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titan-fodder · 4 years ago

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Prima Vista Part III

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Rating: E (explicit; mdni) Pairing: Mike Zacharias x fem!reader

Warnings: a lot of feelings, handcuffs, testosterone, quite a bit of sex, one surprise kiss (cause Erwin is a privileged dick), parents, domesticity A/N: I apparently did not write an author’s note for this originally, but uh, this is one of my favorite sections of the whole fic, so.

Mike uses the rest of the break to relax, to get his head on straight so that when he gets back on campus he won’t be overbearing. He knows that’s the last thing you want from him.

You text back and forth a few times a day, but most of it is dumb shit, and the conversation dies off pretty quickly—either Mike not knowing how to respond or you just growing bored.

He busies himself by spending time with his parents and playing with Scout who eats up all the attention. Family comes over for Christmas, and his mom and aunt get into an argument. It’s nothing new.

He’s happy to get back to the school and back in classes just to stimulate his brain. More than that, he’s happy to see you again. Even if it means the two of you go back to friend-only status.

Things are awkward between him and Erwin, though. It isn’t the first time they’ve had a hiccup in their friendship, but this one has really rubbed Mike the wrong way. Erwin tries to apologize a few more times, but every time he does, all Mike can manage is an unconvincing, “It’s fine,” which the other man obviously doesn’t buy.

He tries not to be possessive when you start coming to the house again, but it’s fucking hard whenever he has to watch you and Erwin talk and joke around. Mike figured you’d be at least a little annoyed that he’d just walked in on the two of you like that, but you act like it never happened.

Eventually, Mike has to ask about it, just can’t help himself. “Aren’t you, like, even a little mad that he did that? Don’t you think it was fucked up?”

You’re sitting on Mike’s bed, a controller in your hand as you play Mario Kart, sound a little distracted when you respond, “I mean, yeah, it was fucked up, but I never really expected anything more from him.”

“What do you mean?”

You look at him from the corner of your eyes before staring at the screen again. “Erwin is a cocky motherfucker. I’ve seen the way he gets the girls on campus, probably thinks he can charm all of them which means he probably thinks he’s entitled to all of them. Us.”

“Are you calling him a predator?”

You shrug your shoulders. “I don’t think he’d ever, like, rape anyone. He at least has enough class and common sense not to do that. But I think… He doesn’t care who he goes after. Single girls, girls in relationships, happy girls, damaged girls. He just has a one track mind when it comes to sex. That’s what I’ve gathered anyway.”

Laying back on his bed, Mike laces his fingers behind his head and thinks on what you’ve said. “That just sounds like a drawn out way of saying he’s a flirt.”

“A massive flirt. Without any real care about whose feelings he hurts in the process.”

“Sounds about right.”

“I don’t appreciate it,” you sigh, “But he’s your best friend, so I’m willing to put up with some shit from him.”

“Even him perving on you?”

“Not the first time it’s happened to me, probably won’t be the last. He’s curious, I can tell.”

Mike snorts and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, he is.”

You stay quiet for several seconds, toggling over to another track on the game, then ask, “That make you uncomfortable?”

Blinking up at the ceiling, Mike wonders what the right answer to this is. He doesn’t want to scare you away, but he doubts he’ll be able to act as aloof as you do.

“A little.”

You hum, nodding in a thoughtful manner before suggesting, “I think we can keep hooking up through this semester.”

Mike sits up on his elbow, looks at you with high eyebrows. “Wait, really?” He sounds too excited, he knows.

“Yeah. I have mostly easy classes, or really, I have interesting ones which makes studying for them easier. Plus, it might teach Erwin a lesson.”

He falls back flat, scoffing. “I don’t want you to fuck me to prove a point to Erwin. I want you to fuck me because you want to.”

The game music stops when you pause it, and then you’re straddling Mike, hands on his chest as you smirk at him.

“Don’t let this go to your head, Zacharias, but no one has ever fucked me the way you do.”

Mike tries not to grin, triumph blooming inside of him, and he grips your hips a little too tightly. “Oh, that’s definitely going to my head.”

You grind your covered pussy over his denim-clad cock, and Mike feels all his blood flow south.

Laughing, you lean down to ghost your lips over his and murmur, “Both heads, apparently.”

That day, the two of you start a routine that leaves Mike falling harder and harder with every passing day.

“Come on, please just be my date,” Mike begs, thinks about getting to his knees if it’ll help convince you.

“Why?” You ask, looking up from your textbook.

You and Mike are sitting in the library—you studying, him bothering you. “I’m honestly so tired of parties at this point.

“It’s not like the big parties we throw, though,” he tells you. “It’s just the brothers and their girlfriends.”

“That makes it even worse,” you push one little laugh through your nose. “What makes you think I wanna spend an entire night with a bunch of frat boys and their matching sorority girls?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “They’re not all sorority girls, just like, eighty-five percent of them.”

Your head lolls, an expression that reads nothing but apathy aimed at Mike, and he gives you a hopeful smile and adds, “On the bright side, we get to stay together all night…?”

“Oh god, it's a cuff party, isn't it?"

All he can do at this point is beg because the more he explains it, the more he realizes how not appealing this is to you. “Please.”

Sitting back in your chair, you cross your arms over your chest and puff your cheeks out as you exhale heavily. “What’s in it for me?”

Fuck yes. Half the battle is won.

“Uhh,” obviously sex is the first thing that comes to Mike’s mind, so the first offer he makes is, “I’ll go down on you ‘til you cry.”

You snort. “Try again.”

“Fuck you ‘til you pass out?”

“Jesus—why do you want to hurt me? Try again. Third time’s a charm.”

Mike brainstorms for a solid thirty seconds, thinks about what you’ve mentioned to him over the past couple of weeks, sex and school and—

“I’ll help you study for your geochemistry exam.”

You finally look interested. “I’d actually really appreciate that. You took the course?”

“Yeah, environmental geochemistry was sort of my jam last year. Final grade was a ninety-seven.”

“Holy shit.”

Mike shoots you a satisfied smile, but before you can tell him to wipe it from his face, he asks, “So, you’re in?”

“I guess.”

This is how you both end up in the frat house handcuffed together. No one seems to be surprised at the fact that you’ve come with him, all the brothers used to you hanging around the frat house.

Most couples are walking around holding hands just because it takes some of the pressure off of everyone's wrists, but Mike doesn't dare try it with you. Too cute. Too comfortable.

These types of get togethers are Mike's favorite, though, always more relaxed than the open parties. There’s still drinking and music, but the energy is different since it’s a tighter knit group.

It takes about an hour for Erwin and his date to approach the two of you, fingers laced together, drinks in their free hands.

“Looking good,” Erwin greets with a smile. "Very… trapped."

“Yeah, you too,” Mike says, trying to ignore the subtext of Erwin's comment.

Blue eyes flick to you, and you’re questioned, “How’d he end up talking you into this?”

You don’t miss a beat as you reply cooly, “Bribed me with sex and study help.”

“Ah, of course he did.”

Mike’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything, just reaches his pinky out to link with yours, a subtle claim. When you rest your head on his arm, he looks down at you and smirks.

“Anyway,” Erwin pushes on. “You remember Maddie, don’t you?”

Mike lies, “Yeah. How are you?”

The girl’s voice reminds him of who she is, “Well. How are you, Mike?” It’s a little high pitched and nasally with a northern accent. He especially remembers what she sounded like moaning for Erwin through the wall, obnoxious but Mike can’t really judge since he’s subjected the rest of the house to the same thing once or twice (or a dozen times) before.

“Glad to hear it.”

The group stands together for a few more awkward seconds before Erwin clears his throat and asks his date, “Another drink?” then makes his exit.

“You have got to get over this grudge, dude,” you take your head from his shoulder, and Mike immediately misses the warmth. “Like, it’s cute that you’re trying to defend my honor or whatever, but it’s time to move on. You guys are friends. Just talk it out.”

He sucks his teeth, almost tells you about the way he and Erwin had nearly thrown punches at the ranch house, the way the blond had basically admitted to wanting to try you out, but Mike decides against it, doesn’t want to talk too much shit only to end up making up with him.

“Guys don’t really talk it out. We usually fight it out.”

“That’s fucking primitive. You should learn to communicate like mature humans.”

“Probably,” Mike hums. “But not right now.”

Being connected to each other means every activity is a partner activity. The most interesting is playing beer pong against Nile and his on-again off-again girlfriend, Marie, house rule for the night being whoever is throwing has to use their cuffed hand. It’s like a twisted three-legged race and requires an amount of teamwork and coordination Mike has never had to deal with before.

It’s also the first time he manages to beat Nile. Mike had no doubt that the other man would have crushed you by himself, but it turns out the actual couple does not work together very well. All their shots are clumsy, and Nile gets frustrated right off the bat which only makes things worse. Meanwhile, you and Mike come up with a strategy after the first terrible throw and use it for the rest of the game.

You’re both challenged by a few other teams and end up winning every time which has Mike feeling smug about the victories and giddy at how in-tune the two of you are. Gelgar even tells you both, “You guys are good together,” which makes Mike cough as you wave him off.

You drink a little more, converse a little more, and then—as always—end up in Mike’s bedroom.

“You want me to get the key and take these off?” He asks between kisses.

You smile into him, let out a little laugh and play, “You don’t think it’d be kinda fun to fuck with ‘em on?”

“It’ll be harder,” Mike snorts. “But, we can. Won’t be able to take shirts off, though.”

“Good thing we just need to take our pants off.”

It’s clumsy and silly, and you both tug in opposite directions more than a few times. Mike laces his fingers with yours when he goes down on you, relishing in the way you arch off his bed and squeeze his hand. On the floor, you give him head in the same fashion, and fuck, Mike can hardly focus on you sucking him off while your fingers are woven together, even if it is just for the sake of convenience.

He fucks you from behind that night, your face buried in his pillow as he’s buried in you. Both of your arms are stretched behind your back, held at the wrists by Mike’s much, much larger hand. He uses his free one to grip your hip, pushing and pulling you on his cock to his heart’s desire.

You’re so pretty, damp with sweat and moaning his name when your head is turned only to shove it back into his pillow when he makes you scream. Your dripping cunt opens up for him perfectly, making Mike feel more inebriated than alcohol ever could, but as his balls tighten and that warmth spreads in his gut, he has a single moment of clarity, assess the position he has you in and pants, “Shit, I can’t pull out.” Not without ripping your god damn arm out of socket or fracturing his dick.

“Mmm—fuck, just come inside, come inside me, Mike.”

That alone makes him lose it, shooting a fucking copious amount of cum into your pussy, so much that it drips from your hole and runs down your thighs.

“Fucking C-Christ,” he laughs a little hysterically, gathering thick white and slipping it back inside you. Transfixed by the way his added finger pushes more of his cum out of you, he asks in a daze, “You on birth control?”

“Yeah,” you answer in a breathy voice.

Mike hums. “Good. Just gonna sit here for a while then.”

You let out a whimper that turns to a whine when he rubs his slick finger over your clit. Twitching around him, you tease, “F-finger painting again?”

He chuckles, “You know it.”

Honestly, if he could cover you in cum, he would—admire your body painted in white strings, watch it drip down your ribs and thighs. If Mike hadn’t just gotten off, he would be hard again at the mere thought, but for now his focus is rubbing your little clit. Still face down, you spread your legs more and more, and Mike has to curl over you, breathing heavily on your neck as you wriggle and buck, overstimulating him as he keeps his cock nestled inside of you.

He groans just as loud as you do as you start pulsing around him, pussy clenching in a way that actually pulls a few more drops of cum from Mike, then you both pant for a little while until Mike straightens up and pulls you with him, your back to his chest as you hang your head.

“You good?” He questions, brushing his lips over your neck as lightly as possible.

“Yeah,” you tell him. “Just… Full.”

Mike’s body heats all over again as he rests his forehead on your uppermost vertebrae. “Can’t just say stuff like that,” he warns, sinking his teeth into your shoulder.

“Hmm.” He can see the little smile on your face without even looking up. “You did offer to fuck me until I pass out.”

“I have a refractory period, you know.”

You glance over your shoulder, and now Mike gets a good look at your smirk and twinkling eyes. “I can wait.”

Both of you emerge from the room in the early hours of the morning, still stuck together as you quietly make your way downstairs to find the key to the handcuffs. You’re wearing a pair of Mike’s gym shorts, the mesh falling far past your knees and barely staying up around your waist. He knows you’re still messy and can tell by the way you’re walking that you’re sore, but he has every intention of cleaning you up and taking care of all your aches and pains in the shower.

It’s party after god damn party with classes and studying and fucking in between. You have never had this much sex in your life, but you’re not complaining. It takes the edge off, and Mike isn’t the worst company. Far from it, actually. The more you get to know him, the more he falls into what you think is his real personality.

The brash frat boy is a front, you come to find out, a mask to fit in with everyone else, one he wears very well.

But, when it’s just the two of you in his room playing video games or watching TV, he actually relaxes, gets quieter and much more reflective. The pastels and khakis and Hawaiian shirts stay hung up in his closet, both of you lounging in t-shirts and joggers more often than not.

He more or less tutors you in geochemistry, and between that and all the nerd shit in his room, you realize… Mike is kind of extremely smart. And, it’s kind of extremely hot.

“I still don’t understand why you hide it,” you tell him one afternoon as you watch him play Ocarina of Time.

He shrugs, green eyes wide and focused on the screen, gives you the same answer he did last semester when you’d asked a similar question: “People are more interested in other things.”

“So you adopted the obnoxious frat boy persona?”

“I guess. It makes the college experience a lot easier.”

You cock your head to the side, genuinely curious when you ask, “Doesn’t it wear you out? Seems like you’re just an introvert in hiding.”

Mike laughs, pauses the game, and looks at you. “It used to. Some days it still does. But, it’s easier than taking shit from the guys.”

Squinting at him, you mumble, “I will beat up anyone who gives you shit about being a nerd.”

It makes him laugh. Loudly. And, you see a certain curiosity glimmering in his eyes, unasked questions—probably something along the lines of when you started caring and getting protective over him.

You’re not. Not exactly. You just don’t like the idea of anyone giving him a hard time.

“No offense, babe, but I don’t know how much damage you could inflict on anyone. You’re, like, two feet tall.”

You straighten up, chest puffing up as you pull your fists up to your chin and rock back and forth like a Street Fighter character. “You wanna fuckin’ go, Zacharias? I’ll show you how much damage I can inflict.”

He grins in that boyish way that always makes you look away. It’s too cute and too charming and makes you feel too many things.

Mike hangs his long legs over the side of the bed and pulls you on top of him with no problem whatsoever. You’re eye level with him now, heart beating too fast as you hold his shoulders, eyes flicking to his lips.

“We can go if you want. We can do whatever you want.”

He has feelings for you. You know he does, can see it in his eyes, can feel it in the way he fucks you, and you really should cut things off, but… You don’t want to. He’s the most tolerable person you’ve met on campus, much less annoying than Hitch. You have things in common and joke around until you’re both rolling in laughter. And, of course, the sex is incredible.

It’s just casual, you keep telling yourself. Mike is smart enough not to push things. He knows better, knows you’ll just turn him down, and though it’s hard to admit, that wouldn’t just hurt him; it’d hurt you too.

In his lap now, you don’t encourage him to take things further, mostly because you’re still sore from the night before, and he understands that. Instead, you lock your arms around his neck and change the subject to something that’s still bothering you even after several weeks.

“Have you and Erwin made up yet?”

Mike makes a face, answers, “Not exactly.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“It means we’re talking a little more, but it’s always short conversations and the problem still hasn’t been addressed.”

You let out a little, “Ugh,” then state, “You guys are impossible.”

It really doesn’t make sense that he’s so upset about it, especially since you’ve gotten over it. It was a shitty thing for Erwin to do—walking in like that—but you don’t think it’s anything to end a friendship over.

