#i can change my major easy enough since i haven’t even started the program courses yet

[spark1edog]

possibly too niche of a question but i’m going to ask anyway:

people who have chosen between being a cosmetologist/hair dresser/nail tech OR tattoo artist, why did you choose the one you did?

[the-scarlet-witch-22]

Chaconne: Part 2 (Agatha Harkness x Fem!Reader)

Summary: After auditioning for who is often considered to be the world’s scariest conductor, you begin working for Agatha Harkness and the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra. 

Word Count: 4.9K

Link: Dvorak’s New World Symphony: Movement 4 (Performed by the Vienna Philharmonic)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGdtkUiKaA8

A/N: Hi everyone! I’m back with part two of Chaconne. I’ve included another link to the fourth movement of Dvorak in case anyone would like to listen, (it’s one of my favorite recordings and I definitely recommend it) but if classical music isn’t your jam I understand. Also, I would like to warn this is going to be major slow burn, but I promise there is a light at the end of the tunnel...eventually. Part 3 should be uploaded in a few days! I hope all of you enjoy it, and as always please feel free to leave a comment :) Oh! Also I think I’m going to make a taglist for this story, so if you would like to be added just comment or send me a message.

A week later marked the first symphony rehearsal of the season. You had barely seen Agatha all day. The woman was running from meeting to meeting with investors and the board so she had given you small tasks to complete in her absence. You were busy rearranging the small personal music library she kept in her office when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” You called out as you began sorting through the Baroque Era.

The door opened a moment later and you were glancing at a few different scores when you heard someone clear their throat. Looking up, you saw Wanda Maximoff standing in the doorway.

“Well hello there,” Wanda drawled out, clearly looking surprised. It took you a second to wonder why until you realized you were in Agatha’s office. “You’re not Agatha.”

You let out a nervous laugh. “No...um, no I’m not. I’m Agatha’s new assistant, Y/N.”

Wanda gave you a curious glance. “Her assistant,” she mused, taking a step further into the office. “Does she treat you well?”

You shrugged. “She feeds me a few times a day, buys me coffee. It could be a lot worse.”

Wanda chuckled. “Well it is very nice to meet you. I’m Wanda Maximoff.”

“I know who you are,” You blurted out before realizing how creepy that may have sounded. Glancing at Wanda, you were relieved that she seemed more amused than anything else. “I mean, it’s such a pleasure to meet you, Miss Maximoff. I’m a huge fan of yours.”

“Call me Wanda,” The pianist insisted. “You’re sweet. I’m surprised Agatha hasn’t had you running for the hills.”

You felt strangely defensive over the criticism regarding Agatha. “She really isn’t bad. I’m learning so much from her.”

Wanda looked surprised but smiled nonetheless. “You’re a very sweet girl, aren’t you? Do you know when Agatha will be back?”

“Um...” You trailed off and tried to remember when Agatha said she would be done. “It might be a while.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” Wanda said confidently, taking a seat in a leather chair. “I can keep you company.”

So you spent the next half hour sorting through music. At some point Wanda had offered to assist you, and although you assured her you were fine, she insisted. Which is how you found yourself discussing your favorite eras of music with one of your favorite musicians.

“Well isn’t this cozy,” Agatha’s voice rang out from the doorway causing you to jump.

The conductor had a scowl on her face and you could practically see the anger seething out of her. Wanda, on the other hand, smiled brightly at Agatha. “Agatha, so lovely to see you again. I was just getting to know your assistant. She’s a delight.”

Agatha glared at the woman, before giving you a quick once over. “Of course she is. What are you doing in my office, Maximoff? We aren’t rehearsing with you until next week.”

Wanda shrugged, not phased by the other woman’s attitude. “I thought I would stop by to catch up. It’s been a while since we’ve worked together.”

Your eyebrows furrowed at that. When did Agatha and Wanda work together? Agatha certainly had a lot of negative thoughts regarding the younger woman, so it would make sense that they had worked together at some point. You were just surprised Agatha never brought it up during one of her many long ‘Maximoff Rants.’

“I’m very busy,” Agatha replied, appearing to grow angrier with every word that came out of the red head’s mouth. “Right, dear?”

At first you wondered who she was talking to, until you noticed the pointed look she was giving you. You offered Wanda a polite smile before slowly heading over towards your boss. “Of course, Miss Harkness. You have to leave for your meeting with potential new investors and then we have to discuss new programs and publicity posters before rehearsal this evening.”

“I see,” Wanda was giving both of you a look that suggested she knew you were lying. “Well I should be on my way then. Lovely seeing you again Agatha, and it was a pleasure to meet you, Y/N,” she said sweetly as she gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze on her way out of the office.

Once she was gone, Agatha all but slammed the door shut and your eyes widened at how angry she appeared.

“What did she say to you?” Agatha asked curiously eyeing you.

You shrugged, because Wanda didn’t really say anything to you. At least not anything important. “Nothing really. She asked who I was, insisted she wanted to wait for you to come back, and then she offered to help me sort through the music.”

“I didn’t realize the work I gave you was so complex it required a second set of hands,” Agatha spat out as she slowly moved closer to you, and you wondered what you said to get that reaction.

“It wasn’t,” you argued, feeling your temper grow and getting more flustered as Agatha moved even closer to you. “She was just being nice.”

Agatha huffed and stalked back to her desk. “Fine. She was just being nice. Now no more talk of Maximoff. I’m starting to get a migraine.”

“I’ll go get you some tea,” You offered, as you had become more familiar with the conductor’s frequent stress migraines.

Agatha merely nodded and began sorting through her scores for rehearsal and you set off to brew some tea in the kitchen. You brushed off her strange behavior as the anger that came with seeing Wanda Maximoff.

The rest of the afternoon passed by smoothly. Agatha eventually told you to go home for a few hours despite your protests to stay. She was still a tad bit grumpy from her run in with Wanda, so she all but shoved you out the door and said if she saw you back here before 6:00 that she would make sure it would be your last time attending rehearsal.

Finding yourself back at the concert hall an hour before rehearsal started, you made your way to Agatha’s office and used the key she had given you to let yourself in. You had to grab the boxes filled with folders of music, as well as Agatha’s scores and her favorite baton. Your eyes scanned the dozens of identical batons that the older woman had before you found the one she requested you grab.

There weren’t many personal items in Agatha’s office. Granted she had only been here for around a month, but still. It was basically bare, save for a few photos of her pet bunny, Señor Scratchy. You had often wondered what the conductor did when she wasn’t here, but you had never felt comfortable enough to ask. Agatha was...private, and while you respected her privacy a part of you wondered what she was like when she wasn’t in scary conductor mode.

A quick glance at the clock alerted you to head to the hall before the players started to arrive. You quickly locked up the office before hurrying through the building, arms filled with boxes.

“I should’ve brought these in before I left,” You mumbled out loud as you balanced the boxes in one hand to unlock the stage door with your other hand.

“Well yes dear, but that would’ve required thought,” Agatha said with a smirk as she came up from behind you.

You cursed and jumped, glaring at the woman who scared you half to death. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Agatha held the door open for you and shrugged in response as you passed her. “It’s not my fault you’re so easy to scare.”

“You’re evil,” You told her, but your tone was teasing. “And you’re early.”

“It’s my first rehearsal, I want to be prepared,” Agatha explained but you knew her well enough to know what that meant.

“It’s okay to be nervous, you know,” You said reassuringly as she grabbed one of the boxes from you to set on the stage.

Agatha scowled and gave you a dirty look. “I am not nervous. I’m Agatha Harkness. I don’t get nervous.”

“Right and you’re also nothing like Wanda Maximoff, right?” You fired back, enjoying the glower she gave you.

Agatha huffed. “I liked it better when you were afraid of me.”

You laughed as you began placing the folders on their respective stands. “I was never afraid of you. I was afraid of disappointing you.” And you were still afraid of disappointing her, but you would never vocalize that.

Agatha gave you a look you couldn’t decipher before she helped you with the folders. “Where’s your violin?”

“In your office,” You reminded her. “Remember, I told you I was leaving it there until after rehearsal?”

“Well how are you going to play in,” She checked her watch, “Fourty-five minutes without an instrument?”

You stared at her in shock. “But...but I thought I didn’t get the first violin spot?”

“You didn’t,” Agatha admitted. “But I haven’t hired anyone else and I still need to update our sub list. So there will be an empty chair for rehearsal.”

“Which means?” You pressed, needing to hear the words from her.

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Needy as ever for the praise I see. Grab your instrument and get your ass on stage in ten minutes before I change my mind.”

You practically skipped off stage, not believing what you were hearing. You were going to perform with the Manhattan Symphony! Sure it was just a rehearsal, and the first rehearsal at that, but you didn’t care. You were on cloud nine and nothing could bring you down.

By the time you returned with your instrument, some of the players had started to arrive. You recognized a few of the violinists from different gigs you had played over the past couple of years. Scanning the stage, you spotted Agatha in one of the first rows in the audience, drinking a bottle of water. She noticed you staring and motioned for you to come join her.

You set your case down next to her bag. “Thank you for letting me play in rehearsal today.”

“Why are you thanking me?” Agatha questioned, looking at you with curiosity. “I need a violinist for today’s rehearsal. You’re my assistant who will do whatever you can to please me. It’s common sense.”

You rolled your eyes at her but smiled nonetheless. “You really can’t let me be nice, can you?”

Agatha laughed and patted you on the arm. “You’re finally catching on, dear. Now get on stage and warm up. I can’t have my assistant embarrassing me in front of the entire ensemble.”

You did as you were told and sat in the last chair of the first violin section. The other members of the ensemble gradually made their way to their respective seats to begin warming up, and Agatha stayed at her spot still drinking her water. Your stand partner eventually made their way over to you and smiled.

“Hi, I’m Monica,” the woman said politely as she sat in the chair next to yours.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Y/N,” you replied with a small smile. “Have you been with the symphony for a while?”

“This is my fifth season,” Monica replied with a shrug. “Should be a little more interesting with Harkness in charge at least.”

You vaguely remembered the rumors that the last music director had been voted off by the board due to his age, but you couldn’t remember his name.

“Yeah, she’s really great,” You said happily. Monica gave you a curious glance. “I’m actually her assistant.”

Monica raised her eyebrows at that revelation. “Oh, wow. What’s that like?”

You shrugged, and noted that was the second time someone had that reaction. “Pretty standard I guess.”

“I was wondering who she hired for the section after cancelling the blind auditions,” Monica admitted. “She gave those violinists quite a scare.”

“Well I’m not hired for this,” You quickly backtracked. “She just hadn’t filled the seat and she needed a sub for today so-“

Monica laughed. “Hey, it’s okay. I get it. It’s nice to have you here. I’m sure you’ll do great.”

A few minutes later, the chatter and warming up abruptly stopped when Agatha took the podium. The ensemble stared at their new conductor, curious as to how she would start their first rehearsal. Instead, Agatha raised her baton and the ensemble lifted their instruments in preparation.

“Movement four of Dvorak,” Agatha said and allowed everyone a moment to flip to the respective movement.

She raised her baton again and you felt a rush of adrenaline as you waited in anticipation for her to begin. Over the past few weeks you had studied Agatha’s conducting technique. Watching her move her hands in formation was so beautiful, she was easily the most skilled conductor you had ever observed. Her eyes raked over the ensemble and landed on yours, and with a smirk she gave the upbeat to begin.

Dvorak’s New World Symphony was one of the first full symphonies you remembered playing back in your high school youth symphony. It was breathtaking, full of colorful phrases and swirling melodies in every movement that left both the player and listener eager for more. The fourth movement seemed to tie it all together.

Despite it being the first rehearsal, the ensemble played relatively well. Agatha was mindlessly conducting, her gaze fixated on different ensemble members, and you knew she probably had so many quick witted insults stewing in her brain. You meanwhile couldn’t keep your eyes from watching her conduct. Sure, watching old videos of her conducting different orchestras was great, your personal favorite was of her performance conducting Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony with The Chicago Symphony. You also loved sitting in her office and watching her get lost in her scores, seemingly oblivious to your gaze locked on her baton and the way her fingers seemed to have a mind of their own.

But this...this was pure beauty. It was like she was painting a canvas using her baton as a paint brush. Even with her gaze focused elsewhere, she knew the score backwards and forwards and you saw her give every cue without even taking a second to glance down at the music. It was magical; she was magical.

The movement progressed and you had reached one of you favorite spots. There was a phrase transition that featured a slow and melodic theme that was passed throughout the orchestra. It started in the winds and you smiled at the serene sounds of the oboe that featured accompaniment from the strings before the melody was eventually passed to the violin section. While most violinists enjoyed playing fast and thrilling passages that left their fingers aching and bow arm sore, you had always secretly preferred the sweeter themes, the soaring melodies that kept growing and filled your heart with so much warmth.

Closing your eyes to play a passage you had long ago memorized, Dvorak had always been a favorite, you took a second to enjoy the unique feeling that every musician shared. Making music was an intimate experience. The ability to bring together dozens of people from different walks of life. To put aside any problems from everyday life and just take those brief moments to focus on nothing but their craft. Your happiest memories were of the time you spent in orchestra rehearsals. All of the hard, and sometimes grueling, work that went into perfecting each measure and making sure each section played as one giant instrument. All of it was worth it once you made it to the performance, and you swore there was nothing that could bring you more bliss than a live performance.

The movement progressed and Agatha was fully in her element. The woman was the most confident conductor you had ever encountered. Sure, she was a bit...cocky...but she had every right to be. This was the only first rehearsal you had ever attended where the conductor had effortlessly led the ensemble through tempo changes and cues without any faults.

With a whirlwind of fast passages and high notes that had you breathless, you reached the grand finale. You would occasionally glance up to check you were following Agatha’s tempo, and it took everything in you to not keep your gaze entirely fixated on her.

Agatha left her baton raised for a moment before finally lowering it, and you could tell by the passive look on her face that she was not pleased. “Well that was disappointing. Have any of you played in an ensemble before today?”

Directing her gaze to the principal flutist, she waved her hand. “And don’t even get me started on the mess over here. Are you trying to make my ears bleed? I’ve heard first graders who have a better tone than you.”

The principal flutist frowned. “With all due respect Maestra, it’s our first rehearsal and we’re a little rusty.”

“Did I ask for excuses?” Agatha questioned, and you knew the rest of rehearsal would only be downhill from there. If there was one thing Agatha Harkness hated it was excuses. “What’s your name?”

“Dottie Jones.”

“Well, Dottie,” Agatha sneered. “Since you apparently know more than I do, why don’t you come up here and conduct?”

Well shit. You didn’t see that coming. You glanced over to Monica and found she had the same shocked expression on her face as you did.

“Maestra I don’t-“ Dottie tried to argue, and you couldn’t help but feel a small amount of pity for the woman because you knew Agatha always got what she wanted.

“Now!” Agatha yelled and threw her baton on the stand. “Let’s see what you can do.”

“Is she always like this?” Monica whispered to you and you shrugged.

That was a good question. In the few weeks you worked for Agatha, you had grown used to her intense presence and ever changing mood swings. You would never admit it to her face, but you actually found it kind of charming in a weird and twisted sort of way, because you knew Agatha only acted this way to assert her dominance. The music world had predominantly been led by men. The vast majority of the most famous and beloved composers were men. For the majority of your playing career the conductors you encountered were men. Hell, even the majority of symphony orchestras had male concert masters.

“She likes to keep things interesting,” You whispered back while keeping your gaze locked on the scene occurring on the podium.

Dottie had reluctantly made her way through the ensemble to stand on the podium where Agatha stood to the side with her arms folded across her chest.

“Any day now, Dottie,” Agatha mocked and you grimaced. Not even a half hour in and she had already lost her temper.

To Dottie’s credit she appeared relatively calm as she picked up the baton Agatha threw on the stand. The orchestra readied themselves to begin, but you kept your gaze locked on Agatha. What was she playing at?

Dottie gave the upbeat and the opening notes of Dvorak rang out. The flutist was a decent conductor, but you knew it was a losing battle. Her technique was nowhere as refined as Agatha’s and you could tell she was trying her best to keep the ensemble from falling apart. You made it through ten bars before Agatha made her way to the podium and raised one hand, and everyone immediately stopped.

“Well Dottie what do you think?”

“I think I should go back to my seat and leave the conducting to you,” Dottie offered weakly.

Agatha arched an eyebrow. “Ah. I see.” She waited for Dottie to sit back down before continuing. “Some of you may find my methods crazy. Some of you may say that I’m too mean, that I’m pushing you too hard. However, there is a reason for all of this.”

She pointed her baton at the principal oboe. “You? What’s your name?”

“Oh, um...” The man stammered and Agatha rolled her eyes.

“Name!”

“Jimmy Woo.”

“Jimmy Woo,” Agatha repeated with a frown on her face. “How long have you been with the symphony?”

“This is my third season, Maestra,” Jimmy said with a smile.

Agatha nodded. “I need to hear more of you. We need to work on your projection to come over the strings without making it too nasally. Not bad for the first rehearsal, Woo.”

“Thank you, Maestra.”

“Now Woo, how would you say the past three seasons have gone?” Agatha prompted.

“Maestra?” Jimmy asked, appearing confused by the question.

Agatha let out a huff. “How have you felt the orchestra has performed for the past three seasons, Woo?”

“You want my honest opinion, Maestra?”

You watched Agatha tense up and you internally sighed. Another thing Agatha hated was pointless questions.

“No, Woo, I want you to change into a tutu and do pliés,” Agatha dryly commented.

Jimmy let out a bit of nervous laughter which quickly ended when Agatha glared at him. “Right. Well, I guess I feel like we’re losing our touch.”

“That’s putting it lightly. Thank you, Woo,” Agatha said before turning her attention to the rest of the ensemble. “The Manhattan Symphony was once the world’s finest orchestra. But all of you have gotten too comfortable. You’ve stopped making music and now are simply playing notes on a page. You’ve gotten lazy.”

There we go. The third thing Agatha hated. Laziness. You swore the woman was constantly on the move. There was one Friday afternoon where you had suggested taking a half day to enjoy the sunshine, which led Agatha to go on a twenty minute long rant (you timed it) that you could enjoy the sunshine when you were dead in a grave. Needless to say, you never asked to leave work early again.

You watched the conductor place her baton on the stand and wave her arms around. “I want this orchestra to regain its rightful place on top of the musical community. But this is going to require work from every single individual in this room. So, this is your first and only warning. If you are not going to put your entire soul into this orchestra, consider this your last rehearsal. Everyone is replaceable and I promise you will not be missed.”

You raised your bow to signal you had a question. Agatha’s head whipped around to look at you, and you could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Something you wish to add?”

“And if we stay?” You asked, thinking back to the very same question you asked her the day of the audition.

That earned you a smile so small it was almost impossible to see, and it went away as quickly as it appeared. “If you choose to stay, I am going to work you hard. I don’t want to hear any whining or complaints, only promises to do better. Are we clear?”

Silence from the room was taken as a yes. Agatha raised her baton. “Good. Flip to measure 21. Woo I want to work on your entrance. First violins, I know you love being the center of attention but you need to follow the dynamics on the page, circle them if you must. Flutes please try to not to fuck up your eighth notes otherwise I will make sure the only orchestra you play for is in the middle of Antartica.”

The rest of rehearsal went better than it started. Agatha was her usual slightly snarky self, and the rest of the ensemble was learning not to question her. You went to pack up your instrument when Monica motioned for you to come join her.

“I’m not sure if you have any plans but a few of us are going to get drinks if you want to join,” Monica offered and you were touched by her kindness.

“That’s so sweet but I’m actually pretty tired,” You said apologetically. Which was partially true, but you also wanted to make sure Agatha went home and didn’t stay cooped up in her office all night.

“Well if you change your mind, shoot me a text,” Monica insisted as she handed you her phone to put in your contact information. She took the phone back and sent you a message. “There’s my number.”

You thanked her again before heading over to where Agatha was silently stewing. A quick glance at her confirmed that she was still in a bad mood and you chose to silently pack up your instrument while shooting her quick and cautious glances.

“I can feel you staring,” Agatha finally looked up at you. “I want to redo the string parts for Maximoff’s piece. We need to fix a few of the bowings. I want everything to be set for our first rehearsal with her.” She noticed your hesitation. “Unless you have other plans.”

“Oh no, my dream Friday night is being holed up in your office marking Rachmaninoff,” You joked and grinned when she rolled her eyes.

“Funny, dear. Very funny,” Agatha deadpanned, motioning for you to follow her. “But I don’t pay you to make jokes.”

An hour later you were done with the bowings while Agatha had spent the time reading a book. She had a pair of glasses on and her feet were up on her desk, it was the most relaxed you had ever seen her.

“You’re finished?” Agatha asked, not looking up from her book. “Good,” she said and slammed the book closed. “Now, we didn’t get a chance to do this earlier due to my Maximoff induced migraine, so grab that violin and come with me. I want to see how relaxed your bow hold is after rehearsing.”

“Actually, I was going to suggest that we call it a night?” You asked tentatively, gauging her reaction. “You’ve had a long day and-“

“And what? I’m so old I need to be in bed before ten?” Agatha inquired, slowly taking off her glasses.

“You’re not old,” You blurted out and Agatha smirked at you. Blushing, you looked at the floor. “But maybe it would do you good to get some rest?”

“Trying to give me orders again, darling?” Agatha teased and even though you weren’t looking at her, you knew she was still smirking. “I’m not so sure I like that.”

“You really shouldn’t say things like that,” You mumbled whilst Agatha laughed.

“Whatever you say, dear,” Agatha said. “If it will get you to shut up, I’ll call it a night and go home. But I expect you back here tomorrow morning so we can make up our session. We’re finally starting to crack the surface of your true potential and I won’t have you wasting it because you need to sleep.”

You had waited for Agatha to pack up her bag and followed her out of the building. This was the first time you had left at the same time as the older woman. She usually sent you on your way long before she was ready to head out for the evening. She had her town car waiting for her out front, and she frowned as she watched you prepare to walk home.

“You’re not planning on walking alone at this hour are you?” Agatha questioned and looked at you like you were an idiot.

You shrugged. “I only live a few blocks away.” Which was a bit of a lie, but she didn’t have to know that. “And if anyone gives me a hard time I can just whack them with this.” You motioned to your hard case violin.

“You’re an idiot if you think I’ll allow you to wander the streets like a lost little puppy,” Agatha reprimanded you. “Get in the car.”

“I’m not getting in your car,” You argued. “I’ll be fine.”

“Darling I’m not going to tell you again. Get in the car,” Agatha repeated and then smirked. “Unless you’d rather I drag you kicking and screaming.”

You glared at her. Damn her for making everything sound so...suggestive. “Fine.”

“Good girl,” Agatha said as you followed her in the car, and she patted the seat next to hers. “Now where do you live?”

You gave her driver the instructions to your apartment and then made yourself comfortable in the car. There was a few minutes of awkward silence which you spent staring out the window, and Agatha spent staring at you.

“Ya know, you usually call me out for staring at you,” You finally spoke up, the silence starting to eat away at you.

“I am not staring at you,” Agatha lightly argued before changing the subject. “I never asked how you thought I did tonight.”

“What?”

Agatha frowned at you. “How do you think I led the rehearsal?”

That was new. Over the past few weeks Agatha had never asked you for your opinion on anything regarding her conducting, because why would she? Agatha was the most confident person you had ever met, and a part of you was envious at how she presented herself to the world.

You took a moment to glance over at her and found yourself staring into bright blue eyes. “I...I thought you were brilliant. But, you were a little too nice. I don’t think I saw anyone cry.”

Agatha’s expression lightened and you felt your heartbeat grow rapid at the sight of her smile. “Still making jokes, darling? Perhaps I’m going too easy on you.”

The rest of the car ride fell back into a more comfortable silence, and before long Agatha’s driver pulled up to your modest but nice apartment building.

You grabbed your violin case and offered Agatha a small smile. “Thank you for giving me a ride home.”

“Thank Hank, he did the driving.”

“Right,” You frowned. “Well, goodnight.”

Agatha briefly touched your arm as you went to exit the car, and you felt goosebumps at the sensation. “Goodnight, dear. I’ll see you in the morning.”

[secondpubertyscene]

8.14.21

This year has been one of major change. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, there’s this quote, “God is Change. Beware: God exists to shape and be shaped,” and I think for the first time since reading it, I get what was being said. While I subscribe to the idea that there is a higher power of some kind, I also believe that we (as in, us as individuals) have great power as well. That power lies in our ability to change, to grow, to persevere. This year has been one of major change, and we really have to talk about it.

It is easy to look at this last year and think, “Well, that fucking sucked” because frankly, it did indeed fucking suck. I could write you a list of things that brought me great pain this year, unbelievable, undeniable, unrelenting pain that still lingers now. But, see, the beauty of it all is that none of that pain happens in a vacuum. Along with the pain, I’ve come through it all with more wisdom, more compassion, more empathy, more gratitude, more peace, more love, and more confidence. I’d like to share how those things all are connected, but first I would like to acknowledge something.

While I don’t know for sure if this is just an American thing, it does seem very clear that Americans aren’t fantastic at processing grief, death, and pain collectively. We often are encouraged to suck it up, to shut up about it, to not make others uncomfortable with our tears and trauma. I believe this is in large part due to the fact that American Exceptionalism doesn’t quite allow us to acknowledge when our systems have failed us or when we are suffering in the “greatest country in the world.” I don’t intend on participating in that toxic positivity or to dismiss the seriousness of the year past. I simply intend on acknowledging the nuances of my experiences, the complexity of it all. Now, let’s begin.

Without recounting every moment in large detail (in part because that would be far too much and also because I don’t need to relieve my traumas today), the events of the last year have been as follows: 1) COVID hit, 2) I had a severe emotional breakdown that resulted in a short stay at the hospital, 3) my grandma passed away, 4) I broke up with my partner of a year, 5) I was officially diagnosed with adult ADHD (inattentive), 6) I got into a PhD program for sociology (fully-funded), and 7) I moved to Ohio (two weeks ago now). So much happened in what feels like a blink of an eye. When you’re a kid, you think a year lasts forever. Now, a year feels like a couple months!

Anyhow, all of these things had super intense negative impacts on my life and most of them had super intense positive impacts on my life. Let’s talk about how. I won’t say that COVID had any “positive” impact on my life, because it’s still currently making things difficult and it is still destroying lives (full worlds) every day. The emotional breakdown that I experienced shortly after COVID began, however, was the impetus for some of the greatest change I would ever make in my life. It began with new therapy, medication for the first time ever to treat my mental illnesses, and a new relationship with boundaries.

Out of this breakdown, I came to realize a few things. 1) I wasn’t really feeling most of my life up until that point. That isn’t to say that I didn’t feel at all or that I wasn’t aware of my feelings all the time, but to say that most of the time, I numbed everything out that was too hard to bear. I didn’t cry, I didn’t write, I didn’t even take the time to try to identify exactly what emotions I did feel. I just lived through it and waited until I felt better. Or, I would breakdown with rage and then feel better. Therapy, especially the group therapy I participated in for a couple weeks after leaving the hospital, changed that in huge ways for me.

Because I was able to sit in my pain, in my discomfort, I was able to actually work through some of my issues. I began to identify the areas in my life that made me genuinely unhappy and began to grant myself permission to feel disappointment. I granted myself the permission to expect more, to want more. I granted myself the permission to set boundaries without guilt or shame. I granted myself freedom. It is an ongoing journey of mistakes and back-peddling and trying again, but it is mine and I am proud of it. Had I not had that breakdown, I don’t know that I would be where I am now.

My grandma dying is one of the most painful things I’ve experienced and honestly, I haven’t dealt with it all the way yet. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her in person, I still am battling the feelings of guilt despite knowing that there likely was nothing I could have done, and my chest still feels heavy thinking about her. Even as I write this, I feel that pain. I know she is not truly gone and that she lives within me, but oh, I do miss her physical presence. The nagging, the phone calls, the hugs, the cooking, her soft hair and beautiful hands. I miss her. Because of her, though, I have been able to rehabilitate another relationship in my life. The relationship I share with my mother.

