#personally I’d LOVE a game set in Mexico

[tanlotts]

Fallout question for everyone! Which country would be cool to have a Fallout game set in?

[theshypinkflower]

BUT THATS JUST A THEORY-

Okay as much as I love TPOF and BTD I refuse to believe that the entire game takes place within CANADA (apart from obvi derek’s route)

This theory originated from the bar Vincent’s route take place in is named Route 66

Now I know it’s a fictional bar in a fictional game but let’s be realistic for a second-

Why the hell would CANADA have a bar named ROUTE 66? (For all my international friends Route 66 was basically a highway that went through some southern states)

If anything it would make sense for one of the many states that the original Route 66 cuts through to have a bar named Route 66, namely Texas because of its massive amount of land

BUT, of Vincent’s bar is in Texas, that would imply that the rest of the games have to take place in Texas

When we finally get to TPOF the Texas theory becomes wayyyyy more plausible

In Derek’s route we are shown to be in a desert area, last time I checked Canada has no deserts whatsoever ever so that means Derek had to have crossed borders and to get there

Now we could pull a “Derek is rich he probably has a helicopter or something”, since we know how Derek’s dad is HIGHLY abusive, I really doubt he’d let his son use a helicopter to go on his yearly vacation

Especially since a light sized helicopter can only hold roughly 40 gallons of fuel, I say light helicopter because why would Derek even need a bigger one! That much fuel would not be enough to make the journey from even Canada to Mexico (2,252 miles) without making multiple stops to get fuel. And even if Derek did use that much fuel, he wouldn’t do it again because then Salvatore (Mr. Goffard) can’t write off the fuel expensive as a business expense and it would make a sizable dent in his wallet. And no, Derek could not use a private jet because he’s not a goddamn celebrity, he most likely wouldn’t even own one he’d just fly first class. And the jet would still have be in an airport and that would still mean MC HAVING A PASSPORT. Going by car isn’t that plausible, wherever Derek is going will have to cut into the United States, and the United States is ridiculously strict on border control. According to Quora, if you don’t have a passport you still need an ID and a birth certificate. Which if we’re kidnapped WE WOULDNT HAVE A BIRTH CERTIFICATE. Meaning Fox has to operate IN the United States, better yet, TEXAS.

Texas is a huge state that has multiple terrains in it. Derek wouldn’t even be that far from his nearest desert to take is yearly trip. The trip doesn’t even HAVE to take place in Texas, in take place in New Mexico for crying out loud

But operating in Texas also makes wayyyyy more sense for Mason

A drive from Texas to roughly Colorado (which is where personally I believe the route takes place judging by the trees and bears) is 12 hours nonstop. If MC is heavily drugged out before leaving the auction, 12 hours is he perfect amount of time for them to wake up naturally across state lines. Celia’s route also doesn’t have to take place in Texas, but I imagine it’d be close enough to it. Texas is the hugest state in the US so it makes sense Fox would operate there, LET ALONE THE ENTIRE STORYLINE TAKE PLACE THERE. There’s tons of land Fox could set up his operations at, plenty of wealthy people who can afford to buy his merchandise, and even more people he can snatch off the street to use for auctions and streams.

It also makes sense that BTD would take place in Texas since (this is another theory for maybe another time) Lawrence is able to grow the opium poppies he uses in zone 8 (the growing zone for the Easstern side of Texas).

Also I know about the lore that Vincent is Akira, but frankly that plot makes NO SENSE whatsoever ever and clearly EP used it so he could ship Vincent(Akira) and Sano (NASTY)

I’d like to also point out that Strade is German (no surprise there), Texas has had German history, in-fact there’s plenty of German residents still in Texas. So whether strade was drawn to moving to the United States when he was younger, or straight up was born in Texas he wouldn’t be as much of an outlier due to Texas’s German history

[xb-squaredx]

A Tribute to Akira Toriyama

It’s been a bit over 24 hours since I’ve heard the news that acclaimed manga author, Akira Toriyama, has passed away, and frankly it’s still hard to process. I’d like to just say a few things to honor and mourn a man that I have never met, but whose work touched me and millions of others all over the world in ways I am only now really beginning to see.

Like a lot of 90s kids in the United States, my first exposure with Toriyama’s work was through the Dragon Ball Z anime. Despite the fact that I didn’t even know this was a sequel to a completely different series, and I had no real clue what anime even was at the time, I was captivated. For years I would race home from school and sit glued in front of the TV as Toonami would air the latest episodes. A phenomenon that rippled out across the world for several years in waves, from the original airing of DBZ, to some snippets of the original Dragon Ball and even later on with the anime-only continuation that was Dragon Ball GT, this series had such a hold on me. Friends and I would spend recess trying to recreate the iconic Kamehameha Wave, we’d scream trying to become a Super Saiyan, or take turns fighting each other in one of the MANY different video games based on the series over time. I’ve made friends through my love of Dragon Ball and it would go on to foster a love of anime and later manga. But little did I know just how far Toriyama’s influence would reach.

While I was never all that knowledgeable of his past work, particularly Dr. Slump, so many other series would be inspired by him or have his involvement in some way. Sonic the Hedgehog’s Super Sonic is an easy reference to spot, but less so was Cloud Strife’s garb in Final Fantasy VII being a dead ringer for Gohan’s outfit in the Cell Saga. As long as we’re talking about RPGs, Toriyama’s long history with various properties, from Chrono Trigger to Blue Dragon, and going back to the grandfather of all RPGS in Dragon Quest, it’s safe to say his legacy is felt in multiple mediums rather than just one. This wasn’t even limited to Japanese media either. I would see references to Dragon Ball in things like The Powerpuff Girls or Codename: Kids Next Door. Even well into my 20s, I was still seeing series inspired by him, like the whole fusion concept that made up Steven Universe. His reach was vast and multigenerational.

As I would get older, I would listen to Linkin Park AMVs on YouTube, with songs like Numb or In the End overlaid over the various hypest moments from the Dragon Ball series and its later movies. Even long after the series had finished airing, you’d still see the rare movie or special crop up, alongside an endless series of games trying to capitalize on the success of the Budokai Tenkaichi games. Toriyama was inescapable, and in a way it was comforting. You start to get used to his work being there, whether subtly or overtly. You never think about the day when he’ll be gone.

When first reading the article stating his death, it took a moment to really let it sink in. This man who had been with me, inspiring me throughout my childhood, was gone just like that. Over the past day I’ve seen the greater Internet in mourning, as people share their favorite manga panels, or iconic moments from the various anime interpretations of his work. Outpourings of fanart and inspirational stories from people who grew up with his work just like I did. There are people that got into bodybuilding to be just like Goku, for one. For another, during the finale of Dragon Ball Super there were massive watch parties set up in Mexico and even when authorities tried to stop the events they went forward anyway because they just had to see how Goku could finally defeat Jiren. I remember when Trunks first appeared in the anime, and I thought he was the coolest. I had to try to draw and replicate his first appearance, how he defeated Frieza, the person that took Goku so long to defeat, in a mere instant; I’m realizing now Toriyama might have been my real inspiration to start drawing, alongside who knows how many thousands if not millions of people. As sad as it is to see him go, to see so many people pay tribute and remember him, it really does lay bare just how influential he was, just how powerful art can really be.

It was only in more recent years that I’ve come to really respect Toriyama’s craft. Far beyond the screaming and power ups that many associate with him from Dragon Ball Z this was also a man who valued whimsy. He got his start as a comedy author, and for the longest time the Dragon Ball manga was just a humorous retelling of Journey to the West. The man loved a good bit of toilet humor and the occasional fourth wall break. Looking back at his manga, you can see just how amazing his panel work was, and how it still holds up. The ease at which he guides your eye from panel to panel, the expressiveness of his characters conveyed at all times. Many of his peers have called him a God of Manga, and I think they’re right to do so. The likes of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of manga, had called Toriyama his heir apparent, and stated he was “almost too good.” You can’t get higher praise than that.

Outside of his manga work, just his raw talent at creating iconic character designs needs to be praised. Taking a rather uninteresting mockup of the slime enemy in Dragon Quest, Toriyama would create perhaps the most iconic enemy in all of video games. His enemy designs are often cute and goofy, but occasionally can be quite ferocious. If nothing else, they are eye-catching and never boring. He was also a fan of vehicles and machines, with some really interesting modes of transportation shown off in a lot of his work. And then there’s the fact that so many of his characters have the trademark spikey haircut that has become shorthand for “anime hair,” that is understood to this day. To see him effectively retire after finishing with Dragon Ball back in the 90s, with the occasional contribution here or there, only to get right back to business as usual in the 2010s with amazing designs like Beerus or Android 21, not to mention his continual work on the Dragon Quest series all throughout that time…the man never lost his edge even once.

A sentiment I’ve seen over the last day or so is that Toriyama might, with no exaggeration, have inspired more artists than anyone else in modern history. So many people making their own “Saiyan-sonas” or being inspired to make manga of their own…we may truly never know how far his reach really was at the end of the day. But we do know that the “Big Three” of Shonen Jump throughout the 2000s can be attributed to Toriyama, as the likes of Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto and Tite Kubo are all big fans of Toriyama, with Oda in particular worshiping the ground he walks on. Kubo is also on the record for stating that a letter from Toriyama, when his first draft of what would later become BLEACH was rejected, gave him the encouragement to try again and later be accepted into the magazine. And now these authors have gone on to inspire the next generation and so on and so on.

Over the last few years, we’ve lost a lot of creative figures in the manga industry. Toriyama now joins other similar legends, such as Yu-Gi-Oh creator Kazuki Takahashi as well as Berserk author Kentaro Miura. It is the end of an era, arguably of many eras, and it can be hard to imagine the future, but the Earth continues to spin and as Toriyama has inspired and influenced others, we too will inspire future generations with our work. It isn’t enough to call him a legend; he truly was in a league of his own, a legend among legends, and the outpouring of love for him across all manner of social media posts in just a little over a day alone is a testament to his immense talent and reach. I can think of no greater sendoff than the one that Eiichiro Oda gave him: “I pray for his soulful rest in peace. May heaven be the joyous world he envisioned.”

Rest in peace, and thanks for everything, Mr. Toriyama.

-B

[notthemonthbutmarch]

Inital Reactions to Natlan characters

Spoilers for the Ignition Teaser

First of all, way to many of these bitches are white. We just had a nation full of white bitches, it was France, it’s time for melanin.

Anyways

Mualani and Kachina are adorable. I’m hoping Kachina is their giveaway character because I genuinely like her. Plus I’m on a self proclaimed mission to have every Geo character. Right now I’m missing Albedo, Chiori, and now Kachina.

Why did everyone start obsessing over him immediately? He was the palest of the bunch and his design and personality is just dendro Xiao. I think his little Dino friend there is more interesting than he is. At least Mualani seems interesting, she looks like a Pokémon trainer to me. He’s just… boy.

This girl is was the very first new character we saw and she cemented that I set my hopes to high. Nonetheless, I like her vibe?? She might be an introvert, but instead of the “uwu I’m so shy don’t talk to me” personality, she’s more like “ew go away get out.” Apparently her name is Citlali. I like her, wish she was fucking darker but I like her.

HELLO?? Oh my Geo lover heart… I’m being given a hot geo woman! And she’s of the darker variety, so that’s nice. She’s giving Lisa. I’m someone who gets hooked on personalities though so I’m hoping she’s written well so that I like her immediately and this actually pull her. Again, self proclaimed geo main. I have to collect geo.

