#& also now that i think about it literally every single sim in their friend group is engaged / married apart from sidney

[hotseok]

a & z's wedding event : morning photos

[rubykgrant]

RVB AUs; Different Freelancers-

Wash shows up to answer the call from the Blues; he doesn't rush in to rescue Church. He wants to do a lot of recon, take stock of what weapons and supplies that are available... he thinks Tucker and Caboose MUST be messing with him. No way a group of soldiers could be THIS unorganized! That tank is weirdly familiar, too...

He's still a little out-of-sorts (this is after the Epsilon incident, but now this is happening instead of his Recovery missions), and keeps asking if this whole "simulation is just a test" (yes, the Reds and Blues are Sim Troopers, but there is also a little bit of info in the back of his head about the simulations Alpha went through, and while he insists that he's FINE, he keeps remembering stuff... wrong. I remembering things that weren't real?).

Church tries to escape the Red Base a few times, keeps "getting killed", and always winds up in another extra robot Sarge built. So he's just. There for a while. He attempts to sow discontent by bullying Simmons and trying to haunt Sarge while he sleeps to give him nightmares. When Wash finally gets a rescue going, Church almost wants to stay; he's convinced the new rookie Donut to reorganize the base how he likes it. Now it is more of a "reverse kidnapping" rather than a rescue. Wash sets up explosives in the entire Red Base, and while nobody is killed, this does result in Donut needing new armor (and thus the pink appears). Wash thinks this is the end of the nonsensical nightmare of Blood Gulch, but SOMEHOW the Reds argue that the Blues need to "share" the one base that's left, sit-com split-room style. The Blues claim Wash hasn't completed the mission until they officially win, so he's stuck.

Tucker keeps trying to play-up the "two leaders" thing like- "Church won't let me use the sniper rifle, but you're WAAAAAY cooler than him. Right?" or "Wash keeps putting stuff away wrong in the kitchen!". Meanwhile, Wash is trying to "test Church's ghost abilities" (he wants to prove this guy is a FREAKING AI, but every once in a while Church actually doesn't something oddly supernatural, so Wash is just ???).

Doc shows up, and Wash tells him they don't need an "unqualified medic"... and then he promptly gets run over by the Warthog. OK, Doc can stay until they get some actual healing units. Omega somehow either ran away from Tex, or got separated from her, and still shows up in Blood Gulch. The AI tries to get into Wash's head ONCE, then leaves. When somebody asks why that failed later, Omega just says- "He wouldn't stop SCREAMING AT ME". Omega literally couldn't concentrate enough to DO anything. There continues to be a constant pattern of Wash saying he doesn't need any help, and either the Reds or Sheila accidentally runs him over (this is the equivalent of Church always "dying" then coming back). Although Wash doesn't much care for AI, on a couple occasions Church has visited his head while he was injured to Make sure he wouldn't die, and... it kind of helps settle the weird unpleasant memories Wash has. Church and Wash get a little better at agreeing with each other after that (and while Wash finds his own niche being friends with Caboose and Tucker, Church realizes he's actually good at being a leader. y'know, when he's not screaming at everybody. oh, and he starts having some of Wash's weird memory-dreams. HMM!)

Other Scenario-

Carolina was in the neighborhood when the Blues called for help... though "helpful" may not exactly be the right word for Carolina. She's still in a spiral of "BE THE BEST" and "I LOST EVERYTHING", so she's, uh. Coping. She comes into Blood Gulch like a raging wildfire, walks to Red base, punches every single one of them across the room, and gets the stupid "robot ghost" back. Donut tries to throw a grenade at her from the other side of the canyon. She catches it, then throws it back. He explodes, and this is why he needs new armor.

The Reds are now convinced the Blues have somehow conjured up the Grim Reaper, so they run into the caves to hide (Sarge insisting this is just a tactical retreat). Meanwhile, Carolina wants to know why Blue Team has an "unofficial AI" and WHY it is using the same name as... somebody else she knows. They try to argue for like, half a minute, that he's just Church, he's just a guy- and she shuts that DOWN. So, OK, sure. He's an AI. What's up with the name? No reasonable answer. Carolina wants to go see if the Reds know perhaps!

The Reds find the underground computer stuff quicker (and Flowers has to get out of dodge before Carolina finds him and gets some ACTUAL answers). They try to use all the cameras to figure out what the Blues are up to, and only have a few minutes to see that Church, Tucker, Caboose, and the Tank are just standing around. Doing nothing. Where's that new scary girl? Oh, she's RIGHT BEHIND THEM. Carolina drags them back to Blue base, and after some interrogating that goes nowhere, she informs them that they aren't "two teams" anymore. When Sarge tries to argue and make a speech about the flags etc, she goes and gets both and burns them. Alright, one team it is!

Her plan is to train them, and jump into her track-down-the-director plan. She tries several different methods, including paring them up in different combinations, to see who works better (everybody usually just bickers endlessly... though ironically, when she can get him to focus, Tucker is actually very versatile and works well with everybody. Simmons and Grif are better together, because although they bring out the worst in each other, they aren't doing the same to somebody else, and it is weirdly efficient)

By the time Doc shows up, they have settled into a new kinds of "Red VS Blue", because they still have simulation fights, but are actually learning legit combat techniques. Omega escapes and finds his way here yet again, and Carolina recognizes the AI right away. She wants answers about Tex and the other Fragments... which he doesn't know. He also has no idea what the deal is with Church, but- "He must be some kind of boot-leg AI. Clearly not up to the standards of the ones from Project Freelancer). Omega's antics disrupt Carolina's plans for a bit, and to deal with him, she herself winds up working one-on-one with each of Reds and Blues. It wasn't something she thought she needed to bother with; they just had to follow her orders, and that was all (she's the main character. they're NPCs). She never meant to bond with any of them... but OOPS. Are these weird goobers her friends now? Church also starts to notice some of the things Carolina talks about, now that she's a bit more personable, are... familiar

[ollieinoue]

"We'll drive around for a week. No GPS, or anything at all. Maybe we just completely fucking unplug." He suggested that now, but would probably end up sending snaps to everyone about 100 times a day anyway. "And we get as lost as we possibly can. Then," never come back, "we have to try to find our way back again." That actually might truly result in them never coming back, but there were worse things that could happen. He gave Monty a sympathetic smile at his admission, reaching over to pat him on the cheek. "New York can be a lot," he said, nodding his head. Where he lived could be particularly chaotic, but it had never bothered Ollie. It helped him to realize that literally no one there gave a shit about anything you were doing, but he wasn't completely sure that would help Monty or not. Maybe. It probably also wouldn't help to say 'hey it's okay I've had thousands of panic attacks in New York too'. "Do you still feel like that? About here, not New York. It feels so small here to me. Like this has to be what it's like living in a small town. Everyone knows each other, everyone knows each other's business, everyone's fucked each other." That wasn't true, really. Ollie didn't know a lot of people, but sometimes it felt like it. "Maybe we just need to find new friends. Y'know? Transplant ourselves into a new group of people and leave this one behind." He would never, Ollie loved his friends. But he had certainly thought about it. G wasn't out here harassing every single person on campus. He'd take Monty with him, of course. Jacqui too, probably. Everyone else? Sayōnara.

Ollie threw his arms over his face as Monty shook him, giving a sound that was a half groan half laugh. "You can come up with the weirdest thing you can think of, it'll probably be less embarrassing," he insisted, and heaved a great sigh. Frankly probably more interesting, and less embarrassing as well which made it even more embarrassing. But oh well. "It was like a dating sim. I mean it wasn't like a dating sim, it was one. So, imagine a dating sim written by a ten year old," he said, because he had been ten at the time of making it. He hadn't been a creative writer back then, he still wasn't a terribly great creative writer now either. "It was very 'My Immortal' but not ironic. But y'know I was trying to work through a lot of sexuality stuff at the time, and I guess that was my outlet." He still felt like he was sometimes working through his sexuality. Was he actually into women at all, or was he just high and hypersexual? Who knew? Certainly not him. "Anyway, even if it could still run it would never be seeing the light of day."

He snorted at the mental image of himself being some Olympic level gymnast, and shook his head. "God, could you imagine? I'm not even close to being that athletic. Mostly me and the other kids just fucked around on the trampolines the whole time." Ollie had been an extremely energetic child (unsurprising as that was), and he didn't pay much attention to anything that was taught to him. So, while he liked playing on the equipment, and had retained some things he had been told, it wasn't because he'd been any good at it. He mostly taught himself programming and coding and hacking too, but you wouldn't snap your neck if you accidently bricked your computer. He rested his cup between his legs, taking his time with the sugar packets as he considered Monty's question, and shrugged his shoulders. "I guess a little. It just feels like I could have accomplished more, if I'd really wanted to. Like if I had taken any of those scholarships to all the fancy prep schools that wanted me, or done any extra curriculars, or went to class at all. I really cannot stress how little I did in High School." Ollie gave a half hearted laugh, as he brought his cup to his mouth. He could say that though, mention how little he even went to school, and yet still ended up in one of the best colleges you could possibly get into. Kinda seemed like he still managed to accomplish a lot, but Ollie was a bit blind to it. "But really there's nothing I can do that someone like Anya can't do just as well. At the end of the day I ended up just being a normal college student." Which was what he'd wanted, and still not true at all just considering the amount of work he actually did on a day to day basis. But once again he was a bit blind to it.

"I'll remember that for next time," Ollie said with a coy smile, though his smile faded to a face of pure offence as Monty fucked with one of the donuts he did not seem to be taking to eat. "Dude…" he said quietly shaking his head, nudging the box closer to him like take your fucking donut. His mouth quirked a little as he listened to Monty talk about his parents, nodding his head slowly. "Do you think they stayed together for you?" He asked, and normally would not have, because that was probably an extremely terrible thing to ask someone. But he felt like there was no way Monty had not thought about it before … Maybe it was still a little insensitive. He knew for a fact his own parents had only gotten together for him though, and he was pretty certain they weren't actually 'in love' with each other, but they did love each other. Maybe being in love made things harder. "Fuck, bro. I know, right? The fact that I don't have a sugar daddy right now is a tragedy. I hate that rich people only stay in this town during the summer." Monty may be joking, but Ollie certainly wasn't. He smiled and tilted his head to the side as he finished off his donut, "I'll become a billionaire for both of us I guess." He wasn't joking about that either. "I think that's what I want -- I mean, not the billionaire thing, but if it happens it happens and I won't complain. Find a guy and like, not to be so traditionally masculine I know that is something I'm accused of so often," he snorted, "but I want someone I can take care of. Not like financially, I just like doing things for people I care about. I like making people happy, and comfortable, and making things easier for them. Or fucking their brains out when they need it. Obviously I would want it to be a two way street, I don't think I could ever have a serious relationship with someone I wasn't on level ground with either one way or the other." Ollie fiddled with the lid of his coffee cup absently as he bit down on his bottom lip, and shrugged. "I just like feeling useful."

"Totally." He agreed almost automatically, not needing more than a second to think it over. Monty liked road trips, he enjoyed driving -- getting his license had been his first real taste of freedom at sixteen, even if he never made it much farther than the city limits back then. "We could just, like... drive around for a week and see where we wind up," he suggested with a slowly growing smile, liking the idea of leaving somewhere with no destination in mind and no obligation to return. No strings attached travel. "It'd be fun." Barring any horrific vehicle mishaps along the way, but he wouldn't jinx them this early on. "Oh, yeah, it is. It's a whole lot different." He nodded a little, taking a thoughtful pause before amending, "Maybe that's just my perspective, too, I dunno, but... It felt kinda crazy to suddenly go from knowing everyone to knowing no one, y'know? I, uh, I actually had a panic attack the first time I went to New York." Monty snorted and rolled his eyes at his past self. It wasn't like Rapid City was some podunk, nowhere place -- and he'd been to other big cities before, too. He had to blame his NYC breakdown on the circumstances of the visit, hyped up by his sister's stress of settling into her dorm while his dad yelled about a parking ticket and they completely missed their dinner reservations. Enduring a population of millions was a lot to digest in a single weekend.

Monty's curious smile split into an eager grin, eyes blinking wide as he teasingly droned in an echo, "Uhhhh -- tell me!" Ollie's head was turned, face hidden in the pillows, but he only squirmed closer to latch onto his friend, playfully shaking him around. "You can't say that something's embarrassing and then not cough up the details, what the fuck, dude," he laughed, purposefully jostling his shoulder while he was at it, too. "Don't make me start guessing. I'll just describe the weirdest Flash games I've ever seen until you tell me what it really was." That was no hollow threat, either. He rolled away after a moment, though, letting go of Ollie to relax into the pillows again. With two working parents, Monty was also well-versed in the lifestyle of a latchkey kid. He'd never wound up in any extra afterschool programs because of it, but he had to imagine that living in a city, it was more of a priority for Ollie's parents to keep him busy. Or try to at least, because he'd clearly gotten up to his own extracurriculars somewhere along the way, too. "That's cool that you managed to find, like, your thing so early on." He smiled, eyebrows raising a little. "Did you ever think it'd be something else? Taking all those classes and stuff, did you have little baby Ollie dreams about being like, a world-renowned tumbler and going to the Olympics?"

Or maybe it wasn't actually a good thing that Ollie knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life? His forehead creased as he watched the other sit up, reluctant to follow suit -- so much so that when Monty accepted his hot to-go cup, he remained reclined and stubbornly held it above his head for a little while, arm needlessly extended. But then, yeah, he started to worry about spilling it all over his face and dragged himself up, head shaking as he went. "Does it... Is it a lot of pressure?" He asked, wedging a pillow behind himself while settling back against the headboard. "Not the gay thing," Monty clarified with a joking cut of a smile as he looked at Ollie, "but the whole prodigy deal." Did he feel like he'd missed his window? Or that now, with the end of college nearing, it was time to cash out? Before he could really work out how to word anything he was wondering about, Ollie was volleying another hard-hitting question his way.

"Well, if you wanted me to say 'yes,' you'd have to have gotten down on one knee, anyway, so..." He clucked his tongue, as if he'd missed his opportunity, and reached for the box of donuts, one shoulder jerking in a loose shrug. "I've thought about marriage, though, yeah, sure. In, like, a super distant and abstract kind of way." Life in suburbia sort of forced you to think about it, presenting it as the default option. It was comforting to imagine a future where he had a partner to face the world with, but marriage? Monty didn't know. It was a scary level of commitment. He swiped a finger across one of the berry-topped donuts to taste it, looking like he was contemplating the flavor before tossing out, "I always thought my parents were going to get divorced." As fucked up as it was, it'd simultaneously been one of his greatest fears and biggest wishes while growing up. Eyes narrowing at the now desecrated donut, Monty shrugged again and wrapped both hands around his coffee. "They just fight all the time. About everything. It'll be over the stupidest shit, too, I swear. I seriously can't imagine they're happy, but... -- But my dad converted for my mom, so what do I know? Maybe that made him a lifer." A weak smile pulled at his lips like he was cracking a joke, looking over at Ollie once again. Monty took a beat before actually joking with an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, "I'd toootally get hitched for money. I have to be at least one billionaire's very specific type."

[rae-blogging]

𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀 𝙄𝙎?

pairing: Jake Sim x fem!Reader, Sunghoon x OC

genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor

word count: 10k 

synopsis: You’ve been head over heels for Sunghoon for years now,  already aware of how doomed your story is from the start you go from pretending that you don’t believe in love to accepting it, but Jake Sim is adamant to change your mind.

warnings: Mentions of a creep being a .. creep?, reader running away from situations, slight manhandling on Sunghoon’s part (He grabs your wrist), Reader being an idiot, non religious mentions of God, fake dating is proposed but literally barely happens (Lmk if I missed something), Niki iis your brother (not a warning but yk), Yeonjun (TXT) and Yuna (ITZY) are part of the fic too and this is not proofread.

a/n: An earlier version of this fic was posted on my older blog but I ended up rewriting many bits again. Also I really love receiving feedback so please, please reblog my work if you like it.

"So, um, what is your favorite color?" You asked with a slight smile, trying to make the best of the situation (You really were going to kill Jungwon when you see him). 

There were three main dilemmas in your otherwise monotonous life a) Your inability to work/study when you should ; b) Your complete lack of romantic experience. You have -- after thorough over thinking past midnight – come to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with you. Other than the normal kind of flaws that you’re convinced everyone has, of course, like you being too lazy to get yourself a glass of water from the kitchen ( It’s not really your fault honestly, you wouldn’t be this lethargic if Niki didn’t always do your chores for you at home) and  getting anxious for no reason in particular and hyper fixating on said anxiety till neither your existence nor the topic of anxiety makes sense anymore, of course there’s also slightly worse issues with you like your tendency to cancel on your friends right before the plan is brought to life (although that doesn't work anymore and now you get dragged along anyway) or procrastinating all the time and then panicking but still procrastinating and finally, working like a madman and being disappointed if you don't score extremely well (But that's the case with most of your friends too so maybe it's not that big a deal), anyway the point is you're flawed. Quite flawed. You were still trying to figure out what exactly causes your absolute lack of romantic experience (that's how Sunoo put it nicely) or your forever disgruntled and dissatisfied state of mind because you never get any (as Jake had thoughtfully offered his version of the same). Sunoo is essentially sunshine trapped inside a 5’8 human body ( you think he’s shorter but he gets mad each time you bring it up, so you’re trying to make peace with obvious lies) and he’s probably the nicest person in your group right after Reyna. Jake, on the other hand, was probably created simply to make every minute of your existence that coincides with his, painfully exasperating. Alright, Jake wasn’t really all that bad except for his constant reminders about environmental issues, which you secretly found endearing and his unrivalled ability to score well on tests you know he hadn’t prepared for at all, he was actually cool. You’d moved past the time where you called people your ‘best friend’ but if there was one for ‘best friend + annoying idiot you randomly want to punch’ he’d definitely get it. While your friends were aware of the first two ‘problems’ the third one was something you’d have to deal with on your own. Tired of your friends’ bantering with you about your love life, you had of course indignantly insisted that you were better off single — it's so expensive being in a relationship nowadays anyway and you already spent most of your time slaving off trying to pay back your student loan before you turn 30 — of course, you just had to overdo the act and adamantly trash talk every couple which was apparently very offensive (Heesung had said that, and you usually trust his opinion), and now you were stuck at the most awkward blind date you had ever had (and that was saying something considering you had one where the person had asked you to Venmo him a 35 to buy coke). 

"Black. Like my life. Quite bleak, I know" he nodded thoughtfully to himself before you could deny it, "but I am that way you know? Mysterious. It defines me perfectly."

You bet the dude couldn’t spell mysterious.

"Yeah, of course, black is a beautiful color." You tried to sound interested, but it was getting kind of difficult with you making all the conversation and him talking about....well himself. Too much in depth, if you were being honest. 

"This one time, I met a chick in Bali and you know they’ve really sensual brea – “

Not only was Jungwon’s attempt at getting you a blind date a horrific try, but you were also now in the company of a complete pervert. Thank goodness for Choi Yeonjun, the chef of the restaurant (technically the restaurant was his father’s so maybe owner would be a better designation) and your friend (again technically he was Heesung’s friend but your group hung out at Choi’s every Friday and so you were pretty sure that he at least knew you) causing a fire alarm to go off, your date took off running, not even sparing a glance in your direction when Yeonjun started screaming ‘Fire!’, you weren’t sure if he saw your thinly veiled face of disgust or heard the man however you had no chance to ask since everyone was escorted outside almost immediately. You were certain you saw the chef wink at you though.

Anyway, getting a boyfriend was a complete failure and the worst bit? You were relieved. Because you had another person clouding your mind most days (You studied Chemistry along with English so that took up a few days too).

