#if anyone has advice on how to do glitch effect

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Hi there! I had an idea for either series!ENA or BBQ!ENA interacting with a reader who's like a therapist or something. Like Ena says something kinda messed up and reader's like "no, that's not normal. Are you ok?" Both these girls need so much therapy, or at least a friend. I think reader becoming protective of Ena would be cute. Reader getting mad at the other entities for being mean to Ena without any real reason (that they know of). If you can't/don't want to do this for any reason, that's OK! Take your time and put yourself first!

I can do both!

..........

Series!ENA

Even though Ena (in Power of Potluck) talked to the Therapist, got rid of Mask, and tried to find joy in the little moments--he believes that someone should still keep an eye on her.

That's where you come in, befriending her just to see how she's been handling life in general ever since her session.

Mask hasn't returned, but right off the bat she looks troubled as you explain who sent you and why, although you reassure her it's normal for your boss to request that you checked up on his past patients.

During your talks, her happier side has no complaints really, always grateful to have a new friend. But she does admit to being bothered by her sad side--mainly the effects it had on people she knew.

She's constantly apologizing for her emotions getting "out of hand", even in front of you, and tries burying that sadness--but she gets a wakeup call after you explain how that can do more harm than good.

Eventually, you build enough trust with Ena that she'll willingly turn into her sadder form, and remain in that state long enough for you to make meaningful progress with her.

You notice her tendencies to jump to nonsensical negative conclusions/inaccurate perceptions of herself.....and of course, she has a lot of crying fits/glitches that you gotta help her cope with.

"I-I don't know, I just feel..stupid and worthless sometimes..a-and everyone around me agwees.."

"You believe everybody thinks of you that way? Can you give me an example?"

"W-Well..this one guy asked me for diwections yesterday, a-and...and I couldn't help him!"

"So...he called you those things as an insult?"

"No, h-he thanked me for twying and w-was polite. But I know that's what he weally wanted to say!! Because I'm too stupid and worthless to give anyone diwections!!"

"How do you know for sure he was thinking that?"

"......I....I-I don't know, actually.."

You've gotten better at redirecting her negative thinking, and making her realize that a lot of her assumptions are kinda silly...

Least to say, she feel better coming to you for advice.

Some days she wants to ramble about her day with Moony or what she saw in the sky. Other times, she just needs a hug and a shoulder to cry on. And you're more than willing to offer those at any time.

Outside of your work, you've tagged along in her many adventures, seeing for yourself how rude other entities act towards her---and knowing so many languages helps you easily back sass those who insult her.

They always assume you can't understand them...until you leave them (and Ena) shocked when you suddenly speak their same language.

Dream BBQ!ENA

"So the Genie of the Lonely Door basically told me I'm unforgivable and should be punished for being born.......but that's not even the worst part of that day-"

"P a u s e."

That pretty much sums up your sessions/hangouts with this Ena.

As soon as she was done dealing with the Boss, she finally took time off of work to get some much-needed counseling.

Fortunately, you were a friend she met during one of her assignments who happened to be pursuing psychology, travelling far and wide to study the minds of everyone you've met.

You suggested that she gave therapy with you a try and, holy hell...you were in for a surprise.

She was willing to pay you in chocolates, fatty catties, etc. for your services....which was perfect compensation considering you may need therapy for yourself.

Salesperson yaps about the most recent absurd/rude thing an entity did or said to her...while pretending like it's just another day in the workweek, looking confused when you point out how that's not normal at all.

Meanie, on the other hand, is a different beast. And is honestly the half you're more worried about.

Since she represents the typical fatigued worker who's trapped in their job and feels like they can't afford to have any fun or luxuries without suffering for it.....she vents a lot, and her opening up about it is like her chipping through a brick wall.

Her anxiety over even mentioning the things that bother her is enough to make vines creep onto her body.

And one time, her broken green form showed up at your doorstep, which was terrifying at first glance....but then you recognized that she desperately needed your help--and you let her in, consoling her until she was able to restabilize and explain what led to that state.

Luckily that's the only time you've ever seen that form, and the vines on her body have grown smaller and weaker to the point where they were barely visible.

It quickly becomes apparent to you that Ena is struggling with some form of PTSD, as though she was a soldier trying to find her place in regular society again--returning from a war that you had no idea even occurred.

You've been trying to uncover the mystery of what she's done in the past...and if that was connected to why so many people seemed to hate her.

Regardless of the reason, though, you hoped to remain her friend and that she'd keep visiting you as often as she needed.

[utterfuckingchaos]

Ask Blog is open

Doin' this again, I had two other blogs, deleted them both due to anxiety, which is a bitch, so I'm back after a few months.

Main AU is VOIDED, where the various Sprunks have all in one way or another gotten themselves entangled in the reaching Sprunki multiverse.

VOID!Oren: A male anthro moth, aged 21, dating Raddy and Pinki. He's a rapper, (kinda like bf from fnf), and has ended up in many of the more goofy Sprunki mods, and various other horror Incredibox mods.

VOID!Raddy: A Hellbeast, like RED from the Nes Godzilla Creepypasta. He's had to endure some of the worst punishment in the various Sprunki phases, and is more annoyed with it than upset or scared.

VOID!Clukr: A human, he just has a neat hat. He's a professional drummer, and has been doing his best to comfort various Spunkis that have been gored or brutalized by whatever infection or corruption the horror section is.

VOID!Fun Bot: A sentient AI, a sort of upgraded version of Mr.Fun Computer. Sort of just there, trying his best to keep up spirits along with VOID!Clukr for the various victims.

VOID!Vineria: A plant monster, made up of various strains of Cannabis, so she's constantly high. She prefers to help repair the damage caused by the corruption, either dulling the pain of various infection, or helping regrow the damage earth.

VOID!Grey: A slugcat from Rain World, only slightly majorly effected by the horror segments of various Sprunki mods. Tries their best to help, but their anxiety severely cripples them in that department. They prefer to stay home, and watch funny videos online, and chill with their big sis Wenda.

VOID!Brud: A sentient dirt monster, their face tends to fall off or get all messed up due to them just being dirt, the bucket they wear keeps part of their head on. Ends up being a good distraction for any corruption, because Brud can't die, no matter what.

VOID!Garnold: A human, shes a trans female DJ, inspired by Daft Punk. Works with VOID!Oren to make sick ass tunes, and sets up rap battles for Oren to take on. She's married to Lime, who is called Cadi in this AU.

Cadi(VOID!Lime): An anthro squirrel, trans male. He's a psychotherapist, only acts crazy due to losing a bet with Wenda 20 years ago that went double or nothing 20 times. While VOID!Clukr and VOID!Vineria try their best to help calm down survivors and victims of the corruption, Cadi actually gets them professional help and slowly gets them back on the road of recovery.

VOID!Sky: Anthro bear, aged 17, trans male. He's a twitch streamer, and doesn't like people who annoy him or fuck with his friends, and will insult and belittle anyone who does brutally.

VOID!Mr.Sun: Is dead, VOID!Tunner killed him.

VOID!Durple: A male VOIDDRAGON, set to be the main overseer of the Sprunki Multiverse, doesn't know what the hell he's doing and is way in over his head, married to VOID!Simon, and VOID!Sky is his adopted son.

VOID!Mr. Tree: Sentient tree that wishes for the fall of all Sprunki kind, was the one to trigger the corruption in the first place. Has gotten humbled by VOID!Tunner multiple times, but still tries to mess with the other Sprunkis.

VOID!Simon: Anthro moth, older brother of VOID!Oren. He helps out VOID!Durple with the overseer job, giving him sound advice on how to best help the multiverse. Is very fluffy.

VOID!Tunner: Male anthro desert horned lizard. A true badass, was Courier 6 from New Vegas, takes no shit from people who wish to manipulate and use others for their gain, and will kill anyone who harms others for fun. Married to Starlo from Undertale Yellow, and is the caretaker of VOID!Brud.

VOID!Mr. Fun Computer: A beta version of Fun Bot, just a silly little guy who likes to sing, barely sentient. More like your standard chat AI you have now-a-days. Somehow keeps getting glitched by random corruptions.

VOID!Wenda: Normal anthro cat, female. Older sister of VOID!Grey, her adopted younger brother. She's sick and tired of versions of herself being murderers or monsters, and tries to right their wrongs. Likes to look good, pissed off when her fur gets covered in blood every single corruption.

VOID!Pinki: Anthro bnuuy, female. Huge gore and horror enthusiast, never swears, and is one of, if not the most kind out of all the Sprunkis. Dating VOID!Oren and VOID!Raddy. She loves to record the gore and effects of the corruption she sees, rather helpful for any paramedics who show up to heal what they can.

VOID!Jevin: Anthro bat, kinda an emo, male. Tends to stick to himself, was the one who got Onyx (VOID!Black) to join the friend group, and will vouch for him any day of the week. He tries to understand the multiverse versions of Black, trying to see why they're doing what they're doing.

Onyx(VOID!Black): Shadow monster, male. Just a shy 20 year old that's into classic internet horror, has a lot of angst due to problems with his mother, that angst was manipulated by VOID!Mr. Tree, causing the corruption in the first place. Feels terrible that his problems caused the corruption, and will stop at nothing to try and stop any form of corruption in the Sprunki multiverse.

--

Send any of these characters an ask at any time, can't draw but I can write rather well, so you'll have that. Open to rp at any time, just send an ask.

[eyesoverinfinity]

Episode 6: we're bacon out here!

The intro plays, it is a Introduction to all 8 of the hosts of this show: Zoey, Louis, Francis, Bill, Ellis, Nick, Rochelle and Coach.

Then the logo appears:

The logo dissipates as pre-recorded clapping plays. Today they are outside, they aren't wearing their usual outfits but instead wearing much more casual and light clothing.

Louis is holding the camera in his hand, the image is a selfie like format.

Louis: Welcome to 8 in the kitchen! The show were we make food and may regret it later! Today we aren't in the kitchen because government officials are working with the Amazonians in destroying the Dark Fruit plant.

The camera is turned around to the building that the hosts work in, it's a normal brick building with a sign that says 'Valve networks'. it's covered in ice, dead vines and a combination of scientists, government officials and clean up crews from both the American and Amazonian governments.

Louis: It's going to take awhile and we don't want to leave you all waiting so we're making our food outside today!

Louis turns the camera back to revel that everyone is sweating.

Louis: In the biggest heatwave of the century.... Yeah... I'll get someone to edit the current temperature in post recording.

The screen shows the current temperature in the middle of the screen.

115 degrees Fahrenheit

and in small text underneath:

46 degrees Celsius for everyone else.

Louis: Today Zoey has the chef hat, what are we making Zoey?

The camera pans to Zoey, who is standing next to Rochelle under an umbrella Nick is holding.

Zoey: What I was originally going to make needed electricity. and the recipe itself needs some reviewing.

Ellis's voice can be heard from off screen.

Ellis: Did it not taste good?

Zoey: Let's just say it'll be world shattering when I perfect it.

The screen glitches at the words 'world shattering'.

Nick: Well that was ominous.

Louis: Did the ground just shake a bit?

Bill: You're just overheating son.

Louis: Ok... So what are we making today?

Zoey: You see this sidewalk?

Louis: Yeah?

Zoey pulls out some bacon and eggs.

Rochelle: Please tell me we're not...

Zoey: We are!

Zoey puts some oil on the sidewalk and cracks an egg onto it.

Zoey: It's so hot we're cooking eggs on a side walk!

Air horns sound effects are heard.

Nick: That's great and all, but what's the hook here? Unless we're doing an ASMR of us over heating-

Ellis: I mean there'd probably be an audience for that nowadays.

Nick: -I don't see the point.

Zoey: We are answering the questions of random people on the internet!

Nick: That works.

Zoey: The question itself will be shown onscreen when we answer them, to make it easier for anyone hard of hearing.

The camera is set up in a tripod under an umbrella. Everyone sits under some more beach umbrellas set up next to the sidewalk. The eggs and bacon are sizzling nicely.

Zoey: Ok, first ask is:

Coach: Ah, I had some good times with those kids. I still visit them sometimes. When I was still in the school I'd get everyone and go to burger tank, but now I know how to cook they ask me to make them stuff from the show. It's nice. If your watching, Hi kids!

Zoey: Ok, next question.

Nick: Well-

Francis: You sure you want to ask the guy with the ex-wife for dating advice?

Nick: This is my question Francis.

Francis: Just saying.

Nick: Well at least I've gotten married.

Francis shrugs as if to say fair enough.

Nick: Usually, I'd learn what their favourite food was and give them that. But in my humble-

Bill: Humble? that's a laugh.

Nick: -opinion, It's hard to go wrong with a good roast.

Zoey: alright then, next one...

Coach: Wouldn't you like to know.

Zoey: Your not answering this are you?

Coach: Nope~

Zoey: Figurers, you've already driven Rochelle insane trying to figure it out.

Rochelle: How did you mange to hide EVERY SINGLE DOCUMENT related to you in the school system!? I couldn't even find your resume!

Coach smiles but says nothing.

Zoey: Anyways.... Next one:

Nick: Oh god why would you ask him that.

Francis: Oh come on! His stories are hilarious!

Ellis: Thanks man.

Nick: I don't care, it'll take the up the whole episode! Move on the the next question.

Zoey:

Bill: Sounds like we don't have a choice.

Nick: How about the next one?

Zoey:

Nick: God danm it.

Zoey: Nick, I've got like 50 more of these. This is the most asked question period. We have to do this at least once.

Nick: FINE, just... just chose a short one.

Ellis: Oh man. Food experiments? I've got a great one for that. This one time, My buddy Keith wanted to know what you had to do to make sugar expire. So first we put it into the oven, but that just made it melt, we tried a bunch of other things like feeding it to a furby then cutting it open, but then Keith had the BEST idea.

Nick: Ok, how's this one going to devolve?

Ellis: He remembered that military camp that he got bombed at and decided that we should see what bombs would do!

Nick: and there it is.

Ellis: So we snuck into the base and placed the sugar in the middle of the field and waited. So we're watching from a distance with a camera to record this masterpiece, when who should come but two solders. We thought that they'd call someone about it but you know what they did?

Rochelle: What?

Ellis: Sons of bicthes begin eaten it! So we run in and take the sugar back, cause that's our sugar experiment and the only people that's gonna eat it is us. But the soldiers then get on our backs 'bout "Entering a restricted area"

Coach: Maybe they had a point.

Ellis: Please, everyone my age and under has snuck in there at one point. anyways not much interesting stuff happened after that, we got chased. But we got out ok. Never did see the bombs drop though.... You think our boss would fund that?

Bill: Son... I want to say no but.... Just don't.

Ellis looks a bit disappointed. But says:

Ellis: Ok.

Zoey: Next question:

Rochelle: Oh that's a hard one! I love both of them, but I think I'll go with savoury. There's so many different flavours and recipes that can come from it, variety is the spice of life after all. Its also less like it give you health problems so there's that.

Louis: The last bit really depends on what your eating though. Like, and apple is a lot better for you then deep fried chicken.

Rochelle: That's true. But who actually puts fruit in the sweet category?

Zoey: I put it in the breakfast category.

Louis: Zoey, we're roommates. I've seen you eat peanut butter by itself for breakfast.

Bill: Wait you do what?

Zoey: NEXT QUESTION!

Francis: Where do I begin?!

Rochelle: Oh boy.

Francis: There's wasting food, calling salt a spice, buying an air fryer.

Rochelle: I still don't understand your hatred of that thing in particular.

Francis: The only reason people buy it is to say that they are better and richer then everyone else! But that's not the worse thing.

Nick: Ok, I'll bite. What's the worse thing?

Francis: Cross contamination.

The hosts all shudder.

Coach: I'm with you Francis, that's the worst.

Francis: I know right? Just wash the knife! Or get a new one! It's not that hard.

Zoey: Next question

Louis: To put it simply, lot a things going right and something going wildly wrong. These episodes, like any show, take a lot of team work and effort to put together. They hinge on everyone doing their job well, luckily we have a very talented team working with us.

A blushing emoji appears for a few seconds.

Louis: But, the fun in this show is the chaos of what we try to do, that's why it doesn't matter if we fail. Not to us anyway. If we have fun doing it, and if we are sometimes we're attacked by our food.-

Coach: That was one time!

Zoey: It was a week ago.

Louis: -That's what people are looking for, and that's what we'll do.

Zoey: With that heart warming answer, here's a morbid, and hard to read, question.

Bill: I don't why you asked for zombies specifically, that's more Zoey's field, but it'd really depend on what doesn't get toppled when the government goes down. Any thing fresh with expire within a week, and cans don't last as long as you think without proper storage. Can you make something taste good? Yes, you'd have to kill and scavenge but you could do it. Will it taste like anything pre-apocalypse? No.

Louis: Man, that was weird question.

Rochelle: I mean with the current political climate....

Louis: But why zombies?

Ellis: It's a popular genre.

Zoey: Umm....

Nick: What's the next question?

Zoey:

Zoey: What's a sp-

The phone Zoey is holding starting giving off sparks and she drops it. The camera feed begins to distort, showing what seems to be a city on fire, but stops when the phone hits the floor.

Rochelle: What was that?!

Coach: That's it! The heat got to the phone and is getting to us, everyone inside now!

