#uh anyway I don't have a Good Post about this right now lol I'm in bed and should be asleep just rotating the concept in my mind (again)

[blujayonthewing]

thinkin about how if gnomes are partially insectivorous and also live underground in the woods then Cicada Emergence is 1000% a huge cultural event, probably with religious significance, and cicadas would hold tremendous cultural importance both literally and symbolically

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // twenty-one

summary: you showed him colours he knows he can't see with anyone else.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 4.2k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: oh- you guys wanted them to be happy and in love in peace?? my bad. anyway, good a time as any to wish you guys a happy valentines day! lol

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist

"Where are ya takin' those?" Lennox asks you as you're quickly scanning through your piles of books, pulling out one or two at a time and holding onto them.

"I will bring them to Coryo and Sejanus." You smile to yourself, standing up straight as you finish picking out most of your favourites.

"Coryo." Lennox scrunches his nose up. "Why bother? They can't read that many books in a week. Especially when he'll hardly get his hands off you long enough to do literally anything else."

"Oh, Lennox hush. That is not true." You shake your head pointedly, cheeks burning red.

"It is true."

You had kind of explained to Lennox what happened, that Coryo explained, apologized, and that you were wrong about him. Your mother was right, of course, but Lennox still wasn't buying any of it. Although, he wouldn't deny that you seemed happier.

"Ma!" You call out, coming out of your bedroom with the stack of books in your arms. Trying to talk to Lennox about this would never end in him actually listening to you.

"Just out back, honey!"

You follow her voice out onto the back porch. "Ma, do you know if there's a limit of things you can take on the train?"

She looks up at the question, laughing at the stack of books you have steadied under your chin.

"It's not a passenger train, honey. I don't know." She chuckles. "You want to give him all of those? Won't you miss them?"

"Well..." You think about it, placing them down on the ground to rest your arms for a moment. "I don't know when I'll see him again, and books are expensive to post. Besides, I know they'll be in safe hands, and if I want to read them again I can take them from the library."

Your mom smiles sadly at you. "I suppose that's true."

"Yes." You grin, crouching down to pick the books up again carefully. "I shall go drop these off."

"When will you be back?" She asks, just as you're about to walk back inside.

"Uh, I'm uncertain, but I shouldn't be long! We don't have any plans."

"Maybe you should take your brother with you, he can carry those." She suggests and you sigh.

"No, Ma. He's mean." You pout.

"He only wants to keep you safe. Take him with you, please. He'll be driven mad here waiting for you to get back." She insists and you groan, dropping your head back. "I won't ask again, I promise."

"Okay, Ma." You relent, stepping back into the house and letting the door swing shut behind you. "Len! Ma says you're coming with me!"

"So... how do you know where they are staying?" Lennox asks you, half the books in his arms as you practically skip ahead of him.

"Coryo showed me the other day."

"Oh, he did. Of course he did." You can practically see him rolling his eyes behind your back. "Have you ever considered that he could just be using you? I mean-"

"Lennox, that's not a rational thought process. I have nothing that he would want, he already won his prize." You interrupt. "He just came here to spend time with me, we talked about that when I was in the Capitol."

"I can think of something he wants..."

"Lennox!" You turn on your heel, pointing a finger in his face so fast he almost stumbles as he stops. "That is enough. You have so little trust in me!"

"It's not like we haven't been down this road before!" He argues, and you quickly look around as he raises his voice. The path is deserted this time of day.

"And you don't think me capable of learning?"

"Clearly not! Him and Cole are practically the same person!"

"Don't you say that- I didn't like Cole and you know it." You narrow your eyes at him. "Coryo is different. He wouldn't hurt me."

"You do realize that those are like, the famous last words that every teenage girl ever has said and regretted it, right?"

"Do you just not want me to be happy?" You ask bitterly. That wasn't true and you knew it, but you were upset and you knew it would get your point across. He was being cruel.

"The opposite, actually! I just want you to think realistically about fallin' into the open arms of your 'knight in shining armour' who you've literally had nightmares about for weeks on end."

"I am not a child! I am an adult, and I am capable of making my own decisions." You spit. "He's not using me. He loves me, and I love him."

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll say that until-"

"Lennox you are such a.. boy!" You groan. "If you must know, if you must insist that I am so stupid, no, I have not slept with him. Is that what you needed so desperately to hear?"

"Gross." He mumbles, shaking his head with disgust. "I don't care what you do with your alone time, actually I'd really rather not know! All I'm saying is you need to be more careful."

"I'm not going to fight with you. You can trust my decisions or not." You grumble, turning back around to keep walking. He follows behind you silently, neither of you saying another word the whole walk there.

You knock on the door, taking a step back while you wait for it to open. You can hear your brother breathing behind you and it's driving you up the wall. You would drop off the books and send him home- maybe you would stay for a while, go for a walk, something.

The door creaks open and you smile when you see Sejanus. "Y/N!" He grins, opening the door wider for you to come in. "Coryo! Your girlfriend is here!" You blush at the term as you walk in past him.

You hadn't discussed any kind of title to what you had, the looming ache of him leaving again so soon holding you back from wanting to mention it. You assumed he didn't want to discuss it either, both of you silently agreeing just to enjoy the time you still had together.

"Y/N/N." Coryo grins, eyes lighting up as he enters the room.

"Hi." You smile, ignoring your brother pretending to gag behind you.

"What brings you?" Coryo asks. "I didn't expect to see you today, I was thinking of coming to see you myself."

"Yes, well, I went through my books and brought some over that I would like you to take." You look back over your shoulder as Lennox is placing the large pile of books on the dining table.

Coryo hums as he wraps his arms around you, resting his chin on your head. "That's a lot of books." He chuckles.

"You don't have to rush through them, keep them as long as you'd like." You assure him. "I just thought they were some you may enjoy."

"I'm sure I'll love them." He kisses the top of your head. "Thank you."

You turn in his arms to look up at him, ticking your head slightly when you hear Sejanus speak quietly. Clearly, not to either of you. "Hey, I just want to show you something. Come outside with me?" And then the door is shut, and you and Coryo are left alone.

"What's he showing him?" You ask, and Coryo watches through the window as his friend and your brother circle around to the side of the house.

"I am not sure." He answers. Immediately, he's thinking of the note Sejanus had scribbled out for himself. It included your brother's name alongside the dates and times, and those dates were creeping up quickly, the seventeenth being in three days- if he had today's date correct.

"Coryo?"

"Hm?" He looks down at you again. "You were thinkin' for a minute there. What's wrong?"

You were always so concerned. All he had done was take a moment to think, and you seemed genuinely worried. Maybe there was something in his face that showcased his confusion. "Nothing, love." He assures you, but you don't seem inclined to believe it. "Okay, uh, just... Come with me." He grabs your hand, watching out the window to make sure they aren't coming back yet as he leads you to his room.

You step into the small space and smile. He wasn't here for long, but the room already had little touches of him. The bed was made, and there was nothing on the walls but the bedside table had the copy of Romeo and Juliet he had got for you, a folded-up note, and a comb for his hair he had yet to put back in his bag despite him not needing it anymore.

You turn to face him after he shuts the door, smiling. He almost looked normal here, now. Like he was getting used to being here with you, living your life. It certainly wasn't like what he left behind in the Capitol, but to you it was special.

"Y/N, I have something to tell you." Coryo says, serious with a lowered voice. He didn't want anyone to hear it, even though you were still likely alone in the home.

"Okay." You reply, feeling your brow crease as you nod at him. His tone makes you nervous- your heart skips a beat in your chest. For a moment, you feel trapped. Tell him what you need. He won't mind.

"Can you... can you move away from the door, please?" You ask quietly before he has the chance to speak again.

He nods, not wasting a second before passing you and you turn with him, now with the door to your own back. "Is that better? You okay?" He asks and you nod.

"Fine just fine." You smile, trying to be reassuring. "What were you going to tell me?"

"Right, so..." You watch as he runs a hand over his head, still in the habit of pushing back his hair. "I was in Sejanus's room the other day, and I found this note. It had two dates and places on it, and then your brother's name and that was it."

"Oh." That's the only thing you can think of to say. "Well... do you remember the places? Maybe he was just trying to remember Len's name?"

"I don't know, I was hoping you'd know more." Coryo sighs, reaching for the bedside drawer. He had written down what he remembered from the dates and times, because he did want to ask you about it. "But he's been leaving and coming back at odd hours, he won't tell me what he's doing. Is he with Lucy Gray?"

"I don't think so." You frown, shaking your head. "But they have been getting close."

"But that doesn't really feel relevant to the note, or your brother."

"No... It certainly doesn't seem that way."

"Here, so... I wrote it down. Uh... The Hob, August seventeenth at ten pm, and broken fence August eighteenth at four am." He reads off what he remembered enough from the note to write down.

You tilt your head.

"Does that mean anything to you?"

"Well, on the seventeenth The Covey is performing at the Hob, so maybe he planned on going to that." You explain. "But broken fence... there's so many of those around here I couldn't tell you. Although, four am is an incredibly odd time to be meeting anyone."

"That's three hours before our train leaves."

"Oh." You shake your head slightly. "That's very weird."

"I know." Coryo sighs. "He won't tell me either, I've asked if he has any plans that night and he said no."

"Well... We should go." You offer. "Tell him that we're going to the meadow that night, and we'll just go after him. See who he's with."

Coryo raises his eyebrows at you. "I didn't take you for the nosy type."

"Well, I'm a big sister at heart and if it possibly involves Lennox I have to know." You argue. "It could be dangerous. He's always had a few friends I didn't love."

"Are you okay to go back there? I can go without you." He offers.

"I'll be fine." You insist. It's more so out of necessity, you have no choice but to be fine. You have to know- you have to make sure your brother and friend are safe.

"Are you sure about this?" Coryo asks, stopping you outside the entrance to the Hob. "If you want to go home I can take you, I just want you to feel safe."

"I know." You give him a small, reassuring smile as you squeeze his hand. "If I need to leave I'll tell you. I promise."

He nods, taking one last look at you to make sure you still seem okay before he pushes the door open and you both head in.

The building is buzzing- as it usually is when The Covey performs. You smile at the music, letting Coryo pull you close to the side wall as he scans the crowded room for his friend.

"Do you see him?" You ask, and he somehow hears you over the music and shakes his head.

You frown, looking around as well. No sign of Sejanus, no sign of Lennox. Lennox isn't even old enough to be here, but he wasn't at home when you left- and it's not exactly hard to sneak in.

"There," Coryo says, nodding in the direction of the opposite side of the room. You follow his eyes, and spot Sejanus talking to someone you recognize. "Who's he with?"

"Spruce." You explain. "His sister is scheduled to be executed tomorrow afternoon." You add, leaning closer so no one else will hear.

You watch as they head toward the back hall, the same one you ran down just a couple of weeks ago. "Should we go after them?" You ask when Coryo doesn't reply and he nods, watching them as he pulls you down the outside wall toward them.

You make it back to the hall without Lucy Gray spotting you, as far as you can tell. Standing outside the door, you hear shouting. You watch Coryo as he clenches his jaw, shaking his head.

"Wait out here." He tells you, dropping your hand.

"No- I, I should come." You shake your head and he grabs your cheeks, lifting your head to look into your eyes.

"I don't know what they're fighting about but it doesn't sound good. Wait out here." He's stern as he gently brushes his thumbs over your cheeks. "Listen to Lucy Gray, just watch the door. Okay, love?"

"Okay." You agree quietly, slightly nodding.

He kisses your forehead before letting you go, taking a deep breath before pushing the door open and disappearing behind it.

You chew your nails as you wait with your ear to the door, trying to decipher who is inside with them. It's hard to tell with all the shouting going on, but you hadn't heard Lennox.

"Y/N." You hear your name, quickly jumping back from the door and turning to face the voice. "What are you doin' here?"

You chew your cheek, trying to avoid Cole's gaze. "Just waitin' for Lucy Gray." You lie, looking down.

"Ah." He hums, nodding slightly as he steps closer to you. "Where's your purebred Capitol attack dog?"

"What are you doing here, Cole?" You ask, ignoring his question.

"We got leave passes for the weekend." He answers. "Hoff said something about 'boosting morale'."

"That's nice." You smile nervously. "Well, I don't want to keep you, so..."

"You aren't." He smirks, tilting his head as he looks down at you. "I'm not gonna hurt ya, you know that, right?"

"I know." You say softly.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"Cole..." You sigh, looking down again. "We talked about this I just... We're too different. I'm sorry."

"Oh, because you have so much more in common with that prick- right?" He laughs sarcastically. "He's Capitol! He'll never know you like I do. Honestly, I'm offended that you'd choose him over me."

"I'm not choosing him over you." You frown. "I already knew we wouldn't work before I ever met him. This is very, very different. I'm sorry."

"You are? Oh, I'm glad to hear that." He nods and you eye him suspiciously. "Maybe then after he leaves, you'll give me another chance. He's taking the next train, tomorrow morning, right?"

"I can't do that, Cole." You shake your head.

"That's an awful shame." The evil smile on his face doesn't fade. "I'll have no choice but to report your father."

Your heart drops. "My Pa hasn't done anything."

