#the fact that I have all of this HP knowledge to the point where I have one multiple trivia events in the past by knowing stupid shit

[banannabethchase]

I should not be allowed to watch Um, Actually because so many of their answers are wrong, even the answers that they claim are right. And my autistic ass knows way too much about way too much, and if I have to see somebody poorly draw a chimera ever again, and confidently state that it's correct, I will lose my mind.

[ominis]

I find it interesting that after people’s interaction with Ominis outside of the Undercroft where he gets upset with them, people label him as a “privileged Slytherin” akin to Draco Malfoy, but that really can only be taken from his comment about using his family’s ties to the headmaster against the MC. Beyond that, Ominis and all the Gaunts are far from privileged. 

By this point in the HP universe, the Gaunts are incredibly poor and they are very isolated from a lot of the wizarding world because of their aversion to anything Muggle (a view which Ominis states clearly that he disagrees with and isn’t proud to be related to people who have those views.) In the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore literally says the Gaunts lived in poverty due to previous generations having little sensibility when it came to indulgences and that was the case for a while before Ominis was born. All Gaunts lived in a run down shack that was a poor excuse for a home.

I think Ominis’s connection to the headmaster really just comes from them all coming from pure-blooded families, so they’re related in some way. The Gaunts aren’t very well-respected for a number of reasons. It’s only their history and their blood status that they really have to stand on (two things that Ominis rejects), not the current state of their family. His threat to use that only came from fear because of his perfectly understandable trust issues and the fact that one of his family’s secrets he wished to keep hidden had been exposed to a stranger without his knowledge. 

[bestworstcase]

re: talk of Burn, do you have any idea why Yang's aura clearly broke when Neo struck her in V8 (right after activating Burn)? my theory is that perhaps activating her semblance does something like Tock's where it makes her aura manifest more solidly on her body (which is how it can make her hair light on fire) and therefore also, like Tock, means that her aura is more vulnerable. to me this would also explain why Yang would use it as a finisher at first; using it when she's already going to run out of aura makes it, in a sense, less dangerous because she's already gotten most of the other uses out of her aura that she can get.

would love to know if you think this is accurate, or what you actually think is going on with yang's semblance on a mechanical level (if you're interested in that anyway)

first, a general point about aura and aura breaking. the characters’ use of meters has led to a sort of popular fanon that aura works like hit points in a video game, where you have this many and taking damage reduces your HP by a certain number until you hit zero and then your aura breaks; (dark souls splash screen voice) YOU DIED.

i do not think it works that way.

from world of remnant:

aura is a manifestation of the soul, a life force that runs through every living creature on remnant—whether they are a meager shopkeep or a renowned knight. however, what sets true warriors apart from all others is their ability to amplify and control their aura.

aura is the power of one’s soul. it’s guided by emotion, self-knowledge, and spirituality. in its purest form, it becomes a semblance.

defensive aura is not a passive effect. we know this for a fact. in V5, oscar finds it physically exhausting to engage his aura in this way and ren tells him that’s normal—it requires intense concentration at first, then becomes second nature with practice. in V7, jaune’s aura-training demonstrates that recovery, regaining aura once it has been depleted, is a conscious action that can be improved through practice. this is because the “aura level” tracked by those meters is not a measurement of how much aura you have in the tank, as it were, but something like the density of the aura-field you’re pushing outward, or speed of flow, or something along those lines.

(the way i’m handling it in TDT is there’s a hard upper bound to how much aura you can hold in your skin, like a sponge not being able to absorb more water, and what auraleric gauges attempt to measure is % of maximum saturation because everyone’s aura will break around 5-10% saturation even though the amount of aura you have at 100% varies. anything you push out above that threshold is projected as transient bursts of energy and that’s where you start getting into offensive techniques.)

hazel’s phenomenal endurance is noted to derive from his rapid recovery, not the basal amount of aura he has. (he even just shrugs off being impaled.) i believe his semblance gives him an edge here, because it requires concentration to amplify one’s aura and hazel can’t be distracted by physical pain.

which brings me to aura-breaking. it doesn’t happen when the proverbial tank is empty. auras break when you can’t sustain the mental effort of generating enough aura; this might happen because the well you’re drawing from really has run dry (<- think this is what happened to nora with the high voltage door), but it might also be because you’re too tired, or you took a really painful or unexpected hit that shattered your focus, because you’re panicking or furious.

i think tock’s semblance is in the same ‘family’ as hazel’s and ironwood’s in that it puts her into a state of intense focus by blocking out anything that might shake her—with hers being far, far more potent than theirs but so potent she can’t maintain it for longer than sixty seconds, and possibly needs the ticking clock to ‘anchor’ her focus.

(fic stuff again, because tock’s alive in TDT for butterfly wing flaps reasons: sixty seconds is not a hard limit of her semblance; she can and on one occasion did go for much longer. to project an aura field you draw aura out of your reserve, which is the aura that naturally ‘pools’ around your soul; if that runs dry and you’re desperate enough, pushing hard enough, you can wring more aura out of your soul. blood from a stone. it hurts a lot, it will mess you up, and it can do permanent damage similar to what the aura transfer machines do to pietro. sixty seconds is how long it takes for tock’s semblance to drain her aura reserve, rounded down to allow for a margin of error.)

so. yang.

i think, mechanically, when the average person with aura training gets hit, their aura burns up to disperse most of that energy. (<- when they’re swatting gunfire away, the bullets bounce; the energy is reflected.)

but yang’s semblance absorbs energy—which is to say, if you had a ball throwing machine shoot a tennis ball at yang and someone else with equivalent training from the same distance, it would hit yang harder because her aura is less reflective; more of the ball’s kinetic energy flows into her body. then, like a battery, her aura converts that energy into some other form that can be stored.

sort of like dust, in fact. dust has a lot of potential energy, which is released when the material reacts with aura. given the literally explosive firepower yang gains from burn, i think that she’s storing this absorbed energy in the same form as occurs naturally in dust, which would put burn in the same ‘family’ as coco’s hype or arrastra’s equilibrium…

…and would also mean that this statement:

some prefer to use dust in its raw form: elegant, yet destructive. those who choose to wield dust in this state must possess a certain level of discipline to ensure that their resulting powers do not break free of their control.

is true of burn, too. and that tracks with who yang is and how she uses her semblance—even in V1-3, yang takes a more head-on approach to fights and tends to soak up more damage before exploding bigger vs her increasingly nimble and even acrobatic style post-beacon, but her control over those massive volcanic eruptions is immaculate.

the way burn works in general requires that yang be very, very in control of her aura at all times because she needs to balance between absorbing energy to charge up her semblance while reflecting enough to prevent injury, and this is one reason why i think yang is probably the best out of the cast when it comes to using aura. ren might have her beat on the more spiritual, extra-sensory perception side of things, but yang has to keep her focus while getting hit harder than anyone else Because Physics.

and that brings us to neo one-shotting yang’s aura. here is what happens: cinder is gloating from atop a pillar of fire while people scream and run in a panic all around them, and out of the corner of her eye, yang sees a glint of steel and realizes that neo is about to stab her unsuspecting baby sister in the back, she’s too far away, she can’t get there fast enough—burn is, in that moment, a reflex. instinct. she panics and hurls herself in between neo and ruby without even thinking about it because the only thing in her mind is GET TO RUBY NOW.

and that’s why her aura just shatters. it requires concentration—you practice until it becomes instinctive, until you don’t need to think about it, muscle memory. but it still takes focus. intention. yang has incredible self-control and thus incredible control of her aura, but everyone has limits, and hers are “holy fuck that guy stabbed blake” and “neo is going to kill ruby go go go.”

her semblance in itself doesn’t make her defense any weaker—but when she’s terrified enough for burn to activate reflexively like this, her aura will break if she gets hit because she’s freaking out.

[kurootooru]

who the phantom thieves would main in mortal kombat 11

characters: akira//ren, ann, makoto, ryuji, yusuke, futaba, haru

type: crackfic; headcanons

note: wow look at me actually writing something

joker;

johnny cage main !!

akiren doesn’t really care about the meta, he just plays johnny cage because he loves the character and how ridiculously over the top he is

even though he doesn’t particularly care about the meta, he still keeps up with all the changes and updates to stay on top of his game; has watched hundred of combo tutorials

spends hours unlocking all the special skins for johnny and makes him wear the most absurd-looking outfits out there

knows literally every special move, crushing blow, brutality, fatality you can think of

in terms of play style, he’s actually a really solid player ; he just can’t resist ending combos with johnny’s signature nut punch but that exact fact is what can make him predictable at times

has some absolutely disgusting combos that take out like 90% of his opponent’s hp and are borderline unblockable but avoids using them when he plays with the phantom thieves to keep the competition fair

he has completely mastered the flawless block mechanic which allows him to take minimal amounts of damage; he never uses it when he’s playing with the phantom thieves and sometimes even lets the them beat him or sets up little handicaps for himself to stop the matches from ending too early (like never using his fatal blow)

overall; solid 8/10 player ; knows most of the mechanics and how to actually use them; just needs to switch to a more meta character

ann takamaki;

jade main !!

garbage player; only knows about two things - 1) how you attack 2) how you block

uses jade only because of her unblockable overhead and spams that single move and occasionally pokes the opponent with her staff

has no knowledge about combos and the crushing blows that she does randomly execute mostly come from random button mashing until the character just does something

due to her lack of knowledge, she can’t take advantage of the the combo opportunities that jade’s aforementioned overhead

overall; horrible player 4/10; she only gets a 4 because some of the others are worse (yusuke) and because her random button mashing sometimes leads to combos and crushing blows by sheer luck (she’s managed to beat joker once)

ryuji sakamoto;

button smasher !! but he actually knows some combos and will occasionally use them when he thinks it’s necessary but can beat most people (i.e the phantom thieves and noobs online without using them)

speaking of noobs, he loves destroying them online

he doesn’t necessarily have a main and can play with most characters reasonably well but he does have a soft spot for scorpion

he gets absolutely destroyed by haru but so does everyone else so it��s not that embarrassing

overall; he’s a half decent player 7/10

yusuke kitagawa;

do i even need to write about him? he’s never held a controller in his life before and he keeps asking joker where the L1/L2 and R1/R2 triggers are every time they play

he can barely land a hit, much less pull off a combo

picked his character based on aesthetics, tries (and fails) to do moves that look aesthetically pleasing

randomly starts rambling about art during matches to the point where it’s incredibly distracting for the other person, i could go on and on

overall; 1/10 player because i don’t have the heart to give him a 0/10 rating

futaba sakura;

mains whoever is meta at the time but has a soft spot for subzero because he was the first character he learned how to play with

knows every character well, she can execute combines perfectly and use move their moves strategically

she has frame data memorised so that she can punish opponents

she’s the only one other than akechi who can actually challenge the phantom thieves

loves smoking noobs online

overall; 9/10 player, she’s good at pretty much every aspect of the game

makoto niijima;

cassie cage main !!

she loves pulling off a good combo, she didn’t think she would be very interested in a game that involved a bunch of button smashing (from her perspective at least)

it was only when she lost to joker the first time and she realised that there was a lot of strategy and execution of specific strings of command that she was truly interested

she ends up learning the frame data for all her main’s moves and most of the combos, she’s nowhere near the level of futaba in terms of knowledge but she knows quite a lot

she’s also very interested in the lore

overall; a 7/10 player and can beat anyone on a good day

haru okumura;

baraka main and by far the best player among the phantom thieves, she prefers characters that just smash their opponents and don’t require intricate set ups or traps (monke brain)

she doesn’t know any combos on any frame data, she just somehow know how to execute some of the most difficult combos in the game

sometimes the person playing against her looks over only to her with a little smile on her face as her character brutally mutilates their opponent

the only person among the thieves who can beat futaba when she’s being serious

overall; a 9/10 player and someone everyone should be at least a little wary of

[jamesunderwater]

20 Qᴜᴇꜱᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ꜰɪᴄ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀꜱ

Thanks for tagging me!! @gracelesslady23 @annabtg @kay-elle-cee this was very sweet to get to do.

Ao3 Username: itsjamespotter

1. How many works do you have on A03?

31, wow! How wild, that feels like a lot.

