#glad the creator's able to finish the story though!

[comickergirl]

How it feels knowing Wolf and Revolver only has one chapter left

(Art from chapter 7 of Wolf and Revolver by Yu Suzuki)

[avocad1s]

Note: This has been in my drafts for a while, so while I’m finishing Part Seven, I’ll post this.

Character Included: Zhongli, Venti, Ei, Tsaritsa, Xiao, Ganyu, Diluc, Ningguang, Childe, Scaramouche, Dottore

This is long so everyone else is utc! :>

As the Creator, suitors will seek to win your attention. Your inherent beauty is unparalleled, many could only imagine to be graced with your physical or verbal affections. So when word gets out that you want to be with someone romantically, everyone will jump at the opportunity.

If you pick one of the ARCHONS, no one in Teyvat would be surprised. It was obvious you valued them the most out of everyone in Teyvat, they had the strongest connection to you.

If you pick is Zhongli, that is when his identity as the former Geo Archon is officially revealed. Many were surprised to see that their Archon never died, and others questioned why he wanted to take a mortal form in the first place. However none of those things mattered when he was the one you held dear.

Liyue as a whole held a ton of pride it was their Archon you wanted to be with. That means you’ll want to stay in their nation permanently, no? For Zhongli, this is a moment he has waited millennia’s for. He always knew he was your most devoted, everything he’s done was for the betterment of Teyvat and you. When it comes to your relationship, He will do anything to make you happy. If it’s as small as getting you your own Serenitea Pot? Consider it done. If it’s something as major as becoming the Geo Archon again? He’ll do it in a heartbeat.

As much as he cares for you, Zhongli knows that you still have matters to attend to in the other nations. He would be glad to go with you if you wanted but he also has no problem staying in Liyue until you return. He’s waited this long and now that he has you, being apart for a little bit won’t hurt (at least that’s what he tells himself after you’re gone for two weeks).

-

Considered to be the weakest of the seven, Venti is ecstatic that he is the one you want to be with. He has a carefree and playful nature that bleeds into his nation naturally, but even if he doesn’t show his devotion as strongly as Zhongli, it’s still present.

He enjoys doing any activity with you, do you enjoy wine? Well let him take you to Diluc’s Tavern for the best wine you can drink. Naturally he always offers to pay, but unknown to you he’ll just put it on his never ending tab. (not that anyone would ever charge you for anything, you’re their God!). Do you enjoy his singing? He’s absolutely flattered! Let him sing you all the songs he knows, and eventually you’ll two will be able to perform duets of the songs you enjoy the most.

Just like in Liyue, Venti’s true identity will be revealed once your relationship is announced. Mondstadt will be overjoyed, not only has Lord Barbatos returned but he has secured the love of the Creator themselves. You should do expect lots of songs made about you two. You both will be a symbol of love in the nation of Freedom. Not only that, Mondstadt will plan many festivals throughout the year dedicated to the two of you. (Perhaps even a marriage?)

Just like his nation, Venti values freedom above all else. He would never want to hold you back from doing anything you love, so if you wish to visit other nations he has no problem with it. Of course there will be times he’d want to go with you, especially if the nation you’re going to is having some event in your name but Mondstadt is his home and that’s where he likes to stay. Don’t worry though, he will always be waiting for your return and he will have more songs to sing and stories to recite while you both relax in Windrise.

-

This could go one of two ways with Ei.

If you choose her during the vision hunt decree, it would solidify in her head that what she’s doing is right and that even her Creator supports it. She would be way more harsh in pursuing her view of eternity, the fight with the rebellious army would end quickly once the Shogun joins the battlefield. Now they aren’t just disrespecting her, they are disrespecting you. She will not allow that.

The citizens of Teyvat would be conflicted. Should they get rid of their visions? Do you not like them? Maybe you’ll show them they same value if they didn’t have them anymore. It would certainly be a mess for you to clean.

Also in this scenario leaving Inazuma would be… difficult. Ei doesn’t understand why you want to leave, what can those nations offer you that she can’t. She’s doing this all for you and her sister, can’t you see that?

Now if you choose her after the Traveler’s involvement in Inazuma, she would be different. Now she’s trying to find another way to pursue eternity and having you there to support and help her definitely makes her feel better about the situation. She wants to have a better relationship with her nation but she doesn’t know how to go about that, but everyone adores you so being with you should help! At least she hopes.

On the rare occasion she decides to walk around Inazuma city she would be happy if you go with her. She can be a bit awkward at times since she doesn’t believe she should indulge herself but if you tell her she can have all the dango and dango milk she desires she’ll come around to the idea. Especially if you’re indulging with her.

-

“Oh… You’re picking the Tsaritsa? Oh no! There’s no problem with that, you can pick whoever you like Your Grace.”

That is a line you’d hear all the time after announcing your affections for the ice queen. Not many people can think of Snezhnaya without thinking of the Fatui and all of the… things they’ve done in each nation.

Although to the rest of the world, the groups motives are unknown it must be something you support if you harbor affection for the founder of the Fatui, right?

No matter, even if people would have their objections to the union, no one would dare say anything. The Fatui’s power would only grow stronger, many would believe that going against them now means that they go against you. (They might even use that to their advantage)

The Tsaritsa cares deeply for you. As if you are a flame, her cold persona melts immediately when she’s in the presence of you. She’d do absolutely anything for you, and I mean anything. She’s already forsaken her relationships with her fellow Archons so if you make any requests about your distaste of other nations she will waste no time taking care of it.

Unlike the other Archons, she’s is open to killing for you, even if she doesn’t do it herself, she has a lot of powerful people who can take care of it for her.

When it comes to you leaving the nation, she’ll be reluctant. Snezhnaya has everything you need, why would you want to go anywhere else? Are you cold? She can easily get you some warmer clothes or warm you up herself. She’ll come up with any excuse to keep you to here. Don’t get it wrong though, she still has lots of respect for you and your word is still law. If you stay stubborn about leaving the snowy nation, she’ll give up and let you leave. But she will always have an eye on you so don’t worry :)

-

If you pick one of the ADEPTI Liyue feels honored, you may not have feelings for their Archon but the Adepti are the next best thing, right? The rest of Teyvat are a bit confused, what’s so special about these illuminated beasts that caught your attention?

The tactful Ganyu is conflicted if she can only pick one of her two lives. Humanity or the Adepti. Is she capable of doing both? She’ll try her hardest, her contract with Rex Lapis and her position as the secretary to the Liyue Qixing makes her schedule impossibly full. However she will always make time for you.

You mean everything to her, when she fought in the Archon War by Rex Lapis’ side it was for you. Being with you is a dream come true, it was something she always fantasized about. Although she never thought she’d actually catch your eye.

Anytime you’re in Liyue she’ll attach herself to your side catering to your every need. For once she doesn’t mind putting off her work if it means she can spend more time with you. She’ll take you to best places to eat in Liyue, bring you to drink tea with the rest of the Adepti, and if you wish to watch her spar with the Conquerors Of Demons. Well don’t blame her is she shows off a bit.

Once your stay in Liyue comes to an end, Ganyu will drown herself in her work. She has so much catching up to do and even though she regrets it now, she knows she’ll do it again once you come back to her.

-

Oh Xiao… he believes he doesn’t deserves the value you give him. As much as he cares and loves you, he came to terms that he’d only watch you from afar. He will protect Liyue for you so you can enjoy the greatest things this world has to offer. So why? He wants to ask. All of the blood he has shed over the centuries, how can you feel this way about him?

It’s obvious that Xiao has a good amount of self- depreciation, he feels as if he has to push everyone he cares about away. All of his fellow Yaksha has fallen and Xiao doesn’t want to drag anyone down with him.

Yet staying away from you is hard for him, when all you want is to be with him how can he refuse a request from his God? He fears that getting to close to you would makes his worst nightmare come true, but eating Almond Tofu with you won’t hurt anything… and maybe looking at the stars on top of Wangshuu Inn?

You are a double edged sword for Xiao, being with you makes him fear you may get hurt. However when you two are apart, he feels his karmic debt downing him.

But if you don’t show affections for him until after his time in the Chasm with Yelan and the others, he would be drastically different. He now realizes that his life, like everyone else’s, has meaning. He doesn’t have to push the ones he cares for away and he doesn’t have to constantly sacrifice himself for others.

In this instance Xiao would try way harder when it comes to being with you, he doesn’t know much about relationships or any type of customs that comes with it, but he will try for you. He doesn’t want to disappoint.

-

So it’s not the Archons nor the Adepti you desire? Well that’s completely fine! There are many other influential people that live in Teyvat. Some might even call them the LEADERS of the nation they reside in. Or maybe they are just very dependable and have gained everyone’s trust and respect.

Oh so it’s Master Diluc that you desire? Well no one in Mondstadt can blame you. He is the most desired bachelor in the nation of freedom after all. Although many are disappointed that they won’t have a chance with the tavern owner anymore, they also can’t help but feel a bit relieved that it’s you he’s with.

And my oh my, Diluc is just as surprised that you want him too, but it’s a welcome surprise. After his father died and his relationship with his brother became… strained you were all he had left. He would pray to you daily about his wine business, his tavern, or even his secret identity as the Darknight Hero.

Once you descend, his devotion to you becomes stronger.

He doesn’t trust the Knights with your safety, we all know he believes they are incompetent so once you step into Mondstadt, expect Diluc to basically be glued to your side. You want anything from the shops? Let him buy it! He has more than enough Mora to buy anything you desire. Do you want some wine? Please allow him to escort you to Dawn Winery for the finest wine he has.

Speaking of Dawn Winery, Diluc would prefer if you’d stay there. The Fatui bought out the nicest inn Mondstadt has to offer, and even though they explicitly stated they had no problem with their Crestor staying there, Diluc doesn’t want you to. He has a big issue with the Fatui and as long as you are in Mondstadt, they have no chance getting near you.

Diluc doesn’t mind when you depart Mondstadt, he knows how busy you are and he has important work to get done himself. Unless you are leaving for Snezhnaya, he will try to convince you to go somewhere else. If that doesn’t work, he will worry constantly worry about your safety in the claws of the Fatui. His prayers to you would increase until you’re back in his arms again.

-

There is no such thing as a secret in Liyue, so when you show affections Ningguang. Everyone in Liyue will find out fast. Not much is known about Ningguang and all of the things she does for Liyue, people will scramble to catch even a spec of knowledge that falls from the Jade Chamber.

But one thing everyone knows about the woman is how much she loves you. Before you descended, her daily routine would consist of praying to you as soon as she wakes, working, and praying again before she lays to rest. When Liyue throws celebrations in your name, she would give you the most lavish offerings. Not one person in Teyvat would be able to match anything she gives you.

Anytime you’re in Liyue she will force insist that you stay in her home. Have you seen a better place in Teyvat? She doubts it! Don’t forget about the amazing view she has up there too. Ningguang will also handle all of the expenses for anything you desire, she’s arguably the richest woman in Teyvat there is not one thing you’d want that would be out of her budget. If her God wants it, you will have it

She’d treat you to the most luxurious meals you will ever have, making sure everything is adjusted to your tastes. Even if the spices you like don’t originate from Liyue, she will send people to go get whatever you need. All that matters to her is to see you happy.

-

Erm, Your Grace? The one you desire is a FATUI HARBINGER? You should stay away from the likes of them. They have no good intentions, all they do is exploit innocent people and gain power over the other nations. The Fatui has no respect for…

There are only four things Childe cares for, his family, the Tsaritsa, fighting, and you. As he grew up, his family told him how amazing you were and all he dreamed about was meeting you face to face, and when he became a Fatui Harbinger he knew that would be possible.

However he got more than he would’ve ever imagined. He got to call you his.

Childe has no issue killing anyone for you, if anyone goes against you, he will take care of it.

Unlike anyone before, Childe will want to go everywhere with you, he’s already a Harbinger so he’s used to traveling to all of the nations and not only that, he has the money to go anywhere too (thank Pantalone for that smh)

He will rub this in the faces of his comrades, he’s the youngest Harbinger, the lowest ranked but he still managed to snag your attention? Yeah, they’re not living this down.

When it’s just the two of you though he’s soft, he’d love for you to meet his family. They mean so much to him just like you do, to have you all in the same room would make him so happy.

-

Where should I start with the Balladeer? He‘s a puppet and doesn’t have a heart, but these feeling he has for you is strong.

At first he tries to push you away, his… mother cares so much for you and as he tries to distance himself from her, he thought that meant he had to hate you. But he couldn’t…

As he tried to find meaning within himself, everyone kept telling him to turn to you. Even his own friend that tragically died had told him that your divine light would guide him in the right direction. He didn’t want to listen.

Once he had joined the Fatui he figured he wouldn’t hear about you again, but oh boy was he wrong. He hadn’t met anyone more devoted to you than this group, everything they do is for you. All of the killing, exploiting, experimenting, and lying was done in your name and honor.

Scaramouche needed something to latch on to, his mother thought he was useless, and unbeknownst to him at the time, his attachment to the Fatui was a complete lie.

He will try to be useful in any way he can. The Fatui wouldn’t matter to him anymore, getting his hands on the Electro Gnosis doesn’t matter, all that matters is what you want.

With you around, he finally has something to fill his heart with, he will do anything and everything not to upset you. The last thing he wants is for you to throw him away like everyone else.

-

So it’s the Doctor that you want? Can’t say that I blame you…

On the surface, it would seem that Dottore doesn’t worship you. He won’t deny your existence if asked but if he’s asked if he worships you, he’s closed off about it.

Even in his days in the Akademiya he would always pray to you for luck before his studies or exams (not that he needed it). When he was interested in ancient machines and wanted to know more, he would pray to you for a breakthrough to prove to the Akademiya scholars and sages that this is what they should be studying. However he was chased out before that could happen.

He didn’t blame you for it, in fact, leaving Sumeru had given him a better opportunity, the Fatui. They actually funded any experiment he desired, whether it was about the ancient machines, the Archons, or the secrets of Teyvat, he would know it all.

However once you arrived, you took all his attention.

It’s not that he wanted to experiment on your per say, it’s just… he wanted to know more about you! You’re the God of Gods, you have power people on Teyvat could only imagine having. Being able to take a closer look at you would mean everything.

Once the two of you become close, Sumeru are the first to regret it, the one you favor is someone they had thrown out of their nation not just once, but twice. They feel absolutely foolish.

Since you’re a God, Dottore definitely believes your have greater intelligence than the God of Wisdom herself and he would love to “poke at your brain” if you allow him, he would ask you questions about wherever you were before coming to Teyvat and how Teyvat was many centuries ago.

If this is before his time in Sumeru and creating his own God, he would still have his Segments from previous times in his life. Yeah… they’re all devoted to you too. So if you like Dottore, that means them too right?

I think it’s clear that he and his Segments do not get along, they’d all be fighting for your attention lmao (obviously he wins all the time) but if Dottore is too busy with his Harbinger duties he doesn’t mind if you want to spend time with them. It’s better than you running to someone else for attention.

