#going to video game highschool means that my friends all want me to experience every video game but i simply dont have time for cyberpunk

[notwerewolf]

i want the Let's Play back so i could get the experience of playing through pokemon games vicariously through a youtuber that does silly voices and makes funny remarks

[iwadori]

Why you break up with the haikyu boys part 2 (Osamu, Iwaizumi, Daichi, Ushijima.)

Part 1 (Atsumu, Oikawa, Kageyama, Kenma, Akaashi, Sugawara)

Genre: angst

masterlist

Osamu: “For fuck sake Y/N, don’t deny it I know that you...”

You and Osamu were basically arranged to be together, you were best friends from when you were little and your parents thought you were a match made in heaven.

Did you love Osamu? Of course, you pretty much worshipped the ground he walked on.

But there was always a strange look he gave you whenever he mentioned his brother. You never really focused on it, but that was something you took note of.

When you came back home, after a long day of work. You see Osamu sitting in the kitchen alone, with some paper in front of him and a drink in his hand.

“‘Samu Babe!” You exclaim sauntering over to him “How are yo-“

“Don’t.” He said simply, taking a sipping some of his drink (to which you could only assume was some form of hard liquor.)

“Why ‘Samu, what’s wro-“

“You bought tickets to his game.”

“Who’s game?”

“Don’t play dumb with me Y/N, you bought tickets to my idiot of a brothers game in an attempt to slut around under my nose..”

“Samu, that’s not what it was I-“

“I don’t want to hear it Y/N!” He yelled slamming his drink down making you flinch.

“Gosh Samu whats wrong with you. I know that I had a teeny crush on Atsumu when we were kids but it was just a childhood crush. An innocent childhood crush.”

“For fuck sake Y/N, don’t deny it I know yo-“

“You know what? That I’ve spent majority of my life, trying to ease your own insecurities and jealousy of your own goddamn brother. How childish can you be Osamu ?”

Osamu eyes opened a bit in realisation, and his lips slightly parted. “But Y/N, you-“

“I what? Brought us tickets to your TWIN brothers final volleyball game, because I wanted him to see the support from his family and friends.”

“I’m sorry Y/N I really a-“

“Don’t.” you say picking up the tickets and turning around “I just thought maybe, just maybe for at least a day you could put your weird feelings towards your brother aside... but I guess you can’t.”

You left the apartment, and got your stuff another day (one where you knew Osamu was at work.)

No you did not end up dating Atsumu, you were most certainly friends and only friends. You did end up going to the game on your own, to cheer on Atsumu who most definitely appreciated it.

You thought you saw a certain Miya twins sitting in the stands at of the game, hiding his face with a baseball cap. Which made you smile a bit...

Well at least he ended up coming to the game.

Iwaizumi: “I just don’t want you Y/N, I never did”

In your second year of Seijoh Highschool, you were approached by a rough looking boy who had a ‘resting bitch face,’ and looked like they were coming to pick a fight with you.

But no, it was just “Iwaizumi Hajime.”

He was very popular throughout your school, as he was vice captain of the schools volleyball team and he was Oikawa Toorus best friend.

So when he approached you that Friday afternoon at your locker, you definitely didn’t know why.

“Y/N..” he said nervously scratching the back of his neck “umm this is for you..”

In his hands was a bar of chocolate and a scrunched up note that read

AN: DID I WRITE THAT NOTE MYSELF, yes yes I did anyways...

You were very surprised at this sudden confession as you and Iwaizumi weren’t in the same social circles and you were definitely not the type of girl that would be on his ‘radar.’

You had a quite unsettling feeling, which made you subconsciously squint your eyes at him. But they soon soften as you saw the nervousness that Iwaizumi was showcasing to you as you were contemplating on you answer.

You got out a pen, shaking the unsettling feeling you had out of your head. And ticked the box “Yes” giving it back to Iwaizumi.

He smiled widely and rushed towards you in an attempts in giving you a hug which went awkwardly wrong leaving you both laughing.

Dating Hajime, wasn’t bad nor good... it’s just what you wouldn’t expect it to be.

There wasn’t much of a change to what your usual school routine was which consisted of: going to lessons and spending break and lunch on your own reading a book.

And technically you were still doing that, but you were now just always with Hajime. Wether it was at lunch or at practice (which he always insisted you go to, also hinting that he would like for you to bring him bentos to practice.) which you did end up doing.

One day, whilst doing your daily “bento delivery,” to your boyfriend, you overhear him talking to his friends; Matsukawa and Hanamaki.

“God I can’t stand her, always running behind me like a lost puppy giving me bentos that I didn’t even fucking as for” he complained, making you gasp.

“Really?” Exclaimed Hanamaki “I know you said she confessed to you one time, but I didn’t know it was that bad?”

“Yeah she’s a stalking bitch, it’s getting annoying.”

“Gosh it’s seems someones getting a taste of the ‘Oikawa Experience’” Matsun said making them all laugh.

You entered the room, furious. “What the fuck Hajime?”

“Woah woah woah, it’s seems your stalkers about iwa, we’ll leave you too it” said Hanamaki, with Matsun following behind him as they leave.

“What do they mean I’m a stalker?”

“Well aren’t you?” He responded with a smirk

“Gosh y/n you’ve been following me about for a while now, dont you think it’s time to stop”

“Bu-But you confessed, with your note and w-“

“Are you sure about that Y/N, cause I don’t really recall ...?”

“Hajime don’t lie, we were dating.. we ARE DATING.”

“Okay Y/N let me fill you in on a little secret,” he said leaning down next to your ear “I don’t want you Y/N, I never did.”

“ but why m-“

“Why you? Because nobody knows Y/N L/N and nobody cares, I can tarnish your name and nobody will give a shit.. and that’s why your an easy target” he said still smiling “ I just wanted to rub it into Shittykawas face that I had my own little “fan club”

You were stunned, frozen in shock as Iwaizumi walks past you to leave the gym, making sure to grab the bento you made him.

“Thanks again for the help, I’m definitely going to miss these bentos!”

You should have listened to your gut feeling from before.

Daichi: “you’re just not marriage material”

Daichi was “the perfect guy,” he was nice to strangers and was helpful to the community and just an all round great guy.

So it was a massive question as to why he went for you, since you were definitely not the girl for Daichi.

“I don’t care what anyone says, your the perfect girl for me” was what he always said.

Even though those statements went out the window whenever his mother got involved.

Daichi’s mum was a strict traditional woman, who believed in family values that went back thousands of years ago.

And she most certainly didn’t like you.

She wanted you to be Daichi’s doting wife, who cooked and cleaned for him. Whilst he works and was the breadwinner of the house.

Although you found no problem with the women that did do this, but this was not for you.

When it comes to meet ups with you, Daichi and his mother. He never told her to stop when it came to the rude comments she made about you, or the times she suggested Daichi go for a more “prim and proper” girl named “Misaki Ayuzawa.”

After the meetings, when his mother was gone, he always tried to reassure that she was wrong and her words didn’t matter.

But you knew they did, that daichi was actually considering some of the things she said about you wether they were true or not.

The tension in your household was strong, since you barely talked to each other anymore. But you had hope for better things...

Until one day, you get a message from Daichi’s mother saying. “It seems Daichi made the right choice, as we all know ‘Mother Knows best.’” With a video attached of Daichi proposing to the one and only “Mikasa Ayuzawa” surrounded by all their high class business friends.

When Daichi got home he yelled, “Y/N, where are you I was at this business party at this fancy restaurant and I got some nice things for you to try!”

“Business party?” You say rolling your eyes “Or Engagement party.”

The shocked look on his face made you smile, as you both knew now that he was caught.

“Fuck you daichi! Why would you do this without even tell me !” You yelled, tearing up a bit.

“Y/N, it wasn’t meant to go down like that it was just I was talking to my mu-“

“Fuck your mum! And you!”

“I’m sorry Y/N you’re just not marriage material an-“

“I don’t care what you’ve got to say, you’ve done it and it’s over with”you said leaving.

“I’ll come back to get my stuff later,” you say “oh and congratulations on the engagement Sawamura-San”

After you said that, Daichi’s heart broke.

He did end up marrying her, and he regretted every day of it. Since she was great and all, but she just wasn’t you...

But he knows now you’re long gone, definitely not going to forgive him for marrying another girl whilst being with him.

Ushijima : stop being so emotional

You and Ushijima were very much opposite In every aspect, and at first it wasn’t really a problem.

Especially since you always excused it as “opposite attracts.”

But recently all you and Ushijima do is argue, left and right always arguing.

You complained about Ushijimas lack of emotion when it came to you, you don’t think he cared about you or about anything.

Whenever you brought up something that was wrong he would reply with “Y/N this is something you need to be acting all upset about.”

And that would definitely upset you even more, you just wanted him to notice you or shout “Y/N I care about you and I love you.”

But Of course he didn’t.

One night he came back late (again) after promising to be home early to have a meal together.

“What’s taken you so long Ushi?” You asked

“I was at practice. I told you this.” He said simply, remaining as stoic as ever.

“But you said- you promised that we can have dinner together.” You said

“ oh well I’m sorry. We can have dinner now if you like.”

“I’m not hungry anymore” you mumbled past him, going to your bedroom.

“Y/N, what’s your problem” he said following after you.

“It’s nothing...”you said tears filling your eyes.

“Okay I’m going to go eat now.” He said leaving you alone in the room going to the kitchen, making you sigh.

After you calm yourself and collect your faults, you go into the kitchen where Ushijima is at the table eating.

“Ushijima, we need to talk.” You said taking a deep breath.

“Okay.”

“We should break up.”

“Okay.”

“Is that all you have to say?” You say tearing up again.

“Yes, I’ve been thinking that for a while now.” He said bluntly “since Y/N, you’re just too emotional.”

“Oh I see.” You say now full on crying.

Ushijima looks up to see you all teared-eye, and he is kind of suprised because ‘why were you upset.’ He got up and tried to console you, but you flinched away and said “Don’t, just don’t Ushijima.”

“I’m sorry Y/N...”

“Why are you sorry? Do you even know what you’re apologising for?”

“No.”

“Well then, just seems to prove my point further...” you go to leave before saying “thanks for the wonderful time... I guess we just weren’t meant to be.”

AN: can someone appreciate what I did with Iwaizumis....no? Okay 😃 I feel this one way way more angsty then part one but oh well. What did you think.

General taglist[bold can’t be tagged]: @sakuxxi @iimoonii @hamdehlesmis @Shoyosupremacy @meadowsinjapan @iambashfulperson @kayleighbeccaa @dearkousei @bakugouswh0r3

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[skyeet-the-writer]

okay i’m not sure if you are taking like open requests but corpse and reader are dating and nobody really knows but like the fans ship it and stuff, and they are playing among us with jack, felix, rae ect,, and someone invites somebody and it’s reader ex boyfriend and corpse notices that she’s acting really quiet and he texts her like “baby are you okay??” and she tells him that’s her toxic ex and during an emergency meeting, her ex suspects her and when she defends herself he says something along the lines of “don’t believe her she’s a fucking liar, she’s been one since the day i first met her” and everyone is like ??? but corpse flips out on him and just snaps telling him to leave his girlfriend alone which breaks his cover so everyone knows about you guys and just like really mad corpse and having to help him calm down and you get up from your seat to see him in his streaming room and just sit on his lap and he’s like “fuck that guy it’s okay baby we can just play minecraft or something” lmaooo 🥺🥺🥺 sorry i know that was so specific but the thought makes me so soft i would actually cry if you wrote this

This Is A Shout Out To My Ex

here’s my first request guys! so sorry they’re taking so long. i’m trying to get these done before i do anything else. hope you guys enjoy! x,

corpse x female!reader

summary: while paying a game with her friends, y/n’s toxic ex joins the game. when he calls her a liar, corpse snaps and defends his girlfriend

word count: ~4.4k

warnings: mentions of emotional abuse, gaslighting, near-death experiences, swearing, some angst but it has a super fluffy end!

Living with your boyfriend is, obviously, amazing in every way. You see each other all the time, you get to cuddle almost all the time, and you get to see his handsome face every morning.

Probably, the only downside is the fact that living together makes it nearly impossible to hide the fact that you’re dating.

But, somehow, you’ve managed to keep it a secret from you rabid fans for the past four months. You literally have no idea how because you’re pretty sure you accidentally got a glimpse of Corpse walking by while you were doing a vlog.

Miraculously, no one noticed it. Then again, none of your fans knew what he looked like, so there’s a plus. There were one or two comments asking who the person in the back was, but you lied and said it was a friend. Technically, you weren’t wrong.

And so you’ve been trying to keep your relationship with Corpse on the DL to avoid any stress or anxiety his way. You could deal with it, you’ve been doing Youtube for years and could handle almost anything. Corpse, bless his heart, might not be able to.

One morning, you’re awoken by some slight tugging on your hair. You crack your eyes open but the bright light makes you whine and close them again. There’s a soft laugh behind you and you roll over onto your back, scooting over closer to him. You stretch your legs and grin, still keeping your eyes closed. 

“Did you sleep at all?” you ask in a quiet voice, your head resting on your lover’s chest.

“No,” he answers in his deep voice and you feel him play with your hair. “Anxiety, insomnia, the usual shit.”

You hum and open your eyes slowly, deciding to brave the light. You blink up at Corpse who is staring at the ceiling. “What were you thinking about?” Your own voice is a bit scratchy and rough. 

He looks down at you and you take notice of how bloodshot his eyes are and the bags under his eyes. “How pretty you are when you sleep.” He grins.

“You watched me when I slept?” you ask and playfully narrow your eyes at him. “You creep.”

He laughs and you turn around onto your side, your back facing him. “Baby, no, I didn’t mean it that way.”

You smile. “You’re so creepy, Corpse.”

He doesn’t say anything but you hear him sit up in bed. You begin to ask what he’s doing but then he lifts up the back of your shirt to press a few kisses to your back. “You’re still here, though. With me.”

“Hm. Yeah.” You turn around and he gazes at you. “Because I love you.”

His eyes light up in the way that they always do when you tell him those three, simple words. You love seeing them light up that way and you grin. “I love you, too.” He leans in for a quick kiss.

“What time is it?” you ask when you pull away.

Corpse reaches over to his side of the bed and turns his phone on. “Noon.”

“Noon?” you shout and sit up so quickly you get a head rush. “We were supposed to be playing Among Us with Sean, Pewds, Toast, Rae, and them.”

“Oh. Yeah.” You turn and see him with his hands covering his face.

You walk over to him and kneel next to him. “Babe? What’s up?”

He just groans and you frown. He doesn’t feel good. 

You push his hair from his forehead. “I can tell them that you’re not feeling up for it. They all know you, they’d understand.”

He shakes his head and runs his hands down his face before they rest on his chest. “No. No, it’s okay, I’ll be fine.” He gives you a smile.

You kiss his cheek. “Okay, then, babe. C’mon, we’re gonna be late.” You grab his hands and tug him up until he’s in a sitting position. He pulls you in for another kiss but you lean away.

“You have morning breath,” you tell him when he gives you his sad eyes. “Brush your teeth and then I’ll kiss you.”

That seems to get him out of bed and into the bathroom while you change clothes. You change out of your sweatpants and t-shirt and into jeans and a shirt. He walks out of the bathroom yawning and you walk past him to go to the bathroom.

I wish he’d sleep, you think to yourself while brushing your teeth. After brushing your teeth, you wash your face and do a little bit of makeup so you don’t look like you just rolled out of bed even though you did.

Corpse walks into the bathroom as you’re finishing your makeup and has a mug of coffee for you. You’re the only one in the house who drinks coffee since he can’t, so you always find it so sweet that he makes it for you.

“You made me coffee?” you ask and he nods. You take it from him and give him a peck. “Thank you, love.” 

You take a sip and grab your phone from your nightstand and shove it into your pocket. You walk out of the bedroom the two of you share and into the kitchen to check on your cat. 

Before you met him, Corpse had never really wanted a pet. He said that they die and he doesn’t want to deal with that, which you understand. But after the two of you had been dating for three months and you had been living with him for a month and a half, you begged him to let you get a cat. You knew he couldn’t say no to you. 

“Where’s Inky?” you call out to your boyfriend after not finding your cat in the living room or the kitchen. 

“In here,” he calls back and you follow his voice. Corpse is sitting in his chair getting ready to stream. You spot a black cat sitting on his table, licking at his hand. Corpse laughs and pets the animal on the head. “Stop licking me, girl. Your tongue feels weird.”

You smile and walk over to him, picking the cat up. “Come on, Inky, let’s leave dad to do his job, yeah?”

The young cat meows up at you and stares into your soul with her green eyes. You lock her gaze and have a staring contest. You lose, however, and blink away. 

“Why is your cat so weird?” you ask, placing the cat back down and watch her run away. 

“Probably gets it from her mom,” Corpse mumbles and you hear a smile. 

You scoff and smack his hand away gently when he reaches out to you. “Fine, you don’t get a kiss before the stream.”

“No, wait!” he shouts and grabs your hand, pulling you towards him. “I was kidding, baby.”

You smile at him and cup his cheek. “I know.” You lean down and give him a long, deep kiss. You feel him smile against your lips and you pull away. He gives you a smile.

“I love you,” he mutters, brushing some hair away from your face. 

“I love you more.” You grab his hand and press a kiss against his knuckles. You take a step back. “I’ll see you in the Discord chat, babe.”

“Okay. Also, don’t close the door all the way!” he calls to you and you look back at him, your hand on the doorknob. 

“Why?” you ask, leaning on the doorframe. 

He takes a second to respond. “Because I want Inky to come in here later.”

You laugh but smile. “Okay, fine.” You walk away from the door and across the hall into your own recording room. 

Your room is a lot different than your boyfriend’s. His room is dark and doesn’t have a lot in it. Yours, on the other hand, probably has too much stuff. Most of it is gifts from fans like stuffed animals and other knickknacks. Your desk, monitors, and lights take up a lot of the already limited space. You turn both your ring lights on after closing the door and turn on the LED lights you have attached to the ceiling. You switch them to the f/c setting and put the remote next to your coffee mug. You sit down in your black and white gaming chair and set everything up after putting on your headset. 

You join the Among Us game after beginning your stream and then the Discord call. You seem to join before Corpse because you can’t see him in the call. 

“You’ve finally decided to join us, y/n!” Felix exclaims and you smile. 

“Am I late?” you ask, taking another drink of your coffee. 

“No,” Sean replies. “I mean, we played a couple of rounds to pass the time, but nothing interesting happened.”

You nod and glance at who all is in the chat. It seems to be you, Felix, Toast, Charlie, Rae, Sean, later Corpse, and someone else who’s tag sounds familiar. 

“Oh! I invited someone new!” says Rae. “He’s a friend from college. y/n, this is Dallas.”

“Hey, y/n.”

Your eyes widen and your blood goes cold at the sound of his voice. You know him. You used to date him. In highschool before you moved away. You remember how toxic he was. He would always blow you off when you wanted to hang out and when you did hang out, he always played video games and never talked to you. 

“Hi, Dallas,” you stutter out. “Uh, hey, didn’t you and I go to highschool together?”

You can practically hear his smirk. “Yeah. We did.”

“I didn’t know you two went to school together,” Rae says happily. 

“Yep,” Dallas says. “We were friends, too.”

You want to throw up.

Suddenly, your loving and not toxic boyfriend joins the call and your spirits lift. 

“Corpse!” you exclaim, almost letting another word slip out. 

“You’re here,” says Rae. “Good noon!”

“Yeah, I’m not a morning person,” he says and you just now notice how deep his voice is. “I just woke up.”

“Oh my god,” Felix says. 

“Jesus,” says Charlie, dragging out the ‘u’.

“You just woke up?” asks Toast. 

He’s a liar, he didn’t sleep at all, you think but keep your mouth shut and laugh. 

“It’s like a forty-hertz voice,” Sean says. 

“It sounds like short wave radio,” Charlie adds. 

You laugh. “You sound like spoken brown note.”

Corpse laughs. “This is me when I wake up, that’s what...” He cuts himself off and laughs again.

“I’m scared,” says Dallas. 

“I didn’t know it could get any lower!” exclaims Sean. 

“I didn’t know you could hit puberty twice.” Felix laughs. 

After some more laughter, Corpse is introduced to Dallas. 

“Hey, man,” Corpse says. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Dallas replies. 

