#watching my team play meaningful games for as long as possible

[lonewolflink]

it's been a long time since i looked forward to a caps game this much

these boys just know how to pull me back in...so glad i managed to finish my work before puck drop today. i'm not expecting the boys to pull out a win tonight, exactly, because they've been so up and down all season...but the unpredictability is fun.

has ovi really recaptured his form post all-star break? how good are our baby boys hendrix, mcmikey, and miro, really? what's the ceiling? is charlie lindgren a god in goal, or a mere mortal having a hot spell? how much did max pacioretty believe in this team to DECLINE a trade to the new york rangers for a playoff run? is spencer carbery the best coaching hire this team has made since barry trotz, or is this a one time magic spell he accidentally cast and the clock is ticking? is john walton right? is it ok to believe?

[official-alan-dabiri]

I Make My Own HotS Content: Sgt. Hammer

I know what you’re thinking. “Official-Alan-Dabiri, whoever you are, I expected better from you. Sgt. Hammer is an extremely straightforward hero. How could you possibly write a meaningful essay about her? You’re just going to be lazy and write very little.” But you’re wrong! Stg. Hammer is a very layered and complex hero, who presents a very different game to her enemies while reshaping the toolkit her allies have to work with!

I know what you’re thinking. “Official-Alan-Dabiri, whoever you are, I expected better from you. Are you a dirty QM Hammer picker? Do you thrive off of making your enemies suffer, and blame every loss on your allies not knowing how to play your hero?”

Anyway, under the cut is more details about why she’s more complicated than she seems, the game she presents to her enemy and how she reshapes her allies’ toolkits.

Hammer is obviously an artillery auto-attack hero. This is very easy to understand even at first glance, despite this being an unusual concept. Most artillery heroes are mages, and most auto-attack heroes are balanced around how vulnerable they become when they step up into range. Meanwhile, Hammer uses her Siege mode to become dangerously immobile in order to extend her range rather than stepping forward to do so. Her abilities are all based around keeping her safe, either with on-demand armor, a potent knockback, and mines that provide vision of the flanks, and dismount and slow anyone who wanders into them. When she activates her siege mode, she trades her mobility for a dramatic attack range increase, and her attacks become more powerful in several ways (modified by several talent options) such that any fight that happens in range of her attacks almost always goes disastrously for her foes.

Enemies trying to deal with Sgt. Hammer have basically only two options. They either have to leave, and try to continue the fight from outside of her range, or they have to go extra hard, trying to get on top of her to kill her or force her to drop siege mode to escape. This is why Sgt. Hammer is so strong on maps where leaving is not an option. On many maps, you can just leave if you can’t win a fight, and do things elsewhere on the map. Pushing lanes, capping mercs, or trading structures. Sometimes, though, the objective is too powerful to give up (BoE, Cursed), or one lane is dramatically more valuable than the others (ToD), and ignoring her in that lane is suicide. At that point, the enemy is forced to bite the bullet and do whatever dance is required around her.

The most important thing, though, is that the allied team needs to know how to play around hammer. Too often, a hammer is either left alone and vulnerable (without anyone able to protect her from enemy engagement) or she is left behind to chase a retreating foe (charging into the enemy team where she can’t offer any support). Either of these is a tremendous mistake. Hammer cannot work alone, and at the same time, she can’t help if her allies outrun her. Phenomenal cosmic power! Itty bitty effective range! (In comparison to the entire map.) Furthermore, in draft modes, Sgt. Hammer gets hard countered by her counterpart, artillery mages! The allied team needs to drive them off, soak up their damage, and not just STAND THERE AND WATCH THEM PELT ME TO DEATH HOLY SHIT JUST STAND IN MY CIRCLE AND DON’T LET ME DIE THIS ISN’T HARD.

Hammer has long been a contentious hero. The most hated heroes in the game are the ones that change the way you have to play, and Hammer is one of the few that presents that challenge to both her allies and her enemies, and unlike Medivh, Cho’Gall, Abathur, and The Lost Vikings, what she offers in return isn’t as powerful as what they do. But with a team playing with her, against a team that lacks the capacity to approach her properly, she can be a potent tool, always just one buff away from becoming the strongest hero in the game. (If we were still getting buffs in 2022)

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: July 10th

I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!

Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.

For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?

There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.

Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0

The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.

Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.

I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.

Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!

Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!

idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately

Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.

Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference! 

Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.

I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀 

I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!

I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked. 

Thank you for reporting ^^

I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~ 

There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!

hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :) 

I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.

Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore 

This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.

HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC 

Thank you for getting it!

Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩

Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.

Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right? 

Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty! 

Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart

Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe? 

Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.

Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?

No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.

Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in? 

You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!

Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more! 

I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.

is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch? 

A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that. 

If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.

Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :) 

It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.

I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)

L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!

I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.

Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?

I understand if it's too complicated, just curious

Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.

playing our life > anything else 

Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂). 

Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.

Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha 

Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!

Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu 

No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.

Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3 

They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.

I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4? 

Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.

Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol 

Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.

Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc. 

It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.

In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before! 

Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.

I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that? 

It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.

I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever? 

Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.

hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :> 

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!

Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game? 

OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.

I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1. 

I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.

As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?

They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!

Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.

Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?

You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.

Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you? 

No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.

Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing? 

Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.

Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc? 

He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.

Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments? 

Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.

hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.

sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.

Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.

I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<

Yes you can!

what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress? 

That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.

[sukorakurai]

@snarkyship is a true genius. I commission this Stark Family Portrait and I couldn’t be happier. I wrote a little fic to accompany this fabulous Picture. hope you all enjoy.

Stark Family Picture Day

 By Sukora Kurai

  Tony sighed over the counter in the communal kitchen. He had been there since dawn when he asked Jarvis what day it was. Then his trusty AI informed him of an importance of this month. Now he was stuck with what to do now.

 “Hey Tony what’s got you down?”

 “Hey Capsicle, I’m doomed.”

 “Oh come on Tony, it can’t be that bad you are an Avenger.” Steve smiled as he got out food to make omelets for the Team, and greeted the in coming members. “Morning Nat, morning Bruce.”

 “Morning Steve, what’s wrong with Tony?” Bruce greeted heading to the stove to put the kettle on for his morning tea.

 “Not sure I found him like this.” Steve stated cracking some eggs into a bowl.

 “His and Loki’s anniversary is this month and he has no idea what to get him.” Nat answered pouring a large mug of coffee.

 Tony shot up in his seat and stared slack jawed. “How could you possibly know that?”

 “It’s my job as a shield Agent and Pepper’s PA to keep tabs on you. So it is well documented when you clumsily asked Loki to be your boyfriend during the Lord of the Rings Marathon where you bought out the AMC Theater for the day.” The Spy shrugged ignoring the fact that all her team mates stared at her in horror. All were now wondering what she had on them in those SHIELD files.

 “So Tony, you have and anniversary coming up? Have you though about what Loki might like?” Steve coughed drawing the conversation back to the main topic.

 “No, I don’t. What does one give a god especially one that has magic and can make anything appear out of thin air?” Tony waved his arms in frustration.

 “That is a tough one but I’m sure anything you get him will be fine. Loki loves you Tony.” Bruce tried to be supportive.

 “I hope you will be putting more thought into the gift you give me next month for our anniversary.” Nat gave the Gamma Doctor a pointed before wandering out of the room to start her routine before heading out to work.

 “Ha, I’m not the only one in hot water now!” Tony crowed at the look of devastation in his science-bro’s face.

 “Tony, knock it off. Now in my day it was the thought that counted most. You should find what Loki cherishes the most. You find that then you can present to him in a meaningful way. It’s true he’s a prince and probably has had his other lovers throw jewels and meaningless expensive trinkets at him to win his affections. You know Loki better because you love him and he loves you.” Steve pointed out.

 “Yeah, Lokes complains a lot about his life in Asgard and that there were many who wooed him just to get to Thor. At night when it’s just the two of us and RC snuggled between us he sighs soft and says what a perfect night it is. He never elaborates but I think it means that he likes just the quiet nights with us.” The genius eyes went glazed as he recalled the many nights he cuddled with his god. Then the idea hit him. “Hey Spangles, can you paint or do you just draw?”

 “Huh,” Steve was caught off guard and almost dropped the omelet he was flipping. “I paint from time to time.”

 “Don’t lie babe you are in your studio whenever can get the chance.” Bucky laughed entering the kitchen. “All the paintings in our apartment Stevie did.”

 “Great! Can you do a portrait if I get you a picture?” Tony asked digging in to the ham and cheese omelet.

 “Yeah, it might take two weeks maybe less depends on if we get called out or if SHIELD needs me.” The captain estimated placing another plate in front of his boyfriend.

 “As long as it’s done before the end of the month we’re good.  Jarvis start looking through my photos and pull out any possible portraits.”

 “Yes, sir.”

��“Delicious breakfast as usual Capsicle. I’ll get you the photo as soon as I find one.” Tony dumped his empty plate in sink and ran off to his lab.

 Two hours later…

 “None of these are good enough J.”

 “Sir, might I suggest you take a new photo of you and Prince Loki.”

 “Yeah and RC too, because she’s our baby. We can’t have a Family Portrait without all the family members. Where’s are RC now?”

 “She is currently with Alpine in his play room.”

 “Cool, I think I got the perfect outfit in mind.” Tony grinned as he ran to his emergency closet in the lab. Tony had put in the closet when he realized he destroyed a lot of his clothes during his inventing and building phases. Also there was a suit or two for the days he forgot he was supposed to be in a meeting and had to make a rush to the board room.

  In the penthouse…

  It had been a quiet morning with no call outs, no calls to Asgard and no need to go anywhere. Loki decided to enjoy the peace and quite lounging in his soft Asgardian casual clothes on the couch reading his mother’s spell journal.

 “Hey there, Bambi! It’s Picture Day!”

 “Anthony, what are you on about?” The prince looked up from his book to see his lover carrying their cat into the living room.

 “Well Picture Day refers to the day school kids take pictures for the yearbook and photos are bought for family distribution. Anyways I want to have a family picture that was honest. I never had that growing up because Howard was an asshole and Maria, my mother, was frail. She loved me but she couldn’t express it because she was always ill. Now we have our own little family and I want a picture to put in the lab.”

 “You want to take this picture now? Anthony, I look a mess and how did you get the bow on the cat?”

 “Aww, you look gorgeous, love, as always. Anyways, I put a bow on our baby because RC loves to look pretty for her daddies. Don’t you sweetie.” Tony scratched under the kitty’s chin as they sat on couch next to the god.

 “Mew,” RC purred.

 “Fine, you win, where would you like to take the picture? Also what are you wearing? I don’t believe I’ve seen that outfit before, and what is on your feet?” Loki set his book aside and took in his lover’s appearance.

 “Oh you like? I dressed in red and gold to match my shoes. I had these shoes made based on my Iron Man suit. I thought maybe putting them on the market for kids but I liked them too much to share. So I have a life time supply in the lab. If you want I can have a pair made for you.”

 “No thank you. They clash with my outfit. Now let’s take your picture.” Loki said taking the cat in his arms.

 “Okay, okay. Let me get out my phone.” Tony fished his Stark Phone out of his back pocket and held it out to make them all fit in the frame. “Okay say cheese!”

 “Click”

 “Okay let’s see how that one turned out.” Tony looked at the photo to see him smiling a black blur and a bland look on Loki’s face. “Nope we got try again. This time smile Loki and RC you need to stay still so we can see you.”

 And it went picture by picture they have yet to take a family portrait.

 “Shit I only got half your face.”

 “Anthony your thumb is on the lens.”

 “RC Stay still!”

 “Achoo! Ow! I dropped on my foot!”

 “Do not eat my hair you Retched Creature!”

 “Okay I set it up on a tripod. Now say cheese.”

 “CHEESE BROTHER!” Thor popped up between the two men who stared at shock at the blond god.

 “Next!” Tony rolled his eyes as Loki vanished his brother to where ever. Tony didn’t ask where the Loki sent Thunder god. He rather liked staying in the tower and wanted to keep it that way.

 “Meow!”

 “No RC! Don’t chase the bunny!”

 Three Hours Later…

 “Okay, this is it I can feel it. Now Jarvis is going to take the picture the bunnies are secure in their room. The penthouse is locked down, so no unexpected guest and RC is filled of milk to keep her calm and relaxed. And I promise after we get this picture I will have Jarvis order you favorite meal from the Thai Palace down the street and I’ll rub your feet, while we watch you favorite Harry Potter movies.”

 “Oh Anthony you spoil me. I love you.” Loki sighed as a soft smile graced his face and he leaned into his lover as Tony joined their hands together. RC who was seated now on the god’s shoulder leaned in and purred soaking up the love of her people. The genius couldn’t be happier in that moment as he had his to precious family members with him and the grin on his face was wide and bright.

 “Click.”

 Two Weeks Later…

 “Sir Prince Loki and Mr. Odinson have returned from Asgard.”

 “Great, I got everything ready. Tell Loki that I have dinner ready and waiting.”

 “Yes, sir.” Tony had the table set with Loki’s Favorite food from the five star steak house, they go to. He paid extra to have the chef come over and cook for their anniversary.

 “Ding.”

 “Thank you, Jarvis. Evening Anthony, never in my life had been so glad to leave Asgard. He talked for hours at the council over stagnant topics. What’s all this?”

 “Well my hard working God of Mischief, today is our one year Anniversary and I have planned the perfect evening. Dinner, a bath and I installed a movie screen in our bathroom so we can enjoy the movie of your choice during the bath and then I plan on us making love until dawn.” Tony pulled Loki over to the dinner table, watching as the god’s magic removed the armor and replaced it with comfortable Asgardian wear.

 “You lovely little man, you spoil me so; I don’t deserve it or you.” The Raven pulled the billionaire into his arms and planting kisses all over the man’s face.

 “Yes you do, because I love you and I got you something, well I got Cap to make it, but it was my idea.”

 “You didn’t have to, dinner is more than enough.”

