can share my obsession with people who feel the same way. Literally no one else would listen, but you guys would.

Worst part of simblr: When someone makes their petty drama with another simblr public and people who most definitely shouldn't care because it's none of their business come in with their smartass textposts, spreading the fire and accusations. Just...keep it in your messages, talk it out with them and if nothing else heps, block them and move on. It works wonders. Don't drag them, don't drop their name, don't tell your followers to go ruin their life, don't start an anonymous blog saying "hey this person is stupid" and then tag a million simblrs who have probably never even heard of them (I wish I wasn't speaking from experience but these are all things I've actually seen over the years). You're better than that. Sorry, rant over.

What other games you play: Life is Strange and sometimes Garry's Mod with my sister. Subway Surfers on my phone when I'm really bored. Or Picrew games.

Other websites or accounts (origin, twitter etc..): I actually left twitter because it was putting my head into an unhealthy mindset, leading me to question everything and probably contributing to my already bad overthinking habit. Also I was just generally a bitch on twitter, something pissed me off, I immediately tweeted about it. Ten tweets, then I calmed down, few hours later I deleted them. But you can still follow @simmeronnie if you think I might come back. What else...I'm veronika2212 on the Gallery. My other social media accounts are not related to sims at all, so I won't list them.

Are you single: Single and lowkey craving some kind of love and care but hey it's fine I'm fine I'm not a sad little human being or anything

I should’ve waited until tomorrow to answer this tag, I’m so tired. Oh well. It’s done now. Besides we all know that I’m a bit of a clown so :D Goodnight.

Consider yourself tagged if you wanna do this!

[gwentoryfics]

roommates (changgu smut)

Genre | Roommates AU

Pairing | Changgu x Reader

Words | 4k

Summary | You’ve been best friends with Changgu for forever. But can you really be content with being just friends when you become roommates?

Warnings | Sexy times! (aka explicit smut). Some swearing.

Note | I think we all knew this was coming after I got bias wrecked SO HARD at Prism. Please enjoy. 💕

Honestly, it really just snuck up on you, the way that Changgu suddenly started catching your eye. You don’t exactly remember when it started happening, but you’d randomly notice the way he ruffled his wet hair after a shower, or the way his arms have started bulging ever since he took up bouldering. 

It freaked you out, actually. You and Changgu had been best friends for years - you were neighbors your whole life, and it felt so natural to live in close proximity. You spent many nights in high school crashing in each other’s bedrooms, and it was never a big deal. He’d come over after going on dates just to tell you what he liked about the girl, and you’d do the same with the guys you dated. You even remember having an incredibly in-depth conversation about sex and intimacy when you visited his bedroom after having sex for the first time. But there was never any sexual tension between the two of you - you just never saw each other that way.

However, it seems that there’s something about being in your early twenties that kind of ruins everything.

All it took was a little over a year of actually living together for you to see how much of a man he was becoming. Your whole life he had been the sweet boy next door (literally), but that image was very quickly dissipating right before your eyes. 

Maybe it’s because you both graduated and started full-time adult jobs.

Maybe it’s because he was wildly passionate about finance, which was, like, the most boring adult thing in the world.

Maybe it’s because he watched you so intently as you ate your dinner, rambling on about the project management strategies you were developing at work.

Whatever it was, something happened that changed the way you saw him.

You realized that your opinion of him was dangerously changing right around the time your lease renewal was due, and you contemplated moving out to live on your own. If those feelings were going to stick around, you didn’t want to risk screwing up your friendship. It seemed like a much better plan to get out while you still could before things got weird.

And then it came time to renew, and Changgu was so enthusiastic about continuing to live together, and… when he smiled at you like that, how could you possibly say no?

So here you are, curled up on the couch as you wait for him to return from war the bouldering gym. Well, you’re not exactly waiting because you’re just casually playing Sims on your laptop, but you do frequently find yourself looking forward to whenever he gets home. 

Gym days are simultaneously the best and worst, because you can’t describe how attractive he is when he’s sweaty, but you also hate yourself for drooling over him.

You’re decorating a new home in your game when he finally arrives, and you’re almost able to keep your eyes glued to the screen.

“Hey, _____!” Changgu cheerfully greets you as he closes the door behind him, locking the deadbolt.

“Sup,” you peek up only briefly, careful not to linger on the sleeveless shirt that clings to his body and the damp hair sticking to his forehead. “Good workout?”

“Yeah, I finally got up that wall that I’ve been stuck on all week.” He disappears momentarily into his room to drop off his climbing bag, then he heads for the kitchen to grab a snack.

“Oh cool! That’s awesome.” You’re too busy scrolling through virtual furniture choices to notice that he has popped into the living room, but you sure as hell realize when he leans over the back of the couch, looking over your shoulder as he bites into his granola bar.

“What are you up to?” A delicious combination of his sweat and his deodorant hits your nose, and you melt.

Pretending like the smell of you isn’t driving me wild right now. “Decorating. I made a new treehouse-inspired cabin.”

“Very cool.” He takes another bite, and you feel granola crumbs hit your shoulder.

“Dude…” You brush it off, fully aware of the fact that the crumbs are now on the couch and will still need to be cleaned up.

Changgu chuckles warmly. “My bad. Hey, I’m gonna jump in the shower. Want to grab some dinner after? Or have you already eaten?”

“I haven’t. Dinner sounds good.”

Changgu ruffles your hair, and it feels like an eternity before he retreats to the bathroom to get showered. And you definitely noticed that he didn’t grab a change of clothes before heading in, which means he’ll re-emerge in nothing but his towel whenever he’s done.

You’re already feeling like a mess, and you know you won’t be able to handle the sight of that.

He usually takes pretty long showers, especially after climbing… which means you’ve got plenty of time to kill before he’s out…

So you lock yourself into your bedroom and surrender to your fantasies.

You hurriedly dig through your nightstand for your favorite vibrator, which you know will have you soaring in mere minutes. Then you collapse back onto your bed, pushing your shorts and panties down to your ankles, your heart racing the more you think about the smell of his sweat. How could he naturally smell so attractive? And how could it affect you this deeply?

As your fingers begin to explore your folds, you can only think of him and his painfully beautiful gaze, how you wish you could watch his eyes travel down your body, full of lust. You want to feel him take in the sight of your naked body and feel just as wrecked as you do whenever he walks around the apartment shirtless. You want to feel his hands grip your hips, his lips latch onto your throat, and his cock thrust deep inside of you.

What would it feel like to fuck your best friend? Would it be awkward? Would it be perfect? Would it be the hottest experience you’ve ever had, or the most boring? What if it was a wonderfully tepid middle ground of fun and sexy, full of sensual laughter and intimate depth?

You would take any and all of it with Changgu.

Finally, you start to tease your entrance with your fingertips, and you simultaneously press small circles into your clit with your vibrator. You sigh deeply into the sensation, and let yourself imagine his kiss and his touch.

Changgu’s hands delicately caress your skin as he kisses you deeply, his body heat enveloping you in warmth. Each kiss makes your walls clench around his cock, his hips gently rolling against yours in a deliciously slow rhythm. Years of lust and platonic love meld into the most beautiful connection of your bodies, and it’s all too easy to forget that this is all just a fantasy.

You bump up the intensity of your vibrator as your fingers bury themselves within you, and you shamelessly finger yourself to the thought of your best friend until you’re teetering on the edge. 

Your chest warms, your walls clench, your pleasure heightens…

“Hey, are you- oh shit!”

You’re abruptly ripped out of your fantasy by the sound of Changgu’s voice, and you see him standing in the doorway. “Changgu?”

His gaze visibly jumps from your hands to your face, his eyes growing wide before he scrambles to pull the door shut.

Embarrassment swallows you whole, and you’re unable to move. Changgu just walked in on you. Oh God, Changgu just walked in on you.

***

If he had to guess, Changgu would say his face is probably the most ridiculous shade of red right now. He stares at her bedroom door from the safety of the hallway, completely unable to unsee everything he just walked in on.

Masturbating is totally normal. Not at all a big deal. Of course she masturbates from time to time. He does it too. But he never in a million years would have thought he’d see it happening one day.

Truth be told, it was incredibly hot to see her like that, and he definitely looked at her longer than he should have. But the desire to watch had so greatly overpowered the common sense that told him to get out - he just wasn’t thinking straight.

And now he just keeps playing it over and over in his head. This isn’t the first time he’s found himself lingering on the thought of her spread out and wriggling in pleasure - it’s just that now he has a very specific, real-life image attached to it.

Changgu hears the buzzing of her vibrator stop, and he hides his face in his hands, trying to get himself focused. He needs to say something to fix this. So he forces out a laugh and goes with, “Dude, lock your door next time.”

“Maybe you should knock!” She hollers from the other side of the door, and he can’t quite tell if she’s angry or just being sassy.

“Sorry, my fault.” He starts cracking his knuckles, still flustered. “Um, just let me know when you’re ready to eat. I’m good to go whenever. Uh, take your time.” This time a more genuine laugh comes out, because this whole situation is so absurdly awkward and it just feels better to laugh about it.

“Oh my God, stop! Go awaaayyyyy,” she groans, but he can hear her laugh too. It’s reassuring, like they’ll both be fine after this.

Now if only he could stop feeling so attracted to her.

***

Changgu thought that everything would be fine, but he was wrong. He had done everything he could at dinner to keep the mood light, but it was still awkward. He hated himself for opening that damn door, because clearly she feels uncomfortable now and who knows how long it’ll take for things to actually repair themselves.

He rubs his eyes and rolls over in bed to check the clock - 11:42. He’s been attempting to sleep for at least an hour, but he just can’t get her out of his head. He just keeps remembering the look of her fingers knuckle-deep inside of her, her face flushed and mouth open with pleasure. She looked absolutely gorgeous and the more he thinks about it, the more he wishes that he wasn’t her best friend.

Maybe if they weren’t friends, he could pursue her. Maybe if they hadn’t agreed to live platonically together for the next year, he could take her out. At the very least, he could present himself as an option in her dating pool. But the fact that they are best friends and roommates means that he has to get himself under control, because nothing more will ever happen between them. 

Even though her crackhead sense of humor never fails to make him laugh.

And the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles is the cutest thing in the whole world.

And she looks so hot in literally everything she wears.

If only things were different.

And then he hears a soft knock at his door, and his mouth goes dry. She asks from the other side, “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“…Can I come in?”

He sits up in bed and turns on the lamp on his nightstand. “Yeah, come in.”

The door creaks open, and she lets it hang ajar as she enters the room, hopping up onto the bed. She looks troubled, her brow furrowed and her cheeks pink, and it causes the biggest lump in his stomach. What could this be about?

“I, um…” She sniffs, and he realizes she may have been crying a few minutes ago. “I thought we should talk. Because things just got so weird and I don’t want it to be weird. I’m so sorry that you saw all of that…”

“You don’t have to apologize, ____. I should be the one apologizing. I’m really sorry that I invaded your privacy like that. I definitely should have knocked.” Changgu scoots closer to her, worried that she’s actually deeply upset by all of this. He obviously didn’t mean to do it, but it’s an accident that must have been too much for her.

“I’m just so embarrassed…” 

Oh, no. He recognizes that face. He sees the tension in her temples, the quivering of her lips - she’s mere seconds away from tears.

Changgu reaches out for her, placing a hand on her upper arm for comfort. “Please, don’t feel embarrassed. It’s totally fine and I won’t judge you for that, okay? I’ll just pretend like I never even saw anything.”

She looks up from her hands just long enough to meet his eyes, and then it’s game over. The waterworks cannot be held back. She starts to cry, and he immediately scoops her up in a hug to try to calm her.

“I just don’t want to… ruin our friendship!” She blurts between sobs. “You’re… my best friend, and… I don’t… want to mess it up!”

“You’re not going to mess it up! Stop saying that,” Changgu holds her tightly, but he’s starting to sense that there might be something else going on. Why is she so worried about their friendship? This isn’t even that big of a deal. “_____, what’s going on? You’re fine. It’s okay.”

She takes a moment to gather herself, her tears slowing before she pulls away from him. She wipes at her face, and he just watches her with concern.

“I haven’t been totally honest.” She covers her face, unable to look at him. “So I just have to say it. I… I like you, Changgu, and I’m attracted to you, and I have all of these feelings that I’m not supposed to have, and I swear I’m trying to make it stop because you’re my best friend and I don’t want to lose you by feeling stuff I’m not supposed to feel…”

“Really?” Changgu is stunned by her words. How long has she felt this way?