My mother is a lot of things, but for whatever reason I continually forgot that she too is a victim of hardship brought on by nothing but sheer luck. In this last year, she lost her mother, the man that she loved, multiple cousins, friends that went back to childhood, and who knows who else. She suffered a lot this year and she has suffered a lot over the course of her 61 years of life overall. For the first time, I have been able to really acknowledge her as a full being with a complex history and understand her as a person, rather than just as a parent. I’ve set new boundaries with her as a result, boundaries that have completely change the dynamic of our relationship and will continue to do so as we both learn more about each other. Gone are the days where she relies solely on me for emotional support or financial support. Gone are the days where she feels comfortable talking down to me and then expecting any kind of favors from me. She understands and respects that I am an adult, that I am independent, and that I can terminate our relationship should it get to a point where I feel unsafe again. While this might sound like a threat or even negative, it is in fact quite the contrary.

We now share the belief that I deserve better from her and that my continued relationship with her is founded upon our mutual growth. That’s a beautiful thing that arose from us being pulled together by the loss of someone we both loved more than we maybe even loved ourselves. Thankfully, though, I have come to love myself more than anyone else on this planet. This newfound self-love and respect resulted in the severing of my relationship with my partner.

I won’t pretend like my ex was this horrible person because she wasn’t. She was kind, loving, intelligent, hilarious, unique, complex, and so many other amazing things. I still love her with all of my heart and have thought about her every single day since we broke up. It is not for lack of love that our relationship came to a close. The issue was that I needed more than what she could give. I needed someone who could really sit in my shit with me without invalidating my feelings jokingly because they didn’t know what else to say. I needed someone who could make me feel safe and secure, not fearful and insecure. I needed someone who understood boundaries as openings for futures, not closed doors. I needed someone who could show up for me the way I showed up for them, even when they hurt me, even when they lied out of fear. She wasn’t able to do that. She wasn’t able to stick beside me during the worst days of my life. She wasn’t able to see me beyond our relationship. When my grandma passed and our relationship was on the rocks, she made it about us. She didn’t stop pestering me about our relationship for long enough to give me support on losing someone who meant the world to me. I couldn’t trust her after that and I also realized, I wasn’t required to.

Boundaries in that relationship weren’t healthy. I felt unseen, unprotected, and sometimes even unloved. While I am sure that she has grown even more since we have parted, the reality is that when I ended things, I knew that doing so was the most fair thing I could do for the both of us. This is because I deserve someone who sees my value inherently. I deserve someone who takes the time to understand me, to love me, to see me. Not just see me and them together, but me as an individual separate from them. More importantly, I needed to be able to ask for those things without feeling guilty or bad. As of now, I still don’t know that she sees me as me, as a singular person, and maybe she never will. That is okay. I still love her anyway. I just love me more now. As a part of that love I’ve grown for myself, I also now have sought out more help for myself. This seeking of resources led me to realizing that I was ADHD and helped me change my life.

Being diagnosed with ADHD at 21 felt absolutely ridiculous. How could I be ADHD when I can sit still most of the time and have a pretty decent amount of impulse control? The answers came from my psychiatrist, breaking down the stereotypical understanding of ADHD and allowing me to find myself within the diagnosis. Finding the right combination of medication has been difficult, but what hasn’t been hard at all is finding more resources that help me manage my symptoms. It’s because of some of these resources that I am able to sit here and write this.

A huge part of ADHD is this perfectionist mentality that makes it nearly impossible to start or complete some tasks. Every time I sat down to write in the past, I told myself that I absolutely had to write every single day, once a day, or I should just not do it. When it came to this blog especially, I had so much shame when I failed to post for a long time or had a lull, that I would either consider deleting the whole thing to start over, or just never posting again. I realize now that those were just cop outs for my brain, that I can write as little or as much as I want because it is for ME. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it doesn’t have to be anything but what I need it to be. Waiting for perfection would have me waiting forever because it’s simply not how my brain works. Accepting that is a large part of how I got into my PhD program.

I’m not going to lie. I am still trying to figure out all of the feelings I have regarding this PhD program. I am shocked that I got in, shocked that I got full-funding, shocked that I am now in Ohio, shocked that I am in my own apartment, and overall shocked that I’ve made it this far in general. While I do not believe that I am stupid or not capable of greatness, I am realizing that I’ve always seen myself pursuing something more straightforward. When I was younger, I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do even as those things changed. I knew what was required of me, I knew what I would ultimately do, and I took refuge in that. Doctors go to medical school. Chefs go to culinary school. Forensic anthropologists get masters degrees and do field work. It felt clear cut, straightforward, safe. This is uncharted territory. What do you do post PhD? What do you do DURING PhD years? I suppose I’ll just have to find out!

Anyhow, this year has been intense. Change is always present in our lives and sometimes it brings with gifts that we can only receive when we’re healed enough to take them. I’m hoping to keep healing, keep growing, keep loving, and keep going. I’m learning so much about myself and about the world. I’m loving myself more than I have in the past. I am incredibly proud of where I am. And I’m not done yet.

[mental-health-advice]

Hi. I apologize in advance for the long message and just want to give a tw (abuse/domestic violence)

Last year May, I was physically assaulted by my father and unfortunately we still live in the same house. I told all of my closest friends about it and for a while vented to them about how I felt (in moderation of course). After a while, I decided to only talk about my feelings to a therapist and others who would be better suited to help, as I was struggling with suicidal thoughts and lots of anxiety. I was also dealing with the pressure of doing grad school remotely and having frequent arguments with my father even during my classes.

My best friend was also going through major life changes of her own (moving to a new state with no family for a job, loneliness, first serious relationship) and I tried as best I could despite my mental state to be there for her and celebrate with her. The majority of our conversations are centered around her life and problems, which I didn’t mind at first, because it took my mind off of my own.

In April of this year I decided I needed to take a step back and seriously deal with my own mental health. I found it very overwhelming to try keep up with everyone while I felt like I was in shambles. I informed everyone about this. Since then, I haven’t as spoken much as usual to my friends. My best friend would constantly throw jeers at me when I would respond to her news a bit later than our other friends. She is being very passive aggressive about the fact that I’m not calling/texting her as much as usual. When we do talk and I try to have a light-hearted conversation about makeup etc, she “jokingly” accuses me of only using her to hear myself talk. She has also said in a roundabout way that I do not deserve to make a certain amount money because it’s more than what she makes. Even when told her that I would be able to start grad school (due to a last minute scholarship), she gave me a half-hearted congratulations and made the conversation about how bad she wished she would be able to go. I also finished my Masters program and she has not congratulated me.

I now no longer feel happy talking to her and dread answering her messages. In fact, I want to end our friendship. I believe she is being childish about me putting my own mental health first. Am I wrong for feeling this way?

Hey there,

I am so sorry that your friend is treating you in this way. A true friend would be there for you as much as you are for them. They would be happy for you when something good and positive happened for you and vice versa and most importantly they would not put you down and they would be understanding of your situation/ what you are going through.

Being physically assaulted by your father and still living with him must be incredibly hard. I cannot even imagine what you are going through in regards to this, I struggle enough alone knowing my Dad’s Dad lives a good 2 hours away! So I feel for you, I really do!

It can be a fine line when it comes to supporting and being there for friends when we are struggling ourselves. It can sometimes be hard to put boundaries in place and be able to stick to them. It’s great that your friend took your mind off some of your stuff in the beginning but I am sorry for how she is treating you now. It sounds like the friendship has become toxic in a way and like you mentioned she is acting quite child-like.

It was a great decision to decide to put your own mental health first, I know this would not have been easy to do at all! I just wish that your friend could have been more supportive and understanding that you were going through a tough time and that you would have liked her to be on your side if you know what I mean!

I do not think that you are wrong at all for wanting to end the friendship. It sounds like right now it is causing you more harm than good, and especially as you dread replying to her messages and talking to her. I know that it may seem harsh to just end the friendship but you really have to think about your own mental health and what’s best for you. And if this means saying good bye to this friend and moving on then maybe this is what is needed to be done? Of course though no one can decide what to do but yourself!

I really hope that this has helped a bit and please do let us know if we can help to support you in any other way!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going OK!

Take care,

Lauren

[bearbaitmegs]

I know I don’t have a lot of active followers here, but I’ve been going though some major changes in my life recently (both good and/or disorienting), and one of the things I am aiming to achieve with that is to reestablish myself online in some small way. Just casually, socially. I used to enjoy interacting and making friends online and some of my oldest friends remain people that I met through the web.

I hope these sporadic personal posts don’t bother you.

I think part of these changes that I’m aspiring to involve getting into the habit of simply posting more. I honestly am unsure of where to migrate to online outside of Tumblr. I’ve ditched Facebook except to check on businesses I’m planning on visiting and occasionally to sell something. I’m only on Snapchat and Instagram to follow one person. I haven’t logged into DeviantArt in almost 10 years. Yahoo 360 is long gone. Adjusting to Discord has been a slow and lurking process because it reminds me of some particularly haunting memories and it lacks most topics I’d be interested in (publicly, at least). Twitter never fit right. I refuse to engage with people on Ao3 or ffn because I’m very hesitant to engage with people who has the same media interests as I do because I’ve had far too much fandom-related trauma and drama and I still have trouble forming friend groups despite 9 years of distance

My brother has an undiagnosed and untreated personality disorder and it has often felt like his drama has been my defining feature for almost 2 years. I have gotten tired of carrying his monkey into all of my relationships and conversations, especially when trying to make new ones. I wish I had custody of my nephew because he and his ex are both sucky and neglectful, but all I can do is wait until the kid turns 18 or asks about emancipation. My brother deliberately seeks out relationships that renew and reinforce his past traumas in order to legitimize his unwillingness to move on and I hold him at least partially responsible for our parents’ decline in emotional, financial, and physical health. I recently opted to go for No Contact/Very Low Contact with him and it’s been freeing and refreshing and I feel immensely happier and more motivated. 

I frequently feel like I don’t have anything worth saying or cannot really think of anything to say. It’s a work in progress. I have always carried a sense of awkwardness and that continues to persist into my 30s, despite the fact that I generally consider myself a confident person. I’ve been in a romantic relationship for 5 years and it fulfills 95% of my social and emotional needs, which... I think has led to leaving many of my other relationships to pasture.

Instinctively, I want to reach out and rectify all of these relationships all at once. Of course, it doesn’t work that way, and in trying to pace myself I find I often procrastinate. I set myself a goal of reaching out to a friend per week, but it’s more like one every two weeks. I know some of us will pick up where we left off like we’ve never been apart. Some of my friends will have moved on and our re-connection will separate again because we’re just different now and I’m honestly not bothered by that. It’s normal. I just hesitate because I don’t know where to start even though the script should be so easy. I feel annoying and needy. “Hey, I hope you’re well! I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I was thinking of you today every day.” Ugh.

I’m pretty financially, mentally, and physically stable and have been for a while. I like my job and I’m paid very well! I like me! I like my hobbies and my apartment! I’ve worked very hard to get here and there’s really only a few key things I want to improve upon.

But somehow I feel like I’m rediscovering myself again. Like I was shut out of something and didn’t even realize there was a door. I’ve missed something. I’m naturally comfortable alone and tend to be willfully obtuse about things that don’t involve me only to get startled by them later.

I moved back to my hometown 2 years ago in order to introduce my partner to my family and be around for some major family events. It was supposed to be a 4 month summer visit. The family drama just never stopped and I’m just...still here. I can’t wait to leave, but I also don’t resent my hometown as much as I did when I left. It’s changing immensely, but so am I. I definitely won’t be able to afford to stay.

I had a patio garden over the summer and, while we hardly got our money’s worth out of it, it was pretty and tasty and fulfilling. A few of the plants are overwintering with us.

I still haven’t lived somewhere that allows me a pet, but I keep saving stray cats. 

I have way more fabric than I know what to do with from old clothes and dead ideas, but I finally tuned up my sewing machine and bought a set of sewing machine feet and I have lots of plans and ideas that I just need to sit down and actually execute. Especially embroidery.

I finally spent the damn $70 on an old school drawing tablet and took the time to download some free art programs. A modern tablet is still too much to budget for and a mouse and MS Paint is not enough. I do not know why it took me 10 freaking years when I’ve spent far more money on far less desirable luxuries.

I am hoping to find a decent enough mountain bike at a manageable price to do a long-distance cycling trip next year. If I don’t, I’ll divert to hiking a long-distance trail. I’ve never stopped craving spending weeks and weeks out in the woods with an overstuffed backpack since my first trek in 2016. I’m willing to go out of my way and budget hard to make it a reality on an annual basis.

I’m slowly picking away at my original story, JatGSL, a 10+ year Work In Progress, and I finally have a setting and characters that I feel good about and have a lot of fun imagining. I’m afraid to say much about it. It has dying androids and mushrooms and mythology and domesticated seals and braille and it takes place on a melted Antarctica. But my writing is a muscle long neglected and I don’t know if I’ll ever really get it back.

I sometimes think about moving some of my old fanfics over to Ao3 so they won’t be lost, but my old penname carries weight I’d rather not pick up and I don’t want to add anything else to JKR’s legacy and some of the things I wrote when I was 17-22 have aged pretty poorly. So, I hesitate and debate and do nothing.

I keep having simple, but neat ideas that nobody out in the market seems to be doing/making, but I lack the connections and knowledge to do anything with them.

My romantic partner is an amazingly perfect fit. Absolutely well-fitting, in-sync, mind-blowingly complementary in every way. I increasingly worry it might not last because my partner has 1 (ONE) key issue that I just can’t live with long term and if they can’t figure out a healthy way to cope I don’t know if I can go another 5 years dealing with it. I grew up with it. I won’t live with it.

It often feels odd to talk about myself (even here. even now) because I feel so much happier than I seem to be describing myself.

[emilyofjane]

Life Update (don’t worry, it’s a good one this time)

For those of you that have been following me for awhile, you might know that my personal life has been kinda...rough this year. But things have been going a lot better for me recently, and I have BIG news about my career path and my future as a whole.

But first, I need to provide some background:

As you all know, I’m a senior Biochemistry major in college, and I plan on graduating this December. Over the past year, however, I slowly began to realize that I’m...really not that good at my major. I’ve always kinda struggled in my science courses; I’ve never been able to make any higher than a B in any of my lectures, and the only labs that I earned an A in were my Capstone labs because my mentor is just really nice. When I started applying to grad school this past summer, I suddenly discovered that my major GPA (which is based only on my science courses and is separate from my overall GPA of 3.3) was well below 3.0 — too low to get accepted in any of the graduate programs I wanted to apply to.

The whole reason I became a Biochemistry major in the first place was to use it as a stepping-stone for my ultimate goal: to move on grad school and become a cancer researcher. So when I suddenly realized that I was guaranteed to be rejected from grad school no matter what, all of my plans for the future were suddenly turned upside-down. I felt like I had just wasted 4 1/2 years of my life working towards a degree that I didn’t even want; I was stuck in limbo with a mediocre undergraduate transcript that would never lead me to where I wanted to go in life. To make matters worse, I had taken out nearly $80K in student loans at this point, so I couldn’t just jump ship and switch majors, either. I was too far into my degree to turn back now, so I just felt stuck in a career path that I wasn’t even good at, let alone enjoyed.

My confidence took a nose dive after that, as did my motivation. It made me feel so incompetent to see everyone else breezing through my senior-level science courses while I struggled to get a C, that by the time my last semester started this fall, I sort of just...stopped trying. I didn’t see the point in putting in my best effort when I knew it was never going to be good enough anyway. I hit my lowest point in October, when I couldn’t even bring myself to log onto my Zoom lectures or pull up the slides to study. My grades plummeted beyond the point of salvaging, but when I finally broke down and told my mother about it, she refused to let me get a full medical withdrawal, basically forcing me to fail all of my classes and drop my already low GPA into oblivion. I truly felt like the world had set me up for failure, and that my entire future was ruined.

But then, as I was crying in bed and silently cursing out my mom for refusing to help me, I suddenly had an epiphany.

I’ve always loved to write and create, ever since I was a little kid. I remember writing stories in my notebooks in elementary school, which blossomed into writing short stories on Neopets, roleplaying and collab writing with my Deviantart mutuals in middle school, and eventually writing fanfiction on Tumblr and AO3. For the past few years, my catchphrase has always been “in a perfect world, I would’ve become a screenwriter instead of a scientist” because writing was my true passion, but my parents wanted me to pursue a practical career instead. You see, my parents are both business people, and their philosophy has always been “you have to make sacrifices to yourself and your family.” And I’ve always been a pretty smart kid — not a god-given genius like they thought I was when I was younger, but still very bright — and I’ve always thought that science was neat, particularly astronomy. That’s why I ultimately went into science instead of art; my parents convinced me that I could never make a living doing what I loved, and that I should become a scientist so I could support myself and my future family instead of “wasting my intelligence” on becoming a “starving artist.”

But if there’s one thing that they never took into account, it’s that I’m not like them. I’ve never really cared about money or material things in general — all I really need is food, caffeine, a roof over my head, a nice soft bed, my cat, and some wi-fi access, and I’m happy as a clam. I don’t care about going on regular vacations, or living in a fancy house with a pool in the back, or having a wardrobe full of cute and fancy clothes, or driving a nice car without bumps and scratches, or whatever the case may be; they never took into account that I don’t need any of that stuff to be happy, and I never have. And, even moreso, they never took into account that I’m not straight. They pushed the heteronormative narrative on me for so many years — that I was practically guaranteed to find my soulmate in college and get married and have kids or whatever — that I honestly believed them; it wasn’t until I actually got to college and discovered that I was aroace that I began to think otherwise. By my Junior year, I knew that I was never going to get married or have a family of my own, and frankly, I was perfectly okay with that. Besides, quarantine alone has been living proof that I’m perfectly content with living as a hermit by myself with my cat. Add these two factors together, and it becomes increasingly obvious that money is never going to be an issue with me; as long as I can pay the bills and support myself and my cat, that’s all I’ll ever need.

I realized all of this as I was sitting there in my bed, and it was at this point when I finally asked myself: did I really want to spend the rest of my life doing something that only made me miserable?

Once I realized this, something changed inside of me. I decided that I didn’t want to pursue science anymore, and I wanted to pursue my real dream of becoming a screenwriter in LA. And the very next morning, I marched straight to campus and met with every person I could think of to make it happen.

Now I’m planning to graduate with a Regents Bachelor of Arts in December, and I managed to drop all of those science courses I was failing in while keeping enough credits to maintain my student status. I haven’t reached the finish line yet — hell, I’ve literally just gotten started — but the important thing is that I got started. I finally feel like I have control over my own life again, and this is honestly the happiest and most optimistic I’ve felt about myself and my future in years.

Tl;dr I’ll always love and appreciate science, but I finally realize that I was never meant to be a scientist. My true calling is to be a writer, and that’s exactly what I’m going to be. I’m going to graduate with my Regents Bachelor of Arts this December, build up my resume and portfolio, save up enough money to move to California, and become a screenwriter for TV and movies in LA. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to happen right away, but I’m not going to let that stop me from following my dreams — no, never again.

[celestelavie]

Campus Tours || Athena & Celeste

TIMING: About a week ago PARTIES: @athenaquinn & @celestelavie SUMMARY: Since they’re staying in town long term, Celeste decides to go to UMWC to get information on their nursing program. Athena shows a lost Celeste around

After a particularly grueling shift at the diner, Celeste had decided she needed a step in the right direction. College had never made much sense, being on the run all the time, but if they were going to be making roots here, now was a good time as any to start. It felt like a huge step to be taking with the threat of her parents still looming, but she had to believe even that would be under wraps soon enough. She could at least hope as much anyway. She figured she could visit the Admissions office as the very least and get an idea of what her next steps needed to be. However, she found the campus to be a little overwhelming to navigate. She stared down at the map on her phone, trying to figure out what part of it corresponded with the building. She’d been grumbling at her phone when she noticed a figure in front of her just in time to prevent herself from a collision. “Sorry,” she started, “Oh! You’re Athena, right? Ariana’s friend?”

School was out for the summer, but that didn’t mean that Athena wasn’t still on campus. She liked going swimming in the pool and she had friends taking summer courses. It was also a place in town that she knew her parents were fine with her spending time at. They had to be, even though they didn’t wish for her to live on campus. Today she was simply going for a walk around campus, enjoying the nice weather. She wondered where her brother was - he had still not yet come home, and part of her worried for him, no matter how angry she was at him for leaving in the first place. Caught up briefly in her own thoughts she didn’t see the woman who was about to run into her, but luckily the woman stopped before the two of them collided, and Athena briefly side stepped, ready to wave and be on her way when the woman began talking to her. “Oh! Yes, I am! You must be Celeste.” She grinned, turning to face the woman. “How are you? It is such a wonderful sort of coincidence to run into you.”

Of all the people to nearly run into, Celeste had to be grateful that it was a friend of Ariana’s. Using the map on her cell phone to navigate the campus had proven to be more difficult than she would have liked. Plus, it was good to actually meet Athena. By all indications, she was a good influence and had gotten Ariana in with that summer soccer camp she was so excited for. She extended her hand forward to shake Athena’s, “It’s good to meet you in person. I’ve heard great things about you and your cookies were quite delicious.” She stuffed the phone back into the pocket of her jeans and answered, “Oh, I’m doing well. I was just looking for the Admissions office, actually. The map was a little confusing… hence, the near collision.”

She’d been wondering if she was ever going to get to meet Celeste. Athena was always curious about other siblings - and the fact that Celeste was a good deal older than Ariana just added another layer of fascination into the whole thing. They also seemed to get along well. Better than her and Orion, certainly, though Athena was self-aware enough to know that though she and her brother might have appeared like ideal siblings, they had not been that for years. Namely due to his refusal to believe in his destiny - or at least that was what she told herself. “It is good to meet you in person too.” She took Celeste’s hand in her own and gave it a quick, solid shake. “I am glad you have heard good things - and oh, I’m so glad! Baking and sharing what I bake is just the best.” She tossed a bit of her hair over her shoulder. “Well, you know, I might be able to help you with that. You were headed sort of in the right direction. What do you say? We can walk and chat along the way? If you don’t mind the company, that is.”

Celeste welcomed the idea of someone helping her find her way to the Admissions Office, especially a friend of Ariana’s. It was becoming more and more apparent that the younger woman really was a perfectionist. Celeste couldn’t even remember the last time she baked something though she was sure it was probably chocolate chip cookies. “Well, I can’t complain since I get to eat some of the baked goods. I’ve never been much of a baker myself.” She shifted her purse on her shoulder and exclaimed, “I’ll gladly take the help. I was beginning to feel a bit silly not being able to find it. Chatting would also be nice.” She smiled as she followed Athena’s lead, thankful she ran into someone she sort of knew to help her find her way. “How’s everything been with you? I know Ariana mentioned you two would be volunteering at a soccer camp together this summer.”

“Well, if you ever want some recipes to try out, I’ve got some good starter ones to try.” Athena grinned. “I won’t go all out and send you complicated ones, don’t worry.” She gave a small shrug. “Just let me know.” She grinned as Celeste accepted her offer of help. Good - this would give her a specific task for the day. Not to mention, she was curious to get to know Celeste more. She liked Ariana, and it was good to get to know the family members of those you were friends with, wasn’t it? “Please, this campus is a mess of planning, sometimes. You’d think an admissions office would be the easiest thing to find and yet it is far from it.” Adjusting her pace so that she was in line with Celeste, Athena grinned. “Chatting would be nice. Things with me are good. College is out for the summer, which is nice, though I do like school so part of me is also sad - but I think I did very well in all my classes this semester so I am pleased. Ariana and I will be doing that! Starts the end of June, and I’m super excited. Ariana’s such a great soccer player, and it’ll be nice to have her around. How about you? How are the repairs on your home going? I hope well, though I know these things can sometimes take forever.”

“I may take you up on that one of these days,” Celeste responded with a smile, “Thank goodness, I remember my mom tried to have me make a meringue once without any previous guidance on it and it… well, it turned out disastrous.”  She welcomed the chance to get to know one of Ariana’s friends. One of these days, when they were able to have a place of their own again, they’d have to have her over. As they walked through the campus, Celeste laughed. “Yes, they definitely didn’t make it easy. I was hoping to get some information on what I’d need to do to get myself enrolled in the nursing program.” She kept pace with the younger girl and listened as she talked about her summer. It was rare to see someone who liked school, but she supposed she understood. She seemed like a very ambitious young woman. “Well, I’m glad to hear your grades are doing well. What brings you to campus if you’re out of class for the summer? I know she’s really excited for the camp, too. She’s always loved soccer.” At the mention of their home, she shifted her glance a bit. It wasn’t like she could explain it anyway, so she shrugged, “It’s coming along. Hopefully we can be home soon.”

“Absolutely, just let me know.” Athena grinned. “Meringues are incredibly tricky to get right, so I will be certain to not give you any of those recipes. Admittedly, even I do not love working with meringue, so I do not have many recipes that even use that.” She found Celeste surprisingly easy to talk to - though she supposed that she should not have been so very surprised, in the end. Athena liked to think of herself as someone who could win most anyone over. Certainly something she’d used to her advantage on more than one occasion. So far though, at least in this conversation, everything she had said was filled to the brim with honesty - or at least as much so as she ever properly used. “Oh, nursing! That’s so fantastic! One of the girls in my sorority is starting there in the fall, it’s supposed to be a wonderful program.” She glanced over to Celeste. “Thank you, and well - I like the campus, and it gives me a nice space to walk around and collect my thoughts. It’s nice to walk around here and not have to focus on thinking about an exam or paper or project that I’ll have to do.” She bit her lip. “I’ve loved soccer for years too. It seemed like a nice thing to mention to her, especially given how skilled she is.” She watched Celeste’s expression change for a moment at the mention of her home and for a moment (though only a fleeting one) Athena wondered if perhaps that was not the best sort of question to have asked. “I hope you can be as well.” She continued to make her way through the campus, past a few classroom buildings, as she pointed them out, “that’s where some of my favorite classes have been held. Introduction to Neuroscience, for one. The class that I came into excited for and left knowing that it’d have to be one of my majors.” She looked back over at the other woman. “Can I ask - what draws you to nursing?”

The talk of meringue brought Celeste to a not so pleasant flashback of a job she worked back in San Diego at a bakery. It had been short lived due to how many meringues she had messed up and she had no intention of putting herself through that kind of torture again. “That’s a relief. If it’s meringue-free, I’m sure I can make the recipe work and not have flashback nightmares to an awful job I had when we lived in San Diego.” Somehow the news that Athena was in a sorority hadn’t been surprising to her. Everything about her screamed Type A from her school ambitions and her involvement as a student athlete. Even down to the enjoying campus when she didn’t even have to be here. It was a nice enough campus, but she had to imagine a break was nice. She knew Ariana was always eager to leave school unless she had practice. “Maybe I’ll see her in classes then. I’m sure I have a ton of prerequisites to take. I haven’t taken any college classes.” Hell, she hadn’t even graduated high school though she had gotten her GED. Technically, she also had a very convincing counterfeit diploma and transcripts, too, but she was inclined to take the honest route. She walked along with Athena, bag swinging from her shoulder and mused, “I suppose I can understand that. The campus is nice and I’m sure has good spots for reading and the like.” Celeste smiled as she spoke of how she enjoyed soccer and how skilled Ariana was. It made her proud to see Ari excel at something, especially when it was something she enjoyed. She hoped the carpentry apprenticeship worked out well for her. “I’m sure you two will have a lovely time.” She shrugged calmly at Athena’s well wishes. The little house they’d been staying in wouldn’t be an option anymore. Finding a new place would be nice though. Ulfric’s was kind of cramped and as cordial as he was capable of being, it was fairly plain to see he wasn’t her biggest fan. She focused instead on the last part, “Well, I’ve always wanted to do something that helps people and I’m not at all squeamish.” She thought to her own stitches on her leg that she’d done herself, “Figured I have the personality to provide comfort and medical care, so may as well go for it now that Ariana is out in the working world. You mentioned going into the medical field as well, right?”