 “No, I wanted to. Now close your eyes and I’ll get your present.” As Loki closed his eyes Tony ran out of the room and grabbed the portrait from where he hid it. He placed it on the wall then Jarvis turned on the lights illuminating the painting. “Okay open them.”

 “Oh Anthony! It’s wonderful.” Loki’s eyes became all misty seeing their little family together and there was so much love radiating from painting. “It’s perfect.”

 “Happy Anniversary Reindeer Games.”

 “Happy Anniversary, my Man of Iron.” Loki whispered pulling Tony in to the sweetest kiss they ever shared. They didn’t hear the click sound of Jarvis capturing the moment with the sunset background. Another memory to save for another day.

 The End.

[theseerasures]

While you're doing reactions, if you're up for it, how are you feeling about all the finale predictions you made on March 23? By my count, you scored pretty well!

hooooooo boy (the alluded post, for those just catching up)

how i feel about my predictions is that...you’re right and i scored pretty well, but much like the characters doing right in the episode itself, it didn’t matter. part of the reason why the finale made me feel so much--why i loved it, despite still being emotionally hungover from ugly affect--is because i WAS right, but i was so often right but wrong on a smaller scale, or right but wrong because i completely misunderstood the overall thematic stakes, or in one case right but in such a phenomenally cruel and roundabout way that i’m still reeling from it.

more detailed breakdown under the cut (as in “let’s unpack this,” and as in “i have an emotional breakdown”):

WHERE I WAS MOSTLY RIGHT

Team Green, Yang, the non-Robyn Happy Huntresses, Klein and the non-combatant Schnees were gimmes from the beginning, even the ones of whom we didn’t have visual confirmation by the end of Worthy.

Pietro and Maria are still MIA so i’m putting them here, but...Winter’s gonna have to tell Pietro, when he shows up again.

Cinder and the Relics i was correct about, but even though i knew going in that she would win i didn’t imagine the scale of her victory. mostly because i thought she might have learned some self-discipline and just skedaddled with the Relics in an attempt to trap as many people as possible in superhell, but a) she didn’t, and b) she won without needing to.

Salem, Watts, and Ironwood are where i predicted, but i think part of me really bought into the fan theory that maybe Salem would want to keep Atlas around. both Watts and Ironwood lasted much longer through the episode than i expected because i was working from that assumption, but with the direction the episode actually took it makes perfect sense that they exited the stage as Atlas fell--they are, after all, twin architect-destroyers of Atlas. brains and brawn.

Nora ended up in Vacuo, but she’s...uh, not happy about it. not that i expected her to be happy, but this is much much worse. og JNPR is now JUST Renora, and much as i love freewheeling modular megazord JNPR, that’s gonna hit like a truck. last time they lost someone Renora were consciously trying to play supportive teammate to Jaune, who’d just lost his partner, and Nora especially also had to talk Ren off the edge with the Kuroyuri stuff. i expect they’ll swap the dynamic this time, especially since Nora was already planning to go all independent woman before this.

Qrow, Robyn, and the AceOps are stranded, but in transit and not in Mantle, because Mantle the place is no more. and Vine is dead. the reason i posited that the AceOps might be split up was so they could find their team dynamic after it’s been unsettled, and...well. having one of them do a heroic sacrifice should do a similar trick. because i didn’t think Atlas would fall on Mantle i thought Qrow and Robyn (particularly Robyn) would get more to do, but both of them are pretty much exactly in the same place they were in at the beginning of the season: trapped in a cramped environment, cut off from the people they love and uncertain what happened to them, and unable to contribute in a way that they would consider meaningful. i’m guessing we won’t check back in with this crew for a while, but if we do it’ll be interesting to see if the Qrow and Robyn dynamic changes--like, if he has to be the one to talk her down from cabin fever and despair. (before he finds out that he was the one who should have been despairing all along.)

WHERE I WAS MOSTLY WRONG

Neo is in superhell. i had put her in Atlas because i’d overestimated Cinder’s ability to play the long game, but what the show ultimately doubled down on was that Cinder remains at heart a petty and impatient opportunist, and that’s where she’s most effective. which i dig! i dig that she has not so much improved (in means or ends) so much as learned to hold the beneficial and detrimental parts of herself farther and farther apart, because in the end they’re all the same parts, and because presumably she’ll end up starfishing out so much (who knew the way she took care of Winter’s death pigeons was foreshadowing?) that she breaks in two. and i dig Neo in superhell without Cinder, because it’ll be our first chance to see Neo not working for anyone outside of that one time she fought Cinder. if superhell does end up being part afterlife, she might also get some closure with the Torchwick stuff.

Jaune being in superhell points to it being part afterlife, because the chance for HIM to get some closure is also right there. that was always the case, but the reason i made the prediction i did was because i assumed that Jaune would remain the person he has been this whole season--this stolid, clueless but incredibly effective supporting leader. having a Jaune who is at the top of his game meet up with Pyrrha again is obviously appealing, especially to me, a person who scribbles misshapen hearts labeled “Arkos = 5evr” on all my notebooks, but at the time i didn’t think it was necessary to his story...and then the story dramatically shifted his character and threw all my carefully hedged bets off (which is something we’ll also get to with...later).

having a Jaune who has just effectively EUTHANIZED someone meet up with Pyrrha again isn’t just appealing--it’s vital. and it’s vital because the exact parameters of how and why Jaune ended up having to kill Penny is a point-for-point echo and escalation of the way the Amber to Pyrrha transfer was supposed to go. last time Jaune Arc was party to a Maiden transfer process he had no idea what was going on, and he tried to intervene when he worked out that whatever Oz was doing was going to hurt Pyrrha, and that however minute thing contributed to Pyrrha’s death and the Fall of Beacon. this time it’s not just that he knows what’s going on and the stakes of it. it’s not even just that he is the Ozpin operating the Aura Transfer machine. it is that there is no machine--there is just him, holding the knife. he knows the Amber better than the Pyrrha this time, and this time the Amber is his friend, and still whole, and choosing. not just consenting, but asking him. trusting him. so he carries it out. the old Maiden dies, and like Ozpin he dies shortly after, but not before he watches the new Maiden fail.

but he does prevent history from repeating, because a new Maiden is created, and she gets to live. and Cinder Fall has made him a murderer on top of everything else, but she WILL remember him, now.

there are other people i was wrong about, but that’s...for later.

WHERE I WAS RIGHT AND IT DIDN’T MATTER

Ruby, Blake and Weiss are all in superhell, so on paper i was right, but...well. sing it if you know the words. the reason i’m putting them in their own section is because it’s not just that they fell and didn’t jump like i thought; it’s that they would not have jumped, and that changes everything. you know how i realized that we would lose everyone, and not by choice? it was Weiss. it was when Weiss said we have to do this for Yang. Jaune had reminded Nora of what was priority one minutes before, but the implications of that didn’t sink in for me until Weiss confirmed it. they PLANNED for this. not just the eventuality where they would have to die, but the one where they’d have to watch everyone else die and do nothing except keep going.

which...has implications. the best way to read this--and i think we’re all dying for some good news--is that even if it certainly does not feel that way, RWBY was able to snatch a partial victory from Salem’s claws. they lost the Relics, but they got the Maiden powers away, and most importantly: they saved Atlas and Mantle. by the time Jaune intervened Grand Central was empty. there was no one left to evacuate. they didn’t get everyone, but they got a lot. even before Cinder intervened so catastrophically they knew how many things could go wrong, so they made a plan, and largely stuck to it. on a purely material level they only lost one thing vital to the war effort--the Staff. but they got everyone else out, which was priority one. the show in general and this arc in particular has emphasized that our heroes don’t think they should be exceptionalized, that they’ll fight tooth and nail to make sure everyone is given the treatment and respect they deserve, and they’ve made good on that. they’re Huntresses, and Huntresses be thou for the people. they chose, and they won what mattered to THEM.

but on the flip side: they chose, and there’s no way to read this choice as anything but a compromise...and a very Atlesian one at that. when confronted with calculus similar to the one JYR faced after they lost Oscar in War, our heroes chose...the opposite. one, then three, then four, then five, then six for the many. what was that number compared to two entire cities’ worth of people, especially when they’re the ones who signed up for this? i’m not trying to take this down the slippery slope where our heroes are no better than the dictator they just dethroned, because when the time came for sacrifice they chose themselves first. but it remains a sacrifice, which means that when the time came to test the hard moral limit they set for themselves, they...moved. they decided ahead of time that some risks aren’t worth taking. that this is not a situation where everyone wins, so they had to go for the next best thing, then the next best thing after that, and so on. i’m honestly not sure where it points to yet, except my usual refrain that this show is a lot less didactic than it seems, but...yeah. this is going to lead to some invigorating discussions in-universe.

and maybe it’ll start with this: that Jaune and Weiss--the two who had to verbally advocate for leaving the fallen behind--fell last of all, which means they had to watch everyone else go first. and the last person they saw was the same person. Weiss, who executed the plan to brilliant perfection, saw the past--the first family she ever had--streaking after her in an endless void, forsaking the priorities they all agreed upon, for her. Jaune, who followed the plan to execution and broke a part of himself, saw the new Maiden he crowned, backlit and pulled away by the bright future that he ensured was possible, but can no longer access.

QUEENMAKER

i’m starting with Penny, because Penny came first. there has already been a ton of discussion on the ways that she’ll come back, and while i absolutely agree that she will, for now i am not so much interested in that as i am in eulogizing this Penny. the Penny we had just now, not identical but continuous with the Penny we had before that, in the same way that everyone is not identical but continuous with who they were in the past. the Penny who IS dead, her eventual resurrection notwithstanding.

because she DID die, and her death matters. that’s the thing about the deaths in this season, and it furthers my point re: RWBY’s presumed didacticism--the show’s treatment of death has changed as our heroes have changed. it is no longer (and never was) as simple as “death and sacrifice are always senseless waste,” and more something like...”death has to matter, and we will give it meaning.” Hazel and Vine sacrificed themselves, and the fact both resulted in a “positive” outcome (more lives saved) does not make the deaths any less tragic. but neither should the tragedy of it take away from the fact that they saved lives. what separates our heroes from a Salem or a James Ironwood even now is that they recognize the importance of grievable life even as they accept inevitable death, that what is worth it all about preserving life is not to make sure that lives go on forever, but that lives have meaning and are remembered, that when you’re gone the people who are still here respect you enough to carry that meaning with them. it’s a tenuous balance to walk, but all the more important for that reason.

Penny--though her death can and will be reversed--is much the same. in every arc there has been a Game of Three Maidens (which i guess would make shogi the better metaphor and not chess because--what AM i on about), and in every Game there has been sacrifice. and i thought that would encompass Winter, here. we’d get away with it not being literal death, since Fria already took care of that, but she would be trapped on the other side of the gate--in pretty much the exact same position James Ironwood ended up in the episode itself, actually. it just seemed obvious: she’s the decoy, the one who missed the call by inches, the last revealed defector when there still was an Atlas from which to defect. all of it pointed to Winter’s story ending with one last delay barring her from salvation, of her finally being too late...

and well. i WASN’T wrong in the broad strokes, but first there was Penny Polendina. Penny could have let Jaune try to save her and Weiss die for her, but she knew she had to make a different choice to save as many lives as possible. so she offered herself up as the sacrifice instead. last week i waxed prolonged poetic about how Winter defected so recently, how it has been just IronwoodandWinter for so long, how Winter doesn’t have a team and only the healing shreds of a family, how no one would think to look for her...and then Penny did. you were my friend. (given Winter’s rough age and the hazy creation dates for the PENNY Project, it’s possible that Winter is Penny’s OLDEST friend.) Penny thought of Winter as she was dying, thought about the good Winter could do if Winter had her powers, believed in Winter, and in doing so, saved Winter’s life before anyone else’s.

she ceded the spotlight to Winter in this last episode, but this season as a whole belongs to Penny Polendina--the myriad ways she creates herself, the ways she defends her self-creation, ultimately culminating in her new body, created by no one but herself. but for her final act the Maiden of Creation did something different and no less miraculous: i thought of you. a thought was all it took.

she created someone else.

KINGSLAYER | THE MAIDEN THAT WAS PROMISED

the thing about Winter is that she came first.

no, i’m serious. i checked the fairy tale and everything--Winter came first. as the Wizard’s first visitor she encouraged him to reflect and meditate, and when probed about why she was here at all, she answered: i am waiting for my sisters. Spring and Summer have to wait, too, of course, but. Winter was the first.

Jacques and Willow named their firstborn Winter. it is not the way this story begins, but it is certainly is one of them, because the story begins with Winter, and Winter begins the story--a new retelling, a new cycle of heroism. we’ve since been introduced to other characters in that indeterminate age group between RWBY and STRQ, but Winter--by virtue of being Weiss’ older sister--anchors herself to the new generation in a way those others (even Cinder, who comes closest) do not. she started things, in the mythical emblematic way that this show likes to move, and the way she started things--the way she MADE herself start things, thanks to the house she grew up in--was with love, and protection. she took care of Weiss and laid the groundwork for the person Weiss is today, and conversely: she took care of Weiss, and through Weiss, laid the groundwork for herself and how to take care of everyone. so eventually the steel thread she tied to Weiss she also linked to Whitley, to Penny, to Marrow, to all the people they love, and on and on it goes. Winter loved Weiss, so she made herself learn how to love Weiss, and so when i say she started things what i mean is she started family. a new home, for a new generation of the orphaned.