You had a huge crush on Sunghoon. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal really except it totally was and no way were you going to tell your friends who were positive that you hated the concept of love and despised couples that you had heart eyes for your childhood friend.. You have to give it up for yourself for managing to hide it behind faces of extreme disgust and unasked for comments on anything remotely related to love, because you’d liked the boy for quite a while now, you weren’t sure about the exact time period but it was getting really hard being around your friend without breaking down and confessing, so of course the genius you had decided to platonically cockblock yourself by a) Avoiding the poor boy and being snide if you did talk and; b) Being obnoxiously loud and proclaiming love was gross. Unfortunately for you, your friends had moved on from the cooties phase just a year or two later and now you were stuck as the grumpy, single friend who drank too much coffee and had slightly violent outbursts of consistent prodding the people sitting next to you when you got excited during a movie’s scene. Frankly (Name) I am more surprised you have friends. Two things were clear to you from the beginning of your story though: a) You liked your friend more than you should b) You were absolutely doomed from the very start.

‘”Hey!” Jake flailed his hands in the air like the idiot that he was, being greeted by you laughing and doing the same at the other end of the hallway, the students around paid no attention. You weren’t even sure if they weren’t all sleepwalking to be honest.

“How was the date?” he asked, putting an arm around your shoulder as you weaved through the zombified students.

 “He was in love, for sure,” you scoffed, “with everything that moved. Jungwon sure knows how to pick the creepiest men-”

You trailed off at the sudden shock of Jake tugging you closer to him.

He looked at you a smile, his other hand tousling his hair letting out a sheepish laugh,"What? You’d get trampled dude. You never pay any attention to your surroundings.”

You waved your hand around, eager to talk about your tumultuous evening ,“He talked about girls and their boobs and get this- sensous hips..” You raised your hands dramatically in exasperation, “Wait, was it the other way around? By the way, what happened to the save the turtle campaign? Did people even turn up? I heard there’s this dolphin-”

You turned to look at the boy beside you, raising your eyebrows when you saw him stop, jaw clenched looking unamused as you rambled on mindlessly.

“What’s wrong? Did enough people not contri-”

“Did he say something inappropriate to you?” Jake stared at you sternly, surprising you with his serious demeanor.

“Um, not really. He was just talking about some girl from Bali. I don’t know, I kinda tuned out after that.” You gripped his shoulder pulling him with you as you continued walking.

“Oh. Did he do anything el-“

“Nope. I’d slice his dick off.”

“Atta girl,” he smiled warmly, putting his arms around your shoulder again “Did you see Sunghoon yesterday?”

Sunghoon. The same friend you’d spent hours on ends playing Monopoly with, the same person who’d climbed into your room two days before your birthday to wish you when you were 12 (turns out 12 year old Sunghoon wasn’t very bright because he had thought this was the best way to wish you ahead of others), he’d brought you red roses on Valentine’s day because – ‘I do love you though! I love you the most in the world. Like right after Mom and Yeji. Oh, and Gaeul. Wait dad. But then it’s you.’ – he wanted you to know that he really did love you, the same way he loved his family or well his dog but you get the idea. You had wondered then if it was his tsundere way of asking you out. In all fairness though, you hadn’t ever been keen on actually dating your friend, you weren’t sure what people who dated were supposed to do anyway, so initially you hadn’t really minded harboring feelings for Sunghoon but your group had expanded in college, Sunoo and Yuna were your lab partners and, Reyna was on the student sports committee in college. You can’t really remember when it actually happened but you suddenly became increasingly aware of Reyna’s closeness with the boy you’d a crush on and, your desperately hidden feelings tugged painfully at the strings of your heart leaving you with no choice but to steer clear of the said boy in fear of a) You randomly confessing your thickly veiled crush and, b) Finding out/Having the same boy tell you he liked Reyna.

You wish you could at least be mad at Reyna or be able to despise her but you couldn’t. Not with how kind the girl was and how the two of you were always on the same wavelength about everything. She was your friend too, and you missed having her around. Sometimes you wondered if you should stop turning the other way when you met Sunghoon’s hurt eyes or be just as enthusiastic with your replies as Reyna was while talking to you, but then you’d see the two exchanging glances and the urge would die down immediately. You missed Sunghoon  too, of course you did. Up until middle school (before Jay, Jake and Heesung decided to enter the picture) he and Jungwon were your only friends, and the selfish part of you sometimes wanted to relive just that : Monopoly games and shaved ice and lego houses. Sometimes, when you crashed on your bed you still smiled thinking about how simple life was back then. You were getting tired of it now though, having to keep your feelings in, running from one part time job to another, lying about how you were. You were exhausted.

You were broken out of your daydream by a splash of water greeting your face, glaring at the culprit who was trying to gather rain water in his cupped hands, you let out a small smile simultaneously sighing about the open ground you’d have to run through to reach the laboratory.

“Let’s go together,” Jake laughed at your frustrated state, opening his umbrella and pulling you close as you stepped into the muddy ground, grimacing at your shoes that you’d have to clean that night.

The umbrella was too small for the two of you, both getting drenched just halfway through the premises.

“Oh come on” you sighed, tugging the boy along as you ran under the downpour. His hand clutching yours tightly as you made your way to class. The umbrella had slipped out of Jake’s hand somewhere in the middle but neither of you noticed as you took in his damp state, laughing till you saw your professor glaring at the two of you, promptly scuttling to classes after that.

“And a latte for you ma’am.” Jungwon flashed his signature smile at you, that you returned without hesitation, handing you the mug of coffee from your kitchen counter where the two of you’d spent the last 15 minutes trying to recreate TikTok coffee recipes, giving up pretty quickly in favor of the conventional latte. At least the younger boy was good at making coffee though, you couldn’t say the same for Yuna who hadn’t even tried to help you live your influencer dreams and headed straight for your hastily made bed, only to fall asleep in a few minutes. Shin Yuna was your roommate and you loved her to death but for the life of you, you couldn’t figure out how a human could sleep that much.

Jungwon glanced at your roommate, grinning slightly as he noted, “She’s out cold as usual, huh.”

You only nodded, relishing the sweet relief of caffeine on your tongue as the boy in front of flicked your forehead, “Drink slowly idiot, it’s hot.”

You gave him a sickening smile before proceeding to kick him in the shin, which led to him screaming and, consequently a pillow fight. You had to give one to Yuna though. That girl could sleep through anything.

It was only after you both sat down once the pillow fight (The pillows were thrown aside exactly 43 seconds into the fight and now you had a red handprint on your forehead and he had the prints of your nails on his face as a result) was over, that he asked you the question you were hoping to avoid.

“Did you and Sunghoon fight?” he asked with genuine curiosity, eyes averted to your cushion on his lap, as he attempted to untangle its strings.

“What? No, no, why?” you giggled unceremoniously simultaneously cursing yourself for being so obvious.

Damn you and your tendency to talk to yourself during the worst of times.

“You keeping avoiding him like the plague is why,” he looked up at you seriously.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about but we’re both busy, so it’s not that big of a deal,” you shrugged suddenly finding the carpet very interesting.

“And it has nothing to do with you crushing on Jake? Sunghoon & I are no longer your priority, huh?” he quirked an eyebrow at you.

Unfortunately for you, your brain had just decided to launch into a tirade of why Ellen DeGeneres was an A-grade jerk and you heard the question wrong.

After all your efforts to pretend you didn’t like anyone, least of all Park Sunghoon, fate finally thought enough was enough.

You knew you weren’t a good actor.

Oh God, what if Hoon saw through your act too?

Wait.

That meant everyone saw you as a pathological liar who consistently trash talked relationships but they stayed quiet because they pitied you.

This was horrible.

You’d need uproot your entire life and begin anew in Russia and go by the name of Luna because let’s be honest you have a soft spot for Luna Lovegood.

“(Name)?” Jungwon snapped his fingers in front of your face breaking you from a trance as you rushed to apologise for not telling him about your feelings earlier.

“I am sorry Wonnie, I liked him but I was so scared he’d-“

“I was just kidding can you stop looking like a-“

‘What?”

“What?!”

“You like Jake?!” This was a newer voice, and you could hear your friend scramble from the bed even as you placed your hands on your ears to minimalise some noise damage.

“Oh my God, you like Jake!”

Your social life was over and now you’d forever have to be resigned to your room where visitors would be allowed to leave flowers of token at the door at you-

“Wait what?”

“You like Jake? What the hell (Name). I was just kidding but..” Jungwon looked like a truck had run over his cacti and demanded him for compensation for damage caused to its tires.

“So, you were just pretending to like hate romance?” Yuna raised an eyebrow while Jungwon scowl in distaste.

“Yeah, (Name) not cool! I thought you were just being a dick to people and now I learn you have a schoolgirl crush?”

In Jungwon’s defense, he was not wrong.

“Oh. Um yeah. Sorry.”

“What a bummer,” Jungwon sighed as Yuna hit him over the head.

“Wait but like, why don’t you ask him out? Anyone can tell the boy likes you.”

You so hated it when your friends made sense. It was a common occurrence for people to assume you and Jake were dating because of how he doted on you, but then the boy was kind and sweet to everyone, he most definitely did not like you although it was apparent that your friends thought otherwise.

“I got rejected,” you blurted out before they could say anything else.

“What?” both cried out in unison.

Yuna stood up horrified, grasping your face in her hands, tilting it from one side to another as you blinked up unsightly.

“I’ll fight for you-“

“No, you will not.” Jungwon pulled her back before turning back to you again “Explain.”

“Um, I confessed and he said…he was busy with work.”

“I- wait what?”

“What work does Jake do?”

“That’s the weirdest rejection ever, but don’t you guys hang out all the time? Isn’t it awkward and how did you never tell us?” Yuna blurted questions after questions as Jungwon looked at you, prompting an answer.

“Oh, it’s um because, you see,” you wracked your brain for ideas “I’m hoping I still have a chance and it’s not awkward cause Jake’s nice like that.”

“With that rejection? Yeah right.” Yuna snorted, probably planning to punch Jake the next  time she saw him.

“Hey, it’s okay (Name). Things don’t always work out but it’s nice that you tried.” Jungwon tried comforting you.

“Yeah, don’t let it get to you.” Yuna smiled sweetly.

God she was scary.

You let out a sigh, if this was a book, this is exactly where the reader would close it to breathe in deeply and question why the main character was such an idiot. You really were the perfect Y/N and you were only going to prove the readers right by digging your own grave.

You knew accompanying Jake for coffee was a bad idea because a) he always ‘forgets’ his wallet and, b) you had a shift at the café in two hours and you couldn’t be bothered to spend any more time there than you necessarily had to; but you were a girl on mission today.

However, as usual, luck definitely wasn’t favoring you and right as you foot into the air conditioned place, your eyes fell on the couple sitting at the farther end of the café (your and Jake’s usual spot).

“Sung-” Jake’s excited shout died in his throat as you turned him around after an effective pinch to his arm.

“What the hell was that for?” he rubbed his arm in confusion, glancing back at the couple who were still in a world of their own.

“Let them have their privacy,” you shushed him, pushing him towards the chair and grabbing one that faced his own.

“Is it not because you can’t stand to see their mushy eyes and frivolous gestures of romance because you feel lonely and sick?” he plopped an elbow on the table, giving you an innocent smile that you returned momentarily before glaring at him.

“You are too invested in my love life Jake Sim,” you wagged a finger at him with a stern gaze, but a smile broke out on your face all the same.

“Just wanted the all clear,” he grinned, before standing up to place an order.

For some reason, your friendship with Jake was one of the few relationships that you never had to work on. It was easy for you to be able to laugh with him and listen to him talk passionately about things you previously had no knowledge about. He never demanded you give him company or spend time with him if you didn’t feel up to it, and sometimes, when you’d lay low for weeks and feel guilty for ghosting your friends, he’d drop you cheerful messages that you returned to whenever you felt upset. Jake’s presence had in a way filled the void that had been created by his friend’s absence.

“Hey, I forgot my wallet.” Jake returned to the table with a pout, and you resisted the urge to coo while somehow simultaneously managing to curse him out loud as you handed him your card.

Two things about Jake you were sure of : a) the boy was loaded, no seriously, he owned the costliest of clothes and shoes, and b) he was either the most careless person you knew or the biggest miser, and you weren’t sure what are worse.

As your thoughts began to drift again your eyes fell on Sunghoon and Reyna, and you were almost certain that you heard your heart let out a creak. Well, that or Jake dragged the chair to sit down in front of you.

“Isn’t it cute though (Name)?” Jake nudged your hand slightly, grinning at Sunghoon and Reyna. The former fiddling with his fingers, his cheeks red and eyes constantly sneaking glances at Reyna, who sweetly smiled at him.

“What?” You deadpanned, snatching up your coffee from the table.

“The way he acts around her” The boy in front of you scoffed, his eyes still twinkling. Jake suddenly seemed so annoying, you were sure it was a side effect of the stupid Elijah Sparks books he had been reading all weekend.

If there was one thing you had more than mint chocolate ice cream, it was romance books written by E. Sparks. You wouldn’t really detest him all that much if it wasn’t for his extremely exaggerated way of defining love and having the out of league guy fall for the bland girl.

“I, for one,” you emphasized pointing to yourself, “find it really cringe.”

“Cringy?” Jake looked at you with narrowed eyes, “At least use the correct word (Name).”

“Doesn’t matter,” you waved your hands around in the air in dismissing manner. “Point is,” you continued, taking your sweet time as you sipped on your coffee, “That’s weird. Seeing other people is weird. Letting one person have control over your life is weird. Emotions are weird. ”

The inner you was cringing intensely, but that’s fine (Name) you were just overcompensating to ensure you wouldn’t reveal your crush to Jake too.

“You used the word weird a lot,” Jake noted, completely ignoring everything else you said, “Aren’t you an English major?”

You mumbled an excuse incoherently, trying your best to look unsuspiciously at the boy sitting a little farther away from you, who was now laughing at something Reyna had just said. You weren’t surprised, Reyna was hilarious. You, on the other hand, had a broken sense of humor, laughing at the most inconvenient of times and over the stupidest of things but then again at least you had your own niche of people who understood your humor, all gathering in the comments under the ‘A slice of bread falling’ video that you had watched at least 19 times, on YouTube.

“So, you still don’t believe that love exists?” Jake asked with genuine curiousity.

You gave a half-hearted shrug, “Probably exists. Just don’t believe I’ll ever experience it.”

“And why not?” He played around with the metal straw in his hands (Jake was so totally a VSCO girl, it was a pity the term was no longer used)

“I’m not the main character.” You leaned back on the chair. Sunghoon was now smiling softly at her.

God, you hated cafés.

“Who do you think is?”

“I don’t know. You maybe? Reyna definitely.”

Jake stifled a laugh, “Any particular prerequisites for that, you think?”

“I don’t know man, can we just go?” You groaned, done with the conversation and the about-to-be-an-official-couple couple in front of you, completely pushing your ‘mission’ to the side. You could deal with the embarrassment of telling Jungwon and Yuna that your crush on Jake was unrequited but not with Park Sunghoon and Kim Reyna making heart eyes at each other in front of you.

“Okay how about we have a deal?” Jake sat up straight, his face serious (You think you should click a picture of it or something, but that’d ruin the moment)

“What deal?”

“Go out on three dates with someone. The same person each time obviously. If you end up not feeling anything, I’ll agree and if you don’t…”

This was your chance! You almost jumped up in your seat startling Jake.

“Okay,” you said quickly with a smile, only realizing later how suspicious that must have sounded.

Jake narrowed his eyes, “That was easy. What do you want in return?”

You placed your elbows on the table, fingers intertwined,” a) I choose who I go on the dates with, and b) you don’t ask any questions when you do me a favor.”

“What favor?” Jake’s brain was practically screaming at him to shut up but he never did listen.

“You’ve to pretend you rejected me a while ago.” you tried to keep your composure.

“No questions Jake. Also,” you smiled sweetly at him, making him groan,” You’re going with me on the three dates.”

“WHAT?”

People turned to stare at you, you kicked him lightly.

“Sorry. What?!”

Jake promptly choked on air.

Too busy trying to keep a straight face, none of you noticed your friends head out.

“You’re kidding.” Jake groaned, the tips of his ears turning red.

“Nah” you chuckled, sipping on the last bits of your coffee trying not to fawn over how cute he looked, the last thing you wanted was to boost Jake’s ego any more.

This was the second stupidest thing you’d done this week. The first of course was you running your mouth at Jungwon’s. Which is why the plan wouldn’t work but you had to try anyway. The spiderweb you spun around yourself was getting bigger and the only way out was to continue.

“You’re going out with….Jake?” Jungwon crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at you as you tried to act unaffected, typing your draft as you nodded.

“Right after you said he rejected you?” Yuna chimed unhelpfully.

You didn’t understand why the girl was awake, it was 11 in the night and she didn’t seem sleepy at all. You had been hoping she’d be asleep.

“I knew it,” uttered the boy to your left.

Your shoulders drooped, he’d call you a pathological liar for sure now.

“I knew he probably too flustered the first time around!” he shook your shoulders violently.

Sidenote, Jungwon was probably where you got your violent tendencies from.

You weren’t sure whether to feel relieved or not, but your friends were scary for sure. A slight smile broke out on your face thinking about how right Jungwon was about Jake acting strangely when he was flustered, you had once had the prestigious opportunity of seeing him getting confessed to and Jake Sim was an adorable mess to say the least.

“Aww, you must like him a lot,” Yuna was perched on the end of your bed, “You’re smiling.”

“I, yeah, I like him a lot.” You replied with a wavering smile.

“That’s why you didn’t want to go on anymore blind dates!” he exclaimed happily

Too far.

“No, that’s cause you only have drug addicts and creeps on your list, Won.”

Before you could whine about Jungwon’s incompetency at playing Cupid, Yuna did it.

“Hey, at least I didn’t spill Sodium Hydroxide all over the table because the T.A. was too hot.”

“Excuse you? I am not the one who wears denim on denim you uncultured –“

“Um guys?” you interrupted hesitantly.

Considering the two were quarreling, they did trust your story and as reluctant as you were to bring back attention on your fake relationship, if there was going to be a massive realization of (Name) being a liar, you’d rather start here.

“Right, you and Jake.” Jungwon sat down on the bed, your eyes following every movement he made.

“We are happy for you of course (Name),” he beamed at you, opening his arms to envelope both you and Yuna into a hug (Yuna kind of snuggled in forcefully but it felt nice anyway)

“So…do the others know?” Yuna tilted her head to face you as you grimaced for what was to come.

“Not yet,” you admitted.

“Let’s have dinner at Choi’s.” she grinned, “you guys should tell the others too.”

“Only if you are okay with that,” Jungwon placed a comforting hand on your shoulder as Yuna nodded sheepishly.

You gave him a small smile, nodding softly.

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Two down, six to go.

You could only hope all your friends were delusional idiots

You had exactly two hours before everyone headed to Choi’s and here you were, doused in flour wheezing as Jake Sim tried to make the perfect boomerang for his Instagram. This was your fault really for deciding to come over to his house where you supposed to set your stories straight so it was believable but he somehow persuaded you to help him bake a cake for your friends. It’s the first date, he had looked at you with an adorable smile. That should have been a red flag. Jake hates cooking, much less randomly making stuff for your friends to eat when you’re already heading to a restaurant but you trusted his stupid puppy dog eyes instead.

“Look here (Name),” he pointed the camera at you, beaming with happiness “Flip your hair but like real slow. One, two- (Name)!”

Here you were, two idiots doused in flour, laughing uncontrollably

No one should ever trust you with decisions, you swore as entered Choi Yeonjun’s restaurant. The place was filled with the usual chatter and comforting music, none of that helped you feel at ease though because the moment you entered you were greeted by the person you were desperately trying to get away from. At this point you weren’t sure if it was just your crush or your guilt making you do that. Whatever the reason your heart hammered in your chest as you took in the boy’s appearance. A casual white shirt and black sweatpants but he still looked like he’d stepped straight out of a loungewear magazine. You gave him a small smile, hoping he’d give you a curt greeting and head to the table, but he stayed there, eyes raking your body and then fixating on your smile as he made no attempt to return one and you felt yours droop as well.