Leaving the phone, everyone begins to pack up. Ellis picks up the phone and the feed cuts out. The feed returns to show everyone in-doors. it looks to be a decently sized house with an AC. Zoey and Coach are laying on the couch, with Coach asleep. Bill is siting at the table behind the couch playing a card game with Nick and Francis. Ellis can't be seen in the shot but fridge noises can be heard off screen.

Louis is holding the camera in his hand. The symbols in the bottom right corner reveal that they are now using a proper house hold camera instead of a iPhone.

Louis: Ok, we are now inside Coach's house. Sorry that we couldn't do more, but we did get in at least one question each so I hope you enjoyed it anyway. And for those who are worried about the bacon and eggs-

Louis winces, but keeps quiet to not wake Coach.

Louis: Keith ate it off the ground when he picked us up... We'll have a normal episode next time if you can call our episodes that. Bye from everyone and we'll see you next time.

The theme song plays and the credits roll. The end credits seen shows the place where the hosts where taking questions. It is a peaceful scene with trees, a lake and a building peaking out over the treeline. Suddenly, the image shakes and distorts. The imprint of 8 shadowy figures appears as they huddle together in what looks to be fear. Then the distortion stops, in the same second that it appears. Along with the shadows.

The scene remains peaceful for the rest of the run.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (April 9/2021) - Interrogation

Tubbo does some interrogating, hoping to find out the truth about the missing nuke. Foolish joins in.

The mysterious messages continue.

---

VOD LINKS:

HBomb94

Foolish

Tubbo

TommyInnit

Philza

Captain Puffy

Ranboo

---

- HBomb makes his way from the savannah village back to the main area. He explores around Kinoko and meets with Niki, who shows him her underground city.

- After Niki gets a grass block from an Enderman, HBomb mentions the glitched snow block he got a while back on September 24th, near his parkour challenge: the rarest block in the game. He and Niki leave the city to visit it. 

- They reminisce about how HBomb joined the day of Schlatt’s inauguration, and the subject comes up of HBomb’s other characters.

- HBomb logs out and Thevir logs in. Thevir has arrived in the Dream Land. Rumors say, if you go to a special dream land, a green blob gives you more money than usual. Niki shows him around.

- Tubbo needs a way to interrogate people to figure out where the nuke went. He gathers resources to build.

- He remarks that it seems like the Egg is dying away.

SOMEONE NEEDS

TO TELL HIM

- Tubbo takes supplies from Eret and creates the desk of interrogation. He says he needs to scare people so that they take him seriously. 

HE MUST GO TO

- Tubbo emphasizes that this room is for interrogation, not torture. He tries out different shaders to see what would look scariest

THE NORTH

- Tubbo turns on some acid shaders. He walks around the mansion and remarks that it’s even more cursed looking to the north.

- He goes down to the north gate to see what Foolish is up to and turns off the shaders. He decides to interrogate Foolish and tells Foolish to put all his belongings in two barrels.

- Tubbo leads Foolish to the interrogation room and tells him that he’s lost something valuable and needs Foolish to be honest with him.

IF ANYONE CAN

- When the nuke went missing, Foolish was online. Tubbo tells him only three people were on the server that day. Foolish says he was probably just building that day. 

- Tubbo tells him that the missing “firework” is a very big deal. He asks, if Foolish were to steal something, what his motives would be

- Foolish says he’s just building for people. Tubbo asks about the other kingdom that Foolish is building for, and mentions that Foolish is a citizen of Snowchester. If this other kingdom wanted something of Snowchester’s, would Foolish mention anything?

- Foolish says no. He wouldn’t mention the vault or tell the people of the other kingdom about Snowchester’s “fireworks.” He only mentions things concerning the build.

- Tubbo asks if Foolish has ever seen any strange books. A very distinct book. One with a list of instructions. Foolish says no.

- Tubbo says it was more than just a valuable firework. He thinks Foolish is innocent and tells Foolish to walk with him. He leads Foolish to the confidential nuke factory and shows him.

- Foolish asks if it couldn’t have been stolen before. Tubbo tells him that the nuke was there five minutes before, and Foolish was working on the mansion.

- Foolish insists, though, that he has no motive to steal a nuke, as he’s a pacifist. Tubbo trusts him.

- Who would steal a nuke? Who would be an enemy of Snowchester?

HEAR THIS

- Foolish says there’s no one who seems to be on the war path right now. 

- Tubbo tells him that he needs Foolish to gather reconnaissance on all the places he’s been building for. Foolish mentions that there’s another place that he’s been building for, but it’s a secret...there are too many voices, ears and eyes that could be listening. He’ll have to tell Tubbo later.

- Foolish suggests the Eggpire. He tells Tubbo about this event that the Eggpire is holding, a “bury the hatchet” kind of party. He, Sam and Puffy have been invited so far, but there will be more invitations.

- Whoever stole the nuke, they took a scuffed one. One with a dead man’s snitch. It leaks and poisons nature.

- Foolish asks about Sam. What about the prison guard? Tubbo says that Sam’s been couped up. Foolish says he’s worried about Sam, though. Tubbo tells him they’ll kill him someday, put him out of his misery. It wouldn’t be him.

- Tubbo and Foolish return to the interrogation room.

- Is there anyone who lives far away, where if they stored the nuke near their home, they wouldn’t know? Sam lives far away. HBomb lives far away, and Foolish built a mansion for him too, in the savannah. They should pay H a visit.

- They chase after HBomb (Thevir). They spot Niki at the Community House and think it’s H, following her through the Nether to the underground city.

I STASHED A

- They reach the city and see Niki and Thevir together. The two run, and Tubbo and Foolish pan out to look for them.

- Tubbo and Foolish speak with Niki, who insists that she doesn’t know where HBomb is. Niki says H isn’t here, Thevir is here.

- Niki explained that earlier, she showed H around her city and they went to the L’cast area, at which point HBomb’s game crashed and Thevir joined, and Niki has been showing him around.

- Tubbo and Foolish stumble across Thevir hiding in a corner and talk to Niki, who tells them it’s Thevir and not HBomb.

- Tubbo and Foolish tell Niki they lost a weapon and try to waterboard Thevir. (Thevir says that he’s been tortured before and he’s into this, so it isn’t particularly effective)

- Tubbo and Foolish leave. Thevir could possibly have connections to H.

BOOK

- They head to HBomb’s house in the savannah. Foolish asks who else has been to Snowchester? Puffy, Ranboo -- Tubbo says that wouldn’t be possible -- Sam, Fundy...

- They make it to the mansion. Tubbo asks what direction it’s in -- they find it’s east of Snowchester. They search around.

IT HAS INSTRUCTIONS

- Foolish and Tubbo listen to chat to search places. Foolish says they’re all saying to go north, but he doesn’t know why. Tubbo doesn’t think they should go north.

- They think through more possibilities as they run back through the Nether. Quackity? No, Tubbo says he’s on good terms with Quackity. They have mutual respect.

HE NEEDS TO

- Does Tubbo have any enemies? Tubbo mentions that Phil isn’t the biggest fan of him due to the ankle bracelet, but Phil doesn’t really care.

- Tubbo suggests they go to L’manburg. He’s trying to think of past relations. Who were the enemies of L’manburg?

Dream, Technoblade, and Alivebur

- Would someone take the nuke for money or for power? 

Tubbo: “The power. Everything on this server is about power, Foolish.”

- They reach L’manhole.

- Eret? Foolish says that when he spoke with Eret last, he was looking to a clean start.

Tubbo: “There are some benefits to knowing your insides and out around your country.”

- Tubbo leads Foolish down to the old underground library and panic bunker. They look through the chests. There are still bits of yellow and black concrete, blackstone... Original pieces of the walls.

- He takes Foolish through the tunnel to Pogtopia. Foolish remarks that he’s never been.

Wilbur and Tommy split off during the reign of Manberg. Tubbo built this tunnel to Pogtopia, but it was eventually found out.

- They mention that things have been quite...quiet recently.

- Tubbo shows Foolish the water drop escape into the tunnel, mentioning that he used it to escape death many times.

- They reach Pogtopia.

Foolish: “When you see this, do you see this as happy or sad memories?”

Tubbo: “Conflicting memories.”

- Tubbo shows Foolish the old pit. It’s dark, the lights are out. There’s the old potato farm that Tubbo made for Technoblade. They reminisce about Tubbo and Antfrost being taken hostage.

- They head back.

WAKE UP!

- Tubbo explains to Foolish that he built the bunker before the tunnel to Pogtopia. He shows the tunnel through which Tommy and Wilbur escaped during the inauguration.

- Foolish says it seems like L’manburg was a nice little place. Tubbo shows Foolish all the various escape routes he used. Dream used to hunt him down during the first L’manburg War for independence.

- Foolish can’t imagine it. There were so many little skirmishes that used to happen. Tubbo shows him the old surface entrance to Pogtopia.

- Tubbo leads him over to Technoblade’s old secret base. A significant part of history -- the original vault.

They find that some of the chests still have supplies that haven’t been taken yet.

- Tubbo patches it up a bit

Tubbo: “This is not how this place deserves to be remembered.”

- Foolish asks -- was this a revolution, a rebellion? Tubbo says it was a reclaiming. The revolution.

HE MUST!

- Foolish and Tubbo make it back to the crater. Foolish wonders if there would ever be a community like this again. Tubbo doesn’t think so. Everything’s too complicated now, everyone’s too split apart.

Tubbo: “So all we have now is memories.”

Foolish: “Well, we could always try to make new memories.”

Tubbo: “Yeah, but it won’t be the same.”

- Foolish tells Tubbo that Bad and the others have said that they can start cleaning up the Blood Vines.

- Tubbo leads Foolish down the Prime Path, asking whether he knows who built each of the builds along the route. Tubbo tells him who built each one.

- Tubbo thinks the Final Control Room is now gone.

- He shows Foolish his and Tommy’s old nuclear war bunker.

- They then return to Snowchester and the interrogation room. They haven’t narrowed down the suspects.

WAKE UP!!!!!!

- Foolish asks, what if the nukes were never really stolen, but just moved to a different part of Snowchester?

- Tubbo tells Foolish the mansion is north of the facility. They need to pause their investigation for the time being. 

- Tommy does a birthday stream

- Tommy tells Tubbo that he doesn’t think Ranboo is right for him, and getting married at 17 was a bad idea.

- Ranboo joins the call.

- Tommy leads Tubbo into the ruins of Tubbo’s old house to give him some relationship advice. He thinks Tubbo should rebuild his house and move out.

- He then takes Tubbo to his “secret place.” Ranboo’s just there in the call. He asks where all the Egg has been going. He takes Tubbo to Fundy’s house, where he’s been keeping his things.

- Tubbo gets stuck in a cobweb

- Tommy wants to create a proper vault for his things. Drista gave Tommy many seeds.

- They go to see if the barrier block staircase is still there. 

- Tommy wonders what a good place to hide things would be. He mentions Pogtopia.

- Tubbo leads him to L’manhole. Ranboo appears and gives Tommy a Totem of Undying for his birthday.

- They go down to the tunnel. Tommy tells Ranboo to tell him what problems he and Tubbo are having as they reach Pogtopia.

- Tommy starts mining a room into the wall and puts his riches in a chest. He asks Ranboo to talk about his feelings. 

- They ask Sam for help with a redstone door and talk about TNT cannons. Maybe they could launch one at the prison to get to Dream. Sam comes to Pogtopia. He gives Tommy a few stacks of TNT for his birthday.

- They ride the railway back to L’manburg.

- They try to blow up the POG2020/ASS2020/CRY sign and in the process explode pretty much everything but. Tommy dies and respawns a million blocks away. He can’t break the bed due to mining fatigue. The totem was used up, he just died again and lost all his things.

- The CRY sign is now the Y7 sign

- They decide to work on clearing off Ponk and Punz’s towers of the Blood Vines. Here are some of the more interesting quotes that came up...

“My sacrifices are boneless, man, just like the wings.” - Ranboo

“Moist is just wet without the commitment.” - Ranboo

“God, why did you invent impotence?” - Tommy

“Who’s the god of English?”  “Shakespeare?”

“The mouth sounds are the reason why we can’t remember!” - Ranboo

“How do you reckon you’ll die?” - Tubbo

“Volcano.” - Tommy

- Afterwards, they head over to Ranboo’s house. The instant Phil logs on, Tommy logs off.

- Phil, Ranboo and Tubbo hang out at the Arctic.

- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wishes Tommy a happy birthday and tells him to drink tequila.

- Ranboo fills a whole barrel full of totems.

---

Upcoming Events:

- The Red Banquet

- Quackity’s lore stream on Monday

- Quackity’s business opening

- Dream’s lore video

- Ranboo’s lore stream

[doctor-gyro-gearloose]

Understanding Gyro Gearloose

A fair day in Duckburg, the sun was shining and the air was warm on the face a perfect day for a perfect date, thought the ever so brilliant Fenton Crackshell Cabrera who was meeting up with Huey outside of a small coffee shop.

“Fenton!” Huey says, “You asked me to be here, why?”

“Huey! You and Dr. Gearloose know eachother..” Fenton murmurs not making eye contact with Huey when his face begins to warm.

“I’d say so, is there something wrong?” Huey asked.

“No! Gosh there isnt, I was just...wondering if you’d help me...Please dont tell anyone else, but..I want to surprise Dr. Gearloose with a date.” Fenton explains, stammering as he started to sweat.

“Well, then you have come to the right place, oh boy this is exciting! Where do we get to start?” Huey asked.

“Well, if there’s one thing I have to remember about Dr. Gearloose is that I can’t do anything too dramatic, he stresses out easily.” Fenton explains. “Do...you have any advice?”

“You’ve come to the right place Fenton, I know exactly what you need. Sit down my friend!” Huey says.

Fenton smiles, “Oh thank you Huey, youre the best!”

“Of course Fenton, now the most important thing is it to set the mood, you said that Gyro gets stressed easily, so plan for something small.” Huey explains.

“That’s easy! We can watch a movie in the lab, thats his comfort place.” Fenton says.

“Perfect. No big surprises, just a good movie, and some snacks, you guys could get hungry, every good date has snacks.” Huey said.

“Hm, light snacks, Dr. Gearloose doesn’t eat snacks very often, but i know what he likes so I will provide that.” Fenton says.

“Mood lighting. That’ll be everything for your date, warm colors, make it comfortable. Blankets are a must.” Huey says, getting excited for Fenton.

“Yes! I have plenty of those! I’ll use as many as I can to create the most comfort for Dr. Gearloose..” Fenton says.

“What movie do you think will set the tone?” Huey asks.

“Darkwing Duck! I just know Dr. Gearloose will like it.” Fenton says,

“Great. Now we have all the elements for your perfect date.” Huey says.

Fenton smiles. “This is perfect. All I would have to do is get Dr. Gearloose out of the lab so i can decorate it, Boyd can help! He can fly, oh, it’ll be perfect!” He starts to get excited about his little date.

“I know exactly how to get Dr. Gearloose out of his lab, I’ll act like I’m interested in one of his new inventions, and then Ill suggest we show it to Scrooge, he will leave the lab with me and then you can swoop in, decorate it with Boyd, text me when your done and Ill take Gearloose back, and it’ll be perfect!” Huey says, he smiles happy for Fenton.

“I knew I could trust you Huey, thank you.” Fenton says. “You go get Dr. Gearloose now, Ill need as much time as I can get, I have something I want to show him as well.” Fenton says/

“Huey is on it. I wont let you down Fenton!” Huey says.

“This means so much to me, I hope it works.” Fenton says, only a little nervous now.

“Don’t worry Fenton, Ill make sure it works.” Huey says while the two make their way to Gyros lab, Fenton hangs back so that Gyro doesn’t see him sneak in, there would be no way for him to lie about what he was up to, not to Gyro.

Huey walks up to the lab door, knocking on it awaiting Gyro.

Gyro hears the knock, walking over to the door, he opens it. “Red Nephew?”

“Yes its Huey here! I was interested in knowing more about your inventions!”

A rare smile forms on Gyros face. “I never figured any of you would be so interested in my work!”

“You’re the coolest scientist we know! Of course I am.” Huey says while Gyro lets him in his lab.

Gyro adjusts his glasses while he walks to his workspace ready to start information dumping on Huey.

“Can you tell me more about your cool shrink ray?!” Huey asked looking in awe at Gyro.

“Of course!”Gyro picks up the Gearloose Microphone, “The Gearloose Microphone! The microphone that can make tiny voices loud, and of course shrink you to a microscopic size.” He starts to go on in even more depth, gesturing wildly as he spoke. “You see my work is very well crafted Red Nephew, you are smart for taking such an opportunity to understand my inventions. All of the accusations you’ve heard are wrong, my inventions are never evil just wildly misunderstood.” Gyro speaks while lil bulb peaks from his hat as he says ‘evil’.

Huey didn’t quite expect Gyro to talk so long. They were there for a long time before Gyro finally stopped talking to take a breather, Huey took the opportunity to ask Gyro to take his presentation to the manor.

“Can we go up to the manor? I bet Uncle Scrooge would love to hear about the Gearloose Microphone.” Huey gasp, “everyone would love to see it!”

Gyro looks at Huey; “You really think that?!” He sounded hopeful.