And, with that thought in mind, you spend the rest of the afternoon devising a plan. It’s not in your nature to meddle, but it seems, in this case, you’re gonna have to.

Mike is in his fancy ecology class when you walk into the Pike house, nodding at everyone in the den as you step further inside. You learned a few months ago that it’s much safer to keep your shoes on, less jarring to step on a sticky floor the first years didn’t do a good job cleaning.

Nile is reclining sideways on the couch with Marie between his legs, an action movie playing on the ridiculously big TV mounted on the wall.

“Is Erwin here?” You ask.

Nile looks at you with a frown, one that’s completely warranted since you’ve literally never asked this before.

“Uh, yeah.” He points up at the ceiling. “In his room.”

“Cool, thanks.”

“You know which one it is?”

Squeezing one eye shut, you’re honest when you tell him, “I think so.”

The way Marie is quick to pipe up, “Second furthest to the left, right next to the bathroom,” is very amusing, especially when Nile clicks his tongue, clearly irritated.

You make your way upstairs, following Marie’s directions, then take a deep breath before knocking on Erwin’s door, clueless as to what his lock code might be.

It takes a few seconds, but the door opens, revealing a very tired-looking Erwin. His eyes widen a bit when he sees you, craning his neck back like he’s shocked that you’re standing outside of his room. That’s fair.

“Uh, hey?”

“Hey,” you greet shortly. “Can we talk for a sec?”

Erwin blinks a few times then steps to the side, murmuring, “Yeah, of course.”

His space is very different from Mike’s, more organized, framed pictures, bed completely made. Even his desk is clean, papers and books all stacked neatly on one side of his open laptop.

“Studying?” You question.

“Yeah. Would you like to sit down?” His voice is deep—not as deep as Mike’s—and always so proper, like he spent his childhood in country clubs (he did).

“Not really,” you answer without any hesitation.

Unsurprisingly, Erwin leans against his desk instead of taking a seat himself, arms on either side, fingers hanging off the edge of the polished wood. It makes the muscles in his forearms become more prominent, veins popping against his skin. You have to give it to him, it’s a good move.

“So, what’s going on?”

Running your tongue over your teeth, you recall what you planned to say—cut to the chase, stay firm, don’t get caught up in any of his tricks.

“You need to make up with Mike.”

Erwin immediately snorts. “You don’t think I’ve tried?”

“Half-assed apologies aren’t gonna work, dude. Actually sit down with him and hash things out.”

“Yeeeah,” he drawls. “That didn’t work very well the first time.”

“Maybe try again? You guys are, like, best friends.”

“Levi is my best friend,” Erwin corrects, “And, I’m pretty sure that you’re Mike’s at this point.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” he smirks.

You wave him off, getting back to your original point. “At the very least, you guys should make up just because you have to live in the same house.”

Erwin crosses his arms over his chest, blue eyes deviating upward as if he’s thinking hard. You doubt he is.

“So, you’re not mad about what happened?” He asks after a few seconds.

You're blunt when you respond, “It was a shitty thing to do. Wouldn’t advise trying it with anyone else, but honestly, I’m not super surprised you’d pull something like that.”

His facial expression turns to one of true offense, blond eyebrows furrowing enough for a little wrinkle to form between them. “Excuse me?”

You take a step toward him, almost jab a finger in his chest but resist. “No no no. You don’t get to be pissed. You’re the one who fucked up here. I’m just telling you the truth.”

Eyes narrowing, he pushes himself off the desk, standing to his full height to loom over you. It’s obviously an intimidation tactic, one he’s probably used before on many people, and it makes your blood boil.

In a futile attempt to make yourself look bigger, you straighten your spine and tilt your head to look up at him, lips pursed, eyes narrow. You remember what Mike said about you being too small to hurt anyone, but you can be scrappy. You’re not above slapping a face or kneeing someone in the balls.

Erwin peers down at you, jaw setting for a moment as he really studies you, then breaks into an infuriating smile.

“You’re cute, you know that?” He moves to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, but you swat his hand away.

“Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

This close to him, seeing the way he acts behind closed doors, you wonder how Mike ever even got close with him. They’re so incredibly different. For the last semester and a half, you've only known Erwin as Mike's somewhat obnoxious, spoiled friend. Now, it seems he's showing his true colors.

“Nothing’s wrong. In fact, I’m feeling pretty great right now.”

Oh, you wanna hit him. You wanna hit him so badly, but honestly, Erwin kind of seems like the type to call the fucking police if you did.

“You don’t have any reason whatsoever to be feeling good.”

He’s still grinning, eyes bright and wide as his pupils dilate.

Are you calling him a predator?

He sure looks like one now, a lion with his sights set on an antelope, and as you stare at him, it dawns on you that this was a bad idea.

“You know what? Nevermind,” you shake your head. “You don’t deserve to be Mike’s friend anyway.”

The laugh that pours from his lips is not at all humorous. His voice drops when he challenges, “You think so?”

You need to leave, need to get out of here before this argument goes any further, but as you make a move toward the closed door, he slides in front of you. You shouldn’t have walked so far into his room.

“Erwin,” you grit through your teeth. “Don’t do this.”

“Just tell me—because I need to know—” he breathes, still staring down at you with that unnerving gaze. “What does Mike have that you like so much?”

Both your hands flex by your sides. There are so many ways to answer this question, all of which will evoke a different response.

But being who you are, you speak before you think, spitting the first thing that comes to mind: "You want me to make you a list, Smith? 'Cause I sure fucking can."

He makes a little circle with his hand, a 'go on' motion, and prompts, "Please, enlighten me."

And, so you do.

"Warmth, sincerity, class, depth, understanding—"

"So, it isn't just about the sex," he cuts you off, sounding more sure than curious.

You pinch the bridge of your nose, tired of these god damn frat boys and their obsession with getting their dicks wet.

"I mean, it started out that way—not that it's any of your business."

"I can give you more, you know. Satisfy you better—"

"Please shut the fuck up," you beg, getting madder by the second. The confidence, the entitlement, is making you sick.

"You don't believe me?" He steps toward you again, and you back up.

"No, I don't." Because how could he? Whether it's stimulating conversation or sex, there's no way Erwin could compare.

And now you realize just how much you appreciate Mike.

Erwin is closing the distance between you, moving slowly but purposefully. "This is how it started with you and him, right? You made him chase you?"

"Get out of my way," you demand, trying to shoulder past him—

And, you should have seen it coming, should have been prepared for the way he grabs you, strong hand closing around your upper arm to pull you to his body. Thick fingers tangle in your hair to pull your head back, face tilted up, and all you can really do is shove at his chest with your free hand, growling in your throat as Erwin crushes his lips against yours.

Adrenaline courses through your body. You try to shake the hand on your head, try to jerk your arm from his grip, but he's too fucking strong, and it terrifies you.

Your voice is muffled as you plead, "Er—mmf—shtp—"

You lift your hand higher and manage to hit him just beside his eye with the side of your palm, and it makes him break the "kiss" (you refuse to actually call it that).

He breathes a heavy, "Just let me—"

"No." You push his chest again, and he lets go of your arm. Quickly wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, you tell him, "You're a shitty friend and a little fucked in the head, but you're not low enough to force yourself on someone," you pant, shaking with nerves and rage, "So don't."

Hopefully, you're not giving him too much credit. Despite the overflowing fury and fear, you still think there's a little hope for him. Not with you, of course, just in general.

He stares at you, expression changing from confusion to understanding to regret, and before you know it, he's scrubbing his hands down his face and muttering, "Fuck, I'm sorry. You're right I—I got carried away. I've been jealous of Mike and curious and—"

"Why?" You blurt because you do not get it. "Both of you are, like, top athletes and in a fraternity, could get literally anyone you wanted, so what is it? Is it because I'm a nobody? Because you're bored of the sorority girls? Am I the one chick on your list you haven't screwed?"

"I… I don't know. You just—"

"Is it because Mike has a toy he doesn't wanna share?"

"Maybe." Erwin is frowning again, like he's stumped. He doesn't even know what he's feeling. It's honestly a little pathetic.

"Well, pick someone else. I know you have Maddie wrapped around your finger, so take advantage of that or whatever. Just leave me out of it."

Ocean eyes are wide and troubled. He really does look remorseful, but that doesn't change what he just fucking did. God, you're disgusted. And a little hurt.

"Don't ever try that shit on me again—or anyone else—'cause I swear to God, I will break your fucking nose."

"Yeah, okay," he nods.

You go to walk past him again, voice loud and unforgiving when you tell him, "Move," and then you're out of his room, slamming the door, and getting as far from Pike house as possible.

That did not go the way you had planned it to, but you should have been ready for the worst case scenario. That's on you, you guess.

Because Erwin Smith may not be a predator by definition, but he's certainly something—something you want to stay away from.

"Why are you acting weird?" Mike's voice pulls you from your empty head, and you take your eyes off the loose string of your hoodie—his hoodie—and look up at him.

"What are you talking about? 'm not acting weird."

He moves from his place at the edge of his bed and crawls to prop himself up next to you on his pillows.

"Uh, yeah you are. Have been for the past week or so."

He isn't wrong. You've kept to yourself a little more since your "conversation" with Erwin. It had just been so uncomfortable and jarring, and you don't want to tell Mike because you know he'll just get pissed all over again which would be very annoying since he and Erwin finally made up. Just like you wanted them to.

Except now you know Erwin a little better, and you're not sure you want him having any more influence over Mike.

Rubbing your face, you shrug and easily lie, "I've just been tired."

And, of course, Mike is too smart for that.

"Tired? That's the go-to answer for anyone who actually feels shitty."

"I mean, yeah, but I'm actually tired in this case." It isn't a complete lie considering how fucking late he kept you up last night.

Mike hums. "Wanna take a nap before the party?"

The acid in your stomach churns. The party. The one you do not have any desire to go to. The one that will push you over the ledge of annoyance and into the realm of genuine discomfort. You don't want to go. You don't want to hang out. You don't want to see Erwin.

Sliding your legs under the covers, you lay down in Mike's bed, turning on your side so that your back is facing him. You've told him on numerous occasions that you don't have any interest in certain events, but he always talks you into going to them anyway. So, what'll be different this time? You're just gonna end up downstairs huddled in a corner refusing to drink as your eyes scan over everyone, ready to make a quick exit if you have to.

Mike settles in closer behind you, the heat of his chest pouring across your back, and you can feel the pillow dip when he rests his head on it. He waits for a while before letting his arm fall over your waist. It makes you squeeze your eyes shut, makes something crawl into your throat, trying to scratch its way out.

"I really don't wanna go tonight," you murmur.

You expect some form of protest, a convincing argument in the form of a well thought out fucking speech while he kisses down the back of your neck, but instead, a low rumble of, "Okay," spills from his mouth, and you hate how it makes you feel—how grateful you are for him.

He's getting to know you. Has gotten to know you after spending so much time together. He can read your ups and downs now, can tell when you're joking or serious, take the hint when you want him with a single look (that one might be the most irritating), but it just goes to show how perceptive he is, how much of himself he's been hiding while in college.

The shallow jock you thought you knew is no comparison for this.

"Spring break's coming up," he speaks into your hair, inhaling deeply and whispering to himself, "Citrus kills me," like you can't hear him.

You pretend not to because it's soft and personal and would probably make him adorably self-conscious, and you can't deal with Mike blushing.

"Yeah, it is. Couple more weeks."

"What're your plans?"

You shrug against him, trying not to get too wrapped up in the way his body feels over yours, longer legs tangling between yours, his draped hand nearly covering your entire stomach, his stubble scratching your neck and cheek.

When did you get this close? When did you decide it was okay to be this intimate? This is what couples do. This is comfort.

And, you didn't think you needed it, but fuck—

"Nothing, really. Go see Mom, I guess."

"Come stay with me," he says quickly. "Just for a few days."

You wriggle to turn on your back and frown up at him as a myriad of questions fill your mind.

Mike takes a deep breath, somehow reading every one of them.

"I know that sounds like a 'come meet my parents' thing, but I promise it's not. I just thought it'd be cool to hang out not at school and not at a party. Plus," he shows a broad grin. "You can meet Scout."

"Mm, tempting," you laugh. "I do like dogs."

"And, you'll love her! She's so sweet and so goofy and—"

"I'll think about it," you stop him.

Mike bites his lip, looking hopeful, but tries to play it off with a, "Okay, cool," then leans down to kiss you as if you've already said yes.

Honestly, you have, just not out loud. He had you at 'hanging out'.

Studying sucks. Midterms suck. Avoiding parties, however, does not suck. Mike still goes to most of them, kind of has to considering they're usually thrown at the PKA house, but sometimes he just shows his face then comes to your dorm. You try to convince him to stay, hang out with his friends, but he usually just shrugs and digs through your stash of movies until he finds something he wants to watch.

It's fine with you, makes passing geochem a lot fucking easier, but it also means little sleep and a perpetual soreness between your legs.

You just… Can't get enough of each other. And, you think that's how it's always been since that first party. Afterward, you had denied him in the courtyard and then broke as soon as he got into your room to get his stupid shirt. Denied him at the bar then broke as soon as he leaned over you at the pool table. Denied him at the after-game party and broke after… Seeing his room? Watching movies? Acting like friends for the first time? Whatever it is, you're always falling into bed together, some kind of unstoppable force against your obviously very movable object.

It's something you think about too much now, always somewhere in the back of your head. At this point, you should probably just be with him, don't know who you're kidding with that lie about focusing on school (your grades have never been better actually), but you're scared. That's really what's been hard to admit to yourself, not the fact that you're attracted to him or the fact that your irritation has bloomed into genuine fondness and admiration. It's that's you're fucking terrified. You can feel it in your bones.

Don't get too attached because people leave. All the time. People let you down. People disappoint.

You don't want Mike to disappoint you, so you won't give him the chance to.

Of course, all of that is easier said than done as you look over at him in the Wrangler, one huge hand pn the wheel as his other arm hangs out of the open window, catching the wind that batters against it like he's trying to push back. You hate it when he does that, too many horror stories of car crashes that end in traumatic amputations, but it's one of Mike's strange simple pleasures, makes him grin as if it's his head hanging out instead. At his core, Mike Zacharias is just a huge fucking puppy dog.

A dubstep song from too long ago is blasting through his speakers, the vibrations hitting you square in the chest as you bounce your leg and bob your head. It's beautiful outside, winter's bite melting away into sunny springtime days. Some of them still bring a chill to the air, but it doesn't matter since you basically live in one of Mike's hoodies, dark green with the school's lacrosse logo stamped in the middle. It's faded and worn out and far too big on you, but it's quite possibly the most comfortable article of clothing you've acquired.

The drive to his parents' house is a good three hours, but between the playlist he's made (stellar, not that you'd admit it), the road games you play, and the road head you give him ("Oh, Jesus Christ, this isn't safe—this isn't safe—fuck—") you make it there in one piece and in good spirits, though you have take a few drinks of the soda you got at the convenience store to wash the residue of cum out of your mouth before meeting his god damn family.

He grabs both your bags from the backseat, slinging them over his shoulders, then starts up the path to a… surprisingly small home. It isn't a shack by any means, but after what you saw of Erwin's stupid ranch house and some of the pictures and stories Nile and Gelgar have subjected you to, you just kind of figured all of them had ridiculous amounts of money.

Then again, you know Mike got a full ride to college with a sports scholarship, and he rarely talks about his family and their lifestyle aside from Scout and little tales from his childhood—trips to the zoo, the one time he rode a dirt bike and broke his collarbone, he and his dad rescuing an injured bunny from the park.

You should've known back then that you'd get in too deep.

The small garden that lines the house is well-kempt and full of blooming flowers, and the porch is home to a wire table and matching chairs with an unsavory gnome sitting on top.

"What in the world…"

Mike doesn't even glance to see what you're looking at, just opens the screen door and informs you, "That's Leonidas," so casually that it makes you snort and push him into his own house.