This was getting awkward and frankly Sunghoon was tired of the silence, and completely exasperated by you.

“Why haven’t you answered any of my texts?” he asked after a short intake of breath.

Because I didn’t want to hear you talk about Reyna.

“I didn’t see your messages.” You gave a forced smile trying to move away and get to your friends’ table. You could see Heesung and Jay exchange looks and Jake getting up from his seat, but almost immediately Reyna tugged his arm, pulling him back to his seat.

Clicking your tongue in annoyance, you looked the boy in front of you with annoyance.

“Sunghoon can you please get out of my- ” your whine was cut short as he tightly grabbed your elbow, tugging you outside the restaurant.

“What the hell Sunghoon?” you exclaimed in frustration, pulling your arm away from his grip, “What’s wrong with you?”

He promptly dropped his hand to his side, face falling slightly as he saw your reddened arm.

“I am sorry.” He spoke genuinely, and you felt your anger ebb away as he gently inspected your hand.

You stared at him expectantly, already knowing what was going to come and hoping he wouldn’t say it.

“I just miss you,” he rubbed the back of your hand with his thumb, eyes almost watering.

You could taste metal on your tongue from how tight you were biting down on it.

“I don’t know what I did (Name),” his voice was a hoarse whisper now.

Your fingers clutched your dress tightly onto fists as you see a tear escape his eyes even as he turns his head to the side.

“You’ll…” the boy in front of you seemed to hesitate before he cleared his throat,” you’ll forgive me if I hurt you, won’t you? I am sorry, I am really-“

Hugging Sunghoon felt like comforting, even though you were both in tears and you could feel his shirt soak under your skin.

“You did nothing, I- I was just distracted. Sorry.” you mumble softly, nuzzling your face further in your friend’s arm, eyes averted to ground.

“It's okay, just text back every once in a while, okay? I wanted to tell you so many things,” you could feel Sunghoon smile into your skin as he heard you, “I do too.”

Your mind drifted towards Jake, the boy would be worried sick till you returned and you felt yourself letting out a smile thinking of his funny frown in spite of the previously almost morbid atmosphere.

“Is it about Jake?” you looked up at the boy, his lips quirked up in a teasing smile.

“You know?”

“You’ve been ditching me all this while to hang out with that bastard,” Sunghoon let out a chuckle, looping his arm around yours as he walked you towards the nearby park, “Of course I know.”

“Shouldn’t we go back to the otherst?” you looked at him questioningly, making no efforts to leave though.

“They can wait. Besides, I have something I want to tell you.”

None of you seemed to notice the retreating figure of Jake Sim.

“It’s my turn,” you tried pushing Sunghoon off the swing but he clung on adamantly.

You didn’t even care for the swing really. It just felt good being with him, you could almost feel the corners of your lips turning up watching him staring into the distance.

Sunsets were never your thing but Sunghoon always loved the hues of the sky around that time.

“What did you want to tell me?” your throat was choking up again, but you weren’t going to cry anymore.

You’d be a better friend. And you’d be happy for your friend.

“I really like Reyna,”

Yeah, no, fuck being a good friend.

“I..” you began but immediately stopped yourself.

You were not extraordinary at anything but being a good friend. You had your shortcomings but your friends came before anything else. You weren’t just going to hurt yourself by revealing your feelings, because you know Sunghoon like the back of your hand.

He’d give up on Reyna.

You’d break two hearts to save one.

So you nodded your head furiously, pushing his head to the front as he stared up at you in amusement, not trusting your voice till you could take in a deep breath at least.

“I know, you’re not subtle.” You chuckled.

“Really?” he looked back at you aghast, “Do you think she noticed?”

Hands fiddling with the rope of the swing you smiled softly.

“She’s not dumb Hoon.”

“Shit, what should I do?” he got up instantly.

“Tell her,” you could feel your cheeks dampen.

Thank goodness for the dark, really.

“I…what if she doesn’t?” Sunghoon seemed hesitant but you know he’d go anyway.

He gave you a small smile before patting your head softly, ”I should go, shouldn’t I?”

No, please don’t.

“Of course, dumbass.” your voice wavered slightly, but Sunghoon didn’t notice, even as he turned back a few steps out of the playground to wave at you, his back turned to you before you could return the favor.

It didn’t take very long for Sunghoon’s silhouette to disappear and suddenly, your feet were too heavy and your body too exhausted, you felt yourself crash to the ground, your hands clutched the grass tightly. Unmindful of the tears that flowed relentlessly.. The last thing you saw before you collapse were Jake Sim’s eyes staring into yours with concern.

All your friends were delusional idiots.

Except for he-who-must-not-be-named and Reyna, because they weren’t there for dinner with the rest of your group. The realization alone was enough to send a pang of hurt down your chest.

All it took was Jake kissing your cheek as he brought you back to the restaurant and your friends (save for Jungwon and Yuna who looked suspiciously smug) were convinced you were soulmates. They weren’t overtly dramatic either, other than the random gasps they’d let out each time you guys even looked at each other. Or maybe you judged too soon.

“I knew there was something going on!” Jay exclaimed when Jake held your hand in his, making Sunoo gag.

That little bastard.

“Move on, Jay.” Heesung hit Jongseong over his head, smile immediately after so he could ask the boy to pass the salt to him.

“What?” Jay distractedly passed the pepper to an annoyed Heesung instead, looking pointedly at Jungwon who seemed really immersed in his pepperoni pizza, “You guys said I was over thinking it.”

Jungwon didn’t even like pepperoni.

He pointed at you, nudging Heesung who was visibly frustrated by now, “She is the one who over thinks everything. You guys never trust me.”

This fucker.

You gave him a tight lipped smile, picking up your fork with murderous eyes not scaring him in the slightest as he smirked at your intertwined hands. Neither of you made any efforts to separate your hands though.

Not only did you have to play pretend with your freshly broken heart but you also had to watch your friends dissect said pretend relationship. It’s not like you had much of a choice though, it would be better to see a lovesick Sunghoon with fake boyfriend Jake than without him.

‘Hey, I believed you!’ Sunoo raised his hand halfway before picking up another slice of pizza “I even saw them making out in the auditorium,”

Jake’s clutch on your hand grew tighter as he choked on whatever he was eating as you glared at Sunoo. Maybe you shouldn’t feel bad about lying after all.

“I knew Jake was crushing hard dude.” Jay guffawed.

Jungwon gave Yuna condescending smile, subsequently being greeted by a kick to the shin by said girl.

Your smile wavered slightly as you saw Sunghoon and Reyna in the distance, hands intertwined, not noticing Jake’s reddened cheeks till you felt your hand being tugged upwards.

“Guys, me and (Name) should head home,” Jake stood up, looking down at you with a hesitant smile.

“Oh God, are you really going to start mak-”

“Shut up Sunoo,” the two of you muttered together, as you got up amidst the chatter of your friends, eyes meeting with Yeonjun who was dealing with a fussy customer, he gave you a small smile before turning his attention back to the man.

Your mind still hazy as Jake led you out and into his car, the ride was a silent one but your mind didn’t give you a minute of peace.

He handed you a glass of lemonade from the nearby stall, as you aimlessly swung around trying to come up with an excuse for when he’d ask you why he found you shaking and sobbing on a playground.

“Can I ask you something?” he twisted the swing towards him, as you shook your head softly.

“Alright,” he had replied complacently, “let’s talk when you want to.”

You weren’t sure if you had ever felt as empty as you did that night. You turned to the side to look at the boy beside you.

“What did you want to ask?”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to answer.” he looked at you for a second before returning his attention to the road ahead.

“You already know, don’t you?” you sighed, eyes on your lap burning looking at the boy next to you.

Jake nodded hesitantly, before veering the car towards the way home.

“I don’t want to go home,” you sat up frantically.

He slowed the car down to a stop before turning to face you.

“May I hug you?” he asked softly.

You nodded after a second of thought.

You were the kind of person who liked the idea of hugs more than hugs itself, you almost never felt the feeling of warmth envelop you like books said. Until that hug. You’ve hugged Jake before, cuddled even (He’s a very touchy person and always gets scared when you watch horror movies. It always ends up with his face buried in your hair). This hug was different though, he smelled like vanilla and you felt your burning as he rubbing soothing circles on your back. His arms around you made you feel like you were 12 again, safe from heartbreaks and growing up, drinking hot chocolate instead of coffee. Suddenly, it was too hard to keep it in. Your lashes getting heavy with the weight of tears that you were trying to hold back, throat hurting from the buried words you’d tried to choke down with smiles.

Dilemma c) The only boy you’d ever loved didn’t love you back and it hurt to admit that, so you sufficed with believing that you didn’t love. You couldn’t love.

“You know what,” you sniffled pulling Jake closer, not willing to leave his grasp just yet, “he once told me I wouldn’t end up dating anyone because he raised my standards too high. That dickhead.”

Jake couldn’t really hear a lot of what you were saying, your voice muffled by his shirt, but he knew you needed him right now, so even though he felt his breath hitch as your buried your face deeper in his neck, he stayed quiet, patting your hair softly.

“I have liked him for so long, ho- how can he just leave me and-” your voice broke into sobs again and Jake could feel his heart drop in his chest, silently cursing the boy in his mind.

Jake held nothing against Sunghoon really, except his obliviousness to your obvious feelings. He was surprised no one else had caught onto how you only ever shared your treasured pack of orange juice with him or completed his assignments with yours whenever he missed classes or despite obviously caring for Reyna, you completely avoided her whenever she was around Sunghoon.

“Even if, he doesn’t love me like that he should have- Are you crying?” your thumb swiped over his cheeks gently.

He hadn’t even realized that he was crying you mentioned it but sure enough he was sniffling a few minutes later, unsure of how appropriate it was to be crying to your crush’s sob story of her unrequited love.

“Sorry,” he rubbed his hands over his face roughly, feeling his heart lighten when he saw you smiling at him.

“Do you believe in love?” you asked him once he began driving again.

You felt lighter, like a weight had been lifted off your shoulder now that you had cried it out.

“Yeah,” he responded almost immediately.

“What’s it like?” you asked, chin buried in the crevice between your knees as you sat  on the passenger seat.

“Like coming home,” he gave you a soft smile, bringing the car to a stop in front of your apartment.

You didn’t want to be alone.

“Can you stay? Please?” you looked pleadingly at him and he gave in quickly to your surprise.

“Only if we are drinking.” he looped his arm around your shoulder.

You let out a laugh..

The next morning came like an epiphany (and a terrible hangover). Two realizations at hand a) You couldn’t go through with the fake dates. You told Jake as much, he looked up from where was what you assumed trying to make you pancakes, he didn’t look surprised at all. He simply nodded and gave you a reassuring smile, “It’s fine. I’ll tell the others we were messing around or something.”

You gave him a pained smile, unsure if the boy remembered the previous night well.

“You can just say we broke it off because we are better off as friends or something.” He suggested as you continued chucking clothes into your bag, not looking at the way his hands trembled.

He wanted to ask you if you were leaving, and if you were feeling better now, but he decided to stay quiet, he had ended up breaking his own heart while trying to fix yours.

He opted to leave after you ate the burnt pancakes together, only receiving a small smile in return when he asked if he’d see you in college on Monday.

b) You needed to leave for a little while, if only to get your thoughts straight. You had done something you shouldn’t have and now your brain was a mess.

You spent the next few minutes informing your employers that you needed to take a few days off, thankfully both were fine with it. Unfortunately you weren’t, it felt like you were running away, you tried to convince your mind uselessly but the damn thing just wouldn’t shut up till you were in your car on the way home, speakers blaring Gracie Abrams because you were too much of a coward to listen to Olivia Rodrigo. Your phone lay switched off amid your haphazardly packed clothes. You wouldn’t need it for a while.

Niki was grounded, and your phone was in your brother’s hand exactly 7 minutes after your random visit home. At least your mother was pleased to see you, although she constantly kept turning your wrists around, worrying that you hadn’t been eating well. Your dad wasn’t home and you were thankful that you didn’t have to see him because you know you’d burst into tears immediately if you did.

You didn’t like doing chores but Niki had grown more rebellious than you remembered and so it ended up being you and your mom alone in the kitchen, chopping vegetables and talking.

“He’s such a stubborn boy,” your mother complained with a smile.

You looked at her inquisitively.

“He and Yeonhee broke up,” She shook her head tiredly “He needs to understand that relationships need time and patience, but this stubborn boy.”

Your hands shivering, trying to ignore how your mother’s words had hit you like a brick.  Yeonhee was like a little sister to you, she was always over at your house, playing with Niki and pranking you when you least expected it.

“Why all of a sudden?”

“The boy won’t tell me a thing. Anyway, how have you been doing love?” your mother smiled at you before patting your cheek lovingly “Resting enough?”

“Yeah, I always rest when I should mum,” you replied inattentively, thoughts swimming in your head.

“I need to talk to Niki, mom,” you told her hurriedly placing a kiss on her cheek as you went upstairs.

“Niki!”

“The door’s opened. Come in.”

You threw yourself on the unsuspecting boy, hitting him on the head right as he relaxed into the hug.

“Ouch, what was that for?”

“How are you?”

“You.” he pushed you away by your shoulders, staring sternly at you “You heard about Yeon, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” you pouted slightly burying your face in the pillow before facing him “Wanna talk about it? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know, mom keeps telling me I am wrong,” he scoffed, playing with the ends of his sleeves.

“You’ve known her since forever, kiddo. She’s just worried you didn’t think it through.” you tapped his knees to get him to listen.

“It’s just strange,” he whined poking your arm for no reason eliciting more prodding from you “I really care for her still but sometimes I think, I like the idea of her more. When we were friends it was so much different. It’s like I push everyone else away when I think of her, and that’s not healthy.”

Your breath hitched.

Your brother continued unaware of how guilty you felt, “It’s not like I can control my feelings you know. And I do care for her. A lot but I started doing everything the way she liked instead of what I wanted, I even fought with my friends because she wanted to spend all the time with me.”

His voice broke slightly at the end, making your heart hurt. You didn’t like seeing him this way.

“Hey, hey please don’t cry. You should just.. talk once instead of hiding away like this though, okay? I’m sure she’ll understand.”

Hypocrite, the voice in your head muttered.

You have no idea why but your inner monologue person is the meanest human you’ve ever interacted with. And it’s you! You love making yourself hurt, don’t you?

“You’re…you are doing the same thing, aren’t you?”

Niki’s voice trailed towards the end, eyes wandering towards your phone that you grabbed before he could.

“What?” you nudged him playfully “Don’t snoop around my messages, man.”

“Sorry” he muttered “Did you not tell anyone you were coming home though?”

“I- no, no I didn’t.” you corrected yourself with a sigh.

“You know it’s okay to prioritize yourself once in a while, right?”

“Yeah,” you whispered half-heartedly.

“How did you know?” you hesitantly asked your brother, who waited for you to clarify, “How did you know you just liked the idea of her and not her.”

“I-“ he cut himself off with contrite smile, “I felt the happiest around someone else.”

You looked at him with a stricken face.

“Oh, come on (Name) I am not a dick, I didn’t do anything.”

You let his previous words sink as you thought about your own situation. Was it possible that you only liked the idea of Sunghoon? It seemed that way sometimes, you’d forget all about the boy when you were with Jake, and kissing the latter had seemed so right even thought you were both way too buzzed o remember properly, just that you had melted in his arms and fallen asleep right after.

“(Name) you know I’m here for you, yeah?” He said seriously, you could only nod, wondering just how different your dynamics were as opposed to most other siblings as you walked out. Niki had always been selfless, never fighting and ready to give up his share of things if that’d make you happy.

Avoiding people and situations that made you uncomfortable had always been your way of dealing with them. Letting go of your years old friendship with Sunghoon just because you couldn’t deal with your feelings in a healthy manner and then fleeing for home when you heard Jake confess his love for you in your sleep. You wonder how many heartbreaks that humans cry over were created by them.

“Mom, I’ll go back tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“I have…someone I need to talk to and,” your voice dipped “apologise to.”

You checked your phone on your way back, 18 missed calls from Sunghoon, 21 from Yuna, 16 from Jungwon and Jay, 14 from Heesung and Sunoo, messages from your friends flooding your phone. 1 message from Jake. Your finger hovered over his name, unsure of whether you should click it or not.  You go with the latter. You had to talk to someone first.

She looked gorgeous in the casual blue dress she’d worn. Then again, Reyna always looked stunning, she looked a little lost till she saw you waving at her. Her smile amplified as she hugged you tightly before landing a firm punch on your arm as you whined, unable to control the smile on your lips.

“You had us terrified, idiot.” she took the seat in front of yours, looking you up and down, making you laugh.

“Are you checking me out?” you asked with a smirk.

“Oh, you know it,” she returned easily.

God, you missed this. You were such an idiot.

“I am sorry.” You took in a deep breath.

“I know,” she placed her hand atop yours “It’s fine. You should take as long as you need.”

“Did you see the other guys?” you asked, hands crossed over your lap.

“Oh no. Hoon wanted to visit the park and we thought we’ll start rejoining the group dinners after a bit. You and Jake left early too, didn’t you?”

You fiddled with your fingers, “Yeah.”

“I… Can I ask you something?” you looked at her hesitantly.

“Of course” she smiled sweetly.

“Did, um, did Jake tell you why I took off randomly?”

You just couldn’t do it. You couldn’t tell your friend that you used to have a crush on your boyfriend, that would be a huge dick move, even by your standards (You’d be lying if you said telling on people during elementary and middle school wasn’t your favorite past time, you defended yourself by saying Honesty was a virtue but you were not going to follow Harishchandra’s example here even though you’d only just decided to come clean).

“Yeah, he said you guys had a quarrel and he said something that made you leave. Wouldn’t say what even though Hoon threatened him.” she grabbed the cup of coffee and doughnut that the waiter served, eating slowly before continuing “Did he say something really mean?”

You took in a deep breath.

“He said he loved me.”

Reyna stopped eating.

“Oh”

“Yeah,” you couldn’t stop the chuckle while looking at her confused face.

“Is that bad? Too soon?” she asked, leaning back in her seat.

“No, it’s just-“

“You don’t.” she finished for you.

“I am not sure.” You spoke softly, eyes fixated on the table.

You felt horrid. Is this how Sunghoon would feel had you confessed?

“I wish I did,” you spoke hurriedly before she could respond “I really do, but I, I liked someone else for a really long time and then I just realized that I maybe didn’t like him and I do like Jake but.”

You let out a groan, frustrated by the jumbled mess you were spewing.

“You know, (Name),” Reyna spoke slowly like she was talking to a child “If he really loves you, he’ll wait. He’ll wait till you are ready.”

“Jake please,” you pleaded trying to stop him from leaving the diner, aware of how shocked your friends looked but trying your best to ignore their stares.

It’d been a week since you returned, you hadn’t talked to anyone other than Reyna. Having cleared your head about everything you’d decided you’ll talk to everyone at the restaurant, apologize and ask Jake if you could talk once everyone left but he had stood up immediately as he saw you. You could hear yourself gasp at how gaunt he looked in just a week, his bright eyes looked anything but as you approached closer watching him blink at you like he’d seen a ghost, immediately the chatter of the rest of your friends dimmed as he got up and walked right past you, you grabbed his arm before he could leave.

“Please,” you had never felt this helpless.

He took his hand out of your grasp, “(Name) I really can’t talk right now, I am exhausted and.-“

“Jake, I really don’t know what to say here. Can we please not talk alone?”

“(Name) I-” his voice was cut off by Jay’s.

“(Name) you had us scared shitless, You should’ve at least replied to the messages.”

“I needed some time off guys,” you replied, eyes still stuck on Jake.