“Of course.” Huey says, he smiles “Lets go!” He takes Gyro by the arm running him out of the lab.

Gyro screams, breaking free as soon as the two left the lab. “Never touch me again.”

“Finally.” Fenton says sneaking into the lab, he was starting to worry that Huey was going to be unable to get him out of the lab.

“Hey! Psst Boyd I need your help.” Fenton calls to him.

“Fenton! What do you need?” Boyd asks.

“I’m planing a date with Dr. Gearloose, i need you to help decorate the lab a little bit.” Fenton explains.

Really?! Ill help decorate!” Boyd happily said.

Fenton and Boyd begin to look for some decorations. He took Hueys advice and decorated with warm colors, making the lab a comfortable place to watch a movie in.

“This is going to be a perfect date.” Fenton says while he strings up some lights over the large window in the lab. He continues to tidy the lap, ensuring it will be looking its best when Gyro comes thru the door. Boyd flies putting up little paper lanterns.

“Wow. The lab looks fantastic!” Fenton smiles, the lab nicely decorated, comfortable for Gyro. “Now to just set out some snacks.” Fenton looks all over the lab for food, Gyro didn’t keep to much at the lab, but Fenton was able to make due with what was there. “Perfect!”

He takes out his phone and Texts Huey that has done all that he had needed to do.

Huey gets the message all the way back at the manor, to his luck Gyro stopped talking as he got it.

“And thats the Gearloose Microphone!” He says with pride, while Huey and Scrooge clap for him.

Gyro looks over to the time, “I should really go back to the lab now.”

“I will take you down!” Huey says, walking to lead the way.

Gyro found it odd Huey suddenly liked him so much, but he was enjoying him, not that he would ever admit that.

The two walked to the lab, Gyro opens the door to Fenton standing by it with a rose.

“Dr. Gearloose.” He smiles, handing to him.

“What is the meaning of all this…” Gyro asked, as Huey just winked, leaving while wishing Fenton good luck.

“Well, Dr. Gearloose, you are always so busy working and all...I planned this, very not date to watch a movie!” Fenton explains.

Gyro looked puzzled for a moment, looking at Fenton and all the lights around the lab, sure looked like a date to him.

“Come on! I set up the movie over here in my laboratory!” Fenton takes Gryos hand walking him over to his tiny bathroom lab. “Here we are.” He opens the door, the two enter the small space. “Sit down! I set us up some blankets.”

Gyro didn’t say anything, he sat down while Fenton started up the movie for them, once he was set up he joined Gyro on the floor.

The lights dim and the movie starts, Gyro was still quite confused about what was going on, and why Fenton would put so much effort into something for him, it wasn’t like he deserved it, least he didn’t think so. He sighs, when Fenton looks over at him, smiling.

Gyro suddenly felt warm inside, in the moment he was glad it was dark, because he was in fact blushing, something that he would not have wanted Fenton to see.

The movie goes on, Gyro found himself getting closer and closer to Fenton the longer that they sat and watched Darkwing Duck, before he knew it, he was wrapping himself around Fenton, resting his head on Fentons shoulder; he hadn’t felt this relaxed in ages, it was a weird feeling for him, but he liked it. Fenton was warm, he was cold, the heat felt nice to him on his body, he almost didn’t want whatever it was he had to end. He in fact, had feelings for Fenton whether he wanted to admit it or not, he sure couldn’t deny it now, he smiles admiring Fenton and the movie.

It ends, the two were still quite quiet, not speaking a word, that was until Fenton spoke.

“Doctor Gearloose I would like to show you something...I have been working on.” Fenton says.

“Are you s—I mean of course, what do you want to show me?” Gyro spoke, he didn’t want to admit that he wanted to just stay on the floor snuggling to Fentons warmth.

Fenton smiles. “Behold! This is Gizmocloud.” He says while turning on his computer. “Here, put this on.” He hands Gyro a VR helmet.

Gyro puts it on his head; as Fenton joins him.

“It’s a virtual reality system I have been working on, heh, It’s still in beta. There’s glitches I dont know how to get rid of.”

Gyro was looking in awe, barely listening to Fenton, “This is...impressive F-er—intern.” He nearly slipped out Fentons name, but he couldn’t let Fenton know he liked him that much.

“You really think so?” Fenton says, while slyly turning on the sunset; setting the mood he thought.

“I do! This is incredible….oh forget it, Fenton.” Gyro smiles at him.

“I-I have a name.” Fenton smiles, he looks into Gyros eyes, taking his hand.

“Ah, well..” Gyro blushes, his feelings for Fenton growing stronger the longer they stood looking at each other.

“I think we have really good chemistry, Doctor Gearloose.” Fenton carefully kisses Gyro on the cheek, Gyro, now possibly overwhelmed by all these soft feelings he’s never felt for Fenton before, starts to tear up.

“You...mean all that..you did this all...for me?” Gyro asked.

“Of course, who else would I be doing anything for Dr. Gearloose, nobody is worth any amount of time or effect, just you are.” Fenton says, while Gyro unexpectedly hugs him tightly, his now very warm face touching Fentons.

“Fenton...thank you..” Gyro says, keeping his tight hold on Fenton.

Fenton smiles, overjoyed he couldn’t have asked this date to go any better than it did, quietly thanking Huey as well for all the help that he had provided making it possible.

Gyro then returns a small sweet to Fentons cheek, “Consider us even now.” He says, while he in reality also wraps around Fenton, kissing him softly.

While soft music begins to play, thanks to Boyd, the two return to reality.

Gyro is quiet again, looking at Fenton fiddling with his own thumbs.

“You ...don’t want this to end do you?” Fenton asked, he was starting to understand Gyros body language a lot more, understanding what he wanted without actually outright saying it.

Gyro shook his head, making Fentons statement true, he didn’t want it to end, not ever, he wraps himself around Fenton, causing the two of them to fall to the floor.

Fenton smiles, his date a larger success than he could have ever asked for.

The two of them laid snuggling for a long while until Fenton had fallen asleep, Gyro still wrapped around him admiring him, he couldn’t believe Fenton went thru all of that, just to have a simple little date with him. He didn’t realize how often he was pushing Fenton away until this point. Part of him felt guilty, but also lucky that Fenton had never once given up on him. He was greatful for him, truly he loved Fenton, he just never knew how to say it, until Fenton showed him how, just now. Gyro smiles, for once as he falls asleep wrapped around Fenton, where he could stay, forever.

[skittlewaffle]

Heartstrings

Chapter Two: A Sign

☆*:.｡.⭐️.｡.:*☆

A glint of orange light from the sun hit against my closed eyes. Morning had come, its rays flooding the atmosphere. With a sigh, I pushed myself off the concave wall of glass, looking down to spot the layered cliffs below. Thinking about my plan for today’s expedition, I wearily started to pick myself up. But suddenly, as I looked beyond my dull reflection in the glass, something not too far away caught my attention, sending a shock through me. It was a faint glimmer coming from a mountain slightly shorter than mine. I rubbed my eyes, not believing what they were showing me. I went through the facts in my mind. Firstly, I know that it’s not nighttime; there can’t be any stars out. Secondly, I might not be fully awake. Maybe my dreams were trying to make its way into my perception of reality? But thirdly, this has never happened to me before. Could it be…

“Good morning, Ametrine.”

Her voice startled me into a standing position. “Stratus, what’s going on out there?” I said, pointing to a large platform of pinkish rock. From the middle of that point stood one of those small pedestals. Right above it rested a floating octahedron. But what was normally a dormant white was now a mixture of colors joining into one blinking light.

“I am detecting signals from the Diamonds’ palace. The communicators still appear to be functional and are receiving these signals as well.”

Without another word, I nodded and dashed off to the elevator.

I knew in my head that whatever was going on with the communicators had nothing to do with me. The Lilac Plateaus had no place on any living being’s map; by extension, there was no reason to be contacting anyone who lived here. Whatever they have to say to me will probably mean nothing. But there was still that desire in me to see something more than rocks and flowers. One current event going on somewhere in the universe, many of which I’ve missed out on until this very moment. The chance to see something actively unfolding elsewhere the barren mountains in which I’ve been isolated.

I ran across bridges, climbed some rocks, and jumped between cliffs. Hundreds of years of living here provided me extensive knowledge of this place, like every feature was part of a map built into my brain. Not only that, but I was very skilled in traversing terrain as difficult as this.

It wasn’t too long before I finally made it to the communicator. The message had long since stopped playing, but the light was still blinking. Up this close, I could see the exact colors the device was made of: the colors of every Diamond. With every flash of light, the device made an electronic beep. For the first time in my life, I took the communicator into my own hands. I simply let the light flood me… I don’t know how to work these things.

But with just one light tap, the octahedron became two pyramids, drawing away from each other to pull out a screen. It expanded slowly, letting out short glitches before blurry images on the screen began to take a sharper form. My eyes widened.

“Once upon a time, the Gem Homeworld was ruled by Diamonds: White, Yellow, Blue, and the littlest Diamond, Pink.”

…Was?

“While the other Diamonds conquered many worlds across the galaxy, Pink had only one — the planet Earth. One day, Pink fled the comforts of Homeworld. On Earth, she made a new home, new friends, and finally, new life, giving up her form to bequeath her gem to her half-human son.”

Majorly confusing, but… intriguing.

“Without Pink, gemkind entered an era of despair. But when Steven Universe learned of his heritage, he reunited with his fellow Diamonds and championed a new era of peace and freedom across the furthest reaches of space.”

The view shifted to reveal the face of the very owner of my home colony, White Diamond. I eagerly leaned forward, taking in every single word.

“And now, dear gems everywhere, I’m pleased to announce that Steven is finally ready to take his rightful place on Pink Diamond’s throne!”

I tilted my head as the screen showing White Diamond’s face went down to a strange new gem called Steven.

“How’s it going, everybody? I know you all might be thinking of me as the new Pink Diamond, but you don't have to put me on a throne.”

...?

“I already have a rightful place, and it's on Earth. It's a beach house where I live with my friends, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. As much as I loved dismantling the empire and saving all your planets, I can't wait to get home and spend some quality time with my friends.”

She- I mean.. he... had a friendly sparkle in his eyes as the broadcast ended, shortly after a few murmurs were exchanged by a couple other gems in the background. I was honestly so full of questions. This is a feeling I haven’t had in a while.. curiosity. The kind that really makes you think. Somehow, this one short message was enough to power on my imagination again. How long ago was this? What all happened during this supposed previous era? Who exactly were Pink’s friends? ...Where was Pink?

The communicator immediately shut itself closed. I looked up at the morning sky and pondered these unanswered questions in my head. When stumped, I replayed the message from Steven and the Diamonds, trying to pick up missed clues.

All the buzzing thoughts were hard to keep track of. From out of my glowing gem I pulled out a device visually similar to the communicator. This is a projector, a tool invented exclusively for Ametrines to take notes on and write their thoughts. I compiled my questions and possible answers on organized slides. I kept the communicator and brought it back to my Cloud, knowing I’d have a lot of thinking to do.

☆*:.｡.⭐️.｡.:*☆

This new occurrence actually brought me and Stratus something worthy of discussion. I exchanged my own theories to her about the history of the eras I have missed. She replied with approval of my creativity, as well as with a bit of knowledge about the roles of higher ranked gem authorities. For the rest of the day, instead of exploring again, I remained on my own mountain, pondering the message from this Steven.

On my own, after writing down everything I thought about the message as it applied to history, I began to wonder how this applied to me.

The main point of the message I picked up was that, for some reason, Pink was no longer part of the Diamond Authority; and the empire was dismantled, rendering the conquered worlds independent. This was the doing of Steven, after he took her place.

I don’t know Steven. I don’t even know the Diamonds. I don’t know a society or friends. If I’m being real, I hardly know myself.

But if there’s something I do know, it’s that none of these people had any effect on me. I was never obligated to answer to anyone, or even to follow the Diamonds’ established laws. As a result of Steven’s newfound authority, the colonies were set free; but this one never mattered. I had always been free to do as I pleased in the plateaus.

So… The new event was fun while it lasted. It brought about exciting development, even if only for a moment.

But I think I’m happy where I am now.

☆*:.｡.⭐️.｡.:*☆

(A/N: Surprise, fools >:D New chapter is out!! uwu I need advice tho.. at some point should I switch to third person omniscient? If possible, please reply / reblog and lemme know ur opinion! Feedback on the fic overall is also welcome~ I hope u enjoy ���� Have another Ametrine you’ve already seen cuz I still don’t have a cover-)

[icemintfreeze]

yo.. id love to hear more abt ur ocs..... theyre fuckin epic

AaaaAAAA aight,,,,,,,let’s do this

More info about these guys will be below!!

So we got:

Mark the Magic 8 Ball, Subject: Wishes/Magic

After springing to life when Yellow asked if “Magic was real”, He’s very upbeat yet very stern when it comes to his lessons, he will literally grant you whatever wish you’d like but will not revert whatever consequences the wish brings. His pyramid has the ability to reveal what the future brings at a glance, but it drains him at times when certain requests are made (ex. what’s gonna happen In 15 years…)

for the Trio, Yellow wishes for a unicorn (which ends horribly wrong), and Bird wishes for fancy clothes (which ends poorly as well), and at the end, Red wishes for everything to be as it was before, and Mark agreed, disappearing after the wish was granted.

Next is Jaír the Mirror (Subject: Past reflections, bad luck)

Red and Bird decide to bring Yellow to a small park nearby, but beforehand, they have to clean up some leaves that have fallen outside. Red takes up the job while Bird cleans around the house, leaving Yellow in his room, preparing his mittens and scarves and jacket. As he was, he found a small mirror and decided to play around with his hair. But as he does so, he nearly drops the mirror, but thankfully catches it. He sighs in relief, only to hear a voice say, “That was a close one, surely you must be relieved.”

Jaír then goes on about how mirrors are used, and how reflecting on past decisions are similar to the reflection of a mirror. He then whispers about breaking a mirror, and the superstition around it. Yellow is now paranoid, and tries to leave the room to find Duck and Red, but Jaír lures Yellow back, and tells him to look at him. As he hesitantly does so, he can see the body of Red and Duck, lying lifelessly on the ground behind him. This makes him panic, and feel guilty, hence he hasn’t been able to check up on them to see if they were ready or ok. Jaír taunts poor Yellow, but soon, Yellow decides he’s had enough, and throws Jaír on the ground, smashing him into bits. Things get quiet, as Yellow is left recollecting his thoughts…

Before spirits began to dash out of the broken mirror.

The Spirits, being those of Red and Bird. Distressed and angry, they begin to fly around Yellow, blaming him for their deaths and tormenting him, and soon, Yellow curls up in a ball, and sobs, begging for forgiveness.

And soon, everything goes quiet.

Yellow looks up, and realizes that the sun was now filling his room with light; as he slowly sat up. He heard footsteps, and the door opened to reveal,

Red and Bird. Their eyes filled with relief and worry as they ran towards Yellow and embraced him into a big hug. The only thing Yellow managed to say was,

“I’m sorry.” And

“You saw him too, didn’t you.”

Now! Coronia the Crown!! (Subject: Manners and Royalty/Leadership)

The trio was playing a small game of ‘dress up’, as they moved onto the theme of medevil ages, and Bird decided to be a knight, Red was a servant and Yellow, wanted to be a king. He digged around in a large box filled with clothing and found a Shiny crown, and a red cape. As soon as he finished dressing himself up, he beamed with pride and said,

“I am the king!”

And no sooner than later..

“You hear that? He’s the King!”

The three look up and see that the Crown now had eyes, a mouth, and arms, as it patted Yellows head and began to sing.

His lesson teaches the three about the medieval times and what it meant to be royal, as well as the manners and prom and proper way to be seen. He goes on about how the king is seen as perfect and loving, his knight brave and modest, and his servant loyal and trusting. They are all soon in full-apparel, Bird in shining armor, Red in servant apparel and Yellow covered with red and purple clothing, with jewels and diamonds all over.

But things go downhill once Yellow becomes too kind; he lets Bird take what he would like as well as Red and his ‘people’, and Coronia lectures him about how he had to keep his riches and keep limits; if not then he would be used. Yellow understands quickly and stops everyone, which soon leads to a angered mob (excluding red and bird, who tried to fiend them off)

Coronia then tells Yellow that in order to be king, punishment must be apart of the lifestyle. If anyone dared disobey him, they’d be punished, or even worse; executed. Coronia forced Red and Bird to grab people and bring them to a guillotine, but they refused, believing that it was now being taken way to far. Coronia, unpleased and with a snap of his finger, suddenly had Red beneath the guillotine, tied up and ready to be executed. Yellow stopped and threw Coronia down, and quickly ran over to help his friend from the guillotine. And this angered Coronia. He said, that he’d either execute red or bird, or execute the king.

But as he reached towards the three, he suddenly began to glitch out, and soon, the three were poofed back into their home; the guillotine gone, the armor and suit, gone.

All that was left, was the red cloak.

The crown was no where to be seen.

Now we got Palomi the Phone!! (Subject: Self-comparison and self-esteem)

So, one day, Red finds a small cell phone in a cabinet, and decided to show Bird and Yellow. He tried to turn it on, but, it was dead.

Interested in finding out what the phone could do, he went off to find a charger in the cabinets.