It opens up to a living room, long couch, recliner, coffee table and all. A TV sits right in the middle of a beige entertainment center, DVDs stacked on one side, blu-ray discs on the other. It smells clean—like the lemon wipes you use in your dorm—but even stronger than that is the smell of food.

"Must already be cooking," Mike muses, then calls out in a different fucking language that has you turning to him in confusion.

Before you can ask about it, a plump woman a couple inches taller than you comes rushing out of what you assume to be the kitchen. Her graying hair is tied into a loose bun, cheeks rosy from the heat, and she's still in her apron and a single oven mitt.

"Miche, γλυκό μου αγόρι!"

She stops in front of him and reaches up to grab his face, peppering it with little kisses and babbling words you do not understand in the slightest.

Mike is laughing, speaking to her in the same fashion, possibly answering questions or defending himself judging by the way he holds his hands up. You think you have an inkling about why when his mother turns to you, puts her hands on your shoulders to look at you, then pulls you into a tight hug.

You squeeze her right back, rocking to and fro as she does, then look up at Mike from the corner of your eyes in a panic.

What do you do, what is happening, what hasn't he told you?

It’s about this time that a large dog runs into the room and actually jumps into Mike’s arms. He grunts as he hoists Scout up, nuzzling into her beautiful coat as she tries to lick his face.

"Mamá, let her get settled first," Mike laughs from where he’s getting attacked. His mother lets go of you, but it’s only for Mike to set the dog back down, and Scout takes the opportunity to sniff and paw at you. “Be nice,” he warns her, pulling you in front of him and pushing you toward the hallway.

That need to snoop around is ever present as you enter his room, but the much more pressing issue is, "You could've prepared me, ya' know. Given me a little heads up that you're…"

"Greek?" He snorts, wiping his face with the bottom of his shirt. "My last name is Zacharias. That's a pretty good indicator."

"I—..." You pause, pout, then mumble, "I'm not a genealogy expert."

"Obviously not."

He dumps the bags on his bed, a queen size, thank god, because he had told you last week they didn't have a guest room (and had seemed pretty happy about it at the time).

"I'll get mom and dad to speak in English for the next few days."

"I mean," you shake your head. "It's their house. I don't wanna intrude on that. Let 'em do what they're most comfortable with."

He steps over to you, makes his classic move of staring down at you and smoothing his hand over your hair to make you tilt your head up. "That's sweet, but I know they're dying to talk with you, so actually being able to understand what they’re saying is kinda necessary."

Humming, you stand on your tip-toes just as he begins to stoop lower. Before you can meet in a kiss, though, you smirk, "And, just why do they wanna get to know me, Miche? Is that a secret Greek name too?”

He licks his lips, voice husky when he replies, "I've mentioned you a few times--”

“Uh huh,” you smirk, too close for him to actually see.

“And no, I think it’s Hebrew or something.”

You snicker before your mouths meet, breaths grow heavy, and the only time you break apart is so that you can look him in his light eyes and tell him, "By the way, the whole speaking a different language thing you can do?" He grunts, encouraging you to continue. "Very hot."

You feel him smile against you, a self-satisfied, "Yeah?" making you burn against him.

"Yeah."

It's hard to leave the room, but you both know you have to, hoping neither of you look too kiss-swollen when you walk back into the living room, and when Mike's mom is no longer there, he brings you to the kitchen instead.

"Smells good," he tells her, leaning over the stove and taking a whiff of the prepared dish that’s been set on top--stuffed tomatoes and peppers that make your mouth water.

She says something, and Mike lets her finish before asking, "Can we speak in English while she's here? It's kinda hard to add to a conversation when you, like, don't know what's being said."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" She immediately gushes, turning to you with a worried look. Her accent is thick and charming, but she doesn't ever stutter, clearly fluent, just more comfortable in her apparently native language. "I just get so caught up when my Miche comes home, I—"

And, she's hugging you again.

"I'm Maia! Christopher—Miche's father—should be home soon."

You rub Maia's back until she lets go and turns back to the stove, but even as she does, she's asking you, "How is school? What are you studying? Miche's told me very few things."

He shouldn't have told you anything at all, you want to say.

"Um, it's good. I'm an earth sciences major, geology specifically, so Mike—uh—Miche's been helping me study a lot."

He leans down to speak so only you can hear, "Not necessary to call me that. She's gonna know who you're talking about when you say Mike."

Not that you'll tell him, but you kind of like the way 'Miche' feels, the way it rolls from your lips to the back of your mouth, and for just one second, you think about how you'd like to moan it in his ear.

"So, uh," you shake your head in an attempt to get it back on straight. "Yeah, it's going good, I think."

"It is nice that you study together," Maia hums, slicing into the dish to portion it out. "Miche probably enjoys the break from his fraternity life."

Mike makes an unsure noise, but you grin and lean on the counter, eyes shining as you look at the middle-aged woman, "You know, speaking of that, I need to know what he was like before the whole frat thing 'cause—"

"Uhh, we don't need to talk about that," Mike quickly cuts you off.

Maia, however, catches your eye and winks, a silent promise that she'll fill you in later.

Mike sees it, whines a dramatic, "Mamá, please."

You laugh, glancing over at him with a devious smile that makes him roll his eyes and grumble something.

The creak of a door opening followed by the sound of a screen slamming back against the frame signals the arrival of Mike's father. It takes him a couple minutes to join everyone in the kitchen, probably taking the time to get more comfortable after what you assume to be a long day.

When he does walk in, once styled hair fallen out of place, top two buttons of his shirt undone, you see exactly where Mike gets most of his looks. He may have gotten his fucking mane from his mother, but he definitely got his height and his eyes from his father.

"Oh!" He stops short when he sees you, looks at his wife, then at you, then at Mike. "Is this the girl?"

"Dad!"

Both of his parents snicker as he turns to you, pleading more than telling, "Just ignore them, they don't know what they're talking about."

You don't pay him any mind, join in on the fun when you lift an eyebrow and tease, "Am I, Mike? Am I the girl?"

"Oh my god, this is gonna be a nightmare," he groans, the tips of his ears growing red. Still, he tries to put on a stern face as he points at his parents, speaks in beautiful, rolling words that are beyond you, then turns his flashing gaze to you and commands, "And you, don't encourage them."

"Mm, no promises." You stick the tip of your tongue between your teeth and wink at his mom the way she had at you earlier.

All of you sit at an actual table for dinner, something you haven't done in at least a decade, as you talk and laugh between bites of food. Scout is laying underneath, waiting for someone to drop a piece of food, and every once in a while, you feel her wet nose nudge against your calf.

Maia and Chris are very kind and very funny, and it isn't just because they pick on their son all the time. Chris talks about his day in the office, complaining about coworkers the same way Mike complains about his brothers—"I just don't understand why you would eat sardines in the break room! Someone explain it to me!" Maia tells everyone about the three hour phone call with her mother—"My god that woman can talk. Every time we said goodbye, she would just start on something new!"

"Explains where you get it from," Chris says with a chuckle.

Maia scoffs then stabs a piece of his food with her fork, eating it with purpose as her husband watches.

You lean over to Mike and murmur, "They're cute. I like 'em."

He grunts. "That makes one of us."

Sucking your teeth, you mimic his mother's actions and dig your fork into the meat of his pepper, stealing a bite and scraping your teeth over the utensil in a way you know drives him crazy.

You immediately regret it when you realize how big the piece is, filling your mouth so that it's hard to chew, and you grab a napkin to cover yourself while Mike snorts and smugly says, "Yeah, bet you feel real smart right now. How does thievery taste?"

Shoving his arm, you manage to swallow down enough of the food to talk and tell him, "Tastes delicious."

When you look back across the table, you find Maia and Chris staring at you and Mike with shining eyes and matching grins.

You get along well with Mike's parents. A little too well in his opinion. There are a couple mornings you wake up earlier than he does and share coffee with his mother. He'll walk in to hear her sharing terrible stories about how, "He was such a sensitive little boy," and, "I miss the days he and his friends would spend afternoons here playing their little games."

She even breaks out the photo albums one evening after dinner, leaving Mike mortified as you laugh and 'aww' at the pictures of past birthdays, Boy Scout outings, and the horrors of middle and high school.

"Look how cute you are with braces!"

"Please stop."

"All dressed up for Easter, oh my god, are those bunny ears?"

"Mom made me."

"You were so skinny. What happened?"

"Are you calling me fat?"

"No, I'm calling you buff. Dummy."

Less embarrassing are the long walks the two of you take with Scout (who also loves you, of course). She stays close to your hip as you wander around the park, only leaving your side when you throw her favorite ball. At the house, she noses at you until you shift to let her lay either at your feet or on the couch with her big head in your lap.

It's the cutest fucking thing Mike has ever seen, and he hates it because he can't do anything about it. He can't tell you how much he likes seeing you walk around in his house. He can't tell you how much joy it brings him to hear your laugh ring out alongside his parents'. He can't tell you how much he loves seeing you slide into his old bed in nothing but one of his shirts, making yourself comfortable against his chest and weaving your legs between his.

He can't tell you, but he can do his best to show you.

Late at night when his parents are asleep, when the buzzing TV is the only thing lighting the room, Mike moves inside of you with deep, slow thrusts. He hikes your legs up to lock around his waist or pulls you up against himself if he's taking you from behind. No matter the position, it leaves you clawing at him, breathing heavily, jaw dropping open in a silent scream.

You feel so good, so tight around him even after he gets you ready for his cock. Your silken walls squeeze and milk him, pulling every drop of cum from him to soak into you. Fuck, he's so glad you're letting him do that now, fill you up until you can't take any more, until white is dribbling from your messy pussy. The way you look at him all fucked out is intoxicating, eyes droopy, smile lazy, body twitching with aftershocks as he sucks on your neck and kisses down your shoulders.

You have to know. You have to. Mike knows his feelings are written all over his face when he looks at you, may as well be carved into his skin. The words are on the tip of his tongue every night, but he muffles them with kisses, with burying his face between your legs, with sinking his teeth into your soft flesh.

He can't say it because saying it makes it real. Saying it will make it hurt more.

So Mike keeps his mouth shut, watches you every day as you converse with his parents and play with Scout. You poke around his bedroom in your usual nosy fashion, finding the rest of his Magic cards, old D&D books and privacy screens. The dusty record player he'd inherited from his grandfather interests you above all else, vinyls stacked around it, some old, some new, and as you flip through them now, cross-legged on the floor and swimming in his hoodie, you tell him the little things you talked about with his mom earlier in the day.

"She showed me your baby teeth," you say with a snort. "Why do parents keep those? My mom did too."

"Black Magic, obviously," Mike says seriously, but when you glance up at him, he chuckles. "I don't know, babe. It's fuckin' weird, though."

You grin and look back down at The Alan Parsons Project vinyl in your lap. You're quiet for a moment, but when you do speak up, it's in a quiet voice. "I'm pretty sure they think I'm your girlfriend."

Mike cringes on the bed, shutting his eyes and sighing. "Yeah, that's probably 'cause I told them you were."

"What?" You turn your whole body to face him, eyes wide and incredulous.

Sitting up, Mike holds his hands out and questions, "What was I supposed to tell them? Hey, mom and dad, I'm bringing home this girl I fuck at school all the time."

"We don't just fuck," you scoff. "You could've said friend or… Study buddy."

"Study buddies with benefits," he lets out a humorless laugh. "How many of those study sessions end with your mouth around my cock?"

"That's beside the point." You stand up and walk over to the bed, hands on your hips as you glare at him in an unconvincing manner. You're not actually upset, Mike realizes. A little annoyed maybe but more surprised than anything. "The point is they expect us to do couple-y things."

"We do do couple-y things." Mike reminds you, rolling his eyes when you snicker and murmur 'ha, do do'. "Oh my god, you're a dork."

"So are you. And, a dumb one. What happens when they find out we're not actually together? Are we gonna have to stage a break up somewhere down the line?"

"Stop worrying about it," Mike tries, reaching out for one of your arms to pull you on top of him. You must be very used to straddling him at this point. It seems like you're in his lap more often than you're not these days, even if the two of you are just talking. "Just chill and fake it for a little while longer."

You pout, glancing to the wall for a second before you mutter, "Might be tough. I've never had to fake anything for you before."

Mike groans and traces his fingers up your sides, stopping at your shoulders and using them to guide you closer to him. With your face only millimeters from his, he barely even has to whisper when he presses, "Fake it just this once."

You nod, lips brushing his, and from there you both devolve into sloppy kisses and desperate hands. As always.

[ next ]

#mike zacharias x reader #miche zacharias x reader #aot x reader #aot fanfic #snk x reader #mels prima vista

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jouska-the-deer · 2 years ago

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I'm finally watching Sonic Prime and I guess I'll do that thing where people give their thoughts as they watch, mostly because it'll help me keep my terrible attention span in check. However, it annoys me when people do it by continuously reblogging their own post to add comments, so I'm just gonna do it all in one post, at least for each episode, and keep it under a "Read More" to both keep the post short and avoid spoilers for those who care.

Before going in, I’ll share that I saw quite a few things about Prime in various places, but not like, actual reviews or anything. Basically I know what themes the currently shown universes are, what the characters look like, and the basic plot. I’ve also heard it’s canon to the games which I 100% doubt based on the small amount of stuff I’ve seen, but I guess I’ll have a better idea of that once I actually watch the show.

So, here we go I guess. Episode 1. (Oh, and this is awkward, but, Sonic Frontiers and Forces spoilers ahead.)

So yeah, the first line of narration out of Sonic’s mouth and it’s already obvious this isn’t canon to the games. None of Sonic’s friends live in Green Hill. HE doesn’t live in Green Hill (granted, he technically doesn’t live anywhere, though I’d assume he treats Tails’ place as his own). I know Green Hill is a fan favorite (or at least SEGA thinks it is) but like, come on.

Are they using clips from later in the show in the place of flashbacks? Man, they went from showing “sad” flashbacks to five minutes ago in Frontiers to straight up predicting the future with them in Prime. I could be wrong but if I’m right this is kinda funny.

Sonic’s relationship status with Shadow is “it’s complicated”, I guess. I mean, it seemed like a pretty normal friend/allyship in Forces, so I’m gonna headcanon that they had an awkward date and don’t know how to talk about it, at least until it’s revealed that “it’s complicated” means Sonic is in the wrong about something and he either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to admit it.

Ah. 10 seconds pass and I figure out what the flashbacks are about. The show is gonna give flashbacks that explain what lead up to the events of the opening fight. Guess they didn’t want to have him already fighting Eggman and reuse the “you’re probably wondering how I got here” trope since it was already done in the first Sonic movie, but still wanted the opening scene action. I still think it’s funny to use show scenes as flashbacks, since we’re gonna be seeing them again pretty soon.

Has Eggman ever expressed that he hated nature? Just because he exploits nature to further his own goals with little care for the environmental repercussions, that doesn’t mean he actively hates it or anything. I don’t think game Eggman would sneer at the thought of greenery. Another point in the “not canon to the games” tally.

If I didn’t already know that Rouge is only here because she wants the Paradox Prism, I’d put another point in the “not canon” tally for her being randomly inserted into the usual group. Knuckles both not guarding the Master Emerald and supposedly living in Green Hill also warrants a “not canon” mark, but honestly, at this point, I’m starting to question if Angel Island is even where he lives and guarding the Master Emerald is even what he does, because given all the mundane crap he leaves it for in every canon, I have to wonder if that whole backstory is just a fever dream I had at some point.

Amy seemed a little too happy when asking Sonic “where have you been” considering she was among the group complaining he was late right after he arrived. Nice smooth talk Sonic’s got there though. It’s a shame I know from the trailer that he’s about to make a smooth brained decision.

Haha! Sonic learned that trick from Knuckles!

As Sonic’s floating through space, the glittery images of the people he knows speaking in the void, the only word that’s going through my head is, “PRESENTATION!”

