#okay this isn't even a challenge anymore lmAO

[cheolsfae]

Hii would you be able to do a reading on how skz members will meet their fs? Thank you

surrreeeeee💛

Notes:

They all pretty much start off the same, from current to future, to distant future, didn't intend for that but here we are lmao. Except for I.N.'s!

Minho's...I really love his! fgkndfiodsno

*Disclaimer: solely for fun! Please do not take this seriously. For entertainment purposes only!*

𓆦 Chris

*9s could be very significant for him

Past: 9 of pentacles, 9 of swords

I'm assuming this actually isn't the past but this is what's currently going on because this doesn't feel like he's met them yet. He's currently just focused on himself and those around him. He's very anxious about what's going on in his life. Like the responsibilities of his job could be keeping him up at night. This feels like he's just carrying around a whole lot of weight but he's refusing to ask for any help or even to just reach out and vent to someone else. Right now, it's like a crushing weight on him, he could be making it a bigger deal than need be, but that's not my place to say that lmao. He's valid in how he feels about this situation.

Present: ace of swords, the sun

At some point in the future, he's going to end up coming to the conclusion that he needs to tell someone. This ends up being his future spouse. I think they might start out at friends, like they met at a bar and just kind of took things from there. He could end up just venting everything out to this person and that's kind of how they meet. He might end up going to this bar/club with a friend or they could meet through a friend. Just some type of social atmosphere.

Future: the hanged man (reversed), 9 of cups

This person is definitely going to challenge him. He's going to be stubborn about wanting to expand on his thoughts about marriage, relationships, etc. He doesn't want to change how he feels about it. He has his own ideas on it and this person is brining forth new thoughts about it and it's very frustrating for him. He seems like the type to want to stick to what he knows in terms of certain topics like romance, etc. Very rigid in those values.

Bottom of the deck: the fool

He needs to take a leap of faith and just trust the process with this person. He needs to know that this person isn't going to intentionally harm him. It is safe to trust this person. They really mean well and they only want what is best for him, nothing more!

𓆦 Minho

Past: king of wands, 8 of cups (reversed)

Okay, he's recently healed a little bit from a past connection. He was finally in a place where he found the courage to leave that person. He did it in a way where it wasn't toxic, so this might have ended amicably (or this person signed an NDA). He's happy that the situation is over. He no longer has to deal with this person's shit anymore. He could have been warned that this person wasn't going to be doing him any favors. He should still be worried a little bit about this person. They could do something, who knows what but he should be careful.

Present: page of swords, the lovers

He's presently creeping on his future spouse. He's a very observant person. He's paying attention to what they have to say rather closely. He's just friends with this person right now, I don't think he's made any sort of romantic move towards them yet. He's trying to be strategic about how he goes about moving closer to this person, like the weirdo he is. He's just trying to feel the vibe out first, I think (I hope, lmaoo).

Future: 3 of swords (reversed), 8 of pentacles (reversed)

His future spouse has some healing to do but I don't think they are really wanting to. They are refusing to work on themselves. They kind of just want to stay as they are for right now. They could still be holding onto past hurt and not willing to trust Minho with his intentions. They could be thinking he's coming across rather snake-y. Them holding back from healing is going to stall the connection and do more harm than good.

Bottom of the deck: 2 of cups

Again, he's probably friends with his future spouse right now. He could be trying to figure out a plan as to how to further progress this connection. He could be planning to do it as a surprise and just hoping to sweep this person off their feet. A true romantic!

𓆦 Changbin

Past: 4 of pentacles, wheel of fortune, 9 of cups

Before meeting his future spouse, he's busy off completing things on his bucket list career wise. He's making his dreams a reality. He's trying to make sure he is in a good place before even thinking of dating anyone. He's kind of sticking to himself and not really focused on his romance life. Changbin needs to work on loving all the parts about himself before he even thinks about bringing in a romantic interest into his life, mainly, accepting the more unlikeable parts he feels about himself.

Present: knight of swords, 7 of pentacles

It feels like they meet through work. Like he's working his ass off for his future and then all of a sudden someone comes in to kind of sweep him off his feet. Yes, Changbin (like the little princess he is) is getting swept off his feet. He's not making the move, this co-worker is. But because he is so focused on what he's trying to accomplish, he's being a little bit oblivious to what this person is actually doing with him. He's so cute, I can't! This is a fated connection, obviously, but he won't know that, I feel that the other person will definitely have some type of clue. They will feel it in their gut, their intuition.

Future: the tower (reversed), 2 of pentacles

When it finally clicks with him what this person is doing, he's going to be kind of stuck between wanting to seriously pursue this person or keep working towards his career goals. He's going to have to strike a balance between the two. He can't be giving more energy to the other, it's not going to work that way. Again, this whole thing is going to feel like a bigger issue than it is. He just needs to find the correct way to fix it and figure out a balance that works for everyone involved

Bottom of the deck: the lovers

Overall, at some point, it will all align for him and it will all balance out but he needs to find a way to manage it as best as he possibly can when the time comes for him to meet this person. It's really gonna throw him for a loop when they come into his life and I'm so excited for them!

𓆦 Hyunjin

Past: the emperor, 4 of wands

So, he wants to be in a place where he's stable enough to support another person. He wants to be that kind of person. I get the impression he isn't exactly all that expressive with his emotions all that much. At least, not in big groups of people. Maybe with like his members one on one. And when I say expressive with his emotions I mean verbally. Physically and every other way 100% but to verbally say it? Nah-uh. He wants a future, he wants harmony in his "marriage" (future spouse in my mind doesn't necessarily mean marriage, it means for your forever partner).

Present: death, 10 of cups, 6 of swords

He wants to be someone one's wish fulfillment in a partner. He's making changes to himself to become an ideal partner so he can attract his ideal partner. He could meet this person during this change, maybe at a coffee shop or something. It feels like it's a meet-cute thing. I feel like he shoots his shot pretty much right away, unlike the previous members who take their time

Future: the hierophant, 3 of wands

He ends up getting to that place of being that ideal person, now it's a matter of "popping the question". I feel like when he does this it's going to be very romantic. Very much corny. This is the most expressive I think he's been outwardly to anyone and it's so cute!

Bottom of the deck: king of cups

Again, he's currently trying to expand himself emotionally so he can be that type of person for his future partner. It's very cute and he's really trying his damn'd-est. It's a really sweet energy over all and I love it! I'm eatin it up!

𓆦 Jisung

Past: 3 of swords, 8 of swords

Starting out, currently, he's going through some type of heart break. Some type of romantic connection might have just recently ended. I get the feeling this was a situation-ship. This person could have left him, I don't think he left them. He's in his own head thinking about all of the what ifs. What if he's done things differently? What if he did x instead of y? That type of thing. He's keeping himself in this unhealthy repetitive thought process.

Present: 10 of swords, the moon

When he meets his future spouse, he's going to still be in his feelings. He could meet them at like some kind of outing. Some type of party, maybe with friends could be a company party but more than likely a friend's party. But anyway, he's still going to be holding onto all of this stuck energy. The thing is, there isn't anything he could have done differently to keep this person. Nothing, this person just wasn't meant to. When he meets his future spouse, he isn't going to be in the best place mentally still. He's also tied up with work, so initial communication between the two could be sparse.

Future: death, the hanged man

He needs to change his thought process before he starts to seriously pursue his future spouse. Otherwise, he's setting the whole thing up for failure. He needs to move on past what has happened with this person old person. He knows what he has to do in order for things to progress, it's just that he's kind of refusing to. He wants to continue to love in this type of negative mentality. It's mostly out of fear but he still needs to change it this future spouse is for him, it feels like they were made for one another, completely

Bottom of the deck: page of wands

There is potential here for him to really learn his lesson with this passed person but I don't feel that he really even wants to at the moment. He just wants to be stuck here in this bad train of thought for a while. Yes, mourn the loss of this relationship but do not dwell on it for too long, better things are coming for you!

𓆦 Felix

Past: the moon, king of pentacles

So, he does already know future spouse. He's trying to be the man they need him to be but I don't think he's feeling very emotionally fulfilled at this time. They may not be giving him the kind of affection he needs. His emotional needs are not being met by this person. He's really trying with his whole heart to be the kind of person they need him to be but he feels kind of crappy being with this person because they are not doing the same for him. Everything is very one sided and he hates it!

Present: 2 of pentacles, justice

He's going to be debating if he should leave them or not. He wants it to be equal give and take with this person but things are not balancing out the way he wants them to. He just wants them to be doing the same for him. What he's putting out he isn't getting in return and I feel like he's just like okay, this isn't what I want but I do care about this person a lot, should I leave? Should I tough it out? If you are not receiving what you know you deserve, leave! If it's meant to be it will be! He's kind of holding out hope that this person will change but I don't think that they are willing to just yet.

Future: strength, temperance

He's going to end up leaving this person for a while. He's going to find the strength to leave this person and work on himself. He's being told to stay patient with this person when he does leave. He might want to lose his cool on them but he has to remain calm. He's also being guided to kind of wait for this person, meaning keeping the door cracked for them, just a little. This person will eventually come around and be who he needs them to be once they realize that they screwed up with him.

Bottom of the deck: 4 of cups

He regrets putting himself in this situation. He just wants to be happy with this person but they aren't ready for anything real. He sees a real future with this person. But it's like this person isn't willing to really give him a second glance.

𓆦 Seungmin

Past: page of pentacles, the moon

So, he already knows his future spouse. Seems like they have been friends for a quite a bit of time already. Maybe a few months. He already has developed some feelings for them already. He's debating making a romantic offer toward them. He's nervous about doing it though. He wants to but at the same time what if he gets rejected? If he keeps thinking the worst, he's only going to get what he's "asking for". He needs to be more positive if he wants this to work out!

Present: 3 of swords, 4 of cups

Well, his fears are correct because I do see that he ended up making this offer towards them and they shut him down. They might end up taking some time away from one another until he can get his feelings together or they can figure out what they want. But he does regret even coming forward and saying anything about his feelings. He really shouldn't. There is no shame in being honest in how you feel! He felt like this person was his soulmate! They were his other half (and they might be)!

Future: page of cups, the lovers, 7 of cups

He doesn't take long to get over it because he gets right back on the horse and tries again with this person! This time things are a little different. This person is trying to come to terms with trying something serious with him. And it looks this works out because this person ends up getting "delusional" (Not really delusional because it happens) about a future with him! This feels like a breath of fresh air for them both!

Bottom of the deck: 2 of cups

Again, it does feel like he's already acquainted with his future spouse. Feels like this was guided entirely by his ancestors, which I think is kind of funny. They want the man to see him so happy! His spirit team is truly rooting for them both! It's really cute!

𓆦 Jeongin

Past: 7 of swords (reversed), 9 of cups

He, too, might already know this person. He might have recently decided to take his mask off and be vulnerable with this person because he sees them as his wish fulfillment. Someone who he's been asking for. He could have been misleading this person about how he felt towards them because he could have felt like they weren't into him as much as he was into them. They may not have been giving that many hints to one another about how they felt towards each other.

Present: the star, judgement

He feels like this person is his person. Like 110%! He has complete hope that this is going to work out the way he wants it to. He might have already made an offer towards this person. The ball could be in their court, right now and he's just hoping that they agree. He feels really good about this person. He's currently feeling really anxious about it but he knows whatever happens, he'll be fine. He'll be good but he's really hoping it works out!

Future: 10 of cups, 8 of pentacles

It looks like he's going to get what he wants from them. They are both going to be so happy about how this goes. They both are willing to put in their whole hearts into this. They are both fully invested in this! There is just a whole bunch of love-y dove-y raw happy energy around these two and I absolutely love it!!

Bottom of the deck: knight of swords

He's just charging into this whole thing and doing what he can to get this person. He really wants this to work out and he's extremely happy about it. He feels like this person will accept him, there isn't a doubt in his mind for a second!

*Oracle deck was also used!

[tsuunara]

,, BSD FANDOM STOP FUCKING MISCHARACTERIZING CHUUYA FOR ONE SECOND CHALLENGE

i need to get this out of my head because i can't do this anymore with ppl who mischaracterize chuuya so much

tw ; opinion and lots of stormbringer and 15 spoilers! i think it's safe to put that here (also sorry for my poor wording of this i'm trying my best here sob sob justice for chuuya!!!)

"chuuya would be a red flag in relationships because he has incredible anger issues and gets violent!"

,, what a bullshit statement LOL i'm (not) sorry for saying this but i really don't think chuuya has any anger issues whatsoever?? NOW JUST HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND being short-tempered ≠ having anger issues!!! ,, having anger issues is something you CAN'T control and causes you to say or do things that can cause harm to others. chuuya does NOT have anger issues!!! we relatively don't see chuuya taking his anger out towards ANYONE with NO CONTROL over his actions whatsoever (arahabaki excluded, it's literally a god of destruction)

,, "but he takes it out on dazai!! he fought with him!!"

,, chuuya mentions that it was to SPITE him. when dazai and chuuya are together, i'd say chuuya is more pissed and annoyed because dazai is usually pushing is buttons. he's just a bit short-tempered and loses it a little more easier than others! of course he also does loses his temper a bit whenever he's stressed as well (that one cannibalism arc episode!!! where he said "son of a bitch") but he didn't particularly go KABOOM KABOOM, ifykwim. ,, we can also see him relatively calm and serious with his work in some episodes too!! he's not yapping and exploding all the time, because obviously he's a 22 year old man. throughout these 7 years, chuuya WOULD'VE learned to mature himself and control his emotions ESPECIALLY after going through his trauma.

