#But if we go WAAAY back even before I posted online then that would be stuff like Tokyo Mew Mew Shugo Chara and Kobato.

[drfrogphd]

I love your artstyle! What were your inspirations when you were getting into art?

Thank you!!! Hmmmm I would say when I first started to post art ~2012, it would be things like Kagerou Project, Madoka Magika! Then in-between then to nowish, I would say artists such as viridilly, taqibun (inactive), gashi-gashi, v1v404, and pinfle's works! And currently I'd say the artists that I REALLY like are AidaIro (Aida_Art7, Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun mangaka) and Fredek666 (nsfw!!) ^o^//

[kerubimcrepin]

Crepinlore and the 30-50 random games 90% of fandom has never heard about

This post, like everything else about this blog, is very self-indulgent. I discovered many things during its making, and I simply can't not share. So, let's begin with something you likely have literally never heard about, and go to more popular things from there:

KROSMASTER ARENA 3D

Krosmaster arena online was a video game it seems nobody played, and honestly, I am mentioning it here because I fear that if I don't document it, it will disappear, and it will turn out that it was simply a vision I had, as if in a David Lynch movie. Evaporating, like tears in rain.

I don't think anyone ripped/tried to rip/found a way to rip the models from it — and considering the fact they're pretty... mobile ad-core, not much may have been lost.

Anyway, here's Keke beating the shit out of some guy.

Wakfu Les Gardiens

Joris appears in the quest "The Tree of Life" of this game, which, as far as I'm aware, was updated in time with Wakfu episodes.

Even back then, Ankama knew that 1. Joris is very sus and 2. you cannot let him get close to you during a battle, or it's OVER.

It's all very cute.

There is something interesting I wanna say about this sprite, actually:

An alternate version of it exists, made as a concept for the Dofus MMO. I am assuming it was Juien Druant elaborating on the ways Joris might look in the game. The first two designs are: baby Joris (probably not used because he looks too young to be a 200 year old man...) and Welsh & Shedar 60yo Joris. They were combined to make the iconic Dofus MMO-era 200yo Joris design.

I'm quite sure that this sprite references the Les Gardiens one very heavily.

One More Gate: A Wakfu Legend

The first game in this list that actually has implications for real lore, and yet its plot is literally "it was all a dream that Oropo was having while inside the Eliacube"

For this reason, the events of this game are not entirely reliable — but are probably based in some way on the memories Oropo has.

The main contribution this game has to Crepinlore is a third Crepin, who might be an ancient ancestor of the brothers, whom Oropo met and remembered, some sort of cousin, or he might be based entirely on fiction, and inspired by Kerubim (though ehhh I severely doubt Oropo would care so much about him that he'd hallucinate a guy like him within Eliacube's fake world).

I really want to headcanon that the events of the game are based on something he really experienced, waaay before forming the brotherhood. But that's just my brain disaeses.

Here we can see the store itself.

Krosmaga

I saved the best for the last — Krosmaga.

A video of the casts of Dofus and Wakfu beating the shit out of each other

There are characters besides Atcham, Joris, and Kerubim in this game — Julith, Jahash, Lou... But I choose to concentrate on my favorite three ones. Or I will die fr.

If this Ecaflip gives the impression of constantly having a bad hair day, it's precisely because he doesn't have any! Brother of Kerubim Crépin, Atcham is fiercely jealous of the man he considers his worst enemy. And how could he not be, when not only does he occupy the prestigious position of Ecaflip's favorite son, but also displays his dense, silky fur without any modesty or sensitivity?

Here are his three forms:

I'm.,. unwell about the white one. I have to draw Atcham in a Bontarian getup one of these days.

They're really giving a fight to this Joris costume recolor from a Christmas event in one of the MMOs... (Now I want to see Kerubim in red too!)

On topic of Joris,

Adopted son of Kerubim Crépin, Joris is a curious and mischievous little boy. His favorite pastime is listening to the childhood adventures of his beloved "Papycha". And when he's too busy serving customers in his antique store, he's off playing with his best friend Lilotte! An avid boufbowl player and fan of Khan Karkass, Joris also hopes to become a star of the horned ball. While his destiny may already be mapped out on the stadium pitch, his origins are much less clear… But the good thing about not knowing where you come from is that you can imagine anything! For the little boy, there's no doubt: his parents were great boufbowl players, and it doesn't matter if it's true or not!

Here are his alternative forms:

I LOVE THE WAY HIS ADULT SELF IS DRAWN IN THIS GAME... I'm insane.

And now, last but not least: Kerubim.

Judging by his adventures, Kerubim seems to have had more than 9 lives! From small-time opera rat, to Bontarian police officer, to lawyer: the least we can say is that during his youth, the man Joris calls his Papycha never stopped working! So much so that today, the owner of the antique store Aux Trésors de Kerubim takes advantage of his free time to purr quietly in his armchair, or to tell his adopted son about his past adventures. Past? Well, not quite! Because when the terrible witch Julith arrives to retrieve Jahash's Ivory Dofus, and seems intent on attacking Joris, the old tomcat doesn't hesitate to get in her way. With Kerubim, there's no age limit to being a hero!

Once again, it is confirmed that the store's name s literally "Aux Trésors de Kerubim". Sorry, I'm insane about the name of the show being the name of the store.

And his alternative forms:

He's beautiful.

[bananna-threads]

So this all started when I got it in my head that I wanted to make a speakeasy...in my basement. I was looking through Buy Nothing when I saw a post for a pair of red velvet Victorian couches--a full size and a love seat. From the pics and the description, these seemed a little worse for wear, but not too bad. What this did not convey, however, was the smell...

it didn't help that it was raining the day we brought them home. Let me tell you--it was RIPE. I brought them inside at first, but I couldn't stop gagging, so even though it was 11 PM at this point and dark out, we brought them to the porch and vacuumed them as best we could. I sprayed SO much fabreeze. And still it wasn't enough. After a few days of them being in the basement, I couldn't take it anymore and they were relegated to the shed.

If we were ever going to use these, I needed to strip them down to the bone and rebuild, because I swear the smell permeated everything. I chose to work on the love seat first since it was smaller and I could work out all the kinks before I tackled the bigger one.

Over the next few months I pulled many many staples and nails. When I took off the backing fabric, all that remained of the foam cusion was grey dust. This stuff had straight up decomposed. I removed all the springs, burlap, and jute straps, taking note of how it was constructed so I could reverse engineer it.

Next up was removing the old stain, which I had to do twice. A process that involved a lot of steel wool, citrustrip, and wire brushes. The first time I re-stained it, I layed it on waaay too thick. It looked more like paint than stain (below).

Which is why I had to do it again. Not fun. I'm still not super happy with the color, but there was no way in hell I was doing it a third time.

I then took all the old fabric, seam ripped the seat cushions, layed it out on paper, and created pattern pieces--marking out things like where the buttons would go, etc.

I bought this really nice dark green upholstery fabric that has a sort of felted back (which makes it lay so smoothly over upholstery foam--the friction between the two really makes them stick together and not budge!)

For the seat (sans cushions, which are separate and will sit on top), I stapled jute straps to the bottom and atop that layed down a mattress(?) of my own making. I had an old Ikea futon that I no longer needed--it was basically a collection of fabric-covered box springs wrapped in foam. I went at it with a hack saw, scissors, and spray gorilla glue until it was the right shape and sat smoothly over the beams

I'm pretty proud that I manage to re-use a half an old mattress for this (the other half will be used on the other couch)

I stapled base fabrics to the backs and sides where the new foam would be glued onto and stapled the front of the mattress down. I cut foam for the arms using my pattern pieces from before and glued/stapled them down, smoothed and stapled the fabric over top, and used a nail strip for upholstery to hide the raw edges of the fabric. The nails are a bit wonky in places because the foam, in hindsight, was much too thick and would bulge in places

For the backs of the arms, I used poly batting instead of foam

Next, I cut out foam for the back rest and used a special foam cutting tool that I had to order online to drill out holes for the button tufting

I stapled that down (very tough, because as I mentioned before, the foam I got was much too thick).

And that's pretty much where I've left off. I've done a couple of practice swatches to figure out how spaced out the diamonds on the fabric need to be for the pleats to look taught and smooth. I don't think I've got the perfect ratio yet, so I've been procrastinating on doing another swatch before marking where the buttons will go on the fabric. I don't think I can use the ones marked on the original fabric since the spacing and thickness of the holes in the foam are probably a little different from the OG.

Anywho, wish me luck on the rest! I will update in the future. Sorry for the long ramblings, and thanks if you've managed to read this far ;)

Behold! The Victorian couch I'm reupholstering. I got a pair of these off of Buy Nothing and they were beautiful, but not in the best shape--the backrest foam had totally disintegrated, it smelled of cat urine, and the wood stain was chipped and scraped all over. Although I was a complete novice in furniture...restoration(?) I decided to try my hand at it anyway. Follow the tag [#bananna reupholsters] for updates!

[stickynotesandstress]

Red Flags in Class Syllabi

Hello, here I am with another post full of advice for university and like most of my posts, it comes from personal experience. A little backstory on this: my first year of university, there was this theatre class I was in where everyone had already become friends or knew each other from high school drama festivals. We always had to do group work where we chose our own groups and I was always alone and did everything in my power to pretend like I wasn’t without the prof noticing. I was miserable and had had multiple panic attacks during or because of that class. However, I was a first year former gifted student who didn’t want to switch classes. I hit a breaking point one night when I was sobbing on the phone to my mom and she made me get up and drop the class. At that point, it was too late to register for one in its place and I am in my third year now, taking 6 courses online during a global pandemic to make up the credits so I can graduate on time. Ever since that experience, if I’ve had any major doubts about a class, I drop it without hesitation as soon as possible so I still have time to register for a new class. In fact, this semester alone, I dropped three classes and switched to new ones. Here are some red flags in course syllabi/things profs say during the first class

1. Group projects. We are in university, everyone, we are paying thousands of dollars for this and we should not be paying that much money for our grades to depend on others. Of course, and this applies to all of the red flags on the list, if the class in necessary for your degree (has happened to me a few times) sometimes you have to suck it up. Still, if you can drop the class without it messing up your degree, I would recommend it, especially right now when most people are fully online because group projects based completely online are even more hellish.

2. If a professor makes a point about how they don’t or hardly ever give As. This one is obvious. These profs like to make shit difficult for no reason and think they’re waaay more important than they really are. Most “I don’t give As” profs that I’ve had have been pretentious assholes.

3. Similarly, if a professor is bragging about how hard their class is/saying that you will likely fail. They are bragging about how bad they are at their job. They are there to teach you and if they advertise that all these people have failed their class, they aren’t trying hard enough. Also usually pretentious as fuck too.

4. If you miss more than two classes, you will fail the class. I’m not talking about profs having attendance policies, that is fine. What I’m referring to is the ones who take it to the extreme. I’ve seen syllabi where profs will fail you, despite all your other hard work, if you miss more than two classes. Like, it’s an automatic fail. It’s not worth the stress.

5. Any class where participation is worth more than 20% (and that’s pushing it). That shit is not fair to the shy students, students with social anxiety, and students who don’t like public speaking. Your work should be the basis for most of your grade, not whatever bullshit answer to class questions you come up with. I’m not a big fan of participation grades in general but to make them worth that much is not ideal (unless you’re not shy and extroverted and don’t have social anxiety, if so, I’m definitely jealous).

6. Workload. I’m not talking about amount of assignments (though if there are a whole lot, you might want to switch, you know what you can handle), I’m talking about readings every week. I dropped a class this semester because the prof said that every week we would have 60+ pages of readings a week which, according to him, wasn’t a lot. These readings for for a polisci class so it was all dense academic articles and government documents (snore) and I didn’t need the class for my degree. When you have a full class load with readings and actual assignments for all of those classes, a class assigning that many pages a week is a red flag especially when the prof doesn’t think it’s a lot. They will pile on the work.

7. Not listing all assignments in the syllabus. This is my pet peeve and I’m in two classes where we don’t know when assignments are due or what they are. This is a red flag as you need to be able to plan assignments and write dates down, especially in university. Surprise assignments and tests are the worst and set students up to fail.

8. Any time a prof/syllabus says “this class will change your life” or some variation of that. These professors are the most obnoxious people and none of the classes I’ve taken that did change my life ever told me so over and over again. 

9. Any class with busywork as homework. By busywork, I mean homework on the online part of the textbook, exercises from the textbook, stuff like that. This is high school level stuff and you don’t learn anything from it. Also because they use the online quizzes that come with the textbook, that means you have to buy a brand new textbook to get that code so there will be no money saving here. I once had to spend $200 on a LOOSE LEAF textbook (they only offered it in that format) just to use the online quizzes. The whole class was like getting in a time machine and going back to high school.

10. If your first class is full of students and your second class has significantly less, that is a warning sign that they might have picked up on something you didn’t. Take another look at that syllabus and pay close attention to the prof that class and make your decision after that. 

11. Check Rate My Professor!!! I cannot stress this enough. Some of the negative reviews are obviously people just mad they got a bad grade, but when students who got high marks are complaining, there is a problem. Take them with a grain of salt until you actually go to the first class, but make sure to read them before class so you know what to look out for. Also, in general, make sure to add your own ratings for profs while you’re there, both positive and negative because it really helps. I go to a really small school so our RMP reviews are limited so I do my best to post about each of my professors to add more. 

12. Know yourself. If you’re first year, this might be more challenging, but you know how you learn best. If all of the assessment methods in a class are things you know you struggle with (multiple choice tests, short answer tests, exams worth 60% of your grade, long papers, research papers, etc.), use your head and make the right decision for you. If you suck at multiple choice tests and force yourself to take a class where that is all you do, it will be hell. If you choose classes based on assessment method, it will help your GPA, I promise you. I get better at selecting courses every year because I learn myself and what I’m best at and I have raised my GPA (not a whole lot, but usually by a decimal point) every semester because I am constantly learning what is best for me. 

[thetrashsean]

“Why wasn’t Life is Strange 2 as popular as the first game?”

A lot of people like myself have wondered what exactly made Life is Strange 2 go so relatively unnoticed compared its predecessor, Life is Strange 1. And when you think about it, you may come up with the few obvious generic answers, such as the lack of Max and Chloe and just the original cast in general. However, I think there was a lot more at play here that prevented Life is Strange 2 from reaching the amount of success/popularity the first game had. So I want to take the time and break down what exactly happened to Life is Strange 2 and the things that hurt the game’s ability to really connect with the audience of LiS1.

Disclaimer: We do NOT know how well Life is Strange 2 was for Dontnod and if it was a success or not. No sales numbers have been given out to the public so there’s no way of knowing for sure how well the game did. What we do know is that LiS2 did not receive the same amount of attention/popularity as the first game. That can’t be denied, it simply didn’t. However, based on the fact that Dontnod have recently announced they are working on six new games at the moment and are now expanding their studio, even if LiS2 was a “flop” it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect on them (most likely due to the success of Vampyr). Dontnod is going to be fine either way. Another thing I want to mention is that this is not a anti-LiS2 post and that I am a fan of the game. I’d consider myself a pretty big fan actually. I have my problems with the game of course and don’t agree with a lot of the writing decisions but I enjoyed the game very much overall. But for the sake of this post I will try to be as unbiased as possible, giving out only what I’ve observed when it comes to reactions from the fandom on different websites and forums. So with that all being said, let’s dive in to this.

Here I will be listing the many different reasons as to why Life is Strange 2 failed to reach the same amount of popularity as LiS1 or even BtS managed to achieve. This list isn’t in any particular order but some reasons are bigger/more important than others.

For some background, there was a lot of hype going into Life is Strange 2. The teaser trailer for it with the cop car trended at #2 on YouTube, a huge feat for the series. It generated immense amount of views and comments in a short period in time, completely surpassing Before the Storm’s announcement trailer in just a few weeks. So what exactly happened to all that hype? Where did everybody go? Well, let’s break everything down.

1. The lack of Max and Chloe: Yes I said that this list wouldn’t be in any particular order in terms of importance but I think it’s obvious this one is one of, if not the biggest reason as to why LiS2 failed to match LiS1’s popularity. When the protagonists Sean and Daniel were first revealed, the reception was pretty divisive. Specifically, a very vocal part of the community were baffled and disappointed at the lack of Max and Chloe present within the trailer and subsequently the game itself. This instantly turned off a lot of people from the game, as they couldn’t connect with the new characters or simply didn’t want to. At that point in the franchise Max and Chloe as well as the original cast from the first game had been the face of the series for almost three years. It’s understandable why it was hard for people to just…move on. To this day people are still asking for Max and Chloe to return. The Life is Strange subreddit is still dominated with Max and Chloe fanart. Whenever the social media accounts for Life is Strange post anything Max and Chloe related it gets way more attention compared to a post about Sean and Daniel. Whenever a post online goes viral about Life is Strange you can bet it’s most likely about Max and Chloe. Hell the only reason why episode 5 of Life is Strange 2 trended on Tumblr was because of the fucking picture of Max and Chloe. On the releas day of episode 5 of LiS2 the top post on the subreddit was the Max and Chloe picture. It was almost as if that one photo of them completely overshadowed the entire episode. Point is, Life is Strange 2 lost a lot of momentum the moment it was revealed Max and Chloe would not be present. Case closed, let’s move on.

2. The release schedule: Words cannot describe how frustrating the release schedule was for LiS2 when it came to it’s episodes. For those reading this who didn’t follow LiS2 until the game was finished, each episode took around 3-4 months to be released. This was because Dontnod bit off a bit more than they could chew with the road trip story in having to create new locations and character models from scratch. The reason why this wasn’t a problem for LiS1 was because Max was for the most part always in the same locations around the same characters (I’m pretty sure you roam around Chloe’s house like 4 times throughout the season), which made development a lot easier since the devs could just reuse a lot of the assets. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible for LiS2 due to the nature of it’s story. The wait times between each episode made a lot of people leave the fandom due to loosing interest or simply forgetting about the game altogether. This also impacted youtubers/streamers as many of them either stopped coming back to play the new episodes or they’d not be as connected as they were in the previous episode due to the amount of time that had passed. One of the reasons why LiS1 gained so much popularity was because of youtubers/streamers and how they would bring in their audience and would pretty much make them fans of the series. With quite a handful of youtubers/streamers quitting LiS2, the game was not able to draw in as much of an audience as previous games did. This is how detreminetal the release schedule was for LiS2.

