#both games I've got thousands of hours in!

[vault81]

ik i already did smn like this before but im doing it again!!

(template below cut!)

[christhopersturniolo]

୨ HOCKEY PROBLEMS ୧

summary: you have been having some problems in your relationship with Chris, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t loves you.

notes: this is my first time writing a fanfic, I've always wanted to create one since 2020. english isn't my first language, it's probably not very detailed and there might be some mistakes, so don't expect too much lol. but give me feedback tho, l'd love to know what you think!

warnings: sexual assault, cussing, fluff, about three thousand words I think.

୨୧

My relationship with my boyfriend Chris is not the best. Well, at least, not now.

Lately we’ve been arguing all day long over stupid things, like who gets the last slice of pizza, or who gets the last word in a discussion. And it always ends in the same way. Silent treatment, from both sides. But it's not like Chris or I enjoy it. Most nights, I hear him in the bathroom, where he spend hours in tears. It’s horrible and makes me feel like a piece of shit. Hearing him cry only adds to my own feelings of guilt.

And how do we make things up? Sex, over and over. He would fuck the attitude out of me if he had to.

Me and Chris made a pinky promise that I would never miss any of his Hockey games. And I never did, cause i know how much my presence is important to him. And especially cause we are always in good terms the days before any of his games, but not today, we just argued again about nothing, we haven't talked for the past two days.

Nick and Matt, Chris's brothers, usually text me and offer to pick me up for Chris's games, but this time, their texts never came. It’s like they knew how our relationship was going. Chris definitely told them something.

Now you see myself driving to the arena where he plays in, the game is about to start in 20 minutes, and with this traffic, I don’t know if I will be there in time.

Red sign for the past 5 minutes. I have cars in front of me, behind me and next to me. Fuck. I start getting anxious. My nerves are on edge. I bit my nails subconsciously, the habit I got from my dad. My leg starts shaking. I can’t mess up things even more, I gotta be there, I have to be there.

After what feels like an eternity stuck in traffic, the car in front of me finally starts moving. I let out a sigh of relief as I find a parking spot. After that, I enter the venue where Chris plays (Which wasn’t that big, cause he plays in a small team in our city.)

Before taking a seat I scan the crowd anxiously, searching for any familiar faces, no one, I can’t find anyone, not even his two brothers. “Fuck it” I mumble to myself and I just get in a seat with some random people next to me.

The game is about to start, the crowd is already cheering. The players are drinking water and getting ready to get in the rink. My eyes examine each one of them, looking for Chris, number three. He was with a serious face. ‘Are he’s eyes red?’ I think to myself as I narrow my eyes, my vision is bad as shit, but I can tell he’s eyes are all puffy. He has some big dark circles underneath his pretty blue eyes, he looks fucking exhausted, It was evident that he was crying just now.

The players finally begin to take to the ice, their skates gliding across the surface as they prepare for the game to begin.

On Chris's team, there are six talented players, used to winning every single game. However, this time, they were against a really good team. Chris hated that team. I hated that team. Well, not really the team, but one of the players: Cam, Cameron.

Cam is a completely fucking jerk, in college he would always try to hit on me, but I’ve never really went with his face, what would get on his nerves, especially when I started dating Chris. It went to the point where he would force me to have intimate things with him. He was the worst human alive, and I would do anything to see him dead.

FLASHBACK

I just had PE, finding myself alone in the girls locker room as I change clothes. The sound of the front door opening echoed, followed by quiet footsteps creeping up behind me, sending shivers down my spine. I try to ignore it.

As I slipped my shirt back on, I felt two hands grip the sides of my hips, and a warm breath brushed against my neck. I freeze for two seconds. I know this is not Chris. Without thinking, I instinctively push the hands away and I turn around quickly, only to come face to face with Cameron.

I glare at him, my heart racing with a mix of fear and anger. His smirk widens as he takes a step closer, invading my personal space. "What's the rush, sweetheart?" He whispers, his voice dripping with arrogance.

I take a step back feeling the wall behind me getting closer "What are you even doing here? Get the fuck away from me, Cameron" I say firmly, trying to sound like i’m not scared, but the reality is that I’m pissing my pants.

He chuckles like he’s making fun of me, his eyes glinting with malice. "Or what? You'll tell your precious boyfriend Chris?" He teases, moving closer until I can feel his breath on my face. grabbing my waist and pinning them against the wall. "Come on, babe, you know you want it as much as I do.." he affirms, leaning in to kiss me, touching his lips on mines.

“Get the fuck away!” I whisper yell as i try to punch him away but he grabs my wrists. I struggle against his hold, but his grip tightens, his fingers digging into my skin, definitely leaving red marks.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t move. I start panicking. This is my end.

Tears blur my vision as I plead "Cameron, stop!" My voice trembles with fear as he kisses me, his lips rough and demanding against mine. Each kiss is a painful reminder of my vulnerability. Each kiss feels like a violation. I feel dirty, tainted by his touch everywhere in my body. A wave of nausea churns in the pit of my stomach as I try to move him away from me.

"Stop fucking fighting, you are not getting away from me" He murmurs against my lips "You deserve this, you want this.” I try to move as he keeps pinning me "You think I don’t see the eyes you give me when I walk by? Huh slut?" He scoffs, his hot breath against my face. "You were begging for this."

“I wasn’t begging for any of this. I never gave him any ‘eyes,’ he’s fucking delusional!” I think to myself, but my words remain trapped in my throat, suffocated.

As his lips travel down to my neck, leaving a trail of unwanted kisses, I can’t do anything more than start crying and screaming, kicking my legs and arms.

I never went back to those lockers again.

END OF THE FLASHBACK

I hated him so fucking much, and Chris did even more. And now, they are about to compete against each other.

The moment Chris stepped onto the rink, I could see his eyes looking for someone known on the crowd. Desperately, I raised my hand and waved, hoping he would spot me. And he did. His face automatically softened into a gentle smile, erasing some of the tension that had been weighing on me, but he was still with his tired eyes.

The game started with an intensity that matched the tension in the air. Both teams were determined to win. Cameron eyes were burning with rage. At this point, they weren’t competing as a team, it wasn’t about the game, it was about their personal life.

As the game progressed, the rivalry between them two escalated. They began to argue on the ice, each vying for control of the puck with increasing aggression.

Chris managing to gain possession of the puck and score two goals in less than five minutes. But Cam, folded by his own anger, refused to back down. Without thinking he charged towards him at full speed. Cameron swung his stick, causing Chris to trip and fall hard onto the ice.

“What the fuck is he doing?” I say out loud as I get up from my seat to get a better view. Chris remained on the ground for what felt like an eternity, clearly in pain. Every player on the ice stopped and looked around confused without knowing what to do, but not Cameron. He keeps going with the puck in direction to make a goal, with a visible smile on his lips. But then he notices how everyone really stopped and he slows down too, annoyed, not showing any regret.

The thing is, my boyfriend is in a fetal position on the ice, unable to move and no one is doing anything about it? That’s not happening, not with Chris. Without a second thought, I get up from my seat, whispering apologies to those I brushed past as I made my way to the rink. Ignoring the stares and comments from the crowd, I stepped onto the ice, my focus solely on reaching Chris. I get in the rink. I don’t give a shit about who’s watching me.

Kneeling beside Chris. His nose was bleeding, he looked pale and disoriented. Gently, I placed a hand on his shoulder, my voice trembling with concern. "Chris" I whisper, my voice shaking "Are you okay? Please look at me..” I beg in a desperate tone

Chris struggled to respond, his voice barely above a whisper as he fought through the pain "Y-Yeah.. I’m fine.." His eyes half-closed in discomfort.

Suddenly, the sound of approaching footsteps drew my attention, and I glanced up to see some of the players from both teams getting around us, their expressions a mix of confusion and concern. Sensing the seriousness of the situation, a few of them hurried off to get help, while others stood by, unsure of what to do.

“Is he okay?” One of Chris's teammates asked as he knelt beside me, his voice filled with worry.

My anxiety spiked at the sight of Chris's condition, and I couldn't help but let my frustration show. "No, he’s not!" I replied, my voice unintentionally louder than intended. "Don’t you guys have nurses or some kind of medical staff here?!"

The teammate glanced back at me, his expression uncertain. "Yeah, I’m pretty sure they're on their way, don’t worry, he will be fine” He said sounding unsure.

I gently place Chris head on my lap, whispering sweet and calming words on his ear while we wait for someone help us. What I was saying was comforting me more than Chris.

Finally the arena's medical staff arrived, urging us to clear the area around Chris. They place him on a stretcher and wheeling him out of the rink. As they took Chris away, I followed closely behind them, my steps quickening to keep pace with their hurried movements. "Hey, excuse me," I called out to one of the workers, my voice tinged with desperation "Is it okay if I stay with him?" But they seemed way too focused on their task, ignoring me completely as they rushed Chris to a small emergency room they had here, leaving me behind on the hallway, my heart pounded with worry and frustration. But before I could even process what was happening, a familiar voice cut through the silence. I turn around,

Cameron.

"Look who it is" He says, his gaze fixated on me with an unsettling intensity. "Never thought I'd see you here, playing the concerned girlfriend” He chuckles.

My blood boiled at his words, the memories of his unwanted advances and aggressive behavior flooding back with nauseating clarity. "You're sick, Cameron." My voice trembling with rage “You can’t even stand losing a fucking game, you are insane.” I stay some seconds in silence before talking again "You better stay the hell away from me and Chris."

