#i only created them bc i was getting a feel for how those sites worked more than anything

[ambersky0319]

guess who didnt realize/forgot others could see their profile on roommate websites and got messaged by someone asking if i was still looking for a room when i dont actually plan on moving until much later this year 🙃

[golbrocklovely]

have you seen the crowd on twitter trying to get Sam and Colby cancelled and sued for 'not doing enough'? It's wild and makes no sense to me, they're doing plenty, they don't need to give us everything, what are these people on?

i'm happy someone sent me this bc i do have some opinions on it lol

see the thing is, it's not even that they "aren't doing enough", ie related to xplrclub, it's that they aren't talking about things that matter. the main two being palestine and george/wilbur being creeps.

to be mad at them for all three of these things, as if somehow they are all on the same level is ridiculous and such an online take, it's not even funny.

but here, i'll break down how i feel about all of this.

as i've stated before, snc don't have to comment on palestine. i know a lot of fans want them to say something but reality is nothing will change if they say free palestine or ask for a ceasefire. snc do not hold that much power, they aren't besties with the president. stop asking influencers to do something. this genocide has been happening for a long time, well prior to the october attacks. it's not snc's job to inform the public on worldwide news. it will not change what is currently happening. palestinians are being murdered and you are making this about snc. stop doing that. who you should be truly angry at is our government and the fact they keep giving OUR TAX DOLLARS to the idf. be upset at that. call your congressmen. donate. stop making this about snc, oh my god.

(and if anyone reading this doesn't agree with me, that's fine. but just know i'm not gonna change my mind on it. who cares what snc think about a genocide??? do your part, help out how you can, and keep it moving.)

the george and wilbur thing…. look, i get fans wanting them to unfollow them, but most likely that's not gonna happen. not bc snc support them, but bc snc never do shit like that. they don't get involved in things that aren't related to them. and this is one of those instances. why do they need to denounce two ppl they aren't friends with and only collabed with, max, twice? you wanna be upset with them about this, go ahead. but don't hold your breath.

also it would be incredibly idiotic for them to comment on something like this. and again, you are making a situation that has nothing to do with snc about snc. stop doing that.

xplrclub. imma be honest with you, this is the one that i find hysterical, just bc of how far fetch it is.

i read the original post that started all of this, or at least that was recently created about all of this. i'm also on xplrclub and saw a fan asking basically all of these questions, and then getting a reply from a mod telling them that snc have account managers that probably tell them when to comment on things, and then when that wasn't a good enough answer, said fan asked for an admin. and idk what happened afterwards.

but let me make it abundantly clear: you can't sue snc for "not doing enough" lol that's just not a thing

first off, they haven't even been charging us for a while. so you're not paying for any of the content as of right now. which i think has caused ppl to think that xplrclub has always been free. but now that they plan to charge us in 2 weeks times, ppl are upset that this is all the content they're getting. but snc laid it out loud and clear on the site of what we're getting: multiple camera roll vids a week, a podcast and livestream a month, and a giveaway a month. and then exclusive content like once a week i think. that's all laid out on the site. if you don't want to be charge $19 a month for that… then don't sign up. it's an exclusive club for a reason. not every fan can afford it. you're not owed a spot in xplrclub. sorry. that's just how the world works.

but what makes all of this even dumber is these fans want to sue snc or at least let them know that "without your fans you would have nothing" as if snc don't already know that. and they're talking about "all we need is 40% of ppl on xplrclub to leave, and then they would have to shut it down, which means we can sue them bc we're not getting what was promised to us"

again, not how any of this works. not to mention, any fans that believes this 10000% wasn't around when metalife shut down in like three days time with basically a paragraph and an email notice lol but that being said snc also gave refunds to those that were charged for the month it shut down

if snc lost a huge amount of subs on xplrclub, they're allowed to shut the site down then if they weren't breaking even or were losing profit from it. the only reason you would be allowed to sue them is if they weren't giving you any content but kept charging you anyway. or if somehow there was a data leak and ppl's card information got out there. that would be a reason to sue. but that has not happened, and most likely won't as well.

not to mention, but there are over 1000 members on that site as we speak. 40% would be a significant dent, sure; but not enough to close the site down. there would still be hundreds of ppl on the site. you would need over half of the users to dip out, and baby that just ain't happening lol

there was also this whole argument about how if snc were sued "tv and film laws" are really difficult and they would be in a lot of trouble and all i gotta say to that is……… wut???? snc aren't on tv or film???? do you guys think they are characters or something, actors acting in their vids??? when snc call their content "movies" they don't mean literal movies, they mean length wise, babe. like i want to give some benefit since i know some of these fans are really young and don't know better but like… google is a thing.

i just…. it's always something with this fandom, you know. there can never be complete peace. i can't have a single day of fun without there being some shit storm brewing on the horizon. i'm so totally done with it lmao

[ink-and-dagger]

HIII god I never use this app but I really needed to tell you how much I love your work, you are my new inspiration as an aspiring writer ily 😭 Your Silco fic really stuck with me, I've been reading fan works for like 8 years and I never felt so many emotions reading something on that site I'm not kidding, it's *chef kiss*, you are an incredible writer I hope you know that 🤍 On the other hand, if you don't mind I wanted to get an insight on how you work and what your writing process is with the characters and everything. I've been wanting to start writing for so long but never know how to start, mainly because I don't know how to get characters to stay in character and not make them feel OOC (and bc English is not my main language 🥲). I envy that a lot from many authors such as yourself and I could only hope for that level of skill, it's amazing 🥺 That's all, I'll be here waiting to read more of your works about anything or from any fandom really, you are great! Thank you in advance :) <3

Holy moly those are some huge compliments 😭 thank you so much ❤️ I’m so glad my story struck a chord with you.

I think you're literally incredible for even being able to contemplate writing a fic in a language that isn't your mother tongue. My personal belief is that story > writing. There are plenty of books out there that are beautifully written and boring as ass. There are also lots of books that have moved people to tears despite being averagely written. The words you use are merely a tool to communicate your story, and if your readers are invested in the world and characters you've created, then they will forgive imperfect writing.

I've answered a few writing questions in the past that might be of use/interest to you. I'll link them below:

How I plot my stories

How I came up with the outline for DWM

How to stop obsessing over edits

But in terms of your concerns around characterisation – I know it sounds wildly obvious... but you just kinda have to make sure you know that character inside and out.

It helps to build some kind of dossier alongside your outline that you can use as a reference sheet. This can contain whatever information you want, but here are some ideas to get you started:

Personality traits [both good and bad]

Likes and Dislikes

Special Skills/Abilities [plus anything they're rubbish at]

Fears and Desires

Important Relationships [do they have family and/or friends?]

It's also super important to familiarise yourself with the little details too. Real, relatable people don't walk around with their 'biggest qualities' plastered above their heads for all to see.

If you asked someone who works with me to quickly describe me, they wouldn't say – "Oh that's Inky. She values loyalty, her zodiac sign is Virgo, and she has mummy&daddy issues."

They'd more likely say something along the lines of – "Oh that's Inky. She's very friendly, likes to work with her AirPods in, and tends to fall over a lot."

It's these little details that flesh out a character and make them feel more real.

Try and envision your character in different mundane situations. What pizza would they order? How would they react to slow wi-fi? If their favourite song came on the radio whilst they were alone would they sing and dance? If they found money on the street what would they do?

A practical tip whilst writing is to read their dialogue out loud as them. Does it sound right? Can you hear them saying it? Think about their language and speech patterns. Think about what they're trying to communicate, but also whether they're attempting to withhold anything.

And lastly in terms of getting started writing...

I'm sorry my friend. The only way to start is to start...

I recently looked back at some old writing files from when I first began writing as an adult in late 2019. And believe me when I tell you that it has all the elegance of Donald trump in a pair of kitten heels. It’s awful.

But that’s okay. Because I knew when I was writing it that it was for my eyes only, and that I’d look back on it one day and think "wowee I've improved a butt ton!" And of course I was completely correct because I'm a Virgo and also INFJ so 💁🏻‍♀️

My point is, writing is a skill, and skills need to be practiced and honed. You have to allow yourself to be shit first, or you will never get good.

Open up a blank file and write a sentence. Doesn't matter what it is. Just write it. Save it in a private file just for you. Create a safe place where you can learn and make mistakes without any pressure.

And remember that even seasoned authors don't produce perfect writing from the get go. You put down a rough draft first. Then you go through and make it more coherent. Then fill in any gaps you left. Then tweak the order of events. Then finesse the language etc etc etc... It's a multi-step process, just like painting a picture. There's no point in attempting to add lighting and shade on top of a pencil sketch that doesn't even have any base colour on it yet.

WOW I'm rambling. I'm gonna wrap up, but as you can tell this is a topic I'm passionate about, and I'm more than happy to answer any more questions you might have!

I hope this is helpful in some way <3

[inthecarpets]

I think at least part of the reason why Reddit refugees feel so free and reblog everything is because they saw none of the weird etiquettes, guilt tripping and agressiveness some of Tumblr users grown a lot with.

(I'm actually curious what other people think about it so Please stick with me for a moment and say your thoughts. I'm interested!)

Some small portion of people on this site have a genuine fear of reblog spamming someone bc 'what if they hate it' or 'i might get blocked', and some small bit of bloggers would actually block you for spam of notes.

