#the red flags were apparent from the start honestly

[writingouthere]

singlemom!reader x neighbor!sukuna. you miss having a baby and Sukuna is dying from a combination of your sexual tension, his lowkey(highkey) baby fever and the drudgery of attending a child's birthday party

cw: Sukuna's breeding kink, red flags are present and accounted for, no one gets laid tho so sad face. this actually ended up being way more sincere and heartfelt than I intended but honestly very typical of me

"Oh we're not together, Sukuna's just been letting me and Bug crash while we look for an apartment."

"Oh he's not my boyfriend, we're just friends!"

"He's actually not Bug's dad. No, no. But, they get along really well. She enjoys having someone else to hang out with aside from me, I think."

Your laughter after the last one plays on repeat as he goes to grab the two of you some refreshments. Sukuna feels like he's living the world's worst version of groundhog day, except instead of being some sad loser who relives the same day over and over, he's apparently a sad loser who is going to live the same conversation over and over again.

"Fuck this shit."

"Um, excuse me but could you watch your language. This is a kid's birthday party." Sukuna wants to ask the bitch who is correcting a grown man's language if he would mind watching his own fucking business but you seem to care about what these losers think and he won't make life difficult for you.

If he happens to step on the guy's foot as he leaves with two cups and a juice box caught in his elbow, well, his steel toed boots need the exercise.

Sukuna knew that if any of his acquaintances, he didn't have friends after all, could see him now, they would die laughing. Die ,because he would kill them for laughing, but fuck he couldn't even really blame them, even in his hypothetical.

Once upon a time, Sukuna was a feared criminal. People pissed themselves when he cornered them in a dark alley. Other bad guys would look at him and say, "wow that guy's a real piece of shit" and now look at him. Stuck at some three year old's birthday party. One more kidzpop butchering of an already shitty song away from committing another felony.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he knew he was at least getting some pussy out of it, but he had just spent the past two hours hearing you deny him to anyone who asked and it was really starting to get to him.

He knew he was being a little bitch about it, and he wasn't upset just because you weren't fucking him. He was upset that all the things you were telling people, they were technically true. He was just letting you and your daughter crash. He was just your friend, not your boyfriend. Even the comments about him not being Bug's dad, but him being positioned as some kind of really invested babysitter, those might have stung more than the ones about your relationship but you thought that was true too.

Thinking about the kid made him look for her, not that Sukuna ever wasn't aware of where you and your daughter were. It had become instinct before he was even aware of it.

Bug was laughing with some kids he recognized from daycare and others from their regular trips to the park. Her happiness was contagious and Sukuna found his lips twitching up at the ends despite his shitty mood.

Your daughter's eyes found him from across the playground. "kuna!" she called, waving her little hand at him. He waved back with his available hand and made his way towards her. She met him halfway, her little legs unsteady on the wood chips but she didn't seem to notice. She was always like that when she saw him, she ran fearlessly. Maybe she just trusted he'd catch her.

Was it so wrong of him that he didn't like the reminders she wasn't his. That it stung, not just because of his feelings but because it just couldn't be true. He might not have fathered her, but fuck anyone who said this little girl wasn't his.

"I got you a juice, you've been running around so much you gotta be thirsty."

"Not thirsty," Bug argued leaning into him. He held up his hands that were holding the grown up drinks for the two of you, and moved the package still lodged in the crease of his elbow towards the petulant toddler. "Take it, or I'll drink it."

Bug stuck her tongue out at him and grabbed it. She struggled to get the wrapping off the straw and Sukuna didn't even notice what he was doing until she had the straw stretched out towards him and he was pulling the wrapper off with his teeth. He spit it out on the ground as your daughter gave him a polite thank-you and then walked away, sipping her juice as she went to catch up with her friends.

What had become of him?

"Need a hand?" You smile at him and Sukuna hands over your cup before taking a sip of his own. There was unfortunately no alcohol in it but drinking it occupied his mouth before he acted like a pussy and asked you, "what are we?" or "should we get married?" or something equally as pathetic.

"God, I want a baby."

Sukuna almost spit out his drink but he manages to tone it down to just a little cough before turning to look at you. You don't even seem a little embarrassed which is just infuriating. Sukuna's about to make a suggestion on how he can help with that when you sigh and point to where some loser is holding their ugly baby.

"Aren't babies just the cutest, I miss when Bug was that age."

Oh, so this was just you looking at other people's red-faced brats and feeling nostalgic and was not in fact a call to action. Sukuna rolled his eyes and leaned back on the hand closest to you so he didn't touch you as he was so tempted to do these days.

"That baby, like all babies, is hideous. All they do is cry, shit themselves and vomit and I'm not even sure Bug is the exception to that and she's the best kid there is."

You look touched at his affection for your daughter but also fired up on behalf of babies everywhere.

"You can't just say a baby is hideous, Sukuna. Those are the Zenin's. Bug is friends with some of them."

"Well are the older ones cuter, because that baby looks like someone fucked one of those hairless cats."

"Sukuna!" you hiss but he sees you smile, despite yourself. "Okay, maybe that baby isn't like the cutest baby-"

"Hideous."

You continue after smacking his arm. "But Bug was cute, okay. And I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom." You take out your phone and quickly swipe until you get to what you're looking for. "See, cute baby."

Sukuna grabs your phone and looks. It's not the first picture he's seen of a young Bug and he's taken his share of photos of her himself, but he finds himself taken in by it anyway.

It has to be a picture from when Bug was really young, she still had the scrunched up, red face that he associates with newborns. But he thinks you're right, she's still cute. He doesn't know if it's because he knows that baby will grow up to be your daughter, but he finds his thumb caressing her little baby cheeks, the wisps of hair he can see peaking out from where she's wrapped in a baby blanket. It's then he sees she's not alone in the picture and there's a different version of you holding her.

The thing that stands out to him is how tired you look. He thinks this couldn't have been too long after you gave birth but still, he wondered if you'd gotten any rest those first few months. You still didn't like talking about your ex, or the circumstances that had led you to his apartment, but Sukuna knew that chances are you were taking care of Bug single handedly and that couldn't have been easy, cutest kid or not.

"She was beautiful, she still is." He reluctantly hands the phone back to you and you look at the picture again, tears building up in your eyes.

"She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I-I wish that the circumstances were different in how I got her. Sometimes, I wonder how I'll explain everything to her when she's older. She just deserves so much better than him, you know?"

"You both do." Sukuna reaches over and brushes away one of the tears that had managed to fall down your cheek. He leaves his hand there a moment, holding your cheek in his palm, just appreciating the warmth.

"Do you want any?"

"What?" Sukuna isn't sure what you're talking about anymore. He can only see your lips right in front of him, the way that your eyelashes brush against your cheek as you blink faster and faster.

"Babies, do you want any?"

Something short circuits in Sukuna's brain and he wants to say, fuck yes.

He wants to tell you that he thinks about it every day. Every time you put Bug on your hip or send him youtube videos of hairstyles you want to try on her. Whenever it's late at night, and little feet pad out of your room and Bug asks him in the loudest whisper he's ever heard, if he can get her some water because she's so thirsty.

He thinks about it when the sun streams through the curtains of his apartment in the morning and it lights up your hair as you move throughout the kitchen, a force of nature, a creature from somewhere far too good to have ended up here with him.

He thinks about it when the three of you go out and people just assume you're a family, because of course you're a family. When you and Bug play some made up game, or Bug gets tired even though she denies it and he carries her sleeping form against his chest. When he holds her in his lap on the subway and you lean to rest your head on his shoulder and he feels like this, this is what he's always wanted.

He's not all pure and good though, because he thinks about it late at night in his bedroom too. After a day of your smiles, of seeing your thighs stretch out of those sleep shorts you started wearing when the weather warmed up, whenever he remembers the feel and smell of your panties when he's lucky enough to find a pair in the laundry basket, he thinks about how the two of you would make some really cute fucking babies.

He's imagined it a million ways. He's imagined you telling him you've gone off your birth control and you need him now after he takes you out on an anniversary dinner. Or him crowding you up against the kitchen counter and you begging him to put a baby in you.

His favorite fantasy is currently one where you get so carried away when you finally finally fuck that you don't ask him to wear a condom and he spends the whole night making sure you're nice and good and full of him and when you tell him a few weeks later you missed your period, he'll let you freak out. But then he'll tell you that he'll take good care of you, and Bug, and your soon to be little one and he'll finally have you, all of you and once you have your second, he'll knock you up again, as many times as he can because there could never be too many mini-you's running around.

At this point, Sukuna remembers he's talking to you, the real you and he swallows a few times before he speaks.

"I do," he says simply but something must show on his face because you're looking at him in a way you never have before. He hears your breath hitch and he leans in to kiss you, and you smell so good and his thoughts are consumed by the little family he just knows you're going to have when suddenly he's pelted by a variety of sharp, little objects.

Sukuna immediately holds up his arm to shield you from what he now sees is a barrage of wood chips which are being thrown at you by an army of toddlers, including your daughter.

You immediately get up and start talking to the kids about the danger of throwing what are basically large future splinters at people's faces and Sukuna is contemplating the murder of every child that isn't his own when you turn to look at him.

You're not just looking at him, you're seeing him and oh. Maybe he would be getting laid tonight, after all.

The slow burn is almost done folks.

thank you to the amazing reception to this series and the one-shot I posted(which there will be a prequel of soon!). it's literally so insane. Masterlist will be up tomorrow which I hope helps with accessibility!

edit: masterlist is up!

[idesofrevolution]

Father

Dad had been acting strange for quite some time. Honestly, it wasn't that noticeable in the beginning, which I suppose made it difficult to pinpoint when things started to change. I only started to notice maybe seven months or so ago after he turned down the daily Budweiser. Patrick O'Shaughnessy turning down his biggest vice? I knew something was off right then and there as he sat there, smiling at me from his armchair with the game on in the background: red flag number two, my stepfather had NEVER been a sports guy. Binging Fox News while fingering pudding cups, sure; but actually knowing what was happening in a football game?

I'd originally thought he'd perhaps found a side girl to cheat on my mom with. It was far from outside of his character to do something like that, if he'd ever be able to get his nasty ass out of the recliner for ten fucking minutes... He'd gotten too comfortable in his laziness. When my mom married him a year ago, he was already a piece of shit lardass who refused to do a single thing around the house, refused to work a normal job (he was waiting for a management position apparently), and above all refused to acknowledge me whatsoever. He was rude, crass, could never even so much as break a smile at me. And there, in that moment as his eyes made contact with mine and his lips curled into a smile, I knew something was wrong.

"What, no beer burps for me today?" I scowled at him, raising my eyebrow in a malicious curiosity.

"Nahh little man, I'm trying to cut down." Little man? He'd never gotten my name right let alone given me a nickname... We did not have that kind of relationship, at least one that would have an affectionate nickname for one another. "Say, I'm hittin' the gym in a couple minutes. Whaddya say you come along?"

"You're... you're going to the gym? Really?" I sat there slackjawed. Something was indeed off. What it was, I couldn't exactly tell. Nothing outside of his UberEats order would ever get Patrick out of the chair. He laughed at me, gripping his sizeable paunch beneath his stained tee shirt.

"You bet, bud. High time I set an example for my boy. How's he gonna respect a couch potato loser? You should come along. Nothin' like a father and son spending time together, especially in the gym. Get the boys lookin', right?" He stood up from his chair, grabbing his keys off the kitchen countertop as he headed toward his car. I, on the other hand, stood there with tunnel vision. Patrick was not the most supportive parent when it came to... well, anything. But the biggest bone of contention was me coming out to them last year. It was the biggest hullabaloo, Oscar worthy. Thrown glasses, flipped chairs, disownment, threats of eviction... the only thing that kept me in the house was my mother putting her foot down. It wasn't a big deal for her, but for him... I was the biggest embarrassment on the planet. What would Tucker Carlson think?

Yet as I stood there, staring at the cigarette-stained wall, my brain couldn't process what I'd just heard. 'Get the boys lookin' he said... As if he were trying to play wing man for me... What the fuck was happening? My heart fluttered the moment his words sank in, that was pride. It was something neither my father nor my stepdad ever had the courtesy of giving me. My walls were up, and I was beyond skeptical, so for my own peace of mind I had decided then and there to investigate.

From that day on, the moment I came home from school, I was spying. While most of my friends were trying to enjoy their senior year, going to parties or getting ready for college, I was at home peering behind corners at my stepfather. Over the first few months I watched with complete disbelief at the changes. Every single day, I'd come home, and he'd be on his way out to the gym. The normal scowl he'd gift me upon my entry was replaced with jovial smiles and hair ruffling as he schlepped his gym bag over his shoulder out the door. He'd be gone for two or three hours at least, and come home just before dinner dripping in buckets of sweat. I'd begun to avoid driving his car, as the stink of his sweat had completely inundated the fabric of the seats. He'd toss his bag on the floor by my book bag (gross), and plop down at the dinner table where he would ask genuinely about my day or sweetly flirt with my mom while winking at me. I still wasn't convinced. He kept asking me nearly every day if I'd come to the gym with him, if we could go shoot hoops at the park across the street, or if I'd play FIFA with him. Each time I'd shoot him down, he'd have a momentary break in that happy facade of his, as if it were hurting him I wasn't spending time with him.

Within five months or so, he was nearly unrecognizable. I guess protein shakes & a low carb diet really works on a guy: he'd lost nearly 70 pounds and gained about 20 in muscle alone. He'd struck up friendships with my school's wrestling coach and a couple of the neighbors, and we were finding ourselves invited to barbecues and block parties for the first time. I had to endure little hallway chats with Coach Weston about joining the wrestling team, as he was in talks with the school district about bringing my stepdad on as assistant coach. It was bizarre to me for many reasons, but one stood out above all: Patrick was never a wrestler. Not in college, not in high school, my mom even confirmed it one night at dinner. He'd brush it off as if it were something fun he were doing with 'Dane', which in and of itself was weird to hear the coach's first name used at all at home.

Sleep was getting difficult. My mind ran at a thousand miles an hour, but now he and mom had begun to fuck like rabbits. Loud, hard sex almost every other night with their bed slamming against my bedroom wall for hours. Mom of course was radiant at that point. The years of one piece of shit husband being a complete and total asshole, replaced by another piece of shit husband treating her like garbage melted away in the course of a couple of months of Patrick being a strangely brilliant partner. He'd started to cook us meals, he'd started to do the yardwork, he'd even fixed things around the house that had been broken for years. Sure, the sex seemed to help, but as she would say: "He's lessened my load so much, Jonas. I wish you'd give him a chance."

Sure, he was treating my mom well and that was a good enough reason for me to like him. Was it enough to trust him? No. I'd still turn down every single request to spend time alone with him. No gym. No basketball court. No gaming. Though, in one single concession for my mom's sake, I begrudgingly agreed to let him drive me to school in the morning. That one decision is what truly changed my life forever. I went to bed that night, putting on my earbuds to drown out their disgusting sex in the next room, less than eager for the fifteen minute drive the next day.

Thus, on that warm April day, my morning began as normal. Shower, dress, drink my morning smoothie, grab my bag, and walk out the door. It wasn't long before I was greeted by his chipper, dim witted voice shattering my peaceful morning.

"Ayy little man!" I sighed, turning toward the garage, where there he stood: shirtless and dripping sweat from his chiseled body. As a gay guy, I have to admit, it was hard not to stare. He had become quite a sight to behold. The other moms in the neighborhood certainly would sit and stare at him on his morning runs, even a couple of the dads as well, and now I sat there oogling the ripped, gleaming body he'd built.

"Hey, Patrick. Do you need to shower? I have to get going, but I can catch the bus if there's not enough time?" In my head, I was praying to God that he'd just hop in the shower he never seemed to take and I could go on my merry way. Though, no such luck.

"Nah, man! It's all good. I promised you I'd take you to school, so hop in the car!" I sighed, turning to his 1998 Mustang with a shiver cascading down my spine.

"Sure, Patrick." I dragged my feet headed toward his car. Opening the door, the humid, musky air within poured out of the car, punching me in the face with his scent. Imagine a noxious waft of butter, blue cheese, saltwater, and feet just drowning you. That was the stink that swamped his car, and him for that matter. I took one final breath of fresh air before I sat in the car and closed the door. He wasn't far behind, not even bothering to put a shirt on as he hopped in beside me.

"Alright! Let's get goin' bud!" He turned the key and the car roared to life. I sighed, thankful it was only fifteen minutes. As we pulled out of the driveway and onto the street, I turned on the radio, hoping to dissuade him from making some puerile small talk. We sat there in silence for a moment, before hitting the main road. "You know what, bud?" He turned to me, looking me up and down before rolling up the windows and turning off the radio. "Ahhh fuck it. We're playing hooky today."