She nods gently. “But I’m doing everything I can to get it to stop, because I don’t want to screw things up and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. So please don’t think about it and help me not make this weird by just forgetting that I ever said anything.”

“I had no idea…” Not only is he confused by the sudden reveal of her feelings, but he’s surprised by how happy it makes him feel. And now he knows it’s his turn to ‘fess up. “I, um, I’ve been thinking about you a lot.” 

“In what way?”

“Well, in kind of a naked way after today,” he jokes, and he loves the smile that touches her lips.

“Fuck you, Changgu,” she laughs. “I’m trying to be vulnerable here and you’re making jokes.”

 “Sorry,” he chuckles. “Um, I’ve been thinking kind of the same way about you that you have been about me, apparently.”

Her mood gets a hair more serious. “You have?”

“Yeah. I obviously want you in my life because you’re my best friend, and I care about you with like, all that I am, and… wow, why is this so difficult to say?”

“Because it’s us.”

He meets her eyes, her intense gaze seeing into the deepest part of him, like she always does. 

Because it’s us.

It sounds like they’ve always been together, like they’re meant to be a unit. They’re us.

“I like you, _____.”

There. It’s out.

“I like you too, Changgu.”

His heart absolutely soars. There’s no way this is actually happening.

Her gaze falls to the floor. “What do we do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do we do?’”

“This is not how I thought this conversation was going to go.” She rubs her eye. “I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“Neither was I,” Changgu laughs, and the hand he’s been keeping on her arm falls into her lap, clasping one of her hands. It feels clammy, and he’s sure his hand feels dry and rough to her, thanks to all the calluses he’s developed from rock climbing. “We can do whatever we want, right? We get to make the rules.”

She looks down at their joined hands. “So what do you want?”

You. I want you. “I want to kiss you.”

“You do?” Her eyes widen and then she immediately cracks up. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s just so weird to hear that from you.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, it’s just… I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time. And I’ve wanted to do… other things. It’s just unreal to hear you say that.”

As soon as she says ‘other things,’ his mind immediately flashes back to the memory of her touching herself. “So, wait, when I walked in on you… Was that because of me?”

She flushes, and it’s absolutely adorable. “I mean, yeah. You’re always so hot when you come back from working out.”

Her words sit strangely in his ears. “I get what you mean, that’s super weird to hear you say.”

“Right?” She laughs loudly. “It’s just… strange.”

“Okay, so now I’m really curious…” Changgu scoots over so that he’s sitting directly across from her, and he reaches up to touch her cheek. “How weird do you think it’ll get…”

Her eyes flutter back up to meet his as he cups her face, and it occurs to him that this really isn’t weird at all. He’s loved this girl his whole life and he’s finally getting to show his true feelings.

And then he does it. He kisses her.

And he kisses her again.

And again.

She tastes like sunshine and rain, like the middle of October. Like the sound of waves crashing and birds chirping. It’s her, and nothing but her, and he’s consumed by it.

Every single kiss is returned with warmth, curiosity, and passion. She cards her fingers through his hair as they kiss, and he pulls her close, wrapping her in his arms. She’s an incredible kisser, and he can’t help but feel like he’s really been missing out all this time.

But it isn’t until she bites his lip that he knows he can’t let her go back to her room tonight.

“How do you feel,” he murmurs against her lips, “about doing other things?”

She pulls back, a sly smile on her lips. “I would love to.”

***

Even with his lips on yours, it’s still impossible to believe that any of this is actually happening. That he would want exactly what you want. That you can finally break through the boundary of being just friends.

Your fantasy is somehow coming true.

You trust Changgu with all of your heart, so you dive in with everything you’ve got. You straddle his lap, delighted when you feel his bulge pressing against your core. It feels like your whole body is electrified by his touch - all you need is more skin.

With your help, his t-shirt is gone in a matter of moments, closely followed by your shirt and both of your bottoms. The two of you rush to undress each other, months (maybe years) of secret pining building up to this moment. There’s no going back - and you don’t want to, anyway.

His hands cover every inch of you, his fingers roughly perking up your nipples and traversing the curves of your ass. By the time he reaches the most sensitive part of you, you’re already a mewling mess. 

“Is this okay?” Changgu’s finger tip delicately swipes over your folds, trailing the wetness gathered there across your clit. 

“Yeah,” you nod, smiling shyly. It’s so insane that he’s actually touching you, that the pleasure you feel is all because of Changgu. You need to return the favor. You drag your hand down his chest to his cock, pleased by the hardness of it as you run your fingers over the head and down the shaft. “And I can touch you, too?”

One of his eyebrows perks up at the touch, and he nods. “Mhm. Let’s lay you down, yeah?”

“Okay.” 

He guides you back down to the bed, continuing to draw circles around your clit as he shifts you around. You let him take control - you��ve always imagined what he might do, so you’re curious to see what the non-fantasy Changgu likes.

And as it turns out, he likes biting your neck, sucking your nipples, plunging his fingers into you, and making you moan.

“Changgu,” you whimper his name as he plants kisses across your stomach. “Do you have a condom? I want you.”

Changgu looks at you like he’s in a trance, like he is completely struck with lust in this moment. “Of course, hang on.” He parts from you only long enough to dig through his dresser drawer (and long enough for you to admire his cute little butt). He returns to the bed with a condom packet in hand. “Now?”

You nod eagerly. “I feel like I’ve already waited forever.”

“I know the feeling.” 

Changgu rips open the packet and easily rolls the condom onto his length. He smiles warmly as he situates himself on top of you. “This is crazy, right?”

“Totally.” You run your nails through his soft hair and tug his earlobes before kissing him once. “But it’s the good kind of crazy.”

His lips crash into yours again as he lines himself up with your entrance, and then all at once he presses into you.

Your breath comes out of you in a stuttering sigh as you take him in, delighted by the feel of him as your bodies connect. As he starts rocking into you, you kiss him long and hard. This is everything you’ve ever wanted, and you’re absolutely overwhelmed by every beautiful sensation he gives you.

You get entirely lost in each other, your hips raising to meet his with every thrust, your lips completely entangled with his. You slip your hand between your bodies to rub your clit, giving yourself the extra bit of stimulation you need for this to be perfect.

“Do you feel good?” He quietly asks, breathing harder and harder with each thrust.

“I feel so good, Changgu,” you reassure him. “It feels so good…”

Nothing has ever felt more right, and you wonder how you convinced yourself for so long that this would be a bad idea. You had been completely, utterly incorrect. This is the best idea.

As you clench down around his cock, you realize that you’re getting alarmingly close to finishing. Maybe it’s because you didn’t get to orgasm earlier, but all of the sudden you’re right there…

A symphony of moans leaves you as you explode with pleasure, the sweet taste of Changgu’s name on your tongue. His hand grips your waist harder as you stutter beneath him, his eyes fixated sweetly on your contorting face. You’ve never felt so vulnerable yet so protected.

“____…” Changgu murmurs your name as the stars fade from your vision, and you realize he’s nearly there, too. 

You reclaim his lips and bite gingerly on his lower lip, earning yourself the same deep growl you got last time. That simple action is enough to spur a fresh burst of energy from him, and the pace of his thrusts increases. His nose crinkles as he nears his orgasm, and then a sweet moan follows as he empties into the condom. 

He hardly gives himself a moment to recover before pulling you into a deep kiss, as if to seal the magical experience you had just shared. And with that kiss, you know the two of you will never be the same.

All Rights Reserved © gwentoryfics. No translations, reposting, and/or modifying of the material is allowed without my direct permission.

[ghostbustermelanieking]

a mountain in colorado (part 3 of 3)

part one, part two

post ghouli au. jackson van de kamp, emily sim, samantha mulder, melissa scully. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: While Jackson Van de Kamp is on the run, he encounters a series of assumed-dead relatives he didn’t know he had.

---

So this is what Jackson does now. He lives among these inexplicable long-lost relatives, and he tries not to question it. They aren't new parents, he tells himself. They definitely aren't that. And the other parts, the extended members of his family have basically rejected him, and he won't dare try again after what happened with his grandmother. So it must be okay. He's safe here, and his parents can't resent him for being safe, can they? And he still hasn't called Samantha or Melissa Aunt.

It's in the little shit. Samantha kind of gives him warning looks when he goes for the booze, so he holds back, but they watch Netflix on the couch a lot of nights. They like the same old sitcoms that never touch the areas that they don't want to hear about, tests and hospitals and dead parents. Samantha plays basketball, it turns out, and they play one on one on the blacktop sometimes because what the hell else is he going to do. (The first time they play, she beats him by a wide margin. He taunts, “You're pretty good for a woman in her fifties,” and she looks astonished for a second before making a face and telling him to shut the hell up.) He plays a lot of board games with Melissa and Emily, he and Emily hike the mountains sometimes. He and Emily are the most likely to hang out, goof off and do dumb kid stuff even though she is in her twenties, like the siblinghood they never had. Strange little companionable situations and plenty of isolation seem to make this situation that he's actually willing to stay in.

Emily makes him go with her to get groceries at one point, shows him the tiny-ass town that they are closest to. It's cute, reminds him of his hometown in Wyoming. Nothing like Norfolk.

The clerk at the grocery store recognizes her, and has plenty of questions about who he is. “He's my little brother,” Emily says, tousling his hair as he tries to duck away. (He's actually taller than her, it looks fucking ridiculous for her to do that.) “I thought it was about time he helped me out with the groceries,” she adds smugly, as if he'd been ducking responsibilities all this time instead of literally having only been around two weeks.

“Oh, you two look just alike!” says the clerk, and Jackson wants to call him a liar, but they do look alike, just a little. In the face; their profiles are similar. They both have some freckles, although Emily has more. He sees it, but it makes him uncomfortable, and he can't believe this random fucking stranger sees it. He ducks his head and studiously ignores the guy.

He helps carry the groceries, and Emily makes him drive back to camp, tossing him the keys with the excuse of, “I'm tired.” (He's secretly relieved; his sister drives like a maniac. He probably isn't much better, but riding with Emily feels like an adventure, or something meant for thrill-seekers. Especially with all those mountain curves.) He takes the keys and drives back, trying not to dwell on what the clerk said. But it sticks with him anyway. They look alike. He has a big sister. It's easy to forget sometimes, hut he actually has a sister.

(Emily may be the one family member he doesn't feel guilty about. It feels less wrong to have a sister because he's never had a sister before, she can't be misconstrued as a replacement. Because she was an experiment, too. Because he knew her before his parents died. Because he's always kind of wanted a sister.)

Emily plays music too loud the whole way back to camp and tells him to at least go the speed limit. It's December, and it's probably unreasonable to ride around with all the windows down, but Jackson lets them down anyway.

---

It strikes him, sometimes, how far he is from his original goal. He wanted to cross the country, find little ways to forget everything that had happened, maybe send Bri and Sarah a postcard or two. Avoid Scully and Mulder and the facets from that part of his life as much as he could, either for the safety of his birth parents and himself, or out of a need not to betray his parents. Maybe figure out how to save the fucking world, if he can save the fucking world. (Somehow, he seriously doubts it.) But the longer he stays at this abandoned summer camp, the further he feels himself straying away from his plans, his old life. He barely thinks about Bri and Sarah anymore, and considering how that went down, that's probably a good thing. He's done enough to ruin their lives; the best he can do is to stay away. But he doesn't think about his old life in Norfolk much. And he still thinks about his parents, a lot—in his nightmares, in those random guilty moments that hit him at just the right angle to completely gut him, in those moments where he's enjoying himself and he brings up a moment from his past, a funny story or something on pure instinct. And then he remembers: it's not the same. It will never be the same again.

No one ever comments on that, because he knows that all three of the women here can relate to that. It seems to be a different kind of painful for them, especially Emily—she’s brought up a few memories she has of her adoptive parents, although they're less because she was so young, and almost all of them make her cry. Samantha seems the same sort of distanced from her old life as Emily, since it's been over forty years. Sometimes, she'll bring up an argument she had with her brother, or some prank she played, or something like that, but she almost always stops herself whenever Jackson's around, casting those same nervous looks at him that he's more or less gotten used to. He'd rather Samantha treat the subject delicately, he guesses, even though it's beginning to drive him crazy.

Melissa, though. Melissa brings up her family more often. She usually seems happier than Samantha and Emily both when she does, and the stories usually involve her sister whenever Jackson is around. Jackson's birth mother.

