#review came late because i wanted to give myself more time as i started to feel the ceiling of progress

[ruakichan]

I played Archeland (KR server) ahead of the eventual global release.  Here are my impressions.

Archeland is a sRPG gacha mobage from Zlongame, the team behind  Langrisser mobile and Kalpa the Universe.  Archeland is a very similar reskin of those games (especially Kalpa) but with their own story slapped onto it.  It was the only gacha release I had been looking forward to in 2022, so I hopped onto the fresh KR server ahead of the announced but not dated global release.

I need to disclaim ahead of time that I do not click well with sRPGs.  I prefer faster combat that is also visually engaging, and sRPGs rarely deliver on these fronts. I have given this subgenre many, many chances through the decades, and few click with me—often only on the strength of their story or characters and not on gameplay.

Archeland’s visual presentation is fairly attractive; the models and animations are great, especially in battle, though you can turn them (mostly) off for faster play if you find them tiresome.  Animation story cutscenes with the models are nice as well, though infrequent.  Music isn’t bad; nothing catchy but nothing terrible, and there’s a mediocre rhythm game you can also play if you enjoy the tunes enough to do so.

The story is... a story.  It’s a mix of politics and old lore, ala Exos Heroes, but the problem I have is that I don’t actually care enough about the cast to care enough about the story/events. I was originally sold on the premise of the main heroine being blessed-cursed by a dragon and that hasn’t really made itself known until waaaaaaay later. The cast is bland and toothless, which I find is a common thread with sRPGs, and is even more waifu-heavy than the impression I got from the pre-release promotions, which kills my enjoyment a lot. I also can’t get over how so many of the women, including the fighters with armor, also wear leotards.  It makes no sense from a defense standpoint!  I can’t tell if they’re trying to do a wink-nudge to Langrisser.  If so, we need more ridiculous shoulder-pad armor.

The game’s progress is heavily time-gated; it’s worse than Grand Chase’s mobage, which felt like it was impossible to ever catch up if you fell behind.  Between everything costing ridiculous amounts of stamina and your absolutely tiny stamina pool, this game either expects you to whale out for the right to do anything or to check in several times a day when your stamina tops off.  You will barely have enough to get your dailies done (which only take a few minutes after you clear an area due to the sweeps) and that’s it.  Raising your characters—and you will have to raise a lot—is a snail’s crawl worth of progress for the f2p, which is extremely demoralizing.

And characters... the SSR pool has a soft pity of 90 (any SSR) and hard pity of 180 (featured SSR).  Income is a trickle and banners roll quick.  And as per usual in many gacha games, the SSRs blow SR/Rs out of the water.  There’s a few SRs you can use but they’ll be benched the moment you get the superior SSR counterpart.  There’s also a gear gacha (60 pity), which has the character specific weapons, which ends up making particular SSRs even higher on the usefulness scale.  This game also doesn’t really support a casual style of play: you’ll need those meta characters to continue to progress or be stuck never getting the mats you need to make your characters stronger so you can continue to progress.

(As a note, I find it hilarious the summon animation is basically Exos Heroes but less tedious to sit through: mystery cloak figure that pulls always the cloak to reveal themselves. Only the SSRs get the cloak treatment here.)

The character designs aren’t bad and fit in the game’s theming and translate well to 3D and have nice animations.  It’s very waifu heavy and fanservicey for the dudebros, but the few male characters (which also include old men, cause we never get old women or women beyond the usual three variants of fanservice flavor) have great designs even if they don’t really do anything noteworthy.  Some familiar KR voice actors in the cast too!

There is a self-insert male MC (he talks, but he’s super bland), and the game gives you a core basic starter group that gets stronger as you progress in the game and remain useful throughout, which will help you clear story at least, but not much else due to the need for mono-element teams for some of the growth-grinding areas.

There’s guild joining though there isn’t much to it now other than getting friendship points, and pvp, which can thankfully be auto’d and currently doesn’t have any super necessary resources attached to it.  There’s also base building, though it’s not very obtrusive, but is tied directly to improving the strength of your characters in addition to giving you extra mats.  (You also unlock 3x speed and a slightly higher stamina cap here).  You will need a variety of characters to really make full use of this place, especially of the SSR type.

Story events (we have had two so far) are not easily cleared by new or weak/mid players, which is absolutely hilarious for a game that just released at the beginning of December.  You can get through the basic bits but clearing it completely will be difficult if not outright unattainable unless you whaled, luck-sacked, or no-life’d the game’s progress.  (I’m account level 44 and just lol on this current event; I didn’t to clear all objectives in the last one cause the final levels scaled so high compared to where I—and the majority of players—were at.)

Overall the game experience has not been for me; I’ve played daily for a month and reached mid-40s and even pulled all the characters I wanted, but the game doesn’t really spark joy.

Archeland feels like it’s trying to appeal to a certain hardcore demographic, who enjoy strict adherence to meta.  Progress is very, very slow and unsatisfactory, and even the gacha itself isn’t fun because 98% of the character/gear pulls are absolutely unusable in any state—not even as proper fodder or stepping stones to making other characters stronger.  It’s very much “what’s the point” if you don’t see a rainbow.  The characters are generally unremarkable and the story nothing particularly special or gripping.  And of course, the combat, while fun to watch, I find very tedious (and sometimes downright frustrating when they’re trying to make it a “puzzle”) if there isn’t a sweep function.

Not sure how much longer I’ll stick around; since the game is still very new, improvements can still be made by the devs (as they did with Langrisser), but for now I am disappointed since I had been looking forward to it.  A sRPG fan, especially if you played Langrisser mobile or Kalpa, should give the game a go when it hits global if you like the look of the cast because it’s a very nice entry into this type of game, but anyone else might be disappointed by the actual product.

[patricia-taxxon]

I want to address what’s being said about me regarding my behavior as a teenager, because some of it is true. However, more of it is greatly distorted, and some of it is false. I won’t be reproducing the video that was made about me, the creator has acknowledged the misinformation present in it & has unlisted it, willingly ceding ground for me to give my own testimony. Some of it will require me to admit to things I am still ashamed of, some of it will require me to revisit a traumatic time in my life that I have mostly blocked out. The short version is that I believe I was being groomed at the same time and in the same place as many of the people who came out against me, and my ultimate goal is to find solidarity with those people and begin the healing process. 

When I was 18, and just beginning to accrue an audience, I created a discord server. For a lot of external reasons, mainly spending my entire life up until this point being shuttled around different special ed schools, this ended up being the first real social circle I ever had. It represented the first positive attention I ever received from strangers. It’s a time where I made a lot of mistakes, it’s a time where I was gravely vulnerable. In all honesty, I was too young to manage a community of any kind, I was hot off the back of being desensitized in my adolescence by unrestricted access to early 2010s internet. I knew well enough to create special NSFW rooms, and was advised later to create further division by requiring users to self-apply for a special NSFW role to access those rooms This extra layer meant that the rooms wouldn’t even show up for people who didn’t have the role, which led to some believing they didn’t exist. 

However, I did not intuitively understand the “meaning” of sexual content, I didn’t understand the baggage that came with it. I used cropped fetish porn as emotes and indiscriminately showed the source to anyone who asked, sometimes outside of the NSFW rooms, because I found niche fetishes to be amusing, and since it was “funny” and not “sexy” it didn’t have to mean anything. The worst consequence of this happened when I was first formulating the ideas for my video about youtuber Rags, and I discovered that his youtube avatar was cropped from a NSFW image he had commissioned of his feral dog fursona. I sent this image to just about anyone who seemed interested, and this included a then 13 year old. I’m going to apologize just like I did when this first came out, but I will not be pressured as I was then into assuming predatory intent in myself. I’m not making excuses when I say that I had been a legal adult for under a year and thought of it as just an interaction between two teenagers, a kind of interaction I had with many of my friends (and some adults) before I turned 18. It was a misunderstanding, *and* I hurt you, and I’m deeply deeply sorry. 

There were some moderators besides myself, two were teenagers around my age, early adopters of the server who I felt I’d become friends with. One was a woman in her late twenties, who I won’t name simply because I’m not in the business of offloading my misery onto other people, but she knows who she is. She contacted me with a shower of attention & adoration, she left positive reviews for my albums when she noticed I was upset at their critical reception, she oversaw me as I posted my nudes in that server and later on my main twitter account. She encouraged this behavior in myself and others and participated in it too.

I want to make this clear, the bulk of the allegations against me boil down to punishing me for failing to surmise I was being exploited by the first social group I ever had. I jerked off in voice chats. I remember the day I started, I was surrounded by people older than me who were encouraging me to post my first nude pic in the self-nsfw channel, and I had to get hard for them first. I then considered this normal and did it often. At one point a 15 year old entered the room while I was doing it, and I went quiet until she left. I reconvened with this 15 year old recently, and she told me she only remembers being promptly told to leave. The claim that I “regularly jerked off in voice chat with minors” as if it were an orchestrated and habitual activity is an outright falsehood.  

I remember posting my nudes on twitter in a fevered haze of dissociation and dysphoria after being goaded by other users in my discord server. I remember doing it again and again, so that it could maybe eventually feel normal. I was 18, going on 19. I had twenty to thirty thousand subscribers, I was hot off the heels of being given 150 bucks for making thirty minutes of music for a much bigger youtuber. There are others who were in that server who were similarly exploited, and I am not here to contradict those testimonies, but I was uniquely denied the ability to understand what had happened to me as grooming, because I was technically of age and I had the very beginnings of a youtube audience. However, 20k subs didn’t give me more power than someone over ten years my senior. 

I was groomed, and just as I was beginning to understand what happened to me, the shame threatening to overtake me completely, I was slapped with the supposed news that I was the sole perpetrator of the entire situation that traumatized me so, that what I thought of as my first friend group all remembered me as a loathsome creep. The apology I wrote in abject panic was dissected and used as a cudgel against me in police-interrogation fashion, so I became afraid to say anything. A year and a half later, I made a post saying that I had been “groomed by a portion of my audience” and this immediately provoked a youtube video callout. I feel as if I have been beaten into silence and complicity, unable to form thoughts of my own regarding my experience. I am terrified, right now, writing this story that I firmly believe no one on earth will buy, because I have come to routinely doubt my own testimony.

Some accusations being made of me are so foreign that I have trouble piecing together what it could be referring to. I commissioned a NSFW size difference piece from dramamine, one where my lover is 11 feet tall, and I was pre transition at the time so I wanted a flat chest to help me feel feminine in my current body. It was wrongly tagged as “cub” (furry child porn) on E621, which I vocally protested at the time. This is the only thing I could point to as evidence for the claim that I commissioned cub porn of myself. I do not know how to convey the feeling of being flooded by accusations that require me to ponder what it could even be referring to, or to see my accuser insist that she’s receiving dozens of new horrible scoops on me without being able to see exactly what it is or what happened. I’m open to apologizing personally to anyone I ended up hurting in my adolescence who reaches out to me, I was a victim of grooming let off into a public space with a few thousand followers after all, but I’m not apologizing on behalf of people who might have heard something bad about me.

I am going to restate, my accuser has *of her own volition* unlisted the offending video & understands the misinformation she spread, there is nothing to gain from seeking her out and letting her know your opinion on the situation. I waited until this agreement was reached to make any statement at all for this exact reason. 

I am staying offline for about a day after posting this, I am under a lot of pressure, I am very tired.

[skylinx2o]

Admittedly, I've been feeling terrible lately. I didn't even finish my weekly drawing and broke my now months long streak. I thought I would be able to do it, but my emotions weighted me down too much. I might go back to drawing one art every two weeks.

Anyway, I feel like I should do more fun things. I mean, drawing is fun, and I love creating stories for my OCs, but I do have a lot of other interests. And tho I'm sticking to talking about LEGO today, I want to talk more and get out of my shell. And maybe give you more insight into me as a person.

So today I'm going to talk about my favourite LEGO themes and why I love the series, plus how I personally got i to all of them. It's not a normal review whatsoever, just an excuse to ramble about my interests freely. Just remember this is my experience and my feelings.

(And it's not at all like I'm making this post because I need all of this to prepare for a speaking class and the only way to motivate myself is by making a post about it o _o Come on, I'm killing two birds with one stone here!)

Okay, so, my all-time favourite themes are (in chronological order to when I found them):

1. Bionicle

Honourable mention: Hero Factory

2. Ninjago

3. Legends of Chima

4. Monkie Kid

5. Dreamzzz

1. So. Bionicle. I have a weird history with Bionicle. My dad's friends used to get movies for us, and one day it just happened that my dad's friends gave us a pen drive with Bionicle: Legend Reborn on it. I think I would be around... Seven or eight when I watched it I've seen fans say that it was a pretty weak film, but I didn't know Bionicle back then, and I really enjoyed it! That movie was a soft reboot of the series, and as someone who started their Bionicle obsession with that movie, in my opinion it worked really well as a standalone supposed to capture new audiences. I really loved the sense of mystery that was probably lost on new fans. It wasn't exactly explained what or who Mata Nui was, besides him being a warrior who lost his people. And the ending... I really thought there would be a sequel to it, and was really intrigued by whom the great beings were, and what happened to the world, why Mata Nui knew them, what the giant ahh robots were supposed to do.

Of course, when a few years later in middle school I looked for the sequel, I didn't find it. And to be honest, the ending was disappointing to me. However, there was a whole other storyline in Bionicle to catch up on! And so one faithful summer was spent reading all the comics I could find, reading wiki pages one after another, playing Mata Nui online game obsessively, refusing to use a walkthrough. Believe me when I say I was obsessed!

And then out of nowhere in 2015 g2 came out, and I was stoked since I missed out on practically the whole g1 as it was being made. (I mean, it's understandable, I was born the same year the first Bionicle movie came out.) I mean, can you blame me for being excited? A dead franchise that I just started becoming a devoted fan of is suddenly revived from the grave. I felt like the luckiest person on earth that day. Honestly, g2 was a lot simpler than g1, but I really like it, even if most people said it sucked. Sure, it wasn't exactly like g1, and even I cringed a few times when watching the g2 show, but for what it was, it was cool in my eyes, and loved finding all the g1 references. And there were quite a few of them! The story of g2 was simpler, but for little kids I think it would've been fine. But alas, LEGO did a crap job promoting it, and it died early, with an ending that was so bad even I can't defend it. It just didn't make sense, and it was rushed as hell. But I still wished it would've continued.

I love both generations for different things, and I'm sad I didn't get any g2 sets when they were out (Lewa was my favourite one). But years later I managed to get a promotional anniversary set of Tahu and Takua, and you wouldn't believe my happiness when I was building it. It's strange being a relatively new fan compared to others I see online, but I still remember seeing Bionicle commercials, and even have a very vague memory of seeing a Phantoka commercial on our ancient TV. I mean come on, I was so into it, I even learned the Matoran alphabet! My mom had to listen to my countless rambling, and if I ask her about Bionicle today, she still remembers some answers, that's how much into it I was. Hell, this blog started as a Bionicle blog before I moved fully to Monkie Kid content.

