#life is like okay but heres a fuckton more what about now can you do more now

[unforth]

Alright I'm gonna try to keep this brief but things have progressed enough that they're definitely going to impact my ability to do even my basic online shit so here's wtf has been going on.

A week and a half ago, I found out my dad was very sick. He'd been keeping it a secret. A week ago, my brother came and bullied dad to go to the hospital. He had a systemic infection that would have been fatal left untreated and he also has prostate cancer (which he knew but hadn't told us). He's been hospitalized since; he was discharged yesterday to in-patient rehab because he can't even sit up without help. He is 83 and expected to recover, though if he'll reach 100% is iffy.

His wife, my step-mother, has Alzheimers that has gotten quite advanced. Dad is her sole caretaker (surely why he risked death to stay home with her). She cannot be left alone. With him unable to care for her, my brother, step-brother, and I are juggling her care, but she threatened my brother with a knife so he won't stay with her (she didn’t know who he was, thought he'd broken in to attack her), and I live 2.5 hrs away and step-brother can't do it entirely solo (like. He doesn't drive. He can't get her to appointments or anything) . She needs a long-term not-at-home solution and while dad has been saving money to make that happen, no actual steps had been taken yet.

And I discovered yesterday that I have her power of attorney while dad is incapacitated, which means the legal decisions and responsibility for getting her help are all on me.

Needless to say, that's a lot of pressure and is time consuming, especially factoring in the distances involved - the area where we're looking to place her is 3+ hr drive for me.

And I've still got my own family, two kids, our house and life, and @duckprintspress

I. Might be just a little stressed the fuck out right now.

So. Apologies in advance if I fall behind on anything or fuck anything up. I'm stretched about as far as I can be, and then stretched a bit more just for funsies and The Bit.

[bloggingboutburgers]

If it's okay to ask, how do you handle acephobia as an adult? I know that's a broad question, but it feels like ever since I become an adult, the acephobia in my life has kicked into overdrive. Suddenly, if I'm not an active, excited participant in 18+ conversations, I'm being @'d and teased for it no matter how many times I disengage from the conversation or say to just leave me out of it. I've had (ex, otherwise extremely toxic) friends tell me that my version of aceness doesn't exist because "nobody is that sex repulsed" because I don't read fics if they have 18+ scenes, that I can't be childish forever, and that they hated that people wrote fics about sex repulsed aces. My mother told me that she regretted not being more openly loving with my father because she thinks that's what caused me to be asexual as an adult. Being a kid gave me a shield to hide behind, but now that I'm above 18, there's just this assumption that if you're not totally comfortable with 18+ topics, you're either an infant or a puritan, and you need to be fixed, and I don't really know how to handle it without making these people feel validated that I'm "just a puritan." I just don't like being the butt of the joke because of my sexuality all the time.

Hmmm... I'll be honest, I guess I didn't see that much difference between as a teen and as an adult myself? But I guess it might be a cultural thing about the rapport to sex related to age. In my country, at least when I was growing up, you were very much expected to have an interest in sex-related topics in high school already.

That said, everything you described is true. And because I've wanted to hiss so many times at what you've described, here's deconstructed thoughts:

I'M that sex-repulsed, anyone who says that shit can fuck off

Anyone who says they downright HATE that people write things about sex-repulsed ace has a queer hate issue. That's downright what it is. It's fucked up and they oughta check themselves and their aphobia.

Aah yes, the classic "sex=adult and that's the only thing that equals adult ever". While we're at it I'll also assume that when they say "18+" they just mean sex and none of the other many many things only a person over 18 experiences and understands?

Anyway... It sounds like you're surrounded by pretty fucking sucky people. Granted personally there's a fuckton of bullshit I just smile and nod at on a daily basis, and I don't hang out in group spaces, much less in fandom spaces, because sadly with the state of how things are, I know they're kinda anti-me by nature. It's lonely and heartbreaking and I won't pretend it's easy every day, far from it, but the alternative of having to force oneself to put up with even more hate and erasure is worse.

So yeah, lots of self-preservation reflexes. Lots of laughing at a person's aphobic joke like "Wow that's a glorious asshole if I ever knew one and I'm gonna stay as far away from them as I can from now on." Got very tough when that description involved some coworkers in the past, but hey, at least my dance of joy was all the more satisfying when they left the company.

And on the flip side, if a person is friendly and open to listen, and learn if needed, without dismissing me? Oh you bet I'll hold on to those people for dear life and do my best to hang out with them more. Such people are scattered across my life, but they helped me build a support system of self confidence that made it much easier for me every day, and helped me build the confidence to come out as ace to my whole family over time. (I also have amazing bros who somehow always seemed to consider my asexuality as an obvious part of me and their opinion is the one that mattered the most to me from the start family-wise, so y'know, I'm lucky.)

So yeah... Preserving myself from people who invalidate me and cherishing those who don't really did a lot for me. It made me more and more confident over time to mention that I'm ace casually to new people, because these people taught me that hey, sometimes you tell someone you're ace and they somehow DON'T turn you into a laughing stock for it! And yeah, it's kinda fucked up that this has to be some kind of incredible news, but... Hopefully the fact that it's possible nonetheless can bring you a bit of hope.

Ofc that also means that sometimes I'll be having like, dinner with friends of a friend that I've never met before, and suddenly I'll find myself thinking "Wow these people who just met me and know nothing about me just made like 3 jokes involving me having sex in the span of 2 hours, and I forgot that was apparently 'normal'." It's weird for sure. Bit of a survival game of sorts sometimes. But hey... It's a life, ig, we didn't choose our lives so we gotta play the hand we're dealt. And uh... How did that Bojack Horseman quote go again? Oh yeah.

[hereforthefunnyguys]

Is it too insane to ask for your nsfw Irateshipping HCs?

no no it’s not insane I just usually try to keep the blog more pg-13/R rated than x rated. However…. I really want to talk about Irateshipping more. So imma just put some stuff under the cut. Honestly I’m more worried about not having enough stuff or frankly anything thats particularly sexy than I am about having it at all lmao

(nsfw text under the cut! You have been Warned) (Hoping the cut actually. Cuts where its supposed to lmao)

-marik ishtar praise kink goes crazy I don’t make the rules. Joey once accidentally called him a "good boy" during their first time together and he literally stopped functioning. Like complete windows crash bluescreen. Only refocused when Joey sat up and shook him a little because what if he accidentally killed him with sex somehow

-Joey is actually the more experienced of the two, which was really disappointing to him because he was really counting on the idea of his sexy criminal femme fatale boyfriend that knows 5000 different sex positions and instead got stuck with a nervy little freak that does not even know what lube is

-marik doesn’t know what he’s doing but he’s very enthusiastic to try whatever sounds fun

-this is simultaneously contrasted with the fact that he cannot take much stimulation at once and gets nervous if he’s not in control (whether in a Sexy way or in a Panic Attack way is kind of a coin flip)

-Joey is kind of bad at sex the first few times tbh because he gets too nervous and ends up getting distracted and talking way too much and ruining the mood

-he seriously improves in focus and attractivenesss when marik is just like. Ok. You can do what you want physically but please. For the love of god. Stop talking in bed like that.

-Joey has a weird thing where the idea of losing control to marik is really hot but also simultaneously so absolutely terrifying and humiliating to him even in a private context that he’s just like “hmmmm stuffing that down to repress as well methinks”

-marik is perhaps a wee bit of a sadist, which does not mix well with the fact that he is also fairly submissive and wants to be cared for and cared about so bad it actually hurts

-def not a masochist though lmao

-“I want to make you feel good and make this very romantic and uh other stuff” Joey and “i have been working for 10 straight hours and just got yelled at by my dad and need to Destroy Something” Joey are two entirely different creatures in bed

-Joey, walking into the bedroom casually: Hey babe how's it go -

Marik, shaking visibly from stress: If you have sex with me right here right now and completely destroy my brain to the point i cannot think about the conversations i have had with my siblings today about what i will do with my life now that I am no longer a cult leader I swear I will literally give you whatever you want from me for at least three months

Joey:

Joey, cautiously patting Marik on the head while sitting down next to him: Okay not that that's not an incredibly hot offer but maybe let's talk about it first plea-

Marik, gripping Joey's leg hard enough to leave fingerprints: I understand that but if I have one more serious conversation today I'll start killing people again

-Marik head game goes crazy because of that long tongue until he gets too worked up and starts getting Bitey

-Joey head game mediocre because he has too much of a gag reflex but is very enthusiastic and drools a fuckton

-Marik dick game meh because he neither has the enthusiasm nor the stamina for it tbh. Gets bonus points because he has fairly good rhythm

-Joey is better because he definitely has the enthusiasm for it as well as the strength for it (plus hes stubborn enough to keep pushing even when hes exhausted lmao) but tbf tends to get really excited or distracted and so tends to be kind of irrhythmic

-i tend to not bring top/bottom Disc Horse (tm) up much but I do think Joey probably wouldn't bottom much due to both a lot of internalized perceptions about it and also because it sounds like it fuckin hurts to him lmao

-Marik is simultaneously split in between "I love my weird little pathetic creature that i occasionally allow to be graced by my divine presence in bed" and "I NEED HIM TO CRUSH MY NECK IN BETWEEN HIS BICEP AND FOREARM WHILE I GET SHOVED IN BETWEEN HIS PECS FUCK"

-In terms of like strict Dynamics i think they're probably both switches that tend to fall back into pretty gentle/vanilla dom/sub dynamic when they aren't trying anything in particular

-Joey kind of likes getting bossed around in bed but tends to argue with it if marik does not just make him shut the Fuck up because sometimes the joey instinct is stronger than the horny instinct

-I post a lot about them having fucked up gay sex but in a domestic situation I think the sex is actually pretty intimate and honestly probably one of the healthier aspects of their relationship

-At multiple times in their lives I think its probably what helps get them through the day especially Joey when he was still living with his dad and working through his debts like. just five minutes more of worrying 24/7 and struggling to survive until my beautiful boyfriend shows up and straddles my lap while kissing my forehead and removes every single goddamn thought i have ever had that isn't about him. yay :)

-suffice to say they are making it work in the bedroom

-I forgot to mention that occasionally yami marik will show up if marik gets too freaked out and that there is nothing more terrifying to joey than turning around post-afterglow and seeing a demon with hair bigger than it’s shoulders looking at you like he wants to suck the inside of your skin out in place of your previously very pretty and vulnerable boyfriend

-bonus genderbend edition: fem marik is definitely a pillow princess and joey is completely willing to deal with putting in the work because quote "have you seen her recently have you seen my beautiful girlfriend just look at her I would do anything for this sexy sexy living identity crisis on stilts"

-fem marik: I want strap this is no longer a want nor a need but rather a Demand

[rametarin]

Just a little rant.

Inspired by a childhood and lifetime of dealing with know-nothing vegetarians and vegans since the late 80s.

Back in the day, vegetarian and then vegan peers would say shit like, "Red meat stays in your bowels and becomes toxic poop for 7 years!" And then go on these weird pseudohistorical rants about how the human body, "isn't meant to eat meat." And then kinda dip into this vague spirituality that can kinda sound like empirical science if you don't read into or question what they're saying.

They'd go on and on about toxic chemicals in the food that big corporations and capitalism just puts there, "to save a dollar" and, that largely was not true. Really, it became a source of bad information and propaganda in the form of a peer, who is usually scared or antagonized by other peers to become outlets of bad information.

And so here we are, 2024, with a ton of vegan youtubers and tiktokkers hitting their wall and abandoning veganism because, nutritionally, it just doesn't work. The very imperative to do it is faulty and bogus, and on the other side we learn everything from our dentition to our organ setup to our physiology requires a certain amount of meat eating, and how there's so much we DON'T know about nutrition to adequately supplement it with pills.

Vegetable substitutes are "okay." But they aren't sufficient to replace meat, pound for pound, nutritionally. And it ultimately just comes down to this weird ideological fixation that vegetarians and vegans have regarding how raising beef is for the planet.

Well, we can mitigate the methane emissions, we can get nutritionally defunct corn out of their diets, we can make sure they are grazing places where it's acceptable. But there's no reason to hate on the beef and dairy industry for existing.

And one of the biggest driving factors is either 1.) The existential horror over the loss of life and the grissly way they're killed to make the food, because they find the entire thing morally repugnant. 2.) The belief in suffering itself. So, kind of buddhist/hindu-lite that won't commit to any real coherent belief system but still wants to treat suffering like it's an element on the periodic table, and ideologically treat killing animals for food like a form of suffering that's not acceptable.

Really, adjusting for the lack of nutrition from meat substitutes, about the only alternative that makes ANY god damned sense, is cloned meat. Those meat tissues that are artificially grown. But, even that won't give the quality meat we need from the sort we get from the organisms themselves;

In order to do that we'd effectively need to clone the animals' entire digestive system and its ability to synthesize the nutrition it gets. That, ultimately, is where the benefit is in eating other animals. Other animals have the ability to process plants into essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids and a whole fuckton of proteins humans just do not have the infrastructure to do, ourselves. Not just grow the animal muscle tissue in a vat. Conceivably not a bad idea, but it's just not a sufficient replacement for actual animal products.

