#maybe i'll post in-game screenshots when i get around to actually putting it on the server...

[rav3nston3]

car and keys

coming soon as knockback item on my tag map server yippee

[gryhmz]

The Coffin of Elfen and Leyley: Incest and Questionable Consent in 2000s Media.

WARNING: This blog post mentions numerous sensitive subjects such as incest, questionable consent, murder, cannibalism, sexually explicit material, and real-life criminal cases. If any of the following is bothersome, I would highly suggest scrolling past this post. Thank you.

ANOTHER WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Elfen Lied and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. If you wish to avoid spoilers, I would highly suggest clicking off this post and come back once you have finished both. Thank you.

Hello (again), it's grim.

I wanted to discuss an interesting phenomenon that I've taken note of over the past couple of years that seems to always cause internet controversy: The rise of taboo subjects found in modern media.

Now, I want to clarify that I hold very libertarian beliefs when it comes to media. If you can think it, it can be written, regardless of how inappropriate the content is. However, I also believe that there should be consequences to such writings depending on the substance.

The two topics I'll be talking about today are The Coffin of Andy and Leyley and Elfen Lied. These are both pieces of media that I have consumed in the past 2 years, and have noticed a trend between taboo subjects and how their respective authors and/or fanbases have used their taboo nature to repurpose characters and relationships for inappropriate media.

While I believe these pieces of media can be criticized in any manner due to their taboo nature, I would argue in defense of their conception since there is no exact promotion of the taboo nature represented throughout the mentioned medias. I believe this is important to state, for I solely disagree with the creation of media that promotes a taboo and/or illegal act rather than just the representation of such acts.

Images of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley (left) and Elfen Lied (right)

To make this analysis and opinionated piece easier to read, I will be going through my opinions and personal experiences with both of these medias separately. To do this, I will be separating taboo into two subsections:

Illegal Taboo

Questionable Taboo

While I would argue that there is probably some grey area between the two of these, I am simply dividing the taboos into two separate categories because my stance on illegal and questionable taboo slightly changes. Furthermore, the taboos in TCOAAL and Elfen Lied are very different. I believe it would be unfair to compare incest and questionable consent content. Both are taboo, both have been countlessly debated for and against, but incest has stable, concrete laws set against it (at least in the United States) while the other doesn't.

Let's get into the analysis.

Illegal Taboo (The Coffin of Andy and Leyley)

Screenshot from the love/incest route of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Oh boy, where do I start. I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting myself into when I first stumbled upon this game. I saw the art style of the game in a YouTube video where the uploader had referred to the siblings as "lovers," which gave me the impression that the main characters of the game were not blood relatives. By the time I had seen the controversy plastered all over Twitter and Reddit about the TCOAAL's "questionable" content, I had already bought the game, which put me in a tough dilemma: Do I immediately refund the game or do I give it a chance?

I bet you can guess which one I picked.

Me being the curious individual that I am, I decided to keep the game. I had a million thoughts rush through my mind about the decision I had just made. What if the game actually has illegal content? People must be exaggerating the situation. I'm sure that the incest claims are probably just false. If it does have a plot that revolves around such content, maybe its just a small tidbit of the game. No biggie. These thoughts did not stop, and I wasn't sure what to do next.

One of the only screenshots from Episode 2 of TCOAAL that isn't horrendous

For a month or so, I avoided the game like the plague. I held off on installing it, I avoided it on Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram as best as I could (for both spoilers and online biases), and I refused to talk about the game with anyone that I knew. I planned to play the game, but I wanted all the controversy to die off first so I could play it without too much backlash. Unfortunately in this world, outrage has become the people's first emotion to anything, so even if your reasoning for such an action is rational and fair, you might still be attacked for simply touching new media without an initial bias.

When I finally got around to playing the game, I was genuinely pleased. Episode 1 has nothing over-the-top, and the incest that people were talking about was yet to be seen. So I didn't think anything of it. I scrolled through my social media and just continued assuming that people were hating on TCOAAL simply for being a new trend.

Then Episode 2 came around.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet: There is incestuous acts and behaviors littered throughout the game, and people online were certainly right.

Below, I have a handful of screenshots that I took showcasing the romantic and sexual tension and acts between the two siblings. There's a bit of it.

(I'm not kidding, all of these are in the game)

Now, I will give TCOAAL fans this, the vast majority (9 of the 10 images) of the incestuous content above is NOT easy to come across. There are very specific routes that you must past through in Episode 2 to come across these screenshots. So it's not as "obvious" as people online made it out to be. In fact, it took me roughly 3 hours of additional gameplay to reach all the different endings for Episode 2, so it certainly is time consuming.

For the sake of time and my sanity, I will NOT be showing how to reach these scenarios. I will only say that you will know if you stumble across the lover/incest route because the NARRATOR THEMSELF warns you NOT to continue down the route.

While I don't think that the incestuous undertones of the story should be the entire definition of the series, I can understand why people dislike it. What is so genius about giving Leyley a romantic and sexual interest in Andrew is that it does one simple thing that the creator wanted to hit home: It makes people uncomfortable. It simply does what every other piece of horror/thriller media tries to do, and it does it well. I don't see it as any more or less uncomfortable as the barbwire scene from Saw I, and the fact that the creator could pull that off just by making Leyley an incestuous, manipulative creep is stunning.

Furthermore, TCOAAL acts as an interesting question for psychology: Does social deprivation, abandonment, isolation, hopelessness, and manipulation play a role in one's moral compass? We see that Andrew's behavior towards Leyley dramatically changes throughout Episode 2 depending on whether you choose to trust and sympathize with Leyley. In addition to a change in behavior, we also see that (most notably the incest route) Andrew accepts his nickname "Andy" again, which he hates due to its connection with a murder that he committed with his sister in Episode 1 (not going into too much detail). It is also noted that Andrew's ex-girlfriend Julia had trouble with Leyley's dominating presence in Andrew's life, which would lead her to stop communicating with him. His degree of whether he cares or not changes based on his sympathy towards Leyley, highlighting how relationships in Andrew's life highly changes based on how much he lets Leyley abuse his existence.

Backstory that showcases Andrew's love interest that abandons him in Episode 1

In short, TCOAAL has many more layers than the internet made it out to be, but the incestuous routes and behaviors between Andrew and Leyley can be seen as concerning. I'll come back to this shortly.

Questionable Taboo (Elfen Lied)

Famous cover art for Elfen Lied showcasing Lucy in the nude.

Now, I watched Elfen Lied in 2022, so I'm just putting it out here that it has been a while since I have watched the anime. Furthermore, I have not read the manga, so my observations are SOLELY off the anime adaptation of Elfen Lied.

Just like TCOAAL, I do NOT think that the story of Elfen Lied is overly terrible. While I do think that TCOAAL has a more sound story line, I do think that Elfen Lied did an okay job at showcasing the selfishness and cruelty of humanity. However, there has always been a part of the show that doesn't sit right with me and many other viewers, and that is Kouta's (the main male protagonist) relationships with Yuka and Lucy.

Throughout the entirety of the show, Kouta partakes in relationships that are considered extremely taboo, especially in the western world. For one, he marries and supposedly procreates with his cousin Yuka at the end of the anime and manga, which is gross and highly disturbing to me, and I am certainly not the only one who feels that way. Almost any search through r/elfenlied would show the outrage and confusion that many people hold towards such a decision. Below are just a couple of what can be found about Kouta and Yuka's relationship (which is also ironically incestuous):

However, one thing that I do not see talked about a ton is Kouta's HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE relationship with Lucy. While Lucy is not human and is considered to be a Diclonius (some sort of humanoid), some of the scenes and plot points feel as if the author wanted to bank off of questionable consent. Many scenes throughout the anime highlight that Lucy is "sexually curious," which makes perfect sense in theory, but is implemented horribly into the anime. Scenes like Kouta observing Lucy's private parts and random butt shots of Lucy just make the entire show uncomfortable, and I would even argue it normalizes taking advantage of the mentally immature for sexual purposes, which could be considered sexual abuse and/or rape (especially since Elfen Lied is a fan service ecchi).

I understand that mangakas and Japanese culture call for the normalization of nudity, but Elfen Lied fails horribly at making a good case. Elfen Lied could have looked over to other medias such as Ghost in the Shell and Imouto Sae Ireba Ii do a much better job at implementing casual and artistic nudity in their shows while still offering tidbits of fan service to the horny. But, I digress.

Nudity is showcased in both Imouto Sae Ireba Ii and Ghost in the Shell and don't face the same criticism as Elfen Lied

Regardless of how I feel about the previously mentioned, I will give the mangaka of Elfen Lied this: They did a great job making the viewers uncomfortable. I would even argue that Lynn Okamoto did a better job making me feel so unbelievably uncomfortable compared to The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, and it's been two years since I last saw Elfen Lied, so props to Okamoto!

My Personal Take on Taboos in Media

(Now that I scroll through images of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley and Elfen Lied, there really are a ton of similarities...)

In short, I do not think that these taboos make The Coffin of Andy and Leyley and Elfen Lied "bad." Distasteful? Sure. Gross? Most definitely. But, my concern for these medias stems from the fact that modern media has failed to hit home the ideas that these might be inappropriate taboos to normalize in modern internet culture. Simply going through tags such as "gravecest" and "coffincest" on Tumblr showcases the questionably deranged behaviors hardcore TCOAAL fans have towards the story's incest plot.

I was fairly surprised to find out the Elfen Lied has not been overly sexualized over the years. While I am thankful for that, I do believe that Okamoto was wrong for writing up a manga and anime that focused on a humanoid character solely for the purpose of being sexually taken advantage of. She could've done a much better job at handling the fan service without making Elfen Lied look like a promotion for sexual and mental abuse.

I believe all that really matters and what can be taken away from this analysis is that taboo subjects can be used in media as long as the intent and the targeted audience work together. For instance, I believe that The Coffin of Andy and Leyley's questionable use of incest as a story principle is okay since the author does not call for the promotion of incest in the story nor does the entire story revolve around the incestuous behaviors of the two main characters. BUT, rule 34 content of the game that showcases such explicit, incestuous acts between the siblings should be criticized since R34 content is solely made for pornographic purposes with no substance to the story's canon. I am also okay with Okamoto's usage of incest and questionable consent in Elfen Lied since it plays into the storyline and theme of the anime, but the fan service showcased in the show should be criticized since it was easily used as a lazy way to throw borderline pornography into the anime, therefore ruining the point of "artistic" and "normalized" nudity.

In short: I don't think using taboos in media should be illegal unless the media in question is a direct reflection of a real-life scenario (like the 2019 Shadman incident), but public criticism is certainly understandable on a case-by-case basis.

Thanks for reading, I am extremely tired.

grim.