I am BEGGING Hoyo to make Iansan a four star. Please make her easy to get. Put her on a banner I’ll pull on. Don’t do me like you did Heizou. An absolute must pull in my eyes. Crossing my fingers that she’s a four star and is on Xilonen’s banner (there’s no way Xilonen is gonna be four star if she is that’s a crime).

I’m sorry she’s the worst one out of them all. League of Legend looking ass. She’s screaming “sex appeal character.” I get it, it’s a gacha game, but I just feel like Genshin saw the success of Clorinde and tried to do it again but… pyro? I think? Anyways pretty easy pass. If she turns out to have a great personality I’m gonna tear my hair out.

Mavuika is… interesting. On one hand, I love her fiery hair, I love her eyes, I love her personality. On the other… she looks like she belongs in NASCAR. She looks more like a racer chick in an arcade racing game than Fire God of Fantasy Mexico. However, I’m hoping my prayers have been answered. Mavuika seems strong AND well respected by her people. It isn’t an either or situation like Ei or Nahida (I’ve explained in a much older post). It seems like people hold her in reverence, respect her strong, and she in turn respects her people and honors their strength with competition. She’s strong, she’s respected, she has a cool personality— the only downside to her rn is her pale ass sick and racer chick outfit. I think Genshin got a bit to excited about ZZZ, she looks like she belongs there.

I have more thoughts about Mavuika, but I feel like those should be saved for their own post.

Now who is that? Who are you??? I can’t get a good read on them, but guessing by their chest I think it’s a man. Who is this guy and what’s he doing with Capitano??? Where is Columbina??? Where is my murder angel???

I cannot deny that Capitano looks sick. I bet his lore is gonna be insane. I’m still holding out for a Columbina appearance and I really hope she gets to be playable, but if we somehow skip her and get Capitano instead… I don’t think I’d be to mad about it. I want the ladies to win but Capitano is just… interesting. Idk.

[captainfightingflower]

Y’know, instead of having me JUST complain about why i don’t like the direction of Tee K.O. 2, why don’t i actually talk about how i think they should’ve taken it? (As well as a personally better suggestion on how they could’ve celebrated their 10 year legacy with The Jackbox Party Packs)

I’ve just been all angry when it comes to the 10th pack and how especially awful the pack’s sequel treats both casual players AND fans, but i’m frankly tired of just airing out my frustrations! I want to add a bit more positivity by stating at least how i would’ve taken Tee K.O. 2, as well as taking it’s current direction and applying it in a less fan game-y way. If you’re interested in how i’d take the Tee K.O. 2, as well as how i’d take the concept of multiple Packs collaborating in one game: click “Keep reading”. It’s significantly more positive than my other posts about the 10th pack, that’s for certain!

So what i’d do for Tee K.O. 2 is that i’d play around with the fact that the Pack supports multiple languages, and have the sequel capitalize on that fact and embrace it! I present: Tee K.O. 2: World Tour.

Since the original is based around Japanese mythology and Yõkai, why not evolve from that concept? The shirt making tournament has moved from a National to International and there’s a bunch of players from around the globe wanting to bring home the title of victory!

Each player represents a different mythological creature from different parts of the world, like North Africa’s Were-hyena, Egypt’s Anubis, Philippines's Manananggal, Russia’s Baba Yaga, Mexico’s Chupacabra, and so on and so forth.

This would also explain why the original game’s Tournament Master isn’t hosting: because since the game no longer taking place in a national tournament, it wouldn’t make sense for him to still be hosting. So for a new host (or set of hosts for the other languages) to be in charge of the international league, it excuses the host’s absence without feeling like he was killed off!

It sounds like such an obvious step forward, so obvious that i came up with the idea back when i was making my own Jackbox Party Pack 10 concept years before it’s official announcement, but didn’t go through with it due to already having an idea for a sequel conceptualized. With hindsight: it would probably make me look like a prophet if i actually decided to go with my Tee K.O. 2 idea over Trivia Murder Party 3 and make the official Tee K.O. 2 look that much worse in comparison!

Now what would i do to celebrate The Jackbox Party Pack’s 10 year legacy? Well i’d move the 10th pack to next year! Because i don’t think a typical Party Pack would be able to fully capture everything without sacrificing it’s integrity.

So i’d make this year only have one game as an individual release...based on the Mario Party series!

Since Mario Party is about the Mario cast just having fun together in Party game filled with minigames, with several references to the games built into the mechanics; it would be PERFECT for an indulgent celebration of the Party Packs! ESPECTIALLY since the packs are based on BOARD GAMES like the Mario Party series!!

Because the hosts deciding that they had enough of hosting and to just goof off and have a little fun together this year, with a bunch of minigames referencing Jackbox Games’ history would make for an incredible love letter to the fans, as well as not be as blatantly alienating to casual players since “Hey, it’s a celebration, it’s to be expected that i’d be this referential to it’s history.” instead of just trampling on Tee K.O.’s integrity with really bad adaptions of character designs that can’t even reference their own games properly (i’m looking at you Quiplash player design and Alien victory animation).

What about the buildup? Simple! Show the minigames slowly throughout the year to generate enough hype for a board reveal! What are they based on? Well each of the pack’s boot-up screens of course! What about the hosts who don’t have bodies? Well there’s multiple ways to go about this: have them be hosts for their specific boards, allowing them to clash and bounce off each other like fans have been wanting for YEARS, or have them host minigames that reference the games that they are in. Or do both! Both is good.

Fans would go fucking crazy for something like that, and i doubt casual players would be against such a fun concept! Would it be bad? Considering how their Party Packs have been going, they’d probably fuck it up somehow, but i wanna be optimistic here and say that’ll at least be a fun novelty. And who knows? It’ll probably generate more hype for games that haven’t gotten much love and increase their chances of them getting a well deserved sequel! 

And that’s what i’d do, what do you think? I’d love to know your opinions on my idea, what you’d do differently, and if you’d even prefer to have my idea over what we’re getting. I’d love to have a civil debate about it and i’m pretty open to hearing other people’s ideas!

[weareyour4]

Fancy a game of padel? - lilyfreeman4576 

You may not have heard of this sport yet, but it won’t be long until everyone has as it is currently the fastest growing sport in the world and the UK…

Padel is best described as mix between tennis and squash with the court taking the shape of a tennis court but is surrounded by glass walls and a wire cage. The racquet-based game is played with a very slightly modified tennis ball, which is allowed to hit the glass after it bounces to keep the game in play. As the ball is able to bounce of the wall, it is much faster paced game than tennis and allows the sport to be picked up more easily.

The rules are very similar to tennis too, so any previous knowledge and racquet skills are easily transferrable to the game. Padel is unique because it must be played in doubles, so a game always includes four people. This is what makes pádel so sociable too and really sold the sport to me.  Personally, I have set up the first University pádel society at the University of Leeds after discovering it in Spain. In 6 short months we have managed to grow to over 100 members who enjoy meeting and playing with new people.

A bit about its history…

Padel first came from Mexico in the 1960s, when a young businessman couldn’t fit a regular tennis court in his garden, so he built a modified version. He built tall walls around the court to prevent the ball from going into his neighbour’s garden, or from going over the cliff face on the other side. Padel is now a widely played game in South America and many parts of Europe, in particular Spain and Portugal. The game is rapidly picking up popularity across the UK, with the help of Jurgen Klopp, David Beckham, Venus Williams and Andy Murray all being advocates for the sport. The UK only has roughly 150 courts but is expected to grow and expand as the number of people who play increases.

Padel is able to cater to all needs and ages, which I think is rare for sport. The other day, when I was playing at my local club, there was a court of children aged 6 having a lesson on one side of me, and four elderly gentlemen catching up over a game on the other side. I am yet to meet someone who plays the game and doesn’t enjoy it – it really is addictive.

So, if you are looking for a new hobby, or new sport, or even a new way of meeting people, have a search on the LTA website about where your closest court is and give it a go! I can’t wait for the sport to grow and gain more and more popularity. I’d love to know of any other experiences people have had with the sport too!

[niseamstories]

10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist

Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,

It’s been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured it’s time for another one. I’m guessing the topic is a little less “sexy”, but I’d find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.

I’ve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.

First off, I’m aware that fiction is fiction, and it’s not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and that’s all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, I’m not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.

1)  Realism Has an Effect: While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isn’t quite right, even if we don’t notice or can’t put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.

2)  Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.

3)  Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the “island continents”: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, it’s deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earth’s, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it weren’t so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized – you can’t cross an entire ocean on a raft.

4)  Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nation’s capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless there’s a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.

 Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, don’t place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because it’s cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.

 5)  Realistic Settlement Sizes: As I’ve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii  the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.

 6)  Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isn’t an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: you’ll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasy’s ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germany’s biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. I’ll say it again: it’s fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.

 7)  World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.

 8)  Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a “show-off map” drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your world’s technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldn’t use that aesthetic.

9)  Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the reader’s attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, that’s the information you’ll get, and not “in 100 meters, you’ll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?” Traditional maps follow the same principle: if there’s a road leading a two day’s march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.

10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but it’s still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. It’s embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, that’s a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelago’s history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as it’s usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as “Mighty Hill,” a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning “Coarse Sands”). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became “Uunili,” Lehō e Āhe became “Lehowai.” Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got “English” monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, a—you guessed it—port on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Cale’s Hope, a settlement named after a businessman’s mining venture. It’s all details, and chances are that most readers won’t even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.

I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll leave it at that—if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If you’re looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesn’t know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. It’s set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.

Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian Müller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguist’s name is David Müller (no, they’re not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)

[starcrossedsamantha]

( brie larson , cis woman, she/her) the stowe ski resort welcomes SAMANTHA PARKS! they’re a 32 year-old ACTRESS/WRITER/DIRECTOR. the staff says they’re quite ENDEARING, but i heard they can also be pretty ANXIOUS. rumor has it that HER FAVORITE FILM IS THE LOVE WITCH, and they like to spend their free time STREAMING ON TWITCH.

Hi friends!!! I am so excited to be bringing this lil golden retriever here to Taos. I’m gonna post an intro here so y’all can get to know her! I’d love to plot with y’all whatever connections or plots you’d like though :)

-Samantha Desmond Parks was born to a doting, southern as they come family in Georgia. The eldest of two siblings, she has always been a chipper spirit from the moment she entered this world. She embodies what the youth call ‘golden retriever energy’ and has it in spades.

-Growing up, Samantha glued herself to the TV, watching old VHS tapes of classic films that her folks grew up on. Considering her middle name, it makes quite a bit of sense that she’d be reared on such movies. From that point on, she decided she wanted to be a movie star just like the icons she grew up on.

-This manifested in her taking acting classes and booking local gigs whenever she could. There certainly seemed to be a demand for a bubbly young blonde, which was certainly not her first choice. She was a dork, first and foremost, and wanted to be involved in projects that were far more up that alley. However, she took whatever she could get to be booked.

-Over the next few years, the gal who took her inspiration from the likes of Gloria Swanson and Vincent Price became WAY more mainstream than she’d ever anticipated. She was one of the hottest young actresses, starring in a slew of successful pictures. Not only that, but somewhere along the way she’d manage to garner some sort of rivalry with a fellow blonde actress: Evangeline Marston.

