#and i don't even know much about space. except for really specific space physics details because my family pretty much consists of space

[nikoisme]

I'm so emotionally invested in that spacecraft

[val-of-the-north]

More observations for the trailer I am going insane!!!

I can't claim the original observation of this candle tree detail is mine, but it's from a Japanese Twitter user, here's a screenshot of the post and a link to it as well [x]

The rest of this observation IS mine though, so let's get to it:

With all the talk of cardinal sin, Messmer having a few parallels to Lucifer as pointed out by some friends of mine [x] I have to wonder if he is the cause of a speculated first burning of the Erdtree.

If this is the first time you have heard about this concept, I'll give a short summary. You know how Leyndell is covered in ash by the time we reach it in-game, and how that goes unexplained? We know for a fact that must be the Erdtree's ashes because after we claim the Rune of Death and the Erdtree burns even more, the capital is entombed in it.

We are also told that the Age of Plenty, an age in which the Erdtree gave physical blessings from its sacred sap, swiftly came to a close and the tree had to be changed to simply an object of faith...

So the theory claims that the reason why the Age of Plenty ended so swiftly was due to the Erdtree being set on fire. In theory spaces, the go-to culprit for this speculated action has often been the Gloam-Eyed Queen, with her connections to fire (Blackflame specifically) and Destined Death, but now there's the possibility that this was all Messmer's doing after all. Promotional material and dialogue seems to really denote his affinity for scorching and setting things ablaze.

This probably also means he is the inventor of that scary flame construct that according to Miyazaki as per this interview [x] was an old war machine, no doubt used during this "unsung battle".

Another important part of Messmer's design is the two snakes, which point us back to the Age of Plenty! Godfrey likely ruled during and directly after that time, and the arenas were likely built because of him. It had to be during Godfrey's rule because by the time Radagon became Elden Lord the practices of the colosseums had died down, as told to us by the Ritual Sword and Shield Talismans:

One of the more interesting aspects of the gladiatorial battles that once took place is the snake symbolism on the gladiators' armor.

So the snake was a symbol of a generic "traitor to the Erdtree", and it predated Rykard's blasphemy by an entire age at least... so what if it wasn't generic at all and it represented Messmer himself? He might have been the perpetrator of a betrayal so foul that Marika removed all traces of his existence from her empire's history, but kept the symbol of the snake as a spiteful reminder of him and all other subsequent traitors. After all, she does seem to have power over which one of her children gets remembered or not, and if not her, then the collective of the Golden Order:

Do note that we don't know when she said this. It could have been while she was still at the height of her rule or right before the Shattering. What we do know for a fact is that the soulless demigods inside the Walking Mausoleums have no known history to speak of, which is quite unlike Godwyn, one of the more accomplished members of the family. So yeah, being forgotten by history might be something the Golden Order does to those they deem unfit, so Messmer could be a likely candidate for such treatment... except instead of doing nothing noteworthy he did TOO much lol.

Now I gotta wonder if Marika hated him more or less than her Omen babies. One could argue that locking them down in a sewer close to where she lives was done more as an obligation than any true resentment. She could have sent them to the Shadow Lands if she really wanted them gone and unaccessible, as that place seems filled with Crucible-related things...

I am not saying she was a good mother to them because she didn't kick them to the Shadow Lands, but perhaps she DID have some small affection for them that she really couldn't follow through with.

Of course, maybe she just couldn't banish them anymore after banishing Messmer for whatever reason (maybe she cut-off a connection to that realm?). However, the most likely possibility is that he WAS known like the many soulless demigods and that Mohg and Morgott predate him. It's just that while those two were born undesirable through no fault of their own and were thus only hidden away, he BECAME undesirable which was worse in Marika's eyes so he gets the extra banishment and the removal of all of his history... there are so many possibilities...

[septembriseur]

Tagged by @aintgonnatakethis

About me

When did you start writing?

Not sure. At the age of ~9 I started writing a terrible epic fantasy novel that basically recapitulated the Terry Brooks and David Eddings series that I was obsessed with at that point. There is (regrettably) evidence of this because my family had a printer that I made copious use of. I started writing X-Files and Star Trek fic before I knew it was something that other people did, around age 11.

Are there different genres or themes you enjoy reading other than the ones you write?

I basically exclusively read crime novels and fic because the sf/f and literary fiction that I encounter is so unappealing almost without exception. And actually I read very little fic because almost all the fic I encounter these days is terrible. I am constantly starving for non-terrible fiction. (Please feel free to recommend some.)

Is there an author you want to emulate, or are compared to often?

I've always been obsessed with Hilary Mantel's prose and used to rip her off often in my sentence structures. But I don't know that there's anyone I look at and think, "I wish I could do that." In terms of fic, Kat Allison was a big influence on me— I read her fic when I was probably 13 or 14 years old and was first starting to develop real ideas about writing, like, "What is this story doing?" Also a Highlander fic called "Heat Goes to Cold," which appears to no longer be on the internet but which introduced fourteen-year-old me to Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, which I still have a great fondness for even though I have (kicking and screaming) outgrown it.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Right now my biggest problem is that I don't have a writing space and mostly write in coffee shops. My apartment is full of intrusive objects like a work-from-home husband and multiple no-work-from-anywhere rescue dogs, which interfere with thinking. I've just set up (using a room divider) a new attempt at a bedroom office, which is an IKEA table covered in heaps of agates and fossils and ephemera, so we’ll see how that goes.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and/or places you write about?

Not so much the place I grew up as other places I've lived. I tend to put people in landscapes that I know well and be meticulous in details, which is partly just because I have almost no visual imagination. Northern New Mexico and London are probably the landscapes I feel I know most deeply and find most productive. Thinking about this, it actually seems to be because in both cases my knowledge of the place is very specific and idiosyncratic. My physical knowledge of New Mexico is very linked to nuclear history and fossil hunting, which creates unusual routes and focus. My physical knowledge of London is very linked to mudlarking— the river, the terrain and transit around the river, the material history of the city— and to punk rock, which heavily shaped my husband’s London and therefore (through him) mine.

Are there any reoccurring themes in your writing? If so, do they surprise you?

It's been discussed to death.

Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character?

I think that I'm less interested in specific characters than I am in the potential for characters to be interpreted in unexpected ways. The more generic a fic is in characterization, the less readable I find it. Marvel and (especially) Stargate characters are great for this because there’s so little to them on the page— they exist as a potential for readings, especially critical readings. I see less and less of this in fandom, sadly.

Which of your characters would you be friends with in real life?

Truthfully, I would probably have an easier time being friends with my characters than I do with people in real life. When I look at the characters I write about, they seem to all be veterans, refugees, would-be revolutionaries, and/or people who have had really extreme and unusual experiences that make them outliers. That also describes an awful lot of people I know in real life.

Which characters would you dislike the most of you met them?

Probably Transposition Chloe Armstrong, insofar as a lot of the details of her life are a gentle spoof of people I went to school with at various points.

Do you notice any reoccurring themes/traits in your characters?

I exclusively write about damaged people, pretty much. I guess also maybe see the last question here for more thoughts.

How do you picture your characters?

I have a very poor visual imagination, so I don't really. I have to find photo references, even for original characters. I’ve mentioned before that I have to look up floor plans online in order to figure out spaces in my stories.

My writing

What’s your reason for writing?

I'm good at it— ie I’m able to do what I want to do with it. I'm probably better at it than anything else I do— there are other hobbies I've given up (music) because I know that I will never be as good at them as I want to be. With writing, I feel that I am capable of being good enough.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment from readers that you find particularly motivating?

I probably prefer more neutral comments that engage with the subject matter in depth. I like talking about my stories as a fan rather than an author, I guess. I have a hard time with praise.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Probably my mercilessness in terms of both characters and prose. Secondarily (and relatedly), my intolerance of generic phrasing. If nothing else, I am determined to describe things in a new way.

Have you been told is your greatest strength as a writer is by others?

Its strangeness/unexpectedness. But this has mostly come up in the context of my old original fiction, which is not very good and mostly written to pay bills.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Satisfied— generally. Circa 2019, I’d been writing so much that I really felt like I had an incredible level of technical control over my prose. However, I also had a very shallow understanding of the world and a lack of moral imagination. 2021 onwards really marked the beginning of me developing as a person, ie having a quiet breakdown and having to reconstitute myself. Unfortunately, 2021 also marked the severe limitation of my free time. Now I feel that I am able to write with more insight, but I'm still working on getting back to the same point of skill in my writing.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, do you write purely for yourself, or is it a mix of both?