[cherryberg]

Also. This is your sign to introduce an OC. Here and now

hi ardate :] this is a bit late but, since i did it, i might as well introduce her now in this post

for my april fool's day joke, i did a little trick on the find everything discord server where i made a handful of screenshots showing a new (fake) character:

this is Myla Warper, a Whatsit Woods NPC

i don't have much on her at the moment, and i suspect a lot about her lore will become obsolete when 0.3 comes around, but essentially, she's an engineer and the inventor of the Warp, the in-game fast travel system. she spends a lot of time at home, but is getting out a little more, using the Warp and a range of mobility aids

she managed to trick a few folks (which, looking at how the first find everything hoax, wouldn't've been a hard thing to pull off) but, shortly after - though, in retrospect, it could've been left revealed until the end of the day, i revealed the prank with:

anyway, i'll put the fake screenshots under the cut and maybe post Myla concepts in a reblog :] + notes. there'll be notes. i've got notes

i don't remember when exactly i conceptualised Myla, but it might've been between when 0.2 was released and when the developers streamed their 0.2 launch stream a few days later. this is because i had this thought of Myla living in that old abandoned house, working away at her tech (in the early stages, Myla's outfit in my mind would be a the classic tanktop and half-worn jumpsuit where the top half was tied around her waist, you know the look), but obviously had to be just a fun scrapped idea when it was discussed on the stream that Old Man Majig lives there

still, Myla being hidden away in this corner of Whatsit Woods is reminiscent of that idea i guess. it is also just a very good spot for something you could've missed, especially since the community had been combing through save files looking for the second fun value, but it does sort of make her following dialogue a little strange as she's not near any Warp pads

this bit is meant to, like, mirror dialogue from "tutorial NPCs" who casually introduce new concepts to the player. having worked hard on drawing Illie last year for Halloween, i had her a lot in mind, with Illie also being a tutorial NPC. looked over her 5 lines of dialogue a lot to try and get the vibe down right (of course, she wasn't the only one, but she was the main one) .. i can wrap my head around the Find Everything art style, but writing stuff that matches the FE vibe got me stumped so i hope it didnt stand out all that much

originally, those first two lines where different and. stiffer for a long while ("I actually make a few Warp Drives myself!"/"Er… Let's not be humble, maybe more than a few. Maybe all of 'em."), but i think it worked out in the end. the very first bit of dialogue was also changed ("Hey there, blockling! Just on a walk.") to just be combined with the next line but i just really wanted to preserve that "blockling" here. i know it's just the species name of like. the Roblox character, but it also reads as a little endearing term to me

ahh, the reason why i sort of thought up Myla in the first place. see, a big contention in the find everything community is Whatsit Woods being the only major area in the game without a Warp Drive, despite there already being Warp pads by its entrances in two neighbouring areas. the lack of a Whatsit Woods Warp is very likely to be changed with the 0.3 map rework, but i always thought this (and the Construction Zone Warp.. ) discourse was stupid. Myla going "No. Why? I live here." is like. cathartic to me.(??)

but regardless, she and Watcher Macallit are kind of ocs born from asking "why is this the way it is?" why is there no Whatsit Warp Drive? what makes a Thing a Thing? just ocs to play with and sort of expand worldbuilding, and i love doing this

[alt-bluesman]

Animal Crossing memories, part 3

I think this is the final part!

My Joy-Cons haven't completed their journey yet, but in the end I decided that I'm not going to put much faith in them & grabbed a set of used Hori controllers in the meantime. Gave Pan a final tour today. Didn't want to invest in a capture card, so a couple of screenshots is the best I can offer!

Sadly there's no way in heck I can stuff all of them into a single post, so I'll just narrow it down to my favourites & the ones I have something to say about!

First, the map. My villagers were Gruff the goat, Kitt the kangaroo, Sprinkle the penguin, Kyle the wolf, Ione the squirrel, Olaf the anteater, Al the gorilla, Jambette the frog, Fang the wolf and Fuchsia the deer. I liked them all, fuglies included. I like a lot of the ugly ones now!

Naturally my biggest dream was to invite Shrek to the island. Shrek never showed up. I had to resort to home-brew methods!

Frample's home. I couldn't fit the big-ass yard in the frame, but there was a little islet with a snapping turtle living on it. A homage to Jacksepticeye's Tortellini, forever jammin'!

The Zen Garden that my villagers never really cared for, haha. I found out they aren't very eager to interact with any objects that aren't close to their houses or the plaza. They sometimes goof around on the southern beaches, but that's pretty much it!

(At least those lads were having a time of their life)

Ione's yard was the bane of my existence - the laggiest part of the island. I was never able to pinpoint the cause, there was no water and not even that much foliage. Some folks say that snow causes the game to get quite choppy, but it lagged during the other seasons too. Maybe it was all the custom paths?

Sprinkle lived close to Ione. Her yard was a bit more spacious, so I could build Snowboys there. Some of them still ended up in the river!

The main road with 5 frickin' waterfalls. Not visible here, but there was another one on the left. A good place to be if you want your eardrums to explode!

This cliff served no particular purpose, but I liked the view! This was my stargazing hideaway.

The campsite was pretty dang huge and placed right next to the island entrance. A decision I came to regret after some time. Now I prefer them tucked away in a secluded spot!

Isle of Spooks! My villagers never visited it except for that single time when Gruff decided to sneak in and investigate. Gruff was an absolute legend.

The beach next to the campsite was one of the few decorated beach areas that I was actually quite happy with!

The entrance. Nothing too fancy, but there were so many failed attempts at making a decent entrance, lmao. Makes ya finally settle with whatever ya have!

Kitt's yard! I remember feeling very proud of it once, but it doesn't really appeal to me anymore, especially that blob of a path.

Farmlands. That rainbow flower garden was a convenient way of keeping most of the flower breeds & colours in one spot, without them overtaking an entire island, but probably not something I'd build today. I hated when balloons flew over it because I couldn't shoot them down from there!

This yard was between the farms. First it was Tasha's, then Claudia's, then Fang's. I never bothered to redecorate, haha.

And here were the crops. Leif has failed me & never brought the carrots!

The woods behind the farms. (Wayyy too much clutter for my current tastes, but at least my main man Gruff was there)

The pirate bay! One of my oldest builds, but still very much up my alley!

(What if I told you that Pompom never really moved away?)

Alrighty, that's most of the western side of Pan covered. Here's a land bridge that connected the main cliffs behind the plaza. Waterscaping around it was absolute hell! Admittedly, I'm still quite proud of it & it's something I'd like to build again, but most likely without the dang river.

The road leading up to the Museum. Museum was an important building for me because of my first job, but I never quite got the surrounding area to look right. I do like the stone lion-dog statues, though!

Jambette's yard was my absolute favourite spot on the entire island. Minimalism was the name of the game. With a frog model from Jim!

Kyle's yard had a bit of a side business in the top left corner!

Eastern river mouth. I was all about putting those little islets on my rivers and lakes. It's fun and games till a special character or a fossil decides to spawn on them..!

Moving back to the eastern cliffs: here are some hungry gnomes and Olaf's yard. I always gifted all of my dresses as well as dumbest pieces of furniture to Olaf. He took it all like a champ!

I gave Mr. Resetti an extra job on Pan. (And a lazy bear compadre)

A seasonal icy drink bar - with Al's ass cheeks in the background for everyone's viewing pleasure. Al was the very first villager I found on a mystery island on a rainy day. Seeing his silhouette in the rain, I legit thought he was some kind of zombie. I didn't invite him back then, but when I bumped into him again on my last villager hunt, I decided to take him. Mad lad has finally made it!

Fuchsia's yard. A bit funky, but I still like it!

And that's it! There's a bunch of other screenshots I wasn't able to fit in, like the absolutely glorious board drawings from my best friends. Don't worry though, they are safe and sound with me! Farewell, Pan. You were my introduction to Animal Crossing and even though I'm ready to move on, I will always remember you very fondly!

[shmowder]

I had my suspicions... the eyes emoji may have given it away 😁 I appreciate you writing out all those tips! They'll be super helpful, especially when I get confused and am like Why isn't this working like P2?? Which I have no doubt will happen often. And the maps, yay, I love maps and have printed out the one for P2 with all the cache locations and I'll probably print these too.

Save anywhere at any time? I definitely won't abuse that at all... but still I'm glad there's no penalty for dying in P1. Even on baby mode I was about to bleed out from being knifed by 1 guy in a burned district today. Glad to have the combat tips. I've actually never bought any kind of gun in any of my P2 playthroughs and have tried to engage in minimal combat and looting so I wonder how feasible that will be in P1. I guess not very, if I don't want to starve to death. That reminds me, I'm going to have to fight the worms in the Abattoir soon 💀

No worries on the dialogue front, I'm well versed in making sure everyone in my video game party likes me at the expense of having any kind of moral fiber 😇😅

Oh, Yulia ♡ We would be so bad for each other. Give it a month and that house would be unfit for human habitation. #girlrotting

I can't tell how it was intended, but Artemy having the option of saying "Do you know who I am?" to her in that screenshot... it reads as hilariously aggressive to me. Confrontational! The way you describe all the character interactions is so funny though. It made me smile.

I know you probably didn't need this kind of response to that post but I want to acknowledge the work you put into it :) It's pretty likely that I'll move on to P1 after finishing P2 + Marble Nest. Hope you have a good night, or morning, or whatever 🫶

🐿️ anon

I LOVE MAPS TOO. It's extra fun opening my phone to show the map while playing pathologic. Also, the mental image of Artemy who grew up in this town, unfurling a large paper and staring at the map for a solid 5 minutes like a lost tourist, is extremely silly.

girlrotting indeed. Not to mention how harder cleaning would be for her with her mobility issues and the limp in her leg. She mentions in her dialogue that she can't walk around much because of it. I'm taking liberaties and assuming the injury is located in her ankle joints because that's the body part she is symbolic of. No wonder she has a roommate in P2, she's probably a lot of help to her when moving is too difficult.

I did have an idea about a new pathologic healer (maybe reader insert?) who's a medical engineer and ends up convincing Yulia to amputate her leg in order to give her a prosthetic At that time period, this is considered experimental cutting-edge technology with a lot of risks. Even the prosthetic the healer offers is still a prototype and prone to failing but Yulia takes the risk.

The tricky thing was figuring out how to cut her leg since this healer isn't a menkhu and can't open bodies. Two options came to mind. One, Yulia herself has to cut her own leg after taking a shit ton of morphine. Two, the haruspex is called in for a favour to do it for them.

But watch out! Artemy would only help with the amputation, thinking Yulia just wants to get rid of it. If you blabber too much and tell him about the prosthetic, then he immediately refuses to do the surgery or help. The whole "flesh vs machine" thing and menkhu practices forbidding mixing the two.

Either way, the surgery ends up being a success! and Yulia can be seen in more places throughout the town during that playthrough. You find her walking to the cape and alongside the river, admiring the steppe and spending more time outside in general. Man, I just want her to be happy again :(

Also, the scene I pictured of how the reader convinces her to perform the surgery is very hilarious. You just waltz in while she is at the broken heart pub, yell from the top of the stairs. "Hey Yulia, are you free? Wanna come and saw off your leg? I'm very positive I can make you a better one!'

She just stares up at you from below with dull eyes, snuffing out her cigarette against the ashtray and getting up. "Why not. Do kindly lead the way."

There is a third option, but it's more of a ship of Theseus situations? How much can the reader be involved in the surgery before they cross the line of taboo? What if they just hold the equipment for Yulia? what if they only wipe the blood away? What if it's her hand holding the scalpel, but the reader's hand holds the top of Yulia's and carefully moves it, guiding her fingers slowly to separate the skin.