Winter came first. but as the show demonstrates time and again, especially with Winter: first does not mean best. because being first also means you’re the prototype, a volatile thing that must be tested and tempered and then discarded to make way for what comes after, what gets improved. and it is THIS part of being first that Winter has internalized most of all. Winter, the first Maiden, taught the Wizard peace and prepared the earth so that her sisters could grow and foster and harvest the life within it; Winter, the first Schnee, laid the groundwork in her siblings, but did not wait for them. and let herself fallow in the process. she left, and every time they tried to follow or stay with her she sent them away. (she keeps sending them away; even after defecting and taking down Ironwood, the first thing she says to JNPER is go.) Winter laid the first stone in the foundation, but she cannot take credit for the home her family turned it into, for all the ways it has flourished, because she willfully absented herself of that (birth)right.

and the reason she did this was very simple: she was afraid. she could not bear the thought that while she had to learn how to love she made mistakes, the idea that instead of preparing the earth she might have poisoned the well. so she ran. she turned her face away so she would not have to look, so they would not look to her. she left, and every time one of her siblings superseded her after that, every time she was made to be their Esau--passed over--it just seemed to confirm that she was right to leave. look how well they’ve all done without her.

in the stories, eldest siblings aren’t here to win. they’re here to be made an example of, and Winter...had resigned herself to that. she was prepared to be left behind for good by all the people who have outpaced her.

but then there was Penny Polendina. Penny didn’t follow her, or try to stay; Penny came back for her. Penny remembered Winter when all Winter wanted was to be forgotten, because she’d gotten it in her head that it was what she deserved for all the things she’d done or enabled or failed to do. why did Penny remember Winter? because you were my friend. there is no divine complexity to it, nothing for Winter to fall hopeless short of. there is only the fact that Winter gave Penny something, made something together with Penny, even as she was trying her hardest not to, for fear that she would create something terrible. and this does not take away from all the ways Winter did fall short, but it is still SOMETHING. and it is enough.

it was your power, after all. Penny means the Maiden powers, but she also means THIS Maiden’s power: the power to create. you made this home, Penny is saying to Winter, you should get to reap its fruit, even if you weren’t around for the labor. all you have to do is say yes.

this was a gift. she says yes. she accepts, because in the end Winter Schnee loves her family more than she hates herself.

but then--

(a gift for what? Winter will ask herself wretchedly later, after she has failed in the two tasks she thinks Penny set for her.)

the thing about Winter is that she came first. she taught Weiss everything she knows, and she was so busy doing that she never had the time to show Weiss everything she feels. so in the end what Weiss never predicted was that for all of her team’s painful planning, for all of her own pained enforcement of that plan...none of it was a match for her sister. that when the time came it was would be WINTER who defaults to the absolute ideal of “no one gets left behind,” of “every life” meaning every life, priority one be damned.

or that Winter, in trying to choose both, in finally and fiercely trying, with surely enough power to make a difference, would fail.

what are you doing? Winter heard as she watched Weiss fall into nothingness. my life doesn’t matter.

so here, then, is the story of Winter in The Final Word: a girl returns home after having left it, but in this version it is the home who has changed and the girl who has not. and from this both are unmade. but she gets to live, because she was invited back home. and she gets to go through the portal as its last passenger, into the Promised Land.

and she is still the Maiden of Creation. even after all this, THAT is still her task. to build a refuge for her people, to collect the broken strands of the family she began and her siblings continued and expanded and reinforced, and gather them up again into a new home. it will be impossible, but at the same time: she has done this before.

and this time, she will wait for her sisters.

(a gift for what? for nothing, would be the answer. gifts aren’t FOR anything. they’re gifts.)

[wondernimbus]

c’est magnifique — oliver wood

pairing: oliver wood x female!reader

prompt: when reader doesn’t get into the slytherin quidditch team because of one marcus flint, her boyfriend decides to take matters into his own hands.

a/n: online classes r finally OVER!! i'll be able to work on you guys’ reqs now hehe

Marcus Flint—Slytherin's Quidditch team captain—is, for lack of a better word, an absolute prick, and [Y/N] is having absolutely none of it.

"That's rubbish!" she says incredulously, her hands throwing themselves in the air out of pure frustration. "You know as well as I do that I played better than Malfoy, and now you're telling me that he got on the team and I barely did? As a reserve?"

Flint rolls his eyes. "But you didn't give the team brand new brooms—Malfoy did." His sneer contorts into a sympathetic simper as he claps her on the shoulder; [Y/N] recoils, glaring daggers at him. "Try out again next time when you actually have something to offer. Until then.. you'd be better off watching in the stands."

"Something to offer?" she repeats, mouth actually falling open in blatant disbelief. "I've got more to 'offer' than Malfoy ever will! Actual Quidditch skills, for one, and Malfoy can barely even stay on his bloody broomstick!"

"Which, mind you, is an expensive broomstick—the same one the rest of the team has, all because of good old Lucius." Flint nods ostentatiously, like he thinks leeching off of the Malfoys' money is something to be proud of. [Y/N]'s brows are knitted together in pure incredulity as she stares up at him, shaking her head in disbelief. "So cry me a river and be on your merry way. I've got class to go to."

[Y/N] seethes through her teeth and wonders what the consequences of punching someone in a middle of a busy hallway would be. Detention, that was for sure, but what kind?

Staring up at Flint, [Y/N] realizes that she hardly cares what kind of detention she'll be receiving as long as she can put him in his place.

"I could hit you right now."

"Oh, yeah?"

She takes a step closer to him, egged on by the white-hot anger clouding her better judgment. "You don't think I can?"

"Please. You can barely even reach me without tip-toeing." Flint lets out a deprecating laugh and reaches out to shove her by the shoulder—

Whack!

There's a sickening crunch as the sound of a fist colliding with someone's jaw cuts through the air. Flint falls to the ground, groaning in pain.

But [Y/N] hasn't even as much as raised her arm. Her eyes are wide as she watches Oliver Wood—the perpetrator—pull Flint to his feet, wrenching him up by the collar and almost tearing it off his robes. She gapes as he pushes Flint up to the wall and, with the angriest glare [Y/N] has ever seen him wear, Oliver hisses through his teeth, "Stay away from her, you foul git."

Flint's eyes are wide with fear, but then his eyes dart around the hallway to see the countless students who have stopped in their tracks to witness the scene unfold. Hogwarts students, it seems, won't pass up a chance for some good gossip—which is exactly what this is: Oliver Wood defending his girlfriend against the pompous Marcus Flint.

Flint hangs onto what little pride he has left and fixes his face into a sneer, smacking Wood's hand away. "Whatever," he grumbles, shoving past him to stalk off down the hallway.

[Y/N] is still very much riled up, but her concern wins over her anger and she rushes to Oliver, quickly grabbing the hand he'd used to punch Flint and skimming her thumb over his knuckles. "Oliver," she sighs, frowning, her tone almost reprimanding. A bruise is already forming on his hand; he winces when she accidentally presses down on it. "You didn't have to do that," she mutters, glancing up at him, and despite her words, she can't help the rush of gratitude surging through her.

Oliver is glaring after Flint's retreating figure, jaw set and his gaze angry. But at [Y/N]'s words, his eyes soften and he looks down at her, pulling his hand away. "Bloody arsehole deserved it," he glowers, and then his voice goes gentle as he grips her shoulders and asks, "Are you alright? He didn't hit you, did he?"

[Y/N]  shakes her head. Most of her initial anger is already fading away—an effect that Oliver always has on her—and, her tone slightly playful, she says pointedly, "I was about to hit him, though, until you stepped in."

Oliver sighs, an exasperated smile resting on his lips as he pulls her into him and presses a kiss to her forehead.

—

"You want us to what?"

Oliver stares at the Weasley twins resolutely over the Gryffindor table. "Put sleeping draught in his drink or something, I don't know. You lot know a great deal more about the—er—methods.. than I do. Just make sure Malfoy won't be able to play in the match next week."

Fred and George share a meaningful look. A moment later, the pair of them are breaking out into identical mischievous grins. "We thought you'd never ask!" beams Fred, eyes gleaming in a way that suggests he's been waiting for this moment his entire life.

"Those Slytherbins have been playing far too dirty for too long—it's time we retaliate," says George through a bite of toast, nodding earnestly. Leaning forward, he asks, “Mind telling us why, though?”

“Yeah, we’d like to know why exactly we’re doing your dirty work.”

“And why you’ve turned to evil ways instead of fair play.”

Oliver shrugs casually, taking a swig of pumpkin juice. It’s at that moment that he catches eye of a certain someone entering the Great Hall. It’s [Y/N], and her gaze meets his immediately; her lips break out into a grin and she strides towards where he’s sitting on the Gryffindor table with the twins.

”Good morning, girlfriend,” Oliver grins, standing up to greet her with a chaste kiss.

“Morning, love."

“Ah, young love,” gushes Fred, propping his chin on his palm.

“C’est magnifique,” says George. “Hey, [Y/N], did you get into the Slytherin team?”

”Yeah, what position did you try out for again?”

[Y/N] unwinds her arms from Oliver’s middle to turn to the twins. “Seeker,” she answers, swiftly grabbing a piece of buttered toast from the table. “And I got in the team—“

”You did?“ George cuts her off, puzzled. “But I thought Malfoy—“

“As a reserve,” continues [Y/N], visibly deflating, the expression on her face souring as she takes a bite of toast. "But it's alright. I got in the team nonetheless. Let's just hope Malfoy gravely injures himself and won't be able to play—kidding, of course," she adds smoothly, but the angry way she's chewing her toast suggests that maybe she isn't entirely joking.

Fred and George, meanwhile, have caught on. They glance at Oliver, who quirks his eyebrows up at them as though to say so you get it now?

And yes, they bloody well do.

—

On the day of the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, Draco Malfoy is sent to the hospital wing. No one knows for sure why, but word has leaked of boils having mysteriously erupted somewhere in his nether regions that have rendered him unable to walk, much less fly around on a broomstick.

Surprised and elated beyond belief, [Y/N] dashes into the Great Hall that morning and practically throws herself at Oliver, squealing in joy as she slings her arms around his neck and starts breathlessly gushing on and on about "Quidditch—I'm going to play today—I'm going to be on the pitch!"

Oliver, grinning wildly, grasps onto her waist and twirls her around with little to no effort. [Y/N] can't stop the breathless laughs that tumble out from her mouth; the thought of actually being able to play in a real Quidditch game with hundreds of people watching has her almost dizzy with excitement. "I'm going to play," she says, out of breath as Oliver sets her down, hands still on her waist. Her eyes are wide and there is a smile on her face that doesn't seem like it will go away anytime soon.

"Against me," Oliver reminds her teasingly, and everything about him from the look in his eyes to the tiny smile on his lips is bursting with fondness. "I do hope you won't try to knock me off of my broom. I've fallen for you already—no need to have me do it again."

Grinning, [Y/N] rolls her eyes and pulls a face at him. "Oh, ha-ha." She feigns a feisty look, nose scrunching in a poor attempt at intimidation; "I am going to kick your arse, Oliver Wood. Mark my words."

Oliver laughs. "Alright, sweetheart. Consider them marked."

—

"BOTH SEEKERS HAVE SPOTTED THE SNITCH! And they're zooming off—Potter and [Y/L/N] are neck and neck—everyone is on their feet—Potter seems to be lagging behind—[Y/L/N] is four feet ahead—SHE'S GOT THE SNITCH! SLYTHERIN'S ONLY DECENT PLAYER HAS DONE IT!"

"Jordan!"

"Sorry, professor. [Y/L/N]—I mean, Slytherin wins!"

Oliver Wood practically hurtles towards the ground, tripping over his feet as he kicks his broom away in a mad dash to the other side of the pitch, where the Slytherins are. But contrary to many people's expectations, the look on the Gryffindor team captain's face isn't disappointed or angry at their loss—no, surprisingly, Oliver seems happier than anyone else on the field.  

He spots her from a few feet away standing amidst a throng of Slytherins, all of whom look pleasantly thrilled save for a certain Marcus Flint. She meets his gaze and the grin on her face, if possible, widens; dropping her broom on the grass, she runs toward Oliver, and much like she'd done earlier that morning, throws her arms around his neck, squealing.

"I did it!" [Y/N] says breathlessly, eyes wide. "I caught the snitch!"

Oliver has never felt more proud in his life. His chest swelling with so much joy and fondness it feels as though his heart is about to burst, he grins right back at her and places his hand on the back of her head, pressing their foreheads together, noses brushing as they smile excitedly at each other and everything else in the Quidditch pitch seems to fade into a blur. "You did it," says Oliver, and then he's leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers, smiling into her mouth.

When they pull away, everyone is hooting and cheering. A certain pair of redheaded twins are standing off a few feet away, sighing.

"Ah, young love," says Fred.

"C'est magnifique," says George.

[holykillercake]

Piña Coladas 

pairing: Marco x Reader

word count: 2k

summary:  You are loyal to your captain and your team, so you would do everything to win. Even shoot your boyfriend. 

highlight: ¨I don´t like when your tattoo is covered.¨

warning: implied smut

notes: Guys, I really want to thank each and every one of you for the love and support <3 Also, picture this as a crossover between laser tag and paintball!

𝕷𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖈𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖘, 𝖗𝖊𝖖𝖚𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖘, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊!

¨Ok, assholes, listen up!¨ your freckled captain uttered loudly due to the music blasting outside of your headquarter. ¨They have Haruta and Speed Jiru, those sneaky bastards, so we´re gonna have to be careful here, ok? They also have an extra person compared to us! So focus the fuck up!¨

The Whitebeard Pirates made a strategic stop at the Sabaody Archipelago for provisions, which meant that it was time for the Division Commanders and Whitebeard´s left-hand and only daughter, you, to engage in your periodic Bubble Laser Tag battle. 

The teams were sorted out, and one would always have an extra member. The team captains were for the first time, Ace and Marco. And despite loving the First Division Commander, you were obliged to take a vow to serve and honor your team and your captain as long as the game ran. 

¨Y/N you´re the faster one here and the smallest, so I´m counting on you.¨ you saluted him ¨Izo, you´re the best sniper we have, so place your freckled butt in a strategic place and shoot the fuck out of those motherf-¨

¨OI, OI, OI, OI!¨ all of you shouted at Ace.

¨Calm down, cowboy! Don´t you think you´re taking this far too seriously?¨ 

¨No! Do you know when was the last time I was captain?! And do you know how many losses in a row I have?! This is my pride, Y/N! You´re with me or against me?!¨

You couldn´t face him without laughing, he was just so stupid sometimes. But you made sure to let him know that you were on his side - not that you had a choice, though. 