But as he did, a ding came from the living room, with a small gasp of shock and admiration.

Red walked back and realized that the phone was now in Yellows hands, the screen on with a bright, glowing face staring up at Yellow.

“Hello! What can I help you with today?”

And this begins her lesson. She tells the trio about social media and the cliques online, and soon tells them about the comparison of fashion, looks and lifestyle that many do inspired by social media. And soon, this brings the three under some sort of spell. Red is determined to capture every moment with Bird and Yellow. Bird is determined to be as good looking as possible, and Yellow is determined to become stronger and gain muscles. Palomi supports them on their journey, giving them tips and advice, but soon, things go bad. Palomi scolds Bird for wearing bland clothing; she yells at Red for not cleaning up the house more for photos, and is disappointed in Yellows attempts to exercise. She then leads them overboard, refusing to let Yellow eat much of anything and exercise day and night, making Red decorate everything to look like a perfect household, and making Bird spend hundreds an hundreds on clothes and make-up. Soon, Bird decides that enough is enough. He goes over to Palomi, but she quickly takes a snapshot of him, which blinds him for a second. She then yells. “HA! You’re reputation! You’re reputation is TAINTED!! Say goodbye to your followers dearie, they’ve ALL seen your true colors…” She then taunts all of them as the three receive hateful messages and comments, and it drives Bird and Yellow into a hysteria. But Red? He barricades through alll the hate and comments and manages to shut Palomi down, permanently. And soon, they are in the living room once again, the phone in Red’s hand. Bird was now in his regular clothing, Yellow was now fed and nourished, and the house was as perfect as it was before.

Red then goes over and places the phone back, locking it away permanently. 

And finally?? We have?? Shimara the Soap Bar (Subject: Hygiene/ Habits)

One day, the three are doing some cleaning around the house, and Yellow is all finished with what he had to do (make his bed, fold his clothes, etc.) and he just starts to play with his hair, a small habit that he has. He then begins to hear, humming, coming from the bathroom? The hums were a high pitched sound, it was surely not Red or Duck..

Yellow went on to investigate, and soon saw that the small bar of soap was humming. As soon as Yellow stepped in, she turned around and smiled. 

“My apologies dear! Humming is a habit of mine…whats yours?”

So this is the start of her lesson, and Yellow follows her as she goes over to Red and then to Bird, gathering the three and teaching them about habits.

She begins with the good habits, such as exercising at a good rate every day, eating a balanced diet, cleaning, etc. and soon, the trio follow her habits.

But then she brings up the negative habits, such as nail-biting, skipping meals, etc. and the trio begin to obtain those habits. Yellow with nail biting, Bird with skipping meals and Red being an excessive coffee drinker. The effects soon hit the three hard, and they try to find a way to stop these bad habits. Shimara simply tells them that there isnt a way to stop them, that theyll be stuck with these habits forever, before humming back into the bathroom, her hums becoming quieter and quieter.

Yellow seemed to follow her, while Red and Bird tried to fight off the urges of the habits, before the music died down, and soon, everything was silent.

Red no longer had the urge to drink coffee. Bird was now eating a comfortable, healthy meal.

But Yellow, was gone.

holy crap, this was very VERY long but. I managed to come up with what role these oc’s would play if they were in the series hooghfgh

but!!! i hope that you like them!!!!!!  

[saigontimemd]

Found a really interesting post on Reddit today; while it’s titled as ways to avoid getting uber-salty, I actually found the poster’s analysis of the gameplay and how it affects players emotionally to not only be really interesting, but also pretty enlightening as to why people act and feel the way they do about the game. Here’s the post text in case anyone’s too elitist to sully their web browser with Reddit:

Dead by Daylight is a unique game. It stands in the company of other asymmetric games, but it has unique aspects that other games don't that affect our psychology as we play. I wanted to explain these concepts and have some advice for how to counter them.

Concept 1: Humiliation - DbD's gameplay is centered on humiliating your adversary. I would argue that every aspect of the gameplay is an act of humiliation, not competition, like you see in other games. The reward-based outcomes combined with asymmetric gameplay makes DbD uniquely painful to emotionally process both your losses AND wins. Let's look at the various aspects of gameplay:

Killer Humiliates

Frustrates a survivor's ability to contribute to their team (social humiliation)

Frustrates a survivor's ability to level up and earn points (reward-denial humiliation)

Frustrates a survivor's ability to appear competent in front of their survivor peers (mild self-esteem humiliation)

Survivor Humiliates

Frustrates a killer's ability to appear competitive and threatening in the game environment (social)

Frustrates a killer's ability to level up and earn points (reward-denial humiliation)

Humiliates the killer in post-game chat, something that while survivors aren't immune to, but have group social support resources to easily heal from (severe self-esteem humiliation)

Concept 2: Rollercoaster of Emotional Injury - If a killer wins, but doesn't win "right" (camping, some glitch, lag, etc) they are deprived of their celebration by the survivors (survivor decides whether killers can celebrate, another humiliation). If a survivor wins, but everyone doesn't survive, the sacrificed survivor is deprived of joining in the celebration (the killer can take this opportunity to humiliate them). Through all of this, both player sides undergo extreme stress.

Killer Stress

Killers experience states of stress throughout the game: trying to find survivors, being evaded by survivors, losing track of survivors, and protecting hooks from survivor saves. Killers, at no point, have any moment of emotional peace or sense of "safety" from these states. The emotional injury ALWAYS ramps up in post-game end chat, and at the gate, where killers are ritualistically humiliated by twerking/circling/various taunts.

Survivor Stress

Survivors experience states of stress, too, with waves of calm: hiding, peacefully working on gens with their peers, being in the terror radius, evading, and being on the hook. Successful evasion and successful hides are followed by positive feelings of calm, while being chased is stressful, and being caught, hooked, and killed is a very substantial, large loss. A hooked survivor has disappointed their team, lost a huge amount of point potential, and been humiliated by the killer. Watch streamer facial expressions change when they realize they cannot be rescued and are dead, after a long match. There is pain in their face.

Conclusion and Mental Health Self-Heal Advice

Some people might argue that a lot of these issues are common in multiplayer games, but I would argue that they are not found ALL together, with so few resources to heal with.

Collectively, I think DbD's gameplay experiences have a huge potential to disrupt a player's personal life and their overall mood state.

Here are some tips that will help you stay healthy while playing:

Mental Health Self-care Advice

In-game, try to focus on the strategies you're using, rather than on the outcomes of those strategies. Streamers are experts at doing this. They attribute every loss to the failure of the strategy, not to themselves. Those that don’t can be seen raging and screaming regularly in their streams.

Rationalize more of the game. For killers, this involves predicting survivor movement, and recognizing that some survivors are better than others, and will be harder or even impossible to catch. For survivors, this means evaluating your killers’ and your teammates relative skills and recognizing that they all have different skill-levels and different gameplay styles. Sometime they just aren't competent enough to risk help.

Accept the things you can’t control. Some killers camp every single game. Some survivors never go for saves. Some survivors loop every object. You can’t control that, or change them, so accept it as a certainty. Try not to read into why they do things - accept them for what they are – like an Evil Dwight. There are evil survivors that just want to loop: accept them as evil loopers and rationalize their gameplay style as an effective one, and rationalize over a new strategy. If the strategy fails, the strategy fails, not you.

Use the “close chat” button. If you insist on reading the chat, come up with a standard nonsensical response to taunts and abuse. It can't be sensical, because then it can result in a painful counter-response. Be silly, and be disconnected from the outcomes of the game. As killer, I make growl sounds or just spam HAHAHAHAHA. Asian cultures do the same thing to diffuse social tension (laughing). As survivor, you need to rely on speaking to your teammates, like remarking on how much fun you had playing together. That helps them too!

tldr: keep your brain focused on the strategies and success/failure of strategies, not the situational reasons why you lost/died. And use self-care to heal yourself by focusing on and learning from your strategies (survivor and killer) or mentally commiserating with your peers (survivor). I hope this helps some people understand why the game gets to them as much as it does …

I have some thoughts, but I’d like for this post to stand on its own incase other folks want to respond to it and not my ramblings below.

[ts1989fanatic]

Ticketek insiders have blown the lid off the chaos that erupted over the Taylor Swift pre-sale event for her Eras Tour, revealing there’s actually no queue and the selection of fans to purchase tickets is totally random to ensure the process is “fair”.

As millions of frustrated Australian fans waited for hours to access the pre-sale, they were repeatedly urged to not refresh their browser to effectively hold their place in the queue.

But Ticketek has revealed that’s not how its system actually works.

News.com.au has confirmed that anyone in the ticket lounge at the same time has the same chance of being selected to purchase tickets.

“Everyone in the Ticketek lounge has an equal opportunity to get into the site regardless of when they have arrived,’’ a spokesman said.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if you arrived at 9:30am or 12pm. If you’re still in “the queue” at 12:30pm, you have an equal chance of being randomly selected to purchase a ticket.

And if you waited for one hour, got in and grabbed A Reserve tickets, and someone else waited for seven hours and didn’t get any?

Well, as Taylor Swift observes in The Story Of Us: “They’re the lucky ones.”

Hundreds of thousands of Australians were trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Picture: Getty Images

Hundreds of thousands of Australians were trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Picture: Getty Images

It helps explain the mystery of why some fans were able to buy tickets twice while thousands waited for hours and never saw the ticket map.

It also means people who got up at 4am or kept their browser open overnight were wasting their time. Even Ticketek’s official advice was to log on 15 minutes before the pre-sale started at 10am in Sydney and 2pm in Melbourne.

Swift’s tour smashed Ticketek records, with fans sweating it out as they desperately awaited to score tickets. The ticketing giant also had to repel half a billion bots.

The record-breaking demand for tickets saw four million people across Australia trying to buy them – a stunning figure that’s close to 20 per cent of the entire population.

That helps to explain why thousands of people missed out, but as it turns out, there’s more to the story.

While some fans online were claiming that they were seeing glitches, Ticketek insists the site and app were running smoothly throughout the day.

The pre-sale tickets for Sydney were officially sold out at 2pm on Wednesday, around four hours after they went on sale.

The tickets for Melbourne were sold out at 4pm, just two hours after Melbourne sales opened.

More tickets will become available in Friday’s sale to the general public.

“There is no doubt that there are going to be many disappointed fans given the demand for tickets. We are encouraging all fans to follow our helpful tips to ensure their best chance at securing tickets, and to not purchase tickets through unauthorised resellers,’’ a spokesman said.

After fans complained about long wait times during the AMEX pre-sale on Monday, Ticketek released a range of handy tips to grab tickets, including creating a Ticketek account in advance, having pre-sale codes ready, not closing or refreshing their browser while waiting and keeping an eye on the on-site check out timer.

“Queuing is a necessary part of the purchasing process. A way of ensuring fair access to tickets for all fans,’’ a spokesman said.

“Fans must remember to not leave the Lounge page or refresh their browser.

“The page will refresh itself frequently to let more fans through to purchase. Once fans are in the Lounge, they should sit tight and wait to be let through to the event page. And then once they’re through they need to remember to keep an eye on the timer and complete their purchase within the time frame.”

But were you really queuing at all? Or where you just in a randomised pen with millions of desperate Swifties, and it was a total lottery?

Sounds like it could be more of the latter, a fact that won’t stop millions who missed out from doing it all again on Friday.

A Ticketek spokesman confirmed that “seats in all sections are still available for all shows”.

TICKETEK TIPS

These simple steps will ensure you’re prepared when tickets go on sale:

– Double check your Ticketek account and payment details are up to date. Have your login details handy as you’ll need them to complete your purchase;

– If buying for a group, plan your purchase by agreeing on the performance date, ticket price category and any packages you want to purchase.

When tickets go on sale, the tips below will give you the best chance of getting through to purchase your tickets:

– Visit Ticketek at least 15 minutes prior to tickets going on sale. Follow the designated link for your desired city to be taken to the Ticketek Lounge;

– Please don’t leave the Lounge page or refresh your browser. The page will refresh itself frequently to let more fans through to purchase;

– Once you’re in the Lounge, sit tight and wait to be let through to the event page;

– Once you’re through, keep an eye on the timer and complete your purchase within the time frame.

ts1989fanatic: the amount of people in line for tickets is insane, 20% of the population of Australia is nucking futs.

[cufene]

The highest Most Successful Internet marketing Tips

Pasttorrent.com

TIP! Take time to find prospecting turns. Good leads will be the best way to generate brand-new revenue.

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Pasttorrent.com

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Mlm marketing

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[snkpolls]

SnK S3E12 Poll Results (Anime Viewer Only Version)

The poll closed with 115 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note this is the anime only viewer version of the poll. Manga readers, please click here for the results of the manga reader poll!

RATE THE EPISODE 101 Responses

The final episode of the first half of the season received positive reviews, with only a few who were dissatisfied with the cour’s finale episode. 

It was good

Horrible

One of the best so far this season

HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE FIRST HALF OF SEASON 3 AS A WHOLE? 101 Responses

The season overall fared well among anime only viewers, with the vast majority of respondents giving it either a 4 or 5 overall. 

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SEASON TAKING A BREAK UNTIL APRIL? 101 Responses

50% of voters are feeling bummed about the anime taking a 6 month break. 38% feel that 6 months isn’t all that bad of a wait. A small few are ready for the breather. 

Now going through read the manga because 6 months is looooong

WHYYYYYYYYYY?!?

Should have asked us what we're going to do during the 6 month break.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SCENES WERE YOUR FAVORITES? 98 Responses

The Survey Corps’ sendoff was the most favorite moment of the episode. Eren and Jean’s fight came in second, while Levi and Erwin’s conversation and everyone losing their minds over meat were a close third and fourth. 

Connie was the general MVP

every erwin and levi scene is just so precious

DID THE GLITCHED ENDING SCARE YOU? 100 Responses

Nearly 80% of respondents were either a little or very freaked out by the glitched ending. 20% didn’t feel affected at all. 

I gave me a thrill, I was very pleased

AMAZED!

THE GLITCH ON THE ED WAS SO DAMN CREATIVE.

SHOULD ZACKLEY’S ART BE REALIZED? 99 Responses

Most respondents agree that the world does not need to see Zackley’s definition of art. 21% are still getting a kick out of it. 22% of you guys are probably ready for us to just drop it already! 

HOW MUCH DID YOU ENJOY THE SEQUENCE OF EREN AND JEAN FIGHTING? 100 Responses

Most respondents were entertained by Eren and Jean’s altercation, enjoying the throwback to their training days. 

THE SURVEY CORPS HAS NEVER EXPERIENCED A SEND-OFF LIKE THEY DID IN THIS EPISODE -  FAVORITE PART OF THIS SCENE? 100 Responses

An overwhelming 72% agreed that Erwin smiling and triumphantly shouting toward the citizens of Trost was the best part of their sendoff. What better episode to have aired on his birthday, right? Springlestein getting pumped at the send off came as a distant second. 

All of them

ALL OF THEM! THIS SCENE WAS PERFECT

SUSUME!

WOULD YOU LET LEVI BREAK YOUR LEGS? 100 Responses

Over half of respondents are wondering if the pollsters need to get our heads checked. But 18% of you are begging to have Levi break your legs. 

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO HEARING ERWIN ADMIT THAT HIS PERSONAL GOALS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAVING HUMANITY? 100 Responses

62% of watchers weren’t surprised by Erwin’s admission, believing it was clear as day for a while now. Some were shocked and a small few felt disappointed in the commander. A few write in comments agree it’s only human for him to have personal goals as well.

i despaired for him. He is no less human than anyone else

It made me happy to see his goals defined more clearly

I believe saving humanity is still important to him, but not his top priority

he’s a human too you know

It’s understandable

JEAN HAD PLENTY OF ADVICE FOR MARLOWE REGARDING THEIR UPCOMING EXPEDITION. DO YOU THINK MARLOWE WILL COME BACK ALIVE? 99 Responses

Nearly half of respondents believe that Marlowe will not be coming home after the expedition. 36% are unsure and won’t sway in either direction. 36% are confident Marlowe will pull through! 

LEVI SEEMS VERY CONCERNED FOR ERWIN’S SAFETY. DO YOU THINK ERWIN WILL SURVIVE THE MISSION AND SEE WHAT’S IN THE BASEMENT? 97 Responses

Erwin gets slightly less optimism from the voters as over half believe he won’t be making it back from Shiganshina alive. 28% don’t want to throw their hat in either ring and 17% are confident we’ll continue seeing more badassery from Erwin moving forward. 

DESPITE POSSIBLE CASUALTIES, DO YOU THINK THE SURVEY CORPS WILL COME OUT VICTORIOUS? 98 Responses

More than half of you believe the Survey Corps will achieve a victory worthy of their sendoff. 33% don’t want to make any predictions just yet. A small percentage have a bad feeling about the expedition.

ANY PREDICTIONS ON WHAT LEVI, EREN AND MIKASA ARE FIGHTING ABOUT? 100 Responses

33% of respondents believe that the altercation is over the possession of the serum. 26% believe that they are upset with each other due to everyone else dying on the mission. 21% believe it’s a mix of multiple presented options. Some others had their own words: 

Levi ate the last Eren cake. They’re like the Finn Cakes from Adventure Time.