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

162k!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

HP

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Show and Tell (3k, wolfstar smut)

Dead To Me (91k, wip lily evans angst)

Tall Dark and Glasses (3k, jily fluff)

"you have no idea how long i've been wanting to do that" (1k, prongsfoot smut)

Bring Your Kid to Work Day(s never end when your godfather is Sirius Black) (2k, good godfather sirius black fluff)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to, or at least have the goal to, but admittedly I'm very bad at it. (not to use it as an excuse but my adhd is fully to blame.) I plan to go back and catch up on all of them soon & have a dream of being much better about it, though. I do intentionally make sure I eventually respond to the ones for my WIPs, at least.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

well, since dead to me hasn't ended yet (kidding kidding kidding kidding!!!) lmao I really thought I was gonna have a hard time finding a fic with an unhappy ending but I evidently forgot who I am. I dunno how to choose between: 1. i don't even know where you end and i begin (500 words, canon prongsfoot....you get it) 2. Promises to Keep (1k words, dorlene with canon ending....you get it)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Okay listen, do I technically have a fic that mentions living happily ever after in the last line? Yes. Am I choosing that fic? No. I'm choosing Happy Holidays, You Filthy Potters, because 1. smut, 2. sassy young Harry, and best of all, 3. sassy good godfather sirius black 😉

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a couple of comments about Lily in Dead To Me but I've decided it's not my problem if people don't have critical analysis skills 💀

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do! I write smut for a number of different ships and plan on doing others! Uhhh, what kind? the fact that I don't really know what that means probably means it's pretty vanilla 😆 there's a lot of going down on people 🤐

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Haha, no, but if I did I'd probably do PJO/HP

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. that would be so heartbreaking.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but that's SO cool that people offer to do that for some fics!!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have!! @charmsandtealeaves and I co-wrote a fic for a jilychallenge last year, before we were even friends! It was my first time co-writing a fic, which was very cool and different, but also didn't feel that foreign to me -- I think because I've spent a lot more years doing para RP than I have writing fics. It was fun to kind of riff off another writer in a different way. I would definitely do it again!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Okay, this is kind of tough because I only recently got into Prongsfoot, and they are the definition of soulmates... But because I ultimately see Sirius as more of an ace/aro character, Jily wins the place of favorite ship in my heart. <3

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Well, I really only have two WIPs posted on AO3: Dead To Me and Just This Once, and I have all of DTM outlined and plan to finish it by fall. Just This Once might be a while, but I also have a plan for it and would like to finish it at some point... But I guess there's a chance I won't finish it -- I do have a lot of other multi-chaps I am going to be starting soon.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hm. I like to think I'm good at getting into the minds of my characters, really thinking through their motivations and emotions and then expressing those to the reader. I also think I'm fairly good at dialogue. I really like writing banter so I hope others think I'm good at it, haha. And based on what I've been told, my smut isn't half bad 😆

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oh, definitely writing descriptions of any kind. I never remember to describe the scene and when I do, I think it feels clunky. I'm not great at writing in a more direct way, either; I struggle to express a character's emotions without getting a bit flowery with it. Just generally, I think my writing could be tighter, you know? I'm sure I'll realize other things I need to work on as I write more long fics, too.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Ah, haven't done it yet, so don't have any thoughts to share.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

HP -- Jily on the Neopets forums... never 4get <3

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

If we're talking finished works, I'd have to say Tall Dark and Glasses, which I wrote for the masquerade event for Jilytober last year. To me, that fic has a certain je ne sais quois that is hard to replicate. But unfinished? Dead To Me, hands down, and once it's finished it will be very hard to ever top it. It's imperfect and there are a lot of edits I'd make if I were to go back through and polish it up, but it's the first multi chap fic I've ever written, and beyond just feeling immensely proud of that, the story itself and how I'm writing it is one of the most heartfelt and meaningful things I'll ever write in my life.

these were such a pleasure to respond to, thanks again for the tags! <3 I'm tagging: @goldenbi @abihastastybeans & @nodirectionhome-ao3

[i-bring-crack]

Plague Monarch! Cha Hae-In AU

(I have a lot of thoughts about her zombie control and bugs in general)

Backstory!

At a young age she was very timid so she didn't get along well with other kids or had a lot of strong friends in her life.

She often just passed her time catching butterflies and looking a ant burrows. The little workers fascinated her a lot.

Her mother owned a flower shop and she tended to take care of some honeybees in their backyard. Cha having lived with those bees often had her hands full of them and named the queen Arsha.

When she sprined her ankle during a race, she couldn't run a lot, but liked to be more outside than inside, so her best next destination was to walk around the forest near her home. It felt tranquil and she got to carry a lot more bugs. Sometimes she even let them crawl on her arms, hands and face.

After her mother was admitted to a hospital due to her illness, the Eternal Sleep, she couldn't keep earning a lot of money by being a third rate athlete, and she felt a new power had awaken in her body, so the next best thing she got was to become a Hunter.

Of course, her life wasn't really all that lucky. She got the lowest rank from all Hunters. E rank. With a power level of 15.

It was truly a miserable existence for her during the past 3 years.

She felt as tiny as bug, sometimes even literally as she had to resort to tricks, biting and nail clawing her way out of her situations.

Three years had passed and she already passed the nickname of "The Bug Hunter" due to her her being so weak that she could easily be squashed like a Bug. But also like a Bug she managed to survive despite all the odds.

Insignificant, and yet always crawling on for survival.

But eventually, her luck had run out.

... or maybe it hadn't

D Rank Arc:

The dungeon was filled with giant bugs only found possibly in Red Gates, or maybe something worse.

Whatever this place was, she defiantly saw it as a sanctuary of sorts for all kinds of huge insects whose bodies where made from plants and tiny other bugs compiling bigger corpses.

It was due to her knowledge about insects in general that she even managed to get so far before she was finally struck down by a Bee.

However she still didn't want to die, and in her last moments, she started eating them. (Hahaha SL R refrence)

Her body slowly consuming every single bug until she could no longer go on, yet at that point she had succeeded the trial predestined to her from the start.

[The One Who Became Many]

[Status window]

Name: Cha Hae-In

Level: 1

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 100

MP: 10

Tiredness: 0

[Stat]

Strength: 10

Stamina: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Perception: 10

(Available points to distribute: 0)

[Skills]

Passive skills: - (Unknown) Lv. Max

Active skills: - Sprint Lv.1

"Guess I'm starting from zero huh..."

Her first day was extremely confusing, the chief Woo Jin-Cheol from the surveillance division had retold the story of her being the only survivor in a deserted place, with no injuries whatsoever except for the huge wound around her heart, that no matter how hard they tried to heal, it kept still showing up. But it wasn't of any big deal either since she still survived from that. Then he asks if she reawakened, they measure her, and no, she hasn't. Thus the two assosiation members leave as fast as they came.

Cha didn't get a punishment because she thought "well everything is already weird, and I haven't had a proper workout in a long time so..."

Workout Arc!

A prerequisite to good bodies is the requirement for great workouts that enable the player to reach the very limits of her body and even surpass them!

Of course since Hae-In had already trained as an Athelete before, most of the workouts that changed daily [Endurance, Resistance, Jumps, Cardio, etc—] would be a piece of cake for her to go through.

What were the hardest parts of the daily quest where in fact, the extra dungeon that she would go through every day to test if her workout had done her favors.

Haein tended to be very embarrassed when talking to Miss Choi Yoora about why she always came covered in goo of sorts. And why she smelled so bad.

[You have killed 'Arbogenius Mantis' ]

[You have obtained: The Arbogenious Claw!]

It was bigger than what she expected, a sword made from one of the strongest claws of the monster she faced.

Huh. Guess she now has to start learning swordsmanship.

Lizards Arc!

A few changes are made from the original story obviously, for one she doesn't enter a C rank dungeon yet, especially when the enlistment was too sketchy. Later on Cha, as she is watering her plants suddenly gets called from the assosiation that they need another member ASAP because one Hunter hasn't assisted today.

So she goes and eventually meets up with new people that she feels she has heard from before, although she can't pinpoint from where.

Lee Ju-Hee is the first to talk to her, she is nice and sweet and has a very strong aroma, far stronger than the others.

When she gets close is when Haein notices that her nose has developed far more than before. At first she would often be around low rank hunters and their smell could only be picked up if she got close enough to them. Even then the smell would be as awful as someone who hasn't showered.

Now, respectfully she felt the smell of the B rank healer was like getting close to a trashcan.

'Oh god. And if I'm going to level up more, doesn't that mean I'll have to be around Hunters that smell worse???'

These powers really were to good to be true!!

Apart from the new finding, she also got to meet a swordsman Song Chi-Yul who could help her train.

And she got to level up more by fighting the dungeon boss.

Overall a normal raid with normal people and some false ranker totally not noticing her skills are way too over the top for someone who is a simple E rank.

False Ranker Match Arc!

Over the time Cha had sustained quite the popularity in the negative way, so when she was suddenly sees as more powerful than before, the eyes seemed to shift quickly with curiosity.

The strongest moment where this happened was when a false ranker had appeared in front of her and challenged her to reveal her true status.

This false ranker was none other than Nam Chae Young, an E rank Archer hidding her true potential. Fortunately it was far less than Hae-In who had just reached the strenght of a top C ranker. Nam Chae Young offers her to help Haein hide her identity if she lets Nam live and Cha is... tempted. Nam hasn't done anything bad at all but she still is a false ranker, so she asks why she is hiding her true potential and Nam replies that it's easy money for someone to enter low rank dungeons while also having the stenght enough to beat a few goblins. And if she were to awaken as a C rank she would be put into more dangerous raids which is not what she really wants to sign up for.

But, if Cha is strong, stupidly strong enough to even fight her one on one, have skills like sprint, healing and posion on her and still get rid of the monsters around them without loosing much HP (lies she needed to replenish her HP with those bottles quite a lot) thennn, they can just make a few fake raids and both of them will get what they want.

Cha hae in will get her animosity and be able to level up inside dungeons without any problems

And Nam will be able to make quick bucks by gathering the 'strike squad'she needs, since we'll, she has quite a lot of friends for being so strong.

(And Cha may be a bit irritated that she does need her help, but hey as long as she can keep her mouth shut, no problemo)

Job Change Arc!

It takes quite a lot of side quests and dungeons before Cha finally achieves Level 50.

The event suddenly happened as she was still training with Chi Yul. The old man almost managed to strike her weak spot due to Haein being distracted by the screen, making Juhee and him worry a bit.

She couldn't tell them the truth so Cha texted Nam to help her get out of the situation and creating a perfect excuse in the process ("all that lying to the assosiation really works for something!" "Unnie... =_=")

Juhee understood and said that she will wait for her until tomorrow then, since Juhee will be leaving then in the airport.

In the meantime Haein was to finish the quest In less than a day.

As she enter she found herself in a.... normal house.

Well this was confusing.

Walking through it she realized this was her old home, with everyone gone and every single plant that she and her mother had cared for completely dried and dead.

Cha followed her gut feeling to go outside of the house where the Bee colony she used to care for once lived.

There it was, the first monster and the strongest she had ever seen before:

[Queen Bee Arsha]

Hah... So an old friend.

After much trouble she managed to kill Arsha, her body composed of thousands of bees was the worst kind of enemy that Cha had ever thought to face. Had she not remembered how a Queen bee looked like and killed it, then she would have died from trying to kill every single bee.

First came her fight in a tropical zone, a huge forest where all kinds of bugs and poison lurked withing.

No matter how much she tried to stab them and kill them, they always came back. And if she sliced them in half they will grow more.

[Eat them]

[Devour them]

[Devour your enemies.]

[Become stronger with their blood.]

The memories of the double dungeon cane back, seeing as this was the only answer that she could think of, Cha began to eat the heart of each bug until her body was at its limit and the venom was paralizing her entire body.

[You can only grow so far by being human]

[You aren't the only one who wants to live]

[You aren't the only one who will crawl for scraps in order to survive]

[They called you a cockroach for outlasting Death]

[They called you a parasite for the sake of letting your mother live another day]

[They called you a bug for being so weak.]

[So, are you now? Are you really as weak as they all say?]

[Or don't you want to prove them wrong once and for all?]

And then

[Penalty quest]

[HP:1]

[Good Luck]

For four hours she had to survive against a new wave of monsters now, but these weaker than her. These were big and had many points were she could strike.

And she was small, she was fragile, a single punch— nein, scratch could instantly kill her.

[Skill: Poison activated!]

[Skill: Hunger activated!]

But she was going to survive this one.

Extra content!

Woo Jin-Cheol: I need to asks a few questions for your rank re evaluation. First: what class are you?

Cha Hae-In: *looks at status window* umm Parasite??