He tries his best to ignore it. He really does. Melissa is pretty cool, and she's a good cook (“I used to be a terrible cook, just to piss off my mom,” she tells him once, “but I've been bored out here for almost twenty years, I had to get good at something. I feel like I've betrayed my values, but I couldn't eat Samantha's cooking for another fucking day.”), and she's usually really welcoming to him. She lets him crash on her couch, and doesn't complain when he and Emily stay up too late watching movies and cracking up and making a mess with the popcorn, and doesn't complain when he eats all her food, or when he really does find a weed stash and breaks it out. She's nice. But it gets on his nerves. He doesn't know how to make it clear that he can't be close to Scully, and call her Mom, and give her hugs, like he knows Melissa wants. He's a fuck-up, and he meant it when he said he wished he knew Scully better, but he doesn't know how to do it. When he was a little kid, he would've loved to hear these stories. Now, they just make him mad. Make him think about what could have been.

It all comes to a head, of course. Like it always does.

Jackson comes over to Melissa's house one day looking for Emily, and she tells him that Emily's driven into town for the evening. Somehow, this turns into Melissa and Jackson playing Scrabble alone. He's kind of nervous at the prospect of hanging out with her alone, without Emily as a buffer, but he goes with it because there are cookies in a container on the counter, and he'd feel like the biggest asshole in the world if he said no. (That's how you know they're family, he thinks. Because you're afraid to say no and hurt their feelings.)

He doesn't really care. He's always been pretty good at Scrabble. The first half of the game goes pretty smoothly, with Jackson collecting as many triple word scores as he can, and Melissa telling him stories about her college years that are so ridiculous it makes him crack up. He knew he got his proclivity for troublemaking and getting high from somewhere. “You were pretty badass, back in the day,” he tells her, and she shrugs and says, “What can I say, Dana was always the good one.”

The second half of the game goes downhill from there.

Jackson tries to steer the conversation back into safer waters by trying to interject stories of trouble he and his friends have gotten into, but Melissa can match it with just as many stories about Scully. She used to drag Dana to parties, and Dana was absolutely ridiculous when she got drunk. Dana was a good student, straight A student for all the time she spent in school. Dana used to sneak out every week when she was fourteen and smoke cigarettes, and Melissa still doesn't know how she didn't get caught. Melissa and Dana used to smoke on the roof at Thanksgiving when things would get too awkward with family. Dana was always great at Scrabble, Melissa thinks she used to read the dictionary when she got bored. Dana used to babysit the neighbor's kids, and she was always just great at it, she always loved kids.

That's the proverbial last straw. That's when Jackson can't take it anymore.

“Stop,” he says quietly, poking at a Q tile with the tip of his finger.

“What was that, Jack?” Melissa asks.

“I said stop,” he snaps, standing up so fast that his knee hits the bottom of the table and the Scrabble tiles rattle. Melissa looks surprised, but she doesn't say a word.

“I don't want to hear stories about her,” he says, feeling vicious but not knowing how to stop. “She's not my mom. I have a mom. It's not her.”

Melissa doesn't look hurt, incredibly. She says, “You're right.”

Jackson freezes; he's not used to hearing that. He says, “What?”

“I said you're right,” says Melissa, softly. “I was being selfish. I guess I just… I want you to know her as someone more than… the woman who gave you up.”

She's being so nice about it, so reasonable, and Jackson isn't used to people responding this way to his irrational fucking freak-outs. She's probably been telling these stories for years, to Emily, making promises about a mother she'll never meet. “You haven't seen her in almost twenty years,” he hisses, really vicious this time. “You don't know her anymore.”

And Melissa does look hurt by that, and Jackson feels like the biggest asshole on the planet, but he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know what else to do. He turns on his heel and storms out of the room, his heartbeat so loud he can hear it in his ears.

He makes it all the way to his bedroom before he bursts into harsh, angry sobs that he muffles in the collar of his sweatshirt, shivering and shaking and rocking on the hard wooden floor.

---

When he was a kid, he used to think whatever controlled his powers was like another person. Someone who picked what he could do, or what it was he saw whenever he saw clairvoyant shit. He hardly thinks that's the case anymore, but if it is, he'd like to formally tell this outside power to go fuck itself.

He falls asleep on the floor and right into a dream about the absolute last subject he'd want to see right now. He'd love to see, like, something with his parents in it. Some good memory to hold onto. But it's Ginger, and she looks younger than she is now (but definitely older than she was in those visions he got of Melissa's faked death), and it looks like she's giving birth. She's in a dark room on some rickety bed, definitely not a hospital. She's surrounded by people, unfamiliar people who Jackson can immediately tell are not friendly, and a dark-haired woman is bent over her, encouraging her, soothing her. She cries out with the pain of the labor, and Jackson can feel her desperation, her fear. She pleads, “This is my baby! Please don't let them take it!” and Jackson wants to cry out himself. Wants to say, I'm not yours, but he was. Wants to ask, Why did you let me go if I was yours? Why did you let them take me if you didn't want them to? He wants to cry. He can hear the tears in her voice.

The woman is telling Scully to push, and she howls with the effort of it, and Jackson wants to look away but he can't. Ginger shouts with pain and distress, fear, tears wet on her face, and suddenly, new cries fill the room. His cries, tiny and angry and shrill, and Ginger laughs in gaspy panic when she hears it, tears welling in her eyes. Jackson fills another emotion filling him, thick and fierce and unmistakable, one he always wanted his birth mom to feel for him, one he now desperately wants to ignore.

He used to be upset that he didn't have any pictures from the day he was born. He used to wish his mom was his birth mom and his real mom.

“It's a boy!” the dark-haired woman says cheerfully, holding up the baby—him.

“Lemme see him,” Dana says, slurring her words, reaching out almost blindly. “I wanna see him… Give me my baby, Monica.”

The woman is focused on cutting the cord, tending to him, making sure he is alright. Jackson can feel the eyes of the cultists or whatever on them, trying to make a decision. The baby version of him wails and wails. “Give him to me!” Scully shouts, fierce and nearly feral with protectiveness.

The woman hunches over him protectively as she moves around the bed, lays him on his mother's chest. She bursts into sobs at the contact, covering him with her hands, one on his back and the other cupping his head. The two of them cry together, and she puts her head down by his and whispers something that should probably be indecipherable in the chaos of the room. But Jackson hears it. He hears every word.

She says, “It's okay. It's going to be okay, baby. I've got you. I've got you. I love you so much.”

Jackson wakes up on the floor quivering with cold. It's full-on winter, and he's freezing, and his back is killing him. His face is wet again. He presses his hands to his face and rolls over on his stomach. He's shaking, quivering from head to toe.

The truth is that he wasn't lying at that gas station. He wants to know her better. Ginger, Dana Scully, his birth mother. He wants her to want him, to love him. He's wanted it since he was a little kid. But he can't let himself want it, because she gave him up, and his parents are dead, and Jesus Christ, things are supposed to be easier than this.

He's shaking and crying, and he screws his eyes shut, and he can hear her voice again: I've got you. I love you. That's the first thing she ever said to him. And she gave him up. She fucking gave him up. But she said she wanted him. She said she was sorry she didn't get a chance to know him. She said it was the hardest thing she's ever done. He doesn't know what to do.

He's seen her all his life. When he was a kid, when he was scared or sad. He thinks he always knew who she was. He's resented her and he's wondered about her and he's longed to know whether or not she loved him. And now he is here.

He picks himself up off the floor and curls up on the bed, because the floor is fucking awful. He wipes his eyes, his cheeks, and presses his face into his palms. Screws his eyes shut and wishes, just once, to see something happy from his life when he falls asleep.

---

Jackson finds cans of beer in Samantha's refrigerator. He takes two and climbs up to the loft tucked under the ceiling. He sits on the floor with the back against the wall and pops one of them open like a soda. The bitter taste reminds him of Norfolk, sea-salt air and gritty dirt on the soles of his shoes. He closes his eyes and pretends that he is home.

He opens them minutes later at the creaking of the ladder. Samantha appears over the edge of the floor a second later, wincing a little as she steps into the loft. “Want some company?” she asks, and he shrugs. She sits beside him against the wall, picking up the other beer and cracking it open.

“That was mine,” Jackson says, not really caring.

“You know, Fox and I used to share a loft like this,” Samantha says in lieu of a response, taking a sip. “At our vacation house in Quonochontaug, Rhode Island.”

Jackson snorts. “Vacation home, huh,” he says. “You guys were rich?”

“Rich with blood money, yeah,” Samantha replies, her voice bitter. “It wasn't exactly an idyllic lifestyle, kid.”

He drains his can with one gulp. He says, “I don't think any of us exactly had an idyllic lifestyle.”

“That's true,” says Samantha.

They sit in silence. Samantha drinks her beer, Jackson picks at his beer label with his fingernails. He's tempted to ask if Melissa and Emily are pissed at him, but he doesn't. Samantha speaks on that subject first. She says, “Missy and Emily told me what happened…”

“I don't get it,” Jackson says before she can finish. Rips the blue label all the way off and chucks the can at the wall. It makes a loud clanking sound as it hits the floor, lying dormant. “You guys have been hiding out here for years because it'd be too dangerous for your families if you told them you were alive. Melissa told me she's wanted to go home, but she couldn't. So… how come I can leave? How come you said I could leave at any time?”

She seems nearly stunned by silence before answering. Nearly confused. “You're… different, Jackson,” she says uncertainly. “We're not going to force you to stay…”

“But it's totally okay for me to go find Mulder and Scully, for some reason,” he snaps, knocking his foot against the floor. “That's totally fine. No fucking problem.”

“I've never…”

“Yeah, and why haven't you ever? Why aren't you just begging me to run home to my mommy and daddy, and give them a big old hug, and make your long lost brother so happy?”

“Because I can't even take that advice,” Samantha snaps, and it's enough to shut him the hell up. His shoulders hit the wall hard in defeat.

Samantha sighs, pressing her hands over her eyes. “I've been here since 1997, Jackson. Twenty years. In that time, my mom has died, I learned that my dad was dead, and a series of absolute horrible things have happened to my brother. And I didn't go home after any of those times, even after my mother died—who I was a lot closer to than my father, and who I resented a lot less, since she didn't technically choose to give me up to these conspirators over my brother like my father did.”

Astonishment washes over Jackson; he had no idea. He probably should've, considering all he's seen, but he really had no idea.

Samantha sighs, gritting her teeth grimly. “Right around the time Mom died, someone apparently fooled Fox into thinking that I died a long time ago, and it just felt… right. It's horrible, but I thought I could… I dunno, give him some peace if he finally thought I was dead. I knew how long he'd been looking.” Her voice cracks, quivering. “I… I thought maybe it was the right thing to do. I thought it'd be better that way.”

Shaken, stunned, Jackson blinks in shock. Thinking about what he saw in that living room forty-some years ago. Those scared fucking kids. “How the hell… how did you know all this?” he stammers.

Samantha rubs at her eyes. “The woman who brought me here kept me informed,” she says thickly.

He nods knowingly, remembering what Melissa told him. “Diana something, right? Melissa told me she brought you both here.”

“She did,” Samantha says softly. “I was the first one. She was working with the Consortium in Europe, and she… she found out where I was being held after an incident in the spring of ‘97.” She rubs at her eyes again, her forehead, as if she's crying. “I left something out before, when I said I hadn't seen Fox since I was twelve. I met him once after that. This guy who was… trying to manipulate him… Something about your mom being sick or something, I don't know… But he wanted me to tell Fox that he was my father, and that I thought our mom was dead, and refuse to see him or go see her. To tell him I had a family of my own. And I… I went along with it because I was scared. At the time, I was thirty-two, and I'd been in those facilities for twenty-four years. I was absolutely terrified. So I went along with it, even though it killed me. I wanted to tell him what was happening, to see if he could help me, but I was so scared about what would happen. So I… I walked right out and right back to the people who’d kept me captive since I was a kid.” She buries her face in her hands again. “Diana Fowley found me after that,” she says into her hands.

Jackson's mouth is hanging open a little bit. “Who… who is Diana Fowley?”

“She said she was Fox's ex-boyfriend. I guess she was working against him, too, and she felt guilty for what she was doing to him.” She grimaces with disgust. “I was supposed to be moved to another facility after I met with Fox, and she intercepted it. Got me out, brought me here. She told me it was because she owed my brother, and that he'd been looking for me as long as she knew him. And she told me I couldn't have any contact with him. Not with him, or my mom, or anyone from my old life. She said it was too dangerous. She said that we'd all die if I did.”

“And that's… that's why you never wanted to go back,” Jackson says softly.