Given what I write, it's pretty clear that I mainly write for myself. I think I write to solve arguments for myself— to resolve tension between ideas or principles; to reconcile parts of my character; to understand how to live in the world. That last thing sounds really elevated and pretentious, but I mean it in a pretty down-to-earth way. The last three years completely stripped away what I thought I understood about how to be a person and left me seeking some truth about how a person is supposed to live, day-to-day, in a world that is characterized by such profound injustice. I think that’s the kind of truth that can’t be arrived at except through fiction, because it’s not logical— it has to reconcile fundamentally paradoxical ideas. Is it stupid to suggest that writing, like, pornographic sex scenes is a way of dealing with that? Maybe! But in fact that’s the way I experience it: that everything I write, however silly and trivial, is always also toying with these questions about power and humanity and being in the world, because it can't not be. (And I think that there's probably something really "late settler liberal" about the idea that it's possible to separate the two things— that on the one hand there's entertainment, which is free of these questions, and on the other hand there's real life.)

[crusherthedoctor]

Not a hot take, a general question

What are levels that most hate that you enjoy, and levels that most enjoy that you hate? :>

Sorry this took a few days, but I've been trying to stick with examples that are near-unanimously loved or hated rather than being simply divisive. I also excluded examples of the "this game in general has weird physics, etc" variety… with one exception that won't surprise you.

I Give It a Gex/10:

Marble - The level design is blocky, though I can forgive that more than most since it was the first game, but the aesthetic is really unique for a lava stage, let alone the first one in the series.

Labyrinth - This one is cheating because I'm mainly including it for various mods that have given it a serious glow up, such as the Mania Misfits Pack. As such, I can't bring myself to hate the original, because I always think of those versions now.

Sky Base - Autoscrolling doesn't work so well for Sonic, but conceptually it's a climactic zone.

Wacky Workbench - Growing up is when you realise it's not a tragedy, but a comedy. Whereas other people jeer at it, I jeer with it. Also, the Good Future is beautiful, and so is the Past.

Marble Garden - Slightly downplayed since few outright hate it, but it's often considered the weakest zone in S3&K. I don't know how this can be, given the music, the spinning tops, the boss encounter with Tails helping you out, and the gratuitous pools of Pepsi.

Sandopolis - Act 1 is perfectly fine in my book, and I will not sit here while fans continue to slander it. Act 2 may involve a lot of stopping and waiting, but even so, I find it less tedious than other examples.

Egg Rocket - I really love the concept here, and while it kicked my shit in as a young'un, I don't think it's that bad as an adult.

Mania's Oil Ocean - I saw frequent complaints about why they included this zone, to which I say "Did you forget about the Fire Shield? Did you forget about the remixes?"

This Is Like Underselling Eggman At Crusher's House:

Prison hallway levels in SA2 - Overly cramped grey hallways are not particularly fun. And before someone points out the small graphical details, yes, those are nice and all, but ultimately they can't change how I feel about these stages overall. While I'm not keen on the mech shooting in SA2 in general, the other stages at least give you some room to breathe.

Lost Impact - I feel like this one stage has received the '06 treatment where it was once hated, but is now hailed as a 2deep4u masterpiece because of vibes and interpretation. This is not the case with me. I don't care what your intention is, I don't care what infinite IQ stunt you're pulling with your method of gameplay and story integration: if it's not fun, you've lost me. "But Crusher, this is perfect because it compliments the context of the story, it makes you feel just like Shadow in his situation, muh deep layers would be lost if it was actually enjoyable-" Call me basic, but if the only way you can paint a narrative is by making it shite, I don't think I can trust you with anything. And remember, this is Sonic the Hedgehog, not some indie RPG that most people watch other people's playthroughs of rather than play it themselves.

'06 Crisis City - Generic dilapidated city is not too interesting, despite the tornado carrying a car's best efforts. The Generations version is thankfully salvaged by having fun level design, even if it's the same aesthetically.

All the islands in Frontiers - The Cyber Space stages don't count since they're just Non-Specific Highway and reused Generations assets. Otherwise… well, as you might have guessed by now, bland atmosphere is my Kryptonite. I can put up with some questionable design choices if it's at least memorable in other areas, as that can soften the blow for me to an extent, but if it can't even provide the latter, it makes the former so much more excruciating for me. Needless to say, I do not have much nice things to say about Grass Simulator, Sand Simulator, Rock Simulator, Grass Simulator 2: The Return of Jafar, or Grass Simulator 3: This Is Why Eggman's In Mario Land Now.

[reveregret]

i kind of hate the systems i have around posting. checking every single note i get takes up so much time when a post becomes popular. i can't post anything new until i sort through all of that or the traffic dies down. i have to post asks in chronological order, so if i haven't finished the first one i can't go to another. i'm incredibly lucky i managed to get out of the habit of not doing anything except write until i finished my responses. i used to feel the need to get everything out asap to match the submission date as closely as possible, despite saving it in a separate location regardless.

my darling has criticised me for these things before and i have to agree with her. it's compulsive and unproductive. it's unnecessary stress to have these rigid rules. i want to try breaking away from this but it's been so ingrained for the past few years. it's how i've always used tumblr. other sites as well, but the extent is not nearly as drastic. so much of my day to day is simply arbitrary routines that i've imposed upon myself. it's difficult to break out of because whenever i don't fulfil these obligations it's like the world is falling apart. i've damaged a fragile ecosystem and there's no way it could ever recover from any slip-up, right?

this is such a huge reason that stalking got so out of hand before. it became a lineup of tasks, done a certain way, done a certain order, don't get caught, learn all that you can. i had to understand everything possible about someone and i'd develop habits in my attempts to learn about them.

i knew obsessive was a well-fitting term for everything i felt and did, but that definition has taken on a new meaning after my darling reframed many of the issues i'd dealt with. at that point, i never told her about anything i would put on this blog. her own experiences managed to shed a new light on my own. so even though it was directed at unrelated instances in my life, everything i'd boiled down to being an experience with bpd was something i had to reevaluate.

not to say it's not bpd, just that there was more to it than i'd realised. if anything, it goes hand in hand, being a common comorbidity and all. turns out i struggle with ocd too. i was already conscious of this but i never really accepted how it actually played into my life. i mean, acknowledging it just put a spotlight on what was wrong with me, and i didn't want to worry about that more than i already did. i panic enough about my mental state as it is.

even writing this is difficult. i started this as a means to justify my absence. if i don't post something now i'm going to cease to exist. i have to reread every single paragraph, restructure it to reduce as much error as possible and make sure it flows correctly and i didn't completely misstate my intent. i write more than i need to so that no detail is forgotten, sometimes reiterating throughout to ensure further. running a blog and remaining active with all of these expectations i have for myself is difficult to keep up with.

sometimes i don't know why i bother with these personal posts. maybe to humanise myself and be more personally relatable to my followers? maybe to make my blog more than just a masquerade? that's how it started, after all. my main blog could've been enough, but i made a side blog with a new personality to see what difference it would make. even though i gave it up a good while ago, having a space dedicated to specific thoughts makes it define me a little.

i can already tell you exactly who is likely acknowledge this post directly and who isn't, and around how long it may take. i keep track of patterns more than is good for me. not just mentally, but keeping a physical record of everything i do and how others around me interact with each other or myself. the interconnectedness of each detail. it used to be worse while i still wrote every little thing down, but it still festers in other ways. i've been trying to let go, yet everything i miss feels like i'm destroying a part of my own existence.

i don't know if anyone will connect to this post in particular, but i hope it helps someone feel less alone in the way some of my other posts do. i didn't realise how much i needed someone to understand me in this way until i had it. as scary as it is to not give in to any of these thoughts, it makes all the difference. turns out it's pretty nice not worrying about suddenly dying if i step in the wrong place lol

[coffeebanana]

If you're still doing writer asks, 17 and 25!

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Way too more than I ever needed to know about the french schooling system 😂

LOL but aside from that...I think I either tend to research next to nothing for a fic or fixate on one tiny detail and research it for an absurd amount of time. Like, for This Distance Between Us I spent several hours researching the Ritz London (ie. what it looks like, how the afternoon tea works, the menu, when courses are served, dress code, etc...) because apparently that had to be accurate. And for I Don't Believe In Umbrellas I had the characters taking a Psych course, which I've never taken, so I asked people for old course notes, looked up a syllabus for the actual NYU class, and looked through a few different topics and picked a few to learn a bit more about for some throwaway lines. For that one I went as far as taking attachment style quizes from the POV of the characters--or at least for Kagami, I can't remember if I actually did the ones for Marinette and Adrien.

For a lot of medical things I use Reddit for part of my research--not for the actual medicine, but for the how it feels part. Because you get a lot of first-hand details there that's missing from the more scientific/medical information. And I think that's made me feel a lot more confident writing about those sorts of things, because you start to realize that people will experience/describe having experienced the same thing in different ways. There's not a one-size-fits-all and that means there's lots of room for interpretation! And that's sort of how I've always approached writing things like depression and anxiety because I always knew it's not the same for everyone, but it's cool to see the same thing on the more physical side of health.

