#i finally got a sim to move onto another life stage :)

[arcadewonder]

time moves forward.

[hyuuukais]

✧˖°ʚ🍓ɞ♡ SUNSHINE AND STRAWBERRIES

pairing ☆ lee felix x fem reader

synopsis ☆ Y/N is a new streamer. after months of planning, and her best friend & now fellow streamer han jisung convincing her, she makes a twitch and youtube account. thanks to jisung giving her a shoutout to his own huge following, she gains some unexpected overnight fame. but what was more unexpected was waking up to see her long-time favourite comfort streamer _sunshine.bbokari_ following her.

warnings ☆ swearing, descriptions of panic and being overstimulated, mention of being sick

[TAGLIST -> CLOSED]

MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

☆ mostly written chapter, 3 screenshots ☆

CHAPTER FOURTEEN ☆ NOT YOUR BUSINESS

People stare as you re-enter the room, making a beeline toward the stage. You glance over to your table and see Ryujin giving you two thumbs up, Chaeryeong giving you a small wave, and the boys cheering you on.

Never in your life have you had to give a speech in front of so many people, especially spontaneously. Your palms were sweaty, and your chest felt tight, but you told yourself everything would be fine. Once you got up there, maybe you'd find a pace and start rambling, forgetting about the crowd completely.

Unfortunately you knew yourself. That wasn't going to happen.

The short staircase squeaks as you walk up, the audience erupting into claps. Someone hands you a mic from backstage quickly, whispering a small good luck.

"H-Hi," You manage, trying to take deep breaths. "My name is Y/N-"

Already people are clapping again. The loud noise is overwhelming, but you try to stay grounded by finding your table. It takes a second, but your eyes finally set on Jaemin. Your chest feels a little less tight when he flashes you a smile.

"Some of you may know me as Y/N's Strawberry Fields on twitch, or from my twitter," You begin to find yourself relaxing, focusing on facts to get you through. "I started my channel a few weeks ago, and not to sound cliché, but it's been a wild ride. I have my best friend Han Jisung to thank for that."

You laugh nervously, and the crowd laughs with you.

"I wanted to pursue this for so long, but always had something in the way, whether it was school or my own doubts," You look down at your feet, hand rubbing your collarbone, a nervous habit you picked up a long time ago. "The sudden attention was a lot. Not all of it was good... but I had good people by my side."

You looks up again, eyes finding one of the cameras livestreaming the event.

"I want to thank someone else you may know. He's been so supportive of me, without even really knowing me all that well. I've looked up to him for so long," A smile spreads on your face. "His username is accurate. Felix, if you're watching this, thank you."

At the name drop, the crowd goes wild. Your chest tightens again, anxiety creeping up on you.

Deep breaths, Y/N, deep breaths.

You give a small bow, signaling the end of your speech. You're about to walk off when someone calls out from the crowd.

"Are you sure you're not using Han Jisung and Lee Felix? Or your other so called friends, Yang Jeongin, Sim Jake, or Kim Seungmin?"

Your head whips around toward the sound, but you can't find the owner of the voice.

"No!" You say a bit too loud, causing feedback. The audience groans and you sink into yourself a bit. "S-Sorry.. but no. I thought we moved past this topic."

"No one believes you."

"They don't need to," You try to stand your ground, standing taller despite the tears welling in your eyes. "I've been friends with these people for years, before any of this."

"Right.. but once you heard Han was friends with Felix, you jumped onto that opportunity pretty quick, huh?"

"That's not what happened..." Voice weak, eyes still searching the crowd, unable to find this person.

"Oh and another question-" A chair shifts, and your eyes lock into their table. "You seem really close with.. ah, what's his name? The one not on social media?"

"Kai?"

"Yes, him! You two seem awfully close... but you never post about him-"

"It's called respecting someone's privacy, which you've clearly never heard of," You snap, done with these questions.

You felt hot, the lights suddenly too bright and the air too dry. You could feel every piece of fabric touching your body.

"Why do you think you have the right to ask me these things? Huh?" You walk toward their table, ignoring the way your eyes sting and the pain in your chest. "Why the fuck is everyone so goddamn interested in my personal business?! How many times do I have to repeat myself? I'm not using anyone. What if people were constantly accusing you of this? How would you feel?"

Your breathing is quick and shaky, tears freely streaming down your face as you look down at this girl who looks about 16, staring at you with wide eyes.

You can feel people stares on you. The mic falls from your hand, emitting a loud squeal when it hits the floor. You feel yourself moving backwards, but it's like you're on autopilot, trying to find a way out. Spotting a door near the back, you run, the room silent and the only sound is your feet hitting the ground.

Cold metal, fresh air, someone's hands on your shoulders as you hunch over, sobbing. The hands help you lower to the ground, knees hitting the ground softly. You vaguely hear a man's voice, but you're too focused on not throwing up to process the words at first. Once you've calmed a bit, you can feel someone soothing you, a hand on your head smoothing back your hair.

"Hey, can you hear me? Breath with me Y/N," He grabs one of your hands, bringing it to his chest above his heartbeat. "In... out... in... just like that, yeah?"

Once you're able to breath normally again, you look up, feeling light headed. In front of you is someone you've never met, so why did he seem so familiar?

"This is probably weird for you," He says, keeping a tight grip on your forearms as you both stand. "I'm Chan- Felix's friend. Well, more like family at this point. Listen, my car's just down the road, can you walk? Or do you want me to bring it up? There doesn't seem to be a lot of security, so I'm sure I could bring it right here if you want, yeah?"

You nod. He studies you quickly, leaving after seemingly deciding you're okay on your own for a few minutes.

The whole situation begins to set in.

You just freaked out on one of the most anticipated livestreams.

"Oh my god," You gasp, running a hand through your hair. "Oh my god."

notes ☆ oh my oh my god- so umm that happened! did i project a bit onto y/n with my hatred and fear of public speaking? or with getting pissed off when overstimulated? maybe. maybe i did. let this girl catch a break fr 🙏 but wait- is that- felix is picking her up?! as in... they're finally meeting irl?!?!?!?!

taglist ☆ @marcillfll @toplinelix @neri-ner @tfshouldidohere @imasimplol @samvagejkflxhrt @yennifersgeralt @aestheticsluut @cherryuqii @tenebrisirae @roseidol @veryjeongintxtkid @amara-mars @nobuttpics @bmnyy @sheeshhhhfelixsworld @ellelabelle @gini143 @mrsseals16 @veedoesntknaur @channiesstars @daydreamer5006 @luvvvash @amesification @skzswife @blamemef0rit @soulphoenix1618 @lovingmny @stvrfir3 @boo-ven9eance @adestayskz @rag-iii @enchantedgrunge @mytherapisttoldmenotto @oh-my-fancan @lucktales @cookielino

pink means it won't let me tag u

[fellowstrangetownappreciator]

Well, that was cold

I have mod that makes diseases actually dangerous. (actually several of them and they’re all listed here on Pleasant Sims’ modlist)

The first rotation? Everything’s fine. The only one who fell ill was John Burb and he, as a family Sim, was able to soup himself to health in no time.

The second rotation... Ajaj Loner got sick.

With cold.

I was like, “I know flu is pretty dangerous with this mod but cold should be fine, right? I mean, I used to have it four times a year. So glad it’s not flu!”

I thought I was lucky.

I wasn’t.

After Ajaj’s turn ended, he was free to wander around and spread the cold everywhere.

Because they have chemistry and she was on a prowl, I even had Nina Caliente seduce Ajaj. She got the cold but I was like whatever, she’s a strong quasi-alien, running nose for a few days won’t kill her!

How fatally wrong I was I realized during a vacation that Nina went on with her sister and Ajaj. She was just chilling, sleeping in her hotel room, when all of the sudden, Grim Reaper!

You sure, Dina?

Nina was dead. Dead from the cold. And she was pregnant, no less!

I reloaded because it was on a vacation and Nina was the only playable Sim, so I was quite worried what would become of the grave. I managed to get her home and moved Chloe Curious in, so that someone can eventually plead for her. She was lucky the second time around and survived. Chloe got infected but survived as well.

But we had an epidemic on our hands now. Ajaj and Nina have been quite successful generously sharing their cold all across the hood and I failed to keep track of who has it.

Still, I thought it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t understand the scale, I was still thinking that it was just Ajaj, Consort Capp and the Pleasants.

Again, I was wrong.

When I got in the rotation to the Capps (the Capps 1), everyone was infected. I was still optimistic, though, because we were talking about a household where 2/4 Sims are Family and one is a Family Secondary, they can bathe in the soup!

The teens ate their soup and survived.

Consort died that night. He was due to die at the end of their round anyway but because he didn’t do so of old age, his grandchildren received no bonus inheritance.

The only one who gained something from that was Olive Specter who was delighted to see Consort, her crush, perish, so she could finally raise him as a zombie.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a screenshot of her actually raising him, so here’s at the very least Olive walking menacingly to work.

Anyway, moving onto the Capps again (the Capps 2, Goneril edition), things looked bleak. Goneril was pregnant and she and all the kids were infected. Albany was immediately called to action to generate enough soup but the house devolved into utter chaos. Everybody had their soup but just as they recovered, they got infected again!

Ok, I was thinking, Consort was quite old and fragile. Nina must’ve had the cold for a long time, given she was on a vacation. There’s no way the kids are gonna die on the first day they got infected. They had the soup, so I’ll send them to beds, so they can get a good-night sleep and enough rest.

Nope.

Ariel, a child, died in her sleep.

Nobody was able to get to her in time to plead for her.

While I was contemplating an in-character way of resurrection, Desdemona, a young teen, died in her sleep just about two hours after her sister.

Again, nobody was fast enough.

Luckily, Miranda was already in college and she was roommates with Ophelia Nigmos, who was in possession of a genie lamp she was safeguarding from Olive. Hearing about the tragedy that befell her friend’s family, moved by the death of a little girl and her not much older sister, Ophelia the Family Sim offered Miranda the lamp on the spot.

Miranda rushed home to drop off the lamp and then ran off so she doesn’t get infected. Well, she did anyway but since I haven’t played the college Sims yet, I don’t know of her fate.

Hal made a good use of the lamp. He rolled the wants to resurrect both his sisters and that’s exactly what he did.

He triumphantly finished making the wishes...

And dropped dead.

Another young soul succumbed to cold.

But! Since there was still a wish left and his sisters were back alive, Desdemona swiftly brought him back.

Ariel’s and Hal’s resurrections were perfect.

Desdemona’s was faulty, so her personality got reversed.

But as long as they’re alive and preferably not zombies, everything will do.

The Capps were all cured! Hooray!

Wait. Not all Capps. There was still Regan’s branch and, predictably, they were all infected. And this time, there was no Family Sim in sight.

The only non-infected Sim in the family was a little toddler. The poor, poor child was in for a life-long trauma.

Kent went quick and quiet the first night of their round. Regan fortunately recovered. Cornwall did too. They had a very lucky start of the round all together, I may add. Kent’s tragic death was followed by Regan’s demotion that lead to her subsequent want to quit her job (...and she was the only one who was making any significant money), then Cornwall set the house on fire while cooking breakfast, then he got fired.

Poor thing. First got house-fired, then job-fired.

Regan’s LTW was to reach the top of the Law career, so she got herself a new job there. On her first day, she got promoted!

And she brought home a friend! Sweet!

No... nooooo...

It was Ajaj F*ckin’ Loner.

Both Regan and Cornwall got infected before you could say “act your surname and social-distance, you jerk!”

Cornwall died almost immediately. Unfortunately, Regan was asleep and failed to get up and ambush the Grim Reaper in time.

On the bright side, she recovered!

So I watch her go to work, the nanny arrives to baby-sit the toddler, everything seems to finally have settled down.

But then I spot an unexpected movement in the house.

It’s Titania Summerdream. Who let her in? I have no idea.

It would be quite sweet of her to check on her friend Regan after she lost two family members and to help with her young daughter.

If... if she didn’t have the fricking cold!

Regan returned from work and I rushed to have her send Titania away.

Of damn course she didn’t go before giving the cold to Regan.

Now it was the third time Regan got infected and there were no other family members to take care of the toddler if she dies. It was very suspenseful. I decided to use extreme measures and I teleported Albany in, made him selectable and had him cook the soup.

Instead of that, he proceeded to bicker with Regan.

If he got re-infected, I swear...

Anyway, after a three tries or so, Regan got her soup and Albany was on his merry way away.

What a relief! I sent Regan to sleep, trusting the soup to do its magic. The next morning her needs all looked great! No notification yet but I was sure it’s gonna arrive any second. When suddenly...

Yeap, she died.

Regan Capp died the way she lived. Paying her family’s bills.

I used Simblender again to quickly move in Hal. He was there in time to plead for Regan!

And for the first time in the Capp household, he actually made it! He pleaded!

And... and... lost.

So I had him stay to take care of the toddler until their round was over. Then I moved them both back with Goneril’s branch.

At the very least young Ione, the genius toddler with maxed Logic skill, got something resembling a birthday party with her cousin and his boyfriend Alexander Goth.

Given that Montys had their losses as well, the cold has already taken out much of the adult population of Veronaville.

The only two adults left (not counting fresh elders Albany and Goneril) in Veronaville were in fact the Summerdreams who were extremely lucky and with an abundance of soup, they survived.

To be completely honest, I’m very happy with the mod. I tend to play large hoods and although it tends to be rather tragic, the occasional epidemic of cold trims the population down a bit without me killing anybody off and it gives the game an additional bit of challenge and randomness.

...or maybe I’m just a sh*tty person to my Sims.

Bonus screenshots of the Strangetown cold outbreak:

Vidcund Curious spent two nights sleeping in a chair in his children’s bedroom because he was afraid they’re going to die from the cold in their sleep and wanted to be there to plead for them. In the end it actually happened, he pleaded and managed to save his daughter.

The Smiths had to be unfortunately visited by the Therapist. PT9 died on the day he was supposed to die of old age but hours prior, he became yet another victim of the cold. And it was very unlucky, since it meant no inheritance and by the Watcher, Jenny and their 5 kids could definitely use it. They were completely broke.

But not everything was morbid and tragic!

Lazlo rolled quite the unexpected want to get married to his girlfriend, Cassandra Goth. They weren’t engaged, she wasn’t pregnant, he’s not a Family secondary, and the date they were on wasn’t even in the stage Sims usually roll engagement wants, he simply rolled it out of the blue. And of course I went with it! (Cassandra had recently divorced Don, rolling the wish to remarry almost immediately.)

The only family in the hood that could technically mass-produce medicine so that not everyone is dependent on the soup, the Beakers, of course didn’t. Why would they risk their hides, toying with the Mysterious Disease, when they didn’t have to? Instead, they social-distanced and spent the rotation raking in promotions and taking care of their army of children. (Loki kept rolling wants to get abducted and ARC wasn’t kind to them either. But with Loki being Family secondary and Circe leaving most of the parenting on him anyway, I don’t think they mind.)

Note the alien toddler, the second youngest child. He has 10 Nice points. That’s 4 points more than all 5 of his siblings and his parents combined. He’s gonna have a rough childhood, the poor thing.

Jill Smith managed to get nibbled on by the pack leader just in time, a few days before going to college. She’s thrilled by her new wolf-y powers! And regardless of what her mother says, she knows the fur goes with her school uniform just perfectly!

Rachel Pleasant, the youngest offspring of Daniel that he knows about (the second youngest overall), aged up into a child! And judging by the look on her face, she already knows how much of a mess her family is.

Not even being brought back from the dead made Desdemona Capp immune to the Summerdream charm. Bottom, the young Romance Sim, invited her girlfriend to hang out in their hot tub. It was an afternoon to remember for both of them.