-While the two couldn’t have been more opposite, it seemed as though Hollywood wanted to pit them together to be this century’s Davis vs Crawford in a way that Lohan and Duff could never. Sam never did anything to spurn this on besides take up projects and keep doing what she thought she was supposed to be doing.

-This extended into her achieving her an exceptional goal for herself. She somehow managed to land herself the opportunity to create a true passion project, a love letter to the Hollywood she grew up on. Not only did it garner her critical and commercial success, but it signaled the pivot she’d been craving in her career for almost a decade. Come Oscar night, the Samantha Parks managed to walk away with not one, not two, but THREE academy awards (best supporting actress, best original screenplay, and best director). It seemed as though she was entirely untouchable.

-Yet, the Cloud 9 sensation of being a virtuoso came with some bitter realization. Sam caught wind of what happened with Evangeline and realized that every decision she’d made in her career lead up to this moment and she was determined to make it right.

-Taking a break after an exhausting awards season, Samantha’s people were able to track down Evangeline at a ski resort in New Mexico. Armed with the best of intentions and the pitch of a lifetime, Sam’s bound for Stowe Ski Resort in the hopes of setting things right with Evangeline and maybe getting some much needed R&R.

Personality: Much of Samantha’s success can be attributed to her personality. Citing Dolly Parton as her personal icon and hero, she is definitely as sweet as southern style sweet tea. She’s nice to everyone, will do anything for you, and is all around a supportive and positive person to be around. She’s definitely got her special interests, however, and has cultivated quite the audience on Twitch and YouTube streaming all sorts of ‘cozy’ video games. Despite this easy, breezy persona, there is an extremely anxious perfectionist chilling just under the surface. She doesn’t like upsetting people and wrestles with that aspect of her image to this day. It’s partially what fueled her desire to come to Stowe and make amends. She doesn’t want to be seen as some sort of career assassin, and is going to do everything in her power to make things right. 

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell “But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Transfer

Troy Bolton x Reader

Words: 4064

Summary: Moving schools isn’t easy. Moving to the rival school… Start of something new? Or complete disaster. 

Notes: I will stop writing for Troy when my love for him ceases… so never. (This is another one that is going to deal with bullying, even more so than the last one, so if that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to move along)

Warnings: Cyber bullying, angst

-

Nobody knew. That’s what you had to keep telling yourself. Nobody knew you or anything that had happened. Granted, that also meant you didn’t know anyone either. Strangers passed you without a second glance. This was good. If nobody noticed you, they wouldn’t attack. If you stayed invisible, you stayed safe. 

“Hey Chad, over here!” You were so busy looking at your new schedule that you didn’t see the basketball hurtling towards you. The ball hit you square in the chest, knocking the wind out of you and causing you to drop your books. “Oh gosh, I am so so so sorry.”

A boy crouched down in front of you, trying to gather up your papers before they were swept away under his classmates’ shuffling feet. 

“It’s okay,” You gasped, stilling trying to catch your breath. He helped pick up the last of your things and held out his hand to help you up. 

“I’m Troy.” He gave you a smile that would have made the entire cheer squad at West High swoon. You took his hand, feeling the blush on your cheeks. 

“Y/N.” So much for staying invisible. 

“Are you okay? That sounded like it hurt.” The apologetic puppy face was almost as cute as his smile. 

“I’ll be fine. I probably should have been paying more attention.” You laughed nervously. 

“And I should have caught the ball.” As he handed your things back to you, he caught a glimpse of your schedule. “Hey, you have Mrs. Darbus for homeroom!”

“Um, yeah, I was trying to find her room.” You anxiously tucked a hair behind your ear. 

“I can show you.” He offered, that gorgeous smile returning. “My friends and I have her too.”

“Drop something?” A blonde girl wearing the pinkest jacket you had ever seen held out Troy’s basketball. His smile strained. 

“Thanks Sharpay.” Her vicious gaze turned on you. 

“And who are you?” And here you thought all the scary girls went to West High. 

“I-uh-I’m-” You stuttered. Troy came to the rescue. 

“Look at the time! We’re all going to be late for homeroom if we don’t hurry.” He quickly ushered you away from Sharpay, helping you steer through the herd of students to Mrs. Darbus’ room. 

“Who was that?’ You whispered as seats started to fill up. 

“That was Sharpay Evans. The evil queen of East High. Just stay off her bad side and you should be fine.” He shuttered, grabbing his usual desk. All the seats around Troy were filled so you picked an empty desk in the back row. The scary blonde, along with a few other late comers got in the door just as the bell rang. 

“Troy, pass it.” One of the guys held out his hand. Troy threw him the basketball and he proceeded to spin the ball on his finger. “You ready for the game?” He grinned. 

“Are you kidding? The Knights are so going down.” Troy made a hoop with his arms and his friend tossed the ball in. The room pretended to cheer and you couldn’t help but smile at the antics. Your teacher wasn’t as amused. 

“Mr Danforth, Mr. Bolton, it seems you’ve lost your way to the court. This is a classroom. I will be seeing you two superstars-”

“In detention.” They finished grimly. 

“You must be new.” The girl next to you whispered. “She had gorgeous brown hair and a kind smile. “I know how you feel. I moved here last year. I’m Gabriella.” 

“I’m Y/N.” Your cell phone buzzed in your pocket. You opened up your messages, feeling that awful icy dread that you had tried to get away from.

“Miss Y/L/N, correct?” Mrs. Darbus stood over you, holding a bucket. 

“Y-yes.” 

“While your former school may have allowed electronics, I certainly do not.” She motioned to your phone. You slumped in your chair and dropped it into the bucket. 

“Sorry ma’am.”

“Not to worry I’m sure you’ll make plenty of new friends in detention.” She returned to the front of the room. You didn’t dare argue, burying your face in your hands with a sigh. You felt the words of the message resonate in your head. 

You can run. But you can’t hide. 

-

Detention didn’t seem so bad. You mostly just had to help paint sets for the end of the year one-act. You had your face buried behind a picket fence when a pair of blue eyes peaked at you between the boards. 

“Need some help?” Troy offered, leaning over the fence. 

“Be careful of the paint!” You exclaimed before his hands got covered. You swiped your arm across your forehead and Troy started to snicker. “What?”

“You’ve got a little…” He motioned to the spot above your eyebrow. Horrified, you scrambled to find a rag to clean off the paint. Troy laughed, but not in a mocking way. You couldn’t help but laugh with him. How long had it been since you laughed with someone? Let alone an outrageously cute guy?

“I meant to say thanks earlier, for helping me find Mrs. Darbus’ class.” You said, getting back to work on the fence. 

“It’s the least I could do after missing the ball.” He sat down next to you and grabbed a brush to help. 

You heard an outburst of laughter from across the stage and winced. You whirled your head around and saw a group of students messing around with funny looking masks from the costume trunk. You exhaled slowly to calm down. They weren’t laughing at you. 

“You okay?” Troy wondered, noticing your sudden change in demeanor. You forced a smile and said your well rehearsed line. 

“I’m fine.” 

For the first time, somebody saw through it. Troy may not have given any indication, but he could tell that something had upset you. He just nodded and smiled. 

“Are you coming to the game this weekend?” He changed the topic excitedly, hoping to distract you from whatever had made you upset. 

“I don’t know yet.” You sighed. “I have a lot to catch up on and stuff to set up.” His face fell into that adorable pout and you just couldn’t say no. “I can try and squeeze it in.” His eyes lit up. 

“Great!” Through his excitement, a slightly shy smile crept onto his lips. “I was kind of hoping that you’d want to get a pizza or something after the game?”

You tried to keep your jaw from dropping. 

“Are you… asking me out?” You gasped. He grinned. 

“Yeah. I guess I am.” His fingers brushed against yours as both reached for the paint. You blushed. 

“Then, um, yeah. I’d love to go out with you after the game.” You were smiling brighter than you had in a long time, but still, a little voice in your head was telling you this was a bad idea. Stay invisible. Stay invisible. 

“Awesome.” Troy was beaming, making that little voice of doubt disappear. “I promise, I play much better than what you saw in the hall.” You both laughed. Wow he has a nice laugh. 

Mrs. Darbus announced that the time was up and that all prisoners of detention were free to go. Honestly, you were kind bummed. With Troy helping you with the fence, you were actually having a good time. You had a skp in your step as you walked home. 

“Hi mom! Hi dad!” You greeted, snatching an apple for a snack. Your mom’s voice called from the backyard. 

“Hey! How was your first day?” She was elbows deep in tulip bulbs even though it was late January. Then again, you were in New Mexico.

“Really god, actually.” You grinned. “I met some really nice people and got invited to the basketball game this weekend.”

“Woah, what happened to laying low for a while?” She rubbed the dirt off her hands on her apron. Her usual perky cheerleader smile was gone, replaced by a glare of concern. “You know the basketball game is against West High, don’t you?”

“I-” You hadn’t thought about that. Trying to seem confident, you crossed your arms. “I can’t hide forever, mom.”

“Those girls are going to be there.” She said, putting her hands on her hips. “Wouldn’t it be better to just stay home and not drag out the skeletons in your closet?”

“They’re just cheerleaders, mom! They aren’t hitmen.” You exclaimed. You knew that this was more about protecting her pride than your own. 

“Yeah, well, you used to be one of them and look how that turned out.” the disappointed stare she gave you hurt, but you tried not to show it. 

“I'm going to the game and I'm going out for pizza afterwards with one of my new friends.”

“Is that new friend a boy?” She spat. You ignored her. 

“I’m going whether that fits your little ‘laying low’ plan or not.” You stormed off, but not before you heard her muttering under her breath. 

“Haven’t you humiliated me enough?”

-

The next day, you walked with your head down. Your mother’s pessimism had definitely brought your sunny mood back down to earth. Leave it to her to ruin the one good thing you’d had in months. Your attempts to disappear worked well for the fist two periods. Nobody even noticed that you were there. 

Of course, that only lasted until Gabriella spotted you. The bubbly brunette was quick to join you while you tried to navigate your way to your next class. 

“I heard you’re going to the basketball game!” She said excitedly. “I didn’t think I was much of a sports person, but the school spirit here makes everything exciting.” 

“Yeah, I'm not sure.” You shrugged. After all, half of your classmates from West High would be there, including the girls that started all this. Rob would be on the court, playing against Troy. Oh no.

“Well you are welcome to come with me and Taylor. We’re going to have a movie night afterwards, too.” 

“I’m- uh- I’m supposed to be grabbing dinner with Troy after the game.” You muttered, the excitement of the date having faded into dread. 

“You have a date with Troy Bolton?” A shrill voice joined the conversation, stopping you in your tracks. The terrifying blonde was giving you an icy cold stare. “That was quick.” 

“I think it's sweet.” Gabriella countered. She gave you a smirk. “Who knows? Maybe it was love at first sight.” Your eyes fell to the tiled floor. 

“I think he was just being nice.” Your grim tone made her give you a look of concern. Sharpay smiled sarcastically. 

“Well isn’t that just like our Troy?” Her sneer made her annoyance very clear. She put her hands on her hips and began a deeper interrogation. “You’re from West High, aren’t you?” Before you could even answer, she continued. “Won’t that be awkward, coming to the basketball game? Why did you transfer? It’s a little weird, right? Transferring a month into the semester?” 

