#just a little 1 hour bonus thing like that would make me so happy

[viennakarma]

My dearest friend and enemy (2)

PART 2 | Fernando Alonso x Reader

Summary: You and Fernando always dreamed of the day you'd get into Formula 1. Unfortunately, the competition, the pride and the stubborness, get in the way of a beautiful friendship.

Word count: 7.1k

Tags: female!reader, driver reader, coming of age, ups and downs of a friendship, brocedes coded, very very angsty, cursing, anger, fights, overuse of flavio briatore as a plot device, lots of low blows, sprinkles of romance, kissing, making out, happy ending, not beta read

Relationship: Fernando Alonso x Reader

Note: Someone requested this, with this very detailed request, and it has consumed my every thought for the past week or two. I had to tweak some things from the request here and there, hope it's ok. It's heavily inspired by brocedes. (There is a lot of info that is wrong or inaccurate, I did this on purpose to fit my narrative, if you catch them, please ignore)

I was wondering doing a bonus part about Fernando POV throughout everything (to show he was ALSO miserable), but I don't know if i have the time and energy for it. Let me know if you guys would be interested in it and I'll do it in headcanons/topics.

I'm sorry if it feels rushed, this was taking way too long and I just wanted to follow my heart. Feedback and opinions are appreciated xx

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PART 1 | FERNANDO'S HEADCANONS

You were moping and crying in the living room when the phone started ringing. Looking at the little screen that showed the number that was calling, you knew it was Fernando. You had memorized his number at some point in your lifetime. Your parents weren’t home, so you hesitated. You took so long that his call went to voicemail.

“I know you’re there,” he said, voice sounding tired, low and inpatient, “please pick up the-”

You pulled the phone cable, unplugging the call and silencing him. Wiping your tears, you stared at the unplugged phone on the little side table for what felt like hours, until your parents returned from work, when you got up to plug the phone back and pretend like you didn’t spend the whole day mourning a friendship you always thought would last forever.

After two days ignoring all calls, even Flavio’s, you decided that you’d shield yourself from now on, and you wouldn’t give Fernando any more ammo to hurt you. You met with Flavio at the next race, face heavy with makeup to cover up the sleepless nights you had gone through. You put your bag down and stared at Flavio across the table.

“Good morning. Let’s go back to work,” you said, gently pulling the stack of papers from his grasp. He called your name in that tone, of someone wanting a heart to heart.

“We should talk about the f-” He started but you cut him off.

“No, I don’t want to talk about that,” you said.

“I talked to Fernando and he-”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it. He’s dead to me.” You repeated slowly, finally looking up at him. Flavio must’ve seen something in your eyes because he let the topic go.

You didn’t see Fernando for two more days, and when the weekend officially started, you avoided him like the plague. Even when you two were in the same place with other drivers, you’d ignore his existence for the most part. Whenever you were in a little circle chatting with other drivers and he arrived, you’d leave immediately. Press conference, you convinced Jenson to switch places with you so you could be as far from Fernando as possible. Even with team debriefs, with Flavio trying to make you talk to Fernando, you refused.

The rest of the season was insane, during team meetings and debriefs you were cold and barely talked to him. He didn’t try to talk to you either, and the silent distance only grew.

You were head to head in a race, you were P2 and Fernando P3 right behind you.

“Switch with Fernando,” your engineer said on the radio.

“He won’t fucking pass me,” you said into the radio, holding your position and pace. He was less than a second behind, and you refused to let him pass.

“I repeat, let him pass,” That was Flavio.

“If he manages to overtake me, he can go.”

He didn’t. You knew you had more pace, but still he insisted, and through the mirrors, you could see him closing in behind you. He tried to overtake but you pushed the car fast, and when he couldn’t anymore, he turned into you, touching his front right tyre to your rear left tyre. You were too fast. The mere touch of his tyre bursted yours. You couldn’t even get angry as you lost control of the car in a millisecond, the speed making your car fly into the air as it hit the gravel. With your car overturning a few times in the air, you watched your sight going ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sky.

Then you blacked out.

When you woke up, you were on a stretcher being placed carefully inside the ambulance, you tried to get up, dizzy and someone handed you a bag where you threw up inside.

You had an insane headache as they took you to the medical center. Apparently, everything else was alright as you checked your own body for any injuries or problems. The doctor checked you but still made you through a round of tests and injected saline solution diluted with pain medicine in an IV drip. They also decided you’d stay overnight to make sure nothing was wrong. 

Your dad, who was watching from the garage, was the first to find you in the medical center, visibly worried and crying. He hugged you for a whole minute, before taking a step back and touching your face to make sure you were really alright.

“I’m ok, Papá. Just passed out when the car was spinning in the air,” You smiled softly, wanting to dissipate his worry.

“When you didn’t answer the radio-” He choked back tears.

“It’s ok, I’m ok now.”

“What are you feeling, darling?” He pressed, holding your hands to look for injuries in your arms.

“I’m all in one piece, Papá. Just a little sore, but that’s normal whenever a racing driver crashes,” you let him know, and he nodded.

“Let me just call your mother. She was so worried she wanted to get into the first flight here,” He told you.

“Tell her I’m alright and I love her,” you whispered and he nodded, going outside.

You sighed as you were left alone, trying to find a comfortable position where you didn’t have to move too much, since your whole body felt like it had been run over by a truck. The door opened and you thought it was Flavio, but you were faced with Fernando, still sweaty and in his overalls. He looked disheveled, but he was full of worry, even his eyes looked a little misty as he stood there a few meters from you.

But you couldn’t look past the anger when the memory of him diving into your car came back. He had gambled with your life, out of pettiness, out of envy, he couldn’t pass you, so he decided the next best thing was to take you out, not even caring about the danger he was putting you through.

“Leave.” You said, with gritted teeth.

“Please,” he begged with his voice softer than you had heard for almost a year, “let me just-”

“Leave! You could’ve gotten me killed, Fernando. Get out!” You said, louder. “Do you have any idea that you could have ruined my life in a moment of anger?! That you could have gotten me seriously injured or worse?! I would have never done that to you!” You pressed your index finger to the nurse button repeatedly, and a few seconds later, a nurse came in, “Ma’am can you escort him out please?”

You could see in his eyes that he was hurt by your words, but in that moment, all you felt was blind rage, for what he did the last time you spoke and because he crashed into you on purpose. You didn’t want to hear any excuses now that he realized he put your life in danger just because his ego couldn’t take a hit.

The next day, after you were discharged, you traveled for a meeting with Flavio at Renault’s headquarters. He met you alone in the meeting room, talking to you about the accident, and after making sure you were physically fine, he went off.

“What you did yesterday was reckless and you went against express orders from the team and from me. This is not happening again, or you will be risking your seat at Renault,” He said, his voice never leaving room for debate, you swallowed and nodded, “When the team orders you to do something, you do. No questioning, and no going against it. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fernando was really worried about you yes-”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” You cut Flavio off.

“You two are best friends, it’s really sad to see you lose all that because of Formula 1” Flavio said, gently.

“He put my life at risk, Flavio. This is not something a friend would do,” you stood up, walking away but you stopped by the door, “Kinda curious how motorsports, the very thing that brought us together, is the same that tore us apart.”

Then you went to meet the engineers for the next race strategies. 

That night as you laid down at home, you thought that you’d never compete with Fernando solely because he was Flavio’s favorite. If it ever came to Flavio to decide whether you would win or Fernando would win, he’d always pick Fernando. You could’ve been fighting for the championship this year, he had promised you, instead you were being used as a step in Fernando’s path of glory, when you could be fairly racing him for the championship. You’d always come second to him there. That was also the moment you stopped seeing Flavio as a friend, and confined him back to a position of Team Principal.

You reread the Sauber proposal that came to you that year to start racing for them the next season, tempted to just go and make your name somewhere else. Somewhere where you’d be put first.

But deep down, a sense of indebtedness had rooted into your heart ever since the day Fernando told you the truth. You had to pay Flavio back for his trust and for his money, and the only way you thought you could do it was by becoming world champion under his team.

There was still a little kid inside you, a little kid who aspired to prove Fernando wrong, to become a champion and prove to yourself you’re more than him. More than who he wanted you to be, more than a loser.

You turned down the offer from Sauber.

The rest of the season you went almost robotically. You still gave your all every race, but your mood would always damper when you had to follow team orders.

“Ask if me and Fernando can switch, I’m faster!” You said on the radio. You kept driving, Fernando a little less than two seconds in front of you, but you were getting closer and would catch up to him in two laps.

“Negative, protect his position.”

“There’s a McLaren right behind me! They’ll pass us both!”

“Negative, team orders.”

You swallowed and held your position, trying to maintain your P2 and Fernando P1. But when the McLaren got close to you, they managed to pass you after a brief battle, going for Fernando a couple of laps later.

Later, you stood on the podium, looking ahead knowing that P3 could’ve been a P1 if they had let you fight for it. You didn’t look at Fernando on the other side of the podium, you just stood there, eyes watery. You pretended to take part throwing champagne for a few seconds, forcing a smile knowing that it would look bad not to.

The post race interviews were torture, and you wanted to go home and vent to your parents.

“How has it been to manage your friendship with Fernando outside the track?” A reporter asked, and your smile disappeared from your face.

“We were never really friends,” you shrugged, annoyed, you added “Are there any questions about racing instead of my personal life?” The reporter was silent, visibly taken aback by your responses, you had rarely been hostile toward a journalist before, you knew he would have a field day with just those replies, especially when your PR manager gave you a hard stare, “No? Thank you, see you around.”

You finished P2 in the race Fernando became champion for the second time. When you got out of the car, you watched as Flavio and Fernando hugged, jumping from the ground and celebrating. The number one and your team principal. After the podium ceremony, you didn’t bother to stay to spray champagne, just leaving and going straight out.

You got a couple more proposals from other teams, and you were tempted, until Flavio told you Fernando was leaving for McLaren the next year and offered you an extension. You took it under the condition to become the number one driver now that Fernando was out of the picture.

A part of you mourned the death of the dream, the one you had at fourteen to become teammates with your best friend. So many things had happened in between everything, now you would miss it. Only the good, not the bad and ugly. You wish you could go back in time, redo everything, and never allow yourself to lose your best friend on the way.

The next year you ended up striking an unexpected friendship with Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg and eventually the two rookies Lewis and Sebastian, who had been very vocal about being fans of yours.

You didn’t go back to talking with Fernando. You didn’t try and he didn’t either. It felt like the bridges were too far burned to recover.

One day as you walked out of the garage, you saw Fernando with a girl on the opposite side. She was clinging to his side, whispering. You knew he had his fair share of fun with grid girls but he never invited them to watch the race from his garage. You wondered if he was dating again, after a couple of years being nothing more than a player. You also wonder why it made a pang of pain flare through your chest.

You don’t linger too much. He had no reason to tell you. You weren’t even friends anymore.

You moved on, as much as you could. And eventually, you met Kaka, or Ricardo, as you preferred calling him. He was a footballer, a big name in the sport, playing for a big team in Italy. You actually met him at a gala party, the both of you being silly introverts, bumping into each other when trying to find a way out. You two ended up talking for hours on the balcony, watching the city lights.

He reminded you of Nano before Formula 1.

And you actually wanted to smash your own head against the handrail as you thought that.

After exchanging numbers and calling a couple of times, you managed to convince Ricardo to come to a Grand Prix. His presence was calm, funny without being mean, and so gentle. It was actually the calm between the storm your life and job was.

You were pacing around outside the motorhomes to try and see if he had arrived yet, since the last you had talked to him was when he was on his way. While waiting, your eyes found Fernando’s on the opposite side in front of McLaren, he was sitting down with his girlfriend telling him something. You stared at him for a whole minute, and for a brief moment, the anger left his eyes for something softer, something like-

“Hi, minha linda!” Ricardo showed up out of nowhere, and he hugged you so tight he actually swiped you off your feet.

Once the surprise passed, you hugged him back, your fingers finding their way through his hair. And he laughed, spinning you before putting you down. You talked for a bit, your face lit up as he told you about his day.

Your eyes unconsciously turned to Fernando, because you could feel that he had been staring at you for as long as Ricardo was there. His face was back to anger.

“You want me to give you the grand tour?” You offered, just so you could escape the weight of Fernando’s glare.

You took Ricardo by the hand and showed him all around, even introducing him to part of your team. After that race when you placed third, Ricardo invited you to a date, the first official one. After a couple of months and a few kisses, he asked you to be his girlfriend. You only hesitated for a second before smiling and squealing a yes.

Being the main driver of your team allowed you to live an entirely different season as a racer. You didn’t want to be arrogant, but you had it in the bag. You had the best car, the best engines, and just the perfect amount of boldness. Add insane strategies, and you were unstoppable.

Despite Fernando being your close rival on track, he was way too busy beefing with Lewis, his surprisingly great rookie teammate.

During summer break that year, you were on a trip to Brazil with Ricardo, but still, the night of July 29th, you got up at two a.m., slowly went to the fridge, where you got an ice cream pint. With a spoon, you sat on the handrail in the balcony, and watched the waves breaking on the beach a few meters away.

It was weird keeping the ice cream tradition alone, but you supposed it was even weirder not keeping the tradition. Staring at the stars, you wondered if Fernando had any ice cream to celebrate his birthday that day.

“Hi,” you heard Ricardo behind you, his hands sneaking around your middle and he hugged you from behind, laying his head against your shoulder, “everything ok?”

“Yeah, just wanted a little treat,” you mumbled, closing the lid on the ice cream, because a selfish part of you didn’t want to share the tradition with anyone other than Fernando. It was silly and stupid, and still… you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You put the ice cream back in the freezer and smiled at Ricardo as he pulled you into his arms and carried you back to bed.

You came back from summer break with a renewed sense of focus. Deep down you knew that was your season. Your season to become world champion, and nothing was going to get in the way of that. As you won the first two races after summer, you became first in the standings, this sense of purpose being the one thing motivating you every weekend to give your best.

It was Interlagos that year when you needed only a podium to become World Champion, pretty much the same as Fernando two years before. The race was tough, and it felt like Fernando was out to get you, especially in a moment right in the middle of the race, when you were behind him in P3 and he tried to brake test you again, but this time you were quick to react, avoiding his rear and using his own dirty trick against him, turning sharply to overtake him from outer side, moving past him fast enough to gain some precious couple of seconds.

After that, you managed to smoothly overtake the P1 with a carefully planned pit stop that allowed you to come out first. Later on, you saw a crash, nothing too bad, but you found out it was Fernando and Webber.

“Are they ok?” You asked via radio to your engineer.

“Yes, they are already back on the pitlane.”

You sighed and focused back to your race, keeping your P1 safe, and going smoothly to take the checkered flag.

“Congratulations, Y/N! You’re a Formula One World Champion!”

You felt the tears coming down and dampening your balaclava, as you took one last lap to parc ferme, waving at the crowd that went insane.

It was like a huge weight was lifted from your chest. Because you were now world champion. You were there, and you deserved to be there, among the best. You didn’t need to prove yourself anymore, and you had finally paid Flavio back.

You jumped out of the car straight into your team, jumping with them, and Flavio ran up to you, pulling you into a tight hug. Jenson also found you and hugged you firmly, patting your back and Nico also hugged you, both of them were on the podium with you.

As you looked down from the podium, with a watery, emotional smile, you saw your dad crying like a baby and clapping his hands. Unconsciously, your eyes looked for Fernando, silly hoping it mattered something to him, that at least in the name of your former friendship, he would be there, but he was nowhere to be seen, and you felt like that was another nail in the coffin of your friendship.

Deciding to forget it, you drank champagne straight from the bottle, laughing as both Nico and Jenson paired up to drown you in champagne, looking happy for you.

After talking to your mom on the phone, you stood up, taking your bag and going out to look for your dad. You didn’t make it very far, as you came out in the hallway, you found Fernando, leaning against the wall. You paused, looking up to him while your heartbeat went up.

“I’m happy for you,” he whispered. And you wanted to believe it really badly, but thinking about him brake testing you during the race, trying to take you out, made you roll your eyes at him.

“Sure, you are,” you said sarcastically. He shook his head and clicked his tongue, like he was disappointed you didn’t believe him, “my debt is over now.”

“What?” He frowned, confused.

“I just paid Flavio for his investment,” you explained, “I’m not just here because you asked him to support me, I’m a damn great driver. I’m here because I deserve it, not because you took me out of pity.”

Fernando stared at you completely shocked at your words, something painful stabbing at his chest. He never thought you’d think like that over disgusting words he said in a moment of anger. Words that never meant anything to him, that he didn’t even believe in himself. The hurt in your eyes was the same from the day he said the words, when you cried looking into his eyes and telling him he was dead to you.

You walked past him and away. He wanted to shout that he never meant those words, that you were so much more, so much better. But you just left. Fernando followed you outside, trying to catch you and explain himself, maybe fix things between you, making peace.

But as he got outside, he paused, seeing you jumping in your boyfriend’s arms, laughing at something he whispered to you. Fernando swallowed, closing his fist and jealousy burned through his limbs, with such force that it felt like a fever.

Right after the Brazilian Grand Prix, Ferrari got in touch with you, offering a two year contract to become teammates with Kimi Raikkonen and drive for what was one of, if not the most classic team in Formula 1. After negotiations, it was a no brainer. You didn’t owe Renault anything any more. And that’s what propelled you to meet with Flavio that winter break in a cafeteria in Monaco. When you had called, he said he wanted to talk to you about something, which was convenient.

