#we've barely moved from 'friends-ish' to 'interested'

[dear-mrs-otome]

Dear Mr. Jude 'They're Only Getting To You Over My Cold Corpse' Jazza...your overprotective is showing again. 💜

[initiumseries]

If you had to pick between spuffy and cangel, which one do you find more interesting? And why?

I'm gonna preface this with, I don't think either of them are particularly interesting. That's a large part of why I don't like these ships lol. My dislike of these ships has less to do with personal taste, and more to do with the obliteration of their characters and the overarching story integrity to make them happen. An example of this is, when I saw TVD was moving toward delena, I hated the idea of breaking Elena and Stefan up, especially when it felt like they'd barely been together and I gad serious problems with how damon consistently and without repercussions, violated obvious boundaries of everyone around him but especially Stefan and Elena. That was a personal issue for me, but I was also curious to see how they'd handle the story. I'd said this to Zal at the time, but I was prepared to be on board a delena ship if it meant the show taking an interesting character/story turn. If we actually got to see that darker turn in Elena, the fallout of her choices, and how being with damon messed with her morality, perceptions, isolated her from her friends etc, I would've liked to see that story progression and character arc, even if it meant the (temporary) end of a ship I liked. When that didn't happen, and the story rapidly deteriorated, I resented the ship because it essentially ruined the show (among other issues) to keep it working.

So to the point of the ask, I don't think that either were particularly interesting, but I will say that Spuffy, for a time, had better execution. I had tired of Spike whining about Buffy, dreaming about Buffy, becoming a pathetic shadow of what made him interesting as a character for Buffy. It sucked. So to see the return of his vigor as a character in this dysfunctional, abusive and hypersexual relationship with Buffy was refreshing. It was also uncomfortable, which its meant to be. Buffy is the white knight. But she died, and was finally at peace and her friends traumatized her by bringing her back, then traumatized her again by abandoning her to dig herself out of her own grave. She was angry, depressed, isolated and she had no one to work her issues out with, and here was Spike, allowing her to revel in the worst parts of herself. Something she never allowed herself before she died. That was interesting. It was moreso, because it was so obvious this wasn't about actual affection. It was clear at the time, Spike didn't love Buffy, he was obsessed with her, and Buffy didn't even like Spike, he was a site for her to work out her pain. That was more interesting to me than anything else, because, again, Buffy's relationships up until then had been about mutual affection, partnership and love, and now she's slumming it and hiding it from all her friends because she's embarrassed. That's good story stuff. Where I jumped off and immediately lost interest is when both Buffy and Spike became OOC-ish just to bring them back together in some weird, pointless amicable companionship thing. Spike assaulted Buffy and then got a soul to punish her for her rejection. Forcing her to not only accept him, but defend him and protect him against her loved ones, then alienate her AGAIN, to bring them back together is cruel, and a betrayal of Buffy as the titular strong female character she was always meant to be. Buffy in any previous season would never have forgiven her attempted rapist, much less stopped GILES from killing him when he was a KNOWN liability and danger to her work. She killed Angel - the love of her life - to save the world, but defends Spike? Makes 0 narrative sense. Spike becomes a sad little bitch because of the soul no one wanted or asked him to get, then just sort of...returns to himself, and shows no remorse, no repentance for what he put Buffy through, and how that affected the group. And suddenly we're all supposed to believe this is...what, love? How? We've SEEN what Spike looks like when he's in love, and this isn't it. So, that's where it becomes uninteresting to me, because in order to make this ship work this way, they have to betray the characters, insult the viewers, and compromise the story. Those are bad narrative choices.

[astral-corner]

Welcome to MDM

MDM is short for Monday Dusk Monolith, which is the (cancelled) FNF mod that this au is based off of. (Warning for body horror; including extra eyes/eyes where they don't belong/things in place of eyes, and spiders.) Or, well, originally based off of. Collaborating with friends, we've taken a lot of creative liberties and gone off in our own direction. The two of us have a focus on the main human(ish) characters, and as a group we've added plenty of mod and other outside characters to the roster, along with incorporating lore tied to things like Pico's School and Spooky Month.

Due to not owning every character, we can't definitively answer every question, but this will hopefully give a good jumping off point for the things we can answer. Plus we can always ask our other friends for clarification.

Before we dive too deep, let's establish some of the characters:

Adam, aka Boyfriend Hatsune, (he/him) is a head empty, bi disaster of a man. He has the ability to go back in time whenever he dies or loses a rap battle, allowing him to try over again and do better next time. He is borrowing this power. He left his parents and sister behind in Japan, and his brother is currently MIA.

Lilith, aka Girlfriend Dearest, (she/her) has half a braincell, though most of it goes towards her interest in science. She gained her love of science from her dad, who she now sometimes offers help in searching for a cure for the infection that's taken over. Her and her dad try to keep close enough contact in this wasteland, but her mom is MIA.