Some of a bit more popular bloggers can mock you or block you for literally anything you happen to write under their post. Doesn't even have to be wildly rude.

Some of bit more popular bloggers might write a fun post you think is relatable, so you comment on it, and few hours later you see them write a complaint 'ugh why some randos write under my posts. I don't care. I write only for my friends'.

Some bloggers will block you for leaving the wrong tags under their post but it's not always obvious what are the wrong tags. You might even missword something only slightly and it is going to get you blocked

If you are a person then your opinions aren't always right. If you are an active commenter to that, it comes with an extra risk of getting a mob latched onto you and not accepting that you could've changed your mind.

Some people, which i think came from Twitter bc Twitter works like that in 80%, go like 'you have to create your own post. Do not add onto mine.'

Some small portion of artists, which is actually pretty weird, might even block you for only liking their art without reblogging it. And i know at least one person who, because of that, never likes anything and mostly interacts in only reblog queues (cause queue = life), bc leaving a like beforehand might lead to a tiring post complaint from the op or a block.

And it's also like all valid and cool, everyone can do with their blogs whatever they want, and everyone can block anyone for anything they want. It's cool if you don't care about getting a block and it's cool if you care.

The thing is, i just don't think it's a web culture that nurtures interactions between the users that much, and in my mind that's actually part of the reason why for recent years reblogging become lesser to clicking the like button.

And after some years of being here and changing from my more interactive beginnings, to less interactive and more wary, and seeing how some people interact, i can feel i'm not the only one who thinks that way, though it might be not that popular opinion idk.

Edit: i forgot to mention. Redditors please don't change your happy interactive ways. You are all sunshines and this website needs people like you. Please pay not much mind to those who happen to be weirdly aggresive💜

[americanrecord]

So basically I did an album review for a music website and they posted it but then they wanted a photo/bio about me and I might have never sent them one 😭 bc I'm wierd about how much of my personal info is out there yknow?

ANYWAYS I kinda miss writing and there's this other website and idk whether to send them an email and see if I can do a bit of writing for them?

I plan to ask before this time about how it would work but I'm also a little worried about how much free time I have bc I do feel a little bad about dipping lol but like if they don't want anything actually personal about me and I can just pop in now and again when there's something interesting that could be fun?

But what do you think? Should I go for it or???

Also do you think maybe I should reach out to the original website and tell them that I don't like being "public" but I'm still happy to write for them if they don't mind me not having an author page? Idk about that tho bc apparently they mostly communicate through Facebook which I don't have nor plan to get at any point 😭 And we haven't communicated in like 2 months BUT that's not actually on me bc I sent the last email and they never replied 💀 SO for writers who wrote like one thing and dipped 😭 their writing is under the generic publication profile, not an author specific profile so I might actually reach out again and see if I they mind if I stay under that and then I only have to reach out whenever there's something I'm interested in maybe idk

hey!! so this makes sense!! i think you should definitely go for it, first of all, but i do think it's a really good idea when approaching this second website to sort of ask how they go about accepting writing—if they are okay with more "anonymous" type postings (or at least pen names/no extensive biographical details) and if they accept random/not scheduled submissions. i think that's the best way to ensure there's no error in communication from both sides, but also to make sure you don't over-commit to anything if you don't have the time for it. i always say go for it !!! the worst that could happen is they could get back to you with guidelines that don't fit your needs, but there's no harm in inquiring.

as for the second website, i would also do that. maybe just shoot them an email apologizing for the gap in communication (even if it was on them, they might be more likely to respond if you just own it), but explaining your reservations about how much information you post on the site. say, like, you're really into writing for them and that you really enjoyed writing the article/review that you've already written for them, but that being overtly public isn't something you're comfortable with and you'd like to see if there's some sort of compromise they're willing to make with you if they're still open to having you write for them. i think it's a great sign that they have a "generic publication" profile, and that it might be a nice little niche for you due to your privacy/time constraints. it's a great way to get your writing out on your time and under your terms. again, i don't think there's any harm that could come from asking!! the worst that could happen is that they say, y'know, no - we can't work with those terms, or like...maybe they won't respond at all. best case scenario, you get a perfect little writing gig on the side!

if neither of those sites work, you could also keep looking for ones that suit your needs, or you could also even create your own writing/review blog. that's a great way to ensure that you'll be in control of all of your information + to post on your terms!!

hope it all works out!! ♡

[jessiarts]

Hi!! Ive been trying to follow all the ai art stuff and have been left with kind of a conundrum. I make a lot of art “as a hobby” but for a long time I’ve been planning to make social media accounts specifically for my art. I hadn’t yet bc i want to prepare myself and learn how to approach commissions, but now I don’t know what to do. It feels like if I post my art online itll just get stolen, and especially if I start now people will twist it to say ive consented to it by starting to post my art once ai databases are a thing (instead of my art already being online and getting stolen before anyone realized where this was going.) But posting art online is the way to market it and do commissions and stuff, so i feel like my choices are to let my art get stolen online for ai or have a bunch of paintings sitting in my closet that no one will ever see and no chance of pursuing art as a financial source. What should I do? I thought maybe to just wait and see how things shake out legally first but that could take years

I completely understand, this whole situation surrounding how the Ai Tools were rolled out is very frustrating.

Unfortunately, there's no one right way to go about this, but I'm going to do my best.

Regarding making social media for your art and being worried that people will say "Well since you decided to do it right when Ai came out it means you consent to it being taken to train the Ai!" I say don't let this stop you if you really want to do it. If anyone comes at you and says you consented just because you happened to choose now, they're full of shit and are pretending to have never heard of a coincidence. It's not your fault Ai came out around the same time you were considering trying to create socials for your art and looking into doing commissions.

That said, always sign your work. Don't let anyone tell you not to, and typically the only people who will try won't be other artists, but rather people who want to repost art without crediting the artist.

Personally, I place my signature somewhere in the piece and then I also add a social tag in one of the upper corners. You will find what works for you if you haven't already.

We unfortunately cannot control other people's choices when it comes to them stealing our work, but we can make it harder for them to claim it's their own. Also remember if it does happen that you can report a copyright violation to the respective social site and get it taken down.

For Ai scraping it's a little trickier, as it's still a bit wobbly of a situation. As you know, they've currently got it on an "opt-out" situation, and we don't really know what site will be the next DeviantArt or ArtStation (meaning who will next throw it's users under the bus and make scraping opt-out, rather than opt-in as it should be.)

The best advice I have is use haveibeentrained.com to see if your work has been scraped. Here's a post with more information about it, but essentially it's a site created by Spawning to help artists opt-out their art from Ai training.

Spawning is an independent organization working with the companies behind the Ai tools (like Stability Ai and Laion) on the behalf of artists, trying to get those companies to change the model into opt-in only. HaveIBeenTrained is just a first step in hopefully getting there.

Of important note: one misconception is that the Ai is scraping and updating it's databases in real time, which isn't true. If I understand correctly, the Ai has already scraped art for the training of Stable Diffusion V3, and haveibeentrained is providing artists with a way to object and opt out their work before the next training happens. You use the site to search your art to see if it's been scraped into the database, and then you can request to opt it out of the next training session, which will be happening in a week or two.

I'd check it out if you haven't already and spread the word so any artists you know can try to take advantage and opt out as many pieces as they can, let these companies know that we don't consent to any of our art being used to train Ai until we're given the bare minimum decently of being allowed to consent first.

Apologies for the length, but I hoped this helped at least a little! I wish you luck in whatever you decide!

[lotsofplanetshaveadeathstar]

Why is this feeling?

Hey look, a Rough Day™ that's not a Monday, plot twist! (Tuesday wasn't wonderful, but I'm generously saying that 40% of that was bc I was some kind of sick, so I'm just gonna leave it at that and move on.)

So for a looooong time, like YEARS, I didn't go on any social media that wasn't Twitter basically ever. No FB (except for the work page to do shift trades/giveaways, but that was it), no IG, no Snapchat, no Tumblr, nothing. I was solely active on Twitter, and it's still my preferred site (I really do hate everything going on with the new management though, it's horrible), and I saw a tweet not too long ago that summed up why that was - it was a words site, not a picture site. I am definitely a words person. I can take and edit a picture like the best of them, but the way some people treat it, as if their profile and what they chose to post there is what defines their life, has never been overly appealing to me - when I post, it's usually for something important or celebratory or my annual pumpkin carving reveal, not a filtered selfie with a "quirky" caption or a shot of myself weirdly posed in front of some mildly interesting background for no reason. I can express myself and my thoughts in words that are truer to me than most pictures could ever be, and I can mostly do so in 280 characters or less, which is honestly quite a skill for a person who is great at taking a short informal phrase and turning it into an essay-length formal statement. (Also, you can retweet things on Twitter with two clicks, you can't share anything on Insta nearly that easily, just saying...)

So what does my self-imposed distance from social media have to do with today's emotional mess? Well, one of the reasons I stopped going on the more photo-based sites was because of how seeing everyone's *posted* lives (HEAVY emphasis on *posted*, bc I am keenly aware that the overwhelming majority of social media users only post the A roll stuff that makes their lives look like sunshine and rainbows 24/7, which they absolutely are not) was starting to have a negative effect on my mental wellbeing.

