#but it falls apart the moment you look at their actual stories lmao it just immediately loses the appeal

[kaeyapilled]

Hey. Hey. Speaking of Kaveh being like Kaeya mischaracterizations, I've come to a realization.

People say they want Kaeya and Diluc to be shippable instead of siblings because they want the dynamic, but the dynamic they describe isn't even theirs to begin with half the time; it's Kaveh and Al Haitham

huh anon yeah you might be onto something. admittedly i dont know exactly what the k*el*c people see as super romantic in the dynamic because i dont ever look at what they do i just block on sight. but if they want a friends to enemies to lovers sort of thing, then yeah kaveh and alhaitham have it all. to play devils advocate for one second though i guess you could argue that, oh, kaeya and diluc have a much more serious falling out and theres more angst and the stakes are higher all throughout their stories compared to kaveh and alhaitham who are just living in a college/university slow burn au, and thus the comparison made is stupid or whatever, i dont know. but im not the devils advocate and i dont care. so yeah i do think you're onto something

[dnpbeats]

more phagenda theories ft. analysis of dan's story bc i am painfully unemployed

hi besties it's me again. i'm reaching the point of waiting for the announcement where it's like that tweet about the plate of corn in encanto. i decided to go back and watch dan and phil's first videos to see what frames they used to see if it would reveal anything intersting and well... it kinda does, but also this theory falls apart a bit towards the end so. take this with a grain of salt this is just for fun i'm just yapping it's not meant to be that serious etc etc

so starting with phil's video blog, i believe the frame is from about 0:41 or at least very very close to there (based on the position of phil's paper):

(side note but i don't wanna get too off track: 2 seconds after this is when phil's curtain blows which like obviously is from wind but maybe in another universe it's some kinda sci-fi fantasy spirit ghost thing idk)

this section of the video is when phil is reading off a question from his linguistics exam. we know from "teaching dan to speak" that if youtube hadn't worked out and phil actually used his degree, he was gonna be a forensic linguist. okay so now, what frame is used from hello internet? this one isn't quite as easy to pin down but my best approximation is at 0:37, or at least somewhere soon after that (going off of dan's placement in front of the door):

this is the section of the video immediately after dan gets done saying some "really good friends" he's made recently persuaded him to "give it [making videos] a shot" which like, we all know means phil. when i say immediately i mean he finishes saying that at 0:36

i just personally find this intersting because like. for phil's video why pick a frame of him reading an exam when you could've gone with the thumbnail or him looking at the camera or something? with dan, i at first thought it was the very beginning of hello internet, but it's definitely not based on the way he comes into frame. instead it's right after he says that phil persuaded him to make videos... so this brings me to the ripple effect/alternate universe idea a lot of people have been throwing around. what if they chose phil reading his linguistics exam bc they are going to explore a universe where he becomes a forensic linguist? and of course, if he didn't do that, then dan wouldn't have made his video, because the part where phil persuades him to give it a shot never happened (this is where we get into dinok territory). ok so how does this fit with the other two shots we can see? (i'm not including something we want to tell you bc it would be impossible to know exactly where in the video that shot is from, and ofc i can't include the mystery one 💔)

(warning this is where this starts to fall apart lmao) now obviously the one from gtpwtw is from the yoga section:

how does this fit in with the alternate universe/choices theory? well, this particular moment is right when dan is asking phil "top or bottom," which obviously in the moment is a joke and it's a really inconsequential question. however, it is a question nonetheless, with two possible outcomes 👀

for saying goodbye forever... i quite literally have nothing, the shot they chose has nothing going on it's just them standing there as priest sean walks in at about 0:35 💀💀

anyway yeah, assuming they consciously chose what shots of videos to include, it might give more validity to the multiverse idea, regardless of what medium they present it in! ofc this could also all mean nothing and i am just grasping at straws (10x more likely) i just thought it was intersting :)

[bookshelfdreams]

#Op I need u to know I thought this was about his post-coytal bedside manner when I read the first line#was fully expecting you to wax poetic about how Ed's mediocer attempt at making breakfast was actually a heartfelt attempt to make sure#he didn't feel like he was a One And Done type of thing#I was vibrating#and then it was s1 meta 💀 RIP LMAO (@zo1nkss, on this post)

No, absolutely, let's talk about it. Because this?

This is terrible. Comically bad. The worst anyone's ever done it, I'm sorry to say. The toast looks like it's covered in coal dust. The tea (? I hope it's tea, might as well be Ye Olde Cuba Libre) has clearly gone cold. Ed spooned the marmalade directly onto the tablet instead of just leaving it in the jar like a sane person, for fuck's sake!

Of course that's deliberate; they even make sure we know what the platonic ideal of a nice breakfast tablet looks like with the title card.

It's like an Expectation vs Reality meme. There's a flower, there's porcelain, there's even a plate! Ed, I know you've had breakfast before, why are you so bad at this?

Because, of course, this was doomed from the start.

Ed is panicking, because he knows falling into bed together right after everything that happened in 02x06 was a mistake, and he's desperately trying to salvage the situation.

Ed wanted to take things slow, because he wants stability. He wants to pursue happiness. He wants to build a beautiful life with someone he loves! Breakfast in bed every day!

Instead he to watch the love of his life be tortured in front of him, because of him, and then had to watch him intentionally kill a guy for the first time in his life - also because of him! This is the opposite of what he wanted, for himself or for Stede.

He wanted them both to be safe and happy, but instead they had an evening of horrible experiences and then had sex about it. It's all coming crashing down. Aside form the worst breakfast spread in known history, look how the scene is shot and coloured: The slightest green tint, just enough to turn the light harsh and cold, how far apart from each other they are. Tons of empty space in the frame. How they are backlit, so they are in the shadows, their faces barely discernible.

This isn't a happy Morning After. This is them standing at the ruins of what was supposed to be a beautiful moment, but the violence of piracy broke into it and destroyed it.

Ed knows he needs to leave it behind, once and for all. Throws out his Blackbeard kit to make his decision to abandon the pirate life irreversible. Tries to have a soft, domestic moment, shares the lovely story about Merstede coming to rescue him, in an attempt to salvage his dream of retirement with Stede.

But Stede? Oh, Stede is on an entirely different page. He just had his first real taste of the power violence can grant him. While the torture wasn't fun, in the end, he triumphed! Defended his love, defended his crew! And topped it all off with what was probably the first positive sexual experience in all his 40whatever years of life! He's patronizing and kinda bitchy about the whole spread, because he doesn't get what Ed is trying to tell him. All he sees is Ed being terrible at this domestic bullshit, but that's okay because he thinks he's terrible at it too!

They'll just sail the seas, terrorize the various empires and have adventures together, forever and ever! That's the dream, right? Right???

(Wait, what do you mean Last night was a mistake?)

[nebuladreamz]

Thinking about how if i ever had the opportunity to make. a mascot horror game or story that i'd have it take place right before the eventual Big Fall of the establishment

[Big ramble under the cut lmao]

Something something reuse how I thought for Security Breach we'd play as Vanessa and the five nights formula was doing the shift but slowly discovering through each shift that Some Shit is happening and she has to stop it (directly before we found out Vanessa was Vanny/Vanessa was the security guard's name)

LIKE!!! I fucking adore how a couple of standout mascot horror games have been [primarily Indigo Park, I'm willing to give it a shot and it's deadass because of Rambley and his role as an AI assistant], but a lot of what I've seen personally (stares at. Fucking. Garten of Banban), it's a lot of post fall. Always investigating or going through the abandoned place where shit's gone wrong (thank you BATIM for starting the chapter-based formula -bangs head-)

But like. I've always thought about what it would be like for a mascot horror game to take place before the fall, or even during it depending on the execution.

Before the fall, you're either a kid who's a regular at the establishment (daycare, amusement park, whatever) or even an employee working there-

(or even MORE interestingly, if we go with a chapter-based thing or even similar to FNAF in terms of there's a set thing for whatever, the POV keeps changing between different people- wait I'm cooking. i'll get back to that later actually)

-And slowly as it all develops, you watch as everything begins to just. Fall apart. Employees leaving, the place coming down into disrepair, something's up with the main mascots of the place but you don't know what (at least in universe, we all know this formula as players)

Actually, coming back to the changing POVs, you can even draw in inspiration from DBH (I only watched gameplay back then oops) where the perspective changes between different people. A child enjoying their day, a first time employee, a long time employee, a parent of a child. Hell, depending on things, you could even have a moment where (depending on the location) you play as a fucking burglar looking to steal shit (before getting. Fucking bass boosted)

And eventually there'd come the inevitable end where it all closes down, leaving whatever living mascots inside to rot (insert Abandoned by Disney line here /j)

LIKE!!! I want to see people expand on the formula!! I want to see people fuck around and find out!!!

Honest to god, I might take this and run with it myself cause now I'M getting ideas.

[henke-penke]

I wanna talk a bit about the behind-the-scenes of the reunion scene so imma do it :>

First up, the songs !

I flip a lot between listening to music that specifically fits the vibes I'm writing and just... blasting Basshunter, but the reunion scene is one of the most important scenes in Lovers and Fools so Basshunter wouldn't cut it. I needed to get the vibes just right, especially after chapter 13 lmao.

1000 Nights by FRENSHIP was the first song I listened to when doing basic planning for the reunion way back in March/April, and it actually spans chapters 13-17 in terms of how I visualized the build-up. OK by Robin Schulz kinda falls into the same vein wherein I listened to it while visualizing the story progression.

Let You Go by Jim Yosef and Fix You by Danny Olson relate more so to the emotional aspects of the scene itself; this steady buildup to an (IMO) ethereal drop. To me, both of these songs convey a very specific intensity that's kinda difficult to put into words but perfectly matches the feelings I was going for with the reunion (happiness, overwhelming disbelief, affection, basically the opposite of chapter 13 alrbhflahb) (I also find that listening to edm helps me get into the writing flow, so melodic house is perfect).