"Wait, what?" I had no time to protest, before he turned onto the main road, but in the opposite direction from the school. "Patrick, I'm not playing hooky. I have to go to school." He laughed, ruffling my hair yet again.

"You gotta stop callin' me Patrick, Jonas. I don't have to be dad if you don't want, but Patrick is so... not me. Just call me Pat."

"Okay, PAT. I'm going to school." He turned to me, and his smile faded, letting out a solid sigh that would put mine to shame. He pulled over onto the shoulder, and put the car in park.

"Listen. I know you don't like me. I know you don't trust me, and I get it. I made a lot of changes to him very quickly, and it's hard to keep up." Him? Why did he say it like that? "I'd been watching you just suffer endlessly for years, man. All the time. I just wanted you to have a good role model for once. A man you could lean on, and not some shitty lard who talks bad to ya."

"What the fuck are you on about?" My patience had worn too thin for my calm veneer to bear. He turned the key, and the engine quickly died.

"C'mon bro. You know something's different about him, right? I know you've been watchin' me like a hawk. Think I haven't noticed you watchin' me from around the hall corner? You think I don't know you're creepin' while I beat one out huffin' my strap? I know, dude. I've always known. C'mon, man." Pat threw his hands in the air in frustration, the first time since his attitude adjustment that I'd seen anything like it. But, this was different. It wasn't rage, it was exasperation.

"Okay, Pat. So you saw me watching you. Can you please tell me what the fuck is going on now?" He slowly rested his sweaty head against the headrest, and sighed. Then, a chuckle. Then another, until he was full on laughing. "What!?"

"Ahhh, man. I never thought I'd see the day you'd man up and come to. Yeah, Jonas. I can tell you what the fuck is going on." I sat back, confounded- even more so than before. "My name was Matt Wilde. Way back in the day, I used to wrestle for Palm Heights High. Was pretty damn good at it too, but one day I got pinned just a little too hard and poof."

"Matt Laurent? What the fuck are you talking about, Pat? Are you high?" His dumb laugh threw him back in the seat.

"Nah, I finished that joint earlier, man. Stone sober now. But, safe to say for the past 50 years I've been just hoppin' body to body. Started with a couple of my teammates just so I could finish out the years, wrestle a bit more. Got bored, hung around the gym, in and out of some lug heads. Did a stint in some Libertines, that was fun as fuck. But man, I saw you sulkin' around the school for the past three years and thought, damn that kid looks sad. So, I may have eavesdropped a bit, maybe caught a bit about your dead beat, piece of shit dad; then right after he ditches, Mom lands this fuckin' winner." He slapped his chest, little droplets of his sweat landing on my bewildered face. "Oh shit, my bad." I sat there, slackjawed, completely disoriented as he dumbly wiped his sweat off my nose and cheek.

"You... you're dead?" He snapped his fingers, winking and smirking at me.

"Bingo, bud. Right on the money. I was like, I'm in a very unique situation here to fuckin' do something this. So, I slipped into this dumbass and just stuck around. Did the work. Tried, emphasis on TRIED, to be like the Dad I had and that you deserve, ya know? Haven't made it fuckin' easy, but... ahhh. That's parenthood, am I right?" I scoffed, he must have taken some damn good drugs. I was convinced. There was no way!

"Okay, then. MATT. So, if you're some dead jock bro possessing Pat, where the fuck is he?" He pondered for a moment in silence, shrugging his shoulders.

"I think he's gone, bro. I haven't stayed in a dude this long, I used to hear him bitchin' and moanin' all the time, but he went silent a couple of weeks ago." Fuck, I wish that were true. I had to admit, even if only in my mind, this Matt-Patrick was lightyears better than Patrick Patrick. Sure, he was dumb, he was every stereotype dudebro in the book, he smelled like he bathed in sweat baths... But, for the first time in my life, he wanted to be around me. He wanted to spend time with me. He made an effort. He... liked me. The mental gymnastics needed to make sense of the situation was growing too monumental to comprehend, but in that moment as he sat there with his dumb fucking grin on his face as if I was going to just completely buy it, I started to hope it was true.

"So, what now, Matt? Are you just gonna keep fucking my mom and prentending to be my Dad for the rest of your life? Or are you gonna hop out and ditch us?" He raised his eyebrow in genuine confusion.

"I mean, yeah that was the plan. One, your mom is fuckin' hot and she's better than any girl I've ever been with. Two, I kinda like our little family. Three, I ain't ditchin' ya, bro. You had enough of that shit for one lifetime. Besides, I gotta get you to chill the fuck out one way or another, so I was hoping we could give it a shot. Like I've been beggin' man." 'Matt' put his hands together as if praying, pleading to me. I suppose it wouldn't be the worst thing. It's better than coming home every day to spy on him, and it's way better than being the sad wallflower all the fucking time. Besides, those dumb fucking puppy dog eyes...

"You know what? Sure, Matt. What did you have in mind?" I could barely finish my sentence before he'd twisted the key and slammed on the gas. The man drove like a bat out of hell through town, hooting and hollering in victory as if he'd won a match.

"Hell fuckin' yeah, man! Dude we're gonna be so tight, it's gonna be awesome. You're gonna be so fuckin' sexy, the dudes are gonna be on their knees by the time we're done! Slobberin' on that dick like SLURPEDY SLURP! WOO!" So fuckin' dumb. Dumb as a box of rocks. But I couldn't help but crack a smile as he swerved left and right, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Let's get you sweatin' man. We can get you pumpin' iron, playin' ball... I'm burning everything you got in your closet, bro. Nobody wants polos and button ups, man. Gettin' you some J's, some good jocks. Oh, how do you feel about chains?"

"Matt, dude. I'm not like you. That's all well and good for you, but I can't pull that shit off..." He slammed on the brakes and a cavalcade of horns from behind us rang out like a brass band. Matt whipped his gaze to me in shock.

"Don't say that, bro! You could be a bona fide stud! Look at you, man!" A couple of hard slaps against my bony chest and a harsh wheeze later, perhaps it sank in a bit. "Aight, well we have some work to do. I mean, if you're up for it." He smirked at me, lifting up those massive arms and flexing. His veins bulged from his massive bicep, the wet hairs in his ripe pits wafted that pungent scent I'd regrettably started to secretly love... Yeah, maybe I did want it.

"I don't know how, man. If I were like you, I bet I could." As if a cartoon lightbulb flickered to life above his head, I saw the spark of inspiration hit him like a sack of bricks. That stupid smirk grew into a wide, toothy grin.

"Aight, bro. Haven't tried this before, but I'll give it a go." He clapped his hands together, rubbing them gently. "I saw Jimmy Morales do this once when he needed a spotter. Gotta ask, though. You trust me, right?" I sat there and wondered if I did. I'd pretended up until this point that I believed every word that had come out of his mouth. This insane, psychotic story. It was nuts. It was crazy. But that little voice in the back of my head, deep down in the dark recesses of my brain decided to finally speak up.

"Yeah, Matt. I trust you."

"ALRIGHT! Fuck yeah, man. Oh shit, this is gonna be great! Okay, so don't freak out, just trust me and let it happen, okay? It doesn't hurt, the dudes usually bust a nut after it's all over." I heard a squelching rumble from in his stomach: wet, guttural, as if he were getting ready to vomit. Which became more and more likely as I saw a lump start to make it's way up his throat.

"Matt..." His body began to shudder and quake, his veins bulging and head thrashing from side to side. Then, from between his lips, a glowing blue vapor began to slip out. It was tiny at first, a little tail whipping about, before more and more of it started to bellow out of his mouth. Slick, bulbous, translucent. I had mere seconds of watching it slither out before it darted right into my own slack jaw. It squirmed as it wriggled from his body into mine, slurping deep into my bulging stomach. The feeling of fullness overtook me, watching more and more of the rubbery thing enter me, squeezing into every available inch within me, and he was right: it felt good. It felt like an eternity, but in reality it was just moments. The last of suctioned into me, and the world went black.

---

I woke the next morning in my bed. Shooting straight upright in a puddle of sweat. I rubbed my hands on my face, running my fingers through my drenched hair. What a fuckin' dream. I groaned as doubled over in pain. I felt like I was hit by a train. Everything hurt, a soreness unlike anything I'd ever experienced before radiated from every fiber of my being. Then, a soft caress of the nostril. Salty, buttery, funky... I raised my arm, finding the culprit immediately.

"Fuck!" I spat out, before taking a deep breath, another hit. "Fuuuuck..." Another inhale, a familiar stink, a comforting stink. What started as gentle whiffs quickly turned into full on huffing. I buried my nose in my pit, letting the wet jungle lather my face in my own sweat.

"Morning, bro. Good shit, ain't it?" The words echoed in my head, a soft, rippling little voice from within my brain. I should have been alarmed, terrified, even. But no, the words felt like gospel to me. "We really went to town yesterday, man. I had you liftin' like an Olympian. Take it easy. Here, I'll be right there, I got just the thing for it!" My hands started to drift southward, beneath the waistband of the teal sweats I didn't own... Were they... Pats? The door to my room burst open mid-huff, and in walked the hulking tower himself with a tray in hand.

"Goooood Morning, Kiddo! I made ya a protein shake, good recovery breakfast after a workout sesh like we had! Oh, your Mom made eggs!" He walked over to the side of my bed, kicking the Jordans I'd borrowed from him to the side. Wait, when did I do that? "Eat up, champ. Those 'ceps aren't gonna feed themselves!" Slamming the tray down onto my thighs, I let out a groan of pain.

"Pat? Dude, I had the weirdest dream." Dude? I never say dude. I cupped my hand, slick with sweat and pre over my mouth, aghast at the words coming out of my mouth. Pat smiled, grabbing the shake and handing it to me. "Drink up, my dude. For real, you're gonna be in a world of hurt otherwise." The voice boomed in my head, HIS voice. But his lips hadn't moved an inch. "Pat..." I ripped the sheets off of me, sure enough, I was sporting his nasty sweatpants & drenched socks. Cupping my manhood was most definitely his grimy jockstrap. "Hey, if we were gonna have the best workout, I had to be comfortable, bro! I knew you'd get it, though." I looked at him, a tight lipped smile, as if he were proving to me he weren't talking to me. "Feels good, right! I told ya! Just think, bro. With a half of me in there, you're gonna be unstoppable." I smiled. A genuine fuckin' smile, for the first time in as long as I could remember. I watched as my hand gripped the shake, bringing it to my lips of it's own accord. Downing the vanilla shake, our eyes met, and I understood completely. Matt winked at me, ruffling my hair, and sauntered back out of the door.

I leaned back in my bed, throwing my arm behind my head. The musk drifting from my pits and feet, identical to my dad's. Smirking, I let my fingers drift down to my growing meat in its slimy pouch, knowing fully well that I was in damn fine hands.

---

So that brings us to today, I guess! One year to the day. One full year since I finally let Dad in. 'Pat' sure did join the wrestling team as assistant coach, bringing his son in tow, eager to finish my senior year with at least a title. Thanks to him, I made varsity after the first fuckin' tryout. Can't say it was all me, all the time, but after a while it was. Honestly, it all started to blend together. Me at the wheel, him at the wheel, soon it sort of blurred and it was just me. That last semester was the best of my whole fucking life. Parties, bodybuilding, skating with the boys, fuckin' the boys... Shit, it was the time of my fuckin' life.

And after every day at school, or at least after every post-practice locker room blow job, I couldn't wait to get home and smash some Call of Duty with the old man. Mom would always come in, making comments on how we seemed as if I'd become a mini-Pat. Finishing eachother's sentences, drinking the same beer, wearing the same kind of clothes... she'd always put our sneaks outside the garage door, "they even stank the same." Little did she know just how much of the same person we really were.

I've decided to stick around the house for a year or so before maybe headed to college. I don't know, family is here, friends are here, Coach Weston should be retiring in a year or two... so there should be an opening for a new assistant coach on the wrestling team. Besides, I may have landed quite the catch in the boyfriend department, and I really want him to meet my dad, I have a feeling they'll get along just fine.

[pandorascripts]

a couple of what?!

summary: When out on the streets of NYC with your girlfriend, the paparazzi thinks you guys are friends. A rough make out session on the street tells the world otherwise.

pairing: taylor swift/reader

cw: kissing, light swearing, fluff.

note: so apparently I write for Taylor now LMAO. I literally was listening to dress and was like “fuck it” and boom twenty minutes later, here we are. So requests are open for her too! Also posted on ao3.

—-;—-;—-;—-;—-;—-;—-;—-

It’s been two months since Taylor asked you to be her girlfriend, and honestly, it’s been the best two months of your life. Taylor’s sweet, romantic, and comforting. Everything about her is a giant green flag, down from her cat obsession to her devotion to her fans. You truly can’t imagine how you got this lucky. 

So, sitting across from her in a fancy restaurant, you tell her so. 

“Hey, Taylor?”

She sets her glass down, smiling at you lightly. “Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say that, uh, you just make me really happy.” You look down to the table, realizing how absolutely, cringey that sounded out loud. 

Taylor only smiled widely, taking your hand in hers. “You make me happy too. Really happy.”

Your cheeks flush a light red, eyes locking into her shockingly blue ones. Another thing about Taylor— she’s astronomically beautiful. With lungs who can’t do their job, you go back to eating your food. Although you have to do it with your left hand because Taylor still has your hand in hers. Not like you care for how much slower it makes you— your appetite left the moment she had complimented your shirt. 

As your dinner wraps up— Taylor arguing that she wanted to pay, to which you just swapped your credit cards at the last moment— she leads you outside, pinkies locked. Since you were in Net York City for the weekend, Taylor had called herself your personal guide, showing you anything and everything. You smile, Taylor pointing out a random alley that she swore was significant. 

It didn’t take long for paparazzi to find the two of you, but you didn’t mind. You and Taylor weren’t exactly “out” with your relationship, but you had both agreed to just be yourselves out in public. So if the paps got a photo of you two kissing, then it was whatever. Taylor thought it would be funny to see her fans reaction to your guys’ “friendship.” 

It wasn’t until the paparazzi started asking you questions, did Taylor tense. 

“Y/N! Over here! Are you single?” 

“Are you with Taylor?”

You ignored them, lightly squeezing Taylor’s hand three times. She looked down to you, smiling slightly. It didn’t last long because son enough, her expression flipped like a dime. Taylor turned on her heel, staring one of the men down. 

“What did you just say?”

The man in question shrinks away from her gaze, shrugging and mumbling incoherent things. 

“Hey, Tay, let’s just g—“

In one fluid movement, Taylor has her hand on your hip, the one that was holding your hand is now imbedded in your hair. She leans down quickly, lips pressing against yours roughly, your hair being tugged lightly. There’s shouts all around, cameras shuttering as you fling your arms over Taylor’s shoulders. You don’t care in the slightest because Taylor’s hands are currently wandering, running up and down your back and hooking your thigh against her waist. 

Taylor pulls away slightly, just enough time for you to mumble a quick “Oh” before she leans back in. 

The paparazzi still hasn’t lost interest, so Taylor takes one of her hands away from you and sticks it up in the air— the ring on her middle finger gleaming in the sunlight like a beacon. 

As she’s doing this, you pull away to face the crowd. They each swarm you, getting photos of your face and her’s. It doesn’t take a genius to know Taylor’s lipstick is smudged and remnants are littered over your mouth. 

Taylor looks at the man from before, a smug grin on her face. “A couple of best friends my ass.”

You let out a snort, Taylor pushing past paparazzi and messaging her driver. 

“Babe, he called us friends? And you did that?”

Taylor looks down to you, a little bit of worry on her face. “Was that not okay? Oh my god, I should’ve as—“

You bring her head down to you, kissing her lips softly as more cameras flash. “It was perfect.”

Before Taylor can say anything, her driver’s skirting around the bend and you guys are stepping in her car. 

With a bit of morbid curiosity, you decide to look at the internet in fifteen minutes. You’re not so much worried for this news, everyone who matters to you knows about your relationship with Taylor, but you are worried about society’s. Of course it’s 2023, being homophobic is the new weird, so you’re only basing your fears off of stupidity. And Taylor’s fans? They’ll see this as an absolute win. 

[mphountitled]

sungchan who’s been such a sweetheart your whole relationship until you decide that you want to break up because you’ve started to notice how absolutely insane the red flags were?? but he NEEDS you, and you need him…you just don’t know it yet. and he’ll do anything to prove that! you out of all people, knows that he’ll always get what he wants.