Woo Jin-Cheol:... what

Cha Hae-In: wait no, Plague Monarch.

Woo Jin-Cheol:...

Cha Hae-In: *looks at the detox skill and her HP bottles* Just put healer.

______________

Beru: *Bites*

Cha Hae-In: *Bites back*

The entire Korean team: ????

________________

*Cha Hae-In being called a bug*

Queresha: That one. That one. I want that one.

*Antares may just be sulking in the back who knows*

Cha Hae In and her beautiful army of Bugs~~

The way she brings them out is actually quite nasty, but efficient! By drawing blood from herlsef! (You see she is technically one with her bugs now, the ones she eats, so to summon them she has to like, let her blood fall and thus bugs come out of said blood/or are made from that)

So for most of the story Cha has to get quite beaten up before her power fully appears.

In her first S rank Dungeon, the Winter Kingdom, she managed to earn a pair of wings.

While fighting Arsha she got [Queen's Control] which was technically like Ruler's Touch but she would eventually learn to handle it in a more versatile way that let her grab on to more than two things from far away.

This is technically withing the Canon SL minus the change of Haein. So at some point she does meet the Shadow Monarch who is... working as a miner? In the Hunter’s guild??Guild???

The system is asking to not interact with the other players as much but like, what could go wrong? So Cha tries to catch his attention after lunch and — Yo why is he going to the boss dungeon???

Eh???

WAIT IS HE GONNA FIGHT IT ?????

If she didn't catch him in time the whole dungeon would have gone into chaos, so Cha decides to go tomorrow to the raid.

Who wants to a porter?

Both raise their hand.

They make a paper rock sissor game and Jinwoo wins.

Ah so long leveling up her bugs—

Not 5 minutes later and she can already feel some disaster is about to start due to the smell of the gate becoming more strong. She calls upon Chief Woo saying if she has permittion to go.

"No."

"But."

"Miss Cha it is important you do not get involved with him."

">:("

He doesn't want another S rank fight in the middle of nowhere. He just dealt with two already.

With the Wings Haein got she was able to almost be everywhere at the speed of light and fly anywhere she wanted.

She flew to Busan to meet Juhee,

then to where her mother was to bring her the water of the Echo spring forest, sadly it needs the demon bloods king.

(And jinwoo also needs the Echo spring water.)

and she even flew to Jeju to meet the ants :D

What the heck they are able to fly too?!?!

Jeju island goes... well? I mean she didn't expect she had to fight both humans and ants in one day. Goto was planning to kill them, and Haein had to suffer some Ant King trying to take her throne away from her. Not that she will ever let him.

But she had to keep fighting these two until Jinwoo finally came, defeated the with Hae-In’s help and the Koreans as well as the Japanese were able to live.

But how?

Why?

[Skill: Parasite Worm is activated]

Essentially the Japanese that died, haein managed to cure their corpses of any injuries with some generation abilities, and then with the help of the Parasite worms, she could brainwash them to do whatever she wanted.

One of these things where for the worms to give them back some sort of consciousness and keep acting like normal people until Haein needed their help.

(Unlike the summoning from her blood, these ones will just use the host they inhabit to personally do whatever task they need. They are basically just zombies but don't look the part. They dont even know it themselves at times ~)

In the whole exchange JinWoo was horrified.

Beru got his personality by absorbing Cha's blood since he bit her. Due to her regeneration she was fine but Jinwoo didn't like hearing that at all.

If Queresha is being honest, she never wanted a successor, she just wanted and needed a vessel. She still needs it too. But this one right here seems to be very strong in her own way. Her tenacity reminds her to when she was a small bug too, the weakest of her kind able to rise to this extent.

And she can't help but be proud that her vessel has come so far.

But at some point she has to choose.

[The Double Dungeon is calling you again. To where it all started.]

[Can you devour the Monarch whole this time?]

[Or will this be your deathbed?]

[orange-orchard-system]

This is a general observation on discourse (not about anything in particular, don't start accusing me of commenting on some drama or other), but I think people use "support" in a way that is... maybe too vague.

Like, when people use it for celebrities like JKR and the Harry Potter franchise, you know what they mean. If you're buying HP merch, you're financially supporting her. If you talk positively about HP (even if you don't "support" her in the form of personally approving of what she does), she sees that as support for her actions, and uses it as motivation to continue harming others. So, if someone engages with HP in this day and age (with the exception of critiques, which I'm decently sure cannot be misconstrued as support even by the bitch herself), it's understandable that people would see that as supporting JKR, especially with how knowledge of these actions counts as supporting her is spreading – it's not often something one can do unintentionally, not on Tumblr at least. In other spaces, one may be more likely to be out of the loop, but I've still seen information spread on other social medias and even irl about what exactly people mean by "supporting JKR", and what that entails.

This does not really translate to online discourse, with bloggers instead of celebrities. Unless a person is remarkably horrible, you're not going to know all their bad takes and behavior unless you dig for them. And most people don't dig for them! Why would they?! There's no obvious reason they should! A lot of people barely check DNIs!! Add to that the fact that when it comes to many strands of discourse, people will have tags or words filtered out, and will thus see only that someone is speaking on a topic, but not their actual opinions, and have no reason or desire to look at discussion on something they've purposefully tried to avoid just to find out what that someone is saying. So you've got a situation where people will accuse others of "supporting" someone they would have no good reason to know the bad takes or behavior of, and it's a miracle if the person making the accusation actually elaborates.

Moreover, "showing support" for bloggers isn't the same as famous people. Reblogging a post on one topic does not mean showing support for the OP's opinion on a separate topic (assuming the reblogger even knows of it, which can be very unlikely, given how posts can spread far from their blog of origin). And you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I don't think many bloggers assume support based on things like that. When you've seen people follow your blog even though they have a label or community you're part of in their DNI, you learn quick that engagement with your blog means shit all when it comes to people's opinions of you. I have no reason to see likes or reblogs as support for every word out of my mouth, only the specific ones that people are leaving notes on.

Circling back around to an earlier point I made, "support" in and of itself is a very vague concept. I think many folks using this term actually mean "approve", as in, "Do you approve of X's problematic actions?", but this hidden meaning makes such accusations even more ridiculous, especially when they're being leveled at a person just for a reblog or comment on another's post. Must you personally approve of everything a person has ever done in life to interact with them or treat them civilly? Must a person offer up for critique everything they have ever done in life so strangers can decide whether they deserve to be interacted with or treated civilly? This is a ridiculous demand to make of either side of an interaction, online or offline.

I know there's situations where this kind of questioning is warranted. I'm pretty sure a lot of users on here have found out they reblogged some innocuous looking post from someone they later found out was an asshole, and that put the reblogged post in a new light. But I don't see a lot of that with these accusations of "support". Instead, I often see people who others have simply decided are Bad, for one reason or another, and thus anyone who interacts with them must either denounce that interaction as soon as possible or be labeled as Bad too, even if they're not told why the OP is Bad. There's a difference between "hey, that person you reblogged from is an active asshole and bigot, just thought you might want to know" and "why do you personally approve of all these problematic actions that I will not elaborate on but assume you know about and support the continuation of (never mind if they were one-off occurrences or actually continued offenses) because you reblogged a post on the reblogging posts website. Answer quickly."

Even when you do get an explanation, it's often either a bunch of little things that aren't a big deal (which is like. Congrats, you found proof this person wasn't born perfect. Do you want a medal for your service?), or something blown out of proportion. Sometimes, yes, these little things piss me off enough to block the blog in question, but that's on a case-by-case basis based on my own feelings on the matter, not some kind of "three strikes you're out" policy. There's not a limit to how many times you can fuck up before people decide you no longer get to grow as a person. That's – and I'm not exaggerating, since I've seen similar concepts in actual books about this – something dystopian. "Yeah but they did A and B and C and D and –" and?? Are people never allowed to make mistakes or have unpopular opinions?? Do you think everything in the world must line up with how you personally feel it should?? Who the fuck are you to decide they've worded one post too many poorly and are thus A Bad Person??

And like. What's the point of it? What's the point of asking if someone "supports x blogger"? So you can label them as Bad By Association? So you can shame more and more people for interacting with people you've decided to other? That's called being an asshole at best and a bully (abuser, really, since bullying is also known as peer abuse) trying to make sure their victim has no positive relationships at worst. "I've decided I don't like this person and that they are Bad Now And Forever, so I'm going to tell everyone that they should never talk to this person ever, framing these actions in the worst possible light as I do so. And if they continue talking to this person and don't immediately accept my demands, they are also Bad Now And Forever, and all of them deserve to be othered, possibly even harassed depending on my feelings on the matter." That's fucking ridiculous.

All of this to say; accusing someone of "supporting x blogger", especially for something like reblogging a post from them, is ridiculous, and just reads as bait. You're not spreading awareness, you're not helping people keep themselves safe, you're just stirring up drama.

[theundertalenebulartheory]

WELL THE POWER AND INTERNET ARE STILL OUT IDK WHEN ITS COMING BACK AND THE NEW CHAPTER IS HAUNTING MEEEEE SO HERE IT IS YOU CAN HAVE IT IN TUNGLR FORMAT UNTIL THE POWER COMES BACK AND I CAN GET THE NEW CHAPTER UP ON AO3

Chapter 23: In Which We Go Camping Again And Nothing Catches On Fire This Time Except A Few Faces

((There will be a little Present Day Blurb in the Summary Section when this chapter goes up on AO3 as well as some End Of Chapter notes about how very normal I’m feeling about the Summer Newsletter))

You’d taken up journaling. There wasn’t, exactly, a whole lot you could do about the whole Time Travel thing. And whether or not you woke up one day or another you weren’t entirely sure you’d be able to tell the difference between the first and 50th time you’d lived a specific day.

But there was the thing about certain things just kindof existing in your knowledge bank that you kept coming back to. Which meant that you’d learned them in the first place.

Which brought you to the journal. Even if you didn’t exactly have a lot of confidence that *what* you wrote could be maintained from one timeline to the next (otherwise you assumed you’d be finding a paper trail of some kind lying conspicuously around the house) but if you could somehow internalize what you were writing about, then maybe... maybe you could at least start over with a bigger toolbox than what you’d had previously.

Along those same lines, you’d also taken Papyrus up on his offer to really start training you in earnest. There was so, so much to do. Bills to pay. Taxes to file. Portfolios to submit. But Papyrus made time for you, and you made time for him. And as you did, you started to notice things that you wondered if maybe you’d already noticed before.

Like the fact that reading was hard for him. And articulating some of his thoughts could be a bit of a challenge. There was that whole Junior Jumble thing too, and that particular bullet point got double underlined in your fancy new journal. He was just too smart for that to NOT mean something.

Paps wasn’t the only one under the microscope. Sans, too, was exhibiting some behaviors that you’d started to jot down on a page in your new book. First of all, the man couldn’t read a map to save his life. He just needed to BE there. Or have been there. But where he’d been and where he needed to go were almost two completely separate things. It was almost like whatever filing system his brain used for how to get to places was totally removed from the actual 3D space itself. You‘d even asked him one time if he was inside a new house, couldn’t he just estimate the distance between himself and a backyard just outside that he’d never been to before and shortcut there? Nope. Only places he’s been, or places he can, in any given moment, actively see. There was also the sarcasm, tone-deaf thing too. But that one got a question mark next to it in your notes. That one might have been more of a cultural difference... except that Papyrus was the most sassy and sarcastic person you knew. So the note stayed regardless.

You’d been taking other notes too. Notes about things you’d been learning from Muffet. Things you’d been learning on your own as you tried to do what Muffet explained and then messed it up horrifically. To your credit, though, the look on Papyrus’ face when you accidentally messed up his bullet pattern because you’d managed to create a funnel that caught and redirected every one of them was freaking hilarious.

Slightly less hilarious was the loss of HP when the far end of that funnel was connected to your soul and you took an entire field of bullets right in the chest all at once.

And so a note ended up in the journal. But as winter changed to spring and your university graduation drew nearer, you found yourself drawn to a date. An event, rather. Which is what you’d been looking for in your philosophical discussions with Sans. A landmark of some kind. And here it was.

A meteor shower.

You discussed it with Papyrus and Sans and the three of you decided that Sans needed the trip the most (in spite of what he argued to the contrary) and so the two of you would go together. Especially when the possibility of bringing everyone else along got brought up and both you And Papyrus suddenly got extremely cagey for no discernable reason and suddenly you very much wanted to stay home.