After pleasantries and small talk, you were ready to start, but Flavio cut you off without noticing.

“I have to tell you something,” he started, carefully, “Fernando is coming back to Renault next year.”

You froze for a second, not wanting to think too much about the implications of that. The fact that Flavio was willing to force you and Fernando to be teammates again even after the catastrophic ending you had before. Sighing, you covered your face for a second.

“I know you have reservations, but I’ve talked with Fernando and he’s willing to-”

“I’m going to Ferrari.”

And Flavio understood, after talking for a while. He knew Ferrari was most drivers' ultimate dream, and you weren’t immune to that either. Unfortunately for you, Fernando released the news he was going back to Renault a week before Ferrari announced you, and the media had a field day with that, tabloids and media outlets doing numbers of articles about you avoiding being teammates with Fernando again, since he was coming back and you were conveniently leaving almost at the same time.

Your races with Fernando kept being dangerous, one always trying to one up the other, dangerous moves and overtakes, close calls of crashing into each other, and more and more jabs publicly. The attacks at each other never stopped, and the media seemed to enjoy it, feeding into it ever so often.

One occasion, you were going for a win, and the only thing between you and that damn P1 was Fernando Alonso. So you kept your P2, biding your time as you tried to close the gap, leaving your chance at overtaking for the last few laps. When a fast turn came, you advanced, overtaking him, Fernando tried to defend his position, but you were getting the lead, and both of you were in high speed. Someone had to back out, otherwise you two would crash. But you were feeding off of anger and hurt, and you didn’t back down well into the turn, but suddenly, Fernando slowed down, giving up defending. You took the P1 and after a few laps, the checkered flag. You knew on the podium that Fernando was seething, his face didn’t hide that. Later, at an interview, someone brought up the dirty move.

“So, a very dangerous move at turn 2 during lap 47, no?” The reporter asked, trying to get a reaction out of you.

“I thought it was a pretty common battle, no?” You said, a condescending tone imitating him.

“Well, it could’ve caused you both to crash.”

“I took a risk, either I would pass and win, or we would both crash and DNF. Alonso was wise and went for the safest option.” I gave the reporter a fake smile.

You knew that answer would piss Fernando off, and a part of you knew he deserved it. Sometimes you acted on pure rage and pettiness, feral and way more aggressive against Fernando on track than you really needed to be. But he just pissed you off. Walking around with his model girlfriend, his attacks at your racing abilities, his pretty eyes that always seemed to find yours at the most inconvenient times.

Then, the race weekend would end, and everything that was left was shame. Your burning shame every time your mom’s eyes shone when she asked about Fernando, hoping you two would have made peace. You, looking away from her face every time you told her you knew nothing about Alonso because you didn’t want to see the disappointment in her eyes.

Later that year, after your two year anniversary with Ricardo, you accidentally found a ring box in his suitcase. A proposal ring, a beautiful big diamond ring, probably worth a small fortune. And you tried to feel happy about it, but you could only find dread in your heart. Despite loving Ricardo, you knew you didn’t love him as much as you could. And certainly not as much as she loved you. You didn’t love him as much as you loved-

Closing your eyes, you also closed your heart, and after that just like the coward you were, you broke up with Ricardo the kindest way you could. He was confused, because your relationship was tranquil, without many problems. It broke your heart to break his heart, but you couldn’t lead him on, you knew Ricardo was husband material, and the earlier you let him go, the earlier he would find his true happiness.

Ultimately, you decided to only pursue love after your Formula One career. Having a bit of fun here and there, and a couple of casual relationships even with other drivers, but nothing serious or public. When you found out Fernando was single again, a flicker of hope sparked in your chest, but when you saw him go back to his playboy ways… It died down.

Sometimes you would dream of a different life, of one you never lost your best friend… or even better, one that you never had to suppress the love you felt for him. And sometimes it felt too much, like all this love was just filling up your hollow heart, filling up until it overflowed, until you felt like you were drowning in it, because there was nowhere for this love to go. And you wondered, what do I do with this love, there's no one to give it to, there's no recipient to put it. So you would just ground your teeth and bear it, holding onto anger because that much love, that much longing did nothing but cause you pain.

Every time someone mentioned him outside race weeks, you felt ashamed.

Despite being in a top team like Ferrari, you’d only get a few wins, and some podiums here and there, so it wasn’t like you didn’t achieve anything. But you were a woman so it was obviously not enough, and the media started questioning your career and your place in Formula One.

After two years of you driving for Ferrari, Domenicalli, your team principal, sat you down to let you know Fernando Alonso would be joining the team the next year, and you bit the inside of your cheek, considering just retiring. The criticism was getting to you, and the perspective of living hell with Fernando as your teammate was a broken heart all over again.

When an opportunity arose to drive for Red Bull Racing, with a two year contract, you didn’t think twice before accepting. It would be your chance to turn the tide in your career.

It sent the motorsport world into a frenzy when your new team announced you and a week later Ferrari announced Fernando as their future driver. The same narrative of you running away from him was passed ahead. And of course, it got to the paddock. Most drivers that were close to you actually congratulated you, but of course, nothing was ever good for Fernando. And despite not fully talking to him, he was always willing to throw a mean comment at you any given day.

“And people said you’re washed” Fernando said right after the news broke, the second to last race of that season, his voice dripping with venom. You knew it was a backhanded compliment, he always did that when he wanted to get a rise out of you. He smirked, waiting for your feral clapback, as you always had one on the tip of your tongue.

But when he looked back at you, your face was stony, and you were looking ahead with your chin raised. You didn’t even look at Fernando, nor answered his taunting. You pretended he wasn’t there but he noticed your eyes were misty.

That had been a low blow, even for him. He didn’t know shit about your feelings regarding your career, but he knew exactly how the world had been treating it, and it made you burn with shame that he could add insult to injury this easily. You wondered why he would say something like that if, just like you, it had been years since the last time he was champion of the world. Two years pushing yourself to the maximum so you could achieve your second championship.

Fernando had been your best friend for so long, he knew exactly what buttons to push when he wanted to hurt you.

When someone else arrived, greeting you, you cleared your throat briefly before answering and plastering a smile that never reached your eyes.

“Are you running away from me?” Fernando cornered you later that same day.

“What?” You paused.

“I went back to Renault and you left, now I’m going to Ferrari and you’re leaving,” he shrugged. You scoffed.

“I’m not sure if you know, but my life doesn’t revolve around you, Fernando.”

“Well, that’s a weird coincidence, don’t you think?”

“What do you want? Why are you here?”

Fernando paused for a second, his eyes searching yours, he looked vulnerable, open like he hadn’t been in so long. He looked every bit your best friend from years before.

“I miss you, I-” He started, then cleared his throat.

“I miss the old you,” You swallowed a whole bunch of your pride just to be able to say those words.

“Things are different now…” Fernando started, his eyes full of hoping, of longing, “We could- maybe we could-”

“Fernando, we’re too far gone, what we said- what we did…” You muttered, feeling a lump in your throat, “how do one come back from that?”

“We could restart. Try again-”

“You lost me forever that day, Fernando.” You muttered, the tears holding on to your eyelashes. You didn’t need to specify the day, he knew, he had seen in your eyes the moment he lost you, “I spent so long hearing your voice in my head, telling me I wasn’t good enough, I shouldn’t be here, and I- I hated you that day. And I had to hold onto this hate, because the alternative was overwhelming sadness.”

There was a numbing silence for a couple of minutes, as you stared down at your own feet, trying to stop all the feelings you spent years carefully locking away from breaking free. So much had happened, you believed you and Fernando were too far to recover now.

“I’m a woman here, the first and only woman in so long, and the whole world was against me. You have no idea how it felt that my best friend, the person I trusted the most, was also against me,” You shook your head, feeling the tears drop.

“I’m sorry, Nena… I’ve never- I’ve never meant any of that.” He muttered, and you didn’t look at him to see if he was being genuine. You had formed walls around your heart to protect yourself from heartbreak, and you now had a hard time believing him.

“There are some things… that are not meant to be.” You didn’t look back at Fernando after you said that, choosing to walk away with this broken heart feeling ever present.

It was hard to keep going everyday. You had always faced backlash for being a woman in Formula 1, and you were used to it. But the media took a turn over the next few years. When you didn’t win more championships, when years passed and you were still there, along with other champions and future champions. They started to call you old, washed, telling you to retire and placing bets on when you’d lose your seat. It was baffling because it had been six years since your championship, but it had been seven years since Fernando’s, but still, you were the only one whose spot was questioned all the time. It was unfair, and whenever they came up to you talking about it, you’d ask them if they’d ask the same to older drivers or other champions. They would leave you alone for a week and then come back stronger, ready to throw your whole career under the bus.

Finally, you got another chance at the championship in 2013, after an unbelievable start of the season with five consecutive wins. That had put you first in the standings for the championship, and from there on, your team molded the season around you. Smooth sailing through the season, you became world champion in Suzuka, way too far ahead in the championship to anyone be able to catch up to you.

When you stood on the podium that night, you cried happy tears. You had once again proved wrong years of demerit from the world. As you looked down to search for your family, your eyes found Fernando right beside them, a proud, emotional look on his face as he kept a hand over his heart, listening to your national anthem.

He nodded at you with a small smile, and a part of you healed a little bit.

You enjoyed a couple of days of pure bliss after becoming world champion. Parties, celebrations and trips, they were all you did for the next few weeks.

When the FIA Prize Giving ceremony came, you had another bombshell to drop at the world. You were the most stunning you ever felt that year when you arrived at the ceremony, in a beautiful dark blue dress with little crystals all over the bodice, a beautiful hairstyle and even more beautiful makeup. Never in your entire career in Formula 1, you had felt so fulfilled, so happy.

Hearing your name being called as the winner, the number one, was different this time, and had much more weight, and it made your heart burst with happiness. As you walked up the stairs to the stage, receiving your trophy, you stopped by the mic.

“Thank you so much. I’d like to thank my family for supporting me from the beginning, my team for making the perfect season, and the perfect car for me to be able to achieve this. I’d like to thank all my teammates that, in one way or another, taught me some valuable lessons as a racer. Thanks to Flavio for taking a chance on my career when probably no one else would.” You said, with a smile. You took a good look around, all the people in this sport who made Formula 1 the most important category of motorsport, all your peers, all the teams. “I’m announcing my retirement from Formula 1, as of right now.”

There was a wave of shock and loud gasps in the whole room, flashes and flashes bulbing harder than before, journalists scrambling to take notes… But you kept smiling, hand firm around your trophy as you let the news settle down before speaking again.

“In 2007 I wanted to pay Flavio back for giving me the opportunity to be here today. That debt was paid that same year. After that year I wanted to win for myself, to write my name in the history books, and my dream is now realized. I feel like I should move on and make space for new upcoming talents.” Your eyes were wet with unshed tears, but you smiled, the first genuine smile in a few years.

Fernando felt his heart drop at your words. Things weren’t supposed to go like this, you two should be best friends, drive together, retire together. Go down in history together.

“I’m grateful for everything this sport provided me, the adventures, traveling around the world, the people I met and the people I lost,” there was a calm pause, and Fernando wondered if you were talking about him too, “Now it’s time to go and achieve new dreams. Thank you very much.”

You turned around and walked away under the applause.

Later, after the ceremony was done, you were getting ready to leave when Fernando came to find you. He was dressed in a beautiful suit, looking like a million dollar man.

“Nena…”

It made you pause. It had been a while since he called you like that with that specific tone. 

“What? Came here to gloat?” You couldn’t help but be defensive, worried.

“What?”

“I knew you’d be one of the happiest when I retired.”

“No, I would not-”

“You would, Fernando. You did. Many times you said I was done, that my prime was over, that I should retire…” 

“I never thought you’d easily give up!” He shouted at you, “Like you did in 2006, not competing against me.”

“That’s because they didn’t let me compete! Do you think I couldn’t have competed with you back in ‘06? I could, but every time, they would tell me to back off, to let you pass, to not fight you, to not overtake you-” You threw at his face, because you wouldn’t stand there and let him look down on you like that. You refused to back down now that you were finally free. “Pat threatened my seat if disobeyed team orders.”

“What?! Why did you never tell me that?” Fernando looked shocked. His fighting stance was completely gone now.

“You were going to be World Champion again. I would never take that from you,” You whispered, voice failing.

“Nena…” He said, like he wanted to drop everything. “Please, don’t leave. If Red Bull don’t want you, you can find another spot with another team, we can think of something.”

“Fernando, I’m not leaving because the team doesn't want me. In fact, they offered me a 3 year extension.”

“That’s not how it was supposed to go, remember? We planned that-” His voice was kinder than it had been to you in many years, “We would go down in history together. Win together, retire together.”

“When push comes to shove, only one wins… We learned that the hard way.” I say, with a sad smile, “Life doesn’t always go as planned. And I got everything I could ever want from Formula 1. Now it’s time for new stuff.”

“What new stuff?”

“I want to have a family, Fernando. People don’t stick around long for this lifestyle, you know that-” You shook your head.

With one last look at Fernando, your eyes watered, and you walked away.

Sitting on the porch, you looked up at the sky, thinking of what’s next for you. It had been months since you announced your retirement from Formula 1. The new season had already begun. It was your birthday, a refreshing new one.

You heard steps coming closer and your heartbeat sped up as you saw Fernando walking up to you. He sat down by your side, holding a pint of ice cream and two spoons. He handed one to you and in silence, you started eating ice cream.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said after a few minutes of silence.

“Was it hard to find me?” You asked, with a tentative smile.

“It only took me my whole life to find you again…” He said, wistfully, his eyes shining under moonlight and you didn’t know if those were unshed tears or not, “my best friend, my nena, my girl…”

“I’ve always been here. Right here.” You said, eyes watering. You weren’t sure you could explain what that here meant, but somehow you knew he would understand.

Fernando took your hand, gently placing it on his chest, right above his heart.

“Right here,” he whispered, pressing his hand above yours, over his beating heart, “you were always here.”

Then, he kissed you. For the first time in more than a decade, for what felt like the first time for both of you. As his other hand pulled you closer, the kiss deepened, like a prayer and a promise. Both of you knew there was a lot of resentment to navigate through, and a lot of feelings you’d both have to unravel and understand. But there was one thing that was always there, through hate, anger and hurt… And it was love, unshaken, steadfast love.

As you broke apart, Fernando pulled you into him, hugging you tight for a few minutes, before pulling away to hold your face with both hands, his eyes looking into yours with so much devotion it melted everything away.

“We will be alright.”

TAG LIST: @loopnotloopythough @thegooglyeyedpumkin @fordlita @dudenhaaa27 @clockworkballerina @coffee-lover21 @inejismywife @dckgzz @multiplemando @thatsusbitch @hrts4scarr @mame-mp4 @heyheyheyggg @sam-f1 @shocolattesblog @sunnytkm23 @cmleitora @beskardroids @90intherain @clomo12345 @fall-bambi @emmdreams @booksandflowrs @iwmtfm @haloxmendes @yupnomeh @sittingalonereads @julesbog @luckyladycreator2 @c-losur3 @alliwantisadonut @velocesainz @adalynneva @croissantbakerylws @spideybv28 @hrrorflm @kimialaia @s4turnsl0ver @redfives @starksztony @bluechamp @astrostar24 @offbrand-slasher @splaterparty0-0 @foolforfer @madnesstaking0ver @sarahedwards16

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[sylvies-chen]

ok TED LASSO EPISODE 2 THOUGHTS:

keeley wanting to take a blood oath with her coworkers on ayahuasca is so funny like these writers really understand girl culture 😌

dani is the unsung hero of this episode because his lines have such an innocence to them even as he’s telling trent to fuck off which honestly takes talent to portray with such naïveté so kudos to cristo for that!

THE TEAM BEING UPSET EVEN BY THE RUMOUR OF ROY AND KEELEY BREAKING UP hands down the funniest and most amazing scene of the episode like they all know roykeeley are precious and the king and queen must be protected at all costs i love those himbos 🥰

trent is doing his best and honestly we love him for it. I mean look at that face, what’s not to love?

I do think his book will cause some ground to rumble at richmond though. rebecca and keeley and higgins were right in nodding vigorously at ted because it will not be good if it blows up

also rebecca saying yes while seeing a bunch of no gestures just after ted did the same thint mhm yeah soulmates I do believe

roy is being his usual self this episode and you can so clearly see how his mindset with his career last season set the tone for his mindset in his relationship with keeley which led him to break up with her. he’s being stupid because hello, she’s keeley fucking jones, he needs to get over the insecurity, but I also get how his it’s valid as he’s felt it in so many aspects of his life before. him holding onto the news clipping is proof of that. the whole “some people would rather quit than get fired” thing just is so layered with him dumping her out of fear that he would end up dumped one day and have his insecurities about not being good enough for her confirmed. this also means he’s growing and will get over it though, trust in endgame everyone !!

zava is more of a diva then jamie was in season 1 and it is going to be a BLAST watching jamie perhaps revert back to his old self just a *little* bit out of jealousy and watch these two have one big ol’ diva-off (in my head it plays out like a “lip sync battle for your life” on rupaul’s drag race kind of moment but that’s just me)

THE PUB BESTIES ARE BACK OMG

jamie trying to hug roy and roy shoving him away cause he was freaked out was absolutely hilarious like it’s giving fleabag when claire tried to hug her (if anyone hasn’t seen fleabag pls go watch it on amazon prime)

Rupert Mannion is a slimy turd and I hope Rebecca murders him in a violent and unspeakable manner and then gets away with it

also Rebeca yelling at Zava in the bathrooms paralleling when she told Keeley that men give each other jobs in bathrooms all the time!!! Haha!

give me a ten hour episode of Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso batting his eyelashes and making comments about Hallmark Christmas movies and I will be a happy woman

BONUS: the amsterdam snowglobe!!! THEY KEEP TEASING THIS TRIP AND GOOD LORD IT IS GOING TO KILL ME!!!