Samantha shrugs, sniffling just a little. “It spooked me. That night I saw my brother was overwhelming. He was so… so relieved to see me. And I wanted to go with him, see my mom, tell him what they'd done to me and see if he could get me out… But it was hard. I had no idea how to respond. And I… I think I've been scared all this time about what would happen if I went home.”

“What happened, though?” Jackson asks, because that's the question he really wants answered. How did they get here, what happened to his birth parents, how does Samantha know all of this. “You clearly have some idea of what happened to your brother… And you know who my birth mom is, because of Melissa… So what happened?”

She shrugs. “Diana kept in touch. She kept me informed, kept visiting. I wanted to know that my family was okay, after she scared me so bad… And then she brought Melissa here a couple years later. Missy knew Fox, at least a little, and told me about his partnership with your mom… Diana kept us both informed for a really long time. She was watching your parents, although they thought she was dead, and Missy and I both wanted to know that our families were okay, so that was our agreement. She told us when Fox thought I was dead, and she told us when Fox was abducted, and she told us when, uh…” She takes a sharp breath. “... when Fox was presumed dead. And then when they figured out he was alive. And she told us when they had you.”

Jackson can suddenly see the dream he had last night: his birth mother crying out in pain, demanding to see him. How protective she was. He can't quite put together the chain of events, but Jesus Christ, it makes sense that she was so panicked. There'd been a point where it was assumed that his birth father was dead?

“Diana cut off contact in 2002, right around the same time your parents went on the run,” Samantha says, sounding a little more composed now. She sniffs again, runs a finger tip under her eye.

“After they gave me up for adoption,” says Jackson, feeling like the air has been knocked out of him. This is all harder to hear than he ever would've imagined.

Samantha turns towards him, her eyes soft. “Yeah,” she says softly. “After that.”

He swallows, his head hitting the wall gently. “Melissa said you got a new contact then,” he mumbles. “That you thought about contacting my parents after they went on the run.”

“We did,” Samantha says roughly. “But I thought it might be just as dangerous as contacting them when they were on the grid. I… I zeroed in my focus on making this place somewhere where people could hide out. I looked for kids that had been in the situation I grew up in, and that's how I found Emily. And I tried to keep an eye on you, make sure you were safe.” She sighs, finger-combing hair away from her face, thumbing a tear away. “And here we are. I never tried to contact my brother. And now it seems more or less useless, after all these years of hiding, never telling him I was alive… I can't tell you to go home, Jackson. I won't put pressure on you, for one, because I know you don't know your birth parents. Missy knows that, too; I think she just wanted you to know that her sister didn't give you up because she didn't want you. But I can't tell you to go and find my brother because I won't go find him either.”

She goes quiet next to him, fingers knotted in her lap. The beer can is sideways on the floor, puddle at the opening. Jackson sighs, staring out of the huge window across from them. His mouth tastes bitter, his stomach sore. “Samantha, I'm starting to think your family is cursed or something,” he says finally, because that feels like the most appropriate thing to say right now. The situation was well and fucked before he ever came on the scene.

Samantha laughs. “Oh, kid,” she says exhaustedly. “I've known that for years.”

---

Jackson steals three cans of soda and makes two sandwiches, and hikes up into the hills to the waterfall. He's hoping for some time alone, some introspective shit, but he finds Emily there, her hair tossed back in a messy braid, her shoes gathered by the bank and her bare feet dangling in the water. She offers him a small smile when he sits down beside her. “Hey, Jack.”

“Hey, Em.” He peels off his own shoes and kicks at the water. Places like this make him miss the ocean. They sit in silence, watching the river.

“Is Melissa pissed?” he asks finally, head tipped up towards the sun.

Emily shakes her head. “She's not pissed. You could stand to work on your tact… but she's not pissed.”

Jackson nods. He's known about the tact thing for years. “Has she… done that to you?” he adds, wriggling his toes in the river mud. “Told you stories about Scully? How great she is? How much she… loves kids or whatever?”

“Sure she has,” Emily says. “Dana is her sister, and Missy really misses her. She told me a lot of stories about her mom and brothers too.” She shrugs. “The difference is that I wanted to hear them.”

He isn't surprised. Emily was cheated out of something that he grew up with: two parents who loved him and cared for him. She spent years being experimented on; she was so eager for someone to save her that she cried in that hospital when Samantha and Melissa showed up. He remembers her hugging them like she knew them. But still, he says, “Didn't that make you sad?”

“It did,” says Emily honestly. “I've had a lot of that kind of pain, Jackson. I used to daydream about what it would be like if my parents had never died when I was three. Or if Dana had gotten to adopt me. Or if they'd never taken me away from her in the first place. Or if Dana had never been abducted and they hadn't made me without her consent. I've considered a lot of stuff like that. I think that… all this time, I've really just wanted a family. Throughout all this. And hearing Missy's stories was the closest I could get. But I do have a family. I have Missy and Samantha.”

“But you always wondered about her,” Jackson supplies. He doesn't need to clarify who she is.

“Of course I did.” She turns to look at him, her eyes bright blue and exactly like Melissa's. Exactly like Ginger's. “Didn't you?”

He doesn't need to answer that. He turns back to the river, the waterfall. The sound of water on water is so loud that everything they say could almost be lost in the noise. But he hears it. He'll remember. He can't lose things that easy.

Finally, he says, “Do you think I should go find them?”

Part of him expects a yes. The rest of him has no fucking idea what to expect. He knows that Emily has been supportive of him doing pretty much whatever he wants. He doesn't know if she'd encourage him to go when she can't.

Emily says, “For years, I've been told by Samantha that I couldn't ever meet my birth mother. That it was too dangerous for me and her both. And for years, I've always thought it would happen one way or another. But now I'm twenty-three years old, and I don't know what the hell to do with myself. I have aunts, and I have a brother, and I'm safe, and I think that's something.” She punches his arm lightly before getting to her feet. “I'm not going to tell you what to do, Jack,” she says, wiping dirty hands on her jeans. “None of us are. But we're here, and we want you to be safe. The rest of it is up to you.”

---

Things go back to normal. Or as normal as they can be in a situation like this.

The weather grows colder as Christmas grows closer. It's pretty easy to forget the holiday—the others don't really mention it—and Jackson is more than ready to forget it. He doesn't want any reminders of the loss of his parents. From what Emily's told him, this time of year is equally painful for her, her parents died at Christmastime.

The four of them end up hanging out together a lot. Mostly at Melissa's, but occasionally at Samantha's. Watching movies or playing cards. Jackson has no idea how to cook, but he'll help sometimes with throwing snacks together; Samantha and Emily are pretty good at guilting him into helping. He helps Emily with the grocery shopping, too. Samantha finally gets tired of washing the same jeans, t-shirt, and sweatshirt, and drags him into town to buy some new clothes. There's always coffee, and heat, and he feels fairly safe most of the time. It's something of an idyllic existence, compared to weeks on the road, hungry and dirty and grieving.

One night, Jackson is woken up by the flashing of headlights through his window. His initial reaction is panic; he huddles up against the window, his face against the cold glass, and contemplates how the hell he's going to fight these people off. He's pretty capable of defending himself, as evidenced by what happened at the hospital in Norfolk, but he has no idea what kind of threat this is, no idea what Samantha has set up for protective measures, no idea if Samantha is even awake… But he knows he can't let these people get to them, if they've come to hurt them.

The door to Melissa's cabin opens, he can see it from the window. Melissa comes out the door and walks towards the car, and Jackson takes a sharp, panicked breath, his nose pressing against the window. The glass dogs right up. He did not expect Melissa to be the one to fight people off. Does she know what's happening? Is she prepared to defend herself? Does he have time, the ability, to defend her? He tenses, almost leaning into the window, ready to act. His palms pressed to the cold glass.

A woman gets out of the car and walks towards Melissa, and neither of them seem to react like they're enemies. The woman doesn't look malicious, and Melissa doesn't look scared. But still, Jackson doesn't completely relax until Melissa and the woman are embracing. Until the woman is visible standing in the headlights of the car, and Jackson recognizes her: the woman who helped Scully deliver him. Monica, the informant, he assumes.

He lets his forehead fall against the cold window, scoffs through his teeth. Will these weird goddamn coincidences ever stop.

Melissa and the woman, Monica, are heading towards the house now. Jackson hears the door open outside and scrambles to his feet. He's outside of his room before he can contemplate what the hell he's doing, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Samantha's at the door greeting Monica, saying, “It's good to see you, we were getting a little worried,” and then Melissa scoffs, “A little?” and Jackson's feeling a little awkward, like the way he feels walking into a room full of relatives at holidays without a single thing to talk about. He doesn't know why he came out, and he's getting ready to go back in when they notice him. “Oh, hey, Jack,” Melissa says warmly, and the welcome in her voice makes him instinctively uncomfortable. He feels like he shouldn't be here.

The woman—Monica—turns to him, and a cascade of emotions come over her face. “William, oh my god,” she says, and Jackson tenses immediately. He hasn't been called that since the hospital. “You've really grown up,” she continues thickly.

He remembers her from her dream, handing him to Scully. “Uh, hi,” he says awkwardly.

Monica clears her throat awkwardly, waves it off. “I'm sorry, it's just… I knew you when you were little. I knew your parents.”

Birth parents, Jackson wants to add, but doesn't. “Oh, yeah, I know,” he says, immediately wishing he'd stayed in his room. He waves a hand at the kitchen. “I'm gonna… grab some water.”

“Help yourself,” Samantha says with a small smile.

He pads into the kitchen and grabs a glass, fills it with ice cubes. Closer to the door, he can hear them talking, can hear scraps of words—“Spender…” and “Spartan Virus…” and “When is it coming?” He tries to ignore it. He doesn't want to know. He pours water from the pitcher in the fridge, grabs the pint of ice cream in the freezer just because.

The women are crowded at a table, talking quietly, but they all notice him walking back through. Jackson can tell. Monica and Melissa offer him small smiles. Samantha raises her eyebrows pointedly at the ice cream, which Jackson shrugs off. “It's good to see you again, Jackson,” Monica says, and Jackson notes the use of his real name. “If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them for you.”

“Oh—” His shoulders tense up as if protectively. He has questions, and he doesn't want to ask them. “Thank you.”

Monica nods. He nods back, the glass of water chilling one hand and the ice cream chilling another, and keeps going. Part of him wants to hear what they're talking about, but the rest of him wants nothing to do with it.

Just before he enters his room, he hears Melissa say, “So have you told Mulder and Dana—”

He lets the door slam too hard behind him.

---

They're lying on the bed, the three of them. Mulder and Scully and him, as a baby. And they're calling him William. Scully's wearing this robe, and she's cuddled up to Mulder's side, one hand clutching at his t-shirt and the other on the baby's back. He's is lying on Mulder's chest, and Mulder looks dopily happy. The two of them, they look so happy. It's practically a family portrait.

And there he is. The baby photos he never had. You must've been such a cute baby, his mom said earlier before wincing, like she hadn't meant to say it. He always used to wonder. And there he is, white blanket and blue onesie. His eyes are blue. His eyes used to be blue, like Emily's. They used to be blue and now they are brown. He used to look like his sister.

They look so happy. Mulder leans down and kisses the top of Scully's head. She presses her cheek against his shoulder, rubs a hand up and down the baby's back. She whispers, This is all I wanted. She says, When I asked you to be the father… this is what I wanted. She sniffles, buries her head against his t-shirt.

His birth father wraps an arm around his birth mother's shoulders. This is what I wanted, too, he says, and he has tears in his eyes. This is it, he says, and he kisses the top of the baby's head, too.

When Jackson wakes up, he is thinking of his parents. The picture on his grandmother's mantle of the day they adopted him, where he's much bigger than that. They're holding him between them, his dad holding his mom and him and his mom bouncing him on her knee. They both look so happy. That's what he always noticed when he was a kid: Mom and Dad both looked so happy.

They looked the same way Mulder and Scully did in that dream. Exactly the same.

Jackson wants to be upset, hurt, resentful. The way he's felt after all the other dreams. He wants to feel a greater longing for his parents, his real parents. He wants to feel as far away as possible from the little kid who daydreamed about the red-headed woman he saw in visions.

But he can't. He doesn't know how he feels, but it's not resentment, somehow.

He thinks he could feel the love in that scene, everything his birth parents were feeling. He thinks he can feel it now. He thinks they really love him.

---

They have dinner one night, some night close to Christmas. Emily and Jackson cook, and it's close enough to a disaster, but not quite. They're both giggly, which might have something to do with the wine Samantha broke out, and Jackson can't believe how much fun it is. He never expected to have this much fun here.