Like a lot of people, probably 99.99%, my life didn't follow the path I thought it would when I was a bright-eyed baby adult fresh from high school. I thought that I would go to college and meet people and maybe get a boyfriend and then I'd get a job right out of graduation and have a place of my own and everything would just fall in line and be perfect.

HA

This VERY MUCH did not happen. I mean, some of it did, but the whole picture never came together in that way. I did go to college and meet people and made some really wonderful friends, but I never got my "dream job" (I still don't even know what it is, tbh) and I'm still single and I don't have a place of my own (honestly a blessing and a curse at this point).

I am very much aware that everyone's path in life unfolds in its own time, and that it is incredibly frustrating that most of the time there is nothing that can be done to change this.

Rerouting back from this little tangent, what was happening was that I wasn't where I thought I would be in life at that point, and seeing people's happy (and curated) posts showing off their great new job or fun relationship or some other milestone that I hadn't hit yet, and it was starting to make me feel like I was failing at life in some way and that everyone else was doing so much better than I was and how could I ever figure it out if I hadn't already done so by this point? It was just a constant stream of everyone showing off their successes (which they absolutely should, no shade there, everyone should be able to celebrate their accomplishments in life, it's well-deserved), and the pressure seeing all those posts created, as well as the pressure to constantly be online to see all those posts and to try and time my own posts to when they would be seen by the most people, was creating so much negative energy inside myself directed towards myself that I stopped going on FB and Instagram pretty much cold turkey. Almost immediately, I noticed a positive change in my brain, which, for me, was worth being out of the loop on people's daily lives and falling out of touch with those whose only relationships with me was commenting "Happy Birthday" when prompted by the FB reminder notification. I would still occasionally post on Instagram and have it cross-post to FB or add to my IG story when at a "show-off worthy" event, but other than that, I almost never used either app for more than a few moments a month for several years.

Fast forward to now, where, for some inexplicable reason, I have started browsing on both apps again, often to the point of refreshing to get new content (mostly funny reels on FB bc I refuse to download TikTok). Most of my long-term FB friends from high school rarely post on the platform anymore, so the content I do see, if any, is usually something along the lines of a vacation photo dump or a holiday outfit or a couple's pic, and Instagram is usually along similar lines with stories showing off a night out at a concert or vacation or some other fun excursion. These kinds of posts are mostly harmless to my psyche, probably bc most of the posters are more on the acquaintance level at this point, so I can look at their lives from a more objective outsider's perspective. Even the posts that deal with life milestones I thought I'd be celebrating as well by this point are usually fine bc I know I'm not at the point in my life where I'd be ready for them (I honestly don't know how some of my classmates have multiple children already, even the idea of having to keep a small human alive exhausts and frightens me).

But sometimes, there's a post that feels like a dropkick to the emotions and we end up here at another Rough Day™.

I don't want to go into details about what the post was, but I think I can figure out why it affected me the way that it did.

Obviously, I'm happy for the person who made the post bc it was celebrating that person being comfortable in their own skin in all the ways for the first time in a very long time, and that is a great thing. However, I think this just happened to kick me right in my insecurities about similar things and that's where my feelings are coming from.

I know that there's no reason to be jealous of what this person posted, because this person has had challenges that I haven't had to face, and for them to be at this point is a huge win. But I think I always kind of held on to the idea that we were both insecure and upset about where we were for certain aspects of our lives as some kind of lifeline, however ridiculous that might be in hindsight, and now that lifeline is gone (whether actually or perceivably makes no difference for the present moment) and I feel left behind once again, just like I did when it seemed like everyone on my social media feeds were achieving all kinds of great feats while I was stuck down below.

I know where my insecurities about this come from, and I am hoping with all my heart and soul that everyone is right in saying that I will look back on this in the future and think how silly I was to be so unconfident about my life and to have these insecurities at all.

I know that my decision to go back to school and be close to a decade older than most of the other students is a major cause of some of my insecurities. It's really hard to escape the idea that my age will only be a hindrance, and tbh I don't know what would make me not believe that, so I hope there's something out there that will someday.

I know that nobody is going to hold themselves back for me, and obviously I agree, nobody should. But sometimes it feels like I'm floundering out here on my own, and having someone else who feels similarly is sometimes the greatest sense of relief, and having to let that go is almost physically painful at times.

I'm fairly positive that feeling like everyone else is outpacing me is a huge negative factor in my current emotional state. It's just really hard to feel like everyone else is on track and going full-steam ahead and you're just stuck in a tiny canoe paddling with one oar and going in circles.

I have a final in two days for a class that I almost certainly will fail if I don't do very well on the exam, which would be a first for me and is probably adding to my Rough Day™. I've mostly accepted my fate either way, but it's hard to say how I'll feel if and when it actually happens. But the idea of failing definitely isn't boosting any morale in conjunction with the aforementioned post.

Sometimes I get really lonely and I miss people who have left or even people who never really were here to begin with, and sometimes people who never existed outside of my brain. That definitely doesn't help anyone's mental wellbeing.

I think this is kind of devolving from its original purpose...

So I saw a post that really kicked me in my insecurities and I needed to get it out to get through this Rough Day™, which is how we got here. Now how to deal with it...

First, I think I'm going to go back to restricting my social media consumption. Maybe it won't be as harsh as it used to be, maybe it will, we'll just have to see what balance is healthiest for me. I also think I might start posting a little bit more on Instagram, maybe as a way to celebrate my own milestones and accomplishments and have a way to look back on them in the future.

Second, once Saturday has passed (and it's gonna be a beast between the exam and then work afterwards), I'm going to make a list of all the things I need and want to do, of all levels of importance and difficulty and size. Maybe this way I can get a little more organization into my life and then use that as a way to keep moving forward with other aspects.

Third, I'm going to aim to do something at least once a month that is just for me and that works as a sort of reset moment, whether it's a trip to a park by myself or making my own double feature at the movies, just something to re-ground myself and help build up my confidence in myself and doing things by myself for myself.

I think it helped, at least a little, to get this out. I think I just needed to take a moment and sort through the emotions and breathe and remind myself that someday soon, there's gonna be a day that I'm gonna want to post about, and while it might not be for the same reasons as this post was (I can all but guarantee it won't be, if and when that day comes, it'll be wayyy in the future), it'll be important for me and that's the only part that matters.

I'm still a little emotionally jumbled but I can get through that soon enough. Here's hoping there's no more Rough Days™ ahead for this year, because I'm really getting tired of them.

(If you've made it to the end of this and are not my future self rereading this, please reevaluate your life choices bc even watching paint dry would have been a more productive use of your time.)

[zephiris]

Background decorative elements

I felt like the placement of your background images within the body tag to the top and bottom of your main content div is pretty intuitive overall. The only thing I could think of to improve the vines would be to make them pseudo elements (another YouTube video by Kevin Powell) of the body element so that way you don't have to have empty divs cluttering your html for them. Pseudo elements are useful for purely decorative elements because they're created purely out of CSS; no HTML required!

Now for color: below the fold bc hyperfixation go brrr

TLDR: Color contrast is hard; especially with the current color systems we have today (HSB/RGB) since the numeric incantations of popular color systems don't line up with how our eyes actually perceive color, especially when it comes to brightness. Google made a new color system (along with a tool based on that color system to generate color palettes) that lines up better with how humans perceive color but it still isn’t perfect. IMO using tools like palettte.app (with 3 t’s) and hand-selecting colors numbered by how light they are - more about that below - works best and gives projects more of a hand-made feel but Google's tool works well enough for making a quick and professional looking color palette.

Now for a very colorful rant:

Making CSS variables with the format

colorName-brightnessValue

makes it easier to meet contrast standards when coding up a website. I'll usually organize my colors to range from 0 to 1000 exclusive where 0 is black and 1000 is white. I usually use 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 the most so I have those 5 shades of each main color ready to go whenever I start a new project. (I use the same 4 colors for all my projects so it's easy to copy and paste the colors from the last project into the new one!)

That way if I know my background is violet-100 and my text color is violet-700 that the text will be legible because of the difference in brightness values is 600 just based on the variable names alone. Generally a difference of at least 500 (assuming you go linearly in perceived brightness) is enough to get AAA contrast levels.

For an example, here are my css variables for zephiris.me:

Others do the numbering of the shades differently. Here's how tailwind does it:

Tailwind CSS color guide's section on making a custom color palette has links to some helpful tools on how to hand-pick several shades of a set of colors so that the brightnesses of the colors decrease with the numeric value in a way that actually lines up with people's perception of color.

On that same page, tailwind also has all those color palettes shown above free for you to steal use in your projects!

Google's Material 3 design framework has shades of every color go from 0 to 100 for brightness instead of my 0-1000 brightness or Tailwind's 0-1000 darkness.

Google also has a nice resource which will automatically generate a color palette for you (I like doing it manually with palettte.app [with 3 t's] but if you just need a quick and easy palette that meets contrast standards, Google’s resource works pretty well).

Google actually has a very interesting blog post on why it’s so hard to make accessible colors and get the right amount of contrast with current color systems like HSB/RGB etc.. To fix this, they created a new color system, HCT (Hue Chroma Tone), which helps solve that problem by having HCT's Tone value better match our human perception of brightness.