Oh god it’s not even been five minutes and I’ve written over 500 words. If only I could write fics this quickly…

Did the truck stop chili dogs give him food poisoning so bad he hallucinated?

Dog npc looks cute. Well, all the animal background characters are cute, but that’s just because rubber hose animals are cute. It feels strange to see properly animated background anthros after all this time. I almost felt like I was watching Boom again.

Okay so yeah Prime is definitely not game canon. Plenty of Eggman’s robots haven’t used flickies in the games. Heck, where would he even fit flickies inside of Orbot and Cubot? I’m 90% sure it’s a convenience thing. They’re a good power source when around, otherwise, he powers his robots in other ways. Again, I don’t think he actively hates nature, he just doesn’t have any qualms with exploiting it.

I think every person on the planet agreed that Sonic having an electric motif kicks ass and so now he just has electric effects to his running in Frontiers and Prime. (I’m usually against mixing canons because I like them having distinct characteristics, but I have to agree, the electric motif kicks ass.) (Also I’m aware that in Prime it’s more a dimensional glitch thing but like, come on…)

Stormtrooper aim on these robots. I guess it works out for Sonic since he can barely run and doesn’t have rings atm.

Had the thought earlier but forgot to write it down; This has the same tone as Colors. People hated that but I’m not ashamed of enjoying kids’ media so I don’t care. Besides, this is clearly a different canon so it’s not like it even matters. As long as things stay consistent within its own universe (or set thereof I guess) then it’s fine.

Yeah so, Tails’ lab is in different places depending on the games/canon. But in the mainline console games, it’s definitely in Mystic Ruins and not Green Hill. At this point, I can easily say anyone, regardless of supposed credibility, would be wrong to say game/Prime canon flows in either direction. Games can’t be canon to Prime because Eggman’s built robots without flickies, and some massive justifications would have to be in place to explain Eggman and Sonic’s personality differences and the characters’ living situations. Prime can’t be canon to games because of the previously said personality/living situation. Prime holds as much weight in the game canon as Boom, so like, maybe a Prime exclusive character might be inexplicably mentioned in a game cutscene, but that’s all you can expect in terms of crossover.

So we’re doing Lost World’s plot then? Prime should’ve been made sooner so they didn’t feel the need to contrive this conflict in a mainline game.

Ah shit he hit a fault line, lol.

I am not used to Knuckles having this deep of a voice.

Tails never gets upset, except, you know, all the times he’s gotten upset. Also how the hell were they able to see his expression from that far away? Did he fly the Tornado off in an especially sulky manner?

Oh shit he really did hit a fault line. That’s funny. I was joking. I thought the impact was that large because of the combined force of the giant robot and Sonic’s dense skull cracking the earth alone.

Wow. Tails is so upset. More upset than he’s ever been before. You can tell by how he’s… just kinda doing what he normally does but with a flat voice.

Okay, Eggman also needed a speed amplifier to get Sonic to crack the fault line. That’s what the device was. I think I saw a clip of Tails explaining that but then just forgot about it. Oh well.

Just as I already knew, Rouge is only here because of the Paradox Prism. She’s not a part of the normal group. She just wants some backup so she can get to the shiny.

It straight up seems like Eggman’s main motivation is destroying Green Hill, with creating his empire being a second thought. Yes, the end goal has basically the same result, but the distinction is important. Eggman is sounding more like what I imagine a Captain Planet villain is rather than like his game canon self. I think it’s fine for him to have more cartoony motivations in this show, but again, it’s a clear distinction between the two versions of him.

Okay, Sonic, you can roll into a ball to protect yourself. Like, come on. You don’t need to be faceplanting like that for no reason.

Oookay. It looks like I read that right last week. Knuckles has two different VAs. For some reason, he just… has a completely different voice in the Eggman Dystopia universe. I honestly like this voice more, but that probably has more to do with it being a less jarring switch from the voices I’ve been used to for… my whole life…

Did… Nine just… not hear Sonic come in? And talking with his outside voice?

If Forces was able to actually show what the planet was like after it was conquered by Eggman, I imagine this is what it’d be like. Also when Knuckles said Tails “lost it” or something like that, I imagine if Tails was acting like Nine instead of a coward, people would’ve complained less. This is the year of SEGA trying to make people forget Forces ever happened while taking the ideas they had for it and freshening them up for new content.

I know it’s basically always been Tails’ backstory that he was bullied for having 2 tails, but the pixel art sequence is clearly based on the Origins animation. Also, that pixel art uh… doesn’t look great. I guess this is a good example of why more simplistic doesn’t necessarily mean easier to create.

The Tornado isn’t Tails’, it’s Sonic’s. The other versions of the Tornado are his, but Tails just holds onto the Tornado, probably due to Sonic’s whole not having a house thing.

Sonic’s got his own inhibitor rings now. Neat.

“WHAT ARE THOOOOOSE!”

Birdie is blue in the games. I think I’ve even seen someone say that already.

“Sonic! Wake up! You’ve fucked up big time!” “Shadow?” (Yes, I stole that.)

Okay I really feel like game Sonic wouldn’t just run off right after his friends say they should stick together, so again, this isn’t canon to the games. Game Sonic has always enjoyed keeping around them, especially when things are serious, and the only times I can think of that he wasn’t like that are Colors and Lost World, two games that are criticized for their portrayal of Sonic constantly.

What? Did Rouge think it was too chummy to hang onto the wing of the Tornado like Knuckles, or did the team actually force her to keep up with a plane? Either way, not cool.

I know chili dogs are Sonic’s favorite food and he probably does need the calories, but dang, he can’t just have them for every meal! This poor guy’s gonna get scurvy before he even reaches the pirate universe.

Ah, so romantic! Getting punched in the face out of nowhere! (This is sarcasm. I’m making fun of the people who looked at Shadow punching Sonic and decided it was Sonadow bait.)

Not a fan of the cliffhanger, and not just because of the whole “wanting to see what’s next” thing. I hate how the Netflix model of dumping batches of episodes and measuring success off of whole series instant viewership has forced shows to end every episode on a cliffhanger to facilitate unhealthy watching habits for the sake of getting their show to survive. It is a detriment to creative storytelling and critical analysis, as the plot has to be built around constant cliffhangers and binging a series means not having the time to digest the information being shown.

Overall, first episode is alright. I like Nine and wish him all the happiness. I wish Sonic a very ‘get punched in the face by Shadow for breaking the universe’. I’m vaguely interested in whatever Knucks and Rebel are doing. I hope that literally any arc concludes before these 8 episodes are over.

Honestly, I think the only reasons anyone has tried to argue that Prime is canon is just because the characters look a lot closer to canon than they have in any other Sonic cartoon, and because one of the hundreds of people working on the show said there is/will be influence across the different canons. If anyone important actually does consider Prime to be canon and it does have a significant impact on the games, then I’ll rescind my opinion and have to consider it a horrible mess that absolutely failed to capture the characterization of the games.

Anyway, I might do this while watching the other episodes… whenever I get around to doing that. It’s like 3AM and I’m tired, so I’m done for today I think.

#Jouska's Thoughts #Sonic Prime #Sonic the Hedgehog #Negativity #Swearing #Seriously 2K words just talking about a cartoon but I have trouble adding 100 to the note page of a fic I'm working on...

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kiwi-astrology · 4 years ago

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Virgo Risings 🤍🔭🕊

A miniature guide to Virgo rising whole sign house placements! This was requested awhile ago and I have finally finished it :) Keep in mind these are my observations, and are general!

1st house: Virgo

🤍 With Virgo in the first house, individuals approach life microscopically. Virgo risings are drawn to the finer details in their everyday environment. Big nature people! Great appreciation for Mother Earth nonetheless. These people have a great eye for observing others. Not only do Virgo risings have a tendency to welcome people, but they get to know everyone with depth.

🔭 Virgo risings always have this clean appearance. I swear these rising signs have effortless and flawless beauty! They always look put together in a conventional way. Yet, they’re usually the one rising sign to put the least amount of time into their appearance.

🕊They approach their life in an organizational way that is molded to their specific needs. It may not seem organized to others, but it’s perfect for them. They also can get caught up in routines that are hard to break. Be careful with addictive behaviors/cycles!

2nd house: Libra

🤍 Virgo risings feel compelled to make money in order to provide for the ideal life. One filled with beauty, material items, and peace. What they buy is based on what will bring them inner peace and joy. Even if it isn’t sustainable.

🔭 They take good care of their body and prioritize beauty. If they want to straighten their hair every day, they will. They place value into their looks and aesthetic. Once again, their appeal is very clean and nearly flawless.

🕊 They don’t place a lot of depth or importance on their possessions. They’re fine with temporary pleasure or enjoying superficial things.

3rd house: Scorpio

🤍 Virgo risings are not ones to shy away from deep or emotional topics. In fact, they prefer to discuss taboo topics.

🔭 Virgo risings can grab a lot of negative attention growing up. People are drawn to their nature during school ages. They can gain a reputation that is unlike their actual identity. At a young age, they learn to not care about what everyone says about them.

🕊 I’ve found that Virgo risings begin to play into their reputation in their communities. Instead of allowing others to affect them, they pull out some reverse psychology. I think that Virgo risings want others to think that they have power over them, to undermine them. Virgo risings feel powerful on their community when they know their reputation doesn’t match their true identity.

4th house: Sagittarius

🤍 Virgo risings had a lot of freedom growing up. It is rare that they have a build up of responsibilities or restrictions from their family. Sometimes, the expansive freedom leads to personal control issues. They find themselves figuring out how to control and parent themselves.

🔭 I’ve also found that sometimes these individuals can deal with legal matters at a young age. Sometimes if their parents get divorced, they’re the children that become involved with the legal issues.

🕊 Sag IC can also lead to these individuals having a lot of privilege traveling growing up! If not physical traveling, these folks gain a lot of experience/knowledge! In their core, they feel lucky and optimistic about their growth.

5th house: Capricorn

🤍 Virgo risings are diligent with their hobbies and talents. Their success in creative endeavors or hobbies does not come effortlessly. They put in the work to be successful.

🔭 I’ve noticed that Virgo risings can begin to treat extracurriculars and creative outlets more as a responsibility than others. Art is not an escape for them. They deeply appreciate art, but in a sophisticated and structured way. Yet again, their analyzing tendencies place more meaning on trivial things.

🕊 These individuals can also treat dates seriously. They plan in advance and think about every detail. Their date or romantic interest may not even be planning for an encounter. Virgo risings plan their nights out, knowing every possibility. If they wanna end up in someone’s room on a certain night, they will.

6th house: Aquarius

🤍 You would think you could predict what a Virgo rising is doing on a daily basis. They seem pretty structured after all. Yet, their routines are purposefully unconventional. They need spontaneity in their everyday life.

🔭 Virgo risings will get things done. They plan out their day. They plan things out in a way where they allow for freedom in their routine. If they begin to feel mundane, they chase that feeling into a new activity. Once they get their tasks done, it’s a free for all.

🕊 These people are fine working alone. They’d rather be uniquely alone than conforming in groups (regarding work). They need to be around people on a daily basis, but also need to feel unique. They find control in doing their own thing.

💌 Virgo risings are also fine picking up shifts or working for people, as long as they get what they want. If they need some extra cash to please their libra 2nd house, they’ll find a job in the community last minute.

7th house: Pisces

🤍 It can be hard for Virgo risings to know where they stand in their relationships. Often times, it’s filled with confusion. Sometimes deception. They can attract emotional, and even manipulative partners. Emotionally immature people are attracted to the healing energy of Virgo risings.

🔭 Virgo risings can get caught up with the idea that they can fix or save their partners. They end up losing themselves in others. Remember to not let people take advantage of you, Virgo risings. Establish boundaries and goals of the relationship in the beginning.

🕊 Ideally, Virgo risings let loose and embrace their imaginative romantic side in all relationships. The goal is to accept all and reject none. They notice everything, but tend to overanalyze it instead of leaving things be as they are.

8th house: Aries

🤍 Virgo risings can be naive with their shared energy, finances, and property. They’re not quite sure what they’re doing all the time, but they take risks. Virgo risings might gamble their assets or money impulsively.

🔭 They may also commit to others through sex or marriage without much consideration. If they feel the spark, they chase it into sexual/energetic exchanges. They’re not afraid of the consequences, which can be good or bad.

🕊 Unexpected daredevils, this is an area of life that is fueled by careless passion. It is when Virgo risings merge with others that they let go of perfection.

9th house: Taurus

🤍 It’s no wonder Virgo risings are drawn to higher knowledge and experiences. They grew up with a sag IC, and continue these habits in comfort. Virgo risings love to learn and grow, it’s how they feel worthy.

🔭 Virgo risings can be slow learners, but they want to take their time with information. They appreciate the beauty of all cultures in detail. Since they want comfort in their education, they ensure they understand what they’re learning/traveling to.

🕊 Acquiring knowledge around environmental sciences or art history is common. There is a preference fo learning about the earth and what is tangible. Virgo risings are drawn to physical sciences rather than the unknown. As well as history regarding art, beauty, fashion, etc.

10th house: Gemini

🤍 Virgo risings are publicly inquisitive and reign an image of curiosity. These folks love research! For them, it’s not about being the smartest in the room but rather finding the smartest person in the room. They love to ask questions in public settings. They’re quite social and enjoy mingling with people of all backgrounds.

🔭 These people are very successful with their studies! Despite occupying themselves with multiple tasks, they excel in research. Their brain can not only handle it, but thrives in this environment. Their highest self is one who seeks knowledge from every nook and cranny.

🕊 Tend to be quite popular and carry a reputation of extraversion. Their image is grouped in with others, so who they surround themselves with does have a large influence. There will always be gossip about Virgo risings, and they know that. At the end of the day, it won’t ever stop them.

11th house: Cancer

🤍 Virgo risings are so nurturing to their friends. These people welcome anyone and everyone. They have a way of making strangers feel comfortable in their presence. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them, they’ll accept you.

🔭 Since they are great observers, they know what others need to feel accepted. In social settings, they will make sure their friends are okay before doing their own thing.

🕊 They treat their social groups like family. I’ve seen so many Virgo risings post dedications to their friend groups, it’s adorable. They love to post about their friends! Their social media’s are typically filled with friends or things that feel “like home”.

12th house: Leo

🤍 Deep in their subconscious, all Virgo risings want is power. Their mind seeks pride and glory. Ulterior motives are influenced by the fear of being powerless. After all, the way they view their world is through eyes of perfection.

🔭 Despite this underlying feeling, Virgo risings are very humble. They understand that the pursuit of power and perfection is a lonely one. No one can give them what they need except for themselves. They’re the kings/queens of their own mind.

🕊 Virgo risings can be triggered when they feel thrown off their throne. The thing is, Virgo risings are used to gossip. They’re great observers and value their friends. They choose who to let into their palace. If they choose to let someone in that ends up wronging them, they feel like a failure. Betrayal riles up the inner lion of Virgo risings.