Cameron's smirk widened, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction as he reveled in my discomfort. "Or what?" He teases, taking a step closer "You gonna hit me? Huh?” He talks in a mocking way

I raised my hand and delivered a good slap on his left cheek, the sound echoing through the empty hallway. "I fucking hate you!" I yell, my voice trembling with rage as I glared at him with undisguised contempt.

Before Cameron could react, the sound of approaching footsteps coming in our attention, and I glanced up to see some of Chris's teammates rushing towards us, their expressions a mix of concern and confusion.

"What's going on here?" The same blonde guy with a four in his shirt asks, his voice tinged with urgency as he eyed Cameron with suspicion.

"Nothing," he muttered, attempting to regain his composure, "I was just.. checking on Chris. But the workers said we have to wait, and unfortunately, I've got somewhere else to be." Cameron lies, fuck he’s good at lying.

He gets closer to me, placing his hand on my shoulder, rubbing it gently. “I hope he gets better” He said in a fake nice tone, like he means it, I move his hand away from me, making him get slightly angry again, he leaves. I watch him go, feeling a sense of relief wash over me knowing that he was finally out of here.

Turning back to Chris's teammate, I say “Anyways..” I take a deep breath “I will just wait here until they say something”

The blonde one nods understanding. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan to me” He replies, his voice filled with sympathy “So, the game was canceled, and we got shit to do, so we can’t really wait here”

“Yeah sure, no problem, I understand” I respond, I try to sound so nice as he is sounding “I'll make sure Chris texts you guys after he leaves the room.”

Chris's teammate nodded appreciatively and they all began to leave to the same direction as Cameron. I sit into a chair next to the door where Chris was, my mind racing thinking about Chris.

Some good ten minutes after, one of the workers is leaving the room, I look up at him, catching his attention. “Excuse me,” I begin, my voice laced with anticipation “can I see Chris?”

He nods, offering a small smile. “Of course, go ahead” He replies kindly before disappearing down the hallway.

Before I enter the room, I take a few deep breaths to control my anxiety. Knocking gently on the door, I slowly open it. He was sitting in a long bench with elastic bandage on his ankle and wrist. Chris's eyes light up at the moment he sees me and a warm smile spreads across his face.

“Shit Chris, I just slapped Cameron in the face!” I say as I close the door behind me. Chris immediately starts laughing. his laugh is contagious. I sit down next to him. “You did not” He keeps laughing

“What’s so funny? I’m being serious” I chuckle, feeling the tension ease from my mind as Chris's laughter fills the room.

"I'm sorry, babe" he says between laughs "But when was that?”

“Literally like fifteen minutes ago! Gosh he’s so fucking annoying! And did you see the way he literally made you fall on purpose? I could break his face right now” I say in a dramatic tone, making him laugh even more.

“Anyways he doesn’t matter..” I look around thinking about what to say “So what did the nurses say?”

Chris's laughter subsides as he leans back against the bench, his expression growing more serious “Nothing much.. I just sprained my foot and my wrist, but nothing much”

“Nothing much?!” I say slightly shocked with his words.

Chris chuckles softly, shaking his head at my reaction. "Okay, maybe it's a bit more than 'nothing much,' but I'll survive" He says with a reassuring smile, though I can see the pain behind his eyes.

I gently reach his injured hand, my thumb tracing comforting circles on the back of his hand. "I'm just glad it's nothing too serious," I say softly, my voice filled with genuine concern. "But still, I can't believe Cameron did that to you! He's such a pussy!" My last sentence makes Chris laugh again.

As I watch him, a sense of relief washes over me, knowing that despite everything, we are still able to find humor in the situation.

Some minutes talking until the silence fills back the room. We are definitely both thinking about the argument we had days ago, cause we didn’t talked since.

“I.. I wasn’t expecting for you to watch the game today” Chris says slightly looking down.

I stay in silence for some seconds “Listen, Chris" I begin, my voice soft but determined "About the arguments we've been having lately.. I know things haven't been the best.. But..” I sigh “But I still care about you, and I always will.”

Chris looks up at me, his eyes softening with emotion as he listens to my words. "I care about you too" He says, his voice filled with sincerity. "I hate that we've been arguing so much, especially over stupid shit.. I just.. I don't want to lose you.”

A small smile tugs at the corners of my lips as I reach out to gently cup his cheek. "You're not going to lose me, Chris." I assure him. My thumb brushing over his skin affectionately.

He gently buries his face on the crook of my neck, I lay my chin on the top of his head, and I wrap my arms around him, holding him close.

"I'm sorry for everything," Chris murmurs against my skin. "I don't want us to keep fighting like this."

Now I run my fingers through his hair, feeling a sense of peace settle over us. "I'm sorry too.." My voice sounding like a whisper. "Let's try to work through this together, okay?" He nods softly.

I kiss his head “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He answers quietly.

୨୧

hey, this is the end! i hope you have enjoyed it, if u saw any miss spelling or anything tell me in the comments, please.

also, i think it got kinda confusing cause i was using words on the past and in the present, but idk 😭😭

[mxrvelouss]

The Scene at the Mall (pt 2) | Mike Schmidt x Reader

warning: brief mentions of a toxic relationship and harrassment, fluff

note: be sure to read pt 1 if you haven't already! :)

also! there is a hunger games reference, see if you can spot it! ;)

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

Your gentle laugh rings through Mike's ears, causing him to look at you with a wide smile. The two of you walk through the mall, hands intertwined, staring into each others' adoring eyes.

"I love my necklace," you say, softly touching the shiny piece of jewelry that sat on your chest.

"You picked it out," Mike laughs.

"Yeah, but you paid," you retort, giggling. The two of you continued to smile at each other. Oh, how you wished you could stay in this moment forever.

******

Ever since he potentially saved your life at the very same mall about a year ago, you made it a point to go there every time after work, since it was just right down the street from the restauraunt you waitressed at. And every single time, there he was, patrolling the place as a security guard.

He sure works a lot, you remember thinking to yourself. It wasn't until a few months after you met that you found out the reason for that was so he could take care of his little sister, Abby. "I'd do anything for her," he told you one night as he walked you out to your car after his shift was over. "Even if it means working a thousand hours a week- as long as it means a better life for her, I would do absolutely anything."

And now here you were, holding hands with this perfect guy. You two had offically been a couple for two and a half months now; and you had never been happier. Abby loved you, and you would help her and Mike at every possible chance. For once, the both of you were off work today, and Abby was at school- so the two of you decided to go to the mall after having breakfast at his house.

"Aren't you sick of that place?" you teased as you got into the passenger seat of his car.

"Yeah, but I want to buy you a necklace," he said, blushing. "I've been saving up."

"Mike!" you exclaim. "No. You know you don't have to get me-"

He reached over and softly put his index finger on your lip, cutting you off. "Shhh. I've made up my mind."

You sit back, sighing in mock defeat. "Alright, you win," you giggle.

Once the two of you got to the mall and went to the jewelry store, a beautiful, silver necklace with a heart at the end caught your eye. When you saw the price, however, you didn't want to ask- but it was too late. Mike already saw the way your eyes lit up, and he got a worker to get it out of the glass case before you could even react.

Mike looked over at you as the worker handed him the jewelry. "Don't feel bad. I promise this is what I want for you. Okay?"

You nodded, and he started to bring the necklace up to your neck. "May I?"

He went behind you, gently bringing the necklace over your shoulders and clasping it around your neck. The feel of his fingers against your skin made you shiver.

"There," he said, turning you around to look at the necklace.

"Mike Schmidt, you're better at putting on necklaces than me!" you laughedd.

"Well," he grinned. "I've had some practice with Abby. My mom has a few necklaces that she likes to wear sometimes." He looked down and started to shuffle his feet.

You put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you," you said softly. You take his hands, lean in, and give him a soft kiss on the cheek.

Once Mike paid, the two of you walked out, hand in hand, and started to stroll down the area.

"It's definitely a lot easier to enjoy the mall when you don't have to work," Mike says.

Your gentle laugh rings through Mike's ears, causing him to look at you with a wide smile. The two of you walk through the mall, hands intertwined, staring into each others' adoring eyes.

"I love my necklace," you say, softly touching the shiny piece of jewelry that sat on your chest.

"But you picked it out," Mike laughs.

"Yeah, but you paid," you retort, giggling. The two of you continued to smile at each other. Oh, how you wished you could stay in this moment forever.

But all good things must come to an end, because at that moment, a voice from behind catches your attention, immediately sending chills down your spine.

"Well, well, y/n. Nice to see that you moved on."

You whip around, letting go of Mike's hand. The man (now in front of you) continues.

"It's been, what, two years since the breakup?" he sneers. "You won't be able to forget me, no matter how hard you try, y/n." Everything in you just wanted to run as far away from him as possible. This was Danny, your ex-boyfriend from high school. What started as a typical high school romance turned into a controlling, toxic relationship. You felt your cheeks turn red as Mike protectively inched closer to you. You could feel his body starting to tense up.

"Do you know him?" he asks, his voice low.

"'Course she does," Danny says. "We have a lot of...history. Don't we, y/n?" He looks down at you, a twisted smile spreading across his face.

"Why are you acting like such a creep?!" you burst out. "Leave us alone." You couldn't deal with this, not now, not ever. Things were so perfect with Mike, and now you were scared that, somehow, in some way, Danny would convince Mike that you weren't good enough for him.

Just like he convinced you you'd never fall in love again.

Suddenly Danny's eyes start to travel down your face, your neck, and then lands on your chest, where the necklace lays. You feel sick.

"Ah, so did Lover Boy over here buy you this?" Danny suddenly stretches out his arm and grabs hold of your necklace.

