#this is my gamer life cycle

[sorypsoid]

Playing my little turn based strategy game just long enough to get soft locked by my own lack of skill two thirds of the way through the storyline at which point I see a new turn based strategy game on sale and buy it to begin playing my little turn based strategy game just long enough t

[starsstuddedsky]

Blown Up Love

reader x wonwoo

summary: gaming is all fun and... well, games, until you start crushing on the only person that takes pity on you and saves you from mobs.

genre: fluff, university au, gamer!wonwoo

warnings: swearing, death (but it's fake)

wc: 7.1k

a/n: i wrote this so long ago i forgot all my jokes - i haven't played minecraft in forever but i imagine playing with wonwoo would be so much fun - there will be a bonus eventually bc this somehow isn’t enough fluff for me

You run as fast as you can, hearing the groans behind you, a constant reminder of what followed not far behind you. You swerve to the side as another monster appears in front of you, a flash of white and the cracking of bones snapping against each other. You can’t help but scream as you hear a twang and realize that you’ve been shot. 

“Are you really leaving me like this?” You cry, praying one of your friends will take pity on you. 

“Don’t you have armor?” Jihoon asks. “Why didn’t you make a weapon?” 

“I just wanted to hide underground, I didn’t realize it was night time already!” You scream as you take another hit, trying to dodge trees and what feels like hundreds of monsters converging on you. “I'm literally outside the base, can someone please come help me?” 

“You’re so dramatic,” Seungcheol says. You don’t have to see him to know he’s rolling his eyes. 

“I’m about to die!” Your hands are shaking. You know that one more hit means death. 

You can see the light of the base, your last hope. If you can just make it a little bit farther, maybe you’ll make it. A figure moves toward you in the darkness and you instinctively turn away, though a moment later you’re sprinting toward it because you realize that it’s not a monster but one of your friends. Wonwoo. 

“Wow, you were not kidding, there’s so many,” he says. He charges in front of you, practically glowing in diamond armor. No, literally glowing. When had he enchanted his armor? 

You can hear him slaughter them behind you as you make a last ditch effort to make it inside. Just before you can open the door you hear another whizz, and something slams into. Everything turns red

Respawn or return to main menu. 

You stare at the screen. 

“I got your stuff,” Wonwoo says, voice as calm and even as ever. You sigh and click respawn. 

“Thanks for trying,” you mumble as you return to the game, your character waking up deep inside the base. 

“Sorry, I was in the middle of mining so I couldn’t really make it in time,” he says. You meet his character by the entrance to the base. You can’t help but smile at his skin, mostly covered by the glowing armor. You can still pick out the glasses he’d added to his skin, just like the ones he wore in real life, big and as round as he could make them in the pixelated game. You can almost see him in your mind, probably sitting in complete darkness in his room, wearing one of the three sweatshirts he cycled through. 

He gives you your items, tossing them in front, then vanishes into the base, probably to return to mining.You thank him again and wander around the interior of the base until you end up in the room you made for yourself. You had spent the last couple days dedicatedly designing the base, carved into the side of a mountain with rooms for all five of your friends to return to and put their stuff in. It was hours of work that was nowhere near being done, but you were enjoying every second of the rather monotonous work. 

What made you even happier was that your friends were actually using the rooms you set aside for them, each of them designing it a little to their own tastes. You might be absolutely terrible at fighting mobs, but you could at least build, and it felt nice that they weren’t totally disregarding that. Even if Wonwoo was the only one who would help you when you inevitably had to face the mobs. 

“Yn, are you still in the base?” Wonwoo asks. When you say yes, he asks you to meet him in the main entrance. 

You find him waiting, feeling inferior in your iron armor. He tosses you something. When you pick it up, you find out it’s an enchanted pickaxe, complete with unbreaking, mending, and fortune. 

“I figured it might be easier to work on this if you have, like, actually good tools.” 

“Thank you?” You can’t say you’re not surprised by Wonwoo’s generosity. You don’t know him very well. He’s Mingyu’s friend, and though you’ve hung out with all five of the guys many times this semester, he tended to be quieter and you weren’t convinced he didn’t hate you. Still, he was the only one on the server that didn’t bully you. 

“When did you get enchants,” you ask as you both go your separate ways. It’s finally daytime outside, so you deem it safe to continue working on the farm you were trying to design along the edge of the base. 

“It was pretty easy once I finished the villager farm,” he says. “Though I haven’t gotten around to reviving villagers to get cheap enchants. It’s on the list.” 

You frown as you climb the side of the mountain halfway up and continue designing what would hopefully be a sprawling pumpkin patch. “How did you have the time for that?” 

“I haven’t exactly logged off,” he says. 

“We started the server two days ago!” 

“It’s fall break,” he says. “I didn’t want to waste my time.” 

“I fear you.” 

“Hey, you guys are aware there are other people in this voice chat, right?” Mingyu says. 

“Shut up,” you say. 

“Get a room,” he says, pretending to cough. 

You can feel the blush spreading across your cheeks. It wasn’t that you had a crush on Wonwoo. He was just tall, and objectively attractive, and really nice, and smart, and he had saved your life more than once. Okay, maybe it was a small crush. 

“Can we set a time to kill the ender dragon,” Seungcheol asks. “I’m getting blaze rods right now.” 

“Okay, I think I have enough ender pearls,” Wonwoo says. “Want to try tonight?” 

“You are aware it’s already almost nine, right?” You say. 

“It’ll take like two minutes with all of us,” Jihoon says. 

“I’ll text Jeonghan and see if he wants to join,” Mingyu says. 

“I’m guessing no one cares that I’m not ready at all,” you grumble. 

“It’s not our fault you care more about picking flowers than playing the game,” Seungcheol says. 

“Hey! I have not been playing with flowers! I am an integral part of this server, if it weren’t for me you all would be living in dirt shacks!” 

“Yeah, but we’d still have diamond armor,” Jihoon says. 

“Why don’t you just ask Wonwoo for some armor.” Mingyu snickers. “I’m sure he can afford to support you.” 

You’re glad that it’s just a voice chat because otherwise you’d never hear the end of their teasing. 

“I do have an extra set of armor,” Wonwoo says. “Also, I have a ton of leftover books from enchanting that you guys should use.” 

“Maybe you have spent too much time on this,” Mingyu says. 

“What am I supposed to do?” 

“You’re an English major,” Mingyu says. “Don’t you have an essay or some books to read?” 

He laughs. “If you can find an English major that actually reads, I’ll log off.” 

“Do not log off until we’ve beaten the dragon!” Seungcheol says. 

“We could do it without him,” Mingyu says. 

“Sure you could,” Wonwoo says. “Yn, are you getting the armor or not?” 

You’ve been working on the farm outside, but as the sun starts to set, you begin to go back inside the base, not wanting a repeat of the previous night. “I’ll just die if I go with. Can’t I just stay and work on the base?” 

“Nope, you have to come,” Mingyu says. “Server rules.” 

“You can’t just make up rules on the spot,” you say. 

“ Jeonghan is coming, so no excuses.” 

You groan, knowing there’s no way out of it now. Jeonghan had joined exactly once, decided he was bored because Jihoon wouldn’t make him a “god” and hadn’t been on since. But it seemed like Mingyu was going to dictate friendship rules through Minecraft, so you were stuck. 

“Here,” Wonwoo says, appearing in the halfway-finished room that you made for yourself. He tosses you a full set of armor, and when you pick it up you find that it has full enchants. He must not have been lying about spending his entire break on this game. 

“I owe you!” You say. “Pretty much all I own is cobblestone and seeds but I will return this armor with only, like, minimal damage.” 

“Unless you fall into the void,” Seungcheol said. 

“Don’t even joke about that!” You say. 

Wonwoo laughs, his deep voice almost melodic. “You’re just scared because it’s a very real possibility.” 

“Not you bullying me, too,” you say, switching out the armor. “I thought you were on my side.” 

“I am,” he says. “And honestly if you really do fall into the void it’s fine, I can make a new set in probably ten minutes. Probably less.” 

“Can we make a rule about flirting in the main voice chat?” Seungcheol asks. 

“Fine, Wonwoo, join me in VC-2,” you say. Your heart is pounding a little as you pause the game and switch voice chats. It’s painfully quiet for two seconds as you wait but finally you hear the ding of someone joining you. 

“I’ll pay you real money to kill Seungcheol,” you say. 

Wonwoo is quiet for a moment. “Right now?” 

“Okay my bank account is a little empty, but next week I can buy you lunch?” You say. 

“Are you… hiring me as a hitman?” He asks. 

“Yes?” 

“Two lunches and it’s a deal.” 

“Done.” 

You switch back to the main voice chat, and hear the second half of Mingyu explaining that there is no way you are bold enough to actually be flirting. You hate that he’s right. 

“Back so soon?” Mingyu asks, cutting himself off mid-sentence. “Seungcheol, you owe me five dollars.” 

“I really just live in your head rent free, huh?” You say. “Making bets on me now?” 

“Actually, the bet was about the enchants that Wonwoo just gave me,” Mingyu says. “None of us believed you were actually flirting, but feel free to keep that inflated ego of yours.” 

You wonder if you’re going to be able to stop embarrassing yourself in front of Wonwoo. With Mingyu and Seungcheol around, probably not. 

The voice chat is mostly quiet as everyone goes to their own individual tasks. You are back to developing the farm (during the day). Jihoon and Mingyu are mining together and chatting about their spring schedule, while Seungcheol says he’s still getting blaze rods because he wants to make potions. Wonwoo is silent. 

You are starting to think he was giving up, when suddenly Seungcheol shouts. “Hey, what the hell?” 

“What’s wrong?” Wonwoo asks. 

“Something is shooting me.” He curses. 

“A blaze?” You ask, hoping your voice doesn’t sound as giddy as you feel. 

“No, what the fuck, it’s coming out of nowhere.” 

You’re struggling to stifle your laughter. 

“Oh my god, I’m gonna die,” Seungcheol says. “I’m actually gonna die what the fuck, I’m at two hearts, where is this coming from? I’m actually dying, I-”

kkakkamori was killed by VvWonwoovV. 

“What the fuck, Wonwoo?” 

“Nothing personal,” he says as you finally burst into laughter. “Just doing business.”

“You just killed me!” 

“I got your stuff,” he says. 

“Keep talking shit about me and I’ll make sure you never see a day of peace,” you say, cackling at Seungcheol’s curses. You can hear Mingyu and Jihoon laughing, too. You wonder how many lunches it would cost to take them out. 

“I won’t forget this,” Seungcheol says. “I’ll get revenge.” 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Wonwoo says. 

“I can’t believe you killed me,” he says again. “Were you invis?” 

“Yeah, I used some arrows of harming and spectral arrows, too, just in case.” 

“Dude, you killed me in like five shots.” 

“Okay, Wonwoo is no longer allowed to be hired as a hitman,” Mingyu announces. “It’s not fair.” 

“Hey! Can’t I choose how to sell my services?” Wonwoo asks. 

“Was it worth betraying me?” Seungcheol pretends to be hurt. “How much did my life cost?” 

“Two sandwiches,” you answer. 

“I’ll never forgive you.” 

You laugh, and then smile even more when you see Wonwoo has texted you a smiley face. 

Me: Good job, partner, you send him. 

Wonwoo: Just doing good business. 

You turn back to your computer. There’s still another hour until Jeonghan could get on to beat the ender dragon, and it occurs to you that you’ve been playing for nearly four hours. You tell the guys you are going to come back later, signing off and getting out of your chair and stretching. 

You check your phone as it dings. 

Wonwoo: don’t forget to refill your water! 

You frown. You must have mentioned it to him while playing. You grab your water bottle, trying not to overthink the fact that he remembered when even you forgot. The more time you spend around Wonwoo, the harder it is to deny how lovely he is. 

