#cause if you were here pre-writing blog then wow !

[destinyc1020]

I’m curious with your take on “Stans”. I joined the tomdaya fandom last January and I think the most shocking behavior and discovery I found were Stans. I’m in my late 20s and never really followed a celeb or couple before, so I never really crossed them on social. I found it almost strange and alarming at some of their behavior- or I just couldn’t relate to people creating fan accounts? Idk. I stopped following all fan accounts of TZ on Twitter, TikTok, and IG because of how uncomfortable they made me and only stick with tumblr as the community is very different and (IMO) healthier…

I’ve been following you since I joined tumblr and like that you also have interests outside of TZ and are exposed to different fans from different celebs. Do you have any opinions on the different variety of Stans (Harry Styles/Chris Evans level to TZ level)? Opinions on these “Stan wars”? Have you seen a difference in behavior from pre pandemic to post? Their overall behavior and psychology just fascinates and alarms me at the same time.

Ooo....I LOVE new/different types of questions and asks!

Anon, are you SURE you want my opinion on this?😅 Cuz I’m about to write you an essay, and it’s gonna be

REAL TALK lol.

You asked for it!

RE: Stans and Stan Behavior...

Whew, this is a tough question to answer tbh. Mainly because I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with being a stan of your favorite celebrity(ies), or anything wrong with having a blog or a fan account dedicated to your fave(s). I don’t see anything wrong with that at all?

I think the problem however comes when some stans go a little TOO far, get way too intrusive, engage in stan wars (when those actors/celebrities don’t even hate each other lol), or just become toxic overall in general in the fandom.

I always feel like there should be a clear balance when stanning celebrities. Like, it’s okay to be a massive fan, but also know your place, and realize that these “celebrities” are really just human beings just like the rest of us at the end of the day. They just have higher pay checks lol, and have to live life in the public eye. But at the end of the day, they put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.

Another thing that I think gets fans in trouble is putting their fave on a pedestal. Yea, it’s nice to think highly of your fave, but imo NOBODY should be put on a pedestal. Imo, nobody is perfect (number one), and number two, think about how hard it would be for you to live up to some measure of perfection that others have put upon you?

I think it’s best to wish the best for your faves, but at the same time, don’t expect PERFECTION.

Otherwise, you might be sorely disappointed one day lol. 🥴 Recognize that people are human, they make mistakes (just like the rest of us), sometimes we have “off” days, sometimes stress/anxiety can cause us to react to things in ways that aren’t the most “ideal”. It happens! Just like we afford ourselves some grace, we should also afford others (including celebrities imo) some grace as well. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I think we should leave room for growth and mistake-making. So many people are so ready to “cancel” someone out here these days if they don’t live up to some measure of perfection or ideal in their mind that they had smh lol. That is so exhausting... I can’t even imagine how it must feel for people living under a microscope in the public eye.

Tom & Zendaya, for example, get so much pressure from fans (imo) to behave a certain way, be a certain way, VACATION a certain way, DATE each other a certain way, have a career a certain way, be friends with co-stars a certain way, etc.

I’m like, can’t y’all just let them BE?? Geez! #REALTALK Let people just be, my gosh. 🙄

RE: Harry Styles, Chris Evans, TZ

Wow....Those are all 3 (or 4?) different fandoms girl... Each have their own pros and cons lol.

With Harry, oh boy.... I just feel like SOME in the fandom can be a bit..... unhinged. I’m sure it’s due to him being in 1D back in the day. Sometimes idk what’s worse...the fandoms of music artists or actors lol. Don’t even get me started on the Larries lol.

With Chris Evans and his fandom... I feel like a lot have a certain image of him that they want to uphold, but if he ever does something contrary to that, they turn on him like a pack of wolves lol. I swear...that tweet I posted on here when it was revealed that he was in fact dating Alba looked like something out of a stalker’s notebook lol. Some fans (of ALL fandoms imo) seriously need to really remember to separate themselves from the celebrity they love/stan over.

You have to realize that this person isn’t in your life, they don’t know you, they aren’t your “friends”, they don’t care what you think about their relationship lol, and they’re gonna keep doing whatever the hayell they want, whether you like it or NOT! 😤

I’ve already touched a bit on the TZ/Tomdaya fandom on my blog several times before, but I’ll also add that I feel like this fandom can be a bit more complicated because we have the stans of Zendaya only, the stans of Tom only, the stans of BOTH Tom and Zendaya equally, and then the stans of just them and their relationship lol. It’s almost like some weird Venn diagram of various fandoms that sometimes operate separately, and then sometimes mix in together. It can be crazy lol. 🤣

The ONE thing I would love to see from 2023 in the TZ fandom (for both together and separately) is just fans allowing them to both GROW, and evolve as adults, and to NOT expect perfection from them, or to infantilize them. I feel like SOME (not all) fans are unnecessarily harsh on TZ. That is so much pressure.

I also feel like some infantilize Tom so much, and he’s a grown man? Then, there are the fans who feel like Zendaya can do no wrong, and will cut you with a knife if you ever say anything that has ANY hint of negativity or just room for improvement lol. I can understand it...most of us have followed her from her young Disney days...so I get it lol. She’s like our sister in our heads, and a LOT of woc get a lot of unfair hate unnecessarily, so we want to protect her from all of that. But we have to also be HONEST about our faves too. There’s nothing wrong with saying that you thought a project sucked lol... 😂

But you can STILL LOVE your fave and continue to stan them regardless. I haven’t liked EVERY single project the actors I like have put out, but it’s not a big deal! Art is subjective anyway. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Idk where fans got this "it's gotta be either/or" or, "you're either on board with everything or you're against us", limited type of black and white thinking from, but it's not healthy imo. 🥴

I think one of the most toxic things in some fandoms is not allowing people to have a voice, a difference of opinion, and also thinking that if you like your fave, you can’t possibly like any OTHER actors or interests, like we’re in some kind of CULT lol. 😂

Honestly? Imo it’s OKAY to like a variety of actors. Variety is great! I think expanding your interests also helps to prevent silly stupid “Stan Wars” btwn fandoms. To me, fan wars are so dumb, especially when there isn’t any real beef btwn the two individuals in the first place. 🥴

I’ll admit that I was “Team Jacob” in the Twilight fandom back in the day lol, but I didn’t HATE “Team Edward” or Robert Pattinson. I just preferred Jacob (Taylor) more? These days, I feel like fans feel like you HAVE to “pick a side”, and to me that’s not even fair...or even healthy tbh.

Imo, VARIETY is the spice of life! 😁👏🏾

Sorry for this long dissertation and rant lol. I’m going to just stop rambling here. If you’ve even made it down this far Anon lol, I hope I answered your question. I’m very interested in the psychology of this as well.

[thedancefloorsilly]

Hey congrats on your 300 followers!! I’ve been around for a while now and I still live your writing and wanted to participate in the event you have rn.

Pronouns- she/her

Personality- (INTP) I’m a pretty introverted person and I naturally talk quietly. I’m not shy tho I just keep to myself. I’m a perfectionist and like learning. I’m also really confident in myself and genuinely don’t care about the opinions of other people (it’s my favorite quality) I’m also really ambitious and like getting what I want.

Appearance- I’m 5’1. I stopped growing in middle school :(. And I’m also Latina so i have brown skin and really long hair it’s black and wavy and thick (low key my favorite thing about me). I tend to obsess over the way I look, I’m not insecure but I’m an extreme perfectionist and it helps me feel put together so I always make sure I look clean.

Likes- anything sweet. I have an actual sugar addiction. My doctor is concerned 😀. It’s the one things that never fails to make me feel good.

Dislikes- anyone trying to control me. Things not going the way I want it to. Being unprepared. Tomatoes.

Hobbies- I’ve been doing gymnastics from a young age so that’s definitely my favorite hobby. But I also really like just reading books while listing to music.

HxH F/o- Feitan and Machi, separately.

Thanks 💖

Tysm!! Omg glad you stuck around for so long and ty :)) hope u like these ;D

Event post: here

Feitan

- You and Feitan both share the similarities of often keeping to yourself. Maybe at first it might’ve been a little hard in trying to branch out to each other. Then again, there was probably this mutual interest that you and Feitan first felt with one another. He kept a close eye on you as you did interest him at first. Sooner or later, you actually ended up getting to know each other, and boom! A great connection between you guys formed. 

- Even though he might not show it, Feitan is actually a big sweet tooth for chocolate! To hear that you’re an even bigger sweet tooth as well is also good news to him. If you ever go to a candy shop, I can imagine that you probably come out with a whole bag full of sweets (plus another whole bag that Feitan secretly stole). 

- Once you get home, it’s not surprising that you’ll just eat all your candy right away (assuming that you didn’t eat any on the drive home). You guys will just be chilling on the couch together, quietly watching a movie or a random show you like, while eating all the stuff you got from the store. I mean, what’s better than spending time with your love while also eating a bunch of good stuff?? Literally none of you guys want to share it either. 

- Feitan usually prefers being organized, and with that being said, he’ll help you if you’re ever unprepared with anything.

- Knowing that you love to read books, he’ll always gift you with something new that he thinks you might like. Seeing the summary from the previous books you’ve read, Feitan already has an idea of the type of books you like to read. Maybe when you’re done with them, he’ll also take a look and start reading the books himself. There are times where y’all also love to read together. These moments are usually very silent, but the quality time is something that Feitan definitely appreciates. He just loves spending these calm, quiet moments with you!!

- Despite not really caring about appearances, Feitan enjoys the fact that you guys are the same height! It’s another thing you both have in common, and plus it’s also easy to give you kisses. One of his favorite place to kiss you is actually on your forehead!! Feitan will come up close to you, pull down his cowl, and then just shyly plant a kiss in the middle of your head :)

Machi

- One thing Machi loves about you is the fact that you’re confident in yourself. She always enjoys how whenever she gives you a compliment, you just take them with pride! Plus, you’re both on the same boat with the fact that you don’t care about other people’s opinions. Machi could care less about what people have to say about her. Knowing that y’all feel the same way just makes you and her a badass, headstrong couple.

- She’s not going to think tooo much of your sugar addiction. Sure, Machi might ask like one or two questions about it, but once she here's that it makes you happy, she’ll just then shrug it off (and then maybe join you in your candy eating. 

- With your perfectionism directed toward how you look and to feel clean, it might take you a little longer to get ready. You and Machi are opposites when it comes to this (since she gets ready relatively fast). Even though she sometimes jokes around for you to get ready faster, the end result is ALWAYS worth it when she see’s you! The way you just always end up looking so nice and pretty makes her all blush-y. Even though Machi will act all nonchalant and just give you one simple compliment (”Oh wow, you look nice”), in reality, she’s trying her best to contain her blush and not stare!!

- Machi loves your hair just as much as you do! I can imagine you guys just cuddling on the couch (you laying on top of her as she holds you), while Machi just plays and twirls the wavy tresses of your hair around her finger. It’s just so relaxing to the both of you, and the way she plays with your hair so soothingly can honestly just put you to sleep.

[searchingforbucky]

Fic Rec (Part 19) :)

Hi everyone! And welcome to day 1273198172 of quarantine lol. On a serious note, I hope you all are staying safe, happy, and healthy. I know these stories in this list provided me much needed entertainment for the past week or so, and I’m hoping they will help you all the same. I love this AU, its always so fun to see the different routes people take, so without further ado welcome to the Vampire!Bucky Rec List :) *** Means Smut Sorry its a bit short, theres not many out there. The links weren't working so there is none in this.

Biting Cold by @hootyhoobuckaroo

OK so this one I think is a perfect start to the vampire list. This one is absolutely fantastic. So it’s about Bucky and the reader being in a pre-establish relationship, when suddenly some freaky stuff starts happening very close to home. So Buckys a Vampire, and the reader doesn’t know it. But the reader is terrified of vampires. Obviously that causes a little problem. I just really liked how unique of a storyline this was, I love just how genuine the fear was and the emotions they had were. It constantly kept me on the edge of my seat because I was wondering what was gonna happen. I am absolutely in love with protective bucky so you know that this has it lol. And honestly I just really loved how one it was well written, but to reply with something that I had never read before. And I don’t wanna spoil it or anything, but it was just a real nailbiter. Definitely recommend. 

All My Friends Are Heathens by @sebseyesandbuckysthighs ***

OK, so I think this one was the first vampire Bucky story that I ever read, and it’s absolutely fantastic. So this one is about Bucky being a vampire, and he’s amongst the avengers who are all their own sort of “monster“. And the reader comes to visit them, and Bucky is just absolutely drawn to her, and unfortunately she is human. I think my favorite thing about this story is just how well drawn out each character is, I was absolutely invested in not only their relationship growing, but the whole storyline in general. I was obsessed in learning about what the different monsters were, what their little thing was that they did. And I really loved how absolutely cocky and mysterious Bucky was. This one is smutty, but nothings wrong with that LOL. This is just a really good, really head turning story. A lot of twists in this

Bad Things by @xbuchananbarnes *** (kinda)

All right, now this one is really something. So this one was incredibly interesting. It’s about Bucky in the reader being in a pre-established relationship, and he promised to turn her when she turns 28, but in the meantime he makes her move to 10 different places so that way she can get used a whole bunch of different things that she would have to win when she does actually become a vampire. I really liked how mysteries this one is, just how sweet they are together. The fact that her 10th Pl. is what it is, for the reason it is, is something that is incredibly sweet to me.  anyways, I loved seeing all of the little snippets in to how they met, and everything like that. but I really honestly just love how sort of vague it is? If that makes sense? Like there are so many possibilities that your mind is running for miles after you read it. It’s one of those stories that you just keep thinking about, you keep thinking about what the other eight places were, what’s going to happen in the future it’s really awesome. The sequel is even wilder lol.

Thirsty by @jobean12-blog ***

So this one is a short yet sexy little Drabble. It’s technically a vampire Bucky, though it’s not necessarily like a main focus of the story. But I really liked it so I’m going to include it anyway. This one is just you know really cute. It shows the fun little feisty side to them, it’s pretty sexy, some dirty talk that’s like....damn lol. But I really just like stories that show couples are kind of so obsessed with each other, and so in love with each other, that they’re able to have fun in that way no matter where they are. I really liked it 

Craving You by @propertyofpoeandbucky ***

So this one is really cool, this one is about vampire Bucky and succubus reader. It is a compilation of little drabbles, and it’s really interesting. So I love seeing the dynamic between the two of them, just how interesting it is to see how they deal with their lifestyles, and having to do it together. And stuff happens that they have to navigate how they’re going to deal with it. I don’t wanna spoil it but it something that is very interesting to see. It’s also kinda smutty so that’s nice hahaha. Just a really cute, really interesting story

Blood Bound by @the-omni-princess ***

Ohhhhhh man! Now this one! This one is like a TV series I swear, like vampire diaries but a lot better. So this one is about vampire Bucky and a witch reader. And it is so freaking good, and so interesting. So currently is on hiatus, but I thought it was awesome enough to put it in there anyways. Because it doesn’t matter how much of it there is, what there is is amazing. It is like so nailbiting, there’s so many twists and turns and angst, but it’s also incredibly cute. i’ve never read a story like this, and I’m not sure if anybody else could do it like this. And I love how the soulmate idea is interwoven in there, I’m a sucker for soulmates. Honestly it’s like every trope that I love is somehow in this story, but it’s not overwhelming, it’s just really well done. In the world that’s created is so immersive and awesome

In the Dark by @persephone-is-here-omg​

All right, I really like this one too. I think my favorite part about this one is the fact that it relates Canon Bucky to vampire but you. It talks about how Hydra made him a vampire and the torture that he went through because he was a vampire. I really like how it didn’t completely get rid of his story, it wasn’t fully an AU, and that’s so interesting and cool to me man. And I also thought it was interesting seeing all the small little snippet into their relationship. It’s interesting to see EV juxtaposition of how she willingly gives up everything for him, but he got that stuff stolen from hydra. It’s just a really interesting story

Sunshine by @iwillbeinmynest ***

​Alright so this one was amazing. This one is about vampire Bucky, and it’s honestly pretty sad, at the beginning he had basically resigned himself to live a life in the cold. However he needs the reader who somehow can make him feel warm. And that was honestly the cutest part of the story, just how much he loved feeling warm, and she made him feel warm in so many different ways both physically and emotionally and it was so soft. But don’t let that trick you into thinking that this is just a soft story, there are absolutely some crazy things happening in the story. And I absolutely love Tony in this, I think it’s a great representation of him. Such a really awesome story

Men of the Moon by @hellomissmabel

So this one is really cool. It is a vampire diaries a you. It’s also kind of a Stucky x reader but not a Stucky fic if that makes sense? Like Bucky x reader and Steve x reader but no throuple. Obviously, that would be weird because they’re brothers lol. Anyways, now that I just rambled through that. I really love this. I think that all of the characters fit into the vampire diaries characters very well. I’ve honestly never liked vampire diaries, but this made me really like it LOL. I think it was done so much better than the actual show was, why couldn’t the show be like this. anyways, it was just so interesting to read the dynamic between the three characters, and everyone else really. I also loved just how invade the ending was, it’s like I can imagine so many different things happening after it and that’s always something that’s really nice with the story when I can kind of finish it myself.

Hungry Eyes by @lenavonschweetz ***

OHHHHHH this one is SPICY lol. Bucky is one cocky son of a gun. So this one is about vampire Bucky, and for the betterment of the town, him and the reader make a pact that he would feed off of her to avoid suspicion. Except for he would only feed on her wrist because anything else is too intimate. Well that went out the drain real fast. This one was honestly kind of just straight smut lol, but there’s some plot in there that’s really awesome. There’s some awesome tropes, friends to lovers, cocky Bucky, vampire Bucky, SMUT. It all comes together to form a really interesting really well done story. I really liked it  

In the Dark by @waiting4inspiration ***

Oh man, so this one is really interesting too. So this one is about vampire Bucky and werewolf reader, and the reader is an arranged marriage with werewolf Steve. There is a sort of creature war between vampires and werewolves, and that leads to a bunch of problems. But surprise surprise, the reader falls in love with her sworn enemy. And that’s awesome, I love those tropes. I think it’s Really incredible just how well she balances the two worlds, it’s way better than twilight I’ll tell you that right now LOL. But I just really love the dynamic between everybody, there’s angst, there’s fluff, there’s never a time when you’re bored. It’s just left and write something that either leaves you on your toes you’re feeling everything at once. It’s really great. It’s not finished yet but what it’s there is amazing.  

Special: For Heavens Sake by @221bshrlocked​ ***

wow OK, talk about unique. So this one is a vampire reader story, but it was so cool I have to include it. So obviously it’s vampire story obviously, but it also an ABO story, like whaaaaat. So ABO is admittedly the main aspect of a story, but I just thought it was absolutely incredible how well they combined the two tropes. I loved how oh much fuck he was actively trying to be with her, I really love the dynamic between them. I really loved how raw and genuine emotions are, I can’t imagine how scared them both must have been during certain parts of the story, I’m not gonna spoil it but there were definitely some parts where I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was gonna happen because it was so interesting. There was so much happening in the story and it was just awesome.

Thank you all for reading, again, sorry its so short. and sorry it took so long lol. I appreciate you all. :)

[dingdongrumba]

Smut prompt 1 with KomaHina, like a snarky response from Hajime, but of course however you see fit!

I WROTE WAYYYYY TOO MUCH FOR THIS ONE LOL

Also it’s top Komaeda time!!! Hope you don’t mind anon, in this blog we stan switches and I will die on this hill.

Read on AO3 too!!!

--------------

 “Here you go, Hajime.”

 “Oh, wow, thank you. Just what I needed.” Hajime replied, taking the cup of coffee that Nagito was offering him from his hand. It was pretty late at night already and all this work from the Future Foundation had kept him glued to his desk all day. Okay, to be fair, it wasn’t exactly urgent work, but Hajime hated having pending tasks for the weekend, he’d much rather pull an all-nighter on Fridays and have Saturday and Sunday completely free so he could spend them with Nagito completely uninterrupted.

 “You’re welcome, are you almost done with that? You should go to bed soon, overworking yourself is bad for your health.” The white-haired man pointed out, taking a seat on his desk, which was directly in front of Hajime’s.

 “Yeah, I just have to finish up this last report and I’m done, why don’t you go on ahead before me?”

 Nagito shook his head. “I have some work to finish as well, I’ll keep you company until we’re both done.” The soft smile he offered him only made Hajime return one of his own.

 “Alright then, let me know if you need anything.”

 “Will do.”

 They both continued their work in comfortable silence. After being together and working alongside each other for so many years, writing reports late at night without talking had become almost second nature to them, one of the best ways they had of keeping each other company even when they weren’t interacting directly. It was always… nice.

 Eventually, though, work starts to drag. Hajime took another sip of the coffee Nagito brought him earlier and rubbed his eyelids, feeling the exhaustion really begin to settle in now. He was almost done, though, he just needed to push forward a little bit more, so he tiredly took off his suit jacket and loosened his tie before unbuttoning his shirt, instantly feeling the relief of unloading from his constraining work clothes. Cracking his neck, he did some simple stretches in his place and swiftly got back to work.

 It took perhaps two whole minutes for him to feel a heavy burden on his shoulders. He blinked, slightly confused, and raised his head towards the still silent Nagito that was sitting across from him. He had been fast, but Hajime still managed to catch his eyes quickly darting from himself to his work again. Yeah, Nagito had definitely been staring at him just a second ago.

 Hajime shrugged it off and managed to continue working for a grand total of thirty more seconds before he had the sensation of being watched again and looked up to those darting eyes. He stared at him for a bit, not really understanding why Nagito was acting this way until he looked down on himself and finally recognized the way he looked. His chest was half out in the open, his tie loose around his neck and his hair was probably messy from a whole day’s work. He smiled to himself at the realization that his boyfriend was simply ogling him from afar like a high-school boy again.

 Feeling playful, Hajime let out a long, albeit fake yawn that resulted in him stretching over the chair, purposefully letting his shirt open up even more and flexing his chest in the process. He’d closed his eyes to fully sell the yawn act, but even then he could feel Nagito’s intense stare fall directly on his pecs and he couldn’t help but smirk to himself at how easily he could seduce his boyfriend.

 It really seemed to do the trick too. After that yawn, Nagito was basically drooling all over his desk, barely even hiding the fact that he was staring anymore. After what seemed like an eternity of the blatant staring, Hajime let out a small laugh and looked up at Nagito again.

 “Okay, alright, are you going to eye fuck me all night or are you going to do something about it?” He teased, resting a cheek on top of the back of his hand and shooting him a playful smirk.

 “A-Ah! N-No-! I wasn’t-!” Was Nagito’s first reaction, but he quickly stopped the poorly delivered act before returning a smile of his own. “Haha, that obvious, huh?” He admitted, mirroring Hajime’s posture from across the room.

 “Very. So? Are you going to come over here or what?” Hajime replied, giving his best bedroom eyes and causing Nagito to let out a low chuckle of his own before getting up from his chair and walking up to his boyfriend, not wasting any time to start placing kisses along his mouth and jaw.