Really the only good argument towards cloned meat in place of just raising animals for meat is that it involves less slaughter and could conceivably take up less space than grazing cattle or industrial chicken farming.

Nutritionally we need it, there's functionally no difference from an animal living and dying in captivity and not if you do it right, and the only theoretical advantage to cloned meat would be the convenience of a chemical vat to grow the meat in the absence of an animal you have to slaughter.

Refusing to eat meat because slaughtering kills animals will always be a major stumbling block that results in generations of people going into their own echo chambers and deciding that those that eat meat are barbaric. But at least now we can make refutations to these talking points more available and visible.

[subsequentibis]

ok in an attempt to clean out my brain and prepare for the upcoming year of art, here’s all* the hotel-related sketches i started and did not finish in 2022, some with explanation, some without. note: there are a fuckton of images in this so if you're on mobile maybe skip this one unless you feel like Scrolling. little bit of gore in there too but just one image of it

*not all of them actually bc some i did like last week and still have a decent shot at finishing, some are so sketchy they are incomprehensible even with an explanation, and some are uh. Not For Public Viewing.

first up: all of my assorted owner scribbles, because i like drawing him.

^ used to not like drawing him with wings but i’ve changed my tune a bit. they can be fun. i think i prefer the cape i’ve been drawing him with though

^ the above two were for the same concept, a drawing using the lyrics “i wouldn’t be so worried if i wasn’t always right” from lemon demon’s i earn my life. i still like the poses a lot and might do somethin’ with it

^ me n the lads were kicking around a pirate au before the ship bonus ep came out and i like how captain morgan owner came out

^ fuckin. sock garters. scandalous.

^ futzing around with an alternate monstery owner design that leans a little harder into Bird

^ was gonna be another lyrics drawing with “patient is the night” by the blasting company off the over the garden wall soundtrack, bc i love that song for hotel/owner

^ yeah i did two takes of this one too. take a wild shot in the dark why

NEXT! hotel/owner stuff!

^ followup to the piece with him crawling out of the grave i did a while back

^ song drawing that would have the lyrics “let’s do what mary and joseph did / without the kid” from marry me by st vincent

^ self explanatory

^ i have like five takes on just this pose over and over. this is the cleanest one

^ i like him beat up sorry for having correct opinions

onto more miscellaneous group drawings!

^ cards inspired by the “jack, queen, king, wild card!” line from the neighborhood bonus ep

^ manager & owner mid s5 trying to find the lobby boy

^ tsundere hotel/manager drawing, lyrics from “want you gone” naturally

^ nihil’s little hotel design enchants & delights me

^ bellhop/manager. listne. wait. hear me out come back i can explain

^ halloween costume

^ staff reacting to the pinup calendar as described in the intro written by Thee travis mcmaster i’ll never shut up about this hey guys did you know he reached out about doing that and is the nicest person on the fuckin planet

^ this is actually finished i just never posted it bc uh. well look at it man. bit saucy really

^ okay so this is like. kind of a followup to a comic i did waaay back when of my OC sal going into the hotel and getting ganked, now it’s lazarus’s turn, except he Literally Is Not Allowed To Die so the plot of this comic was going to be ‘um. guys the guest won’t die.’ it didn’t get too developed though

^ roadtrip bonus ep drawing where the car stalls out and the lobby boy has to fix it. was gonna be nihil’s lobby boy if i ever ended up finishing it

HOKAY that’s all folks thanks for lookin!

[jmtorres]

all joking aside, here's the math/accounting breakdown:

you have a 99% chance of receiving $1mil dollars. So that's worth +990,000

you have a 1% chance of becoming a woman. If you are already a woman, this doesn't change anything, it's 0, and the sum of your probabilities is +990,000, so press the button.

If you are currently a man, you have a 1% risk if decreasing your current salary by, on average, 16%, presumably for the rest of your life, although that number may be different based on things like your race. But for simplicity's sake let's use the 16% drop. (also for simplicity's sake i'm going to ignore the time value of money bc that's a pain in the ass.)

So to figure out if this is worth it to you, we need to know how much you're paid for your labor as a man, and how many years you plan to continue working (presumably at the same rate over time I'm also not working out raises, but if you were considering this problem seriously you probably would).

So let's say you're a 25 year old man who makes, what's the average income? about $60k apparently? sounds fake but okay. So currently, dude stands to work 40 more years and retire at 65. 40years times $60k per year is $2.4 million. But if, as a woman, he made 16% less, it'd only be $2.016million, a loss of $384K. now multiply that by 1%. This part of the odds is odds of loosing $3,840.

So when you add the odds of each outcome together, positive 990,000 plus negative 3,840, you get $986,160. Statistically, on average, this is the average amount you will receive if you push the button. That's a positive number, so in business terms it's a good investment, you should do it.

It only becomes a bad investment if the potential loss times the chance of that loss becomes greater than the potential gain times the chance of that gain, meaning the sum would come out negative. So, let's play with the numbers. The older you are, the less years of salary you have less to lose--so the older you are, the better an idea it is to push the button. The less your overall salary, the less you have to lose. In fact you'd have to a fuckton higher salary and a full career ahead of you to get to a negative number here, because the chance if the negative outcome is so low.

How much would it have to be? let's see. The potential lost wages would have to be--a hundred times 990,000 that is to say, 99,000,000--99 BILLION million over the rest of your career. okay so over 40 years, 24,750 or nearly 2.5 million thousand per year. but that's not annual salary. That's 16% of annual salary, the amount you would expect to forfeit due to gender pay gap. so if that's 16% of salary, salary is, over $15 BILLION million.

Gentleman, unless you expect to make more than $15,468,750 (ha, this was the right number of digits but no one not even me can read or conceptualize numbers this big without a LOT of work) per year for the next 40 years, statistically, you gain more money by pressing the button.

I can't even figure out how many people in the world make more than 15 billion million a year because when you have that much money, it's impossible to spend it faster than you accrue interest, so they rank you by net worth not by annual income. But we're talking a handful of people here. An extremely countable number.

For well over 99% of men in the world, if you press the button, the potential money won vastly outweighs the potential money lost. Pressing the button is a good investment. NOT pressing the button has an opportunity cost--that is to say, the calculation of what you're missing out on if you don't press it--of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And that's why it's not a math problem. If the monetary calculation doesn't sway you, it's because you're assigning a negative value to womanhood that is a hundredfold worse than the idea of losing out on a million dollars.

So nearly any guy who wouldn't push this button either

doesn't understand probability --or--

is a raging fucking misogynist

but anyway. Would you rather us think that you're stupid, or that you're evil?

and, look, I was surprised by how the numbers played out, I didn't expect it to be that much. (ETA: and it wasn't because i subbed billion for million but it's still NOT A LOT OF DUDES who makes that much.) So either I made an arithmetic error in here somewhere, and I'd love to hear where (ahahaha), or I can't intuitively understand probabilities as disparate as 99% and 1% either, OR BOTH

but like. Five is about as big a number as we can intuitively understand, before we start needing to use estimation and metaphor strategies. Of course we can't fucking grok a difference that broad.

[tnerb90]

Like the legend of the Phoenix...

Today is the first day of the rest of your life...

Yes, it’s true. It’s been almost 2 years since my last post and here we go again. It feels like Into the Spiderverse. Let’s start from the beginning one more time....I wanted to create a new profile and start fresh, acting like none of the previous failures happened. I’m still tempted to, even as I write. 

But here we go again. I read through each and every post again, looking for patterns. Looking for strengths. Looking for lessons basically. So what happened? A fuckton of different factors, I’m sure. Underlying stress was a big one. I didn’t really acknowledge it much in past posts because I didn’t realize how drastic it was until I started my current job, outside of counseling. Since 2019 when I started...global pandemic. Fired from CHILL. Took 2 jobs that I flamed out on, including a DOH investigation and dealt with that for several months. More?... All the change at PV... Jessie leaving. Jone being fired. Peggy leaving. Desiree taking over as my boss.... also promotion to PHP Manager... burning the fuck out. Changing buildings.... A lot of stress. Looking back, it’s such a relief that I’m not there anymore. I quit PV in April 2022, so it’s been nearly a year now. Working at Conquest now obviously. From early on, I could tell this was a much better fit for me, and it continues to be. Especially stress-wise.... 

But the stress stuff was just underlying it all. Looking at my habits themselves, I can see a lot of areas for improvement... namely, the fad diet thing. I mean, I said it from day 1 that I’ve tried them all and nothing’s worked. So of course, I continue the same method again and failed again. Sure, I lost weight each time. But how sustainable was it? Obviously not very. Because I never once got below 300. Idk if that’s a mental barrier or what. But it sucks. I was doing so well. Got to 300 then gained it back + more. Then got to 302 or whatever...of course, I gained it back+more. Again. A -fuckin-gain.... Looking back, even though it felt like I was onto something (again, losing weight wasn’t the issue, I was doing it). But the method was unsustainable. Panicking over whether beans are too high carb. Sugar free italian ice...corn... chili...apples and honey on rosh hashana. Like come on man. You were doing great! Why was I so worked up about being perfect. It was such an unhealthy all-or-nothing mindset. I felt that if I wasn’t perfect, it was a failure. So one slip easily leads to “fuck it” I can’t do it! Or fuck it! Today’s ruined anyway, might as well start fresh tomorrow. Or monday. Or.... next year. Idk.

Ok, stress. Trying the same old methods/mindset. What else? I’m sure I started smoking again right after the last post. It was late July, early Aug when I got my card. So I’m sure that + the “promotion” and the shitshow that followed did it for me. 

What else?

I’m burying the lede here. The biggest thing I’ve learned so far this time, is I need help... I always do this shit alone. Because I’m afraid to be a burden on others. Or afraid that if I’m accountable to someone I can’t quit and ghost on myself. 

Okay. So those were the major lessons taken from a negative side. Now the positives.... in one of the previous posts, I had the eureka moment that should have always been obvious, but I guess I was in denial or something. I have a fucking eating disorder. BED? Sure. Regardless of the diagnosis, I overeat. Not just overeat. I eat to soothe myself. I eat as a coping mechanism. I can’t believe it wasn’t as obvious my whole life. Like wow. I was stressed AF. I ate. Then I was at peace on the couch. What a fucking concept. Really hard puzzle to figure out. 

(Sidebar- another negative I forgot to mention. I was so harsh on myself. I beat myself up for every little detail, mistake, craving, etc. so maybe I’ll trying being easier on myself, not bees a sarcastic ass like in the previous paragraph.)

Ok. Strengths. I understand now that I was using food to cope. It’s a huge development for me. Like Rogers said, now that I accept it, I can change it. Another thing positive, is I was journaling! I had an outlet! That was awesome. And apparently it’s still beneficial for me to look back on and learn from myself. My mindset. etc.  

So overall, I couldn’t handle my stress. I was using food to cope with that stress. I was being perfectionistic, all-or-nothing about it. I was being harsh on myself. Another thing I forgot to mention was how concerned I was at times with what others may have thought. So again, doing it alone. Hiding it from others. Ironically, I think I did that in order to feel like I wasn’t doing it “for them”. If I do it alone without telling anyone, I’m obviously doing it for myself right? Nah. I need support. Help. Accountability. All of it. And on my own, what did I do? Intermittent fasting. Keto. IF again...counting cals... keto again... Through these past few years, I was also so paralyzed by fear. I didn’t know what to do. I kept failing. I didn’t know what to do that would work... it was really scary for a while. I felt I needed bariatric surgery. I saw no hope otherwise. And the price was of course out of reach.... 

And here we are. March 1, 2023. Another do-over. But what else can I do? Stop trying? Give up? No. Like the legend of the phoenix, all ends with beginnings. So again, I rise and try again. Fall down 7 get up 8. To be continued in my next post above.

[hetrosjistin]

No you know what, I thought I was done, but I'm not.

The problem with this shit is that it misses the point of having shit like the crows in Thedas at all.

You can't sanetize stuff and have it have the same impact, it's not just the hollowness, it literally reduces the conflict to a nothing burger.

You know why Dorian is, perhaps, one of my FAVORITE goddamn characters in the entire DA game series?

BECAUSE HE LITERALLY HAS TO GO THROUGH DEPROGRAMMING HIMSELF OF HIS RACIST SLAVER CULTURE! It's not enough that he wants to oppose the Venatori and all that nonsense. It's not enough that in inquistion, he literally went to the part of the world where he's taught they ENSLAVE people like him and burn out their brains if they're not good little obedient pet mages.

He goes there because it's right and that doesn't make him magically a perfect and good person. He's STILL flawed, he STILL has the baggage of his culture, and ADDRESSING IT is a constant fucking undercurrent of his dialogue and interactions throughout the game. How he is both proud of everything his civilization, the oldest extant civilization in the world, and horrified by the excesses of it's bad actors, and as time goes on his REALIZATION of how horrific each and every element of it is.