🎀 anon <33

𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝘿𝙚𝙛𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 | 𝙅𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙪𝙣𝙜𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣

- Pairings: Jung Sungchan x Fem!reader

- Warnings: College!au, Established Relationship, Language, Angst, Jealousy, Possessiveness, Obsession, Slight Dark fic, Insecurities, Smut (+18 Minors Dni) Breeding Kink, Slight Dub/con, Daddy Kink, Car sex, Choking, Spitting, Grinding, Degradation Kink

A/N: I really liked this request so so so much. I'm not sure if I did it justice, but this was indeed very fun to write

The very ideology of commitment had always been a foreign concept in his head. Not for any self-righteous reason beyond the fact that Sungchan had just never been ‘that guy’.

For the duration of his college career, Sungchan had been all too comfortable, dedicating his time and effort to becoming the #1 draft pick, this goal being something akin to a holy grail in Sungchan's mind. He would honestly rather die than let anything beyond the court take precedence over his mind.

But now Sungchan is yours.

And your head is thrown back in a genuine guffaw aimed at the sky, as you hang on intently to every word another man is saying.

This is the very first thing Sungchan has had to see exiting the gym, with the rest of his teammates swarming around him.

Instead of waiting in the car, like you usually did, a book open on your lap while Classical music oozed out of your phone speakers, you're entertaining his teammate. Your textbook open as your explanations flow from your lips like a waterfall. Seunghan wears a permanent lopsided grin on his face as he cradles the basketball to his side, bending his tall frame down to you and your textbook.

Although you don't notice Sungchan approaching, Seunghan does. The smirk on his face is absolutely diabolical as he raises a hand robotically and waves, before nodding along to your explanations once again.

Unable to move any further, Sungchan chooses to wait out the interaction along the far wall until Anton and Sohee join him in a flurry of their usual banter.

You laugh at something Seunghan says but your eyes are still trained on your textbook. A thought, ice cold and incredibly vile strikes through Sungchan's brain at the very moment.

Maybe Sungchan just was not smart enough for you.

Perhaps that is why you were giving another boy so much of your precious time.

His frown only deepens with the birth of the vile, uncomfortable revelation. All those times he had droned on and on to you about sports, forcing you to watch highlights of basketball games while his head rested on your lap, raking your fingers aimlessly through his hair.

While he was in heaven, you were apparently in hell.

This illogical jumping to conclusions, seems, to Sungchan as your only logical excuse for entertaining another man so closely.

Sungchan does not bother to hide the grim emotions descending on him like a plague. He only leans his back firmly against the west wall, backpack hanging lazily from his broad shoulders while the rest of his teammates scatter on home. Unbeknownst to Sungchan, his face is lowered, causing a wide shadow to cast over his eyes.

"You're glaring."

He does not offer Sohee any justifiable response, choosing instead, to ignore him as he continues his blatant staring.

“What do you think they're talking about?" He asks instead, the confines of his white and orange letterman jacket feeling far too hot.

"Do you know how scary you look when you do that?" Anton snickers, "Borderline serial killer shit."

"He definitely wants to fuck her," Sungchan continues, locked in on this display in front of him. Your book is cradled to your chest now, and you're looking up at Seunghan with a small, imperceptible smile.

"He wants to fuck her, I can tell-"

"How anyone can manage to pop a boner in the presence of a Psychology textbook is beyond me..." Sohee grumbles, dribbling his ball in between his legs.

"In his own fucked up logic," Anton begins, "Sohee's right." He ignores the bewildered expression of the older boy, choosing to roll his eyes over to Sungchan as he explains, "They're probably just talking about school, like they usually do."

"Nah," Sungchan shakes his head, unconvinced, "They just finished an essay on Freud. She fucking hates Frued. Whatever they're talking about... it's not that." You would not be smiling like that if all you had to talk about was psychology. You enjoyed school, but not that much.

"Your fault for going for someone actually smarter than you."

The snicker in Sohee's tone alludes to the fact that it was somewhat of a joke and meant to be taken as one... but the tightening grip on Sungchan's backpack has Anton glaring daggers at Sohee over Sungchan's bowed head.

"B-But," Sohee injects his voice with optimism, "It's not like you don't already have that on lock."

Anton is quick to jump on to the bandwagon, "Precisely," he says, "Girls date from 100, so if she's already let you consummate the relationship-"

"Just say fuck, Anton for the love of God-" Sohee grumbles,

"-She most likely already sees you as the person she wants to spend the rest of her ride with-"

"Fuck fuck fuck, that's what people do in relationships- they fuck-"

"You're a degenerate." Anton murmurs quietly.

And while they bicker, Sungchan did not have the heart to tell them that, for your sake, he had decided to 'wait' on any intimacy because he was so intent on being the perfect boyfriend.

Your perfect boyfriend.

He had spent an embarrassing chunk of your relationship locking away any urges that arose when your kisses got too heated, refraining from stuffing his hands down your pants when you were grinding a little too heavily in between said make out sessions and stopping himself from absolutely ravaging you whenever you reprimanded him, scolded him or corrected him during your study sessions.

Sex was all Sungchan ever thought about whenever you were in his presence, but evidently, you divulge your attentions elsewhere. You did not need him. The farthest you two had ever gone was Sungchan guiding you to orgasm by the sound of his voice.

How pretty you sounded over the phone line, voice heated with lust and veneered with static as you came all over your fingers in your darkened dorm room, imagining it was his. He had uttered so many 'good girl's , so many fits of praise because it was all true. You were a good girl, and he would fight biblical forces if it meant he could preserve that.

"Nah, fuck that," Sungchan pushes himself off the wall, making his way over to you because now Seunghan has his hand on your arm, carelessly handling what did not belong to him, because regardless of the moral repercussions involved, you were his.

"What're we talking about?" Sungchan cannot forget the way your smile dims ever so slightly upon his arrival. It scribbles itself into his memoey like a traumatizing little etch-a-sketch, making his heart sink in vexation and his abdomen tightening into a knot of perhaps, maybe anger.

"Oh, hey-"

When Sungchan looks down at you, he imagines only his face as the only image reflected in your smiling eyes. You were his just as he was yours, and so it should not come off as a shock to anyone when he slyly throws his arm over your shoulder, pulling you unexpectedly into the heat of his letterman jacket.

Your frame is as solid as concrete, the smile you had once adorned now completely gone.

"Hey," Sungchan whispers to you, but he directs his attention to a smirking Seunghan. Very clearly, all too pleased at having roused his teammate.

"Seunghan just needed clarification on psycodiagnostocs," you explain, somewhat nervously, because Sungchan is splaying tiny pecks against the side of your head while never breaking eye contact with Seunghan "T-the paper we have to do on African Epistemologie-”

“I'm sure Seunghan has a tutor for that.” the arm on your shoulder is fashioned of concrete. You couldn't move out of his grip if you wanted to.

“Don't bore him with the details, babe” Sungchan says, keeping his glare stationed on a grinning Seunghan all while bending down to whisper along your ear, loud enough for Seunghan to hear.

“He still needs to work on that Euro step too-”

“Sungchan.” There is a deep tempest stirring in your tone as you glare up at him, wholly and remarkably unimpressed. Before you could complete your verbal annihilation, Seunghan raises a hand, silencing you effectively.

“I'll let you know how the test goes,” Seunghan says, rousing Sungchan more by completely ignoring him, which, evidently, was the goal. “See you around.”

⋆⭒˚｡⋆

To say you were fuming would be a gross understatement. You're absolutely seething as you charge towards the only other vehicle parked in the deserted lot.

Sungchan raises his hand to block away the orange sun, settling on an uneven horizon as he strolls lazily after you, seemingly unfazed by his barbaric display of possessiveness Your hands are shaking as they latch onto the Jeep's handle, and you're barely even able to jump up into the truck before he's grasping at your hips, begrudgingly pulling you up.

“I know how to fucking work a seatbelt-”

Sungchan only snickers, before clicking in the belt, “Watch your tone,” he whispers before motioning to place a kiss on your cheek. You block it, flinching away from him and effectively causing a dark cloud to settle over his once jovial countenance.

“You were unbelievably out of line.” You begin to explain, looking deep into Sungchan's eyes as he leans into the passenger, with his arm on the car roof, effectively caging you in.

“I can't believe you did all that, knowing I need people to tutor!" You exclaim, "Knowing good and damn well that that's more money for me.”

Sungchan's eyes are lazer focused on you as he shrugs.

“You don't need his money.” Sungchan begins, furiously trying to keep his voice even, “You don't need anything from him.”

“I don't need anything from you.”

All is quiet as your words seem to haunt the atmosphere like an archaic apparition come to assert its vengeance on two unsuspecting young lovers. You are unable to know what Sungchan is thinking behind those concrete eyes, all until a smile cracks across his visage. A toothy grin that has him chuckling into the air until he's pulling back and shutting the door.

Sungchan rounds the car, head full of the weight of your words and what they essentially implied.

You did not want anything from him.

Or perhaps, you think you didn't.

Once Sungchan is behind the steering wheel, he does not move. He is only swinging his head sideways after a very agonising beat as he says. “You think I'm stupid?”

Your brows furrow, and your heart kickstarts as Sungchan sits back until his head is resting on leather headrest. His hand is stationed on your thigh, and you're not sure why, but a very stark shiver shoots down your spine, one that is not completely separated from feelings of absolute excitement.

“You don't wanna be seen with your stupid fucking boyfriend, do you?” he's not yelling, in fact his voice is perfectly normal. As gentle as the movements of his hand framing your exposed thigh and nearing the lining of your skirt with dangerous precision.

“Babe-” you shake your head, correcting yourself, “Sungchan, where is this coming from?

“You're ashamed of me,” He says, all to plainly before slotting his large hand underneath your skirt. You exhale shakily as you imperceptibly, almoat shyly open your legs further. Never had your boyfriend admistered any physical intimacy, no matter how anxiously you craved to experience his large hands on hour skin.

Did you need to get him mad to have him claim you?

Your morals and values completely dissolve as you throw your head back, allowing Sungchan's hand to delve deeper under your skirt.

“I see how it is,” he whispers, heavy eyes stationed on his hand under your skirt. The very moment the tips of his fingers brush against your soaked underwear, you're immediately grinding into his hand, hoping your desperation will transfer in your stilted movements. He watches, mesmerized.

“Do I need to be smarter for you?” He asks, mouth salivating at the sight of you grinding so heavily against his fingers. “What do I need to do better? It's almost like-” Sungchan's hand disappears from underneath your skiirt and you nearly whine at the loss of stimulation.

“It's almost like I need to get you pregnant in order to listen to me.” He whispers, seemingly to himself before dragging his gaze to you…

“Is that what you want?”

His eyes are piercing into yours as his hand slowly encircles around your throat. He's bringing you over the center console by a single grip on your esophagus, having your hips straddling his.

All in slow, calculated movements.

The rest of the world disappears as Sungchan attaches his lips to your throat, dragging your hips along the bulge in his sweatpants.

“Is that what you want, baby?” His voice is laden with lust. All his previous emotions spilling out of him in the form of sloppy, wet kisses on the side of your face. “Tell me you want me to cum deep inside you,”

A whine bleeds from your throat, immediately snapping his restraint before he's lifting you to uncover his red, leaking cock. Your eyes widen at the side of it, heart pulsing in your chest when it twitches under your palm.

“Fuck, don't look at me like that,” Sungchan murmurs before crashing his lips onto yours.

You're immediately stroking his cock as the kiss deepens, and Sungchan lifts you again, before guiding himself inside of you.

You're sinking onto his cock with bated breath, and he watches you with a pained, euphoric expression. His cock stretches your walls and you shudder as he forces himself deeper and deeper, mumermiing drunken confessions as he assumes a steady rhythm.

“ I've needed to fuck you for so fucking long, fuck,” he is already delirious as he pushes his hand under your shirt, pawing at your sensitive breast.

“F-Fuck Chan,” your eyes roll to the back of your head when Sungchan acts on an intrusive thought and forces his fingers inside your mouth.

“Open,” he practically growls before hooking his fingers inside your mouth. He drags you closer as he continues to fuck up into you with desperation and urgency. Sungchan slithers his tongue out, dragging it lazily against yours before spitting directly into your mouth, all with his fingers still flattening against your tongue.

“Fuck, you're such a slut,” He whispers breathlessly, causing your cunt to clench unimaginably tighter around his aching cock. “You like that, baby?” He asks, returning his hand to your throat. “You like being my perfect fucking slut-”

“Fuck- Daddy,” the words tumble out of your mouth, not for any other reason beyond it just feeling absolutely positively, right.

They evidently have a large effect on Sungchan because his once confident thrusts stutter into shallow motions, as of he was om the brink of cumming right then and there.

“Fuck- oh fuck, I'm so close.”

You can't even begin to explain to him that you're right there with him because your mind is so utterly consumed with pleasure. Your hands are on his shoulders, nails sinking into his letterman as your eyes go hazy with overstimulation and he watches your expression with that same, fucked out, open-mouthed expression.

“F-Fuck, you're gonna make me cum,” he whispers, “You're gonna make fucking cum inside you, baby-”

He twists your nipple, immediately causing a whine to spill from your hips, your cunt tightening around him again.

“Tell me to cum inside you-” He whispers, cock already twitching in warning, “Tell me now-fuck!”

“Please, please,” He's already spilling inside you as the words try to claw its way, out your throat, and you ascend unto your own orgasm. You scream into the stillness of the car as you push yourself down on Sungchan's stuttering hips, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he murmers broken praises and affirmations.

He tells you you're so pretty.

He tells you youre body is fucking perfect.

He tells you every little thing that has your heart swelling more and more in its cage. All for the boy in front of you.

“Fuck,” he whispers, allowing his thumb to ghost over your nipple while you both breath out, absolutely breathless. “Fuck- I thought I was going to kill him-”

“Why would you wanna do that?” You whisper, “You're such an idiot sometimes, you know that?”

He only nods slolwy, a small grin spreading across his face as he keeps himself still very much inside of you.

“Now go buy me a Plan B, please.”

[ebonysplendor]

The Science of Staying Awake Review 👁️

TL;DR: Sleep is often for the weak, but having, what is likely but claims not to be, a hallucination being violently in love with you is something that is not for the weak. Apparently, it's not for the living either...

Game Link: https://viscereye.itch.io/the-science-of-staying-awake

Notable Features: Gender Neutral MC, Unnamed MC (referred as "You"), Yandere LI, Choice-heavy storyline Spiciness: 0/5 -- Not exactly wholesome because violence but no option to buss it open so no spice LI Red Flags: 1.7/5 -- Physically abusive, Crosses boundaries...other than that, he be's a touch starved boi who just wants cuddles

Wanna know more? Well, let's get into it!

Before I say anything, I just want you to read this:

Let me tell you, I had no idea how accurate that description was until I played it. That is a damned accurate description, and quite frankly, the only way to describe the experience that this was.

Anyways, I had ran across it when going through my game files, and I was like "Oh yeah! This game exists!" and decided to write a review on this one. I played this game many moons ago, and frankly, I don't see many people talking about or referencing this one; I honestly feel like more people should know about it, because there is a game to be played here. I mean, how many people are actually going to run across this review, I have no idea, but shit, hopefully it'll get a few extra downloads, because as "cheesy" as it may look, this was actually a pretty damn good game!

Honestly (and respectfully) speaking, you know how you look at a game, and you're like "This is probably going to be bad, but I'm curious"? From looking at the backgrounds they used, the description itself, and how they described the game as "cheesy" and a "creepypasta fanfic", I honestly thought this was supposed to be one of those "intentionally bad but funny as hell" games for jokes, but...yeah, no. If it was meant to be that way, I didn't get that at all.

I'll explain more in the actual review portion, but I'm going to go ahead and cut to the chase. As always, I give you the disclaimer that -- and those that have been vibing with me since the start of all of this already know -- I'm going to tell you as much as possible about the game without ruining the game itself.

Just as a side note, I think I do say that verbatim every time I write a review -- between that, "so boom", and the whole "drink water, don't be dumb" thing lol. I might switch it up one day, but that's honestly how I talk in real life. Like, can you not tell that I type the way that I speak? I mean, if it was something for college or work or something, yeah, I'm going to code switch, obvi, but for stuff like this? I'm pretty much talkin' to y'all like y'all are the squad because...well, y'all are lol.

Anyways! Enough chitchat, let's get summarizing.

So, boom (lmao ya see?).

We're in class, and we're tired as fook. Like, it's not even that "Damn, this class is boring" type of tired; it's that "I deadass haven't slept in 2 days, and I'm starting to hear colors and see sounds" type of tired. That "Ayo, why does this hard ass desk feel mad comfortable all of a sudden" type of tired. That plain and simple "a bitch is TIDE not tired" type of tired. Anyways, we recognize this as a current problem, and we know that we've gotta do something about it. Expeditiously. So, we hit up the vending machine, get something to wake us up a little, and then head on home.

When I say that it took everything to get up those stairs and to our bedroom...listen.