Lately I've also been researching PTSD for Marinette in Say Something, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've actually pulled up the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for mental health realted things in my writing. And I hadn't added the tag to the fic until recently--because it wasn't something I was explicitly trying to write in yet, even though it was in the back of my mind, and I hadn't written down a list of symptoms for her yet even though I had looked through the criteria a few times. But then I DID write down a list and I recently added the tag to the fic because I realized in my last couple rereads I realized I've actually touched (at least briefly) on pretty much everything there already--except that the symptoms have to have lasted for a month and the fic's only taken place over the course of like...a week I believe? So...it wassomewhat satisfying to find out I'm on the right track ahaha.

25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing? Yes! Usually after the actual writing part--when I go back to reread something and I've forgotten a specific line that packs a punch and I'm like...ouch? That happened to me like last week when I was rereading the last chapter of Say Something because a lot of that chapter touches on things that are somewhat personal to me--even though Adrien's circumstances are very different. So that resonated ahaha. And then I was upset I didn't have the ending yet to make everything better 😂

I think the only fics I ever had to step away from briefly in the middle of writing them were talk to me through the Christmas Lights and A Drop In the Ocean--the latter because (cw pregnancy loss, and this might be oversharing askjdbfskjfd but) while pregnancy loss is not something I've personally experienced, it did happen to my mom when I was 8 or 9, and that definitely impacted me too in ways I don't think I really ackowledged or realized for a long time. It's weird to be grieving in a place where people aren't giving you space to grieve--because people were telling me in different ways that they weren't my feelings to have. Which is understandable and also...not really true. And I guess I wonder how it impacted my relationship with my mom. We're not really close, but at the time I think she was actually the one person who did try to make space for my feelings. And that wasn't really what the fic was about, but it still brought up all that for me. So idk, that fic was unexpectedly hard for me to delve into. And it's probably the most nervous I've ever been posting something haha.

Thanks for the ask!! 💜

Fic Writer Asks

[metropolitanmutantofark]

The Messenger, Eclipse

Part 1, Chapter 3 - Tracie

"Building D, Room 204," Eclipse stated, running over the data point again and again as we started out of the building. "To a computer, hostile intent is probably a digital threat. On a galactic scale, it's one party attacking another physically." He stopped and turned towards me, slowing down. "Knock out two birds with one stone - you wouldn't happen to know if the local hacker club operates out of that room, would you?" he asked, checking his watch and slowing down. "For someone in chemistry, you've got this whole place memorized, might as well push my luck while I've got it," he reasoned.

"It's called being a good student," I answered, shooting him a glare. "Always grab a campus map."

"Somehow I doubt that. You're going for some catch-all major, aren't you?"

"Something like that." I pushed open the broken double-door as we found the exit, taking a look both ways to make sure nobody was around. "Chemistry wasn't my first pick. It still isn't, but you've got to get a decent job somewhere if you want to live comfortably. Last semester, I was in business, and before that, biology and anatomy. I knocked out all the gen-ed courses like that, so now it's more of a jumping-off point than anything while I try and figure out what I want to do for a living. Technically speaking, I'm not even on a track for a specific major."

"Well, you could always do what I did and run away from home," Eclipse suggested. "If I'm bound to perfect honesty, they don't hold me up on a pedestal where I'm from. And I didn't really go to school after I was done with it. There weren't many good universities."

"Yeah, speaking of which, where are you from?" I stopped him as he was walking, tracing an eye up and down his figure. "You look human, but you're certainly not from around here. Besides your ship, you dress way too warm for Florida. Nobody wears long-sleeved shirts underneath a windbreaker down here. Not to mention, the computer called me an 'Earthling,' but it called you 'Parasite'. What's that all about?"

The hand he had on his bag tightened, wrinkling the top flap under his palm. "I'd rather not talk about my species, but if you're just asking the basic details, I'm not human," he explained. His eyes narrowed as he looked me over, but he kept speaking, the words coming out as if he'd said it a million times before. "I'm from the planet Parasinia. We're a species almost like yours, except..." His voice silenced itself, and he squeezed his eyes shut, lost in thought. "Well, y'know - alien. My insides don't work the same as yours, that much I can guarantee."

"Yet you look just like a human, and you speak English."

"Yeah, well, so did the computer. And for all you know, this could just be a suit, and I've actually got white hair and green skin. Anyway, the people from my planet are called Parasites. We were the first species to develop psychic translation technology, as well as deep space travel. It's as simple as that," he explained. "And actually," Eclipse began, searching his pockets for his keys as he switched conversation topics. "I need to grab something from Tracie."

"And who's Tracie? Space-Mail clerk?" I asked. "Either way, what brought you to Earth?"

"Can't answer that right now, for a number of reasons, but you'll probably like Tracie. Everyone does. She's super fun." As we came to the parking lot, Eclipse held his keys up, the camper van beeping as it unlocked. "Alright, now, this might be a little much for you, but I need you to remember to be calm. Can you do that for me? It's going to feel a little more than weird when you walk in, just remember that it's all totally fine."

Admittedly, that had me a little more than nervous. "You're talking like you're about to show me some alien taxidermy museum or something."

"Well... yeah. Can't lie. If you go deep enough, there's almost any type of room in there."

"So, that thing's a portal to your real ship?" I asked.

"Again, hard to explain. You know how sometimes in stories, people will enter a door that takes them to a pocket world, and then when they walk out, they find the door is completely normal? That's as close as I can get to explaining it without introducing you to the concepts of matter compression and gravity bubbles. You'll see when you get in."

Eclipse opened the side hatch and ushered me in. I was breathless. We were standing on what I could only assume was the ceiling, with railings and paths moving about before reaching a wall or a door, upon which the path would straighten out according to its new position. A heavy purple lighting hung from above, and from below, a pink lighting illuminated the walkway.

"Get used to the gravity in here," he instructed. "It's a lot looser than Earth's. I'll be the first one to admit, it's only because the artificial gravity is half-broken, but everything else works fine. At least, most of the time it does."

As I took small steps forward, I could feel my feet hovering ever-so-slightly in air for just a second longer than they should have, and I gripped the railing on instinct to keep myself level. "You're not joking," I mumbled. "Where did you build this thing? Mars?"

"Had it commissioned by the Express, while I was still an official messenger. Long story short, they booted me when I was booted off the planet, but I got to keep the ship and my day job. This is TRACIE - that's an acronym. Temporal Relocator and Closed Interior Environment."

"But you said she just drives, so right now it doesn't do the 'Temporal' or the 'Relocation', so it's just... CIE right now, isn't it?" I asked.

"Driving is relocation," he explained. "And depending on how fast we can clear up this business with the Krotwen and determine what's threatening them, it might be temporal again pretty quickly. Mind you, we're going to have to find the Cosmic Drive Processor before the new engines, so we'll be able to travel through space unrestrained before we can do anything with time. Not that you'd want to come along. There are a bunch of rules, and I can't have you along until you've heard each one and agreed to them."

"And who says I can't follow some rules?" I asked. "You say all that like I wouldn't say 'yes' immediately, or something." Walking towards the wall, I held on tightly to the railing, and shifted my eyes between Eclipse and the wall beneath my feet as I ascended, the gravity seeming to alter depending on where I walked. "You were right when you said I'd like her." Eventually, after getting used to it, I was on the floor, staring up at Eclipse. "And you have to walk through this every day?" I asked, leaning against one of the main control panels. Four panels were arranged in a circle around the center of the main floor, and various pieces of furniture were littered about the main area

"Well, I usually don't take the wall," he answered. Leaping into the air, he tucked his hands in, grabbing at his knees and flipping. He landed between two of the control panels with a slight thud against the floor, and took a couple steps forward to inspect the settings on the panels. "You're not allowed to do that yet," he explained. "I'm serious about this, no jumping until you're used to it."

"I don't think I could get used to it," I answered. "I mean, there's an alien computer up in my own school, and I almost just forgot about it."

"And I did forget about it," he answered. "But all in good time, I guess. Right, no, right - alien computer, so there's got to be something in my boxes..." He turned around - nearly bumping into the central glass pillar that seemed to tie the top half to the bottom half - and started to scan the floor for something. "Here it is." On his hands and knees, he pulled out a panel on the floor, laying the panel beside him and checking in a small cubby-hole beneath.

"Something you're looking for?" I asked. "Some kind of hacker cure-all, or whatever? Or do they not have those in the future?"

