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morgana96 · 2 years

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Trying to Debunk Things the FFXIV Fandom Keeps Making Up About Lyse Hext

(Warning: Stormblood MSQ Spoilers Under the Cut)

I’ve been playing FFXIV for a few years now. It was my first time every playing a Final Fantasy game, and I was nervous I wouldn’t be any good at it. But FFXIV has been a huge comfort and highlight in my life. It’s gotten me through some very tough times and has really inspired me creatively. Not to mention I've met some really great people through the game, and that the community has so many nice and talented people.

But just like any other fandom, things are far from always perfect. There are fans who engage in offensive and gross behavior, fans who are toxic about how to best play - there are plenty of issues this fandom has that most of us are already aware of. But one thing that I think about a lot - although it's far from the only thing - is the strange amount of malice certain fans display when talking about the character Lyse Hext.

I couldn't understand for the longest time why some players hated Lyse so much. Personally, I enjoyed Stormblood, and I like her character. I enjoyed seeing her learn to step out of her sister's shadow and start to become her own person, and I consider her to be one of many characters who my WoL happily considers a good friend.

So it baffled me that people hated her so intensely. I get that not every character clicks with everyone, and that people have varied tastes. But the absolute vitriol some people treat her with has always confused me. That is, until I eventually realized what part of the problem is.

You see, I'm convinced that a good number of Lyse haters weren’t paying thorough attention to Stormblood’s plot. That, or they’ve simply forgotten certain details with time. Because most of the things they accuse her of or site as reasons for their hatred LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENED IN THE GAME.

There are so many accusations I've seen thrown around about her, and nearly all of them are something taken out of context, misremembered, or just straight up made up.

So what I want to do is go over some of the biggest accusations this fandom has perpetuated about Lyse and debunk those that are untrue or based on misunderstanding.

People who've followed me for a while probably know I used to do this all the time back in my Naruto fandom days. I’ve seen some really wild takes from that fandom, and still do occasionally even though the original manga ended nearly a decade ago.

But while I had to wade through a lot of nonsense back then, I really enjoy breaking down stories and characters in order to prove my perspectives. So I’d like to get back into it (especially since I’ve been struggling with focus issues, and this gives me interesting subjects to focus on!)

So let's get started:

“Yda was better than Lyse.”

Let's get something straight right of the bat. The “Yda” these players claim is “better”? That person's not real.

In the game’s timeline, the original 1.0 takes place in 1572, and the true Yda died in 1571. In other words, the “Yda” with Papalymo in 1.0 is Lyse. Apparently, legacy WoLs do encounter the real Yda via Echo visions from before 1.0, but the “Yda” they are with during 1.0 and beyond has always been Lyse. (I am not a legacy/1.0 player, so I'm using resources like the lore books and short stories to get this information.)

So what this means is that unless you are a legacy WoL, you never even knew or saw anything of the real Yda. It was always Lyse.

Everyone in the Circle of Knowing already knew this. Remember, it was Papalymo who asked them not to say anything; he recognized it as a coping mechanism for Yda's death, and he wanted Lyse to figure out for herself that she should not hide herself in her sister's shadow and legacy.

And deep down, Lyse had a feeling the others knew. She just didn't voice this, which is described as her “deciding not to know” that they knew. She even admits that she wasn't trying to truly “become” Yda, so it’s unlikely that she was really changing her personality all that much from what it usually is.

So I can't help but be annoyed when people insist they “liked Yda better”. Not only because I don't think Lyse's personality changed much from when she was “Yda”, but also because people who make this claim fail to see how ridiculous they sound.

The lie was a better character?

You see Lyse’s grief response to losing her older sister as a better character?

You hate that Lyse finally chose to let Yda go and try to become her own person? And preferred the lie?

What a weird hill to die on.

“Lyse didn’t do anything for the Resistance before my WoL showed up”

This is what I’m talking about when I say there are definitely players who just weren’t paying attention and instead make up whatever best fits their own biases.

Lyse and Papalymo were working with the Ala Mhigan Resistance since the end of A Realm Reborn. With a great deal of effort, Conrad managed to get them to Rhalgr’s Reach after the events of the Bloody Banquet, and the two of them pretty much spend the whole time after that working directly with Conrad’s faction of the Resistance until you finally manage to find them again towards the end of Heavensward and right before Stormblood begins

Lyse is not some stranger to them by the time your WoL crosses Baelsar’s Wall. By the time you get there, she’s already become close with Conrad, M’naago, and Meffrid. She’s already gone on countless dangerous missions with the Resistance and engaged directly in conflicts with imperials on their behalf. All of this is made clear in both the MSQ and the extra stories online.

I get so frustrated when blatant misinformation like this gets passed off as canon. How are you going to accurately criticize a character when you don’t even remember major parts of the story you’re criticizing? It makes no sense.

“Lyse stole the credit for saving Ala Mhigo from my WoL!!”

Yeah, no. She didn’t.

I’m not even going to pretend to humor this one. It doesn’t deserve it. It’s a lie. A straight up lie. It literally never happened.

But you know what the most annoying and sad thing about it is? This stupid claim is the exact opposite of how Lyse actually behaves throughout the game.

Lyse is seen regularly talking about how much she looks up to the WoL. She talks so much about how they inspire her, whether directly to them or to others when they’re not around. One of the biggest parts of her arc is getting over her fear of not living up to “true heroes”, including her family and the WoL. Hell, when people rightfully thank her for her efforts, she downplays it as simply doing the right thing and not something anyone needs to thank her for.

And when the WoL finally beats Zenos and Ala Mhigo finally becomes free, do you know what she says?

“You beat [Zenos], after all. You’re the real hero of this story. So run along and take your plaudits!”

How media illiterate does someone have to be to think that THIS is a character who’s “stealing credit”?

So no, Lyse Hext did not “steal credit” from your WoL. In fact, your WoL honestly just sounds like a delusional, self-important prick.

“Lyse didn't earn being the leader of Ala Mhigo/ the Resistance! It should have been Raubahn or M'naago!”

There are quite a few big issues with this one:

1 - Lyse is NOT the leader of Ala Mhigo, nor is she the leader of the entire Resistance.

Raubahn is.

Raubahn is Ala Mhigo's acting head of state. He's the one who is now the main head of the Resistance, which is the city-state's official military now that the Empire has lost control there.

I can’t even count how many people I’ve seen shouting about how “Raubahn should have been in charge!”, when he already IS in charge. And basically almost NO ONE ever fact checks anyone else on this.

These players are literally accusing Lyse of stealing a position she doesn’t have from a man who is, in fact, already in said position.

It’s wild.

2 - Lyse is currently the commander of the Resistance troops at Rhalgr’s Reach in the Fringes. That’s it.

The story makes it very clear that the Resistance was originally not headed by any one leader. There were multiple factions with different leaders, and they didn’t always get along and often had different perspectives on how best to free Ala Mhigo.

For instance, it was the Griffin specific faction of the Resistance, led by Ilberd, that attacked Baelsar's Wall. This branch of the Resistance was not affiliated with Conrad, and in fact, some of Conrad's group and fighters from other groups went to join the Griffin after being taken in by his words.

And because of the slaughter Ilberd purposely led those people into to summon Shinryu, many Ala Mhigans became wary of all factions of the Resistance for a time, even though they weren't necessarily affiliated with the Griffin’s faction.

The Resistance only recently began transitioning into an official military unit, rather that countless factions doing their own thing. Lyse is specifically in command of the group at Rhalgr’s Reach, because that was Conrad’s group. She’s NOT in charge of anyone else’s faction.

My guess as to the current chain of command is that the other factions are still being led by their respective leaders, and that since Raubahn now leads them as a whole, they (including Lyse) fall under his command and answer to him.

And as I said before, The Rhalgr’s Reach Resistance are not strangers to her, nor is she a stranger to them; she’s been working with and helping them since the end of ARR. It’s only because so many people refuse to acknowledge this that they’re convinced she’d done “nothing”, or that they somehow would see her as unfit.

3 - There are few things as universally annoying in fandom spaces than fans pitting women who are canon friends against each other. And unfortunately, this is exactly what I see happen most of the time with Lyse and M’naago.

Now unlike some of the other things I talk about in this post, I can at least understand some of the frustration regarding these two. After all, M’naago has been with the Resistance for a longer time.

But once again, this ends up tainted by people’s weird obsession with outright vilifying Lyse and everything she does. She’s not some evil schemer trying to usurp M’naago, and M’naago isn’t her bitter rival or victim. They are clearly very close - Lyse referring to her as “Naago” is a big deal in Seeker culture - and their stories on the lodestone makes it pretty clear to me that they care far more about each other and working to save their homeland than titles and mantles of leadership.

Honestly, I think a lot of people like to forget how much Lyse tried to reject becoming a leader. She was constantly comparing herself to others, and as a result, she considered herself unworthy of such a role and convinced herself it was something you needed a natural talent for. She was the one who insisted that being related to Curtis and Yda wasn’t enough to make her a good leader. It was only when she accepted her own limitations and imperfections that she finally accepted that role. She had to sort her own personal feelings out before she was ready to take on that responsibility.

One of the things I love about Lyse is that she’s a wonderfully flawed character; she has a lot of doubts, but she is trying her best to improve herself, instead of constantly wondering if she’s living up to someone else’s legacy. She’s not a Warrior of Light, or a decorated Archon. But she’s passionate, determined, and always willing to learn from others while she tries to become who she wants to be. In my eyes, that’s what Conrad’s talking about when he tells her she can become a leader. And regardless of what anyone else says, I enjoyed watching her start to come into her own.

“Lyse is a White Savior.”

This issue is much more complex than the other things I’ve brought up here. So I want to start out by making some things clear from the start.

As a black woman, I think one of the only well-founded criticisms regarding Lyse is her pale completion compared to her father Curtis, whose skin is much darker. Colorism is a serious and ongoing issue in entertainment media industries. It’s my belief that Lyse’s character design is a perfect example of that issue. And we as a fandom should absolutely acknowledge and criticize it.

However, I also disagree strongly with anyone who refers to Lyse as “a white savior”.

To provide some background information, “white savior” is a term connected to the long history of white people colonizing, oppressing, and denying agency to non-white people. Its concept originates from the racist ideology known as “The White Man's Burden” (named after a pro-imperialism poem), which falsely claims that white people are morally obligated to "save" people of color from themselves and their "savagery", thus justifying their colonization and cultural genocide. It’s also recognized as a common trope in media, where a white person - usually a white man displaced from white society - is made into the leader or liberator of a group of people of color, thus making said white person the focus of a story that doesn’t actually affect them the way it affects the marginalized.

There are two main reasons why I disagree with calling Lyse a white savior:

1 - Like I’ve already said, I 100% think Lyse’s character design is flawed. But something that’s very important to note here is that Ala Mhigo/Gyr Abania is not a homogeneous society some players seem to think it is.

Like a lot of the other regions in Eorzea, Gyr Abania has a diverse mixture of the world's fantasy races, including Hellsguard Roes, Seeker of the Sun Miqo'te, and both Highlander and Midlander Hyurs. But Gyr Abania is also not homogeneous when it comes to skin color. There are characters and NPCs throughout the Gyr Albania areas with varying skin tones. Some are fair, some are dark, and some are somewhere in between.

The problem with Lyse’s character design is that she’s suspiciously fair skinned despite being the daughter of a clearly dark-skinned man.

But what I tend to see people turn that into is “Lyse is too fair skinned to be Ala Mhigan”.

Fordola is fair skinned. M’hahtoa, M’naago’s mother, and several other members of the M Tribe are fair skinned. There are multiple NPCs across the Gyr Abanian maps that have fairer skin (some are named/can be spoken to, while others are unnamed/background NPCs).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen these characters brought up when people start talking about Ala Mhigan ethnicities. Maybe someone out there has and I simply missed it. But as far as I can remember, I’ve only seen Ala Mhigan skin tones brought up when someone is calling Lyse, and no one else, “too pale to be Ala Mhigan”. It doesn’t work to make this claim because Ala Mhigan is not a race; it's a nationality which is made up of multiple races, and those races seem to have varied skin tones based on what we see in the actual game.

Now remember, this is in no way a recant of my stance. I think Lyse should be closer in skin tone to her father. But the white savior label doesn’t work in this context because despite the problems with her design, Lyse is an Ala Mhigan refugee; not some random foreigner coming into Gyr Abania with no understanding of their history and plight. It’s not enough to claim she’s “too pale to be Ala Mhigan”, because Ala Mhigo/Gyr Abania isn’t homogeneous like that.

2 - When it comes to white saviorism, there’s a very specific privilege and ignorance that comes with it. The reason why it’s offensive is because it makes a white person the focus of a situation that they can’t and don’t truly understand. A story’s white savior - whether consciously or unconsciously - symbolizes white ego and narcissism. And frankly, I do not think that was ever the intention of Lyse’s story.