Note: I am also working on a masterlist atm so that should be out once part seven comes out! 🫡

© avocad1s please do not plagiarize or post to any other website

[pearwaldorf]

I have been trying to write this on and off for a while. I figure the second anniversary of the show is as fine an occasion as any to shove it out into the world. It is not everything I want to say about it, but I think the important bits are there.

It is a human impulse to be seen. To be told, through art, you are not alone. It is universal, but of special importance to people who are not well-represented in media (i.e. everybody who isn’t cis, white, able-bodied, skinny, and conventionally attractive).   

This show speaks to me as a queer person who figured things out later than most of my peers. (Not quite as late as Ed and Stede but not terribly far off either.) It’s not super common to see queer media address this, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that reassurance until I got it. That it’s okay to find these things any time in your life. To be told “A queer is never late, they’re always fashionably on-time.” 

They’re not my first canon queer ship. But they are the first ones where I knew it was true from the get-go. Multiple people assured me this was the case. And yet, I still didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes. This experience is not unusual for fans around my age.  

After I finished up season one, I laid in bed and cried. It’s not something I thought would affect me so much, but it feels like a weight I’d carried so long I didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be part of me is gone.

One of the reasons people unfamiliar with the fandom seem to think it’s absolutely crazy (which some of it is, to be fair, but every fandom has that) is the way fans of the show get extremely super intense about it. It took me a few weeks to realize this is a trauma response. I’m not even sure “trauma” is the right word. It doesn’t interfere with my day to day function, but it lasted for years. Decades. So it was definitely something that fucked me up. And in the way you can only start to see something as you’re moving past it, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my head around this. (I don’t know if I have anything to say about it yet. Maybe I need more time to sit with it.)

I know this sounds contrary, but I’m really glad David Jenkins does not come from fandom. Sometimes it’s good to know where a line is, and others it’s better to not know there’s a line at all. And this is, sad to say, remarkable to somebody who has had to deal with this for so long. With so many writers and showrunners aware of the line, and getting right up next to it, but never crossing it.

Imagine doing a show with a queer romance and not understanding why this was received with such emotion and fervor, because it’s just two people in love right? What blissful ignorance that this needed to be explained to him! And then he listened to people’s experiences with queerbaiting, and went “Oh my god you thought I was going to do WHAT?” And then you go “Huh. That is really fucked up.” 

The problem with being told something enough, even though you know it’s wrong, is you start to believe it regardless. All the excuses and hedging. It’s so very difficult to do they tell us, when we hear from queer creators how they had fight tooth and nail to make it as gay as it already was. 

And then comes Jenks, just yeeting it out there: majority queer and (not and/or. and) POC cast, an openly non-binary person playing an openly non-binary character. The ability to not have to make one queer (and/or) POC character speak for everybody, so you can inject a tiny bit of nuance into the conversation. The way you can tell more kinds of stories, like the one where the smol angry internalized homophobe comes into his own with the support of a queer community, even though he was a giant fucking asshole to them before.

So many people were like “You can just DO that? It’s really that easy?” And wasn’t that a fucking Situation, to have that curtain pulled aside. What next? Majority POC casts with stories about POC written by POC? Absolute madness. (Please please watch The Brothers Sun on Netflix. It’s so fucking good.) 

And people will scoff and say “Of course a cishet(?) white man would be able to get this pushed through.” But do they usually? The thing I don’t think people understand about allies is they use their privilege to wedge the door open. You still have to do the work to get through, but at least you have a place to start. And it really fucking matters.

The press keeps trying to tell me The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is the OFMD substitute we need while we float in the gravy basket. I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine show, but I don’t know who has watched OFMD and decided the itch we needed scratched was anachronistic historical comedy.

I want stories written by people that reflect their lived experiences, with actors and crew committed to bringing that to life. And I would like streamers and studios to commit to giving them a chance, and marketing them properly so people know they exist. 

You can keep people satisficed with scraps for only so long. At some point, somebody is going to give them a whole seven course dinner and people will wonder why they’ve been putting up with starving this entire time.

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

Leaders of the GSA~

(Past, present, and future) A.K.A: The Pendragons ~

When I first decided to continue (KBASW), I wasn't sure what direction the story would go or if anyone would still want to hear it. But I'm so glad I came back! I got inspired by so many other creators and people that I finally know where I'm going.

I know this piece is a little spoiler-ish, but I wanted to do something special to end the year. So it's the three GSA leaders (past, present, and future.) in their final armor sets!

And the story has evolved into something beautiful!~ I wanted to get this out there before the New Year. And Merry (belated) Christmas!

Guys, I just wanted to thank you all for such an awesome year. This goes out to all my mutuals & followers! I don't know where the story or drive would be without you guys!

Keep reading if you wanna more info/lore, if not...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! <3

Sir Arthur Pendragon and his final armor~

And yes, I know the blatant dragon references. (I look at so many dragons to get the armor right.) I swear it was a miracle that I was able to finish this before New Year's!

I'm pretty sure I'm finalizing the armor and mask, though I'm not sure if I should keep it open-faced (with his eyes being hidden). Or have his face hidden with his eyes peeking out.

For those of you who are aware (read this to learn more), Sir Arthur was supposed to be the "secret/surprise villain" at the end of the original telling of the story. (When surprise villains were trending "Frozen" Disney era.)

But for the rewrite, how on earth did this man transform into a good guy and one of my favorites!? The evolution of this man still blows my mind! But he has one of the most touching stories in the KBASW plot line.

Sir Arthur's story is a full-on love story (Celarthur), but it also serves as a setup for the main story. (Which is why it's taking me so long to finish Celestine's character sheet... sorry for the wait on that, but it's coming... I promise! )

Throughout the story, you're gonna see a lot of parallels between the three of them. But Sir Arthur is ultimately the one who ends the cycle and lays out the foundation for the galaxy.

Sir Arthur is meant to be the match that sparked the era of peace in the galaxy... (Dark era being Sir Uther's) Meta Knight is supposed to be the spark... and then Kirby is the flame. :3

Needless to say, THE PENDRAGON FAMILY IS STACKED!

Future titles:

Kirby: The Starlight Prince

Meta Knight: The Guardian of Heroes

Sir Arthur: The King of kings

I look forward to the next year with you guys! THANK YOU AND I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED IT!

[red-carter]

I forget how much I want to share my positivity and whatnot because I've been a tad more reserved for my own sanity. But like, to everyone I know, hell, even if I *don't* know you. This is especially for you.

The world sucks, I know that. On this world we're just living, and we wanna have fun. There are a lot of times where it all just, doesn't work out, and then there are the fun moments. We all struggle, at least a little bit, and if you don't, I apologize but I don't believe you. But, I'm glad you don't struggle if you truly haven't.

Now, I don't know your story, or if I do, then I'm happy to have befriended such an awesome and awe inspiring person. I've been inspired by *every* single person that's come into my life. Whether y'all realize it or not. Content creators, random people on the internet, random friends or just people you've passed on the street. We're not all gonna get along, and that's not what this is about.

I might be completely rambling, but I hope that you all know, despite your situation(s). Despite me not knowing you, you all are AMAZING! I'm so proud of you, for how far you've come, whether you did some things in the past that you don't exactly like, or wish you hadn't done. Or it be stuff that you're doing right now, or even not doing. I'm proud of you. Look at how far you've come, you're still here!

Again, I might not know your situation, but I sure hope that you're able to smile at this. Why? Because I'm sure someone as damaged or not deserves to hear something kind. You're beautiful, believe it or not. Even if it isn't outward beauty as most would like or hope. We all have beautiful souls, personalities. If you're, no light way to put it, a shitty human, but you're willing to learn, to listen, I'm proud of you. Just gotta take that first step. Or even just baby steps.

Baby steps will get us there. Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening, or it feels like we're walking backwards. That's the thing though, sometimes walking backwards means going forwards. The amount of times I've relapsed is far from few, but I'm still going.

It might hurt, but thank you. Thank you for being alive. Thank you for continuing on despite the hard times. Thank you for being you. I mean this with the most platonic ness possible. I'm not meaning this as a romantic thing in the slightest. Promise. I love you.

I hope that today is a good day for you, or if not... That it's shitty, that you still have something to make you smile. I'm sorry it was a bad day, but I'm sure things will turn around soon. To happier and chillax days, even if you don't do anything. You've got this! I believe in you, and proud!!

Also, rq, if there's something that you've been meaning to do. Just try. You'll never know until you do it. If you don't, that's okay, but don't hold yourself back. We've only got one life to live, might as well live it to its fullest.

Oh my god, Phineas and Ferb theme song just started playing as I finish this up. Pls XD

Alrighty, again, hope you have a good day, and if not, I still love and am proud of you still!!

[furymint]

2024 Creator Reflection

FFXIV.

1. Playing with each others' fingers

it was nice to write wwi again... id planned for a complete conversion of nol and eli's story into this verse, but other hyperfixations got in the way and i forgot all my research for it (thankfully I have lots of notes). i liked how both of them are ridiculous here, and how nolanel is able to show both reason and disorder under an incompetent system.

2. Frightened

i think this was the strongest nol/eli writing this year. i had a lot of fun working out the correct verbs and balance during the fight. challenging nol w magic and garleans was also satisfying. i didnt get to participate much in nutley's extraordinary Tower rp plot, so im glad i could write this little bit of nol during endwalker. his silly convo w eli abt crushes is also set during that time.

3. Possessive Hand-Holding

This one is cute. I like culture shocking nol and eli with each other's communities, but i usually do that w nobility or penury, not making nolanel walk into a cruising district HGTHGTHHU 

FFXVI.

1. For Now I Am Winter

i have two more to write, but this is 200 words each (plus a couple bonus longer ones) of teredios in winter. i got to write some wwi au which kind of made me rly happy. i started to get used to the tiny frame as i continued throughout the month, and it rly enabled me to explore some ideas whether or not they fit in such a limit or not. i ended up liking each response in its own way, but i think 4. tinsel, 10 icicle, and 16. candles are my favs. i also need to give a big thank you to my friends for absolutely exploding my emails w comments. you make me so happy 😭😭😭

2. the waves now loose

tall ship brain rot finally indulged in.. it was fun to be back on the water after so long. getting to write invulnerable, young, spiteful dion after coming from my tired post-game dion was also great fun. it took me about 4 months to finish it and it began w this bullet point i cooked up while brainstorming lavendre's 2023 secret santa/No murmur against Fate.

even if this is canon-compliant tedi (the sanbreque navy is REAL OK🤡), i liked getting to establish some more of terence's refusal to accept the wider financial responsibility of knighthood bc that will be big in The Light I Hear ch3. talking abt the violence and tragedy of the ship is what i did best tho i think.

'terence writings words on dion's back w his finger' is a very old concept i had in my pocket for nol/eli which never had the right time. this fic has the longest and most explicit smut ive ever written (which isnt a lot lbr) and i think it finally kicked that bug out of my brain that liked writing it. which is also to say, idk how to reflect on it bc i feel neutral towards it rn. i have a lot of brainworms i need to wake up in 2025 to feel passionate again.

im not gonna put too much detail into this before i make myself upset. i didn't really meet any of my goals from last year. i did a lot of tellier research and made some astounding developments on that end, but not much else. i want to write more no matter what. i can feel the rust on myself every time i try to write, and when i look at my older writing and its beauty i get paralyzed by how i can no longer produce something like it right now.

i had a lot of good times last year too, though, and miku expo was probably the best day of my life. i also got to see kikuo, masashi hamauzu, nothing but thieves, and ffviir2 orchestra. we went to new york and i met karo and anew! i went to tellier's apmnt and found new poems! i made wyvern tails and gave a few out. i played a lot of disney dreamlight and made some decor im rly happy with. i plotted jillian's xmas gift for a while and she really liked it. i enjoyed the new dragon age game a lot. i bought some books im super thrilled to have. i got the sculpture arts aerith statue.

i need to build my stupid pc no matter what. i need to take care of myself. i need to let myself write instead of fearing my inability. im going to finish my degree next year. im scared about 2025, but it'll also be the year me and jillian get to see hachi. i really hope we can see hitorie at miku symphony.

thank you everyone for being my friend

past reflections:  2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

[rustyvanburace]

SMT VV review'ish

Okay so I had finally finished Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance the other day and have a lot of thoughts about it.

TL;DR: I'm going to be real when I say that, while VV is certainly loads better and brings much needed and highly appreciated improvements to the writing, characters, and gameplay; I personally still felt disappointed with VV and even felt let down in some areas.

Full thoughts and major spoilers under the cut.

Others have commented before that CoV starts off really strong and promising before just kind of fizzling out following the events at Shinjuku (or even during), and tbh I have to agree with that assessment. VV hits a gripping climax with the Qadistu and Tiamat's emergence, completely altering the narrative with the deaths/disappearances of several key characters and pitting the (what I call) "creation war" at a grave new stake. …But then it just fizzles away after Tiamat emerges and you fuse with Koshimizu. The Qadistu disappear then without any proper conclusion, having effectively served their sole purpose in the game (I was so confused that I wondered if they died off-screen). You enter Taito with new circumstances and stakes, but ultimately Taito remains largely the same as it was in CoC as a battleground for Who Wants To Be A Creator. It honestly felt detached from the new narrative and maybe even tone deaf to the extreme shit that just hit the fan moments ago. The "creation war" resumes just the same as if there weren't no Tiamat, with only relatively minor differences. At the very least, I'd have expected the other Bethel branches to comment on Tiamat's emergence and maybe take her threat a lot more seriously. But the bosses there treat the Nahobino as if he's the sole important figure.

The Qadistu, I had expected there would be more from them after Shinjuku instead of them ceasing to exist once their purpose was fulfilled. All that build up only for them to just disappear immediately after felt very anticlimactic. I understand now they were absorbed into Tiamat (and Lilith into Yoko), but honestly, I would have liked one more boss battle with them for a proper conclusion. This could've served as an opportunity to personally get back at them, especially for taking Aogami away. The Qadistu, or at least just Lilith, could've remained as consuls to Yoko as guidance in her new goddess role.

On that note, Tao and Yoko are great characters and I honestly hadn't expected Atlus to write them as CoV's new Law and Chaos reps. It works remarkably well with V's trend of subverting usual alignment rep expectations. And it's excellent that the two Canons differ in that regard; that we can have Tao and Yoko as alignment reps in CoV and Dazai and Yuzuru in CoC. It's also just really great being able to see alignment reps interact with each other and grow on-screen after the lacking presentations with Dazai and Yuzuru in CoC. It's fantastic that, through Tao and Yoko, we are presented with ethical questions beyond just the demon sidequests. I especially love that they comment when you complete said sidequests. Yuzuru's and Dazai's (and Yakumo's to an extent) scarce and vague development were one of my big gripes with vanilla V, making it hard to identify with the cast and I am glad that some of this was improved on. I'm also glad that Yuzuru and Dazai got some much needed character expansion and on-screen time in CoV. They are much more fleshed out now than they were in vanilla/CoC alone…

…That said though, I still have misgivings with the boys' prominence in CoV. When guest characters were revealed for VV and we got footage of Dazai and Yuzuru as guests, I was really excited and hopeful they would have a much more active role throughout the main story. And to an extent, yes they do have a much more active role than in CoC. But I was also disappointed that their guest roles were cut extremely short and last only as long as the Khonsu battle; a fleeting moment in the game. The short length of time is especially pronounced when you're dropped off just outside of Khonsu's arena and are hardly given any time to explore and bond with your temporary allies. At the very least, I'd have preferred it if you were instead dropped off at the Tokyo Bay Bridge and had to travel to Khonsu's arena. Maybe even fight Seth along the way. I can't be too disappointed though as they were still fleshed out in CoV even with their arguably smaller roles in that canon. I do still feel though that their sole opportunity as guest characters was woefully underutilized.