Eren fucked up and killed Reiner, so they couldn’t use the serum to steal the shifting power and potentially save Armin’s life (because let’s be real, the dude has way too many death flags at this point)

Eren & Mikasa are bitch

THOUGHTS ON THE SKELETONS IN THE GLITCH SEQUENCE? 99 Responses

The majority believe that the skeletons were titan remains steaming. 25% aren’t sure and 12% think those are the bones of humans. 

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

After last episode i was optimistic of the mission to retake wall maria. After that ending? Not anymore. I’m genuinely scared of what’s coming 

Every episode reaffirms how much I love this show and this one is no exception. Perfect set up for the next arc and the credits scene was amazing, from the concept to the execution, it was extremely effective. Looking forward to April!

Characters hyping each other up into ending that implies everything will go to shit. Just genius!

It's was Amaziiiiiiiiiiiing ♡♡♡ and the ending OMG u got me guys.. now i wanna know what happened.. why Eren Levi and Mikasa are fighting :'(s

Everything besides the ending was kinda dissapointing

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 93 Responses

Thank you to everyone who participated! 

Please keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming Uprising Arc poll! 

[onelinemanytimes]

Holy cow that’s a lot of stuff about Fresh.

So, I see you know that Fresh exists. A lot of people have a lot of ideas about Fresh, and while some are delightful, some just don’t make any sense. I’m here to unofficially address some of the things I see about his character that I wish I didn't, so buckle up folks, this is gonna be a long post.

PLEASE NOTE that I am NOT CQ. Never have been, never will be(?), and despite my best efforts I don't know everything about Fresh. To be honest, there are aspects that I'll headcanon the heck out of, especially in regards to his magic and how possession works and what have you, but I try to make sure it makes sense with what I DO know- some of it's probably wrong. I accept that. BUT YA BETTER BELIEVE THAT I'VE DONE MY RESEARCH ON WHATEVER'S AVAILABLE.

Alright, so, first things first that I see a lot.

"Fresh Sans i-"

Wrong, already you're off. If you try to sell UnderFresh/FreshTale to me as canon, I will unfortunately dunk you faster than Sans when you spare him. Let me make this very clear: A TRUE FRESHTALE DOES NOT EXIST.

Now, don't get me wrong- FreshTale can exist if you want! If you want a Universe of 90's hip-hop style, lingo and bad choices then go for it. This Is Not Fresh. There is no Fresh Sans- that's Sans Undertale, who happens to be Fresh's current host. Fresh has fortunately claimed a different, taller (not Papyrus) skeleton in the world of Lucidia, So not even his host is Sans anymore. If you're talking about the canon Fresh, do not say Fresh Sans/Undyne/anyone else from Undertale. Just say Fresh! Or maybe Fresh in a X host. That works too.

Keep in mind, Fresh has no universe, not really. He doesn’t come from anywhere, he exists outside of that kind of logic. It’s just him- and, well, another one that we the people made. A better version. That’s some complicated deep stuff though and trying to get into all of THAT takes a lot more background. Suffice to say, Fresh is the only Fresh, and while he can produce more parasites Asexually, he’s the only him.

“Ok, fine. Fresh is a parasite, but he can still like/dislike/care about/ect. X.”

Wrong again! People seem to think Fresh likes things- unfortunately, that’s really hard to do when YOU CAN’T FEEL AT ALL. That’s right y’all. Fresh, contrary to what people believe, doesn’t care about you, your family, your money, nope. If he could be argued to care about anything, that’s HIMSELF. Because he wants to live. He may, by extension, prefer hosts with more magic to feed off of (More food! Yay! More living!), or that are less conspicuous (I dare you to count the number of Sans that exist. Bet you can’t. It’s infinite. What’s one Sans out of eleventy-badjillion.), but really as long as you’ll keep him alive and well, you’ll do.

However, while Fresh cannot feel and cannot truly understand emotion in his basic, vanilla form, he knows what fear is like. It’s the fear of Death that keeps him going after all- why would survival matter if he didn’t care whether or not he died? It wouldn’t, honestly. There’s an extension to this fear as well- the fear of being replaced, especially by… well, himself. He knows that we, the people controlling everything, exist. He also knows that on a whim, we could end him in moments, or replace him with a better, more entertaining version of himself.

I think we can cut him a bit of slack in that regard. Survival is dependent on Fear- the whole fight or flight thing, knowing when a situation is dangerous, knowing when something will probably hurt or be a bad idea, that’s a fear thing. If Fresh is going to be a sentient being he’s gonna feel at least a little fear in his life. Although, for a while there, fear was a hard thing to make him feel, because he was pretty sure he was simply better than everyone else. He probably hadn’t experienced much in the way of losing a fight, both when it comes to controlling hosts or magic V magic fights with mad people.

I’ll elaborate on how much fun an emotional fresh is after a few more points. Now:

“Fresh is weak, or a joke.”

You make me laugh, pretend speaker of unfortunately wrong statements. It seems you have been fooled by Fresh’s Persona- his gaudy, 90s, friendly, weak persona. I hope you never meet Fresh in real life, because you’d be foolishly drawn into a sense of security by the fact that Fresh acts the fool. Please, take notice: HE ACTS. the fool.

Fresh is absolutely, definitely, not a fool. He doesn’t understand emotion, he doesn’t have emotion, but he is VERY smart. Being smart is a very good way to survive.

So then why is he outwardly ridiculous so much? It’s apparently not because he feels like people should be nice and good and happy, according to me, so what’s the deal? I ask you to consider the situation: You’re at a bus stop and there’s someone waiting there. They show no emotional cues, stare straight into your eyes, and hardly move. Their voice is flat and as far as you can tell they have no interests, besides possibly kidnapping you for who-knows what. Hmm… sounds like someone… I don’t want to be around……

Now consider instead, you go to the bus stop and see a happy, colorful figure standing there having a very animated conversation with someone else. His sense of fashion may be a few decades late, as well as his speech patterns, but he’s so much more approachable! Look at him, smiling and shooting you fingerguns and talking about the new furbies he’s gotten- very rare angel furby apparently, he’s in love already- you’d be much more willing to be his friend!

Fresh want’s friends. Not because he’s lonely, but because they’re easy to use. Friends are more willing to protect you if someone else attacks you. Friends are more willing to believe your side of the story, and put up with a few little quirks now and then. Friends make very, very good hosts. If you aren’t expecting it, there’s no way you’re going to be able to get away from Fresh if he’s got you where he wants you, somewhere private where there’s no one to see him take you, no one to save you, not even a chance to scream…

Being friendly is the key to survival. Of course he’s going to act the fool. NEVER underestimate Fresh. He’s counting on it. He will use you if you give him the chance because he simply doesn’t care.

I do have a quick note though! One thing that I headcanon a bit is that when he gives advice he really does mean it. Don’t Do Drugs! Be a nice person! Stay Hydrated Kids! He probably legitimately wants you to do these things. After all, if you’re taking care of yourself, you’ll make a much better host! Drugs cause all kinds of problems- If the host body has an addiction, Fresh has to deal with all the physical withdrawal symptoms because guess what, if something’s wrong with your body, it’s going to have to be dealt with when Fresh controls you. Broken legs? Not a great host. Easily sick? Not preferable. Trying to get over an addiction? What a hassle. Stay healthy so Fresh can have a nice functional host when he gets to you, ok?

“Fresh is still a good person though! He can’t help being a parasite, that doesn’t mean he can’t be convinced to be better!”

You sound like a Papyrus! Sorry but I hope you also never meet Fresh. You’d also probably die. Heck I’d probably die if I met Fresh. He’s really dangerous y’all.

Here are some possible side effects of emotionlessness!

A: You don’t care.

B: You don’t care.

C: You really, really DON’T CARE.

...really hard concept, I know. Of course, not everyone thinks extensively on what exactly “not caring” means for you, so I’ll give you a run down! I ask that you think a bit about Flowey as well. Flowey lost emotions after having them and became a bad person. Fresh started with nothing and had no morals. Now let’s see what that might do to you!

First of all, this means that you don’t care about other people. Their problems, and most importantly, their life, does not matter to you. If Fresh is helping you with something there’s probably going to be something in it for him too. Now, because Fresh doesn’t care about your life, nothing that happens to you matters! Depressed? Oh well! In pain? Not his problem, unless it starts interfering with your usefulness!

He knows he’s more powerful than you. If you’re his host, you are completely at his mercy- his non existent, parasitic mercy. If Fresh thinks he needs to prove a point, he’s not afraid to. By any means necessary. Does that mean torture? Does that mean making you watch as he ruins your life? Does that mean possessing you more than once because you wouldn’t keep your stupid mouth shut? Ok. If it works, why wouldn’t he do those things? And, even more than that, if it’s more efficient, why wouldn’t he decide to just cut straight to the point? It’s not like YOU can do anything about it. You’re basically a dead man walking.

It doesn’t stop there though. This is stepping a bit more into the shady waters of “maybe” as far as fresh’s character goes, but it’s been mentioned once or twice. Fresh knows that he’s better than you (as evidenced by the fact that you can’t exactly stop him when you’re the host), and honestly? He knows he can get away with a lot. He Canonically infected hundred of people for what amounted to nothing more than “because I can.” THAT’S Fresh. That’s just one example. He knows what he’s able to do, and why not do that as long as it’s not putting him in danger?

You’ll see him pushing the boundaries a lot- him an error have some sort of weird relationship that we’re not really sure about, but considering just how uncomfortable ERROR is about Fresh, that’s kinda a sign that “maybe there’s something wrong here.” Error has destroyed entire universes (at the very least, he has when he was still Sans. All we know about lucidia Error is that he’s dressed like a freakin’ hobo.), and he’s been shown as having a great distrust and dislike when it comes to Fresh.

Error happens to be lucky though. His Soul glitching out could potentially cut True Fresh in half and that’s not something Fresh is particularly into, so the chances of Error ever getting possesed are nearly zero. We’ll just have to see what CQ has in mind.

“You keep talking about True Fresh, is that different from Fresh somehow?”

No, True Fresh and Fresh are the same person. When I say Fresh, I’m implying Fresh when he’s in a host and actually able to talk and do things. True Fresh is the actual parasite that is Fresh. The vaguely Starfish-slug-eyeball hybrid that crawls around infecting people and ruining everyone’s life. That’s what I mean when I say True Fresh.

Right now, True Fresh’s physical capacities are a bit vague? We know that hostless, True Fresh is very very weak. One good stomp on his eye would put him out of commision forever, and he’s not exactly very durable. Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure about the details? I’ve asked questions before about some things and have some solid answers- such as the fact that True Fresh can’t talk (but he screeches! Fun!) and can’t drown, but as far as things like physical strength and whether or not he emits slime… I have no idea. I’d like to think he’s a bit slimey and able to climb up stuff because it’s sticky, but I don’t know for sure so don’t ask me.

In short: Imagine four slugs that are purple. Connect them all together with their faces touching, like a starfish. Now give it a big eye right in the middle that’s also kinda a mouth with pointly lil’ teeth. That’s True Fresh. Probably about the size of a fist. I don’t think a specific size has ever been given. All I know is that they’re definitely small enough to fit uncomfortably into someone’s mouth, but not small or flexible enough to get in anywhere else unless you have a reasonably sized open wound.

*Side note, his teeth!! I’ve seen a few interpretations as to how placement is, but it’s the cutest part. Smol pointy teeth pokin’ out ready for the chompin!! It would be cute if it wasn’t terrifying.

“But I’ve seen emotional Fresh things from people with the CQ seal of approval! What does it mean??”

Nyeh heh heh, my homie, this is a fun topic right here. What your talking about is a variation on the vanilla fresh where he gains emotions- AND BOY IS IT FUN! You see, because Fresh started out emotionless, He’s basically started out at 0. Maybe 1, if he’s got fear going for him.

Now go from 1 ALL THE WAY TO INFINITY.

Or, alternatively, a general build up of emotions that he may not even notice at first until “Oh my gosh what am I doing this doesn’t make sense why I’m I getting so irrational about this thing”

That’s insane! He felt nothing before then! That’s like giving a college professor the emotional disposition of a 5 year old! IT’S A MESS! But a fun, wonderful to explore mess.

Especially if Fresh had the opportunity to do some real bad things before he got emotions.

Everything is a big deal for a while! That furby you had before you even really cared about it? It’s never going to leave your ownership. The person you were trying to befriend so you’d have an easy host for later? Crap. You, accidentally legitimately befriended them and now you can’t bring yourself to do it, even though it’s putting you at risk. That time someone made fun of the way you looked, and they took it too far, and maybe you were having a bad day? Guess what kind of hell they’re about to get.

The thing is, the way Fresh ends up depends entirely on what he did pre-emotion, and how he got his emotions. I’d like to bring up @alainaprana ‘s Kid Fresh- AND PLEASE NOTE! KID FRESH IS NOT TRUE FRESH! THEY ARE TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE WITH SEPARATE STORIES AND SEPARATE EXPERIENCES! However, this is an easy way to make my point.

Kid Fresh was born emotionless, and lived in a fairly good environment. He was never given the chance to develop any bad habits, living with a supportive family (minus error), and he didn’t have the same problem True Fresh has. Namely, the problem of being a soul-eating parasite that has to kill to continue living. So he got his emotions, and bad things definitely happened! He got sick because of the intensity of everything, and felt way too hard and had it pretty rough for a while! But eventually he grew up to do some pretty great things, being healthy and in a great friendship and generally? Ending up good.

Parasite Fresh, however, has a lot more problems going for him than Kid Fresh. There's a very good reason why Fresh is emotionless, most importantly because empathy is killer to him. He absolutely cannot care about people if he wants to survive in the best possible way he can. For every one person he would befriend that would be another source of magic that he’s not getting. Eventually he’d run out of hosts or his friends would turn on him, and neither one of those outcomes are great. Being emotionless also means you’re less likely to cause a scene, because you don't get worked up about anything! Nothing gets under your skin. Except maybe a death threat from someone who could actually conceivably kill you.

This section is about if Fresh gains emotions though, you know the basic backstory of emotionlessness  now. First you have to consider how he got his emotions. Was it gained slowly over time, building itself into existence until it started getting out of his control? That's going to cause problems. I’d like to draw your attention now to @neon--nightmare ‘s Fresh, who is ALSO TECHNICALLY NOT CANON! It’s very good though. Situated in GloomVerse instead of Undertale (or even better, Lucidia) but that’s not too big a problem for our purposes.

This is a Fresh that's been going down the buildup path. He started out exactly like Canon Fresh, but his story took him through The Loveball (essential rp for Fresh’s character) as well as A Meeting with Himself (Also Really important). He knows that if he starts screwing up, we, the people in control, could replace him real easy.

Fresh started out terrified at the least, and for good reason! However, as time passed, there started to be some small things that add up to a lot. One of the most obvious things is his near obsession with Wallis, and not the positive kind of obsession. He’s tried to kill Wallis at least twice, or done things that would end up with him dying, because he's worried about something that Wallis is doing. (Please note that Wallis is still alive partially through plot armor, but I mean, because we already know fresh knows we exist you could argue that he might realize Wallis has some sort of protection, but that’s really Meta and personally not what I think neon is going for.)

Wallis, meanwhile? He’s trying to help Fresh, and Fresh can't handle that. WHY would Wallis be helping him? Fresh nearly killed him multiple times- and remember! Life is EVERYTHING to Fresh! If you nearly killed Fresh but let him live you’d better watch your back. But instead of getting a response like that to his literal torture of this GloomVerse Star, he gets… what almost feels like pity? Regret? An honest, true desire to try and HELP Fresh, Because he needs the help.

The implications of that to Fresh are HUGE! Ignore the fact that Fresh is very definitely grieving the loss of a true actual friend (which was also a mistake) at the Loveball, and the fact that Fresh Knows he has to act “right” or risk getting thrown out and simply replaced by us, but the fact that he needs help is a big problem. He was made to be self-sufficient, an uncaring parasite that’s got a fun, although fake, persona. Now instead he’s a stressful mess that breaks down at a pointed mention of ‘them’ and is trying to desperately hide the fact that he's gaining emotions and it’s bad.

Things to consider with the gradual build up though. Has he stopped taking hosts? No, Although considering he took Wallis twice or so he's not exactly being as efficient anymore. Has he stopped being cruel? More the opposite, if anything he’s now more dangerous than ever in that regard, if you happen to push any of his feel buttons and freak him out enough to see you as a risk. He’s really trying to be himself but it’s not working. He had a fixation on Wallis because Wallis was making him feel, and for all his life Feeling = Bad. He can't afford to break and he knows it. Even still, slowly but surely, he’s falling apart.

---- Small intermission! Sorry but that’s a lot so far. Feel free to take a little break, like I am, and think about what you’ve discovered so far. It’s a lot ain’t it. Who knew Fresh was actually a multi-dimensional in depth character with some big problems. (I did. And now hopefully you do.) ----

BACK TO FRESH! Now, I mentioned before, there's another way to give emotions to Fresh, and while it’s less likely it’s just as fun to explore. That’s the method of “Let’s dump all the emotions on Fresh and see what happens.” This method usually happens from some sort of magical interference.