There’s a big difference between a white savior’s intrusion into a foreign country and a refugee returning to their homeland after many years. While only Lyse’s early years were spent in Ala Mhigo, she is not completely removed from it like people seem to think she is. It’s very clear she remembers her time there, and has clear memories of life with her father and sister.

She was only five when Yda got her out - right at the start of the Garlean occupation - and because of this, she initially doesn’t know how to convince other Ala Mhigans that the fight for their home is still worth it. Her love and hope for a better Ala Mhigo is mistaken for ignorance, because many have been so worn down by the loss and bloodshed that it’s considered suicide to fight back anymore.

Stormblood does a great job of showing how imperialism wears down its victims. The hopelessness felt by many in Ala Mhigo and Doma is the result of years of violence, abuse, and cruelty, and that’s exactly the imperials’ intention; an oppressor wants to break the will and spirit of the oppressed as much as they can, conditioning them to normalize their mistreatment in order to diminish threats to their control.

Characters like Fordola also help show how imperialists manipulate the oppressed to work against their own best interests. All of Fordola’s actions are driven by the misguided idea that working with the Empire would “free” Ala Mhigo. She was convinced that as long as she fought and killed for them, she’d eventually prove that Ala Mhigans are worthy of the Garleans’ respect. But that was never going to happen. It was a tactic to indoctrinate young Ala Mhigans and maintain the imperial status quo. And sadly, Fordola fell deep into that trap.

This is the real cause for Lyse’s initial disconnect. It’s not because of privilege or bias, or a lack of personal connection to Ala Mhigo. It’s founded on the fact that she simply hasn’t experienced the Empire’s relentless tyrannical tactics the same way those who remained in Gyr Abania have.

But this doesn’t mean she hasn’t dealt with loss and fear. Both her father and sister were killed by the Garleans. She’s experienced displacement and having to flee from your home to survive. She’s lost comrades and close friends while with the Scions. This isn’t some naive little girl who doesn’t know the pain that comes with battles and war.

The biggest challenge for the main cast of Stormblood wasn’t just physically fighting the Garleans. It was about a shared sense of pain and loss, and trying to break through the hopelessness the people of Ala Mhigo and Doma were feeling.

Lyse, the WoL, and the other characters aren’t doing what they do for glory. They’re not claiming to know better than the Ala Mhigans and Domans. They’re not trying to take their agency away. They’re trying to convince them to take back their own agency and futures from the Garleans. It’s about understanding their pain, their loss, and their fear, and trying to help them rediscover the strength to keep fighting for themselves. At least that’s what it was to me.

And speaking of the Garleans, it’s wild how I don’t see more people bring up their similarities to white saviorism.

So many Garleans refer to non-Garleans as “savages” and treat them as second class citizens in the provinces.

They insist that their societies and faiths are “primitive”, and that this justifies their invasions and conquests.

They outlaw cultural and religious practices and force their own practices in their place, all under the guise of “civilizing” conquered people and saving them from themselves.

They propagandize themselves as selfless heroes, and people like the WoL as the monstrous villains. “We’re simply trying to rescue these poor, deluded “savages” from themselves and their eikons. Why are you mad?”

And when people fight back and reject them, the Empire plays victim. Take Varis for instance; during that meeting with the Alliance, he targets the very valid issues the Eorzean nations have. But that’s not because he actually cares about fixing those problems; he’s literally just gaslighting them and trying to justify Garlemald’s false sense of supremacy.

It’s all right there. It’s literally a perfect fictional example of the racism, narcissism, and backwards logic of imperialism.

Yet somehow, I’ve see Lyse, an Ala Mhigan refugee, called a “white savior” more often than Garlean imperials.