 Nagito’s hands didn’t take long to find their way down Hajime’s chest, enjoying the way the skin felt against his fingertips as he kept smothering Hajime’s lips with his own. The brunet let out a low moan when Nagito began sucking on his collarbone, already feeling his dick swell up from the touches.

 Finally getting up from the chair, Hajime circled his arms around Nagito’s neck, flushing their bodies together as they kept gasping and panting into each other’s mouths. God, Nagito molded against his body so perfectly it was hard to imagine them not being together for so long before. Nagito pressed a leg against his crotch, causing Hajime’s own to grind against Nagito’s clothed erection as well, making them both moan louder into the heated kiss that only seemed to increase in eagerness.

 “Aah, Hajime, I want you.” Nagito panted into his mouth, briefly breaking the kiss before diving in again, though separating their bodies a bit so he could finish ridding Hajime of his shirt and tie.

 “I-I want- you, too” Hajime managed to reply between kisses, reluctantly complying to the separation so he could get his damn shirt off and have more of himself touching Nagito already. His skin was hot to the touch, usually Nagito was a rather cold person, but he always felt like he could make his entire body ablaze when they were together like this.

 Desperately, Nagito undid his own pants before doing the same to his boyfriend’s, letting both of their cocks out in the open and taking them at the same time in his right hand, groaning at the much needed friction. It didn’t take long for both of them to start leaking pre-cum all over themselves, making Nagito’s motions much smoother and pleasurable and drawing out even louder moans from their mouths.

 Hajime’s head began spinning at the way their dicks slid together, causing his legs to shiver and his arms to tighten around Nagito’s neck. He couldn’t even properly kiss him anymore, reducing himself to a moaning, drooling mess in Nagito’s mouth, although Nagito himself wasn’t much better either.

 “Aah, please, just do me already.” He begged, accompanying his plea with a buck of his hips, drawing out a little laugh from Nagito.

 “i thought you’d never ask.”

 “Stop being a dick,” Hajime pouted, stepping away from him (still a bit reluctant) and bending over his own desk, eagerly displaying himself to Nagito in hopes that would make him hurry up already. “Just do it.”

 “Ahaha, how demanding.” Nagito teased, taking out the bottle of lube from the desk drawer they always kept in the office, precisely for moments like this. He lowered Hajime’s pants the rest of the way down, taking a moment to admire the shape of his ass as he spread it wide open, applying a generous amount of lube all over his entrance and then on his own dick, shivering at the initial cold sensation.

 Lining himself up, Nagito started rubbing the tip of his cock on the lubed up hole in front of him, pressing in slightly every couple of rubs or so, smirking at the way Hajime whined every time he refused to properly enter him.

 “Come on!” He complained beneath him, bucking his hips backwards and practically forcing Nagito’s dick inside, drawing out a low groan from both of them.

 “Mmh~, so eager, Hajime.” Nagito cooed as he leaned forward on top of Hajime’s back and began rolling his hips slowly, letting the lewd noises of their connection fill the room.

 “Aah, y-you are… the one that kept glancing at me.”

 “That’s because you’re so alluring.” Nagito breathed down Hajime’s ear, picking up the pace. “Every time I look at you I can’t help but stare and think about fucking you like this. Aah, I love you so much, Hajime.”

 “N-Nagito…” He moaned at both his boyfriend’s words and the increasing speed of his cock going in and out of his ass, touching every good nerve inside his body. It felt good to have Nagito inside him, but it was made even better by hearing how much he wanted him in the first place. Every syllable was filled with adoration and it made both his heart and his dick swell.

 Gripping the surface of the desk as best he could, Hajime bit down on his lip to try and prevent his voice from coming out as Nagito gradually quickened up the pace of his hips. His legs were shaking violently, but he still somehow managed to thrust his own ass backwards to meet him, making his lover smile at the way Hajime was practically begging him to go harder.

 Feeling generous, Nagito straightened up his back and took Hajime’s hips between his hands to keep him in place, ruthlessly pounding into him and pulling Hajime back onto himself. Their skin smacked violently, causing the room to be filled with the sounds of Hajime’s cries of pleasure and the slap of their skin every time they met.

 Huffing close to his release, Nagito grabbed his boyfriend’s wrists and forced him to arch his back, lifting him up from the desk. The new angle caused them both to feel their climaxes build up in their lower abdomen, the tension threatening to spill out any second now.

 Not stopping or slowing down for even a moment, Nagito finally reached his orgasm inside Hajime, pumping himself empty as he continued to thrust until every last drop was out. Hajime followed soon after, spilling himself all over the surface of the desk with a loud cry, practically on the verge of passing out from the sheer force of his orgasm.

 He collapsed on top of the desk first with Nagito doing the same right after him. They fought to gain their normal breathing back, not caring whether Nagito pulled out yet or not, just enjoying the sensation of being connected for a little longer.

 “Ah, fuck.” Hajime huffed once his voice returned to him.

 “What is it?”

 “I should’ve gotten my report out of the way first.”

[dawnrider]

yeeeeeeeessssss . fluff 12: “Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

Soooooo.... A million and a half years later, I’m finally getting to this prompt that @superpixie42 has now officially forgotten she sent me. 🎉

This hails from the Stocking Stuffers Universe which also included Dinner and Dancing.  A nice fluffy “how they met” type story.  It also happens to coincide with @inukag-week‘s prompt for the day of Acceptance.  Enjoy, Lovelies!

The grassy knoll at the bottom of the biggest hill on campus was the best spot for a break between classes.  Kagome made a point to meet up with friends there at least once a week, but often stopped alone to sit under the large maple that remained its central focus.  There was a large retaining wall higher up the hill that was a frequent spot for the architecture students to sit, sketching the buildings around them, analyzing the lines… usually horsing around.  Kagome favored a book in her spare time, since she did so much studying at home, but today she had a test to finish reviewing for in her next class.

A chorus of laughter caught her attention, drawing her eyes up to the wall. There were several male students and a lone female student,  sitting with a sprawl of meal bags and large sketch pads. One young man, with dark hair pulled in a low tail, was playfully elbowing another in the ribs. With silver hair that nearly glinted in the sunlight and a look on his face that promised retribution, the other young man fairly vibrated with irritation.

Until it burst.

"Fucking...fine!" he shouted, vaulting off the wall with amazing grace and landing as though it were nothing. Which Kagome realized had to mean he was at least part youkai, because that wall was high. She read in the campus paper a month or so before that a human student had broken a leg and arm trying to impress friends by jumping down and miscalculating the height. And the fact that there was a hill at the bottom.

Kagome went back to her textbook, paging to her next sticky referencing the basilar membrane and set in for a very technical read.

"Um…"

Blinking, Kagome looked up and found the silver haired guy standing near enough to obviously be addressing her without getting too close. "Hi?” His eyes widened at her soft greeting and she could see that they were golden in color.  “Can I help you with something?”

“Uh. Well… I…”  He clearly hadn’t thought that they would get this far into the conversation.  Still not sure what his goal was, Kagome slowly sat up and set her book aside.  “My friend has been giving me a hard time and…”

“I noticed.  I’m Kagome, by the way,” she cut in when he was struggling to continue.

“I-Inuyasha.” She smiled at his light blush.  “See, he thinks that you’re probably a freshman, but I thought you were older.”  His eyes widened when her eyebrow went up at his choice of words. “Not that you look old or… Shit.”

Kagome grinned, resting her chin in her hand while looking up at him, nearly sweating under the collar with anxiety now and ready to abandon his mission.  “Sit down a sec.  You look like you need a break.”  He complied without a second thought, plopping into the grass beside her.  They both pretended not to hear the jeering calls from the wall.  “Is this a bet? ‘Cause you won.  I’m a junior.” Inuyasha’s golden eyes flashed triumphantly, then he winced.  “I’m guessing you lot are younger?”

“No.  I’m a senior.  Miroku, my friend, he’s a senior on a victory lap. Maybe a second one… I can’t remember now.”  Kagome giggled.  “We’re architecture.”

“I figured.  I see you guys up there a lot.”  She noticed the intrigued look in his eyes just before she noticed the pair of fluffy ears that seemed to appear on top of his head.  She let out a little delighted gasp, which caused them to lay back again and his face to shutter.  “Saw that landing too.  Nice.  Way to not break anything.”

Inuyasha froze, then slowly relaxed.  He obviously sensed the acceptance in her demeanor.  “Yea, well that kid was human and didn’t know how to roll into the impact.” They chatted for a few minutes about the incident, then fell into a faintly uncomfortable silence.  “What are you studying?”

“Oh!  I have a test on the cochlea in a bit.  Reviewing the basilar membrane functions…”  Inuyasha stared at her with no indication of understanding.  “It’s part of the inner ear.  It moves when sound waves impact the…”  She paused again. “It’s pretty boring, really,” she murmured shyly.

“So you’re like, in pre med?”

“No. Audiology.  Or I will be.  Have to do grad school for that.  Right now I’m Speech and Hearing Sciences.”

“That’s cool.  You study ears and hearing.”  Kagome wasn’t sure he realized that he was wiggling his very prominent ears at her in his excitement.  She grinned and nodded.  “Wow.  Do they have anything on… on canine hearing in there?” he wondered.

Kagome laughed.  “Not really.  This book focuses on human hearing, but I have another textbook at home that compares human to non-human hearing.  I could… Well… if you wanted...”

“Will you be here tomorrow?” he jumped in.  She nodded.  “Keh.  Bring it then.”  A light flush lit her cheeks.  “I-If that’s alright?”

“Yea. It’s alright.”

The pair continued to meet in the grassy knoll almost every day for a week, only the intense rain one afternoon keeping them from seeing each other.  Kagome realized after the storm that she had no way to contact him. They could have chosen one of the libraries to meet instead!  The next afternoon, she put on her brave face and sucked up her nervous feelings so she could ask for his number.

“Oh!  Yea!  I mean,” he paused, clearing his throat, “that would be cool. Or whatever.”

He crouched beside her, starting to put in his password. So focused on the pattern, Inuyasha didn't notice Kagome glancing over his shoulder. He yelped when she grabbed the handset out of his long fingers, studying the screen intently for a moment before looking at him with a faint frown.  “Am I your lockscreen?”

She could see the proverbial "oh shit" in his eyes before he snatched the phone back. Kagome waited for him to respond but found that he was speechless. It was a candid shot, obviously taken from the wall, with her casually laying on her stomach, reading a book. The distance and zoom made it a little blurry, but it was definitely her.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he finally squeaked out. Kagome could see by how flat his ears lay against his head that he was about to panic. She had picked up on some of his tells in the last week, as well as done a little research about canine youkai.

What she had also picked up on in her brief search was that hanyou, like Inuyasha, were in an odd place in society.  She had never really met anyone with mixed heritage before, so she wasn’t aware of the stigma.  Inuyasha was likely made very aware of it, regularly and from an early age.  

“You didn’t get a very good angle,” she said lightly, pulling up her own phone and flipping the camera so they could see themselves on the screen.  Inuyasha still looked confused and terrified.  Kagome smiled brightly and caught one shot that way, then nudged his shoulder.  “You gonna smile or what?”

It took him a moment to process what she was doing, how she was reacting to him. That she was… accepting him.  When he finally understood all of that, he relaxed, gaze softening, ears returning to their normal position and a faint grin lifting the corner of his lips.

“That’s better.”  Kagome snapped another couple of shots to make sure they got a good one.  “Here.  Give me your number and I’ll send them to you so you can use one of those instead.  Much better angle.”

Inuyasha chuckled even as he took out his phone again.  “That was pretty slick, you know that?  I wouldn’t have guessed you had that in you.”

Kagome grinned as she put his number into a text and shot off the pictures with a heart emoji.  “I think there’s a lot of things you’ll find out about me that you wouldn’t have guessed.”

Inuyasha matched her smirk with one of his own.  “I accept that.”

@lemonlushff ​​ , @fantastiqueparfait ​​ , @heavenin–hell, @clearwillow ​​ , @mamabearcat ​​ , @thunderpo ​​​ , @keichanz ​​​ , @meggz0rz ​​​ , @disgruntledbeast ​​​ , @sarah-writes-stories ​​ , @zelink-inukag ​​​ , @rikareena ​​​ , @cammysansstuff ​​​ , @mcornilliac ​​​ , @redflamesofpassion ​​​ , @superpixie42 ​​​ , @underwater0phelia ​​​, @cstorm86 ​​​ , @noviceotakus-blog ​​​ , @lavendertwilight89 ​​​ , @hinezumi ​​​ , @wenchster ​​​, @hnnwnchstr ​​​ , @lady-dark-69 ​​​ , @itzatakahashi ​​​ , @juliatheanimelover7 ​​​ , @kazeinori ​​​, @theinuyashareader ​​​, @inupotter ​​​, @eternalnight8806-3 ​​​ , @smmahamazing ​​​ , @willowandfog ​​​, @gaysonthefloor ​​​, @sistasecbhere ​​​, @jennybean91 ​​​ 

[passable-talent]

More writing blogs... (╯✧ ∇ ✧)╯This request is for Pokémon swsh; could I get some hcs of Raihan getting a (quiet/composed) challenger with dragon type Pokémon? thanks!

—

absolutely, dear anon- feral dragon boy coming right up! i love this. this is also my first time writing for raihan, so i hope it’s to your liking!

- mod ren 🦇

—

edit: IF YOU ARE HERE, YOU SHOULD BE FOLLOWING @cosmicali-teaa AS THAT IS THE ACCOUNT THAT THIS AUTHOR IS NOW ACTIVE ON

Raihan vs. Dragon Trainer Headcanons

Raihan getting challengers in general is a semi-uncommon event, as trainers must obviously be skilled enough to get past the other seven Gym Leaders beforehand. 

So, of course he’s absolutely stoked to battle upon hearing there was a challenger coming his way. 

But you’re somewhat of a unique challenger.

The Vault gym mission provided him a quick preview of your team, and he immediately came to respect the calm grace with which you battle- you’d practically wiped the floor with the gym trainers, despite their developed strategies!

Let alone the fact that you were using Dragon-types, a feat in itself.

After all, dragons are tough to raise- he knows this from experience. If he wasn’t eager to battle you before, he sure was now, seeing how easily you claimed the three victories.

“As expected from a fellow dragon master!” - A lighthearted comment aimed your way.

Defeating him would be a high hurdle, and he was gonna give you his all to ensure a proper thrashing. The true wrath of dragons was upon you!

Or was it?

Just how skilled were you?

Even under the roar of the stadium’s audience as the battle began, you still retained that calm composure he’d noticed in you before, your two leading Pokemon moving in coordinated unison without many words from you. 

And wow, did you give him a run for his money. His wild battle-persona appeared heightened to its competitive fullest as his team clashed with your own at full power, the induced sandstorm whipping the air around the stadium. 

There were a ‘few’ selfies to be taken amidst the action, too. Who wouldn’t, in his opinion, in one of the more outstanding battles he’s had?

To be quite frank, he’s pretty impressed with you- Dragons raised this well and commanded with such a calm demeanor had him entranced.

Your skill, if surpassing his own, reminded him of Leon; You seemed to have an effective counter for almost everything he threw at you…

As always, he aimed for victory (even more so in this particular matchup), and prided himself and his team on how close the battle was. Before he knew it, though… 

He’d lost?

His Duraludon receding from its Gigantamaxed form sent him into something comparable to brief surprise as he swiftly called it back, the mentioned surprise evident for a split second.

Yet he was quick to brush it off.

After all, reflecting back on the pre-match battles, he wasn’t all that surprised you were able to bring forth max potential despite the difficulty of Dragon-types. He’d already seen that difficulty had been no problem for you.

Another quick selfie was taken in the face of defeat, and as the sandstorm subsided he was quick to offer you and your team of dragons his compliments.

Seeing your calm demeanor break into a proud and joyed smile somehow caused the loss to be less ‘stinging’ than it normally would’ve been.

After all, you and your team were amazing, and very deserving of the Dragon Badge, in his eyes. You were indeed worthy to eventually challenge the Champion.

You’re presented with a joking remark, “If you can’t take down the Champion, what hope is there for me?”

“It’s easy to see how you got this far.”

He took your hand in a handshake, a handshake that was firm in expression of his enjoyment. He wore a wide grin, before he found himself spontaneously asking for a picture with you. The battle was too good to not, he loved taking pictures with challengers, and his selfie habit and social media presence called for it. 

With that, his Rotom Phone flew in front of the two of you, snapping another and final picture; a selfie with you that was Raihan’s final memorabilia for the battle.

In his own mind, he’d just been figuratively knocked from the podium of ‘dragon master’… 

And maybe he’d just found another rival in you, too.

He’d be more than willing to battle you to reclaim the title.

In fact, he was determined to do just that.

If you’d be willing to battle him again sometime, of course.

- mod ren 🦇

[scattergraph]

Mom Pockets

A little story for @gumnut-logic Sensory Sunday theme ‘Touch’.  Also the first thing I’ve written since Christmas and my first ever attempt at posting something on Tumblr that wasn’t a re-blog so please forgive me for any mistakes!  

Anyways, on with the story.  As always, I don’t own or make any kind of claim to Thunderbirds, I just enjoy writing the fanfics.  Hope you like it.

There are a lot of things Jeff Tracy remembers about his late wife.  Some are the big memories, like the way she looked on their wedding day; the way her face would light-up whenever one of their children laughed, or even the way she would playfully scold him for waking her up with his 5am tone-deaf singing in the shower.  Despite all this, he often found it was the little details about Lucille that formed his fondest memories, with one of the strangest of those being what she liked to call her ‘Mom pockets’.

Jeff could remember the first time he had heard his wife use this concept. It had been a long, long day at some neighbour’s BBQ garden party and the younger two of their children had run them both ragged causing absolute mayhem.  Though both parents had returned home tired and weary and in desperate need of a good night’s sleep, Jeff was never one to miss an opportunity for some alone time with his wife (a much-needed rarity in a house with five kids) and had pulled his soulmate in close to him for a passionate goodnight kiss. It was as he slipped his hands cheekily down past her waist and into the back pockets of her jeans, only to retract them again with a sudden yelp as he felt his fingers meet with the sticky remains of one of Gordon’s half-eaten Celery Crunch bars, that had had them both cracking-up and laughing themselves to sleep that night instead.  To this day whenever that memory surfaced, Jeff swore he could still feel the nasty, sugary, crumbly mess clinging disgustingly to his fingertips, followed by the lovingly-soft caress of a wet-wipe (lifted swiftly from one of Lucy’s other many pockets) as his wife tenderly cleaned him up.  “That’s Mom pockets for you,” was all she had to say.

After that incident, Jeff had come to take more notice of exactly how much his wife really had to deal with on a day-to-day basis and wow, was that woman always prepared?!  No matter what situation their children managed to get themselves into or what requests they had, Lucy was fully equipped and pockets pre-loaded with anything they might need:  Tissues, pens, paper, band-aids, drinks and snacks… the list was endless and she had it all.  Even so, it still didn’t seem to dissuade her from doing that age-old mom-thing of licking her thumbs and scraping them hastily across her children’s faces to remove whatever stain she had found there that day, but then Jeff suspected she may have kept up that habit on purpose purely for her own entertainment. There was nothing funnier than watching an embarrassed pre-teen Scott or Virgil attempting to squirm out of their mothers grasp with cries of “eww!” and “no, Mom get off me! Yuck!!,” to brighten the couple’s day.

As the boys grew, so did the contents of the Mom-pockets and with them Lucille’s ingenuity.  At some point she began to cater for Jeff’s every whim as well and whenever he needed a business card or important phone number or even just a bottle opener for his beer on a hot Summer’s day, there was a pocket for that too.  The day they had spent at the park and little Alan had come running up asking for honey to bait the traps he had set-up to lure home some ‘real-life bears’ for his upcoming teddy-bear picnic and Lucille had casually smiled and pulled said honey-bottle out of the side pocket of her waiting handbag – well, that one still had Jeff baffled to this day.  How his wife had had the foresight to pack such a bizarre item was beyond him, though he suspected the knowingly-smug raised eyebrow she had given their snickering second youngest and middle-child at the time may have had something to do with it.

It wasn’t until Lucille was no longer with them that Jeff had realised just how much of a difference those little things had truly made to their lives. At first he had floundered, entirely unprepared as his boys had had to fend for themselves.  Countless were the times that one of the younger ones wound-up going without snacks or spent an entire day with dirt smudged across their faces because Jeff didn’t have the required food-to-go or wipes to clean them ready and waiting.  Similarly, more than once one of the elders had gotten sunburned or come back late because he had forgotten to pack the sunblock or his phone and so had missed their calls for a lift home from some activity or another.  Eventually (and with more than a little help from his children and his own mother, he wasn’t ashamed to admit) he had grasped it and by the time they moved away to the island, Jeff’s pockets were no-less crammed and prepared than Lucy’s would have been, though maybe a little less well-organised.  It may even have been that Lucille-taught sense of preparedness that had saved his life on more than one occasion later on when he found himself alone on that rock all the way out there in deep space for far too many years.  The memories he had carried with him of his late-wife and the boys during that time had certainly been what had kept him going on a daily basis. Even in his darkest hours, one thought of Lucy’s gentle kiss, his children’s loving cuddles and smiles or even that disgusting old Celery Crunch remains he had dipped his unsuspecting fingers into all those years ago had him willing himself on to just keep going another day more.

So now here they all were.  Nine months had passed since Jeff Tracy had been rescued and re-united with his family and home.  Sadly, so very sadly, Lucille would never be able to join them to see just what amazing men her precious boys had grown into.  But even now as they played and laughed on the beach by their home, Jeff couldn’t help but smile fondly as he watched John hunting for more sunblock, Gordon pulling out another half-eaten Celery Crunch bar from his own presumably sticky pockets, and Alan running around with ketchup smeared every-which-way across his face.  It wasn’t the sight of all this that was making him smile, or the way he proceeded to watch Scott pulling item after item out of both his and Virgil’s packed-out and Lucille-ready pockets to find the sunblock and tissues he knew for certain that one of them would have packed.  It wasn’t even the way Alan squirmed as Virgil attempted to lick his fingers and remove the ketchup off of his youngest’s face when Scott didn’t produce the required tissue fast enough.  No, it was the fact that he could once again reach into his own ‘mom-pockets’ and provide sunblock and tissues and whatever else the boys could possibly ever want or need and could at the same time both see and feel in every single one of them, even after all these years, that one thing their family would never, ever lose; Lucille’s loving presence.  

A mother’s touch.