Like, as soon as we got through the door, we dropped that backpack to the floor, and we dive -- you hear me, dive -- into that bed. Now, with the way that we were feeling, dreamland should've been immediate. To be real with you, we were probably asleep by the time we were mid-air, but like, when we landed, we landed on something, and this something -- or rather someone -- goes "Ow". Like huuuuuuuh?

Again: Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuh? Fuck you mean, "Ow?" Like who the hell is yooooooooou?!

No, like, we literally ask who he -- ...it? --- is, because clearly, he was not here when we left, let alone just chilling in our bed, but he's just super casual about it, like, "Oh! I'm Vance!". Like, oh, right, Vance; that suddenly makes this whole situation totally normal and nothing to worry about -- as if that were even slightly true.

Here's the thing though, oddly enough, it actually is kind've true. See, we're not scared of him as a...whatever he is, but something about him is just...not right; something is very clearly off. Like, when he had introduced himself, he had shook our hand, and we immediately got this mad intense feeling of dread that we couldn't describe, and something about it just kind've made us feel like we were, quite literally, spiraling into insanity.

Naturally, we pull ourselves away from him and step back -- that spiraling feeling and anxiety is instantly gone. As you've probably guessed, it didn't take us long to put together that it's not good for this "Vance" creature to be too close in proximity, let alone anywhere near us.

He kind've picks up on this, and he's adamant that he's not going to hurt us. Still, we try to explain to him that, while we're not really threatened by him, we get this weirdly intense feeling whenever he's nearby, and he essentially needs to stay a little more than an arm's length away at all times; frankly, the further away, the better. Well...

He didn't take that well, and now, we feel threatened by him.

I hadn't mentioned this before, but Vance was already pretty upset that we wouldn't really let him come near us, let alone cuddle with him, but now he's extra pissed because we're essentially rejecting him altogether, even though he's, quite literally, driving us insane.

So, now that he's like this, we've got to get the hell out of there because, now, we aren't sure if he's still on the whole "I'm not going to hurt you" energy like before. That being said, we completely bolt, and he's like "Nah, bring that ass here, boi". Panic. Big panic time.

So, we do. We run off, but it does no good, because he finds us.

Granted, he doesn't know exactly where we are, but it doesn't matter because we're completely cornered. What are we going to do?

Well, let me rephrase that I know what I'm going to do; better yet, I know what I did. Now you guys on the other hand? Lol, I'll guess you'll have to play it for yourself to see what y'all are going to do.

I had honestly forgotten how good this game was until I had replayed it to grab some screenshots and to get a refresher on what actually went down. I'm not even kidding about that. My love for the game had literally re-sparked, and I can't believe that I forgot how good it was. If you've read my past reviews, you know that I mentioned at one point that I become an absolute slut for a choice-heavy game -- this is a choice heavy game and a damned good one. Speaking of choice-heavy...

Just to get off topic very slightly, you know what was crazy? When I went to replay it, apparently, I had done something different than when I had first played though the game and lmaoooooo, do you know that I had ended up finding THREE more endings? Wanna know something even crazier? One of them was a secret ending that I didn't even realize that I had gotten to!

Now mind you (lol you know the story is about to get a lil' spicy when that's said)! I had already unlocked like...if I remember right, like, 14 endings at this point, so when I found these other endings -- again, by total accident because, at this point, damn the review! I'm legit replaying the game for me, now -- I was now sitting at a grand total of 17 endings. So, now, I'm like "Ayo, what the hell?". Like, my mind is blown, because I was so sure that I had found all of the endings and completed the game. Remember, I hadn't touched or thought about this game in literal months because I was that confident that I had finished it. So, it's like, how many endings are there if I'm still managing to find more?

Naturally, I sprint to the dev's game page to conduct research on this burning question, and I am reading everything that there is to offer, but there was nothing. No "hey, this game has x amount of endings", no walkthrough map, no nothing. Did that stop me, though? Nah, because surely someone had experienced something similar to what I just had and was also like "Damn, how many endings are there...?". Lmaooooo well, I was right. You know what the answer is?

19. There are nineteen endings in this game.

I already knew the answer, but I go back to count the amount of endings that I have; there's 17. I dig into the game files for some more hints, and I find two icons (you'll know what I mean when you play it) that I've never seen before. Oh, okay. So, it's confirmed, but let me make sure that I've got the details straight:

Are you seriously telling me that, not only had I incorrectly assumed that I had all of the endings and finished the game because I had gotten all of the achievements, but the fact that I found three other endings -- again, by accident! -- doesn't even matter because I'm still missing two more because there's NINETEEN ENDINGS total?!

Wild. Chaotic even, and you're damn right that I'm here for it all. I LOVE that there are so many endings. I love even more that I have other endings to look for because I'm totally in love with this game all over again. Even though, lol, it was the deadpan, nonchalant "19" from the dev for me. The dev said "I said what I said, and what about it?". We love to see it.

Anyways, I'm a huge advocate for this game. If you've got some time, definitely give it a try. I highly recommended, and Vance is a pretty sweet dude, if you can find that side of him, I mean. Also, just for a very light spoiler but not really, the real ending was so sweet to me. Like something about it, it just...I don't know. It was just a warm feeling that washed over me when I had read it, and I was just like "That was actually really cute?" Bittersweet, even. Like, ugh, I am honestly really pushing for more people to play this game. It was genuinely so good, and I hope that the dev comes out with more visual novels. I truly forgot how in love with this game I was until I replayed it. This has, highkey, been a great experience.

Anywho, it's time that I stop my rambling and end it here. If you'd like to give this game a go for yourself and discover all 🌟nineteen🌟 endings -- which I highly recommend that you do -- a link to the game is at the very bottom of this post as well as at the very top. Hell, I'll even put the link right here so you can get to it quicker. If you're feeling extra motivated, visit the dev's page and post a comment telling them how great of a job they did and give them that extra validation to let them know "Hey! You're pretty good at what you do! You should keep doing the thing!". I didn't see where you could donate to them, but assuming I just missed it, remember that monetary validation is always helpful as well.

That's all from me though! Drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!

The Science of Staying Awake

[hypergamiss]

I still remember this girl who always tried to compete with me in my early 20’s but claimed to be “friends.” She went through great lengths to try to make me look like a fool and so I blocked her on everything and she was genuinely shocked that I did that. She went to the rest of the friend group fully presenting herself as a victim but she did too much that was too obvious about what her true intentions were that two other girls decided to block her as well. I did not ask them to or convince them to, apparently they just had enough of her as well and I happened to be the only one who was bold enough to just remove her from my life. When the other two girls blocked her she emailed me because that is the only way she could contact me and apologized for the way she had behaved and the things she said. She included things that I didn't even know about which made it even worse. I honestly think that even at this point she wasn't interested in a friendship I think she was just desperate to be in the friend group since the other girls were starting to understand me and reason with me. I blocked her email too and I knew better than to keep her around. I could just imagine how worse things could have gotten with her around. She was on another level of toxicity I have ever witnessed. Since then some of the girls have kept in touch with her and the little that they tell me about her life just makes so much sense why she was always after me. She's now in a marriage with a man who got her a shut up ring because she was his mistress and so she was insecure about their relationship. She went on to have multiple kids with him and she is the main bread winner so she works full time, takes care of him, takes care of the kids, and even his siblings kids when they drop them off as they please according to my friends. Even now years later she manages to try and pull me into drama somehow. There was a boy she really liked when she was younger but apparently, he rejected her. He took me out to dinner one time and bought me flowers. He took a picture of the flowers on my lap while I held them for his socials so you were able to see my purse and shoes and jewelry. She's so crazy that she went through her old pictures of us and gathered them to prove that I was the girl in that photo based on my shoes and accessories to our friends. When they showed me her messages I was asking them “what is the reason for all this?” “what does she get or prove from doing this?” then one of them told me the boy who took me to dinner had rejected her in the past and she had been obsessed with him. I of course didn't know he even existed until before the date. Well it seemed to me she still was obsessed. Imagine if she wasn't blocked to this day? I could just imagine her actively trying to tear me down every chance she gets. I truly will never understand but it’s not my job to understand why she acts this way. The second I begin to understand why she chooses to behave the way she does is the day I become someone like her. I don't need to understand. I don't need closure. What I need is peace and to make room for better friends who genuinely choose to celebrate each other. Don't let the red flags teach you a lesson, they are there to WARN YOU.

[counttashtag]

Marinette Jor-El Wayne Ch 1

just cross posting a fic - https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869410/chapters/60167491

There are over 3000 known comets in our solar system, and scientists believe there to up to a billion total, but this comet was not one of them. How did Batman know this?

First of all because he is Batman, paranoia comes with the cowl.

Second because he has been watching the incoming meteorites approach for the better part of a week. At first it was simply just for the interest of Dick, his young ward, after the bat computer first alerted them to the incoming shower. Then Dick used the bat computer hack a satellite for pictures.

Bruce wasn’t entirely sure whether this behaviour deserved punishment or not. Dick managed to get away unscathed as Bruce notice that one of the poorly imaged comments had no tail. Red flags were raised by that.

Piece of rock hurdling through space were supposed to break down and leave an iconic tail behind. This had started the relatively short-lived crusade of comet chasing. It had peaked the Bat’s interest even further when the tailless meteorite would be flying over Gotham, the concern being that the meteor could actually cause his city damage. Another sleepless night showed that no, none of the comets would not crush in the city nor land just within their city limits, read territory, enough to warrant investigation of anything that could potential survive the harshness of impact with the earth’s surface.

That was precisely how Batman found himself looking through binoculars for shooting stars dancing across the sky with his sidekick Robin hopping excitedly from foot to foot beside him. In broad daylight. Yeah Batman didn’t do daylight, but the aforementioned paranoia didn’t do sleep either apparently.

Alfred was back at the cave assuring the young boy.

‘Yes, it is exciting Master Dick’, ‘No I don’t believe they be quite like fireworks Master Dick’ and the reoccurring ‘It is a meteor not a space craft Master Dick, there will not be any aliens Master Dick’.

Bruce had honestly tunned it out some time ago standing vigilante atop the edge of his city.

Dick was in the middle of another comment about not being able to prove alien didn’t exist when it started. Crimson and amber streak burning across the already bright sky.

A quick glanced showed Bruce that Dick stood amazed at the sight, wholly captivated by the bright flashes. Soon too was the stoic Batman ensnared by the splendour.

So ensnared that he almost missed the one tailless meteor swerve. Keyword almost. The Batman snapped out of his stupor immediately, falling to the batmobile park on the streets below. Waiting only until Robin drops into the seat beside him to case after the prized object.

Of course, the comet had the advantage of speed as even the batmobile could not reach the awesome speed of 60km/s. They also had the disadvantage of having no idea where the comet was headed, past the cardinal point.

The drive to the crash site was silent both vigilantes silently puzzling out the situation.

Bruce was trying to figure out what had caused the meteorite to change course and land several kilometres within the city limits.

Dick was trying to figure out how to speak with the potential alien who would probably not know Romani any better than English.

The crash site itself held more questions then answers. They had lost sight of the comet some time ago, but Alfred had traced its impact point to an old non-developed farming area just on the edge of Gotham.

They arrived to see a still mostly intact field. The only proof of the abnormal was a streak thought the grass, of a fire burned out, leading to a charred object in the centre of the field.

Leaving the bat car unattended for the second time that night, the vigilantes did the much-warned action of walking towards the strange object recently fallen from the sky.

Certain details became clearer on their approach;

Firstly, the object, they were pretty sure it wasn’t a normal comet at this point, had ‘survived’ the crash, though it seemed as the thing had nearly been torn in two. Secondly, the whole thing seemed smooth, very much unlike the uneven chunk of rock they were expecting. Third, it was metal, maybe, Batman wasn’t sure, a rare occurrence for the man.

“Cool, spaceship”, spoke Dick breaking the silence as he marvelled at the object, keeping distance only because the heat radiating to his face was already making him sweat at the distance he was at already.

Fourth, the object quite literally had no better description, it was all too alien.

A whimper brought the two males from their outlandish thoughts, thoughts becoming all far too plausible.

A gloved hand reached out attentively to touch to pod. The Bat recoiled at the heat and Dick at his soft hiss of pain.

Whatever mechanics had survived the crash whirred into motion.

Batman being the taller of the two, Dick only turned 13 a few months ago, leaned over the . . . capsule as he identified it to be. Nothing could have possible prepared him for what he saw.

A child, perhaps 2, lay bundled in a deep red blanket. Her dark hair surprisingly tame from her journey. Her eyes remained closed as she whimpered again, curling further in on herself in the process.

Bruce’s heart broke for the girl in that moment. A curious Dick had peaked from up on his toes.

“Can we keep her!?”

[bellafragolina]

I kinda wanna see Guzma and/or Piers get the shovel talk from their s/o's best friend. You know the whole, "If you hurt them no one will find your body" talk, and if they get snarky the whole, "Well no one's found their Ex's body yet" talk. Bonus points if the friends is small and unassuming. I tried to think of someone else to also get the shovel talk but honestly the brain is full of Guzma and Piers. No one else can live in my head apparently /j - FTM Anon

lolol shovel talks are so funny. i still remember mine to my friend's then boyfriend, now husband <3

🍓🍓🍓

Guzma:

Guzma talks big talk, but he can live up to a good bit of it. He's not scared of your best friend, despite the stare down he tends to get from them whenever he hangs around you. They're sneaky, though. Affectionate, and they're quick to steal your attention away when they think he's getting too close. Guzma whines to you about it when you're alone, and you agree to talk with them, but they still vie for your attention when he's around, probably just to make him mad

He confronts them after a while of this, wanting to know why they're so annoying. They happily explain stuff you've already told him, about how close you both are and how much they care for you. They want you happy! And with the right person! And Guzma may be that person, but who knows? For now, it's their job to see if Guzma is able to stand a bit of annoyance when it comes to your attention (they also think getting him annoyed is kinda fun).

"After all, last guy they dated took a swing when I started to cuddle them in front of him." Your friend notes, innocence lacing their tone. Guzma stiffens, angry. He remembers you telling him about it, how sad you were. "I was able to beat him off, of course. Lucky I had my keys in my hand! Shame about his eye, though."

Guzma pauses. His eye? Keys? You didn't go into much detail about how your friend fended the guy off.

Their face suddenly gets casted in shadow as they frown, eyes narrowed and almost challenging. "If you turn out the same, I'll just add another eye to the collection. Or I dunno, maybe I'll take something else as a souvenir. Become a Frankenstein and make a monster from the parts."

They laugh, and Guzma makes a mental note to one: ask you about this later, and two: try to stay on your friend's good side if they're not lying after all.

Piers:

Piers doesn't think your friend likes him. They're always eyeballing him whenever you're not looking, suspicious of everything he does with you, even just holding your hand. Piers honestly doesn't care too much; he knows that he's new and they're not sure of him yet. He does wish they would talk with him about it, though, even if he's also not the biggest fan of those conversations

He asks you about it, and you admit to him a previous relationship of yours ended poorly, so they've been protective ever since. These things are hard to guess in the middle of them, so your friend acts as the outside observer, searching for the red flags you can't see through your rose-tinted glasses. Piers understands this as well, and puts a little more effort into showing that he's never going to do that to you

"I know they already told you about the previous guy." Your friend says to him, during one lull period where you've left them alone together to do something else. "A real piece of work, and none of us expected it."

Piers says nothing, unsure of where this is going due to their dark tone.

"When we found him, I wanted to kill him." Your friend remarks idly. "Abusing our trust, especially theirs, is a big no-no for me, y'know? I let him get away, though, just with a few broken fingers to remember me by as he tried to move on."

"Yeah?" Piers remarks carefully.

Your friend nods. "You seem nice, and you play good guitar too. Don't make me break your fingers too, okay? It'd be a shame to disappoint your fans by taking away your ability to ever play again."

Piers nods. Well, at least it seems like they're starting to trust him? They could've picked a less threatening way of telling him, though.

🍓🍓🍓

I tried to make these seem somewhat plausible as threats go. Needed self defense was done, and the friend can and will do it again if the boyfriend shows signs, and all that.

Hope you enjoyed! Have a good day!

~Renee

[mimibwi]

My thoughts on shipping

I have previously been silently exploring BTS ships and decided to put some of my thoughts on “paper”.

Now, I have been aware of the toxicities of certain BTS shipper fandoms and how messy shipping has been for groups that pre-date BTS such as One direction and Fifth Harmony. I have personally never been much of a shipper before BTS and naturally discovering my ship’s bond and starting to appreciate it. It always baffles me how shipping seems to mean different things to different people or groups of shippers. This is heard often but shipping should be something done for fun and I won’t say I hate that logic or that I 100% agree with it because I personally think its okay if you have a slight inkling your favorite pair may be dating/more than what they say they are and you try looking at it a bit more seriously. I think it’s human nature to be inquisitive and curious. However, like everything, there needs to be a limit and I think that’s a huge problem not only in shipping culture but stan culture in general. There’s been so many times that I have seen jokes or otherwise harmless discourses become a bigger deal than they were ever meant to be.