It’s frustrating, to say the least.

~~~

Well, these are pretty much all the main accusations I’ve seen thrown at Lyse since I’ve started the game. If I think of anything else, or if someone gives me something else to look at, I will add on to this.

I don’t know if I’m changing any minds with this, or even if anyone even has the time or patience to read through this whole post. But it’s feels good to finally write out a lot of my thoughts on this subject after so long. I’d like to do this on more subjects relating to FFXIV, including ways I think certain parts of story could have been improved.

But that’s or another day. Thanks so much for reading ~

#Final Fantasy XIV #FFXIV #Lyse Hext #Character Discussion #Fandom Things #Long Post #like stupidly long lmao #if you make it through this congrats #this is the longest thing I've written in a long time #considering how much i struggle with focusing #this is a big achievement for me

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thetypedwriter · 9 months

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The Starless Sea Book Review

The Starless Sea Book Review by Erin Morgenstern

This book made me feel like I was drowning.

In honey.

If you don’t get that reference, don’t worry. Morgenstern will beat you over the head with it every single chapter until you can never see honey the same way again.

Now, I feel like I’m in an odd camp where I actually haven’t read Morgenstern’s famous masterpiece The Night Circus. I’ve always wanted to get around to reading it, but it always seemed to slip right past my to-be-read pile.

So when The Starless Sea came out, I thought yes! This is my chance to get in on a Morgenstern book early.

Too bad I didn’t like it.

The Starless Sea starts off really interesting. There’s a series of vignettes that hook the reader right away, including a pirate and a girl, an acolyte in training, a dollhouse village, and a fortune-teller’s son. The fortune teller’s son turns out to be the main protagonist of the novel—Zachary Ezra Rawlins.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a hermit-like young man in his mid-20’s studying game design. He ends up finding an old book at his university’s library in which his real life childhood memory is one of the chapters. The other chapters of this old novel? All chapters that we as readers have been consuming since the first page. Very meta, Morgenstern.

Understandably baffled, Zachary Ezra Rawlins sets on a quest to uncover the book’s secrets, leading him to the very real underground world of the Starless Sea, including its inhabitants, puzzles, and magic.

Throughout the journey, Zachary Ezra Rawlins meets other characters connected to the Starless Sea in some capacity and finally gets the answer to the question that has plagued him since childhood: what would have happened if he had opened that door?

I genuinely wish I could go more in depth about this book’s plot, but there’s only one main problem—this book doesn't have a plot. Go ahead and read that sentence again. I’ll state it once more for good measure: As an objective third-party outsider with absolutely no stakes in the matter, The Starless Sea contains no discernible plot to speak of.

I can say that the plot was a convoluted mess that didn’t make any sense. Zachary Ezra Rawlins (yes, it does get annoying repeating this again and again, yet Morgenstern opens every chapter with it) goes deep down underground past the Harbor into the Starless Sea for…reasons.

He encounters numerous puzzles and magic and lots of rooms that Morgenstern likes to describe in excruciating detail, mainly that they’re dripping in honey and occupied by cats. The other people he encounters don’t answer most of his questions, leaving the reader bewildered and frustrated.

One character in particular is a man that Zachary Ezra Rawlins falls in love with for seemingly no reason at all. They have about three stunted conversations, including one where the other man whispers menacingly in his ear in the dark about bees and owls and swords for ten minutes, and then Zachary Ezra Rawlins is risking life and limb in the abyss of the Starless Sea to rescue him.

Another character is trying to blow up the Starless Sea for inane reasons that don’t make sense, but essentially get boiled down to she’s trying to protect it.

The other characters include Zachary Ezra Rawlins’ college friend who gets way more page time than she needs to, the keeper of the Starless Sea that answers nobody’s questions, Mirabel who is apparently the embodiment of fate, and her parents, who have been trapped in time and space for…a long time?

None of these characters called to me. None of them were awful, but all of them outside of Zachary Ezra Rawlins were either too brief, underdeveloped, or abstract for me to connect with on any kind of emotional level.

I wanted to connect to Zachary Ezra Rawlins, but none of his actions held much depth, his thinking was too shallow, and his commitment to his love interest Dorian actively didn’t contain any kind of logic or understanding.

You might be wondering: if she didn’t like the nonsensical story or the characters, did she like anything?

Indeed, I did. The setting of The Starless Sea was really incredible. I’m always in awe of people’s creativity and imagination, both qualities Morgenstern seems to have in droves. The descriptions of the rooms, the Harbor, and the Starless Sea itself were all intricate, beautiful, and extremely symbolic.

I wish I could say that I liked Morgenstern’s writing, but it really grated on me. What started off as moving writing, well-crafted sentences, and intentional symbolism turned into a repetitive slog that drove me up the wall.

I like symbolism as much as the next person, especially subtle symbolism, but Morgenstern’s symbolism is the opposite of subtle.

Morgenstern’s symbolism wants to beat you over the head with a key. Or a bee. Or a sword. Or a crown. Or an owl. You get where I'm going with this. What could have been a really cool series of motifs turned into a pretentious drone that aggravated me more and more as I continued to read.

Overall, I was really disappointed with The Starless Sea. With a little more plot direction, tightening of the characters, and less symbolism, The Starless Sea could have been an alluring and fantastic read to rival the everlasting fame of The Night Circus.

As it stands, however, The Night Circus would only need to contain a recognizable plot to be better than The Starless Sea for me.

Recommendation: If you are a Morgenstern fangirl and will be reading The Starless Sea regardless of what I say, fantasize about the incredible setting of The Starless Sea and hope to forget about everything else. If you’re like me and haven’t delved into Morgenstern’s worlds just yet, start and end with The Night Circus.

Score: 4/10

#the starless sea #erin morgenstern #the night circus #book blog #book review #favorite books #top books #popular fiction #Popular Books #Book Recommendations #book recs #book rec #4/10

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spinningbuster98 · 2 months

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youtube

I must confess that, for the longest time, I did not have the best of times with Sotn.

You see for as much as people often say that this game is piss easy I used to actually have quite a bit of trouble back during my first few playthroughs. The Colosseum, Olrox, the Inverted Castle, the Clock Tower, I used to get my ass kicked quite a bit, which caused me to grow resentful towards the game.

As the years went by I gradually realised that it was mostly my fault. There was a time when RPGs were the bane of my existence, I could not get into their mechanics and Sotn's rpg mechanics were no different, moreso due to the fact that this is not a turn based rpgs but something more akin to an action rpg. I used to do some absolutely baffling mistakes. I kept forgetting what items I had in my inventory, like if I had specific armors or weapons that would be better for certain circumstances (like lightning armor to defend against the lightning attacks of Galamoth for example), I kept forgetting to use spells strategically, instead I kept trying to attack enemies with my regular weapons and sub weapons which made the Inverted Castle harder than necessary. This stuff frustrated me and when I get frustrated I play even worse

One example is my first experience against Beelzebub: I could not defeat this rotting bastard because I could not figure out how to reliably hit his head without getting pelted by his flies. I died a lot and ragequit

...then I realised I could dodge his flies by using the mist form, which I had but didn't think to use during combat encounters. And that there are a bunch of platforms in the room leading right beside Beelzebub's head. And that I could use spells like Soul Steal and Tetra Spirits to deal with him easily. Oh and that there's an Axe Subweapon right outside his room, ideal for hitting targets too high up to reach.

I, as a player, have always been shit with multiple choices. I'm the kind of player that, once he finds a solution to a problem, will keep using that solution without searching any better alternatives, and if I can't find a solution then I will keep hitting my head against that brick wall until it breaks. Sotn being a game that gives you a million different ways to approach things sort of...disoriented me you could say

But this is the reason why I've come to technically disagree with the idea that Sotn is an easy game. The game actually has several moments that can and will easily kill first time players. I'd say that Sotn is more easy to break than just plain easy

This game gives you so, SO many ways to break its difficulty in two if you have even a little sense of exploration (which is needed anyway to even progress through this game)

And I'm torn

On the one hand I technically prefer how future games will gradually attempt to better balance the difficulty, and I don't think I'd want another game that handles it like Sotn does

On the other hand however I love it when games reward my efforts by giving me overpowered tools. One of my favorite things in Classic Sonic games is abusing Super Sonic, which I love to do mainly because it's my reward for completing the games' Special Stages. You get to break the game because you were good enough to complete an extra challenge

Sotn is similar in this regard, since you usually have to either find its most game breaking tools...or they're just straight up secrets

You have to find the Holy Rod on your own if you want to break the first half of the game, you have to find Alucard's equipment in the Inverted Castle to get through that place more easily, you either have to find out on your own or look up on the Internet that you can use late game spells early on

And while most people claim that this game's difficulty is due to the developers being inexperienced with this new style...I think this was at least partly done on purpose

Do you think that putting stuff like the Crissaegrim or the Alucard Shield was an accident? Or stuff like this?

Remember: Sotn was purposefully made easier than the Classics to be more accessible, so I genuinely believe that most of this balancing was by design, in fact I think that Sotn is quite literally not properly designed to be chellenging.

Even if you go out of your way to not equip anything on Alucard to make him as weak as possible you'll find that the game just becomes frustrating, at least to me, as the enemy placement is often far too cluttered for you not to wear armor to mitigate most of the damage and bosses especially either barely try to attack you seriously (Cerberus) or their attacks barely follow any pattern and barely feel like you can reliably dodge their attacks without specific tactics. It just doesn't feel anywhere close to as deliberatly designed as the Classics in this regard, everything feels designed knowing that you're going to steamroll over everything using OP equipment

Sotn, to me, is the equivalent of a power fantasy: it's not about having a challenge, it's about doing short work of the opposition in spectacularily overpowered and flashy ways, because you're playing as the son of the Dark Lord himself and he does not fuck around (and of course Richter himself has his peculiarities though I'll probably mention him next time)

I'm personally a bit torn over how this impacts exploration: ideally you'd want to explore in a game to get more powerful in order to more easily handle challenges. But since Sotn gives you such over powered tools you can basically ignore most weapons and armors. Even stuff like Life and Heart ups can be mostly ignored, which makes exploration, partly useless

But at the same time, as I mentioned, it's through exploration that you gain some of these tools in the first place and I believe that, at its best, Sotn's exploration can actually be even better than Super Metroid's!

In that game, other than the plethora of item expansions and the mostly progression required upgrades the only truly unique stuff you can find completely on your own were beam upgrades

Here not only is it completely up to you to find the most broken weapons, stuff like the various extra powers for Alucard's transformations and the gravity boots feel more rewarding to find as they influence his movement in big ways and are generally more exciting that just having a different beam weapon

#akumajou dracula #castlevania symphony of the night #my gameplay #Youtube

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auroragehenna · 6 months

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Ai-less Whumptober

Day 27 Paranoia

CW/TW: Aftermath of torture, seasoned whumpee, wlw flirting (gasps)

Word count: ?

Did that person just stare at her? The one that looked like an elf. It was hard to tell with the hood on. But her features somewhat resembled hers. Please not, she already finished a job today. But usually people don‘t spend their free time here outside, why else would she be here, her head whispered. No they actually do, this is freaking garden, get it together. Was that a blade she saw glinting in the dusk light? Yes, that‘s also normal. You also carry multiple. The world is a dangerous place you know. My point. Shut up! Over there‘s another person! Shit! Was this a trap?! Did she walk into another trap?! Not again. Wait did the lighting just change?! No, I don‘t think so? Fuck the girl is coming here. Shit, shit, shit. Tierney clutched her hidden blades and went though her spells in her mind.

„I’ve never seen a wallflower this pretty.“, the girl said. Sitting down next to her, with a bit of space and leaning back on her arms and hands. „Are you doing alright thought?“

Tierney looked at her absolutely baffled. Still clutching her hidden weapons. But this wasn‘t a behaviour she encountered before. We can‘t trust her! Before she even really processed it her hand shot down onto the grass, fingers digging into the soil. „I‘m fine. What are you up to?“, she asked still suspicious.

„I’m up to a lot, but not tonight. Tonight is just about the grass between my toes and the stars above my head.“

Tierney looked at her. Her eyes seemed to light up with something deeper. Something more emotional. Before she sighed and started to speak again: „Listen if you‘re here because of my reputation or to kidnap me just say that I‘m done with games.“

„Kidnap you?“ she asked with confusion written all over her face. As her face relaxes again she follows up with: „The only games I play have the goal of relieving idiots from the burden of heavy pockets filled with money.“

Tierney finally relaxed a little bit again. Her other hand eased it‘s grip on the knife and freed it out of it‘s hiding place. She casually lowered her hand with the knife onto the grass and used the other one to release your arms. She nearly smiles a little. „Well I can‘t really judge that.“

„The guards think otherwise“ She laughed. „I know a beautiful place a bit south from here, close to a park, and great view of the city.“

Danger! „I uhm.“ Fuck it, if this is another job then I might as well do it. And if it‘s not then? Uhm… „Yeah, why again?“, she asks confused.

„It’s my safe spot. I thought I share it with you if you need a place to escape reality for a moment“ she smiles. „I‘m Nalani by the way.“

„Tierney. Okay. But no funny business.“, she adds earnestly.

„You can just tie me up with flowers, if you don’t trust me“ Nalani giggled

Tierney smiled a little bit. „Indeed I can.“ She got up on her feet and watched the girl do the same. „Alright. Show me.“, she hesitated, „I would like to see it.“

„would you like the scenic route or walk among the peasants, my lady.“ Nalani snickered, while over exaggerating noble etiquette.

Tierney raised an eyebrow at her. „Typically I like to take routes that have more nature and less people, fair lady.“

„That means we drop the fancy talk and jump from rooftop to rooftop“ She grins before she skillfully jups up the closest building.

A grin also widens up on Tierney‘s face now. She focuses on the fluffy ears on her head until her whole body morphs into one of a cat and follows you up to the rooftop before starting to morph back. But halfway through she get‘s stuck and ends up somewhere in the area of a cat and her own self. She rolls her eyes and balances on her footballs for a few moments. At least it will be good for climbing and jumping. I just hope it won‘t freak Nalani out. But the girls seemed fine and so she followed her over the rooftops through the town.