Lastly, we have Wreck of Our Hearts by Sleeping Wolf. This one helped with the specific feeling of closure with the reunion; forgetting the bad to lavish in the good, if just for a moment. It also just fits their whole plot of them falling in love, specifically the chorus;

So sing while we're falling apart, I'll take you dancing. We lived through the wreck of our hearts, And now we're just picking up the pieces. Learning how to see when, Love is in the dark.

Now, when writing I don't typically have a set-in-stone plan. I'll know what will happen and the key elements that need to exists, but my planster ass gets the best ideas when I'm working on the scene in question. One such part in the reunion was Noah's leap-hug (???) at the end, which was directly inspired by this moment in Tangled;

I also had this moment in the back of my mind through the entirety of writing the reunion, but it didn't jump out until I got the idea of the leap-hug. And for the fun of it, here's what the draft note looked like (which I saved in my drafts because I didn't wanna lose it alrhbflah);

Does Noah go for like a leap-hug thing ? Like, Rapunzel at the end of Tangled ? Like, he’s just got a big rush of serotonin and is like ‘fuck it imma be cuddly on main i don’t care i deserve it’ ?? He can’t find the words for the first time and goes on instinct ?? POLYCULE HUG TIME !

Lastly, the kiss. Imma be real gang, I struggled for the longest time figure out where, when, and how the kiss was gonna go. At first it was gonna be spread out, with the aleheather kiss happening on the train, the noaheather kiss on the volcano, and then the alenoah kiss some time after that. I then scrapped that while writing chapter 15 in favor of having them all kiss in the last chapter. And then I said fuck it, they're all gonna kiss on the volcano.

And as clocked by @/noah-bout-it, the kiss was inspired by the meme. But also by this Arcane fanart, though to a lesser extent;

(I can't find the artist of the drawing so if anyone knows who made it let me know so I can give proper credit)

And that marks the end of my rambling, thanks for reading !

[still-a-morosexual-help]

so the nightbringer website is open now and from what it says, the mc is gonna be in this game too? and it seems like romance is still gonna be involved? I wasn't expecting that honestly, I was thinking mc wouldn't be apart of this at all.

but if this is the case, does that mean that we're gonna find out what mc really is (they obviously aren't human in canon, but not everyone thinks of mc the same way so that doesn't seem like a good choice on their part) or maybe it will be whoever mc was in the past life? the only other thing I can see is mc going back in time again but that also seems like a weird thing to do.

maybe I'm overthinking what's on the website but it's just not something I even considered until this moment lmao

still v excited for the new game, I really hope that even if they do keep mc as a main part in the game, that the romance is a small part of it (or rather that it's not thrown at you in every scene lol) and that we actually get a good story on how the brothers came to the devildom and more understanding on all of the characters in general.

(sorry if this is hard to understand, I'm sick and tired hehe)

Honestly (I might be completely wrong here) I think it's gonna take place in flashbacks or something similar? Like we're gonna be skipping between the past and present. Because the opening showed Luke in it and he (as stated in S3) wasn't alive while the brothers were still angels/during the time of the fall. Plus it showed Thirteen with Diavolo but S4 heavily implied that she first visited the Devildom in S4 itself. So if this is the case then MC and the romance elements would be taking place in the present (though I wouldn't mind seeing MC interact with the brothers when they were angels again, tbh)

I think this game is what's gonna be used to introduce Michael? He's been built up since S1 but some of the things said about him makes him seem like a heavily morally grey character and exploring that in a game like OM! which is just straight up a wholesome otome game won't work because he'll have to be watered down in order to become a LI. But if they introduce him in nightbringer through flashbacks (possibly in anticipation of him appearing in the present) then they wouldn't have to worry about watering him down as much (specially because the opening hints at nightbringer being more lore and angst driven)

I would really like to know more about what the hell MC is because, like it or not, general MC does have a lot of canon facts about them that are sprinkled throughout the game (here's my post that lists all of them) and the fact that they're not fully human is one of them that is brought up as early as in Season 1 (also the time it's brought up the most clearly/directly) and then hinted at/reintroduced in the following 3 seaons (post w/ canon evidence)

(get well soon! And take a nap!!)

EDIT:

I just checked out the website and okay it actually looks really good! The quotes from each brother!!!! Also looks like it might actually jump between past and present but in the form of timetravel rather than flashbacks? Not proper timetravel where they'll manage to remember each other later but something similar to what happened in S3 maybe? Okay but the fic potential of this!!? The angst potential!!!?

MC HAS TO MAKE PACTS WITH THEM AGAIN BUT NOW THEY'RE ALL NEWLY TRAUMATISED I'M CACKLING THIS IS SO FUNNY MC WENT THROUGH SHIT TO MAKE THOSE PACTS THE FIRST TIME AROUND AND THAT WAS AFTER THE BROTHERS HAD CENTURIES? MILLENIA? TO CALM DOWN. NOW MC'S GOTTA DO IT ALL AGAIN, BE A THERAPIST ALL OVER AGAIN EXCEPT SOMEHOW EVERYTHING’S GOTTEN SO MUCH WORSE ANDKNXIDNDN someone should start paying them for this shit 😭😂💀

Okay so the format (regarding the romance) might be similar to S1? Few romantic elements sprinkled throughout but mainly focusing on the therapy and found family elements until the very end?

Also from the three brothers who mention The Fall in their quotes (Mammon, Levi and Asmo) Mammon seems to be the only one who has (at least to an extent) made peace with it?

[chappell-roans]

The bait and switch thing is very interesting and it something you do become accustomed to with her releases, I just think this specific promotional cycle and “dark academia” is something that’s hard to pivot than bubblegum hyperfemininity or ‘punk rock moment of female rage’ (sry lmao).

I’m going out now so maybe I’ll refine my thoughts more later but DA is an aesthetic that’s very specifically rooted in its subject matter and intellectualism and she did promote based on the apparent “torturous poetry” which created specific expectations for the subject matter and quality of the album. It’s easier to make a bubblegum album and have it actually be about how you’re falling apart or depressed because that’s more of a subversion of expectations that still works in the framework of the original idea? It’s oxymoronic from what people expect but the subject matter isn’t as important as the look and sound of the album for Lover.

Dark academia is also just difficult because when you pick something and promote it based on an aesthetic that’s rooted in intellectualism or the perception of high quality art and then underdeliver people will judge more harshly. Similarly with midnights the promotion was based on sleepless nights and toil and a lot of the negative thoughts were based on the not only the lower quality of the album but also the quality in contrast to the promotion.

lmao no i think the same thing about that particular description of rep because it's inaccurate lol. there's more moments of that on ttpd than rep lol. i mean, yes, and she was leaning into that aesthetic but not necessarily marketing it with those words idk. it definitely wasn't folklore or evermore in terms of quality and also to be clear -- i enjoy the album and have been a fan of taylor since love story in 2008 -- but not all poetry is good? i think hers is but idk. it's also named around a song and again the bait and switch thing. i can see why you're disappointed that it didn't fully deliver to you on the dark academia vibes but i didn't expect that really, so i don't have the exct same feelings around it. i think the aesthetic lets people read into it what they want to see, whether it's sad girl on the moors or da or whatever. but i agree about lover.

and i mean, i don't think she was lying about what inspired midnights. i definitely had hoped for a 70s sound akin to promotion (unlike ttpd where i really didn't think dark academic was part of it at all, especially once we got the tracklist, i figured it'd be more of a coping mechanism album and heartbreak and manic episode, which she literally described it as) but like it definitely did seem like being haunted by exes and her own decisions and depression and fame, as well as deciding whether or not to end her long-term relationship. midnights isn't specifically a breakup album, but it's an anticipatory breakup album and recognizing patterns really. which is fun to analyze as a fan who loveeees patterns. but it also isn't my fav album to listen to, i def skip around while listening to that one too. (my favs off midnights include hits different, maroon, bejeweled, yoyok, labyrinth, dear reader, would've could've should've, anti-hero)

[juney-blues]

just finished reading fist of the north star, and now i know why most adaptions pretend the series ends after raoh's defeated

because it probably should have!

i enjoyed the celestial emperor and land of asura stuff a bit but, the series was really starting to retread old ground

kaioh just feels like "what if raoh was even eviler and stronger!!!!" he's literally raoh's secret older brother who was never mentioned ever for some reason

retconning secret family members seems to be how a lot of the series handles plot twists now that i think about it lmao

Lin was actually the secret twin of the celestial empress!!!! this never comes up again and effects nothing.

Kenshiro had a secret older brother who vowed to one day teach him that the secret to hokuto shinken is Respecting Women!!!!

hell even ein (who's whole deal is honestly a retread of rei now that i think about it) had a whole thing where he's introduced talking about how he does all this bounty hunting for a special lady in his life ;) ;) an then PLOT TWIST!!! HE DOESN'T MEAN HIS GIRLFRIEND HE MEANS HIS DAUGHTER!!! (which is a funny bit lmao)

god the series really falls apart with the final story arc though, i think the real reason most fist of the north star stuff never cover anything after the timeskip is because Kenshiro defeating Raoh and finally putting an end to the hokuto shinken succession crisis that was the undercurrent to basically everything after the first arc, and then riding off into the sunset with Yuria, was a WAY more satisfying ending than whatever the fuck was going on with the actual ending

Bat uses heretofore unmentioned Hokuto Shinken powers to erase Lin's memories because everyone in the god damn series thinks that now that kenshiro's wife is dead he needs to shack up with this one girl he met when she was like 9 for some reason, and then Kenshiro gets,, Struck by lightning????? and also loses his memory??????

so we've got a double amnesia plot going on and it's, just,

so fucking stupid

and then it tries to give Bat this whole subtext to his whole character about how he always looked up to kenshiro like he was an older brother, and it retcons in scenes that never happened to try and deepen that

and like i love Bat, he was a fun goofy comic relief character in the anime

but in the manga he's just kinda there,,,?

he lends SOME comic relief but aside from the one arc with jackal he's just kinda there in the background, failing to make much of an impression and just kinda fading into obscurity (same kinda deal with Lin) getting ditched by the story for more serious characters, only showing up for the fight against raoh because kenshiro wants someone to bear witness.

and then after the timeskip he does the whole hokuto army thing with Lin, he cries over Ein (which was a fun moment i'll admit)

and then the story ditches him as soon as the asura arc comes around, and then he just kinda shows up at the end of that to take lin away so ken doesn't have to deal with that weird contrived "pressure point that makes you fall in love with the first person you see" bullshit.