[statementlou]

hi it's just me being nosy and asking a follow up to your vinyl anon--what are some of your non-1DCU favorites? collection tour please 😇

hiiii gosh and look you even put the link on for me to make it easy! The question itself is NOT EASY though I was like BUT WHAT IF I FORGET ONE?? Like what CATEGORY of favorite?! But the timing couldn't be better, I am currently as previously mentioned in the process of moving all of my stuff around, a huge project that 1) is perfect for listening to records while I do things like move books from one shelf to another and 2) means I just today moved my record player to a far better place where I am actually using it again for the first time in ages (for one thing onto an actual properly non wobbly surface) so I listened to records today and picked a few that will do sorry to all the others I forgot and love even more I'm sure

I picked first up Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth not just because it's so good (IT IS THOUGH) but also because it's an album that having it on vinyl feels SO right and it makes me happy just to handle; the pretty Gerhard Richter painting cover, a little crackle and pop with the music, the aesthetic of it all! I mean Sonic Youth probably literally birthed the indie hipster luddite aesthetic, it seems Right™ Second is The Bonny by Gerry Cinnamon, because being able to listen to the songs The Bonny and Ghost specifically on vinyl feeds my soul in deep and important ways. Also the 4th side is blank and etched with lyrics, like the JHO single, very cool. And last the record/album I've almost certainly played the most times in my life, even though the copy I have has skips now (to be loved is to changed and all that yk) and I haven't to date been able to bring myself to buy a reissue or pay $$$ for another original: 24 Hour Revenge Therapy by Jawbreaker. It's just important in like 15 different ways okay? Tip, if anyone is like huh! I will go listen to this album I've never heard it (DO!! also then tweet it at Louis a lot, he would REALLY LIKE IT) I think the best way to do this is to skip the first song the first time, it's a whole different vibe than the rest. Also right now my fave is LTLIVE on vinyl 😭 playing records makes me want to put it on SO BAD :((( also bonus content, one of my favorite things about records for some reason is seeing who goes next to who idk I just find it fun and if I were naming a band it would totally be a big consideration... so for extra tour of the shelf, Gerry Cinnamon is between the Germs and The Gits (listen the Cs are crowded, it's my shelf I can do what I want), Sonic Youth was between The Snuts and Social Distortion- which the astute may notice is not correct, she will be going back other side of Social D- and Jawbreaker nestle cozily between Japandroids and Jerk With A Bomb. Louis, for the record, lives between very twee girl band Tiger Trap and very fast hardcore band Tragatello, lol. A weird bill, that, but they do have one thing in common- all feature queer musicians

[sorcerous-caress]

It is so ridiculously, adorably, painfully wholesome (in a kinda twisted way?) that high elf loser would have continued to remain a porn rotted loser if Corellon hadn’t decided to give him one (1) friend to act as a sort of anchor to reality. I mean he’s still kind of a loser, but now he’s a loser with a friend that’s also a really hot fwb/fuckbuddy/maybe partner if his delusions ever come to fruition :) I really love the thought of the two of you still partaking in the hobbies you initially bonded over together, you coming over to his place to play the video games you like or watch TV shows you discussed. Like yeah sure sex is nice (especially when you beat his ass in a game and ride him on the couch so hard he cries) but also it’s probably really nice to have someone who sees him and accepts him for who he is and is happy to spend time with him :) It’s mostly a bonus that it comes wrapped in a gorgeous human frame that makes him so hard it hurts.

Like for a moment just imagine the sheer domestic bliss our beloved loser feels when you spontaneously decide to sleep over instead of going back to your place. How excited he gets when he realizes that he gets to keep you for the night and take care of you and make you food and then maybe, probably, plow you with all his characteristic desperation against the kitchen counter. And he finds himself looking forward to when you inevitably fall asleep in his bed because that means he’s gonna get to feel your warm, soft, human body pressed so nicely up against him for the hours you’re spent dreaming. Like mentioned he won’t touch you while you’re asleep (unless… the two of you have a discussion about that…) but just having every curve and line of your body against him has his cock hard enough to hurt while he drools a puddle of pre-cum into his sleep pants. Knowing how he is, he probably even thinks the little twitches/mumbles you make while you’re asleep are painfully endearing.

On that note: Morning sex? Waking up all drowsy and sleep-soft early in the morning and being surprised to see he’s in bed with you (when he sometimes gets bored or antsy and gets up to do other things while you’re unconscious), so you either roll over and climb on top of him for sleepy morning kisses? Or you drag him on top of you for the same? I know he’ll be pathetically ready to go either way

Also his possessiveness has me weak in the knees I cannot lie OTL He sees how heavily you are coveted and maybe it sparks something surprisingly hot and spitting in his chest, a combo of fear and irritation swirling in him as he thinks about the possibility of losing you to someone else. Or, even worse, having someone figure out your identity and try to arrange a hookup. Maybe it drives him to dig his nails into your flesh a little harder the next time you let him stretch you open on his dick, grip your hips and thighs tighter to imprint his hands into your soft skin, nip at your chest and throat a little fiercer. You’ve already utterly ruined him for anyone else, what’s the harm in learning into it a little harder?

I was putting these asks off until the name poll ended so I could officially use his new name. But at this point there are only 2 days left and I think we have a clear winner.

So woo! Meluidil, our beloved loser high elf, now has a name.

Now Meluidil does truly think it is Corellon's pantheon which are responsible for bringing you into his life. Blessing him with a lover who's his only friend after years of solitude.

But did Corellon really do it? Who knows.

Maybe he didn't. After all you are a human, how could the god of elves really command you or influence your life? You are out of his domian. For all Corellon knows, out of the blue this one high elf started praying to him again and giving offerings. Thanking him for a blessing that Corellon doesn't even remember giving or if he did at all.

Or maybe he did influence you, he is a god after all. But don't get him wrong, he never liked doing it or you. Much like a parent finally begrudgingly getting a puppy to their screaming toddler. Corellon dislikes half elves and the hold humanity has on his children. Your kind is a plague on his beloved elves and yet he still obliges from time to time and coax a human or two into a lonely elf's arms if nothing else worked.

Believe him, he tried. Really tried to get Meluidil a soulmate in another elf. Even sent an aquatic elf to him to save him from drowning once, and all that pathetic loser did was talk for hours about human movies where they almost drown and a mermaid saves them. Sighing about how the reason he even was in the ocean was because he was planning to save a cute human, alas he forgot that he himself didn't know how to swim that well. Then bid the aquatic elf goodbye and never came back to the beach again.

Corellon tried everything, but the human fever was strong with this one. So he accepted his loss and pulled some strings of fate until you landed into Meluidil's arms. But don't forget yourself, lowly human, elves still deserve elf partners. You just happened to be an exception this one time.

He never could've predicted the domino effect of your filming yourself with Meluidil and pulling even more elves into this degenerate human kink.

-

It is a blessing and a curse how much time he gets to spend with you now. On one hand, he's over the moon at the fact he can just turn and look at you whenever, feel your smile against his skin, taste your lips no matter the hour of the day, listen to your voice first thing in the morning.

On the other hand, you can't get anything done without him clinging to your side. All needy and curious about your human hobbies. Asking you the most intrusive of questions or beginning you to brush and play with his hair, maybe massage his ears. Do all the things to him that he was raised to never do as a high elf, touch him in all the places that a human normally wouldn't he able to touch an elf.

He wants your attention and love all the time. His own love for you is even spilling over the edges. Lust, admiration, adoration, fascination. You're like the spring dream that he never wants to wake up from, especially after a harsh winter.

And he is still a high elf in all appearance and mannerism. He still has this aura of importance around him, this ethereal way of speaking, every syllable akin to a melody on his tongue.

Having one of these creatures that were written about in history, that many humans never saw throughout their lifetimes, just sprawled across your lap, wearing your own oversized shirt as he whines about you paying more attention to your phone than him.

It is also sometimes jarring whe this hundreds of years old man, who probably lived through so many historic events and was there even before the moonlanding, just casually references a lame tiktok he saw while the two of you have lunch.

Making bad jokes and laughing at his own bad jokes, being able to inhale a family sized bag of the most spicy chips in the world like it's nothing because elven tastebuds get more endurance with age.

And at times- he is just so....human. the way his hair tangles and he struggles to fix it with a grumpy expression. The way he hits his toe on the table leg and curses the tree it was made out of in elvish.

The way he shows vulnerability and insecurity at times. At maybe not being pretty enough for you, smart enough or impressive enough. At how by elf standards, he is below average, it's just because you are human that you find his life achievements so impressive. That you find his face so enthralling, his voice so enchanting.

He deeply wants to belong, to understand humanity. Humans who are so impossible different from each other yet managed to find home in each other. How even the smallest difference could get you becoming an outcast in elven culture.

-

Somehow, the more the two of you sleep together, the more addicted he gets. Things that were supposed to cool off or become the norm after a few months, instead keep getting more and more ablaze. Each time he thinks this is as good as it can ever get, you surprise him with something new without even trying to.

Each hour at work feels unbearable, especially when he knows that you'll be waiting for him back at his apartment since his schedule ends after yours. He can't stop thinking about you there on his bed.

He can't get hard at work, but fuck he can't stop thinking about you touching yourself. Grinding into one of his pillows and moaning out his name, in that adorable human way where you keep mispronouncing it. He never thought his own name could sound so hot until you cried it out in bed.

And then, his phone innocently pings. A text notification from you.

His heart is racing, he's looking around his office even tho he is sure he is the only one there. Fingers shaking as he unlocks the phone, lips parting in a breathless gasp as he views the pictures you've sent him.

You're going to be the death of him.

-

The possessiveness is new.

It's not a feeling he's used to, he thought that he loved all humans equally. Found the majority of them hot and irresistible.

But he has never been close to one like he has been close to you, never even befriended one before.

You were his first human. He had sex with elves before, back when he was in denial of his human preference. It was alright, but he never truly was into it. Still, it was nice.

But after you? After your body and the tightness of your hole making him lose his breath? After a taste of the forbidden apple, there is no way for him to forget it now.

You've completely ruined whatever hope there was for him to have a normal elven relationship. Completely ereased any future possibilities of him sharing his bed with a non-human. He can't get enough of your plump body, your human scent.

It's like he is in a constant spell around you that keeps him seeking more, keeps hims asking for another round even when tears run down his cheeks from overstimulation, keeps him exhausting the both of you without any shame.

That's why the possessiveness is sprouting inside his core. He can't possibly find another human if you become interested in someone else. Even then, he doesn't want another human, he wants you.

He wants his friend that was there to console him whenever he was having a bad day, he wants the same person who played games with him and shared details about their day. Humans are truly wild and unpredictable, there's only one of you in this whole world and he can't imagine losing the one person he finally felt understood with.

[eliteseven]

Gathered a few recs for the Shadowheart playlist, if that’s still a thing. It’s a little lengthy because I’ve put thought into each one, and could simply go on for hours about this character:

Bring me to Life - Evanescence. Just a really perfect summary of Shadowheart’s Selûnite arc. Her journey from Shar’s darkness into the light, and how the player helps her to see the truth of Shar’s manipulations. With lyrics like ‘call my name and save me from the dark’, ‘Save me from the nothing I’ve become’, ‘I’ve been living a lie, There’s nothing inside’.

Like a Prayer - Madonna. For the religious themes and sexual innuendo of a woman who loves God like she might a person, compared to Shadowheart’s relationship with both the player and her love for Shar (Shadowheart a-likens her love for Shar with Gale’s love for Mystra). More appropriate for Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, where the player is effectively Shadowheart’s side piece/ Mistress to her real relationship with Shar. Bonus points for actually being able to pray to Shadowheart during a sex scene in the game.

Numb - Linkin Park. If you consider the song to be from Shadowheart’s perspective, directed towards Viconia/ Shar. ‘I’m tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, lost under the surface, I don’t know what you’re expecting of me, Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes’, ‘Cause everything that you thought I would be, Has fallen apart right in front of you’, ‘all I want to do, Is be more like me and be less like you’.

Somewhere I belong - Linkin Park. A song about someone trying to escape their pain, and find a place they can belong and be happy. For Shadowheart’s greatest shame; “She doesn’t know who she is, or where she belongs.” She spends the game trying to find a place for herself, whether that be with Shar, with her family, or by Tav’s side. If she ends up travelling alone, then she’s still trying to find it, come the epilogue party.

On the Beach - Chris Rea. Makes me think of the skinny dipping scene. ‘Between the eyes of love I call your name, Behind the guarded walls I used to go’, ‘No-one but you and I, Underneath that moonlit sky, Take me back to the place that I know, On the beach’.

The Housebuilding Song from Red Dead Redemption 2, because Tav and Shadowheart ‘build a little house together’. The song plays during a scene in the game where you build a house and a barn on a country farmstead for your family, which is what Tav and Shadowheart do post-game.

Why can’t this be love - Van Halen. Always makes me think of the mutual pining during Act 1 and Act 2, where Shadowheart refuses to act on her feelings for the player for the sake of Shar and her mission. Carries on into Act 3 on the Shar path, with Shadowheart explicitly saying “I can’t truly love you.”

Sunshine of your love - Cream. Makes me think of the Shar romance ending, with how Shadowheart and Tav have secret trysts whenever Shadowheart slips away from her duties. In particular, it makes me think of the original Shar romance epilogue slide, “By the Night Orchids bloom, her mind doth wander to old friends and an old flame. The one light she is never sad to see, when it doth cast itself upon the steps of the House of Grief.”

Girl - The Beatles. This one’s here exclusively for the line ‘When you say she’s looking good, She acts as if it’s understood’, since Shadowheart responds with “I know” to a player saying “You’re beautiful.”

My Love, My Life - Abba. Shadowheart’s writer did a QnA on one of Jen & Aliona’s streams where he said this would be Shadowheart’s favourite Abba song.

Omg!!! What an incredible addition to the Shadowheart Playlist tag!!!! 😍

I love your picks!! And I love hearing the explanation for why you chose each one! They tie into her story and themes so well! They’re all so fitting (besides being great songs), I can’t wait to listen to them with a fresh perspective! 😄

Thank you so much for sharing your compilation! I’ll be stealing these for my master Shadowheart playlist if you don’t mind! 🥹

[03-17]

i should be writing my paper for my class but nooo i just had to rediscover the hetalia x sleep by sheep collab more specifically the italy brothers centric drama cd and i think listening to each track had the same impact as if i just snorted a line five times over and gotten into cardiac arrest

the thing that sucks is that on youtube someone has only uploaded tracks 1 to 3 but if i remember where i listed to the others i'll add them here.. regardless the most important thing was that i found fully translated pages of the tracks so YAYYY

i've been thinking about these specific lines forever ever since the first moment my eyes read these words and my brain registered what was being read

such as my fav moments from track 1:

veneziano desperately begging romano to help him with his problem and being so stubborn to the point that he quite literally clings to the other like a koala crying sobbing shitting himself and does Not let go until romano gives up and gives in to him

romano casually threatening veneziano and he just does not give a fuck meaning he very often does this to the point where the latter just laughs it off and moves on

the entirety of this part.

no i'm being so serious i read this segment and blacked out for an hour THERES SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

when i heard the audio as i was reading romano starts talking with a gentler tone despite the fact that of course he's still picking at veneziano but it's also just the "my stupid little brother" that gets me because yeah! that's what he is! he's yours! you're stuck with him!

veneziano's second line saying they don't really do stuff like this together and that he's happy ohh ohhhh [BOMB EXPLODING] [BABIES CRYING] THEY'RE ACTUALLY FOR ONCE GETTING TO DO SOMETHING TOGETHERRR AND IT'S THIS SILLY ASS ACTIVITY 💥💥💥

listen i know he immediately backtracks at the end but that's because romano is Like That but listen to me listen are you listening to me *voice cracking* listen to me

the pointing out of veneziano's expressions .. this isn't the first he does this throughout the track and it's certainly not the last but he pays attention to shit like that he pays attention to that detail in expression

romano bitching and whining that he's doing something sooo embarrassing and he's wondering why he's even still putting up with it when in reality it's like Boy. You know why.

(because you care about veneziano and despite it all you want to try to help and you want to make an attempt at least once)

THE. THE SECOND OF DOUBT THAT HE PROBABLY DID SUCK ASS AT COUNTING SHEEP UNTIL VENEZIANO CALLS FOR HIM! AND HE IMMEDIATELY FOLDS! BECAUSE HE'S GETTING THAT ONE SHRED OF REASSURANCE THAT YEAH! HE DID IT!

the admitting that doing stuff like this together is nice because they're actually finally getting the chance to do stuff together just for themselves and of course romano only finally admits it when veneziano is asleep because he would rather do a back flip into a volcano that admit it out loud in front of him

*voice cracking* *knees shaking* *eyes watering* i hate them so much

BONUS FROM VOLUME 2:

volume 2 of the hetalia x sleep by sheep collab was with germany and prussia and in the beginning of track 1 we get this confirmation from prussia

THAT PROVES THAT DURING THE ENTIRETY OF THE EVENTS OF VOLUME 1 TRACK 1 .. veneziano and romano were laying together in the garden of their home doing the sheep counting and napping and spending time with each other 💔💔💔💔

[isadollie]

★ matchup exchange with @sugutoad ! <3

♡ naruto uzumaki is your match!

