#but that one had a lot of games and activities about togetherness and teamwork and how we needed everyone to stick together | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fujii-draws · 5 months ago

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Hi I just wanted to say that I love Ribbons and Aimilios so much, they're so cute and sweet!!!

May I make a humble request for Ribbons and Amilios fluff,,,

I must know these dweebs are happy and would love to hear how they eventually fell for eachother!!!

AAA!! I’ve thought about this ask so much. And I’m happy to finally deliver!!!

——————

Ironically enough, Ribbons and Aimilios didn’t start out as ‘great friends’ from the jump.

Unlike main game. After Aimilios convinces her to join Wigglytuff’s guild on a whim, their relationship is… well.

Firstly, Aimilios tends to get slightly annoyed by Ribbon’s lack of preparation. Laziness. And hasty behavior. Feeling like she isn’t taking his dream as seriously as he thought she would.

And Ribbons— doesn’t like Aimilios for his stick-in-the-butt, teacher’s pet attitude. And how he never trusts her with things like the treasure bag/map. Constantly putting the load on himself, leaving her with nothing to do.

They still are on good terms! They do enjoy certain aspects of eachother! It’s just that they also dislike other aspects of their partner. Which; results in Ribbon’s teasing of the Riolu. (Playing ‘keep-away’, hiding certain items to get on his nerves.) Which was in good fun in hopes to lighten him up more. That isn’t to say it wasn’t mean-spirited at times.

And Aimilios in turn; rats on her whenever she becomes too troublesome to deal with. His clean-freak nature also causes him to misplace a lot of her items— (Which, Ribbons looked almost ready to bite Aimilios when her brown Patsy bow went missing.)(Until he told her where he put it, deciding to nip him another day.) And in-general their relationship starts on a rocky start. And why they fail so many jobs in the beginning due to their lack of coordination and teamwork.

They like eachother enough to work together… but not to see eye-to-eye. Aimilios starts to wonder if asking Ribbons to join him was a mistake… and that her heroism at Beach Cave was a major fluke.

…until Drowzee kidnaps Azurill.

Aimilios was Frozen when confronted with the hypnosis Pokémon. An outlaw? And not only that— a Psychic type? The Riolu was nothing short of terrified. That is, until Ribbons piped up. Barking towards the criminal with not a single drop of fear in her voice. This, in turn give the Aura Pokémon the confidence to fight back aswell.

(…This is also When their first really positive interaction happens, Aimilios being the one to reciprocate Ribbons joking-tendency with a jab of his own. Stating how starving she must be for her stomach to growl like an Ursaring. Till his stomach does aswell, making both young Pokémon’s laugh.) (And later that night when they’re in their haybeds, he whispers how brave/cool she was today.)

(Which makes Ribbons face light up, before trying to play it off like ‘Yeah that’s cool.’ Until her tail betrays her—giving away how happy that compliment made her. Just from the sheer velocity alone.) (She tells Aimilios to shut up when he laughs at the endearing display.)

After that… they start to trust eachother a little more. Aimilios shares more items with her. Lets her lead more Job Requests, snitching on her less. Actually even aiding her in mischievous/morally questionable activities, like steal A/S Rank jobs.

Chatot is super strict about what Jobs they take as junior Explorers—Aimilios only agreeing because he wants to prove himself. He feels the rush of adrenaline when they escape the Guild with their newfound jobs, Ribbons patting him on the back and ‘welcoming him to the dark side’.

“If Chatot catches us, we’ll never hear the end of it.” The breathless riolu stated. Looking over to his partner, who had a toothy grin plastered on her face.

“Then we won’t get caught.” Ribbons responded with confidence. Playfully placing her paw on his snout.

“Cmooon—That birdbrain won’t know what hit him! As long as you don’t tattle!~”

“…You’re a horrible influence.” The Riolu huffed out, smiling despite his backhanded comment.

On the flip side, Ribbons stops stealing items away from the Aura Pokémon as much like she used to. (She’s still teasing the ballocks out of him. Only difference being that she knows when to stop when it actually starts to upset him.) (The Riolu is still sticking his tongue out in retribution to the Eevee’s crimes. >:<.) (She blows a raspberry back >:3)

And… they start to notice certain things they really like about the other.

Ribbons loves how intelligent Aimilios is. The reason she was so butthurt towards him the first time…was because she was jealous. He was clearly the brains of their little rag-tag duo. She still doesn’t know why Aimilios chose her as his partner. He could do so much better. She also adores how he’s able to be gutless and quick-witted despite his fears. In Ribbons eyes—That’s bravery. Not the dumb, ‘Fuck-it-we-Ball’ mentality she has.

Something else she likes but can’t wrap her head around with the type of Pokémon they meet, is his kindness. She doesn’t know how he does it. Or why he’s able to tolerate so many of their clients. Ribbons… also views that as another strength he had, but she lacked— Arcues knows how short-tempered the Eevee was. And certain Pokémon began to take advantage of Aimilios . Which makes Ribbons extremely protective of him—standing protectively infront of the riolu during fights despite her size. (Around this time; Team skull.) She hates those punks so much. Ohhh do they make her blood boil.

She feels her heart twisting into knots when she sees Aimilios lost all sparkle in his eye. Only dejectedly laying on his haybed with sunken pupils as he lost the opportunity to join the expedition. The Eevee secretly wishes him a goodnight, brushing his fur with her tounge. Before returning to her bed. Praying that he’ll get picked—even if it meant giving up her spot if she got in.

And Aimilios… hoo boy.

Much like in-game, he’s enamored by how fearless she is. How she’s able to speak her mind to the largest and strongest of Pokémon. (You should’ve seen his face when she insulted The Great Dusknoir straight to his face.) He draws a ton of strength from her. He wouldn’t even be accomplishing his dream if it wasn’t for her.

Something else he loves about her… is her jokes. She has some of the most cornball humor to grace the Grass-continents. You can hear the entire guild groaning whenever she makes one.

So imagine to Ribbon’s surprise when she turns to face her Riolu partner one day— covering his mouth with his paws with tears in his eyes. Trying so desperately not to laugh. (She makes it her mission to make his ass laugh and admit to her face that she’s funny.)(It’s an on-going gag even after evolution.) And overall just how infectious her silly, carefree attitude is.

(She’s also the reason why he stops being so much of a people-pleaser. Aimilios didn’t notice it at first, but squabbling and being frustrated with her at times in the beginning… it helped him grow a bit of a spine.)

And that’s when the seeds of their friendship and other feelings begin to sprout.

During their first Expedition with Bidoof, Ribbons sees first hand just how much Aimilios is growing— taking more of the lead and being in charge. Not because he doesn’t trust her— but because he’s gaining confidence for himself. (Her cheeks do not become tinted with pink when she witnesses this.)

And when Aimilios is mere moments away from fleeing from the Groudon-illusion. He sees Ribbons start to grin. Exclaiming how she’s been itching for a real fight. (Which also doesn’t make him fluster up like a Red Gummi. Nope. Natta.)(That’s his hubris-filled maniac and no one else’s.)

And… they mutually get flustered watching the Volbeat Geyser. Aimilios exclaiming just how beautiful it is while Ribbon’s eyes lock on him—Before she laying her head on his shoulder. Making the startled Riolu look her way. Before carefully closing the distance, wrapping his arm around her.

(The guild members absolutely tease those two mercilessly for that display when trecking back to the Guild, and a few more days afterwards.) (Aimilios covers his face in embarrassment while Ribbons tells them to screw off.)

After the expedition to Fogbound Lake— their teamwork and rapport improve drastically. Being able to take on a number of jobs like that hadn’t before. Thanks to their newfound coordination and ability to be on the same wavelength. Complimenting eachother on a job well done.

They do little gestures for eachother to show the other how much they care. (Aimilios helps organize her Treasure bag with permission. Studying Unown runes/Gatekeeping duty. Patching her up from bad jobs.) (Very adamant about the last one.) (Scolding her for barely taking care of herself. Not noticing her staring at him adoringly.)

While Ribbons tends to spare him from particularly mean jokes. Getting actively frustrated towards Pokémon who treat Aimilios slightly wrong. Grooming him with her tongue during nights at the Guild. (He’s so focused on guild work that he forgets to take care of himself.)

The flaws they once detested about the other become things they now love about one another.

Ribbon’s laziness evolves into her teaching Aimilios to relax. Aimilios’s judgmental views are now more worrisome things he notices; asking Ribbons to exercise caution whenever she takes a job alone.

Ribbons listens to the riolu go on and on about a certain book he’s reading with stars in his eyes, gazing softly towards the aura pup. Aimilios listens to all of her bad jokes, barely stifling his laughter around her.

Aimilios watching lovingly at her ability to make connections with other Pokémon effortlessly, even with how dumb she feels.(He wishes he wouldn’t call herself such things.) While Ribbons loves just how intellectual he is, not minding his trouble with looking Pokémon in the eye.

They enjoy eachothers company so much. Becoming nearly nigh inseparable. Going from two, squabbling kids. To being attached to the other’s hip. Substituting for their partner’s weaknesses with their strength. Almost in a Yin-Yang fashion. (Opposites attract afterall ;3)They become co-dependent. (Which is very much a flaw… but it’s the one they never grow out of.)

And After that…! Aimilios is the first one the catch feelings! Mainly bc Ribbons is denser than the Relic Fragment tied around the Aura Pokémon’s neck. Wondering if some divine intervention was punishing him. That and Ribbons just thought she saw Aimilios as a really good friend as the explanation for why she felt fuzzy around him. (I’m not joking.)(You underestimate her singular braincell.)

The aura pup goes to Dusknoir for advice. Trying to be as VAUGE as possible towards the ghost-type when referring to certain ‘Pokémon A’ that ‘Pokémon B’ (which is NOT Aimilios.) would like to get to know better.

Dusknoir immediately catches on, finding this literal case of ‘puppy love’ to be endearing. (And absolutely entertaining.)(He promises to not tell a soul, with Aimilios responding ‘I-I didn’t mean anything by it!! Why are you swearing secrecy on something totally not connected to me—!’)

Although Ribbons is oblivious— her watching Aimilios nearly get murdered by Grovyle made her feel upset. Really upset. Watching him barely breathe while Dusknoir carried the two of them… Ribbons with the last on her strength crawled over to him (Much to the wraith’s dismay, imploring her to not hurt herself.) …Before she curls into him, sniffling a little.

No one else but Dusknoir is able to detach the tearful Eevee from her partner. The cloaked specter only having done so to make sure the Riolu was healed and patched up properly. (That didn’t stop the Eevee from crying out for her partner in her sleep.)(…The ghost-type gently brings the Riolu to her haybed—Ribbons immediately curling into and purring.)

And then they’re dragged into the Paralyzed future. Where their friendship is heavily tested.

The two don’t say anything at first, but hold slight resentment towards one another, mainly towards Ribbons not using her D.Scream, and Aimilios not using his aura sensing/sharing so much information with that damned ghost.

So when looking at the stockade lights, an argument breaks out. Just a screaming match between two terrified kids that want nothing more than to escape the hell they’ve been forced into.

They go back and forth, back and forth on who’s to blame. Until Aimilios’s angry screams slowly transform into uncontrollable sobs. Telling Ribbons that she was right and it was his fault. Ribbon’s heart nearly shatters as she watches Aimilios fall to the ground holding himself.

She immediately rushes to now, sobbing riolu. Telling Aimilios that she was being stupid and she only snapped in anger— begging for him to stop crying. Because if he does, then sh-she’ll…

She pulls him into a hug. Aimilios clings onto her like his life depended on it— with the Eevee embracing her partner so tightly. Muttering apologies like a broken record. The scene goes about the same, the only other change being how Ribbons looks back towards the way they ran from. Staring at the abyss-like cavern in fear of the ghost-type pursuing them. (She shakes it off. She can’t afford to be scared. She has to be strong. For him.)

So Ribbons continues to protect Aimilios during their run from the revenant they trusted. Constantly picking him up, getting infront of him to take hits during dungeons, etc. and it helps Aimilios… continuing to draw strength from his partner. (Even when he’s begging her to stop nearly getting herself maimed in the dungeon. Which falls on deaf ears; Both Pokémon exchanging somewhat bitter glances.)

So how hilarious is it when Aimilios watches Ribbon’s back away in fear for the first time. Being completely frozen just like the time in the future. Unable to retort anything Dusknoir said. Being reduced to tears. Her ears pinning back as her pupils dilated to cat-slits. Breathing heavily as the open clearing spun from vertigo.

Oh how hysterical! Oh how simply entertaining it was to the ghost-type!!

But Aimilios wasn’t laughing.

Not one bit.

He gets infront of his now, trembling Eevee partner; angrily baring his fangs about how they weren’t Dusknoir’s puppets— before yelling loud enough that his scream emenanted an aura. An Aura large enough that made Dusknoir flinch, and even Primal Dialga react—squinting annoyedly towards the pup.

(If Aimilios took a quick glimpse from behind—he would’ve seen a glossy-eyed Eevee, staring up at him in complete awe.)

That same night when they returned to the present— Ribbon’s had a nightmare about Dusknoir. Waking up in a cold sweat as a voice called out so desperately for her. She opens her eyes, only to be greeted with a very worried-looking Riolu.

She takes a moment to process why Aimilios looked so worried, before it all came back to her, every horrible word she spouted towards her precious partner. And how he was still trying to see if she was okay after everything she said. Ribbons cries her heart out—Aimilios now being the one to hold his tearful partner.

When she’s finally shed her tears… the Riolu offers to let her sleep in his haybed for the night. Ribbons hesitates, before nodding silently. Not wanting to use her voice in fear of blubbering again.

Sharing the haybed was a good idea from the way Ribbon’s clung to Aimilios— almost immediately sleeping in the comfort and safety of her partner’s arms. While Aimilios is looking at her… it hits him all at once. How small she is. How fragile she is. Even with how brave the sleeping fox was. He saw her terrified for the first time.

Just how many times did she help him? How many nights had Ribbons listened to him. Comforted him. Gave him confidence. And exactly how many times did he repay the favor…?

This epiphany only makes the Riolu hold onto the frail Eevee even tighter.

Ribbons senses this change when she feels Aimilios is the one starting to take as many hits and she does for him. Confidently asking to lead the party at times as to make the load easier on her. And… it nearly clicks. Ribbons nearly figures out her weird, fuzzy emotions. But keeps suppressing them; save the world first— then weird butterflies in tummy!

And it’s When Ribbons is disappearing— it’s in that moment she finally realizes her feelings towards the aura pup. But…

Rather than making the grand gesture of revealing how she truly felt— she bites her tongue. Hard. Was she really going to make her goodbye even harder on Aimilios? After what she pulled? After lying to him?

…even after she returns. She never tells him. In Ribbons eye’s? She lost her opportunity the second she hurt Aimilios. So much. with her stupid sacrifice. With her stupid words towards the stressed pup in the future. Not feeling worthy of being anything more with the Riolu out of guilt.

(That, plus Future Trio returning adds a bunch more to their plate before they can figure it out.)

Speaking of Which, they act as wing-Pokémon for the two, the three older mons almost playing a game of Cupid with Ribbons and Aimilios. (With Ribbons gaining help from the two grass-types, and Aimilios from the ghost.)(Those three see how much those two are holding back from one another and by the legends they are going to help these kids.)

It takes an absurd amount of time. But…

Ironically enough? The one who’s braver enough to take the first step… is Aimilios.

He asks Ribbons to walk with him towards the Beach, the same one where their journey began. Aimilios also no-so-subtly waited to make his confession when the Krabby blew bubbles. (Ribbons stares at him knowingly and smugly.)(He tells her to ‘B-be quiet—!’ and listen to what he has to say.)

And it’s just… the most corniest love confession. Everything about it. The setting. The bubbles… it’s so overly cheesy and sentimental. Just like Aimilios.

And Ribbons feels her smile faltering more and more when he goes on— before she starts crying unexpectedly. Aimilios asks what’s wrong— hoping for them to be happy tears rather than sad ones. And unfortunately; It’s the latter.

Ribbons tells Aimilios to not waste his time on her. To find someone better—someone who won’t hurt him. She spills her guts about why she was so hesitant to confess for so long.

“…You’re afraid.”

“E-eh..?! I-I mean…” Ribbons looks away, her tail coyly rubbing the side of her shoulder. “I guess…”

“T-then don’t be..!” The Riolu declared— hovering his fists infront of his chest. “I-I want you to be brave..! Be—“

“The bravest ever.” It was astonishing how the two Pokémon read eachother’s mind— finishing the sentence Aimilios begun in unison.

After that I have a little animatic idea in the tune of ‘Best Worst Mistake’ with those two. Which near the end of it… ends with the Aura Pokémon picking up Ribbons and spinning her— to then connect foreheads.

Only for a cyan light to wrap around the two Pokémon… what emerges from it, being a Sylveon and Lucario.

Seeing themselves evolve at the same time… they laugh with tears in their eyes. Ribbons tackles the hell out of Aimilios as their limbs are entangled on the same beach they met. Tails wildly wagging as they embrace eachother. Not minding the sand getting stuck to their fur.

…Future Trio is witnessing all of this happen in real time. With Celebi nearly chuckling as she watches the grass and ghost-types be on the verge of tears.