Okay, this Bionicle ramble is getting a tad long, so I'll wrap this up. Would I recommend Bionicle to anyone? Well... Not really, unless you like long lore researching adventures. The story is so convoluted, with many sides stories, and it went on for so many years, that despite my obsession I still probably missed like, 40% of the lore. G1 at least, wouldn't vibe with casual audience probably. G2 might be easier on the brain, despite it having some deeper lore too. Plus, there's the cultural appropriation issue, that I'm not qualified to talk about, but others already made pages long blogs and articles about. Plus the weird gender situation. But, it's still a good story in my eyes, despite its many faults. But that's just me, and if you didn't catch on yet, I'm already deep in this hole and there's no getting out of here now.

Honourable mention: This brings us to Hero Factory. I watched the first few episodes at around the same time as the first Bionicle movie. Came from the same source as before. I think it deserves a mention, because I still loved it, and did some lore digging, but I wasn't as obsessed with it as the other positions on the list. I didn't like the later stuff as much, tho some concepts were really cool too. But the story of the first episodes was really well done, and worked great as a movie. The fights were tense, and when watching it for the first time, I couldn't really know if the characters would be okay. Honestly, it got me really excited and invested. A factory of heroes is a unique concept, and I always found it intriguing how they made the robot society work. But, I don't think it needed more time than it needed, unlike Bionicle, where I didn't like the ending of either generation. I think it wrapped things up quite well with the first episodes, and the later ones just feel like cool side stories, and it works in my opinion.

This one I would definitely recommend, because I feel like it's underrated, and it's not long. Like I said, the version I got was just a one movie like compilation. I checked and there's just 11 episodes. It would probably take 1–2 hours to watch it, not counting the later movies and all.

2. Next one is Ninjago! I started watching it almost from the start. I must have been around ten or so... The episodes aired on TV, so I had easy access to it! I almost never missed an episode, and watched even the reruns. And believe me, I was hypnotised when watching it. Tho, starting from rebooted I watched the episodes online, first in my native language, then in English since I started getting too impatient to wait. This was my first obsession. For the longest time, when people asked me what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to be a ninja. One of my oldest OCs is Mika, and she grew up with me. Whenever a new season was to come, I would design a new suit for her. I have a whole dedicated blog to her, I wonder if you all can find it lol. Anyway, for a kid's show, the first seasons were really well written, and the show could be dark when it wanted, but it didn't lack jokes, and most were very funny. And honestly, Ninjago had a really big impact on my life. It taught me not to give up, and it made me want to make the world a better place. Grade school was a horrible time for me, and Ninjago was like my escape. Tho, I might have daydreamed about it too much at one point...

I started distancing myself from Ninjago around hands of time. I didn't watch the show as regularly, catching up on seasons long after they aired. I think that's also where the writing quality started dropping… I just didn't like it as much any more. But it should've been expected with a series that went on for so long. I'm not one of the people who think old Ninjago was better than anything. It wasn't perfect at all. But I didn't like the short format of newer seasons. But then secrets of forbidden spinjitzu dropped, and i as a person started getting better too, so I went back to Ninjago, and while it wasn't still the best and people had a lot of issues I loved those few next seasons. I mean, they somehow hit right into my interests with those seasons. First the adventure movies like atmosphere with the Egyptian like tomb, then they get sucked into a video game, then the very DnD like feeling Shintaro. It was right up my alley. My love for Ninjago was back in full force by then. So you can imagine how sad I was when the word that Ninjago was ending started going around. The series has been with me for half my life. My friends even knew how much I liked it, my best IRL friend even bought me a Ninjago set for Christmas one time. But you know, I thought it was probably Ninjago's time. Nothing can last forever after all, and it had a very good run. Why not end it when the story was still quite alright? And then… Crystallized happened. I didn't watch Crystallized. I heard the spoilers, and I wasn't… thrilled. Especially with Harumi. And people hated that season. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. It didn't feel like a send-off Ninjago deserved.

So you can imagine how damn happy I was about Dragon Rising! And surprise, it's the best Ninjago has been in a while! I absolutely loved the first season. The new characters are wonderful, and that change was certainly what Ninjago needed. And the fact that it's merged with one of other of my beloved LEGO series only makes it better. And that's probably my cue to move to it hehe

So, would I recommend Ninjago? Yeah. Its story is easy to follow, you just need to watch the show. If you're ready to watch sixteen+ seasons that it! Even the worse seasons have some value to them I'd argue. But I may be biased with how close to my heart that series is.

3. Yeah boy, Legends of Chima! I started watching Chima around the same time I started watching Ninjago, and I was equally hooked. And yes, my mom remembers this one as well, I watched it every time it was on too. Actually, I think the first fanfiction I've ever written was about Chima. With a pencil on paper. I think that, while the other series captivated me because of magic or the setting or the action, in Chima it was the characters and their dynamics mostly, despite there being plenty of magic powers and action too, plus a unique setting. The main characters all have distinct personalities, and it's fun to see how their personalities clash or work together. I think it's cool because the conflict between lions and crocodiles takes the main stage in the first season. Later seasons are great too, and they shake things up to make things interesting quite well. The lore isn't as broad as in other series, but it's pretty cool and interesting either way. There were some unique concepts there. I can't explain my love for this theme as well as with other series, because I don't think there was anything big that made me like it. It's just a cool show. I think what there was has been satisfying, tho young me was really sad and angry it ended anyway. But it's great for what it was. But I can't say I'm not happy that Chima is now merged with Ninjago, and it works so well together, and I absolutely love Lord Ras.

I would absolutely recommend it. It's a fun show, and only three seasons long. It can be both fun and serious, and I definitely had a blast watching it.

4. Now one of my newer obsessions! Monkie Kid! I watched the pilot in Chinese when it came out, then I promptly forgot about the series and binge-watched it all when season 3 came out. I was reading about Journey to the West long before the series was announced, since I have a liking for old stories and legends and myths and stuff. And Asian cultures fascinate me. I blame Ninjago with its Japanese influence and all the martial arts movies that were on the TV all the time. Plus Mulan and Kung Fu Panda. Anyway, I can't say much about how accurate it is or anything since I'm not Chinese, but I think the show is great. I noticed a lot of references to Journey To The West. No shocker here, it's inspired by it. But being in this fandom made me learn a lot of new things about China, tho I still have a bunch of things to learn. I'm no expert yet. Tho, I try my best to be respectful.

Umm... Like I said, not much to say about how accurate the story is. But I really liked Journey to the West, so naturally I like Monkie Kid too. Plus, MK i really relatable to me. I feel like my personality is really similar to his, tho I'm more introverted. For some reason, I relate to this portrayal of Macaque and Wukong as well.

I dare to say that from all the series so far, I find this one to be the most well written. I just find the writing to be the most impactful. Plus, the artstyle is very different from other LEGO shows. Action scenes are really fun. The artstyle definitely works in its favour. And yeah, I would recommend this show 100%.

5. And finally, the newest addition to the LEGO series, Dreamzzz! The show is really new and just starting, but I love the concept and the writing! Plus again, I really relate to Mateo. The characters feel like real people you would meet, and how they interact feels realistic. And I found myself liking even the characters that annoyed me, because their personalities were the realistic type of annoying, one that you might find out in the wild. And the concept of a dream world just really speaks to me. And it gives the creators a lot of creative freedom. All wacky things can happen in a dream after all. One thing I didn't expect in the show was the secret agency, and I think it's a clever addition to the story.

I would recommend this series. I hope it'll have a bright future, and that the writing will stay this good.

Well, time to wrap all of this up. Whoever suffered through this whole ramble deserves a juice and a cookie 🍪🧃 For a few finishing thoughts... I noticed a lot of the series I like blend magic powers and technology together. I just thought it's interesting. And I wanted to mention that the songs for Bionicle, Ninjago and Chima absolutely slap. I used to listen to them on repeat all the time lol Even my mom really enjoyed those songs

Yeah, I don't know what this post was for, I just felt like writing all that :v

[thecynthh]

smart ass - M.S pt 2

synopsis - matt’s not doing to well with his schooling but is determined to get his degree and pass his classes. one essay which is a huge part of their grade haunts him with a bad mark, luckily y/n is willing to him him

notes - college setting, matt gets more attention ! not proofread!

authors notes - sooo i hope yalls like this, its shorter than i would like it to be but nonetheless its out! hope you guys like this one and i promise ill be updating again soon. also taglist soon! ill be asking who wants to be on it very soon and making an official intro and masterlist soon. thank you to everyone who enjoyed the first part of smart ass!

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6:14 pm

friday night rolled around faster than i thought it would, i strip off my diner uniform laying down in my bed in just my undergarments. i lay out a large sigh letting myself melt into my bed. 

my phone buzzed beside me with a notification posted on my lock screen. 

Matt S 🐼 

8120 palace road 7 pm, see u soon :) 6:18 pm

i drop my phone back down, ill just close my eyes for a second, cus that shift really took it out of me. my eyes fell and a light sleep rushed over me. 

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10:17

buzz. buzz. buzz.

buzz. buzz. buzz. 

i swiftly sit up and hear the repetitive ring of my cell phone. i see many notifications from my multiple social media apps and from matt. oh shit. MATT! I completely forgot about him!  

Matt S 🐼

hey are u still coming over? 7:32pm

i know we agreed on 7 but if you need time just tell me 7:55

just get over here when u’re able too, please get here safe 8:57pm

oh shit oh shit oh shit. i quickly slip on some sweats and a baggy crew neck and grabs my school bag, im glad i thought about packing it before work today. i swipe up my laptop from my small desk and dash out the door. my car unlocks as i drop everything that was in my arms onto the seat next to me and step on the pedal getting there as fast as i possibly could. 

i see the outside of the larger house neighborhood and finally get to the house I was told to come too, pulling into the driveway. I see a silhouette of a man in one of the windows. 

i grab all of my belongings scrambling to the door, clicking the doorbell. I hear a melodic tune ring throughout the house. footsteps grace the front door as the door swings open. matt's eyes widen as they scan my body. 

He pushes the storm door open and says “oh you came.”

“im SO sorry matt, i came home after my shift and i ended up falling asleep on my bed because there was this mishap at the diner and i got blamed for it and i swear to god my boss is such an idiot and im so fed up with his bullshit.” i take a deep breath in “and then i know we agreed  again i fell asleep like a goddamn idiot.”

he just stared at me like i was the idiot, “im sorry is what i meant to say.” i continued 

he chuckles a little before stepping back slightly giving me space to enter, “hey its alright just come on in. follow me.” he says using his hand signaling to come along. 

we make it to a fairly large bedroom, i see a gaming setup squished onto a desk that was clearly not meant for housing gaming paraphernalia. “you can throw whatever we need onto the bed, we can just study there. and get comfortable. I know it's late but i'm still okay to stay up and we can even order coffee and some food as well if we get hungry. there’s not much in the fridge but chris’ soda if i’m being honest.”

“i’m alright for right now so let’s just get started on studying” i say to him.  

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1:29

“did you get that?” i ask matt after reviewing what we just went through. 

“yuuuup” he says with a smile, i noticed that his eyes squint when he smiles or laughs, its cute. i don't really think he got half of what i was saying but i think i got my point across.

“ i think it’s a good time to take a break, and plus we’ve been at this for 2 hours already.” i lay my head down against his plethora of pillows and just take a deep breath in. he copies me and comes falling down onto his bed.

i feel his weight shift as he reaches over for a remote to turn on the tv in front of us booting up netflix. moving down to his recently watched “brooklyn 99” begins to play as i hear the familiar voice of andy samberg talking. the theme song plays as i look over the boy beside me. 

“you like brooklyn 99?” i ask him with a furrowed brow pasted across my face. 

“god i love this show, every single episode.” he tells me looking back at me, his eyes stray from my eyes to my lips to my body. i didnt mind it to be honest, i kinda liked it if anything. 

I directed my sight back to the show. We sat in a comfortable silence but i couldn’t stay focused for long as my eyes wandered over to his sweats, then his hand near them. being fair he actually was pretty fine, i heard rumors before that he slept around a bit a year ago but it was old news quickly. 

as we near our third episode my eyes feel heavy and all my cares slipped away again as i drift off to sleep in his bed. 

————————————————————————

2:49

ugh, i wake up feeling incredibly hot. i rip off my sweater and dip underneath the covers, wow my sheets feel really nice, very fluffy…. 

[may-bee-its-just-me]

personal life update

Hey yall, i figured i'd take some time to give a personal life update as well as allow myself to vent for a second. I'll start with the positives for those not interested in the emotional bits :]

I've been making more substantial steps towards buying a car! I've been looking into this one Saturn, and while it's got a few minor issues, it's still my best option so far. Hoping to buy it for 2000, or 2500-3000 if the seller is willing to continue fixing the current known issues.

I've also been growing a bit closer to God, and I've been finding peace among the chaos. I'm learning to lean on Him for support - which has been an uphill battle against myself and the feeling I need to cling onto what i can control, but when i have been able to let go it's been very freeing. I'm still working on myself and growing in Christ, but progress is progress.

I recently got promoted to Crew trainer (about a month or two ago). I'm now making 75 cents more an hour than I did this time last year, after two biannual performance reviews and a promotion. I heard rumors that I'd been in consideration for a management position but I havent been talked to about it specifically, and I'm not sure if I'd accept if offered it. Still flattering to know though :]

Apparently more than once, customers have spoken to my managers and possibly even some higher ups praising my work ethic. I think its specifically when working on front counter/in lobby, as I'm most actively engaging with customers then and they can see me compulsively scanning over lobby for trash when im otherwise not busy. Regardless, it's nice to know I'm making a genuine positive impact on customers' experiences and potentially the rest of their days. Today, one such pair of customers is an older couple known for being very particular, occasionally rude/difficult to serve. They had already called our regional manager that day to complain before I was moved up front, saw them, and said hi. Later on one of my managers came up to me and had mentioned they liked me, and I assume said something to them about it. :]

On the flip side, i've been in a depressive funk for several months now. I'm actually questioning if it's a depressive funk, or if I'm always depressed and sometimes it's just...not as bad. But the last few weeks have been worse. I'm struggling to take care of myself, and while it's not as bad as it has gotten before - I went three days without showering this week and lately i've been routinely skipping showers after maintaining showering almost daily for a year.

For the last few weeks I keep going back and forth between losing my appetite, and eating myself into feeling sick. I'm pretty sure this is from grief and will pass though.