If the two of you held hand and moved as one through all of the surgery, then who really is the one responsible for it?

At the least, it will give the kin a moment of pause before coming after Reader with pitchforks.

And hey, I am thankful for this kind of response. I did need it, actually. I put in effort and time into my replies and seeinh them returned like this always makes me happy. It feels like someone is truly listening and replying back, that it isn't just my own voice echoing through the blog with the occasional. Thank you <3

[drac-onion]

"I made this!"

So I have a bit of an unhealthy relationship with art.

I would never call myself an artist, but I would never disparage someone for doing the exact same thing I do and then call themselves an artist. An artist, to me, is someone who makes art. Simple as. Sure, you could more minutely define it as someone who makes a living from art, but you could also argue that the specificity of that would fall under whether or not someone calls themselves a professional artist. Meaning that they do it as their profession. (IE: a paid occupation, usually involving prolonged training and/or formal qualification.)

So, by that rule, I'm an artist because I make art (sometimes), but not a professional artist, because I don't make a living from it.

I suppose I could call myself a writer, too, but let's not get too into the weeds on etymology and labels. I'm some rando that makes art (sometimes) and writes (sometimes, and I even post sometimes too! [keyword: sometimes])

I'm pretty apprehensive about posting things I've made because of weird vulnerability I feel around it. Cuz like, I tried my best (or maybe its just a quick n dirty something or other for a laugh) and now that thing is going to be out for anyone to see? Spooky.

Well, I'm going to try to change my mindset and post things that I made cuz I made them, and if other people see them, great. If not, then it's for me to look back on anyway. It's not about likes or reception or anything. Just for me to look back on. It's just a scrapbook that I just so happen to put somewhere for others to look at if they want.

I recently went through my PC and located everything I've ever made and put it one spot. It's organized by year, and it was kind of wild to see how far I'd come in some regards.

There's some pictures I took of my sketchbook from when I was following Mark Crilley's art tutorials. Some attempts at pixel art (some of which aren't half bad, tbh) and some sketches I made in that old Sketchbook app for android. I actually had to hop on my old deviantart for some of it (oof) since I couldn't find the original files. They're probably on an old laptop somewhere, but I couldn't be bothered to pull the hard drive and dig for it.

I can really pinpoint my artistic motivations and pursuits in each year.

2013: Pixel art (just the worst pixel doubling and uniform outlining, yikes!)

2014: Traditional art and youtube tutorials, along with some pixel art here and there)

2015: I could only find one drawing from 2015 (had to grab that one from facebook...YIKES) and its a not-too-shabby drawing I did from reference.

2016: Following along with a Bob Ross episode in Mario Paint. This one actually looks really good. Maybe I'll post it one of these days, cuz it's kinda neat.

2017: Bought a drawing tablet with the money I made from working. Downloaded Sai and tried drawing from figure references. Some of it is really bad, but some of it shows an understanding of figure, which is kind of impressive in hindsight.

2018: Some more Bob Ross pixel art. I followed along with the same video as in 2016, but in Aseprite (the demo, so I only have a screenshot of the finished product because you can't save in the demo) and damn, it's still one of my favorite things I've ever made in Aseprite. Especially for only being 4 colors (GB green palette)

2019: Some more Sai stuff. Probably all done in the same session, but it's not the worst I suppose. I'm pretty inconsistent when it comes to focusing on art. I tend to get pretty distracted when I'm not immediately good at something. (And now I know why, although hindsight is 20/20)

2020: Uh? Couldn't find anything from 2020. Given what occurred that year, that's not all that surprising TBH.

2021: Some music I made and a doom level I made. This was sort of my intro to making levels for games. We had to make a game pitch for a school project and I went all out on making a demo. I think I clocked my hours and it was well over 40 hours put into the level alone. Made a custom weapon sprite any everything. It's pretty cool.

2022: My intro to working in 3D and making youtube videos. I started in Gmod, making simple animations, before eventually swapping to SFM for stills. Then a friend asked why I didn't just learn Blender instead, so that's what I did. If you know me from twitter, then you've probably seen these. They're NSFW, so maybe don't go digging if that isn't what you're into. That was sort of where my unhealthy relationship with social media and art began, because I started focusing a lot on views and likes and reception for things instead of just making things I wanted to make. (Mostly because I was surrounded by and learning from actual professionals, who do it as like, a job.) Sure there were things I made because I wanted to make them, but for the most part, I was going for the popular thing and wanting to "get big" at the time. Cringe, I know. Such is life. You live and you learn. Some of the best I made during this time was cuz I wanted to make it, and those are the ones I'm most proud of to this day.

2023: Burnout city! Unemployment will do that to you. Sure I worked on some stuff here and there, but I really burnt the hell out. Ended up working on some Doom levels and some little things here and there. Making a titlecard for a friend's youtube video, a cover art for a HM2 level, finishing my second reload animation, and a couple blender things. 2022 felt so productive in comparison, where did it all go wrong? (Oh yeah, the weird obsession with views. Right.) Then I got into writing that summer and I've sort of kept up with it. AO3 says I wrote 93k words that year, so that's not nothing. (I promise I'm working on another big project. It's just...hitting some creative snags. Again. Such is life.)

2024: The current year. I'm...trying to get back into making things for me. Writing things because I would read it. Drawing things that I would look at, or that I find interesting. Once again, I'm sort of trying to game my attention problems by not focusing TOO hard on one thing at a time. Otherwise I'd never finish anything, and while I'm not concerned about having things to post to social media, it does feel good to look back and see things you've actually finished. It's better to finish something and have it be like 50% of what it could have been than never reach 100% and then it just lives on as a reminder of your inability to finish things. I'd rather call something done and move on than obsess for ages over "what could have been." Or maybe I'm just waffling because I'm still trying to shake my weirdness. Bah. Some stuff I make might never see the light of day, but that's kind of a shame. I like making things and sharing them with other people. It's fun.

That's really the operative word of this whole ramble.

Fun

I do things because it's fun. I should want to do things because they're fun. Of course that's easier said than done when you have my specific brand of brain problems, but ya gotta catch the wind in your sail when it blows, right? (If that even makes sense.)

So yeah, here's hoping that this weird ramble convinces me to post things. Not because I want to get clicks or likes or engagement. But because I want to remind myself of how fun it was to do.

Like that Kolibri doodle I posted yesterday was something I did for fun. I though it'd be fun to do, so I did it. Simple as.

So here's to fun. Let's do stuff for that, and forget about clicks. I'm doing it for me. If you happen to like it, then more power to you. But I wanna have fun for me.

Yeah.

(Watch me then never post anything because my interests have waned and I hyperfixate on something else and then have to look at this post in a few months and cringe at the thought.)

But hey, nobody else is reading this anyway.

Right?

[rustedleopard]

source on Flint?

The dirt.

Okay, joke answer aside, I'll put the source under the cut...

I'm going to assume that you're likely referring to the fun fact tidbit that I posted yesterday about Flint originally intended to be involved in the Jealous Bass boss fight.

The Cutting Room Floor has an archive of stuff that was cut from Mother 3 but still exists as data within the game. If you scroll down to Flint, you'll see that he has unused sprites for dodging the train, which is an event that happens in chapter 4.

And if you put Flint into your party as the second party member in debug mode then go to the train, he will dodge the train with that sprite animation. Compare that to Claus, who when programmed to be the second party member, does dodge the train like intended (and Boney, as the third party member, does not) but does not display the proper animation for this motion, we can see that while the behavior of jumping out of the way is programmed into the second party member, they only have the proper sprite for the scene if they're supposed to be there. This tells us that Flint was supposed to be involved in Chapter 4, at least up until the train, but was cut late into development. The only thing that stops Flint from jumping out of the way is the fact that he isn't there.

We also have a cut animation of what appears to be Flint clinging onto the airship, which is what Lucas and the rest of his party does at the end of chapter 5. Now, can I say with absolute certainty that this is what this animation is intended for? No, because I wasn't on the development team. But considering how closely that sprite of Flint resembles the rest of the party in that scene:

And how close Chapters 4 and 5 are to each other, as well as how the Spaceworld (1999) Earthbound 64 trailer* (apologies for the blurriness, but TCRF does have a clearer image of this scene on their website) does show Flint, along with Lucas, Claus, Duster, and Boney clinging to an airship, it's easy to deduce that's it's highly likely that Flint was intended to be in the party at least up until the party separation at the end of Chapter 5.

Also, so no one could say that that animation of Flint was actually supposed to be for Chapter 7 when Lucas and company were clinging onto the bird cage, here's a screenshot of that. You can see that if Flint was involved here, his animation would've had him hanging on from the wrong direction (apologies for the Lucas mooning).

[Also as a small aside: while not exactly evidence on its own but something worth pointing out, there is a notable difficulty spike in Chapter 4 when there's only Lucas and Boney in the party. The enemies at this point in the game the can wipe your party quite easily if you're not careful, and I always struggled against them even in the standard mode and I'm sure I'm not the only person who experienced this (while the game tells you not to mess with the Cattlesnakes, there's nothing to stop the Horsantulas and Ostrelephants from running right at you and initiating a battle). Having a heavy hitter in your party like Flint would've made the chimeras outside of Club Titiboo as well as the Jealous Bass easier. Again though, I'm not going to use my experiences as evidence because it could just be that I'm not good at the game.]

So, we have a timeframe that says that Flint was supposed to be in the party from around the beginning of Chapter 4 to at least the end of Chapter 5, which is well within the timeframe that the Jealous Bass boss fight occurs. Now, of course, just because there's evidence that Flint was supposed to be in the party for Chapters 4 and 5 doesn't mean that he would've been involved in the Jealous Bass boss fight with a 100% certainty. Flint could've been rendered incapable of participating in the attic dungeon (and, subsequently, that fight) for one reason or another. Maybe he gets locked in the bathroom while showering? Who knows? While it would've been an odd story direction, I wasn't the one making those sorts of decisions, so I can't say with absolute unshakable faith that he was going to be there. And for that, I apologize. I have changed the wording of that post a bit so it's a bit more ambiguous. There's nothing I can do for versions that have been reblogged unfortunately, but at least the base post reflects that. But there's at least enough evidence to prove that this is likely what was intended to happen.

* While I do not consider Earthbound 64 and Mother 3 the same games, it's undeniable that Earthbound 64 did lay the grounds for the direction that Mother 3 went in. If the only piece of evidence I had for Flint clinging to the airship was from that trailer alone, I would not have used it.