★ your ideal first date sounds just like something naruto would ever dream of, honestly

★ being able to just spend some peaceful alone time with you, away from everyone, his head in your lap and also food?? perfection

★ he will definitely ask to repeat this kind of date over and over again

★ king of physical touch

★ i think it's his #1 love language, both for giving and receiving

★ 100% took you to out for ramen at least once

★ by "at least once" i mean at least once a week of course

★ we all know naruto is anything but quiet

★ however, as soon as he learns that you don't like loud noises, he will try to be a bit more considerate of that

★ imagine the looks on his friends' faces when naruto is suddenly silent?? like is he okay??

★ but in reality he's just happy, staring at you with lovey dovey expression

★ i also think he'd like to play with your hair a lot, especially since it's long

★ will ask you to teach him how to make different hairstyles

★ so that when you two are going on a date, he can do your hair!

★ will comfort you whenever you need it

★ gives you a hug, listens to you vent; whatever you need in that moment, he'll be happy to help

★ i also imagine he gives the best hugs:)

as soon as naruto returned to the village after a mission, he already set a brand new mission in his mind: he needed to find you.

you two were apart for way too long in his mind (it's been a few hours). but naruto was already missing you like crazy.

when he finally found you, walking around the village, he sneaked behind you and pulled you in a tight hug.

you immediately realized who's holding you. "welcome back" you said softly, and he gave you a small kiss on the top of your head. "i missed you sooo much." he mumbled, even though you saw each other just this morning.

soon enough, you found yourself eating ramen alongside your boyfriend, him telling you every single detail about his mission, and mentioning how amazing he did there. bonus points if you praised him too.

he didn't even notice when he started to feel sleepy. the next thing you know is his bowl being empty, his head resting on your lap as he let out a few snores.

he looked way too cute to wake him up now, so you just sat there, stroking his hair. it'll be worth it when he wakes up all flustered, realizing he fell asleep on you.

your second choice? gaara! i considered him a bit at first, but after reading further, i changed my mind and settled on naruto instead. especially after reading about your ideal partner! it could be gaara, but something just didn't feel right about this 🤔 also considered sasuke for a little second too!

a/n: thank you soo much for agreeing to do this exchange with me!! it was my first time doing a naruto matchup; it was fun! i hope you like it<3

[magicalyaku]

After the first week of February I decided I would only read sequels. I made true on that for a few books until my library app fucked me over and didn't download Simon Snow 3 which I intended to start reading during my break at work (where I have no internet). I was so mad! 8D I was sulking afterwards and started a different book once I got home and the resolution was broken. Instead the theme of the month can easily be "I have never read so many books with adult characters in a row."

Das Verbotene Kapitel / The Lost Plot (The Invisible Library 8) (Genevieve Cogman): I honestly wasn't too invested in this. I was like for the first two days, but the writing style of this series always takes so long to read for me. I used to like it, but right now I just lack the patience. Also, it's the eighth volume. High time for it to end, really. Halfway through I switched to the audiobook to listen to while gaming and well. I'm not good at listening while doing other things. Maybe I'll pick the book up again in a few years to give the second half a proper read. I was content though with what I heard of the end.

The High King's Golden Tongue (Tales of the High Court 1) (Megan Derr): I said "I need more fantasy buhu *sad face*". And then I looked at my TBR and realised that out of 50 books only 3 have absolutely no magic, ghosts, different worlds or planets or whatsoever. Uhm. Well. Errr ... That didn't stop me from going through this recommendation list for queer fantasy books. uAu" Found this book. Sounded alright. Read the preview pages. Sounded alright. Looked it up in the library, uhuh available immediately! Borrowed it. Read it for the remainder of the day and a few hours of the night. uAu~ I can safely say I had fun reading this book. It's not fantasy with magic and creatures, just old kingdoms full of queer people. The worldbuilding is good, with all the different regions and languages being a major plot point. I liked the adventure, the characters (Sarrica's and Lesto's friendship is great), the pining. Good times!

The Pirate of Fathoms Deep (Tales of the High Court 2) (Megan Derr): The follow-up to Golden Tongue! I was unsure at first if I wanted to read the sequels (there are of 5 volumes in the series at the moment), but vol 2 is about Lesto who was my favourite character in vol 1, so no choice. It's like that 5.5 chapter of a boys love manga though. In the 5 chapters of the main story everything is tame until the bonus 5.5 chapter where they can finally do things. In High Court 1, there's exactly one smut scene. In vol 2, there's a million. And the book is only half the size! D: There is a small adventure going on and given the setting it makes sense that it progresses the way it does, but the 3 books afterwards are full length again, so why is it only this one character who gets the short one? u_u He's happy in the end, so all is well, but I would have liked a little more. I guess I have to continue reading the next volumes in the hopes to get a few glimpses. u3u

Husband Material (Forever Material in the German edtion) (Alexis Hall): After two books with middle-aged man and their (amourous) adventures, we slowly inch back to the younger generation. From end-thirties to mid-twenties! Books written by adults for adults, you know. Adult problems. Brrrr. At least, it's funny. Silly even. Was the first one this silly? I think, Oliver and Luc did well sorting through their various issues. I enjoy Luc’s narrative voice. And I loved the ending! xD It must be such a sore point for many people but I was like HELL YEAH!!!

Out of Nowhere (In the Middle of Somewhere 2) (Roan Parrish): I already read the first and third volume of this series, so reading volume 2 was inevitable even though Colin was not the most likeable character in vol 1. And well, he has issues let me tell you. Daniel of vol 1 was a mess but he managed to get a new start and build something for himself in that place. Will of vol 3 may not have the healthiest lifestyle but he was not unhappy with the direction of his life before meeting Leo. Whereas Colin is absolutely miserable and has no idea what to do about it. It was intruiging to read how he and Rafe managed. You know, there's this thing about this kind of books where the characters meet exactly the kind of person they need to survive and to thrive. Even with all the shit going on in this particular one, it's still comforting. xD

Wayward Son (Simon Snow 2) (Rainbow Rowell): The gang is 20, so it doesn't break the streak! I had fun reading this. Curiously, I liked it better than volume 1. Not quite sure why. (Maybe because of Suffering Boys.) Volume 1 was interesting in the way it felt like the 8th season of a series you haven't seen any episodes of before. Now this is the rare look at what happens to the heroes after the series ends and I'm here for it. I also found it remarkable how Baz was described as that utmost evil and ruthless being at first and turns out now he is the most loving and patient boyfriend of all times. xD

Pictures of You (Tina Winter): German author here. It's very basic in the theme and kind of predictable. But in a comforting way. Sometimes it's nice to know where everything will go so you can just lean back and enjoy the ride. The characters were pretty good and the setting was well illustrated. I mentioned last month that my visualisation abilites are not very good but I had no problem seeing the photos the protagonist takes which was pretty neet! I also very much appreciated how all the important conflicts actually happen and are resolved! That’s not a given. xD

Ring of Solomon (Aden Polydoros): I like Mr Polydoros' other books and I appreciate very much how all his books are different from each other. This one is contempory middle grade with a touch of magic. It was pretty okay, but I think it could have been a little bit deeper, a little more ambitious or challenging or complicated. Just more. Yes, it's middle grade but kids are always smarter than adults give them credit for, right? I feel, if you really want them to adore a book you have to give them something challenging that is a little bigger than themselves so that they can grow into it.

Reforged (Seth Haddon): Another gay king+knight story that made me realise I very much have a weakness for this kind of setting. xD Which is so weird because when I look through YA books and see a heroine who is a queen or princess fighting for her kingdom I immediately click away ... Well. This was a solid book. Not quite as joyful as A Taste of Gold and Iron or The High King's Golden Tongue but still solid (also it's a debut). The author clearly put thought and love into his main characters and probably the worldbuilding. Sometimes it was just written in a way that confused me at first, because the actual thing was named late. There's that other paladin guy who works alongside our hero. When he's introduced, it's written "They never got along." and then 90 pages later: "Now that XX was dead, he was his closest friend" And I was like "What?! I thought you hate each other? Did I read wrong? Let me leaf back real quick!" I mean, there is the possibility that among all those people he doesn't get along with this one is still the best but ... that's kinda sad. 8D So, there's small things like that. But the overall story and intrigue was well done I think.

Keeper of the Lost Cities 2: Exile (Shannon Messenger): I stayed at my parents's place for a few days to take care of the cats and thus my commute to work was twice as long as usual, so this came in from the library at just the right time. I listened to the audiobook though, so it was still a struggle for the first 8 hours. I'm so bad with audiobooks. 8D But the beginning was also very slow. It picked up speed around the halfway point, I'd say and also Keefe is my favourite character so I appreciated hearing more of him. I still find it a little odd how some of the characters' attitude towards Sophie is. Guys, she's only thirteen and didn't know about her powers for the longest time! How do you expect her to be perfect at everything and solve everything this very second? Geez. I'll probably continue with the 3rd volume at some point but I should really think about reading it instead of listening. :'D

On to the next month! As of writing this I already have read the best book of March, I swear. xD I’m possibly still high enough to even make a fanart happen.

[elliemarchetti]

A Court of Deadly Virtues (Book 1)

Plot: A Court of Mist and Fury retelling from Nesta’s POV. Set in ACOMAF bonus chapter

This is going to be totally canon-divergent further on, but for now every change is very subtle. Book 2 is full on Neris, so don’t expect a Nessian happy ending, just how I think their love story should’ve been. @a-court-of-valkyries this is the fic I was talking about in the tags of this post if you want to give it a try

Words: 1.154

Part 1

Chastity [2/7]

Someone had been flying in circles over the green-roofed house for at least ten minutes, and although Nesta repeatedly told herself it didn’t matter who would come, when they landed at the door she finally admitted she wished it was Cassian. She enjoyed arguing with him a little too much, and since last time he had to leave in such a rush, she wasn’t exactly sure of who won the argument, so she wanted the chance to have the last, definitive word. Furthermore, she liked being looked at by someone at her level, someone ready to retort even when she said the worst mean things a human mind can conceive. Cassian was certainly no courtier, but he was able to stand up to them and this was as much as Nesta could aspire to at the moment. She’d sent word yesterday about precisely when she expected the Fae to show up – emptying the house of all servants so often would raise more suspicion than it was safe, so she came up with a flawless plan – and when someone knocked it was a matter of a heartbeat before she yanked the door open with a sharp movement. Whomever it was, they were cloaked in magic, and Nesta saw nothing but thinning patches of snow melting on the muddy lawn and the sloping drive cutting through it.

“Who’s at the door?” asked the insufferably nosy housekeeper Elain loved so much.

“No one, just the wind,” she replied, and though she didn’t really expected the woman to trust her, not after what she’d seen on Feyre’s last visit, she was quite unnerved when she scuttled into the immaculate foyer to make sure she wasn’t lying and even more when she had to repeat herself after she declared she was retiring to her room and she wanted to be left alone for at least an hour. The housekeeper’s eyes thinned to stilts as she strode up the grand, carpeted staircase with steps quiet as death, the heavy, pale purple gown tight enough in the bodice to show off her slim waist and the fitted sleeves displaying her slender arms a clear sign she was hiding something. She chose how to dress and style her hair with meticulous attention and it was already paying off, for she was now sure it was definitely Cassian who was following her as silent as a ghost. She felt it in her stomach, she sensed it in the tingling caressing her spine; that Fae gave her such a physical response she was sure she should’ve been afraid of it, yet she revelled in his lust when she touched herself at night, enjoying the sensation but not the provider, fearing she might become addicted and make a faux pas. As soon as she entered her spacious bedroom, bedecked in velvets and silks of varying shades of blue and silver, and shut the oak door behind her, the heavy, slow posture vanished along with Cassian’s cloaking. A blink was her only tell of surprise in front of his wide wings.

“You’re ten minutes late,” she said, moving toward the crackling fire, where the sound of the flames might cover their voices.

“I do have other duties, you know,” he retorted, equally quiet, flashing a grin. It was a lie, he wasn’t late because of the armies he led for Rhysand, but she let the fool bask in his sense of victory, never recoiling, only lifting her chin to meet his stare.

“You need me far more than I need you, you should remember it. So let’s start again, nicer this time, and maybe I’ll be prone to help,” she replied as he took a step closer, bracing a hand on the mantel. Nesta leaned close enough to breathe in his scent, and it hit her in the gut so hard she could barely focus on making sure her eyes didn’t roll back into her head. She could nearly taste it, snow-chilled wind and embers, and she wondered if his skin had the same sweetness or if he was somehow more like the mortals in this sense. She would never know, not if he stood poised instead of burying his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder, not if his iron will kept him from touching her.

“There are other ways I could play nice, Nesta Archeron,” he purred as he moved closer, less than a hand’s span between their faces. The offer was another test, no doubt to find a weakness she was unwilling to show. A small smile curved her lips.

“If I wanted a male pawing at me,” she said, refusing to let her chin lower, “I’d sooner ask one of the hounds.”

Those words should’ve hurt him, but his insufferable smile persisted and Cassian went right for the throat as he asked if she’d ever been with a male. Telling the truth would’ve gave her no real advantage, but it wasn’t a loss either, and she was too tempted to know how deep he lusted for her not to use her virginity against him.

“Why should I have bothered?” she asked, pushing gently on his broad chest. A trained killer, a predator by birth and training, and yet he straightened when she stepped closer, a move that would’ve deleted the distance between their lips. He was scared, she realized with a cocky grin, scared and frustrated. It wasn’t a good mix of emotions to read on a man’s face, especially when a woman was alone in his company. The last time she’d seen it was when she cut things off with Tomas Mandray, and it hadn’t exactly ended well.

“Who did it?” Cassian asked through gritted teeth, with such certainty in his voice she almost feared he read her thoughts. She hated Tomas, she hated him so much she sometimes wished he’d be run over by a carriage, but the Fae’s eyes promised torture.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she retorted, and started to withdraw her hand when he grabbed it with a movement too quick for her mortal senses and pressed it to his chest, right above his galloping heart.

“Someone hurt you,” he stated, his tone so low and at the same time so mighty. It wasn’t a question.

“Would it change anything?” she asked, a shiver running slowly down her spine. She knew it wouldn’t, inexplicably, she knew he would still want her and kill for her and it shamefully turned her on so much she closed her eyes and gave him total access to her neck.

“Who?” he asked again, as his lips lightly brushed her throat. It was only a whispered bet, a murmur inaudible to any human ear, but Cassian was a Fae, and when Nesta opened her eyes she found herself alone in the room with a letter for the Queens on her bedside table and her hands dirty by association.

[patchesproblem]

I would like to know all of your Einsla hcs

I want to say that you're more powerful than anyone I know. I have so many.. I apologize in advance for the length of this.

This is probably going to be written across a few hours since I'm emotionally dead at this very moment and can't really process things as clearly as I'd prefer, so if anything gets repeated or it devolves into nonsensical ramblings I'm sorry.

Gay under the cut

This might be all over the place and jump between Lab 42 and current time, so uh oops...

Since this is all just hc's one of the first ones of mine is that Ein is 17 while Tes is 19. Einstein's birthday is towards the end of December while Tesla's is around the end of January. I have specific dates but eh. If anyone's interested I'll add them in later. Also headcanon them as extremely mean lesbians, and that they're both ace.

One of the first things is that I legitimately believe that they're soul mates. Which doesn't really affect anything or matter much, but they're always together in every universe. No matter what they manage to find their way to each other and it's sweet.. I love them. Even in the PE Einstein and Tesla were with each other, and Tesla's departure affected Einstein so badly she started wearing her glasses and dyed her hair to match hers.. They're soul mates and I refuse to hear differently..

Going off of in game information (aka their memory clips from the dorms and the AE VN) I personally believe they met each other in 1953. It's really the only thing that makes sense, because so much happened and you can't tell me that it all happened within the span of one year.

1953 is when the first eruption occurred, and soon after Planck and Einstein joined the American branch of Schicksal. Tesla began studying under Planck, and they quickly became friends. Of course it was a bit.. Interesting at first. Tesla had her whole song and dance of 'threaten people so she doesn't get attached and hurt' but they became friends rather quickly. Planck probably wasn't that amused just because Tesla's destructive, but whatever makes her little girl happy ig.

They became friends and were basically inseparable. They actively made each other worse. They looked at each other and went 'Yeah I can make her worse.' Dumbasses, truly.

Putting this in after the fact, but Tesla likes to think that she almost scared Einstein off at first. That was very much not the case, and she knew that she wasn't as big and bad as she tried to come across. Though she lets her think that just because it's harmless and helps her sleep at night.

At first Tesla was weary of Einstein, but like I said they quickly grew on each other. The reason I say this is just because I can imagine her thinking 'wow child prodigy. Can't wait for her to think she's better than everyone else and then be the dumbest person alive.' Was not the case. She is better than everyone else and Tesla loves her for it and will make sure that Everyone knows it. They are beneath her and she will make sure you know it.

Whenever one of them went the other followed even if they weren't needed just for funsies. They always worked together (Einstein would say it's just because Tesla stared at her pathetically but she just wanted to. Her looking pathetic was only a bonus because she could say she felt bad for her or something if questioned.)