So we've got this comic relief character who for the latter half of the series has repeatedly threatened to become relevant and then backed off, which the series is trying to get me invested in during the 11th hour,

and this is all for, Lin's (clearly unrequited, like good lord) crush on Kenshiro,

a weird one sided nothing relationship that the series keeps trying to push as a thing that should happen, because the series is bad at using its female characters

and this is what it chooses to spend its final moments on???

and then the story just repeats the end of the asura arc and goes "no bat and lin should be together for some reason, gotta pair those spares"

throws in a whole flashback full of stuff that just straight up wasn't in the manga

i think the top left moment is actually something from the anime lmao (don't quote me on that i have memory issues)

so yeah the final arc is just, retconning a whole bunch of shit, trying to shovel in as much development as possible for these characters in the last fleeting moment of the series as possible, because they were the first 2 major characters we were introduced to i guess

then we get this whole fakeout death to close it out

but woooh kenshiro fixed his dying body by, using pressure points, i guess, so that whole death scene was just kinda for nothing, just jerking your chain a bit

just god it's so fucking stupid

it's sooo stupid

i'm with everyone else i wish things ended here

[bismuthupmy]

Nothing Hurts | Leon x Luis RE4

Chapter 6 | 3.5k

The story of tragic righteousness where nobody is hurt and everything is perfect. Except nothing is perfect in hell.

A re-imagining of the events of the Resident Evil 4 remake where Luis and Leon get the ending they deserved.

——————————————————————————————————

Conveniently locked out of my google account for the better part of two weeks I also do not speak Spanish I can’t remember is i already said lmao so all the Spanish that isn’t in the game is curated from deepL

Ch. 1

——————————————————————————————————

The next part of the fortress was silent. Fire burned in torches around the old wooden buildings but no other voices were heard.

“Sure is quiet,” Leon mused, eyes darting back and forth around the complex. The age of the village was showing from the old wood and the pieces falling apart. It really made the place look abandoned, the only signs of life being the fires. 

“Maybe they’re at church,” Luis offered. Leon looked at him incredulously only to find that stupid smug smirk on his face.

“Right, well, we don't want them to know we’re here so lets be just as quiet, hm?”

“You were the one who spoke first.”

Leon huffed at Luis’ comment but didn’t give him any more attention. It was suspicious how still it was after clawing tooth and nail to get to where they are through hoards of angry ganados. He couldn't help but feel like something was up but that also could just be the adrenaline.

Leon led them to another closed off gate which looked like it needed some sort of key to get it open like absolutely everything else. He began to trudge off towards the large buildings in the fortress when Luis spoke up again.

“Looks like we need a crank or something,” the Spaniard was still inspecting the gate with Ashley standing between them like she wasn't sure who to stick with.

“You think?” Leon raised an eyebrow at Luis, voice dripping with sarcasm. As if he hadn't already just come to that conclusion. 

“You can raise one eyebrow at a time?” Ashley butt in before giggling. “Sorry sorry. Irrelevant.”

“Do that often, vaquero? You’ll get wrinkles.”

Leon just stared at them for a moment, “What?”

Luis just waved him off and Ashley tried not to giggle again and Leon was done with this bullying.

“Remember I’m the only one who can get you guys out of here,” Leon shrugged, playing along. Wasn’t entirely true but he really didn’t want to think about what would happen if they were to be left without him either.

The biggest building was fairly empty with only a table and a locker to the side of the top floor. There were some more supply boxes, lathered with the same streaks of yellow paint all over the village. He never actually stopped to think about them until now actually. Usually he was a bit busy when they were just there so no he hadn't thought about the convenient loot boxes in a village full of non-cognisant people who were trying to kill him.

“Why the hell are there these boxes everywhere?” he smashed into one with a stomp, crouching down to pick up whatever ammo was stashed inside. 

“Oh, heh, that was me,” Luis piped up from a few feet away, smashing into another box himself. “Put stuff all over the village. In… case…”

Luis’s eyes darted around the area almost as if he was proving a point but seemed too nervous. Leon turned towards the big hole in the floor which led to the lower level. 

“In case. How long have you been here?” He leaned over the drop to assess the height before dropping down, disturbing the layer of dust over the floor. 

“No clue. Few days?” Luis dropped down beside him. Leon looked up to see Ashley timidly scooting to the edge to eliminate as much height as possible before sliding over and down. Leon reached out to steady her when she stumbled. Luis kept talking.

“Hard to tell  when you've been kidnaped by a mad giant and stuffed in a basement, eh?”

Leon hummed, inspecting the tables in this lower room now, picking up a stray grenade and glancing around the walls. There was another odd locker and two doors in the corners which turned out to have been locked from the outside which could have been avoided. It's too late now. They could  probably climb back up somehow.

“Fair enough,” he could probably pull one of the tables over and use it to jump up then pull the other two up. “How’d you get here in the first place?”

“Long story, actually-”

“Look!” Ashley exclaimed from the pots and clutter she was rifling through on the table, pointing across the room. “Is that the handle?”

On the far wall was a stack of wall shelves and sat nicely on the bottom was a crank handle. As expected. Leon nodded at ashey with a smile which said ‘good job’ and went to retrieve it. He crossed the room in a handful of strides and reached for the crank. The moment his fingertips touched the handle the ear scraping sound of chainsaws blared through the quiet. 

Two chainsaws pierced the fragile wooden wall either side of Leon slowly closing inwards. Entirely on impulse he leapt up the wall and pushed off, backflipping away as the ganados caved in the wall. One of the chainsaw women picked up and pocketed the crank handle.

“Sorry, didn't realise that was yours,” Leon pulled out his shotgun and backed up, glancing at Ashley behind him who was using Luis as a shield. “Ashley, get in the locker!”

The girl looked at him oddly but immediately did as she was told. 

“Mind if i hide too?” Luis smirked.

“Sure. If you want to get strangled later in return.”

“Hand me one of those big fancy guns of yours then.”

One of the chainsaws came rushing towards Leon who barely had a second to chuck his rifle in Luis’ vague direction, firing a blast from his shotgun into her face and then delivering a wide kick when she stumbled.

“I am flattered,” The other chainsaw narrowly missed its target again as Leon jogged backwards out of the range of the teeth. “But I’m a one lady type of guy.”

The door on the side of the room burst open and more ganados stormed the fortress. The one blocking the doorway was swiftly put down by Luis with the rifle at close range, opening up another escape.

Leon made a run for the gap in the wall the twin chainsaws made while Luis exited through the now open door. More ganados closed in around him so he chucked the grenade he collected, thinning out the crowd. He downed a bunch more of the ganados with carefully placed headshots, clearing a path to the higher ground on the other side. 

Leon ran up the stairs to get leverage over the hoard. Glancing around, Luis was nowhere to be seen. The bastard must’ve hid. With his rifle too. 

Gunshots resonated around the fortress as more ganados clambered up the stairs behind him. The shotgun wasn't nearly as helpful as it had been earlier because now it just blew their heads off and in their place erupted the fleshy worm heads with the sharp tentacles that threatened to behead him.

He was slowly pushed back across the platform which in turn pushed Im back towards the big house. Which wasnt a problem since he could just loop around however they had rested a ladder on the bridge behind him. Leon ducked under a scythe tentacle when a pitchfork came hurtling at him from behind, only the heavy footsteps of the extra ganado alerting him.

Leon turned just in time as the ganado charged at him and body slammed him to which Leon turned and threw him into the wall followed by a sharp knife through the skull. He shot down the ladder behind him to knock off the next climber and kicked it over heading backwards again as the chainsaws had caught up, engines whirring.

The ganados surrounding the chainsaws bunched together making an impenetrable wall. One of the chainsaws came zigzagging towards him in slicing motions before a loud crack sounded beside him. The chainsaw woman faltered and a few more familiar bursts followed and several ganados dropped. 

Leon glanced at the side where the gunshots came from to see Luis perched on a rock with his rifle. Luis gave a swift thumbs up before focusing again and Leon could more easily work on the chainsaws. The scythe heads began getting too close but Luis took them out for him and Leon focused on the women. They were tougher and moved more sporadically so Leon had to deal with them himself. 

A chainsaw came crashing down from the air to which he parried, knife up against serrated machinery. He was keeping the woman stationary which allowed Luis to take the risky shot to stun her. He landed a shot into her side which gave Leon the chance to give the ganado a good kick to knock her back. 

Not wanting to be caught up inside an enclosed house, Leon dropped down to the ground from the bridge. The chainsaw twins followed him down which made them crumple after the fall leaving them open to attack which Leon did. He drove his knife into the neck of one of them, killing her. One down. 

The second one got up from her tumble and brandished her chainsaw up high and began slashing at him again but with no more aggression than before. Jesus these guys must really be mindless. He just killed her twin after all. Or well he assumed it was her twin. They looked similar enough.

Leon slid out of the way, throwing himself behind a wooden wall where the chainsaw followed and lodged itself. The ganado pulled on it but it was stuck in the thick beam holding up the complex which left her defenceless. Leon heaved his shotgun up to blast her in the face which would hopefully take her out before she came scratching at him or something.

The ganado did run at him, arms out in front of her as if to choke him but one last blast from the shotgun a foot away finally did it. The last a ganado fell to the ground, dropping ontop of Leon which ended up bowling him over and into the wooden wall behind him. The crank handle fell out of her pocket.

White hot pain shot  up Leon’s side. He pushed the chainsaw woman off of him with a hiss. He shakily stood up and pressed a hand to the pain. His hand came away crimson and looking down he was met with a decent size gash through his shirt and deep into his skin. Was that from the pitchfork? He thought he dodged it.

He leaned against the wall panting, putting pressure on the wound for a minute to catch his breath. The wound certainly didn't look too great but that thought was immediately banished when he heard the timid cry out from Ashley.

“Leon?” The girl called frantically. “Where’d you go?!”