Cain, aka Pico Newgrounds, (he/him) is tired of being the main braincell holder of this trio. He's not quite sure how the other two survived long enough to find him again, let alone survived curing him. Basically adopted by an army (literally) and forcefully adopted a member of an opposing faction as a cousin/sibling figure.

While the main plot of this mod, and the inciting incident we've been playing around after, is still the monolith landing in the city, there's some backstory we should give an overview of first.

Back in the day, in the fictional city of Newgrounds, Pennsylvania, (no, this is not a coincidence) Adam (Boyfriend) and Cain (Pico) went to the same high school. While there, the two of them were dating and often hung out with Val (short for Valentine, aka Nene) and Moses (Darnell). Around this time, the other three loved to tease Adam about a friend who "you wouldn't know her, she goes to another school." None of them realize that he really did know Lilith (Girlfriend) back then, having traded names with her at one point while the pair of them were transitioning.

One year, Adam's parents got a job offer in Japan, and moved across the sea with his younger sister Lydia (Miku). Given that Adam was in high school and thus close to finishing schooling, they decided to let him stay with his young adult older brother, Abel (Michael), to finish it out.

Unfortunately, Abel ended up in an altercation while trying to protect Lilith during a hangout with her and Adam. In keeping with the Big Bro mod that Michael originates from, Daddy Dearest quite literally saves his life.

This is not the only gun related incident Adam would be unlucky enough to get caught up in. Within weeks of the event with his brother, the shooting from Pico's School took place. While Cain saved the day as Adam barely survived, Adam's parents were naturally worried about their son staying in America after both gun violence incidents. He was given only a few weeks to pack his things in preparation for leaving, and nobody was quite okay in this situation. As a parting gift, he was given his now iconic hat.

Without Adam for emotional support or a positive influence in the wake of the shooting, the remaining three friends turned into mutual bad influences. With Cain getting scouted by Assassin Corp, the trio slowly turned to a life of crime together. While the trio all turned to contract killing, they aren't afraid to turn to other illicit activities on the side.

It was somewhere around this time when the events of various Pico related things took place; such as Pico vs Überkids, Pico vs Bear as alluded to with the mention of Assassin Corp, and the Pico's Cousin games.

Adam lived in Japan with his family until a few months before the monolith arrived, when he finally moved back stateside at the age of 19. It'd been 5 years since he'd been made to leave, and, having lost contact with all the friends he'd left behind, he had no idea where any of them were. He did manage to reconnect with Lilith, and the two of them ended up dating.

That leads us into the events of the mod: The monolith falling and causing the infection; discovering music is the cure through it stopping Lilith in her attack against Adam; using that to save Daddy Dearest; an adventure to meet two strange children, their spider mom, and a weird creature in a lemon costume; and stumbling across an infected Cain, who very much wanted Lilith dead.

And then off we are into even more original content for this au which includes meeting a bomb man, a cloud man, and stumbling across Pico's family which led to the discovery that Cain has the ability to respawn, just to name a few.

[femmesandhoney]

kinda tempted to just block an old friend on all my socials. she literally never cared about me enough to even message me first when she knew she hurt my feelings badly two years ago. the entire time we were friends (like 7+ years) she always preferred this other guy in our friend group even when she moved away and he never made time to even visit her. he ended up befriending some really shitty people throughout high school as well which she never saw or seemed to care.

like idk it felt like she was infatuated with him since we were kids and no matter how amazing of a friend you were to her, she would never consider you a best friend. always bugged me, but it wasn't until she started like abandoning our plans that were important to me for other things i realized i really wasn't a priority to her, but this other guy literally always is. and i like him when he's by himself, he's nice and we've known each other longer than we've both known this other girl, but im really annoyed by how she can't seem to realize he isn't actually that awesome of a friend. or at least, from my perspective of what a good friend should be, he doesn't like? do anything for her? make time for her? get her gifts? but nope he's still always this infallible person to her because i guess they just text a lot. thats literally the only way i think they communicate when she doesn't come to town for whatever reason, which is rare. so yeah. i hate it.

like for the record she told me to stop texting her because I was bothering her, when she could have just silenced my messages. so i waited until she would text me first. because the reason I texted her so much was cause i was geninuely interested in her life and wanted her to know i was still her friend even tho she lived three hours away, and it just seemed like a lot bc i was always the one trying to start convos and she would barely give me sentences. it was really odd behavior from her at the time, so i brushed it off, but i guess i messaged her one too many times. six ish months later she told me she wanted to message me after i had stopped, but she said she knew i was mad and was scared to. like girl wtf do you mean you were scared of me? we'd been amazing friends for fucking ever at that point and i couldn't believe she was nervous to message me first bc she knew i was probably mad bc of my silence. yeah great friends, where one is scared to even message hello 🙄 made me feel so great about our friendship.

like idk this is just a huge ramble but its always just been so frustrating to me bc we were actually amazing friends even though i did most of the work after she left town, but we were always close. same interests, same humor, same life shit. and she just let it all go bc she didn't know how to fucking message me after upsetting me. im petty and wasn't gonna be the first to message, but i did like six months later bc i was just so sad thinking about the situation and thats when she "explained" her side which wasnt an explanation at all really. she did say she would try to be more open and talkative and shit with me, but ope looks like she failed quickly.

and now both of them are hanging out in town together and posting about it and im like wow thanks for the invite i can see youre trying so hard to work on your side of our amazing. fucking. friendship.