[thenighttrain]

folklore first listen

pls feel free to ignore this, i just wanted to record my screaming on my blog so that i can refer back to it and laugh at myself someday x

The 1

THE PIANO OMG I LOVE IT AND I LOVE THE BEAT I looooove THIS SONG IT’S SO NOSTALGIC WHO THE FUCK IS IT ABOUT OH MY OGD IM SCREAMING also the swearing I’m living… ok seriously who is this about I am losing my mind. This is so bittersweet I’m ?!!!!!!!!!!!! I REALLY LOVE THIS

CARDIGAN

I ALSO LOVE THIS WHAT ITS’ SO NOSTALGIC and the music video is so pretty wit the green and she looks like an actual forest nymph with the piano and the water and it’s all incredible. YOU DREW STARS AROUND MY SCARS BUT NOW I’M BLEEDING???????? BITCH. THE LYRICS IN THIS ARE FUCKING INCREDIBLE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK OH MY DISJFASLDFNSADF OH MY GDO I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss??????? MAAM?

The last great American dynasty

SO INTRIGUING HOW SHE WROTE THIS??? WHAT IS IT ABOUT? IDK BUT I LOVE IT

Exile

BON IVERRRRRR I LOVE THE WAY HIS VOICE SOUNDS IN THIS AND THE CHORUS IS HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL and the background vocals… omg. This album his the most unique thing she’s ever written I????? I LOVE HOW HER VOICE SOUNDS N THE CHORUS. ‘You were my crown now I’m in exile seeing you out’? YOU KNOW LIKE I CAN IMAGINE THESE SONGS AS THE SOUNDTRACK TO SO MANY OF MY FAVOURITE FANTASY BOOKS IM LOSING MY MIND. ALSO OH MY GOD BON IVERS VOICE AT THE END HOLY FUCK!!!! THIS IS SO GOOD THIS IS ONE OF HER BEST DUETS IM LOSING MY SHIT this song is incredible I am in LOVE

My tears ricochet

TRACK 5 TRACK 5 TRACK 5 AHH I LOVE HOW DEEP HER VOICE GOES AND THE BACKGROUND VOCALS OMG. Oh my god the chorus I am in love, I love her voice sounds so raw on this album, we haven’t heard that in years IF I’M DEAD TO YOU WHY ARE YOU AT THE WAKE CURSING MY NAME?? OMG. This is fully giving me like fae woodland imagery I just love it, the vibes of it all!  AS YOU BURY ME? OH MY GOD IS SHE A GHOST IM SCREAMING I LOVE THIS PERSPECTIVE. HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK THE BRIDGE!!!!!!!! THE LINES ABOUT SCREAMING. THE BRIDGE IS UNBELIEVABLE AND THE WAY IT JUST FADES OUT I?

Mirrorball

Omg I love the vocal effects! This is full indie pop vibes I AM DIGGING IT. OH MY GOD THE CHORUS BROOO OK I OFFICIALLY LOVE THIS SONG IT’S EXACTLY THE KIND OF MUSIC I LIKE LISTENING TO. ‘Drunk as they watch my shadow, edges glisten’ oh wow the lyrics in this album are fucking otherworldly. Oh fuck this is  agood bridge. I really cannot wait for all the analysis of this album by smarter people because I am not understanding BUT I AM LOVING IT. ALSO IDK WHAT A MIRRORBALL IS BUT I LOVE IT ANYWAY. How does she know such fancy words, I want her brain

Seven

‘I ht my peak at seven’ ok but same? HEYY SHE MENTIONED MOON AND SATURN I AM LIVINGGGGG. It’s so soft and wistful, those are the vibes of this album so far and I am really LOVING IT. PLEASE PICTURE ME IN THE WEEDS BEFORE I LEARNED CIVILITIY I USED TO SCREAM FEROCIOUSLY ANY TIME I WANTED?? IM YELLING I LOVEEEEE THESE LYRICS OH MY GOODNESS

August

ONCE AGAIN I LOVE THE VOCAL EFFECTS, I LOVE THE WAY HER VOICE SOUNDS.  Omg the chorus is catchy! I love the way she sings ‘I can see’! OK THSI SONG IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES I MEAN JUST LISTEN TO IT? I HAVE BEEN IN A STATE OF SHOCK SINCE LAST NIGHT BUT THIS IS MAGICAL ETHEREAL GROUNDBREAKING NEVER BEFORE SEEN INCREDIBLE PERFECT. OHH GOD THE BRIDGE IS COMNIG UP- YES IT’S AJFDSNAFKJSDFAF SHE WROTE THIS SONG IITS’ SO GOOD MISDFN JASDNFLJK SO MUCH FOR SUMMER LOVE AND SAYING US CAUSE U WERENT MINE TO LOSE!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TAYLOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is one fo her best songs ever EVER OMG AND THE BACKING VOCALS AT THE END AHH AND THE BEAT DROP TAYLOR WHAT THE FUCK YOU’VE OUTDONE YOURSELF A G A I N ??? IM NEVER GONNA RECOVER FROM THIS FUCK

This is me trying

Firstly, this song title is such a mood, especially this year. The beat in this song s so good - THIS SICK BEAT. AHH THERE IS THS COOL INSTRUMENT IS IT A VIOLIN IDK BUT I LOVE IT OMG. ‘THEY TOLD ME ALL OF MY CAGES WERE MENTAL SO I GOT WASTED LIKE ALL MY POTENTIAL AND MY WORDS SHOOT TO KILL WHEN I’M BAD I HAVE A LOT OF REGRETS ABOUT THAT II WAS SO AHEAD OF THE CURVE THAT THE CURVE BECAME A SPHERE I FELL BEHIND ON MY CLASS LATE UNTIL I ENDED UP HERE POURING OUT MY HEART TO A STRANGER BUT I DIDNT POUR THE WHISKEY! Oh god the ‘AT LEAST IM TRYING’ MAAAAM. THAT LAST VERSE FUCK FUCK FUF ASJDO FUCK THE BUILD UP. Listen I don’t know what the fuck this song is about but I do know that I love it I ADORE IT I FEEL LIKE EVERY SONG IS BETTER THAN THE LAST WHAT THE FUCK

Illicit affairs

I’m so intrigued by the title of this song! I LOVE the guitar in this song omg it’s so soft and wistful? IT DIES A MIIIILLIOON LITTLE TIMES……….. I love the little falsettos, that you picked out just for HIM! Take the words for what they are, a dwindling mercurial HIGH a drug that only worked the first few hundred times AND THAT’S THE THING ABOUT ILLICIT AFFAIRS AND CLANDESTINE MEETINGS AND STOLEN STARES they show their truth one single time BUT THEY LIE AND THEY LIE AND THEY LIE A MIILION LITTLE TIMES. LOOK AT THIS IDIOTIC FOOL THAT YOU MADE ME YOU TAUGHT ME A SECRET LANGUAGE I CAN’T SPEAK WITH ANYONE ELSE and you know damn well for you I would ruin myself a million little times. Holy fuck I have 0 words this is. Unbelievable it’s sunning I LOVE the bridge? I?

Invisible string

Oh lord I am not ready for this one. I love the way she sings the pre chorus! Were the CLUUUES I didn’t see—ee-ee. Omg this song is actually so cute. CHAINS AROUND MY DEMONS? WOOL TO BRAVE THE SEASONS? HOW THE FUCK DID SHE WRITE THIS IT’S SO GOOD IM SPEECHLESS also I LOVE the strings in this song, I love the production of this entire album tbh. It’s so chill and stripped back and it makes you focus on her vocals which sound soooo good.

Mad woman

TAYLOR SAID FUCK TAYLOR SAID FUCK TAYLOR SAID FUCK IM LIVINNGGGGG. ANYYWAY I LOOOVE THIS IM DIGGING ITTT I LOVE THE CHORUS EEEEK. the second verse omg I love the anger, the bitterness, you can HEAR it in her voice! It’s obvious that wanting me dead has already brought you two together??? EEK THE BRIDGE a spinster? What a shame she went mad… YOU MADE HER LIKE THAT OMG BITCH

Epiphany

Omg the intro build up - I love it. This sounds like a church choir? Is this about a soldier in war? What? It reminds me of Dunkirk or something omg. This is again so haunting, very slow and the piano only adds to the somber tone

Betty

WHO? IS? BETTY??????? Oh hey this is a gentle intro with this instrument that sounds familiar but idk what it is but I love it. I love the melody in this omg!  SHE SAID FUCK AGAIN SHE SAID FUCK AGAI NOGAS JDFHLDSDKFLD TAYLORRRRRR WOULD YOU TELL ME TO GO FUCK MYSELF??? IM ONLY 17 I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING BUT I KNNOW MISS YOU! BITCH!!!!!!!! This is about like a lost first love! Anyway I really looove how her voice sounds in this and the melody…. I DREAMT OF YOU ALL SUMMER LONG OMG THE BRIDGE IS INCREDIBLE!!!!! Omg awww the only thing I wanna do is make it up to you so I showed up at your party?? AHH THE KEY CHANGE INI THE LAST CHORUS EEEEKKKKKK OMGGGGG WILL IT PATCH YOUR BROKEN WINGS I’M ONLY 17 IDK ANYTHING BUT I KNOW I MISS YOU OMG THE REFERENCE TO A CARDIGAN AGAIN!!!!!!!! AND THE STREETLIGHT! IM YELLING I LOVE THE PARALLELS AND THE MOTIFS and you can just hear the childish innocence int his song, I love it

Peace

This intro is SO COOL AND I AM VIBING HARD TO IT, I LOVE THE GUITAR IN THE BACKGROUND? Ok oh god I really like this one. The devil’s in the details but you got a friend in me I— THIS CHORUS IS AMAZING I ADORE IT. Omg this might be one of my favourites. Holy fuck I cannot get over how good the lyrics in this album are!!!!!!! I TALK SHIT WITH MY FRIENDS IT’S LIKE I’M WASTING YOUR HONOUR! Sit with you in the TRENCHES? Omg! WHAT IS THIS ABOUT I AM YELLING!!!!!!!!! ‘Clowns to the west’ oh hey that’s me. EEK THE SOFT KEYBOARD IN THE BACKGROUND - YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hoax

Last song? Ma’am I am not ready!!!!!!!!! THE PIANO IN THIS OMG. The chorus….. it’s beautiful……….. YOUR FAITHLESS LOVE’S THE ONLY HOAX I BELIEVE IN OH MY GODDDD. I’m yelling I love this so much. I loooove the angst of the chorus, the resignation that this is the one love she wants, even if it’s faithless!  ‘You know I left a part of me back in New York’… THE LOUIS TOMLINSON PARALLEL DAFJKHASFKADS (I know you left a part of you in New York). ‘What you didd was just as hard’ omg what did he doooo?? MY KINGDOM COME UNDONE AHHHHH YOU HAVE BEATEN MY HEART! WHY IS THIS SONG SO BITTERSWEET IM ???????

[movingfoward291]

I have Depression. It’s a slow eating disease that affects the mind that also brings about anxiety and restlessness. I struggle with anxiety almost on a daily basis. I wanted to bring about a new dawn in my life by writing my thoughts somewhere, where I hope that more and more people can gaze upon it and realize they are not the only ones going through the motions. The current pandemic and in light of certain situations has cause a large influx of people to realize this, or not and I want to share. The other reason I want to right these blogs is due to self-reflection and my recent toxic relationship with who I thought was the one for me. I guess we can start there and get his blog post going. 

 I was 17 when I met my baby mama. She was 17 as well, and she lived two towns over, and we were infatuated with each other. We constantly talked through text message and always hung out whenever we could. I didn’t have a good relationship with my parents and we constantly fought. Looking back at it, I don’t think I was looking for the right things. As a 17-year-old boy the only thing on your mind at that time, is to have sex. But I mixed two feelings, wanting sex and affection that I never received when I was in my own house. Things went by in our toxic relationship and low and behold we broke up a year after our son was born. That was when I started realizing that I started feeling more and more depressed. I was looking for once was a part of our relationship, I started wanting to be in another relationship and wanted to fix what happened. I started dating and seeing other people during a time when I should have been focusing on myself. I dropped out of school the year prior which meant I had more time to focus on the things that made me happy. Which for that time was video games, cars and women. It didn’t help me at all. I, then, met another girl that I started dating around that time. Let’s call her Del. 

Del and I met a year after my baby mama and I broke up. We met off of Tinder and it was mostly a bunch of flirting and sex talk. We met during that time while she was up here from SoCal for work. We met at a local hotel at the time, because, I was flat broke and didn’t have a place to stay and was living back at my parents. It was suppose to be a one night stand and we ended up staying the night together and seeing each other multiple times after that. We moved way to fast. She decided to stay up here after her job tried to send her back and moved into a room for rent. Shortly there after I was kicked out my house and started hanging out with my cousins and living in my car. I would go to her house for weeks on end, and stay in my car some nights. What I didn’t know, is that my anxiety started to show along with my depression. I never wanted to do anything for her. I would show affection but only when I wanted to. I started to vape heavily and constantly wanted to drink. Looking back on that relationship, I know now that it was toxic. I was using her for my own benefit to feel better about myself but the other thing that I never noticed was that I was in a relationship for one of the wrong reasons. I was looking to fix her.

           When Del and I broke up, it was a nasty. We had an argument the night before and we had been in each others faces. But the first indication that the relationship was bad and or worse was when I tried to salvage things. I wanted to go out and vape and cool off. She wouldn’t let me and told me if I was going to go out and do that, that she was done. And that was the first moment that I stood up for myself and stepped out. In my anxiety of leaving Del I was force by myself to come back asking for forgiveness just to stay in the comfort of being in my depression, and having a roof over my head. When I came back, she wouldn’t say anything and I later met her at the local mall for her to drop off all of my stuff into a tight little 90’s SUV.

           It was shortly after this that I had bump on my head. I’m the type of person that only changes when something happens that destroys me inside. About three months after we broke up, I started vaping more and drinking. This was mostly because of my depression and the fact that I didn’t know how to cope with myself. One day though my friend that I was super close with and helped me deal with a previous break up helped me get motivation to better myself. I found anime. When I was growing up, Dragonball Z was all the rage and kids from the school yard would always talk about. It was on in the evening right after school and it was amazing! For a kid that didn’t know how to express themselves by talking, watching a listening to people talk helped. This show taught me to deal with bullies in the only natural way: by fighting back. But that was 7-12 year old me that dealt with stuff like that. How is that beneficial for a man that is 26 years old and has a child. You can’t scream and yell all the time. It was much more than that a surface level. When I started watching the show again, I was realizing something that ignited a fire in my soul. Why do I keep attracting people that are overweight and unhappy with themselves or had really bad situations or home life. Why does everyone that I come into contact to likes me even though I’m not that hot. I’m over weight and always have been. Late one night, my cousin and my friend decided to call me up and ask me to

Head to the gym with them. That night lit a fire in my soul that made me focus on myself. I started working out. I pushed myself, I pushed myself to loose some weight and focusing on bodybuilding. I wanted to be like Arnold, and just be bigger. And then the Dragonball Super made my focus even grander. I wanted to go beyond myself to have a body like the guys on DragonBall, I grew into that fashion of getting up early and heading to the gym and getting bigger and pushing myself harder. And I was loving it. I was working at auto dealership and I was making better money than what I was the year before. I pushed myself to the maximum and made excellent gains as the bodybuilder call it. I felt better for once with my depression even though I was still dealing with a lot of that. I was dealing with a crappy home life situation with my extended family.

 Then once again, I was out on the street. I was depressed and turned to tinder for that dopamine affect. I need companion ship and didn’t have the friends that were around the time that would help. However, the gym took a back burner and was only used to shower every day which should have been my main source of a crutch. As a famous philosopher once said, Hindsight is 20/20. Once things at work started to ramp up, I caught a lot of overtime. I would push myself to stay at work till the late evenings clean and doing things to work on my car. I felt like I was getting nowhere. Then I met Danni who was another one of my ex-girlfriends. Now Danni was completely different than most of the girls that I date (or so I thought).

Let me tell you guys that my two other exes were okay but Danni was drop dead gorgeous. I was infatuated the first night her and I met on Tinder (wow tinder should be paying for this). She was funny and good listener, and everything that Del was not. And things went well the first night that we met. Shortly thereafter, there was something that was not right and popped a red flag. She was very independent which in my mind was cool, but she was very very independent. She didn’t want to ever hangout because of her schedule but for someone who was infatuated, she didn’t want to spend time with someone that gave her the time of day. Which someone for me was something that I like to do. I want to get to know people and for me that level of attachment is a turn off for people. But for me I pushed those thoughts down and continued our relationship. That was the turn point again. We thankfully didn’t live together, and this was probably the shortest relationship in this entire story. But this had the biggest impact, I didn’t want another girlfriend that was like her. We dated, she needed space, and then wanted to date. She was very indecisive and didn’t want the same thing as me, and that she said things I felt were to make me happy.

 We broke things off in August of 2018 and that was final straw that broke the camels back. I stopped going the gym and felt on hard times. I got a new car and wanted to slam that thing into a pole. Things were bad and I felt like there was nothing that could make things. Then my most recent ex came into the picture. For once this was someone that was local, and that was amazing. I was homeless still and this was the perfect opportunity to move in and get on the rent that was already made. This time, however, I fell in love for the wrong reasons. But this time it took forever to realize what was wrong this time. I gained more insight on the relationship. She was very head strong but terrible with money, she was bad with doing things such as working out for herself. She always started a workout plan that would end with in her running to fast food. She would go back to being mopey and sitting around. Then things were made worse once the pandemic hit. I gained weight and had my anxiety and depression get worse. I didn’t see a way out. 8 months into 2020, she thought our relationship was toxic and choose herself and I think in my own mind, I knew we were done way before 2020 started. She wasn’t good enough to be around my son and I force myself into a relationship and caused it me more heartbreak. But this is where my epiphany started to happen. When we broke up, I didn’t cry. I didn’t get angry or do anything that would cause me to be toxic. Something in me that I haven’t felt since pre 2020 that would happen. I started school and focused on that for once. I pushed myself for one week to start running. I pushed myself to finish my runs every day. And this fire pushed me to realized that my hinderance with people is not with the people themselves. Its my own fault that I keep getting into relationships that do not work for me. I get into relationships where I find a person that seems broken and attract towards them. They aren’t relationships but me trying to fix things. That, couple with my depression lash outs and anxiety, make a tornado of shit that doesn’t work for anyone. And I think there is a correlation between me and my body type attracting people who are lazy and don’t want to work on themselves. But once again, I need to find myself and learn to love my self too. Dealing with depression and anxiety has caused me to learn that things in myself needs to change. Not only in my mind but physically. There are things that needs to be worked on and things that are coming in the following weeks related to thing as I’m still living with my ex that correlated with me. I hope that someone realizes that their situations differ, but we suffer from the same, disease and have to handle things in a different way.

Anyways guys take care and be safe. Treat each other well. Even though things are bad right now, things could be worse. Way worse. 

[pyralyte]

The Pre-Date

Word Count: 3,679 Genre: Comedy, fluff

A/N: I usually don’t write a lot as I don’t have the time to do much of this. This blog is also just a blog for everything random that pertains to my interests and not a kpop or any kpop group specific blog. I won’t be receiving requests, but feel free to continue reading! This was inspired by a conversation between me and a fellow Atiny/Monbebe friend and with the help of my Dungeon Master boyfriend, who writes stories all the time for his Pathfinder campaigns.

E A R L Y . E V E N I N G

You come back home to your apartment and find that your roommate had gone out to pick up groceries from the note that was left on the kitchen counter. You laid down your belongings gently before jumping onto the wide sleeper sofa squealing and wriggling uncontrollably.

"AHH!" You hug the closest plush next to you. It happens to be your cat, who is not thrilled and meows in a worrisome high tone. "Ohmigosh! I'm so sorry, Koi!" You let her go before grabbing an actual pillow to squeeze it tight. I can't believe it, you thought. He asked me out! My freaking crush asked me out! Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God! You continue to squeeze the poor pillow, rolling around like a dog in grass gleefully. "Ah, shit," you utter under your breath. You noticed the lipstick stain and mascara smeared on the sandy colored sofa.

N I G H T T I M E

As you wash your face hurriedly before bed, you remember how he asked you out in such a cute way. It was almost too unbearable that you could have made a fool of yourself in front of your crush.

// FLASHBACK // "Y/N!"

You whip your head around to see Seonghwa jogging towards you across the large courtyard on university campus. Maintain composure, you thought. "Hey, what's up, Seonghwa?"

He catches up to you, barely out of breath. To be expected by someone on the dance team. "Y/N, I-I I need to ask you something." He looks away. You think you might have seen a very slight pink undertone just then. You watch him fiddle with a silver engraved ring on his finger.

"Y/N, I..." he takes a deep breathe. "I-really-like-you-and-I-really-promise-to-take-care-of-you-will-you-go-out-with-me!"

Stunned, you unravel each word one by one and realizes that he likes you as well. No, wait. He just asked you out! You stood there, frozen, red in the face as Seonghwa eyes you in worry, his pink tones also becoming redder by the minute. Your scarf covers your mouth just enough to not show how much of your jaw just hit the ground. You slowly come back to reality as his eyes lowered, preparing for a rejecti —

"Yes."

His eyes snap back to look into yours. "What?"

"I said, yes, Seonghwa," you say calmly, trying with all the energy in the world to not quiver your voice with excitement.

"REALLY —" He coughs and clears his throat, changing his demeanor from an excited puppy to that of a cool cat. "I mean, really? You will?"

You nod. Eyes glued to his.

"How about tomorrow afternoon?" he proposes. "I'll take you out to a really nice place."

Again, you nod. "Yes. Let's do that."

// FLASHBACK END //

M O R N I N G

Knock knock knock knock knock.

The faint noise causes you to stir from your sleep. You feel around blindly for your phone, eventually finding it under the pillow you were just sleeping on. Your eyes adjust to the room as light leaks in through the sides of your sun blocking curtains. You squint at the phone bleary-eyed, immediately stunned by the loud light of your device. Through a sliver of what you can see, you turn the brightness down and look at your phone again.

- 9:47 AM -

"Ugh," you groaned. "I bet Sabrina forgot her damn keys again..."

Knock knock knock knock knock.

"Okay!" You shouted. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

You looked for Sabrina's keys but it wasn't anywhere to be found, so to the door you walk, sleepily.

You lazily unlock the door. "Hey, girl, I can't seem to find your k —" You gasped.

Sabrina's usually neat long blonde locks was basically a bird's nest once you saw her, presumably from attempting to pull her hair out in stress. She storms into the apartment, mumbling to herself.

"I can't believe I walked all the way to the salon just to find I didn't even have my Goddamn keys on me," she hissed. "Again." She rummages through the sofa, with Koi running away from the steam coming from her human’s ears. She sighs exasperatingly.

"Was it not in your usual spot?" You ask, rubbing your eyes.

"No, it wasn't! You couldn't find it either?"

"No..."

You help your incredibly stressed out roommate to find the keys in her room, your room, the kitchen, and the living room. Nothing. Then, an unusual idea popped into your mind. You look at Koi. Then to her cat tree. Then back to her. She mewls innocently. You walk over to the tree, eyeing it suspiciously. You reach above, feeling around the top bed. Nothing. The two middle beds. Nothing either. Then at the bottom-most bed, all the way in the back, far beyond sight, you find the coveted silver treasure.