To me shipping is and always would be about observation, (rational) speculation and possibilities. I am never going to fight with anyone to prove my ship is real in a romantic way because to be frank I genuinely do not know. None of us know and that’s okay. I like discussing the possibility of ships (mainly my ship) being real (this always irks me to say cause every ship is real but anyway) and sometimes even theorize things based on that assumption. This is getting a bit messy because I have so much I want to say but I have no structure to it, bare with me.

Basically, what I am trying to say is, I think shipping is okay within limits. Once again, its all about observations and all of us are only human and can’t help but pick up on things from time to time and who knows maybe your hunch might actually mean something. So I never see any shippers or ship dynamic as a competition. I even seek out analysis, theories and videos of other ships because I love to see the different dynamics and how differently we all think and how things can look solely based on one’s perspective. Despite how frustrating it gets, I find shipping culture in itself very interesting. The way the same things can be interpreted in so many ways, seeing how differently people think from me and in many cases how other’s thoughts challenge my perspective and opinions.

The type of shipping I don’t enjoy is the type that:

makes it a competition of who is the closest or which bond is the best.

is already CONVINCED and 100% without a doubt BELIEVES that the ship they enjoy is the “real” one because like I said before none of us know for sure. It gets even worse because this subset of people speak about their theories/analysis/opinions as if its a fact known by many and some of us just need to get with the program.

degrade other members for ships. this is an instant red flag for me and if I’m being honest, many shippers aren’t as forward with the hate they have toward the member that “threatens” their ship. I have seen many shippers say the vilest things or agree with the rudest asks about some of the boys but at the end say “but I love him though” like…do you? do you really?—

push theories and delusions into the boy’s spaces to get confirmation…side eye. This is one of the worst things to me honestly. Shipping is meant to be enjoyed within fandom spaces and no matter how real you think your ship is, there is absolutely no reason to try to bring it to the boy’s attention that you apparently know what they are. Please do not make weird, inappropriate or suggestive comments about ships on their welives, do not DM them about it, do not DM or bug their family, friends and colleagues about it. PLEASE JUST BE NORMAL!!! If a ship is in fact real, they have their reasons for not being public about it and you as a fan of the group and especially as someone who enjoys the pair should be respectful of that. Sure it’s fine to talk about the duos on weverse or tag the boys in cute edits because I’m sure they like that their friendships are appreciated but please be cautious when pushing it to them through a romantic lens.

I think this takes away a lot of the fun of shipping and these subsets of shippers along with others I may have missed out here are the reason that the fandom tries to push out shippers for the most part. I always joke about many non toxic shippers getting thrown into it when all some of us really do is cry and gush about our ship TT its such a shame. But its understandable since the toxic shippers make up a large, VERY LOUD subset of the fandom and with the track record of shipping among groups, I frankly wish a lot of you weren’t around either.

((a lot more below the cut))

My Approach

To me, showing love and appreciation for the very REAL bond that we see is always going to be essential and the basis of everything I do as a shipper. And I am not talking about any theories or analysis of what we’re shown but taking in and appreciating what the boys say and the many ways they show love to each other.

No matter who you ship this is a very easy task to accomplish because the tannies are so loving and every single pair or trio has a special bond that is intriguing to explore. I have learnt so much in the few years I’ve been an ARMY, not only from my ship but from almost every ship and just the tannies on a whole. They’ve taught me a lot about friendship and help me understand the type of relationships I should aim to have and the type of person I want to be for others. These lessons and small appreciations are what I’ve anchored myself to so that I don’t stray too much from this original plot and even if I do, it’s very easy to find my way back.

That being said, I have acknowledged that I can be very delusional. I refuse to believe any of my theories or the theories that any shipper presents to me as 100% fact, no matter how convincing they might sound. I have accepted that everything I theorize about could be 1000% wrong and very very far from what is true and I’m fine with that thought. It’s what allows me to think up far fetch little theories or blip off into these delusional mind bubbles where my ship is real. It’s also why I can get out of my head and acknowledge the fact that it’s likely that no ship in BTS are romantic [ref to My unpopular(?) shipping opinions and this ask]. All of it is because I leave room for deniability.

I’ve expressed this here before but it is very much baffling to me how so many shippers believe with 100% certainty that the pair they like are actually dating and are willing to go to war over it. Y’all are way better than me because I, personally, refuse to look like a fool on the world wide web. Don’t get me wrong, I would definitely defend the tannies from the “not friends anymore” or “fanservice” allegations but I am not going out of my way to fight with delusional people about 2 Korean men (who I don’t know personally😭) being sexually or romantically involved. Y’all can keep that!

Why I don’t believe the believers

Okay now I’ll try to move on and talk about why some shipper discourses or theories don’t hold up to me and why its quite insane and sort of foolish to believe a ship exists in a romantic light 100% based solely on them. The short answer of this is CONTEXT.

Forming opinions and arguments (I am not saying shipping should be an argument but since many shippers treat it like one, I’m addressing it as such for now) about a topic always requires a massive amount of context and a foundation of already factual information to be built from to sound even remotely plausible and valid. That’s why I mentioned before that a lot of this shipping business is speculation and opinions and frankly some of the speculation/opinions I see from shippers just don’t make sense to me. This is all because with BTS and any real person whose life we only see a fraction of, we lack a lot of context and for that reason building a solid argument from a 5 second clip of their life is difficult because we as outsiders are the ones who fill in the blanks. That’s why there usually isn’t any solid or shared opinion on what certain things said or done by the guys mean because we all have different experiences and biases that reflect in the way we see and interpret people’s actions.

Okay, I am going to go into a bit more detail about what I mean and what type of context I am referring to when I say this: (this is where it may get even messier, stay with me)

1// Situational context- This is more for the shippers that breakdown specific moments and (over)analyze them. Personally, I am a big picture person so whilst there may be particular moments that I see as a moment for or against a particular ship being more than friends, most times one clip or period of time doesn’t affect the way I view a ship. I think its drastic to constantly be changing your opinions based on every clip you see or changing it because a ship hasn’t publicly interacted in a while. Despite all of this, there are many things I keep in the back of my mind and maybe even form fun, (tbh) far-fetched theories on but for the most part it doesn’t change much for me. The reason why is because from moment to moment, clip to clip there is so much context that we don’t have about what’s happening in that one moment. Like did x have a bad morning? did he just receive bad/good news? is he looking forward to or dreading what he needs to do after this? is x going through something personally right now? did x and y have a falling out/misunderstanding? is x looking at y or is he just zoned out?

Okay this is going overboard and some of these may sound quite ridiculous but these are some of the millions of things that give context to a situation and for that reason they’re all things that need to be taken into consideration when analyzing the boys. I won’t even lie, I was thinking about Taehyung and Jungkook (to a lesser extent) for these cause if I see someone calling Tae rude or saying Jungkook is jealous one more time I might lose it. I am not saying any of the above ever happened cause once again I don’t know but all I am saying is stating any opinion of yours of a vague moment as fact without even exploring one of the above or any other possible factors is never going to let me take you seriously. I am also not saying every shipper who talks about a moment needs to be able to tell me what x had for breakfast that morning but if you express your observation/opinion as the truth I expect you to be able to give me CONTEXT. It feels like I am going in circles, I told you it was getting messy.

There are moments that hold up quite well on their own and have sufficient context. In other words, some things don’t require much explanation to be seen as truth. I guess what I am trying to say is the amount of factual information you have should remain proportionate to the assumptions and opinions you form. Too many times people use tiny moments to come to huge conclusions and connect dots that make no sense being connected. And I think its fun to be a bit far-fetch and delusional but it becomes a huge issue when nonsensical theories are posted on the internet and pushed to other people who don’t understand how irrational those theories are. Hence, I often believe in freedom of thought more so than freedom of speech; not everything you think needs to be said, you can keep things to yourself or at the very least only share it with one person or two that you trust to understand your intent.

2// Cultural context- I will try not to stick to this for too long because I am not Korean, so I can add very little cultural context to any ship moment minus those I have been told about before. There are some things that the boys do or say that would probably have a different meaning to me vs someone who is aware of Korean culture. There are many times, none that I can pinpoint at this time, that I see a comment or post explaining a clip/moment with cultural context, which changed my view on that particular moment. Like I said, I am threading lightly here cause there is not much I can add to this conversation. I am adding this here to remind you that the moment that is a big deal to you may just be normal for Koreans shrugs. This one is even more difficult than the first because cultural context isn’t something you can just make assumptions about, its something you need to be exposed to to understand. A mere Google search may not even cut it to fully understand as an outsider.

Things like honorifics and politeness levels of speech or even specific translations need to be taken with a grain of salt. The bromance and skinship aspect of K-pop/Korean culture is also a huge part of shipping that may be new to people from different cultures. In many countries in the West, skinship between men isn’t something very normalized or in many cases even socially acceptable so the amount that BTS show physical affection to each other might be startling to many international fans when it’s something that’s more socially acceptable in Korea and normalized amongst their team.

“Holding hands, linking arms, and hugging amongst friends are acceptable ways to show closeness and comfort. So, don’t assume that every two persons holding hands in public are romantically involved! Conversely, public displays of affection by romantic couples are more toned down compared to in societies like, say, the US”. 4 Distinctly Korean Habits To Know Before Going To Korea (sejong.com.sg)

None of this is to say that certain types of skinship can’t mean more to any two members or to say we can’t find the interactions cute or endearing. It once again boils down to the confidence shippers have when using these moments as proof of their ship being the real deal.

3// Differing personalities, beliefs and relationship dynamics- All of these points bleed into each other and are interconnected in some way but I think this one is basically the backbone of all of the others. Despite having situational or even cultural context, its still difficult to draw any clear conclusions because EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT and any analysis or opinion will need to treat them as such—different people with different values, morals, beliefs, likes, priorities, dislikes, experiences and the lists goes on.

No matter how well the boys get on, they have continuously expressed how different all of them are as people. And because of that, no two ship can or should ever be viewed in the same lens. I think this “mistake” is something I see a lot in shipping: X and Y did this and X and Z didn’t hence XY>XZ, I honestly don’t think its that simple. In order to fully grasp a ship and its possibility of being real, you need to have a good idea of who the people you’re shipping are and what their likes, dislikes, values, priorities etc are.

Now this, like all these other points require a lot of assumptions to be made. Firstly, it assumes you interpret everything they say and do the way they meant it to come across, it assumes that their BTS persona is a good reflection of who they are as people OR that you have a good idea who they might be as people. I don’t know how to explain this one cause there are members that we as fans know as being a bit different on vs off camera and some of those differences are known to an extent but once again we’re dealing with a lot of assumptions so its tricky. Anyway, many shipper theories assume that we know how they’d react in various circumstances.

There are a few reasons I am bringing this up and I’ll mention it here to better explain myself. Like I said, I have been searching around at ship content just cause the more you fuck around the more you find out and I have been seeing people’s takes on shipping and forming opinions on them. At some point, I started feeling hypocritical cause of how my opinion may be different for particular ships and I concluded that this point was one of the reasons why. Let me explain-

I saw some people giving % probability scores for certain ships being romantic and the thought came into my head that Yoongi ships, I think they were specifically talking about yoonmin or sope, are not probable to me if we’re seriously thinking romantically. Even as someone who thinks Yoongi may be into men/women/both/none (girl honestly idk). The reason why i think this way is looking at Yoongi and what (I assume) his priorities and goals are in life. I mention in a previous post that I question the member’s willingness to take the risk that would come with being in a relationship with a bandmate and how I think that many of them don’t come across to me as being willing to. Yoongi is the epitome of that opinion for me. I mention this in the next point but dating someone within the same group as you will definitely be a big deal, it will be a PR/HR emergency if anything goes wrong and I don’t see Yoongi as the type of person to want to play around that and sacrifice his work for love whether he felt emotions or even trained himself to the point that feelings don’t develop in the first place. [I’ve said that I never want to date someone in the same field as me and after that, i haven’t found any of my colleagues attractive or as a romantic interest, even when I tried]

I think another example that works really well for this is Jimin and the way a lot of shipper’s interpret him compared to how I do. I think any ARMY or any one who keeps up with BTS for even 5 minutes, can see that Jimin is a very private person. Of all the members, he comes across to me as someone who is very cautious and particular(?) about the way he’s perceived. He’s very careful with his words and his actions. You can watch any video he’s in and see how much he thinks before he says something to the members (especially when it’s of a serious nature) or to ARMYs. A very easy example of this is how concerned he was in the FESTA 2022 video about how we may take what they said and almost pleading for the audience to just take them by their word (something that literally almost every person who watched that video DID NOT do but we move smh…). All of this to say, I can’t subscribe to theories that believe that Jimin is pointing out things between him and his secret partner or behaving risky with them in front of cameras and giggling about it. I can get into this more but I’ll digress.

I am not sure how these examples will come across but these are just some random examples I can think of where I think varying personalities might affect the way I see a ship. This is not me claiming any particular ship is over another or saying that any of these above points are true because my opinions are based on my specific perception of the different members and I am not claiming I know them best.

All in all, there is only so much (little) that we know of them, its difficult to know for certain what any of them would be like in a romantic relationship. However, it seems like many shippers tend to remove the bits of individuality we do see of each member whenever they look into ships which further makes things even more unrealistic and delusional sounding to me.

To add to this, many times shippers interpret things based on their idea of a relationship without really putting themselves in the member’s place. This is totally understandable considering what I mentioned before about us being the ones that fill in the blanks but it’s one of the reasons why we can’t take our theories 100% seriously all the time. At the end of the day, every single relationship is different and something that might be okay for the members in a relationship may not be okay with you or the way the members choose to deal with their relationship may not be how you think it should or would be dealt with. So once again, you can’t take your interpretation of things too seriously. If a ship is real, we aren’t and would never be privy to their private conversations regarding what is okay for them in THEIR relationship. We don’t know what their limits are or how they would choose to maneuver through their relationship on camera so our view of things will always be one-sided.

4// Knowing the gravity of the situation if any ship is real- This one is basically situational context but on a wider scope and might be the most serious of all of these, despite me putting it last on the list. I think a lot of people who ship members romantically do not even consider how serious a situation like that would be. For the most part, I don’t think this is a problem if we’re just having fun but I think people who seriously analyze things the boys do need to take it into consideration. We all are aware at least to some extent of the state of LGBTQ+ in South Korea. Korea is still a very conservative country and though members of the LGBTQ+ community are actively seeking change, things are not as progressive as one would hope.

Taking that into consideration, any two members of BTS— the biggest K-pop group in the world and one of South Korea’s representative brands— being aware that they have more than platonic feelings for each other would be a huge deal. There’s a lot to consider regarding the way the other member’s would approach it, the way the company would approach it and the way the two members themselves would want to deal with it: whether or not they decide to pursue it and if they do, how they go about doing that.

Any two members dating would serve a huge risk for not only those two members but the group as a whole and the other members individually. Aside from the risks of any of the members being queer, the fact that we as shippers aren’t opposed to the idea of two members dating and the fact that many ARMYs would also be open to it if it ever turned out to be the case DOES NOT take away from the fact that such a relationship may be seen as highly unprofessional and inappropriate. We know all the boys are friends who have grown up closely alongside each other and feelings developing is something that is possible but at the end of the day, they are coworkers working together as BTS and many people may not be able to look past that.

I think many shippers look at ships in a very isolated way. They remove the very real world that we live in and all the problems that would come along with a ship being real and opt to live in a world where their ship is real and everything around them is always sunshine and rainbows. And I get it, that’s way more fun but it is not realistic. I think its fine to have this outlook if you are shipping just for fun but that is a lot of the times not the case. Many of these shippers on YouTube, tumblr or X that seriously analyze these relationships tend to feed a very unrealistic, clouded world view to others that may also be very naïve thinking. This is why a lot of theories grow to become these huge nonsensical conspiracies that any rational person can deduce makes absolutely no sense in the real world. Let’s address some specifics:

Addressing some unrealistic shipperverse theories

Any “real” ship in BTS are not being careless with their relationship in front of cameras or when doing other work. All your theories about them kissing on/around cameras or going into changing rooms together during award shows and coming back dishevel will never hold up to me.

If a ship is involved romantically and the company is aware of it, there’s most likely only a small subset of people that would actually know. My guess of who would know is: some higher ups in the company, the members, a select few managers and maybe bodyguards, possibly trusted and long time members of the BTS team i.e. PDogg, Son Sungdeuk, Slow rabbit etc. and perhaps a trusted PR team to advice them on how to deal with things. Even this list feels a bit too extensive. Anyway I am making this point because I don’t get why shippers think that random hairstylists or camera directors or editors would be privy to such sensitive information. And this stands for any relationship really, it’s unlikely that ALL of their staff are even aware if any of the boys are in more “traditional” (heterosexual) relationships so why do some of you act like it’ll be an open secret if any of them are queer.