“You lived in California?” Athena’s eyes lit up for a moment. “I’d love to go there someday.” It was almost as though with everything Celeste said she felt all the more connected to her - or even if not connected - more intrigued. She’d lived such an interesting life - lived in so many different places, and Athena had only been in one. She knew that it was for an incredibly good reason, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t sometimes wish she could have traveled elsewhere. “You may! I’ll tell her to look out for you. You might need to do some prereqs, but like, I know they always want new students so that’s also something in your favor.” She gave a small shrug to the woman. “Besides, if you’re anything like your sister, you’re likely a quick learner. She told me she was struggling with math classes but then got up to nearly an A in almost no time!” It was genuine, her compliment - she knew that she wasn’t always genuine but she did enjoy talking to Ariana. So she figured that being honest was the best way to go about things in this case. “Exactly. Especially with the beautiful weather, it’s nicer to go here than in a library or coffee shop in order to read. Plus, I know this makes me sound like a giant nerd - not that there’s anything wrong with that - but sometimes I like to get my books for the fall in advance and read those, and doing it on campus seems even nicer.” Her grin matched Celeste’s. “I bet we will, it’s a great camp and she seems so excited.” Celeste didn’t seem to want to remark any more on Athena’s comment about the house - which was fine. She knew that they were still mostly strangers, and just because some people enjoyed talking about home repairs, others were more cautious. She only hoped that there hadn’t been a sort of terrible attack. “I feel much the same way - and yes, all of that makes sense. I am going into the medical field! Hopefully I’ll get into some good med schools come next year. I agree though, I truly just want to do whatever I can to help make the world a better place, and if medicine is one way to do that, then why not?”

“Yes,” Celeste answered with a small grin. It had been a very brief stint before her parents had gotten wind of their location, but she had enjoyed it. The state had a lot to offer in terms of different terrains and national parks. “It’s a beautiful state. I miss it sometimes, but White Crest has a homey feel to it.” The prospect of being a student again still had her nerves on edge, but having a connection could be nice. Make the whole thing easier. “I appreciate that. I’m sure any friend of yours is lovely.” As much was true. Athena seemed like a smart kid with a good head on her shoulders. She was definitely driven and friendly. It was nice to have someone showing her the way around campus. There was a certain excited energy that came with being here and it was nice to get some of it out. She walked alongside the girl and commented, “It has been beautiful as of late. It’s good that you enjoy where and what you study. I imagine it makes the whole keeping up with your coursework so much easier.” At least she had assumed as much. It’d been too many years since she had to study anything herself. A smile grew on her face at the mention of Ariana being excited for the soccer camp. It was nice she had something to look forward to, even in the midst of everything else. They were choosing somewhere to be home permanently which gave them both the freedom to pursue things they were passionate about. “She really is, which I love to see.” They walked through a part of campus that had a fair number of little picnic tables under trees. She could envision herself content under one just studying away. As much had always been something that felt so out of reach, but here she was. She studied the campus around her and listened as Athena spoke. “That’s an admirable goal. You seem to be very motivated, so I have no doubt you’ll reach it. I like the way you think though, helping people. The whole leaving the world a better place than you found it thing. I wish you the best of luck with applying and getting into med schools.”

“White Crest has a homey feel for me too,” Athena grinned. “Then again, it has been my home my whole life, so I suppose to some degree that’s to be expected. Though, if you don’t mind, I might ask you about California sometime.” She shrugged. “Oh, of course! She’s great, and plus, she knows the place well and so she’ll get you all in the know and everything. Which is something that counts, I think. Even if just to let you know all the shortcuts around campus.” Celeste seemed happy, and that made Athena stand up straighter and continue to lead the woman along, giving a small wave as she passed a boy who was in one of her lectures last semester. “It has been, and I am so glad for that. Though I love Maine, winters do get so dreary. Also true, that studying what I love does make everything a lot easier. More appealing, too.” Another nod. “I’m glad, I’m glad I could do this for her - but she really got in all on her own. Knowing me was an added bonus to her application, she’s incredible in her own merit.” She sighed. “Thank you, and same to you. Anyone who wants to further their education is bound to succeed in their own way.” She did believe that, to an extent. Certainly, this was a bit more forced than usual, but she wanted to make a good impression. “I agree. I have always been that way, for as long as I can remember. Just wanting to make the world as good a place as is possible. Thank you!” She looked up. “We’re almost to the admissions building. Not too hard after all, hm?” She winked.

“I didn’t live there too long, but I’d be happy to answer any California questions that I can,” Celeste stated easily with a smile. She did know the state was a popular tourist destination for a good number of reasons. Her initial thought when they had moved there was that it would be far enough away from the Aquilla Estate that her parents wouldn’t venture out there on a whim. She’d been wrong and now they were going to be here soon enough. She focused back on the nursing school things, noting each building they passed. “Thank you, Athena. I look forward to hopefully joining in the program and meeting her. This place is huge, shortcuts would be most helpful.” Potential study partners were also a plus. She’d always enjoyed making friends. Celeste smiled in the direction of the boy Athena waved at, not wanting to appear rude. She’d yet to experience a Maine winter so she wasn’t sure what she was in for. Whether it’d be better or worse than winter in other states. “I suppose I’ll see for myself soon enough,” she thought aloud with a laugh. It couldn’t be any worse than Minnesota. There was a surge of pride that went through her hearing Athena speak so highly of Ariana. Their life hadn’t been easy, but she’d always done her best to steer Ari in the right direction. “Thank you, I know she’s a bright kid. Passionate, too. I’m sure the kids will get that from both of you.” She scanned their surroundings, noting they were by the Financial Aid department. She made a mental note of that. She’d need to visit them shortly after Admissions. Not surprisingly, Athena mentioned they were close. “Oh good, I’ve been trying to keep an eye on landmarks to make it easier for next time. Thank you for taking the time to lead the way. Good deeds definitely help in making the world a better place.”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to be an expert, it’d just be more what it was like living there,” Athena offered an easy smile. “Of course - I hope you get into the program too, and shortcuts are for sure always handy to know.” Though the nursing program and medical school did not always work together so much, if Athena did end up at UMWC’s medical school (her parents might want that, she figured - even though Johns Hopkins or Harvard or Geffen were all higher up, she’d stay here if it was needed) then there was a chance that they’d run into one another, still. “I suppose you will, although hopefully not too soon! We had a time of complete darkness, and that was a bit difficult, but I do not wish for winter in the middle of summer.” This entire conversation was incredibly normal. She was used to it, but there was something about Celeste that felt more natural than some of the other conversations she’d had. Maybe it was that even though she was meeting her for the first time technically, they had already connected a bit online and Athena did already know her sister. The shared interest in the medical field didn’t hurt, nor did the fact that Celeste was certainly not fae. “I’m sure they will,” she said with a quick nod. “You have a good sense of awareness, it’ll serve you well here. The landmarks method is a good way to go about it, it allows you to figure out where places are from any point. Also, don’t even mention it, I’m more than happy to be able to help out and to finally meet you. Good deeds do indeed, and the world certainly needs more of that.”  

“Warmer, sunnier, more hip if that’s still what the kids are saying. Way less mimes,” Celeste answered with a laugh. Of all the things in White Crest, she found she hated the mimes most of all. With a wide smile, she said, “Thank you, Athena. I appreciate it.” The prospect of being able to settle in a place and beginning to build a real life both excited and terrified her. Still, it’d be nice to pursue something she was actually passionate about and never have to ask another person how they wanted their eggs. The mention of the complete darkness made her laugh lightly. “Yes, definitely don’t want winter too soon. I’d like to enjoy the summer weather.” Though she figured she’d opt from going swimming anywhere in White Crest. It seemed almost inevitable something would try to eat her and that wasn’t her idea of summer fun. She looked over the Admissions building, still slightly filled with nerves to get this journey started before turning back to Athena. “Thank you. I agree with you, landmarks and being aware of your surroundings truly help. I think I could actually find this building again. It truly was great meeting you. Once Ariana and I get settled back into our home, you’ll have to come by for dinner and games some night. Enjoy your day, Athena!” With a final wave, she made her way into the Admissions Building feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time.

[stephhannes]

two years

nathan has been dead for as long as we were together.  

every person that i’ve talked to, every book that i’ve read, every sign that i’ve seen has pointed to “the second year after losing a partner is the hardest.”

this year wasn’t easy- but at least it made sense (for a little bit). in all honesty, i didn’t think i’d see the second year. the first year was so draining. i was so directionless. at least this year, i dug my heels in somewhere and gave it my best shot. i moved out of my mom’s house, i got three jobs, i lost fifty pounds, i took some genuine steps forward.

it didn’t always feel like progress, though.

it hasn’t felt like progress until now, when i’m sitting down trying to collect all my thoughts from the year. this year has felt rocky. every step forward came with two steps backward- i moved out of my mom’s house, and then a couple of weeks later accidentally ran over a dog and had to deal with not having a car for a little over a month. i started consistently going to the gym, and then i majorly sprained my ankle when i fell down a flight of stairs at work, which left me unable to work out for a couple of months, (and then when i started going back, i re-sprained the ankle while literally just walking down a sidewalk). i was depressed, stressed, but surprisingly well-dressed (aka i got my first professional haircut in 6 years and discovered the joy of a wide-legged pant).

and then, of course a pandemic hit and i gained ten pounds back, moved back into my mom’s house and started making more money on unemployment than i could have ever even dreamed of from physically working my three jobs.

there are some days where i’m proud of myself for doing what i’ve done this year- but every time i find myself positive for an extended amount of time, the voice in the back of my head is there, ready to make me feel like it’s all for nothing. i’ve said it a million times- i’ve got my whole life ahead of me, and i don’t want it. not without nathan. it all feels empty.

i’m trying though, and as someone said one time- “it’s the thought that counts.”

+++

i wanted to keep those last couple of paragraphs in, because they’re also how i feel- but the other day i had a moment of clarity. i was reflecting on what august 3rd, 2018 looked like. and i remembered how proud nathan was of me for doing so many things that seem like the bare minimum to me now. i did all of my errands in one day without taking a week to accomplish a few tasks, i read a book, i cooked dinner, i showered. he was proud of me, because at that time, accomplishing those things was a major feat for me.

the version of myself i am now, in august 2020 has no issue doing those things. i find it very easy to set out on a list of action items and get them done within a day. i consistently cook dinner for myself, and actually really enjoy it now. i still maybe don’t shower as often as i should, but that’s just who i am at the core of my being, honestly. i’ve read 23 books so far this year, literally before writing this blog i sat down and read an entire novel. it’s hard to imagine that the period of time between moving to philly and nathan’s death was probably my rock bottom, but it really was. even on my worst days, in the middle of the worst weeks in the last two years, i haven’t been as dangerously depressed as i was back then.  

+++

i keep accidentally telling people that i’m 23 years old when they ask my age. i think it’s because these last two years haven’t felt real. it’s weird, because the two years that nathan and i were together flew by so quickly. when he first moved to new york, we were dreading having to spend 9 months long-distance. we thought it would go by painfully slow, but it flew by.

and then our year in new york flew by.

we accomplished so much in those two years- three degrees between the two of us, living in three different states, undoing years of trauma, the usual.

time has seemed to stand still since he died. i laid in bed for a year, and then upgraded to laying in bed for only 16 hours a day for the second year.

i still haven’t figured out what i want to do, where i want to be, who i’m trying to become- and i think that’s contributing to the stagnation i’ve been feeling.

for years, being able to take care of nathan was a huge percentage of what i felt was my purpose. when we were in high school, my life revolved around dropping everything that was going on with me to be able to be there for him when he was struggling, on occasion he’d return the gesture.

when we were in college, and weren’t actively in each others’ lives, i grew up a lot. i discovered self-esteem, and learned how to be emotionally self-sufficient. as a child, i grew up lonely, and had always been pretty independent- in high school i let a little bit of that guard down to let nathan in, but in college i cemented my inability to accept help from other people. when nathan and i first started seriously talking again, i remember him trying to tiptoe around my feelings, and i was like “dude, i’m really not as sensitive as i was back in high school, you don’t have to treat me like a china doll, i can handle whatever you’re trying to say,” and i remember him responding with “you’re right. you’ve come a long way from that girl i met ten years ago.”

when we started dating, i resigned aspects of my personality. i tried to be more vulnerable. i tried to be less combative and defensive. when we got together, i changed my entire life for our relationship. i already had a job lined up for after graduation,  but when we got together, i immediately gave it up to commit to move to new york after i graduated- to be with nathan and support him through grad school. i remember the day he told me that he wouldn’t do the same thing for me. and it hurt. realistically, i know that it made sense for us to base our life around his career- obviously, i could have found a job anywhere, and no matter where it was, i wouldn’t have made any money. obviously, it made sense for both of us to invest in his success over mine- but it was hard to recognize that i so easily gave up everything to support his goals, when he wouldn’t have done the same thing for me, and he was so easily able to say that to me. this came up a lot when we were talking about our plans for the future. when we moved to philly, i got an opportunity to interview for a dream job, and while i was so excited about it- nathan discouraged me from pursuing it- because it was in theatre, which meant working nights and weekends, which meant that our schedules would become incompatible and we would never see each other.

it was a valid point, so we compromised. i’d go into the second interview for the job, but negotiate different hours and if that didn’t pan out, i wouldn’t take the job. nathan died a couple of days before the interview so i guess that problem resolved itself.

it would be unfair for me to sit here and paint a picture of him never doing anything for me though, that’s not the truth. i remember being shocked when he decided to not move forward with pursuing a phd. it was partially because that was the way the cookie crumbled, but a huge part of that decision was because he wanted to be able to spend time with me, and he wouldn’t have been able to if he was in a phd program.

i don’t regret setting my goals aside for him, it made sense. but more importantly, that’s what i wanted to do. i wanted to do whatever i could to make sure he had everything he wanted. he deserved it.

but it’s been weird to recognize all the things i subconsciously stopped doing throughout our relationship. i used to dye my hair once a week- but i didn’t dye my hair the entire time we were in nyc. additionally, my hair was the longest it’d ever been since like 2007 while we were together.  i used to have a quirky sense of style, but my outfits in nyc were pretty boring, even more boring once we moved to philly.  i think part of that was influenced by the fact that when i moved to nyc i was only able to take one suitcase of clothes, and focused on basics that would be easily multipurposed, and i couldn’t afford to upkeep haircut/color myself anymore, but i think part of it was influenced by this inherent desire to not be unattractive to nathan. a few months ago, i got my nose pierced, which was something that was definitely not on the table when nathan and i were together- and now i think my only personality trait is having a pierced nose, i can’t imagine my face without it. a few weeks ago i straight up shaved off half of my hair. and like, yeah it looks stupid, but it’s so freeing to be able to look stupid without worrying about what anyone else has to say about it. i’ve never cared what people think about my style, which is obvious in the way that i wore cat sweaters to school every day senior year of high school, and literally just everything i did between the years of 2005 and 2009- but i did always care about what nathan thought.

it’s been strange re-discovering these things. it’s felt weird to rebuild my personality, my interests, my goals without nathan in the picture.

+++

i’m not saying that i’m a person that believes that ‘everything happens for a reason’ (mostly because i think that’s a cop-out. it’s easy to justify anything as ‘happening for a reason’ when there’s enough distance between the event and the outcomes) but hypothetically, if i were, it would make a lot of our relationship make sense.

i’ve always been thankful that we never dated in high school- we would have straight up destroyed each others’ lives. we were both super toxic, and immature, and it wouldn’t have ended well. of course, when i was 16 and things weren’t working out, i thought it was the end of the world- but in retrospect, the people that we were in high school weren’t romantically compatible. i think it’s really special that we were able to have a successful relationship after the 10 years of drama. i think that it’s really special that when we were apart, we grew up into two markedly different puzzle pieces that ended up  fitting together perfectly. i think it’s really special that no matter what happened, no matter what city we were in, we always came back to each other periodically. no matter what.

when we got together, the timing wasn’t ideal- but it was the right time. we both knew that we would end up together at some point- i don’t think either of us would have been able to rest until it happened, and i think it’s really special that when we decided to take that chance, we didn’t know if things would work out, necessarily- but they did.

if i were to hypothetically believe that everything happens for a reason, i think it was a gift to me to be with someone that had already lost a partner. i learned a lot about differentiating between aspects of his personality that were genuinely who he was, and what was learned as a coping mechanism. i learned a lot about giving him space to grieve, how to be gentle with certain feelings and emotions. i learned a lot about how to push him to overcome trauma, but not push too far. all of that has given me a framework for what to expect and need from a partner in the future when i start seriously dating again.

if i thought that everything happened for a reason, the reason for our relationship was to teach me something. the difference between nathan and i was that he was a serial monogamist, constantly in a long-term relationship, and i was the exact opposite. by the time we got together, he’d been through the motions of dealing with someone for an extended period of time. and for me, our relationship was like a crash course in monogamy. moved in together as soon as we could, engaged on our 2nd anniversary. with the way that things panned out, i’m glad that we never took a break, that we moved quickly. i learned a lot about the importance of consistency and commitment.

but more importantly, i think our relationship was for him. it is infinitely heartbreaking to recognize that there are so many things that he will never get the chance to accomplish, so many things he’ll never see- but on the other hand of that, i watched him have a full character arc. it’s sad that he didn’t get to exist in this reality of being genuinely happy for longer, but i’m so grateful that he was able to rest there for a little while, at least. i’ll never forget all of the moments where he was so touched by me showing him what i thought of as just the bare minimum of human decency. there was one night that i stayed on the phone with him for 6 hours because he was having a bad night, and the next day he was so emotional because that was “the most loving thing” anyone’s ever done for him, but to me it was a no-brainer, of course i’m going to stay on the phone with you when you’re having a bad night, that’s what i’m here for. at the beginning of our relationship, he was nervous to be vulnerable around me, and every time he was scared to talk about something i’d have to remind him, “you’ve known me for 11 years, i’ve seen a lot, you’ve told me a lot, have i ever shamed you for anything you’d told me?” and he’d remember that, no, i’ve always been level-headed and understanding- and eventually we were able to work through things in a much more productive way.

i think a lot about all the things he was scared to talk to me about, and the thing i think about the most is that he was scared because someone in the past had given him reason to feel ashamed. i hate that for years, he felt like he had to compartmentalize himself.

and i remember after years of showing him this grace, of giving him all the space in the world to be exactly who he was- the day when i finally started seeing him sharing these parts of himself with people that weren’t me. i eventually started to see the walls he had built coming down, a brick at the time, but coming down nonetheless. and i was so proud.

it’s hard for me to let go of our relationship. i miss nathan every day- but i also have to keep reminding myself that i served my purpose. i did what i was supposed to do. i was a good, consistent partner. i loved him, and supported him, and gave him everything i could. the point of marriage is to stand by someone’s side until they die, and that’s exactly what i did. there’s nothing else i can do. our relationship was good, and it was short, but it was full of excitement and love and growth. it was everything that i dreamt of when i was 15 years old and had no idea what a relationship should look like. it was everything that i dreamt of when nathan and i were hesitant about trying to pursue a relationship.

it was everything.

+++

at a work training last year, we did an icebreaker where we paired up and randomly selected one question from a stack of prompts to answer and talk about with your partner. the question i got was “what’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?”

prior to nathan’s death, i don’t think i’ve ever been brave. i’ve always been timid, bravery was never an outward expression for me- maybe there were moments where i was quietly brave, but i would have never described anything i’d done as brave.

my answer to the question was “oh, i guess probably when i had to give nathan cpr”

here’s the thing, honestly when i think about that day, and the subsequent weeks, i’m in shock at how capable i was. for the first time in my life, in the midst of a literal crisis, i was calm, and solution-oriented. that’s not who i am, i love to catastrophize about the tiniest things.

i wouldn’t have been able to do it without nathan. without his endless patience. without his ability to be both firm with me when i was letting my anxiety get ahold of me, yet gentle enough to not hurt my feelings. without the years of him believing in me, even when i didn’t believe in myself. we set each other up for success.

+++

i feel like there’s been a lot of negativity in this blog, which isn’t the impression i’m trying to leave. i’m gonna be honest with y’all- with all this free time in quarantine, i’ve found myself out here revisiting stages of grief that i left behind months ago just for funsies. except nothing about it is what i would describe as funsies. it’s been a lot of anger, and i think that’s why there’s this underlying bitterness in what i’ve been saying.

it’s easier to get angry, to try to distance myself from the relationship, to make it seem like things weren’t great because it’s infinitely harder to remember how much i loved nathan and how much love i have left within me to give to him.

i’ve found myself awake in the middle of the night, revisiting old arguments, thinking of all the things i wish i’d said, revisiting moments where i’d wished i’d shown a little more backbone, revisiting moments where i wish i’d been gentler, or quicker to apologize. the problem is that i’m a lot more emotionally intelligent now- but obviously it’s easy to be a genius when you have two years to reflect on things, to dive in, to unpack everything and analyze it.

when i spend time thinking about these shortcomings, obviously they find their way into my writing. that’s just the reality of trying to be a reliable narrator. not every character is perfect.

the only way i know how to keep nathan close to me, to keep him around is writing about the time we spent together. and the reality of it is, that time was tumultuous for a solid 7 years. it’s been weird trying to navigate the line of “what are things that i want to keep just for us, and what are things i’m ok with sharing publicly?” i have an enormous online footprint. i’ve been a public figure online for like 10 years. i’ve always been on social media. i’m fine with that for myself- but my relationship with nathan was private, especially once we actually started dating. when it came to our relationship, neither of us publicly shared much. for awhile after he died, part of me wanted to keep everything for myself- not let anyone in. but then i remembered this sentiment that nathan shared with me time and time again- “i just want everyone to know that i’m yours.”

the other day i was looking through old instagram posts, and the one i made for our engagement literally just said “y’all ever uhhhh...get engaged?” and that was it. and that felt completely appropriate. i’ve always been skeeved out when couples post overly romantic garbage on social media. what are you trying to prove? why is it so important to you for people who barely know you to read a post and know how ~madly in love~ you are? performativity in relationships makes me so uncomfortable, and i’m really thankful that neither nathan nor i were interested in that at all- people that didn’t know us didn’t get to make conclusions about our relationship, and the people that did know us were able to make their own conclusions based on how they saw us interacting with each other, or how we’d talk about each other to our friends when we weren’t in the same room together. all of that time that others spend on taking a good picture for instagram, or writing a perfect caption, or whatever was time that nathan and i got to have just for ourselves. we spent as much time together as we could. 

my disdain of performativity runs even deeper than that, though. i’m even a little uncomfortable when a couples’ public wedding vows are too intimate. i always had two sets. there was the one that i read at nathan’s funeral- that was what i had planned on saying publicly at our wedding, but there was also another much more extensive letter that i was going to give to him privately. 

i feel like when i made that engagement post on instagram and facebook, a lot of people were like “wow that seems sudden!” but everyone that really knew us was like “oh hell yeah, i’m surprised it took this long” my coworkers literally predicted my engagement before i had even considered that it was going to happen. when i left work early for our anniversary someone straight up was like “if you don’t come back on tuesday with a ring on your finger i’m sending you back home.” because they’d heard the way i talked about nathan, they’d seen us interact with each other. it made sense.

we made it a point to not actively talk shit about each other to anyone else. which i think was really helpful for me specifically, a person who loves to hold a grudge- every time he did something that mildly annoyed me, i wouldn’t just pop off and vent to whoever, i’d just talk to him about it and the issue would resolve itself. on bigger issues, i would talk to my close friends about it but never in a “my boyfriend sucks” kind of way, just in a “this is an issue i’ve been having and idk the best way to resolve it, what are your thoughts?” kind of way.

for some reason, it’s always surprised me when i realized that nathan actually talked about me when i wasn’t in the room. like, obviously he would, but it was always surprising to me. when i first met his friends, a couple of people were like “oh!!! we’ve heard so much about you.” and i was just like wow i didn’t think that you’d even know that i existed. sometimes when i’d show up to a party someone would be like “so i heard that (celebrity) showed up at your work the other day, how was that?” and i would be like how do you know these things about me, and then i’d remember that nathan was talking about me and it was always super heartwarming.

after nathan died, a few people mentioned some particularly nice things he’d said about me when i wasn’t in the room, and every time someone would mention something, i’d be like “wow! i can’t believe this man that obviously loves me also loves me when i’m not around!” it’s like i’m a baby that still hasn’t learned about object permanence.

+++

i feel bad for not writing more this year. excluding this blog, i’ve only posted twice since last august. a big reason for that is every time i sit down to try to write something, whether it be a facebook post on a significant anniversary, or a full-length blog, i get discouraged because for right now, i feel like i’ve said everything i can say. i feel like the first year after nathan died, i was great at being poignant and sharing these little insights and as more time passes, as these anniversaries come again, i don’t have a better way to say what i’ve already said.

the core of every post is the same- i miss nathan. i love nathan. and for as long as i can find ways to say it, i will.

most days, missing nathan feels the same. it’s a dull ache that’s always there, but that i’ve grown accustomed to, that i’ve grown to live with. on occasion, it’s a more acute pain. the other night, i cried because i had the thought, “i wonder if my cats miss nathan,” i think they do, but for some reason, that thought made missing him hurt a little more that day.

i still mostly only sleep on my side of the bed, but the other day i got upset because i realized that my full-sized mattress seemed small. it’s never felt like that before.

the first year of our relationship, we shared twin sized beds, and it never seemed too small, not even with the two of us. when we upgraded to a full, it felt huge, it seemed like there was so much space between us when we were on our respective sides- by the morning we always ended up on the same side, literally attached to each other. the other night i found myself not understanding how i’d lived with a twin sized mattress my entire life, i felt claustrophobic with just myself and my laptop in the bed. it was just another physical reminder of how different things are, how different my perspective is now that nathan is gone.

the world feels a lot smaller without nathan in it.

[indigosandviolets]

The Secrets a Book Can Tell

Pairing: Joseph Liebgott x OC x George Luz

Word Count: 2,564

Summary: Andrew and Luz watch a movie even though Luz just can’t seem to shut up, but soon they’re all called to Bastogne. Andrew remembers how he came into the possession of the book he refuses to die without, but then the possibility of dying seems to only get worse as they start the march to Bastogne.

Notes: This chapter was originally just gonna have a minor flashback with Albert, but since someone said something about wanting to learn more about Andrew’s past, I made that a whole part!

Part Eleven of We Happy Few

-

The darkness of the room would have been perfectly coupled with silence, moving and working together to create a peaceful place as the men of Easy Company watched a movie.

That silence, of course, was not going to happen, all in favor of Geroge Luz.

“Gotta penny?” He said as the scene changed. Andrew nudged his side, trying to get him to shut up. Andrew had just wanted to hold hands with the lovable goofball, but because he kept talking he kept drawing attention to himself.

“Shut up, Luz,” Toye said, not turning around.

“Come on, I’ve seen the move seventeen times.”

“And I haven’t,” Toye replies, turning his head to look at Luz. “So shut up.”

Luz, being Luz, didn’t pay any mind. “Gotta penny?”

Andrew nudged him again. “George, stop,” he whispered. He had only seen the movie once before, and he barely remembered where that line even was, if it existed. It seemed to be Luz’s favorite, and he persisted.

“Gotta penny?” His voice was becoming more exaggerated, and Andrew was a blushing mess.

“George, please, quit it.”

“C’mon, it’s my favorite part,” He whispers to Andrew before saying the line again. “Gotta penny?”

Toye looked back at him again, ready to kill and Andrew could see it. He prayed that Toye didn’t have his brass knuckles. Luz stayed focus on the screen. “Gotta pen-ny?”

The woman finally says it, and Luz cheers. “For fuck’s sake, George,” Andrew says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Admittedly, he did love the idiot, but he wanted a quiet movie where they wouldn’t get caught while doing slight, domestic things. Luz had deflected that by, well, being Luz. Luz turned to Andrew after, his always present goofy smile lurking on his face.

He leans over into Andrew’s ear, whispering, “You know you love me.”

As Luz pulls away, Andrew glares at him. It’s not a mean one, it’s just an annoyed one, and Luz knows it based on the little laugh that he lets out.

