#seriously though it’s not ai i fucking hate ai

[malinkymax]

[jinxtheshadow]

I just saw and more specifically heard the most cursed AI shit of Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and i feel very conflicted because on the one hand, it's funny as hell, but on the other hand, it's AI-

Anyways, here's the link- it's from 'twitter' so if you don't wanna visit the pits of hell, I can post the video itself if anyone's interested:

[tmnt-obsessed-ace]

My mom keeps going on about fucking AI, how you can write an entire story in seconds and make an entire website using AI, or even using Midjourney to create anything

Meanwhile I'm just sitting here, dying inside as she's stabbing my creative heart to pieces because she wants me to HELP her use the stupid AI because she thinks it will make us a lot of money (it wont she really needs to get off of facebook and stop being so gullible)

I want to cry this feels like a fucking betrayal

[rin-yellow]

ngl hate it when ppl conflate robotics engineers with AI grifters. We hate them as much as y’all do lmao, they’re not doing our asses any favours.

[cillianmesoftlyyy]

Cut the Shit-Delusion, Sweetheart | Cillian Murphy x fem!reader

summary: A young actress confesses her feelings to Cillian Murphy, this is how he responds.

warning: This is a much different story than I usually write but I think it's one that we all need in moments of pain and loneliness; to allow ourselves to feel sad and disappointment and hurt. We use people like Cillian to comfort ourselves and give ourselves reasons to be happy and sometimes we need moments to be sad. I was inspired by Fleabag (of course) and an AI edit I saw of Cillian where he turns someone down and its really sweet even though it breaks my heart lol. Age-diff, 1 noncon kiss, talk of infidelity.

word count: 1791+k

Blue Light- Mazzy Star 🎶

Don't interact if you're a Yvonne-hater, please and thanks <3

She hesitated before she knocked on the side-door of Cillian’s trailer. This desperate feeling overwhelmed her and she knew that she couldn’t sleep unless she went to him and confessed how she felt. She’d been plagued by dreams of them together, these beautiful, perfect dreams that poisoned her sleep like melatonin. She loved him and whether or not he felt the same way, she needed to tell him. She exhaled shakily as she dropped her arm back to her side. She was wearing her normal clothes, out of costume finally after a long day of shooting. She lost her sense of security behind the battlements of her gowns and numerous frilly things. She couldn’t hide her feelings behind her character anymore. 

The door opened and Cillian leaned against the doorframe in a casual greeting. 

“Don’t tell me we have a late night call time tonight, I’m fucking exhausted.” He smiled with his lopsided grin, his wide lips framing his teeth.

“No, but there is some business I need to attend to. May I come in?” She returned his smile and mirrored his posture. 

“Sure, come on.” He stepped aside and raised his arm in a welcoming gesture for her to pass through the door. She nodded in silent thanks and stood awkwardly in his trailer which was simple and quaint. Except for the unmade bed, the trailer was neat and orderly. 

“Oh fuck I’m sorry, were you asleep when I knocked?” She blushed and squeezed her palms together in an anxious gesture. 

“Nah, I was just reading the script for a movie my agent wants me to do next.” 

“Oh,” she nodded and turned her attention to the rack of costumes his character wore, “is it any good?” 

“It's definitely interesting but I don’t think it’s t’e right film for me.” He sighed and sat on the edge of his bed. Cillian was wearing a plain t-shirt and pajama pants, and seeing the innocent-intimate side of his life made her want so desperately to kiss him. She sat on the small couch he had in the trailer and tried to smile. 

“That’s too bad. Is it anything I’d like?” She joked and he nodded seriously. 

“Actually, yeh. I’ll send it over once I’m through. I’ve been re-reading it.” He moved his hands through the air as he spoke, so unlike his characters. She almost laughed and he smiled. 

“So, what can I do for you? You said you had some business to attend to. Sounds serious. Should I be worried?” He raised his eyebrow and crossed his legs, his hands cupped around the edge of the mattress. She tried to speak and immediately failed. Frustrated and embarrassed tears filled her eyes and she hid them by looking up at the ceiling. Cillian furrowed his brow, concerned. 

“What’s wrong?” He leaned forward on the bed and she shook her head, laughing lightly at herself. 

“I feel so incredibly stupid now for coming here.” She looked away and the bed squeaked softly as Cillian stood and joined her on the couch. She scooted over to give him some room and picked at the skin on her hands. 

“You can always come to me. Whatever it is.” He said softly and the air around them stilled with anticipation.

“Oh don’t say that, Cillian. You’re so kind…” she started to cry and tried to hide her face. 

“Fuck, I hate tears, please don’t cry! Did somet’ing happen?” He raised his hands helplessly, holding them over her without being sure what to do with them. She nodded her head slowly and hiccuped pitifully. 

“You’ll have to forgive me for my comforting abilities. I’ve never been good on t’at front and I have boys so I’m better at comforting members of the male species.” He shrugged and smiled, trying to lighten the mood. She laughed despite herself and wiped her eyes. She stood and paced the front of the trailer, knowing that it was now or never. 

“Cillian, this is such a horrible way to end your nice evening but I can’t continue on set without getting this off my chest. I hope you’ll forgive me.” She dared herself to look at him and he met her eyes, holding her eye-contact with mature resolve. 

“Of course.” He nodded softly, wrinkling his forehead, now more concerned with what his costar was going to tell him. He was naive. He assumed she was going to tell him that she couldn’t work with him anymore or that something had happened in their scenes that had made her uncomfortable. He shifted uneasily on the couch, watching her. She tried to speak a few times but exhaled and shook her head. Cillian stood and met her where she was standing. He was a good few feet taller than her and so much older, but having him there beside her made the feelings she wanted to tell him about so much stronger. 

“Cillian, this isn’t easy to say,” she looked down at her hands and then up into his clear blue eyes. “I have feelings for you, more than our professional relationship can offer. Working with you on set all this time has… it’s made my feelings so much harder to ignore, Cillian.” 

He froze and remembered to breathe, drawing in a startled breath. 

“T’at wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.” He ran his hand over his mouth and looked away, his blue eyes moving through his hidden thoughts. 

“I know you probably don’t feel the same but I just… it’s driving me mad, Cillian. It’s becoming a form of method acting that isn’t fun anymore.” She tried to laugh lightly but grimaced and put the backs of her hands against her burning cheeks. 

“Yeh…” he nodded and sighed, his eyes wide. 

She groaned and returned to the couch, sitting on her sweaty hands. 

“I can go, Cillian. I can leave if you don’t want me here anymore.” She whispered, tears pooling in her eyes. 

“No, no. We need to talk t’rough this.” He said calmly, slowly, and covered his mouth with his freckled hand. 

“Oh God, I’ve gone and fucked everything up. I’m sorry Cillian. I knew you didn’t feel the same but I still let myself go to you.” She leaned back against the couch and pulled her hands through her hair and pulled the skin back from her face. 

“Stop it. Don’t say t'at.” Cillian snapped not unkindly but sternly and took a deep breath. “See, we need to talk about t’is so we can still work together, eh?” He ran a hand through his own dark hair and looked at her for a moment, thinking. 

“How, Cillian? If you knew how I felt about you… it’s maddening. I can’t sleep, Cillian. You’re all I think about as pathetic as it sounds,” she took a deep breath, “I love you. And now you’ll hate me.” She continued and moved her hands, clasped together between her knees.

Cillian sighed and moved abruptly to her side on the couch, opening his body towards her. 

“Don’t talk for me, eh? Look, I understand. It’s hard to not develop certain er… feelings when we do what we do, right?” He cocked his head to the side and licked his lips awkwardly.

“I know I’m childish, Cillian, but I can’t help it. I’m suffering without you… without more from you, more than we can do on set.” She whined and rubbed her shoulders as if she were cold. “Can you indulge me? Do you feel even a little of what I do?” She whispered, looking deeply into his eyes. He said nothing for a second before running his hands up and down his face, exhaling loudly into his palms. He put his hands down and leaned towards her on his elbows. 

“I’m married, sweetheart. Yvonne is my wife and I love her.” He whispered softly, his hands splitting the space between them. 

“But I love you.” She whispered back and leaned in to kiss him. He allowed her to kiss him once and when she pulled away, dejected, he took her chin gently. 

“Cut the shit-delusion, sweetheart. You’re young… far too young for me. You may t’ink you love me but you don’t know me.”

He took her face in his hands and smiled sadly as tears rolled down her pink cheeks. 

“I know you’ll find someone who truly loves you. You’re a beautiful young woman who has her entire life ahead of her. I’m flattered t'at you feel t’at way about me but we can’t, I can’t. If the roles were reversed and we were married and Yvonne approached me, wouldn’t you want me to stop t’ings before t’ey went too far?” He supported her head as she dropped it slightly to the side. She felt empty of words and so he continued. 

“You’re a darling girl but you know we can’t do t’is.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb and wiped away her tears. “You need a boy your age who knows how to love you in the way you need to be loved. I only know how to love my wife… and she’s the only one who knows how to love me.”

“I could have loved you in whatever way you needed.” She whispered weakly and he smiled softly. “I know, sweetheart,” he soothed her like a father, “but you wouldn’t have been happy wit' me. You’re out of my league and you would have gotten bored of me.” He joked lightly and she allowed a pained smile to form on her lips. 

“I’m sorry, Cillian. I feel like such a fool.” She closed her eyes and he hugged her close. 

“Nah, you’re still a kid. You’re many t’ings but foolish is not one of ’em.” He squeezed her tightly and kissed her head affectionately. “You’re a good kid and a great actress. We’ll be fine, the two of us, eh?” He pulled away and she wiped her eyes dry. 

“I’ll try.”  

She kissed him briefly on the cheek and rose to her feet. She walked to the door and looked back at the actor with a small smile, the door open in front of her.

“Goodnight, Cillian.” 

He nodded from the couch. 

“Y/N?” 

“Yes?”

Cillian stood and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears. 

“You weren’t the only one.... That is, you weren’t the only one who felt…” he broke off and cleared his throat, “but it's better t’is way, yeh?.... It’ll pass, love. It’ll pass.” 

He met her eyes one last time and she nodded sadly yet full of a completeness found in their mutual understanding. 

“Goodnight, Cillian.” She said again and closed the door behind her and left the trailer, walking with her back to the wind. Cillian collapsed back on the couch and looked at his watch, wondering if Yvonne was awake. She always answered his calls. She put up with everything, God bless her. She was everything and more than he deserved. He rang her up and she answered after the second ring, her voice ringed with sleepiness.

"Heya, love." He whispered with a smile, "No, everyt'ing's fine. I just wanted to call you. I miss you, girl. Yeah, yeah. Put them on."

[damnfandomproblems]

6218:

GOD some people are really fucking controlling over other people's ocs. It reminds me of your viral post about "IF I DON'T LIKE HOW YOU WRITE YOUR OCS I SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO STEAL THEM!1!!1!!!ONE!"

I've had my own experiences with that, unfortunately.

I have a m/f ship between two ocs and someone said I was being homophobic by not shipping the male with the female's brother instead. And when I doubled down and said I didn't care and wasn't going to change it for them, they responded to that by writing a thing where the female was a horrendous bitch and physically abused the male to the point that he decided to fuck off because he couldn't handle it and was so traumatized by the ordeal that he swore off dating women and started dating the brother. Then told everyone it was "canon" now and they "fixed" my writing. Like how fucking childish is that? They got reprimanded for it thankfully because the other people in that server had sense, but wtf. And then before getting banned, they took it up a notch by trying to come up with reasons why m/f was secretly "problematic". "Oh she killed someone once [in self-defense], so she's a murderer!" "There's a height and age gap [of two adults], so it's pedophilia!" "Male is really into Female's brother, so this is technically incest!", etc.

And then someone else in another place got mad because he had the hots for one of my female villains and she didn't get a redemption arc. Sorry, but unrepentant villains exist, too, and not all villains get/deserve a redemption arc. She murdered children. She cannibalized people. She did all kinds of fucked up stuff and wasn't sorry about any of it. But he thinks she deserved one all for the sole reason of "she's so sexy though!"

Like, if you hate how I write MY OCS that much, then maybe stop interacting with me? If everything I write pisses you off and sends you into a spiraling rage you need to get the fuck off my page and go back to your fantasy land where m/f relationships aren't real and villains don't exist and because neither exist, no living person or AI even knows what those are to write them. Like seriously get that stick out of your ass. Go write your own ocs or a story where 100% of the population is homosexual and no one ever does anything bad. If that's what you're into, more power to you I guess. But stop shitting on other artists and writers for not writing what YOU want them to write. Most writers write for themselves and write what THEY'RE into.

(don't post if off Anon, please)

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

I'm pretty sure the viral post your talking about came from this blog, too.