,, "but chuuya is violent all the time!"

,, "all the time" ? bffr LMAO. okay sure, chuuya is MAFIA EXECUTIVE and that's part of his job. but that doesn't mean he's always killing this and that!! literally in the official wiki it mentions how chuuya isn't "impossible to reason with" when dealing with his enemies!!

,, ALSO FURTHER PROOF THAT CHUUYA ISN'T SOME COLD-BLOODED KILLER WHO KILLS EVERYONE HE SEES!! in stormbringer, we're up to the scene where N literally tells chuuya that he wasn't human and literally TORTURES HIM, verlaine - the man who KILLED off all his friends - gets him to kill N. but guess fucking what? CHUUYA DIDN'T!!! he tried to go for verlaine instead!! and he also sympathized with him because he KNEW where he was coming from as well!!

,, also!! when he was betrayed by the sheep in the 15 arc, dazai gave chuuya the choice of what to do with them when he was ordered to kill both the sheep and the GSS. and chuuya told him not to kill any of the sheep - most likely due to the fact that he actually still sees them as his family (give this man a break wtf) ,, even if we see chuuya angry at times, at most we can justify his anger - i mean who wouldn't go feral if you had to face the man who killed all your friends or the man who literally killed off your original self, tortured you and told you you weren't human? if anything, it's a very human thing if im being honest. (further proof that chuuya is human) ,, now, bringing back to our bullshit statement - why would chuuya need to get angry or violent if he loves his s/o? chuuya may be a red flag and has his flaws but i REALLY don't see the need for him to take any of his anger out on his s/o. he's really not angry 24/7 all the time, nor does he always NEED to use violence even as being part of the mafia - and just so you know, it's confirmed that chuuya would treat women the best out of everyone!!!! so let's just call it a day and go home guys 🤗🤗🤗

tldr; there would be no need for chuuya to get angry or violent if he loves his s/o, being a mafia executive does NOT necessarily mean he is violent all the time as he sympathizes with others, chuuya does NOT have anger issues and just loses his temper a little more easier than others (especially when it comes to dazai), and asagiri literally confirms he respects women.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. have a good day, evening or night ^_^

[spicehill]

inescapable paths of purpose, meaning in meaninglessness

or: why the path of nihility suits jiaoqiu so much better than abundance ever could, and it's fitting that his kit has no added healing. warning ahead for......... kinda rambling and talking in circles about this guy lmao. does this even make sense?????? help???????? uhhh... a tl;dr:

ah! would you look over there, it's my shameless favorite tv trope article happening off-screen in his backstory, break the cutie!

honestly it's kinda funny that both jiaoqiu and the emanator of nihility don't have a sense of taste anymore. the spice really is just to feel something. anything

somehow I didn't get to talk directly about him having like 4 different hats he wears and the fascinating psychology of role identities. how.

tried to get tf out of this field and they keep pulling me back in.

ms. arbiter general feixiao please one chance ( to prevent me, your loyal and devoted retainer jiaoqiu, from falling into utter and unending despair now that i've invested any remaining sense of purpose I have in this life in your survival )

jiaoqiu's character stories start and end in the same place, with him on the shore of rainsoar lake: the setting is the same, the environment the same, the beautiful details that paint the picture of a welcoming, pleasant place are unchanging.

the only thing that has changed is jiaoqiu.

he does not bother with the rain that runs down his ears now, he does not find anything to appreciate in the mild, sweet taste of wild rice. and even though he now sees his time here in the lake as serving a new endeavor, one that pulls him away from the pain and pointlessness of medicine, he is about to start anew on the path that he tried to leave in the first place: a single new patient, one with an affliction more challenging to cure than any wound he ever saw on the battlefield.

how did he get here?

bear with me through a short personal anecdote -- it grounds a lot of my perception of finding purpose -- a vivid memory I have of a conversation when I was younger with my father concluded with him telling me something. not everyone feels the need to find their purpose in their work, and that's okay. it's more strange to need your work to fulfill your life's purpose than not. and he felt that was important because, as the child of educators, I had only ever known adults who derive a deep sense of meaning and purpose from their work and the way they help others.

medicine, like education, is a field built of devotion, compassion. it is a selfish selflessness: by merely participating in it, you are seeking meaning and purpose. and as the child of prominent alchemists, I wouldn't doubt that jiaoqiu had never really known any adults who didn't help others while growing up, either.

that's kind of where his character stories start: the first time he's at rainsoar lake, he's young, enthusiastic, pleasant, hopeful. at the start, his demeanor isn't a diplomatic mask: its genuine, along with his desire to help others who need the most help on the yaoqing, cloud and verdant knights who face countless battles. maybe at this point in his life, several centuries prior, he would've walked the path of abundance with ease.

but that is not the man you meet now: the one we meet in-game wears politeness and pleasantries as a front most of the time, worries and plans almost-constantly, and really doesn't even think well of himself. jiaoqiu a harsh critic of his own shortcomings and mistakes, and isn't a stranger to feeling like a mistake or shortcoming of his own has happened. the contrast between the way he treats others ( pleasantness, gentleness, patience ) and the way he treats himself ( criticism, frustration, disappointment ), I think, is one of the first big hints we get outside of his character stories for traits that actually suit the path of nihility well.

to the next point, and circling back to his character stories: I always found it interesting that the drip marketing released for jiaoqiu portrayed his initial departure from medicine as being due to a broken heart.

this doesn't seem like it was a mistranslation or miscommunication with the localization, even though brokenheartedness is often associated with romance or love for another person of some kind. heartbreak is also when something is soul-crushing; heartbreak is falling out of love against your will with something you deeply loved once before. heartbreak is also irredeemable loss, often unsalvageable and irreversible. jiaoqiu's brokenheartedness stems from losing his passion for healing, his sense of purpose, and losing his sense of taste, all three of which were always deeply intertwined and interconnected.

character story details seem to suggest that his loss of taste may actually be physical more than psychological due to exposure to the lux arrow bombardment in the third abundance war: he was close enough to the impact that killed the previous arbiter general of the yaoqing while rescuing feixiao that it's almost like he has taste loss due to radiation exposure. combined with the building sense of pointlessness in his work as a military healer, seeing all his effort to help others and ease their suffering wasted again and again, he left healing after that -- seemingly to start a restaurant, which he called rainsoar eatery -- to try to salvage the little sense of purpose he has left after years and years as a healer made him feel purposeless.

the funny thing about cooking is that it's also a profession of compassion where your work is meant to help others -- cooking makes people happy, makes them feel warm, full. it's more temporary than medicine, but is a form of medicine of it's own right. in a way, jiaoqiu was still searching for purpose and meaning in his work, but now his scale and sense of personal impact was much smaller, much more temporary. he doesn't seem to believe at this point in his life that he's still capable of a larger impact. thus, in lost and adrift, the order of magnitude in which he describes impact are two extremes: either saving one person ( easy ) or saving the world ( impossible ). this is another signature conundrum of someone who has lost their way when their sense of self-meaning has been derived from work of compassionate service: what's the point of doing the hardest work if I can't really make a difference?

seeing pointlessness in effort spent on helping others is nihilistic, though it seems like jiaoqiu is still holding onto some hope for meaning.

so when his master from the alchemy commission comes to find him again years after the third abundance war at his restaurant near the lakeshore, he came with the purpose of persuading jiaoqiu to take on one more patient. just one, who his master promises will help him understand a healer's purpose -- and she's perhaps the most impossible person to heal in the world.

but he's saving all his medical effort for her: genuinely healing you is effort poorly spent. you're no longer part of his sense of purpose. thus far, I think working for feixiao has already redefined some of his sense of magnitude of impact, working to try and cure feixiao -- saving one person, in this case, is very important. and maybe the impossibility of the task is part of the point: it won't stop him from trying everything he can anyway.

[sparkanonymous]

THE EPISODES ARE OUT YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!!

⚠️ Total Drama Reboot Season 2 Spoilers ⚠️

Alright, so I've been awake for 15 hours now (before starting notes), so I'm gonna get rambly. I know I usually do, but it's definitely gonna get bad.

Episode 9

Priya definitely opened the door twice on Wayne and Raj on purpose. She was just that pissed off.

Okay, but Priya/Damien/Raj/Wayne friendship for the win. I want more of these guys.

Aw, Damien feels bad. (Zeemien-coded)

MK, you cheated in the game, and almost everyone made it clear that they didn't like that, especially since half the people who were mad at you were on the opposite team as you. You knew you were in deep shit with Chris. Are you really surprised? (Plus, like... Priya is generally more liked by most of the cast.)

MK, you know that they know your ways of playing the game. Do you really think sarcasm will work?

Get their asses, Damien.

Raj, why do you know what the peach emoji means?

Damien trying to be the supportive friend Priya needs. (Damiya-coded)

Holy fuck, we finally get to see Caleb. It's been like 5 minutes of straight no-Caleb.

Protective Wayne. He has no idea what's going on, but he's the man you want by your side when things go awry.

Chref moment. Even if he's not into it, Chris will watch any video Chef wants to show him.

Kinda lame challenge.

PRIYA/WAYNE FRIENDSHIP.

Goddamn, Caleb really doesn't want to get in between Team MKulia.

Wayne, Raj just got crushed by a fridge. Help him out. Please, he'll die.

Julia really trying to murder Caleb here.

THE FUCKING CAR.

Damien/Sheep friendship.

MK is so getting voted off.

Wayne did all of that in less than 5 minutes?

THE FUCKING YACHT.

Damn, Priya can push a boulder.

I don't think Damien can support Priya anymore.

Wayne, really?

Julia is seriously good with axes, huh?

NOT THE SHEEP!!

Caleb, this is most certainly not the time.

Julia would become a murderer if she didn't win.

Season 1 mention.

LMAO

Because he's a dumbass, Chris.

Poor Wayne.

Chef, that's a dumb fucking explanation.

How are bumper stickers private, Chef?

Damien doing everything in his power not to hurt the sheep.

I mean, it was pretty unnecessary for Caleb to take his shirt off, I agree. Like, come on, just one episode? Please?

Poor Chef.

Chris, you're such an asshole.

No matter how strong you are, you can not punch a yacht apart like that.

Poor Damien. Poor Wayne.

So... is Raj eliminated? Because of health reasons?

Chris really just wanted MK out. Wow.

Where the hell did that squirrel come from?

Priya, he had to. Are you serious? I know your heart was broken, but come on. Stop trying to guilt him.

MK, YOU CAN'T SAY SHIT LIKE THAT TO WAYNE OF ALL PEOPLE.

Poor Raj...

Did Chris forget to name Caleb?

MKulia. They love to hate each other.

Julia being worried about MK being mad at her.

MKULIA HUG. THAT'S ALL I NEEDED. FUCK EVERYONE WHO SAYS THEY'RE JUST FRIENDS (I'm lying, but I do see them as canon.)

Episode 10

Sneaky Damien. I'm surprised he still has the idol, tbh

RAJ PAJAMAS!

Finally, some more of Wayne being a good friend.

Caleb, be for real.

I heard that piano cue.

Caleb, you knew that MK and Julia were not trustworthy just last episode. You're either really desperate or really fucking stupid or really forgetful.

Priya, come on.

She's not being helpful, Caleb. Ugh, this is gonna be a slog to get through, isn't it.

So... is Julia just OP this season?

I knew Raj and Wayne didn't keep their own grades up. So they do cheat, they just don't think it counts as cheating.

Damien, don't get cocky.

Julia, how the hell would he cheat off of you? You're behind him. He's not behind you. Although, I guess they're broadcasting the answers on a massive screen...

"You'd be married by now-" Y'all are 16, maybe 17. I really hope they won't.

Raj, Wayne, stop being stupid. Please.

Poor Priya...

Caleb, help her anyway.

Damien, just stop mentioning it.

Poor Damien...

I like how Raj and Wayne are still laying there even after it was clear they guessed.

YES MORE DAMIEN WITH ATTITUDE.

They really couldn't come up with an MK punishment. Or an Emma one.

I like how Damien just calls everyone a bad person.

Chef calling the raccoons "trash pandas."

Chef letting his frustrations help the campers.

Poor Damien...

Julia, why would you tell Chris you have a phone on you?

"Hey, it's Bowie!" Raj, you're adorable.

Everyone knows Raj and Wayne are dumbasses.

Chef knows about the Caleb and Priya situationship.

Julia should be automatically get eliminated for that.

JULIA IS SO OUT IF SHE LOSES.

Caleb x Priya... pretty cute this episode.

Poor Wayne and Raj...

Caleb, don't let your tablet go.

Goddamnit...

No, you do not deserve to win, Julia.

Oh, come on, Priya... Ugh, not again.

Goddamnit, Julia found the idol.

DAMIEN TRYING TO RUN AWAY LMAO

Episode 11

Damien/Wayne/Raj friendship.

Raj and Wayne loving dogs.

Yo, Ridonculous Race character. Didn't watch that season, but I'm pretty sure that was where she was introduced.

Julia getting rid of a dog for likes... she would totally get canceled for that.