Wrangling Several Colors to Work Together

My main advice for overall UI design is to pick three colors: a primary color (for background colors), a secondary color (for card backgrounds/text colors), and a tertiary color (for any elements that should be interacted with like buttons and links). I made a site to try out various combinations of colors and share those palettes with others a while ago (apparently November of 2021, thanks GitHub!)

Recently Juxtopposed made a more professional version of what I made called realtimecolors.com along with an accompanying video. Her website also features a palette generator where you just enter in one color and it will generate a set of palettes off that one color!

Unfortunately neither mine nor Juxtopposed's websites support multiple shades of each key color, so to get those additional shades make sure to either use Google's generator or one of the tools mentioned by Tailwind once you have a general set of colors that you feel works well together.

Color Palette Inspiration

What works best for me is to pick colors based on environments which I enjoy to be surrounded by. I based my color palette for zephiris.me on:

the night sky's bluish-purple hue (maybe I wear rose-tinted glasses ok?)

greenish-blue seafoam from ocean waves

golden rays of sun filtering through pine trees

Lastly, I used the trans flag colors to describe my gender for obvious symbolic reasons - I also like being next to a particular shark :p

Conclusion

Meeting color contrast standards can get way easier by numbering your colors based on how light they are. There are plenty of ways to get a set of colors labeled by lightness:

using palettes already made from Tailwind

Have Google do some math wizardry to generate you a custom palette

Use tools like palettte.app to create your own set of colors to play with

Regardless of what option you choose, the overall added structure of numbering colors' brightnesses makes it dramatically easier to make incredibly legible, accessible, and colorful designs.

Colorful rant over!

i like your website! it looks very nice

especially the gradient colored text!! you used a separate font to make it more legible

whenever i try to do something like that, it always becomes really hard to read... maybe i should learn some basic web design?

my website looks like this and it took two days of fiddling with css

Thank you! The biggest thing with making text legible is making sure there is enough contrast between the text color and the background or make the text big enough that it’s legible even if there isn’t that much contrast. The best guide on color contrast that I know of is the Mozilla docs! If you scroll down to the solution part there it has many tools to check text contrast.

Since your website has a warm bright canvas background darker colors and gradients would work better and end up being more legible.

If you’re looking to learn more about web development and especially CSS I strongly recommend Kevin Powell on YouTube! His videos on flexbox and grid are very helpful in understanding those new browser features and making responsive websites (websites that look great on any screen size). For example, I used grid for the nickname table and for my projects so that on desktop those elements would be wider and shorter while on mobile they’d get narrower and taller.

I love your site too, especially the canvas theme with the green branch/orange leaves and the clever span box to show your favorite color complete with a title tag featuring the hex code!

To be clear my site took me at least 20 hours of fiddling and development to make. Feel free to look at the site code (and my commit history) on GitHub!

[something-tofightfor]

Your stories alienate a lot of potential readers bc of the things you don't/won't write about. If you were willing to include new things in your works, more people would probably read and like them.

it's too early on a Monday for this.

You know what, anon? A lot of other stories alienate people because of the things that those authors DO write about.

Are you sending them these 'helpful' messages, too? Or is it just me because the other stuff is the content you actually want to read and you think that you can bully me into writing it?

Not everyone can or wants to get pregnant or have kids - and it's difficult to avoid getting surprised by these things in the middle of a story when - for the shock value of a ~*~SuRpRiSe PrEgNaNcY*~* - authors don't properly tag their works or at least WARN people that there's something in a chapter that might be upsetting to read.

Many authors on here seem to think that the only logical conclusion to any relationship that they write/create/envision HAS to end in marriage and kids for the story to come full circle and for the characters to feel 'complete' - and that just isn't the case - and it shouldn't have to be.

It's not everyone's dream to get pregnant and experience childbirth with a man they just met/barely know/are fake dating.

And.

Not everyone is physically aged to the point that they could be in an age gap relationship with a character. Not everyone on this site is 23 years old and fantasizing about a 47 year old man.

Not everyone thinks that it's cute and sexy to need a man to take care of them because they have no life experience or no way to provide for themselves. (I am already sick to DEATH of Joel Miller 'damsel in distress barely legal reader who needs a big strong man so THANK GOD JOEL SHOWS UP' stories popping up and the show isn't even out yet)

Not everyone has a daddy kink.

There are people who enjoy reading about "traditional" relationships and situations. They like reading about what they know and look for in a partner - just like I enjoy WRITING about what I know and what I look for in a partner.

Sometimes stories are just about everyday life - and it doesn't need to be a fantastic or "out there" scenario. There doesn't need to be anything shocking about a relationship for it to be compelling.

You want to talk about alienating people, anon?

Do you know how upsetting it is to read through fifteen chapters of a story only for a surprise pregnancy to happen for shock value even when it doesn't narratively make sense with the rest of the story?

Do you know how difficult it is for me as a woman in my mid 30's to read stories where Reader has no specified age, but she's giggling and biting her lip after every sentence and has no respect for or understanding of the people around her because her life is Just So Hard and No One Understands, and she REFUSES to talk to the people in her life about what's actually going on so instead she hides everything and creates unnecessary conflict including with her love interest that could ALL JUST BE RESOLVED WITH ONE ACTUAL CONVERSATION INSTEAD OF AVOIDANCE.

Do you know how HARD it is to put myself into a story where FMC/Reader characters can't cook or clean or drive or take care of themselves in ANY WAY and think it's cute or quirky or endearing? (This isn't to say that I'm bashing people that genuinely need help in their day to day lives - this is ALL about the ones that just never learned to do it because they chose not to and are getting by based on the help and intervention of others because it's What They Deserve)

Not every single story is going to appeal to everyone. That's the way it works. I'm not going to write about pregnant characters. I'm not going to write age gaps or daddy kinks. I'm not going to create helpless characters for the sake of writing someone "saving" them or giving them purpose.

These things do not appeal to me AT ALL. But they DO appeal to others - and that's why so many people write and share them, and why they are so popular among readers.

But like I said before - there are people out there actively searching for other content. They are looking for things that they can identify with in the writing they find - and THOSE are the people that make up my audience (for the most part).

Was this a little more confrontational than I usually am? Yes. It was.

But I am sick to death of people coming into my inbox and trying to tell me what to write.

There are already ENDLESS options for pregnancy and age gap stories out there - go find them and leave me alone about writing them.

[floralcodes]

FloralCodes is officially on Hiatus.

Hi everyone.

I haven't logged into tumblr/discord for over 8 months now because honestly, surprise surprise, I'm just miserable on this site. I know I've said it time and time again, but I'm tired of being taken advantage of, insulted, stolen from, etc, over and over again. I can't even go into my own tag now without seeing shit that literally says, and I quote, "how I wish desperately to not run into a floralcodes theme every five minutes while trying to find a decent code for my blog." It's out of hand at this point. Just recently, someone purchased THREE themes from me in one transaction. Since I've been absent, business here has been pretty slow. People buying one theme, let alone multiple themes at once, just isn't very common, so I was super excited. So when I logged into my Payhip for the first time in quite a while and checked their checkout notes, under "How can I improve your shopping experience for next time?" they wrote this:

"charge less :( as a web dev myself (only buying bc i don't have the funds/time to code myself bc i have a real salaried web dev job)"

So you are a ""real"" salaried web dev who can't take the time to code your own theme, can afford to pay $27 for 3 themes, but think I should be paying myself less than $10 for something you can't be bothered to do yourself???? Wtf?? I deal with people asking me to charge less/make my themes free ALL of the time, I'm used to that, but I could have gone without them trying to make me feel invalidated. The only reason why my themes are pay to use in the first place is because I was sick of being stolen from. I don't claim to be a ""real"" web dev. And I'm STILL getting stolen from on a regular basis. YES, I still monitor work even though I am not active on tumblr and will continue to do so. YES, I will come after you. Please don't waste either of our time, just pay the $10 or leave me alone. Which comes to my main point. I'm taking a hiatus for the foreseen future. I'm sure I will be back at some point, because I love creating themes and I will eventually get that itch to code again, but I won't make any promises. I see that a few of you have tried to contact me in regards to needing help with your theme(s). Please email me at hello@floralcodes.com and I will get back to you as soon as I can. I won't be checking DM's here anymore and the Discord server will be deleted soon as well. If you need to get ahold of me regarding anything tumblr/theme related at all, please only contact me there. I'm just tired of feeling unwelcome in a space that I've tried to build for myself for the last 10 years. Thank you to those who have supported me for all of the fun, support, and love. I'm grateful for all of the friends I've met here, and for the countless people who have followed me from blog to blog through all this time.

I will leave my themes up to purchase, but I am not immediately available for support anymore, so purchase at your own discretion. If you do need support, again, please email me.