.

.

You stare at the options. You wish Wonwoo hadn’t trusted you to get him something, or that you could have remembered to ask him what he likes, at least what he dislikes. 

You finally choose a BLT and a chicken sandwich and pray he isn’t vegetarian. You scout a table out and snag it, laying your backpack across the seats opposite you to save them. A few minutes later, you see Wonwoo making his way through the crowd of people filling up the dining hall. As he gets closer, you see Jeonghan and Jihoon at his sides. You tell yourself you didn’t notice them because Wonwoo is so much taller. No other reason. 

You wave them over, grabbing your backpack as they slide into the seats, Jeonghan next to you while Wonwoo sat directly across from you. You point to the sandwiches. He frowns but ends up picking the chicken sandwich. 

You slap Jeonghan’s hand away from the BLT. “That’s my lunch!” 

“Why does Wonwoo get one, then?” 

“It’s his payment,” you say, picking up your sandwich. 

“You’re telling me Seungcheol hasn’t whined about his murder to you yet?” Jihoon asks. 

“You know, I sort of tune him out when he starts talking about Minecraft,” Jeonghan says. 

“He is being a little dramatic about it,” you say. 

“You can’t say anything, you're the one that ordered a hit on him,” Jihoon said. “I’d watch your back.” 

“It’s a video game!” You say. 

“You know Seungcheol,” Jeonghan says. “He can hold a grudge when he wants to.” 

Seungcheol and Jeonghan were your first friends in college. Technically you went to high school with them, but you didn’t really become friends until last year, when the three of you somehow ended up at the same school. 

That’s how you know Jeonghan was exactly right. You glance around, suddenly worried that he was going to appear and exact his revenge in the middle of the dining hall. 

“Was it worth it?” Jeonghan asks Wonwoo, who is somehow almost finished with the sandwich. 

Wonwoo shrugs. “I’m not going to lie, the sandwich was a little subpar.” He checks his watch, then nudges you with his foot. “We’re going to be late to lab.” 

You groan. “Why did we let Mingyu convince us to take this horrible class with him?” 

He laughs as you stand up and follow him, grabbing your half eaten sandwich and waving goodbye to Jihoon and Jeonghan. As you walk beside him, you realize this is the first time you’ve been alone with him since you realized your tiny crush. Trying to match pace with his long stride is even more difficult when you are also trying very hard not to think about the way his arms hang on his sides, the way his hands are so close to yours and how easy it would be to slip your fingers in with his. Luckily he seems to notice you struggling to keep up because he starts taking smaller steps. So sweet. 

“So was the sandwich really that bad?” You ask. 

“It’s campus food,” he says. “It’s never good.” 

“That’s true.” 

He glances at you, glasses glinting in the sunlight. “I’m not sure I can really count it as payment.” 

You freeze. “This is extortion! I’ve paid you for your services, you can’t demand more!” 

“I don’t think that’s what extortion means.” He says. “And I’m not saying the sandwich doesn’t count. Just, maybe, a better second payment.” 

“You’re going to make me go broke,” you say. “Well, more broke.” 

He laughs. “Nothing expensive.” He holds the door to the science building open for you and you try not to read into it. 

“What about the café? It’s better than the dining hall,” you say, heading into the stairwell. You catch a glimpse of a grimace across his face as you turn up the stairs. “What is it?” 

“Jihoon’s ex works there and apparently being friends with him means that I’m hated too.” 

You snort. 

“What is it?” 

“I can’t believe Jihoon dated before I did.” 

“It surprises us all,” Wonwoo says. “Though I’d barely call it dating. They broke up after a week because Jihoon is Jihoon and realized his feelings were just superficial and no one really takes it well but his ex… It’s safe to say we mostly just avoid the café on principle.” 

“Noted,” you say. You’re in the hallway outside the classroom now. You really don’t want to go inside, because, seriously, why do three hour long classes exist? Chatting with Wonwoo was an added bonus to avoiding the torture. You idle outside a couple minutes longer but you really are in danger of being late and Wonwoo is starting to look antsy. 

You finally step inside, waving at Mingyu who is already sitting at the table. He’s grinning, as he always is. 

Mingyu was the reason you really had friends. Though you knew Seungcheol and Jeonghan in high school, it was only because of Mingyu that the friendship lasted past your first semester, hanging out with them throughout the spring semester, keeping in touch with them over the summer, and even taking a class with Mingyu. 

Mingyu is the reason you ever met Wonwoo, and, sitting in class and definitely paying attention to the lab introduction and not staring at the back of Wonwoo’s head, you can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. 

.

.

You can’t remember who suggested it first, but it was Jihoon who ended up making the server, the first day of fall break. It practically belonged to Wonwoo now, since he was by far the person that played the most. You have no idea how he finds the time to play and do his work and sleep, but every time you log on, he has something shiny and new. 

It has been two weeks since the server started. You spent too much of fall break playing and generally leeching off of Wonwoo, but have only logged on a couple times since then. It’s Friday, though, and you even did one of your readings, so you feel like you can afford to spend a few hours working on the base. You aren’t surprised when you log in and Wonwoo is on. 

You’re prepared to play on your own, but Wonwoo asks if you want to join a voice chat and there’s no way you’ll say no. 

“It’s been so lonely,” Wonwoo says as soon as you join. “No one ever plays.” 

“It’s like we’re college students,” you say. You wander around the base, deciding you would keep working on designing the interior with the new types of wood that someone “anonymously” gifted you (you knew it was Wonwoo). 

“The trick is to not do anything until the last possible second,” Wonwoo says. 

“I can’t say that sounds appealing to me,” you say. “What are you doing right now, anyways?” 

“Just prepping for my next project,” Wonwoo says. 

“That sounds vaguely suspicious, should I be concerned?” 

He’s quiet for a moment. Finally, he asks in a low voice, “Can you keep a secret?” 

His voice is just serious enough that you can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “Is this real life or in game?” 

Wonwoo laughs. “This is in game, though I guess the question technically applies to both.” 

“Well, no one knows about the Incident, so at least Mingyu would say yes.” 

“He made a fool of himself, didn’t he?” 

“I’m sworn to secrecy.” 

You decide if making Wonwoo laugh was all you did for the rest of your life it would be worth it. Something about the way his deep voice echoed in your ears made your heart skip a beat. 

“Okay, come to Seungcheol’s base,” he says. 

“The secret one?” You start heading there when Wonwoo says yes. The second day, Seungcheol decided he wanted to have a secret base, which meant in two minutes everyone had figured out where it was. 

At least, where it used to exist. When you get there, Wonwoo is standing around the blown up remains of the Seungcheol’s base, a giant crater created by TNT in the middle of a flower field. 

“What happened?” 

“Jeonghan,” Wonwoo says. 

“You know what, that actually makes sense,” you say. “Didn’t he say he’d only join if Jihoon let him play in creative?” 

“Yeah, that was not happening,” he says. 

“Is Seungcheol’s stuff still there?” You wander around the crater, seeing the remains of what Seungcheol had built, a few chests that remained. 

“I can’t tell,” Wonwoo says. “I’m not really sure what he had to begin with or whether Jeonghan bothered to save his stuff, but the chests that survived seem to be pretty organized.” 

“Wait, I still don’t get how he blew up Seungcheol’s house.” You emerge from the hole, standing at its edge beside Wonwoo’s character. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” he says. “I’ve been on this server, like, almost twenty four-seven and I haven’t even seen him on, so I really have no idea how or when he did it.” 

“Someone must have helped him,” you say. “Oh my god, there’s an entire conspiracy. We have to get to the bottom of this!” 

“Conspiracy?” 

“It’s obviously not Seungcheol,” you say. “He’s going to be so mad when he comes back on.” The sun is starting to set. “Can we sleep through the night? I really don’t want to hide for the next ten minutes.” 

“Sure,” he says. You return to the base with him, mind still racing trying to figure out who was enabling Jeonghan. 

“Obviously it’s not your or me, so that leaves Jihoon and Mingyu.” You think about your two friends. You could see Mingyu doing it, because he was bullied by Seungcheol at least once a day, but usually Jeonghan was also involved, and you know Mingyu’s too busy being a STEM major to really dedicate his time to the game. 

So Jihoon? You don’t think he has much motivation, but he has been playing a lot and maybe he had some unknown score to settle with Seungcheol. 

“We should set up a stakeout or something,” you say. “Figure out who his supplier is.” The iron door swings shut behind you as you and Wonwoo return to the base. 

“A stakeout might be kind of intense,” Wonwoo says. 

“Okay, less of a stakeout and more of ‘you keep playing all day every day and find out if anyone is suspicious’ kind of thing.” 

“This sounds like I’m going to be doing all the work.” 

“Do you not spend most of your time here anyways?” You say. You go into your room and lay in your bed. “Bed!” 

“Okay true,” Wonwoo says as the screen fades. “But I actually have an essay due tomorrow and next week so I can’t really be on as much.” 

“Wonwoo? Being responsible?” You pretend to be shocked but when he laughs and your heart pounds so loud you forget that you were teasing him. 

“So how do we find out who’s helping him?” You ask. “It seems like we don’t have many options.” With the sun back in the sky, you decide you want to work on a tree farm with the generous saplings that had been donated to you. 

“We'll investigate together,” Wonwoo says. “Maybe next time Mingyu or Jihoon will leave evidence.” 

You nod in approval, though he can’t see you. “Sounds good. I’m going to grind resources for a little while if you want to go back to whatever you were doing.” He’s quiet as you both play, the silence between you not awkward but strangely peaceful. He doesn’t complain when you ask him to sleep every night, even reminding you to get back before the sun sets. 

Though you know he’s not nearly as invested as you are, it’s also fun to be in on a conspiracy with him. Maybe it’s just the fact that you have a secret between the two of you, but it makes you feel a tiny bit closer to him. You are finding that everything you learn about him just makes you like him more. 

.

.

“Should I be worried about how much time you’re playing on this server?” You ask as soon as you join the server. 

“No time for that!” Wonwoo says. “I’ve been hit!” 

“No way!” You sprint to his section of the base, and indeed, it’s been blown up. Wonwoo had spent hours personalizing what had initially just been a hole in the wall, designing a bunch of rooms with resources from the nether and the end and creating redstone machines that you didn’t even try to comprehend. 

Most of that is gone now, a crater even larger than the remains of Seungcheol’s base. 

“Oh my god,” you say. “You’ve been nuked.” You join Wonwoo and Seungcheol at the sidelines. It’s been a week since the last attack, and Seungcheol has joined your party of justice. You’re a bit sad that it’s no longer something you had just between you and Wonwoo, but looking at the remains, you couldn’t deny you needed the help. 

You take a step forward and there’s an ominous click. 

“Yn, run!” Wonwoo shouts. You try to run but you panic, pressing the W instead of the S. You hear hissing and it only worsens your panic. 

The first explosion doesn’t kill you but it scares the crap out of you and you can’t help but scream. “Help, help, help!” 

“You’re running the wrong direction!” Seungcheol says. 

“Stop laughing at me!” You groan as you die in the third explosion. Seungcheol doesn’t stop laughing, but what pains you is you can hear Wonwoo chuckling, too. 

“I guess not all of the TNT was blown up,” Seungcheol says through his laughter. 

“Evidently,” you say. “I kind of hate this game.” You click on respawn, heading back to the remains of Wonwoo’s base. You stay as far back as possible. 

“I’m sorry,” Wonwoo says. You can tell he’s still trying not to laugh. Traitor. 

“It’s not your fault,” you say with a sigh. “Though Jeonghan better watch his back.” 