Local ageing general married a successful young athlete, Kristen Loste. Unfortunately for everyone attending the wedding, the bride’s former roommate Chloe Curious decided that flirting with her literally the next interaction after Kristen said, “I do.” was a smart idea. No need to add that the wedding cake was left to rot forgotten, never cut. It was a sad wedding cake but even though it started to stink around two hours after the wedding, it still lasted longer than the marriage.

And far away in La Fiesta Tech, two estranged siblings were talking things out and healing their relationship.

Now I lost this hood (again) and started a new one, so the next gameplay post will probably feature the same characters in completely different circumstances and nothing is going to make sense but... what does anyway?

[ironxkid]

why don't you like endgame or civil war

((hoo buddy, idk what brought this up but salt under the cut!! Like... a lot of salt - specifically regarding Endgame lmao

I’m gonna start off with CACW because it’s a short response lol

I don’t like it simply because I was done with the infighting between the Avengers. The found family crumbs we were given in Endgame was something I really wanted to see, and them just... ripping them apart frustrated me lol

honestly, the movie was... fine? Idk, I found it to be a lil slow for my taste (it felt like it just dragged on when I watched it in theaters), and I just don’t care for it in general  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, ngl, I’m really bummed that Captain America: Serpent Society was a joke announcement because that sounds dope as hell and I really wanted to see that before I realized it’d been a joke dfgjhdsfhj

but, yeah, literally just because CACW is specifically an infighting movie annoys me to no end so I just won’t watch it again dgsfjhsfdhj

now, Endgame?

fuck Endgame

I. have a lot of issues with it, all of which are major grievances throughout the fandom. I’m pissed they killed Natasha and didn’t even bother giving her a fucking funeral because, I quote from Joe Russo, “Well, Tony does not have another movie. Tony is done. And Natasha has another film. And Marvel Universe obviously does not have to move forward linearly anymore. But that character still has more screen time coming.” (see here) and that annoys the hell out of me. She’s getting another movie - great! So you killed one of the few characters doing her fucking best to keep everything together at the compound, the one who was taking charge, give her a big role, and then murk her and... give her nothing but a brief mention at the end. Like... what the fuck? Natasha deserved so much better than what she was given. Tony’s funeral could’ve (and, frankly, should’ve) been a funeral for him, Natasha, and Vision because god forbid we see anyone mourn Vision other than Wanda

(actually this post covers how Endgame fucked over the MCU women perfectly, though Wanda’s not mentioned :c )

plus... Tony’s not done lol - he’s still a massive figure in the films/shows despite RDJ not acting in them, so his character has left shockwaves that aren’t dying any time soon. Natasha... basically disappeared, and I believe she would’ve been dropped completely if it wasn’t for the fact she does have a film coming out soon. Which, frankly, seems awesome and all, but it’s a film that goes back to post-CACW pre-IW and... frankly doesn’t give me any reason to understand why that means she didn’t get a funeral. She’s not coming back in future movies/shows that are in present MCU timeline - her movie is set in the past. She could’ve gotten a decent sendoff 

now, Clint’s arc as Ronin rubs me the wrong way. I know it’s a huge thing in the comics, and it’s not him taking a different mantle that I have an issue with. It’s the fact he, a white man, went around murdering people and got off scot-free. Yes, he was targeting genuinely bad people, but... to show that, they specifically singled out Mexican cartels and the yakuza (Japanese mafia, essentially) - so, in other words, the bad guys were people of color! I feel like I don’t need to explain how fucked up that is. And, to clarify, I love Clint! Clint is honestly one of my favorite characters, and the whole thing was just handled... poorly in the film

Tony’s arc genuinely hurts. This is a man who has suffered for years and has tried to make things right, and finally got a chance to settle down. He finally retired from the Avengers, finally settled down, and had a fucking life he could enjoy despite his ghosts, and yet... His arc ends with a message of “tortured soul finally gets rest by dying”. Because, y’know, it’s great seeing yet another long-suffering character only reaching peace through death, because god forbid they let characters heal! He could’ve still caused the second Snap, and he could’ve survived. He could’ve finally been able to step away for good and focus on his family, focus on recovering, and be truly happy. What’s so wrong with letting him stay alive so he can rest and be with his family? What’s so wrong with letting a long-suffering character finally find peace after one last bang? 

plus it pisses me off that they’re now using him as a reasoning as to why bad things are still happening. Why is this person the bad guy? Because Tony Stark somehow may or may not have done something that hurt them! Even though most of that really stems from Howard or Obadiah. Tony just ends up getting the blame in their place. He’s just an easy target to use, much like the tesseract seems to be the go-to answer for why things go wrong. But this is a different train of thought

Steve’s ending pisses me off just as much as the next person lmao. You take a character who has acknowledged he no longer belongs in the past (which, funnily enough, was written by the Russos), aaaaaaand have him go back to the past while ignoring two important people in his life that were still right there. He got Bucky and Sam back, and he leaves them. His arc is ruined within a matter of minutes, and it paints a hella bad picture of him in the process. He goes back in time to stay with Peggy (which ultimately destroys her own arc, and the fact she’s a person outside of her relationship (or lack thereof) with him because, y’know, why have her be able to move on and be her own person?), and we’re supposed to believe he’s fine with everything he knows from the future? Fine with knowing Bucky’s trapped with HYDRA and is suffering as the Winter Soldier? Fine with knowing HYDRA has infested SHIELD from day one? Fine with knowing Howard and Maria are going to die? Fine with royally fucking up the timelines? We’re supposed to believe he sat back and did nothing with all of that? They could’ve had him still hand the shield over to Sam - they could’ve let Steve stay an Avenger without the mantle

also the fact the Russos said he didn’t recognize Red Skull when he returned to Vormir to return the soul stone? Like... what the fuck?? Not to mention he literally returns the stone to Vormir, which “soul for a soul”, and they didn’t bring Nat back that way??

and now onto Thor. Thor... holy fuck is this hitting something personal for me. Thor was ridden with guilt - he was furious with himself, hated himself, and blamed himself for failing to stop the Snap. He fell into a massive depression, and... was promptly danced around as laughing stock. Like, “oh! look at Thor! he’s fat and drunk because he’s depressed haha!” - like fuck off. It’s not funny in any form. His suffering was made into a joke and it pisses me off because I suffer from depression. A lot of people suffer from depression. It’s not funny. It’s fucking terrifying at times. I wasted a shit ton of money on a stupid online sim game because it was a distraction - it gave me... god, I wouldn’t even say temporary happiness, but it gave me something to temporarily help, and I still hate myself for doing it. It was a poor decision on my part, and I wish I could change it. And, during that time, I was scared because I couldn’t see myself pulling out of it. I thought I was gonna feel that way forever. I called out of work multiple times because there were days I couldn’t stop crying (something I still feel horrible for doing), I couldn’t get myself to contact any of my friends for months, and it was all because the medication I was on at the time... stopped working. Thankfully, my depression doesn’t work in a way that makes me a danger to myself, so that wasn’t an issue, but it still fucking sucked. And to see a character that I could relate to on such a personal level treated as laughing stock fucking hurt. I’m not sharing this for sympathy - I’m sharing this because it Thor’s arc hit home and it’s literally the main reason why I will not watch Endgame again

this is more of a nitpick than anything else, but... I didn’t really care for Carol in it tbh? Which is unfortunately because Captain Marvel is one of my absolute favorite movies! And I’m well aware she was introduced in Endgame while CM was being drafted, but that in itself is annoying?? Because Carol was originally going to be introduced in AoU, but was cut because it wasn’t going to introduce her character properly. And yet they decide to introduce her character in a clusterfuck of a movie before her movie is in the final stages, and proceed to release her movie first and then give a complete different characterization in her following appearance

honestly I just wanna cover this now to clarify some things regarding Carter and her backstory: the only reason I keep Endgame as is is because it felt easier for me to do so for the purpose of bending canon for specific threads. I wanted to stay as true to the given plots as possible to help with fudging of both the movies and her background, and also because I didn’t want anyone to feel like I was trying to force my own headcanons onto them, y’know? 

I’m just gonna plug this here because fuck it lol, but I did start a fix-it fic regarding Endgame that you can read here! I... probably won’t finish it tbh, and I haven’t gone over it in a hot minute so it might be riddled with errors ahah - plus I’m not sure about how I wrote the characters! I get nervous when writing canon characters because I feel like I’ll miss their characterization completely, which is actually why I,,, rarely rp canon characters dgfjhgsfdhj

also the image in the doc was created by @/archervale!! 

[soniabigcheese]

My Fanfic Journey

Just looking back at my writing life ... I suppose I've always had a vivid imagination due to being restricted on what I could/couldn't watch on the tv. We only had three channels anyways. Oh how times have changed.

So I spent the majority of my childhood reading, listening to the radio and drawing.

It wasn't until I made a (now seriously EX) friend and she introduced me to the Beatles. That's when I suppose my fanfic started off in its infancy.

Obviously I never published any of those works and scrapped them when we had a major falling out. Won't go into detail but there's still a rift between us even now. But instead of feeling angry towards her for her betrayal, I feel sad for her.

But nuff said about that, that's past history

Anyways, I moved onto another phase in my life and yet another piece of inspiration. I volunteered at a summer playgroup of disabled kids of all ages and disabilities. Met a few friends there, including a young boy who has spina bifida (I think) and I must have impressed his mum because she asked if I would babysit this boy.

She had some pewter dragon ornaments that I instantly fell in love with and started my own collection. I still have them right now.

Which inspired me ... again ... to write about mythical creatures. I still have the handwritten and typed manuscripts that I have hung onto for all these years. I even made some illustrations to accompany some scenes. Hubby kept wanting to throw these put, but I stubbornly clung onto them.

My book reading changed as you do, over the years and I got into Jackie Collins and was ... inspired again ... to write my own 'sleazy novel' still unpublished. And mixed it up with a movie that also inspired me.

Well .. not the movie as such, but the actors in it. I had definite ideas on who would play my characters.

On reflection, it seemed rather stupid right now.

After my mum died, I kept writing to keep me sane, but the loneliness crippled me as well as money being extra tight. I was barely struggling along. Found my family (I was in long term foster care but only knew my foster mum so she was my mum completely and nobody could take that from me), and moved to where they lived.

Biggest mistake of my life and I regret it right now. But that's a mistake that I won't repeat.

In that time I also struggled with writing.

Hubby came along and it stopped completely as he took over my life, I got a job ... several actually. But I slowly got back into writing again.

This time it was a computer game. Colonisation. I was so hooked on this that I decided to do a load of research into the Colonies and pioneering. And wrote yet another unpublished story.

Then Sims came along. And whoa! Did my imagination run riot. Those pixelated critters had me in stitches. I joined some forums where I finally took that brave step and start publishing my stories.

And that's where I discovered that the green eyed monster of jealousy reigned supreme. I was just posting my stories but people thought I was getting too big for my boots and sought to topple me from my 'supposed' pedestal.

I quit those forums/message boards and thought ... why not have a go at doing a course on Creative Writing?

That obviously didn't work as I'd expected. Hubby was annoyed that I didn't give him 100% attention and thus went on his crusade to crush that ambition out of me. And I never completed it.

I still play Sims and still have stories to write but that spark is just that ... a little spark.

Which brings me to the present.

And Thunderbirds.

My little spark has returned and with an amazing group of like minded fans ... I am once again flourishing. Although not to the capacity that I used to have. Inspiration happens in fits and starts. I have a ton of WIPs and many many unfinished stories over the past 6 years since I joined the fandom.

But I am grateful for everyone's support

And thank you

*exit left off the stage*

[wilccard]

pain: your muse looks after mine when they have a headache

( cont. from here. )

This is exactly what he expected, and it’s this which somehow makes it worse. Vladimir stares at him, face blank and bordered by light, trying to set his world right again. For a second, one eyebrow twitches slightly at the disease-riddled penguin, because God, what an August thing to say, and God, how he missed him. He verges between bursting into laughter and lashing out. For the span of a second, he teeters over into both of these possibilities, these realms of no return - and then the last sentence comes.

No: he expected this brand of venom. He didn’t expect the wound that comes with it - the wound it comes from. As though the last available defense to mount, the last rule in the book, was biting as hard as you can as you go down. Never August’s way before, was it? But he supposes we all must learn.

“Augustus. I returned because the year was over; now, what I came back to is a whole other matter than what I came back for.”

He doesn’t know where it comes from, this rigid calm in his voice. It’s not religion and it’s not spiritualism; he didn’t meditate his way into it, didn’t have some Western change of heart as he bandaged a ten year old in Tibet. It simply came to him one morning, a flurry of swallows, a large absence he lived with all his life until then. Nothing poured into it, nothing seeped in - the hole itself closed up, evaporated. He spent the next months of his volunteering internship in that fugue state, that bliss, not selflessness, but not self-possession, either - a state where the self is relegated to the background, a stage prop, a spectator. He didn’t think; he didn’t want. If he would’ve thought, he would’ve seen it for the intermittence it was, a temporary boon from whatever God deigned to make him the way he was, to make him this thing that craves, that doubts. He accepted the boon without seeing it, so that by the time the internship ended and he began backpacking through East Asia, he already felt it begin to disintegrate. It slipped through his fingers the moment they turned real again; the moment they touched objects and memory. By the time he crossed the border from the plains into towns and cities, it was almost all gone. Still, traces of it remained. They settled onto him sometimes, like ashes from a bonfire that cleansed something raw a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago - a bonfire that burns and burns and sends its dragonflies of char to reach you. It showed him, beyond any written word and feat of heroics, that the world is neither him nor his. That their world as they know it is just this bunched-up cloak in a vast and unopened wardrobe. He could still call onto this realization at times ( he called onto it quite a bunch of times, actually, the closest thing he’s ever had to a better nature, to an internal voice that did not call for self-annihilation ) like that night he got robbed blind in an alley in Lanzhou. Like that night he sat down with a strange boy in Tokyo, and spoke in ridiculous Japanese, which he still couldn’t learn properly because of how much it reminded him of his father, may the nameless stay nameless. Or tried to speak - to explain, to give a coherent sense to it. Who was it that said the personal never comes into question until it must be relayed to others; until it becomes personal for others? He told that boy, through quick and purposeless kisses, his name is Augustus, no, his name is August and I have no idea how to get back to him, who I’ll be if I do, what he’ll make me into. Stop touching me unless you can tell me how. Stop touching me unless you somehow become him. Like that day he bought a payphone for the first time in months, with a bloody flip and everything, and inserted the scratched SIM card he’d kept in a wallet. Like the deluge of messages on August’s number, ranging from unhinged to waspish to utterly, heartrendingly lovely, August’s sweet, imperious boy-king tone somehow reaching him through the screen. And then his mother’s texts, Rose’s, Roi’s, Snow’s, all the people in his life he somehow wanted to get away from, not to find himself - precisely to leave himself behind, an alchemy of fear. The farce of it. Oh, the farce of it. He told them this on the first day: it’s not goodness that moves me. It’s not others I want to save. I’ll lose my mind, mama, I’ll lose my mind if I spend one more week in this city. He told them, didn’t he? But there’s no way to make people who love you understand: you had to see if there was a world without them. It’s the only thing closest to death I could bear doing. You had to see. You saw.

He’d texted August a long string of messages in return, hating every single one, hating himself for the first time in months. And then, composure somehow restored, pulling the strings of his mind and heart together as though into a braid, he bought tickets home. He also cracked the payphone. The thought of not hearing back was impossible to cope with. The thought of hearing back and being told to stay the fuck off even more so.