If you would like to continue following my creative work in a space that makes me feel happy, feel free to check out my ceramic business! Please keep in mind that due to the nature of my work (cannabis related), you must be 21+ or older to follow/shop with me.

https://www.instagram.com/peachpot.co/

https://www.peachpot.co/

See you later. 👋

[salt-volk]

re "tbh pretty sure anji just lied about the whole "monthlies and customs only take 10% of my workload" bit because there is no way that is true with absolute NOTHING to show for that supposed other 90% like....." 

idk i actually do genuienly believe her (moslty bc 4-6 custom items taking an entire month or even more than 2 days for a 10yr+ professional mostly full time artist just seems impossible to me esp seeing how quickly she does shit on stream & knowing other artists myself haha. no comment on the monthlies since even if they did hold up site progress they cant just be paused as thats the sole revenue for dv so moot to talk abt as an option but id ALSO guess those dont take an entire month or even over a week, esp w how theres always small boring items included w only a few complicated each batch) but like i think was brought up before, i agree the main problem is that all that stuff is one time scheduled release but other content is nearly ALWAYS larger bundles together.

its easier + quicker to do a few art than an entire event. customs are published once their done. but general site content is made dependent on a bunch of other shit ("X item is complete but will have to sit here for month until the other 15 items are done" "Y item is finished but we have to get ahold of our barley functional coder & wait 2 mo. on writing before it can come out"). so stuff like custom queue stays chugging along doing a lil bit here & there while main site content releases are always MASSIVE drops w a bunch of shit all at once to the point that its overwhelming. 

there is plenty to show for the other 90% of time they just dont show it at the right times or in the right way bc they put all the stuff together (OR also could be all their time gose into shit that isnt easily visible like background management work or now that anjis trying to learn code to pick up slack she could be spending more time w that which has no visible site progress). fr we spend all our time waiting around for shit to drop not bc progress isnt actually getting done or bc one thing is takign up all the resources but just bc staff just does not know how to do little teasers or small events or small content resleases.

again this all comes down to management issue & site direction. probaly also a community advisor of sorts. which they lack. but could tell them "you dont have to put these items together or drop them w an update. the users do not care". or "you do not have to waste months coming up w grand vision of new event types multiple times a yr i promise you can just do the same thing & nobody will care" haha

which to be clear this is totally their fault & i dont understand the compulsion to always have to have like 85 new items come out simultaneosly as part of one update instead of just slowly drip feeding to at least help w the illusion & create more of feeling of constant content stream -_- i still dont have all the shit from those last two big updates w the stupid circlets & just gave up bc its to hard to keep track of...

oh worm they releasde new event info while iasw writing this. how much do you wanna bet some of the event content will be stuff that could have been seperated & dropped on its own but was just grouped together? even having the first custom auction w the event... that could have been its own thing tbh. released sooner since is not being held back waiting on a bunch of other shit to complete. have a feeling the mini town could have been out on its own too. lord

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: July 10th

I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!

Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.

For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?

There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.

Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0

The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.

Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.

I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.

Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!

Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!

idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately

Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.

Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference! 

Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.

I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀 

I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!

I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked. 

Thank you for reporting ^^

I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~ 

There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!

hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :) 

I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.

Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore 

This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.

HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC 

Thank you for getting it!

Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩

Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.

Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right? 

Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty! 

Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart

Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe? 

Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.

Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?

No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.

Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in? 

You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!

Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more! 

I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.

is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch? 

A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that. 

If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.

Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :) 

It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.

I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)

L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!

I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.

Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?

I understand if it's too complicated, just curious

Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.

playing our life > anything else 

Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂). 

Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.

Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha 

Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!

Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu 

No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.

Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3 

They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.

I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4? 

Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.

Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol 

Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.

Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc. 

It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.

In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before! 

Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.

I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that? 

It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.

I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever? 

Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.

hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :> 

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!

Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game? 

OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.

I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1. 

I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.

As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?

They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!

Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.

Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?

You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.

Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you? 

No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.

Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing? 

Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.

Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc? 

He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.

Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments? 

Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.

hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.

sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.

Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.

I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<

Yes you can!

what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress? 

That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.

[favberrys]

I'm bored and in a kkg brainrot mood, so i'm just gonna rant about my opinions of kakegurui ships and i will make some headcanons:

Kirasaya

Ok i had to start with them bc they're just too iconic, i think they have one of the most interesting and complex dynamics in kkg, they really got me obsessed with them, it's probably my number one kakegurui ship and the reason i started watching the show and reading the manga. Honestly yeah their relationship has some power imbalance, since sayaka is kirari's secretary, and is probably disfunctional, but contrary to what some ppl say kirasaya is not abusive, kirari never physically or emotionally abuses sayaka throughout the story. Anyway they're a 10/10, peak lesbian yearning, if they don't kiss at least one i will jump the author. Probably one of my fav ships ever, i think they're made for each other and i can't see kirasaya with anyone else, they're just so good together and their chemistry is >>>>>>

Yumary

Ok this one is kinda an unpopular opinion bc most people like yumary, but honestly i can't get invested into it, there's something in this ship that doesn't make my heart go "fuck yeah they should be gfs". Personally i don't ship yumeko with anyone bc i can't imagine her in a relationship since her main thing is being a compulsive gambler, her existence revolves around it and she forms relationships when they're useful for her gambling games. I think yumary could be friends with benefits for some time, but after a while mary would probably break it off because i don't think she can handle a sexual/romantic relationship with yumeko and after a while it would make her go nuts. A friendship between them is already messy and complicated and honestly i don't think they are compatible that way. Yes they have chemistry and there's probably some mutual attraction but to me it's a no. Also can cishet dudes stop fetishizing this ship ? My vote is 6/10, mostly bc mary doesn't seem much physically comfortable with yumeko, idk mary just seems off with her in that sense and i prefer them as gambling partners or friends.

Meariri

I honestly love this ship, especially after reading the manga, they have such an great dynamic, i think they both care about each other, they have chemistry and i think they're compatible and that their personalities compliment each other, mary is often loud and aggressive and passionate while ririka is more closed off and quiet, they're like fire and ice and this case i think the saying "opposite attract" works with them. Mary counts on ririka and i love the fact that she is so comfortable with her physically (mary is almost always the one to initiate the contact, holding her hand, touching her head, etc) and ririka gets inspired by mary to be her own person and chase her goals. Plus they're really cute together, aesthetically i find them the most attractive couple, i'll give them a solid 9/10

Itsukaede

Lmao i don't even know if this is the correct ship name for itsuki x kaede, ok i don't hate it and i think they could work as a couple, it's not my cup of tea bc m/f ships bore me, but i like their relationship, they have the kind of old married couple dynamic that always works. 6/10.

Ryomeko

I can see it happening, i don't ship it, but i don't mind it either, i'm kinda neutral about ryota x yumeko, but i think he's one of the ppl who care about yumeko the most in that academy (with also mary ofc), the ship is boring bc ryota is bland (he's a good guy don't get me wrong and he defo doesn't deserve the hate he gets) and as i said previously i don't ship yumeko with anyone. Sorry i gotta give it 5/6 out of 10

Yumedari

Ok i love midari but just like yumeko, i don't ship her with anyone bc i see her as someone who's too much unstable for relationships, but i know that canonically she loves/likes/is attracted to yumeko so i don't hate this ship, i think it's decent, the only problem is that yumeko hates midari. Still i think that since they're the most insane mfs in that school somehow this ship could work. 6/10

Yuridari

Again midari in my eyes is kinda unshippable, but this ship is not bad at all, they would have that kind of bickering married couple dynamic like itsuki and kaede, i like it but it doesn't do much for me. 7/10

Ryomary

Jsjssjsksk i looked the name of mary x ryota's ship on wiki so if it sounds weird it's bc i don't know their ship name and i have looked at the first site google gave me. This ship is hard no, mainly bc ryota is very bland and i consider mary a lesbian (i read that she is a canon lesbian but idk if it's confirmed by the author, let's say lesbian mary is just my hc) so shipping her with men feels like a hate crime to me, mary is for the girls only, 4/10.

Tsumary

They are kind of cute together right ? I think they're adorable, tsuzura is mary's first love and i think that someone like her would make mary very happy. I still haven't finished kkg twin, so my opinion on tsuzura is incompleted and it might change, i don't hate her but i find her character a little basic/boring so even though this ship is cute it doesn't make me fall in love with them. 7/10 bc probably also tsuzura had feelings for mary and they have a healthy dynamic, you can see they love each other.

Midasaya

I enjoy this crackship, i know that they both like different people but i headcanon that they were together during middle school or that midari had at least a small crush on sayaka during that time, before kirari came to hyakkaou i like to think that they explored their sexuality together so midari was probably sayaka's first kiss, her first date, etc, so they would have history together and we also see that midari knows sayaka bc her character is described through her pov during tower of doors. I find this ship pretty funny bc sayaka is always so serious and composed and midari is a ball of chaos. 7/10

Yumesaya

This is another crackship i don't mind and find hilarious, yeah i'm a huge kirasaya stan but i'm also a multishipper and sayaka deserves all the girls in the world, so the more the merrier. I like to think this ship as one sided love in which yumeko sort of pines after sayaka and i think it would be very interesting to see kirari being jeaulous that sayaka is getting yumeko's attention. We saw jeaulous/protective sayaka in kakegurui, but i would also like to see how kirari reacts when someone tries to take sayaka away from her, it would be really interesting. Obv this would create some tension between kirasaya and also between kirari and yumeko, almost a sort of love triangle dynamic. My opinion is that yumeko is just too unstable to settle down, also they both probably would get bored/lose interest in each other after the heat of the moment. 6/10

Ririsaya

Sorry but i really can't see it happening not even if i squint, but i really enjoy the ririsaya fanfictions and i think those works are pretty great even though i don't ship them very much. It would be interesting if both twins were in love with sayaka and there was some tension/coldness between them for a while bc they liked the same girl (maybe i read too many fanfictions). My headcanon is that both sayaka and ririka had a crush on each other when they first knew each other and for sayaka it was probably pretty confusing bc she already had feelings for kirari. I see them as friends, 7/10

Yumemisaori

Again idk if this is the correct name of the ship, many said that yumemi and saori are a healthier/mentally stable version of kirasaya and i agree. the dynamics are similar bc we have the secratary that is willing to do everything for her boss and the relationship is a little more balanced, i think they would be very cute together, but sadly they had very little interactions and if i could see more of them i would probably ship them even more. I like them 7/10.