"I found them!" You exclaimed to Sabrina. "I found them in the cat tree!"

"Oh, thank effing goodness!" She sighs loudly in relief. She smooths her hair out while walking over to you. You drop the keys into her outstretched hand.

"Okay, leaving for real this time, Y/N." She walks to and opens the front door.

"Alright, have a good one," you say wearily, walking back towards your bedroom.

"You too. And — oh! Y/N."

You turn around.

"Have fun... with your date." She winks as she closes the door and locks it from the outside.

The date? You wondered. Oh! The DATE!

"I gotta get ready! WHAT TIME IS IT?"

- 10:23 AM -

You sigh in relief. "I have time."

"Mreoooww!" Koi meows at her disgustingly empty food bowl.

"Okay, okay, I'll feed you, Koi."

- 10:35 AM -

Knock knock knock knock knock.

The sound of unexpected knocking, again, nearly made you choke on your toothpaste. Did she forget something else this time, you thought. You walk out of the bathroom, still brushing your teeth. You open the door and —

"Good morning!"

"Good mor —?!" You stopped brushing your teeth and sees a casual yet stylish Seonghwa at the door, carrying some kind of brown paper bag. He beams at you.

You slam the door on him. He can't see me like this! OH, MY GOD, HE CAN'T SEE ME LIKE THIS! You open the door again. HE'S STILL THERE! You slam it. Then open it again. His smile still shining radiantly, with a touch of confusion. Your toothbrush falls out of your mouth. You would let it land on the floor if you didn't remember that it was an expensive electric toothbrush. "Oh, shit!" You try to catch it while it bounces from one hand to the other. When you finally got it, it happens to bounce off your hand once more and hit Seonghwa's chin, leaving a residue. He flinches a bit.

OH, GOD, NO, you internally scream. Not only is this happening right before the real date, but you're obviously not ready. Your bun is a crazy rat's nest, your over-sized off-white shirt with a pink bunny design is awkwardly resting on one side of your hip and the other, loose. Your permanently stained basketball shorts with elastic that has long since worn out reveals your yet to be shaven legs. You quickly eye him up and down before taking cover behind the door. "Damn, you didn't have to be this punctual," you mutter, looking away from him.

"Oh? I figured," he begins, looking down at the bag he is holding, "that you might want some breakfast with me?"

Breakfast? You look down at the bag as he reaches in and pulls out your favorite kind of twisted doughnut. Two of them, in fact.

"Just for you," he says shyly. You salivate at the sight of the treat you rarely get.

"But what about you?" you ask softly, looking back at him through your bangs.

"Don't worry, I've got some myself too!"

You sigh in defeat. "Well, you're already here. I'll just have let you in." You open the door slightly. Just as he was about to walk in, you stop. "But don't look at me!"

He tilts his head to the side like a puppy. Why are you looking at me like that? Stoooop! You hold your composure to keep yourself from melting and clear your throat. "Okay?" you reaffirm sternly.

He nods.

You open the entryway wider for him to enter, albeit a bit hesitantly since you are just now realizing the state of the living room. "Oh, uh," you stammer, looking at the disheveled sofa cushions. "My roommate — she couldn't find her keys so we looked for them." You laugh nervously while closing the door and locking it. You hurried over to the sofa to fix them up before offering a seat to Seonghwa. Respecting your wishes, he looks down at the floor.

"Do you mind if I eat a little of my breakfast while I wait for you to be ready?" he asks. His stomach growls a mighty one. He scratches the back of his head with embarrassment accompanied by a nervous chuckle.

You giggled. "Of course not! Please eat. I, uh -- it, uh, I'll go get ready, but it'll take a while. I-I'm sorry." Your stammering is getting the best of you as you make your way back to the bathroom. But wait.

"My toothbrush!" you gasped.

"Oh, I set it on the dining table for you," he says, pointing to the standing brush.

"Oh, thank you!" You grab it off the table, almost stopping in your tracks to ask how did he manage to catch it, but decided to push that off to the side. You walk back to the bathroom to do your morning routine.

S E O N G H W A . P O V

Sitting down on the sofa Y/N just fixed, he wiggles his silver ring off and sets it on the glass table in front of him to eat his handheld breakfast. He was starving as he got up very early to practice his choreography with his dance team. Wow, her new place looks nice, he thought. He looks at the collection of eclectic cool hues of artwork between yours and Sabrina's that tie the décor together. His wandering eyes became distracted when he felt something pressing up against his leg. He looks down.

"Oh, hi there!" he says sweetly and softly to the calico creature. Koi rubs her head into his shin aggressively. He puts his sandwich down onto the table and bends over to scratch her chin. Her purr fills the room before being drowned out by the rushing water of the shower being turned on. She snaps her head in the direction of the sound. Her eyes grow big and runs off from his hand while making a short trill. He chuckles as he motions to pick up his sandwich again from the table.

- 11:02 AM -

He balls up the wrapping paper and throws it into the empty paper bag. Y/N's twisted doughnuts were set aside on the table. He leans back on the sofa and takes out his phone from his pocket. He flips through his Engstagram feed until he realizes his finger felt odd. He looks away from his phone and thumbs the barren spot of his ring finger. He leans forward to grab the ring off the table when he notices it missing.

"Wh-whuh, what?!" He frantically whispers. He looks around the table, under, and around the sides. His eyes darts around the sofa. Did it get lost here? He feels around for the shiny cold object. He sticks his hands between the sofa cushions and felt some gross crumbs. "Eugh..." He straightens up again with a calm demeanor — just in case Y/N would come out anytime — as his own mind screams at him. How could you lose the ring, you giant idiot! The only thing you had! He scans the living area with one hand on his hip, exasperated. He sighs as he runs his fingers through his full yet luscious raven locks.

Thud.

He snaps his head over to see Koi on sitting on the woolly carpet, green orbs staring back at Seonghwa inquisitively. She slow blinks at him and busies herself by licking her paw. He plops down on the sofa, defeated, with head in his hands. He gives out a loud, long sigh as the sound of a door opening caught his attention.

Y / N . P O V

You come out of the bathroom, hair very loosely curled with light make up on. You roll up the sleeves of your sweater that has been tucked into your partially pleated skirt. You heard Seonghwa's loud sigh and was surprised to see an unusually startled look on his face.

"Eh? What's wrong?" You ask, as you walk over to chair in the dining area to secure your socks. At this point, he has seen you at your worst, so you're just slightly more relaxed in front of him.

"Ah, it's nothing!" says Seonghwa, waving his left hand dismissively with his right hand stuffed in his jacket pocket.

You notice his voice was just a tinge higher than normal. I mean, why would you notice such a thing? It's not like you listen to his voice every night.

Your mind begins to stir up stories as to why he was acting strange. Did he hurt himself? Did he steal something from you? Was he looking at indecent things on his phone? No, his phone is on the table. But... wait... is he going to propose?! You couldn't bear the thought of any of that and shake your head vigorously. No, you dumdum! Why would he do that after just asking me out yesterday? You shut your eyes tight and open them again only for them to fall on a calm but with an edge Seonghwa. They narrow at the sight of him.

"Did you..." you begin slowly, "eat my twisted doughnuts?" You smirk.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "No! They're right here!" He picks them up and briskly walks over to hand them to you. Single-handedly. Your eyebrow raises slightly as he doesn't usually like to give gifts away with one hand, but rather with both hands. Something is indeed amiss. You take the treat out of his hand slowly and decide to yourself that you will do some observational investigation. You look up at him, giving him a thankful smile. His eyes lit up when he sees your face up close and unguarded for the first time today. He blushes and smiles to himself as his eyes fell to the floor, out of shyness.

You sit down in the chair you used earlier to balance yourself while adjusting your socks. The familiar crinkling sound of the wax paper from your favorite bakery makes its way to your ears and instantly, you're hit with nostalgia. You bring up the cinnamon sugar delight to your mouth and take a bite, savoring the taste, with eyes closed. It's been years since you were able to have one of these again. You weren't able to go to the bakery anymore since you moved closer to your university and it was on the other side of the river near your parents' house. Unfortunately, the only transportation you have is your bike.

Your memory lane train derailed when you heard a soft chuckle. You open one eye to look at him. Your cheeks were ballooned with food since you didn't realize you practically inhaled the whole thing.

"Hmmf? Ith thumthing hwunny?" you ask, with mock annoyance.

"You look so cute with your cheeks like that," he points, smiling. "You're like a chipmunk!"

You cross your arms and pout while chewing slowly and carefully. He giggles again and pokes your cheek gently.

"Hmph!" You turned slightly away from him, eyes closed with nose in the air. You continue chewing and swallowing little by little. You covertly open your eye closest to him and see him trying to scan around your living area. He's looking for something. But what? You decided to use the process of elimination.

"Seonghwa," you say flatly.

He snaps his head back to you. Smiling, he replies, "Yes?"

"Are you looking to steal from me?"

"What?!"

"You've been acting strange since I've come out all ready and stuff."

He pauses for a moment, seemingly lost in thought before his eyes meet yours. The lengthy eye contact seems to stretch on for an eternity, growing more and more intense as he brings his face closer to yours. You feel the heat rush in your face along with a tinge of embarrassment since your chipmunk cheeks aren't completely gone yet.

"Yes, I've come to steal from you."

"What the f —!"

"I've come to steal your most precious treasure."

You look at him, befuddled.

"Your..." he points at your chest, whispering, "Heart."

You blankly stare at him. The eternal eye contact returns once again in awkward silence, until he threw his head back in laughter. The look of annoyance spreads across your face as you finally chew and swallow the last bit of doughnut left. You facepalm — while avoiding your eye make up — and stretch your eyes downward as you drag your hand in disgust.

"Ugh!" you groaned. "What the hell was that?!"

Seonghwa continues to laugh heartily. You see him clutching his stomach and leaning so far back in his chair, you almost didn't notice him about to tip over backwards. You frantically get up from your seat and scurry over to him, but it was too late. As he falls, his center of gravity was too low for you to have enough leverage, thus you falling along with him. Your arm is stuck between the floor and his back.

"Are you okay?!" You look down at him only to realize how close his face was to yours once again. Actually, even closer. He looks up at you with a soft gaze that could melt your all worries away. The apartment around you fades and all you see is the two of you. He lifts his arm up next to your head and gently tucks your soft locks behind your ear. His gaze lowers to your lips, then back to your eyes again. You're lost in the world that which his eyes held, slowly leaning in closer to —

"OOF!" A creature has landed on your back and pushed herself off to jump onto the table, which causes you to fall sideways onto the cold tile floor. You turn around to see Koi casually sniffing the wrap the uneaten doughnut is in, turning her head to look at you, slow blinks, then walks away, with tail high in the air. You roll onto your back, feeling a little dizzy, but somewhat defeated.

"You alright?" Seonghwa asks softly next to you.

"Y-yeah... I'm okay." You turn your face away from him to hide your red cheeks when you see something glinting in the shadow at the base of the cat tree. You tilt your head against the hard floor. Ow, that was a bad idea. You rub the slightly sore spot with your free hand. You gently tug your arm underneath Seonghwa and feel the weight being lift off your almost numb limb as you pull away. You get up carefully due to your skirt and walk over to the cat tree. You kneel down in front of it and feel inside the bottom-most bed. A slick yet cold texture grazed your skin. You went over the same area to feel it again and curl your fingers around it to pull it out. You open your hand and wondered, how did this get here? Seonghwa looks at your hand holding the ring and gasps. "It was there?! It was in there?! How—why—"

"Koi is like a magpie," you say while inspecting and cleaning the ring, "she likes to steal shiny things, particularly silver looking items."

You get up from the kneeling position you were in and walk over to him. With the ring in between your index finger and thumb, you place into the palm of his outstretched hand.

"Honestly," you chuckled, "I'm surprised you haven't managed to lose this in a year or so."

"It was..."He blushes. "It's because I've liked you for such a long time and this was the first and only gift you had given me."

"Oh!" You feel your cheeks heat up. "Well, I had given you other gifts too since then!" you pout.

He laughs as you walk over to the entry way to put on your chunky sole shoes. "Yes, but this is the only thing that isn't edible."

"Ha, well, you were practicing so hard, you needed to eat 24/7!" You finished tying up the laces on your shoes. You get up and grab your mini backpack off the sofa, along with your keys. "Let's go."

"Wait!"

You halt and turn to look at him. "Did you lose something else too?" you mused.

He slowly walks over to you and holds your shoulders. He scans over you and stops at your eyes, holding your gaze long enough that your cheeks begin to feel hot again. You’ve been blushing a lot today.

"I've always wanted to say," he begins softly. He leans in to your ear. "You look so beautiful."

Your whole being starts to feel like it's melting upon hearing those sincere words. Even after a couple of years of knowing him, hearing it like this from him, it felt like utopia.

"H-h-haaa, um, look, I swear if it's one of your cringy jokes again," you protest to protect yourself from completely dying. "C'mon, let's go!" You lock arms with him and drag him out of the apartment.

B O N U S × K O I . P O V

Sitting on top of the cat tree, she watches Y/N and that strange man leave, locking the door behind them. She hops down to the floor and makes her way into the kitchen. On her way, she finds a silver hair clip left behind on the floor where her human was just laying. She picks it up by the mouth and continues on. She jumps up on the kitchen counter and to the top of the fridge. She lays her newly acquired precious silver on a small mound of other miscellaneous silver objects. She trills in satisfaction.

[herkiss-theriot]

Lol I know absolutely no one asked but here I am, arbitrarily ranking Kid Krow songs because this is a music blog now apparently and it’s my favorite album so far this year. Feel free to shoot me an ask for any elaboration or other opinions lol. Sorry for the long post. I would add a keep reading but I’m on mobile and the mobile app is somehow worse than the website. I’m also not tagging this so if this gets notes it’s not my fault. Also I’m editing the post em to say that I think this whole album is amazing and it pains me not giving every album a 10/10 bc they’re all so good

Comfort Crowd - 11/10

One of the best album intros I’ve heard compared to other albums I like. It means a lot to me and is overall a really easy song to listen to in basically any mood but is a great pick me up I think it also has one of my favorite lines on the album “you say through a sigh that I said that line already”

Wish You Were Sober - 8/10

A fun song to listen, has some solid lines. Not very relatable in my experiences but that’s also not the point lol. Favorite line(s): “knees weak, but you talk pretty fly, wow” “gettin’ good start saying gotta bounce”

Maniac - 8/10

One word titles are always fun but also -2 for some ableist language. Ik that’s not always at the top of Woke Cultures to do list but it’s a real problem and provides for some cringe vernacular choices sometimes. Overall it’s a pretty good song and is definitely one of the best on the album that’s playable even outside of the album/to people who arent into Conan. Conan apparently describes it as an “upbeat bedroom pop banger” according to genius which I guess, yeah, but what a way to describe a song. Favorite line: “we had magic, but you made it tragic”

(Online Love) - 9/10

First interlude if the album which is very exciting. Very cool idea to say that he thinks this love could be more if it were in person which translates well into current scenarios. Has a really cool guitar pattern and a nice ending. -1 bc it’s 30 seconds long favorite line: “I can’t help but imagine what maybe could’ve happened if we weren’t just an online love”

Checkmate - 10/10

Ik this was released pre-Kid Krow but god it’s one of his best songs and I’m so glad it made it on the album. It’s just got such a good energy about it and I always love chess analogies. And Ik Kid Krow Isnt a concept album by any means but I love the story arc going on of finally catching on. Favorite line(s) “cry me a river till you drown in the lake” “holding your hand but in the other one, baby I’m holding a loaded gun”

(I wrote parts for the cut that always bleeds and fight or flight and then accidentally deleted them so rip me sorry if they’re a lil short/less in depth)

The Cut That Always Bleeds - 8/10

It’s overall a great song and is really emotional but -2 bc I ugly cry to this song and get asked if I’m okay a lot lol favorite lines: “I don’t love you anymore” a pretty line that I adore”

“Can’t life another minute bleeding from my back cause I don’t have another one for you to stab”

Fight or Flight - 11/10

What a song. There’s not a lot I can say other than that it’s literally one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard. It’s got some of the most genius song writing that I’ve heard on an album in a while. Also when I was learning to drive with my Nana i had a playlist that would go from Comfort Crowd to Fight or Flight which is an experience I recommend everyone have at least once in their life. My only criticism of this song is that it’s perception of cheating is a lil Disney-channel-esque” which maybe doesn’t make sense and also I’m fairly certain that he writes from personal experience and who am I to say he can’t write what he wants lmao.Favorite line(s) “id rather lie than tell you I’m in love with you” (one of my favorite lines EVER) “they also didn’t know that our lover loved us both.

Affluenza - 7/10

A fun song but is kind of a lot in my opinion and seems vaguely out of touch. However I do agree with the overall sentiment of eating the rich (also if you’re a trinkets fan I think this is a good song for an Elodie playlist or maybe even Tabitha depending on the perspective.) although I will say it’s a really good take on the idea of affluenza as a concept. favorite line “give me none of your affluenza”

(Can We Be Friends) - 6/10

Ik it’s an interlude so it’s kind of the point but definitely a skip most of the time even though I think the line “if anybody fucks with you I’ll knock their teeth out” gods hard. I just think one minute is a really weird time frame for a song. Sub one minute is just short enough to want more and 1:30 and perfectly acceptable for a song but one minute is v awkward

Heather - 10/10

Not amount elaboration would ever be able to perfectly encapsulates how gorgeous the idea of this song is. This idea that you wish you wish you could be someone else because you feel that this other person is otherworldly and is more deserving of the person you love. That feeling is gut wrenching. Favorite line “why would you ever kiss me, I’m not even half as pretty”

Little League - 5/10

I’m so sorry it’s just such a skip. I don’t know why but I can’t listen to this song. It reminds me of a big time rush song for some reason which isn’t a bad thing but every time I try to listen to it I think about how I think it’s a btr copy 😭 also when I do listen to it makes me cry a lot and yearning for a youth that I let waste away and I hate feeling actual feelings so minus points for that. Favorite line “when we were younger we wore our hearts out on our sleeve, why did we ever have to leave? Little league” I think it’s my favorite bc it can be interpreted in a couple of ways and I’m too tired to get into it rn

The Story - 10/10

Simple. Beautiful. One of the first Conan songs I heard. My friend was a huge Conan fan and so I listened to a couple songs like generation why and crush culture but she saw him in concert b4 kid Krow was released and took a video of The Story and I absolutely fell in love. The first time I heard it I sobbed. This idea of paralleling a bunch of failed loves and friendships in order to justify why you think yours will work is so cool and I love it a lot. Favorite line “I’m afraid that’s just the way the world works but I think that it could work for you and me.

[leanarg]

Practice Challenge II

((Hi again! So, these are 3 fics in one post! Including my first two rps with @ladyreggiewright​ (our very first one after ages not doing this so asdfghk) and with @wylan-caldwell​ I had so much fun doing both, so thank you, guys! <3 Thanks for reading too, hope you enjoy them as much as I stuggled writing them ;P  Google Docs link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ARTjqveFJ1njDc2LL0PU4C0ShN2jlO9JC1Imt9MDTh8/edit?usp=sharing ))

A CHANGE OF LUCK

“Alright, y’all ready?” Rita said with a loud voice vibrating with nervousness. “The speeches are over. In the next block, Prince Arin will be picking the names.” That was her fifth lap around the entertainment office floor and she just couldn’t stop repeating what Vandy Post had already announced before each round of commercials. I knew she was trying to act authoritative, but seeing her in this state was always amusing.

It wasn’t unusual that the building was bursting with energy this late at night. The pre-press team always stayed working on putting together the bulldog broadsheets content and adding the last details, then sent the whole thing before the deadline to the press team operating on the last floor, where they were all in charge of the printing process. I would dare to say there was activity in this place 24/7. But this particular night, we were focused on The Report. The streets looked almost empty from up here, everyone was at home in front of their TV waiting for the names of the lucky girls randomly picked by a drawing of names out of different crystal boxes. 35 provinces, 35 boxes, 35 names. 

My attention had been focused on Arin’s stern expression. His life was about to be decided by fate, or as many people want to call it, destiny. I wonder what was he thinking, standing there expressionless, willing to uphold his duty. 

Is he excited? Is he nervous? Is he wishing he could run away from that room and leave all this tradition behind?

My name was inside of one of the boxes, so I should had been even more anxious and edgy than Rita herself, but, after the PET Gala fiasco, where: I hadn’t gotten the clues I was so close to getting, I hadn’t finished the job I was supposed to be doing and my one month salary had been reduced to half; I was certain that whoever was in charge of my luck was not very fond of me. 

“They are back!” Rita shouted as soon as Arin’s face reappeared. Everyone in the room fell silent. I scoffed a laugh when I noticed them unconsciously leaning slightly towards the big tv, but I ended up doing the same after adjusting my glasses. One by one the basic information of the selected were being transcribed from the screen to our devices as Arin picked out their papers. 

<< “From Allens, Idalia Moretti, from Angeles, Emily Rose White,... from Honduragua, Callia Adair…” >>

My fingers were moving fast across my cellphone’s keyboard. These were the girls we would be hearing a lot about  from now on and I needed to know everything about them.

<< “From Labrador, Lea…” >>

I froze. My head felt dizzy trying to take in what I had just heard. For the shortest of seconds, everyone’s eyes were on me. I could hear Rita’s voice instructing them to get back to work and maybe someone else was now in charge of The Globe’s blog but at that moment I couldn’t care less about that.

It’s really happening... I made it to the selection!

Finally, I could stand up. I was feeling so much energy inside me that I wanted to run. Suddenly, the lift made a sound and my dad came quickly out of it and … wait, my mom is here? She was carrying my sleepy little brother, Dean. 

I could read the shock on my parents’ faces.“I’m in!!” I said a little too loud but since Mr. Grant was there no one dared to complain. My dad let out a short laugh before extending his arms for an embrace. “Congratulations, Rosie, I knew it would happen, didn’t I tell you V?” He said to my mom. “Grants always get what they want.” 

Ugh, I wish. But I wasn’t going to argue with him right now, so I just offered him a wink.

As soon as my father let go, my mom surrounded me with her free arm. “So how does it feel to be a lady, huh? We have to celebrate this!”

“Well, do ladies feel hungry this late? Cause I wasn’t feeling it a moment ago.” “Yes, let’s leave these guys to work in peace.” my dad said suddenly remembering where we were. After clearing his throat as if that simple gesture was a switch between the dad and the boss, he talked with Rita to make sure someone had replaced me updating the blog, then he congratulated everyone for their dedication and finally wished them good night. “I just hope you are paying me the full day,” I said to my dad as we all headed outside.

“I mean, are you working right now?” He raised an eyebrow, mockingly.

I sighed “I guess Grants can’t always get what they want after all.”  And I meant it in more than one way. 

The next week ran fast. My father and I agreed that I had to keep going to the office as usual, but it wasn’t easy to balance my work and my phone ringing every 5 minutes. More than once I had to ride home in the middle of the day because someone was waiting for me at home. 