That’s the way of primordial calm, isn’t it? Sometimes it just comes to us as cowardice.

He runs both hands through his hair, uprooting the grimy, dust-speckled strands. A physical testimony, his hair must’ve gathered the dust of three continents, mountain crags and steppe and neon airport terminal before it fell here - in this pristine two-storey from a fallen empire. His fingers rest on the tips, tug at them until it sends fire across his scalp. Pain lends clarity - another lesson they both learned.

“You’re in such a state”, he speaks before August can break anything else. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

On the other side of the door, his legs slump. He inhales so hard it sends something sparking on the off-center of his vision. His body, whole and entire, gives way into the frame. The door stays open, sweetheart, August’s mother begins to tell him from the corridor, but she stops dead at the sight of his face, his doubled-over position, inches away from kneeling. Perfect manicured fingers, even now, Christ, reach to him into a mauve lanyard. Lifeline. Get up. Come back tomorrow. You have to. You have to.

He follows her to the end of the corridor and picks up his bags. Before he’s fully out into the front lane, he can hear his mother scrambling to reach August’s room and open the door.

                                                                        ——

London is an uncanny valley - he hasn’t registered it on the taxi ride to the central neighborhood, headed to August’s house, when all he did was flip through his airport phone and send customary messages of Safe landing x. The cabby tried to ask him questions about the journey and he had to lie about being motion sick just to stay alone with his fucking thoughts. One thought: how is he, how is he, how is he, how does he look will he want to see me is there someone to see me at all. As the ugly communal blocks morphed into marble columns, into Huxley-esque car gates and alarm systems, he pressed his forehead against the window with small, shallow breaths. Suddenly, feeling close to throwing up was the furthest thing from a lie he’s ever said in this timezone.

He registers it now, though, the strangeness. He tries to hitch another cab from August’s street but nearly runs into the bike lane instead ( daft tosser, comes the scream, which he supposes it’s only fitting enough ). London was never a part of him, and it never went to great pains to give him any sense of belonging, a great and foreign body that rejects the transplant. Even so, he mourns for what he lost - London was the only thing he’d known, and that’s irreplaceable. The unfamiliarity of it batters against him until it’s almost as painful as the visit. Several degrees off, though; he still carries the shards in his body somewhere, so that when he finally reaches his flat he has to cover the wounds from his mum as though he came from Ypres. The bags are heavy, leaden. The strap bites into his shoulder with every step. One of them got lost or nicked at the airport, but he could care less - there’s nothing he could care less about, at that. Whatever he brought as gifts, he still tucked neatly into his cabin bag - they were purchases spaced out over the course of a year, evolving from bizarre memorabilia to enthusiastic keepsakes to dull, compulsory duty-frees in the last run.

His mum is on him in a split-second. She throws her tiny arms around his neck as though happiness made an acrobat out of her - he returns the hug, breathes in the tangerine tint of her hair, tries to keep his knees from buckling.

Dorogaya mama, ostanovit’! He laughs, and it’s not familiar to his ears, it won’t be to hers either, but he pulls her closer, diverts the moment. Stop it, you’re going to make me fall over. He seats the bags down, gently, begins to speak about his journey over whatever she’s saying to him, his leveled voice leveling hers down in turn. Vladimir thinks, well, if he speaks quick enough, expansive enough, he can drown out her questions, her exclamations, her prodding which will only serve to lay him open - touch one seam and everything will spill out.

“Look, I have to wash my hands, I’ve been in more cabs in the last hour than in my entire life. Dropped in to August’s for a moment on my way here—”

Her touches slow down, brought to a half - she only moves one hand to cup his cheek, a perfect, eerie stillness descending. “You went straight there. You landed and you went to see him”, she says. Not a question anymore. “Oh, Vladya. Malchik, malchik.”

“Yeah.” He’s at the sink, zipping through the small living room. “Yeah.” He scrubs in between his fingers, lathers everything with so much soap it stings his skin. His own nails scrape against it, back and forth, and is this fucking sink broken, because Vladimir feels water splattering him from somewhere. It’s one more minute until he realizes he’s crying. His mother lays an arm around him, and it’s then it turns into great, racking sobs, sounds that leave him gasping and grasping for air. They can’t be drowned by the tap. He still turns it higher.

                                                                         ——

He’s there the next morning. He hasn’t slept, not really, and he’d like to blame the jet lag but he knows that doesn’t cover it, not fully. He hasn’t eaten, either - he nitpicked at some stew his mother put together, long enough so that she won’t begin to sob, and then he thought of how everything gets to her so intensely and how he’s all she has and how can he carry all this love, this burden she breathed into him? If he came home from Nepal injured, sick? If he didn’t come home at all? If, and this was the scar, this was the boiling wound, he was the addict? And then a mudslide of rage went through him, over him at the thought that sure, it suits August just fine to up and do this, with a fucking family tree serving at his heel, some bloody Bilbo Baggins genealogy ready to nurse him into health. And then guilt, opening up in patches like craters in the earth. Sickness at thinking this without believing it; at believing it without thinking it. So he just pushed the bowl away and went to lie down.

But he’s there. A part of him is shocked at it. He thought ( it wasn’t until the last second that he admits this, until he rings the doorbell and waits for the grand mansion to open, and there is no way to back off, no way to slip into the comfortable hide of the coward and the runaway ) that he might not show up. That he was at the crossroads of it, as he’d been with everything else, as he’d been since birth or conception or whatever design cut him out like this.

But then Mrs. Sutherland opens, and her smile is August’s smile, and her eyes are August’s eyes, and Vladimir realizes something infinitely more terrifying: he would’ve come here anyway. He would’ve come to him always. In any timeline, in any scenario, in any of the horrific universes he thought up, and which are still not out of the question. He would’ve been at this door day and night.

His room is just as still as it was yesterday. This time, he comes prepared: a pail of water, lukewarm, a set of blades, shaving foam. He wanted the blades there, insisted on it; nearly came to blows with Valeria over the fact. I trust him with his own life as much as I trust him with mine, Valeria. I know who he is.

He brandishes them like weapons, or reliquaries, or whatever you carry when you go to meet a saint turned feral, a messiah fallen.

August rolls his eyes at him, or perhaps he imagines it. “Please, would you not? I have an awful headache.” Vladimir would call bullshit, and he almost does, but then he sees the way his friend winces at the slightest sound of him closing the door a little too hard. He also smells, through the antiseptic and 300-quid cleaning supplies, the faint traces of vomit, the blade-point acid of it. He’s worked hospitals, he’s worked bars - he knows how to tell it apart.

“Frankly, my dear”, is all he says, “I would be surprised if you didn’t.” He tries to keep his voice low - the words are equal parts cheer and restraint, modulated to fit the shut-blinds darkness. Through the drapes and valences, tendrils of morning sun reach Vladimir’s tense body, and August’s curled form on the bed. It paints gold-leafs over both of them.

He takes his shoes off, leaves them at the door. He rolls up the sleeve of his shirt, a worn-down thing he hasn’t worn since sixth form, and approaches the bed. He settles down on one knee onto the mattress, fully behind the other, water pail balanced carefully next to his thigh. “Up you go.” He can feel August readying his forces to hiss a barbed remark, can feel it in the tight coiling of the other's body rather than through any sound. Like a small, wounded animal, a former predator shunned to the edges of his own kingdom—his own mind.

“Shut up”, Vladimir intercepts him. He wants to say, is on the cusp of it: listen to me or I’ll give you the fistfight you’re itching to have, but then he reckons August has half a mind to take him up on the offer. And how will he ever explain that to their mothers? “Sit up and scoot closer to me, eyes to the wall. I’m either the one doing this or your mom is.”

Somehow, August obeys; whatever he read in Vladimir’s voice, he recognized it for what it was. Not power, not as they were both taught to define it, but deeper and darker than that - a force that precedes the names men gave to power.

He sinks his hands in the water, and, gently, lays them on August’s temples. He doesn’t think that this is the first time touching him in over a year. Doesn’t think that all the people he’s touched, all the people he felt, were just stepping stones until this moment, less than placeholders, less than even tokens or symbols for this moment, this warmth, this boy. He doesn’t think - maybe that’s the only thing it was, that calm, that ancient and bloodless acceptance. Just the ability to finally quiet your mind.

In circling motions, pressing just hard enough, he massages a line across the crown. Starting from the forehead, his touches advance, moving in half-moons until his hands meet at the nape of his neck once more. He lays two fingers into each side: the junction of nerve and vein. And then he presses it until he can feel the tension jolting back, can feel it roping and fluttering and then easing at last. He shudders under the other’s pulse - August shudders in turn. A sound escapes from August, broken, unwound. It crashes into the silence, a heat source, the proof of a taming, and splits it into pieces. Vladimir, too, sees it for what it is.

He takes off August’s sweater, pulls it over his head with care. Underneath, the bones of his spine poke out like knolls in the grass, like the grave-mounds of dead kings. He presses his lips to the first one, then the second, then the third. Against his cheek, the boy’s skin is feverish warm. It’s sickly, yes, it relays a tight-called battle, a losing or a winning, with both at painful, inestimable costs. A pain he’ll have no way of knowing, no words to ask about. There’s no mistake about it. Not even the rising ebb of desire can stave that understanding off, and it scares him so much his breath catches. But beneath the bones, beneath the shakiness of it, August’s heart is still loud enough to rattle the very stars. Vladimir presses his ear to it. thank god thank god thank god thank god.

They can work their way back from this. It’s there. Everything that needs to be is there.

“I'm going to say this once, and one time only.” He murmurs, soft, dazed. He can hardly feel his lips moving, still tenderly ghosting against August’s back. Not planting kisses - not appraising scars, either. Let me finish, his breath says, half caress and half vigil over the skin.

“This shit? It's not on me, and I refuse to carry it. If I did... August, love, if I pick this up, if you make me pick this up and claim it, it’s over for us. Not because I want it to be, not because it should be. But because there’s no other way. I never learned to love my way through guilt, and you deserve more than someone who comes to you as to a flame they have to shelter. A lonely artifact they’re responsible for.” At their side, Vladimir’s hand roams over the tangled bed-sheets, still warm with water, and seeks August’s fingers. The same quiet desperation of dorm nights and summer camps. He wills his voice not to break, and if he can touch him, if he touches him back, he will manage it. He will manage everything.

“ So... no. This is not on me. And you have to understand that. But the rest of it - what led to this, ultimately, but what could’ve led to a million other places - is on me. I should've come sooner. Stayed in touch. Should have explained to you that me leaving was never… meant to be permanent. That it never could be. There is nothing else but this - not because we’re doomed, or we doomed ourselves, but because I choose it. Or perhaps I don’t, okay, perhaps a thousand centuries made this choice for me, but what difference does it make? If everything is timeless and you’re the only thing I want? Does it matter if the purpose comes from inside out or from outside in? It’s you, August, it’s always been you.”

Someone is gasping for air. It could be both - knowing them, it probably is. Outside the window, the sun turns mellow, half-burnt, half on its way to a great and glorious grave.

“Turn around. Turn to me.”

August does.

[thosedamnsmoshkids]

HI YALL

so i have a few unfinished works that probably won’t get finished, and i wanted to clean out my drafts and have one less thing to worry about, so imma post em here. 

and hey! if you want to do a ‘finish the fic’ on any of them, do it and just tag me!

honey whiskey - shayne topp/josh scherer

--

“So it’s a party?” Shayne taps his fingers against the table absentmindedly. 

“Kinda?” Ian sits across from him, completely melted into the olive-colored sofa that lines the far wall. He scrunches up his nose. “You’d have to ask Matt Raub, he knows better than I do.” 

Shayne rolls his eyes, sitting back and letting his head fall back. “A party but it’s also a networking event, which normally just means it’ll be a bunch of people talking about work and eating bad food.” 

“Mythical’s got good caterers,” Ian stops him short. “They’ve got a chef on site too, he’s usually the one that makes the monstrosities though, so…”

“So we’ll be fending for ourselves with a bunch of Mythical execs?” 

“No,” Ian tips his head. “It’ll be talent too, Rhett and Link, you, Courtney and me, I think Monica and the editors are sticking around too.” 

“And Damien just had to get sick right when I need to latch onto him during a party.” 

“I thought it was Damien that was bad with parties?” 

Shayne almost laughs. “We’re both bad at parties, it’s just, normally we stick together, and then it’s better.”

Ian shrugs, “you can stick with Court and me.”

Shayne really does laugh this time, full bellied to the point that it almost makes him double over. “You two are going to get distracted, independently, run off, and then meet me when the party’s over, that’s what you always do.” 

Ian’s head jerks back, shaking slightly. “We don’t do that-”

“Noah’s birthday, the Dark premiere, Monica’s party,” he lifts his eyebrows as Ian sinks further into the sofa. “You want me to go on?” 

“It’s one evening, you’ll be fine.” Ian straightens a little. “Besides, they’ve got some cool weird foods apparently, and it’d give you the chance to annoy Monica for a few hours.”

Shayne narrows his eyes, nodding slowly. “I would like that.”

Courtney pops her head in a few minutes later, back from her Sims shoot, and distracts him for a while with another video. He’s just moving through the motions for most of it, it’s something about dating, ‘their show’, they called it, when in reality, it was really Courtney’s baby. But something she says sticks with him.

“Life’s too short to stay at home and pretend the world’s on fire!” She throws her hands up a little, giggling in her seat as she throws a stray piece of hair over her shoulder. “Go out with that person, do that thing, and the world might still be on fire, but if you die in the flames, at least you died doing something.” 

Shayne makes some sort of jest at her jokingly, and she laughs back at him. 

The party starts promptly at five, and Shayne is rapid fire texting Damien as he clings to Courtney, until she inevitably disappears, and then to Ian, before he too, finds himself distracted, and leaves behind a nerve-wrecked Shayne. At some point, he finds Monica, talking to a tall woman with pretty red-blonde hair and a fresh-faced expression.

She introduces herself as Stevie, and Shayne returns a handshake and his name. 

“Parties not really your thing?” She leans in, the smell of something sweet on her breath. 

“Not always,” he shakes his head. Shayne lets himself relax a little as she grins. 

“And I was told that you’re supposed to be the loud boisterous one.” 

Monica elbows him in the side, grinning up at Stevie. “He’s normally a fucking annoyance, but his friends left him, so he’s latched on to me.” 

This makes the woman laugh, and she steps back, raising an eyebrow. “We’re serving drinks over at the kitchen if you want something to take the edge off.” Stevie gestures to her cup. “Josh makes a mean Devil’s Piss.”

“A what.” 

She shakes her head, eyes fixed on the cup before flicking back to him. “Honestly it’s something you can’t really explain.” 

“But it’s good?” 

“It’s something.” 

Shayne nods, taking Stevie and Monica talking about their girlfriend and wife respectively, as a cue to leave. He heads towards the kitchen, not quite sure what he’s expecting to find, and more or less bracing himself for the awkward conversations to come.

There’s a cheering coming from the kitchen, and as he turns the corner, for once in his life, Shayne is left breathless. 

A man stands over the countertop, surrounded by people, but he might as well have been standing on a stage, the lights all cued and prepped to shine on him until he glowed. His arm is arced over, whipping something up in a bowl as the others around him cheer him on. 

The guy is tall, something Shayne likes, but not something he’d admit to anyone other than Courtney, or maybe Damien if he was drunk enough. 

Hell, he hasn’t even been able to admit to himself that he likes guys in the first place.

And damn. He’s got a plain face at first glance, simple. But the sharp, clean movement of a jaw that leads to a pair of soft eyes, leaves Shayne speechless. 