The teams were called The Bird Brains and The Freckled Butts. Yes, the captains chose each other´s team's name, and naturally, nothing good could come out of it. The worst part was having to run around with a tag that said ¨Freckled Butt¨ on your gear. 

In Ace´s team, you had, well, you, Thatch, Izo, Fossa, Namur, Blamenco, and Kingdew, and in Marco´s team were Vista, Haruta, Speed Jiru, Atmos, Curiel, Jozu, Blenheim, and Rakuyo. 

¨They will definitely use Jozu and Atmos as sacrificial lambs to get to us.¨ Thatch pointed out. 

¨Ok, so we´re leaving them to you, Izo.¨ Ace spoke.

¨I´m guessing Haruta and Jiru will be doing the same as Izo, hiding somewhere and making surprise attacks.¨

The rules were pretty simple:

1) No Devil Fruit ability could be used. Not after Ace almost burned the entire place to the ground once. 

2) You didn´t have to stay on the ground. You could use whatever you had at your disposal to climb the walls or even the ceiling. 

3) If the captain is out, the team is out. 

¨Ok. So, Thatch, you´ll cover for me; Namur will cover for Blamenco, and Kingdew will cover for Fossa. Izo and Y/N will go solo.¨ you furrowed your eyebrows.

¨Wait, I´m not covering Izo?¨

¨No, Y/N. You are our special pawn.¨ he said in a devilish and malicious tone. ¨I said I want a glorious victory this time. Your job will be to end this game as soon as possible.¨

¨Still not following, Fire-Fist.¨

¨We´ll make sure no one gets to you while you go find your birdie and end him!¨ he burst in a maniac laugh. 

¨You really think Marco is that stupid?!¨

¨No, but he´s a man, Y/N.¨ you gasped, outraged. 

You faced your crewmates, all of them smirking at you.

¨What are you now, a pimp?! Izo, say something, defend my honor!¨ 

¨I would Y/N, but not only he´s my captain today... he´s kinda right.¨

¨Besides, we´re all very familiar with you guys getting business done.¨ Thatch rested his arm on your shoulders. At this point, internal bleeding caused by severe embarrassment was killing you not so softly.

¨You know what? I think I´ll kill you all first!¨ you threatened the commanders.

The entire arena turned red, and a loud 10 seconds countdown began. You put your goggles down and tightened your grip on the gun, comrades doing the same.

¨We´re counting on you, Y/N. Put your freckled butt to work!¨ Ace said and stormed out before you could beat him. 

Still analyzing his request and your options available, you decided to stay hidden in the shadows. Head down, and powder dry - or paint wet. 

The music was so intense you could feel your lungs vibrating with every beat, sometimes knocking the oxygen out. The whole place was dark with colorful light beams flashing in every direction. 

After 5 minutes of resting in the shadows, you opted for what you thought would be the best thing to do, plus you had the benefit of being smaller than those brutes, so you fit in places they didn´t. 

And you just had found yourself the perfect spot right behind the stage lights at the top of the arena. Getting up there was a little tricky, the light rays almost blinded you - plus the risk of you being caught - and you were not sure you could hide there. Technically it was not against the rules.

¨If I were a hot birdie piña colada, where would I be?¨ you tried to channel into your lover´s brain.

That was actually a good hideout, you spot many of the commanders running around the field. You loved how they took it seriously as if their lives depended on it.  

A loud buzz played every time someone was eliminated, although they didn´t say from which team unless it was the captain. You´ve heard zero buzzes so far, showing how inspired and determined they were. 

You finally decided to follow your captain´s order when 10 minutes passed, and no one had gotten eliminated. Your stomach craved for food and you were really bored. 

You´d always choose the biggest arena since guys like Kingdew and Jozu wouldn´t fit in the normal one. So this one was larger, taller, and had more obstacles. Bubbles in all shapes and sizes, picturesque barricades, and tricky mirrors. Finding Marco was going to be tough... if you didn´t have a card in your sleeve. 

Again, it was not against the rules, and you wanted to eat something. Besides, this victory was more meaningful to Ace than to Marco. So you took your lover´s vivre card from your pocket and placed it on your palm, waiting for it to guide you. 

¨Bingo!¨ you spot a fluffy pineapple crown not so far from you. The problem was to reach him before he moved again. 

Your plan was not to shoot him from the distance, you knew better than that. You were going to approach, engage naturally and eliminate the target. Based on the field, the track he took so far, and his usual train of thought, you had a good guess of what he was planning to do.

The path he was taking led you to believe that he was advancing towards a barricade, a good place to hide, but that would offer him no visibility of his opponents. Was he planning to lay low while the rest of you killed each other? That didn´t sound like him. 

 The job that had been entrusted to you within the Whitebeard Pirates was to analyze each mission´s goal, come up with several different plans of approach - or attack - and predict the possible failures or setbacks. And you did all of that alongside Whitebeard himself, and all sixteen commanders. So, to guess the strategy Marco was going for would be easier than steal a child's candy.

Well, actually, you were able to guess his final destination, not his strategy. 

Without losing any more time, you ran and hid behind the barricade, waiting for your boyfriend to arrive. 

¨Whatever.¨ you thought.

¨Don´t shoot!¨ you squealed and threw both hands in the air.

¨Really, Y/N? This is how you play?¨ Marco asked, putting his gun down.

¨When I am hungry, yes!¨ you bent slightly, faking an exhausted state. 

¨What are you doing here, yoi?¨

¨Looking for Izo, I was supposed to cover for him.¨ you struggled with the weird sensation of lying to Marco. 

He hummed and leaned against the wall, wiping a bit of sweat off his forehead. The lightning was awful, but it was enough for you to see his messy hair and those lazy eyes that made you almost forget the mission. 

¨Why are you staring, yoi?¨ he gave you a smirk and a quick nod. 

¨Nothing. Uhm...¨ you bit your lip as the butterflies started to go insane inside of you ¨...it´s so rare to see you carrying a gun...¨

The first commander watched you with a raised eyebrow and a playful grin ¨Yeah, so?¨

The two of you entered a parallel universe, the lights changed according to the muffled beat of the music. And it was hot. Flaming hot, burning hot.

 Your breath was slow but heavy, and your mouth ran dry with adrenaline on your veins. Not because of a stupid plan or stupid game but because he made you lose whatever control you had over your body and mind. 

You let go of the gun and raised your hand until your fingers touched the skin of his face, tracing a slow path to his parted lips. He watched you like you were a rare creature, an angel forgiving his sins or a siren taking his life. His large hand held yours, and he placed kisses on your fingers, the same fingers that would pull the trigger by the end of this. You wondered if he already knew. 

Marco hooked his finger on the belt holders of your jeans and turned you, making you hit the wall, and oxygen left your lungs in a puff. Didn´t take long until he attacked your neck, tasting your salty skin. Your fingers pulled his hair as your body arched involuntarily, cold shivers reaching every part of you. 

His eyes were soaked in lust when he stopped marking your neck and stared at you like a hungry predator. Your teary eyes traveled to his chest looking for his tattoo, but it was covered by the stupid gear. 

¨I don´t like when your tattoo is covered.¨ you spoke. 

He leaned to your ears and said in a whisper ¨Then uncover it.¨

He was teasing you, he knew what you were supposed to do and was torturing you. 

¨I-I can´t...¨ your voice came out weak ¨I... I have to-¨

¨What, yoi?¨ his grin was malicious.

¨I have to shoot you.¨ 

Marco leaned again, getting really close to your lips but never touching them. Instead, he took your paint gun and put it in your hand. You laughed, asking yourself if you truly believed you would be able to fool him. He gave a quick kiss before stepping back so you could end your mission. 

¨You really don´t mind letting Ace win?¨ 

¨Ace can have the victory.¨  he shrugged ¨I have something better, yoi¨

You blushed with his comment, and fireworks exploded in your chest.

¨I love you, bird brain.¨

¨I love you... freckled butt.¨ he laughed, probably embarrassed for the name he chose.

¨This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you.¨ you raised the gun to his gear. 

¨I hope so, yoi.¨

¨Ready?¨

¨You know I´ll make you pay for this later, right, yoi?¨

¨I´d be disappointed if you weren´t planning to.¨

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense. 

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that. 

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later. 

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone). 

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways. 

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie! 

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway. 

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that. 

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality. 

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason. 

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough. 

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes. 

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away. 

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula??? 

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00. 

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

[justwonder113]

Hey first of all, I have to say that I adore your work. You have absolutely amazing fantasy and writing skill so I thought would u mind writing a scenario where Y/N and Iwaizumi have to break up even though they dont want it. I mean like they love each other but there are some circumstances that makes them to break up. Like I need a real angst without a happy ending.... I know I'm depressed.

First of all, thank you so much for requesting and saying all these sweet things. I would literally hug you if I saw you. Please note that you are an amazing human being and deserve all the best. Please take care of yourself. And whenever you feel like you want to talk to someone note that I'm always there for you.  I really hope you like it^^

Iwaizumi x Reader-Let's be greedy for tonight

word count"2k (my hands slipped)

WARNING: Angst, break-up themes, heartbreak, Iwa and reader break up because they have their own thing going on, pragmatic reader who's more mission oriented than emotional.. fluff if you squint

Honestly you didn't even understand how you got here. Everything was just fine few days ago. How did everything go to this? Where did everything take the wrong turn?

Just a few days ago you were comforting him because of the loss against Karasuno. You spent the whole night together just holding each other close but now.... It felt like that there was this huge gap between you and none of you knew how to get over it. This wasn't supposed to be a sad thing, both of you were supposed to be happy, wasn't this what you wanted?

You and Iwaizumi had one of the best relationships. He was the most amazing partner and companion you could ever ask for. He was the most supportive, loyal and kind person you have ever met. No wonder you fell for him even thought you were sure you wouldn't fall in love with anyone.

Honestly, you had nothing against love, but because you had set your priorities straight from the young age there was no physical room for it. You had your goals and you wanted to achieve them more than anything, you were determined to make your life as meaningful and as perfect as you could. Getting in a relationship would be nothing more than a distraction, it could ruin everything you worked so hard for up to this day and you were not willing to risk it.

Iwaizumi was on the same boat. He had his priorities straight and knew what he wanted in life and what was needed in order to achieve it. Especially now that he realized that in order to achieve his goals he needed to go to California to study. Your paths would part and there was no denying, both of you knew that long distance relationships didn't work and that it would only drag you down.

None of you planned to get in this relationship, both of you knew that this was inevitable. Both of you knew that you two were not meant to be.But why did it hurt so much? You knew that you would have to eventually break up with him, why did it hurt so much knowing that you could no longer see him, talk to him and hold him and be held by him?! Why did it hurt so much knowing that you would no longer have a chance to just be free with him? Why did he have to become your anchor? Why did he have to make you feel so good about everything?

You would never even think that you two would date. At first you were intimidated by him, he looked kind of hot headed and rough so you thought it would be better to avoid him. But as the time went by you got to know him more and more and started to respect him more and more. What was there not to respect and like? He was on top of everything and instead of being rough and all he was in fact really polite and a very caring person.

You got to know him more and more when you had to sit next to him after his seatmate asked to trade places with him because he couldn't see board well and you agreed. You rarely talked but you were on good grounds with him.

Your friendship deepened when he saw that you were having trouble understanding one of the subjects and spent most of his free time helping you understand it, you were sure he would stay for more but his friend, Oikawa interrupted you saying he had to come to practice. When Oikawa saw you he immediately bombarded you with all kinds of questions. You didn't get why got him interested but didn't say anything and tried to answer his questions, that day you got invited to attend one of their practices. Iwaizumi tried to explain that if you decided that you didn't want to it would be completely fine but you promised you would attend one of their practices for sure. Both of the boys smiled at you sweetly and them said their goodbyes. You didn't even know why you agreed, you just answered without even thinking.

Thinking about it the day you actually went and saw one of their practices may have been the day you started to see him in different light. They had a practice match against some college team, the game was so captivating you couldn't look away. And both Iwaizumi and Oikawa were so amazing! The whole team was really good but you didn't really know any other playing members, though some of the faces were familiar. You were sure that they were going to win but suddenly Oikawa's apparently injured knee started acting up, Iwaizumi was immediately by his side, you hadn't even noticed if anything was different but it certainly didn't pass by Iwaizumi's eyes. You were amazed that he saw the slightest change in his friend's demeanor and immediately called out to him. He helped him out of the court and bought to him water and cooling pads. You were watching with astonishment written all over your face.

Since that day you started talking to him more and more, at first you were asking how was Oikawa because you felt awkward that you didn't even knew how to approach him and start up conversations. You felt this sudden urge to talk to him all the times, you felt like knowing more and more about him, you just wanted to get close to him. You were trying so hard to get his attention. Thankfully you two got close to each other and started hanging out more and more. He would invite you to his practices and then would never fail to walk you home.

He was always willing to listen to anything you had to say, and was always there to support and be there for you. He remembered all the small things about you and always made sure you were feeling good first. You couldn't even count how many times and in how many ways he has helped you out. You just hoped you were for him the same way at least remotely close. He was like an iron wall, nothing seemed to get past him, he was always the strong one, the one in control, but he would sometimes let his guard down and let his true thoughts out. You knew it was hard to him, it was same to you. You just hoped you were helping him in any way whenever he opened up.

You actually got together on the beginning of your second year, when you got into an argument with him.  He was feeling extra grumpy and insecure after he saw that you were all friendly with Oikawa somehow and at some point he let out his biggest insecurity while grumbling and told you that you, like many others, only were with him to get close to Oikawa. When you asked why did he bring that he simply answered that all you did talk about was him and somehow it offend you so much you just looked at him for a second and next thing you know is that you're confessing while yelling that he's a dumbass that the only one you like is him.