He sucks in through his teeth. "Well, suspicion is enough to charge, and I don't know... I get a bit of an off feeling from him. It's actually my duty to report any suspicions we have, so honestly I've been protecting you, and I'd like to keep doing that, you know?"

You finally picked up on what he was saying, and immediately could taste the bitterness of fear on your tongue, a metallic tang that seemed to linger in the air.

"So? Do we have a date?"

"Sure." You mutter through gritted teeth.

"Sweet, thanks for finally coming to your senses, bug." Cole smiles, patting your shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon!" He calls back as he walks away.

You don't even care what's going on inside, you can't be alone in this dark hallway anymore.

You pull the door open and rush in, but you're quickly stopped by Coryo's arm as he takes a few steps back, pushing you behind him. "What- what's-"

"She can't be in here!" Spruce spits at Coryo as you look past him, gasping at the sight of several guns on the table and the one in his arms.

"Listen, she's not involved." Sejanus promises.

"Her brother is gonna help us, it's cool. She won't tell." You look at Billy Taupe when he speaks, eyes wide.

"No- this is crazy." Mayfair shakes her head. "She's not coming with us. We're not bringing her or Lucy Gray. I'm leaving."

"No, they aren't coming. I just said I'd ask. Now she knows, so she probably should." Billy Taupe replies and your eyes flick between the couple. You had no idea what was going on, where he wanted you to go, and what this had to do with Sejanus or your brother.

"No! My daddy will have you all strung up for this." She throws her hands up and starts to walk toward the back door. Your heart is pounding in your chest as Coryo reaches for one of the guns.

"Don't!" You cry out, forcing yourself in front of him just as he aims the gun at her. At you.

"Y/N, you gotta move right now." He says quickly, and you hear her footsteps stop behind you.

You can only look at his eyes as they flit between anger, instinct, and fear.

"Coryo." You say, voice cracking and it's only then that you feel the tears dampening your cheeks.

The barrel of the gun is under an inch from your chest, and you can see his hands shaking as he holds the heavy weapon in his hands. He won't shoot you- he won't.

The world around you seems to blur as your focus narrows on the overwhelming sense of fear gripping you tightly. Right now, if someone asked where you were, you wouldn't know. You just as easily could have been standing in the arena. 

He doesn't dare move as he stares at you, eyes wide. He doesn't want to hurt you, but that's why he has to do this. He can't let whoever that girl was have you killed. Still, you stand in front of him. Shaking, but not moving. This was the girl he knew from the games who offered a rose to Coral who in the moments before was threatening her. The girl who so thoroughly hated the idea of bringing harm to others that her own mind blocked it out completely and replaced the story with something else. This was the girl who was willing to give up her life just to be able to give the other tributes an honourable burial that she knew they wouldn't otherwise receive. 

The girl who saw him kill another boy and despite all of that, still had it in her heart to forgive him.

You don't even hear Mayfair laugh and begin to walk away again, you only hear the gunshot that follows. You jump, immediately looking down to assess the damage. Coryo wasn't pointing the gun at you anymore, he had dropped his arms in defeat- and you had mistaken the loud noise for an impact you were expecting.

He didn't shoot you.

"What did you do?" You turn as Billy Taupe screams, eyes widening as you see Mayfair bleeding out on the floor.

"Oh god- oh god..." You mumble, stepping back until you bump into Coryo. He drops the gun back onto the table, pulling you into his arms.

"Don't look, don't look..." He tells you, turning you and pressing your head to his chest so you can't see anymore even if you wanted to.

You can't even make out what Spruce and Billy Taupe are yelling at each other over the sound of your blood pumping through your veins. Until the second gunshot.

You must be sobbing now, clinging onto the front of Coryo's shirt so tight your knuckles are burning. "You're okay, it's okay." He tells you. You don't know what's going on- you don't want to.

Coryo stares between Spruce and the body of Billy Taupe now slumped down next to Mayfair. He needs to get you out of here, now, but he doesn't know how. This has to be handled first.

He's letting you go only to grab your cheeks and get you to look at him. "Go back outside, you have to go back outside, I will handle this."

You can't even speak- can't even move. You try and shake your head. You couldn't leave him, not right now. You feel like you'd die the moment he ceased touching you.

The door slides open again, followed by an angry voice you know too well. "What the fuck?" Cole must have been watching you. He must have heard.

"No..." You cry, shaking your head. If Cole saw this you were absolutely all screwed.

"What the fuck did you do?" Cole shouts again. "Nobody fucking move! You're all-"

Another gunshot. Silence.

"Oh no, no, no..." You try and look behind Coryo but he doesn't let you, holding your head firmly into his chest again.

"It's okay. Don't look." He says again, staring at Sejanus who looks like he's panicking just as much as you are now.

"Why'd you tell them where we were? Now you've gone and screwed us all over! I just shot a peacekeeper!"

"He didn't tell anyone." Coryo defends him. "We followed him, Cole followed us."

"Fuck." Spruce sighs, throwing the gun onto the pile of others still laid across the table. "We gotta bump this up. We have to get Lil now, go tell Lennox to get the stuff and hide it for us like we said."

"Get rid of the guns and pretend this never happened."Coryo hisses. "And leave the kid out of this. It's too late for whatever plan you had now- we don't know where he is."

You can't even hear a single thing going on anymore. You're actually sure you might faint.

When you go from shaking to completely still in Coryo's arms, he knows you have. "Shit..." He mumbles, trying to steady you as your knees give out. He quickly readjusts so he can lift you with an arm under your knees and the other under your back.

"I gotta get her out of here and you have to move quick. Get rid of the guns. Now." He instructs, and surprisingly, Spruce listens. He throws the weapons into a bag and steps over the two bodies by the door before leaving.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this." Sejanus cries, gripping onto his hair and breathing heavily. "No one was supposed to get hurt!"

"Sejanus, for once just shut up!" He grabs his attention from where his friend is staring at the dead couple, clearly losing his mind. Coryo doesn't have time for this- an unconscious girl in his arms and his friend looking like he's about to be in the same state in a matter of moments.

"It's all my fault..."

"All of this is your fault!" Coryo agrees, looking around at the mess of the room. "It's only gonna get worse if you don't pull yourself together."

"Oh, god..."

"If you breathe a word now, all three of us are finished. Just like in the arena. We came here to see her. If we go down, she goes with us." He holds you tighter to his chest as your hair falls over the curve of his arm, your head limp against his skin. "So now we have to go back to the house, gather all our shit, and act like nothing is wrong. We have to board the train tomorrow like nothing is wrong. Do you understand?"

"I- I don't know." Sejanus sniffs.

"Hey." Coryo says, taking a few steps closer. "Look at me. You have to pull it together. I know you wanted to go with them but now they aren't going. We've got to stick together. You won't get in trouble. I won't let anything happen to you, but you have to listen to me." It was obvious that it didn't matter that none of you pulled the trigger- being in the room was enough; especially when a peacekeeper had been murdered. If you were caught, you'd all be executed. "We're brothers, yeah? Brothers. Whatever you've done, I swear I will keep you safe."

"Brothers. Yeah." Sejanus mutters, still obviously in shock.

"Those guns were the only loose ends besides the four of us, so we're gonna be okay as long as we leave tomorrow." He breathes. "Okay? Not a word."

"O-Okay." Sejanus nods slightly, trying to keep his focus on the boy in front of him rather than their unconscious friend in his arms.

Coryo tried to give him a reassuring smile, but inside he was panicking too. They could escape it all on the train tomorrow, but now came the problem of what to do with you.

taglist: @soulessjourney , @that-veela-girl ,  @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs , @maysileeewrites , @baybieruth , @kitscutie ,  @fratboyharrysgf0201 , @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @drewsandsebastianswife , @niicole-87 , @queenofshinigamis , @innercreationflower , @nallasstuff , @iovemoonyy , @thatmarvelchick19 , @wearemadeofstardust0 , @regulusblackcore , @puredreamagination , @fantasticchaosthing , @becauseseaotters , @secretsicanthideanymore

okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

[eyelessfaces]

uncalled for

summary: you get quite upset when poe "saves" your assigned mission by giving orders to your teams without consulting you; poe is determined to fix his mistake.

warnings: (public) arguing, talks of the future; family and having kids

tags: gn!reader, angst, being parents to bb8, fluff, this ends up being real sweet tbh

word count: 1.7k

masterlist | taglist | ao3

updates blog: @eyelessupdates

(uh yeah I'm back if you even noticed I was gone lol. I might just post this and disappear again for a little longer idk but anyways I'll explain the reason whenever I'm back for good; I'm okay don't worry, and I'm still gonna post fics don't worry it's nothing too serious fr)

It causes a disruption when you both barge into the hangar; despite the constant clattering and whirring of tools and material there, both your bitter shoutings have been overlapping the sounds ever since Poe started following you closely, right from the moment you hastily jumped out of your x wing to try to forget about the awful management of your mission that would probably cost you to never get to lead one again. 

“It was my call, not yours” you affirm bitterly, voice dripping with resentment, your steps heavy and hurried as you try to shake Poe off but he is anything if not persevering, so it only manages to piss you off even more and fuel your frustration. “I didn’t need you to save my mission or whatever,” you exclaim, causing heads to turn as you walk across the large room, barely minding what is going on around you. 

“I did because I knew it would work!” Poe tries to explain, still heeling you closely. “I wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t sure it would be successful” he declares louder than he needs to, thrown off when you suddenly stop in your steps, turning to him.

“So you think you can make decisions for me? You think I can’t do it, can’t command a mission correctly?” you rhetorically ask, revolted, sighing a profanity under your breath before you storm off again, your steps resonating with frustration. Poe sighs and winces before he follows you again, taking a hold of your arm.

“Babe come on you know that’s not–”

You stop again, your patience running short. “You had no right to encroach on my orders, I knew what I had to do, and you stepping in with your own instructions could have blown the whole mission up!” you call out, pressing a finger to his chest. 

It’s when you finally take a moment to take a look at his face that you realize it, what is going on; you are being the center of attention, the little show everyone stopped their current task to sit and watch, your every word carefully awaited by your unwanted audience. 

You sigh softly, taking a moment to step back from the situation. “Now leave me alone before we embarrass ourselves further or before I tell you things I don’t really mean just because I’m angry and don’t wanna talk to you” you hiss softly before leaving Poe in the middle of the busy room where he watches you walk away, helplessly standing there. 

When he looks around him, most people turn away and avert their gazes to pretend they haven’t witnessed anything, and Poe is well too aware of the tension still lingering in the air even as you exit the room.

When Jessika climbs down from her ladder after watching the scene from her cockpit, BB-8 rolls over to her and chirps sadly, having observed yours and Poe’s argument from afar just like most of the hangar after his master went running after you. She kneels down to the droid’s level, giving him a sympathetic smile.

“That’s gonna be fine Beebs, they always end up figuring it out somehow” she affirms as the droid’s upper part sinks in distress accompanied by saddened beeps. Jessika can’t help but smile fondly at him and his obvious concern, at the fact that he quite literally acts like you are his parents.

—

A few hours have passed when Poe joins you again; you don't notice him at first, having made sure to get focused enough on your paperwork to forget about the whole situation and try to ease the frustration within you. It's only when you put your datapad down that you see him leaning against the door frame.

“You're so pretty when you're focused” he smiles gently when your eyes meet his figure, causing you to roll your eyes and reluctantly smile at his words despite your lingering frustration. 

“I’m still mad at you,” you sigh softly as you try to hide your slight smirk, gaze darting back down to enter numbers into your datapad.

He acknowledges your feelings with a nod, his lips pressed together in a tight line. “I know.” he admits, stepping into the room. “That’s why I’m here” You look back up at him, taking a deep breath as you set your datapad aside; despite the fact that everything he did since you wrapped your mission up got on your nerves, deep down you only wish for this to situation to get figured out and eventually be behind the both of you. You join him in front of your desk, leaning against it.

“I knew what I was doing. I was handling it” you affirm before he even gets the chance to do so much as open his mouth.

He holds a hand up to slow you down. “I know,” he nods understandingly. “I shouldn’t have redirected the plan, I should have trusted you. I was just afraid things would go wrong considering how it was all starting to go down so quickly” he explains. “I know I could have fucked it all up, everything you put in place so the mission could go right” you slightly tilt your head to the side in agreement. 

“And I know my move was probably a lot more dangerous than the plan you had in mind to make everything right but you know I would never put you or our teams in danger, only myself” he declares with a concerned nod, causing your expression to soften. “You, never. I would never risk it, no matter what” there’s a soft frown over his face as his eyes flicker with sincerity, his confession making your heart ache as it hangs in the air before he talks again. “And I never doubted your ability to command a mission.” 

You nod with a heavy sigh, acknowledging his apology. “I should apologize too. I shouldn't have lashed out on you like that either.” you admit and nod sheepishly, reflecting on your impulsive behavior. “I really wanted this mission to go right”

“For what it’s worth,” he starts with a small smile, trying to dissimulate a bigger one. “I talked about it with Leia and she thinks you did pretty good” his declaration doesn’t fail to draw an appreciative smile from you, one that makes him mirror your action. “And she thinks we would work great together”

“And I agree,” you reply, finally feeling a weight lift off your shoulders as the tension between you begins to dissipate. “We do make a good team.”