I think Raj and Wayne should have still liked the dogs even after being introduced. Like... come on. 1, they're stupid, and 2, they liked dogs. You can't tell me they wouldn't win the dogs' affections at some point, because they're also stubborn.

See, Raj and Wayne; fucking stupid.

Julia would've killed that dog for crushing her phone.

Why did Priya think that dogs were only after her?

Caleb don't misjudge the dog. You should know this by now; it's Total Drama.

Did you seriously think that would work, Julia?

Raj and Wayne being forced to split up...

"This is horrifyin'-" "This is my Christmas!" LMAO

Raj, you dumbass. Don't go streaking.

That worked?!

Holy fuck, Wayne really thought Raj died. Poor guy, but he's also dumb.

Naked and Afraid mention. I got that reference.

Even Wayne's stupidity surpasses Raj's sometimes...

Raj being dragged by the underwear.

Chris, this was never a family show. What do you mean?

Raj and Wayne were so pissed for a minute.

How did Julia find Priya?

Come on, Priya is fucking OP. She would be able to win just fine.

Take a wild guess, Priya.

Caleb, you're still playing Priya, dumbass.

Ugh, can we have one episode that isn't a close call?

NO RAJ OR WAYNE IS GOING HOME NOOOOO

NOT RAJ!! GODDAMNIT

Wayne's sad little arm raise at Raj's elimination.

"Bowie, put on your dancing shoes, 'cause we're goin' out!" Rajbow date mention! (No, I do not know if this is their first date or if it was confirmed somewhere else.)

Damn, they really animated that Raj and Wayne hug. Probably the most emotional elimination, aside from MK's.

"- Why are you still here?" "I dunno!" LMAO

Also, I really hope this Caleb x Priya thing is either resolved now or next episode, because it is a pain...

Episode 12

Okay, so are they like... okay now? I thought they were still rocky?

Caleb being more sensitive to death than Priya.

Priya knowing that Julia was watching them... somewhere.

Priya would definitely be the possessive one in this relationship.

Caleb, tell Priya the truth. Holy fucking shit.

Caleb, come on. You're more cruel than this.

Poor Wayne... also, where'd he get those sticks.

The fucking sad Wayne edit. This is gold LMAO

Where'd he get air pods?

Julia, how did you steal Raj's jersey? If this were another show, that would be really fucking weird. Like, come on. If Raj had ended up being bisexual instead of gay, this would've caused a ton of relationship drama. Y’know, if there was a season 3...

Julia, are you talking about MK when saying you and Wayne both lost your "best buds"?

"So you... wanna get MARRIED??!!" Juliayne nation, how we feeling? (Not my cup of tea, but this is pretty fucking funny. I hope I see more Juliayne art circling this moment.)

"I guess you're better than a bucket in some ways." LMAO

Something about Total Drama that I've noticed (and everyone else has, too) is that when the writers are pairing up an unlikely duo, when one of the participating members doesn't like the other member, they make up some random shit that solidifies their dislike for them. The example today is Julia only pairing up with Wayne for convenience, previously showing her dislike of him, and Wayne talking about some game that he and Raj have never played before on screen, "Spit 'N Catch".

Wayne asking the important, but unwanted, questions.

"Do you really want the answer?" "Well, now, I don't!" Wayne, you should know better than that by now.

Fear Factor episode.

Priya, you were raised on this show. You should see EVERYTHING coming. See, she's too broken of a character to make work well on the show. The writers either make her know everything (like she should)- which leads to her avoiding most of the competition because she's supposed to be that good- or they make her dumb as rocks.

There's a difference between being romantically involved with someone and dating. One can mean literally anything (that's what fanfictions are for) and the other is the official title.

Julia's threatening red screen thing seemed kind of dark. It looks like they put a layer above Julia and the screen, so it kind of doesn't stick out as much as it should have.

Stop playing Priya, man.

Julia, you're making him be a bad boyfriend right now.

Priya being scared of thunder and lightning.

Wow. They couldn't have gotten an intern to pretend to be Raj.

Wayne getting over his fear really quickly. Then the bear returning the hug. Wayne/Bear friendship.

"Fine! We'll do salmon. Again!" This friendship is giving me Izzy vibes.

Julia, you still haven't proven you can be trusted in any capacity. I think you should let the "Caleb avoiding proving himself" thing slide since we both know you wouldn't try proving yourself for anybody.

"Caleb, ya basic!" LMAO

"Woah. Was that Caleb or Priya?" "You should go check."

The Snow Owl mascot lmfao

The poor intern in the costume.

Oh, the clown snake tongue... that's disgusting...

Wayne x Intern Lady. Or friendship. I don't care. They're cute.

"Wayne doesn't get scared. He just grows as a person."

"I'm a big truth guy-" That is not what your tune sounded like during the first half of this season. Writers, stop switching it up. Please, I beg.

Poor Wayne.

"Priya, you got hit with a lot of lightning. So, can you, like, see the future?" With how this show works, I wouldn't be surprised lol

"- and you gave Priya the worst wedgie we've seen in... at least a week." That's so true.

Wait, how is the finale gonna work? I thought there would be 13 episodes, but we're on episode 12 and have 4- soon to be 3- campers left. Is this how it worked last season? I haven't watched the second half of that season in a while.

They do not believe in Wayne... and honestly, neither did I or half of this fandom. We all just prayed.

Well, bye, Priya.

Did you seriously not know. Wayne tells people practically everything, Caleb- while he did lie a lot during the season- would have told you, and you knew you didn't have it. It was obviously the manipulator of the season who had the idol, Priya. You're supposed to be the expert.

"Avenge me!" Well... lesson learned; don't mess with the expert of a really messed up show.

Episode 13

"I would also like to be part of this fight-" lmao Wayne is everything. I wish we could get more Wayne and Julia sibling moments. Those were always pretty funny.

So we finally get some insight on what they want to use the money for. Very helpful... but Julia's only comes into play after this season.

MK and Julia have already been talking about making a podcast? They really are just canon, y'all.

Wayne forgetting about the money.

"Phew! I was worried for a second there." "Were you?" Yeah, I don't think Wayne really knows what worry feels like at this point.

I'm interested. Specifically, who did Scary Girl pick? Or is she just gonna follow Damien?

Okay, I'm a little salty. Damien should've grouped with Wayne. I know most of them are on Caleb's team because he's the strongest and smartest of the three, but what about Waymien friendship?

I was gonna ask why Emma was there, but she kinda had the hots for him the first season and might still now. Millie just followed Priya.

I'm gonna nitpick, but they clearly just stretched out the walls of the outhouse so they'd all fit. Reasonably, there should've been some bickering about how crampednit was. Plus, Millie would've probably almost completely blocked Priya from the shot. Emma looks way too big compared to the other camper, purely because of her head size.

Poor Caleb.

All the characters on Wayne's team cheering for him. I'm not sure why Chase is there, seeing as they barely talked to each other, but it's sweet. Plus, look how cute Wayne is! He's just sitting so politely. (I'm so redrawing this. Please ignore the terrible quality.)

Wayne would've totally still would've been like "you got it coach!" After the camera turned back to the mountain he actually has to climb. That's just the kinda guy he is.

MK's touch to Julia's thigh. (I have massive MKulia brainrot.)

MKulia banter. I'm glad that Julia has no other supporters.

Wayne joining Zee for a "pizza party." Best buds, man. They ALSO share a braincell.

I'm glad Scary Girl is back in her original outfit. It looks better than the one she had at the beginning of the season. I'm glad that they cleared up where she went, too. I think the writers wanted a more even split of the team supporters, and this was their excuse to have Scary Girl wreak havoc.

Priya, stop pushing Caleb.

"It's amazing he made it this far... and I'm not even talking about the show." LMFAO

Raj's favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry?

At least Bowie knows their whole thing at this point.

"Isn't he great?" I can't handle Rajbow... my heart... I love them...

Julia would've so fallen.

MK getting pummeled with tee shirts and Chris just enjoying it.

Chris, that's your husband. Help him back up.

I forgot Total Drama's obsession with giving girls bad haircuts. Julia deserved that mullet, though.

MK, you almost made her feel better. Also, come on, did you see the way Julia looked at her for that split second?

Holy fuck, Julia has strength.

Kinda surprised Bowie didn't point out the haircut.

Zee is awesome. I missed him.

They all feel so bad about taking out Wayne. I will point out, however, that Damien was the first to hesitate. Look, I got my ship biases, even when they're friendship biases.

Raj, you dumbass.

RAJ, THAT IS YOUR BOYFRIEND APOLOGIZE

"- just remember there are different kinds of smart! ... and I'm Raj is one of them." Whoever is writing this dialogue deserves a cookie.

Priya, come on, celebrate the small victories. It helps.

Very true, Julia.

I like how Caleb still helped Julia. "Sorry I'm a good person!"

Wayne/Raj/Bowie friendship for the win. Their little quips. It's funny.

Was... was Chef gazing at Chris? What was he looking at? How bad is my shipping brainrot?

CHREF MOMENT. WHAT IS GOING ON? Headcanon, Chef has a crush on Chris. Chris doesn't know.

Caleb, you're not that stupid, come on.

"Desperate times call for bad ideas." - Wayne 2023-2024

When Zee knows better, you know someone's getting hurt.

WAYNE WON??!!

Why is Wayne's confessional with the team so dark?

I'm so proud of Wayne.

Chef shoving a bag of marshmallows into Ripper's face.

Bowie just accepting the dumbassery.

Next season? There'll be a third with these guys? Please!

It was odd that the rest of the episodes came out on a Saturday instead of a Monday. Oh, well! This was fun. I hope that, if there is another season, it's with these guys, and that a lot of the characters people wanted worked on will get the attention they deserve (Scary Girl, Emma, and kinda Millie). I wonder if they'll keep Julia's mullet, or if she'll give herself a pixie cut or something? I think she'd look cute with short hair, but she would definitely not keep it a mullet. And, hey, maybe it'll give even more fuel for MKulia. Who knows?

See you guys next time! Whenever that happens to be!

[ragecndybars]

AO3 tag game :3

thanks so much for the tag @mvshortcut !!!!! much appreciated, this was a blast to fill out :D

How many works do you have on AO3?

86! Damn, that's more than I remember 🙀 I have been writing pretty fervently since I was pretty young, though, and I transferred all my old fics from fanfiction dot net to AO3, so it's a long stretch of time. All my old wattpad fics are still rotting somewhere though lmaooo I can't even access them anymore bc I forgot my password and I can't reset it bc I used a school email 😔

What's your total AO3 word count?

443,734! When I get to half a million I'm gonna have to throw myself a party. With boba and everything

How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

Oof, okay, here we go. A lot of the fandoms I have tagged on AO3 don't really "count" because they're just aggregate tags for the same fandom, so even though AO3 says the number is 48, I'm gonna count the TRUE number as 17. (It got cut down so much because of how many video game series have different games with different fandom tags on AO3, lmao)

Here's the breakdown of the list:

Persona (Mostly Persona 3)

Fire Emblem (Mostly Shadow Dragon and Blazing Sword)

Legend of Zelda

Pokemon

Professor Layton

RWBY

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Earthbound/MOTHER

Red vs. Blue

Voltron Legendary Defender

Naruto

Final Fantasy XV

Harvest Moon

The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Avengers

Animal Crossing

Care Bears (despite having never actually consumed any Care Bears media to my knowledge)

The worst part is that this stupid list would be much, much, MUCH longer if I finished even a quarter of my WIPs 😭 Hell, even just my "Video Games" subfolder in my "Fanfiction" subfolder has more than 17 subfolders in it...

Y'all don't understand how many random fics my ADHD spares you from ever seeing I have no focus

Top five fics by kudos:

Ash and Emotion (Zelda) - Not surprising, I knew this was my most popular fic. It was for a ZeLink zine full of beautiful work :)

Resemblance (Naruto) - bro I always forget people really liked this one. Literally an unedited drabble I did in an hour for a "pride month drabble challenge" which I immediately abandoned. Trans rights I guess

Always Wanna Play (But You Never Wanna Lose) (Persona 3) - This one isn't surprising either, and I'm very proud of this fic so I'm quite chuffed to see it get so much attention... thanks everyone :')

The Beat of Your Heart (Zelda) - Now this one surprised me a lot. This was just a little piece for ZeLink week... Another unedited one, I literally was writing it on the toilet in church so I could get it out in time 😭

Comfort (Zelda) - Another ZeLink week piece, but I knew this one was popular. Also unedited, lmao. I was writing it on the day of my AP Calc finals and I rushed through the exam so I could have more time to work on the fic 😭 I made some Choices that year

Do you respond to comments?

I try to! But I get very anxious about it and tend to work myself into a tizzy, so I often put it off for later and then forget, haha. Then I'll go and respond to all my comments from the last few months and feel even weirder about it... T_T

What's the fic with the angstiest ending you've ever written?

Oof. That's... a hard one, haha. I've written a couple of fics without happy endings, though I typically don't. At least three fics which end on a canonical character death, for instance. But I'd say the ending which made me the most emo writing was Butter, a Mother 3 fic. It ends with Lucas, who's like 9, recently lost his mother, then lost his twin brother (and thinks it's his fault), and is now being neglected by his father, crawling into bed and crying. So yeah, pretty bleak, lmao... but at least he doesn't die I guess?