Nalani giggles a bit as she sees why the tiefling had fox ears beforehand. „I hope as part fox you can keep up with me!“ She yells cheerfully.

Tierney tsk‘d. She wasn‘t yet sure if she liked this weird stranger and she certainly wasn‘t sure if she could trust her.

Taglist: @yourlocalgaefae33, @princessofhe11, @greatkittencloud, @bisexuawolfsalt, @ailesswhumptober

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theshootingraistar · 4 months

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Sonic Unleashed?

Admittedly, as a Sonic fan, I have a lot of bias to what Sonic Unleashed added to the proverbial table, but i feel like even if it was completely and entirely disconnected from the rest of the Sonic canon, it'd STILL be an absolute favorite of mine. It's THAT good of a game.

Let's be real here - This game had no business being released in 2008. Even 15+ years later, the game still looks PHENOMENAL. Hell, I'd argue it looks even BETTER now that we can play it at 60fps with no frame drops! Sonic Unleashed was so ahead of it's time, that it was more powerful than the consoles it was DESIGNED FOR!

From the level design, to the gameplay, to the story, to the mechanics, to the music, to the collectibles, to the animation - THE ANIMATION

Y'ALL

LOOK AT THIS

LOOK AT THE SHINE ON SONIC'S SHOES, THE SMOKE BILLOWING BEHIND THEM, THE FUR ON THE WEREHOG, THE FUR ON THE WEREHOG!

15+ YEARS LATER AND THIS GAME LOOKS BETTER THAN GAMES RELEASING TODAY

Sonic Unleashed is an incredible game and I love everything about it. Yes, even the werehog stages. In fact, ESPECIALLY the werehog stages. Do they have thier faults? Yes, certainly. The stages can sometimes drag on a bit too long, and the sheer amount of forced combat encounters is certainly a baffling decision. But when it came to translating Sonic the Hedgehog into a 3D Beat-Em-Up, I think they nailed it. Plus, it gave the developers time to slow down for a second, and experiment with slower styles of platforming for a change. Even the fastest thing alive needs to stop and smell the roses every now and again.

Truly, charm leaks out of every orifice of Sonic Unleashed, and spews upon your screen in a grand display from the very moment you turn it on. As the origin of the now ubiquitous Boost formula of Sonic games, it somehow manages to immediately do it right, with gigantic, wide levels to accommodate for your speed, even if relying a BIT too much on reaction time. As the first Sonic game in HD, it blows the whole thing out of the goddamn water, the park, the atmosphere, and even the fucking GALAXY, Being so far ahead of it's time that, while still impressive back then, is one of the ONLY games from the 360 generation that still universally looks good today. And as an experience, is truly one of the most refined you can have. Sonic Unleashed is FAR from a bad game, and criticizing it as if it is proves you are a terrible critic who needs to step up your game. Even people who hate the werehog still admit that the daytime stages are fire. Because even if Sonic Unleashed made a few missteps here or there, it is still an amazing game that every Sonic fan, or even 3D Platformer fan, should play!

Uh, in conclusion, Sonic Unleashed good.

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mimisempai · 2 years

Text

All these little things

Summary

Dream coming across Hob humming while cleaning leads them to discuss what they love about each other.

Notes:

Flufftober Day 17 - Insects

On AO3

Rating G - 1041 words

"When the dog bites

When the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad"

Hob had not heard Dream arrive and was humming while cleaning the living room.

Dream leaned in the doorway and watched him, amused. When Hob paused in his song, he asked him, "Is it because of that song that you're always so hopeful?"

Hob turned around, slightly surprised but clearly used to Dream's impromptu arrivals.

He chuckled softly, "I'm a lot older than that song and I'm nothing like a nun turned nanny. But yeah, sometimes, minus the cheesiness, that song could have been written for me."

He walked over to Dream who also approached and they exchanged a soft kiss before heading to the kitchen.

Hob poured them cups of coffee, handed one to Dream and brought his own cup to his face. He breathed in deeply and Dream watched with fondness the expression of pure delight appear on his lover's face.

Of all the things that made Hob endearing to Dream, he didn't know which he preferred more between his insatiable thirst for life, his eternal optimism or his love for the simplest little things in life.

"There's so much to do, so many things to see. Women to swive. Ale to drink. People to drink with."

"Why would any sensible creature crave an eternity of this?"

He had taken with disdain these words of Hob, the day of their first meeting. He thought the man was absolutely superficial, although he probably wasn't, or maybe a little. These words had finally illustrated Hob's ability to rejoice in the smallest things that life put in his path. An ability he had shown Dream more than once over the centuries, even in their very short encounters. More surprisingly, a quality that had never wavered, despite his long life that could have made him bored.

"I've hated every second of the last 80 years, every bloody second. You know that?"

"So do you still wish to live?"

"Are you crazy? Death is a mug's game. I got so much to live for."

At that moment, Dream had known that Hob was an exceptional human being. Who could want to go on living when he had lost everything and when life had taken everything away from him?

But Hob had continued.

He had moved forward, fallen, and got up again. He had made mistakes, assumed them and tried his best to repair them.

"Dream?"

Hob called softly, bringing him out of his thoughts and asked with concern, "Is everything okay?"

Dream nodded, taking a sip of coffee and then Hob continued, "You seemed lost far away in your thoughts."

Dream reassured him with a smile and replied, "I was thinking back to the lyrics of the song you were humming and wondering if I'm also one of your favorite things, that help you not feel too bad when things aren't right."

Hob shook his head and, walking over to Dream, he tied his arms around his neck and said teasingly, "You my dear Lord, have a unique place. You are not one of my favorite things but you are indispensable to me. As vital as the air I breathe. My favorite things don't matter if you aren't there."

Dream should know by now, Hob was the man who never ceased to baffle him. Never where he expects him to be. Always so sincere.

He closed his arms around Hob and leaned in to press his lips to his in a tender kiss before holding him close.

After a few moments Hob stepped back a little and, running his fingers through his lover's hair, he hummed to the tune of the song he had sung before, "Your hair tousled no matter what time of day...."

Dream gave a little smile and Hob, passing his thumb over the smiling lips, continued, "That little smile of which I am the reason..."

Then his hand went down Dream's arm and, interlacing his fingers with those of his lover, he continued, "Your hand that fits perfectly in mine, these are a few of my favorite things…"

Dream chuckled softly, "Hob Gadling you kept from me that you were a poet."

Hob retorted, "You bring out the best in me and then I didn't want to overshadow Shaxberd."

He smiled openly at Dream to show him that there were no more hard feelings between them about this time. Dream smiled back at him and couldn't help but ask, "Tell me more about those favorite things."

Hob smiled knowingly and resumed his song, "Your familiar figure in the back of my classroom, holding your hand without worrying about people walking by," He paused to trace Dream's eyebrows with his finger and continued, "That gaze you have that is only for me, these are a few of my favorite things..."

Then Hob brought his lips to Dream's and whispered against his lips, "When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, I simply remember that you're my favorite thing, and then I don't feel so bad."

Hob returned to a speaking voice and continued, "Actually that's an understatement, it's not that I don't feel so bad, it's that I feel much better. Dream, I'm serious. I loved life before you, if anything I love it so much more with you in it. And this is probably my favorite thing of all."

Dream, overwhelmed by emotion and unable to answer, did the only thing he could, he closed the distance between them and pressed his lips against Hob's in a passionate kiss.

Later when they parted to catch their breath, Dream, taking Hob's face in his hands, said panting, "I don't know where to begin if I'm going to list all the favorite things that have been mine since I've known you. I suspect, moreover, that I have only begun to really know Robert Gadling and have plenty more to discover yet."

Hob replied with a cheeky smile, "That's good, we have forever for that."

Dream leaned over and dropped a light kiss on Hob's nose before saying with a smile, "An eternity to discover you? Now that, that could become my favorite thing."

_________

Still not beta'd

Still not my native language

Still hoping you'll enjoy this story 🥰

Still thanking you for bearing with me 😝

Dreamling Flufftober here

Dreamling Masterlist here

#the sandman #the sandman netflix #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dreamling #dreamling fic #centennial husbands #centennial boyfriends #morpheus #morpheus x hob #hob x morpheus #flufftober2022 #flufftober

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brittleskyblue · 1 year

Text

I’m crashing the party with angst again bc that bit of dialogue from that lost sector hit me with feels.

(Set after the angst fic I’m working on but I’m too impatient to wait till that’s done. Nelan and Ivo return to Neomuna, and it’s been a few weeks since the incident at the Veil)

* * *

The archivist, Quinn, had called this place an arcade and that these rectangle things are machines that people play games on. It was quite popular to the people of Neomuna. She can’t remember off the top of her head if such things exist in the City. She feels like they should.

Nelan studies one of these machines, wondering why the Vex had been so transfixed by it. These weren’t like the “music boxes” they had once encountered on Io years ago. The machines were colorful and made noise sometimes, but that was about it.

They tilt their head and press one of the buttons of the machine. It beeps at them. It startles her a little, but still she smiles. It was a curious thing.

She turns to make a comment to her Ghost, who apparently was absolutely baffled by the concept of arcades, but she finds him sort of staring off into space. Well, actually just at a nearby arcade machine that seemed to be reflecting his image off the blank screen. Come to think of it, he’s been pretty quiet instead of the normally chatty Ghost he is. Nelan knows that when he goes quiet like this there’s something on his mind. Given recent events…

“What’s wrong?” They ask.

Ivo looks over at the call of her voice, holds her gaze for a moment, but then casts his eye downward, the points of his shell drooping slightly. Yeah, he’s definitely got something on his mind, and Nelan can only hazard a guess as to what it is. They had a fairly good idea of it.

“I worry, Nelan, that I’m nothing more than another machine, like these games.” He tells her. “I haven’t just switched off, like during the Red War.”

‘ "Switched off" because you lost your connection to the Traveler?’ She thinks, but holds herself back from saying. It’s still a bitter memory whenever he mentioned the Red War, and she counted herself fortunate Ivo didn’t die that day, remembering how battered he looked when they had found each other again.

“Is that because I’m a person?” He continues, even as they hold out their hand for him and he goes to them. “Or am I just plugged into something else now? But I suppose a game machine can’t feel the absence of its creator…”

Nelan knows he means the Traveler, how it feels so distant from him since the incident at the Veil. It was widely reported among Ghosts that the presence of the Traveler for them was diminished, and yet they still had the Light it had given them; that which had given them life. Some said it was “gone” or “dead” or “silent”, even though it was still there physically above Earth. It’s “gone” and yet somehow they were still here. Ivo was still here.

They also wondered if by “plugged into something else” he means the instances of possession at the hands of the Witness. They recall that after the first time it had happened at the Luna Pyramid, he told them that he was worried that a piece of Darkness resided within himself now. He’d been afraid it would happen again. She hated to think that maybe he’d been right and neither of them knew it then; that if it had been done once it could be done again.

Nelan knew Ivo was still struggling with what happened at the Veil, how the Witness had used him as the catalyst to make the link and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. She too was still struggling with how she hadn’t noticed what was going on until it was too late; how she had been unable to protect Ivo from that dark force taking hold of him. They were both a little better now, but even a few weeks out from the convergence, neither of them were fully okay.

But it was a good thing they still had each other.

Nelan brought Ivo in close, bowed her head, and whispered to him, almost reverently.

“This unit has a soul.”

Ivo makes a confused electronic noise at them. “What?”

They raise their head peer down at their Ghost. “Something I heard in passing. I think Temperance might have said it? Don’t know where xey got it from. I just know xey said it to Fynch once.”

Ivo makes a noise that sounds like a laugh, but he goes quiet once again.

“…Do you think I have a soul?” He says at last, his voice sounding so small.

“I do.”

No hesitation. Not when it’s something she’s always firmly believed. It was true that Ghosts were beings created from the Traveler, commonly referring to them as A.I.s, but she’s always seen Ghosts as being so full of life. They were alive. They were existing. They were bits of stardust that experienced thought and feeling and were worthy of existing in this world.

“Though the Traveler is distant, and we don’t know what’s happened to it, you’re alive. You were still alive back then when the Light got taken too. Light or not, Traveler or not, nothing has changed that. You’re not- you’ve never been just a machine to me, not when you exist as your own self. Your own person. You are the person- the wandering soul- that found me. You’re alive.”

Ivo stares up at her, and then after a moment he hovers up from her hands to her eye level. He then floats forward and nudges her head.

“You know, you can be very philosophical when you want to be. Gonna make me mistake you for a Warlock.”

They chuckle. “Just because I can be philosophical does not mean I’m a Warlock. Besides, have you seen Temperance?”

“Fair point.”

She smiles and turns on her heel. Ivo follows as she makes to leave the arcade. Their bond holds steady.

“We should probably head back before Nimbus starts trying to place bets on whether the Vex got us or something.”

“Yeah.” They sense him dematerialize, his voice comes clearer in their headspace. “And… thanks.”

They smile and hope he can feel their sincerity and love through their bond.

“Anytime. We’re in this together.”

#Destiny #Destiny 2 #Lightfall spoilers #Destiny 2: Lightfall spoilers #i s2g if bungie pulls a Legion with Ghost in TFS i will be so upset #also someone give Ghost a hug and some therapy #i wanted to make this a comic but i'm not skilled enough for that

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farchanter · 1 year

Photo

Pokémon: Scarlet Version

I think it’s time to show you that real life isn’t all just being true to yourself...

When I first played Pokémon: Red Version some twenty-five years ago, one of the very first things I did was look at the world map included in the instruction booklet. The land of Kanto seemed so vast. Even when I started playing, I returned to that map. I couldn't even really picture what my journey might look like when I reached the game's furthest reaches. What Pokémon would I encounter? What would my own team look like? How would I even get there?

None of the games in the series since have quite made me feel the same way. Some of that is nostalgia lying to me: Pokémon games have only gotten larger, but my own familiarity with the series formula, a better understanding of how to play games, and frankly just getting older have made the game worlds feel much more within my grasp. Part of it, however, it must be said, is a deliberate design choice. Clear quest markers and other forms of game help have made Pokémon feel much more linear and— while I get it— it wasn't what I wanted.

So, before I get into any of the finer details of Scarlet and Violet, I want to highlight the most important aspect of this review:

For the first time since I realized Gold was only halfway over, I opened the world map of Pokémon: Scarlet Version and said "oh, wow."

A lot of the commentary around Scarlet and Violet has focused on technical aspects. And, let's be perfectly clear: the game is kind of a mess. Performance suffers, the procedural AI which places and moves Pokémon makes some baffling decisions. The graphics aren't great, even though the game chokes when asked to draw too many things. These are all absolutely, incontrovertibly true.

I do not care.

Scarlet is a joy. It captures that sine qua non open-world adventure games must have where I delighted in simply walking around, in wondering "what's over there?" Exploration is essential to this experience, and it's energizing.

That said, some critiques:

I didn't really enjoy the new Pokémon as much as the creatures introduced in Scarlet and Violet as much as other recent games. Sun/Moon (Hawaii) and Sword/Shield (England) embraced the real-world areas their game maps are based on, and it lent the monsters their own collective character. Although there are some Pokémon inspired by real-world Spain, the new roster as a whole felt somewhat underwhelming. Enough old friends return that it doesn't drag on the overall experience, but it was a bit disappointing. That being said, however, I felt a closer connection to my team members than I've felt in other games. The moment of getting a shiny Rookidee, one of my absolute favorites, is going to stay with me forever. That she got to tank the final boss was even better. That she'll get to come with me forever through Pokémon Home integration is better still.

Although the performance problems have been overblown, in my opinion, I do feel that Game Freak has to do something about it before whatever the next game is. Watching a Shellos inexplicably launch into the heavens or your player falling through a seam in the earth counts squarely as the funny sort of bug, but one could easily see a world where the game is unplayable. The gap between "glitchy (fun)" and "glitchy (bad)" is a really perilous tightrope, and Game Freak got really lucky to land on the right side. I don't think they can necessarily count on doing so again.

I think there's also a problem with the open-world structure here. It's a bit nuanced, so bear with me.

Part of the fun— or, at least, the challenge— of open world games is what happens when you wander too far afield. For instance, if you stumble into a monster you can't handle in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the game fundamentally changes. Your combat skills are now repurposed into escape skills— or you lose (a common experience early in Breath of the Wild is triggering a fight that's killed you before you've even really processed that it's started). Some of the best experiences with games like this come from organic moments like those, where you barely escaped with your skin and only survived through some feat of derring-do.

Pokémon necessarily works a little bit differently.

As a turn-based RPG, there's not really an "escape" form of the game mechanics that translates the same way an action RPG would. Nor is there really a way to "trick" your way through a lot of fights. Although strategy is a vital part of Pokémon, at a certain point you're facing a losing math problem if you encounter something much higher leveled than you. Losing in Pokémon also tends to be frustrating (if it's a fight you can't possibly win) or time-consuming and expensive if you need to expend excess resources to get through it. This contrasts with the same experience in games such as Breath of the Wild, where such encounters are terrifying, brief, and cheap.

I bring this up because there seems to be a deliberate game design decision to resolve exactly such a problem: because player-underleveled encounters are an undesirable part of the experience, Scarlet makes it unlikely that you accidentally wind up in such a fight. Even ostensibly aggressive Pokémon will give you several seconds of warning before actually pursuing you, and quickly give up the chase if you wander off. This means that, unless you run into a monster yourself, you're unlikely to trigger combat. Sometimes you do that unintentionally (some Pokémon are very small and blend quite well), but you will never actually be hunted down. Other than a few story encounters, Pokémon trainers will not fight you unless you talk to them yourself.

This resolves the problem of getting frustrated by a bad battle, but... I don't know, I think we lost something along the way. Relatively early in the game, I made an excursion to Glasedo Mountain (I wanted this jerk). On paper, that was a horrible idea. I would have gotten destroyed by just about anyone on the mountain. Because the monsters are so passive, however, I simply played a fairly straightforward keepaway and never really felt threatened by this late-game area.

I'm open to the idea that other people prefer this. It certainly makes for a more relaxed open world game. It made me feel like I had fully opened the game world sooner than I expected, which is the point at which an open world game is (functionally) solved. Essentially, then, Scarlet was over sooner than I wanted. While I'm reluctant to wade into the Scarlet/Violet vs. Legends Arceus debate, it's worth noting that the monsters were more aggressive there and the game was much scarier for that reason— but, of course, player combat mechanics are different in Legends Arceus.

Those were a lot of words complaining about an ultimately minor thing, so let's get back to the good stuff.

Scarlet introduces new ways of playing, new ways of "beating" the game beyond the traditional gym challenge. In my opinion, the gyms still felt like the main attraction, but these new objectives were a lot of fun. If you finish all three questlines, you get an additional endgame mission that resolves the story of one of your companions.

Those companions are quite well-fleshed-out for Pokémon characters. Of the three, two are dealing with some pretty heavy trauma, from school bullying to neglectful parents. It felt good— truly an sincerely— to help these characters. In that final endgame mission, your companions travel with you and talk with each other, and it made me wish that was something we had gotten to see more of.

Between raid battles, probable DLC, and traditional Pokémon competitive content, I think I'm going to be playing a lot of Scarlet. If you want to recapture the magic of Pokémon as a game of exploration, you owe it to yourself to play.

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espresshadow · 1 year

Text

Got some thoughts about the new Pokémon games under the cut because this got kinda obnoxiously long. Some spoilers but I'm only about 20% in, no new pokémon mentioned.

You can feel the desperation in Scarlet and Violet.

These games make me so, so mad because they're so ambitious and fun to play. They really did nail making it fun. The core gameplay loop has clearly had a lot of thought and work put into it. There's passion and love obvious in this game. And yet it REALLY, REALLY needed another fucking year in the oven.

This is one of the most unpolished games I've ever played. The performance issues, even on a physical copy of the game playing in docked mode, can make the game borderline unplayable. I have yet to encounter a single gameplay bug, but the visual bugs are neverending and unavoidable. Pokémon clip into the ground regularly. I've found sections of terrain textured wrong in really obvious ways. Any time you're in a non-fixed camera battle, the camera WILL clip into the ground. It's genuinely awful. This is unacceptable for a $60 flagship franchise game.

Those things are, like... bad. For sure. But I also keep running into gameplay and story beats and areas that feel like placeholders, and that's the most egregious thing to me.

Most of the shops that fill the world are just a generic blue background and flavor text. The bug gym test (literally the first one) consists of a ball rolling game wholly unconnected from anything and then you fight the gym leader, who is cute and runs a patisserie, but after her fight you can't visit her shop still and it feels weirdly disjointed from everything else. It feels like connective tissue was planned but there was no time. The TM crafting system also feels frankly unfinished, like there was meant to be more depth to it. There are just... lots of things in the game that feel like placeholders because the people working on them had more ambitious ideas but they weren't sure if there would be time to implement them. I'm about 25% in to the game and this feeling keeps getting stronger.

And it makes me SO MAD. Sword and Shield were, like... fine. They ran okay, they had some pop-in issues but overall the experience felt pretty polished. It was just completely unambitious in a lot of ways. Coming off the heels of the fantastic gen 7 and as the first console Pokémon game, the best thing you could say about them was... decently fun. Inoffensive. More of the same.

The best thing you can say about Scarlet and Violet is that it's REALLY FUCKING FUN. I regularly find myself yelling in delight as shit keeps spontaneously happening. There's so many good choices here. There are a couple baffling decisions (what's with the fuckin uniforms, guys? why would you do this?) but mostly the bad stuff is all things you can absolutely tell were done that way because there was no time to do anything better. You can feel that sense permeating the entire game. The disappointment, the concession, the desperation.

We're getting to the limit of what original Switch hardware can handle. Normally these are the conditions under which the Gamefreak devs flourish. The second generation or set of games on any given console are always leaps and bounds better than the first. Think of Gen 5 vs Gen 4, or Gen 7 vs Gen 6. I'm a Sinnoh apologist but Unova and Alola are some of the best and most polished experiences Pokémon has to offer PERIOD. GF is wringing everything they fucking can out of these consoles because they've learned from the last games how to do that.

GF had Sword and Shield, Let's Go, AND Legends Arceus as experience working with the Switch going into Gen 9. This should have been the best looking fucking game on the goddamn Switch. WE KNOW these developers are capable of this.

The game is bad because GF was crunched.

That's the end of it. The management of GF and Pokémon Company all deserve to be fired, blacklisted, and their severance packages distributed among the employees who nearly killed themselves to get this game out. This is their fault.

This is a post about the games so obviously I'm focusing on the impact this has had on them but I also want to be clear that if the choice was between a new pokémon game never releasing again and GF employees getting crunched, I'd pick the first in a heartbeat. No product or work of art could ever be worth this human suffering inflicted to make it. We can make games without crunch, though! They could have just... given it another year! Two years! That would have been far preferable to this.

I don't have a good closer for this. I think people are quickly becoming aware that the crunch is to blame and calls for GF to unionize are getting louder as the labor movement overall gains steam in the US, but I don’t believe for a heartbeat that it'll happen. I want it to— all labor deserves dignity and representation. It's a snowball's chance in hell at the moment, though.

I think the best outcome here is that the same loud + angry dexit gamers catch on that crunch and bad working conditions caused this and start throwing their weight at improving those working conditions. If major game journalist sites start mentioning crunch in every article about the game, if major community figures start talking about it, maybe something good could come out of it.

Probably not, though, and we'll see the cycle repeat two years from now.

#Pokémon #pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #pokemon scarvio #i have Thoughts #i do think this is just such an obvious example of terrible management and crunch creating a bad game #people on the internet have brainworms tho so my hopes are not high

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anthonysstupiddailyblog · 1 year

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Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (370): Thu 22nd Mar 2023

As soon as I woke up I nervously stuck on last nights Lakers game against the Suns, knowing that any loss they suffer from now on could be the one that knocks them out of playoff contention and every shot taken by a Lakers player who isn’t Austin Reaves could signal the start of an embarrassing defeat. Thankfully the Lakers absolutely thrashed the Suns which I was chuffed to see but also kind of baffled because handily thrashing the team that is third in the Western Conference makes their embarrassing loss to the Rockets who are in last place seem inexplicable. The Lakers are now in joint eighth place along with the Dallas Mavericks and the Oklahoma Thunder. The Mavericks next two games are against the Charlotte Hornets which I’m worried about because the Hornets are near the bottom of the Eastern Conference so in theory the Mavericks should smash them easily. Also next up the Lakers are going against the Thunder so I need the Hornets to pull off two major upset victories and then I need the Lakers to thrash the Thunder and after that it should be smooth sailing because their next two games are against the Chicago Bulls who suck.

Checked out last nights AEW Dynamite which started out with footage of the Young Bucks being loaded into an ambulance after an apparent attack at the hands of the BCC. Fuck my bollocks! An actual angle? In AEW? Is Tony Khan feeling okay?

The first match was a trios encounter between Butcher, Blade and Kip Sabian vs Orange Cassidy, Darby Allin and Sting. It was great to see Sting and it breaks my heart that he’s retiring this year but…state of this jacket he came out to ring wearing. Going from elaborately tailored trench-coats to this is ridiculous. I expected to see this on the back when he turned around

After The Gunns defended their tag titles against Top Flight (with help from The Kingdom), FTR came out and told the Gunns that if they lost to them in a rematch they would leave AEW. The Gunns accepted and afterwards they spit in FTR’s face and the spit was so gooey that there was a long string of it going from Dax’s face to his hand when he wiped it off. It was gross…not Lakers losing to the Rockets gross but still gross.

Next up Jade Cargills lawyer Mark Sterling delivered a cease and desist order to Taya Valkyrie to stop her using the Road to Valhalla as it’s too similar to Jaded.

Hook put up his FTW title against Stokely Hathaway next. This was a nothing squash but a highlight was The Firm cheering Stokely on to his face but then when he went down to the ring stating to each other that he’s goi to get battered.

Next was a decent match between Jon Moxley and Stu Grayson. Later on in the show as Grayson was being attended to by the doctors the BCC continued the beat down. This was the first time in a long while AEW have done an episode of Dynamite where there was actually a recurring segment that unfolded throughout the night and it wasn’t just one and done. More of this please!

Adam Cole had in ring confrontation with Daniel Garcia who declared himself Coles first challenger since he’d been cleared to wrestle. Cole is a good, passionate promo but like MJF a few years ago he’s missing those sharp lines and disses that get people invested. Hopefully he’ll get better the more he gets the mic.

The main event was an awesome high flying brawl between El Hijo Del Vikingo and Kenny Omega. Luna watched the entire Omega match and was glued to the screen throughout.I was explaining why the wrestlers were doing every move and why they mattered (it was like watching a wrestling match with Vince Russo). The spot she and I loved the most was Vikingo hiring a 630 through a table on the outside and a springboard poisoned rana on the inside. Afterwards the BCC attacked and Hangman Page came out for the save after driving an ambulance back to the arena. However Page accidentally hit Callis afterwards which made Kenny wonder where hangman’s loyalties really lie (and it’s a good thing AEW wrestlers aren’t allowed to watch replays of the show to see what really happened and they just have to base decisions on what they half observed).

I went to the Roadwise motorbike guys initially to take a lesson so the guys could see if I was at a level where they’d be comfortable putting me in for a test before the end of June when my theory certificate runs out. However when I got the guy in charge of booking the tests said that they had a slot at the end of May but even if I passed it would only be the Module 1 test (you need to pass a module 1 and module 2 for bike for some fucking reason) which only lasts until the theory test runs out and they didn’t have any module 2 tests available before the end of June so it appears I will have to sit the theory test again. I have attempted to get lessons and a test booked in on and off over the last few years since I finally passed my theory but because of COVID they’ve always been backlogged. I’m dreading the process of having to memorize the entire theory handbook again but it’s got to be done.