“Can we start the game now?” Sean asks when everyone is in the waiting room. You take a sip of your coffee while Rae starts the game. 

You mute yourself as your role is revealed and let out a sigh of relief. “Crewmate. Good, this makes this less stressful.” You go into the hallway, following Felix and Sean to go do wires. You clear the two of them and you three go up to admin. “Okay, so for those of you wondering about my reaction to Dallas joining the stream is that he’s my ex. Uh, we dating in highschool and broke up around the end of senior year. So this is pretty awkward for me.” You break away from Sean and Felix to go do a task in the greenhouse. 

You leave out the part about Dallas where he was borderline abusive. You remember him shouting at you for asking for the littlest of things to him gaslighting you and guilt-tripping you into going skinny dipping with him. 

Maybe that’s why you love Corpse so much. He’s the opposite of Dallas. He’s sweet and he’s caring. He’s never once raised his voice at you unless you were beating him in a game. Even then you both knew he wasn’t serious. And he had never once pressured you to do something you didn’t want to do. 

You’re brought out of your thoughts when someone reports Rae’s dead body. You unmute yourself and take another drink of your coffee. 

“I found her in decontamination,” Dallas says. “I opened the door and she was right there.”

“I was down by storage doing wires,” you tell them, putting your mug down. “And I was with Felix and Jack for the beginning and I’m pretty sure they’re cleared. So it has to be either you, Toast, or Corpse. Or Charlie.”

“You almost forgot about me,” he says and you laugh. 

“We never vote on seven, right?” Toast says. 

“Not if no one is sus, no,” Corpse answers. 

“I’m skipping,” says Sean. 

You nod and skip voting. “Same here.”

Everyone skips voting and you continue on. You do the rest of your wiring tasks and go out to the balcony where you notice Corpse standing out there. You smile and walk up to him and make your characters’ “eye” parts touch. “Look, Corpse. We’re touching eyeballs.”

You can just barely make out his laugh from the room across from yours and you grin before doing to do your task. You glance at your chat while you run to the reactor with Corpse. “How have you guys been doing? Hope you’re having a good day. Don’t forget to drink some water and eat something.” You smile at the camera and enter decontamination with Corpse and Toast. 

When you enter reactor, Corpse and Toast each go to do it and you head to the sorting in the lab when suddenly a body is reported. 

You decide to be quiet and drink from your coffee while everyone else discusses what happened. You zone out a little when Dallas talks and your mind flashes back to memories you’ve been trying to forget. 

“Wait, who are we voting?” you ask when you suddenly snap back to reality. 

“Felix,” Sean answers. “He vented right in front of me.”

You nod and vote for Felix and he gets ejected. 

pEWds was ejected 

1 imposter remains

You mute yourself once more and continue to do your tasks and stick with Corpse as much as you can. Your chat notices this and begins to blow up with the ship name they have for the two of you. You laugh at the chat as you scan yourself. “Why are you guys freaking out about Corpse and me? We’re literally just walking.”

Another body is reported and this time it’s Toast’s. You know who the imposter is. You unmute yourself and quickly say, “It’s fucking Dallas, it’s a self-report.”

“What?” Dallas exclaims and you immediately sense the hint of anger in his tone. He used to get so mad during video games and it seems like nothing has changed in the past few years. “How’s it me? It could be Charlie.”

“Charlie is dead, too,” Sean says. 

“Yep. And I know both Corpse and Sean are cleared because I was with Sean for a long time and I just watched Corpse get scanned.”

Dallas scoffs. “Well, shit, you got me there.”

After Dallas is ejected, the crewmates win and you all start another round. You suddenly don’t feel like talking too much anymore and do your stream in mostly silence. Just Dallas being there and in the same call as you is making you anxious and bringing up memories you don’t want to remember. 

Your chat asks you about this and you ignore it as you continue to do your tasks as a crewmate. Your phone buzzes in your pocket and you pull it out, looking at who it is. 

corpse 🖤

are you okay? you’re being really quiet

y/n

yeah, ig. just that dallas is my ex. toxic ex too

corpse 🖤

want me to kill him for you? im imposter

You smile and shake your head. “Oh, Corpse,” you whisper to yourself. 

y/n

no dont kill him lol

You put your phone back down on the table and look back at the game. 

You don’t pay too much attention to the game until the fourth round after you and Rae lost as the imposters. You’re a crewmate once again and you’re peacefully doing your tasks when suddenly something lays on your bare feet. 

“What the?” You look down at your feet and see a little dark fuzzball on your feet. “Inky, get off my feet, baby.” You move your feet and pick her up. You hold her in your arms like a baby the way she likes and rub her belly. “Okay, go see your dad.” Inky jumps out of your arms and you watch her leave your recording room. 

You turn back to your task and continue to do them without any interruptions. You notice, however, that Dallas has been following you for most of the round. You’re starting to get a little nervous and you run into the cafeteria to get away from him when he calls an emergency meeting.

You unmute yourself and Dallas says, “I think it’s y/n. I’m pretty sure she’s faking tasks.”

“Except I’m not,” you tell him. “You’re the one following me around, too, Dallas. What’s up with that, huh?”

“I’ve been following you because you’re acting sus.”

You glare at Dallas’s character on the screen, heat rushing to your face. “I’m literally doing my tasks, I know you saw me do the card swipe--”

“Don’t listen to her,” Dallas says and he sounds far too confident. “She’s a fucking liar. She has been since the first day I met her.”

By now your face is completely red from anger and you gasp. “Excuse me?”

“What are you talking about?” Sean asks. “I’ve known y/n for a long time, she’s never told a lie so long as I’ve known her.”

“That’s because she’s too good at it,” Dallas says in a snarky tone and you’ve never wanted to punch a screen more in your life. “Her and me used to date in highschool but I broke up with her because she lied to me about everything.”

“That’s not fucking true!” you shout and you can hear blood rushing to your ears. “I was the one who broke up with you after you gaslighted me about not hanging out with you enough when in reality you were always hanging out with your stupid football friends!”

“She’s lying--”

“The fuck are you saying about my girl?” Corpse demands. 

The chat goes silent for a moment. Corpse just called you his girl. You look at your live chat and it’s exploding with “i knew it”s and lots of keyboard smashing.

“Your girl?” Dallas asks after a moment.

“Yes. My girl. As in my girlfriend.” He sounds so possessive and it’s kind of hot to you. “Why are you calling her a liar?”

Dallas stumbles on his words. “B--because she is one.”

“Right. And how long have you known her?”

“I knew her in highschool--“

“Nevermind, I literally don’t care,” Corpse interrupts him. “I’ve been living with her for the past five months and she’s never lied to me about anything.”

Dallas is quiet for once. Everyone is. No one is really even breathing but your heartbeat is rattling your brain and blood is rushing through your ears.

“I don’t wanna play anymore,” you whisper. You swallow thickly and glance at your chat. Luckily, they’re all defending you and yelling at Dallas. You turn back to the screen. “Dallas, I’m not the imposter. And stop making stupid ass accusations.”

“I--“

“Kick him,” says Felix and you can tell he sounds mad.

“No wait--“ Dallas begins to say.

“No!” Rae interrupts. “I knew there was something off about you.”

“You don’t get to come in here and talk shit about our friend,” Jack says.

“I was kidding,” Dallas tries to explain.

But then something inside you snaps. You forgot how much you hate Dallas. How he always turned the blame on you when he did something wrong. How you almost lost all of your friends because he convinced them that you were a bad person.

At first, you thought he had changed. You thought that he had actually grown up. Turns out that people don’t change.

“Like you were kidding when you almost got me kicked out of the house because you made me go out with you to go drinking?” you ask. “Or how you played a stupid trick on me when I was driving us to school and I almost fucking crashed the car and nearly killed us?”

“Jesus.” You can hear him roll his eyes. “You’re still on about that? It was April Fool’s, you should have expected it—“

“I shouldn’t have expected shit!” you yell and it comes out raw. The memory flashes in your mind and you cringe. “That wasn’t funny, Dallas! You weren’t funny! I fucking hated my life in high school. I was already stressed out because I thought I wasn’t smart enough and you being my boyfriend and ignoring me and manipulating me didn’t help.

“So fuck you. Fuck you for everything you did to me when we were teenagers. Fuck you for making me think that you changed and were actually nice and then ripping that away from me. But you know what? Thanks. Thanks for being my ex because you made me what I am today and you’re the reason I moved to California and met the love of my life.”

You suck a deep breath in and wipe at the tears that had fallen. You put your hand on your camera. “Speaking of which, I need a hug from him. Bye, guys.”

You stop streaming and disconnect from everything. You turn your computer off, unplug your headset, and turn your lights off. You sit in your chair trying not to cry in the dark.

Corpse, your mind says and you open your eyes. You really want a hug. His hugs are the best. You take your headset off and walk out of your recording room. Before you walk into Corpse’s recording room, you head to the living room and grab a fluffy gray blanket and wrap it around yourself.

You don’t even bother to knock on the door and just walk in. His room is still dark and it appears like he’s angry. You can tell by the way his voice is deeper and how he looks like he’s shaking.

But when you tap on his shoulder, he looks up at you with wide eyes. “Babe.”

You sniffle and he pushes away from his desk. You shake your head and pull his arms up above his head and settle yourself on his lap, your legs on either side of him, and wrap your arms around his neck.

“Baby,” he whispers and you lean your cheek on his shoulder. “Just fuck off, Dallas.”

Your eyes squeeze shut and you shift up a little, pushing your nose into his neck. He smells nice. “Stop talking to them.”

“What?” he looks down at you and asks what you’re doing when you take his headset off. You unplug them, thereby disconnecting him from the stream. “y/n, what are you doing?”

��I want to cuddle with you,” you mutter and bury your face into his neck.

You feel him wrap his arms around your back and he pulls you up, leaning his head on your shoulder. “Okay, baby. We can cuddle.”

The two of you sit like that for what feels like a long time. You hear Corpse’s phone buzz, but the two of you ignore it. He kisses the side of your head and you smile.

You sigh deeply as he tightens his hold against you. “Fuck that guy, baby. It’s okay.” He moves his shoulder and you look up at him. “Wanna go play Minecraft?”

A grin spreads across your face and you nod. Corpse smiles back and picks you up, bridal style, blanket and all. You squeal and laugh as he carries you to the living room. “Put me down, Corpse!”

“Alright.” He drops you into the couch and turns around to turn the Xbox on.

You huff and push your hair out of your face, keeping the blanket wrapped tight around your body. “I didn’t mean literally drop me, dummy.”

He shrugs and sits next to you, handing you a controller. “Should’ve been more specific, baby.”

You scoff but can’t hide the small smile creeping onto your lips. “Jerk.” You put the controller next to you on the couch and move the blanket so it’s over both of your laps and you lean into his side.

After playing Minecraft for the majority of the afternoon and evening, you finally drag Corpse to bed with you after ordering pizza for dinner.

His arms are wrapped tight around your waist as your back is pressed against his chest. Inky hops up onto the bed and nuzzles your hand until you begin to pet her. She lays down on her belly and you gently pat her.

“Am I really the love of your life?” Corpse asks after a long time of sitting in the quiet darkness

You nod against the pillow. “Yeah. You are.”

You can’t see him, but you know he’s smiling when he kisses the back of your neck.

Your phone on your nightstand lights up and you head Corpse’s phone buzz again as well. You think for just a moment about all of the texts, all of the messages, all of the DMs you’re getting about what happened. For a second, you panic. What if people don’t think that you’re worth to be dating Corpse? What if people are calling you a pussy for how you reacted to Dallas? What if everyone hates you?

But those thoughts immediately go away when Corpse mumbles something in that husky voice of his that makes the butterflies in your tummy come back. “You’re the love of my life, too.”

“Yeah?” you hum, your eyes slipping shut.

“Yeah,” he says and you can tell that he’s getting tired as well. “And I’m gonna marry you someday.”

An involuntary smile spreads across your face and your entire body overheats. You bite your lip in the darkness and whisper,

“And I’m gonna say yes.”

But he’s asleep. His breathing has evened out. He shouldn’t have heard you.

You know he heard you somehow, though, because his arms tighten around your waist. You wiggle backward so that you’re flush against his chest and his head drops down onto the top of your head.

You place your hands over his and close your eyes. Finally, he’s sleeping.

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

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[delu-jean]

𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧

Oikawa x (fem!/reader) -> Angst -> 3.8k 

“She told me that she loved me by the water fountain. She told me that she loved me and she didn’t love him. And that was really lovely cause it was innocent, but now she has a cup with something else in it…”

Notes: This was for my 100 follower event! I will be closing it soon, but until then, if you’d like to request for an HQ boy, or any from the fandoms I write for, please feel free to request! 

-> Also, this one was a sad one. I recommend listening to the song, that way, you get the references made! 

-> Enjoy the Oikawa angst! ^^ 

“The water fountain…” he whispered. His lips were slightly ajar, parched, yearning for your presence. He was also frail, frail from the lack of composure, along with the crackling of his heart. 

“She told me that she loved me...by...by the water fountain,” he stammered, still not able to face the reality he was met with. 

“And she told me that she loved me...and she didn’t love him,” where did it all go wrong, when did it all go wrong, and why did it all go wrong? You told him that you loved him by that water fountain, but the only thing that seemed to flow...were the tears from him. 

---

You both were fairly young when getting together. Middle school, eventually led to highschool, and highschool...well...led to college. Oikawa and you were optimistic. Though he would be practicing (lots and lots), you wouldn’t be too far from him. Just a few dorms away. Not only that, but you both would see each other...every now and then You both were ecstatic. A new scenery, a new year, and a new chance for the both of you to experience the life of freshmen. Nothless, together. You both would be doing it together, closer than ever. 

Tooru was more than happy that you would get to cheer him on in college. It was always his dream to have a pretty girl praise him from the crowd, especially at the college of his dreams. The prime of his time, the best of his years, or...so he thought. 

When he brought you to his first practice, he didn’t like the sight as much as he thought he would. One of the middle blockers, Haru Tamagashi, was too...too friendly. He winked at you maybe three times during the practice. Making small flirtatious gestures, such as: smiling, waving, and indicating that all he wanted was your number. Of course, Oikawa was pissed, beyond that actually. But he decided to focus instead of fusing on his first day. 

That is...he tried to focus. At first, his attention was directed towards Tamagashi, and him alone. He had trusted you enough to know that you wouldn’t have responded...right? Even so, mid way...he couldn’t have helped but think of the thought: “what if?” What if you actually hadn’t deflected him, but were instead...enjoying his attention? He felt horrible for looking back, knowing that if he was wrong...he’d be the asshole for thinking twice. But unfortunately for him, he wasn’t...he was right during the time he wished he hadn’t been. 

The setter watched as your eyes followed the gentlemen. No hesitation whatsoever. It seemed as if you were interested in the game set before you. Not the match of course, but instead, the show Tamagashi had entertained you with. You yourself had waved back to him, smiling while also grabbing your phone. You were taking a video of the game, but Oikawa knew that it wasn’t of the court. No. It was of...him. The way your fingers pinched the screen, to the way your phone had moved to match his directions. It was obvious to say the least. Occasionally, you would’ve pointed the camera to Oikawa, smiling as he’d give you a frown. Only for you to return to recording the star of the show...dragging his morale as he’d eventually get hit in the face. Something that would never happen...especially if Iwaizumi was off court. 

“Oikawa, get your head out of the gutter!” 

“...” 

“Oikawa, did you hear me!?-” 

“Hey, pops, let him off the hook would ya?” Tamagashi said, while placing a hand on Oikawa’s shoulder. 

“I, how dare you-” 

“It’s the first day back, we could all use less of the hollering.” 

“Tch, five laps for you.” 

“Damn, alright. Welp, at least I got you off the hook,” the boy smirked, as Oikawa’s expression...wouldn’t change.  

“Well, see you soon. Also, I hope I can see you too!” he shouted while looking at you. Only for you to nod shyly. Oikawa could’ve sworn he saw a tint in your cheeks, but regardless, he was too upset to confront it. Even then, maybe he was over analyzing it. The dude didn’t know that you were his girlfriend, and after all, maybe he was just being self conscious. 

He was upset that he hadn’t trusted you at all during the game, and felt bad that he instead made you seem...villainy. Even though it might’ve just been his head all along. You see, Oikawa was the type of person who enjoyed praise. It fueled his ego alright, but in all truth, he had never felt like he embodied those expectations. 

Constantly pushing himself to be better, believing that he never was really that good. In this situation, he had thought that maybe those feelings...had come into play. Maybe the reason why he was thinking so much...was because Tamagashi seemed like everything he wasn’t. An outgoing, down to earth, charismatic person. He also might've been an even better player than he himself was. Not only that, but did he mention his hair? It looked amazing on him, along with the uniform. The creases folded on his body, each making his figure look...well, great. You could see his toned structure from a mile away, along with his sharp smile. One which struck confidence, and intimidation. 

And you...you looked like you could get with a guy like that. He seemed like a genuine person, and you were a genuine lady. One of which deserved a catch like him. He wouldn’t have denied that he pictured the image in his head. It felt sickening that he even brung up the vision, but even so...Oikawa tried pushing the thought away, thinking: 

‘Tch..whatever. He’s not that good looking anyways, Plus, he doesn’t know we’re dating...so I should tell him afterwards. But...that was nice of him to do. Yeah, you know what...maybe we could all be friends? Me, Y/n, and him?’ 

Maybe you all could’ve been, if only things had flowed a little different. If only the stream hadn’t gone off course, but instead, moved along to the water fountain. One with a secure, and sturdy future. One which wouldn’t have rusted, and collapsed in the moments to follow. 

“I’m back!” 

“Oh...you seemed tired,” he’d say, watching as Haru nodded. 

“Yeah, the old geezer isn’t fun sometimes...but he’s a nice person, I can guarantee that-” 

“Hey~” you’d smile, looking in Tooru's direction. He then lifted his hand, a soft, but saddened grin engraved onto his face. Only for it to turn into a sudden frown, as he then watched Tamagashi wave instead. 

“Well hello, doll~” you then chuckled, moving a strand to the back of your ear. Oikawa had only seen that on days where he’d made your heart sway, and yet there he was, watching as another man had done so instead. 

“Hey babe,” he’d say casually, catching your attention as you approached him. 

“Hi...Oikawa.” 

‘Oikawa?...not sweetie, or?-’ 

“Ahh, do you two know each other?” 

‘Now’s my chance.’ 

“Yeah, she’s my girlf-” 

“Haru, am I correct!? Thanks for doing that, I thought it was really nice for you to stand up for him like that.”

“Honestly, don’t please. It’s just something that I would do for anyone. Besides, I bet that you would’ve done the same for me, right Oikawa?” 

“Hm?...ah, I guess,” Tooru was now staring at you. He gave a stern look. One fueled with anger, and confusion. Yet it also had hints of remorse, and grief. Why had you cut him off, why hadn’t you called him by the name you usually did, and why were you putting the effort to talk with him?...Tamagashi? Just what exactly was running through that head of yours. One of which he thought he knew both in...and out. 

“Well...we have to go. So let’s leave Y/n,” he then grabbed your wrist, practically dragging you out of the arena. 

“Ah, see you two later then...I guess?” 

“B-bye Haru!” 

“Byee~” 

---

“What was that!?”

“What was what-”

“Why didn’t you call him kawa-kun, or baby like you usually do?”

“Tooru...you’re thinking a little much, don’t you think?-”

“Why did you cut me off when I was going to tell him that you’re my girlfriend?” 

“Love, I didn’t mean to-”

“But why did you!?” 

“Look, I was just trying to thank him. Plus, we needed to get going. So I thought to make it quick so that we could,” he’d then frown even more, not able to tell if you had told the truth, or, if you had made up excuses to get yourself out of this. He thought he knew what went on in that pretty head of yours, but at that moment, he wasn’t sure of what roamed around in that foreign land. The land, or rather...place he had called his home. 

He thought that your mind would’ve at least had a crevasse. One especially built, and reserved for him. One of which would’ve considered how he felt, or how the situation might’ve been interpreted. After all, not only did his thoughts roam endlessly for you, but so did the space in his heart. Regardless, it seemed as if it didn’t as you proceeded to tell him reason, after reason. 

“He was being friendly, and so was I.” 

“He’s your teammate, and I think it’s nice for me to get to know them.” 