“Okay!” Gabriella exclaimed. “I think it’s time we all get to class, don’t you think?” Sherpa was clearly irked by the interruption and tossed her hair over shoulder. 

“I guess I’ll just see you both at the game.” She strutted away and you exhaled the breath you had been holding. 

“Thanks.” 

“Don’t worry about her.” Gabriella shrugged. “Sharpay is usually all bark and no bite.”

“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.” You said to yourself. 

After third period, it was time for lunch. You found the same empty table that you sat at the day before. You were used to eating alone by now. 

Somewhere in the lunchroom, a phone dinged, followed by laughter. You flinched, waiting for the taunting to start. Like before, however, they weren’t really laughing at you. Keeping your head low, you tuned out the loud chatter of the cafeteria. For a while, it really felt like you were invisible. Invisible and alone. 

“Mind if I join you?” 

You looked up and found Troy giving you a sweet smile. You shrugged in reply and he took that as confirmation that something was wrong. He sat down beside you as you toyed with the green beans on your plate. 

“Gabriella told me about Sharpay. She said you seemed pretty upset.” His words only elicited another shrug. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I’m here if you do.”

“I can’t go to the game.” You blurted. 

“What? Why?”

“I just can’t, Troy.” You kept your face down, so he couldn’t see your tears. “I can’t go out with you either.”

“Y/N, if I said something wrong-”

“Can’t you see I’m doing you a favor?” You slammed your hand down on the table and you finally looked up to see his hurt expression. You almost took it back. Then your phone buzzed ominously and you grabbed your backpack. “I’m really sorry, Troy. But if they saw us together, if they thought I was happy-”

“Who are you talking about?” He was worried now. “Who’s they?”

“Forget I said anything and just… forget me.” Clutching your phone in a tight fist, you ran out of the cafeteria. 

You weren’t sure if Troy followed you or not as you sprinted down the halls of East High. You didn’t read the text until you got out to the parking lot. There weren’t any words. Just that stupid video. 

It was the cheer squad’s Christmas party. There had been some tension between you and the other girls, but you hadn’t thought much of it. ‘Girls as close as you are bicker.’ your mom had said. So you went to the party. 

Amber, the cheer captain and your supposed best friend, told you that Rob Mannington wanted to talk to you. She knew how much of a crush you had on him. Problem was, so did she. 

When you found Rob, you thought the two of you were alone. He took off your jacket and said a bunch of sweet things as he leaned in for a kiss.

“I can’t do this.” He burst out laughing, pushing you away. Other girls from the cheer squad appeared, cackling like a bunch of Prada clad hyenas. Hurt and humiliated, you ran. 

After that, it just got worse. Text messages, online harassment, and eventually, someone took a picture in the locker room and posted it all around the school. Your mother immediately had you transfer to East High. She was ashamed of you and blamed you for the loss of her social status. She didn't care that you lost everything. 

You let out a frustrated and hopeless scream and threw your phone as hard as you could against the concrete. The device broke apart and you stared at it. It wasn’t until you felt a gentle hand on your shoulder that you let yourself cry. 

You turned around and were in Troy’s embrace without objection. You let this sweet and caring boy hold you tight while you sobbed. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He was just there. 

-

“Wow.” Troy blew out a long breathing, running his fingers through his hair. “And these were your friends?”

“I thought they were.” You sighed, wiping a fallen tear off your cheek. 

After your break down at lunch, Troy told you to meet him for homeroom. He told Mrs. Darbus that you were going through some stuff and needed a friend. So he brought you to his favorite spot in the whole school; the roof. And you told him everything. It was the first time that you’d really talked about what happened with anyone and it was nice to get it off your chest. 

“I’m really sorry that happened to you.” Troy put his hand on top of yours. “And I totally understand if you don’t want to come to the game. What those West High kids did… I can’t imagine what it was like.” 

“I felt like my whole life- all the cheerleading camps, the coaching from my perfect mother, kissing up to every spoiled girl with pom poms- it all meant nothing.” You were quiet for a moment, Troy’s thumb gently rubbing the back of your hand. With a deep breath and your head held high, you made your decision. “I’m going to that game.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to get thrown back into everything because of me.” The concern in his voice was more than either of your parents had shown. You gave him a small, but confident smile.

“No. I’m tired of hiding from them. I’m done being invisible.” With your new confidence, you leaned over and kiss his cheek. 

Troy’s face turned a light shade of pink as he grinned. 

“What was that for?’ He wondered sheepishly. Your smile was sincere. 

“For being the first real friend I’ve had in seventeen years.” You leaned your head on his shoulder and he entwined his fingers with yours. You had only known him for two days, but he already seemed to understand you better than anybody else in your life. 

He turned slightly and pressed his lips on top of your hair, lingering there for a moment. Troy couldn’t understand his own feelings, but after less than 48 hours, you seemed to have won over the basketball captain’s heart.

-

You couldn’t hide that you were nervous. From the sounds of it, the gym was already pretty full. Even from outside the doors, you could hear the West High cheer section warming up. Gabriella gave you an encouraging smile to try and calm your nerves. 

“Remember, there is always plan B.” She said, reminding you of the message Troy had sent earlier. 

I can’t wait to see you in the stands tonight! Don’t forget you can alway sleeve if you need to. Gabriella is all set for an emergency escape. Look for #14. I’ll see you then!

You wished he was with you, but he belonged with his team. You could do this. Rob, Amber, the other cheerleaders; none of them mattered anymore. They could taunt you all they wanted, but you weren’t alone. Besides, watching the Wildcats whoop the Knights would be the perfect way to leave them all behind. 

Gabriella grabbed your hand and navigated through the crowd to get inside. The air was buzzing with excitement and you let the energy charge through you. When Amber’s eagle eyes spotted you, you just kept walking. 

After finding a good spot in the student section, you waited s the time ticked by. The gym was filling up, but you could still see Amber whispering to the other girls and pointing in your direction. You inhaled sharply and looked away, feeling the panic begin to resurface. 

“Look, there he is.” Gabriella was almost drowned out by the cheering crowd as the Wildcats ran onto the court. Sure enough, at the front of the pack of jerseys was #14. As the team warmed up, he scanned the crowd. He shot the ball into the hoop and gave you a big grin. 

Then entered the Knights. When you spotted Rob, you didn't feel those school-girl butterflies you used to get whenever you saw him. Now you were just angry. You were just a joke to him. Before you could look away, he saw you. With a smirk, he made a basket. 

Troy noticed the change in your expression and followed your gaze to the cocky player across the court. He felt a rush of defensive determination. He would make sure that the boy who broke your heart wouldn’t be making any points tonight. 

The game started off well for the Knights, with a basket and two foul throws. Their cheerleaders yelled and shook their pom-poms. You couldn’t help but feel like Amber’s sporty sneers were meant for you. 

Rob had stolen the ball and was sprinting towards the hoop. He threw it to one of his teammates, but a flash of red cut in between them. The crowd roared as Troy made it down the court for a basket. 

“Yeah Troy!” You shouted. Rob must have picked out your voice because he sent a furious glare in your direction. You just smiled. 

It was almost half time and the score was tied. Troy was guarding Rob as he dribbled down the court.  

“So Y/N’s your groupie too, huh Bolton?” He snapped. Troy tensed. 

“Just play the game, Mannington.”

“You know, I almost regretted rejecting her like that…” he smirked, “after that picture came out.” With Troy seething, he shoulder checked him out of the way and passed the ball for his teammate to score. The buzzer went off. 

“That marks halftime here folks; Wildcats 22, Knights 24.” 

East High fans breathed a collective sigh as the teams made their way into the locker rooms. 

“What’s wrong with Troy?” Gabriella wondered. You watched him storm angrily into the locker room, his whole body shaking furiously. Whatever Rob had said had set him off and a deep fear settled in your head. 

What did Rob tell him?

-

You bit your lip anxiously. If Troy made this free throw, they would tie the score again. 

“Come on Troy.” You uttered. 

He took a few deep breaths and quickly glanced up at you. He had to make this. He inhaled slowly and dedicated his focus to the hoop ahead of him. As he exhaled, he made the shot. As the ball swished in the net, the fans cheered loudly. 

Now it was the Knights’ ball and with less than a minute on the clock, it was a mad dash to stay out of overtime. Rob was going in for the shot. He planted his feet and tossed the ball. It seemed like the whole gym was holding its breath. 

The ball just bounced off of the rim and Troy snatched it out of the air, earning a chorus of cheers from the crowd. He passed the ball to Zeke who bounded to the basket and dunked the ball for the winning points. 

The buzzer was lost in the shouts from his team and from the ecstatic fans. Disappointed West High fans started to file out of the gym while East High students and families flooded the court. Troy was pulled into a crushing hug by his parents, his eyes searching the faces of people nearby. It took him awhile to find you, but he wasn’t the only one. 

“Rob told me that you found a new guy to creep on.” Amber laughed. “The captain of the basketball team? Really, Y/N, don’t you think that’s aiming a little high? You don’t really think that dreamboat Troy Bolton would be interested in someone like you?” Troy, hearing the conversation, stepped in.

“Hey are you ready to go?” He put a hand on your arm affectionately. Startled by his sudden appearance, you just nodded. “Great! I’m going to go shower and I’ll be back out soon.” He looked at Amber. “Can you believe it? This amazing girl transfers to East High and she agrees to go out with me. I must be crazy lucky or something, I know.” 

Baffled, Amber stomped off to find her posse. You just look at Troy, stunned. Was he just saying all that to get her to go away? As if he read your mind, he took your hand in his and brought it up to his lips. 

“I meant it.” He said and you got lost in his sincere eyes.”I am super lucky that you wound up at East High. That I found you.” A grin spread across his face. “And I am very excited for our date.”

“Oh, so we are officially calling it a date?” You teased. He laughed. 

“That’s what I was hoping for yeah.” You paused, your smile dropping a little. 

“Troy, what did Rob say to you just before half time?” You waited for him to say some rumor that had been spread from your school. Something awful that he would never forgive you for. Troy just smiled and shook his head. 

“Nothing important.” He thought for a moment before quickly kissing your cheek. When he stepped back, you were beaming. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.” He started to push through the people around you. “And Troy?”

“Yeah?” His smile could have knocked you off your feet.

“I’m lucky I found you too.” 

-

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination;  @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks

[justmeinabigolworld]

Fancuries FYC!

Hello!  Today, I’d like to talk about my two main fanseries just in time for the Fancuries!  I know I don’t have much out, so I probably won’t do very well, but I’d like to participate regardless.  It sounds fun!  Besides, the Fancuries seems like a good way to find new fanseries to look at!

The two fanseries I will be taking about today are Forever Precure (only the main story, not the planned prequel or sequel) and Candy Love Precure!  Everything is under the cut.

First, I’ll talk about Forever.  Forever Precure is a fanseries with themes of loss and grief.  The story itself can be found here, and the wiki is here.

In a plane separate from the physical world, two gods are constantly fighting: Nyx, the goddess of Earth, and Lux, the god of strife.  Nyx fights to keep Lux from harming Earth, for she knows that he would lay it to waste.  The gods were at a stalemate until the year 2015, when Lux used his power to create beings known as the Children of Lux, who would serve him by terrorizing the people of Earth with cyborg animals known as Chimeras. As the collective fear of the world's populace grew, a rift began to open, connecting Lux's plane with the physical world. If the rift were to grow large enough, Lux could finally leave his home plane and wreak havoc on all life. In response to this, Nyx created fairies that could distribute special rings to girls who had the right amount of compassion and courage. These girls used the rings (called PreRings) to transform into warriors known as Precure.