“It’s alright (Name),” Heesung assured you “Reyna told us you needed some time.”

You could see Sunghoon getting out of his chair from the corner of your eye, but for the first time in so long it didn’t matter, what he had to say could wait and the realization was accompanied by a slow burn in back of your throat.

Just how many times had you ignored or hurt Jake, too sidetracked by what you felt for Sunghoon?

Your other friends continued to talk but their voice fell on deaf ears, as you wistfully looked at Jake silently asking him for a chance.

“Okay,” he nodded at last “Let’s go.”

You didn’t know where to begin.

“We kissed.” he spoke after a moment of silence, eyes never wavering from the road he was driving on.

“We kissed and I ended up confessing, but you regretted the kiss and you didn’t like me back, so you just..left.” His voice had no emotion it, like he had been saying this line a countless number of times till the pain ebbed away and left a blank instead.

“That’s not it, I just-” you tried to collect your thoughts “I am sorry. I know I scared everyone but I felt so confused because I liked it. I liked kissing you and then when you said – I was just so unsure, I needed time to figure it out.”

“(Name) I know it was sudden and this was not how I planned on telling you, if at all and I get that you needed time but would it really hurt to at least…not leave me hanging?”

“I wasn’t thinking, Sunghoon and Reyna, and then you- you made feel like for the first time like there was…someone else I could’ve liked.”

At that, Jake’s eyes flickered to yours, still hesitant as if he couldn’t be sure if you were talking about him.

“I was just all over the place. I should’ve talked to you.” you continued regretfully, placing your head on the headrest “I hurt you, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation “but do you, do you mean what you just said?”

You nodded slowly, hands grasping your dress tightly, “I don’t think I like Hoon the way I thought I did. But I can’t be sure about my feelings, Jake, I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“(Name)” Jake’s voice was gentler this time, “What if I want to take that chance?”

You sat up straight in your seat.

“You do?”

“I will.”

You looked at him in surprise, eyes still teary as he pulled up in front of your house.

You stayed as you were for a while, before getting out of the car and turning towards the boy.

“I’ll see you soon?” you asked hesitantly as he gave a small smile and a nod.

“And hey (Name),” he called out after you, “Second date tomorrow.”

Your hands were shaking as you reached for your phone, pressing the floor number on the escalator, heart beating fast as you finally clicked the message you had been avoiding.

You asked me what love was. I didn’t know for sure then and I don’t know it for sure now but, I think it’s when the kitchen is a mess because we tried to bake a cake together but now there’s flour everywhere and our first instinct is to look at each other and laugh. Love is when I can’t fall sleep at night and look at the glow in the dark stars pasted lopsidedly on the roof and smile unconsciously remembering the shaky ladder and mumbled threats and breathy laughter. Love is when I sit still on my desk and randomly doodle your name on my books and laugh about it. Love is you holding my hand and stealing my hoodie and watching cringy rom-coms and eating half burnt pancakes because neither of us paid attention to the time but that's okay, because we are eating it together. Love is the fragrance of coffee in the air, when I get back home after a tiring day and crash onto the couch but you call to tell me about Professor Green’s horrible class policies and suddenly I’m not so tired anymore. Love is wrapping you in my arms and feeling like I'm finally home, even though I’m not sure I’ve ever been home before but that’s okay because in my dreams we always make it there, under the pouring in rain, the umbrella forgotten somewhere along the way, running and laughing and tripping over untied shoelaces, but we always make it home

 Your finger trembled as you clicked the next message from Jake

And by the way, you’ve always been the main character to me.

Goodnight (Name), I’ll see you tomorrow ❤

Thank you for reading, grab a cookie :)

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[dangerous-disposition]

On Tragedy vs. Bad Endings

[Image ID: user @frostyfrogz​ replied to your post “my mag171 #thots: I fully agree with. I love jonmartin I want nothing but the best for them. I know my answer today was an obvious twisting of dialogue but its just frustrating sometimes because it seems like people dont understand some sort of tragedy will indeed happen. I have never and will never suggest that something will happen to Jon and Martin’s relationship I’ve just been saying the shows not going to end well no matter what.]

So I have a lot of thoughts about this very subject, and too much for the replies on my post, so allow me to try to articulate what I mean, and what a lot of us mean when we say “it does not make sense for either Jon or Martin to turn evil in the end,” even in a show that has been advertised from day one as a tragedy.

First of all, no one thinks this is going to end happy. The few who do are usually unaware that this show is billed as a tragedy, and are quick to be corrected. I didn’t know it was a tragedy until I was on season 3 and someone told me. It’s overall just best to assume that the OP knows it’s not going to be a happy ending, because “reminding” people or “explaining” to people that the ending is going to be sad is a fast way from people to get annoyed and defensive.

Anyway! It appears, above all, that people have either fundamentally different ideas of what a tragedy is or accomplishes, or that people have a fundamentally flawed understanding of tragedy and it’s place as a narrative device/theme.

My thoughts are that tragedies hurt, and tragedies can be devastating, but they have to have a message and they should not be cruel to the audience.

A cruel ending would involve leading the audience to believe one thing for the entire book, show, movie, podcast, what have you, just to rip it away at the last minute like a big “fuck you” to the audience. Those sorts of endings are inherently mocking of the audience, and ultimately disrespectful. The only people in the audience that “benefit” from this sort of writing are the cynics who spent the entire show talking down to everyone for seeing the silver lining in the impending tragedy, even if, up until the finale, the silver lining was always part of the narrative. Like it took actual twisting and outright ignoring of the narrative as it’s written to be cynical and sceptical all the way until the end.

That is, plain and simple, bad writing. Jonny Sims is not a bad writer.

Now tragedies often have “happy endings,” they just also have an element of sadness colouring that ending. A good, tragic ending should, in my opinion, feel bittersweet. We should see it coming, we should know it will hurt, but it should be for the greater good and should further the narrative that has been told from the beginning.

I said a few weeks ago that a tragic ending without a silver lining is just torture porn, and I stand by it.

Now, if Jon or Martin are revealed to be Actually Evil in the end, where is the silver lining in that? What narrative has even possibly hinted at this outcome, without putting on cynic glasses?

Every single plot point and plot “twist” in TMA has been clearly detailed, never relegated to pure subtext that you would have to comb through a single interraction and analyzing the tone in which it was said (which could easily be actor shortcomings or error). They have always been obvious, at least in hindsight. This is why, for a while, I subscribed to the Web!Martin theory, but due to recent episodes I’m more inclined to believe those “obvious things” were red herrings.

Throughout The Magnus Archives, the common theme in every. Single. Season finale is that “we are stronger together.” What do I mean by that? Well, here’s the general idea:

Season 1: The one time someone gets separated by the group for any significant length of time, like I mean the main group, she gets killed by the NotThem and replaced.

Season 2: Jon is alone, due to his intense paranoia and his reluctance to reach out for help. This leads to a disastrous series of events that leaves him a suspect of murder, and his friends even more doubtful of his character.

Season 3: In the episode just before they deal with the Unknowing, Jon literally says that isolation was his downfall, and he was going to work on trusting his friends more. When they got separated during the Unknowing, things went to shit. When they found each other again, they were able to rally and they “succeeded.” Conversely, they are also teamed up with Melanie and Martin who hung back to bring down Elias. They were successful, working as teams on separate objectives, etc.

Season 4: This is, by far, their most “successful” feats while simultaneously their least. The whole season was again showing the downfalls of isolation. In the season finale, Jon has Basira and Daisy’s help, and while bolstering himself with their strength, and the strength in his conviction to save Martin to be with Martin, Jon was successful in stopping Peter Lukas and saving Martin. Conversely, Martin and Jon’s isolation in Scotland could be, theoretically, implicated in how Jonah Magnus was able to succeed in the end like that.

Now evidence of this same train of thought in season 5? Jon literally says it: Gertrude would not have done well in this post-apocalyptic world, because she had no friendships, no anchors, no reason to stay human. And then Jon says “you are my reason” to Martin.

It is in the text of the story that the only way to succeed, or win, or survive, is through trust, friendship, and love. One of the main factors in so many of the statements, on why the statement givers succumbed to the fear in their story, for even a moment, had to do with very little personal ties to anyone else. Many of the statements feature isolation and, as Jon put it, “lack of corroboration.” On the flipside, many of the statements that ended with the statement giver escaping successfully, and surviving long enough to be reached out to for follow-up questions, involved them having close personal ties to someone else that kept them safe, somehow. Like the girl from Italy; remembering her mom saved her from the Lonely. Or, more ridiculously, the guy and his dog that escaped the spiral because he was so distracted by his dog and had to be home for dinner. In MAG170, it was Martin’s love for Jon, and his trust in the love from Jon and his friends, that saved him from the Lonely again. Jon’s incredible amount of love, and respect, and trust in his friends is what’s kept him from becoming another Jared Hopworth or Jude Perry. In MAG155, Cost of Living, he expresses open disgust in how that particular avatar of The End justified her actions, killing and killing and killing again because she viewed herself as more worthy of life than that person. In that same episode, he talks of not blinding himself because he hopes to use his powers to protect his friends, that without them they’re too vulnerable. Honestly, this is the same reason Peter Lukas is unsuccessful, because Martin only helped him at all to protect his friends. The fact that he didn’t see his failure coming was hilarious.

Gerry said in Family Business that there is no “entities of love”, and that might be true, but love and trust is literally what saves you from fear. How many of us deal with things that are scary in our lives, if only because we have some level of trust in the people or things around us. How many of us have been brought out of a panic attack by someone we love and trust?

So all of this has been presented to us, over and over and over again, which is what I, and others, mean when we say “it does not make sense for one of them to be evil.” That’s what we mean when we say “it would be Bad Writing to make one of them evil in the end.” The entire show has driven home the message that we need love, we need personal connections to survive fear. To rip that away from the main characters at the last minute and call it “tragedy” would be a spit in the face of every single listener who took the story at face value, without picking it apart and reading lines out of context. And Jonny Sims and Alex J. Newall have both said they hate lazy writing.

Now, none of the JonMartin fans I follow are deluding themselves to think this show will have a happy ending outside of very self-indulgent fix-it au fanfics.

The way I see this going down is that Jon and Martin will figure out how to put the world back to the way it was, but Jon will not be able to be part of the new world with Martin. That’s the tragedy; that the world gets saved, and Jon helps save it, but he doesn’t get to benefit from his efforts in any way. The tragedy is Jon loves Martin so much, and they deserve their happy ending, but they don’t get it. But, they still saved the world so others can have their happy endings.

Idk about you, but between the “Jon turns evil in the end” and “Jon stays good and sacrifices himself to save the world” endings, only one of them has me in tears right now as I type this out, and it’s not the former.

I’m not against sad endings,I’m against bad endings that punish the audience for having even a bittersweet hope. I’m against sad endings that are just sad for the sake of being sad, with zero pay-off or reason to happen, especially when those endings throw out 5 years of hard work.

And hey, I might just be forced to eat my words in the end, but not before I fly all the way to England and make Jonny Sims eat a knuckle sandwich.

This was a lot longer than I meant for it to be, but I just have a lot of feelings.

[hatsukeii]

Hi I love you haikyuu match ups! I was wondering if you could do mine please. Thank you in advance if you do.

Hi, I was wondering if you could do a bnha match up for me, please. If you're still doing them that is.

I'm 17 and 5’6,Capricorn with a curvy thick(which I hate) figure. I have pale skin and short hair I have two different coloured eyes the left being green and right being brown. I have snakebite, jestrum, septum helix and tongue pierced. People say I can come off as intimidating because of my appearance. (I also wear dark clothing all the time) For some reason, people call me the mum of the group? But really I'm just an idiot when. I can be really sarcastic and I often insult others in a jokingly way. I like cooking and baking and often take my baking into college for others to enjoy. I guess that kind of a reason I'm called the mother of the group. I do have a tendency to degrade myself and put myself down. I also have anxiety and depression that I have to medication for. I also have autism, so I have some sensory processing problems and I tend to sim when I stressed or exited which can be awkward so I try not to do it in font of people. I like affection and cuddles but only when I want to. I'm kinda like a cat in that way.

This was literally like obvious I read through it and just went yes I know

TERUSHIMA TERUSHIMA TERUSHIMA

Okok so I gotta address the obvious ones first MATCHING TONGUE PIERCINGS???? HELLO???? He is 100% into it I just know every single day he asks you to show him again and again and again- this man thinks you’re sooooooo cool for having so many piercings I am certain

Ok then comes the whole mom friend thing right we know Terushima may be smart but he can be an idiot sometimes, and he needs someone to just ground him a bit, which is where you come in!! You literally drag him by the ear out of stupid situations god bless him if he didn’t have you around oml

I don’t think he rlly cares much ab your body or like how you dress it’s more if you vibe w it then he fucks w it too, plus he probably thinks curves are sexy;))

Now onto the more emotional part of things- yeah I feel like he’s definitely very supportive but also kinda clueless💀💀this mostly applies to your autism he knows how much it affects you and your living but he had no clue how to help at first. He really had to sit you down one day and went “ok so about your autism… is there any way I can help?” But with time he’s gotten accustomed to the point where when you stim he knows exactly how to manage it. Probably bought you a stress ball at some point so you could squeeze that instead. He doesn’t judge you for it, he knows it’s something you can’t help. In fact when you stim out of excitement he ends up excited with you- and if anyone makes fun of you he would gladly curb stomp them:)

Terushima seems vv affectionate and loves touching you in general (not in a spicy way but just like everything else), but he knows when to stop,,, sometimes. He can get clingy when you don’t want him to, that’s when you have to like give him a kiss on the forehead and tell him to fuck off (with love). Other times tho, it’s cuddles galore:))

Hope you liked your matchup, (I don’t actually do them much anymore but once in a while I still will)

[lunavadash-creates]

First of all, bro, you have Sims! You won a life! My laptop is too old and broken for such luxuries! Please make my sim and my harem too lol. Give me all the men I deserve.😂

I may or may not be thinking about buying a new one tho. And it may or may not be just because of the latest expanded pack to the game and possibility of having my own cow.🐮 But on the other hand, I would love to go somewhere for a few days in nearest gutter if covid lets me.. So having savings would be nice.

Speaking of travelling. Stories. I am not a storyteller buuut… you mentioned you travelled by metro in Prague and that in your country there is just one line in the capital. Seoul has so many lines! It’s so easy to get lost.. Korean metro is one of my clearest memories of my stay in Seoul. On the very first day of my stay I and my 3 friends had a “houston we have smol problem” situation, just because 2 of my companions hadnt bought a korean sim card (our cards didnt work at all) and we got separated in the metro train. I mean.. I and my good friend didnt get inside on time while other two friends made it. In our group just one person knew where our hostel was and how we could get there. And she was gone. There wasn’t any plan b, no one even thought about the possibility of getting separated. No one amongst us spoke korean, Koreans had problems with communicating in english.. WELL, SH*T. We didn’t know if we should take the next train and others would wait at the next station or if we should stay where we were. Luckily I and one of my friends that got into the train on time had our mobiles working so we were able to communicate, but we were this close to having HOME ALONE IN SEOUL.

The second one memory and one of things I miss the most are metro jingles! God, I loved them so much! If you see Seoul Metro Jingles on Xander Tiberius channel on youtube you will be able to hear my favourite one! It’s the first one in this short video! I am pretty sure you will love it.

We came right on korean thanksgiving festival called Chuseok and it was the best decision ever. People were wearing their traditional costumes, hanboks, all the time! They were so freaking beautiful! 💕 We went to Gyeonbokgung Palace and Changdeogung Palace and when I saw them covered in paintings with obangsaek scheme with my own eyes I almost cried. I love art, so Seoul was the perfect place for me. I love korean folk paintings (please, check them with my favorite tigers and magpie theme - tigers on them are so funny and wonderful - I bought like a million postcards with its images), but their modern art is great too. Especially all those murals - you can check Ihwa Mural Village. It was ASDFGHJKLLOVE.

Street food? Excellent, however I don’t like spicy food. I wanted to try silkworm stew but at the last moment I gave up on this. Too extreme for me. But I have eaten the best ice cream in my whole life and they tasted like earl grey tea.

But what was definitely the best part of my trip? Cafes! Dog cafe, raccoon cafe, Moomin cafe, sheep cafe, Hello Kitty cafe! I love dogs with all my heart so that one was definitely my favourite one and I would love to stay there forever! Raccoon one was also freakin good! For the very first time I had encountered a raccoon. Their paws are so delicate!

Travelling is such a magical experience.There are so many things to see and to try! What was your favourite place you travelled to and why? Do you have a place you would like to visit again? Where would you like to go the most? You said you were travelling with your family. Do you have some stories to share?

I am sorry for such long messages! But I can talk for hours about such things. And I like to chat with you. I am impressed with my ability to produce so many words at once. Usually I am the quiet one and very awkward too.

🔪

I have no idea how I missed this message. Like really, I was wondering if you will tell me your travel story and look! It's been here for who knows how long! I'm m so sorry ;;

So yeah, lemme show you my Sims because idk. I think I'm kind of proud of this Altair.

So first is the randomly generated Sims

And here is Altair I made:

I wonder what do you think about him. Don't mind hie clothes tho 😂

Back to you baby! I love your story and I envy you so much! Raccoon cafe? Good food? You won me, really. I always wanted to see/touch a raccoon but since they aren't here I simply can't. But those grabby lil pawsies! U realu envy you and I'm also so happy you had fun and now you have so much fun memories you can share. Thank you so much!

As for spicy food. I love it.

And really I really enjoy talking with you, you are so nice and passionate and never be sorry for writing a lot! I love having your messages and responding to every single one of them! Even if sometimes I'm a bit late (sorrtyyyyyyy)

As for my stories... I was attacked by a bear in Albania! 😂 I'm still terrified of them. A lady was walking a bear on a chain leash and I was passing by with peanuts. And the bear attacked me, trying to take them from me. It was so scary but I win the battle over peanuts. I was like 13. But really I don't like bears now.

I want to see literally all the world. I want to go to Greece again and Bulgaria. Bulgaria is my favourite country! Also I want to see Turkey and Egypt and Japan and China!

Hbu? Do you have more travel plans?

[anachronisims]

New posts resume tomorrow, so refresh on all your favorite cave-dwellers’ plotlines in the ultimate tldr catch up post!

When the last snows melted and it was safe to travel again, six couples set off in search of a perfect place to found a settlement of their own.  They could not believe their luck when they stepped over a the crest of a hillock and saw before them the lush, rich river valley upon which they would soon bestow the name “Meraki.”

After passing a large meadow with wild berries and evidence of recent animal activity, when the group found six caves at the foot of the next hillock, they knew this was their place.  They spent the next few weeks chopping down trees, settling into their new cave homes, and working together to create some common amenities at the Fishin’ Hole.  Then, their new lives began in earnest...

Tammuz:  “Howdy, neighbor!  How goes it today?”

Kimba:  “Oh, you know, the usual.  Working in the garden, trying to pull forth some food from this sparse and spotty terrain.  We’re going to need to start thinking about storing food away for the winter if we’re all going to stay healthy and strong.”

Tammuz:  “Huh.  Yeah, I guess summer probably is ending any day now…”

Lehabim:  “Yeah, I’ve got this whole five-year plan for expansion.  We fill out the area here around the Fishin’ Hole with some huts, get ourselves out of these caves and everything, then start spreading out towards that meadow we passed when we came in?  There will be plenty of space for the next generation and any newcomers we can attract.  Which we will, because Pallu and Junia are going to spread our reputation as a strong, prosperous place to settle far and wide!  It’s as easy as child’s play, when you think about it!”

Lehabim:  “Hey, so, you’re trying to be like, a shaman now, right? Like, tell us all this mystical shit from up in the stars and whatnot?”