He moves to grab something, his arm looks like it could’ve been sculpted from clay, and then smoothed over again and again, until the muscles and sinew were perfectly folded beneath his skin. 

The man lights something on fire before handing the glass of liquid to someone crowded around him. Everyone watches as they take a sip, their eyes squeezing together as their lips pucker. 

Another bought of cheering erupts around him, and he watches with a slight smile as the people disperse, leaving him with his ingredients, and a formerly flaming pan. 

He starts preparing another drink, and from the way his hands move, this time with less flourish than before, it’s clear that he’s finally taking the time to make something for himself. It’s still mesmerizing to watch him work, hands chopping and moving all in one motion.

At some point, he notices Shayne, standing off to the side, and he’s not sure if the man is infatuated with his cooking, or if it’s something more. He’s used to people watching him, but not like this. 

He finds that there’s such a strange curiosity in the eyes of this odd man, and it keeps him from opening his mouth, and breaking the spell that he’s seemingly captured him in. The chef finishes the drink, not sure if he should turn away or finally speak.

He instead slides the drink across the table.

The man blinks, his eyes moving from the drink to the curve of a chest, and then up to finally make eye contact. The man opens his mouth, blinking dumbfoundedly before closing it and opening it again. “Shayne,” he holds out a hand. 

“I’m not sure you want to shake my hand,” the man almost smiles. He holds up two hands covered in various liquids and powders. “But I’m Josh.” 

“The chef yeah, Stevie talked about you.” 

--- < / > ---

unnamed weshire - wes johnson/joshua ovenshire

---

When he shows up at Joven’s door, it’s clear it’s not the first time this has happened, and it’s also clear that Joven is not the first person Wes would’ve gone to. He tries not to take it as an insult, guiding a red-faced, tear-stained Wes into the cool darkness of his dorm. 

He makes tea with his roommate’s tiny water heater, adding enough sugar to kill a small animal, grabbing the first-aid kit from the cupboard. Joven pushes the mug into Wes’s shaking fingers, trying to ignore the feeling that he gets when he folds Wes’s hands around the cup with his fingertips. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s all he’s said since he arrived, repeating it over and over again with intermittent uses of Joven’s name. He hushes Wes each time, trying to hammer it into his head that this isn’t his fucking fault. Kind to a fault. 

He’s positioned himself in between Wes’s legs, something that would seem compromising from an outside perspective, but he feels Wes ease, and in response Joven doesn’t move an inch from where he’s kneeling. More afraid of how his heart will race coming in contact with the skin of Wes’s thigh than frightening the man with his movements. 

Joven dabs at the cuts on his face and arms with a warm cloth, trying not to catch Wes’s eyes. Everytime he does, he hates himself just a little more. And it kills him that he doesn’t know why he does.

“I should’ve gone to Mari, or Sohinki or-” It’s the first words he’s said that’s not the droning apologies. “You shouldn’t have to clean me up after this.”

“Shut up,” Joven whispers. “You’re here, I don’t sleep. It’s fine.” 

“And I’m sorry, your roommate”

“Out of town,” he interrupts quickly. “It’s why I was able to open the door at 2am anyway.”

“Sorry,” Wes murmurs.

“Don’t apologize.” His next words are barely audible. “Fucking asshole. It’s his fault that you-”

Wes catches Joven’s arm, his grip is like steel around Joven’s forearm. “He’s not,” his eyes are like fire, “you don’t understand.”

“You let him hurt you.” 

“I didn’t let him-” Joven can feel Wes shaking, and it breaks something in him. 

He guides his free hand along Wes’s shoulder, the way he remembered an old friend did when it got dark for him. “Hey, hey, let’s-” he moves head with the boy’s across from him to make sure his eyes can’t disappear again. “Let’s talk about something else. Did you watch that movie I gave you yet?”

Wes’s eyes grow soft as he swallows slowly. “Yeah, it was, funny.” 

“Yeah?” Joven feels Wes release his arm, and he moves it along slowly, grabbing for bandaids. “Tell me what you liked best about it.” 

“I liked a lot,” he whispers. “I liked-” His voice falters, and Joven can feel him shaking again. “Why did I even try-?”

“Wes if it hurts,” he holds the tips of Wes’s fingers, “you don’t have to tell me.” 

“No, no,” his fingers twist around Joven’s. Somehow without knowing, Joven knows he won’t let go this time. “Please, it’s better if I just get it out and then forget.” 

“Okay,” Joven nods as he opens a bandaid. “Then tell me.” 

“I just need you to promise you’ll just listen, okay?”

Joven barely nods before softly pressing a bandage on Wes’s cheek. “I’ll try my best.” He finds his fingertips brushing Wes’s collar as he searches for more cuts, and instead, finds aging hickeys pressed deep into his Wes’s neck. 

“It was a normal night, I thought it was, and then, he came back to our apartment, and he was just, so mad.” Wes shakes his head. “I must’ve set him off, I don’t know, and we just, fought and fought, worse than we ever have before, and then he started…” 

“And then you came here.” Joven finishes the sentence for Wes as his eyes grow misty. 

“No,” he shakes his head again. “No. I told him it was over, that I wanted to end us, and then…” Wes’s chest is heaving. He looks up at Joven with eyes heavy with the threat of tears. “Do you have anything stronger than this?” Wes holds up the untouched tea in his hands.

“You want more sugar?” Joven raises an eyebrow.

“I know you have liquor hidden here somewhere.” Wes searches Joven’s eyes. “As much as Mari tells you to stop drinking.” 

“We’ve all got our addictions, don’t we?” Joven pulls away, standing up to grab a mug out of the cabinet. He pulls the top off of the cookie jar, removing a small bottle of vodka from inside. Joven pours himself a glass before topping off Wes’s. 

He sits on his bed next to Wes, hunched over his mug. The two of them drink in silence, the unbroken tension between them buzzing in the air. 

“Why did you come to me?” 

Wes doesn’t answer at first, and in the moment, Joven attributes his silence to Wes’s lightweight nature. 

“You’re safe,” he murmurs. “Warm, nice, kind, despite how you might appear.” 

Joven lets the words he’s been itching to say fall. “I’m the last person you think he’d go to try and find you, right?”

His lips are as soft as Joven expected them to be, puckered slightly so that he can feel the warmth beneath them. He tips his head down, finding his hands buried deep in Wes’s hair, thick and silver between his fingertips. 

It feels wrong, but he’s too tired and too tipsy to care. Wes holds him like he might break, and if Joven were honest with himself, (a rare occurrence), he would feel the same way. His hands grow rough around Joven’s face, moving his lips down a trail from the corner of his mouth, to his cheek, and finally to the curve of his neck. 

--- < / > ---

unfinished greek myth au! from the smosh writing week 2019

They say the gods are dead.

The old gods, the ones from the many, many, many stories told again and again, wrapped, packaged, and tightened up tight with new paper and pretty bows, but the same bare essentials. The old gods with powers that cracks the earth open to swallow sinners whole, the hands that lifted from the sea to snap ships in two, and the voices that spoke with such majesty that they burned the brain from the inside out. The old gods that were sung of in poetry and prose, and drawn and sculpted and painted until skin ran raw, and voices slowly dwindled into the crackle of distant thunder.

These gods are not dead. In fact, they meet for coffee every other Saturday at a tiny coffee bar on some small street of a somewhat large city. Hermes always chooses, and Apollo has stopped complaining, and all is right in the world.

Hermes has decided that this week their meeting will take place in a coffeeshop in downtown Madison. (Madison, Wisconsin to be precise, not to be confused with Madison, New Jersey, or even Madisön, Germany. There’s a very good reason Chicago, Nevada no longer exists.)

He arrives first, his feet carrying him nimbly, carried by a pair of black sneakers trim with small golden wing decals on either side. His lips run motor-mouthed to the barista as he lists off several extravagant coffee, tea, juice, and pastry orders for each of his friends to come. 

“Name for the order?” The barista tips his head to the side just a little, and the god smiles. 

“Noah,” his grin stretches warmly. 

The god has chosen the body of a dirt-poor, dog-tired millennial to show as his face for the new era. It seems to make perfect sense, a god of messengers and travellers, and those left behind. His hair is sometimes colored, and for some reason his body clad in strange patterns and colors that even he, one who has seen much in his lifetime, still can’t quite understand. 

He goes by Noah in his everyday. Noah the Uber driver, Noah the Postmates deliver, Noah, that kid from down the street. His face is accessible, approachable, friendly even. He’s always been the most agreeable out of all of his family, and even still, found himself appearing that way.

The barista scratches it down before handing it off to another employee. He leans a bit closer as he turns the monitor towards the god to sign. “Intern coffee run?” His face is sympathetic, and the god of travellers and mischief feels himself will good fortune towards the man.

“Something like that,” is his soft reply. 

Noah sits along the windows in the front, watching traffic as it passes. Cars move cleanly, bikes in perfect tandem with pedestrians, who flit in perfect motions like spiraling schools of fish, always coming close to collision, by stepping away at just the right second. 

Then there is a hush over the coffee shop, the soft, rustling of words being passed through lips, and spread through the room like wildfire. Noah is used to these silences, and without even so much as turning around, he could tell exactly which of his family had stepped into the room. 

The words were light, and a rush of warmth flooded through the room, accompanied by the smell of rose and a hint of something sweeter. 

Aphrodite, in all of her loveliness, had entered the building. Perfect skin, dark hair that fluttered and flowed across her body like raindrops trailing a window, and eyes that twinkled like starlight. Her lips twisted up as she searched the room, her eyebrows knitting slowly as she surveyed the eyes and the expressions that watched her, until she fell to the only one that managed to return her gaze with no lust in their eyes. 

Her heels clicked the floor into submission, the bottom of her dress, white with small polka-dots arranged neatly in lines, fluttered about in an invisible wind. A bubblegum pink purse cinched over her shoulder, hanging down at a black belt that wrapped around her waist. 

“Am I the first one here for once?” Her words are honey-sweet, layered with a warmth best described by the feeling of curling under a heavy blanket on a night where ice bit at the windows. 

“Apparently,” he nods in return. 

She sets her things down with a thump, moving with intentional grace into the seat. The goddess takes her phone from the purse, opening some colorful app that Noah never found the time to download. He watches as she snaps a few photos of herself, of the coffeeshop, of her shoes, and even one or two of him. 

Her choice to live as an internet darling was something he found made his skin crawl. The thought of all of those eyes on him at once, the fact that he could never slip between the cracks and disappear, that his life would be documented like that forever and ever in such a horrible, vain way, he was not the sort of god who liked the attention like his siblings.

The goddess of love had chosen the face of a pretty young woman who shared nothing in common with him besides their age. Her name is Olivia Sui now, an emphasis on Sui. The times she’s tried to describe the importance of her last name to him had gone through one ear and out the other. It was something about ‘branding’, something he still didn’t quite entirely get the swing of.

“Please tell me you got my order right this time,” she flips through her phone. He peers over her screen, noting the several dating apps blowing up with notifications, and the folders upon folders of photo editing and video recording software. 

“Vanilla frappuccino with one pump of rose sweetener and almond milk.” 

“Good,” she nods. 

Her phone disappears into her pocket as soon as the two both notice another hush that moves over the coffeeshop. Hermes feels not one, but two waves move across, both inherently similar to one another, and yet, as different as if they were standing at the edge of where the shadows meet light. 

Artemis steps forward first, lean and lithe, but muscles ripple under the curving nature of an olive green muscle shirt. A bomber jacket is tied around her waist, shimmering with silver against dark black jeans, and boots that glow like tarnished metal. Honey brown hair flicks around her shoulders like the ears of a wary animal. Her eyes match her shirt in color, but they match her arms in their message. Wrapped around her chest, closed off, about as guarded as a person can get. 

 Apollo, on the other hand, brightens up the room as if he were glowing. Deep, toned skin, and a smile that could put anyone at ease. He was wearing some sort of hat, small dreads of black hair falling from beneath it, and some sort of clothing ensemble of red, orange, gold, and black that Hermes couldn’t quite tell went together. It was something off of the runway, and something that Hermes knew he’d never truly get. 

--- < / > ---

barista damien & struggling actor courtney au - damien haas/courtney miller

It was nearly nine, and Courtney was in desperate need of a smoothie. 

After her last work out, she deserved it, she really did. Two full hours of cardio and running on that damn treadmill. Her body was about to collapse, her hair was a twisting mess of sweat and salt, and she felt like her feet might give out on her if she didn’t sit down soon.

With her gym bag in one hand, and her headphones twisted around the other, Courtney pushed the door open to the mostly deserted cafe. It was always quiet here, the shop closed at ten, to try to catch the last stragglers from the movie theater across the street, or the gym rats like her, who were trying to get in a workout after an audition, or a long day of work, or maybe just treating themselves for going to lift some weights after sitting on their ass all day.

The lights were dimmed after sundown, to try and save power, she guessed, or possibly to save money for their corporate overlords, whatever ideology came first. It smelled like milk and fruit, and the occasional note of coffee, with an overwhelming hue of the humming metallic machines that did most of the work the cafe boasted was ‘handmade’. 

Courtney hiked up her sweatpants, rubbing her nose on the back of her hand as she rounded to the counter. Her fingers were diving into her bag for her wallet before she could even look up to address her friendly neighborhood barista. She’d gotten to know the closing shift workers well. Courtney rarely did daytime workouts anymore, but that was for...other reasons. Ex-boyfriend reasons.

Today was Tuesday, and Olivia Sui, a somewhat bored, but overall cheerful almost-actor, always took the Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday closing shifts. 

“Hey, Olivia.” Courtney tossed the ten dollar bill on the table with one hand, digging in her wallet for the exact change she was sure she’d had this morning. “I’ll take the usual.”

“Olivia?” Courtney felt herself freeze. She lifted her head to see a pair of wide amber eyes blinking back at her. Her eyes focused on the face, drawing outwards from those eyes, deep and brown in the dim lights. She caught a freckle on a cheek, and a thin layer of dark facial hair that spread around face’s lips, which drew back to reveal a bright smile. “I’m not Olivia, sorry to disappoint,” the words were half laughed and half spoken.

“You’re, um, you’re...you’re-”

“Not Olivia?” He laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the edges ever so slightly. “I’m the new hire, I think Olivia moved her shifts around. She was here earlier, if you’re looking for her.” 

“Uh...no, just.” Courtney finally caught herself. She felt her brain return from the sudden stupor it had found itself in. “Sorry about that,” she eased herself into a smile. Courtney tucked a stray piece of hair behind her head. “I’m just used to seeing her here after my workouts.” 

“Gym girl!” He snapped his fingers. “She told me to look out for you. You like...strawberry smoothies with a pinch of…” he narrowed his eyes. “Matcha powder?”

She blinked incredulously. “That’s my order, yeah. How did you remember that?”

“I’ve got a weird memory. Horrible for anything useful, but great for random stuff.” The barista smiled again. It was easy and kind, the sort of smile that you fell into like a mound of pillows. “I’ll get you your smoothie.”

She surprised at how intently she watched him work. Courtney had never watched Olivia make it before, but there was something about his hands. They moved like a conductor’s, swift and decisive, or long and drawn, as if he were moving his hands through water. He popped the top on the smoothie, handing her a straw in paper wrapping. 

“Here you are.” 

“Thanks,” her eyes flick to his name tag. “Damien.” 

“Of course,” he smiled, his cheeks pushing up to make his eyes crinkle together. “You’re welcome…” She returned his expression. “Courtney.”

“Courtney.” She almost couldn’t look away from him as she grabs her change. “Please, come again.” 

The words sounded like the rehearsed jargon of the company, but they felt genuine. “I will,” she grinned. “Definitely.” 