“I love you regardless, so don’t worry.” 

“Regardless?...” What was that supposed to mean? Even though he would’ve wanted to question, his mouth just...wouldn’t allow it. So because of that, he dismissed the matter. Something he wished he didn’t do. 

---

Time passed and though he hated to admit it, he didn’t see both you, and haru, interacting as much as he did the first time. Though, it should’ve relieved him, it most definitely did not. Two things had him tied behind his back. One of them made him feel like a complete jerk for over-thinking, and the second was...that his thoughts had still made him over-think. For some reason, he still suspected the both of you. You both had minimal contact, making it seem like you never talked...but that was the thing, why would you have both stopped your talks? Just what exactly would have sparked such a thing? Still, maybe he was just over thinking. 

Regardless, he wanted to get the thought out of his head. He despised that it still lingered there, and that it wouldn’t be on it’s way. He hated the thought of confronting you. After all of that time, that trust should have been established. And even so, he still wanted to assure himself that it was there. So, he sat you down one day. Sometime during the winter where the snowflakes had fallen, along with his heart attached to many strings. Ones which you had placed, and ones which you would remove. 

“Hey babe-...Y/n.” 

“Hey Kawa...it’s been a while since we last met up…”

“Hm?...really?” the both of you hadn’t talked during the time period. Yes, you attended his matches, practices, etc...but then once he had finished you both made your separate ways. On the days where you both had expected to meet, one was busy, and the other was left on their own. Not making your situation any better. 

“Yeah...a month or two I think?” 

“Oh..I’m sorry about that,” he said, with a gruffed tone in his voice. He didn’t sound like he was doing too well, whereas you seemed just fine. “Why was that?” he wondered, well...it wouldn’t take him too long to find out “why” soon. 

“Hey baby…” a name which he hadn’t called you in so long, felt foreign to his mouth. Even though it should’ve felt...natural...along with your response. 

“Mhm?” you responded, reluctantly. That reaction was one he had never seen, not only that, but it was also one he wished he’d never witnessed. 

“I’ve had this thought lingering in my mind. I know it’s a little messed up...and I might be overreacting…” 

“Yes, what is it?” you immediately said, seeming anxious at the moment. 

“Well...it’s just that...there’s nothing between you and Tamagashi, is there? Aww see, I knew it would be dumb to ask,” he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. Only your reaction...had made it plummet. 

Your eyes had widened at the statement. A cough escaped your mouth, along with a scare. One of which, also gave him a fright. There was no way he was right...especially about that out of all things. Why?...Why would you give him such a stare? Maybe it was out of surprise?...maybe even distraught that he would ever bring up such a question. One about your loyalty nonetheless. He wished he could’ve kept on making excuses, but couldn’t any longer as he then heard you say:

“N-no...where would you have heard such a thing? Did he say anything?...oh, he was probably joking. Joking is all, haha. No, I only love you silly, and you alone,” you said, to then grab his hand. 

For some reason, it felt off. The way your thumb caressed his skin, it was as if he could feel the guilt which had stroked against him. Why...why was that? He could obviously tell that you were guilty of something, but he wouldn’t confront it. Why...why was that? He obviously wasn’t up in his head, but still convinced himself he was. Why...why was that?...well...even if he didn’t have the answer, he would soon enough. In the way that he would’ve, yet wouldn’t have wanted it to be relayed. 

---

“YOU BASTARD! SO YOU HAVE BEEN GOING OUT WITH HER!?” 

“It was just a couple of kisses, besides, you have so many girls on your plate. I just took one off your hands, no biggie-” Oikawa then struck him across the cheek, furious about what he said. You weren’t just a snack anyone could take a bite out of. And heck, if you were a piece of food, you’d be a piece he’d preserve for as long as he could. One he would never touch because of the beautiful, intricate designs that were placed. 

“YOU SHIT HEAD! SHE’S MY GIRLFRIEND FOR FUCKS SAKE! EVEN IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW-” 

“Who said I didn’t?” he cocked a brow, making Oikawa widen his eyes. 

“What?...”

“The girl told me herself before coming in to kiss me.” 

“You’re lying, take it back. She would never-”

“Oh but she did. But don’t worry, she did feel bad at some point...but we were in too deep for her to back out-” 

“SHUT UP!” Oikawa then tried to punch his gut, but Haru stopped him midway. He grabbed his wrist, and held onto it firmly. 

“If anything, you should be thanking me.” 

“Thanking you!? Are you out of your mind!-” 

“Well, I am telling you the truth about your cheater of a girlfriend. Plus, I took her off your hands, so you're free to go to find someone new. I’ll let her go soon, so we both won’t have to deal with her-” 

“Shut it...shut it…” Oikawa repeated, unable to comprehend the news he had heard. 

“Please...be quiet.” 

---

“Tooru, I can explain!” 

“EXPLAIN WHAT Y/N!? THAT YOU MADE OUT WITH HIM MORE THAN ONCE!? THAT YOU DENIED MY THOUGHTS, MAKING ME FEEL AS IF I WAS WRONG!? OR THAT YOU ACTUALLY CHEATED ON ME!? I DON’T THINK YOU CAN EXPLAIN ANYTHING Y/N!” 

“You know what, MAYBE I CAN’T! AND I WAS SORRY FOR THAT!” 

“IF YOU WERE SO SORRY, THEN WHY...why did you do it?...” you then leaned against the door, not sure how to convey your thoughts. You hated the sight of Oikawa being so hurt, but you had your reasons for what you did. Though you yourself knew that conflict could’ve been avoided, you decided to plumit yourself right in it. Maybe it was because you wanted to catch his attention, or that Yamagashi had really attracted you. Regardless, what was done, was done. And you wouldn’t be one to deny such accusations aymore. 

“Look...you weren’t giving me the attention I needed...besides...Tamagashi had caught my eye.” 

“Caught your eye?...” 

“Yeah...even so...it felt wrong the first time I kissed him.” 

‘She kissed him?...so he wasn’t lying...she started things…’ 

“I told him that we were dating, and you know...I did stop myself before going any further. I truly felt lonely during the days that you were gone...and him being there, gave me comfort. In all truth, I had met him even before you introduced us. We were in the same English class...and things built up from there. 

He was just...so enticing, something I hadn’t seen for a while. But Oikawa, I still had strings attached to you, and didn’t want to throw them away recklessly. I’m sorry, I loved you, I truly did. But...that connection just...disappeared, along with the spark we used to have. I hesitated out of my affection for you, but I proceeded out of the tiredness that built up from this, us...again, I’m sorry Oikawa. I hope that,” a tear had struck down your cheek. He wanted to reach out and wipe it. Just why...why were you crying. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one tearing up? So...why were you?.... Even though that question should’ve been asked out of rage, it was instead asked out of remorse. Oikawa didn’t know how to feel at that point. He didn’t even know who he was, or...who he had been during that time given. 

All that he knew was that if you were willing to fix things, so would he. That if you ever came back to the water fountain, the one you tried so hard to build, even if the handle had rusted, he would do his best to fix it. You know, he thought to himself how he should’ve built a home for the both of you, but alas, your naive natures would’ve never sustained. He questioned if he truly was at fault, not sure as to what was what, and why exactly that was. 

“I hope that...you’ll be happy. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but yeah,” you then wiped your own tears yourself. Not wanting to add anymore emphasis to the drama at hand. You lied though. Of course you wanted him to forgive you. He was your first love after all. The only one you had grown up with. The only one you stood by. And the only one, you would truly be grateful for. But then again, you knew you didn’t deserve it (it being his forgiveness). 

Although you didn’t regret your choices, you most definitely did regret hurting him. If only talking had been an option, would you have taken it? Well...you would’ve assumed no. Being that it was one of the few options given. Still, watching him stand limply, tore your heart ever so slightly. Reminding you that he was both the sweet, and innocent boy you had hopelessly fell in love with. Not only that, but he was also the distant, and maturing man you had fallen out of love with. 

“You...have you forgotten what you told me by that water fountain?” 

“What do you mean-” 

“The one we built together...have you forgotten?...” In all truth, you didn’t have any recollection because all that you had remembered...was the empty home the both of you shared. One with no running water, nonetheless a water fountain. One built out of your young, and blinded dreams. One which was full of loneliness, and miscommunication. One which was full of “love,” and loads of wishful dreaming. One which you would always remember. 

“No Tooru...all I remember...is that empty place we called a home. One made when we were both naive, and one I had left when I matured. I hope you can do the same, and that...you have a great day,” you then started to walk away as he stood there, stunned. 

Instead of asking him to fix things, you instead deflected things. Running away as he spoke. Even so, even if it was only a wish, one of which he’d pray for, he would do his best to make it come true. He tried one last time. He jolted your direction, grabbed your wrist, and started pulling you in. Whispering in your ear: 

“I know that it’s only a wish, and that we’re not standing by the water fountain...but you told me that you loved me by that water fountain. It’s a shame that your cup...now has something else in it,” you then pushed him off you, but he wouldn’t let you go as he held your for the last time. 

Had Tamagashi held you the same way he did? He wouldn’t know, and in all honesty, wouldn’t have cared. He was too lost in his head to even think of the guy, and only thought of you. If only things had been different, would you have come back to him? To the place you both called a home? Sure, it might’ve started when you both were young, but it would’ve stood stronger with the years to come. 

Well...he would’ve never got to know, because things...would’ve never been different. He should’ve built a home with a fountain for you both, but he was too young to think such a thought. Just like how you were so young, too young to feel as lonely as you did. The moment that you told him you were in love, he was…: 

“Too young...I was too young,” eventually, he did let go. Not just of you, but the thought that you both could return to what you both had. There was no returning. If the handle was broken, what could he have done? Fixing one would need all parts, and if you were one of the essential keys, well...even with the right bolts, and screws, ones that could have replaced you, still wouldn’t have mattered. You missing, would never fix a thing. It could never make that fountain whole, regardless of the patches which tried to stitch up the flood. One of which would eternally flow...never ending...just like his love for you. 

He glanced at you one time. Just one last time would he stare at his sweet Y/n. The girl who had stuck through with him, through thick and thin. The only person who knew, and loved him for him. And the only woman, who had truly broken his heart. Not caring for him one bit while she tore it all apart. 

“You’re right...we were too young,” he said, glancing at the floor beneath him. 

“Yes we were, and I was right indeed.” 

---

“She couldn’t be at home at the night time because, it made her feel alone-” he choked on his sentence. Though he should’ve been fine, he wasn’t really. He had tried to shield himself with his pride, but it wasn’t working the way he had intended. Regardless, Oikawa realized how the distance between your hearts...was more distant than the distance between your dorms. He thought that moving colleges would’ve made you drift, but in reality, it was the blameless nature, and the naive mindsets you both had. Those innocent gestures...had turned into a guilty, and corrupted bondage. The bond you had both shared was one he would always remember. The only one which had reminded him: 

“That we’re not standing by the water fountain.” 

@glorii-chan @iworshipyelena @tsukkisaurousrex​

[yukina-otome]

Otome game MC’S

Hello everyone ! Today i am gonna tell you about my opinion on the mc’s of the otome games i played ! Again this is just my opinion so feel free to share yours or complete with your opinion on mc’s of otome games i didnt include !

This is not a ranking btw !

MLQC MC: Youran

Job: Producer | Queen

Age : 22 year old

Good points : 1-Brave and take risks 2-Never give up 3-Smoll bean (seriously she's so cute) 4-Really nice and helpfull (walk around the city for hours every week to help anyone in need) 5-Hardworking 6-Tell whats on her mind and doesnt hide her feelings 7-Can play piano

Bad points: 1-Bad decision making 2-Rely on the boys too much 3-Mary sue 4-Clumsy AF 5-Sneez\ stomach noises when boy is about to kiss her

Mystic messenger mc:

Age and Job: Depends

Depend on the route 1-Yoosung : Super patient and mature 2-Jaehee: Supportive 3-Jumin : God levels of patience but also kinda always have to agree with jumin which i hate 4-Seven : Happy go lucky and clueless about her whole situation (Seven : There is a BOMB | MC:LOL OK) 5-Another story : Guillible but also very patient. (i would take none of that s**t) Common to all routes : Have no eyes

My candy love MC: Lyn Darcy AKA Candy

Age : 17 during 1st season \ 23 during 2nd season \ 25 during 3rd season

Job : High schooler\ college student\ coffee owner

Good points: 1-Friendly 2-Helpful 3-Open minded 4-Pretty 5-Very strong mentally (during the highschool part) 6-Appearance can be customized 7-Energetic 8-Can get angry and speak her mind (depend on your choices)

Bad points: 1-Nosy AF 2-Mary sue 3-Play terapist with literally anyone she meet even if that mean getting herself in trouble and ignoring her own love life 4-Paranoid 5-Childish (even for a highschooler and even more in campus life)

7hotties MC AKA the worst mc (No pic for her cause tumblr says only 10 pic per post)

Job : Freelance designer  Age : middle 20′s

Good points :

1-None

2-Nothing

3-Absolutely nothing

Bad points: 1-Weak 2-Useless 3-Doormat 4-Almost jobless (never seen her work aside from keita's route because he is the one who gave her the job) 5-Bland AF 6-Forgive everything a guy do to her (even rape) 7-Never actually get mad (even after a guy sleep with her and dump her literally right after she's like "pls don't abandon me! Tell me if i did anything wrong ! I'll fix it")

SSS MC:

Job: Concierge at the royal shining

Age : Early 20′s

Good points: 1-Sassy 2-Have a goal in her life and a dream she will not abandon no matter what 3-Can solve mental illness with love (because otome game power) 4-Described as extra pretty (All the boys at her workplace like her) 5-Doesnt give up easily 6-Actually got some backstory 7-Thirsty AF 8-Relatable

Bad points: 1-Forgive too easily (Minami's route !!) 2-Always get caught when spying or listening on someone's conversation 3-Clumsy AF 4-Can't brew coffee even after two weeks of trying (toma's route) 5-Actually not so good at her job but she's trying really hard

Le secret d'henri\Henri's secret MC: Lyla (Actually not an otome game, more like a visual novel but i wanted to include it because i absolutely love the mc and also because it's getting a remake and i wanted to promote it a bit)

Job : Highschooler

Age: 17 then 18

Good points: 1-Strong 2-Naive in all the right ways (she know how naïve she is but still choose to be naïve because she'd rather get backstabbed because she trusted than miss the opportunity to know a good person because she didn't trust)

3-Very pretty (Said to be the prettiest girl in all the high school and literally every boy she met aside from her brother and clement her bestie want to date her.)

4-Very popular 5-She is so nice even Henri call her a saint 6-Have the best family 7-Have the best friends 8-Supportive 9-Likes to play detective and solve people's problem 10-You really get attached to her by the end of the story you are almost sad because you wont get to see her again

Bad points: 1-Overreact 2-Drama queen (I understand tho as she is still a highschooler so she get emotional and depressed quite easily specially when it comes to a certain someone)

3-A bit too perfect sometime : Pretty girl, nice , friendly, cool, like nailpolish and fashion but also manga and video games, smart etc etc 4-MARY SUE 5-Nosy but not in an annoying way

Ikevamp MC:

Job: Travel agent and blogger | Housemaid

Age: Early to middle twenties

Good points : 1-She's said to be very beautiful (leo's route) 2-Speak many languages and seem to have a wide board of interests 3-Adapt fast to her new environment (depend on the routes) 4-Mentally strong (specially in napoleon's route) 5-Kinda mature (sometimes and depend on the route) Bad points: 1-Inconsistent personality even in the same route 2-Mary sue 3-Can be very weak and submissive (depend on the route) 4-Have no reason to stay aside for the boy she loves (what I mean is that by the end of the route the only thing she have in 19th century France is her boyfriend, in some routes she doesn't even meet or talk to most of the other resident and she have no job aside from cleaning the mansion with Sebastian)

5-Also get kidnapped every route (don't know yet for Theo) 6-Always wear the same clothes

Ikerev MC : Alice

Job: Help at a bakery ?

Age: Early twenties (saw somewhere that she was the same age as ray, not sure tho)

Good points : 1-Like food 2-Foodie 3-Enjoy food 4-Food = Happiness 5-More seriously she's super positive and optimistic and adapt really fast to her environment 6-Friendly and happy go lucky 7-Have the power to repel magic and protect herself and sometime her suitor to some degrees

Bad points: 1-Clueless 2-Dumb AF 3-Bad decision making 4-Get kidnapped almost every route 5-Zero observation and deduction skills (Oliver's route) 6-Technically squat at the black\red army headquarter\Oliver and Blanc's house or Harr and Loki's house

Ikesen MC : Mai AKA the queen AKA the fireball AKA the little mouse AKA The godess AKA the wild boar

Job: Seamstress

Age: around 25

Good points : 1-Strong AF 2-Take no sh*t (Kenshin's route\ Nobunaga's route...) 3-Adapt quite fast to her new and very dangerous environement (if i was her i would not leave my room for the next 3 months) 4-Fireball 5-Saved her suitor in many routes (Kenshin, Ieyasu, Shingen...) 6-Sass Queen 7-Have a life in sengoku era aside from her suitor (kinda the opposite of ikevamp mc as i said in bad point 4) 8-Have a dream and a goal 9-Very beautiful (even kenshin said so outside of his route and he was not in love with her!) 10-A lot of chemistry with all of the boys even outside of their routes.

Bad points : 1-Mary Sue 2-In some routes she is weaker but it never really disturbed me as it suited the love interest of the route(Sasuke and mitsuhide's route) 3-Kidnapping

Midcin MC:

Job : Princess

Age: Heard somewhere that she is 19 but not sure about it

Good points : 1-Adapt fast to her new situation 2-Try her best to learn everything 3-Try to take responsibility as the new princess 4-Can't think of anything else for her...

Bad points : 1-Weak 2-Bland 3-Doesnt speak up when she actually need to (The dumpster fire that is Alyn's ever after) 4-Kidnapping sometime twice in the same route 5-Submissive depending on the suitor

Okko's games MC'S : Honestly they r all the same so reunited them all in one

Job and age : Depend on the game

Good points: 1-Hard working 2-Have goals and dreams 3-Usually have a backstory 4-Some of them are sassy 5-Pretty but doesn't take care of herself 6-Always have a very fashionable bestie with a lot of experience with dating that help her and listen to her problems

Bad points: 1-Emotional maturity of a middle school girl 2-Doesnt want to admit her feelings and keep denying them even when there is no reason to 3-Self sabotage 4-Blame herself for every bad thing that happens 5-Some of them are very weak and submissive

And that’s pretty much it ! Thank you for reading until the end ! Pls feel free to reblog and add on those with your opinion ! 

[arashikitten]

“I am Danny Phantom”

Who knew that four words were all it took to turn someone’s entire life on its head? Well, Valerie knew, her father being fired and her subsequently being dropped by the A-listers proved that, but....

Danny Fenton. The small, quiet, funny, space-obsessed, sleep-deprived, nervous guy who slept in class, made puns out of everything, her boyfriend... was Phantom. The ghost who had ruined her life, who was a menace to the town, who had committed several crimes including kidnapping the mayor. They were the same person.

Her suit was on before she could blink, guns powering up and aimed at Phantom- Fenton- Danny.

“One reason. Give me one. Goddamned. Reason why I shouldn’t put a hole in your head.” Everything was red. She felt nothing but the blood in her veins turning into fire, only heard the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. It would be so, so easy to turn this... this monster into a pile of ectoplasm. All it would take was one little blast...

“Because it was an accident.”

Silence. It rang in her ears like a gunshot, quieting the pounding of her heart like the forest before the storm. Where her anger was once fiery red, now it was cold, calm blue, freezing everything in her path.

“What?” Her voice sounded flat, no hint of anger, and yet the ghost shuffled back slightly, wringing it’s... his hands nervously. (Somewhere in the back of her mind, a part of her recognized that was a habit of Fentons, that Danny- no, Fenton has been doing that earlier. Valerie shut that thought down before it reached farther into her head.)

“It was an accident. That ghost dog... Cujo, he- he was, um, looking for his- his toy because he’d been euthanized by Axion labs after they got the, uh, new security systems. He was just loking for his toy.”

“Then why were you there, spook?”

A pause. He was wringing his hands again. It caught her off guard slightly, how... human he looked. If you took away the glow and bright white hair, he could’ve easily passed as a normal highschooler. (That’s because he is human, part of her mind screeched at her. That’s your boyfriend for fucks sake, it said. Again, she shut it out.)