They acted as each others emotional support in a sense. Since they met soon after Karl died I like to think that Tesla was always there for her when she couldn't handle dealing with it on her own. Along with this I think that during the time Tesla had to work with Dipshit 1 (aka Edison) Einstein was there to help keep her sane and help her not completely break down. I won't be going too much into this for my own sanity, but soon after Tesla tried to burn down Dipshits office (With Einsteins encouragement) they both just bailed and went to Lab 42 after Einstein got her doctorate.

This one is something I wouldn't shut up about the other day, but it means sm to me and if I'm yelling about my headcanons about them it'd be a crime to not mention it.

I don't think Einstein ever said anything to Tesla after she wasn't able to get her degree too. She never mentioned it nor did she really care. It's hard to explain but she knew that a silly piece of paper didn't determine how much she actually knew essentially. She saw her as her equal and not having a diploma wouldn't change that.

Another headcanon I have is that Einstein dragged Tesla along with her to Lab 42 and refused to work with anyone else other than her. Reason they went to Britain in particular is just because that's where Schicksal assigned them, and it got Tesla away from Dipshit 1 so it worked.

Taking a short break from that but I want to just say how much I legitimately think they care for each other. It's shown in the VN a little, but not much since it's coming from Welt's POV and both of them aren't as affectionate in front of others since yanno. Professionals.

They're really the only two people who actually understood each other in a sense. Like with Ein people mostly just saw her as a child prodigy who thought she was better than everyone else, and Tesla was just seen as an angry ridiculous person who was too emotional and needed to act her age.

It's difficult to explain, but I hope you kinda get the idea. Ein didn't have to act like a mature adult when around Tes and could actually just act like herself. Same went for Tesla, and she didn't have to worry about being belittled for just existing in a way others deemed childish. I've said this before and I'll say it again. A lot of what Tesla get's upset over makes sense. She HAS A RIGHT to be upset over it.

Along with this I hc Tesla as having ADHD and depression which makes her situation worse since emotional dysregulation often comes hand in hand with it. Literally only thing getting mad at her for the way she reacts does is make the situation worse. Hence why when Tesla gets mad at Welt Ein tells him to just leave her alone and don't bring it up again.

I could make an entire post explaining why I think ADHD Tesla is real, but that's the basic parts that's needed for this so.

Einstein actually made an effort to understand and over time they've come to a point where they've developed ways to actually communicate even when Tesla's on the verge of murder. Like Tesla has slight differences that she's caught on to and is able to use that to figure out how to help. She'll just try to give her space and just do small things to try to help calm her down as much as she can. Either that or she'll just sit / lay with her for awhile to make sure she either A. falls asleep or B. knows she's there for her and hopefully allow her to feel like talking.

The same goes for Einstein as well. Tesla helps her in ways that she herself doesn't even realize, yet they mean the world to Einstein. She'll be in a bad mood or having a bad day and then as soon as Tesla starts ranting and rambling about something she'll immediately start feeling better. If she knows that Einsteins having a bad day she'll start doing things in an attempt to help her feel better. She'll immediately go into over protective wife mode and make her favorite meal, watch her favorite show with her, etc.

This is just a side note, but I like to believe that Einstein made Tesla stop drinking. She got worried and basically said "No we're stopping this now." Let me cope okay.

Back to my nonsense from before, Planck knew before anyone else about their feelings for each other. She's the living embodiment of the homophobic dog meme and I will not elaborate further. Now she never explicitly says she knows, but I mean considering how much she relentlessly teases Tesla over it.. Yeah she knew. She probably took bets on how long it'd take for them to actually start dating with her co workers tbh.

Anyways, soon after they went to work in Lab 42 their stupidity just escalated. They made their lesbianism everyone elses problem. The Finn was convinced that they were dating. Truly their #1 ally. Though I will say they probably just got even closer during this time period. It was during this time that they made their little robots in their stupid little rivialry, and it was just chaos. They caused a few explosions by mistake, but sometimes things happen yanno?

Often times they'd stay up late either in their lab or just talking in one of their rooms. There was a few times where they'd be waiting for something to process and 'accidentally' fall asleep on each other. Though tbh they're probably really affectionate in general. Tesla's protective of her to begin with, and Einsteins an absolute menace who enjoys teasing and embarrassing her any chance she gets. It was probably around this time that Einstein knew something was up but she herself was too oblivious to actually realize it. They're both just disasters and got so used to existing like that it wasn't until Welt came around and suddenly became homophobic that she was like "oh. Is this not normal?"

Tesla and Einstein became even more inseparable after the 1955 incident. While before they could still act as functioning humans, after that they would start panicking if they didn't see the other. They had constant nightmares after that and honestly probably couldn't even sleep unless they knew the other was by them. Over the years it got better, but even to this day they still get panicky sometimes when their depression / ptsd flairs up.

This eventually led to them holding hands / each other in their sleep just to make sure they both knew the other was still there and safe, and it just became a habit they still continue to this day even if the nightmares are rarer than they once were.

I've written about this before I think, but I like to think that after the events of November 24th that as soon as Einstein woke from her coma she immediately started trying to figure out where Tesla had gone and immediately went looking for her. It just makes the most sense to me, honestly.

LESS DEPRESSING THINGS ASIDE!! WHILE I'M THINKING ABOUT IT!! Einstein 100% does Tesla's hair and make up often just because she's 'too tired' to do it herself. It started off as that, but eventually it just became a common occurrence just because it give's them an excuse to be stupid and show care for the other. Tesla loves when she does it because she's just a cat pretending to be a human and loves the attention. Fun fact she's probably gotten better at doing it than Tesla herself. I like to imagine that Tesla gets frustrated when dealing with knots so Ein helps get them out for her. Funnily enough she does a better job at taking care of Tesla's hair than Tesla herself. Despite Einstein not really having knots or tangles, she's surprisingly really good at getting rid of them. Tesla barely even feels anything, even if the knots so bad you'd think a tornado hit her.

Speaking of cat pretending to be a human, Tesla has these little noises that she'll make. It sounds stupid yes, but Einstein learned what each one means over the years. Tesla will be laying there and make a happy little noise without thinking about it and she'll just smile to herself.

Tesla also had this stuffed cat that she still has to this day that she cherishes deeply, and they both have plans on adopting a kitten one day and naming it after it. This is something that I'll write a fic about eventually, but she's just as big of a menace as they are.

There's also been a few times where Einstein just fell asleep on Tesla while she just gave her little scritches after she either had a bad day or work tried to kill them both. Which is often both.

OH and on the topic of them being soft and gay.. Einstein keeps their room freezing cold because she over heats easily and can't stand the heat. This, of course, only results in Tesla shoving herself as close to her as humanly possible because she's cold, but no matter what she'd probably be doing that anyways tbh. At least this way they both win. Though Tesla actually doesn't mind as much as she complains about it. However it also becomes a slight problem because Tesla's hair gets stuck in the buttons on Einsteins pajamas LMAO. They're a little dumb.

Speaking of being dumb, Tesla losing her immunity to the cold is literally just because of her own actions. What if I told you that although she was immune to the cold she just started complaining just to get Einstein to hold her which led to her getting too used to it and actually starting to get cold.

Einstein relentlessly bullies Tesla for being a ginger. That is all.

They have a secret language that they use to talk with each other. Yes, they formed an entire language. Yes it uses the most complex mathematical equations you've ever seen. It was originally made to quickly talk to each other through someone else, but it very quickly devolved into both of them using it just to talk without anyone else knowing.

The amount of times poor Joachim has had to take file folders between the two because they 'accidentally took the others work' is too many to count. He's been delivering their angry ramblings to each other for years and he doesn't even know it.

I've mentioned this somewhere else before, but they both keep each other alive in a sense. Without the other they both just kinda start questioning why they're still there. They're the light of each others life even if they bicker like an old married couple.

Tesla will come up with the strangest inventions / experiments but without fail you will find Einstein either A. Helping her with said strange invention or experiment, or B. somewhere nearby to make sure she doesn't get herself killed. The popcorn machine incident must not be forgotten.

Tesla also steals Einstein's jacket any chance she gets. Though they both do, to be honest. It's just less noticeable when Einstein steals Tesla's because it's often when they're off work and are just staying home or going out to see the light of day and touch grass.

Oh fun fact, a majority of the Anti-Entropy staff already knew that they were dating before they did. When they finally 'officially' were they all just acted surprised. Tesla wasn't amused. At all.

If one of them has a long day at work and the other is working in their office they'll just sit there with the other while they work. There's actually been a few times where Tesla or Einstein would just sit on the others lap watching as they work.

They adopted Joachim after the events of the VN and ever since then he's been stuck in a constant loop of "Go as your mom" and "Go ask your mother." He's so tired he can't deal with them and their shenanigans anymore.

Einstein secretly has a photo album that she keeps and updates with pictures of them and Joachim, little letters they've written to each other, and a few other important things that she plans on showing Tesla eventually. When? No clue. Probably an anniversary date, or a day that's really important to them.

Despite all they've been through whenever they're alone together they're able to act like their old selves again. They also tend to call each other by their actual names instead of their last names (Lieserl and Nikola respectively). Everything just feels as if nothing happened and that they're just stupid teenage scientists again. They have so many inside jokes with each other that you could make an entire novel just out of the ones that come to mind first.

In a timeline where god didn't completely hate them I like to think that them, Karl, Welt Joyce, Emma Planck, Elysia, and Eden were all just a stupid little family. When they eventually got married they made Welt be the flower girl and their robots were the ring bearers. Why they made him be the flower girl? It was Tesla's idea. They're mortal enemies yet they're the best of friends. He's just glad that she didn't make him stand still as a decoration. Take what you can get yanno.

Einstein basically grounded Tesla after she pulled her little stunt during the HoV's awakening. Tesla walked up to her talking about how she managed to make make the honkai cure and how she did it without anyone else's help. Yeah Einstein proceeded to pass out cold and didn't wake up for several hours. She was Not Happy. They got lucky Himeko took the L for them because otherwise Anti-Entropy would've been at a disadvantage since one of their leaders was out cold.

Of course while Einstein was proud of her to a certain extent, she was MAD. Like SERIOUSLY UPSET. She understood why Tesla did it. She knew that Tesla had always felt bad for what happened to her (i.e. her son murdering her dad even if it was justified, and then her son lying to her which resulted in her becoming a valkyrie and essentially ruining her own life.), but at that moment she didn't care. She was scared and worried for her and refused to let her out of her sight for over a month.

The thing about it is that while she knows Tesla did the right thing, the fact she did that without someone else around scared her more than anything. She's always been reckless but never to the point of injecting literal honkai into herself. Everyone in her life has died from Honkai, or causes related to Honkai. She was scared. The realization the she nearly lost her sent her into a panic and she just. Passed out. Afterwards she went on a very long panic and anxiety fueled rant to her about how reckless and irresponsible she was, and that she needed to be more careful. The reasoning behind refusing to let her out of her sight is more complicated than just "You're in trouble."

The cure had barely been tested, and to be quite honest as much as she trusts Tesla's math and theories she did not trust Schicksals. She was scared that there would be side effects that they weren't aware of and that Tesla would get hurt, or worse. If something happened to her she knew that she was the only person who had ANY chance of saving her, and the thought of her getting hurt near the front lines without anyway to get to her made every moment she wasn't in her sight terrifying.

Of course Tesla wasn't amused by this, and complained the whole time, but hey. Sometimes you just do what you have to do. Tesla quickly became less mad when the next month was just spent with Ein giving her affection. When in doubt, give your angry cat wife affection. Will solve any problem, just trust me. Einstein made her promise after that she would never do anything like it ever again, and Tesla complained before agreeing just to get her to stop being mad lmao.

Tesla also gets extremely embarrassed when Einstein tries to show affection or flirt with her in front of others. The great Frederica Nikola Tesla can't be seen as weak or have anyone know she is emotionally vulnerable. Truly an absolute disaster of a lesbian and I love her for it.

On a more depressing note, Tesla despises Ein seeing her in the midst of a melt down / break down. She's open with her yeah but also there's been times where she just refused to even acknowledge soemthing was wrong which just ended with her locking herself in a room for several hours on end feeling miserable.

Tesla also learned how to sew. She did this purely because she wanted to fix Eins old scarf since it'd gotten torn up, and I like to think she made her a new one after the second eruption happened and well.. yanno... Tbh I feel like Tesla's picked up a ton of random hobbies specifically because she wanted to do something nice for Einstein.

Another little thing is that I think it'd be cute if Tesla and Einstein had matching plushies that they'd take with them whenever one had to go somewhere else and the other couldn't follow. It was effective, kinda. They still miss each other.

Ein and Tes will rope each other into doing the dumbest experiments known to man kind, but it's exciting to them

. Bonding hours until something goes wrong and their lab is destroyed for the sixth time that week and Joachims on their asses over it.

I like to think that Tesla will just come up with the strangest, most out of left field invention ever and Ein will help her with it even if she's questioning how she got here the entire time.

In current time Tesla and Einstein either have the best sleep schedule in the world or the most destroyed caffeine addicted highschooler who hasn't slept in sixty years schedule ever. There's no inbetween.

Neither really mind though. To be quite honest half the time they just stay up talking about whatever happened that day or some random experiment idea. Either that or Teslas ranting and rambling about how someone made her mad. It happens often.

They both will also stay up all night playing video games. Tesla bullies Einstein at how bad she is at them, but one of these days Einstein will beat her at her own game. Just watch her. She's determined.

They probably play Minecraft LMAO- I don't know why I can just see them playing it together. Tesla likes to build and Ein likes to watch her as she rambles on and on about what she's building. Einstein probably goes out to get the stuff she needs, and when she's not home she'll get on just to farm a bunch of stuff to help her out.

They probably have several entire pinterest boards full of building stuff tbh. I also think that Tesla probably went out of her way to make them both matching Minecraft skins because Einstein wouldn't change hers because she was too lazy.

Tesla also constantly steals Einsteins jacket just because. Though Einstein steals hers so they're even.

I feel like Einstein uses 'dear' a lot towards Tesla. I don't know why it just makes sense to me. She probably picked it up from Planck tbh.

A really REALLY cursed headcanon I have is that both the way they got together and the way they eventually got engaged / married was equally as big of a mess. Now, imagine the scene. You're sitting there minding your own business when you see the two anti entropy doctors just staring at each other because they just tried to propose to each other at the same exact time. They are now bickering over who gets to propose. You do not get paid enough to deal with this.

In the main universe I think their wedding was.. Extremely small tbh..

Planck was there, and they probably put a picture of Welt, Karl, and Schrodinger in the front seats so they could at least be apart of it even if they never got to see it for themselves. Though as depressing as this is Tesla made sure they went ALL OUT on it. Like this girl was planning for MONTHS IN ADVANCE and hand checked LITERALLY EVERYTHING. She even spent literal hours doing Eins make up for her and dressing her up for the funsies.

It wasn't even because she didn't trust her to look nice, it was literally just because Tesla wanted to make her feel special. She wanted to make sure she knew how important she was to her, and make her feel as special as Einstein had made her feel throughout the years. Einstein complained a bit, unsurprisingly. Though it was more out of boredom of having to sit there than actual annoyance at Tesla. Honestly it's still probably one of their most cherished memories tbh.

One of my favorite hcs is that they're both just rambling menaces. Tesla will be telling Einstein about a new hobby, interest, or fact she's learned and Einstein will sit there listening intently while asking questions since Tesla tends to have a difficult time fully explaining things bc adhd is a bitch. She also probably writes down notes as if she was studying in a class lmao. Along with that when Einstein starts rambling Tesla always listens and looks at her as if she's being told the most interesting thing in the world, even if it's something as small as a cool rock she found. It's not often she gets to see her so passionate and outwardly excited about something and she cherishes every moment it happens.

They'll both secretly do research into the others new obsession / interest so that they know what questions to ask and so they're able to talk to the other about it.

One of Tesla's favorite things about Einstein is just how she seems to light up when she's talking about something she's heavily interested in. Seeing her unfiltered genuine joy just does something to her and every time she see's her happy she can't help but fall in love all over again. She's stupid and seeing her wife happy and excited just makes her turn into a mess and her smile just kills her.

There's also little things that they like about each other that the other really has zero clue about. For example Tesla always wears this certain perfume and it's become almost a comforting thing for Ein as weird as it is to say. With Tesla it's mostly what I explained above. Seeing Einstein happy and enjoying life means more than anything to her.

Sometimes Tesla will just fall asleep on top of Ein while they're laying on the couch watching a show or something, or when they're just sitting near the fireplace in the winter.

Especially during the winter their favorite past time is curling up together under blankets and drink hot chocolate on their days off. Tesla has this love of peppermints that Einsteins been aware of for years at this point, and every time she makes them both some she always makes sure to stick a peppermint stick in for her. Tesla is somehow still always just as excited and surprised as the last time. Somehow.

OH OH OH!!! HOLIDAYS!! HOLIDAYS ARE HELL IN THE EINSLA HOME!!

Neither should be trusted in the kitchen. They're chaotic messes of human beings that would make Gordon Ramsay have second thoughts about his choice in profession. Though believe it or not Tesla and Einstein can cook, but they're stupid. Tesla is probably the better one of the two but they both put in the same amount of work. Especially when it comes to holiday meals. Though this also leaves them both in the kitchen.

Tesla and Einstein will be holding a knife and threaten the other with it, all the while teasing and smiling at each other. Though there's probably been a food fight at least a few times. The kitchen was a disaster by the end of it, but hey at least they got to enjoy the holiday with each other.