Sachiko x Mary

I didn't even find a ship name for this couple, so they must be pretty unpopular, i like both characters and their antagonistic dyanamic is very interesting, but i don't ship them much bc i think mary needs/wants someone who is completely different from sachiko, who wants to make mary her pet and mary is someone who cares very much about her freedom, her indipendence and wants to make her own choices and this completely clashes with sachiko's extremely sadistic and domineering nature. I prefer them as enemies who have some sexual tension or enemies with benefits or one night stand adventure, but nothing more. 5/6 out of 10 bc the only mary ship i really love is meariri and i also like tsuzumary a bit.

Sachiko x Mikura

This is probably one of the most unhealthy relationships in kakegurui, but i kinda like it. Their dyanmic is pretty much vertical with sachiko who has all the power and makes mikuro do everything she wants and mikura who is completely obsessed and devoted to sachiko (my opinion is that she developed a sort of stockholm syndrome towards sachiko). I think that someone like sachiko could never have genuine romantic relationships bc of her extremely sadistic nature, she sees ppl like toys to break and what she enjoys the most is seeing ppl suffer, so the only compatible person with sachiko is someone extremely masochistic like mikura. Giving them a 6/7 out of 10 bc their interactions are fun/interesting and spice things up.

Rin x Ibara and Yumeko x Kirari

Hard no to both of them, i don't ship incest, yall can do what you want but personally it's a huge no for me. When i first started watching the anime at the beginning i thought yumeko and kirari had some sort of tension and could have been enemies to lovers (lmaoo i was so naive), but then i discovered they were cousins and i saw more kirasaya interactions so i got completely turned off by this ship. 3/10 to both of these ships.

Sachiko x Sakura

Now this ship is very sexy, idk why i like it but i do, yes i don't see sachiko with anyone besides mikura, but this pairing is not bad at all, even though it's a crackship. I think they would be rivals with benefits and would argue a lot and then make out/have hot sex. 7/10 (maybe it's too high but since these are just my opinions i won't be objective)

Mary x kirari

Uhm is there really someone out there who ships them ? Yeah i thought they had some sexual tension in s1 with that tea scene, but it's a no from me, i don't like it and i don't think they're compatible in any way, i can't see kirari with anyone who isn't sayaka. 4/10

[manonblaqkbeak]

Among the Stacks

Back for Day 4-Librarians/Libraries, which I was super thrilled to see on the list, since I’m a certified library assistant and librarian technician and a big advocate for libraries in general and how important they are to society for a number of reasons!!!

This is just some wholesome fluff, most of these fics are (bc thats all i write lol) but i am preparing for a lil angst on the 10th ;)

Hope you all enjoy! :)

cw: none

1.5k words

There were many reasons why Aelin loved being a librarian technician and working at Orynth Public Library (of course there were reasons she very much disliked it, but the positives outweighed the negatives). The ever present scent of books was one, and the fact that she saved a ridiculous amount of money from borrowing books instead of buying them, as purchasing them became close to an addiction. The regular patrons that visited. Helping people with creating resumes and look for jobs because they couldn't afford laptops or computers at home, and looking for jobs on phones was annoying.

The overflowing suggestion box filled with ideas for books and ways to make the library more homely. Her comfortable office chair and her favourite cafe owned by a high school friend right around the corner, and the fact that Nesryn gave her discounts because she had set her up with her now-fiance Sartaq.

The laughter of babies and young children when it was story-time and the drawings that they created. The people that came to the library just to be somewhere else without feeling the pressure of having to spend money. The people that came sorely for the free WiFi and power-boards to charge their phones.

Working with her childhood friend and pseudo-sister Elide. And one very handsome and kind construction worker, Rowan Whitethorn.

Elide said that Aelin was in love with Rowan, with how she gushed over how pretty and intelligent he was, but Aelin denied that. It would be absurd to be in love with him. She just really liked him.

The only problem was she hadn't had the chance to ask him out on a date. She only saw him when he came in the library, and it was inappropriate to ask someone out while at work. There was also the fact that while he came here weekly, she wasn't sure if he was single, because surely someone that handsome had to be with someone.

But he hadn't mentioned any partners and Aelin didn't spot a ring, either on his finger or on a chain around his neck, but it still made Aelin hesitate.

Elide had told Aelin many times that when Rowan was here, he made 'heart eyes' when Aelin's back was turned. Aelin scoffed at the notion, but her heart flipped at that—Elide was freakishly observant and knew how to read people to a minuscule level.

Aelin was in the middle of covering the latest hardbacks, her mind completely focused on the task, when Elide said, typing away, “It's eleven A.M.”

Aelin looked at the large clock behind her and nodded. “That it is.”

A small smile was on Elide's lips, her dark eyes bright. “Just thought I'd let you know. Since a certain someone usually comes in around eleven-fifteen on Saturdays if he hasn't been here during the week.”

Elide could sometimes be as subtle as a brick to the head. Aelin finished the last book and cleaned her hands off with the hand sanitiser. She could feel her friends dark stare at the back of her head.

“I'm aware, thank you,” was all Aelin said.

If Aelin didn't ask Rowan out soon, Elide was going to do it for her—no matter how often Aelin repeated about the inappropriate aspect of it all.

Elide thought that was bullshit.

Telling her friend that she was going to put these books on the 'New Releases' shelf, Aelin once again focused on her task, straightening up other books as she went.

She had just finished up when a deep voice said behind her, “Good morning, Aelin.”

Smiling, she turned. “Good morning, Rowan.” She spotted his current read in his large hands. “How's the book going?”

He returned her smile. “Great. I was wondering if you had the sequel?”

“We should do, just follow me.” They had their usual conversations about their week, with Rowan telling her how a fellow worker had injured himself and how it had turned the whole production upside down. Apparently, his site manager was sweating buckets the entire time, fretting about paperwork more than anything else.

Aelin didn't envy his work at all. While there were chances for Aelin or others to hurt themselves in the library, the worst that had happened to Aelin in all her years here was a bruised foot after dropping a dictionary and the rare scolding she had received from her boss, Glennis, for not wearing the proper footwear. Her bruised foot was nothing compared to the torture of having to watch an hour long video about work health and safety the following morning.

As Aelin found the sequel, they stayed hidden among the stacks, talking about everything and nothing, with Aelin temporarily forgetting that she was at work and had other duties to attend to.

Because it was hard to remember what those duties were when she got lost in his dark green eyes. Especially when they trailed down the tattoo that started at his temple and down his neck, to his fingertips.

Aelin had never really been a fan about facial tattoos, but she really liked his. It suited him.

However, she was abruptly reminded of her job when she heard a young voice call out her name. It was one of her regular patrons, Evangeline, who was always here after school and on Saturdays tackling her homework and assignments. Her foster parents were negligent and didn't think that she needed a laptop to do her school work, since they didn't back in the “old days”, completely unaware that it was the digital age and laptops and computers were vital to get the work done.

Aelin excused herself, finding Evangeline flustered at her favourite spot, the desktop frozen and unaware of what to do. It was hard not to crush the girl into a hug when Aelin saw tears in her eyes, scared that she was going to get into trouble.

“Don't worry,” Aelin told the girl kindly, “it'll be okay. Sometimes computers get grumpy and have temper tantrums but I just know the right way to fix it.”

Unaware that Rowan left the stacks, she missed his soft smile as he watched her work her magic, instructing Evangeline step by step what to do if it happened again.

He made his way to the front desk, where Elide was still furiously typing away, muttering underneath her breath about cataloging.

Deciding that it would best to leave her to it and use the self-serve machine, Elide cleared her throat, catching his attention, and said, “Aelin's single.”

Elide was sick of watching them dance around each other. She understood Aelin's hesitancy, she did, but if she had to watch them flutter their eyes at each other one more time, she was going to lose it.

And Elide was aware that Rowan was aware of why Aelin hadn't asked him out, and that he didn't want to appear inappropriate and ask Aelin out while she was at work. Elide respected for it, truthfully.

So Elide had decided to do it herself, inappropriateness be damned.

Rowan blinked, and blinked again, clearly unsure what to say or do. He came back over to her desk, tattooed hand striking against the plain book cover.

But he recollected himself, and asked, “Does she suffer from hay-fever?”

“No. And once she's done helping Evangeline over there, she'll be going to her favourite cafe for her late morning caffeine fix.”

Rowan nodded, his mind already on what flowers he would buy for her. She had a small Kingsflame tattoo on her wrist and told him it was her favourite flower when he asked her about it weeks ago. “Thank you, Elide.”

Elide simply smiled and reached for his book as Aelin came around, talking to the both of them, when Rowan asked if they knew of any good cafes.

It was good that he was finally taking that step, but Elide had to stop herself from laughing at how completely unsubtle the question was. Elide was already prepared for when Aelin would ask her later what happened between them.