[starlitiris]

making the phantom troupe ✨ neurodivergent ✨

before getting into this I wanna say that i'm not including Kalluto, Hisoka or Illumi in this and I didn't add Kortopi, Bonolenov or Franklin cause I didn't know what to do for them </3

and! a handful of these neurdivergencies are things I also have, but if any of you have something mentioned here and you feel like I misrepresented the condition/got something wrong, please let me know and correct me!

i'd also love to hear what your guys' neurodivergent/disorder headcanons are for the phantom troupe PLEASE do not be shy

okay enough yapping, here are the headcanons

Nobunaga

ADHD out the ass

Bro can and will zero in on something aggressively and not realize how much time has passed till his stomach growls or someone else gets his attention

Almost ALWAYS forgets what he walked into a room for and sometimes won’t be able to remember for hours

He zones out a lot when Troupe members are trying to explain something to him that he has zero interest in

CHRONIC LEG BOUNCER

And foot tapper

He also does little bouncies when he’s standing around

Please don’t ever give him a pen that clicks

He’ll click it nonstop and won’t even realize he’s doing it until someone brings attention to it

He for sure has his moments where he's feeling extra irritable or anxious for seemingly no reason

Feitan

AUTISM OUT THE ASS

No, I’m not headcanoning this because he’s apathetic

Miss me w that shit

He’s just an apathetic person because of everything he’s been through

Not great at masking but he does mask

HATES being touched do NOT TOUCH HIM ew

Exclusively wears long sleeves. Cannot stand short sleeved shirts, he hates the way it feels on his arms

Misses a lot of emotional social cues and his apathetic nature certainly doesn’t help with that but it’s not like he cares much

The Troupe is used to him being like this so they aren’t too bothered

Thinks he looks fucking stupid when he stims so he tries not to unless he’s completely alone

He will let loose a LIIITTLE when he’s alone with just Phinks though since those two are pretty close but he still tries to make his stimming as non-obvious as possible

It also helps for him to stim with his hands in his pockets

He often taps his thumb and index finger together or rubs his knuckles

REALLY hates feeling cold and can't stand the sticky feeling of dried blood on his skin

Despite this, he rarely wears gloves when he's "working" simply because he no no wanna

Phinks HAS called him out on this. A few times.

Machi

Dyslexic

Hates it

So much

Seriously doesn’t understand why she can’t just fucking READ and SPELL as easily as everyone else

Like she KNOWS how to read and spell so like???? WHY does she even struggle with it it should be such an easy thing to do

That’s how she thinks

She gets embarrassed when people catch her struggling to read or spell something

It makes her feel dumb and she hates it :[

Thank god for ai assistants like siri and shit

She definitely uses them to ask how to spell things when no one else is around and she can’t remember

Gets kinda pissed at herself when she realizes way too late that she made a typo on something

Phinks

Prosopagnosia (face blindness) and aphantasia (when you can’t form mental images in your head)

Thought his aphantasia was completely normal for THE LONGEST time

He almost didn’t believe it when other Troupe members were telling him that they could clearly form mental images in their heads

It was a huge “what the fuck” moment for him

The amount of times he’s heard the phrase “you don’t remember me?” just cause he couldn’t recognize someone by their face alone

Of course he’s still able to recognize people from their voices, clothes, hair, body shapes, etc

But when it comes to people he doesn’t see often, he’s completely lost until he’s told the person’s name and where they met and shit

He’s offended quite a few people by not recognizing them

They assume he couldn’t be bothered to remember them but in reality he probably would if he could remember faces

Shalnark

He has bipolar 1

His mania doesn’t get too crazy but it’s noticeable for the Troupe and any other people that he spends a lot of time with

His highs tend to be more intense than his lows but he definitely still has his lows

And the lows are also noticeable

He gets bags under his eyes from having a difficult time falling asleep and STAYING asleep, and he has a very clear decrease in energy

Sometimes Troupe members feel the need to ask him if he’s feeling alright but he always answers with “yeah I’m fine!” and moves on

The amount of shit he's bought on impulse though

He's good at managing his finances until he's manic and sees something he wants

Bro won't look at price tags

"Ehh I'm sure it'll be fine!" two days later he's in the red and goes complaining to Troupe members about it as if he shouldn't have expected that

It's probably a good thing that his role in the Troupe is more centered around gathering information and not combat

I know damn well he'd get too cocky in a fight depending on wtf his brain chemistry is doing

Shizuku

Do i even need to say it

Bitch (respectfully) is autistic as hell

With some good ol’ ADD sprinkled in there

Her attention span suffers greatly

She can pick up a book or a manga and not put it down to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom until she finishes it or is forced to put it down

She knows it’s a problem and she really does try to remember to take breaks

Very blunt as we all know

Feitan will struggle to pick up on sarcasm SOMETIMES and uses sarcasm himself

This is not the same for Shizuku

Sarcasm does not register in her brain

She tried using sarcasm once and didn’t do it right so she gave up

She does try to mask a little bit in some situations but mostly doesn’t care enough to

Doesn’t mind stimming in front of people as much as Feitan does but she still does it a lot more in private

Pakunoda

Bipolar 2

Her depressive episodes feel longer than they are

She’s gotten a lot better at managing it as she���s gotten older though

She likes to journal her feelings when she can, it personally helps her process and deal with her emotions

She also writes reminders for herself and sets alarms so she doesn’t forget to take care of herself when she’s not feeling too well

Makes sure to praise herself for small victories! :)

She still has her days where she can’t bring herself to do some things, though days like those are less common now than they used to be

Her appetite definitely suffers because her depression, but the reminders and alarms she sets help her remember to eat, even if it has to be something small

She makes sure to get some self care in when she can, too. It's important to her

Uvogin

I hereby bestow thee with dyscalculia and OCD

Being anal about doing things at specific times is only a tiny sliver of his OCD-ness

Sometimes he’ll read the time on a clock wrong and he’ll panic for like 0.2 seconds

It fuckin stresses him out man

Sometimes he’ll tease Machi for having a hard time reading or forgetting how to spell/write a word and she’ll hit him with the “ok what’s 12 x 12 🧍”

Shuts him up real quick

He can count, add, subtract, multiply and divide but it still takes him a minute sometimes

He’ll just give up if he has to do math with fractions, decimals, numbers longer than three digits and any other complicated bullshit

He kinda gave up learning math when it started to literally give him headaches trying to figure it out so simple division and multiplication is as far as he cared to learn

If he’s faced with any math equation that intimidates him he will not even try

He just uses his phone or asks someone else to solve it for him

Okay back on the topic of OCD

He definitely has his repetitive movements that he does

They aren’t too obvious but the rest of the Troupe does notice them from time to time

Nobunaga said something about it one time and Uvo just brushed it off and changed the subject

He doesn’t like bringing attention to it

He also WILL recount and reread things multiple times

Most of the time he’ll only need to recount/reread something like 3-5 times but on bad days he’ll do it 10+ times

It is stressful

Phinks saw him recounting something like 13 times once and was like “bro u good?” and Uvo just snapped at him for fucking up his count

Chrollo

Autism and major depressive disorder

Masking KING (this is not a good thing)

Very touch avoidant like Feitan

He knows he struggles with some social cues and interactions and will sometimes overthink what he’s doing to avoid missing things or doing things wrong

He’s often hyper aware of what he’s doing and what the person he’s talking to is doing

One of his most common ways to stim is by rubbing things - like the corners of pages in his books, or the ends of his sleeves

Loathes being in loud areas. Please why is everyone talking so loud shut the fuck up Chrollo can’t hear himself think

There’s been times where he had to be in loud and bustling places for extended periods of time and once he was alone and in a quiet place he’d feel so so very drained and be nonverbal for hours

Really bad insomnia probably related to his MDD

Lays in bed for HOURSSSS unable to fall asleep

The amount of times he’s had to run on 2-3 hours of sleep is unreal

Listening to calm music and whale noises seems to help him fall asleep a little bit though

Don’t get me wrong he has good days, he’s not completely miserable, but MAN is this guy depressed

On bad days he’ll likely only have one meal or not eat at all

Phantom Troupe be damned if they notice he hasn’t eaten all day

Chrollo will insist he’s fine but some Troupe members aren’t having it

Sometimes someone like Paku or Shal will just go out and get him some food and place it in front of or next to him expectantly

Usually he’ll give up and eat the food

Unless he’s in a bad mood

I will say though, most days he eats at least two meals so it’s not like this is a super common occurrence

[bookie-bookdust]

About this bitch, Bookie

I've been on Tumblr since the dawn of time™️so these little pinned bios are wild to me, BUT:

HELLO THERE:

You can call me Bookie, Bookdust, a simp - I don't care. I am happy to brain rot about many things, but the little demon in my head makes me hyperfixate over Hogwarts Legacy, metalcore/alt/emo music, and writing. Feel free to reach out to me. I like caps lock.

Ravenclaw - INFJ - Gemini sun, Cancer moon, Libra rising - Tired

I'm an ADULT here so I will share NSFW content and I really like to fucking curse. If you're a minor, figure it out and ask your mom if you should stick around idk. That being said, I write a variety of teen to explicit-rated content. A little something for everyone. You should always assume my characters are 18+ unless stated otherwise.

FAN FICTION (the literature🧐):

My most popular work is Sebastian Sallow Fucking Sucks, which I am genuinely stunned that so many people have enjoyed it. Seriously thank you so much for all the support. It started as something to write when I had writer's block, and now I'm obsessed lololol.

Where you can read my deranged writing:

ao3 - I am most active here. This is also where I post all of my chapter fics and one shots.

Wattpad - I'll post all chapter fics and some of my one shots here. I hate WP, and I don't have the patience for it.

That's it lol. If you find my garbage anywhere else, let me know because then I'd have to go break some legs.

One Shots:

How to Defuse a Ravenclaw - Seb finds himself violating his newest rule - do not think about fucking the Ravenclaw // porn with plot // ao3 - wattpad

Secret for One - In which using some anti-cheating ink reveals what you and Seb were up to (kissing – the answer is kissing) // teen-rated cute and secretly conniving // ao3 - wattpad

Pass the Ring, Not the Potatoes - Seb gets the flu on Christmas Eve, the night he plans to propose, and starts...hallucinating // holiday explicit comedy // ao3

Little Sis - Anne Sallow POV where Dark Seb attempts to use the relic to heal her // Horror // ao3 - wattpad

Other fanfic related content:

Shitty Sebastian headcanons

Shitty Ominis headcanons

Stupid things Sebastian would do to get you to talk to him after a fight

Stupid things Ominis would do to get you talk to him after a fight.

SSFS Playlist

HL characters breaking you out of detention (unhinged edition)

Eventually more will be hereeeeee maybe lol

OTHER STUPID SHIT:

I will always write Sebastian with MC. Not sorry one bit lol.

I do love Ominis though too, but Sebastian just rots my brain.

Poppy is a sweet baby angel who will smack anyone as needed.

I have a tendency to write Anne as semi-antagonistic (swear I don't mean to idk why it keeps happening).

I love the morally gray zone of Dark Magic and how it affects characters.

I don't like Draco Malfoy lol.

WE NEED MORE RAVENCLAW REPRESENTATION!!!!

My female characters are gonna be messy. Always. They don't jog for fun. They have constant bedhead. Poor impulse control. Love to torture themselves. I'm on the complex female character bus, and I will run over all pedestrians.

My main MC does actually have a name. I'll soft launch her eventually with a backstory and a bio. I love her deranged little head.

I'm pretty strict on AI. You do NOT have permission to feed my work into AI. I will curse your entire bloodline if you do. I'm like 5'1" of pure vengeance and fury, trust me.

I don't tolerate rudeness, bullying, misogyny, racism, or homo/transphobia. I will find you and eat your bones if you try shit. (I'll actually just ignore and block you, but you never know). Also fuck JK Rowling lol.

If you read all of this, then you've earned a tiny shard of my soul in thanks, friend. Here's to more delusion and fanfiction.

Thanks for stopping bye! 🥰

[cassiachales]

Journal Entry One [And A Hot Grayson Hawthorne And Xander Being A Good Friend]

Saturday– Listen. I am not someone who hates people as soon as I have one conversation with them. (Or maybe I am, but that’s not the point.) I have never met someone as infuriatingly calm and poised as Grayson Motherfucking Hawthorne. He’s too perfect, too cold. I imagine his mom gave birth to him after having sex with a very handsome statue. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Charity galas were oftentimes the most boring events.

Though, if you’re being honest, most of these events are boring. It’s just people trying to either one-up each other, or trying to kiss ass.

Or, a secret third option, applicable only if you’re Grayson Hawthorne: watch the show with a cold look and avoid small talk.