Like, when the Venatori take over minrathos. It's depicted as something ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE but frankly? That implies things were pretty okay before that!

What would ahve been SO MUCH MORE INSIDEOUS, would have been to show how LITTLE things had changed. Oh, have the burned out ruin of the hide out, have a few ventatori guards standing here and there, but now show how ABANDONED AND CALLOUS they all are. They don't -need- to set up a fucking police state, Tevinter already HAS IT IN PLACE. You don't NEED fucktons of venatori guards around docktown.

But by doing it the way they did they robbed so much of the substance of Tevinter from the game.

Like I'm actually on board with some of the changes. The Broodmother thing about the darkspawn was handled just about as well as it was ever going to be handled in Origins, so them all but abandoning them from the lore as time went on is a smart move IMO. Making significant changes to the dark spawn with the blight is a big deal, and a smart move.

But the draining of life from all the rest is unpardonable.

Have the Lord of Fortune -not give a shit- about other people's culture. It's pretty, it's bling, if it was so important why wasn't it better guarded? Why was it so stealable? Have that be a FLAW in their goddamn thing as FUCKING PIRATES.

Have the found family elements of the Crows, have them have a whole blood debt and true contract society thing. Have us confront the fact that if someone fails a contract their life is FUCKING FORFEIT. Play up the whole idea that found family can be JUST as toxic. Play up the idea that these orphans and street kids taken in by a fucking -assassin cult- effectively are molded to SERVE the interests of the nation as members of the 'family'.

I was -so- incredibly happy with inquisition where they CONTRASTED Blackwall so hard with the order at large. The Grey Wardens are a -death cult- created to fight the APOCALYPSE through wrote tradition and absolutely seething loyalty to the idea that they are the thin line against the darkness.

Play that up, show how god awful the anderfels are scoured of life by the blight and still infested with dark spawn. GIVE THE FIRST WARDEN A NAME AND WHY THE FUCK IS THIS GUY IN FUCKING MINRATHOS?! Play up the ENTIRE IDEA of what's wrong with them and contrast it with -our- experience of wardens from, basically, wardens who never actually underwent the indoctrination process.

Someone else on this hellsite said that the longer you think on veilgaurd instead of playing it, the worse it gets and goddamn is that the truth.

Problematic fiction is good because it coaches us through stories on how to fucking DEAL with actual bad things.

By sanitizing your fiction you rob it of it's ability to -teach- the audience any lessons beyond 'bad people bad'.

Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.

About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.

How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.

So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.

But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.

We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.

None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.

The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.

Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.

Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.

Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.

And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.

Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.

This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.

Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.

And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.

I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.

[tiffanylamps]

Lamps you KNOW i HAVE to ask about catholic guilt but sexy!!!!

Turnip, you have picked my most slutty, debauched, utterly filthy wip to date. Just ask Cay, she's read the snippets, she knows all about the super unsavoury plans 😩💀 From this tag game

I'm putting a read more break here cause... yeah....

catholic guilt but sexy is set in a Beyond Evil au, where Yu Yeon lives and Dong Sik follows his family's religion. So much so, that he becomes a priest of a small parish. His life is pretty quiet, he has his friends and his flock, and he's even beloved by his local community. He's... he's okay. (Even if on the inside he feels like screaming). Everything is going according to plan, he's doing fine, until... A snobby, uppity, good-looking prick from Seoul gets transferred (banished) to his parish to be his new Deacon. Han Joo Won enters Dong Sik's life and absolutely destroys it. He is Dong Sik's demise. His doom. His very-own Judas, who has come to kiss him on the cheek.

He is brash and unrestrained, he talks openly about things he disagrees with, he doesn't care about what's expected of him by the church or God... and as time passes, his warm honesty, his single-minded determination, and his utter devotion to Dong Sik, rips the wool from Dong Sik's eyes to reveal what life could be like if he just let himself have it. Han Joo Won isn't Dong Sik's doom. He is his saviour. [Or... Dong Sik meets Joo Won and finds it impossible to repress his sexuality, which results in some freaky, freaky sex. Ngl, in this fic, there's a lot of guilt and shame, a fuckton of internalised homophobia, angst, and some pretty heavy BDSM, but a lot of love... so much love]

Here's a snippet of one of my favourite scenes... Just to be absolutely clear, this fic is rated a hard E. It was super hard to pick a short snippet, but I think you'll like what I've chosen. This snippet is of their first kiss. Obviously, Joo Won kisses Dong Sik first and these few paragraphs focus on Dong Sik kissing him back.

Dong Sik wants to cry. You fool, what have you done? But Joo Won didn't do anything that Dong Sik hasn't already spent twilights and sunsets dreaming about. 

Up until this point, his unwavering desire has trickled like a stream. But after he’s felt the warmth of Joo Won’s lips, he has become drenched with a waterfall of need. He silently prays that their Lord will have mercy on him. He is only one man, only a man… and Joo Won is a magnetic force too powerful to vanquish. So, he finally doesn’t fight it. He might find the strength one day. But not now. 

Joo Won breathes him in as Dong Sik gingerly brings their lips back together. It’s been so long since he’s done anything like this, almost Joo Won’s entire lifetime… Which… oh fuck, what a ghastly thought. There’s a smile against his mouth as fragile as origami in inept hands and it draws him in, asking to be treasured, begging for him to be the one to admire it. Dong Sik doesn’t know if he’s worthy - he might crush it and forever lose this opportunity - but he doesn’t stop himself from gently kissing Joo Won anyway. 

Joo Won moves closer with a bubbling, restless energy that reminds Dong Sik of the blooming riots of spring. A time for youth and life; gleeful as young love permeates the air with a joy that Dong Sik hasn’t felt before. It’s an infectious feeling and for a second, he allows himself the solitude of just basking in it. He can pretend that he’s free from the eyes of God and hell and anyone in between. He can pretend he’s living out the springtime flings of his youth, instead of the quiet comforts of his autumn years.

- So... yeah... that's the priest fic I was working on. At the moment, it's kind of a dead wip but I hope you've enjoyed what you've read. Thanks again for sending me this. (this fic is guaranteed to send me to hell... if I ever actually finish writing it lol)

[goodbyenorthernlights]

I think I've mentioned before that I RP Rezo on dreamwidth sometimes, and the RP community on dreamwidth does a lot of ooc/meta chat on a second website called plurk. I keep my plurk account private (and I do not particularly recommend plurk as a site, tbh, I'm just there because it's where other people are) so. Figured I'd repost some of the stuff I've written about Rezo for the 1.5 people on tumblr who might be interested.

Here's a meta post about Rezo and Zelgadis's relationship that I wrote 9 months ago, featuring some commentary (in italics) from the Zelgadis-mun I was playing with at the time.

Gonna ramble a bit about my take on Rezo and Zelgadis's relationship, so, uh, CW: Child/familial abuse and general dysfunctional family stuff.

This need to ramble inspired by a tumblr post I saw along the lines of "does turning your grandson into a chimera count as physical abuse."

Now idk how one would classify that because obviously nobody in the real world has been able to do such a thing. Although I'm sure there's a precedent for people doing nonconsensual medical experiments on their children, which would probably be the closest analogy?

Anyway, after a bit of thinking I kind of picture that Rezo would have been like. A mixture of psychologically abusive and neglectful.

wrt the neglect I also think a lot of it would have been cultural- like WE'D consider a guy letting the teenager in his care go on dangerous raids against bandits to be a blatant act of supervisory neglect but in the Slayers 'verse nobody really bats an eye at Lina, the teenage protagonist, going around getting into zany adventures.

And this is headcanon but I imagine Rezo started working as a healer at a similar age. So if anyone called him out on that he'd just be ???? and think they were like. Smotheringly overprotective.

But based on the way we see flashback!Zelgadis behaving, I do think Rezo was generally pretty good to him as a kid. I can see him being distant, and/or leaving a lot of Zelgadis's actual care up to other people, but I don't think he hit Zel or insulted him or anything like that.

I think the abuse started very suddenly and rapidly got worse, basically.

Basically, imagine you've been raised by your grandfather. He runs a nonprofit and is very busy with it, so he isn't around as much as you'd like, but he's always been kind to you and you also know the people he works with and they're always kind to you as well, and life is generally okay.

But then when you're fifteen he drugs you out of nowhere and you wake up missing a kidney, and after that he just keeps getting colder and more distant and starts getting involved in crime and makes you help him out and it all comes to a head a few years later when somebody finally fucking shoots him.

And then you're just left there like ????? well i'm gonna need a fuckton of therapy after all that.

Also, as Zelgadis's player, the fact that it was a revelation made him wonder how much of Rezo's prior actions were less about 'I love my grandson' or 'I have an obligation to this kid' and more 'I have a hidden agenda'.

Yeah, it's a wonder Zel is capable of trusting anyone at all after that happened. I imagine there might have been warning signs that Something Is Wrong With Rezo but 1) Rezo was doing his level best to hide them, and 2) Zel was a kid, not fuckin' Psychologist Sherlock Holmes, so from Zel's perspective it came entirely out of nowhere.

I mean, I assume it's why he stuck with Rezo because you get the sense that he honestly didn't believe anyone else would believe him over Rezo. He was shocked Zolf and Rodimus sided with him when he did defect

Yeah, I can imagine that the adults Rezo was interacting with were more "Hmmm" about him, it just kind of varied on where they went with that "Hmmm"

I think Zolf and Rodimus probably went "Wow okay so he's ACTUALLY a bastard" especially after he cursed Zel, whereas Eris went "oh no...... poor little meow meow......."

i do not know what to conclude about dilgear and noonsa although it is interesting to me that they're both nonhumans.

[drwcn]

Hello~ may i ask you something about Chinese culture? i'm a white person and i know that wearing traditional clothes from other cultures (for example as a street wear) simply because it's beautiful is disrespectful because it's also a form of cultural appropriation. A few months ago one of my friends and i were talking and exchanging facts about our cultures and lifestyles and i made a comment about how stunning some hanfu she showed me were and her first reaction was " oh you like it? what's your favorite color i can buy you that one! " and she was quite gleeful and seemed to be unaware of the ethical problem behind me wearing these clothes.. i kindly refused but it's been puzzling me for some time now and so I'd like to know a bit more about it so i can maybe educate myself on this matter and explain my position better next time such as why I can't wear these clothes. i'm really sorry to drop this important and not so simple ask on you but i actually don't know anyone else i could ask, also know that you don't need to answer this if you're uncomfortable or anything tho! it's such a long text omg again sorry for taking up so much of your time aldhsks i hope your day will be great 💝

Hi friend! 

From where I stand if you want one, you should get one, especially if your friend is willing to help you pick a nice one. :) 

Here’s the thing about culture appropriation - everyone has a different opinion on it, so even if I say something, another Chinese person can disagree and that’s valid. 

I have a feeling, just a feeing, that if you go to China and buy a hanfu and put it on and walk around in it, most Chinese people aren’t gonna come up to you and say hey! this is cultural appropriation! In fact they might ask to take pictures with you.

That’s gonna be different if you did the same thing in New York, or Montreal, or Sydney, or London. 

I’m not a sociologist or anthropologist or political scientist, but I am a young person who has a lot of incongruous feelings towards cultural appropriation. There are obvious answers. Any action whereby an item/accessory from a certain culture is used in a mocking or offensive way, or is used as a costume or a gimmick, is of course entirely inappropriate. This is the obvious answer. But, the question that is often asked, and the exactly thing you are getting, is: what if I’m not intending to be offensive? What if I just like it? What if I want to honour it and support it? 

And the answer to that is complicated. 

I am a CN diaspora, and from what I’m seen and experienced, the term “cultural appropriate” comes from a place of fear and feeling of threat. For countries like the US where the population is very diverse and there’s a pressure to assimilate and fit in, there used to be a time when immigrants felt they had to do everything in their power to be more integrated into the new community they landed in and that meant turning their backs on the culture that they’ve left behind. 

The movement we see more and more nowadays is the reclaiming of some of that lost culture and the embracing of every aspect of one’s identity. However, the part of us that’s not quite “white enough”, that we’re just starting to build up the courage to be proud of, is still so tender, so raw, so vulnerable to any kind of assault from outside forces. The fear that we used to feel, the fear of being completely ourselves, it never truly goes away. It’s in the memory of being embarrassed to bring cultural food to lunch at school and wishing your mom could just pack you pizza. It’s the awkward moments when you can’t wear the shorts you want like the other girls in your class because your immigrant mother/father says it’s not appropriate. It’s loving a wuxia story and having no one to share it with because all your friends are non-cn and you’re 14 and everything is embarrassing. Imagine carrying that your entire life, that heavy mixture of shame and fear, and waking up one day and suddenly some pop artist is using aspects of your culture in their music video. Just for the aesthetics. And for that they’re getting millions of hits on youtube and making a fuckton of money. 