"What the-?!" Mike screams, shoving Danny away and grabbing hold of your hand. He places himself in front of you and Danny, who is smiling, as if he's amused by the whole situation.

"Don't you ever touch me again," you say, your voice trembling. Mike looks at you, concerned, and gives your hand a reassuring squeeze before he lets go. He walks toward Danny, inches away from his face.

"Get out of here," Mike says, his voice dangerously low. "And don't ever come near y/n again."

"Or what, Lover Boy?" Danny sneers again.

"Or I'll call the authorities and have you arrested for assault." Mike reaches into his pocket and pulls out an ID which says he's a mall security guard. "Unless you want me to do so right now? I do happen to know the head of security here..."

You smile. Go, Mike! you cheer in your head.

Danny's arrogant smile fades. He looks at you one more time. "It won't last," he says. "Soon you'll be running back to me."

"Get. Out." Mike growls. And finally, Danny turns and walks away.

Mike turns to you, grabbing hold of your hands. You start to talk. "I'm so, so sorry-"

"Hey, hey, hey, you don't have to apologize for anything," Mike says, gently placing his palm on your cheek and brushing a strand of hair out of your face. He pulls you into a hug, and you happily accept it, letting the warmth of his strong body spread over you.

"I guess you can see why that relationship didn't work out," you say into his shoulder with a weak laugh.

"Maybe you should stop going to malls," Mike jokes back as he pulls away from the embrace and looks at you with loving eyes. You chuckle, looking back into them.

"This will last," he says confidently, his hands on your shoulders.

"I know," you say with a soft smile. "And this will prove it."

You wrap your hands around his waist, pulling him forward, and softly press your lips against his. He kisses back with such love and gentleness that you just want to explode with emotion. He brings his hands through your hair and then pulls back, his hands now cupping your face.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too, Mike."

[oizysian]

II. MEETING BRIE

All Eyes on Me masterlist

Word count: 1.4k

•

The following day, Twitch made a Tweet about our charity stream, showcasing Brie and I as advocates for LGBTQ+ youth. I was honored, completely taken aback by the influx of positive comments and support. We had done something great and would hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Brie messaged me once she saw it, excited that I was getting the exposure I deserved for being a content creator. I didn't feel as though I deserved the popularity just because I was doing something decent. I just wanted to help people, not become famous from doing good deeds.

I gained thousands of followers overnight, and an overwhelmingly large amount of them found me through Brie despite the shout out from Twitch. At this point, I owed her a lot.

She helped me book a flight and hotel in Los Angeles for the next few days so I had a chance to explore with her before the party. My flight was in a few hours and, naturally being me, I haven't finished packing yet.

"Yeah, no, I really have to go soon. I need to finish packing. I've only put together my toiletries so far." I spoke to Claire via my headset. We were playing a round of Call of Duty Zombies instead of having me pack.

"I can't believe you're going to LA without me. To meet celebrities."

"You don't even live in this country. You'd probably miss the party even if you left right now." I teased her.

"Yeah, well, you still could have invited me."

"I didn't even invite me." I chuckled. "Brie had to convince me to go."

"Oh yeah, sure. I bet she really had to pull some teeth to get you to travel to meet Elizabeth Olsen."

"It took at least five minutes of convincing before I agreed." I tried to defend myself weakly. We both knew it truly didn't take much to get me to go.

"Mhm. Come revive me."

"Alright, but after this, I really need to go."

"Okay, okay, go. But once you get home we're streaming together again. I miss our dynamic."

"People think we're gay and dating."

"We are gay, Y/N."

"But not dating, loser."

"Don't you have something you should be doing?" She laughed and I rolled my eyes.

"You're right, I do. See ya, loser."

I left the game and the party, tossing my controller and headset on the bed before leaning back and sighing. I was stressed as all hell about this trip. I was going to meet Elizabeth fucking Olsen. Or maybe I wasn't and Brie was just fucking with me.

I groaned, sitting up on the bed fully and pushing myself to get up and finish packing. I was only staying for a few days so I didn't need much, but I still managed to pack more than I needed to.

I called an Uber to take me to the airport and I couldn't help but fidget nervously as we drove. What if she was just playing a joke on me? What if this was all an elaborate scheme to make me look and feel stupid?

No. Brie was my friend.

I knew this was just my anxiety talking, trying to make me doubt everything I knew and find the bad where there's actually good.

I took a deep breath and tried to relax. This was going to be an amazing couple of days and my anxiety was not going to ruin it for me.

After thanking the driver, I got out with my suitcase, lugging it behind me as I entered JFK airport. At least I would be able to nap once I got on the plane.

Once I got through security and boarded my flight, I found that it was impossible to nap. My nerves were just through the roof. Brie had messaged me before I got on the plane that she would be waiting for me when we landed and that gave me a little bit of extra comfort. I never really traveled by myself so I was a little nervous to be on my own.

I was lucky enough to get a window seat, probably thanks to Brie, and I spent the whole six hour trip looking out the window. Time flew by when my mind wasn't racing with anxious thoughts.

As promised, Brie was waiting for me when I got off the plane and collected my luggage, although I didn't recognize her until she came up to me. She was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap to hide her identity, and it worked really well.

"Hey there, Y/N." Her smooth voice startled me and I had to do a double take before realizing it was her.

"Brie?" I asked before smiling, wrapping my arms around her in a big hug.

I wasn't usually a hugger, but it felt like I was seeing an old friend after many years of being apart. She squeezed me back even tighter than I squeezed her and I was momentarily reminded that she was an Avenger, and that she was very strong.

"How was your flight?" She asked as she led me out of LAX.

"It was okay. I mostly just watched the clouds."

"Were the movies that boring?" She joked and I smiled, shaking my head.

"No, I just think a lot. Plus, it's not often I find myself in the sky."

"We'll have to get you out here more often then."

We drove to the hotel, chatting casually about what there was to see and do in California. I was excited to experience everything the state had to offer, but hearing her describe everything was a little overwhelming.

"We're not doing all of that in one visit, are we?" I asked playfully.

"Of course not." She shot me a crooked smile. "The things we don't see and do will give you an excuse to come visit again."

"I just got here and you're already planning my next visit?" I joked and she laughed, nodding.

"Absolutely. I'm glad to have you here. We're gonna have a good time."

"Definitely." I agreed as she parked near the hotel.

She came up to my room with me, helping me drag along my luggage.

"What the hell do you have in here? A dead body?" She groaned as we entered the room.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic." I threw myself back onto the bed, sighing as I sunk into the comfortable mattress. "It's not even that heavy."

"Yeah, sure, and I'm six feet tall."

"Shuddup." I laughed as she dropped down on the bed next to me.

We laid together for a while, relaxing until our bellies growled and we had to order room service. This hotel was pretty fancy as the menu served items in other languages and I could only imagine how much it all cost.

Brie ordered wine and we ate and talked until it was nighttime. It felt good to just be myself with someone who seemed to understand me. She wasn't a typical celebrity. Brie was down to earth and damn near normal for an Oscar winner and an Avenger.

"So tomorrow we're gonna go out to eat at this really great restaurant I was introduced to recently and then we'll go explore downtown. There are some awesome shops you'll definitely want to visit at least once while you're here."

I smiled at her excitement.

"Hopefully I can afford stuff here. Everything seems so expensive."

"Of course you can afford stuff. You're a big Twitch streamer now." She teased.

"No, I'm not big. I'm not even medium."

"Stop selling yourself short!" She smacked my arm and I feigned injury.

"Ow, oh no, I'm crippled now. Oh, the pain." I pretended to writhe on the bed next to her and she raised herself up on her elbows, looking down at me.

"Boy, you're a good actress. Do you need me to kiss the boo-boo better?" She asked with a playfully raised eyebrow.

I smiled up at her and grabbed at my arm dramatically.

"I might need more wine, actually."

"Oh, and then you'll want a kiss?"

"Heh, maybe." I sat up, retrieving my glass from the end table and refilling it with the nearby wine bottle. "You wanna kiss me that badly, huh?" I joked.

"Maybe." She whispered and I turned to look at her, her eyes heavy and clearly glazed over with intoxication.

"You're sloshed, Brie." I laughed, sipping from my glass. "You need to sleep."

She looked at me for a moment before laying back down on the bed, rolling over on her side and sighing.

"You're right. I'm exhausted."

A moment later, she was snoring softly, and I was left wondering if I would've actually kissed her if we had both been sober.

•

@oh-thats-cute @marvelwomen-simp

[antimony-medusa]

MCYT on Ao3 - February '24

The state of MCYT on Ao3, just for fun. Yes I do this every month, I like numbers.

The Cube SMP (8 works)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works)

iDots SMP (23 works)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works)

Legacy SMP (27 works)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works)

Content SMP (30 works)

Epic SMP (34 works)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works)

Dominion SMP (40 works)

Tiredtwt (Video Blogging RPF) (42 works)

Showtime SMP (48 works)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works)

X Life SMP (51 works)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (55 works)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works)

Bear SMP (59 works)

SadSMP (66 works)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (70 works)

Mer SMP (84 works)

Area Unknown SMP (88 works)

Kaboodle SMP (94 works)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (151 works)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works)

New Life SMP (177 works)

WitchCraft SMP (190 works)

Rats SMP (238 works)

Pirates SMP (233 works)

SMPLive (299 works)

SMPEarth (318 works)

Mianite (Web Series) (386 works)

Afterlife SMP (402 works)

Outsiders SMP (413 works)

MindCrack RPF (505 works)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (567 works)

Evolution SMP (713 works)

Karmaland SMP (857 works)

Minecraft Diaries - Aphmau (Web Series) (964 works)

Fable SMP (1,072 works)

Origins SMP (1,594 works)

Lifesteal SMP (1,607 works)

The Yogscast (3,220 works)

Empires SMP (6,596 works)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (8,104 works)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,894 works)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,809 works)

Dream SMP (84,460 works)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,435 works)

Video Blogging RPF (282,935 works)

Some notes

A new fandom this month! Showtime SMP is new, bringing this up to 49 tags that I track.