Actually speaking of cooking.. I like to think that if they know the others had a hard day at work before they got home that the other would try to have dinner done for them. Like if Einstein was having a bad day Tesla would try to make sure her favorite food was ready by the time she got back, and vice versa.

Though they also probably don't cook as often as they probably should lmao. Just like in lab 42 they probably survive off pizza deliveries.

Speaking of deliveries.. Einstein will come up with ridiculous names just to mess with Tesla. She can't use her real name since she's legally dead, and neither can Tesla since she should be dead too. Every time she chooses a name to be written down she tries to come up with the most normal yet extremely weird name just to see Tesla's reaction. It's almost never good. Tesla isn't amused by her wife choosing "Chad" as a name.

There's been several times where Tesla will do Einsteins make up only to forget that she's already done hers and go to kiss her, resulting in her accidentally messing the others up. She dies on the inside every single time. Einstein just teases her over it and tries to hide her smile.

Tesla's way of saying "I love you" is her saying "I will kill you."

Anytime Tesla threatens Einstein she just says "Oh, really now Nikola?" or "Oh, really now Dr. Tesla?" If they're by each other there's a 50/50 chance that she'll lay on or lean against the other and just say "You would never hurt me," just to mess with her. It works every time because Tesla just angrily seethes from embarrassment and annoyance.

Neither of them like keeping secrets from the other. They both have known each other so long and so well that they're able to tell when somethings off about the other. Even if it's just a slight change, it often means that something else is going on. The only secrets they keep from each other are when they're planning on surprising the other. However, everything else they try to talk about.

Tesla and Einstein went back to Lab 42 once, decades later. They'd managed to get it back relatively quickly, though neither had the strength to get themselves to go to it. When they went back memories flooded back, and they stayed for a few hours just reliving some of their happier memories there. Though they left pretty quickly since along with the good came reminders of their reality.

Tesla usually sleeps with soft and fluffy blankets and two or three stuffed animals. Of course she threatens Einstein and made her promise she'd never tell anyone, but it's still a fact.

Whenever Einstein's upset and having a bad mental health day Tesla often holds her and tries to comfort her. This is especially true during the winter months, since that's when things typically get bad for the both of them. Once you add on what happened in November and January first.. You have a recipe for disaster.

Both of them would do almost anything for the other. Even though they bicker a lot and mess with each other, they're just two idiots in love at the end of the day. I might make another post continuing this since I'm very much sure I've missed something, but here's the ones I can currently remember. I have another hc post I'll link below.

I have A Lot more that involve other characters so I'll be making a post about that soonish. I'd add them in here but I'm emotionally and mentally exhausted because god hates me, and this post has already gotten long enough (I believe it's around 5k words now.. Sorry..)

I love them sm and you have no clue how happy it makes me knowing that people like hearing about my headcanons about these two. I think about them too much honestly.. Idk they're just my little stupid children that help me cope. My dumbasses. My daughters. My little losers. Girlfailure x Girlboss.

[otakween]

Digital Monster ver. S - Final Thoughts

Wow, another game that took me exactly a week to beat, how punctual of me! So that's another 10-15 hours in the bucket, not bad at all. This game is ~special~ because it's the first digimon game to ever be released (not including v-pets). It came out in 1998 for the Sega Saturn and was never translated. As such, it's really not that popular and I couldn't find a ton of guidance on how to beat it. To make matters worse, Sega Saturn games do not emulate well. If you look closely, you'll see that all of my screenshots have ugly lines on them. The sound was also hit-or-miss, sometimes cutting out or making terrible screechy noises. None of that was disruptive enough for me to give up though. I persevered and ended up having a lot of fun!

The best guide for this game (as far as I know) is in Japanese. Google translate + some Japanese knowledge are recommended to fully benefit from it.

Notes:

-This gave me some Digimon World 1 flashbacks. I ended up with Numemon as my first champion and for awhile there it felt like I would never get a good digimon. The way to the success in this game (just like in DW1) ended up being gym upgrades which made digimon rearing a LOT less painful. Unfortunately, I didn't really stick around to get the coolest digimon. My best efforts yielded me: Vademon, Birdramon, Leomon, and a Devimon at the end there.

-The main objective in this game, earning 5 medals from the different arenas, ended up being pretty easy. You can definitely get by with a champion level, which is what I did for 3 out of 5 medals. Of course I also did some save scumming, because this is another RNG-rather-than-skill based game. If you don't cheat a lil, you're just meaninglessly prolonging the game imo. Sometimes I ended up winning against big bosses without even needing save states, so yeah. Not super challenging.

-The "bonus" objective, I guess, would be to tame all possible digimon in the game (70 in total) which involves some jogress-ing too? I ain't doing that for multiple reasons. Number 1: I already did it in Digimon World and it took a million years WITH a guide. Number 2: I couldn't find a guide on how to trigger certain digivolutions for this one. I know it follows the v-pet logic, but I'm really not sure how the care mistakes/training rules work. Number 3: It doesn't seem like it would be very rewarding. There's really not much going on post-final boss in this one. Same as with Anode/Cathode, why should I care that I have these cool digimon if there's nothing I can do with them?

-The best part of this game was definitely the UI! So nostalgic, so 90s, so immersive! I especially loved the "Net" portion with email and the little Botamon mini-game. I love email replying mechanics. Very Dot Hack. Also, the Japanese was very easy to understand which is a plus.

-The digimon are so cute in this game. The little squeaky noise they make when they're happy, their different sleep animations (the plant digimon go underground or sleep in pots!), the joy when you give them their favorite food. So many great little touches. I guess the one thing that would be nice about taming them all would be seeing all the different animations. Maybe I'll just look those up lol.

-Definitely some frustration with digimon dying abruptly and digimon not digivolving as I expected. I worked hard getting my Leomon to 15 battles (the requirement for Ultimate level) and he still died! I honestly have no idea why and feel cheated out of a Megadramon.

-The final boss was legitimately a LadyDevimon named "Nice Body" and my reward for defeating her was a "sexy" wallpaper (displayed in one of the screenshots above). Lol

-The internet and shopping tracks were very nice. The internet one almost sounds like lofi

-I can see how this game would seem amazing if you're coming from the v-pet. You can raise 4 digimon at once, which feels super efficient, even compared to DW1. Between this and the Wonderswan ver. I'm feeling less motivated to buy a v-pet because it's basically the same thing but lower quality. (Although that might be kinda fun).

-I felt bad about abandoning my remaining digis (like my Neopets and my Nintendogs lol), but I left them with robots to take care of them, so at least there's that.

Honestly with the context of this game being so old and having the goal of being an enhanced v-pet, I think it achieved that mission very nicely. I'm wavering between a 6 and a 7, so I'll give this a 6.5 out of 10.

[dhaaruni]

Dhaaruni, I hope it's ok if I vent for a moment in your askbox but it just keeps angering me and like, given the various circumstances of my life, the thing that gets me about young women and girls these days wanting to be wives so their husband pays for everything and they magically hold zero cares in the world is like.... Have you ever even Been There? [1]

No extra money of your own because it's in a joint account so it's for Everyone or No One? Cleaning the house, doing the laundry, cooking meals, etc.--something you will be expected to do as the Unemployed Person! Even if "hubby" never says so explicitly I guarantee you he's been raised to anticipate some woman always being there to fulfill his needs and keep house--can only fill up so much of your time. For example, I can sweep and mop up half of a house and wash up a load of laundry in 2 hours. Wow! How efficient. Except gee, what to do next? The other half? Bake a loaf of bread or a batch of cookies? (I do enjoy baking and cooking but it's still work!) Another odd load of laundry? Oh wait. There's so many things to watch on streaming services! Books to read! Maybe I'll finish up my painting!! Except when do you feel justified to take time like that when a full time job is from 8 to 5, and you can get so much done is so little time? [2] [Wow, finally tumblr is cooperating with me! Last one!] Oh but wait! Childcare. Childcare is a whole new ballpark. Have fun communicating with a wee screeching thing for anything from hunger and thirst, to outside playtime, oh no the favorite blanket is missing, and so on. It's not frustrating or maddening at all! Bonus points if you find yourself hit in the head by any object the baby/toddler can throw at you, and no amount of, "No, we don't throw. That's not nice. That hurts." will stop it! You just have to take it and hope that someday it'll finally click before you're the one screaming and throwing things in the backyard. And that's one little piece of childcare! You have to factor in meal planning for picky tastes but also ensure a balanced diet lest you constipate or give them diarrhea to kingdom come! Blowouts and diapers so sodden with urine they explode just by removing clothes! Tantrums and when they realize they can't throw something at you, they will scream right in your ear! Etc.! (I know it's Controversial ig but David Lynch nailed it with Eraserhead. Parenthood is that messy and messed up, This Be the Verse, etc.) Like this is well and truly what makes me wonder about girls and women wanting this. It gets old. I'm not saying a job as a cashier or barista is gonna fulfill my life or wouldn't be as mind-numbingly soul crushing. But it would actually pay bills! It would be more than the paltry change I'm granted as a full time nanny right now! Yes, I work 10.5-12 hours a day and I'm way below the poverty line! But ig I ought to be happy bc childcare isn't real work somehow? Or that it's solely my money? Except I can't afford much of anything without risking overdraft hmm. Which ig is why minimum wage looks better where I'm at! Terrible, right? Because even that tiny sum is an improvement for me. Like I'm part of a long, long line of unemployed, unmarried, childless women being made into cheap and convenient childcare! So the return to tradwife bimbo whatever bullshit makes me livid constantly. I cried so many times reading The Feminine Mystique bc while Betty Friedan didn't write it with someone like me in mind--I got my degree! I've never wanted kids! Sure I never planned out future education or found employment in my field, but this wasn't my choice!--, I can relate all too well! And all these girls and women wanting to go back?? Please please please READ The Feminine Mystique! I don't know a single woman that would take my place much less choose to be a stay at home mom even if money wasn't an issue! Because shockingly if women are human beings, our lives don't end at motherhood and homemaking! Crazy concept, right?

You're completely right, and I think you'll appreciate this post from @mini-wrants with @sprinkledsalt's addition.

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

Twenty-four things I noted about the Campaign 2 Wrap-Up :

so much lore and so much love

THE LADIES ARE SO BEAUTIFUL, I want what they're all wearing

Marisha in the DM seat is something that is so powerful

Marisha : "I will be lightly steering this round table discussion, making sure we get through as much as possible... and that we don't spend three and a half hours talking about Bowlgate" (with a strained smile, while probably internally screaming)

Liam immediately jumping at the opportunity to ask "WHO'S ON THE TAL'DOREI COUNCIL ???" made me laugh so much.

Like Sam says, this campaign wrap-up will be "people poorly remembering things"

Sam choosing Veth's name because it began with a V, because in Campaign 1 he made jokes about Vex and Vax's names, so it was just to fuck with Laura and Liam and to follow his own private joke, it the most Sam thing I've ever heard.

The fact that Matt had Matt Colville for an important NPC, waiting in the wings to guest, and that he never did because the Mighty Nein said "Crime ? Crime !"... I love it, but also ... in this kind of campaign, where a lot of leniency of choice is left to players, preparing fully like this for a story arc was getting ahead a little much.

It's so good to Ashly Burch again, I love her so much

"What was your favorite moment, as Keg ?" Ashly : "Well, Keg's is obvious. Keg's was... gettin' lucky !" (they put a little window of Marisha silently doing a "whoop-whoop !" gesture, I am SCREAMING)

Liam is answering a question about Caleb's feelings for Jester by be beginning with "I was never going to do romance of any kind, one-sided or otherwise in this campaign, because (he looks at Marisha) I felt like we really explored that pretty heavily campaign one... --" Ashley, jokingly : "Don't you make eyes at her ! (laughter) She's mine now !"

The idea that the beacon was basically the One Ring, in terms of what "a magnet for trouble" it could be, is so fascinating to think about. What could have been if Caleb didn't offered it to the Bright Queen...

Oh, so there was a loose connection between Cognouza and the Chained Oblivion ! The hungry void saw what Cognouza was attempting, and began to influence some of the dreams, because, hey, why not ??

Laura's reaction of Matt's revelation that Sprinkle would have gone with Jester either way, as a stowaway, if she didn't bought him : "I wasted money !" That's such a Laura thing to say, I love her

I LOVE MARISHA AND ASHLEY REVEALING HOW MUCH OF THE BEAU AND YASHA LIFE THEY THOUGHT ABOUT they have a text thread and thought about so much !!!

"What was your favorite moment, as yourself and/or Reani ?" Mica Burton : "Our moments are the exact same which was : sleeping with Beau." (they put another little window of Marisha throwing her arms out in victory, I am SCREAMING once more, all the ladies GOT IT and were happy)

Bonus Marisha, throwing her hair off the shoulders seductively : "I am everyone's legacy."

Matt's answer about the corrupted forest in Aeor (an arcane experiment that failed over and over) and its connection to Molaesmyr was juicy, in terms of what we know in Campaign 3. Matt said "one of these artifacts from this research period was uncovered or brought to Molaesmyr" : by who, huh ? Ludinus is responsible, 100%. And then, " !! and then "something was uncovered and accidentally detonated in Molaesmyr and when it did, it unleashed one of these failed experiments that didn't necessarily create new life, but it just corrupted it wholly and that changed the entire forest". That's what we learned in the Team Wildemount trip to Molaesmyr recently. I love seeing the connections, and I understand why Matt answered vaguely.

I'm dying, they really asked Chris Perkins to come and do an interview for Spurt that lasts the same duration he was on the show : 1 minute. I'm DYING. RIP Spurt, you were the best

Travis revealed the cast minus Marisha and Liam had a text thread, where they were fully planning how to take both Beau and Caleb out, if ever the eyes turned them evil. I WANT TO KNOOOOOOOW

OOOOh I so wanted to have seen one of them have nine yes, and become an NPC under control of Cognouza

Oh my god, if Caleb and Essek hadn't rolled so well on the time-travelling long rest, they could have ended up NOT rested and a day later, still fighting Cognouza, but not in the Astral Sea, in the sky of Exandria...

Ashley, speaking for the people : "Let's just play again !"

Awww, Matt thought about how the Gentleman and Marion would be together, I want to read that novel !!

The answer is, of course, that Vex is on the Tal'Dorei council, as Coin Mistress (yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah) (which I already knew thanks to Campaign 3 but still !! Also it was just so nice to see Laura dancing in celebration)

[rooftop--runner]

2, 4, 5, 7, and 17 for the sonic questions? c:

Ooooooh so many questions!! :D

2. How did you hear about Sonic?

Technically I’m pretty sure I first heard of Sonic when I used to watch a little bit of Sonic Underground when I was in elementary school. It was either that or from Mario and Sonic at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games for the DS specifically, and I only had that to begin with because I was a Mario kid ALSKDKKS Funnily enough though I always played as Sonic even though I knew pretty much nothing about his games lol

4. Favorite male character(s)?

I think my top three have to be Silver, Sonic, and Metal, in no particular order because that order would probably change depending on what I’m fixated at the time lol I also really like Shadow too, just probably not as much as the other three any more. A funny thing is when I was first getting into the series, going through the games chronologically, even before I got up to 06 I just had a feeling Silver would end up being my favorite character based on vibes alone and he did!(at the time at least)

5. Favorite female character(s)?

I think Rouge might be my favorite, but I also reeeaaally love Tangle and Whisper, and Blaze is pretty great too! ALL THE GIRLS ARE SO GOOD it’s so hard to just pick a few!

(I’m gonna be talking about frontiers stuff in the next two, so here’s a spoiler warning juuuust in case)

7. Favorite vocal theme(s)?

OOOH NOW THIS IS A GOOD ONE there are so many vocal tracks that I love but I think my absolute favorite, as of recently, has to be One Way Dream. (Ignoring the fact that I was crying when I first heard it in Frontiers’ credits alskjdnfnsj) IT’S JUST SO GOOD it makes me so happy every time I listen to it! The music of the song itself just sounds so uplifting, and idk if this makes sense but it kind of reminds me of a combination of Endless Possibility and the general vibe of the Sonic Runners soundtrack, both of which I love so it makes sense that I would love their combination. AND THE LYRICS OH MY GOSH. The fact that the lyrics are a message from Sonic Team to the fans about how they’re dedicated to making the series even better than it already is because of how passionate the fan base is and how that passion is what drives them to keep going!! AAAAAAAAAA I LOVE IT SO MUCH (and another bonus is that I really enjoy singing and this song fits pretty well in my vocal range!)

I also reeeeaaaaaally love His World, but ESPECIALLY the Zebrahead cover, it’s just so fast paced and energetic it gets me super hyped. I also love Endless Possibility and pretty much all the boss fight themes in Frontiers (because of course I do alskdjfn). And special shout out to City Escape Act 1 from Generations, mostly because I just love the little section at the end

17. Favorite Sonic music track(s)?

OOOOH ANOTHER GOOD ONE there are literally so many I love I could probably spend hours listing all of them so I’ll try to limit myself lol. One that immediately stands out though is Rooftop Run (Day) from Unleashed (which you could probably guess from my url alakdkdnms) it’s another one of those songs that just makes me sooooooo happy to listen to because it’s so upbeat and energetic and AAAAAA I love it! And of course I also love the versions of the song used in Generations too. Spring Emotions from Sonic Runners is another one I absolutely ADORE I CAN’T EVEN FIND WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT IT’S JUST SO GOOD. I could probably say the same for a few other tracks in the Runners soundtrack but I’ll just leave it at the one for now lol. And I’m with you (The End boss theme) from Frontiers. OUGH THE EMOTIONS THAT SONG MAKES ME FEEL ARE INSANE. I don’t even know what to say, it just feels so climactic and leaves just the right emotional impact for a final boss, big Undertale vibes tbh (outside of just the gameplay lol).