The very thing that had caused you so much grief, so much mockery and stress, is being used and monetized. How could you be okay with it? Especially when commercialization often comes with sexualization and objectification as well.  Now what if it’s not some famous person, what if it’s just a random citizen who wants to put on a kimono or a hanfu? Is that okay? Then it really depends on who you’re asking and what their relationship is with their cultural identity. Personally, I don’t really care because the community that I grew up in was very accepting of my culture. I never experienced as much cultural threat as other cn disasporas in other communities. So, like your friend who is CN (I’m assuming), I don’t feel as though my own identity is being infringed upon if you were to wear hanfu. In fact, I would take it as you being interested in my culture.  But imagine someone who comes from a community where they weren’t allowed to freely express their unique cultural idiosyncracies, where they felt much more pressured to assimilate and fit in. I would think that you wearing hanfu would be absolutely seen as cultural appropriation in that case. Because the bottom line is, if they wore hanfu in their community, they would’ve probably been mocked for it, and so a person who is non-cn wearing hanfu just for fun, cheapens the struggles and the pain that they must’ve experienced ongoingly in their life. In simple words: imagine an unpopular kid at school had a mole on their face, a mole which earned them constant mockery from the popular kids. One day, however, one of the popular kids decided having a mole is “cool” and “sexy”, and drew one on their face and began sporting it around. Suddenly everyone is doing it. That kid with the mole is probably thinking having a mole is my thing, it’s part of who I am, I can’t change it, and you made my life hell because of it. Now, not only are you being a complete hypocrite, you’re also taking away a part of my identity. You’re removing the mole from it’s origin, from its context, and you’re drawing it on your face just because you like the look of it. 

There’s a reason why Chinese people from China don’t care if you go to and buy all the hanfu you want. A) it’s generating business, but more importantly B) Chinese people in China are secure in their cultural identity. Being Chinese is their every day life, it’s their norm, their background, their default. By you wishing to try Chinese clothes, eating Chinese food, to them you’re simply going with the flow of their society. Diasporas on the other hand have a completely different relationship with our culture. We’ve had to fight to carve out a space that’s just for ourselves, and no diaspora’s experience is going to be the same as another. Therefore, our relationship with our culture, and with the term “cultural appropriation” is going to be very different. 

[quiet-longing]

Okay, nobody asked me, but I'm gonna chime in, anyway, because someone said Devil's Minion wasn't important to Armand's character's overall and I'm like ?????? I'm literally the mathematically confused lady meme right.

Daniel is Armand's one only and fledgling.

Again.

Daniel is Armand's one and only fledgling.

Armand has some complicated beliefs about God and vampires, which are kind of a lot to get into here, but essentially, he thinks his soul is damned. Truly and genuinely damned. Like, go straight to hell. Like, do not pass purgatory, do not look at heaven, go straight to hell. He thinks it's something evil. It's why he can't bear to turn Daniel. He literally thinks he will damn him to hell.

So, when Daniel tells him, hey, I want this, I want to spend eternity with you, it's easier for him to brush off as a preoccupation with immortality or Daniel being driven mad because he has knowledge of vampires.

No. Daniel is losing his mind because he's on a fuckton of drugs (including vampire blood), he's in psycho crazy relationship (but hey, it's the one he wants, it's the one he's betting forever on). Sure, Daniel's interested in immortality. Who the fuck wouldn't be? But that as the sole reason Daniel for Daniel saying, 'hey, make me a vampire'? Armand, no. If that were the only reason, you would know because you could hear it in his mind.

Daniel is absolutely right. Armand is 100% an immortal idiot because he's so powerful in the Mind Gift and yet when he sees Daniel's mind and hears Daniel's words, he goes, well, yes, I can see that's what you think you want. That's what he gets from the Mind Gift.

The truth is he can't accept that Daniel loves him. He can't accept that someone loves him completely just as he is. Daniel doesn't want him to change. Daniel looks at him and goes look at this freak, look at this weirdo, fuckin killed a million people, looks like a giant insect, godDAMN I'm in love with him. Love of his life, the one he wants to not just marry, but vampire marry. When he says he wants to spend eternity with him, he's not being romantic, he's being serious. Like, this asshole keeps me up all night, makes me drink absolutely foul shit that he just threw in a blender because he liked the colors, drags me to plays and operas, makes me dress up and socialize, and christ almighty, I don't wanna know what just exploded in our microwave. He looked at that guy and said, yep, that's the one. He's it for me. I want to spend two hundred years watching him play mad scientist. Nobody walking this earth that I love more than him. E t e r n i t y.

And Armand can't bring himself to believe it. Armand doesn't think anyone can truly love him for who he is. For what he is. So, Armand refuses to believe it. Armand doesn't think he deserves love. And it's one of the things that brings their relationship to the lows that it's in when Armand turns him. Armand keeps letting Daniel go because he can't accept Daniel's love, so he believes he's doing what's best for Daniel. And Daniel keeps running because he doesn't think Armand really loves him. Armand loves him with his whole heart. That's why he lets him go. Every time. Because he really thinks he's doing the most unselfish, most loving thing for Daniel. If Daniel gets away from him, he can have a life. But that's not what Daniel wanted. They got locked in this supremely fucked up circle of trying to trying to prove that they're serious when one tells the other that he loves him. Instead, what happened is that they didn't believe each other and they almost lost each other.

When he Daniel, Armand is desperate and terrified that he's going to lose Daniel. And he can't. He can't lose him. And now he has to believe in Daniel. Because if Armand really thought Daniel was just in it for the blood or the immortality, why would Armand have fallen in love with him? So he to trust his own love in Daniel, too. And that mean's being unselfish. And if he trusts himself and he trusts Daniel, then being unselfish is letting Daniel decide what to do with his own soul. It was one of the hardest things Armand has ever done and I actually don't believe he fully understood - or at least couldn't acknowledge at the time - the gravity of what he was doing. He kept trying to hide behind selfishness, but it was never about selfishness or unselfishness. It was about trusting that someone could love him and it was about actually accepting that love.

So yeah, I think Daniel and Devil's minion matter a lot to Armand and his character and I'm actually thrilled to see how it plays out, especially with these versions of the characters.

I'm worried they are going to have a nod to the 1994 movie and have Lestat be the one to turn Daniel, and possibly also give him David's storyline where he ends up in a younger body.

IDK, it just seems like with the changes they made to Daniel DM isn't a guarantee. It's not really that important to Armand's character overall and the writers mainly talked about drawing from The Vampire Armand for him, where he barely mentions Daniel and it's kind of negative when he does.

Maybe if he gets David's role we will see him interview Armand or write his life story a few seasons down? That feels like the best hope of DM with where the season ends. Daniel in old age is not the Daniel of DM and Armand isn't that Armand either, he already knows everything about modern day human life and technology.

Mhhh. so for me Daniel is VERY important for Armand's character (arc).

But yes, no matter how they'll do it, I do think he will get some of David's parts and therefore chronicle the vampires^^

And we have 5 decades to fill still... and a lot of possibilities in canon.

There's just sooooo much they could do.

Just... wait for it^^- I DO think they'll take their own path but will get there.

[brazilianism]

Momento r/trueoffmychest but sometimes I feel like there's no future in Brazil. I want to be a writer but there's like 2 Brazilian writers who are even slightly famous outside and I've heard that here we only get 10% of the book's profit, which is frankly absurd. I love this country and I love my city and I don't think I could ever call anywhere else home and I really want to go to college for free because I think I can and USP has been my dream university since I was in 6th grade but I have absolutely no perspective of future here. My family even has Portuguese citizenship in case thinks go south and we have to leave. And then I look at what the future looks like outside and I know I'll have to deal with sexism that'll be even worse because they see Brazilian women as whores and possibly xenophobia which is totally insane for me because I'm white but the moment I say something all everyone will hear is a heavy Latino accent that I actually don't want to lose and on top of that there will be the usual homophobia since I'm a lesbian and it'll be really tiring. To top that, the only places where I can be a successful writer seem to be USA and England and even though I absolutely hate USA it is still in America and I kinda dislike England even more (many cases of racism against Brazilians, heard it's hard for a Latino to get a job). And if I go to USA, I'll have to deal with low minimum wage and rent that is impossible to pay and the fear of guns and I'll probably will end up in New York as a writer and it may be a place I really wanna visit but it does seem like an awful place to live unless you're loaded and I also kinda don't want to ever be homeless but it seems like an obligatory experience if you live in USA. So I have to ask. How do you do it? How can a Brazilian who wants more find a place in the world? I'm white and my parents went to college and have enough money to send me to a private high school and this was supposed to make all the doors open for me but really? I can only see the closed ones. And I know I shouldn't complain because it would be 100000% harder if I was black and poor but honestly right now I'm kinda hopeless. If I could choose what country to be born in, I would always choose Brazil, but I feel like being a Brazilian keeps me from being someone.

Shit girl, I get you. It was one of my earliest dreams to be a writer, too. And this might not be super motivational, but I haven't made it, lol but like i'm 24 so no big deal about it either. I mean, I still write my stories every now and then, but being a writer does take a LOT of effort and energy and especially at the times when I hit depressive episodes it was hard to put in all that effort. Luckly for myself I've been granted a head that is happy doing lot's of different stuff, so I've changed paths without it taking a big toll on me and decided to go into the movie/tv bussiness. First I was about to try scriptwriting but I learned scriptwriting takes a fuckton of techinique to learn and I'm not good at it (yet). So i'm more into production and other media areas (and it might be a bitch but there's always social media work around even if it sucks). And I mean, the movie/tv bussiness is also shitty and has huge amounts of competition AND is better in countries I dislike too, but in my head it felt "safer" cause it offers "secondary" jobs that will always be there. But like, that was what I thought at 17. Now I know that every profession has these jobs, you know, not the "dream" jobs, but the decent jobs around the area. So first thing I'd do if I were you would be to do some research in related areas. Like, I don't know, working on magazines as an editor, or journalism, or text review, or even social media work in the writing area (plenty of blogs and SEO to adjust out there), or publicity writing (someone is always hired just to write slogans and texts for billbords, you know), or even scriptwriting as I tried. It's not that you HAVE to follow any of these, but knowing that you could fall back upon any of these professions or work them part time while trying to write your books might give you some peace of mind to give it a try. Second thing I would do is to do more research on brazilian writers, because there are plenty. Yeah, not all of them are Paulo Coelho, but you don't have to be to be able to make a reasonable living or even to keep writing as a part time profession. Find those authors, follow them on social media, ask questions!! Most love to answer when they have time. But what I won't tell you to do is to stop writing, cause if there's one thing I know is that the only way to get better at writing (and ergo have more chances of succeeding) is to keep writing. And look, i'm not telling you this is by any means an easy field, or a regular job, and it's 100% okay to give up if you prioritize these things in life (i'm serious, mental health and peace of mind come first and there's NOTHING wrong with picking a profession that allows for these if that's the case), but what I know about most people that have an undeniable passion for doing something creative and pick something else without being really sure about it is that they always regret it. Most keep getting sucked back to it or end up miserable because they really wanted to be doing something else. So if it's your only dream, you passion for life, girl, you're super young. Your parents can give you a small headstart for a few years (aka you don't have to worry about getting any job in any field just to get by for now). So give it a try. Search the field. Try to put something together. Worst case scenario, you still learned something. It'll land you somewhere. Might even be a good place :)

[actualbird]

Okay before reading this, just in case, wait till 10 or like a decent time. ———— Good? Okay so like the NXX crew, with Animal Crossing (yall were talking about the 2020 hot games so) and like this is the future will it be like VR animal crossing? - Book

hi, Book!!! some things before i get started: 1) i saw this ask at 5am and misread it, 2) bc i saw it at 5am i cant stop myself from answering it at 8am, 3) ive never played New Horizons so this is gonna be VERY off in many places unintentionally and also intentionally, and lastly 4) how did i misread it?

i thought you said "NXX crew as Animal Crossing villagers"

and well, my brain already thought SO MUCH ABOUT THAT so imma go in that direction even if i understand what u really said, SORRY KJBJSDKF

MC is a a rabbit, artem is a bear, vyn is a deer, marius is a cat, and luke is a wolf. they, along with other villagers (celestine the ostrich, kiki the mouse, darius the lion, I COULD GO ON FOREVER), live on STELLIS ISLAND!!! away from the pressures of city life, everybody now has the time to focus on basically everything theyve been putting off, which, for the nxx boys, is basically their METRIC FUCKTON of pining for MC.