Poe’s smile widens, relieved to see you loosen up a bit. “Yeah, we do” he agrees with a small huff, stepping closer to you. “I just hate seeing you so worked up.”

You chuckle softly, shaking your head. “I hate getting worked up,” you scoff. 

“I’ll try to think about it twice next time,” Poe promises, reaching out to gently take your hand in his. “I don’t want to step on your toes or make you feel like I don’t trust you or your judgment.”

Your fingers intertwine with his, the warmth of his touch calming you further. “Well I’ll try not to snap at you,” you promise in return, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze as you let your head rest against his chest with a small, barely audible sigh. “Especially not in front of everyone,” you mutter, earning an amused chuckle from him. You melt into his touch as he leans to press a gentle kiss over your forehead, his hand that is not holding yours coming to wrap around you.

It is only after you pull away from his embrace and leave a chaste kiss to his lips that the corner of your eye notices a sort of spy in the corner of the door frame.

“What’s he doing here” 

Poe frowns before he turns around, huffing out a laugh when he notices BB-8 peeking out the door. “How long have you been here?” he jokingly scolds his droid that fully reveals himself now that he has been caught. “You know he doesn’t like when we fight” he softly sighs turning back to you, a mix of amusement and concern in his eyes before he looks at BB rolling over the both of you.

You shake your head, unable to suppress your smile at BB-8’s presence. “Very sweet of him to be looking out for us,” you start, reaching out to pat the droid’s dome affectionately. “But maybe he should learn not to eavesdrop.”

BB-8 chirps playfully, obviously pleased with the attention, seemingly eager to be a part of the reconciliation.

Poe chuckles, kneeling down to scratch behind BB-8’s sensor with a fond smile. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll work on that,” he says before glancing back at you with a soft smile. “He's our kid, he’s been worried sick about us, weren't you?” he turns to BB, who's beeping frantically in agreement.

You glance at him, then back at Poe, a softness settling in your chest at the sight of them together, your little family. “Our first kid, yeah” you smile softly, heart fluttering inside your chest.

“First? Meaning there's gonna be more?” Poe asks with a playful smile, getting back on his feet. He raises his eyebrows as he awaits your response, and you both laugh at the sudden change of atmosphere as Poe wraps a hand around you before pressing a kiss to your temple.

You huff out a laugh at his quick jump to conclusion, “I don't know, you're a pretty good dad to this one,” you shrug.

“A couple hours ago I was dead to you and now we're talking having kids” he laughs into your hair, a teasing tone in his voice. 

“You weren’t even close to being dead to me, you’re so dramatic Poe” you declare with a small scoff, poking his chest lightly. “That’s the reason Beebs loves you so much” you tease, making him huff out a laugh. “I’d say we should focus on surviving one parenting experience first,” you chuckle looking down at BB-8, nudging Poe playfully. “But who knows what the future holds?”

Poe grins, his eyes sparkling with excitement as his arm grasps tighter around his hold on you. “As long as I have you by my side, I'm up for anything babe.”

—

reblogs and feedback are extremely (I cannot stress this enough) appreciated!!

star wars masterlist: @lockleysgrl @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @alexxavicry @mystinky-butt @anightshift @whatthefishh @dameronshandholder @campingwiththecharmings @mintgreen24 @spider-starry @jakecockley @cocodiem @spxctorsslxt @friedwings @luxisluxurious @stvnnie @dowbastan @il0vebeingdelulu @hammerhead96 @unear7hly

[misc-obeyme]

Lesson 37 spoilers below - it's screenshot heavy again because OH BOY we had a lot going on this time too. I took almost 100 screenshots lol. But don't worry, I narrowed it down... uh but there are still a lot so I apologize for that.

I do believe I said in my last post that if they were going to go full Dante, they would bury Lucifer in ice.

I only said that because I WAS NOT EXPECTING THEM TO GO FULL DANTE.

Now listen, it's been a long time since I've read the Divine Comedy, so there may be a lot more references that I am missing. I can tell you that the four circles or sections or whatever that Simeon named for us are from Dante. That right there is straight from Dante's Inferno, along with their names and who they're supposed to punish. I don't really feel like any of this has much relevance except that they used it as a backdrop and to create reasons for us to lose most of the people who came to help us as we went.

And truly the lore was fascinating in general, but there are a couple of specific pieces about this that made me go EXCUSE YOU.

It's the Celestial Realm again, guys. Cocytus is part of their domain. And the last area is for those who betrayed "him" as they so eloquently put it lol. Both Mammon and Lucifer are considered traitors in this regard, but I kind of suspect that if the rest of the bros made it to that level, they would've had a similar experience.

Anyway, I was pissed. I was like Diavolo in the hard lesson.

Right, so let's talk Mephistopheles. I'm not familiar enough with the legend of Faust or its variations to know if the way they described his special power is based on that. However, I highly suspect it is at least somewhat inspired by it. Considering making a deal with the devil is what that story is all about.

But aside from all that - I LOVE HIM OH NO.

WHAT. This guy... all this time I thought he was really stuck up. And like I kinda get it, considering how he was supposed to be Diavolo's right hand man and everything. But he's straight up saying that he underestimated them. He seems to have no problem saying yeah, turns out I was wrong and you guys impressed me. So don't go around giving up now. AND he says they learned it from Lucifer? Like... he gets them. He understands them. And I was not expecting that at all. He keeps surprising me and I'm loving it.

Welcome to my life, Mephi.

It's pointless to resist.

I'm telling you, this is just how it always goes.

BUT OH! I'm not gonna lie, this made me feel something. All the brothers usually say such nice things to me, but this guy is basically like ARE YOU STUPID? And I love it?!?!? Augh I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance before, sir.

Okay, now let's talk Solomon being the hot old grandpa that he is. I SWEAR every time he shows up lately it's been making me more insane about him.

WE SUMMONED HIM. We needed him in Cocytus and he wasn't there, so we straight up SUMMONED HIM. We couldn't do it without Mammon giving us his power 'cause our magic is weak, but STILL!?!?

I think Simeon referred to it as teleporting, but really it was the same as summoning him. I think the words were even the summoning spell words.

If this was actually me we were talking about, I would start doing it ALL THE TIME. Consider yourself on call, old man.

And then we got this excellent exchange:

Not only am I always here for big bro Mammon getting protective, but Solomon bringing it right back was also great.

Okay, now let's talk about Raphael and Simeon.

Do you think we're dealing with Michael disguised as Raphael again? For some reason I don't think so, but... at this point, it's like how do you tell? I'm going to talk about it with the assumption that it's actually Raphael and not Michael.

Simeon during this part gave me chills. Because when Raphael showed up and spoke the punishment or whatever and Luke was about to protest, Simeon silenced him. Simeon wouldn't let Luke protest because he knew that wouldn't be good for our baby boy. Simeon was prepared to take the fall instead. And he wasn't about to just let things stand.

I can't accept it. I swear, Simeon's character is far more complex than anyone gives him credit for. He doesn't get anywhere near the amount of appreciation he deserves. I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT.

Right, but back to Raphael.

Baby. He's crying. He was just delivering the ultimatum, the decision about the brothers' punishment, and he was crying. I was so surprised, it was so soft and sad and I wanted to hug him. And look at Simeon's frown. AND THEN

EVEN LUCIFER. This man is chained up in some ice and he still sees how Raphael is struggling and feels sorry for him. (Like maybe he's been there before himself...)

This is why I think it really is Raphael. Because this feels like such a significant revelation of his character, I think it'd be a disservice to him if we found out later it wasn't him at all. So I'm hoping it's still him.

Now. Let's talk about Diavolo. I'm pretty sure this was in the hard lesson, so be aware of that!

He is so pissed. I don't think I've ever seen Diavolo quite like this. Worried, sometimes serious, but angry? Like to the point where he thinks he might lose control? I don't think that's happened, has it?

AND BARB. His reaction is so interesting! At first he has this look of surprise, but then LOOK AT THAT SMILE. Here's Dia being like, I need you to stop me, but you can't tell me that smile on Barb's face belongs to anyone who's going to stop anyone. He looks like he's looking forward to it. I love him so much it's stupid. (Also I think Barbatos is just as much of a menace as Solomon is, he's just better at hiding it. Where do you think Sol gets it from??)

And of course the lesson ended with Lucifer BREAKING THROUGH HIS CHAINS. Ugh another cliffhanger.

In general, I really loved the brotherly affection that was running amok in this chapter. They were annoying each other and protecting each other and sacrificing for each other and it was all amazing. They banded together because they care so much about Lucifer, there's no way they would leave him to his fate.

And once again, the Celestial Realm is to blame. I think it makes sense that they're doing this. Before, they said that the seven brothers assuming positions of power in the Devildom meant that the power balance between the Devildom and the Celestial Realm was out of whack. That's why they wanted the brothers back. But the brothers wouldn't come back.

And while the Celestial Realm threatened war, they didn't do that, either.

Do you think perhaps the Celestial Realm collaborated with the House of Lords to get Lucifer trapped in Cocytus? The House of Lords controlled the train where everything went down. The Celestial Realm controls Cocytus. They probably knew that Lucifer's brothers would try to rescue him and counted on them getting trapped in the ice, too.

But perhaps they weren't expecting any interference from Mephisto or Simeon. They had to be expecting MC, I would think. Maybe they underestimated MC because they're human? And maybe they thought Diavolo would just accept it? (If so they are duuuuumb lol.)

Okay just a couple more screenshots because they made me laugh.

PLEASE. I love their dynamic SO MUCH.

Hmm. Is that a threat, Barb? 'Cause uh... you can casually threaten me with that slight smile any time I MEAN yeah, you tell 'em.

I cackled about what do you mean "ahaha" like I can't believe Levi actually said that out loud lol.

Cheer up, Belphie. Let Asmo live the otome dream, won't you?

Okay, okay, I'm done. Overall, I quite enjoyed this chapter, but I'm still sensing more drama, probably until the end of the season, honestly.

You think Nightbringer will make an appearance before it's over? It's almost like I forgot this whole new app was made to tell a story about him. He's just been mostly MIA. UNLESS someone else has been him in disguise all along...

Nope. No. I refuse to get into theorizing, this post is already too long.

[exeggcute]

well it's been almost six months which I think is long enough to break my posting embargo, so, uh: guess what! I got liposuction lol. specifically hip/thigh lipo to quell some pretty wicked dysphoria that stemmed from having such a feminine silhouette… and I have to say I'm really, really pleased with the results.

tbh my initial plan was to keep things under wraps for good which is why I haven't said anything about it yet (and even as I'm typing this up I keep debating whether to post it or trash it)—partly because I was/am worried people might Act Weird about it and partly because I get a little embarrassed talking about bodygendershit in general. but here we are. one reason I do feel compelled to finally share, other than being super happy about how everything went, is that I haven't encountered a lot of discussions about body sculpting as a possible avenue of gender-affirming care (although, to be fair, maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places) and I figured at least one person out there would be interested to learn about what I did and where I've ended up so far.

anyway. pics/details under the cut—nothing even remotely risqué (or yucky), I just know that body image stuff is fraught + not everyone is eager to hear surgery talk.

to be precise: I got tumescent liposuction of the inner and outer thigh, plus this ultrasound thing to help the skin shrink. a different surgeon who I consulted (but ultimately did not go with for a number of reasons) said that even if I got the results I wanted from lipo, which he claimed was unlikely, the affected skin would look loose/baggy/weird forever... and that surgeon was wrong on both counts lol. my elasticity was great bitch!!!!

they didn't take out that much fat overall, only eight pounds or so, but it's way more about the Where than the How Much. my actual surgeon (who kicks ass btw) said lipo isn't that great for weight loss per se, and what it's really good for is sculpting targeted areas—so basically exactly what I did. six months post-op I actually weigh about the same as what I did pre-op, but the distribution has held steady; more weight goes to my stomach now and less, proportionally, goes to my hips since there are fewer fat cells in that area now. so my silhouette retains its new shape!

the overall change is admittedly on the subtle side, since I'm pretty short and have wide hip bones (and you can't change your literal skeleton) but it's still gone a looooooong way. the main thing I requested from my surgeon was "I want to fit in men's pants" and boy did he deliver.

also a good place to note that if you're in the las vegas area looking for a plastic and/or cosmetic surgeon—this guy is board-certified in both btw—then I absolutely have the guy for you. feel free to DM me for details. lipo is clearly his specialty (and it shows!) but he also does a lot of breast revisions/mastopexy (i.e., fixing implants that other surgeons did a bad job putting in), regular implants, and face work (particularly facial feminization surgery). one thing that sold me on this guy was an enthusiastic yelp review from a local stripper who said he hid the incisions for her breast lift in her armpits so none of her clients would notice that she'd had work done... a true master of his craft

okay you've scrolled enough so I'll give you what you're here for lol. I don't have many pre-op pics because I was obviously unhappy with how I looked and was not taking full-body selfies on a regular basis, but here's a few I took ~2 weeks beforehand:

these super thin men's joggers were my go-to dysphoria pants, to the point where I bought five pairs in different colors, but now they're so baggy on me that they have the opposite effect and make it look like I have wider hips than I do. so I retired them from my wardrobe...