[egg-emperor]

also not spoilers actually but I did see Eggman but only twice. he's barely showing up in the scenes and he miiight have more dialogue around the island but I've only seen him once there since the scene at the start that the article screenshot was from because finding him around a map I can barely build and can't see him on at all is really difficult

it seems he can't be bothered to be involved much so far lol. maybe he will be more later and I'll be pleasantly surprised if he's part of the action as deserved but at the moment he seems a bit lazy and not into it which is strange but funny and understandable. I mean Sage is there to do the work and the old man also deserves to put his feet up sometimes XD

and trying to find him or just get to any scenes he's mostly not even in so far is a pain. Idk what the fuck he's doing or where he's going to off to to just sit there doing practically nothing besides observing and learning so far like the rest of the game. hoping he gets to do something cool after but as long as he's in character ultimately and I get to see more of his beauty I'll be satisfied

anyway despite all the exhaustion and pain and suffering it's always worth it for him. just a way to prove my undying love and devotion against all the tests hehe. I like the tiny amount I saw so I hope it continues. I wanna talk about it because I like the characterization I saw but will have to later in the day/tomorrow in other timezones as I don't have the files over on my phone to post about any yet. will mark as spoilers when I do.

and he was looking very handsome and I was the in character things was the one thing about this update so far that gave me that big smile and heart racing joy 🥰💜 I wish instead of playing all this just trying to get to him but struggling and barely getting to see him, I could just jump into that Egg Mobile with him when I saw him on the island once instead and say fuck all that ancient bullshit idgaf and just make out with him so deeply and passionately and then straddle him and he'd hold me in his big manly bear paw hands and then we- I'm really sleep deprived and that's all I can think about rn alright dfjsnngskgnskgh

I hope I shall soon proceed to dream about a more pleasant experience with this update where playing goes much more smoothly and I get to see way more of him way sooner. and if I had it my way it'd also consist of that scenario 🥴

[victorluvsalice]

-->With the trash sorted and Smiler having grabbed their share of the greenhouse produce, it was time to take care of the rest of the farm chores:

Smiler went and took care of the chickens -- spreading feed, collecting eggs (5 normal ones, hooray!), chatting to a couple of them to keep attention good, the usual -- then joined Victor in the greenhouse to brew up a fresh Sadness Alleviation Lotion. Once that was done, they took Victor's spotted heart frog and tried to breed it with their regular dirt frog to get a spotted dirt frog (both so Victor could use it in potion-brewing and so they could add one to their own collection) -- however, the first attempt only resulted in another dirt frog, so that got turned into a plasma pack. Just have to try again later! They also put out the living room fireplace, because, uh, we don't want a fireplace just randomly burning in this house. I don't think Alice would approve.

Alice, for her part, was put on cow duty -- refilling Moory's feed, cleaning her off, and telling her a joke before milking her. I'm not sure how well the joke went down, judging from Moory's expression in the screenshot, but, uh, Alice tried! And Moory didn't kick over the milk pail when she was milked, so that's something. Alice also emptied out the outside litter box because that was looking NASTY -- I guess having three cats means it DOES fill up quicker! I should upgrade the litter boxes to the zappy kind at this point, they have the cash for it...

And Victor, of course, was banished to the greenhouse to harvest all the remaining produce and tend the plants. XD However, today he actually got a little help -- not only were the bots out and assisting with the watering, weeding, and spraying for bugs, I had Alice and Smiler join him to do the same once they were done with their own chores. The more hands on deck, the better! :D They got everything sorted in good time, and Alice even got the honor of planting the one new plant they'd gotten from all those seed packets the gnomes left around -- a bell pepper! So now they have peppers to offer for sale along with all their other various veggies, fruits, and flowers. :) There was even a little time for flirting and chatting as they finished up -- which I'm sure the trio appreciated, as I have been working them HARD lately.

-->On my end, once all the produce was actually harvested, I went back into Build Mode and started moving around all gnomes that had wandered during Harvestfest -- I sold the duplicates, then put the three "normal" gnomes and the one alien gnome in the four corners of the greenhouse, the pool floatie gnome in the wheelbarrow out front, and the Grim gnome next to Toothy the cowplant. You know, as a warning. Still no sign of my old bunny gnome, though -- I think the game may have deleted it while trying to move it out of its wheelbarrow home. *grumbles* Ah well -- maybe I'll get a new one during a future Harvestfest!

-->Oh, and before the gang finished up and headed out to the store, I had to get this one last picture of the kittens being cute by the scratching post. :D Look at how teeny they are! So adorable~

[cmdonovann]

Accomplishments! Quantum Break fansite in progress!

(originally posted June 8th, 2023; crossposted from dreamwidth.)

Well, I removed Tumblr from my phone to prevent me from wasting so much time there, which means I now have nowhere to easily and quickly post my inane thoughts (at least not without feeling like I'm bothering people on Discord or in direct messages, though perhaps that's something I should work on). You know what that means! It means I'm probably going to try posting them here instead. Thing I want to post about: I'm making a Quantum Break fansite! I've been wanting to do this for ages, and actually started putting together a couple of little graphics for it during the "Quantum Break Appreciation Month" event I ran on Tumblr in April, but I hadn't made much progress on the project since then... until the past few days, anyway, when I started brainstorming what I actually want to do with the site, how I want to lay it out, and so on. Yesterday I put together some CSS for the site, and today I did The Hard Part: I set up a git/GitHub repo for the site, and got the "deploy to neocities" script working for it, so I can easily and quickly make updates to the site in VSCode, then push from there to GitHub to neocities all at once, like I do with my personal site. Was this an absolute pain to set up? Yes! Somehow, it took me even longer to do it a second time than it did the first! But I did it myself, with a lot of encouragement and rubber duck-ing from a few very helpful people in the Fandom Coders chat. Can't say I'm not proud of myself for that. I would not have had the skill or confidence a year ago to do something like this, especially not all the mucking about I did in the terminal trying to set up the git repo in the first place. Anyway, I am, to put it mildly, extremely fucking excited to continue working on this site. I've got big plans: first order of business is to get an archive set up of all the Quantum Break fanfic I can get my hands on (and get permission from the authors for). After that, I'm probably going to do the same for fanart and image edits like photosets and gifsets from Tumblr, since the CSS page styling for those will likely be similar (though I expect to run into some attribution problems with older Tumblr posts, what with so many deactivated or moved blogs post-2018). Once that's sorted out, I'm considering looking into the best way to archive fanvids, but honestly that might be put off for a while longer, as video hosting and video players are way out of my skill level currently. Maybe I'll import some of my Quantum Break playlists from my personal site, too? Oh yeah, and at some point down the line, I want to make a searchable wiki with transcripts of all the in-game narrative objects. But "searchable" is probably going to be a stumbling point there, and transcribing takes ages, so this will be last priority, I think. Wow, that's... a lot, actually! Damn! This is gonna take a while. Not that I mind spending a couple of years poking at a project, obviously. *Gestures at my longfic that took four years to finish...* I've been neck deep in this fandom for over seven years, what's another five or ten? XP

btw, since it's fairly easy to post images on tumblr (compared to dreamwidth, anyway), here's a screenshot of the section that's currently in progress: the fic archive index!

(ignore my filler text... i usually use karkalicious as my lorem ipsum, so at least i'm not committing THAT particular crime here.)

i'm still futzing around a little with the styling (negative margin my beloathed) but it's coming along pretty well! i've already got a branch where i've started... you know, actually adding fic to the site, but i won't merge that into the main and add a link to the front page until the style problems have been fixed (or at least, fixed enough to be easily navigable on mobile, which... is not the case right now, lolrip).

[aliquistis]

Fic Wrap-Up Meme 2022

Tagged by @dujour13! ty!

WORDS PUBLISHED: 82, 036

FANDOMS: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Final Fantasy 14, Skyrim, Baldur's Gate 3

3 FANFICS WITH THE MOST KUDOS IN 2022

Left of Heaven (206)

Hope (32)

Sharper (11)

FAVORITE OPENING LINE FROM A FIC IN 2022

"Funny, Cheryth thought as she walked into the brothel. So many people came here to be lied to. She’d had her fill of lies. What she needed now was to forget the truth."

From Left of Heaven. Might sound mean but it was fun to write her hitting rock bottom.

FAVORITE CLOSING LINE FROM A FIC IN 2022

"I'd chosen death: first my sister's, then my own. But I found something else in the darkness, something unexpected. I chose death, and life found me."

From this piece I did as a character background for my BG3 playthrough. Had a lot of fun brainstorming her character since she was a new creation and I'd never played a drow before! Maybe I'll write more once the full game comes out.

FIC I'M MOST PROUD OF IN 2022

Gosh it's gotta be Left of Heaven. All the encouragement has meant so much to me. The response to my writing has not only kept me going on finishing this, but also kept me from giving up on writing at some rough points through this past year. I have been trying to get a book published and after so many rejections you can start to feel like maybe you're not actually good at this writing thing … But then people take time out of their day to comment something nice about my writing and it's like you know? Maybe I can actually do this.

I have not published fanfic in a long time bc I was getting my English degree and working on personal projects. Sometimes you forget what it is you even enjoy about writing when you don't just … have fun with it. Left of Heaven has been a blast to write. I'm looking forward to finishing it up in 2023 and maybe starting another big project that's just for me, that can take the edge off all the ""serious"" writing I do.

NEW THINGS I TRIED IN 2022

Being comfortable writing things that my doubts tell me are boring. I love writing dialogue or just casual scenes with characters hanging out and being close but my brain goes "this is just another scene of two dudes talking". But then I will watch shows that I really like and see that some of the best scenes are just "two dudes talking". I've had this weird, marvel movie-esque quota in my head that I have to break up ""boring"" scenes with something more exciting (fighting, dying, sexy stuff, etc.) and I'm slowly breaking out of that and just letting the work breathe. Like the whole reason I don't like marvel movies is bc they cut out all the character stuff in favor of the ""exciting"" so why the hell am I doing it in my own writing?

I've also started putting smaller, drabble-y things on tumblr, which is new for me since I am new to this platform. It's fun here since I can play around with different media in the post, like adding in my skyrim screenshots.

GOALS FOR 2023

More regular updates. Keep writing. Finish Left of Heaven and find another story to fixate on.

Tagging @catsolas

[deludedmarimo]

Yes, I will! I think I may have Frankenstein? I've been wanting to read that since my teacher said it was fantastic. I need to read more classics. That's a great attribute to have, just remember to also put yourself first! I hope your work has been productive, I really admire your hardworking and open-minded personality. Same, I think I have little to worry about next week. I'll still try to talk with you at least once a day. I expected that from you, are you very independent? I get that energy from you. It's still good to know you have someone to rely on. Yeah, obsession can change a lot in a person. I'm different when I'm obsessed, but also not if that makes any sense at all? I don't know. No one is completely put together, it is fun tearing down that facade and finding the faults behind. Everyone has an area in life in which they lack because no one is entirely perfect. I don't think I would trust an entirely put together person, it's just false. Hmm, I can see you as put together but not in a way that is unrealistic, you know? Whenever you get the time I'd love to hear more about it. I love to hear people talk, just in general.

Yes, that's it! I need subtitles for everything, I can process a lot without it and it's the same with books but more manageable. It just saves me a lot of time from rereading certain part because my silly brain did not process it enough.

I've heard of cowboy bepop! Not Monster though, but from the look of the description it seems to be something I'd enjoy! That's true, but for me I need to be good or at least feel like I'm good at something in order to enjoy a hobby. But you're right, my brain is just unable to accept that. Mhm, indeed. It'll be less scary once it's over. I've wanted to try crocheting, I'd love to do that in the future! Thank you and also you're welcome!