//cue animal crossing opening music

i like to imagine the nxx ac au as an idyllic kind of romantic comedy scenario also everybody is animals. theres no player character human but somebody is mayor/museum curator/tom nook/etc. (another chara from tot, not the ingame ac npcs bc im not strong enough to do crossovers omg).

actually kjsbfgjskJBJ WAIT marius still vaguely owns pax here and this whole island is basically a pax development thing and marius very often goes over to mc's house going "isnt this island great? arent i your favooooorite? do you wanna go to the beach because i got great desserts from the city----" and then luke comes over flailing a net around and "accidentally" herding a bunch of wasps towards marius

luke: oops, sorry marius!

marius: //animal crossing language screaming

luke: well, i guess he's busy then. mc, wanna go fruit picking :D

marius: //animal crossing language screaming but PISSED OFF NOW

mc does not want to go fruit picking while marius is running for his life, so mc and luke do save him together and then all three of them go to the beach and then go fruit picking together. all three of them have a great time, but marius and luke wont admit it to the other that they had fun in the other's presence (well, they wont admit it for now, theyll admit it eventually, every au of mine will end in found family whether they LIKE IT OR NOT)

vyn is very often at the island's museum, the nature parts, and whenever mc wants a little bit of a quieter time, all she has to do is go there and theyll both sit down on a bench in the butterfly exhibit and if she has any questions, all she has to do is ask to hear vyn explain in a gentle voice, his fluffy ears twitching (flustered) whenever mc nods or goes "oooh".

if mc wants a more cheeky museum experience, she can go ask marius to come with her and he'll go full art guide mode the entire time. she'll roll her eyes at marius' smugness but also feel her own kind of affectionate smugness when she sees marius' tail sway from side to side, happy and satisfied.

artem is most often found fishing by the rivers and the beach and mc is Very Bad at fishing and cant make much sense of the intricacies of fishing rods or reeling techniques, but artem always assures her that he enjoys being with her nonetheless. his normally stoic, intimidating face always softens whenever she sits down next to him on the shores, his bear nose adorably twitching in restrained happiness.

and luke always seems to be working on something. he and mc hang out a lot, but when they arent, she sees luke going around the island, tail wagging as he collects resources, terraforms land chunks, etc. mc knows that when luke is keeping a secret, he'll almost never tell her, so she starts investigating

mc: do you know what luke is doing?

artem: n....no....i do...not....

mc: youre a terrible liar skjdfsjd. vyn! what's luke doing?

vyn: a passion project of sorts :)

mc: that is an answer that tells me nothing, actually. MARIUS! what is luke up to?

marius: miss :(((( wouldnt you like to ask me what im up to :(((

mc: oh my god you guys

eventually what luke is working on does reach completion, and mc, led by the rest of the boys, is shown to a little secret picnic area in the island, big enough not just for two animals, but five. luke explains that he originally made this place as a gift for her but then //grumbling, luke realized that mc is happiest when theyre all together, so luke made some changes and luke doesnt get to explain past that because mc tackle hugs him in a rabbit hop of gratitude.

mc is so so so happy and the little picnic area becomes a wonderful little area for all of them to go to whenever they want to. there, under the clear skies, mc figures that maybe what they all want can be found in a place like this.

[jtrbluv]

hell-ish | pjm

summary: can be read as a separate oneshot or a continuation of ‘we’re not really strangers’“

“But do you remember when we went on a field trip to that amusement park in 8th grade? Around halloween time? … Yeah, I think that’s the moment I pretty much fell in love with you.“

pairing: jimin x reader

genre: fluff, humor, establisedrelationship!au

word count: 7.7k+

warnings: profanity (they are beyond terrified), inaccurate depictions of amusement park shenanigans, neurotic clowns (but they’re acting)

A/N: IM SO SRY ITS LITERALLY NOT EVEN HALLOWEEN ANYMORE GOODBYE DD; in my defense they typically have these typa things open after halloween ends... miss rona just isn’t allowing it this year ofc ;w; a special thanks to @viopera​ , @koushiningg​, and @bangtans-peaceful-piegon​ for letting me use their likeness, i love u all. and i hope you enjoy this late halloween fic right before thanksgiving break!

The car rolls to a smooth stop. The man in the driver’s seat puts the car into park—turning towards you while placing a reassuring hand on your thigh.

“Hey,” he says, a small close-lipped grin painting across his features, “you excited?”

You reposition in your seat so you can face him, or more specifically, your best-friend-turned-lover—the sight of him smiling causes you to elicit one of your own, your nerves slightly subsiding.

“I am actually,” you admit, “how long has it been? Six? Seven years?”

“Around there I think, but we should probably get going. The lines are probably going to be stupid long like always,” he suggests, his hand leaving your thigh only to ruffle the hair on top of your head, "Here's to new memories Y/N."

You step out onto the pavement—the crisp, cold night air nipping at your cheeks and nose. The cooler temperature serving as a reminder that winter was yet to come and autumn was about to come to a close. You form an O-shape with your mouth, exhaling sharply and seeing your own breath swirling and blending into the air around you.

Footsteps approach you from the side as you shut the car door. Your head whips around to see Jimin walking towards you with a dopey grin plastered on his face. In response, your eyes playfully loll back, a stream of air huffing out of your nose.

You shift your focus back towards in front of you, eyeing the roller coaster that intimidatingly loomed beyond the fence of the park, the drop tower that appeared just as high, and the other neighboring attractions that towered significantly enough to be seen from afar. The whole stretch of the park emitted a red glow, from what you could assume was from the large-scale lighting and technology that was spread out across the expanse.

A soft hand slides its way from your forearm down to your palm, intertwining all in one smooth motion. It was warm and comforting much unlike your frozen, almost entirely numb ones.

“Someone’s a little cold aren’t they,” he teases, using his other hand to attempt to rub more warmth into yours.

“You know my hands are chronically cold,” you pointedly whine, causing small clouds of air to shoot out of his mouth and nose due to his laughter.

He locks the car and you two begin making your way towards the entrance—from what seemed like a mile, in reality, was only a block away. There was practically no gap in between the two of you the entire time, taking advantage of each other’s body heat amidst the numbingly cold weather.

The wait wasn't too shabby, but you knew it was because time always seemed to pass by so much faster when you were with him, most of the pastime consisting of talking about how your past week has been, the fuckton of assignments you two had gotten, and the dangerously high intakes of caffeine you two had consumed as per usual.

The conversation ceased after a while, and it was just the two of you pressed side to side in comfortable silence, hands still intertwined. It was interesting to see such a vast variety of ages all around you—the most common age range were teenagers or people of the same age as the two of you, which wasn’t a surprise. After getting past the ticket booth and security check, you

two finally make it inside.

The first thing you notice is the large, antique carousel that hadn’t changed in the tiniest bit since the last time you were here.

The meticulously decorated entrance—brought to life by the fire torches, heavy-duty fog machines that didn't allow one to see after 10 feet ahead of them, bright lights that were replaced by either no lights at all or a faint red tint, and just the whole ambiance—had greatly juxtaposed the simplicity and familiarity of the carousel that stood in the eye of it all.

The heat of the fire torches allow you to regain some warmth back into your body—you create a small gap in between you and Jimin, in which he pouts and lifts your intertwined hands up to his face, pressing a kiss into the back of your hand.

“So, where do you wanna go first?” He asks, swinging your arm back and forth after passing through the gates.

“I’m fine with whatever,” you enunciate a bit loudly, the usual noises of amusement park shenanigans hindering your hearing.

“You sure about that?”

You click your tongue, “Jimin please, I’m a college student now, not a puny 8th grader anymore,” you argue, watching him turn away as he tries to stifle his laughter, “I swear!”

“Alright! Alright! I’ll believe you,” he eventually caves, frantically waving his hand to dismiss your concerns, “But I won’t believe you until I see it.”

“Oh, so we’re gonna play that game huh,” you retort, brows furrowing as a smirk creeps across your face, “Alright, so what do you think about riding that?” You ask innocently, motioning up towards the drop tower that forced one to crane their neck all the way back just to see the top.

You break your focus as you look back down and turn towards him to gauge his reaction. His jaw dropping down to his knees—eyes widened in complete bafflement and horror.

“Y/N. I am literally going to fucking die if I ride that shit. Oh my god.”

“What do you mean? It’s totally safe! I’ve been on it so many times.” You attempt to console him, knowing it’s futile because of the piercing glare he gives you right after you say that.

“And that’s supposed to make it better how?!"

You soothingly rub the back of his hand in an attempt to ease his nerves, “Of course I won’t push you if you don’t want to, you know.”

He sighs, “Well, now you’re just making me sound like a puny 8th grader.”

“I can assure you that you very much, are not Chim.” And he smirks at that, tightening his grip on your hand, making you wish that you didn't give him that ego boost in the first place because he surely didn’t need any more of that.

You take some time to mull over your options, but instead, go with whatever your gut feeling was initially leaning towards, “Okay, so what if every time you take me to a house, I have to take you on a ride. You get to choose the house and I get to choose the ride.”

He nods in acknowledgment, “I’m listening.”

“Does that sound valid?” You inquire.

He bites on his bottom lip, taking a moment to quickly cogitate between the options you had given him, and at last, he nods, "It sounds like a win-win."

"Or a lose-lose." You chuckle, and he mirrors.

He shakes his head, “I know you like rollercoasters and all that scary shit, but there’s also a ton of stuff that they’ve added since we’ve last been here.” He replies, thinking out loud, while making you feel more content with your decision, “You got a deal ma’am.” He affirms at last—releasing his grip to offer you his hand to seal the deal, in which you confirm resolutely by shaking it.

Just like he said, the amusement park most definitely stepped up their game ever since you both were middle schoolers, navigating the large expanse with a bunch of other measly and equally puny peers.

The deeper you two make your way into the park, the more themed attractions lined the path. At this point, you could barely make out the bottom half of your legs due to the thickness of the fog. Actors were running around left and right—faces decorated with FX makeup that you could barely discern because of the dim lighting—effectively scaring others, clear by the amount of ear-splitting shrieks you've heard in the past ten minutes that was enough to make your eardrums burst.

Jimin takes note of your slight tenseness. He wasn't oblivious and he knew that you were trying to feign nonchalance—but the razor-tight grip on his hand and lack of chatter on your end was saying otherwise. But just like everything you do, he thought it was cute anyway.

He promptly squeezes your hand, making you turn to face him, "Do you want the first pick?"

You hum, "You can have it if you want."

"Are you sure?"

"Yess," you drag out exasperatedly, "how many times do I have to tell you that I'll be perf– !" You abruptly halt as a zombie (that very much isn't real is what you keep reminding yourself) whizzes past you, brushing against your shoulder and making you jump and trip over your own two feet.

The man beside you is quick to react—leaping in front of you with his arms out so you could fall into his grasp. And you do, gripping his arms to better steady yourself and stand up. As you attempt to straighten yourself out, your head sinks into his chest, laughter erupting out of the two of you to the point where his knees almost give out.

You detach yourself from his chest, tears pooling in the corners of your eyes from laughing so goddamn much. Finally regaining your poise, you immediately slip your fingers back in between his. He cards a hand through his locks with his remaining hand while taking deep breaths.

While tugging him away from where you two were standing to avoid another ruckus... granted that you were at a haunted amusement park, you shout into foggy air, "I'm fine, I'll be fine Jimin! Let's go!", hoping that maybe if you spoke it out into the world, you could manifest it into being true.

Well, weren’t you wrong.

-

A rare and near impossible feat is what you were able to accomplish: forcing Jimin to make a decision. Despite him already being a trademark libra, you always believed that one of his most standout and consistent libra-esque traits was the fact that he was so indecisive. To which had resulted in him forcing you to make decisions instead of him most of the time, whether they had been trivial or not.

The moment you realized that this "feat" wasn’t much of a feat, after all, was when you two had finally reached the entrance of the first haunted attraction he had chosen, his impulsive and most likely ulterior-motivated driven decision causing you to retract all preceding moments in which where you were being stubborn and indignant in him making the first pick.

Just your luck, his explanation behind his decision (and your almost near-death experience) is that he says and you quote, “Start off with a bang! We get the worst over with now so it’s all smooth sailing for the rest of the night. Trust me.”

For some context, you had a very  rational fear of clowns. The year of 2016 was already bad enough as it was—a time in which you had gotten out of your first serious relationship, afterward giving yourself the most horrendous haircut in your entire life because you were emotionally strung and the scissors… well they just happened to be within an arm’s reach.

Later on in said year when you had become a junior and assignments had been piling up higher and higher without any shits given whatsoever, your minuscule fear of clowns had been blown out of all proportions—ultimately fueled by the number of clown sightings around your town and one altercation that you still think about until this day. Four years later, you can still vividly recall the time where you were coming home after studying all day at the local library and on the other side of the street, you had spotted a clown—feet planted to the cement sidewalk, body immobile besides their head that would keep its focus on you as you continuously made your way down the street. As you began to quicken up your pace, the clown began to reciprocate your actions from across the way, and you came to the conclusion that you didn’t really wanna die that night so you sprinted the entire rest of the way home.

And here you two were, at the front of the line standing behind the black curtain entrance—next to a rugged wood sign with the words, CLOWNEUROTICS, inscribed with a dripping, rich red liquid which you surmise was fake blood and not Kool-Aid.

“I cannot believe I let you have the first pick and you do this to me” You quip, chewing the chapped skin of your lips, breath shallow and bated.

“Y/N, you’ll be just fine. I’ll be here right beside you, remember?” he assures you once more, giving you another tight squeeze on your hand.