Many years later, a jaded ex-Precure named Sophie Wilson moves with her mother to Santa Barbara, far away from her old life in Maine.  Sophie seeks to put her past as Cure Evergreen behind her, having retired after the deaths of her four teammates.  However, her team’s old fairy, Kiki, has come to Santa Barbara too, since he knows that the city will soon be targeted for the first time.

When Sophie goes to her new school, she meets a group of three friends: Marley Hart, Erin Evans-Zhao, and Tiffany O’Brien.

Marley dreams of becoming a Precure.  A huge Precure fangirl, she has a compassionate and outgoing personality, and she wishes to protect the world and the people she loves.  People sometimes say she’s too naïve, but Marley is still dead-set on her goal.  Tiffany, her best friend since first grade, shares this goal.

Erin, on the other hand, has no interest in fighting as a Precure, so she’s very confused when Kiki comes to her house to try to recruit her.  At first, she rejects him - it’s hard enough for her to not disappoint her parents, and she’s afraid of dying in battle - but as the situation worsens, her mind begins to change...

However, when the Children of Lux attack sooner than expected, it is Marley who first becomes a Precure - Cure Daybreak - in order to defend the ones she loves.

Okay, now onto the designs!  I used a site called Charat Genesis to make them (because I suck at drawing).

This is Marley:

She’s a kind girl, but she can sometimes push herself beyond her limits trying to please everyone.  She’s also a nerd and a fangirl - she loves video games, anime, and the Precure!  Her favorite Precure is Cure Poinsettia, a girl from Mexico.

Here she is as Cure Daybreak:

She’s very quick to jump into battle, and her punches come hard and fast.  She likes to mimic moves that she’s seen on TV.  Her finisher is Precure Daybreak Split.

This is Erin:

Her mother is from China, while her father is American, and she sometimes feels like she doesn’t belong to either group.  She’s pretty average in terms of schoolwork, which irritates her parents and causes them to praise her little sister instead.  Though she’s shy, she will not hesitate to stand up for herself when someone goes too far (usually Tiffany).  She also loves to draw, as it seems to be the only thing she’s good at.

Here she is as Cure Violet:

She’s a bit hesitant to leap into the fray, preferring to provide a support role from a distance.  Her finisher is Precure Violet Sketch.

This is Sophie:

Once a shy but optimistic girl, a year of fighting as Cure Evergreen hardened her into a cynic.  She is hesitant to make new friends, as she’s afraid of replacing her dead teammates, and she also fears that she’ll lose her new friends too.  She and Erin play the viola in the school’s orchestra, though she’s not as enthusiastic about it as she once was.  She hates the whole Precure system for making preteen and teenage girls fight, and she resents Nyx and Kiki for enabling girls to go to their deaths.

Here she is as Cure Evergreen:

Even after coming out of a months-long retirement, she’s still an experienced veteran Precure, and she’s the strongest girl in her new team.  Her fighting style is not graceful or cool, but it gets the job done.  Her finisher is Precure Evergreen Roots, and she can now summon the Evergreen Viola.

Now, before we get into the midseason Precure, here are two other important characters.

First up is Nyx, goddess of Earth.

Though Nyx cannot fully leave her home plane, she can send down a tiny bit of her consciousness and power to make a humanlike avatar for herself. She does care about the girls that become Precure, but she values the overall safety of Earth over their lives.

And here’s Tiffany:

Like Marley, Tiffany is a huge Precure fangirl who hopes to become one in the near future.  She’s been Marley’s best friend and next-door neighbor since first grade, and she can get quite jealous of anyone who Marley is also friends with.  She knows that Marley is Cure Daybreak, and as such she’s been introduced to Kiki and Nyx.  However, when she asked Kiki if he could make her a Precure, Kiki said that she lacked the potential to become one.  Tiffany hasn’t been taking this very well, but at least Marley is there for her.

And now, ladies and gentlemen and non-binary folks, I present to you the midseason Precure...Veni, otherwise known as Cure Pixel!

Originally a villainous Child of Lux, Veni is bullied by her supposed teammates.  She is interested in video games and singing, but the other Children mock her for this.  The only person who seems sympathetic to her plight is Cure Daybreak - the enemy!  When Veni’s heart begins to waver, Lux decides to absorb her, but Veni is saved by the newborn fairy Chimi, who gives her a PreRing.  Though Veni has a hard time transitioning to normal life and getting adopted in a world that hates her kind, she eventually gains the support of Erin and Sophie.

Here she is as Cure Pixel:

She’s a pretty good fighter, having experience fighting the Precure in the past.  Her finisher is Precure Pixel Deletion, a finisher even stronger than Evergreen’s!

Also, the fairies in Forever Precure are little winged monkeys!  I can’t draw them though.

Okay, that’s it for Forever Precure!  Now, onto Candy Love!

Candy Love Precure is a fanseries with themes of candy (duh) and healthy versus unhealthy relationships.

For eighty years, the Candy Kingdom has been ruled by the tyrannical Queen Shirley - queen in name only, as she took over the kingdom by force after the previous ruler was deposed by the legendary Precure in 1942.  Furthermore, Queen Shirley is attempting to wipe out a certain species of fairy (this species consists of reindeer fairies with candy cane horns) since one helped the legendary Precure attempt to fight back.  This fairy, Mentha, is on the run.  After a close brush with Pectin, the queen’s most trusted minion, Mentha manages to escape to Earth, looking for aid for his species and the Candy Kingdom as a whole.  He finds three girls who are willing to help, and they become Precure using Mentha’s Candy Charms.

For this fanseries, I made the Precure with this dollmaker: https://www.dolldivine.com/candy-anime-fashion.php

No civilian forms this time, sorry!

First up is Gwen Mortia, AKA Cure Bonbon:

She’s a cheerful girl who loves candy and is very supportive of her friends.  Though she can tell that her friend Ryan has feelings for her, she has a crush on her friend Stacey...what’s a girl to do?  She’s considered dating Ryan to make him feel better; after all, everyone is always going on about what a nice boy he is.  But that just doesn’t feel right.

Next is Stacey Miller, AKA Cure Butterscotch:

Stacey is a trans girl, and while she sometimes wishes that she was more like the other girls she knows, she won’t back down from being who she truly is.  She’s quite mature, with a dry wit.  Though she thinks Mentha is hiding something, she agrees to become a Precure anyway when monsters attack her house.

Last but not least, here’s Isabella Choi, AKA Cure Lollipop!

She’s a neat, quiet girl who mostly keeps to herself.  Her grades are amazing, but she feels unfulfilled.  Secretly, she loves YA romance books, and she hopes to have a romance like the ones in the books one day.  However, the only person who shows interest in her is Pectin, of all people!  He’s offered to let her join Queen Shirley’s side many times, though she always refuses.  

And here are the legendary Precure!  They are ladies from Montgomery who became Precure in 1941, while America was embroiled in the second world war.

First up is Cure Peppermint:

And here’s Cure Gumdrop:

Okay, that’s all!  Thank you for your consideration.

[taketheringtolohac]

i’ve been working on the most self indulgent au for about a week now and I thought i’d share my thoughts. now presenting... my ace attorney blaseball au! including teams, positions, modifications and more about all the ace attorney characters i could think of and how they would play blaseball. you can also find it on ao3 here, but ive included all the information i have below the cut!

Blase Attorney (Blaseball Ace Attorney AU)

Phoenix- 

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: Seeker

Details: one of the first replacements in the game, he was originally just a blaseball fan who was following around miles edgeworth his childhood friend to his games (disguised as him going to see Larry play) and sort of wished that he could play so he could get closer to miles and is at a magic/steaks game that miles is pitching when someone gets incinerated and suddenly he’s on the field in a jersey with a glove and that really messes him up, he's a pretty good player not a star player but definitely a solid one, gets the seeker mod in the season 19 tarot reading

Notable Forbidden Knowledge:  REALLY high martyrdom

Maya

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: Haunted

Details: she replaced Mia when she was incinerated and isn’t a season 1 player but has been here so long that it FEELS like she is, isn’t great at the game and has like really bad forbidden knowledge stats but she occasionally hits a surprise dinger and the fans love her so they infuse her and she becomes a serviceable batter, is constantly filled with guilt and emotions about being the person who replaced her sister she gets the haunted mod in an election

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high base thirst, really good divinity that only gets better after her infuse

Edgeworth- 

Team: Dallas Steaks

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: season one player who didn’t really want to join blaseball but he took it in stride and he wasn’t very good at first but he got a blessing that MADE him good and he’s miraculously been on the team the whole time, originally placed in good league because Fran was in Evil and von Karma wanted them to dominate the game and become the best in their respective leagues, still one of the best players in the game, his dad still dies somehow, refuses to “buy into” the dad bit from the steaks and insists that he was just placed here

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: EXCEPTIONAL ruthlessness (one of the highest in the game), good other stats as well, just a really solid PITCHING statline, his other stuff isn’t good

Franziska- 

Team: Hades Tigers

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Friend of Crows

Details: season one player who fans LOVE even though she hates everything about the game and the circumstances in which she’s here, she’s a naturally good player but she lets up a lot of home runs, she receives the friend of crows modifier in season 10 much to her dismay, ALMOST pitched a perfect season and then absolutely RUINED it in the last game and it crushed her

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: higher highs than miles but also lower lows, in particular her overpowerment isn’t very good, she is also a more well rounded player and would also be a fine batter (solid thwack)

Gumshoe-

Team: Originally on the LA Unlimited Tacos, then feedbacked to the San Fransisco Lovers

Position: Batter

Modifications: Siphon, Attractor

Details: season one player that is beloved by the fans and he’s decent at the game but he always tries to steal bases but he is so bad at it, he’s the teams siphon but he NEVER drinks blood except to draw a walk, he ends up getting redacted because of consumer attacks and is probably one of the first to do so despite him having QUITE a bit of soul, he becomes Wyatt Gumshoe in the Wyatt Masoning

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: GREAT thwackability, bad everything else which makes for a really interesting player to say the least

Athena- 

Team: Miami Dale

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: POWERFUL ARMS also she is a replacement player she probably becomes a replacement after Simon does and she got into blaseball because of that cute flowers pitcher and now she’s here but she LOVES Miami and she LOVES being bad at the game, she leans really hard into the neon aesthetic

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: good unthwackability and ok ruthlessness, shakespeareanism is her highest stat, would also be a great batter and has really good thwackability and divinity, GREAT vibes

Apollo- 

Team: Mexico City Wild Wings

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: founding member of the wings legal team who’s another replacement player that FEELS like he’s a season 1 player, he isn’t very good in general but REALLY good for the wings and is probably the mvp at some point but like he’s a really inconsistent hitter but when he DOES hit its POWERFUL and he gets a lot of RBI’s 

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: SHOCKINGLY good musclitude and ground friction, GOD awful moxie

Larry- 

Team: Dallas Steaks

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: season one player who is like the teams designated player we beat up on because they’re awful but we love them, gets shadowed in the expansion era because he just wasn’t good anymore and he REFUSED to leave, he is the definition of “YOU CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS,” would always party but his forbidden knowledge is TRASH so it was never worth anything because he’s top ten in the league for career strikeouts