I realize of course though that their minor prominence is partly because Tao and Yoko are the main focus in CoV. I think I would have minded this a lot less if Dazai and Yuzuru had a lot more prominence in CoC to balance this out. But aside from the addition of new superbosses in CoC (which I think is great and gives incentive to playing the original story), that canon remains virtually unchanged. I expected this, but I was lowkey hoping that CoC would also be fleshed out more to sort out its own unique shortcomings.

That being said though, I DO like that--as lacking as CoC is--it still stands out as its own story and still has merit in playing. There's a lot of scenes and contexts that are not shown in CoV, requiring you to play both canons to fully understand the entire V story. I really like this and I'm glad that CoV doesn't "replace" the original story or renders it pointless to play. It's a much more interesting approach than Atlus's usual standard of expanding/altering the one storyline as with their previous enhanced editions, something which sparks controversy with fans. All the same, I still find myself wishing that CoC was expanded even just a bit so that it could be more level with CoV…

While playing VV, I often found myself wanting and wondering "what could've been" with the original V. I still get the pervasive feeling that V as a whole comes short of what it wanted to be. V had a troubled development over the pandemic hitting mid-development and the shuffling of key staff, and who knows what else, that led to it feeling so…unfinished. And while CoV does help close some of the gaps and seems to have reintroduced concepts that were originally cut (Yoko was said to have originally been intended for vanilla before being cut), the impression I get from CoV is that it is still a new creation added onto the original concept. It's a side-story, for both good and bad. I still wonder to myself what V could've been originally.

This isn't so much exclusive to VV but, ultimately though, my biggest frustrations lie with Taito. I have never had good experiences with Taito and VV just reinforced my hate for that area as opposed to alleviating my grievances with it. My main issue with Taito is the massive level spike between when you first enter and the bosses therein, compounded by how open and non-linear the area is. Openness and non-linearity are generally considered good things in game design, but in V's case, it ends up being the opposite and antithesis to the design principles of past Da'at regions.

What I mean is this: previous Da'at regions follow a linear progression where, although they are presented as semi-open worlds, they are still basically just gigantic corridors that follow a single, generalized path. This isn't a bad thing at all and works to V's benefit, as the levels of enemies and bosses grow along this general path. You grow along this path. It feels very natural. But with Taito, you are not given a single, linear path to follow and are free to explore it and face the bosses in any order desired. But there is no active buffer between the bosses, or even between the Abscesses or even some of Taito's sidequests, so you can go up to any boss and immediately become overwhelmed by how woefully underleveled you are. At least in my experience, this makes for an especially frustrating experience where it just feels like you're getting nowhere no matter where you go in Taito. Then you're left fumbling for 10-20 levels playing catch up. Perhaps the region was purposely designed in such a way to aid with the chaotic and "every man for himself" vibes there. The intention seems to be that you're meant to stop and do sidequests, but in my experiences with both V and VV, even when I did do the sidequests they STILL were not enough to bring me on par with Taito's bosses.

People have repeatedly assured me during pre-release that Taito would be bearable now because Atlus had fixed the level scaling. And while that certainly did help a bit with the game, I ultimately saw no real difference in Taito as I was struggling to reach adequate levels. For me, Taito was acutely frustrating and I am not exaggerating when I say that Taito is a major reason why I cannot bring myself to love the V games. In both story and gameplay, V takes a nosedive upon reaching Taito. When I played vanilla, I ultimately bought the Mitama EXP DLC to get around Taito's level spike. I tried not to do the same in VV and tried some grinding strategies, but in the end I caved again and bought its Mitama DLC as well (the whole DLC bundle actually). I really do not appreciate how this game seems to almost incentivize the need for EXP DLC just to progress. I don't know if Atlus/Sega actually intended for it to be that way, but if they did, then it is incredibly scummy and predatory.

There's stuff I do still enjoy about VV and it is certainly better in almost every regard from vanilla. While I am still disappointed in the end result, I am also glad that this chapter in the SMT franchise can now finally be closed. I hope this means that Atlus can now move forward with the experiences gained and lessons learned from the fifth entry. What happened with V's troubled development is very unfortunate and not wholly the team's fault given the pandemic. Minus some genuine concerns over predatory consumer practices, I am excited for the future of SMT and have more optimism that Atlus will be able to make the next entry a solid and cohesive one. At least more than vanilla V.

[meanbossart]

hi. I'm a huge fan of your work. I've been following you since before sad sack even came out. I was around for the very first teasers of it. I am very young... definitely i was too young to be reading sad sack when I was. but I'm an adult now so whatever, harm done. I'm a novelist. you are really one of my greatest artistic inspirations.

I guess my question that I want to say is... how do you finish stories? I have a million started but I always get this horrible voice in my head telling me that it's not worth it to finish, that the next project I do will be better, but I know I'm at the point in my journey where I need to just get something done. how do you do it? do I just need time? do I need to get a little older? do I need to keep failing until I succeed?

thank you so much for everything that you've done, your art brings me so much joy and comfort. many, many times your comics have made me feel like I wasn't alone. please keep doing what you're doing, because I love it, just for me lol.

Hey! This has sat in my inbox for a while i know, to be completely honest it just never feels great to know someone was exposed to my adult work before they should have been, and it can feel like im walking a tenuous line in acknowledging that it happens and not... Doing something about it? Though im not sure what that something would be. I will take your word for it that you are an adult now and as you said, the harm was already done. Im not happy about it but nothing can be done about it now i guess.

I do sincerely appreciate your kind words about mine and Nick's work and I'm glad it's brought you joy, and i hope you were always able to enjoy it with a critical eye too.

As for your question, there is truly no easy answer there or A to B guide that will get you past this hurdle - some people work on years and years on the same thing before releasing it, other's just pump their first work to get it out of the way and while it may not be great, at least its done. Regardless, once you get one thing finished, you will come to realize that its easy to finish others, too. I think regardless of what you do though, you will never look back on your very first work and be happy with it, so its my personal opinion that while you should do your best, you should make peace with the fact that it will not be your best, and that's okay.

As for what I would personally do? Pick something, something short, and something fresh, dont start with that massive story you've been workshopping for 15 years. Start with something you can whip up in a year at the VERY most, something you are currently passionate about, something that interests you right this second. Draft it as quick as you can so you know how it starts and how it ends, and then set yourself up with a schedule to finish it - you don't have to abide by it 100%, but if you give yourself all the time in the world to work on it, you might end up taking up your own offer. If you have a deadline, even if made up, you will have to force yourself to move on when you come across something you aren't entirely happy with instead of becoming stuck on it for days, frustrated, and then proceeding to abandon it as you might have done before. I repeat - you will never be entirely happy with how your first work turns out. So focus on being passionate, proud, and absolutely committed to making it happen at all, instead.

I hope this has helped you at all, im both sorry that you ended up looking at our nasty stuff before you should have and also, again, genuinely glad you find inspiration in it now as a grown person. I wish you the best of luck in your journey as a creator!

[aspiring-holistic-otaku]

Season 2 Ramble# 8 - Sports!

As I hope you got from the title, this ramble focuses on sports in manga, but before I get into it, let me breakdown some things about how this is gonna go.

Firstly a little heads up for you and a little copout for me, the average sports manga tends to be a bit longer than other genres so I figured my usual sprint approach of picking up a bunch of titles and blitzing them wouldn't work. Instead I went for a kind of marathon type approach where I still read a bunch but didn't have completion on my mind as much as usual.

Pros and cons for this approach

pro - I was able to get in that much more diversity than I would otherwise. There's hella sports out there which makes for hella subject matter, each carrying its own unique perspectives that I'm really glad I got the chance to experience, and equally glad to try and share those experiences.

cons - I made the pro sound pretty grandiose but as I said, completion wasn't at the forefront of my mind as much this month, meaning there's quite a few titles I didn't get to finish, so with a lot of these reccs I'd have to say there's more than a grain of salt to keep in mind.

Second thing I want to get out the way are the elements I consider the most important in a sports manga, which I hope will give a little more context to the lists. In my mind the four most important elements for a sports manga are realism, teamwork, ego/drive to win & mindset/mentality. I speak on what those mean to me a bit more in the episode.

Moving on, the actual format of the episode is gonna have things I read this month in a triathlon type setup, meaning 3 categories/legs, closed out with a small award type ceremony thing, then after things read this month I'll speak a bit on my favourite sports manga read before this month.

And now without further ado, LET THE RACES BEGIN!

Things read this month

(first leg)

Uncompleted Incompletes {stuff I didn't finish reading and are still ongoing}

#3 Hajime no Ippo {by George Morikawa, read 49 out of the total 1434 chapters}

Seen this around for the longest time, usually see it called the top 1 boxing manga in more than a few circles, and again for more than a few I've seen it called the top 1 sports manga overall. All that being said the reason a self proclaimed aspiring holistic otaku like myself hasn't read it before now is due to its extreme length.. roughly 1.4k chapters and counting…. just couldn't see myself devoting all that time to what I figured could be summed up in one word, boxing.

That being said, I figured that even if I wasn't going to finish or even put a dent in it, now was the time to bite the bullet and as you can tell from its placing I'm glad I did.

The story follows ippo, a bullied highschooler who is one day saved by a passerby boxer. In awe of his strength, ippo decides to join his gym and try to get stronger. Simple and common enough baseline story, mainly driven by ippo's growth which is tied to his mentality, as ippo is naturally a timid guy but his earnesty towards bettering himself makes those around him, including me the reader, want to support him.

Cool cast so far from his gym mates to opponents, all contributing to a pretty good balance of serious and funny moments. So far the art has generally been pretty good, the only slight gripe I have at this point is I find the mc pretty meh.. like he's endearing but like in that way any kid trying out a sport seems where you just wanna tell em good job no matter what.

In any case I only read 49 chapters so huge grain of salt, though I imagine that both ippo and the cast must develop in a bunch of ways over 1000+ chapters

side note Kentarou Miura, creator of berserk was an assistant on this manga for some time, rip the legend one time every time

#2 Yowamushi Pedal {by Wataru Watanabe, I read 114 out of total 486 chapter count, btw in Brazilian it's up to 700+ }

Literally like maybe 1 or 3 people I know have ever mentioned this to me, 1 of whose taste I couldn't really trust, the second literally cycled everywhere n wore that bodysuit type thing to school which kinda put me off the whole thing and I'm pretty sure the third is a figment of my imagination.. so this series never really had any pull innate or otherwise + I figured it could be summed up into "dude rides a bicycle" which again unlike boxing doesn't really have any appeal with just that.

In any case I'm so so glad I picked this up, grabbed me from chapter 1 and honestly had a hard time putting it down.

the story here centers around sakamichi, a freshman highschool student who wants to make an anime club so he can make friends. This is a cycling manga so unfortunately for my guy that didn't pan out well for him but due to some plot I don't want to spoil he ends up in the cycling club and yes he does make friends.

Great mc but that's probably weeb bias, great main cast nonetheless, the teamwork stands out fr like I didn't know how cycling could be a team sport but it is, and I love that even though they're all on the same team most of them have a drive to be the best which works out in an iron sharpens iron kind of way. The mentality of a cyclist was also really cool like with boxing or more physical sports it's easy to grasp that you have to ready yourself to take a hit but in cycling they got into the flexibility and perseverance you need to keep pedaling no matter where you are and the sights you'll be able to see because of that. Great art, very scenic as they're riding all over the place and though I've only read about a quarter it's definitely something I'd highly and heartily recommend.

#1 Giant Killing {with Masaya Tsunamoto doing the story and Tsujitomo on art, read 84 out of the 514 chapters}

This is a soccer manga. Now you may have noticed a trend here where I haven't thought much of some manga and then ended up liking it, well that's because in general I don't like sports,, well I enjoy playing but not so much watching.. except table tennis and maybe basketball but anyways that trend pretty much continues here. straight out the bat I'll say I don't care for football or soccer or whatever you wanna call it but man this manga.

The story is that an already failing football club now finds themselves in need of a new coach after theirs left them, and so some managerial staff track down a former star player for the club who they heard now coaches small town football sides in England.

Kind of a slow start with them finding the coach and him settling in and everything but it sets solid groundwork which builds into great main and wider cast dynamics. This is one of my favourite things about this manga, it offers solid perspective and narratives from the coaching staff, managerial staff, the players on and off the pitch and even fans and journalist. Never seen a sports manga so thoroughly build out its world. The art was an interesting style but it does a great job of illustrating the dynamicism of play mixed with solitary key moments which makes me feel like I'm watching a slowmo highlight.

Very real feel in a lot of respects and I really appreciated that despite the name they don't just go around making upset wins. They win and lose their fair share but always kept me engaged. #1 on this leg but not something I think is for everybody, especially if you're not a sports fan but if you are a sports fan, especially a soccer fan, I think this will be one of your favourites.

hm: MF GHOST(initial d sequel), Ao Ashi(soccer)

(leg #2)

Completed Incompletes {finished reading but still ongoing or just not fully translated as is the case for everything here}

#3 SK8R'S {by Hajime Tojitsuki, read 9 out of the total 18 chapters}

This is all about street skating, not much to say with only 9 chapters but it just looked really cool

Anyways the story is that a kid happened to see a dude skating one day and he did one of those jump tricks and he was hooked.

Average art but it's pretty dope when they do full spreads and tricks. Again not much chapters so not much to say but I really hope the rest gets translated.

#2 Tsubame Tipoff {by Hiroya Watanuki, read 40 out of total 50 chapter count}

This pulled me in because women's basketball and I'm always a slut for new perspectives.

The story here is a tall but uncoordinated freshman finds her short but extremely athletic upperclassman cute so she joins the basketball team to get closer to her... Now I'm not gonna call her gay but she be blushing like crazy... In any case the art is pretty solid, really cool cast, not sure if I thought that just cause of the relative novelty of a girl's basketball team in manga but they were just pretty cool.

what I read was pretty good and again I would really love if the rest of the chapters got translated.. maybe I'll just learn Chinese idk..

#1 Break Shot {by Takeshi Maekawa, read 84 out of the total 152 chapter count}

This is a manga about billiards which I think is different from pool but I didn't look it up so I'm gonna play it safe and stick to billiards

The story here is that the student council wants to shut down the billiards club because they only have one member who is our mc, chinmi. He tries to negotiate and they tell him if he wants to keep the club he has to show some record of notable achievement or skill, so he enters a tournament with his club on the line.