The curtains swish open, the employee in a simple all-black ensemble motioning the two of you to come inside. You close your eyes, taking one deep and steady inhale before stepping in.

You can barely make out your surroundings, let alone Jimin, who was standing right beside you. The worker’s voice hollers over the deafening noises of the tent. “Follow the path, don’t go backwards, or else you'll hold up the line. And you see that green light?” He asks while pointing to the tiny green bulb that was down the hallway in front of you, “Take a right from there.”

Jimin replies, knowing that you’re too fear-stricken to form coherent sentences at the moment, “Alright, thanks.”

The man nods, and Jimin tugs on your hand as he begins to walk forward. You follow closely behind, reminding yourself to take breaths before you flat out lose consciousness.

As you reach the end of the hallway and the green light bulb the man mentioned, Jimin pauses and turns around to stand in front of you, placing his hands on your shoulders.

“Y/N, I know you hate my guts right now, but I’m sorry in advance and just know that I love you, okay? You have full permission to torture me after this.” He reassures with a wide grin.

“Yeah, yeah, I love you too,” you grumble, lips downturned and head hanging low.

You feel his soft lips graze over your cheek, leaving a chaste peck before giving you an airy, irresistible smile that you can’t really help but relent, even though it already feels like your heart is about to implode on itself.

Taking a right, the setting of the attraction comes into periphery. White walls and floors—reminiscent of a hospital, are tainted with blood, a disarray of medical equipment, and severed body parts. You take notice of the vacant hospital beds, sheets crumpled and stained with red. Framed pictures of medical staff were hanging by loose nails, glass shattered, bloody splatters and smears all over the frames, walls, and white tile.

You two reach a doorway, next to one of the hinges was a sign that clearly said, Psychiatric Ward. Well, I guess that explains the neurotics part.

In an attempt to swallow down some of the fear in your throat, you tighten your grip on Jimin’s hand while opting to slither your remaining hand around his bicep.

He takes notice of your actions that were propelled by your increasing fear, and naturally, he can’t help but feel bad, “Hey, you know I’d never let anything happen to you.” He tells you, shaking you out of your slight daze, “You can hold onto me the whole time and stick your head in my shoulder just like you did years ago, I won’t mind,” he teases while booping your nose.

���Alright, let’s just get this over with, please.” You huff out, determined to somehow put on maybe not a brave, but a braver face than what he expects from you.

You manage to fail in a whopping, record-breaking, ten seconds of going inside.

The first jumpscare was so entirely predictable—the thunderous pounds against the wall, the trudging and supposedly neurotic clowns (although clowns are already neurotic enough as they are) had all built up suspense until a head of a clown had shot up from around the corner. Their usual clown features distorted with gashes in their skin and blood dribbling out of the corners of their mouth, clothes ripped and stained. Your entire body violently spasms, a shrill shriek, and an embarrassingly long string of curses leave your lips in a matter of mere seconds.

You don’t even notice the man you’re holding onto folding over in laughter because the clown is still very much still following you even after you turn the corner, but before you can recalibrate and trek forward another clown materializes just sparse inches at your side. Your entire body forcefully jerks back, knocking into Jimin, but the force doesn’t phase him in the slightest as he swiftly brings his arms around your frame to prevent you from falling back.

Next to you, the man’s laughter hasn’t ceased a bit the entire time, and as you quickly dash forward and away from the clowns that you oh-so-wanted to knock a tooth out of, while clinging onto his side, he presses a kiss to the top of your head, “Hanging in there?”

“I think I’m gonna murder you before I murder any of these clowns.”

“Noted!” he chimes while playfully bumping his head into yours.

As you two turn another corner, the sight of more clowns banging against vacant windows on either side of you has you wincing, and you could swear you could feel your left eye start to involuntarily twitch. You come to the indubitable realization that amidst dozens of clowns, you are evidently the biggest one here.

The sounds that blaringly elicit from your lips are the nearing equivalent to keyboard smashes with a variety of curse words in between. In short, if you had a swear jar, you’d be practically penniless at this point.

The clowns are quick to take note of your cowardly conduct, using it to their advantage and targeting you specifically—reaching and intruding so eerily close that you’re almost convinced that they’re actually touching you. You cower in their presence, squirming and sinking deeper and deeper into Jimin’s hold as you make your way down the path.

Beads of cold sweat began to assert their own path down your forehead—heart ricocheting against the walls of your chest, straining the cords of your throat because of your never-ending shouts and shrieks of terror upon terror. Your whole body was convulsing and shivering without fault, even when accompanied by the body heat of the man next to you, the harsh lighting of the overhead lights, and the lack of ventilation in this shoddy tent proved to be no match against your bodily functions that were going completely haywire. If you were an Amazon package, you would have a large ‘Caution: Handle With Care’ sign slapped right onto the box.

The pea-sized amount of pride that remains within you is the only thing stopping you from completely losing your shit.

Jimin's laughter—airy and unwavering, tickling the shell of your ear was the only thing keeping you grounded, serving as a constant reminder that at the very least when you might have lost all your pride and composure, you still had him by your side.

Without much forethought, he continues to lay kisses along your temple, clutching you close to his chest and keeping you upright as your knees constantly buckled under the weight of your looming fear, crumbling composure, and the grisly clowns that were most definitely preying on your downfall.

The ten-minute duration—which to you, had felt like a whole lifetime-and-a-half had finally come to a close. Once you were able to discern what you thought was the exit of the tent—the small opening leading to what had looked like signs of civilization, you booked it without hesitation, hastily tugging Jimin with you to the point where he nearly tramples over his own feet and crashes to the floor due to the sheer and sudden force.

You two finally pass through the exit. Feeling as if you had just ran a timed mile in five minutes, your body caves immediately—hunching over, briskly bringing your hands to your knees to support your deteriorating physiological state. The sound of your heavy breathing gets disrupted by Jimin’s laughter. You stand up, straightening yourself out when you realize that other people were starting to make their way towards the exit too, and you two were clearly blocking the way out.

Jimin takes you by the wrist and swiftly pulls you aside as more people start to trickle out of the tent. You two lean against the metal fence, comfortably silent as he lets you catch your breath.

You huff out, taking deep exhales as you speak, "Holy fuck, what even was that?"

"The funniest thing I have ever seen," he shoots back with a smile, slightly breathless as well.

You blink rapidly, body slumping against the fence, still completely cynical and disbelieving in what you had experienced. Biting the inside of your cheek so hard you're pretty sure you left teeth marks, you wipe your sweat with the hem of your sleeve.

"You okay?" he asks softly, closing the gap in between the two of you.

You nod, affirming your composure in hopes that it would solidify it for real. Giving him a smile to ease the nerves you knew he had, you visibly saw his smile widen, and with that, you ruffle his hair, take his hand into your own, and walk a few steps forward before announcing brazenly into the chilly autumn wind,

"Drop zone time."

"Y/N PLEASE—!"

-

"Don't do this, anything else but this please." He pleads, lips jutting out while childishly tugging on your sleeve.

You groan, "Bub, we had a deal."

He presses his lip together, "I know... but just look at that! How does that even look remotely safe enough for one to ride?" He tries to reason with you, staring up at the attraction that he believes should not even be labeled as an 'attraction' in the first place.

You chuckle softly, shaking your head, "If it was that much of a safety hazard, it wouldn't even exist Chim."

"I will never understand why people ride this out of enjoyment and pleasure. This is insane," he says, his eyes trailing to the long line of people behind the two of you.

"It's three seconds, I swear. Three seconds compared to my ten minutes of cussing and wanting to punch a clown in the face is very reasonable in my opinion. You’ll be just fine, I’ll hold your hand the whole time," you add on.

He quietly freezes in place—eyes fixated on the tower, hands leaving the fabric of your sweater. You feel his warm hand come in contact with yours, the back of his hand grazing your knuckles. Lacing your fingers in between his, he meets your eyes, giving you a timid, lopsided grin. A silent affirmation that had said more than words could’ve. I trust you but I’m still scared shitless.

“You guys are next,” the worker announces, opening the gate and gesturing you two to come inside. Jimin’s smile dissipates, face contorting into a look of mortification at the man’s words—eyes widening to the size of what would be considered as utter shock and lips curling into a form of disgust.

Tugging lightly at his hand, he whips his head towards you, waiting to speak until you two have passed the gate, “Y/N, I’m literally gonna piss my pants like I’m not even joking.”

“Jimin!” you say in a hushed yell, “Please don’t, I know your pride is too precious to you for you to annihilate it by pissing on a ride that even kids go on.”

He scoffs, “Okay fine… but we’re getting churros after this.”

Your brows furrow in confusion, smiling at his tone, “Why would I argue against churros?”

“Hello, miss? Come this way, please,” another worker greets, leading the two of you to two vacant spots of the ride where you presume were going to be yours.

You nod, making your way towards the two seats, hearing Jimin splutter incoherent words and sounds from behind your shoulder.

He immediately plops into the innermost spot, refusing to be on the outermost seat that only had one accompanying seat on one side, albeit it truly didn’t matter. And of course, you don’t tell him that.

Smiling at his overt signs of apprehension, you slide into the spot next to him, beginning to put on the seatbelt over your lap.

Drumming his fingers on his knees, he already has his seatbelt buckled and his over-the-shoulder restraints locked and secured into place.

“Ugh, can these things go any tighter! I can still move under here,” he tuts, vigorously trying to push the restraints closer to his body, yet his attempts are proven to be in vain.

“Bub, they still want you to be able to breathe,” you remind him with a small giggle, your head popping out of the U-shaped bar to look over at him—his brows knit in concentration, nose scrunched, lips tucked into his mouth.

In a final attempt, you hear the man beside you take a sharp and deep inhale, only to hear a tiny click emit from the restraint shortly afterward.

He releases his bated breath, only to come to the realization that he can’t extend his stomach all the way forward, the bar forcing it to come short. He splutters, bringing his hand to cover his face while he coughs only to realize that his arm can’t fully reach around the bar to meet his face.

You watch this entire scene unfold out in front of you—wishing you could do something to help the poor guy, but you already knew your attempts would be pointless in the end as your arms are physically incapable of extending that far. You sink back into your seat to make sure he doesn’t see the fact that you were trying so hard not to laugh.

“Jimin, deep breaths, in and out,” you instruct him as the worker starts to make their rounds around the ride, double-checking for seatbelts and secured restraints.

“Y/N, that’s the problem, I can’t.”

“Try scooting back into your seat,” the worker suggests to Jimin, giving him an empathetic smile.

“What do you mean–oh, erm, thank you.”

She nods, shaking Jimin’s restraint a little more energetically to reassure the man of his safety.

As she leaves, he says to you, “Y/N, I can’t believe you convinced me to go on this.”

“Me too, honestly. I’m really proud of you Chim.” You admit, reaching out a hand towards him in which he takes.

“Three seconds, right?” He reiterates.

“Give or take, yeah.”

“Y/N—!”

Your seats suddenly clatter, signaling the start of your long ascent. Jimin’s grip on your hand tightens substantially, causing you to groan out in pain.

He quickly takes note of the noise, loosening his grip ever so slightly, “Oh my god, sor- oh fucking hell, there’s no going back now?!”

You chomp down on your bottom lip before another sound could escape your mouth—his grip on your hand tightening the higher you two go, “No, no you’re fine, it’s okay..”

“HOLY SHIT WHY ARE WE ALREADY THIS HIGH UP?!” He yelps, kicking his feet against the air—people’s heads starting to look as small as ants, the rest of the park coming into view as if you were experiencing it from a drone’s point of view.

“Dumbass, don’t look down!”

“It’s too late–what the hell, why can I see the whole damn city from here?!” He sticks his head out of his restraint, looking up and trying to find the top, “wHen the FUCK does this shit stop please, Y/N, I cAn’T do this?!?!”

“Chim. Breathe. Deep, steady breaths, okay?” You say while audibly taking breaths so he can do the same.

“Okay, okay,” he says, voice cracking but following suit.

After you think that he finally manages to get a grip on himself, you decide to try to take his mind off the situation at hand, “Jimin, look at the view.”

His breath softens as he begins to take in his surroundings. He could see everything. To him, it feels as if he had the city in the palm of his hand. The rollercoasters that reside next to the tower were practically reaching eye-level to him, and despite the lack of color due to the theme of the park, he thought it was mesmerizing anyway. He marvels at the fact that he could even see past the park—catching a glimpse of the cars zooming on the main highway, minute specks of light emitting from the windows of skyscrapers, people living in their own little worlds in each one, And of course, the envy of it all, the night sky—the dark depth littered with a multitude of stars in their own little patterns and worlds of their own as well.

The overhead speakers trumpet, ripping Jimin out of his trance-like state, “Welcome to the drop zone brave newcomers. I hope you’ve had an enjoyable trip on the way up here. And I hope that your descent is just as enjoyable as well. We will be dropping in... “

Jimin heaves out, “Now that’s just plain rude at this point.”

“Ten.”