I can see how it can be, it's invigorating just being an anon too. Have you been an anon for someone else before? I know you've said in a post before you'd be too jealous of others but I'm curious anyways. You seem more direct so I don't believe you'd want to be anonymous, at least not for very long. ^⁠_⁠^ You're quite the chaser, aren't you? It's okay, I don't mind. I hope I'm not making myself too easy to be hunted, I have no idea to be frank. That's very kind of you, I find a lot of people just don't.. try to hide themselves very well at all. You sound so confident! I wonder if there's been times where you've been wrong, surely? I always second guess myself. I do want this game to go on... it would be terribly embarassing if I were to fail so quickly. Thank you, I am doing my best anyways. I have to take my time lest I make a mistake! Thank you, I enjoy the praise! I'm going to continue searching, it was a bit annoying to go through twitter just to find there was infact.. nothing. Not to fault you, it was my assumption. I feel like a mole scourging whatever grub I can feast upon! Maybe that is a weird metaphor– anyways I'm glad you made it public again. I still had notes and screenshots written regardless but thank you for your generosity! I will provide even more effort in that case then, I have only gotten started.

Indeed he is!! 🫧 Yes, I know ( ｡– ‸ –｡) the name is misleading, no? I just put it anyway despite that it didn't count, but I'm glad it does! Koi fish are adorable! I don't know if there is a real reason, they are a bit nostalgic for me as they'd always have them swarming around when I'd enter restaurants or animal stores. I'm glad on being the first person then!

Thank you for the encouragement and positivity! I've tried breaking the habit before, it doesn't work for me. Blegh. Same here, I only need one alarm! If I'm sleepy or not used to the time I'm waking up at I'll set a few in case. Loud noises scare me so it gets the job done well. It is! It actually provided to be useful when it came to projects, I had to make a sculpture but sculpting was not my forte. I think it is definitely worth the investment if you plan on buying one, making a soushin figure is definitely a must. Exactly! My dreams are usually violent, comedic and nonsensical all at once somehow. I think I would cry and hyperventilate all at once if someone took my things. I don't even prefer ice cream that much, oh well!

Don't apologize, thank you for taking the time to respond so thoroughly! I will think of questions to ask you in the meanwhile. Get your work done and prioritized!

— 🐟

frankenstein!!! i've been recommended that as well. i've read some southern gothic literature before and deeply enjoyed it, so i'm sure i'd love that as well! i also need to read more classics... there's this huge classic book collection on amazon i've been meaning to buy at some point . i could just read them all for free online, but i also love having the books in my hands! reading on a screen can be rather difficult sometimes... thank you for the concern! i promise i do my best to look after myself!! not as much this week since i've been . locked in on study mode but after this week i'll get more into it ! my work has been going alright. i've been needing to finish an assignment before i'm able to study, but its been progressing rather slowly which worries me since i have exams beginning tomorrow. after this goes out, i'm going to do my best to speedrun it...

thank you !!! i'm always so pleased when someone recognizes my being a hardworker ... i put lots of effort into things, so its always gratifying when its recognized. i also love when people enjoy my openminded-ness. more people should be more open about themselves and others . . hopefully next week comes sooner for the both of us!! it seems like we're both in desperate need of a break. don't force yourself to talk if you're busy (says me who responds to all my anons despite my being busy . . .)!! the sentiment is incredibly endearing though! i am a hyper independent person, yes. i'm usually only dependent on one person. i grew up relying on myself and always struggled with trusting others, so i grew into being self sufficient. obsession definitely changes people, that's how potent love can be. no, it makes sense to me! for me, i'm still closed off and distant with others but i'm able to express a more soft/affectionate part of me to that one special person. i change, but also don't . .. i think it's how, when you have someone to love, you reveal more intimate parts of yourself. i agree! there is no such thing as someone who is perfect. i'm always amused watching people try to portray themselves as such, only to have that mask crack over time. i do not know why people wish to be someone they're not. be true to yourself !! of course i have walls myself which keep others out (maintaining independence!) but i don't know if thats quite the same thing as having a mask. i'm rather open about my personality and how i behave ... i love the thought of tearing away such a mask, or breaking down someones walls! it's intimate! put together in a way thats not unrealistic ... i think i get what you mean? i don't try to present myself as perfectly perfect, like how i don't have perfect grammar or ways of typing. in my next response, which will probably be tomorrow, i'll talk more about it since i'll have time then!

ah same !!!!!! you probably already know why ... in case you don't, i have hearing loss which causes me to struggle with hearing or processing words. so i always need subtitles (whenever i'm able to get them! sometimes i'm fine with none). i believe my autism also cuts into my processing speed ...

i've heard outstanding reviews of it, i'd definitely recommend despite not having watched it myself!!! i used to have a similar mindset with anything i enjoyed, but i've managed to push myself past it. i think that sometimes you just have to do things scared and they get more easy ! i don't remember if i've already said that... just looked at my response. i definitely did. hangs my head. crocheting is a great hobby!! it can be mindless, making it fun to do while you're doing something else-- like watching a show or something. and there's so much you can do with it ... for me, i want to crochet some flowers. i have the supplies already, but not the time.

i've not! i am more of a direct person, you're correct. i dislike the idea of competing with others for someone's affections, and i'd go insane seeing them flirt with people other than me . . . i rather just jump straight into DMs, as it's more personal that way as well. its easier getting to know someone when you know who they are. i am !!! i'm basically a wolf after all !! who am i if i am not a hunter . . . i don't think you're being overtly easy, i just pick up on small details a lot. i've definitely had more simple.. when people send in anons right after liking or following something of mine it is . . the most obvious thing on this planet. are you even trying..... my guess on who you are could very well be wrong, it all really depends on how long you've watched me -- which i do not know the exact date of . i do think i'm pretty certain of it, but i'll stay quiet until i'm 1000% certain ! i also wish for the hunt to go on longer. i can admit i've been wrong before ... but really only for one person. they had no online presence or any connections to me which made it troublesome .... i think they're the only person where i've actually asked someone if they were said anon. all of my others reveal themselves when they're ready! you are doing a good job !!! either way, it is entertaining talking to you. apologies for the disappointment ! i don't have much social media that i'm active on, since i prefer to keep my circles small. some of them i'm forced to have since people i know wish to actually have contact with me... otherwise i'd have zero social presence. i like being sneaky!!! alas, i cannot. i actually love moles... they recently discovered a species of mole they previously thought extinct. turns out he was just too shy. silly!! of course! i may clean up some of my tracks here and there to ensure others don't find it, but i'll keep it public. ദ്ദി ( ᵔ ᴗ ᵔ )!!!

right? sometimes scientists have the most ridiculous names for things.. name it something that actually correlates to what it is !!!!! stop deceiving us !!!!! i always enjoy when i see koi in ponds . i've gotten to feed them before and they're voracious eaters... its always funny to watch! whenever i think of koi, i recall the youtube video where someone is spoonfeeding one and giggle.

i'm sure if you keep trying, you'll get somewhere eventually! my alarm is always under my pillow right next to my ear so i'm sure to hear it. loud noises can also be rather jarring to me, since i'm used to quiet while i sleep (no hearing aids !!). but if the noise is close to me, i'm able to hear it. otherwise i'll sleep through anything... sculpture is fun albeit difficult !! i find in-person sculpture more troublesome though, since you can so easily mess up .... 3D programs are much more forgiving, but troublesome to learn. soushin !!! come to me !!!!!! soon the dream will be alive ... hopefully in the future! i don't cry or break down when my items are taken, but irate instead.

will go work now !!! salutes and runs off !!!

[hurricanek8art]

AAAAH Everyone's so fast and helpful and welcoming thank you!!! I've got a lot of anxiety to work through before I start posting art and writing, but I'm feeling brave now, maybe I'll have the guts to post screenshots at least. 🤣

I've found a couple versions of those charts already and I've been using them as reference (they're actually pretty helpful for writing and remembering what sequence goes where, too, surprisingly). And, since I've already done pretty much all of them save a few heroics on my Smuggler and Consular, I know which missions I'm supposed to do in what order.

I think I'm mostly beating myself up about this because my goody-two-shoes autistic brain sees quest markers and goes "IN VIDEO GAMES I CAN HELP EVERYBODY! 😄😄😄" and I hate doing things out of chronological order, so my brain decides everything is important and then I get burnt out.

I do all the flashpoints solo on story mode because I'm a socially anxious turtle who has no idea how combat actually works in this game beyond press buttons to make bad guy fall down, so thankfully no one's yelled at me yet, and I'm stuck on the Maelstrom Prison one because of a very annoying boss. Thankfully, I've gotten some advice on how to beat that already (again you guys are so fast and helpful you all rock!) that I'm gonna try tomorrow.

I wasn't entirely sure how leveling worked, that's super helpful! I was playing before 7.0 but like I said, I don't really understand combat so I just put back as many of the abilities I recognized as possible. I got so mad when I couldn't find Dirty Kick in my Smuggler's abilities, it's dumb but it made me laugh every time I used it and I was so happy I found it again. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I was wondering why some boss fights were still somewhat difficult when I was hitting level 50 dudes with a level ~63 Shadow Consular. I think I just like being overleveled because it's less stressful to worry about hitting a fight I can't win and having to backtrack to grind. We usually subscribe around Christmas every year (whoa, I just realized I've been playing for two and a half years! And I've only ever gotten as far as Makeb 🤣) so I think I have access to everything except for Showdown on Ruhnuk? I'm not sure how that works.

You guys are all so helpful! Thank you so much!

Okay, so, um... Hi? So, I've been a lurker on Tumblr for a while, including the SWTOR tag, because I've got major social anxiety. Recently, I think I've finally worked up the courage to interact, which is great! Especially now, because I think I need advice about the game and don't really know where else to ask! Other social media sites scare me and I'm not currently a subscriber, so I can't access the SWTOR forums. :P

I've just finished Corellia on my Jedi Knight. She's technically my main, even though I already finished the class storylines for Consular and Smuggler. I got burnout on doing the planetary missions and side quests around Balmorra (I'm a huge goody-two-shoes, so I was doing almost every quest I came across) so I figured, hey, I'll just focus on the story for a while and come back to it another time! Except now I feel kinda bad for skipping them because my Knight's leveled at 53, when my other two finished their class stories around 60/65. I know over-leveling's pointless, but at the speed I take getting through stuff, they'll have to have raised the level cap again by the time I catch up. 🤣

Should I go back and do them before finishing the class story? I know it's pretty harmless to skip them but I dunno, I want to do as much as I can with my Knight so I haven't missed out on anything. My brother plays too, we share an account, but his philosophy is skip absolutely everything that's not important unless he's underleveled, so obviously we have differing opinions on the subject. 🤣🤣🤣 Can some more experienced players give me some advice? I'm paralyzed with indecision, help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc., etc., you get the gist.

Unnecessarily adding pictures of my Knight because she is awesome and I love her to pieces and I only really get to talk about her with my brother. I'm a writer/artist and I've got loads of stuff I've created about her and my other legacy characters but. y'know. extreme social anxiety says no sharing yet. You guys make such cool stuff and I'm a huge chicken, but I'm working on getting over that, so maybe someday I can actually tell their stories!