Basically, be a statue.

When everyone’s dancing, he’s just standing there, his lips smiling whenever someone comes and talks to him and his eyes bored.

It’s no surprise that you don’t really like him, seeing how there’s no life in that six foot frame covered by the most expensive suits and a glass of whiskey in his hand which he doesn’t sip from. 

And meanwhile, you’re dancing. You’re enjoying yourself because you, ma’am, are not a statue.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── I thought, well, maybe he’s lonely and has no friends, how about I talk to him?! Mistake of the year.  He is hot. But he is also the only guy in the gala, in every gala I’ve attended, who’s made me want to strangle him. Fuck him. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

So you walked towards him, because maybe, just maybe, he’s lonely, and maybe, just maybe, he has no friends. A rude assumption, but hey, isn’t that how you’re supposed to roll?

You stand beside him, looking at him stare down a couple on the dance floor. 

You knew them, yes, but not personally. Just a few quick google searches and a few tabloids and newspapers.

The girl was a living Cinderella story and the boy was her Prince Charming.

Avery Kylie Grambs, and Jameson Hawthorne.

“So…” You began, nudging his side. Your dress is a bit too loose and threatens to slip, but you quickly adjust it with your other hand.

Curse the world. Why were you about to have a wardrobe malfunction while talking to a hot guy?

“Do I know you?” Grayson asked, his eyebrow raised. 

Oh gods, his voice. It sounded so seductive that if you were hearing his voice on a movie screen, you would’ve swooned along with every girl (and a few boys) in the theatre.

“Well, not really.” You tell him your name and his eyes gleam in recognition after listening to your last name, and to be honest, you’re a little annoyed that your first name isn’t that “well-known”.

“Is there anything you wanted to speak about?” He asks, and you can see his patience wearing thin.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── Like, okay man, you’re hot as fuck. So hot, that I’d kiss you if I was drunk enough. And trust me, I’m a lightweight. But seriously? You’re so goddamn emotionless that it makes me feel like I’m talking to character ai instead of a living, breathing billionaire. Maybe you should like, consider buying a nice personality the next time you buy another suit. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

“Oh, nothing important.” You wave a dismissive hand, and, you assume, if he was less of a statue and more of a person, he would’ve rolled his eyes.

“Then, if you’ll excuse me.” He flashes you a polite smile, before pausing and adjoining a ‘miss’ to your last name as an afterthought.

And then, he walks away.

You don’t know what to make of this. Your dress is threatening to expose your cleavage with how loose it is, and it’s strapless on top of that, and the guy who you wanted to talk to, to maybe help throw a little life in his life, just walked away as though being lively is an afterthought, just like how he said your last name.

You feel someone tap your shoulder and when you turn around to see who it is, a flute of champagne is pushed into your hands.

Xander Hawthorne smiles that smile of his, the kind you can’t describe. You’re sort of like good friends with Xander, seeing how he’s the least stuck-up Hawthorne you’ve met.

The only other one was Grayson Hawthorne, but it’s not like there’s any life in his body.

“I saw you talking to Gray, came over to save you from a dull conversation, then saw how annoyed you looked after he left, and got you some champagne. Man, I deserve a friend-of-the-year award. So, what were you two talking about?”

He has nothing in his hands, but you trust him enough to take a sip of the bubbly champagne before you inevitably fall into a rant about how annoyingly maddening Grayson is.

“Does your brother even live? Like yes, maybe he doesn’t like small talk, and yes, maybe he’s a bad dancer–”

“He’s actually a pro at the tango and the waltz.”

You stare at Xander. “He does not strike me as the type to tango.”

He shrugged. “I don’t look like I make random things on Saturdays, but here I am, making random things on Saturdays.” He frowns, and corrects himself. “Unless I’m at an event, obviously.”

“Obviously. Anyway, does he even wear anything other than custom suits? I get that suits are hot, and your brother is hot–”

“You find my brother hot?” Xander says, a laugh threatening to escape him.

You groan. “Forget I said that.”

“Oh, no. We are not moving past that.”

“Xander, you will shut up, or–”

“Or, what?”

You’re silent.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── I might have also accidentally told Xander that I find Grayson hot. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

You see Xander’s face shift, and gods, do you know that look.

“Xander, no. Whatever you’re planning, no.” You say, but you fear it’s too late.

He taps your shoulder twice, your sign for ‘don’t worry, I got this’, and you have a fair idea of what, exactly, Xander Hawthorne is planning.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── If I was smart, I’d never befriend a Hawthorne and call his brother hot. Unfortunately, I am not smart. Now, I don’t know what Xander’s planning, and honestly? I’m scared it has something to do with a certain Grayson Hawthorne. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Journal Entry Two

[kairiscorner]

reader creating silly miguel emojis and sending them tk the spider society gc for everyone to use bc shes a fun gal ;p (and she likes annoying him too)

fr. (did i legit make a whole ass dc server for this? yes.) sorry i didn't change my display name to y/n, i got lazy 😭😭😭 also written ver with additional scenes under the cut !!

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

shitting on miggy cutely. 🫶— miguel o'hara x reader

✧ written version !! ✧

after lyla had signed miguel up for a discord account, much to his frustration, you immediately got a hold of his username (which was really generic, he named himself: 'miguelohara' at first, but lyla changed it up to: 'migolohellnawh') and added him to the spider society's discord server. you made a channel that was dedicated to showing miguel all the stickers and emojis you and the society had made that was just full of memes of miguel. thanks to earth-928's social media, you were all fed with silly stickers and emojis of him for days; you all had a spam channel where hobie and pav would have contests to see whose thumbs could spam more miguel shitpost memes, but that would be a story for another day.

as miguel got notified that he was added to a server, the first thing that caught his eye was the vulgarly named channel of the server: "shitting on miggy". he brought his eyebrows together and tapped on the bold text of the channel's name. he asked what that channel was for, pointing out the name in a disappointed manner as he typed. lyla giggled under her breath as she watched miguel try to act intimidating and angry over text, but his scrunched up face crinkled even more as he saw that the first thing you sent him was a sticker of his stern, stoic face that had the words: "this ugly son of a bitch is fucking super hot chicks and basically you are fucking stupid. how? ...just watch the free video."

miguel had clicked the sticker, and he saw the file name: "singlehotmominyourarea". he huffed as he texted you, asking you what that was that you sent, because he thought it was an actual link to something. he took his reading glasses and, when he could make out what it said, he got angrier than he already was earlier. he told you what you sent was not at all funny, and when you replied that—no, it certainly wasn't... it was very hysterical, though—you sent him a very pink and cutesy sticker of him with cat ears. miguel groaned as lyla took a hundred screenshots remotely from his phone. "where are you even getting these?" he asked you as you kept sending him more shitpost stickers.

"but i don't even like horses." miguel muttered as he saw the "save a horse, ride a cowboy" sticker you sent. "yeah, you're scared of them." lyla reminded him as he rolled his eyes. "no need to remind me." he said as he typed out that he 'hated' (didn't fear, there's a difference, and that is that miguel is fucking lying, he is scared of horses) horses. but of course, you knew his secret, and miguel pounded his fist against the arm of his computer chair. "are you seriously telling them on your end?" he asked lyla as she stuck her tongue out and shrugged, looking all smug as miguel grumbled and told you that he didn't ask for your correction, only for you to send an emoji of your favorite girl dinner: his five course meal ass on display.

"yeah, you need ass correction 'bee cee' this bakery is packed; what...?" he read aloud as lyla groaned. "get with the times, old man." "we don't say stuff like that in 2099 anymore, don't tell me to get with the times." he told his AI assistant as he looked through the emoji catalogue you guys had, and among them all, a colorful one stood out to him and he sent it—hoping you could tell him what was on the emoji, but knowing you, you'd of course mess with him again. you told him the emoji, which was promptly named: "doublecheekedup", meant the very sticker you sent him in response. it was similar to the cat-eared one, but it read: "i <3 my girlfriend", with miguel's angry face in the heart.

miguel looked at it all confused and pulled his reading glasses away from his face and back on to see if he was reading this right. he asked you if he was supposed to be flattered about your sticker, with him immediately following up with his honest opinion; that it was irritating instead of flattering to him. you told him the sticker was more 'sexy' than it was irritating or flattering, and you soon sent him another sticker, where he was diving face first with his legs spread and bottom out. miguel looked at it all baffled and flustered, where were you getting these photos...?

you asked him who he was spreading for, asking if it was you, while sending him an emoji with his back turned to the camera and his ginormous bottom in full view. miguel couldn't make out the text in the emoji and told you the text was too minute for him to read it. he also cleared up that he wasn't intentionally spreading his cheeks for anyone, he had just 'stumbled'. "sure ya did." lyla said as she appeared over miguel's shoulder with a smug grin on her face. "i really didn't, though." miguel said as lyla nodded slowly, her smug grin not leaving her face as miguel saw your next message. "because you wanted to spread your asscheeks for me, i didn't spread for anybody!" he screamed aloud in the confines of his office, pounding his fist on the arm of his computer chair as you sent the girl dinner emoji that was the very profile picture of the spider society's discord server.

miguel was heated in the face and heaving... oh, was there some unspoken feelings he was hiding about your little provocative words? maybe... he might sound like he wants out of the server immediately, but deep in his heart, he'd stay; even if you'd annoy the shit out of him with those damned emojis and stickers. they were irritating, yes, and maybe just the tiniest bit flattering in a twisted way for him. "wow, you're a masochist." lyla pointed out as miguel mumbled for her to shut up, but she was right as always.

tags !! @miguelswifey04 @binibinileonara @simsrandomstuff @luvstarrstruck @popeheywardssecretgf @meeom @arachnoia @melovetitties @ophanimgold @hisachuu @wreakingmarveloushavok

[fuka-petals]

♡ Introduction post ♡

@fuka-petalsart <- just art

my persona

info on me

hihi am V but like you can also call me Kennith, Flower, etc.

Minor (over 14, clarification bc yk what passed) (I'm fine with adults interacting & being my friends! just don't seek out a romantic/sexual relationship with me lol)

I use vamp/they/he/it/voca/soap/flower pronouns {in order of preference}

I'm diagnosed autistic, seeking a diagnosis for bpd, ocd, npd, and adhd (not self diagnosed just see symptoms in both me and relatives and would like a concrete answer, I have had medical professionals advise me to seek evaluation but im lazy) also some other things I'd rather not disclose (diagnosed)

I'm an angelkin enby that uses xenogenders and am a lesbian

not always in the "right state of mind" if I say smth stupid please let me know l8tr so I can delete it

I have issues with being kind and having empathy please be patient I'm not trying to be mean (at least. Most of the time)

Really cynical unfortunately. I have bad mood swings and get angry really easily. Again, trying to work on that. I don't post negativity often though but like it may happen

If you somehow still think im cool heres my discord -> @/ _vflour

I uh didn't realize how shitty of a person I was until writing this. Sorry.

I have an ed off and on its not weight related but please don't make comments about if ppl deserve food or not around me it's extremely triggering (self worth issues ig) I do not post ed related content and I do not wish to see it. I am not pro ana

I do really want friends though. I guess. Sorry please talk to me I like talking about my intrests I'm not as bad as I seem I swear

Seriously though I'm really lonely

Also I struggle with being clingy and jealous oml jesus christ uh hh WAAAAAAAA

Selfshipper ^_^ single outside of f/os though. Not rlly looking 4 a relationship my ex scared me away from that stuff. Okay with sharing but please note I do take it seriously

I self ship with fukase (vocaloid), vflower (vocaloid), friedrich (mi), vixen (mi), cornelius (mi), and c'venash vishneri (psychopomp). Sorry I'm rlly cringe (draw my sona with any of them and I'll forever be grateful)

I kin betty noir (mi), ame (nso), sumireko (2hu), aoi (you and me and her), yukari (Liar Liar one), and claire (walk in the sun) so dni if you don't like them/hj

Currently hyperfixated on Vocaloid (Specifically V4Flower and Fukase), Mellow's games and ocs (MUNDUS IUMENTORUM!!), Touhou (Specifically Sumireko), Len'en, Nso, subahibi, Yume Nikki, any ynfg, Mindhaunt, you me and her, milk bag vns, pmmm, Reflexia, and Psychopomp, murdersims/guro vns in general, Awaria (not a helltaker fan)

all interests (I think) in no particular order - Vocaloid, Flower, Fukase, Utau, Mellow's stuff, Angelbrained's stuff, Mindhaunt, Yume Nikki + ynfgs, YTTD, NSO, ghostie-p & marz mitzi, touhou, subahibi, YOU ME and HER, len'en, lacey games, splatoon, rpg maker horror games, psychedelic looking art, milk inside/outside a bag of milk, rabbit maiden softworks, Liar Liar, precious theater, 8eyes, ranfren, a masochist's tango, madoka magica, precure, ojamajo doremi, reflexia, Saya no uta, mudersims/guro vns in general, corpse party, Awaria (not a helltaker fan)

I fucking hate blueberries

Dni

Olikase fans. (please respect this if nothing else)

Proshippers (don't want dash algorithm picking up things that are triggering to me)

Pro harassment antis

radfems

transphobes

homophobes

acephobes

queerphobia in any way shape or form

racists

sexists (both ways)

fatphobes

yk the basic dni shit srry I'm not typing allat anymore

prolifers

support killing innocent people

ai "artists"

ghost and pals/team 6x111 fans unless I followed you first for other content you post, also their white knighters/apologists...yikes

Puritans. You will be blocked. It's based in queerphobia and demonizes sexuality. If you don't want to see nsfw then block tags, don't force others to not be kinky because you're an ass (note, I mean people who call it gross n stuff, if you are a minor or ace or smth and don't want nsfw accs following you bc of that that's fine! Also this isn't an nsfw acc either, I have a pixiv 4 that, just rlly passionate abt my hate 4 puritans...)