The two Pokémon go to the trio hours later— telling them how it’s official. Grovyle puts his hands in the Sylveon’s shoulder’s—kneeling as he exclaims just how proud he is. On the other side of the bluff— Dusknoir is telling Aimilios the same thing— cupping the Lucario’s face in near tears. Bellowing out just how far the Lucario has come. (Ribbons and Aimilios Are NOT choked up by their gestures. They both have leftover sand in their eyes. That’s why they’re crying.)

Their relationship is still relatively the same. Ribbons being the same, playful and gutsy girl she is. Playing harmless pranks on her partner. Being overly protective of him, etc. While Aimilios remains the clever pup that he is. Letting Ribbons gnaw on him arm whenever she gets bite-y, keeping track of their shared items. Cleaning her matted tail and adding Garcedia flowers from Shaymin peak… That isn’t to say that their relationship is perfect— still finding themselves hitting bumps along the road and arguing. The main difference being that they’re more mature— and aren’t kids anymore. (It’s us vs the problem, not me vs you) type growth. (Even if it takes awhile to get there with the Lucario’s self-loathing issues.)

That being said, Ribbons loves PDA w/ Aimilios. Even when the poor Lucario flusters. (She stops when he’s about to turn as red as a Cherri Berry.)(That isn’t to say he’s being spared when they return to the bluff >:3)

Yet ironically enough, whenever they’re behind closed doors; it’s the reverse with Aimilios flustering her right back. He’s been able to do so at the start of Post-Game—The only difference being that he’s gotten much more consistent in finding the Sylveon’s weak points. (Ribbons hates him for it.)(How dare he use her own powers against her. She isn’t supposed to be the blubbering mess.)

(Also they begin to share their haybed in the beginning of post-game—Constantly waking the other up to protect them from their nightmare lest they have one.)(They never separated it since.)(…Well okay maybe ONE TIME but THATS FOR ANOTHER DAY >:3)

[Tl;dr: They squabble and get annoyed by eachother. Before they become overly codependent/protective of the other. A silly, unkept, mischievous Eevee/Sylveon—with her stressed-out, lanky, goody-two shoes Riolu/Lucario partner.]

(+ some old art I never shared for y’all’s troubles)

#I really wanted to say thank you for sending this ask bc it made me realize I didn’t have a set dynamic in mind-#-that made their relationship more interesting.#AND ALSO WANNA APOLOGIZE IF YOU JUST WANTED A SHORT EXPLANATION WITH SOME ART ATTACHED TO IT 😭😭 THIS ASK REWIRED MY BRAIN A BIT #pmd eos #Eevee/Ribbons #Riolu/Aimilios

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adarkroomandawallflower · 1 year ago

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Love love love your writing! Do you have any hcs on activities that Data enjoys doing in the holodeck? (besides what we see on TNG)

I'm so glad you enjoy my writing, and thank you so much for dropping this into my inbox!

To be honest, I didn't really think about this before, mostly because the show gave us a decent amount of insight into the kinds of activities Data does in the holodeck. However, now that you mention it, I think there are actually a lot of things we could have (or if I may be so bold to declare, should have) seen Data do in the holodeck. I feel like the show touched on the sort of "obvious" activities he'd do, but not exactly his more hobby-esque/personal activities.

Anyway, long story short, I do have some headcanons about this for you! I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to add on, if you have any more ideas or if you feel I left something out 😊

I think Data would have 3 types of holodeck programs: ones for him to practice his skills and hobbies, ones that he does with his friends, and ones that are a bit more personal and private.

The most obvious hobby-esque programs would be those for practicing plays he would later perform for the other crew members. However, I think he would also have programs for his poetry. I think his cadence and tone when he verbally shared his poetry indicates that he practiced verbal reading before. I believe he developed a program with some poets that he wanted to emulate, and he practiced writing and reading poetry aloud with them.

The same goes for his instrument playing. Although he had all the information about every single instrument, musician, and how to play them in his data banks, I think he still would have needed to actually see someone play an instrument to fully understand how to play it himself. So, I think he definitely would have needed to make a few programs of the best musicians for each instrument he wanted to play.

I think he'd also do this with painting, and his favorite painters.

Honestly, I'm surprised TNG never had Data paint a "live" scene in the holodeck because he definitely would do that!

I think he loves nature, so he'd probably have several nature programs to paint. Things like an ocean/beach, a forest, a desert, etc.

I also thought it was kind of odd that Data did all his hobbies in his quarters. Even though he can't exactly get distracted, I feel like everyone always needs him/lowkey interrupts him, even (read: especially) when he's off duty. I think at some point, he'd realize that sometimes, he'd want to do his recreational activities uninterrupted, and that's when he'd create holodeck programs that he can have a little bit more peace and freedom in.

For the holodeck programs for his friends, I think he'd also have at least one program per each of his friends, that he individually does together with them.

For Geordi, we saw that they solved Holmes mysteries together. I couldn't really think of any other activities they might do together, so I'm going to say that this is their main one.

They might change it up a bit and solve other mysteries together, but that's all I can really see them doing together in the holodeck.

Because Data is well-revered in the Klingon empire for his strength, and I'm sure Worf also admires this about him, I think Data would have some type of fighting program that he does with Worf.

I don't think he'd participate in the fighting program Worf did with K'ehleyr (I feel like it's a bit too violent for Data's taste), but I think he does like the teamwork aspect of it, so he'd probably construct a program that involved them fighting enemies together.

Every once in a while, usually when Worf is in a really bad mood, he'll want to do some hand-to-hand combat with Data to blow off steam, so Data might try to incorporate that into the program, as well (i.e. maybe the last level is they have to fight each other, as only one can win the game).

Also, I just want to say that it's a CRIME we didn't have more Worf and Data friend interactions. I'm not sure why they made Worf sort of apprehensive and not very friendly with Data because I personally think they are great friends and get along well!

For Riker, I think Data would have a program of a little jazz bar where they'd play together.

Riker, of course, would play his beloved trombone, and I think Data would love playing the clarinet or the harmonica.

They'd be their own little duo, and call themselves The Lady Killers (per Riker's suggestion).

They'd invite the other crew members every once in a while to the program to come watch them play.

Data would also have that classic hat and a pair of those classic sunglasses lots of jazz musicians wear that he'd have on when he played.

For Picard's designated program, I think it would be the same as the theatrical programs Data did with him in the show, except instead of doing them for Picard and asking his opinions on his performances, they'd perform together and provide critiques/advice for each other.

Most of them are Shakespeare plays, of course, and the programs would be an equal mix of both Picard's and Data's favorite ones.

Personally, I think Data's favorite Shakespeare plays would be The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, and The Tempest (I will spare you all from my in-depth analysis of why I think he'd enjoy these in particular because this post is already too long 😅)

For Beverly, I think Data would have a dancing program. Although she doesn't want to be known as "The Dancing Doctor" again, I think she still loves and sometimes even misses dancing. So, I think Data would try to remedy this dilemma by making a program for them, in which she can teach him new dances, and they can both learn new dances together.

She's very touched by this, and is always happy to dance with him and/or teach him a new dance!

I think Data's favorite dances would be ballet (it's a great way for him to practice his strength and balance) and the tango (he loves the fast pace and I feel like the moves are bit stiffer than other dances, which would work in his favor).

I think this could also technically be considered as one of Data's private and personal programs, since Beverly likely would prefer if he didn't tell others about it.

For Deanna, I feel like she's always wanted to have her very own proper tea party. So, I think he'd make a program for her so they could have a little tea party together!

The first time they tried out the program, Data had misunderstood that she wanted a child's tea party, so everything in the program was very small.

Additionally, she showed up dressed in regal clothes (including a fancy feathered hat), while he showed up in big goofy sunglasses and a pink, sparkly feather boa.

After she laughed for a good 10 minutes, leaving the poor baby so confused, she explained that she had wanted an English-esque, adult tea party. He adjusted the program and his wardrobe accordingly (but she insisted he keep the boa and sunglasses).

Riker also sometimes joins them in this program (he's also a big fan of the boa and sunglasses).

I have to point out that it was also a crime that Data and Deanna's friendship wasn't developed more in the show. I think they both have equal amounts of intrigue and curiosity for one another. Data would want to learn so much about human emotions and behavior from her, and she wants to learn more about his emotions and how she can help him realize they're real and valid. As a result, I think they'd be very good friends.

For Spot, Data would have a "feline enrichment" program, consisting of a large pond with lots of koi fish, trees with lots of birds, and tall grass/shrubbery with insects for her to play with and chase.

He'd take her to this program at least once a week, to help her get her excess energy (and anger) out.

She absolutely LOVES it, and he accidentally Pavlov-ed her because whenever he brings out her leash and harness, she knows exactly where they're going. This leads to her meowing very loudly and excitedly, and aggressively rubbing against his legs.

Lastly, for his more personal and private programs, I think they'd be programs that are for his eyes/participation only, and he wouldn't share them with anyone else.

Despite his stoicism, I think Lal's death really had an effect on him, and he'd make a hologram of her in the holodeck to help cope with the loss.

Whenever he especially "misses" her, like when he rescued another child/orphan or spent his day around children, he'd go to the holodeck to see her afterwards.

I think this program would just be a replicate of his quarters, and he'd mostly just sit and talk with her.

Sometimes he'll do activities with her, like teaching her to play an instrument or make art.

This program he would especially keep to himself, and wouldn't talk about or show it to anyone.

The only person I can think of him maybe showing it to would be his significant other, if it ever got to the point in their relationship where he'd want them to meet Lal.

Otherwise though, it's his little secret.

I think he'd also have a private program with a hologram of Noonien in it.

I think he partially blames himself for his father's death, and he barely got to know him or ask him everything he wanted to ask, so I think that would be the main purpose of this program.

He just wants some closure and a better understanding of himself, as well as his father, and I think this is the way he'd seek both of those things.

He wouldn't show this program to anyone either, except maybe his significant other, if their relationship progressed that far.

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upismediacenter · 5 months ago

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FEATURE: Flipping through the journey of UPIS Pep Squad Batch ‘24

Walking down memory lane with the UPIS Pep Squad '24, we reflect on a journey filled with dedication, spirit, and hard work. From joining the team and facing challenges to now saying farewells as they graduate with the brightest smiles, these seniors have left a permanent mark on our school's history, symbolizing the true essence of teamwork and perseverance.

Imparting reflections and words of advice are three seniors—Cheska Yanga, dancer; Vince Lagunilla, head drummer; and Triani Reyes, drummer—and their coach, Ey Calso.

Joining any varsity team is a decision driven by a passion for a certain sport and a desire to take on challenges. For Yanga, their journey began unexpectedly.

"I joined because I was interested in what they do and wanted to try something new," said Yanga. Transitioning from the swimming team to the pep squad as a Grade 7 student, Yanga was encouraged to try out and join the team by her batchmates, unaware that it would lead her to staying as a pep squad dancer until the end of her high school years.

Others were captivated by the performances of the senior members of the UPIS Pep Squad back then when they were in elementary.

"I joined because of the strong aura of the team, but mainly the drummers during events. I enjoyed the presence they have during games and the energy they give to the crowd," stated Lagunilla.

The hype around the UPIS Pep Squad never seemed to die down, particularly for Batch 2024.

"I joined because all of my friends couldn't stop talking about it and I got curious. Since I didn't have anything else to do at home, I tried it and ended up loving it," said Reyes.

This mix of curiosity, inspiration, and passion has created a unique bond among the Pep '24 members, shaping their high school experience in unforgettable ways.

Every sport has its own challenges to overcome. Yanga shared that one of the hurdles they faced during their time on the team was time management.

"There was a time where I had a lot of extracurricular activities that it became so difficult to juggle all of it all at once," Yanga said. Eventually, she managed to overcome it by organizing and planning her tasks in advance.

Another significant challenge was the emotional impact of the isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. "When the pandemic came, all of my problems came together, and I was forced to stop training because I was losing interest and time for the things I love,” shared Reyes.

Reyes had to pause and take a rest, gradually increasing her training days over time. This process reminded her of the main reason she loved being part of the pep squad, which helped her overcome her sadness.

For others, the challenge was a lack of skills when they first joined the team.

"Being a cheerleader has a very high demand for skills. As a new member, I was weak and scrawny, but with the help of hard work, physical conditioning, teamwork, and listening to the coach, I greatly improved my performance," said Lagunilla.

These individual challenges were nothing to these incredible athletes as they moved forward with determination to overcome all of them. Over the years, they evolved, learning valuable life lessons that extended far beyond the cheerleading mat. They discovered the importance of doing things wholeheartedly and enjoying every moment with their teammates.

"Throughout the years that I have stayed with the team, I have learned a lot of different things. Being on a team surrounded by the right people is a must for a varsity team. This can not only help an individual grow but also you as a team. I learned to do things wholeheartedly and enjoy every moment I have with them, no matter what. Being on the team hopefully made me a better ‘ate’ to them," said Yanga.

"[Being a part of the pep squad] reminds me that I'm never alone, and whenever life gets tough, the people in the pep squad are always here to cheer me up, support me, and provide a shoulder to lean on when I can't pick myself up. The pep squad taught me to love and cherish every moment and to always have a smile on my face, which I believe has contributed to my personal growth into the person I am now," said Reyes.

On the same topic, Lagunilla, head drummer also shared, "Personally, I believe it changed me for the better. Physically, I am a lot stronger and more suited for physical activities compared to back then. However, in the non-physical aspects of my growth, I feel more comfortable, confident, and respected."

Coach Ey Calso, reflecting on the journey of Pep '24, expressed pride in the growth and achievements of the seniors.

"Every single day that I had the chance to be with my Batch ‘24 pep babies was a rewarding experience for me as a coach. All the members of the team, especially our seniors, have always been really passionate, disciplined, and skilled in everything they do in our training sessions," shared the coach.

He also shared that, in addition to honing their craft and consistently showing progress as drummers and dancers in the pep squad, the seniors always guided their teammates, particularly the younger ones, to ensure everyone learned and made the most of training sessions.

Mx. Calso also highlighted the exemplary work output of these athletes, stating, "Their work output was done excellently and really well thought-out. Any task given to them was seamlessly delivered and performed.”

As Pep Squad '24 prepares to graduate, Mx. Calso shares one final message of gratitude: "It's really heartbreaking to let them go. It's like letting your kids experience the world and finally be independent, then falling and standing back up on their own. I am very confident that they can take on the world with so much pride and love in their hearts. I can't wait to see them ace all the challenges and trials that college has to offer. I am proud that I was able to be part of their high school lives. The team will surely miss them, but the lessons and experiences that we got from them will surely continue on to the next generations of the UPIS Pep Squad."

Some heartfelt farewells and good luck messages from Yanga, Reyes, and Lagunilla of the UPIS Pep Squad '24 echo sentiments of gratitude and hope for the team's future.

"As we graduate, I hope we can continue to support and guide them in their journeys ahead. The bonds and memories we've created will always hold a special place in my heart," Yanga expressed.

"I encourage you all to cherish every moment together and to learn to love and appreciate each other, despite any challenges we may face,” shared Reyes.

In addition to thanking their team, Reyes also shared a few words about their coach's hard work, saying, “Thank you for staying this long and giving us the moment/exposure we all deserve. I hope you continue supporting and being here with the team. I will always be grateful for the amount of hard work you do for us even if you don't benefit as much as you should.”

"To my fellow members of the UPIS Pep Squad, I wish you all the best of luck on your journey. I hope I've been able to impart some valuable lessons during my time as head drummer. Remember to enjoy yourselves while respecting your coach. Thank you all for the wonderful memories," added Lagunilla, head drummer of UPIS Pep Squad.

As Batch ‘24 of UPIS Pep Squad closes this chapter of their lives, they prove themselves being able to overcome hard challenges that come their way.

These athletes demonstrated dedication and resilience, leaving a lasting impact on each of their performances as well as the team.

One last “UP FIGHT!” for the UPIS Batch ‘24 who cheered and put smiles on our faces!

//by Bianca Regala

#MC2025 #Feature #English #Bianca Regala

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milosstojnic · 11 months ago

Text

Playing Pool with Friends

Activity Title: Playing Pool with Friends

Activity Description: So, we decided to hit the local pub for some fun with friends. No big plans, just grabbing a few cues and seeing who could sink the most balls. It was all about having a good time, a bit of friendly competition, and a lot of laughs.

Type of Activity: Creativity, Activity

Duration and Date: September 21, 2023, for about 2 hours.

Reflection:

Playing pool with friends turned out to be a blast. We weren't taking it too seriously - no pro players here. Instead, it became this mix of creative thinking and physical activity that we didn't really expect.

Creativity sneaked in when we realized we had to strategize our shots. It wasn't just about hitting the ball; it was about figuring out the angles and deciding whether to play it safe or go for that tricky shot. We all had our unique styles, and it was fun to see the different ways we approached the game.

But let's not forget the social side. The pool table became a hub of conversation. Between shots, we chatted about everything under the sun. It was like a brainstorming session, but with pool cues in hand. Somehow, the game turned into this creative space where ideas flowed as freely as the balls on the table.

Physically, it was more demanding than I thought. Precise aiming, a bit of force, and trying not to scratch – it all required a surprising amount of coordination. It was a workout without feeling like one, a nice change from the usual routine.

Learning Outcomes:

Thinking Outside the Pocket: We got creative with our shots, figuring out unique ways to tackle the game.

Chalk Talks and Laughs: The pool table turned into a hub of conversation, sparking creativity in our interactions.