A few others that stick out to me are Stardust Speedway and Metallic Madness from CD (especially the bad future versions of each), which I’m pretty sure I’m obligated to like as a Metal Sonic fan ALSKDJK, I honestly really like Windy Hill Zone 1 from Lost World and Sky Road from Team Sonic Racing more than I thought I would, and Solaris Phase 2 from 06 and Super Sonic vs. Perfect Dark Gaia from Unleashed are both AMAZING orchestral tracks for the final boss fights of their games.

This ended up getting so much longer than I expected, and sorry I didn’t really have too much to say for the first three questions and then proceeded to completely go off in the music department ALAKDJFND I would’ve finished this sooner but right when I was almost done writing it tumblr crashed and I lost all my progress so I had to start over aalksjfkd but this was really fun! Thank you for the questions!! :)

[kimium]

Another ask for the ship ask game! Matt/Near/Mello from Deathnote!

💜💜💜

(From this ask HERE)

Thanks so much for yet another ask, friend! I love Death Note and I'm always happy to talk about it.

For Matt/Near/Mello I Ship It!

What made you ship it?

What led me to ship Matt/Mello/Near is the belief that while Mello/Near is a good ship there is something volatile about the two of them. Mello and Near are extreme ends of a crime solving spectrum.

Mello is an irrational, emotional, and spontaneous person. For Mello to solve a case he's out in the field, disguising himself, playing roles, and getting information by Any Means Necessary. If said means include violence, well that's how it works. This doesn't mean Mello isn't intelligent. It's just his knowledge and skills are people based.

Near by contrast is calm, calculating, rational, and emotionally detached. He is the one solving crimes by sitting at the computer desk, pouring over the files.

Canonically this difference in ideologies for crime solving and their competitive nature over the role of "L" leads them to see one another as rival/enemy rather than ally/partner. In some ways, I think they're too polar opposite and it makes it challenging for me to always be on board with them as a ship.

Enter Matt. What we know of him canonically is that he 1) Is close to Mello and is willing to go out on a job and 2) Is a hacker and can spend hours behind a screen. Not including fandom's interpretation of him, I think Matt has a good blend of Mello and Near aspects. This balance means I think he is a good bridge between the two opposite ends (Mello and Near).

Basically: Matt is calmer and more rational than Mello so he can talk sense into Mello/agree with Near. He is also more than willing to hack the city's traffic lights and cause them to blink, in Morse Code, an entire Monty Python skit. This is chaotic enough to handle Mello. Matt's spontaneous nature can help Near lighten up/allow Near to have a bit more fun.

2. What are your favourite things about the ship?

This ship opens up one of my favourite OT3 tropes "one party has a crush on one or both of the other parties in an OT3 but thinks they don't like them back" angle. Canonically I firmly believe Mello and Matt were already dating by the time we meet them in series. This means Near, who I think always had a little crush on Mello is left out. When he sees Grown Up Mello looking Like That and has a little internalized gay panic attack. This is followed by him logically trying to talk himself out of his feelings + "Mello is already with Matt" only for him to miserably fail. Bonus if it's Matt who discovers this first because out of the three of them he's 1) The most empathetic and in-tune with people and 2) He's nicer than Mello and wouldn't tease Near.

I also love the dynamics this opens up with the three of them. People think it's Mello and Matt causing the most chaos with Near reigning them in but it's actually Mello and Near causing the most chaos with Matt reigning them in (for the most part).

Finally, because I firmly believe all three come from Wammy's House, they have a shared history and a strong connection most outside people would never, ever understand. This also means they'll talk in code/another language and leave everyone in the dust while working seamlessly together as a crime-solving trio.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Again, since I don't really know what others/fandom's opinion on the ship is, I cannot say. Sorry!

[sportsballs-the]

Footnotes: TGAA Case 2 Twitch Highlight

(Or: Why you should NOT meta Game Studios)

Hey everyone!

I want to begin using this site more regularly, though the way that the site formats its posts means that I need to get a bit more creative with what I post here. And while you will see things more regular such as scheduling posts, I think a great idea would be to post long form deep dives into many of the things I do for content as a sort of bonus. And so, here’s Footnotes: a series about me explaining things.

For this first article, I want to discuss the most recent video I have released to this date: my highlights video for Case 2 of The Great Ace Attorney. This post will be discussing elements of that video in order, so if you would like you can watch along with the video pausing at the timestamps listed to read up.

Two final notes before starting: first, this post will contain my own opinions on Case 2, as well as a brief overview of my opinions on Case 1, but will not cover anything beyond that. This is not meant to be a discussion board for the game as a whole. As of the time of writing, I have not finished the entire game, and as such this is not a place for spoilers or any of that nonsense.

Secondly, on the note of having not finished the game yet, I am currently going through the rest of the game on my twitch stream! If you’re interested in following along with the rest of my progress, you can find me over there!

Ok, let’s actually get to the footnotes now.

(Pre-video)

The first thing I wish to discuss is the production of the video. The video began production in mid-to-late May and ended production in early August, with a final release date of August 11th, 2023. This is a turn around of just over 2 and a half months, which is definitely higher than I would like, but is a bit more understandable when looking at the circumstances.

Over the summer I was maintaining both a full time job and a part time job while also trying to spend time with family I hadn’t seen in months. I had very little time to work on the video once all of this is considered, and even less time once you consider that I was still attempting to consistently stream on Twitch during this time. Combine that with this video being the longest video I’ve ever posted, with 7.5 hours of raw footage being boiled into 42 minutes, and this turnaround time suddenly looks a bit better. I wasn’t happy with it at the time, and I definitely want to make sure I have better turn around for my videos, but with hindsight this all is a bit better than I would’ve admitted at the time.

This long run time bit is going to be dwarfed in the near future btw: I have two videos already in the planning pipeline that I know will exceed it: one with 12 hours of raw footage at the end of it all, and one that currently has 16 hours of raw footage, and is estimated to have around 30 hours at the end of it all. Pray for future me I suppose.

(00:17 - 00:22)

I decided to carry over the prediction counter over from the last highlight video because it was one of the best ways to add comedy in post for this video. I have an annoying track record of predicting what will happen in a case hours in advance for no reason other than “Chekhov’s Gun lmao”. In this case I actually had a bit of comeuppance because of this, but we’ll discuss this in detail a bit later.

Of more important note is the goose. I did a pretty good job of explaining my general thoughts of Case 1 of this game in that videos highlight, and I want to save my fill in depth opinions for when I eventually cover that video in Footnotes, but a general recap is worth discussing. In short, it is one of the weakest Case 1s in the entire franchise for the sole reason that it is waaaaaaaaaay too long. Playtime for Case 1 for me came out to about 6 hours, and the case itself could’ve very easily been 2 hours and I wouldn’t have complained nearly as much.

Because of Case 1 being such a drag, I actually came into this stream with much more tempered expectations. I was still hopeful that it would perform well, but we were off to a rough start.

(00:22 - 00:31)

Ah, Herr Lock Sholmes. A character defined by being transformed into a knock-off version of a popular character due to copyright. I have my own opinions on the character that I will discuss a bit later, but I want to use this timeslot to talk about localization and the weird release this game had for western audiences.

Because this game is by definition a spin-off of the main franchise, I was originally not going to touch the game myself and rather watch a let’s play of a fan translation for the game. This is what I did for Investigations 2 (and also for the Layton crossover game lol), and I was planning to dive into it once I had a significant amount of free time to pay attention to it with. It just so happened though though that it was at around the same time that an official translation and release would be coming for western audiences, and even a port to Steam. This was enough for me to wait to play it myself and even enough for me to work through it on my Twitch stream, but it was a seemingly odd time to do drop this. Great Ac Attorney released in Japan in July of 2015, but not in the west until July of 2021, a difference of a full 6 years. That’s a lot of time for what’s just basically a translation…

I haven’t seen anything from the fan translation, though this is entirely because I am avoiding looking into this game on a deep level until I have fully finished it. However, I do know that there is one very major difference between the fan work and the official release: Sherlock Holmes became Herlock Sholmes.

As far as I’m aware, (a) Sherlock was named properly in the Japanese version of the game without the weird name change, and (b) Herlock is an already pre-existing knock-off that notably ended its run before the official Sherlock run ended. This leads me and many others to speculate that the delay for the western release was due largely to copyright issues with the Sherlock Holmes brand. I don’t know this for certain, and again I’m refraining from looking into anything until I’ve fully finished the game, but if this is true it would suck royally. Copyright law is always a sore point when it comes to fan works, but delaying a wide release of a game by more than half a decade because of copyright really grinds my gears. I understand that the English detective character being specifically Sherlock is actually important to the game, but I do also think you could’ve effectively got the point across while using a knock-off because Sherlock is such a popular figure. Delaying the wide release for that long when another solution does exist just feels really bad to me. That might just be me complaining though.

In future Footnotes for the other videos on this game, I want to reference changes made between this 2021 western release and the original 2015 Japanese release, but I will have to refrain from doing that here since I will not be researching anything about the game until I am fully 100% done with the game and it’s sequel. I accidentally did this to myself for the Zero Escape franchise and said to myself that I wouldn’t be letting that happen again, though that story is one for another time.

(01:02 - 01:08)

Nicknames are funny, what can I say. I started a running joke in the first case that ended up snowballing into me giving nearly every single names character in this game a really stupid nickname. Why? It’s funny. For some reason deep within the recesses of my mind remains a clip from an old episode of Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja where the comic relief sidekick wins a large scale chess tournament all while calling the pieces by egregiously stupid nicknames (The Pointy One for Bishop, as an example). I think ever since I saw that “stupid nicknames = funny” has been burned into my brain.

I am aware that the nicknames can be pretty annoying to some, and a few may even say I’m being disrespectful by using them, but I don’t mean to come across that way. Even with this being a game about solving murders, the Ace Attorney games are built upon having a lighter tone and being overall a bit goofier. Larry Butz would not exist in a world where Ace Attorney was meant to be played tonally straight. I’m doing the nicknames to exaggerate the goofiness inherit in the series and adding even more comedy to everything.

Anyways important nicknames from the previous case are Ryunosuke becoming Bruno, Kazuma becoming Dramatic Effect, and Susato becoming Deep Bow. There’s another character with a preexisting nickname, though we’ll get to them when we first meet them in this case.

(01:14 - 01:27)

I still stand by this assessment. Up to this point in franchise history, the main player character being the defendant was super rare and only really arguably happened. For it to happen twice in a row right at the start of the game really diminishes the impact it has, and also gets the player less invested in the character. Because both Case 1 and Case 2 have Ryunosuke’s motivation be basically just trying to save himself, it’s hard to feel like we actually learn anything about him. This ties into my opinions on his character arc as a whole, but that is a conversation that happens a long while from now when we get to discussing the game as a whole in the discussion of Case 5.

(01:39 - 01:56)

Locked room mysteries in theory are incredibly interesting because they play on your expectations. When a mystery looks like it’s super narrow and obvious, it gets the audience thinking outside the box and wondering how could the obvious solution not be the true solution. The problem is that you then get a situation where the audience pretty much knows that the locked room is fake from the start, meaning the investment in this trope falls hard from the outset. I have not personally read or seen a single situation where the locked room actually stays locked the whole time, there’s always some sort of clever trick. Somebody in chat during the stream said that Ghost Trick actually has a proper locked room, but I haven’t actually played that at all, so I wouldn’t know myself.

(Don’t spoil this btw. Ghost Trick is on the list for games I want to play, so don’t you dare spoil it for me. I’ll know it when I see it.)

(01:56 - 02:32)

Another brief aside on a mystery trope I don’t really care for: the dying message.

Look. When it’s stupid obvious that the message is fake, why bother with it? Writing a “last message” in Russian when we know the character is Japanese means it really obvious from the beginning that it’s fake, so when the game points it out later like it’s a big reveal it has no weight to it. I’m pretty sure I cut everything to do with this final reveal about the last message out of the video because it didn’t carry any weight. I understand this is more of a gripe with bad lazy writing than with the trope itself, but the trope is a very common victim of bad lazy writing, so I think pointing this out is warranted.

(02:59 - 03:05) and (04:14 - 04:49)

This is probably the single prediction I am the most proud of so far. Calling the knockout powder solution so early into this case really helped make everything fall into place while solving alongside it, and the game does a pretty decent job at letting you figure it out yourself. For what it’s worth, the reason I got it almost instantly is because just before this bit in the game is a scene of me talking about how weird it is for Ryunosuke to have slept through everything and because Chekhov’s Gun means him randomly saying his head hurts isn’t random.

As far as what I think about this twist, it’s good, but not really great. It gets developed on throughout the case and starts to spell out some pretty major ramifications, but it doesn’t actually define this case all that much. That’s probably a good thing considering there’s a much larger aspect of this case that really needs to take center stage rather than this smaller twist.

The rest of the scenario I laid out in the second clip is wrong, but I think understandably wrong given the info we had. The air vent was the only way in that we had seen so assuming that it came from there makes sense. The room being a mess done specifically to make it look like a fight had broken out makes sense when the potential killer wants to hide that Kazuma ingested sleeping powder of some kind. Motive is… uhh racism or something I guess. It’s not great, but for literally 20 minutes into the stream it’s a great line of reasoning.

(05:34 - 05:42)

Florent L’Belle. Redd White. Swan Hat Lady from the first case. Enough said.

(06:14 - 06:25)

While for the most part I want to dissect my personal opinions on characters after we have gotten all of the relevant case specific stuff for them out of the way, I think it’s safe for me to go ahead and talk about my opinions on Herlock Sholmes now because a lot of my biggest issues are visible right from the start.

Herlock is largely in the game to fill two roles: to guide the player with large information dumps when the plot needs it, or to guide Ryunosuke when he needs to grow as a character a bit. While in theory both of these are good things, the delivery of Herlock’s character really messes a lot of things up for me. Herlock in this game is depicted as eccentric and egotistical, leading to a character that often likes to proclaim how smart he is while blatantly getting a basic fact of life wrong. When you point this out to him, he often laughs at your face and calls you an idiot. Herlock also is quite often shown getting crucial details about the case completely wrong, even having an entire gameplay segment dedicated to you having to correct “The Great Detective” (I will explain my thoughts on said gameplay segment in a bit). When you point these mistakes out to him, he attempts to steal credit from you and will often say that he was mere moments away from saying that himself.

I think the game is trying to do it for comedy, but I personally don’t think that his statements carry enough charisma to make it feel funny or charming. As such, he just comes across as a rude prick most of the time, which is not something you want to be doing with an incredibly important main character of the game.

Overall though, my biggest issue for now is that Herlock has next to no arc in this case. He starts of randomly making accusations, and ends off continuing the same handcuff bit and making more random claims. Perhaps we have yet to see all that this character can offer, but in my opinion it’s a poor start. I understand this complaining is quite rambly and heavily opinionated, but at this point I’m starting to realize that I have more interesting things to say about my opinions on the game rather than on cool production facts, sorry lol.

(06:52 - 07:59)

Ok, actual production fun facts now. If you noticed that for a lot of these clips, the background music seemed to suddenly start and stop, that’s because I actually put many of the clips in this section out of order. This investigation segment right here throws a lot at you very quickly, some of which is expounding upon information you had already started to work on. As such I fudged with the order of the clips to make the overall narrative flow of the video come together better, though the background music slightly suffered as a result.

(08:00 - 08:12)

When it comes to my editing style, I’ve really come to appreciate and enjoy the hard cut. I think transitions between scenes with accompanying swoosh noises is distracting and takes away from what the video is trying to convey. That being said, I have been playing around with many of the movement sliders in more recent videos to get things to slide around more where I think it feels appropriate.

In this section, the final message Kazuma wrote in his diary is very important to the story, but I didn’t have much interesting dialogue of me reading the whole thing out. Even if I did though, it’s quite a bit of reading, and I felt having 20 seconds or so of me reading these would halt the flow of the story. As such I needed a solution that would grab the viewers attention and get them to read the text of their own volition without slowing down the pace, and having them “fall” onto the screen and then slide off was a fun way to do so that also looks pretty slick I would say.

I think I like adding more to the edit in this manner. Telling a narrative with the video is still the first priority, but one of the things I want to accomplish with each video is to continue to grow and show the progress I’ve made in editing and production. Editing videos has become a true hobby of mine, and I really enjoy getting to express myself in this way. Who knows, maybe even continuing to show my growth as a creative editor will interest some of you all reading this to consider helping me continue to grow as a content creator so I can continue to fund this hobby of mine *wink, wink*.

(08:33 - 09:01)

Ah, Detective Hosonaga. I get pretty notably frustrated with seeing this character return, but he’s a minor character in this case so it’s not a huge deal in all honesty. Plus we see him get beat up later, so that’s fun. If/when I make a Footnotes post for the video on the first case for this game, I’ll talk about my opinion on the character there. For now though, this post is honestly going to be long with or without the inclusion of minor character dissections, so let’s try and aim for brevity.