3. The marketing (or lack thereof): Square Enix really fucked up on this aspect. Due to the ridiculous wait times you would think Square Enix would try and advertise the game heavily when a new episode was about to be released, right? Well they didn’t. Not at all actually. Throughout the games release schedule from September 2018 up to December 2019, I had not seen a single ad for the game. Nothing on YouTube, nothing on reddit or any other websites, it was like Square Enix had completely forgotten about the game’s existence. Now don’t get me wrong, SE did do a few things with LiS2 like starting up the community series on their YouTube channel and also the dev updates that came after episode 1 (that stopped after episode 2 for some reason) but these went relatively unnoticed to people outside of the fandom and did pretty much nothing. I believe SE was trying to wait until the game was fully complete with all of it’s episodes released before actually marketing the game (and they DID start advertising the game after episode 5 came out) but that’s just WAAAY too long to go without any type of advertisement. I understand marketing teams have budgets and what not, but you’re telling me there was no way for SE to market each episode in anyway as they were about to be released? Seems a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?

4. The road trip story: I completely understand why Dontnod wanted to branch out and do something different with the story of Life is Strange 2 and I respect them for stepping out of their comfort zones. However, it can’t be denied that the road trip story where characters are cycled in and out as Sean and Daniel make their way to Mexico was a very…questionable decision. Seeing as how LiS1 was loved for it’s world filled with a reoccurring cast of characters that developed as the story went on, it’s really easy to understand why LiS2 was so off-putting for a lot of fans. It was off-putting for me, even. It just…wasn’t fun having to leave these truly interesting characters behind because the plot demanded it. This left a lot of characters feeling underdeveloped to many people and by the time you meet new characters you already know they’re most likely gonna be gone soon anyways, so it made it even harder to connect with them. Couple this with the fact that LiS2 lacked any type of mystery unlike LiS1, speculation and discussion fizzled out a few weeks after each episode was released. LiS1 kept people speculating and wondering about what would happen next, while LiS2 left a lot of people struggling to care.

5. Politics: Yeeeeaaaaah I think I had to put this somewhere on the list. While many of the people who tease and mock how LiS2 handled its political topics were most likely not fans of the series anyway (the type of people who called LiS1 “Life is Tumblr” and hate Chloe), I do think it’s important to realize that some people just don’t want politics in their games, period. I’ve seen people online come out and say that while they agreed with what the writers were saying when it came to the political topics, it overall still came off very forced and one-sided to them, lacking any type of nuance or subtlety. I could write an entire essay discussing if the politics in LiS2 were handled well and whatnot but this is not that post so I’ll just leave it at that.

6: Lack of a prominent female cast/wlw: This is a bit more tricky to talk about (for the record the person writing this is a black gay guy) but I will try and write about this the best way I can. For many women, specifically queer women, Life is Strange was a series they could expect representation from. Max, Chloe, Rachel, and Steph are all popular characters amongst the fandom and even other wlw ships such as Marshfield, Chasefield, Chaseprice, etc are popular. So when LiS2 was revealed to be about two (hispanic) males, the queer women within the community were understandably upset. It felt like DN were simply throwing away the community that for the most part made up the entire fandom. At the time I simply found the situation ridiculous and overblown as many people were dismissing Sean and Daniel as “generic straight males” (even though it turned out Sean was bisexual in the end) before really getting to know them. However, looking back I totally get why people were upset. A lot of the fanart/fanfiction that was made for the LiS series was mostly created by queer women, so when the franchise pretty much stopped giving them representation, they left in search of other media (like She-Ra, which honestly has better wlw rep anyway). LiS2 is also mostly male dominated in terms of its cast, and features no queer women as well, which is really disappointing in my opinion.

7. Price: This one is pretty simple. When Life is Strange 2 was first released the full season costed $40. This was a pretty big jump in comparison to LiS1’s $20 price tag (original price was $25 however) and BtS’s $16. Obviously people would be more skeptical about buying a sequel that is pretty much double the price of its predecessor and has completely new characters. With the pretty mixed reception from gaming communities I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people saw the price and decided to either watch a playthrough or simply not check out the game at all. With the first episode now free the base price has been lowered to around $30-32 I believe so yeah.

8. Daniel Diaz: Some people just don’t like kids, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people grew easily frustrated with Daniel early on and once he got more irrational and bratty as the story progressed they just stopped playing altogether. Even if you do like kids, or at least don’t mind them like myself, Daniel can still be quite a pain.

9. Not having control of the powers: This one is honestly really disappointing and I know it was to a lot of other people as well. In LiS1 Max had the ability to rewind time and do certain scenarios and conversations over and that basically acted as the more interesting gameplay segments. In LiS2 Sean doesn’t have the power, his brother Daniel does. This leads to the gameplay feeling much more boring and mundane. There are also no interesting puzzles this time around, most likely because Dontnod didn’t know how to implement them without the rewind power so they just…didn’t even attempt to add any. The power itself, telekinesis, is also much less interesting compared to rewinding time, according to a lot of people.

SO YEAH that’s basically it for me. I know this probably came off a bit rambly/incoherent but I tried my best to be as clear as I possibly could. I don’t doubt there are other reasons at play as to why LiS2 failed to meet LiS1’s success (such as liscensed music not being quite as good as LiS1) but I think I hit the main points I believe were key reasons. And the thing is, there isn’t just one main reason why LiS2 didn’t do as well as LiS1. It’s overall very unfortunate so many things went wrong with it that ended up making people lose interest in it. I think the lack of Max and Chloe hurt the game the most right off the bat, but the other reasons just led it to do even worse. Oh well.

I hope any of the people who read this enjoyed it (it was a BITCH to write). I’ve been wanting to get my thoughts down about this for SO long but just never had the motivation/time but I finally did it!

Again, thanks for reading! If you have any disagreements or just thoughts in general don’t be afraid to reply or dm me about it and I’ll be sure to reply! Now back to reblogging Marco posts….

[northernscruffycat]

Tagged by @101flavoursofweird

I’ll tag @pandirpus @krokonoko @my-artblog-is-ssjumi @yallemagne @amberrgalaxy @swamp-y and anyone else who wants to do this. But this is a pretty long one, so don’t feel like you have to :3 (On that note, I’ll be putting most of this under a cut for exactly that reason)

How many works do you have on AO3?

131 at the moment. But some of those are different oneshots from FFN that I posted into one fic when porting over to AO3, so I’d be fascinated by what the actual amount of fanfics I’ve written is.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

1242922 words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Just counting what’s on AO3, so far I’ve written for 17 fandoms. They are: Free!, Professor Layton, Hades Game, Steven Universe, Pokemon, Ace Attorney, Yu-Gi-Oh DM, Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Yu-Gi-Oh 5d’s, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Dr. Stone, Tintin, Night in the Woods, GetBackers, Good Omens and Cooking Mama What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

‘just wanted to write a fic where senku says ‘get excited’ during sex’ (My SenGen oneshot that gets a wave of attention whenever a new chapter or episode of Dr. Stone comes out)

‘laughable’ (An Ares/Hypnos oneshot I wrote purely as a sample for a zine app and underestimated how popular that ship is lol)

‘the prince with specific tastes; the king with specific regrets’ (THAT Theseus fic. My absolute fave thing I’ve ever written)

‘Shallow Grave, Shallow Bae’ (A Reigisa fic based on Octopimp’s 50% Off! abridged series of Free!; I honestly do think this fic slaps and I’m glad folks like it)

‘Barrel of Monkeys’ (The AsaIku & KisuHiyo collab fic I wrote with Amber that was a lotta fun and I’d love to do something like this with them again one day for a different fandom. Also, I feel like we captained the small KisuHiyo fandom with this fic back in the day)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I generally respond to comments. Almost always, unless I really can’t think of anything to say in reply, which is pretty rare. Comments make me so happy and I just want to let people who do comment know that I appreciate them.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I think the angstiest fic I wrote was a Free! fic called ‘Moves Across the Land’ - the premise of which is that Makoto died as a young adult of an illness and each chapter is a different person in his life receiving a letter that he wrote for them before he died. But that one had an optimistic ending, with Haru and Kisumi unexpectedly finding a newly strengthened friendship in sharing the grief of Makoto’s death. So I guess technically the angstiest ending I wrote was a short Archie/Maxie oneshot where Maxie gets killed by Kyogre lol

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, but I ended up agreeing with it! Waaay back (probably more that 10 years ago at this point), I wrote a bunch of Layton/Rosetta oneshots that I now don’t stand by. One of them, in my naivety, I went too far with and breached uncomfortable territory. I got a couple of comments about how uncomfortable it was, so I ended up deleting that particular fic and felt better after it was gone.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I am a fledgling at writing smut, which is probably obvious to anyone who’s read my smut haha. When I do write it, I prefer to focus on the dialogue between the characters - I like a banterous smut scene. Also, they’re usually pretty tame. I like writing about handjobs, blowjobs and wanking the most when I do write smut.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, not that I know of, but that would be awesome! A few years ago, a kind person messaged me about potentially translating my Layton fic ‘Grasping Liquid’ into French, but I don’t think they went through with it in the end. Though honestly, the dialogue and slang in that fic is pretty much illegible in English, so I reckon it’d be a tough fic to translate.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, the aforementioned ‘Barrel of Monkeys’ that I co-wrote with @amberrgalaxy It was a lot of fun and I love it :D

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Hmm... I don’t think I have a single all time favourite. I jump through a lot of OTPs and they always mean a lot to me, but it wouldn’t seem fair to pick out a single one that’s always shined brighter than the others, because that’s not really how my hyperfixations work. But my current favourite ships are Momus/Heracles (to be narcissistic) and TheseZag from Hades Game. While my oldest ship that I’m still invested in is Yami/Seto from Yu-Gi-Oh DM.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Shockingly, I don’t have any right now. A few years ago (I think 2018?), I made a point of going back and finishing ALL my old WIPs that I’d left hanging but intended to finish, even for fandoms I didn’t plan on going back to. So that freed my conscience of them and felt pretty good. At the moment, my only WIP is ‘if found please return to the underworld’ - an AU where Zagreus does make it to Olympus, so Hades sends Theseus, Asterius and Meg to try to get him back. But I’ve only just started writing that one, so I do hope to stick with it until it’s finished.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. Definitely dialogue. I’m told that I capture the canon voices of characters pretty well and that’s always what I’m trying the hardest to get right, so it means a lot to me. I also feel like I’m good at keeping a fic flowing, without being bogged down by too much detail. But the downside of that is that I often sacrifice description, so I still hope to find the balance. Since Hades Game has more flowery prose than I’m used to, I think getting into that series actually helped me with this.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do not think I am experienced enough to be able to pull this off well and would worry too much about making mistakes.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

It was Pokemon, but those fics aren’t online anymore. The oldest fics you can still find buried somewhere with my name attached to them are Sonic fics.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

‘the prince with specific tastes; the king with specific regrets’ - Sometimes I look back at that fic and wonder if I actually wrote it, since I avoided falling into all of my usual traps: I researched it properly and frequently, I kept the focus on the five main characters instead of getting distracted by introducing a million other character like I usually do, I plotted the fucker out from start to finish instead of winging it, and I worked the flashbacks into it in a way that balanced the present-day out instead of distracting from it. Also, I got the whole thing written in about two months, instead of staling for years. ...Whatever possessed me when I wrote that fic, please come back. (It was the first time I’d had two weeks off together in about three years, so I think that had a lot to do with it) OH YEAH and that same kinda villain OC who I recycle in every fandom I’m in actually landed this time. It brought me so much joy to see how much people loved to hate Momus. Those two months when I was posting that fic are easily a highlight of my life. :D

[houkagokappa]

YURIZANMAI

Here’s my translation of Yurizanmai by Morishima Akiko for the Sarazanmai Anthology!

I finished it the same week the Anthology came out, but then I completely forgot about posting it since I’ve been trying to spend less time online. Sorry about that!

I hope you like it, it manages to add the one thing to Sarazanmai that it was still lacking in order to become absolute perfection - lesbians!!!

Pg 1

Text: The night we defeated the first Kappa Zombie Text: we got a Dish of Hope. Plate: Hope Text: And then… Keppi: This Dish of Hope will grant you any wish, ribbit.

Tooi: Don’t tell stupid lies. Enta: Any wish? Enta: No waaay~ Keppi: It’s true, ribbit.

Enta: For real!? Well then, SFX: Haha Enta: eeeveryone in the whooole world becomes a girl ☆ Enta: Just kidd…

SFX: fwoosh Plate: Eeeeveryone girl

SFX: scatter Enta: …ing.

Title: Morishima Akiko – Yurizanmai

 Pg2

Tooi: !? Kazuki/SFX: What?! Kazuki: Natural hair! Enta: Wha.. Keppi: It has been granted, ribbit ♥ Text: We ended up becoming women. Title: Yurizanmai

 Pg3

Bubble: WHAT THE HELL!!!

Text: We can’t understand all life’s occurrences. Sara: G’morning ☆

Sara: Today’s lucky selfie item is… Sara: Yuri, dish ☆ TL note: Yuri as in lily the flower (but also lesbians) Plate: Yuri Large banner text: Lucky Selfie Item Small banner text: No way, I’m surprised YURIZANMAI got the OK. Thank you.

Text: This isn’t a reward, falling in love with my teammate, turning into kappa…

Text: Turning into girls… Enta: Girls’ breasts are in the way! Enta: The bra is tight and my shoulders are stiff. SFX: sigh

 Pg4

Tooi: THIS IS YOUR FAULT!! Tooi: Fuck, I can feel a breeze on my crotch!! Enta: Buuut~ Enta: It was only a joke~ Kazuki: It’ll be a relief not having to wear a wig, Kazuki: but a pain to need so much shampoo.

SFX: Ah Enta: That’s right, here… Tooi: ? Enta: I have a share of my sisters SFX: *rustle rustle*

Text: Menstrual pads.

Enta: Wouldn’t it be troublesome if we’d get it suddenly? Enta: Hey Kazuki, you too… huh? Kazuki: Yuri flowers… Kazuki: Eh, they don’t have them?

Kazuki: Has this flower shop sold out all the yuri flowers too? Kazuki: Yeah… Kazuki: What should I do about today’s mission…?

Pg5

Enta: I’ll help you search for them. Kazuki: Eh? But I’d feel bad. Enta: Don’t. We’re the Golden Combo, right? Enta: As men or as women!

Enta: Something like gender doesn’t matter… Kazuki: It matters a lot!

Kazuki: I mean… Enta as a girl… Kazuki: Is so insanely cute Kazuki: my heart is pounding.

Enta: What? SFX: ba-dump SFX: *lean*

Kazuki: If me and Enta would kiss Enta: Umm Kazuki: now that we’re both girls Kazuki: that’d be “yuri”, wouldn’t it? Enta: !!

 Pg6

Enta: Th-th-th… That’s right! We-we-we… We have no other choice for the sake of the mission! Kazuki: Not for the sake of the mission. Kazuki: I just want to kiss you Enta.

Enta: Re.. Really? Kazuki: Really. Kazuki: Enta I…

Kazuki: love you ♥ Text: Yuri... Kiss… ♥♥♥

Tooi: Doesn’t our schools flower bed have some? Kazuki: Is that so? I’m off!! SFX: *dash*

Enta: I knew it was a delusion… SFX: *slump*

 Pg7

SFX: *pow*

Tooi: …Hey. Tooi: Don’t kick the ball in a skirt. Enta: I’m wearing leggings like my sister told me to ♪

Tooi: …Hey. Tooi: What’s Yasaka doing all those things for? Tooi: Who’s Harukappa?

Enta: I think it’s probably Haruka. Enta: Kazuki’s precious little brother. Enta: Oh right, now it’s her little sister.

Kazuki: The school didn’t have anything but cucumbers, dish~☆ Tooi: His precious… little brother.

 Pg8

Kazuki: I have no choice but to try my luck at some flower shop in Asakusa… SFX: sigh

Tooi: I’ll help! Enta: What?

Enta: Kuji’s a good guy!? Enta: Eeeeh Enta: That’s surprising Tooi: I’m free today, that’s all…

Enta: What’s this? Just when I thought we’d be alone with Kazuki… Don’t get in the way.

SFX: gasp Enta: It can’t be…

Enta: Did Kuji fall in love with Kazuki once he turned into a girl!? Kazuki: Thank you! Kazuki: I’ll give you this cucumber

SFX: Grrrrrrrrrr Enta: ………….

 Pg9

Text: Eeeeveryone in the whooole world becomes a girl ☆ Text: Of course that wasn’t a serious wish. Text: It was just a joke Text: However…

Text: [Kaisou] Text: O Flashback X Seaweed

Enta: Wow cuuute~ Enta: Are these your photos from when you went to middle school? Text: National Tennis Championship Enta: So you were in the tennis club? Kazuki’s mom: Yes. Kazuki’s mom: We made it pretty far in the doubles together with my senpai.

 Pg10

Haruka: You were the Golden Combo! Haruka: Like Kazu-chan and Enta-oniichan. Enta: Are you still playing tennis together with your senpai?

Kazuki’s mom: No Kazuki’s mom: I haven’t seen my senpai in over 10 years.

Kazuki’s mom: But you know Kazuki’s mom: Me and my senpai are still connected.

Kazuki’s mom: A real connection will continue to shine forever without vanishing, even if you are separated. SFX: flip Text: Wedding/in the waiting room before the ceremony

Kazuki’s mom: And then that light will shine on the next new connection…

 Pg11

Kazuki’s mom: Even when we aren’t near. Kazuki’s mom: Even when we don’t meet. Kazuki’s mom: Me and my senpai are connected through that light. Kazuki’s mom: We always will be.

Enta: ……. Enta: I was a little jealous.

Enta: If Kazuki and I were women Enta: I wouldn’t be at the mercy of something such as desires, like men are. Enta: Even though my feelings are pure, I wonder if we can connect.

 Pg12

Reo: Tee-hee ♪ My make-up turned out beautifully! Reo: The perfect policewoman is complete~♥

Mabu: Let’s go investigate what caused this sudden change of gender.

Sara: The Prince is lovely even as a Princess, dish ♥ Keppi: It’s a pair-look, ribbit. Reo: I have like no idea how we got turned into women so suddenly~ Reo: The only thing I know for sure is that…

Reo: I’m beyond gorgeous as a woman ♥ Reo: Tee-hee-hee Mabu: Reo, even ever since you were a man you’ve been more beautiful than anyone else.

 Pg13

Reo: Wha- What, it’s unusual for you to give compliments.