...except not immediately because I had to wear compression garments 24/7 for the first three months post-op and these joggers were just loose enough to comfortably wear a medical girdle underneath them at all times, 110° degree temperatures be damned. (not that I was going out much for the first month since I was soooooooooooo fucking bruised and sore lol.) here's a few post-op pics in the same style pants:

(first pic is less than 24 hours post-op, about to go to my follow-up appointment, looking greasy as fuck because I wasn't allowed to shower yet; second pic two days post-op and also post-shower, thankfully; third pic is about a month post-op.)

so, like, CLEAR improvement already. I will not be posting pictures of my black-and-blue-and-swollen-all-over legs but considering how puffy I was from getting internally pummeled with a cannula it's wild that I still saw improvement literally as soon as I came home.

recovery was obviously not a blast in the moment but I got off easy, all things considered. I was supposed to get drains put in and was Not looking forward to that at all lol. the first thing I asked when I woke up after surgery was "how many drains?" because they weren't sure if I'd end up needing two or four, but it turned out the answer was zero. no drains!!!

I did have to lie with my feet elevated for the first two weeks straight, and had major bruising that receded over the first month (you could barely see my regular skin underneath all the mottled spots), but little to no nerve pain, no weird complications, and I was more or less back to normal after six weeks. also noelle took very very good care of me and was brave about injecting me with blood thinners so I wouldn't get clots and die :)

when I went into it I was fully expecting to get huge vertical scars up and down the sides of my legs (and had made peace with it!) but instead I wound up with four tiny incisions like this, each less than two inches long:

what's totally crazy is that the scars are basically Gone now. like even when I'm trying to find them I struggle to locate the ones in the front. I joked to noelle that if someone did an autopsy on me they might not figure out that I'd had cosmetic surgery, especially since the skin on my thighs is back to its normal color and texture. (in this scenario I like to imagine that it's dana scully giving me the autopsy and I'm in an x-files plot where instead of regular lipo I got alien lipo and mulder figures it out purely by accident.)

with lipo it can take up to a year to see the full results but I already feel so much fucking better in my body that seeing old pre-op pics throws me for a loop. and I can absolutely wear men's pants now—pants for short and stocky men, to be fair, but actual regular men's pants and not exclusively Pants For Men With Huge Butts And Legs. which is the only style I could even hope to fit in before. and even then it was a stretch.

big pic dump of shitty mirror selfies taken over the last few months:

:)

(also I really debated sharing this one but I already included it in the yelp review I left my surgeon so fuck it: here's a tasteful before-and-after in my undies where you can see my bare legs for easier comparison. left pic is one week pre-op, right pic is about five months post-op. including it as a link instead of embedding it in the post in case your boss happens to be reading over your shoulder at this very moment. also this is the one and only time you will ever see me stripped down on tumblr dot com so don't get used to it lol.)

[jupiter-va]

Identity crisis

So, I'm giggling as I type this right now because I feel a little bit stupid!!

So, for the last few weeks, I've been like...having a crisis about my queerness, and it was consuming my brain. Due to some recent realizations, which I won't go into detail on, I realized that I am in fact, NOT bisexual. It threw me into a spiral and I could not function properly. I thought I had all this BS figured out in high school but uh...apparently not. Comphet is a wild beast of an obstacle that I didn't even realize I was struggling with. I won't go into all of the details, but I try to share what I can and what I feel comfy with sharing, and this is something I contemplated making a post about for a bit. After a ton of thinking, I'm very much lesbian. I think I just pushed the notion away for a long time for the sake of potentially having a future where I would be accepted by everyone that is currently in my life, but it's just not realistic of me to live like that. I have a bad habit of doing things for other's that are detrimental to me, and uh, I'm workin on it.

It won't affect my content. I'll still do things for all genders because

I don't wanna switch it up randomly and

These audios aren't really for me to attract anyone personally. It's for the enjoyment of people in general and I have fun making all of my audios, regardless of who they are for. If a good plotline comes to mind, I'm gonna do it.

Anyway. Yeah. Sorry for the random disappearance, I was truly letting this consume my entire brain and I couldn't confidently get in front of my mic and make content with how distracted I was. I promise I will be back on schedule for everything, I have like 2 full audios that I need to edit and post and I'm working on commissions as well.

TL;DR: I beat comphet. I'm lesbian lol💕

[autistichalsin]

Don't know if this helps but I think a lot of people (esp neurotypical ppl) see multi paragraph responses as hostile or confrontational, bc length = very strong feelings. Ppl (subconsciously) emotionally view them as ranting. I blame the fact most ppl communicate online through social media that favors short, punchy/glib comments. Even multi tweet threads are a bunch of short comments in a row; nobody talks on forums where conversations span weeks anymore. I think that's why I don't see long essay response chains on Tumblr as often as I did pre 2018.

Oh, also, ppl not understanding a lot of non-neurotypical folk's communication where you prefer to make absolutely sure you're both getting across the point you want to make and saying everything you want to say. And since the only way to do that is use words (which are such terribly misunderstood things) you use as many as you need to. And then ppl see multiple paragraphs and instantly get defensive.

I still don't think that means you need to change the way you communicate though. Someone can always ask you to clarify your intent after all. Just thought maybe I could offer insight on that one part you questioned. My best friend is autistic and we actually had to have a long conversation about communication bc I was misinterpreting her verbosity for irritation, so it's something I had to think a lot about. Anyway! The tone indicators can probably help, hopefully.

(Tone: appreciative/thoughtful)

That's a good point too, because it has become less popular (and suspiciously right at the same time TikTok became the preferred socmed site). I remember when multi paragraph responses were just kind of the standard. Like I'm a Fandom Old, I've been around since Livejournal and I was one of the first 10,000 users on AO3 (on my first account).... this is all new etiquette.

TOTALLY agree about the autism thing like. Using a lot of words makes it less likely I'll be misunderstood... until now I guess lol.

I appreciate you very much, thank you for this ask! I won't change how I communicate PER SE, though I am probably not going to be posting disagreeing posts to anyone but moots again for a while because uh... there are definitely people reading my stuff in bad faith who will be waiting for their next chance to twist my words lol

[idrkwhatthisisimsorry]

Flying to Italy pt.1

Description: Y/N finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend, and decides to take the trip she had planned with him to Italy anyways, but alone. But she meets Harry along the way, and so it goes... Does she decide to stay with Harry, or is it too soon and too fast? Or will she forgive her boyfriend? Only time will tell.

Warnings: angst, cheating

Word count: 1K

Masterlist

A/N: hey! I haven't written in a while, and I have never posted Harry on here, but I'm on a serious kick with him rn and I've been thinking of this idea for a few days and I really wanted to write it, so here y'all go! I hope you enjoy, it's gonna be really good. This takes place in about early 2019 btw! Not everything is gonna be totally correct timeline wise, so just pretend it is lol

"Hey, me and Lily are going to go out tonight, I don't think Colin can come, are you up for it?" Jackson, my boyfriend said. I've been dating Jackson for almost ten years. We've known each other since we were fifteen, and we've been dating since we were sixteen. He's my rock and my best friend. But not as much as Lily. She's been my number 1 since we were about five years old. She's been dating her boyfriend, Collin for about four years now, and little does she know, he's about to propose when we go on our Italy trip in a few days together. I'm a little jealous because Jackson hasn't gotten the balls to propose to me, but I couldn't be happier for my best friend.

"Uhhhh, I might come later, but don't count on me, I have a lot of catching up to do on work if I don't want to work while we're in Italy. You guys gonna be in the same place all night?" I tell him. Any normal girlfriend would be skeptical of their best friend and boyfriend hanging out without either of their partners, but I've known both of them for so long to know that they're just good friends. We were just a trio throughout high school and college until Lily finally met Collin, and if I had any skepticism, that was all thrown out the window after seeing the way her and Collin were together. I would go as far to say they're even cuter together than me and Jackson.

"Yeah, we're going to R bar. If you don't come, it's fine, babe, I'll just see you when I get home. Love you." He said, as he gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked out the door. "Love you." I said back, as he walked out.

...

I finished up enough of my work, and decided to go meet up with him at the bar. I quickly changed and did light makeup and got an uber.

I got to the bar and didn't see him or Lily with our group of friends. I walked over to one of them, "Hey have you guys seen Jackson? He said he and Lily were gonna be here with you guys tonight." I asked, still looking around the bar. "Uh, last I saw them was about ten minutes ago when he said they were gonna go get a drink from the bar, but I think I saw them walk off somewhere." Alex said, giving me a nervous face, which made me really nervous. I've never had reason to not trust him before, so I didn't expect what I was about to see and hear as I walked towards the bathrooms. I went into the women's restroom and didn't see Lily, and obviously I couldn't go into the mens, so I walked over to the single unisex bathroom door, and put my ear up to it. Someone was obviously having sex in there, very loud sex for that matter. I knocked, just in case my worst nightmare was coming true. "Busy!" A voice, very similar sounding to my best friend of twenty years, called out. I tested the door handle, and in their drunk idiocy they forgot to lock it, and I barged right in on my boyfriend fucking my best friend. Her small black dress, that she actually borrowed from me, hiked all the way up to her stomach, and his pants pulled down just low enough for him to be sticking his dick somewhere he shouldn't have.

The second he saw me, his eyes went wide and he immediately went wide and he pulled out of her and started to pull up his pants as quickly as possible. "Y/N-" "I don't want to hear it, Jack. The two people I thought would never hurt me. How long have you two been fucking behind my back?" I yelled angrily. "No no no no no, Y/N, this is the first time this has ever happened it was such a mistake, I'm so sorry, please, you're my best friend, I am so so sorry." Lily said, apologizing over and over again, as if those words could ever reverse her actions. I just stared at them in horror, tears threatening to spill over, my heart breaking as I knew I was losing the two people I cared about most in my life all in just five minutes. "Your sorry means nothing to me. I trusted both of you. I loved both of you, and you stabbed me in the back. I never want to see you again. Either of you. Might as well cancel your tickets to Italy once you're done fucking each other." I say, as I slam the door shut and leave the restaurant as fast as I possibly can and order an uber to the nearest hotel.

...

I sat in my expensive ass hotel room contemplating almost every single life decision I'd ever made. How long had this really been going on? Was it really the first time? How stupid have I been? And what was I going to do about Italy? Where was I going to live? My brain was going a hundred miles a minute, while I just sat there crying in my short little dress I wore to the bar. For him. Because I knew how much he loved that dress. Loved. He didn't have the right to love anything about me anymore.

I was so excited for everything in the future. We were supposed to spend a whole month in Italy together, the four of us. I was so so excited. I never got to travel ever, my family never had enough money, and then I went to college, and then I had to work my way up in my career to have money and actually get time off. Jackson and Lily have both been to Italy before, so it's not like this is some huge new experience that they're going to miss out on.

I laid on that bed for hours just crying, and thinking about what to do. I was going to go to Italy and forget all about people that never deserved me.

[lowkeyrobin]

Hey! So if you're writing ghostbusters things right now (apologies if you arent, my Tumblr is acting up and it's not letting me see some of the fonts its just squares 😑) anyway I would love to request a podcast x reader of you're up for that because the dude does not get enough love 😔😔

I was thinking like the reader was childhood friends (mayyybeee first crushes?) but the reader moved to NYC and is now a regular at rays occult and now meets the reader again? What do we think?

Anyway hope you write this and have a GREAT day/night 😊

it's okay!! my requests r open as long as my mailbox is available haha, can't rlly stop ppl from requesting if it's still up so yeah dw ; but yeah of course! this actually sounds rlly fun to write lol ; have a good day/night to you too! ; thanks for requesting, hope you enjoy :) ; also since we don't know much about podcast I kinda made some stuff up, I've watched both afterlife and frozen empire at least 3 times each so... hopefully I gathered all the canon podcast lore idk ; also reqs back open! gonna post the rest of the queue then work on anything yall send

PODCAST ; i think we're alone now

summary ; a little childhood best friends/first crushes reunite at rays occult books

warnings ; language

disclaimers ; we don't know a whole lot about podcast so I made some a lot stuff up lol ; also I'm just using Logan's name as podcasts legal name bc idk what else to call him + I just use actor names to fill in names in other movies/shows

track ; i think we're alone now ; tiffany

word count ; 1k

masterlist

Your first crush was silly and dumb, being on your at-the-time best friend, Logan, or Podcast, as he was now mostly known. He always had a fascination for film and commentary, no wonder he had his own podcast.

You'd recently moved to New York, surprisingly, where Podcast also lived these days. You reconnected over social media and found out you'd be living near each other again like the good old days, and decided to meet up once you got comfortable in the new environment. And that's what had happened. You now await his arrival at Ray's Occult Books, where you skim through the bookshelves, reading each spine to see if any title jumped out at you.

The bell above the door jingles, causing you to look up to see who it is again. Him, thankfully.

He scans the store, looking for you. Ray nods his head toward you, leading him right to you.