[gildedmuse]

Hey, everyone.

So recently I've (predictably) very not well. Actually, whenever I don't post for long periods, just assume my body is trying to kill me. But I've gotten messages from three people asking if I. Okay, which is super sweet. I am actually trying to work on the next All Hearts, a really long ZoLaw post and two request fics, but mixing chronic kidney pain and capitalist society's mandate to work 40+ hours is not recommended.

But to prove I'm okay and still me, here is some Shanks antics with him being a total slut while Mihawk and Beckman just roll their eyes and go along with it. [Shout out to @jhaernyl who not only listens to me ramble about this stuff, but actively encourages it]. I also have many thoughts on the latest episodes and so many screenshots it's embarrassing. Hopefully, when I'm in less pain, I'll get around to actually posting those. Otherwise I just look like an insane person who literally takes by the second frame shots every time Zoro is on screen.

.... What is that? I look like that anyway? Fair.

Shanks Is A Bad Influence

It feels like Buggy and Shanks split up after Roger's death (the crew was told to, and they are the only ones who went to his execution) and I find it impossible to think Shanks didn't immediately set out and find a crew; like, pirating is the only thing this kid knows in life. This means two things:

He set out from East Blue. Also, he seemed at ease and familiar with the East so it's possible he spent like a year there getting everything together. Maybe he even played around in the other blues for a while before heading back to the Grand Line. I say this because his crew is from all over so either he found and recruited them in the Grand Line or visited various blues. Either way, I'm gonna say it took him about two years before getting a 'proper' start. In that case, he would have started out properly at the age of 17 and we know One Piece likes it's parallels.

That still puts Shanks at 17 to Benn Beckmen's 28. How the fuck did Shanks manage that? I'd call it grave robbing, but let's face it, the little tyke probably got up to some actual robbing of graves as well.

My point being everytime Shanks teases Mihawk about keeping this 19 year old kid on his personal island, mostly shirtless, Benn Beckmen just lifts an eyebrow.

Excuse me, captain, who had prefected the 'opps still don't have my sea legs' trip-and-fall into their first mates lap by the age of 17?

Shanks: Beckmen, you caught me! *Shamelessly nuzzles up* Thank goodness! I could be a devil's fruit user after all and - Ahh!

Benn: *Drops Shanks straight over the side of the ship into the water*

Shanks: *Sputtering* What what that!?

Benn: Checking to see if you had eaten a devil's fruit on us, Capatin.

Benn: You didn't.

Smart ass. But he can't resist Shanks forever. Shanks will wear him down eventually.

Next time Mihawk tracks him down for another match - because you know he gets bored way quicker than he'll ever admit and Shanks is at least amusing a challenge - Shanks makes a big deal out of how Mihawk follows him around, "accidentally" revealing they slept together, sighing about how it's so hard to resist him.

Benn Beckmen is just leaning against the side of the ship, sipping his booze.

Shanks: -and I can't stay for hours like last time!!

Mihawk: Are you quite done?

Shanks: *whispering* Does Benn look jealous?

Mihawk: He looks bored. Much like I am. Is this some strange attempt to get out of my challenge, Akagami?

Shanks: What? No, come on I told you I was game. But, hey, could you do me a favor? Maybe like try and kiss me or something? Like take a swing like your going to hit me but then stop shot and grab me by the waist instead.

Mihawk: .... Trickery is beneath you. Besides, you're absolute rubbish at it.

Shanks: Oh, come on, I would totally help you get laid if you asked!

Mihawk: .... *Sigh* I want a proper match afterwards.

Mihawk: *In a forced, monotone voice* After this I will take you to my lair and have my way with you, Akagami.

Mihawk: ... My lair? Really?

Shanks: *Holding up cue card with quickly scribbled line* What? That is how you talk.

Mihawk: I can't believe I wasted precious hours of light tracking you to this atrociously rural port.

Shanks: See? Now, read the next one.

Benn: Captain? If this is going to take all night, I am going to go join the rest of the men in the tavern.

Shanks: Huh? Wait! Benn! What if Miha really stabs me this time!?

Benn: *Salutes Shanks with his bottle* Sounds like that is his plan captain. Have a good 'challenge'.

Shanks: What? No... *Reaching out hand, like he might die if Benn leaves, looking completely devastated* Not even a little jealous...

Mihawk: You couldn't have thought that pantomime would actually work.

Shanks: Benny, don't leave me.... *Turns to Mihawk, immediately brightening* Oh, well, there's always tomorrow. Hey, Miha, guess whose free all night and horny as a pirate in the calm belt?

Mihawk: .... *Sigh* Very well.

Mihawk might as well get something for the trip he made. Although, he's reconsidering if the sex was actually worth the trouble after he ends up listening to Shanks worry half the night that Benn is shacking up with someone else (after a couple hours of rough and raw fucking, admittedly).

Is it the hat? He likes his captain's hat. Miha, you think his captain's hat is sexy, don't you?

Mihawk: It's utterly ridiculous.

Shanks: ....

Shanks: ....

Shanks: *Smile* Ahh, Miha, I knew you liked the hat!

Shanks: What do you old Northerns find sexy?

Mihawk: I am only four years older than you.

Mihawk: And silence.

Trying to convince Mihawk to go spy on Beckman for him. Shanks doesn't actually care if he does sleep with someone else, it's more that Beckman didn't immediately turn angry and jealous like Buggy would have that has him paranoid.

Mihawk is going to fuck this annoying red head again just to shut him up.

Mihawk: Maybe he doesn't like red haired boys who don't know when to be quiet?

The next morning Shanks is pacing among his poor crew that's gotten stuck listening to Shanks obsess about Beckman again. IS IT REALLY THE HAIR!?

It's not even a matter of Shanks's age (or obvious immaturity). I mean, Beckman got on board and stayed, didn't he? Beckman just enjoys watching Shanks try so hard to get his attention. Like Benn's attention isn't constantly on Shanks. He had to when his captain is always one step away from disaster.

He only left him with Mihawk because it was clear Dracule is not a real danger to Beckman's captain.

Except maybe insulting him to death. But Beckman is pretty sure Shanks can handle it. He's met Buggy. He's suspects Shanks LIKES it if anything.

It gets to the point where when they dock somewhere and see Mihawk waiting, or come back to the ship and spot his familiar silhouette, most of the crew goes off somewhere for another drink (sometimes the newer kids will stay to watch such an awesome fight, everyone else is like... Look, you'll have plenty of opportunities later. This is not a one off.)

Benn just takes a look around, nods to Mihawk (a silent signal for, "he's all yours, do with him as you please, if anything happens to him I will track you down and make sure your last few hours on this blue world are as painful as humanly possible") and heads off.

Oh, it's just the Hawk boy.

That's fine then.

Benn use to be a sailor on a trade ship between the North, East, West and Grand Line. He's seen it all.

They called him The Gun Slinger BEFORE he joined Shanks's crew and became a pirate.

So this young, broke ass kid from the streets of some near artic northern island trying to pass himself off as a Lower North rich type has a thing for his captain? Not really enough to keep Beckman up at night, no matter how good at swords he's supposed to be

Besides, he's pretty sure for the kid to keep tracking down Shanks, he must be bored out of his skull. He's not going to do anything to endanger their captain.

Not if Shanks is the only thing he can find to keep him entertained.

One day, Mihawk is going to be waiting on the dock when a bunch of Red Haired pirates are stumbling home, laughing and chattering amongst themselves (Shanks's crew always seems to be in a good mood). One of them will catch sight if Mihawk and walk by with a smile, patting him on the shoulder.

The captain's occupied. Seems likely he'll be 'occupied' for a good while, too.

Mihawk won't smile, but he will think "So you finally warmed him up to you, Akagami?" and snort lightly.

Poor Benn, though. Mihawk could never imagine being with someone so much younger than him. Shanks is only four years his junior and already it strains Mihawk to put up with his occasional moments of "youthful whimsy" (aka being an annoying, immature child)

"A young, cocky pirate with strangely colored bright hair"

Mihawk just putting that on his Not To Do List.

That lasted until Roronoa.

(Mihawk just looking at Zoro knowing this is bad news.)

Mihawk: *Takes list from Benn*

*Cross out, scribbles*

*Hands back to Benn*

Do Not Do:

- A young, cocky pirate with strangely colored bright hair a silly hat, who is overly dramatic and in any way, shape or form related to Gol D Rogers.

Ace: Hey what's up?

Mihawk: *Takes list from Benn*

Go ahead, Benn, laugh it up. Mihawk is aware he has a type. Young, pretty, and utterly insane.

After that night where Shanks was otherwise 'occupied', it's over six months before Mihawk sees his friend his rival again. He is, as expected, far too smug and proud looking.

Shanks: Oh, Miha, so sorry you came all this way, I'm-

Benn: Well, I'm off, captain.

Shanks: What!? But we, you, I... Benn, hessoeexyarentyouworriedforyourcaptain?

Benn: *patting Mihawk on the shoulder* Have fun with him. Don't forget to return him by noon tomorrow, we have a schedule. Oh, but if you can babysit him for at least four hours? That would be great.

Shanks: BABYSIT!?

Mihawk: I suppose I can be troubled to do so.

Shanks: TROUBLED!?

Benn: Thanks, Hawkeyes. I owe you.

Shanks: *Fake tears clinging to his lashes* You two are so mean!

No, don't feel bad for him. Shanks is just trying to guilt the two of them into bed at the same time, and they both know it.

Thanks no thanks, they're not into that. But Shanks can be pretty cute when he's trying so hard (Benn) and at least he's not as boring as everything else in this world (Mihawk) so they allow him to keep up the act

Shanks: *looking at Zoro's wanted poster over Mihawk's shoulder* But I feel like you'd gladly go to bed with him and his captain if he asked. That doesn't seem fair to me. You'd never go that far with me and Benn.

Mihawk: *Eyes Benn*

Mihawk: *DEAD. ONLY.*

Mihawk: I have my reasons.

They can and do agree on plenty of things, including reciprocally not being that attracted to each other.

Shanks: Sounds fake to me

Shanks: But guys!

Shanks: This isn't about you

He's gonna need you guys to drop the egos and focus on what HE wants. I.E., being in the middle of two sexy Northern men.

Honestly, so mean to poor Shanks!

[captainkurosolaire]

~ Mass Update ~

Mainly going into future plans and intents alongside ideas below cut.