Mabu: I’m not giving compliments, I’m stating a fact. Mabu: I’m not concerned as far as appearances go, beautiful or ugly, it doesn’t matter.

Reo: So you don’t care whether I’m beautiful or ugly. Reo: Hmph

Mabu: That’s right Text: Beautiful or ugly Text: Man or woman Text: I’m in love with Reo

Text: I want to tell you that, and yet…

Text: In the end however, no matter if I’m a man or a woman, my desire for Kazuki didn’t vanish. Enta: I’m delusional. I’m jealous. Enta: I still want to lick the recorder. SFX: Aaaah  

 Pg14

Enta: Still, I wouldn’t change these feelings. Enta: Even as a girl I’m in love with Kazuki!

Enta: I’m sorry Kazuki, yuri flowers are sold out everywhere… Kazuki: Enta? Kazuki: Look, look!

Kazuki: Kuji found them for me, dish ♥ Kazuki: They were dropped behind a funeral home SFX: squeeze Tooi: Hey, don’t cling to me so much Tooi: It’s soft

Enta: Kujiiiiiiiii SFX: roar

 Pg15

Bubble: Huh? SFX: whoosh

SFX: swish Bubble: Aaah

Kazuki: My yuri!! Sara: For our next news story, dish ☆

Sara: An incident has occurred all around Asakusa with yuri flowers taking flight. Sara: Gao, gao~☆ Banner: Yuri, flying! Don’t back down on love TL note: They’re using a word for flying that’s pronounced “shounin” just like “approved” from YKA was. Banner: This YURIZANMAI is fiction, dish. It has absolutely no relation to the official SARAZANMAI.

Tooi: This time the desire is yuri Tooi: A yuri-zombie, huh? Enta: Everyone… Enta: Let’s turn into kappa Kazuki: Yeah Bubble:  There’s something I have to take back

 Pg16

Text: Before Kuji falls in love with female Kazuki Text: I’ll use the Dish of Hope to turn Kazuki back to male! Text: And in order to do that… Bubble: Let’s go!

Text: Yurizanmai

Otter: Continues in the sequel Otter: Usso☆ (Lies)

END

[ficswithrimi]

Golden (Final Chapter Pt. 1)

First Chapter: Chapter 1

Last Chapter: Chapter 13

Next Chapter: Final Chapter Pt. 2

Wanna talk to Golden and get to know him or expose him? Then follow @goldenrecs!

A/N: WE’VE FINALLY ARRIVED TO THE FINAL CHAPTER OF GOLDEN! Unfortunately, it was getting waaay too long so I have to split it in two parts. I’ll give my sap, emotional author’s note on the second part. Speaking off, the second part should be up within a week or two! Please enjoy the first part of the last chapter of Golden! Please tell me your thoughts! It makes me happy~ OH! And for the almost last time, please listen to this~ 

                                                             ~!~

Jungkook’s POV

“Good morning! This is Wendy reporting outside of the Language Hall’s auditorium where just an hour from now, the creative writing final exam will start! It is expected that our school’s biggest mystery, Golden, will reveal himself to the world or, er, his classmates,” the reporter giggled nervously at her slipup. Shaking her head, she directed the cameraman to pan the camera to the crowd of students awaiting outside of the auditorium doors. No one could tell who was actually in the class and who was just there to see Golden. There were signs with various names of who they assumed was Golden, girls and guys dressed up as if Golden was going to propose to them after their reveal, and just curious passersby.

           “Yes, it is 7am and in half an hour, the doors to the auditorium will open to allow those taking the final in,” Wendy grinned in the camera as it panned back to her. Shifting her eyes to a random student waiting in the massive line, she motioned the cameraman to follow her. “Ah yes, here we have a fan of Golden waiting anxiously to see his-“

           “I’m here for my final.” The female student cut the young reporter off. Wendy’s eyes widened briefly before letting out a forced chuckle.

           “Of course, you are! But Golden will be revealing himself in your final today! Aren’t you excited-“

           “I just want a decent grade.” The girl said in a matter-of-fact tone.

           The fake smile on Wendy’s face fell as she glared slightly at the woman. The cameraman cleared his throat to try to get the reporter to return to acting professional. However, the woman didn’t seem to understand the gesture. “So, why are you here so early then, huh?”

           The student dramatically looked behind her at the crowd of students and even faculty that was still growing before exasperatedly swinging her arms open. “I dunno, maybe because I’d like to be able to actually get inside? Listen, I think you all are crazy bitc-“

Wendy immediately whipped around to face the camera to cut off the woman’s words, her hair smacking the student behind her in the process. “Okay! We will cut to the weather forecast for the week and come back here later!”

           Jungkook ran his fingers through his hair as he clicked off his phone. This was going to be a long day – he already expected it. Not only would he have to sit through 200 students presenting their blog to the class and the professor, but he would have to deal with the campus afterwards obsessing over him. Namjoon told him that maybe it would blow over when everyone came back in the new year after the holiday break, however, Jungkook had an unsettling feeling it wouldn’t be that easy. Sure, maybe it’d die down a little, but he was a big deal. People outside of the university knew about him and his blog.

           He had all of this to worry about and his nerves. Jungkook was nothing like Golden in the outside world. He was a shy guy who tried to avoid human contact with others as much as possible. That’s why he strolled around campus with his AirPods stuffed in his ears. Just thinking about over half of the university knowing him gave him slight anxiety. However, what worried him the most was Y/N. Today – in like an hour or whenever he got up to present – she would know that the guy she crushed on was him. She’d know that he was the one who casually flirted with her online and secretly dedicated songs to her. She’d know how Golden has been by her side this entire semester – right under her nose. But, along with knowing who he was, she’d know he was the reason why she received so much hate on her blog that she deleted. The reason why her and her best friend got into a fight. Why she was confused about Taehyung. That he -Golden - was the reason for all her stress this semester.

           Would the 19-year-old hate him? Jungkook worried about this the most. He really liked Y/N. And he hoped that the same feelings she developed for Golden could be passed onto him. They were technically the same person, right? Would Y/N also see it that way? Shaking his head, Jungkook glanced at the time on his watch. 7:07am. Letting out a sigh, he stood up from the table in the school’s dining hall. He guess he’d better start making his way towards class.

~!~

Chloe’s POV

           “The fuck…?” Chloe frowned as she looked in front of her at the long line of people coming from the Language Hall building where her creating writing class was. She knew the class held about 200 students and those who’ve skipped almost the entirety of the semester – such as herself – would appear today, but Chloe knew all these people weren’t in her class. Especially since the university’s news team was reporting and casually walking up to certain students in line to, what she assumed, interview them.

           Just the sight of the reporters and the people made the woman want to turn on her heel and head straight back to her dorm to sleep. However, she knew she had to be here to support her best friend and whatever she was going to present to the class for her blog. That and Chloe kind of needed to pass the class. Also, she was curious as to how Jungkook would reveal himself to the world or whatever. So, she couldn’t leave.

           Y/N didn’t return from the dance studio last night, so she was expecting whatever the sophomore was planning for her blog to be epic. She didn’t have any doubts. Y/N was a phenomenal dancer and if she was incorporating that into her blog, then Chloe knew she would pass. She hoped. She prayed.

           “Wow,” Chloe jumped slightly as a deep voice let out a low whistle from beside her. Her eyes almost jumped out of their sockets at the sight of Namjoon standing beside her casually, hands stuffed in his pockets, and looking at the crowd.

           “W-what are you doing here?” Chloe felt her face heating up from him standing beside her. She hasn’t talked to him since she admitted to him about her blog and how he told her he wasn’t mad about it. “Oh, are you looking for Y/N? I don’t think she’s here yet.”

           “Actually,” Namjoon turned and looked down at the shorter girl with a small smile plastered on his lips. If Chloe was blushing before, she was definitely blushing now. “I was looking for you.”

           “F-funny. Usually it’s me who’s looking for you,” she nervously chuckled as she try to look anywhere but him.

           “Yeah,” he also let out a chuckle that Chloe swear made her heart beat a bit faster. “Just wanted to wish you good luck on your presentation.”

           “Eh,” Chloe shrugged. “It’s not really my presentation I’m worried about but thanks.”

“So, uh, I should probably start heading to my exam now,” Namjoon said as he glanced back towards the crowd. “They really… got the news team out here…”

“Golden’s finally going to end. I bet he’s happy…”

Namjoon chuckled again at this. “More like nervous… but… he has nothing to worry about, right?”

Chloe looked up at Namjoon’s questioning arched brow at her. She already knew what he meant by that. She grinned at the senior. “Nothing at all! Well, I should probably get in line for my class. Wow… I really have to wait in a line for my final.”

“Hm, okay. See you around!” Namjoon nodded at her as the girl gave him one last grin before turning around to walk away. However, before she could get too far, she felt a hand grab hers and pull her back slightly.

           “What is it?” She arched a brow at him as Namjoon removed his other hand from his pocket. Flipping Chloe’s hand around, he placed a flash drive into her palm and wrapped her fingers around it.

           “You should make an edit to your last blog post,” Namjoon simply said before letting go of the girl’s hand and turned to walk away. Chloe stood there confused as she looked at the black flash drive in her hand. What did he just give her? Did he really give her a flash drive as a good luck gift for her final? And what did he mean by her last blog post? Suddenly remembering what her post was about, her eyes widened as she looked back up at his retreating figure. Smiling softly, she carefully shoved it into her pocket and whipped out her phone as she began walking towards the line of students.

           Bitchhhhhhh, guess what just happened! Also, wtf r u? There’s a line outside of CW.

~!~

Your POV

           “One and two and three and four and one and done!” Hoseok shouted over the music as your chest heaved heavily as you held your ending pose. The senior immediately started clapping excitedly as a wide grinned brightened his face. Meanwhile, you fell to the ground trying to catch your breath. You had been up all night choreographing a dance to present for your blog. Then, you had to make sure it was almost perfect as if you hadn’t just thought about it a couple of hours ago. After leaving your dorm last night, you had texted both Jimin and Hoseok to ask them with the recording and to give out any pointers. Jimin couldn’t come because of two finals he had later in the day, but Hoseok, who was finished with his finals for the week, arrived at the studio around 4:30am. By then, you had made up a dance and he helped you with some parts but mostly said how it was a beautiful dance and different from your usual style. You knew it had to of have been decent since Hoseok was the school’s dance team captain and has won dance competitions throughout his life. Getting his approval meant a lot.

           “I could feel the emotion through each move! Everyone’s going to love it, Y/N!” Hoseok walked over to you and handed you a bottle of water. Sitting up and grabbing the water, you chugged it down before standing up.

           “Thanks! Now I just have to do some slight edits and upload to my blog!” You smiled at the man. However, he didn’t return your smile and, instead, glanced at the clock on the wall.

           “Uh… doesn’t your final start at 8?”

           “Yeah, why?” You asked as you followed his gaze to the clock. Immediately your eyes widened. 7:52. Panicking, you ran over to your phone that Hoseok had used to record your dance. You forgot you had turned on do not disturb so you wouldn’t be interrupted in the studio. Looking at your notifications, you saw you had several missed calls and messages from Chloe, Jimin, and even a message from Taehyung. Grabbing your bag, you dashed out of the studio door, only managing to give Hoseok a quick wave in the process.

           “Good luck!” Hoseok called out.

           You frantically tried to balance your bag on your shoulder and trim your dance video as you ran past the information desk. There was no way you were going to make it to the final on time. First off, you were sweaty and gross from dancing throughout the night. You had to go back to your dorm and shower first. Sitting in a three-hour final covered in sweat and surrounded by the stench of your B.O. just didn’t sound pleasant to you.

           “Y/N!” You stopped briefly as Hannah, the receptionist and your friend, called out to you.

           “Can’t talk! Gonna be late for my final!” You waved to her as you continued to head towards the door.

           “I know! Good luck with Golden! I’m sure he’ll like you no matter what!” She shouted. Your heart pounded at the thought of Golden – Jungkook. Today was it. Not only was he going to reveal himself to the school, but you were going to reveal your feelings for him in front of the school. Now, there was a strong possibility that Jungkook didn’t return your feelings and you’d be embarrassed for the rest of your college career. However, you held out hope that maybe – just maybe – the freshman held similar feelings. He blushed around you a lot and was quiet, but you always assumed that was because he was just shy. Chloe did hint several times that he may have feelings for you, but it was Chloe you were talking about. At the beginning of the semester, she thought every guy she landed her eyes on in CW was Golden.

           Speaking of being shy, how was he going to reveal himself? Online, Jungkook had this outgoing, sassy personality. Offline, however, he kept to himself when not around his close friends with his AirPods stuffed in his ears. You were kind of expecting for the 18-year-old to get on the stage, do a slight wave to the class, and casually be all, “Hi, my name is Jungkook and I’m Golden. The end.” Would people believe such a laidback, unoriginal reveal? You had no clue, but you were sure once they saw his blog, they probably would. Or maybe he’d go all out. He’ll start dancing to one of the songs he covered on his blog. Maybe he’d dance to his recent cover of Paper Hearts? You kind of hoped he wouldn’t. Whatever it was, you just knew you’d have to hurry and get changed and run to class. It was bad enough you were going to be late as is.

           As you jogged down the sidewalk towards your dorm, you felt your phone buzz in your hand. It was probably Chloe again asking where you were. Apparently, there was a line just to get in your final. Not giving it a second thought, you lifted your phone up to glance at it only to temporarily halt in your tracks as it wasn’t a text from Chloe, but an anonymous message sent to your blog. That was weird. Your blog was made mere hours ago. Who could’ve found you already? Beginning to walk again, you opened the message.

           Anon: new blog or not, when Golden reveals himself today, it’ll be ME he’ll dedicate songs to and not you. C u l8r “dancercookies”

           Your heart sunk a bit at the message. One thing you thought you escaped when you deleted your old blog was the anon hate you got just by simply knowing Jungkook. How did this person find you? You were pretty sure Jungkook didn’t know of your new blog. He, just like everyone else besides Chloe and Jimin, were unaware of your resurrected blog. And on top of that, it was one of the Golden fans who saw him as an idol or something and wanted to confess their love for him after the reveal. Shaking the thoughts from your head, your eyes glanced towards the time on your phone. 7:58. Panic setting in again, you shoved your phone inside your pocket and jogged towards your dorm again. There was no way you were going to be on time. It just wasn’t a way around it.

~!~

           Chloe’s POV

           Chloe tapped her foot impatiently as she kept looking behind her to see if she could spot her short best friend anywhere in the line of people. However, all she saw were tired, excited, and annoyed students that seemed to stretch on for miles. Okay, miles was a little exaggerating, but the line was long. The doors to the auditorium would be opening at any minute and Chloe just knew she’d have to jab and elbow her way through the rush of students. Walking in an orderly fashion seemed to be the last thing on everyone’s minds. Besides the MIA Y/N, Golden himself was nowhere to be spotted amongst the crowd. Jungkook was kind of tall but so were a lot of the other guys who stood in the line. Frowning, Chloe let out a huff while crossing her arms and turning back to face the person in front of her. Trying to get an estimate of how many people she’d have to fight through, the blonde girl’s eyes landed on Wendy, the school’s main news reporter, and her camera guy behind her. The junior seemed to be interviewing another student. Poking her head farther out from behind the person in front of her, she tried to get a better view of the interviewee. Instantly, her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the woman before a small fire sparked in them. It was no one other than Seulgi. Seulgi… the woman who has been harassing Y/N since Golden started noticing her on his blog. The woman who told Namjoon about her blog. How she even knew about Chloe’s blog surprised her but all of that didn’t matter.

           Chloe stepped away from the line and started her way towards the three people. Originally, Chloe had hoped karma would come along and take care of Seulgi, but the opportunity to set her straight was knocking at her door. And who would Chloe be not to answer it? Just as she was in hearing distance of them, she felt someone wrap their hand around her wrist as they pulled her back towards the line.

           “What the hell – oh – oh! It’s you!” Chloe’s eyes widened at the man who had now let go of her wrist. “I don’t have time to talk to you, Taehyung, I have business to take care of-“

           “Where’s Y/N?” Taehyung asked the blonde woman, ignoring her rambling about putting Seulgi or whoever in her place. At hearing the woman’s name, however, Chloe stopped talking and arched a brow.

           “You’re still caught up on her? Listen, Tae, can I call you Tae-“

           “No-“

           “Y/N doesn’t have feelings for you. I thought that’s what ya’ll talked about yesterday?”

           “Chloe, listen-“

           “Also, you being Vmusic95? I knew it. You never gave me a Golden vibe-“

           “Y/N needs to be here on time!” Taehyung suddenly shouted, causing a few students to stop chattering and turn their attention to the two. Even Wendy had stopped conducting her interview with Seulgi to turn and look. Seulgi leaned forward to also see what the commotion was. Her mistake. Chloe’s eyes immediately locked onto the brown-haired woman and Seulgi swore she was snarling a bit at her. Turning away from Seulgi, Chloe looked back towards Taehyung.

           “Duh, it’s our final but why exactly do you care after she dumped you?”

           Taehyung smacked his face at Chloe’s blunt question. The woman really didn’t have a filter. “It’s for Jung-“

           “Ah, Taehyung! Or Vmusic95, am I correct?” Wendy suddenly popped over to the pair. The cameraman shoved his camera into Chloe’s face much to the girl’s annoyance. She eyed the man up and down before pushing the camera away from her with her hand, earning a “hey” from the man in the process.

           “Uh… yeah…” Taehyung said nervously as Wendy grinned in his face.

           “How does it feel being the inferior blog to Golden!? Even to the point that the Cinderella of this fiasco, Y/N, chose Golden over you?”

           “Uh…” Taehyung’s face turned red as he looked away from the peering camera. His eyes contacted the surrounding students around him who were awaiting his answer before looking towards the ground. Chloe arched a brow at the man’s sudden behavior. She’d only known Taehyung a couple of months and only hung out a couple of times, but she knew he was rarely shy. He was always babbling about something and had this goofy box-like grin plastered on his face. Y/N… must’ve really broken his heart and yet, here he was, trying to see that Y/N and Jungkook were happy. He even exposed himself yesterday so, what Chloe assumed, Y/N could have final confirmation that he wasn’t Golden, and it was Jungkook – the man Y/N liked. Anyone with eyes could tell the girl had feelings for the 18-year-old. Anyone could tell Jungkook had feelings for her. Except, well, maybe Y/N.