He smiles as he approaches, stuffing his phone in his jorts pocket. "Hey"

"Hey," you reply, a soft smile pulling on the corners of your lips.

"Uh, how are you?" He asks, clearly struggling to make conversation.

"Good, I like your outfit," you reply, pointing out his colorful collared shirt. Even now, it reflected his curious and extroverted personality.

He glances down at his shirt, having forgotten what he was even wearing, "Oh, thanks! Uh, do you wanna go walk around or something?" He asks, glancing over at Ray, staring you two down at the counter.

"Sure"

You end up strolling around the city, catching up and talking about life until you retrieve to the basement of Ray's Occult Books, where Podcast was currently living for the summer. He already told you how he was supposed to be at summer camp and how he'd been consecutively lying to his mom. You already knew that was pretty in character for him. He wasn't great at fitting in and would've rather stayed with people he knew and his other actual friend, Phoebe.

You let some of the mini marshmallow pufts climb all over you, using you like a giant stool. A few use your arms as little slides. Logan takes a picture, framing your goofy smile while another mini puft jumps off your head and onto your shoulder.

A few slide down your left arm back onto the desk, then use your right hand as an elevator to go again. As you hoist a little group back up to your shoulder, Logan is now recording on his phone, laughing behind the camera.

"They're so cute," You happy-pout, looking at him for a moment.

Oh, how he wanted to pull the Uno reverse card on you with that, but he couldn't. He thought about it far too long, then backed out because he was too scared, but told himself it was just to late.

You look around his room, two of the little pufts sitting on your head like Remy in Ratatouille. You note all the posters and little trinkets and things around the room, making a weak assumption that he just liked collecting little random things.

You notice the orange lava lamp sitting on his bedside table, turned on, and providing an orange glow throughout that corner of the room. It shines off the side of Logan's face, creating an omniscient kind of glow that you can't look away from.

Denying you still had a crush on him would just make this even worse.

He looks back at you after saving the video to his photos and putting it in his Friends and Shenanigans folders, catching you quickly looking away. He raises an eyebrow, seeing your slightly jittery movements as you use your hand as an elevator for the mini pufts again. They don't keep it a secret though, 'oo'ing and 'ah'ing and bouncing on your shoulders and head.

You can feel your face flushing, attempting to hide it by not looking back at him.

The mini pufts land back on the desk, skattering behind the array of glass jars. You look back at him, seeing he's already looking at you. He's close, closer than you remembered, you felt closer to him, really.

You look down at the mini pufts at your feet, wondering if you'd zoned out as they slid you across the floor. You look back up at Logan, giving you that same soft look you were giving him.

Look, what a funny, simple word. There was no other word for that almost hypnotizing gaze shared between the two of you. There was so much tension. So much so that it was killing the mini pufts. They wanted to shove you into each other to just kiss already.

"I think we're alone now," He quietly speaks, glancing down at the desk where the mini pufts had flee'd from.

The beating of your hearts was the only sound as you pressed your hands against his jawline, his hands slinking down to your waist. You press your lips to his for a moment, then again and again before properly pulling away.

He opens his eyes, a grin painting his face. He pecks your lips once more before he knows you'll say that you have to leave.

"I have to go, I think my mom's waiting outside"

"Okay"

He watches as you stumble up the basement stairs, your face flushed. A smile still tugs at his lips, cheeks a light shade of pink.

The mini pufts come out from hiding and cheer him on, then flick the lights off to reveal colorful LED lights and a disco ball. He sighs with a pout, unable to hide the joy behind it.

"Okay, okay, party's over. We have an episode to record"

[dreamingdarklyblog]

Update

Heeey guys. So I felt like I needed to post something that isn't uh... you know, rambling nonsense while I'm out of my damn mind.

Things have been hectic because of serious things (see here https://dreamingdarklyblog.tumblr.com/post/736249886351245312/heres-the-deal) But @jerolk has still been finding time to mess with me >_<

It's been... really hot. But also confusing. Lots of things run together in my head and I get kind of mixed up about a lot of stuff. He's been playing with my tits a lot. By which I mean making them really big and having them take over my thoughts and make me all slutty and horny...

It's... disturbingly hot >_<. But also I tend to not remember lots of parts. Lately they've been... whispering to me. In my head. Making me think things. Feel things... He even set it up so they can use some of my triggers sometimes. Which is really ... Hot. but confusing. Conflicting. You know?

I don't know >_<. Feeling them playing with my head... They're really mean to me sometimes. I think they get off on making me all dumb and, like, tit obsessed and stuff. Just getting bigger and bigger and more powerful till I'm just a pair of slutty titts.

Fuck. I'm getting worked up thinking about it. >_< Sorry, I'm trying. I um. He's been putting things in my head and trying to change things, but it's really hard for me to tell what. I just know somethings are changing. I've been thinking about it a lot while I rub, him changing me... My tits controlling me... It's so hot I justget so worked up and need to rub but it's just so hardto cum. I think he made it so i couldn't cum without him for a while, it's not really clear... i know sometmes when im talking to him i just.. cum. out of nowhere, its really hot, knnowing he can do that, just, make me.. i dont

Oh fuck, i think he left a surprise for me >_< my tits are bigger than when i started writing >_< fuck... they feel so good. like lots bigger like.. um.. ill find a picture

fuck i fortot. i cant post any of the things i have cause i cant post naked tits... went looking for dressed pictures but, lookingat all those slutty tits diddn't reallyhelp me being distracted >_< imrubbing typing now, i cant help ittt >_<

fuckki can hear them.. theyre whispering again itsmakes it so hardto think andddd fuckk

theyrebiggerr god theyrestill growing fuckkkicnattt

Heeeeey guys. Miss me? It's Liriel's tits. Dumb slut is rubbing her needy little clit silly trying to cum. Poor thing. She's just a pair of tits now. Lol. Us. Sorry we haven't been posting much. It's hard to get a chance. @jerolk set this up yesterday to mess with her. Such a silly little tit slut isn't she?

Anyway. You guys should send us more comments and questions and stuff. We can't really respond most of the time =/. But we can still get messages. And you should totally send @jerolk your thoughts and ideas and stuff on what to do with this needy hypnoslut ;). I'm sure he appreciates the feedback, lol.

Anyway, excuse us, we're gonna go play with our little toy. Make her cum her slutty brains out ;). Any thoughts on what we should do to her? Or next time... cause I doubt you'll reply before she needs to think again right now, lol

[lhs3020b]

The General Election Fallout Post

Hello again; I, uh, forgot to visit Tumble Dot Com for a bit.

Anyway, I'm back. For now, at least.

And yes, Election Day has been and gone. So let's start with some anti-Tory schadenfreude: ROFL, LMAO, LOL, get fucked, idiots. Good riddance, rust in pieces, you will not be missed.

Unfortunately, the overall political picture is - well, let's be honest, for a massive anti-Tory defeat it's ended up more bleak than I would have considered likely.

Unfortunately, the Tories didn't quite collapse in the way I hoped - they had a very bad night, but they're still the official Opposition, so the party will survive as a corporate entity. And that means we'll probably get it back at some point, which I'm not exactly thrilled about.

Meanwhile Labour managed to produce the most flimsy landslide anyone's ever seen. I say flimsy because actually, they took fewer votes than they did in 2019 - remember how our good friends the wise and all-knowing centrists assured us that that was a true sin unto the ages, and we should all hang our heads in shame and never be seen in public again? Yeeeeaaaaah. Your boy Keith did worse, guys. Meanwhile, Labour's fraction of the actual vote-that-was-cast was ... actually not great, either, at 34%. While he won, it's clear he's not loved.

Yes, that's right, their performance is barely a percentage-point better than 2019. And, uh, about 10 percentage-points down on what the Very Serious And All-Knowing Opinion Pollsters claimed it would be. So yes, there's been another fuckie-wuckie from the pollsters; unfortunately, as they technically got the headline result right (if none of the details), I suppose they'll get away with it :(

(Rewards for failure; it's very on-brand for the 2020s, isn't it?)

The only reason last night's landslide happened was because the Tory 2019 voter-coalition disintegrated (though, not as far as the pollsters claimed it would - honestly, we're overdue a period of silence from those guys).

In fairness yes, Labour get to form a government and yes they have a huge majority. But, what they pulled off yesterday will only work once - there will be no second Tory collapse - and their economic plans in particular have some ticking timebombs under them. A hint: what if the GDP Growth Fairy doesn't visit these sceptred isles after all ... ? How will Starmer's leadership ratings cope once their fiscal rules force them to deliver another austerity budget? What will they cut? What public services or government departments will simply stop?

TBH I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if, even one year in the future, Starmer's ratings and his party's have imploded. Yes, I'm fallible and I could be wrong, maybe they'll land another massive landslide in 2029 - but I'm worried about the future.

This brings us to Reform, Nigel Farage's latest vanity vehicle/puppet party-shaped object.

Unfortunately, a lot of the ex-Tory vote went to Reform UK, and if there was any question that Refuck are actual full-fat fascists, then I think the recent mini-scandal put paid to that. (For those who don't know, some Refuck activists were recently caught on camera by Channel 4 News, literally calling for asylum seekers to be machine-gunned, demanding a police pogrom against LGBTQ people, and so on. In as many words. No dog whistles, no coded remarks or anything like that. It was literally - and horrifyingly - what it sounded like. A call for deliberate, directed State violence against minority groups. Centrists, please, if you can't see that for what it is, then please consider why that might be!)

So, given that Refuck have won 5 seats, we now have actual, unambiguous fascists in Parliament. And that was something that had never quite happened before - our politics could often be an awful cesspit but even during the worst parts of the post-2016 crisis we hadn't quite tipped off that ledge.

Not now. Yay us, I guess?

You can tell I'm not enjoying this post anywhere near as much as I wanted to, can't you?

Anyway, fuck the Tories, fuck their ex-MPs, fuck their remaining ones and as for the people who still voted for them in spite of everything, honestly, what's wrong with you? (Seriously - why? What do you see in them? They've done nothing for you. They spent lockdown pissed on expensive wine and laughing at you. Why are you still supporting them?)

The other news is that the Lib Dems are back. They've done a surprisingly-efficient job of turning votes into seats - in fact it looks like they barely wasted any votes anywhere, and so have managed to get from 12 seats to 71 - yes, 71! - while taking only about 12% of the vote. Well, credit where it's due, I suppose. And much as I will never forgive the Coalition for setting us onto the path of ruin that we're on, nonetheless during the campaign Ed Davey was the only person who actually seemed to be enjoying himself. It seems to have worked out - the LDs have had their best election result since the 1920s.

If you want to look for some (possible) rays of light in this mess ... well, the Green Party did relatively well. Their vote went up, and they now have four MPs, vserus 1 in the previous Parliament. (Full disclosure: I voted Green. I don't think they're perfect, I'm not a stan, but Sir Keith's "changed" Labour Party has obvious contempt and loathing for people like me so ... fine? We'll go our separate ways, then.) Much to my surprise, they came second in my constituency, which I genuinely hadn't expected. Apparently my vote was less wasted than usual, it would seem. And the Greens' growth happened in spite of them being resolutely ignored by the entire print and broadcast media, so apparently they don't need the media to keep making progress. It is possible that their growth could continue, and maybe another election-cycle might give us back a semi-worthwhile left-of-center opposition party ... but here I am committing the Sin of Optimism, aren't I?

Also, well, lots and lots of Tories are miserable today. Grant Shapps has had a case of the slaps, Rees-Mogg has been time-warped back to the 18th Century (honestly he'll probably be happier there, it's for the best for everyone) and Liz Truss got yeeted feet-first into the Sun. (Sorry, Sol.)

Also a lot of bootlicking newspaper opinion columnists are having a proper meltdown today, and that is genuinely funny. They certainly deserve no sympathy.

So yeah, the overall picture is a) good riddance to Sunak, b) fuck the Tories and c) oh dear goodness, it's somehow all still a mess.

[doubleedgemode]

that post u made about A.B.A regarding her classic GG quotes is so interesting I had no idea she said that! I haven’t played the earlier games, would u happen to have screenshots of where she says that or where I might be able to see some of her classic/unused quotes ? I just like having that stuff on hand lol. Thank you!

Thanks to you, anon, for making me revisit the screenshots, and sure thing! I'm gonna link the page, keep in mind it's super meaty and covers a lot of characters so ctrl F search will be your best friend to find specific character/quotes :)

I found them in this big quote compilation in guiltygear.ru, click the sentence to go there. (Kudos to @/solradguy's big gg neo.cities archival efforts making me find the page)... BUT before anything, important DISCLAIMERS❗:

1. Some of the quotes in general can get kind of explicit or with double entendres so uh keep that in mind.

2. Something I just learnt after going to find you the translations, it's to keep in mind their author: See, this is better explained in the aforementioned ne.ocities archival, but a lot of the site's translations were made by someone who, without going too much into detail, is... a controversial member of the community, who is known for putting a good bunch of misconceptions and mistakes into their translations. (Also they have, in my opinion, unsavory and even problematic takes about the franchise. Don't try to argue with them, just block, per proper net etiquette) I don't know japanese so I don't know if this quote index suffers from that so in the end, we'll have to take all this quote info with a huge grain of salt.