Noel:  “Yeah, I mean, a little bit of what’s in the stars, a little bit of what’s in the trees, like that sacred bloodleaf tree there on the island in the middle of the Fishin’ Hole.  There’s a lot of ideas out there about why this is all happening, where Meraki and the rest of the world came from and who moved mountains and dug rivers and why we walk and talk and do what we do all day long.  I just love talking about this stuff, I could go on and on all day!  ALL DAY!”

Lehabim:  “If you do, you know, get in touch with the spirit world, you think you could ask them if they know how to make this bread stuff? That guy Pallu has been talking about it ever since we got here, it’s like he’s absolutely obsessed with bread. I think half the reason he’s trying to become a trader is so he has an excuse to run away from home and look for this mythical village where they supposedly make it. It’s supposed to be warm and filling and kind of soft but also solid enough to hold other food in it?”

Noel:  “Oh my stars, that’s absolutely THE most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!!” Lehabim:  “I know, right?!  But. Seriously, though, if you get in touch with the spirits, ask them for me. I’d love to beat Pallu to it… if, you know, it turns out it’s real.”

Nadii’ya:  “Good morning, Kimba!” Kimba:  “Hallooo, Nadii’ya! Sleep well?” Nadii’ya:  “Honestly? I’ve been better.  Maybe it was something I ate?  I threw up this morning.  Got any ideas?”

Kimba:  “Oh, well, it definitely might have been something you ate, but that’s not the only explanation.  You might have… you might be pregnant, new friend!  The best medical science available today says that it happened because you WooHooed. You did WooHoo, right?”

Nadii’ya:  “Uh, yeah, of course.”

Pallu:  “Did Stachia tell you her idea about giving special medals for acts of val -”

Nadii’ya:  “Let me stop you right there.  The proper reward for someone who, say, slays a boar that has roamed into the village, is to let them keep the carcass.  They risk getting gored to death to protect everyone, and then what? The village splits up the boar and hands the hero a shiny rock for their good deed?  No way.  The one who saves the village should be rewarded with the boar, they and their family should get to feast!  Why is this so difficult to comprehend?”

Pallu:  “Well, but, I mean, that’s what the boar-slayer signed up for. Protecting everyone, not feasting on a boar.  When they do the job, why should not everyone share in the feast?  Isn’t that how a community works?” Nadii’ya:  “But I could have hypothetically died!!!!!”

Kimba:  “I can see it both ways. On the one hand, you, as the warrior, are risking certain death for the benefit of the entire community, and as such, you feel like the reward should be equal to that risk.  On the other hand, Death is all around us, all the time, and we pretty much are all subject to certain death with every step we take.  We made a community to ease the burden of living with this knowledge, to share our many burdens and attempt to ward off Death as best we can.  Life is short, and why should we not all share its bounties as fully and fairly as we share our burdens?”

Nadii’ya:  “…Kimba, you’re not going to die from kissing a boo-boo. Some of us are sharing the burden of death a little more than others.”

Tammuz: “So, you’re a carpenter, eh? That means you work with… wood?”

Gandu: “That’s me, the wood master of Meraki! What can I do you for?” Junia: ::loud eyeroll::

Gandu: “So, you know my partner, Junia -” Junia: “Hi!” Gandu: “-she’s going to work on finding this village that makes this amazing drink out of wheat that makes you feel like the king of the world and makes everybody friendly.  Isn’t she great?”

Rubati:  “The reason we must light fires every single night is to protect us from dangerous animals, and also, from the spirits of dangerous animals, which can cause us even more harm!  There’s a wolf-like beast with extra scary horns that likes to terrorize Sims at night and disturb their sleep, but it’s completely terrified of fire!  Isn’t that great?”

Pallu:  “I cannot wait until I know how to make bread, holy ogres.  Mushrooms are just pretentious dirt.”

Stachia:  “Can I just say, I’m so so so so glad we all found each other and became best friends?  For months, the only Sim I had to talk to was Pallu, and, creator knows I love him, but he can be such a bore sometimes.  Can you imagine?  Endlessly traipsing through snow and forests, crossing rivers and mountains, and just ‘bread bread makeouts bread woohoo bread bread bread,’ constantly.  At least now that we’ve established a home, he can leave and go look for it and I can have some peace and girl talk!”

Saphir:  “Hey, love, guess what!”

Lehabim:  “You want to make out with me?”

Saphir:  “Well, yes, but also, Stachia asked me to be in the hunting party she’s putting together.  We’re going to start making trips to the meadow and bring back loads of food for the whole village to share.  Isn’t that a great idea?”

Lehabim:  “Sure… kinda wish I’d had it, to be honest.”

Tobiah:  “Hey!!!  Hey everybody!!  Look what I caught!!” Nadii’ya:  “I curse this pole to the depths of this Fishin’ Hole for ever and all time, may it never see the light of day or feel the breath of a cool breeze or do anything but rot into nothingness in the mud and the muck amongst the fish it so thoroughly refused to catch.”

Lehabim:  “Do you think I should make a pact with a demon to consolidate power?” Saphir:  ::record scratch::

Tobiah:  “Wait a second.  Special wheat drink.  Beer?  Are you talking about beer?”

Pallu:   “Are… ‘beer’?  Are you saying you know how to make the special wheat drink?”

Tobiah:  “I mean, more or less.  We had wheat fields all around our homeland, and you basically just take some wheat and seal it in a jug with some water and let it sit for a while and then you have beer.  It’s really not that complicated.  Anyone can do it in their own cave.  And the longer you forget about it, the better it ends up being!  It’s kind of perfect for me, lol”

Pallu:  “And this information has just been inside your head this whole time?”

Tobiah:  “I suppose so.”

Pallu:  “Did y’all make bread back there, too?”

Tobiah:  “No, no no no.”  

Tobiah:

Tobiah:  “But we did hear rumors of a village that did.  We were planning a raid on it right before Nadii’ya and I left, actually.”

Pallu:  “Did… did you find out where it was?”

Tobiah:  “Of course.  I was a Raiding Party Commander back home.  It’s actually not too far from here, now that I think about it.  Want me to give you directions?”

Rubati:   “WooHoo is weird, right?  Like, so strange how we get in the bed and you put your censored bits with my censored bits!  Is it weird, or is it just me?”

Noel: “So, like, WooHoo, amirite???”

Tobiah:  “Everybody, look how pretty!”

Gandu:  “Not really the most interesting thing going on at the Fishin’ Hole right now, bud…”

Tobiah:  “I think it’s just a little bit rude of Saphir to proposition Noel right there in front Kimba.  I mean she’s literally right there.”  

Junia:  “Why would that be rude?  Noel and Kimba both know that their partnership isn’t based on exclusively WooHooing each other.”

Tobiah:  “Sure, Nadii’ya and I feel the same way.  But that still doesn’t mean I’d want to SEE it happening, right in front of me!  Saphir’s not being brave, she’s being brazen!”

Junia:  “Hold on, how is it all Saphir’s fault?  It takes two to woo, boo.  If Saphir’s being ‘brazen,’ Noel’s being just as bad.”

Tobiah:  “Everyone expects it of Noel, but Saphir should know better!”

Junia:  “Do you hear yourself?  Of course we expect it of Noel - so does Kimba, you idiot!  She knew he was a major horndog when she decided to partner with him!  This is just the way things are!”

Kimba:  “I heard you were talking about me?  Don’t talk about what you don’t know about, Tobiah.  I don’t need anyone else to defend me, and I DEFINITELY don’t need to be protected from Noel.  So butt out.”

Tobiah:  “All I did was - ”

Kimba:  “Butt.  Out.”

Tobiah:  “Every time I see your face, it makes me angry all over again!  Just stay away from me!”

Kimba:  “Then why did you even come here?!”

Tobiah:  “Because… because… to support… because… birthday… Noel… Gaia… UGHHH just leave me alone!”

Noel:  “Everybody looking??”

Tobiah:  “Stop! Standing! Next! To me!!!”

Tobiah:  “Oh, Chipmunk, Dada’s sorry about tonight.  I’m not proud that you saw me like that.  When you’re older, maybe you’ll understand.  Sometimes sims have so many emotions at the same time that they don’t realize what they’re doing or saying to other sims.  I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.  Ms. Kimba is really a very good sim, but it makes me so confused and frustrated to think… you know what, I’ll tell you when you’re older.  Just be nice to Ms. Kimba whenever you see her, okay?”

Linus: “Okay, Dada.”

Gandu: “Did you know the Creator made me attracted to all brown-haired Sims, and that’s like, half the village?  Turns out I want to make out with just, like, everybody.” Rubati:  “…Interesting… everybody?  I never thought about kissing… everybody.”

Gandu:  “Sometimes it can be hard to tell another Sim you want to kiss them, especially for a Sim as shy as you.  Maybe it would help if you could feel like you weren’t really being yourself.  Like, you’re from the Green Eyes lands.  From what you’ve told me about it so far, you were raised not to kiss a lot of different Sims.  So just pretend you are a Sim who isn’t from the Green Eyes lands.”

Rubati:  “But… my eyes ARE green, Gandu.”

Tammuz:  “I was having the most interesting dream, I was on a date - with you, of course - and I was - I mean, we were - running after a deer, and it kept darting this way and that, and then it reached a stream and I couldn’t make the jump across it but Ga- you could, and the deer was getting away and you were telling me to come on and jump over but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t make it over.”

Lehabim:  “Saph, I’m really really sorry about before, I didn’t mean to make you think I want to rule this land with an iron fist - or any fist at all.  I want this to be a place where Sims want to come and live their lives and I think I’m the one with the best ideas to make that happen, and I know with you by my side we’ll make it happen together, and I don’t ever want to do anything to hurt you or scare you.”

Kimba:  “Have you tried summoning the dee- spirit with music?  Noel is always talking about how powerful the magic of music is.”

A Voice on the Wind: ♫ Spirits, Spirits, in the trees ♫ please come out and talk to meee ♫ I have needs and you have powers ♫ If you help me I’ll give you flowers ♫ Spirits, Spirits in the trees ♫ let me indebt myself to theeeeee ♫

.

T̲̟͔͍͙̘͖ͣ̽͒h̩̣̱͋ͧ̈ͪͨͨ́̚i̩̜̗͔̖̮͎ͣ̃̂̆͊̀̆ͮ̀s̞̯͕͍̟͎̞̦̓̓͋̀̽̐͑ ̭̳̲̲̿ͧ͊̌ͮͨc̥͈̼̺̎̇͑ͨͬ̑o̗̲͕̘ͥͫu̲̝̩͊͆͊̔ͫ̓̌̀l̦̟̭̍͌͐d̙̑͊ ̮̟̠̼͊̈̊͊ͣ̓ͧ̀b̻̲̺̝͂̂ͥ̚ͅḛ̲̮̗ͦͥ̓̿ ͈̞̯̗̭̠̬ͬͩ̊̈́̍͌̿̄f̼̹͚̲̐ͧ̍̑̽ű̹͔͑ͭ̓n̫̰̣̈ͩ̽̐̾͆

.

Noel:  “Everybody, I have to warn you to be on the lookout for ogres, or demons, or any other evil spirits of the forest… I don’t want to point any fingers - so I won’t tell you which person not sitting at this table tried to summon the supernatural today without help from me or Rubati… and so it probably wasn’t successful, of course.  But.  Just in case.  Be on the lookout, and come get me immediately if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

Dan:  “Lehabim of the Golden Eyes, the sound of my true name cannot be heard nor comprehended on this mortal plane.  Suffice it to say that I am the one who can make all your dreams come true, so long as it pleases me to do so.  Do you want riches?  Unfathomable riches?  I can make you so prosperous your mind would explode.  Power?  Dominion over this forest and all its minor creatures, dominion over your fellow sims, even unto Death itself?  Speak it, and we shall see whether I want to make it so.”

Lehabim:  “I mean, that all sounds really great, and I’d love to talk over my ideas for the village with you, but, seriously, what do I call you?  It feels weird not having a way to address you.”

Dan:  ::huff::  “Fine.  You may call me Dan.”

Lehabim:  “Dan, can I ask you something?  Are there really ogres in the forest?  It would be a huge help if we knew exactly what threats to be on the lookout for.”

Dan:  “Ogres, elves, tomatoes, toh-mah-toes.”

Nadii’ya:  “Do you ever wonder if you’ll be able to remember all the names of the new babies?” Tobiah:  “Probably.  Eventually.  I mean, I really only need to know our kid’s name at first, right?  I’m sure I’ll pick up the rest in time.” Nadii’ya:  “…what if we have twins?” Tobiah:  “Uhhhhhh.  Then, uh oh, I suppose.”

Pallu:  “So, which one is this, again?”

Stachia:  “Darah.  I think Darah.  I think we decided if you always do everything for Darah, and I always do everything for Hasrah, then we’ll never get them confused.”

Pallu:  “Right, right right right.  Okay.  Darah for Daddy and Hasrah for Mommy.  Makes sense.  We’ve got this, Stach.  We each do a diaper, we each do a cuddle, we each put one down for a nap… they’ll be toddlers in no time.”

Tammuz:  “Thanks for being here, Japhia.  I didn’t even know how much I missed you.”

Nadii’ya:  “Look at you!  How did you fit inside me?!  You look like a Linus.  Your father missed the whole birth, so he doesn’t get a say.  And I say, you look like a Linus.  Hello, Linus, who’s the biggest baby to come out of the tiniest mommy?  You are!  Yes, you are!”

Noel:  “Kimba!  You’ve done it!  You’ve birthed the most perfect bundle of perfection I’ve ever seen!  Can I name her?  Please, pretty please?  I promise you’ll like what I pick!”

Kimba:  “Ok, wha-”

Noel:  “GAIA!  The mother of the world!”

Kimba:  “That’s a lot of pressure to put on one little baby, Noel.  You sure?”

Noel:  “Gaia!  I can feel the Creator whispering it in my ear.  Gaia, the first goddess. Gaia, the progenitor of the entire future. Gaia, the mother of all simulated life.“

Kimba;  “Yeah, you’re right, that’s no pressure at all, love.  I’m sure she’ll turn out just fine.  Gaia it is, then.”

Saphir:  “Tziviah, shhhhh shhh shhhh!  Time for sleep, little doe!  I’ll be right here next to you the whole time, and when the sun comes up, we’ll start your first day on this crazy plane of semi-existence!  I have so many things I didn’t even know I wanted to teach you!”

Rubati:  Literally WHAT have I gotten myself into??

[gotatext]

                   hllo ! i’m nora ( she / her, 24, gmt ) crawling back to this rp once more like the dirty sewer slug i am !! i just can’t get enough, baybeyyy ! u may remember me frm such roles as alma putnam, rory bergstrom, bridget matusiak or greta o’driscoll 2 name jst a few.... sure there were more over these long years, bt the show must go on.... this is mimi, she’s dogmatic, tenacious n single-minded 2 the point of recklessness, she doesn’t like handouts n she’s funding her degree through her onlyfans account n moaning abt shit on tiktok. we love 2 see it !!  slam that like button n i’ll creep into ur DMs like the slippery worm i am   OR u can discord me at that bitch carole baskin#8664.   a humble pinterest.

『ALEXA DEMIE ❙ CIS-FEMALE 』 ⟿ looks like MIMI MARTÍNEZ is here for HER SOPHOMORE year as an ARCHITECTURE AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY student. SHE is 22 years old & known to be STRONG-WILLED, GOAL-ORIENTED, ARROGANT & EASILY BORED. They’re living in MORIS, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ nora. 24. gmt. she/her.

this is p embarassing but i actually originally wrote mimi for a discord rp based around love island asgjag dont laugh at me but it was so chaotic n someone deleted it w-out telling any of us so i lost her bio.... all her threads....e verythin.... it was mad. but anyway we startin from scratch w this intro so bare with

mimi is a really extra character so when trying to flesh her out i thot of the most extra thing i could do n made a colour coded mindmap with watercolour paints detailing her values, aesthetics and early life. shoot me

background: she grew up in a trailer home in boulder city, abt half an hour from vegas. her mom had worked in a vegas casino for most of her 20s but relocated to boulder city for a slower pace of life / lower crime rate when she started having kids. mimi has 2 older brothers n she’s the youngest. has that invulnerable younger sibling complex n basically thinks nothing can touch her. very confident in her own intelligence and her ability to get shit done 

has mexican ancestry on her mom’s side. doesn’t know her dad. was raised with spanish catholic principals n found it all very stained glass windows and extra n that’s why she was kinda drawn to the decadence of vegas and all these massively high key aesthetics, like dia de les muertos was her fave thing growin up just bcos the pure feel of the festival and painting a sugar skull on her face n being able to party on the streets in a flower crown where everyone was kinda anonymous but together in this celebration

in boulder city her mom worked as a carer as there’s a lot of retirees there. mimi really resented the slow pace of life, longed for some fucking energy n life. she was a cheerleader in school but outside of school there wsn’t much to do except practise stunts and go on bike rides.  occasionally they’d get dressed up and catch a bus to henderson, the next biggest city for them to get tht sweet night life

her teenage years consisted mostly of hanging around the renovated motel blocks used as housing projects n tanning by the pool. very florida project if you’ve seen that. she reminds me a lot of the mum in that. also she started working as an avon rep going door-to-door when she was 16 bcos she wanted to have her own income. like as young as 14 she’d decided she was smart enough to go to college but she didn’t have the money n her family didn’t really see it as a worthwhile thing, her mom was very like the mom from matilda “you chose books.... i chose looks!” which i think is where a lot of mimi’s more shallow / appearance-driven traits come from

wasn’t really ‘cool’ until high school. before that she was a bit of a lisa simpson type. won a spelling bee when she was 9. was in the mathletes squad in middle school. when she went from middle school to high school she started cheer and tried to reinvent herself basically. always been very concerned with social mobility and keen to socially climb, like when she enters a new situation she’ll find out who the alphas are and quickly try n befriend them

when she turned 18 she moved out and went to vegas despite her mom hating the idea bcos it was everything she’d tried to get her kids away from. she worked in the clubs there for several years as a shot girl, a table dancer, n eventually she started workin behind the bar in a strip club. in the club it ws really hard to resist becoming a dancer bcos of the sheer amount they made in tips. no one really pressured her into it she just eventually decided tht it was way more logical to do it while she was young n fit and had the stamina and ppl were willing to pay to see her body so she started taking pole fitness lessons. she also started working as a cam girl around this time

working in vegas strip clubs is basically whats paid for uni. like she didn’t go at 18 like most of her friends did bcos she didn’t have the money and she didn’t want to feel indebted to a college like she had to compete for her place and not put a toe out of line bcos she was on a scholarship. she was determined to pay her own way and it took 4 years of working really hard and saving n even tho she was working in vegas she basically never went out bcos every penny she had needed to go on uni n thts how we get to radcliffe baybeeyy

part 2  - interior / values / personality

values: the aesthetic !! literally loves the aesthetic so much. everything she owns is super embellished, she’s a pop socket gal, her dell laptop is covered in glitzy stickers, she always has acrylics n probs makes nail art videos on tiktok. really tuned into tiny details like painting a little hello kitty above her eye which translates into her degree when she’s doing small-scale mockups of town plans n stuff... she jst puts so much detail into them. ppl often get surprised when she tells them she does architecture but it makes so much sense bcos she grew up in a trailer park n was always thinking about ways the space could be more efficiently used, like she loves re-conceptualising neighbourhoods, definitely spent hours on sims as a kid. she also grew up near hoover dam n so loads of school trips they just took them there n she was like.... this is tight but it could be cooler.... where’s the passion....