“I’m sure he’s really scared,” Seungcheol says. He wanders carefully around the interior but there doesn’t seem to be any more traps. 

“I have our high school yearbook from freshman year.” 

“Have I mentioned how much I like you? Really, you’re one of my favorite people, ever,” he says. 

“Very convincing,” you say. “Tell Jeonghan to watch his back.” 

“Are the pictures really that bad?” Wonwoo asks. 

You cackle. “I’ll send them to you.” 

“Wait, why does he get them?” Seungcheol whines. 

“We’re partners in… not crime,” you say. “Partners in solving crime? Justice?” 

“That doesn’t sound right but I want to see the pictures, so, whatever you say.” 

“Did you both forget I’m still here?” Seungcheol asks. “Third wheeling?” 

“You’re not a third wheel, you’re a part of the team, too!” You say. “Partnership plus Seungcheol.” 

“That’s literally a third wheel.” 

Wonwoo bursts into laughter. 

“Why am I even here?” Seungcheol sighs. He logs out of the game. “I’m going to do actual homework.” He leaves the voice chat. 

“Did we just annoy him into doing actual homework?” You ask. You are still standing in the wreckage of Wonwoo’s base as he tries to fix it. 

“I guess so,” Wonwoo says. “I don’t think we were actually excluding him or anything, were we?” 

“I didn’t think so,” you say. The problem was, when you talked to Wonwoo, you didn’t exactly pay attention to what you were saying to anyone else. Maybe you should work on that. 

“So, Mingyu or Jihoon?” You ask because it’s been quiet for too long. 

“What?” 

“Which one do you think did it? Or, helped Jeonghan, same difference.” 

“Oh, right,” Wonwoo says. “I’m still not sure, I didn’t notice anything suspicious about either of them.” 

“You aren’t the best at investigating, huh?” 

Wonwoo laughs. “No, I’m really not.” 

“I guess we could just interrogate them.” You wonder if you’re taking this too seriously, and maybe that’s why Wonwoo isn’t answering. “Or, I mean, it is your base that’s been blown up, so we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to.” 

Wonwoo is quiet a second too long. 

“Sorry, I guess it’s really not that big of a deal,” you say. 

“It’s not that-”

“It’s okay, I just thought it was funny, I didn’t mean to take it so seriously.” 

“Yn-”

“I actually probably should go do some homework too.” You leave the voice chat as quickly as possible, logging out of the game immediately after. It was silly of you to think that Wonwoo wasn’t just entertaining you the entire time, but it still hurt to realize. 

You sigh and turn away from your computer, despite the fact that the homework was not just an excuse and you really did have a lot of it. You just didn’t feel very motivated, instead thinking of how you had to somehow face Wonwoo tomorrow and pretend like you didn’t just get heartbroken over a video game. 

.

.

There’s a gentle poke to your cheek. “You can’t sleep here.” 

“Comfy,” you mumble, burying your face deeper into your arms. 

“Come on, wouldn’t you rather sleep in your own bed?” 

“Sleepy.” 

“Come on.” The hand on your shoulder is gentle, but relentless, shaking you until you finally blink awake, sitting up. You instantly feel sore, stretching the arm that had been your pillow. 

“How long was I out for?” You ask with a yawn. 

“I’m not really sure.” 

You freeze. You are 100% that when you fell asleep studying earlier you had been with Mingyu but that was definitely Wonwoo’s voice. You turn your head slowly, finding Wonwoo standing a couple steps behind you. Your heart does its usual gymnastic routine, though it’s worse because you’ve been awake for all of two seconds and Wonwoo looks picture perfect in his sweatshirt and perfectly combed hair. 

“What are you doing here?” You try to smooth your hair, praying there’s no red marks on your face. 

“Mingyu called because he had… actually he didn’t say what he had, he just said he had to go and that he didn’t want to wake you up, and he just told me to come here and study but the library closes in ten minutes, so we should probably go.” He folds his arm over his chest. 

“Right,” you say. You stand up and stretch a little more, still blinking sleep away. You hate finals week. You stuff your computer into your backpack and try to organize the papers around you. Wonwoo steps beside you, trying to help. 

“Is there an order to this?” He asks, trying to read your scribbled notes. 

“There was once, it doesn’t really matter now,” you say. “The exam is tomorrow and I think I’ve stared at those as much as I can.” He doesn’t say anything else as he helps you gather them and shove them into a folder, sticking it all into your backpack. You turn to leave but he stops you, pointing to the outlet. 

“Is that yours?” 

“Yes, oh my god.” You grab the charger from the wall, tossing it into your backpack. “Thank you, I would have cried if I lost that.” You do a final sweep of the room, not seeing anything else that’s yours. 

“Ready to go?” Wonwoo asks. You make the mistake of glancing at him, leaning against the doorframe with his backpack on his shoulders. He’s been so patient with you it doesn’t feel fair. 

You nod, following him out of the room and falling into step beside him. The sleep is finally starting to wear off, and you are beginning to feel awake. The library is beginning to clear out, though you’re surprised at how many people there still are. 

“How many tests do you have tomorrow?” Wonwoo asks. 

“Just the one.” You sigh as you walk down the steps. “It’s a major requirement but it’s so dumb, it’s not helpful at all.” 

“I’m just happy the science class is over,” he says. “No offense,” he adds quickly. “It was really fun to see you twice a week but I’m never letting Mingyu convince me to take a class with him again, that class was horrible.” 

You shudder, remembering the final. You can only pray that you passed the test. Your memory is so bad you almost miss Wonwoo’s half compliment. “We should celebrate being free!” You stop in your tracks, just before the exit. “Oh my god, I forgot!” 

“Did you leave something in the room?” He asks, turning to face you. 

“No!” You grab his sleeve. “I forgot to pay you!” 

He frowns. “For Seungcheol?” 

You nod. 

“That was just a joke,” he says with a laugh. He tugs your hand off of his arm, pulling you to the library doors. “I felt bad even taking the sandwich.” 

“I can’t believe I forgot!” You say, ignoring his dismissal. The December air is chilly as you step outside and you pull your jacket tighter around your shoulders. 

“You don’t actually owe me anything,” Wonwoo says. “Seriously, it was a joke.” 

“No, but I feel bad, I promised you I would do something for you and I completely forgot about it!” You stop him under a streetlight, laying a hand on his wrist.  Your breath makes little clouds in the air between you, dissipating quickly in the frigid air. Whatever you were going to say, you forget because Wonwoo is staring at you and he’s practically glowing in the bright light, and you are suddenly reminded of the day he tried to save your life. Knight in shining armor is the phrase that comes to your mind. 

Your heart is pounding as you stare at him, unable to look away. His dark eyes, magnified just a little by his thick glasses lenses, stare back at you. Though he’s only a couple of feet away from you, the distance feels like miles. 

His lips look a little chapped in the cold air, and you wonder what it would be like to step a little closer and press yours against his, whether they’d be rough or soft, whether he’d kiss you back. 

You clear your throat. “I’m sorry anyway.” You’re not sure why you say it, but you finally tear your eyes from his, dropping your hand from his arm when you remember it’s there. You wish you could hold his hand. You stumble back for a couple steps before finally convincing your feet to work. You’re vaguely aware of Wonwoo mumbling, “Don’t worry about it,” and falling into step next to you. 

He walks you to your car, neither of you daring to say anything after the strange moment. You’re struggling to think straight, especially with him still at your side. More than anything, you need your bed. 

“I’ll see you later,” he says when you open the door. You force yourself to smile and wave goodnight to him before getting into your car. You lay your head against the wheel, wondering why you can’t just pretend like these feelings don’t exist. 

There was no way Wonwoo didn’t think that was awkward, and you were now going to spend the rest of the night wondering just why you couldn’t stop staring at him when you should be studying for finals. 

Maybe you should just drop out. 

.

.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Wonwoo says. You join the voice chat before your game loads, but before you can say anything, he’s stammering. “I swear, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this!” 

“What are you talking about?” You say, but a second later your game loads and you have no words. When you left a couple days ago, you had been in the middle of your base, logging off after spending a couple hours perfecting the hallway design (the trick was to mix and match the different types of stone). 

It’s all gone now. You spawn in a crater of what you hand spent all your time on, barely recognizable amidst the remains. You see Wonwoo character appear and realize that the explosion had just happened, blocks littered around you. 

“Wonwoo,” you say slowly, trying to understand what was happening around you. Everything you had worked on, gone. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he says again. 

You start to understand, though it doesn’t make sense. “It’s been you? All this time?” 

He says nothing, character in front of you as frozen as you feel inside. 

“I can explain,” he finally says. 

“No, I get it,” you say. “Actually it makes way more sense, you’re the only one who spends enough time to really supply him.” You try not to let the hurt show in your voice. It made perfect sense, really. What you didn’t understand is why he lied, why he played along with you when it was him all along. How many times had you talked to him about thinking it was Jihoon today, or Mingyu the next? You feel embarrassed, now, knowing how stupid you sounded. 

“Jeonghan wasn’t supposed to destroy everything,” he says softly. 

“Is that why you think I’m upset?” You’re not being fair, but you don’t particularly care right now. It shouldn't hurt, but it does. “Because my shit got blown up?” You log out of the game, staring at the discord chat. You and Wonwoo are the only ones online, which is good because you really don’t want anyone walking in on this conversation. 

“You spent the entire time on the server working on it,” he mumbles. 

You laugh. “I spent my entire time on the server hanging out with you,” you say. It’s good you're behind a screen because otherwise you would never have the confidence to do this, even if that made you a coward. “I really don’t care about Minecraft, Wonwoo. I like you.” 

It’s so quiet you can hear your heart pounding over your headphones. You’re frozen, unable to click out of the voice chat though you know the silence is your answer, and every second that he doesn’t say anything means is him trying to figure out how to say that your feelings are unrequited and you just ruined the friendship. 

Okay, completely ruined might be an exaggeration but it won’t ever be the same and it made you sick to your stomach that you had just blurted it out because you were butthurt about a dumb game. 

“Did you really just confess to me over discord?” Wonwoo says. It's always been impossible to decipher how he feels from his voice but you’re going crazy trying to figure out if he really doesn’t sound mad or it's just your wishful thinking. 

 “Um. I guess so?” 

He laughs, that stupid laugh that makes your heart flip in spite of the fact that you’re terrified. “I’m sorry, this is just the worst way to do this, you seriously couldn’t wait one more week?” 

“You really don’t have to make me feel any more stupid than I already do,” you say. 

“Oh my god, no, that’s not what I mean!” He says quickly. “Yn, I like you, too.” 

“Oh.” Oh. 

“I just didn’t think it was the best idea to tell you over discord,” he says. 

“Yeah, that would be really dumb,” you say, trying to get your brain to comprehend anything other than I like you, too. 

“If you waited literally one week, I would have told you in person,” he says. “I had a plan and everything. Actually, I had a plan to do it after finals but I sort of chickened out and then we both went back home and I had to reschedule, but I swear I was actually going to do it.” 

“Right,” you say. “Wait, what? I really have no idea what’s going on, I can’t believe you actually like me back.” 

“You’re an idiot,” he says. “How could I not?” 

You have no answer to that, realizing that any insecurity you tell him would be shot down. 

“I can’t believe this is how I told you,” Wonwoo says. 

“I can pretend I didn’t hear you?” 

You smile at his laugh, his voice sending a shock straight to your heart. “Or we could just meet up the second you’re back?”

“Like a date?”

“If that’s what you want,” he says. “It’s what I want, if I’m not being clear,” he adds quickly. 

You wonder if you’ll ever stop smiling. “Yeah, I definitely want.” Eventually your vocabulary will return. Hopefully. 

“So it’s a date?” Wonwoo asks. 