My boyfriend broke up with me 3 weeks/almost a month ago. For reasons, although there wasn't any real conflict between us during the relationship, it was more internal conflict and convictions. We'd been getting distracted with each other, putting off other things to spend time with each other. He needed to focus on his health and figuring his life out. Part of me still wants to cling onto hope he'll come back around, wants to go back and fight back against his reasons for leaving, because I damn know he still cares about me more than friends. But I'm trying to just trust that if we're meant to be, God will bring us together again naturally when we're ready for it. Trying to focus on getting my shit together on my end, and let Him figure the rest out. We're still friends, and through the relationship we were always friends above all else, so I'm thankful to still just have him in my life. I'll be okay, but the grief does eat away at me sometimes. I thought I had been recovering from it pretty well, but that was suppression (oops). I keep going back and forth from feeling okay about it, and feeling like a piece of me is missing. I even get mad at him from time to time, blaming him for my hurt feelings. "You promised forever" "you actively encouraged me to open up and lean on you, encouraged me to share my burdens with you, and now im supposed to just be okay with that ripped away" and then i see him, and i remember its not his fault, and he's always had my best interest in mind. Even in breaking up with me, he was doing out of the place of wanting what was best for both of us, and thought I deserved someone who already had everything together and wasnt a mess in himself. I know he genuinely meant every word he said in the moment, because i saw him. I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in his actions. I found the card he gave me for my birthday, and it made me cry, because it hurts my heart to think he's breaking both of our hearts needlessly. But everything happens for a reason, and so I'm trying to just...go with the flow of wherever this season of my life takes me. It hurts to think of either of us moving on with someone else, but whatever happens happens. I have so much love to give, and it's a challenge to find somewhere in the tangible physical realm to put it.

Silver lining, he said I can keep the shirt and hoodie he had let me borrow before. I've been wearing his hoodie everywhere...The only thing stopping me from still carrying my promise ring around is the sensory issues that caused me to stop wearing it to work in the first place.

The few coworkers I've told are convinced we're going to get back together soon, but again, trying to trust God and not my own hopes and dreams lol At the very least, no one can gossip about the break up because they can still see us laughing and getting along fine at work. A different couple had briefly broken up, and the amount of gossip that was floating around was awful - everyone talking trash about either person involved because there was a lot of friction between them. I'm just glad that wont be the case for us, and if we don't reunite anytime soon, at least we can still function at work more or less normally.

thats all tonight folks. Thanks for reading, God bless.

-Mod Bee🐝

[mlove44lh]

For a lifetime part I - En/USA Version

part II here

warnings: +18. Childhood friends to lovers, angst, smut, fluff, original character. 

Words: 9.033

Summary: Lewis and Angie met in their childhood and after a short time they were already inseparable, the relationship escalated and soon they became more than friends. But life happened to both and they ended up following different paths. Nine years later they meet again. Is all that love really gone? 

Notes: English is not my first language. I did my best with the translation, but I know there are going to be many mistakes in the writing.

I decided to translate this fanfiction because I'm completely in love with these two, and I want this story to reach more people. Comments are always welcome. Hope you like it. 

Some events are out of chronological order.

June 2002

-Mom, please, I can study at home. I promise to do better on the next tests. -I try one last time to convince her that I do not need this class. But I realize it will be in vain as I look at his usual impassive frown.

-No. None of that, I promised your father that you would take at least one class, and he paid a lot of money for that. Don't belittle your father like that, Angie. -My mom looked straight ahead cautiously on the road, even when there weren't any cars but her old Bentley. I still looked at her with the slightest bit of hope.

-Please, he'll never know I didn't come.

She looked at me in disbelief.

-No, but I'll know. Now come on, I don't have all day, I'm already late.

-All this because of a C. -I said to myself as I finally got out of the car. 

-You can complain to your father tonight if you want, but I did my part. -I watched as she accelerated and left the parking lot, I thought about leaving, going to the park that I saw from the passenger seat a few blocks away, and spending the next three and a half hours doing nothing, but I was already there, and the heat was almost unbearable, so I decided to go inside and watch the review lesson I don't need.

Barely 30 minutes had passed and I couldn't take it anymore, I took minimal notes and tirelessly looked at the clock in search of redemption. I was looking outside the building when I heard the door being open.

-I'm so sorry teacher, I lost the track of time, I was racing and when I saw it, it was already two o'clock, please forgive me. -The boy was out of breath, putting words on top of words and begging for the teacher's forgiveness, it was almost impossible not to find the situation funny. The teacher in turn didn't give a damn, asked the boy to calm down, and invited him to sit down and pay attention in class.

The boy came towards me and for a moment I thought he was going to talk to me, but he just waved and sat down on the bench next to me, which was the only empty one in the room. The rest of the class passed in absolute silence, except for the teacher's voice and the sound of birds outside. From time to time I felt the boy restless, writing down unneeded things and trying to look at my notes. His nervousness started to make me nervous too.

-For the love of God, calm down. After class, I can help you with your notes, but please be quiet. You're making me nervous. 

The boy smiled shyly at me, I could see the small gap between his front teeth and I thought it was adorable, he seemed like a nice person.

The class ended and as promised, I explained the content he had missed and helped him with his notes.

-You don't seem to have any difficulty with this topic. -He said as he finished writing. There was no one else in the room, the class had already ended at least 15 minutes ago. I know my mom is waiting for me in the parking lot but I don't mind keeping her waiting while I talk to him.

-I don't. My father is very strict with my education. I got a C in literature and he decided I needed tutoring. 

-Oh, I see. Not a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but at least you're smart. 

-Are you kidding? I love this place. I begged him to put me in this class, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday. - I say jokingly. Our laughter echoed through the room. -And you? Do you also like to spend your Saturdays in a tutoring class?

-Nah. I came because I had to, I'm not showing up to classes as I should, so they made me come. But I won't need that. -He gestures to his notebook. -My father and I are working hard for me to be a formula 1 driver someday.

-And how is this going? -There was no superiority in his speech, only hope and excitement.

-Very good. -His smile was gigantic. -Very well indeed. I can't wait to finish high school and race all over the world. 

-Great. hope everything works out for you...-I gestured for him to tell me his name, which only then I realized I still didn't know.

-Lewis Hamilton.

-Lewis Hamilton. - I repeated to myself. -Nice to meet you. I'm Angie Woods.

November 2002

I could barely keep still, I was so excited, finally, I would see him racing in person. 

I was in front of my house, waiting for the car that would come to pick me up. Lewis told me that his father would come by at 10 am to pick me up from home and then we would drive to the circuit where the last race of the karting season was taking place, where Lewis was doing exceptionally well. 

Since we met months ago, we haven't let go of each other, Lewis ended up becoming a great friend to me, we see each other almost every day and he had already promised me that he would take me to a race a long time ago.

During these months of friendship, Lewis teaches me everything about Formula 1 and motorsport. I fell in love with the sport, we haven't lost a race since. 

It didn't take me long to see the car coming to the entrance of my house, I ran inside and hoped my parents didn't see it, they had already made their displeasure with my new friendship clear. So I decided not to tell where I was going that morning.

I met his father, his stepmother, and his brother, Nicholas. Everyone welcomed me more than well, and in a short time I already felt almost like part of their family.

❀

I was almost voiceless from cheering for Lewis. His family and I were in the front row of the audience watching Lewis' every move. He was exceptional as a driver, even with older drivers on the grid and with a not-so-good car, he stood out a lot. I could then understand that there was no understatement in his father's speech when he said that Lewis would become a great Formula 1 champion. It was just a matter of time.

I was behind his family when he got out of the car, Lewis ran to his father and stepmother and hugged them, he had won another race, consequently becoming the best driver in his category, and the youngest to achieve this accomplishment. After hugging his family, Lewis jogged to me, I was close to being emotional, I was so happy for him. I hugged him back and we stayed like that for a good few seconds, his arms made me feel like I'd never felt in my life.

After the race we went to his house, it was getting dark but none of us wanted the day to be over. Lewis's father ordered pizza and we all ate together. Anthony, his father, told me all about Lewis's passion for motorsport and all the difficulties they had faced so far. I paid attention to every word and could only imagine the difficulties they had.

Anthony insisted on dropping me off at my place, it was already dark and the night was much colder than usual, so I made no objections, thanked him for the day, and said goodbye to his family. 

Before leaving, Lewis ran down the stairs to me, I was ready to go meet his father, who was already waiting for me outside the house.

-Wait a second. I bought you something. 

Lewis handed me a box, I opened it and found a delicate golden necklace, it had a pendant of a small "A". It was beautiful, I almost didn't react because I didn't expect such a gesture from him.

-I saw it in a store and I couldn't leave without buying it for you. There was silver too but I like your skin better with gold. 

Lewis looked at me shyly, just like he looked at me in the first conversation we had months ago.

-It's beautiful, Lew. Thank you so much, I loved it. -I took the necklace out of the box and give it to him to put on me.

I pulled my hair up and waited for him to put the necklace on me, his hand passing lightly over my neck managed to make my skin shiver, I hoped that it had gone unnoticed by him. As soon as he closed the necklace I turned forward and hugged him.

-I'll never take it off. -I said low, in the middle of the hug, just for him to hear, as if we weren't alone in the room. 

-I'm glad you liked it.

I pulled away from the hug and kissed his cheek, close enough to his mouth to make me blush with embarrassment, I said goodbye with a low "see you later" and left the house, going to meet his father, who was already waiting for me inside the car. 

I walked away from his house seeing Lewis at the door watching as the car pulled away.

February 2003

-Lewis, this is not going to work. I better give up. Anyway, you can be my personal driver. -I said pulling the handbrake and turning off the car.

-None of that, come on, I said I was going to teach you how to drive and that's what we're going to do today.

-I changed my mind, I'm going to cancel the test. Look, I'm shaking and I haven't even walked 20 meters. -I was actually shaking, seeing people driving makes it look easy but in reality, it is far from it.

-Angie. -Lewis took his hand from his lap and placed it on top of mine, which was resting on the gearshift of his dad's Chevrolet. Physical contact with us is nothing new, and I can no longer imagine my life without his friendship. -Calm down, you'll make it, I'll teach you how to drive and you'll pass this test.

I sighed in defeat, I want that so much, and I have to take advantage of Lewis' free time and his kindness to teach me. 

I started the car and released the handbrake. 

-You know what to do. Step on the clutch and engage first gear. -I thanked the universe for Lewis being the calmest person I know, if it was any of my parents here I would already be crying. I did as he said. -Now release the clutch and accelerate slowly.

-That's the problem, Lew. 

-Come on, after a while, this will be automatic for you. 

I started to drive the car and this time it was better than the last, little by little I gained confidence and saw that it wasn't such a big deal. By the end of the day, I was able to stay calm and drive a few miles without freaking out.

❀

I thanked her for the ride and jumped out of my mother's car, barely able to contain my smile. I run to the front door of the house that became my second home, rang the bell, and waited patiently until the door opened. Luckily it was Lewis on the other side of the door. 

-So? How it was? Did you pass? - His eyes were bigger than usual and he looked at me with a lot of curiosity.

I tried to keep my face serious for some suspense but I couldn't hold it for a second.

-Yes! Officially qualified. -I showed him my newest driver's license. Lewis pulled me into a long hug. -Thanks Lew, I couldn't have done it without you.

-Yes, you would. I knew you would do fine. -He pulled away from the hug and looked at me with affection. -Now I have someone to take me to the next race.

October 2003

-Are you sure I can go to this party? 

Our hands were intertwined, which is new, but I have nothing to complain about it. 

-Of course Ang, it's a party of a friend from school but it's not exclusive to those who study there, relax.

I could already hear the loud music coming from the house at the end of the street, I didn't know if I was shivering from the cold or anxiety. Maybe I shouldn't have chosen such a short dress for an evening party. It's my first time at a party this big, and Lewis looks as relaxed as ever.

-Angie, I can hear your thoughts from here. -Lewis chuckled and squeezed his hand in mine. -It's just a party, and if you don't like it, we can leave whenever you want, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. And I will always be around.

-Okay then. -Lewis is the only person who can calm me down with so little. 

We entered the house, which was already full, and Lewis soon found his friends from school. He introduced me to everyone and I didn't take long to make friends, which was good, I didn't wanna hang around Lewis all night without letting him have fun with his friends. There was a lot of booze and I had one or two, I've been drinking alcohol for a while now, so I wasn't even close to drunk. Lewis came to check on me from time to time.

After some time talking and drinking I went up to the second floor to use the bathroom. The floor was empty, with all the doors closed except for one at the end of the hall. I thought I heard Lewis's voice coming from there so I went to the door and opened it all the way to enter. He was there, it was a room without any furniture, Lewis was leaning against the balcony, with his phone on his ear.

-Okay. Don't worry, I'll take care of everything at home. Alright, see you Sunday then dad. Bye.

Lewis hung up the phone and turned into the room, he didn't look surprised to see me standing by the door. 

-Is everything okay?

I asked as I entered the room for good, I pushed the door but it didn't close completely. Lewis called me over and I went to him. He wrapped an arm around my neck and pulled me closer. 

-Yes. My dad, Linda, and Nicholas are going to Linda's parent's house for the weekend so I have the whole house to myself now.

-That’s good. -My head was leaning on his chest and I had my eyes closed. Lewis's hand came to my chin and lifted my face, placing it just inches from his. Lewis sealed our lips calmly, and it didn't take long to deepen the kiss. It's not the first time that this happened, we've kissed before, but never like this. This time it's like there's something behind it like it's for real this time. And it's really, really good.

Soon I wrapped my arms around his neck and Lewis placed his hands on my waist, giving the area a light squeeze.

We kissed for a long time, and when I opened my eyes, I had to get used to the clarity coming from the street again.

Lewis hugged me and I felt like I could stay there forever.

-Are you going to crash at my place today?

I froze in his arms and hoped he hadn't noticed. I've slept over at Lewis's several times before, but I know what this question means right now. I know that Lewis has had some experience before, and I also know that I want to have my first time with him. But even though, it's impossible not to feel nervous.

-You know that nothing will happen if you are not 100% prepared for it, Angie. 

-I know. 

-And we don't even need to do anything, I just think you should sleep there because you told your parents you'd sleep at Annie's today and if you get home at one in the morning they won't like it one bit. 

I smiled at his concern and nodded, still hugging him.

-It’s okay. I do want to sleep there anyway.

After that conversation we were absorbed in something else, so we didn't take much longer to leave the party.

Lewis' house was just a few blocks away, so we walked back together. We exchanged a few words now and then but I was too anxious to have any type of conversation.