You didn’t.

But you were tempted. Papyrus decided to stay home though. There was something… something undeniably anxiety-inducing about the day that none of you could put your finger on. So Pap stayed. And you and Sans went to see the meteor shower.

Your old beater absolutely was Not going to make the trip, but you had an uncle with a truck that was willing to trade you vehicles for one weekend so you could go see the stars. You picked up Sans and his telescope from Toriel’s McMansion of a home at 4 AM Friday morning, noticing the way he eyed all the totes and bags in the truck bed somewhat disbelievingly. But he climbed in after securing the box for his telescope with some spare bungee cords and buckled up without verbally questioning it all too much.

“Alright, we’ve got road snacks in the center console, a little baby cooler on the back seat with drinks, and you’ve had all the pit-stops you’re going to need for a few hours?”

“ ‘m good.” His voice was extra low and graveled so early in the morning and you did your best to keep the effect that was having on you down to a minimum.

“Awesome. You’re totally ok to nap for a few hours, by the way, once we make it out of Ebbott. I’m way too hype for this trip to even be slightly sleepy so you go to sleep for a bit. It’s gonna be a solid 8 hours in the car even once we’re past the way station. Might as well nap for some of it.”

As if on queue he stifled a yawn, settling into the seat to get comfortable and adjusting the angle of the seat backing. “nah, i’m awake.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Super awake. At 4 AM. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“you’ve never met anyone as awake as I am right now.”

“Sure.”

Thankfully the waystation wasn’t busy at this time of the morning, and Sans was able to shortcut to the roof of the building without issue. You passed inspection with no issues, and Sans dropped through your roof to land easily in the passenger’s seat once you were rolling past it. You had a nice laugh about it together, but after that you didn’t even make it onto the freeway before he was softly snoring. It took a little station surfing, but soon enough there was a smooth jazz radio station to keep the road noise from being too distracting for him. This was a pretty big deal, and you didn’t want anyone to start the day off on a sour note. He was going out on a limb, doing a one-on-one trip with you after all of the soul-bond weirdness had finally started to settle down and your relationship friendship was finally starting to get easier again. The least you could do is make sure he started the day well rested.

It was funny though. What soft snoring sounds he was making for the first 20 or so minutes of the drive changed a little bit, smoothing out into almost soundless deep breathing after some time driving. You weren’t 100% sure how to feel about that, but you shrugged it off without taking it too much to heart. He stayed asleep until the sun was well over the horizon, the strategic way you’d arranged the sun visor to block the worst of the rays finally failing as the freeway turned in just the right direction to evade your best attempts to keep his face out of the sun.

Blearily, he came to, and you made sure to continue bobbing your head side-to-side along with the music even as there was motion in your periphery. You let him look around and rub his face on his own terms without calling attention to it, letting him decide when he was ready to engage with you. It took a minute, but not as long as you thought maybe it would take, before he finally yawned out loud and grumbled a little to himself. You finally peeked over at him, caught his eye, smiled, and kept driving.

“never took you for a smooth jazz type.”

“No?”

“nah.” His voice was still rough with sleep, and you reminded yourself silently that you REALLY needed to get a grip on yourself if you were going to survive the weekend.

“It’s nice to study to. Lo-fi, smooth jazz, instrumental covers of pop songs. It’s also nice to have on as background napping music.”

“…ah. you didn’t have to do that. i can sleep through anything.”

You hummed thoughtfully, switching the radio station to something a little less… well, a little more like something you would prefer to listen to for hours at a time. “Maybe. But you had to get up early. And you’re going to be up late.”

"hopefully. kindof hard to watch a meteor shower when its daytime.”

You rolled your eyes at him fondly and shook your head. “Alright, wise guy. I spy with my little eye something red.”

Between the car games you knew, songs on the radio that you liked, (a check-in phone call to alleviate some of the itching in the back of your brain) and the snacks, eight hours in the car flew by faster than you thought it would. You made it to the campsite just after noon, and even with Sans’ inexperience in the ways of Tent Poles you had a nice little campsite set up just in time for lunch. Your totes of pillows and blankets didn’t go into the tents, though. Not yet, anyways. Those you dumped out into the bed of the truck and made a lovely stargazing nest out of. There was a little nature walk and a stream to play in nearby your site that took up most of the afternoon, and by the time Sans had somehow soundly beaten you at ‘how many frogs can I catch’ (you had your suspicions that maybe some shortcuts and trickery had been involved, but you couldn’t be too mad about it when he smiled like that) it was time to stoke up a fire and cook dinner. You checked in with Papyrus again, and discovered that Toriel had started feeling apprehensive also and had started doing some gardening outside.

Regrettably, it turned out that Sans was the kind of heathen that liked his marshmallow burnt to a crisp even after you made him a perfectly golden-brown masterpiece of a mallow. But he seemed to have fun with the process, and really that was all that mattered. You did too, it had been years since you’d been camping (as far as you remembered). It brought back tons of great memories, some of which hadn’t been so great when you’d been going through them but made for hilarious stories now that you were older and time had smoothed the rough edges. Nothing actually terrible, of course. But plenty enough awkward and miserable that Sans actually fell out of his camp chair laughing as you really hammed up the retelling of the time that your parents had taken your family camping during ‘monsoon season’ and a microburst had chased the lot of you underneath the upside-down shell of your tent after the wind had snapped 100% of your tent poles.

Regaling him with stories of misadventures in camping as a kid ate away at the hours of the early evening, as did another check-in phonecall to Pap and Tori.

“you think that whatever might have happened in that past timeline... it was bad?” Sans asked as you hung up your fourth check-in phonecall of the night, firelight dancing over his bones.

You sighed and rubbed your hand over your face, knowing logically that you were clearly having some kind of mental breakdown over nothing at all but grateful that it wasn’t just you experiencing a bout of unexplainable anxiety tonight. “It’s got to be, right? Especially with Pap and Tori feeling it too. But we don’t know what it is. And that’s the tricky part, isn’t it? We don’t know if it’s some kind of earthquake that’s going to strike or if like... we did all come camping together before and Frisk fell and broke their leg. There’s just this feeling of... I just need to check on them. All of them. And if I don’t, then something bad might happen. And if it’s a feeling that extends to all of them, then that kindof feels... big, you know? Like it’s not just that I need to check on Papyrus, because if that’s the feeling I had then it would make sense that Papyrus was the one that something bad happened to. Right?”

Sans nodded, looking grimly down into the fire. “we can go back if you want to.”

“No,” you shook your head quickly and settled back into your folding chair. “I want to be here. And I know that they’ve all got each other. I think I just need to stop scratching the itch, you know? They’ll call if something happens. And if something happens, we can always jump right home. But we’re here, it’s a beautiful night, and I’m having fun. I want to see the meteor shower.”

“well... long time between now and then.”

You checked your watch and grinned. “Yeah, but the stars are pretty great even before it’s time for the meteor shower to really kick into gear. Actually, we’re probably far enough past sunset now to get started. Most of the light pollution should be gone now. Wanna see something cool?”

“sure.”

You winked at him as you stood up and grabbed the bucket of stream water, dousing the fire with a spectacular hiss.

The effect was almost instantaneous, as your bucket of water reduced the firepit to a smoking black ring, the sky above you burst into life. Your attention was on the ring of stones at first, checking for any glowing embers you might have missed (Smokey the Bear was NOT going to be disappointed in you tonight!) but you could hear the gasp next to you. And you remembered your first time coming out to one of these truly Dark Sky Zones. Your own father dumping water on the fire and the way you’d quite literally fallen over yourself trying to crane your neck far enough to take it all in.

Satisfied that you’d sufficiently soaked the coals, you carefully reached out to touch his shoulder to catch his attention. He tilted his head your direction a few degrees, but didn’t take his eyes off of the sky.

“Hey. Your eyes aren’t quite adjusted to the dark yet. Close your eyes for like… 20 seconds to let them adjust a little, then try again. I promise it’s worth it.”

“heh. seems… pretty worth it already. but… ok.”

He was loathe to peel his gaze away from the stars for even a second, but with some effort he eventually closed his eyes. With a near-giddy grin, you took his arm.

“Keep ‘em closed. No tricks. I’m just going to guide you towards the truck. It’ll be worth it. Just keep your eyes closed for a bit longer, and when we get to the truck don’t peek. Use the chance to get up into the truckbed as a chance for you eyes to adjust a little more. The dark blankets will help kindof… force your eyes to finish adjusting to the dark. Then you can look. Promise.”

You guided him expertly and carefully, in spite of his grumbling about it, back to the pickup truck and the blanket nest you’d built earlier in the day. He looked down just long enough to climb into it, but as soon as he was settled among the pillows his face was turned heaven-ward again. You settled in too, and finally let the weight of being the responsible host slide off of your shoulders enough to relax into the moment and gaze at the trillions of stars that made the sky glow like the very best and most impressive NASA satellite images available. But with a depth and grandeur that no photo could ever capture.

It was cool, of course. Grand and spectacular and majestic and poetic and whatnot. But… you couldn’t keep your head from lolling to the side so you could watch Sans.

His eye sockets had never been so wide. And his eye lights practically filled the whole space. They were so bright, too. Brighter than a whole handful of stars. Bright enough that you could almost see the rims of his sockets glowing with just how intensely he was focused on taking in absolutely every single detail. If you didn’t know any better, you’d guess he was having the equivalent of a religious experience as his gaze swept reverently across the Milky Way.

You let him be.

You kept watching him, but you did so silently. He’d never looked so relaxed in his life, nor had he ever looked so small. The usual softness to his figure held up by some kind of magic that gave him such a huggable shape day in and day out was completely abandoned and his clothing draped loosely over his bones in a way that showed off just how little mass he really actually had. You’d never actually seen his shirt fall into the gap between his pelvis and his ribs, even when he had been sleeping in the car. But his sleeves, his shirt, his shorts, everything draped over his bones and nothing more than his bones and he looked so, so small. So slight. Like a stiff breeze might blow him away. And you had to fight the urge to bundle him up in your arms and burrito him in a blanket just to make sure some bluejay didn’t grab him by the spine and fly off with him (hour of the night notwithstanding.)

After what felt like 30 minutes you watched him tug one of his mittens off and then lift his hand towards the heavens, reaching out for the stars. It was deeply endearing, and you grinned to yourself. That was one of the funny things about stargazing that you couldn’t anticipate just by looking at pictures of the stars. If you watched them, flat on your back, for long enough… you started to get a sense for depth. You could start to feel just how vast, like watching the sea stretch out all the way to the horizon, the expanse was. Incomprehensible though it was. And in that vastness… there was you. Little old you. Floating in the middle of all of it.

And since you were floating… couldn’t you just… you could almost just… if you could just reach a little further, then, maybe…

It was funny how such immeasurable intensity could mess with your head. Logically, of course, you knew you couldn’t. But your heart still wanted so desperately to believe that it was right there. And as you watched Sans reach, starlight glittering through the hole in his palm, you let your gaze follow the line of his hand heavenward again.

“Feels so close, doesn’t it? So close but so far.”

“… yeah.”

“Hey.”

“hm.”

“Just a fair warning,” you kept your voice low, so as not to disturb the moment, but you could feel his eyes slide over to you anyways. “Looking at this many stars all at once tends to make people wax philosophical. And being up late with someone tends to lead to really deep and personal conversations. So just like… a fair warning that you’re going to be really tempted to start talking about eternity and the multiverse theory and the insignificance of our existence and all that. Which I am totally down for. But if you’re not, this is your disclaimer now. This is the deep end of the pool, my guy.”

He huffed a laugh and shook his head, settling back into the pillows. “good to know.”

There really wasn’t anything like a sky bursting with stars on a cool and clear night. The Milky Way stretched the full length of it, well and truly glowing with life and energy. It had been years since you’d been out here, but the view was no less awe-inspiring than it was when you were half as tall and dozens of times more carefree. The memory was a gift you cherished, and the way it had molded your worldview couldn’t be bought with all the gold and silver under Mount Ebott. How many lives would be so different if more people could come out to a place like this and watch such a spectacular parade of stars and feel, profoundly, how small your place was in the cosmos every few years or so?

“I’m sorry.”

“… don’t be.”

“Someone needs to be. I can’t fathom how… a thousand years ago, this would have been what our ancestors would have seen every single night. How can you see something like this every single night and treat people like that? Put them under a mountain?”

“now who’s being all philosophical?”