Fics are still primarily in english, but we have three exceptions with significant spanish fics. Karmaland (750 of 857 are in spanish, from 740 last month), Tortillaland (109 of 115 are in spanish, down from 110 last month), and QSMP (827 of 8104 are in spanish, from 752 last month.)

QSMP also shows 43 fics in French, up from 39 last month, and 452 in Brasilian Portugese, up from 405 last month. While I did not check every language this month, I checked on the languages I knew had a fic in QSMP and we see 1 fic in ASL (probably a misclick as it appears to be in english), 1 fic in Bahasa Malaysia, 1 fic in Dansk (Danish), 1 fic in Deutsch (German), 1 fic in Esperanto, 1 fic in Filipino, 5 works in European Portugese, 2 fics in Polski (Polish), 7 fics in Русский (Russian) (up from 5 last month), 1 fic in Suomi (Finnish), 1 fic in Svenska (Swedish), 1 fic in Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), and 3 fics in 中文-普通话 國語 (Mandarin Chinese, I believe). While a 한국어 (Korean) speaker was recently added to the QSMP, there are currently no fics in 한글 (written Korean).

In the small and micro-sized fandoms, several of the smaller fandoms posted a decrease, including Legacy SMP, Bear SMP, and Area Unknown. HBG, on the other hand, posted a frankly impressive 16-fic increase, and both New Life and Witchcraft saw a 8-fic increase.

In the mid-sized fandoms, the showstopper was Minecraft Diaries, which went up a staggering 140 fics, which makes me suspect a sub-tag got wrangled into them. Pirates SMP and Outsiders SMP both saw 20 fic increases, and Mystreet saw an increase of 24 fics.

In the post-canon big fandoms, Empires went up by 188 works, which is an increase on both January's 178 and December's 117, but not beating November's 240. Dream SMP's increase of 591 works is the single lowest number I've seen since I've started tracking tags, being exceeded by both January's 918 and December's 767, which were the first months I'd seen the increase being lower than a thousand. 3rd Life, now that we're outside of a season, posted a respectable 558 fics, down from last month's record high of 831.

In the currently airing big fandoms, Hermitcraft saw that new-season boom, as it posted 716 fics, not as high as January's 784 (holiday exchanges), but beating both December and November's 574 and 651. QSMP posted 729 fics this month, which is part of a four-month decline (865 last month, 894 the month before, 913 the month before), but is still the fandom with the single biggest increase over a month. Incidentally, that means that Dream SMP is beat by both Hermitcraft and QSMP this month, and 3rd life is close behind it.

Overall, the number of fics posted under Video Blogging-RPF (the umbrella fandom that contains all MCYT), is 3,513 fics, down from January's 4,223, December's 3,489, and November's 4,035. Incidentally, it's very close to what we saw last year at the same time, as February '23 saw a VB RPF increase of 3,674.

Detailed breakdown under the cut.

The Cube SMP (8 works, 8 last month, 0-fic increase)

Slamacow Minecraft Animations (Web Series) (10 works, 10 last month, 0-fic increase)

iDots SMP (23 works, 23 last month, 0-fic increase)

30 Day SMP | Free Trial SMP (27 works, 27 last month, 0-fic increase)

Legacy SMP (27 works, 28 last month, 1-fic decrease)

Cogchamp SMP (29 works, 29 last month, 0-fic increase)

Content SMP (30 works, 30 last month, 0-fic increase)

Epic SMP (34 works, 32 last month, 2-fic increase)

Art of Survival SMP (36 works, 36 last month, 0-fic increase)

Dominion SMP (40 works, 38 last month, 2-fic increase)

Tiredtwt (Video Blogging RPF) (42 works, new tag this month)

Showtime SMP (48 works, new tag this month)

Shady Oaks SMP (49 works, 49 last month, 0-fic increase)

X Life SMP (51 works, 51 last month, 0-fic increase)

100 Hours Hardcore SMP (55 works, 54 last month, 1-fic increase)

IvoryCello's Prison Escapes (Web Series) (56 works, 56 last month, 0-fic incrase)

Bear SMP (59 works, 60 last month, 1-fic decrease)

SadSMP (66 works, 66 last month, 0-fic increase)

My Inner Demons - Aphmau (Web Series) (70 works, 67 last month, 3-fic increase)

Mer SMP (84 works, 82 last month, 2-fic increase)

Area Unknown SMP (88 works, 89 last month, 1-fic decrease)

Kaboodle SMP (94 works, 91 last month, 3-fic increase)

Tortillaland SMP (115 works, 115 last month, 0-fic increase)

House Builder Gang SMP | HBG SMP (151 works, 135 last month, 16-fic increase)

Slimecicle Cinematic Universe (Web Series) (174 works, 174 last month, 0-fic increase)

New Life SMP (177 works, 169 last month, 8-fic increase)

WitchCraft SMP (190 works, 182 last month, 8-fic increase)

Rats SMP (238 works, 234 last month, 4-fic increase)

Pirates SMP (233 works, 213 last month, 20-fic increase)

SMPLive (299 works, 294 last month, 5-fic increase)

SMPEarth (318 works, 304 last month, 14-fic increase)

Mianite (Web Series) (386 works, 379 last month, 7-fic increase)

Afterlife SMP (402 works, 395 last month, 7-fic increase)

Outsiders SMP (413 works, 393 last month, 20-fic increase)

MindCrack RPF (505 works, 504 last month, 1-fic increase)

MyStreet - Aphmau (Web Series) (567 works, 543 last month, 24-fic increase)

Evolution SMP (713 works, 693 last month, 20-fic increase)

Karmaland SMP (857 works, 842 last month, 15-fic increase)

Minecraft Diaries - Aphmau (Web Series) (964 works, 824 last month, 140-fic increase)

Fable SMP (1,072 works, 1,012 last month, 60-fic increase)

Origins SMP (1,594 works, 1,575 last month, 19-fic increase)

Lifesteal SMP (1,607 works, 1,546 last month, 62-fic increase)

The Yogscast (3,220 works, 3,215 last month, 5-fic increase)

Empires SMP (6,596 works, 6,408 last month, 188-fic increase)

QSMP | Quackity SMP (8,104 works, 7,375 last month, 729-fic increase)

3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series (10,894 works, 10,336 last month, 558-fic increase)

Hermitcraft SMP (20,809 works, 20,093 last month, 716-fic increase)

Dream SMP (84,460 works, 85,051 last month, 591-fic increase)

Minecraft (Video Game) (110,435 works, 110,119 last month, 316-fic increase)

Video Blogging RPF (282,935 works, 279,422 last month, 3,513-fic increase)

[klysanderelias]

It's always funny to me when a big-name youtuber argues vociferously that souls-like games DO have a difficulty setting, it's Playing The Game Right (leveling, build, using summons, etc), and then later on in the same video will have a fifteen minute long section complaining about how certain boss fights completely invalidate certain builds or require you to drastically alter your style of play, and i'm like... I thought you were in FAVOR of this.

And of course they're not, they just don't understand what a difficulty setting IS anymore, and that's completely fair because I think that most DEVELOPERS don't either, but it means that the criticism they make is always couched in a fundamental misunderstanding of the thing they're trying to criticise (and also usually a complete misunderstanding of where the criticism comes from).

And I want to be clear, I've beaten basically every single Dark Souls game, I beat bloodborne, I played shitloads of elden ring and the reason I didn't beat it was because I got bored, and I've done speedruns and soul level 1 runs of dark souls 3. I'm pretty much the dark souls power player that everyone expects would argue AGAINST having difficulty options.

But.

I've been playing thousands of hours of battletech, and the battletech difficulty screen has been the singlehandedly biggest argument I've had change my mind.

In the game, Battletech modifies difficulty per mission by changing the total health of enemies, changing their skills and experience levels, the usual fare of difficulty curves (although damage is never affected, thank god). But having all these granular options can dramatically change the way the game is played without simply affecting health values or hit percentages.

Toggling mech destruction and lethality means that losing a mech in a mission or having a pilot be knocked unconscious removes them permanently. They're killed, destroyed, you need to go get a new one. That's a HUGE change from the base difficulty where having a mech be completely destroyed in combat just removes the weapon components and costs a ton to repair. Likewise, changing the number of parts required to buy or salvage in order to complete a mech DRAMATICALLY changes the game - the maximum amount of parts you can get from a single mech is 3, and usually you only get 1. Needing 3 parts means that if you're lucky, you could see a brand new mech in a mission, blow its head off, and get one for free. Moving that scale up both means that rare or expensive mechs take much much longer to earn, but also that replacing mechs takes much longer (meaning that losses are even more painful).

Like, every single one of these options can dramatically affect how you play the game or change the feel of it to something much more interesting to you as a player - do you want to play a rogue-like game where you have to save and scrounge to get new mechs, and each mech and pilot is a precious resource you have to protect? or do you want to powerscale fast and constantly get new mechs and rare weapons?