           Taehyung was obviously still hurting, and Wendy and her team weren’t making it any better. Sucking her teeth, Chloe stood in front of Taehyung, trying her best to cover him from the camera. She didn’t care for Taehyung that much still, but she wasn’t going to let this reporter make him feel worse than he already did.

           “His blog wasn’t inferior, Wendy. It was nearly as popular as Golden’s. Just because he didn’t entertain anons like Golden did all the time didn’t make his blog any less. I was a fan of his blog and at least he had the balls to reveal himself and not lead people on until the last minute-“

           “Uh…” Chloe’s ears perked up at the sound of Jungkook’s voice behind her. Everyone turned their attention to the freshman who had suddenly appeared, bookbag hanging off one shoulder and orange juice bottle occupying his left hand. The girl cleared her throat from getting caught about talking about Jungkook and turned her attention back to Wendy.

           “So… leave him alone… why don’t you uh… interview Jungkook, here?” Chloe laughed nervously only to earn a look from both Jungkook and Taehyung.  “He’s a freshman and-“

           Wendy put her hand up to Chloe’s mouth to stop her from talking as she eyed Jungkook up and down before rolling her eyes. “Cute but he doesn’t seem interesting enough to interview. C’mon Taeyong, let’s go see who else we can find. Thanks for your time, Taehyung… Chloe.”

           Chloe threw a glare at Wendy as she scampered off before turning her attention back to Jungkook who was now standing with her and Taehyung. “I didn’t mean what I said earlier. I mean, I did but-“

           “Just try not to say anything else regarding that before the final, please,” Jungkook let out a heavy sigh at how Chloe almost exposed him for the nth time.

           “Thanks… for what you said, Chloe…” Taehyung smiled sadly at the woman. She just shrugged before slapping him unexpectedly on his back. “We’re gonna be family one day so I gotta lookout for you, ya know?”

           “Family?” Taehyung and Jungkook asked simultaneously. Chloe just waved it off.

           “So, Y/N’s not with you?” Chloe asked Jungkook as she tried looking past him.

           “No... she’s not here already?” His eyes widened. Taehyung shook his head at Jungkook.

           “Don’t worry, she’ll be here before they let-“

           “Attention students of Creative Writing only!” A voice said over the building’s intercom. The once noisy line immediately hushed to listen to the announcement. “The doors will be opening now to begin the Creative Writing final. You will be asked to provide your full name to ensure you are a student of this class. Thank you and we hope you do well!”

           Just as the announcement ended, the line began to disperse as hordes of people began to make their way forward towards the door. Meanwhile, Jungkook, Chloe, and Taehyung’s eyes widened in fear as only one thought came to their heads.

           Y/N was gonna miss the final.

~!~

Your POV

           “You know, you may not have as great of a RA when I leave next year.”

           “Yeah, can you-“

           “Like you could get someone who drags you outta your room to make sure you go to the floor meetings.”

           “Jackson-“

           “What if they make you call them RA whatever-their-name-will-be? Or no communicating with the other floors? You just don’t know how lucky you’ve had it with me, Y/N. What RA will be as sexy and cool as me? Who will help you with your friendship problems-“

           “Jackson! Can you just open the damn door?!” You shouted at the senior who was rambling on as he fiddled with the lock on your door. After noticing the time at the studio, you had rushed out of the studio while forgetting your room key. You had texted Hoseok in hopes he’d bring you the key, but you knew he wouldn’t reach your dorm in time. You had to still get ready and upload the video to your blog. Time didn’t permit you to be any later than you already were. So – to your annoyance – that led you to turning to Jackson to unlock your door for you. It took him a while to find the master key and to “pass time,” as he said, he began talking about how he’s graduating next semester and how he’d be the greatest RA you’d have in college. This, of course, made you roll your eyes hard.

           Just as you had said that, the lock clicked open and Jackson pushed open the door. Turning to you, he gave you his infamous puppy dog eyes. “You don’t have to be so mean…”

           Ignoring his look, you rushed past him, said a quick thanks, and slammed your door. There were so many things you had to do that you didn’t even know where to start. Should you upload the video first? Or shower? Maybe find something to wear first? Your eyes scanned your shared room as if they would land on something that would give you an answer. However, it didn’t give you an answer and caused your stomach to twist into tight knots as you saw the time on the digital clock beside Chloe’s bed. 8:13.

           “Fuck…” You cursed under your breath. Inhaling deeply to clear your mind somewhat, you decided to upload your video to your blog and while it was uploading, you’d shower quickly. The final was going to take a while, you told yourself. There were 200 students in the class. It’d be a three-hour final – tops. You didn’t want to miss Chloe’s presentation, however. Or Jungkook’s. Hell, you definitely didn’t want to miss yours. You came too far to settle for a failing grade now. Ruffling your hair out of frustration, you logged into your blog and began to upload your dance. Tossing your phone on your bed, you ran to the bathroom to get ready.

 ~!~

Jungkook’s POV

           Where was she? She wasn’t going to skip out on the final, right? She wouldn’t. Chloe had told him and Taehyung that she had come up with an idea for her blog late last night. Was she still doing whatever it was she had decided? She did know what time it was, didn’t she? What if she was sleeping somewhere and didn’t hear her phone’s alarm or something? All these thoughts crossed Jungkook’s mind as more and more students got up to present their blogs and time moved on. It would be easy for the dancer to miss her presentation as, since there were so many students who had to present, the professor only allowed for a 2-4-minute timeframe. No one could go over. She made sure of that as she kept a stopwatch in her hand. One guy had gone about two seconds over and she immediately interrupted him.

           Missing her own presentation wasn’t the only thing Jungkook was thinking about. He worried about her missing his own presentation. The presentation that had students on the edge of their seats which each name the professor called to the front. Wendy and several other reporters who weren’t outside previously were in the usually spacious – now cramped – auditorium. Jungkook wasn’t even sure some of them belonged to the school’s news team which made the 18-year-old more nervous than what he already was. Whenever the presenter began to speak, he could hear the reporters whispering things like, “get your camera ready,” or “this is the one, I can feel it.” Of course, they were wrong.

           Y/N had to make it on time for his presentation. He worked so hard for this day. The times he almost got outed by her best friend – Jungkook eyed Chloe who had her bag in an empty chair between them, reserved for Y/N – to having to deal with the obsessed anons. Most importantly, however, with his reveal, Y/N would know not only who he was but also his feelings for her. Jungkook liked Y/N and he didn’t want to risk missing his chance again like he almost did before. The man glanced over at Taehyung who was listening intently to the current presenter. Jungkook didn’t know what happened when he and Y/N met up the other night. All he knew was that Taehyung was not his usual cheery self afterwards and he even revealed his music blog. He wouldn’t tell Jungkook why but he kind of guessed his reason behind doing so.

           “Uh, thanks Jaebum for your presentation on different breeds of small dogs…” The professor said. Marking something down for what was assumed to be Jaebum, she moved her pencil down her list of students. Jungkook could audibly hear everyone hitch their breaths as they had no idea as to who she would call next. To make the presentations more spontaneous – her exact words – she was calling everyone in a randomized order. “Hm… Choi Chloe?”

           “Fuck,” Jungkook heard the blonde woman grumble under her breath as she stood up and shoved her phone her back pocket. As she squeezed past Jungkook, she looked down at him and winked, which made him nervous. What was she about to do? He knew about her Namjoon blog after the senior had told him and the other guys. Specifically, he asked how he responded to her weird, indirect confession. Yoongi had given Namjoon an idea. Jungkook wondered if the man went through with it or not. Jimin had told him he could do better than Chloe jokingly. Namjoon didn’t think it was funny.

           Jungkook sat up in his chair as Chloe strutted towards the stage, stopping briefly at the professor’s desk to identify herself as present. She walked over to the cord that was connected to the large screen in the auditorium to connect her phone. Those who wanted everyone to see their blog connected their phones to the screen while others verbally explained their blog while having the professor look at it from her phone. Before Chloe turned on her phone to show her blog to the class – and the entire school thanks to the reporters – she took a deep breath and turned around on her heel. She gave a nervous smile and brushed her hair that hung in her face away from her eyes.

           “Hello… I’m Chloe… and,” She inhaled and let out a shaky breath. Jungkook was confused as to why she was nervous to present. She was so nonchalant about it before. According to Y/N, she barely even came to the class. Everyone else began to chatter amongst themselves in confusion as she took the time to calm her nerves.

           “I’m Golden.”

           Jungkook’s mouth fell open – assumingly with the rest of the auditorium – at Chloe’s words. Someone yelled out a prolonged “what” while the rest of the room began to chatter excitedly. The reporters turned to their cameras and started reports on how, “with an unexpected twist, Golden turns out to be student Chloe Choi.”

           “What’s she doing?” Taehyung tapped Jungkook’s arm as he continued to stare at the woman in shock. His mind was blank. What was she doing? As he continued to stare at the girl and the professor tried to get everyone to settle down, Chloe let out a loud laugh while holding her stomach.

           “God, you guys act like a celebrity just walked in or something,” She laughed as she tried to regain her breath. After regaining her composure, she turned on her phone to reveal her real blog titled “Falling in Love with a Senior That Will Be Graduating Next Year: The Sad Story of Chloe M.”

           “Ahem,” Chloe cleared her throat to regain everyone’s – now irritated – attention. The news reporters were desperately trying to retract their previous report. “My blog actually was about my feelings for someone who means a lot to me. This blog was presented in a humorous manner, but everything said within it was true. As you can see, I joke around a lot, which annoys a lot of people.”

           “No shit,” someone yelled out which caused a couple of laughs from the audience. Chloe smirked to hide her smile.

           “Anyways, I stupidly wrote about my feelings about this guy for the world to see and eventually he saw it himself. I thought I ruined everything between us because he’s really this chill kind of guy and,” Chloe blushed as she thought of, who Jungkook was assuming, Namjoon. “I really like him… and so… yeah… I dedicated this blog to him and that was my blog for the semester.”

           Jungkook looked around as no one seemed to applaud the woman for her presentation. Taehyung clapped silently but not loud enough to reach the front of the stage. Noticing no one applauded her, Chloe sucked her teeth in response. “Whatever. I hope what ya’ll are waiting for won’t be a disappointment.”

           Jungkook frowned at her words as he watched her gather her phone and get off the stage. This was the second time today she’s indirectly insulted him.

           “Uh, thanks… Chloe… let’s see…”

           Chloe smirked at Jungkook as she returned to her seat. Jungkook just rolled his eyes at her as he turned his attention back to the professor. His mind drifted back to Y/N, however, as he checked the time on his phone. 8:57. Was she really not coming? The more time went on and people presented, the more nervous Jungkook felt. At any moment he could be call.

           “Who’s next…?”

           It would break his heart for her to miss his reveal. She’d end up like the other students on campus who didn’t take creative writing – finding out he was Golden on the news broadcast. Probably on a rerun, too, since they were recording live.

           “Jeon Jungkook?”

           Jungkook didn’t even notice how the auditorium quieted down again as the professor said the next name to present. He snapped out of his thoughts, however, when both Taehyung and Chloe nudged him. He stared doe-eyed at the stage as he heard Taehyung whisper out that he was next. He couldn’t be, right? Maybe they misheard. He couldn’t present yet. He wasn’t ready. Y/N wasn’t here yet.

           “Is Jeon Jungkook present? Going once…”

           “Go, bro,” Chloe slapped his arm. “She’ll be here in time!”

           “Yeah, Kookie. Maybe it’s like one of those romance movies where she suddenly busts through the doors just as you… present,” Taehyung chose his words carefully as other students seemed to identify Jungkook’s name to his face and turned to arch brows and confused faces at him.

           “Going twice…”

           “Ugh, if the freshman isn’t gonna go, I will,” the voice of Seulgi could be heard from the back of the auditorium.

           “Can you just go so you can finally shut that bit-“

           “Chloe,” Taehyung frowned at her. She just shrugged and sat back in her seat.

           “Okay then, let’s-“

           “Here” Jungkook immediately stood up from his seat, causing the professor and everyone else to look over at him. “I’m… here…”

           “Well, c’mon! We are on a strict schedule!” The professor motioned him over to the stage. Jungkook gulped before turning his head to glance at the closed auditorium doors. He only hoped Taehyung was right and Y/N would walk through those doors at any given moment. Sighing, he began to make his way towards the stage.

 ~!~

Your POV      

           Where r u?! He’s presenting! – Chloe

           “Fuck!” You shouted as you dashed out of your dorm room, slamming the door shut behind you.

           “Language!” Jackson called from somewhere down the hall. Ignoring him, you decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator. You dashed down the stairs, avoiding the few stragglers who were going in the opposite direction. Was the professor not calling names by alphabetical order? Or maybe she was going backwards on the rollcall? Whatever she was doing, Jungkook was presenting now – ready to reveal to the world who he was – and you weren’t there. You weren’t there to give him the support the shy man probably needed. Nor were you there to cheer him on from the sea of students – to tell him he’s got this. All while pretending to not know who he really was.

           Rushing out of your dorm, you ran frantically towards the language hall. It wasn’t too far away but it was far enough. Luckily, the usually busy sidewalks were practically empty do to everyone either in their finals, studying, or sleeping. That, or maybe they were all waiting outside the building for Jungkook to emerge as Golden. As the building came into sight, you gasped at all the people outside gathered around it. Some you were even positive weren’t students at your school. Clutching onto your bag, you began to push your way through the crowd.

           “Excuse me. Sorry,” You said as you made your way through the crowd. As you reached the front of the door, you were surprised to see two security guards standing in front of them. Clearing your throat, you smiled nervously at them. “Uh… hi… may I go in?”

           “Creative Writing students are only permitted past this point,” the one on the left said.

           “I am a student! I-I mean, I am in this class! I have to take my final!”

           “Miss, the final began a little over an hour ago. You’re just now coming?” The other officer said as she arched a brow at you.

           “Please! I can’t fail this class! I’m an honor student. I worked so hard and-“ You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes. At this point, not only were you going to miss Jungkook’s reveal, but you were going to fail your class.

           “H-hey, don’t cry! What’s your name?” The woman asked as she pulled out a clipboard with a list of names.

           You sniffed your tears back as you managed to stutter out your name. “Y/L/N Y/N…”

           The woman searched for a bit while the other officer peered over her shoulder to see if he could spot your name as well. “Ah!” the male officer said as he pointer at something on the board.

           The woman looked up at you and smiled. “Your name is on the roll. However, I can’t let you in during a presentation. After this student is finished, we can let you in.”

           “B-but I need to be in there right now!” You felt your heart drop to your stomach. You were going to miss his presentation after all.

           “Sorry, professor’s orders or it’ll be an automatic fail…” The male officer gave you a sad smile. A tear managed to escape your left eye as you stared in bewilderment at them. This was it. There was nothing else you could do… but wait.

~!~

Jungkook’s POV

                       Jungkook nervously stared out at the crowd of students before him. He gulped as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Suddenly, he wished he had styled his hair up instead of his usual down style. Were the stage lights extra bright today or something? He felt like the light and heat radiating from them were trying to bake him. The sound of the professor clearing her throat, signaling him to start, caused his eyes to shift to her. He gave her a nervous smile before shifting his eyes to the entrance of the auditorium. Jungkook thought he could dash out of the room right then and there and announce he was Golden later in the day or so. Or maybe, he’d never reveal Golden and just abandon the blog. People would eventually forget about him, right? He was just a fad, after all. Right? At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.

           Jungkook looked to the back of the auditorium where the news reporters stood, all waiting for his presentation just like the rest of the class. He could tell the professor he didn’t have a blog, and this was his first time coming to the class. However, he knew she wouldn’t believe him as he sat near the front of the class for the entirety of the semester and he’d lock eyes with the professor on multiple occasions. She knew who he was. Finally, Jungkook looked to the empty seat that was reserved for Y/N. Where was she? Was she okay? Why wasn’t she coming? Jungkook had to admit, maybe he was stalling because he hoped Taehyung would be right and she’d enter the room at any moment. However, he knew he couldn’t wait for her forever. He couldn’t keep the everyone waiting as they began to snicker and talk amongst themselves at his nervousness. He had to let them know now. He had to put an end to Golden once and for all.

           “Look, if you need-“

           “Remember… the way you made me feel…” Jungkook began to sing quietly. “… Such young love but…”

           The once rowdy auditorium began to quiet down as Jungkook’s angelic-like voice began to travel to the ears of the students. Jungkook stopped briefly as he studied the students within the first row of seats. Some of their mouths were ajar with widened eyes. Others, however, seemed skeptical. He couldn’t blame them. Chloe did get everyone’s hopes up with her fake reveal. Inhaling and deciding to continue, he closed his eyes and started singing again.

           “Something in me knew that it was real… frozen in my head…”

           As Jungkook quietly sung the next part, reporters hesitantly turned to the cameras to report who they almost thought could be Golden while the cameramen zoomed in on Jungkook. Whispers could be heard amongst the students as they began to question those beside them if this shy kid was really the school’s beloved Golden. He couldn’t be, right? They mean, he sounded like Golden’s singing voice but Golden wasn’t shy. The real Golden would’ve gotten on stage, smirk at everyone, say something cocky, then reveal his identity. He wouldn’t be this 18-year-old shifting nervously on stage with his mint green feather cardigan, denim jeans held up with black suspenders, white t-shirt, and black combat boots. He looked too soft to be Golden. And Jungkook knew they wouldn’t believe it was him. That’s why he came prepared.

           Suddenly, he stopped singing and pulled out his phone and went to connect it to the screen. Everyone arched their brows at the brown-haired boy as he quietly tapped away on his phone, screen hidden from them to see. After a few seconds, pings and vibrations could be heard throughout the room. Even the professor looked confused as her own phone buzzed. Was it an emergency alert or something? Jungkook briefly looked up from his phone to see everyone checking their notification before he turned on the screen to project his blog to the room. Gasps were heard throughout the room as students looked up from their phones to the screen on the stage:

           Golden: My name is Jeon Jungkook… (posted 5 seconds ago)

             The camera operators of the news teams in the back all immediately focused their cameras onto Jungkook on the stage as reporters began to report of the sudden post made by Golden and the screen that Jungkook had displayed. Jungkook gulped nervously as he inhaled and exhaled slowly, “I’m… the best at almost everything. I dance, sing, draw, and write…”

           Jungkook felt his confidence starting to rise within him as students began to stand up from their seats – eyes filled with realization and shock. Letting out a chuckle at the sight, Jungkook continued, “Ha… even my music taste is amazing… right? I’m just…Golden.”