 >---♥--->

“Ms. Courtney, you’ve made your glorious return.” Damien leaned against the edge of the counter. He had that same easy smile as always. 

“Seems I have.” She dug through her pocket to pull out her wallet and change. Courtney set it down on the table as she put her things back where they belonged. “At all busy tonight?”

Damien shook his head as he started on the smoothie. “Quiet. It’s nice. I like working this shift better.” 

“I never asked, why do you work the night shift?”

“I work another job during the day, and I can only fit this in at night, but I need the cash so…”

“You suffer?”

“That’s LA for you.” He nodded to her as he measured out a teaspoon of the matcha powder. “What about you? What do you do?” 

“Acting, movie business, that kind of stuff.” 

He tipped his head back, nodding in that ‘oh, that makes sense’, sort of way. “Lots of people out here are like that. I’m friends with a lot of actor types, and only one ever made it anywhere with it, and he still works another job besides it.”  

“That’s LA for you,” she repeated his sentiment. He grinned at the words. 

Damien handed her the smoothie and he change. “Have a nice evening, Ms. Courtney.”  

 >---♥--->

When Courtney returned the next night, Olivia was again behind the counter. 

“Hey there,” she smiled. “Good to see you. Strawberry smoothie, matcha?”

“Yep,” Courtney returned her expression. She paused for a second, considering her words. “I met the new guy, Damien?” 

“You did?” Olivia grinned from ear to ear. “What did you think of him?”

“He knew my smoothie order.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you talk about me a lot or something?” 

“I just went over the regulars, but he’s got a crack memory, apparently. He could remember everyone’s shift details to like, the minute.”

“But yeah, he’s cool.” 

  >---♥--->

“Just ask him out already jeezus.” 

“It’s not that easy!” 

“Of course it’s easy.” Shayne turned to face her from where they were walking along the strip of street by the gym, and cafe, she frequented. “You just say, hey, wanna grab coffee sometime, or something like that..” he paused. “I guess he works in a cafe, so maybe ask if he wants to get lunch sometime?”

“I’m not asking him out, Shayne.” 

“Then you have to stop talking about him every damn hour.”

“I don't-”

“Don’t make me show you the notes sheet on my phone, because I will, Miller, don’t test me.” 

“You’re over-exaggerating.”

“Am I?” He lifted his hands in exasperating. “When do I ever over-exaggerate. I neeeever over-exaggerate. It’s not like I act for a living or anything.”

“Shut up Shayne,” she slapped him in the chest.

“Now that hurt,” he pouted. “And please, please, just ask him out. Or I swear, I’ll do it for you.” 

--- < / > ---

[darknightsims]

8 Awesome and Fun Challenges to Play in 2019 in the Sims 4!

Sims players have been creating fan-made challenges for the games pretty much since the series began in 2001. Challenges are a fun way to mix up normal game play; instead of just creating a Sim and living out a normal life, you can play by a set of rules and objectives to try to reach a particular outcome.

Some challenges are more difficult than others, but all are a creative and an interesting way to introduce a more linear game play style to The Sims' sandbox game play.

Players have been coming up with different challenges for The Sims 4 since the day it was introduced. Here are some of the most fun and interesting challenges for the Sims 4; try them if you're bored with the game and looking to mix things up!

1. The Legacy Challenge The Legacy Challenge is one of the oldest, most classic of Sims challenges. Players have been doing it for years, probably since the days of the Sims 1. The basic rules are pretty simple:

Create a Sim of your choice, and move them onto the biggest empty lot, but they must start in poverty (only $10,000 simoleons, excluding the cost of the lot). The "founder" has to build their house and wealth, and then procreate to make a second generation. You play on in the single family for 10 generations. There are various challenges throughout each generation and different flavours you can add to the challenge to make it more exciting or challenging. The legacy challenge is pretty fun for a few reasons: you get to play through one bloodline for so many generations, it's got a rags-to-riches story to it, and you can really see the growth of your Sims' home, family, etc.

Check out this website dedicated to the Sims Legacy Challenge (with rules for the Sims 4, 3 and even Sims 2!) here.

2. History Challenge This is quite a popular challenge for The Sims 4. Created by user Cloudseeker on The Sims 4 forums, this challenge is designed to start in the "prehistoric" age, and takes you and your Sims throughout various time periods, ending in the Modern era.

Create two Sims (your Ancestors) and place them in an empty world (delete all lots and all Sims, or download an empty world- see link for the challenge below for more details). They will start off as your prehistoric Sims. Prehistoric era Sims can't join any jobs, but can sell collectables, paintings or woodwork. Sims can't have a "house"; they must live in a tent or on the land and can only eat food that they've caught or grown (fish, insects, fruit). Complete the goals in the Prehistoric era to move on ("Reach level 10 Fishing, Gardening and Handiness skill on the same Sim" is one of the 5 goals in this stage). Move on to Early Civilisation, where your Sims can now build a house in the Roman Empire or Ancient Egyptian style! Progress through each era- Prehistoric, Early Civ, Middle Ages, The Old West, The Industrial Age, The Roaring Twenties, and the Modern Day- by completing goals and unlocking new game mechanisms! I really love this challenge- it's an extremely unique spin on the traditional legacy challenge and the creator put a lot of thought into the eras, game play and goals. A lot of Simmers really got into this challenge too (the forum post has 45+ pages of replies on it alone!), and if you're into using CC in your game, there's a lot of themed content for each of the eras, so you can make the game even more authentic!

Check out the full challenge rules here and check out some of the amazing era-themed custom content (cheetah print loin cloths for the Prehistoric Age, anyone?), here!

3. Decades Challenge The Decades Challenge is a variation of The Legacy Challenge/The History Challenge. It's not identical to the History Challenge though, because instead of going through various eras, it's more focused on American lifestyle between 1890 to present time.

You start off in 1890. Sims can only marry within their own ethnicity, can only marry the opposite gender, can't use electricity (obviously), indoor plumbing, can only "try for baby" (no woo-hoo for fun!), and all furniture must be wooden, among other things. By 1900s, Sims can have electricity and indoor plumbing, but only men are allowed to get jobs outside the home. In 1910, male Sims must go to "war", which is just feeding the cowplant and rolling dice to see whether or not they survive! Women can finally go to work in the 1920s, but by the 1930s, anyone in a career must lose their job (the Great Depression). Each decade continues with various challenges and things to unlock until you reach the current decade! This is another one that gets major points for fun and creativity. There's challenging aspects and it stays pretty true to how life was in each of these time periods. This is another one that would benefit from downloading some themed custom content for your game (if nothing else, it's a nice excuse to give your Sims pretty Victorian dresses!).

Full challenge details are here! Historical Sims Life is a great blog which offers some custom content you can use for this challenge.

4. 100 Baby Challenge Let's change it up a bit, hey? Instead of a history-based challenge, we have this extremely fun and classic, 100 Baby Challenge! This is another that's been played through most iterations of the Sims.

Have 100 babies in as few generations as possible! Once you have a baby with a Sim, you cannot have a baby with that same Sim again (yes, promiscuity is encouraged in this challenge- have as many baby daddies as possible ;)) No cheats are allowed, but you can age up babies immediately. You must give birth to a girl to continue the legacy. The youngest girl born to the founder continues the legacy when the founder becomes an elder and can't give birth. If you don't have any girls, you lose! This is a fun and silly challenge that lots of people love playing. You can make it gender neutral if you like by using mods (so men can get pregnant), but either way, it's a fun challenge that'll get you and your Sims out and making woo-hoo with everyone they meet.

Full challenge rules here!

5. Black Widow Challenge The Black Widow challenge is another of somewhat scandalous nature; the main challenge is to marry male Sims, kill them, and inherit their money!

Start with a Young Adult female Sim. She must have the materialistic, snob and romantic traits and should have the Serial Romantic aspiration. She can move into a house but you're not allowed to use any cheats for money! She also is not allowed to work- all the money she has must be inherited from partners. Meet a Sim and get married to him. Have a dinner party to show off your new partner, and while you're there, find a potential romantic interest. Cheat on the husband with the new romantic interest, invite him over and get caught cheating. Find a way to kill off the husband (some suggestions are here) and then marry the new romantic interest! Keep all the tombstones on the lot- aim for 10 husbands to win! There's a few other rules and goals that go with the challenge, but that's the main gist of it. The Black Widow Challenge is one that's been around since The Sims 2 as well- can you seduce and kill all the Sims in your town? Check out the full details here!

6. Homeless Challenge The Homeless Challenge is one that I'd actually say is a bit hard! As we all know, part of playing The Sims is making sure our Sims are happy, but it's a lot harder to do that when you don't have the typical creature comforts. For this challenge, you must:

Make a single Sim- they can be male or female and have whichever traits you'd like. Buy and move them onto an empty lot. Using cheats, remove all their money. Your Sim can not have a job, but can obtain cash by collecting, fishing, gardening, rummaging through trash, begging other Sims for money, writing books, playing instruments, painting, or any other hobbies. In the beginning, they'll have to use public toilets and sleep on park benches until you reach the part of the challenge which allows them to start building a home. Of course, you'll need to have enough money to do that too! As you progress in the challenge, there are mini challenges (like the "building permit" mini challenge- you deduct $500 simoleons from your Sim's money and then they can start building on their lot) that'll allow you to progress The game "ends" when you have $5000 saved and have built a basic house! This is another of my personal favourites. The mini challenges are unique and fun, and it's definitely hard trying to take care of a Sim who doesn't have all the necessities at hand. There's great pride when you reach the end of the challenge and see how far your homeless Sim has come!

Check out all the full details here.

7. Asylum Challenge Time to get a bit crazy! Literally. The Sims 4 Asylum Challenge is all about managing Sims with the insane trait. Can you do it?

Make a household with 8 Sims (or find some in the Sims 4 Gallery!). All Sims must have the insane trait. You must randomize their other traits (but they cannot have the "Self-Assured" trait. Randomize their aspirations. You can pick one Sim to control throughout the challenge. The goal is to have your controlled Sim complete their aspiration (to prove they've gained control of their life) and they can then leave the asylum! No cheats are allowed, and to spice things up, you can make the house only have 5 beds, 6 seats, just one bathroom, and the cheapest electronics. This is a fun and difficult challenge; you really have to work hard to control your Sim despite their insane trait, and you also have to watch out for the other uncontrolled insane Sims in the house. I like this challenge as it's based on an in-game trait, rather than an external set of goals or objectives.

Full challenge details are here!

8. Apocalypse Challenge Sims fans have long wished for an official post-Apocalypse expansion pack (think The Sims + Fallout), but the closest we've ever gotten was Sims 3: Into the Future. The Apocalypse Challenge, however, lets you use your imagination and pretend that you're living in a post-war world!

The year is 2015, and all of Simtopia's been wiped out by an apparent nuclear war! Thankfully, your Sim has survived in their bomb shelter, and the goal is to survive there until they die of old age. Create a sim and a "shelter." The shelter is a single room which can only have the basic necessities: cheapest bed (the prison cots from Get to Work or the camping beds from Outdoor Retreat would be great), toilet, and kitchen appliances (stove, fridge, counter). Your Sim cannot leave the lot (the rest of the world is destroyed and there's the threat of nuclear fallout). If your Sims die of anything other than old age- you lose! I've seen a few variations of this challenge online, but all of them have to do with survivalist living and gives you some unique restrictions on typical game play.

Check out the full challenge details here!

[esperau]

Good afternoon everybody! I’d like to ask you all a question...

Have you ever wanted to understand Homestuck, but never wanted to tackle the 9000 page webcomic? Feel confused by the wiki? Have a general distaste for how fucking confusing and convoluted it is? Or maybe you’ve read it before, and want a disconnected view of its inner workings!

Well have I got the solution for you!

I present to you all —

HOMESTUCK: the shitty sparknote summary version

Sit down and buckle up, cause this clusterfuck of a webcomic is jam-packed with so much information, I encourage you to take breaks even through this summary. Let it all sink in. Think to yourself, “I’m one step closer to understanding this useless information that has always escaped me. Fuck yes.”

FOREWORD

In order to understand Homestuck, it’s important to first note the role and rules of the game, Sburb, which the entirety of the plot is based on. And to understand Sburb, it’s important to understand the parameters of the entire Homestuck universe. So this summary will be working backwards, in a way, but I’m taking everything step by step so we can unravel these layers with full clarity. In full, we will go from the universe, to the game, to the webcomic itself.

THE UNIVERSE

It is safe to assume that a good amount of the media we consume is based on Earth as it is in our real-life, modern day reality… give or take some minor details. In Homestuck, Earth and its surrounding galaxy is all the same too. Except, of course, for the fact that the Homestuck universe (and all of its other universes, which I will explain later in this summary) takes place in a video game session. An Sburb session, to be specific.

Heroes and heroines of all sessions are generally unaware of this detail until they begin playing the game (which looks like any other video game that normal kids on normal Earth play, in their defense). And once they do, it is a race against time. Meteors begin descending on Earth with increasing danger until Earth is finally destroyed. This is something that cannot be avoided; it is simply another step in the game. Sburb, however, offers a sort of portal to another dimension of their universe: The Medium. And this is where our heroes and heroines come to either win the game, or lose the game.

In The Medium is a sort of atmosphere, named Skaia, which houses a planet known as the Battlefield at its center (imperative to Sburb; this will be explained later in the Sburb detailing). Orbiting Skaia are two planets that are consistent through each session (notice how I keep saying each session and mentioned multiple universes earlier? We’ll return to this idea soon): Prospit and Derse.

The players are “assigned” to these planets (known as dream selves, who are typically considered royalty, princes and princesses, that sleep until they are awoken by their wakened selves) according to the game’s judgement, and both planets have specific purposes to Skaia and the Battlefield and the players; this will be explained under the Sburb detailing.

That was a lot of information just there. That’s something you kinda have to get used to in Homestuck. Just keep one key, repeating theme in mind: multiple everything.

So, we’ve established that there is a “wakened” self and a “dream” self. They are separate entities, but still the same person. Typically, only one can be awake at a time, but there are cases where both can be awake at the same time. This is incredibly important to the game, and will be expanded upon under the Sburb detailing.

We’re almost done with the Universe. Hang in there my dude.

Each player that enters The Medium has their own private, assigned planet that also orbits Skaia. (Skaia is the center of the system, if that was unclear.) These are unique to each session and player, and each have what is known as a Denizen (or, heavy duty NPC boss) somewhere in the planet. These planets have their own populations (called consorts) of beings that await the arrival of the players to complete a quest unique to their planet, as they typically prophesize.

I’ll end this portion of the summary by using my good boy John, who is the first player we meet, as an example of these concepts. John enters The Medium just before the final meteor hits Earth. His planet is called the Land of Wind and Shade (the natural cadence for planet names follow a “Land of __ and __” pattern). His consorts are talking salamanders. His Denizen is Typheus. He is a Prospitian (or, he is assigned by the game to be a Prospit dreamer).

THE GAME

Sburb is a computer game reminiscent of the Sims. A server player connects to a client. A client completes missions and a server player manipulates the environment by moving things, crafting things, and placing key machines that enable the client to move onto The Medium before Earth is destroyed. Simple, right?

Nah, now we’re in The Medium. And Sburb is about to fuck up your entire life.

Or, it already has, cause Earth is completely destroyed by this point. But said client player is safely in The Medium, transported along with their home (yes, the players bring a chunk of land along with them) to their given planet. Above them, seven “gates” (that are a bit like portals) are to be passed through so that the player can reach the other players’ planets, Skaia, and by extension, the Battlefield. It is the server player’s duty to build on the piece of land the client takes with them, creating a staircase of sorts up through the portals.