“I can sense them. The ghosts, I mean. Whenever one shows up, there’s this sort of... smoke, kinda, that I breathe. And that’s how I know if one’s around. So that night, when- when Cujo showed up, I sensed him and went to check it out. I never meant to get your father fired, or to- to fuck the place up as bad as I did. I’m sorry.”

Anger bubbled up in her again. He thought- he really fucking thought that a simple damned apology fixed that? Hell no! He’d screwed over her entire life, got her father fired, committed several crimes, and he thought a simple ass ‘I’m sorry’ would fix it?

She took aim, charging up her blasters.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. You’re a ghost, a crook, and a thief. And I’ll be doing the whole world a favor by getting rid of you.”

Her blasters were charged up. All it would take now was for her to-

“Then do it.”

Valerie almost dropped her blaster. Had- had she heard that right? She stared at Phantom.

He was rooted to the spot, arms down by his sides, eyes scrunched shut. He was still in his ghost form, but he wasn’t levitating.

What in the hell?

“What do you mean ‘then do it’?” You’re not- you’re not even gonna try to fly off?”

“No.”

“Why?”

At that, Danny- no, Phantom opened his eyes. He looked, scared. Sad. Like he had seen a massacre, or a war.

“A couple of weeks ago... when- when we were about to take the CAT... I- well I got the answer key to the test. And... I wasn’t in a great place, mentally, at the time. I mean, I’m still not, but... it was different, in a way. But basically, what, well, what happened was that I was so stressed out, because I was trying to protect the town and my friends from ghosts, and my parents were just getting worse about trying to hunt me down, and my grades are already shit, and Mr. Lancer kept saying that this test would determine my future and I just...” Danny stopped, shaking and hugging himself. He looked.... Valerie didn’t think she’d ever seen him look this distraught, as Phantom or Fenton. It made something in her chest tighten, made her stomach twist.

“I... I had the answers. And I was already so worried about... well, everything, that I decided to cheat. I figured that maybe I could just do it one time, and then that’d be it, you know? But... of course, of course, it couldn’t be that simple.” Now he sounded... tired. Worn, and not in a good way, more like a war veteran disallusioned with the world. (Something in Valerie told her that maybe this was the real Danny, the part of him he refused to show anyone. The tired fighter who wanted nothing more than to be able to go to sleep without worrying if he was going to wake up with a gun pointed at him.. or if he would wake up at all.)

“Essentially what happened was that Sam, Tucker and I got sort of... teleported about ten years into the future, and... apparently me cheating on one stupid test leads to the end of the world, because Mr. Lancer would find out that I had cheated and would call a meeting with my parents at the Nasty Burger, which would then blow up and kill my friends and family.” Danny was shaking now, arms wrapped around himself as though he was trying to protect himself from his own words.

“That, in turn, lead to me tearing the ghost part out of me, which then proceeded to fuse with Vla- the Wisconsin Ghost. When- well, when that happened, it- drove my ghost half.... I-insane. And then he was killing people all over and... and I- I killed people in that timeline! I did the- the one thing I said I would never fucking do, and I killed someone.”

Danny was on his knees now, quietly sobbing. His black hair (when had he turned back?) shone in the sun.

Valerie was rooted to the spot. How in the hell did someone deal with that? Fuck, how in the hell would someone deal with any of this? In the span of about thirty minutes, Valerie had discovered that not only was her boyfriend dead, but was the town’s widely considered hero and had apparently fought an evil version of his future self and had almost seen all of his friends and family die.

And, to top it all off, he’d discovered that not only were his own parents hunting him, but she was too. Valerie felt sick.

Jesus. Just how much shit had she put him through? Fuck- was that why he was so nervous about telling her he was Phantom? Granted she was still pissed at him, but not for the Cujo thing. Not really.

“Danny.” He looked up at her, and she felt something in her chest break at just how scared and sad he looked. Was this the sort of shit he had to deal with every damn day? All that fear, over being hunted, or experimented on, or getting everyone he loved killed- was this how he felt all the time?

Slowly, Valerie stepped towards him and knelt down. Her eyes never left his.

“Danny. I care... so, so much about you. You... you were the first person to really give a shit about me, after the A-listers dropped me.”

Immediately he tensed, and distress filled his eyes.

“I’m-“

“Nope, don’t, stop. You’re not apologizing. Not right now. Maybe later. Not fucking now.”

He fell silent, eyes wide and searching. Still scared, still tense.

“You love space, and puns. Your favorite video game is Doom 4 even though you’ve never won. Your favorite subject is science, you’ve always wanted a dog, and you doodle in the margins of your paper when your bored.” Valerie paused.

Danny seemed to be noticeably more relaxed, as he was no longer gripping his knees so hard that his knuckles (how had she not noticed the scars? They weren’t exactly small.) were white. Good.

“You adore your mom and dad, even if they embarrass you all the time. You look up to your sister more than anyone on the planet, even if you don’t act it. You don’t make friends often, but when you do you stick with them through hell or high water. You’re incredibly smart when it comes to science and math, even if you have bad grades. And above all, you care so much about bathe people around you. You sacrifice everything, your grades, your relationships, your time, to help people who you think need it. And that applies to phantom and Fenton.”

He was crying again. But this time, there was a small, shaky sort of smile there, one that said something like this was looong overdue.

Slowly, Valerie recalled her suit, and wrapped her arms around Danny in a loose hug. He hugged back burying his face into her shoulder as he shook.

They would be okay. They’d figure it out, eventually.

But for now, they just enjoyed the relief in each other.

——————————

Aaaaand that’s a wrap folks! Part three is finally here! Not gonna lie, I wrote this in the span of about two and a half hours on mobile from 9 to about 11:20 pm, so apologies if there are any inconsistencies.

That being said, I would like to do a poll. I have about 120 followers and I was wondering if I should write something special for y’all once I reach 150. So, would you rather I write:

1) a Danny phantom/Rise of the Guardians crossover,

2) a Danny Phantom TUE! Au fic,

Or

3) part 3 of my Glass ghost au?

Comment your choice below and have a happy weekend or whatever.

[justabitbelowaverage]

Tik Tok's Problematic Mental Health Community

Gatekeeping is a staple of any large-scale community. However, I think most of us can agree that one place it really doesn't belong is the mental health community. Unfortunately, that's exactly what we're getting from Tik Tok on a daily basis.

TW's: Swearing, mentions of mental health, mentions of trauma, mentions of abuse

Let me just start by saying, I'm not shitting on Tik Tok as an app. I love Tik Tok, you love Tik Tok, everyone loves Tik Tok. My main focus is on the mental health community both making videos and commenting on them. And of course, not everyone in the community displays problematic behavior and it wouldn't be fair of me to lump them all together but, while I should say, “the toxic side of the mental health community on Tik Tok", I'm going to just call it “The Community” a lot for simplicity's sake.

In all honesty, I do my best to stay away from the mental health side of Tik Tok simply because I'm there to vibe with the cosplayers and hype up my friends, not really to be educated or do any educating. HOWEVER, when I do get a video that relates to mental health, I tend to go down a rabbit hole so I’ve definitely seen enough content to notice the dangerous patterns.

So, without further long winded exposition, here's the top three problems with the mental health community on Tik Tok:

1. Highschool Cliche Mentality

This is also known as black and white thinking but I think you'll see why I prefer to refer to it differently. You know that scene in Mean Girls where they're walking through the cafeteria and pointing to all the different cliques at the tables? That's how The Community views the world.

Yesterday, I saw a video on my For You Page that was basically someone getting irritated about someone saying they experienced trauma because their mother took their phone for the day.

Obviously, they used an example that's meant to seem like an experience that can't be traumatic. When I looked to the comments, there were a fair share of people saying that comparing trauma is wrong but there were even more comments justifying the video's message. Because it was just an example of something a “popular white girl would say for attention.”

Anyone can be depressed. Anyone can be traumatized. Just because someone mentioned something that happened to them that seemingly dulls in comparison to what you have experienced, does not give you the right to say that it wasn’t traumatic for them. Not to mention the fact that they may be testing the waters with how much they can open up to you about.

The Community likes to pretend that people who seem to have their life together or have a similar attitude as the high school bully in every teen coming of age movie ever means that they can't possibly have mental health struggles of their own without it being made up for attention.

Invalidating mental illness is exactly what we should be against and yet, The Community insists on pushing this narrative that they are the ones spreading the word so they are helping people. In reality, they're making people feel even worse about themselves and are potentially doing far more harm than good by basically saying certain people aren't allowed to feel depressed or anxious.

No matter the skin color, background, wealth, sex, gender, or what have you, ANYONE can have mental health problems. Even the people who seem like those popular cheerleader cliches on the outside.

2. “Breaking” The Stigma

The stigma around mental health is something we all want to go away, of course. But there's a slippery slope when you start saying, “People with [insert mental illness] don't actually act like that.”

It kind of overlaps with the High School cliche mentality. For example, I saw a video that basically showed someone with anxiety whose hands didn't shake on camera because they weren't faking it for attention like half the other people doing the “trend” of holding their hand in front of the camera.

As someone with anxiety whose antidepressants cause hand tremors, this was a very toxic statement to make. Do all people with anxiety shake? Absolutely not but saying that nobody who actually has anxiety has hand tremors and if it seems they do, they're faking it is creating a new stigma.

In their efforts to break the stigma surrounding mental health to make people outside The Community understand, they are inadvertently making people in The Community questions themselves. It reminds me of when people say that pink isn't a feminine color. Of course it isn't but does that mean that no female on the planet likes the color pink? No.

Mental health is a spectrum and there are no right or wrong symptoms to experience. It’s different for everyone. Just because you are a girl who doesn't like pink, doesn't mean no girls like pink. Just because you are a person with anxiety who doesn't shake, doesn't mean no people with anxiety shake.

3. Over Diagnosing

Here's the part where I word everything wrong and make myself look like a complete hypocrite but here goes. I think that mental health should be diagnosed by a professional but of course I don't think that invalidating someone entirely because they don't have pill bottle with their name on it is right.

That said, not liking the way a certain fabric feels does not always mean that you are on the Autism spectrum. Having trouble focusing does not always mean that you have ADD.

There's these Tik Toks out there that do a, “Put a finger down" game where you put a finger down if you have certain symptoms and will unironically say that if you have more than 6 fingers down, you have BPD.

The most egregious example of this was a video saying that if you put 5 or more fingers down then you had/have an abusive parent. One of the criteria was, “Put a finger down if your parents have ever given, 'because I said so' as a reason.”

Could a parent who is abusive have said that? Of course. Does that phrase alone make someone an abusive parent? No way in fresh hell.

You’re only confusing people by saying that it does and it isn't helping anyone.

So in conclusion, the Tik Tok mental health community is not a reliable source of information but for the record, neither am I. In the end, this is just my opinion and while it's based on facts, it is my interpretation of the facts.

The community's gatekeeping and narrow minded attitude are what make it a toxic communtiy and the worst part is that in the process of attempting to help mentally ill people, they're making a lot of people feel far worse.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

Whoopsie King Rhoam’s a dick but I gotta flesh him out so

Read Part 1 here!

Part 2

If you’re on mobile, and tumblr hates this post, follow along on this google doc!

Rules/overview this rewrite in the beginning of Part 1

‘sup ya beautiful bastards it’s time to gush about the process of storytelling and writing as we fix up the fix it fic so let’s just jump into it

- - - - - - - - - - 

A quick recap of Part 2, and I swear this recap is faster than the recap last time: Chapter 3 of Age of Calamity opens with a more substantial scene the beginning points of Revali’s character, and contrasting the old position that Link and eggbot have, so that their later changes in this chapter (well, at least for Link in this chapter) are more pronounced. We edited a bit of the dialogue to make Revali’s intentions make a bit more sense, while also putting some little foreshadowing points with some camera tricks for the Hollow Champions. The Hollow Champions can now speak, which means their potential for being used to bring out the flaws or bitter aspects of each character is more readily available further into the story. And of course, we’ve introduced the main antagonist of Astor, and coupling his presence and dynamic with Zelda’s insecurities. While his intentions of needing Zelda for something is clear, his motivations and backstory remain a mystery as of yet, the only true clue we have so far being some sort of connection to eggbot. 

I didn’t get any big asks or comments about Part 2 so I’m going to assume that it was mostly well received (although I will note that I promise I’m going to flesh out Revali to be more than he has been presented as of yet, this is just the very very start of this development don’t you worry your feather loving butts) that being said, you should totally critique me or give me your opinions or comments. I’d love to hear them! Although, keep in mind that I am restraining my rewrite to the guidelines already said, so don’t get mad at me for not killing off all the Champions or something. Thaaat’s a rewrite for another time. So yeah if you reblog you get a little kiss from me because believe it or not I spent a lot of time trying to rewrite an entire storyline while keeping it’s tone and integrity intact. So thanks much <3

Okie dokie then chaps! Let us finally delve into Urbosa lesbian vibes, a zest of Zelink angst, rants about pacing, and a couple tablespoons of Astor backstory, all starting in the latest stage of Chapter 3: The Road Home, Besieged 

So right of the bat, big problem here. This Chapter follows directly after the events of Korok Forest, so you assume that maybe “The Road Home” refers to the team, going home, back to the castle, to tell King Rhoam what’s up. But...that’s apparently not the case. 

So this entire stage, firstly, it brushes over any scenes where Zelda, Link or the other Champions might talk to King Rhoam about the Master Sword, or the Deku Tree, or...hmm what else happened last stage that might be interesting to see—oh yEAH HOW ABOUT that mysterious magic guy that tried to kill Zelda and was going off about the future and stuff?? That guy that wielded a bunch of dark magic and malice looking stuff and, uh yeah, you’d think it might be important and interesting to see the King’s take on was is essentially a wanted traitor to the crown who may or may not be leading the entire movement for the Calamity’s uprising. But nope, no one asks questions, no one says anything or has interesting conversations that reveal stuff about the plot. It's just….just all about Zelda and ooooOOooo she can’t awaken her powers oh no what’s a gal to do!

And I do mean that quite literally, this entire stage is all centered around two scenes with Zelda. The first, an admittedly narratively important scene of Zelda having a quick flashback about eggbot after he sings her a song, but it lasts for five seconds. And the second, being a pep talk with Urbosa as Link eats rocks in the background. For the majority of this stage, it’s all focused on Zelda, and pacing wise, it does virtually nothing to progress the narrative/plot forward.

And on paper, there’s nothing wrong with that! Hell, people read entire fanfictions dedicated to character development and relationships that have absolutely no external plot. Having a scene dedicated to just character development is completely fine, it’s something that’s pretty common and even encouraged to an extent. The problem arises when you remember that this is a story being told through the medium of a video game. 

Now, I am going to try and  breeze by this because, similar to Age of Calamity, I have to also construct this post with pacing that keeps my audience engaged, while progressing with my core narrative and story. But I highly encourage you to watch through this video by hello future me (On Writing: How to Master Pacing) because a lot of what I know about this I’ve picked up from his videos, and if you’re a writer or just someone who thinks storytelling is cool, it’s a great guide to the art of pacing.

Anyhow. There are two levels of pacing within a story. There is the small type of pacing, like for the structure of a singular scene. And there is the pacing of the overall core narrative, how the larger beats of the entire story is revealed. Good pacing for your core narrative is about whether the reader feels like they are getting closer to the big thing, the big climax or answer or promise of satisfaction. The smaller type of pacing, for your singular scenes, focuses on that timing between how close you get to achieving new information, this refers to  your slow and fast pacing, tension versus rapid action.  

So, overall the rule of thumb is: the amount of time you invest into your smaller scenes, even put together, that must correlate with a big enough payoff in the core narrative. That’s what good pacing is. (And that’s why people make stuff like the Three Act Structure to help visualize this pacing process but obviously other forms of pacing guidelines exist like the Five and Seven Act Structures but that’s too complicated for this Nintendo Game anyhow that’s just some educational flavour for ya to impress your highschool English Teacher I guess) 

So knowing that, the question now is: Does The Road Home, Besieged contribute good pacing to the story? This is going to be my excuse for changing up other later scenes in the game, so when I mention pacing and narrative again, remember this. The time spent playing for thirty minutes, minimum, in the game, to only be paid off by two lines of character development isn’t good pacing. So the answer is “no.” 

Delving as long an amount of time as thirty minutes, means that pretty much everytime a stage is complete, you must introduce new substantial progress to your story. A game like this just doesn’t have time to waste it’s valuable cutscenes on character development alone. There’s an even further wrench in the issue when you consider you also need to account for sidequests, so you could really be forcing your player to go through hours of gametime before you introduce new details in the story. 

Obviously it’s not always gonna be cut and dry like that—sometimes you have to account for how enjoyable the gameplay is, and sometimes the amount of character development offsets any lack of narrative development—but for the majority of stages I’m gonna change, they all suffer this pacing problem. In a game that's entire story hinges on these cutscenes, bad pacing is just something it doesn’t have time for.

Anyhow anyhow anyhow, I got to get my dose of serotonin by talking about pacing writing structure and stuff and blah blah, so now I shall grace you with the changes that address these problems that would theoretically lead to vast improvement. I gave you this reasoning and backstory to writing because I am making hella changes, to hopefully make the experience more “poggers,” which is something the cool kids say these days if you didn’t know. 

Firstly, timeline wise this stage is gonna take place directly after the Korok Forest battle. The gang is returning home from the battle, with Link, the new wielder of the Master Sword, along with this new information regarding a certain Astor character. 

We open the same way it does in game, focusing on Zelda’s face, before the frame is suddenly blocked by the pommel of the Master Sword. A wordless way to express how the sudden revelation of Link being the hero has forced its way into Zelda’s mind, great use of camera Koei Tecmo 10 outta 10

Now I don’t want to immediately jump into Zelda’s “oh poor me I can’t awaken my powers” dialogue because—and this is something even Breath of the Wild is guilty of—This game seems to forget that there are other characters besides Zelda. It’s marketed towards kids, sure, but I assure you that kids playing this game have a longer attention span than 2 minutes. You don’t need to keep reminding the audience every single scene about how Zelda is anxious about her powers. It gets redundant, you waste the audience’s time, and therefore you waste your own time, because you could have been using that precious screen time to develop some other thing further.  So anyhow, goes a bit like this. 

Zelda’s walking, the Master Sword comes into frame. Zelda looks down at the ground but keeps walking, but you can tell from her expression that she’s troubled. Don’t need to waste time on dialogue for her here, show don’t tell, we need to make the most of the scene here. Camera is still on Zelda, but the focus blurs shifts from Zelda to the Champions behind her. We can start with Mipha, I don’t have my heart set heavily on any specific dialogue, but I want her to say something along the lines of “how proud she is of Link” and what an honor it will be to fight by the side of not just her dear friend, but also someone selected by the goddess to be the hero. Subtextually, I want her to say this in a tone that suggests that she doubts the need for her to be here at all. She’ll say something like “He’s grown so…” glances up at Link who's just walking ahead, “...so much stronger than I could ever imagine. [Something Something] His power has grown so much over the course of a few days, more than I have achieved in a lifetime.” She looks down, but she still has a sweet smile. 

Now I’m doing this because I want to develop further this plot line of “getting stronger” that Age of Calamity sets up but never does anything with. Remember how in Chapter 2, Mipha asks Daruk to train with her to get stronger? I really like the possibilities of this arc with Mipha as it can not only parallel with her feelings for Link, but also make her character better as an individual. Mipha wants to get stronger so that she can protect Link, but now she thinks that Link’s already growing stronger to an extent that she might not be needed. She’s not jealous of Link, nor does she wish him to be weaker, she simply wants to be more than she already is. This is literally echoing her words that she left her father, about how leaving the Domain and experiencing new challenges would be “good for her.” So I wanna run with it. The dialogue here establishes Mipha’s motivation to grow stronger, almost equivalent to a rivalry of sorts. 

So after Mipha says this, Revali scoffs and butts in. Again, I’m not too set on any particular dialogue here, just something like “Hmph! Well, I don’t know about that. Seems to me all that’s happened is some magic sword gave the knight an ego boost. Blade’s only as strong as the little Hylian who wields it, and—based on my own extended experience and professional observations of course—I’ve yet to see this ‘stronger’ boy that you speak of.” Another camera pan to Link a ways in front of them. “If you ask me, hero or no, that knight is still exactly the same as I first met him.”