massively into photography, has such a neat instagram feed like everything just compliments the tones in the next post like mMMM. idk if any of u know any architecture students but this is literally the one constant i can find…. like they all have super good instagrams feeds. is that bitch that will take 40 fake candids of u in a row at different angles to get u the perfect profile picture cos she understands the importance of marketing urself and having an online #brand

has wire rimmed glasses that she doesn’t need to see BUT they r like a magnifying glass for when she’s working with really small materials to do a mock up of an urban plan, and also just sometimes wears them for the aesthetic bc she’s such a pinterest bitch

assassination nation is such a big mood. literally the aesthetics of that and lily colson’s whole brand of feminism and nudity not being inherently sexual but at the same time wanting to profit off that bcos why the fuck shouldnt she use a corrupt system to her advantage is incredibly mimi

literally a human personification of a bratz doll both in attitude and fashion sense

somehow simultaneously gansey in the raven cycle AND elle woods in legally blonde? the two genders 

values cont bc i started rambling: her independence and freedom. being the best at any given task she sets her mind to accomplish because she is unable to accept failure. social mobility. sexual liberation. interested in the psychology of sub-cultures and how ppl form groups and interact w each other and cult identities which is why she minors in anthropology. pro-choice. pro-weed legalisation. pro-sex worker rights. very activist.

aesthetics tht remind me of her: von dutch. a strappy cami top that says ‘please do not do coke in the bathroom’. low-waisted jeans that show off her belly button piercing. acrylic nails tapping against a heavily embellished second-hand dell laptop. heart shaped sunglasses in every colour. translucent stripper heels with barbie doll heads and plastic spiders in the heel. spraying champagne you cant afford all over the walls. narcotics in a heart shaped locket. an amazon wishlist full of lingerie linked on your tinder profile. sex tapes recorded on VCR. a religious devotion to waxing clinics. necking shots like you were born to do it.

she’s an enfj type which makes her pretty charismatic and confidence, like she has a fierce kind of energy to her, but she’s also super unwilling to accept criticism, dogmatic and can only really see her own way of thinking, quite ruthless when it comes 2 other ppls emotions despite having a poor control of her own and being prone to turbulence / throwin a bitch fit in the craft lab. easily bored. competitive. self-assured to the point of arrogance. forceful. adaptable. usually more rational than emotional but occasionally loses the ability to make rational decisions when blinded by a need for perfectionism.

very goal-oriented. money motivates her. money and clothes. she wants to look bomb while earning big bucks. when she gets her mind set on a project it literally consumes her she will forget to eat and sleep? i don’t know her.  like when a final design project is due for architecture she’ll be up all night doing adderall and speed to keep her awake working on the placement of a single tree for ages cos its gotta be perfect

loves chaos. will spill your secrets and pretend it was an accident. will always be that gif of kim kardashian sipping her tea while drama unfolds around her. lives for the drama like that gifset of bratz when she comes running and gets her phone out to record a fight.

im makin her sound like a really bad person but hopefully she’ll be somewhat likeable she can be very charismatic and endearing and she’s naturally quite funny. also now she’s finally in college and doesn’t have to worry so much about money she actually allows herself to party n bcos she denied herself of it for so long she kinda makes up for it by going p wild like will be the girl climbing on to stage to crowd surf at gigs or doing a summersault off the bar and being escorted out by bouncers, thats the energy were looking at, pure dionysian hedonistic impulse

really gd at talking her way out of shit like parking fines. so good at being an ‘im baby’ girl and often dumbs herself down to figures of authority to appear less like a threatening ball-breaker and more like a confused fiat 500 girl who didn’t know red meant stop she thought it meant slow down

listens almost exclusively to female artists. has fergalicious on repeat when she does squats infront of the mirror n just the biggest fergie stan. also lana del rey’s whole vibe is massive mimi energy

ok ya thats all i have for now..... hopefully this is somewhat coherent and not just garbage.

[icequeen-shiva]

alright, you know what

about two weeks ago maybe by now, i made a post about how i’ve recently hit 200 followers and i’d like to do a q&a again, and even with a reblog from someone more ~*popular*~ than me, and multiple reblogs once a day for a few days by myself, i didn’t get a single fucking question. not one. earlier today i posted two pictures of myself where i felt pretty (i’ve since deleted them) and nobody i actually know of liked it and i got asked by a stranger who doesn’t even follow me if i had any nsfw pictures. i don’t get asks anymore, i don’t get shit. and that tells me that, you may be following me, but you aren’t connecting with me. and i feel that. i get on tumblr and i don’t feel like i’m friends with fucking anybody. and i did that. i know i did that. 9/10 times i let my fear of rejection and embarrassing myself overcome my desire to talk to people, so i don’t do it, or i let it fizzle out and we go our own ways and we don’t become friends. 1/10 times i actually function as a human being and make a connection or at least something that sticks a little.

so here, below the cut, is a comprehensive (loosely) list of things that i like, in no particular order at all, besides tickling, because apparently both sides of this need a little help connecting on any front.

scooby-doo

beetlejuice

the addams family

the sims

the mcu

classic disney animations; my favorites are dumbo, the great mouse detective, the rescuers, sleeping beauty, and oliver and company (it’s old enough that i consider it in the classic category)

~modern disney animations too; my favorites are treasure fucking planet, coco, and... i’m a sap, beauty and the beast. rise of the guardians too even though it isn’t disney.

musicals; i can’t pick a favorite just fucking ask me, but i don’t know a lot of newer ones honestly

empire records

the greatest showman still

cats (i mean the animals but i also like the show even though it is Weird As Hell)

my cat in particular

alice in wonderland

stranger things

space jam

tsum tsums

elvira, mistress of the dark

dice

kiki’s delivery service and specifically jiji things

winnie the pooh i don’t even fucking care i LOVE HIM AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

silly hats

playdoh

interesting earrings

exploring libraries or big bookstores

true crime mysteries; my favorite youtuber for this is georgia marie, bless her. i also watch bella fiori and kendall rae

fictional mysteries too

i have a kind of fascination with jack the ripper and with the lizzie borden case

shipwrecks! i don’t know why but shipwrecks fascinate me! why did they go down? all the stories that went with them!

i once read a novel that was told as a series of letters, or journal entries, by people on the titanic, including the iceberg and it was THE absolute saddest book i have ever read in my life. like, obviously i knew what was coming, but i got attached to the characters, the letters made them alive and it was just like... NO. NO I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE. I KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO BUT THEY CAN’T. and it was awful. i had to put it down and cry.

cryptozoology

the bermuda triangle theories (i’m not saying i believe sOmEtHiNg’S gOiNg On but i think some of the theories are interesting)

ghosts

the nancy drew computer games

monopoly

i still play a lot of my snes games; my go-to time killer and head-clearer honestly is kirby’s avalanche. i also play a lot of super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, super mario world, kirby’s dreamland 3, and donkey kong 2 and 3

final fantasy x in which i’m guaranteed to call almost (i can’t stress that enough) every character at some point “my child”

hyrule warriors, i know it’s not a tRuE zelda game but it’s fucking fun

same with fire emblem warriors

red dead redemption

kingdom hearts

the uncharted series

splatoon but i don’t have it wahhhhh

mind you i am not very Good at videogames, i just like to play them anyway

game grumps

ninja sex party

jacksepticeye

markiplier

monty python

crocheting

tea

harry potter

classic rock. pretty big on queen lately. i like tom petty and the heartbreakers. i like joan jett and the blackhearts.

i just... like rock. across the board. i like the offspring. i like some rage against the machine songs. acdc on the radio makes me happy. def leppard on the radio makes me happy. beartooth, starset, powerman 5000, as long as it’s got a good beat and good stuff going on behind the vocals then i’m gonna be happy. i’m way more into the guitars and the bass and everything going on instrumentally than i am vocally, honestly. the whole big guitar solo to van halen’s “you really got me” and then that bassline that comes in, that bassline is sexy. it’s so simple but i LIKE it.

anyway music as a whole gets me right in the heart and can lift me up when i am at my literal worst point

it’s hard for me to name a favorite or specific bands that i like because there’s so many and i’m not really picky about it. 

pop vinyls

good ol’ vines

buffalo wings

mac and cheese

grilled cheese

dr. pepper

i drink a l o t of dr. pepper

pretending i know how to do makeup well

history; i watch a lot of expedition unknown and mysteries at the museum, and sometimes i’ll watch a free documentary on youtube if it catches my attention. last weekend i explained the donner party to my boyfriend. just.. on a whim. because i’d just watched a thing on it and he said he didn’t really know what it was. i’m that person.

OH I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS BACK AROUND TRUE CRIME BUT I READ A BOOK ABOUT H.H. HOLMES AND HIS MURDER CASTLE AND THE CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR. it was by erik larson, i believe. larsen? i could google this. devil in the white city. there’s been talks to make it a movie. it’s a good read though i will admit i skipped a lot of the fair parts because i was there for the murder.

i also read a book about the lusitania by the same author and i was like ohhh my goooood what. it got a little boring sometimes, i had to push myself to keep going, but i would read dead wake again.

csi: miami reruns are the greatest thing don’t @ me

dark purple and black aesthetics

just like... witchy aesthetics. those colors and black cats

if you haven’t noticed by any selfies i’ve posted, i do have my lip pierced and i love finding new lip jewelry. i have a new opal stud in and i love its look

leather jackets

combat boots; i have a galaxy print pair and a pair with classic marvel comics stuff printed on the inside and you can fold down the sides to show it. they’re my faves.

owls

drunk history

the first 5 seasons of supernatural and i still have a soft spot for the winchesters and castiel

i’m slowly making my way through watching the librarians

i’m also making my way slowly through watching the magicians

(american) football

nature walks

going to the zoo

going to the aquarium

like really take me to either of the above and i will lose my shit

road trips

savannah, georgia

the smokey mountains

last august i drove by myself from ohio to boone, north carolina for a friend’s wedding and that wedding was smack on a mountain top and it was the coolest thing i think i’ve ever done

roller coasters BUT NOT EXTREME ONES baby steps ok

log rides tho, i don’t know why, i always love the water rides

ren faires!

cosplay, even though i’m not exactly active in it myself (but i want to be; one of my offline friends is an actually-getting-kind-of-internet-famous mei from overwatch cosplayer)

cards against humanity

foosball

pool but i suck at it

speaking of pools i love swimming ... but i suck at it, i just like boppin’ along in a pool

cookouts

summer

there is nothing like being out in the middle of nowhere in summer when the evening starts to fall and the sky is dark, dark blue and there’s a sea of shimmering lightning bugs out over a field. it’s beautiful. it’s peaceful.

there’s nothing like sitting outside on a calm spring night and listening to the spring peepers (they’re frogs) either.

if you couldn’t tell, i live in the middle of nowhere. i have to find enjoyment in the little things.

campfires

dancing around said campfire, you cannot have a campfire without good music. this is when a lot of my classic rock education came to pass.

elephants

my favorite books are the abhorsen trilogy by garth nix, tied with the serpent’s shadow by mercedes lackey

i am trying to get into comic books by way of the youtube channel comicstorian. they break comic books down for you and read them aloud with the images, altered slightly to avoid copyright strikes (and that’s all made very clear, it’s not done sketchily), and it’s been really easy for someone like me who doesn’t just have a comics store close (and i would otherwise continue on as i have been, forgetting to ever look for them on the internet). i listened to injustice 1 and 2, and they covered the game. i’m actively following scooby apocalypse, and there was some teen titans stuff i went all the way through up until now. i don’t think it’s finished yet from what i remember.

i love museums

candles

i actually kind of collect tea sets

i also have a collection of sand art bottles AND IF I’M EVER AT A FESTIVAL OR A FAIR WHERE THERE IS A SAND ART STAND YOU CAN BET I AM GOING TO MAKE ONE

yugioh duels; i’m definitely just a novice and it’s just a fun pastime my friends got me into when they found their giant binders of cards again

i’m not actually that big on pokemon, i don’t know a lot of them but it’s still fun and i know some. but i did love pokemon go when my friends still played it (don’t really have time anymore, and it kept crashing way too badly on one of their phones anymore anytime they tried to join a raid and it just wasn’t fun as a group then)

i don’t have any but i like the ~look of crystals and would like to have some, not for my own aesthetic but i just... like having pretty things!

listening to the rain

how the air smells (at least where i live) after a long rain and everything is just cleansed

depression has stopped me from writing for a long time but, in my heart, writing has always been something that has touched me ever since i knew how to do it and could put my stories down on paper instead of having to just talk about them... so i’m going to include that here

root beer floats

hotdogs

hard dip ice cream (if you don’t know what hard dip means... as my boyfriend didn’t... it means ice cream that you have to use a scoop with, not soft serve)

soft serve’s good too tho don’t get me wrong

strawberry milkshakes

this isn’t even stuff that anyone would need to know on this site to befriend me at this point, nobody’s gonna message me like HEY I READ YOU LIKE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES ME FUCKING TOO

you’re cool if you do that lmao

so bad they’re good creature features from the 50s and 60s

the old godzilla movies

i like the moon more than the stars, but i like them too

flower crowns

bouncy balls

original skittles

this has gone on way too long, nobody is reading this, your mom’s a hoe, goodnight

no she’s not, i’m sorry, if you got this far then i hope your mom is a nice person

[snowbatsims]

post 12: this one’s about the old one

Original post

So, I did a fun thing with the calendar feature in Seasons: I added "holidays" to represent birthdays. Birthdays for the immortals, that is. Because hey, they're still adding numbers to their age, right? The holiday traditions all include gifting (gifting the birthday sim specifically), but the additional traditions depend on the person. I also doubled the length of the year, since I started feeling like things were happening too quickly. 

Anyway, it's currently summer in-game, and it was Einarr's birthday recently! The traditions I put for him specifically were "remembering the dead", and "drinking". (As well as the gifts, but everyone gets that) Ironically, the only tradition he cared about fulfilling was the drinking. Which makes sense I guess; he's lived a very long undeath. More than a millennia. It's probably just depressing to think of every mortal friend he's lost over time. He's also just kind of stopped caring about material goods, since everything will inevitably rot and decay over time anyway. Like, I can see where he's coming from here. That didn't stop the others from gifting him stuff, though. He does appreciate the gesture.

RUNE: You said at some point that your birthday was sometime during summer, so here's this. EINARR: Oh, for me? Why, thank you. RUNE: So how old are you turning now? EINARR: It should be 1042 summers this year, I believe. It doesn't matter too much anyway. RUNE: What is your date of birth exactly? Do you remember? EINARR: No? RUNE: 😮 EINARR: Why would I? We didn't use that newfangled Gregorian calendar every single western country seems to use these days. So obviously, I wouldn't know the exact birthday. EINARR: We actualy based our months on the moon phases! It worked well enough for us. EINARR: So, my birthday was at the end of Sólmánuður. I really don't know what that translates to, but yes, it's around this time! EINARR: I will say though, often I’ve had my fake IDs say July 9th, because that’s a close month and a fun number I like. RUNE: Oh! EINARR: Your calendar wasn't completely introduced until about five hundred years after my time. Until then, I just counted my own years like everyone else would. I remember I was about 24 when this one vampire almost killed me, RUNE: Oh dear. That's when you turned, wasn't it. EINARR: Yep! RUNE: Do you... still remember?

EINARR: Hm, sort of... I'm pretty sure it was when my folks went viking, more than a thousand years ago, and then we all arrived at this one castle by the coast. Great raiding material. Let’s go, we all thought.

EINARR: Of course, none of us actually knew this castle belonged to a literal vampire. Though the overall emptiness should have been a hint.

EINARR: I split off from the group. I was found by the vampire. EINARR: And then, I fought the vampire in an epic duel! EINARR: One which I won. RUNE: Isn’t that how you died? EINARR: It was. EINARR: But Rune... funny name boy, look at me. Am I not talking to you this very moment? Am I really dead? RUNE: No... EINARR: Exactly. I even beheaded the guy. He only scratched me enough to leave me bleeding. I believe I may have won that duel.

EINARR: Still, that bloodloss really knocked me out for a bit. EINARR: Next thing I knew, I found myself changed, and then... I found my friend Ketill dead. EINARR: May Odin have greeted him in Valhǫll back then, for that appeared to have been a valiant fight.

EINARR: However, the vampire lord wasn't happy with me not being as dead as I should have been, so he held me captive for a couple of years, teaching me a little about vampirism while only feeding me scraps of blood. I obviously missed the trip home. RUNE: Didn’t you behead him?? EINARR: Well yes, but he put his head back on. As one does. RUNE: Ah... EINARR: Of course, I did manage to escape him in the end, but when i finally returned to Norway, it somehow had been taken over by some random horrible religion. You probably know the one. EINARR: I went looking for my family, but most had been murdered just because they refused to convert. Which is makes sense, I wouldn't want to either.

RUNE: Hm. Yeah, I get that. I'm sorry about the friend, though. EINARR: Oh, it's alright. If I spent all my time grieving over all the loved ones I've lost to mortality, I'd probably not still be here, hah! I'm fine. RUNE: Did you ever figure out which Gregorian calendar year you were born in? I'm curious. EINARR: Not really, but I could easily do the math... Ah, it was in the summer of "984". RUNE: Cool! Also, I think you forgot your present. EINARR: Oh, right.

EINARR: ...it's modern currency. RUNE: Yup. Figured it would be good to have in case you wanted anything. EINARR: Thanks.

Then, yet another lint tray fire happened.

Jeez, good thing they don't live alone.

MORTEN: I'm so done.

MORT: You know, I really don't think this should be normal. EINARR: Would you rather like to wash clothing the traditional way? MORT: ...Not really.

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

Later, Rune's brother came to visit. He'd heard about his brother's newfound fame, and just.. invited himself in.

SNORRE: Wellllll hello there, it seems like my little brother is finally getting famous for his talents! I'm so proud of you, son. RUNE: You.. you do realize I'm older than you by like five years, right? I'm the older brother. I'm literally older than you. SNORRE: Well, yeah! But, you look like you're the same age as my children. You absolute vampire. RUNE: ... BAT: Hey, random human, who invited you??? Get out.

KVIKINDI: Guys, let's stop squabbling and try to be friends instead! SNORRE: Whoa, hey, is that an alien kid? RUNE: Yeah. BAT: Friendship... You've been spending too much time with Mort lately, haven't you?? KVIK: Have not. BAT: Have too. KVIK: I have not!! BAT: Ugh, just go to your room already!!! RUNE: Wow, would you look at that, Bat is finally starting to sound like a real parent. BAT: What???? NO!!!!! RUNE: :)

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

Ghost night at the bar! Fittingly, this was also on Einarr's "birthday".

imagine being mortal. this meme was made by the vampire gang

MORT: Dude, I think this ghost might recognize you. He keeps talking about this one guy he once knew. EINARR: Bernard? Long time, no see!

BERNARD: I'm sorry, who were you again? EINARR: Ah right, you probably got to know me while I was pretending to be human. My apologies. BERNARD: Hold on.. Einarr? Your face does look vaguely familiar. EINARR: Yes! BERNARD: Sorry, those huge ears of yours really threw me off. And the hair. It’s really long. EINARR: That's alright! I’ve always preferred it long, anyway. So, how has... death been treating you? What's it like to be mortal? BERNARD: ...

BERNARD: Well, for starters, I'm literally dead. EINARR: Ah, right. How many centuries now? BERNARD: Can't say I've been keeping track, I'm sorry. EINARR: That's fair.

SIINI: Huh. Didn't expect to see you around here.

MORT: Same to you!! SIINI: Are you still absolute garbage at programming? MORT: What? Noooo.... of course not. SIINI: Lol, prove it. MORT: Dude, we don't have any computers here. SIINI: ...fair.

And, the llama game.

Oh no. 

He lost. 

[katatty]

Characters

Part 5 of my Custom Neighbourhood Guide

While working on your neighbourhood you most likely already have an idea of the families and sims that will be living there, and how they relate to each other. Now’s the time to flesh those characters out! This section of the guide will cover creating sims, characterisation, relationships, and the question of whether to include townies and/or NPCs. 

(As always do take everything I say in this guide with a grain of salt – every creator is different and my own preferences & opinions might not be your own. But hopefully there’ll be something useful in here for everyone.)