“Oh, it’s me, for sure. That warning was for you in case you didn’t really want to share anything deep, but it was also a warning for you that I AM going to get all deep. Super deep.”

“that’s what she said.” You could hear the grin in his voice, and you were half tempted to sit up and wiggle your eyebrows at him, but you weren’t quite done admiring the view yet. You’d just started to notice a star moving a tiny bit faster than the other ones and you were suspecting maybe you were looking at a planet that you didn’t want to lose sight of just yet. Definitely not fast enough to be a satellite, but maybe a planet.

“Nice… Vaguely Related Side Note: Conceptually I understand the mechanics of how a strap-on works. But there’s also this little nagging voice in the back of my head that says,” at this point Sans started to crack up but you kept going undisturbed, “if you were actually to put one of those on… the specific location where the dildo would sit isn’t actually supported by any bone structure. The bone structure sits too low to actually provide support where you’d need it. Right? It’d be like strapping it onto your – Sans I’m being serious, stop giggling – strapping it onto your stomach. It’s all soft tissue right there! Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable?”

He managed to string something together in response, but it was nearly impossible to understand through his wheezing. Something about a harness and weight distribution and something called a ‘symphasis.’ “No, I GET the harness part, but still. Like… there’s going to be a concentrated amount of force on a non-reinforced part of your body. You gotta consider the pounds per square inch.”

His wheezing devolved into a deep and rolling laughter and he doubled over into a fetal position with the force of it. “i didn’t realize that this is what you meant when you said we were going to get deep,” he coughed and continued to giggle, barely holding onto his composure. “the harness has like… a plate. not a plate, what word am i looking for? a triangle. a patch. that’s not it either. a base. spreads out the surface area on the bone structure.”

“Ah, that would help.” You finally pulled your eyes away from the maybe-planet and watched his laughter fade into a smile, humor still working towards smoothing out the exhaustion usually carved into his face. You were really starting to get to know the subtle micro-expressions that tugged at his skeletal grin, and for once this one looked genuinely pleased with no reserved hints of worry or masking. “Glad to hear from the expert. I was really worried there. One less mystery of the universe to worry about now.”

He snorted, a strange sound without all the internal nasal structures that normally came with being human-shaped, but a close enough approximation to the sound that you could tell what he’d meant to do. “didn’t know you came star-gazing with a… sex-pert.”

“Better you than me,” you joked. “People get DEEPLY uncomfortable with people in public education having hobbies other than like… jigsaw puzzles and knitting. Gotta prepare for the next 30 years of G-rated fun only.”

“ok, but you and alphys killed that jigsaw the other night, though.”

“That is entirely beside the point,” you countered with a very put-upon frown. Sans just snickered, and you couldn’t help the urge to lean over and rest your head on his shoulder. This had been what you’d been wanting so badly when you invited him to come with you. Sure, the two of you had spent hours together debating the finer points of timeline shenanigans. But it really did seem to eat at him. If you had to hazard a guess, he was maybe even starting to show symptoms of depression. Not that you’d call him out on it, of course. But that didn’t mean you were just going to lay down and let the man just BE depressed either. So... you brought him camping. Some sunshine. Some fresh air. Change of scenery. And a sky full of stars to get lost under. An excuse to pull out his old telescope, ready and waiting for you just beside the pickup truck.

“My grandma could knit,” you mused out loud after a comfortable silence had settled between you. “She tried to teach all the grandkids how to do it. Emphasis on tried, anyways. I never could get it. She tried when I was like… seven? Bored out of my mind, couldn’t grasp the concept. Grandma loved to make dolls for her great grandkids. None of the boys ever really liked dolls so she actually went online and found these patterns to knit Transformers so they wouldn’t feel left out. What’s funny about that, though, is once she started making them then all the grandkids wanted one. Even ones who’d already gotten a regular doll. And then their friends wanted one. She thought about starting an online business before her health tanked. I still have mine in my closet. It’s cool.”

Sans shifted, and when you peeked over at him, he was looking at you with the corners of his smile falling a little bit downwards. “is she… uh…”

“Yeah. She passed on a couple of years ago.”

“sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Your eyes sparkled with the ability to parrot his own words back at him. The sparkle didn’t last, though, and you turned your eyes back to the stars. “She was really sick, and she hated wasting away. She was one week away from 100 years old. I kept telling everyone we needed to have an early party for her. 100 years is a pretty big deal. But… people were busy. It happens.”

“sounds like you two were close.”

“Oh, sure. I lived with her.” You put your hands behind your head and started looking for any constellations you could remember. The peak of the meteor shower wasn’t going to be until much, much later in the night. “One year after starting Uni is when Grandma’s health tanked. Everyone else either had families or stuff going on or was too young. They were going to put her in a home,” you caught yourself, identifying that Sans might not have the social context to know what that implied. So, you amended, “a, uh, a communal elderly living center that’s expensive as hell and has like... staff and nurses and stuff like that to take care of the old people’s needs. But it’s also… kindof famous for being the place you drop old people off and then abandon them until they die because you’re paying all this money for nurses and staff to take care of them. Just... shuck that responsibility off on someone else. Which sucks.”

“that’s... horrible. humans really do that?”

“Not everybody, for sure. But it’s not uncommon either. And to be fair, nobody in my family wanted that for her, but grandma needed help and nobody else was really in a great place to step up and do the 24/7 care thing that she needed. Which is part of the reason old people end up in those care centers in the first place. Everyone’s so poor and busy trying to get by that they literally can’t keep up with the level of care that a lot of really old people need. Even if it’s their own flesh-and-blood family. So… I... said I’d do it. I moved in just after finishing my second spring semester. Spent seven years doing 24/7 care for her. Meds, bathing, diapers, the whole bit. She got social security checks in the mail and a veterans check because of grandpa, and I used them to pay the bills and feed us both. Buy her meds and stuff. The aunts and uncles would come over sometimes but... not for very long. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes. Then they’d be gone again for months.

“It was about… oh… maybe... Year 5 of just the two of us, barely any visitors ever, when Grandma met with the people managing her trust and included in her will a laughably low sale price for the house contingent upon her passing and first right of refusal for me. It was still more than I could really, actually afford, but… in today’s market? I couldn’t pass it up. I’d be the world’s biggest idiot to let that offer slip through my fingers, no matter how hard it was going to be to make it work.

“So, here I am. A decade behind all my peers. Just barely finishing my degree. Working 2 jobs that I get paid for and one that I don’t. I love Science Saturdays and it looked amazing on my resume, but doing a whole job for free really sucks while trying to maintain a scholarship. I’m glad it’s over and I’m finally a graduate. I thought about still doing it through the summer but... nah. I think that chapter of my life is done.”

“wait… you don’t get paid for that?”

“Nope. I don’t. 100% volunteer hours. Which… again, great resume builder. Great for getting experience with coordinating and managing and such. Great for building connections and networking and the like. No dinero, though. Nothin’ but pictures where my money used to be. The real money maker is the waitressing gig, but that comes and goes too. Did you know that most restaurants pay about $2 an hour and whatever you make in tips has to be reported to the IRS so you can get a year’s worth of taxes all billed at once on April 15th?”

“that’s messed up.”

“It is, but on the bright side I’ve gotten SO responsible with money. Budget game off the charts. Color-coded Excel spreadsheets and everything. Quicken could never.” He chuckled softly, but you could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Putting puzzle pieces together. Connecting dots. You braced for the inevitable pity or sympathy or whatever aww-that’s-so-sad sentiment might come out of him next.

“what keeps you going?”

You blinked at the Milky Way, surprised. It took a minute of thought, but eventually you said, “Spite.” He barked a laugh and you snickered along with him. “No, but really. Hope, probably. It’s just… got to get better. I don’t want to live like this forever. It has to end. Or… change, I guess. Not end. Gotta beat grandma’s record. I want… friends. TIME. Room to breathe. I want to take a fencing class. I want to learn another language. I want to paint again. I want to go dancing with friends and bake them cookies and have dumb inside jokes. I don’t want to be lonely until I die. There’s so much out there to see and do and learn and experience and I’m stuck with my nose to the grindstone and it’s got to mean something. I’m just holding onto that with a white-knuckled grip until my fingers bleed. The hope that it gets better. And if it won’t get better on its own then damn it, I’m going to make it get better.”

Sans shook his head. “perseverance.”

“Heh. Yeah. Funny how that works out. But that does leave me with some questions, though.”

“oh?”

He turned more fully to you, propping himself up on his elbow, and you matched his pose with a mischievous sparkle in your eye. “Absolutely. I mean, you use blue magic, right? Like a bright, sky-blue?”

“cyan.”

“Right, right,” you nodded. “I can’t quite remember what that one is though. Cyan stands for ‘cute,’ right?”

The glowing blush that erupted over his zygomatic arches was, indeed, cyan. And you waggled your eyebrows at his sputtering. “Yep. Definitely stands for cute.”

Sans laughed and rolled onto his back, ducking into the hood of his jacket to hide his embarrassment. “patience, actually.”

“Oh?” You chased after him, leaning over him and bracing an arm on the other side of his ribcage so you could grin down at his furious blush. “You know Pap would tell you patience is just a fancy word for laziness.”

Sans snickered, the blush fading a little now that you’d had the good grace to turn the conversation to safer topics. “probably. even if...”

“...if nothing could be further from the truth,” you answered along with him, matching his cadence, your eyebrows pinching together in confusion as the words sprang unbidden from your throat. A flash of a frown passed over Sans’ face, his eye lights constricting, but he shrugged it off after a moment of tension.

“guess we know I’ve said that before.”

“Or I have,” you offered, but he shook his head.

“nah. i've said it a few times. thought it a few times. that's a ‘me’ thing.”

You tilted your head to the side and tucked a few fingers into the mitten still holding onto the edge of his hood. You wanted to make sure he could feel your sincerity. “I believe it, too. You work really hard. I don’t know why you let Pap call you lazy all the time.”

Sans’ smile grew soft and fond, and his eye lights fuzzed at the edges. He held your eye for a moment longer before turning to the grand display overhead. “he’s not wrong. usually. he knows when i need a good pick-me-up. not that i'm very heavy. he's the best. i can see why you like him.”

You caught something unsaid in his comment. Well, a few things. Sans never had been very forthcoming with any kind of details about his mental or emotional health, so the pick-me-up comment and the deflecting joke about his weight was probably the closest you'd ever get to him admitting that he struggled with either of those things. But there’s some additional deflection and redirection in there too that makes you want to pin him down and hold his face in your hands and press your feelings for him directly into his soul so he knew, unequivocally, that he was important too. That it isn’t and never will be a competition. That you loved him, that you trusted him, that...

“I like you both,” you clarified instead, and the soft blush across his zygomatic arches returned. “I think you both are great, in your own ways. You’re... a pair. A matched set.”

Sans’ eye lights drifted back to meet your eyes, his expression shifting in the dark. There was something searching and vulnerable in it, so you continued. “You don’t have one without the other. Unless you want to be. But you’re both better when you’re together. You... complete each other. Even if you do drive each other crazy. Humans have a phrase... two sides to the same coin. You’re kindof like that.”

Sans huffed a little laugh and his head rolled into your joined hands. Acting on a whim, you slipped your fingers out of his grip and traced your fingers over his blush until you were cupping his cheek in your palm. Your thumb brushed over the pearlescent pseudo-bone, or whatever bone-like structure his magic was made out of, and he nuzzled into your hand with a sigh.

“Tell me about Patience magic? I want to know more about you.” Sans’ expression was impossibly soft already, but somehow he melted even more into the blanket nest at your prompt.

“heh. uh. alright." He wiggled a little to get comfortable, hands pillowing behind his head. “well. uh. you've probably figured this out, but the soul traits don’t totally match with the modern use of the word. meanings change over time. so patience magic is mostly about opportunity, really. waiting for just the right moment. knowing what the right moment even is.”

You grinned down at him. “Oooooh, so that’s why your comedic timing is so good.”

His lazy wink was so genuine and dazzling, you almost leaned in to kiss the humored crinkle at the corners of his mouth. But you didn’t. “it helps, yeah.”

You rested your head on your shoulder and your smile turned coy. “Is there anything else it helps with?”

His eye lights constricted a fraction, and he traded some of the humor in his smile for intensity. “a few things. opportunities are all over the place, you know. you just gotta know what you’re looking for.”

One of his hands came to rest on the forearm you were using to brace yourself over him. “And what is it that you’re looking for?”