#astrology #virgo rising

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endcant · 3 years ago

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i used to be very active in the cottagecore realm in 2018. im not alone in this, but i had my cottagecore blog before the word “cottagecore” was coined, and thus before it was presupposed that the lifestyle and aesthetic being posted about had anything in particular to do with cottages. a lot of the relevant posts found their way to me through other tags— dirtcore, plantcore, grandmacore, solarpunk, diy, etc— or just through the sheer natural popularity of the posts that ended up defining the cottagecore style

over the time between like 2016-2018, i had been pivoting away from my 90s/arcade themed aesthetic that i had fostered since like 2013 or something, because the colorful carpets and cheap plastic toys and bubblegum dispenser candies and slimes were beginning to be presumed to be part of something called “kidcore”, and kidcore was having a problem

the issue at hand for kidcore (and stim tumblr as well) was that ageplay and other controversial/triggering kink accounts were openly interacting with and advertising themselves on posts that were either meant for kids and age regressors, or themed around the original poster’s own childhood. as a result, kidcore/age regression and ageplay/kink were getting weirdly and uncomfortably conflated. it was a huge issue that i found really offputting, so i just bailed from the use of that visual language in general

the way that many, many kidcore and stim bloggers responded to these kinds of issues was to diligently put a DNI banner at the bottom of every single post, no matter how unsightly or combative that seemed. at the time, i thought that this was kind of a hopeless exercise. i thought that kidcore as an aesthetic would never really manage to extricate its content and reputation from that offputting area of kink tumblr, but it seems like i was wrong. through just like the sheer saturation of in-post DNI banners, it seemed to work. kidcore was more safe for kids and age regressors to blog and reblog about without getting weird fucked up interactions, and people seemed to be under less scrutiny for having a kidcore blog at all because it was no longer uncomfortably conflated with kink to that degree

the thing i admire most about this is that so many kidcore and stim bloggers decided all on their own that they wanted make it clear who their blog was and wasnt a safe space for. more of them could have decided to ignore the issue, more of them could have said that naysayers “just dont get it”, and more of them could have decided that they didnt mind added traffic, no matter who it came from. but these posters were uncomfortable with the issue, so they made that discomfort known at every opportunity.

this sort of stands in contrast to how most cottagecore bloggers ive seen have responded to the realization that cottagecore was growing to be popular with ecofascists and weird patriarchal tradcath & colonialist bloggers, esp since like 2019 or so. some bloggers sacrificed the simple aesthetic by adding DNI banners, but compared to the DNI saturation of kidcore bloggers, these were few and far between. also, weirdly, most of those banners also pertained to the kink-related boundaries that kidcore and stim bloggers had to set, and generally said little about politics except sometimes that terfs were unwelcome. anecdotally, i dont personally recall ever seeing a banner that said something like “dont interact if youre an ecofascist or christian nationalist!” or anything like that underneath any of the crafty and pastoral cottagecore imagery that ive encountered over the years.

the most common response that i saw from cottagecore bloggers to all the criticism and suspicion in 2019-2020 was every cottagecore blogger going on the defensive— “the accusations of cottagecore bloggers being right-wing or colonialist are false and not worth our time. anybody who spent any time in our community would know that plenty of us are leftist or poc!!” — for roughly one or two posts, and then never responding to the criticism again unless it came to their askbox specifically.

in short, the message a lot of cottagecore bloggers sent with their posts was not “ecofascists are unwelcome here,” but instead “critics who point out the ecofascist issue are unwelcome here.” and ecofascists and their ilk kept reblogging the same mushrooms and lace curtains and transparent homemade pie pngs as everybody else, unperturbed. there was no concerted effort to make it clear at every fucking turn that fascists were unwelcome

i ended up just drifting away from the cottagecore tag family over the course of 2019 to focus my gardening/naturalist/diy energies more directly on leftist environmentalism rather than aesthetic. since then, ive been thinking about the difference between cottagecore and the previous tumblr aesthetic i unintentionally joined and intentionally abandoned, kidcore. i have watched the response of both groups to these kinds of issues from a short distance, and i feel like kidcore posters better rose to the challenge of community infiltration by parties with harmful views and intentions. less kidcore bloggers have their DNIs directly in their posts nowadays from what ive seen, but the popular DNI banner phase of the kidcore world seemed to be essential and effective in establishing who the tag was and wasn’t meant for. no effort like this has been widespread on cottagecore tumblr, particularly among popular cottagecore posters, and so the reputational damage and the failure to exclude literal fascists from the main bulk of the aesthetic’s ecosystem continues to persist.

i guess overall the stories of these aesthetics (as i witnessed them) are just an interesting anecdotal comparison of how tolerating individuals that make vulnerable/marginalized members of a community feel threatened lead to that community becoming de-facto dominated (or assumed to be dominated) by those who are making others feel threatened, as vulnerable/marginalized members leave and additional vulnerable/marginalized people are deterred from ever joining. whereas proactively stating boundaries again and again and again leads to the creation of a better safe space, as well as a culture of awareness about the issues at hand

#mine #aesthetic #long post

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incorrectzutaraquotes · 4 years ago

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let’s talk racial micro aggressions, because i’ve been seeing a lot of them being used online toward people speaking out about racism and even in fandoms unfortunately, so i think it’s time we have a talk. this is gonna be a semi long one, so buckle up.

just for reference, im asian american. because of that i’ve gone my entire life experiencing racism and discrimination simple because im not white. of course, i have definitely had it better than a lot of people, but that doesn’t take away from my experiences at all. i grew up hating the way i looked, trying to fix myself because i genuinely thought something was wrong with me. this led to years and years of insecurity and self hatred. something i had to go through alone, because my family was white and i was too afraid to tell them how i felt. i was afraid they wouldn’t understand. it’s still something i struggle with, though it’s gotten better.

growing up, as stated before, i was around white people. growing up in a very white town, i unfortunately wasn’t formally educated on racism or what micro aggressions were, i just knew that certain comments made me uneasy and uncomfortable, and hurt my feelings. it wasn’t until i was older, when i started using social media that i really came to understand what all of this was.

a lot of you who have white privilege are using it to uplift bipoc voices, and i think that’s great. however it’s also important to acknowledge that many people who are actively anti racist still have implicit biases, which can lead to microaggressions.

first of all, what are microaggressions? you may or may not be familiar with the term. if you’re not, that’s okay! you can use this post to educate yourself and make sure you don’t make these mistakes in the future. microaggressions are defined as brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups.

basically, intentional or unintentional derogatory and prejudice behaviors directed towards marginalized groups.

these are very harmful to marginalized groups, mostly because they’re not as blatant as outright racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. this makes it often hard to detect, and you may have found yourself using micro aggressions at some point in your life. that’s not important though, what’s important is that, if you have used them in the past, you understand what you said or did was wrong, and that you learn from it.

now, what are specific racial micro aggressions? i’ve compiled a list of them under the cut, and explained why these are insulting and harmful to poc.

“where are you really from” – this insinuates that we will always be seen as foreigners, and not citizens to our own country. it brings on a feeling of not being good enough and that we will not be accepted.

“not everything’s about race” – if you’re white stop telling bipoc how to feel about race. we are tired of it. please don’t speak over us when we are expressing our discomfort. if poc people are telling you something is racist, it’s racist. stop trying to argue with us, as you are not the ones being affected by it.

“your food is so weird” – it’s only weird to you because it hasn’t been westernized or americanized. insisting that foreign foods are weird or gross because you aren’t used to it, is hurtful. it’s insulting.

“all asians look the same” – by saying this, you’re taking away our individuality. asia is a huge continent, not all of us follow the same traditions and not all of us look the same. it’s not a funny joke, and it never has been.

“you’re pretty for a *insert any race here*” – this is just such a backhanded compliment. it implies that we are not typically or conventionally pretty. it has the same negative connotations as saying “you’re really good...for a girl”. that’s misogynistic for the same reasons saying this is racist.

“i don’t see color” – again, you’re basically erasing our individuality and culture and telling us we shouldn’t embrace it. many pocs even completely distance themselves from their cultures to seek white validation, which is in every sense of the word, upsetting. people want to fit in so bad that they’re willing to leave behind their entire culture. something that sucks about being adopted at such a young age from a white family, is that i have never had a connection with my culture. i know nothing about it, and that hurts. i rationalized in my head that the reason i didn’t learn about it sooner was because i was happy, but that was a lie i told myself for years. the sad thing is, is that because i wasn’t connected to my culture at all, i fit in better and had an easier time making friends then other pocs in my school.

assuming all asian people are smart or good at math – stop. it’s not funny. never has been. the stereotype that all asians are smart is not a compliment, and puts a lot of pressure on us as individuals. it objectifies us, assuming we are more like machines and not actual people. long story short, it’s dehumanizing.

“im not/cant be racist i have black friends” – contrary to popular belief, yes you can be. you can still have a racial bias while being friends with bipoc people. being associated with poc people doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not racist. you may even make racist jokes and think it’s okay because they don’t tell you to stop. just because they are seemingly unbothered does not mean it’s not still racist. a lot of times we are uncomfortable in situations like that, but are too afraid to speak up in fear of our feelings being invalidated or being told to lighten up because it’s just a joke. saying we’re too sensitive when it comes to making mockeries of our races and cultures, is also a micro aggression.

saying “you people” or “y’all” when talking, usually negatively, about a person of a specific race – you’re generalizing an entire group because of one bad experience which is just contributing to the stereotypes and racism we face daily. one or a few bad interactions with a person of a different race does not speak for an entire population.

clutching your bag tight when a poc person, usually black or latinx, stands next to you or following them in the store – the way i still have to explain this one in 2020. they are not criminals, but by doing this, you’re contributing to the stereotype that they are all criminals and thugs, which simply isn’t true. this stereotype is very damaging and harmful, as it also contributes to the systematic oppression of those people.

assuming someone only got a certain job or position because they’re bipoc – this insinuates that we did not work hard to get where we are, and that we did not deserve what we got. we simply got it because we aren’t white. affirmative action comes up a lot in this conversation. all affirmative action does is help decide between equally qualified people by favoring the ones who suffer from discrimination in society, but it does not reserve spots for them.

assuming someone knows how to speak mandarin because they’re asian – asia is a large continent with A LOT of languages and cultures. not everyone is chinese. not everyone speaks the same language. it’s insulting and adds to the already hurtful stereotype that all asians look the same.

“you speak english really well” or “how did you learn to speak english so well” – it’s called practicing because people have been making fun of those with accents for years, simply because they are not used to it. being surprised when a poc speaks english well implies that you may think because they’re not white, they are less educated. we’ve simply assimilated because our cultures are constantly rejected and mocked by white people and even other pocs. this also contributes to the notion that westerners are more “civilized” or that they are better, because they(generally speaking this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone)make no effort to learn our cultures, but we have to learn theirs in order to be seen as “acceptable”.

“but *insert race* are racist too” or pointing out immoral things other countries do when people of that race speak up about racism - you’re redirecting the conversation to avoid responsibility. you don’t actually care about those issues, you just want to invalidate our struggles by pointing out that a place many of us have not been to in a long time, or ever, is very flawed. we have no say in what that government chooses to do. not all places are a democracy, and many democracies around the world are flawed.

something important to remember is that anyone can be guilty of implicit bias and micro aggressions. this is not selective to one race.

if you have anymore of these, please feel free to add on. also, if you’re a poc and something i wrote made you uncomfortable, please tell me. i want to make sure im being truthful with what i said. i did do research for some of these, and some were based on personal experiences, but if you want to add to something or you want me to change or delete something do not hesitate to call me out.

unfortunately they and other racial stereotypes are very prevalent in american media, which has normalized it in our society. this post is solely meant to educate if you weren’t previously aware of the dangers micro aggressions have on minorities. i started the list because i was tired of seeing so much normalized racism online, but i hope you learned something useful with this. if you stuck around this long, thank you for listening. i appreciate it a lot.

as for my zutara fans, i apologize for making so many rant posts rather than posting incorrect quotes. i just feel like im able to reach a larger audience with the platform i have on this account than any other one.

anyway, that’s all. thank you again for listening :)

#this is not to take away from blm #i understand that i talked a lot of asian experiences #but that’s just because i am asian #and ive personally gone through them #i’ll link some carrds to blm resources and other world issues tomorrow #it’s 4am now but yeah #please remember that your fight for equality cannot be selective #it’s important that we all understand our differences #and the different struggles we face #but it’s also important that we support each other right now #micro aggression #racism #racial bias #racism in america #black lives matter #fuck the system #its broken #and we need to fix that

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years ago

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Down the Rabbit Hole part 33

“Fumi?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me a story.”

“A story?” he says, glancing over. In the vent there’s nothing but the soft squelching of our cleated feet and a drip-drip-drip of a flowing river of sluggish, phlegmy mucus running along a divot over on the left. I nod.

“Yeah, a story. Like, about work. Ranger stuff. I’m sure you’ve got some good stories.”

He laughs. “A few, maybe,” he concedes.

Getting across into the actual flesh of the Pit from the wreck of the LVC had been easier than either of us had thought it would be. The gantry we had been looking for was long gone by the time that we got to the bottom of the LVC, with the only evidence of its passing being a couple of rigid metal rods and torn, rusted grating, but above us was our lucky break – due to the way the Visitor Center had fallen, it had actually cut into the Pit’s gullet on the way down, leaving a long, jagged scar of porous tissue in its wake and, at the very bottom, a gaping, partially-healed hole leading directly into what Fumi said was once the trail downwards to the Gastric Sea. It was a little hairy to begin with; the wound had ruined the previously neat trail, and the Pit had begun to reclaim it. Paths branched off, seemingly at random, that our maps had no record of. Here and there we’d see skittering things darting away from our flashlights, fleeing into pores or deeper, smaller vents we couldn’t see into.

Just copepods, Fumi had said when I asked. Harmless unless you’re alone and they’re feeling particularly brave or hungry. But even so I noticed that he kept his hand resting comfortably on the butt of his pistol, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, and so I emulated him, and kept a wary eye behind us as we picked our way through the nest of tunnels and warrens and veins.

After I while I became afraid that we might hit a dead end and that we’d not be able to get through to the trail proper, which Fumi said would curve up and around down to the ballast bulbs, but just when I was getting to the point where I thought I might say something about it the vent widened out and Fumi had let out a triumphant whoop. We’re on the right track now, he had assured me, pointing to where we were on the map, and I had let a little involuntary shudder of relief pass over me because finally, finally we could really get going.

Now we’re clambering through a stinking vent that once housed a pedestrian trail. The thing Fumi hadn’t really mentioned is how long it would take. The path that looked so easy and short was in actuality four or five miles, a solid two or three hour hike in an environment like the Pit. My leg is holding up alright so far, especially now that I’m doing less running and jumping and falling, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do more than a couple days’ worth of this. Even with the boot I put my foot down occasionally and get a worrying, bone-deep twinge like a jolt of electricity, feeling like it’s running up some magic conduit from my heel all the way to the top of my head.

You can still see the remains of the trail here and there. Plastic placards, partially dissolved and stained beyond legibility, peeking out from behind masses of tumorous flesh. Rusty chain-link here and there, little strips of it grown over by pale, moisture-slick skin. If you look too closely at anything down here you shudder.

“Alright, I’ve got a story for you,” Fumi says. “Most of the work we do involves escorting supplies down to the deeper installations within the Pit, looking after science teams, making sure nothing and nobody bothers the few little extractions operations for stuff like ballast and bone plates. It’s a lot of wildlife control, basically. Very, very occasionally we’d do interdiction stuff. People get in, try to hide out in here, do all kinds of crap. I remember hearing a story about some guys who were running a drug lab in a trailer out on the very edge of the restricted area on the surface. Only got busted because Makado had to rush out somewhere in a hurry for something or other, I don’t remember what exactly, and she took a helicopter and they happened to fly right over. That really made her crack down on the topside ranger teams, let me tell you.”

“Topside?”

“So basically there are two teams,” he explains. “Us, the Sergeant’s team, we’re Venterial Ops. Anything underground, inside the Pit, we handle. That’s why we have Elena, for example. I don’t know if she told you but her main specialization is cave diving, she used to be in the Coast Guard. The other team is larger, they hang out in the other barracks topside. Overland Ops patrols the surface of the restricted area, handles anything that doesn’t concern the actual Pit itself. A lot of people don’t realize this but the restricted area isn’t just, you know, the Pit, it covers a whole lot of the ground above as well. You need manpower if you’re going to patrol it. With me so far?”

“Yes,” I nod. “So the overland team, they never go down into the Pit?”