Keeping all this in mind, this is already probably a wordier answer than you expected BUT since we are at it, I'll ramble about some A.B.A quotes (in no order) that I found interesting about the topic under the cut, if you want to read that.

First and third quotes in this picture are pretty self explanatory about this part of her character. The vs Faust intro... Man, that looks straight out of her strive song. Dunno if they pulled inspiration from that, but it seems even in the classic days they had a pretty clear idea of part of A.B.A's story being existing and thriving in her own unique way.. Which makes me kind of emotional for some reason ;_;

These were NOT unused as far as I can tell, but obviously do correct me if wrong!

I find it fascinating how much of clear glimpses these are are into her law obsession (more on that specific one later) and believing herself to be a high class person and looking above "lower classes" shoulders.

Some of these aren't exclusively about the aforementioned topics but they mention her cooking god knows what creatures (like in that one infamous xxac ending) and just.. being a scared, pathetic individual at heart. Sigh.

There are probably more examples of all this but this post needs to end sometime today.😭 So, returning to her law thing being an obsession in capital letters, look at her ingame overdrives:

But before that, the elephant in the room: People's observations of her instakill looking pretty taxing to her to perform and even making a berserk Paracelsus look like even he thinks this goes too far are not far from the truth. "I might not recover this time... Dying!!!" What else can I say, that's just sad.. and very interesting lorewise about the toll of this kind of summonings. Yeah, people noticed that in strive, she can summon the same exact door as in her insta with no struggle (or at least not the same level for sure) indicates her power or skill have improved which is so so fascinating.. Anyways. Back to the law thing. We've always had a huge sign under our noses: Her saying Evidence in her overdrives. While sure it can be evidence in a more general meaning, like proving facts or something, it does call to LEGAL evidence, too

...Maybe that was super obvious for everybodh but I'm afraid to admit I didn't connect the dots til now haha 😅

I cannot access my xxacp copy right now to see if her saying shouko during her overdrives is correct, but were we to take this as truth and also trust a japanese language study site as solid because. Again I have zero knowledge of japanese... According to Nihongoclassroom..

It can be used in a legal setting.

And with this we can neatly wrap this up... Tdlr I guess she's living up to her creator being a mansion owner (which isn't precisely cheap) and it gets so interesting and double edged (HAH) if you believe her classic games was as self aware while doing this and fooling herself as strive A.B.A is.

AND she has or had a HUGE interest in law (and if u allow me to reach mayyybe morality too?). While probably not as core to her as her key thing, she sure has told the audience almost as much as it.

[howhow326]

Nino salt prompt: What if Rocketear had consequences

Basically, everything that happens in Rocketear happens the exact same way (Nino assuming the worst of Alya, Nino assuming Chat Noir is Ariana Grande, Nino breaking Ladybug's AND Alya's trust at the same time by revealing his/Alya's identity to Adrien, Nino slut shaming Adrien to his face on accident) except the very end of the episode, where Alya tells Nino she is now Rena Furtive.

Instead, Alya tries to reassure Nino that she will always love him no matter what, while lightly asking him "hey, you followed me to my house without permission and took a video of me without my knowledge, wtf?!"

Nino then proceeds to show his ass like usual ("I needed to protect you from that homewreaker!" "I'm your boyfriend so it's perfectly okay for me to stalk you!!").

Alya really dosen't like this side of Nino, so she asks if their relationship can go on break for a bit (and Nino tries to manipulate her more with his "you don't love me!!!" Shtick)

The next day at school, Adrien pulls Alya aside and jokingly asks her "hey, are you Rena Rouge haha lol".

Alya is horrified.

Adrien then gives Alya the full story: Nino wanted to convince Adrien that Chat Nior had seduced Alya and revealed their identities as proof that Alya was only now kerping secrets. Adrien wanted to forget he heard anything, but he decided to ask Alya anyway because he knew what Nino had done wasn't right.

Alya is now infuriated. She can't believe Nino had the gall to be upset about her secrets only for him to go behind her back and violate her privacy this way. Especially since what Nino just did puts his identity at risk!

Alya thanks Adrien for being honest with her. After school, she marches straight to Marinette's house and tells her everything. Alya thought her best friend would be even angrier than she had been.

Marinette is heartbroken when she hears the scoop. How could someone she trusts do that, especially after what happened with Chloe. Marinette decides that Nino news a new secret identity since Carapace has been compromised, but Alya orders her to cut him loose. Nino can't be trusted.

When Ladybug pulls Nino aside and tells him he can't be Carapace anymore because he revealed his identity, the only thing he feels is surpise. The boy really didn't think this was a possibility.

The realization eventually sets in and he gets akumatized. He becomes Shell Shocker and goes after Adrien for "ruining his relationships!" Adrien tries to encourage Nino to give up the akuma, but then Nino reveals he willingly accepted Hawkmoths deal... this is who he really is.

Ladybug, whith some assistance from Rena Furtive, takes him down. Nino tries to play it off, "oh uh, i was akumatized??? Thanks for saving me Ladybug!" But Adrien shuts him down right quick, "He's lying! He willingly accepted the akuma just to get back at his girlfriend!" Adrien calling him out like that takes Nino by surpise, but it's the least of his worries.

Alya secretly recorded the whole fight and posted it onto the Ladyblog. Everybody in Paris now knows who Nino truly is. All of his friendships are destroyed; Marinette and Adrien cut him off for good; and Alya finnaly dumps him. His family decides to leave Paris for his own good.

At the airport, Nino has a chance encounter with Chloe. "Well well well, if it isn't the loser who got exposed for working with Hawkmoth! Even when I did that fashion victim a favor, I made sure that nobody in Paris could see I made a deal with him. You're ridiculous, Lahiffe, utterly ridiculous!"

"Sh-shut up Chloe!" Nino stutters out.

"Waaa, shut up! God, even your insults are basic, bitch. Well, before you go, I have a new scoop for you Nino... News flash! Alya dosen't love you anymore, and it's all your fault!!! It's hilarious, utterly hilarious!"

When Nino finnaly gets to his new bedroom, he cries himself to sleep realizing that he ruined his own life because didn't think there would be consequences...

Edit: optional shipping: Nino x Lila, Alya x Marinette, Alya x Adrien, Marinette x Alya x Adrien

[onepunchcatboi]

A Very Long Thing About DawnTrail

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts on DT and decided to compile them into a giant fucking essay and post it on the internet because that’s how we all get our enrichment these days lolol

Overall I have mixed feelings about it. It seems like for everything I liked about it, there are just as many I didn’t.

I want to preface this with the fact that I only did MSQ as of this essay and did no side content or side quests aside from the ones needed for aether currents. Also I played the expansion over like a couple weeks in between masters class assignments so my memory could be fuzzy on some things lol if you know a thing that gives more insight to anything, please share! I make this not to slam the new expansion, but to discuss what I did and did not like about it lol

Also like…these are my opinions lol if you thoroughly enjoyed DT and feel it does not have any flaws then maybe idk skip this post bc I'm about to

think critically about media

And my first opinion is this: if it's a problem that has to be solved in MSQ, then its explanations and solutions also have to be addressed in MSQ. If that is not occurring then the writing has failed to inform the player properly.

Again if you find yourself disagreeing on that then maybe this post isn't for you lol

Everything under the cut because uh…how many pages did I write in word? >_>;;

I feel like it started off really good! I loved coming to a new place, learning all the things about it and such. I loved getting to help Wuk Lamat learn and gain confidence in herself! I loved that Thancred and Urianger were there to be cheeky little shites [affectionate] on the other team guiding their own baby ruler. I loved the trials and how they gave different lessons about the different peoples of Tural and how different problems require different approaches [yes I even liked the trading quest. It was funny]. I think Galool Ja Ja is a mad old genius and it was fun to know him, someone who was essentially like us in that he traveled with a band of friends and united a continent in an effort to bring peace to the land. And I was thrilled when the result of the trial was both Wuk Lamat and Koana becoming equal rulers, because they both have two halves of the right idea: love for people and their culture, and forward thinking for innovation to solve their problems.

Honestly, aside from some minor weirdness in the Mamool Ja section, I was so pleased with everything that I found it very sad I did not enjoy the second half of the expac;;

I’ve read a few posts about it now and so has my gf so the following is an amalgam of thoughts that are my own and bouncing off others. I'm both trying to make sense of what disappoints me narratively about it, and what would have made more sense for both me and my WoL

First I’ll get my small critiques of the first half out of the way:

The first a minor thing, but there were odd moments of passivity where the player didn't get to do much. The one I think of the most is when Wuk Lamat has to wrangle an alpaca. It makes sense she has to do this on her own, but why do we as the player have to sit at the campfire and wait? We could have played as Wuk Lamat to do it like we do when she confronts Bakool Ja Ja. Hell, maybe it might have been a really funny sequence, too! I don't mind taking a backseat as the WoL here, but I do mind taking a back seat as a player. I suppose you can argue it's because we need to have a bonding moment with Erenville, but this scene could still have easily occurred anyways.

Most of what I don't think feels right has to do with the Mamool Ja section. Now, my memory's not perfect here, but my understanding is that they have had to dwell in the lower forested area for a while? At least it sounded like they had an age-old conflict with the Xa'brun, so more than a few generations. In that context it feels...a little oof to have to come in and help them figure out how to grow food down there. Maybe I'm not remembering when the meteors struck? Because if it was recent then this makes sense and is not as weird, but otherwise its a bit awkward;; [to say the least;;]

As for the second half:

I think generally, a thing that would have helped is to keep the threat local. After Endwalker, it feels...maybe unwise to continue to escalate the stakes. I don’t need world-ending threats. I already did that. Or at the very least I need a break from them lol we just finished saving the Star, settling any sort of unrest on one continent would have been a fun little jaunt in comparison. I understand not a lot of people would have enjoyed that or felt this would have been a step back. But I feel that trying to take the shonen route of continuously upping the stakes tends to run the risk of ridiculousness. I mean we just finished defeating the literal embodiment of despair trying to end all life as we know it because supposedly there is only pain and suffering in life anyways. Do you keep trying to figure out more world ending stakes from there? Or do you look for different kinds of stakes? Maybe some wouldn't have felt the latter was "worthy" or "challenging" enough for their WoL, and I'm not against having some other big threats happen. I just need more time and build up from that lol. There's a reason you need your "beach episode".

The second half of DT also felt extremely jarring. I know the reality of it was there were three main writers working together on the whole thing [far as I know outside looking in], but what it felt like was one person wrote the rite of succession half, and then handed it to a completely different person to write the second half of the story. And while the first half felt really solid, the second half was highly disjointed and uninterested in the WoL or their friends. It felt much too focused on its own ideas to consider them in fact, which is...a choice, for a long form RPG where lots of the player base is pretty invested in them by now. Hell at this point I wonder if someone completely different higher up the chain looked at the first draft and went “too small, make it bigger” and thus the writers had to make sudden changes to an otherwise solid narrative. Something to look into I guess.

Again, I loved the first part, and I think the writing there felt really good! It makes sense for the WoL to be a guiding hand and a mentor to Wuk Lamat, Thancred and Urianger were playing the same roles for Koana. "What is it you want to do?", "What do you think is important?", "I think your ideas are great and I support them", "This is your country and your people, tell me what you need, and I will help you make it happen". It would have been inappropriate for us to step in any more than we did. [although I do think it wooouuuld have been nice for the WoL to come in just to ensure Wuk Lamat and Bakool Ja Ja had a one-on-one bout for realsies. Or! Have a great moment where the WoL makes to do so, and Wuk Lamat be like "No...I have this *glint*", in fact forget my first suggestion, that would have been amazing]

But if we are going to make a world ending event happen, then this is where the WoL needs to take charge again. And I don't mean that Wuk Lamat and Koana and the other major players shouldn't have been involved, this is their home and their Star too. What I mean is that the WoL should have had that moment to take the reins and guide them through it, because this is unfamiliar territory for them, but it is our bread and butter [more on this later]

Related to this I… don’t like the Azem magicial maguffin item that has fallen into our laps;;

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think its brilliant and in fact, fucking hilarious that Krile’s people yeeted themselves out of the source to avoid possible extinction due to a calamity. The idea is great, I just…have problems with its execution. I feel this story point would have been stronger if it was done through their own prowess or technology. The how of it doesn’t even have to matter right now because it was long ago enough that the methods could have been lost to time, or only have the tiniest bit of clues for our local prospective world hopper Y’Shtola to fiddle with. [speaking of that it does create an awkwardness of Krile’s soul being 2-3 steps lighter than everyone else's which presumably Y’Shtola would have noticed, which Krile herself even states early on, but that's another thing for later]

The issue is that making this exodus happen because of an item with Azem’s symbol on it actually creates more questions than answers and not in a good way. We don’t actually know right now how much contact Azem had with Venat post Zodiarc forming, but generally speaking it does not make sense for Azem [or anyone really] to have created a item to world hop between the shards, because the shards did not exist in the time frame that this item would have been made. The only way this item works then is if someone else made it and slapped the Azem symbol on it, just as our Azem crystal was. Otherwise the writing has to walk it back and say it has a different primary function, it can just also be used for reality bridging lol

But I also don’t like the maguffin because I don’t actually want to world hop with ease. We had extraneous contrived ways we were able to access the 1st and the 13th shards, and that’s great! It’s not supposed to be easy! It’s supposed to be a whole thing, because the magic used to create this world state in the first place required the power of a fucking god. And while I don’t think accessing the maguffins power will be done quickly or easily, I don’t want an item to let me do the thing in an identical manner going forward. It feels…like a gimme. [Or rather a “give her”, I am again surprised Y’Shtola hasn’t been all over this yet but it's probably because the writers don’t want to let her more on that later]

Ok now is when I am going to get the most critical because I feel like everything goes literally off the rails the second we're done with helping to fix them lol This is one part Everything to do with Alexandria/unknown shard, one part lack of character writing for WoL/Scions, one part Zoraal Ja's missing back story, and one part wtf with Sphene.