This is that zero to everything I mentioned before. Fresh, with no experience or build up, is suddenly feeling just as much as me or you. That’s a whole lot more than he was feeling before and BOY WOULD THAT BE STRESSFUL. Especially if Fresh got guilt in a more traditional way, like we would feel, instead of a build of emotions.

See, when Fresh builds up to emotions he’s still being Fresh. He’s still possessing and lying and doing his best to keep being himself, which is just unfortunate enough to not be a great person. If you dump all of the emotions on Fresh he has to deal with it immediately. There’s no time to become comfortable with what he's doing. All the sudden he has all this junk on him, a lot of it not even initially dealing with hosting, but once it becomes time for him to move on to someone else? He has to deal with empathy, and guilt.

Empathy is completely, entirely unacceptable. He can't afford to care about what happens to someone else! He can now feel that feeling of “what if someone did this to me” and if he can't rationalize himself out of that emotion he's absolutely screwed. All the sudden everything is different. There are people he cares about, and he knows what he does is Hell to the host. Ever had the life sucked out of you by force while someone else controlled your body and proceeded to ruin your life? It’s bad. Now imagine you have to do that to someone else just to live. Bad times all around.

That's just for emotions in the present. Start bringing up Fresh's past and it can get worse. For example, the fact that he slowly murdered at least a few hundreds of people more likely than not, as well as destroying relationships, and honestly? Some of that you did because you didn't care and you knew you could. Unfortunately, now you do care and you can see how bad that was. Really bad. You're a bad person, and even trying to act like “yourself” drags up SO MANY PROBLEMS. Some therapy may be required. Or a lot of therapy. Take your pick.

“Well, This stuff doesn't matter for me because I’m only interested in sexy times Fresh anyways and that's a different thing *lenny *wink face.”

(TL:DR of this in case it’ll make you uncomfortable, Fresh is a literal Asexual Parasite and doesn't understand Love anyways. Stop.)

Sorry buddy but Fresh can't even do that! Firstly he has no concept of love, so unless you give him emotions there's not going to be any relationship between you two except “possible host” and “probable cause of death.” Any love you would feel for him is unfortunately one sided, sorry Alaina.

Alright, but then you give him emotions and enough time to sort out his complicated junk. Fair enough, then maybe, very very maybe could you have some sort of relationship with Fresh. One that didn't end badly, I mean.

Emotions or not, Fresh has no grasp of sex. It just, doesn't compute. You see, Fresh is an Asexual Parasite in the literal meaning of the word. He produces more parasites all on his own, as much as he wants (or doesn't), without any help from anyone. Even without that, why would Fresh engage in that sort of relationship? There's no point. If he wants to get close to someone being friends is fine and doesn't take as long more often than not. Maybe, Maybe he would go to a bar and find someone to trick into following him away for a quick easy host, but if that happens, sorry, you’re not getting much more than your shirt off in a best case scenario. There's definitely not going to be any action.

Also, consider his persona. Does he look like the sort of person who would do that with someone he was unfamiliar with? No, not really, and remember, he doesn't exactly have the time to cultivate a relationship until it gets to that point. Please also consider that if Fresh can't feel, you aren't getting anything good out of that kind of venture anyways. He's completely inexperienced, and he's not going to understand what’s going on at any level. He just. He can't, he's completely Asexual. He might be a minor except we don't know how long Fresh has been alive, or when exactly he becomes not a kid anymore. It’s all crappy.

It’s just not good. Stop. Fresh has a kiss list, look into getting one of those instead. Still doesn't understand the weight of a kiss but it’s as good as you're canonically getting.

“Wow, that’s a super long post! How do you know so much?”

Because I LOVE FRESH! I too was drawn in by his friendly persona, however, instead of just taking that and assuming that’s all there was, I tried to find out anything I could. I looked through CQ’s blog for anything involving Fresh, I asked questions when I had questions, I went to sources that were fairly trustable, and then I asked more questions. I watched and read and considered his character really really hard because I didn't want to misunderstand him.

Fresh is in a strange state of having not enough information about him posted, and at the same time having all the information you need about him to understand him. We don't know what his true past is, why he exists, what minor goals will be, because in short, that’s spoilers. This is the information that’ll get revealed within Lucidia. And if it doesn't I’m going to eat my fist and then proceeded to ask more questions.

HOWEVER! We know so much about who he is, and if you're careful with it you might even be able to fill in some blanks with reasonable headcanons! We know that he’s emotionless, and already if you just think about that fact you’ve got miles to run with. The fact that he’s a parasite, and what that means as far as morals go. Something that has to kill to live is going to mature differently than we do, and come to different conclusions about the world! Different assumptions, hopes, expectations, experiences! So many things!

So please, I ask you, don’t try to sell me a fresh that’s little more than a bright sk8er boi that uses outdated lingo and happens to be a parasite. Sell me a Parasite trying to fly under the radar the best way it can, by imitating others and playing their cards so that they're always one step ahead, manipulating and hurting others on the down low so that people won’t believe the ones he’s hurt and they'll be willing to follow him into a risky situation. Sell me a clever Fresh, an emotionless Fresh, a Fresh that isn't afraid to get his hands dirty if that’s really the best way to get something done.

Sell me the Real Fresh, not the Fannon.

-------

 Special thanks to @alainaprana and @neon--nightmare for having some fun emotional Fresh things I could use, as well as @feth for being a wealth of information that’s pretty safe. And of course, thank you @loverofpiggies for creating Fresh in the first place. None of this post would exist if Fresh didn't exist, and I’m glad to have been able to find you when I did. PLEASE, IF ANY OF THIS IS INACCURATE, TELL ME! I really do try my best to play him right in stories and ideas and I want to show an accurate depiction of him.

By the way, here are the tags that I had originally written, for your reading pleasure. It's a mess, but I just feel like the raw emotion might be good (even if that's basically the opposite of True Fresh).

Heck, so much heck, how does everyone NOT know this??, Fresh is so interesting and in depth and??, He's more than a 90's infomercial, that's just te persona he sells, YOU'RE ALL BEING FOOLED BY FRESH'S FAKE SELF, HE DOESN'T CARE, HE'S A BAD BOI THAT HAS TO SLOWLY KILL TO LIVE, HECKS, LOOK AT HIS SMILE, HIS HAPPY "PERSONALITY", IT'S FAKE!! ALL OF IT!!, except when it's not because it's an au where he gained emotions, and then it's "oh Lordy what have I done", and crying all the time because boi, he ain't never had any emotions, could you imagine going from zero to INFINITY, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, when you drop toast butter-down you say "aww darn :(", FRESH WITH EMOTION, A FREAKIN', FUNERAL FOR THE BREAD, not Really I'm exaggerating, BUT BOIS, Y'ALLS, HIS HEART, "Oh no I- I dropped the bread, I had just spent so much time making that and-, and now it's gone, no one can eat it, it landed butter down now there's a huge mess, CQ comes in to fresh on the ground beside a single piece of bread, please know I'm mostly exaggerating, but just, GOODNESS GRAVY, AND THEN??? CANON FRESH WHERE NO EMOTION???, HAVE YOU SEEN HIM, HIM HIM, NOT SANS UNDERTALE, GOOD LORDY I ALWAYS DIE A BIT WHEN I SEE "UNDERFRESH/FRESHTALE", DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THAT DOESN'T EXIST, THAT'S!!!! NOT A THING!?!!, at least, not in te case of REAL FRESH, you can make an underfresh if you want but it will never be canon, there's no fresh Papyrus, no fresh Flowey, no fresh Undyne, BECAUSE THERE'S NO FRESH SANS, ONLY FRESH, and fresh, oh boy, he's the worst, the best worst, "hey you know I don't really care so how about I just, Do what it takes, or even better, what it doesn't take because it'll be amusing for a while", Fresh doesn't care about you, or your life, or your friends, or your money, nothing, he cares about his own life, that's priority number one y'all, If that means murder? Eating people alive? Lying?, he'll do that, Yeah, His persona he's got going on?, he WANTS YOU to underestimate him., "oh yeah that colorful dude haha what a joke", no one would suspect he's actually, A STARFISH MURDER PARASITE, THAT WILL SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY DRAIN YOUR MAGIC, THEN LEAVE YOU FOR DEAD AT BEST, THAT's RIGHT, AT BEST, I have very few doubts that Fresh would kill previous hosts to cover his tracks if he, felt he had to, "If You end up living and telling people about me someone might actually believe you.", "so you get to die! Yay :D!", please note this is an exaggeration, I'm super hyped up, but STILL, MY POINT!!, IS HERE!!, I'm just gonna make a post, because I have so many words to say, and tags r not enough,

[tfpworkshop]

Autobots and the cons reacting to you (the s/o) being bullied nearly every day? (I’m a victim of being bullied so I’ve always wondered how they would react/do)

Deepdrive: I hope you’re alright. If you ever need to talk to someone message me, I’ve been bullied myself so I don’t mind. My personal advice to all of you is to keep smiling, and be polite to the bullies anyway (kill those glitches with kindness). In my most recent experience of bullying, I did this and the bully realised how much of a jerk they were and made sure that their friends didn’t bother me.

Optimus

He would want to do something, but his morals would prevent him from scaring or harming anyone else, so instead, he would teach you how to deal with them yourself. He’ll make sure you have confidence and know that he’s got you back and tell you what to say or do to get the bullies to back off, but most importantly he would comfort you and make sure that you don’t believe what the bullies say.

Bumblebee

He would be so sad and angry if he found out. If he saw it happen he would completely flip and scare the scrap out of the bullies, but he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He would be really affectionate to you whenever he is reminded of it.

Bulkhead

He would be a good shoulder to cry on, make sure you don’t believe what the bullies are saying, and the next day he would find the bullies and threaten them in his holoform to leave you alone (posing as a friend of yours from outside of school).

Ratchet

He would chat with you about how much people, human or Cybertonian, can suck and how the bullies are below you, he would then go on about how the both of you may just be the only sane and reasonable people on this rock of a planet.

Smokescreen

He would most definitely pull all kinds of pranks on the bullies, to the point where ever you might think that he is taking things too far, but he would keep doing it until long after they stop, calling it justice.

Wheeljack

He would plan to get revenge on the bullies with you, and unlike all the other Autobots, hurting the bullies wouldn’t be off the table, not after they hurt you.

Ultra Magnus

He would report the bullying to the bullies (I’m sort of assuming they’re human) parents, a simple, but surprisingly effective method as Ultra Magnus’s official sounding voice made the parents think that what happened was twice as serious as it already was.

Megatron

He’s Megatron, so it is already a given that these bullies are either dead almost immediately or now somehow under Autobot protection and soon to be so, but this would inspire Megatron to teach you how to fight so you may one day be able to stand up for yourself.

Starscream

He helps you out by scheming like 30 different ways of getting back t the bullies yourself (he knows vengeance is sweeter when you do it yourself) but also makes sure to offer to deal with them himself.

Soundwave

It would low-key crush him because for once he wishes to use his voice to comfort you, instead he has to resolve to simply being there for you, and being your guardian robot angle and scaring the scrap out of the bullies.

Knock Out

He knows just what to say to cheer you up every time and would continually do his best to support you and give you the courage to stand up to the bullies. If they don’t back of after that, he’ll deal with them.

Breakdown

He can get them to stop really quick, but he’ll struggle to find the right words to comfort you, he might even stumble around for almost an hour trying to figure out what to say before giving up and instead holding you close.

Dreadwing

He would teach you everything you could ever need to know in terms of combat and dealing with your foes using your voice, he wants to teach you so that you’re prepared so neither of you needs to worry about this happening again.

Predaking

Everyone involved- save you- is almost certainly dead and he is sitting you down and asking why you didn’t tell him earlier because he wishes that he could have been there for you earlier and doesn’t like that he wasn’t there to protect you when you needed it.

[flippinoptimist]

> Vel : Meet a nerdlord

Today at 2:45 AM

deputyheadmistress Alright, someone talking to you on my behalf about a lack of privacy got to me a bit. But I'm not upset with you for how the internet behaves.

flippinoptimist thats lurky, theyre a little closer to omniscient than is average for most beings, and like kind of giving advice, and they mean well i think they meant it mostly to make me stop chargin around in like, manic mode, though, even if stuff relatin to you was the causal start of the chain sorry you got dragged into it miss granger, and that i wasn't doin the tact thing

deputyheadmistress I didn't mean them, I meant the thread about different faux book titles. But a close to omniscient being is, I suppose, something I'll also have to get used to. I'm at least a bit used to manic teens, though it's not the best way to get shocking information.

flippinoptimist i think my earth age would technically start with a two, but thats sorta recent after you spend enough time around here you get used to the like, multiverse

deputyheadmistress Can we, perhaps, stop talking about the multiverse for a few moments? And talk about something a bit more grounding, like your particular brand of magic. I'm very curious.

flippinoptimist sure its sorta a fusion of everything ive run across, since the inherent stuff that my ~destiny~ tried to put on me isnt the same kind of stuff as the place where im learnin the inherent is more of a "woo, heres a big abstract concept, you are an incarnation / channeler of a shard of it, neato"

deputyheadmistress That sounds like a lot to dig into, but alright.

flippinoptimist the school part is about how you can structure thought and energy flow into symbols and runes and things i'm focusin on artificing ..and the inherent part has given me a knack for illusions i cant figure out how to actually cast spells but im good at making things!

deputyheadmistress Oh! I was very good at ancient runes during my time at Hogwarts, and while I haven't managed to do much with it since graduation, other than an enchanted bag, I'd be really curious to see what similarities there might be. I wonder if you can cast spells. Logic seems like it'd point to yes, but if you're from somewhere else...

flippinoptimist id be curious about them!  i know the words to a few spells but ive never seen  them and do naut have a wand of the kind you are thinking of the wands i know about / make each have a specific spell in them, and are locked to create a specific effect that triggers when a gesture or word or w/e happens

deputyheadmistress That's terribly inefficient.

flippinoptimist sure, its Terrible

deputyheadmistress ... Is that referencing those historical people of note who end up being so infamous people associate them with the word 'Terrible' as well?

flippinoptimist naut much different than having a necklace that makes you invisible though yes! it also enables a billion terrible puns

deputyheadmistress I was curious. It's a bit strange to add it yourself, don't you think?

flippinoptimist (ba dum tsh)

deputyheadmistress Oh.

flippinoptimist it is

deputyheadmistress Well, that explains that, doesn't it?

flippinoptimist but my species has this thing, where on adulthood we each replace our kid name with an adult Title

deputyheadmistress Oh, it's a cultural thing.

flippinoptimist yeah, and i chose a human one

deputyheadmistress Alright. I read a little bit on that.

flippinoptimist because humans are neat and i like them

deputyheadmistress Oh! Well, I'm glad you like humans, then.

flippinoptimist and i respect a lot of the cultural things i see in most of the human places i have found

deputyheadmistress Good, I was about to ask that.

flippinoptimist also everything that comes out of japan is amazing

deputyheadmistress I don't know how I could let you use a wand from here, but I want to try.

flippinoptimist id love to try if you can think of a way! i am pretty good at establishing first contact with new universes, and i could get you alien tech and magic to check out if you wanted for various definitions of alien

deputyheadmistress ... Alien tech won't work so well on Hogwart's grounds. I had to heavily modify this computer so it'd function here.

flippinoptimist i am curious about how

flippinoptimist alllsooo....  ill have to find a copy of the magic version of getting around from place to place

deputyheadmistress Oh! I wrote a whole thesis on how to make magic more compatable with muggle text over the summer, let me...

flippinoptimist but i know where to find it!  couple of steps and itll work out okay

deputyheadmistress I'll send it to you later. It's a bit lengthy, and I have to type it up here. Alright, I'll hold.

flippinoptimist okay i hate to say this because i am definitely interested in exchangin data and showin things, but it feels rude not to remind you before we get much further that a step of getting this to work is probably going to involve me (random internet stranger) havin to figure out what your coordinates are, so i can write them in the format needed for the circley part i can get you the circle rune pattern either way, but if you want a way to actually use it, id need to basically track your IP but, like, fancy and involving you running a thing on a computer let me know if you want to do that part, but heres the circle diagram

flippinoptimist -- flippinoptimist began sending file : transportationcircle.pdf --

deputyheadmistress I have been warned about random internet strangers.... I may have to work on protection wards for a moment, for the sake of safety.

flippinoptimist sure thing i highly advise not using that w/o fillin in coordinates the way it says, and also not without knowin your home coordinates if you step through that thing, the only way back is to know how to write your home address, you know?

deputyheadmistress Alright

flippinoptimist to find home coordinates, install one a these chat programs, and send me a private message, i can use a couple a tools to trace the connection from there and get your code

deputyheadmistress This is certainly the sort of decision I want to be making at five in the morning. Alright, I've got everything set up. What is life without adventure, and the chance to make the headmistress mad at me.

flippinoptimist lol the decision will still be here at not five in the morning, but you wont be able to blame it on the time then shit i should give you the programs shouldnt i -- Discord, Trollian! --

deputyheadmistress Thank you.

flippinoptimist i have a set of coords i can give you that are explicitely for being a neutral place to meet people, but the sky isnt done yet so its janky lookin but!  the building is finished

deputyheadmistress I've chosen a fairly neutral place for the moment, don't worry.

flippinoptimist ok!

deputyheadmistress > Message him on Discord. This will be absolutely fine. Totally.