That's how you came clean with your feelings both to yourself and Iwaizumi. The next five minutes were kind of really adorable and awkward as hell, well maybe four because first minute was definitely spent on making out with each other. And damn your first kiss would be memorable as hell.

Looking back on everything you went through all these almost two years you were devastated that you had to leave each other. And it devastated you that after all these both of you had trouble even speaking to each other. It's been an hour and neither of you had said anything. You just lied there in complete silence, just your fingers barely grazing each other from time to time. You knew one of you had to break the silence, one of you had to say anything.

"I'm leaving in two days, I packed most of the things I will just have to go over some stuff tomorrow." Iwaizumi sighed as he massaged the bridge of his nose. This was the first thing he has said since forever. You turned to him to admire him for the last time. Were you going to be fine without him? Lately everything was so blurry in your life, you were not sure if you knew everything was worth it anymore.

You broke the silence and decided to come clean"I'm proud of you, I want you to know that. I'm sad that we have to break up, even though I really didn't plan it I'm in love with you, deeply, but I'm also so proud and happy for you. You're going to do amazing things in life I just know it. Don't be sad about the break up, we knew what we were getting at when we started going out... I don't want to let go but you know it's for better." You smiled at him and put your hand on top of his and he held it so tightly it made you feel at ease.

Iwaizumi straightened up and hugged you tight snuggling his face against your neck. "Thanks love, I really needed to hear that." He took a deep breath, "I don't want to break up with you too. I really love you. You have been the most amazing partner I could ever ask for. I know I'm no good with words and forgive me if I sound too cliche, but damn I am as sure that you will achieve everything you set your eyes on, as a fact that the sky is blue. You're most determined and hardworking person I have ever met, and it pains me that you don't see all these amazing stuff about yourself. You're amazing, you're strong, beautiful and really intelligent. Don't forget it just because I won't be able to remind you it as often as possible." He kissed your neck lighly.

You let out a quiet huff of laugher and snuggled better against him, you could feel your eyes watering up. "That's quite hypocrite of you Iwa, I can tell you the same you know. You need to see more that you're just as amazing and competent if not more. Promise that you won't forgetting either." You whispered quietly.

"I promise. God I'm going to miss you so much!" If it were possible he bought you even closer and started peppering your face with kisses making you giggle.

"God you're getting so sappy, I'm barely recognizing you." You teased which resulted in you getting pinched on sides.

"I'm not the one crying." He said without even missing a beat.

"My eyes are just misty, don't flatter yourself." You lied but was there a point the tears were streaming down on your face.

"Oh shut up smartass." He rolled his eyes making you smirk.

"Make me!" He grumbled and sealed your lips in a kiss, making you shut up and melt against him in a second. The kiss was passionate, full of love and desperate at the same time. Your lips spoke all the words you couldn't pronounce for you, and it bought momentary comfort to both of you, you were terrified of when you had to pull back and face reality again.

"Can you stay with me tonight? I don't think I'm ready to let go yet. I want to be greedy and hold you like you're still mine, it's dumb I know it will only hurt me more but please," You mumbled against his lips, drunk with the pleasure, he only nodded and continued kissing you."

That night you lied in each others arms, feeling content and terrified of the tommorrow. Neither of you let go of the other for the whole night, afraid to lose the other. Maybe the novels were right and you also were lovers who were right for each other and maybe there was a possibility of soulmates existing but unfortunately for you it wasn't a good time. And when the sun would rise everything would end, your perfect paradise would disappear and you would have to start a new page of your life.

Maybe you would meet in the future and maybe there was a tiny possibility that both of you could hit it off then the time was better and both of you were at least merely satisfied with your achievements in life. But you were not naive enough to hope on that. Both of you knew that you would have to let go of each other but now you were feeling greedy and wanted to make your last nigh with him being completely engulfed in each other. Just for tonight you would be greedy and selfish just so you could feel at least a bit more at ease before completely breaking your heart.

So this is it love I really hope you will like it, feel free to tell me if you have another request or just talk lol. Tell me if you have any comments about it or would like to change anything about it too.

Lots of love and please take care of yourself!!!

PS, I didn’t really proof read it so if there’s any mistakes please bare with me I will edit it as soon as I can^^

[ot3]

i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey. 

anyway. here you have it. 

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith.  I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it. 

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene. 

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department  as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land. 

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass. 

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area.  In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.  

[blvejeanbaby]

Play Ground | Jung Yunho

Pairing: Yunho x reader, mention of reader with other idols (but it’s still basically a non!idol au) Word count: 3.8k Warnings: mentions of sex, alcohol consumption Summary: Drunken words are sober thoughts... sometimes spoken at clubs and playgrounds

The pre-party was in full swing. Yeosang and San were over by the counter, preparing a second batch of mojitos, which you weren't sure you were going to drink (the previous one had contained far too much rum and you were not one to water down your drinks); Jongho was in charge of the music, arguing with your friend Ginny about the line-up (she wanted a certain sing-along Beyoncé ballad). Your eyes passed over Wooyoung and Mingi, who were a beer pong team against Seonghwa and Hongjoong, who were losing spectacularly. And finally, your eyes found Yunho. He was standing by the sliding doors leading into the back garden, watching the beer pong game over the rim of his red cup with an amused look in his eyes. Just then, your eyes met. You smiled, not wanting to appear suspicious by looking away too quickly. He smirked back at you, pushed off the wall and sauntered over to you.

He was drunk. It was quite clear now that he was walking (damn Yeosang and San's cocktail making abilities!) by the slight stumble in his walk as he passed the column in the middle of the room. He was rather clumsy as he dropped down onto the couch next to you. From up close, you could see his cheeks were slightly rosy and his eyes held a shimmer to them that suggested... something more. You weren't sure what. "You were sitting here all lonesome," he said.

"Lonesome?" You raised your eyebrows. "I was enjoying peace, quiet and voluntary solitude." You patted the throw pillow that lay in between you and Yunho. "I was considering taking a nap, actually. You know how alcohol makes me drowsy."

"Does it, now?" He held his cup out to me. "Sip?"

"Is it mojito?" But as you leaned to smell, it was a lot sweeter than the medicinal smell of the rum. "What is this?"

"Some Spanish liquor," Yunho said. "Mixed with milk."

Indeed, the substance in his cup was quite white. You wrinkled your nose. Even though his description suggested otherwise, the smell promised a sweet taste. "I think I'll pass." You leaned back against the couch, pulling your legs up under yourself. "Shall we play Never Have I Ever with the others? I'm bored."

“Sure. I’ll call them over.” You held your breath; Yunho leaned in as if to give you a kiss, but he only put his cup on the table behind you before getting up and rounding up the others. A pang of disappointment shot through you as you watched him gather your friends. Provided with newly filled cups of San and Yeosang’s mojito mix, everyone settled around you on the couch. You felt as though you were about to tell a grand story and everyone was gathering to listen. You were glad Yunho went to sit down beside you again, even if it was just to feel his body warmth.

“Who starts?” Hongjoong asked before taking a tentative sip from his cup. He made a face; evidently the mojito tasted bad.

“I will,” you said. After all, it was your idea. “Never have I ever... made out with anyone in this room.” You took a sip and winked at Ginny. You weren’t the only one to lift your cup: San and Wooyoung looked, rather suspiciously, away from each other as they drank, as did Jongho and your friend Yeeun.

“My turn,” Mingi said. You felt Yunho stiffen beside you. “Never have I ever had feelings for someone in this room.”

You lifted your eyebrows as you watched Yunho decidedly take a sip. You followed, as did Wooyoung. When no one else drank, you saw how Wooyoung’s face fell. You also saw Ginny throw you a wink this time.

Now, it was Yeeun’s time to think of a question. “Never have I ever... thrown up in my mom’s vegetable garden.” She looked at Jimin intently. Jimin laughed, taking a sip. She was the only one to.

The game continued for another while, after which the group split into two: those who wanted to smoke outside and those who wanted to play a round of truth or dare. You watched Yunho go with your eyes as he left to smoke, you staying with the group inside. You didn’t feel much for playing the game, but you stayed nonetheless.

It was Mingi who asked you your first question of truth. “I saw you drink just now... Who is it you had feelings for?”

Everyone’s eyes were on you. You were glad that Yunho, San, Wooyoung, Seonghwa and your girl friends weren’t there, but at the same time you missed Ginny. She would understand your inner turmoil at the moment. But you had had a bit to drink now and there was no denying it...

“Come on!” Mingi pressed you. “Tell us. You picked truth!”

“Fine,” you sighed. “It’s-”

“We need to go!” The sliding door to the garden was thrown open and Seonghwa burst inside, looking all sorts of frantic. “We needed to be queueing at the club ten minutes ago!”

Seonghwa had been right in trying to plan the evening. You should’ve arrived earlier to ensure not queueing for too long. But there was nothing to do about it now, as the line to enter the club passed down several other establishments on the road. You stood next to Ginny, who was chatting animatedly to San about something to do with university. You saw Wooyoung throw the boy many glances that were probably very meaningful, but you didn’t quite understand what was going on there.

You were just about to turn to him to ask if anything was wrong, when your eyes moved past him and saw... “Changkyun?”

Changkyun and his friend Jooheon immediately looked up. When Changkyun saw you, his eyes lit up, as if he was happy to see you. “Y/N!” He gestured for you to come closer, so you did, stepping past Ginny to get to the barrier in order to hug Changkyun. You two had had a casual thing for a while, but it had ended a few weeks ago because he got himself a girlfriend. Finally, you had thought when he announced to you via text that he couldn’t see you anymore. Although you knew via Ginny that the girlfriend had up and left already. “It’s been so long.”

“I know,” you said. Being back in Changkyun’s arms felt so familiar, you almost couldn’t breathe. “Come on,” you drew back from his embrace and tapped the top of the barrier. “Come stand with me.”

Changkyun and Jooheon didn’t have to think twice; the line was so long already. Because of your history of hooking up, Ginny had often been left with Jooheon. She spun to talk to him as Changkyun cornered you against the wall. It was clear that this was perhaps one of the first few times he was going out again after breaking up with his short-term girlfriend. He wanted a rebound, apparently... “What have you been up to?”

You started explaining something completely irrelevant about your past week - you had been rather cooped up inside trying to study for an important exam and had seen very little alcohol and very little night life. You didn’t ask for details on Changkyun’s week, fearing it would be awkward to talk about the ex-girlfriend, but he started talking about her himself.

As soon as you entered the club, you felt excited. The buzz you had felt during pre-gaming had worn off a bit, so you instantly dragged Changkyun with you to the bar. He paid for your drink, which told you quite clearly what his intentions with you were for tonight. You weren’t about to say no, not to the drink and not to his plans.

Until you spotted him. Yunho stood with his back against the wall, listening to Yeeun telling what was possibly a great story about her favourite activity in life (flower arranging; oddly enough she always found a way to sneak it into conversation). He ought to be looking at Yeeun, but he wasn't. Instead, his eyes were trained on you.

You quickly looked back at Changkyun, feeling suddenly awkward, as if Yunho had caught you in a very compromising position with Kyun. But it was nothing like that, not yet at least. You tried to smile at Changkyun, to appear normal, but you could feel it wasn't at all convincing. You felt a sudden urge to tell Kyun to fuck off (he didn't deserve that rudeness, he was perfectly gentlemanly in every way), push Yeeun out of the way and confess your undying love for Yunho. But that was madness.

So you excused yourself to the toilet instead. Luckily, there was a long line and, unlucky for you, it caused you to have time to overthink. Would you have hooked up with Changkyun any other night? Definite yes. He was hot, good in bed, had a good personality and always treated you with respect. His friends and roommates were amazing and you liked sleeping over there, even if only to appreciate the view from his apartment and the softness of his bed. But tonight was different.

Perhaps it was because you had admitted it, if not to others than at least to yourself; you liked Yunho. You had a crush on him. You thought of the way he had sipped at the question (he was in love with someone!), the way his eyes were on you and not on Yeeun. He couldn't be in love with Ginny, you told yourself. If it was Jimin, that was just immoral; Mingi had a massive crush on her. No, it was none of them... so it had to be you. Or had he just been playing around? Had he misunderstood the question?

You quickly did your business at the toilet, wanting to return to the club’s main area to dance. You passed by the bar, which was void of Changkyun. You found him a moment later on the edge of the dance floor, his front stuck to an unknown girl’s backside. On the hunt for a rebound, as you had suspected. You smiled at Jooheon as you passed by; he was dancing with Ginny. They were always platonic, but you weren’t sure if they would remain that way.

Instead, you found Yeeun, Yunho, Hongjoong and Jongho a little further into the mass of bodies on the dance floor. Jongho was looking wistfully at Jimin, who was a few metres away, dancing closely with San. Behind him, Seonghwa and Wooyoung were just returning with drinks in their hands, the latter looking at San with a similar expression as Jongho at Jimin. You, however, turned your attention to Yunho. His was already on you.

You decided to test your theory. For Ginny’s birthday last year, you and the girls had all arranged for her to have both a pole dance lesson and a lesson in burlesque dancing. If there was one thing you had learned from that, it was to feel comfortable and confident. It was that feeling you summoned as you adjusted your movements to the rhythm of the music, attempting to make yourself as sexy and appealing as possible. You suspected you needed little effort to get Yunho’s attention, as he was already looking at you and only you, but you could aid the situation this way. If you wanted something to happen... this was the way to accomplish it.

The music was loud, the bodies around you sweaty. You were way too alert of everything that was happening around you, but at the same time you were oddly focused on Yunho only. And that’s when something snapped in him.

He was by you in a second, accidentally shoving Yeeun out the way and into Seonghwa’s arms, in an attempt to get to you faster. He was intoxicated, very clearly so. He would never be as bold as to touch you where he touched you now; his right hand was on your hip, his left cupped your face. He tilted your face upwards and bend over. Your breath hitched. Was he going to kiss you? But no, he bend a little further to speak in your ear: “I thought tonight you would be with Changkyun.” He spit his name, angrily. You had never heard Yunho talk of anyone that way.