Ed/sh posters. Refer to previous points. I do not wish to relapse over fucking tumblr

furry haters (grow up its 2024)

Mellow haters (why are you even here)

Tcc fans. You wouldnt survive a day on 4chan and kiwifarms (I don't like kiwifarms btw and certain 4chan boards)

use the term femboy on women (on non women is fine w/ permission)

Blacklist

Do not bring up @/ Denzi-P to me or talk about me to them. They are not a good person and I do not wish to be associated with them.

Try and keep that the only name on this list

Links

itch

toyhouse

everskies

soundcloud

artfight

strawpage (will be replaced with a neocities site soon)

[tobi-draws]

Quick rant about Jax from The Amazing Digital Circus

I genuinely do not understand fans who loved Jax in episode one, but hate him now that episode 2 is out.

"Oh, but he was so mean to Gangle."

Yeah. He's a mean character. He was mean in the first episode too. You don't have to like him, but I just don't understand the switch up.

"But why is he so mean to Gangle specifically?"

Because she's an easy target. The other members of the circus self advocate a lot more than she does. Even though he bullies them too, it's with a lot more of an equal standing. Personally Jax and Ragatha give off sibling vibes for this reason in my opinion. Gangle however, does not self advocate, so she's a lot easier for Jax to subdue and control.

That moves me to my next point. Jax likes control. He likes having control over a situation, and he likes having control of others. And to be fair, I think anyone would be desperate for control if they were stuck in a rainbow digital purgatory, with everything being controlled by the whims of an Ai with no understanding of actual human emotions.

I'm not condoning Jax's behavior, but to be honest, it makes sense from a psychological standpoint. And also, to be honest, if I was stuck in tadc, I'd either abstract, or I'd turn into either Kinger or Jax. Seriously. I'd either abstract, or I'd decened into a level of madness that wasn't me excepting the hopelessness of the situation, and end up wacky like Kinger, or I'd become an absolute asshole as a desperate attempt for control. It's wrong, but also, I'm not gonna judge too much. I've never been stuck in digital purgatory.

And that leads me to yet another point. It's not just a control thing. I'm not gonna try to get people to rationalize Jax's actions, so people will like him. He's still a sadist. He enjoys other people's suffering... to an extent. I don't think he wants anything truly bad to happen to the other humans, partially because he'd lose his entertainment, and partially because I do feel like he cares about them to some extent. My reason for believing the second one, is due to that split second where Jax looks genuinely sad about the funeral. Though, if I remember correctly, he didn't go to the funeral. So how much he cares is iffy, but I do think he does care.

But that's just a theory. A game theory. B)

So basically all this was a long winded way of saying, I really love Jax as a character. He's an asshole in a way that amuses me, and he has enough layers to keep me invested in his character, even when he does fucked up shit. I want to know why he's like this. I want to know if it's just because of the circus, or if he'd be fucked up even without it. I'm very excited to see where this goes.

I just wish people didn't see a character that's an obviously bad person, start liking that character, and then get upset when the character does bad things. Jax is a dick. He's gonna do bad things. You don't have to like him, but you shouldn't be surprised when he does fucked up stuff. It's Jax.

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 11 Interludes thoughts:

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Ok. Just in order I think. Sorry for the chaos.

Started off with puppies. I was happy.

Then the puppies started getting a little more violent than needed. I was less happy.

Then Victoria got clowned on a little and I was little bit more happy.

Then the unkillable naked zebra lady showed up everything kinda went downhill. For everyone.

Bitch do not join the supervillain serial killer group, please and thank you.

Seriously though, The Siberian is a bit scary. Just, completely invincible as far as anyone can tell. And super strong.

Theo is having a bad day. And unless someone takes care of Jack Slash for him he's gonna have a bad few years.

Jack Slash is such a poser oh my god. Dude. Come one. You aren't all that.

Also. Jack. Do not toss a loaded baby! That baby had a full diaper. You toss that baby and you are liable to have a containment breach. Speaking from experience, you do not want a containment breach. (Also just don't throw babies of course.)

I hope Theo gets cool powers and is able to become a super amazing hero like he dreams of. On the plus side, probably gonna be lots of opportunities for trigger events coming up. On the minus side, he didn't trigger when Jack Slash was planning on killing him so I don't know if he's gonna be able to.

They were obviously going to go for Labyrinth. She has such amazing powers for mass terror. Though I guess Burnscar never tried to actually recruit her. I assume that was the plan though.

Also Burnscar needs to stop excusing her actions. Just be evil or don't be evil. You don't get to be evil and say it's not your fault (that sure will come up again in these interludes).

I fucking LOVED the description of how Labyrinths powers work. Just the details of everything. So good!

Fucking Colin. Of course they had to go for you. Why can't you just go away and leave my robot daughter alone?

Mannequin is fucking WILD. Like, god damn. Those are sure choices you made. Helps you be creepy as shit though. And get through air vents.

Mannequin writing out "U ME" to Pocketknife Man by laying keyboard keys down on the table one at a time has cursed meet-cute energy.

In the end, Colin survives cause my robot daughter saves him. And I guess she's gonna tell him the truth about being an AI. Fiiiiiiine. I will be polite to Colin if he comes over to dinner. He still needs to apologize to my other daughter though.

Also I'm sure glad the Slaughterhouse Nine won't have any use for the magic pocketknife that can cut through anything that Mannequin took. No worries at all I'm sure. It won't do jack shit for them. Might as well just slash the idea and toss the knife out.

Cool. Some Nazis died. That's great!

Not enough though. Disappointed in Shatterbird.

But if one good thing can come of this whole Slaughterhouse Nine thing, maybe Hookwolf can die. I'm not holding my breath though.

Shatterbird has a very interesting power set. Being specifically glass focused like that. Definitely can see how she would terrorize a city.

Dinah PoV. DINAH POV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok well first off, I obviously hated Coil for Dinah already. Enough that I don't really know if the Dinah PoV can technically make me hate him more. But that said, I hate him more. WTF.

The description of her power was so NEAT though! Had a minor moment of "oh hey this paragraph of this precog talking about her power works inside her head is an almost perfect description of how my brain works" which was wild. I don't actually get to see the future though, which is a major difference.

She can actually just full blow see a possible future holy shit! Wow. Like it hurts and she hates it but it's still crazy.

Also I guessed that Crawler was going to come for Traveler in a Vault (that is Noelle's cape name until I am told different) after the Bitch interlude. I was very happy I got that right since I really knew almost nothing about either.

So Crawler just basically can't die and gets stronger every time he gets hurt. I wonder how long it will take him to reach Endbringer level power?

And Traveler in a Vault is just a large monster that is always hungry and can be driven to the point of eating people. That sucks a lot for her.

Also Leviathan came after her too huh? Well that's probably fine and won't matter in the future.

Regent's sister is worse than he is. That's impressive! Like, not good impressive. But impressive.

Getting real close to the "can't exist" physic power set. I guess it's not quite it though.

She should keep a better eye on her phone battery.

AMY DALLON! I knew it would be you.

I knew you were destined to be a tragedy from the moment I met you. You were always going to become a villain. So once I knew the Nine were recruiting it was a guarantee that you'd be recruited.

Specifically, that you'd be recruited by Bonesaw. She is an artist and obviously she is obsessed over the art you could make together.

Holy shit though that chapter.

Lets see. FUCK CAROL. Victoria gets some excuses, she's a kid, she's following her mom's example, etc. But FUCK CAROL. You are partially responsible for what Amy is about to become.

Despite being terrified, Amy seemed to have a dark fascination with everything Bonesaw was doing and saying. Really listened as Bonesaw explained things.

The more detailed view of what Amy's power does is crazy. She really can do just about anything to someone.

“Why not fix your dad?” is where Bonesaw won. It's about 3/5 of the way through the chapter. And she won at that point. That was the killing blow. The rest of the chapter, the remaining 3.5k or so words, is watching Amy bleed out to drive the point home. It is Panacea's death monologue. It is beautiful and tragic and amazing.

All that said, since she is losing anyway, is it bad for me to want more of Bonesaw's notes? SHE HAS LORE! GIVE IT TO ME!

Dad at least seems pretty good. He made the perfect response after getting healed. Unfortunately she was already gone.

AND THERE IT IS. THERE IS THE THAT FINAL STEP. Fucking rewire your adopted sisters mind to have romantic feelings for you. No you don't get to say it was an accident! You chose to do it. Holy shit Amy. You are going to be an amazing (terrifying) villain.

Callback to Burnscar and blaming her power for her actions.

If Worm was a Disney movie Amy would end up with the best song, 100%. Hellfire or similar levels.

[moon-spirit-yue]

Fought for Me

Chapter 10: I Promise Now

(Guys I am so sorry for being the biggest liar on planet Earth. This was supposed to released a month ago. To be so honest I don't love how this chapter turned out but I know exactly how I want the last two chapters to go so this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Also this chapter is way longer than I meant for it to be. Anywho, please enjoy and let me know what you good people think!)

Raya did not wake up in a particularly good mood. Aulia was extra testy the night before and Charanya was nowhere to be found so she can't even complain about it to her. She's also unable to find Namaari which is very strange. The woman's usually like three feet away from Raya for the most part. Must be an off day all around.

Aulia is thankfully not a fussy baby ninety percent of the time so Raya can handle these kinds of one off days. Certainly doesn't mean she's going to enjoy it though.

There isn't much for Raya to do today. Heart has absolutely flourished in the recent months thanks to the help of the other four lands. Aulia is hanging out with Ai for lunch so Raya figured she should just eat her own meal outside by herself.

It is a truly beautiful day even if Raya feels like a walking corpse. Sun is shining, sky is clear, and there's a small warm breeze keeping her at a comfortable temperature.

Honestly, eating this meal alone felt really nice. Peaceful, even. Raya loves the people around her. She really does. Spending this time with family and friends is what really makes life worth living. But so many people all the time gets overwhelming, especially for her.

Therefore, Raya will take in this moment of serenity and enjoy it. She takes a large bit out of her food and savors every flavor. Damn, this food is good. Nothing can ruin such a beautiful moment-

"Princess Raya. It is an honor to be acquainted with you again," the voice Raya unfortunately recognizes as Mali stated.

Raya fucking hates it here.

Seriously, was one moment so much to ask for? She gets a little bit of peace and this binturi materializes out of nowhere and ruins? This may be a bit of an overreaction, but Raya kind of wants to kill herself.

Raya worries she's getting a little too comfortable after the Druun left. The Heart alpha's not even wearing scent blockers and yet Raya still didn't realize Mali was there until now.

"Mali. It's been years," Raya stated, allowing annoyance to creep out of her tone.

The Heart princess should be mature and have a civilized conversation, but hell. She's young and lived in the wilderness for several years. The people will give her a break for acting petty. So, Raya looked at Mali's mouth and stared. She stared hard.

"Indeed it has. I came to- is something on my face?" Mali asked when she took note of Raya's intense gaze.

"Oh no, it was my mistake. Thought I saw something stuck in between your teeth. Looked an awful lot like an antenna," Raya said with a wicked grin.

Mali awkwardly coughed in her hand. Good. Be awkward, you evil rat.

"Charanya was always very creative," Mali sighed.

"Didn't really give her much of a choice now did you?" Raya glared.

"I did not. That's why I came up to you. I wanted to apologize for the way I acted when we were kids. Both Noya and I were on a power trip and egged each other on because we thought we were so superior to the rest of the world. Then the Druun hit and, well, you know what happened. Certainly got my head out of my ass and made me realize how much of a binturi I was. So, I'm sorry. Truly," Mali told her sincerely. Even her scent was remorseful.