Revali places a wing on his chest dramatically. “Perhaps if you’re truly keen on seeing growth in skill and strength, Mipha, you’d do well to—”

“Flattering of an offer as that may be, Revali,” Urbosa interjects, “But I think Mipha might find it difficult to observe growth from one of the shortest Rito in Hyrule.”

Cue laughter from others or snickering or something. We just need some banter to add a bit more flavour to the characters. Revali can do a little huff and cross his wings or flip his scarf or something. But then Urbosa continues. 

“Although...he is right about one thing.” Urbosa looks straight ahead. “A sword does not alter a hand, just as strength does not alter character.” She puts a hand on Mipha’s shoulder. “Grow as he might, there is no doubt in my mind that he is the same boy as he’s always been.” Urbosa looks up in the direction of Zelda. “Whether you realize it or not.”

Ok so, scene’s not done yet, BUT quick gush on the dialogue flow here. I’m trying to establish parallels in these character perspectives based on the flow of conversation. We started with Mipha who, like I said, wished to grow stronger along with Link. This flows into Revali who also has a similar parallel as he wishes to grow above Link’s shadow. But the distinction between Mipha and Revali is that Mipha think’s Link’s strength is earned, and Revali thinks he cheated, gaining authority through a magic sword, and not through merit and skill. Thus, leading to Revali’s perspective of Link being exactly the same as he’s always been, he believes the sword doesn’t change anything. Urbosa then speaks, because she thinks exactly the same thing. However, her distinction is that Link is the same as he’s always been: a determined young boy earned his place and cares for his friends. Then she looks to Zelda who, as we know, will develop a perspective that contradicts this. So you get it? This scene is like 20 seconds long but it already mirrors nearly all the character parallels and perspective, that’s why the flow of dialogue is important. And I know half of you probably think these kinds of details are a stretch but I promise you it’s not, just look at any movie or show ever and I guarantee you can find similar stuff there too. Ok moving on moving on— 

Urbosa looks up at Zelda, comments her, “He’s the same boy, whether you realize it or not” piece of dialogue. Camera shifts back to Zelda and Link, who, idk if I mentioned this, but in the scene there’s enough distance between the Champions and Zelda and Link that the Champions can speak without the other two listening. So they didn’t hear any of this. 

So the camera is back on Zelda, and now we can get her “How can I…..If I am unable to awaken my inner power….” line. Eggbot senses her sadness, does his little cheer up dance, Zelda gets a flashback.

One small change I wanna make to this flashback: Instead of just a baby Zelda going “nighty-night” I want there to ALSO be a figure in the background behind eggbot wearing a silk royal blue dress. And said woman has blonde hair and she’s by the table back there. We don’t have to show her face or anything because Nintendo hates that. Just place the woman somewhere in the back somewhere

Also possibly you could add the shadow of another figure by the doorway, maybe? It would serve good continuity purposes for the plot points that I’m telling, but that part is not as necessary. I just need at least the woman there. 

Then Zelda is like “I remember you” to eggbot and all that and blah blah… Now, instead of Impa offscreen just yelling “enemy ahead!” I just want it to be a full on ambush. Not like a major one, but just enough where the group is surprised a bit. Maybe on the cliffs above, a lizalfo throws a boomerang, or a bokoblin shoots and arrow, or even just throws a rock. I don’t really care. I just need this to happen because…

As soon as this danger is presented, Link turns around to grab Zelda’s hand and they start running again. And he can like use his body to try and shield her a bit, I need it to parallel how he acted during Chapter 1 on the road to the Royal Tech Lab. However, this parallel has one important distinction because…

Zelda rips he grip from Link’s after a moment. “You don’t need to coddle me!” She says, or something along those lines. “Y-You...You’re the hero aren’t you! I’m perfectly fine, you don’t need to spend your precious time playing babysitter to me.” In the distance, a horde of monsters is beginning to form. Zelda looks between the monsters and Link’s Master Sword, her expression unreadable. “Well? Just...just go do what you need to do.” Link hesitates, looking between her, and the approaching monsters. Zelda speaks more sternly now, “Go!” So Link, not one to disregard an order from the Princess, gives one last look to Zelda before setting off towards the monsters. Maybe Zelda can take a deep breath to steady herself after he leaves, but as soon as Link unsheathes his sword, the metal glistening in the setting sunlight, it cuts immediately to gameplay. Start battle. 

For essays’ purposes this is the part where I explain why this is better than the original. So here’s my reasoning:

Uhhh, it just is. :3

Ok but seriously, I’ve already talked a tone about why the pacing and dialogue flow is better than the original. But also this scene doesn’t just say “Ooo Zelda is sad about her powers,” because that’s not interesting. Like I said, it’s redundant information. What is interesting is see how characters deal with that internal conflict and how it affects their relationships. AKA Zelda’s relationship with Link, who now basically embodies the success that she’s been working so hard towards but never achieved, is deteriorating a bit. I wanted to get that sense of the Zelda that we see in Breath of the Wild because all things considered, they should be roughly the same character.

So that’s that, you fight the battle, the Hollows show up a bit, so insert “dark evil Champion” dialogue because if you’re gonna use the evil clone trope might as well use it to the fullest. Then you fight the Talus and hurray horrah the day is saved. 

Then we have that iconic Urbosa motherly pep talk to Zelda as Link eats rocks in the background. Now honestly, I’m not that big a fan of the first half of the dialogue, so I wanna change it into something more interesting. But the rest of the beats and camera work go roughly the same. 

Zelda: “Link is...so much stronger now”

Urbosa: “‘And yet I have not.’ I presume that’s what you’re thinking, hmm?”

Zelda: “Well it’s true, isn’t it? More and more, monsters have been appearing around Hyrule. It is a sign that the Calamity draws near. So...there isn’t much time. And still, no sign of my power awakening.”

Urbosa: *sighs* “Little bird…”

Zelda cuts her off, in an attempt to change topics: “Why do you call me that?”

Urbosa: “Hmm?”

Zelda: “Little bird...I feel like I’ve heard it before. Why do you call me that?”

Urbosa, after a beat looks off in the distance or something: “A long time ago, my dear friend would call me to the palace, or perhaps invite herself over to mine, [she chuckles] ...and she would talk with me all day, and ask me to gaze upon her little bird with her. Her dearest daughter...a princess”

Zelda: “You mean my…”

Urbosa just smiles with a soft nod: “Back then, times were a bit different. The destiny that you have was still upon the Queen, who worked day and night to refine her powers and fulfill her destiny. In just a few short years, I went from being friends with a Queen, to friends with the destined sealer of the Calamity.”

Another pause, before Urbosa speaks again: “But...she was still the same woman I had grown with. Still the same loving mother who spoke about her little bird with joy. She had not changed one bit.”

Urbosa: “Even when your mother passed, her loving smile was there until the very end. She always loved you—believed in you, Zelda. She had great hope, great faith that her daughter would grow into the beacon of light Hyrule needed. That even with her gone, you would spread your wings and fly, because you were just that amazing to her.” *Urbosa puts her hands on Zelda’s shoulders.*

Urbosa: “Destiny did not change your mother’s love, just as it does not change Link’s courage, or your value.” *the camera can pan to Link eating rocks now*

Urbosa looks directly at Zelda now: “Look how hard we’ve all worked to get this far, how hard you have worked to get here. While we may grow in strength, in that regard, we’re all one in the same.”

Zelda: “...I….well…”

Urbosa: “What did the Great Deku Tree say? There is no need to fret princess.”

Urbosa: “Our faith, Link’s, your mother’s, it’s all as strong as ever. And everyday, with every moment that you travel towards your destiny, it just grows. It is always with us. So believe in that, have hope, yet, little bird.” *Eggbot can scurry up and make cute noises here next to Zelda*

Urbosa: “I know, you are where you need to be. You must accept that too.”

Zelda: “...”

Zelda gives a solemn nod: “Thank you, Urbosa.”

So that’s that scene! Don’t let the length fool you, it’s technically even shorter than the original scene in Age of Calamity. So why is it, in my opinion, better? Because for one, we actually get an insight into Zelda’s mom and Urbosa’s relationship, something that was PROMISED To us but never given and I’m still a bit salty about it. Anyhow, in addition to just getting some lore details, that relationship between the Queen and Urbosa is important for this scene because, just like Urbosa spells out, it’s in direct parallel with Link and Zelda. 

Before the Queen suddenly got sick and died, she was destined to seal the Calamity. But she didn’t let that destiny change her, she was still the same loving mother to the end. Now that is something that Zelda needs to realize about Link, as his newly acquired destiny doesn’t change who he was before, the knight who cares for her and wishes to protect her. Zelda needs to realize he’s the same and that she can still trust and confide in him. Hence, that’s why this mom backstory is in this scene and not somewhere else, because it serves to the narrative but also more impactfully to the character development. 

The dialogue could probably be polished a bit more but come on, not half bad for an improvement yeah? So that concludes Chapter—

SIKE we’re not done yet. We still have to move into the entire point of this stage, the road home, to the castle. 

So, badabing badaboom, I’m adding an entirely new scene from scratch right here at the end, because it is VITAL that I set up something new about the story, as a sort of clincher. So anyhow 

Zelda is alone with her father, let’s set it in the royal library (Intact, not ruined, of course) because we don’t see enough of that location and it’s really cool. So Zelda is briefing her dad about the events in Korok Forest and on the journey back home. I know I always gush about cinematography but it can’t be fully appreciated since I’m….writing,,, this, BUT I think it might be fun if the side shots of Zelda have her background be some bookcases of the library, maybe half bookcases and the other half the ornate walls. Then the background for the King’s shots is the full symmetry of the elegant staircases.

[And if you needed the specific reasoning for that, because it makes camera shots more fun. Like when Zelda says something that aids in her scholarly side, the camera angle can change slightly where the bookcases take up more of the frame, and then when the King’s will takes more power, then the book cases can be angled a bit more out of frame. And then the symmetry of the King by the staircase is a way to show his higher power dynamic to her, and contrasts well with Zelda’s shots since the bookcases are dark and the stone is lighter, so on a meta level is also makes it easier for the audience to understand where they are. Shot composition is fun ok, and that’s not even getting into color theory (Thinks about Baby Driver and LaLaLand....even videogames like Undertale and Hollow Knight have such wonderful shot composition and use of color theory hhhhh love it)]

Ok so Zelda’s briefing the King in the library, she’s standing while he’s sitting at a desk. There’s maybe two or four Royal Guards on the staircase entrances, but for the most part, they’re alone. You can tell that this meeting between them has been going on for a bit now, as from Zelda’s dialogue, she’s retelling events midway through the story. 

The King is flipping through some paperwork, not really looking Zelda in the eyes. She continues speaking. 

“And so...with the malice cleared and the monsters being dealt with, Link and I made our way into the heart of Korok Forest.”

The King hums a response, flipping through another page. “And this is when Link pulled out the Sword that Seals the Darkness then, I presume.”

Zelda paused, as of thinking of how to phrase her next words. “Not exactly. I...we both encountered someone beforehand. A man, with a pale face, and dark hair and robes, and he had the power to control malice, using a strange object in one of his hands.” 

Rhoam stops writing in his journal or whatever. He doesn’t look up, but the sudden stop he makes is obvious. Zelda notices, but continues. 

“He talked about...the Calamity, and my birthday...destiny, and the future….I’m not quite sure I can remember his intentions word for word. But he did introduce himself as—“

“Astor…” Zelda and the King say simultaneously. The King has fully perked up now, looking at Zelda. She’s pleased to see a reaction from him. The King rises from his chair, and starts pacing a bit, stroking his beard thoughtfully like the asshole he is. 

“So you know him then? This Astor man? Who is he, father? What does he—“

“Were you alright? Did he hurt you, or mention anything else?”

Zelda pauses for a moment before shaking her head, as if the concern he was expressing was uncharacteristic. “N-No. No, I’m fine, and Link was there. During the battle, as Link fought him off, that was when the sword was pulled. Then Astor fled, or...” Zelda pauses for a beat, “retreated...he expressed his wish to speak with me again.”

Another beat of silence, as Rhoam gets up, hands clasped behind his back. “He used to work at this very palace.” The shot is now directly on Rhoams back, as he faces a bookcase, although it’s clear that he’s just deep in thought, and not just staring at books. Rhoam is in third column of the shot (he’s to the right, not in the center) 

“A trusted advisor. Someone gifted with foresight, who many years ago, had first predicted the coming Calamity.” Cut to shot of Rhoams face, the camera being by the bookcase, so that we see Rhoam’s expression and Zelda’s.

“In truth, I thought him dead. For the last time I saw him alive—truly, truly alive—was ten long years ago...” The shot goes back to the original establishing shot, of Rhoam facing away from the camera, towards the bookcase, he’s standing to the right, hands still clasped behind his back.

“...when your mother still graced this earth.”

From left frame, a younger Astor walks up and stands beside Rhoam. He runs his fingers along the books. Rhoam looks to his left, as if he is seeing Astor. Camera cuts to Astor’s right, as if looking at him from Rhoam’s perspective. He continues brushing his fingers against the spines of the books, before he finds the one he’s looking for. Pulling it out, he opens the book, flipping through its pages, before giving a genuine smile. Cut back to wide angle behind them. With the book, Astor starts walking back out left frame, but this time the camera follows him. Filter fade to a memory tint as the camera pans right to left

[when the camera fades fully into the Astor memory, the figures can have that silhouetted effect like you see in botw. Cause I know Nintendo hates making new character models for some reason.] 

So if it wasn’t clear already, even though the memory filter doesn’t come immediately, Astor isn’t actually there, but it’s just a flashback. I’m a sucker for merges, which is something this game and botw NEVER do which bugs me because there are so many creative ways you could introduce flashbacks without just doing “ooOooOoo fade to sepia filter and then oooOOooOOO we fade back to reality and no time has passed.” I apologize if my explanation of the camera doesn’t make sense as it’s hard without much visual aid, but hopefully it makes sense so far. Anyhow! Let’s continue.

We’re now fully immersed in this memory, but King Rhoam’s voice still narrates overhead. 

Astor brings the book to one of the desks in the library, where a woman sits writing something onto paper. News flash, it’s the queen. Astor hands her the book and starts speaking about something, although you can tell the tone of their conversation is light, almost akin to Zelda rambling about Sheikah Technology. The Queen laughs about something unheard, as Astor continues ranting about something, his hands moving to like a professor giving a lecture. 

Rhoam Narration: “When he had first predicted the Calamity, things were much more hopefully for our kingdom. As although his foresight granted him only glimpses and fragments of a future, he was almost certain that with the Guardians, and the strength of your mother’s power, our victory would be absolute.”

Scene changes to the Queen walking down a corridor, Astor is leaning against the wall by a window. 

Rhoam Narration: “He and your mother would often work together tirelessly to study the ancient arts, to make the most of the powers given by the goddess.”

The Queen has walked up to Astor now. She crouches down and gestures to her left, the side not yet seen by the camera.

Rhoam Narration: “In fact…”

The camera changes to focus to where the Queen was looking towards—a young Zelda, crouched behind her mother’s dress, stares up at Astor. 

Rhoam Narration: “I would not be surprised if you found within yourself, a memory of such.”

I would prefer if you could see the expressions of Astor (giving Zelda not a smile, but not really a frown or anything rude either) and young Zelda. But I guess it can also just be silhouettes too cause again, Nintendo hates giving us younger character models outside of first person POV stuff. Anyhow. 

The scene fades, the light from the window dimming as everything darkens.

Rhoam Narration: “I often times wish we could go back to such a time, when victory and pride swam in every corner of this castle.  But of course…”

The scene brightens again, although not as bright as before. It’s the exact same corridor with the large window, but now it’s raining. A young Zelda stands alone in front of it, looking outside.

Rhoam Narration: “Such a time did end…”

We now cut to a new scene, King Rhoam is walking down a hall, the camera’s perspective is of a bird’s eye view, like we’re peering in from outside a window. We can see the shadow of Astor chasing after him, as he starts speaking frantically about something, not quite, but almost to the point of shouts. 

Rhoam Narration: “After your mother died, the visions of the future shifted drastically. No longer was there glimpses of rolling fields and shimmering skies, but instead, of rubble, red earth, and death.”

You can now more clearly hear the words coming out of Astor’s mouth. He is telling something about failure, and souls, and the Calamity to the King’s ear. He’s still walking forward.

Rhoam Narration: “He was adamant that our demise was now coming faster than ever, and that without your mother, we were doomed. That even you, should you take up your mother’s mantle, could not save everyone.”

Astor: “I’m telling you Your Majesty, if you go down this path, there is no going back.”

King Rhoam: “There is no other choice, we are moving forward.”

Astor: “I don’t think you quite understand the true gravity of the fate you’re choosing for yourself. It is a guarantee that you, me, and countless others shall die.”

King Rhoam: “I don’t want to hear it.”

Astor: “And of course, there are a multitude of possibilities, but the end result is the same.”

Astor: “Do you have a preference, perhaps? Crushed by rubble? Suffocation under ash?”

Rhoam’s tone is deadly: “Stop.”

Astor: “I’ve seen fire too. I’m not yet quite sure the exact circumstances that lead to flame appearing and spreading so quickly, but rest assured that if you—”

King Rhoam: “Stop.” 

Astor: “If you saddle someone else with this duty I am absolutely certain that you and I will—” 

King Rhoam, voice not shouting, but still with a booming intensity: “Just like you were so certain of our victory 10 years ago?”

Astor’s face darkens. He’s silent for a moment, collecting his words before practically spitting the first articulation: “...That, future, was the one that would come to be if Her Majesty was alive. If you’re so unsatisfied with my departed wisdom you can go ahead and flail around with destiny alone. You think I choose for these events to happen? You think I lie when I saw I want what’s best for this kingdom—”

King Rhoam: “What’s best for you.”

An ugly pause.

King Rhoam: “It is decided, Seer. It’s time you accept this. My wife is dead. That is the truth. Thus the role of sealing the Calamity shall pass to my daughter. She will work to awaken her own ability. It will be her duty to save us.”

Astor half laughs: “A child?! Surely you don’t need the supernatural to see how foolish that is.”

King Rhoam’s voice is even more stern: “You are living proof that the future is not absolute. Therefore I...must place all belief in her ability.”

The King walks away, leaving Astor alone. Weirdly, he smiles. Perhaps to mask some other emotion.  

After another moment, Astor yells to the King: “I’ll fix this! Alone if I must!” He’s chuckling as he shakes his head. “Your useless faith may cost many lives, but even so mark my words, I will fix this.”

The King looks back, but says nothing, his expression unreadable. He continues forward, leaving Astor alone chuckling, or perhaps something in between chuckling and crying to himself.  

Rhoam Narration: “We haven’t spoken since that day. I simply left him to his devices. If he was so determined to find another way to stop the Calamity, then who was I to stop him. I doubt my word could have swayed his mind regardless.

We’re now looking at a room, the camera is just by the doorway, looking at an office, circular and domed. It’s stone brick walls are covered in parchment and ripped books, covered in symbols and frantic writing. An old Sheikah tapestry hangs crudely on the left wall, and the window on the right seems to tint grey, or even a deepest crimson. Centerframe, is the back of Astor, robe hanging just above the paper ridden floor. He is flipping through something on his desk. 

Rhoam Narration: “Fixated as he was on the perfect future that you mother might have led, I still had hope that with time, he might still assist you with your destiny one day.”

The camera slowly comes closer to Astor. We can see more clearly the type of stuff that sprawls the papers and books and diagrams across his office. Some depict stars and constellations, and even a few notes on Ancient Technology, although in a noticeably cleaner font. However, as the camera moves close and closer to Astor, the papers and books depict only one clear topic: the aura of death that comes only with necromancy. 

Rhoam Narration: “It seems…”

Astor finally reacts to whatever he was doing on his desk. You don’t see his eyes, but as he fully turns around to face the camera, you see his smile, along with him holding a dark orb of unknown energy. It hovers in his hand. 

Rhoam Narration: “...I was mistaken.” 

The camera cuts to a wide angle, looking at Astor from behind a stack of books on his desk. The stack of books on Astor’s desk brighten in color (from the memory dull filter), until the scene fully fades back into the Royal Library. The camera is now focused on a similar stack of books on the desk behind Zelda, where Rhoam was working before. 