flippinoptimist > He messages her back!  About two minutes later, he gives her the number version of her coordinates, which she can use to get back home from anywhere.  He also gives her the coordinates to the convenience store, which he mentions is "a pocket dimension under construction"

deputyheadmistress > She'll... Write that down and probably not do anything with it for a while. > If he tries to look at her coordinates directly, it will really really not work, as if his machine were glitching, but he can probably go a few miles out for a nice view of a scottish country side.

flippinoptimist > Neat!  He ..does poke that far, but then sets his machine to go back to looking somewhere else.  The coordinates are saved, but he promises to himself to not use them. if somebody gives you coordinates, you can go places, or people w/ yours can send you stuff or come visit

deputyheadmistress Alright. This is going to take a bit of getting used to, but if you want to come over you can.

flippinoptimist > ..man, he was supposed to be in time out, but lately he'd been doing so well ..until today.. and he'd been leaning into choosing the Chaotic choices more and more often... > What good was putting yourself in time out if you didn't stick to it?

flippinoptimist crazy o clock in the mornin probably aint the best time for first impressions, though its temptin as hell.  i could send across some small magic gunk and weird alien snacks as a proof of concept, and meet you like, tomorrow or another day soon?

deputyheadmistress That sounds good! I'll send you some magic things too, then.

flippinoptimist sweet!  we can compare notes

deputyheadmistress > Time to gather some of George's jokes and some magical candy.

flippinoptimist > He would send an invisibility ring, a few novelty disguises, a small opal that made anyone within line of sight experience a slightly sweet taste (in a well-shielded bag), and a variety of alternian mass-produced snackfoods labled in a clearly alien language.  Ones he thought might not creep out humans too bad.

deputyheadmistress > Bertie botts every flavor beans are a necessity, though she does make sure to include a carefully penned note about what flavors he may come across that are less pleasant. Chocolate frogs are included as well, of course. Things that turn skin different interesting colors, fireworks that make flame animals bound through the air.

flippinoptimist > He is going to admire the hell out of and carefully store these for later perusal.

deputyheadmistress > He also gets a somewhat large coinpurse that he can shove his whole arm in and still seem to not run out of room.

flippinoptimist okay this is a pretty neat bag stupid question and no i am not going ot try, what happens when you turn it inside out

deputyheadmistress You could turn it out for a really long time. I think it'd be annoying to stuff it back in though

flippinoptimist okay, what if i went for a swim in the ocean with it is there a limit?

deputyheadmistress Of course there's a limit. But it can hold a tent or two, several thin blankets, changes of clothing, general everyday use things, and of course money. Thin things work better, obviously. You could probably fit thick blankets, but it'd be way more annoying both to put them in and pull them out.

flippinoptimist that makes a lotta sense and is pretty interestin i have a tech way of carrying lots of stuff, but you mentioned tech was sad

deputyheadmistress Oh! I have a print version of the paper I was going to type up.

flippinoptimist ive got an amulet thats basically like a mr potato head that disguises you all the runework lines up so you can unclip parts and clip in different parts

deputyheadmistress > Send that along, also. There's moving pictures involved, with her pictured. Oh wow.

flippinoptimist modular!

deputyheadmistress I don't think describing it as 'Mr Potato Head' is reassuring, for a disguise, but a modular disguise is interesting.

flippinoptimist it only works when everything is seated in firmly and shut, but its also sort of like legos > He .. sends a modular disguise amulet over too, with a couple of bits and pieces it only does disguises for my species, but hey, maybe thatll be handy

deputyheadmistress Maybe.

flippinoptimist pro tip if you are ever going to go to a place with my species, ask them which color of person is best for you to be can of worms subject really

deputyheadmistress That sounds racist as hell.

flippinoptimist oh yeah

deputyheadmistress Joy.

flippinoptimist p much sometides people call the usual empress "fish hitler" most of the dudes i know are huge rebels

deputyheadmistress The magical world just recently got done with a war similar to Hitler's.

flippinoptimist but!  there are placeswhere things are fine its just good to check if a place is one of them first

deputyheadmistress So I'm a little sick of that.

flippinoptimist i hang out in like three different places where she got deposed differentamounts of time ago yeah thats aight

deputyheadmistress At least there's that.

flippinoptimist speaking of humans, its great how often its naut like that like, sometimes, but anyway people can be pretty cool when teyre given teh chance

deputyheadmistress I do like to believe in the inherent goodness of people, despite how much bad has happened.

flippinoptimist i think people can choose how theyre gonna be theresa lotta nice reasons to choose not to be a dick

deputyheadmistress I should hope you wouldn't need reasons, but yes there are reasons to be nice.

flippinoptimist sometimes bein mean is tempting, otherwise people wouldnt do it you get all wrapped up in somethin, dont see all of it, then suddenly you get a reality check an gotta go "hey is this where i wanna be" and then people ignore the question because they dont wanna think about it and then its sealed, theyre dicks and theyll stay that way

flippinoptimist till they look around again

deputyheadmistress I suppose.

flippinoptimist i spend a lotta time thinkin about it i was a jerk when i was younger, and i decided to be nice instead so i spend a lot of time talkin to dudes who are or were also jerks and we all get better! cause i can help them find the reasons they need to start

flippinoptimist also jerks are sometimes kinda hilarious, and theyre often pretty good at shit.  otherwise theyd have learned better when they ran into a problem they couldnt solve w/o help.

deputyheadmistress It's getting a bit late. I think I should probably turn in for the night, before all of the teenagers wake up and need scowling at.

flippinoptimist that is probably a thing i hope you have a good night miss granger it was nice meetin you

deputyheadmistress It was really interesting talking to you, Vel.

flippinoptimist i try for interestin

deputyheadmistress Do you really need to try?

flippinoptimist not really

deputyheadmistress Have a good night. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

flippinoptimist bye!

[sayaratyriea]

Why and How you got the wrong Aspect: an analysis!

Okay, everyone’s running around like the anthill’s been kicked over after the Extended Zodiac release. People are complaining that their results aren’t right, that the test has to be wrong, that the aspect characterizations are somehow not totally in line with canon, et cetera and so on and so forth... We have the new descriptions of WHAT the Aspect personalities are, but after hearing no fewer than 4 different people complain (rather specifically) that they got Life when they “should’ve” gotten Blood, I decided to poke through the test in an attempt to decide how the test actually determines this stuff. Because it’s really interesting, and everyone’s done so much intense analysis, and I don’t actually think we were all the way wrong? But I also think that the test is doing a good job at analyzing the things it’s actually asking--the problem is, it’s not asking you what it maybe should be. 

This is all kind of inspired by a text post I saw earlier doing a primary analysis of the test questions--I can’t find that post right now, but if I do track it down I’ll link it. For now, Taz’s interpretation! This is a pretty simple test, really. Each one of the 12 questions corresponds to one pair of Aspects, and is intended to show which one of the two the test taker is inclined towards. The point of this post is to explain (my understanding of) how this test works, and also provide answers as to how you might have gotten an Aspect that you feel doesn’t fit you quite right! There are quite a few ways to get the wrong answers here, even though the canon descriptions of the Aspects seem spot-on and perfect. It’s a fairly well-made system with a somewhat poorly-designed quiz attached. 

This got pretty rambly, so see the readmore for the rest of the post!

First things first: a brief recap of each question, what it asks, and what the results are. 

Question 1 is Breath vs Blood: tldr; do you see yourself as more of a Loner Hero type or a part of a large system of interlocked characters? Loner hero is the Breath answer, and the extended cast is Blood. 

Question 2: The second Breath vs Blood. This time, it’s show or tell. How do you lead and teach people? By inspiring them or by demonstrating? This is a duality that’s often been attributed to active/passive /classes/ in the classpect community, so it’s interesting that it’s being tied to aspects here. Anyways, Breath players show and Blood players inspire by example. 

Question 3: Obviously Light vs Void. Would you rather know everything or be content with knowing that mysteries still exist? Light players want to know, Void players like mystery. Simple stuff. 

Question 4: Another Light vs Void. When someone’s wrong about something, do you correct their errors, or just point out how dubious their information is? Light likes illuminating the truth (heh), and Void would rather cast doubt on the false information. 

Question 5: Time vs Space, very shallow. Time players like time travel, Space players like distance. 

Question 6: The second Time vs Space. Which do you value more, the end results or the journey along the way? Time players value the result, and Space values the journey. 

Question 7: Heart vs Mind. Would you rather know yourself in full detail and intimacy, or have the power to make the most rational decisions? Heart is self, Mind is reason. 

Question 8: Heart vs Mind part 2. Would you rather know your true potential or the consequences to your possible decisions? Heart is potential, Mind is consequences. 

Question 9: Hope vs Rage. Would you rather have firm conviction in your own beliefs, or would you rather cast doubt on the beliefs of those who are wrong? Hope has conviction and Rage is skeptical. 

Question 10: Hope vs Rage #2. When you’re in an awful situation, will you stay there until you’ve planned an escape route, or destroy everything and start from scratch no matter the consequences? Hope will stay, Rage will burn it down. 

Question 11: Life vs Doom. When you see another person in pain, are you more likely to try to help them, or just empathize and try to relate to them? I don’t like this question--it’s worded vaguely and phrased in such a way where if you don’t choose the Life answer then you get guilted for it. Anyways, Life will help, and Doom will... “relate,” whatever that means. 

Question 12: Life vs Doom #2. When you encounter someone in a situation so awful that there’s no way to help, are you more likely to be horrified and fight the inevitable, or feel resigned to the fate of the world? Again, this is a heavily slanted question and could be worded FAR more effectively to produce a less biased quiz. Life fights back, Doom is resigned to destiny. 

So there you have it, those are the questions! With that in mind, I’m still trying to figure out how they’re “weighted” when you give multiple strong answers, but the general gist is that the quiz assigns you the Aspect you provided the most Firm Yes answers to. I got Life because I replied strongly in the Helping direction on the last two questions, which overpowered some of my wimpier answers to the other questions. 

So what does this mean about the aspect results?

That’s what this post was supposed to be about, after all! I’m not going to pick apart the questions that I think work well, but there are two sets in particular that OFFEND me in how poorly designed they are, and I want to dissect them a little because they seem to cause a lot of problems for people. 

First things first, I want to address something about this quiz that’s really bothering me: the whole skew of the Life vs Doom duality. Specifically, the questions meant to assign the Life and Doom aspects in this quiz are really, really bad. I suspect that Life is being assigned far too often, and Doom not nearly enough, because of this problem. Doom got super shortchanged here! 

There’s something that Question 11 in particular wants to be asking that it just isn’t, and that glitch in wording could be causing a lot of skew. Frankly, I don’t think anyone’s impulse is to empathize with a person while “not doing anything” about their situation otherwise. What this question wants to ask is, when confronted with someone in despair, do you try to fix the situation materially and remove what’s causing them distress, or do you try to speak to them and relate to them and listen to their problems? Doom’s Aspect description heavily emphasizes empathy and commiseration. While Doom is not the aspect that tries to fix problems, and Doom is not the advice friend, Doom seems like it really wants to listen. I think this question should be rephrased along these lines: “When you see someone suffering, are you more inclined to help them get better? Or is your instinct to listen to their troubles and empathize with them, without necessarily offering advice?” 

Also, Question 12 should maybe be rephrased in the context of hearing, like, a news article or something. You’re reading about a horrible awful disaster somewhere else, do you feel terrible that nothing can be done or are you resigned to disaster as the Way the World Is? That’d feel a lot less...weird. 

SO like, if you got Life and you don’t think it fit you that well, it’s probably because of those two wonky questions! I think the majority of people are more inclined to do something active in times of trouble than they are to sit around apathetically the way these questions imply Doom would, so if you gave stronger answers to questions 11 and 12 then they may overpower anything else in your test. The majority of people help their friends and want to help other people, that doesn’t mean that the majority of people are proactive enough in that specific way to be Life aspects. In particular, a lot of Blood players seem to be landing on Life when they don’t necessarily belong there.

With that whining out of the way, the rest of the results! 

There’s a really simple reason why people are getting answers that they don’t think fit them: the questions on this test are actually determining slightly different traits than the traits emphasized in the aspect result descriptions. Seriously, they are! Blood is the worst culprit of this, but they all do this to some extent. 

I’m addressing Blood first, partially because it’s the most common victim in cases of “I should be this aspect but I got Light/Life instead!!!” and partially because the questions for Blood are really... interesting. 

Blood, in the traditional fandom approach AND in this test, is supposed to be the aspect about Friendship and Bonds. But in this test, the questions that are most related to friendship and empathy have NOTHING to do with Blood. Seriously, they don’t. Look at the list again. Friendship and relationships are almost never relevant in this quiz, which sort of makes sense, but they’re sort of important for some of these aspects? They’re not there. The two deciding questions that would give the Blood result are more about how you impact the group, not about how the group impacts you or how you relate to them. Regardless of what the description on your results page says, the test itself looks for these traits (and ONLY these!) to identify a Blood player: 

They consider themselves only one role in the “play” of reality, surrounded by equally important alternate protagonists, and

They lead others through inspiration and motivation.

There’s nothing in here about friendship and empathy--two elements of the Blood aspect that are generally considered the Most Important Ones by a lot of analysis writers, and also the Blood description itself. The key defining factors of Blood are its reliance on the power of groups, and Blood’s skill at giving advice and helping people, but those traits don’t actually have anything to do with the test questions that’ll give you Blood as a result. The only question with a firmly Blood-affiliated result is Question 2, which is kind of tangential to begin with! I guess this means Hussie considers the “inspirational leadership” aspect most important, but his own aspect description seems to disagree with him there. 

I personally think that a lot of Blood players are mistyped as Life because of the wonky Life/Doom questions I complained about earlier--as Blood players prioritize friendship and empathy and helping people, they’re wont to give very strong positive “yes I will always help people and want to help people” responses to questions 11 and 12. This doesn’t mean that they’re Life players, it just means they take their actual aspect seriously! See: my earlier rant about those questions and their multitude of issues. This also means that Life itself is unfairly vague, and probably getting way more results than it really should. Blood and Life are already very closely related, and this test is NOT helping people distinguish them. 

The Light/Void questions are pretty good for determining which side of that particular duality someone lands on. A Light player will respond strongly to indicate that they seek knowledge all the time, and a Void player will hang out in the background, those are fine. The worst impact these questions seem to have? They skew the rest of the test. A set of wonky, poorly-worded questions is gonna result in people providing a lot of noncommittal middle answers, so if you gave a “moderately strong” reply in the Light direction to both of these, then you’ll get Light if you didn’t have a very firmly dedicated slant towards something else. 

Space/Time are pretty solid, the first option is a literal power preference (which does seem slightly out of place with the rest of the questions but w/e) and the second one does apply fairly directly to the Space/Time duality. I think they might be different to past approaches on that pairing, but I don’t know, I never pried too deeply into this duo. 

Heart vs Mind, again pretty well-designed, they achieve what they need to achieve. Not much to say about those. 

Hope vs Rage is a really interesting pair because they’re two aspects that Hussie’s been kind of vague on in the past. I think Question 9 could be better phrased, but that’s just me. A few people have complained that Rage isn’t getting assigned often enough, but to me it just seems like it’s not as common of an aspect? I don’t see anything inherently wrong about how the test sets it up, people just don’t answer strongly in that direction. 

And... yeah, that’s where I’m at with this test. All the “wrong” answers are happening because 4 out of the 12 questions are Badly Designed enough that they sort of ruin the rest of the thing! So if you’re still feeling like your result isn’t the one that really fits you, this is worth keeping in mind. It’s a test, and tests can be flawed! Even though the 8 questions I didn’t bully seem to work very well, they are still only 8 questions. No personality test can really know you better than you know yourself. :)

(Also, regardless of your theories on how classes work in correlation to aspects, there is still a relationship there. So you might just always have a class skewing your answer! this has been a PSA from your local prince of doom who consistently gets life on all these tests because of... idfk inversion or something who even knows) (#EXERCISE FUTILITY)

[buttersbots]

Council

Word count: 3,803 deviantART | Archive of Our Own | FanFiction

Breaking Point Council (you are here) Confession

When the doorbell rang, Fletcher was already there to answer it. Evening had just fallen. The porch light flickered, and it must have made him look even more frantic than he felt ‒ the two women standing on the porch practically jumped back at the sight of him.