Precision Play: It wasn't just about hitting the ball; it was a lesson in hand-eye coordination and precision.

Teamwork: Working together on shots improved our teamwork and communication, even if it was just deciding who should go next.

Break Time Wisdom: Reminded me of the importance of taking breaks and having a bit of fun – a good balance to the usual routine.

So, playing pool might not have been a groundbreaking adventure, but it sure was a unique mix of creativity, camaraderie, and a bit of physical finesse. Definitely a night to remember.

#pool #delta club #CAS

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fredheads · 1 year ago

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tell me about basketball fred 🏀

I love you Mel I love you so much!!!

Firstly 30s-50s high school basketball is my FAVOURITE era aesthetically like .. DO WE ALL SEE THE VISION DO WE SEE IT?!?!??!

And the fact we know Fred excelled at baseball too... the kid was an all-around athlete i am SWOONING!! I have been talking about basketball fred since 2017 too I always knew. intuitively.

They almost caught me slipping with this 50s basketball plotline on riverdale now too I almost tuned in to see archie play in a moment of great weakness...I did not but if anything COULD get me...

SO I had Fred pegged as a power forward (4) which requires a slight stretch of imagination bc that's usually the second tallest player on the team but they made them shorter back then right? his lil 5'10" ass... but no apparently he was a POINT GUARD which i did not ever suspect but that goes traditionally to the shortest player on the team so he was a baby surrounded by giants think about THAT!!!

Point guard is one of the most difficult positions to play in that your skill level has to be amazing AND you also have to have/use intensive knowledge of the game, your team, the other team, stats, the mechanics of plays, etc and it is essentially a HUGE leadership role (very often the point guard is the team captain or at least functions as such on the court) and requires trust and respect from your teammates... You have to be one of the best players on the team who is also going to be consistently selfless and teamwork minded and set other people up for shots without hogging the glory yourself and if that is not something Fred could excel at naturally..... I'm emotional

That said you have to be an AMAZING ball handler (@ariesbilly cautioned me against using this turn of phrase but... haha) and a great distance shooter and he was probably scoring a lot of 3s... I feel deeply and intuitively that he would always pass to his teammates if he could but if the clock was running down he was the one to even the score up with some quick clean jump shots in rapid succession so that they could keep playing.. and maybe the occasional mid-court lob that went in in the nick of time what do i know... he definitely stole many a game from the jaws of death in the last second before the buzzer whether it was he himself shooting or a really great assist or those last two foul shots under great pressure... he was born to be a hero he cannot help this he is god's specialist boy and I am just the messenger

ON THE SUBJECT OF FOULING point guards can be MEAN and he was just a little guy but i also know intuitively fred only played very clean ball however he probably dealt with a lot of aggression and being pushed around a bit and the other team would get annoyed they couldn't pressure him enough to mess up... if fp stopped games in their tracks once or twice cuz he tried to run on the court to beat someones ass on the opposing team that's his business (maybe he met them outside later)

Briana and I have been saying realistically Fred and definitely FP would not have been able to be so active in school in the great depression when they were probably needing to work to support their families (but if oscar worked so fred could get a good education and play basketball....crying and popping pills) so there is sadly a very low chance they played together if at all BUT IF WE MOVE IT UP TO THE 40S AND THEY DODGE THE DRAFT I THINK THEY COULD BOTH BE GUARDS TOGETHER.... I've wanted to write them playing basketball all my life...

ALSO THEY WERE 3 TIME STATE CHAMPS THEY WERE 3 TIME STATE CHAMPIONS DO U UNDERSTAND THIS???????????? HE LED THEM TO STATE VICTORY 3 TIMES!!!! (maybe 3 yrs in a row and he still dropped out senior year? 🥺 without being able to be scouted for college or get his senior year athletics letter or play his last year??? 🥺 but he also served in WW2 in this show so realism truly doesn't matter does it...) BUT THEY WERE 3 TIME STATE CHAMPS!!!! LIKE THAT IS HUGE AND I KNOW HIS NAME IS ON THE GAME BALL IN THE TROPHY CASE AND HIS PICTURE HOLDING THE TROPHY AND POSSIBLY HIS NUMBER IS RETIRED..... AND ARCHIE PROBABLY GREW UP SEEING THIS IN THE SCHOOL HALLWAY EVERY DAY AND HE JUST WANTS TO CONTINUE HIS LEGACY PLEASE!!!! oh he was most def team captain... probably MVP too..

I need to stop bc this is getting so long but oh my god... he was their point guard...

#fred andrews #fp jones #parentdale #HE MEANS SO MUCH TO ME IM GOING TO EXPLODE

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chaospacemarines · 1 year ago

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Hi boy. Jesse pinkman

Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.

The future is what you make of it. Just know that your supplies are limited. Welcome to Desert Bluffs.

Good afternoon, Desert Bluffs! This is Kevin bringing you all your news and good spirits for another gorgeous day in the Bluffs. But before we get too comfortable, there is some news about that gorgeous day. We're getting word that a sandstorm is moving in toward us. Authorities are telling us that it is a doozy, and that we should all stay indoors. Nothing to worry about. Just stay out of the way. It will

pass. As with life, and as with all things, it will pass. The sun will be upon us again, and it will be like two mornings in a day. Yes. A two-morning day! A rebirth! A reawakening! What do you think of that, Desert Bluffs?

Intern Vanessa did point out that sandstorms can do a lot of damage to cars, and if you have access to a garage, you should bring your car in. Also, get those pets inside, Desert Bluffs! We don't want all those cute little puppies and spiders and baby raccoons getting lost out in the sandy breeze. Bring those loved ones inside.

A little factoid for you... Ted, our staff weatherman, says that no one really knows what causes sandstorms. God, he thinks. Or maybe they're just big gusts of wind that carry big things of sand. How much sand do you think there is in this world? There's got to be a lot, a lot, of sand. Who even counts it all? Wow, big questions today, Desert Bluffs. Big questions.

So, keep your radios tuned in here, as we'll bring you all the latest reports from today's sandstorm and how you can make up for all this lost time. Hiding from nature is taking away a lot of business productivity, Desert Bluffs, but I'm sure you'll find time to get done what needs to get done. You won't disappoint your town, your home. I believe in you. So mark down the time you spend cowering from the weather, okay? And we'll work that time back into your schedule. Great!

And, listen, get all that time in before the weekend, because this Saturday, it's baseball season again! Desert Bluffs has just a great team this year. New manager Samantha Figgins is not only the first manager to get hired straight out of business school, but she also brings a powerful ethos of teamwork, fun, and responsibility.

Last year's Sunbeams team had some excellent games, but they spent a lot of time just sitting on the bench with nothing to do, because only one person gets to bat at a time. This season, Figgins plans to keep her boys active with customer orders and accounts receivable spreadsheets.

Baseball is not an individual sport. They're all in it together. As Figgins says, “It's not about winning and losing or who you're playing. It's about building the strongest possible team brand.”

The Sunbeams also welcome a new owner in 2013 – Strexcorp Synernists Inc. Look around you. Strex. Look inside you. Strex. Go to sleep. Strex. Believe in a smiling God. Strexcorp: it is everything.

Let's have a peek at traffic. The Highway department says all roads are running smoothly. Smooth roads. Smooth concrete. Smooth tires. The slow, undulating buzz of cars over slight hills. Hard top streets gently gliding us all to our jobs and back home. The beat beat beat of society's healthy heart as we all play parts in its exquisite body.

Oh, I am getting one report that there are several stalled cars in the northbound lanes of Route 800, near exit 66. Police are on the scene dealing with fist fights in the middle of the road. Now, I can't imagine why in a beautiful town with so many kinds of yogurt stores and pony-petting stations, anyone would want to fight his neighbor, so hopefully that gets cleared up soon with a song and a hug.

I want to thank all you listeners for your calls and emails. The sandstorm came to town more quickly than expected. Lawrence Lavine, out in the Edgertown Development, called in to say that the sand was like sand but slightly different. That if you touched it, you could feel it... twice.

Lawrence said he took a scoop of sand into his soft right hand and it was as if he had two right hands. He then held the sand with both soft palms and felt four hands, like one of those foreign gods or radioactive four-armed deer that seem to be attracted to the new Strexcorp distribution center. Lawrence said he was making a sand angel, and then he saw himself. He said he just walked right up to himself and started making two sand angels. He said that there were two of him just making sand angels, and that he would happily double his sand angel production today. He hung up the phone laughing like Vanessa had never heard him laugh.

Well, thank you Lawrence. That was a useful report. Intern Vanessa also tells me she's keeping an eye on Facebook to see if our other neighbors have any news of the storm. I see Grandma Josephine posted a photo of a lovely bouquet of white lilies outside her door. Very pretty. Oh and look at this video, Vanessa! This cat just jumps in and out of boxes. That is adorable. Vanessa, can you tweet that to me?

Let's have a look at financial news. The markets are jumping today. Really jumping. The markets are up and down, but then back up again, like gravity and our fight to break it. The violent force of impact: ground to heel, heel to shin, shin to knee. And then back up again, muscular might and the threat of flight. A young boy heals his wounds as quickly as they form, jumping and pounding and hitting and soaring. He reaches skyward, the drift of the body disconnected from its earth gives the flutter of wings not just on the back but in the belly. The moment between knowing you are mortal and bound to the ground, and then dreaming you have awakened a great power to fly like those hollowed-out rodents that clog our skies with feathers and fluids. It's in that moment of knowing and unknowing, consciousness and bliss that the boy sees all that can never be. Upon his return to the flat hard truth, he sees things, himself, others as they should be seen: as his equals. He gives the jumping one more go. But the magic is gone. Another. Still none. One more for old time's sake. No. It will never be the same. Well, maybe. One more. Still another. He jumps and jumps and jumps. The jumping makes a sound. Like thunder. Like drums. Like steps. Soon he is old. The ups and the downs lack even the memory of the magic. They have replaced nostalgia with creaking, painful bones. He is old now, still jumping.

This has been financial news.

This just in, Desert Bluffs: Mayor Pablo Mitchell has declared today Sandstorm Day. This massive sandstorm has already damaged several apartments and malls in the northwest part of town and it seems to be on course for even more costly wreckage. So Mayor Mitchell announced that we can all take today off of work. Today is a city-wide holiday. A second announcement, coming from a man that looked and dressed like the mayor said that we can make up some of our lost hours by teaming up with our doubles. The two joined together for an inspirational call to work together with these magical doppelgängers.

Is this true Desert Bluffs? If so, what a blessed and wonderful event to bring us doubles of ourselves. I am stuck inside – doing a job I very much love, of course – but if I were you, I would run outside into the sandy afternoon air and try to meet your other. How exciting.

So make friends with your mirrored colleague, Desert Bluffs! Think of what we could accomplish if there were two of all of us!

[muffled thump or crashing sound]

Oh dear. What was that noise?

Vanessa? Is everything okay in there Vanessa? Who are you talking to?

Vanessa – Oh! There are two of you! What are y-

[muffled crashing sounds, more intense]

Oh you're building a new shelving unit! Let me help you with that. I'm coming in there. Let's go to an important message from our parent company.

[sudden shift in sound/ambient music]

Got something to say? Need to say it? Unfulfilled? Never made sense of what you are? Who you were? What you will be? Unfulfilled? Do you forget sometimes about your own skin? Your own hair? Other people's hair and skin? Can you make more hair? More skin? Do you need more hair and/or skin? Unfulfilled? Are you satisfied with it all? Do you see it all? What room are you in? What room do you want to be in? How big is your room? Unfulfilled? Have you ever said a thing inside your brain and then sent it to your hand to move a pencil to write it into symbols onto a paper, which used to be a tree, and then used your eyes to translate those symbols back into the thing you just said inches away in your brain and then re-said it with your mouth into an ear? Whose ear was it? Unfulfilled? Ever eaten things that made you think differently? Breathed things? Unfulfilled? Feel things? Felt things? We are you. Strexcorp.

[back to original ambience]

Welcome back. Listeners, I have some bad news and some good news. Vanessa and her other Vanessa broke one of the parts of the new shelving unit, and I don't think we have anything to replace it. One of the Vanessas cut her head pretty badly. When I went in, Vanessa – I think our original Vanessa – was standing over her with a staple gun and a clean, wet rag.

She also handed me a printout of an email from one of our listeners. Well, I presume he's a listener, I've never heard of him. He claims to live in Night Vale. I had no idea those folks down in Night Vale could get our tiny little radio station, Vanessa. How wonderful. You know, in all my years I have never gone to Night Vale. I bet it's beautiful. Really, this whole desert is beautiful. I mean, when it comes right down to it, why would you ever leave Desert Bluffs? How can it get better, really? I wouldn't risk it.

So Steve writes “This sandstorm is clearly a cover-up. I believe this was a government-created project. Our government has long been participating in cloud-seeding experiments and -”

Let me stop you right there, Steve Carlsburg. You have hit the nail on the head. Say no more. The government is indeed covering up their involvement, or should I say lack of involvement in this sandstorm. Honestly, I don't think the government even knows how to orchestrate a project of this magnitude and of this quality. You need a well-run private business like, say, Strexcorp that has not only the faculties and materials to execute a massive geologic and psychedelic storm but to do so inexpensively and without tax dollars. Why, without Strexcorp, and companies like it, we wouldn't have trade schools, or regulated behaviors or insurance or helpful pandemics or black helicopters. Thank you for your email, Steve. What a great guy!

[deep hum]

And with that listeners, let's go to the-

oh my. Look at that. Listeners, there is a white, almost pink, vortex that has formed along my studio wall. Listeners, words fail me. It is so beautiful. I can't leave you, as our show is not yet over. But. There must be something beyond this something, Desert Bluffs. I must see what it is. I must go. I will try not to be long, listeners. [last line, voice fading away from the mic, shouting as he runs away] I will try not to be long.

[long silence, just the hum]

[Cecil's voice] Hello, Hello, Night Vale? What is this studio? What is this damnable studio? Night Vale, I do not know if you can hear me. This is Cecil, and I do not know where I am. It is clearly a radio studio, but the walls are covered in blood, and instead of dials and buttons on the sound board, there is just animal viscera, glistening under the green LED lights. I hope this microphone works. Am I in hell? Dana. Dana can you hear me?

Listeners, if you can hear the sound of my voice, please contact the Sheriff's Secret Police. There is so much blood, it is seeping into my shoes. There are – oh master of us all, no – teeth scattered across the floor. The window into the control booth is shattered and there is a swath of skin and a fistful of long, clumping hair hanging from a sharp glass point. I do not know if this is even Night Vale. I know that I can hear the sandstorm raging outside. There is a low buzz, and deep hum that might be my own heart ready to tear itself from my chest in horror or grief. I cannot know which. There is a photo, a single photo of a man on the desk here. He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short. Not thin or fat. His hair and nose are like mine, but his eyes. His eyes are black as obsidian, and his smile. No. It is not a smile. He must be wicked, this man.

Dear Night Vale, please pray in your bloodstone circle for me. And pray, too, that no one should ever have to meet this vicious wretch of a man. I want to be home, Night Vale. Oh Cecil, you fool! The vortex! The vortex is still there (only here it is white). Okay, dear listeners, from this vile vile place, I leave you to your prison. But before I go, because I am a radio professional, and it is sitting right here on this blood-splattered desk, I give you: the weather.

[WEATHER: "Eliezer's Waltz" composed by Larry Cardozo and Ron Fink, and performed by The Ventura Klezmer Band venturaklezmerband.com]

[Kevin's voice again. Humming is gone.]

Hello there, Desert Bluffs! It is Kevin again. I told you I would be back. I don't know where I went, but I think that I met my double. The vortex is gone now, but as I was returning, I passed a man, a man who looked just like me. I smiled and said hello there, friend! I hugged this man, and he hugged me back. We shared a moment in this otherworld.

I am not sure to where that spiral of space and time took me, nor through where I traveled, but I am certain that there must be more to us than just us, and that there is another place, another time where things could have been different. Better. Worse. But let's think not on woulds, coulds, and shoulds. I am just happy I am alive. I am happy my other is alive. You are alive. We. We are alive.

Outside, the winds are subsiding. Our doubles have left us as the sand has left us. The sun is rising again just as it is setting. Our second sunrise collides with the sunset. Let's reflect on this.

Let us reflect on our lives and where we will be tomorrow. We lost our other selves, Desert Bluffs, but we gained new perspective. Tomorrow, we'll wake again, work again, live again. We are home. All of us, together. My mouth, your ears. We have each other. And as always, until next time, Desert Bluffs, Until next time.

PROVERB: Step 1) Separate your lips. Step 2) Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step 3) Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.

i ain’t reading all that

i’m happy for u tho

or sorry that happened

#WHYYYY #long post #this is really scary

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northwest-cryptid · 6 months ago

Text

I often find myself thinking that I miss "the good old days" when my friends and I used to play certain games together. The thought is always that I miss the game when, thinking about it more; the reality is that I miss the feeling of what it was like to have a group who actually played games together consistently.

Like you know that really dumb trope in anime where you see characters doing shit together and they just have the dumbest call outs because they never explain anything but everyone just knows their role?