Do you write crossovers?

I do, but I haven't posted many yet. I'm not always huge on writing them, but I do think about them a lot. I was working on this one Persona 3 x Fire Emblem Awakening crossover but I lost steam on it, and now there's a really lovely crossover on AO3 with a similar premise that I was SO delighted to come across!!! Hope y'all don't mind me taking a break from linking my own work to shill for this one, hehe

Have you ever gotten hate on a fic?

Unfortunately, yes, about six times, I'd say. Even more unfortunately, most of those times happened earlier on in my fanfic writing career, and I was pretty sensitive to hate back then, so I deleted many of the relevant fics, and some of them I don't even have access to myself anymore.

Not gonna talk about the ones that are still upsetting, but I will talk about the funny examples: on a (since deleted) RWBY fic, I said in the author's note that I "wrote them as platonic, but the fic can be read as WhiteRose", and then I got a glowing comment gushing about how good the story was which ended with "but then you had to ruin it by shitting all over WhiteRose, how about you [long suicide bait]". Third most baffling comment I've ever received.

The two most baffling were on different fics, but both were making the same weird accusation??? One was on a ZeLink fic (actually, on Comfort, my fifth most kudos'ed fic of all time now), and y'know I think I'm just gonna show you the comment in question:

The other one was on a long-since deleted fic which focused on both a romantic ship, as well as a fatherly relationship between one member of the ship and the other member's father. I guess having a fatherly relationship with your father-in-law makes your boyfriend actually your brother (and therefore you can't date him anymore). IDK man people are crazy. (tbf the commenter in question thought I was setting it up so that he'd get adopted by his boyfriend's parents, which would give them more of a case, but like... that didn't happen in the fic and wasn't going to. they just guessed at a future plot development and got angry about their guess)

Do you write smut?

I do, but I've never posted any. I've posted one fic that was very suggestive, I'd even call it "NSFW" in a sense, but never anything explicit. Maybe I will in the future? We'll see if I can ever finish anything smutty, lmao.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep, I had Ultimatum, my longest chapter-fic (and by far my most popular fic in the ff.n days) stolen and posted on another site by somebody. I reported it but never checked back up to see if it got taken down.

I also feel that I've had my work plagiarized pretty damn blatantly in another fandom (I was browsing a certain AU tag and read one which contained all the exact events and sometimes word-for-word dialogue from a fic of mine, just very very slightly rewritten) but the poster had no other works and their writing was definitely extremely juvenile, so... I figured they were a dumb kid and just decided not to raise a fuss. Checked back later and they deleted it, hopefully because they realized they shouldn't do that, so I figure there's no need to start shit over it. Honestly, if that person used that experience as a jumping-off point to write their own fics, then I'm glad it happened, imitation being the highest form of flattery and all.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, though I had someone reach out to me on fanfiction dot net a long time ago and ask permission to translate An Unheard Goodbye, which was super exciting! I agreed, but I don't believe they ever got around to it, or if they did, they never posted it. Still very flattering, and I think about that a lot, hehe.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

HOW COULD I POSSIBLY ANSWER THIS. UM. UM UH. UHHH UM UH I. UM.

I'm.... gonna say Zelda/Link? I haven't written it in FOREVER but it was such a huge part of me coming into my own as a fanfic author, so I have to give it credit for that.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

.......all of them 😭 god I have so many of these damn things. But for the prime example, I'd point to Ultimatum, an old Pokemon fic that I started in middle school. I got all the way to the climax and I feel bad leaving my readers hanging, but... at this point, if I did continue it, I would honestly have to rewrite the whole fic first just to be in line with my current understanding of the characters.

What are your writing strengths?

Y'know, I think I get character voices down extremely well in a way which elevates my dialogue and narration. That's probably the thing I'm most proud of in my own writing, at least.

What are your writing weaknesses?

BREVITY. Or the utter, glaring lack of it. I have also been known to muddy up my writing with an overabundance of A) adverbs, B) unneeded clauses tacked onto perfectly good sentences, and C) em-dashes 😭

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fics?

I think it's dope as fuck, but I currently can't really accomplish it because I'm monolingual (NOT FOR LONG IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT, I'M COMING FOR YOU, JAPANESE FLUENCY!!!!). I will also say that I don't like when authors will write characters having a story-important conversation in another language, then put the translations in the end notes or something, requiring you to either read the chapter confused or else keep scrolling back down and back up.... I think even that's totally fine to do if what's being said isn't plot-relevant, though.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Naruto. I hadn't read or watched Naruto btw, I had only read other Naruto fanfics. I have spoken on this topic many times, but it remains hilarious to me. Also, so many of my old Naruto fics are lost to the Wattpad times, but I will take this opportunity to once again share a quote which I recently managed to unearth from my long-lost unsung magnum opus:

Never ever will I intentionally attain the level of comedy gold that I managed while writing completely dead serious Naruto fanfiction on Wattpad in 2012.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written so far?

See above. How could I ever top that fic.

In all seriousness, this question always makes me sweat, but I think I'm gonna say Oil, a slightly older fic from my EliHec days which I absolutely obsessed over for months before finally managing to finish. And, unlike most of the fics that I obsess over, I think the obsession actually made it come out better rather than worse, haha.

thanks again for the tag!!!! as for me, I'll tag uhh, hm, @wizard-finix @dreamedge @misty-wisp @flyfish1999 and any other AO3 writers who see this!!! (idk how many of you use AO3 and most of the MBS authors I know have probably already been tagged hehe but anybody who wants to should absolutely feel free!!!!!!!)

[lovewithoutresin]

Hey Resin zero pressure or rush but when you have the time I’d love to hear your thoughts on the alchemy???

okay yes ive been thinking about this for a few days and it actually makes me want to cry (in a good way!) that you'd be interested enough to literally follow up. admittedly i don't know how much sense this would make to someone who isn't me (as in, how much of this is individualized) but i'll share my thoughts on a few specific lines nonetheless.

so the song as a whole seems pretty straightforward which is why, in contrast with some of the songs that seem more intellectually challenging, people may have a hard time feeling like there's much to connect to there. maybe if you yourself are in a very victorious space you can, but that's not everyone always! so here's how i think of it (huge rant under the cut)

first off, i LOVE the immediate use of "these chemicals hit me like white wine". people talk a lot about the contrast of so high school with various other parts of the album, but it's not as common for people to compare sections of the alchemy from what i've seen, and this line contrasts SO sharply with the thread of substance use (or abuse) in the rest of the album. now i am not an alcohol aficionado. but i do know in terms of how people think of substances, white wine is probably like. the tamest one you could possibly reference. not to mention the only two times when substances aren't referenced as dangerous, illicit, self-harming or sad in some way is in The Alchemy and So High School. to my understanding wine is also associated with relaxation, which is a really nice transitional opening line from the rest of the album's chaos and devastation. it's also i think why, despite the upbeat tone, it's also a very calming backing track.

which is basically what the song as a whole connects to in terms of the album's overall storyline! more than just a comedown from the intensity and a basking in happiness after a storm, the song to me mostly represents a return to the self. multiple times i've experienced the sensation of feeling detached from my sense of self, like i'm not me anymore and am not sure how to return to that person, much less feel in touch with my life as a whole. so for me, just the assertion of "what if i told you i'm back?" is... huge. like yes! i'm back! i'm me again! but there's a question in it also. if i told you i'm back, how would you react? can you look past the crazy shit i was pulling or going through before i returned? have you all moved on without me since i was 'gone'? there's a sort of commitment in the lyrics that follow. 'i circled you on a map. i'm coming back so strong'. even though there's a 'what if' attached, she's coming back anyway, one way or the other. this is more tangential but it's something i was thinking about while writing this.

the chorus reiterates this commitment. it's a complete 180 shift in lifestyle and choice-making. we're getting rid of the clowns that don't have a place on our team. we're not keeping anyone around that's harmful. we are focusing on getting the crown we want and that's going to be something to be proud of, rather than ashamed of (and it's clear that desire HAS been shamed in her in many ways, as if she shouldn't desire success or enjoy a sense of 'victory' lest she be a diva/full of herself/make a partner feel small).

i also personally just really love the line 'that child's play back in school is forgiven under my rule'. it's harder to explain this one but there's something about the idea of taking back charge of one's own life, possibly even realizing the insane amount of power you have, and using that to say we're good. we're not fighting like this anymore. (actually that concept is kind of giving veronica sawyer at the end of the heathers musical lmao). we're forgiving and moving on and i'm coming back to you whether you like it or not! and yes i take this to mostly be directed at the general public and her trying to live in the world again and better appreciate her fan relationships and her new romantic one. but i can't say i don't personally relate it to my own close friendships and how ready they always are to accept me in the wake of whatever i was feeling so strongly before. in that way, it's sort of like an anti-bolter! the bolter says that when there are leaks in the floorboards, you run. the alchemy says if the whole boat explodes and you have to ride a piece of fucking driftwood back to shore, you still come back and you let people love you again. and that pays off! you get life and career victories, you get close relationships! you can get people who commit to you that you can commit back to!

but if i'm honest, the main thing i love this song for is its title lyric. it says so much and raises so many questions with so little. she's spent her whole career toeing the line between fate and free will in her story - the things that are predestined according to some outside force vs the things she meticulously arranges and manipulates. where she falls on the spectrum is always grandiose in some way, but it's almost confusing (unless, yknow. you're the same way and get it sort of instinctively) that she can go to the extreme on these beliefs in both directions at difference times. i think that's well-condensed in this song, because she spends MOST of the album caught up in this idea that she's been swept along by some grander force. here though, she switches from fate over to alchemy, which is the very active process of making gold out of something lesser. and yeah, on its own that's an impressive switch. but it's made more intriguing by the phrasing of "who are we to fight the alchemy?" is she taking matters into her own hands via alchemy (as opposed to prophecy)? if so, why is it something they have to not fight? who is doing the alchemy? or is the fun and freedom of this metaphorical alchemy too much to resist, so it's like getting swept up in your own agency?

it raises a lot of questions and to be honest i haven't fully settled on the meaning of that line to me. what i DO know is as a certified fate/free will obsessor i gravitate towards it like catnip.

so yeah, that's the gist of my thoughts. not sure if you'll find anything that's helpful/enjoyable to you in this but! if the alchemy has zero fans i am not of this earth.

[chaos-and-recover]

I dunno if I am venting, asking aita, or asking advice or am I overreacting but you're probably the only person I follow who is old (I am 17 and most people I follow are around that age) so here goes. so I have this cousin who my whole family hates and has spent my whole life saying horrible things about. This cousin literally moved across the country (we are in the USA) and everyone says that she moved away because she was tired of our family calling her out on her abusive behavior. (Cont)

Okay, wow. This is a doozy. I'm gonna answer all the messages in this series probably in chunks (but in this one post) 'cause there's a lot to say here and I think it makes sense so I can interject thoughts as I go and address all the various things going on here. First off, based on this first message, I'm kind of on your cousin's side. I'd probably also move across the country if my entire family talked shit about me all the time.

I grew up hearing how she's awful, a bitch, unhygienic, house is a hoarding disaster of filth, etc, like she's not a good person. Anyway despite living so far away she's managed to come to important events like weddings and funerals. Now I notice that any time someone calls her out, like asks how smelly her house is, if she's keeping it clean, or if her friend(s?) still put up with her, she has a really nasty insult ready and it's been like that my whole life so I believe it. (Cont)

Okay so, obviously I don't know her so she might be all of those things, but does your family have examples of her shitty behaviour beyond being unhygienic and possibly a hoarder? Because those things, to me, don't match up with "she's a bitch" and "she's awful," but being a bitch might be an understandable reaction to people giving you crap about the way you live. And hoarding in particular is very often a symptom of a larger mental health issue. Asking if her friends "still put up with her" is rude as fuck too, like so far your family kind of sound like bullies.

Anyway so last year a relative got married and my cousin showed up. My cousin is in her late 30s idk exactly. So my aunt (also her aunt) points out that maybe if she hadn't been a bitch and took better care of herself she would be married. She said she was happy in her relationship life but we all immediately pointed out she wasn't in a relationship so she should stop lying. (Cont)

As someone at the tail end of their 30s who is unmarried this is a WILDLY inappropriate thing to say. There are a million reasons why someone might not be married in their 30s, not least of which is "they don't want to be." I also think it's either a generational or a cultural thing that people just don't get married in their 20s as much anymore -- generational because my parents were 20 and 24 got married but both of my siblings were in their early 30s, two of my best friends didn't get married until they were 34 and 35, respectively, and for a variety of reasons I have a ton of other friends in their 30s who are not married at all. Some people just don't get married! Some people don't get married until it makes financial sense (either actually paying for the wedding or something more practical like joint tax filing. It actually doesn't always make sense to file as a couple). But I also wonder if that's just a cultural thing because it certainly seems that getting married in your 20s is still something a lot of people do in some regions of the US and in some other cultures, so I don't know. But I do think it's no one else's fucking business why someone else isn't married (for me it's because I straight up cannot be bothered dating and do not want to alter my life and my routine to make room for another person lmao so that makes getting married a bit of a challenge). Also even if she was not in a relationship (later messages make it clear that's apparently not the case) you CAN be perfectly happy being single. Like, I am absolutely happy with my non-existent dating life and relationship status. So accusing her of lying about being happy because you think she's single is bonkers, frankly. Being in a relationship doesn't automatically make you happy, and you don't need a romantic relationship in order to be happy.