And like, having extremely granular options for gameplay isn't for everyone, but then again, there are the owlcat pathfinder CRPGs that do this same thing, but have a base 'easy-normal-hard' sort of slider that automatically selects certain options, and you can adjust them if you want. If you're not interested in going through each slider you can just say 'I'd like normal please' and the game automatically makes all the selections, but you can also stop and say 'hey actually let me turn on permadeath too' and you can do that.

And I think that when people think about difficulty, they think about the most basic 'health and damage adjustments' sliders, and not ANYTHING else that actually have much more of an impact. I will hit this point to my grave that dark souls would massively benefit from difficulty options like turning off instakill effects (like curse or petrification) or removing the harsh penalty of dying when you can't get back to your bloodstain because a) that's often what drive new players off the most, and b) it doesn't fuckin' matter anyway, all you're losing is souls, the only thing it does is make you have to go grind more to make up for it.

And of course, there are always EXTRA challenge runs people come up with - nuzlocke runs of pokemon, soul level 1 runs of dark souls, hell, when I do Battletech I often add additional challenges like 'no intentional destruction of civilian buildings' or 'each mech must be assigned to a pilot and if one of them is sidelined, so is the other'

But challenge runs aren't difficulty settings, and more importantly there's no way to unchallenge run a game. You can decide to make the game harder for yourself, but you can't make the game EASIER. And when people say that you can, they're lying to you. Like yeah, there builds that are very strong in dark souls, and leveling optimally will make the game easier, but if you don't know what optimal leveling looks like, it's pointless. If you have a deep and thorough understanding of the game, and you check the messageboards, and delve through the wiki, and use a couple of exploits, the game will be easy! And if it's still too hard for you after that? Well, go fuck yourself, you just spent hours of your life doing research only to give up on the game anyway.

And the truth is, most people who argue that dark souls shouldn't have a difficulty slider are doing it out of bad faith, because they have a certain amount of ego riding on 'being good at hard game' as a character trait, and making these games more accessible frightens them because what if being good at dark souls isn't actually getting them into heaven

but also because they're somehow afraid that having extra difficulty options in the game will tempt them into choosing them? And then they won't get the 'true experience'?

Gamers are some of the most fragile people in existence that the mere option of reducing difficulty sends them into hysterics.

[sunlightsilence]

MY THOUGHTS ON SIDE ORDER

If you see this, you don't have #side order or #side order spoilers blocked. .

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So. Side order's gameplay is fantastic to me, I've completed it with all 12 palettes now. I love splatoon and I love roguelikes so this was sort of a match made in heaven for me.

Creating the OP builds, the final boss, the general colours and music and vibe of the game is amazing! Everything to do with Pearl and Marina are *amazing* and they're so hella gay it's adorable :D And I love that they're not even hiding the queer representation now. Marina having a sprawled out Pearl as her desktop background is so cute, even seeing an elevator scene where they gush about eachother, and another one where Marina worries that Acht is hitting on Pearl.

And... cannon They/Them Acht! I remember all the people on Reddit being like "it's just the marketing team mistranslating their pronouns in a tweet!" NOPE, it's in game too!

Hell yeah :D Smollusk is adorable and I love him, and maybe we finally have a splatoon villain tumblr won't turn into a tumblr sexyman since he's a literal infant xD

And Pearl Drone is so hecking cute, I love her so much!! If you spin around in the lobby she spins too, and if you stay still she falls asleep :D

I did my first run with Brella cause it's my fav and it has my beloved inkstorm kit from S2! It took me three tries before I beat the tower for the first time, but then every run afterwards with different weapons I've always cleared it (I was got bounced off the tower for that first death and the second I was caught offguard by how fast the reefslider spam is)! Brella was definitely my favourite run, but I also really enjoyed the roller and brush runs. My roughest run was with the Splatling. I had dreaded doing charger after that, but charger turned into my fastest run!

I could see myself unwinding in this mode hundreds more times. I am saying this all to demonstrate that I really love this DLC, it might be my favourite of all the single player modes so far, either that or S2 hero mode. So my following criticisms are out of love for it because it's close to perfect. So the big one is... "the dlc is too short!" I hear that a lot on both tumblr and reddit and someone inevitably chimes in with "You don't play a lot of roguelikes, do you?" I mean... do YOU? I've done over 100 runs in Wizard of Legend, and thousands of hours on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Etrian Mystery Dungeon. Yes it's made to be run multiple times, but when a run is only 20-30 minutes it's still only about 6 hours of content if you do all the palettes. And these could be fixed with the assets they already have! Like imagine an Endless mode where the difficulty (enemy speed and hp values and number of spawns) kept ramping up higher and higher each floor, with the leader board being kept track of on the app. Or a daily tower run to save a random cephalopod from being grayscaled - the daily inkling/octoling's palette giving you a random weapon/sub/special for that day that followed the rules of 8's Octoshot (more hacks = less chip slots). Or like a super hard difficulty mode - imagine a mode where every floor had a danger modifier, and maybe a Parallel Cannon spawns into the stage to try to hunt you down (maybe it's even invincible so you have to run away from it while doing the stage objective?) I know the Octoshot is kind of the "hard mode" (it's still not too bad though since it's basically just like starting from the beginning without hacks), but it's not fun being limited to just the one weapon type. Especially for it for people who find the regular shooters boring. I don't feel like this is an unreasonable request either, Wizard of Legend - a roguelike made by *two* people - for instance has a few options for post game challenge runs (a randomized mode, a mode where the enemies start from the highest difficulty from floor 1, an extra long run that touches on all the bosses, a BOSS RUSH mode, Curses - basically one thing gets massively buffed while a second thing gets massively debuffed). The Mystery Dungeon games tend to have unlockable MASSIVE dungeons that start you off from having nothing. (like imagine a 99 floor floor tower where you started with no hacks, and a basic shooter with no sub/special and you had to earn new weapons/subs/specials/hacks as you go). Could do the Curse style idea with extra special Marina hacks. "Hey 8, I just figured out a hack that turns everyone's Max HP to 1 - both yours and your opponents!" "This hack will make you much faster but the floors will always be dark!" Or those Bonus challenges, imagine if there was an option to do conditional runs with them. Like "Beat the Tower without using your special, unlock a specific splat tag banner" Again, I am only criticizing because I love it. It's just also the easiest and shortest of all the single player campaigns we've gotten I feel, and if they were going to lean into the roguelike genre, I wish they looked into how other roguelikes reuse assets to lengthen the gameplay and provide extra challenges to keep players interested for a long time.

AND I AM STILL MAD YOU CAN'T PLAY AS A SQUID AND THEY REMOVED THE PLAYABLE SQUIDBEATZ (half joking. Not really upset, but I do find it odd now that there's more campaigns you can play as an octoling than an inking on the switch now despite inklings being the mascots...... rotm/oe/so vs just s2hero/rotm. And I don't see why we can't just have minigames back, they remove more minigames each entry and paying to listen to music now is frustrating...) Haha... But yes, overall, I loved it. It's a 9/10 from me. Adding squidbeatz and some post game longevity / challenge modes would have made it a 10/10. I can't wait to play more, I can't wait to visit Inkopolis Square again next splatfest :')

Now, onto random observations!

The lobby has jump ramps on the back corner pillars. I don't know why!

You can turn Color Lock on in the main game and it *does* affect Side Order. It gives you permanently Blue+yellow or Blue+green ink, even in the hub area.

So with this boss, it uses the hairstyle from your S2 hero mode data to get their appearance... But I swear mine is using the feminine voice here and when being splat, despite that hairstyle being locked to masculine inkling voices in Splatoon 2? I do use it with the feminine voice in Splatoon 3. Or maybe the voices are just mixed into one here, I can't quite tell? Well it made enby me happy to see. I do kinda wish we got a challenging superboss fight with 4, these felt a bit weak.. but it seems to imply they aren't specifically 4 but Order made them based on their data... So...where is the real 4?!!! Did she never show up to work? Speaking of that boss....

Around the room are these white pipe like structures...

That will be instantly recognizable to anyone who dabbles in japanese model kits - they're sprue trees, like the kind used in Gunpla.

The robotic boss has robot model kit building pieces in the background :D

I still don't quite get the intro scene where everything goes digital on the train.... So it's implying either A) your character got Grayscaled.... But your character is fine when you go back to town... you don't even see any characters standing around suffering it's effects, they could have had some npcs spacing out or acting weird ala Persona 3... or B) you're getting pulled into the memverse too, but there's no sign of your S3 character *at all*... (though this would have been a good way to let us play as an inkling too nintendo >:l *angry woomy noises*)

Honestly I felt kinda like Acht's inclusion was sort of superfluous at first... mostly their role felt like "Pearl & Marina: *does something gay* Acht: wow these two sure are hella gay right 8? i feel like we're third wheels". I kept waiting for some kind of...reveal? Their memories are pretty much fully restored instantly rather than rolled out gradually like I was expecting...I was thinking maybe they'd, like, link them to Paul, or follow up on the recognizing Pearl somehow or being linked to the engineers that created Order or...SOMETHING, but it never came. Other than maybe dropping a hint about the person who instructed them and Marina when they were in school? Their role was really just "I'll hold the elevator and jump in for a song"... But maybe that's okay, eight and Acht are trauma victims and this was meant to be a place to heal them. Maybe it's okay that we take it slow getting to know them.

Okay that's all that's brainworming away at me for now, I'm sure I'll think of more later. Again, I really love it, definitely a 9/10 for me. I hope yall enjoyed it too :)

[stonathandreamer]

Married!Stonathan with a daughter headcanons to brighten your day ✨

🔸 Masterlist

🔹 You can read part 1 here | part 2 here | part 3 here

A/N: I've been thinking about Steve and Jonathan having a kid a lot lately! Also, might've turned this into a semi-fanfic, but I don't care!