"Well, while we're still operating under the assumption that the threat is digital, a 'hacker cure-all' wouldn't do the trick. The issue isn't the computer being attacked, it's the person attacking. Wiping their computer would only slow them down, and while I've got time to individually screen every student for their guilt or innocence, you certainly don't." Saying that made him stop. He carefully opened his bag, and searched inside for the brown package he'd made earlier. "Two hours, thirty minutes," he added. "Then you can have your car back, and we'll be on our separate ways."

"And who says I'm not going to follow you?"

"Again and again with these back-talking questions. You're dead-set on arguing with me, aren't you?" he asked, looking up from the cubby-hole and glaring at me.

"Well it's not my fault that you're dead-set on being arguable."

He tossed me the package and looked down. While I couldn't see his face, his lack of a response told me he couldn't continue without breaking whatever facial expression he wanted me to see. I couldn't quite tell what it was, but I got the feeling that he was trying not to crack a smile.

"You can have your car back for the time being." He continued digging around in the cubby-hole, hands shoveling junk aside as he looked deeper and deeper within. "Truth be told, my bag was a lot easier to carry without it. Just remember-"

"Don't open it until after the timer reaches zero, got it."

"Got it. Now, if you're in the mood to be helpful anytime soon, would you mind...?" His voice trailed off, and he looked up. "I don't know what, actually. What I'm looking for is definitely in this pocket, but I could certainly use some help with thinking." As he dug through gadgets and gizmos, he quieted down, before pausing again to speak. "I need some guesses, Wendy, what do you think could be targeting an alien computer in a school like this?"

I took that as my cue to talk as he continued talking. "Well, could be a sorority or fraternity," I started. "But I haven't joined up with any. Do you think aliens could have joined them somehow?"

Eclipse stopped, and turned his head towards me. "Good suggestion, but it sounds like a lot of work just to get to one computer."

"Well, maybe this Krotwen thing isn't just one computer," I answered back. "Or besides that, do you think anyone else could have time-traveled back to try and get in?"

"Also unlikely," he answered, inspecting a particular piece carefully before putting it aside again. On another look, the hole was deep. He could easily crawl inside and hide, though it would be somewhat cramped, and he'd have to be on his hands and knees. "There's only a few other species that can travel in time, and they're dying out every minute," he explained. "You were suggesting the Krotwen isn't just one computer?"

"That's what I said, yeah. You were saying about how it might not know its surroundings. What if there's another computer somewhere else, and the Krotwen thing mistook its buddy for an enemy or something?"

He finally reached in and pulled out a large device, one he quickly strapped to his arm. It was composed of three bars surrounding his arm like a sleeve, bound together with wiring, and a screen practically duct-taped to the inside of his arm. "Here, this is it." Without another word, he pointed it towards me, firing a green ray of light out from the front end. "I call it the Man-alyzer, analyzes species and gives me the results. Comes in handy when you have sensitive cargo. Rule seven, never get involved in a war unless you can end it."

"And we're just gonna go up to room 204 without elaborating, and shoot whatever it is with that thing?" I asked. Taking a peek at the screen, I saw a full-body image made of polygons, kind of like old computer 3D graphics with lines and dots. "That's not raising any red flags for you, is it? You sure that every species knows what that thing does?"

"Course they do," he answered. "Unless they don't, in which case..."

"We start something bigger than either of us could imagine and one of us winds up getting seriously injured," I added. "You should probably lead with that before making assumptions."

"Well, I don't see you giving any plans."

"You never asked! But if you want to scold me for it, try this on for size." I took a few steps towards him and yanked off the device, setting it down carefully while he crossed his arms.

He shot me an annoyed look - evidently, he was quite dead-set on rushing into this plan.

"Tell you what, next adventure you get yourself into, you've got my express permission to use it on whatever alien you like. For now, you got a wardrobe in here somewhere? We're going to be walking up there like we're just taking a pencil-pushing class. You're gonna need a change in outfit, unless you want to stick out." I started to look over my own clothes, then I tucked in my shirt. I didn't have a lanyard, but I could find one pretty shortly to hang my ID off of. "I'll say it again, nobody wears long-sleeved shirts underneath a windbreaker in central Florida. You look like a minty northerner."

"It's postal green," he answered, shoving items back into the cubby-hole on the floor. "Green's the universal color for messengers."

"Oh, my mistake, you look like a minty mailman. Either way, if we're getting in there without immediately tipping off school security or whatever hostile life-form is in there, you're gonna have to look like a student, now go change," I commanded.

Eclipse shut the cubby-hole and stood up, starting to walk onto the wall, towards one of the doors further into Tracie. He hung up his jacket on a coat-hanger, the cloth immediately beginning to hang sideways in the air, as if drawn towards the center of the room. "In my own friggin' ship..." he grumbled, vanishing inside. "This is why I do my own planning!"

For some reason, I didn't get the impression that he was very receptive to other plans. He would have to learn how to get over that pretty soon. One way or another, I'd made up my mind to break up this scuffle. It couldn't hurt either way - I was already too late for class.

[utsugi-ren]

Classpecting For Dumbies 101

Hi I thought I should make like a little guide on how I <-me specifically (this is specifically how I/ME/AARON/PERSON WHO MADE THIS POST) classpects people, since classpecting is incredibly nuanced and by nuanced I mean very obviously not a well developed system and mostly fanon in nature I just thot this would be a fun post to make for people who are starting to get into classpecting (also cuz I wanna infodump LoL)

I assume you know what classpecting is if you're reading this and if you don't then it's a system of powers that come with a class (how you use your aspect) and an aspect (the center of your powers). This "classpect" is chosen by a number of things, mainly your personality and how you interact with the world.

I'll be starting with the aspects since they are the main contributor to the classpect I'd say (as in the class bends around your aspect, not the other way around, so a knight of breath and a knight of time would be incredibly different, but knights functionally do the same thing)

ASPECTS: Time-About the physical reality and destroying Space-About the metaphysical and creation Breath-About freedom and movement Blood-About bonds Light-About luck and the prominent things in the world Void-About secrecy and the unknown Doom-About death, decay, and pain Life-About growth and abundance Heart-About the self and feelings Mind-About thoughts and possibilities Rage-About convictions Hope-About beliefs and faith

Time and space are the hardest for me to pin down what their specific meaning is since they are incredibly fluid in the characters shown, but from what I've gathered time is about reality and destruction (specifically destroying realities when necessary to build a newer one) and space is about creation and the metaphysical (specifically creating things which cannot be touched)

Also a LOT of classes have ties to things which I wouldn't say are necessarily ABOUT the aspect but are important to mention (like music and death for Time, frogs for Space, money for Life, etc)

NOW for the classes: Heir-Embodies their aspect unknowingly (Passive) Witch-Embodies their aspect knowingly (Active) Seer-Knows their aspect (Passive) Mage-Learns their aspect (Active) Page-Grows into their aspect (Passive) Knight-Grows to accept their aspect (Active) Sylph-Creates their aspect for others (Passive) Maid-Creates their aspect for themself (Active) Rogue-Steals their aspect for others (Passive) Thief-Steals their aspect for themselves (Active) Bard-Unknowingly destroys their aspect (Passive) Prince-Knowingly destroys their aspect (Active)

Also lord and muse exist except no they don't

I could go into more detail about them, ESPECIALLY since a lot of these have signifigance with growth, eg a prince of [aspect] would have too much of [aspect] and will knowingly destroy it as a way to stop it from taking over their lives, a bard of [aspect] would unknowingly destroy something which is abundant in their life by hiding it even from themselves before [aspect] is able to "break out" from said destruction and take hold of the weilder

Knights and pages are both about growth, but in opposite ways. While pages grow to use their aspect from a state where they are weak, craving their aspect but being unable to reach it, a knight is someone who is overwhelmed by their aspect and must come to accept it as part of themself.

I would like to say again this is just how I view the classpects and is not like a "YOU HAVE TO CLASSPECT LIKE THIS OR YOU'RE WRONG" I'm making this post as an autistic person who wants to infodump really really bad LoL

[moinsbienquekaworu]

A day late but - @petralemaitre, you asked, so here's more stuff about my OCs!

I've talked a whole whole lot about my "main" Star Wars OCs, I won't go into more detail here (especially since I'm starting to run out of stuff haha) but in short: Korcha is a Harch Jedi Master based on an old teacher of mine, she's pretty strict and values traditions but also loves getting to know people and languages. Her first apprentice, Reil, is a crèchemaster who is visually impaired, patient and creative; Devafe came next, she's honest, likes peace and quiet, and wanted to work in the Archives before the war; and little number three, Lineth, is a year older than Ahsoka and in a similar situation with the war happening and all, except she isn't a main character so she's just barely scraping by.