Damn, that's an actual apology.

This.......is not what Raya was expecting. She knows she talked rather optimistically with Charanya about Mali turning over a new leaf, but Raya honestly didn't think it was actually going to happen.

"Thank you. I appreciate the apology. The Druun changed a lot of things for a lot of people. It's all water under the bridge in my books," Raya told her with a light smile.

No point in holding a grudge. But Raya would keep an eye out, just in case. As long as Mali didn't mention the courting this would actually be a fun conversation between old classmates.

"That's good. I wanted to apologize in person because I figured you were unable to read my courting letter," Mali shrugged.

When is it Raya's turn to be happy?

"Oh? And how did you know I didn't read such a letter? Maybe I didn't even know you wanted to court me in the first place," Raya shot back.

"I saw you and Charanya chuck mine and many others gifts in the dumpster. Then I heard you both say it would be a waste of reading the letters so it's a good thing you burned them all," Mali explained.

Ah. That would do it.

"Ahahahahaha so the thing is-" Raya said with incredibly nervous laughter.

"Don't worry about it. Whatever your reasons are, I completely understand. I figured since you hadn't read the letter, the least I can do is apologize formally," Mali smiled.

Ah geez. Why does Raya feel way more awkward than Mali looks when she's not even the one that basically got rejected?

"I really do appreciate it. There's just so much going on, and there's my daughter, so courting is really not on my priority list," Raya attempted to explain.

"Like I said, I totally understand. Friends?" Mali asked, holding out a hand for Raya to shake.

Oh hell, why not?

"Friends," Raya agreed while shaking her hand. Maybe Mali really isn't so bad after all.

"Say, now that we're friends and all, are you coming to the blue moon festival in a couple weeks? We could use the bodies," Raya told her.

"Oh, absolutely. I think that," Mali began.

As the Heart alpha was speaking, Raya spotted Namaari. That little binrturi! Where has she been?

Very easily distracted, Raya basically forgot that Mali was talking and called out to Namaari.

"YO UNDERCUT! WHERE YOU BEEN?!" Raya yelled.

At once, Namaari's neck snapped to where the Heart omega is located. Further proof that Namaari has embraced her Undercut identity, in Raya's personal opinion.

"I've been looking for you everywhere! You just disappeared," Namaari frowned as she walked towards her.

"Not surprising you could only find me when I revealed myself. You have a history of being a questionable tracker," Raya grinned.

"It's not my fault. You're so small, how's anyone supposed to see you?" the Fang woman smugly asked.

Raya rolled her eyes and was about to respond when she noticed Mali out of the corner of her eye. Oh right! Better be polite and introduce them.

"First of all, I'm going to get you back for that comment. Second of all, Namaari, please meet Mali. She's a friend from childhood. Mali, Namaari," Raya smiled.

Honestly, given their personalities, Raya expected the two to get along quite well. She was quite surprised to find that both of them looked at each other with a mildly irritated expression. It's like the two alphas were inconvenienced that the other was there.

Maybe they already met before?

"Pleasure to meet you," Namaari said in a way that absolutely did not sound like it was a pleasure at all.

"Pleasure is all mine, Princess Namaari," Mali said with crossed arms.

"Have you guys met before? You seem to know each other quite well," Raya asked with rather nervous laughter.

"Nope. First time meeting," Namaari shrugged.

Huh. Weird.

"Indeed it is. I have to run, but it was nice catching up with you, Raya. I'll see you at the festival, if not sooner. Have a wonderful day," Mali said with a small wink.

With that, she left. Raya immediately nudged Namaari's.

"What was that all about?" the Heart woman asked.

"What was what all about?" Namaari asked, apparently trying to play dumb.

"Are you sure you two have never met before? Kinda seemed like you hated her. You guys were doing that weird nonverbal alpha showdown thing," Raya said with a raised brow.

"No idea what you're talking about," Namaari simply stated.

Ugh, whatever. It's honestly not that important.

"If you insist. Just at a curiosity, have you seen Charanya at all today? Couldn't find her for the life of me," Raya explained.

"Nope. I can't seem to find Tien either. Weird," Namaari mumbled.

"HEY! RAYA! BINTURI! WHERE HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN?" Raya's dearest friend screamed.

Behind her, Tien was following like a lost puppy. Well, speak of the devils and they shall appear. Huh, now that Charanya's here, maybe she has some insight on the whole thing with Mali.

"Ranya, super quick random question? You didn't happen to hear anything about Mali or Noya, have you?" Raya asked.

"No way! You had a weird interaction too?" Charanya gasped.

"Oh yeah! She did a whole apology and from what I could tell, it was sincere. Anything like that happen to you?" Raya asked.

"Yes! Noya came up to me and also gave me a genuine apology. Who would've guessed?" Charanya asked thoughtfully.

"Not me, that's for sure," the taller omega huffed.

"I'm sorry, who are these people?" Tien asked.

"People we knew from our childhood. They were little jerks but changed their ways, I suppose," Charanya shrugged.

"I thought you guys were friends," Namaari said, now very confused.

"It's a very long and irrelevant story. Guess they grew the hell up during the Druun," Raya shrugged.

"Looks like it. I will be keeping the bugs on standby though," Charanya noted.

"You know what? I'm not too sure I want to know," the Fang princess muttered.

"Okay, I realize this is an abrupt topic change, but you guys are coming to the blue moon festival right? Ba's really excited about it so I've been harassing everyone I come across to attend," Raya explained.

"You already know I'm going. Ma and Grandma wouldn't miss it," Charanya nodded.

"I will too. My mother's leaving in a couple days but she should be back in time for the festival. Guess she has a date or something," Namaari shrugged.

Charanya, well aware of the fact that her grandmother is probably the date, looks like she wants to vomit. Now that Raya's thinking about it, does Namaari know her mother's date is Charanya's grandmother?

Oh, Raya needs to see that reaction.

"You're coming along too, aren't you?" Namaari asked, looking at Tien.

"Yes. My family will also be attending," the other alpha stated.

"Please don't tell me your father's coming," Charanya begged.

"No, he will not be joining us. It's just my mother and brothers," Tien assured her.

"What? Why don't you want her father to come?" Raya asked her friend curiously.

"The man hates my guts," Charanya bluntly stated.

"He does not hate your guts," Tien frowned.

"If I was on fire and he was holding a glass of water, he would quench his thirst," Charanya stated with an eye roll.

"You exaggerate," Tien bluntly stated.

"Literally every time you bring Charanya up, your father looks at you like you shot him in the leg," Namaari added.

The other three were quite shocked that Namaari backed up anything Charanya said. Then, the shorter omega absolutely cackled.

"I mean if Namaari's agreeing with me, you have to be wrong Tien," Charanya said between giggles.

"I did not come here to get ganged up on," Tien huffed with a light blush on her cheeks.

"You knew what you were getting into when you met me," Charanya snorted.

"No, I really didn't."

"I literally broke into your tent running from a guard who saw me destroy property. Please be serious Tien."

Raya snorted as the two continued to bicker. Namaari seemed to be zoning out and Raya, being the good friend that she is, stepped on the Fang woman's foot. Namaari, now out of her daze, winced and turned to glare at the omega.

"Is there any particular reason why you did that?" Namaari glared.

"No, it just felt right," Raya smiled.

"I can not believe I put up with you."

******************************

Aulia loudly shrieked Raya awake the very next day, which is always a fun way to wake up. That little girl does not give Raya peace ever.

The Heart woman groggily sat up and shuffled to her loud child. Once Aulia was tucked safely into her mother's arms, the shrieks devolved into simple yelps of indignation. It was probably time for a diaper change. And change it did.

Once Aulia was in a clean diaper and new clothes, she became perfectly content to play with the edge of Raya's shirt. The Heart woman took the opportunity to reapply her scent blockers and brush her hair.

Due to the fact that she's still waking up, Aulia yawned very loudly. Her baby yawns are so damn cute. Aulia throws her whole head back when she needs to yawn. Raya loves it honestly.

Then the Heart princess was struck with the rather painful reminder that Namaari also throws her head back when she yawns. It brings Raya to a subject she does not enjoy thinking about. The subject being the fact that Namaari has zero clue she has a child.

Honestly, the past couple days, Raya's starting to get the feeling that she should tell Namaari that Aulia's hers. She's seen how those two interact and they obviously deserve to at least know about each other.

But damn, Raya's terrified. She's terrified of how her relationship with Nmaaari will change because no matter how good or bad Namaari reacts to the news, things will change between them.

Also, hiding the fact that Namaari has a child is probably grounds for war, but Raya is sorta kinda hoping it doesn't come to that. Ugh, why does this have to be her life? Why couldn't she have gotten knocked up by some nobody with zero authority whatsoever?

There's also the issue of how to best tell Namaari. What does someone who has been hiding the fact that she has a kid with a person for well over a year say to said person? Hey man, remember when we fucked for a week straight? Well we procreated and the creation was Aulia, my kid.

...Raya's going to have to fine tune the script a little.

Even with all her worries, something in the Heart woman's gut is telling her to fess up soon. Namaari's going to have to learn the truth eventually.

Given the fact that Raya is pretty confident in Namaari's character, she can safely say that Namaari doesn't seem like the type to abandon her kid despite her young age. She also doesn't seem like the type to start war over the situation. Then again, Raya didn't think she was the type to get pregnant at seventeen. Toi, life is so stressful.

"You know, you're like my favorite person in the whole world, but you give me heart palpitations," Raya honestly told Aulia.

Aulia merely smiled in response. Raya smiled back and pressed a light kiss on Aulia's cheek. The contact caused her sweet baby to giggle. This prompted Raya to give her another kiss. In a flash, Raya pressed small quick kisses all over Aulia's face. The baby erupted with pure laughter and began squirming around in Raya's arms.

The Heart woman laughed and was about to continue her kisses when someone knocked on the door. At this hour, the only people that could be out the door are Charanya, Namaari, or her father.

"Which one are you?" Raya yelled.

"The Fang one," Namaari replied.

"Mkay! Come in!" Raya said.

Namaari then entered the room and practically slammed the door behind her.

"Sheesh, what did my poor door ever do to you?" Raya snorted.

"My mother is making me lose my fucking mind," Namaari groaned as she face planted onto Raya's bed.

"So business is as usual then?" Raya asked with a raised brow.

"More so today than others. I think holding Aulia would solve my problems," Namaari said while holding out her arms.

Raya rolled her eyes and gently handed her daughter off to Namaari. Aulia, now recognizing the Fang woman, smiled and lightly patted Namaari's nose with her tiny baby hand. Namaari grinned at the gesture and poked Aulia's cheek.

Those two are so adorable together it physically hurts. The reality that Raya is going to have to fess up soon weighs heavily on her mind. She needs a minute to gather herself.

"I'm going to change in the bathroom really quickly. Mind keeping an eye on her?" Raya asked as she hurriedly shuffled through her closet.

"No problem. She's safe with me," Namaari easily replied.

"I was talking to Aulia, but the gesture is appreciated," Raya smirked.

It took a split second for the jab to register in the Fang alpha's brain, but when it did Namaari decided the mature thing to do is to throw a pillow at Raya.

"You are so lucky you're holding my daughter right now," Raya said while pointedly looking away from Namaari.

"I know, I need to get my hits in while I can," the other woman laughed.

Raya scoffed as she closed the bathroom door. Okay, don't sob. A little bit of crying is fine, just do not make it obvious or auditory.

So there the Heart Princess sat, curled up on the bathroom floor in literal tears while her baby and the woman she loves are playing in the next room. This isn't how she wanted her life to turn out. Raya didn't want to fall in love with someone unattainable, she didn't want her child to be doomed from the start to grow up in two homes, and that's if the parentage reveal conversation goes well.

This secret Raya's hiding is huge. It's a literal child that she shares with Namaari and she has been lying about it for months. Namaaari may not forgive her for this, and honestly? She'd be in the right.

What would happen in the unlikely event of Namaari ending up being so enraged that Raya kept Aulia hidden from her that she really does start war? Would Raya have to surrender custody of her daughter? Would she even get to see her again? How would she-

"Raya, you okay in there?" Namaari asked.

Shit. This probably isn't the best time for a break down. Raya hastily rubbed her hands over her eyes to get rid of the tears. She took in a few deep, calming breaths before answering.

"Yeah, I'm good. Ended up with a bit of a headache this morning," Raya lied.

She also decided to take this opportunity to start actually changing her clothes. Washing her face is probably another good step.

"That sucks. Want me to get you anything? I know a couple teas that get rid of a headache in the blink of an eye," Namaari offered.

The guilt is starting to eat Raya alive. The Fang alpha needs to stop being so nice to her. She doubts it'll last once the truth comes out. Maybe Raya just needs to soak this in while she can.