He wiped his bloody hand on his pants and pushed himself off the wall. Ashley probably thought he was dead or something. His shirt pulled down enough to ruffle up and conceal his side so he didn't shock the other blonde.

“Here,” Leon met Ashley back in the open area. She instantly deflated in relief and looked down to where Leon was holding the crank handle.

“Is that the handle,” her eyes lit up. Leon nodded with a smile and  held it up for ear to see better. 

“You seen Luis?”

“No? I thought he was you.”

Leon’s smile set into a frown again swiftly just as the man in question sauntered up to them, rifle slung over his shoulder so haphazardly Leon wanted to give him a lecture on gun safety.

“Don’t worry just yet, amigos. I’m not ready to die just yet,” Luis continued to head onwards to the locked gate they encountered. “What are you waiting for? You got the crank, yes?”

Leon followed after the Spaniard, Ashley in tow, “That was some good shooting there, Luis.”

“Yeah. Saved your ass on that bridge, you’re welcome. Now hurry up and open this gate. I've got the jitters after all that.”

Leon chuckled tiredly as Luis made a show of shaking himself out of the adrenaline and set the crank handle into its place in the door and spun it around. The gate then could be pushed open which caused another sharp string of pain up his side as he put all his weight into it. He grimaced silently through the sting.

─•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•──•~❉᯽❉~•─

The trio continued up the path behind the gate. Leon hunched over slightly to limit the tension he put on the gash. They came up to a ruined house which conveniently had a ramp where they could drop into it. This area was just as quiet as the fortress had been but he didn't have a weird gut feeling about the house so he was fairly sure no ganado was going to jump out of the crates. Leon dropped down into the house but fell to one knee. Luis dropped in beside him with a smug look on his face.

“Never seen you fail a drop before. Tired, are we?”

Leon just grunted and turned away, pulling himself up. He didn't have the energy to come up with a comeback to Luis’ teasing right now. Everything hurt. 

Ashley dropped down last and when she did Leon went to continue forward. He was quickly stopped by a firm hand on his arm.

“Oye, you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Leon yanked his arm out of Luis’ grip. “We need to keep moving.”

Luis sighed disapprovingly and Ashley voiced a confused question in the background. Leon watched as Luis went around the small house and pulled a salvaged chair up out of the debris and situated it next to a table, patting it.

“No.”

“Por Dios, Leon. We have time. Where did they get you?”

“I can do it myself,” Leon muttered defiantly, relenting. Luis raised his hands in surrender and thankfully let Leon do his thing and went to find something else to sit on. Leon watched as he and Ashley pulled up another chair and a crate around the room to relax for the time being. 

Leon searched through his medical pack for some spare med spray and his prepackaged suture equipment he was given. He could vaguely hear Luis and Ashley murmuring to each other across the room but that was ignored in favour of looking for anything that he could use to wipe off the extra blood still seeping out of him. He settled for one of his cleaning cloths for his guns which he drenched in some medspray and pressed to the wound. 

The med spray worked magic and it always amazed him. It stung on first contact like any alcohol would but a tingling sensation followed which was the feeling of his flesh sticking itself back together, clotting up any blood flow and preventing him from bleeding out on the chair.

The wound was definitely more serious than he thought it was at first and was now silently grateful for Luis making him treat it. It would need stitches so that the medspray could help heal the wound closed further, so he broke open the needle and thread from its packet and went to thread it.

His hands shook slightly as he held the needle to the irritated flesh at his side.  He was never fond of needles. Or sharp things in general. It was irrational he knew, being a government agent and dealing with new biohazards several times now, but he never seemed to shake it even from childhood. 

“Madre de Cristo, eres inútil. Let me do it.”

Luis dragged the crate he was sitting on harshly and plopped down in front of where Leon was oddly stretched out. He snatched the needle from Leon’s hands and batted away his other, not taking any protests. Leon just huffed and leaned back and let Luis do the work.

He worked swiftly and precisely until the gash was stitched up with neat lines which he then doused in more medspray to close up more. The spray could only do so much but it should take the edge off and hopefully prevent any further worsening of the wound.

Leon watched Luis intently the entire time, unblinking with a grimace plastered on his face. He had become entranced by the loops and the flicks of Luis’ warm hands on his abdomen. When Luis had finished Leon was started out of his head with a pat to his leg. 

“All done,” he smiled, proud of his handiwork. “How’s it feel?”

“Hurts,” Leon said indignantly, pulling his shirt back down and sat up straight again refusing to think about a nagging feeling in the back of his mind.

“Baby.”

“Asshole.”

Luis chuckled before turning to Ashley on the other side of the room. “What do you think, princesa? Ready to head out again?”

Ashley nodded happily and jumped up from her seat. She seemed to have been napping against the wall a bit as she looked rather sleepy. Luis got up and gathered his things, still holding onto Leon’s rifle. Leon packed up the medical equipment, deciding to leave the bloody cloth behind.

He coughed gruffly, shaking out of the weird daze he had fallen into for a minute there.

“Let’s go.”

He didn’t look back to check if the other two were following because he knew they would. He exited the small house and headed back outside and to another gate up ahead. He shoved this gate open with much less trouble than before and glanced around for any threats up ahead. Looked clear.

“All right. Come on,” he gestured to his companions as he cautiously inspected the route. It looked just the same as the rest of the roads in the village but somehow sparser. Ashley cried out in fear.

Whipping around the giant from earlier had his grip on Ashley and Leon wasted no time in pulling out his knife and driving it into the man’s arm. He let go of the girl who stumbled backwards and he pulled his knife back. That did nothing to phase him.

“Hello there, village chief,” Luis muttered, ushering Ashley to stay behind him which distracted Leon momentarily as a big arm reared back and then swung forwards, tossing him across the path. 

“Leon!”

He felt hands on him pulling him up and he scrambled into a sitting position. This was going to bruise badly. He absently hoped his stitches hadnt torn. The village chief pulled the lock on the gate and used sheer strength to bend it to prevent any escape in that direction. 

“Your soul requires cleansing. Come child.”

“We’ve got to go,” Luis pulled at Leon’s arm and Leon stood back up ready to flee. He was after Ashley and he had to protect her.

“Ashley, run!”

Ashley followed his order and ran up the path before screaming again and coming to a stop. More ganados were closing in from the other direction trying to block them in. Leon pulled out his handgun, shooting out oncoming ganado’s legs so they could run past. Luis did the same beside him.

They raced around ganados and away from the chief as the giant just slowly stalked towards them with no sense of urgency. Leon spotted explosives up ahead, pausing the group briefly to gather enough ganados to make it worth it and blew them up leaving them a clearer path. 

The bridge up ahead was not  an option as some ganados waited on the other side to chop it down, dropping them into a ravine so Leon pointed them down a side path to the left. It was built from old rickety wooden boards that groaned under every step. 

Leon covered them from more oncoming ganados as Luis took the lead in front of Ashley, sandwiching her between them. Leon followed after them when they had run past. The only option out of here was a tight beam of planks over the ravine.

Luis made it across, Ashley slightly slower behind him. Leon watched her foot sink into the rotting wood, trapping her.

“You ok?” Leon crouched down to try and pry at the wood closing around her ankle.

“I’m stuck,” Ashley frantically explained, pulled at her foot which was not making her case any better. A ganado ran down the ame path and Leon dropped the wood in favour of taking out their attacker. The ganado dropped heavily into the wood, disturbing the planks and the rusted nails, making a scary creaking noise. Wood planks started to give way. The bridge was going to collapse.

Leon turned back to Ashley to see Luis pry her foot out of its trap.

“We’re good!” Luis confirmed. 

“Then go!”

The three of them ran for the edge of the bridge, to safety, as the wood began to fall apart behind them, licking at their heels. With one last leap Leon made it across, falling next to Ashley, Luis stumbling slightly ahead. The wooden bridge was gone and the village chief watched them from across the ravine. Leon stood up slowly and watched as the giant stalked away.

——————————————————————————————————It is absolutely ridiculous to me that Leon decided to backflip his way out of the chainsaw situation instead of taking a few steps backwards like a normal person Man is insane

<- Previous | Next ->

[doodlemunster]

You can't just leave me hanging with "great stories"! Would you kindly share your some stories from your Escape Room days that were the:

1. Craziest

2. Silliest

3. Wtf-iest (moment that made you go wtf/question humanity)

LMAO oh I am more than happy to tell them!! Strap in, cuz I def have a few!

Some of these stories kind of fall into all three categories and mixtures of both, but I'm gonna do my best!

Craziest

would have to be a story that I tell almost every time someone asks me about my time as a game guide cuz it THREW me for a loop.

Okay so, my workplace would offer group deals for companies looking to do 'team building exercises'. We have four themed rooms, so all four would be blocked off for their entire company to split up into. This was absolute chaos cuz our place was s m a l l and every time these events happened, it was damn near elbow to elbow.

Anyways, we had an insurance company come in to do the rooms and I was tasked with guiding them through our basketball themed room. This room had two hidden rooms separated by doors you had to solve and unlock. Each one even had its own TV too.

My team comprised of all women and they were pretty quiet, so I had to give them some extra nudges, but otherwise they did well and at the end, really got into the spirit of things! Sadly tho, they didn't break out so I went in to show them how and boy howdy, this is when things get interesting.

One puzzle you have to complete is this brochure with a cross word puzzle. Many people think you have to use this brochure for the entire game, but that's not true. It's a one and done thing. However, these ladies were CONVINCED it was crucial. Anyways, they handed it off to me and this piece of paper is SOAKED. Like, real soggy and its ripping apart. I'm confused because this is the worst state I've ever seen one of our brochures in. Didn't question it, continued to show them everything and ask if they had a good time.

As I'm ushering them up to the front, one lady approaches me and tells me that she panicked in one of the rooms. See, this room is about the 'rules of basketball' and that someone is running in to steal it and you have to find them before this mysterious thief gets it, so the TVs will periodically do emergency broadcasting beeps and have a panicked basketball player telling you you are their only hope. It DOES indeed get people panicked and makes kids cry at times.