But Aelin smiled and told him of her favourite place and they left together.

X X X X X X

Aelin ordered her usual, a caramel macchiato with two shots, and Rowan ordered a flat white with soy milk (he suffered from lactose intolerance, which Aelin would hate if that was her, because she had once tried lactose free chocolate and it was dreadful).

Rowan pulled out her chair when they sat out front, taking a seat across from her. Her heart flipped at the sweet gesture.

“I was wondering,” he started off with, his eyes staring unflinchingly into hers, “if you'd like to go out on a date sometime?”

Aelin didn't even think twice before accepting and they planned it out right there, exchanging numbers at the end of it. He walked her back to the library, a small smile on both their lips.

From the smile that Elide gave her when she returned, Aelin knew she was involved—and not at all surprised—and at that moment, Aelin was very happy to have a friend like Elide.

And for her date that very night with Rowan.

[twinklelilstarkey]

can i request an fluffy rafe imagine where he and reader break up (drugs) so sarah makes a girls night bc y/n it’s really sad and then rafe apologizes to her and they back together? omg i think it’s a little confuse..

A/N: Not confusing at all babe. I really like what you requested! Hope you enjoy it! — I’m sorry for not making it as fluffy as you probably wanted me too ❤️

Get help - Rafe Cameron

Words: 2.9k

Type: Angst & Fluff

Warnings: I- This is wayyy more sad that I intended it to be. Sorry? (Mentions of drug addiction and rehabilitation clinics, swearing... and I think that’s it)

DO NOT REPOST, REWRITE OR TRANSLATE ANY OF MY WORK!

It’s been a week since you last saw him and it still hurt. You miss him so much and it has become harder and harder to ignore these feelings. You have tried making yourself believe that this happened for the best of the two of you but it’s slowly getting tougher to swallow.

You and Rafe had been dating for years before that night happened, it still hurt to think of him.

You believe you’ve cried everything you could. Your body is now completely dehydrated and no tears are being created. In which you can’t help but thank with your now zombie-like mood.

“I’m going to get us a coffee, do you want anything else?” Sarah, your best friend, who is sitting next to you, asks.

You shake your head and she gives you a small smile. You stare back at the screen of your laptop, in hopes to finish what you were previously doing for school, and try to ignore all the sound around you.

You whisper the words you were reading to yourself, trying to make them make sense, but your peaceful silence is broken by a group of guys walking in the café. You sigh annoyed while staring at the screen, wanting to throw something at their loud mouths. But decide otherwise.

“Hey, Sarah. Haven’t seen you in a while” One of the guy says and you lift your eyes to where Sarah is standing.

Sarah smiles at Topper and starts a conversation as soon as she does it. You look away from them and look at the other person standing beside him, Rafe. He’s looking around himself, eyeing the inside of the café that he has never seen before. 

You force yourself to look away and lean back on the couch that you’re siting, trying to pay attention to something else other than him as your chest gets heavier and heavier by each second that passes.

Sarah says a little goodbye to Topper and ignores her brother’s presence before walking towards you. Rafe fakes trying to trip Sarah and she sends him a glare, which just made all the boys laugh. 

His eyes follow his sister and his smile falls at the sight of you staring at the screen of your laptop. You look up at Sarah as she hands you your drink and laugh at something she says.

He pleads, in his mind, for you to look up at him but you don’t do it. You’re too distracted with whatever his sister is saying to you. And only God knows that might be.

“Yo, Rafe. Can you please come back to Earth for a second?” Topper asks, making his best friend snap out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, what, sorry?”

(...)

“I promise it will be cool” Sarah insists, “We can spend the night watching movies and eating junk food”

“How is going to my ex boyfriend’s house going to help me move on or even feel better?” You ask as she lays comfortably in your bed.

“He’s never home at Friday’s!” She exclaims, “We’ll have the house to ourselves the whole night. It’s way better than staying here, where you need to have your door open because of your parents... Seriously, when are they going to trust you enough to close the door?”

You chuckle at her words and shake your head.

“Ah! Made you laugh!”

You roll your eyes and turn your attention back to your book.

“Now, can you please agree on coming over to my house? It will be so cool, I already have so many movies in mind. Oh! And soooo many snacks”

You think for a few seconds in silence.

“Please” She whispers into the air, looking at the ceiling, “You will have so much fuuun”

As Sarah is done singing her words, a smile fills your lips again and you sigh.

“Fine. But just tonight”

(...)

If Sarah could describe out loud what she’s feeling, she would have to do a whole essay. Because...

Why the fuck is Rafe still home at this time of day? Isn’t he supposed to be in a party?

The thing is, you’re almost getting to her house. Just like you had planned. There’s snacks on top of Sarah’s bed, the chosen movie is already paused at her bedroom tv and the pizza is also on its way.

Her 19 year old brother is the one fucking it all up. 

You’re supposed to come into her home to forget about him, and be calm and relaxed. And now, she feels like wherever she looks, Rafe’s there.

“Weren’t you supposed to be at a party today?” Sarah finally asks.

Rafe looks up from his phone, still leaning back on the kitchen counter, not even knowing that she had been glaring at him this whole time.

“Yeah, but I decided not to go” He answers with a shrug.

“Won’t that make you a bad friend?”

She’s using every play in the book now. She needs him gone for at least the whole night.

Rafe chuckles at his sister’s words and looks at her confused.

“No?”

Sarah sighs and walks over to the fridge when listening to his answer. Rafe follows her with his eyes as she fills a cup with water and curiosity takes over him.

“Why?”

“No reason”

“Bullshit”

Sarah rolls her eyes at his stubbornness and looks back before staring back at him.

“I wanted the whole house for myself and my friend, is that too much to ask?”

Rafe laughs.

“Since when am I such a bother to your little sleepovers? You never leave your room anyway”

Sarah opens her mouth to answer but the ringing of the doorbell stops her from doing so. Rafe lifts his eyebrows as if in surprise when seeing her reaction and lowers his eyes back to his phone.

Sarah glares at her brother when noticing that he isn’t planning on leaving the kitchen any soon and turns on her heels to go to the front door. 

As she walks closer to the door, she smiles at you through the glass and opens it.

“Hi!” She says excitingly, “Are you ready for the night of your life?”

You smile at her, “Sure”.

Sarah steps to the side to let you in the house, and you wait for her to start walking towards her room so you can follow her.

As you pass the kitchen doorway, you can’t help but look inside. You’re used to looking in and seeing Rose doing something, but this time, it isn’t Rose. It’s Rafe.

Air gets caught in your throat and you look away as quickly as you can. Rafe stays on his phone innocently, not even acknowledging who just came into his house.

Should you say something to Sarah? Does she not know that he’s in the house too?

You and Sarah get to her room rather quickly and she closes the door right behind you two as you walk in.

She’s quick to lay in her bed and open the covers for you, and you can’t help but grin at her as she opens one bag of chips right away.

“You ready?” She asks before pressing the play and you nod, “Let’s go”

Sarah presses the play and the sound of the universal studios entrance fills the silent room. You bring the covers closer to you and Sarah hands you the bag of chips just so you can take some of them.

And...

Not even halfway through the movie, Sarah highly regrets watching the movie while laying down because she’s out like a light.

You stare at the TV in silence, grinning slightly at Sarah’s slight snores as the main characters talk about their feelings in the TV.

But your mind is occupied with something else. You’re not paying much attention to the movie anymore. The plot stopped being of your interested when you noticed that Sarah had chosen the movie purely because of the cast.

Understandable, we’ve all done it. But romance movies are not a good choice when you’re trying to forget your failed relationship.

Already tired with your thoughts, you stand on your feet, away from the bed and drag yourself out of the bedroom.

Rafe must be in his party, now, since that was what Sarah said when you questioned his presence in the kitchen.

You walk down the stairs of the empty and silent house and drag your warm feet over the cold ground towards the kitchen.

As you grab a cup from the shelf above you, you almost groan at all the memories that hit you at once.

All the times that you and Rafe made breakfast on his days off classes, eating cheap fluffy pancakes until you felt sick with just the idea of drinking water. Or when you helped him through a big hangover after a big party.

The second memory hits you like a tone of bricks. 

Those mornings and the nights before, after the parties, were the reason of your breakup. You couldn’t stand to see Rafe kill himself with all the alcohol almost every night and the various drugs that his friends could get a hold of each month.

You walk towards the fridge, chest heavy with heartbreak, and fill your cup with cold water. The feeling of the freezing temperature over your fingertips wakes you up back to reality.

You hear steps in the hallway, right outside of the kitchen, and you don’t think much of it as it might be Sarah.

The door swings open and your eyes widen slightly at the sight of Rafe. His hair a complete mess, his eyes hold a sleepless look, and his clothes are slightly scrunched up. He looks like he’s had a rough night.

You don’t say anything, looking away as he looks at you. He clears his throat as if to fill the silence in the air and walks towards the shelf, grabbing a glass cup. 

He didn’t know you were the one sleeping over.

He doesn’t look at you or says anything. 

You can’t help but think in all this silence how much you want to run home, right now. You love Sarah but you can’t stay here any longer.

Your feet don’t move from under you and you’re left to stare at the floor as Rafe fills his cup with water as well. 

Both of you silent, fearing to break the peaceful absence of sound as your minds fill with all the good memories and the possible beginnings of conversation.