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mmorgtruck · 2 years

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baeshijima · 3 years

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𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫!𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫!𝐲/𝐧

MASTERLIST

now, childe as a general streamer,,, he’s a whale in every sense of the word

…

poggers—

so childe as a streamer in general would be one word ;

✨chaotic✨

he would definitely be a variety streamer, but more so for games !!

especially pvp and/or pve games

competitive meta mf—

probably plays LoL, overwatch, apex legends, valorant and minecraft

don’t question the minecraft

he likes mining but has a personal vendetta against the creepers bc once they blew up his mansion

yes, a mansion

ask any of his community and they’ll tell u he spent a full-blown month and a half playing just minecraft to build it, only for it to go down just like that ;-;

his chat loved it tho <//3

he’s played honkai too !! mainly for the pve and grinding bc he’s a whale but uh,,, shhh

his community,,, his community are just a bunch of trolls at this point i cant even lie

they just KEKW, SADGE & COPIUM spam everything and the newer viewers get intimidated until they realise he deserves them all HJGKJHF

especially when he starts getting annoyed by the game,,, his reactions are too good to pass up on gn

typically when he does mario kart streams 👩‍🦯 that shit’s wild when it happens oh my

when he falls in rainbow road 🤡

and especially bc he has his webcam on, his viewers just see him internally dying or wanting to scream

also gets passive aggressive

shit talks everything and everyone when in that mood <//3

for what’s left of his dignity i won’t disclose what happens

definitely gets jebaited a lot too <//3 unfortunately he’s too easy for his chat ;-;

another mf with a massive community except he has a lot of friends (sorry not sorry albedo)

ppl have a love-hate relationship with him tbh; u either love him or hate him

no inbetween

unless u show ur love through bullying him then go off ig

his discord server, twt + yt are also really big too !! also verified on insta

also !!

he has lots of plushies :(( esp whale plushies from his community bc he’s the biggest whale they know <//3

but if u look at his setup, there’s a mini whale plushie on the top of his main monitor (he has 3), one big one (like,,, up to his chin) behind him, a smol on the top of his chair so u can see it above his head, and just more off screen HKJSDHL

they asked for a room tour once and half of it was just whale plushies

the rest were LED lights + shelves of merch & gifts from his community !!

he even has some fanmail (actual wholesome ones that aren’t cursed) pinned on a board too 🥺

also has an ensuite—

when he was eating on stream one time, his chat was sent into an absolute outrage

u know why?

bc he was eating noodles with a fork

bby ;-;

so sometimes he’ll get sent those beginner chopsticks with the finger guides to help him 👩‍🦯

he’s actually made sure to eat with them on stream tho bc he was sent one with a narwhal on top and he thinks it’s cute JHGJKH

nOW ONTO THIS MAN BEING WHIPPED FOR U AS A GENSHIN STREAMER !!!!

herkekle

now, his (also) AR56 ass has been playing since genshin first came out

an og if u will

this man,,, he’s been in love with u even before the game’s official release 🐥

not only were u in the promotional art and trailers, but he was also one of the beta testers so he got to try out ur character first hand in the early stages !!

and when i say he fell hard for u,

i mean it

when the game wasn’t released publicly yet, he wasn’t allowed to disclose any information and ngl, it killed him that he couldn’t talk abt u :((

so all he could do was say this upcoming was really nice so far and subtly brag abt u to everyone JHGKJSDFHLK

when the official ads & promotional art were finally released 🥺🥺 when i tell u he immediately went live talking abt the game and u HKGJHFDK

he didn’t care that he streamed at an ungodly hour bc he’s been waiting for the reveal for so long he needs to let everyone know </3

he retweeted everything from their official twt straightaway, made a yt video based off his spontaneous stream promoting the game + pinged his entire server abt it

yes

his nearly 200k server all got pinged abt this one game bc he’s in love with a character from it

and he has no regrets abt it <33

the day the game was available for download, he stREAMED THE ENTIRE DOWNLOAD PROCESS

while he and his chat were waiting, they decided to watch the trailers and character showcases to get a feel for the game, and played some mario kart to pass the time !!

as soon as the game loaded, he threw mario kart behind him and went on 🐥

he typed his name (ajax) for the when he chose aether and literally everyone was appreciating the aesthetics HKJFS

but childe,,, he was waiting for it to be over so he could see u ;-;

he appreciated the aesthetics, fighting mechanics & voice acting a lot tho !!

now he had gotten through all the tutorials, got all the chests he could he was finally in mond

and there u were 🥺 after the dvalin encounter u arrived before kaeya did

and boy did he show u off sm to his viewers HKJHKLF

they knew he was down bad before but now?? they know it’s hopeless to save him and if he ever falls out of love that’s when the world ends

luckily that’ll never happen tho <33

but he took !! so many !! screenshots !!

oh, and did i mention he changed his wallpapers to u? and his twt + discord pfps are also some very aesthetic screenshots of u from that first scene ;-;

he just appreciates u sm okay 🥺

he even clutched his chest where his heart is and sunk down his chair when he heard u speak 😩

his chat just spammed his downbad + y/nlove + SHRIMP emotes and he accepted them all with grace <33

now when he unlocks the wishing feature,,, u already know he’s wishing for u as soon as possible

ur in the standard banner so ur always there which he appreciates but he would’ve wanted u to be limited so he can rub it in ppl’s faces ;-;

and since it was the first release rewards, he had tons of wishes right off the bat !!

he was gonna roll for venti after he gets u bc,,, well does he need a reason??

also he doesn’t do well with archer characters in general ;;; but if ur an archer then ur obv an exception sooo

bUT he got a 5 star in his first 20 pulls !!

tho it was diluc 👩‍🦯

while he was happy bc he got an incredibly meta character right off the bat,

he wasn’t interested in diluc,,, (even now his diluc is barely looked after, and only used for spiral abyss, *sweats*)

the next 5 star he got was around the 60 mark, and he got a weapon,,,

i mean,,, he got the weapon that was most suited for u so that’s smth at least (ˉ▽ˉ；)

after he used all his remaining primos and fates, he finally got u 🥺

he just went “fuck the storyline” and immediately put u in his party and just

admired u as a whole

went through all the voice lines available, ur character story, ur idle animations (he had a heart attack from u and his chat clipped it) and took many, many screenshots

his favourite voice lines would have to be the night + about us + (y/n)’s hobbies

and then he equipped u with ur weapon and damnnn did u look so good with it 😩

he changed u to be his avatar, with his signature as :

“(y/n)’s whale <3”

and now the whaling process begins 👩‍🦯

after at least £2k, he got u to c6, along with at least 1 copy of all the standard 5 stars,,

then he went for venti’s banner—

his chat were just too focused on how he’s gonna play u to even think of anything else tbh HKJAH

with ur kit, u were honestly seen to be a dps or even a sub dps if ppl don’t want u on the field all the time

so definitely a perfect character for mr meta strimmer tartaglia (his twitch name btw ;;; childe is just smth he prefers his community to call him as but they also call him ajax too HKJSD) here

so he went through the archon quests with u as his carry and i won’t lie, ur name card is smth he has printed and framed behind him after he got it 🥺

he later finds out ur part of the fatui in the liyue archon quest tho and has to fight u with,,,

well, u ;;;

he finds it hot tho so it’s okay—

i won’t lie tho, his zhongli after he got him is his second strongest after u

he just builds all his characters in the most broken way he can so he can show his viewers that everyone can be a dps in their own right, not just the ones meant to be since there’s no right or wrong in this game !!

but now ur weapon is r5, ur lvl 90 and u have lvl 20 5 star artifacts that make u the most broken (y/n) seen

ppl who co op with him are honestly baffled,,, especially when the feature of them being able to view other players’ character stats become available,,,

u with ur nearly 3k atk,,,

he’s hit over 600k with u tho and he’ll always flex that

no one can top him as a (y/n) main and that’s honestly just a fact at this point 😩

when he saw that the dating sim hangouts was official, his immediate and iconic response was simply ;

“so when will (y/n) become a dateable, huh 🤨”

to this day he’s still waiting to be able to date u in-game <//3

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact childe #genshin childe #childe #childe x reader #genshin childe x reader #genshin impact childe x reader #childe headcanons #childe scenarios #childe fluff #hsdkjfhklsdfs childe pls come hom on main ;-;#streaming dreams

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bbangsoonie · 3 years

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goal: your heart

member: sunwoo genre: fluff word count: 5,423 synopsis: due to a budget cut, you have to follow the soccer team around for both the school newspaper and yearbook despite knowing nothing about sports. before you know it, you find yourself warming up to the team’s star player, who you swore was the most annoying and arrogant person ever.

a/n: this is a part of the star player collab with @atbzkingdom for sunwoo’s birthday! (also, this will be written with the american academic calander in mind)

You knew exactly what you were doing. You were the top student of both your class and school and the leader of many clubs. Your college application was full of achievements and your essay exquisitely written. The only problem? You had no idea what to do after graduation. You didn’t know where you wanted to go or what you wanted to study.

Growing up, everyone told you that you’d eventually find something you love. By senior year, you thought you would at least have an idea by now.

But nope, you were even more lost if anything. Dream job? That was just a capitalistic lie meant to make people happy to slave away for money.

Grumbling, you listened as your friends rambled on about the campuses they visited. It was only the first day back and everyone was already obsessing over one thing and one thing only.

“Y/n, you’re so lucky,” Juyeon pouted. “You don’t have to worry about getting into a university. Your stats are literally perfect.”

“I have other things to stress over,” you groaned. “At least you know what you wanna pursue.”

“Y/n has other things to worry about. She’s about to graduate without ever finding love,” Younghoon teased.

“It’s all our fault,” Jaehyun squinted as he pinched his nose bridge. “We raised her standards too high. I’m sorry, Y/n, that I can’t take responsibility.”

The notebook in your hand threatened to fly over to his seat. Luckily for him, he was saved by Juyeon’s very unnatural attempt at changing the subject. He inquired about the school newspaper that was barely spared in a major budget cut last year.

Thinking about it made you sigh. You had poured in so much effort over the years for the paper and it was almost taken from you. The school was cutting funds for a lot of clubs and diverting the money to the many sports teams that brought home trophies.

A part of the negotiations to save the newspaper club was to feature more sports events and student athletes in order to garner support for the teams. You weren’t pleased with the decision. Your plate was already full without trying to inflate the ego of players who had a god superiority complex. Jaehyun was a great example of the type of jock you didn’t want to raise on a high pedestal.

You had also promised Kevin, the president of the yearbook committee, to help out with photographing games since you had to attend them anyway. Despite the many tasks assigned to you, you were relieved that you could spend your last year continuing to write articles.

“Does that mean you’ll get to come to practice with us? The basketball team is always on my ass about introducing them to you. Now I can finally stop being pestered to be the middleman,” Jaehyun grinned.

“No shot,” Younghoon shook his head. “My swim team has already tried but Y/n puts up a cold front.”

“Hey, I’m a delicately guarded rose with sharp thorns,” you joked, making Jaehyun pretend to gag. This time, the notebook hit his arm.

“No one is good enough for our Y/n,” Juyeon defended. You turned around to coo at him and said something about him being the only nice one as Younghoon guffawed.

The first day of soccer practice meant you had to stay behind after dismissal to meet the team. The coach introduced you to the players and beamed when he got to the last one.

“This is our ace, Sunwoo. Although I’m sure you know that already,” he said proudly.

To be honest, you had no idea who he was. The school was too big to know everyone and you had absolutely no interest in sports. You rarely even went to Juyeon and Jaehyun’s basketball games and Younghoon’s swim meets.

Not wanting to offend anyone, you simply smiled. Sunwoo, catching your hesitance, raised a brow. However, he kept quiet until he approached you during one of his breaks.

“Do you really not know me?” he asked as he took a seat next to you on the bleachers.

Surprised by his sudden question, you blankly stared at the boy in front of you. Sweat was dripping from his hair but he paid it no attention as he chugged an entire water bottle.

“How cocky are you?” you scoffed.

“You really don’t know our soccer team’s star player, Kim Sunwoo?” he gaped.

“Sorry to disappoint but I really don’t care or know much about soccer. Or any other sports for that matter,” you shrugged.

“You’re going to write about the soccer team… when you don’t even know who we are or what we’re doing?” he asked incredulously.

“That’s why I’m here to observe,” you snapped back.

Finding you amusing, he finally wiped away his sweat as the coach blew his whistle to gather the players again.

Sunwoo always gave it his best but for some reason he found himself practicing extra hard that day. Knowing your eyes were on him motivated him to show off his skills by annoying his teammates and stealing the spotlight. After his third goal in a row, he looked at you to see your reaction but was baffled to see you busy writing something down.

Frustrated and peeved, he kicked at the grass with a huff.

When practice came to an end, he snuck up behind you to see what you were so intently focused on. Reading the notes on your notebook, he hummed.

“So that’s what you were doing instead of watching me,” he mused.

You were listing physical traits and personality attributes of each player. He scanned the paper for his name and frowned when he saw what you wrote about him.

“Arrogant and conceited? That’s all you have to say about me?” he whined.

“What? It’s true,” you deadpanned.

“Haknyeon gets “tall, bubbly, and extroverted” but I get “arrogant and conceited”? That’s not fair. This is biased journalism!” he exclaimed.

Realizing that practice was over, you gathered your belongings and stood up to leave. With his cheeks puffed, he watched as you left the field. You were unlike any person he had ever encountered.

“Sunwoo? Kim Sunwoo?” Younghoon repeated with his eyes wide. “The soccer caption Kim Sunwoo?”

Jaehyun and Juyeon’s chopsticks froze midair in shock. Finding their reactions odd, you nodded as you took another bite of your lunch.

“I can’t believe the lady killer got rejected by the man hater,” Jaehyun broke out into a fit of laughter.

“Now that’s a title I’d like to see on the school newspaper,” Younghoon snickered.

“Okay, first of all, I did not reject him because he did not come on to me,” you rolled your eyes. “Secondly, who the hell is he anyway? Why do you all know him?”

“He’s notorious for his fuckboy image. Although I think that’s an exaggerated reputation,” Juyeon said you picked out all the vegetables from your plate. He willingly moved them to his own and you smiled gratefully in response.

“So my first impression of him was correct,” you said.

“He’s not that bad. He’s actually pretty cool. Rumors don’t do the sweet guy justice,” Juyeon explained.

“Our lovely Juyeon sees the good in everyone,” Younghoon gushed as he pet his friend, earning him a smack on the back of his head.

“We were partners for a history project,” Juyeon clarified. “I got to know him a bit and he’s a good guy. Just enjoys attention a little too much. Like Jaehyun.”

Weirdly offended, Jaehyun scowled. You shrugged it off, returning your attention back to your food. You had no intentions of getting to know Sunwoo anyway. At least, that was the plan until he bombarded you in the hallway while you were walking to class.