So, she continues to tell me she believed the brochure was the actual Rules of Basketball and needed to hide it where no one could find it. At first, the way she worded it, I didn't quite get it till the whole group was done and gone. MY DUDES, SHE STUFFED THE BROCHURE IN HER PANTS.

She was sweating and this brochure had been stuffed next to her cheeks. As with all rooms, we game guides sit in the back watching and hearing the group to give them clues. I watched these people like a hawk, but she sneaked that brochure down her pants with EASE. So, in conclusion, I had a sweaty ripped brochure covered in booty sweat.

Silliest

I got two stories for this category as they are simply silly and light hearted.

The first one is a big family that also did the basketball room. One of these family members is this little girl, who couldn't be much older then like, 5. The adults were in a tizzy trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, which was a number combo. It's loud and a lot of members are talking over each other, until I hear this little girl just spit out the answer but NO ONE heard her.

In these rooms, there is a small TV up above where I send clues and when I send one, it'll be beep. So I immediately sent them a message 'the little girl just said it! she said the answer!'. The family reads the clue and immediately, ALL the attention is on this little girl. All the adults are like 'What is it? What did you say??' and the girl is NOT prepared for this attention. She's giggling, smiling shyly and saying 'I don't know! I can't remember!' and the adults are scrambling to figure it out.

So, because the whole family was already SO close to breaking out and technically a member of their party DID say the right answer, I repeated what the little girl said to the group and they got the puzzle. It was really funny and a great time.

What running these rooms have taught me is that kids are VERY good at these escape rooms. They can by pass the bullshit and get to the actual puzzles/answers. They just need an adult to keep them focused, that's their only downside. I had SO many kids blurt out what they think the puzzle is and have adults straight up ignore them. So, I'd take the extra step and tell the adults to listen to their kids.

The second silly story is about a group of four who came to do our Y2K inspired room. This room theme was about how you are stuck at a New Years Eve party and its just about to be the year 2000, but its up to YOU to stop the computers from crashing and the world ending. I liked this one cuz you could listen to early 2000's music while the room ran. I always knew I had 3 minutes remaining in the room once Mambo Number 5 played.

Long story short, this group was struggling with a puzzle and one of them suggested to google the answer. Not sure how they would do that, but regardless, I was about to send them a message to NOT do that.

My worry was totally unwarranted, as another from their team blurted out 'You can't do that!! It's the year 2000, phones don't EXIST YET'. Which had both me and the rest of the group cracking up.

WTF Moments

as much as I loved being a game guide, I did experience a lot of fuckery in the rooms.

There is a reason most of the stuff in escape rooms are bolted down. People WILL try to destroy the room. Usually not intentionally, but some shit heads will try to on purpose, even AFTER you tell them to stop. So, sadly I do have quite a few stories.

I had a group of women come in to do our Civil War themed escape room. This room was all dark except for the lanterns you would use to pick them up and see around the room.

I had one lady yank on the portraits on the walls which I told her they do NOT come off. I told her once, she ignored it and continued. I had told her a second time and she STILL didn't heed it and RIPPED the fucker off the wall. This thing was ANCHORED INTO CONCRETE. I don't know how she did it.

Our cameras weren't the best so through the dark, the talking and everything else, I don't think I knew she did this till I came into the room to find the picture on the ground.

In the hidden room there was a pipe that is attached to the wall but is pretty fragile. This same lady kept grabbing it and pulling it at it, in which I had to tell her multiple times to STOP. She finally did after goading from both me and her team mates (her team mates especially because they were catching on that I was only sending them messages about her messing up the room). I was about to kick them out, but thank god she finally stopped.

Another group, two women, got mad at me for penalizing them for being super tardy (this isn't some unspoken rule, its a common rule at most escape rooms and is both posted on our website AND in the lobby). So, they picked every lock open in the Y2K room, messed up the flow of the puzzles, and in turn, didn't break out (womp womp).

Another group of two, a wife and a husband, did our Y2K room as an anniversary activity. The wife was nothing but smiles and was super excited to play. Her demeanor and attitude did a total 180 once the room started.

The husband got to looking at the walls, the decor, the drawers, etc. and was speaking out loud "hey, i think this might be a clue" "hey, I think this might be a puzzle", so on and so forth. She never really replied to these questions, instead ignored him and looked elsewhere. He then began solving these puzzles on his own and opening things up, which sent her into a TIZZY.

All of a sudden, she is getting pissed. "You've done this before haven't you?" "well how did you get that so fast? you done this before!" just over and over. He continued to deny it and would calmly say 'no, I haven't. I just found this and figured it was a puzzle'.

He gets to the secret room all on his own and now she is SUPER mad. Convinced he did this on his own, she sits herself down on a chair and exclaims 'Well, since you've clearly done this room before, I'll just sit here till your done' and crosses her arms.

Well, this is real fuckin awkward and I have....no idea what to say. I had tried to send freebies, but it didn't seem to help ease the tension nor make her any less pissed.

Toward the end, she did sort of try to help, but it was more like angrily stomping from place to place. At one point, she retorts 'I didn't think you would get it. You usually aren't this smart'.

which gob smacked the hell out of me. Holy jesus. This woman was terrible. I was reeeaaally not looking forward to coming into that room to ask them how things went, but ya know, its part of the job.

That's when her demeanor changed AGAIN. I opened up the door and said 'Oooh I'm sorry you guys didn't make it! Did you have fun tho?' and this woman turned to me, beaming and cheerfully saying 'omg yes it was so much fun! Were we close?' and while I was thankful it wasn't horribly awkward, it had me so incredibly confused. The poor guy was quiet but still very kind with me, but I just felt awful for him. If she was like this in an escape room, how was she like behind closed doors at home??

We also had some racist asshats come into our rooms and we had to kick them out and ban them from ever playing again. I wasn't there when this happened, so I don't have the full deets, but like damn dude.

Honorable Mentions and Other Tidbits

I had a group from Australia come in and give me a little nudge nudge, wink wink to tell me their 'coffee' was definitely not coffee. They were awesome.

I had a group forget my name, so they just called me God to ask for clues

On one of my first couple days of work, I looked away from my group for only a few minutes before discovering they had unscrewed and taken the vent cover off in my room. I never typed so fast in my life to tell them THERE ARE NO CLUES THERE OMG PLEASE DON'T STICK YOUR HAND IN THERE

I wasn't there for this, but my co-worker told me a story of a couple who played the basketball room, only for them to break up half way in. They sat on opposite ends of a bench in silence till time ran out

I had several instances of people getting VERY mad at me for giving them freebies.

A lot of people weirdly just...straight refused to pay attention to the TV where I gave clues. This was a bigger problem then I thought it would be for some reason.

If I had to give any tips on going to an escape room, It'd be this:

Be nice to your game guide. This should be a given, but you'd be surprised the amount of times people would forget I can see and hear them and say nasty things about me. If you are kind, you can get yourself some freebies in crucial moments or, in some super rare cases, even get some time added to your room. They WANT you to break out and are just as excited as you when you make it!

When a game guide asks if you have questions, def ask some! There is NO such thing as a dumb question. Escape rooms in of themselves are weird and not many people even know what they really /are/ or what the goal is. I know I was more than happy to answer them if asked. You'll feel better and do better if you ask.

Definitely get there at least 10-15 minutes early. Most escape rooms require you to sign a waiver and the guide has to go over all the rules before it starts, so it just makes it easier on them to keep their rooms on time. Like I said, most places have time penalties if you are late and that's simply to make sure the schedule doesn't get messed up. If you are lucky and the escape room place is small, like ours, you could get away with it, but there were times where even /we/ had to put our foot down and enact the policy.

Thank you so much for asking Mysc!! ^o^ So so sorry its a HUGE WALL of text lmaooo I tell stories in text just like I do irl -- long winded and too much context. But I freaking LOVE telling my stories from my game guide days. It was such a hoot.

[zahra-hydris]

finally finished the msq up to dawntrail last night (after about a week of trying to get groups for the trials lmao)

so I found the whole thirteenth storyline really boring before I stopped playing ffxiv last year and coming back to it... it's still kinda boring. it's not *as* boring as it was, but I think it's helped when you're not playing little bits and pieces in the patch drops.

I just found it hard to care too much about azdaja's fate and zero bounced between being likeable and interesting and then kind of flat. golbez wasn't compelling until the last few quests (and even then it was too little too late - I mean he was actually a kind of emet-selch figure but without any of the character depth emet had). it seemed really lacking in any notable character moments from the main crew. and the humour was missing. it became super earnest, especially re: zero's shift into mini wol. and that was fine and all, but just kind of eh.

things I did like:

learning more about the thirteenth and its fall

the dungeon where you go back to the contramemoria and play through golbez's memories

y'shtola revealing she changed the incantation for her nixie and then threatening wol and estinien into silence about the old version

GAIA ACTUALLY REAPPEARING AND BEING VOICED though right at the end and with the whole 'you should have asked me for help' YEAH WE SHOULD HAVE WOW WHAT A THOUGHT SQUEENIX

that moment when they're talking about the trust and belief in someone displayed by clasping their hand (like a handshake) and wol thinks about zenos reaching out to them as he died (made me a little feral!!!!!)

but the big thing that seemed off to me was that... this kind of felt like a big side quest? I kept waiting for the moment where this would tie to a bigger story and then they were like 'ok all done bye zero'. we didn't even get any significant payoff in terms of establishing cross rift travel? and THEN the dawntrail msq started.

speaking of the dawntrail stuff... I'm also kind of 'eh' about it. I liked that they actually stressed that maybe it's not a great idea to just jump into a foreign country's power succession process and that you know very little about the person whose claim you might be supporting. I like that krile is finally getting a chance to shine (though I am FURIOUS about g'raha staying behind). but I'm not super invested atm. the only thing I am very curious about is what thancred and urianger are up to (besides being unable to stay apart).

and i'm sorry but pictomancer looks kind of ridiculous

[blinkaftermidnight]

i would love to hear more about some of the unfinished The Wilds fics

Buckle up. There's a lot of stuff dying in my hard drive. Maybe, when I get the time, I should try to finish some of it up/patch it up/post random snippets (if anyone would be interested?).