           Instantly, after revealing himself to the starstruck crowd, Jungkook hit the ‘play’ button for his cover of Paper Hearts. As Golden’s – Jungkook’s ­– recorded voice rang from the speakers, Jungkook harmonized with the recording. His voice was an exact match to the recording. He did it. He revealed himself as Golden.

           “Golden has revealed himself!”

           “Golden turns out to be Jeon Jungkook!”

           “Jeon Jungkook reveals himself as the infamous mystery music blogger, Golden!”

           Reporters were desperately reporting the new information to be one of the first to leak the information. Some students were recording from their phones – probably going live on Instagram or other social media sites. Chloe smiled softly to herself as Jungkook sung the song emotionally on the stage. She knew Y/N was supposed to be here. This wasn’t just his reveal as Golden but his confession of his feelings to her as well. Even Taehyung couldn’t help but smile at his younger friend’s bravery.    

           As Jungkook sung the song that held meaning to him, he closed his eyes as he reminisced on his semester. From starting his blog and getting his first follower then hundreds then thousands to receiving anonymous hate and love confessions. He remembered how many people told him his recommendations made their weeks better or how some even recommended songs to him. Keeping Golden’s identity from the entire school was a challenge and though some found out along the way, Jungkook was grateful they were friends of his and not strangers. When Jungkook started college, he didn’t know he’d make such a huge impression on his school within his very first semester. But here he was, hearing the voices of students in the auditorium singing along with him, clapping, and some even sobbing. He could only imagine how others outside were reacting to the news.

           As the song began to end, one final thought came to Jungkook. Y/N. She was supposed to be here to see his reveal. She was supposed to be in the seat beside Chloe and staring at him with, hopefully, amazement in her eyes. But, would she? Golden gave her such a hard time during the semester. Would she hate Jungkook for keeping it a secret from her? However, Jungkook didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to remember the time he first saw her in that sandwich café and how shy – and cute - she was as she sat across from him and Namjoon. Or, when he saw her dance for the first time and how she lost herself in what she loved doing the most. Also, the time she stress-baked at Namjoon and Jin’s dorm and he, Jimin, and Taehyung helped her. That was also the first time Jungkook decided to toy with her, which was successful, as he remembered the girl became a blushing mess at Golden’s acknowledgement of her. He remembered how stressed she was about mid-terms and they studied in the library together. How at Suho’s party, she grabbed his hand so they wouldn’t get separated from one another in the crowd of people they were in. His favorite memory of Y/N, however, was over fall break and they got to know each other more. How she felt comfortable enough around him to tell him about her life up to now and vice versa. As Jungkook remembered this, the song came to an end and the loud cheers and applause of his classmates, professor, and news reporters brought him back to reality. Jungkook snapped his eyes open and just as he did, the doors to the auditorium burst open, revealing Y/N, her eyes searching frantically around the room before landing on him on the stage. He locked eyes with her, and she gave him a small smile. And it was with that smile, Jungkook thought maybe – just maybe – she saw his reveal and confession after all.

[solesurvivorkat]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but how did you get the dialog for your Shadow of Steel fanfic? Did you use a site, watch videos, or something else? Your writing is amazing and I read it over so many times! I hope you’re well! ♥️♥️♥️

O.o  .......   ::stares at Ask and blinks slowly a few times::

...Someone is asking about my FO4 fic.....

;__;*  .......

Okay, well... first of all, you made my night by asking me about it at all, so thank you for that, lol!   *^.^*   Second, thank you SO much for the compliment! I know I’ve said it a trillion times, but I swear, I swear that I’m not done writing it. I know my writing has been soooooooo slow and long in between chapters, & I seriously can’t apologize enough. Not trying to make excuses, but in between my son, work, moving to a new house last fall, my other hobbies (I don’t have a lot, but they exist, lol), on & off writer’s block, anxiety & depression (being treated, but those who have it know that there isn’t a ‘magic, 100% fix’), exhaustion, and now the whole pandemic thing (I had unrelated bronchitis a couple weeks ago too, and my son had a minor version, so that was a fun event too)..... it’s been a tough year or so. Not BAD, but tough. I’m determined that I’m going to finish this fic once and for all, even if it takes me another few years.

THAT said...

I did watch Youtube footage of game dialogue for part of my ‘research’ (I have a whole long FO4 playlist of dialogue & specific game events, lol). I also talked to people online who shared the same passion for FO4 as me, bouncing ideas back and forth ( @the-dubstep-strawberry, @scorpio-skies, and @lothrilzul have been amazing for this during my whole process, thank you so much guys! Love yooo! <3 @marvilus73 has also made some awesome FO4 posts that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading!).

But most importantly (to me, anyway), I scoured the internet for any FO4-related resources that I thought would be valuable for my fic. I really did do a lot of research, b/c I wanted to sound knowledgeable in my writing and not just like a person that played for like, 10min & was like, “Eh, good enough, I’ll just make up the rest” (not that I’m dissing anyone who has done that, it’s just not my method).

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki has been the most valuable (again, for me personally) resource I’ve used. Though occasionally you come across some info that you kind of have to take ‘with a grain of salt’, it’s really been a lifesaver because there’s soooo much info there than came in handy. If you look up a particular character - let’s say for example, Danse - the site will list a lot of their main info/stats on the right side of the character’s page. At the bottom of this ‘info box’, it will often list a dialogue page (sometimes two) that lists all the dialogue (as far as I know) that’s in the game. This kind of info was like... a total ‘goldmine’ to me, for helping me to get my fic off of the ground.

.....THAT also said, a little piece of advice - if I had to go back to the very beginning & start my fic all over again from scratch (haha, never gonna happen, trust me, I’m just saying), I definitely would have done things differently. ...Yeah, I’m sure all writers say that, and my story would’ve been pretty much the same - but I feel that I relied on the game dialogue too much when writing my fic at the start. Plenty of people have played through FO4, and even for the people that never finished it, I’m sure they played enough to know how the game starts & what the main story is.

It’s fine to start a fic off at the beginning of a game/movie/series (what have you) as if the person reading it is experiencing it again, except through your character’s POV - but unless you’re going to have different experiences (at least somewhat) from what the actual character/POV player has, or offer deeper insight into what’s going on in their or surrounding character’s minds that we didn’t see ourselves while enjoying that fandom... it might feel a bit tedious and boring. Like... ‘okay, but... I already saw all this when watching/playing it myself, so... what’s my incentive to keep reading?’

Yeah, my Nora did have her own thoughts/feelings/experiences that weren’t necessarily canon for FO4 in the beginning of my fic... but I was a first-time fic writer, and I was nervous that if I didn’t put more game dialogue in the story, that my own writing wouldn’t interest other people, that they’d think my writing was bad/stupid/not ‘enough’, etc. I didn’t yet have the confidence in myself to not rely on the game dialogue to fill in chapters, instead of just enhancing them a bit.

My whole (VERY long-winded, I sincerely apologize) point to this is: if you - or anyone who reads this - go to write your own story/fic/anything, be proud and unafraid to be you. No one’s perfect, and many of us learn to write better as we go (I know I cringe when I read my early stuff, lol!). It’s totally fine to use resources, just don’t like... obsess over making them a big part of your writing (which is what I feel I did when starting out, hence my ‘words of caution’. I like... agonized over making my chapters as ‘perfect’ as I could, and I think I used up waaay more energy than I needed to while writing. ...Come to think of it, I still do that at times now, and drive myself crazy with it, LOL!).

...And... if saying the above stuff added to a question/point you weren’t intending to ask, then I sincerely apologize again for ‘going off on a tangent’, lol!  *XD 

Thank you again for saying what you said, it really did make my night & put a little spring in my step to know that people still appreciate my writing/fics, even if I haven’t had as much time to continue it lately!  <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[mermaid-of-the-valley]

We’re Dynamite

My part of the collaboration with @theeternalspace. Just wanted to post it up separate from the original so it’s a bit easier to find.

Characters: Virgil, Roman, and Remus(Briefly)

Pairing: Prinxiety

Hero and Villain AU based on this prompt. 

The Dazzling Prince, scourge of the city, beauteous lord of all… Probably should have seen this coming.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Roman was racing through the side streets on his motorbike, pursuers hot on his sparkling tail. Honestly, so uncool. You turn a few minor leaguers in for a reduced sentence and suddenly You’re the traitor?! Ridiculous. “It was only a few kilos of coke lost, get over yourselves!” He yelled hysterically.

A bullet ricocheted off the wall beside him. “Okay, we’re doing this.” Autopilot engaged, he flipped around to face his assailants. “So, no one told you life was gonna be this waaay!~ ” Clap, clap, clap, clap. The lane exploded in light waves timed to his performance. The one closest to him had his front tire sheered in half and from there it was a tumble into his two cohorts.

“Woops, that’s going to leave some road rash!” Roman threw his head back, laughing wildly. “Better luck next time, sweethearts!” He twisted back around. Autopilot disengaged, he gave a sharp turn down an alley, jumped the cycle over a car and swiveled deeper into the labyrinth.

All things considered, a quiet night. He sighed. “Siri, text my shadow knight. ‘Hey, Angel. I’m about to knock off a jewelry store for an engagement ring. What cut did you want again?’ Send.”

The ‘message sent’ text bounced with every bump in the road and Roman spent a little too long staring at the screen. He might not have glanced up at all, confident in his bike’s artificial intelligence covering for his gay dumbassery, but then he heard it.

“We’re no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I!”

Roman screeched to a halt just outside his territory. The music skipped a beat, getting louder.

“A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of, you wouldn’t get this from any other guy!” Left? Right? Where the heck was that stupid song coming from? He rolled out onto the road.

“I just want to tell you how I’m feelin’, gotta make you understand!”

And then he was hit with a truck.

——————————————————————————————

He came to in the vehicle’s flatbed. Almost certainly concussed and his nose bruised if not broken. Well, that would take a bit to heal. Roman pried open his eyes to take in the fishy smelling, green splattered warehouse.

“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you! Never gonna let you die, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell you why, just hurt you!~ ”

Aw f*ck, it was Remus.

“Hey, Bro-bro! You look like shit!” His greasy face hovered over Roman’s.

The prince groaned. “Well, it feels like I was hit with a monster truck, you freaking lunatic.”

“Oh, that was just to throw you off balance! I knew you’d be fine! Want to see the tape? I caught the whole thing on the dashcam!” He yanked Roman from the flatbed by a fistful of his uniform. Roman barely managing to catch himself.

Remus cackled. “It was great! Just BANG! Right over the hood! You looked like a deer!”

“Dare I ask what you did with Maggie?”

“She’s a little banged up. The boys took her back to the shop to get better.” His grin was a little too wide.

“If you touch her A.I. again I’ll strangle you.”

“Kinky.” Remus pushed him into a folding chair. It wobbled dangerously backwards before jerking forward once again, Remus’ hands on either side of the seat. “Not that it’s surprising considering your little tryst with the mutant pigeon.”

Roman squinted. “You’re misreading the situation. It’s a heartwarming story of enemies to lovers! … With a little tequila for flavor.”

“So, you’re telling me you haven’t fluffed those wings?” He wiggled his eyebrows, but the smile was strained. “Faced assault with a friendly weapon? Done the devil’s dance?” His voice was rising in irritation. “Gone out on the town covered in feathers?!” He shook his brother’s form.

Roman brought up a foot and kicked him off. “Take several steps off, Remus!” He snapped, and then winced at his own high pitch. “Have a little class!” He rubbed at his eyes before looking up to catch his twin making lewd gestures.

“Getting whipped by a parakeet! That’s what you are! Come on, Roman, we never hang out anymore! When was the last time we set fire to a dairy farm or unscrewed the color covers on a traffic light?”

“We never did those things.”

“Oh right, that was a dream I had last week.” He tugged an eyebrow. “But we could still do it!”

“I already have plans for this evening, Remus. The first of which now requires stealing nanobots capable of repairing internal contusions!”

Remus pouted. “Oh, poo.” He tapped a finger against his side and something clicked open on his hip.

Roman pushed himself up, more than aware of Remus’ hallucinogenic proclivities and not at all keen to experience them. “You’ll get over it, you rancid swordfish. We have literal decades to do… whatever demented chores your mind conjures up!” He stumbled backwards towards the door with as convincing a smile as he could manage. “Surely one more night won’t kill you!”

“Might kill you though.” Remus muttered.

“What?”

“What?”

“…I’ll see you next weekend.” He’d just gotten the door unlocked, when he was darted in the back. “Ow! Mother of Hell, Remus!” He wrenched the needle out and stared down at what little yellow liquid was left in the vial. Wait, yellow? “Shit.”

Remus wasn’t so much grinning as he was cracking his face in half. “DeeDee said you might not be too keen on hanging out, so he offered a compromise.”

And now there were two of him, that wasn’t right. “Don’ think that means what you think it does…”

“You’ll get over it, right? Literal decades to do whatever chores I come up with?”

Echoing. Not good. Getting dizzy. Exit plan Alpha. “Remus,” Roman’s smirk was just his side of warped. “Why ya gotta be so Ruuude?~”

—————————————————————–

Virgil would like to be able to tell his friends and family that he got a good night’s sleep and was just shocked awake by a repetitive knocking on his wall. Unfortunately, he’d been awake and watching “Serial Killer Files” online when, what he eventually thought was, a large bird rammed into his window and rolled down his roof.

His first thought for the culprit was Mothman. In his defense, he hadn’t slept in over 18 hours and had a higher than healthy amount of Monster in his system.

Nevertheless, something big was on his lawn now and his heroic instincts demanded he try to help… or at the very least move it somewhere it could die with dignity.

However, he very nearly changed his mind when he saw who it was. The dastardly prince had somehow found his home and was sprawled over his porch step. His face was pinched with pain and that was hardly the last of it. Virgil glanced to his neighbors on either side, thankfully unaware of the crash.

Princey groaned and against his worse judgement, the Seraph pulled his enemy into the house. “This better be a real emergency.” He turned the man on his side in the entryway and closed the door. “Okay, no commentary or I use peroxide.” He muttered to the half-aware villain.

He didn’t see the easy nod when he stood and ran to the kitchen. The supplies in his home weren’t as good as headquarters, but they’d do for the time being.

He paused, what was the protocol for this? A known threat to the city had found his house. How did he find his house? Virgil was never drunk enough to let that slip, he made sure of it! “Ugh, the minute he’s not bleeding on the carpet…” He compromised with himself, already kneeling next to the Prince again.

“Any trips or traps I should know about?” He asked, turning his charge gingerly onto his back.

A shake of the head. “You must be in bad shape if you’re not talking.” Virgil carefully slipped off the layers of padded cloth, laying a blanket over his patient’s lower half for modesty. Most of it seemed superficial, though he did have a disconcertingly dark bruise on his side and abrasions lining his legs. Virgil set to work.

“Are you…? Well, obviously, you’re not okay, but-” Nothing but steady breathing and staring. Virgil stilled. “Okay, I know what I said before, but you’re freaking me out. Talk to me. Are you in pain?”

“Hurts a little bit.” Virgil sighed in relief at hearing his voice. “Dizzy.”

“What happened to you?”

“Hit by a truck.”

…Unexpected. “Your bike didn’t see that one coming?”

“Maggie was off.” The prince raised a hand and flapped it slowly back and forth, bizarrely fixated on it.

“You named it-? Ugh, why am I even asking?” Virgil pasted down the last bit of gauze.

“Cause you’re curious.” His floaty hand tapped the one Virgil was still using to hold pressure.

“Can you tell me who did this?” Virgil questioned, unfortunately used to the man’s weird, touchy nature.

“The Duke.” He grumbled, eyes firmly on their hands.

Virgil was confused, the name seemed familiar, but he was usually fighting Princey and Logan’s patrols ran deeper underground than his. “Who’s that?” The man’s teeth clacked with how fast he closed his mouth, lips pulling down into a tight line. “Don’t be difficult now. Otherwise I can’t help.”

“M’brother.”

Now Virgil was confused and very freaked out. He blinked hard, trying to process all of the things wrong with what he just heard. “Are you concussed or something?”

“Nooooo.” He whined. “’M drugged, you silly birb.”

“That’s better?” Virgil hooked his arms around the villain and started to heft him upstairs.

The prince rubbed his arm thoughtfully. “Maybe.” He squinted at his rescuer. “Where’s your feathers?”

Virgil only just realized how dressed down he was compared to their typical interactions. “They’re not always visible, I have to live some kind normal life, right?”

“No, you don’t.” It was a surprisingly serious statement for how he had been acting. But Virgil had heard similar comments from him before, usually followed by rhetoric on power and the freedom it offered. A lot of times it was hard to tell what was just repeated and what was true to the Prince.

“Table that discussion for when you’re not loopy.” He stepped into the guest room at the top of the steps and lay the man on the bed. “Was your brother the one who made the drug?”

“No. His friend.” Virgil waited for any other information, but none was volunteered.

Then he had a thought. “What’s your name?”

His foe smiled in the same dreamy fashion. “Dazzling Prince.”

“Tell me your real name.”

His face pinched again, but Virgil’s suspicions were confirmed when he let slip: “Roman.”

“I think whatever you were dosed with makes you susceptible to suggestion.”

Roman kept up the mopey expression, eyes now slightly clouded. “Guess so.”

“Sorry. I didn’t want to accidentally make you move and agitate your injuries, but by the time I thought to ask a question that was the only one I could think of and it felt like the silence was getting awkward, so it just kind of fell out, and by that point it was too late to back pedal.” Virgil rambled out in one breath.

And with that Roman huffed what might have been a laugh under better circumstances. “Guess that’s fine then. Needed a reason to go full supervillain anyway. Might as well make it a petty one.”

“What? No! Don’t do-” Virgil cut himself off, remembering the predicament they were both in. He looked away, glaring at the floor. Roman rubbed his arm with a sloppy smirk.

“You’re too good.”

“For you? Obviously.”

“In general. You’re soft on a lot of crooks.” He leaned back into the bed, eyes drooping. “I’ve noticed how you act to the cops when you hand us over, Softy Seraph.”

“Few crimes are committed by hardened criminals. A lot of them just need help.” After all, where would he be without Patton?

“Sounds fake, but go off I guess.” He mumbled.

The hero sat at the edge of the bed. “You’re making it hard not to throw you out.”

Roman closed his eyes, seemingly content to let Virgil have the final say.

At least that’s what he thought before a foot prodded his back, almost exactly where his wings were painted. Virgil turned to tell him off when he heard the humming.