You open your mouth to answer but there’s a ding and someone else joins the voice chat. 

“Hey, perfect!” Jeonghan says. “Yn, I’m supposed to apologize for blowing up your base, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Actually, that’s what Wonwoo told me to say but honestly I’m really tired of listening to the both of you flirt without actually doing anything and I blew it up on purpose so that I can now say this: yn, Wonwoo likes you. Wonwoo, yn likes you. Have fun!” There’s another ding and he’s gone. 

“I don’t know if I’m more mad that he planned that or that it sort of worked,” Wonwoo says. 

“Yeah, he actually makes no sense,” you say. 

“And yet it worked,” Wonwoo says. You wish you could see the face he’s making now, wondering if he’s smiling like you are. 

“So, it’s a date?” He asks again.

Yes,” you say. “It’s a date.”

[kinokoshoujoart]

is it really toxic yuri if she doesn’t demand you cut off your fingers for her happiness???

”You have given me gifts over 10,000 times. Congratulations!” haha happy wife happy life…. (my fingers are stumps)

as some of you may or may not have realized i am powerless to the siren call of the ultimate devilish blond Harvest Moon Scum Man, and given that the Japanese version of DS Cute gives you TWO saveslots and TWO hands and the ability to to be in a literal toxic lesbian best friendrriage with ultimate devilish mischievous blonde Harvest Moon Scum Woman i have no choice but to meet all of the Witch Princess’s super reasonable honey do list!!

so one of those fun little non negotiable requests from majo-sama is that you need to give her presents 10,000 times before she’ll even consider marrying you, even if you meet all the marriage requirements!

i don’t mean 10,000 items total— even if you give her a stack of 99 items, it only counts as +1 towards the “items given to witch” counter. you have to give her 10,000 items individually…

in normal gameplay (giving her 1 gift a day, accounting for the holidays when her house is closed) you’ll eventually reach 10,000 gifts!…in your 95th year!

you COULD give her 100 gifts a day every day and knock it out in less than a year, and this was my strategy at first! i quickly realized adding another tedious daily chore to a pile of tedious daily chores slowed the game loop to a crawl and splitting items out was really fucking annoying actually

on the other hand, in 5 IRL hours, you can just get it all done in one visit to her house and never worry about it ever again.

“wow, that sounds like a really great use of my limited time on god’s green earth! how can i too win my future wife’s heart through button mashing my fingers into a pulp?” you ask?

˚✧₊⁎optimized pro gamer technique for breaking your fingers yuri style!!٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶⁎⁺˳✧༚

you will need

dog (each time you show your pet, this adds +1 to the gift counter the same way a gift would)

the bottom screen should be the map screen (reduces loading time between conversations compared to having your rucksack open)

cast endurance on fingers (wait this is redundant, you saw yuri in the title…)

ideal but not required

sometimes when you enter her house, she’s facing the side and her walk cycle never starts. it’s great if you get this glitch because then you can just stand in place for the entire duration without having to look at the screen, and even like watch a movie or whatever while you do all this, instead of accidentally dropping your dog every time she walks to the other bookshelf

if you’re wondering “wait, doesn’t Witch Princess hate dogs and love cats? why are you showing her your dog?” you are absolutely correct! she yells at you to get that stupid beast away from her every time you show your dog to her! her FP goes down by 3 each time! however, since her response to the dog is shorter than her response to the cat, you end up saving like .6 seconds per conversation, saving over 1.5 hours total, so the dog is what she gets

anyway, in true Karen HM64 tradition, after being repeatedly harassed by having a dog she isn’t fond of shoved in her face ten thousand times in a row for like five hours straight, naturally this makes her want to marry you! who said good old fashioned courtly love is dead?!

* as a small note, if you care enough to keep track and give her an actual gift at the 10th, 100th, 1000th, and 10000th mark, you’ll get 4 of the limited Witch Photos early on, which each give you +1 sweet sweet farm degree points every day… honestly that’s not much, but the pain of being told “your hands are full soooo no reward for you lmaoooo sucks to be you” was too much to bear, so i kept track and used a normal present for the 10th, 100th, 1000th, and 10000th…

[shuunnico]

With the TLOU1 Remake

I feel like I can bring up my lament on the games industry and their obsession with graphics (spurred on by gamers overall and their obsession with graphics).

Each console cycle, we see more graphical improvements. But the Last of Us remake, it just shows that this has serious diminishing returns (and has for the last couple console gens).

FIFA’s a good benchmark because it releases every year. The red outlines indicate a new console release that year. This is the same person each year. (I missed 2017).

You can see the dramatic diminishing returns with each new iteration. From 2013 onwards you can see a dramatic shortening in the jumps in graphical upgrades. By 2018, this shortens again.

This is because what as the polygons increase, the addition of new polygons becomes relatively smaller. A model with 10 polygons sees a major jump to 20 polygons, 100%. But a jump of 10,000 polygons in a 100,000 polygon model is only a 10% bump.

This fixation on hyper-realistic graphics is pushing consoles to be bigger and better, while the idea of expanding other technical aspects of games go unexplored. To me, the fact that games AI has largely stayed the same for a decade is disappointing. 

To this day, NPCs will charge you with a knife from yards away, in a straight line, because their AI is just figuring out the shortest path to you and thinks of nothing else.

Enemies will funnel themselves into doors or halls without thinking because all their AI considers is if they have line of sight. So waves upon waves of NPCs will walk through doors, one at a time, and get shot like targets on a wall.

This AI has largely remained unchanged since Half-Life 2.

Sure, AI is hard to market while graphics are easier. So what about, instead of using improved hardware to update graphics again, instead focus on things like destructible environments. And not just the “oh, your cover degrades,” but making buildings and terrain show signs of damage in real time, rather than just slapping bullet decals on a wall when you shoot it.

What about sound? What about improving the way sound travels in areas and through objects? This would dramatically change how stealth operates.

What about clothing physics, so clipping is heavily diminished. Instead of a ribbon clipping through your character’s shoulder, have it interact with the model instead.

For the longest time, video games often ‘cheated’ by creating illusions to simulate real effects. Wall damage isn’t your bullet leaving a hole, it’s a decal on a still flat surface. Your footsteps aren’t actually creating sound, it’s just a sphere around you that gets bigger or smaller depending on variables. Mirrors don’t reflect, they’re just transparent walls looking into a cloned room with cloned NPCs. Rain is just a series filters, which is why standing under an awning or tree doesn’t stop your character from getting wet.

For a long time we could’ve been moving out of the realm of ‘cheats’ and, instead, improving these things to make them behave more realistically. But, instead, the budgets go to graphical improvements (and other things I don’t feel warrant the price tag).

I really wish gamers and the industry stopped venerating graphics to the degree they do. The TLOU Remastered looks fine. If you’re going to remake a game, do it for a game that actually needs a graphical update (if you must).

[bugbytegames]

Attention gamers! Life Cycles is going on sale! And by sale, I mean it's currently FREE!!! What a steal! If you're a fan of narrative driven games, horror elements, and/or bugs, then feel free to check it out at BugByteGaming on itch.io!

This is my first game, and I poured a lot of time and love into it, so it would mean the world to me to hear people's feedback. Thank you so much for your time and support <3

[lycomorpha]

Eivor's herbarium: Page 5 - grasses and yarrow from a cursed zone meadow

~

“From a hill-top meadow west of Grantebridge, where the land breathes again”.

~

Before changing county, I've been thinking about meadows and how agriculturally important they would have been to settlements like Grantebridge or Ravensthorpe. Handily there's a meadow not far from our previous stop outside Soma's longhouse, on a cursed hill-top just west of town.

Cursed zones are small areas on the map where a black roiling fog gathers, horses freak out, and Eivor talks of malevolence and cursed troll magic.

This horse is questioning its life choices...

To dispel the curse you need to find and destroy a skull covered in glowing symbols. Shoot it and the dark fog dissipates, with Eivor saying that the land can breathe again.

The cursed troll magic symbol

Cursed zones are a slightly odd feature, in that it’s not clear how the ‘magic’ of the curse works. There isn’t an obvious link to Isu tech. We find some notes/snippets of story around suggesting they’re being placed there by Saxons in an attempt to hex away the Danes. In the Wrath of the Druids DLC, the druids are using a recipe that creates hallucinogenic vapor to induce visions of werewolves etc, so the cursed zones could work in a similar way, with the fog being part of the mechanism. But it’s not clear to me unless I’ve missed something.

However they’re supposed to work, cursed zones are good places to find fungi, plants, and honking great big trees. So I quite like them. (I know some gamers hated them and felt they were pointless collectibles; if that’s you, maybe some video game botany will improve them?!)

Aerial view of the hill-top cursed zone west of Grantebridge

The hill-top cursed zone west of Grantebridge has a particularly nice view from above and is surrounded by meadow. Since Eivor is helping run a settlement with farms, I’m sure she’d appreciate the importance of hay meadows to agriculture, and as a source of herbaceous plants for medicinal uses.

In the long grass

What is a meadow?

A meadow is an area of grassland where the vegetation is allowed to grow tall and isn’t cut in spring and summer. In late summer/autumn, the meadow is mowed to make hay, which then feeds farm animals over the winter. Until then, cut meadow is grazed by animals (sheep, cows, maybe goats) which poop as they go, dropping some handy fertiliser around the place. When gets too cold and wet for livestock to be out grazing, animals are brought in and fed on the hay, with the meadow left until spring for the cycle to start over again. This is in contrast to pasture, which is grazed in the growing seasons rather than allowing grasses to get long.

The un-cursed meadow, ready for hay-making

Hay meadows are full of diverse grasses and wildflowers. In AC Valhalla we particularly see yarrow, ox-eye daisies, and grasses like Yorkshire fog (4th pressed grass from the left) and meadow foxtail (2nd from left.)

On this page I’ve centred yarrow, mainly because I’m saving the daisies for another page! The grasses are from a couple of square metres in my back garden that I keep as a veeeery smol meadow. I’m lucky enough to have some outdoor space, and my priority in life is generally insects. So I leave some grass to get tall, and encourage a range of local wildflowers and grasses that serve as food for bees, moths, and beetles. In the un-cursed meadow, Eivor might have also seen clover, yellow rattle, lady’s bedstraw, and I’d bet on sweet vernal grass and crested dogstail too (3rd grass from the right.)

Ox-eye daisies in my local cemetery meadow

Hay meadows are an amazing reservoir of wild plant and insect species, but are now a rare habitat. Apart from the obvious changes in agricultural practice, capitalism doesn’t value biodiversity in spaces it could build on, extract from, or intensively farm the crap out of. But hope is not lost for meadow species. Many conservation organisations here work with farming communities to restore former meadows or to create new ones. Churchyards and church lands that haven’t been developed are also important spaces for meadow preservation – and in AC Valhalla we see meadows around the monastery at Meldeburne.

Meadow grasses and flowers around Meldeburne monastery

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Super-common and very tough, yarrow is a component of meadows but is found anywhere grassy – it’s found in lawns and verges all over the UK. In my area you'd be hard pressed not to see any in summer.

Yarrow in my backyard

Feathery, finely divided leaves gave it another common name, milfoil or millefoil, meaning 1000 leaves. It has clusters of small white or pinkish flower heads with an interesting structure. The flat-topped clusters of flowers look like they’re made out of daisy(ish) shaped individual flowers...

...But take a look at those daisy shapes and you’ll see that each is actually a cluster of many smaller tiiiiny flowers that just LOOK like a daisy. The centre is made of a bundle of tube-like ‘disc’ flowers that have 5 petals fused together. These are surrounded by a few ‘ray’ flowers, each with one large petal. So cool!