She said we clearly knew nothing about her, that she isn't messy, is happy with how she looks, and we need to stop lying about her hygiene and other things. Now I personally have never thought she smelled bad but I only see her at big events so ofc she wouldn't. Anyway the wedding had alcohol so we all got really drunk (including me, but including her also so she can't judge) and things got heated between her and my mom (Cont)

So okay. I want you to think about this. Your family says she's smelly and unhygienic but you've never observed that yourself, so why do you believe them? Maybe she does only clean up for family events, but if that's the only time you see her, do you know that's true? Do you have any reason, beyond what your family has said, to actually think she does have hygiene issues? This might also be a mental health issue, fyi. There are a ton of reasons someone might not be "clean." There are also a lot of physical conditions that might cause someone to smell "bad." And it is, frankly, not anybody's business.

As for the drinking, yeah getting sloppy drunk isn't a good look but it also happens at weddings. I'm neutral on that point, tbh.

(my mom cheated on my dad and my cousin told everybody and that's how my dad found out I'm not kid but that's a long story) anyway so she got kicked out of the wedding and took an uber to the hotel. The next day I went to the hotel and we were both hungover so maybe not in the best mood. when I talked to her she told me that our family was abusive and toxic and I pointed out it's unrealistic that everyone in the whole family except her is abusive (cont) so maybe she needs to logically look at herself and realize it's more believable that only she is lying instead of everyone except her. And she just said I should research family scapegoats. I told her that it was her fault my parents divorced and my dad doesn't pay child support and she told me to leave. Well I felt kinda bad and so a few days later when she was back home I messaged her about what she'd like for a wedding because that's what ppl talk about after a wedding. (Cont)

She's right about the family scapegoat. It's not uncommon for abusive people to target one person and not another. Like, a parent may be abusive toward one kid, but not another, and they may turn others against that one kid, cause resentment, and ruin one kid's life while their sibling(s) may think they have a great childhood. It sucks! But it's absolutely a real abuse tactic. In your family's case I think it's pretty likely everyone didn't get together and decide to be shitheads to your cousin, but it started SOMEWHERE, it sounds like SOMEONE turned everyone against her.

I will say she shouldn't have told everyone your mom had an affair, but it's straight up not her fault your parents divorced. Your parents divorced because your mom cheated. It sucks! I'm sorry you had to go through that. She should keep her mouth shut about things that aren't her business (if she knew and no one else did, telling your dad might have been acceptable depending on the circumstances/relationship, but not spreading gossip to everyone else. That's not cool).

She said a bunch of stuff and then mentioned that her wedding would be a dry wedding. I pointed out that she was being hypocritical and a bridezilla because nobody wants to go to a dry wedding AND I know she drinks PLUS she got wasted like everybody else at our most recent wedding. And she said that since it was allowed then it's not hypocritical but that as I wasn't old enough to drink then it wouldn't matter anyway. (Cont)

Getting sloppy drunk at one wedding and then having a dry wedding yourself isn't really hypocritical. There are a lot of reasons someone might have a dry wedding, from money (open bars are expensive and cash bars are kinda tacky imo) to someone involved with/at the wedding in recovery for alcohol addiction to just not wanting people to get sloppy. I do think a dry wedding is probably gonna reduce the number of people who want to go but that might also be the goal.

Now granted I did lose my temper and tell her that it wasn't like she ever had to worry about getting married anyway because nobody loved her and since it hadn't happened for her yet then she should accept it wouldn't ever. I will admit that I reacted badly to that. She then told me to go and then blocked me. Well I have two accounts (one I made before I was 13 but I said i was 21 so I could have a fb and she followed me on both)well lo and behold six months ago she announces shes engaged (cont)

Yeah that wasn't cool, honestly. But also if I had a younger cousin who said something like that I'd probably be like "yeah ok kid sure" so like she could've probably reacted better.

I message her asking for an invite and she reminds me that it's a dry wedding and I said that's ok. She says she's not sure she wants me to come based on my behavior but she'll think about it. Well I notice that nowhere on any of her social media does she talk about her fiance or boyfriend at all, except to say who she is marrying and it's her best friend, who lives where she moved. I message him (we don't follow each other) cont I'm like how long have you been dating and why haven't you said anything on social media. He says they've been together for years but they're both private people. I don't know anything about him beyond that they've been friends (dating?) for like almost 15 or more years or smth. She only ever talked about him like a friend. Which I thought was weird. But I keep that to myself. Well because she always made it to all weddings and funerals I say yes I'd like to go. (Cont)

This might also be a bit of a generational disconnect. She's roughly my age and while our generation definitely had some early forms of social media by high school, we didn't grow up on it the same way younger generations did and the concept of sharing EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME is still a little foreign to us. Either that or we did the oversharing every aspect of our lives in our teens/early 20s and are now pulling back from that. It seems like every day more and more people I know are leaving FB and other social media platforms. Years ago when I was seeing someone he went to change his relationship status to 'in a relationship' with me after like 2 dates and I had to be like "whoa hold on there bro." I hadn't even mentioned to my family that I was seeing someone (because TWO DATES). Some people just don't put all their business on social media.

So I get an invite and so i invite the whole family. We show up but she has no room for us and said she only sent out a few invites but since I got invited I told everyone where the wedding was. Her fiance was there and kinda stepped in but it never got heated or anything but he showed us cheap hotels because they just didn't have room for everyone and they weren't expecting that many people. But when I was in the house I noticed it looked clean and smelled normal. (Cont)

Okay you're young so I'll chalk this up to not knowing what goes in to planning a wedding but DON'T DO THIS. Weddings are expensive and they are also planned down to the very last detail, INCLUDING having EXACT numbers for catering. You're basically buying dinner for all your guests, and it can be expensive. If you're having a buffet-style or more casual wedding you might have extra food but in a lot of cases the caterers are preparing the meals for the people who have RSVP'd and there won't be a ton of extra food just in case. You can't just add a bunch of extra people at the last minute because there won't be enough food, and in this case, not enough space. Most wedding invites have you choose your meal when you RSVP so they make sure they have enough of each option for everyone. If your invite says +1 you can bring a guest, otherwise you don't. You DO NOT invite a bunch of random people, especially family who don't even like this person and weren't invited for a reason (why would they even want to go if they all hate her so much?)

Also, you were in her house and it was clean and didn't smell, consider why you still believe your family who say she's unhygienic.

My family is clearly angry but they're not psycho so they keep it to themselves when he drives us there. So her and fiance ask to talk with me alone at a diner and give me a talk about how I wasn't supposed to invite everyone which offended me because they're family but I have never met him so I don't want to be rude. They both say they've managed to work it out and had extra food so it was okay this time but that in case other people get married or future events I should be aware that this behavior isn't acceptable. Which yes got my hackles raised but i'm trying to be nice. Well anyway at some point she had to leave for a hair appointment and needs to go but I am not done eating so she takes an Uber and he eats until I'm done eating before taking me back to the hotel. I take the alone time to bring up like hey do you know the woman you're about to marry is abusive and toxic and that he deserves better than someone he has to remind to shower and clean up after and someone who is kind and I just blurt out that she's a hypocrite who got sloppy drunk and I'm like I don't know how often she's lied to you about what kind of person she is and that he should know how toxic she is and to his credit he listened but then he asks why do you think her family wasn't invited, because they're abusive, and then asks what my goal was in talking shit about his future wife to him as soon as she's out of earshot and asks if I talk this way about everybody who isn't in the room with me. And I point out it's more logical that she is the abusive liar, not literally everyone else except her. And then he says she's always been loving and kind, cleans a normal amount, and as far as he's been around her taken care of her hygiene and that even when he visited the home she grew up in it was clean and that he will not listen to me talk about her like that anymore. When I get back to the hotel I tell my family everything and they came uncorked and kept calling her and texting her and so they rescinded all our invitations. We all pointed out that we spent a lot of money to get there and she said that wasn't her problem and then blocked all of us. I tried to show up to the wedding but was told to either leave on my own or be escorted by the police so I left. I didn't know this but my family showed up after me and stuff went down but i dont know what because nobody will tell me. Anyway so after the wedding I tried to contact her through multiple means but i was blocked on all of them as we all were. She did post a few videos publicly for everyone to see, so I had a mutual friend who wasn't blocked but didn't attend the wedding show me the videos and the wedding was very cheap and small. But that is what she told me she wanted last year. I tried talking to her siblings but her siblings also blocked me. I tried talking to some relatives of her now husband but they didn't respond to me, and i may have lost my temper and said cruel things so they all blocked me without responding. I made a few accounts and emails contacting them again asking for evidence of her claims but nobody ever responded but I was able to send emails. (Cont)

Yeah I'm on the cousin and her fiance's side still. He sounds like a decent guy standing up for his future wife. And if he has in fact known her for 15 years, he DOES know what kind of person she is. I think it's clear you meant well in warning him about what you've heard about her your whole life, but I think you should consider that your family aren't always the good guys in every situation. Even people you love can be wrong and cruel. I think if you can go through the trouble of making additional accounts to ask her siblings for evidence of her claims (you should stop, btw. They blocked you because they don't want to discuss it, leave them be) you should also maybe ask the family you do speak to for actual evidence of her being an awful person and being filthy and smelly (which, again... nobody's business, and not a reason to be nasty to someone???).

I think, based on what I've read here, it comes down to this: your family does not like this cousin and they make no secret of it. Why on earth would she tell them anything, invite them to major events like her wedding, or be anything other than nasty to them in return???

[barbatos-sama]

so far these are the pros and cons of this game, there will be a lot of comparing to gembin because the game makes no effort to hide how much of a gembin clone it is:

cons:

• character designs aren't great, a lot of them are very busy and the ones that aren't are kinda plain because the colors are kinda muted

• colors are more muted and less whimsical because this isn't a historical fantasy like gembin, like i said it's supposed to be a futuristic game so it's almost like they're trying to take classic gacha character design but make it fit into a futuristic sci fi theme and they don't really execute that very well

• the sci-fi aspect itself just doesn't appeal to me, this is obviously a matter of personal taste though

• it takes a lot of big made up science words and spits it at you all at once, making things hard to understand. gembin has some complicated fantasy terms as well but they ease you into it, starting in mond where everything is pretty easy to understand and terms are mostly normal and easy to understand. by the time it gets real bad in gembin is in sumeru, but you're so far into the game at that point where you're invested enough to actually learn and memorize these terms. this game spits them at you immediately so i was quickly discouraged and decided i didn't care abt the plot if they were gonna immediately make you do homework in order to understand anything

• speaking of the plot like i mentioned before i started skipping most of the dialogue and cutscenes because i just didn't care, it was boring. i Tried at first but i just couldn't understand what was going on bc of the nonsense technical terms they wanted me to learn

• THE INTERFACE okay my god the interface is so hard to navigate at least for me. i don't know what any of this shit is or what it does. the interface over the gameplay is almost Exactly like gembin's so that's easy to understand but the menus? nahhhh. it's like they wanted to copy homework but make it different but they made it different in the wrong way

• back to the character designs unfortunately has the "most women have big booba" problem. i don't have a problem with booba women, i kind of used to bc it made me dysphoric but it doesn't anymore and i think having some titty every now and again is fine. but when almost Every woman has big booba it makes them feel less unique. like in gembin for example there's ladies with all sizes of booba, some even have flat chests like furina and hu tao. ladies with like super big booba are actually not Super common, shenhe and yelan come to mind. in gembin you could say "the lady with the big titties" and those two would probs come to mind for whoever ur talking to, but in this game it would be like "ur gonna have to be more specific." like you know what i mean?? ahdjd not Every woman can be a booba woman you've got to branch out.

• obviously they only have twink which is a crime against me personally. the game came out rather recently so maybe there will be more, but maybe not having many twinks is a good thing bc i wont feel enticed to pull for many ppl.

• jumping is weirdly floaty and sprinting is weird

• fighting is kinda boring, ive been button mashing and things die lmao. so far there's not as much strategy as there is in gembin, but maybe i just dont know enough abt the combat system? it gave me tutorial trials tho and most of it consisted of "click four times then use your skill" so it doesn't seem very promising.

• exploration is a lot more boring than in gembin, gembin has chests and puzzles like jam packed into its world but those are much farther between in this game. since exploration is literally my favorite thing abt gembin this game is seriously lacking to me lol

• sometimes it can be kinda frustrating trying to do the things it wants me to, like it gave me a challenge to do backflips 10 times in a row without falling off a box, and the box would get smaller on each difficulty, and it took FOREVER because first of all didn't even tell me what i was doing at first so i didn't know i wasn't supposed to flip off the box, then once i figured that out it was just a rly hard thing to do but the quest marker wouldn't go away until you finished it. i finally did finish it but it was v frustrating and i was like "i come back to this game and the first thing you do is frustrate me? hello?" also there was a domain that was literally a side scroller so it was like, sonic the hedgehog but worse and very clunky. that took me several tries as well bc the controls for this segment are like, not great. i had to remap the buttons for that specific part. idk maybe someone with bigger hands can do it better but i have small hands and can't even reach the left shift button soooo

pros:

• i have just realised that almost every pro i have would be "this is like gembin" such as it having practically identical features such as how characters are built, constellations, battle pass, welkin, how quests are organized, etc. like i can't even tell you how much this game truly is "gembin but worse". they took gembin and used almost identical mechanics but made the characters uglier, the interface worse, and the exploration more boring. like i was sitting here like "okay but as a clone it had the opportunity to improve on gembin" but it didn't. like... okay it's got a bigger resin cap? you can walk up walls? i'm struggling to think of something here

[piracytheorist]

Okay I gotta admit it, I logged in today just to check my notifications and messages because I was curious. Seems like cold turkey isn't something I can do, but I feel like I've found things to occupy the time I'm not spending on tumblr anymore, so I feel distancing myself from the site is possible. Not having the app on my phone anymore helps.