So here's the thing, I have my drive separated into two types of fics for The Wilds: there are fics I consider potentially still in play and fics I've scrapped altogether. Two different folders. I'll make you a list under the cut and tell you what I consider each to be. And I'll probably give too much commentary about each.

If you want to know more or get a snippet of any of them, please send follow up asks. I would love to share. Or I'd love to hear what, if I were to pick back up with writing, you'd want to read the most. No guarantees, but I'll think about it.

I posted the snippet for i'll be waiting on you forever from Fatin's POV in another ask. Not very far into that, but I also haven't moved it to the scrapped folder. I think my problem with that kind of fic is it doesn't feel fresh enough - it's hard to make it feel new when we already know where it's headed. I've done it before, but it's hard.

I started a second Star Wars AU that's unrelated to the first where Leah's a Jedi Padawan and Fatin is a senator - literally Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones. Didn't get very far but didn't scrap it.

I have one that I'm still hoping to finish that's placeholder titled "Leah loses her mind" rightfully or wrongfully, I don't know. It explores her season two on island hallucinations and how that affects her and the group. It's 6.5k and unfinished, but I'm planning to take a look at it and see what can be done.

There are so many post island fics that are just snippets and doing nothing on my drive. I kept trying to experiment with writing all of the season two POVs post island and that shit is hard. Probably a sign not to expand too far away from Leatin because apparently I can only care so much lmao. But I haven't bothered to scrap them.

There's one where I attempted to write Leachel but that shit was also hard apparently. Really I was trying to write all different pairings and didn't get very far. Not scrapped and I have considered trying again more than once.

I started a no experiment AU where it was just an actual plane crash. I have 5k of that and no memory of writing it. Not scrapped. Not sure if I'd ever finish that.

The season 3 fic outline I mentioned in another ask but didn't link because I was on mobile, so that's here if you missed it. Not scrapped, but unfortunately I think outlining it made me feel like I told the entire story even though I never wrote more than 2-3 chapters. That's the problem with outlining, but only sometimes, because I outlined the exes fic/we're falling apart still we hold together, and that was fine.

I started a road trip AU back in 2021. Wrote 7k. Outlined the entire thing and same problem as above. Got stuck. I think I was trying to force word counts on myself for each chapter and it wasn't working. Not scrapped but very unlikely I'll touch it.

I have one just called "waterfall 5" that has five moments spent at the waterfall, and I almost finished it. I think I still have some hope of finishing it, since it's a quick thing.

I've talked about it before, probably two/three years ago at this point jfc, but I don't remember what I've disclosed about this fic. It's the one I mentioned in another ask about it not feeling right, so I didn't put it out, and it's something like 50k words and had a massive plot hole that I had to try to fix, and I was going to do a whole rewrite and maybe put it out. This one haunts me. There's a chance I'll throw the entire draft out one day without editing or fixing any issues. Or maybe I'll take another stab at it, since it's all there. Truly, this one haunts me. For once, I had a perfect title and nothing to show for it. There's probably snippets of it in asks on my blog somewhere from back when The Wilds wasn't cancelled and I was insane about it.

I scrapped the Grey's Anatomy AU. Just gave up on it.

I wrote 239 words of something vaguely Dotin and scrapped that too.

I have a first draft of the fake dating AU i don't belong to you (but you're wrong) that I scrapped. I took it in an entirely different direction and scrapped 10k of this other thing. I think I salvaged some of it for the posted fic, but it started going the wrong way.

Also have a scrapped draft of the last chapter of the soulmate AU i said i wouldn't let you in. That first draft of that chapter was BAD.

I scrapped 14k of everyone else's perception of what was happening with Leatin on the island. Like Leatin through every other character's eyes, and I don't remember why it didn't work or what I didn't like about it.

I'm not gonna lie, some of this stuff I'm looking at...even I don't know what it is anymore.

I scrapped a document called "untitled" and this is literally all that's in it:

"She sees her on the first day of school, sitting with the kid that supposedly led the FBI to Gretchen. Leah smiles slightly as Fatin crosses the lawn, and the kid – Ian – turns to look where Leah’s looking, and Fatin just tilts her head in acknowledgment and keeps walking. There’s nothing more for her to do."

I don't know what that is.

There's STILL a lot more documents I haven't touched on because I haven't bothered to open them and find out what they are (and my placeholder titles don't tell me much all the time). But I feel like this is a good start lmao.

Sorry for writing a novel, but you did ask. If you want more, let me know and I will make time over the weekend to post some stuff.

[b0nelessdoodles]

Art Summary 2023

shoutout to the one month were i drew fanart and then everything else was just dnd content again lmao (also shoutout to me being late to posting this haaaaa)

2023 wasn't the best year for me personally. between money problems and job searching, health issues, mental health issues, unintentional discomfort at my new job, and the overall issues of the world it just hasn't been great and I felt it heavily in my creativity. I never really had any creative highs this year outside of artfight (and even then i felt like i didn't do well) which only fed into some of the issues I was having.

But looking back I am really happy with most of what I made! Sure I didn't draw much but hey I think I popped off when I did!

So here is to 2024! Already off to a good start in the art department and even if I slow down at least I've had fun so far!

(i was gonna put me gushing about things in tags but its a lot so i'm doing a read more this post is already so damn long lmao i'm sorry)

okay i'm here to gush about two pieces at a time and their contents cause then make me happy to look at so lets get started on that with march and september 'cause hey! look at the relationship development of my little goblin guy!

march was when kk (tic's best friend and now boyfriend) first appeared to the rest of the party outside of just tic talking about him. literally the entire party could see that kk was in love with tic and was just like "oh buddy sorry about that" 'cause tic was a dumbass and romance was just never something he thought about until meeting the party. then we flash forward to september where the two confessed to each other after what really felt like the end of tic's story arc. at least it felt that way to me 'cause he reached his goal of killing groll and becoming the king of goblins but i know he still has shit to do I'M LOOKING AT YOU TRAVELLER AND RIP! but yeah that was the whole reason he left and it was done. he did it! but it almost cost him kk and the two ended up having a really important talk about it. kk chewed tic out and spilled his guts and i still think about it a lot holy shit it was so good omfg but it was in that moment that it clicked for tic. that if he had actually lost kk he had no idea what he would do, that he felt like his whole life would fall apart without him. and just man it was good wholesome content. congrats to the goblins for being the first canon relationship! (even tho they were not the first confession that one goes to rhami!)

now that that block of the text is out of the way we get to more depressing ones, those being january and october with my guy, dr. cecil wilfree.

its just.... man. what do i even say about him. january was probably the last moment before his life went into a full downward spiral, eventually leading into his demise. that piece isn't even anything major but rather something like a reminder going "hey, remember when wilfree had two normal eyes? good times!" and just man (-insert that image of a horse standing on the beach-) compare that to where he's at in october and knowing what happened in those 10 months? january he still had trust and hope, he believed that he was going to get back home and help river out with his plague, maybe even get aster home if she'd let them, maybe find a way to cure himself and help casey. but by the end there was no hope and he found out that he had been used, was nothing more than a tool for someone who he trusted, despite knowing that he really shouldn't have. river was dead and it was his fault (at least in his mind it was), he had failed to protect aster and traumatized both her and willow, and he could do nothing to save an entire population from being wiped off the face of the map. and he caved under the guilt. he gave up. its sad to see him alive and pissy in january and then look at december and see a shell of the same man, no more thoughts in that head as his mind got disconnected from his body and self.

and then for extra sads we've got december which was his birth month, so i drew something from a time before the campaign. back when he was alive and well, no soul curse and unknowing of the horrors yet to come, and receiving a gift from someone whose life he could soon destroy due to his own hubris.

anyway! pay no mind to may! i didn't draw a damn thing that whole month!

[stitchthesewords]

HI I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I ACTUALLY READ THESE CHAPTERS SEVERAL DAYS AGO BEFORE STITCH MADE MAJOR CHANGES TO THEM AND OH MY GOD SHE MADE THEM SO MUCH WORSE THE BOYS JHJKSJKFSJKKJ I AM RATTLING AT MY BARS-

ANYWAY. This was so much better than what I imagined but oh my god. The funny cute banter between Scar and Mumbo that is like barely inches from flirting. The teasing. The little jokes. Scar's fascination with "human stories." His excitement over the most mundane of memories, the minecart ride and the discoveries AND THEN WHAM, HURT!! ANGST!! NO COMFORT!! "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" AND THE RUNNING AND THE SHEER PANIC OF IT ALL OHHFDSHHAH-

Okay. Okay lemme back it up. Man the cute domesticness at the start, the little signs of Mumbo warming up to Grian (my dear readers that scene originally went very different and as good as the original was I am delighted by the change). I still can't get over the mental imagine of "Scar! :D And Grian :|" but he's warming up and he's becoming fond of the bird boy and aaaaaa I love them and they love each other <3 Helping Mumbo do something as boring and domestic as make item frames and just mmmm <3

"We have guns" YEAH WELL GUESS WHAT SCAR THAT'S NOT GONNA FUCKING HELP-

The minecart ride.... you should totally post the whole thing as an aside on tumblr or something, the long 700-ish word version was very fun :) But you summarized it very nicely here <3 I just love Scar tripping as he gets out and Mumbo ZOOMING over to help him, like honey I think you cut some of Grian's hair there LMAO

Just the whole arguing about the chorus fruit. "I'll go first, no I'LL go first you could get hurt, no ME-" Then Grian just fucking peaces out and immediately injures himself SORRY that SENT me I love them so much. I wonder how Mumbo and Scar react to that. "No I'll go first you're accidEEEGRIAN-"

Grian batting Mumbo away from the flame with his wings and Scar floating his staff away LMAO. Mumbo just Causing Problems On Purpose. Grian and Scar fighting to keep him Away From The Torch and him just being like having no self preservation cares BUT THEN TWO SECONDS LATER JUMPING AWAY WHEN THE TORCH GETS TOO CLOSE ON ACCIDENT LMAO. I'm sorry I love him so much, turns out a wet cat is still a cat indeed-

And Grian getting lost in his memories. Like he was in two places at once, in his head and physically (that is such a mood ngl, me every time I walk across my grandmother's farm jkgfdkj). The concern Mumbo and Scar have about him getting lost in thought and Scar's excitement over him getting a little flash of a mundane little memory aaaaa <3

THE ONES WHO CAME BEFORE I LOVE IT. I mean you know me you know I love a good ancestors and city ruins plot. AN ANCIENT MOB FARM KJFJKSJKFSJK at least they get the idea to dig around it. My god Mumbo's immediate "No you are not building a bridge here" and trying to be Intimidating™ and Firm™ and Scar just looking him dead in the eyes and lighting the torch to send him scuttling back like the wet cat he is under his vampirism HJKFSJLFKJSL I LOVE THEM SO FUCKING MUCH also the "I'm not as flammable as Scar says I am" WHY DO I GET THE FEELING YOU ARE LYING MR. JUMBO HUH?? HUH????