Zelda is still looking at her father, who is still turned away. Now, he turns back around to face her.

“He had disappeared completely one day, so it was my understanding that whatever he was working on killed him. However, if he is truly back as you say…”

Rhoam walks closer to Zelda, close enough that he might have put a hand on her shoulder, but his arms stay behind his back.

“It is in your utmost interest to prove him wrong. I know not what he plans on doing, but it would be wise to stop him before he does.”

Rhoam turns away now, pacing back to the otherside of the desk. “But, your more important priority is unlocking your powers, understand? Now more than ever, is not the time to get distracted.”

Zelda, taking this all in, takes a deep breath. She then nods at him. “I understand...Father.”

After a moment, the King makes a motion as if to dismiss her. She starts to walk away, her thoughts churning in her head, heart thumping to the same beat as her echoing footsteps. Suddenly, Rhoam calls, 

“Zelda.” It’s not a question, but the tone is asked like one.

She turns back, looking at him, expectantly. Rhoam only stares at her, an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty for him. The words he wants to form seem stuck in his throat, until finally, he lets out a quiet breathe through his nose, before simply saying:

“You must.”

Zelda can only frown, her shoulder’s slumping slightly, as she ducks her head and leaves.

- - - - - - 

And that’s that! That’s the complete end of Chapter 3. So tune in next time for Chapter 4, including a new slight but important story changes, Yiga husbands, and shocking turns of events.

Edit: I forgot that posts with link’s dont show up in tag results so a rb is appreciated :p

[loser-writings]

HC || Fandoms they were in

This is pretty much just a crack drabble since I am currently attempting to catch up to all of the requests! Thank you for being Patient with me!

Dabi

This gremlin knows what Homestuck is and can’t stand the fact that he understands the references Toga makes to it. Also possibly one of the few who has actually read homestuck on this list, and won’t hesitate to correct Toga or Shigaraki if they fuck up a fact.

He also really is into The Walking Dead. You can’t tell me that Kurogiri doesn’t have a TV set up somewhere in the bar so he and Shigaraki can sit and watch. This does end up with the majority of the league having a once a week get together where Jin gets Pizza, Toga gets several boxes of soda for them, and Shigaraki sets up everything. 

Denki Kaminari

This bitch was into homestuck. Like he wasn’t just into homestuck, he was INTO homestuck. Most likely one of those kids that used to jump on Omegle in a shitty cosplay for those homestuck Omegle cosplay meets the fandom used to do. He also totally has a genderbent Nepeta cosplay, a Dave strider cosplay, and a Jake cosplay SOMEWHERE. Most likely to accidentally wear a homestuck shirt to class.

Never once picked up a Harry Potter book or watched the movie, but you know this kid has a hufflepuff robe in his closet and some hufflepuff merch. He doesn’t know shit about the actual canon since he is just there to vibe

Really into Kpop. BTS, Blackpink, ITZY, EXO, Ikon, BlockB, BigBang minus Seungri cause he is icky, SuperJunior, NCT, WINNER, Got7, Red Velvet, (F)x, and more. Like you can’t tell me this guy doesn’t listen to girl groups and shit like BTS. (His bias has to be J-hope) He also bops with Mina the most. These two also most likely post dance covers of the songs to instagram and TikTok, so they have quite the following. (But their best video was their “Boy In love” cover they did with Kirishima, Deku, Shoto,Jirou, Momo, and Bakugo.)

This kid was also into Five nights at Freddy. He owns all of the games and will still play them with the Bakusquad, but he is pretty quiet about this fandom just because of how BULLIED he was for enjoying it. 

LOVES Danganronpa too. Bakusquad do a weekly game night and they all went through all of the games. Let’s just say Denki cried a LOT at the deaths. Like a lot. (He may have a few cosplays of his own too)

Eijiro Kirishima

Kirishima liked Supernatural just because of how manly Sam and Dean are. Like fuck yeah, he wants a chevy impala too cause it is a beautiful car and wants to know how to protect yourself from shit like demons and angels. He never did much besides watch the show, cry a lot, and try to draw the characters. (Also he had a crush on Dean just cause of how badass and manly he is, but nobody can blame him)

He totally sat and watched Denki play Undertale, so he knows all about it. His favorite character is Undyne and he actually cried when they beat her in Genocide mode cause holy shit dude. That sucked. Oh and Sans. Fuck Sans.

He enjoys Kpop and will listen to it with the Bakusquad. He really admires BTS for how much of an impact they have made not only on his friends, but also the world itself and you can’t tell me that this guy doesn’t think the world of Kim Namjoon. Like he listens to Mono on repeat and is such a big RM fanboy. Also really likes Bigbang (He thinks Daesungs voice is so nice and will sleep to his singing if he could), and Kyungsoo is his favorite in Exo. Cried when Bigbang started coming back from the Military, and cried harder when Kyungsoo had to leave.

Danganronpa is a game he really enjoyed with his friends and will even replay from time to time. He gravitates towards the really manly characters, but some others have spots in his heart. Mondo, Sakura, Gundham, Nekomaru, Kaito, and Gonta were his favorites. Let’s just say the game didn’t treat him well.

Fumikage Tokoyami

He ended up picking up the Harry Potter books and fell in love with the world itself. You can’t tell me this guy doesn't have a limited edition trunk set of the books hidden in plain sight. Like everyone thinks that the trunk holds something like crystals or some bones or knives but nah. It’s just his Harry potter books. Oh and Midnight totally gave him a Ravenclaw scarf around the holidays. You can’t tell me otherwise.

Death note? Death note. Only to episode 25 though. 25 happened and he just hasn’t continued watching cause it isn’t the fucking same.

Hitoshi Shinsou

Shinsou liked Supernatural for a while, but he eventually lost interest. He did his best to also never get involved with much of the fandom since it honestly scared him a bit, but his fear didn’t stop him from posting some theories into discussion boards.

He listens to Kpop a bit since he hangs out with Denki a lot and found out he really enjoys Ikon, BlockB, BTS, 

Bitch was in the Creepypasta Fandom. Like not even the good ones, he was into Jeff the killer and Eyeless jack and all of those ones. Sure, he would listen to the others and read the crappy ones, but he had a phase he is mildly ashamed of now.

This kid loves everything relating to Stephen King. He will have conversations with Aizawa and Hizashi about the books, and they all agree that Kings writing can rather be extremely amazing, or be the equivalent of a 13 year old attempting to write smut for the first time. It’s so damn funny to him

Hizashi Yamada

He has read all of the harry potter books and actually enjoys them quite a bit, but he tries not to let that show too much. He does have a Slytherin lanyard that holds his keys though that Denki had mentioned. It managed to get Mic off track for the class period when he started discussing the books with the students (Mainly Izuku, Tokoyami, and Denki)

He watches The walking dead with Aizawa 

Actually bops to Kpop after the Bakusquad introduces it to him. Massive RM fanboy so he and Kirishima will occasionally go off about how admirable and badass he is. Like RM taught himself english just from watching Friends??? And Hizashi admires that so much. He also loves diving deeper into their lyrics since they normally have such good meanings.

Izuku Midoriya

Oh he loves Harry potter so damn much. He has the books on his shelf, a Gryffindor robe in his closet, a full uniform, and several wands. He is such a nerd so you can’t tell me he doesn’t have a special notebook that has notes on the spells, character analysis, and a variety of different facts.

Really enjoys listening to BTS! He doesn’t know much about other kpop groups, but he really enjoys dancing with Mina and Denki (even if Izuku has 2 left feet and struggles with dancing)

Had a Dragonball phase. Like this kid loVEs Dragonball. It’s actually one of the reasons why he and Katsuki grew to be friends since they both watched the show. They would talk about how they would beat Frieza or the Ginyu squad all of the time.

Katsuki Bakugo

This bastard finds himself actually enjoying Kpop after Mina and Denki go off about their favorite bands, and he really finds himself enjoying BTS, Day6, and SHINee. 

Danganronpa was a game he experienced with his friends and FUCK was it an adventure for him. He got really invested with the story and for a while, the Bakusquad chat was active as hell because of all of the theories he had. He fucking HATED Byakuya, actually shed some tears for Fuyuhikos’ character development and Gundhams death, and was about to throw hands during the 4th chapter of V3. It was a Rollercoaster of emotions, but he loved every moment of it.

This kid had a Dragonball Z phase. No shit he would wake up, watch an episode of Goku screaming, and then go out to play. Honestly this routine started when he was 5 and he will still occasionally watch it. He still loves Dragonball, and he totally has a collection of dragonballs somewhere.

After Shoto and Momo watch Rupauls Drag race in the Common room, He gets hooked. His dad is a fashion designer, so he finds himself really enjoying the fashion aspect of the show as well as the makeup part of it all. He actually does Minas’ makeup occasionally and once people start finding out, he becomes their makeup artist. The girls makeup, and occasionally he will do drag makeup on the guys if they ask. Sometimes the Drag viewing parties start by Bakugo doing everyones makeup and then ordering Pizza.

Mina Ashido

Mina fucking loves to dance and everybody knows that, so it’s no surprise that she manages to nail every damn Kpop she does. She really loves the variety of dances and she can match every vibe. A dance in heels? Shes got it. Hip hop? Oh hell yeah. Cute? Sure! Badass? Shes got this. She is really just a bop.

Danganronpa was an EXPERIENCE for her. She absolutely adored the cases that needed to be solved, cried at the characters, and adored the game. She totally cosplayed Tsumugi with Cospox once or twice with Denki just for giggles sake.

Totally was heads over heels for Ouran Highschool Host club. She thought the anime was so damn precious (She adores Hikaru) and was so sad that there hasn’t been a 2nd season, so she bought all of the manga.

Momo Yaoyorozu

She is a Kpop fan! She totally could be an idol since she can sing pretty well, has the face for it, can dance pretty well! Her favorite thing is rapping though. You can’t say that Momo wouldn’t be able to write some bad bitch raps and pull them off with ease. With her, Mina, Jirou, and Ochaco, they make one HELL of a Girl Group. They love to do covers of Blackpink, Red Velvet, CherryBullet, ITZY, and Mamamoo covers. Her biases have to be Jennie, Irene and Moonbyul.

Tamaki Amajiki

Flipped through homestuck when it started, really never got into it but admired the work people put into their cosplays. Knows basic character names and that buckets should be feared.

He actually used to really like My little Pony! He would NEVER call himself a brony, but he really enjoyed the show. He only watched a couple of seasons, but the show itself was pretty relaxing and managed to calm him down when he was feeling anxious. If anybody ever knew he had a my little pony phase though (And still actually will watch it from time to time) he might just die from embarrassment.

Want to play Legend of Zelda? Well Tamaki is your guy to talk to about it. He might start rambling and will completely forget about his anxiety for a moment before realizing how nerdy he sounds. He has a gamecube in his dorm to play Twilight princess and Ocarina of time, He has a Wii for Skyward sword, and god did this kid lock himself in his room when breath of the wild came out. He can speedrun it like none other (Seriously, if he let’s you watch him, you will be fucking surprised by how amazing he is.)

Gotta throw in Teen Titans. Seeing Beast boy use his power in so many badass ways gave him some pretty cool ideas for his own quirk.

Oh and Rupauls Drag race. Nobody would expect him to be a fan of drag race, but he actually does enjoy watching the goofy drama. If you’re dating, you better expect weekly Drag race with him. It’s pretty funny to watch him enjoy the show. Sometimes he gasps, laughs or bites his lip, eyes hooked to the screen.

Shoto Todoroki

Another motherfucker who could EASILY be an Idol if he wanted to be. He actually really enjoys Kpop after Momo introduced it to him. They both often bop to it together when they study or hang out. He is also most likely to be the one recording the dancing videos or editing them too since he really enjoys helping out the girls. 

Want to watch him nerd out? Watch the classic Godzilla movies with him. Like HOLY SHIT does this man love the 50s-70s Godzilla movies. Bring him a box set and he will rather hug you really tight or run to grab blankets from his room cause this dude ADORES these movies. (Especially the mothra one. Like he will cling to you, thank you over and over again, and watch them with almost childlike glee.)

This bitch bops with Rupauls Drag race. He really enjoys makeup and has debated on trying drag himself (Not that anybody would know that) but it’s kind of shocking to see that he is the one that started the Weekly Rupauls Drag Race viewing in the UA Dorms. 

Yugi Aoyama

His mother used to read Harry Potter to him to help him sleep when he was a child so he naturally knows a lot about it. He knows he is a Slytherin and when Izuku thought about it, it made sense. He is pretty arrogant and wants to impress with his upbringing and french lineage. He also makes it pretty hard to get to know him personally, so Izuku makes a note that he is a Slytherin.

Likes Kpop, but isn’t SUPER into it like Denki or Mina. He likes listening to BTS and Exo and his Biases are Seokjin and Chanyeol.

[repo-net]

Who is your least favorite Danganronpa character?

I've been asked this question a bunch before, and it took me a while to get to this ask because I've been mulling over who I want to answer it with.

Let me start off by saying that in basically every piece of media I've ever watched from start to finish, I have not found myself ever disliking or hating a character as a whole. Of course, I'll hate or be disgusted by characters who obviously do vile things with even more vile intentions, but if the writing is there - if the writing is supposed to make me feel that way, I can give even cookie points for that, and I can actually end up appreciating even morally horrible characters.

The only way you'd actually get me to dislike a character is if you wrote them to be so obnoxious on screen for no reason at all - they're just like that for the sake of it with no writing nuance behind it at all, and even then, if the point is to annoy me, then I guess I'll give it a point. The worst trait a character could have isn't to be evil, a mary sue, morally grey, or a disgusting being. It's being someone that annoys the viewer and makes them want to stop experiencing the piece of media.

That being said, my answer would have to be surprise surprise, it's a character from Danganronpa 3. It's going to go to Daisaku Bandai.

You wanna know the only thing I like about the dude? He's got a funny design and a funny voice that made me giggle when I saw him for the first time. He's a very gentle giant seeming kind of character.

And then he dies and is just used as a way to showcase the NG codes.

What?

Why did they even bother with this dude?

Honest to god right, I genuinely don't understand how anyone, and I mean anyone could really like this dude for more than what he was shown in the anime; because all of Daisaku's character were scraps you could find on your plate. There was barely anything to digest.

He didn't irritate me with writing issues like Juzo (a bunch of really dumb shit with him and his relationship with Kyousuke, kind or causing the end of the world because he didn't want to admit he's gay, and somehow being an Ultimate Boxer that loses to some highschool despair chick), or Tengan (poorly explained motives that constantly made my head hurt trying to really understand what even was this dude's plan), or Ruruka (to most people, she is understandably and justifiably seen as a bitch and annoying).

But he's just not memorable. It's ironic. The only reason I remember this dude is because of how little he matters at all.

If any actual Daisaku fan wants to tell me how much they like him and why, go on ahead, I'll happily listen - I believe that people talking about things they like is one of the greatest pleasures and enjoyments a person can experience when chatting with someone for the first time.

But to me, unlike Juzo, whose last moments were actually pretty cool where unlike a bunch of other people who'd claim to die for Kyousuke's sake, he actually does it in a valiant effort to help stop the killing game while he's in horrible pain, slowly dying too and me having a bit of sympathy for the guy despite all the genuinely infuriating shit he pulled throughout the anime.

Unlike Tengan, who's plan finally settled in on me and who I see as someone who kind of has (but much more poorly executed and written) a similar mindset to Nagito's in that hope can only be grown when despair is present, which can be an okay explanation to why Ryota got sucked into the game with his video in the first place (which was actually explained to me by an old friend who liked Tengan, shoutouts to him).

And unlike Ruruka, who I actually think is a solid enough character whose dynamic with Seiko is one of the few things I honestly really enjoyed throughout that anime, and her death and her killing Izayoi was actually tugging on my heartstrings a little and made me feel really bad for the girl (and heck, I think I actually like Ruruka more than I like Seiko).

Unlike the three I mentioned who annoyed me from time to time throughout the media I watched, the character I like the least is going to have to be the one who can barely even be counted as a character.

Thanks for submitting the ask, anon! Maybe you should ask me who my favorite character in the series is next, I can bet you that you wouldn't expect my answer there.

[hilli98215]

I am confused. I am hurt. I don’t know what to think. This is a long post. A very long post that is personal but I’ve had it in my head for a while to write. You don’t have to read this. This post has no real meaning. It’s more of a rant of how I feel in the world of fandom, my experiences, and why this posts exists. 

Again, you do not have to read this. 

You have been warned.

DO NOT REBLOG THIS POST!!!! 

When I became an English major in college, I did so knowing several things. One of those is the fact I love literature and I love discovering why authors, creators, and artists wrote what became their most well known work.

Where am I going?

My first fandom was when I was in Junior High (about 13-14 years old) that I was a part of, meaning I read fan fiction and discovered fan art of, was either Naruto or Pokémon. To me these works were escapes of my real confusing life. Especially when I moved states and schools. I had no one. Through this, I discovered what I liked and didn’t like in the world of fiction and was introduced to fandom words/slang such as shipping, fan fiction, lemons (which I don’t think is used as often now), different types of writing, yaoi, yuri, and a few more I can’t remember. This also included the all important phrase Don’t like don’t read. This was when I was in my early teens. 

But I was in a phase where I could find what I found interesting and that was that. 

When I got to high school, I was still this awkward quiet kid with no friends. But I did have marching band so that was something. 

At this point was was interested in Ouran Highschool Host Club, Death Note, a series called Beauty Pop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and a few others. This was also around the time where I began writing fanfiction for OHSC and even began buying manga. Anyway, this was my introduction to fandom as a teenager. And this is before Tumblr.

All I had were my friends, videos on YouTube, and my own interests. No one really understood why I loved all these things. 

Then came the very first fandom I became fully obsessed in my sophomore year: a small series called Hetalia Axis Powers. I was completely invested in this fandom. So much so I wrote fan fiction, bought merch, and read a lot of fan fiction myself. I think it was because, at the time I thought it was because the art style was cute, the voice acting wasn’t half bad and it had to do with history. But this is where things got interesting for me and learning about fandom as a whole. 

As a teen, I hadn’t known about AUs and this series had a lot of them. From the usual school AUs to odd ones. I usually stayed in my bubble and kept up the mantra Don’t like Don’t read. 

But why talk about it?

Well, let’s just say a lot of the content later on became weird and new. I learned a lot about new terms like de-aging and ABO. But this leads to interest which once again let me know what genres of fan fiction I like. 

I continued on with this fandom for about 3 years. And what broke it was the drama and how people were finding a sudden moral compass for personified countries. I mean there are other problems with that show that I recognize now as an adult and didn't see as a kid but that’s for another time. But I quietly left because I was beginning to understand that the drama wasn’t worth a tv show.

I would say the next fandom I was invested in and loved and I think had the least amount of drama was Fairy Tail. Now I fell in love with this series because of the story, characters, and the welcoming fandom. Overall there was rarely any drama because I think we all knew that we had to be civil with each other and respect our ships. While I’m not part of that fandom anymore a lot of people on Tumblr and FFN were very welcoming. The main series kinda fizzled out but that was one of the few positive fandom experiences I had.

I was at that point in my life where I was in college, created my Tumblr and posted regularly to escape life. 

Coming off that fandom, I was part of the Yuri on Ice! fandom from beginning to the end. I mean it’s a sports anime that’s about men's figure skating and how it can affect athletes just to get a gist of it.

That’s when my experience with fandom became interesting because these characters were being paired in a way that made me feel like they can’t be paired with anyone else. Like, there was a pairing we were all cheering for to happen by the end. 

This is the first series I was highly interested in as an adult where the ages of the characters were defined. There were a few in their teens, some in their early to mid 20s, and a couple in their 30s. Now this was a historic anime for several reasons. The main being there being a gay relationship being shown in a positive light and mental illness being shown in a way that wasn’t patronizing and negative. I loved this show for those reasons. But I also quickly learned how people would take these characters (especially those with huge age differences) and pair them up. That was my first introduction to criticism of how ‘gross’ it would be for a 15 year old to be paired up with an 18 year old. But I saw a problem that made me second guess my thinking. When I was in high school, I knew someone who was a sophomore at 15 and dated someone who was 18. Why was there a problem? 

I knew if I voiced this that I would be shamed and told that I was disgusting. Eventually I had enough and left shortly after the series ended.