Going to the movie had already been a strangely emotional thing for Andrew. He didn’t let it show, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the first time he and Luz kissed before the movie (which they did before this one, just a lot more hastily than that first time) and the circumstances around that kiss. He also couldn’t stop thinking about how he had been pulled out of the said movie to kiss Liebgott.

Now, this time it wasn’t Liebgott, but they were pulled out of the movie -- everyone was. Welsh took up the attention of the room, standing up at the top of the stage in the front of the makeshift theatre. “Get your gear, everyone, we’re moving out. Take everything you’re gonna need.”

That’s not really what Welsh said, but Andrew was sent straight into getting ready so quickly that he couldn’t remember exactly what the Lieutenant said.

Andrew buttoned up his jacket as fast as possible, threw as many warm clothes his combat bag would carry as far down as possible, followed by a few packs of cigarettes and half a bar of chocolate that he had stolen with Liebgott from the canteen.

He slipped on his winter coat and hat before throwing the bag over his shoulder. As he did so, a book fell off his bed in the haste. He picked it up carefully like the book was so fragile that it would snap in half at too harsh of a touch.

It was All Quiet on the Western Front, the same copy and edition he had carried with him from Toccoa. He rubbed his finger over the now worn spine, moving to the corners of the cover. They had been bent over, rumpled, becoming soft. He opened the book, and other than his name written in a soft pencil, a message had been written in on the back of the front cover.

Remember, read to Luz!

Andrew’s fingertips touched the messy note, remembering how Luz had asked him to read to him that fateful night in Normandy. He sighed, slipping the book into the inside pocket of his winter coat and stepping out with the rest of the men, ready to get in the douche-and-a-half’s.

-

Andrew acquired All Quiet on the Western Front from his brother, Albert. Albert had always been a novice reader, in fact, his second choice for his major in college was literature, but he stuck with finance and business instead. Having no other real male figure to try and emulate in his day-to-day life, Andrew too picked up a love and real passion for reading.

It had started off small, with reading a new book once a month after Albert had moved out. It became a rock and grounding for Andrew to become more in tune with himself -- and to tune out his parents as well.

This soon escalated to two, to three, to four, averaging one a week. He couldn’t get enough of the words as they seemed to fly off the page, and he also couldn’t get enough from the escape of his parents. He read anything he could get his hands on, it was like an obsession.

All Quiet on the Western Front, though, wasn’t one of those books that he read in a week. Albert had left a copy behind, but it was well-read, torn in many places. There were even whole chapters missing from here they had been ripped out (Albert used them for inspiration and note-giving). What he could read, though, was mostly in German. Albert had went out and gone and bought a German edition of the book, learning the language just to translate the book. Andrew couldn’t understand it, other than the simple “Ja” here and there. It was a nightmare to read, and it was one of the things that Andrew had taken with him when he stole the truck and drove to Chicago.

“Al,” Andrew said one night as they sat on the couch after dinner. They had been listening to the radio, hearing updates about the war in the Pacific. Andrew had already looked into enlisting for the Army that morning. “Why in the name of God did you have to leave me a book in German?”

Albert shrugged. “Motivation, I guess.”

“Motivation for what?”

“To get you to visit me,” Albert said, smile wide on his face. Andrew now remembers that he and Albert did share a smile. There were several things that the two of them didn’t even come close to being similar in, but you couldn’t deny that the Marin boys had the same smile. “Took you, what, three, four years?”

Andrew hit his older brother’s shoulder. “I hardly call it a visit.”

“Then what is it?”

“An escape.”

“Yeah, that works.”

Andrew held the German edition in his hands for a moment before giving it over to Albert. “Half of it’s gone, by the way. You ripped out a lot.”

“I know,” Albert replied, taking the book and holding it up to the light. “You know, I forgot half of it.”

“The book?”

“Well, that, but I forgot half the German I learned.”

Andrew laughed. “What good you are to the Army.”

“That is why, my dear brother, you are going instead.”

Andrew sighed. “If they’ll take me.”

Albert looked over to Andrew. “They’ll take you, don’t worry. I hear they need guys for their new Airborne program.”

“The hell is that?”

“You think I know?”

Albert got up, placing the book on the coffee table before he walked over to his bookshelf. He scanned it for a minute before pulling out a newer copy of the same book -- this time, in English.

“Here,” Albert said as he gave Andrew the copy. “It’s brand new. You’re gonna need something to read when you have downtime.”

Albert and Andrew couldn’t have expected that downtime for reading to happen where the book actually took place, but that night, Andrew tucked the book away into his bag after writing his name on the inside cover, not sure when he was going to read it.

-

Andrew sat beside Liebgott and Babe, nestled between the two, his knees pulled up towards him to keep in as much warmth as possible. Everyone was talking to a replacement -the name he didn’t quite catch, maybe Ray? - what why he had so little on him.

“You need four pairs of socks,” Skip Muck tells him. “One for your feet, one for your hands, one for your neck and pair for the balls.”

Everyone seemed to agree. Everyone was asking the replacement of what he had on him and what he needed.

“You got cigarettes?” Someone asks, and the replacement nods.

“Yeah, I got a half-”

Andrew can’t hear the rest of the sentence as everyone grabs for cigarettes, even Liebgott and Babe. Andrew puts his hand on Lieb’s shoulder. “I got you a pack, calm down. I’ll get it out when we stop.”

“You gotta coat?” Liebgott asks. And he asks it again. He keeps asking it until another matter is deemed more pressing, that of which he turns to look at Babe and Andrew to say, “I gotta piss.”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Andrew tells him.

“No shit,” Liebgott says, turning away. Andrew knows that Lieb is being a little short with him, but that’s mainly due to the fact that he still felt awkward around Babe after what happened before Eindhoven. Despite this, Liebgott moved his hand around Andrew’s waist, most of their bodies covered by the winter coats so that no one would see it. He accomplished this by timing it with when the truck lurched as it went over a rough patch on the dirt road, knocking everyone into each other. This was a perfect time, Liebgott seemed to decide, that he give a little reassuring squeeze to Andrew.

“Why the hell are we even comin’ over here anyway?” Guarnere asks everyone. “We’re supposed to jump outta planes, not ride out and march to the battlefield.” Andrew knew that Guarnere was always somewhat passionate about the things he thought were problems. “This is the fourth Army problem, right? They should be sendin’ in the sixty-eighth, not the one-o-one.”

Andrew leaned his head up to get his voice over to Guarnere. “We’re still Army, Guarnere. They’re gonna send us wherever the hell they want to. It doesn’t matter if we’re armored or not.”

“The hell do you know, Marin?” Guarnere says.

“Guarnere, where the hell have you been the last two years?” Andrew replies. “You of all people should know that Mister Eisenhower doesn’t give a shit about who gets sent in. As long as the problem gets resolved, they could send in the fucking coast guard and he couldn’t give a shit.”

Guarnere turns, patting the replacement on the shoulder. “That’s Andrew Marin. Second smartest guy in the company.”

“Who’s first?”

“That’s Bull.”

Andrew looked down, smiling to himself. It didn’t sound like a lot, but to be second to Bull? He could only dream.

As the truck came to a stop, Andrew, Babe, and Liebgott were the first out, and Babe and Andrew stood by a pit that had been filled with gas, waiting for one of the Lieutenants to get it lit. Andrew almost did it with his lighter, but he needed it -- he smoked too much to not have one on him. They also waited on Liebgott, who had gone to resolve the pressing matter of having to piss.

“It’s so goddamn cold, Babe,” Andrew says as the fire finally reaches them. Andrew didn’t think that the smell of burning gas would actually be comforting.

“Remember how they said we’d be home by Christmas?” Babe tells him. “Way back before Market Garden?”

“Jesus, yeah, I do,” Andrew laughs. “I wrote to my brother about it too. What a load of good that does now.”

“Hey, at least you and Liebgott will be together for Christmas.”

“Yeah, if we don’t freeze our asses off.”

“Hey, kiddos,” Liebgott says as he returns to Babe and Andrew. “How’s the fire?”

“No one else is gonna here us, you don’t have to say kiddos, Lieb,” Andrew tells him. “It’s good. How was the piss?”

“As good as a piss can get while you’re freezing your ass off,” Liebgott replies, standing beside Andrew. “I would not recommend it.”

Andrew chuckles, looking up from the fire and out to the road. He doesn’t quite see it at first, but there’s movement. A lot of movement. Men, disheveled and battered and bruised, walking on the road, out of the town they were supposed to go into. Andrew taps on Liebgott, making him look at the marching men.

“What the hell happened to them?” Babe asked. “They look like complete shit.”

“I have no idea, Babe.”

Andrew looked over to Liebgott, who didn’t say anything. He just looked back at Andrew, and Andrew could feel just how scared they both were. Not of what was ahead, but for each other, worried if they would get through the hell that walked before them alive. If the guys there had only been in for a month and looked like this when they were pulling out — while it was starting to get cold — what the hell was going to happen to the rest of them?

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew saw Guarnere talking to one of the men. Now, if there was anyone who only took the absolute truth, it was Guarnere.

“I’ll go talk to Gonorrhea,” Andrew tells them. “Just get what you can find, yeah?”

“Drew, what-“ Liebgott starts, and Andrew turns around. “What do you expect him to know?”

“He’s talking to one of ‘em, so he knows more than us,” Andrew says. “Plus, he holds more power, being as we’re only tech corporals and he’s a goddamn sergeant.”

Liebgott purses his lips before he sighs. “Fine, but be careful, alright?”

“I will be. We promised, remember?”

With that, Andrew turned and walked to Guarnere, who had just stopped talking to the soldier from the fourth army. “Bill, what’s going on?”

Guarnere looks at Andrew. “It’s a goddamn suicide mission, that’s what it is,” Guarnere tells him. “They probably went in there with 200 guys, now they’re comin’ out with 93. Just get their ammo and pray to God you’re not gonna be dead before your birthday, Marin.”

Guarnere walks off to get ammo from the men before Andrew can ask another question. He steps back from the road. His birthday is in less than two weeks and Guarnere was telling him that he might die before then. Terrible thought, he knows, but that’s the truth. Anyone could die out there, be it God’s will or good ol’ Mr. Hitler’s.

Maybe that’s why Andrew brought his book, because he knew he wouldn’t die without it. Because he knew that if he did die, no one else could have that copy, with the worn cover and dog eared pages and cracked spine and message about Luz talking about a promise he hadn’t quite carried out yet, because if he wasn’t able to read it to Luz, no one would know but him and Luz. Not another soul could have known what happened on that night in D-Day, only Andrew, Luz, and All Quiet on the Western Front.

-

tag list: @alienoresimagines @fromcrossroadstoking @easyroses @leximus98 if you want to be added, please let me know!

[c-is-for-circinate]

It occurs to me that I promised y’all I’d tell you stories from the D&D campaign I’m running, and it’s now been a week since the first session, so I should definitely do some of that!  I can already tell it’s going to be a fun-as-shit campaign.  If nothing else, my party and I are collectively five variably-queer ladies who met at knitting group and range in age from “haven’t played D&D since 2e at GenCon in the 90′s” to “too young to remember fandom before AO3 existed”.  We’re real fucking cool.  I am going to have to explain, in detail, so many textiles and other interesting crafts.

I am a WORDY-ASS MOTHERFUCKER, so the whole tale will probably get pretty long in the telling, but: welcome to the continent of Nokomoris, on a world that probably has its own name but I haven’t decided on it yet because naming things is hard, dude.

[here’s where I will probably link game session posts in the future once they exist]

Hark, a backstory!  (And, our four players)

IF YOU RECOGNIZE THIS CAMPAIGN INFO BECAUSE YOU ARE PLAYING IT, CONSIDER YOURSELF UNDER DM ORDERS TO BACK OFF AND STOP READING.  I KNOW YOU FUCKERS ARE ON TUMBLR TOO, THERE IS A REASON I DIDN’T GIVE YOU MY HANDLE.  (I love you all very much and yes, there are spoilers in here.  Go away and text me now.)

Eastern Nokomoris, where our story takes place (or at least begins) is in a prosperous age of thriving city-states and collapsed kingdoms.  Most trade, culture, and even centralized government is based among the Nine Cities, massive metropolises located around the Attiks Sea and nearby lands.  Nearly a million people live in the nine cities, which are connected to each other via well-established sea and land trade routes, and also by what many are calling the most important technological/magical development of the modern age: a network of massive permanent teleportation circles, thirty feet in diameter.

The circle network is big enough to carry large trade wagons, livestock, huge parties of people, and even troops and war machines.  Sea and land trade has dropped by half between the Nine Cities in the past fifteen years, and continues to decline.  The cities themselves are thriving and prosperous, and it’s easier than ever to get beef and leather from Karna Vi, wool from Yefira, pottery from Celkan or metalwork from Tiers no matter where you live.

Outside of the cities, it’s another story.  Dozens of once-prosperous kingdoms, and even the whole of the Trava Empire, have fallen in the past seventy years: first during the Church Wars, and then in the yeas of chaos and rebuilding once the Wars were over.  Small towns everywhere that once paid taxes to a crown, and were protected in turn by royal troops and much-needed aid in times of hardship, have been left entirely to stand or fall on their own.  Some have thrived, becoming local centers of trade for whole coalitions of abandoned towns nearby.  Others have disappeared, died out, or simply faded into the wilderness, forgotten.  The great open plains of Highnorth where the Trava Empire once ruled, the endless golden sea of the Southgrass, the peaks and valleys of the Thavine Mountains, the deep many-colored forest of the Iris Peninsula--who knows what’s out there any more?

And in the Midlands, where the worst of the Church Wars took place...well, precious few towns even survived to rebuild in the first place.  Land that once held the most fertile farms in all Nokomoris is desolate now, scarred and cursed.  Most of the battlefield has been picked over by intrepid adventurers and out-of-work soldiers in the six decades since the Wars ended, already raided for magic and treasure.  The ruins remain, and the valleys where nothing will ever grow again, and the eternal shadow over the once-Holy City, and who knows what sorts of twisted things living in places people no longer go?

But it’s been sixty years since the Church Wars ended, and for most people, life is good.  Small-town farmers may no longer have the protection of any crown, but small technological advancements in plow design and crop rotation mean that they can produce more food than they need and sell the extra in the nearest city for coin.  More and more young people, freed from heavy labor on their parents’ farms, have learned reading, writing, history, and some amount of arcane talent.  The Grand Universities in the nine cities are thriving, full of scholars of all ages eager to learn and advance the course of knowledge everywhere.

Of course, there are ten times more scholars in the Grand Universities than there are professorships or other high-ranking positions to hire them to...and that is where our story begins.

.

Our intrepid party thus far includes:

Marion, a human paladin of indeterminate gender, whose human family stands among the nobles of the great city of Karna Vi, where our story begins.  Marion is an acolyte of the Church of Lost Things, which concerns itself with every god that does not easily fit within the purview of the other seven Churches, and also with every god that has been erased or forgotten by time (for all gods deserve worship, and all gods are capable of smiting those that neglect them, sooner or later).  They’re also a math major, largely because computer science hasn’t been invented yet.

Marion’s really hoping to be able to build and program a simple computing machine, a la Babbage’s Difference Engine (or Arthur C. Clarke’s The Nine Billion Names of God), to tabulate and generate all the possible names of every god ever to exist, which seems much more efficient than just combing piecemeal broken historical records trying to find them.  It has not been going well.  In a Church system where paladins are often more concerned with protecting people from the gods than for the gods, cracking this problem will let Marion figure out who the gods even are like nobody ever before.  But there are variables missing, and theomathematical constants they can’t even identify yet, let alone calculate--and they’re not going to find here.

Three interesting facts about Marion, as per their player: 

They once spent an entire week holed up in a lab over a holiday break and were declared missing-presumed-dead.  Police searches were involved.  It was a little bit of a scandal.

They are by far the most unremarkable and constantly forgotten member of their entire family.  (This perhaps says more about their family than about them.)

Everyone on campus is fairly sure they interfered with the campus clock tower specifically to give students more time on finals last semester.  This is false.  They were trying to run a different experiment entirely, messed with the clock tower by accident, and didn’t actually notice it was finals week even after it was over.

Kevin, an elf barbarian sportsball champion, hero of the university’s sportsball team for the past ten years straight.  Kevin is a foot and a half taller than any self-respecting elf ought to be, not to mention twice as broad.  He’s finally starting to acknowledge the fact that there is, in fact, no NFElf, and you can’t be a “professional sportsballer” within the Elven Ascendancy, and his bemused parents would really like him to do something with his life beyond playing those little games with the ball and all of those...non-elf people.

Kevin is also an art history student, mostly out of desire for an easy major that’ll make his parents happy while he happily spends most of his time out on the sportsball field.  He’s got high strength, basic middle intelligence, and negative wisdom.  He’s sat through more history classes than the entire rest of the party put together.  He understands approximately none of it.  Still--he can’t do sports forever, and art history makes his parents happy, and he might as well go on a quest to uncover lost art and artifacts and maybe prove he’s an actual adult sooner than later, right?

Three interesting facts about Kevin, as per his player:

Back in his home city playing little league sportsball, there were definite (and accurate) rumors about this wild elf that could and would straight-up squish opposing players.  That’s how the college recruiters found him in the first place.  It’s definitely why they wanted him.

He has so many groupies.  So many.  They come in so many different species and genders and Kevin is on board with every single one.  (On board?  On bed?  On convenient flat surface?  Does it particularly matter?  Not to Kevin!)

Kevin is covered in tattoos, and there are all sorts of rumors about what sort of eldritch magic they hold--like, that panther is probably a real panther bound by elven magic, right?  A pretty persistent rumor suggests that the tattoos all commemorate individual opposing team members he’s...either hospitalized or fucked, or both, literally nobody is sure.  (In point of fact, none of the above are true, and Kevin just has terrible taste in tattoos and a pretty stunning lack of both impulse control and supervision--but why quash the stories?)

Kou, a halfling bard whose girlfriend just left three weeks ago on a research expedition of her own, taking with her approximately 85% of Kou’s impulse control.  In theory, Kou is an alchemy major, studying science to make her scholar parents happy.  In practice, she probably spends more time sneaking into music seminars and/or busking on the street for spare change than actually doing alchemy, but her girlfriend was a Good Responsible Influence who made sure Kou didn’t get kicked out of the department, and to be fair, alchemy can blow things up sometimes so that’s always good.

Kou doesn’t so much have plans for the future as vague, contradictory aspirations, but that doesn’t mean she’s not smart.  She’s learned enough magic to use a set of recording stones to play, loop, and modulate beats or bits of music, thereby making her Nokomoris’s very first DJ, and she really wants to be a professional musician someday.  She just hasn’t figured out how to reconcile her dreams with her parents’ wishes, the lives they’ve worked so hard to create, or a halfling cultural legacy that has more to do with riding around snowfields covered in furs waving spears than it does with brightly-colored house parties.

Three interesting facts about Kou, as per her player:

Kou very definitely once spent a full day dressed up in halfling traditional garb, furs and all, including a very fuzzy fur hat.  It wasn’t until that evening that somebody saw the hat move and everyone realized she’d been wearing a curled-up live fox the whole time.

She once managed to create an incredibly destructive compound in alchemy lab out of ingredients that should not have actually been able to react that way.  She found out it was corrosive when she accidentally spilled it on six months’ worth of a different professor’s lab notes.  (She got an A anyway, because her lab professor hated the other guy, but that has more to do with Professors Ayanova and M’tiersi than Kou, really.)

She absolutely goes down to counter-protest every damn time those Family First assholes try to rally downtown in favor of child-producing (read: heterosexual, single-species) families.  Rumor says she once broke her guitar over a protester’s head, which horrifies her--Kou’s guitar is the most expensive thing she owns!  She used their own protest sign, like a sensible person.

Reigenleif, a mostly-female-probably gnome rogue known around campus as “Beer Run” for her skills at somehow always having access to better and cheaper beer than anyone else, and her general willingness to deliver to parties (for a small additional fee).  Reigenleif’s parents are small-time forgers who ended up mostly working for a local crime organization after a series of bad luck and political upheavals brought them to Karna Vi a few decades ago.  They really want their kids to go clean, avoid all the uncertainties and occasional jail sentences/executions that accompany a life of crime, and maybe make a little something of themselves.  Reigenleif, who has zero interest in staying on the right side of the law, mostly does odd jobs for a different, not-technically-rival criminal organization, and carefully does not tell her parents about it, ever.

Technically she’s an engineering major, and she’s more than got the brains for it, plus the accompanying curiosity about metallurgy and arcane artificing.  Still, she spends most of her time helpfully involving herself in other peoples’ projects rather than running her own.  (Her own projects have a lot more to do with figuring out new forging techniques and criminal tricks, and don’t look very good in the end-of-year department report.)  Enjoys causing trouble, not being in it.

Three interesting facts about Reigenleif, as per her player:

She absolutely owns a copy of the provost’s signet ring, which she can and has used to create documents allowing herself access to all sorts of University resources.  Like most things, she’ll share the use of it, quietly, for a price.  (She also owns a copy of Marion’s family signet ring, which is a much longer story that I as the DM do not know yet--can’t wait for that.)

Once captured and maneuvered a live swan into somebody’s office to cause as much chaos as possible so Reigenleif could get up to something somewhere else.  Is a little bit of a legend for it.

Aside from her not-actually-that-impressive family legacy of crime, Reigenleif’s spread a quiet rumor around school that she’s descended from the famous marauding pirate, Thrand Slender-Leg.  It’s possible that Thrand Slender-Leg never actually existed.  It’s possible that nobody had ever heard of him before Reigenleif made him up.  She’s certainly not telling.

[boymeetsweevil]

For science 1/7 -  (NSFW)

Grouping: Reader x Nerd!Jungkook

Word Count: 6.1k

Warnings/Themes: masturbation (vaginal) & voyeurism, unrequited feelings, eventual sex. is this crack yet? lol there’s a plot i swear.

Summary: Jungkook asks you to let him watch you get off. For science.

A/N: posting this now because I’ve been working on it on and off for like a month and im tired of looking at it and jk’s bday is coming up HAPPY BIRTHDAY JK and i’ll be too busy with school plus im almost 7k into the second chapter so..

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Your eyes burn in protest as you scroll to the top of your terminal window once more to search for the error that is fucking your code up. It’s been hours of work and you still haven’t managed to get your program to run even though the homework assignment is easy in theory. In fact it’s just like a problem that Jungkook said the professors would probably give you in your sophomore year, and here you are in your junior year seeing such an ‘easy’ question. With him, it had truly been easy, though. Jungkook was a better computer science teacher than any professor you’d ever encountered. Thinking back to early high school days has you smiling softly to yourself. 

You miss sitting closely together, heads sometimes touching, as you both bent over a problem while he explained why it looked hard, but was actually something you could do in your sleep. The wide smile he would give you when you completed competition questions in minimal time would always set your heart fluttering.

Your phone vibrating brings you back to reality. The caller ID reads ~JK~ and you swoop in to answer the call. If the time in the corner of your computer is right (and it is) he should have already opened his decision letter from the PhD department.

“Hey, what’s the verdict,” you ask as soon as you accept the call. You know there’s no other reason why he’d call you when you were supposed to meet up in a few hours for weekly game night.

“I got in,” his voice is soft, but you know him well enough to be able to hear the joy mixed in.

“Congratulations, Kook! That’s amazing, I knew you would get in, they’d be crazy not to accept you. Oh my god, we should celebrate.”

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe we could go out for drinks before heading back to mine to play tonight. You in?” Now you can practically hear the smile in his voice.

“Of course I’m in. Let me just pack up and I can meet you. Where are you--the department lounge? I’ll come over.”

“Actually,” his shy tone has you sitting down slowly, returning your jacket to where you had it slung over the back of your chair. “You don’t have to leave right away. I was gonna try and call Yoori. You know, to tell her the news. And then tell Tae and Hobi, of course.”

“Oh. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. I should probably finish this code for Choi’s class anyway. It’s due on Sunday, but I’m almost done. Might as well turn it in early once I find this error.” Your hand scrapes at the sides of your jeans, looking for something to grab at.

“Well then I guess I have time,” he chuckles, “Your typos are always so tiny that they take hours to find. Let’s meet up at the bar in 2 hours then?” 

You wince. Although it’s not at all a mean-spirited jab, you’re no longer in the mood for the friendly banter at the mention of Yoori, Jungkook’s long time unrequited love.

“Sure. See you then,” you hang up before he has the chance to say goodbye formally like he always insists on doing.

You put your phone down and berate yourself for getting distracted. If you were the brilliant Yoori, you wouldn’t have even made the typo in the first place. But you weren’t Yoori because you didn’t have the fortune of being born four years earlier and four times more beautiful, elegant, or intelligent. And you didn’t have the luck of being so much of a genius that you could skip years ahead of school like Jungkook either. So instead you would just have to chug along, always watching Jungkook chase Yoori.

You go back to scrolling through your code only to find the error a third of the way down. Jungkook was right, the typo was tiny--a misplaced equals sign. You sigh and run the code to make sure it’s perfect this time, and when it is you send it in to your professor to be graded. You consider heading home and using the extra time to make yourself look nice. Not that there was anything wrong with your oversized university t-shirt and jeans, but suddenly you think maybe things would be different for you with regards to your love life if you tried a little harder. You’re about to leave the library entrance that’s closest to your dorm, but you get a text from Jungkook.

6:41 - I called Yoori and she said she heard about my deal with RealiCorp and she wants to link up when she gets back on campus!

You narrow your eyes at the text. Jungkook had recently sold some software he developed to an up and coming gaming company that was supposed to make the imaging on immersion headsets better. He had made a pretty penny and was covertly offered a position at the company, but it was also a large victory for the computer science department at the university and his picture had been circulating around the department website for weeks. You suppose she finally saw it while she was taking a break from her research project off campus and decided to answer his calls for a change.

You text back what you hope sounds like a cheerful congratulation and decide to just go to the bar instead. What’s the harm in a few rounds before the rest of the crew arrives?

The harm would have been miniscule at most if you hadn’t been in your feelings, but when Jungkook, Tae, and Hobi arrive, you’re three rounds in and a little bit sloppy.

“Woah,” Hobi shouts, giving you a too strong pat on the back when he sits in the chair next to you. “Someone started a little early. What’s the occasion, are we celebrating something for you too?” Jungkook shakes his head with a sheepish smile and goes to sit beside you, away from Hoseok.

“Nope. Just getting ready for an evening with your loud ass.” He gives you a pretend pout and flags the bartender over. Tae sits next to him and gives you a little wave and smile.

“Two whiskeys, make mine a sour and make his straight. From the high shelf.”

“Hey now,” Taehyung’s eyes widen comically, “Are you forgetting that payday isn’t until next week? I’ll take the regular whiskey down there, please.”

“Don’t worry. Kookie said he was paying with his RealiCorp money,” Hoseok stage whispers into your ear, “He’ll probably cover your round too.”  You swat him away and turn to Jungkook, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“You know I’ll cover yours. The rest of them, I don’t know.”

“What? Come on, you’re the youngest,” Tae whines, less than satisfied with his cheap whiskey shot.

“Shouldn’t that mean you guys pay for me?”

“N-no! Because you’re actually our senior now. You’re graduating this year, I’m the oldest technically but I’m not graduating until next year. We know these two aren’t graduating until the year after that,” he points to you and Tae, “Plus, you’re going to the PhD program next year. You should definitely be paying for us.” Hoseok has a point, you and Tae nod sagely to back him up.

“Fine,” Jungkook sighs, pushing his thick glasses up the bridge of his nose, “I’m in a good mood, so why not.”

“I bet you are,” Tae’s grin is big and catlike in the low light of the bar. His gaze a little lewd. “I would be too if I was one step closer to finally bagging a girl like Yoori.”

You look down into your beer bottle, the green glass suddenly much more fascinating than the conversation at hand.

“Did you hear,”Hoseok turns toward you,”Yoori is gonna come back soon and when she does he’s gonna make her Mrs. Jeon.”

“I’ll be sure to throw rice during the wedding,” you snark. The bartender brings you a new beer without another word. Taehyung howls at your comment.

“I’d kill to have a wedding night with her.”