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: REALLY HIGH PATHETICISM HOLY SHIT but good ground friction and like, ok musclitude

Ema- 

Team: Kansas City Breath Mints

Position: Batter

Modifications: Fire Eater

Details: replaced the first player incinerated on the team so she has a lot of fans because she’s been here a while but like also her career is forever impacted by the fact that people mourned so deeply before really appreciating her and a lot of fans can never really love her in the same way, but she has fire eater now and WILL cut a bitch down to size, she’s also definitely been attacked by consumers though, she also parties a LOT

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: good defender, high omniscience and tenaciousness

Lang- 

Team: Houston Spies

Position: Batter

Modifications: Maximalist, Siphon

Details: replaced a SUPER popular player who was REALLY good at the game and struggled with a lot of the implications of their legacy but he ALSO became really good and a really iconic player to the team and eventually became a fan favorite, LITERALLY cannot stop freaking drinking blood hes so fucking massive now holy shit but like only his baserunning

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: PHENOMENAL baserunning just in general but his base thirst is low so he doesn’t actually steal that much, SUPER high moxie and musclitude

Kristoph-

Team: Baltimore Crabs

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Returned, Debt

Details: season 1 player who was a really aggressively middling player who had deceptively high stars and they could never get rid of him until he finally got incinerated in late season 6/early season 7 but he gets necromancy-d on accident and no one wanted this now he just haunts the league, he joined blaseball to get notoriety and some level of fame and convinced Klavier to join him

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high coldness and ok ruthlessness, unthwackability is fine, shakespeareanism is also good

Klavier- 

Team: Originally on the Crabs, but feedbacked to the Seattle Garages

Position: Batter

Modifications: Spicy

Details: he signed up when Kristoph did. because he said that this would be something good to do as brothers and they even signed to the same team, carcinization really freaked him out but he was a season 1 crab and no one knew what would happen, he Feedbacked in like season 6 and kris got incinerated really shortly after he feedbacked which messed him up, he loves the garages vibes WAY more than he liked the crabs

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high moxie and indulgence

Kay- 

Team: Charleston Shoe Thieves

Position: Batter

Modifications: Flippers

Details: shoe thieves, batter, she was originally a shadows player and just sat there doing great thief things until she got called up for having very sneaky good stats (rod.net style) where she singles a lot and then just steals her way to third/home, voted to trust her in season 11 and now she has cool flippers

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: really high basethirst and laserlikeness, also very high anticapitalism, good thwack subpar musclitude

Sebastian- 

Team: New York Millennials, possible feedback to the Thieves?

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: his dad was a famous blaseball player before the ILB so he signed him up to play and didn’t get on the roster until maybe like season 9, really dramatic arc where he starts out really bad but slowly through incremental stat increases becomes pretty ok but then has a devastating allergic reaction and ends up having to be shadowed because he’s just unsaveable at this point, but still a big fan fave and people still talk about them, he would’ve been a pretty ok batter with really high defense but peanut destroyed that too

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: high highs and low lows and vibes are just… there

Juniper-

Team: Boston Flowers

Position: Originally a batter, but reverbs into Pitching

Modifications: None

Details: season 1 player who is really popular amongst the fans but isn’t well known outside of the fanbase she joined blaseball because she didn’t really have a choice and she was just working at the garden, she wasn’t a great batter but she’s a shockingly good pitcher, she had partied so much that she is now just undeniably good solely because she has partied THAT much

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: SHOCKINGLY good ruthlessness, its her only good stat though until parties make her good

Simon- 

Team: Chicago Firefighters

Position: Batter

Modifications: Ego+

Details: another late season replacement that was made to be a edgelord with really good stat set up and he’s a super consistent batter who just also gets walked a lot and has a LOT of thirsty fans, REALLY good at dunking, one of the best idols for solo seeds but ONLY for a SINGLE season because he just underperforms his stars for NO reason and its infuriating, joined because he didn’t want athena to get recruited but she followed him anyways to find out what the hell happened to him and why he just vanished

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: HIGH musc/thwack/martyr with really low patheticism, absolutely ATROCIOUS vibes

Godot- 

Team: Hellmouth Sunbeams, roams to the Tokyo Lift and then to the Canada Moist Talkers

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Roamin’

Details: a season 1 player who would be a MUCH better batter but REFUSES to leave the rotation with deceptively high stars and one of the first players to get roamin’ and actually becomes good because of it infuriating LITERALLY everyone

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: have you seen bright zim? Yeah its just that. He has sixteen fingers for no reason

Trucy- 

Team: Originally a Philadelphia Pies player, but feedbacks to the Yellowstone Magic

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: Phoenix becomes her dad after she feedbacks, later season replacement probably surrounding the s7 instabilities and beanings and she got REALLY popular REALLY fast with the pies fans and over siesta but then she gets traded like the Monday after and it breaks the fans hearts, she’s not very good but she gets alternated into BEING good

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: moxie queen! Also chasiness and continuation, as well as good musclitude and vibes

Nahyuta-

Team: Originally on the Beams, but feedbacks to the Hawai’i Fridays

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: Attractor

Details: expansion era player who replaced an absolutely GARBAGE player so the fans are DELIGHTED by him, lets up a lot of walks but has shockingly pitched a no hitter despite only being here since season 13, was infused because of his good forbidden knowledge stats, still gets faxed out of the game because he has games where he just lets up a RIDICULOUS amount of runs, actually fit in really well with the Fridays, was observed (by Kristoph?) and then got redacted 

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: uncle plasma… 2! Also REALLY big vibes range

Justine Courtney-

Team: New York Millennials, traded to the Breckenridge Jazz Hands

Position: Pitcher

Modifications: None

Details: joined the team before Sebastian probably around season 5, was pretty average at pitching but ate a peanut and had a yummy reaction which made her slightly above average but subpar ruthlessness made her still not great, traded away to the Jazz Hands after Sebastian was shadowed, really polarizing for fans there was a lot of fighting about whether or not to trade her from fans

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: ok ruthlessness

Mia-

Team: Yellowstone Magic

Position: Batter

Modifications: None

Details: was the season 1 stand out batter for the magic, she was a REALLY good season 1 player that fans STILL talk about even though she’s been dead since season 3, she was the person who was standing next to Phoenix when he appeared on the field and caught the ball that was flying towards him before it hit him in the face and she took it upon himself to get him acclimated to the game, she thought of him as a kid brother, she tried to keep Maya away from blaseball but couldn’t stop her from watching on TV, she originally joined to get away from the Fey clan and to try and do something with her life and also possibly find out what happened to her mother and she was promised social power and unlimited access to information

Notable Forbidden Knowledge: really solid statline for someone who never saw any improvements

Phoenix and Miles get together around season 6, right before the Jaylen stuff, then break up because they were both having a lot of emotions about the whole necromancy business and Miles was always on the idol board and there was a lot of uncertainty in their lives. I think a necromancy of Kristoph probably happens in the Expansion Era and he tries to get revenge on Phoenix for god knows what, and Miles ends up getting close with him again after a whole Grand Siesta of just being really emotionally charged friends and finally get together AGAIN in season 13 after a consumer attacks Phoenix, but this time they STAY together and probably get married because they're just so scared of losing each other.

 Kay gets to fight god in season 9, no this probably wouldn't have been possible if she was a shadows player originally but uwu <3

Kay and Miles get to know each other because she tried to steal Miles shoes, but he caught her. He offered to make her dinner and they just had a good time, Kay hadn’t really been shown that kind of kindness in a WHILE and she... missed that sort of father figure in her life... so she just keeps trying to steal things from Miles and getting caught until he finally tells her that she can just... come over through the front door. He will never say that she is his daughter out loud, but the collective dadconcious Knows, and tells him that they are proud of him.

 Maya and Franziska are rivals. They hate each other. When Maya gets 0 no it only makes it worse because it "ruins" Franziska's perfection as a pitcher and forces her to throw balls. They get to know each other over these pitch offs and start to realize that they actually aren't that different. Gay rights. They kiss. They have a great time over the Grand Siesta and make fun of their brothers, but they both have emergency bags in case the other one dies.

 Dahlia Hawthrone would never get involved in Blaseball and everything she does is outside of the game but if she was she'd be on the Boston Flowers and she would be her team's Pudge. A god awful player who on occasion actually does something good and half the fans love her because of her character and half the fans hate her for the same reason and also she sucks at the game.

 Most of them also still have their law degrees and also keep some semblance of what they do in the actual ace attorney games, except Ema who has of course factually failed the bar exam by nature of being on The Breath Mints.

[felassan]

Some wee scraps from various recent articles on the subject of the next Mass Effect game (not MELE):

[Kym Hoy, VA of Kasumi Goto] is also aware of Mass Effect Legendary Edition and the next Mass Effect game headed by BioWare veterans. When asked whether she’d reprise her role as Kasumi, Hoy lights up, “I would! I would leave my hole in Mexico, and go to Los Angeles, no problem... Or I could do it from a home studio here, which would be even better. But I would love to continue to work on this franchise. It's a lot of fun.”

For the longest time, Hoy didn’t even know she had fans until she poked around the internet. And for that, she’s grateful and loves all the people who have enjoyed her work through the Mass Effect series. She also wanted to give a shoutout to BioWare, saying that the studio can contact her agent to get in touch with her again for the next adventure in the series.

“All means, by all means, tell them that Kasumi is ready to be at your service,” she signs off, picking up Kasumi’s voice as if it’s as natural as breathing. [source]

---

Interviewer: Would you want to score the music for the new Mass Effect game coming down the pipeline that was teased during The Game Awards?

Mass Effect composer Jack Wall: I'm always open, BioWare! [source]

---

I thought it would be worth asking [former ME/BW devs] if they'd ever return to Mass Effect. In most cases, the answer was yes - but it often came with the same condition. While almost everyone I spoke to answered with some variation of "yes, if..." three different developers specifically mentioned that they'd love to work on a game like Elite Dangerous, but in the Mass Effect universe. For what it's worth, these answers all came independently of one another - none of these developers knew that their former colleagues had the same idea in mind.

"Under the right circumstances, yes," Mass Effect 3 senior gameplay designer Patrick Moran tells me after being asked if he'd return to the series. "The technology exists now to really connect the world seamlessly, with examples like No Man's Sky, Elite [Dangerous], and even Everspace 2. I'd love to have a more seamless transition through the world than navigating a map.

"I also believe AI is a big unexplored area for triple-A gaming. Rimworld is a great example of tracking history between characters, having personality traits, and allowing the player to develop deep connections to those characters. I'd love to explore a similar system for generic NPCs, so they are more than vending machines and dialogue tree bots. I believe the next 20 years will result in NPC AI which will dwarf anything we thought possible."

"I would work in the Mass Effect setting again," Mass Effect 2 and 3 writer Jay Turner tells me. "It's a fun setting to think about and populate with characters. I'd love to see an open-world game where you're a trader/pirate type, like Elite Dangerous but in the Mass Effect universe." You'll probably be interested to know that Turner was the writer who created Kasumi, and also worked on Omega alongside Neil Pollner. What I mean is, he's definitely qualified to write person to write a "trader/pirate" narrative in Mass Effect.