--------------------------✨✨--------------------------

✨ First of all, I want to tell you that I headcanon Jonathan as being a photojournalist (because that's his dream job and I want my baby boy to be HAPPY!) and Steve... Well, I imagine him as a police officer (maybe because of the fact that Joe Keery played a cop in the 5th Season of Fargo, but it also opens the possibility of imagining Steve working with Father-in-law!Hopper!);

✨ Their daughter's name is Elizabeth Harrington-Byers, but they call her Lizzie or Liz (because I love the name "Elizabeth," and it's definitely a name Steve and Jonathan would pick);

✨ They only call her "Elizabeth" when they're mad at her (which is pratically never);

✨ Steve tries teaching her how to say his name as her first word (because "daddy" could be either of them), so Jonathan tries teaching her his name;

✨ Joyce watches over her when they're at work. Steve and Jonathan (mostly Jonathan) call her every hour or so to check on Lizzie;

✨ Jonathan takes thousands of pictures of Lizzie and proudly shows them to Nancy;

✨ Nancy and Robin proudly take on the role of the "cool aunts";

— Robin: [Holding Elizabeth and pointing at Steve] Say "dingus", Lizzie!

— Steve: [Taking Elizabeth from Robin's arms] Don't come near my daughter ever again, Robin.

✨ One time, Elizabeth babbled something that sounded eerily similar to "mama," and it sent Steve and Jonathan into a spiral of panic;

— Steve: Did she just say "mama"?!

— Jonathan: No, no, no, no! It’s just baby talk... Probably.

✨ Her first word was, obviously, "dada," and she said it while pointing at both of them;

✨ Thanks to Steve's lack of a baby filter, Elizabeth knows a couple of bad words;

— Joyce: [Calling Jonathan] Your daughter just said "shit." You, Steve, and I are going to have a talk later...

— Jonathan: But, mom! It's Steve's fault...!

✨ Uncle!Will has a special nickname for his niece - Lilibet - and no one else is allowed to use it, not even Mike;

✨ They often get confused whenever Elizabeth calls dad because they don't know which one she's calling;

— Elizabeth: Dad!

— Jonathan: Yeah, sweetie?

— Elizabeth: No, Dad Steve!

✨ Elizabeth, in turn, gets confused when Steve and Jonathan call themselves "dad;"

— Steve: Okay, Lizzie, dad's going to work now, and your other dad's staying here with you.

— Elizabeth: Which one?

— Steve: Me.

— Elizabeth: So... You're staying home with me?

— Jonathan: [Sighs] No, sweetheart, I'm staying home with you.

✨ These are life long confusions, by the way;

✨ Uncle Will and Uncle Mike, who are a comic book illustrator and a writer, respectively, make several special comics for their niece;

✨ Elizabeth calls every member of the Party "Uncle" or "Aunt" much to El, Will and Mike's (her real uncles and aunt) annoyance;

✨ The party definitely teaches her how to play D&D - they haven't played that game in years, so they're a little rusty;

✨ As his daughter gets older, Jonathan starts to worry if she'll stop seeing them as her parents because they're not biologically related, or if she'll start asking for a mom;

✨ They're terribly concerned if she'll suffer bullying when Elizabeth starts at school;

✨ Jonathan is a bit more overprotective than Steve, and also a bit more strict too (but just a tiny bit);

✨ But he also has a huge soft spot for her. All Elizabeth needs is a "puppy eyes" stare, and Daddy Jonathan will do anything she wants;

✨ One time, Elizabeth got into a fight at school because some students were making fun of her for having two dads, and Lizzie, being Jonathan Byers' daughter, kicked their asses.

— Steve: Ha! She has your fighting prowess, Jon!

— Jonathan: Don't encourage her, Steve.

— Steve: Oh, come on, she was just defending our honor!

— Jonathan: [Sighing] Alright, fine... It was kinda cool.

✨ They freaked out a little bit (actually, a lot) when their daughter had her first period;

— Steve: [Holding two different brands of pads at the pharmacy] What's the difference between this one and this one?

— Jonathan: Uh... This one is regular and this one is ultra-thin.

— Steve: Ok... So what's the difference?

— Jonathan: [Sighs] We should've called Nancy... Or Robin... Or any woman...

— Steve: We're taking both!

✨ Jonathan teaches her photography and even buys her a Polaroid camera for her birthday;

✨ Steve teaches her basketball, but Elizabeth's favorite sport is soccer. They watch soccer matches together, and Steve lets her curse freely, much to Jonathan's chagrin;

✨ They enjoy torturing Elizabeth's boyfriends. After all, a boyfriend's worst nightmare is meeting his girlfriend's dad, and Elizabeth happens to have two, so double the nightmare;

✨ It's Jonathan who teaches her how to drive because, and I quote, "your dad Steve drives like a cop chasing robbers";

✨ They love embarrassing her with stories of when they were younger;

— Steve: Hey, Liz, have I ever told you how I fell in love with your dad?

— Elizabeth: Ugh. Not again...

— Steve: He kicked my ass in high school! That's when I realized, "This is the man I want to marry!"

— Jonathan: And did you know your dad used to work at an ice cream parlor called "Scoops Ahoy"? Steve, go grab the photo album, show her the pictures I took of you wearing that cute sailor uniform!

— Elizabeth: Please, no!

✨ Elizabeth would never do even half of the stupid things Steve and Jonathan did when they were teenagers. Still, they worry she might do something dumb;

— Jonathan: But Liz is such a good kid...

— Steve: Yeah, but she's also our daughter!

— Jonathan: ... Fair point.

✨ When Elizabeth turns into a teenager, Steve realises his dream of having "six little nuggets" would be a nightmare, so they decide to stick with just one kid... For now.

[the-alliance-maker]

More art from my younger sister, yay!

Mask (Baby Hero of Time) looks like that because he's worn the Fierce Deity Mask too many times for extremely long periods, and now it's started to stain/scar his skin.

I'm also putting her little doodle she made me bellow too.

Mask (Baby Hero of Time) has a/his shadow following him around. This is apparently my sister's view of their relationship.

(She was nervous about letting me post the gif and required that I clarified that it's a low effort, quick animation she only made to get a laugh out of me, lol. She was correct about making me laugh. I was in tears for, like, an hour.)

More explanations (And lack there of?) about it under the cut.

These pieces of art are both from an AU of mine that we roleplay a lot.

I'd explain more, but it's built off an alternate timeline/universe of @wutheringmights story "Call them brothers". And I'm not sure what her rules are about fanart or fanfics, mostly because I never asked or looked into it and I never intended to.

I make AUs for the fanfics I read, write fanfics for those fanfics with thousands upon thousands of words in them and then never post them or do anything other than hand them to my sister to read. She does the same with her art.

...Fandoms are messy enough without me accidentally stepping on someone's toes. (I think my sister doesn't post her art because she's too unconfident though.)

That aside, Call them brothers is literally my favorite fic I've ever read. I know we like to throw that phrase around in the fandom a lot, but I have every intention of getting that sucker printed and bound once it's finished. I've been reading Fanfiction for nearly a decade and this is the first one I've wanted to do that for.

If you're a person who enjoys darker stories and want a story line with some actual consequences for the characters, I'd totally recommend it. The last time I was this gut punched over characters and their development was Red Rising by Peirce Brown (My favorite published book series ever), and Wuthering's descriptions of a war ravaged country and all it's horrors is fucking immaculate.

I found Call them brothers through my desire to see a longer fic that had Spirit Tracks Link, and it did. not. disappoint.

Wuthering's takes on what Spirit's abilities, character traits, and game culture/lore are currently my favorite I've seen from anyone in the fandom, and I would doubly recommend the fic just for that.

That said, it's not a story for the faint of heart. It's Dark. With a capital 'd' for a reason. Wuthering doesn't add all those tag warnings for no reason. Also, if you can't stand to see one of the Link bois written as anything other than what the mainstream interpretation for them is, this isn't for you. War isn't out of character, but he's certainly a bold take. A fantastic one, but bold none the less.

Plus there's mild mentions of Links being interested in other character's that aren't their Zeldas or their typical love interests. There is NO shipping of the Jojo's characters amongst each other, but if you're the kind of person who can't stand alluding to characters having crushes that aren't Link x Zelda, it isn't for you.

I know there's some people in the fandom who don't like that kind of thing, so I thought I'd mention it. Also, you've been warned so no being mean to Wutheringmights about it!

If you're okay with the things I've listed, please, please, please give it a read. @wutheringmights deserves all the love for writing something so good.

(Anyway, I could ramble for hours about all the reasons Wutheringmights is my favorite Author in the LOZ fandom, but this was supposed to just be a post about my lil sis's art that got waaaaay away from me.)

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Hi :) I'm new here, I accidentally chose the best time to finally watch GO, some 2 weeks ago, not knowing there's gonna be S2 in 2 months lol. I've watched the show a couple of times and I'm in the middle of reading the book but I still don't quite get Aziraphale's thought process after he figured out where to find Adam. Why didn't he tell Crowley at first and why did he break up with him? Did he have any ideas what to do when he did eventually try to tell him? I'm sure the fandom has worked it out and I could find it somewhere but the search function is hopeless and wading through 4 yrs worth of meta would take a lot of time lol. So could you explain please or point me in right direction? Thanks and also greetings from a fellow ace 😁

Hiya! :) Welcome to the fandom! :) The breakup is in the show, in the book not so much :). I do feel the book and the show a bit different - the book more witty and the show with more emotions, both absolutely brilliant. The break up in the show is there because it is more focused on the love story of Aziraphale and Crowley :), the angel not telling him is part of what I believe is Aziraphale's story and growth and realization of what Heaven is truly like.