❀

Lewis is lying next to me. I am nervous. I'm not naive, I know what's about to happen, we've talked about it before and I feel ready. But as much as I'm nervous I'm also very sure about it. I feel safe and desired by his side. I feel that now is the time and I don't want to wait for another second. But even though, I think fear is normal.

-Are you okay? -Lewis was leaning on his arm, facing me. 

I was laying down, looking up. I nodded and moved my head to see him, he was very close to me. The room was dark but the moonlight outside was more than enough for me to see it perfectly. He looked beautiful, traces of the agitated evening at the party were on his skin that glowed even in the slightest light, he looked happy, he didn't seem to want to be anywhere else.

Lewis approached and sealed our lips very calmly. It didn't take long for me to try to deepen the kiss, which was immediately consented with a small laugh from him. Kissing has become my favorite thing to do with him, not that I have a lot of experience but his kiss is amazing.

The kiss was getting deeper and deeper, I was restless, searching for more, Lewis on the other hand was completely calm, and in no hurry at all. Eventually and finally his hand that wasn't supporting his head left his lap and found my waist, squeezing the place and bringing me closer to him, then moving down and going to my ass, where he stayed for a few moments.

I was hot, and I could feel my heart beating in my throat, I was nervous but more than right about my decision. I felt my intimacy hot and wet, I wanted him to touch me but I didn't know how I could ask for that. He was kissing me like never before, there was something else there that had never been explored inside of me.

-Angie. -Lewis cut the kiss and left his lips millimeters from mine, he was a little breathless and I think as nervous as I was. I looked at him and waited for the continuation, I wanted him to speak soon because I wanted to go back to kiss him. -Can I touch you?

My heart jumped, what I wanted was finally going to happen, and with the right person, the person who showed me what love is when I didn't even know it was possible to feel that kind of thing. I nodded at him. 

- Honey, I need to hear you say. 

-Yes Lewis. Please touch me

He didn't take long to put his hands between my legs, always very calmly and carefully. My dress was short so it had already gone up and the fabric rested on my belly. Lewis put my panties aside and I was exposed to him. 

-Let me know if you want me to stop, okay? 

-Okay.

Lewis touched me, it was like an electric current went through my whole body, I didn't know I wanted that contact so much until I had it. Both I and Lewis sighed. I leaned in and brought our lips together again. Now the kiss was awkward and almost disjointed, as our attentions were somewhere else. I wanted to be able to touch him too, but I could barely think about how I would do it. I had to keep myself from moaning and begging him to go faster. Lewis fingered my clit patiently, even with me rubbing in his hand he kept the same rhythm. I could feel him smiling during the kiss.

Lewis trailed his kisses to my neck, then to my collarbone, his hand still on me. 

-I want to see all of you. -He said very close to my ear, which caused me more shivers than I thought it was possible. 

-Please do. -I wanted to give him what he wanted, I wanted him to see me, kiss me, and tell me how beautiful I look to him.

Lewis then took his hand away from me, I moaned complaining and he laughed. 

-Calm down darling. I'll be back to give you what you want. 

Lewis pulled my dress up and I helped him to take it off, he watched me for a few seconds, I wasn't wearing a bra so I ended up totally exposed to his gaze. I didn't feel ashamed, I wanted him to look at me, so I just lay back down while looking at him.

Lewis, in turn, returned to kiss my collarbone, moving towards my breasts, where he stayed for a while. 

-You are perfect. -His lips went down to my belly, and soon Lewis was already positioned between my legs. He pulled my panties off and got rid of them, throwing them somewhere in the room. He lay down between me and looked at me, waiting for another consent. I looked at him and nodded as if to tell him to go ahead and do it.

And he did it.

Oh yes he did it.

The moan I was trying to keep was released as soon as I felt his tongue touching me. It was the best sensation in the world, Lewis started slow but soon intensified, I moved under him trying to make the most of what he has given to me. One of his hands went from holding my waist to between my legs, where he slowly placed a finger inside me. That didn't hurt, it was the opposite, I almost screamed with pleasure. I was grateful that we were alone, I don't know if I could hold back my sound.

With one finger inside me, Lewis started to make a move and that sent me over the edge, my legs start shaking and I couldn't think straight, I just wanted him with me. He climbed up to me and kissed me with hunger, there was strength and it was almost instinctual. I took my hand to his shirt and helped him take it off. Soon after I took my hand and touched him over his pants, I could feel the exaggerated bulge, I had no idea how to do that but I wanted to be able to touch him.

Lewis got rid of his pants and underwear and positioned himself on top of me. I saw his size and for the first time that night, I felt a certain apprehension. What he seemed to realize. 

-I'll go slowly, you tell me if you want me to take it off. But it will probably hurt a little in the begging. But I promise you I'll be careful. 

-Okay.

Lewis kissed me before putting himself between my legs and slowly penetrating me. I pulled his face down to my neck, not wanting him to see the discomfort on my face. At first, it did hurt, but I knew it would be like this, and I didn't wanted to stop, I wanted him inside me. I mentally thanked the universe when I realized he was already all in, Lewis stayed there for a minute until I got used to his size. Gradually he began to move, which started very slowly and then gained more speed. The pain that was almost unbearable at first gave way to immense pleasure.

-You good? - He looked at me again. I nodded and pressed our lips together tightly. In a short time, we were already in a rhythm that was good for both of us, I moaned low in his ear and I could feel his breath on mine, it was much better than I imagined it would be. At one point Lewis accelerated and started moaning, I knew he was almost there. Only then did I realize that we did everything without any protection.

-Lew, take it off, we're not wearing a condom. 

He didn't seem to hear it at first but ended up granting my request and came out of me, in my abdomen.

Lewis kissed me and stayed between my legs for a while. Then he got up and pulled me with him into the bathroom, we cleaned up and went back to bed. I pulled the blanket over us and snuggled into his lap, our clothes lying on the floor of his room with no intention of being picked.

-How do you feel? -He asked after a few minutes that we were lying down. 

-Impure. - I felt Lewis laughing below me and I laughed with him. It wasn't true, I felt good, happy to have done this with the boy that I love. -I'm kidding. I feel great, it was much better than I imagined it would be. And I'm glad it was with you. 

I lifted my head from his chest and looked at him, Lewis was beautiful in that light, I joined our lips again in a quick kiss and went back to lay on his chest, as much as I wanted to extend that night, the tiredness was already consuming me and I couldn't stand much more awake. 

-I love you. -It was the last thing I heard that night before falling asleep.

December 2005

-You look beautiful in your graduation gown and cape. 

We were sitting on the living room floor of my house, surrounded by pizza and beers. We came here after my graduation ceremony, where we knew we'd be alone since my parents went traveling. I used the money they left as an apology for not attending my graduation to buy us pizza and drinks.

-I don't ever want to take it off. I feel good in this. I feel important. 

Lewis smiled and pulled me closer to him.

-Do you know what you're going to do now? -I relax in his lap and it took me a few seconds to answer him.

-I know what I want to do. I'm going to try to get into that college I told you about, I will apply for it next year. I love fashion design, and I want to do it in the city of my dreams, it would be perfect if I was accepted. But don't worry, until then I'll still live by your side.

Lewis remains in silence for a long time before answering me. 

-This is in France, isn't it? 

-Yes. In Paris. At least I took my French lessons seriously. -I chuckled and lifted my face to look at him. But Lewis wasn't smiling, on the opposite, his face was frowning. 

-Is there a problem?

-There are great fashion colleges in London, where you would be closer. -Lewis took his hand from my waist, where it had been resting for some time. I pulled away from him, sitting down in front of him.

-I know. But Paris has always been a dream, you know that. And knowing that it's possible just made me even more excited. 

Lewis didn't look happy at all, and that pissed me off. 

-I don't think it's a good idea. Going to the other side of the continent alone and venturing out like that doesn't sound right.

-You're talking like my father. - I held myself back from rolling my eyes at that conversation.

-Maybe your father is right, Angie. Have you ever thought about it? 

-No Lewis. He's not, he's never been right about anything. 

I got up and went to the kitchen, I wanted to escape that conversation, I never thought that Lewis would react like that, I never thought that he would be upset that I wanted to follow my dream. I took off my cap and poured myself a glass of water, my mouth was dry.

-Angie, please. I'm just saying that things are more complicated than they appear. The world is not the way you think it is. 

-And why don't you let me figure this out on my own? 

He was standing in the kitchen doorway while I was leaning against the sink, facing him.

-Cause I care about you. I don't want you to regret doing something crazy like that. 

I Laugh without humor. 

-Look at you. You're running for formula 3. How many times have you been told it's crazy and you should give up? Now you come and tell me that?! Are you kidding me?!

-Angie listen...

-No Lewis! You listen. What you want is for me to be here waiting for you while you travel the world with your perfect driver's life. 

I realized that my tone was higher than usual so I tried to calm down.

-There's nothing in this world I want more than that, Lew.

-Not even me?

I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I looked at him in disbelief.

-You will not do this to me, Lewis. -I felt my eyes burning. -You would never stop running for me, don't make me abandon my dream to live yours.

Lewis fell silent, his frustrated expression replaced by a thoughtful one. He didn't look at me, I don't think he even paid attention to the environment. 

-You're right. I can't create expectations about you waiting for me here. You have all the right to live your life and go after your dreams. -Lewis looked at me but he didn't even take a step toward me, he was nervous and I could deduce that just by looking at him. There's nothing worse for me than fighting with Lewis. -But do you think it will work? The two of us, when we leave here? 

-I don't know.

February 2006 

-I still can't believe it. - I couldn't get the smile off my face. 

-Well, believe me, this is going to become routine now that you graduated and I have you free for me for a while. 

We were walking through Monza airport, we came for the first stage of the formula 3 championship. The race will only be in 5 days, but Lewis managed to convince everyone that he needed to come earlier to "prepare", even if that preparation means eating a lot and drinking wine every night on his staff bill.

I couldn't help but snap pictures from the moment we walked out of the airport to our hotel check-in, where we were both trying not to look shocked by the size of it all. 

-No fucking way! -I was discredited in that place. And Lewis didn't look any different. The hotel room was more like an apartment than a bedroom. -Lewis, there's a living room inside our hotel room.

At this point, I had already explored every corner of the place. 

-I'll never get used to this. -Lewis was smiling from ear to ear. 

It was at that moment that I stopped paying attention to the immensity of that room and looked at him. His smile managed to move me, the way Lewis was sincerely happy with how his life was unfolding made me more than proud to have seen it all happen up close. As much as he still has a lot of things to conquer, all of this already seems huge close to where he started. The realization of my privilege to be by his side at a time like this hit me and I couldn't help the emotion in my eyes, which he soon noticed.

-Honey, are you okay? -His smile faded a little at his concern. 

-Yes, everything is perfect. -I walked over to him and snuggled into his arms. -I'm just happy. -I didn't tell him but part of the reason for the tears in my eyes was fear, fear of separating, fear of him forgetting me if I go to college, and fear of leaving him and then regretting it. My anxieties related to our future have been keeping me awake for a long time, and as much as I don't talk about it with him, I know he's not much different from me.

-I have an idea. -Lewis said after a few minutes that we were hugging in the middle of that giant room. He broke our embrace and went to the phone. 

-What are you going to d... 

-Hi, my wife and I wanted to order room service. Right. Can you bring a bottle of champagne? Yeah, anyone is fine. Actually, the best bottle you have. Yes. And we also want a portion of fries. That's all. this is charged to whoever booked the room right? Ah yes, so it will be two bottles then. Right, thanks.

When Lewis put the phone back down I was laughing so hard I could barely stand. He got up and walked over to me, giving me his hand.

-So I'm your wife? -I said with a smile on my lips.

-One day. And it's going to be huge the way you deserve it. But meanwhile, we pretend for a week that we're married and spending a few days in Italy, as usual. - I sealed our lips with a smile on my face and a lump in my throat.

October 2006 

We looked at the telephone with a high expectation that it would ring at any second with the news we had been waiting for some time. The anxiety was so big that we couldn't even talk for more than a few minutes without stopping to pay attention to the yellow telephone in his house. Me, Linda, and Nicholas were in the living room waiting for Lewis and Anthony, who were in a meeting with McLaren, a meeting that would determine if the place as second driver in the team was going to be his for the next year.

From Stevenage to Woking it was just an hour trip, but I made lewis promise me that he would call with the answer of the team before he get home, whether it was good or bad news.

As much as we'd been waiting, when the phone finally rang, we jumped in alarmed. Linda didn't take a second to answer. I saw her face go from fear to pure happiness, and then we exploded in joy. Of course he made it. We started celebrating even before they got home. We spent hours celebrating, and for the first time I saw Lewis and Anthony really moved, I wanted to cry with them. After all the sacrifice he finally got the result he deserved. 

Lewis would be a formula 1 driver. the best driver ever.

December 2006

I've already lost the track of time. We've been in this room for hours. I've watched night turn into day and still I refuse to fall asleep and stop noticing his presence and our contact. I've counted his heartbeats and his light breathing for what seemed like hours. We don't have anything to talk about it anymore. We ignore his father calling us to dinner because the feeling is that if someone moves, everything will be over faster. I don't want to leave, but I have to. And so does he.

The last few months were more than perfect, being by his side and accompanying him in his races was better than I imagined it would be, I got to know several countries and saw Lewis conquering and standing out more and more in his sport and that couldn't have made me more proud and happy for my love. But it came to an end as we knew it would one day. Since the fight, we haven't talked about our relationship and our future, we decided to talk about it later, but that “later” never came.

The letter from the college was there the day I returned from a trip with him and we opened it together. Lewis was happy for me, or at least he tried to be, but that hug felt more like an embrace of losst than one of pride and happiness.

So I left my bags packed, waiting for me at home, while I ran the blocks to his house at the end of the street and asked for a few minutes with him since I had to go back home soon because of my flight the next morning. But the minutes turned into hours, hours of talking but not about our future, hours of lovemaking, and now hours of absolute silence as we lay together.

-I have to go. -I didn't feel the words coming out of my mouth, it was like someone else was speaking for me. How dare you open your mouth and disturb a moment like this?! 

-I know. -Lewis didn't move, his arms were still around my body.

-Lew...

Lewis finally let go of me, now he was looking at me, we were still lying down, so close together that we seemed to be one single being. I could see the shine in his eyes through the tears that threatened to fall, I opened my mouth to tell him that everything was going to be okay, but I knew that was a lie. Lewis sealed our lips painfully, our kiss soon deepened and there was a moment when I didn't know if the tears I felt on my face were mine or his.

We already were without any clothes from all the lovemaking moments before, but it didn't feel like enough, it would never feel like enough as we had our minds on what was going to come next. Lewis put himself inside me and we didn't break our kiss even for a second, few birds were singing outside, since it was only five in the morning, and the only sound in the room was our irregular breathing.