[whats-the-story-tc]

25th-28th of May

"The One with the Companion"

Monday morning started off with a couple of interesting text messages. I spoke to the underclassman girl again I mentioned here, and we had yet another V-related talk session, singing her praises as a teacher. Soon after, V herself showed up in the class chat, probably before her morning coffee, telling us that if her general Classroom message informing those who were late to submit their works on time does not apply to us, we shouldn't be messaging her about it. Passive-aggressive :) at the end included. Somebody must really hate Mondays.

That night, I also posted a couple selfies on one of my social media sites. When I did, I got the following DM from an underclassman guy I barely even speak to (the earlier girl's classmate), saying:

Boy: "On the third photo you look a lot like [V's last name] 😅🤣🤣"

Further proof that I wasn't lying all those times I said V and I have the same face. Basically everybody sees it now. :D

Along came Tuesday. Class day. Encouraged by a voice message earlier this month where my friend was just trying to demonstrate she can't hear the background noises as V was talking and she captured about ~10 seconds of her voice, I got brave. Plus, I knew it would benefit me, because I could take notes later at my own pace (yes I actually did), so... I went ahead and decided to voice record the class, playing the audio from my laptop and recording with my phone, so I couldn't speak to her this time. Thus, the conversation I was teasing here never took place, no matter how much I prepared. She didn't even mention what happened. But on to class we go.

Nature and poetry, pretty chill topic, especially with a poet who keeps talking about the great big fucking plains over and over again, as that's become the "signature landscape of [our country]", according to V, signature being said in English. She herself has expressed her dismay by saying "I don't know whose imagination is moved by a big flat plain with nothing in it." Though this only happened after "Uhh... where is it? ... oh, this is only a description [of the poem]! I'm helpless...". As video killed the radio star, we might say that online school has turned tech expert V into a boomer real quick.

As we discussed a couple poems, V had a go at the choice of topic again, saying: "I don't know about you, but I'm totally done with summer heat waves, like, on a plain without any shade." May I just say? Same, Miss. But soon after, she turned poetic, and it's such a good quote that I have to share this with you.

"A landscape isn't necessarily beautiful, it may be really-really depressing as well, or trigger thoughts that say that the way things currently are in the world are not okay."

Anyway, we kept on talking about "the great damn plains where there really isn't a thing in the world" which "don't strike the spectator as challenging" (she was really bored already), class soon ended. As I said earlier, this was the only class we've had during quarantine where there was zero communication between the two of us. But here's the interesting part: I wasn't the only one who noticed. "I hope I didn't bore you to death", V said nervously, before signing off. She noticed something was off, even though she didn't specifically say it. I may be reaching here, in fact, I'm pretty sure I am, but I still can't help but think she noticed I was quiet.

Thing is: that afternoon, things weren't going nearly so well. I went for a run, and got a really heavy anxiety attack. I simply didn't know how to turn my thoughts off. And then I realised. V. I had 45 minutes' worth of her voice at hand. I had to give it a try. As soon as I heard her speak, as I tried to focus on the landscape poems and pay attention to what she was talking about, I calmed down. I felt like I was no longer alone. Plus, even if V tends to fuck around at times, this is exactly what I love about her: her intelligence. Last week (as in, the 26th of July), me and my friends concluded in a conversation that listening to her classes is like listening to a good podcast. She just... speaks so well, and knows what the important details are, even if in private conversations she tends to be real fucken awkward. Bless. Also there's the fact that her voice is really pleasant to listen to. You guys, I lucked out so hard with this woman.

Anyway, on to Wednesday. V only actually showed up in the morning, to give us (or, well, me at the very least) a good scare with the date of our final test of the year and some homework. Weird flex, but okay.

Thursday night. Blond Boy in the Back, the very one who dared to badmouth someone I love not long ago, is now begging me for homework answers. I told him I no longer have the document. And then... I snapped.

BBitB: It's at the task.

S: You know what else is at the task? The answers. All of them, in the text. Good luck!

Naturally, I showed a screenshot of the conversation to the new and improved class group chat mentioned in the previous story post, when one of the girls said this:

Girl: This was a bit [V]-ish

Girl: Especially the good luck at the end 😂😂

S: I've had a great master, no doubt. 🤣

Because that's what she is. My number one master (if you take this weird I'll break your kneecaps). My mentor. Someone I will always look up to and someone who takes excellent care of me, even if I oftentimes misunderstand her. Someone I can turn to if I'm scared, even if it's just her voice playing off a recording. And I can't ever thank her enough for that.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]