First, a man with a very peculiar face came to do some kind of interrogation, which was understandable until we got to the most uncomfortable, personal ones. I almost spit my coffee laughing until I realized he had no intention to leave until he got every answer to each one of the questions on his list. 

Like him, I received a tailor and a doctor; but it wasn’t until the press started to ask for interviews when I realized my life had made a turn of 360 degrees. 

The thing I lamented the most about this odd schedule was that I couldn’t travel to the provinces to interview some of the selected as we had planned, but I did take advantage of every opportunity I had to do deep research about them. 

Some of the names or last names could be found on old newspaper editions, there were tragedies, accomplishments, unfortunate events… I smiled to myself, while I made annotations on my journal, fascinated by all the different interesting lives that were about to gather under the same roof. And I guess somehow that included mine.

The farewell party organized by Labrador’s Mayor seemed more like a political campaign than a real party. I might have fallen asleep during his speech if I hadn’t been texting Harris for the 40th time that week.

The last time I knew something about him was the night of the announcement when he sent me a simple “Congratulations, Lady Lea.” Then as the photographer, he had to go with Rea to the half-tour over the country to cover the selected interviews. 

“How dare you not be here when you are needed,... you lucky mooncalf.”

I looked up to see the crowd from my place on the big platform set in the middle of the Amberly park. It hadn’t been a very good idea, because there were grey clouds gathering over us and the sun was partially covered by them already. 

Someone forgot to check the weather section today.

But the trees surrounding us were decorated with purple and green metallic balloons -the colors of our province- and there were several signs with good wishes so I appreciated the effort. 

Everyone was here; The Globe employees that didn’t like me at all, my family on the first row, my college best friend, Liv had made space on her busy schedule  to come to the event, even my grandmother had sent his chauffeur with presents. That was her way to show support and I honestly didn’t have any complaints.  After the Mayor’s speech, the great boss Maxwell Loyd took the microphone to speak, I rolled my eyes, not caring about the people in front of me. He didn’t waste this opportunity to promote himself and flatter me. I mean, if he really had thought all that about me I would have had a promotion and a raise already, instead I just got ridiculous instructions and a handshake. 

When they both finally finished, the rain had started to pour, plus it was almost time for me to leave for the airport. I buttoned my coat before taking my place behind the microphone to start talking, but the eyes of the lady in charge of my schedule forced me to skip until the end of the speech I had prepared the night before. Every time I was going to make it sound deep and sentimental she made a sign for me to hurry.

“I appreciate your support… I will do my best… thank you for coming.”  

Were the only complete sentences I managed to say under such pressure. There was clapping and cheering afterwards, but there was after the previous boring speeches as well, so I didn’t get too excited about that. 

“Have a good time, my Lea.” My mother said after kissing my brow. I could smell her sweet perfume that I was going to miss. “I will, mom. Take care, I’m only leaving cause I know you are going to be in charge.” I side eyed the two men of the house. Then I kissed my little brother and messed his blond hair. “Bye bye little toad.” He just babbled something and waved his little hand. 

“So, Lady Grant. What do you expect from Prince Arin? Do you secretly plan to drink all the coffee from the Angele’s Palace? Rumor has it your father won’t let you marry until you turn 48 years old do you think Your Highness would wait for you that long?” “Wow, Mr. Grant you ask pretty basic questions, I have been asked the same ones all week.” He gave me a big tight hug and I ignored the wool of his coat feeling  itchy on my cheek. “I’m very proud of you Leana, and of course I’m not talking about this selection situation… I’m sorry about-” I stopped him not wanting to have our little disagreements as today’s last memory. And I also hoped I could change his mind by the time I returned home. “We can talk about that when I come back, dad.” He nodded. “I’m starting to feel bad for our dear Prince Arin.” I scoffed a laugh.

“Lady Grant, we are past the established hours already.” I heard a lady behind me. 

I turned to my friend Liv with an apologetic expression but she just smiled and waved. “I will text you… Bye! The rain started to fall harder but I had read the weather section on the paper this morning so I was properly dressed with boots and a coat over my white shirt and black pants. 

I walked towards a guard who was holding an opened umbrella to cover us with it. He opened the door of the car.  Then he offered to take my bag for me, but I had packed some of my old journals in there among my personal things. “Thank you… What’s your name?” “Finn Ray, my lady.” He answered confused. “I will keep this here with me, Finn.” I said in what I hoped was a reassuring tone before entering the car. I guessed he was new at guarding selected, because I noticed him turning to look at the woman in charge of the schedule. She nodded once at him and joined me inside the limousine. 

By the time we got to the airport I had learned that our chauffeur was called Alan Cobb, he had been working for the palace for 3 years on special occasions. He had three kids and his wife was expecting a baby girl. 

The strict lady was Miss Ramirez, she was happily single, obviously tardiness was her biggest pet peeve and she had worked there for 6 years already, but she enjoyed her job and had never thought of doing anything else, although I didn’t quite understand exactly which was her role in the royal offices of Labrador.

She left me at the boarding door after wishing me luck.

The flight to Angeles was long. I shared a plane with 3 others selected, that seemed pretty decent at first sight. 

We had a polite introduction conversation before we took off, but then everyone focused on her own thing; Jen Li, -the Yale law student from Waverly- took advantage of the 8 hours flight to sleep. Alana Hansen looked out from the window almost the whole time lost in her thoughts, and based on the green tone on Regina Wright’s face I guessed she was a risky company for the moment. 

I remembered I had read about her parents' unfortunate plane accident in an old newspaper, they used to be famous politicians and she was an apple that had fallen close to the tree. Hopefully not too close.

So, considering my options I prefer to write in my journals during the whole trip.

As soon as we arrived we were hurried to a room for makeovers. For me it felt more like a day in the salon, nothing drastic was made, just a few lights on my hair, perfect makeup and a stunning blue dress with matching elegant pump heels shoes. 

They did insisted on giving me contact lenses, since I had forgotten to pack mine, so after a long argument with the stylist, Mariel, I decided to wear the contacts and let him enjoy “his creation”. 

In the end, despite the little changes, when he showed me my reflection in the mirror, I had to recognize I was content with the  upgraded version of me.

                                       ESSENTIAL RESEARCH

The tour around the palace was quite short considering its size. I was almost sure that it was bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, but the curiosity to see my new room, made me settle with the basic information,

I took a glance down at the little map on my hand. Eloise Hall room 28, second floor. As I headed to the stairs, the decorations and fancy details surrounding me were impossible to ignore. With every step you could find paintings by famous old artists -my mother admired- hanging on the walls, expensive vases and beautiful furniture. 

Looking around I spotted one of the selected quickly scribbling some notes in a notebook. As I got closer I noticed she was my plane mate, Regina Wright. Her green tone had disappeared or maybe covered with makeup and she looked much more secure now that we were down here on earth soil. 

I laughed a little bit inside walking by her side “Hope whatever you are writing is worth a bump on your head.”  

“I hope so too” She said absentmindedly, not looking up from her notebook. After some seconds she took a short look at me, flipped through her notebook and quickly closed it before I could react and lean discreetly to read what she was working on. 

Okay, now I’m curious.

“Excuse me, hi. Leana is it?” She gave me a polite smile. 

“Yes, feeling better... Regina..? I asked faking ignorance. 

She looked at me as she didn’t know why I was asking her that but then just answered, “Splendid. But please, call me Reggie.”

We continue walking up the stairs towards the second floor, while we shook hands, 

“I'm Leana Grant but you can call me Lea or Lee” I said touching the arc of my glasses I had put back on as soon as I left the makeover room.

She nodded. “Alright, Lea. Journalist, correct?” She made her pen click as if she was going to start writing again. I frowned, puzzled. “You too?” 

She chuckled at the question as if I should already know who she was. And the truth was, I did. 

“No,” she finally said, opening her notebook again, adding something, then she continued. “So, what brings you here?”

I was sure Reggie had many qualities but subtlety wasn’t one of them. 

I pressed my lips together, thinking about my motives, which one of them should I tell her? I’m here as an inside informant for The Globe; or, I’m here to live and learn about this whole selection phenomenon… I didn’t even know which one was the right answer.  “... just figured I couldn't miss this whole thing, you know.” 

Half- truths are always safe.  

“Are you here for politics?” I added before she could even think about my answer. 

She looked pleasantly surprised by my question, clearing her throat. “Yes, that is one of the reasons.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You did your research.” 

I guess it was my turn to feel recognized, but unlike her I didn’t want to be so obvious, so I shrugged. “Your name rang a bell.” 

She looked at me suspiciously, lifting her chin, a slight movement I didn’t quite understand. “Is that so? That's good, I suppose. Best to be prepared.”

“Maybe you are right, I guess you actually did your research. What do you have about me?” I asked directly now, pointing at her notebook casually.

She remained serious. “Oh, just the usual. Occupation, caste, age.  Name, obviously.  There's 35 of us after all. Would be a shame to get anyone mixed up.”

“Well, now most of us are threes and the twos are pretty well known.”

“Yes well, obviously. Was to be expected. It's still an appropriate mix.”

Her statement made me remember her parents somehow, obviously she had their school but I wonder how much she agreed with them. “That’s... a word to describe it, yes.” I answered incredulous, “So where are you staying?” I asked, as I noticed I have already found my room.

We discovered we were room neighbors which I decided was very convenient for me. I liked people who have answers to my questions. 

She was concerned about my acoustic guitar hobby and I assured her I hadn’t brought mine with me. “The music room will do.”  And she assured me her studying was going to be silent. 

The conversation continued but my curiosity was already unbearable, so I opened the door of my room to check it out. I didn’t want to be rude so I invited Reggie inside as we talked.

“What are you working on?” I stepped inside

She followed. “Political Science Major.”

I gave her a glance to let her know that was not the answer I was looking for. 

She blinked with realization. “Oh, I see I misunderstood. Well, actually I was just writing a paper on the pros and cons of capitalism and if our country should focus more on it like we did when we were still called the 'United States'” She air quoted the name.

I looked around my room considering her answer. Suddenly my eyes met with three maids standing in line in the middle of the room. When they saw us they made a courtesy and I nodded at them as a greeting, hoping we can have proper introductions later.

“Hmm the lesser of evils... but the United States not exactly an example to be followed.” I said to Reggie. 

“Exactly.” She said. I noticed her writing a mark in her notebook.  

“A-are you like grading me?” I dared to ask what I had suspected since the beginning, but I didn’t want to believe. It was shocking at first but after the third mark it became amusing.

“Who else do you have in there?” I asked curiously before running next to her to peek at her notebook.  She closed it again. When I looked at her she smiled at me awkwardly “No, of course not. Just remembered something.” Her notebook was behind her back, now out of my reach. She straightened her shoulders before adding, “Well, thank you kindly for your invitation, glad to have met you…”

I stayed there confused, Had I gotten it wrong? Or was I right and she didn’t want me to know? Anyway, I should have said nothing.  “Alright ... glad to meet you too, see you around.” I said worried that she might be uncomfortable now. 

She nodded as she headed to the door. One of the maids hurried to hold the door for her. 

I frowned concerned, I couldn’t just lose a source like her. “Wait for me tomorrow, I think we can walk to the dining room together.”

She turned to give me a frown, seemingly confused by my suggestion. “But I already know where it-” then she smiled. “I will.”

As soon as Reggie left I took out the journal from the pocket of my dress and tossed on the pretty desk by a large window where I peered at the view of the Angeles city.

                                                                                       FOR THE RECORD.

After introductions my maids brought me dinner up to my room. So while I was eating the best creamy mustard chicken I ever had, we had a little chat. 

Among other things we talked about I expressed my surprise when I didn’t see any Royals when we arrived. Liberty, Camila and confirmed the Schreaves didn’t plan to meet any selected tonight, we would have to wait until morning. Queen Anjeli and Princess Ayesha had to leave the palace to attend important matters and Wylan Caldwell in spite of not being a selected was currently living in the Palace. Back in Labrador, I managed between college, work and extra work to fill my schedule, my mother never liked me being out of the house so late at night or sometimes not being able to have a complete breakfast in the morning, I enjoyed being busy and drive my Vespa from one place to another, but it was hard for me to admit that one of the reasons I liked my life that way was that besides when I was concentrated writing notes on my iTypewriter; I was not good at being alone with my thoughts. That’s why when I was a child my mother bought me a ukulele to play when I was feeling anxious, which gave excellent results. Later when I entered college I took a short guitar course with the same purpose. 

Therefore, later that afternoon, when my maids went back to their chores, leaving me alone I decided to leave my room to check out the music room, as I promised Reggie I would do. 

It took me some minutes to find the right door downstairs but my memory had never failed me and it wasn’t going to start now. 

I opened the third door in the west hall and peeked inside. I felt relieved when I saw the big piano in the last corner and dared to walk inside. Besides the piano, there were several instruments resting on their stands spread around the room, most of them to play classical music, but luckily, an acoustic guitar was among them. I was going to pick it up to test it when I spotted shelves full of old vinyl records. 

I walked towards the vinyl record player, it had a beautiful vintage look, it’s big horn imitated the ancient gramophones used during the Victorian years, but I suspected to be a more recent model. 

I noticed someone had left a classic record on, I wonder which one of the Royals had been listening to it as I moved the tonearm onto the outer edge of the disk, the little diamond tip to touch the groove. 

I guess I still remember how to use one of this. 

I stretched my arm and pulled one of the discs from the upper shelf, the others came down with it and  << "KNEEE-KNEEE!!" >>

The blaring sound of violins vibrated around the room making me wince for the annoying sound filling my ears.

“Damn!” I covered my ears while trying to find a way to turn the bloody record player off before my head exploded. Overwhelmed by the sound I went on my knees and stretched my hand behind the furniture looking desperately for the plug, but before I could find any the music stopped. 

I stood up still touching my ears 

Have I gone deaf? 

“I take you didn’t mean to do that.” I heard someone say behind me. 

Okay, I haven’t 

I turned around to find a guy eyeing me warily, from the corner of my eye I noticed a laptop and a couple of heavy leather books that weren't on the table before. 

“I was considering turning it on but it made the decision for me,” I said without explaining. 

At that moment, a couple of guards came into the room alarmed. They scanned the room quickly before looking at us puzzled. 

Wylan followed my gaze and turned to them, slightly. “Just a mishap. We’re fine.” He acknowledged with a wave of his hand. I let out a sigh of relief as they left the room to return to their posts.

“First time using a record player?” He asked to continue teasing

I gave him a deadpan look. “Ha-ha I take that the last person who played it had some hearing problems.” Before I crouched to pick up the rest of the vinyl records still scattered on the carpeted floor, I noticed a smile tugging at his lips that didn’t last.

In a minute he was bending in front of me to help. “You picked some good ones.”

Suddenly we looked at each other for a second, I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at his for a second trying to figure any sign of sarcasm in them, and he just had the word “awkward” written all over his face. Obviously I was making him feel uncomfortable. 

I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so busy trying to read him. 

“I like classics- acoustic to be precise.” I finally said with a shrug. “Do you own any of these?”

“This John Mayer one is mine. I have some other ones too. They’re over there.” He gestured to the rack behind me, then stood up with the vinyls he helped pick up.

I raised my eyebrow and nodded approvingly. “You have some taste, I will give you that.” I looked up at him, waiting for him to offer his hand for me to help me stand, but apparently living in a castle was no guarantee of anything, so I just stood up slowly, brushing my dress. 

“Some were gifts I grew to love.” He acknowledged, holding the vinyls out for me. “I’d recommend keeping the volume down before you turn it on next time.”

I took the discs to put them back in its place on the shelves “Well, you should put a sign somewhere,” I joked, a bit annoyed by his recommendation. 

I adjusted my glasses and stayed standing there, admiring the vinyl records once more. My curious mind wondered about the Prince. “Which ones are Arin’s?”

“I’m not sure. He might not own any.” I caught him glancing at his things he had left on the table before back to me. “Might be a good question to ask him yourself.”

Or you’re just evading the question. But fortunately, one of the things my job had teached me was to have thick skin so I wasn’t going to let him get away so easily. 

“You really don’t know or you don’t want to tell me?” I asked with an amusing tone.

He let out a small sigh, relenting a bit. “He likes The Killers. There’s probably a vinyl or two of those in here if you really need a good conversation starter.”

I faked a grimace “ugh! that piece of information should’ve hurt…” I said mockingly before adding. “I guess some advice for tomorrow’s interview is completely out of the table.” 

“Depends on what advice you’re looking for,” he let out, surprising me. 

I started to walk around the room still looking at him, considering my answer. “I don’t know, you are his friend... knowing a little bit about his personality would help,” I said casually, as if I didn’t already have thousands of questions listed in my head. 

But somehow he knew I did. “I’ll answer one question you have. Just one.”

“So generous …” I said more to myself than to him. My hand went unconsciously inside the pocket on my dress and my fingers touched my journal inside of it, purely out of habit. Of course, I wasn’t going to take it out so I crossed my hands in front of me as I resumed my walking around the room. 

“Okay…” In my mind I was looking for a single question that could indirectly tell me things about Arins personality … and why not about Mr. Uncomfortable himself too. 

“How do you start getting along back in college, like how did you become friends?”

Suddenly he let out a laugh, startling me. I frowned at first, but then I decided it wasn’t so bad, it picked my curiousness further.

I looked at him genuinely amused and he begined, “We were both going for runs and without knowing, I drifted a little too close. I was listening to music and not paying attention. His bodyguard sort of…” He paused to bring his fist to his neck simulating a punch. “And took me down.” I could see he was amused, for real. 

I laughed picturing the scene on my mind, considering all his previous teasing and had to admit it was a little bit entertaining to do so. “Ouch! His bodyguard does look ... fierce.” I commented remembering the man’s complexion I had seen several times on TV.

I wait for him to continue before asking, “what happened next? What did Arin say?”

His smile was more like a ghost on his face now, not physically there but somehow still present. “He apologized. After that we found out we shared a couple classes together and I offered to help him study for exams.”

“That’s an epic story… I bet it left you marked for some days.” I made a grimace, touching my neck, imagining the pain.

“Swallowing hurt, to say the least,” he said, remembering. After a minute, he combed a hand through his hair. “ Did that satisfy your question?”

“Hmm yeah, it was good, for now” I answered scoffing a laugh. The truth was I didn’t expect to enjoy his story that much, but I just couldn’t settle with only one question, but it wasn’t convenient to push more questions on him now. 

Fortunately he didn’t refuse, he just rolled his eyes at me, amused. “Alright, well I have to get back to work. At least try to not deafen the entire palace again.”

“I can’t promise anything.” I let out, finally taking the acoustic guitar from its stand, while he turned to gather his things.

“Reassuring.” He gave me a side glance and started walking out the room, he offered a two fingered salute before disappearing behind the opened door. 

After a second, while looking down at the guitar already in place on my lap, I compelled,  “Wylan... thanks!”

“You're welcome.” 

I heard him say from the hallway just before I started strumming the guitar strings, hoping its sound was enough to help me survive the first night. 

[advernia]

around june of last year, i decided to revive my writing blog as one of the many potential stress-relief methods i could think of.... i didn’t think i’d be able to keep it active for long since work + family duties keep me preoccupied most of the time, but eyyy!!! so far i haven’t lost the motivation to keep going back to this blog, and i even managed to keep it afloat for half a year!!! amazing!!! (•̀o•́)ง

and now here we are halfway through 2020!!! it’s waaaay overdue but here’s a big T H A N K  Y O U  V E R Y  M U C H ! ! ! to everyone and anyone who dropped by this blog last year + all them likes, comments, reblogs...... please know that i’m still i n c r e d i b l y grateful for the support & interest in the content i’ve posted up!!!! tbh my activity’s still hella sporadic so it’s really amazing for me that i even gained new followers.... i’m very honored to have all of you stick around my blog despite my irregularity!!!!!!!! (༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ)

it’s also overdue, but i slowly managed and finally cleaned up the blog like i’ve been meaning to do + changed the blog name to match my ao3 handle for consistency!!! i make no promises to be super active... but i’m sure that i still want to continue writing & keep this blog alive!!!! 

again, thank you all for your time + reading my works!!!!!!  ∩( ´∀` )∩ work commentary on the rest of my works last year follows under the cut!

oct 1 // hero’s journey

a drabble on blanc + oliver about the alices... now that i think of it, calling the first alice first alice is kinda funny considering that alice is really her name... or is it? 

i do hope blanc’s route talks about her a bit, haha! i mean, i wish cybird remembers that they’ve been dropping the occasional background tidbits about her... like for example, her pocketwatch (that she gave to blanc eventually) having a magic crystal engraved into it.... her potentially leaving a fucking globe in the black army’s possession (like... wow... u fell with that thing????????)....

plus, i just find it interesting that she was remembered by cradle as a heck of a troublemaker lol! it also makes you wonder who among the main cast met her, blanc aside... though it’s not stated when exactly she fell into cradle, so maybe only blanc had the opportunity of meeting her...

so does blanc speak of her fondly bc she’s a woman, or is there something else??? has he been frequently visiting the land of reason pre-game??? has he found the first alice’s antique shop / met her again??? does he still try to figure out the reason why there’s a magic crystal engraved into the first alice’s pocketwatch????? hmmmmm......

on another note, it would be hilarious if cybird pulls a peter pan 2......... since we can’t pull off a mother-daughter relationship like wendy & jane’s, what if alice the second is somehow actually related to the first alice?? and while she’s completely different from her predecessor, blanc finds himself falling for alice the second........ just like he fell for the first alice? drama!

that’s just a random thought but kidding aside, i do hope blanc’s route is hella interesting bc i think he’s our mr. exposition for knowing more about cradle itself lol

oct 1 // fair (?) ladies & phony (?) enchanters

a result of going manic a few days after seeing harr’s trailer + route release.... ahaHAHA I’M STILL WILLING TO PLAY UR ROUTE IN JP HARR (if i actually had time to sit down and translate gET REKT)

i liked writing these drabbles and i think they’re cute but tbh they did nothing to ease my curiosity about harr’s route.... if anything else, it became even w o r s e  haha........................

if i think of blanc to have a cradle-centric route, i do hope harr’s route is magic tower-centric! naturally it will be since he’s got history there, but i hope a lot of my questions about the magic tower will be answered.....

will harr’s perspective of the magic tower be in the eyes of a test subject or a disciple???? he was scouted by the magic tower, but it wasn’t stated what he was doing exactly..... going by hints + loki’s & zero’s routes, it’s more of him being a disciple, so there’s bound to be guilt.......

hopefully alice’s characterization in his route is good + we get a fun group dynamic with loki!!! their potential.... the most(?) notorious criminal of cradle, a sought after test subject, and that one girl who nullifies all magic; a renegade trio lurking around the forbidden forest.... what an odd bunch!

oct 4 // god is a five minute hymn

a religious themed fic with lancelot & alice - tbh i don’t even know why religion was the first thing that came into mind when liz and i were talking about cultural differences, lol.