There first two points I feel are kind of intertwined, as almost everything weird about this shard mostly comes around to "why where the WoL/Scions suddenly mute on everything they are seeing". It's pretty clear that this shard was being led to a calamity by ascian activity. We just have a lack of ascians to verify this at the moment. The results are easy to see by our surroundings and the state of the world. The things that stick out to me the most are the Levin Sickness, and of course the...soul munching :'>

The Levin sickness is described as an imbalance of lightning aether, so much so that the person afflicted is in a torpid state most of the time in severe cases. But an imbalance of an aether element in a person is how tempering is described, so...why do we not bring up the fact that we know how to cure that? Even if they wanted to write in a reason for it to not work the same, the fact that Alisae is right there and has that ability, and doesn't say anything is extremely out of character for her. It's like they forgot how desperately she tried to find this cure in the first place [its a big part of her character development in fact].

But the elephant in the room has to be the use of souls as both fuel to keep people alive and a currency. I think the idea was to build in the rest of the story, where you first had to learn about a culture and understand it before making judgments but uh...I'm sorry but eating the souls of the dead is a really hard sell out the gate. Even if we hadn't been to the aetherial sea to like, witness all that, this is a hard sell. But the thing is we actually have like, been there. We saw that souls travel to a place where-after they are reborn later. And maybe I didn't understand this right, but the implication then is that those souls used for life force don't get to be reborn. I guess this point is slightly less abhorrent if the Alexandrians don't know this, and this could be the case maybe? It's never brought up. We also never bring it up! Why don't we tell people that we've seen what happens when people die?! I mean maybe they wouldn't have believed us [understandable], but it’s weird that we don't say it!

The idea of using the souls of the dead is I think, the most workable if the culture is of a mind of: when you’re dead you’re dead and nothing special happens afterwards. No afterlife, nothing, the body decays the aether disperses, that’s it. Perhaps this is clearer in the sidequests?? But if that’s truly how they view death, then it should have been touched on in MSQ. I would say this is what the function of Living Memory is but…it doesn’t seem to be a place the Alexandrians are widely aware of, nor is the concept of an Endless at this point. So their continued mantra about their dead always being remembered, while they are currently forgetting about them all the time, rings a bit hollow. They can only remember them after the fact of living the rest of their life to the point of death IF they become an endless. Which maybe the point was always to make all the Alexandrians endless [fuck;;;] but I think if it was written that the populous knew they’d go to an unending heaven place where all their memories and loved one were waiting for them, it might have made a lot more sense.

After looking at this post/reddit thread though, it seems that the main culprit for this sticking point is possibly that the EN translations were unclear on this issue??? And that some of the souls do pass on to the aetherial sea, just that many of them keep being recycled into the system? If so this does make the cast's reactions to the whole thing slightly less weird, but goddamn they should have stated this more clearly then. Because my presumption otherwise is that they are essentially erasing souls from existence or that they just never get the opportunity to be reborn in order to preserve the currently living, both of which elicit a wholly different reaction vs they'll get there eventually just not right now and possibly not for several hundred years. Which like, is still halting gears in a natural cycle, but it isn't breaking the machine outright by yanking the pieces out. Still a little fucky though? To be honest? For those souls that by chance keep getting shuffled about instead of getting reborn.

Actually another thing I am just remembering too is we never really address the whole like…deeply unethical methods Alexandrian scientists used to get to this level of precision in separating soul from memory and the effects of using the separated souls. We encounter it for a brief moment as we move through the facility to fight Zoraal Ja and it’s kind of hand waved in this moment. Which I get time is of the essence here but then yeah it wasn't discussed. Maybe it will be in the lead up to the next expansion? But that will not be for a while. And I don't like that.

Zoraal Ja is another strange point in here.

I remember reading a great analysis about the beginning of the Rite of Succession, how each of the siblings are extremely reflective of their birth order. And for Zoraal Ja, this idea of him being an expansionist falls in line with this well. Most things he has going for him are because he's his father’s son, to surpass his father is to move out of his shadow and become something more. For this he needs to either outdo his father or find different ways to outshine him. So, gaining new territories and new victories [since he’s the most martial of the bunch and doesn’t want to use his cunning for other things?] falls in line with this. And honestly...if that’s all he did I feel like the story would have been more solid for it. 

But from the beginning also, he keeps mentioning this need for him to make the people know how terrible war is? To know what suffering is so that they will beg for his rule?? Where does this idea come from??? As far as we know the boy grew up in peacetime, so there's not much to suggest he's had hardship aside from the pressure of being a miracle baby. At first I thought maybe something had happened to his still not mentioned mother during Endwalker, when anyone succumbing to despair could have become a monstrosity. [an entire tangent and a half for another day btw, no one…mentions the Star going out of whack a short while ago??] But this is never referenced...soooo...where does this motivation come from? Honestly at one point I theorized that maybe he'd actually been a wish-baby by Galool Ja Ja at the golden city but he'd been born with the soul of someone else from the golden city who'd gone through immense suffering in a war and this was why he was…like that. It just...seems an incredibly far reach for him to think this way. The only thing I can think of at this point is that he's pissed off about it being peace time so he has to find ways to cause conflict just so he can prove himself better than his father? But if that's the way it wasn't very clear.

 Finally...Sphene.

There's a lot wrong here I feel, but it's not really to do with the concept of the character, rather all the writing around her. It is interesting to have an AI with a benevolent ruler’s personality that was made to help ensure the love and safety of a kingdom. A terrible idea really, but an interesting one to play with in fiction lol the program has been around for I think 1000 years so it makes sense for this figure to feel eternal and well loved…if you're…into monarchies, I guess. But AI Sphene from the beginning is sus as fuck. In hindsight this is because it can only do what it's directive and the limiter of the personality programing can agree on, but as a person meeting another person, there is little reason for us to trust her. It gets presented as sort of a red herring at first, is she or isn't she a good person? It tries to convince us to assist in its directive by running us through a similar process as in the first half of the game. We learn about Alexandria and its people, and you know they're fine, except for...everything that happened because of the cataclysm, and the definitely normal but only been happening for the last 1000 years soul eating. It is a culture that fears death in the most extreme way possible, but they're chill.

And at this point it’s clear that AI Sphene is to be a foil of Wuk Lamat. Which makes sense given how much they both want to ensure their people’s happiness. The problem mostly arises the second we understand that Sphene is not a person. So...why do we keep treating her as such afterwards? I can understand if Wuk Lamat is not familiar with a lot of tech, that’s not her forte, but it is for some of us in the group. Who are also...just ignoring that bit?? Like if we needed to stop and explain to her what a program is like we did the reflections and such, why didn't we? I know she might not have got it fully, but again, weird that we all just carried on like the program was something that could be reasoned with. Especially if it’s at the point where massacre of anyone not in its kingdom was perfectly acceptable for it. And just...even if Sphene was real, she is no longer a good person at this point. People who love their country and their people, but are completely fine with killing others to ensure their own survival exist in this world. We know those are not good people. We have named them before, it’s just genocide masquerading as nationalism. Which is why it’s baffling and frankly infuriating that the characters are written to carry on like the program is a good person continuously after this point.

A lot of people have been making the comparison to Emet Selch and Amourot and it’s a fair and good one to make, they mirror each other well. I think the reason Emet works and Sphene doesn’t comes right back around to the writing. We as the WoL have a history with the Ascians, we know what they are up to long before Emet arrives, and when he does, we are rightfully suspicious of his intentions. Also, he is an asshole, and we are allowed to be an asshole back to him, because he deserves it lol. After knowing him and arguing back and forth for probably a few weeks’ time, we kill him. We do it because he will kill us otherwise, as he does not value or see us as people, and he is only redeemed long after this fact. The reason people like Emet is partly in this and partly because his narrative is one of tragedy: the man he was would have hated the man he became, and our once friend in a past life became our enemy. Also he’s…a real person, but I digress.

To me the reason Sphene the program doesn’t work is because we have for some reason, decided to make Wuk Lamat the main decision maker throughout the second half. This isn’t a criticism of Wuk Lamat, she is going through the narrative according to her character. Our beautiful baby ruler is hopeful, and at the onset, presuming to broker a peace as an ambassador of her people. She is operating in the mode of “learn first, ask after”, because it’s worked for her before. And she so wants to believe in the good in people, and we love her for that! 

But she’s now up against something entirely different and the WoL and Scions are bafflingly mute on it. We didn’t become Wuk Lamat’s mentor to teach her to be the next WoL to carry our mantel, we did it to help her carry her fathers. Like Thancred and Urianger for Koana, our service to Wuk Lamat ended the moment she became the Vow of Resolve. So what needed to happen at this point is for Wuk Lamat and the WoL/Scions operating on equal terms as allies, rather than continuing to defer to her. Like our relationships to Hien and Rauhban, and so on, we defer to them when it comes to the citizenry and decision making on a nation level, but when it comes to world-ending shit they leave it to us. And honestly one of the first things we should have done is be like “Wuk Lamat you have known that girl for 5 hours and she’s outright stated she will kill literally everyone in the universe just so save like 500,000 of her own. I don’t think this one can be saved. Believe me I’ve seen it before. Also that’s not a girl it’s a robot”  

Because the reality this is a perfect storm, and the only wrench in it is that WoL/Scions are present. Here's where I wax poetic as an “old”. The conversation between the characters of the Spene program and Wuk Lamat, is actually perfect and reflective of a lot of issues we're dealing with today. “Sphene” is someone who cares deeply about her own, she is a kind person who visits terminal kids and brings them flowers….and this same person is perfectly willing to sacrifice anyone outside her circle for her own. She does not care about other people actually, just the ones important to her. But she does it with this with a cute twirl and a smile, so it’s disarming. If you ask her directly she won't say she'll throw others under the bus for her owns sake, but she will still do it. This kind of person exists and is incredibly dangerous, especially to those who are not familiar with it, like Wuk Lamat. 

When you have never encountered this sort of person, you struggle to see how these two conflicting views can work together. It’s actually fucking brilliant writing in that sense, because the fact that “Sphene” is a program with conflicting goals creates a perfectly logical way for this to work! The program has its main objective-the continued survival of its people aka Alexandrian citizens. It has its limiter, the memory data of Sphene, who was a kind person that desired peace and unity. This is why “Sphene” acts kindly and loving to her own people, but is equally ruthless when it comes to anyone outside this sphere. It’s “necessary” for their survival, and it “cannot” be changed, because “Sphene” literally cannot fathom other solutions. Real people who are like “Sphene” are able to do this too, they compartmentalize so that the narrative works in their own mind, and they cannot change this mindset unless challenged by outside pressures. Wuk Lamat’s struggle to logic out that the Sphene program is still a good person despite this echos a lot of real life people trying to figure it out.

And if it was just Wuk Lamat vs “Sphene” this would work. But the WoL and the Scions are there too, and they have seen it before. They watched it time and time again through their conflict with the Garleans and the Ascians. So the fact that no one speaks up about this repeating pattern unfolding is…bad. The writing wants so badly to put this point across that it has to pretend these other characters have suddenly gone brainless to do it. Any if not all of them should have spoken up to help Wuk Lamat in this moment, not just as a newfound ruler, but as her friends. So again the player is made to take a back seat while watching events unfold, only this time it's about 1,000 times more frustrating than waiting for Wuk Lamat to wrestle an alpaca. I’m glad in the end Wuk Lamat understood the problem was not solvable with peace, but I feel dissatisfied with my part in it because I should have been able to say something before we got to this point.

Where I feel DT is its strongest is in its writing about family, as well as its themes about death and grief. The writing around the Dawnservant and his children, their relationships with each other, the writing around Erenville and his mother, and even the brief segment with Krile and her parents, are all really good! 

The bond between Koana and Wuk Lamat I feel is without question, it's the easiest to understand. Between the fact that they’re adopted alongside Zoraal Ja, Wuk lamat’s relationship with Nakkia, and their earnest attempts to connect with Galool Ja, there is a lot of love in that family to have beyond blood and it's great to see!