Theories about love triangles or stories saying a member left a member for another member are so crazy out of touch?? Any one pair realizing their feelings for each other and choosing to pursue it despite the risk it poses to them and to the team is unquestionably a huge deal and would need to be dealt with an immense degree of care. So its very hard to believe that the members are haphazardly messing around with each other, cheating, breaking up and just overall being messy about the whole thing.

I genuinely don’t get why you people think any pair in the group are being blatant and basically trying to out themselves to the public at this point in their career. It’s not far fetched to think that they would have or want some way to express themselves but I doubt it’s as blatant as shippers suggest. Honestly, if a couple does exist amongst the tannies I am not even confident it’s something the public may ever be made aware of…

Conclusion

All in all, I think shipping is something that can be really fun but needs to be done with a huge amount of care and respect. Making assumptions about the boys and being dead set on one particular possibility being the end game can be detrimental, not only to the boys but to you as well. Many shippers are very confident and secure about their ship being real romantically and will stop at nothing to prove their point. This is a very ridiculous approach because I would bet that a secret couple don’t want or need you to prove their realness, they also don’t need you to spread their message to the world and convert people to your side. It really should not be that serious. Shipping should be something that simmers instead of boiling over. Just enjoy what you enjoy without spreading hate and without seeking real life confirmation through the members or dispatch or their family.

With the tannies getting older, it’s important for all of us to have somewhat of an understanding that what we have imagined or want their life to be may just not be what is true. I would hate (though I have already seen it being in the future of some ships😞) to see the larry-fication of any of these ships where 10-15 years in the future, shippers are still making random connections even if the members are known to be married to other people and have 5 kids. With there being 21 unique pairings within the group, even if it turns out that one of them is “real” doesn’t that mean that the possibility of most of us being wrong is greater than us being right. And that is, if we ever find out…

This was always meant to be the first post on my blog but because of the shipper climate around the time I started writing it, I held back on posting it how I initially intended to. I decided to give it a bit of a revamp and edit it to fit with what I want my little blog here to be. I’ve been writing this for almost a year now and have enjoyed putting these thoughts together in a somewhat concise and comprehensible way. Even if you don’t agree with everything I said here, I hope the main point comes across i.e. no shipper knows better than the other, we’re all going based off our own perspective and rational and so we shouldn’t be 100% certain and we shouldn’t be fighting over or confidently pushing ideas that we are probably wrong about. I really don’t care who ships who (ship and let ship) but I certainly think shippers need to be more careful about the things they say and do in the name of ships.

Thank you for reading!💜

~~🐝

links used in the post:

Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson 'Ships' Into a Delusional Twitter Trend (ccn.com)

Lauren Jauregui Says Those Camila Cabello Relationship Rumors Were ‘So Traumatizing’ | Glamour

https://www.sejong.com.sg/4-distinctly-korean-habits-to-know-before-going-to-korea/

Interesting reads:

Queer Identity in Korea | CIEE

Ask a Korean!: I Love You, Man

It’s all in the Touch – Skinship. (스킨십) | Elwood 5566

LGBTQ Koreans Eager for Anti-Discrimination Bill | TIME

Narrow but Significant Win for LGBT Rights in South Korea (voanews.com)

[five-rivers]

Cult Division 1

A continuation of this series.

Cameron Daily ran Amity Park Police Department’s Cult Division.  

Phrasing it that was, honestly, pretty generous.  Ninety percent of the time it was him and his computer monitoring Amity Park’s religious social media and the Amity of Amity Park community forums.  Most of the time, the cults were harmless splinters of more established religions.  Just people trying to come to terms with the whole ‘ghosts are real’ thing.

Hell, technically speaking, he was part of a cult.  An extra dimension full of super powered and extremely violent dead people of various moralities wasn’t part of standard Episcopalian cosmology.

Anyway, most of the time his job was fairly laid back.  Low effort, low responsibility.  He did, however, have the ability to rope other people in if it looked like something bad was about to go down.  

Something was about to go down.  

Now, whether it was bad or not, he didn’t know, but since it was happening at midnight in the graveyard, he was going to play this cautiously.  Especially since the cult in question was one of the Phantom cults.  

Not to be judgemental, but the Phantom cults caused at least half of the cult problems.  From kidnapping Danny Fenton that one time to starting a fight with the more established churches over putting a religious statue of Phantom in Amity Park… okay, that was at least half on the Christians, but still.  The kidnapping thing still stood.

Plus, and he was saying this as someone who looked into a lot of cults, some of the Phantom cults were just downright creepy.  

Okay, anyway.  Time to call in help.  

“Hey!” he shouted across the room.  “Paterson!  Collins!  McGee!  I need your help with something!”

“I’m not interviewing any more cultists!” said Paterson.  “I’m out!”

“Stakeout and I’ll buy you pizza!”

“Changed my mind.  I’m in!”

.

McGee thought he was okay with stakeouts.  He was a detective.  Undercover.  It was one of the tools in his box.  Part of the package.  A stereotype, even.  He’d gotten used to them long ago.  

But stakeouts in the backseat of Collins’s car were something awful.  There was never enough room.  Ever since the Fentons had come out with the ‘Fenton Freshener’ the vehicle had smelled perennially of limes and ozone, which went poorly with the oregano on the pizza.  There was always the chance that a ghost might come along.

Having Daily squeezed back there with him only made it worse.

“Having us stay out all night because a teenager called in a tip seems like overkill.”

“Not just any teenager,” said Daily, “Sophia LaMar.  She’s connected.  I’ve also got red flags on a bunch of social traffic and some of the Amity of Amity boards.  This is the real deal.”

“I thought you kept getting kicked from the Amity of Amity boards.”

“Yeah, that’s because I was accessing it from the police station.  Apparently they have something programmed to weed out the GIW.  I monitor the Amity boards from home, now."  He made a face.  “I still sometimes get kicked, those guys are really insistent on not being monitored by law enforcement, but–”

The door opened, making everyone jump.

“Move over,” said Danny Fenton, prompting Daily to scoot further into McGee’s space.  

“How do you do that?” demanded McGee.  “Do your parents know where you are?  It’s eleven.”

“Don’t you get tired of reacting that way?” asked Danny, sliding into the seat Daily had just vacated.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No.  You?”

“Just that some of the cult kids were really antsy about something, and the occult side of the Amity forums kept talking about how special the date is.”  He made a face.  “I don’t get it.  It isn’t like there’s a planetary alignment or a meteor shower or anything.  It isn’t even a new moon or a full moon.”

“Not all special dates have to do with astronomy,” said Paterson, playing with her binoculars.  “Any other messages?”

“Phantom he’s going to be out here tonight, in case whatever is going on is more magic ritual than graverobbing.  He’d like you not to shoot at him if he has to go fight the cultists over some kind of slavery spell or something.”

“And if it is graverobbing?” asked Collins, putting his coffee in the cup holder.  

“He’d rather you guys take care of it before they start digging.”

“Sure thing.”

“Great.  I can’t hang aroun– Oh, is that the new jalapeno and pepperoncini pizza from Spectral Slices?”

“Triple cheese,” said Daily, apologetically.  

“Ah, well.  You should try the ghost chili one, it’s to die for.”  Fenton climbed out of the car.  “Have a good night!”

McGee waited for him to be a good deal away.  “Why does no one else think a teenager hopping into a car in the middle of a stakeout at almost midnight weird?”

“We do think it’s weird,” said Paterson.  “But he is a Fenton.”

“Yeah,” said Collins.  “You have to make allowances.”  He leaned forward.  “I see something.”

“Oh, they’re wearing robes.  That’s cute,” said Paterson.  McGee would have to take her word for it, because in the back he could see approximately nothing.  “Probably a bad sign, though.”

“You’re telling me,” said Daily.  “Robes mean rituals, ritual action, means they’re serious about this.”

“Aren’t all cults serious about what they do?” asked Paterson.

“Sure, but it raises the stakes.  Do you know how hard it is to get teenagers to stick to a dress code?  Mom couldn’t even stop my sister from going out in a crop top.  Did you know–”

“Cameron,” groaned Paterson, “we’re trying to focus on the cult.”

.

Danny watched the cultists from above.  He…  Okay, at first he’d thought that it was kind of fun, having cults.  Like a sort of fan club.  It was always nice to be appreciated.

Now, though?  Some, most, even, were still like fan clubs, but others were… pushy.  Always wanting things he couldn’t give them.  He tried to minimize interactions with them.  

He didn’t like the idea of one of those messing around with his grave.  Which.  You know.  Contained his dead body.  

Luckily, they didn’t seem to be breaking out any shovels or knives or weird books or chants.  Maybe they just wanted to say some prayers?

One of the cultists took out a large folded sheet from under their robe.  Were they having a picnic or something?  The cultists unfolded it.  

Danny had just enough time to see the circle sewn into it before he was suddenly in the midst of the cultists, floating above the circle.  

“Oh my gosh,” he said.  “Was I just summoned?  Was that what that was?”

The cultists start to celebrate.  

.

“Oh no,” said Collins as a very familiar dot of light appeared in the middle of the graveyard.  “Looks like things just went wrong.”

Paterson dropped her binoculars.  “Did he just get summoned?”

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 120 (Apr. 11, 1988) - “The Arsenal of Freedom”

Teleplay by: Richard Manning & Hans Beimler Story by: Maurice Hurley & Robert Lewin Directed by: Les Landau

The Breakdown

The USS Drake has gone missing after being sent to investigate a planet (Minos) whose entire population has ALSO gone missing; so naturally the Enterprise has been sent to figure out why there are so many missing people connected to one planet.  On a probably-unrelated-note, it turns out the Minosians were arms dealers who sold super advanced weaponry, but I’m sure that won’t be relevant to the following 45 minutes.  Anyways, the Enterprise arrives at Minos to find zero signs of life, except for a hailing frequency originating on the planet’s surface.  Obviously Picard accepts the call, but it just turns out to be one of those un-skippable YouTube advertisements for a highly advanced weapons system, and Picard is like “That was weird. We should send some people to the surface to check that out.”

For what must be a first for this ENTIRE crew, Tasha makes a rational security decision in convincing Riker to keep the away team as small as possible, in the interest of general ship safety (since there is absolutely no sign of the missing Drake, which I honestly think is a MUCH bigger red flag than Picard is making it out to be).  Riker agrees (taking only himself, Tasha, and Data), but gets himself caught in a statis field almost immediately, so Picard throws caution to the wind and beams himself AND Dr.  Crusher down to help out… somehow.  Although, credit where credit is due, Picard does have the foresight to leave Geordi in charge of the Enterprise with orders to abandon him and the away team if it means protecting the ship.

Naturally all this leads to a double-jeopardy situation.  Down below, the away team keeps getting attacked by little killer drones that regenerate-and-adapt every time one gets shot down; meanwhile separate drone starts attacking the Enterprise, slowly picking away at the shields (oh, and it can cloak, making it tough to kill).  Geordi finally figures out a way to outsmart his mechanical nemesis by using the displacement of Minos’ upper atmosphere to reveal the drone’s location.  At the same time Picard conveniently falls into a pit that happens to contain a control panel that activates the holographic salesman (from the aforementioned automated message) who prompts him to finalize the purchase of their killer drones, in order to “end the demonstration”; thus completing what has apparently been a VERY high-stakes sales pitch. 

At this point it’s been concluded that the Minosians accidentally created a killing machine that was so effective it accidentally murdered their entire species, in addition to anyone who came poking around.  Since the Enterprise is now safe, and the mystery of the Drake’s disappearance is solved (in that the crew are confirmed to have met a nightmarish end), we can chalk this up to another happy ending!

The Verdict

There’s something to be said for a straightforward adventure story, and ‘arsenal of freedom’ successfully delivers on that front.  I can’t say there’s enough going on here for me to classify this episode as one of “the greats,” but it makes good use what it does have.

The highlight of this episode has to be Geordi’s command of the Enterprise.  It’s nice to see some genuine progression for a character that I’ve often felt gets overlooked, made all the better by the fact that I found his solution to the drone battle refreshingly plausible!  Usually when Star Trek is dealing with cloaked adversaries, it gets resolved with some kind of tachyon-scanner-upgrade-techno babble.  That’s all well-and-good AS LONG the writers also take care not to abuse such genre-conventions (which is another matter entirely), but I still tend to prefer solutions that adhere to the laws of physics.  As for Geordi’s time in command, I also appreciate how this episode builds on his previous experiences, in throwing him a greater challenge to overcome.

The away team’s adventure definitely makes up the weaker half of the episode, but even that is at least cheesily entertaining, avoiding any glaringly cringy moments.  My main criticism would be over how convenient Picard’s discovery of the control panel was, allowing him to call off the drones; but this is far from the most egregious deus ex machina on a Star Trek show, and it certainly won’t be the last.

But yeah, fun stuff.

3 stars (out of 5)

Additional Observations

I’ve gotta say, the skies of Minos are a beautiful shade of bluescreen- I mean blue.

TNG always suffered from a “women character problem”, in that the writers seldom knew what to do with them, so I was pleasantly surprised with this episode.  It’s not so much that writers did anything groundbreaking with the ladies here, but this has been their best overall use of them up to this point, by my reckoning. Tasha is shown to be competent and reliable, Crusher is able to keep her wits about her after she’s injured (even getting some added backstory), and even Deanna’s council to Goerdi isn’t half bad (which is really saying something for these early episodes).  The show still has a tremendous amount of work left to do in this regard, but it’s at least a tiny step in the right direction.

BATTLE BRIDGE:  This is only the second time we’ve been shown the Enterprise’s saucer section separating from the rest of the ship.  It’s a pretty cool feature that will be seldom used, but it’s an effective way to sell the raised stakes of a given situation, and thoughtfully applied here.

[chibivesicle]

Trigun Stampede - Episode 10 - Humanity - or - Am I now watching Blade Runner?

Episode ten dropped this morning and here in my small two bedroom apartment there was indeed the wailing and gnashing of teeth as I watched the episode unfold.  I had unrealistic expectations for Stampede is the mantra I need to keep repeating to myself as I watch it.

Also, I still have some unanswered asks - I’ll try to get to them when I can but they aren’t a quick reply so I need to have the time and brain power to think about them.

The episode starts off with Vash and Wolfwood riding on their ostriches in the desert heading to July.  Wolfwood screams randomly while Vash listens to a timely news update - on an earbud!  His earring doesn’t even act like a phone receiver device anymore - I mean with all this sci fi tech could you had at least kept his ability to use the earring to hear someone’s voice?!?!?

Anyhoo, this then leads to the OP.  The action then shifts to inside the area where Meryl and Roberto are, now with lights allowing for us to see the room full of red plants.

Zazie the Beast asks them who can make use of the planet - Humans, plants or the worms?  Of course Zazie states that the worms are the planet which, okay you also think quite highly of yourselves worms.  That’s it worm domination is settled if it weren’t for the fact you need to use people to apparently destroy them?  But this is Studio Orange’s animation demo, no budget for writers.

Conrad approaches and is easily able to convince Meryl and a reluctant Roberto to join him.  Roberto utters death flag number one asking Meryl if there is a bargain sale on her life.  You mean your life Roberto, eh?

It is obvious they have no choice but to go with Conrad, they know he is their only link to Knives’ motives for the red plants and his approach to humanity.

We get Vash and Wolfwood in a sort of street in July which is 100% cyberpunk and Blade Runner inspired.  It gives me immediate vibes of Ghost in the Shell (the manga) and Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star.  We are in a very Sinocentric city compared to the vaguely American early 20th century vibes of Jeneora Rock.  Honestly Studio Orange, if you wanted to do cyberpunk, why don’t you just do that instead of trying to jam it into Trigun?  Or maybe do a reboot on Bubblegum Crisis and Bubblegum Crash if you want to work with an older IP.

We also learn from Wolfwood that July is wealthy and successful due to having a monopoly on water producing plants which has made them powerful.  Water is canonically a scarce resource in the manga but there was some on the planet but there was enough that people were able to successfully do some agriculture.  And wash their clothes based on all of the laundry lines between buildings in the cities.

Lots of red Chinese lanterns, maybe we are in the Ghost King’s city but the seal script is too easy to read.  Joking aside, the very desert vibe of the July MP and our previous bad guy of episode one just happens to be on patrol for funsies.  And looks so weird in the Chinese centric area.

However, this metropolis still has no people - with all of that urban density we should see the streets packed with civilians but nah, they aren’t out and about.  Additionally, are we now to interpret that the nameless July MP captain is possibly ethnically Chinese? 