Making Sims

You can create you sims in either Bodyshop or Create a Sim. There are advantages to both! Many people find Bodyshop easier to use and it has slightly more tools available, plus it will allow you to save copies of your sims easily. CAS sims won’t be able to be saved without first extracting their appearance in SimPE – however it will allow you to do genetic mixing more easily, and with debugging mode on will enable more of the catalog, such as career outfits and alien skins. Whichever one you use is really just down to personal preference.

When creating sims to populate a neighbourhood, it’s generally good to have plenty of genetic diversity. You might choose otherwise, for example if you are closely basing your neighbourhood on a real-world location with a less diverse population, but a good rule of thumb is to try to include at least one sim with each of the available hair colours, eye colours, skin colours, etc.

Different players will have different tastes when it comes to sim faces. I have bad facial recognition and like extreme, cartoony features. Other players might prefer prettier sims! Again, this is something that’s entirely up to you. Almost all players, however, like to see sims with unique and recognisable faces, so try and avoid simply using templates when creating sims. Pick at least one “unusual” feature, perhaps a large nose, beady eyes, a slightly upturned mouth - anything to make them stand out! Another possible idea is to combine existing templates for more interesting results.

It’s also worth looking at the some Custom Sliders! Sims made using these will still work in a cc-free game, and they open up a lot of new options, like asymmetrical features, buck teeth and elfier ears. Honestly, I am not the greatest at face sculpting, so I’ll link to a few resources and tutorials on it by other people:

Sims 2 Sliders - index of all sliders

Pooklet’s Method - a “randomisation” method for making interesting faces

The final detail for you sim will be their hair & outfit! Resist the temptation to pick the cutest items in the catalog – think about the personality, occupation and interests of the sim you are making and try and give them an appearance that suggests that. Desiderata Valley is actually a great example of this being done well – most of the inhabitants dress in a way that reflect their chosen hobbies. Remember that many players LOVE giving everyone makeovers so don’t get too attached to their appearance! This is another reason to place more importance on getting across their characterisation rather than focusing on making everyone look cute.

Characterisation 

To me this is one of the most important aspects of a sim! Aside from their physical appearance, there are so many things that can help flesh out and define a sim:

Bio – This is one of the least subtle as it is literally what you tell the players about your sim, so make it count! I like my bios to be short and snappy, and try to include fun facts, personality traits, or info about the character’s values and motivations.

Memories – I’ll go into more detail about editing memories in the next part, but memories are one of the easiest ways to show a character’s history. Who taught them their toddler skills, if anyone? When did they have their first kiss? Did they ever run away from home? Take a look at the full List of Memories for more ideas!

Storytelling images – Another good way to show a family history!

Aspiration – This is one of the things that most defines a sim. They might be a very typical sim for their aspiration, like the Curious brothers, who are very much classic knowledge sims! Aspiration doesn’t have to define them, however, and there’s no reason they have to follow the classic stereotypes. Maybe they’re a family sim in love with two people, like Widespot’s Mary Hart? Maybe a shy, grouchy romance sim like Nina Caliente? Take a look at Rockethorse’s Alternate Reads of Aspirations and Dinuriel’s Psychology Version of Aspirations for some “outside the box” ideas.

Personality Points – Bear in mind that more extreme personalities will result in more interesting behaviour from a sim! In my view it’s worth giving each sim at least one extreme personality trait (such as being a mega-slob or a outgoing chatterbox) to help define them.

Zodiac – This will effect chemistry, which is the only real gameplay effect, but players into astrology might infer some character traits from this!

Interests – This mainly effects the conversations sims will have, but again will give players ideas about their personality. A refined sim might have a lot of interest in culture. A high interest in crime could point towards a potential criminal career, or maybe in law enforcement. Eco warriors might have a high interest in environment, politics and animals.

Hobby – Similar to interests, this can flesh out what a sim is all about, and in some cases can even give them new traits and abilities. I particularly enjoy giving sims points in the film & lit hobby so that they’ll walk around with a book in their hand.

Skills – It makes sense for a sim to have a few skills, especially if they are an adult or elder! As a general rule I give sims skills corresponding with the point they are at in their career.

Many of these things, like interests, skills and hobbies, will be assigned to a sim when they are created, but these can easily be changed with testing cheats, SimPE, the Simblender, or the Batbox if you have a strong preference for what they’re into! There are other things you could consider too, like turn ons, sexual orientation, vacation memories, skill badges, etc.  

This is my own preference, but when defining a sim’s personality I think it’s importance to give them both some positive and negative traits, and keep the details ambiguous enough that there is plenty of room for player interpretation. Donna Fusilli, for example, can be interpreted as a victim, villain, or something in between. She’s a mob boss’s wife, they have a low relationship and it’s implied she married for money, but she also does love him, and has turned down the opportunity to have an affair according to her memories. She has a good relationship with her kids but is thoroughly detested by her mother-in-law, and the reason for this is up to the imagination of the player.

Then again, perhaps you prefer more clear-cut good guys and bad guys? That can work, too! Bear in mind though, that the player might not agree with the roles you have cast them in. Don Lothario and the Caliente sisters seem to me as though they were intended to be villains by Maxis, but many players like to give them more sympathetic backstories and motivations. Remember that the characters you are creating should be giving the players prompts and ideas rather than dictating any one “correct” interpretation.

Relationships 

Another important part of a sim is the relationships they have with other characters in the neighbourhood! How big is their family? Does it only consist of their household, or do they have other relatives living in the neighbourhood? Do they get on well with their family, and who are they closest to? Who are their closest friends? Are their friends in the same age group, or do they get on better with a different age group? How long have they been friends? Are they married, single, do they have a love interest? Multiple love interests? What about enemies, or rivals? Is there anyone in town that they dislike, or who dislikes them?

One-sided rivalries or crushes can be particularly interesting! When I made Europa, for example, I made all of the elder females dislike Viola Rochetti – implying (along with her biography) that she was the subject of a lot of gossip.

For most neighbourhoods the interwoven network of relationships will comprise a lot of the plot. Pleasantview has its tangled love web, Veronaville has its bitter rivalries, Strangetown has its complex family trees… the only limit is your imagination. When creating a sim I like to work out what their connections are to the rest of the town very early on – there shouldn’t be any sims included with no relevance to the neighbourhood plot and no links to the other residents. (Unless perhaps they’re a hermit or recluse? In which case, carry on.)

You might find it helpful to scrawl out some family trees or relationship maps on paper, especially if the set-up you are envisioning is complicated!

Townies and NPCs

When setting up your neighbourhood you will have taken steps to avoid generating unnecessary townies and NPCs. However, perhaps you want a few townies around so that the dating options in the neighbourhood are more varied? There might be some NPCs you can’t avoid generating, and maybe you want to customise them to fit in better with your neighbourhood?  Perhaps you’d like a few non-playables to play a role in the plot, like Kaylynn Langerak? Most sharable neighbourhoods contain a few townies and NPCs, and even Meetme’s uberhood templates contain a few “plot relevant” townies, like Crystal Vu.

You may even want to include a complete townie and NPC pool. There are pros and cons to doing this; some players prefer fewer character files and like being able to choose whether to add townies themselves, whilst others might appreciate having less work to do, and being able to play a more customised neighbourhood which feels fully populated. Quadington University and Tumbleton are a few examples of this! Creating multiple versions of your neighbourhood with and without townies and NPCs is also an option.

Something I haven’t seen done but am interested in trying myself in a future neighbourhood is townie-owned community lots! According to some testing by @dramallamadingdang, it’s possible to have a townie purchase a community lot and run it as an owned business. This could open up some interesting possibilities, like shops that can sell just about anything, restaurants with more selective menus, staff that you can pick out and customise yourself very easily... could be fun to experiment with!

There are quite a few ways to go about making and customising townies and NPCs, and the method you use will depend on your game configuaration and exactly what you want to do with them. Personally I create townies in CAS and townify them with the Simblender. I let NPCs generate through normal gameplay then change their appearance using SimPE. I’ll link a few tutorials/resources below:

Alternate Sim Surgery Plugin 

How to Use Sim Surgery with SimPE

Modifying a Sim's genes

Extracting & Packaging sims

Clean custom neighbourhoods + townie creation

NPC and Townie Maker

Make your own hobby sims

Make Your Own Default Townies, Downtownies, Dormies, and Adoptable Pets!

[ad-sanandum]

night shift thoughts

night shift - a blur of off-days: playing the sims, lounging on the couch and trying not to fall asleep while watching Netflix, getting two men bagels, hanging out with friends; actually working: huddled up in the cold for 12 hours in IPB, verifying orders, answering calls, going up to C31, taking breaks in the pantry, packing sandwiches and snacks, quick dinner runs at northpoint, starbucks and gongcha EON.

today - first day back to normal shift at work. both familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time: familiar faces, familiar routines; yet at the same time, unfamiliar faces, unfamiliar routines. it's hard to feel a sense of job satisfaction when we aren't getting the opportunity to train in specialized services and take on portfolios - am literally doing the same thing as i was doing a year ago.

---

i had a call with HR yesterday. basically, the CEO of KTPH knows about my situation and he was apparently, actually happy for me that i got into duke and whatnot. not sure why i was so surprised that someone like the CEO knows about a plebeian like me, considering how i guess management has to know about my exceptional situation - guess i just didn't know to what extent. he also wanted to know how my experience has been working here. basically, i didn't lie, i said that especially within the first few months, i felt like the whole experience was just so surreal and i couldn't believe that i was entrusted with the care of patients. i felt so motivated and inspired to do what i did, so much so that i wanted to do even more than that. and that is the truth.

the days are long but the months are short. i remember setting a countdown timer on my phone sometime around christmas and counting down the days till i could leave. it was about 180 days, give or take. it's now at 86 days. this keeps me thinking - before i know it, more people i know will be gone, like mama. and i can't do anything about it.. ever since mama passed away, i may not have realised it consciously, but i couldn't sleep properly for about 2 years. it isn't normal to be sleepy up till the point where your head hits the pillows, that suddenly your thoughts are ablaze and your heart is pounding, and you don't know why. it isn't normal to wake up crying. it isn't normal to cry while meditating. it isn't normal to be so freakishly obsessed with night time routines and doing the same exact routine every single night to the minute. how am i going to function when someone else is gone next time?

---

anyways, on to happier things:

1. starting cell group (hopefully) soon. i'll be joining covenant's hello group sessions in april. hopefully i'll get settled in a spiritual community. it has been almost... 3 years?

2. traveling to bali in june

3. less than 3 months to duke!

[serak-sarak-meta-sarahk]

As a Model I Got Stalked by a Porn Cam Girl Who Couldn’t Let Go of Her High School Ex Boyfriend in College and How I Dealt

So for those who don’t know, on top of modeling I was an elite springboard and platform diver, in the Olympic track. Technically I left modeling for sports after modeling got scary, but I still dabbled in the clean side of the industry.

I technically started being recruited by The University of Alabama by age 14 years old, well that was my first real trip to campus anyways.

I liked the University of Alabama, because their art program is located near Birmingham, which is an indie designer fashion hub of America. After watching Project Runway on binge growing up, I wanted to support the industry there.

However, as soon as I got to campus on my first or second night I was asked on the team who I would either make out with or hook up with before I knew any of the guys on the team, or girls if I were to go that way for a matter of fact. I was also coming off a myriad of injuries that were half attended to with doctors, after my dad left. My mother lied and said we didn’t have health insurance anymore.

So, I get to campus, and meet this guy Joseph James Pursley (DOB: 10/21/1994, causasion male). On the first day, I didn’t realize he was our head coaches son, because I was a diver and his father was a swimming coach. I told my teammates that I thought he was cute, they told me he was the head coaches son. Hearing how psychopathic our new head swim coach was from the rest of the team before showing up, I wrote him off.

To be fair, Joseph James Pursley does suffer from a myriad of drug and alcohol addictions. I’ve watched him pound a full bottle of wine in one sitting then run to the shower to barf. He would ask me to act out rape scenes with him, because it turned him on according to him. On spring break, I woke up from a daytime vacation nap to him passed out barfing in and breaking the rental home shower once. He uses these things called whippets to get high. He was the mens team Vyvanse supplier when he wasn’t even on scholarship to be on the team. He once punched a crack in his own car windshield as I gave him a sober ride home. He would openly tell me how much he wanted to die or join the military to get me to help him with his homework. He has a cocaine addiction. He once kicked a girl in a twister costumer to the floor on Halloween. And, he wouldn’t let me break up with him, ever. As hard as I tried.

By the end of this relationship I was waking up everyday in panic attacks, or ending the night with anxiety attacks over what JJ Pursley thought of himself while he used drugs. He would do cocaine and speak out of his head. He would else me into sex while he was on psychedelics and I was not. Police were getting called to his home and I would have to go over to try to help during my workday, not mine. Below is an image of what he did to my face. I asked him no repetitively 5 times before I was thrown into the asphalt concrete. Essentially, I was waking up everyday fighting for my own life or having an anxiety attack over what JJ was going to make me do in the night while I slept.

Anytime I talk to police about this situation I get light headed and almost pass out. My mother knew his father where she was from, so she does little to advocate for me at all.

However, I now have advocacy groups working to protect me in the state of Texas from JJ Pursley and everyone still connected to him. I’ve just never known how well these avenues work for kids frok.places like where I’m from.

Time and time again, the United States has shown that no one gives a fuck to help the little kids from the projects of Cincinatti and we do nothing to warrant it. I am hoping that this political shift brings that, if nothing else at all, for once, actually representing kids from the projects.

And what they actually have to fight through to survive and what their usually single parents have to do to get them out of it. One parent is always a hard addict and the other can never seem to do enough to get their own family resources. For me my mother was a HARD addict in the state of Kentucky for a LONG time. After the things I saw my mom do to herself, I don’t even understand how she is alive. I’m always pushing my mom to get clean, but fact of the matter is, she never stays clean. She will scream she hates drugs as she is abusing them behind closed doors. Diet pills, injectables, painkiller pills, alcohol, whatever she can get her hands on.

My mother has also been getting model sued for the greater portion of her adult life whenever she starts using again. Which seems to be anytime I leave the door to start life on my own. Then, I deal with the ramifications of my mom being an addict. I CANNOT LEAVE MY HOUSE IN AMERICA WITHOUT BEING ACCUSED OF BEING AN ADDICT BECAUSE OF MY MOTHER. AND. I. AM. SOBER.

No one thinks this is real, but when you get out of the projects, people try to attack you and your kids through their whole lives as you progress beyond it. Because there is a side of the country who thinks kids from the projects don’t deserve to get out of it.

Two weeks after I arrived at school, his father paired us in the same team building group. He seemed fairly normal this day as a person, but then again he was also sober this day to my knowledge as we were required to be as far as I knew. Then he began pursuing me at parties.

One night, when I was the sober driver for the team, he asked me to give him rides to pick up his friends because his cell phone minutes were apparently out at the time. I later learned that his parents had to put him on minutes because of his addiction to naked images of girls from his high school. He would tell me how guys in his high school would fill their phones up with nudes and then trade Sim cards so that everyone got a little bit of every girls nude images. So, his parents had to move him mid year of school from Arizona to Alabama.

He didn’t tell me it was this serious until after we started dating and his personal porn girl began attacking me directly. I am a girl who had never sent nudes at all by college.

I grew up primarily Hellenist as my religion, and this is something WE DO NOT DO within hellenism. Strictly, I was told our gods would be angered at me if I ever shot nude for a man in a porn sense or sent full porn type nudes to a man for his sexual attention unless it was my boyfriend or full time partner that I trusted to protect me.

He just told me that he had gotten into some trouble in high school, however he had gotten accepted by the coaches onto the team, so I figured he was trying to do better. I was never told to judge people by their past mistakes. However, in JJ Pursleys case, I wish I had.

We actually did become friends before we dated. We would actually spend sober platonic time together, but I also hung out with his roommates so I didn’t think he was a danger to me. In short, I wasn’t scared of a digital pimp.

The first time we “hooked up” we only really made out, and then the next day he told me he had a girlfriend that he hadn’t mentioned previously while getting to know me. After he told me,I told him u was sorry and made up an excuse to leave the situation. So, all was good and dandy. Then the party stalking began.

I coukd not attend a team party in the same room as JJ Pursley without him eventually finding himself standing directly behind me or three feet away from me trying to talk. If I would give him the time of day, he woukd follow me around the party like a lost dog. Then I started noticing how alcoholic he was. He would borrow my car to take his friends to smoke in it without me attending with them.

He would find ways to place himself in the same places as me. However, he was uninterested in leaving the dorm to try any of the clubs I had joined to try tonget acquainted to campus outside of athletics and the inter team hook up culture that was going on within my team.

I for some reason, forgot what level of model I was in college as I was trying ti focus on school and athletics for the four years. But, the team culture still creeped me out. I guess that was just the modeling in me still holding me close to my morals, I’m thankful I did it this way.

A few months into the semester my phone was thrown onto the floor out of my locker by a teammate or a call vibrated it out of my locker. Being a student athlete, I couldn’t afford a new one at the time, so JJ Pursmey gave me his old phone. This girl, Kelley Vivas, had probably sent 100-300 Streams of naked images of her rolling around naked on a workout ball alone in her room, not even working out.

It was literally quote comical to see. When i firstly the images I was like, “hmm what are you doing there???” The positions she was in in order to show her coochie angle to the camera seemed so uncomfortable. Isn’t a workout ball for working out? Zhe woukd be making like angry faces in the images trying to be sexy. It was really just something as they say.

I had never seen another girls nudes at this point, I was shocked.

By winter break, I was able to throw the phone away. Luckily the girl was over 18 according to JJ at the time he gave me the phone. I threw it out anyways, and she wanted to be there doing that. I’m pretty sure that’s still how she makes “her living.” So I did what I can to not get involved with it.

I actually never revenge porned the girl even though she had me non consensually revenge porned for simple dating her ex, when I never even sent her nudes. I was just like, “Holy shit, this is EXTREMELY embarrassing for this girl Kelley. I’m just gonna not and get rid of the phone.”

But then, even though I didn’t revenge porn her after being handed her nudes in the age of revenge porn, she would still attack me. Now her and all of her local friends have protections set up by me where I can call police if they try to get near me at all. JJ Pursley as well.

Luckily the Texas DAS office let me look up all their information and submit it in for protections. Then, a stalking advocacy group took over this portion of my life for me. So I do feel safer, now.

Just knowing I can pick up my phone and have them arrested if they even get near me, is a ton of solace after this situation. I thought I was I’m a literal living hell after seeing this girl naked and how much she wanted to attack me into oblivion for simply dating someone.

I would make him go on walks with me. We would go to the movies with groups of people. We would eat. He would take me to stores or shopping centers driving wise. But this girl just would not stop. I have no clue where her psychology us at after being a porn cam girl, which is why I had to report her to police.

It wa super creepy and I was honestly afraid she was getting ready to seek me out. She would acreenshot my social images of me on spring break during the second semester of college and send send to him as if she was going to use them for something. And now her whole life is a revolving lawsuit luckily for me. I don’t don’t think she was loved to finish out her college degree.

She has no job listed online, and she still tries to attack my character. I’m unsure why, she sees how bad JJ Pursleys life has gotten, how does she not realize that she is next. I was tying to help her by not forwarding her nudes to anyone. But I guess she was mad because she likes being a porn star? That’s fine with me, but you can’t attack non-porn stars for not wanting to join you.

I’m not sure if this girl was a part of a wider network, but she’s about to be a Jeffrey Epstein cronie by age 24. If she’s not already, I felt so bad reporting her, but the advocacy group and DAS office gladly took the information from me. That was a HUGE step forward in feeling safety in my own life again as a model.