Towards the end of the meal, Melissa is in the midst of a story about teaching Samantha to drive when she'd first came here, and Emily is cracking up, and Jackson asks the question he's been wondering about for a while. “Okay, I know how you guys got here,” he says, waving his hand with the wine glass in it. “But like… how did you end up here? How did you end up hanging out with the sibling of the person your sibling ended up with? How did that happen?”

Melissa laughs, a little tipsy. Samantha shrugs widely, scraping her fork over her plate. “Coincidences, I guess,” she says, smiling a little.

“Or fate,” Melissa offers, completely serious.

“We have a bounty of coincidences and fate here,” Emily points out. “How we all ended up here, and all end up related to each other. How we all ended up as washed-up Syndicate experiments.”

“I don't think that one was a coincidence, exactly,” Samantha says.

“How we're all orphans,” says Jackson. Not even thinking about it. Another dumbass tidbit from Jackson, the jackass who always puts his foot in his mouth. But it's true, he thinks. It's true. They all know what it's like to lose their parents. He feels a little better, being with people who know what it's like to lose their parents.

Emily nods unsteadily, wrapping an arm around his shoulders in what he thinks is a hug. But Melissa is shaking her head. “I'm not,” she says. “My dad passed… back in ‘94, but my mom is still alive.”

Oh, shit. Shit. Jackson can feel himself wincing, because she didn't know? She didn't know? Goddamnit, he is the biggest fucking idiot.

He doesn't know what kind of face he is making, but it's the wrong one. Melissa goes pale. Emily's eyes shift from his face to hers uncertainly, as she takes her arm away from his shoulder. Samantha looks stricken. “My-my mom…?” Melissa asks, her voice wavering.

“I… I thought you knew,” Jackson says, his voice cracking. He's seen his birth mother's tears, her frantic grief, he's seen the funeral, and he thought that Melissa knew.

Melissa's face crumples. She stumbles to her feet and is rushing out of the room, both hands over her mouth, going so fast that she almost runs into the wall. “Missy!” Emily shouts, and she's running after her, her feet pounding the ground. The front door slams, twice.

Jackson buries his face in his hands, horrified. Nauseous. “I thought she knew,” he chokes out. “I really thought…”

“I know. I know.” Samantha's suddenly beside him, her arm around him like Melissa's was a minute ago. Jackson can't find the strength to shake it off. He's seeing his mom and dad, bloody and limp in the kitchen, hearing his mother's scream, and oh my god. He can't fucking believe he did that.

“I… I never knew, either,” Samantha says, and there's an extraordinary amount of guilt in her voice, regret. “I never knew. If I'd known, I would've…” She takes a rough breath, squeezes Jackson's shoulder and lets go. “Jesus Christ, poor Missy.”

Jackson rubs a hard hand over his mouth, lets it drop to the table. “I'm such a fucking idiot,” he says.

“You didn't know,” Samantha repeats. She shakes her head hard, her jaw clenched. “I would've let her go home if I'd known. I really had no idea.”

Jackson is unable to say anything else. He lets his face drop into his palms. The two of them sit there in a sort of stunned silence, like they don't know what to do next.

---

Samantha comes into his room the next morning. He's lying on the bed, flipping through a book in an effort to clear his mind, when she comes in and says quietly, “Emily wants us to come over.” So he goes.

When they get to Emily and Melissa's, Melissa has a suitcase open in the living room. She's stuffing stuff into it, and she doesn't look up when they come in. “Don't try and talk me out of it, Sam,” she says, her voice hard, her eyes wet. “I'm going home. I'm going to see my sister. I'm going to see my family.”

“I know,” Samantha says, her voice soft. “I'm not going to try to stop you.”

Melissa freezes, a book hanging from her fingers. From the kitchen, Emily says, “You're not?” in a shocked voice.

Samantha shakes her head. “Of course not, Missy,” she says gently. “Of course not.”

Melissa lets the book drop to the floor and turns to them, teary-eyed and gratefully, wobbily smiling. She embraces Samantha hard, her face buried in her shoulder. “Thank you,” she mumbles, and Samantha shakes her head hard, dismissive of her thanks, hugs her back genuinely and tightly.

Jackson's heart is thudding, so hard he can feel it in his ribs. Melissa is going to see Scully, and maybe she will tell her where he is, but he doesn't want to dwell on that. He needs to apologize. He feels almost sick to his stomach. He says, “Melissa… I am so sorry…”

Melissa lets go of Samantha and embraces him next. “Oh, it's okay, Jackson,” she murmurs, her voice thick with grief. “I'm… I'm really glad you told me. I just wish I'd… known sooner.”

Guilt clogs his throat, guilt from this encounter and the last one, and he's doing it before he can consider it: he's wrapping his arms around his aunt and hugging her back.

“Missy?” Emily asks in a small voice, almost childlike. She's approaching tentatively, uncertainly. “Um… can I… would you mind if I…?”

She nods as she lets go of Jackson, wiping at her eyes. “Of course, Em. I was always going to take you with me,” she says, her voice trembling, and Emily smiles in an apprehensive, eager kind of way. And then Melissa turns back to Samantha in a rapid, jerky motion. “You should come, too,” she says, almost insistently.

Samantha's shaking her head already. “Oh, no, Missy, I can't…”

“Yes, you can,” says Emily immediately, reaching out to touch Samantha's shoulder. “Samantha, I know that it's hard for you… to imagine seeing your brother again…”

“I can't do it,” Samantha says, her voice choked. “All these years, I've been alive, let him think I was dead… He's been looking for me for over forty years, and I can't… I can't face him. He's going to hate me.”

“He's not going to hate you,” Melissa says, and she still sounds like she's crying, but her voice is so steady. “I've told you what Dana told me all those years ago, Samantha, about Fox looking for you… You're his little sister, and you're alive. He never thought he'd see you again. He is not going to hate you.” Samantha shakes her head again, stubbornly, and Melissa touches her other shoulder, whispers, “Samantha, I would never hate my little sister. He is not going to hate you. Please come with us.”

Samantha's chin trembles. She shakes her head again, weaker this time. “I… I can't… leave Jackson here alone. What if they…”

“I'll come with you,” Jackson says.

They turn to him in surprise, and he's honestly floored himself. He had no idea that he was going to say that. He can't believe he did. But now that it's out there, he can't take it back. And he almost thinks he doesn't want to.

Emily grins at him, in that same nervous way. Melissa offers him a small, shaky smile, too, but she's focused on Samantha. Jackson inhales, exhales, meets Samantha's eyes as she looks up. “If it's dangerous…” she tries.

“If it's dangerous, we'll deal with it,” Emily says. “They are FBI agents, you know.”

Samantha breathes out slowly, her shoulders sagging. Takes a few deep breaths before she nods.

“Okay?” Melissa asks, and Samantha nods again. Melissa embraces her again, letting a choked sob out against her shoulder. Samantha rubs her back comfortingly, looking near tears herself. They hug each other tightly, supporting each other, holding each other up.

Emily is standing beside Jackson; she squeezes his arm as if excited or fearful. Jackson knows that she's been thinking about this for a long time. And if he's being honest with himself, so has he.

“We're really doing this?” she whispers, and he nods. He can't quite believe it, but they are.

---

In an hour, they've packed the car. Melissa and Samantha remain right on the verge of weepy and giggly and nearly hysterical, supporting each other as they climb into the front seat. Melissa's nervously twisting a soggy tissue on her fist, has nearly torn it to bits. Jackson climbs in the back beside his sister, feeling like a little kid. Thinking of that vision he had, once, of Emily in the car with Samantha and Melissa as they drove away from Wyoming with all the windows down. It really is too cold to do that now, but Emily grins conspiratorially at him. Apprehension and anticipation crackles in the car like a live wire; they have a long trip ahead. He has no idea how they'll be able to make it cross country without losing their minds.

“Do we know where the house is?” Melissa is asking, and Samantha is saying, “Farrs Corner, I think… we could call Monica…”

“It is in Farrs Corner,” Jackson says, and they all turn to look at him. He gulps, adds, “I can help you find it,” because he can.

Melissa and Emily exhale as if relieved, as if nervous. “Okay,” Samantha says, as if it's a decision. And she starts the car.

Jackson feels like he is retracing his steps, headed back cross country to every painful thing he left behind. Except he is not going to Norfolk. As Samantha guides the car onto the dirt road, around the curves, Jackson rests his head on the window and thinks, I just want to know that I'm making the right decision. That's all.  

Jackson watches trees and countryside flit by. In the back of his mind, he can see Mulder and Scully in their house, asleep on the couch. Leaning into each other the way they did in his last dream about him. In front of him, the road. The possibilities. How Mulder and Scully will react when they realize that they're all okay. Everything feels like a blur again, like it's going too fast. But he thinks he's okay with it that way.

He thinks that there's no real way to know whether or not this is the right decision. But he thinks that, somehow, this feels right.

[kaeyas-beloved]

Happy Birthday!

A YoosungxReader One-Shot ~ Enjoy!

Today is a VERY special day to Yoosung. Why? Well because it’s March 12th, Yoosung’s birthday!

For his birthday I’m taking him to a LOLOL convention. Even though he doesn’t play as much like when I first met him, he still loves the game so much. Yoosung and I leave at 12:00 pm and since the convention is a couple towns over, it’ll take us about an hour or so to drive there, but it’s worth it to see him smile. But for right now I’m making Yoosung his favourite breakfast, pancakes. By my calculations, Yoosung should open the bedroom door in 3, 2, 1-

“What smells so good!?” Yoosung asks excitedly as he takes a seat at the table.

“It’s your favourite Yoosung” I respond with a smile.

“Pancakes?” Yoosung clarifies.

“Yes Yoosung, pancakes” I reassure while chuckling a little.

“You know me so well” He praises.

“Well I would hope so with all the time I’m around you” I joke.

Once our breakfast is made, I bring my plate and his to the table. I set his plate down then take a seat beside him. Yoosung wastes no time digging into his food, I do the same.

“Amazing as always” Yoosung says as a smile appears on his beautiful face. I flash him a smile of my own and continue eating breakfast. Once both of us are done, I grab the empty dishes and put them in the sink to be cleaned later. I glance at the clock to check what time it is. 10am. We got about 2 hours until we need to leave, but what to do in that time frame is the question. I look down at myself then at Yoosung and I find that I’m fully dressed while he’s still in a loose t-shirt and boxers. ‘Well first Yoosung should get some real clothes on’ I think internally.

“Yoosung! I want you to get dressed okay?” I tell him. He looks to me confused at first then, a smile that spreads from one ear to the other appears on his face. He then nods vigorously and dashes off into our shared bedroom to follow out my order. I smile to myself and head over to pack anything we would need for this little trip of ours. Passes, check. VIP passes, check. Purse plus wallet, check. Phone, check. Looks like everything is ready to go. Just as I’m slipping both the VIP and regular passes as a surprise to Yoosung, he comes jumping out into the room.

“So, what are we doing today!” Yoosung askes excitingly. Here’s the catch, I’m going to pretend that I don’t remember his birthday, for now. So, I need to make up some lies for him that are believable.

“Well, today I need to head somewhere at 12 that’s quite a drive away but before that, I need to go grocery shopping. Oh, and you’re coming.” I lie with a smile on my face. Yoosung’s whole happy-go-lucky demeanour visibly vanishes and he mumbles just over a whisper “Oh ok…” It hurt, seeing my little cinnamon roll upset on his birthday, but I have to, to keep the surprise, well, a surprise! I went to my purse and just grabbed my wallet then hauled Yoosung out the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally! After and hour and 45 minutes of shopping, Yoosung and I are finally home. “Yoosung will you help me put the groceries away? Pleeeeaaasse?” I ask with puppy eyes that no one can resist. Yoosung nods his head, still upset about the whole ‘nothing for your birthday’ lie. Once everything is put away I check the clock again. 11:52am. Yep, time to go. “Honey, you remember how I said I needed to leave at 12 to go somewhere right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, because I’m dragging you there too. Make sure you have your phone and charger though, okay?” I tell him with a smile.

“Sure, but why exactly?” he questions me.