Why am I even pondering this?  I know based on the lazy writing that the entire point of having the MP captain walk by is so that he can interact with Vash to prove some sort of superficial character development point.  In this case, it is for one of the other MPs to point out that his family died at Jeneora Rock and shoots Vash.

Wow, just amazing storytelling skills there!  I couldn’t see this coming at all.  I knew that this was going to force the reveal of Vash’s scarred body.  Which compared to previous versions is pretty good looking.

The ‘98 anime and the manga really worked to show the level of detail and the ugly/gross factor which was played for comic relief in both where Meryl and Milly walk in on Vash coming out of the shower with a towel around his neck and he blushes in embarrassment.

As Vash sits down across from them he with a scarred hand pops open a can of Kuroneko beer and explains he both doesn’t like people to see his scars but that he can’t run away from his past.

Studio Orange really did a disservice to the viewers by cleaning up Vash’s torso making it look clean and more sterile.  The original shows the nubbiness and the fact that Vash could hypothetically heal his scars per the manga but what is the point of doing it out of vanity when it would simply accelerate his aging and hair turning black?

The action turns back to Conrad who is explaining that Luida’s geoplant goals are too slow and passive and that he’s using humanity itself to survive.  I really miss that ‘Little Arcadia’ arc now . . .

We know exactly where this is going.  It is the classic, ‘It is okay to sacrifice other people because they were gonna die anyways.’ villain trope.  Yeah, just show them your high tech experimental lab.  By the way, that is the worst sterile lab technique I have ever seen - are you sure you are following proper lab protocols?

The blood stains make for a horribly cliche dramatic effect which made me laugh.  Conrad tells them that Knives is the perfect life form.  This is clearly a huge departure from the original manga, since he was never this actively involved in things in this sort of way.  I’d say that Conrad didn’t have a strong characterization in Trigun Maximum but he wasn’t a mad scientist drinking the Knives Kool-Aid.  He held his own trump cards against Knives who forced him to work for him.  In Stampede, it appears that he decided to go all into the cult of Knives as opposed to doing stuff at knife point.

We get the explanation that Conrad sees Knives as the ultimate life form and he’s trying to make more of them.  With the help of cloned cells from Knives of course.  For example a child we can all recognize, Elendira in the tank.

But she is translated with an ‘its’ power level being fairly weak.  Meryl stares into the tank with a sadness.

The fact that she is in the tank seems to imply that she still needs to hook into the system and isn’t a true independent like Vash or Knives.  The entire situation is the monologuing of a man who has completely lost it and sees all of his actions as justified with the Knives Kool-Aid.

Meryl feels pity for Elendira who is not pleased to hear this.  This puts her immediately into beserker mode and she creates a nail to blow open the tank.

What have you done with my QUEEN Studio Orange?  She’s now an unhinged 25+ year old plant-human hybrid child who doesn’t age as quickly as Vash or Knives?  I’m not even going to address the issues with this ‘update’ to Elendira’s character in the main summary.

This causes Roberto to grab Meryl and run, again while Conrad stands there and Roberto makes death flag number two.  He mentions worker’s comp to Meryl since she keeps getting them into risky situations.

Roberto and Meryl get chased to a large room full of red plants and oddly placed elevators in the middle.  This doesn’t make any sort of structural or design sense but, hey all of the timing in this entire story doesn’t make any sense.  Roberto is clear to Meryl that they are the bait that is to lure Vash in and they end up stuck between the elevator and Elendira.

Elendira gets more unhinged monologue time of her own about humans and their superficial judgements of others.  Everything is okay though as Roberto knows that Vash will pop out of the elevator when the doors open, so he pulls Meryl off to the side as a rain of nails comes after them.

Sure enough, Wolfwood bursts out and Vash hangs back to help them safely enter the elevator.

This gives time for Wolfwood to square off with an even angrier Elendira.

We see a quick glance of Roberto running oddly back and then a closer look at him holding his side as they enter the elevator.  We know that he’s been hit, though Meryl doesn’t know it yet.

Wolfwood destroys all of the nails and one broken nail cuts her as she falls in overly dramatic fashion.  Again, what have you done to my QUEEN Studio Orange?

Wolfwood being the jerk that he is in this version gives her crap and Vash timidly tries to care about her injury.

This only invites a scathing retort to Vash who is scum in her eyes compared to Knives.  For plot reasons, Wolfwood goes back to the elevator and makes Vash go with him, since it is his job to deliver Vash to Knives.

After this we get Roberto’s lame and predictable death scene with Meryl.  It is the follow up to ‘sempai noticed me’ to the ‘sempai died to protect me’ this now allows for Meryl’s character to have ‘growth’. 

She gets called by her full name and he gives her his Derringer.

I’ve said this many times before, but Studio Orange has done an amazing job with the animation of Meryl’s facial expressions since episode one.  Other characters seem awkward and fall flat but she’s been a highlight.  Her facial expressions - not her actual character which is a shallow imitation of her previous self.  But I can at least take the time and really appreciate how well they animated her.

While she considers Roberto’s request to accept his derringer, Wolfwood narrates to Vash his philosophy that to survive on this planet you have to hurt and kill others to protect others.  It is clear that Meryl is going to take some sort of action as she wipes away her tears with a look of resolve.

Before she pushes a button on the elevator, likely one that goes up.  Either she is going to help Vash - which would be a bit silly alone - or if her wits hold up, she’s looking for Wolfwood instead.

I really hope she goes for Wolfwood to help Vash.

After Wolfwood finishes his explanation to Vash, they part ways in a dark corridor.  I guess he was clear which way Vash needed to go to meet Knives?  This then sets up our reunion of Vash and Knives in July, which should kick off a July incident where Vash causes the city to go boom.

Knives is at his fancy piano and explains that the statue over him, is actually a plant from ‘back then’.  I’m unsure if he means back 150 years ago or from when he witnessed the final run of plants.  I want to say from 150 years ago personally - my gut says so.

Knives starts gaslighting Vash immediately.  Stating that Vash’s actions are based out of guilt from helping Knives get access to the computer to crash and destroy many of the ships.  If you are a peak villain you need to make sure your underlings have black and white morals, so Vash is just guilty.  Nothing else.

No one would argue that Vash doesn’t feel guilty for his actions and it does underlie many of his actions and intentions.  However, this does not make it mutually exclusive from the fact that he can love humans.  It is a huge theme of the manga how Vash is able to process his guilt, come to terms with it, face it and overcome and accept it which make him such a powerful character.  That does not matter here though.

The action bounces back to Wolfwood who apparently has a completed contract for his services within the Eye of Michael.  If you zoom in you can see that there is the added special note at the end stating that if Wolfwood completes the terms, the orphanage will not be used in future experiments.

Though the wording is that it is removed from a pilgrimage route which is a bizarre term to code for a location to take children for experiments from.  Wolfwood questions what the meaning of the paper is crumpling it in anger.  I mean, he could argue that Legato tried to destroy the orphanage anyways so can you even expect it to be upheld?  That would require more depth and we don’t have time for that so Wolfwood leaves angry.

Which results in the weirdest line from Conrad - that makes no sense in the context of Stampede.

He asks a man, holding his cross if he were able to lay it down?  Now, we decide to try to pull up a theme that needed to be explained from the beginning for Wolfwood but we didn’t have time for that earlier - toss it in here! Wolfwood then asks the question he was asked and leaves.  Conrad sighs and looks at a photo of him and Tessla!  On his freakkin’ desk.  This man is clearly off the deep end.

I saw this and thought, okay we are going to get our Tessla flashback. Good.  And then I get a flashback where Conrad is happy to see that Knives is alive and that he survived.  This means that he’d been aware of Vash and Nai via Rem before the crash.  However, he had no idea that the twins had survived and Knives threatens to give away his old identity.

We then see a bright blue eye on Knives’ hand and Conrad recognizes it and asks for forgiveness. 

I’m going to squint really hard and conclude that Vash and Nai found out about Tessla on the ship, found her remaining body parts and then Nai absorbed her parts into himself and that is her eye now looking at Conrad.  Creeeeepy!  Knives not only can absorb living plants into himself, he can also take dead parts?

However, with Conrad collapsing before him, asking for forgiveness does this mean that Conrad continued to experiment on Knives as well???? 

The action returns to Knives and Vash.  Knives activates a hidden trap door - because his is peak villain and Vash tries to stop falling with his tiny thread arm ability.  Knives declares that he is remaking his sick brother, tying into Conrad’s previous statement about sacrificing one of the twins.  Though he didn’t say which twin.

Vash then falls into a pool of water which likely isn’t just water but sci fi water something or other.

With that the episode ends.

My initial reaction was “Aaarrrrrggggghhhh, so much lazy writing and what on earth are they even thinking?!?!”

I will watch this season to the end, but there is no way I’m watching this any further if they leave it open ended with a time skip or whatever.  All of this feels like Studio Orange wanted to do a cyberpunk series or some sort of homage to that type of series and they got the IP to that odd under performing manga and anime, Trigun.  They never even stopped to ponder why it didn’t do well in Japan or why it was wildly popular in the States or how the original characters were well received in the original works.  It is almost like they figured, “Hey we have this obscure IP, it is fine to skim a bit off and then create our own dystopian cyberpunk series.”

No one can touch Cowboy Bebop, that series is too special for a remake (in the animated form, not the live action) so it will stand alone.  It is also an episodic series that no one can attack. Even though so many anime fans nowadays are aghast at episodic series when there are true merits to episodic storytelling.

I guess Outlaw Star was too 90s in a different way with the obvious alien cat girl, samurai chick and generic East Asian/Chinese vibes?  If they wanted cyberpunk they should have gotten the IP to Bubblegum Crisis and remade that.

Character comments:

Bill Conrad - Oh boy, did they really change him from the manga.  He was a member of the crew and knew Rem and found out she was hiding Knives and Vash.  He allowed her to continue to hide them.  Unlike Rem, he survived the crash and had set up a nice life for himself before being found by Knives and forced to work with him.

We all know that Bill Conrad is simply Patrick Stewart in manga form and that he was forced to do Knives bidding.  However, he still managed to deceive him and only revealed to Knives that when his hair began to turn black that he too was aging and would die.

Knives asks Elendira to confirm if Vash’s hair is also changing colors . . .

Before he kills Conrad on the spot.  He is no longer useful to Knives since he can no longer continue to use his power in an unlimited fashion. 

Did Knives think he could have unlimited power or did Conrad lead him to believe that in the hopes he could control or fight back?  Potentially both?

The main point is that Conrad was a part of the group who were involved in the Tessla experiments, however, we never know exactly to what extent, but that he is knowledgeable enough that he’s been working for Knives until his death.

This then leads into Tessla.

Tessla - Was the first independent plant that the crew learned about.  We know that Conrad and Rem were both there when the horrible experiments were performed on her which resulted in her death.  They then saved all of her remaining body parts in tanks for reference.  The entire thing is wrong on every possible level and knowledge of this event forever shaped how Vash and Knives moved forward in their lives.

It doesn’t take Knives long to undercover the files and they are curious to learn more - leading them to what remained of her body! 

However, Stampede hasn’t given us enough information to go on at the moment so we don’t know how they found out about this. 

Elendira the Crimsonnail - Has fallen victim to trans erasure apparently.  The 13th of the Gung-ho Guns, she was a force to be reckoned with wearing her pillbox hats, vintage suits and her suitcase full of nails.  I know that the translation isn’t the best where she’s referred to as a transvestite, but our language has been shifting rapidly over the past ten years and if this were translated now, she’d simply be referred to as a trans woman.

Apparently, Stampede doesn’t like to have too many adult women and this resulted in the shift of Elendira to a perma-child, which is just weird if she is a plant human hybrid. 

Roberto and Meryl - got their predicted death scene.  Are any of us surprised?  No.  Roberto did not contribute to the plot, nor did he do much of anything so of course he got his ‘moment’ to hand off a single gun to Meryl.  They were not the same as Meryl and Milly from the original as both were actively engaged in events and the fact that the two of them were always having interesting and dynamic conversations.  Wolfwood - completed a legally binding contract.  This doesn’t even make sense to me since - did he really have a choice in the matter?  No. Why bother to draft a contract and who the hell is even going to enforce it?  The NMP?  And he’s not dead yet!  Plus, the contract didn’t even follow its own note about the orphanage making it a sort of breach of contract by the writer . . . Vash - Passively walked right into Knives’ trap.  Wow, shocking.  Now, he’s going to get some sort of sci fi torture in the water pool to activate his gate/angel arm something .  . July then go boom? Knives - Wow, yeah.  Now he’s working with Conrad, he apparently absorbed Tessla’s eyeball into his arm before finding Conrad and he wants to remake his weak and sick brother.  He keeps the remains of dying plants as statues around him to remind himself to not make mistakes and he’s been hanging out in July and no one knows.  But based on his encounter with Conrad, the translation makes it sound like Knives may have been experimented on as well . . .

Zazie - The worms think very highly of themselves, however, they need to learn how to persuade others.  Speaking like you are the better species is not going to win over Meryl and Roberto to hear you out.  That’s why you lost to Conrad and Knives.  Honestly, no character in Stampede knows how to make a good persuasive argument to convince others to follow their cause or goals.

Wow, this meta has spiraled out of control and I really need to wrap it up.

1.) The writing continues to use so many ‘perfect’ timing instances.  I can’t take it anymore.  The entire elevator setup had me groaning aloud on my couch.  The scene where Vash is shot - is solely there to show his scars.  There were so many other ways to convey this point, like when he was on the uncrashed ship maybe?  Yet, Studio Orange lives for the most literal way to demonstrate things and it is well worn out its welcome for me as a viewer. 2.) The empty cities.  We’ve been shown the metropolis of the planet and it apparently isn’t December.  Where are the people in those massive buildings?  Wolfwood mentions they can buy as much munitions as possible but where does their food and drink come from?  I miss all of the normalcy of the original anime and manga.  Where are the cafes, the city squares, the children in the streets?

3.) The sci fi cyberpunk tone.  Baffles me.  Studio Orange had a creative vision which was not even remotely aligned with the source material.  The shift to a Sinocentric July also baffles me.  Let’s slap up some red lanterns everywhere and Chinese-ish decor elements to set the tone for July.  Is this some sort of hidden political message from the team at Studio Orange?  Is the water monopoly a fill in for something else in current events?  The original was much more Western US in the vibe but with international elements mixed in.  The characters are diverse and we still have that reflected in the population, for example Meryl and Milly hitched a ride with a woman who was clearly black. There were other characters who were definitely black in the manga. Yet, have I seen a single black character even in the background in Stampede?  No.  It was bad enough that they made Wolfwood white but apparently no one of any darker skin toned ethnic group made it onto those Project Seeds ships. 4.) Lack of diversity.  Thus, the lack of diversity of Stampede is killing me.  The entire main cast has light skin tones.  A subset of humanity is supposed to be stuck on the planet and that has not been reflected at all.  Wolfwood in the background appears to be foodie, as he rates the following dishes; curry, ramen and finds an incredible bowl of udon.  Clearly, there is cultural diversity and it had carried over to the desert planet.  The lack of diversity then extends to what was the complete change in Zazie and Elendira as well.  Zazie was a sort of non-binary character able to shift from host to host, implying that the gender construct was meaningless in their choices.  Elendira was a powerful trans woman, with excellent fashion taste.  Wolfwood didn’t even know what she looked like but was more than aware of her reputation.  Legato was canonically gay, but he hasn’t done enough yet to determine if that will be maintained as well.  My point is, what happened to all the queer characters? With that I shall wrap up.  My snark was strong with this episode and excuse my puns throughout the meta.

[kinghijinx22]

Homophobic hypocrisy in Fantasy High

So I had started watching Dimension 20 at the recommendation of a friend because I heard they were somewhat queer friendly and while I liked Unsleeping City I cannot in good conscious recommend Fantasy High to anyone. There is a constant treatment of queer people as inherently degenerate throughout the entire show, baseless negative assumptions of queer minorities as a way to keep them lesser than their cishet counterparts. The first red flag to me was Emily's attitude towards Tracker in episode 6, constantly trying steer Kristen who is a lesbian away from a girl that she likes at bar by telling her that she isn't for her and is seemingly a little too pleased when Tracker gets hurt. The next red flag was Siobhan, as Adaine being fine with a seemingly straight Fig winking at her but saying that Kristen doing it is creepy, implying that Kristen is somehow a creep because she likes girls so that must mean that she's obviously into her, which keep in mind is after Kristen had just started to break away from her religion and realise that she is lesbian so good way to bully her back into the closet. They really just don't want Kristen to be happy it seems.