That seems really unrealistic but it's a very real thing if you play a game with a certain group of friends long enough. Like it got to the point where everyone knew what their role was and a call out as simple as saying someone's name became more than enough information. If someone called out my name it registered to me what they were actually trying to say; in that I knew what my role among the party was well enough that I could extrapolate the information they were conveying. Which is a bizarre feeling because you have kind of two emotions in that moment; your logical brain is pretty normal about it because this is literally a video game and you're just communicating with friends. Then you have your emotional brain who's hyped up on the dramatic music and the entertainingly stressful situation you're trying to wrangle alongside your friends; and you get this dopamine hit from hearing your friend call you out and getting your like 5 seconds in the spotlight where you get to do something really cool or completely fuck it up and laugh about it.

Like no I don't miss PSO2, I miss the feeling of having the freedom of free form combat that presents a genuine challenge that I overcome thanks to technical knowledge of how the game's mechanics work. That my friends and I could exploit to handle 12 man raids with like 3 - 4 people while still cracking jokes and making dumb references. I miss the feeling of having a role/place within a group.

I don't miss FFXIV, I miss the feeling of cooperation and teamwork that comes from the weight of my actions effecting everyone; resulting in people taking notice of my contributions and acknowledging my skill and help. I miss not just having a place within the party, but having a place of equal importance with those around me where my contributions matter.

Thinking about it there's no drive for me to play FFXIV or to play PSO2 again unless I know my friends are going to be a part of that experience. If I had the money to sub to FFXIV and I was told my friends wanted to go through Alexander or something I'm there. However if I had the money to sub to FFXIV and my friends weren't actively participating with the game I'd rather just save the money.

And yea I really do mean "if I had the money" because currently I'm so in the red (by a couple hundred) that I don't know where bills are going to come from so the thought of a FFXIV sub deals a kind of mental damage I'm not okay with, from just thinking about it.

However I've realized that I think this is why I hold Mabinogi is such a high regard, because it's one of the few games that allows for individuals to play to such a niche that not only do you have a place in the group but your place is uniquely important.

In a party with people who have the same general play style, our individual knowledge, and the skills we've prioritized still allow us to each have our moment in the spotlight. It takes a lot more effort to work together properly than a game like FFXIV that's designed around it, but when you DO pull it off it feels so much better.

I mean okay no shade to FFXIV because I do enjoy that game a TON but when my friends and I pulled off an extreme raid together it felt like we were following steps. It's all designed very cleanly, everyone has a role that is designed to do a thing, and outside of a very VERY few exceptions there's never going to be a run of this specific raid that feels too different from another. Because the game is designed for the boss to do a specific rotation of attacks and mechanics; and that works for that game, but it also means that provided everyone is doing their job correctly it will always go the same way.

For example, in a raid where the boss does a room wide attack, followed by a stack mechanic, followed by a tank buster that hits AoE it's a very simple set of steps.

Room wide comes out and everyone moves in range of the healer's AoE healing.

Stack mechanic comes out and everyone groups on the target of the attack with the healer who hadn't just used their AoE likely doing so now to offset the MP usage of the other healer.

Everyone spreads out and the Tank leads the next attack away from the group to eat the tank buster without hitting anyone else, thus allowing one of the healers to use one of their big heals on them.

This sort of thing will play out every single time, with the exception being that someone fails a step and fucks everything up resulting most likely in a wipe.

Meanwhile you have Mabinogi where even mechanics that do happen the same every time can have drastically different situations to solve them.

Literally fighting an enemy who's major gimmick is that they have extremely high defense, regen health; and they can use a ton of various attacks that chase you down and debuff you.

Depending on who I'm with this fight goes entirely differently, and has; several times.

Sometimes the fight has me playing the role of someone who dodges in and out of the AoE range to keep up the pressure and deal consistent but arguably low damage to off-set the regen while my friends focus on high burst damage meteors and hailstorm. Other times the focus is on debuffing the enemy's defense so low that we can burst it down collectively through using an elaborate set up of buffs and debuffs that allow us to deal tons of damage in a chain of attacks that don't give the enemy time to recover. Sometimes we bait out specific attack patterns that open the enemy to specific attacks by locking it into attack animations that buy us the time to charge attacks or move safely between being in and out of melee range.

This isn't to even take into account how sometimes we're significantly stronger because the party happens to sit down and eat before running the dungeon thanks to our friend who is basically playing this game as a chef and makes the party a whole feast of status effecting food prior to us actually getting into combat. Or how sometimes we have more supportive built characters who use apothecary and healing magic to keep the party topped off and healthy meaning we can be a lot more reckless with our attacks allowing for higher DPS while remaining safe.

Sometimes players specialize in skills that debuff or negate enemies abilities. With some of us being able to freeze, silence, or sleep enemies along with some skills that allow us to even move enemies and position them where large AoEs become a much more effective method of handling the situation. Since some mechanics require us to sacrifice enemies inside specific designated areas, having people around who have movement based skilled can be so helpful seeing as how they can better position their kills.

Don't even get me started on how some enemies have attack resistances for specific types of damage, and how sure a solo player would have to switch between melee, ranged, or magic to handle them; but how in a party where people specialize in weapons ranging from swords and bows to weapons like chain blades, staves, guns, and sometimes just going ham with martial arts; enemies with specific defense types become a sort of priority list for individuals of a specific attack type. While I might normally swap between my sword and my staff to handle magic and melee resistance respectively; if I'm running something with Skiz I can entrust them to take care of anything that would resist my melee. In turn I can focus my efforts on anything that would resist their magic attacks, allowing us to watch each other's backs and make the most of our individual skill sets.

Since every weapon has it's own unique properties and drawbacks every player in the party not only brings their own unique set of possibilities to the table, but has their own weaknesses for someone else to cover.

Let me go back to FFXIV for a moment...

If I'm playing a character like a Ninja or a Bard and I use a skill that makes the enemy take more damage from the party, it's very minor if it's noticeable at all. We might clear the fight a little faster, or maybe we can burn a specific enemy down faster because everyone saved their big burst DPS for it. Overall you're never going to be upset that a scholar or ninja or whatever used a skill to make you crit more but you're also not going to be opening new possibilities by having a specific party. Not unless you're playing on such a level where those possibilities are no longer necessary for you.

Sure when we unsync'd Ultimates and did them with 2 people instead of the usual 8; having specific skills made a big difference. However if you're playing the game as intended, you're not going to really notice much difference no matter what anyone brings to the table.

This isn't a put down of the game or anything, simply how the game was designed. The game is balanced around players having DoTs or status moves and all that, and as a result whether or not they're present in the fight doesn't make a huge difference, because it can't.

If we say "this fight is totally different if you have a Ninja with Trick Attack in the party" now suddenly people need to learn two versions of the fight; and then only execute on the second version if the Ninja actually properly uses Trick Attack during a specific phase.

A system like that doesn't work with FFXIV because it literally can't be balanced to work like that since if status moves could effect that much then not having them would be a huge problem and suddenly we'd see a huge shift in the playerbase you couldn't even call a "meta" because it would be almost mandatory to have a Ninja.

Meanwhile Mabinogi's "balance" is atrocious, it's like Elden Ring on crack; by which I mean sometimes you one shot everything in a dungeon; and other times the dungeon you have to do directly after it is so full of damage sponge enemies that you literally can't clear a single room.

But why does that work? Like why is that okay? That shouldn't be okay.

Well it works because Mabinogi is a game with such absurd power scaling that simply put, having someone on the team who can do a specific thing or uses a specific weapon makes all the difference in the world.

Do you use a weapon that deals high wound damage? Suddenly enemies with regen don't matter, they can't regen through those wounds.

Do you use a heavy weapon with high knockback capabilities? Suddenly all those really tanky enemies with Heavy Stander pose a big problem since you're likely going to be really slow, but wait if you happen to have Instill Thunder you can ignore Heavy Stander all together and you can cast advanced magic while using your sword. This means someone using the Elemental Knight skills is going to handle this situation entirely differently than someone who may not have those skills since they require you spec'ing into Elemental Knight specifically.

There's a bard on your party? What are they going to do? Sing the enemies to death? Yes, in fact they can use lullaby to put everything to sleep, cancelling enemy skills and allowing you time to set up, and speaking of setting up; they can use a song to buff the entire party to do everything from move faster to casting/attacking faster, or even hit harder or crit more often or regen your MP and boost your defense. Did I mention that Bards also get Fantastic Chorus which can be used to either regen your HP, MP, and Stamina by 3 per second or can be used to decrease ALL enemy stats and speed by 30% while also decreasing their attack/charging speed by 15% and thanks to Encore giving them instant cooldowns they can cast Fantastic Chorus twice allowing them to use both the buff and debuff at the same time to not only buff your entire party but debuff enemies at the same time. Oh yea that absolutely stacks with the Fighter's uppercut that reduces enemy defense and protection.

Oh and I'm sorry but if I'm talking about power scaling I need to bring up how in those moments when your back is against the wall, you can break out the transformation skills.

Humans can either become a defensive powerhouse with Paladin, or gamble on their stats and sacrifice their own HP to stay in their transformed state longer than usual with Dark Knight.

Elves can make use of elemental arrows with Falcon, while Giants can deal heavy melee damage with Beast skills.

If that's not enough, you can further activate Demigod; not only giving you access to your aligned goddess abilities but regenerating your HP, MP, and Stamina while allowing you the use of Spear of Light and Fury of Light if you're aligned with Naemhain. With Spear of Light completely ignoring defense and hitting a large AoE around it's target; and Fury attacking everything near you automatically, stunning enemies around you and dealing considerable damage while allowing you to continue using other skills. If you however align with Morrighan you get Wings of Eclipse and Wings of Rage respectively; which allow you a state of essentially invulnerability while Wings of Eclipse is active, shielding you from damage and negating passive damage such as poison. Or summoning a flock of crows to home in and explode on a target, dealing damage over time and completely bypassing defense including invulnerability.

If that's still not enough power to take down whatever is standing before your party you have Nascent Divinity which literally just turns you into a god and allows you to use skills like "Divine Blast" and "Nova Obliteration" alongside teleporting just in case.

But it's so much more than just "hyping up the power scaling" the thing about this level of power scaling is that more often than not, a good player won't even NEED to use these skills.

Because every type of weapon has their own gimmicks and quirks about them. Guns can activate a skill that gives them 100% crit chance and unlimited ammo for a set duration, dual swords can activate a skill that literally takes away the attack cooldown of their normal attacks and give them a teleport allowing them to completely stun an enemy; chain blades have skills that sweep entire groups of enemies together and deal extremely high damage AoEs or debuff the entire group.

Not to mention that depending on your play style your party will have unique tactics for handling problems, a prime example of this is how if you use a Wand over a Staff you can equip a Shield in your offhand.

Shields allow you to share the Defense skill properties with allies who stack with you. Meaning if a Magic based player picked up a Wand, cutting into their offensive stats a bit; they could also grab a tower shield and have 100% damage negation when they use Defense. If their party stacks with them; suddenly your mage can swap from offensive casting to being a support healer and even tank with the use of Glyphs to regen mana, Mana Shield to take damage with MP instead of HP, and Inspiration to regain their MP instantly; alongside skills like Meditation which boost your MP regen rate and even bard skills like Enduring Melody which boost your MP regen further. Coupling that Defense with something like Shield of Trust would allow them to further extend Defense to the entire party regardless of location, and depending on how they choose to build their Shield of Trust skill they could either extend it's range, heal players when the skill is cast, increase the magic defense of those buffed as well as their physical defense, increase the party's movement speed on cast, or heal the party's wounds.

This means two players who build around magic could have entirely unique play styles, one revolving around tanking through high MP regen and really buffed defense stats; and the other revolving around their staff being built to cast faster and refund MP on cast; allowing them to chain high burst damage attacks quickly.

None of this is impressive on it's own, it's impressive because of how the game is literally not designed around this at all.

Okay back to FFXIV,

a typical dungeon encounter is pretty simple right?

The tank leads the party, rounds up the enemies and takes aggro. This is how Tank functions, they have a single target combo and a multi-target combo that generates aggression.

Once the tank has aggro, the healer keeps their HP up in direct proportion to the enemies damage output, they use some shields or healing over time to off-set the damage being taken; and then typically assist the DPS with damaging some of the enemies.

The DPS gets to work focusing down whatever the tank happens to be hitting at the time and this continues until all the enemies are dead at which point the tank runs through the dungeon to find the next batch of fodder.

Now a boss happens and the Tank picks up the boss's aggro before running them to a safe location and facing their attacks away from the party.

The healer is still just kinda... healing the tank making sure they don't die and helping the DPS whenever they can.

The DPS is still just you know, doing their damage rotation skills to kill the boss.

This kind of teamwork is fun but it's so structured; this all functions like this because it has to. If the healer doesn't heal then the tank dies, if the tank doesn't hold aggro the enemies can out-damage the DPS and kill them. If the DPS doesn't kill the enemies fast enough the Healer will run out of MP and stop healing at which point the tank dies and yea you get the point.

It's designed around this system and there's never really time for any one party member to shine because they must always function as a team. That's fine, and this works just as well for the system it's a part of.

Now back to Mabinogi,

Your team can absolutely just plow through a dungeon with zero cooperation. For example, you enter the dungeon; everyone is equally as capable of tanking, dealing damage, chugging healing potions; spamming their pet summons for healing or damage.

So that's how it goes, everyone just goes ham spamming their abilities and the enemies die, you do the same thing to the boss; and you clear the dungeon. How exciting.

Why does it sound like I'm putting Mabinogi down, don't I love this game? Well yea but what I love about it is how this doesn't have to be the case when you work together as a team and capitalize on everyone's strengths.

Say for example you enter the dungeon and find a heavily armored enemy standing before your party. Your archer tries to shoot them, if they resist melee then archery can still deal wound damage and maybe through keeping it at a range, they can safely whittle down it's HP. Well no that's not going to work, it refuses to be knocked back because it's natural defense is resisting the damage. Your melee party member steps in to try their hand at it, but they find the natural melee defense poses a problem with their attacks literally bouncing off it's heavy armor. Are you guys just fucked? Well no, because one of you happen to use Lances.

Lances have a property called Pierce that specifically negates defense bonuses, but lances are weird about their attack range. If you're too close to an enemy you can't attack them, because you need enough distance between you and the enemy in order to actually swing your lance. This means using such a large cumbersome weapon isn't favored by most players. However your party happens to have someone who uses lances, and this is above all else their time to shine.

They can use Lance Charge to close the distance and protect their party members allowing them to quickly get within range and since they have Pierce on their lance they'll actually knock the enemy back. At this point they can use Windmill to knock everything back, this signals to the rest of the team that they need to keep everything else away. If other enemies run in and hit them they won't be able to focus down this target and that will throw off their whole plan.

Now remember, none of this has been "designed" to happen, and please also note that this is not an example I'm pulling out of my ass, this is actually how myself and some friends handled a dungeon not too long ago.

So now your party's giant takes it upon themselves to use Stampede which allows them to dash up to 3 times grabbing enemies they hit and dragging the hit enemies along with them. They dash through the remaining enemies and group them together allowing the archer (hi that was me in this situation) to prepare a Wind + Water Ventus Howl which pierces through enemies and drags them inward; helping condense the group of enemies further and freezing them in place since the Water + Wind combo causes the freeze debuff.

Back to our Lancer friend, who was able to combo their windmill into an Assault Slash jumping to their target but unfortunately getting too close to use their Lance, so what do they do? They swap off to their secondary weapon a pair of Knuckles that allow them to use fighter skills; close combat combos that allow them to combo into an uppercut cutting into the enemy's defense and then finishing the combo with a drop kick to send the enemy flying, they then use tumble to backflip away creating enough distance to swap back to their lance and use Lance Counter to negate the enemy's incoming attack while dealing considerable damage thanks to the properties of their Pierce weapon.

Now remember this is happening at the same time as myself and our giant keeping enemies off them long enough to do all of this without interruption. Since the remaining enemies are being absolutely bodied, split between my alchemy archery and our giant's AoEs and heavy melee damage; our Bard was able to take the time to buff our offensive damage and crit rate. I had the time to place a glyph on the ground near our main target that would cause minor damage over time and apply a further defense debuff.

This allowed our Lancer to once again use their fighter skills to combo into a chain of attacks which made use of a lot of fast hits with somersault kick into pummel. This allowed them to essentially fish for crits which they got plenty of given their high crit knuckles + the bard's crit buff.

This encounter is equivalent to a trash pull in FFXIV except in Mabinogi it wasn't so structured to go a specific way.

In fact throughout the remainder of the dungeon the Giant was often using Taunt to take enemy aggro, and then using Wind Guard and Defense (with a large shield for 100% damage negation) to essentially cancel out high damage attacks and allow us the safety to set up on more damaging targets.

At one point our Giant literally used Stampede as a movement skill to dash to our Bard and cancel out of Stampede in favor of using Taunt to grab the aggro of the enemy who was going to VERY LIKELY one shot our Bard, our Bard then used Lullaby to put the enemy to sleep so they could move out of the way while our Giant used their shield charge to effectively knock the enemy away.

Again these kinds of player interactions wouldn't be impressive in a game like FFXIV because that's the expected designed response.

A Paladin using their Cover skill on a DPS who accidentally stood in the AoE is the intended and expected response to the DPS not paying attention. But consider the fact that in this scenario the DPS has to specifically screw up and stand in a spot where they would otherwise take too much damage if they aren't given Cover.