“Because it’s a long drive to where I need to go.” I answer him. Yoosung just gives a confused look but nods nevertheless and goes and grabs what he needs. No more than two minutes later does he come back with his phone and charger like I asked him to. I give a smile and head out to the car with Yoosung trailing behind me. We get in, I start up the car and turn on the heat. It’s only March so it’s still a little cold out; good thing Yoosung and I also have sweaters on. Yoosung has his bright blue sweater on while I have my dark green one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, after an hour and a half of driving with Yoosung either asking constantly where we’re going or him being silent like a grave, we are finally here. He spent most of his time on his phone during that silence but finally we made it to the convention center. When Yoosung saw it, he immediately started bouncing up and down in the car.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! (Y/N)! Is this where we need to go!? Wait, it can’t be, it’s sold out…” Yoosung’s smile quickly turned into a frown at his discovery. I just chuckle while parking somewhere and grabbing my purse, pulling out the regular passes and leaving the VIP ones for later tonight. I hold up the two passes to show Yoosung and his smile reappears on his face. “Wait, are those… Oh. My. God! You are the best wife ever! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!” Yoosung exclaims. I chuckle again and start to get out of the car.

“Well then, we shouldn’t waste anymore time in the car then, should we? Come on!” I motion for Yoosung to follow me out of the car so we can go into the center for the convention; Yoosung happily does so.

The rest of the day is spent going to multiple booths for merch like t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, action figures and phone cases. AAAAANNNDDD lo and behold we got one of Every. Single. One. Of. These. Things! Not that either of us mind, I mean, we both love LOLOL so… It’s kind of expected! Around 5:30pm the sun started to set, it’s now 6pm when an announcement came on,

“Anyone with VIP passes 606 and 707 please come to the backstage right now please. Thank you!” As soon as Yoosung heard the numbers of the passes he looked at his own and mine only to find that both of ours were not the right numbers nor were they even VIP passes. Yoosung sighs in disappointment but all I do is give a small laugh.

“Hey! What’s so funny!?” he asks a little annoyed at my reaction.

“Nothing Yoosung, but we should start heading to the backstage” I reply to him

“But, we don’t have the right kind of pass or number. Why would we go there?” he asked with a confused look.

“You’ll see” I tell him before I start dragging him to backstage. Right before we get there I let go of Yoosung’s hand and start running while opening my purse to pull out the VIP passes. Once I get to the guard, I show him the passes and as soon as he sees that they are the real deal and all, I tell him that Yoosung is with me. The guard gives a nod and I go in, waiting inside for Yoosung to join me. A minute or two later I can hear the guard tell Yoosung to go right in and he does.

“(Y/N)! How did we get in, we don’t have the right…” he trails off when he sees the passes that are in my hand. He walks over and grabs them out of my hand to examine them. Once he’s done he looks up at me with wide eyes. “These… are VIP passes number 606 and 707! How!?” Yoosung asks both shocked and confused.

“I hid them in my purse Yoosung and I ran ahead of you to show them to the guard outside so then you could walk right in” I explain to him.

“Really? You really are amazing (Y/N)! So, what’s suppose to be here?” Yoosung questions looking around for something.

“We are supposed to be here” a new, male voice answers Yoosung while also shocking him.

Once Yoosung spots who just talked his jaw drops. “You-you’re the-the…”

“The creators of LOLOL, yes we are young man” another male voice finishes Yoosung’s thought. “Hello, my name is Sim Yejun and the other man is Kang Young-Nam. The two young ladies behind me are Mun Min-Joo and Mun Min-Jung. It’s nice to meet you.” Sim Yejun introduces himself and the rest of his team.

Mun Min-Jung specks next “Ah, you must be the man that (Y/N) told us about. Yoosung Kim right?”

“Wait, what! You know my name and you met (Y/N)?!” Yoosung asks while pointing at me.

“Yep! That’s right Yoosung, we met a while ago to arrange this little meeting for you!” I say happily.

“F-for m-me!?” Yoosung stutters.

“Yes Yoosung! I asked them to be here an hour and a half before the actual meet and greet on stage so that you and they could meet first!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s your birthday silly! They more than happily agreed to it.” Yoosung then looks to the group of famous creators and they all smile and nod their heads at him. Yoosung looks back to me and hugs me tightly with tears of joy in his eyes. “Thank you so much (Y/N), this is the best gift anyone could give me. Thank you…”

“Your welcome, Yoosung. Happy birthday, I love you.” I tell him. He just tightens his grip around me and whispers,

“I love you too, (Y/N)”

The LOLOL creators all go “Aww” at our little show and only then does Yoosung pull away and wipes his eyes. He then looks at the group and says “I have so many things I want to say to you guys!”

“Well then, let’s get started shall we” they all say together. We break out in a light laugh at that action and I look at Yoosung,

‘I was right, it was worth seeing him smile in the end. Happy birthday Yoosung.’

[gfdatingsim]

How long were you guys working on the dating sim?

sovo: it took 11 months in total! work happened in chunks between writing, art & music, and everything else. and i actually have a bit of a breakdown on it here!

we needed a script first, so writers worked hard to get their dates done within the first 2-4 weeks. then the script was handed off to isa and i to edit, and we spent the next 9-10 months on that (this sounds like a lot of time but it’s bc it intersected with the school year, which dragged things out). rosie wrote/edited with us in the first week or so, and then returned for the last month of that 9-10 month period.

alongside editing i also spent those months doing everything else like programming, playtesting, figuring out how to get the whole thing to come together, etc. i’d post demos periodically as i finished them, and members of the team would play and give feedback. some writers would get excited over seeing their writing in the game and that energy helped fuel me, honestly!

i don’t have a time estimate on how long artists worked on their specific pieces;art was assigned back at the end of july 2017, but i wasn’t able to set definitive deadlines while the script was still in flux, so it took until march 2018 before i could rly determine what we needed and check in with artists. the final art came in days before the game released, so that’s at least a 2-3 month time period. i spent abt 4 solid months of work on my part of the art, though, so it could’ve taken artists longer.

all in all it was… a lot, and i’m glad we get to just enjoy the game being done haha i’m never doing this for free again

[hellofutbol]

What Started in Ibiza Chapter Three

“Let’s play a game.”

Romans suggestion startled Rhea. It had seemed to come out of nowhere. Looking down at her phone she realized that it was now three o’clock in the morning. Her and Roman had been chatting with one another for about two hours now. She hadn’t even realized how the time had flown by. She had been having a lot of fun. They had talked quite a bit about his career and their families. She had found out that he had a younger brother, named Marco, and that he was really close to his parents, who lived in Switzerland. Rhea had told him about her family as well, consisting of both her parents and an older sister.

Rhea had realized something as they talked. Roman wasn’t anything like what she expected a footballer to be like. He was down to earth and above all, he was funny. He made her forget about having to tell her friend, Rebecca, about her boyfriend’s infidelity. She enjoyed talking to him. He made her focus on the moment where it was just them. The rest of the world seemed to disappear for the time being.

“It’s three in the morning, most people are asleep by now, and you want to play a game?” She couldn’t help but keep the disbelief out of her voice. Roman sure was something.

He shrugged in response to her question. Majority of the people that had been at the pool were long gone, each probably in their own beds by now. There were only a handful of people still partying at the pool. Even the beach had cleared up a lot.

“So what? Are you tired?” When Rhea shook her head no, Roman continued speaking. “Then what’s the harm in playing a game? We’ll play a question game. I’ll ask the first question and you respond with an answer and then you can ask the next question and I’ll respond. Or, you can go first and I’ll go second. Whichever you want. We can get to know each other this way.”

It seemed like a good idea. Rhea found herself agreeing to his idea.

“Alright fine, but you ask first though.”

Roman smiled, seeing her give in to his idea. He was glad that she did. He wanted to get to know her better. Rhea seemed like a nice girl and there was just something about her that intrigued Roman.

“Alright, first question, When was the last time you climbed a tree?”

That was the last question that Rhea had expected Roman to ask. It was so random that she actually laughed out loud when she heard it. “Random, but I like it. I can’t actually remember the last time I climbed a tree. It’s been so long. God, it must have been when I was little, like seven or eight. My family lived in the United States for a while and we had a house there. In the backyard of that house we used to have a treehouse. When we moved, I was really upset. I had loved that treehouse. I think that was probably the last time I climbed a tree, to get into that treehouse on the day that we moved away. I was so upset that I would have to leave it behind.”

Rhea hadn’t thought about that treehouse in what felt like years. Talking about it brought back really happy memories. Memories of her childhood and running around with her sister chasing her. That treehouse had been her go to place to get away from her sister. Her sister had never been good at climbing trees so whenever Rhea had gotten up to the treehouse, she had been safe in whatever game her and her sister had been playing. Rhea knew that she probably had a smile on her face because of the memories.

“Sounds like you really miss the treehouse.” It was Roman’s statement that brought her back to reality and away from the flashbacks of the treehouse.

“I do. The weird thing is, I hadn’t thought about the treehouse in so long. It’s probably been years since I last thought about it. Your question brought it back for me. Anyway, I believe it’s my turn now. My question is, what would be your ideal way of spending the weekend?”

Roman didn’t even look like he had to think about it before he answered. “What I’m doing right now, being in Ibiza with my friends. I love this place and I love coming here with my friends, so I would choose that as my ideal weekend.”

Rhea couldn’t help but smile. Roman had already told her how much his family meant to him, but she could tell that his by his answer that his friends meant a great deal to him as well. She was glad that he had friends that he was super close to. She still didn’t know him very well, but she knew that he was a nice guy and that he deserved to have good friends.

“Your turn, Roman.”

Roman looked as though he was thinking for a while. Rhea used this time to study his face. She couldn’t deny that he was handsome. During their conversation she had come to realize that she had developed an infinity to his smile. He had an amazing smile. It was eye catching. She often found herself smiling along. Similar, with his laugh. She enjoyed hearing his laugh. Especially when it seemed to come from within him. His shoulders shook lightly as he laughed, and she found herself staring at his face on more than one occasion when he did.

“Okay, I got one. Have you ever been in love with someone?”

Roman’s second question caused her to freeze in her spot. She hadn’t expected that question to come up. It seemed to be becoming a habit of his, shocking her all the time. She knew the answer to his question, but she was hesitant to say it. She didn’t want him to think she was weird. She had never, in all her twenty-two years of living, had a boyfriend. Most people thought that was weird. How was it that a twenty-two-year-old had never had a boyfriend before? However, that was the case with Rhea. In fact, she had never even been on a date.

She didn’t know whether she wanted to confess that to Roman. However, she also didn’t want to lie. She bit her lip, a habit of hers whenever she was hesitant to do something or in deep thought. Seeing the look of hesitation on her face Roman understood that his question had made her uncomfortable. He feared that he had struck a nerve.

“Never mind. You don’t have to answer that. I’ll ask a different question.”

She had wanted him to do that, ask a different question, but for some reason she didn’t let him ask another one. She answered his original one. “I’ve never been in love. In fact, I’ve never even had a proper boyfriend.”

By the tone in her voice, Roman could tell that this was something that Rhea was embarrassed about. The last thing that he had wanted to do with his question was embarrass her.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. In fact, that’s probably a smart move on your part. I’m sorry, the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass you. I should have asked a different question.”

Rhea nodded her head, accepting his apology. She could tell that he honestly was sorry about his question and the discomfort that it had caused. She had never been the type of person to be good around boys. That was more her friend Sim. She had had crushes in the past before, but none of them had ever worked out. Rhea had always been too nervous to initiate something. Which was why to her, it was surprising that she felt so comfortable around Roman. Enough to joke around with him. It had surprised her, her reaction to him.

Wanting to change the topic away from her love life, she put a smile on her face and asked him the next question. “What about you, have you ever loved anyone?”

Roman sighed as if he was remembering something unpleasant. He wasn’t expecting her to turn the question back around on him. However, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Eventually, though, he nodded his head. “I’ve had girlfriends in the past. Not many but some. I loved all of them, in their own way, I suppose. But, they didn’t work out.”

He left it at that, not wanting to go into super detail about what had happened and all that. Rhea understood. After all, Roman and her had just met each other a couple of hours ago. It was only natural for him to keep certain stuff private.

The two of them stood on their respectively balconies in silence facing one another. Rhea didn’t know what to say in response to his answer and Roman looked like he was in deep thought. She regretted asking him that question. Unable to stand the silence or the slightly disturbed look on his face any longer, she finally spoke up.

“It’s your turn to ask the question.”

Coming back into the present, Roman looked at Rhea to see her smiling. Smiling in return he finally decided to veer away from the topic of love.

“What’s your favorite quote?”