Anyway Grian just SEEING the purple light in the distance and knowing it's the Rift and immediately being mesmerized by it, drawn forward. God I want to see that scene from Scar and Mumbo's pov, Grian just running past them and flying and just jkfgkjdkj. AND THEN. THEN THE RIFT????? PUTS HIM IN A MEMORY???? I legit thought for a moment that Grian was remembering his home falling apart and then it just turned out to be an accident and then Mumbo and Scar's voices and words just melded with the memory?? dream?? and he had no idea what was really happening AND ALMOST WALKED STRAIGHT INTO THE RIFT I AM SOOO JKDSJKFJKS

AND SCAR SCREAMING. SCAR REALIZING WHAT'S HAPPENING AND SCREAMING AND GRABBING GRIAN IN POSSIBLY THE MOST PAINFUL WAY SO HE CAN DRAG HIM BACK WHILE THE RIFY TRIES TO EAT GRIAN?!?!?! THE RIFT REACHING OUT FOR THEM AND INJURING THEM??? OR ONE OF THEM IDK HOW MUCH I CAN SAY BC GRIAN IS DISASSOCIATING AND THE FEAR AS HE REALIZES WHAT'S HAPPENED AND THAT THE RIFT LURED HIM IN AND EVERYONE SCREAMING WONDERING WHAT'S HAPPENING AND SCAR YELLING AT MUMBO TO STAY AWAY FROM IT AS HE BODILY DRAGS GRIAN AWAY AND THEY RUN AND DON'T STOP AND THEY JUST RUN AND RUN BECAUSE THEY NEED TO GET AWAY (ARE THEY BEING CHASED TOO??? IF SO BY WHAT SCAR SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM THE HOLE AND MUMBO SEALED IT IMMEDIATELY JKSLK) AND OH MY GOD THEY HAVE CHOSEN THE WORST POSSIBLE OPLACE TO PUT A VAULT-

BUT. The first time, when Grian went through the first time it showed him grassy fields........ it didn't lure him in with a memory/dream IT TEMPTED HIM IN. BUT IT DIDN'T CONSUME HIM THEN. WHAT'S HAPPENING. But god imagine seeing grass and sunlight only to walk through INTO A FUCKING CAVERN. AND THE THOUGHT THAT HE WAS BEING CHASED I AM WONDERING NOW AND I AM. SO FEARFUL. STITCH. S T I T C H. WHAT IS HAPPENIIING EVERY TIME I THINK I KNOW YOU THROW A WRENCH IN IT HHJSDJHJKFSKJ

Anyway so obviously if you could not tell by my unhinged screaming this chapter was amazing and I am DYING holy shit. Thankyou for this it's wonderful <3

HI I WOULD LIKE EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I HAVE BEEN THREATENED WITH THAT MIDNIGHT UPDATE FOR WEEKS AND IT WAS DESERVED. RATTLE YOUR BARS, YOU CANNOT STOP ME

I am clapping from my glass lil box of emotions though bc have the two of us in our dms last night while we freaked out about each other stories was the most fun I’ve had w writing in ages and genuinely so much joy in my heart. Could not have been a better night. AND YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES I ‘m glad the panic got across. I was typing, VERY fast.

That scene did originally go. Very different. Actually here hold on-

“Well. You don’t have to show us anything then. It’s our vault, and we know you used a chorus fruit to get in. So, we can just do that,” Mumbo said. His tone was a bit colder now and Grian swallowed.

😊 I much much much prefer ‘Grian [neutral]’ I think but man there is something about Mumbo slamming his metaphorical door shut in the original scene too. But also yes the domesticity of storage organization. They’re all so married already its sort of insane.

ITS FINE THEY WERE FINE EVERYTHING’S FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE

I should post the whole minecart scene actually. Not here, I’ll do it later. Shout at me if I don’t do it later klghsdhs But I really love it. I’m like a kid in a candy shop w the redstone mechanics and the minecarts in MC I just. Love. Them. So much. AND YES SCAR TRIPPING which was inspired by the fact that getting into and out of rollercoasters for myself is a fucking time and a half tbh. I love Mumbo using his Vampire powers for like, mundane everyday things like helping scar I am soFT ABOUT IT

Fun fact what you DIDN’T see was the original where Mumbo bit into it – the only reason I changed it is because it was weird having the non-POV character teleport away. The tension of the scene got muddled. Also peacing out w a chorus fruit in the middle of an argument about who should actually use the damn thing seemed like either a very Grian or Scar thing to do anyway sooooo. BUT YES HE JUST. IMMEDIATELY CAREENS ONTO HIS CHIN. Bless his hollow boned ass. They’re all such wet cats.

I picture mumbo as one of those tuxedo cats who just always looks like they are Up To Something. Slinking around. Making a lot of ruckus but then always sitting politely when you go to check on them. Batting at everything and anything. You get the drift. He is. SUCH a wet cat

[Grian would be an orange tabby and Scar would be a tortie, for the record. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.]

One of my favorite like. Bad??? Things?? [Well. Not necessarily always – disassociation and getting lost in your memories can be good for you in certain places for sure] the human brain does is go “Mmm hey there’s this Thing That Happened but instead of thinking about it directly we’re going to make you spiral around it like a bathtub draining and THEN let you remember what it was.” You know? Idk I think it’s a really interesting aspect to like, healing from trauma/how the brain deals with difficult memories. It helps, too, that there’s definitely Weird Magic Things at play too, which is a really interesting way to examine it. IDK one of my favorite aspects of fiction is how we can explode the human condition outwards to utterly ridiculous lengths in order to really peel back the layers of our own experiences and study them and learn from them/how to deal with them. And then the fact that not only is Scar Concerned and Excited but Grian has even attracted Mumbo’s Concern like. Mumbo Jumbo you are not living down the ‘Actually Cares About The Bird’ allegations.

FUN FACT ‘THE ONES WHO CAME BEFORE’ IS SOMETHING I STOLE FROM MY NOVEL- That’s what the people who live in the ‘modern day’ call Human Ancestors [Like, neandertals and homo erectus].  I DO know you love a good ancestor city ruins plot 👀👀👀. I do in fact know this about you. Eyes the recent midnight update. ALSO YEAH ANCIENT MOB FARM DLKGADFG They used to be so much easier to build I miss it. I should go back to alpha for funsies. Also I love mr Wet Cat Jumbo he’s so Scary tm and then he’s not at all in the slightest actually. It’s so funny. Scar has put up with him for so long. TBF He has put up with scar also for so long.

IN HIS DEFENSE, WHICH ONE OF THEM IS LYING TBH. THEY BOTH WOULD CATCH FIRE LIKE MATCHSTICKS LKADFG but also 😊

A little bit of excited to see it again a little bit of lured in. Excited /neg. I guess. Also I too want to see that scene from their POVs so. Uh. We probably will. Rift AU IS self-indulgent first and foremost after all 😊 AND Y E A H I wanted the Rift to get to play with Memories and Dreams in a really funky way for Reasons Revealed Later. I LOOOOOOVE How confusing it turned out to be honest. It is meant to be read as disorienting and not clear when is why is how. BUT THAT SCENE OF HIM ALMOST WALKING IN – I HAVE HAD THAT PLANNED BASICALLY SINCE I STARTED THIS AHHHH

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE PANIC Okay like I didn’t do a lot of description of the room the Rift is in because Grian has got Bigger Fish To Fry and taking time away to describe this MASSIVE PURPLE RIFT IN THE CAVE WALL felt out of place but. Imagine you are Scar. And the Avian you’ve grown fond of who occasionally does work for your lowkey criminal empire is walking towards it and not responding to you screaming his name and you have seconds to act and you GRAB HIM BY HIS WING which is a thing that’s already been shown to be a little bit sensitive [a lotta bit sensitive] and you feel the feathers pull out under your hand but you have to pull him away and as you do TENTACLES OF LIGHT BURST FORTH FROM THE RIFT, REACHING FOR HIM, SEARCHING FOR HIM [their POV is gonna be. Fuked.] AND ITS ALL YOU CAN DO TO GET AWAY BUT THE DAMN THING GRABS ONTO YOU AND YOU CAN FEEL THE SKIN OF YOUR ARM BRUISING AND TEARING AS YOU PULL YOURSELF AND GRIAN AWAY FROM IT I CANNOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS SCENE, OKAY? OKAY. AND THEN YOUR BEST FRIEND ALMOST LOVER ISS WATCHING AND ABSOLUTELY TRYING TO GET CLOSER TO HELP BECAUSE, I MEAN, HELLO, AND YOU CANT LET HIM get any closer, you can’t let whatever the hell this is touch him, hurt him, so you start just screaming. And running. Aaaaaugh. AND THE TWO OF YOU ARE RUNNING AND you’ve GOT GRIAN IN YOUR ARMS AND GRIAN IS FUCKING GONE HE’S SOBBING INTO YOUR CHEST AND NECK AND SHOULDER AND YOUR LEGS ALREADY HURT BUT YOU CANT STOP RUNNING AND-- 😊I cannot be normal about this scene okay I CANNOT.