There was almost no rhythm in our movements, but that wasn't about pleasure, that was our inexplicable connection in the purest form there was, I wanted to be able to merge with him and not go anywhere, but I know that I’ll never forgive myself if don't leave this place to live my dream. Even though this place has become my private paradise. I can't believe that for a moment I thought Stevenage was a boring place, nothing is boring with him by my side, and it hurts so much to imagine what will be of “us”.

I don't know when it ended, but soon we were just holding each other, our naked chests pressed together, both breathless and trying to hold back the tears. 

-I love you. -The whisper was so low that I almost didn't hear it even with the room completely silent. -I will not leave you. Never.

-I love you too. But you know that's not true. -Lewis wrinkled his eyebrows and opened his mouth to answer but I cut him off. -Please don't make this any harder than it already is. We both know what's going to happen, and I could never blame you for that Lew.

-We can see each other, I can go to Paris whenever I'm not running, and then you come to me when you have some time off.

-Lewis. Please. -I sat on his mattress and looked at him seriously, Lewis looked like a child begging me with his eyes so I wouldn't hurt his feelings. -You are going to be a great driver at McLaren, you know it, I know it, everybody knows it. And when that happens your life will change completely and I will only be a small part of your past. And it's okay. But please don't make me a promise that you know you won't keep.

-Let me have a chance to try. 

I wanted to force myself to answer and say that there was no way, but I couldn't, I couldn't because deep down I wanted it to be true, I wanted him to find some way to make our relationship work even though he was so far away from me in the biggest part of the time. So I nodded. I agreed with the idea even though I knew that in the end, it would be even more difficult and painful for us. As it was.

Lewis left me at home, I lost count of how many times I tried to get away from his embrace and I couldn't, we only separated because I really needed to go to the airport. But not before confirming my new phone number with him at least 20 times. I promised that I would call him as soon as I got there and that we would have a talk about the future of our relationship.

❀

We have talked to each other every day since my arrival in Paris, in the first days we spent hours on the phone, but over time we had to reduce our daily conversations, due to all the commitments that surrounded us. 

Lewis was training every day and I was getting ready for the start of classes, everything was very new and different and I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't know how to get used to everything. But at the same time, I was excited to find out. 

March 2007 

For a moment at the beginning of those days, I truly believed that his plan would work, this long-distance relationship thing. Lewis was willing to keep his promise and every day I believed more that it would work, since it was “just a little more time until we see each other again”. But things are not always as we imagine, we were innocent to believe that it would work for so long. 

We didn't even know when we would see each other again, there was no going back, this is our life now, a life where the other doesn't fit anymore. I had to pretend to myself that I didn't care and understood when he didn't pick up, or when he spoke differently to me because he was clearly too busy to talk. I couldn't be this bitch who thinks it's bad that he doesn't have time for me when he was literally living his biggest dream. All of this is much bigger than us.

Eventually, I found out about his Formula 1 accomplishments on the internet, or through his stepmother who still called me every week to see how I was doing. Since most of the time, he forgot to talk to me or text me or whatever.

Lewis had not spoken to me for some time, I tried to call him but I always ended up in voicemail with a message from him shortly afterward apologizing and saying he would call me as soon as he could. But those calls didn't come as quickly as I wish. But every time his number called me, my heart still jumped and filled with joy at being able to hear his voice, even if in the end it ended up hurting me even more.

I knew what came would come eventually, I knew my fall would be a big one, but I didn't expect it to hurt so much, they say if you expect the worst you won't be disappointed, but that's bullshit.

I got on social media that day and came across the news that I knew would come sooner or later. He was with someone else. Comfortable next to her as if he did not doubt his feelings, as if he hadn't promised me at least to try. I thought to myself that I already knew this was going to happen, but I still felt really bad. I was still trying to assimilate what I was reading when his name jumped on my phone screen, the call I had been waiting for days, but this time my reaction wasn't happiness, I felt like I was going to throw up.

I ignored his call and went to my dorm, the conversation about us that never happened would happen now, and in the worst possible moment. I wanted to calm down to talk to him but Lewis insisted on talking to me right then and there. My phone kept vibrating as I sat on the small sofa in my room, trying to control my breathing so I wouldn't end up having a panic attack or something. He knew I knew, that's why he was calling me, to explain himself, or to end whatever kind of relationship we have, at this point I don't know anymore.

I took a deep breath before answering his fifth call. I accepted the call but didn't say anything, trying my best to postpone the conversation.

"Angie?" 

"Hi." My voice came out almost in a whisper.

"Are you okay?" I could hear in the background that he was in a bustling place. 

"Yes.”

"Good."

"Good."

For a moment I thought he wasn't going to say anything else, maybe he was waiting for me to start the conversation, but I didn't even know where to start. 

"Listen, I don't know if you saw it." 

"Oh, I saw it." 

"I just wanted to tell you that..." 

"You don't have to tell me anything. I told you this would happen, didn't I?"

I could barely feel my body, the blood was running through my veins fast enough to make me tingle. 

"Angie." 

"We could have spared this if you'd listened to me. But you insisted, and you asked me to trust you. And I trusted you, Lewis."

"I told you we would try, and we are trying." 

"I don't think what you're doing could be seen as trying." 

He took a few seconds to respond, I could hear his breathing even over the background noise.

"We never talked about exclusivity." 

"We never talked about anything, Lewis. You've always avoided that kind of conversation with me from the moment you found out we were going to split up." 

"That's not true."

"You know it is. We were naive and you know it. And you know what's worst of all? I can't even blame you, Lewis. I can't as much as I want to and this is killing me right now”.

I had to take a deep breath before proceeding because of the tears that were already burning my eyes. 

"I'll tell you what I should have said from the beginning, but I was stupid and I thought for a moment that this was going to work. Go ahead, go live your life. You know I don't fit in with this anymore. We have nothing to do with each other anymore. You took a path and I took another, things happen, what are we after all? Just childhood sweethearts and everyone knows that kind of thing doesn't go forward."

"’Just’? Are you going to sum up everything we've had into that?"

"It is what it is. I told you it was all going to end up being a small part of your past. We were kids, and we still are. And everything tends to be a lot more exciting when there's no prior experience."

"So that's it?" 

"That's it, that's all it was and all it could have been. Do what you wanted to do from the beginning, focus on your career -I laugh humorlessly. -And your perfect new girl, while I'm going to focus on my life. But please, please, don't look for me anymore. Cause I won't be able to move on with you in my life like a ghost."

"Angie…" I could almost hear his thoughts. There was a lot said in that silence that I would never actually hear. But I didn't have to, I was also feeling the same thing as him, as usual.

"I'm sorry." 

"It's okay Lew."

We stayed on the line for a while without saying anything, just listening to our breaths, trying to stay together even if separated for a little longer, attaching to what was already gone. I don't know who had the initiative to hang up first, but eventually, it ended, what I had almost my whole life ended, what I never thought would end.

And that was it, the boy I fell in love with and promised I would have forever has gone, without questioning, after just a few minute's phone call.

I know I can get over it, I hope that in a short time he really just becomes a good memory of my past, but not for now. For now, I'm broken and have no idea how to get out of this room and move on with my life. I know this will have to happen one day, but not today.

[ladywillowwc-blog]

Dr Cha - who’s watching?

I have been enjoying the Kdrama, Dr Cha, starring Uhm Jung-Hwa as a woman, Cha Jeong Suk, in her late 40s who, after a health scare, returns to her residency to become a fully certified doctor in South Korea. 

As a (much) older viewer, who has also had to reinvent myself more than once from wife/mother into various professional roles, I find the plot line (while obviously over-the-top for comic effect) pretty realistic. I have to wonder when I read reactions that say she should “just” 

divorce her no-good husband 

start an affair with the second lead

‘throw hands’ at another woman 

make any move that doesn’t fit with her personality, upbringing, or culture 

Who is watching this show? 

Clearly the people I am seeing reactions from are young. They don’t understand how much a woman can become identified with her roles as a wife and a mother. Some of that is personal - some of us lean into that role more than others. Some of it is cultural - why do you think so many of the women in Cha Jeog Suk’s life counsel her to stay in her marriage at first? Because they know how little an unmarried, divorced woman is valued in society. At least her unmarried friend, Baek Mi Hee, has money and therefore status. She is also lonely and wants what Jeong Suk has, even if it isn’t perfect.

In a divorce, Cha Jeong Suk is not guaranteed “95%” of the family finances, as I saw one reviewer proclaim. I don’t know what the divorce laws are like for family or community property in Korea, but I can guarantee you Dr Cha will be worse off financially if she divorces. Even in North America, most women lose financially. Yes, I’m sure you know of someone who “had to give everything to his bitch of a wife in a divorce.” Statistically, that is unusual, no matter what Men’s Rights Groups want you to believe.

Seo In Ho, the husband, has all the power in the family - he inherited money, his mother controls the money, he makes more money. Until after her surgery, Dr Cha had never used his credit card. What does that tell you? Once she goes back to work as a resident she would make some money, yes. I can guarantee it would not be enough to retain the house her husband would still own, or live the life she had been living. If it were, she wouldn’t have moved in the hospital residence.

Divorce is a difficult, complicated issue. It represents a complete failure of her whole adult life. She was young - early 20s - when she had Jung Min and got married. She stayed in medical school in spite of having a baby until Jung Min and her mother were in a car accident - perhaps when he was about 7? Then she had another child the same year her husband was in a program in the US, met his 1st love, had an affair, got her pregnant and came back to Korea. Irang and Eun Seo were born the same year - they are now 16 or 17. She stayed home for 20 years making a home and bringing up her children to be good people, which, in spite of some childish behaviour on the part of the literal children, they have become.

So asking for and planning for a divorce should take some time, don’t you think? It means rejecting her whole life - admitting that EVERYTHING she has worked for was a lie.

Having an affair with Dr. Roy Kim? He is a good person (which is why he is careful about how he deals with her) and she is a little overwhelmed with shit right now. He saved her life (and is very good-looking, and pays attention to her when her husband doesn’t) - she must wonder if any feelings she has are real. She constantly rejects Mi Hee’s hints that he is into her. She ‘builds rapport’ by being there for him when his personal journey goes badly - and she must feel so grateful to be able to repay him a tiny bit for everything he has done for her - but she doesn’t have the space or the time to work out how she’s feeling about him, and anything she decides now could be a disaster down the road. And I’m not sure she is that interested in sex at the moment either - she’s been 10 years without, and she probably thinks she’s over that stage of her life. (It happens. Our sex drive fluctuates through life. A lot.)

Getting into a physical altercation with another woman? Does that seem like Jeong Suk? She is angry throughout most of this show (14 of 16 episodes down), and so far has only thrown a coffee pot and a bracelet. Besides, whether she wants to or not, she feels for Choi Seung Hi, the other woman in this story. She thought her husband was worth giving things up for too, for a long time. She rightly puts most of the blame on him, although she would still like Dr Choi to leave the hospital!  

Finally, it amazes me that people watch shows deeply rooted in a different culture, with different philosophical roots and ways of seeing the world, and demand that the plot conform to their own narrow understanding. North American/white Protestant values are not the norm worldwide. Watching Korean dramas (and I am quite new to this) shows how often Confucian or Buddhist thinking underpins everything, even when the characters themselves are neither. The cultures are steeped in a way of seeing, a way of moving through the world. It’s important to step back and try to see that. Isn’t learning more about the way other people experience life the point of all fiction?

TL/DR - I just had to say all of this. I may have written some of this plot differently, but I am not mad about how it is unfolding. So far, it holds together for me. If Dr Cha decides not to go through with the divorce, for example, I will feel sad for her, but not angry at the writers. I know lots of women who would make the same choice. And choosing to be alone if she does divorce Seo In Ho also would make sense to me. As my grandmother said when she was widowed, “Why would I want to wash someone else’s socks again?” Being alone is not punishment. It can be freedom.

[mrszeoxin]

Sympathy Kiss Review

I’m finally playing Sympathy Kiss, I bought it about a week after it came out but didn’t end up playing it right away. But I’m excited to get started, from what I know it’s an office romance and more slice of life. Which honestly I’m stoked for, I’ve really been in a slice of life mood lately, so I’m excited for a more grounded game (hopefully). Not to mention I just started my corporate job, so I can fully immerse myself in the game. When she describes her daily routine, that’s me right now, only enough time to really work and the bare minimum of life (eating, chores, hygiene, and sleeping).

My initial thoughts after playing the prologue, is that it was much shorter than many of the others I’ve done. Cafe Enchante, and Bustafellows had VERY long common routes. So this shorter one was a welcome change of pace. I like the art style and how there’s animated bits, plus I love the looking over the shoulder sprites, it feels very dynamic. One thing I’m not sure how to feel about, is that MC doesn’t actually have dialogue. So it feels like this game is heavily catering towards people that self-insert (which I do), since you can change her first and last name, she doesn’t have a sprite, and even to the extent she doesn’t have real dialogue. Which I’m not sure how to feel about, especially after playing so many games with MCs that have very defined personalities. Maybe it’ll be different once in a route, and maybe I’ll like it after a bit, but it’s definitely throwing me off that I don’t actually know word-for-word what she’s saying.

Just off of the intro I think I’m most drawn to Mistuki, Kohei, Nori, and Rokuro. Mistuki reminds me of Mineo from CxM, just very outgoing and bubbly, low-key puppy vibes. Kohei has probably my favorite out of looks, although I think Nori is a close second. Rokuro I’m mainly interested in because he reminds me of a cowboy lmao, he wears a bolo tie and rides horses, I know the girls say “prince type” but to me (as a Texan) it screams cowboy and that intrigues me. Overall pretty excited to play, although I’m still not 100% sure on what to except lol.

Mitsuki Saotome

Up first is Mitsuki for two reasons, first being as I previously mentioned he’s caught my attention, second he was the first guy I met in game. Like I said, he gives me similar vibes to Mineo, so I think I’ll enjoy his route. He just seems so upbeat, a little eccentric, and kind of puppy-like. I also tend to like LIs who are close in age to MC/me, and he’s about my age and only a year older than MC. The prologue being short means I don’t have much else to say, but I think it’ll be fun.

Honestly after playing I really don’t know how to feel. I think the game is pretty easy to play, and it’s pretty short (probably the same length as a Voltage game). But I just kinda felt like something was lacking, I’m not sure if it just because I ended up not liking Mitsuki that much or what. I thought I’d really like him, but he was just okay. I didn’t really have any moments where I was giddy or felt anything really. I think the MC having no dialogue is making it really hard for me to get invested. I also feel like the writing just isn’t the best, like some scenes it’s really good, but others I just feel like I couldn’t get into it. But maybe it really is just that Mitsuki wasn’t the best fit for me. I really want to like this game, so I hope I like the next route, but this one just didn’t do it for me.