“Are you okay?”

He scoffs. “What kind of question is that Y/N?!”

“Nine.”

“Jimin, you’ll be just fine,” You reassure for the umpteenth time.

“I swear if this is longer than three seconds–”

“Eight.”

He frantically kicks the air. “Fucking hell! I can’t believe I’m doing this right now, I miss the ground.”

“Seven.”

“We’ll be back down to earth sooner than you think, I’m telling you.”

“Six.”

“Oh my fucking god, oh my fuck–!”

“Five.”

“Oh fuck, holy shit–!”

“Jimin, I’ll be right beside you–”

“Four.”

“–the whole way.”

“OH MY FUCKING GOD?!”

“Thre–!”

Before the countdown can finish, you two plummet, plunging down at great speeds—a feral-sounding squawk leaving Jimin’s lips when it all happens.

He squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to see what was going on—letting go of your hand, he opts to hold onto the other handlebar on the restraint instead. His breath is caught in his throat, the ride is moving so fast that he can’t even produce any noise, let alone move his body.

Just like you have been saying this whole night, the ride ends in a blink of an eye. Or more specifically, three seconds, give or take.

Jimin slumps in his seat—fingers still curled so tightly around the handlebars that his knuckles turn pale.

You stick your head out of your restraint, craning your neck to look at him beside you, “Jimin, it’s done, it’s over.”

“Are you sure?” He mumbles.

“Open your eyes.”

His head slowly rises, eyes remaining shut. Cracking one eye slightly open, he loosens his grip on the handlebars before opening his eyes and letting out a deep sigh of relief.

"That wasn't so bad, right?" You beam, waiting for the restraints to be lifted.

"I wouldn't know, I had my eyes closed the whole time," he shyly admits, lifting the restraint off of him and unbuckling his seatbelt.

You two jump out of your seats, heading towards the gate and bidding the drop tower goodbye, juxtaposing afterthoughts lingering in the air.

"That felt so weird, I don't know if I wasn't able to move or if there wasn't enough time for me to react," he chuckles dryly while twining his hand with yours once again.

You smile, "Probably a little bit of both," you suggest, eyes scanning the park for any signs of a churro stand, "but hey, you survived!"

He smiles at that, teeth out and all, "We both did," he assures earnestly, "and now as an incentive, we are getting churros."

Your eyes light up—the sight of the bright neon sign being the next destination of the night. Jimin notices your sudden reaction, quickly looking in the same direction as you and pinpointing the small churro stand from afar.

To your luck, the line isn't very long—people are most likely preoccupied with the multitude of attractions that are only going to be available for this appropriate time of the year, taking advantage of the opportunity before having to wait for an entire year before getting to experience it all over again. But you and Jimin weren't like most people, and you two strongly believed that churros should be indulged in at any time during any situation. And right now, it was being utilized as a form of consolation, just in the shape of a deep-fried pastry sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

After obtaining your consolation desserts, you two resume your journey around the park. Too preoccupied indulging in your churro, you’re temporarily able to block out the commotion that was occurring around you, keeping four out of five senses focused on said churro and churro only. 

“You feel better?” You ask, taking a brief moment to dust off all the cinnamon and sugar off the corners of your mouth. 

“Mmhmph,” he incoherently mumbles, after shoving half a churro into his mouth. He abruptly pauses, cheeks puffed up and eyes wide, realizing he can’t talk and instead he nods with a grin as wide as his mouth would allow him to stretch out. 

You giggle at his actions, taking your focus off of him to take another bite. 

A few moments later, when most of your churros noticeably nowhere to be seen, you ask, “Where should we go next?”

He cinches his brows together, “We probably shouldn’t go on anything to extreme, considering we just ate. How about the ferris wheel?” He suggests, pointing to the attraction that was standing in front of the two of you. 

You nod, “You’re right, these workers already go through enough. And we shouldn’t add cleaning vomit to the list.”

He chuckles, “Agreed. Let’s go, the line is pretty short!” He exclaims jubilantly, flashing you a mega-watt grin while pulling you along with him towards the gated entrance. 

Leaning against the gate, you two wait for the round of riders that were currently riding to finish, mindlessly scrolling on your phones to pass the time. 

The gate entrance opens, tearing your focus off of your phone and back to reality. The enormous and dazzling neon wheel that stood boldly enveloped your vision in replacement of your dim and dark-mode setted phone screen, making you blink a few times to adjust to its harsh hues. 

One of the carts comes to a halt, doors releasing as the group of friends inside it begin to grab their belongings and head out. The worker in charge motions you to step inside after they leave, the two of you following suit. When you two become situated and seated, they press a few buttons on their control panel, the doors promptly swinging close. A few brief seconds after, the cart jolts before moving just enough so the other people behind you could board onto the next cart.

The carts reminded you of the teacup ride at Disneyland—built in a circular shape, seats lined around the border with a small gap made for the entrance door, but of course, it was void of steering wheels in the middle. Now that would just be a recipe for disaster, and a solid segue into Jimin vomiting all over you.

He nudges your leg, “It’s so funny to me.”

You turn to him, “What is?”

“Out of all things to do while being here, and we’re riding the ferris wheel,” he beams, a light chuckle leaving his lips, “I don’t know whether to pity us or not.”

“All my pride has left me already and I’m okay with it,” you tut, lips unwillingly curling upward as you replayed the scenes of what had happened earlier at the drop zone, “I wouldn’t talk too much if I were you Mr. ‘I’m gonna piss my pants.” You tease, poking him in the side.

He scoffs, squirming slightly where you poked him, “I am still proud of myself, I didn’t think I was gonna make it up there.”

You turn away, holding in your laughter, “I didn’t think you were either.”

“Hey! Don’t even get me started on you,” he says, nose scrunching and brows furrowing, “those poor clowns were about to get their noses punched in if it wasn’t for me being there. I think your screams and threats were starting to scare them more than they were scaring me.” He fires back, giggles erupting in his throat and interrupting his words.

“I’m not even gonna argue against that. We are so sad,” you say—laughter flaring up in your chest as well, the two of you keeling over so hard the cart begins to swing back and forth.

“Woah! Woah! Woah! Easy there,” Jimin yelps as you two take notice of the movement and immediately cease your actions, hands grabbing the ends of the cart to try to stabilize it. 

Just as your cart has moved up enough for you to start seeing an overhead view of the park, he whips his phone out before saying, “Lemme take a picture of you, the view is so nice here.”

As he whips out his phone, you scoot to the other end of the cart as he brings his phone up to his face and focuses it on you. Naturally, you bring your hand up, hand changing to a trademark peace sign as you flashed a smile for the camera. He brings his phone down many lock screen worthy pictures later, happy with the result evident from the grin etched onto his face. 

“Your turn,” you say, motioning you two switch spots as you take your phone out of your pocket. 

Jimin, infuriatingly photogenic, simply sits while staring off into the distance, jaw on full display as you begin to rapidly snap pictures. Hearing your camera clicks he changes his position—turning towards you as the chilly wind blows through his hair, eyes crinkling and dazzling smile on full display that you can’t help but smile at the familiar yet all too breathtaking sight. 

Placing your phone in your lap, you scoot closer to him—leaning your back against his shoulder, you prop your legs up onto the seats. Turning towards you, he snakes his arms around your waist as his chest comes in contact with your back. You let yourself sink deeper into his grasp, conforming into his body as warmth spreads to your fingertips. Your head lulls back, falling into the space right below his collarbones as you stroke the back of his hands gingerly with the pad of your thumbs. He rests his chin on top of your head, the two of you simply admiring the view below. 

The ride still hasn’t started—people still boarding the ride as the carts momentarily halt and move from time to time. 

Not long after, your cart reaches the very top. 

Head peering over the edge, he turns back, “See, why did we have to go on the drop tower when we could’ve went here instead,” he grumbles, the peak of the tower standing nearly just as tall as the highest point of the ferris wheel to the point where you could stare directly ahead of you without tilting your head.

“Well that takes all the fun out of it,” you tease, making him frown, “Hey! You keep forgetting what you made me go through before that. Don’t think I’ve gotten over it that quickly.”

Looking displeased at your answer, he quirks a brow, “You seemed to be fine when we were riding the tower.”

“What can I say, you make a very good distraction.”

“I think I could say the same for you,” he proposes, “I swear I saw some of those clowns turn away and start laughing every time you threatened them. I was like ‘Yes! That’s my feisty girlfriend!” he cheers, pumping his fists into the air. You cower down in embarrassment, grinning to yourself while trying to swat his arm away. 

“I feel so burned out already though,” you say, head falling back into his chest, “I think it’s ‘cause we’re here at night.” 

“And because you track-starred your way through that entire maze,” he adds.

“That too.”

“I feel it too, we did more walking than anything else to be honest.” He says, which is very much true. The drop tower was all the way on the other side of the park and the churro stand took you guys a whole twenty minutes just to find. 

You hum, “Should we head out after this then?”

He rests his cheek on top of your head, “Yeah, if you want to.”

“I feel bad though, it feels like we just got here,” you admit, chuckling into his arm. 

He shakes his head, hands reaching over to play with the ends of your hair, “Don’t feel bad, I think we’re still hungover because of midterms. And besides, I’m hungry and I don’t wanna eat a ten dollar hotdog after just eating a stale ten dollar churro.”

“Yeah, we can just eat one dollar ramen, we’re still college students above everything.”

And you truly couldn’t argue with that. “Of course.”

Taking your hands off of his, you prop a hand onto the cart to sit yourself up onto the seats. He releases his hold on you, his arms returning back to his sides as the warmth of your body dissipates to his dismay. 

You adjust your sitting position so you could face him—reaching out to take one of his hands into your own. Your eyes bore into his, gazing into the pools of honey that were his irises. The view is slightly obscured as his eyes crinkle.

He smiles, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

You don’t even register that he’s speaking to you until he leans in slightly, his features starting to appear bigger as he starts to close the gap between you two. You shake your head once he gets so close in proximity that you could see each crinkle that etches themself on the sides of his eyes each time he grins. 

Your eyes flicker to his lips, taking notice of the action as you quickly revert back to his eyes. He smirks

“Thank you for taking me here,” you say as your eyes intently gaze into his once more, “above all the trepidation we’ve put each other through tonight, at least we’re here together.”

He nods, gratitude evident without him having to utter a single word. It’s as if time is frozen, everything around you stagnant and still, eyes boring into each other because nothing could just quite compare to this. Not even the surreal view of the city or the ability to see all the bustle within the amusement park or even the stars that littered the sky. 

You press your lips against his. Although you initiated the action, the sensation of his lips against yours, regardless of how natural, sends a flurry of shockwaves down your spine. Your body tingles—as if you’re floating and the cart you were sitting on wasn’t even there to support you. 

And he kisses you back. His lips are warm, welcoming, and comforting—like wrapping yourself in your favorite blanket in the comforts of your bed, the indescribable bliss as the fabric consumes your body and runs over your skin. 

Kissing him felt even more blissful than that.

The kiss isn’t fervent, but it’s full of longing. It’s as if he’s communicating to you, through the way his lips mesh against yours, that he plans on making up for all the lost time. Time that could’ve been spent doing things like kissing you, loving you wholeheartedly and unashamedly, was spent pining for each other with the label of being ‘best friends’ standing in the way for far too long. He wants to make up for it just as much as you do. 

He slides his hand under the crevice of your knee, pulling you closer to him as he continues to kiss you. You bring your hand up to his neck, entangling your fingers into his hair as you lightly scratched at the surface of his scalp. 

He kisses you like he’ll never get to again, which isn’t completely false—the fact that you two were so high up in the air to the point where the stars look tangible, basking in each other’s presence and each other’s presence only. 

Frustrated at the abnormal layout of the seating, he hooks his arms under your legs—hoisting you up and placing you in his lap so you were straddling him—incognizant of how the cart was starting to dip due to the unequal distribution of weight. 

The gesture makes you squeak, and you can start to feel him smile against your lips. Before you could do anything else, the cart totters—rocking a few times before moving, signaling that the ferris wheel is finally beginning its journey. 

“Oh fuck—!”

“Oh shit—!”

The two of you immediately detach from each other as you take notice of the unbalance, hurriedly leaping onto opposite sides of the cart while gripping onto the sides for dear life, the cart rocking back and forth at a concerning extent. You sneak glances at each other, your faces painted with the same expression of shock and distress.  

Seconds pass and the cart steadies—laughter instantaneously taking over the two of you.

“I think that’s our cue to leave,” he says, a little breathless while his body hunched over his seat.

“Remind me the next time we kiss to check if we’re less than a foot above the ground first,” you tease, playfully swatting his knee.

He grabs your hand, pressing a kiss onto your knuckles before shaking your intertwined hands up in the air—obnoxiously shouting into the frigid autumn wind, “Yes chief!” 