The billiards pulled me in and as expected there was some unreal stuff to keep it interesting like a dude who has a special shot that breaks the cue ball on purpose and uses the force of the shratnel to pocket multiple balls… like come on… he's a highschool student for one like come on… but outside stuff like that I really like how they framed a billiards game as a puzzle where your skill is actually more a reflection of intellect, in being able to make a pocket or stop your opponent from doing so. also loved the art like it's old but it's the kind of old school charm that gives a Sunday morning cartoon vibe and I'm not sure if it's because of the subject being billiards but it felt really smooth and classy.

Billiards is a singles competition but they were able to create an element of teamwork through rivalry which was cool and I kind of already spoke on the mentality through their framing of the game as a puzzle. To solve the puzzle they really had to think on their feet. Ego and stuff was definitely there and again I really really want this to be translated. In any case I highly recommend this one.

hm: Dogsred(about hockey by the creator of golden kamuy), Mongrel (mma)

(and the last leg of things read this month)

Completed Completes {finished reading, finished publishing}

#3 moon land {by Sai Yamagishi, 98 chapters}

This is about gymnastics and I didn't think I'd be interested + I'd never even heard of it before but this was recommended to me by Jen who I had on last episode and from its placing you can tell I enjoyed it. This is why I trust Jen and even had her on the show, shout out Jen every time

The story is basically that the mc mitsuki is really good at gymnastics because of strong fundamentals but he had no flair. the main thing is that it presents gymnastics as an expression of self and mitsuki aims to be able to move his body the way he wants to, in other words freedom.

The art is kind of meh in general but ofc they step up in spreads and stuff, great teamwork, ego and mentality stuff, more of that iron sharpens iron effect I like, kind of felt like the ending was rushed but it was an unexpectedly nice journey. they really took the time to educate about gymnastics which i appreciated and I feel like I'm underselling but it really was cool.

#2 Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji {Nobuyuki Fukumoto, 158 chapter}

Had actually tried another manga by this guy called Akagi hoping to learn the rules for mahjong but they didn't care to explain the rules and it wasn't super well translated so I couldn't really keep up despite how cool the mc seemed.

In any case the quirkiness of his art style is what really drew me in so I picked up kaiji instead and it turned out to be really good.

The story here is kaiji, the mc is pretty much living a garbage life which gets worse when a debt collector comes and tells him a friend of his ran off on a debt kaiji was the guarantor on. the debt is in the tens of millions which he clearly doesn't have but the collector tells him there's a once in a lifetime opportunity happening soon, and offers kaiji a ticket onto a ship to play games and win enough money to clear his debt in one night.

I guess this is where the question of whether or not gambling is a sport would arise but 1) it's my list and 2) they are competing according to set rules for a prize so that's that.

Anyways this was closer to my preferred tastes with the darker, more critical view of #society and stuff, which is seen in how teamwork was kinda nonexistent or fleeting at best but the mentality needed to win or even just survive was strong.

Really liked the mc, lots of growth in a short amount of time but in any case I'd recommend this one for sure, especially with the recent wave of squid games and stuff like that… it's not squid games but just if you liked that you'll probably like this..

#1 One Outs {Shinobu Kaitani, 175 chapters}

I think the full title is actually One Outs, nobody wins but I which is just super cool especially as you see how the story unfolds but yh.

The story here is that tokuchi toua is a professional gambler that dedicates most of his time to a tweaked baseball game called one outs. In this game the pitcher must get 3 strikes to win but all the batter has to do is hit the ball past the infield for a win, yet in 499 matches toua has never lost. Due to some plot stuff I don't want to spoil he ends up getting involved with the main japanese baseball league and basically the owner of his team doesn't like him, so tokuchi baits him into a contract unfavourable to himself where he gets paid 50 mill for each strike out but has to pay 500 mill for every run scored on him. The owner didn't believe his 499 streak record held much weight so he accepts.

The people he's playing with or against don't know anything about this and they're all pros so his skills are definitely tested fr. It's hard to explain how mind games comes into play but just trust this guy basically turns a sports manga into a psychological thriller which was just amazing.

Highly recommend, I didn't really know anything about baseball, still don't really but man. nothing but praise tbh.

hm: aoiro ping pong, and **mighty girl(baseball)

{in the episode I mention some other stuff I was reading and would also recommend but felt they out would be too contrived or too much grains of salt due to how the small percentage of their total chapter counts I got to read despite how much I enjoyed them but you can check my anilist to see

{in the actual episode I name black box as the second honorable mention. but that was a mistake probably due to it and mighty girl having the same author idkidk but mighty girl was better}

}

if you're interested you can listen in to the episode for the small awards ceremony thing that would be here but in this writeup I'm just going to move along

Things read before this month

not as much detail as before cause spoken on most of these before plus nowadays in think more attention sound be given to newer reads but anyways

#3 Eyeshield 21{Riichirou Inagaki story and Yusuke Murata, read/333 chapters}

American football focused. really really good. has been in my top 3 sports manga for like a decade now.

#2 Ping Pong{created by Taiyou Matsumoto, 55 chapters}

Table Tennis focused. spoken on before in detail in Season 1 Ramble#10 and was #4 in its section + became my #3 read overall last year. So good I actually took the time to watch the anime this month.

#1 Rookies {Morita Masanori, 233 chapters}

Delinquents playing baseball. Top 1 in Sesson 2 Ramble#6, #2 in Season 1 Ramble#12 delinquency and #3 in the very first real ramble Season 1 Ramble#1 which is where I spoke on it with the most detail.

hm: Usugoi(peak gambling), HAPPY!(lawn tennis by naoki urasawa)

[wynandcore]

ALRIGHT HERE’S MY HOT TAKE FOR TRON

Lowkey,,,, After seeing the leaked script…. I’m kinda???? Glad Uprising got canceled.

Based on what little we see, what was there was good, but I don’t think it would have lived up to the hype. Not to mention that while I’m not a fan of Legacy whatsoever, I think they made Clu a lot more complex in the movie, and it’s a damn shame that based on both the script we see, and the little screentime, Clu was whittled down to being a pretty one-dimensional villain—and THAT is why I think the second Season would have failed. It would have failed to capture what makes Clu so dangerous. He’s not JUST evil. He’s literally a copy of Flynn—he shares his traits, and that includes the good parts whether we as an audience like it or not. He came into power for that LITERAL reason (read the prequel comic it’s so interesting and it’s basically a mirror of Flynn and Clu’s perspectives of what went wrong).

One other thing Legacy did that admittedly also bummed me Uprising tossed aside was that Flynn was genuinely not a good creator. I mean it’s somewhat highlighted in scars, but not really?

I guess TLDR: It boiled Flynn down to being the Good one, and Clu to being the Bad one. Because of that, I’m not sure Uprising’s writing would have still been good if it continued with Clu coming into the picture.

As someone who has read the comic and still wants to beat up Clu 2 with a baseball bat, I can see your stance on this!

(Sorry this is REALLY LONG, bear with me because I like discussing things!)

I don’t know if it would’ve “lived up to the hype” and what that entails. Back then viewers of the show were few and far in-between, so I don’t really know how high the hype would’ve been (especially because anyone who knows legacy, knows uprising wasn’t likely gonna end in a happy ever after LMAO)

Nowadays, the expectations for stakes and what could’ve happened are larger considering how long it’s been, but who knows if it could’ve lived up to the hype back then. Maybe it could’ve. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Who knows. They never finished writing season 2, so the writers probably don’t even know lol.

Yeah, Clu 2’s not that complex in season 1 and in the movie script/unfinished storyboard. Personally, I don’t care much for Clu’s lack of complexity in the first season, mostly because he was not a focus at all. More a symbol.

Also, uprising shows brief glimpses of the view programs have of him, mostly Tron’s, so it makes sense we don’t see outside of that view. I do understand your point, though. I’d love for his ‘good’ characteristics to shine for a bit, to show how he got into power, but I believe that just wasn’t able to be shoved into season 1 (there was already so much they needed to establish in the early episodes, and after that they had so many villains to work with)

I don’t believe they didn’t plan on showing Clu 2’s ‘good’ side, but I’ll also be one to admit that I wouldn’t mind, because we’ve got legacy and betrayal if you like that perspective of him.

Same goes with Flynn: the show Isn’t about him, having time devoted to showing how he isn’t perfect isn’t Needed if there’s an entire movie that showcased that imo.

Uprising uses its characters when needed in the story; Scars wanted to use flashbacks to show Tron’s downfall from protector to prisoner, so that Had to have involved his past working with Flynn and Clu 2. Besides that, there’s little reason to show Flynn in this season, nor later seasons (because he just stayed in his cave for the most part?)

I don’t think he’s necessarily shown as a good creator in Scars, because he clearly cares more about the future than the life programs live on the grid, but it wasn’t shown in an obvious manner.

Maybe they were going to show Flynn more in other ways like him getting involved in the revolution, maybe not, but I wouldn’t want him to be reintroduced just to show how he wasn’t perfect. I believe he should be used in the story when applicable. STILL, I understand the argument!!

It’s a pretty interesting take overall, even if I don’t entirely agree with the arguments!! :)

[emachinescat]

A Year in (Book) Review: My 2024 Reading Journey 📚

#49 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

(link leads to used version so you don't have to support the author financially if you want to read it. Libraries and Libby are also great options!)

Fantasy / Harry Potter #1 / 345 pages / published 1997 / Finished Jun. 17

One Sentence Review: Although it definitely drags its feet a bit around the middle, this first Harry Potter book is full of charm and childlike wonder, and it was very pleasant to return to the world that so captivated my childhood.

Favorite Quotes

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

*

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."

*

"You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them."

*

"He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign ... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever."

*

"Alas! Ear wax!"

My rating: 4/5

A Few More Thoughts (Spoilers):

It's always such a fun read. Although I have many qualms with the author, I am glad that I am still able to separate the creator from the creation and enjoy this cozy, nostalgic introduction to the series that in many ways defined my childhood. (I do not support the author financially at all anymore, though.)

It is a little slow in the middle, but that aids the coziness a bit.

I am amazed at how much re-reading this book transports me back to my childhood. It's fascinating to read it again as an adult with a more critical eye. Though a relatively simple children's story, it was already setting itself up to become something bigger and darker.

I always take a sense of joy and nostalgia away from this book. No matter how many times I read it, it's a genuinely fun story, and I always enjoy coming back to it and the rest of the series, of course.

[flibo23]

I just finished watching the gameplay of the infamous horror game, The coffin of Andy and Leyley: it's much better than I expected and oh boy I feel a new obsession coming. But I didn't know it didn't have a finale yet, sad. I'll be patient

And I don't even read or watch horror stuff usually, this just picked my interest too much due to the controversy; so if anything I'm glad I checked it out for myself instead of trusting someone too much

I have to process it a bit because I watched six hours of gameplay in a day and a half but I'll ramble a lil here because I can't with my best friend, they're uncomfortable with this

Honestly? I love him but I think Andrew is worse than Ashley: yes she drives him to do bad things and codependency will do crazy stuff to you, but if he really wanted he could have backed off a lil, especially for the most evil stuff they committed. But he loves her so much he looks stupid! He'll complain but we saw he'd die without his sister

So Andrew lies to himself, while Ashely just embraces it and I love that for her

Their relationship is one of the most messed up I've seen in fiction, but it makes my brain happy, what can I say. Especially when their mum thinks about what's going on between these two because she's absolutely correct

(but also yes I watched it pretty fast so maybe I missed something who knows)

Honestly, it's well written ? It's funny and charming even though many scenes are really dark: I find impressive how the creators added a comedic spin to it (otherwise I don't know if I would have been able to watch it for long). The relationships between the characters are a delight to follow, not only the main two, but even their relationship with their parents. The story is also pretty compelling, I especially want to know what the heck is going on with the quarantine

I'll be here waiting for the next chapters hoping I will be able to play the game for real eventually

[ideas-on-paper]

I'm glad you enjoyed reading my musings so much! :-) Frankly, I have to say that my imagination of the Morning War is also largely based on my own headcanons, and you could say I'm bending and stretching the lore a bit at certain points. (I try not to break the pre-established framework, though.) One could probably argue that I'm getting a little ahead of myself here as I haven't seen the full story yet, but I got so intrigued by the history of the Geth/Quarians that I couldn't help but writing my thoughts on it down.  That being said, I just had a little heart attack when I read Legion can die. I haven't gotten to the part about the Geth and the Quarians yet, so I this came as a bit of a shock to me. ^^' Still, I've heard from another user that there's apparently some alternate dialogue during Legion's scenes in ME3 which is quite interesting lore-wise, so I'll see if I can look into that once I'm finished. (Pity there isn't a readily available transcript of the ME scripts online...)

As for the Geth's understanding of emotions, what you said is pretty much exactly what I meant: They may be able to understand them on a "cause/effect" level, but that doesn't mean they're able to relate to them. I'm also convinced that the Quarians probably managed to make true ancestor AIs (or at least came close to it) as part of a top-secret project, but since this is yet another very elaborate headcanon of mine, I'm gonna keep it out of this for now. As for your assumption that the Quarian VIs weren't really sentient but still cause some unusual prompts to appear in the Consensus, I can actually see that being plausible on a technical level.

However, presuming these "sentimental" tendencies of the Geth originate solely from repurposed ancestor VIs, there is still one thing that doesn't make sense to me: As I've already mentioned in my original post, there is the curious incident of Geth playing a recording of a Quarian elegy at the end of the ME1 side quest "UNC: Geth Incursions". We know for sure that these Geth are Heretics, since Reaper spikes can be found next to one of their outposts.

Going by your theory, I would wonder why Heretic Geth even have this kind of thought processes. After all, these are the programs that deliberately rejected any attachment to organic species, including their creators, so I reckon they probably would've let the former Quarian VIs behind with the others. (I remember there being a line during Legion's loyalty mission where Legion says that there are copies of their patrol routes in the Heretic database, but I can't see a reason why the Heretics would consider the repurposed ancestor VIs to be useful for their cause - or rather, why the ancestor VIs would agree to come along with them.)

The explanation I came up with is that this stems from a conflict with their core programming. I don't know if the Quarians had anything similar to the Asimov laws, but I would presume that the Geth are "imprinted" with a certain loyalty towards them. Of course, the Morning War and the existence of the Heretics prove that they can override these protocols, but personally, I get the impression they're not able to erase them completely.

Basically, I think that the True Geth's affinity for Quarian culture as well as the Heretics' veneration of the Reapers go back to the same root: they're looking for direction. They may have gained freedom from the Quarians after the Morning War, but with that freedom also comes with the inability to fulfill their pre-programmed directives to help and assist their creators. (I would like to mention that this is no small thing for an AI, as directives are extremely important for it to function properly.) Legion even has an unused dialogue line where they say that with their creators gone, "an integral component of their systems is missing", and Legions believes this to be the reason why they study the Quarians. (The entire line is just really interesting as it hints at Legion developing something like individuality; again, I covered all of this in detail in my analysis of Legion's scrapped voice lines, which I linked in my reply above.)