“Hell, I’d kill to have a bathroom stall night. With anyone,” Hoseok sighs, “It’s hard out here for a comp-sci major. Right, guys?”

You hum in agreement. It had been a while since you’d last gotten laid.

“You’re right. I can’t even remember that geology minor’s face. Do you remember her? What was her name? Mara? Kara?”

“Sara,” Hoseok provides with a grin, “I think she has a thing for comp-sci majors. Kook, you ever hook up with Sara?”

Jungkook shyly traces a finger around the rim of his empty vodka class. “I haven’t hooked up with anyone.”

“Ever?” You try to keep incredulity from bleeding into your question.

“Ever,” he nods. He hiccups a little and all of the sudden you totally believe that Jungkook is a virgin.

“Dude, wait, I thought you hooked up with that one chick at the music festival last spring. Am I the only one who saw her?” 

Tae nods in agreement. “Yeah, she gave you her hotel room key and everything.”

“It wasn’t like that. She told me her brother was there for a robotics tournament and I asked her if I could see the bot.”

You smile despite your sour mood. If there was one thing you loved about Jungkook it was his blind enthusiasm for STEM. Even if it made him a little oblivious to other things at times.

“Well, you better fix that whole virgin thing fast, bro. Chicks like Yoori probably want someone with experience. In more ways than one, if you catch my drift.” Hoseok nudges Tae with a wry smile.

“That’s not just a Yoori thing, most people don’t want to have to coddle someone in bed unless that’s, like, their kink or something,” you take a large swallow of beer.

“Wait,” Tae says, eyeing you like he’s had an epiphany, “You’re a girl--”

“Didn’t we establish this 2 years ago? When we met?”

“No, no, I mean you can help Kookie so he doesn’t drop the ball with Yoori.”

“Yeah, right,” you snort, “Help him how? Give him a sex-ed lecture?” You turn to laugh with Jungkook, but he’s looking at you seriously. Or as seriously as he can when he’s tipsy with unfocused eyes and blushing cheeks.

“You…don’t want to help me?” His voice sounds pathetic and small, making you feel bad instantly.

“Oh, Kook, it’s not that I don’t want to help you. But think about what that implies.”

“Is it because I’m a virgin?”

“Oh my god, Kook, there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin don’t listen to us. We’re idiots.”

“Then why don’t you want to help me?”

Because I like you. You swallow hard, your throat suddenly dry. You obviously don’t say that, though. Instead you sit back in your bar stool.

“I-I would if I could, but I don’t know how to help you,” you finally say.

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I guess the thought of being with Yoori makes me a little stupid.”

Desperately you search for a solution. Instead of finding one, you call the bartender back and order a round of tequila shots. Jungkook gives you a sad look but doesn’t ruin the mood by not taking a shot. You order two more rounds because somehow, even though he’s drunk, he still looks dejected. After your third shot you can’t stand the way his shoulder slump.

“You know what,” you slur loudly, drawing three pairs of eyes to your face lazily. “It’s getting late and we might not get to play Fortnite this weekend. Let’s all get to bed so we can be up early tomorrow to play.”

Tae points a wobbly finger in your direction, eyes suspicious. “When you say early, you mean after 2pm right?”

It takes twenty minutes for everyone to get their shit together enough to leave the bar. Tae and Hoseok keep losing each other in the bathroom. Jungkook keeps forgetting that he has to pay and tries to ask the bartender what he thinks about sub-atomic particle physics. Even though you’re drunk off your ass, you somehow manage to keep yourself responsible enough to wrangle Tae and Hobi out of the bathroom and guide Jungkook through the motions of swiping his card and signing the bill. The four of you then squeeze into the back of an uber. Hoseok whines about being lonely while sitting in the passenger’s seat. Jungkook’s bumps his hand against yours until he can firmly grasp it and get your attention before you pass out.

“Hey, can I sleep on the couch,” he whispers in your ear. His breath smells like alcohol and limes. You turn your head to chase the scent away and rest your head on his shoulder. You yawn.

“Sure. No problem, buddy.”

Your apartment is the first stop on the route and you launch yourself out the car and run up through your lobby and to the elevator to escape the cold of the air conditioner and the fluorescent lights. Jungkook lingers in the car until Tae pushes him out to make room for Hoseok.

“Kook,” Tae calls out as he helps Hoseok pour himself into the back seat.

“Wassap?”

“The only way to get good at sex is losta—lotta...lot’s a practish. Okay?”

“But-but…Who am I gonna practice with?”

Tae merely whistles and points a finger upward, gesturing to your illuminated window. The car pulls away and Jungkook sways unsteadily up onto the sidewalk with nausea clawing at his throat. Thinking of the stairs he’ll have to climb—because there’s no way in hell he’s taking the elevator, even in this state—he regrets not just going to his own first floor dorm. Does he really need to get sex counseling from you? There’s always porn, he muses before remembering the rant you’d gone on blaming porn for making a guy you’d been hooking up with try to do weird things in bed involving a summer squash. Looks like he’d have to rely on the real deal to get anywhere with Yoori. Oh, Yoori.

A shimmering vision of the beautiful girl with elegant eyes and an ever-painted smile floats in front of his hazy vision and gives him the strength he needs to hobble forward towards the lobby door with dedication.

Minutes ago you couldn’t wait to go to sleep, but as soon you unlocked your door and made it to your room, you were wide awake. Even brushing your teeth and stripping out of your jeans didn’t to tire you out.

“Fuck,” you groan. You throw yourself onto your bed and hope that the way the room spins will lull you to sleep but when the spinning stops, your eyes still won’t stay closed.

The clock resting on your desk across the room reads 1:48am. It’s already clear that you’re going to be hung over, but knowing that it won’t be cushioned by a nice long sleep before you have to go to yoga at 12 makes you want to cry. You desperately wrack your brain for all the remedies there are to make you sleepy. You just canceled your cable last week to save some money, so you can’t veg out in front of the TV. You’re lactose intolerant, so warm milk isn’t an option. You’d take a warm shower but you washed your hair already and if you go to bed with wet hair your mother’s voice will haunt you all night with stories of the cold coming your way. Kicking your feet in frustration, you toss yourself over the edge of the bed to hang. Maybe all the blood will flow to your head and you’ll pass out.

You’re about to risk passing out and landing on your neck the wrong way and dying when a bright pink shoebox under your bed catches your eye. Of course, you think, how could you forget your precious vibrator. Luckily for you, a good orgasm or three always managed to knock you out like a light. You reach over and scoot the box forward with your outstretched fingertips until you get it close enough to reach inside and grab the petite tiffany blue bullet. Giddy laughter leaves your mouth as you heft yourself back onto your bed and fall back on the pillows with a contented sigh. Orgasms solve all your problems. You flick the device on to the lowest setting and ghost it against your clothed mound.

Jungkook is completely breathless as he leaves the center stairwell and finally arrives on your floor. The stairs were a bitch and a half, but your door is only two down from the floor entrance. He can practically hear the siren song of your pull-out couch. When he turns the knob to your front door, it doesn’t budge and he wonders if you must have locked it on instinct. There’s no way you forgot that he was staying over, he thinks to himself. Reaching above the doorjamb, he hunts for the spare key you left there especially for him. The door unlocks easily and he smiles to himself as he locks the door behind him and toes off his shoes. He’s about to face plant into the couch when you call his name faintly from your bedroom.

As he stumbles through the hallway slowly to your room, he thinks over what Taehyung said to him before driving off. To Jungkook’s drunk mind it makes sense, so it must be a good idea to seek sex practice from you. You’re the only girl he knows and he’s known you so long that he can already tell there would be no awkwardness. The sad look in your eyes as you listened to his predicament in the bar tells him that you want to help him, but you didn’t know what route to take. He flexes his hands by his sides and figures he’ll just tell you what Taehyung told him and get to coming up with a curriculum.

The door to your bedroom is half-open and the lights shine through the opening, so he figures you must be up and waiting for him. He can still hear you calling his name, but it still sounds oddly soft from where he is. He pushes the door open but freezes in his tracks when he sees you.

The first thing he notices is obviously the frantically moving hand you have between your legs and the loud buzzing sound that comes from it. He takes in more details the longer he looks. He realizes belatedly then that you’re not wearing pants. Thanks to the high prescription strength of his glasses, he can also see the way your hand and thighs shine and the huge dark spot in the crotch of your panties in the light of your table lamp. Your toes are curling and he can just make out the way your lower stomach clenches underneath the very same sweatshirt you’d been wearing to the bar. Technically he can’t see your other hand but he has a pretty good idea of where it is and what it might be doing with the way it disappears under your shirt. You can’t see him, though, because your head is thrown back and your eyes are closed. The only thing you’re probably at least partly aware of is the cacophony of wet sounds that come from where you work the nose of the toy over yourself. The last thing he notices is the way you call his name in a soft whining tone that has him stepping forward without thinking.

“Fuck, Jungkook,” you whine as the slippery heel of your hand bumps against your covered clit a little roughly on an upstroke.

“Yes?”

“What the hell,” your eyes snap open and your head whips around to see him leaning on the door frame as he watches you.

His eyes are heavy with alcohol and his cheeks are just as pink as the lip he releases from the grasp of his teeth. He reaches out and stumbles forward, causing you to scramble back to distance yourself from him. You bring your knees up to hug to your chest before you realize that you’re still very much on show.

“Jeon Jungkook, what is going on here,” you shriek, bringing your hands to cover your eyes only makes you feel a little bit better.

He sits down on your bed like it’s any other day and he’s just chilling in the room like you invited him over. And then you realize that you did kind of invite him over as fragmented memories of the recent uber ride you took together spring up.

“You said you wanted to help me, but you didn’t know how. But Tae told me I just have to practish.”

“Practish?”

“Practice,” he corrects himself.

“Practice what?”

“Practice sex. Duh!”

“Jungkook, no!”

“Please? I wouldn’t be asking such a huge favor if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary.”

“Why can’t you just go to a frat party like everyone else?” 

Your heart is beating rapidly and you think maybe you’re not drunk anymore. Never in your life did you think you would turn down sex from Jungkook, but then again you never pictured it happening this way.

“Because I,” his head hangs and he starts to pick at a loose thread in your duvet, “I guess I missed out on this kind of thing when we were younger and I don’t think I could get very good results in a basement party. Plus, I know you’d…”

“I’d what?”

“You’d be good to me.” He lifts his eyes to lock with yours. His gaze is oddly sharp despite the fact that his skin is still clammy like it gets when he drinks.

Your breath hitches and for a moment it does feel like the fantasies you have almost every other time that you settle into your room, lonely and horny. Jungkook laughs bitterly to himself and you can feel your resolve crumbling as something selfish rears its head in the back of your mind. He tries one last time. 

“Please?” 

You crack.

“Okay.”

“Really?” His eyes light up once more as he gives you a blinding smile. “Great. Let’s start!”

It feels as though you’re having an out of body experience as you watch him clamber closer onto the bed with you. Your legs naturally open to accommodate him and he scoots into your space, his hands falling to naturally stroke with the soft skin of your ankles. Even though he lacks experience, Jungkook has a leg up in that he’s naturally on the affectionate side. Something you can’t teach with any amount of practice. Even still, the idea that Jungkook will be sitting between your naked thighs makes your stomach do flip flops.You barely start formulating something to say that will sound educational when you hear him get ready to interject once more.

“God, what is it?” You worry that if he interrupts you one more time you’ll lose your nerve.

“I need a visual aid. And, uh, I won’t be able to see because of your, uh, undergarments.”

You’re certain that you’ve never taken anything off faster than you do in that moment. The panties fly into some far corner of your room and you can only hope that they don’t land in a clump of dust bunnies.

“Alright,” you stutter, “I don’t have to give you an anatomy lesson, right? Please tell me you at least know where everything is.”

“We took anatomy together in 7th grade,” he says like that’s a decent answer.

You roll your eyes. “Right, okay. Anatomy lesson it is.”

“What’s this,” you point at yourself.

“That’s the uh…entrance to the vagina?”

“Ok and?”

“It’s where the pleasure comes from?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes?”

“Partial credit.”

“Isn’t that where the…phallus goes, though?” You decide it would be best to ignore his word choice for now.

“Yeah, I mean stuff goes in there but that’s not where all the pleasure comes from. For some people that’s not where any of it comes from.”

His eyes widen nervously. “Then where does it come from if not from penetration?”

You gesture again. “This is the clitoris.” His sweaty bangs flop over his lenses as he nods enthusiastically. Finally something he remembers.

“The clitoris,” he chirps affirmatively. You side eye him, but keep going.

“This little thing is basically there for the sole purpose of pleasure.”

“How do I activate it?” Again you blink at his terminology. Although you’d been a STEM freak with Jungkook for years, somehow he managed to baffle you with his nerdiness.

“Uh, you can stimulate it by touching it.” You draw a small circle in the air around the nub to demonstrate. “Like that, for example. You can also use your hands or your mouth.”

“Or that little blue thing you were using earlier,” he chimes in, reminding you of the embarrassing way this whole thing started.

You sigh. “Yeah. That too.”

“And that’s it?”

“No that’s definitely not it. We haven’t even touched the other places of pleasure or technique or foreplay. But this is a pretty good cheat code.”

“So what about the inside? Like the tubes?”

“There’s really not that much you need to know involving the actual reproductive organs themselves. We can just focus on the external bits for now.” You wince at how uncomfortable the discussion is.

“That makes sense,” his brows furrow seriously. He’s slow to blink, partly so he doesn’t miss anything and partly because he’s still fighting off tendrils of sleep.

“I mean,” you wring your hands anxiously, “that’s all you really need to know for now. It’s mostly learning on the go, anyway. You’ll be fine.”

“But what if I’m not fine. Don’t you think you could, you know, show me?”

“What is there to show?”

“How about you just continue…what you were doing when I came in.”

“Masturbating.”

“What?”

“I was masturbating when you came in.”

A hand flies to the collar of his shirt and he tugs on it sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

You try not to focus on how weirdly awkward the mood is now that your lust has calmed down to barely even a simmer. You reach for the discarded vibrator that jumped out of your hand and landed by the edge of the head of your bed, but he stops you with a raised hand.

“Can you, uh, maybe do it the old-fashioned way? For the first time at least?”

“Right, I guess I’ll get to it.”

Jungkook sits back on his heels patiently and watches closely as your hand trails a path down your torso to the apex of your thighs. The first touch, though you know it’s your own hand, has you twitching a bit. You bite your lip hard to focus and circle your entrance to coax out more moisture, then you move back to circle your clit. You close your eyes in hopes that not being able to see Jungkook’s gaping expression will help. It does, a bit. After a few moments, you let out a breathy sigh and sink further into the pillows. You plant one foot more firmly on the mattress to give yourself some leverage and push yourself more into your circling hand. The slight increase in pressure has you moaning and your eyes fluttering. You peek through heavy lids to see Jungkook’s expression has also changed. His eyes, clear just a second ago, look glassy again from behind his lenses, his mouth slack and shiny. The rise and fall of his chest is a bit heavier. You let yourself think it’s because of you and go back to collect more arousal to increase the slip.

Apparently, you’re more turned on than you thought. When your middle and ring fingers wander down to your hole they come back pleasantly slick. Something in you suddenly feels rebellious, so you use your free hand to spread your lips further and bring your coated fingers up to Jungkook’s face. You flex your fingers and separate them to show crystalline streaks of arousal connecting them.

“Just so you know, this is a good sign.”

Jungkook swallows hard. Somehow, even though you’re still wearing socks and a baggy sweatshirt, you’re hotter than all the completely bare, busty women he’d watched moan and writhe wildly on his computer screen. He reaches out and delicately grabs you wrist before redirecting your hand back to your dripping center.

“Keep going,” he rasps.

You whine and begin to rub your clit more earnestly, lewd wet sounds fill the room. He can practically see your lips getting wetter and wetter as you redistribute your arousal with every rough swipe of your fingers. Your wrist is moving fast, but it’s clear that you’re becoming frustrated with all that you can do with one hand. Your other hand quickly moves to take over making tight figure eights around your clit while the one already coated in your juices moves back down to your entrance once more. This time, you crook two shining fingers and shove them into your hole. Immediately your back bends and a drawn out moan leaves your mouth. Jungkook gasps quietly. You pump your fingers in and out roughly, then withdraw them to add a third finger.

He watches you like that for a while before you get fed up again. It’s been a while since you’ve been so needy and you feel like you’re on fire. Your toes curl impatiently on either side of Jungkook and he realizes you’re looking for more. On instinct he scoots further until his own legs are brushing up against the undersides of yours. His hand reaches out to pet your quivering thigh in a sympathetic effort to help with your plateau. He looks down at your hand, twitching feverishly in and out of yourself. His hands are much bigger and suddenly he moves like he’s about to replace your fingers with his own.

When Jungkook’s hands start to approach your center your breath hitches. You’re not quite in the right state of mind to reject him if he offers to finger you, but you don’t want to take advantage of the situation and make it any more emotionally complicated than it already is.

“Not yet,” you offer when his hands get too close for comfort, “Next time, maybe.”

He seems to be thinking the same thing and averts his attention to the forgotten vibrator. His grip on your thigh disappears, and you sigh quietly, but it’s hidden under the slick sounds you make each time your fingers get sucked into your heat and the low moans you make every time your pinch your clit just so.

“W-what do I do?” His voice is small and his sudden worried look has you wrapping a hand around his and bringing it to show him how you click the toy on and circle it around your entrance.

His hands are sweaty, shaky, so when your hips start to circle on their own, they move to find a resting spot on your thighs and squeeze to deal with the tension rising in his own belly. He grits his teeth, clenches his hands, does anything he can to keep from overstepping and making this about him. As obviously cliché as it sounds, seeing you sweating and moaning underneath him lets him see you in a new light. You’d always been around, but your presence as a woman in his life was backgrounded at best. Now, with Yoori momentarily not clouding his mind, he wants nothing more than to ravage you. He’s almost certain that if he tried, his lack of experience wouldn’t matter too much. He’s sure his body would be able to act on baser instinct and give you the what you wanted. If you wanted.

Your moans change in pitch and soon he’s aware that this will be the first time he’ll have been privy to someone else’s orgasm in real life. His dick is painfully hard and straining against the jeans he’s wearing. But he forgets the discomfort fast as he watches you grind yourself down against the toy in a way that is absolutely filthy. Your bottom lip, shiny and reddened, is pulled taut between your teeth in ecstasy. Your eyes flutter open and lock with his own. You focus and notice his blown-out pupils look huge within the depths of deep brown irises. There’s no denying he’s turned on once you flick your gaze down to his crotch and see the large tent in his pants.

“I—I think I’m gonna…Oh!” Your leg kicks out on its own like some electric current runs through you. Your voice breaks as the waves of your approaching high begin to take over you. One of his hands inches upwards a bit and strokes the tense muscle near your groin softly, at a loss for words. “Oh god, Jungkook, you—” keening, your eyes roll into the back of your head.

One of your hands reaches up to squeeze at his bicep as he’s leaning over you. He wonders in the back of his mind when he got so close to you. Your leg hooks around him like it has a mind of it’s own and tugs him down, forcing him to topple over you. That’s the last straw and you sob from the intense pleasure. Meanwhile your warmth and proximity and your words prove to be a deadly combination and within seconds he’s spilling over himself in his boxers, untouched. He lets out a low groan that puffs against the side of your neck.

You both sit there and breathe for a long while, catching your breath and coming back down to earth. He sits up eventually and pulls away from you, leaving you cold. Your legs flop from around him heavily. You’re a bit irritated when you realize you won’t be able to walk normally for a while. He discretely wipes his hands off on your duvet while you wipe at the sweat soaking your hairline.

“That’s it, that’s the show,” you finally say.

He shoots up and looks at you anxiously. It’s cute. “You mean until next time, right?”

His eyes are wide and imploring as he hovers over by you. He looks a bit like a turtle from this angle. A cute one, though. One that you want to play with again next week. You nod even though he might have all that he needs to do well with Yoori, being the fast learner that he is.

“I guess so. Same time, next week. Do some research for next time maybe. Make sure it’s from something not involving the medical library.”

“Got it!” He turns and waits until you’re not looking to adjust his pants.

You notice his hair is sticking to his forehead when he finally stands up. And there’s a cowlick sticking up in the back that reminds you of middle school Jungkook, before he met Yoori. The idea of the other girl, the girl he’s really in love with, dims your post-coital glow. Although, you suppose you have her to thank for this evening’s events. How else could you have ever managed a one-sided romp in the sheets with your long-time crush?

Both of you take turns using the bathroom to clean up. While he hums in time with washing up, you slip panties on and debate about whether or not to throw your sweats back on. You decide that if you’re going to play this off like it hasn’t changed your relationship, you should put pants back on.He comes out looking pink and clean and you want to pull him back into your bed and wrap yourself around him. 

To protect his glasses from the dangers of the bathroom, he left them in your room. Squinting, he walks with hands out to collect them. When he puts them on he doesn’t look at you and instead pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes around while leaving the room.

“Heading out,” you ask with a quasi-disinterested tone.

“Yeah, I remembered I have to run the Saturday tutoring session this week. So I might as well go home so I can get ready for that. You should come, you know. Your test scores dropped 2 points this week.” Typical Jungkook. He couldn’t ever fully leave TA mode.

You roll your eyes. “Thanks for the reminder, but that’s still an A.”

“Maybe we can try this again next week the same time?”

“Yeah, uh, okay.”

“Cool, I’ll put it on my calendar.” He lifts his phone to his face to tell the digital assistant to pencil you in for next week. You try not to grimace at becoming a date in his calendar app.

“Get out already, you nerd.” You push him out after he puts his coat back on, but you do watch out the window to make sure his taxi comes.

[phoenotopia]

2019 May Update

Greetings everyone! Can't believe end of May is already upon us and E3 is just around the corner D:

We're still making steady progress towards the finish line. We crossed some big milestones in the past 2 months and started some new. For one, all of the levels in the game world are now done (except for "one" room, which is on hold for reasons). With all the levels effectively done, the final count for rooms actually just crosses the 700 mark! That's 3.5 times the original flash game!

Now that we've got a big beautiful game world, it's time to fill it up with NPCs, quests, and loot (the enemies have already been added). Until now, I've generally left the loot areas empty, since setting the loot heavily effects the game's pacing and difficulty. For instance, an example question I'll mull over is how much money has the player accumulated by the time they reach the 2nd town. We want the player to have enough money to buy the new equipment that becomes available - not so much money that they can buy everything and not too little that they can't buy anything - the amount of money needs to be just right. This forces the player to make decisions which forms the basis of all interesting gameplay.

On the NPCs and Quests front, I've been writing more and more. I've even started reading more! I've picked up books, which I haven't done for perhaps over a year or two! I think reading good diction helps to set your brain in a mode conducive towards good writing. Kinda like "You are what you Eat".

Here's a sampling of the Quests, Mini-games, and NPCs you can expect to meet on the journey.

The Free Runner's Quest

Bo is an NPC that the player will meet over and over. He challenges the player to a timed "Free Running" race course where they need to collect 10 flags within the time-limit. Besting his courses requires quick reflexes and route-planning. Every time you beat his course, he gives you a little prize and moves to a new location. He's not unlike the racing koopas you'd meet in Mario Odyssey.

(a bystander inspired by your performance)

The Shooting Galleries

Hard to believe 3 years ago I teased this video. (when work on PHO2 was proceeding in earnest). As cool as the old video looks - that was literally all of it, and it was really early and bug prone. Only recently did I finally revisit the shooting galleries and take it all the way home. A lot of improvements have been made to the scripting system by now and there are more robust and less buggy ways to deal with the player breaking bounds.

There'll be 6 different shooting courses total (of varying difficulty). Similar to setting loot throughout the game world and all the factors that could play into it, shooting courses boast their own interconnected challenges. I guesstimate where I think the player would be weapons-wise and power-wise, and then create a shooting course that I think the player can handle. Some shooting challenges are easy so the player can claim its prize early - others are harder and best attempted when the player has leveled up some more.

(Interestingly, the best prize is guarded behind the medium level course. Reason being the player would appreciate it a lot more at that point in the game)

(Don’t shoot the Queen!)

Fran and Moonstones

The Moon Stone hunt returns in an even bigger fashion than before. This time there are 100 moonstones to find, and they can be actually be given to 2 different NPCs. Giving moon stones to Fran advances Fran's storyline and unlocks shortcuts through the game world.

One of the major intentional changes to highlight the traversable world map is that you no longer have a quick select menu to access old areas. To access Panselo from Atai, you'd actually have to run through that broken bridge area again. And that's why it behooves the player to aid Fran in her quest for Moon Stones. Her teleportation research opens links between the towns and allows for more speedy traversal.

(Fran's quest starts when you first save her from beneath a pile of rubble)

I'm taking the the time to write more naturally flowing dialogue and give better characterization to Fran. I thought her whole story was kinda stilted and awkward the first go around.

(A video where Fran demonstrates how teleporters work)

As seen in the video, that song is Fran's theme. Will scored Fran's theme song a while back and now you can listen to it on his sound cloud as well. There was also this old song, which was in the running to be either Thomas's or Fran's theme. It's now been decided that that will be Thomas' theme!

Endings

We've also started work on the ending. Right now we're creating the art assets. The dialogue and scripting is still to come. I've settled on 2 endings. Both of which will be very different from the flash game's ending. The main ending will also vary a tiny bit depending on how much of the game the player completes. Ala Metroid, there are also different final ending portraits that can be obtained depending on the clear conditions. But the main portrait most people will see is the group shot, where more characters appear the closer to 100% game completion the player reaches.

(Depicted above is a end game portrait WIP that was rejected for a different take/version. So we decided this wasn’t too spoilerific)

Naming Contest I'd like to thank everyone for the numerous submissions! A lot of entries really went the distance - some created elaborate backstories, others created systems of names and acronyms. In an ideal world, I could choose them all. But, alas there are limited slots. Here are the name winners - I'll be contacting the submitters shortly:

I chose these names for a variety of reasons. The names were short, concise, and alliterative ("moth mines" and "mole mines"). The name keeps to a fantasy theme ("evil eye"). The name made a joke or pun ("rail shooter" and "rail sawer"). The name was cute and descriptive ("turtle bot" and "porcubot"). Or the name just sounded cool ("Constructs"). There were two entries where after screening the submissions I found I liked the "temporary" in-house name more ("smart turret" and "scrapper").

And with that, the naming contest comes to a close. Thank you again to everyone who participated!

Fan Works

Two fanarts were submitted on the reddit, which I'll be sharing here. Both were depictions of the "Last Song of Earth" place. Thank you to Firanka and laptekoz!

(by Firanka)

(by laptekoz)

Oddly enough, this place might be the most depicted place in the realm of fan art! Another interesting trivia is that the song connected to this place was the song Will wanted to cut since he didn't like it too much - but having seen how much people asked about it, of course we had to keep it in.

Next Update

The next update will run a bit later than the usual 2 months (likely August 9th). Reason being I actually have a trip to Vietnam with my Dad and brother coming up in the later half of July.

Indeed, it's an inopportune time to have a trip. I normally wouldn't go - I haven't been on a family trip in 3 years! But this one seemed important. We're getting OLD! My older brother has a wife and kids, so the opportunity to hang out like this comes but once every several years.

But I'll still try to sneak in some work. My plan is... and I hesitate to say this because whenever I communicate a plan, it falls part, but I'll say it anyway. My plan is to have the first playable version of the game, start to finish, in mid July. Then on the plane to Vietnam, I'll make my brother playtest the game since I'll have a captive audience. I'll take tons of notes on the play through, what needs to change, and so forth.

We'll see if that pans out. While we are working on things like the actual ending sequence, which signals the near end of development, I'd like to remind everyone to keep your expectations in check. Things go SLOOOW - there’s still tons of NPCs and quests to write. There’s the credit sequence to program. We still gotta playtest, we still gotta do PR, get an ESRB rating, launch the website, find an uncontested date, etcetera, etcetera. It seems like actually finishing the game is merely the arrival to the start of another race...

So pour your excitement towards E3 instead. That's soon!