He didn’t answer right away, his eye lights drifting through the endless sea of stars above you with a faraway pensiveness that silently stretched out between you like the blanket of nightfall. “it changes,” he finally murmured. “but i think these days it’s just, uh... the simple life. good friends. bad food. terrible jokes. home. belonging.”

You allowed your hand slide from his cheek down to rest on his ribcage instead, noticing not for the first time just how quiet and still he was without breath or heartbeat. It’s different. But different didn’t have to be negative. Different could be a positive thing too. “Does that mean you don’t feel like you’ve found it yet?”

His eye lights shifted to meet yours, and he winked again after a second of thought. “you don’t ever stop looking for terrible jokes. or bad food. or good friends.”

More unspoken words hiding between the lines. More half-truths and deflection. You’d be a little annoyed with it if you didn’t get the sense that there was something aching terribly in his soul that he was trying desperately to bury. You’d caught little flashes of that cavern in his chest here and there over the past few months of working together about the timeline problem, and you couldn’t help but feel profoundly sad that he’d carried that for so long. It had been years since monsters had come up to the surface. And he was still dealing with it.

So, he could have a little deflection. As a treat.

“I dunno, I think maybe you’ve already learned a lifetime’s worth of terrible jokes,” you teased. And Sans was all too eager to latch onto the ‘out’ you’d offered with both hands.

“no way. a guy can never have too many terrible jokes.”

“Nope. You have too many. How’s anybody supposed to surprise you with a new joke if you already know them all?”

“its not about whether it’s new or not. you can still get a guy with a classic. its about timing, remember? patience?”

Your grin stretched with promises of mischief as your eyes playfully half-lidded. You leaned into his space a little and shifted to cage him in with your arms on either side of him. “You always did like the classics.”

His smile faltered a little as he took in your new position over him and his eye lights constricted a little. “the, uh, kids are calling ‘em ‘vintage’ now.”

You nodded, leaning in a little more. “Vintage, Retro, Nostalgic is another one I’ve heard. I think I like ‘classic’ the best though.”

“yeah?”

“Mm-hmm.” You cupped his cheek again, and a quiet thrill rolled through your core at the way his eye lights were starting to dilate and fuzz at the edges. “Can I show you one of my favorite ‘classics’?”

He nodded, sockets wide with anticipation, and shifted to prop himself up on his elbows. His chin tilted up as you closed the distance between you and... redirected at the last second. The hand on his cheek held him still while you blew an impressively loud and wet raspberry on his smooth forehead and then dissolved into a fit of giggles, which only intensified as you caught the shocked, light-less void of his empty sockets staring back at you. It only took a second or two for his eye lights to blink back into existence, and he sat up as you collapsed on his lap laughing.

“what was that?” You tried to wheeze out an apology, but now Sans was shifting to cage you in with a mischeivous glint to his grin. “that’s it? that’s all you’ve got? oh boy. nobody challenges the legendary fart master like that and gets away with it.”

He sucked in a huge breath and smooshed his face into your neck, making you squeal even before anything had happened. But rather than the wet reverberation of a challenging raspberry, the perfect recreation of a squeaky-toy duck quack sounded. Two of them, actually. It was so startling and unexpected that you collapsed into his lap again, a new peal of laughter ringing out into the night.

“oh. uh. geez. wrong one. hang on. let me try again.”

Another huge breath of air, and this time he mashed his face against your cheek. An old-timey car horn AWOOGA’d and you could feel tears pricking at the corners of your eyes with how hard you were laughing. “well that’s just embarrassing. hold on, i got it this time.”

On and on he went, cycling through an entire soundboard’s worth of cartoon gag noises as he “tried” against a dozen different parts of your body until you had to cry ‘uncle’ for the stitch in your side and the way your ribcage was starting to ache. He watched you catch your breath, sweaty and tear-streaked mess that you were, with such fond adoration that it didn’t take long for you to be the one blushing furiously and wiggling deeper into the blanket nest to try to hide your face once your breathing had returned to normal again.

“hey.” You peeked up at him, face aching from the strain of laughing for 10 minutes straight but helpless against the magnetic pull of his easy smile.

“Hey.”

“i think i got one more in me.” He brushed a few strands of hair off of your forehead with a conspiratorial wink. “i’m pretty sure i’m gonna get it right this time.”

Backlit by a billion blazing stars, none of which could ever compare to the way his warm and bright eye lights glittered in the void of his crinkled eye sockets, how could you ever even think to say no? At your murmured assent, he leaned in one more time. A thin, malleable approximation of lips touched yours. You rose up on your elbows to meet him.

And the softest sound slipped between you. You tilted your head to the side to help guide him further in to the moment, and he met your movement with the tentative touch of his mittened hand against the base of your skull. Just as the ribcage your palm slipped across was new in its cool stillness, the lack of breath cascading over your cheeks worried the back of your mind right at about the juncture where his grip was tugging gently at your hair. You had to peek to make sure everything was alright, which was a bit of a feat to accomplish with how close your faces were pressed together. But his sockets were closed and loose, so far as you could tell, and your eyes slipped closed again at the soft sound of satisfaction that bubbled up from his chest.

You weren’t the only one to have the thought to check, though, and after a moment he pulled away to search your face, his eye lights bright and fuzzy. “your breathing tickles.”

You snickered, leaning in to nuzzle him tenderly. “Distracted much?”

“kinda!” He snickered in return and teasingly pinched your nose. You batted his hand away and pressed a kiss to his teeth.

“You like it.”

He leaned in, chasing after you with a low noise of disappointment when you pulled away. “dunno. might need to try it again.”

You hummed thoughtfully, pressing your forehead to his with a teasing smile. “Need more data before you can determine correlation or causation?”

“a good scientist… something something, c’mere~” It was maybe a little bit hard to kiss you while you were laughing, even with both of his hands cradling your face and pulling you back in to him, but Sans was grinning without complaint too. And you decided, then, that quite possibly your very favorite feeling in the world was the sensation of your smile dancing with his. And you two danced.

And danced.

As do all things, the silent song under the stars eventually faded and you peppered his face with little freckles of kisses before pestering him to set up the telescope. He told you the story of how he used to prank people underground with it while he pulled it out of its box and set it up, and he told you about the wishing stones he used to point it towards while finding something to point it towards in the new expanse of endless sky.

He actually whooped with excitement when he found Saturn, and the two of you spent nearly an hour taking turns looking at it through his telescope and talking about what you could see. What you couldn’t see. The icy moons and the satellites that had visited it. You had terrible cell reception but you managed to grab some articles from the internet, and you took turns reading them out loud to each other while looking at the planet. Sharing pictures and ideas and theories.

Sans had a blast pointing his telescope in every direction he could for another hour after that, but nothing had been quite as cool or exciting as being able to see Saturn and it’s rings. Flashes of light were beginning to streak across the sky more quickly than they had been in the hours prior. One every 10 minutes or so. And Sans, having satisfied his need for adventure for one night, finally put away the telescope and joined you in the nest again so you could watch for meteors.

You snuggled up to his side and he looped an arm around you, both of you feeling a lot more snuggly in the increasing cool of the midnight hour. His magic was back, now. Inexplicable softness to his form filling out his sleeves and his shirt again, making him extra snuggly to cuddle.

And if, between the flashes of light streaking across the sky, your lips wanted to cuddle too, then who were you to fight the siren song of his cheek and jaw?

Sans giggled as you tickled your way, with feather-light kisses, over his jawline until you met his teeth. He answered your bid for affection with one of his own, gently nuzzling you and pulling you closer so he could do so properly. A contented sigh ghosted over his face and he snorted, shaking his head at the tickling dance of breath rolling over his bones. It was adorable, and endearing, and you took his cheeks in your hands so you could kiss his forehead.

“Sans?”

“mmm?”

You kissed his forehead again, and then pulled away to search his hazy eye lights. “Is this ok?”

“mm?” The crests over his eye sockets knit together in confusion. “uh… yeah? why? ‘s something wrong?”

You nuzzled him again, but resisted the urge to follow it up with a kiss. “You we’re just… weirded out by the whole past-relationship-in-another-time thing. And you freaked out a little when I accidentally did the soul connection thing. I dunno. I just want to make sure this is something you want and not something I’m like… pressuring you into?”

He shook his head and buried his face into your hands further. “nah. it was weird at first. just… uh, nerves, i guess. cold feet. happened kinda fast. but i get it now.”

You tipped your head to the side and waited for him to continue. It took him a moment to think about things, and eventually he added, “it just, uh, was hard to wrap my head around. one day we were on equal footing, then the next it was like a switch flipped. i couldn’t get how you could just suddenly trust somebody so much. much less a guy like me. but the timelines, you know. it makes logical sense, but that still didn’t make it feel right. just, uh, took me a little time. to get it. get how it happened. and why. get how real it was for you. that it wasn’t just a fluke you’d forget too. since you didn’t forget, and since it was… is real for you. i dunno. guess… it started to grow on me. it’s nice. you’re nice. and being with you is nice. and it just keeps being nice. i want to be with you more, no matter if we spend five minutes or five hours together, and i think that means it might be worth giving all this a try. once i got that, then… everything else was just… easy. natural. it’s easy being with you, and i like how it makes me feel.”

You blushed as he spoke and ducked your head a little, but you still kept your hands on his face with a shy smile. When he was finished you touched your lips to his teeth, and sat up.

Touched your fingertips to your sternum.

And then… you pulled.

Sans’ eye lights vanished from his sockets as the intensity of color from your purple soul sucked the color right out of everything else around you. It floated between you, and your hand hovered underneath it instinctively even though it was perfectly happy to float there all by itself.

“You don’t have to. I don’t ever want you to feel pressured to do anything, ever, for any reason. But I trust you with my soul. I have for a while, now.”

Sans’ eye lights dropped to your soul, wide and fuzzy, and he wheezed a little. Coughed. Wheezed again. Then laughed, a boyish smile shyly playing across his face.

“really?”

You nodded, and he carefully slipped his mittens off. His bare phalanges cupped under your soul, and he looked at it with just as much reverence as he’d regarded the stars. His eyes flicked up to meet yours, and you nodded towards your soul to make sure he knew he had your express permission to touch, if he wanted to. His eye lights dropped back down to your soul and his hands inched a little closer, surrounding your soul so closely all it would take is the faintest movement for him to brush the surface.

But after a long moment, he relaxed his grip and his hands fell away. Sans sighed, leaning in but not touching.

“i want to. your soul is breathtaking. i want this. but… i… can’t do the same. it wouldn’t be fair to you. i want this, and i want to try this. us. being an ‘us’ instead of just a ‘you and i.’ but i can’t offer you this. my soul. yet. maybe… maybe ever. it’s… it’s complicated.”

His face scrunched with regret and disappointment, and his expression so vulnerably begged for understanding in the glow of your soul. You really wanted to leap across the space between you and crush him to your chest and pour into him every assurance that you didn’t care if he couldn’t do the same. Yet, or ever. That you still cared about him and loved him and wanted to share yourself with him. All of yourself. And that it was ok if he wasn’t there yet. Maybe… maybe in another time he could be ready. And maybe this was the only time you’d ever get, and that was ok too.

What you actually did was take his hands in yours and cup them around your soul again, but with your grip steady and firm under his phalanges and metacarpals keeping his hands from escaping. His eyes grew wide again as you brought his hands closer to the Purple Heart floating between you, stopping just before touching once again.

“I respect your decision,” you quietly responded. “But I need you to understand that I don’t ask for anything from you because I need it paid back. You don’t owe me anything. You never have, and you never will. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for, but I’m not offering this with my fingers crossed that it’ll somehow change the power balance here. I’m offering because I love you. I’m offering because I want you to know me and know how much I trust you. No other reason. And if that changes your mind, I want you to know that tonight, or any other night, the offer is still open.”

Sans pulled in a shaky breath and let it slowly slide out from between his teeth. His eye lights were so impossibly huge in his sockets, so warm and fuzzy, you were half expecting to see a little moisture collecting in the corners. They slid down to look at your soul again, almost painfully vibrant in the inky night, and he sighed.

“not… not tonight. it hurts, how much i want to. but i wouldn’t feel right about it. maybe… soon, though. i just need to feel less, uh, like it’s going to change things if you can’t hold mine too. that’s just going to take some think time. it’s not you, it’s me. you know?”

You nodded again and gently released your hold on his hands, the pair of them falling away from your soul as it returned to your chest. You tugged him to you as you nestled back into the blankets again, your eyes adjusting to the dark over the next few minutes of comfortable silence. He settled under your arm, and the two of you fell asleep under the flashing streaks of falling stars.