Yarrow: flowers inside flowers

Ecologically, it’s an important source of nectar and pollen for bees, and a food plant for many other insects, including moths and beetles. Some cavity-nesting birds use it as lining material. I encourage it to grow in my lawn along with clover, self-heal and black medick, because it’s a lot hardier and more drought tolerant than any lawn grass.

Historically, yarrow used to be used medicinally to staunch bleeding, but weirdly was also called ‘nosebleed plant’ because of a myth that it caused nosebleeds. It also used to be used as a good luck charm.

Yarrow and ferns

I'm going to move onto the autumnal ferns of Ledercesterscire for page 6, but I'll probably come back to Grantebridgescire for some of the other mysteries.

[crissiebaby]

The Padded Palace Act IV: Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: This story contains diaper usage, crossdressing, inappropriate language, humiliation, masturbation/diaper sex, and other ABDL themes. I hope you enjoy!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Gazing into the warm glow of his phone screen, Connor could feel a strange stirring in his lower tummy with each tantalizing art piece Riri scrolled past. From mechanical arms and hypnotic screens to every kind of sissy dress imaginable, it seemed like there was no limit to what artists were capable of injecting their diaper kink into. To think that so many talented individuals were dedicating time and effort to the creation of something that would be primarily used for spank-bank material was unfathomable to someone who spent years of his life convincing himself to be a physics major for financial means. “So like…people get paid to do this or…” he trailed off, his hungry eyes lured into a trance-like state by a barrage of horny images.

“Some do, some don’t. Kink communities are packed with artists, from amateur to professional,” said Riri, who struggled to keep her thumbs from scrolling through her favorites list too fast. There was just so much she wanted Connor to see, and based on the feverish look in his eyes, it was clear how mutual that desire was. Tapping the icon in the top right corner, she opened the log-in pop-up menu, “You should make an account. Then, you can start favoriting stuff too.”

Almost instantly, Connor’s body tensed up. “Oh, uh, that’s okay. I can just look off yours,” he said, glancing away and rubbing the back of his neck. He couldn’t have been easier to read if he tried.

“What? Worried your parents are gonna check your search history or something?” scoffed Riri, jabbing her pointer finger into Connor’s side for emphasis, “It’s an anonymous account, ya dork. Worst thing that happens is you never use it.”

Failing to withstand Riri’s prodding assault, Connor quickly buried his body beneath the poofy comforter. He peeked around the thick blanket, glaring playfully at his obnoxious cribmate. “Fine but no more pokes,” he said, overcome with the fuzzy sensations of Little Space radiating throughout his chest.

A smirk grew on Riri’s face as she cheerfully handed Connor’s phone back to him. “I knew you’d see things my way,” she said, showcasing that she could be quite the bratty Little when Stacy wasn’t around.

Tapping through the DeviantArt sign-up process, Connor decided to utilize an old, cringy email address he had as a teenager. The idea of having random kink messages appear alongside professional emails did not sound appealing. He then entered one of his usual passwords and was taken to a second window asking him to select a username and date of birth. While the latter was no issue, it slowly became apparent how daunting the former was to someone taking their first steps into an online fetish community. Obviously, using any of his gamer tags was out of the question, and to ask Riri for help with something so simple would incinerate his already broken pride. Thinking on his feet, he typed in New2Diapers, which was the first username that popped into his head. Sure, it was simple but he wasn’t about to get caught up in an endless cycle of second-guessing himself. From there, he confirmed his email and was good to go. “Done. Happy?” he said, sticking his tongue out at Riri afterward.

“Very,” responded Riri, scooching forward and sticking her neck out overtop Connor’s phone. Her expression soured as he shifted to shield his phone from her, “C’mon, lemme see.” She rudely reached out to take Connor’s phone, only for him to pull away again.

Holding his phone high out of Riri’s reach, Connor may have been padded but he still towered over the short-framed girl by nearly a full foot. “Sowwy, you must be this tall to access my account,” he said, snickering as Riri tried to scale his arm. Her efforts eventually forced him to stand up fully to keep her at bay, prompting Riri to counter his movements. Their silent squabble eventually came to a head thanks largely to the blanket Connor had previously used as a barrier. Tripping over the crumpled comforter, he toppled down onto the mattress butt first.

*SQUELCH!*

The mushy, pulpy interior of Connor’s diaper oozed around between his thighs and swirled against his sore, yet spry member, reminding him of the diaper change that he was still in desperate need of. The gushy noises that the muck balloon strapped to his waist produced were loud enough that Riri recoiled at the sound. She looked down at his swollen, splotchy-brown padding, secretly wishing her own diaper was equally as stuffed. Shaking her head to snap herself out of the horny stupor she was being lured into, she suppressed her inner ABDL cravings and instead moved to provide aid to her souled comrade, “Don’t know about you but I think it’s about time we got you out of that diaper.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Placing a towel and a fresh pamper on the back of the toilet, Riri handed Connor a trash bag before clasping her hands together. “I’m sure I don’t really need to tell you how to do this part,” she said cheekily, relishing in how easy it was to turn Connor’s cheeks red, “Last chance to let me change you. Trust me, I’ve dealt with bigger stink butts than yours.”

“I think I can manage but I appreciate the offer,” Connor said, rolling his eyes in a very animated fashion. He considered asking for one of his old pull-ups instead of the nighttime diaper Riri had saddled him with but given the current state of his noxious nappy, his request was likely to meet a swift rejection. In all seriousness, he was grateful to have Riri at his side, especially considering how insane the rest of the Padded Palace girlies were, “Thanks, Riri, for everything.”

Holding out two thumbs-up with her arms fully extended, a sense of pride washed over Riri. In a way, Connor felt like the younger sibling she never had. Regardless of whether his half-awake “Con-Con-nie” remark meant anything or not, she was thrilled to help him on his journey of self-discovery. “I’ll grab some clean clothes while you rinse off,” she said, moving toward the exit but stopping short of closing the door as a lightbulb went off in her head, “Any particular wardrobe you’d like me to pull from?”

Connor froze midway through fluffing out the trash bag as the crimson on his face deepened. Anyone else would’ve thrown another dress or nightie at him without hesitation. Only Riri was kind enough to ask, though that kindness was marred with the humiliation of admitting his wants. Coming up with an excuse on the fly, he fixed his dishonest gaze upon the intersecting lines of the bathroom tiles and responded softly, “L-Latasha says I’m not allowed to sleep in boy clothes…so…yeah.”

Once more, Riri was thrown into a fierce battle with her facial muscles over how wide she allowed her smile to get. “Then I’d better go find you something extra cute,” she said, skipping off toward the nursery and leaving Connor alone in the bathroom.

*CLICK*

Twisting the lock on the bathroom doorknob, Connor expelled the air from his lungs as he leaned over the sink. It was his first time truly alone since midday yesterday and as such, the relief of having some brief isolation was almost as euphoric as anything the girls had done to him in the last 24 hours. “How the hell does Skye do it?” he mused for the billionth time, pondering the various downsides that a perma-Little life would come with.

Goosebumps formed along Connor’s arms and stomach as he grabbed at the skirt of his slightly sweaty sleeper and raised it over his belly. It was time to retire the nightie for the evening, much to his chagrin. Or at least, that’s what he thought. Regrettably, as he went to lift the dress over his head, he felt several strands of hair tug upward as if someone were trying to pluck them from his scalp individually. He panicked for a few moments as the nightie fell back around his body. “Oh, for f…sake,” he said, stopping short of dropping a f-bomb as he spotted four bobby pins knotted up in his hair that had been dislodged by the flowy garment. One by one, he pulled the bobby pins out of his head, wincing as several of the hairs were completely pulled out in the process.

With the bobby pins cleared, Connor was finally able to strip. A subtle melancholy overcame him as he balled up the nightgown in his hands and dropped it to the floor next to the sink. Sure, Riri was already in the process of collecting another nightie for him but this was perhaps his only chance to wear Skye’s favorite. All of a sudden, the isolation that had once filled him with relief became riddled with emptiness and anxiety.

Those unfortunate feelings only grew stronger as Connor hooked his thumbs around his diaper’s waistband. It hadn’t occurred to him beforehand but he was about to undergo another massive first. With Latasha’s permission, he had changed himself out of pull-ups numerous times for countless reasons but never had he done so with a full-on diaper, especially one this heavily used. Stricken by the fear of his muddy diaper dropping to the floor only to splatter everywhere, he considered lying down to take his diaper off but quickly tossed that idea aside as he thought about his butt sinking into his own mess again. The last thing he needed right now was to inflate his squishy diaper-fueled arousal any further. Wrapping his forearm around the bloated behemoth hanging between his knees for support and widening his stance, he prepared to remove the first tape. Blood pooled in his head as he stood hunched over his diaper, growing woozier by the second.

*KNOCK! KNOCK!*

However, before Connor could proceed with his undiapering, a soft banging at the door startled him. “Pssst! Hey Connor,” said Riri, keeping her voice low as she spoke through the door. The padded caregiver remained motionless as he listened.

Holding a folded, powder blue nightie made of taffeta and lace in her hands, Riri bobbed up and down on her tiptoes as she spoke, “I’ve got your outfit picked when you’re ready. I can just leave it on the floor or-”

*CLICK!*

Riri fell instantly silent as the sound of the bathroom lock unlatching echoed through the darkened hallway. Taking a meek step backward, she watched as the door slowly opened to reveal a topless Connor in nothing but a loaded, lumpy nappy.

“I’m…uh…I’m not sure…,” said Connor, his voice barely registering in Riri’s ears, though the shame written across his face spoke volumes,  “...I don’t think I can change myself…”

TO BE CONTINUED…

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[irlkdj]

I dunno who needs to hear this but Yoo Joonghyuk did not regress ONLY to meet Kim Dokja again. I think to reduce it to that is to minimize his character—it was a lot more than that. I think the moment he chose to regress in the 0th round was an important act of agency. Throughout the novel, Yoo Joonghyuk is constantly characterized through Kim Dokja’s eyes. We don’t have a good sense of who he is until about the 200s I would argue. But the reason for that is not just Dokja’s assumption that he knows him best because he read about him, but also because Yoo Joonghyuk /himself/ doesn’t understand who he is as an individual. He’s the regressor. Protagonist. But never just Yoo Joonghyuk. It’s always what he can offer other people. He even says himself he started to identify more with his role as a regressor than as a person with autonomy:

“He realized that, if he were to get to the end of all the scenarios, he needed to kill off his emotions, that he must not live his life.

And so, he decided to become not 'Yoo Joonghyuk', but the 'Regressor', instead.”

Here he lays it out plan and simple. In order to continue, he cannot feel, he cannot be an individual with agency, he cannot live his life. He is trapped in this never ending cycle—and even in times of success and relief, he cannot see the merit in his efforts:

“What was 'happiness'? That term felt so very alien to Yoo Joonghyuk. He thought he might have felt such an emotion from somewhere within the memories of the 0th turn that he managed to steal a glance earlier. However, that was no longer his life.”

So this brings us back to him regressing in the 0th round. 

"One day, I suddenly came into existence in this world."

A man who came to exist in this world without a warning.

"Without any memories of my childhood, I was suddenly cast into this world. I wandered around an illegal work site, and through sheer luck, got spotted by the director, and thus became a pro gamer. But then out of the blue, someone abandoned a child on my doorstep. A child, supposedly my younger sister."

A conveniently-crafted life, a series of adversities created solely to become a tragedy later.

"Once, I searched for my parents. However, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn't find them. Even the professionals that could unearth the president's hidden illegitimate child couldn't find my par-ents. It was as if such things didn't exist in this world, to begin with."

[Constellation, 'Demon King of Salvation', is...]

"So I ask you, 'Demon King of Salvation'. Who am I?"