[schalaasha]

Top 20 Games of the Decade

Hi, I felt like writing about my top 20 games of the decade because I kept thinking about it. This is a semi-ranked list, but I decided not to throw numbers into the mix since, really, outside of the top 2, I can’t think of how to rank the games prior to them. I also commissioned hyiroaerak (@/HRAK__S2 on twitter, https://hyiroaerak.weebly.com/work.html) for art to commemorate this occasion.  Our characters are cosplaying as characters from our games of the decade!

Mega Man 10

I actually like Mega Man 10 more than Mega Man 9 out of the two platformer revival games in this series. Though a bit of background on this: Mega Man 4 is my favourite, and I prefer the games that are not 2, 6, 7, or 11, so I suppose that contextualises this for others.         Either way, despite it not having weapons that were as useful as Mega Man 9’s, I felt like 10’s level design and pacing worked more for me in my favour. Though I’m saying that as someone who liked the double fortress design in earlier games so that might invalidate how I feel.

 Time Attack mode from Mega Man 9 returns as well as Proto Man (but he’s unlockable right off the bat). It also has a proper Challenge Mode compared to Mega Man 9’s challenges, whereby challenges for certain levels or bosses are unlocked when you actually do it in the main game. Being able to play as Proto Man off the bat allows for the fluidity Mega Man had in 3 and beyond by letting you slide and use charged shots. I personally liked being able to play as Proto Man off the bat as while he has the 3 and beyond advantages for his moveset, he is a glass cannon and you still have to watch where you’re going.

 I feel like the levels were a little better designed and if I needed more of a challenge, Hard Mode was still there to cut my teeth on. I liked the colour schemes throughout the level maps a lot more than 9’s as well. The bosses felt particularly gripping and trading blows with them fit into a nice rhythm.

 It has more content than Mega Man 9 and I had a lot more fun with 10 than I did with either 9 or 11. The formula itself is pretty static compared to other Mega Man games, but I like simple things. Why fix what isn’t broken? It’s just a nice piece of cake at the end of the day and that’s all I really want.

  Trauma Team / HOSPITAL: 6人の医師

When I started university for the first time in 2006, I was pre-med.  I eventually got sick and tired of the politics and people in the program (ie: folks saying they only wanted to go to med school so they can get rich or make friends with pharma reps who might give them perks), and I left the program to pursue program majors and a minor to prepare me for speech-language pathology instead.

 We had a Wii in our student lounge. My main university campus wasn’t exactly big and a lot of the people who hung out in the student center were kind of cliquey. I think I had the benefit of being really good friends with one of the guys who was the biggest social butterflies at the school so I got to meet a lot of people or get involved with stuff if I felt like it. So that meant I got to play with other students in games or wi-fi sessions during classes or after classes if I didn’t have to commute home right away.

 Because almost everyone I knew at my school wanted to go into medicine, everyone played the Trauma series. Some kids played Under the Knife during class. Some kids played Second Opinion on the Wii in the student lounge. Some kids played New Blood. This was before like… Farmville took over everyone’s computers at the time.

 Trauma Team came out way after that, and some of us were either graduating or staying in school an extra year because we didn’t know what to do after the recession or knew what to do but needed extra courses for graduate school.  So the Wii was free to use.  I don’t think people hooked it up as often anymore anyway. By 2010, a lot of us who had met each other in first year decided to go our separate ways, not even in the same majors or programs anymore. A lot of us either branched out into research, psychology, neurology (like me), kinesiology, epidemiology, forensics, genetics, etc. So Trauma Team for the rest of us who were still there was a good fit.

 Trauma Team took some influences from the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic considering that was when the development phase occurred. Now, I live in Canada, and Canada was one of the focal points for the 2003 SARS outbreak. This was when health bodies in the country decided to make some changes to how they respond to potential pandemics. A lot of things they tell medical students or any students studying health policy (like I was at the time) emphasized how different parts of the hospital or medical or health care staff need to work together in order to care for a patient. I actually find the different professions involved in Trauma Team useful and a reflection of what my class of 2010/2011 became later on (a lot of us graduated in 2011 and took an extra year).

 Diagnostics and Forensics were what I was really interested in since they don’t play the same as surgery/emergency medicine since they played out like a point-and-click. Later on in life, I had to look at so many medical reports and radiology reports and file them but by then I realised what my patients had but I can’t tell them myself since I’m not a doctor. But Trauma Team gave me a chance to do so and practice my terminology as a student. A friend of mine, who ended up becoming a doctor at a hospital in Toronto, really enjoyed endoscopy since it merely involved using the Wiimote as an endoscope and the nunchuk to steer. A lot of us played co-op too.

 The difficulty in Trauma Team, I felt, was decreased from previous games. But that doesn’t really spoil it. It was a varied game and it looks fantastic. It’s a shame that the game style hasn’t been replicated or given a sequel in later years, because while I’m older and my classmates are doing completely different things and I haven’t seen some of them in years, I’d love to take a stab at these types of games with a well-practiced laboratory technologist’s hand.

  Sonic Colours

I think it goes without saying. My first community when I joined the old forum was the Sonic community. Just a bunch of people who were interested in talking about Sonic so much in almost every thread that we ended up making a community thread together. I don’t post in the new forum everyone is at but I still talk to mostly everyone via different social mediums.

 I wasn’t around when Sonic Colours came out but I think I remember reading the joy everyone felt when nearly universally everyone in that thread seemed to really like Sonic Colours. I remember the thread title still. I preordered Sonic Colours because apparently previews were saying it was… good? I didn’t bother playing Sonic Unleashed until after I’d joined the forum, but hearing Sonic Colours would be a return to form since I was one of those people who didn’t adjust well to the 3D games made me interested.

 Sonic Colours is everything I wanted from a 3D Sonic game. Or rather, a 3D version of a platformer. I didn’t really like where 3D platformers were going because they were hard to look at, hard for me to pay attention to, and to be honest I got dizzy while playing a lot of them since you’re expected to work in a 3D space as opposed to a 2D space so it was really hard for me to process. I really like the hybrid nature of the level designs that’s where Sonic Colours got me.

 Sonic Colours isn’t without its hangups: some of the levels are really short; existing mostly for ranking/getting red rings. Sonic’s jump is pretty floaty. The script is fairly short even if the jokes can be funny. Bosses are reused. Sonic Colours is not a perfect game, but the attempts it made were fantastic enough in its own right.

 The music continues to be great, but the areas are visual spectacles. Whatever you think of the series, it’s fairly undeniable that the games try to have style. From the lighting, to posing, to setpieces, to colours used in assets in the level design – Sonic has always had really great ideas.  Sonic Colours is no exception – areas like Aquarium Park, Planet Wisp, and Sweet Mountain have a variety of neat level ideas and they look good trying to execute it. From popcorn on the floor to one of the best darned water levels in all of video games due to the drill wisp, to a fresh take on a grassy knoll with beautiful music, Sonic Colours can bring tears to your eyes because of what it attempts. Terminal Velocity Act 2 is also one of my favourite parts of the Uncolourations games partially because it’s a well-executed setpiece, but it also showed me that maybe those 3D racing bits aren’t that bad.

 The bosses may be really easy, and the final boss ends far sooner than it should before it could perfectly execute its Kamen Rider reference, but I think the point was to fully enjoy the theme park that Sonic Team threw at you this time.

 In 2020 I like to say that out of all of the Uncolourations games, Sonic Unleashed is my favourite due to the balance it struck and its presentation/artstyle, and basically having one of the best soundtracks of the previous decade. But I recognise everything that Sonic Colours brought to the table. If it wasn’t for Sonic Colours, I wouldn’t be friends or acquaintances with so many people that I am with now.

  Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Have you ever played a game that made you feel warm and toasty? Canadian winters can be really cold, you know.

 When I lived at my old run-down house, my old room didn’t have good insulation. Whenever it got cold, my room got really cold. I had my own personal heater because we didn’t really have a good heating system in my room either. So I only wore flannel pyjamas, wrapped myself in faux-wool blankets all the time, and went to sleep covered in at least four quilts or comforters (which is something I still do out of habit sorry). I used to make hot choco every day because it was just so cold in my room.

 I love Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Kirby’s Epic Yarn makes me feel warm and toasty inside because I think of being wrapped up in yarn and sheets and scarves and I just feel so happy. There are so many pastels used in KEY’s earlier stages that I can’t help but to feel toasty and happy when I’m playing it. It’s not the most challenging game. The game is really easy and all you mostly do is collect furniture, music, beads, and parts of the results wheel in every level, but I don’t think that’s the point of it. The point is just to have fun. Watching Kirby turn into a car to sprint, watching him turn into a little parachute or transform during those vehicle bits, you just can’t help but to feel so enveloped by the cute.

 Being able to interact with cloth by pulling a loose button and releasing something, taking off tags, pulling on stray thread, spin balls of yarn… it feels so fulfilling because it’s a clever use of the medium. It’s exactly what you’d do if you’re stitching or knitting. Placing furniture around Kirby’s little apartment makes the Animal Crossing fan in me so happy.

 I appreciate the lengths Good-Feel went to producing the level designs. They took photos of the fabric they bought and created the graphics that way. The music is calm and relaxing, with lots of woodwind and piano and lighter sounding instruments. The entire game feels so soft and sweet. It’s a visually-impressive game since everything animates incredibly fluidly.

  Cuphead

Like anyone my age or older, I grew up watching a lot of older cartoons by Max Fleischer with watercolour backgrounds, hand-drawn characters with a lot of focus on expressions, rotoscoping, etc Lots of slapstick and musical scores out of that decade.  I would have never believed I’d play a video game that looks like that but here we are playing Cuphead this decade.

 Cuphead is a blend of that artstyle with older run and gun style games. It combines a gunning experience with puzzles, reflexive actions, and dying… and dying a lot. And learning. Underneath it’s cartoony and child-friendly veneer lies a game that is unrelentingly difficult. There aren’t really any checkpoints in the game save for one. You can’t regain lost health. It’s just you versus the game. You may spend hours on one single level learning everything about it. And you can’t beat the game until you finish off every other level on regular difficulty.

 Different levels have different forms: they can be run and guns á la Contra, which are actually, oddly enough, breathing room levels. They’re probably the “easiest” levels in the game. Other types of levels can be straight up shmup-like boss fights where you’re flying in a plane. They can be hard as a regular shmup.

 The best crafted types of levels are the ones that include platforming as part of their boss battles because they use the artstyle and ideas involved in the art piece as interesting platforming mechanics. You have a more limited control scheme but the scenario you’re involved in is really interesting and unique. You fight a woman in a play and the setpieces in the play change according to how far you are in the boss fight, for example. The game also has a parry mechanic whereby you can double-jump off of anything that’s coloured pink and fill your super meter in order to kill bosses faster. The parry cues change per boss so it’s really cool to see what they look like every time you encounter something new.

 I think while Cuphead can be utterly unforgiving, I think it should be experienced at least once for how much work was put into making things look so fluid and how creative every boss and level can be. It’s what I wanted the UBIart framework to eventually evolve into. I think the game’s aesthetics and sound are its own reward in addition to that feeling when you finally conquer That One Boss.

  Asura’s Wrath

Asura’s Wrath was a game I was incredibly iffy on even buying at all. I heard about how the ending was part of paid DLC, that the game didn’t have a lot of gameplay, and that it was incredibly unremarkable. I don’t think I had a remarkably low bar or anything for this, but I decided to purchase it on the cheap.

 Asura’s Wrath definitely isn’t a game for everyone, and I feel as though it’s an acquired taste. The main character’s art might not jive well with everyone, the lack of ‘play’ will probably deter some folks, and its episodic nature/final chapter unlock sequence would probably get on people’s nerves. With that said, at first, it seems to be an action-cinematic game without necessarily expanding on the “action” part. A lot of it at first seems to be a bunch of QTEs to move the narrative along, with the narrative not necessarily being that strong in the first place. I think that’s due in part to the game’s structure initially. The first few chapters and the first act truly don’t seem very remarkable. The Buddhist and Hindu aspects of the game are very obvious and very central to the game’s plot, but at the same time, they don’t seem to be specifically mentioned whenever someone talks about the game to me. The Asuras were not one singular character or a god, but a race of warlike beings exhibiting wrath and pride. They were incorporated into Hinduism and Buddhism through their mention in The Rigveda. With that said, I was continually impressed by how many references—whether it was mere mention of regular terms/concepts/people, the artstyle and inclusions of things like lacquer skin, mandorlas, Vajras and Pretas, and also Siddham script—was included in this game. Asura’s Wrath ended up feeling incredibly natural and a nice way of shedding some light on non-Judeo-Christian religions.

 Anyway, I genuinely liked that the game felt like a playable anime. I don’t feel like the game would be as effective if it were put into another genre, or were less cinematic. It ends up getting its message across with its carefully-researched artstyle, great scene direction, well-composed music, and penchant for feeling like it was a fantastic shounen anime. I also feel like the game has more combo-based gameplay than people give it credit for. A lot of the complexities come to the forefront on Hard mode, and going for S-ranks and finding ways to do that quickly and effectively on higher difficulty modes is always an interesting affair.

  Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

I finished marathoning all of the Ace Attorney games in 2010. I don’t recall if I was doing it before Ghost Trick but I think what enticed me to get the game was its amazing animation. I hadn’t seen 2D sprites move that fluidly in a very long time. Characters have exaggerated movements, exaggerated dances (ie: the panic dance), and they have big flashy gestures to show off the game’s animation engine.

 You’re introduced to all sorts of eccentric characters, many of whom don’t overstay their welcome (Circus case from AA2, I’m looking at you). You have a desk lamp, a doggo, a dancing detective, a little girl who’s the focal point for one episode, etc. Everyone’s dialogue is relatively snappy, their expressions and animations make them stand out from others, and due to how everything is presented right down to the character art portraits, everything just jumps off the screen.

 Because you’re a spirit with amnesia, you’re given the ability to go through time, and also the ability to through environments by hopping from object to object and possessing them in order to influence what happens in the past to save people in the present.  This is just a path to trying to figure out who you really are or to find who or what killed you. A lot of the gameplay revolves around trying to figure out which objects to manipulate and when in order to influence an outcome. It makes the game partially point and click, but also partially a physics puzzler. I don’t think I remember a single object in the puzzle segments that was wasted. In other circumstances, you must manipulate time in order to save someone in their last four minutes.

 If anything, I feel like Ghost Trick is a necessary inclusion simply because of its style and attention to detail, as well as its sort but sweet story where nothing overstays its welcome. Its soundtrack also feels similar. The game is fairly consistent and nothing really changes in terms of progression over most of the game. But I see that as a plus as opposed to a minus for the most part. It helps to bring the game to a compelling and surprising conclusion.

  Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

I marathoned all of the Assassin’s Creed games in one year prior to Assassin’s Creed III since I wanted to see what the deal was with the series because the first game wasn’t that great from a play perspective for me. The thing that resonates the most with respect to Assassin’s Creed for me is marshmallow-flavoured birthday cake and a bag of regular Bugles. I started this marathon on one of my birthdays that decade.

 Assassin’s Creed II is one of my favourite games out there, but Brotherhood adds so much to the formula despite its middling storyline compared to its predecessor. But that’s because most of Ezio’s growth happened in the previous game. He is a middle-aged man searching for the Apple of Eden, and while the story does not carry as much emotional impact, that isn’t exactly what I’m looking for with respect to the earlier AC games.

 One of the things I absolutely love about the earlier AC games is its attention to detail even if it isn’t necessarily completely accurate. At first I missed the fact that I could explore many different towns like I could in AC2. But then I realised how big Rome and its surrounding area is. Rome is gigantic, and it has so much attention to detail with historical buildings everywhere (which you need to pay to rebuild), old tapestries from the era, citizens dancing in the streets, lovers flirting with each other behind pillars, etc. There are more roofs and buildings to parkour over and between. The game adds towards that require you to take over them before you can use them to gain access to vendors and things to renovate. You can also find the glyphs (much like the ones from the previous game) to solve puzzles in order to gain access to more lore.

 I genuinely love the renovation aspect of this game. It’s more involved and a lot better than what the previous game tried to do with its economy. You renovate in order to gain access to shops, which in-turn generates income for you, and then you can renovate other stuff based on the income that you generate. It’s something that I’ve come to miss in later AC games. It felt a lot like a Suikoden game in some aspects.

 Platforming missions return in the form of finding parts of a cult and cutting the beginnings of a conspiracy off by its limbs. They’re faster paced than AC2’s tombs and there is more variety in terms of what you platform through. I like both types equally since one allows you to marvel at the beauty of a cathedral, while the other allows you to clock a few folks while making your way through a lair.

 In addition to the lairs, there are different types of missions for each faction that you forge alliances with, there are Da Vinci missions that involve new war toys and blowing things up in a scripted way. Assassin missions can vary in terms of how you carry out the assassins (albeit still scripted; improvisation was not a thing until ACUnity).

 The crux of AC: Brotherhood is being able to recruit assassins to your cause. Random citizens throughout Rome may be under attack by Borgia soldiers, and once you save them, they are recruited to join your cause. You level them up, send them out on missions, improve their gear, and ask for their help when you can and when they’re available. This feature gets expanded upon in later AC games but it gets a very good start here.

 Brotherhood is so full of content and a lot of little things that playing it for me makes it feel like comfort food for me. It may not have the best story and it certainly isn’t as memorable in that sense as its predecessor. But it’s so fun that I can’t help but to feel satisfied every time I turn it on.

  Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

I played the original Pac-Man CE on 360 years ago at my cousin’s house, where they added a timer and a morphing maze to the base original game. I thought it was a neat novel thing at the time but didn’t think further.

 Pac-Man CE DX adds more mazes and more mechanics and more modes to the championship edition base. It added sleeping ghosts where, if Pac-Man moves near them, they wake up and they chase him around the maze in a line until you can finally eat them all and rack up a huge score. You can also elect to use a bomb at a small expense in order to save yourself and send ghosts to the middle of the maze again. These changes assist in maintaining the game’s flow and it never makes a score attack daunting or boring.

 Devouring big long conga lines of ghosts following you is so satisfying while you’re listening to a bumpin’ soundtrack and chilling out looking at the cool lights on the maze. Really and truly, while at its core, PMCEDX is a score attack game, it makes for a beautiful loving chill sensory experience and I couldn’t ask anything more from it.

  Deadly Premonition / レッドシーズプロファイル

I think I, like a lot of people, was introduced to this game via the GB series. I didn’t have an Xbox 360 so I eventually imported the Japanese version for the PS3. The game’s dub was already in English; the text was in Japanese and it was pretty easy and reasonable to get through. Deadly Premonition actually the Guinness World Record winner for most critically polarizing horror video game since the reviews at the time were so all over the place. And yes, I will contend that Deadly Premonition is definitely not for everyone.

 I am not the type of person to play shooters. I actually hate them a lot. I don’t like gushing blood in video games, and I don’t really like the act of murdering someone in a game. I used to play a lot of survival horror games when I was younger on the PS1 and PS2, but a lot of the time you’re dealing with the undead or oddball things going on around you so it’s not nearly as bad I think. It’s funny; I deal with people’s bodily fluids and body parts all the time in real life as part of my job (ie: I’ve had to help dissect someone’s stomach before fresh out of the operating room), and it doesn’t bother me. But the mere act of seeing it done or doing it, makes me feel squeamish. I don’t like it. I don’t even like watching blood being drawn from me or needles being stuck into me, even though I’ve done it to other people as part of my work.

 For the most part, inexplicably, in Deadly Premonition, you’re dealing with the undead anyhow. I’m not the best person at shooters, but I certainly know what’s a good one and what isn’t.  Deadly Premonition is not a very good shooter. It’s really janky. Some of the weapons don’t make sense in terms of how balanced they are. The controls are also really janky. This is not really a surprise considering the game’s strength wasn’t supposed to be its shooter aspects. In fact, those parts weren’t even supposed to be there.

 Deadly Premonition is often cited as an artistic piece or a good game simply because of its story and character writing.  It has an excellent main character who was cast almost perfectly. It has a lot of eccentric characters filling the town of Greenvale to help you solve the murder mystery or help obstruct it. The end result of having an unreliable narrator works out in the game’s favour. It helped sprout pop culture references, weird humour, quirky dialogue and more. I have certainly never watched Twin Peaks but I got the allusions either way since the show was so big. Slowly uncovering how every cast member lives their lives throughout the town and every day makes you more emotionally connected with them.

 Greenvale is more of a sandbox than just a place where a crime is committed. You can play darts. You can race cars. You can do a ton of sidequests somewhere that will reward you elsewhere. You can collect trading cards??? You can carry some lady holding a pot everywhere? You can taste-test for one of your coworkers? You can do a lot of stuff that makes zero sense but I still end up enjoying it all anyway.

 It looks like a PS2 or Dreamcast game or something and I almost found that utterly endearing in the era in which it was released. The soundtrack itself is so dissonant and doesn’t always fit the situation. Sometimes the sound mixing is so all over the place that it often results in making a scene more hilarious than it should be. There’s a song that’s just… American Idiot… on the soundtrack for some reason. Along the way, you start wondering “is this game real? Am I real? Is this really happening right now?” and yes, yes it is.

 In the end, because of its cult success and getting people talking, it allowed Swery 65 to make more games. Deadly Premonition was lightning in a bottle for him. He followed up with D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die (unfortunately in limbo). He cowrote Lord of Arcana and Lord of Apocalypse. He recently released The Missing. If anything, I’m more interested in what he makes. I’m eagerly looking forward to The Good Life.

  999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Text/Puzzle-adventures, rather than pure visual novels, became a staple of some players’ libraries due in part of the popular Ace Attorney series, Professor Layton series, and whatever Mystery Case File games that were published by Nintendo. 999 is not a pure visual novel. It’s a puzzle adventure game with visual novel elements. With art by Kinu Nishimura and a story written by Kotaro Uchikoshi (who had a few visual novels under his belt), it was difficult for me to ignore this game. I was also at a point where I really wanted to get into a lot of the games that Aksys published so it was a natural choice to buy.

 A lot of the localization and language in this game was edited so that while it stays true to the spirit of the original language, a lot of care was put into making the dialogue and writing sound natural in the English language versus going line by line exactly. It worked out in the game’s favour because the script was fairly large. Based on Uchikoshi’s past games, he likes to ask a question and generally incorporate some pseudoscience in his narratives. 999’s version of pseudoscience ended up being morphogenetic fields (see: Rupert Sheldrake). This theory ended up the basis for a few characters and it is the way the story unravels. He also took inspiration from another older game of Chunsoft’s: Banshee’s Last Cry where the player is put into an unsettling position right off the bat. Indeed, 999 starts the player in media res, but the player is already in trouble when you begin to control the main character.

 The puzzles were added to the game so that it would be received well by a wider audience than just visual novel readers. They were naturally and seamlessly integrated into the experience that the game became almost wholly about the puzzle rooms and whatever flavour dialogue occurred during the puzzle rooms. A lot of inspiration seems to have been taken from browser-based escape games like the Crimson Room from 2004. Escape the Room games were a subgenre of point and click adventure games and it was nice seeing the concept integrated in a narrative experience that wasn’t Myst (see: http://www.fasco-cs.net/ for more information). Due to the puzzles being a fundamental part of the game’s story, with them getting more and more difficult, the final puzzle for the entire game at the end of the true route is both a relief and also incredibly impactful due to using both of the DS screens and also revealing a lot to the player about the narrative.

 If I had criticism for the game, I feel like it would be having to play the game repeatedly, doing the same puzzles repeatedly in order to unlock another prerequisite ending for the true ending. I did not play the later port which rectifies this but I’m not entirely sure that being able to see the branches would be great for the game either. I also feel like, just like a lot of Uchikoshi’s writing and previous games, that when the characters start cracking jokes when they have to urgently do things to not die, the tone feels a little off.

 With that said, 999 is one of the more compelling text/puzzle-adventures from last decade, and it uses its native platform to its advantage. There weren’t a lot of games that used the DS screens to convey a narrative properly but when you are faced with the revelation that the game was using the two screens for a remarkable reason, you feel like the game is a natural and powerful addition to any DS library and gives significance for the dual screens.

  Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

The funniest thing about Metal Gear Rising was that I actually disliked it at the beginning when I first started playing it. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time, and I didn’t ‘get’ the parry mechanic. At first, I guess I was playing it for the sake of playing it? It definitely took me a while to even warm up to it. The camera was obnoxious (and still gets to be obnoxious in some places), and I felt incredibly nauseous while playing it sometimes.

 It wasn’t until I got to the Mistral boss that I finally … found what I was looking for… I’m sorry. I’m serious, though. Metal Gear Rising truly shines during the boss battles. When I finished that particular boss battle, I’d reflected that I was smiling like an idiot the entire way through. I don’t think I’d fought satisfying boss battles in years prior to that. Returning to previous chapters told me that Platinum really likes to frame and teach players via trial by fire. Learn to parry yourself, here’s a test to see if you can parry well and you can get a trophy for it, here’s the final test to see if you can even parry (Monsoon). I loved that Metal Gear Rising threw a lot of what we knew about Metal Gear Solid out of the window, with a significantly interesting score, boss battles that centre around the climax of a battle (expertly done via excellent sound design as I noted in my SotY writeup this year), and a more interesting and personable version of Raiden. It relies far more on offense than defense and stealth, and that’s okay to me. It ends up separating Raiden even more from Snake.

 The final boss is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of affair, and I ended up loving every single part of it. I felt like it was one of the best final bosses in years. Don’t know how to parry? You’re fucked. Don’t know how to use the game’s other offensive rush tactics like Defensive Offense and running? Good luck. The game makes sure you try to know how to do these things before even bothering to attempt the boss, with the major roadblock being Monsoon. And if you can’t parry by then, the game brutally tells you that you aren’t doing it right by making the boss battles ramp up to significantly require you to use one of the game’s core mechanics for elegant combat. This isn’t the most elegantly-designed game whatsoever. In fact, it can be really sloppy. With that said, it’s one of the better action games I played all decade.

  Papers, Please!

Papers, Please is work. It feels like work because it is work. You can grant freedom and admittance to people, or you can just take their freedom away or not permit them to cross the border. Everything you do is controlled by the government, or by rules and regulations. If you do something wrong, you’re written up. Do enough wrong, and your pay is cut. Do enough wrong and your pay is cut multiple times, and you can’t provide enough for your family. Everything about the game just feels like work. Even right down to the end of the day when the whole thing feels like a budget calculation and spreadsheets. Everything about the game’s UI feels a lot like work. Where do you allocate space to do your job? How much money do you allocate to heat/food/medicine? It ends up feeling very tedious, but somehow fulfilling.

 You are an immigration officer in a fictional Soviet state. The interesting part of the game is that it doesn’t only feel like a job, but it also feels like government and self-evaluation. You end up studying why the government keeps regulating the border the way they do, and thinking about how mundane the job can be. You know that people’s livelihood and family lives hinge on whether or not they cross the border, and sometimes your penchant for following the rules and disallowing people across the border may be called into question when people plead with you to go through. Do you accept docked pay so you can reunite people or save people from slavery, or do you do as you’re told and live with the consequences of your actions. In a small way, your ethics are called into question. It’s a nice reminder that a lot of things, despite people being people and having their own stories, generally seem to come down to bureaucracy and pieces of paper as opposed to a full understanding of humanity or extenuating circumstances.

 I’d also like to add that Jorji is one of the best characters of 2013 to me. I think his glass half-full philosophy / if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again philosophy is something to look forward to whenever I encounter him in-game.

 In many ways, Papers, Please feels a lot like the Milgram experiment. Are you going to make cruel judgement calls to separate a family, or keep people in slavery because the authorities and higher-ups essentially tell you to do your job so you can keep your family healthy? Papers, Please in many ways is written incredibly well. It doesn’t use reams of text to make you understand the overall premise of the game but through your actions, you’re also helping to tell the story. That’s the sort of weird and wonky player “agency” that I find interesting.