It's worth noting that we recently reported on a Han Solo-inspired Mass Effect spin-off that was cancelled prior to Mass Effect 2, which would have likely fit this mold perfectly. But, as Moran says, the advancements in tech and AI mean that a modern or future game based on a similar concept could be much better, meaning that the fact this game was never actually made could be a blessing in disguise.

Dorian Kieken, who was development director on Mass Effect 2 and 3, before becoming franchise development director in the early days of Andromeda, also said he'd return to the series. He said after a decade working on Mass Effect, he developed a certain kind of franchise fatigue - but now, enough time has passed that he'd like to work on a new adventure in this universe.

"I like the idea of exploring a 'grayer' character, akin to a smuggler/pirate type in the Mass Effect universe," Kieken says. "It also allows [us] to see the world from a different point of view than the one of the chosen super soldier. It's a bit like exploring the Star Wars universe without being a Jedi or the Warhammer 40k universe without being a Space Marine."

When I told Kieken that other devs had mentioned similarly grey, smuggler-esque characters, he said he wouldn't be surprised if these people were on the team that explored the Han Solo concept.

"I think having 'grayer' types of characters, defined as not being aligned with the universe's good or bad guys, and also not attached to any major factions like pirates, allows you a large breath of exploration that you don't have when you are the savior of the galaxy," Kieken explains. "Think of the story freedom you have in TV series like the Mandalorian or FIrefly thanks to mercenaries or smuggler character archetypes."

As it stands, none of these three people work at BioWare - however, all of them have said they'd be more than happy to return under the right conditions (as many other devs have also told me), and they've already got an idea for the exact kind of Mass Effect game they'd like to make. I'm not sure about you, but I'm 100% here for "Elite Dangerous, except it's Mass Effect." [source]

[hetalia-nordic-trash]

The Heart Gambit (Dennor): 4-Treat me like a Fool

Word count: 1,682

Summary: Mathias got hurt while he and Lukas were looking for Emil, so Lukas brings him back to his hotel room to patch him up a bit.

Author's Note: Finals are officially over!!! This means I can get back to doing weekly updates for both this story AND my original story on Wattpad (link at the end). I'm also thinking of starting a fanfic of Romano x Mexico OC but that would be like my 4th WIP so I don't think I'll start it any time soon unless there's a lot of interest in it for some reason. I have also come to the conclusion that I looovveee (and am way better at) writing dialogue! Much more than descriptions, unfortunately. I'm trying to get better but man it's hard! Anyways, hope you enjoy this part! Please interact and leave feedback! It goes such a long way!

Warning: Brief mention of injury

Previous: 3-One-Way Screen

Mathias kept his hand pressed to the cut on his head and watched eagerly as Lukas fiddled with the key to his room before finally throwing it open in a huff and stepping inside. Mathias hesitated, pondering the implications of being in another man's room.

"Don't just stand there! Hurry up before someone sees!" Lukas hissed. "I can't believe I'm even helping you."

"I think I figured that out the first 100 times you said that under your breath on the way here." Mathias stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Besides, you really should believe it considering who bit who."

Mathias sat on the bed, taking in the room around him. It was much simpler than he imagined. Two small beds were shoved up against the edge of the room, and the table had been away from the wall so that a chess board could be set up on it. The bed he was sitting on was still made, but the sheets were disturbed as if someone has been laying on it. The bed next to him was a bit more disheveled. It was piled high with books and yet another chessboard. Among the piles of books, a sweater and pants were neatly folded, waiting to be worn.

"Sorry for the mess."

"It's fine."

Lukas made his way to the bathroom.

"I think the first aid kit is in here. Let's make this quick so you can leave-"

A scream rang out for the bathroom. It was quickly followed by Lukas's and Mathias's. Lukas slammed the door shut.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" Lukas shouted.

"...my business..." the voice replied meekly.

"You're dead."

Mathias perked up.

"Woah! There you are, Emil! We were looking all over for you! To be honest, I kinda thought you were dead."

A small click came from the door.

"Yeah...I've kinda been here this whole time. I set you and Lukas up because he wouldn't stop talking about you!" Emil teased.

Lukas flushed red and desperately jiggled to the door handle.

"shut up shut up shut up..."

"For real! All day and night! 'I wonder what Mathias is thinking about! He's ruining the sport but there's just something about him I wanna- '"

"Alright!" Lukas shouted again. "Just pass me the first aid kit and you get to live for 15 more minutes."

Some shuffling was heard in the bathroom. A single bandaid was pushed through the space under the door. This was followed by a single strip of gauze, then a small pouch of antibiotics, then wet wipe, then-

"You are so difficult sometimes."

"That's a funny way of saying 'you're welcome!'"

Mathias chuckled, but couldn't shake the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest. Did Lukas really talk about him? Did he really spare him a thought aside from hatred? He placed his hand to his chest, trying to calm himself.

Lukas made his way over with a handful of first aid supplies.

"Alright. Let's get this over with," Lukas sighed.

He opened a wet wipe and stood before Mathias. Lukas placed one hand on Mathias's head, by his wound.

"This might sting a little."

Mathias was at a loss for a moment. The warmth from Lukas's hand radiated through his whole body. He clung to this feeling, desperately wanting to remember his touch.

"It's fine. I can handle it." he managed.

He winced as Lukas began to clean the wound.

"Sorry..."

"N-no it's fine."

Mathias wasn't sure if he meant to do this, but Lukas began running his fingers through Mathias's hair. Mathias felt his cheeks flushing.

"Hey...pass me the antibiotic cream,"

Mathias met Lukas's eyes. Lukas quickly looked away, but he could still see that his cheeks, and more cutely his nose were lightly dusted pink. Mathias smiled.

"Can you pass me the antibiotic cream? Unless you WANT an infection!" Lukas repeated, finally meeting Mathias's gaze.

"You're pink." Mathias commented, trying to sound confident.

"You're a dumbass."

"You're cute..."

Mathias knew he could be impulsive, but if he was any more impulsive than he already was, he would've chosen to throw himself out of the hotel window. How could he just say that!? OUTLOUD!?

Lukas turned bright red and scoffed, looking away from Mathias again.

"Just...hand me the cream already...before I personally give you an infection," Lukas muttered.

Mathias was a bit relieved that Lukas didn't slap him or spit in his open wound. He passed Lukas the cream.

"You don't have to do it for me you know... I can do it myself," Mathias said, weaker than he was expecting.

Lukas shook his head, and Mathias felt the cool cream being applied to his injury.

"It's fine. I don't mind really. I want to do it. Well... 'want' is a strong word..."

Lukas cleaned his hands and put the bandaid on Mathias's injury and placed his hand there. Mathias felt his heart skip a beat as he took Lukas's hand and pressed it to his cheek. He waited for Lukas to pull his hand away, but instead, he felt Lukas rub his thumb on his cheek.

Lukas slowly pulled his hand away, and stiffened, realizing what had just happened.

"Well...you can go now...don't let anyone see you leave," Lukas huffed, still bright pink. He grabbed a book, sat down, and immediately started reading.

Mathias got up and slowly made his way to the door. He was still reeling, but his heart ached to be close to Lukas again.

"Heh, you know, if you promise not to injure me again, you should meet me at the park again tomorrow morning,". Mathias watched his words very carefully, trying not to sound desperate.

Lukas buried his head deeper into his book.

"...fine. Tomorrow morning."

"Yes!" Mathias mouthed.

He peaked his head out to make sure the hallway was clear, and slipped out, closing the door behind him.

---

"Is he gone yet!?" Emil called from the bathroom.

Lukas slammed his book closed.

"Yes. He's gone."

The bathroom door swung open and rolled into bed.

"Great. Goodnight."

"Wait you're going to bed right now!?"

"Yes. It's late."

"Are we not going to talk about this?" Lukas asked, sitting at the foot of Lukas's bed and yanking the covers off him.

"Hey! Come on I was just getting comfortable!"

"I can't believe you tried to set me up with him!"

Emil sat up.

"You really can't believe it? He's all you ever talk about these days! I figured talking to him would get him out of your system, but here you are... talking about him... again." Emil replied, rolling his eyes.

Lukas blushed.

"I don't talk about him all the time!"

"Oh my g- YES YOU DO!" Emil cried, yanking the covers back.

"The past few months it's been the same pattern! Every interview, update, news headline with his name in it you feel inclined to talk about it! You always scoff and say 'he has so much potential' or 'why is he doing this' and it's been that way for God knows how long!"

Emil turned over onto his side and turned off the lamp on the nightstand beside him.

"He's the first thing you think of when you wake up, and the last name on your lips before you pass out onto a pile of books. Admit you love him already and let me go to sleep!"

Lukas felt as though he'd been shot through the chest. He'd avoided that word for so long, haphazardly replacing it mentally with 'appreciate' or even 'admire' on the good days. It couldn't be love. The feeling of running his hands through Mathias's hair, letting him hold his hand to his cheek...those were just...

Those weren't things acquaintances did.

"I. Don't. Love. Him." Lukas spat. "I don't love anyone. Except you but that's different."

He stood up and started pacing by his bed.

"I don't care how I act around him or how much I think of him. I don't love him! I don't love anyone and I never will because there are more important things than him! Even if I did, it doesn't matter because I don't really know him and I never did! I can't believe you'd think I'd be in love with him! I'd never even met him before this!"

"Just say you love him!"

"NO!"

"But you do!"

Lukas slammed his hands on the table.

"You're wrong! I don't love Mathias! I don't love anyone! And I never will! Because love is a waste of time!" Lukas shouted, quickly turning to wipe the hot tears that dripped down his cheeks.

Emil let out a long sigh and turned over in the bed.

"You know, Mathias really likes you. But if you want to push everyone away for a stupid game, then go ahead. And I hope you win so that I won't have to hear you complain about him this time next week since that's all you care about right? Winning?"

Lukas could barely speak with the lump in his throat. Everything he screamed at Emil was something he's said himself every day. Every day he'd tell himself not to be distracted, to not need anyone, to not have a beating heart in his chest. And it had worked so far, but Mathias... Mathias was different. How? He couldn't understand how Mathias made his heart beat a little more or how when Mathias took his hand his heart skipped a beat. It wasn't fair. He wished deep down that he could hate Mathias with every fiber of his being. He wished he didn't need anyone else in his life. He wished that his heart didn't beat a little more whenever he looked into Mathias's striking blue eyes. But most of all, he wished he would be spared from the heartache to come. Win or lose, he that they'd want nothing to do with each other after the match.

Lukas still felt the tears coming and did his best to wipe them away and take a deep breath.

"Goodnight Emil," Lukas managed.

"Goodnight nerd."

---

Next: Chapter: 5-Too Clever by Half

a/n: OOOoooohhh things are definitely starting to happen now! I’m going to take this time to plug my non-hetalia work “ Intro to Love ” about a college student who struggles to keep her superpowers a secret and while making new friends.  How much of her normal life will she give up to save her friends from a mysterious villain that drains students’ brains and turns them into zombies? The complete Chapter 1 is out NOW AND so is Chapter 2.1-'The last of the Good Days'! Go read them! Right now! They're waiting for you!

Thanks again for reading! Send some feedback my way! Can’t wait to continue this story!

Quotev link: here

[thechosenburrito]

The Heart Gambit (Dennor): 4-Treat me like a Fool

Word count: 1,682

Summary: Mathias got hurt while he and Lukas were looking for Emil, so Lukas brings him back to his hotel room to patch him up a bit.