My heart was in pain. The fact that Yoo Joonghyuk had eventually reached that question was endlessly tormenting me.

I needed to say something. Anything...

"Does the secret of this world lie beyond the wall, where you are?"

Yoo Joonghyuk does not understand himself. He is happy, something he proclaims to Kim Dokja. But he feels as though something is missing. Some integral part of himself—the part that he desperately wants to explore and understand but never had the chance to do so. Obviously, the 0th round took place before the 1864th round, but the backstory we looked at earlier shows his character. He is on a journey of self-discovery, that’s what his story is about. He says: “I'm curious about the reason behind all the goodwill you've shown me. I'm also curious about the meaning of my life, where I was born, and why I had to come here. If I had one more chance…” So while meeting Kim Dokja again definitely could’ve been a factor in his decision to regress, I don’t think it was the end all be all. I think to minimize it to such a reason is to ignore his struggle with agency and identity.

[friendlyfaded]

redacted characters as games in my steam library/games folder

vincent-vampire the masquerade: bloodlines. this one should need no explanation. vincent is literally a textbook toreador.

sam-stardew valley. he seems like a relaxing, slice-of-life type gamer. as much shit as he gives the gamecube, you know this man played the fuck out of animal crossing.

gavin-huniepop. yet another assigned game that should need no explanation.

huxley-minecraft. he build in the dirt. that’s all i got.

damien-little inferno. might seem a little on-the-nose, but the themes of escaping the grind of what everyone else is doing, a grind that is actively harming everyone, and seeing what no one else sees to escape that cycle, reads as extremely damien to me.

lasko-huniepop 2. don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. (it was either this or baldi’s basics. i’m allowed to slander him, i’m a lasko kinnie)

caelum-wobbledogs. cute lil alien puppies that you can feed and play with and crossbreed to make eldrich abominations that shouldn’t exist. i just know he would fucking love wobbledogs.

vega-fran bow. as much as i adore him with all my heart, vega is just very remor-coded. he beats up children. that’s all i gotta say about that.

milo-prey. 😇

david-destiny 2. i don’t have to explain it. you already know.

asher-sea of thieves. i just know my man is absolutely killing it with sea of thieves. he has a story about trying to take over a ship using a rowboat and accidentally going to the final quest of the game with the crew of that ship instead.

aaron-alien isolation. this one is based on pure vibes. i don’t got much of an explanation for this one beyond delving into a dangerous world your family member is involved in to save said family member.

elliott-valheim. i don’t know a whole lot about elliott, i’ve never paid much attention to his storyline, but he seems like the kind of nerdy guy to really enjoy valheim. plus, co-op game to play with his best friend and partner. it works super well.

camelopardalis-subnautica. he’d find it extremely relaxing and would adore all the fauna in the game. he has never killed a leviathan and doesn’t plan to. his favorites are the reefback leviathans.

avior-detroit: become human. kinda funny that this one goes to avior and not james, but avior absolutely has the vibes of a guy fully realizing that people entirely different from him have such life and value to them and gaining a new appreciation for them.

anton-hydroneer. i feel like he’d enjoy the logistics and openness of the gameplay. plus, the scenery is pleasing and aesthetic. he’d enjoy the foresty vibes of the starting area.

james-pokemon reborn. maybe it’s personal bias, maybe it’s just that the game has a bunch of dark themes involving world-ending disasters and one person being forced to make difficult choices to save it, costing several lives unintentionally and being separated from loved ones and traumatized in the process, but it fits him almost too well.

geordi-skyrim. geordi has logged thousands of hours in skyrim and no one can convince me otherwise. he mains a bosmer and is super proud of his challenge build he did where he followed the green pact for the entire game.

guy-don’t starve. he cooka da pizza. he would make sure you never starve. plus, i feel like he’d be really good at survival games like this, and he’d really enjoy the art style.

[pesterloglog]

Sollux Captor, John Egbert

Page 447-454

SOLLUX: eating a sandwich.

JOHN: what? no, i mean, what are you doing HERE in the meteor?

SOLLUX: i live here.

SOLLUX: its like im fated t0 wind up back at this idi0tic r0ck every c0uple 0f sweeps.

JOHN: i’m... sorry?

JOHN: ...

SOLLUX: real mess y0uve made 0f things 0ut there.

JOHN: yeah, well... we’re trying to fix that now! which is why I need to find my friends!

SOLLUX: kind 0f fucked up y0u guys let this happen t0 begin with.

JOHN: soooo anyway, on the topic of you living here...

JOHN: does roxy know about this???

SOLLUX: why w0uldnt she?

JOHN: huh.

JOHN: umm... how do you know her?

SOLLUX: wh0 d0 y0u think h00ked me up with these sick ass shades and gave me all these ape games.

JOHN: okay, that kind of makes sense, i guess.

JOHN: ...

JOHN: are you guys... close?

SOLLUX: wh0. me and r0xy? i guess. we squad up a c0uple times a week.

SOLLUX: why d0 y0u care?

SOLLUX: y0u w0rried im m0ving in 0n y0ur ex?

JOHN: ...hmm.

SOLLUX: ...

JOHN: hm. hmm. hm.

JOHN: hm? HMMMM.

SOLLUX: what is g0ing 0n here.

JOHN: sorry, i had an answer but then i started actually considering it.

JOHN: am i jealous?

JOHN: hmmm...

SOLLUX: if i tell y0u straight up n0 we arent h00king up will y0u st0p?

JOHN: ...maybe?

SOLLUX: g0ddammit.

SOLLUX: listen.

SOLLUX: c0ming fr0m s0me0ne wh0 has shared breathing space with y0u 0nly 0n 0ccasi0n.

SOLLUX: its 0bvi0us t0 me y0u're n0t supp0sed t0 be the thinking guy.

JOHN: we’ve met before?

SOLLUX: ...

JOHN: ??????

SOLLUX: sigh.

SOLLUX: pirate ship. d0uble eye-patches. girlfriend ascensi0n.

JOHN: :0!

JOHN: double eye patches!

JOHN: i remember you now, you were at mystery jade’s funeral too!

SOLLUX: sure.

JOHN: sorry for not recognizing you.

JOHN: the eye patches are pretty distracting!

JOHN: like every time i see them i have to stop and think...

JOHN: wow... that looks really really stupid!

SOLLUX: yeah.

JOHN: are you still hanging out with that creepy alive girl?

SOLLUX:

SOLLUX: 0n a spiritual level.

JOHN: cool!

JOHN: is ... she also dating roxy?

SOLLUX: what?

SOLLUX: idk.

SOLLUX: i d0nt make it my business t0 keep tabs 0n that.

SOLLUX: im busy.

JOHN: you’re gaming!

SOLLUX: im fucking gaming.

SOLLUX: speaking 0f which...

JOHN: so what were you guys up to before this?

SOLLUX: (what the fuck)

SOLLUX: is there a prer0gative here.

SOLLUX: are y0u spades baiting me right n0w?

JOHN: honestly i don’t know what that means.

JOHN: i suppose...

JOHN: how do i say this...

JOHN: contextually!

JOHN: i always find myself going to a lot of places and meeting all these people but.

JOHN: most of it never matters to me until i’m not doing anything at all.

JOHN: last time that happened it was for ten years!

JOHN: and it only changed because i started talking to people again.

SOLLUX: (i did this t0 myself why did i ask)

JOHN: i guess in gamer terms it's the same as screwing yourself over by not checking every non playable character dialogue box.

JOHN: any one of them could have the clues you need.

SOLLUX:

JOHN: sooooo...

SOLLUX:

JOHN: come on!

SOLLUX: c0me 0n! :B

SOLLUX: die.

JOHN: aw, don’t be like that dude.

JOHN: i promise no more questions after this.

JOHN: do you not want to because it just ...isn't important?

SOLLUX: excuse me.

SOLLUX: my vestigial digits get m0re imp0rtant shit d0ne 0n wednesday nights than y0ur ill dressed b0dy has d0ne y0ur entire life cycle.

SOLLUX: but im n0t g0ing t0 g0 int0 all that because 1. i d0nt kn0w y0u and 2. i d0 n0t respect y0u.

SOLLUX: itll 0nly make y0u feel bad anyways.

JOHN: why would it make me feel bad?

SOLLUX: i can smell it 0n y0u man.

SOLLUX: y0u stink.

JOHN: i stink?

SOLLUX: yeah.

SOLLUX: y0u smell like a guy.

SOLLUX: wh0se never had any bitches.

JOHN: what!

JOHN: i have a son! i have a house full of pictures with him!

JOHN: that is physical proof i have had “bitches” thank you!

SOLLUX: as s0me0ne wh0 has been friends with every w0man y0u are attempting t0 categ0rize int0 this

SOLLUX: i can assure y0u, they were n0t y0ur bitches.

SOLLUX: y0u were theirs.

JOHN: i

JOHN: i was the bitches?

SOLLUX: this was the missing puzzle piece r0xys ex.

SOLLUX: y0ur arc is 0ver.

SOLLUX: y0u can g0 h0me n0w.

JOHN: my home burned down.

SOLLUX: sad.

SOLLUX: y0u kn0w what is tragic th0ugh?

SOLLUX: i have n0t been able t0 play this game the wh0le time because s0me0ne was talking 0ver the s0und.

JOHN: oh!

JOHN: sorry : (

SOLLUX: w0rds d0nt mean much.

SOLLUX: 0nly acti0ns.

JOHN: well, i suppose i left the vriskas waiting long enough...

JOHN: see you eye patches...

SOLLUX: n0t wearing them.

JOHN: or not who knows!

SOLLUX: WAIT.

JOHN: !

SOLLUX: change my game f0r me.

[dragonsongmakhali]

9 People I'd Like To Know Better

Tagged by: @reikatsukihana, @airis-ray, @mimble-sparklepudding, and @heart-of-corundum - thank y'all! This was fun :'D

Tagging: oh boy I don't know who hasn't done this yet, so I'm tagging folks with reckless abandon👍

@miqojak @seinthood @iron-sparrow @ahollowgrave @blackestnight @crowdsourcedloner @wilanserulia @sumifinalfourteen @thefreelanceangel

Last song: POP/STARS. Yeah, I'm back on it again. I basically cycle K/DA songs as favorites and sprinkle in some Linkin Park and video game bgm to mix things up. I've liked the same kinds of songs since I was a youngling playing DDR and badly singing along to BeForU.

Favorite color: If I can only choose one, black. If I can choose an accent color, red. The "1337 gamer" aesthetic unfortunately has me under a sniper scope at all times, as I unironically love that edgy tech look. My style is "goth programmer" and I do not take criticism.

Last movie/TV show: Star Trek Enterprise. We're on the fourth and final season, as the show wasn't renewed for a 5th season. At least the creators knew it was coming, so the ending shouldn't be super jarring, but I've heard it's not at all what they originally wanted for it. Sad, I really like their long form storytelling. We also watched half of a sci-fi from 1993 called Cyborg^2: Glass Shadow last night. If you're wondering whether we've watched the first one. The answer is no, and we specifically skipped any flashback sequences - it's not really the kind of movie that you need to have your brain wrinkling for.

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Sweet all the way, I'm basically a colony of sugar ants in the shape of a human. I'm terrible with spicy foods - I don't taste anything, my lips just hurt!

Relationship status: Happily married, we'll be celebrating 5 years married/11 years together next month :)

Last thing I googled: an error message that I hoped would be explained by stack overflow, only for google to find six links that were for completely different set ups/use cases, three sponsored ads for yet another hot new framework that's supposed to make my life easier but actually just installs tracking cookies everywhere while "helpfully" obscuring verbose debugging information, and a single link that was only semi-helpful in tracking down the problem. I'm not mad.