In the book Aziraphale it is I think nicely described by this part:

Aziraphale was dithering. He'd been dithering for some twelve hours. His nerves, he would have said, were all over the place. He walked around the shop, picking up bits of paper and dropping them again, fiddling with pens.

He ought to tell Crowley.

No, he didn't. He wanted to tell Crowley. He ought to tell Heaven. He was an angel, after all. You had to do the right thing. It was built-in. You see a wile, you thwart. Crowley had put his finger on it, right enough. He ought to have told Heaven right from the start.

But he'd known him for thousands of years. They got along. They nearly understood one another. He sometimes suspected they had far more in common with one another than with their respective superiors. They both liked the world, for one thing, rather than viewing it simply as the board on which the cosmic game of chess was being played.

Well, of course, that was it. That was the answer, staring him in the face. It'd be true to the spirit of his pact with Crowley if he tipped Heaven the wink, and then they could quietly do something about the child, although nothing too bad of course because we were all God's creatures when you got down to it, even people like Crowley and the Antichrist, and the world would be saved and there wouldn't have to be all that Armageddon business, which would do nobody any good anyway, because everyone knew Heaven would win in the end, and Crowley would be bound to understand.

Yes. And then everything would be all right.

Here we can see that Aziraphale really wants to tell Crowley, but feels his angelic duty to tell Heaven and then convinces himself that if he tells Heaven everything will be fine - Heaven will dispose of the Antichrist and everything will be tickety boo - Crowley will surely understand that.

And then when Metatron talks to him and Aziraphale understands what Heaven is like and then they don't want to avoid the War and don't care about destroying Earth, he calls Crowley :).

[captainsophiestark]

Go Bearcats

Luke Castellan x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my Year of Olympians and part of a bigger challenge being run by @yearofcreation2023​! It features a ton of other awesome creators and runs all year, so go check it out!

Fandom: Percy Jackson

Prompt: Hermes; Travel, boarders, games

Summary: The summer before Percy Jackson came to Camp Half Blood, Luke Castellan's SO convinced him to leave camp with them for a new life.

Word Count: 1,175

Category: Fluff

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"I cannot believe you did that to me," I said, shaking my head in disgust with my boyfriend, Luke Castellan. He didn't even have the decency to look ashamed.

"I'm sorry. But it was the best way for me to win."

"Cheating isn't winning."

"Technically, choosing an object outside of the car that we left in the dust ten miles ago isn't cheating."

"You sound like Malcom," I huffed, crossing my arms and leaning back in my seat. Luke just chuckled, shooting me a grin from the driver's seat as we cruised along the highway. Luke and I had been in the car for almost three hours now, on the sixth day of our cross-country road trip from camp. For the first time in a very long time, we were leaving the place we'd called home and had never really been allowed to leave.

I'd gotten to Camp Half-Blood the year after Luke, although we were the same age, and with one exception that hadn't gone well, neither of us had left the camp's boarders since. Until now.

This past year, Luke and I had decided it was time for us to leave, to go do something with our lives now that we were both technically adults. Sitting day after day, month after month, within the boarders of Camp Half Blood wasn't sustainable for the rest of our lives, and I'd noticed it having a bad effect on Luke especially. So, we'd spent the last year preparing for and submitting applications to college, and by some miracle we'd both gotten into the same place. Annabeth, although she would only be starting sixth grade in the coming weeks, had helped us a lot, and about six days ago Luke and I had officially left camp with the end goal of Salem, Oregon in mind.

It hadn't been an easy road trip, especially since we couldn't use phones to help with navigation. But we'd managed alright. We were together, after all, and I swear with every mile we put between us and Camp Half-Blood Luke's spirits had lifted. Enough for him to tease me while cheating at I Spy.

"Alright, new game," I declared, sitting forward in my seat and looking at the scenery around us. "How about... twenty questions?"

"Sure," Luke said, still with a little laugh in his voice. As annoying as his cheating was, I couldn't ignore how happy I was to see him smiling so freely again.

"Alright... I've got something, go ahead."

Luke and I passed another hour that way, laughing as we thought up more and more ridiculous things to try to get the other to guess. After four years of knowing each other and dating for a year and a half of that, we knew each other well enough that truly stumping each other was basically impossible. After Luke successfully guessed that I was thinking of a bearcat, our new school's mascot (whatever the hell a bearcat was), he pointed up ahead of us instead of continuing the game.

"Look, we're officially crossing the boarder from Idaho to Oregon. Last one before we get to school."

"Home stretch," I said, smiling and reaching over the console in the middle of the car to take Luke's hand. "I'm glad we decided to do this."

"Me too."

A little glimpse of the storm clouds passed over his face, but unlike at camp, this time they cleared quickly. He shot me another smile as we drove over the state line and into Oregon. With more than two thousand miles in our rearview mirror, only about two hundred were left between us and the newest chapter in our lives.

"I hope Annabeth's going to be alright without us there," Luke said after moment's hesitation. We'd both been hesitant to completely leave her behind, but she'd assured us all summer that she wanted us to go.

"I'm sure she will be," I said. "Besides, we can Iris Message her all the time to keep in touch. It'll be like we never left."

"It's times like this that the no technology thing gets... frustrating."

"What?" I asked, feigning surprise and putting a hand to my heart to really sell the drama. "You're telling me you're not looking forward to taking only paper notes for college, and to figuring out how to turn in assignments without using a computer?"

"Believe it or not, no," said Luke with a little laugh. There was no question that the year ahead of us would be incredibly strange and full of challenges, but I knew we'd figure out a way through them, together. That's what all our training at camp had been for, after all. Although, the problem solving they'd been preparing us for had been a little more combat-based.

"Maybe Annabeth can come visit us for a break or something," I mused, kicking back in my seat and watching the trees fly past us on either side. I'd never been this far West before, and it looked incredibly different than anything I saw back home.

"Do you still want to visit camp over the winter break?" he asked. His voice was casual, but I thought I heard something else underneath his words, something a little more tense and brittle. "Go back for the Winter Solstice on Olympus?"

I paused, thinking my words over carefully and trying to gauge how Luke felt. Finally, tentatively, I responded.

"I don't know... If we're settled in here, and neither of us really wants to fly... I don't know if I'll want to leave our new lives after only four months being here."

Luke nodded, and I thought I saw his shoulders relax, just slightly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. We can decide later, of course, but... I think I want to stay here too."

I squeezed his hand lightly, and gave him a warm smile when he turned to look at me. He returned with a grin of his own, and after a moment of just enjoying the moment here, together, the two of us against the world, I leaned forward and cranked up the volume on the radio.

A little bit of luck must've followed us so far, because one of my absolute favorite songs was on, and I didn't hesitate to scream-sing the words at the top of my lungs. By the end of the day, Luke and I would be moving into a tiny apartment we'd found just on the edge of campus. In the morning, we'd gather materials and get ready to start our classes, and then the day after our new lives would begin. I had a feeling we probably wouldn't go back to our old lives, ever, even though Luke didn't seem to want to talk about permanently closing that door yet. But I didn't mind. The Olympians were overrated anyway, and I'd be happy to live like a normal college kid with the guy I loved, free from their influence and the problems they brought with them.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury

Percy Jackson Taglist: @valkyriepirate

[loquaciousquark]

I thought my patience would last a little longer, but I installed my first mods tonight. Well, installed the one mod I wanted (an approval adjustment mod), and then the three additional mods needed to generally manage mods and also re-enable achievements in Steam.

If the underpinning mechanics of this game were better understood, and if I had more understanding of the overall framework of the game structure & relationships, and I could trust that I wasn't really screwing myself (no pun intended) 150 hours down the line with one particular choice I'm making right now, I wouldn't bother with mods at all. But as it is I've already lost 14 hours because I didn't understand a choice I made way back in hour nine wasn't something I could revisit or undo the way I originally thought from its phrasing, and I just can't bear to do that again. (A dialogue option was repeatable in a conversation, so I did the Bioware thing and repeated it, making the same choices until the option disappeared, not realizing it was meant to be a chance for the PC to change their mind later. Instead I just locked myself into an option I didn't want long-term and it took me 14 hours to figure that out, and it was important enough I felt like I needed to redo it.)

Anyway, I found myself opening approval guides for all the companions and going line by line and arranging party composition for max approval on all decisions after that, and panicking every time I got one "wrong," which was both maddeningly slow and also resulted in a lot of spoilers for every single quest area in Act 1, including the three I hadn't been to yet. That's just not how I want to experience this game!

I want to be friends with everyone and I want to not feel like I'm losing out on content/relationships/storylines for playing the character the way I want to, and despite having finished DOS:2 years ago I don't know this developer well enough to trust them to give me ways out, ways to keep people around even with low approval. Since I don't have a thousand hours to replay this over and over again to get exactly the right outcome with the advantage of a fully fleshed out wiki, mods it is.

[wishful-seeker]

My simplified story of my CRPS and experience with ketamine.