Author's Note: Finals are officially over!!! This means I can get back to doing weekly updates for both this story AND my original story on Wattpad (link at the end). I'm also thinking of starting a fanfic of Romano x Mexico OC but that would be like my 4th WIP so I don't think I'll start it any time soon unless there's a lot of interest in it for some reason. I have also come to the conclusion that I looovveee (and am way better at) writing dialogue! Much more than descriptions, unfortunately. I'm trying to get better but man it's hard! Anyways, hope you enjoy this part! Please interact and leave feedback! It goes such a long way!

Warning: Brief mention of injury

Previous: 3-One-Way Screen

Mathias kept his hand pressed to the cut on his head and watched eagerly as Lukas fiddled with the key to his room before finally throwing it open in a huff and stepping inside. Mathias hesitated, pondering the implications of being in another man's room.

"Don't just stand there! Hurry up before someone sees!" Lukas hissed. "I can't believe I'm even helping you."

"I think I figured that out the first 100 times you said that under your breath on the way here." Mathias stepped in and closed the door behind him. "Besides, you really should believe it considering who bit who."

Mathias sat on the bed, taking in the room around him. It was much simpler than he imagined. Two small beds were shoved up against the edge of the room, and the table had been away from the wall so that a chess board could be set up on it. The bed he was sitting on was still made, but the sheets were disturbed as if someone has been laying on it. The bed next to him was a bit more disheveled. It was piled high with books and yet another chessboard. Among the piles of books, a sweater and pants were neatly folded, waiting to be worn. "Sorry for the mess." "It's fine." Lukas made his way to the bathroom. "I think the first aid kit is in here. Let's make this quick so you can leave-" A scream rang out for the bathroom. It was quickly followed by Lukas's and Mathias's. Lukas slammed the door shut. "What the hell are you doing here!?" Lukas shouted. "...my business..." the voice replied meekly. "You're dead." Mathias perked up. "Woah! There you are, Emil! We were looking all over for you! To be honest, I kinda thought you were dead." A small click came from the door. "Yeah...I've kinda been here this whole time. I set you and Lukas up because he wouldn't stop talking about you!" Emil teased. Lukas flushed red and desperately jiggled to the door handle. "shut up shut up shut up..." "For real! All day and night! 'I wonder what Mathias is thinking about! He's ruining the sport but there's just something about him I wanna- '" "Alright!" Lukas shouted again. "Just pass me the first aid kit and you get to live for 15 more minutes." Some shuffling was heard in the bathroom. A single bandaid was pushed through the space under the door. This was followed by a single strip of gauze, then a small pouch of antibiotics, then wet wipe, then- "You are so difficult sometimes." "That's a funny way of saying 'you're welcome!'" Mathias chuckled, but couldn't shake the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest. Did Lukas really talk about him? Did he really spare him a thought aside from hatred? He placed his hand to his chest, trying to calm himself. Lukas made his way over with a handful of first aid supplies. "Alright. Let's get this over with," Lukas sighed. He opened a wet wipe and stood before Mathias. Lukas placed one hand on Mathias's head, by his wound. "This might sting a little." Mathias was at a loss for a moment. The warmth from Lukas's hand radiated through his whole body. He clung to this feeling, desperately wanting to remember his touch. "It's fine. I can handle it." he managed. He winced as Lukas began to clean the wound. "Sorry..." "N-no it's fine." Mathias wasn't sure if he meant to do this, but Lukas began running his fingers through Mathias's hair. Mathias felt his cheeks flushing. "Hey...pass me the antibiotic cream," Mathias met Lukas's eyes. Lukas quickly looked away, but he could still see that his cheeks, and more cutely his nose were lightly dusted pink. Mathias smiled. "Can you pass me the antibiotic cream? Unless you WANT an infection!" Lukas repeated, finally meeting Mathias's gaze. "You're pink." Mathias commented, trying to sound confident. "You're a dumbass." "You're cute..." Mathias knew he could be impulsive, but if he was any more impulsive than he already was, he would've chosen to throw himself out of the hotel window. How could he just say that!? OUT LOUD!? Lukas turned bright red and scoffed, looking away from Mathias again. "Just...hand me the cream already...before I personally give you an infection," Lukas muttered. Mathias was a bit relieved that Lukas didn't slap him or spit in his open wound. He passed Lukas the cream. "You don't have to do it for me you know... I can do it myself," Mathias said, weaker than he was expecting. Lukas shook his head, and Mathias felt the cool cream being applied to his injury. "It's fine. I don't mind really. I want to do it. Well... 'want' is a strong word..." Lukas cleaned his hands, put the bandaid on Mathias's injury, and placed his hand there. Mathias felt his heart skip a beat as he took Lukas's hand and pressed it to his cheek. He waited for Lukas to pull his hand away, but instead, he felt Lukas rub his thumb on his cheek. Lukas slowly pulled his hand away, and stiffened, realizing what had just happened. "Well...you can go now...don't let anyone see you leave," Lukas huffed, still bright pink. He grabbed a book, sat down, and immediately started reading. Mathias got up and slowly made his way to the door. He was still reeling, but his heart ached to be close to Lukas again. "Heh, you know, if you promise not to injure me again, you should meet me at the park again tomorrow morning,". Mathias watched his words very carefully, trying not to sound desperate. Lukas buried his head deeper into his book. "...fine. Tomorrow morning." "Yes!" Mathias mouthed. He peaked his head out to make sure the hallway was clear, and slipped out, closing the door behind him. --- "Is he gone yet!?" Emil called from the bathroom. Lukas slammed his book closed. "Yes. He's gone." The bathroom door swung open and rolled into bed. "Great. Goodnight." "Wait you're going to bed right now!?" "Yes. It's late." "Are we not going to talk about this?" Lukas asked, sitting at the foot of Lukas's bed and yanking the covers off him. "Hey! Come on I was just getting comfortable!" "I can't believe you tried to set me up with him!" Emil sat up. "You really can't believe it? He's all you ever talk about these days! I figured talking to him would get him out of your system, but here you are... talking about him... again." Emil replied, rolling his eyes. Lukas blushed. "I don't talk about him all the time!" "Oh my g- YES YOU DO!" Emil cried, yanking the covers back. "The past few months it's been the same pattern! Every interview, update, news headline with his name in it you feel inclined to talk about it! You always scoff and say 'he has so much potential' or 'why is he doing this' and it's been that way for God knows how long!" Emil turned over onto his side and turned off the lamp on the nightstand beside him. "He's the first thing you think of when you wake up, and the last name on your lips before you pass out onto a pile of books. Admit you love him already and let me go to sleep!" Lukas felt as though he'd been shot through the chest. He'd avoided that word for so long, haphazardly replacing it mentally with 'appreciate' or even 'admire' on the good days. It couldn't be love. The feeling of running his hands through Mathias's hair, letting him hold his hand to his cheek...those were just... Those weren't things acquaintances did. "I. Don't. Love. Him." Lukas spat. "I don't love anyone. Except you but that's different." He stood up and started pacing by his bed. "I don't care how I act around him or how much I think of him. I don't love him! I don't love anyone and I never will because there are more important things than him! Even if I did, it doesn't matter because I don't really know him and I never did! I can't believe you'd think I'd be in love with him! I'd never even met him before this!" "Just say you love him!" "NO!" "But you do!" Lukas slammed his hands on the table. "You're wrong! I don't love Mathias! I don't love anyone! And I never will! Because love is a waste of time!" Lukas shouted, quickly turning to wipe the hot tears that dripped down his cheeks. Emil let out a long sigh and turned over in the bed. "You know, Mathias really likes you. But if you want to push everyone away for a stupid game, then go ahead. And I hope you win so that I won't have to hear you complain about him this time next week since that's all you care about right? Winning?" Lukas could barely speak with the lump in his throat. Everything he screamed at Emil was something he's said himself every day. Every day he'd tell himself not to be distracted, to not need anyone, to not have a beating heart in his chest. And it had worked so far, but Mathias... Mathias was different. How? He couldn't understand how Mathias made his heart beat a little more or how when Mathias took

his hand his heart skipped a beat. It wasn't fair. He wished deep down that he could hate Mathias with every fiber of his being. He wished he didn't need anyone else in his life. He wished that his heart didn't beat a little more whenever he looked into Mathias's striking blue eyes. But most of all, he wished he would be spared from the heartache to come. Win or lose, he that they'd want nothing to do with each other after the match. Lukas still felt the tears coming and did his best to wipe them away and take a deep breath. "Goodnight Emil," Lukas managed. "Goodnight nerd." --- Next: Chapter: 5-On Mountains with You (Coming soon!) a/n: OOOoooohhh things are definitely starting to happen now! I’m going to take this time to plug my non-hetalia work “ Intro to Love ” about a college student who struggles to keep her superpowers a secret and while making new friends.  How much of her normal life will she give up to save her friends from a mysterious villain that drains students’ brains and turns them into zombies? The complete Chapter 1 is out NOW AND so is Chapter 2.1-'The last of the Good Days'! Go read them! Right now! They're waiting for you! Thanks again for reading! Send some feedback my way! Can’t wait to continue this story! Quotev link: here

[st-just]

Do you have any books or podcast recommendations that have the same overarching concept as "The Left Right Game"?

I'm always looking for new worlds to get lost in, and everytime the MC chooses to Stay I feel a little bit better about staying.

(probably too personal, but 🤷 I still wanna know)

Oh, not at all!

Though...okay, so it’s not exactly a rare thematic beat in general - or at least I’m given to understand it’s like a solid 90% of Isekai. And then most stories that aren’t about some variety of boring high fantasy setting usually end up portraying it as some degree of horrifying or a tragic ending. But in terms of stuff I’ve actually read that fits the bill. Hmm...

Have you read Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer? Specifically the book, not the movie. Because that should be just about perfect.

There’s absolutely some short stories that got read on Pseudopod or Escapepod that fit, but I can only ever remember exactly four stories in particular for* those shows and none of them do so pointing you at a decade of weekly updates isn’t exactly helpful.

Hmm...it’s not an exact fit, but the portrayal of the Mythos is Winter Tide and (especially) Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys kind of fits? Thematics are a bit messed up because in the protagonist’s case it’s more about accepting/reconnecting with her heritage than leaving it behind. They’re antagonists (though not villains), but the relationship between the Mi-Go and a few of their human friends/allies in the sequel fits the bill perfectly, though.

The Darkfic alternate ending of Worm that lives in my head, clearly.

Not sure I’d really recommend it overall - the prose is beautiful, the pacing is not - but The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders more or less fits? Well, internally rather than externally, so maybe not.

But yeah, desperately underserved niche, I need for find more stories that fit too, really. For all that ‘Joyously Casting Aside Humanity And Journeying Past the Horizon” sounds like a Rakshasa charm from Exalted, you still think there’d be more examples of it. 

*”That one quote about how we would be fools to pray for justice, in short story form”, “Edge of Tomorrow but as an insurgent in Iraq and with less comedy more trauma”, “Horribly bullied native american child goes full Carrie after her dog is killed”, “A Story About Imperialism, but from the perspective of a girl from the slums of Mexico City getting offered a better life as an alien collaborator than she ever would have had while humans ruled the world”. There’s also a ‘traveller in a Post-Lovecraftian apocalypse world” one I remember loving the imagery of but can never remember enough of to find.