But the final straw for me was when they decided to all automatically assume that Tracker was an older woman preying on a younger girl when she's just a teenager like Kristen is. Now I want to know why this is ok and hot apparently (watch from 1:05:30 to 1:06:50)

But this is somehow cause for alarm (watch from 1:08:00 to 1:09:10)

Fig, a teenager making out with an adult man is literally just paedophilia and I'm not sure how anyone thought that was a good idea in the first place. Also note worthy is that this isn't even first instance of something like this, Fig flirts with her much older principle on the regular. But it's treated as a joke and even implied to be hot or whatever, meanwhile everyone is so worried about Kristen because they are assuming that Tracker is an adult woman picking up a teenage girl when that very obviously isn't the case but they even make perception checks because they are so sure of it? Yeah the homophobic hypocrisy here is incredibly gross but unfortunately way too common. Every accusation is a confession and queerphobic bigots like to throw around the "Groomer" word to distract from their own paedophilic deviancy. They want to get away with all this actually morally bad stuff while making queer people feel like they have to walk on egg shells, essentially bullying them into holding in their feelings and robbing them of a normal, happy life. 2 girls of the same age loving eachother? Horrible, degenerate. 16 year old girl flirting and making out with adult men? Perfectly reasonable apparently. Are the Dimension 20 cast a bunch of queerphobic hypocrites and disgusting paedophiles? I don't think so but they've been infected with certain aspects of that mindset. Honestly I'm just sick of this bigoted hypocrisy and I'm not going to be finishing Fantasy High.

[zalrb]

the summer i turned pretty 2x08 review -- it's over!

i know the books came out like 2009/2010s but is the show taking place in that era too? because if it is, conrad calling steven makes sense since we used to have to pay for texting but if not then he would just text.

BRO, NEITHER OF YOU EVEN GO AFTER HIM?? Just "Conrad, come on, man"?? REALLY? When Serena sees Dan and Blair like this

and Blair realizes that Serena saw, SHE GOES AFTER HER.

"Will you go after him please?" Jere, Belly isn't the one who should go after him, YOU'RE his brother making out with his ex girlfriend. YOU should go after him. ARE YOU TWO A FAMILY?

"Please don't shut me out again, OK?"

"I tried to talk to you about how I've been feeling..." I mean, did you? He was sleeping and you just let him sleep.

"This isn't about you." It kind of is, though. Jere wouldn't be in play at all apparently if you'd known that Conrad had asked him for his blessing.

There is not enough drama in this argument

Skipping Steven/Laurel conversation because I don't care.

"He made it pretty clear that he wanted nothing to do with us" you needed more drama in that fight for this.

"He accused me of kissing you to make him jealous." "Oh." And that's when you say, "He's wrong." Lmao, Belly you're TERRIBLE at being there for people.

"Those OCEAN EYES, man" is it really that serious?

"It's been an hour, Jere, I don't think he's coming." Belly, YOU give up easily.

"I didn't kiss you to get back at him, you do know that right" AFTER AN HOUR? YOU SAY THIS AFTER AN HOUR?

Conrad threatening to kill all of them if he drove and then being like KIDDING it's because I didn't get enough sleep last night would be funny if any of them were good actors and if I believed any of their dynamics.

An anon said Conrad was acting petty this episode and it's the only time they've believed him and I have to say I agree. Because what the fuck.

"My sweatshirt looks really good on you, Bells" well REALLY, BELLY. HOW ARE YOU STILL WEARING HIS SWEATSHIRT?

"Yeah, don't be a dick" Belly, shut up.

"LEAVE HER ALONE CONRAD" I mean, she deserves this. This is the LEAST she deserves.

She was with Conrad for essentially a year and she hooked up with you in the span of seven days, that isn't a red flag to you?

Oh right, Conrad was supposed to be such an awful boyfriend because he was sad. I forgot.

Conrad's pettiness is starting to get old to me only because they're fighting over Belly and I have yet to figure out why she's worth any of this so fighting over which candy she likes better is like, over Belly? Like this is me the entire time

standing five feet apart. "Do you still like her? Because I do."

Meanwhile

if you're going to be a teen drama be a teen drama, man.

AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.

There's a table. Why would you put your bags on the bed?

Honestly, it's SUPER easy for her to go between brothers.

When Blair is in between Nate and Chuck in season 1, the show gives her a pregnancy scare then the whole school finds out, she can't sit on the MET steps, there are CONSEQUENCES.

"She deserves to know how you feel" a) she doesn't b) this is SO flat.

It's funny seeing Jere teary-eyed because the actor dude is using his mouth as a way to get him to the emotion and it's so clear.

"It's just been a weird day" because you made it weird.

"I think love has different seasons" jesus christ.

I don't know Belly, I feel like getting drunk on a beach and screaming about how you'd fight for him if you knew he cared about you is a pretty clear indicator that you're not over everything.

XO is wasted on these two.

They want me to believe it's this

and it's not because Belly's voiceover doesn't make sense. She just came back from choosing Jere so Conrad being like "I just wanted to screw up what you and Jere had,but I won't get in between you two anymore" shouldn't made her think "he gives and then takes away" because what is he giving here if she doesn't want him? She can be mad because he's making it seem like he was trying to fuck with her emotions and confuse her and can be like that's really messed up, Conrad, but now being like "I evict you from my heart" after she already chose jere actually makes her seem like an asshole to Jere because it sounds like she didn't REALLY choose him if she hadn't done that before kissing him.

Oh look a Taylor Swift song.

And he's alone and sad and sliding down a wall. Sad face.

[ebonysplendor]

Absolute Adoration (Demo) Review 🪻

TL;DR: We basically tell Rai to piss off, but he said "Okay, but what if I don't?" and proceeded to try to bribe us with food. ...I mean, yeah, it worked but still.

Game Link: https://wanderingthoughts.itch.io/absolute-adoration

Notable Features: Self-Insert, Gender Options, Yandere LI...honestly, that's about it so far but apparently the full game will have more (as expected) Spiciness: 0/5 -- No porn for the plot, mah bois LI Red Flags: 1.5/5 -- Gaslighter, implied stalking, implied vehicular sabotage

Wanna know more? Well, let's get into it!

I ran across this game, like...honestly, a hot minute ago. Maybe around...September or so? It was way before I decided to start my gaming blog thing and write reviews and such. Anyways, I had recently revisited the page to see if there was any updates, and, unfortunately, there isn't. In fact...

...there hasn't been an update since March, which is super tragic, but you can't rush greatness, that's for sure, and I am pretty damned invested in the story so far.

Nothing super wild happens, but typically, whenever I play, it's just tradition for me to pick either the super toxic route (ex. throwing hands, yelling back, shutting shit down from the jump with the LI, etc.) or the super naïve route (ex. going along with the LI, ignoring obvious red flags, being super compliant, etc.). That being said...I was super toxic to the LI lol that's probably why it threw me that Eris was so toxic towards Milo, like that was supposed to be my job. He didn't respond to it poorly, but damn, did we respond to him poorly, and that alone has me invested because surely a puppy can only be kicked so many times before it starts to bite, right?

Anyways, I'm going to go ahead and jump into the synopsis, if that's cool. The intro is a little short, but...meh, I think it's still a decent length, yeah? Not to mention that the demo is lowkey pretty short as well, so it makes sense. Either way, whether the intro is long enough or not, this is what it's gonna be because I can't think of anything more to say lol.

But yeah, enough yapping about the intro length, let's get into the game itself. As always, I'm going to tell you as much about the game as possible without ruining the game itself, so stick around, because it's going to get...well, I'm not entirely sure, because the LI's actually pretty tame. Either way, just hang with me for a bit, and you'll see why I'm so invested in what this game has to offer next.

Okay, for realsies, now. Let's start summarizing.

So, boom.

We're waiting for the city bus, and it's cold as hell outside. Not only is it cold as hell outside, but the bus is late...like hella late...late as hell. Whatever though, this is what cell phones and social media and apps and all that crap were made for, so we whip out our phone and start scrolling. While scrolling though, we can't help but feel like we're being watched and...

We are, in fact, being watched. Like, okay then, that's totally not uncomfortable or anything.

Clearly realizing that he got caught staring, he looks away. We kind've brush off this super brief interaction as him being a straight-up weirdo and go back to scrolling in peace. Well, it doesn't last long, because he somehow worked up the courage to come over and talk to us. Is it to rizz us up, is it because he's bored? Who knows, but we aren't entirely happy about it because, frankly, we want to be left the hell alone and just get to our class even though, at the rate that we're going, we're guaranteed to be late.

So, now he's standing in front of us, and he's just like, "Hey!" and we're just giving him the look. You know what I mean by the look. That look. That "why the hell are you breathing my air" look, but he just keeps yapping.

"Sorry, to bother you--" Ayo, not the 'sorry to take up your time, but let me take up your time' approach. Lmaoooo here we go with this shit "--but my name is Rai! What's yours?"

The only way to respond to this was by way of bombastic side-eye, but he clearly doesn't get the message. Well, more accurately, he acknowledges the message, but he doesn't care, because he just keeps talking to us. Finally, we're like "Bro, nah" and try to leave because first off, it's ridiculous that the bus still isn't here, and second, it's aggravating that we've tried to dismiss him -- openly and, honestly, quite rudely -- and he refuses to do so. Notice I say that we try to leave, because tell me why he's like "Can I walk with you?"

"...What?"

"Can I walk with you? Please? I get really nervous walking by myself."

Like, bro, stop the cap. You walked all the way to this damned bus stop by yourself. Like, sir, if you don't leave me the hell alone. Like, we definitely had no choice but to stand on business, and ditch him and that damned bus stop.

So, we do. We ditch him, get to class, get that over and done with, meet up with our squad for a little bit, and head on home, but while walking home, something a little weird goes down.

We're walking to our apartment, and that same feeling of being watched comes back. At first, we brush it off as us still being stressed from what went down earlier today, so we decide to listen to some music to self-soothe. That being said, we are by no means stupid, so we keep an earbud out just in case we hea-- *snap, no crackle or pop* *And cue someone's barely audible but said with feeling "shit"*

...what the hell was that?

We turn around, and, as expected, there's no one. What's wild about this though, is that...we could swear we had heard something. Remember, that was the whole reason we only put one earbud in, but it must've just been a squirrel or something? Better yet, we write it off as a squirrel or something, but we're pretty adamant we heard something. Whatever though. We make it to our apartment, do our homework, and hit the hay.

The next day rolls around, and we head to the cafe to meet one of our friends. Oddly enough, it gets cancelled because of car troubles, but it's like damn, we're already here. Well, whatever. We try to order something from the counter because we're still pretty hungry, friend here to hang out or not, but the employee behind the counter is like "Nah, brah, we're out". Well, damn. Then -- unprompted, quite frankly -- they proceed to tell us some blue haired guy bought the last of what we were trying to order. "Blue haired guy" they said? Ain't no way...

We look over...

Well, damn! ... for the second time.

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah! Fuck that noise. We go to leave and pretend we didn't even see him, but he calls after us by name. Now, this is a red flag because, if you remember, we totally blew this guy off at the bus stop -- we never gave him our name, just a vicious side-eye.

So, we call him out on it, and naturally, he's trying to defend himself, and he honestly makes a valid point: why would he lie about something as stupid as us giving him our name?

...Aiight. We cave, and let it go.

Just trying to speed through this a bit, Rai bribes us with the snack that we couldn't buy to sit and talk to him for a while. We're a bit sassy and saucy and snippy about it at first, but we decide to lay off and give the guy a fair chance, and we leave when the sun starts to go down.

That's it! That the game! Lol kind've zipped through that last part, but meh, nothing really goes down, and I don't want to give you everything because, you've still gotta play this yourself, remember?

Even though much didn't happen, enough happened to make me pretty damned invested.

I just really hate that they haven't updated the game in almost a year because it honestly has potential. Like, the story is there; it just needs to, very obviously, be completed. I mean, the fact that we were able to pretty much tell him to piss off right from the jump just for him to pretty much corner us into talking with him anyways and then...well, I can't tell you that part lol. But, I was sharing that to say that it's a solid build up to the actual game and to the next day, and I need it!

Admittedly, some parts were a little slow and redundant, but like I've mentioned in some of my other reviews, story telling is kind've hard. I'd imagine that narrating those "transition" scenes, let alone actually getting to it, is pretty difficult to not make boring or redundant.

Anywho that's pretty much all I have to say about the game. I mean, I thought Rai was super adorbs -- not to mention his eyeliner is fucking flawless -- but like...I miss him lol. Like, ugh, no update, no dev logs, no side social to follow the game progress, just nothingness and a super intense waiting game. Man's took the hint and said "I'll listen. I'll stay away". Like, no, Rai, babes, come back, please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it.

But! Greatness shall not nor ever be rushed! I'm sure whenever the dev decides to jump back in, they'll come back damned swinging, and we'll finally get the unhinged, blue-haired man that we want to force us into a relationship with him! Truly exciting to think about, and I honestly can't wait. Until then, though, I'm just going to keep an eye out like I have been.

Oh whoops, totally forgot about the recommendation itself lol. Uh, yeah! I do think you should play it. As typical, it's free, so like...why not, ya know? Just, if you do decide to play it, don't get too attached, because it may be a while before an update gets dropped.

Well, uh...that's...honestly it. Lol like I said, I didn't have much to say about this one since it's relatively short, but hopefully it was still somewhat interesting to read.

Anyways! That's officially all from me! Drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around!

Absolute Adoration

[outrunningthedark]

"If Tim is “no longer involved” with OG, there’s less of a chance his influence can fuck things up for the fandom."

Me, to whoever unironically believing that: Kristen Reidel and Buck's cheating/sperm donor drama hello? Anyone?

She's picked as the co-showrunner because Tim likes her brand of drama the most. Why haven't people realized that? Is being a "911 writers' stan" cloud the judgment so much?

I don't think it's about "stanning" a show runner as much as it is wanting or trying to promote the belief that their choices have a purpose that matches the fandom's, especially when a lot of the activity in this space comes from people who write fics and paragraphs worth of analysis and speculation. If Tim was still dividing his time between both shows or there was no spinoff, you wouldn't see the "good riddance" reaction going around since s4 of LS started. They'd *have* to put their faith in him because there would be no backup plan. This is evident in the "defense" of the two story lines you mentioned. Buck cheating was (from a fandom POV) supposed to spell the downfall of BT. It did not. It was also supposed to be an indication of Buck's "regression" and inevitable breakdown. It was neither of those things. Mainly because Eddie's breakdown followed immediately after and Buck had to be on his best behavior to care for Chris/offer Eddie emotional support. Now that the arc is closed, nobody brings it up because it added nothing to his story. BT broke up because TayKay's work got in the way, giving people the excuse to harp on about terrible they were together or she was as a person. (We were never supposed to like her for him or them together. Maaaaybe if the fandom wasn't celebrating her #charactergrowth in s4 and pushing the idea that she would stay on as a platonic friend, the trajectory of the relationship could have gone differently, but alas. They were duped.)

With the sperm donor arc, the initial thought process (my preferred outcome, obv) was that Buck wouldn't actually go through with it because he'd realize he isn't built for not being a constant presence in his bio kid's life. And for the bloggers who think they know everything, it doesn't make sense if canon!Buddie isn't the outcome. (A lot less likely now that the spotlight is on another couple. Can't have social media talking about Buddie and Buddie only.) Making a rash decision, but then having the universe "scream" via failed donor attempts or having Buck speak to someone from his family about the mistake he'd be making and then he realizes he shouldn't do it, would have been a good story, absolutely. Stop doing things for other people, Buck! Do them for you! Because you understand your worth now! But here we are months later and: - His attempt at helping make a baby was successful, and proven successful in the 6A finale, meaning we're nowhere near the end. - The show runner was already talking about the impending birth in her s5 post-mortem interviews. Unless it turns out that Connor was able to impregnate his wife (still rooting for this no matter how unlikely, especially when the reaction could have changed what was meant to happen down the line) there's gonna be a kid, and it will be biologically Buck's. IMO, the people who will still "applaud" the story line if it turns out Buck has a kid out there somewhere are the ones who want to see him with his "own family" because Chris isn't actually his. (Apparently "the family we chose" doesn't apply when there's an option for Big Man, Tiny Baby? Okay.) But to everyone else? RED FLAG. Kristen would not create a fictional child just to never bring it up again. It's easy drama. Also, the audience is going to know that Buck has someone else with his DNA. They are going to be thought of as "his kid", not Christopher, until canon says otherwise. It's a way to appease a certain part of the base in the event that Buddie goes canon because at least he got to have one of his own, right? And honestly, it works in the opposite scenario - Buddie remaining friends throughout - because TPTB have no way of knowing how long OG will run for or how long OS will stick around. If Buck gets a LI that's not Eddie, there may not be time for a pregnancy plot.