“Oh, they train in it occasionally,” Fumi says, waving his hand. “But not to the extent that we do. It’s expensive and difficult and time-consuming just because the Pit is not a particularly good environment to make mistakes in. What if you can’t recognize a digestive pit or a triocanth sign? I mean, there are so many ways to die down here if you’re careless, especially now that we’ve cut down on our impact down here so much. If you’re stuck down here your options are either getting to the Control Center, getting to one of the very few listening stations and outposts we still have down in the depths of the Pit, or trying to call for help. That’s it.”

“So it’s easier logistically to have two separate groups like that?”

“Yeah, exactly. It hurts the overhead a little but if everybody was Pit-trained they’d be spending even more on them, so…”

“Right,” I say. There’s a long stringy mass of fibrous tissue stretching from the roof to the pitted ground, and I duck around it, let Fumi pass behind. “So what was the story?”

“Oh, right. So we were escorting some science folks down to that listening station in Oyster’s Shame. Shift change, essentially, except they way they do it is two weeks on, two weeks off. They rotate like that, make sure nobody’s spending too much time down in the Pit, that kind of thing. There are health checks that they have to do. If you’re in Science, half the time you’re up in a lab over in the science building doing egghead things and the other half you’re down here in a lab doing egghead things,” he laughs.

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” I suggest, and Fumi nods.

“Exactly. So we’re taking these guys down, pretty simple trip, one we’ve all done dozens of times. One of the science guys is new, and he is just absolutely gushing over everything he’s seeing down here. Some sort of environmental scientist type, real nerd. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a nerd but sometimes you just – certain people fulfill the stereotype more than other people, right? Anyway, Crookshank decides to play a prank on the guy. We’re taking a break for lunch and Crookshank pretends to lick a nerve ending in the wall. Now, first off, don’t ever do that, but Crookshank is – was – a maniac and you can’t keep him down. This egghead sees Crookshank do it (of course, he didn’t actually do it, just pretended to) and starts to freak out, but Crookshank is like ‘oh, it’s cool, it enhances the flavor in these MREs, you should try it.’ And of course Slate gets in on it, because Slate has – er, had – the mind of a middle-schooler and can’t resist clowning around, and together they gradually convince this nerd that it makes your standard run-of-the-mill MRE taste orgasmic.”

“Why shouldn’t you lick nerve endings?”

“Have you seen anything down here that you’d want to lick?”

I try unsuccessfully not to think of Elena and end up just shaking my head.

“But on top of that,” Fumi continues, “Pit nerve fibers can do weird things to the human nervous system. Not usually permanent or even really harmful things…just weird things. A big one was an ability to see into the ultraviolet spectrum. You might have heard about that; they made some big breakthroughs in optics in the 80s thanks to experiments with Pit nervous tissue. But there can be weirder stuff too – occasionally you’d see some spooky things going on in the Cord thanks to all the nerve tissue there. Intrusive thoughts, ‘occult’ stuff like objects levitating, seeing things out of the corner of your eye, ‘hauntings…’ in some places down here there are still little alarms that go off if they read too much nervous activity. So you can imagine that it might be a bad idea to lick one.”

“What happened to the guy?” I ask. The further we’ve gotten the more horribly rank the air has grown, to the point where we both have put on our helmets. The path we’re following opens out after a torturously twisting, intestine-like track and we find a series of bulbous, swollen sacs protruding from the floor and the walls, filled with a noxious, chunky liquid a lot like raw vomit. I can feel my gorge rising and I fix my eyes resolutely on my feet and end up just taking shallow breaths through my mouth for the long ten or so minutes it takes for Fumi to guide me through to the other side. We squeeze through a rough, suppurating sphincter and find a set of stairs, so rusty and dilapidated they might as well have come straight out of a Silent Hill game. Here and there long strands or trickles of flesh have melted or grown through the chain-link cage surrounding the stairs and pooled in rough, saggy, wrinkled puddles on the floor. It’s such an unspeakably bizarre image that we both stop and stare at them.

“I bet those feel…absolutely horrible to step on,” Fumi says.

“I’m not stepping on any of those,” I murmur.

“And with the cleats…” Fumi continues.

“Oh god,” I say, wrinkling my nose. A particularly swollen one seems to glisten at me. “Why does it do that? Why does it grow stuff like this?”

“Why does the Pit do anything?” Fumi shrugs, jerking his head forwards. “At least we’re on the right track. This is the staircase down to the ballast bulbs.”

“Is it even safe to walk on?”

“Do you see a different option?”

“Fair point,” I grunt. I take a ginger step forward and put my weight on the stairs, cringing inwardly. My foot nudges against one of the nodules of flesh. I can feel it pressing against me through the fabric of the suit. I grimace and take another step, and then another. “Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s just get this over with.”

We get a couple of flights down before I remember. “Oh, right – what happened to the guy?”

“Which guy?”

“You know,” I say. “The nerd who licked the nerve ending.”

“Oh, right. It made him see…something. Gave him the fright of his life, ended up pissing himself in his suit.”

“Oh,” I say. I had been expecting something funny but this just seems sad. Fumi reads it in my face, nods at me.

“Yeah,” he says. “Elena actually got really pissed off at Crookshank for that one. They’ve never liked each other very much but that little stunt kind of pushed her over the edge. They got in a shouting match right there and the Sergeant had to break it up.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling. “That’s my girl,” I murmur.

“Well…”

“Well what?”

“Uh, well it turned out that she was sleeping with the nerd and that’s why she was so heated about it.”

I look at Fumi for a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re not serious.”

“Dead serious.”

I think about it and then shrug. “What?” I ask. “Am I supposed to get jealous?”

“I just find it so strange that you aren’t.”

“That’s in the past,” I tell him. “I don’t care what she did before we met, I care about how she treats me. I mean, she has to have treated me pretty well to get me to risk my life for her like this.”

“True,” Fumi admits. “Or maybe you just don’t value your life very much.”

Before I can think of a response that would be both truthful and a denial of the accuracy of that statement, Fumi takes a step forward. As he puts his weight down on the next step the staircase groans sonorously and we both freeze. I feel a little stab of fear piercing the bottom of my stomach and reach over quickly to grab the guardrail, for all the good it’ll do me. We stand there frozen for a minute, maybe two, waiting for the entire thing to collapse, and when it isn’t forthcoming I slowly, gradually unclench my insides and put my weight back on the step.

“Jesus,” I murmur.

“Yeah, these are probably a little unsafe.”

“You think?”

The next four flights go by quickly. The blobs of flesh haven’t spread this far down, or at least they haven’t yet. The meat beyond the retaining walls, buckled in places, is a strange, waxy tone that makes it look like it’s fake. If it didn’t shudder and writhe in time with whatever alien rhythms govern the Pit’s heartbeat I’d think it were a model.

Ahead of us, rising like vapor off a bog, I can smell the stench of ballast, combined with the familiar meaty Pit-smell pervading the air, along with something earthy and sour that lingers at the back of my throat. It makes my heart race and my gorge rise simultaneously. That accidental encounter with Crookshank in the ballast bulb…I had never been so scared or so turned on in my entire life. The memory of it leaves me vaguely nauseous.

“You doing okay?” Fumi asks, nudging me.

“I’m fine,” I murmur through gritted teeth. I do not want to throw up in this helmet. I take a deep breath and then let it out. I’m okay. It’s going to be fine. Elena is down here and the ballast totally healed her and everything is fine, just peachy-keen. We’re going to kiss and hold hands all the way out of here and then…

“Do you really think she’s down here?” Fumi asks.

“Where else would she be?” I say. “It’s either here or she’s dead somewhere and I’m still trying to be optimistic at least.”

Fumi says something else but I’m not paying attention. We’ve finally reached the landing, and past a pair of crooked, bent, rusted doors is something that must have once been a utility corridor for servicing the machinery used to keep the ballast pools running. The entire corridor is so thickly covered with dense, clustered mushrooms that I can scarcely see any surface that isn’t completely blotted out by coarse white fungous flesh.

“Shit,” Fumi murmurs.

The acrid, weird smell is stronger down here and I’ve finally recognize it – it’s the reek of those horrible, throat-coating spores from the nightmare of the fungal jungle deep down in the Pit’s rancid guts, where Marcus and Peter and Erica and – and Klaus had died.

Where I had killed Klaus.

Thinking about it makes me shiver. This past day – there hasn’t been time to think. Everything has been sweeping me along with the same force and velocity as a riptide. I haven’t had time to – to acknowledge it.

Unbidden, the image of him clapping his hand to his throat springs to my mind. The gun had felt like a dead weight in my hand. It hadn’t even felt like my hand, it had felt like I was controlling it at a distance, like I was playing a video game. I remember the way his eyes had widened in shock and how he had staggered back, the knife clattering out of his trembling hands. He had tried to swipe at me with it even then but the strength had left him.

I’ve already sealed my suit. I hadn’t wanted to waste the filters or the battery before by running the rebreather but these spores aren’t going to give us a choice. I don’t want to be hallucinating again.

At the end of the hallway is a door. It takes the two of us some serious effort to pry it open, levering at the rusted, mossy handle, but once we get it open we stumble into what must have once been one of the main baths. The fungus grows here too, in greater size and density. There are things living here; a dozen little things scurry and hop and slither away from us, darting away from the reach of our flashlight beams. Some of the mushrooms, the bigger blue-veined ones with the caps that look like they’re melting, visibly deflate as we rake our lights over them, puffing out clouds of hazy spores.

“I’m not sure that Elena’s here,” Fumi says softly, looking around. I feel my insides tighten even as he says it.

A massive hole has broken open in the tile over on the far end of the pool. I think I see something within it move. I reach over and tug at Fumi’s sleeve. “Fumi,” I hiss. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Over there,” I point. “Inside that big fucking hole, I thought I saw –“

“Whatever you saw,” Fumi tells me, “it wasn’t Elena. If she even came down here, she’d have taken one look at it and then turned right around and left. You said that Erica took her helmet. Look at all these spores. Do you think that –“

“God damn!” something cries out of the murk and darkness down at the far end of the pool. The milk-white ballast seethes incontinently beneath the wan glare of our flashlights, and I can feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. “God damn!” it repeats.

“That’s Elena,” I say.

“Roan, no,” Fumi says. I shoot him a look like he’s gone mad.

“Listen to her,” I tell him. “That’s her voice! I’d know it anywhere.”

As if to punctuate my argument, the voice cries out again. “Oh god! Oh fuck!”

I charge forward, stomping into the ballast with reckless abandon. “Elena!” I call out. My heart is jumping in my chest and I have to consciously force myself not to grin madly. Elena is here! God, she’s here! I was right, she did come to the ballast bulbs, she did –

“God damn!”

“Roan, stop!” Fumi yells from behind me. I can hear him starting to stomp after me but I don’t have an iota of brainpower left to devote to the question of why he’d want to stop me. The ballast ripples around my legs, but it’s relatively shallow, at least this end of the pool. I hope I don’t have to swim in it to get to her.

“God damn!”

“Elena, I’m coming!”

“STOP! Roan, it’s a –“

My foot catches against something in the ballast and I lose my balance. I try to catch myself on my hands but the pool deepens just ahead of me and I end up pitching face-first into the murk. “Goddam,” I mumble. I don’t know what I tripped on, it feels like a log or something, but that doesn’t make a ton of sense to be down here. What is –

The log wriggles to life and wraps itself around my ankle. I have enough time to let out a small, terrified squeak before it whips me bodily off my feet and starts tugging me through the ballast towards the hole in the tile. I hear a splash from behind me as Fumi wades it, and I realize that I’m screaming.

Another rope or vine or tentacle joins the first, and this one fixes around the thigh of my other leg. I reach down, fighting against the thing’s pull, and get my hands on my pistol. I jerk it out of the holster so fast that I almost lose it, flick the safety off, and then fire off three rounds into the darkness lurking where the tentacles converge, but I don’t think I hit anything. Another tentacle seizes around my wrist and though I try to get loose, I end up dropping the gun.

Fumi calls out from behind me but I can’t pull myself together enough to answer him. Another tentacle has fixed around my midriff, another around my neck, and it squeezes so tightly that almost immediately I see stars bursting in my eyes and everything goes off-kilter like the world’s been tilted.

My flashlight skews across the face of the thing that’s tugging me in and for a moment I can’t comprehend it. It looks like a…a flower, all folds and delicate fleshy petals, but the colors are off. I can’t think, I’m not getting enough oxygen.

A mouth opens in the center of the flower, unfolding like a piece of origami. I see delicate, foot-long, razor-sharp teeth, almost translucent in the light.

The tentacles around my neck and leg loosen, and then drop me entirely. I smack into the surface of the ballast and rapidly sink under. I’m still too woozy to do much about it other than flail my arms helplessly. The air is hot and stuffy in this helmet and I can feel a tingle somewhere along the side of my ribcage, accompanied by a stinging wetness that makes me realize my suit has a hole and ballast is leaking in.

I can’t think, my brain feels like it’s been unplugged. I’m going to drown inside my suit down here and I can’t do anything about it –

The last tentacle loosens and slips away and then I feel hands tugging at my arms. Without thinking I cling to them, the slippery ballast making my grip clumsy. I batter against my rescuer, trying to get a grip on them. There’s a horrendous noise filling the air, making the ballast vibrate with the force of it. Amid the torrent of sound I can hear someone yelling at me, telling me to stop, and when I crack my eyes open I see Fumi tugging me closer to him and trying to swim us away at the same time. I get my arm around his waist and we both dip under.

“Fuck this,” he says when I come up next and then he cocks his arm back and punches me in the side of the head. I go limp immediately and for the next few minutes I am not quite unconscious but I am definitely woozy enough to let Fumi drag me bodily out of the pool and then pick me up and carry me out of that horrible room and back to the staircase we came in at.

I manage to hobble up two flights of stairs on my own before I stumble and Fumi has to let me lean on him to get up another two. Up here the air is clearer and I can finally pop my helmet and breathe in deep, grateful gulps of it without feeling the spores trickling in and lining my throat. I sit down heavily on a step that isn’t encrusted with bloody moss and lichen and give Fumi a bleak look.

“I’ve been so fucking stupid,” I mutter. Fumi tries to put his arm around me but I shrug it off. “Goddam it, I’ve been so stupid.”

“Roan –“

“Fuck!” I shout. It echoes up and down the rickety staircase, my own voice reflected back at me in a mocking tone. My neck and arms are still sore and if I close my eyes I can feel that horrible thing’s tentacles or vines tugging tight around my throat and choking the life out of me…

“Roan,” Fumi tries again. “You aren’t stupid.”

“Elena was never down here,” I say. I can hear the cheerlessness in my voice. “She’s probably dead someplace ten minutes from the Cord. I should never have –“

“Roan!” Fumi barks. I look at him, not bothering to wipe my eyes.

“What?”

“Roan, you have to stop trying to throw your life away,” he says. His eyes are dark and serious and suddenly I find I can’t meet his gaze. “No, look at me,” he says.

“I’m really not into this paternal bullshit,” I start, but Fumi takes my head in his hands and very gently turns it so I don’t have any choice but to stare into his eyes. I almost slap him. At the very least I snarl out the beginning of an imprecation, but Fumi just stares me down. “I don’t –“ I start, but he shakes his head.

��Your life isn’t over,” he tells me. “You still have plenty to live for.”

“But if Elena’s dead –“

“Fuck Elena! Even if Elena were dead you’d have something to live for. When we find her do you think your relationship with her is going to last very long if you’re just hanging your entire existence off of her?”

“I – “

“I don’t need you flaking out on me right now,” he tells me. “When Ellis died, I –“

“Ellis?”

“Oh, fuck it. Forget it,” he says, standing up. “Do whatever the hell you want, you want to be a clingy son of a bitch when we get to Elena, be my goddam guest –“

“No, Fumi, I’m sorry, I didn’t –“

“Forget it, I said,” he tells me. My cheeks are burning. I’ve gone and broken the camel’s back. Of course him and Ellis were close, but…it doesn’t matter.