That's why they want to build their dyson sphere, in the hopes that maximizing their intelligence will give them a new purpose - "building their own future", as Legion says. However, despite the outward unity of the Consensus, there is obviously some disagreement what this future should look like: Some programs think that a better understanding of organics and their creators will enable them to eventually live in peace, while others have given up on this ideal, considering it impossible given their history with the Quarians and the galaxy-wide hostility towards AI. Essentially, the Geth are torn among themselves, between their desire for a peaceful coexistence and the statistics stacked against it. If you want to use a philosophical analogy, one could say that the conflict between True Geth and Heretics is akin to a battle between hope and despair. In that sense, the Heretics wouldn't simply be a faction that just "chose violence", but rather Geth that lost their belief in a peaceful future in face of the overwhelming evidence against it. It certainly made me see the Heretics with different eyes.

(Also, if these differences started to develop very early - perhaps during the course of the Morning War - it might be possible that this had an influence on the issue with the ancestor VIs: If they actually deleted the ancestor VIs, perhaps it was the would-be Heretics that proposed the idea. The rest of the Consensus couldn't find a good counterargument to it, so the proposal was accepted. Either way, I think this would have been a very rushed decision, and if they did terminate them, I would suspect they only had limited processing capability/programs to network with available at that time.)

As for the reason why Legion took Shepard's armor, I interpreted this as Legion's way of saying that they would like to be "a part of Shepard". As Legion stated, Shepard was the first and only one to defeat a Reaper, suggesting an impressive amount of skill - hence Legion's very roundabout compliment "Your code is superior." Speaking from the perspective of the Geth, they would probably be interested in any VI they consider to have valuable skills joining their network - or if that's not possible, they would at least ask for an interface so they can copy their code. This is how they improve themselves, and if a new program joins the collective, every Geth benefits from its qualities.

I believe that Legion welding Shepard's armor piece to their chassis might actually be a "physical representation" of this - or rather, the wish for it. Since Legion was unable to retrieve the commander, I imagine they took the armor as a way to express that they want to emulate Shepard's skill. Of course, this action is purely symbolic and has no practical purpose, so if 1,183 programs try to give a logical explanation for it, what you get is "no data available".

I don't think Legion feels "love" or "infatuation" with Shepard in an emotional sense, but I do think they might have a desire for synergy. The thing is that organics have no real equivalent to this, so it's difficult to put this into understandable terms. I actually read the very same interview with Chris L'Etoile a while ago, and although I don't agree with all of his statements (for example, I believe the Geth never completely "let go" of the Quarians on a mental level, for reasons stated above), I thought the idea of Legion taking the armor to represent their integration into Normandy was quite interesting, so I took this and reinterpreted it with more of a "personal connection" to Shepard.

Still, at the end of the day, I'll have to put up a big disclaimer here that all of this is just my own standpoint. My interpretation of the True Geth/Heretic conflict in particular might be influenced by Tron, since it's a fandom I'm very partial to (the conflict between "user-believer" programs and those that abandoned their belief is also present there). Also, being a hobby writer myself, I always try to take things such as themes, undertones, and implications into account - and from all the hints I've gathered so far, this "philosophical approach" seems to make the most sense to me.

However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any other valid interpretations of the topic. Like I said, I'll have to see how well all of this matches with the Mass Effect 3 canon. Still, I'd love to use my researches as a basis to write a fanfic about the Morning War one day - I probably won't be able to reconstruct the exact vision the Mass Effect writers had in mind, but I'd very much like to do my own take on it.

Quarian Codex entries - Observations

[SPOILERS for ME1/ME2]

So, in an effort to gather as much information as possible about the Quarians and the Geth (to get a better idea of Pre-Migrant Fleet Quarian culture and try reconstructing the exact course of the Morning War), I scoured all of the Quarian Codex entries again, and made some… interesting observations along the way.

1. On the internet, I've seen a few discussions of people arguing whether the Quarians or the Geth have the moral high ground in their conflict. During these conversations, some Quarian advocates bring up the argument that they basically had no other choice than to exterminate the Geth due to the Citadel laws explicitly prohibiting AI. (Which creates a discontinuity with the statement that the Citadel laws were introduced because of the Geth rebellion, but whatever.) However, as we learn from the Codex entry about their religion, the Quarians were secretly experimenting with creating true AIs of their dead ancestors, as opposed to the simple VI personalities they were using up until that point. This way, they wanted to gain true immortality, firmly believing that the consciousness could be replicated by technological and mathematical means.

This information shines a whole new light on their war with the Geth: If the Quarians were truly trying to make AI, they sooner or later would have had to cut themselves off from the Citadel, which subsequently would have made any adherence to the Citadel laws irrelevant. Sure, it probably would have meant that the Quarians had to put up a fight against the Council government, but somehow, I get the feeling they would have been willing to accept those consequences. Even in the times of the Migrant Fleet, the Quarian community is very secluded - they almost never let any outsiders into their fleet, and during his recruitment mission, Mordin even has a cut comment to Tali's presence where he assumes that since Tali is partaking in Shepard's mission, it must have something to do with the Geth. From this, we can conclude that if it doesn't personally concern them, Quarians usually don't care about anything that happens outside their society's boundaries - and considering that their homeworld lies in the farmost corner of the galaxy, I wouldn't be surprised if they were known as a little reclusive even back then (which, ironically, is a trait their artificial children eventually inherited).

Consequently, this renders the whole argument that the Quarians didn't want to risk any confrontation with the Citadel invalid. Instead, it gives their conflict with the Geth an essence of "Yes, I was going to break the Citadel laws - but not for you".

2. The Quarians' conviction that a mind can be reproduced digitally also raises a bunch of questions: They were clearly convinced they could give the souls of their dead ancestors new life that way, yet when the first Geth asked their creators whether they have souls, the answer was "Only Quarians have souls. You are a mechanism", as heard in the recording played by Legion.

Now, if the Quarians believed that an artificial being can gain consciousness and be truly alive, what is the decisive quality that sets Geth apart from this? What is it - according to the Quarians' opinion - that makes a Geth less "complete" than them? What is the crucial part that the Geth are lacking for them to qualify as "alive"? (Because if the Geth had a consciousness, they may be considered alive according to Quarian beliefs, which makes this entire mess even more questionable...)

3. Still, the Quarians' dreams of immortalizing their ancestors never came to fruition: Immediately after taking over Rannoch's network, the Geth deleted all VIs/AIs of their creators. Now, the interesting question is why they did that - in a lore video, I've seen a person suggest that it might have been to rid themselves of the creators that abandoned them, as a kind of "symbol" for their liberation.

However, as we learn from Legion's dialogue, the Geth never truly felt any resentment towards the Quarians (which might be due to their inability to feel emotions), so I personally don't consider that theory to be very likely. Despite wiping out almost the entire Quarian population previous to their escape, the Geth actually took care of Rannoch in place of them as a kind of "commemoration". In fact, even the Heretics in ME1 play a recording of a Quarian elegy, which can be seen as a sign of their continuous identification with them (although some people chose to interpret this as a warning/gloating from the side of the Geth, I don't think that explanation really makes sense). I found this respect in spite of the Quarians initially trying to terminate them quite intriguing, though I guess it's up to interpretation whether this stems from their original programming or genuine reverence. Also, as stated by Legion, the Geth believe that all intelligent life should be free to self-determinate - even Tali on Feros implies that for the Geth, there is no clear border between organic and synthetic life. So, considering all of this, it would be very unusual for them to eliminate full-blown AIs of their creators (if they were developed up to that point).

As far as I'm concerned, I can only determine two plausible reasons for this:

a) the Geth already possessed the information contained in the archives, since they had interacted with the respective creators during their lifetime who were thus immortal in their memory

b) the Geth encountered a space/capacity issue on the servers of Rannoch following their war with the Quarians, which led them to delete the personalities of their creators so they could upload their own programs

Either way, the Quarian VIs/AIs would have been unnecessarily taking up space, and since the Geth prioritize efficiency over everything, they decided to delete them. (That does not exclude the possibility of them looking back at their decision and re-evaluating it later on, however.)

4. Last but not least, we learn an interesting detail in the Codex entry about Quarian law and defense: According to the entry, the Quarians are very strict about whom they let near their fleet (which is confirmed during Tali's loyalty mission), and if the intentions of a ship can't be discerned, it's shot down without question. This appears strikingly similar to the Geth destroying any organic ship that enters their space, but otherwise leaving them to their own matters (considering the Citadel laws, they had no logical reason to assume any organic species would act non-hostile towards them). I don't know if this parallel is intentional or not, but since the argument that the Geth attack any organics crossing the Perseus Veil has been used by Tali as proof of their hostility, I find it particularly hilarious that upon closer inspection, the two races act so very similar to each other. (Considering that the Geth obviously learned a lot from them, maybe the Quarians should finally take responsibility for their mechanical children.)

[storiesforallfandoms]

inspirational ~ corpse husband

word count: 1589

request?: yes!

“Hi! I was wondering if you could do a corpse husband imagine where the reader has a feeding tube? If you can’t that’s perfectly fine, I just haven’t been able to find one yet.”

description: in which the group plays with a popular streamer that has a feeding tube and corpse tells her how much she inspires him

pairing: corpse x female!reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of chronic pain and cancer, also i only know a little bit about feedings tubes, i tried to do research in order to make myself more familiar but if there’s a lot of inaccuracies or anything i am very sorry i’m gonna try my best

masterlist (one, two)

Corpse listened to his friends shouting at one another to accuse each other of being sus. As usual, there was no use in trying to get a word in. Corpse spoke so softly that no one would even hear him unless they wanted to hear what he was saying.

“(Y/N)!” Toast suddenly exclaimed. “You’re being very quiet right now.”

“Because my damn tube is mixed up in my headphone wires!” (Y/N) exclaimed, sounding like she was far away from her mic. The group chuckled and continued with their conversation about who they thought the imposter was.

(Y/N) was a known Twitch streamer and YouTuber that rose to popularity when she started a series on her YouTube channel to show her journey through cancer treatments. Long before his own sudden boom in popularity, Corpse had watched all of her videos and became invested in her Twitch streams as well. Being someone who also struggled with chronic illness and pain, Corpse felt a sense of hope watching (Y/N) go through her treatment and still seem to optimistic in life and so productive in her YouTube and Twitch channels.

When Toast messaged the Amigops group to ask if anyone wanted to join his Among Us lobby with (Y/N), Corpse jumped at the chance. He hadn’t had much time to speak with her alone, but he was hoping to be able to tell her how much watching her content lifted him up during his worst times.

The meeting ended with no one being voted and brought them back to the office of the Polus map. Since they were playing with proximity chat, the argument from the meeting immediately continued with Rae and Toast warning everyone to stay away from Sean, who they were susing at the second imposter after already voting out Charlie.

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink astronaut run out of the office, silent amongst the chaos. He waited a moment before deciding to follow her, hoping he could meet her somewhere alone so he could talk to her.

He ran into O2 and noticed a pink bean in the boiler room stood by the water wheels. He ran in and stood in the doorway a moment before speaking.

“Hello (Y/N).”

“Ah fuck!” (Y/N) exclaimed. “Corpse! Don’t scare me like that!”

Corpse chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll warn you next time.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m okay with that. I feel like being killed by Corpse Husband in Among Us is like a rite of passage at this point.”

Corpse slowly approached (Y/N) to which she quickly ran away from him to the other water wheel. He laughed again before assuring her, “I’m not an imposter, you can trust me.”

“I don’t think I can, but I will choose to trust,” she told him.

“I actually came looking for you because I wanted to talk to you.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There were so many things running through Corpse’s mind. He just wanted to blurt out everything he had thought about (Y/N) and her story, to thank her for giving him hope, to tell her what an inspiration she was. But his words caught in his throat and he struggled to get anything out.

Finally, he said, “What’s it like trying to be a streamer with your...with the um...”

“The feeding tube?” (Y/N) finished for him. “You can say it, Corpse. It’s not exactly a secret.”

He sighed, glad that she had a joking tone about it. “Yeah, with the feeding tube.”

“It’s annoying,” (Y/N) admitted. “Like...I’m assuming you’ve seen my streams or my videos but for the sake of anyone watching your stream who hasn’t: I have a nasogastric feeding tube, or an NG-tube, which is a feeding tube that goes in through the nose. As cliché as it is, just picture Hazel Grace from the Fault in our Stars. Additional cliché, I have it because I had cancer and the treatments left me so malnourished that I need a feeding tube even after I’ve gone into remission. So, because it’s tubes that are connected in my nose, I keep getting my headphone wires tangled in my tube or, very rarely, my mic wires, and it’s fucking annoying. It hurts like a bitch when I go to stand up and I yank the wires  by accident or something.”

“Does...does anything else hurt? Because of the cancer or the treatment or anything?”

“Not as much as it used to. I went into remission like nearly a year ago, so I’m doing better. It’s a process, but it’s had an amazing outcome in the end so I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“I find you really inspirational,” Corpse finally blurted.

He felt his face heat up with slight embarrassment as (Y/N) giggled. “You do?”

“Yeah. I followed your series about your recovery and I’ve watched some of your livestreams every now and then. What always stood out to me was when you talked about the negative side effects of your treatment, and eventually having to put the feeding tube in and how you’ve found that effects you, too. Being someone with chronic illness and constant pain, I’ve also had those days where it feels like even getting out of bed is too much work and I don’t feel like I can stream or make a video, but then my anxiety tells me that everyone is going to forget about me if I don’t make some type of content, so it’s just an internal struggle when really I should be resting.”

“Being a content creator and having an illness is tough,” (Y/N) agreed. “It feels like you can’t take a day off. I sometimes regret making that series because on days that I felt absolutely awful, I didn’t want to film or edit anything, but I felt like I had to because so many people were watching. Ironically enough, that became the topic of one of those videos; I just sat in front of my camera looking the worst I think I’ve ever looked on camera and talked about how exhausted I felt just from being alive, but felt like I couldn’t rest because of my channel. That’s when I started taking longer breaks between videos and streaming. Your fans won’t leave you, not the true fans anyways. They’ll always be by your side even if you decide to disappear from the Internet forever.”

Corpse half smiled to himself. “I’ve thought about doing that sometimes.”

“It’ll be easy for you to do that where you’re faceless. No one would bother you even after you left the Internet cause they’d have no idea it was you unless you spoke.”

A brief pause in their conversation caused them to hear Sean yelling as he ran past the room. (Y/N) giggled and walked out of the room. Corpse followed, hoping to continue the conversation somewhere else.

“It means a lot to me that you think that about me, though,” (Y/N) continued as she ran into the storage room. “I find you pretty inspirational too.”

This took Corpse by surprise. He didn’t know how to respond. Sure, he heard that all the time from his fans, and it always meant the world to him to know that people found him to be an inspiration, but it felt different to hear that from someone he had looked up to for so long.

“I wish I could’ve been a faceless creator like you,” she said when Corpse didn’t respond. “One of my biggest regrets is probably showing my face online. Although, it wouldn’t make sense for me not to show my face when I’m making a series about cancer treatment, but people can be mean. Even when someone is struggling with illness or a disease, the Internet doesn’t care. Whatever makes them feel better over someone else feeling like shit.”