You finish your water and walk towards the sink to leave the cup beside it. Rafe’s eyes stay on you as you do it, but you don’t care to look up before walking out of the kitchen.

“Shit” Rafe whispers to himself as he hears your footsteps getting further away from the doorway.

You walk in the living room, not wanting to go back to bed, and make your way towards the glass sliding doors that lead to the porch.

The warm air of the last summer night hits you and you walk out, leaving the door slightly open. You walk towards the railing of the porch and lean against it, watching the calm waters under the dim lighting coming from the house.

You sigh as you rest your cheek over your fist and close your eyes to try and concentrate on your breathing other than your feelings.

The door behind you slides slightly but you don’t care to look back to see who it is. But that is until, it slides closed and someone stands right beside you.

“I wanted to talk to you” Rafe says.

You take a quick look at him before staring away into the grass of the garden right in front of you.

“About?” You ask in a whisper as he doesn’t say anything else.

“I don’t know” He answers with a shrug and you frown in confusion, “I just wanted to talk to you”

He really likes making everything worse for you, uh?

“We’re not supposed to be in talking terms,” You answer, “Not after our last conversation”

“I know”

You look down at your hands and play with your fingers as a way to fight out your emotions.

“I’ve- Uhm...” Rafe starts but pauses. You look up at him and see him scratching the back of his neck while staring at the ground.

“You’ve what?” You encourage.

“I’ve been clean for a week” He admits and looks down at you.

You look away and do a very small smile, rather fake, while staring at the grass once again.

“Hope it lasts” You say before biting your cheek.

“Me too”

Silence, again.

“I’m... I’m sorry for not listening to you before. About the addiction, I mean.”

You don’t say anything.

“You were right, and I was too stupid to not want to listen to you” He continues, “I’m sorry”

You look up to find him still staring. His gaze softens at the sight of you finally looking back and you give him a slight grin.

“You don’t need to say sorry. I’m sure it’s not something easy to swallow, to hear someone say that you’re addicted to something”

Rafe observes your expression twitch slightly at the mention of his addiction and his chest tightens at your saddened gaze as you sigh.

“I did it to myself” He admits with a shrug, “Just didn’t expect these many consequences to come from it”

“Like?”

The look he gives you is a good enough answer. You look away with that and he tenses up next to you.

He just screwed everything up, didn’t he?

“It happens, Rafe” You whisper, “At least it was able to motivate you into changing”

“Yeah... It was” He agrees, “I just- you know, feel like this could’ve been done in other ways”

“Of course, it could’ve” You answer bringing your shoulder up as if you’re shrugging, “This is just where our argument took us”

Rafe can’t help but disagree. It wasn’t the ‘argument’s fault’, it’s his. His words. His sick and disgustingly affected by whatever he took, words.

“Will you ever forgive me?” He blurs out, catching both you and himself by surprise.

“Forgive you?” You ask confused, “I’m not even mad at you”

“You’re not?”

“No” You say with a frown, shaking your head slightly, “I’m mad at myself more than I am at you. I could’ve helped you before you became addicted, and I-”

“You know it isn’t your fault that I’m the fuck-up that I am, right?” He asks you and you glare at him.

“Don’t call yourself that” You say, “We’ve been over this, Rafe.”

“It’s true” He says with a slightly annoyed tone, “I fuck up everything, I’m just-”

“Shut up”

He falls silent, not wanting to ruin anything further.

“You’re not a fuck up” You say, annoyed that he could even think that, “Don’t let your mistakes fucking define you, Rafe. We’ve talked about this. You’ve fucked up, yes. But who hasn’t?” You pause so that the words can sink in, “Sarah has fucked up, I’ve fucked up. Your own dad has fucked up before... I didn’t break up with you because of your mistakes”

He looks at you confused.

“I’ve broken up with you because I couldn’t bear to see you kill yourself any further while everyone fucking stared and did a whole bunch of nothing” Tears swell up in your arms, “And that maybe, just maybe, you could’ve taken your mind off your drugs to just think about what you can lose with them”

You sniffle and look away, not wanting him to see you cry.

“It was my selfish way to make you wake up, want to try and get help-” You say with your voice shaking, but he interrupts you.

“Hey” He says, “It wasn’t selfish”

“I-”

“No, you’re going to hear me, now” He interrupts, “How can you say that what you did was selfish when you were trying to help me? That makes no sense! I’m not getting help yet, but if that’s what you want me to do, I’ll call my dad right fucking now and I’ll go to a clinic tomorrow”

“Rafe” You start, turning back to look at him.

“I know I’m supposed to do this for myself and not anyone else, but fuck. I’ve been dating you for years. I love you more than I’ll ever love myself. I can’t lose you. Not over something that I did”

A sob escapes your mouth and you cover it with your hand. Rafe, with that, pulls you to his chest and wraps his arms around you.

“Just please, give me another chance” He whispers into your hair, “This time, I’ll get all the help I need. I won’t ever push you away, or put anything before me and you”

You wrap your arms tightly around his torso and sniffle into his chest.

“Okay” You whisper, “But you have to promise me that you’ll get the help as soon as possible”

You look up at him, still hugging him, and he looks down at you.

“I promise”

A faint smiles is drawn over your lips and Rafe presses a kiss onto your wet cheek, pulling you back into the tight hug.

“I’ll call my dad tomorrow” He whispers.

“And I’ll be there with you” You whisper back.

- - - - - - -

I honestly almost cried while correcting this. Am I the only one?

[snaxpo]

i don’t think whatever conspiracy the game’s ending alludes to is the grumpinati per se, not just bc of the discussion abt the fanon surrounding it from a few days ago, but in my opinion i think it’d just be kinda anticlimactic. as zuhn’s said themself, bugsnax is a game where the characters are only ever half-right. having even one of them be 100% correct all along feels almost like too much payoff way too soon, if that makes any sense.

that said, i don’t think discarding the concept entirely is necessary.

imagine you’re stationed at some research outpost off the coast of this island with a couple other folks. there’s like, a worrying amount of lost civilizations there, and that’s weird, right? because even when a civilization collapses on its own, it’s rare that the actual people in it disappear - and the first settlers came long after those people were gone, so it’s not like they were the ones who wiped them out, and the wildlife seems perfectly benign. so what happened?

and then you find out the island is a parasitic colony organism that quiet literally feeds on the emotionally vulnerable.

you make it out just in time after finding out. not all of you, but enough to form some kind of plan. you think the first civilization established, by far the longest-lived, got by just fine giving their old and dying to the island at first, but eventually one of those things must’ve gotten hold of a younger, healthier, more volatile specimen, and the situation spiraled out of control from there. but that’s all an afterthought - what matters is what you’re going to do about it now.

you decide can’t tell anyone about this. sooner or later some idiot would try to make a tourist trap out of the place, not realizing how literal that title was. or maybe they’d try to sell the vermin there as pets, let them infest the outside world until the whole globe was bugsnax. or maybe they’d travel just for the thrill. far too risky.

after much deliberation, you reach a decision: in time, the outpost will be rebuilt. a new team will be sent in. the island seems sated for now, but you’ve seen how it moves - how it blinks and breathes, and how it lurches, as though trying to uproot itself from its fixed point in the ocean. there’s no telling what it’ll do if it gets hungry again and runs out of patience, and you don’t want to find out. so you get to work on setting up a second expedition, years from now.

some people try to quit. you don’t blame them, but there’s no way you can risk letting them go.

nobody comes back from the second expedition. it is a resounding success. you make plans for a third.

decades pass by, then a century, then two. you keep the numbers to a minimum, only sending a group in once reports of seismic activity start coming in again. each one gets a different cover story - a ritzy private yacht charter, a construction site for the next alcatraz, a raffle for a ghost tour. most often, it’s an expedition. you learn how to pick off people that’ll rouse the least suspicion - ones everyone expects to die soon for one reason or another, or ones that won’t be missed. not by anyone important, anyway. if you can get them from all over the globe, even better. there’s billions of people on the planet, and we only ever get 14 at a time, you tell yourself. the population will recover. in time, it will become just another urban legend. speaking of urban legends, they are immensely helpful. you take full advantage of them, use them to create imaginary enemies for any particularly sharp travelers that would cause problems later. you suppose in a way it’s still you, just donning a different mask. it’s always a carefully crafted caricature, meant to serve as a distraction, like a laser pointer. and in your defense, they almost always fall for it.

it gets easier as time goes on. you get more resources, more people willing to join the cause. not a lot of morally upstanding ones, but you’re basically dealing with a modern-day minotaur, so you know fully well that beggars can’t be choosers. it works.

there are arguments, of course. have been ever since the beginning - sending people to the slaughter unawares is unnecessarily cruel, they argue, and if they were really that dedicated to keeping the island satisfied then you should be willing to sacrifice yourself to it. they get shot down every time - maybe because there really is no other way, maybe because you don’t want to die, maybe because you just want to feel like you still have control over something that grew far beyond your grasp long ago. you don’t dwell on it.

sometimes one or two members manage to avoid assimilation. depending on how they react, you either make them disappear or you take them in as your own, let them join the ranks, and make plans to send in the next group a little earlier. you absorb them into yourselves. the similarities are not lost on you.

somehow, you never thought to have a contingency plan for when all of them survive.