He blocked your path with that irritating smirk on his face. Exasperated, you asked him what he wanted.

“So I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he started.

“Oh, so you do think?”

“Hey!”

“Do you think you can move and get out of my way?”

“Anyway, as the president of the newspaper club who’s in charge of covering the soccer team, I think you lack way too much information about the sport. And our school’s players.”

“How do you know I’m the president?”

“I asked around.”

You look at his eyes, trying to peer through any ulterior motives. He was being suspiciously generous. But he wasn’t entirely wrong. Even you thought it was ridiculous that a person who didn’t know a thing about soccer had to write articles about it.

You were also aware that any interviews with the athletes would be surface level stuff that all the students probably already knew. You were the only one out of the loop.

You pursed your lips, annoyed that he was right. Realizing that you were in agreeance, Sunwoo grinned.

“I am offering you the very special privilege to follow me around and learn everything there is to know about the team. For the paper of course,” he quickly added the last part after seeing the look on your face. “I can teach you about both soccer and my teammates.”

After pondering his proposal, you finally nodded.

“Deal,” you eyed his happy expression. “What do you want in return?”

He was taken aback by your question. He hadn’t expected you to assume that he would demand compensation. Your presence and attention were what he was after in the first place. However, he couldn’t let the opportunity pass by.

“Bubble tea,” he declared after some thought. “You can treat me to bubble tea after practice and I can tutor you then.”

“Fine,” you sighed before pushing him aside to make it to class before the bell rang. He was left behind with a stupid smile on his face.

The first tutoring session was extremely awkward for you. You weren’t used to hanging out with guys other than Juyeon, Younghoon, and Jaehyun. They were the only members of the male species you didn’t despise. This riled up Sunwoo’s competitive side. He was determined to get close to you.

He couldn’t stand having someone not like him. He was used to being on friendly terms with everyone—including teachers and even wallflowers. He had a strong desire to receive acknowledgement from everyone.

Perhaps that was why so many girls fell for him.

Nevertheless, the wall around you remained thick and high. Just as he was well known for his playboy persona, you were infamous for never letting guys in. You cold heartedly turned down any and every guy who asked you out. And there had been a lot.

Sunwoo, on the other hand, was excited to spend time with you. Bubble tea was just an excuse to meet you outside of school grounds.

His phone dinged, notifying him of a text. Haknyeon had sent him a screenshot of a post made on the school’s gossip page and wrote “this you?”. He snorted at the content speculating his relationship status after supposedly receiving another confession and rolled his eyes. Curious, you asked him what he was looking at.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he shook his head as he put the device away. “Just the stupid tea account.”

“Oh you mean that anonymously run social media page that popped up over summer break?” you frowned.

You hated everything about it. It spread rumors, without fact-checking, and started drama. It resulted in both a breakup and the end of a friendship in the span of two months. It was exactly what you and the school newspaper stood against.

Nothing could be done to stop the false information and invasion of privacy because it wasn’t officially affiliated with the school and the students continued to feed into it. People even sent in stories to be posted.

“So tell me what you do know about soccer,” he leaned in and propped his chin on the palms of his hands.

“I know the very basics from catching glimpses of the World Cup,” you leaned back on your chair, making him pout.

“Well, to be honest, explaining the rules is a lot easier to do when directly pointing things out during a game. There’s a match airing tonight. Do you want to come over and watch it with me?” he asked expectantly.

“We can watch the replay tomorrow during study hall,” you said.

“Then we can start by talking about me today,” he chirped. “My squad number is 19 because 9 is usually worn by centre forwards but I wanted to be special and added a 1 in front of it. I’m the centre forward, which is the main striker. That means playing offensive is my main objective. Which is why I’m the highest scorer on the team.”

You wanted to wipe the smug look off his face. It irked you how he so easily bragged about himself.

“I also really like movies and can play the guitar. A true all-rounder and romanticist,” he smiled.

He continued to reveal fun facts about himself for another half an hour. It was only at the end that you realized most of it was useless when writing for the paper. You groaned, realizing you had fallen for his trap.

Still, you learned some things about soccer and his position in the team. Following him to the cafe hadn’t been a complete waste of your time.

The next day, Sunwoo hunted you down to make sure you kept your promise about watching the game together. He dragged you to the computer room during study hall and pulled out the earbuds he prepared. He had purposely rummaged through his drawers the night before to the share wired ones with you.

You had to admit he was extremely helpful when explaining the rules and strategies of soccer. Despite being uncomfortable with the proximity of his body to yours, he was a great teacher. He made everything sound so simple. After you began to understand the game, you even found yourself enjoying the match.

After spending a week with him, you hated that you couldn’t say you still disliked him. After all, you two met almost every day for hours.

You had a gut feeling that you would come to regret it and were proven right. You had a bad feeling the moment you saw Jaehyun run up to you as if his life depended on it. Panting, he barely pulled himself together to show you the post that made him immediately report to you.

“KSW and Y/INITIALS seen cozily spending time together. Will he be the one to finally break through her?” you read aloud.

A photo of your backs from the computer room and a mosaicked side shot of you two at the cafe were attached to the title. The comments under the post were even more ridiculous.

“A challenge to be anticipated.”

“Poor girl will only end up as one of his many heartbroken playthings.”

“I know who KSW is. Who’s Y/INITIALS??”

“The legendary man hater? With a guy?? Wow how good must he be 👀”

“Damn so she rejected me for him?”

Your blood boiled and you shoved the phone away. Trying to calm yourself down, you closed your eyes and took a deep breath. And failed.

“What is this, fucking Dispatch?” you exploded. A few students passing by stared at your outburst and widened their eyes when they saw that it was you. You sighed, knowing that the whole school saw the post.

“I’m not a celebrity! Why are people so invested in fake rumors about me?” you yelled, trying to keep your voice to a whisper as you pulled Jaehyun into an empty classroom.

“I’m sure it’ll blow over,” he assured.

“If I ever find out who the admin of this page is, I will ruin them,” you glowered.

You almost didn’t go to the soccer practice that day. But you knew that avoiding him would only add fuel to the fire so you sucked it up and went to the field after school as usual. You heard the hushed murmurs that stirred among the team when you arrived and you wanted to turn back around and leave.

Before you could, however, Sunwoo appeared and shut everyone up with a warning glare. He announced that the coach would be late and to start by running laps.

You were more annoyed than upset about the post. It just stupefied you that people really had nothing better to do than gossip about you. You didn’t think you were that interesting.

You were so close to escaping after practice but Sunwoo caught you trying to sneak away. He stood in front of you, crossing his arms as if to ask where you were going. Giving up, you muttered a “fine” and waited for him to change out of his uniform.

This time, you two wordlessly agreed to go to a different cafe. With the bubble teas on the table in front of you, you sat in silence until Sunwoo finally spoke up.

“Don’t mind what the post or others say,” he huffed.

“I’m not too bothered by it,” you shrugged.

“Good. Because I want to get to know you as just Y/n and Sunwoo. Through whatever you wish to tell and show me. I feel like we’re always just talking about me.”

His words left you speechless. Juyeon hadn’t been kidding when he mentioned how thoughtful Sunwoo was. You felt your heart warm as you smiled.

“Well what do you want to know about me?” you asked.

“Anything. Everything.”

So you spilled about your interests, hobbies, and goals. It was strange. Although it hadn’t been long since you met him, you felt comfortable around him. He made you feel at ease and you didn’t think twice about opening up to him.

You told him about your struggles as a high achieving student. About the pressure you felt and how embarrassing it was to tell people that you didn’t have any dreams.

With your grades, all the teachers expected you to apply to medical school. On the other hand, your parents encouraged you to work towards a high paying and stable salary as a corporation employee. Your friends suggested that you go for something in journalism because of your passion and commitment to the school newspaper.

But the club was just something you did for fun. You didn’t know if you liked it enough to pursue it as a career.

Sunwoo listened attentively as you went on about your concerns. From the outside, you looked like you had your life together. You were the perfect student and the girl that many guys chased after. But as he spent more time with you, it became clear that you were very uncomfortable with boys.

“Can I ask how you got so close with the Bermuda line?” he asked.

“The Bermuda line? What’s that?”

“You’ve never heard of the term? Juyeon, Jaehyun, and Younghoon are called the Bermuda line because they’re the most popular athletes out of all the sports teams. The girls say that once you fall for them, you’re stuck in between them forever because you can’t get out.”

You hadn’t laughed that hard in so long. You knew they had fans but found it hilarious how the trio even had a nickname.

“Oh man, I can’t wait to make fun of them for this,” you laughed, nearly in tears.

When he told you that they actually took great pride in the title, you bursted out in laughter again. Their self love truly was on another level.

“So how’d you end up friends?” he asked again.

“Juyeon, I’ve known since middle school. We were in the same class for all three years. Jaehyun didn’t go to the same school as us but he was friends with Juyeon because they played basketball together. I met him and Younghoon at the end of freshman year. They kinda crash landed into my life but we really clicked so that’s why I still bless them with my friendship.”

Sunwoo giggled at your own overwhelming confidence. He loved that you never sold yourself short. He didn’t notice he had been staring at you until you pointed it out. Blushing, he insisted that it was nothing and took another sip of his bubble tea.

Two months passed by and you eventually came to call Sunwoo a friend. Younghoon teased you about him being more than a friend and at first, you thought he was crazy. But with him planting the idea in your head, you began to question your own feelings. Cursing Younghoon, you blamed him for confusing you.

As the designated photographer, you tagged along to the soccer team’s last match. The entire team was nervous as it would determine the winner of the tournament. Even Sunwoo was anxious.

Before the game started, you offered him a supportive smile and he felt all worries lifted off his shoulders. He erased all thoughts of winning and losing and just concentrated on the ball. He wanted to enjoy the last match of the season and look cool in front of you. That was all that mattered to him.

Fortunately, he got both plus the win. The crowd erupted into cheers as he scored the winning goal just seconds before the whistle was blown to signal the end of the game. His knees fell to the ground and his teammates rushed to surround him.

Seeing how happy he looked brought a smile to your lips. He jumped up and scanned the bleachers for your face. When he finally spotted you, he broke away from his team to run up to you and embrace you in a giant hug.

Caught off guard, you froze as his teammates hooted and applauded. You felt your cheeks heat up at the attention.

“Congratulations,” you chuckled, patting his back. “You did well.”

“Did you get a lot of pretty pictures of me?” he grinned, pulling away to look at you.

“No, I only took pictures of Haknyeon,” you joked. By now, he was used to your teasing and simply ruffled your hair in response.

“There’s gonna be an after party tonight,” he brought up carefully. “I’d really like it if you came. Only if you’re okay with that type of scene though.”

Surprised, you nodded before you fully thought it through.

That was how you ended up moping at Jaehyun’s house. The invitation was extended to the Bermuda line as well and they were all planning on dragging you there. Younghoon was excited at the thought of finally going to a party with the whole group and Juyeon was picking out an outfit for you from Jaehyun’s sister’s closet.

“I don’t know if I trust your fashion sense,” she made a face at the top he held up.

This was your first party and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. There was a reason you hadn’t gone to one throughout your high school years.

Nonetheless, you were dressed up in an outfit that definitely reflected Jaehyun’s sister’s style more than yours. She fawned over how pretty you were and urged you to go with the boys.

So you walked through the doors and into the house vibrating with music. Everyone who recognized you was shocked to see you there. Feeling awkward, you stuck by Jaehyun’s side as you maneuvered around the throng of people. When he finally caught sight of Sunwoo, he dipped and left you alone with him.

“Thanks for coming,” he shouted over the loud music.

“Thanks for inviting me,” you shouted back.

Sunwoo offered you a drink, which you declined. Following your choice, he opted for a soda instead as well. You weren’t much of a dancer so you enjoyed people watching instead. It was fascinating to see your classmates have so much fun.

You giggled when you saw Juyeon be so painfully oblivious to a girl’s advances and walked away to dance with Younghoon. Meanwhile, Jaehyun was having the time of his life flirting with girls. You blocked your eyesight when you saw him leaning in to kiss one of them.

“Ugh, gross,” you cringed. “I do not need to know this side of my best friend’s love life.”

Laughing, Sunwoo offered to take you outside for some fresh air and a change of scenery. You gladly agreed and let him guide you to the backyard.

The night sky was full of tranquility that contrasted the chaos that ensued indoors. You sat on the grass and Sunwoo joined next to you.

“You look beautiful today,” he commented.

“Only today?” you laughed.

“Especially today,” he answered in a serious manner. His sincerity made you clear your throat and look away. He stunned you by cupping your face with his hands.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Are you drunk?” you blinked.

“I haven’t had a single sip of alcohol.”

His voice was slow and raspy. Your heart was beating faster than you wanted it to and you knew the corners of your lips were betraying you.

“You can either lean in or pull away,” he said as he brought his lips closer to yours.

Your heart now felt like it was about to jump out of your chest. Red alarms were going off in your head and you didn’t know what to do. All you knew was what you were only a few centimeters away from kissing Sunwoo.

So you did what any insane person would do and closed the gap between your lips. You wanted to punch him when you felt him smirk but he pulled you closer and held onto you tightly.

The weekend passed without much changes in your relationship with Sunwoo. You were worried that you had either ruined your friendship or that he was sick of you but Juyeon reassured you that he probably wanted to talk about it in person. Anxiously, you overthought things until Monday finally arrived.

Wanting to keep yourself busy until you met Sunwoo, you stopped by the club room early in the morning to import the photos from the last game. Shortly after you connected the camera to the computer, you heard a knock on the door.

Startled, you looked at the door and saw Jacob sheepishly poking his head through the door. You told him to come in and he took a seat next to you.

“Kevin told me to drop by before class for an interview,” he said. You nearly facepalmed. You had completely forgotten about that. You were supposed to interview him for the paper.

“Oh yeah! Hold on, let me go get my notebook,” you searched through your backpack to find it.

The volleyball player was this month’s star of the month and you had to write a piece on his past achievements. He was extremely kind and was careful not to use any advanced sports terminology to make sure anyone could easily read the interview, which you were grateful for.