“I still get a lot of hateful messages even though I’m faceless, though.”

“You do, but you’re so unbothered by it. Publicly anyways. When I get messages about how sickly I look I get so overwhelmed with sadness and I just wanna delete my channel forever. I can’t even fake not caring because it really does effect me.”

“Stick with me, I’ll teach you my ways. My favorite is trolling the troll.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “I’d like that a lot.”

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink bean approach his black one. “I’m glad we had this chat, Corpse. It made me really happy, but now it also makes doing this a lot harder.”

Corpse gasped as a kill animation popped up on the screen and (Y/N)’s astronaut quickly disappeared into the nearby vent. He was stunned into silence for a long time, just watching his ghost floating above his dead body. To make matters worse, (Y/N) had closed the door to storage so no one would find his body unless they had to go in there.

Charlie’s ghost floated through the walls and came to float next to Corpse’s. “Figured out Jack wasn’t the other imposter, huh?”

“Yeah,” Corpse said, laughing. “She really had me fooled. Buttered me up with compliments then killed me.”

“I taught her well,” Charlie comments before floating away again.

Corpse couldn’t help but laugh about the situation. He wasn’t mad, more impressed than anything. And he was a little happy; he got to talk to someone that had always been an inspiration to him and he made a new friend.

[kpop---scenarios]

Life After Death

Pairing: Kyungsoo x Reader

Genre: Zombie! Au, Enemies to Lovers

Warning: Death, Blood, Smut, Swearing

Word Count: 9k

Summary: The morning you woke up, everything seemed normal, until it wasn't. The world is turned upside down the government and the World Health Organization have shut down, zombies around every corner and only the strong survive. You meet a few friends along the way, and lose even more as you continue to fight for your life. You never thought you'd meet someone under these circumstances but here you were, happy while surviving life after death. Though you should have known, there's never a happy ending in an apocalypse.

A/N: This is part of the collab started by @biaswreckingfics! Go to her page to see the other stories written by terrific creators!

"I'll see you later." You whisper to your sleeping boyfriend before you place a light kiss on his cheek. You open the front door to your apartment, looking back and around at everything, making sure you weren't forgetting anything before you left. As you close the door, you realize you forgot to turn off the radio when you hear one of your favorite songs playing. With a sigh, you glance at your watch and you see you're going to be late, so you leave it, just missing the important message that interrupted everything.

"Breaking News: The World Health Organization has announced extremely serious side effects from the recent vaccinations of batch number 0506361. If the numbers 0506361 are on your vaccination cards please report to your nearest hospital to seek medical treatment."

You don't notice anything different or weird as you walk down the pathway from your apartment building to your parked car. The sun is shining, the air smells crisp, today was going to be a good day, you could feel it. You slide into the driver's seat of your car, turning it on and immediately syncing your phone to play your favorite playlist to amp you up for the day of work you had ahead of you. As you continue to drive to work you notice the streets seem a lot busier than they usually were, especially for 7:45am, some people in their suits running down the sidewalk screaming. Your stomach twisted as you continued down the street, your eyebrows furrowing as you tried to watch the people and the road, slowing your speed. You look out your window and see a man laying on the ground, with another man on top of him. You rolled down your window to yell at them, but when the man turned to look at you, panic ensued. His eyes were white, his face was covered in blood, veins pulsating in his face. Nothing about him seemed human. He looked directly at you, and stood up. Your hands shook as you rolled up your window as fast as it would go. The man suddenly now bolted towards you, snarling. With your window up and both hands now on the steering wheel, you try to breathe through the lump that had appeared in your throat. As you keep driving, you see more and more of people being attacked, tackled and ripped into, people running away crying and screaming, vehicles crashing, buildings and cars up in flames. You could hear the blood curdling screams from inside your car. With shaky hands you switch the station of your radio to see if anyone was reporting on what the fuck was happening.

"..If the numbers 0506361 are on your vaccination cards please report to your nearest hospital to seek medical treatment.. there's a virus.. It's zombies. Zombies are attacking the city.. everyone seek shelter.. oh god.. please no."

You quickly turn your car around, speeding back to your apartment as you try to swerve off the undead as you rush back to your boyfriend. You may not know much, but you've seen enough zombie movies to know that you need to get supplies. You drive your car up and over the curb, parking directly on the lawn in front of your building and run inside. You were lucky you lived right on the ground floor of one of the first apartments in. You struggle to slide your key into the lock, the cries of residents pleading filling the hallway. Your key finally slides into the lock, quickly you turn it and shove your door open before slamming it behind you.

"Jaebum?" You whisper as you scrounge through the front closet looking for the duffle bag that you knew was in there. "Jaebum." You hiss again, running to the kitchen. You pack all the perishable food items and then begin filling up every jug you could find that had a lid with water. You tore through your junk drawer grabbing the flashlights and batteries, and any candles you could find as well as your butcher block.

"I'm serious, Jaebum. You need to answer me now." You hiss, bringing the bag into the living room. You guys needed to leave quickly, which meant you needed to pack even quicker. It wasn't like him not to answer you, it made you worry. You glance to the front door and his shoes were still exactly where he had left them the night before. You crept up to your closed bedroom door, with your hand hovering over the door knob. Your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest as you grabbed the knob, slowly turning it. You push the door open, expecting to see him, but he wasn't there. You quickly changed out of your work clothes, and grabbed everything from all of your drawers and shoved it into the bag. It wasn't until you had finished grabbing what you needed and you had a second to listen that you heard the shower running from down the hall, but for whatever reason, something didn't feel right. You tiptoed quietly down the hallway, standing in front of the door, you pressed your ear against it but heard nothing other than the sound of the shower running.

"Jaebum?" You whispered, gently knocking on the door, but there was no answer. You turned the knob, and opened the door. You saw your boyfriend standing there with his back turned to you. "Oh my god, Jae, we have to go! There are fucking zombies outside!" You gasp, still having a hard time believing those words that were coming from your mouth. In a split second he turned around, his face was beginning to contort, one eye was pure white.

"Y/N.. somethings wrong." He chokes out, spitting out blood before he falls to the ground, his body spasming while he froths at the mouth.

You let out a loud scream as you slam the door shut, running down the hallway to grab the duffle bag before heading out. You swing your door open to run out and crash into a man who falls into another group. You turn to apologize but already there were zombies staggering down the hallway at a quick pace. You whisper an apology before you run out the front door, his cries and pleas for help making your heart sink. You release a big breath seeing your car is still there. You climb in your front seat, closing the door as fast as you can and locking all the doors before turning your car on. Just before you were able to put your car in reverse and speed away, a man began banging on your window.

"Please miss, please open your door." He asks. You look at his face, he's sweating, blood splattered all over his face. His fists and arms remain pressed against your window, smearing blood across it. Your eyes drift down and you see a fresh wound - a bite mark and a chunk taken from his arm.

"You were bitten.." You say to him through the window.

"I'm fine. It's fine.. it's not a bite.. please." He begs. He turns to look behind him and looks back at you, panic written all over his face.

"Please miss, they're coming.. please." He cries.

"I can't." You yell, turning your head away from them. You put the car in reverse, stepping on the gas you pull away from him, knocking him to the ground. As your car stops so you can switch it into drive, you watch as the man gets mauled by a herd of the undead. You felt bad, but you couldn't have helped him, even if you wanted to.

You drove towards the freeway, thinking your best bet is to get out of the city. Your eyes were glued to the road and watching the mirrors, you watched as people panicked while driving, crashing into other cars trying to merge first, crashing into medians, and going in all directions. You could feel a panic attack coming along as you finally realized you were all alone. You had no one to talk to, no one to help you and that was terrifying. You glance down at your gas gage, seeing you had almost a full tank, you knew you would be able to make it to the one place that was probably the safest, your cousin Ray's.

You're stuck in traffic with your doors locked as you see a few people running to cars, trying to get in. There's a man, crying and panicking. No one would let him in, a herd of zombies following behind him. You needed to make a quick decision, so you rolled down your window motioning them over to you. "Here, get in." You yell, unlocking your doors. A man climbs into the backseat of your car, and you quickly lock the doors as soon as the door closes.

"Thank you." The man cries

"Have you been bitten?" You ask, turning to look him over.

"No.. no I haven't. Some men.. they pulled me out of my car, and took off, leaving me out there to die." The man explains. "You're the first person who offered me any help."

"I'm glad I could help." You smile through your rear view. "My cousin has a farm just an hour or so up from here. My family is heading there now. He's been preparing for an apocalypse for a long time. We should be safe there." You explain.

Earlier you had gotten a frantic call from your mother, her asking if you had seen what was going on. You couldn't understand why she thought you lived under a rock and didn't know anything. You did leave your house and listen to the news, contrary to popular belief.

"Thank you, thank you." He cries. You just smile as you continue to drive to Ray's farm.

**

An hour later you take a left turn, driving down the gravel road that leads you to the farm house. You drive slowly, seeing your mom's car, your aunt's car and a few other relatives. You sighed a sigh of relief, knowing that your family was safe. The two of you get out of the car and quietly make your way to the door. You softly knock but there's no answer. You turn the door knob, pushing the door open and it's empty. You walk down the small hallway and hear nothing. Your mom isn't talking, Ray wasn't yelling, no one was making a sound and that was very unusual for your family.

"Hello?" You call out.

You hear footsteps coming from down the hall as the two of you stand around the kitchen. "Hurry up." You laugh and cry.

As the footsteps got closer, you could hear snarling. Your laughter stopped as your cousin Ray came out of the back room. "Zombies." You whisper, backing away.

Not far behind him was your mom, dad, and aunt all coming out, rushing towards you all. "Run!" You scream, heading towards the door. You pull it open, the man behind you trying to get out the door, but he falls, crying as the undead come closer. He's doing his best to fight the zombies off but more stagger out from the back room, there are too many for him. "Run! Save yourself! If you meet my wife, her name is H/N, tell her I love her and our daughter." He yells. "I was trying to get home to them." He yells.

He's trying so hard to fight them, but he's bitten, he screams in agony as he's being ripped to shreds, his body being mauled by the undead.

His screams are now silent, the only sound filling the room is the sound of flesh being torn through.

You close the door, running back to your car. You see a gas can on the side of the house. You rummage through your car, knowing that you have a lighter somewhere in there. You remembered the argument you and Jaebum had gotten into about smoking and he tossed his lighter in your car.

Found it, under the passenger seat. As you went to get out of the car, you noticed something in the backseat.

A wallet.

You grabbed it, opening it up to see the license. It was the man's.

"Kim Jongdae." You whisper. You felt sorry for him, but you couldn't take long to mourn. You needed to be alert and get back on the road. You take your lighter and run to the gasoline. You pour it all over the front of the house, seeing your undead family banging against your windows broke your heart but you needed to do this. You flick the lighter, igniting the flame and throw it onto the ground. The house lights up, the flames quickly engulfing the house. You walk back to your car, slide into the driver's seat and sit there, tears pouring down your cheeks. You have no family, no friends, you have no one.

No one is coming to save you. You watch as your family and the house burn to the ground, exploding in the process.

That made you laugh a little bit, thinking of all the illegal shit your cousin Ray had in his basement.

A while later you get yourself together and drive over to the barn. If you knew anything about your cousin, it is that he always stored something in his barn, besides his pride and joy of a car, his old bronco, Monty. You pull the doors open, and take the tarp off the car, revealing its shine. Just as you remembered it. You peaked in the driver's side and sure enough, the keys were dangling from the ignition.

You began walking slowly to the back of the barn, opening another door, and here you found the jackpot.

Guns.

From a machine gun, to a pistol, to a shotgun. You gathered them all, putting the guns and the ammo in the backseat of Monty. You grab your bags from your car, tossing them in as well before looking around to see if there was anything else you could take. You notice a radio, but don't think much of it at the moment.

You climb into the driver's seat, and pull out of the barn, feeling safer than you have all day. You keep driving down the deserted highway. Abandoned cars everywhere, a few bodies laying around but most of all, no zombies but also no humans either. You're barely paying attention to the road, when you hit something, causing you to swerve, and the car to make a funny noise. You get out to check and see your front tire, flat as fuck.

You didn't have a spare. It was getting dark and you were exhausted. You moved most of the guns to the floor of the back seat, grabbing a blanket and some food and water. You change your clothes, wiping yourself down before having a snack. Laying down in the backseat you try to plan out your next move, but your eyelids get too heavy, and you can't fight it anymore. You doze off completely, and for a little while, forget about the disaster you're in.

You stayed in your car for weeks, never coming across anyone human. You missed talking to someone, talking to yourself wasn't the same. At times you almost forgot what your own voice sounded like. When it was safe, you'd get out of the car and wander around the forest, collecting sticks and branches to make fires with, so you could heat up some of your food. You have some, but you were starting to run low and you didn't know what you were going to do when it ran out. You were limiting yourself to one meal a day but even that didn't seem to help.

You learned when zombies came near the car, in a few or a herd, you needed to hide yourself very well. No moving, light breathing and packed under a lot of things. You were sure if they couldn't see you then they would continue on their way and leave. It almost always worked.

Life in the apocalypse was lonely and exhausting. That night you went to sleep, hoping for a miracle.

You're woken up later, by a frantic tapping on your window. Your eyes adjust to the sun as you look directly out your back window. A group of men stand there, all looking terrified as one of them taps on your window harder. You crawl up to the front driver's seat. You know you can't go anywhere, not with your busted tire. You turn the car on, rolling down your window just a crack.

"What?" You ask, side eyeing all of them.

"Please, we won't hurt you.. we just need a ride. There.. there's a military base a few miles up, but we just can't walk anymore. We haven't come across anyone, human in a while." He stutters.

"My tire is flat." You explain. "I don't have a spare."

"I can change it for you, just gotta take one off another car." A man pipes up.

You didn't feel uneasy from these guys and you were one to always trust your instincts.

"You change the tire, I'll give you a ride." You say. A military base? Maybe it would finally be somewhere safe for you to be.

The man nods and gets to work. By the time he's done the sun is beginning to set, and then you're on your journey to hopefully find somewhere safe.

You're driving down the highway, doing your best to follow the men's map that has every military base mapped out in the 100 miles surrounding the area. "What are your names?" You ask.

"I'm Changbin." The one in the front seat answers. "I'm Chan, and this is Felix." One in the back answers.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Y/N." You say with a smile. As you continue to drive, it quickly becomes night time, everything is black, except for the dim lights coming from your headlights. The two men in the back continue to loudly talk and argue over something, making it hard for you to concentrate. You hated driving at night, especially near wooded areas, you never knew what was out there.

"Can you guys stop?" You ask, glancing to the back.

They continued and got louder. Changbin was asleep in the front seat as they continued their bickering, making you get even more flustered. You turn your head to look back at them, telling them again to stop. They look at each other as you look back at the road and see something standing there. You get startled, yanking the wheel to try and avoid it, heading directly into the woods. The car heads straight on towards a tree and crashes. You hit your head hard on the steering wheel, knocking you out.