Likewise if the Paladin is using Cover it's almost always in an event where something has gone wrong or a mechanic specifically calls for it to function like that. Very rarely is it used to negate a tank swap or something. Even then it typically falls into the category of some kind of meta situation where keeping the Paladin on off-tank is better for the specific fight and therefore rather than letting the WAR take the tank buster and suffer a debuff or something, the Paladin just uses Cover and eats the tank buster.

These things are expected mechanics, and that doesn't make them any less cool when they're pulled off but it also kinda does? It's hard to explain but the majority of cool FFXIV moments I can think of are situations in which things go wrong and my friends and I have to think on our feet how we can use our kit to patch up the major hole in the party. Like sure my friend who mains Paladin and I who main WAR can SOMETIMES tank swap self heal our way through the last 25% of a boss fight where our party is all dead and we don't have healers but that's not intended; and honestly rarely ever happens.

I'm not trying to say that Mabinogi is a better game, I'm saying that it's sort of like watching an action movie right?

FFXIV is an action movie where the actors all know the script down to the letter, it's like watching really really good actors who could recite all their lines on the first take flawlessly. However it's all scripted, it's all done according to the story.

You know the Paladin is going to protect the party and the healer is going to save him with their magic. Because that's how the script says it goes down, and if it doesn't nothing works.

That's not necessarily a bad thing; it just means that if you're not going to be super impressed when the protagonist pulls off the amazing victory and defeats the evil demon lord because you already knew that as epic and climactic as that final act was, it was all scripted from the first step.

Most of the time when I do story content and the like; people will tell me "it's my first time running this boss but I watched a video so I already know the mechanics don't worry." Like that's kind of sad right? They already know the script, because they have to; because they're worried that they would either upset people by screwing it up, or be forced to play the role of side-kick to the protagonist if they don't know all their lines perfectly.

Now by extension of that same metaphor, what is Mabinogi?

Well Mabinogi is like sitting down to watch an improv show, no one has lines; there is no script. When there's an epic climactic final act in Mabi you have genuinely no idea how the heroes are going to pull through, or even IF they will, because it's entirely possible they're just not ready for what they've gotten themselves into.

There's no script that says the Paladin will protect their party, there's no script that says the healer will save them when they eat that really heavy damage attack.

The reason it's so impressive when they do is because they were never really expected to work together like that. More often than not, a party just sort of clusterfucks their way to victory, so when the stars align and everyone works together to really bring out each other's strengths and cover for each other's weaknesses, it's not the expected method.

It's like watching a really good improv movie unfolding right in front of you. You feel so much more invested because it's all improv, it could derail at any moment, it could all go south; there's no assurance this works out in the end, there's no script here motherfucker we live in hope that we pull this off and if we fail we know that the next time we try it could be entirely different because even the bosses with mechanics don't have specific movement and targeting patterns like FFXIV.

There's so much more hype behind something without a script, without a structure to it. When anything could happen, the moments of cooperation and improvised structure and teamwork just shine through all the more because there was never something that said this should happen this way.

At the heart of the matter, that is what I miss about gaming; it's not that PSO2 or FFXIV were necessarily better games and that I miss those games specifically. It's that those games have systems in place that allow for "scripts" and "structure" where as a game like Mabi asks me to improv basically everything.

This leads to a lot less necessity to organize and actually strategize. Which means what I need to do is start tackling harder content that would actually require more teamwork from my party...

and also getting a party together that can actually consistently play together, that would also help a lot.

Anyways that's enough random personal rambling about my thoughts. Sorry for the wall of text.

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aleksandra-szczerbak · 2 years ago

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CAS FINAL REFLECTION

In the two years of IB, I find that CAS taught me a lot about myself, and others and how to follow my goals. It taught me consistency and a good work ethic. I learned more about cooperation with my peers and elders. I believe that I obtained a wider view at the world and noticed what I need to do to work on myself and how to help others.

Identify own strengths and areas for growth

In all my activities of choice, I think I knew how to identify my strengths and weaknesses. In creativity, I did not know a lot about cooking or baking and my family tells me how noticeable the improvement is. By choosing to pursue healthy cooking I also noticed how healthier I have become. I learned many new recipes that changed my life and gradually I can cook tougher things and I really enjoy it. Service was especially hard to find my boundaries and see my strengths and working with Lena (a girl with a disability) taught me a lot about myself. I noticed how my patience was growing each time and how I was comping up each time with new activities for her. It was rather frustrating for me at first when not everything was going smoothly but I learned that everything comes with time. When it comes to activity, CAS is the reason I started to work out regularly and I definitely had to push myself to achieve what I have now.

Demonstrate that the new challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

In all the CAS components, I have undertaken new challenges. I did not know a lot about healthy, vegan, and gluten-free cooking before but now it has become a new reality for me. Service also gave me an opportunity to work with a disabled person for the first time, so it was really challenging for me at first to adapt to that kind of work. Also, the voluntary work I did at the hospital was a new challenge for me as I had to deal with patients which was an entirely new experience for me. As for activity due to CAS, I started working out so it was definitely a new challenge for me. First with horse riding in the sports section which was one of my biggest achievements and then with an online workout which I tried to do regularly and by myself which was challenging for me.

Demonstrate how to initiate and plan CAS experience

I set various goals for myself, and I learned how to work consistently to achieve them, especially with the CAS project. I came up with the idea and the initiative and proposed the idea to my friends. I had many ideas and planning them was a fun and important thing. I learned that with plans, my goals are easier to achieve and do not seem impossible. I had to plan visits to Lena, plan my goals for my healthy cooking, and especially horse riding.

I believe it is crucial to challenge myself especially when I am performing entirely new activities to me just like I did during CAS.

Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

CAS taught me a lot about teamwork, especially when it comes to Service as I was visiting Lena, a disabled girl with my friend Dominika. We had to work together to find the right time to meet her, bring different games like puzzles, and how divide the work between us while working with her. I think it went well and we make a great team! In most of my service activities I had to work in teams: during the open days and other school functions but I find it enjoyable.

Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS activities

I tried to be as committed to CAS as possible and I think I managed that by performing different activities regularly each week. I was posting my experiences regularly, especially during IB1, but I think I managed to show my commitment to CAS by meeting all deadlines and not failing any of the blog checks.

Demonstrate engagement with issues of global importance

I tried to be as knowledgeable when it comes to global importance in all of my activities, but especially in my CAS project and service. For my CAS project, I created a blog with healthy recipes for IB students as I know personally how challenging it is to keep a healthy diet in such a tough program. I read a lot about how healthy eating influences our studying habits and it shows a rather positive correlation. For my service, I worked with a disabled girl and that taught me a lot about disabilities and how hard it is for people and their families to live with them. It also gave me a wider view of what we can do to make these people feel more comfortable as they are now.

Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

All the choices that I made during CAS were ethical. I was working with kids with disabilities, patients and many other people from different backgrounds and I was treating them kindly and with respect. I find that being ethical is one of the most important values that I hold and I strongly believe that it is important to believe those in order to lead a good and successful life.

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punkpandapatrixk · 2 years ago

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🌸Home Life with Your Destined Person—Timeless Tarot Pick A Card

Catching a glimpse of what domestic life looks like for you and your Destined Person. Your private life away from the beady eyes of extended family members, neighbours, colleagues, and, possibly the nation.

[Back to Masterlist] [Part 1] [Part 2]

Pile 1 – Sensibility in Sunshine’s Gentle Warmth

the Home – 7 of Wands

Active/Busy/Creative. Those are the keywords that depict your home life with your Destined Person. Of all the piles, this one is most likely to be blessed with the little steps and laughter of children, too. Irrespective of the actual size of your house, your home feels spacious. It has a lot of windows, maybe even big windows here and there, and many rooms receive soft rays of sunshine.

Within the home, the members are also full of light. There’s a lot of communication and teamwork when it comes to household duties or maintenance. A chatty family. If you had children, they would be active, strong, happy, and maybe a little naughty in a good way. They’re creatively curious, that’s all🥰There could be a lot of play and running in this household😆

Your house will have a certain clean aesthetic, whatever your personal style may be. Members are healthy and love to plan for travels. When you’re planning, even the children are included in the conversation. I can see one parent talking and giggling with the children about what they want to do during the holiday, and then the other parent takes very seriously everyone’s ideas and thoughts, and the whole trip is mesmerising for everybody.

A very cheerful family whose hearts are like early Spring~🌸Probably has one or two members who’s like a total clown or comedian😂

the living room – XIII Death Rx

There’s a sense of dynamic stability within your home. Perhaps because you’re both adults who have experiences in Life, when you come together and decide to start a family, there are already certain rules or styles you live by. You aren’t likely to change habits out of the blue; you’ve created your own solid habits and ways of doing things around the house.

And yet, this is two different individuals living together, so there’s bound to be differences. And you work wonderfully to be flexible about things. You two can communicate and then come to a compromise. Something like that… but honestly, I don’t think the word ‘compromise’ fits here. You love each other, genuinely, so you just accept each other’s differences. Acceptance is totally different from compromise, so there’s that beauty about your home life with your Destined Person, too💏You’re accommodating each other’s flaws and shortcomings, and you aren’t shy about learning from one another. You literally complete each other whilst maintaining your authentic identities.

This is a family who has a lot of respect for individuality and the members aren’t likely to try to override each other’s fundamental characters. I think that’s SO wonderful! And you wouldn’t change this for anybody’s opinions about what they think your family should look or be like. You’re strong and solid like that because the Love that unites you is a real one with a capital L.

the kitchen – 4 of Wands

Your house is literally the Home your soul returns to after a long, hard day’s work. You both have created a safe haven for everybody to chill, read books, play games, or just nap. It’s such a peaceful, clean, well-maintained home that is almost rare in today’s world. Your home never feels cold, even if say, everyone else is still outside and only one member is home for whatever reason; that member still feels that the Home is warm and full.

Perhaps because somebody has left a lot of food on the table. Perhaps there’s a cute message on the fridge. Perhaps because there’s a lot of pictures from your trips. Every family member’s presence can be felt even when they’re not there. The moment somebody comes home, there’s already a conversation. Maybe siblings throw each other a can of drink or an orange or whatever. There’s a lot of munching and talking in this household🥪

Every now and then, all family members also work together to prepare a feast. I’m really seeing this. Whether for a religious or cultural celebration, someone’s birthday, or New Year’s. Sometimes you choose to have a home party with everyone involved instead of eating out and being miserable in the middle of traffic jam LMAO

Why does your family rock so hard?!🍱

Adult Things🔻🧡

sense of responsibility – Red Geographer (John Dee)

when you get freaky – Priestess of Contemplation

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – Calm Blooming in Morning Mist

the Home – King of Pentacles

Of all the piles, this one is the most difficult to translate into simple paragraphs due to the extreme variations in background🥲

Academy/Harmony/Discipline/Meticulous. These are some keywords that describe your home life with your Destined Person. First of all, you are wealthy AF. Some of you could be from a wealthy background, alright, but your home life with your Destined Person is your own next level generational wealth. You’re really, extremely, superfluously RICH. Your home is beautiful, luxurious, so extra expensive and glamorous. Your guests could even feel intimidated by how expensive the air inside your home feels. Like they’re being charged $10 per inhale🤡

Your family is probably highly academically accomplished, and you may hold prestigious jobs in high societies. Even if, for example, your work is in the creative industry, you’re a highly respected artist/creator/player in your fields. Members of this household are some of the world’s biggest earners. You’re immaculately disciplined in every aspect of your Life, including the way you operate at home. Your home has rules and everything is structured. Everyone is held to high standards of conduct. There’s a lot of expectation in this household. Can be imposingly demanding if you aren’t careful with your thoughts.

Whatever field or line of work you do, being this rich also means you’re often in the public eye. You may even be a celeb or a socialite. So you’ve got an image to maintain. Therefore, you’re cautious, and calculating. Your household runs on discipline so much it feels almost like an academy sometimes. This may not be the warmest household in the world, nevertheless, it is independent, dynamic, and civil. There’s a lot of grace and harmony in the way you interact with every member of the family. Truly, like a royalty.

the living room – Queen of Wands Rx

You or your Destined Person could (or not) have a PhD in some fields of study that are extremely studious and serious. Whichever the case, you have an expectation that your children (those of you who want them) should pursue tertiary education. You’re very serious about it. You’re not exactly sure about life paths without laws, rules, and structure. You can be quite imposingly rigid about that. If you had children, they might grow up to become somewhat rigid socially, too. Like, they’re kind and polite, alright, but they could be lacking the passionate drive to be spontaneous, which hinders their spirit of adventure. Thus, limiting their worldview via first-hand experiences.

Still, the beauty of your household is the stability and predictability. It feels safe like that because you know every family member is dependable. Your family loves and values tradition. You may even have your own small traditions that only your core family members participate in. You may have a cottage in the country or a summer house in another country. Certain times of the year, your family goes on a trip together and spend a good intellectual time.

It's like, members of your household love to study, read, have meaningful conversations, maybe talk about business or the current state affairs. Difficult, sophisticated, high-class pastime like that☕️

the kitchen – 6 of Pentacles Rx

Due to your busy schedules, since there’s also a very strong sense of independence in this pile, you may not eat together at home much, if at all. It’s literally a luxury to see family activities in the kitchen. I feel you are very important people, so you get invited to a lot of, for example, business meetings, charity events, IPO opening/launch parties, many types of functions, etc. You often dine in formal settings and you fly a lot.

In that sense, your home kitchen is quite literally a cold place where you don’t see a lot of interactions. I guess it may just not be your thing, after all; when you’ve got all of these places to be. And you’ll be like, ‘Why cook at home? We have restaurants.’ And when you do have gatherings at home, you’ll have a personal chef and staff to cook for you, so… You’re still not really there hahah🍳

Your home life isn’t necessarily lacking warmth; it’s just unconventional in a way that most people probably can’t understand. You’ve got all this money and businesses (empire, actually) to take care of. It’s like your life is spent on making things happen outside your household. And this is why your own traditions and family vacations are ever more important to you. Those are the moments you deeply connect as family.

Adult Things🔻💜

sense of responsibility – Red Alchemist (John Dee)

when you get freaky – Priestess of Inspiration

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Pile 3 – The Most Perfectly Untainted Love

the Home – 10 of Pentacles Rx

There is a lot of transformation and healing magic in this pile; the fact it is the only one who gets 2 Major Arcanas upright. And you know what? That hardly ever happens on this blog😜

Growing/Hustling/Prosperous. These are the keywords that depict your home life with your Destined Person. In the beginning, you may not have a lot of physical wealth—or at least you both think so—but that’s only because your family is literally destined to be one of the most prosperous families in the entire world (or your country, or city, at least). And your Souls know this.

Seriously, right off the bat I wanna say, the money you have is brimming with white magic and as you distribute it all around the world, you heal every single person or business entity that comes into contact with it. Can you imagine? That’s why the Universe dictates that you gain a lot of the world’s money, and with that, you and your Destined Person are always hustling. You’re working a lot. Always creating. Planning. Business tripping. Hustling non-stop, almost. You may not even be home much, unless your work can be done from home (if you’re a novel writer, for example).

In the beginning, your house is quite simple or modest (by your standards), and there’s a very gentle, serene vibe to it. It’s not a noisy home; it is your rest station—your pond of spiritual tranquillity. For some of you, there’s a possibility your first house is a generational house, maybe given to you by your parents or in-laws. There’s also a possibility your house is attached to a family business (a shop or a small restaurant, for example). Nevertheless, the home aspect of it is without a doubt tranquil.

the living room – XXI The World

As time goes by, you become richer and richer and you will either expand your house or buy a new, mega luxurious one. This is likely to be your permanent residence, or at least, you will live here mainly for a long time. But with your wealth, it is possible you have more than 2 houses😋With your primary residence, you feel complete and it’s like for the first time, you feel like you’ve made it in the world. You may begin to think about starting a family, too, at this point. Now that you have a much larger house, you also have your own dedicated office space. This allows you to continue much of your work whilst being a family person. You think this is finally a good setting for welcoming children. Also, some of you might decide to live with your parents or in-laws in this big house, too. You want to take care of them.

This house is cheery and there’s a lot of polite conversations between family members. It feels a bit serious, but not heavy. You and your Destined Person also like to talk about work; since one of you is working more from home, the other is gonna be asking, curious and be involved in the other’s creative ideas/developments. Also, you two might actually have an empire, so I see you brainstorming with your Destined Person a lot, too. It’s serious, professional, but exciting! Your entire Home Life in itself is a contribution to the prosperity of the world. You have a lot of talents and blessings to share with the world.

So much so that even your home is a workplace. Both of you will need to remind each other the importance of chilling and separating yourself from work when needed. But that might need a bit of work because the both of you are quite hardworking, to a point of being workaholics😅

And yet…

the kitchen – XV The Devil

The amazing thing is how you still manage to spend a lot of time together in the most loving, romantic fashion. Romance is far from dead in your busy lives; it is pretty much alive, more alive than anybody else’s married lives, in fact.

You meet a lot outside and try to make time for lunch or dinner together. There’s always time for each other. You ask each other how work is going; sometimes, it’s not even necessary to ask anything, sometimes it’s good to just look at each other’s faces. Sometimes, it’s good to just feel the other’s touch and warmth in those short moments you’re able to hold hands.