If they sound fun to you, here's all the interesting posts about them I could find, for convenience. Feel free to skim through if you want! I talked about Korcha, Reil and Devafe here, though the post isn't 100% up to date anymore, about their clone commanders Jellyfish and Stellar here, you can find updated timelines here, and there's the original post I made about my Mandalorian Chiss lady Karaad and her Mikkian princess wife Tevlin. If you don't want to read walls of text (fair) but you're interested in drawings, here's the tag where I put all the art of my SW OCs. I also answered my friends' asks about them, so there's the one where I rate them /10 on how swag they are (spoilers: they all are) and here's the one where I just talk about interactions they could have with canon characters.

That said, I can tell you about one OC I haven't actually talked about much here even though she was my first OC! Her name is Cehim Velm and she's a Pau'an mapmaker. She lives in her spaceship, makes maps, has fun with artist friend occasionally when they can meet up, and I love her.

She's not an explorer, she just makes the maps, generally as commissions for people who want to decorate their houses and have the decoration look fancy, but also for other people who enjoy maps for their beauty and not just their practicality. She takes digital commissions and physical ones, and because the GFFA is big I'm saying she makes enough for her to live a nice life. She also collects maps, physical ones and holographic ones, maps with typos, old maps, maps of specific planets, just lots of maps.

She looks like a normal Pau'au, likes wearing wide leg trousers, comfy sweaters and all types of head coverings, and I like making her looks reeaally tall because I think it's funny if she towers over normal-sized humanoids. She does travel the galaxy, for for fun and for her job, she gets cold in space but she still loves being able to look at the whole galaxy just out of her window, is technically domiciled at her parents' place in Pau City even if with holos and whatnot that doesn't matter, and likes learning a few words and sentences in the languages of the planets she visits. As a person, she's friendly but definitely an introvert, she likes spending most of her time alone though she really enjoys the time spent with her friends as well, she has her head in the clouds, and she's the type of artist who listens to podcasts while they work.

She's also part of a group of artists who come from all over the galaxy who have meetups with other members in the area and who are all named after people who've tagged their names in my city, either as their actual name or as an alias, I still haven't decided. That's what the "Solek" thing is on Karaad's little ref sheet, it's her alias in that group! I haven't decided what she does yet though. Anyway, she has fun there, and also just hangs out in bars/cafés when she lands on a planet, plus sometimes she invites her friends to travel with her a little.

She's a bit like Meredith but in space, and she's pretty fun to think about, but her life has less of a clear timeline since she's not too tied to the main events of the movies. I do like to think she could have been on Utapau when the whole thing with Grievous happened but that's about it. She does know Korcha for some contrived reason, because I cannot refrain from having my OCs all know each other, and I think she would get on well with Stellar.

Okay that's about it if you actually read all that holy shit thank you!! In any case thanks for the occasion to talk about my favourite little guys!

[virghogh]

Guessing NCT's rising signs: Huang Renjun as a Cancer rising

Welcome to my first post where I write all about why I think this idol is X rising sign! I don't know how many of these I'll do because it heavily depends on how confident I feel in my guess of their rising lol for Renjun's rising sign, it's something I've been sitting on for a loooong time just to see if anything else comes into my head. At the end of the day we really have no way to know for sure, even if the idols gives us their birth time it still has to be taken with a grain of salt! But it’s still fun theorize and to test your skills while learning at the same time. So for now I feel pretty confident sharing my thoughts on Renjun as a cancer rising.

Let’s ✨explore✨ why:

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧long post! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✦ Before I even decided to look up his chart layout, there were 2 characteristics of Renjun that initially led me to think he’s a Cancer rising. His eyes and his physique. His eyes aren’t necessarily as big as idols we’ve seen with moon in 1st, but they’re still very notable features of his physical appearance that he’s very well known for. They’re bigger, soft and dreamy, and sometimes look like he quite literally holds stars in his eyes. The biggest physical feature though is his, well, petite frame. Next to his eyes, renjun is also really well know for his smaller build. It’s even a well known inside joke amongst NCT, they all him “big shoulders renjun” (lol) because “for a guy” his shoulders a on the smaller side. Both of these physical attributes can also be identifying characteristics of cancer risings.

✦ So, in general I think he is a Cancer rising. But if we want to be more specific; I do think he is a 3rd decan Cancer rising which is the Pisces/Neptune ruled decan. I initially chose this because his house and planet placements just make so much more sense to me when the rising is in the 3rd decan (I'll get into that below), but after reading about the 3rd decan I also think it fits his personality really well! With the Neptune and Pisces influence, he's more on the open side of Cancer rising but more notably, 3rd decans are a lot more inclined to art/creativity and sometimes, music specifically. These people also have a very dreamy attraction about them. He also has his Venus trine ASC which can further add to this kind of creative vibe he gives off, but is also drawn to! It emphasizes the importance of aesthetics, art and creativity in his life. If you've never been on Renjun stan twt then you might not know that a lot of his fans see him as this incredibly dreamy and ethereal boy (as they should) and I can see why!

*:･ﾟ✧house and planet placements *:･ﾟ✧

Scorpio moon, Sagittarius Pluto in 5th:

✦ yea... just yes. Okay but actually, if you read my NCT Dream Hexaco x Birth Chart analyses, I talked a lot about his chart already because I really like it. As someone with a Scorpio moon, I can't help but be really interested in how his plays out. And I have to say, I am quite attached to this theory because I think his scorpio moon in 5th just. makes. sense. I'm not going to go much into the descriptions of the placements, I'm mostly going to stick to the house influence. We know that Scorpio moons have really intense emotions, they internalize everything and are just highly sensitive people to their environments. Renjun has been incredibly open about his mental and emotional struggles ever since being a kid. I've honestly never heard an idol talk about their struggle like he has. He even opened up recently about how a few years ago he had an art therapist that really helped him and lowkey changed his life. I feel like a lot of this can be reflected in his 5th house. The house of creativity, expression, creation. His 5th cusp is also in Scorpio. 5th house in water tend to be really drawn to arts and music. Having a Scorpio moon, a moon sign that can be quite guarded, in a fire house can also explain his readiness/openness to share his emotions and art. Also let's not forget his chart ruler is his Scorpio moon in 5th! What I've wrote above are big themes in his life, which we've seen.

✦ As for the Pluto in 5th. Because his 5th house is in Scorpio this would mean the 5th ruler is in 5th. I know it might not make sense at first because it's pluto and pluto is misunderstood. But it makes perfect sense to me. Pluto in 5th is a deeply passionate and creative placement. It bring so much energy to this house, and can even create a borderline obsession with themes of this house. With creating and expressing. But I could also see having this and his scorpio moon in this house bringing so much energy, it just kind of adds to the confusion and intensity of a scorpio moons emotions and processing abilities, like, emotionally overwhelming. Scorpio moons always need an outlet and they usually figure that out the hard way at some point in life. The outlet can vary based off the chart, his is without a doubt connected to his art; whatever that may be to him.

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Aquarius Uranus in 8th:

✦ This part is brief because it's more of like, additional details to what's already in his chart. Something that is really well known about Renjun too is how much he is into space and aliens and stuff like that. He, once again, has been very open about it lol on variety shows I've seen him light up every time its briefly mentioned and he'll comment on how much he finds that stuff interesting. The 8th house is weird, it can manifest in a lot of different ways. The biggest point here for me is that the house is in Aquarius with Uranus here. I know someone with this placement too and, while they're open minded to astrology and tarot etc. it's a bit more focused on logic. I can't say for sure because I don't know him, but he kind of strikes me as the kind of person that would fight to death over aliens existing, but draws the line at astrology lol. I actually do think he would be open to astrology and tarot, but he'd need the right introduction to it. Anyways, yea this placement to me explains a lot of his interest in space and things we don't understand. He's expressed his curiosity in it. I think a lot of this is coming from his Scorpio moon and Pisces mercury/venus which is why I think it's just additional support.

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Pisces Mercury/Venus in 9th:

✦ THIS HOUSE right here... so much to say. Firstly, Pisces in 9th is probably one of the main culprits for his creativity, deep thinking and curiosity in the world. And more importantly: his imagination. I've mentioned this a lot when I talk about renjun but, he's very well known for his creativity, but I want to make it clear that there is a distinction between creation and imagination. His imagination is truly... on another level. Well, planet actually since it's pisces! Again, amongst fans it's really well known his imagination is just so unqiue. This is less about the 9th house and more about the fact that he has 2 pisces placements but it still affects it lol. He's very open about his imagination and speaks about it so naturally. He shared his drawing of a bird, hybrid, thing? and how it's an animal that steals your dreams in your sleep. Anyways, Pisces in 9th aren't necessarily the travelers we'd see with an air or fire sign here, but they like to travel mentally. He's also talked about how he's just in general a very curious person and you can tell his thoughts probably travel far and wide in his down time.