“Not if you’ll be with me,” you said, feeling bold. You wanted to reach up and touch Yunho, but it was always you taking the lead. He had never been this way before, always taking a backseat to everyone else. Oh no, don’t mistake him for not having personality or confidence. He wasn’t shy, he wasn’t reserved. But he was careful, sometimes near calculating. Yunho knew what he wanted and how to get it, but he would prefer to wait and see. And there you were, answering his unspoken calls, finally. Finally forgetting about Changkyun.

“Let’s leave,” Yunho said.

“Leave?” And leave our friends behind? you wanted to ask.

“I have something I want to show you,” he said.

You pulled back a little so you could see his eyes. He was drunk, yes, but not so drunk that he could not think clearly. “Okay,” you heard yourself say.

Five minutes later you had said goodbye to your friends (Ginny already congratulated you on your catch, even though nothing had happened yet; Wooyoung had looked sourly on as he promised to tell San you had said goodbye; San was pressed against a girl’s backside; Changkyun and his girl were getting thrown out by a security guy for him fingering her in the club’s bathrooms), you had collected your coats from the wardrobe and you were on your way to whatever Yunho wanted to show you.

The night air sobered you up significantly and with a tentative peak at Yunho, you could see that it had the same effect on him. Your hands swung in between you two, occasionally brushing against each other. You bit your lip, gathering all of the courage inside you to reach out just a little bit and -

His hand was warm in yours.

You couldn’t help but look up at him and smile. He was staring straight ahead, but by the bulging of his cheek, you could see he was smiling too.

After a few minutes of walking, Yunho led you into a park. There were no lights on inside, there was only the glow of the street lights a little ways away. You had frequented the park when you were younger. Every day after school, you would go there to hang out, unaware that you were scaring the younger kids away. You hadn’t been to the park in months now, years even. You didn’t think Yunho would be so sentimental as to take you here.

The park’s center piece was a large playground, complete with every playset you could imagine: slides of different heights, seesaws with an animal theme, an array of different swings. And there was a relatively big, wooden playhouse. It was the playhouse you had had your first kiss, the playhouse where you got drunk for the first time. It was that exact playhouse that Yunho started climbing into - he had to let go of your hand to do so.

You followed him inside. The interior was warmer than outside, despite the many holes in the wood. Even though the floor of the house was covered in sand, you didn’t mind sitting down, because it meant sitting next to Yunho. In honesty, he was all too big for the playhouse. He had to pull up his knees to be able to fit his legs and he had to slump down a little bit to not hit his head, but he seemed comfortable nonetheless. And more importantly, he seemed to be staring at you.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” you asked, getting shifty under his gaze.

“Oh!” Yunho said, as if he’d forgotten. He shot up a little, hitting his head on the roof of the playhouse.

You laughed softly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, rubbing his head.

You sat up a little, taking the hand that was rubbing his head in yours and softly pulling it away to reveal the damage done. There was nothing to show for it, although you imagined there would be a nice little bump the next morning. You bent over and pressed a kiss on the sore spot. “There.” You swore Yunho blushed.

He moved on quickly, saying: “This is what I wanted to show you.” He took out his phone, using it as a flashlight. Yunho pointed it at the wall of the playhouse, revealing a drawing. It was a heart, shot through with an arrow. On the left side stood YH, on the right YN.

You moved closer, taking out your finger and stroking the drawing. “How long has this been here?”

“Remember when we came here the night before graduation? We played truth or dare.” You nodded, remembering how, at the end of the night, everyone was escorted out of the park by police after ignoring noise complaints and being drunk in public. Luckily, because you were underage, the police had settled for contacting your parents and sending you home with a warning. “I hid in the bushes when the police came. I managed to sneak away. I figured they’d only be warning us for the noise, so I came back when I saw their cars drive away. Only, everyone had gone. I didn’t know if others had managed to escape the police, so I climbed in here to wait it out for a moment. When no one returned...” Yunho shrugged. “I thought it was going to be the last time we would all be here together. And I wanted to leave a trace of us behind.”

“A trace of us?” you said, tracing the outlines of the heart. “Of Yunho and Y/N.”

“I was in love with you. All throughout high school.”

You felt your heart contract. “You were?”

Yunho nodded. “I know you didn’t, don’t, feel the same way.” He shrugged. “You had a massive crush on Jeon Jungkook when he was still in school with us, right? And then, the year of our graduation, you suddenly shifted your focus onto Moon Kevin! I was so upset.” He laughed a little, as if it was funny. “And then you got with Changkyun.”

You saw all of the faces of the boys he mentioned in your mind. Jungkook, whom you indeed had had a crush on, but so did the entire school. That was never serious. And then Kevin... It had been a little bit more serious, but you found out he was dating some ulzzang and you had given up. And then Changkyun...

“None of that was ever serious,” you said. You thought of Changkyun. You had only been seeing him for about a year or so - way past graduation. You jerked your head up. “When you said you were in love with me... You are not still, are you?”

Yunho didn’t respond, just looked away to his phone, turning off the flashlight.

You figured he wouldn’t respond at all, unless prompted by you... “Because if you are,” you started, gulping. Were you really about to do this? There was no turning back now. “...then that would be really fortunate. Cause I- Cause I’m in love with you too.”

Now it was Yunho’s turn to jerk his head up quickly. “You’re just saying that.”

“No!” Your eyes, used to the dark, searched his face. “I mean it.”

There was a long pause, and then a smile broke out on his face. “You do?”

You couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “I do, Yunho.” You wanted to reach out and take a hold of his hand, but he had something different in mind. He grabbed your face, in a rather rough manner that revealed the alcohol had not made its way out of his system entirely, and pressed his lips firmly against yours.

It felt so different from every single kiss you had had before. Where before, you had not been able to stop comparing every partner to the previous, you were now only focused on Yunho. On the way his grip on your face softened as his other hand found purchase on your waist. On the way he made a little yelping sound as he pulled you closer - so close that he lost his balance and toppled over backwards, you following him without breaking the kiss.

You didn’t want the moment to ever end. You were far too content just lazily dragging your tongue against his, his hands exploring your body. After what felt like an eternity, you pulled away from him, Yunho’s lips following yours needily. But you sat up a little, too far away for him to reach. “We should head home,” you said.

“Nah,” Yunho said, pulling you by your hands so you fell softly on top of him. “I don’t want us to face drunken Mingi.”

Your heart burst at the thought of what he meant - he thought you had wanted to come home with him. There was no way you would suggest taking Yunho home to Ginny and Seonghwa - the latter of which seemed to be permanently crashing at your place after being thrown out by his partner two weeks ago. And so instead, you shuffled down a little bit so you could lay your head on Yunho’s chest and close your eyes.

You could feel Yunho’s heartbeat, as well as his chest rising and falling with every breath. The soothing atmosphere (the birds of the park slowly coming back to life, chittering away) made you so sleepy, you didn’t know where the night ended and sleep began. At least you knew when the morning came.

You opened your eyes, groaning a little. You were hungover; you felt the headache as soon as you opened your eyes. Your eyes were met by another pair and -

“Argh!” You shot upright, your scream causing Yunho to wake up too. He shot up, hitting his head on the roof of the playhouse once again. In scaring you, the little kid seemed to be scared himself; his eyes disappeared from the entrance of the playhouse, followed by a thump and a yell: “Mom! Mom!”

Yunho rubbed his head, muttering angrily under his breath.

You wiped the sleep out of your eyes, not caring that you were wiping your makeup off as well. “We should go.”

“Before they call the police on us,” Yunho agreed.

But even if the mother would have called the police, it wouldn’t ruin your day. Instead, you figured it would have been a perfect full circle moment.

[shiny-meowstics]

this was gonna be a tag bundle in that one pokemon post i reblogged earlier, but honestly i may as well just make it standalone post with how much i eneded up typing lmao. more gen 9 thoughts; look out, it's long

people arguing that "oh well, bdsp was outscourced so gamefreak should be fine! it's not too soon for gen 9!"... like, need i remind... that gamefreak still worked on swsh's dlc immediately after swsh came out, and they likely started production on legends during that timeframe, if not immediately afterwards

AND(x2) that's it's probably incredibly likely that they've been working on legends and scvi at The Same Time anyway, probably not long after work on the dlc was finished. also (and this is purely speculation on my end) it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they were being made to work on another game alongside scvi anyway.

I genuinely do not believe the people working on these games in-house have had sufficient breathing room in-between projects. I really feel like something's gonna give, and that thing will be the employees, bc so many casual and hardcore fans don't understand or won't understand how fucked this current system is

it's really making me regret putting my caution/skepticism aside and purchasing legends (even if it was by no means a blind purchase, i spoiled the entire game for myself by watching others play it and hearing their thoughts about the game in real time), bc i wanted to put my money into a product that a)i had faith in and b)felt would have an impact in how future pkmn games would be made. but... what's the point when they don't give that new gameplay style time to breathe and give people more than a month or two to digest it. there is absolutely no time for anyone outside of the development team to give meaningful feedback about how they feel about this style of play vs. the standard pokemon formula. feedback that gamefreak could've worked off of if they actually had more time in-between releases to do so.

idk, it's frustrating because i do really like the direction legends went in, but this whole game is going to feel completely redundant in the gameplay sense if scvi ends up being 90% similar to it with the only real meaningful changes being... i dunno... more trainer battles and abilities being brought back, but no crafting system and no alpha pokemon.

idk i just feel people are gonna get their hopes up super high just to be disappointed bc the legends "formula" will not have changed all that much, and a good chunk of fans won't see any issue with any of this and continue to blindly support pokemon bc They Can Do No Wrong and "You're Being Too Negative, It's Just A Game For Kids!"

all while ignoring the very, very real possibility that these developers are being put on crunch in order to meet these absurd fucking deadlines because 🌟 merch sales 🌟 (that we wouldn't know! bc we don't know how the work environment is! bc they don't communicate any of that with us outside of super basic trivia as far as i can remember) and are releasing unfinished games more and more as a result

[lucemferto]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TECHNOBLADE (or A Narrative Analysis of the Dream SMP Doomsday Event) - Script

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! I am planning on doing a big dumb, way too long analysis video on the Dream SMP which will – at my current pace – come out in five years. I am already way too late on this one.

Spoiler Alert for the Doomsday Event that took place on the 6th of January in the Dream SMP. Surely the worst thing to take place on the 6th of January 2021 … I’m sorry, what’s this about the Capitol?

In case you don’t watch the SMP and need context: The Dream SMP is a Minecraft Multiplayer Server, that, throughout the last year, has transformed from a normal Let’s Play to an ongoing new-media series streamed by multiple high-profile streamers such as Dream, TommyInnit or Technoblade. It comes complete with script – by which I mean loose bullet points – and story events. It has attracted a large fanbase specifically invested in the story and less so in the actual gameplay content. Like I said before, I will probably do a big video on the Dream SMP at some point in the future.

The storyline is long and complicated and trying to explain it all would take up the majority of the video and there are other channels who have already done a much better job than I could ever hope to do, so give them a watch. I’ll try to summarize all that is pertinent to what I will talk about in this video.

Okay, let’s speedrun this summary. Cue the music!

Major Players here are TommyInnit, a founder of the independent nation of L’Manburg, Technoblade, an anarchist who was deep in conflict with L’Manburg, Tubbo, Tommy’s best friend and current president of L’Manburg, and Dream, the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dream SMP (even though he is not the king, but we’re not going to get into that right now). Tommy had in the past been exiled by Tubbo for endangering L’Manburg’s shaky peace with the Dream SMP. Tommy had then teamed up with Technoblade, who was hellbent on destroying L’Manberg after some prior altercations – more on that later.

Tommy and Tubbo came into conflict during a festival set-up to celebrate the friendship between L’Manburg and the Dream SMP. After punching out their feelings, Tommy came to the realization that his friendship with Tubbo was more important than his vendetta against Dream and those who exiled him. Techno took that change of heart badly and teamed up with Dream to destroy L’Manburg … and that’s exactly what happened.

Techno and Dream, with little to no opposition, obliterated L’Manburg with no hope for recovery leaving its inhabitants stranded hopeless and alone.

… And that’s what you missed on Dream SMP!

Okay. So, usually I just put whatever thought slime drips out of my mouth hole into your subscription box. But then I asked myself: “Am I not taking this a largely improvised nonsense story from a bunch of 16–24-year-olds a little too seriously?”. And then I remembered. I’m a pretentious bitch. I made an 18-minute video explaining why the popular commentary YouTuber memeulous is secretly the time travelling Anti-Christ, REASON HAS NO SWAY OVER ME!

So, like the English Major drop-out that I am, I will present you with two theses, which I will then combine into one … supratheses! That word doesn’t exist, I just coined it, it’s mine! I am very smart!

[I know words, I have the best words!]

 Thesis #1: The Fandom focuses too much on Character Analysis in Favour of Narrative Analysis

The Dream SMP is truly something special. It is uniquely singular in how it tells a story of this scope through its chosen medium. While there is an overarching script that lays out the plot points of the future, each of the 30+ streamers on the SMP are their own cameraman, director, writer and actor. You cannot watch “the Dream SMP” – if you attempted that, you would be 80 by the time you caught up to the Doomsday Event. You have to choose whom to watch. You have to choose your focal point character.

Because by the way the story is told and consumed – aka in such a compartmentalized fashion; you watch one streamer and get one character’s perspective – it has sort-of unintentionally conditioned fans to look at the SMP and its characters less as one coherent story with messages and themes and more as sports teams they can root for. You’re Team Techno or Team Tubbo or Team Tommy or Team JackManifoldTV (formerly known as Thunder1408) and every other side is in the wrong! It’s like Twilight for a decade old children’s game about virtual Lego!

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but the amount of discourse perpetuated by and revolving around so-called “apologists” – a terrible term that unfortunately has caught on – is really not something that I think is good for how we interact with the story of the Dream SMP.