Anyway, I took a quick look on twitter today, and while I didn't see any sxf spoilers, I did see a post about a thematic week that I won't be able to take part in, not even as an audience, because it will be centered around stuff I haven't seen yet.

And damn me, I want to read further into the story so bad. It's been almost six full months since the last episode aired, and I'm finding myself wondering what is happening next based on the vague spoilers I've gotten. And there's at least three and a half more months left. I just know, I know it, that I will enjoy the story three times as much seeing it animated - and like, if I'm truly honest, my main drawback from manga reading isn't that it's not animated, or acted, or even coloured. It's that my way of reading it is not how it's intended to be read. Like, if I could have the chapters printed out for me, that would be ideal. Like:

Reading the story like this? Feeling the pages in my hands, seeing the wide and two-page panels in all their glory? Terrific. Perfect. 10/10.

Reading it like this? Having to scroll up and down for long panels, zoom in for small speech bubbles and out for wide panels, pixels getting distorted based on how zoomed in I am? No, thank you, immersion go bye bye. If I had a vertical monitor I probably could have worked it out, but I don't have a vertical monitor nor can I afford one right now.

And you'll tell me, well, a lot of further chapters are available in the next volumes. And I'll say, I'll probably work only for half of July, my contract ends after that, and in August I may need to move out to a different city so I won't even be able to get a steady job that won't work me to the bone. And I'm on a tight budget, so even the forty euros (being generous here, cause volume 10 isn't easily available to me yet so 10 euros for it is a generous offer) I would spend on the next four volumes are money I cannot afford right now. Plus, I know they don't reach to the current chapters so I would still have a ton of spoilers to avoid.

I don't know why I'm explaining all this lmao. I just feel like I don't want people to think I'm an anime snob. Because by god with every week I feel my resolve break. If I actually make it to October without having read one single manga chapter it will be a miracle. It's such a weird challenge I'm putting myself through, I don't even know if y'all can understand it. It's not like it's a challenge I can "win", or a challenge I can award myself for passing. Maybe a bit of venting can help, idk. It's not like I'm asking for recognition or pity or something, I am aware of how weird my choice may seem. I just had some feelings and thought, "well, fuck, what do I have my tumblr blog for".

Idk. I just feel like I love this story so much and in such a way that I also want to properly enjoy it. If I lived in Japan and spoke the language, you know I'd be running to whatever stores sell the magazine where the new chapters are posted in every two weeks and sit outside the very store and read the new chapter before even getting back home (wait, are individual chapters even printed out in Shonen Jump? I'm not sure I've understood the whole thing completely). But since that isn't happening, my choices are a) waiting for a long time and not interacting with fans, but enjoying the story animated, with colour, voice acting, soundtrack and on wide screen (and yeah yeah it's an adaptation not the original but listen it's a good adaptation and this is why it's drawn me in) and b) getting the full story and interacting with fans now but seeing the story in broken-down panels and messed up pixels, while having to fix the zoom-in and -out on every page. And I know me. I know choice a will make me immersed in the story, while choice b will just give me the details of the story. Maybe I am a snob after all, idk. I'm not making any effort to explain or apologize for myself. I'm just venting, lol. It's been weird and lonely and IT'S BEEN TOO LONG AND OCTOBER IS TOO FAR AWAY T_T

Anyway. Been doing good other than that. I will probably revert to logging out every day in order to try and keep my distance from the site, but coming back every other day or so. We'll see. I have a few messages to respond to (and a few more spoiler-free manga panels to react to! yay!) so I'll get to those today.

[justsome-di]

🍆 : unpopular opinion about writing communities? online or in-person?

Honestly, the grind. Or maybe not the grind so much as the toxicity that comes from The Grind. (This ended up being way too long)

Because a lot of writers do overwork themselves just to get some writing done. A lot of us work or go to school and come home to write when we have the chance. If it's important to you, then it's okay as long as you're giving yourself time to rest.

And sidenote: the burnout is real. I think we should talk about that more than we talk about "writer's block." If you're struggling to write when you're exhausted, that's not writer's block. That's you being exhausted. Give yourself permission to take a break and eat a meal and get some sleep.

But there's so much that pushes this grind mindset as being the only way you will ever accomplish anything as a writer. Too often I see advice that's like "writers make time to write." Sometimes... you just don't have time. Sometimes there's a kid that needs you or a job that's draining your energy that week. Maybe you're in school to further your career that isn't writing-related because you need to keep a roof over your head and keep your health insurance.

It's stuff like NaNo communities every November that really gets to me. Some people enjoy NaNo and challenging themselves and doing a marathon. Some people have the free time or the time management skills to manage this! That's awesome!

But other times I see people get way too pretentious like, "Well, I'm used to writing 3k words a day, so NaNo isn't anything new to me. I'll beat it in two weeks. I just treat writing like it's my job. I went to school for this, you know." Not even joking, I have been in writing discords where people talk like that. It makes you feel like real shit when you come home from a long day of work, do your homework or something, go to other social obligations, and then only manage to type of 500 words before you pass out. And that's when you leave those writing groups, by the way. When people are bragging about their word count in a way that implies they're more serious of a writer than you, you leave that Discord server or forum or whatever.

And then you get people doing absolutely crazy things to push their books like faking their own death or starting discourse around other authors' books or harassing people over social media. These are outliers, but I feel the need to mention them bc they blow my mind.

I think all writers are a bit pretentious. And we all want our stuff to be read. That's fine, but I think people go too far at times. And maybe it's just me seeing stuff and needing to find new people to follow online or something. Maybe it's not overwhelmingly like this. But idk I feel like writing can be a very relaxing hobby but once you get in writing groups you see a lot of toxic mindsets about how much you should be writing, how often you should be writing, how much you should pay someone to design your book cover instead of making something yourself to try to save money so you can eat, etc.

Some days I feel like being in writing communities is more demoralizing than anything else. It's part of the reason why I don't interact with a lot of other writing blogs anymore.

Anyway, that went on for way too long! I definitely put that option down on the ask meme to get some stuff off my chest lmao

send me a fruity ask!

[leggyre]

Can you tell us some stuff about your splatoon ocs?

OH BOY so ive been meaning to drop some stuff about them(even the oldest ones because they've got some updates boooi) but ive been too busy drawing squid and playing squid bideogame to write about squid do u get me

so UH ill use this as my excuse to do at least some rambling uwU (<- me before i wrote this whole fuckin thing) they're all around the same age (17-19) but their character arcs sorta start based on the game i made them for (does that make sense?)

i wanna get them all smth decent on toyhouse eventually but this will do for now lmao

okay so this post is long as hell its readmore time

so to start with the splat 1 crew who were around 14 when i first made them;

but first here's the post w most of them, for reference :-)

Fernanda is basically the focus point of everything that happens here. Definition of girlboss; she moves every plot point because she is bold and determined to reach her goals. Her main objective is the classic BECOME THE VERY BEST and for that she's constantly trying to assemble the perfect team; though the means to reach that goal are pretty flexible. She's pretty much feral in battle, and is what some might call a "tryhard" in-game. She does try very hard. Way too much sometimes.

-anyway the moment she became a legit kid who is a squid at 14 she started going to turf war bc it was always her passion. Additionally, the moment her Childhood Bestie(tm) Speckle reached the same age she dragged him too. Personally, he'd rather not get into that stuff because hes very timid and nervous and scared and- yeah, that- but he's willing to do it with a friend; specially Fernanda, whose secondary hobby is beating up people who are mean to him. Thats sorta how they met in the first place.

She is, however, very determined to teach him the ins and outs of turf war and challenge him to go out of his comfort zone. He likes using brushes because he's an artsy person, but since it's a mostly aggressive weapon type, Fernanda wants him in the frontlines with her. It's just strats guys she totally isn't also doing it just to spend more time with her friend :-) shhh

But he sorta sticks like glue and depends a lot on her for safety, which isn't really the best idea in her mind. SO to try to teach him to be more confident she eventually starts joining the opposing team instead.

Needless to say, Spec is terrified being in a team without her. Doesn't help that she's the enemy, either, even though she usually doesn't outright splat him when they eventually clash. She moreso tries to give him a lesson first. It doesn't work very well. And worse yet, at one point some annoying ass charger starts targeting her specifically whenever she gets close to the other side of the map.

...And that's Gabriel (but i just call him gabe) :) He sorta notices how this girl keeps going after the same guy over and over again and eventually went 'yeah okay thats enough' and just started giving Speckle some support. (wanna make a lil note here that this is based on an actual thing that happened to me in game; i ran out of ink in a fight and the team charger blasted them and we both went BOOYAH. ill never forget u bro)

So yeah spec being spec he glued onto gabe instead. fernanda was, indeed, very upset by this because not only she couldn't enforce her lessons anymore but also spec was just doing the thing she didn't want him keep doing in the first place. And dealing with gabe is like. very, very annoying. specially for her as a roller main. he's always camping at the same few spots and he pretty much always avoids confrontation of any kind; motherfucker just jumps back to spawn or to a teammate who's safe. He has not only an advantage in range, but also his aim is impeccable. it's terrible hes terrible

anyway spec, despite being timid, actually grows attached to people really fast. from then on, every time they spot gabe in the lobby he waves and invites him to join them. fernanda is very annoyed my this but eventually she actually forms some sorta friendly rivalry with him(instead of, ynow, her being motivated purely to kick his ass). she ends up inviting him to join her (to be) Perfect Team(tm) and they all start hanging out more and learning how to work as a group.

also theres this plot thread

its really just classic fluff n they end up dating like god intended

now there's like a big story gap here because, uh, it used to be some shared stuff with a friend but-- Yeah. im not sure what to do with that just yet. (..and its the big arc where fernanda has the most character development, strengthens her goals and improves herself. big gay shit too. bummer. 😔)

This gap extends all the way to the timeline of Splatoon 2, where they're all around 16

But lemme add some misc stuff that's happened since the first game tho; -Speckle has a new hobby, weapon customization! :-) he mostly does it for fun or for his friends, but occasionally someone comes up offering pay for it. he's not very confident about actually selling the stuff, but hey, he wasn't the one who asked for money. -Gabe learns to camp less but he gets tired real fast. -Fernanda and Gabe actually form a good and strong bond???? the rivalry is still there and they sometimes do 1v1 because she wants to get better at fighting people with far ranged weapons. -Actually, Fernanda's skill in particular grows exponentially. She's really giving it all she's got. Speckle might be less scared of going to turf alone, but it still makes him sorta nervous. -They move together to a lil place near Inkopolis Plaza because I don't follow real world rules (does a little dance) i will spare you of the somewhat underdeveloped socioeconomic hcs i made for this

OK MOVING FORWARD-

Splatoon 2 is the "Fernanda goes out scouting for a 4th person to complete their team and Spec befriends every single candidate" arc. It's what it says on the very specific tin. Just three of them won't do, and they have to get a 4th team member in order to start actually cooking some neat strategies because everyone has to be in on it.

They do turf and ranked matches and Fernanda tries to recruit the people who do best alongside them. In this process they meet Fernando, aka Fucco bc hes a fucker thats all there is to it lmao(though I have to mention Gabe is the origin of this nickname because he can't fucking stand Fernando; everyone else just sorta agrees because Yeah It's True), and through him they also are introduced to Roberta(bobby) and Orlando(orb!!!), who are his buddies and theyre just here to chill tbh.

When Fernanda rejects Fucco as a possible team member he is absolutely offended by it. So he rallies up his allies(see: his two friends) to clash against the og trio. Thing is, they don't really have much experience as a team. Bobby and Orb just sorta do turf casually, for fun. Fucco is the only one of them who is actually competitive and he just thinks great at it (hes average at best). He's always acting like they're the mean girls when both teams cross paths and tries to make up for his lack of skill with witty remarks, which, granted, is something he actually is good at.

He sorta starts pushing his teammates a bit too much to the point they're not really having fun anymore so they have to like stop supporting this for a moral lesson that he does not listen to and makes him feel betrayed so he gets upset at them. And then these battles devolve into just 1v1 between [chuckles] Fernanda and Fernando with everyone watching it like it's a saturday morning cartoon because honestly theres no contest here. This obviously makes him break eventually, and so Fernanda now is the one who has to break the moral lesson about idk fighting with passion, teamwork, actually accepting your own flaws and working around them and not through them, etc etc all that anime kinda stuff. Maybe throw something about the power of friendship there too just for flavor.