WHAT IS HAPPENING INDEED, MY DEAR BELOVED FRIEND ATHERIX, WHAT IS HAPPENING INDEED.

Thank you for screaming it was a DELIGHT I cannot wait to write the next chapter I am practically vibrating out of my skin about it.

[bees-tornado]

hello stranger! I will ask you some questions! 6, 9, 26, 32!

thank you for the numbers stranger I owe you my life

6. Which route is your favorite?

I’m very biased towards Verdant Wind, largely because it’s my first route, but also because Claude is there + the way it explores and uncovers the game’s lore + it has the best final battle IMO. I really really like Azure Moon’s story though so it’s a close second.

9. What is your favorite scene in the game (can be in the main story or a support convo)?

Okay because this question is sort of open-ended I’m gonna do main story AND support convo.

As for animated cutscenes, I have two favorites. One would have to be the VW final fight, I won’t describe what I like about it in great detail because there’s a certain someone I know who will probably be reading this and still needs to finish VW cough cough, but it’s just a really cool sequence and I just think Claude really gets to shine in it. Two would have to be the Blue Lions’ Flame Emperor reveal because. Yeah. Uh. Wow. That was really something. The laugh? The shot of the spear flying by Edelgard? The way it really showed Dimitri’s monstrous strength for the first time? Very good. I had been looking forward to seeing how Dimitri cracks in that route and it did not disappoint when I finally got there.

As for supports, I’m not sure if I can pick just one, but a moment that really stayed with me was a Sylvain line from his B Support with Annette:

“There's just one thing I want you to remember. Guys like me who hate hard work and sorta get by on our wits? It all falls apart eventually. I'm smart enough to know that. So I respect people like you. I mean it.”

It’s a line that really personally resonated with me, and that was probably around the time I realized how much I liked Sylvain as a character.

Some of my other favorite support chains include Bernadetta/Sylvain and Bernadetta/Yuri, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen some of these supports that I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.

(Okay, I’m gonna try to reel myself in with all the text from this point on, because if I don’t I’ll never finish answering this ask lmao)

26. Who is your overall favorite character?

I love both Bernadetta and Sylvain very much but if I had to choose my overall favorite (looks nervously at merchandise on wall/shelf/etc.), I would have to go with Bernie. She was actually the first student character besides the house leaders that I knew about before the game came out and I knew I would have to recruit her.

I’m not sure how well I can put it into words unless I write a whole essay about it (that might be its own post one day), but I see a lot of both my gf and myself in her, and there are a lot of things about her character that are just really charming.

She caught me a little off guard early in the game because she had a lot more going on than I expected, but just like Sylvain, I think there was one moment when Bernadetta really captured my heart, that being when she showed up at the graveyard in Chapter 10. Not only was she (iirc) the only person to explicitly leave flowers for Jeralt, but she left her room and went all the way across campus during exploration hours for the first time to do it. She has several moments like this, where she goes above and beyond on her own volition despite her anxiety. I dunno, I just think she’s neat.

32. What is your favorite post-timeskip character design or outfit?

I love so many of the post-timeskip character designs, but there are two characters in particular that really blew me away when I saw them for the first time after the timeskip.

First of all is Bernadetta, they just made her soooo pretty for no good reason. I love her hair, her bow, her earrings, her pauldrons, her outfit, her color scheme, and how they kept her silly little bicycle shorts. Rip to the hoodie, but she has this sort of yellow cloak-like piece with the clasp that sort of gives off the same vibe.

Second is Lorenz, they took away his haha funny academy haircut and made him downright majestic. I also love how the rose is incorporated into his armor.

Anyways THAT’S IT! I’M DONE

[berryunho]

This is gonna be a very random message and it's another unnecessarily long ass ask, I'm so sorry for always sending those :,) feel free to ignore it! It's just me rambling about your fic (as usual) because I was listening to a song and it actually fits The Answer so well in my mind, I have been stuck with this in my thoughts for 5 hours now and wanted to share just because.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the band "I don't know how but they found me", but they recently released a single called "What Love?". It ties some cult/religious imagery to a toxic/crumbling relationship (so i guess it's not too surprising that I ended up connecting some parts of it to The Answer lmao).

To start off, the crumbling relationship lyrics reminds me of Mingi and mc. The singer expresses that the relationship between him and the other person is falling apart, yet the other person keeps coming back to him even with this rift between them growing, and he himself can't help but welcome them back, almost as if it's something inevitable that he can't fight, literally singing "I can't fight this feeling". With that, the relationship becomes or continues to be unhealthy, and so he asks "What love could get this vicious?", later on the lyrics saying "I think you've got a hold on me, so don't let me go and I'll never set you free".

I know that, before the cult, Mingi and mc's relationship wasn't toxic, but their inability to communicate their actual feelings seems to have led them into this limbo, where they couldn't stay apart yet couldn't be together, at least not in the way they really wanted to. That unsatisfied connection being what drives both of them to the cult: Mingi leaves because of the hold that his feelings for her have over him, and mc caring for him so much as to being unable of letting him go, not setting him free to make his own choice (as bad of a choice as it is) and chasing after him despite all the red flags. Like the singer getting back to his partner, mc getting to the cult, and by proxy Mingi, also seems like an inevitability (if HJ had any say in it anyways).

The lyrics go on to say "you only come around when I've got somebody new" which reminds me of HJ and SH taunting mc about how Mingi joined the cult because of her, and how he was perfectly fine with them while away from her. That is followed by "you only sacrifice the things I never ask you to" which, in turn, matches mc's side of the story, she never wanted him to get into such a dangerous situation just to be away from her, she never asked for the mess that their relationship and feelings have led them to. The last phrase on the verse before the chorus is "I guess I met you at the wrong time" which explains itself :,D

Then there's this entire verse that goes:

"I promised you things I didn't mean, pushed you to the edge of insanity.

I shook all the wrong hands, at all the right times.

Who did you expect me to be?"

AND IT MATCHES THE ANSWER!MINGI SO MUCH PLEASE ! HEAR ME OUT

The fact that mc came to the cult looking for him, now she is suffering in HJ's hands and we all know how that's gonna go for her sanity, AND to top it all off: Mingi blames himself for that. Then the thing about shaking hands with the wrong people at the right time? Literally shaking hands with the cult leader during their first meeting amidst an emotionally vulnerable time lol. The "who did you expect me to be?" really ties it all together for me, I picture those moments when mc is shocked about how her sweet best friend became just another follower tangled in the cult's web, became someone who won't hesitate to do as he is told even if it means hurting someone else or even her (aka letting her get stabbed for a ceremony), plus his angry outbursts. Its like "did you expect me to be the same person you knew before my time in a cult?"

I think the rest of the song matches more the general situation the mc is in, for example another verse that says "is this the night where we go too far? Where we get untethered and we learn our lesson", it makes me think of her on-going "its complicated" situationships with the cult leaders lmao. The singer asking himself if this night will be the one where they cross the point of no return, in my opinion really resonates with mc getting more and more vulnerable to the leaders, until she eventually reaches her limits and succumbs to HJ's beliefs. Tying into that, a part of the symbolism in the song expresses that some of the remaining attachment the singer has to the relationship is somewhat sexually oriented, so yknow, mc hating the main culprits of her suffering, but still kinda finding them attractive just enough to consider sleeping with them anyways (specially San, but her questioning interactions with HJ and SH just keep pilling up too, my poor girl).

The phrase I mentioned earlier, "What love could get this vicious?", can also match HJ and SH's relationship, as well as HJ and mc's developing dynamic. SH's love for HJ leads not only to his unyielding loyalty towards the guy but also enables all the horrible things we see happening in the story, plus HJ ends up hurting him through it all by being unable to actually reciprocate (and being the controlling petty little shit we see in the story). HJ and mc's dynamic of him being seemingly-kind of in love with her (??? in his own twisted way) and her growing inevitably more attached and open to him until he finally wins. It's like, he clearly treats her with some semblance of "care" that he doesn't show anyone else, and it seems to be, at least partially, based on genuine affection(??) from some of the glimpses we get of his true intentions and personality (where said "affection" for her came from still being a mystery, so yknow, questionable unclear feelings being questionable and unclear), yet we also know what those supposed feelings of his will lead to: mc will suffer because of it.

To end this insane rant, the one line of the song that started all this and reminded me of The Answer to begin with is: "This blood sometimes holiness brings you", I think this one also speaks for itself LMAO.

This was so fucking long, again I'm sorry for taking so much space but the brainrot was too strong and I thought it could at least be somewhat fun for the author of the story to see my dumb (and crazy) ramblings about her story.

- 👁👁

the way this ask has me in its clutches omg

FIRST OF ALL. LETS NOT APOLOGIZE. I LITERALLY AM IN LOVE W YOU. I LOVE YOUR ASKS ASLKADJSFLAKSDJF like the way you put more thought and effort into this ask than i do into half of my school assignments like im not even exaggerating this is a full analysis of so many things im like levitating in the air reading this

ANYWAYS. at the risk of sounding like a reply to a discussion post i really have to commend your attention to detail and say that i agree w you on all of this its crazy LKSJFAKLSF LIKE SERIOUSLY THIS IS SO INSIGHTFUL PLEASLJFLASJDLFJ

The "who did you expect me to be?" really ties it all together for me, I picture those moments when mc is shocked about how her sweet best friend became just another follower tangled in the cult's web, became someone who won't hesitate to do as he is told even if it means hurting someone else or even her (aka letting her get stabbed for a ceremony), plus his angry outbursts. Its like "did you expect me to be the same person you knew before my time in a cult?"

THIS BIT IN PARTICULAR HAS ME BITING MY FISTS YELLING SCREAMING LIKE OH MY GOOOOODDDDD ITS SO GOOD AND SO TRUE LIKE I CANT EVEN ADD ANYTHING ALJAKDLFS

like this is all just so good and top tier like. im yelling. i cant even believe this. thank you so much. AS ALWAYS. LIKE THIS IS SO LAIJFDLKASDJF I CANT EVEN ADD ANYTHING LIKE I SAID IM JUST LIKE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LJ;LAJS;DFKJSDFA THANK YOU MWAH KISSES