The Dream SMP is discussed a lot on character-based level, which is, like I said before, hugely advantaged by the way the story is consumed by its audience. With traditional, visual media such as film for example, the audience can be made more aware of what messages the narrative might try to communicate on a narrative level without the need for an explicit narrator to tell you the moral.

As an example, in a movie you could have a smash-cut from the Butcher Army’s discussions about neutralizing the danger Technoblade poses to Techno being nice around villagers or taking care of animals. This would communicate on an extradiegetic level, that the Butcher Army is in the wrong with their assumptions. Alternatively, you could contrast Techno’s declarations that power corrupts and that Tubbo’s administration is cruel with Tubbo choosing not to punish Ranboo for his association with Techno – thus the narrative would communicate that Techno’s view of Tubbo and by extension the government is one-sided and not true to reality.

Stuff like that helps the viewer understanding a story holistically and manages to communicate stuff like themes and morals without having to solely rely on in-character logic and argumentation, which, as Ghostbur put it so eloquently, is comprised of a bunch of unreliable narrators.

Character analysis is great if we want dive deep, if we really want to give a character flavour and understand their motivations. It helps make the universe feel like it is alive, like it’s real. But – and this might be a shocker for you – it’s not real. It’s written. It is construction – and as such, in its construction, it has messages and themes and morals, intentionally or unintentionally.

By being so focused on specific characters and their individual journeys, viewpoints and motivation we really run the risk of not looking at the bigger picture and fail to see what the overarching narrative is actually communicating. And we may also fail to understand how characters might or might not fit into the overarching narrative.

Speaking of which …

 Thesis #2: Technoblade experiences very little Meaningfultm Thematic Conflict

Okay, let’s talk about Technoblade. I’m sure I’m not going to get any hate for this one.

I want to preface by saying that I don’t watch Technoblade’s streams; I catch up though clip channels and summaries. I’m mainly watching Tommy, Tubbo and Quackity – which is honestly already more than I can handle – but I want to be clear that while I’ll try to be as even-handed as possible – like I explained previously – the way I consumed the storylines will undoubtedly leave me with some bias.

Also, needless to say, I’m talking about the character Technoblade, not the actual content creator, unless I specifically say so. That should be obvious.

Now, I’m not doing a Technoblade character analysis, because that would be hypocritical of me – seeing how I just bitched about the overwhelming amounts of character analyses in the fandom – but I’ll try my best to summarize what is necessary.

Technoblade’s interesting in that he is a very static character – at least inwardly – he doesn’t change much. He is very steadfast in his beliefs and ideals and has very little introspection. He doesn’t question himself; he doesn’t waver, he is never in a bind about whether what he’s doing is right or wrong. He is very much a parallel to early TommyInnit – who, of course, famously said “I’m always in the right”.

And I want to emphasize that I mean this in no way as a critique of Techno’s character. A static character provides a nice contrast to more dynamic characters and can balance them out. It can also be utilised by the writing as a character flaw – which is what I hope content creator Techno is going for.

Like Techno doesn’t have a lot of empathy in the sense that he is particularly skilled at or interested in trying to see the viewpoints of others. There is never an attempt to reconcile, for example, the goal of the Pogtopians to reclaim L’Manberg and install another administration with his desire for an anarchist society. This is also compounded with his overreliance on violence as the only tactic for conflict resolution – Techno has a whole thesis statement about violence being the only universal language. I’m sure you’ve heard the quote.

And lastly, what really drives this all over the edge, is his all-or-nothing approach when dealing with the enemy – he is not so much eye for an eye as he is – to use another biblical example – you make fun of me for being bald and I’ll sic two bears on you that maul and kill you and 41 other children.

There’s also the open and completely unacknowledged hypocrisy of a self-described anarchist working together with a man that installs and dethrones Kings with his every whim – someone who – and I cannot stress this enough – hits about every box when it comes to the definition of tyrant.

So, what I’m saying is that Technoblade is the Dream SMP equivalent of Dick Chenney. C’mon you know it’s true! He will bomb that freedom into your country whether you want him to or not. That’s some cogent political commentary in the year 2021.

Okay, so now that I’ve outlined his character, what kind of conflicts does Technoblade face. Well, it’s mostly physical or external. He fights a lot whether it’s against Quackity or Sapnap or bodying Karl Jacobs five times in a row. And – with the exception of maybe Sapnap – none of it is challenging. Technoblade is the best PvP-Player on the server – there really isn’t much tension to be had from a purely physical fight.

So, how are these fights supplemented emotionally. Well, internally there is not a lot going on. As I said before, Technoblade isn’t really an introspective character. Even during his shouting match with Tommy there’s not a sense that Technoblade is wavering or unsure of himself in the way that Tommy is. He exposits that one of the reasons, he acts like he does is that he feels dehumanized; that people only use him like a weapon and then discard or even try to neutralize him once he’s no longer useful.

But that is not something that Technoblade has to grapple with – it’s not conflict for him, it’s more conflict for Tommy. Technoblade is self-assured in that he’s a person and not a weapon – it’s almost like there was a character arc there, where Technoblade self-actualizes and breaks away from the people that want to use him. But we didn’t see any of it. Technoblade unleashes the withers; then he goes into retirement because he wants to be, I suppose, and then he returns to violence as a reaction to the Butcher Army. There is a story of vengeance here, but not any conflict about being used. There is never a point where we see Technoblade come to this realization or comes to assert himself.

In season 1 there’s never a push from Pogtopia where the narrative frames them as exploiting Technoblade. He fights with them of his own volition, he gives them weapons and armour of his own volition. Nobody pressured Techno into procuring their inventory for the fight. And in Season 2, he’s the one to approach Tommy about their potential partnership – he is in the position of power here, explicitly not Tommy.

Like, I’m sorry, if this ruffles some feathers, but I really don’t see this arc where Technoblade is being used. There’s a story of misunderstanding and maybe co-dependency – but not of dehumanization. This entire line of thought seems to solely reference that moment, where Tommy says to Sapnap “I have the blade” during one of their wars – which, to base an entire emotional arc around that without any further set-up, is, and I’m sorry to say that, incredibly flimsy.

Okay, so we covered physical and emotional conflict? But what about conflict on the narrative level? Well, that leads me to my suprathesis …

 Suprathesis: The Narrative is Unclear on how it treats Technoblade … and that’s Not Good.

Here’s a Hot Take: The narrative of Season 1 treats Technoblade way less sympathetically than that of season 2.

Let me explain. The narrative of Season 1 revolves mostly around Wilbur and Tommy. The emotional fulcrum of the overall narrative is Wilbur’s rise and fall from Grace – and Tommy succeeding him as symbol of L’Manberg’s “special”-ness. Now I will talk about all that more in detail, when I talk about Season 1 of the Dream SMP. So, you’ll just have to go with me on this one for now.

Technoblade, by contrast, doesn’t really have much going on thematically in Season 1. He mostly exists as a sort-of utilitarian character – he is an accessory to make story beats happen. Like him executing Tubbo doesn’t open up any sort of thematic conflict involving him – on a character level it sets up antipathy between him and Tommy and it grants us some insight into how he operates with his violence speech – but on a larger-scale narrative level it really just shows how far Wilbur and Tommy have drifted apart in how they react to the event.

His biggest contribution is during the Season 1 finale, but even there he plays second fiddle to Wilbur. Not just because Wilbur does way more destruction with his explosion than Techno does with his Withers, but also because Wilbur had an emotional and thematic climax to his arc and by extension the entire storyline. Like Techno’s is a cool moment and very epic visual but in terms of thematic relevance, his Theseus-speech is really more set-up for Season 2.

And Season 1 is very unambiguous about L’Manberg being good and Tommy’s ideals ultimately being morally justified – I mean, they have a whole speech about it in the end and it was built-up throughout the entire Season – Techno is cast in a … less than sympathetic light. He is, if not a villain, then definitely an antagonist.

But with Season 2 the narrative is either uninterested in or not very clear on exploring Technoblade’s flaws.

Like ask yourselves: is Technoblade’s character ever consciously challenged by the narrative? Are his actions ultimately shown to not be in the right? Are his beliefs about government and power ever called into question? Are the negative consequences that his actions cause ever shown to be larger than the “good” he does?

I think what exemplifies this the most is how the Butcher Army event played out on December 16th. Now, during that event, the Butcher Army, which was comprised of Tubbo, Quackity, Fundy and Ranboo, managed to apprehend Technoblade, who at that point was living the quiet retirement life, and tried to have him publicly executed – without trial.

Now, smarter people than me have pointed out that the Butcher Army had a bevy of in-character reasons that can justify or explain their actions. And that’s definitely interesting, but as I said before, I want to get away from that and look into how the Butcher Army is treated on a narrative level. Because this is one of the few instances where the otherwise grey-loving Season 2 has some very clear narrative intent when it comes to morality.

The Butcher Army is very deliberately framed as almost cartoonishly corrupt and violent. They very forcefully investigate Philza, mock him and then put him under house arrest – and there’s just no remorse in the script even from normally sympathetic characters like Tubbo.

Compare and contrast with the Tommy-exile scene, which is also an act of moral ambiguity and is treated as such. And things get even worse once the Army arrives at Technoblade’s abode and attack him after he softly tells them that he has left that live behind him. They then proceed to take his horse hostage, mock him and execute him without fair trial – and I haven’t seen it but from live commentary I gathered that Techno really played up the whole softie-schtick before the Butcher Army arrived. I mean, before the big Technoblade vs Quackity fight, Quackity had whole villain monologue for Christ’s sake.

And even afterwards, the Butcher Army really plays up the corrupt angle with Tubbo proposing a festival as a guise to publicly execute someone. And again, I know that on an intradiegetic there’s nuances and it’s not really comparable to the Red Festival, but in combination with what the audience has seen up until that point and with how much it feeds into the already established themes of history repeating itself and becoming like your predecessors, it really does not paint a pretty picture of the Tubbo administration.

You can feel the heavy hand of the script on your shoulder, which is a feat seeing how – as discussed before – that’s not something that can be easily accomplished in this medium.

And that is what I mean when I say that Technoblade is not really challenged by the script and is in this case even emboldened by it. Because after this whole ordeal the thought of Technoblade taking revenge by destroying L’Manberg doesn’t seem like such an extreme response to the viewer – even though in my opinion, it is.

As of right now it is too early to say how the narrative will judge Technoblade’s actions in the future. Will they be framed as extreme but ultimately justified or perpetuating a cycle of ever-escalating vengeance? Will we ever see a government that’s not just at best misguided and at worst completely awful?

Ultimately, I believe and hope that Technoblade will be challenged by the narrative, mostly because a character that cannot, believably, be physically challenged, who doesn’t have any meaningful internal conflict about what he’s doing; and who does come out on the other side having everything he always believed in be proven completely in the right by the narrative, would be incredibly boring. Not just to watch but also to play as.

As it stands now, if the destruction Techno, Phil and Dream inflicted upon L’Manburg is framed as ultimately in the right, I would find it personally a distasteful message to send. I would ultimately say that the “correct” way to counter corruption in government is to completely obliterate the entire country. Like we’re not talking simply disbanding the government – that’s not what Doomsday was – we’re talking complete and utter annihilation. And that would be cynical and depressing. Like, call me a big softie, but even bothsidesing this argument would be bad.

Like, I’m not calling for Technoblade to be transformed into or treated a monster like Dream. But I personally feel like the narrative needs to acknowledge that the Doomsday was something that was taken way too far and that it ultimately brought more harm than good. And Technoblade needs to held accountable by someone who is not a cartoonishly corrupt government-official or who is in conflict with him anyway, like Tommy.

I thought Philza or Ranboo could do that but seeing how their storylines are progressing I don’t believe that will be the case. But who knows, maybe Captain Puffy will come through for us. We stan a Queen.

 Conclusion

So, yeah, I made this entire video just to air out my grievances with how one-sided the mode of analysis is in the fandom, because no person actually involved with the production of Dream SMP will ever see this.

But after everything I am cautiously optimistic, that content creator Technoblade knows what he’s doing. He has talked in the past about how his character is a bad guy and he loves his Greek myths. After all what’s more Greek myth than hybris being rewarded with punishment? [Technoblade never dies] That bodes well for him.

Also, this isn’t the video I promised at the end of the last one!

[spilledreality]

Games of Strategy are Games of Reading and Writing

1.

Schelling defines games of strategy as any situation in which each player's best choice of action depends on the actions (he expects) the other player will take (and vice-versa, reflexively). This is in contrast to games of skill and games of chance. "Strategy," then, is the study of conflicting parties' behaviors as they are premised on "the interdependence of the adversaries' decisions and on their expectations about each others' behaviors."

We will call "script" a set of moves, from start to end, across a game. Games of strategy are definitionally marked by their lack of a player-independent & globally optimal ("PIG-optimal") script—that is, a script which will produce the best possible outcome in every game against every possible player.

(Or at the very least, these games of strategy have not had their PIG-optimal strategy discovered yet, so a successful move, or script, is functionally indexical—"indexical" as in, "player and context-dependent.")

When moves are indexical, it means that their efficacy depends on the opponent's future move(s). In "Rock, Paper, Scissors," no single move is PIG-optimal. The efficacy of playing "rock" fully depends on whether the opponent will play rock (resulting in stalemate), paper (defeat), or scissors (victory).

2.

Strategy games span a continuum between cooperative and adversarial.

In games tending toward the cooperative side, it behooves players to be legible, and thus predictable. This is because, if any individual player's best move depends on other players' next move(s), then Pareto optimal aggregate play among all players requires players perfectly anticipating each other (so they are each, individually, able to make the best move dependent on each other). In a cooperative game of Rock, Paper, Scissors where winning consisted of matching moves (e.g. two rocks, two papers, etc), it behooves players to get into a rhythm, to repeat themselves, etc.

This goes some way, I think, toward explaining social customs and conventions, the inculcation of habit. It is a pro-social gesture to be legible, insofar as it allows other players in a social space to optimize around you. This reciprocal self-legibilizing allows for spontaneous organization, where sophisticated behavioral patterns emerge in e.g. conversational turn-taking, team sports, drivers who efficiently and safely manage an intersection with a broken traffic light, etc. Meanwhile, those who are unpredictable or illegible are "creepy," "unsettling," etc...