on that note though! i personally like thinking that if ever cradle had a semblance of a religion, it would be polytheistic & nature-centric, and not strictly practiced - the stratocracy of both territories i’d like to think makes it harder for religion to have a voice, much less have one that is practiced by the general population. the only thing general about it is that the religion centers or has magic crystals as an important factor... or something. yeah.

that aside, i think i specifically chose lancelot in this piece for the sole reason that his canonically stated lack of common sense, in my opinion, gives him the curiosity of a child sometimes - there’s no sense of malice or doubt, just the pure innocence of wanting to know something....... religion does that to kids, especially when introduced to it at first.

rereading the fic makes me think of the instances where when faced with dire or unsettling situations, people turn to faith as a life line.... well, i’m not sure if i had that subconsciously in mind when writing alice, but that does give a spin to it....

oct 6 // flow like the river nile

a spontaneous red army-centric fic! it certainly turned out better than i expected... i liked the formatting i used for this one!

if cybird can give us more about the pre-game suitors it would be great, tbh! and while the stuff about them in school is interesting, i’d like to see more about when they assumed their positions + combat scenes! the neutrals are special cases, but knowing more about their living conditions + daily lives is also a treat...

i was thinking of adding one last snippet about lancelot in the eyes of the reds, but i scrapped it out and switched it to alice & lancelot’s conversation about duty - it could’ve worked better if i stuck to using the what is your duty? question, but i scrapped it eventually too. ah well. it does look good enough as it is. 

oct 7 // seeking out phantoms

a mandatory(???) odd one out aka content that’s not ikerev, haha! i missed fe:a all of a sudden...

i never got around to writing properly for this fandom tho, what a shame - i’ve got some bits of pieces in my drafts that looked interesting and easy enough to pick up, and this was one of them.

robin investigating more of their plegian heritage could’ve been a good subplot tbh... i still wish there was something like a paralogue or dlc about it, bc honestly the valm arc goes a bit slow until you get to the future past revelations. ah well.

and gaius bc first husband for the win.... not like i actually had the guts to marry anyone else in my other save files lololol

nov 7 // push me off a bridge (to catch me as i fall)

my longest project of 2019, holy shit! i didn’t know i still had it in me to write something past 10k... i need more of that motivation + energy....

there’s nothing much to say about this since i blabbed about everything in the post-reading notes, but as much as i fought myself to get this done, i really enjoyed writing a long fic again! hopefully i can get myself to write another one this year...

nov 18 // beloved, beloved, let me be clear

18 sentences on zero & alice + macross frontier references! man, when i really got to the point about the earrings i was thinking of sheryl a lot....

kept it in sentences cause i didn’t have enough time to put up a decent ficlet! but i really wanted to get my screaming out of my system....... i used to do sentences + three word sentences challenges before, and doing one again was pretty fun!

but really.... zero’s route kept me happy for days???? their buildup + dynamic was something i was totally w e a k for, no joke..... thank gods the collection event was going on, bc i really made good use of my stocked chapter tickets lolol!

i was especially excited come the ball scene, and that cg..... a h a h a.... i need more of those pretty cgs where i can see alice’s face + costume change....... 

nov 20 // coloring inside the lines

jonah + alice + makeup!!!! tbh this was really fun, i enjoyed writing this one - if i remember, this was a fic that i managed to continuously work on the day i thought it up!

jonah may not be my best boy but tbh i find writing him very easy - i guess it’s because i’m very fond of characters like him!!! those uptight nobles who are as prideful as hell but can definitely live up to their name + are more capable than their bragging suggests... idk if there’s a general trope name for these doods, but i especially like analyzing their motivations + convictions!!!

i liked how i ended it, but i apparently i made an actual ending that’s now a snippet in my drafts - jonah & alice head to the ball, and somewhere along some bystanders’ flow of conversation someone drops a comment about jonah’s lips looking... quite more luscious than usual, lolol. so t h i r s t y. upon hearing this, alice can’t seem to stop smiling for some reason..... 

nov 27 // blue fields, verdant skies

a practice drabble set centric on a ray/alice development that i liked so much i made it into a series - plus, it’s black army content and honestly i need to write more of them! my red army bias is showing whoooooops

it’s a feudal + arranged marriage au, with the latter... being quite spontaneous. it’s those types of marriages where neither have even met - not even once - only to face each other come the wedding... so it’s a given that audiences from both parties are rather curious how this will turn out.

since i had the theme of fate in mind, ray was the automatic pick for the male lead. the rest of the black army is a given and for kicks, i added dean and dalim! i actually want to write about them + mousse, but since i’m still unsure on their characterizations i’ve been holding them off.... but i gave in anyway.....

alice is again named for word count convenience purposes since it’s in actual 100 words aka drabble form! i have planned scenes + an ending already in mind, but going there is pretty hard bc.... i still have to write the scenes in between + resist temptation to expand further on other scenes, haha....

initially i was planning to keep it updated here as well, but any more updates of this are on ao3 instead! the formatting looks better there instead of my blog tbh, and it also gives it a sort of muted tone to the story that works with me!

this is also the 31st fic in this blog, marking an end of the challenge liz bestowed to me lolol - since i brought this blog back to life around june, i was dared that by the end of the year, i should’ve posted more than 15 fics to add up to the initial 15 i had already posted before, thus the numbers on my fics back then.... now that i actually succeeded, i can stop counting lololol!!!! tho hopefully i can still be pretty active this year....

dec 22 // duck, duck, bullet

oliver & fenrir on guns... this probably wins as the most spontaneous idea i had on my head - tbh, i wasn’t even sure where i was going with it at first! but i’m sure i was suddenly thinking about that one detective conan movie.... then it became kid!oliver with a gun.....

i wonder if he tests the bullets at night, when he’s in adult form.... then again, kid!oliver with a gun still works.... say that because he’s a genius inventor, he made some models to serve as his shooting targets.... but another thought that amuses me more is.... blanc does the bullet testing for him!?

lololol i already thought about blanc being oliver’s live target, but i also find blanc with a gun very interesting.......... i mean, blanc certainly doesn’t look like he can fight, but who knows??? i mean, mousse is the former ace of hearts, but i still can’t imagine him fighting..... appearances can be deceiving....

the two aside, i wonder how fenrir even met oliver and got him working on his bullets........ was it through blanc or other connections???? how long have they been seller and buyer???? does anyone else commission anything from oliver?????? hmmmm.....

dec 23 // terms of surrender

i’ve been told by liz + luci + other friends that i needed to practice writing more.... cheesy fluff. i’m not sure if this sirius/alice piece counts, lol. in fact, i think it’s my��definition of fluff i see here - and it translates to not exactly fluffy at all!

tho if you want me to be honest about it - when i write suitor/alice stuff, how alice was characterized in the suitor’s route is still my basis for how i’ll write her, and sirius’ alice................ haha......... i think she’s the alice that’s honestly easy to write but i choose to avoid.......... 

i don’t dislike the sirius/alice dynamic per se, tho. i do find it cute, especially if cybird stops emphasizing the issue of maturity in the relationship on alice’s side. i understand - i really do - that it’s a potential issue in the relationship, but...... that’s not the only problem you can possibly have as time passes, right?????

on another note, it’s funny that only sirius gets to be harped about the maturity due to age difference issue - setting aside blanc, who heavens know how old he is, lancelot’s 29 and since alice is presumed to be around ray + fenrir’s age, you could say that she’s 24 or even 23 to be safe.... so that makes a 5 / 6 years difference but it’s never brought up, lol. but i guess it’s because unlike lancelot, the black army’s been making sirius’ age a running gag....

anyway, this piece is pretty decent! i was thinking of something along the lines of mornings between a “married couple”.... there were two scenarios i had in mind, and i opted to write this one out first.... maybe i’ll have the second one posted up here another day.

dec 28 // a chain of black thrones

pre-game!sirius & ray and bc i was thinking a lot about the previous chosen, the former jack of spades!!! i wonder if the armies have a set age for retirement lolol... it would be awesome if there was still a chosen who’s already past his 50s or something, haha!

since sirius was constantly badgered to take on the role of king, i was also wondering about how long the black army was ‘king-less’... i mean, if the tension between both armies was really as great as they say, having no king puts the black army at a precarious position... i also thought that ‘nah, maybe there was a king or something but maybe the black army didn’t like him or something so they insisted that sirius take it instead’ but sirius’ 1st anniv. epilogue says otherwise - there really was a period that the black army had no king, wow. how the heck did they deal with that???? surely the red army saw this as a display of vulnerability....

can the black army’s chosen choose to leave their posts when they feel like it??? when they’re defeated by a challenger, what happens to them - a demotion, or do they serve under the ‘new’ chosen??? does the black army’s chosen change constantly because of their meritocracy + challenger system??? like, how do they deal with that, and do they announce their changes in chosen each council meeting??? each new question just snowballed my curiosity, whoops...

there were so many angles i thought of but i decided to settle for addressing the king-less state of the black army... through the eyes of a veteran who’s probably served many kings throughout his time of service as part of the black army’s chosen.

i gave this jack of spades character a name, actually - garret folner. maybe someday i’ll write him again, bc i actually enjoyed thinking about the present + past chosen interactions - maybe i’d think about that for the red army, but this time i find the black army’s side more interesting for this situation.

dec 29 // steadfast tin soldier

a zero/alice piece for zeroweek - i was about to post pt. 1 as a standalone, but then i just thought about how.... zero bought alice a gown.... but never got to dance with her at the day of the ball..... so i rushed to add pt. 2 haha!

with the addition of pt. 2 it looks cut short tho - i did think of putting a scene in between, but no good ideas came into mind bc i was too fascinated with the dancing scene... i swear at some point i will find myself writing a fic or a part of a fic that’s a dance scene for the rest of the ikerev suitors + alice....

this is the kind of fluff i live for, actually... i’m totally fine with the steamy content cybird throws during events + bonus stories, but if i were to be honest i say.... where’s my non-sexual intimacy????? the simple, wholesome stuff?????????????????

man, i feel hilarious for typing that out..... but well, i guess it’s a matter of different strokes for different folks, lol!

[maximelebled]

Growing Pains - Zelda, Tony Hawk, The Sims, games and related memories from my formative years

This blog post is about my personal history with video games, how they influenced me growing up, how they sometimes helped me, and more or less an excuse to write about associated memories with them.

This is a very straightforward intro, because I’ve had this post sitting as a draft for ages, trying to glue all of it cohesively, but I’m not a very good writer, so I never really succeeded. Some of these paragraphs date back at least one year. 

And I figured I should write about a lot of this as long as I still remember clearly, or not too inaccurately. Because I know that I don’t remember my earliest ever memory. I only remember how I remember it. So I might as well help my future self here, and give myself a good memento.

Anyway, the post is a kilometer long, so it’ll be under this cut.

My family got a Windows 95 computer when I was 3 years old. While I don’t remember this personally, I’m told that one of the first things I ever did with it was mess up with the BIOS settings so badly that dad’s computer-expert friend had to be invited to repair it. (He stayed for dinner as a thank you.)

It was that off-white plastic tower, it had a turbo button, and even a 4X CD reader! Wow! And the CRT monitor must have been... I don’t remember what it was, actually. But I do once remember launching a game at a stupidly high resolution: 1280x1024! And despite being a top-down 2D strategy, it ran VERY slowly. Its video card was an ATI Rage. I had no idea what that really meant that at the time, but I do recall that detail nonetheless.

Along with legitimately purchased games, the list of which I can remember:

Tubular Worlds

Descent II

Alone in the Dark I & III

Lost Eden

Formula One (not sure which game exactly)

Heart of Darkness

(and of course the famous Adibou/Adi series of educational games)

... we also had what I realize today were cracked/pirated games, from the work-friend that had set up the family computer. I remember the following:

Age of Empires I (not sure about that one, I think it might have been from a legitimate “Microsoft Plus!” disc)

Nightmare Creatures (yep, there was a PC port of that game)

Earthworm Jim (but without any music)

The Fifth Element

Moto Racer II

There are a few other memorable games, which were memorable in most aspects, except their name. I just cannot remember their name. And believe me, I have looked. Too bad! Anyway, in this list, I can point out a couple games that made a big mark on me.

First, the Alone in the Dark trilogy. It took me a long time to beat them. I still remember the morning I beat the third game. I think it was in 2001 or 2002.

There was a specific death in it which gave me nightmares for a week. You shrink yourself to fit through a crack in a wall, but it’s possible to let a timer run out—or fall down a hole—and this terrifying thing happens (16:03). I remember sometimes struggling to run the game for no reason; something about DOS Extended Memory being too small.

I really like the low-poly flat-shaded 3D + hand-drawn 2D style of the game, and it’d be really cool to see something like that pop up again. After the 8-bit/16-bit trend, there’s now more and more games paying tribute to rough PS1-style 3D, so maybe this will happen? Maybe I’ll have to do it myself? Who knows!

Second, Lost Eden gave me a taste for adventure and good music, and outlandish fantasy universes. Here’s the intro to the game:

A lot of the game is very evocative, especially its gorgeous soundtrack, and you spend a lot of time trekking through somewhat empty renders of landscapes. Despite being very rough early pre-rendered 3D, those places were an incredible journey in my young eyes. If you have some time, I suggest either playing the game (it’s available on Steam) or watching / skimmering through this “longplay” video. Here are some of my personal highlights: 25:35, 38:05, 52:15 (love that landscape), 1:17:20, 1:20:20 (another landscape burned in my neurons), 2:12:10, 2:55:30, 3:01:18. (spoiler warning)

But let’s go a couple years back. Ever since my youngest years, I was very intrigued by creation. I filled entire pocket-sized notebooks with writing—sometimes attempts at fiction, sometimes daily logs like the weather reports from the newspaper, sometimes really bad attempts at drawing. I also filled entire audio tapes over and over and OVER with “fake shows” that my sister and I would act out. The only thing that survived is this picture of 3-year-old me with the tape player/recorder.

It also turns out that the tape recorder AND the shelf have both survived.

(I don’t know if it still works.)

On Wednesday afternoons (school was off) and on the week-ends, I often got to play on the family computer, most of the time with my older brother, who’s the one who introduced me to... well... all of it, really. (Looking back on the games he bought, I can say he had very good tastes.)

Moto Racer II came with a track editor. It was simple but pretty cool to play around with. You just had to make the track path and elevation; all the scenery was generated by the game. You could draw impossible tracks that overlapped themselves, but the editor wouldn’t let you save them. However, I found out there was a way to play/save them no matter what you did, and I got to experiment with crazy glitches. 85 degree inclines that launched the bike so high you couldn’t see the ground anymore? No problem. Tracks that overlapped themselves several times, causing very strange behaviour at the meeting points? You bet. That stuff made me really curious about how video games worked. I think a lot of my initial interest in games can be traced back to that one moment I figured out how to exploit the track editor...

There was also another game—I think it was Tubular Worlds—that came on floppy disks. I don’t remember what exactly lead me to do it, but I managed to edit the text that was displayed by the installer... I think it was the license agreement bit of it. That got me even more curious as to how computers worked.

Up until some time around my 13th or 14th birthday, during summer break (the last days of June to the first days of September for French pupils), my sister and I would always go on vacation at my grandparents’ home.

The very first console game I ever played was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my cousin’s Super Nintendo, who also usually stayed with us. Unlike us, he had quite a few consoles available to him, and brought a couple along. My first time watching and playing this game was absolutely mind-blowing to me. An adventure with a huge game world to explore, so many mysterious things at every corner. “Why are you a pink rabbit now?” “I’m looking for the pearl that will help me not be that.”

Growing up and working in the games industry has taken the magic out of many things in video games... and my curiosity for the medium (and its inner workings) definitely hasn’t helped. I know more obscure technical trivia about older games than I care to admit. But I think this is what is shaping my tastes in video games nowadays... part of it is that I crave story-rich experiences that can bring me back to a, for lack of a better term, “child-like” wonderment. And I know how weird this is going to sound, but I don’t really enjoy “pure gameplay” games as much for that reason. Some of the high-concept ones are great, of course (e.g. Tetris), but I usually can’t enjoy others without a good interwoven narrative. I can’t imagine I would have completed The Talos Principle had it consisted purely of the puzzles without any narrative beats, story bits, and all that. What I’m getting at is, thinking about it, I guess I tend to value the “narrative” side of games pretty highly, because, to me, it’s one of the aspects of the medium that, even if distillable to some formulas, is inherently way more “vague” and “ungraspable”. You can do disassembly on game mechanics and figure out even the most obsure bits of weird technical trivia. You can’t do that to a plot, a universe, characters, etc. or at least nowhere near to the same extent.

You can take a good story and weave it into a number of games, but the opposite is not true. It’s easy to figure out the inner working of gameplay mechanics, and take the magic out of them, but it’s a lot harder to do that for a story, unless it’s fundamentally flawed in some way.

Video games back then seemed a lot bigger than they actually were.

I got Heart of Darkness as a gift in 1998 or 1999. We used to celebrate Christmas at my grandparents’, so I had to wait a few days to be back home, and to able to put the CD in the computer. But boy was it worth it! Those animated cutscenes! The amazing pixel art animations! The amazing and somewhat disturbing variety of ways in which you can die, most of which gruesome and mildly graphic! And of course, yet again... a strange and outlandish universe that just scratches my itch for it. Well, one of which that forged my taste for them.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened or what it was, but I do remember that at some point we visited some sort of... exposition? Exhibit? Something along those lines. And it had a board games & computer games section. The two that stick out in my mind were Abalone (of which I still have the box somewhere) and what I think was some sort of 2D isometric (MMO?) RPG. I wanna say it was Ultima Online but I recall it looking more primitive than that (it had small maps whose “void” outside them was a single blueish color). 

In my last two years of elementary school, there was one big field trip per year. They lasted two weeks, away from family. The first one was to the Alps. The second one was... not too far from where I live now, somewhere on the coast of Brittany! I have tried really hard to find out exactly where it was, as I remember the building and facilities really well, but I was never able to find it again. On a couple occasions, we went on a boat with some kind of... algae harvesters? The smell was extremely strong (burning itself into my memory) and made me sick. The reason I bring them up is because quite a few of my classmates had Game Boy consoles, most of them with, you know, all those accessories, especially the little lights. I remember being amazed at the transparent ones. Play was usually during the off-times, and I watched what my friends were up to, with, of course, a bit of jealousy mixed in. The class traveled by bus, and it took off in the middle of the night; something like 3 or 4 in the morning? It seemed like such a huge deal at the time! Now here I am, writing THESE WORDS at 03:00. Anyway, most of my classmates didn’t fall back asleep and those that had a Game Boy just started playing on them. One of my classmates, however, handed me his whole kit and I got to do pretty much what I wanted with it, with the express condition that I would not overwrite any of his save files. I remember getting reasonably far in Pokémon before I had to give it back to him and my progress was wiped.

During the trip to the Alps, I remember seeing older kids paying for computer time; there was a row of five computers in a small room... and they played Counter-Strike. I had absolutely no idea what it was, and I would forget about it until the moment I’m writing these words, but I was watching with much curiosity.

The first time I had my own access to console games was in 2001. The first Harry Potter film had just come out, and at Christmas, I was gifted a Game Boy Advance with the first official game. I just looked it up again and good god, it’s rougher than I remember. The three most memorable GBA games which I then got to play were both Golden Sun(s) and Sword of Mana... especially the latter, with its gorgeous art direction. My dad had a cellphone back then, and I remember sneakily going on there to look up a walkthrough for a tricky part of Golden Sun’s desert bit. Cellphones had access to something called “WAP” internet... very basic stuff, but of course still incredible to me back then.

I eventually got to play another Zelda game on my GBA: Link’s Awakening DX. I have very fond memories of that one because I was bed-ridden with a terrible flu. My fever ran so high that I started having some really funky dreams, delirious half-awake hallucinations/feelings, and one night, I got so hot that I stumbled out of bed and just laid down against the cold tile of the hallway. At 3 in the morning! A crazy time! (Crazy for 11-year-old me.)

(The fever hallucinations were crazy. My bedroom felt like it was three times at big, and I was convinced that a pack of elephants were charging at me from the opposite corner. The “night grain” of my vision felt sharper, amplified. Every touch, my sore body rubbing against the bed covers felt like it was happening twice as much. You know that “Heavy Rain with 300% facial animation” video? Imagine that, but as a feverish feeling. The dreams were on another level entirely. I could spend pages on them, but suffice to say that’s when I had my first dream where I dreamed of dying. There were at least two, actually. The first one was by walking down a strange, blueish metal corridor, then getting in an elevator, and then feeling that intimate convinction that it was leading me to passing over. The second one was in some Myst-like world, straight out of a Roger Dean cover, with some sort of mini-habitat pods floating on a completely undisturbed lake. We were just trapped in them. It just felt like some kind of weird afterlife.)

I also eventually got to play the GBA port of A Link To The Past. My uncle was pretty amused by seeing me play it, as he’d also played the original on SNES before I’d even been born. I asked him for help with a boss (the first Dark World one), but unfortunately, he admitted he didn’t remember much of the game.

We had a skiing holiday around this time. I don’t remember the resort’s or the town’s name, but its sights are burned in my memory. Maybe it’s because, shortly after we arrived, and we went to the ski rental place, I almost fainted and puked on myself, supposedly from the low oxygen. It also turned out that the bedroom my parents had rented unexpectedly came with a SNES in the drawer under the tiny TV. The game: Super Mario World. I got sick at one point and got to stay in and play it. This was also the holiday where I developed a fondness for iced tea, although back then the most common brand left an awful aftertaste in your mouth that just made you even more thirsty.

We got a new PC in December of 2004. Ditching the old Windows 98 SE (yep, the OS had been upgraded in... 2002, I think?). Look at how old-school this looks. The computer office room was in the basement. Even with the blur job that I applied to the monitor for privacy reasons, you can still tell that this is the XP file explorer:

A look at what the old DSLR managed to capture on the shelf reveals some more of the games that were available to me back then: a bunch of educational software, The Sims 2, and SpellForce Gold. 

I might be misremembering but I think they were our Christmas gifts for that year; we both got to pick one game. I had no idea what I wanted, really, but out of all the boxes at (what I think was) the local Fnac store, it was SpellForce that stood out to me the most. Having watched Lord of the Rings the year prior might have been a factor. I somewhat understood Age of Empires years before that, but SpellForce? Man, I loved the hell out of SpellForce. Imagine a top-down RPG that can also be played from a third-person perspective. And with the concept of... hero units... wait a second... now that reminds me of Dota.

Imagine playing a Dota hero with lots of micro-management and being able to build a whole base on new maps. And sometimes visiting very RPG-ish sections (my favorites!) with very little top-down strategy bits, towns, etc. like Siltbreaker. I guess this game was somewhat like an alternate, single-player Dota if you look at it from the right angle. (Not the third-person one.)

I do remember being very excited when I found out that it, too, came with a level editor. I never figured it out, though. I only ever got as far as making a nice landscape for my island, and that was it!