And saw the room sparkling. Little balls of light, opaque and floating, spawned around his room in time with specific notes in the song. Roman directing their appearance without looking, extending a pinky one direction and then his index finger another. They would follow his lines, streaking like stars and for once, completely harmless in action.

He took a breath. “Cherry lips, crystal skies. I could show you incredible things. Stolen kisses, pretty lies. You’re the queen, baby, I’m your king. Find out what you want, be that boy for a month, wait the worst is yet to come.~”

Virgil grimaced. “Oh, no.”

Roman grinned at the commentary, but didn’t stop. “Screaming, crying, perfect storms. I can make all the tables turn. Rose garden filled with thorns, keep you second-guessing like: “Oh my God, who is he?” I get drunk on jealousy, but I’ll come back each time I leave. ‘Cause darling you’re a nightmare dressed like a daydream.~”

“I’ll smother you with a pillow.”

“Doubt it. I’ve got a blank space, baby. And I’ll write your name.~” He slid in, quieter than before. His eyelids cracked opened the barest bit, hands still outstretched to maintain the glowing orbs. “You’re really pretty when you multiply by the way.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “How many of me do you actually see?”

“Three.” He dropped his arms and the lights dimmed away, leaving spots in the hero’s vision where they were. “Four, if you count the outline.”

“Outline?”

Roman gestured at him vaguely. “The sparkles hiding your wings, they make up your shape.”

“What are you talking about?” Virgil sputtered, resisting the urge to glance around at whatever figment Roman’s mind conjured. “Can you actually see my wings?” Had he always seen them? “Answer me.”

Roman blinked a few times, getting drowsy. He hummed noncommittedly.  That floaty feeling was coming back threefold without the adrenaline, and every other word started to reverb. There was a snap near his face.

“Hey, focus, Princey.”

It was like falling asleep when you’d been trying to stay up on spite and caffeine. Something pressing down and disconnecting him from reality. It wasn’t awful, almost the opposite in fact, but he wasn’t super excited about what it took to get there. Fighting was easier without orders, but Seraph seemed slow on that uptake.

Roman locked eyes with Virgil, completely under his sway and only distantly aware of it. Virgil sighed in agitation. Just looking at the prince proved he’d screwed up again. His pupils were totally blown and unfocused. He tugged his hair in frustration. “Dammit, why do you always do this to me?!”

He curled over the edge of the bed, trying to regain a sense of calm. Stupid energy drinks. Virgil was totally out of depth with this one. The villain beside him was slowly sinking into the sheets and Virgil found himself questioning how regularly he got the chance to sleep.

Resigning himself to postponing his planned night of horror for a different one, Virgil carefully maneuvered the man under the comforter and then left to change into pajamas. He couldn’t exactly leave the man unsupervised in his house anyway.

He found himself humming a half-remembered tune as he brushed his teeth, keeping an ear trained on the room. Almost unthinkingly, he laid out an unopened toothbrush and paste.

“…Break all the rules, slippin’, runnin’ hot, baby ‘cause we’re dynamite. Gonna let the world…”

Walking in again he saw Roman had slid himself lower into the bedding, nose barely visible and hair tossed across the pillow. Virgil propped himself against the headboard, on top of the comforter, but a quilt tucked around his legs. He closed his eyes, resting, not sleeping. Not with the Prince next to him.

Roman’s breaths rumbled slow and deep in his chest. It was so weirdly rhythmic, Virgil had to wonder if it was a side effect of his powers. “You could do more you know.” He whispered to the room. Not for the first time, the idea of simply telling his enemy to give up his criminal ways while he was primed crossed his mind.

Instead, he took a heavy breath, crossed his arms and hunched over in a light doze.

Downstairs, Virgil’s hero-line phone buzzed with a delayed text from the man he saved.

[aching-tummies]

Snowy Days, Aunt Flow, and Sleep

TMI warning. Gonna be talking about Aunt Flow.

Aunt Flow decided to visit today. Great...it's cold, it's snowing, it's slippery and treacherous to walk around outside, I'm at work where I have to stand all day before I slide around outside, trying not to trip or twist something too far. For those unaware, Aunt Flow packs something called "cramps" when she comes--it's like when an actual aunt brings or shares something nobody asked for or wanted--e.g. stories of your snot-nosed, game-stealing, you-blaming, brat of a cousin. The cramps are why I'm also complaining about the snow and cold. Cramps always suck, but when they come on top of the already cramped muscles from shivering all day it's not just painful, it's exhausting. Also, Aunt Flow's effects on one's body, the new pains and cramps everywhere, tend to make walking and moving different. You could move the way you normally do, but you're usually "rewarded" with a sharp pinch to your innards for it. Trying to parkour and "Twister" my way through all the loose snow drifts all over the sidewalks on a normal day is pretty bad and I always run the risk of spraining something. Heck, my entire right side still smarts from when I basically sled down the front steps...without a sled. With the cramps and internal pinching to contend with, trying to navigate the snowy outdoors becomes even more difficult, frustrating, and often painful than an ordinary snowy day.

Luckily, I had the foresight to pack supplies this morning (new bag...haven't put Aunt-Flow supplies into it yet) as well as slipped on some leg-warmers I had lying around. I actually didn't know it was snowing when I put them on--I thought my legs felt chilly before bed last night so I slipped the leg-warmers on on a whim and went to bed. I decided not to remove them before heading to work today 'cuz I wanted to test out whether or not they're the kind that will stay up despite gravity and movement (so far, yes).

I've been dreading Aunt Flow's visit for a long time. I used to be pretty regular and could usually predict what days I'd have to switch to black underwear. Since 3rd year Uni...nope. I was aiming to get into a highly competitive program at the time, so I skived on sleep, a proper diet, etc. I didn't take care of myself and I could tell I was running my body to the ground. Back then the skipped days felt like a triumph against nature--I had warded off the Bloody Monthly Devil and postponed having to do an impromptu set of sheets in the laundry. The triumph was short-lived as I started to live in fear--was it actually going to come? After the academic semesters wrapped up and I had 4 months at home, things started to try to return to normal. Nasty business...it was like trying to pass all of my skipped periods at once. It lasted longer than it should have, the cramps were about five times more intense--basically, everything was dialed up exponentially. Fourth year comes and I realize there's a new "pattern"...not necessarily in dates, 'cuz those were waaay unpredictable. The new pattern was that even if Aunt Flow didn't arrive in all her crimson nightmare-ishness, she'd send her "luggage" with her for about two weeks some random time of the month. All the cramps and digestive issues, and the constant anxiety of whether or not I get to wear my favorite pair of underwear, but barely any of the blood...or it'd be double or triple what it should be as though Aunt Flow decided, "riiight! I couldn't make it out to visit you last month, or four months ago...so...here, I'll just send you EVERYTHING! Oh...whoops...that was the teal pair, wasn't it? Your favorite?"

Back to the present, I guess. I've since graduated post-secondary and it seems my body is trying to right itself. Luckily for me, right before I left for work I thought, "if Aunt Flow comes, it'll probably come today...grab supplies". I've been wrong before, but everyone that deals with an Aunt Flow knows that the second she enters your thoughts, you grab supplies just to ward off the bad thoughts--even if she doesn't come at all.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but for me there are different kinds of periods. There are the "nice" ones where I only cramp a little and can go about my day, there's the ones where I'm nauseous all the time, the ones that decide to make me hungry literally all the time, sometimes the hungry one is coupled with my entire digestive system forgetting that it's supposed to digest/absorb the stuff I eat and it all goes straight through me, the ones that mess with my moods, the ones that mess with my taste-buds, and the ones that make me really lethargic and sleepy. Sometimes it's a combination of a few of these "symptoms"...yeah, it sucks. I kind of wish that being ace and a virgin meant I could opt out of Aunt Flow's visits--dude, I know I'm not pregnant. I haven't boinked anyone, so leave me alone!

Today's visit is shaping up to be a lethargic/sleepy one. I got off of work and had plans to take the bus out to a store further away (a couple of transfers over) to use a limited time coupon to get some item. I went, I got the thing, and headed back on the same routes...which usually means staying awake and being super anxious that I'll miss my stop. The legargic feeling got to me on the ride home and I'm sure I nodded off for a bit. The fact that the sun had set didn't help matters 'cuz it was already hard enough trying to figure out what stop we were at in the dark. Luckily, I managed to get off on the right stop and made it home. I was so tired and had plans to just toss my purchase into a corner of my room and pass out. No dice--family wants to eat dinner together...on top of that they want me to do some of the prep-work (slicing veggies). I get down to business, slicing veggies and praying I don't nod off. I don't need more cuts on my hands, thanks, the ten or so I already have from various activities are plenty.

I prep dinner and hear that they want to hold off on cooking and eating, so I go upstairs, intent on setting up my purchase (it was some organizer for my bathroom) and maybe going online to pass the time until dinner. Before you say "coffee--coffee is your answer", coffee tends to screw with my stomach on a good day...usually in a minor way. When Aunt Flow visits, coffee makes her really angry...and when she's angry she sends more cramps. I had my coffee ready and waiting in a thermos in my bag all day...but when I felt the tell-tale twinges during work that told me "she's here" I realized "great...tired...and coffee is not an option".

I'm pretty sure I ended up napping in and out for about twenty minutes at a time. I dragged myself out of bed to see if family wanted to eat. I was hungry, but I was so exhausted that I actually prepared to tell them "gonna go to bed early--not eating dinner". I actually wanted to just sleep off the lethargy and deal with the hunger pangs after waking up...but no dice on that one. Dinner tonight wasn't anything super enticing to me, but family decided they wanted all of it gone 'cuz there wasn't room in the fridge to put stuff in. I was craving hot tea 'cuz I was really cold (hungry = harder time regulating body heat, I guess), so I made a beeline for the hot water. Luckily for me, family didn't empty the thing boiling greens and there was literally just enough left for me to make one mug of tea. Yay! No 20+ minute wait for the electric kettle to heat up. I refilled the kettle (don't be a douch!) and made my way to dinner, still trying to come up with ways to maybe pawn off my food to my family members or maybe pack it in the fridge for later.

I made the tea and started picking at my dinner. I'm pretty sure I ate enough to ensure nobody would be concerned. I live with male family members so they wouldn't understand the nuances of Aunt Flow and I didn't want them to get concerned--I just wanted to sleep. Throughout the meal, I hoped and prayed that it'd just be lethargy and I wouldn't have to contend with cramps or hurried trips to the bathroom.

It's after dinner now and I'm back in my room. No intense cramps or trips to the bathroom (yet) 'cuz I guess I've lined my stomach with about two and a half mugs of hot tea. My stomach is sloshing and letting out some pretty intense burbles and it's pretty loud. I'm not even manipulating it--it's sloshing around just from my normal breathing. I don't feel stuffed or bloated, but my tummy's pretty full. Just lying here, it feels fine...but when I put a hand on it or press into it even lightly I feel like a full water-balloon

Anyway, all of this sort of inspired a couple of lines for me as fic-inspiration so I wrote out this post in hopes I'll go back to it for more inspiration to write, preferrably after I've gotten my long-awaited sleep.

Fic inspiration: -A knowing B is unwell 'cuz they're not the type to take naps and A just found B asleep in their outdoor clothes, halfway on the bed/couch. Clearly, they didn't intend to fall asleep. A debates whether or not to wake B for dinner, but B makes that decision for them, rousing on their own and grimacing when they realize they must have nodded off. B gets up and goes to dinner, seemingly intent on acting fine...but A knows and is concerned. -A knows B isn't feeling good when B makes a beeline for tea rather than sit down to eat dinner. A knows B's probably either chilly (maybe coming down with a cold), or has some stomach issues considering they're making themselves hot tea. -A knows B isn't feeling well when they see the apprehensive look on B's face at seeing dinner. That knowledge is further confirmed when B picks at their food in the beginning, and seems to be gulping down their tea at an alarming rate--trying to get it down before it cools or so it seems. A's concern-meter fills up and shatters when B finishes their portion of dinner. A suspects B was hungry, but knows from their expressions that they're not well or didn't want to eat for some reason. -A keeps an eye on B, knowing that B doesn't like being fussed over, but they're worried all the same. They ensure there's hot water in the kettle and A does a mental check to ensure they know where the heating packs are...in case B needs it. B's clearly nodding off against their will somewhere right now and A's waiting for when they're half-lucid to grill them about how they're feeling.

I've got an idea of the pairing I wanna write this for...but whether it'll actually happen is another story. I'm full and tired, but each time my tummy rumbles I'm low-key terrified it means I have T-5 seconds to get to the bathroom for one thing or another. Right now, each rumble sounds like a variation of those water-cooler things when they burble to suck in more air as people take water from it. Maybe I overdid it with the tea, but it beats having cramps and having to confine myself to the bathroom for a few hours.

[centaurself]

Unpopular opinions on the Homestuck Epilogue

Two things before I start this rant: I believe that the Homestuck epilogue is good and in character (in a specific way), and while it may not provide total closure as of yet, there is a chance there could be some more. I'm not exactly gonna lose sleep if there isn't more, however. If you didn't like the epilogue, that is your prerogative; however, I implore you to at least consider what I'm about to say.

Secondly: SPOILERS FOR THE EPILOGUE AND THE COMIC. OBVIOUSLY. I won't go too deep into the epilogue itself, however by nature of these things, it's gonna have spoilers. Really, if you haven't read the epilogue yet, you probably shouldn't be in the Homestuck tag.

TL;DR at the bottom, rant after the cut.

So! The Homestuck Epilogue just landed, and Tumblr is pissed. It's vaguely understandable; after wanting to see a closure on the comic that had everything nice and lovely, they got nearly 200k words that showed that it wasn't. Dirk is being a dick on the meat side, Jane is effectively a fascist dictator on the candy side, things are not looking good! What's going on, it's terrible, this isn't Homestuck! ARGH

But let's step back and take a look at things beforehand. The actual comic itself, when it was just kids and fun. What do we see there?

Well, we see many trolls dying in Act 5 Act 2 (in incredibly gruesome ways); Act 6 Act 6 Act 3 is when everything absolutely goes to shit for basically everyone involved; Act 7 ends pretty ambiguously for Vriska and Aradia; and the credits "post-canon content" ends with John smashing his phone screen because Caliborn is being quite the little shit, along with some other things that show he's really not doing particularly well. All in all, while the comic may indeed be just that - comic, comedic, funny - on the surface, if we look any deeper we can see just how dark this could get. It's a defining piece of online literature that has now spanned a smidge over 10 years, and there are incredibly complex scenes in it, screwing around with the very ideas of narration and canon.

The Homestuck Epilogue is very similar. There are funny moments, there are dark moments. The very core of the epilogue revolves around whether John decides to use his retcon powers, once again screwing around with canon. In the Meat half, the very idea of a narrator outside of the fiction's influence is completely and utterly decimated, as we see Dirk, then Calliope, then Dirk, then Calliope take control of the narrative.

This is not unprecedented in Homestuck, nor is it even unexpected. Andrew Hussie messes with this all the time, both in Homestuck and even in Problem Sleuth (though not to the same extent at all). The fact that canon is messed around with is not something that it really makes much sense to complain about, given the provenance of what we're dealing with here. Fortunately, this isn't really something that I've seen many complaints about.

Let's address some of the things I have seen complaints about! For example: Gamzee. In the Candy half, Gamzee's entire deal is his "redemption arc": he gets out of the fridge, and goes on and on about how he's had a lot of time to think and realise he needs redemption. A lot of people go along with this (with the notable exception of John), to the point where it's made quite a cornerstone of the New Crocker Empire (as I have just decided it is now called). This is seen by a lot of people as something ridiculous, and not something that makes any sense given what we're dealing with.

And you're right! It's not! It makes absolutely no sense within his character. This is precisely the point: we, along with John, can see right through just how absolutely fucking ridiculous this is. This is not something we're supposed to take seriously, but many people in the epilogue do. Why are they doing this?

One word: Candy.

This takes place in the Candy half of the story. It never occurs at all in the Meat half; John never once lets him out of the fridge. He barely even thinks about it, and Gamzee is never mentioned again. Candy is a symbol of Trickster: of ridiculousness, of seemingly endless optimism to the point that it could actually be considered dangerous, of characters not thinking straight about their own actions. There are at least three instances I can think of where characters just assume they're going to be ridiculously happy, without actually doing any thinking: when Rose and Kanaya adopt a kid, when Jane and Jake get hitched, and when Roxy and John get hitched. None of them are in any right mind when those decisions are made; they just go "YES OKAY LET'S DO THIS SHIT" without thinking about it.

Now go back to the Trickster arc in the actual comic. While the ridiculous nature of those decisions are certainly nowhere near as exaggerated in the epilogue, it's very much still there. This is the nature of candy in Homestuck: it provides an absurd backdrop on which everything is just supposed to be fine. Gamzee can have a redemption arc, of course! Roxy and John getting married? Absolutely!

It doesn't make sense, and it's not supposed to: those decisions are not made by rational minds, which is clear with our decision of Candy.

Now let's go to the Meat half, see what complaints we have there. Remarkably, I've seen nothing about Roxy and Calliope's pronouns or anything, which is a very nice change of pace for Tumblr. What I have seen occasionally is people complaining that Dirk just isn't acting right. Like he's being a complete and total arse, and #notmydirk etc.

Ask yourself: when has Dirk ever actually been a considerate and caring person? It's happened, sure, but very rarely. It's set up pretty strongly within canon that Dirk is honestly kind of an unemotional piece of shit, who finds it pretty easy to just let go of things as if they weren't anything at all. Apologies to Dirk fans, but that's his character.

So now we see him in control of the narrative, manipulating the flow of the story for his own benefit, seemingly with no thought to what certain characters might actually want as opposed to what he wants. Once control of the narrative is given to Calliope after Dirk takes off with Rose, Kanaya gets absolutely incensed, demanding to know where the hell Rose has gone and what the fuck Dirk did to her. We see in the Candy half that according to Calliope, "the prince of heart has to be stopped.", which is a preeetty direct sign that bad stuff is happening. Dirk himself even admits that he is the villain in this scenario. Once again, after seeing how cold Dirk is in the comic, it's pretty clear that this isn't out of character.

We don't really understand his plan, nor what he needs a Rosebot for, but it's clear he does have some machinations, and they ain't pretty.