But, you ask, what about the server player? All players in a session will face imminent death, of course, so who is the server player’s server player? How does the server player become the client? I’m talking in circles.

The answer to this question is unique to each session. In the very first session we are exposed to, where our heroes are dubbed as the Beta Kids (since Sburb is considered in Beta** when they play), there is a chain of 4 players that form a simple square of clients and servers.

We later meet a group of aliens called Trolls in their own session (of Sgrub, which is exactly the same game, but for Trolls), who have a grand total of 12 players that connect to each other in a convoluted way that still ends up working, somehow.

The final session covered in Homestuck is another group of 4 kids, known as the Alpha Kids (because… you guessed it, Sburb was in Alpha** in their session). They are all scattered across multiple years of Earth, able to contact each other by utilizing special non-time-sensitive technology. Their session was special for another reason, but those details will be covered in just a few paragraphs.

**To people who don’t understand game development terms, a game in “Alpha” is a game in its first testing stage. Then it moves along to its “Beta” testing. This will also make a lot more sense if you finish Homestuck and are able to see these players’ relationships to each other in full.

So, why is Skaia important? Why are Prospit and Derse important? These questions could have essays of their own, pages and pages of detail. But I’ll attempt to make it as brief as possible. To understand these things, we have to understand exactly what Sburb is. Sure, it’s a video game, but what’s the point? How do you win? How do you lose?

Let’s start at the beginning of the game. We’re about to get abstract. Just go along with it.

Before the players enter The Medium, the Battlefield at the center of Skaia is simple. It is a chess game between black and white, permanently stuck in a stalemate. As players join The Medium and prototype things called sprites (typically done before entering The Medium, these sprites serve a double purpose, so hold onto this thought), the chessboard expands. It becomes more complicated and more pieces are added. By the time all players enter, the chessboard becomes a small planet.

But, this chess game has a set winner before any prototyping is ever done. White will concede to Black. This is another thing in the game that cannot be changed.

It should be mentioned that White pieces are represented by the royalty of Prospit, the White Queen and King. Prospit dreamers can see visions of the future in the clouds of Skaia, thanks to the proximity of the two.

As you can guess, Black pieces are represented by the royalty of Derse, the Black Queen and King. Derse Dreamers are on the very outskirts of the system, and communicate with dark beings in the depths of The Medium, called Horrorterrors. If they remind you of something Lovecraftian, you’re right, cause that’s exactly what they’re based on.

In this way, both types of players have some kind of foresight or divine guidance that will give them an advantage while progressing in the game. Their sprites do this to an extent as well.

Anyway.

Once the Black royalty has won, The Reckoning begins. The Reckoning is a set period of time where the Black King summons meteors from the Veil (an asteroid belt which Derse sits just outside of) to hurl towards Skaia. Now, Skaia has its own defense system. It won’t be destroyed right away. The small meteors come down first and are transported elsewhere in the universe… But we’ll come back to that. Skaia can’t defend itself indefinitely. Eventually, the meteors will become devastating and will obliterate the Battlefield.

Sound familiar? Good, let’s keep going.

In order to stop the Reckoning, the players must defeat the Black King and Queen. But there’s a catch to this confrontation. The Black Royalty holds a special ring in their arsenal, which transforms them in certain ways with each prototyping of a session’s sprites. This is the sprites’ second purpose. Sprites begin plain and are combined with objects (or even other living people) that give the Black Royalty the same attributes.

This is a bit of a difficult thing to explain, so I’ll give a short example.

A Beta Kid, Dave Strider, ends up accidentally prototyping his sprite with a dead crow. Though, that was more the fault of his server player, but that’s not an important detail. His sprite came to life and communicated through various caws. Cause it’s a bird.

As an extended consequence, one of the powers given by the Beta session ring is givings its wearer wings.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the ring is wearable by anybody non-human or non-troll. Non-session player. It is a strictly NPC item. Consorts of Prospit, Derse, or the Battlefield (or even the players’ unique planets) are able to wear the ring and transform.

Anyway. (Again.)

In this way, the Black Queen and King are more difficult to defeat. And as you can guess, the more players that are in a session, the harder the final boss. So what happens if a player dies along the way? Is it immediately game over?

Hell no! Skaia wants you to win. Skaia has a mind of its own. It knows what it’s doing when it puts you in the game.

If the wakened self dies, the dream self takes over for them and their consciousness merges. The dream self is an allotted second life, second chance. This happens across sessions quite often.

If either self dies in a very specific way, however, the player may ascend to something called a God Tier. They are given special power over their abilities, and are only killable by either: an act of heroism (protecting another player from death), or an act of justice (an evil player being slain). Meaning that they have situational immortality.

But let’s backtrack a little. That’s right, I mentioned abilities.

Each player is assigned a role to play. “The __ of __” is the title system. John is the Heir of Breath. Dave is the Knight of Time. It goes on as such. These titles are not endless, and the aspects they have power over are not endless either, but going into detail would be a fat waste of time. All you need to know is that, for a session to succeed, there must be at least two aspects present:

Time and Space.

They work together to complete the last mission Skaia asks of them, which is… breeding frogs. Yes, really. But they are aiming to breed a special frog: the Genesis Frog. In its belly is an entirely new universe. And that is the overarching goal of Sburb. To birth a new universe. The prize for winning? Overseeing the safety of said new universe. “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING!”

There are other roles to play as well. For example, one of the players must create clones of themselves and their fellow players. These clones are put on the meteors of the Veil.

The same ones that hurl towards Skaia? Yes! The same ones that get transported elsewhere in the universe? Yep! Are you following me?

— The portals that protect Skaia don’t only send the meteors elsewhere, but also elsewhen. And if you get what I’m saying, then you’ll understand that some of these meteors are the very ones that bring about the destruction of Earth in the beginning of the players’ journey. More specifically, the clones sent back are known as paradox clones, and they are sent far back in time to ensure that the players actually play the game. It’s a very long-winded, fiery, death-laden version of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

...Jesus, I have to take a break after that one.

I’m almost done describing the parameters of the game. There’s just one final detail that I have to cover. Bless you for reading this far.

Earlier, I mentioned that the Alpha Kids’ session was special, and it’s not only because each player is in a different year on Earth. You see, not all sessions function the same or have the same final bosses. There are four kinds of sessions that can happen, each with their own possibilities and difficulties.

The standard session has all of the amenities detailed above. The final boss may vary, but it is still possible to win. None of the Homestuck sessions are standard sessions.

A null session is different. No matter what you do, you will fail. If a player fails somewhere along the line in The Medium, they can initiate The Scratch, which acts as a hard reset (at the cost of the players’ memories and progress). “BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!” If they failed before they ever enter the medium, there is almost nothing they can do to win. This was the case with the Beta kids.

In a void session, as with the Alpha Kids, no sprites are prototyped before entering the Medium. This means that the Battlefield never changes form, and the stalemate of the chess game continues. This session can only be won if players from another session intervene, which is incredibly difficult to do. Like, Deus Ex Machina status. If no one intervenes, the players will simply have to live out the rest of their lives in this session of inactivity and hopelessness.

The final type of session is called a dead session. A player enters, alone. The parameters of the game are changed completely. It is described as “almost punishing the player for trying to play alone” and nearly impossible to win. One of the main villains is a winner of this type of session.

Homestuck is packed with information, some of it so hard to explain that the reader only understands it after reading everything. The worldbuilding is considerably well done, knowing just how much of it there is. Some aspects of Sburb are too small of details to rightfully put in this summary. I really have covered the bare bones of it.

To summarize this part of the summary:

Players enter a session. Skaia redirects meteors until the players confront the final boss. A frog is then bred and journeys itself to the center of the Battlefield, where it becomes a new universe for the winners to protect. At the cost of their Earth, they are able to give life to another dimension of endless possibilities. Easy!

Well, it should have been that easy. But before the Beta kids ever entered their session, one of our main heroines fucked absolutely everything up. And that, my friends, is my glorious transition into our Homestuck portion.

THE WEBCOMIC

A young man plays a game with his friends.

…

...

...  

Yes, really.

Homestuck is the combination of several sessions that all work together towards a common goal: defeat the undefeatable boss. Remember my little quip about the heroine that fucks everything up? Well, our little Beta heroine prototypes her sprite with a being she should have never ever prototyped with: an all-powerful, mysterious Dog with power over spatial abilities. Meaning… giving the Beta ring-wearer so much power in addition to everything else the kids give them, that the wearer is nearly invincible.

Other small details lead to a Dersite (consort of Derse), named Jack Noir, taking the ring and slaying both Queens and Kings himself. This leads to him becoming the final boss, who only has a taste for destruction.

...And that leads him to targeting another session, which was nearly won. A Troll session. Because of this, the Trolls can no longer win either.

Timey-wimey bullshit (believe me, trying to explain it now is just gonna give you a headache because it’s the buildup of like 5,000 pages of exposition) later leads these two joined sessions to take it on over to a void session: the Alpha Kids’ session. The only session that could possibly lead to a victory. Remember, a void session is winnable, but only by the intervention of extremely powerful players (see: God Tier).

But in their journey, the final bosses of the sessions chase after them, leading to the ultimate final showdown.

And that’s as simple as it goes. The comic is divided into different acts, and is 7 acts long. There are a lot of intermissions between acts, and convoluted titles like “Act 6 Act 6 Act 6” among them. There’s a portion where the villain takes over the narrative and changes the title to “HOMOSUCK.” Numerous flash games and flash animations are scattered throughout. The narrative can be a little hard to follow at times.

It starts off slow, which is why it can be hard to get into at first. Some things still confuse me, and I’ve read it in its entirety multiple times. Some of the logs (chats between multiple players) are really long. But with these details, even a beginner like you could follow Homestuck with general ease!

Or… that’s the idea, anyway. Questions are welcomed.

Thanks for reading!

[phantasmkiss]

Calypso

QC Monthly Challenge #19

Billionaire Mason Parsons had an ego, that much was obvious. He'd commissioned an obscenely large yacht, and from what I could tell, it was mostly to impress other people. He loved his new toy so much that he commissioned a website to go with it, and that's where I came in.

I'm a graphic designer by trade, and I made a bid on the job. I couldn't say why he chose me, but he did, and I was determined to live up to expectations. Mason invited me and my daughter to see Calypso herself on a weekend-long holiday off the coast of Newcrest to get a feel for her before I began. How could I say no?

I met his family first, and wondered what I had gotten myself into. His father, Matthew Parsons, was a big-wig investor who'd started out as a "Mailroom Technician," which sounds like a fancy way to say he brought people's mail to their desks. He'd recently married a woman younger than either of his children, and the two were definitely in their honeymoon phase.

Mason's sister, Madison, had a Can I see your manager? haircut, and I recognized her husband, Ramsey Zeng. He was one of those young men who'd made millions launching companies. Chronos magazine had called him a "Tech Guru" and a "Dot-Com Pioneer." He seemed to be trying to talk to their daughter, Audrey, as Madison complained about how long it was taking to set the stairs up next to the yacht.

Finally, the man himself showed up.

I'd dressed my best and was glad of it. For all the Internet stalking research I'd done, seeing Mason Parsons in person was an experience. The ego I'd expected, but not the charm. Mason was outgoing, self-assured, and, dare I say it? Extremely handsome! He welcomed me and my daughter, Alexandria, as though we were the guests of honor, not an employee doing hands-on research and her plus-one.

We chatted for a bit, then he led the way, a brisk breeze ruffling our clothing as we mounted the steps. There we met the pilot, Mitchell Kalani, and the activities director, aptly named Summer Holiday!

We went to the bridge while the crew brought our luggage and readied rooms. I pulled back the scarf I'd worn to protect my hair from the wind and promptly forgot to be nervous in my excitement.

Mason and Mitch explained the navigation equipment to me while Alexandria asked Summer every question she could think of. How fast could Calypso go? (Eighteen knots, though she cruised at twelve.) Who'd built her? (She was based on a design by Christensen Shipyards, originally called Casino Royale.) How big was she? (Forty-six squares long by fifteen squares at her widest.)

I even got to wear the Captain's hat!

Alexandria and I were shown to our rooms by Siobhan (pronounced sheh-vahn) Fyres. Each room had a double bed, a desk and Wi-Fi enabled computer, a lot of storage, and a private bathroom. Alexandria claimed a room on the starboard side, and I was across the hall.

I found something in my room which hadn't been in my daughter's, and began to wonder about our host's true intentions.

Little time passed before we were back out on the deck. It was late afternoon by then, as we said goodbye to Twin Oracle Point and began our journey to sea.

We were called to supper promptly at 7 pm. and the spread was fabulous! Alexandria, Mason and I chose the lobster, though there was also steak, gnocchi, and several things I couldn't quite identify. I ordered a non-alcoholic Purple Rain and Alexandria had something pink that shot off sparks when she first got it!

We were joined by Sims I hadn't realized were aboard, and I got a little starstruck. Apparently Mason's friends include the Landgraabs and the Goths, though Bella Goth was missing during the meal. Geoffrey Landgraab is a really nice, down-to-earth guy, something I hadn't expected, considering his wife's rumored criminal activity.

After supper was karaoke! Some of the guests were a little juiced by then. Matthew's wife, Aura, broke the ice with Madonna's Like a Virgin, which was a little awkward for the rest of us. Mason's niece sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow before being sent off to bed, and she did an amazing job!

I wanted to sing, but didn't have the nerve until Alexandria dragged me on stage. It was tough finding a duet that wasn't romantic, and even harder finding one we both knew, but we finally settled on Good Time, by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepson. It was a lot of fun!

A few Sims wandered off to bed, Alexandria included, though I think she was more interested in gossiping to her friends online than she was in sleeping! The rest of us went out onto the upper deck for music and dancing.

I recognized Alice Spencer-Kim on the piano and waved hello. This would be a nice job for her, but I bet she couldn't wait to get home to her family!

After hours of socialization, I needed quiet, but didn't want to stray too far. I stopped at the edge of the deck to look out over the water. The night was beautiful, buildings along the shore lit up, moonlight reflecting off the water. I wasn't alone for long.

Mason joined me, and for some moments, the silence was comfortable. When he spoke at last, he said some things I won't write, lest my daughter read this!

Our earlier tour hadn't included the master suite, but it was as modern and sleek as the rest of the yacht. It had the usual bed and storage, of course, but also had two walk-in closets, a vanity, and a high-end television.

I took the time to write down notes for my web design before checking out the master bathroom as well.

The master bathroom was as large as my entire suite! It had the same amenities, a shower and a tub, but dual sinks and far more space.

Later I met with Alexandria on deck. She loves kids, and had made fast friends with Audrey. This forced her parents to spend time talking with each other, which seemed to work out. Her mother was finally beginning to relax.

I was talking with Mason when I saw sea turtles off the port stern. They swam alongside the yacht for a moment, but when Alexandria came over, she had missed them!

We talked, and everyone decided to go for a swim, or snorkeling, or simply lounging in the sun. I took Alexandria with me. I spotted the turtles again! This time Alexandria didn't miss a thing, and we watched them for some time.

It was one thing seeing aquatic life from the yacht, but quite another to swim amongst it all. We saw schools of fish below a nearby dock, sea grasses and flowers, and I thought I saw a treasure chest, though I lost track of it in the excitement. Maybe someone else will be lucky!

We returned to Calypso, where the Parsons family was having a casual lunch on the top deck. We ate and talked where the night before we had danced. I decided I had misjudged Matthew's young wife. She really did seem to love him, and he could be as charming as his son.

After lunch, most of the others wanted to lie in the sun. Alexandria and I took that time to go exploring on-board! We started with the door off the dining room, which naturally led to a kitchen.