So while all these things happens, Spec is just being nice with the other team. He sometimes just stops mid-battle to listen to Orb rambling about something as he often does(yeah they just sit there but don't worry Gabe is always there to watch for whiny tryhards too), gives them a lil booyah when they do cool stuff, and always invites them to chill at the cafeteria when they're all done with their matches. And they do, although Fernando has a little uuuuuuh trouble with this. There's always a long exchange of threatening glares between him and Gabe and/or Fernanda. He's mostly only there because Orb is a friend he'd die for. and Orb really likes Speckle too.

Annnd yeah when this is all settled down and Fucco has finally stopped trying to be a nuisance these guys all merge into One Larger Group and he actually gets to join Fernanda's team in turf; not as one of them, though, just hanging out with them. It's all just shenanigans for them for a while after all that's done (-:

Eventually they meet MY BOY Michael aka Mikemas which is like Splatmas but with his (nick)name because he was 12 when he made that username. I switched the protagonist POV to him because, in case you haven't noticed, I just really love him. He's a little bastard who's got a significant following on the internet; he occasionally livestreams turf war(and other stuff) and has a BIG passion for music. Also makes funny short skits and other trendy type of content you'd see from an online personality. Speaking of online personality - that's all his sorta dumb egocentric attitude is. Though he is very confident, most of the dumb shit he says and does is mean to be a joke (see: "I don't need this, I'm an influencer" while being completely aware he isn't of that scale yet). Biggest highlights are the Calamari Inkantation ballad cover - the thing which usually makes people notice just how good his vocals are - and the "Now Or Never But Every Loop Gets Faster" video.

And then there's Manga, who I just got out of the afriendmadethis limbo because he and Mike go hand in hand. They live together and they're childhood friends who are, really close, not in a romantic way but in a way you'd probably think is. Manga participates in the internet presence stuff as well, he plays the keyboard and has a soundboard of funny sound effects for streaming :-) He's nonverbal, very quiet and deadpan most of the time but he's basically got the same sense of humor as Mike; they're very similar in a lot of ways that would make you question if maybe they're actually siblings? (they aren't) He's just less confident and less likely to engage in dumb shit; to the point he kinda has to act like a fuckin babysitter because someone keeps "forgetting" to take the medicine for their bipolar disorder and we simply can't let that happen so I guess we gotta fuckin suplex him to do it I guess. A lot of things need to have parental controls enabled because someone is very prone to addiction and keeps trying to play videogames for 24 hours nonstop without consuming anything but the hoard of iced tea they have in the fridge, which occasionally has to be locked also.

(in conclusion mike would've never been allowed to live away from his family if manga wasn't there)

Anyway yeah they meet Mike in turf and he's actually almost as good as he says he at it is so he earns the invitation to claim the honorable title of 4th member of Fernanda's team. ...Okay. It's more like. He's the one person who accepted it, I guess. And thus, Mike and Manga get to join their table at the cafeteria.

The last characters I made for Splatoon 2 were these guys, who never really got any development(or even names) until Splatoon 3 so I'm kinda pushing them to be for the Splat 3 plots I've been cookin'. And they finally have names - Vespa Gel, Roll and Viv.

So yeah now where we are, Splatoon 3 where everyone is 17-19. This is all still going on in the general area near Inkopolis Plaza, though we'll get to the mentions of Splatsville soon.

Mike was a very late addition to the team, so he isn't very well adjusted to the way they go about in turf and... He isn't really what we can call responsible, and is quite the chore to deal with. This bit of plot is mostly about several dumb conflicts between him and Fernanda because he keeps skipping practice, missing calls, and mostly acts independently instead of trying to work as a team. He is, however, a vital asset because of the skill level and comes in clutch very often, which is why he hasn't been kicked out of the team yet.

Now the stuff here is mostly still a mess so I'll get to some key points that happen parallel to that conflict--

-Mike meets Viv in turf and they bond a lot not just during matches but also afterwards bc Viv just sorta likes taking walks around the plaza and Mike tags along, initially because he wants to know when he could expect to see Viv in turf again because its good stream content and he just really likes going against people who match his skill bc it's fun :-) This sorta leads to them just hanging out a lot and meanwhile everyone at the table is just... sorta giggling quietly about how sus he's being bc of how he excitedly talks about Viv but he pushes back saying it's just some fun kinda rivalry y'now??? nothing to see here.

-Viv eventually has to stop hanging out bc he kinda is part of a gang that now kinda despises Mike. Well, Vespa, specifically, but the other two have goon brain so they gotta pretend they also hate him. They could hurt him in all sorts of bad ways because the boys r kinda unhinged, so Viv decides it's the best option to stop hanging out at the plaza(which is actually pretty far from where he lives)

-This is heartbreaking, of course, specially bc it happened right as Mike accepted that Yes, He Has The Hell of a Crush and sorta hits some insecurities he has.

-But right after he meets Sen, and they kinda have a relationship? One where they are together, but both don't really want to admit it? because theyre both fucking stupid lmao (jk its related to more serious things but yeah)

(this is where i pause bc im legally required to share a ref of him though i dont have a good and finished one so just take this)

(fucken pastel anime boy babeeey)

-Sen is from Splatsville, he moved to Inkopolis alone to work towards a career goal by taking some extensive courses and apprenticeships. He is constantly overworking himself and being stressed due to it, but he really doesn't want to grow attached to anyone in Inkopolis because he is very deeply affected by separation. This move itself has been very hard for him, even though he still has contact with his friends back in the Splatlands, and he doesn't want to have to go through it again when he eventually goes back home. Well, that was the plan until he was forced to have a funny little guy who sticks like glue, as a treat :-)

..this is all I can confidently share for now, but there's a lil bit in the crock pot that I've been brainstorming because Splat 3 finally convinced me to take a dip on making the agents ocs. its THE GIRLS they're the ones featured in this post. i wanna do an alt story mode with them eventually but no promises since im bad at keeping my word LMAO

(small note i forgot to add, they are kinda connected to the main group bc they are sen's aforementioned friends they bully him on inkstagram)

(UPDATE) dear lord ive named them theyre Amber(Captain), Camellia(4), Elizabeth(8), and Goo(3) (<- but u say it more like its "gaw"). Lil' buddy is just lil' buddy but goo will occasionally call him cute lil nicknames when no one is lookin' so they do the fabled bABYTALK!!!!!!!!!

heres some extra stuff w them 😌

and these bc theyre funny

theres definitely more of these but searching for them specifically is tough DJFHGHBGDF

i want you to know that ive been writing this on and off ever since you sent this ask

[marron121]

Quick announcement thingie 8: Life be like that sometimes

>Quick announcement thingie 7

More than a year since the previous quick announcement! Let's shoot for 2+ years next time lads.

Anyhow, life is hectic. The tl;dr is...

I don't have a job anymore lmao.

@lauraqwerty and I released A story told by the stars, which is a very nice game that you can play for free! If you like visual novels, give it a try.

Alongside friends, we organized the second edition of the Aaron's Awesome (Games Festival)! You can watch it on Youtube (although it's in Spanish).

In there I also released T.E.L, a free FPS which is quite decent, but I'm not really proud of.

Anyhow, that's the short gist of it. For the long explanation, read below... if you dare...

Okay, so I guess I should start with the 1st one. For the past two and half years-ish, I was working on a company that I cannot name for NDA reasons, as the main UI programmer for the game they were developing, and now I do NOT work there. Let's just say events happened and, ngl, I could be in a way worse position. For now I'll be taking some rest and, if everything goes fine, I'll be with a new job soon.

In the quick announcement 7, I mentioned we were working on a game called TWOgether. We tried to make it we the smallest scope possible, but even so the game became a bit too big and we were in a very busy situation, so we cancelled it.

Instead, we decided to go even smaller, and I had the chance to direct our 1st official project. It was an honor and alongside the amazing help of Lau, my friend and second half of our "studio", we ended up releasing A Story Told By The Stars, an hour long visual novel about two pals. I'm very proud of what we accomplished, and if you think you would enjoy it please give it a try. You can even play it on browser!

PS: When you finish the game, consider reading the postmortem, where we talked about the development process and challenges, among other things. Around 1k people have read it so far, so I must assume they enjoyed it.

On July 2022 I made the A3 (or Aaron's Awesome Festival), a quite cheap-looking direct where I displayed games from mainly friends, like a Nintendo Direct. And this year, with the help of a bunch more of my friends, including Lau, we made the second edition, the A3²!

I can confidently say that the event was a success, and I'm very happy that my friends and I were able to create something so cool. Since he's also on here, @narvalian did all the backgrounds and its animations you can see on the video.

And in that same event, I revealed AND made available T.E.L, which you can see the trailer above (a good one, if I may add). It's an FPS where you play as a young programmer stuck inside is own computer, where things happen. And, well...

...I'm not really proud of the game.

I do think it's a decent game, and I'm very happy that I managed to make some of the things that happen ingame, but T.E.L was going to be a game based around a joke with my friends that I have, and basically because I was lazy I wasn't able to make that and instead ended up making this effective, yet basic, first person shooter.

I had a lot, and I mean A LOT of ideas working into this game that I wasn't able to accomplish going into it, and instead of just saying "hey, this isn't what I want to do, so let's just stop." I just kept pushing and pushing, and I think the game reflects that.

Actually working on something I ACTUALLY want to do is something I want to become better at. Let's hope next time I write one of these I've actually improved on that.

[mostlybats-partiallyrats]

I posted 35,181 times in 2022

That's 20,698 more posts than 2021!

121 posts created (0%)

35,060 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@what-wait-why

@ro-zden

@cheeseanonioncrisps

@saint-frerardus

@garnetrena

I tagged 2,320 of my posts in 2022

#my post - 111 posts

#goncharov - 61 posts

#unreality - 60 posts

#queer - 29 posts

#lmao - 24 posts

#yes - 23 posts

#lol - 21 posts

#my chemical romance - 18 posts

#hell yeah - 17 posts

#uh - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#jesse we need to get a chance to do it for the day and i will be there in the morning and it's a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of a bit of

I sent 1 gift in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Just so we're clear. Fuck the Queen and fuck her jubilee.

47 notes - Posted June 3, 2022

#4

Hey TikTok migrants, here's some quick info:

The censorship necessary to operate on tiktok is BANANAS. And it's not a thing here. Watch.

Kill fuck shit pussy dick murder

Okay that's actually really funny to just read out loud w/ a straight face wait-

52 notes - Posted April 5, 2022

#3

Okay but like, hear me out: the storyline between Jeanne and Cereza in the Bayonetta games is fascinating and beautiful.

Jeanne is a child right? She's in the care of the Umbra clan but she's Small okay? And she sees another little girl all by herself, with only the witches' prisoner to keep her company. The prisoner sings to her at night, y'know?

She doesn't know that Cereza (the lonely girl) is "of impure blood", she doesn't even know what that means! She just sees that this little girl is all by herself. And so she makes a friend. And they play together as children in secret. They become the best of friends and all that adorableness.

As they grow older, Jeanne begins to understand why Cereza is an outcast, she learns the clan's tenets of faith. Of their belief in the separation of light and dark, of the witches and the sages, and that Cereza is a child of an impure union between a witch and a sage. They grow apart.

When it comes time for Jeanne to prove herself to the clan, and to finally join the Umbran ranks, she's at war within herself. And she chooses to challenge Cereza. Because, even after all she's been taught, she still remembers their friendship - and even if she can't justify having a close relationship with her anymore - she refuses to see Cereza as anything but her equal.

Then comes the war between the clans, and they try to steal Cereza, so they can possess the Left Eye and have true dominion over all of time. But Jeanne looks at her past, at her friendship with Cereza, and at the oath she swore when she joined the Umbran ranks.

To protect the Left Eye of Darkness, "the left eye, our treasured left eye, can never fall into the hands of another!”. To her the treasure is not only the eye itself, but its guardian; the outcast, the child of impurity - her Umbran sister, and friend.

And so she does all she can to protect Cereza, and sends her into the 500 year sleep, hoping when the war is over, she can awaken and know peace.

Even when she's being mind-controlled by a corrupted Balder, she still does everything in her power to help Cereza remember her past. So she can have a fighting chance.

And when the mind-control is broken, she refuses to let her friend become a pawn in Balder's scheme and rescues her - even if it means destroying all of creation. And Bayonetta (Cereza) fights Jubileus because she believes in humanity, in their ability to choose their own path, just like she did.

And in the final moments of the battle, Jeanne joins her and they can fight side by side as friends, and as Umbran sisters-in-arms once more. Choosing to follow the Umbran way as see fit, choosing their own path.

And then in the second game Jeanne gets to see that her devotion to Cereza isn't one sided. That Bayonetta (Cereza) would risk destroying her contracts with the demons of Inferno (and thus damning her soul to eternal suffering there) for the chance to save Jeanne from that same fate.

It takes a while, and a lot of thinking and putting pieces together, to get the full story of these games but 😭🙏.

(and yes of course I ship them how can u not)

71 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

#2

"More attention-grabbing is Gerard Way’s ensemble... he comes on with face wrapped in a floral headscarf and massive sunglasses, eventually shedding an overcoat to show that he’s wearing a dress and high heels, too. It’s a compelling show of contrarian anti-rock star eccentricity. Another seems to be Gerard’s compulsion to repeatedly halt proceedings for the sake of crowd safety. As admirable as it is to prevent any kind of dangerous crush, the habit of pumping the brakes between almost every song at virtually every show has begun to irk, perforating the electric atmosphere and disrupting any real flow." - Kerrang (18/09/22)

Y'know, because caring that your audience doesn't get fucking crushed is just so not rock and roll I guess🙄

82 notes - Posted September 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School walked so Monster High could run. Tell me I'm wrong?