Also, it seems like some people are complaining that John isn't a person who should really be depressed. Have you seen the comic? John gets to play a universe creating game on his birthday, and the very first day ends with his dad dead, not being able to talk with some of his friends for a full three years, and a ridiculous amount of bloodshed that no 13 year old should ever have to experience. Later on, he once again ends up having to attempt to save the universe on his 16th birthday, and as time goes on in post-canon content, he gets more and more secluded. He doesn't really want to make a big deal out of his birthday any more, he doesn't go to really see anyone, etc. John is depressed, and quite possibly suffering from some serious trauma.

Whichever path you take (and you should take both to get the full experience), the epilogue ends without much closure. On the Meat path, we have a bunch of characters attempting to get to Dirk before he can do... whatever he's planning on doing; on the Candy path, we have an incredibly oppressive empire preparing for a new world war. It doesn't look pretty, no matter which way you spin it. It's an ending which can leave you pretty unsatisfied. And... that's okay.

It's okay to be unsatisfied with an ending. There is absolutely no way Hussie and co. would be able to create any sort of epilogue which made everyone satisfied: if it was too happy people would complain about unrealism, and if it was too depressing people would still complain about unrealism but for very different reasons. This ending is less of an ending and more of a fade-out, like a song does when the artist couldn't think of a decent way to end it. It's unsatisfying, and it can leave you wanting either more, or proper closure.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty unsatisfied with how the epilogue ends. I don't know if there are plans to put up more to create a proper closure, but I doubt this is the case. I think this is the only legitimate complaint about the epilogue I've seen, but even then people are taking it waaay too far, claiming that it ruins basically everything. Let's stop being so over-dramatic, guys.

Also, to some people complaining that Hussie doesn't care any more: if he didn't care, would he write an epilogue nearly two hundred thousand words long, making it almost exactly as long as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? True, he had help in writing it, but I'd honestly be amazed if he did it himself. It's pretty clear that although he wasn't the sole author, he had more input on how it would go than anyone else involved in writing the epilogue. That's not something you really do if you don't care any more about your magnum opus.

In conclusion: Homestuck is an incredibly complex piece of fiction that demands a lot more than a cursory glance, and the same can be said of the epilogue. If you don't want to accept that it's canon, that's fine! It would seem that the authors won't mind too much either: on the list of MSPA stories on homestuck.com, the epilogues are described as "Tales of dubious authenticity". It's not a crime to not accept something as canon, and it's not a crime to dislike a piece of fiction. In this case, it just seems like a lot of the complaints come from little evidence or are mostly knee-jerk responses.

TL;DR:

[songofwizardry]

wolfstar teacher!au, part 2: the other marauders

part 1 of my wolfstar teacher!au that I posted an embarrassingly long time ago (you can find it here) got way, waaay more attention than I was expecting it to, so here y’all go: part 2, the backstory for Sirius, James and Peter, and how they all ended up in and around Hogwarts. Feat. our faves, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter! as always, enjoy and let me know what y’all think! [content warning: parental queerphobia/abuse/implied awfulness in bullet points 3 to 6.] ☆------------------------☆------------------------☆

So let’s talk about where our faves, the rest of the Marauders, are.

Being posh af, both James Potter and Sirius Black attended Hogwarts from the time they started secondary school.

Originally from London, Sirius is the kid of Orion, a Senegalese diplomat who was posted in London right at the start of his career, and Walburga, oldest daughter of a Ghanaian-French high-society couple, who moved from Paris to London when she was a child.

Sirius’ interactions with their family headed straight towards disastrous very quickly—during their initial years at Hogwarts, Sirius’ rebellion got more and more noticeable, all number of increasingly-terse letters and increasingly-angry phone calls were exchanged during term-time, and summers got increasingly-awful every year. This culminated in Sirius being outed, in a horrible, dramatic, and very teen-TV-drama-very-special-queer-episode-esque way at one am one night, the summer between their fifth and sixth years.

The ensuing conversation (‘I will not tolerate anything – anyone – of that sort under my roof!’ / ‘Well that’s fucking fine, isn’t it, because I won’t be under your roof!’ / ‘You’re doing this to yourself, Sirius, remember that—we’re not kicking you out. You’re making this choice.’ / ‘Oh yes, just one in a long string of things I’ve chosen to do, things I’ve chosen to be, isn’t it? Fine, then, I’m choosing to leave.’) meant that Sirius walked out of Grimmauld Place at about two-thirty in the morning, with only their coat, their mobile that was on twenty percent charge, and their ‘emergencies’ bag that they’d had for years now (it didn’t contain much more than several old cereal bars, about a hundred quid in change that a much-younger Sirius had squirrelled away, and a scrap of paper, dating back to first year, with James’ home number and his address scrawled on in messy handwriting that was definitely not Sirius’).

More than slightly out of it, Sirius ended up walking to the end of the road, called a cab to drive them across London in the middle of the night, paid the ludicrous eighty-something pound fare in mostly one- and two-pound coins, and finally, at about four in the morning, stood in front of the Potters’ house and called their landline.

(It was James’ dad who picked up, James’ dad who insisted Just call me Monty, now, none of that, whenever Sirius referred to him as Mr. Potter, James’ dad who’d given Sirius a hug the second time they’d met and whose glasses were somehow, impossibly, even more crooked than James’ own. When he picked up the phone, his voice was thicker, accent broader, with sleep; and Sirius, suddenly horribly unsure, crumpled the ancient note from James in one fist and said, “Hey, uh, Mr. Potter? I’ve—well, I’ve left my house, I’m—outside yours? Can I come in?”)

That was how Sirius, short of everything but legal adoption, ended up a Potter child, had their diet switched to one that suddenly contained far too many rotis, and was introduced by James solely as his sibling, with an associated glare that dared anyone to question it.

After Hogwarts, Sirius’ deep-seated desire to not return to London manifested in them running off to St. Andrews to do a fine art degree. Mrs. Potter, who had been looking forward to having the children not be off in Scotland, was slightly disappointed, but she responded by instead posting Sirius numerous packages of fancy teabags, because Mrs. Potter (rightfully) believed that in the absence of being actually there to fuss over someone, the next best alternative was to provide them with tea.

While Sirius was off being artsy as fuck, James Potter was off… also being pretty artsy. In a move that made Monty raise his eyebrows and quietly wonder how he’d ended up with not one, but two children doing creative arts, James stayed closer to home, went to Reading, and read English and Creative Writing. It took staying on for a Master’s for James to decide he’d had enough of academia, and of the overwhelming whiteness of English departments, for a bit, and to decide that he wanted A Break, and also a source of income that wasn’t a student loan. Enter Sirius.

James had been off being pretty unemployable, while Sirius was being… slightly more employable. A couple years volunteering during their degree had led them to the shocking realisation that holy shit, they liked teaching people about artsy shit. Their only problem was that nobody (short of the Potter parents, but Sirius wasn’t keen on taking more money from them) wanted to fund an art teacher. A year out of uni, with a year of mixed work and volunteering under their belt – leading museum tours, art therapy at kids’ hospitals, one particularly fantastic weekend spent spray-painting with a youth group in Manchester, pretty much anything they could get their hands on that had ‘art’ and ‘young people’ in the description – Sirius heard, through the grapevine, that Trelawney had finally retired.

On a whim, they called up Hogwarts. The conversation with Dumbledore went something like this: ‘I haven’t got a teaching qualification, sir, but I do have a full year of experience–‘ / ‘We’re an independent school, Sirius, we don’t exactly need the qualification. Anyway, an art degree and some experience is more than Sibyl had when she started, so why don’t you send an application along to me, hmm?’

Hogwarts got back to Sirius quickly, which is how, a week later, they called up James, saying, “Hey, you know how you wanted a break from uni and all that shit? How do you feel about moving to Hogsmeade with me?”

It was a completely impractical decision. James, unlike Sirius, didn’t have a job offer there, didn’t have plans, he only had the sudden realisation that he’d kinda missed living with Sirius, and his pretty-unshakeable confidence that things would always turn out the way they were meant to.

He said yes.

Which is how, two years down the road, we find the two of them here—living opposite The Three Broomsticks in a small house, one bedroom on the bottom floor and one on the top, that’s owned by Rosmerta.

Sirius is an established figure at Hogwarts, where they’re a bit of a student favourite and have acquired a reputation for being slightly chaotic (possibly because they once let a stressed year eleven class decorate the wall of the art classroom, spray-painting it with the words No such thing as bad art!).

James, being a bit too posh to have ever done the unemployed-grad thing of waiting tables, is a triple-threat freelancer instead—he writes fortnightly book reviews, which often end up with a bit of a commentary on The Human Condition, for eccentric magazine The Quibbler; he contributes regularly to Parivaar, an online artsy zine/website/collective that started up in Birmingham but has now got contributors across the UK and readers across the world, that describes itself as art, fiction, and opinions by and for desi rebels, misfits and weirdos; and, because Hogsmeade is small, he does the marketing and runs the social media for The Three Broomsticks—which isn’t much work, considering how small it is, but at least he can ensure the fifty-odd people, mostly students, who follow @3BroomsticksPub only see grammatically-perfect tweets.

The Potter parents are… slightly concerned about James’ rather non-traditional sources of income, but Euphemia reads The Quibbler and can’t deny he writes very well, and he says he’s fine and no, the two of them don’t need any help with the rent, thank you very much, so they tut a bit from afar and perhaps still send them too many teabags, and load both James and Sirius up with a frankly ridiculous number of tupperware containers full of curry and roti when they come visit.

This is when James and Sirius meet Peter Pettigrew.

It’s a rainy evening in late March. The two of them have, earlier that day, just come back up from London, where they spent the weekend with James’ parents, who wanted to see him for his birthday. They’re now in the Three Broomsticks, because that’s what they do—Sirius is nursing a pint, hair up in a bun, sketching out an idea for a mural—they’ve convinced Dumbledore that the third-floor corridor that students insist is haunted by the spirit of a giant, three-headed dog is in need of a rebrand before another generation of first-years gets pranked by being trapped in there and is scarred for life. James has lemonade and is watching Sirius, recounting the many tales of the three-headed dog he heard during his time at Hogwarts, including the one story that claims the spirit is called Fluffy. This is when they see Peter.

Anyone new at The Three Broomsticks sticks out when it’s not a student visit weekend, and this short white guy, his hair and coat and rucksack wet from the rain, is no exception. He looks damp and cold and rather lost and lonely, sitting at a corner table with a drink, so James, being Euphemia and Monty’s son and thus, genetically speaking, destined to be the ultimate mother hen, decides to go over to him and offer to buy him some of Rosmerta’s excellent, and very warming, tomato soup. That’s just what James does, and Sirius is used to it at this point, so they only watch, amused, as James drags the sodden stranger over to join their table.

Introductions are made, and they learn that Peter, who was born in Shropshire, trained to be a nurse in Shropshire, and until very recently, worked in Shropshire, had finally left Shropshire – for good – for Hogsmeade, because his Mum had died earlier that year and he couldn’t stay in the same house. Through the NHS friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend grapevine, he’d ended up finding a job at St. Mungo’s Hospital, a few towns over, and was moving in with a woman he’d only spoken to on the phone, a Lily Evans—she was also a friend-of-a-friend found through the same grapevine, lived further down in Hogsmeade, towards the Hog’s Head, and had recently also started work at St. Mungo’s, and needed someone to split the rent with. In short, Peter explains, draining the very last of the admittedly-incredible tomato soup, everything feels like a bit of a mess, and he would really like to take a nap for about a week.

Aforementioned mother hen, James, is appropriately horrified and sympathetic at Peter’s plight, and declares himself and Sirius Peter’s “official guides” to life in Hogsmeade and settling in.

It’s only a few short months after this – a few months during which Peter hangs out with James and Sirius regularly at The Three Broomsticks, they meet his housemate Lily, and Sirius lets the leavers’ class, slightly dead after all their exams, help paint a giant mural on the third-floor corridor that features a surprisingly-cute three-headed ghost dog, with the Hogwarts crest and the word FLUFFY on its collar – that Sirius hears about The New Teacher.

At this point, they’re kinda used to the disaster that is the state of physics teaching at Hogwarts. It’s early in the summer, and they’re vaguely aware that Flitwick is running interviews again, only because it’s the talk of the staff room and the entire science department have looked like they’re on the verge of breakdown since Moody, or as they call it in the staff room, The Iraqi Plane Incident.

That weekend, though, they run into Flitwick in Gladrags, where Flitwick is searching, as always, for trousers that will fit his small frame, and Flitwick takes one look at them, grins, and says, “Sirius! We found someone! He’s called Lupin, he’s got an actual physics degree, and, consider this, he seems decent!”

And that is the first thing Sirius Black hears about Remus Lupin.

[mystieres]

hello

it’s swagoru. this will be a message for the people who care about me or just don’t have anything else to do. (sorry if this is straightforward.) it is april 3 today, so please don’t treat this as a prank.

includes: general mood for the past few months, notice of hiatus, where else u can find me, and my plans while i’m on hiatus

once you’ve started reading this, please read through everything. i might cause misunderstandings if only part of this is read.

i am posting with the risk that people will not see this. and that’s alright. i just want to say it. i’m used to people not saying anything back for now. i never expect responses of any kind until they are actually given. this is a little pessimistic but i promise you all that i will not be doing anything reckless. and i promise that i do not blame anyone for this. the message was intended for the sole purpose of expressing how i feel and what i will be doing, and it is not against anyone.

i’ll start with the bad stuff first.

i’ll be frank, and i won’t blame anyone. i feel unwanted on social media and in general. and i don’t want anyone telling me that they did want me around all along, because that doesn’t change the way i experienced or the way i currently feel. i don’t want anyone to apologize for this either, because maybe they really don’t want me around, or they didn’t know how i felt. in any way, none of you are ultimately responsible for how i feel. don’t be. don’t feel responsible. in the end, i should be the one responsible for my own feelings and happiness. it’s just what i’m feeling right now. but i really do love and appreciate the messages of help i have gotten, all the gifts. they have pushed me forward.

while i tried to be as accommodating as possible before, i somehow ended up becoming selfish. as much as i tried to prevent people becoming uncomfortable, somehow i did. i unknowingly hurt others or made them uncomfortable. i do have my own personal problems but i won’t use them as an excuse. i’ve been through a lot, but it shouldn’t have changed the way i talked with others. i’m sorry.

i know i might have been rude or weird without being aware of it. but i just wanted you all to know that i appreciate you all a lot. everything has been causing me anxiety lately. i don’t know what i’m supposed to feel on social media anymore. i feel like i don’t belong anywhere anymore. irl, all my other friends are in relationships, and i’m really starting to feel that i was meant to be a lone wolf. right now, everyone’s already developed close ties when i started interacting with them.

in short, when it comes to building relationships and socializing, while some of you consider yourselves bad at doing this, i am a complete failure. i don’t know how to interact with past friends. even a hello seems awkward and like a burden. but i am afraid of hurting, of being hurt, leaving, and being left behind. and it always feels like something is going out of my control. and i am creating and maintaining the status quo of being alone. i am hoping that this will change. of course, i should be changing the way that i look at myself. but i see myself as nothing more than a problem to others, and have been for the past six or so years.

now, some of you might have offered or will offer your dms for me, and i appreciate it. it really means a lot. unfortunately, i’ve never been the type to want to rely on anyone because then, i’d feel like a burden. most of the time i’d prefer to just rely on myself instead of giving other people more problems as i know they’re busy, or i’m just not close with them. i have been so used to people spoon-feeding me, or completely leaving things to me, that asking for help is a completely foreign idea. someone like me, who is completely aware of her weaknesses, needs to learn how to rely on others. i would like to change this someday, but it’s just improbable for me to do that right now.

i have been having periods of silence where i would refuse to talk or reply to anyone for a few days at a time unless necessary. this has happened at least twice in the past month. i don’t want to feel rude or like a problem. another reason is that i don’t get that much interactions anymore. so i just don’t see any point. my lack of self-esteem aside, maybe i’m not that likable, i’m not very fun to talk to, or maybe what i make sucks or i’m just not talented enough. the algorithm has something to do with it too, i guess. all of them are good explanations.

a lot of you can understand how disheartening that must feel. personally it makes me feel inferior or unwanted. often i get told, “well, screw what they do. just continue to do your stuff!” and i will. i tell this to other people a lot. i’ll continue to draw and write. but as for small talk, i don’t know what exactly to say. there has to be a point now. i can’t say things that don’t make sense anymore.

so to the people i know on tumblr, instagram, twitter, and discord, thank you so much for being a great part of my little circle of friends. i’m going to admit i don’t keep many. i love you all so much that you’ve all made me cry with your kind words, gifts, and playlists. the music, art, writing, and advice you share. a bunch of you even met me before i turned into a legal adult, and even saw me through graduation. although i can’t recall every single thing i’ve experienced, i just wanted you all to know that i’ve been thankful for everything so far. you’re all great and amazing people. and i feel like i can’t express it enough. i am hoping that this is just another phase of me trying to break out of my shell.

there is a high likelihood of me going on an indefinite hiatus. this has happened before. all these past breaks have been half-assed and only making my emotional health worse. if i feel unwanted, then something must be wrong with me and i must change it myself. but i can’t do it while being problematic to others. it’s self-defeating. i must go on and better myself. and most of all, i’m tired of treating my depression and adhd as excuses. i’ll experience problems, but i don’t want to talk about them anymore when i could just do something.

i have logged out of my current discord because i always feel compelled to open messages and talk. i’m not forced. but i’m making myself uncomfortable.

twitter will probably be the exception (handle: swagoru_), and i will continue posting online, waaay less on tumblr. i cannot guarantee replies to messages. i’ve tried socializing but i just suck, so i’m too afraid to reply to anything. i have also put up a wordpress (check reblogs for the site) but there’s nothing in it yet. best site ever, because i won’t feel pressured or forced to interact or gain clout.

and here’s some slightly better news. please let me flex for now.

i am graduating with around/at least 11 awards bagged in total for my entire high school life (grades 9-12). some math contests and journalism stuff. and i am going on to college. 

it leaves me with just one issue: money. i am budgeting the inheritance i received from my late mother. aside from her, no one else is earning money for me. i have the support of my grandparents but i want to establish financial independence as soon as possible. i tried to apply for a job a while back but i was so busy. but i might take it this summer. for months i have been considering commissions, but it’s either i don’t have enough clout or talent to do them. my works barely get any notice so i’m deciding against it. but i am always going to try improving my art, writing, and myself. one day i will be brave enough to open commissions. i hope some of you will consider when i have my portfolio ready.

this means that i will be a lot busier preparing and improving myself. this also serves as my adjustment period from a high school student who was sheltered and completely dependent all her life to someone who is slowly being introduced into adulthood and reality.  i’m still learning how to live. i can’t let others befriend me while i’m still a mess. and most of all, even with my conditions, i don’t expect the world to adjust to me.

but when i become active here again, i hope that i’ll have the courage to speak and reply like usual. i hope to get rid of all this negativity and this shyness i must overcome.

i hope you read through everything. i’m going to miss you guys. i don’t know when i’ll be more active to talk. hopefully when we do, i will have become a better person by then.

all the love,

swagoru 💙

[dandelionpie]

So I’ve been Having Ideas About My Future lately. And right now this one feels like the very beginning of a soap bubble - the part where you’ve started to blow into it but it hasn’t closed around itself yet. And I want to be really cautious with it so it doesn’t just pop before it can even get into the air, so I wasn’t gonna talk about it for a while, but also.