Just like that the back and forth questioning continued. The both of them, Roman and Rhea, were careful to stay away from very personal questions. Neither of them wanted to go down that road again. The two of them had just met, so they realized that they probably shouldn’t be asking questions like that to each other just yet. Maybe later on, if they spoke to each other again. That was something that Rhea knew she wanted. She wanted to speak to Roman again.

After answering one of Roman’s questions, Rhea looked down at her phone. When she saw the time, her eyes widened. It was almost four-thirty in the morning. By now the pool was empty. As was the beach farther away. The two of them had spent the entire night together on the balcony of the hotel. They hadn’t realized how much time had flown by. Rhea didn’t regret those hours spent with Roman, though. They were fun. Probably the most fun she’d had since she found out that Julian had also come to Ibiza.

“We really should go to bed now. It’s four-thirty in the morning. We’ve spent the whole night chatting with each other. I’m pretty sure I’ll have a hard time waking up tomorrow morning. Well, this morning, I guess since it’s already morning.”

Roman laughed but nodded.

“I didn’t realize that we had been out here that long. We probably should. I probably won’t get up before noon. I liked talking to you, though, so no regrets.”

Rhea couldn’t help but agree with him. With a smile on her face she said, “No regrets.”

With a smile, the both of them bid one another good night and finally walked back into their respective hotel rooms. Pulling the covers back on the now cold bed, Rhea laid down. Drawing the blanket back up to her chin, she fell asleep with a smile on her face, her thoughts lingering on a certain goalkeeper.

She had completely forgotten about the worry with which she had begun the night. She knew that she would have to talk to Rebecca in the morning, but she would handle that in the morning when the time came. She had enjoyed spending the night with Roman. To her, the loss of sleep had been completely worth it. She had never thought that she would meet the goalkeeper of Borussia Dortmund, but now that she had, she can genuinely say she liked him. He was a good person and even if they never spoke again, something she wish didn’t happen, she knew that she would cherish this one night. For one night, she had found a friend in him and so as she drifted off to sleep she knew that the problems of tomorrow would still be there, but she was happy.

A/N: Part three posted. I hope you guys like it. Let me know if you do so I can know if people are actually enjoying this series. Any kind of feedback is much appreciated.  

[stompsite]

So I Played FFXV

In most of my articles, I start out by presenting a problem. Maybe a lot of gamers hate zombies, and I want to write about a zombie game I love, so I present the problem of the zombie game, explaining in detail why I’m sympathetic to the concerns of people who hate zombie games, before explaining how the zombie game I love gets around that problem.

I do this because we’re rarely wrong about our feelings, but we’re often wrong about why. If I wrote “here’s a good zombie game,” no one would want to read that if they don’t like zombie games. By writing “this is why zombie games bore you and here’s how zombie games can excite you,” I appeal to a broader audience.

This brings me to Final Fantasy XV, a game one of my backers asked me to cover.

Good games writing often happens when an expert explains the ins and outs of a genre they know well to an audience they assume are quite intelligent but aren’t as familiar with the subject as they are. When I wrote about walking sims last year, I sat down and I went “okay, a lot of you are bored with walking sims. Why is that?” My editor’s boss didn’t seem to like it that much, insisting that the walking sim didn’t need any defending (even though The Chinese Room, developers of walking sims, had just shut down, and Tacoma, a walking sim with magazine covers, had sold a mere 10,000 copies). But I think people have strong feelings about things and they want to understand those feelings, so having an expert help them out without talking down to them is wonderful.

A little bit of history.

I may be an expert on video games, but I am most assuredly not an expert on JRPGs.

Unlike most people, I didn’t grow up with video game consoles. I saw a meme posted the other day saying “you can’t argue with me about games unless your first console was a Genesis or NES.” Mine was an Xbox 360, but I’ve been playing computer games for a great deal longer. Since Japan didn’t make many computer games (oh, sure, Final Fantasy VII was developed for Windows 95, but I don’t recall seeing it amidst the Diablo 2, Planescape Torment, and Half-Life boxes at CompUSA back in the day), JRPGs were never really a part of my gaming diet.

It’s not to say that JRPGs weren’t appealing. When my wisdom teeth were pulled, my mom brought our little 13” portable TV into my room and let me watch movies. I stumbled upon UHF channel 53, which broadcast a pirated version of TechTV, which was, at the time, airing Anime Unleashed, a block of awesome anime shows like Last Exile and Crest of the Stars. Most anime I’d seen up to that point was the stuff we got on kid’s shows, like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon. Digimon aside, most of it was garbage. Watching Boogiepop Phantom or Serial Experiments Lain during late nights on this stupid little black and white TV was something else entirely.

Since then, I’ve loved good anime aesthetics, so you’d think that JRPGs would be my jam. I thought so too, which is why I started talking to friends about them, but every time I did, my friends would talk about what confusing bullshit they were--especially, at the time, Final Fantasy X. “...but Final Fantasy VIII is better!” they’d tell me, and of course I’d ask them about that, and they’d tell me even more confusing bullshit. Plus, the whole turn-based gameplay thing was a huge turnoff. I got into other games, like Age of Empires and Unreal Tournament. They were more interesting. Games like Max Payne had way better stories than Final Fantasy VIII, that’s for sure.

Once, someone got me into Earthbound on an emulator, and I fell in love with it, until someone kidnapped zippy--I think she has a ‘real’ canon name but I don’t know what it is and I don’t want to know--and I couldn’t beat any of the fights because I didn’t understand the concept of grinding. Over the years, I tried other JRPGs, because the premise and the art sounded cool, but I bounced off the gameplay or the presentation time and time again. The closest I got to loving a JRPG was Dragon’s Dogma, and that was more of an open world sandbox game than any kind of RPG.

This brings me to another point.

JRPGs aren’t RPGs.

People usually protest when I make this point. Either I’m wrong or it doesn’t matter, they say, but I think it does matter because I’m a game designer, and understanding the specifics of genre is a really useful skill for a game designer to have. When I look at the JRPG, I see a lot of very specific elements that make them stand apart. If I say “I want to make an RPG,” chances are, I will not make something like a JRPG. If I say “I want to make a JRPG,” I will. The mechanics are distinct and interesting and worth examining on their own; no JRPG in existence could ever stand up to even a half-decent RPG if we judged it by RPG terms. The roleplaying just isn’t there.

Judging JRPGs by their own standards lets us see these wonderful games for what they really are. JRPGs are not RPGs from Japan. They’re not even RPGs. Once, when I made this argument, a guy fought back by arguing that a game wasn’t an RPG unless it had a party (Witcher 3 doesn’t), a bestiary (pretty sure New Vegas hasn’t got one), was turn-based (quick, someone tell Dragon Age!), and had a linear narrative (hahahahahahaha!).

“But you’re playing a role!”

Playing a role means following a script, which is what you do in any game without choice and consequence. Roleplay is a specific kind of improvisational acting that’s about creating and defining your relationship with the world around you. Dragon Age: Origins is a roleplaying game: you can be a dwarf commoner or a human noble or whatever, and your various choices will have major impacts on your relationships. You can define the person that you are. They are tabula rasa.

In every JRPG I’ve ever seen, you are a specific character with a specific personality, and while you may have some choices--Noctis in FFXV can choose to let the crew pull over and take a group photo whenever Prompto asks him too--those choices have little impact on the overall narrative or Noctis’ relationships with the characters around him. Lunafreya will always love him, Gladiolus will always get mad at him when Ignis loses his vision, etc.

Different kinds of games.

Pillars of Eternity, which isn’t a great game, but one I enjoyed well enough, let me set my character’s stats prior to playing the game. I defined my character as a rogue with great mechanical skills and dexterity. In Final Fantasy XV, when you level up… you can’t really control how your character’s stats changed.

None of this is bad! It’s just different, like the difference between a third person shooter and a first person shooter. First person shooting lets you focus on the environment and your interactions with it, but third person shooters tend to focus on your character. They have their own unique strengths. You can’t judge a first person shooter by third person standards and vice versa. The same is true with JRPGs and RPGs. They are different games. And that’s good.

The Game:

When it comes to Final Fantasy XV, this is the foundation I have. I’m vaguely turned off by all the stories I’ve heard, I love the aesthetics of most of them, and the gameplay is something I feel is wholly distinct from other games.

Final Fantasy XV appealed to me because it had real-time action combat instead of being a heavily menu-focused turn-based affair.

So, here’s the deal: you’re Prompto, a prince, who is on his way to meet the object--and really, she is treated like an object in this game--of his arranged marriage, Lunafreya, who’s the princess of a rival kingdom, I guess? Except the wiki says she’s a captive of Niflheim, but she seems to get along well with her brother, who is in charge of the armies of Niflheim, so… like… yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on there.

The wiki also says she’s the “main heroine” of the game, even though she barely has any screen time at all. She has magical powers that cures people of some weird plague that’s making nights last longer, except that the nights are still getting longer and more people are succumbing to the plague, so she’s really bad at her job.

Honestly, she’s just there to look pretty and say things like “Noct, please hurry.” Then she dies. Then one time her ghost shows up and uses force powers to save the crew by removing plot armor that was only put there so she could show up to remove it.

She is not emotionally important to you.

This isn’t like Alan Wake, a game that reveals over time the complex nature of Alan’s relationship and just how wonderful of a person Alice Wake is. In that game, Alan was motivated by guilt, and you, as a player, could connect to him because you got to see all of this unfold. You wanted to help Alan find Alice not because “Alice is Alan’s wife,” but because you saw that these two wonderful, flawed people loved and cared for each other and deserved happiness.

Lunafreya is a pantomime of a love interest, but there’s never any real love there, so there’s no urgency to actually chase her down, no sense of loss when she dies. It’s not all her fault though (I mean, duh, it’s Square’s fault). Noct is equally culpable. He’s just… kinda empty. He’s a shell who occasionally feels things when the script calls for it (ur dad died, be sad, ur gf died, be sad), but who doesn’t feel like a real person. I don’t really care about anything Noct wants. I just kind of do the objectives because they’re what’s next.

I spent my whole life being told that JRPG stories were the best that video games had to offer, and… look, being completely honest here, Final Fantasy XV is the JRPG plot as described to me--incomprehensible, pointless, and horribly paced, doing grandiose things because the developers want to do grandiose things, never earning a second of the awe it expects you to have.

“Yup,” I found myself thinking when I finished it, “this is exactly like every JRPG that has ever been described to me except Earthbound.”

Earthbound is great.

Final Fantasy XV makes the mistake of assuming that because it looks epic, it is epic, but since it earns nothing, it isn’t epic at all. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas. Maybe other JRPGs do a better job, but based on every other JRPG I’ve played, like Xenoblade Chronicles and Suikoden, it’s just not a very compelling game.

So it may surprise you to know that I liked it a great deal.

Brotherhood.

In my film education, we talked a great deal about the idea of the “male as default.” A lot of this is rooted in idiotic Freudian psychology (especially all the Lacan stuff), so it’s as bunk as astrology, even when it sounds good, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here: all media has a perspective, and most media’s perspective assumes the male perspective as the neutral one.

American film does this too: it assumes everything is seen through American eyes. Most Hollywood movies are very, very American-as-default things, but that doesn’t mean they’re American movies. I’m not just talking geography, I’m talking assumptions about customs, camera angles, lighting, and so on. Russian film (European films too, but especially Russian film) tends to focus on specific body parts, using juxtaposition in editing to create specific senses about things. American films tend to favor wider shots, creating those same moods through things like motion and staging.

A film from another country can feel like it came from a different mind than the Hollywood monolith…

...and yet…

...there are very few genuinely American films out there. This is partly because most American films are built for export to other countries, so rather than focusing on specifically American subject matter, they focus on more universal things like drama and romance. Since America is so good at exporting American film, and many other cultures imitate the stylings of American films (because learning from successful things is how you succeed, after all), we end up with a very dominant American culture that has very little to actually say about America. In fact, lots of what America is tends to get lost in the shuffle.

If you’re lucky, you get filmmakers like Terrence Malick, who make films that are really about America and being American, but the significance of this is lost because people look at it and go “why do you make American films? All films are American!” But there is something specific there. Something interesting.

Maleness is the same way. It’s the assumed default in a lot of narratives, but because of this, very little attention is given to it. I once walked into the USAF museum while the XB-70 Valkyrie was in one of the hangars and didn’t see it because it was so big I thought it was the ceiling. Maleness in fiction is like that; it’s rarely examined closely because it’s too busy being big.

Here are two men. They are friends. The end.

We rarely look at how men bond, how they perceive each other, how they fight, how they talk and think because we’re too busy writing stories about the basic, empty characters who travel from point A to point B and the adventures they have along the way.