(Convention—settling on a shared script—is also computationally tractable, whereas assessing other players' next move in order to make your next move, when their move depends on their assessment of your next move, which depends on... is an NP-hard recursive problem. More on this soon.)

In games tending toward the adversarial side, it behooves players to be illegible, and thus unpredictable. This is because, if any individual player's move efficacy depends on his opponent's next move(s), then that player is disadvantaged if his opponent can anticipate, and thus thwart, his choice. For a competent opponent to know that he is about to play "rock" is equivalent to losing. So long as he can be anticipated, he cannot win, because in a game like Rock Paper Scissors, moves are fully indexical in their "quality" or efficacy. There is no "better" or "worse" move in a vacuum; only better or worse moves given an opponent's move.

Another high-level strategy, for adversarial games, is what I'll call "pseudo-legibility." This approach involves setting up an opponent expectation, by intentionally leaking information, or displaying a pattern, during low-stakes rounds of the game. Then, when a high-stakes round approaches, the player "cashes out" by breaking his pattern. Here he has flipped the script: by making himself appear predictable, he has in actuality made his opponent predictable.

For instance, a poker player may feign a tell, and then display that tell several times during small pots. Later in the game, when a large pots (and a good hand) comes around, he can once again display the tell, and lead his opponent to believe he is bluffing. At this point, he can just "take his opponent's money": he can "play" him by ratcheting up the bet and clearing house.

3.

Note that there is in some sense a player-independent optimal strategy for Rock, Paper, Scissors, which is pure randomness. The problem is that pure randomness will secure a lower win percentage against sub-optimal players than a player-dependent strategy would have. Randomness is only "optimal" in that, if one has no idea who his opponent is, it is the optimal strategy. We will call this a player-blind optimal strategy, or PB-optimal. In a one-round game of Rock, Paper, Scissors against an anonymous opponent—or in a multi-round, blindfolded game, where neither player learns their opponent's moves (and by extension, the outcome of the round) until all rounds are over—pure randomness is the most effective strategy.

(This has something to do with "exploitability"—@natural-hazard has written that "Traditional game theory sacrifices any plausible yet uncertain edge you might have for the guarantee that you will never be taken advantage of." But I have yet to integrate this concept of exploitability into my broader understanding.)

One interesting property of PB-optimal strategies is that they are also the optimal strategies when playing against other PB-optimal players. That is, the PB-optimal strategy becomes more and more effective the better the players one is competing against. In a tournament of professional Rock, Paper, Scissors players, winners would be those best at cognitively simulating randomness. In a tournament of amateur Rock, Paper, Scissors players, winners would be those best at reading their opponents, at "playing the player."

(Also, in some meaningful sense, winners would be playing the room: If, thus far in the tournament, you've noticed that players are rock-heavy, you might be inclined to play paper OR, alternatively, hypothesize that, since other players have thus far had outsized success—premium returns—on playing paper, then a preference for scissors may be a successful tactic.)

4.

Playing the player involves what we can call generalized reading. There are conceptual reasons to call it this, but the idea is bone-achingly simple: to play a player—to recognize his patterns and regularities, in order to exploit them—one must interpret the player. Look for clues, watch his face for tells, pay attention to how he responds to certain moves, or what biases or preferences exist in his play. And inevitably, if one plays with patterns, then these patterns are on display—all moves are publicly visible in their entirety by both players. One cannot play "rock" while hiding that one is playing rock. In this sense, information inevitably "leaks" in the process of play.

PB-optimal play, in other words, becomes optimal when player moves do not leak information. Only in the "blinded" version of Rock, Paper, Scissors can one "play rock" while hiding "playing rock."

In a game like Rock, Paper, Scissors, virtually all players are equally competent at selecting and deploying moves, conditioned on knowing what their opponent will play. (Each player knows rock beats scissors, scissors paper, paper rock. And each player is equally physically competent at using a given move; there is no level of skill that bars them from countering rock with paper.) Therefore, success in the game is one-to-one with success at anticipating one's opponent. This makes it an extreme case of strategic indexicality, the property of strategies depending on opponent strategy. But there is always, in games of strategies, an element of indexicality to a given move's efficacy—otherwise it would not be a game of strategy, it would have a PIG-optimal solution.

Randomness is PB-optimal insofar as it prevents the opponent predicting, at a rate higher than 1/3, what move one will play next. Illegibility is chosen deliberately as a descriptive term here: one cannot be "read" by one's opponent, when one plays randomly; there is no pattern to pull out of gameplay. It is ironic, and perhaps deeply important, that the strategy which is optimal when blindfolded is also the strategy which blindfolds (one's opponent.)

Pseudo-legibility, then, is a strategy of generalized writing. Insofar as your opponent is basing his moves on what he predicts you will do, and he is making predictions based on his interpretations of your previous play (including e.g. body language), then it is advantageous to present him with a false reading, a false interpretation. By planting such a false reading in his mind, one can thereby begin predicting his behavior while simultaneously remaining unpredictable oneself.

This occurs in situations of mixed conflict and coordination. When one feels like they have been "led on," or that they operated under a false impression, they feel they have been "played." They believed the Other was presenting—pro-socially and honestly—a certain pattern, and thus presented their own pattern pro-socially and honestly. This makes them manipulable to the Other, while the Other remains un-manipulable to them. (Because the Other's real patterns are unknown.)

5.

Strategy games get weirdly recursive, in their induction patterns, because one is not modeling what "is" but what their opponent believes. Simultaneously, the opponent is modeling what his opponent believes. Thus, one must model what one's opponent believes one believes one's opponent believes... etc. The "level" at which this mutual modeling bottoms out matters quite a bit, insofar as a player who is thinking too many "levels" deep will mis-model his opponent.

In this sense, strategy games share many structural similarities with Keynesian Beauty Contests, the world of fashion, stock bubbles, sexual fitness etc. A female of a species inclined to find those males handsome which other females find handsome is, in some sense, looking for genetics that will produce a sexually desirable offspring, to the extent that the sexual taste of females in her offspring's generation can be modeled via the sexual taste of females in her generation.

Hyperstition is at its most effective in such systems. The difficult part is breaking inertia, giving the meme a kick-start. But once it picks up momentum, this momentum builds via the positive feedback loops of a Matthew Effect. The meme goes "viral." This is known as runaway selection, and it can come at the cost of an organism's non-sexual fitness. That is, in optimizing for some intra-species game, it becomes less optimized for the inter-species game. Which, of course, is the opposite of how these things are "supposed" to work.

I'll let @mclegibilist take it away, about how the socially valuable byproducts of strategy games are what we really care about, when we organize, host, regulate, and manage such games.

[felassan]

Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were: 

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it. 

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

[zeta-in-de-walls]

My thoughts on the MCC games

So my mind is still dwelling on MCC. Damn, I loved it. 

I thought I’d share my thoughts about each game! (Note: I always watch Tommy for MCC.)

Big Sales at Build Mart. It’s alright. I think it’s good as an early game - I enjoyed that it was first this MCC, allowing the teams to get used to each other and it didn’t matter too much in points. Whereas I kinda dislike it late game - it’s not one I want to be high pressure. In some respects its a lot more chill as you’re less directly competing against others and more working together to build something. It still feels tense and as a viewing experience its alright but painful to see streamers making mistakes which they inevitably do as its so high pressure. The changes of getting rid of the boats was so, so good. Losing Buildmart before was often because you failed a turn and lose so much progress which was way too devastating. much easier to navigate now too. (I didn’t like how in one build Tommy couldn’t see a block properly under glass, but usually the builds are very nice. 

Hole in the wall - this one I’ve always really enjoyed watching. It’s a fun game with a great level of difficulty. Tommy’s pretty good at this one too and I like that he has a real habit of messing around in it. This game is the one where Wilbur lost his voice in MC11 after too much shouting. In MCC13 it was singing christmas songs. Something about it just makes everyone want to mess around. I like how although its mostly a solo game, team communication is useful ust shouting out colours and shouting out warnings. I saw Vikkstar being warned about approaching walls before they killed him a couple times by his teammates for instance and I like that. (Contrast ace race where its so hard to give much meaningful advice.) That said, the game is extremely glitchy! Hbomb demonstrated it this round but people have always been sliding through walls plus players with higher ping get an advantage. I would understand if they wanted to shelf it. I think it’d be hard to fix - 40 players in one area with moving slime walls will be so hard to handle. I wonder if they could have 10 separate maps instead or something to make it more feasible to play as I’ll be sad if it has to go.

Skybattle - really really fun from Tommy’s perspective! You can tell he loves it so I love it too. Rounds kinda have a tendency to all end the same way with little bridges towards the centre, might be cool if there was some existing narrow walkways to the middle as well and maybe new maps though I do like the current map as well! Hah, but yeah I love it! It’d probably be too much played too late but its the absolute perfect mid round game and every MCC there’s always really cool exciting plays. Its really fast-paced which sets it apart.

Survival Games - it’s a classic. probably a little frustrating points wise as its a single round meaning an early death is so costly. survival points in this one are worth so much. I seriously enjoy it though it is not one you want too late in the tournament. Also a good opener as its not too intense from the start, even if it gets pretty intense as the map shrinks. The maps for these games are always awesome and well-designed. (I think puffy might have fallen in an inescapable hole though? She was getting attacked at the time so maybe it was escapable but yeah - careful playtesting is important to make sure no spots like those exist. Which is hopefully the case!)

Ace race - I greatly enjoy this game. Tommy’s generally surprisingly good at it which helps. It just seems like a really fun minigame to play. Obviously this MCC the map had some errors and was maybe too confusing. The map was long and every moment had something new to process, a chiller section or two where you can observe and take it in a bit more would have been nice. It is a little fiddly with a lot of different mechanics leading to glitches. Tridents are just annoying! But its one thats a good time. I only dislike how its so much a solo experience - you can try and give advice to your team but its so hard to give useful input unless you’re right by your teammate. I quite enjoy this one being fairly late game as its exciting but not so harsh as the elimination games.

Battle Box: very cool game assuming the map’s fun! (Some MCCs had ones I didn’t care for.) And they remember to never ever give any players TNT ever again. There’s a bunch of tactics to employ, custom items, flanking. It’s just a really nice strategic mini-game. I like how its lots of ranged combat and there’s enough rounds that you don’t feel too bad about a mistake. It’s good anywhere in the tournament. Glad it got added to the practice server as its a lot of fun to watch streamers just play. Though they don’t ever practise the wool rushing tactics on there. xD Shame Tommy’s not built for this game though.

TGTTOS: I love this game! Lots of fun to watch and its kinda solo but also you can help your team and work together with some effort. Hmmm... though some of the individual maps for this game can be very hit-or-miss. I think generally you want like at least 80% of players to complete the map. A few of them have been too long and hard. Lots of punching goes on in this game and I kinda don’t mind. The one with the wool targets was probably a little too confusing. I like most of the original maps for this game aside form the cliffside punching one though I understand the same maps every time would be bad. Rocket jumping seems kinda finicky so I’m not a fan. Tridents, elytras, ice, and bridging are all great fun though and I do enjoy the variety. Again its good anywhere in the tournament! 

Parkour Tag - Not a fan. I like it in concept I guess but aah the scoring is annoying. It gives you points for survival which is so dependent on the person hunting you and it feels like there’s strategy about choosing the hunter for each opponent but in reality there’s not. I kinda wish the same person could be the hunter every round just so one person has that role. The maps have never felt that fun as it generally feels like scrambling around. Also this game rarely shifts the scores much at all, the ways points are awarded is just too strange. Maybe a bigger map and longer rounds? I don’t know though. This game is terrible as an end game and I guess its okay earlier. Yeah, I really wish there was a good parkour type game but this one isn’t it for me. (this is still much better than Parkour warrior mind!)

Rocket Spleef - Alright. I feel like this is one that’s hard on new players as rocket jumping is odd - getting kills in this game is also not easy. Hopefully they practice the mechanics on the practice server. That said I do enjoy this one quite a bit, it’s fun to watch. The deal breaker is the map. Some maps are just way better than others. I think by the end of a round the maps should be pretty much destroyed and I think it’d be awesome if rounds ended with only one or two people left alive. As long as its got a good map though it’s plenty of fun! It’s exciting without being really intense or high pressure and three rounds is a good amount. Good anywhere in the tournament.

Bingo But Fast - I don’t know how I feel about this one. Please don’t do it the nether again, that was too much. xD I think this game is too intense for me - it’s really fast-paced as completions start happening right away and earlier ones are worth more points. Also it’s another that is stressful to watch the streamer play non-optimally. That said it is an interesting game and I think its cool to have a mode like survival minecraft - generally I like how many games highlight different fun activities in minecraft. It’s such a varied tournament! Again I like this one best mid-tournament, not too late or too early. Maybe I’d like it a bit more without the locking out. like after the first five completions, the remaining completions of it still get a few points - a fixed amount. This is an interesting game but it’s also a really hard game! 

Sands of Time - This one is pretty awesome. A lot of fun to watch even if its so so painful for a streamer to lose.  Nice dungeon crawler feel, with cool maps and exciting traps. The vaults matter a lot to points. I like how less confident players can do safer stuff and its a very team-oriented game in the best possible way. As you don’t know how the other teams are doing it gets pretty intense and works well as a last game. Some traps are a bit annoying and I think ones requiring a second player are cool in concept but a bit too demanding. Also please please never make it out of snow again. People kept missing the snow! That was painful. Tommy’s interesting to watch and has successfully solved some risky traps even if he sometimes makes poor decisions xD 

Damn this turned out long! Listen, I love this event. All the games are delightfully unique and challenging and fun to watch. These are just my personal opinions. This is such a well-made and impressive tournament with such a great variety of games testing different things. 

Feel free to argue with me about any of these. Sorry parkour tags fans. xD