"That's fine, it's nothing major. I think I'm also just tired. Some people like keeping their Ma awake all night," the Heart princess grumbled.

"I wonder who could be so cruel. It's definitely not Aulia though. She's the picture of innocence," Namaari teased.

"You are so biased," the Heart omega said while rolling her eyes.

Now that she looked presentable, Raya swung open the bathroom door. Namaari simply shrugged.

"How do you expect me not to be biased? Look at her!" Namaari insisted.

Raya stared at Aulia for a second. Then Aulia giggled. Raya tried really hard not to react, but she just couldn't help it. She had to smile back.

"Okay, points have been made," Raya relented.

"Thought so. Alright Aulia, I'm going to have to put you down real quick. I need to ask your Ma a favor and there may be some begging involved. I don't want you to see me like this," Namaari said while placing Aulia in her crib.

Oh? A favor? And one that could potentially require groveling? Huh.

"Raya, I have a request. A very important request. A request that will save my life," Namaari said.

"I have a feeling this is going to be ridiculous, but I'll bite. What is it?" Raya asked.

"So remember how I said my evil mother was making me lose my last shred of sanity? To very briefly explain, she keeps trying to set me up and she's using this festival as an excuse," Namaari started.

Oh. Okay. That pisses Raya off way more than it should. Her inner omega was going ballistic at the thought of Nmaaari with someone else. Shit, she needs to respond and sound normal.

"Huh. How do you feel about that?" Raya asked in what she hoped was a calm voice.

"Not very interested, which is why I need your help," Namaari told her.

This is great news! Now Raya doesn't feel the insane urge to climb on Namaari and make out with her to stake a claim.

Awesome. Love this for her.

"Alright, what do you want me to do?" the Heart woman asked.

"I just need you to be around me as much as possible. Just constantly talk to me, compliment me, sit right by me, cling to me, and generally do not leave me alone," Namaari requested.

"Oh, so I'm gonna be cockblocking you while simultaneously acting as your adoring fan the entire night?" Raya clarified.

"That's correct," the Fang woman nodded.

"I swear to spirits Namaari, if this person is a total bitch to me," Raya started.

"Oh she definitely will be. You know very well how vicious omega socialites are. The ones from Fang are a particular breed of insane," Namaari shrugged.

Wow, the idea of another omega flirting with Namaari genuinely makes Raya want to rip her own hair out. Raya's probably going to go into a literal coma when Namaari starts to court people. Seriously, one problem at a time.

"What am I getting out of this, exactly?" Raya frowned.

She was not willing to say that Namaari staying single is more than enough motivation to do this. Curse you, unrequited feelings.

"Uh, my eternal servitude and devotion?" Namaari tried.

"I already have that. Next," Raya said smugly.

Honestly, the Heart princess thought Namaari would deny it. Instead, she kept quiet and continued to think.

"I'll give you my dessert for the next month," Namaari offered.

"Now we're talking!" Raya beamed.

"So you'll do it?" Namaari asked hopefully.

"I'll be on you like a leech," Raya giggled.

“Oh thank the gods,” Namaari sighed in pure relief.

Raya merely smiled as she thought about all the ways this favor would inevitably blow up in her face. You only live once, as they say.

Apparently Raya is going to make her one life as painful as possible.

******************************

"I don't want to go," Raya bluntly stated.

"Are you actually fucking with me right now?" Charanya deadpanned.

In Raya's defense, she honestly woke up feeling like absolute hell this morning. Her head is pounding, her throat is all scratchy, and one of her nostrils is completely clogged. Raya vowed she would play off her cold symptoms until after the festival to support her father, but she is coming to regret that choice.

"Listen up punk, we already agreed to go to the festival. Ba's so excited," the shorter omega insisted.

"We'll also probably be seeing Mali and Noya. I don't know what the hell their problem is with Namaari and Tien, but I swear they always look like they're going to brawl whenever they make eye contact," Raya frowned.

She had originally thought the absurdity with Mali and Namaari would go away. Then she heard from Charanya that Noya and Tien had issues which is just so much more confusing. Why can't alphas get along? It's so ridiculous.

Raya and Charanya suspect it's some power struggle they do. Alphas always have to be the best, the strongest, the fastest, blah blah blah. Alphas are so moronic.

"Admittedly, I hear you. It does sound like a disaster waiting to happen. Try to remember that this festival is supposed to be fun. Let loose! Live it up!" Charanya insisted.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I don't know, I just have a bad feeling," Raya frowned as they began walking.

"You always have a bad feeling," Charanya ever so kindly reminded her.

"True," Raya admitted.

"C'mon, let's get dressed and grab a snack. You'll feel better," Charanya smiled.

Snacks did always make her feel better. Worth a shot.

Right when she thought she couldn't get anymore inconvenienced, Noya came rushing down the hall to the two of them. She stopped for a moment before looking at Charanya with a hopeful expression.

"Okay, super long story short, there was a total outbreak with the chefs. About half of them are down with the flu and we really need more people that can cook. Therefore, I'm kind of begging for your help," Noya sighed.

"Oh, damn. Yeah, of course. I'll see if I can grab my grandmother to join us," Charany agreed.

"Thank toi," Noya said with pure relief in her voice.

"I can help, too," Raya offered, momentarily forgetting she had a job to do tonight.

"No, no you can't," the annoying omega shot back.

"When it's not jackfruit jerky, I'm a good cook!" Raya pouted.

"I know that, but you're the princess of Heart. You have to be present in these events," Charanya reminded her.

Unfortunately, the shorter woman is completely correct. Raya has so many stupid responsibilities because she's a stupid princess. Plus, with the evident possibility of her getting sick, it's for the best if she stays out of the kitchen. Although, the flu outbreak did explain why Raya feels awful.

Wow, so Raya doesn’t even get to have her emotional support childhood friend in her time of need. Do the heavens hate her? Did she commit some heinous crime in her past life to deserve this?

"I'm afraid you're right, Ranya. Alright, go on. Don't put poison in the food of people you don't like," Raya instructed.

"Or bugs," Noya smirked.

"One time, Noya. Literally one time," Charanya grumbled.

"To be fair, it was a very memorable time," the taller Heart omega grinned.

"If you two binturis keep talking, poison and bugs will appear in your meals. Raya, just let Tien know where I am if you find her. She's probably already helping with the food, honestly, but just in case she isn't," Charanya told her.

"I will. Guess you two have to go save this entire festival. Good luck! Don't hurt yourselves!" Raya said as the two began to rush away.

"Right back at you!" Charanya yelled over her shoulder.

"Later Raya!" Noya waved.

It is so weird having a decent conversation with Noya. Growing up is just so weird.

Well. Looks like the only thing left to do is actually attend the festival. Raya grit her teeth as she made her way out of Heart's castle. As she walked the halls, she noticed several alphas perk ip with their heads swerving in Raya’s direction. The Heart woman tried to shrink herself as much as possible as she rushed to where she needed to meet Namaari.

Another tally to the list of reasons why Raya isn't totally loving the festival is because her scent blockers are running dangerously low. 

Oh how Raya hates going without her scent completely covered. She doesn’t like how alphas suddenly become much more interested in her and she especially doesn’t like how a shift in her sense gives out her true emotions. 

Raya is still wearing scent blockers to make it less obvious, of course, but it’s not enough to fully hide her scent. Not by a long shot. The Heart woman just wants the night to be over and it hasn’t even started.

Making her way through the crowd, Raya was surprised to find Namaari heading toward. She’s quite a ways away from where they were supposed to meet.

“Oh, I thought our rendezvous point was the fountain,” Raya said, mildly confused.

“It was. I could just smell your scent so I figured I’d walk to you,” Namaari told her.

Well now Raya’s embarrassed. She pursed her lips and avoided Namaari’s eyes.

“Makes sense. Been running low on scent blockers lately so I guess everyone’s just going to have to deal with my scent,” Raya said while trying to keep the tone light.

“It’s not a bad thing. Your scent smells nice,” Namaari shrugged.

Don’t freak out Raya. Don’t do it. That’s not an appropriate reaction for the situation. Oh for the love of all that’s good in this world, be normal.

“Thanks, so yours,” Raya managed to muster out.

Namaari then looked as red as Raya probably was. The omega’s heart was beating out of her chest and all Namaari did was compliment her scent. How is she going to survive a whole night of acting all lovey dovey with the Fang woman now?

"Oh, um, fair warning, I think I'm coming down with the common cold," Raya sheepishly admitted.

"That's fine, I've got the immunity of an ox. I could be surrounded by people dying of plague and not get sick. Besides, I think I'd rather contract whatever illness you have than endure matchmaking by myself," Namaari sighed.

Raya snorted as she continued walking with Namaari. Man, that woman really does not want to be set up.

“Princess Namaari! There you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” a grating voice exclaimed.

“Ah, Minh. It’s been a while,” the Fang alpha said while sounding like she had the urge to vomit.

Given the obvious distaste coming from Namaari, the girl approaching had to be the vicious omega socialite from Fang that Virana arranged. Namaari looked down at Raya’s face with an expression that screamed ‘save me’. If Raya wasn’t irrationally angry when someone was so blatantly interested in Namaari, she would have laughed.

Alright, time to be an insufferable admirer. Show time!

“Well hello there! I’m Princess Raya! Namaari said your name was Minh, right?” Raya asked in the fakest cheery voice possible.

Realizing Raya’s presence put an immediate damper on Minh’s attitude and scent. The other omega crossed her arms and eyes Raya up and down.

“That’s right. Being so…close to Princess Namaari, I’d have thought you would have been able to hear that,” Minh said with an edge in her tone.

It physically hurts the Heart woman that she can’t just cuss this girl out. Honestly, it will probably be ineffective anyways. She supposed this is the time to really start fawning over Namaari. Besides, Raya figures that she can use this opportunity to say her real thoughts that she doesn't have the guts to say out loud. It might be fun if Namaari gets flustered.

“I mean, can you really blame me? It’s very easy to get distracted when Namaari speaks,” Raya said in a low voice while gently stroking Namaari’s arm.

Raya decided to be a little extra bold and link their arms together. As it would turn out, Namaari is wearing scent blockers so smelling her mood shifts is out of the question. But from the pink tinging her cheeks, Raya would say her words and actions had the desired effect.

“I’m flattered, Raya. If such a beautiful woman like you can think so highly of me, I must be something,” Namaari hummed with a light smirk.

Fuck, now it’s Raya’s face that turns a whole new shade of pink. Looks like Namaari’s playing offense. Raya’s never been one to go down without a fight. The Heart princess’s internal schemes were cut short when Minh cleared her throat. 

“We should probably take our seats. The chief was kind enough to place us at the same table,” Minh said while pointedly looking at Namaari.

“My mother does love organizing. Raya, you know where our table is, don’t you?” Namaari asked.

“Of course. It’s why I’m here after all. Wouldn’t want you to get lost, dep la,” Raya smirked.

Namaari rolled her eyes and discreetly jabbed her elbow at Raya’s side. The Heart woman fought the urge to laugh and lightly jabbed her right back.

“Princess Namaari is perfectly capable of finding a table,” Minh snapped defensively.

“Princess Raya’s right, I’m afraid. I can get hopelessly lost without a guiding hand. I’m grateful for Raya’s help,” Namaari rather dramatically declared.

If Namaari keeps this up Raya will genuinely not be able to contain her laughter. Who knew the princess of Fang was so damn dramatic?

The silence was rather awkward but the three of them made it to their designated table with zero issues. Minh very quickly took the seat one Namaari's right, causing said woman to grimace. Raya tried really hard not to laugh at Namaari's face and sat down on her left.

"Oh, where's Aulia? Is she with Charanya or something?" Namaari asked.

"Ah, no. She's with Ba. That man is so excited to tell people she's his granddaughter. Those two are obsessed with each other," Raya snorted.

The Heart woman caught Minh trying to get Namaari's attention. Well that just won't do.

"Hey, speaking of Aulia, I finally got her birth certificate finalized! So yes, she legally exists," Raya beamed.

Namaari shrugged and rested her chin in the palm of her right hand. Then the binturi gave Raya a smirk.

"I don't know, dep la. If I can't see the birth certificate, then I just don't know if you're telling the truth," Namaari grinned.

A spike of irritation coursed through Raya. Namaari has seen her damn baby every day since she's been in Heart!

"Do not make me smack you Namaari. Aulia is a real baby with a real birth certificate!" Raya snapped.

"Until I can verify that this alleged birth certificate is a valid legal document, Aulia just can't exist now can she?" Namaari smugly asked.

Raya gave Namaari a sarcastic smile and leaned in so close their noses were almost touching. Namaari's smug smirk slowly fell from her face the closer Raya got.