Then came the Voltron: Legendary Defender series. Oh boy.

Now that series came out while I was in college and I often viewed it in a critical perspective similar to one would a piece of literature because my major was in English and that was what I was taught. Like YOI I was part of this fandom day 1 because it was so different from the original Voltron series from the 80s. I loved how the fandom dissected everything in every episode. There were watch parties, analysis videos, and even skits at conventions. It was a fandom I knew I wanted to be a part of. But then there was fanfiction that I found odd and knew that I never wanted to read that. People were writing about topics that made me uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to deal with it. After a while, I questioned why I was forcing myself to read them in the first place. So, I stopped reading them. This was also around the time where I discovered AO3 and their amazing tagging system. Because if the tagging system was not there, I probably would have stopped reading fanfiction all together.

But then there was drama, shipping wars, morality wars, and I had enough. I was there until it ended and left quietly. Which is sad considering I loved the experience but it was ruined by what people thought was right for fictional characters. 

Now you may be asking “What was the point of this post?”

To answer your question, I don’t know.

I have loved reading since I was a kid. And when I got to high school, I had this AP teacher who told us something that has stayed with me to this day.

‘As a reader we are detectives. We want to know why the author wrote this book. We want to know what influenced them.’

I took that saying to heart and approach everything through a critical lens. Which is difficult in a fandom. It’s hard to have a critical approach to a series that everyone takes for a grain of salt.

I have been exposed to a lot of books and pieces of literature that have been considered controversial because of their content. When I left high school, I began to realize what genres of books I like in the YA genre and in literature. 

I experimented.

And when you think about it, that’s what you do with fan fiction and fandom. We are always experimenting. We are always finding what we like and don’t like. 

But recently I’ve noticed a new fandom term that makes me wonder where I fall in all of this craziness we call fandom. 

Pro-Fiction/Pro-Shipper

It wasn’t until last year I saw this word thrown around in a new fandom I am in. I tried to do some research but I couldn't find anything. Nothing. And then I learned it’s a new term in itself.

I won’t go into detail but it reminds of the ‘video games are violent so that makes so-and-so violent’ argument parents made when Mortal Kombat came out. 

Well you still didn’t answer the question.

And you’d be right. I saw a post from a follower that saddened me and honestly freaked me out. Why announce that you hate a specific group? It felt like a call out post without saying any names. A warning that states: Block me or out yourself. Or rather: Block me or else.

Do I identify as this? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I think critically and see things differently. In fact everyone does. 

We are always going to be influenced by the media whether it be a movie, television, a book, or a video game. We will always love these storylines and characters. We will always take the messages to heart. We will always cheer for the hero and maybe the villain too. 

I do want you guys to remember this, make your own fandom experience. Block those who make you feel uncomfortable and make you feel like you don’t matter. You do.

You are your own person. No one can tell you otherwise. If you feel uncomfortable, then maybe you need to leave the fandom. Or find a space in the fandom that you can be yourself. Or don’t care what people think and do what you always do.

It’s all up to you.

[leo-culture-technology]

I don't really have anything specific in mind, I'm actually kinda lost as to what to look for jkjsksjk I know I identify with some traits, like sensory issues and difficulty communicating (I do have a diagnosis of social phobia, though I've been thinking maybe autism would better explain other aspects of my life beyond social interaction). I've been reading some articles regarding late discovering of autism and mostly looking for experiences, so I can compare to my own. I feel like I should be looking for something else but I don't really know what? lmao I don't think that was really helpful, anything you can share would be good to me

This is a really long post so I'm going to put it under a read more to not clog up other people's feeds but I think the main areas to cover are:

- verbal communication issues

was your vocabulary/reading ever under/over developed as a child? Having a really advanced vocabulary is just as much a sign of autism as having delayed development in this area. Also, having a very hard to pin down accent, or taking on others' accents Really easily is common amongst autistic people. Do you ever have trouble speaking? I experience selective mutism and when I'm overwhelmed/stressed/upset I often find it hard to speak out loud and have to communicate through messages/notes, though when I'm not mute I'm very eloquent and have always had a vocabulary that was advanced, other kids found it hard to talk to me when I was younger bc they couldn't understand me, but equally comprehension/vocabulary can be delayed/compromised and you might find it hard to understand others because you struggle with that sort of thing yourself. Do you have issues with your tone of voice ever? I find that I can't read my own tone of voice or my volume, some things will come out really bitchy-sounding or angry-sounding and I won't be able to tell, or I might be shouting and not know it because it all sounds the same in my head really.

- sensory issues

do you have issues with certain types of sound? volume? quantity? volume doesn't bother me, but too many different sources of noise will send me into a meltdown so fast. Do you struggle with certain smells, bright lights, tastes, textures of food or of clothing, certain sensations, for example I get really stressed out by having wet skin/hair, and I can't stand the sound/feeling of something rubbing over carpet. I also find some tastes to be overwhelming. Under-sensitivity or processing issues can also be a symptom. Do you ever struggle to process reading/listening to something? I have absolutely awful retention for auditory information, I can't hold more than around 4-5 words in my mind at any one time, and I can't follow auditory instructions at all if there's more than one step, it needs to be written down. I also often struggle to read things because I don't process the words and they just look like meaningless letters on a page to me. I also really struggle to process my own thoughts and order them, I'm able to talk out loud but there are times where I can't write my thoughts without speaking them first because ordering my thoughts while they're still inside my head is very difficult. I also have an under-sensitive sense of smell and taste at times. I can't even smell when meat has gone bad and everyone else I know says it really stinks, and like I can't tell the difference between chicken gravy and onion gravy, for example, because they taste almost identical to me. And senses aren't just the basic five, either. Do you have a particularly high OR low pain threshold? interoception is the perception of bodily functions. Do you have trouble identifying/noticing when you're hungry/thirsty or when you need to go to the toilet e.g. you didn't need to go pee a minute ago but now you're Suddenly absolutely bursting to go because you didn't notice it earlier at all. Proprioception is your perception of your movements, balance and of where your limbs are in relation to your surroundings. Do you bump into things or fall over seemingly nothing a lot? Have you ever been told/noticed you move "strangely"? Do you ever walk sort of on your tiptoes or toes-first rather than heels-first?

- social issues

do you have trouble reading body language? facial expressions? figurative language? tone of voice? not every autistic person will experience all of the above, I know people who can't read body language but can read tone of voice, or can't read figurative language but can read facial expressions, etc. etc. Personally I struggle with tone of voice a lot, I can't tell when people are being serious or not, or whether they're upset or not, tone of voice doesn't really tell me anything about how they're feeling of what they mean. Figurative language varies, I understand metaphors and I often understand sarcasm, although I won't get it if it's too deadpan, and I sometimes miss hyperbole and think people are being serious. I also can't tell whether people are teasing me or genuinely being mean the vast majority of the time. I tend to rely on speech patterns and word choice a lot to understand people, personally. I pick up on what sorts of words they use in what moods and use that largely to inform my interpretations of their current mood based on the words they're choosing. Do you ever struggle understanding what is/isn't socially appropriate? I overshare a lot bc I don't rlly understand what is "too much information" and what isn't, and I also don't understand really how to treat people differently based on their "social role", like I treat someone like a friend regardless of whether they're a stranger, a classmate, a friend, a family member, a colleague, a boss, a teacher, etc.

- need for routine/dislike of sudden/significant change

this isn't always as clear as like needing an entire day to be a routine, it can be little things. I'll give some examples: I have to brush my teeth in a specific way - I count the number of passes of the brush over each section of my teeth, I have to eat a sandwich in a specific order of bites, many food places I will order the same thing every/nearly every time and I will eat that order in the same way, I wash my body/hair in a certain way/order in the shower every time, sometimes I get weirdly obsessed with symmetry and I have to walk in a certain way and if I step "wrong" I have to hop around on one leg until I feel "balanced" again, I have to do my daily tasks on genshin impact in a certain order, etc. etc. I could probably think of more if I tried. I will often get distressed/overwhelmed/upset if any of these "routines" are disrupted somehow. My original method of eating a sandwich applied to when they're cut across into rectangles, so I used to hate eating triangle sandwiches because I couldn't eat them "correctly" until I figured out a similar way to eat triangle sandwiches, and now I Have to eat them in that way because it's "correct" and I'll feel uncomfortable otherwise. Note that this isn't like OCD because it's not anxiety-based, it's based on the fact that it feels like the "correct" way to do it, and that any other way is simply "wrong" and you don't like doing it "wrong". The need for routine and dislike of change might also manifest in needing to plan things ahead days in advance, you also might be like me and be very capable of impulsively doing things like going out if You decide to do it, but if someone Else suggests it, then you need the preparation time. - stimming/special interests

stimming can be honestly anything. I tap my foot, I sing, I have a whole folder names "stim games" on my phone, I type, I eat, I chew gum, I flap my arms, I scratch fabrics, I smell blankets/clothing. Stimming just means self-stimulation and is absolutely any repeated action that you find soothing/cathartic in any way. Under here I'm also going to mention samefoods: foods that you feel comfortable eating even when you don't feel comfortable eating anything else. Like if too much flavour/smell/texture feels overwhelming, most autistic people will have food/s that aren't at all stressful to eat and they can default to at those times. Mine is a specific brand of chicken nuggets, I'll often fall back on those when eating anything else feels overwhelming but I need to eat Something, and I can usually handle those when I can't handle other things.

as for special interests, they are anything that you're kind of obsessed with. You can have multiple, they can change over your life, but your interest tends to go much deeper than that of a neurotypical person's and you feel a need to know everything about it and struggle to hold conversations about other topics because it kind of just takes over your brain. when I was younger some of my special interests were final fantasy, anime, hello kitty, languages/linguistics has always been a special interest of mine, kpop is definitely one, astrology is also for sure one. I fall in and out of being obsessed enough with genshin to call it a special interest. I had a friend in highschool whose special interest was the periodic table, for a while they were obsessed with the 8 times table, and then it became dinosaurs. My little brother is autistic and his special interest has always been video games, he's really interested in retro games, he loves Minecraft and Mario too, when he was younger it was ben 10 for a while, there was also a period where all he wanted to do as a kid was rewatch the cars movies. Media likes to portray special interests as being academic but they can truly be absolutely anything. A desire to know absolutely everything about trains or flowers or kpop is just as much a special interest as neurology or maths or physics or smth like that.

Another thing I've just thought of to be noted, is hygiene:

some autistic people might appear to have borderline OCD tendencies where they can't handle dirt/mess and need everything to be tidy/clean all the time. This is definitely one of the stereotypes. But struggling with hygiene is just as much a symptom of autism. If you struggle to remember to shower/wash hands/brush teeth/do laundry/etc. that could well be an autism symptom. I found out I'm sensitive to mint and especially to toothpaste, it makes my mouth feel like it's burning and like I'll actually cry if it touches my tongue bc it hurts that much lmao. I discovered a toothpaste that's unflavoured and doesn't foam up and now I can brush my teeth without pain but for a long time I struggled with consistently brushing teeth bc of that. I also struggle with showering bc of being stressed out by wet hair/skin. Sometimes it's also a memory thing, and I forget to do these things. I also absolutely suck at keeping my room clean, idk why I just Really Can't lmaoooooo

I'm certain there are things I haven't covered, these are mostly pulling from my own experiences of autism from myself and those around me. All of this might apply to you, it might not, but I hope it makes sense and has given you a good starting point of things to examine within yourself and questions to ask yourself <3 I wish you well bub and please always feel free to ask more questions and/or talk to me more about your experiences <3

[felineincognito]

Just A Tentative Theory

So I'm new to the Larry and 1D fandoms -brought in by Harry and Loui's solo careers- and I've just binged so many proof videos in literally the two months I've been a part of this thing. Along with all of those I've seen a fair few proof vides of other ships within the fandom, some really biased and others that almost make sense.

Not hating on or discrediting other ships!! This is all just based off my own observations and what I’ve been able to piece together from all of the content I’ve gone through. And I'm sorry it's so rutting long and rambley at bits, I am running on so little sleep I wanna cry and caffeine fumes.

So... this is my babyfan theory and feel free to comment or run with it just remember I'm new to all this and had to get this idea out?

So what if in the beginning, when Louis and Harry met on X-Factor, you have these 2 sweet young boys who like each other but don't really have a lot of hope of anything working out because they're both contestants shooting for the same prize so they harbor these innocent little acquaintance crushes like you'd get on someone you sit down the row from in class in highschool or something right? But then they get made into a group and all of a sudden they're all up in each other's space and they're bunking together and they realize they really do like each other but neither have much experience in relationships yet or more intense emotions so they keep it fairly quiet. They figure that with the press they're getting with the show and the stress of wanting to do well and everyone feeling each other out as a group they really would rather their little romance be just theirs for a little while longer. And of course people in charge of publicity encourage this mindset, telling them that if they come out as a new/forming couple or let it be known they like each other (or just boys in general) that way there would be more attention on that (not all of it good either) than their actual talents or performance(s) and the other boys would be pushed to the sidelines in favor of them and that's just not fair to the other 3 now is it?

Then they don't win X-Factor and they think that's it until they get brought in to make a boyband even though they didn't win because they're just that f-ing popular. But this thing between them is still new and fragile and they haven't had time to work out just what it is or if it's something that's going to last and the label swoops in with a legal gag dressed up as a temporary fix. They don't tell anyone about them, don't do anything overt in public, maybe be seen/paired off with a girl or 2 as a red herring for the press, giving them time to just figure this all out and see if they really will work. And they take it because they're young and this is the chance they've always wanted and there are 3 other lads who will suffer if the two of them turn this down. So they sign and they try to follow the scripts and listen to what their handlers and managers tell them but they're cheeky kids in puppy love and it's almost like a game to see how far they can push it and just what counts as too much when all of the boys are so tactile and affectionate with each other.

And they really do fall in love. In the whirlwind that is the first couple of years, the song writing, the tours, the hours put in at the recording studio and every single press conference and public appearance in between, they fall in love. And it's great and it's good and somewhere along the way they think this might be it for them and they're ready to come out but then the label hits them with the gag they signed and they realize just what it means. They realize that they basically signed away their rights to talk about it or show their love or share it with their fans because it might hurt their image, affect their popularity and hurt their profits. But that's okay, because they have each other and they're in love and the girl Louis is 'dating' isn't so bad and she's cool about the whole thing.

But then it gets hard. The press is making Harry out to be this womanizing sex symbol and pushing for Louis and the girl he's with to start getting serious because supposedly they'd been together while Louis was on the show and really it's about time isn't it? And during all of that the Larry Stylinson fandom has been born and they're putting the pieces together and the lads are cheeky things who are hurting because they can't tell the world they're in love and while Niall supports/ships them (at least from how he acts in proof videos I've seen) Liam agrees with management about not being open about it while Zayn is an odd mix of the 2. So they push it and they let things slip and they give the fans enough to put it together without violating their contracts and yeah management pushes back and takes measures so they don’t seem as close and to hopefully quiet the rumours but overall it's okay again for a while.

Then Harry starts figuring parts of himself out. And he wants to start wearing pretty shirts, bright colours and flashy patterns and painting his nails but they tell him he can't because those are girl shirts and it's too femme to paint his nails and wear bright colours and pastels and it hurts because he just can't be himself. And he wants out. He's tired of being scared he's going to mess up on stage or people won't like their songs enough for the label's liking and he just wants to be able to love Louis without worrying about what everyone else thinks and their little codes and touches just aren't always enough anymore.

So they start to fight. Louis is too scared to leave because he doesn't think he's good enough without the band and they're both still so young and have only been in this world for a few years how can they be sure they'd make it? How do they know that they won't just crash and burn and that will be the end of it? So they fight and they hurt each other and they're already living apart and barely seeing each other outside of work related or group functions because of management and Louis kind of lets himself fall into the illusion of the relationship he's being made to partake in and Harry finds himself growing closer to the other lads and pushing his limits with his wardrobe and public persona.

Now the next bits are where my theory starts to get a little more wobbly because like I said I'm new and my info digging skills are not as good as others in the fandom. A lot of it is based off of videos by freddieismyqueen (before she took them down), larrystylinson 28, Larry Stylinson's Utopia, s e p t e m b e r 2 8 and FireproofLarry.

So in the midst of the fighting and the hurting and both being so scared for so many different reasons they kind of fall apart. To Harry, Louis has chosen his career over their relationship and Louis is hurt and upset that Harry can't/won't see where he's coming from on all of this. And this is where Zarry comes in.

Throughout the Larry jealousy videos one of the things that stuck out to me was that there were a lot of Zarry moments and they seemed closer to the end of the 1D timeline. Before that most of them were just the references to Harry with girls, him being 'flirty' with interviewers or fans or just general cheeky sort of passively possessive moments probably played up to irk management and give the fans more to go off of. But then we get to the points where Harry and Zayn interact more on stage and Louis starts to look right pi**ed and just watches without doing any sort of possessive holding or touches or cheeky little looks and whispers like we're used to. No, Harry and Zayn start flirting on stage or being closer during interviews and Louis is angry and passive aggressive. And in the background Niall looks like he has no idea what the heck to do about all of this and Liam is just done with their cr*p.

So Louis gets his head out of the dirt and tries to make it up to Harry. And it works because this lad is head over heels for Louis and Zayn is left behind. But maybe Harry doesn’t realize that things were a little more on Zayn’s end. Maybe it hurt a little more than expected when the two lads finally figure themselves out. Or maybe Harry and Zayn really were just friends and the ‘Zarry’ moments just ruined his friendship with Louis and he felt it ruined his friendship with Harry too because Louis sees Zayn as a threat now so there’s bloody tension and such all over the place. (personally I’m leaning towards the last and that Louis’ jealous streak probably came out and he had a few a**shole moments because come on guys, he’s only human and they went through a lot as performers in the public eye and if you listen to a lot of his interviews there’s a lot of insecurity issues he’s dealt with over the years)

Then that blessed September 28th happened and it helps their relationship because honeymoon phase yo. But that’s 2013. Life goes on and it gets hard again and they’re pushing it again and life happens. Zayn leaves and it hurts the band because they’re in the middle of a tour and from what I’ve gathered he kind of just shut them out of his life. And so Harry is hurting because losing a friend is hard and Louis is upset that the band is falling apart and the media is having a heyday with the story and they’re in the middle of a blasted tour and that good old jealous streak comes out with Harry being so upset over Zayn leaving. So he’s scared and hurting, and mistakes are made.

Now we know that Liam confessed to a drinking problem at one point and there have been references of Louis having his moments as well. And Louis and Harry still have to ‘date’ girls and Louis is always the long-term one so it would stand to reason that he would have a decent rapport with the girls he’s seen with, that these would be people he learns to be comfortable with. And overindulgence in the presence of someone you trust or are familiar with when you’re hurting can lead to lapses in judgement. Which is probably how we got little Freddie. (And that is all being said of him because we don’t need to drag a child into all this drama people)

Louis being unfaithful, even if it wasn’t intentional, right after Zayn left would put a strain on their relationship and would cause another off period. But they’re still fools in love and married at this point so they try to make it work and they kind of come together again and they figure out how to move forward. But Louis is going to be a dad and their contracts are almost up and Harry still wants out.

So the band splits and Louis is so scared of what comes next and he’s trying to make it all work and the songs he’s released get good responses but not as much as he’d hoped and X-Factor doesn’t pan out and the other 4 are off living their lives. Zayn’s music career is a success and Niall waits awhile but his music is popular fairly right off the bat as well and Liam at least is still in the public eye and Harry is making waves. He’s wearing clothes he couldn’t before and he’s wearing all of the bright prints and flashy colours and those pearls happen and he’s in a movie ya’ll and he’s good at it.

And it takes Louis awhile but he finds his sound and he starts to make music he’s happy with and proud of and he’s finding himself. But he’s still with that old label and the same management.

So here’s where it gets closer to the present. Harry has a thing with Kendall but they part on good terms and I’m guessing it has to do with he tried for appearances sake and she gets it and probably low-key ships them but understands being discreet and giving them time to work it out.

So Louis wants Harry. Harry wants Louis. Louis is probably bound by another form of that dratted legal gag. So Harry waits. Because Harry isn’t scared anymore and he’s figured himself out and he’s happy with himself and he’s in a place where he can be himself and can encourage others to do the same. He gets it now that he’s older and seen more of the industry outside of their 1D bubble and he’s had to handle stuff on his own and he’s killing it.