I've had crps for 5 years now. I developed it at 18 years old after completing a triathlon and getting tendinitis in my knee, which became crps. Over the course of 2 years it spread to both knees, both elbows, and both wrists. For the past 3 years i have been mostly bedridden. I couldn't walk for more than 3 minutes and even when i did it was excruciating, i couldn't touch a computer, any video games, i couldn't write anymore, i could barely make art anymore, i had to stop writing in my journal and had to keep it on my phone because of my pain. I cannot even sit in chairs or drive or run or jump. I use a wheelchair when i leave the house. When it was its worse it felt like i was being burned alive. I remember days when feeling okay lasted literal seconds and then it was gone. I remember days being in so much pain i couldn't pick up my phone and my mom had to spoon feed me. Days where all i could do was lay in bed and think. I remember days when i desperately wanted to go outside and feel the sun, when i walked outside i would count to 10. I would soak up everything i could in those 10 seconds, the colors of the sky and the fresh air. When the time was up i went back to bed and couldn't do that again for another few days.

I started ketamine infusions a year ago, i was diagnosed last year. I had infusions before i was diagnosed. First we did a 2 hour infusion. It worked wonders, for six weeks i actually jumped on a trampoline for a few minutes almost everyday, i even climbed the low branch of a tree and sat on it. Then we did a 4 hour infusion. The results were not the same. I tried four more 4 hour infusions every six weeks, but there was no relief. I was devastated. I thought the universe was cruel to even give me such hope. Then i got diagnosed and i was told of a place in Clearwater Florida with dr. Hanna that did infusions differently. I went there and met him, he prescribed a 4 hour infusion every day for 10 days, 5 days, the weekend off, then 5 more days, he also prescribed oral ketamine, 30mg 3 times a day on the weekend, one at night on infusion days. I did that. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through. It felt like dying a thousand times. I almost gave up and left early because i hate the experience of ketamine so much. But after the fifth day my dad noticed me bouncing my leg when i was sitting, something i did all my life up until crps which made it too painful. Thats when we realized, since the second infusion, i was in ZERO pain, none at all. That continued until i got home and i had a flair. I always get a flair after infusions, this is very normal for me, but it was scary. I worried the hardest thing i had ever done wasn't worth it. The flair ended, and i tried playing minecraft, my favorite game I've been unable to play for years. I had a system: play for 20 minutes, rest for 20 minutes, and repeat. I played for HOURS. I tried again the next day and it was the same, and the day after that, and the day after that. Six weeks after Clearwater i had whats called a booster infusion, which was 2 days of 4 hour infusions. Then i went two MONTHS until needing my next infusions, which i had two weeks ago.

Here is what my life looks like now: im still in bed most of the time, but i do not think of the pain, it doesn't distract me. It used to be 7-10/10 now its 3-6/10. I play minecraft with my best friend almost everyday often all day. Last week i painted a dresser. I have a garden i lightly care for each day. After the infusions before this one i had a day where i was completely able bodied, i baked a pie, went to the park, transplanted plants and played minecraft. Not only this, but even when the infusions wear off it still has permanent beneficial effects. In the past, no ketamine meant i was taking 4 scolding hot baths a day to soothe the pain in my knees. Now no ketamine means bath some days, maybe 2.

It's over. I made it. I made it to a life i thought was impossible and its not even done getting better. I am happy. I am not suffering. I am regaining freedom. It. Is. Over.

[crazylittlejester]

I've mostly finished sksw and it's such a cute game and I'm a sucker for prequel stories

You've been throwing out your thoughts on the game and Hylia hate so pardon me I need to rant for a bit

Hylia does not deserve hate! People say she let the fate of the world fall on the shoulders of our poor blorbo how could she be so cruel to Link but like if that were true then sksw literally wouldn't have happened at all?

She reincarnated into the form of a mortal with the intent of using the triforce and dealing with Demise herself. Link was meant to distract Ghirahim, who let's be real, was pretty fucking easy to kick his ass. And then they were both supposed to live happy lives together and die of old age and the kingdom was supposed to flourish with no Demise.

Link stepping up and taking the triforce for himself was the "this plan won't work oh god oh fuck" stage of plan execution.

Link challenging Demise was something Hylia/Zelda did not see coming because otherwise she would've just closed the gate of time. (Also why would she see all possibilities? She's not the goddess of time. That's not confirmed anywhere to be her. That's Lanacia. Hylia is the protector of life.)

And then Demise curses Link to reincarnate bc Demise is a fucking dumbass who was like "hey I have the power to reincarnate aspects of myself to come back and try again to take over the world. Know who I'll have reincarnate with me? The kid who kicked my ass!" And the very next time Demise's incarnation was defeated by a 9 yo bc fuck him. It's so funny. Ghirahim worked for thousands of years to bring Demise back only for all that effort to result in Demise challenging the first being he saw to a death match where he was sealed AGAIN after not even an hour of being free. Ghirahim didn't even get a "thank you" for his dedication. He deserves better.

i got like nothing to add to this, you cooked 🙌

Hylia doesn’t torture the blorbos

[fiercynn]

so @manogirl, @inventedfangirling, and @sharingfandoms all tagged me in the thai ql favorites tag game (thanks friends!), and i wasn't sure if i had enough to say about shows other than bad buddy to do it, but i figure you can't ever talk about bbs too much amirite

favorite thai ql: yeah so it's bad buddy, surprise surprise. i watched it all in the course of like 36 hours in february 2022, not long after it had ended, and it has been thoroughly stuck in my soul ever since. i've watched it so many times and in so many pieces that i couldn't even guess at a number. i've posted...uh...200k words of bad buddy fic in the past year and half? the obsession is real. it's just such a perfect mix of antagonistic and silly and tense and sweet and heartbreaking and healing that i keep going back to it over over. i love its narrative arc, and i love its little details, and i love all the ways we get to keep reinterpreting it over and over in fanworks. and i love the people i've met in the fandom, which is really hard to separate from the show! i've made really close and awesome friends here, which seems extremely fitting tbh. so yeah anyway i like that show a lot

favorite pairing: seems obvious given my previous answer, but patpran, followed closely by inkpa! idk i just think they're both neat and extremely in love

most underrated actor: JENNIE PANHAN I NEED HER IN EVERYTHING OKAY

favorite character: parakul siridechawat. he's just so in love you guys, even when (he thinks) it's hopeless. i love a character who pines. my sexuality is pining actually and pran's might be too (jk i love pran for many many many reasons but this is the one i felt like talking about today)

favorite side character: i think it has to be a tie between mae from 3wbf and longtae from a tale of thousand stars...two very different characters! i love mae in all her complexity, her efforts to be good and kind and empathetic that are interrupted by the death of the one person who was good and kind and empathetic towards her, and her search for revenge once he's gone, and then her ultimate realization that she needs to stop the cycle of violence even if it takes one more act of violence herself. meanwhile i love longtae because he is sweet and funny and adorable and such a good friend to literally everyone in pha phun dao and also it's khao, how could i not?

favorite scene in a ql: so if i type the letter "y" in my browser, the first search result is the youtube link to bad buddy episode 5 part 4/4. does that answer your question

favorite line in a ql: i thought i was going to struggle with this one but it came to me instantly: uncle tong from bad buddy saying, "you might think one man can't change the world. but i want you to know that this world can't change someone like me either." have i mentioned i am both queer and work in climate activism for a living

most anticipated ql (& why): 23.5 degrees the series!!!! i was already one million percent there for milklove but the recent confirmation of viewjune is just like the icingest of icing on the cake. i'm so fucking stoked you guys

i'm sorry i'm not going to answer the question on guilty pleasure series because like @manogirl i do not believe in the concept, nor the ones on healthiest vs. toxic relationships because i simply do not feel like it <3

most underrated series: hmm, most of the thai ql series i've seen are too well-known/watched to count for this. like would we call gap the series underrated? probably not, right? maybe...triage? but i personally felt like triage got pretty uneven in the second half...idk this is the problem with having mostly stuck to gmmtv huh

i really have not kept good track of who has done this meme already so ummmm @citystoryscapes @mahuhumaling @melto @mousieta @incandescentflower @galauvant @dancing-out-in-space

[difeisheng]

alright! theory time, because i've chosen to overthink.

we already know that the design of this game is sketchy. its tasks and goals are unreasonable, and with little additional incentive or instructions to succeed given to its players. and that's without the fact that the team running the game initially dropped man'er into the ending where she got burned alive, then tried to backtrack like it was nothing.

since that beginning, the flow of the narrative and the turns it's taken have fallen into what feels like a normal, slice-of-life story, not events happening in a game. we have no sense of man'er clocking in and out of the sim or how many hours she's spent there, or that she remembers or thinks much about her actual life, aside from the modern references she drops into her speech sometimes. if not for man'er still being fixated on her one thousand gold taels, it's very easy to forget that this world and most of its people aren't real, actually. and if this is an unintentional move, then that's the writers not paying enough attention to their actual story premise. but maybe this drawing of both man'er and the viewer into the world of the sim is deliberate, and is going to be a future plot point.

which brings us to this moment with shen nuo and shisan. i'm pretty sure most of us already think that shen nuo is another player in the game, and honestly given the clues and his reactions to different things now i'd be surprised if he wasn't. with this exchange, i'm thinking shisan could be a player as well. this line about forgetting identity could refer to shisan's infiltration of the theatre troupe, but it's also ambiguous— where is "here"? combined with how this world in the game is depicted, shen nuo's line becomes far more serious of a warning if he's telling shisan not to lose himself in the fiction of the game itself. as if perhaps the game wants him to.

maybe the real goal of the game is to keep all its conscious players within its universe long enough that they forget everything else. maybe everyone else was a player, once.

i've been wondering for a few episodes now if this story will eventually culminate in man'er and shen nuo having to break out of the game, and fight the ones who created it, because they tried to trap them inside. i guess we'll see what happens, and how deliberate this show has chosen to be.