Yoji Kobase

I’ve decided to do Kobase next mainly because I’m kinda of unsure how I’ll feel about him. I kind of think his route will be fun, although I’m not sure if he’s my usual type. I think from what I’ve seen of him he seems to at least be a considerate and kind person so hopefully his route will be a nice change of pace from the first one I played. Also I know all the guys in this game are shiny and have extra-shiny lips, but his in particular keep catching my eye 😅 so idk what that says about my subconscious, but he’s got very glossy lips I can’t look away from lol.

Okay, so thankfully I actually really enjoyed this route! I think it was super interesting and much more fun to play than Mitsuki’s route. Yoji is your classic serious guy, with a heart of gold. He’s just a very sweet and considerate person, very reliable and loyal. This route also had a semi forced proximity trope which is nice. I also enjoyed the plot of this route a lot more. Overall it was very good, and gives me hope to play the rest of the game.

Kohei Minato

Next on the list is Kohei. I really like him looks wise, and from the prologue he seems to be a kind person. He’s definitely more reserved and quiet, but I think he’s one of those characters that just takes time to open up to others. He’s probably the kind of tsundere I like, kind of like Ryuki from Cupid Parasite, where he’s not excessively mean he’s just passionate and reserved. So I’m looking forward to his route, hopefully they do him justice and it’s not boring like Mitsuki’s was.

Kohei, my beloved 🥹💕. This route was so up my alley, oml. I think I really related to Kohei’s character in a lot of ways, like the way he loves and wants to support his family. Not to mention I also have a very large age gap with my two youngest siblings so I could relate to his relationship with his. I think my initial thoughts were kind of correct, but he also really reminded me of parts of 707’s route, where it’s very self-deprecating and he tries pushing her away. I feel like him and 707 share a lot of character traits in that aspect and how they care and protect their families. But honestly this route had a lot of stuff I’m a sucker for. Not to expose myself too much, although I’ve mentioned these in past reviews, but I love that he’s a little possessive, I love the teasing, it had a scene where he licked her wound, plus he’s into biting, I mean really say less, matches my freak ngl. I also enjoyed the plot for this one, and I liked getting to see his family and their dynamics. I think the ending was also good, I’m glad they didn’t totally force him to forgive his dad, because I know in other games I’ve played that’s been a problem, but I know it’s partially a cultural thing. But overall I really loved this route, and Kohei is definitely my favorite by far right now!

Shuya Usui

To be completely honest, I think is the route I’m looking forward to least out of all the main route. I just really don’t like the older characters or ones with large age gaps, typically. Which is twofold, one I’m in my 20s and I’ve never really been super into older guys, secondly I feel like most “older guy” routes make it really weird. Like instead of making the age gap feeling like it’s not a big deal, it’s usually all both people think about which weirds me out. There was also a whole scene in Kohei’s route where Usui talks about how young Kohei seems to him, and Kohei is two years older than, MC so I just do not like it. Plus looks wise he’s not my favorite. I really worry this is just going to be like a non-supernatural version of Rindo’s route 😣.

Okay, as I suspected, this was not the route for me. I’m so sorry, but I’m not a DILF girlie. Sure, there are attractive older guys, but I’ve never been romantically drawn to older guys 😅. Not to mention Usui is 45 years old. 45. The MC is 23. Yes, they are both consenting adults, but I’m 23 and my mom is 45. That’s literally all I could think, he could actually be her dad. To make it worse the age gap was THE MAIN CONFLICT. Like their age gap was the focus of the game. Like I already don’t like large age gaps, but I especially don’t like when the older person constantly talks about how young and naive the younger one is, and how inappropriate it is. Because if you think she’s not mature, or is too young for you, THEN DONT DATE HER, LIKE WHAT?!?! I just hated this one, it was not for me. I really like him as a mentor supporting character, but as a LI I cannot get behind this relationship. I will say I did kind of like the ending, but I was definitely speed reading it at that point because I just wanted to be done 😭. So sorry, if you love Usui, or want a DILF, go for it, but I just can’t, so sorry.

Nori Tainaka

So I took about a week off playing this game so that I could crochet my (irl) husband a birthday gift. Plus, after that last route I just needed a little break lol. But I’m back and excited to play!

Up next is Nori! I’m very excited for Nori’s route, he’s so cute. I love his hair, beauty mark, piercings, and his tattoo. He seems really sweet, plus I personally love the house husband trope. I think if I played this game blind, I probably would have gotten him first, solely because I’d feel bad leaving him alone 😅. But I think his route will be very interesting and I’m very excited to learn more about his past.

Oml 😭 I love him💕. Genuinely he is so cute and so sweet. I absolutely adore him so much. Like he’s such a puppy, it kind of reminds me of my husband is some ways. I think this route was one where I love him, but MC made me sooo mad at times. Like she should treat him better lol. Like he can do no wrong. Nori is perfect. The world has wronged him, but he’s an angel who deserves better. I don’t think the plot for his route was as strong, but my love and adoration for him kept me going 💕💕💕💕. Genuinely not sure if I love Nori or Kohei more, they are both tied in my heart rn.

Rokuro Yoshioka

I’ve said it before and it’ll say it again, they may call him a prince, but to me he’s more like a cowboy. He wears a bolo tie and rides horses, that’s some western country boy energy lol. I think his route will be fun, I hope there’s the trope where everyone sees him as a prince, but in reality he’s the opposite (but hopefully not mean since I don’t usually like that). I also hope the horse and horse riding plays a role in the story. I think this one has a lot of great potential!

Shut up 😭 why was this route so cute. This literally had me kicking my feet and squealing. I’m so sorry to my other boys, but I think Rokuro just shot up to my favorite so far. He’s just such a sweeting and such a genuine and kind person. He also gets blushy so easily, and him and MC have such a sweet and wholesome relationship. He’s also maybe the first guy that actually respected her wishes and boundaries. Oml I literally love him so much 🥹💕. His route has some tropes I didn’t love, but I think it did it in a way that it was still fun to play. Honestly some of his route reminds me a lot of Ray from Empherial, although he’s a lot nicer than Ray lol. But yeah, I adored this route! Super cute!

***SPOILERS AHEAD - SECRET ROUTES***

Oops, I stopped playing for like a month 😅 I had full intentions of playing it sooner, but I started streaming again, had my birthday, and overall life got crazy. Plus Otome games are just one of my hobby and I was reading and crocheting more lately, so it kind of fell to the way side. But now I’m going to finish it! Secret Routes here we go!

I already know who the two guys are going to be. It’s pretty obvious from the prologue and other routes. One will be YOFY the program guy who is most likely also Rokuro’s younger brother. And the other, will be Higa, Rokuro’s co-worker. With that said, let’s play secret route 1!

Secret Route 1 (YOFY/Soh Yoshioka)

I was pretty excited going into this route, since I liked his brother’s route a lot. Plus mysterious programmers are always fun. But I’m definitely glad I had a break between him in his brother, because otherwise I’d feel a little weird about going from one to the next so soon lol.

Not going to lie, I have no idea how to feel about this route. I really liked YOFY as a character, he’s very cute and I don’t mind the “younger guy”/ “little brother” love interests. I think the story was engaging and fast paced (as well as actually being shorter). But *spoiler alert*, he’s kind of a yandere. Which don’t get me wrong, I LOVE yanderes. I think they are super fun, and I love exploring the unhealthy obsession and possessiveness of yanderes in a fictional setting. But I think it just feels so jarring because his route is shorter, and it all happens in the last chapter, so there’s not enough time to really resolve things naturally. Plus with this game being more slice of life, it feels kind of out of place. I think honestly, I would have enjoyed it more if his route was longer and they made him a main route, not bonus route. Also I think seeing the younger guy/cutesy guy he a yandere is a more interesting approach, I personally haven’t seen done very often (other than Yandere Yoosung). I think I did enjoy the route, but I just wish it was longer so it could have been even better. As a character I really love YOFY.

Secret Route 2 (Tsukihiko Higa)

To be honest, going in I wasn’t sure what I’d think. Higa seemed pretty nice the few times we see him. And he kind of looks like an older version of Makoto from Free. Going into now, I’m quite excited as it seems he has a kid, which is totally new to me. Not only that, but I’m definitely a pretty maternal person, I love kids, and want to be a mom, so getting a route like this is very exciting. I can’t wait to see where it goes!

Well, I won’t lie, I didn’t really like this route. I really wanted to like it, but something about it just didn’t work for me. Not sure if it’s just because I was tired, or what, but it just wasn’t that good. I feel like the story was too all over the place and the ending really dragged. It kind of feels like a waste, since the single parent idea has so much potential. But it felt like they rushed and slacked on the romance part, just to shove in a story B plot that wasn’t even that good. Definitely disappointed.

Overall Thoughts

I think this game is a real mixed bag. I still don’t think I like that MC has no dialogue, it’s really weird and can make parts of the story confusing. You do adjust to it, but I really feel like it takes away from the story.

I think a lot of the routes were fun to play, and had a fun plot. But honestly not sure if I’d recommend the game, I’d say this is one that’s better to get on sale if you can. The music is okay, and the visuals are great, voice acting was pretty amazing, but the stories weren’t great. A lot of the plots struggled in some aspect which sucks.

I think if you like slice of life games, and you’ve played a lot of mobile and self insert games, you’ll probably like Symapthy Kiss. But if not, this would probably be a skip.

Overall if I had to rank the guys I think I’d go Rokuro as my favorite for both plot and character, followed by Kohei (plot and character are great), Nori (love Nori, the plot is just okay), then Yoji (really fun plot, and good character). The rest I could honestly do with out. The two other main guys just were not fun at all to play, and the two secret routes both struggled with pacing but for opposite reasons. I think the game might have been better if they just stick with my top 4 guys, and gave them a more detailed story.

I think I did enjoy the game, and might even replay some routes again, but it’s not in my top games. I’m pretty disappointed given how much I’ve been wanting a good slice of life game, and I feel like this just kind of missed the mark. I almost feel like I would’ve been better off getting the Oops! I Said Yes?! on the switch 😅. But no hate, I think this fans has some good points.

I hope you enjoyed this review, so sorry it took me so long. Now that I’m working full time, it’s definitely hard to find the time to juggle all my hobbies, and binge games 😅. I think I’ll probably be play a bunch of Voltage games and Love and Deepspace for a bit since they are easier to fit in my schedule. So I may do some occasional posts about them. I also finally got Amnesia, so I may do a less detailed post on that. Not sure yet when my next big post will be, but it will most likely be on Olympia Soirée. Until then bye!

[selkiefinalist]

2023 (Writing) Year in Review

y’all it feels weird to throw this together because a.) it’s been 84 years and b.) who cares BUT it’s an old practice and i’m doing it, so:

after two years of not getting anything across the finish line, i wrote, finished, and posted things this year! 79,110 words worth of things, according to ao3!! plus i got to break a bunch of new pairings which is always satisfying, and i created a not-very-secret sideblog to write some lil tumblr fics when the mood strikes, which is not very often lol

maybe so (and maybe not) - newhook/nieto, 5k, E. this one came into being only because my partner in life told me i should start writing again and just write small things to ease back into it and oh, also, should write something featuring newy and nietsy that also featured the phrase “no ******* on the ‘stache” and if there’s one thing in life i like to do, it’s meet people’s expectations, so. that’s what happened.

made up - manson/macdermid, 13k, E. welp, this one just straight-up filled me with delight from concept to execution. it’s flawed in lots of ways i am sure but i do think my sweet spot in writing is probably that 15k-25k zone. that length gives me enough rope to work with but not so much that i cat’s cradle myself into knots with it, and is a realistic length to crank some stuff out in the limited time i have for writing these days and not feel too bad about it.

every new shade of green - ej/nate, 57k, E. ohhh the writing of this was so hard, which honestly i knew was my own fault because i wanted to do something hard. and i did it! and it’s done! there are a few pairings in my fandom history that really just do one over on me and this is one of them, and i think navigating the importance of the pairing itself with the length of the fic and what i wanted to accomplish with it as well as who it was gifted to is what made it so difficult. anyway you should all read it and validate my suffering.

one closed eye - macdonald/renouf, 2k, E(ish), alien au. wherein i circle back to the plan from earlier in the year and just write a small thing. is there anything more romantic in two call-ups finding love in a hopeless place, and one being immediately traded at the end of the season? they were so in love. jmac come back to us.

never (gritty) enough - gritty/nj devil, gritty/sanny, 1k, E, idk. i amused myself greatly with this concept yesterday after that one post circulated on my dash, wrote it fueled by exercise endorphins and then posted it fueled by late night, who cares? endorphins, it is perfect and beautiful in every way and also i am a genius

also created my first fest! very low-stakes low-participation but felt good to give back to fandom in a different way, i have always done best writing for fests because i love a deadline and hate letting people down. it’s still not too late to finish your stuff - prompts are available.

[luvwich]

2023 in review

(for real this time)

the short version: i started writing fanfic this year. it's been lovely. i've written two longfics with some spinoffs, all collected into two series, plus a one-shot. i wrote 242,000 words.

91.9 Royal Blue is Valerie and River being angsty idiots

Hypercritical is Vania and Tiny Mike being angsty idiots

and Red-black is an ultra-short oneshot about Songbird; no idiots, just angst

this is also my first time even engaging in a fandom in this way, and i've been delighted to become acquainted with you tumblr folks. i'll echo the sentiment i see a lot: that even if all we've done is reblog each other a few times with blathering tags, i see you as a friend, and you have done me an enrichment.

much longer version under the cut:

before this year, my only experience writing any kind of fiction was roleplaying - ages and ages ago, but something of an illustrious career, looking back. it was actually not bad practice when it came to flowery description, dialogue, and characterization. it was horrible preparation on the matter of actually constructing a plot.

then i saw River Ward's arms and realized i needed to figure out how to do plot, and quick!