“Fumi, I didn’t mean –“

“Elena’s alive,” he says, his voice harsh. “Or at least she was, recently. Because ballast sirens can only repeat sounds they’ve heard. She probably pried open a door, took one look at that place, said ‘god damn!’ and ‘oh fuck!’ and left, and the siren’s probably been parroting it back for the better part of a day since then, hoping something would be stupid enough to wander into reach…”

“How was I supposed to know?” I yell. “How was I fucking supposed to know? I’ve never heard of a fucking ballast siren! I don’t know what they do!”

“I was yelling after you telling you not to go!” Fumi shouts. “If you had just fucking listened to me you wouldn’t have –“

“Yeah, well you fucking punched me!”

“I punched you,” he hisses, taking a step towards me, “because you were fucking panicking. You were going to drag me down with you and if I let you, we both would have died back there. I had to make you go limp, so I punched you! Of course you probably would have been okay with the two of us dying, given your fucking martyrdom fetish –“

“I don’t have a martyrdom fetish!”

“Then fucking act like it!”

“Fuck you!”

“You need to calm the fuck down,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “I can’t believe you talked me into this damn-fool errand. I had no idea you were such a –“

“Fucking leave, then,” I tell him. There’s a part of my brain screaming at me to stop, but I can’t stop. I’ve already let the words out. “If I’m so much of a fucking burden and too much of a loose cannon then fucking leave. Just go back up. I’ll find Elena myself.”

Fumi’s face falls. When he speaks his tone is gentler. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to –“

“Just go!” I yell, pointing up the stairs. “Just fuck off!”

“Roan, don’t do this.”

“Just leave!” I say. My voice is thick and raw and I realize that I’m crying. “I can do this myself! I don’t need you!”

“Roan, you –“

“Go!” I shriek, and then before I know it I’m clambering to my feet and pulling up my sleeves, clenching a fist and getting ready to swing at him. Everything’s taken on a red tinge, even redder than normal down here in the Pit, and the horrible throbbing thump of my heartbeat is ringing in my ears like an immense drum.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Fumi says, throwing up his hands, and then he turns and hurries up the stairs.

I stand there for a long, long while, breathing hard, letting all of my anger drain out of me. Eventually I feel empty enough to find a nice clear spot on the rusty steps, brush away the mushrooms and polypous clumps of pooled flesh and sit. I think about burying my head in my hands, but I don’t.

After a moment I take out my radio from its holster on my belt and look at it. Fumi had warned me not to even try anything with it, he’d said that it’d be easy for anyone listening in, such as the FBI or people in the Control Center, to triangulate my position and there’d be no guarantee Elena would even have a radio to respond with if I did try to call her.

But I don’t see another choice. My hand is shaking a little and I feel as though if I stand up I’d just fall right over again. If I don’t do something I’m going to have a panic attack.

I crack the radio up to its broadest range-band and hold down the broadcast button. I can’t think of what to say. Eventually I shake my head and then lick my lips and give it my best shot. “Elena?” I ask. My voice catches a little but I swallow hard and force it back down. “Elena, it’s Roan. If you’re – if you’re out there and you can hear this, l-let me know. Please.”

I let the button go and then wait, heart pounding. I try to keep myself from counting the seconds, but I can’t. Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty. I stop after a minute and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the hot tears from leaking from them. She’s not out there, she’s dead or trapped somewhere without a radio, I knew it was a long shot, I shouldn’t have even bothered. If I hadn’t bothered I could at least pretend that –

The radio clutched loosely in my hands crackles to life. I glare at it, half-expecting to hear Fumi chew me out for using the radio in the first place.

“Roan?” Elena says. “Oh, my god, Roan, baby, is that you? Oh god, is that you?”

Continue with Part 34

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#mystery flesh pit #writing #writeblr #original writing #mystery #alt lit #thriller #Novel #disaster #caving #Michael Crichton

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kuiperblog · 4 years ago

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I spent some time (and money) playing Genshin Impact

I've spent some time with Genshin Impact over the past few weeks. (It's probably come to about 60 hours and 60 dollars that I've spent.)

All of the things that need to be said about this game has probably already been said by others: yes, it's very much similar to Zelda: Breath of the Wild in terms of the open world exploration and visuals. It's also a free-to-play gacha game where you have to put money into the slot machine if you want to be guaranteed to get the characters you want, and you have a limited amount of daily stamina to get rewards from certain repeatable content.

The thing that seems to be under-acknowledged is that Genshin Impact is largely two different games: an open-world exploration game that you’re largely free to play through at your own pace, and a “grind to make the numbers go up” game where your progress is mostly limited by daily missions and activities. These two games are sort of intertwined, but I think I’ve managed to decouple the two, and it’s greatly enhanced my ability to enjoy Genshin Impact.

Genshin Impact is at its best when it is an open world game where you wander around, discovering treasure and puzzles and shrines and fighting groups of enemies who are guarding chests. This is the part that takes after Breath of the Wild: it does a great job of filling the overworld with content in a way that, every time you finish a task, you need only to pan the camera around to see another activity off in the distance that you can do. And if you don't see anything to do, just climb the nearest mountain and pan the camera around to look for a glowing point of interest. This, too, is very BotW-esque: you can climb any vertical surface (how high you can climb is limited by your stamina), then jump from the peak using your glider. Scattered around the world, you will find orbs (usually cleverly hidden within environmental puzzles), and you feed these orbs to a statue in each region to raise your character’s stamina so that you can climb mountains more easily.

The environment has an incredible amount of verticality, and I had a lot of time in one particularly mountainous region (pictured above), gliding from clifftop to clifftop, then walking around the "mid-tier" of the mountains where everything was connected by suspension bridges, and finally exploring all of the valleys. And of course, I was constantly switching between the different "tiers" of the environment: I would begin gliding from one clifftop to another, but then I would pan the camera down and see, "ooh, there's a chest down in that valley. Let me take a 'small detour' to obtain it," and then I would parachute down from the sky before climbing back up to see what other goodies were hidden in the world.

Genshin Impact, like Breath of the Wild, is all about seeing an interesting landmark in the distance, walking in that direction, and repeatedly getting distracted by detours and other smaller points of interest on the way there. You can stumble across a random torch, think “there’s probably a bunch of other torches in this area that will give me a reward if I light all of them,” and you will be right. No matter where you are in the world, there’s always multiple things that you can see in the distance that make you say, “ooh, I want to see what’s over there. I bet I’ll find another korok seed blue wisp.” It’s kind of great.

The thing that it actually does better than BotW is that everything you do in the overworld feels like it is giving you forward progress, whether it’s hunting for hidden treasure or fighting enemies. In BotW, there are genuinely some enemy encounters where you will just fight a bunch of enemies and afterwards go, "Great, I just wasted half of this sword's durability, and all I have to show for it is a much crappier sword than the one I used to kill these enemies." In Genshin Impact, there is no weapon durability, and every enemy drops materials that you will eventually use to "ascend" your characters and weapons (essentially raising the level cap), so even time that you spend fighting trash mobs isn’t wasted (though there are usually faster ways to progress, so I don’t fight every single enemy I come across). Every chest that you open gives you progress toward raising your "adventure rank," which determines how high you can raise the level cap. The open world is fun to spend time in, and it always feels like you are making progress.

In fact, exploring the open world is so much fun that it's easy to forget that there's actually a main questline, though the questline is actually quite enjoyable. (And, unlike BotW, that main questline actually involves a large amount of story where you meet and talk to different characters, like you would in most open-world fantasy games!) There's voice acting and cutscenes and an interesting story that explores the different cultures in this world, including an interesting contrast between one vaguely-western European region where you meet characters with names like "Jean" and Bennet" and "Noelle," and a China analog where the characters have names like "Chongyun" and "Ningguang” and "Xingqiu" (who you can see pictured below).

The cultural influences aren’t merely aesthetic (though they are definitely reflected in the fashion and architecture of these two regions).

There are also “character” story quests where you will, for example, meet a character who is a book nerd and help him track down a volume of a novel he’s been trying to find. In the process of helping the book geek, you will meet with the merchants guild to engage in financial speculation and market manipulation, and also there are some combat sequences where you get to play with the book nerd character and find out that he’s also pretty good with a sword and water magic, and hey, if you’d like him to be a permanent part of your team, maybe you could consider spending some money on the gacha slot machine for a chance of getting him?

(By the way, if all of that sounds like a bit much just to help some kid track down a novel, it should be noted that this game is set in a time where books are quite a prized commodity: there’s also a story set in the game’s “vaguely western European” region that involves helping a librarian character track down overdue library books, and I don’t think it’s spoiling anything to tell you that part of this quest involves entering a dungeon and fighting a bunch of enemies.)

These “character stories” do feel like a pretty obvious way to get you to care about and “try out” characters that are locked behind the paywall, but I’m glad they’re there, as they are easily the most endearing part of the game’s story. I’ve been content with my main squad of 5-ish main characters without the need to dig into the game’s roster of ~25 characters (with more to surely be added with each update).

There’s a finite amount of content, in the sense that eventually, you will explore all of the open world and uncover all of the secrets, and do all of the main questline and all the character sidequests and whatnot. (The game does have some repeatable and “daily” content...but we’ll get to that later.) The game’s open world and story seems to represent about 60 hours of content, from my own estimates (and estimates I’ve seen by others), and it is worth noting that more content is on the way: the game currently has 2 regions, but the map (and the game’s lore) has room for a total of 7 regions, and of course I’m sure that more characters (and accompanying side stories) are on the way, since getting you to pull for new characters is how the game makes money.

I enjoyed my time with that game very much, and will probably be coming back every time there’s a major update that adds a new region. It’s also worth mentioning that while some of the activities in the open world are one-time puzzles, there are many chests throughout the world that do respawn every few days, so there is still stuff to do if you want to keep exploring the open world even after you’ve cleared everything.

All of what I’ve described above could be a regular AAA game that I’d be perfectly content to spend $60 on (and, as it just so happens, I have spent approximately that amount of money on it, because I wanted to recruit the mischievous bard archer whose ultimate ability is to summon tornadoes, and the chuuni thunder princess whose ultimate lets you fly around as an electro-charged raven and zap everything. I don’t regret that purchase.)

This leads into the “second game” that is Genshin Impact.

One of the main “rewards” for exploring the open world of Genshin Impact (as well as doing the main questline and the side quests) is that nearly everything you do (including opening random chests in the overworld) gives you experience toward raising your “adventure rank.” Adventure rank 1-20 is when you are mainly progressing to unlock the game’s features. This is done pretty well, for the most part: tying various features to the game’s progression system ensures that you’re not inundated with too much stuff to do right out of the gate, and it gives you an incentive to keep progressing the main quest to continue advancing your adventure rank.

The final “feature” that the game unlocks for you at adventure rank 20 is that you now have the ability to ascend the game’s “world level.” At adventure rank 20, you ascend from “world level 0″ to “world level 1.” (From this point on, every 5 adventure rank you gain allows you to raise the “world level” again: at adventure rank 25, you hit world level 2, at adventure rank 30, you hit world level 3, and so on.)

This is where you encounter the second game within Genshin Impact, which is a game that is basically about watching numbers go up.

You explore the open world and do quests to raise your adventure rank, which lets you raise the world level. Raising the world level raises the level cap for all of your characters. Raising the world level also makes all of the enemies stronger, but this is good because it means they drop better materials, which you need in order to ascend your characters to hit the new level cap. This becomes the main “gameplay loop” of Genshin Impact: you want to raise your adventure rank, so that you can become stronger and so that the enemies become stronger so that you can become stronger faster.

This is where the complaints about the “stamina” system come in. You see, the part of Genshin Impact that is just about watching the numbers go up is all tied to your adventure rank, and the open world has an essentially finite amount of adventure exp. Early on, your adventure rank grows quickly because the story quests and sidequests give you generous amounts of adventure exp, but eventually the main soure of renewable adventure exp becomes tied to daily quests and the game’s energy system.

The game is filled with overworld bosses, short dungeons, and “leylines” (which are basically random points on the open world where you can spawn and fight through waves of enemies). You can do these as much as you want, but they only give adventure exp (and other rewards) if you spend energy, which you get a finite amount of every day. You get 180 energy per day, and each activity costs 20-40 energy. (Also, energy constantly regenerates and you can only store 120 energy at a time, so if you don’t want to “waste” energy by hitting the cap, it means you have to log in multiple times per day to spend it.)

This means that, at a certain point, your “adventure rank” progress is gated by energy/dailies. (For me, this happened at around adventure rank 30.) Of course, you can spend money to get extra energy. This is what has a lot of players upset. (The game’s energy system is called “resin,” and doing a google search for ‘genshin impact resin’ or simply pulling up the Genshin Impact subreddit will probably turn up pages of such complaints, if you’re interested in reading such things.)

The thing is, the “energy system” doesn’t really impede your ability to explore the open world, which is where this game is really at it’s best. In fact, there are people who have gone through the entire world and found all of hundreds of hidden orbs even before ascending to world level 1.

When I say that Genshin Impact eventually becomes a game about watching the numbers go up, I mean that quite literally: at world level 3, I am fighting the exact same enemies that I was at world level 1; they just have bigger numbers over their heads. I am using the same characters and abilities and doing all of the same activities, but now instead of killing level 18 goblin archers to collect “firm arrowheads,” I’m killing level 45 goblin archers to get “sharp arrowheads.” The difference between these two items is that “firm arrowheads” are required to ascend my archer up to level 40, while “sharp arrowheads” are required to ascend my archer up to level 60. Eventually, I’ll graduate to fighting even higher levels of goblin archers to get “weathered arrowheads,” which will let me ascend my archer up to level 80.

It is worth noting that the game’s “loop” of watching the numbers go up is quite satisfying: while it is easy to describe the game in a reductive way that makes it feel dumb and arbitrary, I’ll admit that once I graduated from fighting level 35 slimes (who only drop “slime condensate”) to fighting level 40 slimes (who were then able to drop “slime secretions”), and then used those “slime secretions” to upgrade my my wind archer’s attacks to do more damage, it felt good.

Whether it’s leveling your characters, ascending your characters, leveling your weapons, ascending your weapons, level up each of your character’s individual talents, leveling each of their individual pieces of equipment...it just feels good to make the numbers go up, and to keep making the numbers go up, you have to raise the world level to make the enemies stronger. Every milestone feels like a significant achievement, and it’s great at giving you the constant feeling that you get when you “prestige” in a game like Call of Duty: the game ratchets up in difficulty, and you once again get to go through the process of grinding your characters up until you slowly accomplish the task of once again hitting the new level cap.

And so I absolutely understand the frustration that a lot of players hit once the “the wall” where only way to keep making the numbers go up is to sign in every day to do their dailies and spend their energy, or spend money to get more energy. I myself was a bit annoyed, and even spent a couple dollars’ worth of the game’s premium currency so that I could gain more adventure exp to make the number go up faster.

But I quickly realized, “No matter what my adventure rank is, I’m still fighting the same goblins, slimes, wizards, and electro cubes that I was fighting 10 hours ago.” Even if my progress is being arbitrarily gated by an energy system, on a moment-to-moment basis, the gameplay is pretty much the same.

And at that point, I basically abandoned the game within Genshin Impact that is “make the numbers go up,” and went back to playing the thing that made me enjoy Genshin Impact, which is the game of “wander around in the open world, look for activities to do, collect all the orbs, open all the chests, and fight the various enemies that I fight along the way.” Doing this still makes the numbers go up, just more slowly than if I was spending energy on all of the game’s repeatable content. And that game continues to be quite fun. Eventually I’ll run out of things to do, and at that point I will probably put down Genshin Impact until the next region comes out and gives me another few dozen hours of open-world content to explore.