“Asteri! Amanda!” his smile felt too tight, making his sing-song tone all the worse.  “What took you so long?” “What do you mean?” Amanda crossed her arms, “It’s only been an hour since we got off work!” “You only work thirty minutes away! What were you doing the other half hour?” “Getting dressed, you moron, did you want us to show up covered in sugar and flour?” “I don’t care about that, we have pressing matters to attend!” “Alright, let’s go. Good to see you by the way,” Asteri laughed. She stepped inside, punching Fletcher in the shoulder as she went. Fletcher and Amanda shared one more scowl before following Asteri to the kitchen. It was dark outside, but almost no lights were turned on indoors ‒ Nos and Two were out of town, and Fletcher was either too distracted or bothered for bright light. A single bulb shone above the kitchen sink as the only beacon of warmth, everything else dappled in strange shadows by the automatic lights in the garden. It was just enough to see by. Amanda went straight to the island, plopping down in one of the barstools, while Asteri went to the fridge, opening it to start pulling out ingredients. As jumbled as Fletcher had been all day, he’d at least remembered to keep up his part of their usual arrangement: whenever he invited the girls over around dinner time, he bought the food. “Fletcher, oh my god ‒ it’s like the entire market in here!” “I need... a lot of advice. I wanted you to have options,” Fletcher shrugged, walking into the kitchen. His arms were crossed and he picked at a dent on his elbow, pacing through to the dining room to stay out of the way. Amanda craned her neck to look past Asteri at the fully stocked shelves. “Did you get any frozen pizza?” “No way, Mandy, check it out!” Asteri grabbed a package of ground beef and dug into the produce drawer, shuffling through the vegetables. “Let’s make stir-fry!” “But cutting all that up is so much work...” Amanda groaned. “Fine, you stay there and I’ll cook,” Asteri rolled her eyes. “If he bought all this food, we might as well use it.” “You can take whatever you don’t use home with you, too. If I forget food in here again and let it rot Mom’ll have my head.” “If you insist,” Amanda beamed, spinning her stool so she could prop her legs up on the one next to her. “You really don’t cheap out, bat-boy. If you had a crisis like this on a weekly basis you’d cover our grocery bill.” “I didn’t even look at the prices...” Fletcher winced as the thought occurred to him. He tried to remember if he’d kept the receipt, but he quickly shook his concern. It was a small price to pay if it meant they’d help him figure things out. Amanda clicked her tongue. “Rich boy...” He threw her a look before resuming his pacing. “PhD.” “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know, you look like you haven’t slept in a week,” Asteri observed as she put the vegetables next to the sink and pulled out the cutting board. “...How are you supposed to tell? I don’t need sleep, I can keep draining batteries indefinitely.” “You may not need it, but it helps you run better. You look dull and you’re all fidgety and distracted. Did you wear that outfit into town today?” Fletcher looked down at himself. “Why?” “Your shirt’s on backwards.” Amanda laughed, her eyes softening. “You’re really falling apart over this. Will you tell us what’s the matter already? We haven’t seen you in so long, and now that you finally call, you’re all stressed. If it’s such a pressing matter, why don’t you just spill it?” Fletcher stopped by the counter, eyeing the knife that Asteri had just taken from one of the drawers. “I’d rather start talking about it after we’re done with the cutlery.” Asteri and Amanda glared at him in unison, “What did you do?” “Seriously? Guys, come on, I didn’t do anything! I just know you’re going to freak out about it. You know what... Quinn?” “Yes, sir?” the home system responded. “Would you mind helping Asteri cut the vegetables?” “So now you ask for my assistance?” Fletcher shook his head and rubbed his temples. “Oh, hello Quinn! What’s this all about?” Asteri grinned. It wasn’t often that Quinn emoted clearly, and that was if they emoted at all. “Nothing much,” Quinn hummed as they extended a thin, segmented arm with three short fingers from a hatch in the wall to take the knife from Asteri. Another arm came out to hold a cabbage in place. “This conundrum he’s called you about has been troubling him for weeks, and he’s given me nothing but lip when I offer advice.” “Quinn, I’m sorry, but you giving romantic advice makes about as much sense as Dad wanting another cat.” For a moment, everything fell silent. Fletcher realized what he’d said and bit his tongue, prickling with static, holding still as Quinn began a rhythmical chopping and radiated an infuriating aura of satisfaction. “Romantic advice?” Asteri almost whispered. Fletcher looked over his shoulder at Amanda, hoping that she would kick in as Asteri’s anchor, but she stared back at him with lips parted in awe. “See,” Fletcher gave a shaky laugh, “this is what I was worried about. You probably would have dropped that knife straight through your foot.” Asteri stepped closer to Fletcher, taking his shoulders in her hands and looking him dead in the visor. “Are you having feelings for Darwin?” Fletcher reeled, his whole body tensing as he choked out, “What?” “Oh my god...” Amanda gasped, a light going on in her eyes, “You haven’t slept with anyone in months, you’ve been acting weird even longer than that, and every time we’ve seen Darwin lately, he talks about how distant you’ve gotten, almost like you’ve been avoiding him. Two weeks ago you completely fall off the face of the Earth, and now that we finally hear from you again you’re all messed up about something... that needs romantic advice.” He looked back at Amanda again. Her dark eyes dared him to say she was wrong. “Guys...” his voice cracked. He had to think for a while before he spoke again. “This isn’t how I planned on telling you, but ‒ okay, you know how much Darwin means to me, and you know I wouldn’t ever want to cheapen our relationship! I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and I... I just really need your help.” The next thing Fletcher knew, he was between two crushing hugs. “Come on,” he warbled to no effect, “I thought you might be mad... I just want some impartial advice from the only people who know the ins and outs of our situation!” “What?” Amanda laughed, her forehead pressed between his shoulder blades, “We can’t give you impartial advice!” “We love you, we’re as partial as it gets! And Darwin!” Asteri beamed, “Oh my god, this is perfect! Why would we be mad?” “W-why is this perfect?” Fletcher spluttered. Asteri backed away first, though she still held on to his shoulders. “You’re made for each other! You’ve been two parts of a matching set since you were kids!” “You nerds make each other so happy, I just never imagined you’d want anything romantic!” Fletcher let out something almost like a laugh. “Me neither. When I first thought I might feel this way, it seemed like I didn’t have a chance. I... I was expecting you guys to at least be confused, if anything, not excited!” “It’s definitely a surprise, but it makes perfect sense to me! Sit down, man, tell us about it!” Amanda dragged him back and pushed him onto one of the stools at the island, sitting down next to him. He rubbed his hands over his face and split into a smile. “This is so embarrassing. I don’t know how it happened, whether this was building up and I didn’t notice or if I woke up one day and realized, but...” he laughed a strange, defeated laugh, “here I am!” “How long have you known?” Asteri asked, thumbing through the drawers for another knife. “I don’t know. I really... can’t tell? I’ve always loved him. I never feel like I need to act when I’m with him, we’ve practically lived together for years, we know everything there is to know about each other. I didn’t think there was anything else left, he’s a part of me, but one day ‒ ” Fletcher gestured in a crazy combination of energy and exhaustion, slumping into his barstool so that he hung precariously over the edge. He rolled his head onto his shoulder and looked over toward Amanda. “I was scared at first that something was wrong with me.” “What d’you mean?” “Like, it doesn’t make sense that after all this time I’m just feeling this now. I was worried that some wires had crossed and it was just sexual, some sort of glitch. That’s why I started avoiding him. I mean, it’s not like I hadn’t thought about it before ‒ hell, we’ve talked about it before! But there was something in that moment that I couldn’t really appreciate at the time, mostly because I was freaking out about the whole thing. We were at his place, and I woke up in his bed because we’d fallen asleep while watching videos the night before, and when I saw him... listen, you guys know me. I love where I live, I love my family, but looking back on it now, I had never felt so at home in my entire life as I did in that moment.” Asteri had stopped chopping half way through a carrot to clasp her hands to her chest, eyes shining. “If you didn’t even realize it then, what happened? How did you figure it out?” “...Don’t laugh, but I was in our repair room. Quinn was running detailed diagnostics and Mom came up to see what I was doing. I was almost too embarrassed to tell her. Since I thought it was just physical and everything else was panic, I didn’t want her to think I was feeling something shallow for Darwin. When she finally got me to crack, we ended up talking for hours. She wasn’t trying to convince me to do anything, she talked to me about what it was like when she fell in love with Dad and tried to help me work through everything and really think about what I was feeling instead of dismissing it as an error. The diagnostic came up clean.” “Leave it to Fletcher to assume falling in love is an illness,” Amanda chuckled. The hybrid rolled his eyeforms and shook his head. “This has probably been a long time coming. Maybe even since we realized that the venom had never properly merged with Mom’s OS.” “What does that have to do with anything? I hadn’t even been born then,” Amanda said, picking at the sliced vegetables as Quinn and Asteri worked. Fletcher smiled, but his visor was dark. “It wasn’t a great time to be alive. None of us knew if Mom was going to make it, and for months, everyone on Darickson’s team was totally dedicated to rewriting so much corrupt programming, it took over our lives. Dad was with her constantly, and I’d never seen him so stressed. I saw him cry once. It wasn’t just tears, either, like... sobbing. Weeping. I don’t think he knows even now that I saw him. I was a wreck too, but he was going through something different. I couldn’t believe it when he was back by her bedside a few minutes later like it was nothing, and suddenly he was trying to comfort me. Going through all that and seeing what he went through, I haven’t been the same since. That was the first time I think I understood the concept of romantic love. It’s not like I didn’t believe in it before, I just never got how deep it was.” “Are you saying you might have had feelings for Darwin for that long?” “...I kind of hope not. I’ve been with so many people since then, I’d hate to think that it was all while I was suppressing something or because I wanted to avoid it. Things just changed for me after that. I know you didn’t know me before, but hooking up with people was kinda the only thing I used to do.” “Yeah, but what’s the plan now? You’re throwing around phrases like ‘life changing’ and ‘true love.’ You actually gonna try to start something with him?” Everything about Fletcher seemed to tense up. Asteri watched him as she pulled out a frying pan. “That’s why I need your help. I have no idea how to break it to him. I really don’t want to screw things up!” “I get why you’re nervous, but I really can’t imagine anything would get between you two.” “What if it weirds him out though? If he doesn’t want to try dating, what if we can’t recover? What if I don’t move on and we can’t be friends any more?” “Hold on! There’s nothing to move on from yet, you haven’t even talked to him!” Asteri pointed out. “Besides, I’ve never seen you back down from asking someone out. You’ve gotten shot down like it was nothing, I remember turning you away myself.” Amanda cocked an eyebrow, sitting straight to hear more about this rarely referenced event. Fletcher didn’t even flinch. “That’s all different though, this isn’t about sex. When you get down to it, I only really have one reliable line, and I can’t risk using it for this.” “Wait,” Asteri narrowed her eyes, “you don’t mean...?” Fletcher nodded sagely. “What’s the line?” Amanda asked, leaning forward. “Well, I ask a person if they’ve ever slept with a robot. If they say ‘yes,’ I say, ‘You won’t believe how much better it is with an Energy Vampire.’ If they say ‘no,’ I say, ‘then you’ll never be satisfied after you’ve done it with an Energy Vampire.’” “You’re telling me that’s reliable?” “Well I don’t use it if I don’t think it’ll work, but for humans, yeah, about seven out of ten times. Eight out of ten if they’ve had a few drinks. The key is playing up the vampire thing, it checks off a lot of different kinks. Vampire alone sells it for some people, others are into teeth, some like the idea of dominating a ‒ ” “I get it!” Amanda waved her hands, “Honestly, why not use that on him? He’d probably laugh.” “But I’m not trying to sleep with him! Those are the only tactics I know, that’s the problem! This isn’t about sex. We were already going to spend our lives together, but... this is different. I never thought anyone could mean as much to me romantically as he does to me platonically. I didn’t think I’d ever settle down. I’ve only ever had a few romantic relationships, and every time, I would realize I just didn’t trust them as much as I needed to. Darwin, though... I trust him with everything!” “Listen, Fletcher, he knows that,” Amanda pointed at him with a slice of bell pepper she’d snatched from the counter, “He’s crazy about you too! When you guys aren’t around each other, you’re pretty much the only thing either of you talks about. I really don’t know how you manage to get anyone to bed like that.” “He used to be into you when you were kids, right?” Asteri asked. “That was decades ago,” Fletcher muttered, waving his hand. “We’re completely different people now.” “Yeah, that’s a good thing,” Amanda scoffed, “You sounded like you were a real brat.” Fletcher huffed. Amanda put her arm around his shoulders and brought him closer. “But seriously, what can we do for you? It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought on your own.” “Just... how? How do I sit him down and say, ‘Sorry I’ve been acting so weird, I just want to keep doing the same stuff we always do but now we kiss and call each other boyfriends?’” “Well, maybe a little less blunt, but that’s really all there is to it,” Asteri shrugged, oiling the frying pan. “I think you’re freaking out about it because you’re too in your own head. It’ll probably seem a lot easier once you’re with him! Like you said, you trust him. He’ll have the decency to hear you out, and even if he doesn’t feel the same way, you’ll feel better having told him.” “That’s the thing, though,” Fletcher tapped his head, “I know he doesn’t feel the same way. We’re not kids any more, and I’ve learned a lot about reading wavelengths. Sure, there are robots out there who are good at suppressing certain feelings or who are naturally resistant to Energy Vampire sensors, but Darwin is an open book to me. I’m afraid of how he’ll feel when I tell him.” “What’s the alternative though? Wait for these feelings to pass and never mention it?” Fletcher crossed his arms over his head and sank out of Amanda’s grasp, letting out a stuffy groan. “I just want it to be easy! I’m so sick of the back and forth, and I know you guys only just found out, but I need answers fast! I called you this morning because I knew I would do something stupid if you weren’t here to set me right, and I know I’m asking too much. This is just... torture.” The kitchen was quiet for a while next to the sound of the oil starting to sizzle in the pan. Fletcher kept his arms over his head, the frustration building up again and making his visor sting. Maybe he’d rather not deal with it after all. Things would be easier if they stayed as they were, and if he ever thought about Darwin that way again... about the way his smile was sunshine that warmed him from head to toe, the way he made Fletcher’s core suddenly swoop like he was in free fall whenever he saw him lately... He was so distracted that he didn’t notice the sound of a mobile communicator dialing out until it was answered by a muffled, distant, “Hello?” Fletcher jumped from his seat, looking at Asteri in disbelief. “Hi Darwin! You busy?” Fletcher launched at her without thinking, grabbing wildly, but she managed to keep her phone out of his reach. “I guess not. What are you guys up to on this wild Tuesday night?” “We’re actually just having dinner at Fletcher’s. I know this is short notice ‒ cut that out! ‒ but how fast do you think you could get here?” Fletcher swiped at her, hissing frantically through his teeth, “Stop!” “I’m actually at my folks’ for the week, so I could be there in fifteen, but, uh... are you alright?” “Yeah, everything’s fine. Fletcher’s schedule opened up out of the blue and ‒ ow!” The Energy Vampire was clinging to her now, scrabbling at her hand, but she just put it on speaker and held it out at arm’s length. “What was that?” “Sorry, I just pet S’mores the wrong way and she swiped at me. So can you come over?” “Stop this!” Fletcher snarled as quietly as he could, “Stop it, fix it!” “Well, I don’t see why not. I’m kinda just glad to hear the hermit is allowing visitors again. I’ll see you soon.” Asteri hung up and Fletcher fell to the ground. Amanda finally let go and started laughing. “What the hell are you thinking?! Call him back!” Fletcher yelled, scrambling to his feet. “And tell him what? You said you were afraid of doing something stupid, but how could you be any more stupid than wallowing in your own confusion instead of doing something about it?” “CALLING YOU GUYS WAS THE SOMETHING I WAS DOING ABOUT IT!” “We can’t talk to Darwin for you!” Asteri was smiling, but Fletcher had never seen anything more infuriating, and Amanda’s continuing laughter grated his nerves even more. “You expect me to do this NOW? I’m not ready! What is wrong with you, this is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me! I’m going up to my room, this is all your own damn fault, you’re going to have to deal with telling him that you invited him without asking me!” “No I’m not,” Asteri scoffed, gathering all the sliced vegetables on the counter onto the cutting board. Fletcher fumed, gritting his teeth. “What is that supposed to mean?” “You’re right about me not being able to make you talk to him, and maybe after all these weeks, there’s some chance that you aren’t ready. That’s fine. I can’t force you to bring it up,” Asteri picked up the cutting board and tilted it so that all the vegetables fell into the pan and began to sizzle, “But I can show you how much better you’ll feel once you’re with him. You haven’t seen each other in ages and that’s no way to deal with this! I can also make an excuse for us to leave so you can catch up in private.” Fletcher could hardly bring himself to speak, staring daggers at the back of Asteri’s blonde head while she started to stir. He finally threw his arm toward Amanda, pointing with all his might. “You!” “What?!” “I hate you the least right now! Come help me get dressed, I can’t look like this when Darwin gets here!” Amanda snorted and stood up as Fletcher stalked out to the front hall and toward the bedrooms. “This is the craziest thing you’ve ever pulled, A. If it turns out, they’d better make you Maid of Honor.” “I will throw you both out of my house and lock the door, but if you don’t help me clean up before Darwin comes in I’ll never forgive you!” “Alright, I’m coming you big baby!” Amanda sauntered after him, following his indignant shrieks through the house. It wasn’t until she caught up to him on the stairs that she noticed how light his steps were and the quivering anticipation in his eyeforms. She quietly hoped to herself that Asteri knew what she was doing.

Fletcher's been having a breakdown for a while, but now it's for real. 👍 So... I didn't know that Asteri was going to call Darwin out of the blue until I wrote it last night? I really had no idea how this story was going to end when I started it, I was worried I'd end up writing 40 pages of conversation. Also, I don't know if I've addressed this before, but Asteri has olfactory senses and is capable of processing food. She was made to be as close to a human as possible, and though she doesn't actually gain energy from eating, it all adds to the illusion. Also eating is great and delicious and she's really good at cooking.