The kitchen had a double wide refrigerator and two sinks, as well as two dishwashers! I could smell something baking and hear someone moving around in the next room, so we took off before we could get caught!

The kitchen wasn't the only crew area we wandered into. We found an office/lounge as well. It was sparsely furnished, but clean and well-stocked. We talked about taking a skeleton key with us, but didn't actually do it. Anything that was locked up, we were fine staying out of!

The last stop on our private tour was the engine room. I hadn't imagined how much machinery it would take to run a ship of this size! Alexandria and I looked, but didn't touch, and finally we went to rejoin the party.

Mason was with Geoffrey Landgraab in the gym. Summer offered to coach us if we wanted to try the equipment, so we changed into our workout clothes and jumped onto the treadmills!

As promised, it was a bracing environment to exercise! I've rarely had so much fun exercising, though I wasn't at it long before I pulled a muscle.

Alexandria took me to the infirmary, which was small, but had everything I needed. Summer and Siobhan tended to my injury, which was thankfully minor, and I was advised not to overexert myself for the rest of the holiday. I had been very active!

There was a movie playing in the recreation room, and several Sims gathered to watch it, to read, or to play chess. Audrey played a very good game against her grandfather, though he won in the end.

I was feeling inspired, so I brought out my paints and easel. Alexandria watched me for a while, as I began to paint a passing canal boat, but Audrey came to find her, and they left together.

I later found them together, reading The First Unicorn. It was one of Alexandria's favorite books from when she was younger, and she'd brought it in case she got bored. That had never happened, but she had found someone else to share her love of reading!

Supper was amazing again, and this time everyone joined us. The table seated all thirteen Sims, with room to spare!

Alexandria and I stayed up half the night talking about everything we'd seen and done. She confronted me about my feelings for Mason, but I assured her that I have no intentions of settling down any time soon! She swore to me that if he broke my heart, she'd punch his yacht.

Finally, our holiday was at an end. It was hard saying goodbye to the crew, who felt like friends now, hard saying goodbye to the life of luxury, and to Mason.

While Alexandria hugged Audrey goodbye, Mason and I stepped aside to talk. I told him that I didn't feel right beginning a relationship while I was working for him, however distantly. I thought that it would be easier to do the job than to risk my heart after so many years with only my daughter to care for.

He countered with a rose, as fresh and beautiful as the one I’d found on my pillow that first night.

We had exchanged contact information before this weekend even happened, and though I'd heard he was a non-committal playboy, he promised to contact me again. Is this the end of a holiday, or the beginning of something else?

At last, Alexandria and I stood alone on the dock, watching Calypso ready to move on.

Who is Mason Parsons, really? An eccentric billionaire? A heartless rogue? Or is there something more to him, below the polished walls he puts up all around him? Maybe someday I'll find out.

Yacht: Calypso in the Sims 4 Gallery

Parsons Family in the Sims 4 Gallery

Note: Captain’s hat is CC and not included. You can find it here, though.

(Origin ID: PhantasmKiss)

[shotgunsandstars]

Pro Human: What Wasn’t

The chapter that almost was before I decided to cancel the fic. It’s just Altair dealing with Kanwai and wow it makes me SO. SAD.

Altair usually had no reason to come to this level of the living halls. It was below his and Rauf’s rooms and down at the end of one of the halls. Placement was randomized but you could also request an area you wanted to be placed in while you were going through the placement period of being moved out of the dozen single rooms in the novice halls reserved for those returning from their pilgrimage. After what had happened today he wondered if he hadn’t come more.

He knocked on Kanwai’s door and waited. He knocked again when she didn’t answer. He waited and then the door opened very slowly and he could only see part of her face. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Well, I did come here to talk but if you’re going to take such a disrespectful tone with your CO I think we’ll be having a different conversation,” he said mildly, stepping close and also putting his boot against the door so she couldn’t close the door.

She sighed. “I’m not Alpha out here, Altair.”

“You’re always Alpha. Open the door.”

She still hesitated before opening the door for him. Kanwai’s room was filled with bookshelves and photographs mounted on the walls from her time in her pilgrimage. Altair knew a lot of it was personal so he didn’t look at the photos too closely but he did note a few. Her with friends or on a stage or at her college graduation. Then he sat down in a chair like he had every right to. Kanwai didn’t say anything and sat across from him.

In her home she looked softer, her long hair was still damp from her shower, and even though Altair knew she had thighs strong enough to break someone’s arm they seemed smaller than usual. She wore just the casual uniform and sat straight in the chair, looking at Altair. “Well?” she asked him.

Altair relaxed into the chair. He wasn’t here to yell at or reprimand her. Not really. “Wanna tell me about what happened in the sim room today? You don’t usually lose control like that. Something happen you wanna tell me?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?” Kanwai looked off to the side. “Kanwai.”

Kanwai rubbed her cheek. “I’ve got to go in for surgery in a week.”

“What for?”

“Losing feeling in my hands. A lot,” she said and he watched them ball up into fists on her thighs. “I thought I was doing okay. Doctor said my brain can’t reach my hands as much anymore. So it loses touch with the nerves and muscles and can’t move them, or feel them.”

“What’s the surgery for?”

“Cut my head open, shoot some hormones and chemicals directly into my brain. Hopefully that’ll help.”

Altair didn’t say anything, he just sat there, looking at Kanwai who wasn’t looking at him. “So you’re mad because your condition is worsening.”

“I’m mad because it’s pointless,” she snapped. “Because they just can’t do it. It’s a waste of time, Altair. When there was just five of us it was fine.” Alpha used to be much smaller. It used to be just him, Kanwai, Munahid, Ehan, and Jari. They were all the oldest and had come through first to him. “I don’t hate the others,” she added, “but they’re just… incompetent. You have to see that.”

“They’re young.”

“I was never that bad when I was their age. I didn’t blow holes in things or fail fifteen times in a row on simple movement exercises. Alpha used to be good, Altair. You know that. Five strong, the Audi trusted us. Now we’re big and unwieldy and there are so many kids on it. Haytham is twenty. Twenty. Why did you think that was a good idea?”

“Because he passed through his placements and worked well with my team, same as you,” Altair said. “Because age has nothing to do with it. I joined Alpha when I was nineteen.” She looked away at that, knowing he was right. “You can be angry, Kanwai, I’ve never faulted you for being angry or knowing how to use it. But if you are at least know what you’re angry about. You aren’t angry about Alpha, or your comrades. I know you know that.”

“It’s a pointless exercise.”

“Then how do you think Alpha will become someone who can keep up with you and Jari if not through practice?” he asked her. “And you failed many of our pressure tests. First one to go down, too much of a lone wolf. You let it get away from you, Kanwai. I know you want to be the best, and you are one of the best. You’re Alpha fucking two. Wanted to be like Miranda-“ she looked at him, surprise clear in her eyes. “What? Surprised?”

“I’ve never told anyone.”

“Girl. I’m a walking, talking, Alpha history lesson. You really think I don’t know you look up to Miranda?” Miranda had been a member of Alpha fifty years go. She wasn’t the One or the second in command. She had just been a member but she’d been amazing. She’d been Alpha-Two in her time and had been on more successful Alpha missions than anyone else. When her One had stepped down she’d been asked to take over and she had declined, saying there was no Alpha but the ones of her brothers and sisters. Then, like most ex Alphas, she distanced herself from her old friends because not being what they were was too much. She’d ended up having a doctor assisted suicide down in the hospital, treated for severe depression and general lack of will to keep living. But while she’d lived she’d been a real living legend that everyone in the fortress had known her name, her number. After she’d died for a few iterations of Alpha people didn’t take the number Two in reverence. Before Kanwai there had been a Two but it had been assigned because Giovanni wasn’t the sentimental type. Kanwai had asked if she could be Two, even though she knew traditionally there was not actual Alpha-Two.

“You wanna be like Miranda? Start acting like it. Alpha was her life-

“It is. That’s the problem. I look at it and see all these fucking kids you brought into it, Altair. Idiots with zero impulse control, or aren’t field able, or are distracted by other members because of resonance, or shit even just literally children. Alpha is my life, Altair. It’s the only thing I wanted out of this short life I got. And you have me running bullshit exercises to fix a mistake that shouldn’t have been made because you brought incompetent kids onto the battlefield!”

Altair didn’t meet her anger with anger. It’d get nothing done. “And what did you do in Utah?” he asked her instead, voice as cold as ice. “I know you’re a very smart girl, Kanwai, smarter than most of the rest of my squad. You knew the right call. You still let Munahid make a bad decision. You stood by when Chris started blowing holes in the god damn Grand Mormon Temple. Did you say anything when you killed members of the clergy? Or did you just do as you were told, unthinking?” He ended in a hiss. “This is your mistake too. You know better. I know you know better. I know that other than me you’re probably the best shot caller of my veterans.

“Do you know why I asked Munahid to become my second, and not you?” Kanwai looked away again, breathing deeply, angry but holding it back. “Because for all his faults and mistakes he’s made he never once blames anyone else. Just today he thanked me for telling him he was a shitty leader because that means he can learn something. He takes full blame for his mistakes, Kanwai. What happened at the Grand Temple shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. You should have known that Munahid would be in a compromised mental state from being in Salt Lake City and terrified of what they were doing to me, Diyari, and Haytham, and making bad calls. He doesn’t make his problems other people’s problems and while trying to fix his own mistakes he helps others. Maybe not always with the best advice but damnit he’s trying, which is more than I can say for you who wants to be like Miranda.

“I outta give you a new number for the insult you give her number.”

Kanwai looked up at him, wide eyed. “You can’t-

“I can’t? Why not?” Altair asked her. “You’ve been a moody, disrespectful girl who has been shitting on Miranda’s name the past week because you think you’re better than your squad mates. And you are. You’re better than them. And instead of helping them get on your level, like Miranda would have, you jump ahead and complain that no one else can keep up with you. I haven’t glued myself to Munahid’s hip for no reason, or given Ehan a Haytham shaped shadow for no god damn reason. It’s because they suck and I’m trying to help them not suck.” Despite only being across from her he looked down on her and she wilted. He still hadn’t raised his voice but his voice was stern and harsh. He wasn’t having this bullshit anymore.

“I am, officially, over with your complaining. You are a member of Alpha, the best the Assassins have to offer. You’re pissed off because your body doesn’t work like how you’d like it to. Tough shit. You are the best. I expect the fucking best. That means you’re gonna shape the fuck up, and get with the picture. Your failure to understand that Alpha needs you is the greatest failure I can imagine.

“You’re going to report for training tomorrow. You’re going to help the others like you should have always been doing because you’re god damn Alpha-Two. If need be I’ll assign you someone. Like Chris, he could use the help.” Kanwai said nothing, too cowed to even backtalk. “If you keep failing me like this I will take your number. But not to kick you out of Alpha. I’ll give you another number because like hell you think you can throw a temper tantrum and then act like it isn’t your fault wearing a legend’s number.”

Altair got up from the chair and loomed over her by act of standing. “I’m sorry your body is difficult on you. I really am. Of anyone to deserve such a thing, it isn’t you and our squad will be worse off when it finally takes you away from us. But while you can control it it belongs to Alpha, and that means it will benefit Alpha. Am I understood, Kanwai?”

“Yes, sir,” she said weakly, looking down.

“Good,” Altair said and leaned down to grab her shoulder. She looked up at him hesitantly. Altair didn’t say anything, he just squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” he said and left her.

[megadads]

Matt T. Wood (Game Designer, Artist, Programmer)

Matt has been creating video games for over 2 decades, getting his start in 1997 when he joined 3D Realms as a level designer and worked on games such as Prey, Duke Nukem Forever and Max Payne. In 2003 he moved to Seattle to work with Valve where he helped to create some of their most iconic titles including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. He recently departed Valve and formed his own company, Double Dagger Studio, where he is working to create his next games. Matt lives in Seattle with his wife, three children, 2 cats, and leopard gecko.

What is the first video game that you remember playing?

“This is a tough one. I have so many memories of playing games when I was young, but I don’t recall which was the very first. In the arcade, it was probably Pac-Man or Centipede. I remember playing a lot of Centipede in particular. I think I just really enjoyed spinning the trackball around. It’s funny, thinking about this now brings back all of the memories of where these arcade cabinets were located. I can vividly see them in the pizza parlors, the sub shops, the bowling alleys, the corner shops and of course, in the arcades with kids just hanging out together and watching each other play. Those were good times.

I spent a lot of time in the arcade when I was growing up. My dad worked in the department store at one end of the mall, so I would wander around the arcade with my pockets empty, watching all the bigger kids play. Sometimes I would go up and down the aisles checking the coin return slots for quarters and sometimes I would get lucky, but most times not. Haha.

The first game I played on console was definitely Pong. It was at my grandmother’s house and I don’t recall whose console it was, but I distinctly remember spinning those big dials to play. What a special day that was!”

What are your favorite games of all time?

“Honestly, my list is way too long! But here are some that have impacted me in various ways throughout my life.

Zork, Enchanter, and Planetfall (and most other Infocom games) were very pivotal for me and had a big impact on me early on. Experiencing these games and the “feelies” as they called them, which were all of the supplemental things they put in the box, I think were what made me want to make games. I would pore over all of the text included in the box and imagine all the things I could do if the parser were more robust. I wanted to do what Marc Blank, Dave Lebling and Steve Meretzky were doing. To me, they were making magic.

Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Quake gave me the inspiration and the tools that I needed to start making video games. Up until that point, the closest I had come to making games was when I entered them into a computer line by line by copying out of a magazine. I had no idea what I was doing and all the books that I picked up on programming were over my young head. So when these games had tools that you could use to make ACTUAL levels…..wow, I was so hooked! Plus, Quake was an industry exploding phenomenon. It’s hard to imagine where gaming would be today if Quake hadn’t happened.

Some of my other favorites in no particular order are Dwarf Fortress, Sim City 4, Dark Souls, Morrowind, Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate 2, Diablo 2, Final Fantasy 3, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, World of Warcraft, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and Counter-Strike.”

Which hobbies or pastimes do you enjoy besides gaming?

“At one point when I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a movie special effects and prop maker. So now, sometimes, for fun, I’ll build and paint models and props and things. I’m thinking about growing out my mustache and getting a pipe too. Just to complete the dad hobby cliché look. Haha.

But with my current game and the kids, I don’t have as much time for that anymore. Now we try to do more things together as a family. We like to travel together when we can and we recently started doing a board game night at our house.”

Do you and your children play video games together?

“Yes! All three of my kids have been head over heels in love with Minecraft for years. Every time they play, they ask me to play too and it’s always a blast. What I love about Minecraft is that all four of us can be working together on a house one minute, and then the next minute, we can go off in different directions and explore. I love watching them work together and discover together.

Speaking of working together, we love co-op games. Any game that we can play together on the same team to solve problems or work together is a big win in our house. Some of my kid’s favorites right now are Castle Crashers, Battleblock Theater, Overcooked 1&2, and Mario Maker. My youngest son is really looking forward to a game called Moving Out where you work together to move furniture out of houses. He’s been asking me about it almost every day since he first played it at PAX.

Some other games we like to play together are Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the new Spiderman on PS4, Mario Kart, Donut County and pretty much any Mario game.

In addition to playing games, we also work together to make games too. I have a whiteboard in my home office where the kids will write up ideas or drawings and we’ll work together to turn them into little games. We make them in Unity and that experience has been really great for us.”

How do you make time for gaming with a busy family life and career?