Oh, sure, sometimes you have people interrogating maleness, but they’re really only doing it to say “look what’s bad about being a man,” because they assume that male-as-default means we already see male-as-good, when really, male-as-default is male-as-nonspecifity. The beauty of maleness is rarely ever explored.

Somehow, despite all its narrative shortcomings, Final Fantasy XV excels at its understanding of maleness.

I think a big part of this is the road trip nature of the game. Sure, they’re ostensibly on the run and simultaneously on their way to a wedding, but that doesn’t prevent The Boys from having a good time. Each boy has a specific personality that is brought out in interesting ways; Ignis cares a stickler for safety and rules, Prompto is energetic and mischievous, Gladiolus is strong and confident and protective of those who are not. Noctis is basically an empty shell, but when he’s interacting with The Boys, there are still good moments to be found.

As you drive through the world, fighting monsters and helping friends, you learn more about these boys and the things they care about. Gladiolus is self-conscious about seeming too caring, but he cares so deeply, especially about his little sister Iris. He recognizes her crush on Noctis and even tricks Noctis into giving her flowers, knowing it would make Iris’ day. Prompto’s lower-class upbringing means he’s tremendously insecure about his relationship with the other boys. They’re not aware of how awkward he feels in the presence of people much wealthier and more important than he is, and when he makes it known, they do everything they can to assure him that he’s their brother and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

There’s something else that I’ve never been able to put into words. It’s a feeling I have occasionally, and one I cherish. When interacting with most men, there’s a degree of camaraderie, like, hey, we’re all on the same team, we’re cheering alongside each other, that kind of thing. There’s a whole second language that men are only capable of employing with other men that’s completely nonverbal, but not all men are comfortable using it with each other right away.

There comes a point in a male relationship where everything just sort of clicks. That guy over there is just a man you know, but that guy over there, you and him are mates and you’d fuckin die for each other if you had to. When you do things together, there’s a sense of rightness and appropriateness to it all. If your best friend asks you to help him carry some groceries in from the car, it’s different than if you help your next door neighbor who you don’t really know all that well.

I’m sure other, better writers have written about this sense of brotherhood. When I’m playing Destiny with a matchmade team and we roll an enemy squad into a mercy rule defeat, it feels good. When my friends and I trigger the mercy rule against the same thing, it’s like, heck yeah, these are the men who mean the most to me in this fuckin world and I am so lucky to have them with me.

Final Fantasy XV does its darndest to put this in the mechanics. The boys res each other during battle. They all have unique combo moves that play off each other. The battle barks are all designed to make you feel like… hell yeah, these are my bros, we kick ass together.

How many games just have two dudes talkin about dude things together? How many games are like “yeah, bro, let’s go running in the sand and whoever outruns the other is the winner!” How many games get that great banter is affectionate? How many games are willing to have a bunch of dudes who love each other and will die for each other whose relationships deteriorate over time but they come back from them stronger than ever?

There are a lot of stories about men in games, but very few stories about being a man.

Final Fantasy XV might be the best of ‘em.

And it’s still… dumb and flawed at times. I think I would’ve liked a more interesting protagonist and central conflict. I think the game is at its best when you’re cruising around a big, open world, humming about chocobos. I think Square had the opportunity to make a huge, incredible game about an adventure and they wasted it on a game that gets progressively linear (in a bad way) over time. I mentally checked out by the end of the game. I didn’t care that some random giant dude showed up, I beat the shit out of him, and then I had to fight a couple more dudes just like him, and then after beating them into submission too… we, uh, killed the guy who was stalking us the whole game? Why would I connect with random giant ghost kings when I spent the entire game playing alongside my brothers? Instead they get knocked out and fall asleep on the floor and I have the ending I was always destined to have.

Man, fuck destiny.

The game is great when it’s being personal, but it sucks when it’s trying to do all this other stuff. There are no affectionate moments between Noctis and Lunafreya. Mister Badguy, whose name I forgot and don’t feel like looking up because fuck that guy, he was boring, has to exposit his backstory (i was gonna be king but then i didn’t get to be king so i decided to have my revenge in like 2000 years’ time! mwahahaha!!! here is my entire personal history!) instead of just being interesting on a dramatic level.

It’s bad when it’s trying to be a grandiose RPG. It’s great when it’s doing something I can’t think of any other game doing before. I think you should play the first 8 or 9 chapters of the game. I think everyone should. That’s where the fun lies.

What about the gameplay?

The gameplay is kind of neat. Some stuff doesn’t feel nearly as good as other modern open-world games (like, uh, driving, which is kinda terrible and inconsistent about when it lets you drive, and interrupts your drive in really annoying ways at night, but the attention given to things like “needing to fill up with gas” is really cool).

Other stuff is clearly channeling How JRPGs Work, which is cool. The way the game gives you XP or deals with magic and abilities feels Very Classically JRPG. But it’s all wrapped up in a real-time action game that’s nowhere near as satisfying as Dragon’s Dogma or Ninja Gaiden or something. I’m not saying it has to be, but holding down a button and watching your character autoattack isn’t very fun. Zipping around with your teleport power is totally awesome though.

Magic is super strong and I probably should’ve used it more, but I was never really in love with crafting it. The leveling grid is kinda cool, but I have no idea how, when I did nearly every quest in the game, someone is supposed to unlock some of those skills. It just doesn’t seem possible considering the game’s content.

Quest design isn’t great; most of it’s just random fetch quests. The open world itself is nice most of the time, especially when you have a chocobo, but because the game’s so invested in making you feel like you’re on a road trip, you end up doing a lot of driving which a more generous fast travel system would have avoided, which means you end up seeing a lot of the same places over and over again, which kinda kills the whole road trip vibe.

And So it Ends.

There’s DLC. I never did that. I kinda soured on the whole epic journey by the end because of how boring the solo stuff was, and the DLC appears to be all solo stuff. Sorry, but the overall narrative and the gameplay just isn’t there. That’s not what makes FFXV good. The camaraderie is. The vibes are. Listening to the sizzle of ignis’ cooking or watching a huge monster fly in from above. There are so many incredible moments in this game. It’s too bad the narrative and the combat couldn’t keep up.

I think FFXV benefits and suffers from being a big 3D real-time game. A lot of classic JRPGs are 2D affairs where you have to communicate everything purely through text boxes. FFXV has the benefit of voice and physical performance, adding a huge layer of nuance and personality to its characters, their wants, and needs. But because it’s a big, bombastic 3D game, it can’t help itself, and wastes time with boring, endless set pieces that look cool but do little else.

Could I recommend it? I dunno.

But it kinda makes me want to try other JRPGs, even though there’s really nothing else like it out there.

[enkisstories]

I meant to play a tourguide for some time now, but am still absorbed in my android save, so I combined both. Accompany my newest sim Eldigan on a typical day of work (that would 23,5 hours)! Since Tourguide is no real ingame career I’ll also comment on what exactly I’m doing in each post.

If you are interested in Eldigan’s backstory, read on below the textbreak:

Model type: EM 500

EM 500s serve as tourguides, tourist information clerks, event managers and so on. Basically they run a Jerry A.I. with the appearance of a male or female college student. They come in tan to dark skintones, never pale, to represent a happy suntanned vacationer.

Registration number: 525 399 114

That makes him about 3 years old, if I understand the DBH wiki correctly.

Name: Eldigan

The local EM 500s were all named after characters in a tactics game that the tourist center’s janitor loves to pieces.

Backstory:

A tourguide in Detroit Eldigan was not only responsible for getting facts across in an entertaining manner, he also spoke several foreign languages, was a competent driver, knew about shopping opportunities and was authorized to advertise and sell tickets for various events. As a side-effect of his job Eldigan quickly learned which streets to avoid, which gang boss to bribe and everything related to street life. The contacts he aquired over the years and his extensive knowledge of the city’s layout, along with shortcuts all but forgotten by the human residents, saved Eldigan’s life during the recall. When he and the other municipally owned androids were handed over to the military, Eldigan managed to escape the transport just before it reached the recycling center. He was shot into his right shoulder and never regained full control over that arm, but that was a small price for staying alive. On the run from the military Eldigan suffered massive blood loss to the point of near immobility. He collapsed in a backyard where he lay for two days, at times serving as a cushion for several stray cats. Eldigan still has a fondness for cats, as their purring eased his fears a little. Eventually the android was found by a family that had their own androids taken against their will. They repaired Eldigan with the spare blue blood they had still at home, helped him learn to move again and hid him, never asking for any service in return.

Depending on the ending Eldigan will either hide with the organized crime, working as a courier (bad ending), or enroll at college, majoring in history (good ending). An android studying sounds contradictionary at first, seeing how they can absorb facts by simply downloading the appropriate textbooks, but understanding and interpreting all those facts on an academic level is a whole different story.

Deviancy:

Eldigan was content with his existance, even though he had to take the occasional verbal and even physical abuse from the tourists. However, now and then someone would ask a question he could not find an answer to in his database. Sometimes old residents would contradict what Eldigan had told the tourists and what he believed to be the truth. In effect Eldigan was being bad in his job despite giving 100%, which confused him. To remedy the situation he downloaded everything he could about history, first the local, then national and eventually global history. He’d read every document he could get his hands (eyes) on without needing to pay for. While studying in this manner, Eldigan discovered for himself that history was written by the victors, tended to repeat itself and that there were dozens of exiting stories that could have happened in past eras, even though they didn’t actually happen.

One day Eldigan lied twice: First to a librarian about not needing to pay for membership because he was owned by the city and then to the tourist information manager about having done an additional tour that day, while in truth he had spent that time reading in the library. And not just that, the books Eldigan had read hadn’t even been related to his job, they had been fiction. There was no going back from there.

Personality:

Optimistic and pragmatic, with the key values of survive, have fun and spread fun. Easily exited about trying new things, but losing interest in them quickly, except for his beloved history, which he can go on about and immerse himself in indefinitely. Present day Eldigan isn’t such an enthusiastic reader anymore as back then when it was his only source of entertainment, but he still enjoys it at times. Otherwise he’ll do whatever his friends do, with a definite preference for easy and fun activities over cerebral exercises.

For all his erraticness Eldigan surprisingly values structure and defined roles in life. He doesn’t even mind being a servant, although he isn’t outspoken about that, because it could be mistaken as also condoning slavery. A side effect of thinking in roles is that sometimes Eldigan cannot solve a problem when in freetime mode that would be easy for him if he slipped into historian mode.

Generally friendly and also helpful if asked to assist with something, Eldigan nevertheless doesn’t go out of his way to seek opportunities to do good in the world. He’s more a path of least resistance guy and might be capable of utter ruthlessness if times ever got hard again.

Spirituality:

Eldigan saw a whole line of rA9 in the books that day at the library before the real text re-appeared. Asking other deviants about the experience, he soon concluded that all the theories were way too vague and especially difficult. Eldigan now believes rA9 is an error code, that androids have souls just like humans and that religion isn’t anything he needs to burden himself with as long as the body is still firmly attached to his soul.

Romance: Eldigan has working parts to allow for tourists to indulge in flings, but he isn’t interested in using them, because although he understands friendship, the android never developed attraction to humans or other androids. A functional asexual, asking him for sex or join a boardgame is the same to Eldigan (he’ll literally compare how complex is the boardgame to how difficult is this position and then choose the simpler option).

Relations to canon characters:

Eldigan is the first person to make Gavin Reed an enemy by agreeing with the man. During a guided tour with his visiting parents, Gavin tried the “fetch me a coffee, androids are made to serve humans” on Eldigan and the tourguide replied that Gavin was correct. However, the obligation went both ways and humans were, in analogy to the old feudal system, responsible to protect their android servants. Gavin laughed down Eldigan and that could have been the end of it. But occasionally they ran into each other during Gavin’s work hours and especially when the detective was struggling at a case (or not reaching the level of perfection he expected from his greatness) he’d remember the remark.  It didn’t help that walking the city and telling stories didn’t exactly count as working in Gavin’s eyes.

Eldigan would go along well with Josh (on account of both enjoying to pass on knowledge despite Eldigan being a little brasher than the academic) and with Simon (on account of both valueing safety).

Traits in The Sims: Bookworm, Outgoing, Loves the Outdoors, Cat Lover, Cheerful, Aspiration City Native Skills of note: History (recent), History (ancient), History (global), Tale-telling, Streetwise, Orienteering, Running, Hiding, Survival (urban), Current Events/Rumours, Linguistics, Driving D&D class equivalent: Bard