✦ What's really interesting to me about this house is his mercury is here and Mercury in 9th is a very specific kind of placement. It almost always guarantees an interest and talent in learning languages. I don't know if languages are necessarily a passion for him but he definitely is interested and cares about learning language and other cultures. He also did pick up on Korean and English with ease. Which also reminds me that, he actually was exposed to Korean at a young age because I'm pretty sure he went to a bilingual school (chinese and korean). This is also a big deal to me because planets in 9th, especially sun/mercury often indicate very early exposure to languages or other cultures... so yea that checks out. This can also be proved by looking at his IC in Virgo, which puts the ruler in 9th. His mercury is also sextile Jupiter. I also wanna comment that he has his Mercury in the 5th degree, I'm not great at degree theory yet but that feels significant to me. Of course we cannot forget his absolutely angelic voice. Renjun is also very well known for his stunning vocals. Not only are Pisces placements musically inclined but Pisces mercury are known for their sweet voices.

✦ As for the venus is 9th, I feel like I have more to say on his venus being in Pisces because that's where so much of his artistic creativity and imagination come from. But venus here adds to a lot of what I've written above, adding to his curiosity of the world. What I find most interesting about venus in 9th though, is it brings another inclination to art! He might really like art from different places in the world, or just exploring all types of art being very open minded to its different forms etc. Venus here also brings ease to language learning, and these people will naturally have other cultures and people from them as a big part of their life. I feel like, in general it's not surprising at all to me that as a foreign member (being from China), that he would have 9th house influence! It can often manifest as like.., travel, other languages, cultures and parts of the world etc. are just very naturally a part of their life. Some people never really contemplate life overseas or in another country. But for 9th housers, it's never not been an option. His 9th house influence can also make him a great teacher, mentor and just overall supportive person. We've seen some of this in the content he's made with NCT. Like trying to teach his members chinese with Chenle, except he was taking it way more seriously lol but was so supportive. He's also tried to get Jeno and Jisung involved in his art making, but keeping the process very open and fun.

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Aries sun, Taurus mars in 10th:

✦ This is the last part I'm going to cover because it is really just the icing on the cake to finish this up. The 10th house is considered pretty important when looking at celebrities/idols because it's very likely a lot of what we see from them is their 10th house influence. In the chart model I'm using for Renjun, it puts his MC in the very last degrees of Pisces, so there's a chance it's in Aries but either way with his sun and mars here they are still playing a big role. So for that reason, I'm opting for Pisces MC. I also think Pisces MC fits though because first it puts the ruler in his 7th house. Meaning he could really benefit and work well in something that involves a group! Because it's Pisces in Neptune, it also adds to his very ethereal vibe and how people just seem to love him wherever he goes. He's very magnetic and can come off as artistic and sensitive. He's known for being dreamy, unreal, artistic, sensitive.

✦ Again, we know he has an aries sun and taurus mars so I'm not going to explain them here, just how they affect the house, but having his these here makes so much sense to me too. Having planets in 10th also influences what kind of "vibe" people get from you, and what you're "known" for. Mars and Sun bring similar energy of being well known for for energy, drive, and even stage presence. Not being afraid to be on stage, being good with attention and spotlight. He's known for his kind of playful and childish behavior at times. He is charismatic, bold, brave, happy and upbeat. With the sun, he is again known for his creativity and creations and also self-expression.

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Thank you to anyone who read all this. I don't really expect many people to because I'm mostly writing this for my own curiosity and to finally just put this theory out there! Anyways, stan Renjun best boy <33

Thoughts and feedback are always welcome <3

─────────────────────

[redbeardace]

Pagination is Hard

If you've been following along lately, you'll have seen that I'm working on a Choose Your Own Adventure style book. Primary writing is happening in Twine, which is a tool specifically for Interactive Fiction/Game Books/etc. But a Twine file is meant for a digital world, and I want a physical book.

More specifically, I want a physical look that looks like a CYOA book, acts like one, smells like one. I want people to pick it up and be teleported back to 1986. And so, there's a few style rules to follow. Some are simple, like the font, but others are more difficult, like pagination.

Twine has absolutely no concept of a page. Pages are irrelevant. It cares about Passages and only Passages. Its primary storage format is HTML, which also doesn't care about pages. Okay, so all you have to do is copy and paste it into Word, and now you have pages, right? Word cares about pages, doesn't it?

Word does not care about pages.

More specifically, Word docx files don't care about pages. Under the covers, they're not much different from an HTML file. (They're actually a zip package of a bunch of XML files, but that particular detail doesn't matter much.) There are tools and SDKs that let you create Word docs, but what you're creating are sections, paragraphs, and runs of text, but not pages.

Now, okay, Word itself does care about pages... Sort of. You can see the pages, you can print the pages, but they're sort of a calculated illusion. Whenever you open a Word doc, the rendering engine figures out how to pretend that the file is organized into pages, even when it's not. But because the pages aren't real, you can do something as simple as shuffle the pages around. That's largely fine, because in most cases, you don't want to shuffle pages around. In a normal document, the page break could come in the middle of a sentence in the middle of a paragraph. Reordering that would result in chaos.

Choose Your Own Adventure books are not normal.

Their whole thing is that all the pages are reordered randomly. Everything is centered around pages. Go on to the next page. Turn to page 73. The pages form an interconnected tree of decisions that make up a story. Pages pages pages.

So, in order to make a CYOA book, you have to be page-based, not passage-based. So, you just take all your passages, turn them into pages, set up links between them, and you're done!

But... Just what the hell is a page, anyway?

A page is a fixed-size panel of text, right? Easy enough concept. But... How much text? One of my passages is 400 words long. Is that more than a page or less than a page?

Trick question! Words don't matter. Pages are measured in lines. With known margins, font, size, spacing, etc., a page can hold a certain number of lines. For the style I'm using, let's say that a page is 25 lines.

So how many words are in a line, then?

Another trick question! Words in a line don't matter.

A cat in a hat ate a pie.

Several loquacious antidisestabilishmentarianistic sasquatches contemplated pseudoscientific philosophies belligerently.

Both of those sentences are eight words long. (So was that one.) But they're vastly different lengths. The first sentence has room to spare on its line, while the second one likely ends up spanning more than one line (depending on how you're reading this post.). So, it's clearly not word count that matters, it's the number of characters that counts. So, how many characters in a line?

Also a trick question! Some lines are short because the last word is a long one and doesn't fit. And letters are different sizes in most fonts.

You pretty much need a full layout engine to figure out how much text fits on a page, and that is not something I have.

But... Why do I care?

I care, because CYOA books are so centered around pages that you have to care about pages. Go grab one and open it up. (You obviously have one just lying around like I do, right?) What's the first thing you notice? Every page ends in one of two ways: The phrase "The End" or with "Turn To X Page" directives. That's the defining feature of the series.

But what else do you notice?

Almost every page ends with a bunch of whitespace. Because every page ends with a complete paragraph. Nothing runs on to the next page.

That's weird in a book.

(Okay, it's not every page. There does seem to be an exception to that rule and the "Turn To Page X" rule, which involves facing pages and a large illustration. It appears that mid-paragraph breaks are permitted in those rare circumstances. But anyway...)

They end with a complete paragraph because they have to. You can't suddenly have a "Turn To Page 37" in the middle of a sentence. No, the book has to pause, give you an instruction, then resume. These books would be irritating if

If you want me to finish the sentence, keep reading the next paragraph.

you were interrupted in the middle of every passage like that. So, in order to avoid that, I need to split the passages up, so that the right number of paragraphs are on each page, and in order to do that, I need to know how many paragraphs I can fit on a page. In order to do that, I need to know how much text can fit on a page and we've already been down that road.

So. What can I do about it?

I can fake it!

Faking things is a foundational principle in computer science. Some problems are too hard to solve the right way, so instead, we solve them the wrong way and make it look good.

You see, I don't really care exactly how much text can fit on a page, I care more about roughly how much text can fit on a page. That, give or take, is 22 lines, and a line is, give or take, 40 characters. And I didn't perform a complex layout calculation involving kerning and justification and whatever'n'th'hell an "em" is. No, I pasted a paragraph into Word with all the settings I wanted, let it do all that work, then I just counted letters. 40-45ish letters and 22-25ish lines, so go low for safety, and presto.

For each paragraph, get ceil(paragraph.length / 40.0) to get the line count for it, and repeat until there would be too many lines. Then put a page break and keep going.

And presto, now you have complete paragraphs and whitespace on every page!

Except for page 153, because fuck page 153:

Page 153 is a page number in the heading, followed by two "Turn to page X" choices and nothing else. What this means is that somewhere in my book, there's a directive to tell you to "Turn to page 153.", only for Page 153 to tell you to immediately go somewhere else.