Ton's of things I've in store this will prove difficult to vent it all out. But here we go... First off rehashing and appropriately learning to tag and organize things better on my blog. Each category will have their own corresponding content, I seek to bring or share. [Tales of Goldbrand] -- I intend this to carry a Compendium of all my writes soon that'll have everything neatly in-order including a glossary, so it'll have highlights of stories that even matter or the best stuff. I've written here for a very, long time, there's been many shifts. I want to make it more accessible. While coloring what matters for people who want to learn Captain or his Crew with less chapters. While also giving choice to find it all easily. This is essentially a step-above master-lists. I'll be doing that after the Saga I have going on, right now is done. [Captain] -- Will provide you strictly with Captain screenshots, gifs, photo-sets. This is still his blog despite the Crew thing's will sort of make this a scuffed Multi-Muse blog. I've few more things to edit and tag fix to get all his stuff though. [The Wild Crew] -- Afterwards this story is done Immortal Age Saga, It's something that I mainly wrote as a passion project within three days to get my warm-up process fixed. It's to allow me to get a feel for all his Crewmates and casts, in combat, in-general, to feel their presences. While also giving a bit of their backstories. At any point, I can go back and polish or tweak things in. They're NPC's but... not entirely. All will have their own 'Dreams' and their own 'Disapproval's' they have their own missions even. These things will factor eventually, they might set seeds, to betray or disagree with something, but that's all angst and more stories to be created, but overall, they'll probably always be Crew, eventually. -- I plan on making character-profile sheets of them and putting them in this Tab, it'll have their screenshots, their likes/dislikes. Some RP partners or people can also be shipped with them, but they'll all be monogamous and originally start off probably Pan. This allows them to figure out what they like on their own stories. I've always been someone who likes organic-flow. Although this one story contain all 16 characters or more, the rest will probably be shortened to a Squad of 4 and dispersed when on adventuring missions. Until I do a War Arc, that's my main goal to build too. [Roster] -- Will contain this Crew in just screen-sets dedicated to them, I'll probably randomly produce those. I've PC players among this Crew too. I may not be done either adding more, but this Crew is mainly built around Quality. Most pirate crew's mainly, have hundreds, thousands. Even Fleets. This Crew has personalities, monsters, people who are living life's that exist with piracy. He's an particular leader that had PC players the same way, he's had split-personality serial killers aboard, tribal chieftains, succubus, all sorts of various people once on a Crew. It's often an outcast style, pirates default are chaotic in nature, so this really isn't any different, it's a Fantasy version of it. There's humanization characters aboard too though, so this cast is really decked, everything and person is vital, they matter because they remind or covet something that others can draw upon. If ever played (Three Houses or Mass Effect / Dragon Age Origins) A lot of things like that are relatable too this structure and format. Which, Is something I want to be able to give when RPing. I want a genuine feel of this new world someone else's muse will be the main-character too. Depending on what's interacting everything they'll be scale appropriately to follow the genre they're in and environment even. [Aesthetics] -- Already explainable what you'll find here. [Asks] -- Same thing. [Prompts] -- Trivial things I was tagged too, I plan on compiling later. [Writing] -- Another alternatively to randomly go-down and it works right now. [Logs] -- Will have more individualistic master-lists and posts there, my poems from Sheik Sphere the Bard, etc.

Things of that nature, I'll probably add still. It's where a lot of my creative writing is summed. [Gems of Hydaelyn] -- My main #tag for other characters and artists, creationist. Lot of amazing people easily to find their zones or follow them optionally if you like. Ton's I intend to support and bolster, be a lot less unspoken. I'm never the type who's been strictly inclusive. But I'll do that when I've time to even explore the dash, I'm always still planning ahead with things and projects. [CKS] My original character-sheet it's outdated on something's but not too terrible. I'll give him polishing someday, I swear? [21+F-List] -- Just purely degenerate stuff of Captain. I'm a pirate blog. I will represent that with openness and furthermore. I'm never projecting you some false-image. I started off a smut-writer by stripping that, I no-longer represent the same aura and identity. But those are strictly his stuff and kinks, I'm effective in executing them but they're not all relatable to me OOC. This blog will always be 18+ containing crude or dark material sometimes, romantic things, this Captain is blunt, will literally put his cock on the table in conversations. Swearing and being censored would be too uncommon and displace most of him, but there's more about him then all this. [Other] -- I pay homage to a lot of characters, I originally am a Concept Designer. Which mean's I make characters and ideas like my addiction. Bad characters / villains or other little things I like to share in designs, I'll put there. Some villains might get little photo-sets, even if they died. Just cause I like their design, or maybe I'll give them an AU, where they won. When I've wrapped up things. [Collabs + Ships] -- Is a new project idea. This isn't going to be something limited too romantic only ships. It'll contain, platonic, romantic, friendships, rivals, frenemies, family, PC Crew, all ships. I am desperately working on improving my gif, screenshot, posing game so I can supply 'Screen Stories' this is not only a way to RP that's accessible with even people who are upon time-crunches from work, It gives visual-representation. To impactful stories shared with others and establish bonds. That are all-valid and impactful matter. Lot of people take a lot of their characters attributes into them and are them dialed up, I work with that and bit more, differently. I'm disconnected from my characters and they'll get hurt and injured and killed by me, that's my duty as their Author to give them conflicts and struggles. I'm their major antagonist, but that doesn't mean at-all, it's always SET that way. The characters I like to make have their own life, they live in this setting and are abide by it, they're often nothing, nobodies, and by the interacting with others, they slowly gradually building, more... Through emotional impacts, they alter, these are REAL people by all their beliefs. Each person they come in-contact with are legitimate and treated like that too. They've always impacted or given them insights to grow, or represent more. Otherwise it'd be criminally disrespectful if I allowed any emotional I felt OOC be the grudge to something IC. Captain in-particular is set on defying me. I cannot have that. ...But I can't stop him. He's met and encountered so many people and lived so many scenarios based on the actions of others, he's giving a chance right now to actually do things a lot further than impossible. The more people he meets and encounters, experiences, the more I lose. These stories are emotionally interactive where everything is a factor and adds to the dice, where the other people are the one who get to roll the dice for him, not me. That's something I want to color in. People range in emotions, they have their down's, ups, their own wholesome-grounding people, spending time with your favorite people, there's nothing more cherishing than that, being in your own comfort-zone or 'safe-space' these are all treasures that we live under, today. Contrary if what people assume of me, I'm not another 'blogger' that's came

before, who's wanting to force a harem, then constantly is bewildered when that falls to pieces cause of selfishness or a lack of communication, or the skeletons they have in their closets and beliefs they hid behind and swindled fooled everyone. I'm not looking to be popular or anything really, I just create stories and want to share in those, and I want to also boost others included, upward with me, especially those who make me. There's no ego in anything I do, this is purely love. I've never cared about being replicated or duplicated, I've had stalkers, I've gone through more then anyone would imagine, I've been used OOC and abused, just for my writing and cold-harshly told, i'd never amount to anything other then that or vice-versa. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion. That's all I got and am anymore. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Passion is the hardest thing to keep. It's something that can be stolen, quite effortlessly. Few words of discouragement, a bad negative representation, a lack of confidence, or small amount of time, there's many thing's that can put that flame out. Once you lose it. The difficulty to reattain is hundred-times harder than climbing any mountain for real. I've watched the greatest creators crumble from under the pressure, from beaten down by others. I watched many of them do it to themselves because they put a grand vision of needing validation of another and once lost, felt uncompelling to press onward. But passion also can be given BACK and drawn. It can be shown and encourage others, with a soft-triggering, that pushes them. That motivates, that constantly sticks to it. There are many that fuel me. If I ever quit, I let them down, I spit in the faces of people who're better than me in every-way. Or people who've came and given me their precious Time. That have given their character's or dedication to the abundant stories and community-driven things I've done. There's ONLY things you can do, create, give and provide. It cannot ever come to life without YOU. This is a fact. ...I swear, If you let your creativity soar, you'll be amazed by the heights you get. Constantly polish and learn and hone the best you, challenge yourself day after painstaking day, to draw better improvement on something, no matter how trivial or unfamiliar you are. You'll find a confidence only you can give yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Future Plans --------------------------------------------------------------------- For me, I've got so much more stories to give and also explore, I might be taking up soon some other artists and more skilled people from community and hire them for some of my future writes, to up my game or cause something thing's can't be done in-game cause no background carries it. I also got a lot of-set up things and more angst stuff I want to practice, plus I'm adamantly on that grind to produce screen-sets with the intent's to some sort of improving daily. Additionally more people I'll be reaching out too soon for these collab's ideas and things. I look forward to shaking your hands, giving some hugs, show you my respect and admiration, then creating some enchanting stories and giving plots light. Feel free to reach out to me, I get scattered-brain but I'm working on getting better about it. Eventually will get to you though, my goals, if uninterested just say so when I poke, no bites, unless you kinky. Anyways, cheers hearties.

[puckngrind]

Leave Her Wild: Chapter 2 - N. MacKinnon

Summary: MacKenzie and her friends head to opening night for the Colorado Avalanche.

Warnings: swearing, alcohol

Word count: 2, 675

Series masterlist / Puck ‘n Grind’s masterlist

Flames.

"You are really gonna wear that?" Mosi looks her friend up and down.

"Yeah, why?" MacKenzie tugs at her jersey. Of course she was going to wear it. Opening night, only hockey jersey she owned. Was a Christmas gift from her parents last year. She did a little twirl to show it off to the group of unamused friends.

"Because..." Drew rolls his hands and she rolls her eyes.

"Laissez les bons temps rouler!" Remy waves his hands in the air.

"That means, Let..." MacKenzie starts.

"Let the good times roll! We know.” Drew and Mosi say in unison.

"Alright, Mac is going to be wearing that. Remy has clearly pre-gamed. Mosi should’ve. We have our tickets and I'm driving so let's go." Drew starts herding the friend group out of MacKenzie's condo.

Opening night at Pepsi Center was always an event. MacKenzie and Drew got tickets from their volunteer efforts so the group headed out for their first time ever. They had gone to a Rockies game after Remy moved to Denver but normally the friend group didn't really do sporting events as outings.

“Is someone gonna explain these rules?” Remy plopped down from his first beer run with Drew and handed MacKenzie one. Eyeing her for the answer.

“Yeah. Kinda like soccer. You know?” She started. Knowing she was the only one who knew anything about hockey. “You can yell, cheer, boo. Doesn't really matter because no one really pays attention to the crazy you say.” The group all nod and she knows they will just clap when those around them do.

“So pizza-Jeep boy is wearing what color?” Mosi whisper yells while leaning into MacKenzie’s side during warmups.

“He’s in the blue and maroon jersey. The white is the Flames.” MacKenzie doesn’t take her eyes off the ice looking for Nathan to point him out but feels Mosi’s eyes on her. “Yes, Mo?”

“But… um... never mind.” Mosi stutters strangely.

"There he is." Kenzie ignores and points to the screen where they have a close up of Nathan showing his stats from the previous season.

The game starts which quieted the group’s chatter while everyone but Kenzie tried following the puck and going from watching the ice to the screen and back.

“Let’s go boys!” MacKenzie stands and yells after a big play with everyone in her section turning to look at her.

“Mac!” Drew pulls her down to her seat. “Check your surroundings.”

“You know I don’t care, right?” MacKenzie starts clapping again with a little cheer.

“As always, you do you.” Drew slow claps along as the game progresses.

Even though MacKenzie warned her friends that there might be only a goal or two, the game was high scoring which the friends all enjoyed. Remy cheered when anyone scored regardless of team. Colorado winning made the home crowd pumped and buzzing about being the year.

"We realize the season has over 80 games, right?" Kenzie comments to no one in particular as they head down the stairs.

“Food! Real food and drinks that don’t cost a million bucks.” Mosi begs on the way out.