Personally, I did make a plan to jump from the roof of my dormitory dormitory the ground after this girl began attacking me. I DO NOT FEEL THIS WAY ANYMORE, AT ALL. I have gotten multiple rounds of therapy for what Kelley Vivas and Joseph James Pursley did in my life as I was trying to start art school, my whole dream after being born in projects as a kid.

Luckily, after receiving therapy and getting better, I still have my modeling career and my art career. And I don’t struggle to get jobs in fashion or art still. My contracts have actually begun protecting my personal images and creative content for me online after how many times both women and men began stalking me with bad intentions. THIS WAS A MASSIVE BLESSING IN MY LIFE.

So immediately then after the attacks began, I knew I was going to have to report the situation eventually to either my contracts or police. I happen to have such a huge modeling contract established when I was a child that my family has it protected by a bank. Some models do have their contracts protected, if they are large enough at a young age. My family personally doesn’t speak about the intricacies of my specific contract for how large it got so young. I’ve started telling people small parts of it so they will leave me alone, but the rest of my contract is in a bank vault at what brands were willing to offer me at such a young age for my good nature and ability to always try to do the right thing.

My family, after my childhood, is extremely proud of me for this and they remind me daily, weekly. And monthly of how proud of me they are for my work in modeling alone.

It got so huge so fast for me that I had to hide inside of my home after a while. Eventually, the world got safer for highly talented kids and now I just get my big drops at home.

I do really miss going to a set, but shooting from home helps keep me safe from the types of men that used to be kept around modeling sets or would sneak their way onto set.

I also began looking up free scientific mental health resources online so that I wouldn’t fold in on my own mental health while moding, and could laugh about situations such as these.

Any time I catch myself doing something out of character for me and my career. I get therapy, get online resources, get free hot lines. Then I move on.

Again, growing up within the modeling industry, I was ALWAYS told by my dad’s model friends and the Cincinatti Ballet that I DID NOT NEED OR HAVE TO DO PORN TO SURVIVE. They very much advised against it with me, and any guy who has ever tried or threatened me into it, has no life now financially. I cannot thank these people enough for their guidance.

In business, JJ Pursley with a degree, was offered offered $22k base salary and them promptly almost lost his sales job, because no one would buy from him.before finishing my degree, I was offered a 40k base salary after freelancing through college, for a role where I didn’t even have to make sales at the job.

Now, I’m getting modelng contracts and job offers galore now that I have my degree completed out after going through this while trying to finish a collegiate degree out. I cannot say thank you enough to the people who kept a pulse on the EXTREMELY DANGEROUS situation for a model of my level and helped to pull me out of it once I could break free.

I am extremely proud of myself for surviving this, this felt like one of the biggest tests of my life so far. It was an extreme every day stressor while I attempted to complete my college courses, and I wasnt even attacking anyone.

Now, I can only laugh about it. Now, that I know larger organizations are working on the issue. I feel immensely safer now that this new wave of police and legislative system know this story.

But then again, JJ Pursely himself, began being followed by police before the relationship was even over. He has now been removed from SEC athletic football games, and almost arrested on the streets, by police.

So back to the story. At the time, JJ was telling me how much he hated being this way and how much he was trying to not be a porn and drug/alcohol addict verbally. He would tell me that he wanted to kill himself over this girls attachment to sending him nudes. So, I tried to help him in early work ways as best as I could. No one deserves to die over this. But I still haven’t heard of JJ Pursley and Kelley Vivas being forced into rehab, and JJ almost gets arrested on the street.

Yes, porn is not illegal, but trying to force a model into it is. I couldn’t tell JJ how big of a model I was.

During the relationship he woukd se the quality if my contracts and start to wonder about what was going on. But, I kept it a secret from him because of the lorn addiction attached to him and how much he would beg me to do it for him.

Kelley Vivas on the other hand, was a dancer I guess. I’m learning from this situation and others, that a lot of ballet or those types of dancer dancers actually engage in full porn type shooting or sex work outside of their jobs. Let me make this clear, not pole dancing, full porn and sugar daddy’s type stuff. I feel bad that they have to do this to get paid, but get a second legal job if dance doesn’t pay enough.

That is exactly what I do. Sometimes I get 3-5 legal jobs or contract position to not do porn or sex work when I’m not modeling. I know tons of other dancers who work 3-5other jobs on top LEGAL dance as well. I’m only approached by ballerinas for prostitution, still. Ballerinas mostly, approach me in public and try to tell me sex work is okay.

I left Ballet to model when the outsiders beginning targeting me shit started because I didn’t like it. My modeling contract is now protected by a bank vault vault yall can’t get it.

The Cincinatti Ballet is the only Ballet I trust. The Cincinatti Ballet and my contracts. The women and men at Cincinatti Ballet and within my personal modeling contracts told me I NEVER needed to do porn. They would only side hug me and tell me how beautiful I was. They were not upset at me for leaving dance after what men tried to do to me because of it. I would still dance for this Ballet troop if I could even meet their standards for human beings.

The dancers from the Cincinatti Ballet would pull me to the side as a little girl and show me the dance hall asking me if I even knew how beautiful I was as a very very young girl. And they gave me the confidence to never need to do porn or give into Sugar Daddy culture. All because a Ballet troop showed me how much they cared about children NOT having to do that.

I cannot thank the Cincinatti Ballet enough for dropping in on my practices as a child or finding me at their shows and walking me through the hall making me feel poised and confident enough to rise above it.

So after I initially was beginning to date JJ Pursley and trying to hear him out about how he wanted to change as a human himself, I thought I would give him a chance to change. He didn’t. And that’s okay, I hope he gets mental health help.

Once Joseph James Pursley decided that I was a better option than his ex, he began trying to break up with her. I guess fearing that she would lose her already set Porn career, she woukd threaten to kill herself to him as he broke up with her. She would literally threaten to kill herself for her high school boyfriend breaking up with her.

So then eventually JJ Purey did enough work to get her in the back burner, and he actually started making an effort to get out of the home with me. He woukd take me to my car appointments to get my car serviced at the time. He woukd take me in fast food dates. He woukd teach me how to skateboard again outside, etc. Once we got his cam girl ex out of the picture, we actually started having a pretty wholesome time with others. Then the attacks began.

She would call him telling him that she was going to hang up and kill herself if he broke up with her on the phone call. JJ Pursley would be on the phone crying and asking her to not kill herself over their break up. This part was actually really sad.

JJ would start hanging up and telling me that he wanted to die or join the military, because of what Kelley Vivas, the cam girl, was making him go through.

And she still stalks him. This part if the story I actually feel bad for him.

I don’t feel bad for his addictions. That’s the part I don’t feel bad for him for.

Let me preface, I sometimes do put filters over my social media images, because technically my face is trademarked or protected under brands. So if someone were to catfish trying to be me, or use my face and body as intercultural property without ler.ission from my contracts, they woukd get sued. So, at that time I would filter my photos in order to avoid becoming the subject of someone’s catfish over another.

I’m sure this girl would say, “well I’d didn’t know it was like that,” now. But she shouldn’t have to know it’s like that to not be a psychopath.

She began messaging JJ Purey how ugly I was. Calling out my filters on my photos. Reminding him that they had child names picked out. Eventually, JJ showed me it all. He would tell me how delusional this woman was and how wrong she was when he told me.

But at least he made sure to let me know some psychopathic girl was about to drive in from Arizona.

She eventually began requesting that JJ Pursley shoot revenge porn of me for their high school hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Because I woukd refuse to send JJ any nudes as his girlfriend. I was actually very adimate against sending them to him.

Then JJ Pursley made the conscious decision to film me during a compromising moment via the app Snapchat, which is apparently trackable. I know my blog is being followed by my brands only now. So I do feel safer, now.

This girl just would not stop. We were dating 3 years later and age woukd still try to reach out to him. Luckily, I was able to follow and screenshot her and her friends socials until they got found out in order to protect myself.

These girls even sent their friend to stalk me on campus at my own university and laugh in my face… they stalked and abused a blind girl via social media.

Eventually, after these women got found out, they were forced to join community service organizations.

I have no clue if the girl, Kelley Vivas, was even allowed to finish out her collegiate degree via The University of Arizona, however she was supposed to be a medical professional. And she eas threatening suicide to a man over a break up when they didn’t even live in the same state anymore.

So my best advice if you are in a situation like this and scared to get out of it, fearing death, tell police. Tell therapists, tell your parents, tell your friends.

Tell anyone you can about how you tried to get away. Work hard or seemingly difficult busimess type or learning jobs to try to take over your mind.

It gets extremely stressful and downright CREEPY in your life if you let people do this to you or approach you with these intentions. I quit my sport and my dream major, left and separated myself and pretended it wasn’t happening unless to defend myself.

I was super lucky that my next major was also a dream to me and made my mind actually feel good again. But I did research it super hard before transferring into it, so I knew it would be that way. I am still EXTEEMELY THANKFUL for my school in letting me do this and then eveb reach out when my boyfriend became extremely abusive to me again tonhelo get me into therapy.

As women, this is all we can do, in my own opinion. When it comes to modeling at the level that I do, I choose to forget about it completely from the creepy people who try to know me after my modeling career hits again. Luckily, by starting to tell people when I weirded out or scared of the people who even try to follow me, I get better protection to do my job.

Thank you for stopping by!

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Published July 6, 2021

Categorized as About Me, Social Justice IssuesTagged real life relationship abuse, stalking

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SARKAT DESIGNS

Sarkat.design

[musicallisto]

hello there, love! can i request to be shipped from a male character in the sophomore, ilitw, and high school story? I'm a female with dark brown eyes (almost black) and jet black hair. I'm slightly tan. I like listening to music especially indie and bands (coldplay, imagine dragons, bastille), movies, eating at fast foods alone, can appreciate dry and self deprecating humor. i hardly open up but i like listening to others. i get attach to fictional characters, d eEP CONVERSATIONS && theories!!

we have the same music taste vkvkvkvkvk

I Ship You With…

Z I G   O R T E G A

(faceclaim: Santiago Segura)• You would introduce him to soooo much good music. Actually, it would be an exchange, because you both know some excellent artists and tracks and you’re dying to share them with someone, stan them and bingewatch their concerts and interviews. When you first meet and eventually start dating, you have very different musical tastes but as days pass and you begin to show each other your favorite songs, they evolve into a perfect mixture of the best of your favorite genres! You end up creating a collaborative Spotify playlist - you know, those kinds of playlists that you can both freely add songs to and when you’re not sleeping with each other, it’s a tradition to send the other the link to your favorite song at the moment. That way, you discover tons of new bands to stan and Zig becomes this huge Imagine Dragons and Muse fan (also he develops a slight admirative crush on Chris Martin but like who doesn’t have a crush on this man honestly, a true hero)

• Okay you like eating at fast foods alone and he’s very concerned about his diet, his well-being and his health since he must remain in perfect shape for his ballet, so it’s not that often that you eat pizza or burgers together. (actually, close to never.) so instead, you have these homecooked, delicious meals where you just invite each other, cook together and end up tasting your, ahem, culinary invention. Neither of you are gifted cookers so it usually ends up in a huge food fight in the kitchen, tainting poor, passing-through Becca’s blouse and terrified-yet-mildly-amused Aaron’s T-shirt. There’s cake preparation on every single wall and on the floor as well, strawberries dead on the countertops and eggshells laying wounded next to the bowl, so it’s safe to say that cookery speaking, it’s a disaster, but neither of you really mind after the absolutely amazing reenactment of a medieval battle you’ve just made, and when Zig leans in to “wipe from flour off your face” (it quickly turns into a heated make-out session on the worktop until a traumatized Zack walks in and yells he’ll need to “sluice his eyes with acid to forget the obsecenity he just witnessed”.

T Y L E R

(faceclaim: Harry Shum Jr.)• MOVIES AND TV SHOWS MARATHONS, ohmygod, so many of them. The funny thing is neither of you actually have a Netflix account. You’re just constantly stealing your friends’ codes, especially Becca’s and Chris’s, because they’re too busy working or… doing undefined presidential stuff to notice and also to even use their Netflix. So you’re basically the hugest moochers the world has ever known but none of you mind because what’s the point of having Netflix if you’re not gonna use it, that shit’s expensive plus they’re technically just doing a friend favor amirite? So you regularly have The Crown And The Flame marathons, you know how much Tyler loves that show and even if at first you only agreed to watch it so he would stop talking about it 25/8, you ended up adoring the story and the characters, so you watch the three seasons every once in a while and can basically recite all the script by heart. You even dressed up as Annelyse for Halloween so you would match with Tyler and Abbie! Your personal guilty pleasure, however, are Cassandra Leigh movies, that woman is just so talented and beautiful, and her acting is always on point! Tyler wasn’t a huge fan of it at first but eventually liked her movies more and more (and also, he just loves to see his best friend happy and fangirling over her movies, because it’s cute and rewarding and also it can always be useful for blackmailing so be warned)

• You are King and Queen of self-deprecating humor and dark references and memes that literally no one else understands. Sometimes you’ll just look at each other and literally say or do NOTHING and burst out laughing like a bunch of kids. You just have so many private jokes and memories with Tyler that are simply impossible to understand for someone who doesn’t have a brain and a sense of humor wired like yours. Also there’s literally no boundaries in your self-mockery, like you’ll just point at a trash can in the street and simply say “same” and the rest of the gang will ask you why you say that, telling you it’s not true, you’re beautiful and worth it etc., but Tyler will randomly laugh because he knows. And at this point it’s become a competition between you. You have yet to decide the prize but whoever comes up with the best self-deprecating punchline wins… something. Between the “you know they made a day dedicated to me? It’s garbage day!” and the “my personality in a nutshell is the loser character trait from the Sims”, it’s a concerto of mockery and the others don’t understand how you can possibly laugh at somethiing so sad?? but intellectuals (Tyler and you) know it’s the best form of humor and the tournament still goes on day by day

N O A H   M A R S H A L L

(faceclaim: Nick Robinson)• Before anyone comes @ me, I KNOW HE’S NOT A LI AND HE’S A TRAITOR BUT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WHEN YOU LIVE IN AN ESCAPIST FANTASY CREATED AS A SELF-DEFENCE MECHANISM TO COPE WITH THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE so yeah I ship you with Noah. You would help him after Jane’s death, being the most comprehensive and supportive friend ever. Despite your young age, you knew what Noah wanted in those troubled times what a lot of space and quiet, and every now and then a friend to talk to, to distract himself.That’s what you became for him. When all the others children were circling around him like vultures, asking for stories, all the juicy and gruesome details about her death, about that supposed thing that thing that supposedly killed her, you were the one who scared them away, protecting your best friend and telling them how inconsiderate and heartless they were being. You easily were one of the most mature and friendly people he’d ever known, also giving him support and sometimes advice to face his mother and the abrupt departure of his father. When you grew up, you always helped him stay focused on what really mattered to him, reminding him of the diner he wanted to open, of his plans for the future. It was only a matter of years until he realized he was in love with his childhood best friend, who had been there for him through the good and the bad.

• Since you started dating Noah, a few years after the end of high school because he was not feeling ready to be involved romantically with anyone then, you realized that your attachment to fictional characters started to evolve. You could almost always see a pattern in the characters you prefered in books: it was often the lonely, tortured and sarcastic character, withdrawn because of his dark past, and you were quick to determine that it was because of how much they reminded you of Noah after all the shit happened. He was feeling a lot better now, and you could see how radiant he was in his culinary major, but you always remembered all the hardships you had to face and all the self-esteem issues you had to fight from both sides. Also, Noah understood perfectly what it was like to be completely fucked up by a book or a TV show, and to get attached to a character to the point that you can’t stop thinking about them and feel like a own member of your family died when the sadistic author decides to put an end to their suffering. (can u tell this is personal experience) He never judges you and always comforts you when your favorite character died or is having a hard time or your OTP became canon or you’re just hyperventilating/ugly crying because of fictional universes.

• After several years of fighting and struggling, and many days of hopefulness, Noah’s dream of opening his own diner finally comes true and he’s more glowing than you’ve ever seen him. He’s incredibly thankful because not only have you been morally helpful, you’ve also helped him economically and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay you. You don’t want anything of course: just saying your boyfriend truly happy is fabulously rewarding. Baby Jane’s soon becomes a known spot for Westchester locals, who more or less all know Noah from the time he lived there, and it feels weird yet great to move back to your hometown after so many years. You sometimes help him when you have a day off work, cooking with him or, more usually, you work as a waitress because he playfully kisses you while saying “Listen, I love you a lot, but I’m better slaving over a hot stove.” You don’t mind, because it’s always a pleasure to work with him and since the customers remember you from your younger days, you get the chance to chat with them and reunite with your old group of friends, who come to visit you every once in a while. It’s a calm and placid life, but after everything you’ve been through, it’s everything you want and deserve.

A N D Y   K A N G

(faceclaim: Min Jun Qian)• Your best friend would be Andy, and this since childhood, just like Noah! He would be a rock for you, always there to cheer you up and listen to you when you’re down, and you would be equally comforting to him, especially when he’s going through figuring out his life and his identity. He would’ve been so lost without you during his childhood and adolescence, after the terrifying Jane drama and everything that came after. He quickly becomes you partner in crime and, being a little more extroverted than you, he’s often the one who introduces you to his friends, invites you to parties through mutual acquaintances, and sometimes even gives you ideas for uh… some not-so-authorized stuff in the school, but you only agree if you know it’s perfectly safe and you don’t risk anything (or at least, anything too important) because you have to admit the thrills and the adrenaline are what you live for in those little moments, especially with your best friend.

• He’s also the one you can have deep conversations with during high school. You know Noah is still too emotionally bruised to talk about things that he may consider “depressing” or “too big for children to understand”, and you respect that he doesn’t want to get involved in those kinds of heavy reflections. However, you really want to discuss about them with someone, and Andy is the perfect person for that. He’s very open-minded, intelligent and ressourceful. His goofy, funny side always adds a twist to the theories you already know and debate about - “maybe you are an Illuminati, how can I be sure I can trust you?” (to which you answer “you can’t” with a malicious smile). Sometimes it’s not even that deep, it’s just talking about what you think is going to happen next in your favorite TV shows or books, or discussing a character’s psychology - it often happens that Andy and you have drastically opposed points of view on the same character and you like to confront them and understand why the other likes them, or hates them.

• Your favorite spot to talk about those theories and have those philosophical conversations about the moon, the earth, society and reality is in his garden. When you were kids, you used to have sleepovers at his house and your parents never minded because they were friends with Andy’s; now that you’re older, you basically spend most of your free nights at his place, laying on the grass and watching the navy blue sky. You built a little wooden house in the trees in his backyard when you were twelve, with the help of your friends and his parents, and it has a perfect view of the sky and the trees below. At first, going up there is very difficult, especially surrounding yourselves with trees and the singing of the forest, but the more you went up in the tree house, the easier it was to go back to the forest. It’s so calm and placid up there, with only the birds chirping to disturb you, or rather soothe you, and you’ve lost count of the nights you’ve fallen asleep there. It’s the best place to have deep conversations and also silly dares, and it’s so peaceful that you can almost forget all the bad stuff that happened in your youth.

I’m sorry but I didn’t have time to write a long headcanon like those up there for HSS! Just know that I romantically ship you with Michael Harrison, someone you’d be able to talk to about anything, from the silliest things (“do crabs think fish are flying?”) to the deepest (”what do you think Area 51 is really?”), and he’d always be up for a good laugh. And your best friend would be Morgan Jennings, being one of Michael’s best friends, she became yours as well, and you would love the same kind of music and go to concerts together and collectively lose your shit. Everyone thinks Morgan is a little selfish, but you know better than that, and you want to prove everyone that she actually has a heart of gold!

Hope you don’t mind this, I didn’t want to make you wait any longer and it was getting a lot for me to write!

Moodboard

bigger version

Playlist

Oasis - Wonderwall (yES)Coldplay - Adventure of a LifetimeArctic Monkeys - R U Mine?Halsey - Ghost