Arpeggio

so like many of us, i thought river was dreamy and his quests totally unsatisfying. i also saw someone shit-talking River somewhere complain that their corpo V would never want to hang out with river because he’s an unemployed cop living with his sister, blah blah blah classist tripe, don’t get me started, but it did get me started thinking about what it would look like for a bitchy corpo V and river to fall in love. Valerie sprang from that; Arpeggio sprang from Valerie.

hi, Valerie.

so, i thought i just wanted to write a steamy river ward romance that was more satisfying than the meatless canon plot. it turns out i wanted to write an ode to everything wrong about myself, and to every shitty relationship i've had, and to death and loss. it happens. here's how it starts:

Thwap-bap! Synleather on synleather: two strong, clean hits to the punching bag. Thwapbapbap. A sandstorming morning, or afternoon — hard to keep track of time with the sun hidden and the world bathed in rust. Days like this you couldn’t even see the skyline out there; all you had was a twenty-foot radius, and within that you could imagine yourself just about anywhere. River had always kind of enjoyed the storms for that reason.

i pumped out the first eleven chapters in like a month (?!), posting as i went, from late march through april. i was shocked to get even one reader, and didn't get a lot more than that for a long while. then i fell off for a little while due to work. but then i received a single, innocent comment asking when the next chapter would be posted, and that was apparently enough to make another thirteen chapters fly out of me just in june and july.

around then i hit what i think of as the third and final "act" of Arpeggio, and the wind fell out of my sails again. i'd hit the 100k mark, had no idea if anyone was even reading it, and convinced myself the last ten chapters i'd posted were garbage and everyone had fallen off. i still loved my story & my characters, i was bursting with ideas, but felt the sudden pressure of needing to wrap everything up in a way that did justice to my vision and didn't waste anyone's time who'd bothered to read that far.

as with everything in my life, i had only the vaguest idea of how i was going to get to where i was going. i decided to batten down the hatches and actually try to plan how to get there, which slowed my pace some.

i also decided to start something new, with the express purpose of giving myself something light-hearted, sexy, and most importantly way the fuck shorter than Arpeggio to work on while i was finishing up the latter. i'd limit myself to ten chapters. i'd keep the plot tight and focused. there'd be a lot of fucking. yay! and a big part of the intent was to "prove to myself" that i could finish something. and so i started on:

Jaded

Arpeggio featured Tiny Mike as a fling, and it was played for awkwardness and absurdity, but i found him really fun to write. i had also just started a new playthrough with a new V (still a corpo — i'm really just a particular kind of bitch, truth be told), so i thought i'd throw her into some mischief.

hi Vania.

if Valerie is the parts of me that suck and are chaotic, Vania is all the scared and cute parts.

man, look at them!! *throws them both in the bug zapper*

i managed to finish Jaded in the space of about a month, from july-august. i thought it turned out wicked fun, and clicking "post" on that final chapter gave me a taste of satisfaction and accomplishment that was enough to see me through to the end of Arpeggio.

here's an excerpt from the first chapter.

Sundays always mean something. They mean something even to a dropout merc who hasn't seen the inside of a house of God in years. The last time Mike had been to church, the price of a can of ChroManticore was in the single-digit eurodollars. Even so, Sunday's no day to spend propped against a bathtub that's coated with a half inch of unidentified bio-pudding, no day to spend wheezing at death's doorstep, no day to be wondering where the smell of yourself ends and the smell of the squalid safehouse begins. Sundays are for family, beers, cleaning your guns. Not this shit.

then PL came out and i wrote a quick oneshot about Songbird.

Red-black

i could easily write more about Red-black than there are actual words in the thing, but i won't. it's a bittersweet 69 sesh with a cyborg. it's about betrayal and bodies. i'm pleased with it. i might expand on it one day, but to be frank, i don't think i can write extensively about Songbird in a way the character deserves without my life being in a way darker place than it is right now. so if you see me add a second chapter to this fic, maybe check in on me.

i finished Arpeggio in october, seven months after i started posting it. 154,347 words. i like how it turned out. i've finally stopped going back to make tweaks (although just the other day i was re-reading a chapter and was like what the fuck is this word choice? what did i even mean here? and i changed it, so i guess that was a lie. Valerie is based on me, folks!).

i'm proud of it and everything else i've written, even in moments when all i can see is flaws upon re-reading. some people read it all the way through, which is wild to me! some of them even say they liked it! world's a crazy place.

here's an excerpt from toward the end.

Wind gathered over the churning Pacific to chap her lips and ruin her hair, snarling it like the waves which crashed the battered wood. Soft gusts billowed through her jacket, touched the base of her spine, and reminded her that everything was so very enormous, and that she was yet alive, and that a great spirit ruled this ocean and always had. This is lovely, Johnny said, resting an unreal hand on her shoulder. But we gotta get back to work, princess. “Yeah. Well, let’s go check out some shops, first.”

in 2024 i probably won't write as many words, but i have a few things planned:

more Vania: Crescent & Redwood is an ongoing sequel to Jaded and a fix-it for one of the PL endings

weatherman says there's an 85% chance of more Tiny Mike porn appearing under Fixer-uppers (and obviously a 100% chance of it in Crescent)

more Valerie: i have some more Val and Riv plotted out — mostly casefics and slices of life — but i need to be in a real fucking mood to write her these days

a really quite raunchy romp with President Myers is almost done baking

i have a Solomon Reed ditty on the backburner

who the fuck knows

anyway, even if all you've read of my writing was a snippet or two i've shared on tumblr, thanks so much for reading. seeya in '24.

[married-2-the-music]

Tell Me What To Do; A Letter To Jonghyun

If you’ve ever stumbled across one of my posts before, you’ll probably know me as a (maybe somewhat harsh) reviewer, who will always take the chance to rhapsodize about harmonizing and complain about Dynamite. But that’s not what this is; I did write a review about JH’s work but this is different; I want to start off not with my “credentials” but with a story. I’ve been a casual k-pop fan since early 2019 through BLACKPINK and a deeper fan since March of the year after, when I discovered Red Velvet.

In late November of 2020, during lockdown, I lost one of the people I loved most in the world. I was still a teenager (barely younger than he was when he debuted in SHINee), and I felt alone and isolated in that grief. Just three weeks later, on December 18th, three years ago now, I was scrolling on social media when I came across posts memorializing Jonghyun. I had heard his name mentioned, through Yeri of Red Velvet, but had never taken the time to really listen, and I finally did.

It gives me no joy to say that I discovered that he had made a plan; his last album, Poet | Artist was released just a month after he chose to leave the world, a final gift to the fans who had watched him grow up for both so long and not nearly long enough. When I looked closer, I saw people mourning, people celebrating, and most of all, people remembering. The k-pop world had just lost two more idols to suicide, Sulli (Choi Jinri, of f(x)), and Hara (Goo Hara, of KARA), and the messages surrounding mental health had never been stronger. It was this that finally got through to me, like a lightbulb going off, and I went, “Shit. I think I have depression.”

Now, I’m not going to credit him with saving my life because I have no idea what would’ve happened, but to this day, it’s Jonghyun’s voice that sings “tell me what to do” on the 6:45 alarm reminding me to take my anti-depressants. To this day, it’s his music that I turn to when I need comfort. In his memory, I try to continue what he did for me. I take December 18th as a day to be just a little bit of a better person—a better sister, a better daughter, and a better friend both to others and to myself—as much as I possibly can.

Jonghyun’s discography is only five albums, less than three hours long. The mere fact of this makes me sad. I wish I could tell a story with a happier ending, one that I finish by saying that he’s still here, still on his 27th collection of wonderful stories, still teasing the hell out of the band members who loved him more than anything, still being a dork who brightens everyone’s day with the same humor that made me laugh for the first time in a month the first time I came across it.

But, no matter how good of a writer I think I am, I can’t do that. All I can do is what all of us can do, which is remember who he was, respect the art he created, and continue the great advocacy he started. In this, I’m trying to do all three.

I can’t really put into words the feelings I have about this. Writing it has reminded me how grateful I am, not only that I found Jonghyun and his story, not only that I became a Shawol, but that I became a k-pop fan in general. After finding SHINee, I became a fan of Gfriend, Girls Generation, Seventeen, (G)I-DLE, Stray Kids, Sunmi, and, of course, Dreamcatcher, whose music is now a part of me too.

I know that I’ve probably made this way more about me than it should’ve been, but I’d like to end by saying this: I know that k-pop (and being a fan of it) are seen as something to mock, something only done by insecure, screeching teenage girls with too much free time on their hands who are obsessed with random men they’ve never met. And maybe that is who I was in 2019.

But to me now, and so many other people I know, it is stories like mine that are the real reason why we choose to dedicate so much of our precious free time to something that so many people deem childish. I’m a linguistics major, and I can tell you firsthand that music is one of very few things that can break a language barrier and reach people across the world. Had Jonghyun’s not reached me, I don’t know where I’d be. But I wouldn’t be here, and I definitely wouldn’t be a linguistics major. As he wrote in his book, “Even though we can’t communicate using the same language, we use music instead.”

Jonghyun broke boundaries in k-pop, with his openness, his self-producing, his prolific writing, his advocacy, and, of course, his incredible kindness. Both our community and the world as a whole were very lucky to have him for as long as we did, which still wasn’t nearly long enough. He changed the lives of so many people—he changed mine, without me even knowing the word “K-pop” at the time he passed away—and overall, he made the world just a little easier for everybody else, no matter how hard it was for himself. Whenever I have my bad days, I listen to his music; I ask him to tell me what to do. And I make myself a promise: that whatever I do, I will never make the decision that he did.

Whether he’s out there and whether he’s listening or not, I’d just like to say thank you, Jonghyun, for changing my life. You did so, so, well, and, in an odd way, I’m incredibly proud of you and all you managed to accomplish despite the kind of pain you went through. I hope that, even though we never got the chance to meet, you would be proud of me too.

And thank you, for taking the time to read this. I hope that whoever you are and whatever Jonghyun means to you, you find a little comfort in the fact that you are not alone in it. However you want to grieve (or not grieve) is valid. If you’ve never heard of our wonderful singer before, take this as a sign to take ten minutes to learn something about a truly beautiful human.

And if you have, take this as a reminder to take your medication, get some sleep, and check in with your friends. Though Jonghyun thought that what he did was the only way out, he was wrong, because I’ve been there. I’m still there, sometimes. But take this as reassurance that it’ll get better. It might not be better tomorrow and it might not be better for a while. But it will get better.

Happy holidays, folks. Take care of yourselves out there. Tschüss and Fröhliche Weihnachten!

[trialbymagicks]

Revisiting Hidden Expedition: Titanic (2006) [PC, Steam]

Valentine's Day is about self-love too, so I'm treating myself by revisiting the beloved Hidden Expedition series of hidden object games from my childhood, starting with Hidden Expedition: Titanic! 💘

Plot

The Hidden Expedition Adventure League (H.E.A.L.) has received word that the Queen’s crown rests in the wreckage of the RMS Titanic and they are enlisting the help of the most daring treasure hunter they know to retrieve it. So, it’s up to you to dive into the remains of the sunken ship and salvage as many antique artifacts as you can for the Titanic Museum Foundation during your search. How nice of them to pay you for your trouble with as many gems as you can carry!

Introduction

On July 19, 2006, Big Fish Games launched Hidden Expedition: Titanic for Windows and this charming hidden object game quickly found a resting place in the hearts of its players.

I have very fond memories of playing it on an old secondhand laptop late at night, fascinated by the chilling atmosphere and the concept of unraveling mysteries from a long-lost past. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to finish it, so for over a decade my mind was filled with burning questions about what treasure awaited me at the end. It wasn’t until the hidden object bug bit me again back in 2019, bringing that memory back into the forefront of my mind, that I learned that this simple game about a famous sunken ship had become the flagship for an entire series. So, I scoured the internet for this beloved relic of my past and, when I finally realized that Titanic was on Steam alongside a handful of other games from the series, it felt like the catharsis I’d been waiting for.

Some reviews on the store page addressed a concern about the game not opening to full screen, which initially worried me. Would I have to manually adjust my screen resolution in order to play it or would I simply not be able to play it at all due to the objects being too small to see? As it turned out, I never encountered either problem – even running it on a Windows 10 system – so it’s possible that that aspect of the Steam port was fixed.

Fair warning: Upon first startup, you are required to grant the program permission to make changes to your computer. This appears to be what allows it to change its resolution and open to full screen, but if that makes you uncomfortable, you may want to pass on picking it up because the game will not run if you don’t give it permission. You can, of course, choose to play the game in windowed mode later on if that is a more comfortable fit for you.

Whatever the case, I am grateful that my experience playing Titanic now was just as I remembered back when it first came out. Having sparked a love of hidden object games within me, this is the game that instantly comes to mind as the primary example whenever I think of the genre.

Review

As the first game in the series, Hidden Expedition: Titanic may not possess the larger than life cast of characters, grand sweeping story arcs, arsenal of brain-teasing puzzles, and fully voiced cutscenes of later installments, but it is a charming example of what a hidden object game is at its heart.

The gameplay is intuitive and the rules are simple to grasp:

Complete all scenes (plus bonus round) in each dive to move on to the next dive.

Each dive is timed, allotting a certain number of minutes to complete.

Find all hidden objects in each scene before the timer or oxygen level runs out.

Clicking on the wrong object uses up oxygen.

A small amount of oxygen can be replenished by finding the hidden oxygen tank in each dive.

Bonus: Challenge yourself to find all 5 gems in each scene.

The nonintrusive plot offers a humble explanation for the underwater Titanic theme and a reason to play as an explorer embarking on this dive – the promise of a secret treasure at the end and the reward of knowing you found it – which it gracefully follows through on.

The simple melody that greets the player on the opening menu sounds like a promise of adventure and the eerie repeating tune that plays during dives provides a mysterious atmosphere of wonder as well as urgency the lower the oxygen level gets. Of course, there is also a collection of Titanic facts to discover for anyone who may find themselves hungry for knowledge about the topic.

What really tripped me up as a kid was the fact that I had never seen nor heard of a lot of the antique objects on the item lists, so I wasn’t sure what to look for and usually ended up clicking around aimlessly and running out of oxygen once I had found everything I recognized. Even the hint system, which will show you where a random object is, uses up oxygen per hint!

Replaying the game as an adult was remarkably less stressful. I’m sure this is because I have learned more since then and am also much better at guessing what an object’s purpose is by its name, which makes them infinitely easier to spot in the scene. There are also plenty of occasions where it helps to know that a word could represent multiple images (for example: bat, pipe, fork, spade, plane, note, and compass), so don’t be afraid to utilize that pause button and a thesaurus if you need to!

At the end of each dive, there is a bonus puzzle to solve. The player will have to either restore an old photograph by putting its pieces together in the right order or locate a collection of silhouetted items based on a fictional passenger’s profile, no more no less.

Be aware that the final mini game before the game’s conclusion takes a surprisingly different approach!

For me, it was a little confusing at first. I failed a few times and was forced to redo the final dive after every failure in order to try again.

But that’s what I get for not paying attention! If I had taken my time, I might have realized that I wasn’t supposed to guess the numbers by clicking on random items and hoping for a clue. Instead, the numbers that appear on the combination are the hints for each object I was supposed to find. This experience did teach me that the numbers are completely random for each attempt, just like how the item lists for each scene are randomized.

Note that, to complete a dive, you must fully explore all 2 or 3 scenes labeled on the blueprint of the ship and the bonus puzzle at the end. There is no way to save your progress in the middle of a dive, so if you return to the menu or exit the game before completing it, the game will require you to complete all scenes of that dive again when you re-enter.