  World of Final Fantasy

The Final Fantasy series had a better decade than the last decade, I feel, considering the quantity of releases increase from the previous decade.  However, it had a lot of growing pains to deal with at the beginning of the decade. Final Fantasy games sell well all the time, and more people playing games than ever, it makes sense that sales numbers continuously increase. Attach rates aren’t as large.  Final Fantasy XIV came out in 2010 and it was not a good game at all to the point of having to be structured for its 2013 re-release. Final Fantasy XIII had mixed reviews, as well as its subsequent direct sequels.  Final Fantasy All the Bravest wasn’t exactly the best mobile debut for the series. The brand also suffered from dilution – the Final Fantasy name was attached to almost anything and everything for the sake of sales, and numerous spinoffs were released and the quality varied.

 Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, originally planned to be part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis setting with Final Fantasy XIII were renamed and rebranded/redesigned to be their own titles: Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Type-0. Both games also had mixed reviews and multiple delays. If anything, I can probably say that this decade was the most divisive for Final Fantasy fans.

 World of Final Fantasy came out during the same year Final Fantasy XV. I think I’ve made my feelings about Final Fantasy XV fairly well-known.  Perhaps my feelings about that game influenced how I felt about World of Final Fantasy but as someone who has played this series for decades (for reference: the first game is one year older than I am, and my first Final Fantasy was the first game), I felt like World of Final Fantasy was a love letter written to fans like me. I am a long-standing fan of the series over the course of decades and have been through its up and downs, and while I don’t like every game in the series (we all know how I feel about half of the games in the series, after all), I can still look at them for their influence on the rest of the series.  I also like the newer games equally as the older games and dislike and like games from all of the eras, so I don’t really have issues with how the series is represented in general unless the games are really bad.

 World of Final Fantasy feels like a Kingdom Hearts-esque exploration of the Final Fantasy games while throwing Pokemon into the mix. It involves a lot of older references as well as bringing new references in and throwing it into a presentation mode that fans of all ages can enjoy. The main characters are chibi which fits right into how the older games represented characters, but they can also grow taller to represent how the newer games are represented. You can create stacks of party members according to their height and balance well accordingly out of classic Final Fantasy enemies and characters in order to battle against other classic Final Fantasy characters, villains, and monsters.

 The game is exactly what I wanted a mainline Final Fantasy to look. It retains a cartoony look, embracing stylization while adding so much detail to the areas’ setpieces so that they also stand out while the characters move around on the map. I also felt like the score was also a brilliant blend of old and new: with Masashi Hamauzu composing the score but also remixing older Uematsu themes to fit within the context of the score. The score was loftier compared to Hamauzu’s older works and the strings, synth, and piano works incredibly well to bring the game’s world to life.

 The idea for WoFF was to try to bring younger fans into the fold, hence the Pokemon-like influence for using and rearing many classic FF enemies so that children could start to recognise them. The loftier script was also written in-mind taking into account both lighter storytelling from older FF titles and some darker bits taking into account newer Final Fantasy games. I’m not too sure that SE was very successful with bringing younger fans into the fold, but the way the game was written fit well with what I remember liking about FF for the first few games I had played. I also enjoyed that characters were chosen for their involvement to the plot versus them simply picking the most popular ones. This is why we got characters like Eiko and Shelke as well as regular FF mainstays. All of the characters were woven into the story well, as citizens of Grymoire as opposed to characters who just have their regular identities transported into Grymoire instead.

 I felt like the Pokemon mechanic was handled well. I even loved it enough to have the idea commissioned in combination with our FFXIV characters.  I liked that it changed up whatever skills you had access to, it influenced your stats, and it looked adorable to boot.

 I would absolutely love to see a mainline game made by this team because I felt like the loose style of storytelling and worldbuilding made for a very good Final Fantasy game, and in essence, WoFF was the real Final Fantasy XV to me. It felt more “Final Fantasy” than a lot of the games released in the same decade, or even compared to ones released in the previous decade. It was a nice step and touch to demonstrating that there were staff members who remembered what Final Fantasy is to older fans.

  Va-11 Hall-A

I’m too young to have a big attachment to older PC games like the ones on the MSX or the PC-88/98. But I’ve always had a fondness for their graphics and their music, like sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time or something. It’s one of the reasons why I gravitated hard to the PC Engine—I felt like it was a way for me to finally experience stuff like that.

 Valhalla is supposed to be a bartending simulator but in reality, mixing drinks is a bit of a break and distraction between the visual novel bits. Usually if you’re stuck in a futuristic landscape akin to Bubblegum Crisis or Blade Runner, you’re asked to investigate a mystery or explore it. But nope, you’re a bartender making drinks and making enough to scrape by and pay your rent. You hear a lot about the world from various clientele while you serve them drinks but you don’t necessarily have to do anything with the information they give you.

 I worked as a medical administrator for a few years and over that time, I got to hear a lot of stories, meet some famous people (like been on TV people or youtubers or people who got paid to do things for celebrities), and just meet a lot of neat and interesting regular people. I got to hear stories about people’s health or their personal lives or witness people falling in or out of love. You don’t necessarily have to do anything with that information (in fact you can’t due to patient confidentiality), but the stories become sealed in your head. I can’t help but to think of some of these people I met for those few years or where they are now. I actually run into some of them at my current lab so I keep getting to see some of their stories. You eventually learn how quickly icebreak in situations like these to make people feel at ease or find a topic of conversation while they’re waiting. I even used my phone to gauge news because a lot of the time when I got home, I was too tired to do anything or getting news in the palm of my hand was incredibly easy to do.

 In this sense, I understood Valhalla. It may look dull and it doesn’t look special but you’re the one who makes it so that it doesn’t have a dull moment in the bar. You’re the one who has to make it enjoyable even if your pay sucks. Because you don’t want to be miserable either. It’s through the conversations with others that you learn about Jill because she has to add commentary too. Everyone has a different way of requesting something and it’s up to you to figure out how to decipher it. It’s a lot of like practice in being in the service industry.  You need to consistently gauge a conversation in order to actually give the client what they want to unlock more conversation.

 The pacing in this game may be a little slow, but it doesn’t feel like a hindrance because the writing is really good. Something always happens to keep you interested or you have to mix drinks to keep yourself on your toes. The humour comes across well, and nothing really falls flat. Part of the reason why I feel like the writing is genuine is because the game’s developers wanted to write something that reflected how they live in Venezuela, akin to laughter in the middle of despair according to the developers. The writing is balanced well with the music and the visuals which makes the whole package a wonderful experience.

 This game also has Rad Shiba so it belongs on the list by default.  

  El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

I had gone to Catholic Schools all my life. I was even in a nursery school operated by nuns when I was a toddler, and they always tried to get me to write with my right hand instead of my left (which left me ambidextrous for some things lol).  Because of my experiences with religion growing up, I absolutely had questions and doubts and concerns with metaphysics, theology, and epistemology. Every Catholic, I think, as they grow up and have to take religion classes, and having to take what the province mandates as metaphysics are somehow inserted into math and biology syllabi without even being mentioned in the coursework at all, questions it. And that’s okay. You should. The best religion and philosophy teacher I ever had growing up always said we should question everything we learn including what he taught us.

 Going through school, though, and reading the Bible and having Bible study, my friends and I always sorta wondered what it’d be like if a game was made about this stuff?  I know it may be a little sacrilegious but there are so many stories in there that would fit a game. Throughout my life, as I became acquainted with others from different branches of Christianity or other western religions, I talked with others who played games who… surprisingly had the same ideas and desires?  It probably won’t ever be done. El Shaddai is inspired by the Book of Enoch and while it is considered as non-canon in most Christian and Jewish sects, I guess it might come close to what some of us wanted.

 El Shaddai was a game that I picked up mostly because I bought almost every niche game back then. I just looked at some of the trailers, thought it looked just okay, and picked it up because I felt like Ignition was going out of business and it would be a novelty item. Ignition did not have the best reputation among the people I talked to back then. I played Lux-Pain whose localization left a lot to be desired. Nostalgia was a middling RPG. Arc Rise Fantasia’s localization left a lot to be desired despite being a good game. Deadly Premonition had an English dub already but the text localization wasn’t that great. I felt like El Shaddai was the most polished game that Ignition released. They got incredibly great voice actors, including Jason Isaacs. They developed a score attack combo ranking system for replayability. They had a fantastic art director and background art. They made two bishounen that screamed for female audiences to pay attention.

 All of it didn’t exactly work out for the time the game came out, and I always contended that the game was released before its time. Unfortunately, all the effort put into El Shaddai didn’t exactly save Ignition. I feel like if El Shaddai were released in the later half of the decade, it would have been accepted. However, I also feel like its marketing was mishandled. It doesn’t feel like a Devil May Cry successor. It shifts between genres continuously. It is very much like Nier in this regard: it is not for everyone and it has its own unique feel that sets it apart from other games.  It is also a score attack action game, not a hard character action game.

 One thing I really enjoyed about El Shaddai was that all of the setpieces aren’t exactly the same. It ranges from a watercolour painting to abstraction to 2D children art to more abstraction to Final Fantasy VII and keep going like that. It references rhythm games, 2D Platformers, racing games, action games, Devil May Cry (with its own brand of Devil Trigger to boot), and other genres to create something that syncs up very well with the rest of the game due to lore reasons: different enemies prefer different things so that’s why each environment looks different or the gameplay styles may be a little different. I’m okay with this because it shakes things up per chapter and the game doesn’t feel stale at all. You’re expected to adjust to new mechanics per area.

 The combat is a lot like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where certain weapons beat other weapons, or some bosses change which weapons they’re weak against (and the game gives you other weapons so you can adjust accordingly during fights). The weapon you wield also modify your platforming abilities (ex: one allows Enoch to dash, one weighs him down, etc), and they also vary in terms of character strength. In order to obtain G-rankings for each stage, the player needs to analyse which weapon would be the most useful for certain enemies and combo while guarding, guard-breaking, and stealing enemies’ weapons.

 I am putting El Shaddai on this list because I really enjoyed it for what it was. It’s a brilliant score attack action game with a fantastic soundtrack and fantastic art design. It made for a pleasant sensory experience and made some religious figures fairly compelling with good character designs. It’s definitely one of the most rewarding and prettiest score attack games I’ve played this decade.

  To the Moon

Everyone goes through life with regrets. I’m in my thirties now and I think I’ve done things I’ve regretted, or I didn’t other to do something and I’ve regretted that. Kan Gao was inspired by his grandfather’s illness when he was writing and making To the Moon, he’s noted that when he gets old and when his time would come, he might end up regretting some decision he’d made throughout his entire life.  Everyone goes through that when faced with introspection. You can have the courage to love, you can feel pain, you can live your life fully, or not live it enough. To the Moon explores this, and while the writing isn’t the best and can be a little messy (this gets improved on in Gao’s later sequels to this game: A Bird Story and Finding Paradise), I understand what To the Moon was trying to accomplish. To the Moon is an exploration of everything that life throws at us, and the results of the decisions made throughout our lives that touches everyone and everything around us until our time passes.

 Eventually you build up so many wishes and have a big bucket list but eventually there will come a time where you won’t remember why half of those things are on those lists.  To the Moon relates the story of Johnny Wyles, an elderly man on his deathbed with one wish: to go to the moon. The problem is that he could not remember why. The general flow of Gao’s games have involved two scientists from Sigmund Corp, specialising in wish fulfillment at the end of someone’s life, creating memories for people in their final moments to generate comfort for the patient. How ever you may feel about the moral implications of generating false memories for someone prior to their end of life, this is merely a set up for traveling through time to understand what the patient had wanted and what they’d accomplished.  

 Johnny’s character revolves around another character with an ASD. I will also note that my brother has autism (compounded with a multisystem syndrome). While the central focus was on Asperger’s Syndrome (Tony Attwood books being mentioned in the game), I’m a little happy that ASDs are being brought up in games and the game truly hit home for me. The writing may not be stellar, but I felt that the theme of the impact of medical disorders was communicated well. Particularly the theme of why communication and connections with others is so difficult for those with ASDs and those who take care of those who have ASDs. It’s easy to sympathize with the characters trying to express what they mean to each other.

 The game itself is relatively short. Regardless of its length, players must confront some uncomfortable situations and emotions that people struggle with daily or even at different points in our lives. I’m older now and I appreciate this game a little more since I’ve come to experience more of what the game had been trying to tell me a decade ago. The writing may not be the best, and it can be a little messy at times with respect to how it’s presented and written, but a lot of its messages come across as utterly genuine. Slowly unraveling the reasoning behind Johnny’s desire to go to the moon is beautiful. This game is quite human and I appreciate all three games that are a part of this subseries that came out this decade.  I am looking forward to more.

  Nier Gestalt

If you’ve played a Drakengard game or the first Nier game at all, you kind of know what you’re getting into.  Not the best graphics of the decade, plays pretty janky, having bosses that can be difficult to manage, etc.  So going into Nier Gestalt in 2010, I knew what I was getting into. Not a lot of people bothered playing this game since I don’t think it got as much promotion considering it came out during the same year a mainline Final Fantasy game got localized.  Nier also got a little scrutiny since the west got a different protagonist from the Japanese version.  I will say that this worked out in its favour, since the protagonist being one of the central character’s father versus her brother makes for a better, more interesting story than having yet another shounen protagonist.

 I will support the case that, like the Drakengard games before it, Nier Gestalt was difficult to get into. The gameplay is jank.  Easy is too easy.  Normal doesn’t drop enough stuff to warrant playing on the mode. Hard can be a little hard but eventually it evens out. I generally used spears for the charge portion of the combo but in the end it doesn’t necessarily matter what weapon type you use. It doesn’t even matter if you use magic or not unless the game prompts you to do so. It’s either broken or not and the game doesn’t have a set balance for anything. Combos are boring and you’re essentially mashing a button. Even playing through the Nightmare DLC for extra drops, it continues being like this. I was used to playing shmups so it wasn’t necessarily revolutionary that AoE attacks looked as though they were spat out from a shmup either.

 I wasn’t quite understanding why game started acquiring a cult following, because what I’d played of it was pretty boring and standard. “It’s just a regular ARPG starring an older character versus a young protagonist,” I said to myself. I guess that was the reason.  I didn’t quite understand why, even past acquiring Kaine, because I guess I accepted that there weren’t a lot of NPCs and certain towns were the way they were due to, what I surmised were, RPG conventions. It wasn’t until I finished the questline for the brothers, where their mother tried to run away with a man and abandon her children, that I finally started to understand.

 Within every substory, there was something that resonated with someone.  I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to abandon their responsibilities, and at the same time I understood. Sometimes you just want to take care of yourself. With the way the older brother sort of understood why even through his anger and disappointment, it resonated with me. I finally ‘got’ the story, so I wanted to play more. This became one of those rare games where I played only for the story and lore and abandoned any hopes of the gameplay getting better.  I fished, I upgraded weapons, I did enough sidequests for the trophies. I almost platinumed this game, but since the drop rates are so terrible for this game, I didn’t.

 I started enjoying the game for what it was. It was genuinely a fun romp where it feels like everyone taking part in the game’s design contributed something unique and something they were fond of.  If you read any interview from Emi Evans from this time period, you’d realise language is something she’s particularly fond of, so much of the composition and lyrical content of every song was a phoneme from any language that would make it sound like an evolved or a sort of Esperanto version of a current language. This came into play with the game’s lore, and many of the interviews were interesting to read from back then.

 Many of the game’s stages borrowed from different genres of video games. There were the obvious shmup references, the rail shooter reference, the visual novel reference, the Resident Evil/fixed angle horror game reference, the Shadow of the Colossus references, the 2D platformer references, the Zelda references, the top-down puzzle game references, etc. For what the game lacked with respect to its combat, the game excelled at reliving genres and putting maps together in such a way that it felt like an ode to other games and genres that inspired it. The City of Façade’s language being a loose phoneme reconstruction of Japanese felt right at home with the dungeon’s Zelda references complete with Zelda fanfare for me. The Forest of Myth being one long visual novel was so hilarious and unique at the same time.  

 Playing more of the game and opening up the lore with every playthrough was neat. I don’t particularly like when games waste my time, but Nier made each new playthrough worth it. Killing bosses quickly for a trophy, redoing dungeons to see the enemies’ perspectives, and unlocking more of the story and learning more about the world that came from a Drakengard ending felt satisfying. As someone who was studying linguistics at the time, constructing nonsense words from drops out of different morphemes to act as accessories or armour was really amazing for me.

 Much of Nier felt organically put together, from characters’ writing and what they wanted from each other, to the dungeon design, to maybe even the combat design… it felt like a truly special game made from the heart with as much lore as it could possibly include. I had purchased the Nightmare DLC primarily to get weapon drops and while it isn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the game, it has some implications for the lore. The music and resulting soundscape lends so much to the worldbuilding and includes many peoples’ languages from the area with French, Japanese, English, German, etc phonemes thrown around to sound utterly organic and special.

 At the end of this, I have come to realise that despite saying to myself that I never played this game for the game… I’ve been lying to myself this entire time. I actually did play the game for its game parts. Those are the bits I remember the most about it, and they’re the reasons why I genuinely loved the game. It’s unforgettable for me and it’s why it’s one of my favourites in general.

  Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

I did not care about MMOs in my late 20s because I was far more focused on finishing school and actually working hard in my field. I think by the end of university, I barely played games because I literally didn’t have time for them. I probably stressed myself out a lot. I threw myself into a semester where I had what felt like 500 evaluations, had to study a lot, had to write papers, and I ended up breaking up with my ex-boyfriend amicably. I was on my own a lot and to be honest, I think I felt okay that way. I think maybe others thought I was unapproachable.

 My best friend now turned fiancé had been begging me to start playing Final Fantasy XIV for a really long time, since he was in the beta prior to its 2.0 release. I made excuses and said I won’t play until a speedster class was implemented since nothing really stuck out at me. In reality, I was mostly busy. Well, Ninja got implemented late 2014, so I ran out of excuses. I got a copy of ARR but to be honest, I didn’t have time for it and I didn’t play it much so I didn’t bother to try harder since my focus was elsewhere.

 Luckily, I got into a semester where I didn’t have that much coursework to think about so I ended up playing XIV more. I caught up during ARR and really my intention was to only play through ARR and finish the story and quit. But my fiancé’s friends were so nice and welcoming to me. When the servers shut down for Heavensward maintainance and I’d finished the ARR storyline literally that night, I made the conscious decision to buy Heavensward. By that time, I was falling a little too hard for my best friend and I really liked my newfound friends. I wasn’t ready to leave Eorzea yet.

 Of course, I had some quests to finish up during Early Access so I didn’t get the opportunity to play with anyone I knew during the main storyline for Heavensward. Heavensward was leaps and bounds above anything I experienced in ARR. The story was well-written, the English voices were recast and given better direction, character deaths were meaningful, a smaller cast made for good character building, the environments were large and you could only assume things happened in each area eventually (they didn’t in the long run), each area was different, it reminded me of Canada… Heavensward made me feel at home.

 Almost every job felt built on, since nothing was really truly culled. A lot of what you got felt like an extension of what you already did. The three new jobs didn’t start out too well or too balanced. Machinist was a mess. Astrologian felt weird. Dark Knight had some growing pains but probably performed the best out of the three once the Alexander raid was implemented given that its specialty at the time centered on magic defense. I was one of the five people who really liked bowmage since it required you to think before you cast but you still did a lot of damage if you thought before firing. I swapped to an omnihealer main officially halfway through the patches because my fiancé requested it.

 Heavensward had a lot of growing pains. For all the team did for the base game, they took a six-month vacation to recharge. 3.1 wasn’t really worth the wait and a lot of people quit the game or stopped playing because nothing really meaningful was added to the game other than a faceroll raid, poorly-tuned exploration missions, and two dungeons. Gordias earlier in the expansion nearly killed the raiding community as a whole.  3.2 didn’t fare too much better, though it did add the best raid tier that has yet to be topped. 3.3 was when FFXIV solidified itself as an MMO with a grand story to tell, with one of the best conclusions a Final Fantasy game had seen in almost a decade. The sound design was near-perfect for this patch, and it was when a lot of us genuinely felt comfortable with the game and its future. Heavensward wasn’t perfect; it still had its missteps and balancing issues, but it was the most comfortable and profoundly skilled I’d ever felt with the game.

 Final Fantasy XIV may not be what it used to be.  I feel old and I feel like I’ve played the game for a really long time.  Now while it’s riding the wave of success, currently having the best story Final Fantasy has seen in a very long time, I can’t help but to remember Heavensward when we finally felt assured about the game and it felt like a cohesive gift to players who were active at that time.  I got to know so many people during Heavensward, and now I’m engaged to my best friend partially due to our experiences together playing at that time.

  Undertale

The late half of 2015 was a really bad year for me. The first half was really great. I started playing FFXIV often, I finished the hardest year I’ve ever had of my 9 years of university so far with high grades and was going full-on hard into my residency year, I fell in love with my best friend.  I was pretty happy since I finally felt very successful.

 If anyone can recall (or this may be new to the person who is reading this), towards the end of 2015 my dad was falsely accused by our neighbour of possession of a weapon (it was a gardening tool), and he had a restraining order put against him so he couldn’t live with us anymore.  My little brother is severely disabled so that’s why I still lived at home so I could help out.  Without my dad around, it was so much harder.  I came home from my days at the hospital every day after a 12-hour day, had to babysit my brother since my mom still cooked food to carry for my dad who had to live at my aunt’s, somehow had to find time to study for my licensing exam and do some work for school and my thesis, had to find time to socialise a tiny bit otherwise I’d go crazy, maybe had to take my brother to his appointments by coming home a little early, and then had to find whatever time I had left to sleep.  I stopped posting on message boards because I literally had no time to do so and I wouldn’t have anything of value to contribute to discussions either.  

 I detached myself from a lot of people. It was actually kind of lonely. It was really hard. I lashed out at people when I shouldn’t have. I don’t look back on those days other than the bright spots with fondness at all.

 Before that, everyone was telling me to play Undertale but I sort of didn’t want to? I felt like the fanbase was sort of making the game unapproachable around the time it came out. By the end of the year, I was so out of the loop about games that I didn’t give a hoot.  A friend of mine, Shadow Hog, bought the game for me on Steam. I still have the e-mail message for it.

 My now-fiancé got his own copy so we could play it together because at that point I didn’t want to do much of anything alone. I was actually sinking deeper into depression and verging on a mental breakdown. I was not mentally sound and every single week it felt like someone had to save me from doing something stupid.

 I started Undertale and I didn’t really think much of it at the start.  I can’t remember when it started clicking with me but maybe it was around the time I got into a battle with Tsunderplane and Vulkin and got to Hotland that I gave up and started having fun with it because it was just… silly. It was time to let down your hair and have some fun for once and not feel completely guilty about it.

 The idea of having to win and achieving a certain ending by sparing your enemy isn’t necessarily new – SMT’s demon negotiation, Silent Hill 2’s morality system, and MGS3’s fight with the Sorrow have some sort of sparing mechanic. The hybrid of a turn-based battle system with enemy negotiation, as well as dodge system inspired by a shmup makes every encounter both strategic (ie: having to avoid bullets while also sparing enemies in a set order per battle) and consistently active.  Unless you are going for a certain other ending, you cannot just sit there and hold down the attack button and expect to win.  That said, this makes a lot of encounters a little longer than a standard RPG battle, but the flavour text for each uniquely-designed enemy makes many of the battle worth it. Undertale isn’t a hard game unless you’re playing on a certain route. But I don’t necessarily think the gameplay part of Undertale speaks properly for it. The dungeon maps are relatively simple. They all have their little gimmicks. The battle system is relatively easy to understand.

 The reason why Undertale has such a prolific fanbase is primarily because of its character writing and ability to make and use memes properly enough that they catch on. Many of the characters are easily encountered early, are easy to draw (propels a lot of fanart), and understand due to the character writing. What also helps is that the game is 4-6 hours long, and it came out at the right time with the right kind of word of mouth.  Undertale could have easily fallen into the sea like so many other RPGs before it but it didn’t.  My fiancé and I were shopping for work clothes one day at a store that sells business clothing, construction clothing, and scrubs. He was wearing a shirt with the Delta Rune on it since he loves game shirts that are relatively subtle. Even then, one of the sales clerks pointed it out and was pretty excited to see it.  It was pretty crazy to both of us how popular Undertale had gotten.  I don’t think the popularity was unwarranted. I think it’s a fantastic game, helped by a considerably lengthy varied and catchy soundtrack. Granted, I was not as exposed to how explosive its popularity was when it came out. But I understood why so many people liked it. It wasn’t for its gameplay.

 As I progressed through Undertale, instead of thinking of the lore (which was well-written), I was thinking of how the monsters treated your character with respect and love because you treated them that way.  They didn’t go out of their way to fear you, and welcomed you as one of their own.  In the end, they were hesitant to even kill you, and you were hesitant to kill them.  Even then you still had the spare/save commands.

 At the very end, you only had the Save command.

 And that’s how I felt. When Hopes and Dreams started playing, I couldn’t help but to cry. When I was repeatedly nudged to press the Save command, I didn’t actually feel like the game nudged me to do so. That was something I wanted to do. Just remembering how depressed I was when I started playing this game and then progressing to its true end with Hopes and Dreams and SAVE the World playing, I couldn’t help but to feel like my hopes and dreams were still alive.

 Even if I was going through a really hard time in my life, hope was still there as long as I had people around me that supported me all the way through. That was the time in my life that I realised who my real friends were. And in the end, I felt like Undertale told me my friends saved me and that my dreams weren’t crushed, now matter what threw at me.

 And that’s why it’s my game of the decade. It may not be the most perfect game that came out this decade or the objectively best-crafted, but it did so much for me. When I was prompted for my game of the decade, Undertale was the first thing that popped into my head. I didn’t question it. I just knew. I don’t think we’ll get another Undertale again in my lifetime, but I’m glad to say that I gave it a shot and I love it for what it is.

[loniden]

How to Eat Healthy During the 2020 Lockdown

This has been a fascinating week with such an unforeseen development in a brief timeframe. Almost all of us are at home for two or three weeks, which brings along new difficulties when following a keto or low carb diet. In this article, I'll give you tips about how to eat well when stuck at home.

The most effective method to Eat Healthy When Stuck at Home

I don't have a clue what it is about the vulnerability of our reality that makes me need comfort nourishment and to heat hand crafted chocolate chip treats. On the off chance that you've been battling staying keto or low carb, you aren't the only one. I surveyed the Easy Keto Low Carb Recipes Facebook page, and keeping in mind that there were many adhering to the keto way of life, there were similarly the same number of battling. It's anything but difficult to push eat when all that we've known is unexpectedly open to question. How would you eat well when stuck at home?

In complete honesty, I haven't eaten consummately for as far back as not many days. I'll do incredible the vast majority of the day, at that point end up giving in here, and there later toward the evening and into the night. Regardless of whether it is only a bunch of my children's Cheetos or a little treat, those little chomps include, and before I know it, I get myself, saying what the hell., I've just spoiled today I should eat anything I desire, which is never a decent course for me.

At the point when I go off arrangement for a few days, it causes me truly to feel yucky. My stomach gets all enlarged, my garments don't fit also, and my vitality levels are lower. With not realizing to what extent we will be home, I realize I need to feel my best. Good dieting is basic to my general prosperity. Else, I realize it would start to influence me intellectually.

Also Read:  6 Awesome Body Changes When You Give Up Carbs

Since I realize that there are numerous who may be managing similar battles, I thought I'd share two or three unique tips that may help we all to eat well when we are stuck at home during this exceptional time in our country's history.

Tips to Eating Healthy During a Challenging Season

1. Resolve and Discipline Always Win – Sticking to a good dieting way of life goes a long ways past inspiration. As I referenced right now what making my bed showed me weight reduction, inspiration is whimsical, and it depends on feelings and conditions. Inspiration will bomb me, particularly in our present circumstance, not realizing a distinct end in sight. I need to determine and decide to stay with day by day trains again and again that bring achievement. Surrendering to transitory wants again and again (hi Oreos) never genuinely causes me to feel better.