[shealwaysreads]

I posted 2,193 times in 2022

43 posts created (2%)

2,150 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@sitp-recs

@fraddit

@the-starryknight

@hale-of-stiles-heart

@bluebutter-art

I tagged 2,184 of my posts in 2022

#hp - 707 posts

#drarry - 540 posts

#things to read - 282 posts

#art - 242 posts

#drarry fanart - 239 posts

#drarry fic rec - 164 posts

#gorgeous - 122 posts

#captive prince - 83 posts

#poetry and prose - 83 posts

#the writing life - 78 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#the softness this has? the moment of connection and the way they’re resting against each other (trusting and touching!!!!) my heart cant ta

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Righteous

Harry was the one who decided the law wasn’t for him. Not enforcing it and not following it either. 

Draco didn’t mind. Liked it in fact: the wildness, the risk. He liked the waiting and the planning, and he liked the aftermath. Adrenaline-fuelled and animal close. Fierce and blood-stained. Together.

Inspired by @drarrymicrofic’s prompt ‘criminal’

Read all of my microfics here

for @the-starryknight for being so wonderful ✨

112 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

#4

This is a thought that popped up while I was waxing lyrical in tags, but I didn’t want to lose it so here it is again.

Sometimes it strikes me how incredible fic recs are, and what a wonderful insight they give us into the person recommending the story (or list of stories) whether it’s someone reblogging a creator’s post with tags or commentary, or if it’s a special post they’ve made to rec a fic.

There are people I’ve never met whose recs give me this wonderful way of knowing them; of finding out what makes their heart clench, their eyes tear up, their smile to grow.

Recs are an amazing way of finding new things to read, but they are also a remarkable way of getting to know people in such an intimate way through the stories they hold close ❤️

182 notes - Posted January 18, 2022

#3

Helping hands

Sometimes Harry can’t get out of bed. Can’t brush his teeth. Can’t quite bear the weight still pressing down—interminable—on his shoulders.

The world is heavy.

Those days Draco casts gentle cleansing charms. Rests warm hands on Harry’s neck. He ties Harry’s shoelaces for him.

It’s a tender service—unexpected—not-light, but buoyant.

Inspired by @drarrymicrofic’s prompt ‘shoelaces’

Read all of my microfics here

251 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

#2

This is gonna be really random but I am so delighted that you have 30s in your bio. I'm 23 and at that point in my life where I'm entering adulthood and I've thought of my involvement in fandom and how that would change as I journeyed further into adulthood. And most of the time, especially on new platforms like tiktok, it's mostly younger people who are making fan content so it's amazing to see people actively enjoy fandom content as they become full adults. It's very freeing 💜

This was such a lovely ask to receive, I’m so touched and so glad that you reached out! You’ve tapped into a subject I have a Lot of Feelings about, so forgive the incoming ramble ❤️

I have had friends of all ages in fandom over the years, and those friendships have been more important than perhaps I gave them credit for at the time. I’ve been fandom-ing since I was about 14 and its been a hobby that’s brought me huge joy and allowed me to get to know so many lovely humans. They’ve modelled ways of living that I didn’t know about, have generously shared their time and knowledge and expertise and experience, and have been examples of preserving one’s joy amidst the reality of growing up and of living in an adult landscape that can become barren if you don’t intentionally enshrine what’s important to you. (The actual you, the one that lives in your heart.)

The narrative of ‘you’ll grow out of this’ or of setting aside your pleasures as you become an Adult™️ is incredibly pervasive and incredibly damaging. There is even more pressure on young women in particular, and I’ve seen so many instances of ‘oh my god you’re 30 why are you reading fanfic, shouldn’t you be married/mothering/doing your taxes?’ 

It’s easy to get tricked into believing these social strictures are rules that really mean something, but reducing yourself to something prescribed by….who, exactly? (The people and structures that are interested in keeping us small, and bored, and tired, and empty-hearted, and too worn out to argue when they want to take more of our money and eat into more of our precious time here on this precious planet with all of these precious people) It’s a losing game! How much do you think you would need to give up to please the anonymous Life Police who are apparently out to make sure we’re all living the most stripped-back life we can?

If something makes you happy, if it gives you pleasure or comfort or inspiration, then it has a meaningful place in your life. This isn’t hedonism, it is a fundamental basis for a life worth living. 

Fandom is fundamentally about fun—it’s a small word for a big phenomenon, full of community, and friendship, and connection. It’s a folk-space where there is room for everyone, where you can explore the subversive and the comforting all in one blog. It’s where all of us can contribute—making art of all kinds, celebrating each other, inspiring each other, debating each other, stepping out of our daily lives to indulge in the essential, essential, work of imagination and creativity and enjoyment.

Play doesn’t stop being important when you stop being a child, or a teen. We’re human: telling tales and making marks, and sitting together around the fire enjoying it all is in our DNA. Fandom is just another circle of humans joining together to listen to stories and be together.

So. Enjoy being 23, but don’t fear 33, or 53, or 73!

You’ll be yourself; wiser and older, and more well-lived, but you’ll still be yourself. You’ll still laugh, with love, at your childhood and teenage embarrassing moments.

You’ll still remember when that actor did that movie, in that outfit.

You’ll have playlists full of music that brings back summers and parties and heartbreaks, and you’ll still know every lyric of all of those songs.

You’ll have new hobbies, and you’ll have your old hobbies, and maybe you’ll leave them for years at a time but you’ll come back to them unexpectedly and joyfully.

You don’t have to give anything up, not if it still makes you happy!

❤️

260 notes - Posted July 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Flushed

Draco used to be pale.

Before summer’s heat cracked them all open next to the lake.

Before angry words then quiet ones.

Before firewhiskey-loose tongues.

Before laughter, unbelievable laughter.

Before banked embers and heat low in the belly.

Before flushed cheeks, sun-wrought freckles, lips kissed pink, mouth-shaped bruises.

Before Harry.

Inspired by @drarrymicrofic’s prompt ‘pale’

Read all of my microfics here

To @sweet-s0rr0w @the-starryknight @tackytigerfic @maesterchill you all have my entire heart for reminding me I’m still a writer ❤️

303 notes - Posted July 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[emdotcom]

Tumblr staff truly are a wreck.

The way queer people get their stuff flagged faster & more frequently

The NOTEABLE amount of trans people that get filed under nsfw filters, simply for being trans

The porn bots have been a problem for a long, long time. Staff HAS gotten better, in recent years, if users flag such blogs, but the # of non-bot blogs that get flagged or banned vs the number of bots is... Strange, I'll say

Remember when that dude sent me shit fetish gifs & threatened to slit my throats for months & months, & despite me reporting EVERY blog he made (which was over 100, btw, (109, when last I bothered to count)), they wouldn't IP ban them? I remember that. My asks are closed for a reason

Tumblr live. How you have to manually toggle it off once a week. How it steals your data.

Kokobot, which ALSO stole & sold data on folks & flagged them for an algorithm if they had mental disorders

The sheer number of things in the merch store being sold by Tumblr official, despite being made by Tumblr users that see NONE of the revenue that merch gets

The weird thing where they like. Nuked people's accounts for "follow training," despite nobody knowing what in the blue goose that means?

Spending money on random UI & layout changes to look more like Twitter over doing literally anything else is. Hm.

The time they rolled out the post+ to one specific user, without their knowledge or consent, then let them get harassed for it without saying anything while they backpedaled & made no further mention of the thing

That account that was violently nuked for pointing to the fact that a known staff member is a big HP fan & tying that back to all the transphobia in the moderator team

Pick a major blog that also got nuked at a random time. Any of 'em -- there's multiple. But I still see terfs & Nazis & the like, which is cool I guess

The weird coverup of the "do you like chubby white dudes," which in & of itself isn't anything to note, but in conjunction with every single time they nuke people paints the picture of a staff willing to doctor detail & scorch earth to maintain some semblance of reputation

But, hey

I mean. Their budget is failing

So we should all feel bad for them.

& buy the merch.

& buy the ad-free.

& never question when or why they ban people, flag people as nsfw, or straight up LIE to keep looking like a fun, goofy team.

Oh, well.

Support your local Tumblr! Buy the crabs, & the badges & whatnot! Right?

[saintarchie]

Quicksilver

Sometimes being an evil genius means explaining your secret plans to yourself.

Outside Starkfort, the sentries are discussing the surprising news that the war is coming to an end, with the Swordbearers on the losing side. As one might expect, given how lackadaisical they were at the height of the conflict, they still make no attempt to stop us from entering.

Inside, the north staircase that was sealed shut last time we were here is now open, which I wasn’t actually expecting. Even with that option now available, I think it’ll still be west first. This direction was implied to be toxic by the journal diagram, but I suspect that might just mean it’s where Qada lives. Looks just like the east side so far. Oh, save point guy. Might mean there’s a fight coming.

Ah, it is Qada. All right. He’s still ranting to himself about Kamiizumi and his (in Qada’s view) outdated notions of pride and honour. He also suspects Kamiizumi was the one who stole the master sample, and contemplates using some of his own soldiers as test subjects in the development of a new one. Once he has it, he muses, he could go over Kamiizumi’s head and pitch it to the Eternian leadership directly.

Edea doesn’t think the Marshal would go for that, and says so, to Qada’s surprise. As it turns out, for Edea, all the stuff he just said was Fighting Words, and so now it’s Go Time.

Predictably, his opening gambit is a poison attack. A pretty powerful one at that. And he can heal himself. Or not? Oh, it’s a gimmick that heals him automatically every turn. Of course.

...

“Dealt user’s missing HP in damage”

...

What the fuck? That is unbelievably broken. He has 40,000 HP, what the fuck? There doesn’t seem to be any kind of limit on its use either. What the fuck. How the hell do you beat that? That self-healing thing never seems to wear off either. Fuck.

No, this isn’t happening with my current line-up; better reset and put together a party specifically designed to win this fight. Which admittedly is how the game is meant to be played, but this is the first time I’ve had to actually do it. Even with Chaugmar I was ultimately able to get by using the same party I stumbled in with. This guy? Not so much.

[some time later]

Right. Multiple healers, multiple summoners and a hunter/valkyrie hybrid, all of whom are immune to poison. Let’s see him shrug this off. Oh yeah, this is more like it. Still a struggle, but now we’re doing enough damage each turn to offset the healing gimmick. As long as he doesn’t spam that dark breath too much, we should get him eventually.

[eventually]

YES. Got him. Fucking finally.

Qada laments all the experiments that will now go unfinished and then dies rather theatrically. Meanwhile, I get the salve-maker apostrophe, which comes with a new game mechanic, based around combining things to make other things(?) Could be interesting. Anyway, probably best to go heal before trying the north section, so let’s head back out.

And here’s a cutscene. It seems Qada faked his death(!), and is now planning to use this opportunity to flee Starkfort and go AWOL. I know this because he explains this plan to himself, out loud, while still inside the fortress he intends to desert.

This has the expected result, as an unseen observer has overheard him and actually responds, asking if he intends to flee again(?) Qada answers(?) in the affirmative, justifying the act as simply doing what he must to survive. If he survives, he reasons, his fortunes are bound to reverse eventually, especially as he still has his chemical weapons knowledge.

He then goes on to talk, out loud(!), to an unidentified person(!!) about his intention to come back and kill everyone on both sides(!!!) Shockingly, this ends badly for him, when it turns out that the person he was speaking to, here in the Black Blades’ base of operations, about his plan to kill the Black Blades, was one of the Black Blades.

In fact, it’s Kamiizumi, who, having clearly been waiting for an excuse, wastes no time in dispatching Qada, for real this time. And so the moral of the story is “Don’t interrupt faking your own death to discuss your treasonous plans with an unidentified person who has a suspiciously similar voice to your immediate superior.” Which is a bit specific, but undoubtedly sound advice.