“Allons! Let’s go!” Remy points to the closest restaurant he can see. "That one! Onward." Remy leads the group over.

Drinks, food, laughter fill the table as they banter back and forth.

“Isn’t that her, Mac?” MacKenzie hears someone nearby. She turns to see Nathan, Cale and a few more guys at a table about ten feet away. Nathan nods. She raises her hand then quickly feels the blood rushing to her face.

“Kenzie Lou, why are you the same color as your jersey?” Remy looks her up and down.

“Oh.” Drew mumbles with his mouth full seeing the table MacKenzie just waved towards.

“Oh yeah, this is gonna be fun!” Mosi clapped and is greeted with a kick under the table. “Ouch. Well it is.”

MacKenzie huffs and stands to her feet. Inhales and walks right over to the table of what she assumed was full of professional hockey players.

“Nice game Nathan.” She stops right at the end of his table and knows her face is still bright red.

“Looks like you were rooting for the other team there. Sorry 'bout that.” One of the boys down the table barks out.

“Hi MacKenzie. Thanks. Were you there? At the game, I mean.” Nathan turns his body towards her.

“Yes. Got tickets because of the foundation thing so we all went.” She gestures towards her eager looking friends. They wave and Nathan waves back with a flick of his wrist.

“Oh cool. So you are a… a Calgary fan?” Nathan gulps hard taking in the home Flames jersey.

“Well, a Tkachuk fan, actually. Yeah.” MacKenzie looks over at the 19 on her shoulder. “He was phenomenal last… ya'll. Well. Yeah.” MacKenzie looks around the amused players and shuts up.

“Sorry, let me introduce you. Guys, this is the other Mac. MacKenzie. Uh. Shit. I never caught your last name.” Nathan looks at her searching for a name.

“Blackwood.” MacKenzie answers and the guy across from Nate spits out his drink. “Um.” She just looks at him.

Nate wipes his face and stares down his teammate. “Are you fucking serious, EJ?”

“Sorry man.” EJ hands him another napkin. “No teeth.” He flashes his massive gap which makes MacKenzie giggle softly and Nathan groan.

“Let me get this straight. You live in Cale and Tyson’s building, volunteer with youth, only seem to follow Tkachuk 'cause you don't seem to know Avs hockey.” He wipes his mouth to continue. MacKenzie recognizes him as the captain from the game. “Have the same name as a goalie in the league, and are giving my boy, Nate here a run for his money.” Gabe winks with a sinister smile.

“Wait what?” MacKenzie puts her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

“What he means is…” Nate starts and MacKenzie places a finger up to stop him.

“No the goalie thing. I’m choosing to ignore the last part for now.” She says which gets a reaction from the entire table.

“Mackenzie Blackwood is a goalie in New Jersey. You happen to have the same name.” Nate explains.

“Gotcha. I’ll be honest, I catch games when I can but it’s background noise.” MacKenzie still feels her cheeks on fire but doesn’t let it stop her. “I will go to a Flames games if I'm in town when they play ya'll then a Blues game when I’m home with my dad and brother. Most of my hockey following is checking stats or social media.” She takes a deep breath not wanting to look directly at the table that all seem mesmerized by her presence. “Anyway, just wanted to say hi, which I did. So…. Nice game gentleman. Enjoy your post game dinner. Good seeing you again Nate. Cale.” MacKenzie nods and turns on her heals to her friends who haven’t touched their food since she left.

"Kenzie Lou!" Remy softly squeals.

"Don't." MacKenzie grits her teeth.

"What the hell did you talk to an entire table of NHL players about?" Mosi ignores her friend's request.

"I guess I have the same name as a goalie in the league." She annoyingly answers.

Drew starts typing before anyone can respond. "Oh yes. Mackenzie Blackwood. K not capitalized. Canadian. 22. New Jersey rookie who started last year. Wait, how does that happen?" Drew looks at MacKenzie's face . "Later. I'll google it later."

"Could we eat please?" MacKenzie takes a drink of her water and starts to finish her meal. She feels a ping on her phone and turns it over to read the notification.

Nathan's i-phone wants to airdrop you. Accept?

MacKenzie looks over and he nods at the phone. She looks back to accept and sees a screenshot from his notes apologizing for being awkward and asking for her number. She seems confused.

"Kenz?" Mosi questions.

"He wants my number." MacKenzie whispers.

"I'm confused." Remy whispers back.

"Found my phone on airdrop. Smart at least." MacKenzie chuckles.

"So airdrop your digits back to him or I will." Mosi pulls her phone out. "I just need to turn on mine. Who keeps it on? You, of course you do Mac." Mosi looks at Kenzie amused.

"Should I?" MacKenzie pulls at her loose curl wrapping it around her finger and letting it bounce back.

"YES!" Drew almost yells. "What could it hurt? Have a new contact for work at the least." Drew knew exactly what would get MacKenzie to send her number. She looks down to see Remy had written down her number on his napkin. The man always had a pen on him.

"Snap this to 'em." Remy pushed it over so MacKenzie did just that. Almost throwing her phone down as soon as she did. It buzzed not even a minute later.

Maybe Nate: Hi Mackenzie. This is Nate.

MacKenzie: Hi Nate. You can call me Kenzie or Mac

Nate: Okay Kenzie.

She looks up at him and he smiles wide.

Kenzie: enjoy your dinner

Nate: Same. I’ll text you later

She didn’t expect to hear from Nate but the next morning while getting ready for work, MacKenzie hears her text notification.

Nate: good morning. We are off Sunday and a few of us are playing cards at Cale’s place. Would you and your friends want to come over? It’s not far for you.

She stares at the text and starts to pace. Then sends out a group text.

Kenzie: Nate and some of the Avs want us to come over Sunday. Thoughts?

MacKenzie got all three messages immediately in return.

Mosi: obviously yes

Drew: yes is the only answer

Remy: fuck ya!

MacKenzie sent a text to Nate saying yes and asked what they could bring. She wasn't surprised Nate said nothing just themselves.

Sunday rolled around. MacKenzie and her friends walked down to Cale’s condo. She stopped in front of the door and Drew reached over her to knock. Kenzie looked up at him.

"What, just making sure we don't have to stand here forever." The door swung open as Drew finishes his statement.

“Nate, they are here and at least she’s not in a Flames jersey today.” The curly haired guy MacKenzie knew was Tyson from a quick google search of the team over the weekend.

“Decided to leave that at home, Tyson, but I can go get it.” MacKenzie points while giving him a half smile.

“Oh, and she...” Tyson turns to see Nathan behind him. “And she knows my name.”

“Sorry, don’t mind him. He got checked a little too hard at practice this morning.” Nathan pulls Tyson back into the condo. “Come in please.” He gestured and they moved past Nathan into the condo that was the mirror image of MacKenzie’s just slightly larger.

"Make yourselves comfortable." Cale popped his head out from the kitchen. "I'm sure you know where everything is."

"Yeah, just backwards." MacKenzie looks down the hall to the rooms. "Two or three?"

"Three. You?" MacKenzie raises two fingers and realizes her friends have already made their way into the living room.

"Thanks for coming." Nate was still standing behind her and she jumped.

"Thanks for inviting us. My mother tells me I need to make more friends here." MacKenzie sighs.

"Same actually. Tells me the team isn't enough." Nathan looks over her at his friends that were also his coworkers.

"Work, travel, and such keep my circle small." MacKenzie admits. "Oddly, same. You travel for work?" Nathan pushes his hands into his pockets and leans against the wall.

"I do then try to do different things for fun, you know?" She leans against the other wall.

"That's cool. Where are you heading next?"

MacKenzie's mind normally would be racing. Thinking of all the reasons why she shouldn't tell this essential stranger her work schedule but something about him made her feel easy. Maybe how he had more to lose if he burnt her. He didn't know what she did for a living but she could make his life miserable. Maybe it was the simplicity of their conversation or the kindness in his eyes. She felt like she could talk to him.

"Colorado Springs then off to Washington D.C. for the rest of the week and into next week." She answered him.

"Oh, I think we are in D.C. next weekend or maybe the beginning of the week." He stares at his foot kicking the invisible dirt then looked back up at MacKenzie.

"We are. Now are you two just gonna talk in the hall or are you gonna play cards here?" Gabe leans around the corner. "We've already gotten to know Kenzie's friends... let's go!" He gives Nate a look that doesn't go unnoticed. The two walk into the living room.

“Do I need to make introductions?” Nate looks around the room at all the eyes on both of them.

“Well, I googled ya’ll in preparation for today… so… I think I’m good.” She scans the room and sees a few of the girlfriends or wives. “Well, I don’t know the ladies.”

Nate took a moment to identify the few sitting around the room and who they belonged to. Pulling out an empty chair for MacKenzie. “Here, you can play here.” She sat down and pulled her legs up criss crossed under her as Gabe explained the rules. The group played poker until there were four left. JT, Nathan, MacKenzie, and Mosi. Mosi kept saying she accidentally won her table which made the competitive men agitated but made MacKenzie amused. Eventually it was just Nathan and MacKenzie.

“Kenzie, I think you and Nate need a wager of some sort.” Drew drops a bottle of water next to her and she glares up at him.

“I’m game.” Nate pipes up.

“Okay, so what if I win?” Kenzie takes a sip of water.

“Glass seats at the game of your choice.” Gabe declares.

“Okay, and if Nate wins?” Kenzie directs her attention to the captain who now has his hands on Nathan’s shoulders.

“You go out to dinner with him.” Gabe squeezes Nathan’s shoulders and smiles at Kenzie.

“Uh…” Nathan tries to nervously interject.

“That’s fine.” Kenzie tries to control her blush by not directly looking at Nathan then overcomes it to look right into his soft eyes. "Let's play."

Cale starts to deal and everyone can feel the shift of all eyes on the table even though most had scattered once they were knocked out in individual conversations. After three hands, Nathan goes all in.

"I think he's bluffing." MacKenzie whispers and pushes all her chips to the center.

"Kenzie..." He breathes out and Gabe's hand returns to his shoulder.

They place their cards down and Nathan wins with a full house. The cheers start and Nathan just stares at Kenzie who gives him a small smile. She gets up and heads to the kitchen to grab a drink. Finding Cale's rum and starts pouring more than necessary into her diet coke. Takes a drink and feels someone behind her.

"Drew, I'm not that competitive." She doesn't even turn around.

"It's not Drew." Nate murmurs.

MacKenzie turns around slowly. "Sorry. Nice game." She raises her glass to him.

"We don't have to go out for dinner, you know." Nathan shifts his weight.

"Well, a deal is a deal, right?" Kenzie tries not to breath him in as he reaches around her for a water but he smells amazing. He shrugs his shoulders. "If I won, would I have glass seats?" She leans into the counter.

"Yes, you can still have them if you want." Nate fiddles with the bottle, flicking at the paper label.

"So, dinner. When we both get back in town, okay?" Kenzie takes a sip and looks up at Nathan.

"Yes, I'll have my people call your people then." Nathan laughs.

"So Gabe will call Mosi?" MacKenzie bites her cheek with her comeback.

"Oooorrrr... I'll just text you." Nathan replies.

MacKenzie takes a drink again and winces with the burn. "That works too."