Of slightly more notable note is the use of the Akira meme. It was floating around on Twitter around the time of production, and I felt it accurately portrayed my opinions on seeing The Butler of all people turn out to be a reoccurring character. While I originally wanted to use more clips of him to more accurately match how the meme is done, I realized during production that the only easily identifiable thing that he does in one frame poses is the “anime glasses push”, so I decided to just play that animation in full rather than rapid cutting even though it lessened the impact.

One drawback I realized a bit too late about including this meme was that it actively flashbangs the viewer when you watch it as there are multiple instances of nothing but a white screen. Oops.

(09:14 - 09:29)

Yep, me using a dolphin sound effect to cover swearing is me directly lifting a joke from SpongeBob lol. Swearing is something I’m trying to do less of largely because I’m starting to grow and realize that it’s not really necessary the vast majority of the time, though since I’m trying to turn content creation into a part time career of sorts this applies doubly so. I will admit, however, that even though I’m trying to limit it, using the dolphin sound effect is really funny every single time.

(10:11 - 10:20)

I often “blah blah blah” through many of the more unnecessary textboxes that serve to pad out the game, though I’ve noticed that often I try and pitch my blahs into whatever song I’ve got on my mind. These blahs here are actually the Smash Bros Ultimate main theme if you listen closely. Why? I don’t know. I thought it was funny.

(10:20 - 10:59)

Honestly, Bif Strogenov is one of my favorite minor characters in the game. Lots of funny quirks, actually semi-important role to the story, easily let’s me do a funny voice whenever I say his lines, all around a great addition. No notes.

Also another instance of me adding in more motion to my edits when I think it works better than a simple hard cut and doesn’t distract from the overall point I’m making. This time it actually exaggerated the point since I wanted to draw attention to the unnamed third sailor here anyways.

(11:00 - 11:14)

Ok, I’m going to be completely 100% honest: I don’t remember why I put the voice line in the video. I did it even remember it being in the video until I rewatched it. My best guess was that I thought I needed to include this clip because it’s important to explaining what’s happening narratively for the video, but I though it was boring and dragging the pace, I guess?????? I mean it’s really funny when it catches you off guard I guess.

(12:02 - 12:29)

I have to admit, while I don’t like Herlock as a character in this case, he does get the best non-court gameplay segment in the game. Going around and examining fine details about the witness and the scene around them is creative and helps add depth to the world, and the condensed nature of the segment really helps to make it feel like you the player are the ones making the deductions. The gameplay feels natural and easy to understand, and best of all, it has a musical theme in 7/4 so it immediately gets a million bonus points for that.

What can I say other than I like to have gameplay in my game. I don’t like that I often have to mash through a lot of textboxes that feel unnecessary just to unpack the actually cool mystery elements, so when those mystery elements are given a form of gameplay to help break up the monotonous textboxes it does wonders. 10/10, fantastic gameplay element.

(13:43 - 13:58)

Ms Pavlova’s introduction does a lot of work at setting up her character in such a way that the last third of this case hits hard, so it’s important that she is introduced as a meek and shy character here. That being said though, it really does make one particular aspect of the ending to this case a bit… strange. We’ll get to that at the end though.

The earrings being something I pointed out this early though was a delightful find for editing me to use to narratively set up the flow of the video. In my opinion it works really well with how it played out: the earrings are introduced early in what at first seems to be yet another dry humor style comment about the game, only for them to have greater relevance later in the video. Things working out in this manner is the sort of thing I would do if I was scripting my own playthrough, so finding an opportunity like this was a great surprise.

As one last note about the earrings though, I needed to draw attention to them here to make them stick out just a bit more in the mind of the audience, so I decided to once again use a sliding motion to grab focus. While this seems no different from the other times I mentioned this type of edit so far, this is actually the single “shot” that I spent the longest amount of time on for the entire edit. For some reason the speed and duration of the zoom into the earrings just felt off every time, so I spent a good 45 minutes fudging with the sliders in Premiere Pro trying to tweak the zoom until it looked right. Even now when watching the video back it still looks ever so slightly off to me. Some may even say that if I hadn’t stopped myself, I would still be editing that one shot to this very day…

(14:19 - 14:32)

I actually really like this joke, one of the few from Herlock that really sticks the landing for me. So much so, this shot is actually my computer desktop right now, which always gets me strange looks when I’m in class at university lmao.

Also yes, I cackle like a witch. Sue me.

(16:20 - 16:53)

I stand by this, bruising should’ve occurred on the body, but it isn’t really worth fighting this point too much. The game kinda said from the outset “no, this isn’t important, please just ignore this and continue on”, so I rolled with it.

Oh, and that text dump was literally a copy paste of the first paragraph on the Wikipedia article for blunt force trauma. Also of note, apparently a Wikipedia article for blunt force trauma exists.

(20:50 - 21:46)

The discovery of the door bolt being poorly made has to be something that happened in order for the plot to work. Like I said earlier, this case just flat out doesn’t work if it’s a locked room. That being said though, is this really something that would be a surprise to anyone other than the passengers?

This boat and this crew have been sailing for years as established later in the case, and presumably the emergency alarm had to have been used in some instances during that time. You’re telling me that every time the alarm goes off all of the door bolts in this section of the ship slide locked, and that the crew hadn’t done anything about this clear design flaw in years? And the only way to get into these rooms once they’re locked from the outside is to bust them down? I feel like that should’ve been addressed a long time ago.

Is this a nitpick? Yes absolutely. It doesn’t really ruin the case in any way, but it is really funny when you think about it. The implication that they have to replace the door bolt every single time the ship makes an emergency stop is hilarious.

(22:06 - 22:09)

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the largest reason I wanted to make this article in the first place.

It’s pretty obvious that there’s a time skip of some fashion at this point, and I wanted to call out this in the video because it is quite noticeable. What’s less noticeable however is the fact that this time skip is actually one that spans over a year and a half.

No, seriously.

At the start of Season 4 of my content, I had just moved into a new, much more academically challenging university, and it was affecting me mentally really badly. From August to December of 2021, I streamed a grand total of 3 times. Once for the first case of this game, once for the first half of this case, and then a third time for Inscryption, which is a game that came out around that time that I was pretty excited for. I fully intended to stream the second half of this case and the rest of this game around then, but didn’t because I didn’t really have the spoons to stream anything around then. It was rough, but my mental state did eventually improve. This did ultimately lead to a change in mentality for streaming as well, but I’ve discussed that in length before in my discord server.

Once I had gotten back into streaming, returning to this case was something that didn’t seem like a good idea for stream. It had been months since I last streamed the game, and there’s a good chance nobody would have any idea what was actually going on, leading to a boring stream. My idea to combat this was simply to wait: I would wait until the video highlight for the first case came out to return to the second case, and then I would simply catch everyone up on what had happened at the start of this case. When it had only been a few months since the stream it seemed fine, but the plan quickly fell out of favor when it took yet another 6 months for the video highlight for case 1 to come out.

At that point, I realized it would be quicker and easier to simply record the rest of this case off stream and stitch it into the video as if it had been live streamed. I intended to fully hide the fact that time had passed, but that became quickly impossible when I had realized that since it had been nearly a year and a half since the original recording date of that first stream, not only had I changed nearly all of the settings for my microphone, but my voice itself had actually changed a little bit. I just had to accept my losses and through in a quick (intentionally terrible) transition to try and jokingly point out what had happened without disrupting the flow of the video to heavily.

It gets weirder though. A bit later in the video you’ll hear my voice change in quality again. This one is actually because I cut a full 30 minute period of silence out of the video when I took a break to go get lunch, and on my way out I must’ve bumped the microphone, dislodging it from the cord just enough for the quality to drop again. Professional content creator energy right there.

But there’s still more to say about this segment! You see, for the backing music for this small transition I used the “You nearly failed” music from Sonic Unleashed, which works fine especially when you have the context like I have just laid out for you, but wasn’t my first choice. I originally wanted to use a song I had stuck in my head from a bunch of older YouTube videos I had watched growing up, but when I tried to go and look for it, I found that none of the music in those older videos every got properly credited. Instead, you just got linked to a website with about a million different free-to-use music samples. I went digging for a few hours trying to find the specific piece I was looking for, but I wasn’t able to find anything. I considered trying to find a video where the specific song was used to link in this post and see if you all could help me find it, but with how much time it took me to find it used in a video before, and with how much time I’ve spent writing this post across multiple days, it just didn’t seem reasonable. Maybe I’ll make an addendum and point it out later.

So yeah, I wasn’t kidding when I said this small segment of the overall video was the largest factor behind me wanting to make this post. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes of each of these videos, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the weird and interesting things that have come up. Hopefully people will actually be interested in reading all of this and I’m not just wasting a bunch of my time.

(22:57 - 23:11)

The chicken image here because this laugh really does sound a bit like a chicken, but I ended up using it because I had just recently before this used the image in the previous TTT video on my channel and I thought it would be funny. Considering I often delete assets immediately after I use them, the fact that this chicken image of all things has stuck around for multiple videos is quite funny to me.

(25:57 - 26:03)

The case loses points for the snake juke by the way. Red herring that exists for no reason other than just for the game to go “haha gotcha!” later and the snake quite literally has no relevance itself beyond being yet another gag. It’s a filler lead that takes up a lot of time and ultimately goes absolutely nowhere. Boo.

(26:22 - 26:35)

I honestly wish I had some good juicy behind the scenes bit for this gag since I think it came out really well, but there’s not too much for me to add other than I like it and the voice is funny. Funny voices just work too well sometimes.

(26:57 - 27:11)

Alright, the blunt sword theory is one that I really wish had been the case, especially looking back on it now and realizing the sword plays next to no role in the game as a whole other than being a literal prop. The running theory was going like this: early on we spend a bit of time going through the ships rules of passage. While this was to set up the “no animals aboard the ship” rule, the game also mentions a rule about “no dangerous or lethal weapons” which Kazuma’s sword absolutely would full under. Knowing Kazuma and his whole honor thing, we figured it was likely that they gave him a blunt prop sword to use for training while the voyage took place, with the real sword being locked up somewhere. Once it was discovered that Kazuma’s cause of death was due to blunt force trauma to the back of the neck, the theory was that while Kazuma was distracted by the “speckled band” in the vent, the killer snuck in to the door thinking that Kazuma would be asleep. Kazuma wasn’t, however, since he didn’t eat any of the contaminated food, yet the killer still had a chance since Kazuma was turned around and distracted. The killer picked up the sword hoping to use it to cut him only to find it blunt, then proceeding to hit Kazuma on the back of the neck with the blunt sword since it was about the only option left. The killer used the emergency stop to cause a commotion in the room and hide the fact that the sword had been used as the murder weapon, and Pavlova discovered the body, but didn’t want to since they were also a fugitive aboard the ship.

Is this a perfect theory? No, absolutely not, but it’s a pretty fun one in all honestly, and I genuinely do like it more than the actual outcome of the case (especially when it comes to the murder weapon). I cut a lot of this theory being formed from the video since it ended up being largely off the mark, but I still wanted to include it here since it is a fun theory. We’ll get to my opinions on the actual ending of the case very soon, don’t you worry.

(31:22 - 31:46)

Ok, I’m picking this clip here to actually talk about something I don’t like about how this video ended up. There’s always something for me that when I look back on a past video of mine I wish I had changed, and for this video, it’s that the last 12 minutes or so basically just become me reacting to the story of the game progressing.

I think it was necessary for me to include all of these clips since it’s the conclusion of the case occurring, and I think part of this has to do with the odd structure of this case (again, we’ll get to that very soon), but it’s such a large portion of the video where I barely provide any commentary. I think at this point in the editing process I was ready to just call it done and ship it out since I was already well behind where I wanted to be with it, but that’s not a great excuse. I don’t add anything to the end of this video aside from a few moments which just isn’t good for making the content my own and actually justifying why you the audience should watch my video over someone else’s.

At this point I can’t exactly change anything about it, and I suppose less to talk about for the video means less to talk about here in this post lol.

(35:47 - 35:55)

Alright, let’s talk about how this case is structured.

The fact that we never go to court, or even leave the ship at all in this case is a pretty big curveball, and one that I certainly was not expecting. It makes the game feel less like a traditional Ace Attorney game and more like one from the Ace Attorney: Investigations side games. A lot of the reason I didn’t see this ending coming is because I didn’t think the game would pull a formula break like this, and it paid off well… in the short term.

Looking back on the case though, everything rides on this twist. It’s obvious from the beginning that the culprit is whoever is staying in the next door cabin, and the only reason we don’t follow through is because once we meet the shy and meek Pavlova, we assume that there simply must be someone else who we just haven’t met yet. And while keeping us confined to the ship is a twist, it’s one that causes the entire game to revolve around 3 rooms, two of which are nearly identical looking, and the third being just a hallway.

The biggest issue for me though is that this twist means that the player never gets a chance to truly show that they’ve learned something important about the case. We’re never truly tested to show that we’ve discovered something, meaning that the fact that I, for instance, saw the sleeping powder and earring twists coming early made no difference. The case is almost entirely on rails, and the player never gets to actually solve much of anything outside of the one gameplay segment with Herlock.

Is this case interesting in the moment? I’m not going to deny it, and you all heard my opinions from the video, but now that I’ve taken a step back and thought about it, the case is just missing what truly makes it an Ace Attorney case, and instead feels like a big narrative sidetrack just to have Kazuma get mentor cursed.

(37:13 - 37:53)

Now onto the opinions on how the mystery played out narratively and about Pavlova being the killer.

Let’s get the bad out of the way first: the motive for this case boils down to a heat of the moment kill spurned from a complete misunderstanding. This sucks. This sucks. This really sucks. This makes Kazuma’s death into what is essentially a fridging, as all of the narrative weight he carried died because of no real reason in particular. There isn’t some connection to the previous case and Brett holding some sort of grudge, there isn’t any connection between Kazuma and the killer, and there’s no connection between Kazuma dying and Ryunosuke’s goals or motivations. Kazuma basically just died because of a convoluted accident, and that really sucks. It’s painfully clear that the writers just needed Kazuma dead, and spun a story around that death rather than spinning a story around the murder and why it occurred.

As one other negative, the murder weapon is basically just the bed post. Really? You put all of this focus in the middle of the case about the cause of death and it turns out it’s a literal background element that killed him? You can do better than that.

All this being said though, I think making Pavlova the killer worked out pretty well. While her motive may as well not exist, the game conveys it in a tragic way that really makes you feel like it wasn’t done out of malice. At the end of the case, we still want to see the best for Pavlova despite the fact that she just admitted to murder, and it takes some clever writing to get us to feel that way. The murder feels like a tragedy in universe, and that’s a great way to end the case.

(41:06 - 41:25)

One final production note before I get to closing thoughts, apparently the YouTube recommended videos at the end are 100000% not centered properly, which sucks because I set up the end card specifically to try and have the text on the left not get covered, but I couldn’t because the videos wouldn’t center. It drove me a little nuts, but I guess I know for the future now.

Oh, and this is also the first time that I’ve included supporters at the end of the video! It a new perk that I want to start including, and if you’re still reading this article up to this point then maybe you would be interested in supporting the channel and having your name in the credits of one of my videos forever.

(Post-video)

My overall thoughts on the case is that while the case has many cool and interesting elements, a lot of those cool and interesting elements come with some downsides and baggage, meaning the case comes out pretty mixed for me. A 6/10 overall. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. It’s kind of just ok.

I made the thumbnail for this video in Photoshop, and it came out really well. I was making it and occasionally sent WIPs to my good friend LlamaIsFuzzy, and I could tell that each iteration made him laugh more and more. That image of Strogenov staring like a shocked pikachu has even become an emote in the discord server.

My overall thoughts on the video as a whole are that it came out alright, but I’ve definitely showed that I need more work when it comes to longer videos and keeping the audience fully engaged the entire way though. I even started skipping segments to wards the end of the video on this rewatch, which isn’t exactly a great sign.

The overall reception of the video matches this take from me. The video has been out for about a month and a half now and is firmly sitting towards the bottom half of my videos in terms of both views and likes. I think I’ve learned some pretty important lessons when it comes to much longer videos, and I should hopefully be able to translate those well into the future entries in this series.

Speaking of future entries, the rest of this game will be getting a video highlights edit as well, though it may end up being a while. This series falls into what I consider “medium effort videos”, which means between university and a my part time job practically working me 8 days in a 7 day week I don’t have a ton of time to invest into them. This usually means that these videos only get worked on during long breaks from university, normally summer break, thanksgiving break, and winter break. Even then, however, I have a lot of videos above case 3 of this game in the queue. My Stanley Parable stream and TTT videos are long overdue, and I want to get back around into doing Hitman vs Twitch Chat more regularly on the channel. That said, the medium effort videos queue has shuffled around already a few times in the past, maybe we’ll see the next video in the series sooner if there’s enough interest in it.

And that’s about all I have to say for this edition of Footnotes! I’ve put well more time into this than I really expected, so I really appreciate those of you who decided to take time to read all of this. I’m sure there are plenty of grammatical errors both from me and from autocorrect trying to make me look like a fool, so please loudly point those out to me so I can know how much of a fool I am.

If you all have any further questions for me, let me know! I’ll make sure to answer any interesting questions you all post here to elaborate on elements I may have explained poorly.

Similarly, if you all would be interested in seeing more posts like this, I would love to indulge! Writing this and looking back on the production cycle of a video is honestly really nice and it forces me to reflect on how I can improve as a content creator more. If there’s enough interest I’ll start writing posts on many of the older videos on my channel, because there are certainly some fun stories to tell about them.

Thank you all for your time, and I do hope your day is going well.