[Click through for a very long post about Maddy’s Career Options - replies are fine but please be gentle with my baby bubble hopes]

Okay, you guys.

So I was on the phone with my mother the other day, and I was having a sort of a panic attack (you know, like you do when you’re on the phone with your mother [kidding this is not normal and should not be trivialized, etc]), and I was trying to conceal this fact from her but it was Not Working. And I was dismayed about where my life was going, my lack of definite plans for a career, etc., and she said, “You know, I was actually gonna tell you - we had a lady come visit our school the other day and she’s an art therapist.”

And...here’s the thing. Usually my mother’s career suggestions kind of go in one ear and out the other. Because my mom’s great! Really! But she isn’t me, and she doesn’t always get what my life is like. So I usually just say “hm, yeah, I’ll look into it,” and then I don’t.

But I had genuinely just forgotten that art therapy existed. I knew about art, and I knew about therapy, and I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that people were putting those two things together, but somehow I’d just sort of filed that info in the General Trivia drawer instead of the Potential Grown-Up Jobs one. And...I’m getting sort of cautiously excited about the idea.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS I HAVE HAD SINCE THAT CONVERSATION

(I Started Writing Them Down and Then They Became Legion)

Every piece of art I like has a strong psychological element. That’s the common thread, dammit. That’s why I’m so picky about song lyrics, that’s why I can’t get into a book unless it’s got some sort of strong interpersonal/intrapersonal thread for me to snag my little English major hooks in. At the end of the day, the narratives that interest me are the ones where people are constantly feeling and processing things and I have to think a lot about why they’re doing that the way they’re doing it.

Not trying to sound like I think I’m super virtuous or whatever, but I tend to see good in most people, which might be an asset in that field? I get along well with a lot of personality types that friends of mine have cited as abrasive. Like, I can find people obnoxious but still notice enough of their good qualities to enjoy their company or at least tolerate it. And that’s a strength that’s served me well on a personal level, and a little on a professional level too (getting along with people helps just about anywhere), but I never thought of it as something I could use to particular effect in an actual career track.

That said, I have NO background in psychology. I had a couple lab rats, but they didn’t really teach me any of their secrets.

On cursory examination I have decided that I Do Not Like neurology. I have a lot of friends who seem to love it and that’s great, but....look, it just freaks me the fuck out. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my adulthood (read: all of it) preoccupied with the vulnerability of my physical being to various surgery-requiring problems. But the idea of my mind (that place where I spend so very very much of my time) being subject to the physical limitations of my brain (a part of my corporeal body [which has in the past proven itself to be somewhat unpredictable]) is so fucking terrifying to me that I’d prefer to spend as little time on that as possible please and thank you.

(Aside: I know the phrase “I don’t like the Brain; I just like the Mind) is like peak dualism, but I’m sure you all know what I mean, right? It’s possible to think about and work with the mind without focusing on the physical brain that gives rise to it. I’ve been doing that on the client end of things for years.)

A lot of the art I do is actually pretty therapeutic! To me, I mean. I never did figure out how to translate the whole cancer thing into an autobio comic (I eventually realized I simply didn’t want to and it was one of the most liberating moments of my life). But I have been relying on art for years to process my trauma. Most of my creative projects and ideas for them go back to that in some way, even if it doesn’t come across to the other people who experience them.

That said, I am...not the biggest autobio comic fan. There are so many things about that genre that rub me the wrong way. I’m glad it exists, I just don’t tend to enjoy consuming or creating autobio comics.                                       However, this might be a chance to see autobio comics through a new lens! And it also has the potential to set me apart - there are quite a few art therapists, but I’ll bet there are fewer whose background is in comics specifically.

I could have an office. I could go into private practice and have a place that I could build into a safe space for people to talk about their problems and work on them. I know it’s just a little thing (and I’m not sure yet if private practice would be feasible/right for me, at least right away), but I like the idea of making physical space for that kind of work.                                                                  (And if I sometimes also used it as a studio for comics, well, I don’t think that’s illegal or anything.)

I could be relatively independent in my career. I could work for an agency (and I think I’d probably have to, at first, but I gotta look into how all that works), but I could also spend at least some of my time in private practice, or working pro bono or on a sliding scale, or doing other stuff that allows me a great deal of flexibility and control over my schedule.

I like the idea of a type of schooling that has experience built into it. Like, you have to get a certain number of internship hours before you can be certified. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but it’s nice to see a field that’s so up-front about the fact that you need experience before you can do your job.

A lot of art therapists work with traumatized kids, and I find that prospect faintly terrifying. But also maybe it would be good to get over that, if I want to Help People and Use My Strengths to Do Good Things In the World. Those kids are gonna be traumatized either way, and if I can handle it, it’d probably be cool if I helped them.

It would be so nice to not be broke literally all the time. Even with student loans, I think this has the potential to help that happen, if I do my research and play my cards right. And I might even be able to work *gasp* less than 40 hours a week, thereby freeing up my time for other projects. Or, you know, kids. Hell, maybe I’d even be able to feed them.

Nobody would be able to make me work Saturdays.

Not sure yet whether it’d be better to get an Actual Art Therapy Degree or do a more general thing and then get a specific art therapy certification after/during that? I’m leaning towards the latter because I’d like more versatility, but I’m getting the sense that the rules for who can call themself an art therapist are slightly stricter in Oregon, so I’m gonna have to talk to the people who run the program.

What with the horse in the hospital and all that, I was thinking about a career in activism. But I’m not sure I have the temperament to be a lawyer, and I hate talking to strangers (I’ll do it if I have to, but damned if I’m gonna go door-to-door every day). But this way, I could maybe help activists balance their lives and their activism. Activists need therapists.

I could help people like me, with medical trauma. I know all about medical trauma! It has literally been a constant since I was 18! And in college and after, I hated feeling like my problems were fake and that my illness affecting my life was the result of some moral defect. Without therapy, I don’t know if I would have kept going to doctors and trying to figure everything out.

Visual art has in many ways been a great avenue leading away from self-harm, for me. The physicality of it is so much more powerful, for me, than almost anything else.

I’ve been so conflicted lately with lots of ideas about art-as-saleable-product vs. art-as-catharsis-and-narrative-control. I kind of thought my interest lay in the former but now I’m wondering if maybe it’s the latter. Like, I still love comics and storytelling and I want to make comics for people to read, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to do advertising. I don’t want to build a brand. I just want to tell stories and draw pretty pictures that make people happy. And I know that’s not what art therapists do, but in some ways it feels like the field still lines up better with my goals than commercial illustration. Does that make sense?

Lewis and Clark has a program. PSU has a program (though not an art therapy one specifically I think). There are online ones and low-residency ones as well, although honestly I think I function best in a classroom. Right now I think I’m leaning towards L&C because I’ve heard really good things about their education grad programs from a couple of people, but: gotta look further into it.

I’m liking the prospect of being a student again. I like going to lectures. I like notebooks and pencils and pens and libraries. And according to one person I talked to, as a therapist you actually have to keep taking courses throughout your career as the field changes. It’s like a condition for licensure or something (at least in some parts of the field). I’d love to be able to keep learning my entire life in such a deliberate way.

And I think I’d be better at being a student now than I was at Reed. I remember realizing waaay too late that you could just...ask your professors for help with stuff. And they could say no! But they weren’t going to, like, set me on fire. So what if I just set up a meeting with someone involved in a program and said, “Hey, look, I have no psych background and an intense interest in therapeutic work; how do I do this?” They could tell me to go away, but that’s probably about it. In a way, I think it might be nice to take another stab at academia - redeem myself.

(I have no idea what my Reed GPA is and should probably figure that out. Pretty sure I got a C in Chem and at least one other class? But maybe they won’t mind.)

My original plan had been to fund my comics habit with a freelance illustration career. Because almost nobody makes a living in comics, at least not just in comics. It happens, but very rarely does it happen with creator-owned work. A lot of indie comics artists freelance or have some other sort of art day job, and I thought that was a lifestyle I could get into.  

But the Horrible Deep Dark Secret is...I don’t actually like freelancing that much, at least with my life the way it currently is. I mean, I love drawing and I love not being broke, so please keep sending people my way if they want someone to draw something (please please please I need the money). But the illustration industry is downright exhausting. It’s so hard to switch off, and it’s so much work even convincing people you deserve to get paid, let alone getting them to pay you. Mad kudos to anyone who has the time/energy to do that, but I’m not sure I do, at least at this point in my life.

But if I was planning to supplement my comics with another, art-related career anyway, what if I did this instead? What if it ended up being something I, Maddy, could enjoy and feel good about? Doing this (with my temperament) might actually a) pay better b) offer me more time and c) lend a sense of structure to my days that I definitely need and that freelancing sorely lacks.

Actually, having comics projects might even help with work-life balance in this field. I don’t know yet, but I’ve been told that a lot of therapeutic practice is establishing healthy boundaries between your work and your life, and I think it might help to have somewhere else to pour emotional energy when I’m off the clock.

Having another career wouldn’t mean I couldn’t make comics. Hell, it wouldn’t even mean I couldn’t sell comics. I could still make a website and freelance sometimes. I could still set up a Patreon. I could still publish my stuff on the web and in real life. I could still table at cons. And if things started going better than I’ve been planning for them to go, comics-wise, I wouldn’t have to keep being a therapist full-time. I’d have some flexibility, especially in private practice.

Anyway, I literally just started thinking about this a few days ago, so I have no idea if I’m gonna stay this excited about it. But...I’m enjoying looking into it. I’ve felt so much more hopeful the past few days - like my life might actually go someplace I could like. It’s a nice feeling and I would like to keep it.

I dunno. I’ve talked to some people and I’m gonna talk to some more people. Maybe set up an interview at the college in the next couple months if I can swing it. Prereqs would probably be somewhat hellacious, but that’s what I get for majoring in the humanities.

Okay cool I’m gonna go eat something and clean the kitchen. 

[bibliophilicwitch]

Alright, enough of you would like to see my likely long rambly post about my 3-day weekend away so let’s do this.

About a month ago a friend of mine connected with me and asked if I would be interested in a girls’ weekend because there’s a loud music festival that happens practically in her backyard every year and she didn’t want to be in town for it. This friend lives in Appleton nearly 2 hours away from me and we rarely have reasons to be in each others’ neck of the woods anymore so I don’t really visit with her much anymore. So when she asked I really wanted to say yes, but she just so happened to be suggesting a 3-day trip the same month as my 6-day vacation to travel to North Dakota to see family and attend my cousin’s wedding. We planned a budget accordingly and I just gotta be conscious of money the next couple of weeks.

The music started on Thursday and ideally we would’ve left town that evening, but I ended up being scheduled to work until 9 PM closing time at the pharmacy that night… of course. We had plans already scheduled for midday on Friday, so I had to pack everything before work and then left immediately from work for my nearly 2 hour drive and arrived at her house at about 11 PM. I listened to some of the first campaign of Critical Role - time well spent.

So our Friday morning was spent running a few errands and finishing prep to leave Appleton before heading out to Milwaukee including running her pup to a friends’ house, getting groceries, and picking up coffee to fortify ourselves. We headed out around 11 AM I think and arrived early for our massage in a Milwaukee suburb with time to spare. It was my first massage and it was pretty good other than too much on my neck which led to a light headache. I really should’ve said that it was hurting too much, but I wasn’t sure if it would or would not be beneficial as I had never had a professional massage before.

Our hotel was in Wauwautosa and we arrived a good two hours before check in so we went and got food at Dave and Busters which, for those that don’t know, is an arcade for adults - meaning there is a bar. It was fun, but 3 of the 5 games we played didn’t work correctly or at all and then it was time to head out. Kinda wish we had had the opportunity to go back for another hour since I had plenty of credits still and would’ve really liked to play Mario Kart and check out one or two more games. I did play a Star Wars game with the wrap around screen which was pretty wicked cool.

That evening, after we checked into our hotel and washed off our oils from the massage, we went to a suburb to participate in a Paint and Sip class - this one was a paint your pet class and they even had little gift bags with goodies for you pet. I picked a picture of Binx that was low lighting which they oversaturated so you could see both his eyes, but since they oversaturated the picture he no longer looked like a true black and white tuxedo but like he had shades of grey and black all over which would not have been my kitty. Since I was not following the picture exactly it was proving impossible to distinguish his features, so I gave up and just used my time to fill in the areas I knew I could and plan to ask another of my friends, who works with me for the library Paint & Sip classes, to help me finish it some time. No idea when that may actually happen since she is super busy, but I have plans that meant I was okay with my experience. Not thrilled since it was a $35 class not including our wine, but eh. Meanwhile my friend was frustrated because even though she asked a few times for help with colors she never got close enough to be happy with her picture. On top of that she had chosen a picture of her goofy dog with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, but they CUT OFF HIS TONGUE and then didn’t make the picture as large as they could’ve so she had a lot of negative space. She was unimpressed to say the least. At least our wine was good. Really the class should’ve had prerequisites such as having participated in their other classes to be sure customers would get the best out of their experience. They did see that I had not finished and were offering a free session to join their free paint classes for help finishing… which we couldn’t do since we both live too far away (in my case a good 4 hours). I do really wish it had been a more standard paint class with the fast blended background and straightforward foreground. Ah well.

We finished day one at the Cheesecake Factory, a first for me! My friend commented that she was never very impressed by their food and she wasn’t surprised do be unimpressed yet again (though I didn’t mind my food at all), but we finished off with cheesecake, obviously, and that was delicious. Unfortunately I forgot my leftover cheesecake at her house in Appleton.

Saturday was our busiest day. We started at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was excellent though it really is a whole day affair not the two hour filler we planned for it. About halfway through my friend started to get anxious about her car and concerned it had a ticket or had been towed and I think she was also just getting tired of being on her feet. I think I was overall more interested in the exhibits too and she seemed to only be truly interested in specific things. I’m also a reader and wanted to actually read some of the shit while she just breezed through exhibit after exhibit. Like I said, we really didn’t have the time, but it was disappointing to be rushed so much.

Then we went downtown to The Safe House which she had wanted to check out. She did not realize it was literally right downtown and there was some anxiety, but we made it! For those that have not heard of Safe House, it’s a restaurant where the servers are in-character as secret agents and guests are also secret agents. There is a password to get in and if you don’t know it you have to prove you aren’t a spy by acting out some silliness. The interior is a wild and zany pieced together hodgepodge with references to spies in popular culture. Guests are given a list of missions (clues) to wander about and try to figure out the password. If you figure it out you are able to get a discount on their merchandise.

It was more confusing than my friend was expecting and not as engaging as she had expected either. She was pretty sure she figured it out, but neither of us were really worried about the merchandise, so we just didn’t even bother. They had a pen listed that we both kinda wanted, but they didn’t have any in stock.

After that we went to the North Point Lighthouse which is a lighthouse museum and I really enjoyed that little attraction. After that we finally headed back to the hotel for a short break and to get bandages because she wore strappy shoes that were trying to eat her feet. We discovered there was some sort of convention going on so the hotel was packed and TOO busy for only two slow elevators.

Next we went to Water2Wine, a winery in a suburb that imports their grapes and then makes their own wines in house. It was cute and pretty decent, but we weren’t overly impressed tbh. Next door to the winery was a Half Priced Books which my friend suggested instead of going to Barnes and Noble in the mall. So we wandered around, which was the first time I’d been to a Half Priced Books, but she got bored relatively quickly and dragged me out well before I would’ve like saying I could go to Barnes and Noble instead and then if she got bored she could wander the mall. So then we ended up at the mall and I was ready to settle into browsing for nearly an hour before wandering around the rest of the mall until close, but again she dragged me out likely because it isn’t that fun to wander by yourself. I did pick up a book at both places, Of Fire and Stars and Spinning Silver. I could’ve stayed in the bookstore all evening and likely only bought the one book, but nooooo, I ended up in the game store and bought an expensive gorgeous metal dice set. Pft. I also bought macarons which I had never been able to try and the ones I got were disappointingly too sweet for me to enjoy. We were both ready to be done, so we grabbed Chipotle, another first for me, and just curled up with a little TV before bed.

Sunday we got brunch at the ludicrously hipstery Cafe Hollanders. Very good and excellent atmosphere, but I couldn’t get over how chique it was being. The cafe was located in this ritzy area filled with high end stores that neither of us could afford, but we wandered around and gawped at insane prices before heading out to the Milwaukee County Zoo which I have WAAAY too many picture of to share here, so just check out my Instagram. I mentioned a few times, because I was seeing merchandise, that we hadn’t seen the red panda and my friend said she thought it might be a seasonal exhibit. After I was home I checked… it wasn’t. We literally missed it and I kinda wanna cry tbh.

We left Milwaukee around 4 and I ended up home around 7:30, but I tossed some gas in my car, washed it, and ran to the grocery store first so idk exactly how long my drive was. Though not everything was amazing I still had a pretty damn good time, my friend on the other hand seemed to get bored and/or impatient and/or disappointed/frustrated on a regular basis and I swear she didn’t enjoy the trip nearly as well as I did which just makes me sad. I also realized that since the last time we had really hung out we have both changed. Whereas I am online a lot and am fairly socially conscious she was not and she made a few borderline racist jokes (okay, not really borderline at all). Nothing nasty, just those ingrained stereotype jokes that are just not funny when you recognize how hurtful they can be. It also became more apparent that our interests do not overlap much at all. Which is another post to ramble about later. I loved the lighthouse and the zoo and wish I could’ve had just a bit more bookstore time and arcade time. It was nice to get out of town and not think about work while getting to catch up with an old friend though.