“The kids go to bed relatively early every night. My wife is pretty militant about their bedtime and I support that. On the bright side, my wife’s unwavering mission to make sure the kids are getting as much sleep as their bodies need also means there’s consistently a good chunk of time in the evening for game time! But yeah, sometimes it can be pretty tough. The gaming is usually the first to fall off the list and I still have a huge backlog of games that I want to play that I’ll probably never get to. Something to look forward to in my old age, I guess. Haha.”

What is your proudest moment as a parent?

“Again, too many to talk about! But there are a few that I’ve been thinking about recently. They might be small things, but they made me really proud: moments when they demonstrate maturity, compassion, and kindness.

All three of my kids are dancing in The Nutcracker this year and I was helping wrangle the little “party boys” backstage. To begin the show, they all have to line up single file and grab the shoulders of the kid in front of them and trail their “nanny” out onto the stage. They didn’t have a specific order and when my 5-year-old son grabbed the shoulders of the boy in front of him and another little boy just about had a breakdown. HE wanted to be behind that boy! There were only a few seconds before they needed to go out onto the stage and I was about to intervene when my son put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “It’s ok! You can go” and stepped back so the other boy could take his spot. So proud of him for that.

More Nutcracker: my daughter (age 11) was asked to fill in at the last minute for a child who had gotten sick. She put in extra hours at added rehearsals for this part but on the day of the performance, the other child was well enough to perform, so she didn’t end up performing the part. We asked her how she felt about the situation and she said she was just happy for her friend to be well enough to dance because she knew how devastated she would be if she got sick and missed her performance. *heart swells*

Another thing that happened with my 8-year-old son recently was when he was with some of his classmates and they all had to choose a bandana. They were all different colors and one of them was pink. It was the last one to get picked and the boy who was left with it loudly exclaimed that he wasn’t going to take the pink one! Pink was for girls! My son looked at him and said, “Oh come on. It’s just a color!” and he gave that boy his and took the pink one for himself.

Also, in general, I’m proud of how much my kids love to read. Our house is full of books. They stack up in piles on the stairs and in corners and are sometimes used as makeshift desks and writing surfaces. The kids devour books and I’m really happy about that.”

Gamer Spotlight: Matt T. Wood Matt T. Wood (Game Designer, Artist, Programmer) Matt has been creating video games for over 2 decades, getting his start in 1997 when he joined…

[anneedmonds]

Life Update: End of the Baby Era

A fleeting break from tradition with this life update because I’m going to be talking mostly about me. My favourite subject. (Joke: I hate talking about myself unless I’ve had too much wine. In fact, I tend to stop people in their tracks when they try to ask me what I do for a living – I usually tell them that I work with computers and they are too bored to ask more!)

I’m talking mostly about me because I feel as though I’m at a weird old juncture in my life, one that has me wondering who the hell I am and what an earth I’m going to do next. I think that shopping for Angelica’s school uniform triggered it all off, this sense of being a bit lost and wondering about what the future holds, but in fact it’s a strange feeling that’s been bubbling away beneath the surface ever since we made the big move to Somerset.

I think it stems from being the sort of person that always has to be doing something, planning the Next Big Thing, working on a project, being so busy that I live in a state of perpetual low-key chaos and stress. Having two babies quite close together (18 months apart, not planned that way!) has been the most intense time imaginable, especially with work being the most busy it has ever been, and I think I worry that when school starts in September, and Ted starts a few mornings at nursery, I won’t quite know what to do with the extra time.

Actually that’s a lie; if I was entirely honest, my problem with September and the new starts is that I am forced to evaluate the era that is just about to come to a close. The baby era. I find myself tentatively asking myself how did I do? Could I have done better? In those rare moments of quiet, when I just sit and mull things over, I wonder whether I worked too much or should have worked more, whether I should have pulled in more help to save my sanity or turned down more jobs in order to be a completely full time Mum. I tick off the things I didn’t do: I haven’t taken them swimming once. I didn’t make gingerbread with them and get it all over the floor. I didn’t get enough photos of me with babies perched on my hip, or me asleep in a tangled nest of sheets with a newborn spreadeagled on top of my chest. I ask myself whether I was ever really present, in the moment, because I really can’t remember much at all.

I could do a huge list of the things we have done, including almost daily trips to the zoo and adventure park, walks with the dog, holidays in the car to Cornwall and Devon and London and Dorset, crazy chases around the house every afternoon (it’s a great house for running and hiding), discos, picnics, dressing up, shop games, hotel games, vet games, hospital games, early wake-ups every morning, drawn-out bedtimes every night, middle-of-the-night cuddling sessions, countless dribbles of Calpol over the bedsheets, endless tense exchanges between the adults as to where the in-ear thermometer is and who had it last…

I’ve been away from home for less than 2.5 percent of the time I’ve been a Mum, but I still fret that I could have done better and that I would do it better if I did it all over again. Maybe that’s why some people have another baby (I’m not, don’t get excited!), because there’s always the feeling that next time you will finally get it right.

Well. That was borderline depressing wasn’t it? Sorry about that! I don’t actively regret any part of what I did during the baby stage, I’m just sad that it’s pretty much over. It’s like a klaxon has sounded to tell me my time is up.

“FNARRRRRRR! Put down the flour, mothers! You’re about to make homemade play-dough, or bake cookies for the first time, but it’s TOO BLOODY LATE! You want to take them for a walk instead of plonking them down in front of Peppa Pig so that you can print, sign and scan the mortgage documents in peace? TOO LATE! They’re old enough to just amuse themselves anyway! They don’t need you anymore and they wouldn’t go on a walk with you anyway unless you bribe them with sweets! FNARRRRRRR!”

Talking of bribery, Angelica has cottoned on to the whole you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours system remarkably well. Maybe she will grow up to be a negotiator. Or a politician. (God.) Either way, she knows the value of her cooperation, especially when Ted is kicking off about his apple not being cut in the correct manner (ie: not cut up at all, he likes them whole, but he carries the bloody thing about for an hour and the dog almost always ends up getting it off him so I usually try to make him eat it chopped up in a bowl and he hates it) and there are two things that she has firmly planted on her demands list: games on the iPhone and sweets from Daddy’s retro sweet shop box.

Mr AMR got a huge box of sweets for his birthday last month and they’re all retro chews and sherbet dips and so on from the seventies and eighties – Angelica is obsessed. It’s like another world, one where Pom Bears and organic dried apple rings don’t exist. The games on the iPhone thing has had to be curbed, for the moment, because she got really into playing on these Toca Boca apps that let you play at being a vet or a train driver or a doctor. They’re a bit like Sims but for toddlers and she gets really immersed, carrying supplies through the hospital and visiting the patients and feeding them their lunch. She started waking up early just so she could ask to play on my phone, so that has been nipped in the bud. The phone games started as a lazy thing because I could go back to sleep for half an hour and she just carried out her doctor rounds, probably doing things like administering morphine and delivering tricky babies and amputating gangrenous legs using a selection of power tools. But the games are no more. It’s too early. Both in the day and in life.

I say that officially, in case Mr AMR is reading, but unofficially I let her play at grooming the Toca Boca horses last night when I was trying to wrestle Ted into his back-to-front Gro Bag and stop him from throwing his mattress out of the cot.

Ted has become Hulk Ted Smash over the course of the last month. Not only does he thrash about in his sleep, knocking into the bars of the cot so that it sounds as though a minotaur is trying to ride through the wall of the house, he likes to dismantle his sleeping arrangements over and over again between the hours of 7 and 9pm. It used to be that he stripped himself, did a wee on the mattress and then called for help, but now he is trapped in his back-to-front sleeping bag (thanks for that tip, readers!) and can’t unzip it, so he amuses himself by taking off the sheets and folding the mattress in half (actually quite a phenomenally difficult thing to achieve) and then sticking both legs through the bottom slats. Before calling for help.

Whoo, bedtimes are still the most testing time of the day. I think (still) that it’s because you really feel as though you’re finally owed a bit of a bloody break, thanks very much, and your brain sees 7pm (or whatever time, 5pm would be idea, hohoho) as the cut-and-dry deadline for any child-related shenanigans. The other night, when Ted was still going at it with his mattress-bending at 9.15pm I ended up bellowing this is Mummy’s time now! I’m not available! 

He just stared at me blankly and said, “ham?”

Ted is saying “ham” a lot at the moment. I have no idea why, other than that he really likes ham. But the more he says it, especially in answer to completely unrelated questions, the more we all laugh and the more he thinks it’s funny. He’s chatting away like the clappers, now, and if I read a story to him he copies every single word. Which is sweet, but at the same time it makes it really hard to read – it’s like having an echo that makes no sense.

In other news, Ted did something the other day that was both highly convenient and potentially disastrous, all at the same time. I knew something was up because things had gone quiet in the living room and then, when I called him, he said “coming Mama!” and arrived in the kitchen holding his (very full) nappy between forefinger and thumb. He had done a poo, carefully taken off the nappy pants and walked to the kitchen without dropping any of the poo onto the floor. To be frank, it’s almost more than I can do and I’m thirty-six years older than him. Not that I wear nappy pants, you understand.

Oh God, I must dash! Angelica has had her taster morning at school and I’ve just realised that the time they’ve said to pick up is actually the time when they’ll be coming out of the gates! Not like in nursery when you just saunter in between x time and y time and everyone’s all chilled out and “here’s a painting with some twigs and dirty feathers glued to it, it’s a duck, yes that’s an acorn representing its one eye”. I have a drawer full of those paintings. Ah, such excruciatingly happy days, tinged with such anxiety that time keeps flying by too fast! Why is being a parent such a bloody emotional rollercoaster?

The post Life Update: End of the Baby Era appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Life Update: End of the Baby Era was first posted on July 3, 2019 at 3:35 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at contact@amodelrecommends.com Life Update: End of the Baby Era published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[mercurialtraveller-blog]

Day 2 Tokyo Managed to get some sleep overnight on the plane. Watched half of John Wick 2 and some of Ghost in the Shell. Had an odd breakfast with a horrible tasteless overcooked vegetable biryani. Was eager to get off the plane as it took over 9 hours from Moscow. Touched down. Yes. Finally made it! Made it through Tokyo Narita Airport with little to no trouble... Then my brain stopped working. Having seen many cigs smoked in the films I had watched on the plane I was eager to have one myself, to say the least. I went to the smoking area (which, incidentally was grim - the AC didn't seem to be working so it was SO smokey!), dropped my bag off outside as it was crowded and sparked up. I was eager to not keep Maddy and Ville waiting any longer than necessary so I rushed down the underpass to the station and bought a ticket to get the Skyliner into Nippori. Just about to pass the barriers... Shit! Where's my bag!? Rushed back under the underpass and thankfully it's still there! Phew! Back under the underpass... Second time around... Through the barriers and then... FFS! I've forgotten to pick up my Japanese SIM card. Back through the underpass. Up to the fourth floor of the terminal to grab my SIM. Nice. Sorted. Make it back to the platform (after attempting to go to the wrong one - d'oh!) with 10 mins to spare. The journey wasn't very eventful, however one thing that amused me did happen - the guard just looked at me and completely ignored me when checking tickets! Guess he couldn't be bothered faffing with a ' tourist. After a bit of a palava with the Japanese equiv of an Oyster card (needed to put my train ticket into the barrier and then touch my Oyster card... In that order... At the same barrier... Odd) I made it to Shin-Okubo station. Walking out of there was... Intense! I was greeted by a small (by UK standards) street filled with hustle and bustle. Notably a family were stood right next to the station shouting at each loudly in a foreign language, which weirdly I don't think was Japanese. I could not stop smiling. It finally hit me that I was actually in Tokyo! Just down the road was my hotel. Said hi to Maddy and Ville, who i'd be travelling with for the next month or so. The rooms were in traditional Japanese style, which was a nice touch. Mine consisted of a hallway, where you were to leave your shoes, a simple living room with a TV, small table and cushions to sit on (no chairs!), that lead onto another hallway with a shower room, electronic toilet (complete with as yet untested butt spray) and a small bedroom with no bed - just a matress you put onto the floor. We were discussing lunch whilst I was en route to the hotel and I made the decision to eat meat whilst I was in Japan for a couple of reasons: a) It's really hard to be veggie here, as vicki had stated - they just don't understand it! b) I wanted to take in Japanese culture. So with that in mind we set off to a fish restaurant 📷 where I had raw tuna with rice and soup - was a bit strange eating fish again, but was very tasty! Defo don't see this trend continuing as I go on in Asia though, and certainly not when I return home. After this we took a trip to Electric Town. Lots of big high rises with neon lights 📷. This is an area filled with anime shops, trading card shops, toy shops, gambling arcades (think slot machines but with some sort of game which has ball bearings falling down into different areas and a video game element as well - very strange!) and gaming arcades. We checked out a few gaming arcades of these and learnt one thing - the japanese take their rhythm games VERY seriously. There's one called Chunithm, which has a touch screen piano with notes approaching it, somewhat like Guitar Hero, which seemed to the be the most popular. There were lines of Chunithm machines with Japanese teenagers frantically tapping and swishing the controllers frantically to rapid music, all wearing what I presume were specialised gaming gloves so their fingers didn't get blisters. All hitting 500+ combos on what seemed like very difficult stages. One guy was so into it sweat was literally dripping from his chin! Given the level of play on display I decided to give that one a miss and played a game called Taiko: Drum Master. In this game you watch a bar with different symbols appear and drum on an actual drum, hitting different areas with different strengths depending on the symbol that appears on a moving bar. Managed to get an S rating on my second try, which whilst was a proud moment for me, wasn't my crowning glory in the Japanese arcades. After a short stop (and much needed nap!) back at the hotel where I started this entry, we checked out an Udon noodle place in Shinjuku where I had some Tempura prawns with Udon noodles with egg and some other unknown stuff in them. I watched a Japanese guy add various seasonings to them by the place where you got your drinks so I did the same - unsure what they were except for the crispy onions, but it tasted good! I feel like it's going to become a theme that you're never quite sure what you are ordering here, so even if I had tried to stay veggie whilst here, I don't think it would've been possible! We noted that often Japanese people will come to eat on your own - this seems more common than people eating in groups in a lot of more 'fast food' type places. We then headed up to a 200m viewing point 📷 in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government No.1 building. The views were amazing, especially as night had fallen.... What a skyline. It was difficult to take a decent picture of this as I didn't have a tripod, so please excuse the blurry one I have attached! After spotting another arcade with a fighting game 'Battle Arena', we found a bar near to the restaurant where we had some 'interesting' cocktails, including the worst mojito I have ever had in my life. It was like... soda water, rum, and a tiny sprig of mint! Ville stuck to Cupa Libre. A sensible choice. We headed back to the arcade, where I got destroyed at a mech battle arena game, but then left undefeated at Virtua Fighter, which needless to say I was more than happy with! Maddy had to drag me away from the machine as the place was closing! We headed on to another bar called Ren - this was linked with the 'Robot Restaurant' which we decided to save for another trip as it costs £40 to go in and see the robot show. This was hidden away in a back alley. We headed up in the lift and were greeted with a massive, empty bar, with a really good pianist playing covers of famous pop songs. We didn't really know how to react to this place, but decided to stay for a drink! The decor was ornate, but also quite tacky. We decided to take a seat in what I can only describe as 'thrones' 📷 and chilled for a couple of hours, whilst observing some businessmen come in, followed by some very brash Japanese girls who sharply left after shouting 'Ous!' back and forth with the businessmen. Maddy and Ville suspected they were escorts. It was all very strange! On the way back we stopped at a supermarket where I bought some snacks, including a hot roll filled with some sort of strange bolognese sauce. It was kind of soggy but alright. 6/10 wouldn't eat again. Headed to bed with plans to update my journal, but shortly fell asleep, as we had plans to rise at 10 the next day.

Powered by Journey Diary.