149 notes - Posted March 7, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[middle-name-queer]

Huh.

I got something kinda heavy on my mind I wanna write down. Tw: suicide mention

My nephew turned ten this past month. Ten years ago I was 14 and struggling through suicidal thoughts for the first time. My sister told the family she was pregnant and I figured I'd hang around just long enough to meet the kid. I meant that, I didn't want him to get to know me because I didn't want him to miss me, but I was gonna put it off just long enough to spend a little time with him.

He had a party today. I didn't know what to get him, and he gets so many gifts, so I just talked with him. I do have a book in mind I want to gift him for Christmas. Anyway, I found a preying mantis in the yard. I scooped her up and brought her to him. He's not scared of bugs, I'd like to think I helped in part with that. This isn't the first time I found a critter and brought it to him, he's always been eager to hold them himself. He's a gentle kid, he does well with them. After he showed his friends and they all screamed we took her to the garden, he knelt down to give her one last look. He's a very thoughtful boy.

I watched him comfort his friend. Another boy who realized he couldn't eat the food at the party due to an allergy, he was embarrassed and didn't want to admit he had forgotten. My nephew assured him it was okay, that it's no big deal, put his arm around him and patted his back. He offered this other child so much comfort with such confidence. He walked with his friend back to the grill to help him sort it out with his mom. I felt proud of him. He's a good friend, a good kid.

I guess I'm just glad I'm around still. More than ever. I'm glad I get to watch him grow up. I'm glad he remembers me. I just, didn't quite realize how much time has gone by since I first started struggling in that way. I don't ever want him to know about all this. Certainly not as a child but not even when he's grown. It's just strange, looking at him, giving him a hug goodbye, I was so close to never really knowing him.

I still struggle as you might know or imagine. Just last August I wasn't in my best frame of mind and had a rather scary night. After that I decided I had to do something to help myself, now I take my med lol. I think it's making a big difference, more time will tell though. But I'm hopeful. Or perhaps cautiously optimistic. The world makes it.... more challenging. All the goings on. The things we can't control. But at least the call isn't coming from inside the house anymore lmao. Anyway. Weird day.

[oblitus-vulpes]

.

Okay So. first and foremost I think this is worse than my standard reaction would be bc I've been thinking about how I'm managing my psychosis and What The Hell Is Wrong With Me And Medicine (as a branch) recently. like as in very recently i was turning it over in my brain right before I opened p5r. tbh i wish i had a more cohesive record of my thoughts but

idk i'm just kinda In A Place rn. like

wow boys will really just realise they relate to the guy they detest in some way and not have an immediate logical explanation for why i don't like this guy that's not directly founded in Bad Vibes:tm: straight from the trauma response you've been fighting the whole game to get to this point. lmao. and then boys will kinda zone out on the dialogue and think about it.

and now i'm just kinda like... do i keep playing and maybe that'll help me figure this out? like. from my current point in the game, what he's doing is Bad obv. i know it is and it's the thing that's irked me every time i see his dialogue.

i think it's the reliance on him. like Yeah it's not inherently bad to want people to be happy and to do what you can to help. But this oversteps and goes into territory of Helping Someone For Them. because you want them to be helped and not because they want you to help them. does this make sense. i see it as a matter of autonomy, because it's about choosing how you want to live your life (either this is the main theme of the entire fucking game or i'm terribly misinterpreting it). but i'm also autonomybrained 24/7 (biased to interpret it this way) and it's like. my highest priority in anything ever and literally all of my ideals link back to preservation of autonomy in some way. gin lore fact idfk.

and like the entire time i was running around his palace i was just. irritated? "don't you want to live a life without pain?" no !!!!! if i don't have the option to choose how to overcome pain/challenges/adversity/what have you then what's even the fucking point??? taking away options on how to live my life sucks fucking ass even if they hurt. get up coward and all that. (<taking this which more closely aligns to sem1/2 and turning it upside down on the basis of living life without getting to choose how you live it Sucks Ass and at some point just sitting there and letting life drag you along isn't. ideal. and sometimes you should make the choice to stand up for yourself and stop letting the tide carry you, whether it be a lazy river or fucking riptides.)

and then there's sumire. wow. gonna be real she's irritated me from the very start and i'm Not Sure Why. and like yeah since i put 2 and 2 together that sumire was living as kasumi because survivor's guilt. which was a while ago. the only thing to catch me off guard was sumire fully believing herself as kasumi. which brings me into. conflict if i should be doing what i'm doing. or if i'm doing it for the right reasons.

and like wow!!! girl who is delusional!!! me too girl!!! it's easier and less painful to simply live in a state that isn't reality and accept it as that!!! and i'm kinda left in a position of am i refusing professional medical treatment from a place of standing for myself or because i'm running away.

and it's terrible because it's both and i won't stop feeling Bad about this until i finally own up to it. is this a limitation or a limitation i put on myself. how will i know which is which. etc.

i as an outside party wouldn't push someone else to do something beyond what they want because they're the only one that can make them truly do something. me as myself. wow it really just comes down to do you want to be capable. of course i have limitations and it's my job to recognize them and stand up for them but it's also my job to push them to be as good as i can be. am i even making sense anymore.

anyways my point is that i can't justify taking down maruki as saving kasumi. maruki on his own? yeah i can 100%. but i can't justify it as saving kasumi. like every time i try i get an error page. proposition conflicts with Chapter 3 Section G Paragraph 7: Ultimately an individual knows best in regards to their own health and lifestyle and one must respect their decision regarding themself, with the exception of involvement of nonconsenting participants. like i know this is Bad and Wrong but if this is what she wants, i don't feel i have the right to intervene? and i think this is going to end in me having to rewrite chapter 3 section g paragraph 7 because This Feels Wrong. but i don't have the means to justify that yet and it's killing me. lmao

[ephemeral-writings]

ninety-four; sehun

14. wind

sehun x reader

word count: 1.5k of something that started too long ago and barely got finished now whoops

The bleachers were filled to the brim with students, teachers, and parents alike. Everyone wanted to witness the football championship of SM High. You personally didn’t know a thing about the sport except how to win which was to run the double-pointed end ball to the other side. You weren’t even going to pretend you knew which side was your school running.

But speaking of running, you watched as the players warmed up, some running, others stretching. Player Ninety-four was especially under your radar even while you squeezed through the throngs of spectators to where your best friend was supposedly seated.

“Over here, Y/N!” You spotted Yeseul in the third row to the field, waving you over. Naturally, you checked your vicinity to see if one, was it safe to walk down the steps, and two because you felt his stare. You cursed Yeseul under your breath for shouting your name so loud. No doubt was it a sly tactic to catch his attention.

Oh Sehun, SM High senior football player and co-captain, was staring straight at you. Yeseul had caught wind, courtesy of her boyfriend Kim Minseok, that the stoic jock had taken an interest in you. You hadn’t believed her at first, brushing off the matter since there was no way Oh Sehun would suddenly find you pleasing to the eyes or charming to no end. There was just no way.

However, when you finally reached Yeseul and sat down, you looked up again, and he was still staring at you, as if his eyes had followed you through the whole journey down the metal bleachers. It wasn’t until Minseok in his matching jersey, save for the number ninety-nine etched on his back, ran up to Sehun and clapped him on the back did he look away.

“What was that?” Yeseul gasped. “He was practically undressing you with his eyes!”

An older couple who sat a row in front whipped their heads back, shooting Yeseul a scandalous look.

“Jesus frick, can you not, Seul?” When you agreed to watch the game with her, you were only interested in testing out the theory that someone as hot at Oh Sehun could be interested in you, not for an opportunity for her to embarrass you in front of the whole football team.

It took a bit of convincing to get Yeseul to shut up about your non-existing love life, and focus on her boyfriend on the field. Minseok was a great player as far as you could see. He wasn’t the largest guy but he was agile as heck. You watched as he snuck up on the guy from the opposite who had the ball clutched under his arms, and within seconds, Minseok had him tripping and toppling over. Yeseul was all for cheering for her man at the top of her lungs.

You weren’t going to deny staring at Sehun(he was part of the game, so-- yeah), and you’d be damned if you denied finding him ten thousand times more attractive. It was different than seeing the Oh Sehun in your literature class half-heartedly listen to lectures; different than him sitting in the cafeteria table amongst his teammates, and not bother to engage in their conversations. You had never seen Oh Sehun in his element-- in this element-- in which he’s passionate and driven to win.

You found yourself drooling over his physique that seemed to epitomize that of a football player-- broad shoulders, huge pecs, thick thighs. It was the middle of autumn. Were you really getting hot and bothered right now?

As the scoreboard drew closer and closer, both teams being equally good, every one watched with bated breath as player Eighty-eight from your school ran from 40 left field to the end zone on the right. One of the player from the opposite team was literally head-to-ass chasing him. However, the guy was quickly taken down by Sehun as Eighty-eight successfully made the touchdown. The crowd went roaring. After almost two hours of investing yourself in the sport, you were quick to immerse yourself in cheering along. You screamed until your throat itched.

“C’mon! Let’s go!” Yeseul grabbed your arm and weaved you out of the bleachers, dragging you to God-knows-where.

It was dark, but you picked up the sound of a mass of baritone voices cheering and the noise got clearer the more you walked. Coming to a clearing, the stadium lights blinded you momentarily, and you realized that Yeseul had released you from her grip to run to her boyfriend. Minseok whole-heartedly took her in his arms and spun her around like the princess she was. That didn’t make you feel lonely at all. All the while, all the sweaty boys in uniform couldn’t care less about the couple, and proved so when the captain, you assumed, announced a party at his house.

The mass of sweaty young men produced a evident sound of approval, as well as clangs of shoulder pads hitting against each other as some chest bumped in the air.

“Hey, Seul,” you interrupted, jabbing a thumb over your shoulder. “I’m gonna take off now.”

“What? No! You have to come with us,” she pleaded softly, but her eyes were threatening.

“Yeah, Y/N. And you know who would love you there as well?” Minseok leaned in and grinned at you suggestively. You blushed, but make no acknowledgement to what--- who he was implying.

“It’s cool. I’m a little wiped out after all, that, so I don’t think I can handle a party.” You chuckled weakly to further emphasize your fatigue. It wasn’t particularly something you wanted to spend your Friday night doing, partying with a bunch of people from your school that you don’t even know. Plus, you had a test on Tuesday that you really should be studying for.

“Ugh, fine, killjoy. You owe me a hangout this weekend, okay?” Yeseul idea of hanging out consisted of binge watching shows while painting her nails. You never understood the concept of multitasking, especially when you knew for a fact that Yeseul couldn’t understand a single word the people on screen said without reading the captions. Nevertheless, you gave her your word, and heading off in the direction you came in from. The stadium was already empty of its spectators, and remnants of the events was made obvious from the single custodian who was weaving about the bleachers, picking up the rubbish lousy people had left.

You were nearing the gate when someone’s scuffing of shoes had you turning around. Never would you have guessed that it was Sehun who was approaching you. With a short jog, he eventually stood in front of you, and being that this was the first time you ever had direct interaction with him, you were pleasantly surprised to see how much taller he was than you; you had to crane your neck to stare at the man in the eyes.

“Hey, Y/N, right?” Sehun had to mentally remind himself to come off easy, and pretending he was unsure of your name would surely do the trick.

You, on the other note, was dumbstruck that the Oh Sehun had finally decided to approach you, after what with all the teasing coming from your best friend and her boyfriend slash his teammate that had started just shy of four months ago.

Had it not been for Sehun’s sudden sneeze, you would’ve been caught staring at his handsome face for a second too long. He was doned in a grey hoodie with the school’s logo across his (broad) chest and a pair of black sweats, a combo that should’ve deemed warm enough for the autumn night, but you noted the clumped up strands of hair that stuck to his face and realized his sweat have gone cold from the chill air.

“Bless you,” you offered with a small smile. “And yes, that’s right. Did you needed something, Sehun?”

“No, I don’t. I just...Did you needed company walking home?”

It was quite an odd sight to see the infamous perpetual poker face morph into one of a more boyish nature; Sehun even had the audacity to blush.

“Isn’t there an after-party that requires the captain’s presence?” You chuckled good-naturedly.

“Co-captain, actually, and not really. They’ve had tons of party after a win and I usually bail out, and that never stopped them from partying,” Sehun explained. “Plus, I’m beat, so, yeah.”  

“Well, if that’s the case then your presence in walking me home is welcomed.”

Sehun, who had been hanging on your every word, grinned at your witty remark, and glad that you hadn’t rejected his offer. Unfortunately, before he could say something possibly clever back, his nose began to itch again.

“Bless you,” you said, unable to stop the giggles from slipping out.

“Thank you,” Sehun sheepishly scratched his temple.

“How about we stop by the cafe near here, and I buy you a drink as a thank you?”

Sehun was more than happy to oblige, and as you got to learn about Oh Sehun through an autumn trek, you figured your best friend wasn’t entirely crazy, but you were apparently. Crazy.

Crazy for Sehun, and just luckily, he was thoroughly whipped for you.