Current obsession: Alt timeline classic WoW tabletop characters my beloved

[formulatrash]

Hey Hazel,

During the F1 Austria GP weekend, it was occasionally mentioned that the paddock was being powered by solar panels and biofuels as a test of their low-carbon energy systems, or something like that. When I heard that, my first thought was to ask an expert (you) if you had heard anything about that and if the biofuel was something Actually Good or if this is more or less some PR fluff type thing.

Heya,

I actually meant to write about this but then got booked to cover the Spa 24h for Speedcafe and money had to take precedence.

So what they were trialling was a system that runs all the motorhomes and garages, so everything from tyre warmers and the teams’ data systems to, idk, emotional support gamer lights in the driver rooms or whatever. 

That’s more power than the circuit will have by being plugged into the national grid, so there’s a need for other power generation. Diesel generators have been the reliable form of choice for mobile events because they’re easy to transport, their fuel is easy to transport, they’re low maintenance and they run consistently. Festivals, sporting events, anything where you need impromptu power they’ve been the answer for decades.

The Austria trial was to replace that with a realistically portable system that F1 can take to tracks without their own on-site, sustainable solutions (some places, like Paul Ricard, already have solar installed) and to make sure it was feasible both in terms of delivering enough power and in being rigged/set up. 

Biofuel as a replacement for diesel is pretty good. Diesel is very, very dirty - even burned at low temperatures and steadily in generators. So replacing it with HVO100 (made from hydrogenated vegetable oil which can either be waste product or made from non-food-grade biomaterials) is a significant improvement. 

Mercedes recently switched to it in all their trucks for the European rounds and even just the 4% reduction in tailpipe emissions, compared to fossil diesel, will represent somewhere around 23.5 tons less carbon emitted. 

But on a full life-cycle of taking fossil fuels out of the ground, transporting, refining and transporting them again it’s a justifiable 70% reduction overall. Some people say 90 but I think it’s better to err towards the lower end - although given how filthy fossil fuel extraction is and the potential for methane emitted at-site, etc, the life cycle emissions are always much worse than you’d estimate anyway.

Solar, especially with a good battery setup, is of course another great use. Portable solar panels are very feasible, given what F1 is already lugging around (about 30 trucks per team...) so that’s valid.

It seems to have been a success, in the sense I didn’t hear about any random garage blackouts or issues. So hopefully that’s a good infrastructural development for future events. 

[astronomodome]

limlife smallidarity. ohhh my god limlife smallidarity.

mike townsend (is a credit to the team)

the whole mike townsend quintology is jimmy coded because it's about a sad wet cat cringefail player who is famously bad at the game trapped in a cycle of sacrificing himself to save his friends but THIS song specifically. is about someone singing about that player and basically saying 'i was unfair to you, you're not that bad and i believe in you now. go kick some butt' which is. y'know.

i havent really looked too closely at smallidarity but from what i can tell the strength of their dynamic is that even though joel loves teasing jimmy, they really do care about each other. When they teamed up in limlife they worked well together and even had some success getting kills!

Also gamer grindset is a life series joel song for reasons which should quickly become obvious.

[having-gude-times]

internet addiction and coping with it

Hey all, probably the only post I'll ever make on here, since I'm just here to keep track of friends.

Anyways, something that I wanted to share was how I coped with my internet/electronics addiction. I'm putting this out into the void, I know, but maybe someone who has this too will find this? Also disclaimer, english isn't my first language, so some things may be worded weirdly. Sorry!

For the longest time, I've struggled a lot with being online. It was a coping mechanism, giving me a small respite from everything that plagued me in real life. It was fun, at first, finding all these different things and websites and making new friends and connecting! But as time went on, it became a second source of anxiety and depression that became both better and worse as I stayed online.

I'm not an expert in either science or medicine, but the internet (and to some extent, electronics in general. I'm talking phones, computers, consoles, TV, etc.) is addictive because of these constant dopamine rushes, and without those dopamine rushes, everything else seems bleak. Similiar to some drugs, I'd say, but far less physically dangerous ofc (though the mental is still harmed). News cycles and social media thrive on outrage and giving strong emotional reactions, which is definitely not good for the human psyche.

Like any other addiction (or at least, most), the best way is to just go cold turkey. It's what worked for me, and that's how I'm doing so much better mentally than just a few years ago. Deleted every account I had, uninstalled every game and app, even put my phone on simple mode so that I'd only have access to the bare necessities.

It was hard at first, but it got better within just a week already! Coping with this stop is the most important, and I'll just share my method down below. It doesn't work for everyone, you may need to adapt some things so that it fits your life, but some friends have told me they're overall good tips.

Delete every social media. the most obvious one, I know, but that first step is the most important.

Set yourself a daily timer (10 minutes for me) for essential online activities, like checking emails and the sort. Browser extensions are good for keeping track of that.

If you're a gamer, try only keeping the most essential games, though be wary because this can quickly turn into a gaming addiction!

Get a manual hobby. Doing things with your hands is important! Just like you would with children, spending time on doing things with your own hands helps recalibrate your brain and dopamine. Into edits and pinterest boards? Do collages, scrapbooking, journaling! Cut up magazines and journals, get some cute stickers (and while it's redundant, scour online for images) and get to cutting and having fun. Into writing? Write down things in a notebook! Embroidery, knitting and crocheting are good for keeping yourself focused. Pop on some music and relax. Learn how to cook or bake! Keeping your brain and hands busy are essential for getting rid of that addiction.

Join a social program or volunteer! In my town, I can either keep company to the elderly or help autistic children socialise at their own pace. Programs like these are essential for filling that connection aspect of social media that you've now cut off, and the elderly always have the most fascinating things to say.

Then, hopefully, you'll be happier. Maybe you'll be like me, and make just one single account to see what's going on. And maybe you'll be stronger, and ditch forever the internet. Even if you relapse, it's no use villainising yourself. Simply get back on track as soon as you can, because beating yourself down won't help you.

I only come online about once a month, so if you have any questions or dms for me, feel free to hit me up, but it'll take a while for me to get back to you!

If you have an internet addiction, hang in there. These steps seem drastic, but they're essential to stop yourself from staying in a painful loop.

[kyndaris]

And Then You Wake...

Ever since watching Inception, the idea of living life in one's dreams has always held an allure for me. Especially given how vivid and complex and awe-inspiring some of my dreams have been. After all, I'm not one who usually has dreams that feel like the every day, where I'm plugging away at work or going to school only to find I've forgotten to wear pants. Rather, my dreams have always felt like elaborate films or action set pieces (the ones I remember, at least). Sometimes there will be zombies chasing after me and a group of survivors who look like my friends. Other times, a dragon might erupt from the floor of my preschool.

I ask you, dear readers, who wouldn't want to explore that kind of fantastical world over the mundane boring real world?

In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, after being struck by lightning in the middle of a storm, Link washes up on the shores of Koholint Island. What he doesn't initially know, although he will later find out, is that Koholint exists only as the dream of the mythical Wind Fish. It's an illusory land filled with people and monsters and nightmares, along with references to the Mario games.

While some might argue Link's actions heinous as he strives to leave the island by waking the Wind Fish because to do so would destroy a living breathing world, I believe Link's actions are no worse than what we do in our fictional video games. For, no matter how real something can feel or seem, in the end, Marin and the villagers we meet are only figments of another's imagination. They aren't real. At least, not in the way most would understand.

I'm sure you've heard the argument before. Especially when one grows attached to a set of programmed pixels. In my head I know Garrus Vakkarian wouldn't look twice at me and that he's a fictional alien, but it doesn't stop me from fantasising over the best way to get him to fall for my Commander Shepard.

The same could be extended to characters in television shows and movies. The time we spent with them can feel as real as spending time with actual friends, but in the end, they're not actually a living breathing flesh human you could possibly bump into on the street. Yes, you might bump into the actor who plays them but an actor could be miles different from the character you've come to know and love.

On that note, just because something isn't real doesn't mean our connection with them isn't. As the Wind Fish says, though no-one else will ever encounter Koholint Island after it's gone, it lives on in Link's memory and the gamers who played the game.

It's a bit like grief and losing someone close to you. In fact, it's the perfect allegory/ metaphor.

They might be gone in the physical sense but they will always be with you in spirit. As long as you cling to those precious memories of who they once were and dream of the possibility of who they could be.

Now if you feel like someone has been cutting onions close to you, wipe away those tears for I need to get started proper on my impression on Link's Awakening.

Eschewing the very popular Tears of the Kingdom, I chose to use the back portion of 2023 to catch up on a few of the games I missed earlier in the Switch's life cycle in order to free up some storage on my limited storage space. 128GB is simply not enough. Heck, even the 700GB my PlayStation 5 internal storage isn't enough for all the games I want to play when every new game trends towards 100 GB upon disc install.

But I also wanted to play Link's Awakening because it was a Zelda game I have yet to play. And because it was also nice and short and I could use it as a palate cleanser from the very lengthy Fire Emblem: Engage. Plus, you know, the claymation style also tickled my fancy.

From the moment Link awoke, I was on my way gathering up all the necessary things I'd need to wake the Wind Fish and to explore Koholint Island. Along the way, I encountered nightmares trying to prevent the Wind Fish from waking, along with the occasional meta fourth wall breaks from the denizens of the world.

Over the course of the time I spent with the game, I managed to collect all of the heart containers, upgrades for my weapons and fish up Cheep Cheeps and Ol' Baron.

Unlike the sprawling open worlds that have come to dominate the wider video game landscape, Link's Awakening was downright compact, even as I occasionally backtracked because I missed a Secret Shell or unlocked a new way to reach a heart container. The world felt alive in a way so many open-world games lack because of the forethought when it came to item placement and the construction of the world.

From a gameplay perspective, Link's Awakening follows a tried and true formula of unlocking specific items that help you in the following boss battle, which in turn allows Link to explore the rest of the island as new routes open up.

Given how short the game is, it helps gate certain content while also leaving players salivating for what might come next. I know I was always keen to see where Link would be directed to go next and how the new tools in his arsenal would help him solve the problems placed before him.

Special mention, though, needs to be placed on the Roc Feather, which allowed Link to jump. Oh, and the grapple hook. Those were some of the most useful tools in Link's arsenal and in most situations, they were the two items I kept equipped unless I faced an enemy that needed a different approach.

While some puzzles and dungeons could be a little obtuse, especially the latter ones, I didn't find myself too aggrieved. After all, in the day of the internet, it's easier to find the path I need to go to unlock the next path forward before putting my phone down to enjoy the game as is.

Still, a hint system wouldn't hurt on the odd occasion when the going gets tough. Especially when it came to figuring out how the horse chess pieces worked.

As for story, well, there's not much to say. There's no real threat beyond the nightmares preventing the Wind Fish, and by extension Link, from awakening. Indeed, their actions are only confined to the dungeons they're located in and are only exacerbated by Link's attempt to get off the island to, no doubt, rescue Princess Zelda in some part of Hyrule.

There's no underlying subplot waiting to be uncovered.

Link's objective is clear. Wake the Wind Fish. Get off Koholint Island.

And once he's completed it, the game ends.

There is much that could be said of the minimal plot but it serves its purpose to keep the players plodding along. While the reveal that Koholint Island is only a dream might offer up a dilemma to players', Link, for his part, keeps on pressing on.

But as with all stories, be they video games, books and dreams, there always comes an end. If anything, Link's Awakening only serves to make it clear that although something may end, they can remain with us for as long as wish. Certainly, the creation of fanfiction is one such way. And even now when I look back on a wonderful, they all serve as a means to keeping Koholint Island alive although my time with it has gone, vanishing into the swirling mists of the subconsciousness as I rise to the surface and wake.