And so you think, "Oh, well maybe that page is full of other paragraphs and there isn't any room left and maybe you can tweak a setting or add a feature that prevents such orphans. So you track down the page in question. Behold page 94:

WHAT THE HELL, PAGE 94‽

It's like 60% full! There's plenty of room for the choices there. Why are you doing this to me?

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. I felt I had to write this big long thing just to name and shame Page 94, rather than spending that fixing Page 94, because you all need to know what Page 94 did.

[robin-the-enby]

Hey! I love your matchups and I really want one with on the black butler characters.

I am ISTJ and even though I was born in America I come from a Mexican family. So I am fluent in Spanish and English. Along side of Mandarin Chinese (still learning) and Japanese (still learning)

Appearance wise, I have olive skin, long wavy/curly hair that reaches my tailbone (i like putting it in side braid). I also have long bangs that quite often fall over my glasses. And just too lazy to move them. I also have dimples when I smile. I will bite anyone who try poke them.

Personality: I can get hard to know at first because I have trust issues (my heart has been broken okay) . Not too mention people don't try to get know me because of my major Resting Bitch Face. They think I am judging them or that I am scary. But I am not... I am attentive so I will stand up for myself and anyones else. I am patient. Also, after you get to know me you will realize I am a chaotic crackhead with a melodramatic persona. Like "your star is here!" "The stage is calling for me. Move out of my way" "the spotlight is on me so could you move you crusty face?" I like to tease and flirt with the people I am close to. I zone out or daydream a lot. And in the worst times. It could be a serious meeting and I am chuckling because of something in my head. Which have scared people. It could be during a conversation and I will stop listening. But I will always feel bad and apologize.

I also like to scare people. Like tell them the unsolved cases or horrific cases that I know (I love unsolved cases) . This is also why my little siblings hate me. Turns out talking kids murder cases and disapperinv cases was not appropriate for bed time story... woops.....

I like to pop out of nowhere and either flick or playfully punch my friends and say boo. I do accidentally roast people. I don't think before I say things. And don't realize until hours or days later. And I am like "shit"

I am sarcastic and that has gotten me in trouble before. My friend asked for my advice and I didn't know she was being serious. So I gave her a sarcastic advice and she came back to me mad. I was like "shit you believed me?"

Likes/hobbies: i like my anatomy class and I like to read, write, meditate (because I get stressed a lot). I really like to dance and listen to music. Which my music taste is everywhere: Kpop, classical music, jazz, jpop, Spanish songs, rock, metal. Every music genre except for country. I like to play the violin.

My passion lies in the arts and crafts. I would like to do illustration and photography. More specifically street fashion photography and and event photography. Like weddings and funerals. Yes funeral photography does exist and I will like to do it. Since it is also special event. I draw a lot of portraits and landscapes. I have been told that my art is either scary or mysterious. Though I can get a little caught up with my passion. I practice to get better with no rest.

Flaws/toxic traits: I am not empathetic or sympathetic. People always thought I didn't care about my friend's issues. I do i just don't understand them. My compassion does make up for this and will give advice. My other flaw, is the high walls I build to protect myself. I am there for other people. But people were never there for me. People have manupliated me and that cause me trust issues. I don't know how to handle negative emotions like depression, anxiety, self doubt, procrastination. So I just isolate myself in these moods. They really take a toll on me and make me think I can't do my passions. I am afraid of commitment because of toxic relationships i had before.

Love language: I am not obvious with affection. (Because no one ever gave me it). I show it through my teasing and flirting. My love language is however Act of Service. I will help my s/o with anything they need. Chores, work, advice, etc. Sort of the mom of my friend group. But a Savage mom as I have been told. "Stop crying, here I made you a cookie" "do I need to hurt someone" "don't worry I can get coffin with a lock in it". I am also an aggressive supporter. Like "No YOU are beautiful. YOU are gorgeous!" (This happened when someone gives me affection and time try to turn the attention to them as way to hide my fluster)

I will call my s/o like "stupid" "idiot" but in a endearing way. Okay. Occasionally I will use "beloved" and "Cariño/cariña"

I am not good receiving verbal affection or physical affection. I was never given affection so I am not used to it. I will start blushing and stop working. I will also probably say "idiot" or turn the attention to them like "no.. u" but I think fails because I am terrible at hiding my blush. I get easily flustered with affection okay. But I won't ever admit that I like it. Though it is obvious.

Sexuality: i am bisexual so it doesn't matter what gender I am paired up with.

Funt fact i guess?: I love small plants, plushies, and banana milk. Like I have hundreds of different kinds of plants and they each have their own name. Like GGmo, Lily, Melody, Edward. I love Banana milk as I said. I drink it every evening. It always get me happy so when I am sad or had a bad day. I drink banana milk and I am happy. It is also to make up for my coffee addiction. I am addicted to coffee. My friends said no coffee and I was like fine banana milk then :)

This is getting long now... bye.

I'm glad that you like my matchups, I'm trying my best tbh😅 I match you with:

Sebastian Michaelis

Sebastian is very curious in nature, so he definitely wants to know what you're really like, not the front you put on.

He's also very charming when he wants to, he makes it very easy to open up to him and get comfortable around him.

Sure, he, as a demon, doesn't really care much for humans, so when he doesn't have to play the polite, kind butler, he probably has a RBF as well, however, I think that changes when he's interacting with someone he loves.

His sweet words may have been a mask at first, so he could see the real you, but the closer you two become, the more he means every word of praise, encouragment or comfort he utters.

He would most certainly be amused by your crackhead self once you do get comfortable around him, but it's not really his vibe. He wouldn't scold you for being loud, brash or inapropriate, like he does the other servants.

If he's in a really good mood or when the situation calls for it, he can be dramatic as well. Sometimes he'd do it just to get on Ciel's nerves XD

One big pro of being with Sebastian is that he lets you off the hook a lot. If he was talking to anyone else and they'd space out, oh honey, he would stare them down so hard, it's sending chills down my spine just thinking about it. But if it's you it's like a complete 180, Sebastian can't possibly be mad at you, everyone spaces out sometimes, those things just happen.

The other servants make sure to be on your good side so that you could intercede with him on their behalf.

You can't scare him with your true crime stories, but you sure as hell can scare the others. And you can bet your ass Seb's gonna help! The plan is: You tell the story and then he's gonna pop up out of nowhere behind them, giving them mini heart attacks.

If you try to scare him though, you'll need to be on guard 24/7 until he gets you in return. And even if your on guard all the time, he finds a way to scare the life out of you.

Your humor is practically the same, I mean, Sebastian is great at off handed remarks/roasts and sarcastic comments that you have to look for to really see them. You two could be talking shit about anyone and everybody would be like "Oh yeah, normal conversation, yes"

Sebastian would love to dance with you. And trust me when I say this, he is good at any type of dance. If you two are ever at a ball, prepare your feet, because he's not gonna let go of you the whole night (unless his master is in danger of course).

He would be your #1 supporter, he'd go with you out to take photos, and if you asked him to look at some, he'd take a good long look at each and every one of them and describe in detail how he feels about them. Also would go to any art shows you'd host if it came to it.

When it comes to sympathy and empathy, Sebastian also has a hard time showing these feelings. He's been alive for far longer than any human on Earth and he's a demon. He's never had any of the problems humans have, so naturally he doesn't kniw what it feels like to have them. Plus, before you came into his life, he didn't care much for them either.

However, he's gonna be there for you whenever you need him, emotionally or practically, even though he doesn't get your feelings.

You both have walls put up, you because of bad past experiences, him because as a demon, he has major issues with being vulnerable in any way. And I'm not talking just emotionally here, but demons are almost undestroyable, yet they have very few weaknesses that they just need to hide away.

It's rare Sebastian has a problem, but even if he had, you wouldn't know, because he thinks you, as a human, wouldn't understand and so he won't burden your mind with it. However, he's very perceptive and so if your behaviour changes, be it due to anxiety or a depressive episode, he'll know.

Now, he's not the type of person to try and break down your walls by force, but in situstions like these, where he's not sure how to help, you gotta talk to him and he won't leave you alone until you tell him how he can help.

He's not above carrying you around and doing everything for you until you're embarassed enough to tell him

He is very appreciative of your help around, since the other servants are good at everything but what they're supposed to do.

You with your tough love and Sebastian with his teeth rotting compliments and affection, it'd be honestly really funny to watch. He adores how you show affection, because it's different from most people he's known. But on the other hand, you can't expect him not to spoil you afte all the hard work you do every day?

He would really shower you in love and affection, because you deserve it and because it makes you flustered XD

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.

Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.

Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.

He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.

The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?

We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.

But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”

So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.

Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.

In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.

But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.

Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.

So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.

That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.

If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.

But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.

But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.

In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?

Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.

Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.

Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.

But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.