A couple weeks after, it was Christmas; my sister and I got our first modern PC game: The Sims 2. It didn’t run super well—most games didn’t, because the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 wasn’t very good. But that didn’t stop me or my sister from going absolutely nuts with the game. This video has the timestamp of 09 January 2005, and it is the first video I’ve ever made with a computer. Less than two weeks after we got the game, I was already neck-deep in creating stuff.

Not that it was particularly good, of course. This is a video that meets all of the “early YouTube Windows Movie Maker clichés”.

Speaking of YouTube, I did register an account there pretty early on, in August of 2006. I’ve been through all of it. I remember every single layout change. I also started using Sony Vegas around that time. It felt so complex and advanced back then! And I’m still using it today. Besides Windows, Vegas Pro is very likely to be the piece of software that I’ve been using for the longest time.

I don’t have a video on YouTube from before 2009, because I decided to delete all of them out of embarassment. They were mostly Super Mario 64 machinima. It’s as bad as it sounds. The reason I bring that up right now, though, is that it makes the “first” video of my account the last one I made with the Sims 2.

But before I get too far ahead with my early YouTube days, let me go backwards a bit. We got hooked up to the Internet some time in late 2005. It was RTC (dialup), 56 kbps. my first steps into the Internet led me to the Cube engine. Mostly because back then my dad would purchase computer magazines (which were genuinely helpful back then), and came with CDs of common downloadable software for those without Internet connections. One of them linked to Cube. I think it was using either this very same screenshot, or a very similar one, on the same map.

The amazing thing about Cube is not only that it was open-source and moddable, but had map editing built-in the game. The mode was toggled on with a single key press. You could even edit maps cooperatively with other people. Multiplayer mapping! How cool is that?! And the idea of a game that enabled so much creation was amazing to me, so I downloaded it right away. (Over the course of several hours, 30 MiB being large for dialup.)

I made lots of bad maps that never fulfilled the definition of “good level” or “good gameplay”, not having any idea how “game design” meant, or what it even was. But I made places. Places that I could call my own. “Virtual homes”. I still distinctively remember the first map I ever made, even though no trace of it survives to this day. In the second smallest map size possible, I’d made a tower surrounded by a moat and a few smaller cozy towers, with lots of nice colored lighting. This, along with the distinctive skyboxes and intriguing music, made me feel like I’d made my home in a strange new world.

At some point later down the line, I made a kinda-decent singleplayer level. It was very linear, but one of the two lead developers of the game played it and told me he liked it a lot! Of course, half of that statement was probably “to be nice”, but it was really validating and encouraging. And I’m glad they were like that. Because I remember being annoying to some other mappers in the Sauerbraten community (the follow-up to Cube, more advanced technically), who couldn’t wrap their heads around my absolutely god awful texturing work and complete lack of level “design”. Honestly, sometimes, I actually kinda feel like trying to track a couple of them down and being like, “yeah, remember that annoying kid? That was me. Sorry you had to deal with 14-year-old me.”

At some point, I stumbled upon a mod called Cube Legends. It was a heavily Zelda-inspired “total conversion”; a term reserved for mods that are the moddiest mods and try to take away as much of the original foundation as possible. It featured lots of evocative MIDI music by the Norwegian composer Bjørn Lynne. Fun fact: the .mid files are still available officially from his website!

This was at the crossroad of many of my interests. It was yet another piece of the puzzle. As a quick side note, this is why Zelda is the first series that I name in the title of this post, even though I... never really thought of myself as a Zelda fan. It’s not that it’s one of the game series that I like the most, it’s just that, before I started writing this, I’d never realized how far-reaching its influence had been in my life, both in overt and subtle ways, especially during my formative years.

And despite how clearly unfinished, how much of a “draft” Cube Legends was, I could see what it was trying to do. I could see the author’s intent. And I’m still listening to Bjørn Lynne’s music today.

The Cube Engine and its forums were a big part of why I started speaking English so well. Compared to most French people, I mean. We’re notoriously bad with the English language, and so was I up until then. But having this much hands-on practice proved to be immensely valuable. And so, I can say that the game and its community have therefore had long-lasting impacts in my life.

I also tried out a bunch of N64 games via emulation, bringing me right back in that bedroom at my grandparents’ house, with my cousin. Though he did not have either N64 Zelda game back then.

The first online forum I ever joined was a Zelda fan site’s. There are two noteworthy things to say here:

It was managed by a woman who, during my stay in the community, graduated from her animation degree. At this stage I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the line of work I would eventually pursue!

I recently ran into the former head moderator of the forums. (I don’t know when the community died.) One of the Dota players on my friends list invited him because I was like “hmm, I wanna go as 3, not as 2 players today”. His nickname very vaguely reminded me of something, a weird hunch I couldn’t place. Half an hour into the game, he said “hey Max... this might be a long shot, but did you ever visit [forum]?” and then I immediately yelled “OH MY GOD—IT IS YOU.” The world is a small place.

Access to the computer was sometimes tricky. I didn’t always have good grades, and of course, “punishment” (not sure the word is appropriate, hence the quotes, but you get the idea) often involved locking me out of the computer room. Of course, most times, I ended up trying to find the key instead. I needed my escape from the real world.  (You better believe it’s Tangent Time.)

I was always told I was the “smart kid”, because I “understood things faster” than my classmates. So they made me skip two grades ahead. This made me enter high school at nine years old. The consequences were awful (I was even more of the typical nerdy kid that wouldn’t fit in), and I wish it had never happened. Over the years, I finally understood: I wasn’t more intelligent. I merely had the chance to have been able to grow up with an older brother who’d instilled a sense of curiosity, critical thinking, and taste in books that were ahead of my age and reading level. This situation—and its opposite—is what I believe accounts for the difference in how well kids get to learn. It’s not innate talent, it’s not genetics (as some racists would like you to believe). It’s parenting and privilege.

And that’s why I’ll always be an outspoken proponent for any piece of media that tries to instill critical thinking and curiosity in its viewer, reader, or player.

But I digress.

Well, I’ve been digressing a lot, really, but games aren’t everything and after all, this post is about the context in which I played those games. Otherwise I reckon I would’ve just made a simple list.

I eventually got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with Mario Kart DS. My sister had gotten her own just around the time when it released... she had the Nintendogs bundle. We had also upgraded to proper ADSL, what I think was about a ~5 megabits download speed. The Nintendo DS supported wi-fi, which was still relatively rare compared to today. In fact, Nintendo sold a USB wireless adapter to help with that issue—our ISP-supplied modem-router did not have any wireless capabilities. I couldn’t get it the adapter work and I remember I got help from a really kind stranger who knew a lot about networking—to a point that it seemed like wizardry to me.

I remember I got a “discman” as a gift some time around that point. In fact, I still have it. Check out the stickers I put on it! I think those came from the Sims 2 DVD box and/or one of its add-ons.

I burned a lot of discs. In fact, in the stack of burned CDs/DVDs that I found (with the really bad Sims movies somewhere in there), I found at least three discs that had the Zelda album Hyrule Symphony burned in, each with different additional tracks. Some were straight-up MIDI files from vgmusic.com...! And speaking (again) of Zelda, when the Wii came out, Twilight Princess utterly blew my mind. I never got the game or the console, but damn did I yearn badly for it. I listened to the main theme of the game a lot, which didn’t help. I eventually got to play the first few hours at a friend’s place.

At some point, we’d upgraded the family computer to something with a bit more horsepower. It had a GeForce 8500 GT inside, which was eventually upgraded to a 9600 GT after the card failed for some reason. It could also dual-boot between XP and Vista. I stuck with that computer until 2011.

We moved to where I currently live in 2007. I’ve been here over a decade! And before we’d even fully finished unpacking, I was on the floor of the room that is now my office, with the computer on the ground and the monitor on a cardboard box, playing a pirated copy of... Half-Life! It was given to me by my cousin. It took me that long to find out about the series. It’s the first Valve game I played. I also later heard about the Orange Box, but mostly about Portal. Which I also pirated and played. I distinctly remember being very puzzled by the options menu: I thought it was glitched or broken, as changing settings froze the game. Turns out the Source engine had to chug for a little while, like a city car in countryside mud, as it reloaded a bunch of stuff. Patience is a virtue...

But then, something serious happened.

In the afternoon of 25 December 2007, I started having a bit of a dull stomach pain. I didn’t think much of it. Figured maybe I’d eaten too many Christmas chocolates and it’d go away. It didn’t. It progressively deteriorated into a high fever where I had trouble walking and my tummy really hurt; especially if you pressed on it. My parents tried to gently get me to eat something nice on New Year’s Eve, but it didn’t stay in very long. I could only feed myself with lemonade and painkiller. Eventually, the doctor decided I should get blood tests done as soon as possible. And I remember that day very clearly.

I was already up at 6:30 in the morning. Back then, The Daily Show aired on the French TV channel Canal+, so I was watching that, lying in the couch while waiting for my mom to get up and drive me to my appointment, at 7:00. It was just two streets away, but there was no way I could walk there. At around noon, the doctor called and told my mom: “get your son to the emergency room now.”

Long story short, part of my intestines nuked themselves into oblivion, causing acute peritonitis. To give you an idea, that’s something with a double-digit fatality rate. Had we waited maybe a day or two more, I would not be here writing this. They kind of blew up. I had an enormous abcess attached to a bunch of my organs. I had to be operated on with only weak local anaesthetics as they tried to start draining the abscess. It is, to date, by far the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. It was bad enough that the hospital doctor that was on my case told me that I was pretty much a case worthy to be in textbooks. I even had medical students come into my hospital room about it! They were very nice.

This whole affair lasted over a month. I became intimately familiar with TV schedules. And thankfully, I had my DS to keep me company. At the time, I was pretty big into the Tony Hawk DS games. They were genuinely good. They had extensive customization, really great replayability, etc. you get the idea. I think I even got pretty high on the online leaderboards at some point. I didn’t have much to do on some days besides lying down in pain while perfecting my scoring and combo strategies. I think Downhill Jam might’ve been my favorite.

My case was bad enough that they were unable to do something due to the sad state of my insides during the last surgery of my stay. I was told that I could come back in a few months for a checkup, and potentially a “cleanup” operation that would fix me up for good. I came back in late June of 2008, got the operation, and... woke up in my hospital room surrounded by, like, nine doctors, and hooked up to a morphine machine that I could trigger on command. Apparently something had gone wrong during the operation, but they never told me what. I wasn’t legally an adult, so they didn’t have to tell me. I suspect it’s somewhere in some medical files, but I never bothered to dig up through my parents’ archives, or ask the hospital. And I think I would rather not know. But anyway, that was almost three more weeks in the hospital. And it sucked even more that time because, you see, hospital beds do not “breathe” like regular beds do. The air can’t go through. Let’s say I’m intimately familiar with the smell of back sweat forever.

When I got out, my mom stopped by a supermarket on the way home. And that is when I bought The Orange Box, completely on a whim, and made my Steam account. Why? Because it was orange and stood out on the shelf.

(As a side note, that was the whole bit I started writing first, and that made me initially title this post “growing pains”. First, because I’m bad at titles. Second, because not that I didn’t have them otherwise (ow oof ouch my knees), but that was literally the most painful episode of my entire life thus far and it ended in a comically-unrelated, high-impact, life-changing decision. Just me picking up The Orange Box after two awful hospital stays... led me to where I am today.)

While I was recovering, I also started playing EarthBound! Another bit of a life-changer, that one. To a lesser extent, but still. I was immediately enamored by its unique tone. Giygas really really really creeped me out for a while afterwards though. I still get unsettled if I hear its noises sometimes.

I later bought Garry’s Mod (after convincing my mom that it was a “great creative toolbox that only cost ten bucks!”), and, well, the rest is history. By which I mean, a lot of my work and gaming activity since 2009 is still up and browsable. But there are still a few things to talk about.

In 2009, I bought my first computer with YouTube ad money: the Asus eee PC 1005HA-H. By modern standards, it’s... not very powerful. The processor in my current desktop machine is nearly 50 times as fast as its Atom N280. It had only one gigabyte of RAM, Windows 7 Basic Edition, and an integrated GPU barely worthy of the name; Intel didn’t care much for 3D in their chips back then. The GMA 945 didn’t even have hardware support for Transform & Lighting.

But I made it work, damn it. I made that machine run so much stuff. I played countless Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods on it—though, due to the CPU overhead on geometry, some of those were trickier. I think one of the most memorable ones I played was Mistake of Pythagoras; very surreal, very rough, but I still remember it so clearly. I later played The Longest Journey on it, in the middle of winter. It was a very cozy and memorable experience. (And another one that’s an adventure wonderful outlandish alien universe. LOVE THOSE.)

I did more than playing games on it, though...

This is me sitting, sunburned on the nose, in an apartment room, on 06 August 2010. This was in the Pyrénées, at the border between France and Spain. We had a vacation with daily hiking. Some of the landscapes we visited reminded me very strongly of those from Lost Eden, way up the page...

So, you see, I had 3ds Max running on that machine. The Source SDK as well. Sony Vegas. All of it was slow; you bet I had to use some workarounds to squeeze performance out of software, and that I had to keep a close, watchful eye on RAM usage. But I worked on this thing. I really did! I animated this video’s facial animation bits (warning: this is old & bad) on the eee PC, during the evenings of the trip, when we were back at our accomodation. The Faceposer tool in the Source SDK really worked well on that machine.

I also animated an entire video solely on the machine (warning: also old and bad). It had to be rendered on the desktop computer... but every single bit of the animation was crafted on the eee PC.

I made it work.

Speaking of software that did not run well: around that time, I also played the original Crysis. The “but can it run Crysis?” joke was very much justified back then. I had to edit configuration files by hand so that I could run the game in 640x480... because I wanted to keep most of the high-end settings enabled. The motion blur was delicious, and it blew my mind that the effect made the game feel this smooth, despite wobbling around in the 20 to 30 fps range.

Alright. It’s time to finish writing this damn post and publish it at last, so I’m going to close it out by listing some more memories and games that I couldn’t work in up there.

Advance Wars. Strategy game on GBA with a top-down level editor. You better believe I was all over the editor right away.

BioShock. When we got the 2007 desktop computer, it was one of the first games I tried. Well, its demo, to be precise. Its tech and graphics blew my mind, enough that I saved up to buy the full game. This was before I had a Steam account; I got a boxed copy! I think it might have been the last boxed game I ever bought? It had a really nice metal case. The themes and political messages of the game flew way over my head, though.

Mirror’s Edge. The art direction was completely fascinating to me, and it introduced me to Solar Fields’ music; my most listened artist this decade, by a long shot.

L.A. Noire. I lost myself in its stories and investigations, and then, I did it all again, with my sister at the helm. I very rarely play games twice (directly or indirectly), which I figure is worth mentioning.

Zeno Clash. It was weird and full of soul, had cool music, and cool cutscenes. It inspired me a lot in my early animation days.

Skyward Sword. Yep, going back to Zelda on that one. The whole game was pretty good, and I’m still thinking about how amazing its art direction was. Look up screenshots of it running in HD on an emulator... it’s outstanding. But there’s a portion of the game that stands tall above the rest: the Lanayru Sand Sea. It managed to create a really striking atmosphere in many aspects, through and through. I still think about it from time to time, especially when its music comes on in shuffle mode.

Wandersong. A very recent pick, but it was absolutely a life-changing one. That game is an anti-depressant, a vaccine against cynicism, a lone bright and optimist voice.

I realize now this is basically a “flawed but interesting and impactful games” list. With “can establish its atmosphere very well” as a big criteria. (A segment of video games that is absolutely worth exploring.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever make my own video game. I have a few ideas floating around and I tried prototyping some stuff, though my limited programming abilities stood in my way. But either way, if it happens one day, I hope I’ll manage to channel all those years of games into the CULMINATION OF WHAT I LIKE. Something along those lines, I reckon.

[yunsangelic]

captaindboss’ Hottest NHL Players Survey Responses

I’m demonkonecny bc it’s halloween!!! Happy Halloween!!! Anyway I’m finally posting the results of my hottest players per team survey, (it’s closed now so u can’t take it anymore, sorry) which included ur fav ugly hots like jack eichel and connor mcdavid. Y’all had some colorful write-in responses for me, I included my favorites! Anyway, as not to clog dashes I put it under a read more. If you have questions about how I compiled this data or how I organized it, feel free to ask! Also some of y’all didn’t put an answer for like half the teams???? who raised you.

Montreal Canadians

Carey Price (55.02%--126 of 229 votes)

Jonathan Drouin (23.58%--54 of 229 votes)

Shea Weber (13.10%--30 of 229 votes)

Other* (8.30%--19 of 229 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“PK Subban...oh wait...Lars Eller... Oh wait...Drouin...oh wait...Alex Galchenyuk...oh wait shit fine Shea Weber”

“Everyone who has escaped”

“their ‘attitude problem’“

Boston Bruins

Brandon Carlo (30.26%--69(lol) of 228 votes)

Patrice Bergeron (Cause y’all would kill me if I didn’t put him) (29.82%--68 of 228 votes)

David Pastrnak (yum i lov carb) (25.88%--59 of 228 votes)

Other* (14.04%--32 of 228 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

[About Carlo] “He’s  a baby but also like has an ageless vampire quality which appeals to my ovaries, long conditioned by teen vampire novels”

“Brad Marchand's tongue (only the tongue)” [this ain’t it chief]

“I love my alien father tuukka rask” [r u ok]

Bonus, cause I’m weak:

“no one THINKS pasta is hot COME ON i hate us” [it’s okay, he is VERY hot, that’s why I put him lmao]

“Zdeno chara babey” [R U OK]

Bl*ckh*wks

Girl as if (44.80%--99 of 221 votes) 

Jonathan Toews (22.62%--50 of 221 votes)

If you put pk*ne here i’ll come to your house and murder you*^/other (17.65%--39 of 221 votes)

hahahahaHAHAHA (14.93%--33 of 221 votes)

*= tie between Nick Schmaltz and John Hayden.

^= 3 people want me to come to their houses and murder them, unfortunately it’s still illegal to do so, therefore I will not be doing that.

Write-ins

“toews player portrait makes him look like a human condom”

“i live in chicago and am willing to take 1 for the team and take out k*ne” 

“Bitch you funny but also Alex Debrincat”

New York Rangers

Brady Skjei (46.32%--107 of 231 votes)

Henrik Lundqvist duh (31.17%--72 of 231 votes)

Brett Howden is the right answer despite not being on the roster yet^ (11.69% (lol)--27 of 231 votes)

Other* (10.82%--25 of 231 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

^= funny enough, like 2 days after I made this Brett made the final cut lmao.

Write-ins

“Chris Kreider (have you seen the golf pic???) [LMFAO yeah I have (it’s probably too NSFW if ur in public fyi if u wanna google it)]

“i'm horny for like half the gd rangers roster!!!!” [lol girl I know, y’all actually have a few cuties I was a lil shocked]

“this is a hot team too bad they suck”

Toronto Maple Leafs

Y’all are demons okay Nikita Zaitsev is a fuckin gem idk why I was surprised about this but I was lmao.

Other* (39.37%--87 of 221 votes) [just know that I hate u all :/]

William Nylander (25.79%--57 of 221 votes)

Nazem Kadri (24.89%--55 of 221 votes)

Nikita Zaitsev (9.95%--22 of 221 votes)

*= Freddie Andersen. 

Write-ins

“william nylander isn't a leaf, firstable, and second it's motch murner” [sjdhkdlsjdj everything about this]

“i'm putting rich clune even tho he's on the marlies. SOMETIMES HE COMES UP. he could benchpress ever leaf on the roster.” [ur valid, when u sent this I was like “FUCK they’re right.”]

“None they look like 25 year olds who smoke crack in the parking lot” [this is low-key mean but I still laughed, cause yeah, white dudes. But I’m not condoning drug abuse or jokes about drug abuse, as this person had no intention of doing, I’m sure. Just wanted to put that because I know some people might be concerned.]

Bonus, again, weak:

"Jxhn Txvxrxs” [jhkhfoij why did u censor his name sis??]

“nobody’s attractive on the leafs” [this isn’t true but I’m petty and it’s funny.]

Detroit Red Wings

I was so fucking offended by some of the dylan larkin SLANDER up in these write-ins, y’all can come to my house and fight me thx.

Dylan Larkin (48.23%--109 of 226 votes)

Henrik Zetterberg (im crying) (31.42%--71(CRYING) of 226 votes)

Other* (11.95%--27 of 226 votes)

Andreas Athanasiou (8.41%--19 of 226 votes)

*= 12 votes for “No one/Not Dylan Larkin” (yall r annoying lmfao), 10 votes for Filip Zadina (he’s a CHILD how dare u)

Write-Ins

“Luke glen denting is hot look at his arms and he’s not too old for ME” [girl when I tell u this shit killed me, I mean I SQUAWKED a laugh out and sent it to the fps gc, I was DEAD] 

“I don't know what any of the red wings look like and it's probably better that way” [????????????????]

“ion know anyone on the wings except zadina and he scored a gwg against the bruins yesterday so my answer for this one is none 😤😤” [(this was in reference to a pre-season game) lmao sis yall are okay. it was yalls babies against our roster players, I would have offed myself had the outcome been any different lmao]

Bonus

“Does anyone actually play for the red wings” [no]

“filip "thot" zadina” [don’t....]

Los Angeles Kings

The only right answer is Alec Martinez (41.56%--96 of 231 votes)

Adrian Kempe (38.10%--88 of 231 votes)

Anze Kopitar (12.12%--28 of 231 votes)

Other* (8.23%--19 of 231 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“jeff carter would snort a line of coke with gritty” [uhhhhh WHAT]

“uhh wayne gretzky...” [jvfluhddsf sis...]

“I couldn't name anyone on this team if you PAID ME” [fjldfdhfh god I wish that were me, sorry annie u know I joke....]

Philadelphia Flyers

Claude Giroux (44.78%--103 of 230 votes)

Travis Konecny (HAHAHAHAHA that’s my ugly hot gremlin) (24.78%--57 of 230 votes

Other* (22.17%--51 of 230 votes

Wayne Simmonds (8.26%--19 of 230 votes)

*= Nolan Patrick is apparently who y’all think is the 3rd hottest flyer, even tho he Looks Like That rn lmao. fuckin’ lettuce head.

Write-ins

“Gritty's googly eyes are the windows to the soul”

“andrea helfrich” [ur right]

“tk, because country boy i LOVE you 😛”

Bonus

“hey don't make threats abt gritty like that” [I put “if you put gritty i’ll block you”]

“My hellspawn son [Gritty,] is beautiful can’t believe Voracek and G had a son tho” [HDKUHEDKJFHD BITCH]

Pittsburgh Penguins :(

Kris Letang (55.17%--128 of 232 votes)

Other* (19.40%--45 of 232 votes)

Not Sidney Crosby [this is the option for Sidney Crosby] (16.81%--39 of 232 votes)

Tristan Jarry (8.62%--20 of 232 votes

*= different variations of “none” won but only by one vote, the person right behind was Jamie Oleksiak.