[ludaroace]

ok next up on the list are pac and mike who kinda operate in the ashen wolves style sort of thing except in this au the ashen wolves don’t TECHNICALLY exist but they exist in spirit (the spirit is morning crew + mike) . to get a bit of their overall story out of the way - pac was born in fargus and mike was born in the alliance, but due to Reasons (orphan) they were both put under the care of the church and lived at garreg mach from very early childhood. basically, the abyss is officially recognized as by the church as an orphanage/safe haven (most of the eggs are here) and pac and mike use parts of it on the side for less than legal stuff and it still has the same reputation for being for the less savoury people outside of the orphan bit

pac doesn’t have a crest at all - comes from an entirely commoner family in fargus (rowe maybe ? something closer to the adrestian border) and due to the economic situation he was dropped off at the church as a really young kid which is where he met mike . he doesn’t really dislike the church, but he’s suspicious of the fact that they hide so much information from people which leads him into studying reason magic and not wanting to touch faith magic . now, not going to get into spell lists for most people, but pac only knows dark magic spells because he is not traditionally and does not get traditionally trained in reason, only using the knowledge that is in the abyss library and whatever he comes up with on the fly . also not something i am going to bring up for everyone (yet) but i’m seeing his end class being trickster + levin sword or bow knight + magic bow because i'm making the decision that non-magic classes can still use magic so he gets his dark magic in whatever class he choses .

mike doesn’t know he has the crest of noa . nuvelle fell a LOT longer ago than in the canon of 3h so not only is it’s existence not really known because of that + it being disguised as other crests usually . what happened with mike is that he is far far far descended from noa but is entirely unaware of it (because his family has been in goneril for generations and the blood has been diluted) and it doesn’t really affect his day to day life to where he would be like hmmm maybe i have an undocumented crest . at some point later down the line, he’s fucking around with some people and finds the scroll of talos and against everyone’s better judgement he tries to use it (not the first time him and pac messed around with sacred weapons) and oh shit why did it start glowing . my au my rules and even though in the games anyone can use a sacred weapon but only crest bearers can use a relic without suffering consequences, but here the same applies to sacred weapons just to a lesser extent - they won’t get turned into a beast but they certainly will have a Bad Time . 

and for the specific notes:

pac

no crest

personal skill: countercurse (If foe initiates combat, counters an enemy's magic attack for half damage)

boons: swords, reason, bows, riding

banes: lances, faith

budding talent: brawling

mike

minor crest of noa (not strong enough to give him any of the effects tho)

personal skill: pyrotechnics (If user's HP ≤ 50% and user initiates combat, user and all enemies within a two-tile radius take 20% of their maximum HP as damage after combat)

boons: reason, faith, swords

banes: authority, lances, heavy armour

budding talent: brawling

[igarbagecannoteven]

👀🧠-♥️

hi annie!! thanks so much for stopping by i hope you're doing well 💙

👀: okay so neither of these are 5sos fics but i'll give two different vibes to keep things interesting :)) first off we've got Slitherdale by JombleBoingus which bella read to me out loud after we finished the final season of riverdale and it made me laugh so hard i was actually gasping for air! you don't need any knowledge of riverdale in order to enjoy it so. yeah sdkfjlskdjfljd You're On Your Own, Kid by ohmygodshesinsane which is a heartbreaking marauders-era character study of marlene mckinnon that' just. ohhhh my gosh so heartbreaking and so good and really struck a cord with me in how it talks about relationships and i just. i don't even usually read marauders-era stuff (or much hp fic in general) but this was very well done.

🧠: okay i don't know how long a ramble this is going to be but i am currently entrapped by the television show of all time, aka riverdale and i'm just sorta gonna word vomit about it a little bit so um. yeah you are under no obligation to read this. putting it under a cut bc. yeah. i'm crazy i'm a crazy person do you see me writing my own speech patterns into tumblr posts that's crazy sdkljflkdjs

OKAY so currently thinking about how jughead claims that he and veronica are supposed to be foils to archie and betty which like, on one hand kinda, but on the other hand not really i feel like they're more, not foils exactly but two sides of the same coin but different? i'm missing a word but whatever that is for each other. while archie and betty are both solidly middle class, jughead and veronica are on the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum, with veronica being pretty wealthy and jughead being from the "wrong side of the tracks". jughead is homeless in season one (and seems to have been living that way for a while) while veronica has just been "displaced" since most of her family's wealth has been seized since her father was arrested for embezzlement. in season one she tries to comfort ethel, whose parents are worried they're going to lose their house due to money troubles, by saying that she knows what it's like to lose a home even though the conversation is taking place in the dining area of her penthouse/fancy apartment. she does kinda try to relate to jughead this way as well but not as explicitly (possibly bc she knows he'll call bullshit) HOWEVER despite the fact that it seems like veronica and jughead's living situations couldn't be more different, in the final season (spoiler alert) veronica gets locked out of her parent's flat and is forced to live in the movie theater where she works just like how jughead lived at the drive- movie theater *he* worked at in the very first episode!!! (obvs there are still key differences since veronica owns the movie theater but my point still stands) continuing to compare s7 veronica with episode 1 jughead, while in the beginning jughead's parents were the absent ones with his mother and sister in another state and his dad an alcoholic gang member, in s7 veronica's parents are now absent as they've sent her to riverdale to live by herself despite the fact that's only fifteen or sixteen. they've both been put in positions where the adults in their life expect them to be fully self-sufficient while still in high school and don't even bother to check in regularly to make sure they're actually doing okay. then there's their belief that their respective besties are much better, more perfect people than they are, despite the really obvious signs that they aren't perfect (archie's vigilante complex, "dark betty", etc) but there's the difference in how they handle those feelings, with jughead mythologizing archie to the point that he warps reality around this fact while continuing to view himself as an outsider in archie's life, while meanwhile veronica spends much of season 1 trying to deserve to be betty's friend by becoming a better person and eventually (spoiler alert) falls in love with her in s7 and AAAAAAA there are so many more parallels and/or juxtapositions btwn these two but i'm gonna shut up now thank you for your time.

[lyssafreyguy]

i have thoughts about YIIK. nothing crazy deep it's just that i'm almost 13 hours in now at chapter 3 level 21 and i've been spending this whole time ragging on the game? deservedly so? but i also have some positive and mixed opinions towards it too and i wanna write them down in no particular order! (full transparency: i'm playing vers 1.25, with assist mode on so i can use the game's slow down mechanic whenever i want in battles, i have the sort of elemental weakness/resist system added in 1.25 turned off, and i'm sure some of the things i have to say will have to do with whether or not YIIK had the proper funds and time to achieve what i think could be done better but i have no knowledge on how that shit works. what do you want from me.)

i like the sort of low polygon/flat textures plastered on lumpy geometry/choppy frame rate style of the game's overall aesthetic and the character art for the different talk sprites is generally pretty well done (could've maybe used less gradient tool tho)

going off of that tho: the game's start menu has a references page that lists media that YIIK might either directly reference, make homages to, or have been at the very least inspired by and while that's nice and makes sense with the game's pseudo-retro feel i have this feeling that there wasn't that deep of an understanding about what makes of the media they listed like. good? and impactful? it just feels kinda surface level.

the music is also pretty alright! like i said i'm only at chapter 3 (so i've been to Flag Town and met up with Claudio and Chondra) but so far i haven't really heard a piece that i didn't at least passively enjoy (fun fact: there's different battle themes and one of them is done by Toby Fox! i've known about YIIK for a couple of years now but didn't actually know this until recently and i'm delighted to report that you hear it and go "oh yea that's Toby.")

voice acting is alright. it's passable. no particular character that i felt so far has been way better than all the others. like i said before tho sound mixing and levels and mic quality vary between characters and sometimes even between lines of dialogue? also Alex's internal dialogue (infamously) goes on longer than it needs to be a good chunk of the time considering this is an RPG and not a visual novel but also there would be pauses of up to like 5 seconds between lines on autoplay?? and it felt like the most awkward pause ever??? i haven't noticed that happening since chapter 1 ended tho so who fucking knows. i'm playing a pirated copy who gives a shit i guess. (on the Alex Doesn't Know How to Shut the Fuck Up point: this version of the game gives you an option at the beginning to play the game with reduced monologue but the original cut option is described as "ideal for those seeking a deeper understanding of the storyline" so like. FUCK your players who don't wanna hear Alex whack his own dick I GUESS.)

there've been a few lines of dialogue so far where i hear them and go "what was the fucking point of you saying that?"- same goes for some sections of player interaction (Alex talking amongst multiples of himself in his head after certain cutscenes not just being an automated event being the biggest thorn in my side)

i LOVE Rory being a tank character. his default pacifism "attack" making him a human shield along with his skill that lets him swap his HP and SP for when his health gets too low while defending the party is genuinely such a good combo. i'm looking at the vers 1.25 announcement made on steam and this is apparently a result of them improving Rory's "usefulness in battle" so you know what? good on the developers. i gotta tentatively give it to em on that one.

i don't mind everything in battles (from melee to skills to dodging) being QTEs but i don't like that there's never a window of time or a tutorial when you first go about using them so that you can get a feel for how they work ESPECIALLY for skills that require you to hit multiple buttons/sections and ESPECIALLY at the very beginning of the game. i think the game could've also benefited by having some accessibility settings.

speaking of i like that there's 2 separate QTE minigames for dodging - for attacks to only target one character and for attacks that target multiple characters - but in my experience the former is a lot hard to get a full on dodge rather than a defense buff without the slow down mechanic and i honestly don't know how to feel about it. like i'm sure that some players out there have a much harder time with the former or have an equally hard time with both but. still.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

YouTube, UBI, Helpful Works

Most people who find a YouTube guide for playing FFXIV's jobs will point to one of two places:

For an extremely surface-level entry point, they'll have a look at JoCat's "Crap Guides to Final Fantasy" which belie their titles by having little nuggets of wisdom nestled in all the comedy. However, they mostly give you a sense of a FFXIV job's vibe - Black Mage is *insert heavy metal soundtrack while watching explosions* - but don't really tell you how to play it.

For a guide that tells you - really tells you - how the job works, you go to one of WeskAlber's guides. They are amazing. Each one includes use-cases for the skills and abilities, like explaining that while the power of Essential Dignity scales with how low the target's hp is, its cooldown is short enough that if big damage isn't already coming out you don't need to save it; that by not treating your powers as "panic buttons" you can avoid "panic" situations altogether.

And like that sentence, they get into little tidbits that can teach a player a better mindset for approaching the game, not merely the "Press the attack button that's glowing for bonus damage."

WeskAlber's guides are, in my opinion, the definitive guides.

And WeskAlber is going on indefinite hiatus. Because nobody cares about the rest of his content, and YouTube doesn't reward people for being repositories of valuable stable knowledge.

This is one of those cases where I really wish there were a Universal Basic Income in this country. This guy made something useful to tens of thousands of people. And he's in a terrible place because YouTube, as a machine, puts the people who produce the content it operates on into a terrible place.

This is the kind of situation I think of when people argue that "people who get a handout just won't work." We often don't know which of our works will be valuable to others. And we shouldn't be forced to abandon works that will be useful or artistic due to them being insufficiently profitable. What we find, over and over, is that "being useful" or "being artistic" can sometimes increase the odds that your work will be profitable. But there are other factors that have nothing to do with whether the work is any good, and when we force people to work for profit those other factors become, by necessity, the things people value.

The word "hate" literally improves engagement metrics more than the word "love" in written reviews of media. That's not a fact that we should be making our writing decisions around, you know? But if "everyone's gotta make a living" then we kind of have to.

[grifstromldt]

Blog Post #2 - Speaker Reflection

Antonio Cortes works as a managing director for Nonprofit HR. Nonprofit HR is a consulting agency that works with nonprofit organizations. He leads the practice area of Equity Diversity Inclusion and Justice (EDIJ). After taking a deeper look specifically he looks at oversights, unique issues, and strategy development all related to EDJI in organizations. A connection and interesting point made between the presentation and what we have even learning brought me back to our textbook. Dr. Cortes almost directly quoted our textbook when in the text it discussed how ,“Training as a single solution is almost never sufficient to achieve workplace performance.”. (Stolovitch90). He talked about how some companies expect the initial training materials and meetings to be the only and final solution which is hardly ever the case for most companies he works with. Another interesting point he made, that I will use in the future, is that when an engagement “goes south” he relates back to data and facts. I felt this is a great way to continue the conversation and ending any kind of uncomfortable situation. 

One part of the presentation his discussion on power distance. I have worked very different jobs in my life. There have been jobs with a low power distance, similar to how he discussed, where it is acceptable to challenge a higher authority. I have also worked the other end of a job with a high power distance. Dr. Cortes gave me the perspective that in the ID and HP industry that having a low power distance is needed. I was surprised at the nonprofits that hired staff to DEI roles with no training or any knowledge going into the position. He described it as just filling the role and not really knowing what to do. I feel that because HP and ID jobs can be extremely different from other positions at that company, it seems very irresponsible.