But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!

[mysmesomefluff]

Merry Christmas! I'm so excited for your choi-mas collab :D Would you mind writing Saeran with MC who doesn't feel happy during Christmas or doesn't like to celebrate it, maybe due to bad memories of them in the past? (Maybe this is asking too much, but please don't make the reason like she's always been alone on Christmas :')) afrfhikfegifvfvhtf I'm sorry if I'm too specific or too demanding;;;; feel free to ignore the details;;;

A long wisp of white mist escapes you as you heave a long sigh while walking aimlessly down the pavement of the quiet park. You’re grateful for the fact that there aren’t that many people around. With your hands stuffed in the pockets of your coat, you take slow steps down the path, listening to the sound of your boots crunching on snow when you stray closer to the edge of the pavement.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, but you ignore it. It’s probably more funny pictures being sent to the messenger. There’s a Christmas party being held at Jumin’s villa for the RFA members at the moment, and from what MC has told you, the party games had been planned by Saeyoung, and the result of that has been quite disastrous for Zen in particular. Saeyoung took a lot of pictures of the handsome actor wearing cat ears and sneezing so hard he looks like his nose might fly off soon. The host wasn’t spared either – Jumin got a beard of whipped cream and was forced to wear a santa hat and costume, though he kept his necktie on. It made for a rather strange-looking santa get-up, but you suppose it does suit him somewhat.

There were a couple of pictures of Saeran sent to the messenger as well, mainly of him holding plate after plate stacked with a mountain of Christmas cookies and treats.

A tiny smile lifts your lips briefly at the pictures of your silly boyfriend that are still fresh in your mind. At least he’s having fun. You’re glad that he’s finally getting the chance to make up for all the years he lost and all the Christmases he had spent alone. The happy gleam in his eyes that you spotted in the photos surfaces in your mind, stirring a pleasant warmth in your chest.

A strong, cold gust of wind that hits you in the face then brings you back to reality.

The dull ache that has been there the past three days returns, settling like a heavy weight on your heart. The small smile on your face vanishes just like that, and you close your eyes, biting down on your lip as your feet shuffle to a stop.

Christmas – it’s the happiest time of the year, a time for laughter and joy, the most wonderful time of the year.

Not for you, it isn’t. Not since two years ago, at least.

Your hand comes up to touch the heart-shaped locket resting over your collarbone. Memories of silver hair fluttering in the warm summer breeze, of her wrinkly eyes shrinking as she smiled happily at you, and of the skin on her forehead creasing in worry whenever you looked tired and weary flood your mind like a gushing river. The ache inside you worsens to the point that it’s suffocating, and you have to swallow the painful lump forming in your throat before moisture starts building in your eyes again.

You continue down the lonely road, eyes downcast and trying to take your thoughts elsewhere, but that doesn’t work. This place is filled with so many sweet, warm memories of her. The children’s playground to your right that you just walked past? You used to play in that sandbox, and she used to chide you for rubbing sand on your face with your dirty hands. The swing just next to it? You would plead with her to keep pushing you while you were on the swing, and she would comply, too soft when it came to your cute round eyes. And this path. She would take your hand in hers as you walked home together, and she would remind you to be careful whenever you skipped and jumped about, and would squeeze your hand in hers more tightly to keep you from falling.

Maybe coming here wasn’t the best idea. You just didn’t want to stay cooped up in your apartment, but out here, it’s hard when you have to hold back your tears and when you’re too drained to dig through your bag for a pack of tissues you’re not sure you even brought.

You come to a stop, figuring you should probably just head home for the night. You just want to go back to your bed, to crawl under your comforter and cry yourself to sleep. Sleep means not thinking, and you want to stop thinking and remembering for a while.

You turn around to walk in the direction of your home, but the moment you do, you hear someone call your name. Someone all too familiar.

Your head snaps up towards the source of the voice, and you’re surprised to see him there, standing a distance away from you beneath the fairy lights strung around the trees by the side of the path, his unruly red hair and scarf flying in the winter breeze.

You feel your heart sink. He shouldn’t be here. He should be at the party, not here, and not now, when you’re in this sort of state, lips quivering and vision blurring with hot tears as each second drags on. You look away and start walking away from him, ignoring the concern in his voice when he calls your name again.

Your pace quickens when you hear his footsteps becoming faster. “What are you doing?” he demands, chasing after you. “Are you running away from me?”

“Leave me alone, Saeran. You shouldn’t even be here. You should be at the party,” you reply over your shoulder, loud enough that he won’t hear the shaking of your voice.

“I got tired and left early.” His footsteps are louder now, and before you can hasten your walking pace you feel his hand latch onto your wrist, stopping you and spinning you around to face him. Resolutely, you keep your face down. “You said you weren’t feeling well so I went to check up on you,” he explains, grip on your wrist tightening. “But you weren’t in your apartment so I panicked and started looking for you. What are you doing out here while you’re running a fever?”

“I’m not,” you reply in a vexed tone, wrenching your wrist from his hold. “I feel fine.”

There’s a beat of silence, before he places a hand on your forehead, and another on his own to check. You don’t even have the energy to protest. Once he’s done ascertaining that you’re physically well, you expect him to let it go and you’re about to ask him to go home and get some rest when he states, “You don’t have a fever, but you are definitely not okay.”

He doesn’t ask why, but the unspoken question lingers in the air and space between you two. Nevertheless, you’re grateful that he doesn’t ask. You can only manage a meek, slight nod at his statement, since there’s no point trying to argue otherwise. Saeran knows you, his eyes never missing a detail when it comes to you. At times like these, you find a small of yourself rather resenting that observant quality of his.

“I’ll walk you home.” He settles for that, taking your hand in his and walking by your side.

A comfortable silence hangs in the air, and you relish in the comforting squeeze that he offers your hand, the warmth of his body next to yours, and the sound of another pair of footsteps apart from yours. You wanted to be alone, but he’ll always be an exception to that. His presence alone is like a thick, warm blanket draped over your shoulders, and you find yourself absently sticking closer to him.

“Thanks,” you whisper, your free hand coming up to brush the tips of your fingers against your locket. Holding his hand and walking like this… It reminds you a lot of the walks you used to take with her, your beloved grandmother. You’ve missed that so much, but more than anything else, you miss her. You miss being able to throw your arms around her and cry into her shoulder when you’re having the worst day, you miss being able to hold her hand and walk down the long stretch of road while talking about anything and everything under the sun.

You miss being able to spend Christmas with her, picking out presents for her, eating her famous roast turkey with the rest of the family and sitting with her by the fireplace when she’s too tired to play games with the younger ones.

Christmas. It’ll never be the same without her.

You sense his questioning gaze on you when your shoulders start to shake, but he doesn’t utter a word. It’s only when you begin to sob that he comes to a stop so he can pull you into his arms and rest your head against his shoulder so you can cry freely into his coat without having to worry about others seeing your face.

He runs his fingers down your hair, gently stroking your head and holding you close to his chest. It only reminds you even more of how she would hold you and stroke your head when you cried.

“I miss her so much,” you sob, fingers digging into the material of his winter coat. “It hurts so bad, Saeran.”

His arms wrap tighter around you, squeezing you tightly. “I know. It was your grandmother’s death anniversary a week ago, right? I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

You pause, still choking on sobs but you manage to pull away to look at his grim expression and ask, “H-How did you know?”

“You started being distant since last week, but I was afraid to ask so I went to check it up, and I just… found out.”

You’re not sure what to think about him digging into your personal information, but it’s not exactly the first time Saeran has done this and it wasn’t as if you were going out of your way to hide it from him – you didn’t want to ruin Christmas for him, that was all. Right now, you can’t find it in yourself to care about that, and you wrap your arms around him, nestling your head in the crook of his neck.

“Are you mad?” he asks hesitantly.

“Not really,” you reply, still sniffling but feeling a little better already. “You could have just asked though.”

“You didn’t seem like you would tell me even if I asked.” Fair enough.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he questions softly.

“I didn’t want to ruin Christmas for you. You deserve a happy Christmas, for the first time in your life since coming back to Saeyoung and MC.”

“It’s not a happy Christmas without you,” he mutters. “Especially not when you’re alone. I know how much it sucks to be alone during Christmas, especially when you’re hurting, and I never want you to feel that way.”

“Saeran…”

“We’ll go to your house, watch some shows if you’re feeling up to it and then we’ll sleep this off. I’ll make you hot chocolate too. Okay?”

That brings a genuine smile to your lips. You nod and hum. “Sounds good.”

“Good. Let’s go, then.” He carefully brushes your tears away when you pull away from him, and then takes your hand in his once more before heading down the path back home.

A/N: This ended up dragging on and on… T_T Hopefully this was okay. Merry Christmas to you anon :)