Before you parted, he gave you a side hug out of habit and apologized when he realized that it was only his first time meeting you. You laughed it off and insisted that now you could be friends since you two hugged already. Relieved that you weren’t disturbed, he happily waved goodbye to you as he walked away.

Being in a different class than Sunwoo meant that you had to wait until lunch period to see him. You honestly didn’t even know if you wanted to see him. You weren’t ready to face him yet.

When the bell finally rang and it was time for lunch, Juyeon forced you to go to the cafeteria instead of hiding out in an empty classroom. The moment you sat down with your tray, however, you felt all eyes on you. Your stomach dropped, knowing it couldn’t be good news.

“Y/n, is this true..?” Jaehyun asked, showing you the new post on the gossip page. You hated that you were always right about bad intuitions.

KSW and Y/INITIALS caught making out at last night’s party… is BJY a side hoe?

You had no idea when a photo was taken in the brief second you and Jacob hugged that morning. When you scrolled and saw the next part, your heart dropped.

A shocking revelation of history: Y/INITIALS and SYJ used to date in freshman year. Does this have anything to do with the swimmer and basketball players always next to her?

You felt your breath caught in your throat as you read through the comments.

“Isn’t BJY on the volleyball team and SYJ on the baseball team?”

“Wow she clearly has a type.”

“I guess athletes just hit it well 👀”

“And here I thought KSW was the hoe… who’s playing with who?”

“Aye so KSW finally managed to break through her. Thanks for my $10 bro.”

“Aren’t the basketball players LJY and LJH? And the swimmer KYH? The Bermuda line, right?? I always thought she had a thing with one of them.”

“So much for the icy Y/INITIALS. She was acting all pretentious when she was already having all her fun.”

Juyeon grabbed the phone out of your hands and glared at Jaehyun. You never thought your past relationship would ever get exposed. There were only a handful of people who knew about it and it had stayed hidden under the rug up until now. It was something you wanted to bury and never think about ever again.

Shakily, you got up and ran out of the cafeteria with Younghoon calling out after you. You ran as fast as you could. You didn’t stop until you busted through the doors and collapsed on the rooftop. Your lungs were on fire and you closed your eyes to stop the ringing in your ears.

Meanwhile, Sunwoo was running across the school to find you. When he didn’t see you in the club room, he changed his target and sought out Eric.

“Is it true?” he demanded when he finally saw his friend.

“I can’t believe people already figured out that it’s me,” Eric sighed.

“Is it true?” Sunwoo repeated.

“Yes, yes, it’s true,” he answered with his hands up in defeat. “She never wanted anyone to find out. We didn’t exactly end on good terms. It’s something I’m not proud of.”

“What happened?” he asked, trying to contain his anger. “What did you do to her?”

“I…” Eric trailed off. “I cheated on her.”

“What the hell, Eric?” Sunwoo yelled.

“I-I was stupid! And young. It’s the biggest mistake I made in my life,” he admitted.

Frustrated, Sunwoo left and ran off in search of you again. When you weren’t anywhere to be found, he checked the rooftop as a last resort. He didn’t expect to actually see you there.

“Y/n,” he breathed. You felt a lump form in your throat. It was the first time he had addressed you by your name.

“Get away from me,” you glared. “Was I nothing but a bet to you? Was I just a challenge for you to win?”

“Y/n, I never placed bets on you. I don’t know what other people have been betting on but I have always been genuine with you,” he affirmed.

You refused to let your tears fall. There was no way Kim Sunwoo was going to see you cry.

“I like you,” he confessed. “I like you a lot. I meant to say this that night but got too flustered. So I wanted to tell you today. Whenever I see you, the butterflies in my stomach won’t go away. When I don’t see you, I miss you like crazy. You inspire me to become a better person and all I want to do is hold you and call you mine.”

And now Kim Sunwoo has officially seen you cry. He bent down to wrap his arms around you as you sobbed into his shoulder.

“You’re an asshole,” you mumbled after you calmed down.

“I think you mean the opposite,” he chuckled. “Whatever barriers you put up to protect yourself, I’m going to take them down one by one. With you. Together.”

“Who said I’m helping?” you muttered.

“Then I guess I have to work twice as hard to prove myself,” he softly smiled.

“This is embarrassing,” you groaned.

“This will only be embarrassing for me if you reject me,” his hand reached out to the nape of his neck. “So what do you say? Will you go out with me?”

“I’ll think about it,” you huffed, prompting a chuckle from him.

#deobiwritersnet #the boyz #sunwoo #the boyz sunwoo #the boyz fluff #sunwoo fluff #the boyz sunwoo fluff #the boyz imagines #sunwoo imagines #tbz fluff #tbz imagines #the boyz fic #sunwoo fic #tbz fic #the boyz scenarios #sunwoo scenarios #tbz scenarios #star player collab

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rivers-rambles21 · 3 years

Text

The one with the road trip

Part 15 of The one where Bucky has a cute neigbour series!

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader (f)

Warnings | 18+ only - no smut but mentions of it

Apologies for any mistakes, this has been written on my phone and its a bit difficult to edit. Once I’m back with a working laptop I’ll give it a once over :)

Bucky had intended on renting a bike so you could ride down to Louisiana but with Sam’s suit it would’ve been an impossible feat.

He settled for hiring an SUV and added you both to the insurance so you could take it in turns driving on the long trip down south.

“Been together one day and we’re already on our first trip” You teased as you rested your feet on the dash, taking in the scenery as Bucky drove. His metal hand gripped the steering wheel as he peaked a glance over to your bare legs, resisting the urge to pull over.

“You’re the one having a mid life crisis doll not me” You feigned offense and swatted the soldier beside you, pleased to get a hit in as he tried to dodge your attack. His eyes remained on the road as he grasped your hand in his. “Less of that thank you” He laughed, bringing your hand to his lips, leaving a kiss on the back before giving it back to rest on your thigh, his hand not leaving yours.

“Looking forward to seeing Sam again?” He didn’t respond but his face said it all. “You’re so dramatic” You chuckled as you leant down to root around in your bag for the road trip snacks. Retrieving a bag of cashews, you offered it to Bucky who gladly took a handful.

“I just know he’s going to ask a billion questions about stuff we’ve not even discussed yet, that we’re probably not even ready to talk about. He didn’t stop asking about you y’know? Y/n this, Y/n that…he kept threatening to ask you out.”

“Oh he did”

The car swerved slightly as Bucky's grip on the wheel tightened, his concentration lapsing for a split second.

“He did what?” He asked, tearing his eyes from the road to glance over at you.

“It was just a bit of harmless flirting-” You began before being cut off.

“We flirted.” Bucky stated, his jaw clenching.

“We also did a lot of things just friends don’t do. Relax Sarge, he only asked to get a reaction out of me.”

Bucky grunted in response, knowing his reaction was a tad over the top but he couldn’t help it. You were his.

“We could always mess with him in return.” You pondered as you took a swig of your drink. “Maybe hold off on telling him about us, it’s only meant to be a flying visit anyway isn’t it? So we wouldn’t have to pretend for long… play him at his own game?”

Bucky smirked in response, completely on board with your little plan.

The next few hours passed with the typical car games and a quick power nap as Bucky continued driving.

“How long until you start at Starks?”

“A month thank god, the GRC wanted me gone pretty quickly, I didn't have to work my notice which was a blessing really. I’ll schedule a day to go and clear out my desk and say my goodbyes. Will you still get your pension if we live out of the country?”

“I’m not sure to be honest, I can pick up work wherever we are though, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m good with my hands”

“You’re telling me” You muttered under your breath. Bucky heard you loud and clear and let out a laugh as he recalled how you spent most of last night. “Are we crazy? Travelling with no plan, barely any money and only just starting out as a couple?”

“Oh absolutely”

Eventually Bucky took a break from driving after you stopped for food in a roadside diner. It had been a while since you’d driven but you wanted to give Bucky the chance to get some sleep, something you knew he still struggled with.

Despite telling him to try and get some sleep on the back seats, he remained upfront with you, doing his best to battle the drowsiness that had overcome him. He’d not gotten much rest the past few weeks, from battling the Flag Smashers in Europe, to hunting down Zemo and then back to New York. In truth he was worried he’d have a nightmare and wasn’t sure on how he’d react but upon your insistence, he tried to get some shut eye. After an hour or so he dropped off, the sound of you humming along to a song on the radio sending him off into a dreamless sleep.

Bucky couldn’t quite believe it, he couldn’t remember the last time he slept without being haunted by memories of the Winter Soldier. Granted, he only got four hours of sleep , but it was the best he’d felt in a long time.

When it came to your turn to get some shut eye Bucky insisted on stopping over in a hotel for the night. You’d tried to convince him a motel would suffice after you lost the battle of you sleeping in the car but he was victorious.

To be frank, after spending so many hours in the car, you were grateful to be sleeping in a bed with your super soldier by your side.

As you slept, Bucky took the time to fire off a few emails advising he’d be ending his lease. Having slept earlier, he felt energised and was content in browsing the internet as you slept tucked into his arm.

He did his best not to wake you as he opened a selfie from Shuri of her with Ayo and Nomble, a chuckle escaping his lips as Shuri and Nomble looked to be thoroughly enjoying themselves on a boat trip in New York whilst Ayo sulked in the background.

He also replied to an email from his therapist's office, letting them know he’d be absent from his next session but planned on returning the following week.

Bucky was tempted to let Sam know he was coming but thought it best to surprise him.

The next day was much of the same, both of you switching the drive and stopping off at diners for food. Due to the lack of respect Bucky had for the speed limit, you were making good time and would be in Delacroix the following morning.

“-it was like I didn’t exist. Honestly it was the most humbling experience of my life”

“Sergeant Barnes in his uniform… now that is something I’ve got to see.”

“Maybe one day”

Your eyebrow perked at the thought. “Good god man” You groaned dramatically and sank further into your seat, giggling as you caught sight of the blush covering his cheeks. “For what it’s worth, lack of nutrients from the rationing clearly messed with her eyesight.” You were genuinely baffled how Peggy didn’t swoon for the man next to you.

“Where were you in the 40’s when I needed you huh?”

“I doubt I’d have been your type”

“Intelligent, strong woman with a great sense of humor? And thats not even mentioning your ass.. Oh no, definitely not my type” He replied sarcastically.

“Ha ha fine, I’ll take your word for it.”

“I’d have taken you dancing, maybe gone to a show or even the carnival. Anything you wanted.” He took your hand in his again and kissed the back of it as he pondered just how he’d of won you over back then. He usually didn't like to dwell on life before the war, the pain of losing his family and the future he lost was too much but having you in his life somehow made the memories hurt less. Having you with him now along with the future he could picture with you helped him make peace with his past life and accept that it wasn’t something he could ever go back to.

When Steve was returning the stones, he did wonder whether he should go back with him but the realisation that there wasn’t anything waiting for him apart from a time that he didn't belong to made his decision to remain in the present resolute. And by god was he thankful he stayed.

On your way to your final hotel before arriving at Sams, you’d taken over the driving and had kept Bucky entertained with your off key singing and terrible car games.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” As it turns out, Bucky was a sore loser.

“What? It counts!!”

“You cannot see bacteria Y/N”

“Yes I can! It’s right...right… right there!” You pointed to a random bit of the car interior and held back a laugh at a clearly unamused Bucky.

“You’re so full of shit”

“How do you know I can’t see it huh? Guess it’s my turn again, I spy with my little -”

“No” He cut off as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Absolutely not. I’m going to choose a game.”

You let out a little smile and continued focusing on the road until the super soldier landed on something he liked.

“Okay okay, would you rather sounds fun. Doll, would you rather have the superpower of being invisible or ability to fly.”

“Aw come on Buck these are tame! If I have to answer, without a doubt invisibility.”

“Not dirty enough for you sweetheart?” A tingle rang down your spine at your new nickname. “I’d have to agree, invisibility easily.”

“Buck you’re an actual superhero, you’ve already got powers, leave some for us mere mortals!”

“... you think I’m a superhero?”

“....you’re literally an Avenger.” You reached across towards the man beside you, keeping your eyes on the road as you pressed your hand against his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”

Bucky rolled his eyes at your sarcasm and swatted your hand away from his head. “Fine you made your point.”

You shook your head as you returned your hand to the steering wheel, tapping away to the song on the radio.

“The rest of these questions are boring” He muttered as he furiously scrolled through his cell.

“C’mon, go R rated”

“It’s no fun when I already know the answers to these!”

“Pfft doubtful, come on, hit me”

“Spit or swallow, you’re a swallower doll.See?”

“Okay okay! You’re right, I give in. How about we just ask each other some questions?”

“But you already know everything,” He remarked, throwing a few cashews into his mouth.

“When did you first see me as someone other than a friend?” You’d thrown him off guard with that question, his hand stuck in mid air as he went to throw more snacks into his mouth.

“Wouldn't you rather know my most embarrassing sexual encounters?” He offered but was met with silence. “Fine……. I’ve never seen you as just a friend. Yes we were friends before we became more and honestly Y/n if it never progressed further than just friendship I would’ve been fine with it, more than fine with it y’know? Meeting you was the best fucking thing-” “Buck, it’s okay” Your hand reached out towards him and squeezed his thigh as you kept your eyes on the road.

“There’s more… before we officially met in the lobby when that creep wouldn’t leave you the fuck alone, I’d seen you around. I was coming back from lunch with Yori and he was complaining about having gone for burgers instead of our usual and there you were, headphones in completely oblivious to the world and searching for your keys in your purse as usual. You were just so carefree - everything I wanted to be. And then a couple of days later we met and I was a goner.”

You bit your lip as you fought back a smile, overwhelmed by his honesty. It was a welcome feeling, knowing you weren’t the only one that felt an attraction almost immediately.

“I’d seen you around too, before we officially met I mean. It’s kind of hard to miss you” You chuckled as you snuck a glimpse over at him and found him doing his usual glare. “It was pretty early on for me as well, do you remember when we went for coffee?”

“And you ordered us two cups of sugar? Yeah I remember”

“Mocha Latte’s aren’t bad for you… they just give you a bit of a buzz”

“Especially if you order extra cream…”

“Anyway! I’ve always been attracted to you, I’m not blind y’know but after seeing this dark looming strong man consume a drink like that, and have some residue cream left on his lower lip mind you, I just knew that it was more than just a crush. There’s something oddly charming and attractive about seeing someone so intimidating be so soft. It’s like I’m the only one who gets to see that side of you and I love it”

Bucky didn't quite know what to say, he was slightly flustered at the compliments you were throwing at him and by the knowledge that you’d been interested far earlier than he had ever dreamed of.

“We’re idiots aren’t we? For not realising sooner.”

“Oh without a doubt”

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