Louis writes songs about them and being young fools and how love hurts and you have to be either young and dumb or just f-ing brave to go through with it. Harry writes songs about the stages a relationship (specifically theirs) goes through and they have their little rendezvous and Harry fosters this community of love and acceptance of others and Louis talks about finding yourself and being happy with yourself. And Harry has found himself, is happy with himself and Louis is almost there and he’s got that pesky legal gag anyway.

So Harry waits and he’s okay with that because in the end they love each other and he knows where Louis’ heart is and no matter what they have each other, He’s waited this long he can wait a bit more to tell the world just how much he loves this stupid wonderful man.

[suspiriu-m]

About Me

Hello! My name is Sal and welcome to my blog, Suspirium! Suspirium is a word that originates from one of my favorite movies, Luca Guadagnino’s 2019 remake of Dario Argento’s classic italian horror movie Suspiria. According to World of Dictionary, Suspirium is a Latin word meaning “Deep breath, sigh”. It’s also the title of one of my favorite songs from the soundtrack to the movie produced by Thom Yorke of Radiohead. I’m a huge horror movie buff so expect to see a lot of that sort of content on my blog if I can incorporate it into any of my work. I chose this as the title of my blog because of how well the word fits into the movie, and I just love the way it sounds. Anybody who’s watched the movie will understand, but I won’t go into detail as to not spoil it for anybody who hasn’t yet seen it.

Throughout my highschool years I technically went to two schools. My main and home school was Middletown High School, and my secondary school was Orange Ulster Boces in Florida New York. In high school I was always in media production and art classes. For example, photography, video editing, drawing & painting classes and my favorite was an Elements of Horror class I took my senior year. Horror being my favorite genre, I absolutely had to take a class that’s dove into the origins of classic horror novels, films and short stories. Leading to me finding my favorite classic horror story Dracula by Bram Stoker, and a multitude of stories by H.P. Lovecraft. Continuing on now to college i’m now majoring in Media Production while also still taking some classes in Marketing and Design! I really enjoy both a lot so it’s hard to kind of pick exactly which I want to do, but it’s nice knowing that no matter what path I finally choose I'll still have some experience in the other!

Aside from my education, I love to watch horror movies and read stories in my own free time. Movies in general are a huge hobby of mine and I watch at least 3-4 a week given I have the time. Some of my favaroties of all time concerning classics have got to be the Halloween series, The Evil Dead series and all four of the Scream movies. Other hobbies of mine that take up a huge part of my life and time are video games and music. I have a pretty big record collection that’s continuously growing with at least 80-90 albums and counting. I just recently purchased a few more to add being Sade’s Diamond Life, Whitney Houston’s Whitney and Whitney Houston albums, Lazaretto by Jack White, Texas Sun by Khruangbin & Leon Bridges and Petals for Armor by Hayley Williams. Hopefully my next additions will be What’s Your Pleasure? by Jessie Ware and The Baby by Samia. I’ve been collecting them for years, but especially now since even CD’s are starting to go out of style. I’m the kind of person who still likes to have physical copies of all my music and movies and games so having such big collection is super special to me.

In terms of video games, I try and play as wide of a variety that I can because I believe I can find something I like in any genre. Strategy, shooters, brawlers, online competitive games etc, but I think my favorite style of game is single-player, narrative driven experiences. Most recently I played The Last of Us Part II and was absolutely enthralled with it. I loved the first game so much so getting a sequel was something I was extremely grateful for. I don’t think video games get enough credit for what they do for storytelling. TLOU 1 and 2 are some of my favorite stories that I have experienced in any form of media. The heartbreak, pain, love, fear and excitement those games have succeeded in giving me while just sitting in front of my TV is something no other form of entertainment has brought me. Some of the most touching moments, but also the most excruciating. They also had a queer women front and center throughout the games which is something that isn’t very common in video games so seeing that was really nice to me. Other than The Last of Us, some other solid narrative driven games I’ve played are God of War, Uncharted 1-4, Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Tomb Raider Reboots, Ghost of Tsushima, the Batman Arkham series and Control.

Although story based games are my favorites that doesn’t mean I don’t have a place in my heart for some good old fashioned fun as well! I also really enjoy a lot of the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda games as well. My biggest pet peeve that I have with the gaming industry right now though is Fortnite. I think it’s literally the most annoying game ever created. People spend hundreds and thousands of dollars just to buy skins and weapon packs and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. The fact that I work at a major video game retailer and constantly have kids running through my store screaming about the damn game at least once a day could also contribute to my hatred. Either way, I want no part and absolutely nothing to do with it.

Going back to queer representation though. I recently watched Pose over the summer. Not only was the show heavily based during the AIDS epidemic in New York City, almost the entirety of the main cast was comprised of Transgender Black women. On prime time television! This is the first show to ever achieve such a feat. Not only was the cast extremely talented, I thought the writing and production of the show as a whole was brilliant. It definitely has its flaws and I could point out a few of them, but I believe all of the good of the show far outweighs the bad. It’s not afraid to tackle extremely real and difficult subjects the Transgender and Black communities have faced in this country and all over the world. It’s so important to see content like this on television as well because EVERYBODY deserves representation. Not only was the cast Trans, but one of the lead writers of the series Janet Mock is also a Black Trans woman! Pose was filled with heartfelt moments that truly had me sobbing in my bed as I watched. I think I actually cried at pretty much every single episode for both seasons. The cast is brilliant, the realism and talent and star power they bring to the show is like nothing that I’ve ever seen before and I’m so glad to be able to see them up on my television. I so badly one day hope that I can be behind the scenes of producing a show of this caliber some day.

While I have yet to help in the production of a show like this, I have had my fair share of of making short films, music videos and even assisting on a friend of mine’s first full length movie that he submitted to festivals. Last year, I had the opportunity to shoot a short horror film with my classmates for our final project. The film was based around a young woman getting trapped at her school in the middle of a blizzard, and slowly beginning to realize that she may not be alone. In a fight for her life, she has to survive till morning while going up against a mysterious killer who lurks the halls of her small town college. Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to produce a full and finalized cut of the film but coming together and working with a few other classmates was still a really fun experience. Not only was I able to play the role of the killer, I aided in audio, music selection, location scouting, props department, shot planning and writing the movie and it was a great time. I also had the pleasure of helping out my friend Matt Vincini in shooting his short film The Cattle Farmer. A horror/thriller film about a boy who is adopted into a family, only to realize that his life might have been planned from the start. It featured a mysterious woodland family who may or may not have had cannibalistic tendencies that included their adopted children. It was a super cool experience to be on a set with a bunch of actors and seeing my friend in action in the role of director. Collaborating on projects like this with friends is always a fun time, even it does get stressful at some points. At one point in the film, one of the characters realizes that the dinner he is currently eating could quite possible be his last meal ever. Which kinda let me to thinking what my last meal would be. After some thinking, I think i’d definitely have to choose my families homemade pasta and meatballs. I know, pretty stereotypical for an Italian family but it’s just so good. We make our own sauce every september and it’s a huge family event. Everybody comes together and one of our houses and it’s literally a whole days worth of work. The best part? At the end of the night, we all have a huge feast and make pasta and meatballs with all of the sauce we just made. It’s one of my favorite things to do with my family and always one of my favorite meals. Not only is it delicious, but also sentimental.

This is all for now! Thanks for stopping by my blog and reading a little bit about me. I could probably keep rambling on for hours but I don’t think that’s the smartest idea. I can’t wait to fill this blog with more content this year and hope to hear from you guys as well! Until then, i’ll be watching more movies and DEFINITELY playing some more games. At this point i’ve been playing the new Marvel’s Avengers video game so, let me get back to kicking some AIM ass!

[dekuinthelake]

Why I’m okay with people knowing I’m transgender

Firstly, I want to start off by saying that if you’re trans and for your own comfort and safety you don’t want to be “outed” that’s 100% understandable and you should not feel bad about that. We all need to move at our own pace when discovering our social limits and confidence. My journey will have not been the same as yours. I live in Colorado, a state that is fairly trans friendly and am a trans man, meaning I’ve most likely had a safer time than I might have elsewhere. Trans women have it especially difficult, and if you feel unsafe in a situation that’s up for you to gage. It doesn’t make you less valid or a coward or anything like that.

Just know that I’m writing this for you and other trans/nb folks. I want our choices to transition to feel like the right one, even when people who don’t understand are making you second guess.

Context:

From the time I was 16-23, I was immensely depressed. I dropped out of highschool because of an immense disillusionment for the future. Primarily, I believed I didn’t have one. I’d always been bad at school, so collage was out of the question. I thought I was too ugly to get married and so that traditional Mormon thing my mother specifically had impressed upon me, which was having kids obviously. Most people disliked me because at the time, I had an extremely aggressive and compulsive attitude thanks to being absolutely lost emotionally. I hated my body and my mind and was convinced the things I despised could never change.

Ironically, one of the thorns in my side was how I always wanted to be a man instead. I recall coming home from school some days and just curling up in bed and sobbing about it.

“If I was a boy, people wouldn’t make fun of my ugly ass body.” Something I felt primarily about my chest. Once I strangled a kid for pointing out my bra strap through a white shirt. No joke. I was volatile and pissed all the time because of dysphoria. Comments about being feminine quite literally triggered me growing up. Every violent fight I remember growing up was caused by someone making fun of me in relation to female gender.

Despite this problem being so obvious, my religious parents took me to Mormon operated therapy. The suggestions I was given by councilors was typically “Have you tried praying about it?” Or “Are you going to Young Women’s every Sunday?” For those of you who don’t know, in the LDS church, they separate Sunday school for age groups based on gender. In particular, they forced all girls to wear dresses.

Having that identity forced on me every Sunday against my will from a very young age caused me to resist in aggressive attitude. Hit a kid in the face with my bible bag once for telling me I should be in the kitchen.

Another unfortunate side effect of the Mormon upbringing was literally not knowing that trans people even existed. I recall seeing trans people (like with waiter we had once) and being a little perplexed but not too bothered. But no one had ever explained the concept to me until much, much later.

After I had dropped out, a friend of mine came out and at the time the concept was alien. I’d spent so much time in my life trying to choke down any hope of being a guy because of religion it seemed impossible to even change genders. But then a mutual friend between me and my trans one (who is now my roommate) explained to me in a car ride I still remember vividly about what testosterone does to your body. Bit of a side note, but the ‘micro phalus’ thing was something I straight didn’t believe and OH BOY LMAOOOO.

Anyway, with that information now tumbling around on my mind... I accepted my friend and continued to ignore my obvious feelings!

Life marched on. I sunk in to gaming addiction, depression, and repression. I think I first tried to kill my self when I was 20 years old. I had quit my job thanks to a car crash I got in to and sunk in to doing absolutely nothing but playing MMOs for months. Eventually I just convinced myself there was no possible way my life could anything meaningful or productive. I had a fairly unhelpful stay in a mental hospital. I got out, got a job at the Denver zoo as a janitor.

I coasted for a few years there. That job taught me a lot. People skills, how to work hard, how to care about the future... And one of my coworkers was a trans man. We didn’t talk much about his transition. Mostly we just talked about cool things at work and how shitty customers were.

I think that kind of interaction was so important to me. To everyone, him being trans was just natural. No one cared and he seemed pretty happy.

With that information I started to do a bit of research on my own. I’m not sure how many months of consideration I had before coming out subtly to my current roommate in a car.

At the time, pondering coming out to everyone around me and having to confront my body every day in mirrors I cleaned for a living became a sort of hell. I worked the 4am shift and had no one to talk to for the entire duration of my work day, leaving me with lots of time to watch videos and think. I mean I mentally battled myself to the point I was in a lot of pain. So I started taking pain killers, mood stabilizers, drinking, and smoking weed in excess. Since I worked in the dark alone, no one would know how fucked up I was. The primary wrench in me finally accepting my own needs was again that feeling of hopelessness. The process of transition seemed so intimidating. It’s expensive. It will take effort. What if I fuck this or that up?

Early 2017, I tried to kill myself again after months of tormenting myself. I remember when they put me in the ICU and asked for my name, I told them Mike instead of my now dead name. The nurses asked if I had a pronoun preference and I just couldn’t say anything at all. But the chart whiteboad hanging on the wall in front of my bed said “Mike’s”. Everyone who came to visit me saw this. In a way, I had forced myself to come out. My stay in the mental hospital provided the same information as the last, but this time I was more ready to accept it.

One of the exercises we did was write plans for the future. Before, I had left it blank. But this time? I had goals. One of them was to come out officially in a far less destructive fashion. My dad seemed to accept it but not fully support. Due to family tensions that were somewhat unrelated to coming out, I ended up moving out in Late September 2018.

Soon everyone in my personal life knew. I got laid off with my entire department at the zoo. I remember coming out to some of my coworkers based on how religious they were the last day. My next job, I introduced myself as Mike and even got a name tag.

At the end of 2018 I started on hormones after a battle to get ahold of a doctor. Since then, I’ve been a lot happier.

I’ve lost over 100lbs and started working out.

I’m currently working the highest paying job I’ve ever had.

I’m living in an apartment with people I really care about.

The people I keep around me accept my pronouns and are proud of me coming out.

I’ve grown a mustache I love so much I can’t bare to shave it.

The power of self actualization

In every respect, coming out and presenting myself in exactly the way I want to has improved my life. For me that included medically transitioning. It’s like I finally have something to look forward to. All the little changes make me excited and more confident in what I like every day.

Even minor things like clothing are now these exciting vehicles of self expression. I never used to buy things I liked since my parents controlled what I was and was not aloud to wear. And even when I got my own money, those standards forced upon me by Mormonism held me back. Every pay check has more meaning when I’m replacing the old life that I hated so much. I seriously love this tiger shirt I got.

I’m proud to tell people I’m trans because finally admitting to myself has improved my life and mental health and unimaginable degree. I went from wanting to die basically at all times to having excitement for what comes next. I’m enjoying activities that I never would have before. Going to gay bars and dancing has been so enriching for me and I absolutely never would have done that before when I was all angry and bristly.

Being trans can be such a possitive experience. It’s freedom. It’s being able to live your life comfortably.

I know there are a lot of people who don’t understand or don’t want to because of their upbringing... and if you are one of those people who managed to read all this, please know they if you’re anti-trans, you’re anti-freedom of expression, anti-mental health, and anti-social.

Coming out was like removing a clog from my life. I’ve FINALLY been able to start living. And that’s something I want people to know about me. I felt dead before I changed my name and pronouns.

By the way. I’m Mike. He/him. 25. And I’m not going to try and kill my self ever again because I’m enjoying my big trans life.👌

[glvernal]

Reflection

Back in March when I was trying to figure out what classes to take for the summer of 2020, a friend of mine told me about the Women's Writing Worldwide class.  She gave a brief description of the class and what she learned, along with how the class was designed with interesting readings and cool tumblr posts.  She described the class as an eye opening experience that allowed her to read interesting stories along with hearing speeches from breathtaking women defining the odds. My knowledge of the class was that it was going to be a different kind of set up for an online class but still be very informative, and it most definitely was.   From the very first reading called “The Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, I was hooked on learning about the interesting lives of women all over. Through the different TED talks we heard about how one of the women was African American and people thought that when she came to college she would have tribal music on her Ipod, but in retrospect she had Mariah Carey. People get judged everyday for their physical features. And get treated differently and unfairly.  Personally I wanted to learn about this issue because being a girl I have experienced different treatment due to my gender.  I know that in my family the rules for me versus my older brothers are way different.  Even though compared to them I was a better student in highschool, more involved, better athlete, and more mature/responsible.  But still they were able to do more and get away with more.  I am not saying that I live in a house of hell or anything, but as I have gotten older I have been able to see the unfair treatment.  The hardest thing about this situation is that parents are always right so standing up can look to be disrespectful. 

When we started doing the commonplace project with weekly posts, finding the right picture, meme, or video on google was so fun and also entertaining. But, it was also a struggle because I put so much pressure on myself to find the perfect picture that I wanted.   I never knew finding a picture on google could take so much time and energy, but I was proven wrong.  For my personal commonplace book project finding pictures for those was shockingly easier.  I had the idea of exactly what I wanted so the distraction of other posts was not there.  For my project my idea and focus was on “The Girl” after reading it I would always come back to it. I was so shocked at what it said I sent  a picture of it to my friends saying “isn’t this just a lovely thing?” Because the short story really upset me.  People in society see women as the one who does; the cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, raising of kids, and just being looked at as weaker. But I would like to think and hope that as time changes so do peoples' opinions.    In some of my descriptions for my post I address how I take the short story as a to do list. A list that a mother would tell her daughter.  I also imagine that if the story was rewritten today it would say something a little differently.  Throughout my commonplace I address what it is like to be a girl, the treatment we receive, and how things will change in the future.  

The phrase “like a girl” is a quote that people use when someone does something wrong or bad. For example if someone regardless of gender makes a bad throw, one will say”wow you throw like a girl” When girls are just as good or even better athletes than men.  But the thing with treating others equally starts at a young age. Addressing the issue that anyone can do anything as long as they work hard in life.  I also talk about how I wish that in the future when I have kids that the phrase “like a girl” is just not a thing that people say.  The treatment that men receive makes me always question, What did they do that was so good? I mean for real what did men do that was so amazing that we allow this torture to happen. I am pretty sure that they have not done anything that is amazing or world changing that makes up for the treatment we receive on the daily.  

The one prost from my project that really stands out to me is the tree part photo. The first photo asks what do women have in common. Then the second picture answers that with saying things like; breast, nurturing, sweet, breast, and chatty.  But then the last photo says the other thing that we women all have in common.  And the thing about women is that when men see us all they see is the physical features or the activities that the majority of women take  part in.  But the real thing that we have in common is; assault, belittled, raped, dismissed, harassed, and underpaid.  Every woman has experienced two or more of those actions.  These three photos really open a new perspective, I know it did for me. What people see about us women is not what they get.  Like I stated in the beginning about the one female her ted talk addressed how due to her skin color people thought she listened to a certain type of music.  

With addressing issues regardless of it is a big issue or a small one the most important thing is “voice.”  I know personally that before this class I never really thought of women's issues, which I know is sad.  However, after this class it is almost like there is a little fire that just got lit.   And I have learned so much from listening to others voices, rather than being in a speech or reading something.  I know that I complain about the treatment I receive in my household that I think is unfair. Come to find out there are women that have it a hundred times worse than I do.  I will say that in one of my classes that I took last semester, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, I saw videos about different tribes and villages that do not allow a woman to have any say in who she marries.  But with that being said, here in America we have the opportunity to have a voice, to stand up, show others what we are experiencing. Then why has there not been any kind of change for the treatment of women.  The idea that women do the exact same job as some man but make less, just does not make any sense to me.  It makes me think of a funny idea.  What if for a year or two the payment rule was different where women made more and men didn’t.  I know for a fact the men of America would be livid.  

The other thing that women experience on an everyday basis is that we have to be safe everywhere we go, who we talk to, and what we wear.  About a week ago I watched the movie Bombshell, which addresses the sexual harassment that women received working on Fox News.  Going to work women are getting treated like animals. All we are trying to do is get through the day and collect a paycheck.  But in the movie so many women were being sexually harassed and assaulted, for years and nothing was said.  When did we lose our voice? How did we let that happen?  So many questions, but there is not a straight answer to any of them.  

The thing that I think is the scariest and the saddest, is we have allowed this to happen for so long. The belittling is nothing, being cat called nothing.  I have been whistled at before (I was wearing a baggy T-shirt, and shorts not that fancy of an outfit) but I wanted so bad to turn around and say something like how dare you or just give them the beloved finger.  This goes back to the short story The Gil, it is like at a young age our parents have told us to turn the other cheek, or walk away. But that does absolutely nothing to the unfair treatment. The next generation of young women should be told not to stand for unfair treatment and do not let anyone talk to you as if you are nothing.  When will there be a change? When will men realize that they are not that great? Truth is without us women there would be no next generation. We destroy our bodies and experience awful pain for nine months, and what do we get in return?  Oh I know, unequal pay.  

After eight weeks of reading, watching, and annotating I can say that I walked away from this experience with a voice, a fire that is lit.  And knowledge that being a woman is one of the most challenging things, but also the best.  The thing about us women is that we are in this together. We are a team, all fighting to win the same game of equality.