For some of you, it is possible that in the beginning, when you were still building your wealth, you ate out a lot because you simply didn’t have enough money (or time) to prep fresh meals. I see you and your Destined Person eating junk foods and drinking canned coffee on the sidewalk or something😝But Life is good in spite of all the need to hustle because you have faith in your future. You can see very clearly the prosperous, peaceful future you’re meant to have. Through thick and thin, you got each other and that’s all the blessing you could ever ask for🤍And you shall have more💖

Adult Things🔻💚

sense of responsibility – Red Magus (Edward Kelly)

when you get freaky – Priestess of Patience

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miraculouscontent · 4 years ago

Note

so... could you write some more adrien/chat salt? your fics and posts salting on him are always so good 🥺

Thank you! And of course~

—————

Ladybug had considered what to say multiple times over the day she'd had to think about it. She'd thought about all the different ways she could've said it, and what would've been the most effective when who she was talking to was taken into account.

However, sitting there on the rooftops with Chat Noir, there was a point where she just had to say it, no matter how it came out.

"Give me your miraculous."

Chat jerked his head over to her, jarred from the silence and eyes wide as his brain seemed to process the statement. Ladybug, meanwhile, stared ahead at the night sky, as if she hadn't said anything out of the ordinary.

After a few more seconds, she got a reply in the form of laughter, Chat buckling over with a hand on his stomach. "That's quite the Hawk Moth impression, Bugaboo!" he exclaimed, though calming himself enough to give her a half-lidded gaze and add, "But you don't have to do that to impress me, you know."

She didn't reply, only turning to look at him with her expression entirely flat, not showing any reaction to the mixture of teasing and flirting.

He was still grinning for a while, but as the silence dragged on, he began to falter. "...Ah—" He shook his head, leaning towards her and trying to force a smirk. "—if you want a wish that badly, all you need to do is say the word, m'lady! I can grant all your wishes."

She remained stoic, maintaining eye contact with him but not encouraging his banter. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head as it became clear to him that she was very much not joking.

One of Chat's ears twitched in confusion. He leaned back to his normal distance from her, seeming at a loss for what to say now that the atmosphere was finally registering with him.

Ladybug took a breath, noting that she had his attention. She straightened and looked back over Paris, saying, "I can't do this anymore."

He followed her gaze, squinting as if the answer would be written out there in bold letters for him. "Being a hero?"

"No, us. Us being partners." While he gaped at her, she stared down at her lap, her hands clutching her thighs as if that would give her some sense of stability. "...Chat, do you think this is a game?"

Chat shifted and rubbed the back of his neck, clearly not having expected the conversation to go here. It was hard to tell whether he was trying to keep things light or if it was just his genuine reply when he responded, "W-well, I'm definitely in it to win if that's what you mean—"

"I talked to Xavier Ramier today."

She watched his expression carefully, his hand leaving his neck and hovering awkwardly in the air as he looked at her. He seemed puzzled, not knowing what this had to do with the conversation, though his brows rose briefly like he'd remembered something.

She continued, trying not to show too much in her reaction as she explained, "Since I'm not as busy right now, I thought I'd check in on some of the people who got akumatized but I didn't have time for earlier. He was one of them." Idly, she pulled out her yoyo, almost mindlessly tapping away at it as she navigated through the various menus. "He said you came by to check on him a while ago; said that you were sitting there, just enjoying the day with him. He told me that you asked him if he missed being Mister Pigeon, or if he was feeling any negative emotions."

"I—" Chat tried to interject.

She didn't hear him, too focused on telling the story. "Then I asked him when you showed up, and he didn't know exactly when, but..." She showed him her yoyo, the messages Chat had sent clearly being timestamped for reference. "I figured out from what his rough guess and asking around that it was when you were supposed to be on patrol."

"I was on patrol!" Chat protested. "I was just checking up on him."

"You were relaxing on a bench," Ladybug reminded him., her tone remaining consistently flat. Snapping her yoyo shut and returning it to her hip, she added, "I even asked around and people told me they saw you go into the Grand Paris Hotel. I heard from one of the butlers there that you were sulking, and got excited when you saw Chloe and Sabrina fighting."

He opened his mouth to explain himself, but she could tell that he was struggling to come up with an excuse; he honestly believed that she'd never find out about any of this.

"I trusted you, Chat. I trusted you to cover for me when I'm not there, no matter what." She needed to swallow back her emotions for that one. "Why would you do that? Why would you hope for akuma to happen? Why would you lie to me?"

"I didn't!" Chat insisted, waving his arms frantically. "I—see... it was an off day! I was just—you know I can always do my best around you, and I did patrol! I just... made a few stops along the way! I wouldn't lie to you!"

"So you don't lie to me," she stated cautiously, "and you've never lied against me."

"Of course not!" he assured.

She paused for effect, just long enough for him to grow uneasy, then said, "Theo Barbot waved me down a while back."

Chat visibly cringed, and she could hear a hissing sound as he sucked in a breath.

"He wanted to congratulate me. He saw the picture of us kissing on the Ladyblog and said that he was glad we could finally go public about our relationship." Her gaze sharpened even as she stared at nothing in particular. "I asked what he meant, and he told me that you said that we were a thing. He said that that's what got him akumatized."

"It wasn't..." He averted his gaze. "...a lie exactly."

In response, Ladybug stood, throwing her arms outwards as emotion began to seep into her voice. "This is about more than lies, Chat; it's about everything! If you can only do your best around me, then what happens if an akuma gets me?" She didn't need him to answer. "You'll lose it. I need someone who I know will take care of things even if I'm captured."

"I would!" Chat retorted he stood up, the nervousness now showing on his face. "I would do everything to get you back, I—"

"Party Crasher," she cut in without missing a beat.

He recoiled like she'd physically struck him.

"And it's not just that I can't rely on you if I'm taken out; I can't rely on you not to take yourself out," she said pointedly, turning away from him and taking a few steps away to distance herself. "You're always throwing yourself in front of me and sacrificing yourself, sometimes when you don't even have to and always without just talking to me about it! Do you have any idea how that feels? You tell me all the time that you'll listen to me and how I'm the planner here, and then you go and make plans without me."

She heard Chat's hurried footsteps from behind her as he tried to match her pace and argue, "It's not like that! It's just—it's because..."

She turned just as he reached her, her stern gaze making him stop. "Because my anger is so irresistible?" she asked. "I'm just so adorable when I'm mad that you won't listen to me?" She advanced on him, forcing him back. "Thanks, Chat, that makes me feel so much better that you can't take me seriously because you just love me that much," she said sarcastically.

"That's not what I meant!" he argued, though at that point it seemed like all he could do was weakly protest that he didn't mean anything that way. "I'm only teasing, Bugaboo!"

"Then what do you really mean?" She clenched her fists at her side. "I've told you to stop calling me Bugaboo and you never do! You're too busy bantering and talking about our relationship to focus on the fight, and when that kiss happened - the one that happened because you got shot by Oblivio and I had to save you - you laughed at me for being upset and you didn't care. I'm tired of having to deal with all of that; I'm dealing with enough as guardian!" Reminded of her own status, she steeled herself up and held a hand out to him, managing to calm down enough to say, "Now, revoke your miraculous. I'll give it to someone else."

Chat retreated, his hand moving to cover his ring protectively. The nervousness had partially faded away into him being generally upset, though he also didn't try to defend his actions anymore. "You... if you give the ring to someone else, you'll know their identity!"

"I've already got a plan for that," Ladybug stated, holding her hand out more insistently.

Because of course she did. She wouldn't have been doing any of this if she hadn't given it a lot of thought first. There were pros and cons to bringing in a new cat, and when she really weighed it all together, this was the only way forward. Chat wouldn't learn, and she'd been stuck in a limbo of shouting at him, being ignored, and having to push down her feelings in the future or risk damaging their teamwork. She'd devalued herself - devalued her emotions - in order to believe that she could make it work because she needed him.

Except, she didn't. She needed a cat; someone to use the more active miraculous to balance out the lack of firepower that the ladybug miraculous had. It wasn't that it could be just anyone, but it certainly didn't have to be Chat. While she deeply regretted going back on one of Master Fu's decisions when he couldn't even have a say in it anymore, the fact of the matter was that she was the guardian and she made the rules.

Chat backed away a few more steps, his eyes darting around as he sought a way out of the situation. Then, facing Ladybug, a mixture of upset and offended, he argued, "We're a team! We still come out fine no matter what happened! You don't even know my identity, I've kept it a secret just like you wanted!"

He was reaching, and they both knew it. That had always been the reason for revoking someone's miraculous: someone else knowing their identity. However, there were reasons beyond that, and them "coming out fine" from a battle was hardly a high bar for someone getting to keep theirs. Ladybug knew that well enough after having dealt with Miracle Queen; even if Chloe's identity hadn't been revealed, she was still a bad person who felt entitled to a miraculous.

But Ladybug also understood the game Chat was playing at: that it wouldn't be right to take his miraculous when he's protected his identity. The logic was flawed, but she nonetheless crossed her arms and gave him a blank look, staring into his green cat eyes and starting to fit pieces of a metaphorical puzzle together.

Kung Food, Horrificator, and Startrain: those at minimum were times where Chat's civilian form had to have been inside at the time the akuma happened. Chat had also mistaken Francoise Dupont for an elementary school after they'd defeated Kwamibuster, but she mentally acknowledged that he could've been lying. He had to have been, if they were trapped in that building together with Horrificator. It narrowed things down significantly, and she knew that he had to have been a teenager like her due to the timer on his miraculous.

And while she was aware that Chat's green eyes meant nothing considering that she got green eyes as Lady Noire, there were little coincidences sprinkled throughout their history together that didn't add up unless she came to one final conclusion.

Chat showing up at the museum even though he'd have no way of knowing that an akuma could've been there. Chat knowing that Volpina's illusion was fake. Chat's mysterious loss of his miraculous when Style Queen was attacking.

The feather allergy.

Then, Ladybug glanced at the hand he was covering; the one she knew had the cat miraculous on his right ring finger. She almost felt like congratulating herself for constantly resisting the temptation, because when she actually thought about it, it was so obvious.

She knew that hand, as she'd seen it so many times. She had pictures of it plastered all over her wall and the realization made her feel sick, her heart dropping as opposed to skipping a beat.

"...Adrien Agreste," she said finally. "You're Adrien Agreste."

He blinked, his expression blank at first before dread started to take its place. His mouth slowly fell open, words trying to escape but there weren't any to be found.

She let the moment drag, stepping forward to close the distance between them. Adrien's face flashed over Chat Noir's for a moment and she swallowed, summoning all of her confidence to address him properly.

"Tell me, Adrien. Tell me that this hasn't been a game for you. Tell me that you wanted to protect Paris all this time. Tell me that this hasn't all been about you."

She waited, not expecting or hoping for any answer in particular, because it no longer mattered; the conclusion would the same regardless.

Ultimately, she got no reply, and within the next ten minutes, the cat miraculous was in her hands and Adrien was promptly taken home.

—————

Marinette took a breath of the cool night air, having chosen to walk home rather than get there as Ladybug. She needed time to think, and walking helped her clear her head from the rush of everything that'd happened.

Her purse rustled, Tikki popping out and leaning off the side to look up at her. "Is everything okay, Marinette?"

"Yeah." She nodded her head, just to reassure Tikki further. "It was for the best. It's a lot, but... I wanted to do it; for me, and for Paris."

Regardless of how many emotions she had to deal with, she was glad she knew. She supposed that she could've taken Chat's miraculous without seeing his identity - though it would've been complicated - but it helped her sort through so many thoughts in her mind.

She let out half of a chuckle, idly thinking that she dodged a bullet. If dating Adrien would've turned him into any level of Chat Noir - or, honestly, just knowing that he was Chat Noir - then it was definitely for the best that she figured out his identity. She wasn't sure how she'd behave around him the following days, but just the idea of things being any semblance of "normal" in the face of "the famous model Adrien Agreste," with no stutters or freak-outs...

It was nice, making everything feel a little brighter. Maybe Alya would even stop claiming that she's just "jealous" of Lila, the girls would stop teasing her so much, and she could put all that time she used to spend thinking about Adrien into something more productive. There hadn't seemed to be a downside in sight, actually.

As Marinette kept thinking on the subject, her gaze wandered off to the side, taking in the sights around her, and she paused when she noticed that she was right next to the Seine. The revelation didn't surprise her - she knew she'd have to pass by it to get home - but it did inevitably remind her of Luka, especially since they'd broken up only a day ago.

The metaphorical wound was still fresh, not helped by the fact that Lies had come right afterward as if to remind her of why she had to break up with him; she couldn't have a normal life, and she certainly couldn't have a boyfriend. It didn't matter if she loved Luka and he loved her back, because she would always have to leave their dates at the first sign of an akuma.

Yet, nevertheless, there was some form of comfort in staring out at the river, and she found herself traveling down the nearest set of stairs to walk right next to the Seine instead of so far above it, her eyes trailing along the surface of the water to search for the Liberty.

It took a few minutes of walking, almost making her wonder if she'd passed it without realizing, but then she saw the ship resting in the water, right where it always was. She approached, taking in the various colors and the silly rainbow weathervane, her body automatically relaxing at the memories of those two weeks of crafting kittycorn-themed costumes from paper mache.

Curiously, she noticed that the gangplank was up, as someone presumably had forgotten to pull it back before going to bed that night. Marinette walked over, crouching down and wondering idly if it was possible that it had been put up but had just fallen over at some point, yet it was clearly set perfectly in place.

Mentally trashing the thought, she placed her hands on her knees and started getting up. As she straightened her back, her eyes involuntarily scanned over the deck of the ship, a familiar color palette of blues, blacks, and whites registering in her mind before she fully recognized what—who it was. Her eyes locked onto the figure, and she had to slap a hand over her mouth to prevent herself from letting out a yelp.

It was Luka, sitting down on an instrument case with his guitar in his lap, though Marinette noted after a moment that he was actually asleep. Concern furrowed her brows as she took in his posture, one of his arms resting on the case while the other was perched on the guitar's base. His back was arched against the taffrail of the ship and his head was tilted back to the point where his hair was falling into his face.

There was no way that was comfortable.

Marinette hesitated, feeling almost like she was trespassing, then gave Tikki a look to hide inside the purse while she walked across the gangplank Any footsteps against the deck of the ship seemed unusually loud due to the otherwise quiet night, but Marinette tried to ignore it, approaching Luka cautiously so as not to startle him.

He was frowning, and she involuntarily copied the expression onto her own face. Outside of the bumps in their dates and the break-up itself, it was rare to see him as anything but calm or happy, and she got the distinct feeling that it wasn't just because he was asleep that he was making that face.

She reached up, lightly fixing his hair in case to try and keep it out of his eyes when he woke up, then lowered her hand to his shoulder. She gave him a light shake, then another with a little more effort when the first failed to stir him. When that failed as well, she leaned close, looking side to side like she was afraid someone would see her and think she was doing something strange. However, no one else was around, allowing her to safely whisper his name to him.

"Luka."

She stiffened when she got an immediate response to that, Luka letting out a low humming noise as he shifted. She jolted back, trying to give him space and blushing at the thought that shaking hadn't woken him in the slightest but her voice had immediately.

Luka's eyes opened halfway, staring blankly up at the sky. Brows lowering in confusion, he tried to move, though a whine escaped him when his body protested at the uncomfortable position he'd gotten himself into. He winced, but eased forward and leaned on his guitar for support, only then looking forward and meeting her gaze.

She shifted in place, feeling awkward but knowing that it was too late to back out now.

"...Mmmarinette?" he asked, squinting like he wasn't really sure she was there. He blinked a few times, his eyes widening a fraction when he confirmed that she was real. "Marinette?"

"Ah—hi," she replied, waving awkwardly. "Um, sorry, it was just—I was walking, and I saw you, and you were sleeping weird—not that you sleeping is weird or you look weird when you sleep!—but you seemed really uncomfortable so I just..." She gestured vaguely at his current state of awareness.

He let out a tired sound that may've been an "oh," then ran his fingers into his hair and rustled it, like he was attempting to shake the tiredness out of himself. That done, he managed a small smile at her that didn't stretch anywhere near the amount it usually would. "Thank you. I'm glad you care about me that much."

"Of course I do!" she blurted out, a little offended at the idea that she wouldn't. She realized belatedly how loud she'd been and rubbed an arm in embarrassment, but didn't take anything back either.

Deep down, she knew where he was coming from. It must've been hard for him to watch her ditch him and then deal with her ending their relationship with next to no explanation. Even with the confidence he constantly radiated, not having any information on the 'how's or 'why's must've been difficult, and she hated keeping secrets from him.

Even Chat got better than that...

Luka tilted his head at her, the anxiety probably written all across her face. Concerned, he began to ask, "...Is everything—"

"Luka," she called suddenly, straightening to face him fully. "I—" She swallowed, needing a few seconds to compose herself. "I know this is a bad time, because I'm not really supposed to be here, and you can say 'no,' but... can we talk? About what happened?"

She bit her lip nervously as he sat up, his body noticeably more awake than before. She felt like he deserved to know more about the whole situation, but he also had every right to refuse her for waiting - even if it wasn't that long ago - so the possibilities were nerve-wracking.

Thankfully though, Luka relaxed after a moment, lifting his guitar out of his lap to set it aside, the bottom of the body resting on the deck of the Liberty while the neck was supported by the taffrail. Settling his hands in his lap, he then gave her his full attention, even offering a soft look of reassurance.