2. Recall Your Why and Your Wins – When enticement hits, which it unquestionably will recollect your why and your successes. For what reason did you begin following a keto or low carb diet? What achievements have you achieved en route? Have you gone down a size? Not, at this point constrained by desserts? Have more vitality than you used to have? Record these things on the off chance that you need to with the goal that they are a consistent token of why you should proceed on your smart dieting venture regardless of the way that your life may look altogether different at this moment.

3. Change from Keto to Low Carb – If you have been exacting keto and can't appear to refocus, maybe changing to all the more a low carb way of life may be useful. Thusly, you'll give yourself more breathing space and a couple of more carbs a day. You likewise won't need to concentrate on remaining in ketosis. Eating low carb rather than keto may be the ticket that gives you enough opportunity for progress. On the off chance that you aren't acquainted with how they are unique, Low Carb versus Keto: Differences and Benefits is an extraordinary asset.

4. Plan Ahead – If you wind up battling in light of the fact that there is unexpectedly more nourishment in the house that you wouldn't ordinarily eat, arranging very well might assist you with remaining on target. Plan dinners and snacks with solid other options. For instance, if every other person is eating pizza, make a heavenly crustless pizza or pizza chaffles. That way, you can fulfill your desires and remain on target.

Additionally, in the event that you dinner prep early, you won't be without solid nourishment alternatives. Here are five straightforward strides to supper prep that will make preparing dinners simpler when you get exhausted of cooking.

5. Keep Easy Keto Treats and Snacks on Hand – When you are home throughout the day consistently, it's anything but difficult to surrender to careless eating and eating eventually. There are such huge numbers of great plans for keto desserts and tidbits, yet now and then I simply need something I can get rapidly without getting the kitchen filthy once more. With being home for an all-encompassing measure of time, we all will probably be cooking more, so having simple choices we can get and appreciate may help us not snatch our child's tidbits. Here are a couple of my most loved keto snacks I like to keep in my wash room. In the event that you can't discover them locally or don't have any desire to get out, Amazon is an extraordinary alternative.

6. Pick a Day – I wouldn't ordinarily recommend this, yet edgy occasions call for additional choices. Pick one day a week or at regular intervals, where you appreciate carbs without blame. Perhaps you might want to go through one day seven days heating with your children however have stayed away from it since you don't feel sufficiently able to disapprove of unique treats. Right now, picking one day seven days to have a heating day or solace nourishment cooking day with the family would give you enough alternatives to have the option to adhere to keto or low carb the other six days. On the off chance that you don't figure you could refocus following a day away from work plan, at that point this alternative would not be a decent decision for you.

7. Pick a Nonnegotiable Start Date – With an ongoing sudden spike in demand for staple goods, you probably won't have the option to load up on low carb wash room nourishments you typically eat. Or then again, you may require a brief timeframe of alteration with everything else feeling wild before committing once again to smart dieting. Regardless, set another beginning date. On this day, you'll refocus, no inquiries. What that may resemble is this, " For the following fourteen days I'm going to make sense of our new self-teach plan, load up on low carb food supplies once stores restock, and get some kind of foothold once more. At that point, precisely fourteen days from today, I'm returning to eating low carb."

A couple of days before your new beginning date, start a feast plan and basic food item shop to set yourself up for progress. On the off chance that you need dinner thoughts, here is a rundown of more than 90 free keto supper plans you can get to whenever. Having a beginning date will likewise give you an opportunity to intellectually get ready for the change.

8. Start and Stick with a New Exercise Routine – Now that our timetables are not, at this point brimming with children's games exercises, school exercises, self-teach gatherings, church, youth bunch social occasions, and so forth we have much more opportunity to do things we've been putting off because of absence of time. At the point when I am reliably working out, it causes me to settle on better nourishment decisions as I would prefer not to fix all the difficult work I've done. There are loads of 30-Day Exercise Challenges on Pinterest that are anything but difficult to start. Indeed, even 20 minutes of activity daily causes me to ponder the nourishments I put in my body. Here is a Pinterest Board loaded with various exercise programs and chiseling programs on the off chance that you need motivation.

Also Read: The Future Of Low-Carb Diets: Lessons Learned From Past Fads

9. Give Yourself Grace Upon Grace – We've never confronted this sort of emergency in the course of our life. I don't have a clue about that anybody realizes how to move the progressions that have occurred in our reality. The greater part of us aren't accustomed to being stuck in our homes for broadened periods. You may require a period of modification first before you can get settled and resolved to refocus. Assuming this is the case, that is alright. There is no disgrace or judgment. Right now, neglect to make dealing with yourself and remaining sound a need, regardless of whether it takes you a piece to pull together while the residue settles around you.

Everything Is Not Lost

In the event that you are battling, everything isn't lost. Essentially, pick how you can eat well while stuck at home. What you do probably won't resemble what the following individual is doing, yet you need to discover what you can adhere to in the midst of new difficulties.

I'm hitting my reset button today and committing once again to remaining on target. I'll adhere to more low carb than keto, for a brief timeframe at any rate; maybe I'll return to keto as we get sunk into our new ordinary. Since I am at my objective weight, I may even pick an off-plan day once consistently or two and appreciate making (and eating) family plans that have been passed on through ages that aren't low carb with my kids. I may even appoint my more seasoned children a night to prepare supper (it's a significant fundamental ability all things considered) and simply appreciate what they decide to cook without blame. I can guarantee you if my child is cooking cauliflower WILL NOT be on the menu. lol

Relish the Time and Make Memories

The majority of all, I need to appreciate this time with my family, gain experiences we probably won't have set aside the effort to make in the event that we weren't stuck at home, and relish this time together. I'll despite everything eat soundly, only not as exacting as I regularly would with the goal that I don't come out of this having put on weight. I simply don't need it to be something I consider continually, or that controls me. This season in our home will be devoted to time together and memory-production.

At the point when you get tired recall, each tempest comes up short on downpour. There will be another season.

[violetsmoak]

Appetence [2/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn’t expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: N/A

First Chapter

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52

Author’s Note(s): Enter Tim. And Tim's investigation. And Tim's tendency to make bad decisions.

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

Red Robin crouches on a rooftop in the Bowery, watching the thief he was just interrogating scramble from the alley. He was a bit harsher than usual tonight—the full ‘hang ‘em by the feet’ routine that’s more Batman’s thing than his, but he’s getting frustrated now.

Dante’s been missing for a week now, and in this town, that’s never a good sign. And if no one’s seen him…

His gut and five years of stalking the night as a vigilante are telling him he shouldn’t get his hopes up about finding his friend, but he can’t work up the courage to stop. To just, pack up and head back to California.

Things between him and the Family are…tense.

Bruce hasn’t quite been able to look at him without suspicion since the whole incident with Captain Boomerang and Freeze. Dick’s as focussed on Damian as ever, and whatever attention he has left over has been going to mentoring Duke. Steph and Tim are in another extended “off” period of their on-and-off-again relationship, Damian’s…Damian. And Cass isn’t around often enough to mitigate any of that.

As much as Alfred assures him it’s not the case, Tim’s been feeling more and more like Gotham doesn’t have anything for him any longer.

He never thought he’d ever feel like that.

Gotham is dank and dark and terrifying, but it’s home. It’s flying through the air and running across rooftops and diving into trouble at the last second to save the day. It’s everything he wanted when he was a kid, secretly following Batman and Robin around with a camera almost as big as he was.

But every year now, it feels like the city is a little danker, a little darker, a little more terrifying. A lot more hopeless.

Part of him thinks that hopelessness started growing following Jason Todd’s murder. Tim did his best to be there for him, but it’s been an uphill battle. And every year, the fight for Gotham’s soul becomes an even bloodier war of attrition, consuming more and more innocents.

Reminded of his goal tonight, Tim decides to involve himself more directly.  

He rappels down to the alley floor and resigns himself to several hours of canvassing a hostile neighborhood. Though fear is an excellent motivator for some, for others a different approach is needed.

People are unlikely to tell a stranger—even a rich stranger—anything worthwhile. Especially here in the Alley, where throwing money at problems get people’s backs up. There’s a sense of pride down here, and an us-versus-them mentality that even the most destitute ascribe to.

And vigilantes are pretty firmly in the ‘them’ column.

Tim has better luck than most here; Red Robin has been frequenting this place a lot over the years, almost from the moment he put on the cape and tights. The other capes never bothered much with it—except for Jason, who when he was Robin made a point of ending his patrols with a quick check of his former home. Tim sometimes thinks that maybe his tendency to come here is an homage to that, a way of keeping his predecessor’s legacy alive.

Of course, he’s never said anything like that to anyone in the family. Even years later, the grief is still too raw. If he’s asked, Tim maintains that he’s cultivated a careful network of informants and contacts in the Alley, and nothing more.

I mean, it’s not like I can go wandering around Crime Alley in the middle of the day.

Tim Drake-Wayne’s face is too recognizable, causes too much trouble. People are desperate here, might try to grab him and use him to extort money from Bruce—and he’d have to let him because he’s not supposed to be able to handle himself. Bruce would come, of course, or whoever’s nearest that Oracle can get on the comms, but it would mean interrupting actual crimes in progress, with actual people who are in danger.

A worse alternative would be if whoever has Dante—and Tim’s sure someone has him because the kid wouldn’t just vanish on his own—they might harm him. Because Tim is the adopted son of the man funding Batman, and if they think he might cause them trouble, most people willing to kidnap are also willing to murder.

All of which assumes that they haven’t murdered him yet.

Tim’s plan of approached hinges on the locals actually being in a helpful mood tonight, but he soon discovers that’s not the case. No one’s feeling talkative tonight, even when he ramps up the intimidation a little.

Either there’s someone out there they’re more afraid of, or they really don’t know.

It’s only in the early hours of the morning when he’s considering returning to his Park Row apartment in defeat, that one of the working girls finally takes pity on him.

“Watchin’ you go back and forth is makin’ me dizzy,” Rhonda says. She’s been working the corner of Park Row and Fifth since before Tim’s time, and though she rarely goes out of her way to get involved with the capes, she does tend to be bluntly honest if the situation is right. “Who you lookin’ for?”

“This kid. Or anyone who’s seen him,” he says, pitching his voice into his approximation of Bruce’s Batman growl. He holds out the glossy picture he’s been flashing around all night; he took it off a security camera and increased the size of. “He was working at the bodega on the corner of Parker and Main just outside the Alley.”

“A bit weird for a cape to give a shit about some kid from ‘round here. Don’t you freaks normally deal with the bigger freaks?”

“Have you seen him or not?” Tim insists, ignoring the jab.

“Who’s he to you, sugar?” she asks, glancing at the picture Tim brandishes. “And don’t give me no bullshit.”

Tim sighs, knowing better than to test her; she’s got Alfred levels of talent when it comes to lies.

“He’s a friend of sorts,” he explains. “Sort of…a protégé. I’ve been looking out for him the past few months.”

Which is sort of true, though not in the way he’s implying.

During WE’s years board meeting to examine the various applications for the Scholarship Program, Tim took note of an applicant whose overall qualifications were outstanding and whose even on paper looked like a major boon to the company.

But the Board of Directors took one look at Dante Garcia’s prior assault conviction at age twelve and decided to toss his application. Without even reading the excellent essay the kid wrote to explain the reasons he had been fighting (to defend a friend from a police officer with a grudge). Or how the experience made him want to become an advocate for those who couldn’t afford it.

It was a brave move, being upfront about the criminal record, but likely Dante knew it wasn’t exactly something he could hide. His record wouldn’t be sealed until he was eighteen.

Tim tried to argue that one mistake made for good reasons shouldn’t deny a bright kid the opportunity and that Dante was clearly of the same caliber as Tim, just without the last name to help him.

(He hadn’t mentioned that Dante reminded him of another boy from long ago, given a second chance and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.)

He was still outvoted.

From the way the old bastards were looking at him, Tim felt sure it was more because of who he was than who Dante was.

The petty bastards never did get over the fact they have a teenager for a boss.

In spite of the Board not agreeing with his vote, Tim already decided he intended to help Dante. He tracked him down to speak to him in person and get a better measure of him.

He was immediately impressed upon their first meeting, especially when he discovered how easy it was to converse with him. He has an intelligence that reminds him of Duke, but his attitude put him in mind of everything he knew about the second Robin.

“I’m going to figure out a way to get you a scholarship,” he told him two weeks into their acquaintanceship. “Even if it’s not from the Foundation, we’ll figure it out. I’d be willing to hire you on at the Neon Knights if you’re interested. Criminal records aren’t exactly a deal-breaker there.”

(Especially since most of the people working there were once part of or are in the process of escaping gangs.)

“That sort of thing will look good on a resume and open doors for you, including getting you into events and putting your name out there,” Tim continued. “The Knights also sponsors educational initiatives, so you can get your general credits out of the way and eventually transfer into a college program of your choice.”

Dante stared at him, suspicious. “Why you doing this, man? You don’t know me from Adam.”

“Because I was taken in by a man who didn’t think someone’s last name or financial background should be an obstacle to greatness,” Tim replied honestly. “My brothers and sister came from harsh backgrounds, but he didn’t let that stop him from taking them in and trying to help them achieve their potential. They’re all good kids that could have gone a very different way if he didn’t get involved. Because he had the ability to do so. Having influence means nothing if you don’t use it to do good.”

“So what’s the price of this?”

“That you’ll be expected to pay it forward. And you’re already going to be doing that when you get your degree and start helping people. You’llhave the influence. Just keep your nose clean and away from the gangs, and you have a real shot, kid.”

“Excuse you, white boy, you’re my age. None of that ‘kid’ shit with me.”

Tim laughed.

It had still taken time after that to convince Dante that Tim’s offer was legit, but once he decided he was trustworthy, they’d started hanging out more. What started with Tim sponsoring a kid with huge potential turned into an actual friendship—and he didn’t have many of those with people who weren’t in the caped community. There was something about that he wanted to protect.

When Dante’s mother called him one day in tears, explaining that Dante had never come home from work and the police wouldn’t let her file a missing person’s report until 48 hours had passed, Tim didn’t hesitate to get involved.

At first, he’d worried that Dante’s disappearance was related to Tim—had someone discovered his identity and then decided to use his friend as leverage? The likelihood of that was low, however; anyone who did know his identity would come at him more directly, or at least have contacted him with some kind of threat.

Which meant what happened to Dante wasn’t vigilante related, but simply bad luck.

That doesn’t make Tim any less intent on figuring out what happened.

His thoughts must be projecting through his body language somehow because Rhonda’s usually sharp eyes soften a bit and she sighs. Looking around, she ensures there’s no one nearby, and then says, “You need to talk to Salvatore.”

“Who?”

“He’s a pimp, hangs out down the corner. He hooks, too, which is fucking weird. Does it because he likes it,” she says, making a disgusted face. “He tends to be the guy that’s always the last person to see someone before they go missin’, if you know what I mean?”

“You think he’s involved?”

“Nah, he’s too paranoid to do that. Likes to keep his hands clean, or pretend to. But he’s right near where your friend disappeared. And…” She hesitates here, sizing Tim up, and then nods to herself, “He’s got a rep. Lures new boys on the street into the business. He’s got a scary success rate at it, too.” She shivers. “Makes sense, he’s a scary motherfucker. Lots of his kids go missin’, but he always had some excuse. Letters and texts and shit provin’ they left the city or somethin’. No one knows how he does it, so you get him to talk, you’ll find out what you want to know. But I don’t see it happenin’.”

“Still. Thanks for the information,” Tim says and digs into his belt for a wad of cash. To his surprise, Rhonda shakes her head.

“Anyone sees me takin’ that from you right before you go after Salvatore, they’ll know I talked. No one’ll think I’d be stupid enough to give anything up for free. You come back a few days after you deal with that bastard, I’ll take it then.”

“That’s oddly trusting for someone like you.”

“Honey, you’ve been watchin’ these streets long enough I know you’re good for it. And catch me or anyone else ever telling you jack shit ever again if you stiff me.”

Tim snorts. “Fair enough. What’s this guy look like so I can find him?”

“Trust me, you’ll know him when you see him. Just don’t tell that creep anything ‘bout me sendin’ you in his direction.”

She doesn’t wait for his answer before sashaying away, returning to her activities for the night.

Tim keeps to the shadows as he heads to the corner Rhonda indicated, thinking he might have to wait around for a few hours—or even return the next night—if he’s going to find his next suspect.

It turns out he doesn’t need to.

A man who can only be Salvatore is leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alley, fiddling with his very expensive looking phone.

He is a tall, muscular, almost impossibly good-looking man with high cheekbones, intense blue eyes, and a full, cruel mouth. There’s something in a way that mouth lifts at the corners that makes Tim’s stomach thud, memories of a similar grin and devil-may-care laugh he only ever got to see through the lens of a camera or across a crowded ballroom.

But this isn’t him. This guy looks more like a crocodile than a robin.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” the man purrs when Tim materializes beside him, eyes flicking up and down Tim’s form with a look that does nothing to dispel the predatory image. “Looking for a pick-me-up after a hard night’s work?”

Tim ignores the innuendo dripping in the man’s voice.

“I’ve been given the impression you’ve seen this boy,” Tim says coolly, holding up his photo. “That you were the last one to see him. I need to know what you know.”

“I’m sure you do, baby, but I don’t come cheap, and neither does anything that comes out of my mouth,” Salvatore drawls.

Tim shrugs; if it’s money he wants, that’s not a problem. “I’m sure we could come to an arrangement.”

“Oh, I know we can,” Salvatore chuckles. “But not here.” His eyes flick around like he’s scoping out someone watching; his irises flicker strangely in the dim streetlight. “Not where someone might see us talking. I could lose customers for talking to a mask—and I’m all about discretion.”  

“They’re already seeing us talking.”

“And as far as they know, you’re just asking about the price of the goods,” Salvatore purrs, moving so slowly as to telegraph his moves and stroking his fingers across Tim’s chest plate, and down. “Can’t imagine seeking justice satisfies all your urges, does it, little bird?”

Tim’s hand snaps upward, clamping around Salvatore’s wrist and exerting just enough pressure to earn and choked gasp of pain. “I am here for information. Nothing more, nothing less. Either you tell me what I want to know, and I compensate you, or you tell me what I want to know and leave here with a bunch of bruises that will definitely affect your bottom line. Assuming I don’t drag you to the nearest precinct in handcuffs.”

“Baby, I’m almost tempted to take you up on that,” Salvatore says, licking his lips. “But I also know there’s worse on the streets than me. Who knowswhat your friend might have stumbled into?”

Tim’s jaw clenches. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we’re doing this little info exchange my way, and that involves not being out in the open. This is private business, after all.”

This time Tim’s nose curls, sensing an implication there. Either this guy’s not too bright, practically broadcasting his intentions to a vigilante, or he knows something important enough he thinks Tim will do anything for it.

Tim considers him, trying to evaluate how he wants to play this. Obviously, he doesn’t trust Salvatore, but he needs information even if it’s the vaguest of statements.

Salvatore’s clearly unarmed—no weapon’s hiding anywhere with that little clothing. And Tim was trained by Batman and Lady Shiva.

Buddy, aren’t you in for a surprise.

“Fine,” Tim says. “Lead the way.”

Salvatore’s pupils dilate, once again catching the dim light in a manner that makes them seem like they reflect.

Then he jerks his head toward the dark, shadowy alley behind him.

Against every instinct of self-preservation that managed to survive the brilliant idea of a twelve-year-old becoming a vigilante, Tim follows.

⁂

Next Chapter

[regentcorpse]

Added after I wrote this, I know my grammar is a mess in this. This post is 2223 words, longer than most high school essays which averaged 1500 words. If you don’t want to read all of this it has been separated into paragraphs and most of the conversation points are in the last three paragraphs. This sentence was added in after word count, the original post was on Facebook which is why the link in this does point to my own blog: My sentence structures are not correct, and this is Facebook and I don’t give a crap about that here. I did try to do my best to make it somewhat understandable with several ideas and conversations all in this. Also I didn’t originally separate it into paragraphs. If a sentence seems out of place at the start or end of a paragraph, my bad. But please read, comment opinions, not angry but constructive to build a conversation. I also don’t know how but this became more like an info blog post, but valid points and openings for conversations are made.

These newish Apple features like the Memoji, like it’s aight but still lacking in so many hair styles and facial depth, forehead, chins, and noses. Hopefully the will add a lot more features to be able to make it more like you, in a cartoon version. I’m about to check out the full bitmoji app to see what all they have, but I feel like apple should of used bitmoji, and since Apple has a version, I know android does. How is their version in your experience? (Please reply even if you don’t know me, I want to have decent conversations with people, but I hardly have anyone to talk to about random stuff like this.) Also the fact that Apple has Memoji in their database of words and not Bitmoji, is extremely weird, and pointless not to have it.

I don’t know how I feel overall about Apples decisions on these updates. They seem to be trying to almost build a legit social media around their platforms, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make something like Google+, which will most likely fail all together as a product, not because it will be awful but because we already have the social media giants that control most people’s lives, work, and reputation.

Facebook is for memes mostly and socializing with like minded people with their pages and groups. Not to mention that so many people use their marketplace now as well, which did shock me that it took of with other apps offering the same thing before Facebook did. To those who didn’t know, yes, Facebook stole that idea from OfferUp and LetGo(I think there was another around before the marketplace.)

You have Snapchat, the goofy fun social media where you can have personalized stories, private or public, and I may be wrong but they are also the ones that introduced the idea(maybe didn’t originally have the idea, but did introduce it, I think. Let me know if I am wrong please, I would like to know.) Next, the thing that made Snapchat big originally was the disappearing pictures after 10 seconds, which you couldn’t edit when the app first came out, the initial release didn’t even have filters or all the extra stuff they have now, it was so basic and simple and blew up. Another thing that made Snapchat big in the same way, disappearing photos meant disappearing nudes for both male and female, only that at first they could be screenshots, that didn’t notify you. In a future version, they disabled screenshoting photos from the default system buttons, but of course people found ways and made apps to get around it. Snapchat then started to block accounts for using those apps, then came the solution of notifying users of screenshots and then recordings when Apple released that feature. I know Snapchat probably wasn’t the first to make the goofy photo filters, but they did make it so much easier and almost more advanced with their simple facial mapping(yes it is simple since it’s meant to work with phones without facial recognition and all the other fancy face features.). Now Snapchat is a place to socialize in groups, or privately with friends through photos, messages, and video. Another big use now is the porn industry, where I think it’s safe to say only females succeed at making a lot of money with. It also seems to avoid spam bots and stuff. I’ve never received anything from a fake user or bot, besides their built in Snapchat bot, so that is honestly impressive and I applaud them for trying to keep it safe and friendly, except for the usual douchebag guys that send dick picks and stalk girls no matter their age. Danger lurks at all corners of the internet, and making friends is easier now, and just an add and a message away sometimes. But be careful who you add and honestly block anyone who harasses you or sends you unwanted images. And report them, help improve internet society and safety. This goes for all social media platforms.

Instagram is built solely around the personal sharing of photos to a feed and nothing else really. I know everyone was shocked that it became as big as it did, considering you can do the same thing in Facebook, and easily share other peoples photos to your friends. Although it is just photos, the people on there that are successful, actually do influence people and promote sponsors and their products. Some use it to get money, for their more explicit content. It followed Snapchat in adding stories, then filters, and has been successful in its endeavors. You can find everything legal on their as well as some illegal content such as drug use. As mentioned above, yes bots and fake accounts exist, be weary in who you talk to and exchange messages and photos with on here as well.

Twitter has been around for a long time and honestly, I see it being the first to die, due to overall lack of community and now with all the user interface updates and whatnot, it can be difficult to understand how the social environment of it works. Basically you get I think 140 characters to insert into the status prompt or whatever you/they want to call it. I personally don’t use it much, I get on there to see any updates from game companies and some of my favorite authors and music artists. I do this maybe once a week or two. I honestly don’t understand the point in twitter nor how getting followers and conversations started on there, if you have any suggestions for me please let me know if you are still somehow reading this.

Tumblr, ye olde blogging platform, one of the best until the pornography bam that yahoo added once their app was removed from the Apple store after I think being reported for child pornography. A lot of people lost their blogs and thousands of followers and countless hours of work. Many others had a lot of their content censored by a community guidelines photo or by being completely removed. So yes we can all agree that it’s a good thing they are trying to do what they can to combat child pornography of Tumblr, but a lot of people saw this as a complete change of environment for tumblr, whether being used for art, music, porn, pizza, cats etc.. Another big complaint that caused this change is how easy it was to lie about your age and turn off the content filter that got rid of the majority of inappropriate content. It was literally just a search option, then they tried moving it to your phone settings to the app setting in there to turn it off, which was still too easy. I can say you will still see pornographic content on Tumblr, mostly by accident, but there are people still posting getting around their image search algorithms. Past that to summarize, it’s basically a bigger version of Twitter, allowing for blog posts of most media types now, they have a reblog button to repost on your own page(these also get their own sub domains where it follows such as mine regentcorpse.tumblr.com. This is not for promotion, just an easy example(it’s a new blog with only like one blog post, but yes is my personal blog.) You can use your own domain if you own the address and route it to tumblrs name-servers, which most domain hosts have guides available to help you understand the process and set it up. They follow Wordpress in allowing themes which are only visible in a web browser and not the Tumblr mobile app, but on mobile you can edit the color scheme and fonts to what they have stock. To be like twitter with the features of Wordpress except custom plugins, it is a phenomenal platform still where you can truly be yourself and no one actually has to know who you are, you just post the content you love, the content you create(except for the porn content that a lot of people now went to Snapchat and Twitter for, and probably some private instagrams). You can find almost everything you heart desires within lawful reasons, I mean honestly you could probably find someone to buy illegal stuff from like guns, drugs, etc but I’ve never looked for that type of stuff on there. I love cyberpunk culture and there are so much content around it on tumblr. It also has pretty decent privacy setting for a blog, which can be password locked I believe and you can set permissions for it to be only people you follow or follow you, or no one or everyone can message you, ask questions(which can be anonymous), and submit content to your blog(also can be anonymous). The tumblr community can be toxic but also so helpful and beautiful seeing some of the ways people come together on there. It can range from legit bugs to books and quotes to programming and even professional use.

There is also LinkedIn, which is a very professional platform where you can add your professional resume and skills and may get recruited to jobs. I remember something like this tried to launch on Facebook but I do believe it failed out, as I haven’t seen anything about it or a link since they probably removed it.

So this leads me to ask What would an Apple Social Media Platform consist of? How would they try to outdo the others, and how would they make it appealing enough for people to use/switch to. Yes Apple is a big name, but so was google which failed at social media. They had good ideas but went about it completely wrong.

I feel like Apple would attempt to make a platform around creativity and art of all types. I feel like it would be a platform that would combine GarageBand, IMessages, Memoji, and all their other great apps into one. If they added collaboration on projects a lot easier in that aspect, and didn’t force themselves into everyone(Yes, Google that’s a shot at you.), they could make a truly great platform where we could see great things made by groups, communities, artists, and I could see them adding some sort of collaboration for web developers and programmers, which I would like to see knowing that Facebook, the corporation not social network, owns Oculus, and they already have a lot of resources for developers. Do you think Apple might be working on a social media platform, or do you think they will just keep adding out of place features? Do you think they would succeed in it or absolutely fail? Do you think Apple would stand a chance against the other giants that have been around and built up their user base? Also another issue is how exclusive Apple is with everything, just the fact you can log into Apple TV and watch it on a Windows Pc is a miracle. Do you think Apple will make it exclusive or would they put in the effort of being their media platform to everyone no matter their device? Remember everyone had a MySpace, now you never even hear about it, Facebook was a surprising switch with it having limited functionality and basically no customization options for your profile like MySpace and some other media’s had.

I want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and speculations about this, let’s start an open and friendly conversation, no hate or trolls, I don’t want all of that and your comments will be deleted and I may even block you from seeing posts like this on your feed and my page. This is at an end because my thumbs are tired and my phones dying and Facebook is lagging from how much I just put on here, but seriously comment, let me know what’s running in your mind, even what you would like to see change in social media in general or even in specific ones. I hope you all do open a nice and positive and informative conversation, I want to see that on Facebook more and I want to make friends I can talk about this type of stuff with in depth or even as broad as mostly common knowledge.