[darkstaranthology]

'dragon's breath' was the fourth fic posted for 'dark star - an izch anthology.' As of writing this post, it is in-progress.

Discussion of dark themes, threatened and feared rape/non-con, mating cycles/in-heat elements and loss of control during sex for magical reasons, human/non-human sexual relationships, and other triggering content below this cut. There will also be spoilers for the fic, if you want to read it for yourself first.

Fic stats:

~49,000 words at time of writing

7 chapters at time of writing

E rated (explicit sexual content, human/non-human sexual relationships, mating cycles/in-heat/sex pollen elements, threats of and attempted rape/non-con, past torture and rape/non-con)

Archive Warnings (AO3): Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

Fantasy AU (nominally a rendition of the 'official' fantasy AU for BNHA shown in the popularity polls/anime ending theme)

'dragon's breath' is a long-form fantasy AU multichapter fic, based loosely on the 'official' BNHA fantasy AU which has appeared in popularity polls and one of the ending animations of the show. It concerns Princess Ochako Uraraka, a roughly nineteen-twenty year old woman with minor magical abilities, who is grappling with impending arranged marriage and the period-typical sexism of a vaguely medieval society. She meets Deku, a young, wounded dragon, and it changes the course of her fate. It also has... a bit of an odd history to its writing.

As of me writing this post, it's the only fic in 'dark star' that is ongoing, rather than completed. I began writing it in June of 2022, and I wrote the first five chapters before posting it. However, it actually began life in June of 2021, as an experiment in writing 'darker' and 'grittier' fic. It was originally inspired by a piece of Deku/Shigaraki art, where adventurer!Deku ran into dragon!Shigaraki in a cave, and the latter was quite menacing. I actually attempted to write that fic with that pairing, only to give up on it about four thousand words into things.

Deku/Shigaraki is an interesting ship, incidentally one of my real life partner's favorite BNHA ships. It's not so much that I dislike Deku/Shigaraki, personally. It's a pairing that fandom gets antsy about, as they have an age gap of roughly four-five years. I actually think that's totally fine, given that Deku is going on seventeen in the manga, while Shigaraki is just about to turn twenty-two, I believe. That's the least problematic thing about them, considering their canon context. Most of my issue with Deku/Shigaraki is that while they have a lot of cool subtext and themes surrounding them, their actual personal dynamic in canon is insufferable to me romantically. It's a more appealing idea in AUs, but that in turn shaves off most of their complexity, naturally.

Shigaraki in canon is, unfortunately, an annoying gamer dudebro shut in who yells slurs at teens over voice chat while playing ranked League of Legends matches. No amount of uwu softboi twinkification in fanon will change this reality, and I think it if anything makes him less interesting. But it also makes me very disinterested in shipping him with Deku, a character you have to bend over backwards to give him a personal relationship with. They have a good dynamic as a hero and a villain, but that's about it, really (to me).

So to make a long story short, I wrote about thirty thousand words of dragon Deku and witch Ochako with the same basic premise, instead. The original version actually played out mostly the same as what's now posted, Ochako just wasn't a princess. Instead, she was sort of a local hedge witch/healer/alchemist-type, and she ran into Deku in the cave while searching for ingredients. In this version, Deku was more straightforwardly 'sinister'/off-putting, and after they had their brief tryst in the cave, he flew off. The second chapter, of what was planned as a two-shot, involved him finding her several years later, coming back to apologize to her for treating her disrespectfully when she helped him.

This version in 2021 I clearly wasn't actually ready to write yet. The characterization wasn't consistent, I didn't know how to handle AUs so severely divorced from canon, and I wasn't ready to push dark concepts to the edge. I ended up hard scrapping it, then regretting it later when the Google doc was already gone. Such is life.

In 2022, after I began 'dark star,' I was writing 'fantasies,' and I started daydreaming about the formal fantasy AU that BNHA has. This was originally (to my knowledge) drawn by Hori for a popularity poll, then it was animated for the show for its second season. It's super cute, but of course, this is 'dark star,' so I started imagining this sort of broad feminist dark fantasy centered on Princess Uraraka of the Kingdom of Uravity overcoming her given station in life as the unlucky daughter of minor nobles.

When I was writing 'fantasies,' I had already written the first few chapters of 'dragon's breath.' I was writing a lot at that stage, often doing several WIPs at once, so this was pretty easy to do. That's how the implied framing device of 'dark star' happened, where novelist!Ochako was writing 'dragon's breath' as her in-universe novel. This will appear again down the line, with the broad implication that fantasies!Deku eventually wrote 'BNHA' in-universe as a comic book series, and that Ochako began to incorporate that into her novels as a sort of recursive element.

Now, regarding 'dragon's breath.' Other than that how I got here is very long and meandering, it's just an odd duck of a fic. What inspired me to revisit my abandoned dragon Deku concept was art by Twitter artist 'AroaKeyna' for her 'Dragon!izch' AU. She's a furry artist, and I really like her art. Wanting to do a homage/adaptation of her work, I incorporated the 'Ochako is a princess' angle, and I used her design for dragon!Deku, who in the original had more of an angular appearance to him. Popular izch author 'SevenRenny' (@sevenrenny) is a dear friend of mine, and their furry anthro AUs for izch have been very influential on me as well, so this served as a good gift for them.

Personally, I'm not very interested in furry content in the pure abstract sense. Not so much that I 'dislike' it, it just doesn't make me feel anything special. That is to say, I wouldn't characterize myself as a furry, per se. But furry AUs of izch are something I really like, which I find fascinating. I don't think this is any great, deep revelation about my sexuality or anything - and I have had those through my time in fandom, plenty much so - but it does interest me as a point of introspection.

So while 'dragon's breath' has some furry/anthro elements, I think it's pretty clear that I don't really 'go here,' so to speak. Still! I did my best. It will come up more as the fic goes on. Deku as a dragon is written with ideas about 'domination' and 'inequality' in mind, threading the needle on the feminist fantasy and the themes in canon of 'not all men are created equal.' It's significant that Ochako in this fic is surrounded by awful people who want to use her, and the one person she meets who categorically is meant to dominate her instead bends over backwards to please her. Of course, that's a very obvious notion, but I was very committed to making this idea work, and it will be explored more.

In practice, this means that Deku's magic involves aphrodisiac/sex pollen elements not entirely within his control. This makes having sex with him an inherently dicey prospect for Ochako, as it's sort of by definition consensual non-consent. This evolves over the course of the fic, and their dynamic will mature over time. I also just gave Deku a lot of bizarre, alien biology, like having a self-lubricating, nubbed cock, or the fact that he doesn't have nipples or a belly button, since he was born from an egg. Dragon's in this setting aren't 'evolved' creatures, more like traditional vampires where they are 'designed' a certain way by a higher power, and this element will come back, as well.

That brings me to the other elephant in the room: as of writing this post, 'dragon's breath' is unfinished. Indeed, where the story is at right now, there's no end in immediate sight. I actually wrote out the entire next chapter, and it's been sitting in my Google drive since last July. But it ends on a fairly substantial cliffhanger, and to be blunt... I didn't know what happened next after that.

I actually do know what happens next now. There's some important revelations to discuss regarding the 'true nature' of both Prince Shouto and Barbarian Prince Katsuki. Both of them have very unflattering portrayals in this fic. Bakugou in particular was modeled after a number of 'rape fetish' Ochako/Bakugou fics I was exposed to, where I was riffing off of that idea, but without making it something meant to be seen as 'appealing.' Of course, I think it's fine to write non-consent as a fetish thing, I just think the consistently awful characterization of Bakugou by fandom as this hypermasculine, dominant sex god is aggravating, to be honest.

Still, no point in standing on a soap box about it. The fic speaks for itself on the matter, I think. I broadly know what I want to do now. The next few sequences concern the introduction of some important characters: Chisaki, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Toga, primarily. They also concern some backstory mysteries being solved for the audience, such as what drove All Might's motivations, or the nature of Nana, the Lady of the Lake. I think this fic has at least 8-10 chapters to go, probably around 120k words when it's finished, but we shall see.

This fic is very Ochako-centric, which I think is fine. It's easy to write Ochako-centric izch fics for me, as Deku is my absolute favorite character, possibly of all time, but the series is already about him. Of course, I love Ochako, too, but it just works easily for fic, as she has a lot of space to work with as a character. One common criticism I hear of izch as a ship, which I actually empathize with, is that they aren't interesting in canon because Hori doesn't write enough about Deku's feelings for/about Ochako. I think people are selective with this criticism, as Deku has a lot of problems with his writing in general, yet they conveniently will forgive this with Bakugou or Todoroki, but the point stands, regardless. Consequently, I often receive feedback to the effect of 'I don't really care for izch, but I really enjoyed your fic about them.'

I take this as proof that people don't really dislike Ochako or izch on principle, they dislike Hori's poor planning in canon, and they probably dislike the insufferable cishet male fandom for BNHA that lurks on Twitter and Reddit. Can't really blame them there, even if they sound stupid insisting that their favorite generic anime boy that Hori wrote just as foolishly is somehow exempt from his poor planning. I digress.

I'm proud of how this fic has come out so far, insofar as I consider it a valuable learning experience. I really didn't know much about how to write fantasy before 'dragon's breath,' and I think I learned a lot. There are two more fantasy AUs planned for 'dark star' at the time of writing this post: one is an adaptation/homage to an existing izch fic by another author, and one is a direct AU of another mainstream media property, a sort of setting fusion. They will both riff off of 'dragon's breath' thematically, as 'dark star' has a lot of deliberate intertextuality, but neither will be expressly related as such, and neither will be based on the 'canon fantasy AU' for BNHA.

I think given the chance to do 'dragon's breath' over, I wouldn't have posted it until it was done. I learned valuable lessons about how to write and post ongoing, long-form fics from this experience, too. I hope the rest of 'dark star' won't have this problem, as I no longer plan to post fics for the series that are not already completed. I also plan to do a proper weekly release cadence from now on, rather than every other day or every five days, which I experimented with via other fics.

Still, 'dragon's breath' is a neat little fic. It's implicitly a take on 'Ochako has One for All,' or more accurately that izch share One for All, which is a common idea in izch fandom, but one which I feel the ship fandom often executes poorly. There's so much thematically necessary to touch on with that idea, and so much of izch fandom is consumed by juvenile power fantasies, instead. The curse, such as it were, of being into a ship popular with cishet men. If only that was not the case, we might be free of so much trash harem and 'overpowered Deku' fic that clutters the tag.

I plan to finish writing this fic sometime in 2024, as I meander through my ever-growing list of ideas for 'dark star.' It's the kind of series I can write forever and ever, as it's an anthology, not something that requires heavy linear reader investment. You'll probably enjoy it more if you read it in the order it was written, if only because that's the logical way to read nearly anything, but you don't have to.

I do find it curious that this was the most popular of the original few 'dark star' fics. It makes me wonder what about it is so appealing. Is it that people are craving 'izch fantasy AU?' In the time between when I first wrote it and now there have been several notable, popular izch fantasy AUs, mostly by the always wonderful Rainglows (@leahfrog), which I think you also ought to read. Perhaps people just have a mighty, unfulfilled need for izch fantasy, or perhaps 'dragon's breath' resonated with them specifically. It's hard to say, really; no one talks to me much about the things I write. I wonder sometimes if I am scary!

And don't worry. We'll come back to Rainglows' fantasy AUs for 'dark star,' soon enough.

But if you like BNHA fantasy AUs, I'd love to hear about it! So if you enjoyed 'dragon's breath,' please let me know! Or if you didn't, I don't mind hearing why. I hope you have something intelligent to say, rather than boring pro-/anti- discourse stuff or 'your ship is bad,' though. These fics are for adults, and I expect you to engage with them like adults.

Have a nice day.