Most people I’ve seen recommend Genshin Impact do so with the caveat that before you go in, you should be aware of the gacha system so you don’t spend too much money, and maybe stay away if you lack the self control to avoid dumping too much money into it. In my case, the money I’ve lost to gacha games has always paled in comparison to the amount of time and mental energy I’ve lost to playing any game that has “dailies” that make me feel obligated to sign in once a day (or more than once a day) so I’m not “wasting” a resource that the game is giving me for “free.”

Now that I’ve resigned myself to not particularly caring about the numbers in Genshin Impact, it’s not such a big problem for me, but if you are the kind of person who is going to lose a ton of mental bandwidth to any game that has “dailies” or an energy system, be aware that Genshin Impact is one of those. Also be aware that playing the game at higher “World Ranks” is pretty much the same experience as playing it at World Rank 1 in terms of the enemies you fight against and the abilities that you use, and if you’re able to cross that mental hurdle (like I eventually did), you can loop around to not really caring too much about the game’s energy system (which prevents you from getting frustrated by having your progress, but perhaps more critically saves you from feeling like you need to log in every day for fear of “wasting” energy).

#genshin impact #gacha #video games

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uncloseted · 3 years ago

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i related to effy an unhealthy amount when i was only 13 when i first watched it, but at the time i wasnt doing drugs, homewrecking, doing anything that young lol. however i was extremely mentally ill but undiagnosed, and so confused but i found solace in effys character because of how similar i felt to her. flashforward to being 20 now and im a nic addict/borderline drug and alcohol addict that forgets to take my prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics. i cant tell you how many events of effys life have mirrored mine now 7 years later, both the pretty but mostly the ugly. it all feels like a joke to me, and the thing is of course it wasnt effy the fictional character that did this to me, it was the fact that i was genetically and epically set up to do this to me for as long as i existed and i saw myself in her too young. everyone ive ever met and started to befriend has fallen in love with me, has found me beautiful, and then seen my flaws and hated me even if they didnt tell me to my face. ive been a horrible friend and partner and im flighty and unreliable and destructive. i never saw effy, or a person like effy, find a happy ending and im afraid even when im at my manic highs i will never find a lasting happiness and will always accidentally self sabotage until i die. what im trying to ask is, how can i save me? i know its dumb to ask a random tumblr user but ive been following this blog since i was 13-14 and since you know effy through and through, you might know a little about me. its a long shot. (i’d also like to say this isnt a cry for help and im safe/not actively suicidal so i dont want you to feel like theres any pressure like that, but i did use this ask box as a free therapy session.)

I'm a bit biased, but I don't think there's anything wrong with asking a random Tumblr user at all. I'm happy to be a free therapy session when you need one, and I'm really touched that you've trusted me with your thoughts and feelings for so long. Hopefully I've been some help over the years 😆

Coping with mental illness can be really, really hard, but the good news is that with the right tools and support system, you can absolutely recover. It sounds like you already have a psychiatrist in your life, which is a great start. If you've having trouble remembering to take your medication, it might help to set calendar reminders on your phone, set up text prompts to remind you to take your pills, to link taking your pills with something else you do every day (like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast), or to reward yourself for taking your medication (for example, putting a piece of candy in your pill box that you can eat after taking your pill).

If you don't have one already, a therapist might also be a good idea. It can take a while to find the right therapist for you, so schedule a few appointments and see which therapist you "click" with. A therapist can help you work through any reluctance you might have towards taking you medications, as well as helping you come up with day to day strategies that help you achieve your goals and helping you work through the beliefs that you hold about yourself and the world that may be holding you back.

Moving on to talking about addiction for a bit. I strongly believe that addiction doesn't come from some type of inherent lack of willpower or moral failing, or even really the drug itself. It's the need to escape reality. And that's actually supported by scientific literature; most famously, the Rat Park experiment by Bruce K Alexander. Practically, we've seen that same thing in the aftermath of Portugal's decision to decriminalize all drugs. They took the money they were using to keep drug users in prison, and instead invested that money into reconnecting people who struggle with addiction to society. Their goal was to make sure that every person who struggles with addiction has a reason to get up in the morning and has a support system within the wider society. And it actually worked- injection drug use is down 50%, overdoses and HIV infections have massively decreased, and rates of addiction decreased as well. It's much easier to quit when you have something motivating you to keep going.

Why am I telling you all of this? I guess what I'm trying to get at is in order to recover from addiction, I think first people need to understand what the reality is that they're trying to escape. What can be done about those issues? Who's in your corner trying to support you, even if they're not doing the best job at it? Where else can you get the social support you might need? What are you passionate about? What would make it feel worth it to get up in the morning? I think instead of focusing on the drugs, or the alcohol, or the cigarettes, maybe we should focus on solving the root problems that make those attractive options. That's one of the reasons a therapist is a really good idea; they can help you figure out what those root problems are, and provide resources and tools to help you fix those problems.

In terms of practical, do it yourself advice for dealing with addiction, there are a couple things you might try. I did a whole post on evidence-based ways to set goals and follow through on them here, so I won't rehash it in this post, but basically:

Try to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. For you, this might be something like "My goal is to have only one drink a day (measurable and achievable) for week (time bound) so that I can be more reliable for my friends (relevant)".

Instead of trying to quit something, replace it with something else. For example, "when I feel like smoking, I'm going to do ten minutes of learning Korean instead". Learning something new is easier and more exciting, and so new habits are easier to maintain that breaking old ones. Find a new hobby that you've always wanted to do or that's exciting to you, and try to focus your energies on that to distract yourself.

Identify any obstacles (such as environmental triggers) that you might run into, and develop contingency plans for working around them. This might be something like, "when I drink coffee in the morning, I want to smoke, so I'm going to switch to tea instead." If you can, get rid of all environmental triggers that might remind you of your addiction or trigger a craving.

Get someone else involved. Tell a friend about your goal and have them check up on you. Your fear of disappointing them will help you stay on track.

Put money on the line. Give money to a friend with the understanding that you'll get it back at a set date if you've achieved the goal you set. Tell your friend that if you fail, they should donate the money to a group or cause you really hate.

Write down the reasons you want to quit, and put them somewhere you know you'll see them. Whenever you want to engage in an addiction behavior, read through that list first.

For bonus points, add to that list your contingency plan for when you want to engage in an addiction behavior. These may include ways to redirect your attention or distract yourself until the craving passes.

76% of people who wrote down their goals, actions and provided weekly progress to a friend successfully achieved their goals.

You might also try an addiction recovery app, such as these, or doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy worksheets on your own if you can't access a therapist right now.

There are also some things you can try in order to improve your mood. As much as I hate that this is true, consistent exercise has a huge impact on mood. If you can, try taking a 20 minute walk outside, 3 times a week. Other (boring) things, like making sure you're getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night and eating regularly, can also make a big difference in mood. Some of you might know that I'm a little bit obsessed with the free Coursera class "The Science of Well-Being". It has a lot of great evidence-based tips and tricks for how to build happiness, and I highly recommend it if you're trying to live a happier life. These include things like journaling, meditating, noting things that you're grateful for, helping other people, and having regular social interactions.

Finally, a few philosophical thoughts. One of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism is dukkha. Basically, this is the idea that suffering is an innate characteristic of existence in our world. When I was younger, I never liked this concept, but I think now I kind of get it. It's impossible to be happy 100% of the time, and that shouldn't be our goal. Suffering is the comparison by which our lives gain meaning. But we can do our best to minimize our suffering and the suffering of others, and ride the wave of suffering when it does come. And each time we ride that wave, we can learn techniques to manage it a little bit better, and to make it easier the next time. We will sometimes sabotage ourselves out of fear, but we can learn how to do it less frequently and for the consequences to be less dire. We can learn how to forgive ourselves for our flaws and what we've done in the past, and learn from those mistakes so we don't do them again in the future. It's also okay to backslide, to struggle even after you've made progress. You're never back where you started, because you've always learned more and experienced more.

I know I've thrown kind of a lot at you in this post, and I don't expect you to try all of it or for all of it to work, but hopefully something in there is helpful to you. You can get through this. You can save yourself, but please, also remember to let others help save you. You don't need to do this on your own. And just like I have been since you were 13, I'm always here to give a free therapy session and to lend my support ❤️❤️❤️

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numinous-shaman · 4 years ago

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Secret Space Program Timeline Wars

Not even organic time travelers know what's going to manifest exactly, but I do know this is a timeline war and the forces of chaos and corptocracy are what will lead us into a horrible A.I., future of soullessness and military industrial servitude, if we don't shift the tide in consciousness back to human values soon.

There ARE definately forces ready to resist tyranny all over the country and there are also militarized groups invested in destroying the stamina of defensive forces too, war on our soil is NOT desirable. There used to be only a timeline with five free states in the future, having Constitutional protection, back in 2011, I was aware when that was secured. Then we got an 11 state timeline some years later and I'm pretty sure the last I felt we had a pretty solid 27 state structure for manifesting continued protection of Inalienable human rights, should succession become necessary.

I hope it's more now, it would be wonderful to have the whole country turn back from the Great Reset completely, before the Great Divide manifests. But, consciousness just isn't aware enough to expect that at this point, it's painfully obvious watching the majority of people demand to be experimentation survivors and freely give over their genetic code to hybridization with other species, and new technology, that the level of awareness of the masses has been greatly reduced, along with understanding of their own value, rights and responsibilities. Of course, we KNOW in the future that it was "the fears" that caused them to sell their liberty, not actual harm, just the idea of it and their lack of awareness regarding the methods to manipulate them made it all possible. Watching this play out in real time, is just gut wrenching.

MAYBE, if enough false flags happened to jolt then awake they would help fight their captors instead of beg them in, but the iron curtain of information has become increasingly difficult to penetrate. I don't think Trump is the Messiah, but I think if he's prohuman then he'll use this opportunity he has to rally some people who care about freedom behind him and hit them where it hurts, AT THE INFORMATION LEVEL. We need to get past the frequency fence of distorted information being used to hold humanity hostage and unable to discern the danger.

Of course, the controllers want it that way, they want us dumb and happy when they cut out lives short and all the blame for the genocide resting squarely on our own, failure to rightfully apply free will. I've had more than my fair share of exposure to eugenist, reptilian timelording types of beings and I will tell you what they never will, because I'm not like them although I perceive them. They believe in survival of the fittest, or most cunning, really.

They figure if they are smart enough to fool humans and conquer us, then our benevolence is a weakness and they deserve to rule with an iron rod and treat us like domesticated cattle and resources for their whims. They think of this world as part of a larger ocean and the bigger fish wins, unless the smaller fish gets smart enough to survive. The idea of a loving Creator force is foreign to them, nature is cruel, only children have foolish dreams of things which are obviously not true, that's what they would say to a child who believes good will win out, simply because it's moral.

Now, if the alien Corptocracy gets their way and are able to slice through the federal government and manifest authoritianism quickly, this is probably where the Orwellian vision of two sort of parallel societies might spring up in the same land, some flocking to federally managed economic development, while others reclaim land and resources for sustainability, environmental protection and multicultural preservation, in states leaving the union. Those were basically the legal umbrellas we used to get support from the corptocracy in some timelines in the future and not called fundamentalists, revolutionaries or radicals for simply wanting to remain natural humans and to keep our Bill of Rights.

They didn't care about our rights or our liberty or right to make our own health decisions, because they thought it was important, NO. We had to show that the degradation of our environment was no good for them and the degradation of our genetics was akin to killing a protected animal, because it was an endangered' species. Human interest was protected only under the banner of what today might be equated to Leftist Liberalism or Environmental Activism. So many humans are already under the influence of such heavy programming and so degraded genetically, they already serve the AntiChrist system, the Corptocracy who is attempting to rewrite our souls for capture and control, and just don't know it. Wanting to be human completely and to access nature and make individual choices, was called tragically fundamentalism and seen as radical or mad. Covertly, the secret societies weilding heavy handed influence within the Corptocracy knew the truth and knew the human ascension potential was intentionally being cut off from the masses and tightly controlled. They had their own plans of breeding into the genetics of ascendant humans while enslaving the rest.

The Multidimensional capacity of the human soul was lost by most after being genetically degraded with medicine, environmental toxins and food. Humans literally lost their ability to fully embody and connect with their soul and multidimensional nature, the process happened over a few generations and most didn't notice it occurring or miss it when it was lost, everyone was tuned into their pain and pleasure body only, five senses they couldn't see through with higher ones. In many probable futures a company called Aegis was ultimately responsible for raising awareness and support from the rich to help achieve their goal of protecting, studying and tracking the human potential for Multidimensional communication and influence on the environment. Many human domains for natural living were organized and protected legally and with force by Aegis Corp. and Aegis Shield Corp. Organic and inorganic time travel was experimented with by many factions, warring for control over the timelines and various aspects of our future. Time travel operations were in place before Sept. 11th and that event itself has already been altered by divine intelligence and human operatives, so we are experiencing already, an altered version of the past. The 911 timeline, 911 numerological sequences are an energetic reality that crosses the threshold of the unconscious mind for many of us.

It's so important to understand though, the leaders didn't care about our souls or the afterlife, the government is controlled by soulless corpore entities, not human ideals. They only helped us, in the end at all, because they wanted to replicate what it's REALLY like to be human and receive your Divine nature in artificial systems and experience a replicate reality using technology for virtual extended life spans in artificial worlds of clones or digitized and uploaded into what is akin to a virtual reality cloud. The small percentage of true humans lived parallel lives, but they fought to not be dependent on the Corptocracy, so that separation would remain and the rest of the world saw and treated then like an oddity, some kind of stage show freak for them to project their own fears and insecurity onto. They had no idea they were just dangling participles, evolutionarily speaking, slated for nothing but further degeneration, experimentation and enslavement. I can already feel this separation becoming palpable, the emergency vaccine powers are definately a trigger event

The real humans, eventually were able to live protected, to stay in touch with natural order and live like a natural human, but only in exchange for information and for power the secret societies used for themselves. We still managed to create hubs of Divine Creator energies, cruelty free animal zones and real human existence to assist with keeping balance in the world by helping the Corptocracy understand the importance of universal law and the real purpose of morality at the level of the template of reality manifestation. This helped the populations (we weren't all human) to survive and avert pole shift, we literally have to keep the balance.

The effect of that knowledge on the majority was not natural though, it was tyranical and the populations who destroyed the old America demanding liberation were the ones who ended up with the least liberty in the end. All of these impressions are collected from possible futures and parallel realities, I pray everyday the options improve and more real humans remember who they are and what is really important. They had to shut the inorganic (technologically) induced time travel missions down, the effects were bizarre and became a greater concern than originally imagined. There are rogue groups still experimenting covertly, it is well known in the future and these groups are hunted religiously by the scientific order.

Organic time travel is more mystical in nature, it's the ability of your higher self to project itself back in time to your physical self and effect change which shifts the future. This is just one example of the types of abilities the Multidimensional human is able to do, if their genetics and consciousness aren't interfered with and free will used to serve Love, like Christ taught. The elite know that REAL humanity doesn't need their faulty technology to externalize their powers for interconnectivity and don't need controllers at all. That's why they aim to suppress us, dumb us down and keep the secret about who and what we are far from our awareness.

They need us to control, to feed off, to feel powerful by dominating and to justify their own limited, dimensionalized existence. They are like an interdimensional invader, a parasitic intelligence we are playing host to and giving more power over our entire universal time matrix. The ONLY people who won't be TOTALLY owned and controlled by these corporate boards and warlords in the future, are going to be the ones who dedicate themselves to consciousness expansion and Spiritual Ascension, because they'll need those enhanced abilities and awareness to stay a step ahead of the parasite and their legion of zombie enforcers, demanding submission to intelligence beneath the true Human. They expect us to out smart them if we really deserve our free will, I'm not condoning the belief system, just making it conscious in hopes more people can see through the vaneer of humanity they aim to project.

#projectibis #projectbluebird #james casbolt #annunaki #multidimensional #timelines #indigo kids #ascension #starseed #montauk #project pegasus

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