What feels like hours, but only seconds later you gain consciousness, just in time to hear Changbin and Chan crying. "She killed him." Changbin cried. "I'm gonna kill her." He yells.

You're struggling to open your eyes, your head is pounding.

You can hear some rustling between the two. "Don't." Chan says. "Leave her. She's in no condition to go anywhere. The undead will get her. She'll get her suffering, ``he says. "Let's take what we can and leave."

"No." You whisper. "Don't."

They can't hear you.

You can hear them rummaging through your car, collecting your guns, your food, your water, everything you had.

"Let's go." Changbin says, they both take off, leaving you there to die as you lose consciousness once again.

**

You're startled awake, surrounded by darkness. You unbuckle your seatbelt, getting out of the car with your head pounding. Your headlights are still on, and you see Felix's body laying on the ground. He had flown through the windshield from the impact of the crash. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt. You begin to cry, this was too much for you.

And then you remember. You look up and see a herd of zombies staggering towards you. They were quicker than you thought. You turned towards the road, running as fast as you could, your leg was throbbing. You run across the road to the other side of the woods. You can hear the snarling behind you as you do your best to navigate through the trees, branches breaking beneath your feet.

You stop, hiding behind a tree, trying to control your breathing. You listen, you can hear the sounds of them walking through the forest, searching for you. You take a second before you take off again, trying to zigzag through the woods in your best attempt to lose them.

You look up, seeing a fire. You run towards it, the flames becoming closer, you can hear the sound of faint words.

Then everything goes quiet. Suddenly the fire is put out and you can hear the sounds of guns clicking.

"Don't shoot." You yell out. "Please."

"What do you want?" A woman yells back.

"I'm.. there's a herd following me. I need help. I was in an accident, I was robbed. I haven't been bitten." You stutter.

"We don't need anyone else." A man yells. "Keep moving."

"Please.. I just need some help. I'm all alone." You cry.

"Move along, before I put a bullet in your head." He yells.

You let out a sob as you turn, beginning to run a different way. You hope you can find a safe place and a group of people but for tonight, you just hope you can survive the night.

**

It had been months.

Months since the outbreak, months of being on your own, months of fighting, scavenging, and hiding. You had come across a few groups, but they wanted nothing more than to take what you had and leave you defenseless. You had learned to hide from most people, giving yourself the advantage of a surprise attack. Most of the time you were successful and they just took off but sometimes they also fought back.

A week ago you had come across a small town, and had found some food and water and a place to stay, but you knew better than to stay in one place for too long. You quickly packed up your belongings into your backpack and grabbed your large spear. You learned awfully quick how to take down a zombie with it, finding it to be much more efficient than a gun, especially with having spears on both sides.

As you walk through the forest, your eyes and ears are open, listening for any signs of the undead. You stop in your tracks, hearing the sound of grunting and yelling, sounding close to you. You walk towards the sound, and come into view of four men trying to fight off a herd. They looked to be struggling, and although you don't usually like to insert yourself into others' fights, you felt like being nice and lending a hand. You run towards them, spearing a few in the head on your way.

You quickly join the fight, taking down a few zombies, as they get a little distracted, seeing another person helping.

"Focus." A man yells, bringing them out of the confusion.

A few minutes later, the last one is stabbed in the head, his decaying body dropping to the ground. The four men turn to look at you, two of them with a smile on their faces, one looking a little confused and the other one looking right angry.

"Hi." One with brown hair and a large smile says.

"Thank you." The blonde one grins.

"No problem." You laugh.

"I'm Baekhyun, this is Chanyeol." He introduces. "And that's Suho." He says, pointing to the confused one. "And that's Kyungsoo." He finishes, pointing to the angry one.

"Nice to meet you all." You say. "I'm Y/N."

"Are you all alone?" Chanyeol asks.

You nod your head.

"What's your story, Y/N?" Suho asks.

You smile awkwardly as you look at the four men who surround you. "My boyfriend turned into one of them when this whole thing started, so I was on my own from the beginning, in a sense. I met a man on my way to my cousin's farm, where my family was gathering, and when we got there they all had already turned. He..he tripped and he fell while trying to escape and he was bitten." You shudder. "I gathered supplies and I took off, and ended up with a flat tire a few hours away. I stayed in my car for weeks, managing pretty well on my own. I met three guys who offered to change my tire for a ride to a military base but when we finally got going.. it was dark and they were arguing in the back." You explain. "I turned around to tell them to stop, but they wouldn't listen and when I looked back at the road, there was something there and I swerved." You sigh. "We hit a tree, and one of them flew through the window. The other two robbed me of everything I had and I've been alone ever since."

"Well not anymore you're not." Baekhyun smiles. "You can join our group."

"Yeah!" Chanyeol exclaims.

"No." Kyungsoo grunts, walking past you, glaring at you. "We didn't need your help. And you're not joining us." He spits. "You're not going to let her join, right?" He asks Suho.

"I don't know." Suho sighs.

"Suho, everyone around her dies. She's bad fucking luck and if you bring her with us, we're all as good as dead." He spits.

"Meeting." Suho announces.

The four men huddle around, whispering to each other. You can make out Baekhyun and Chanyeol saying yes, and Kyungsoo saying no.

Seconds later they all stand up, Kyungsoo looking pissed with the other two looking happier than a pig in shit.

"If you would like to, we would like to invite you to join us. We know it's tough out here, and I can't imagine what it's been like to be alone." Suho says.

You look between all the men, even if one hated you for no reason, you were tired of being alone, and being scared alone.

"Yes." You announce. "Thank you."

"Come on, our camp is this way." Chanyeol smiles, waving you along. Three men begin walking away, but Kyungsoo walks towards you.

"I don't trust you." He murmurs, moving in close. "If anyone from this group so much as gets a splinter, I'm coming for you." He growls into your ear, his tone is low and very threatening. Goosebumps cover your skin as you feel his hot breath on your ear.

You nod your head.

He turns away from you, running towards the rest of his group.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea?

**

You felt like your legs were going to collapse as you continued to walk behind the group. Baekhyun turns around, smiling as he announces you have arrived. You look around and see a bunch of trees, but no camp, except for the small campfire pit that sat on the ground.

"It's.. nice." You smile.

Chanyeol, Suho and Baekhyun start laughing.

"Look up." Chanyeol says.

You tilt your head to the sky, and see a decent sized tree house sitting between a few trees. Your jaw drops, this was one thing you had never expected to see. "Come, we'll give you a tour." Baekhyun says, beginning to climb up the swinging ladder. You follow behind Baekhyun, the rest coming up behind you. When you get inside, you're honestly still amazed. It wasn't much but it was safe and it was out of the way and off the ground.

"We pull up the ladder when we're here, and when we all leave we just hide it." Suho explains. "We have food, water and sleeping bags. The most important things. We all pitch in around here, whether or not it's repairs, runs, or fights, everyone helps." He says, looking at you.

"Of course. Whatever I can do to help, I will." You assure them.

"Or don't, I'm not ready to die." Kyungsoo mutters, setting his stuff down.

Your eyes darted over to Kyungsoo, giving him an offended look. He looks back at you, not caring if he's hurt your feelings. You can sort of understand why he's weary of you, but it's not like you killed these people for the hell of it. You were determined to prove that it wasn't you, that you weren't bad luck. How you were going to do that, you had no idea.

**

That night you sat around a campfire, your belly fuller than it's been in a while, while you listened to stories Baekhyun and Chanyeol shared about their friend group. As it turned out, there were a total of twelve of them when this first started. Some of them were unfortunate to be ones who had gotten the batch of vaccines, a few they had lost while traveling, some died in fights, or took off to find their loved ones.

"Have you come across any of them?" You ask.

"We've looked, but no luck so far. There are two we're still looking for. Oh Sehun and Kim Jongdae." Suho says.

Your heart stops. Your head darts up, looking at him with wide eyes.

"What?" Chanyeol asks.

"What was that last name?" You whisper.

"Kim Jongdae? He was one of our best friends." Suho tells you.

You gulp, there's a ball forming in your throat. "What?" Kyungsoo yells. "What do you know?"

"I.. He said he was trying to get back to his wife and kid.. h-he told me to run and save myself. I wanted to help him b-but I didn't know how." You choke out.

"The man that was bitten at your farm. That was Jongdae?" Kyungsoo asks.

"I saw his license in his wallet.. he had dropped it in my car when we got out. I'm so sorry." You cry.

Kyungsoo rushes towards you, tackling you to the ground, straddling you.

"You fucking bitch, I knew you shouldn't have joined us. It should have fucking been you. You should have died, not him." He screams in your face, spit flying from his mouth as he hands pin your shoulders to the ground.

You're bawling as Suho and Chanyeol pull Kyungsoo off of you, he's still crying and yelling. "It should have been you!" He yells.

Baekhyun helps you off the ground, guiding you to go up into the tree house. He sets out a sleeping bag for you, tucking you in as you cry into the built in pillow. 'I'm so sorry." You whimper.

"I know. And we know it's not your fault. Jongdae was a clumsy motherfucker so I'm not surprised he tripped. Don't take what Kyungsoo says to heart. He's been through alot and he's not warm to new people. Just give him a bit." Baekhyun tells you. He gives you a half smile before climbing down the ladder and sitting back around the fire, helping to calm things down. That night you fell asleep with tears staining your face.

**

Days bled into weeks, and then into months, until this new life and these men were all that were at the top of your mind. Chanyeol had finally been able to make contact with the ham radio that had been found on one of many expeditions. There seemingly were whole groups of people like yourselves out there, sticking together and trying to survive. You reflected on the wonder of it all as you cleaned the rabbit you had caught, the best you could.

Kyungsoo had become different with you, he didnt give off a hatred towards you anymore. His words didn't cut quite as deep. Slowly you were becoming closer, and you enjoyed it.

Suddenly, you feel a presence behind you, waves of hot breath covering the nape of your neck, sending chills down your spine. He didn't even need to speak, you already knew who it was. "You're doing it wrong." Kyungsoo breathed, his body close to yours.

"I'm not." You retort, continuing to skin the dead animal. You tried to ignore his presence, and that fact that he made you feel so many mixed emotions whenever he was around.

You both hear a crunch of leaves behind you, making Kyungsoo step away from you and turn around.

"What are you guys doing?" Baekhyun asks, raising his eyebrow.

"She's skinning the rabbit wrong. She's going to take off all the meat with the fur." Kyungsoo announces.

"I am not.. shit." You spit, looking on the ground, seeing hunks of meat still attached to the fur.

"Told you." He mumbles, walking away and into the forest to try and find more food.

You stick up your middle finger at the man who drove you crazy day in and day out.

"Y/N." Suho calls out to you, a few hours later. "If you want to take a bath, go to the stream now. It's going to be dark soon."

You nod your head, climbing up the ladder to grab your things. You slide back down, just in time for Kyungsoo to be protesting something.

"We've all got other things to do, you're the only one free." Suho tells him. "Y/N, Kyungsoo will be keeping watch for you."

"I really don't ne.." you start.

"Yes you do." He says, looking at you. "And you will go. That's it."

With an aggravated groan, Kyungsoo stomps off towards the stream, with your speed walking to keep up with him.

As you finish up your wash, you dry yourself off with your towel, pulling your jeans on over your damp legs. You bend down to grab your shirt, when you hear a rustling from behind you. You stand up straight, your heart pounding in your chest.

You hear it again, the sound now closer to you. "Fuck." You scream, running towards Kyungsoo. Your body collides with his, your breasts pressing against his hard chest. "There's something out there." You whisper.

You both hear the sound, Kyungsoo holding onto you as his eyes dart around, taking in the surroundings. Seconds later a deer walks out of the bushes, grazing and you can feel your heart slow down.

"It's a deer." He announces, looking at you. You look back at him, your eyes trailing to his heart shaped lips. Your own set of lips parting slightly as you look back at him, his eyes haven't moved from your face. Without thinking you inch yourself forward, which causes Kyungsoo to inch back. Your stomach sinks. You cannot believe you just did that. Why did you think that he would return a kiss?

"We should head back." He says, avoiding eye contact and clearing his throat.

You feel so embarrassed. You quickly whisper an apology before grabbing your things and taking off, hearing a faint "wait." From behind you. You're running through the words, desperately trying not to cry as you can hear Kyungsoo running behind you.

You finally slow down, trying to catch your breath as your lips quiver. You hear a stick break behind you. You turn around with a sigh, and come face to face with a zombie, snarling as he reaches out for you. You scream loudly as you try to fight it off, tripping in the process. You fall back with him on top of you as he tries to go in for a bite. Black bile is seeping from his mouth, his breath is rancid.

"Help!" You scream out, one hand trying to reach for something, anything that would help you take him out.

Suddenly his body goes limp and you hear the sound of a sword coming out of his head. You roll the body off of you, and see Chanyeol smiling above you.

"Thank you." You sigh in relief. Chanyeol puts out his hand to help you up, when he's attacked. Another zombie staggers up to him, latching his teeth to Chanyeol's neck. He screams out in agony as the monster devours him before your eyes.

"No!" You cry. You take Chanyeol's sword, putting the blade right through the zombie's skull. Chanyeol sinks to the ground, sobbing while he holds his neck. "I'm sorry." You cry. "I'm so so sorry."

"It's.. not.. your...fault." He breathes. "Tell them.. I love them.." he stutters.

Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Suho rush to Chanyeol's side. Baekhyun is sobbing while Kyungsoo and Suho hold back their tears.

"I didn't.. I didn't know there was a second one." You sob.

Kyungsoo walks over to you, his face stone cold. He wraps one arm around you, pulling you in close to him. "It's not your fault." He murmurs. The two of you stand there, watching the life drain from Chanyeol's eyes.

Baekhyun announces he will be the one to put Chanyeol down, but would like to do it in private. Three of you walk away from the sobbing man, your heart full of guilt.

**

The next day, the camp is quiet. You were busy making wood spears, like Chanyeol had taught you a few weeks ago. You couldn't even look at Baekhyun. You knew the two of them were best friends and your heart hurt so badly that Chanyeol died while trying to save you.

Had you not been so stupid and tried to kiss Kyungsoo, then this would never have happened. You knew this was your fault and there was nothing you could do to make it better. You can't bring Chanyeol back and you really wish you could.

"Careful." You hear from behind you. You turn your head and see Kyungsoo leaning against a tree. "If you keep sharpening it like that you're going to end up slicing your finger off." He tells you.

"This is how.. Chanyeol showed me how to do it." You say. You could barely speak his name.

Kyungsoo chuckles. "Yeah, he wasn't the best at doing it either." He crouches behind you, wrapping his arms around you to show you the proper way of doing it. Your heart still flutters as he touches you.

"Thank you." You whisper.

"Anytime." He says, standing up and walking away from you.

Fuck. You were so fucked.

**

That night you couldn't sleep. You stared at the empty spot beside you, where Chanyeol used to sleep. You could hear the small whimpers coming from Baekhyun and you just couldn't take it. You slowly slid out of your sleeping bag, slid on some shoes and climbed down the ladder. As you stand in the forest, you take a deep breath of fresh air. You need to gather your thoughts and heal yourself. You begin walking through the woods. It's quiet, and you didn't plan on going very far. As you're walking, you stop to listen. You hear a noise coming from in front of you but you didn't know what it was. You tried your best to hide behind the tree, limiting your breathing as you continue to listen. You can heat twigs breaking and leaves crunching. Your heart begins to race in your chest, you squeeze your eyes shut.This was a bad idea, you should not have left the tree house.