But this does also mean you will get new item lists when you replay the scenes, so the replay value of the game in general is pretty solid! If you were interested in farming gems this way to increase the number displayed on your certificate when you complete the game (since there appears to be no other purpose for them), you could choose to take advantage of that feature rather than rushing through the game.

Overall, this game is great for anyone looking for a simple (and lightheartedly gimmicky) hidden object experience!

The Story So Far...

While Hidden Expedition: Titanic provides little establishing lore for what would become a series set in an alternate timeline version of reality and begs us not to throw our suspension of disbelief out the window, there is still a tasty chunk of information to read into. So, let me gently take you by the hand and guide you on this journey into the great unknown…

The player character, henceforth referred to as Eris for reasons that will soon become clear, starts out as a (morally questionable) treasure-hunter-for-hire who comes highly recommended by the Hidden Expedition Adventure League (H.E.A.L.) as someone who would “appreciate embarking on [the] grand, yet perilous adventure” into the wreckage of the RMS Titanic on behalf of the Titanic Museum Foundation. Does Eris work for H.E.A.L. as an agent or just a contact? We have yet to know!

Regardless, Eris’ goal is to retrieve an unspecified number of artifacts – namely the Queen’s crown, which had been on its way to a New York exhibition at the time of the ship’s tragic first voyage – and how do you suppose the museum plans to pay for this life-threatening mission? Not with a guaranteed lump sum of money, but rather with as many gems as Eris can salvage from the wreckage themself! Of course, these gems aren’t the priority of this mission, but they’re Eris’ to keep if they can find any before running out of oxygen.

That’s not even addressing the fact that the Titanic Museum Foundation somehow expects its hired hand to swim into the wreck with nothing but scuba gear for protection against implosion-inducing pressure at 12,600 feet below sea level. Either H.E.A.L. is leaps and bounds ahead of society’s technological advancements in underwater exploration or this character is indestructible.

Oh, and another little detail that Director J. Narl Spurdly doesn’t share with Eris before sending them into the depths is that, if they happen to run out of oxygen before finding all of the artifacts on the museum’s list… the Foundation isn’t reeling them back in. Totally not morbid at all! Game mechanics aside, it’s more likely implied that they do let the player character return to safety with whatever had been salvaged in the given amount of time, but they are inevitably sent back out with a new list and renewed oxygen for another attempt.

Evidently, the chance to see the wreck up close must have been too tempting for the immortal Eris to refuse because they agree. It is at this point that I must wonder if the random Titanic facts that appear on screen during dives are meant to represent 1) the Titanic Museum representatives sharing information with them or 2) the notion that the player character is a trivia lover who is reflecting on their knowledge as a distraction from the very likely possibility of a nightmarish death before drowning. Either way, the crown is recovered, Eris is presumably a hefty pile of gems richer, and the Titanic Museum Foundation has bragging rights.

But of course staring down the face of imminent death beneath the sea for the hubris of a vain humanity wouldn’t be enough to satisfy this adrenaline junkie – because the next time the H.E. challenge comes calling, Eris is ready to set their sights on a much grander prize at Mt. Everest’s summit.

Resources

Screenshots are a mix of my own and from Neoseeker’s gallery.

For more information on the series, check out the Hidden Expedition Wikipedia page, the Big Fish Games Hidden Expedition Website, and the Hidden Expedition TV Tropes page.

Note: This article was originally posted on WordPress on February 14, 2023.

[shinakazami1]

Been busy lately so I don’t have much time to review and edit, but here I am! (this was supposed to be sent on the anniversary.) (edit 1: It’s already (edit 2: halfway through) november.)

(edit 3: i gave up. words be damned, i’m sending this. there should have been more. curse you writing)

(edit 4: reminder. write a long ask anywhere else except the actual tumblr ask window. sending again just to make sure i didn’t hallucinate all this- it would be so, very embarassing...)

hehehehehe love your art. Crunchy. Pringles. Crushing it in my mouth. yummy colors and perspective (That bucket sexyman design looking kinda fine though.,..i mean who said that) (->absolutely normal behavior)

I love how you interact with others’ art, leaving your comments and compliments. Really appreciate that little motivation boost and positivity you spread :)

As seen from Paratober, you seem to take the prompts beyond their face value and messed around with the concepts of those prompts (gonna put Jester in a carton box hehe. Can we have Jester loafing? Loafing in a box?)

Personally I’m not a writer, so I don’t know how you guys’ brains work but I love how you come up with interesting ideas stemming from the game’s original material, expanding, digging deeper into them. I look up at you all in wonder hehe

Also, I read unheard wishes.

You see, I rarely ever seek out angst. I came in there with “this is gonna hurt but I can totally bring myself through this”

Boy was I wrong. Now, because I didn’t read it properly enough to leave a comment that would do it justice (time restraints get you like that), I won’t give a lengthy review. But just so you know, my general feelings were “who do you think you are. did you really think you had the right to hurt me like this. *inhales* aaaaaaaaaAA *cars crashing glass breaking sound effects idk* *lays motionless on the ground* (affectionate)”

Maybe i’ll read your filk wip next. Biology is fun :]

It’s your way with the images you make for your stories and art. Candlecurator? Whatever’s up with fernarrator? I’m not listing the ones in your writings. A lazy, lazy anon I am, I know. [insert another keyboard smash]

I haven’t been here for a while so i don’t really remember much, sorry ;; (-> fake fan detected?!? *vine boom*)

Your theories definitely left the strongest impressions on me. How do you all think like that?? (this goes to the rest of you, tsp theorists/analysts/meta. what are you all on??? damn. give me some.). Perhaps it’s a writer’s thing, maybe I’m just incompetent in this deep thinking kind of stuff.

My favourite was the nature connection theory. Absolutely ate that up. (definitely not because of my bias for plants and nature-related stuff, noooo-). You somehow connected the plants in the parable, creating these wonderful strings of text about what you saw in these plants, the implications, and then sharing those ideas to us. Give me your braincells, shina. Give me-

[Close your eyes.]

Anyway- I think you’re pretty neat :]

Have a nice day!

✨✨✨!!!!!307 ANON!!!✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

ᴬᵍᵃᶦⁿ since I was already writing a draft to respond to your previous ask. The fact you have this copy makes me hope you are saving these asks somewhere because I lost a lot of posts thanks to the great Tumblr editing system....

Happy (belated and too early at the same time hehe) anniversary 307 :] To your edits - PLEASE start writing drafts somewhere else oshsaoifas I don't want you to lose your versions again. You might say you are not a writer but you decide to write such beautiful comments and asks - value your words more :]

Anon. I have an exam this week so it will take my energy but DO KNOW YOU WILL GET BUCKET SEXYMEN SKETCH. I imagine you will see it in a few months but,,, I hope you will like it, just like you like my art in general.

I feel now in retrospect so silly I hadn't done this sooner!! While I sometimes don't have the energy to comment on other people's stuff in my own comments, I know how much joy being told your words could make someone happy :] And I love interacting like that!! Shared appreciation!!! That's why I adore Tumblr in general - it feels most organic in that ability to engage with others as a social media.

I'm glad you like the Paratober prompts! I am happy I mixed the prompts to try to get even more creative with them!! And feel free to put him in every box!! Some old art of Jester in a box:

(I gotta finally start uploading my old art I do have. There is so much...

FEEL FREE PLEASE TO LEAVE MORE COMMENTS EVEN A SILLY ONE BUT OUGHHH I am so proud of Unheard WIshes so thank you so much <333333 Glad you could enjoy

Just remember anon that I do not know your age and the rating for Filk is Mature so please respect the ratings :]]] Ao3 tagging system is there for a reason!! However I still keep on getting opinions that Filk seems to target 16+ demographic since it's more South Park style...But still, please respect it :]

Oh sure, you are so lazy *looks at your very detailed an amazing asks* so lazy. But WAH THIS IS LIKE??? A VERY RARE CANDLECURATOR APPRECIATION??? Like I know folks see Fernator and like him but to hear you like her means so much to me ;;;;;;

And hey - life gets busy :] The fact you wanted to come again, read my story and wrote this, rewrote even god knows how many times... I will always think fondly of you.

DUDE OUGH I need to return to theories, I have so many yet to share,,, you wanting one means a lot to me :} I worked hard on the Fernator theory post so I am glad to hear you could enjoy it! I might do a pool on what people could want hehe

[Closes my eyes and tries to close yours]

I think you are very neat, 307 anon. Thank you, for being you and I hope I will see you one day again. Every ask, I worry it's also a farewell. And then - you come back. I hope you are okay out there - I hope your life, even if so busy, gives you moments of happiness and calmness.

Have a lovely day, 307 :]

[homenecromancer]

after 17 years here is my review of the School's Out - Forever soundtrack

1. "Death Said" - The Summer Obsession this song is fine. it's okay. kind of 2006.mp3 here, but in a way that's hard to quantify. i probably would've liked this song in 2006.

2. "What I Wouldn't Give" - Holly Brook this song is also fine. i've known about it for years (because it was mentioned by Max on the blog) but had never listened to it and. it's way softer in vibe than i expected from Max, more in line with the later-books version of her.

3. "Shaky" - Cipes And The People i did not like this song. i wouldn't leave a place if it came on the radio, but i was thinking "lmfao this dude played Beast Boy" the entire time.

4. "Underneath My Skin" - Brian Steen this is the kind of song i would have downloaded free off of last.fm in the 2000s. here is a sample of the lyrics: "please forgive me if I'm somewhat crabby / you know I like it when you call me Daddy / you're so damn catty". i do not care for these rhymes.

5. "Disappear" - The Summer Obsession i would've liked this song in 2006. it's OK. a very "man these lyrics would've been catnip to teenage me" kind of song.

6. "Wanted" - Holly Brook this song's fine. i don't know if i would have liked it in 2006, but it's okay. but at the same time... i am starting to hit the age where songs i vibed to as a teenager get played in the grocery store, and, uh, this one would at least be more appropriate for that vibe than "Untitled" by Simple Plan.

7. "The Way I Do" - Marcos Hernandez this song is fine, but not to my personal taste. i wouldn't turn the radio off if it came on.

8. "Where Do We Go From Here" - Cooper i would've liked this song in, like, 2008. unfortunate that this was, like, the one band on this album where i have had no luck in tracking down anything else they ever did.

9. "Golden Days" - Kelly Dalton this song was not to my taste. i might've liked it in 2006 but it doesn't do anything for me in 2023.

10. "Take It From Me" - The Weepies i'm pretty sure i've heard this song before now, because while i wouldn't describe myself as a serious fan of this band, i have yet to hear a song by them that i didn't like. anyway this one is good, and if you're not familiar with the band, i recommend "Nobody Knows Me At All" (which i super fucked with in 2007) and "I Was Made For Sunny Days".

11. The Angel Experiment special excerpt just in case you're not sure what book you're listening to, this file starts with a red-tailed hawk screech and a brief musical sting. but i can also reveal that this recording was... kinda featured on the website in late 2005. this version has some added audio effects -- the hawk screech and opening music; the tape-recorder "clunk", ongoing staticky hum, and ending music are in both versions -- but the text is the same. so to hear this on the old website, go to the following address -- https://web.archive.org/web/20051103120534/http://www.maximumride.com/ -- and click "Take a Listen and Take Flight". (it's not highlighted there, but the reader for this text is Evan Rachel Wood, and apparently she was in Westworld if you've seen that series)

12. School's Out - Forever special excerpt this excerpt is read by Valentina de Angelis -- more info if you go here, but there's nothing much there https://web.archive.org/web/20060420191035/http://www.maximumride.com/home.php?content=AudioCD . i should've mentioned this above, but i am not an audiobook person and therefore cannot review this track on those merits.

[thepmsjournal]

To My Dearest Toby,

Toby, my Tow2x, Chudow, Chugudong, 豆豆，where do I start? Very few understand the special bond we shared… I cannot describe the pain I’m feeling right now; it feels like I will never get over this pain of losing you. I must’ve cried buckets of tears already. You were truly the goodest boy anyone could ask for.

Since you were a puppy, I brought you with me wherever I went, whenever I could. Cafes, resorts, parks, milk tea places, malls, my workplace, even bars. Whether we were just hanging out, or watching fireworks (that probably stressed you out), even when I was working, you were always so quiet under the treatment bed, and well-behaved. You were the most gentle dog.

I’m glad we brought you to Manila with us during the pandemic. You were depressed at first but eventually adjusted to our life there. We made the most of it and found simple joys in our stay. Thank you for being with me all throughout my pregnancy. I remember endlessly assuring you that you were my first baby and would never be replaced. But I feel guilty that I didn’t give you as much attention as I used to, and didn’t take you out as much once the twins were born. Somehow I neglected you… and I’m truly sorry for that. Still, you remained patient, always by my side.

You went through hell on the flight back from Manila and spent almost 12 hours in the airport holding area, I was worried sick without any updates from the airline. You must’ve spent the whole night terrified and stressed. I hated myself for subjecting you to that. But you were brave and made it back safely, thank God. But I promised myself then that I would never put you through that again until airlines allowed ordinary pets onboard. You were most relaxed in Kandaya; I know that will always be one of your happy places because we shared so many memories there. You were the most patient big brother to the twins.

I thought I’d have more years with you. I was planning to take you to Kandaya again when I returned. Since you didn’t like walking as much lately, I was going to buy a stroller for you. I thought I’d still take you out and put you in it so you could enjoy the experience. But, like Buddha said, that’s the problem—we think we have time. I deeply regret not doing those things sooner for you.

In 2023, you rapidly gained weight.. We all noticed it but the Vet said your blood works were fine, and that it was probably due to aging. So we stopped worrying so much. I reviewed the CCTV footage from that day, searching for any signs, but you seemed like your usual self. There was nothing to suggest that later that night, you would be gone. It all happened so fast.

I resent that I wasn’t beside you when you crossed the rainbow bridge, but at least I was on video call with you until your last breath. I’m scared to step into the house without you in it. I honestly don’t know how to recover from this; it feels like my heart has been ripped open. I didn’t even get to hug you one last time.

Thank you, Toby. Thank you for the wonderful memories, for being by my side for more than 9 years. I hope you lived a good life, thank you for trusting me with it.

—————

To those who didn’t get to meet Toby:

Toby was the kind of dog that makes you never want to get another dog, ever again.

He was the kind of dog who never left your side, never wandered too far, even off-leash. He came back right away when you called him, never picked fights with other dogs, kept walking even when they provoked him, let you groom him without moving, sat still in the car, let you bathe and cuddle him without complaint, never snapped at children or anyone, and slept on your arm or near you.

In short, he was the perfect dog.

And he is my greatest heartache. 💔