Her shoulders eased; he was going to hear her out. Part of her almost felt bad, wondering if maybe he was forcing himself, but she also knew it was important for him to get closure on the matter.

"Okay..." She breathed, acknowledging to herself that she hadn't planned this is the slightest. After some internal debate, she sat down on the deck of the Liberty in lieu of a proper seat, earning a look from Luka but no further comment otherwise. Running her hands along her capris, she stared up at him and finally began, "It—it wasn't you."

He raised a brow, silently encouraging her to go on.

"I mean, maybe you weren't worried about that, but I just... I needed you to know that." She shrugged half-heartedly. "You didn't do anything wrong, Luka - you're amazing - and if it wasn't for me always having to leave and rush off and make you feel bad, I would've stayed with you."

"...Really?"

She blinked at his tone, the corners of her lips quirking up as he covered his mouth, clearly not having intended to blurt that out. She simply nodded at him, falling back into her serious state as she continued, "You deserve someone who can be dedicated to you, and I just—I can't, and I can't tell you why either." She slumped, ashamed at the secret she was forced to keep. "I wish I could. I do trust you, but it's not about that. It's—" She pursed her lips, struggling to find the right words. "—it's not really something I can say?"

She dropped her gaze to her lap, but didn't miss the flicker of understanding in his eyes. It was important to her, for him to know that she believed in him and that he'd done everything right in their relationship.

"...Are—" Luka paused, voice laced with worry. "Marinette, are you being blackmailed or something?"

She almost laughed at that. His deduction wasn't entirely wrong, as "go defend Paris from a supervillain and tell no one about it, and if you do then they might be in danger," certainly did sound like blackmail. Still, she shook her head, reassuring, "It's nothing like that. I'm sorry. I really want to tell you, a-and even be with you, but I can't do either." She clutched at her knees in an attempt to ground herself, glancing back up at him with a mixture of sorrow and guilt. "I don't know what you see in me, Luka, but I feel so lucky that you like me so much, and then unlucky because—" She choked briefly, her cheeks heating up as she realized that she'd never said the exact words to him before. "—because I like you too and I want it to be that simple but it's not. You want the truth and the truth is that I can't tell you no matter how much I want to. I know I forget things and had to skip out on dates because I was so stressed out, but you made everything fun and not stressful and I loved every date we went on until... you know." She gestured wildly to imply 'unsaid things happening.'

He was quiet, not showing any particular reaction, though she'd spent enough time with him to know that he was glad that she was talking more openly about it and clearing some things up that he might've been wondering about. His expression seemed blank on the surface but he was relieved to know something even if her words were pulling his emotions in every direction.

Mentally preparing herself for the next step, Marinette pushed herself up and walked over to him, finding it hard to meet Luka's gaze even as she hunched over and boldly placed her hands on top of his. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see his eyes searching her face, not knowing what to expect next.

"...I'm sorry," she murmured. "I know I apologized already but I'm sorry. I should've known things would end up like this but I wanted to date you anyway. I can't even tell you when this is all going to end so I can't ask you to wait for me either because it's not fair. You deserve a relationship that isn't so complicated... that doesn't involve me."

She flinched at the emotional punch to the gut she'd just given herself. She'd already known that dating would be near-impossible so long as she was Ladybug, but it was a completely different feeling to face Luka and say it to his face. She wasn't sure if she'd been his first crush, but the thought left a bitter taste in her mouth that it'd all gone so wrong and there was no hope of getting it back.

She took another breath to calm herself, slowly raising her hands away from his. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say," she murmured, still not making eye contact with him. "Thanks for trying to show me a good time, Luka, but... maybe you should fall in love with someone else."

She turned away before her emotions could get the better of her, about to walk off when a hand suddenly grabbed her wrist and jerked her back. She squeaked in surprise, glancing behind her to see that Luka was on the edge of the instrument case, arm stretched out like he'd impulsively hurried to stop her. She opened her mouth to ask what he was doing, but he spoke first.

"Why?"

"W...why?" she echoed.

"Why should I fall for someone else?" he asked, his tone somewhere between hurt and serious.

"Ah." She tilted her head, confused and with no idea of what he was getting at. "Because of everything I said?"

"That you enjoyed our dates? That it wasn't us who cut the song short?" His other hand reached up, holding her hand as well while he looked at her tenderly. His voice grew quiet, like he couldn't believe what he was saying. "That you like me?"

Marinette blushed, but found it hard to look away from him this time. "I...I do like you. Um—only you, but—Luka, the dates..."

Luka slowly stood up, gently squeezing her hand in a show of support. "I didn't even think that I'd be taking up too much of your time, Marinette. I wanted to be together with you, but I didn't want it to be hard either." He offered her a lopsided smile, adding, "And I'm glad you told me, because I don't think you being busy means we can't be together."

"...What?" Marinette gaped at him in disbelief. "I thought you said that you wanted the truth, and—"

"You gave it to me," he reminded her. "You said you can't tell me and I believe you."

She waved her free hand wildly. "Y-yeah, and I'll have to run off and we'll never know when!"

"Then we don't have to date, or we don't have to date as much." He'd said it like it was the simplest thing in the world, and maybe it was. "Why should we be playing sad solos when we can play a happy duet instead?"

She went to retort, but he'd so swiftly shot down her arguments that she was left speechless. She hadn't even considered that - trying to compromise with him on their dates - because she thought she wouldn't be worth it for him, yet here he was, offering himself to her again now that everything had been laid out for him. It seemed too good to be true, but...

He was her Second Chance, and every moment she spent with him just reaffirmed why she'd adored being given that chance in the first place.

She made a small noise as she tried to hold back emotion, her hand shaking in his. "You want me that much?"

His smile grew wider and more genuine, clearly recognizing that she was about to accept him. "Yeah. Do you want me too?"

Afraid her voice might crack and ruin the moment, she nodded and turned fully towards him. She held out her other hand for him and he took it happily, both of them able to enjoy each other's company once more.

Once things had properly settled down, she held back a shy giggle and asked, "S-so, do we just... pick up where we left off? Or just—before everything started going wrong?"

He hummed, seeming to honestly think about it. "I guess so. What verse do you want to start from?"

She retraced all of the bad dates in her mind, like she were rewinding a movie. One moment in particular stuck out to her, and she tried not to grin too much as she suggested, "The cinema? After I gave you the necklace?"

She didn't have to clarify any further, his eyes lighting up in remembrance. He grinned and leaned down to be closer to her level, her getting up on her tiptoes to meet him halfway in a kiss, thus finishing what they'd started from what felt like forever ago. She could feel Luka's hands caressing hers, as if to reassure that everything was alright and he was happy.

She waited until the kiss broke apart, then looked at him to ask teasingly, "Better than setting up a whole date to do that?"

He pressed his forehead to hers, sighing happily. "Definitely."

She beamed at him, almost tempted to kiss him again before she remembered what time it was. She gasped, inadvertently surprising him with the sound, then recoiled and placed her hands firmly on his shoulders, sitting him back down on the instrument case.

"You need to sleep!" she told him, then corrected a second later, "But—not here! Not right here anyway! It needs to be in a bed! Your bed!"

He laughed at the abrupt shift in tone, but nodded obediently at her, resting his fingers along her wrists. "I will. You'll sleep too, right?"

She nodded back, her heart skipping a beat at his care for her. "Yeah, I promise."

Her hands lingered on him, as did his with her as she pulled away from him. As much as she would've liked to stay with him, it was late and she still had a lot to take care of.

Rushing across the gangplank, she waited until she was safely on the other side so she wouldn't risk tripping as she turned to face him, walking backward and waving excitedly. "Bye, Luka!"

He suppressed a chuckle at the happiness-induced loudness of her voice, then waved back at her. It was only when he got up to take his guitar inside that she finally turned around and started officially heading home.

—————

When the last of the Adrien photos had been shoved into her trash bin - even the ones on her corkboard - Marinette allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief and collapse into her chair. It'd taken a little longer than she'd thought, but she was still satisfied with the change. The walk home and conversation with Luka had brought all of her thoughts together and made her feel optimistic about how the day had gone.

"Marinette?" Tikki looked up from the chocolate chip she'd been nibbling on, her being the only kwami awake at that hour. Voicing the inevitable, she asked, "What are you going to do about the cat miraculous?"

Marinette turned, acknowledging her, then reached into her purse to pull out the ring in question, turning it a few times in her hands. It was weird having it in her possession while she still had the ladybug earrings on, but it wouldn't stick around for long anyway, so she wasn't concerned.

Tikki continued, an urgency in her voice, "You're Ladybug, and you're not supposed to know anyone's identities, but you're also the guardian now, so you're supposed to give out miraculouses and know everyone's identities!"

Marinette, much to Tikki's apparent surprise, flashed her a smile and held the ring up confidently. "That's exactly why you're going to pick the next cat, Tikki."

Tikki blanked, dropping the chocolate chip in shock. "Wh—me?" Her voice squeaked. "Why me?"

Marinette would be lying if she said that she didn't find some amusement in Tikki's befuddlement. With a bit of effort, she pushed herself up from her seat, setting the ring down on the table and walking towards the sink at the other side of the room. "Because you've been with every ladybug who's ever existed, which means that you've known every ladybug and cat duo that's ever existed." Giving Tikki an expectant look, she added, "If anyone knows what kind of cat I'd need as a partner, it's you."

"But—" Tikki floundered, the thought clearly having never occurred to her. "It's the guardian who has to hand out miraculouses!"

"I won't know the new cat's identity this way," Marinette reminded her, idly tracing her fingertips along the sink's edge. "Sure, it'll be someone we both know, but if I didn't figure out that Adrien is Chat Noir until I tried, then I won't figure out this one either."

Her eyes scanned over the various drawers in her reach and she pulled open one in particular, a small box jerking forward from the momentum. It was the same box that held her ladybug earrings all those months ago, and now it would be the box for the new cat as well.

Holding the box to her chest and silently wishing luck upon it, Marinette returned to her table to see Tikki staring quietly at the ring in thought, apparently still processing what she'd been told. Marinette paid her no mind for the moment, setting the box down and searching various other drawers for a white cloth big enough for the box to be wrapped in. Then, once she'd successfully found one, she laid it out neatly on the table and opened the box to place the ring inside.

The moving of the ring snapped Tikki out of whatever trance she'd been in. She flew up, clinging to Marinette's hand and begging, "Wait! At least tell me what you'd want in a cat!"

Marinette supposed that was a win, since Tikki wasn't outright rejecting the idea and had little argument against it. She dropped the ring inside the box and smiled at the gentle 'click' it made when she closed it, then turned to address Tikki. The nervousness on display made a modicum of sense when considering that kwami were supposed to obey the guardian, so being told to do what they wanted was probably a little strange.

Marinette just took it in stride. She leaned against her chair as she considered her ideal cat, having been so used to Chat Noir that she needed a minute to imagine someone who really matched her.

"Thoughtful," she answered, nearly blurting the word out when it finally came to her. "Someone who thinks the way I do so I'm not doing everything myself. They can be selfless, but they have to have limits, and with good instincts so they won't throw themselves in front of me." Her expression growing fond at the idea of such a partner, she took the cloth and wrapped the box in it, sealing it with a strong knot as she added, "And... they have to be understanding, where I can cover for them and they can cover for me and we'll just—click."

She snapped her fingers for effect, watching as Tikki flew over to the wrapped-up box and tested it to ensure it was safe to carry. While she was tugging at the knot to confirm it was tight enough, Marinette stood and headed up the stairs to her bed, opening the way to her balcony so Tikki had a way out.

By the time Marinette peeked over the bed to check on Tikki, Tikki had already taken hold of the cloth and flew up to be eye level with her, the box being a noticeable yet manageable weight. Marinette moved to the side, allowing the straight-faced Tikki to go past her and go up to the balcony.

Thinking that Tikki had already gone, Marinette was about to close the trapdoor when she heard a soft, "Marinette?"

Her head turned to see Tikki, hovering above the little table with the box still held in her paws. She seemed conflicted, like she was struggling to find words, but eventually settled on, "You're a great guardian."

And with that, she left, Marinette blinking in surprise for a moment before a smile formed on her face. She closed the way to her balcony, then slipped back down the stairs to start getting ready for bed.

At the same time she'd be settling in to sleep that night, her tiny Miracle Box would be set down delicately in the Liberty, specifically on Luka Couffaine’s amp.

#((And some Lukanette obviously because I have no self control.))#MC's Writing #writing: story #category: salt #salt: chat noir #episode: Lies #other: ml spoilers #relationship: Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain Cheng

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titan-fodder · 4 years ago

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Prima Vista Part III

[ previous ]

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.

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felassan · 4 years ago

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DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

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For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey.

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production.

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles.

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size.

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”.

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better.

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments.

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic.

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right).

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t.

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

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[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #wanted to write these up properly and post them yesterday but wasn't able to #mass effect #anthem

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flightfoot · 3 years ago

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Miraculous Ladybug Season 4 Episode rankings (As of Optygami’s release)

ML season 4 has knocked it out of the park so far! It’s been absolutely amazing, and I’ve greatly enjoyed every episode.

That being said, some episodes have still been better than others (or have contained elements I find more appealing at least), so what better way to show that than with a ranking?

9. Queen Banana

We got a new hero this episode, and she is awesome! Vesperia and Chat have a nice little interaction, and while Vesperia gets taken out, it’s for a good reason - distracting Queen Banana so Ladybug can put glue in her pocket, disarming her. It was a really nice way of showing Zoe’s humility and ability for teamwork, even when it meant giving up the starring role, in order to complete the group’s overall goal.

The mini-movie felt like foreshadowing, what with the “Superheroine of Creation” being an obvious Ladybug expy, while the “Supervillain of Destruction” was a Chat Noir expy, though with fewer connections. Interestingly, it’s also used to parallel Zoe’s and Chloe’s relationship, with Zoe even quoting from the movie at the end.

And Andre’s character development was top-notch! Bully him around to do material things as much as you like, but hurting Zoe is off-limits. She’s Andre’s daughter too.

So why is it so low down? Simply put, it didn’t feel like it changed things as much as Sole Crusher did, nor did it showcase Marinette’s and Adrien’s relationship as much. It was good, but there was less to talk about concerning it than I thought there’d be.

8. Furious Fu

The first episode of Season 4 aired (even though it was episode 6 in production order), we got some lore drop this episode! Su Han gave us a better idea of what to expect from the Guardians and what their relationship with the kwamis had been like overall. Poor Plagg especially, he’s just treated like a bomb that could go off at any moment.

I especially liked seeing Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship this episode, and their differing reactions to Su Han and his proposals. Ladybug was insecure about not having defeated Hawkmoth yet and thought Su Han might have a point about the Miraculous being better in other hands, and for this to be something for the Guardians to handle.

Chat Noir meanwhile didn’t give a crap about Su Han’s authority, about this random guy who just showed up and tried to boss them around; but he DOES respect Ladybug’s, and made that known. That he’d give up his Miraculous, his ticket to freedom and also the vessel for one of his closest friends, Plagg, but only at LADYBUG’S request, not this dude.

But it also showed the limits of that, with him refusing to go along with even that when it’d mean that Ladybug would get amnesia. That he’d not only lose his Miraculous, but his closest, dearest friend as well.

The episode was well done, but just didn’t feel like it either changed things as much or showcased character development as much as the other entries on this list, which is why it’s lower.

7. Sole Crusher

This was our first look at a new character, Zoe, and she did not disappoint! She was absolutely adorable and I really felt for her, with needing to pretend to be nasty in order to not be practically disowned from her family.

It showcased how much Marinette had grown as well, with having Marinette see through Zoe’s Mean Girl act when they reunite and not jump to hasty negative conclusions, like she did with Adrien, instead considering that there may have been other factors involved with making Zoe act differently while with Chloe.

Also character exploration and growth for Andre, of all characters! Very unexpected. I really wanted him to succeed in his original dream, and I was thrilled at him comforting Zoe, with him empathizing with her, with acting as a parent towards her, even with her being his stepdaughter and presumedly not knowing her very well before this.

Zoe’s ability to anticipate how she’d need to act in order to conform with her family’s expectations while still getting to do what she wanted (for the most part), like with her pretending to be all prissy and stuck up when interacting with Audrey, or pretending that her messaging with Marinette was a setup to betray and humiliate her, showed a great understanding of the people around her as well as some great acting ability. And her realization of how she’d been putting on acts like this for so long before this, of her people-pleasing and afterwards attempting to just be herself, felt like foreshadowing for Adrien’s own arc.

And we got a few seconds of Marichat. Yay for crumbs!

6. Mr. Pigeon 72

This episode was PACKED. We got to see the followup to Gang of Secrets, with Ladybug freaking out and Alya trying to center her, as well as some followup to Lies, with Marinette trying to “help” Kagami get back together with Adrien. And on top of the stuff that forms the premise of the episode, we got to see Rena Rouge be badass again, Plagg and Ladybug team up, and even Umbrella scene 2, which I don’t think ANYONE saw coming!

Marinette was a lot of fun and we got to see some good stuff from Kagami and Alya here. It felt a little disjointed with how much was crammed into it and I missed Chat Noir, but overall it was really good!

5. Guiltrip

What an amazing episode! Rose is one of the least developed members of the class, mostly being known for being really sweet and being Juleka’s girlfriend, and not much else. Here, we got an inner look at her, at WHY she’s so positive, and how powerful that positivity can be. That she’s not innately positive just because, but that it’s a choice she makes.