"You make it very hard to swoon over you, Namaari," Raya whispered.

"Oh, but you do it so well Raya. You've got a real talent," Namaari mumbled.

"Of course I do, I'm good at everything," Raya quietly giggled.

"Not everything. You're terrible at making that god awful jackfruit jerky," Namaari grinned.

"I hope I end up sneezing on your face," the Heart woman pouted.

With that, she finally pulled away just in time for the food to arrive. The Heart princess stuck her tongue out Namaari before taking a couple bites of her food.

Minh started speaking, but Raya just kind of tuned her out. She's not particularly interesting and her voice really irritates Raya's ears. Namaari once again jabbed her elbow into Raya's side. Shit, that's right, she has a job to do.

With much exaggeration, the Heart omega yawned and rested her head against Namaari's shoulder. She then tilted her head up to look at Namaari's face.

"You're really laying it on thick, dep la," Namaari grinned as she pulled Raya closer.

"I am nothing if not effective," the Heart woman smirked.

"I find it very on brand for you to do me a favor then proceed to make me work as much as possible for it," Namaari muttered.

"It's been a long day, you know. I've been so stressed out these past couple weeks with the baby and the festival. I'm just exhausted, I can't even muster the energy to pick up my own fork. Feed me, dep la," Raya said, while trying painfully hard not to burst into laughter.

Namaari's eyes widened at the demand, clearly not expecting it. She really should know by now that with Raya, she must expect the unexpected.

"That's a bit beneath Princess Namaari's station, don't you think?" Minh cut in with a harsh glare.

Oh this binturi has zero clue what Raya's capable of. The Heart woman now leaned in so close to Namaari that her lips grazed the Fang woman's ear.

"I wouldn't mind being beneath your station. Again," Raya whispered.

For an extra kick, Raya blew air into Namaari's ear. If Namaari gets to joke about their week long sex in a cave, then Raya can too.

Deciding she had done enough, she retreated back to her original position of resting her head on Namaari's shoulder.

Namaari was rendered speechless. Her face took on a whole new shade of red and she began hopelessly opening her mouth only to close it once more. It feels so good to win.

"So, Namaari, what do you say? Think you can lower your station? For me?" Raya asked while batting her eyes.

It's a pretty odd feeling so obviously flirting with the woman who Raya is keeping a life changing secret from. Oh, better keep the thoughts light right now, her scent blockers are not what they used to be.

"Of course, Princess Raya. I'd do anything to you," Namaari eventually responded.

Raya's brows furrowed at the phrase. That didn't seem quite right.

"Uh, don't you mean for me?" Raya asked.

"Sure, that too," Namaari purred.

The implications finally registered in her brain and which very quickly sent her into a coughing fit. Raya may or may not have done that to hide her blush. How does Raya even end up in these situations? Eh, it's probably because she's an idiot.

"Well get to it Undercut," Raya demanded once her blush died down.

"You'll make an excellent chief with how bossy you are," Namaari scoffed.

Despite her unnecessary attitude, Namaari did feed Raya a bite of dinner. She continued on like this for a little while until Raya felt full. Given the fact that Raya was evidently coming down with something, she had Namaari stop feeding when her plate was halfway done.

"You must really not be feeling it if you can't eat. Do you want to turn in early?" Namaari asked worriedly.

Raya pursed her lips in thought. She really doesn't think she's in an emotional state to be with Namaari alone right now, even if it's just to walk back to her room. On the other hand, she feels like actual hell.

"I can hang back for a bit longer, it's fine," Raya sighed.

"You're sure?" Namaari frowned.

"Yeah, I'm just a bit nauseous," Raya mumbled.

"Better hope she's not pregnant again with another bastard," Minh muttered under her breath.

At once, Raya's jaw dropped. Minh whispered so quietly that Raya's not even sure anyone else heard the remark. Huh. So the bitch called her daughter a bastard. There are so many feelings of rage inside her head that she can not choose which idea to express first.

Oh, they could smell it too. Minh must have realized she had been heard because she raised a cocky eyebrow as if to say 'what are you going to do about it'?

This is not the Druun times, Raya will get into serious trouble if she claws this girl's face off. Ultimately, the Heart princess didn't need to say anything. Mainly because Namaari beat her to the punch.

"What the hell did you just say?" Namaari hissed.

Raya peeked around Namaari's shoulder to get a look at her face. Sweet god if looks could kill Minh would be six feet under. Minh clearly did not expect the Fang princess to hear her comment, or at least care enough to respond, so she quickly tried to back pedal.

"What I meant to say was-" Minh started.

It was like her annoying voice unleashed all the bad stuff weighing down on Raya because her nausea suddenly hit so much worse. She knew she would throw up very soon.

The Heart princess hastily made it to her feet and sprinted a few feet away from the table. She thought she vaguely heard Namaari call after her, but Raya was too preoccupied to check. Then, she hid behind a tree and vomited her guts out.

Thankfully, she was done with that uncomfortable experience in only a couple of seconds. What Raya wasn't so thankful for is that the vomiting seemed to be the gate that unleashed all her feelings of illness.

Raya suddenly felt incredibly hot, her sore throat only got worse, and now she's pretty sure both of nostrils are clogged. It certainly doesn't help matters that her eyes began to feel incredibly heavy.

"Hey Raya, are you okay?" a voice asked.

It looked several blinks before the voice could be identified as Mali. Huh. Somehow, the Heart alpha doesn't look quite right.

"Have you always been so blurry? Or is it like, a new look you're trying out?" Raya asked.

"Oh, that's not a good sign. C'mon Raya, I'll get you to your room," Mali said while reaching a hand out to her.

The loud footsteps erupted from behind her. Raya looked back to see Namaari in all her undercut glory.

"Shit, are you okay? I knew I should have dragged you home when you said you weren't feeling well," Namaari sighed.

"M'fine," Raya mumbled.

"You're the worst liar ever," the Fang alpha sighed.

"It's fine, Princess Namaari, I can take her back to her room," Mali told her.

"Please, don't trouble yourself. I'm more than happy to take Raya back to her room. I was going to spend the night anyway. Wouldn't be the first time," Namaari snapped in a harsh tone that was very unlike her.

Malie seemed to be very irritated but Raya never did catch what she had to say. Her eyes were heavy, the day was too draining, and her stomach was now way too empty.

Raya's body could not take the strain of consciousness. So, with as much grace as Tuk Tuk trying to knit, Raya face planted on the ground and promptly passed out.

It was probably for the best.

******************************

Raya woke up to Charanya at her bedside, reading one of her old books. The scratchiness in her throat was damn near unbearable. Raya weakly flung her arm out to Charanya in an attempt to grab her attention.

Thankfully, her plan was effective. Charanya stopped reading and hastily stood next to Raya's bed.

"Hey sleepy head. You need anything?" Ranya asked quietly.

Raya lightly tapped her throat, their way of saying water. They made up the nonverbal code back when they were ten and one of them got sick. Charanya was always much better at playing nurse than Raya was.

Chranaya nodded and grabbed a cup by the nightstand.

"Here, the tea helps with a sore throat. It should still be warm. i've also got water right next to you in case you need it," the other woman assured her.

Once Charanya handed her the tea, Raya downed it in one gulp. By the spirits, she was so thirsty. At once, she could feel the tea soothe the burning in her throat. The immediate calming reaction was very appreciated.

"Where's um, our other family members?" Raya asked now that her throat feeling much better after the tea.

"Ma turned in early, Grandma's probably still up talking with Chief Virana, and Ba's with Aulia. They were all worried about it and wanted to stay, but I shooed them off. They knew I could handle it," Charanya explained.

Raya nodded in understanding. Now that Raya isn't blinded by thirst and discomfort, she's noticing Charanya looks pretty upset. Ah, so Raya's not the only one who had a miserable night.

"You okay over there?" Raya questioned despite already knowing the answer.

"It's been a shitty night," Charanya said after a beat of silence.

“That makes two of us. Would you like to start us off with your shitty night?” Raya asked.

“She thought I was fucking alpha,” Charanya simply stated.

“Uh, who did?” Raya asked, very confused.

“Tien. I’ve known her for two years and she thought I was an alpha literally until two minutes ago!” Charanya snapped.

Um. Wow.

Hell, it's no wonder Tien hasn't made a move at this point if she really thought Charanya was an alpha. A courtship with two alphas typically doesn’t end well. That situation also applies with having a relationship between two omegas. They’re simply too similar.

Plus, the scents. The scents are a big reason why those two pairings usually won’t work. When Charanya has her heats, the scent really aggravates Raya because of the fact that she’s a fellow omega. A lasting courtship isn’t necessarily impossible, but it’s pretty rare.

Tien has been pretty blatantly into Charanya for a long time now. Maybe the assumption that Charanya was an alpha is what really held Tien back from actually courting her?

“Wait, okay, tell me what happened. You know, calmly and rationally,” Raya insisted.

“There is so much to unpack here,” Charanya tiredly whined. “So Tien walked into the kitchens to help with food preparations. As I assumed, her and Noya started bitching at each other so I had to separate them. Noya made some offhand comment about how her younger self never thought she’d be getting bossed around by an omega, which is dumb because that’s how most courtships work. Next thing I know, Tien is saying that I'm an alpha!”

Raya blinked. Wow. Though she has to say, a lot of little things that kind of confused her made perfect sense. That knothead comment Namaari made at Charanya awhile back makes a lot more sense given the fact that knothead is an exclusive alpha insult for obvious reasons.

"So then I'm like 'what kind of drugs have you been taking because I've been an omega since birth' and she was just stunned into silence. It took several minutes for her to use her damn vocal cords again. Afterwards it was just, I don't know, weird. We still talked but it seemed like her head was somewhere else. How is this even real life?" Charanya groaned.

"I mean shit, Ranya, even I don't know what to say," raya sighed.

Seriously, what could she say? Sorry that the girl you were in love with was under the impression you two would never work out because she thought you were an alpha?

"Me neither. I just wish I knew why she got so weird. I mean, is it because she thinks I'm like, beneath her now that she knows I'm an omega?" Charanya frowned.

"I honestly don't think that's the case. I may not love the girl, and she may not love me, but she doesn't really seem to look down on omegas solely because of the fact that they're omegas. You're really just going to have to talk to her when she's not so off," Raya shrugged.

"When did you become rational?" Charanya frowned.

"I'm sick off my ass right now, I don't have much of a choice," Raya shrugged.

The shorter Heart woman smirked at that before leaning back against her chair. Then she let out a long, drawn out sigh.

"Well, that really concludes my awesome thrilling night. What about yours?" Charanya asked.

"Other than me vomiting and passing out, the only thing really worth mentioning is that the girl Virana set up with namaari called my daughter a bastard. That was a pretty fun way to end my night," Raya sighed.

"Where the fuck is she?" Charanya bluntly asked.

"I am not telling you that information," Raya told her.

To be fair, it's not like she actually knows where Minh is anyways.

"Who the fuck does she think she is, calling my god daughter a bastard? Oh I will tear the binturi apart!" Charanya scowled.

"No you won't. Mainly because I'm not telling you who said it," Raya snorted.

"Are you serious? You're just going to let that freak get away with it?" Charanya glared.

"I mean, to be fair, Namaari very quickly stepped in. She got all pissed off on my behalf. But that was also the part when I needed to vomit so I kind of missed the rest of the conversation. She definitely heard it from Namaari, though," Raya shrugged.

Charanya huffed and crossed her arms. She pursed her lips before giving Raya a harsh glare.

"Please don't tell me things that are going to make me like Namaari, my night is bad enough as it is," the younger woman pouted.

Raya laughed at the comment before it quickly devolved into coughs. Charanaya could only wait until the hacking was done before offering some water.

"Yeah, I'm going to bed. I can not stand this," Raya sighed.

"I have to say, I'm feeling pretty beat. And hey, check it out, they gave me a cot so that I could sleep here with minimal risk of contracting your disease," Charanya beamed.

She pointed to said cot that Raya hadn't noticed until now. It was tiny, but it could certainly fit Charanya. The mat was a decent size so it shouldn't be too uncomfortable.

"You know, this kind of reminds me of when we were kids and we begged our parents for a sleepover," Raya smiled.

"Yeah. Feels like a lifetime ago huh?" Charanya asked.

"Totally," Raya agreed.

The two sat in silence, reminiscing on a past so far away it was barely even remembered. Details were fuzzy, but the feeling of warmth and happiness was ingrained in Raya's mind.

Ah, the simpler days. How she yearns for them.

"Wake me if you need anything, Raya. Love you, sleep well," Charanya yawned.

"M'kay. I love you too, goodnight," Raya mumbled.