-

-

-

MASTERLIST

[harley-style]

DREAM SMP Swap AU

Dream = Wilbur : Dream comes into the server to help these two kids who are trying to stir shit up -- why not, right? He's got a fondness for chaos but also very protective and caring over his friends. VERY FOND OF TUBBO. To the point of.. well, brotherhood. Wilbur = Dream : He had a vision, to create a place where people could emancipate -- he's not above being the bad guy to keep that ideal in place. He's charming and self-confident and isn't afraid to use blackmail or get all up in your business. Has dirt on everyone but Dream. Constantly threatens secrets but subtle, yanno? Again, very charming, very persuasive.

Tubbo = Tommy : Still very sweet, but Big Crime often comes out to play more often than not. Also a huge trouble magnet, tried to start a...Honey smuggling empire? For some fucking reason, despite its innocent sounding plan, is a threat to Wilbur's land but no one has any idea why. Tommy = Tubbo : Tommy has an innate fucking fixation on music discs. He's got Cat and Mellohi personally. He dreams of starting up a music cafe/music area...? He and Dream get along swimmingly, Dream actually gifts Tommy a few music discs too, but also pins Tommy with the name discount Dave Strider.

Fundy = Eret : Was convinced earlier on by Wilbur to continue his 'legacy' and ideals. Fundy further grows into a neutral party, doing things only when it benefits him. Is the traitor from the first war. Eret = Fundy : Gets far too involved with stuff and the only way out is if he wiggles through the restraints on him. Yes that's metaphorical.

JSchlatt = Technoblade : Assists through uses of contracts and business deals. Like, hello, Tubbo's Honey smuggling business? He and Dream make an agreement, he supplies Dream and Tubbo with shit, and Dream does favors for Schlatt. Technoblade = Jschlatt : Anarchy lmfao. Was actually brought on by Wilbur in secret. Acted as a benefactor for Dream before turning around and causing chaos in the land Dream Tubbo and Tommy built. Blood for the blood god, only the strongest gets to the top kind of government. There's always fucking pitfights. Oops.

Philza = Callahan : Largely uninvolved in the events, mostly just there to supervise Wilbur, Tommy and Techno. Duh. Callahan = Philza : Has personal history with Dream, tries to convince him not to do the thing that could hurt everyone else. Minimally succeeds.

Alyssa = Niki : Ready to defend her home and her family. Niki = Alyssa : Neutral, but ready to back Wilbur up if need be.

Sapnap = Bad : Arsonist, goes around and burns shit whenever he wants to. His base is a Nether inspired fortress. Also, he has to deal with a Nether problem in reference to the Red Vine problem from the original SMP. Hotlands? LMFAO Bad = Sapnap : Helps when asked. Started out on Wilbur's side, as a favor, but slowly shifts neutral due to the conflict between factions.

Karl = Skeppy : Gets held hostage? That's what preoccupies Sapnap's time. He suddenly disappeears or gets trapped in a cell. Skeppy = Karl : Runs around doing supply runs. Gets his friends into various stints to try and settle the conflict through friendly rivalry and competition. It doesn't always work.

George = Ranboo : Unlike original Ranboo, George is highly unsympathetic and needs concrete fucking facts before he acts, and that kind of backfires on him in the end. As a favor to Dream (how many favors is Dream involved in honestly) he runs messages back and forth from Tubbo to Tommy. Ranboo = George : Largely uninvolved in the conflict, like Niki, but unlike OG George, is not absent. He's just there to assist. One of the most innocent and purest people on the SMP, knows when to keep his head down. When his house burns down, he doesn't really believe its Tubbo who did it -- he knows the kid has been framed because he'd been WITH him at the time, but Wilbur pressures him to admit it.

Quackity = Punz : Wilbur's loyal paid henchman. Quackity will cause shit for the appropriate price, he's not exceptionally picky. That stunt he did as Mexican Dream was great and everyone in L'Manberg loved it. Punz = Quackity : One of the best fighters under Techno. Has more morals, but keeps them secretly. Very good at hiding his true intentions/feelings.

(sorry about the other characters not being on here, i dont know them enough to make swaps, or dont know who they'd make a good swap with. Swap who you wanna swap though! i'd like to hear your take on this matter! HEADCANONS ACCEPTED TOO AT THIS POINT EVERYTHING HERE IS FROM WHAT I REMEMBER AND MY HEADCANONS)

PLOT

-Wilbur starts the SMP with Niki, slowly invites others like Ranboo, Tommy, and Tubbo.

-Tubbo expresses a desire to Fuck Shit Up and Tommy says they can get Dream, he's an expert at getting away.

-Dream is extremely protective of them both. Tubbo more than Tommy but that's fine because Tommy is largely independent.

-Tubbo gets in the weirdest shit but Tommy can roll with the punches really quickly.

-Wilbur gets tired of their crap and burns down Tubbo's establishment. It's like the Disc Wars except it's the Great Honey War. Bee War? Basically he's tired of Tubbo hogging all the Honey related expenditures.

-Dream gets the idea to make a honey smuggling empire, as a joke, but Tubbo is Big Crime and he's going with it. Tommy just wants chaos, and he was getting bored tbh.

-Eventually the Honey thing turns into Resource management, so Tubbo Dream and Tommy have a hold on all major supplies

-Shit happens and Dream, Tubbo, Tommy, Eret, Sam, Fundy and Alyssa establish an independent nation. Dunno what to call it bc the server is called the L'manberg SMP so....

-The fight for indepencence still happens. Instead of 'Green boy' Wilbur is named 'E-boy'. Dream still says "WE HAVE NO MERCY FOR YOU" when Wil calls for a ceasefire negotiation, but Wilbur does threaten the nation saying  "If there is no white flag by tomorrow, then you can kiss your sorry little arses good bye. That's my final warning."

-Turns out Fundy's been secretly funneling information to Wilbur in exchange for the safety of his friends, and also because Wilbur's his dad....uhm. Also! He and Dream are circling each other and others are like "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS ARE DEAD RINGERS FOR QUEERPLATONIC MATES JUST MARRY ALREADY" bc I like FundyWasTaken but others might not and its okay, we'll label it as platonic, but can be read otherwise depending on your tastes. But for this, it's very close platonic.

-Wilbur goads Tommy into a fight, as brothers do, but Tubbo steps in and Wilbur fucking jumps at the chance.

-This is the start of Dream's descent into madness. No one fucking threatens or pulls one of his friends like that. Denied. It's still subtle though, so he's okay for now.

-Tubbo and Wilbur face off. When Tubbo pulls back bc he genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone, Wilbur takes the chance and beats him.

-Tubbo, however, makes a deal. Let their nation stand on its own, and he'll give up the Resource Empire he started. Wilbur accepts, with the condition that they unify their alliance with a...marriage? So basically, political marriage between Wilbur's heir, Fundy, and Dream, the leader of the revolution.

-YEAH I WENT THERE THIS IS VALID

-They're strained at first, but Dream and Fundy slowly mend their relationship post-betrayal.

-Fast forward a few months later. The Nation doesn't really have a leader, as per the agreement, but it does have a representative. All decisions are made via majority votes, and that decision is voiced by the rep and sub-rep, Dream and Tubbo respectively. Tommy's just there to have a good time and causes chaos as per usual.

-Enter Technoblade. He's been called in by Wilbur to...ah. Dismantle a little...nation. Sounds right up his alley. But he asks Wilbur to wait and see what happens.

-Tommy and Dream get the idea to hold a tournament to celebrate their independence, an all out brawl for everyone to kick back and relieve stress. There. That's where Techno comes in.

-He gets Punz to join him after like, being paid (ofc) and they fucking dominate the tournament. Dream's about to congratulate them but Techno turns the fuck around and declares his right to rule the nation. If anyone wants to fight him for the title, they're welcome to try.

-Dream loses another life to Techno trying and failing to fight it. He and a few others lost their first life sometime elsewhere? I guess? Probably by being blown up by Wilbur, idk.

-Tubbo and Dream are chased out by people who reluctantly follow Techno's orders, and Tommy, torn between his friends and his brothers, stays behind. Oh jeezus.

-Since Techno is a fighting GOD, no one's able to usurp him to make things turn back to normal. But Dream is smart, and knows Wilbur's 100% behind this. Fundy kind of knew but didn't do shit about it, which is why Dream rejects Fundy's offer of sanctuary. He can't be sure his husband will stay on his side, after all. It's nothing personal.

-Dream and Tubbo hide away somewhere, probably not a ravine but?? A mountain or something? They manage to get Sam away enough to ask him to build a super cool Redstone contraption thing that opens for them. ooooo.

-I'm not good at names but for the sake of jokes I'm gonna call their land the 'Bee's Knees' bc at some point Tubbo finds a fuckton of Hives hanging from Trees. Bee Mountain if Dream's feeling especially salty.

-SPEAKING OF DREAM. his insanity is on course now, it's slowly eating away at him and in fear of hurting Tubbo he's slowly distancing himself away. Tubbo's like what's wrong but Dream can't answer -- he doesn't know what's wrong with himself either.

-Tubbo and Dream need to go back and confront Techno, but they can't wait for long else Techno's going to obliterate everyone and their extra lives. They call Schlatt in.

-Schlatt's a pure business man and draws up a contract. He'll aid them in terms of supplies, but most of the revolution is on them. They agree.

-Tommy is actually really fucking good at lying and skirting around what he reveals to Dream and tubbo as a spy that Techno would have believed him if he didnt' know his brother. and Wilbur's warnings, of course. That results in Techno just being fucking done with Tommy's bullshit and plans his execution in another tournament? I guess?

-It doesn't go like the festival. First of all, Schlatt can't fight for shit, so why would Techno call him up the stage? No, Schlatt fights dirty. techno doesn't set much rules so theres no rule against poisoning Tommy quick and easy before the fight. Tommy loses another life and is on his last. Tubbo is spitting mad, but Schlatt points out that nothing in the contract covered this, so he's free to do as necessary. Tubbo is stopped by Dream who, at this point, is just overtaken by the need to one-up Techno.

-Also, Wilbur's been slowly persuading Dream to just. Let go. Let the monster inside of him free, he 'deserves it'. By the end of it all, Dream does. He snaps and lets loose the monster crying for blood inside him.

-Callahan is left to convince his old friend not to do it. In a moment of clarity, Dream stares on in horror of what he'd done. In his rage he managed to deplete ALL of Techno's lives (not really but shhhh), cause massive bloodshed, and terrified everyone in the process. He asks Callahan to kill him. Callahan does.

-Yes we'll get to Ghost Dream eventually.

-Anyway, Schlatt still does the Wither plan, because, uh, Drunken Rage. He was so stressed out from the ensuing conflict that he's like "LETS JUST FINISH THE REST OF YOU. THERE WILL BE NO CONFLICT IF YOU ARENT THERE TO FIGHT."

-and then he uses the line from the Lego movie on Tubbo like "Oh, Tubbster. It's nothing personal. It's just Business(tm)".

-Schlatt still dies of stroke. He does come back as a ghost though, that's one main difference.

-After everything's said and done, and the dust has settled, everyone decides to disband the nation, and just live their lives. like, they're done, wilbur, they get your point, jfc, let them rest.

-but uhhhh someone frames tubbo for setting fire to ranboo's (the server sweetheart) house. wilbur immediately decides to exile tubbo in 'anger'. acutally, he wants tommy and tubbo separated.

-tommy's not standing for it though, he fucking fights his way until wilbur threatens him and tubbo's like YES FINE OKAY I'LL AGREE TO BEING EXILED STOP THREATENING YOUR BROTHER

-tubbo's exile arc is not as sad as tommy's, but rather very tense because wilbur keeps riling tubbo up and taunting him. he still keeps contact with tommy though because they arent going to be separated just like that. no way. tubbo just gets a little more mad and gets short tempered like a lot.

-ranboo's not even that mad about it, he knows tubbo would never burn his house, there was a conspiracy on board and even if there wasn't he's like "arent yall overreacting its just a house, didnt you all do this like before the first war even began, what even (also, ranboo was WITH tubbo at the time of his house allegedly being set on fire. Not that he'll admit to it, because he and tubbo made that agreement long before)

-eventually he finds out that wilbur just wanted to pin the blame on tubbo to make him leave, and ranboo's like "IM DONE WITH YOUR CRAP WILLBUR STOP HURTING THE PEOPLE I CARE ABOUT" and leaves

-with the nation gone, people started to solidify their groups. sapnap and karl deal with their own thing, quackity still runs errands for wilbur, george is the main person ferrying messages from tubbo to tommy back and forth, etc.

-there's a funeral for dream, ofc, fundy arranged it. all of dream's shit was hidden because fundy doesnt want wilbur to get it.

-niki's still there managing her bakeshop but doubles as an informant for wilbur because she's well liked within the server

-ghost dream is present and he's a chaotic troll who mostly hangs around tommy. he's really hyper active and is always on the move, you can never catch him sitting still for like, 5 minutes

THAT"S ALL I HAVE FOR MY SMP SWAP AU PLEASE BE GENTLE I DONT HAVE TIME TO GET ALL THE FACTS STRAIGHT FROM THE OG SMP qwq