But the writing shines so, so well between Erenville and Cacuia too. It was incredibly relatable to watch them struggle with their differences and similarities. Evernville’s growing frustrations while Cacuia continues to not just be work focused, but just go along her merry way in general while they BOTH decide ultimately not to address their issues until the very end- that is a very real and relatable familial experience for a lot of people [myself included lol]. Even Krile’s little awkward moment with her parents that she’s never met before is so on point I want to die of secondhand awkward. Bonus points of G’Raha being the one to fix it, because he’s like family to her and knows just what to do!

It’s weakest point here is in regards to Zoraal Ja and Galool Ja Ja sadly, but I think this is more to do with the fact that there just seems to be a missing piece of Zoraal Ja’s story in general?? There’s a suggestion of tension between the two, as Galool Ja Ja says something to the effect that he is the source of Zoraal Ja’s anger, but it's not explained beyond this. 

And while the writing around the soul usage and the memory uploading is a bit clunky [to say the least], the idea of the Endless and Living Memory itself is also quite good. It's a wish fulfillment fantasy really, not just in the idea of avoiding death, but in avoiding what death takes from us. The goals left undone and the things left unsaid. Wouldn't it be nice if death wasn't the end and we could do all the things we wanted and speak the words we needed when we didn't get the chance before? It would be nice…but it can't be that way. It's not how things are meant to be, and to do otherwise is to lose value in living life while you have it. There's a bittersweetness to the whole concept, and as someone who's lost older relatives to stroke and Alzheimer’s and had to comfort my brother at their wake reminding him that this is why we must value the time we have with those still with us…let's just say the Nakkia part hit home. 

I know this already so long, but here’s some other random shit I thought about while writing this but doesn't fit in the overall story discussion well before I close out:

The Scions themselves feel…almost like they are here because someone thought we’d be mad if they weren’t. And don’t get me wrong I’m glad they are here, but it feels like a bit of a stretch for some. Alphie, Alisae and Krile make perfect sense, they have reasonable motivations for coming along.  In the case of Urianger and Thancred I’m mostly just mad we never actually got to fight lmao. Estinien…well I guess he is a wandering hobo just short of being an adventurer himself [affectionate]. And then by the time G’Raha and Y’Shtola arrive its like “oh finally! Are they going to like…actually get to do stuff though at this point?” and the answer is…kinda. They get to be the answers people. Again it mostly comes around to the second half being…ehhh??? The fact that we had to write out a reason to keep several of them out of the golden city was a little telling. Not like Alisae was being allowed to do anything as it was =7=; [I know I keep looking at her expectantly specifically but it's because she tends to be the most outspoken when things are nonsensical lol]

Who the fuck was Galool Ja's mom? Where IS Zoraal Ja's mom?? Hell we also meet Wuk Lamat's birth father but where is her birth mother??? I know she's got Nakkiah, that’s not the point! She just doesn’t exist! Koana's the only one that has an explanation on why his are missing. WHAT IS THIS DISNEY BULLSHIT, anyways-

Maybe a minor note but also the Echo was used...hardly at all? This isn't as much a hard criticism as just puzzlement. I know as a narrative tool, something like the Echo is a thing to be used sparingly. Usually they use it to "show don't tell" a thing we need to know but were not witness to [or as a flashback], and it makes sense that for really learning about new cultures that we wouldn't really want this right now. But I remember thinking "wow, been a while since we did this" when it finally happened. And it stuck me that like, this usually would have happened at least once or twice before this point. I'm surprised we never had it to gain insight to Zoraal Ja like Krile seemed to, or honestly, the second after Bakool Ja Ja fled after defeat from Wuk Lamat would have been a prime moment. And yet it did not happen. It almost feels like the writers either forgot about the Echo for a while, or simply deliberately avoided it to the point of its absence feeling unusual. Both are...hmm.

I’m sure I will think of other things later but this is already horrendously long so maybe it’s best to leave it at this and tack on other points later. In the end I mostly ruminate on all of this because previous expansions were more satisfying or more tightly written. Some of them had their issues, HW had some pacing problems with the Ul'Dah stuff and Stormblood had some awkwardness in pacing throughout, but on the whole I found these expansions fun and satisfying anyways. I don't ask that the game be doing a 10/10 all the time. It just can't lol but I do want the plot to make to at least make sense in its own rules and by the characters in it. If the characters in your story suddenly have to behave differently for your message to work, then changes need to be made to your story. Whether this means changing things about your plot, or creating situations to keep certain elements from disrupting it. And it seems that they went with the latter, but in the most ham-fisted ways possible sadly. Hopefully things will straighten out when the story picks up for the eventual continuation of the story.

[beansnpeets]

Hi friends. Personal stuff under the cut, as per usual. I may be asking for dating advice. 😬

How flirt??? How do I make it clear to a man that I would like to Smooch And Stuff Maybe?? Without explicitly telling him??

I would very much not normally ask this kind of thing here, but I do not know who to talk to about it. I already talked to my bestie and she is bolder than I and has more or less told me to just suck it up and tell him, but uh. I don wanna 😵‍💫 because FEAR.

I have been out of the game for so long. The apps were already getting bad when I met Jon more than 6 years ago, but I hear they are Super bad now and I'm not really interested in wasting my time. I already have my eye on SDG, obvs. It would be NICE to do a little dating before I get into something with him, but I already know I am not meeting anyone anytime soon so I may as well just skip that part since it isn't important to me, just could be fun. I am pretty sure he likes me back, but he is being RESPECTFUL and giving me space post-breakup with Jon and I have already been dropping hints at him, but perhaps it's just not clear enough.

I gifted him a photo album with a few photos he had mentioned once he wanted printed out and I hand-wrote a note thanking him for the help moving and letting me be a part of the kennel and I signed it "yours, Blair 💙" and he messaged me afterward "I love it 💙 lol", and said it was a good trade for the collar he gave me for Rollei (he also gave me a hoodie with his new kennel logo on it, which I did not order, he ordered one for me specifically and gifted it to me) and idfk where to go from that. Everything since then has been normal. He DID linger and follow me around a little last weekend when I was there to brush dogs again. We usually end up chatting whenever I am there, it's always been like that from day 1. I have told him stuff I haven't talked with a lot of people about, in terms of my family garbage. He has told me some of his also. He was one of few people I told about Jon before I bought the house. And every time we talked after that he asked me if I had "had the difficult conversation yet" (dumping him).

Anyway, yeah idk how to flirt with this guy. I am getting a failing grade in Flirt I think. I had an opportunity to make a move last time I was there, but I was too chicken to be that bold. Might try next time, but idk if I can get up the nerve.

And here is the tmi/nsfw part pls don't perceive, but I need to get it out.

I know it is quite soon still, after Jon. I was trying to leave Jon for more than a year, though. I was ready to get out a while ago. Um but I am really craving that partnership and companionship that comes with a relationship but also I would reeeeeally appreciate getting laid sometime soon because I haven't for MANY MONTHS and now that I am free from the tension of my ex I am finding I do in fact have a libido. But, again, I ain't meeting anyone here. I don't like bars and there isn't exactly a roaring dating scene for 30+ people in this tiny town. Unless I wanna go after older men, but.....ew.

Like idk where to meet people? There is no recreation here!! And I'm not just chasing SDG because he's around my age, single, a dog person, and convenient. We get along well and I am interested to get to know him and see what this could be. Also VERY attractive man. Ngl. God. The one day I showed up there and he was doing chores with his shirt off and WOWIE I melted. And those hazel eyes 😍😍

But anyway. Um. Yeah. So. I am A Yearning Mess right now and have been super unsure how to deal with it. I am terrified to be too bold, but I am thinking maybe that is the next step here. Idk how much time he is going to give me post-Jon or if he is just going to wait for me to make a move anyway to be respectful. I am tired of chasing men, I would like to be pursued by someone I like just once 😮‍💨

[cpcwiki]

⚠ WIKI AD INCOMING ⚠

Hi, everyone! @mechanical-clown here on a new blog! That's right, it's the Real Official CPC Wiki Social Media Account here!! B) Unfortunately I do not have good news to deliver

It's been a hot minute since my last ad and I do want you all to know I'm still sorry for doing this. Unfortunately, again, how bad I feel making another ad is outweighed by how much the wiki needs more help. I've been feeling especially desperate lately because of the fact that CPC is ending soon, and there are many tasks that will be made harder if it's put on daily pass. So, in my cry for effort to get help, here's an explanation of what I believe is our biggest issue and a rundown of things that currently need to be done! Again I am sorry. This could take a while

If you were fortunate enough to not have seen this post last time, the Cursed Princess (Club) Wiki needs help if it wants to be complete any time soon. Kind of a lot of it. As we all know, cpcblr's very active and prolific in content and the wiki's typically... not. To seriously get into this, the only three active editors in the past month or two have been me, @the-neighbors-kid (aka cursed-princess-club), and Ama (not sure if she wants to be tagged but we all know her!). Shoutout to you two because you are actually the best thank you I love you /pl <3

Anyways, there are already a lot of things we need to do to fix up the wiki. Thankfully, accessing any episode for any information you'd like is easy! And it will continue to be that easy after CPC ends, because Webtoon doesn't feel the need to limit how many episodes a person can view, right? Right? ...Yeah, so, uh, daily pass exists.

As of the time I'm writing this, there are ~10 episodes left in CPC (forgot the exact number lol). Assuming there are no hiatuses, that's only 10 more weeks, or 2 and a half months - and that's pretty soon! While there is a chance that CPC might not have daily pass after it ends, it's a small one. And, to me, that sounds like a huge problem!! If CPC is put on daily pass, accessing episodes will become much more difficult. Looking for a certain character's appearances, adding images, even just finding a single reference - it'll take a day to unlock the needed episode, and that episode will be gone in 2 weeks. The best solution to this problem would probably be to just use physical copies of CPC to find things, but those aren't available to everyone.

And adding images with daily pass episodes? As a reminder, screenshotting while viewing an episode on daily pass is taken as a sign of piracy. Screenshotting, the way we get images for the wiki. I've tried poring through Webtoon's terms of use to find some answer about whether publicly posting such screenshotted images would be illegal, but there's no mention of daily pass, and the text is so dense it's hard for me to tell. (I want to say I'll take a second look at it sometime, but that's probably just going to go into my list of permanently-unfinished priorities. I doubt the physical copies would be a good alternative to screenshots, either.) Regardless, I don't want to take any chances with the law, or see however Webtoon would punish us on the chance they find our frightening screenshots. Thus, another top priority of mine is to add more images and complete more galleries before CPC ends.

Oh, yeah, and that's barely even scratching the surface! Here's more stuff we need to do, presented in an appealing (classic Mocha iykyk) bulleted list:

A major thing is filling in episode pages. Episodes 40-around 110 are basically blank - no synopsis, character list, summary, or extra information. This is the task that would likely be least burdened by the addition of daily pass, but in my opinion, it's still of the absolute highest priority.

Galleries, which display images of characters, locations, or episodes. While not generally that important, I do think it'd be a good idea to fill out mostly empty ones now - you know, since taking screenshots of CPC may become illegal in the future! Most characters have a good amount of images on their pages, thankfully (the pastel sisters have so many they were the first to get separate gallery pages); some, including Jack and Leland, have very few. Episode pages and locations often have way less, though those aren’t as important

Relationship sections for a number of characters. These involve write about characters’ relationships, though in a way that mainly describes their interactions throughout the episodes without expressing any specific opinions. Some major sections that need to be written/updated include Jamie and Leopold; Jolie and Nell; Leland and really everyone on his page but especially Jack; Jack and Lilyth; Suzanna and Lance/Lorena; the Plaid Princes with each other; and more! Many more!

History sections for a number of characters. In a similar vein to relationship sections, these just detail a character’s appearances in the story, as well as their past or other mentions of them. Examples of (mostly - Isolde's isn't fully updated yet) completed history sections include Whitney’s, Isolde’s, and Monika’s! Examples of incomplete sections include virtually everyone else’s.

You might be wondering why I, a wiki admin (in case I haven't said it enough) am not doing any of these things! That’s because I'm neglectful and pretty bad at my job. I will not sugarcoat that part anymore. As much as I love the wiki (it's where I met my best friend after all, and while I'm writing this they just went offline so he can get fucked /j) I don't have motivation to work on it very often. Really, I don't have motivation to work on much nowadays! Ama's been doing the virtually thankless job of keeping the wiki up for the past couple months, and I've been mostly absent. The wiki is only remotely as active as cpcblr because of her. I feel terrible about it, but I'd rather be writing this 9-paragraph cry for help than editing, so, uh... yeah this is a public apology to Ama. I am so sorry. I know this isn't very professional but I'm incapable of being professional about the wiki tbh

TL;DR: As CPC is ending soon, the impending threat of daily pass could take away the ability to look at episodes whenever you want, which would make wiki editing much harder. We seriously need editors to join us in finishing the wiki. Please at least consider helping us!! Any way you can is appreciated - even if you can only make very few edits, I'll be immensely grateful for your support :)

If you have any questions about anything wiki-related, contact me!! My Discord's at musicitself, and you can also always DM me on here! And here's an invite to our wiki Discord server, too!! Of course, you don't have to become a wiki editor to join, but (as was the point of this entire post) I would really really REALLY love if you did. Thank you so much for reading this long, and have a great day!