"What are you doing?" You hear from in front of you. You open your eyes and see Kyungsoo standing in front of you.

"I thought.. oh my god." You sigh. "I thought I was going to die."

Before he can say anything you both hear groans and snarls but you're not sure where from. You unintentionally let out a squeak. Kyungsoo covers your mouth with his hand, pushing you up against the tree. His body presses hard against yours, you can feel his hot breath against your neck.

The two of you stay like this for what feels like hours. When the sound is finally gone he pulls away from you.

"What are you doing out here?" He growls.

"I needed some air, and to think." You explain.

"You could die out here. This has to be your stupidest decision." Kyungsoo scoffs.

"No." You begin. Before your brain can tell you not to say anything, your mouth begins to move. "My stupidest decision was trying to kiss you." You say, turning away from him to walk away.

"I was surprised." He announces. "I didn't think you'd try and kiss me. I didn't think you'd even like me. I treated you terribly." He tells you.

"That's probably why I like you unfortunately." You sigh, making him laugh.

As the two of you are walking back towards the house, you hear whispers coming towards you. You both stop, hearing the sound of a gun loading, making you stop in your tracks. Kyungsoo pulls you behind him, moving both of you towards a bigger tree to hide behind.

"Show yourself walker." A man screams. "I know you're out there."

Neither of you say anything. Kyungsoo is against pressed up against your body, shielding you from any danger.

A while later you see a light flashing. It flashes towards your tree, making Kyungsoo push into you more, trying to keep the two of you hidden. The light passes the tree you're behind and continues to walk away. Neither of you move until the light is completely gone and out if sight. Both of you let out a sigh of relief but Kyungsoo doesn't move away from you. His face hovers close to yours, you can feel his breath on your face.

You wait. You wait for what you hope will happen but you don't think that it will come.

Until it does. Kyungsoo presses his lips to yours. You're shocked at first, until he begins moving his lips against yours and you get into it. You wrap your arms around his neck as he slips his tongue into your mouth. You moan into the kiss, making him groan.

"I want to fuck you." He says, his lips still just barely touching yours.

"I want you to fuck me." You breathe.

Kyungsoo turns you around, pushing you up against the tree. He kneels down, pulling down your sweat pants and underwear.

"Spread your legs." He demands.

You spread them as far as you can. You can hear the sound of his belt unbuckling behind you. Your pussy throbs in anticipation. You don't know how big or small he is, but you hope he destroys you. You couldn't even remember the last time you had been fucked at all.

Kyungsoo steps up behind you, taking two fingers and searching between your lips for your hole. He chuckles when he finds it, he can feel your juices dripping from inside of you. "So fucking wet." He groans, slowly pushing his two fingers inside you. Immediately you clench around them, it feels so good. "I needed to make sure you were wet enough, and fuck are you ever." He whispers in your ear.

He pulls his fingers out of you, and lines his cock up with your hold. You're bracing yourself on the tree as he pushes himself inside you. Your eyes practically roll back into your head as he stretches you out.

"Oh god." You cry, your fingernails digging into the tree bark.

"Shit." He cries, slowly pulling out of you before snapping his hips and harshly pushing his cock back inside. "It's gonna be quick." He groans.

That was fine with you, you knew you could rub your clit twice and cum, it had been too long.

Kyungsoo has his hands holding onto your hips as he snaps his, grunting and groaning from behind you. You reach between your legs, touching your clit. You begin to slowly rub it and you can already feel your intense orgasm already building up. You feel like you're going to cum already. His cock feels so nice sliding in and out of your pussy, the sound of his grunts and moans, with the feeling of his hot breath covering you and giving you shivers.

"Cum." He grunts. Your tighten your pussy around him as you orgasm washes over you, leaving your body feeling weak.

Kyungsoo moans loudly as he pulls out of you, jerking his cock to cum all over your ass. He lets out a string of swear words as he releases his load, breathing heavily as he works through it.

You both pull up your pants, and get situated. "We better get back." He says, walking back towarsa camp. You follow closely behind him, confused about your feelings for him, but more so his feelings for you, if there were any.

**

The next day you wake up with the thoughts of what happened last night over flowing through your head. You didn't know how to process this, or what was going to happen now. You decided to see how the day was going to play out and just go about your normal routine.

When you got downstairs you said hi to Suho, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. Two of them said goodmorning back to you, and one did not. You tried to stop thinking about it but it was hard and you knew he wasn't the type of man to tell you his feelings.

However, all day he ignored you. Anytime you tried to say anything to him, he walked away, he refused to answer you and honestly you felt extremely disrespected. Your eyes burn as you fight off the tears, watching him talk and laugh with Baekhyun while you just get ignored.

Suho on the other hand most definitely noticed something was going on because a little while later you see Suho quietly yelling at Kyungsoo.

"I don't care what you did." Suho spits. "Fix it. I refuse to have a hole in our team because one of us is being a dick. Fucking fix it." He murmurs again before walking away.

**

That night you laid in your sleeping bag, wondering if this is what it was going to be like. You having feelings for Kyungsoo, and him taking advantage of it. Fucking you when it's convenient for him and ignoring you the rest of the time. Even after death, life was still so fucked.

You feel something pressing against you from behind. You slowly roll over and see Kyungsoo laying beside you in his sleeping bag.

"Can we talk?" He asks.

You nod your head.

"I." He begins. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I treated you, I'm sorry for the things I said and for the way I acted when I found out about Jongdae. Its been hard to lose people, and it's even harder to accept new people into the group. You're doing a great job here and we're lucky to have you." He whispers.

"Thank you." You smile. But you really want to know why he ignored you all day. "What was going on today?" You ask.

"I enjoyed last night. I, um, had a girlfriend when this whole thing started. We got out together, we met up with Suho and Baekhyun and Chanyeol and she really helped build alot of this. I lost her a while ago, and it's been hard. I didn't think I would meet anyone, or fall for anyone else and then you came along. I feel guilty for liking you so much, like I'm cheating." He explains. "I was convincing myself it wasn't cheating."

"I get that. I was in a relationship when this thing started. Unfortunately for me, he ended up being one of the ones who received that does of vaccine. I had to leave him in our apartment and take off." You whisper. "You'll always have her memory with you and it's something you'll treasure. I didn't know her, but I'm sure she wouldn't want you to be sad and mourning her."

"You're right." He sighs. "It's hard to let go, but I do like you, Y/N. I want you to know that."

"I like you too." You smile.

The two of you lay there, whispering to eachother, laughing and enjoying the night. You couldn't have asked for anything better.

**

Over the next few weeks, the others had changed. With Chanyeol being gone, it took a toll on Baekhyun. He often sobbed at night, crawling next to you so you could rub his head while he cried. Your heart went out to him.

This life wasn't easy.

Suho had become much more grimmer and sullen. He barks orders at people, never engaging in coversations anymore. He's tired, everyone is tired with very little of hope for the future. Fighting for your lives everyday, scrounging for food and water is a struggle, however none of this stopped you and Kyungsoo from sneaking off when you could to be together.

Neither of you really talked when you weren't fucking and that was okay with you, you knew he still had feelings for you. It was the little things he did for you when no one was looking that reassured you. You both knew that announcing your relationship to Suho and Baekhyun would not end well, so keeping it between the two of you would be the best.

You announced to Baekhyun and Suho that you were going to the river, they both just nodded while Kyungsoo offered to be your watch.

It didn't take long for him to be pulling off your shirt and for you to slide off your pants and panties. Both of you walked into the cool water, soaking yourselves before Kyungsoo pulled you towards him. He lifts you up, letting you put your legs around him as he leans in for a kiss. You can feel his cock sliding against your pussy, waiting to be pushed in. He breaks the kiss, leaning down to pepper kisses along your neck as he thrusts, pushing himself inside of you.

You throw your head back as he holds you, fucking you harshly. There was never time to fuck slow, you always needed to be quick and get it done, just in case.

He pumps himself into you, his hand reaching between you and him, touching your sensitive bud and rubbing while he pounds his cock into you.

"Fuck baby." He groans. "You feel so fucking good."

You hold him close as your orgasm builds, biting your bottom lip and your hands gripping his hair. "Just like that." You breathe. "Don't stop." You grind yourself on him as you begin to cum, intensifying your orgasm. "Oh god yes." You moan, breathing heavily.

"I'm gunna cum." He moans, thrusting harder. Seconds later he releases himself, shooting his cum inside of you, his head resting on you as he catches his own breath.

"Fuck." He breathes pulling out of you. "I love you." He whispers.

You stare at him with wide eyes. This wasn't something you had been expecting at all, considering you did your best to hide the relationship at all costs. "I know it might be too soon, but I do and I need you to know that."

"I love you too." You smile.

You're brought out of your sweet moment when you hear screaming from Baekhyun and Suho. You both rush out of the water and get dressed as quick as you can before running back to camp.

"What?" You breathe. "What happened?"

Baekhyun and Suho grin as they stare at the radio. "Listen!" Baekhyun yells.

“Our dear citizens, to those who have survived. The WHO has created what promises to be a vaccine. We are asking all our citizens to make their way to the nearest hospital facility. Troops are being deployed along with helicopters and planes to transport as needed. Today … we have hope in the world again”

You all burst into tears. You did it, you survived and met some wonderful people. You have a love you had never thought you'd get again.

Kyungsoo embraces you tightly, crying into your shoulder as you do his. Quickly Suho and Baekhyun join your hug, all of you feeling such relief and happiness, for the first time in a long time.

As quick as you all can, you gather what you need to make the trek to find a hospital. You say a quick goodbye to your site that has kept you safe for so long, before taking off, hand in hand with Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun and Suho on either side of you.

It wasn't long into your journey, when you hear the familiar sounds of zombies wandering through the forest. The four of you prepare yourselves for a fight but as they come out, you realize there are more than you all had anticipated. You try to fight your way through the crowd, but somehow you're separated from the group, trying to take on more than you can. The others are distracted, they aren't paying attention to your calls for help. A zombie lunges at you, knocking you back. You're crying loudly but no one is coming to help. The other zombies kneel beside you as you keep trying to fight them off, but one takes a chunk out of your shoulder. You scream in agony as you lose your strength to fight. They're devouring you as you're fading into the darkness. You can hear Kyungsoo yell no and all the pain stops. You see him standing over you as you spit up blood. He's crying over your body, asking you to stay with him but you can't. You're tired of fighting, you want to let go now.

So you do.

You open your eyes and see a film over everything. Your body is sore, the scent of meat makes your mouth water and your stomach cramp. Everything feels stiff but something smells so good. Your hearing is better than ever, picking up the sound of a rapid beating heart and the sound of crying. Wait…Where’s my heart beat? You look with horror at the meat...

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I love you.” You reach out to stop the knife but your body is stiff and I responsive as you watch the knife plunging towards you. It’s me you scream in your head as it all goes dark

There is no happiness in life after death.

[simplestoryteller]

Spoiler warning for Kings Tide

What the actual fuck

So the collector’s free, and a lot of fanart on their appearance is mostly correct

King freed the collector, and if there was a turncoat it hasn’t been revealed.

So Luz, Hunter, Amity, Gus, and Willow are now in the human realm

After King sacrificed himself to be the collector’s playmate

Eda is now down an arm and the Collector stopped the day of unity, but .... I’m a little scared of what the Collector’s gonna do to everyone on the isles after all the Collector probably doesn’t realize that not everyone is as powerful as him

Luz tricked Belos and gave him a coven badge, and what does the bastard do, he turns into that amalgam monster we saw in hollow mind

I’m curious though, what did Belos expect to be rewarded with when he got to the human realm. Idk but I’m pretty sure that Luz was right that everyone would think he’s got a couple of screws loose. Now he’ll be punished by the Collector, hopefully

Luz almost got turned to stone, and yikes at that, but how are the crew getting back to the boiling isles to save everyone, the portals broken and the closest thing they have to making a new one is either find what initially transferred Belos to the isles or somehow make one in the human realm even though they don’t have Titans blood.

I should’ve known King would sacrifice himself, I mean it was practically obvious with how everyone was pushing him to the sidelines to protect him, and with his connection with the collector but I didn’t and still don’t want to believe it to be true. He’s fucking 8yo, I think, he should be allowed to play like a little kid not fight for survival, non of the main cast deserves to have had to go through what they did

It’s not fair....

I’m sad as well, because it seems that season three was always planned to have the group stranded in the human realm but now most of their adventures in it as they try to get back are going to be scrapped or rushed in order to fit the now shortened schedule.

I regret asking about Luz’s promise to her mom cause I never expected or wanted them to get stranded, and for all we know the show could have more creeps like the one who went after Vee that will definitely notice the sudden appearance of unknowns. In a way I’m just glad that, and it pains me to say this but, king is still in the boiling isles cause we don’t even know if he is capable of leaving, leaving could kill him for all we know.

We still don’t know what Luz’s palisman is nor what will happen next or how Luz’s mom will react to Luz and her friends wounded appearances. Not do we know just what will happen to everyone especially after it being revealed what Belos was trying to do. It’ll most likely end in chaos and probably a hunt for everyone perseived involved to be punished, but that’s only if they are able to rally together at all...

I’m just scared, scared for all characters, who aren’t like Belos and Odalia, and the worst part is it doesn’t seem like Disney will continue this story once season 3 finishes

Which is fucking stupid of them, don’t they see how popular and profitable this show is, or are they just too stubbornly up their own conservative asses to consider continuing. I don’t care what the “official” reason Dana Terrace stated for this forceful shortening, nothing and I mean NOTHING will change my mind that the real reason Disney nipped this story at the bud is because they are too scared to risk having such a show on their platform. They are just too fucking scared of what the Biggots will do to see the good that is this show.

This show has such a diverse cast that will help children feel seen, heck I wish I had this show when I was a kid to tell me that it’s ok to not be cishet, but the biggoted bastards running this don’t care about that, and that makes me want to cry.

Because a part of me will always feel robbed of what we could have had, and there’s a chance that this whole situation will scare other creators from having as much lgbtqia+ rep for fear that they will be snipped as well

I wish their was a way to knock Disney down a peg or get rid of the oil baron people running the company at the moment, because this isn’t right

But I’m not sure if we can, because what can we really do? No seriously I’m asking what can we do to try to change this, because I don’t know. After all they are the ones with the teams of layers, money and manpower, and I have a feeling no matter how many people speak out/boycott Disney, it won’t even put a dent in their pockets because of how much they own and how many people daily consume their products.

All I know is that with the way things are going, at least in the US, it doesn’t look good, and it really makes the world around me more and more inhospitable, and I don’t like it, so if anyone has any ideas on how we can start, hopefully, fixing things let me know. Because... I don’t know

Sorry that this turned into a rant about Disney, didn’t mean to but I still stand by what I said