Plus the class is AMAZING here. They care about their friends SO MUCH, even if they go about it the wrong way. We got to see Juleka and Rose caring about each other, and even though it went wrong, Rose understands why Juleka ended up spilling her secret and doesn’t blame her for it.

It also really showcased Marinette and Adrien, there different ways of dealing with serious issues, with Marinette jumping ahead and trying to do whatever she thinks will help immediately (help now, ask questions later) while Adrien tried to do the opposite, asking Juleka what she wanted first and trying to stick with that (ask questions first, then help). Both can be useful, depending on the circumstances.

Also got to see a bit more about Adrien’s turmoil, with him being borderline suicidal, and Nino feeling guilty that he wasn’t able to help Adrien with his father, hinting that something bad went down with Gabriel before this.

There was just a LOT to unpack with this episode, but it all fit together neatly!

4. Lies

All of the “Truth” related episodes were amazing! Lies being no exception. Also our first (and so far only) Adrien-centric episode this season.

Lies catapulted discussion of Adrien’s looming identity crisis, as well as his deflections and near-suicidal behavior, stuff that becomes even more apparent in Guiltrip. The breakup was handled well, with it not being Adrien’s fault (he had to leave and lie for the same reasons Marinette did), but with Kagami’s reaction being totally understandable and valid. She was a very active participant in it, even testing to see whether Adrien had lied. And she was ALLOWED to be pissed afterwards, to not trust him, even though she could tell that he wasn’t just doing this for no reason.

I wish we’d gotten more time with her as an akuma, but I can see why we didn’t. There just wasn’t that much time in the episode, and the emotional crux of the episode occurred between her and Adrien - there just wasn’t much she could do as an akuma that was gonna add much impact to the episode.

3. Optygami

Oh WOW did this episode make an impact. Major Wham episode in a season chockful of major revelations, status quo changes, and character progression.

Nathalie and Gabriel actually had a pretty clever plan, spying on the revealed wielders this whole time using the “one sentimonster per wielder, but there can be multiple sentimonsters from different wielders out at the same time” loophole. It meant that Nathalie was actually doing something while she was benched, and I’m willing to bet that she’s the one who came up with the plan in the first place. Say what you will about her morality or her taste in men, but she is an effective supervillain who may be an assistant (and totally fine with that role, which isn’t so common), but one with a lot of agency. And using impostors and try to force a situation where Ladybug would have to give a Miraculous to one of them, and using that opportunity to plant a spy sentimonster in a Miraculous in order to discover Ladybug’s identity and the location of the other Miraculous? Was inspired!

We were baited on there being a Reveal, but that wasn’t exactly a shocker. In any case, we did have a bunch of OTHER cool, impactful stuff.

Hawkmoth stepped up his game with his sentimonsters, making a couple of impostors to control the situation, with Senti Alec and Senti Nino. Seems like foreshadowing about there potentially being more sentimonsters in disguise...

The major developments everyone’s screaming about though, are:

1. Alya getting her Miraculous permanently, being the first “temporary” wielder to get that honor, and putting her in a greater position to help with any akuma that’s causing more trouble than usual.

2. And the one that’s gotten everyone theorizing, screaming, and writing fics: Chat Noir and Ladybug’s seemingly deteriorating relationship, with a special emphasis on how left out Chat is and just how much he’s being kept in the dark, and how he’s beginning to realize this, feeling unneeded. How much Chat’s hiding his hurt, and how that’s going to lead to some sort of emotional confrontation or breakdown down the line.

My ranking of Optygami may go up or down depending on whether future episodes follow through on what it sets up, especially with the foreshadowed Ladynoir confict.

Looks like we’re gonna have a hiatus after Optygami, considering that we don’t currently have airdates for any more episodes, but what a note to leave off on!

2. Truth

This episode was AMAZING. We got to see Luka and Marinette just hanging out casually, having fun together, like with the little trivia game they played on the way to the theater. Luka even showed a bit of a playful side, with setting up the last question so that the answer would end with “kiss me”.

Luka was also allowed to feel negative emotions for reasons aside from protecting Marinette, with him feeling down and a little abandoned because of Marinette constantly ditching - something that was given more context, with how we learned that he never knew his father, and how much it bothers him that his mom won’t tell him who it was.

The revelation of Jagged Stone being Luka’s father was one that’d already been leaked way back in January, though few people believed it at the time and it got little attention. It gave Luka a plotline that had nothing to do with Marinette, something that was sorely needed and one that I’m hoping gets expanded on later.

Also had some great Ladynoir, with Chat Noir and Ladybug discussing their relationship during the akuma fight, when they were forced to be truthful to boot! Ladybug really does like Chat’s sense of humor, and Chat doesn’t have a problem with Ladybug’s status as Guardian, so long as it doesn’t interfere with their relationship.

1. Gang Of Secrets

Gang of Secrets was a great followup to Truth, showing Marinette attempting to cope with with breakup, and the subsequent realization that she has to lie to everyone always, and how little time and trust that leaves for her regular relationships.

Meanwhile, the people around Marinette worry and try to help and comfort her as best they can, even when they don’t really know what’s wrong or what to do. From the Girl Squad to Chat Noir to... kind of the kwamis (though with them it’s more lack of understanding of romantic relationships rather than lack of knowledge that holds them back), everyone attempts to help her, but it’s just not feasible under the circumstances for her to be helped the way she needs to be while keeping her secrets.

And in order to keep those secrets, she snaps, forcing all her friends away.

But they don’t take that easily. They want to be there for Marinette, they want to be friends, and become akumatized specifically in order to find out what was wrong, comfort her, fix whatever it was, and become friends again. They really care for her a lot.

And then- AND THEN-!

ALYA DEAKUMATIZES HERSELF

BECOMES RENA ROUGE AGAIN

AND MARINETTE EVEN CONFESSES THAT SHE’S LADYBUG TO HER.

It’s one of the biggest changes to the status quo we’ve had. Like, Master Fu being introduced changed what Marinette was doing, meaning that they could call on new heroes and she had someone to discuss Miraculous stuff with besides Tikki, and Master Fu renouncing his Guardianship and passing it on to Marinette changed what Marinette was doing on a day-to-day basis more, but... well, it didn’t represent as big of a change in themes, of things that had been built up for seasons. Breaking the Secret Identity Rule? DOES.

Also sets up for some potential LadyNoir conflict down the line, with her not having told Chat that she told her identity to someone else yet. I’m sure they’ll be okay in the end, but it could test their relationship and the rules they’ve lived by since they started being superheroes.

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So that’s my ranking with the episodes we’ve had released so far. We’re a third of the way through the season and I gotta say, I’m really happy with it so far! Can’t wait to see what the rest of the season has in store for us.

#Miraculous ladybug #ml episode rankings #ml spoilers #optygami #queen bee #sole crusher #mr pigeon 72 #guiltrip #gang of secrets #ml lies #ml truth #furious fu #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #alya cesaire

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viridiave · 4 years ago

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NARUMITSU <ATTEMPTING TO READ THE SUBTEXT PLATONICALLY>

*Wrote all this some time last month so I might be off- really really off- also full disclosure I too am a Narumitsu shipper- this is just me giving myself a bad time doing the impossible and having fun XD

-I am going to fail sooner or later. Looking at you, Bridge to the Turnabout.

FIRST GAME >Turnabout Samurai -Yep. We're jumping right in with 'unnecessary feelings'. I'm going to be put on a stake for this. -This is going to become the main argument with any and all homoerotic subtext present in the first game- that it was unintentional. They didn't actively start making it gay until the second game, and even before then the producer for the games had to warn the development team not to try and insert these themes for fear of getting it wrong and lose the fanbase they'd accidentally caught the eye of. I can still create arguments for why this specific, hilariously meme-able line could be read romantically of course- but as far as the game development team at the time was concerned this interaction was never meant to be read as romantic. -Unease and uncertainty are... very valid feelings for Edgeworth to feel at this very moment and as much as I'd like to joke that he was feeling uncertain about his sexuality after seeing his childhood friend as an adult, this line was really just likely meant to lead up to the conclusion of Turnabout Goodbyes and Edgeworth's character arc for this game. His perfect win streak had just been shattered in a case prior. In this case, he was meant to persecute the lead actor of his favorite show- and in some ways his helping the defense can be taken as his biases getting the better of him. His sense of justice and his entire worldview is about to be overhauled, and I can see how he would regard this budding doubt in himself as an unnecessary (heh) distraction from what he believes is his true purpose in life.

>Turnabout Goodbyes -Edgeworth wanting to keep him away from DL-6 has its own section mostly because of how stubborn he becomes when it comes to Phoenix's insistence in particular. It's clear that this stubbornness is a front, I will concede with that- but there are merits to his initial reluctance in accepting Phoenix's defense. It's evident that Phoenix himself has grown over the course of the game so far, but in both of the times that he faced off against Edgeworth in court, his victories were... a tad bit contrived. For instance in Turnabout Sisters, Phoenix really only wins because Mia was being channeled and blackmailed White as he was about to leave the stand. Turnabout Samurai is a little better- but had him rely on quite a lot of coincidences (proven later to be substantiated) that surfaced during the trial. This is nothing to say of the deeper reason Edgeworth has over dissuading Phoenix from taking his case ("You in particular I cannot ask to do this.")- where I can make an argument for his pride and/or concern over Phoenix's career as an attorney. The stakes are relatively high here as well- if Phoenix fails, Edgeworth is incarcerated, Manfred von Karma goes free, DL-6 goes cold once again with no hope of getting re-opened, and everything that Phoenix has been working towards as an attorney would have been in vain. DL-6 is a case that has ruined many lives- it'd make sense if Edgeworth himself felt as though it would be a waste of time and effort to take this case because of how convinced he was of murdering his own father prior to Gourd Lake. He'd grown up for the past 15 years with a nightmare and a death sentence over his head- I wouldn't be surprised if he simply gave up and accepted that he was going to die at the hands of his prosecuting mentor. Even if he were acquitted for the murder of Robert Hammond, his perceived involvement in DL-6 would have thrown a wrench in his freedom- any lesser attorney would have given up on that. And this is unloaded BEFORE Phoenix tells him about the true reason as to why he became an attorney. -Phoenix's insistence to defend Edgeworth in this case can easily just be read as platonic- his complete, unfettered faith in Edgeworth's innocence is heavily influenced by that class trial, for better or for worse. While I'm perfectly happy to imagine that Phoenix's attachment to his idealized version of Edgeworth grew into something deeper sometime in the fifteen years that he hasn't seen him, I do believe that Phoenix in particular really is just that much of a sentimental person. This is to say nothing of his nature as a defense attorney- and what little time he's managed to spend with Mia has taught him that unbridled trust in his client is what gets him through the day, and he's putting it to practice here. Edgeworth was what he has been working towards the moment he decided he would practice law- as Phoenix at this point in time still believes that he could do no wrong despite seeing what Edgeworth is truly like in court. -Cutting into the meat of Phoenix and Edgeworth's shared past, I made a point earlier to say that Phoenix's perception of Edgeworth as a person is idealized. Every memory that Phoenix has had of Edgeworth prior to the events of the first game were from their childhood- and they had 4-8 months (plus one year if we're generous with the retconning some of the official art gave us) MAX to develop a friendship so strong that Phoenix makes major life decisions just to meet with this man. The fact that this time spent together was ENOUGH for Phoenix in the first place is... really hard to skirt around. To quote Dan from GameGrumps "this is something that you would only do for someone you're trying to marry" and if one of them was a woman I guarantee this ship would be canon already. But then again- since this is Phoenix Wright in particular somehow I can believe that he really is just that sentimental- and that isn't always a bad thing. He'd managed to save Edgeworth twice with this conviction after all. When Phoenix sees Edgeworth, he doesn't see a demon prosecutor, he sees his childhood friend who aimed to become a shining example of justice following in his father's footsteps. They address how shaky his foundations for becoming an attorney were in the Phoenix Wright Files once actually- going through a mini-existential crisis because he'd become an attorney with the main goal of saving Edgeworth from what he'd become, and now that he's accomplished that he's just kind of... lost. Edgeworth himself manages to pull him out of this, though. -man that hurts my case a lot actually but to be fair I was banking on failing -I just didn't expect it to happen so early even with the first game -in fact ESPECIALLY with the first game -though I cannot for the life of me wonder how I can come up with a heterosexual explanation for why the buildup towards Edgeworth telling Phoenix and Maya about his nightmares reads so much like a stunted love confession. I'm serious- just read any high school shojo manga ever. You'll find that it hits a lot of the same beats.

>Rise From The Ashes -It's in this case that we observe some of the consequences that the intial upheaval of Edgeworth's worldview in Turnabout Goodbyes causes him; distrust in the enforcement of the law. Not exactly the time for him to be dabbling in another, meme-able brand of unnecessary feelings. Several things like the Prosecutor's Office's relationship with the Police Department starts to waver with the murder of Bruce Goodman, and this becomes the final nail in the coffin for Edgeworth's worldviews and values as a prosecutor. His and Phoenix's teamwork in this trial becomes prevalent- the story behind the King of Prosecutors award represents this best despite it's currently incomplete state. The backstory behind this award paints an ideal of justice in the courtroom wherein the truth comes out as a result of the efforts of contradictory forces. A broken halberd that can cut through any shield (the prosecution) and a broken, unbreakable shield (the defense). Read as representation the text becomes something of a metaphor for the ideal justice that manifests itself in the best parts of Edgeworth and Phoenix respectively- the duality of their opposing professions rather than something that is limited to their relationship. -The same argument that I've used for Phoenix's unwavering belief in Edgeworth's innocence in Turnabout Goodbyes can be used for this case as well. -Though Edgeworth still goes M.I.A for a year after this case, it does grant his disappearance a bit more context as to why exactly it is that he left- and I'll be taking a tiny liberty with this and apply the interpretation that the Miles Edgeworth Files grants us, and that he left in order to better himself and grow as a person, a prosecutor, and as a friend to Phoenix Wright. It's... difficult for me to want to read this as anything but romantically-charged because the narrative beats are NOT lost on me (the dialogue makes this especially hard. send help.)- there's a possibility that Edgeworth at this point in time realizes the value in having a better, more functional dynamic with the one defense attorney who he considers a true equal in court. This dynamic will allow for less chances to encounter missteps and errors in any verdicts handed down in court, and if Edgeworth is to pursue his ideal of justice- Phoenix Wright is undoubtedly essential to this endeavor. The aftermath of Rise From The Ashes is indicative of this newfound goal of his- the symbolism behind the old King of Prosecutors award and the two halves of the evidence list certainly helps this case. -<"It seems all you do is worry about me." -Miles Edgeworth, Rise From The Ashes> For good fucking reason Edgeworth. You were accused of murder and have implicated yourself on the stand for DL-6 just a few months ago- and if the Investigations games are anything to go by, you're more of a danger magnet than PHOENIX is. I had to say it. The first Investigations game takes place over the course of 2-3 days and the sheer amount of shit that Edgeworth had to deal with in between that interval truly makes me wonder how Phoenix Wright ended up with the title of danger magnet. And THIS time- Edgeworth's car becomes a crime scene because his corrupt superiors needed a convenient way of transporting a corpse. There's VERY good reasons to worry about the livelihood of Miles Edgeworth. -Okay I... can't believe I forgot about the chessboard. Here's the kicker- the one we see from his office isn't even the only one he owns. I... legitimately cannot give you ANY purely heterosexual, platonic explanation for why Miles Edgeworth has THREE (THREE. I CANNOT OVERSTATE THIS. HE HAS T H R E E OF THESE FUCKING THINGS. GOOD GOD. HE CAN'T BE ANY MORE EXTRA.)(there exists a similar, portable set in the Investigations games- and he has a new set by the time of Dual Destinies) sets of custom-made chessboards with personalized, highly-specific red and blue designs made purely to depict his rivalry with Phoenix Wright. I fold. I give up. I forgot about the chessboards I wAS NOT EXPECTING TO FAIL THIS E A R LY- -You know what the real kicker is with Rise From the Ashes? The main argument that I have introduced back in Turnabout Samurai does not apply here. Rise From the Ashes was made as a DS-exclusive case and did not exist in the original GameBoy version of the Trilogy. Which means if there is homoerotic tension written in for this case (and there happens to be a lot. the chessboard is proof enough.), then we can safely assume that the writers at this point were well-aware. So yeah- maybe don't feel TOO bad about the unnecessary feelings line- because ever since then the writers have been playing off of that and it SHOWS. -Is there really a point to this I'm just- everything is stacked against me tryna interpret this platonically -Like I know I make a point to say that a romantic relationship isn't the end-all of all relationships because this franchise LOVES pushing the Found Family dynamic and I'm an absolute sucker for that -good god by the time Dual Destinies rolls around I'll probably just give up and happily say they're happily married -that's literally what they act like don't even pretend

#narumitsu #wrightworth #ace attorney #gyakuten saiban #phoenix wright #naruhodou ryuuichi #miles edgeworth #mitsurugi reiji #i'll probably write more once school blows over #so have the first game for now #trust me i tried #maybe i'm just not an anti-shipper and that's why i failed #uh feel free to set the comments on fire #but like civilly #we're all here to have fun okay #even if fun means shipping

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