Write-ins

“the penguins roster came into my home and killed my entire family, but jamie oleksiak is 6'7" 255 lbs of A Man” [NDKFHSJRFDRBSKRFH valid]

“no penguin has ever been hot. As soon as they put on the jersey the hotness evaporates. Tragic.” [wow look at all that truth right there]

“as a heterosexual i chose letang, and as a flyers fan i choose the penguin mascot” [lmao girl letang is not the answer either]

St. Louis Blues

Colton Parayko (67.11%--151 of 225 votes)

Alex Pietrangelo (17.33%--39 of 225 votes)

Other* (8%--18 of 225 votes)

Ryan O’Reilly (7.56%--17 of 225 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“this [’other’] box shouldn’t exist there are no valid arguments against the angel colton parayko” [tru, but the blues have other hotties so I made the box to be fair to those of us who don’t like Big Blonde Sexies]

“uh valid i guess? idk any of the blues lmao” [LMAOOO I think they meant Vladdy, but “valid” cracked me up]

“ROR can lay me down” [ur so valid lmao]

Buffalo Sabres

Jeff Skinner (60.18%--136 of 226 votes)

Rasmus Ristolainen (17.26%--39 of 226 votes)

Other* (14.16%--32 of 226 votes)

Jack Eichel (8.41%--19 of 226 votes)

*= Inconclusive results. [Y’all big mad that I put Skinner on here. HE’S HOT!]

Write-ins

“Idk but not these lmao” [*instert that gif of the kardashians like “DON’T BE FUCKING RUDE”*]

“Why is Jeff Skinner an option he looks 12″ [who else tho sis. I looked at the roster!]

“If anyone says eichel i will come to their house and steal their toothbrushes. Its conor sheary.” [I took my own survey and picked Eichs but I still have my toothbrush so I guess......... I’m right.]

Bonus:

“Rasmus Ristolainen kinda looks like a creepy half-alive Ken doll, but I'll stand by my choice. Hire an exorcist.” [JDFKHRFWEH GIRL]

“They lost their only cute player when O’Reilly got traded sorry” [boom. roasted]

Vancouver Canucks

Brock Boeser (67.56%--152 of 225 votes)

Other* (13.78%--31 of 225 votes)

Jake Virtanen (12.44%--28 of 225 votes)

Ben Hutton (6.22%--14 of 225 votes)

*=Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“[about Jake Virtanen] all that ass...........” [sjdkfhdkfhdkhfi yeah]

“the city of vancouver” [?????????????????????]

“I keep forgetting that the canucks actually exist” [I’m reasonably sure this is annie lmfao]

Bonus

“I don’t know how any of this team looks either” [idk if I follow Nucks blogs or what but how do u not know Boeser???]

“i don't care enough about this team to even attempt to answer” [this is my brain @ me on the last 5 questions of an exam]

New York Islanders

Mat Barzal (67.69%--155 of 229 votes)

Tito Beauvillier (14.85%--34 of 229 votes)

Jordan Eberle (10.48%--24 of 229 votes)

Other* (6.99%--16 of 229 votes)

*=Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“you say put full names but then u go and say tito??” [LISTEN I was tired at this point and forgot that I was trying to be at least a little bit professional about my thirst survey alright? yeesh]

“Its Matt Martin my dude” [LMAO u funny]

“idk how anyone pays attention to mat when tito is always there looking better barzal looks like every attractive jock ive ever met and i dont trust that”

Calgary Flames

Noah Hanifin (37.95%--85 of 224 votes)

Elias Lindholm (32.59%--73 of 224 votes)

Matthew Tkachuk (20.54%--46 of 224 votes)

Other* (8.93%--20 of 224 votes)

*= Sean Monahan wins 4th hottest.

Write-ins

“[Hanifin] looks like the bad guy in a teen movie. the guy the Main Girl is dating in the beginning but is a real dick to her. you look at him and you KNOW he has a trust fund and votes republican. god he's so hot though” [hanny......... yeah.... yeah....]

“Why do I find Tkachuk attractive? I don't know but I love him” [me too]

“James 'The Real Deal' Neal” [lol I got this answer multiple times]

Washington Capitals

Tom Wilson (31.33%--73 of 233 votes)

Andre Burakovsky (29.18--68 of 233 votes)

Braden Holtby (24.03%--56 of 233 votes)

Other* (15.45%--36 of 233 votes)

*= Michal Kempny and Nicklas Backstrom tied for fourth hottest.

Write-ins

“literally no one, i s2g if i see anyone say ovi is attractive..... jfc god help them” [.... but ovi is dad-hot, also he got 3 votes]

“YOUR STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS! Everyone btw just a hot team of hot ugly men and Tom Wilson” [kskdjskdjksks]

“my sweaty swedish sweetheart; Nicklas Backstrom” [I’m too illiterate to read this right the first time thru lol]

Colorado Avalanche

Gabe Landeskog ( 55.95%--127 of 227 votes)

Other* (22.47%--51 of 227 votes)

Erik “Horsegirl” Johnson (14.1%--32 of 227 votes)

Mikko Rantanen (7.49%--17 of 227 votes)

*= Tyson Barrie won by more than double of all the other write-ins, but honorable mentions go to Nate MacK, Colin Wilson, Tyson Jost, Phillip Grubauer, and The Avs Tumblr People.

Write-ins - I (jokingly) got called bitch so much in these write-ins, y’all feel some type of WAY about this team lmfao.

“but also the tysons. i would buy a whole farm just so those boys could plow me into the ground.” [i’m SCREECHING. this killed me lol]

“only attractive b/c of his proximity to horses? maybe so.” [.... girl what]

Okay, so instead of a third quote, cause I couldn’t pick, I’m gonna put all the other funny EJ comments I was contemplating:

“ej is soooo ugly in the hottest way possible”

“erik "big horny" johnson”

“oh my god Ej was included for once I'm weeping tears of joy”

“What that mouth do EJ?”

New Jersey Devils

Miles Wood (36.12%--82 of 227 votes)

Taylor Hall (33.48%--76 of 227 votes)

Brian Boyle (19.82%--45 of 227 votes)

Other* (10.57%--24 of 227 votes)

*= Nico Hischier with the majority of the write-ins, even tho he’s still a CHILD (under 20).

Write-ins, aka Mostly Taylor Hall Commentary.

“Does Michael McLeod count” [YES girl i love that boy]

“Gucciiiiiii”

“DSL GUCCI”

“Nico Hischier (Taylor Hall I still love you)”

“i chose taylor and i don’t even need a gucci purse”

“If Taylor Hall gave me a Gucci purse I'd vote for him”

“catch me w/ a gucci purse, girl!!!! for real tho miles wood”

Dallas Stars

DISCLAIMER: I mean no disrespect to Katie, she’s fab and I made this survey a month or so ago. If you don’t know what I mean by this--do not ask me, I will delete the message. Thank you!

Tyler Seguin (46.96%--108 of 230 votes)

Katie Hoaldridge (im gay) (35.22%--81 of 230 votes)

Other* (13.91%--32 of 230 votes)

Stephen Johns (3.91%--9 of 230 votes)

*= Jamie Benn.

Write-ins

“tyler seguin has no upper lip” [I screamed, not exaggerating]

“You have to choose [Seguin] but I do so under duress”

“Im gay too” [hell yeah, this is a mlm and wlw friendly survey!]

Edmonton Oilers

Jujhar Khaira (28.57%--64 of 224 votes)

Other* (27.68%--62 of 224 votes)

Contract McMoney (he is hot) (25.89%--58 of 224 votes)

Darnell Nurse (17.86%--40 of 224 votes)

*= Leon Draisaitl won by more than 5 times anyone elses write-in lmao.

Write-ins ft. “The Draisaitl Quotes”

“McMoney’s money- just his money” [lmao ok sammie, HE’S HOT!]

“cannot mcwingames went off in the gq shoot i admit” [*annie voice* OHMYGOD]

“He’s [Khaira] like a romance novel cover like, f me” [tru]

Drai Quotes

“Drai but like lucic cause Momma needs a man that could kill me” [HDGFDHDGFHDH]

“leon dreisetl (is that his name, is this how you spell it?)”

“Leon Draisaitl and his contract that he doesn't deserve” [backhanded compliment lmao]

“the one w the longass name. dry saitl or whatever” [girl. lmfao]

Winnipeg Jets

Jets/laine fans are funny so I’m adding all the funniest ones instead of just 3 or 5. Sorryyyyyy I’m here to entertain.

Blake Wheeler (44.04%--96 of 218 votes)

Mathieu Perreault (but specifically in his newest headshot) (21.56%--47 of 218 votes)

Other* (19.27%--42 of 218 votes)

Connor Hellebuyck (15.14%--33 of 218 votes)

*= Patrik Laine, even tho I said NOT TO, demons.

Write-ins

“Their logo so I can fly away from this stupid team”

“Nobody but I just needed to point out Connor Hellebuyck looks like a stage magician and that is Not Hot” [i respectfully disagree with the last bit but the first parts made me snort]

“I don't know who windy pegg is”

“Boeing 747″ [sjdjsljlshgdu]

“they’re all second to jacob trouba’s dog Donnie”

“Patty Laine, but like, without the demon beard”

“Let me live my life! Laine has a good voice and i have a LANGUAGE KINK!”

“Laine WITH the beard because I don't fear death”

“Sorry, Laine but only with his beard” [I love the halfhearted apology]

“Goatboi”

“ALL HAIL THE GOAT DEVIL”

“laine come at me bitch lol” [denny’s parking lot. 3 am. be there.]

“laine looks like a goat”

“Laine’s Beard”

“LAINE I like the beard but hockey Satan is good to hellebuyck” [I really felt like I was tripping balls while reading all these but, ESPECIALLY this one lmfao]

Arizona Coyotes

Oliver Ekman-Larsson (30.32%--67 of 221 votes)

Jakob Chychrun (28.05%--62 of 221 votes)

Dylan Strome (26.24%--58 of 221 votes)

Other* (15.38%--34 of 221 votes)

*= Alex Galchenyuk, with the majority of the votes.

Write-ins

“pls date me Chych” [annie, that’s my BF!]

“ 🐼 there is no raccoon emoji >:(”

“[Chychrun] [a]lso has a vampire quality but like trust fund baby vampire who has no morals. I’m...into it??” 

Honorable mentions: The 2 people who put Biz lmaoooo I love yall.

Carolina Hurricanes

Andrei Svechnikov [he’s a baby but I didn’t know who elseeee] (38.29%--85 of 222 votes)

Haydn Fleury (35.59%--79 of 222 votes)

Other* (15.77%--35 of 222 votes)

Dougie Hamilton (10.36%--23 of 222 votes)

*= Sebastian Aho wins the write-in vote [he ain’t it!]

Write-ins

“Justin Faulk (I’m old so svechnikov is out)” [ugh ur right I didn’t make this more inclusive to people not my age, i’m (genuinely) sorry!!!]

“Formerly Eric ‘the hottest Staal' Staal” [only on the cane’s write-in would I have this happen...]

“[Jordan] staal terrifies me but that's hot” [true!]

San Jose Sharks

Erik Karlsson (70.04%--159 of 227 votes)

Martin Jones (17.62%-- 40 of 227 votes)

Other* (11.01%--25 of 227 votes)

Justin Braun (idk) (1.32%--3 of 227 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“Daddy shark (doo doo doo)” [just so yall know this is, of course, annie, as in anzekopistar, an actual demon, she’s talking about Erik Karlsson :)]

“Brent Burns, you know im right” [are you tho?]

“Okay sometimes I have needs I think Joe Thorton sans beard could fill” [this is why joe shaved. he felt this person in the universe wanting him to, so he did, wow thank u joe]

Ottawa Senators (lol)

Matt Duchene (33.63%--75 of 223 votes)

The entire team (cause they’re a dumpster fire) (30.94%-- 69 [it’s that tkachuk fuckboi energy] of 223 votes)

Other (there are none)* (22.87%--51 of 223 votes)

Spartacat (12.56%--28 of 223 votes)

*= Inconclusive results (because a lot of you took my “there are none” joke a little too seriously and just chose that, no write-in lmao)

Write-ins

“[about Duchene] he's traitorous but it's like that sometimes i guess” [sjdhdjfhkdhf girl it’s okay.]

“.... we're a team“ [i-]

“the senator on their jerseys is p cute ig”

Bonus:

“oh so spartacat is an option but not gritty huh” [LISTEN the flyers are a HOT team, the sens are NOT. that’s why lmao]

“Just based on headshots I’m going with Ben Sexton like also how do you go wrong with that name”

Tampa Bay Lightning

Brayden Point (55.25%--121 of 219 votes)

Other* (22.83%--50 of 219 votes)

Mitchell Stephens (11.87%--26 of 219 votes)

Steve Yzerman (10.05%--22 of 219 votes)

*= Inconclusive results. Although there were a lot of responses none of them added up significantly sooo....

 Write-ins

“am i the only one who thinks stevie y was a bit of a twink when he was younger?” [jdhslihdalskdjefh]

“Worst team in the league i hate them and theyre all hideous” [u sure bout that, bud?]

“Stamkos (I love his tiny eyes)” [????]

Florida Panthers

 Aaron Ekblad (71.75%--160 of 223 votes)

Aleksander Barkov [r yall ok???] (11.66%--26 of 223 votes)

Other* (10.31%--23 of 223 votes)

Vincent Trocheck (6.28%--14 of 223 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“who are the panthers” [sometimes a team is a dog captain, a(n extremely hot) 27-year-old lawyer, and not owen tippett because the panthers hate me specifically]

“Roberto Luongo during Parkland speech” [... valid]

“barkov is literally the only player i know on this team” [shey would be happy to teach u about the panthers!]

Anaheim Ducks

Adam Henrique (52.47%--117 of 223 votes)

No one else (29.6%--66 of 223 votes)

Other* (10.76%--24 of 223 votes)

John Gibson (7.17%--16 of 223 votes)

*=Inconclusive results.

Write-ins-Ducks fans don’t @ me but i’m pretty sure half of these were submitted by y’all anyways....

“if i look @ anyone on the ducks roster for more than 5 seconds i BLACK OUT” [KSHDGJDHSKH Adam tho....]

“Quack Quack go lay your eggs somewhere else you feathered FUCKS” [sjdjfhdjsksj]

“legal 2 say kesler?” [no. go to jail]

Bonus

“Henrique is fine I have no qualms about your selections” [thnk u]

“jared coreau!!! GOOGLE HIM i’m right” [I said this, and we’ve talked, but I need people to know that I, after seeing this, subsequently found out that the Wings didn’t sign coreau back this offszn lmao] 

Nashville Predators

Roman Josi (39.39%--91 of 231 votes)

PK Subban (37.66%--87 of 231 votes)

Kevin Fiala (13.42%--31 of 231 votes)

Other* (9.52%--22 of 231 votes)

*= Pekka Rinne for 4th hottest. [My mom loves him for his name lol. she says it’s “fun”]

Write-ins 

“pk wears cool hats. I like that in a man”

“I don't find any of them hot (Josi used too be hot and then I learned he was illiterate and now I feel nothing but pity towards him)” [GIRL]

“preds are also ugly. pk subban would be attractive if he werent a pred” [lmao. what’d they do to u ?]

Columbus Blue Jackets

Pierre-Luc Dubois (50.22%--113 of 225 votes)

Zach Werenski (20.44%--46 of 225 votes)

Josh Anderson (16.89%--38 of 225 votes)

Other* (12.44%--28 of 225 votes)

*= Alex Wennberg is 4th hottest [lmao]

Write-ins

“Can I put werenskie and Anthony Duclair” [valid]

“Just to be clear CBJ is by far the hottest team exemplified by the fact that you left Seth Jones and Alexander Wenneberg off this list when they're like top 20 in hotness. Also Nick Foligino wins if we include looks and personality.” [I didn’t include them cause this is a mix of hot and ugly hot fam, the avs are 100% the hottest team in the NHL, and that’s coming from me, a Wings fan, destined to hate the Avs for my entire life. Also???? The hotter Foligno is def Marcus lmao]

“[About Werenski] only with the scar though otherwise seth jones” [GIRL scars don’t disappear??? WDYM only with the scar??? Are you a time traveler??? lmfaooo]

Minnesota Wild

J.T. Brown (46.46%--105 of 226 votes)

Other* (21.68%--49 of 226 votes)

Eric Staal (20.80%--47 of 226 votes)

Jason Zucker (11.06%--25 of 226 votes)

*= Charlie Coyle. Honorable mentions to Zach Parise and Matt Dumba.

Write-ins

“Charlie Coyle man! V hot, could kill you, gently waves at babies, 10/10″ [exactly my type! wow]

“ Not JT[,] Lexi is the hottest[,] Eric Staal from a few years ago is also hot” [I added commas to your thing cause.... girl it took me a sec to understand what u were tryna say. But also ur right it’s Lexi.]

“love a #wokebae jt” [yaaas]

FINALLY this legit took me like 10+ hours of work cause I had to transcribe all the info cohesively and then go thru all the responses lmao.

Vegas Golden Knights

William Karlsson (40.52%--94 of 232 votes)

Marc-Andre Fleury (30.60%--71 of 232 votes)

Max Pacioretty (16.81%--39 of 232 votes)

Other* (12.07%--28 of 232 votes)

*= Inconclusive results.

Write-ins

“[Karlsson] because he looks like young Bill from Mamma Mia” [shfhdjdhf girl]

“fleury isn't hot you absolute monster” [???????? drink ur bitterness tea somewhere else pls]

“let's find out just how wild this boy is” [pftd dtduftdhjfgdjfghdjf]

Bonus/Honorable mentions:

The TWO people who put “colin miller’s eyelashes” lmfaoooo

Alrighty this is The End! If you’d like to see another survey by me let me know in my messages/ask!!! Also sorry for stealing de la Rose from u, habs fans

[howtohero]

Discovering That a Loved One is a Supervillain

Over the years you’re going to find that you’re fighting the same couple of villains over and over again and you’ll begin to fall into a groove. You’ll form a (professional) relationship. There might even be some light banter. But then there are some villains who come with a pre-established relationship with you. They’re the eco-terrorists or evil acrobats or zombie-disco fanatics that, when you unmask them, turn out to be someone you know! From before! Wild! When this happens you’ll no doubt be overcome with a myriad of emotions. Confusion, fear, shock, nausea, that emotion you feel when you’re going to take out the trash because you’re apparently the only person in your apartment who knows how to do that and when you go and lift the lid of the garbage can two raccoons pop out and steal your wallet. So how can you even begin to deal with that?

For starters it all depends on what sort of relationship you and this villain have. Are they a family member? Are they a close family member? Are they someone who you hated as a civilian anyway and now that you know they’re actually a supervillain who enjoys shortening bridges by two inches in order to render them useless you actually feel pretty validated? Are they a friend? Someone you used to be friends with? Is it your mom? If it’s your mom it’s probably just because she wanted to spend some time with you because you never call so that’s on you. Nice job turning your mom into a supervillain. This is exactly why most superheroes don’t have parents. The close your relationship with this person, the more complicated things are going to become once you discover their identity. If it’s someone you only know in passing from your knitting club, then that’s just an interesting little tidbit. But if it’s your closest friend or say, your twin, then your entire life is going to be flip turned upside down. And not in the old school rap way.

Another important thing to consider is whether or not this villain knows that you’re a superhero. Is their supervillainy personal, or were they sent down the path of evil by some other thing in their life and they had no idea that they’d have to fight you their best fried/nephew/roommate who takes care of the trash? If it’s the former then you’re in a lot of trouble. Not only is your best friend your arch-nemesis but they’re not even really your best friend either! They’ve just been pretending to be your best friend so that they could get to you and learn your secrets. Plus, since your warm feelings only go one way, they can exploit that and really send you into emotional turmoil. Or take advantage of the fact that you’re going to hesitate before fighting them. Very evil. They’re definitely going to be honored at the annual Supervillain Ball. <What ball? What are you talking about? There is no ball. Supervillains don’t have balls!> Omg guys he fell for it! (Hahahaha, I never thought in a million years that would work wow.) {This is the best thing that’s ever happened on this blog.} (I told you letting a supervillain live in basement would pay off eventually!) You’re right this makes it all worth it. Ahem, so, it’s also possible that this villain really was your friend at some point, but you did something to upset them, (such as abandoning them on their birthday because Pocket Watch we about to hypnotize the mayor into declaring him the “super-mayor” and you didn’t want to wait to see what exactly that position entailed,) which caused them to want to seek revenge. (You guys remember Evil Billy? From the elementary school hostage situation. Man that was wild, I can’t believe you were best friends with that guy.)

One good thing about having a supervillain turn out to be a close friend is that, even though they might know your secret identity, it is unlikely that they will attack your loved ones. They might very well share loved ones with you. Even supervillains have loved ones, and it’s awfully convenient when those loved ones are your loved ones. It might even mean that they’ll declare your loved ones off limits to other supervillains. Score! Everything else about this situation is bad though. Write that down somewhere.

When you discover that a supervillain is actually somebody who you know and care about it’s important that you take a step back and try to view the situation as objectively as possible. Your first instinct is going to be to try to save them. You’ll think that they’re not really evil, they’re only teleporting bugs into people’s vital organs because they’ve just lost their way or are lashing out or they’re just terribly misguided. But this is crazy. You wouldn’t afford that much latitude to any other villain you faced and you owe it to your community, and to those bugs, to maintain the same principles here. If you don’t think you can do that then I strongly recommend you call in another hero who doesn’t have the same emotional connection to this villain that you do. You can try to rehabilitate and possibly reform them later, once they’re in prison. That’s literally the entire point of prisons (write that down too). If you try to give the villain an impassioned speech about how they’re better than this and how you’re sorry that you broke their model train but this really seems like an overreaction in the middle of a battle or while they’re committing a crime then you’re just going to wind up falling into the monologue trap. Superhero’s are supposed to be better than that. It’s why they usually win. So save your impassioned pleas for after the battle. 

When a loved one turns out to be a supervillain, it’s common for heroes to blame themselves. How could they have missed the telltale signs of supervillainy manifesting in their family. And sure, there’s some truth to that I suppose. The maniacal cackling really should have been a dead giveaway. But at the same time, get over yourself. Not everything revolves around you. Just because your sister tried to, I don’t know, shut down the special olympics, doesn’t mean that you’re responsible for it. These people made their own decisions and now you need to make the decision to stop them from committing more crimes. Don’t sideline yourself and waste precious time moping, you’re still a hero, and that means you’ve got responsibilities, evil twin or not. (If you do have an evil twin though I recommend checking out our post on evil clones. A lot of those tips and tricks are going to be transferable.) So don’t beat yourself up, beat them up, because they’re the bad guy.

Discovering that someone you love, care about, or admire is actually a megalomaniacal supervillain can be quite jarring, but don’t worry, it happens to everybody, so you can always talk to other superheroes about it. And you should, even if it hasn’t happened to you yet. Every superhero has an enemy like this and if you haven’t found yours, it just means you need to hit the streets and start unmasking more supervilllains. Happy hunting!