A moment of silence passed over them. Naturally, Raya had to break it.

"Can you get me cookies?" Raya asked.

"Are you fucking with me right now?" Charanya asked with a scowl.

"PLease?" Raya begged.

".......I hate you."

"I love you too!"

"Whatever. Whore."

[mrsfezziwig]

Confessions of a K-pop Fanfic Reader (part one)

So you are right there, you've heard the first few chords, vocals, rap and beat of a song and after capturing it with Shazam, you read the name of the song except... you can't.... because it's in Hangul; that's K-pop right? And disbelief with disappointment burrows and worms into your psyche. You only listen to English language music as there's no point in hearing something you don't understand, if you wanted something that had lyrics you didn't understand you'd listen to Gregorian chant songs. Still, you feel the need to find the rest of the track but something inside you lurches because K-pop is innocent, childish, nothing but ridiculous Crayon Pop bright colours and T-ARA's "bo-peep, bo-peep, bo-peep, bo..." or the unexpectedly self aware and satirical Gangnam Style (although you haven't necessarily read the translated lyrics yet).

You can't possibly be considering taking the 'genre' seriously? But, those infectious few English lines are stuck in your damn brain and you can't stand the not knowing anymore, so you sneak away to the toilet or claim to be doing some extra work so your discomfort at the possibility of someone seeing and mocking you for it is minimised as much as you can. Hell, you watch porn more openly than this but you still open the Shazam you made a few days or weeks before, knowing you are one click or finger tap away from being completely ridiculed by your friends or family or both for being even willing to consider taking actual time out of your life for K-pop.... But with a deep breath you plunge in, probably with a Stray Kids, BTS or Ateez song and suddenly you are breathless because although you don't understand everything being said, you are completely blown away at the MV quality, which is better than some Western movies in terms of storytelling and editing. Unbeknownst to you the artworks that this small Asian country creates come ready made with the captions in English, plus a few other languages yet it's probably for the best you don't know that because the simple quality of the video takes your breath away.

Wait up though... these people can't possibly be human! How do they all look so fucking good? And how old are they? They look like fresh-faced mid-teens only they can all sing and dance? Oh, but HOLY SHIT CAN THEY RAP-RAP! [Looking at you Rapracha]. It is just impossible that these humans not only exist but most of them dance hardcore choreo whilst singing live too. Nah, nah, nah... it's all bullshit. AI is so fucking good now that these people aren't real.

That's pretty much how discovering K-pop didn't happen for me, an adult old enough to have student debt until I die, who will never own a home because fuck you baby boomers, and finds children to be more like crotch goblins designed to test every last one of the few nerves in my battered self that aren't fucked up by my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

My introduction was truly bizarre; I was married for 20 years - before my husband decided my disability meant he had free reign to fuck anyone who wanted him as I couldn't do it anymore - and my now ex-husband's co-worker had a daughter who wrote fanfics. Now, I was horribly, horribly naïve and rather dumb when I agreed to be a reader, editor and kind of coach for this girl. Not once in my entire life had 'fan fiction' come up in my bubble, I went into the whole endeavour genuinely believing that Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Namjoon, Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook were Wattpad characters, not real people.

I thought they were like how Reddit has it's 'marriage counselling' and 'divorce' thing that everyone knows is said on that social media platform, or that Facebook has it's passive aggressive posts bitching about something, the baby daddy/mama drama fueled by said posts, the vague sympathy grabbing status updates and fake news, or X's hate trains. Having never heard of BTS (and by having done no googling beforehand) I went into it as if these weren't real people. To say the writing was atrocious from this teen was an understatement, and I was honest about it, figuring you don't ask someone for feedback if you don't want criticism. If all you wanted was read counts, votes and comments, I could have done that multiple times a day to boost you, which it turns out was pretty much exactly what she was really wanting.

Soon though, I was reading other books from the ones recommended at the end of my current read and it staggered me just how fucking good these books were. Some of them desperately deserve to be published in the conventional way with their highly detailed and provoking writing that I still return to time and time again. However, one glaring detail eventually stood out to me as I lay in a hospital bed with IV antibiotics in one arm and opioid IV in the other, having very, very little of importance to ponder, and one thing that stood out all of a sudden, and I couldn't avoid anymore, was how no one described the characters in terms of look and age; it was as if the writer assumed everyone reading knew what they looked like already...

Now my fucking dumbass was still thinking these were 'Wattpad characters', thus there would be a master document on the app with these details, right? Please bear in mind it had been a year or more that I had been living in the misconception fog thinking these weren't real people at that point, so a master list of characters to choose from simply made sense to me.

Yep, I am kind of stupid for assuming, and yep, I trawled the Wattpad help pages for far too many hours looking for this document or link to one, which admittedly gave me something to focus on as the cocktail of pharmaceuticals made me feel nauseous and also rather high. Am I just too trusting and gullible or can anyone else see my flawed logic here?

As it began to niggle more, seeing the references to South Korea (with the incredibly amusing American way of behaving ascribed to the country that was worlds different to the USA), with Seoul, Busan and Daegu all mentioned my singular lonely brain cell bounced around my skull sparking something off in there. That's when it dawned on me this could be a kpop thing and I finally googled the most common name from the stories, Jungkook, and felt like a bucket of ice water was tipped over my head as I realised that these people were real. Yeah, yikes 😬💀

It distressed me that I had been so blasé as to read these pieces without questioning the similarities. I was even considering becoming a co-writer for the first girl until that moment. Some of this can be explained by my condition during 2018 to 2019, with multiple hospital admissions due to infections or injuries from the Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. One of the infections almost killed me because it was missed for too long and had moved into early stage sepsis. There was no way I could focus on my normal book fare of Charles Dickens and thick, detailed history books and, being truly, truly frank, Wattpad saved my fucking sanity over those two daunting and harrowing years, never demanding more than my mind could handle with all the drugs being pushed into my system.

Plus there were hundreds of thousands of stories to pick from that weren't even Fanfic, about real people or other author's characters. Although I was careful as I was passionately determined to avoid anything that I would consider debauched and invasive, the mature content option was firmly turned off, and the first sign of smut had me gone! A few kisses or implied sexual conduct squeezed through but not full smut. Hello repressed religious trauma!. The amount of stories that were not flagged as Mature Content pissed me off then and pisses me off still.

Once the shock of finding out the truth was easing a little, I decided I needed to actually watch some BTS music videos to try and understand the craziness of it all. What I never expected was just how deep the songs were and are, nor how intellectual the entire industry is because who the fuck else is making music videos based around novels like Demian in the West?

I didn't realise in addition that not only Korean would sneak its way into my brain but that the whole idol industry is interwoven with its own language. This answered many questions I had about the common jargon such as comeback, lore, promotions, era, main, lead, sub, bias, bias wrecker/s, OT#, Big4, ult, PC (photo card), fan meets, Naver, Weverse, V-Live (rip to the GOAT), Chan's Room [*sniff* Baby, you aren't in any trouble, okay? Please just come home, we all miss you and love you, please, please come back!], 1/2/3/4th Gen, and more my messed up brain can't recall so late at night and after the various narcotics that I take to function.

And those narcotics are saying no more today!

So I shall see you in part two!

[gearlic-personal]

My Borderlands Movie (2024) review

Right before the movie ended, I thought “is this how the movie ends?” and “no surely not, we’re only like 45 minutes in”, and then the movie ended. So little happened in the movie I couldn’t fathom the fact I absorbed nearly 2 hours of a film. And I say “absorbed” because my attention did not waver for a second, I was so hooked on how awful the writing was I just had to hear it to believe it. I feel the characters were written for a voice acted video game, not live action— it created an awkwardness when the tone of a video game is poorly translated to a performance that is acted out, especially when the actors themselves are notttt feeling the role at all. You know it’s bad when you can hear the actor cringing at their own lines. I’m gonna bring up the Fallout show because I feel they did a fantastic job at translating the quirky humor of the game into the live acted show: going into the show I felt the same hesitation as this movie, and it didn’t help when I noticed how 1-to-1 they make the set look to the game, the same goofy vault posters and outfits (albeit MUCH better designed and fitting for a screen, and not a cheap Amazon cosplay version they attempted in the Borderlands movie). What broke me out of the awkwardness of a goofy-video-game-to-live-action translation was the moment the lead used a Stimpak to heal herself, same as the game (AKA jabbing herself with a needle and instantly healing). It was funny, jarring, and more moments like this helped set the tone of the world WHILE STILL UTILIZING WELL-WRITTEN CHARACTERS AND PLOT to help us attach ourselves to the environment and take silly seriously. The Borderlands movie had no anchoring tone of the film unlike the Fallout show, despite being fairly similar in gamplay and environment in their games. Where the writers may have struggled is just how much of the humor of the Borderlands games…. may not have made it to 2024. The script holds onto a lot of the wrong jokes made in the original games (one’s where I’d suck air into my teeth and wince when returning to these games), and character dynamics that were annoying (such as the joke of a character being the annoying punching bag that everyone hates bc he’s annoying……………. hi claptrap ily). This is also why I believe they fed the BL games scripts to AI and had it poop generalized garbage 2010 gamer-talk for the movie. The application of humor in the Borderlands games WORKED though, even if they are dated they still hold up (except the ableism and fatphobia those did not . like why. hello) because of how unified the world and characters are. UNIFIED! The BL movie writing felt so clunky, and it’s not only because they obviously did not pay attention when dubbing voice lines that don’t make sense in the conversation (Claptrap: “is this your home?” Lilith: “I grew up here.” yes girl thats what a home is. Also I’m so sure Jack Black did another line intended that said “Do you recognize this place” or some shit that makes more sense. Anyway. This happened a lot. Especially Kriegs lines which were just pulled from the games i s2g). The writing felt clunky because not one damn soul working on that movie was 100%. On the list of soulless movies with no one working on it connecting deeply with the source material at all, this is right up there with Wonka. And I’m not saying you gotta be Tiny Tina #1 mega-fan but oh my god it was so hard to watch Ariana Greenblatt act out a character that was only ever explained to her once by a guy who had Tiny Tina explained to him by another guy who read off her fandom wiki page summary. Except thats what every single character in this movie felt like. Everyone but Marcus??? for whatever fucking reason, he read the assignment he took Cornell notes. too bad he had 15 minutes of screen time. I’m actually glad they didn’t include my all-time favorite character Mordecai for fear of how they’d butcher his character too. Sorry Brick and Mordecai the writers could not fathom your gay love for each other the way I would have. Put me in that writing room.

Script-doctoring is a lost cause for this movie. she doesn’t need a facelift she needs a multi-organ transplant. With just how rich the world is why did they not just go the Tell-Tale BL route and put their own OCs on Pandora.. instead they cherry-picked elements from all the games to combine into… a twisted version of the OG plot? Not even a new adventure for these characters, no, they take the existing plot of how they met and decided to butcher Tiny Tina’s story so she can be a main character? The only way they could have fixed this in the writing room was in the very beginning if someone said “no” to this idea (also I’m pretty sure Tiny Tina wasn’t even born yet bc her story is tied to Handsome Jack and Hyperion not Atlas… also RIP to not getting a Handsome Jack plot he wouldve been so fun on screen and probably have been a good unifier for the tone I talked about before… I would never let him in the hands of those writers though).

Oh my god I could also go on and on about how nasty the environments were UGHHHHH so fucking awful, no creativity not an ounce. The patchwork architecture in the games is so meticulous and clever, even if they just payed attention to the silhouettes in the movie they don’t have to go crazy with the designs but at least give us SOMETHING!! Caustic Caverns too…. oh my god. Probably my favorite map in all the games. It’s the most unique map, its got so much breathing room, it looks like it goes on forever but still makes you feel claustrophobic (as intended). The dynamic man-made structures made to look natural with decay as they blend seamlessly into the natural structures.. the unique enemies and dangers of the map. This is the only(?) map mentioned by name in the movie, I was preparing for what I’d see. And they gave me nothing. The characters walk into a sewer cellar with glowing green sewage, walk around it, then fight a bunch of psychos in the… sewer cellar. its. its a sewer cellar. thats it. then they continue walking through the normal sewer cellar. the only comparison is the green acid and the name. Anyway that made me most sad of all, there was so much they could have done.

Ultimately this was gonna be an inevitable flop coming out anytime after BL3 womp womp. Nothing could have saved the franchise after the circumstances surrounding that game (recasting key voice actors to avoid raising wages, almost completely new writing team that was not great, Epic games paying for exclusive platform for like a year?? idk ppl were mad abt that). Great gameplay though.

Rating: 3/10

Giving it 3 stars for thinking of trying something new with the characters..? Also the fight scenes were pretty solid ngl, one thing I like about playing the BL games is how satisfying the fighting is, the sound design adds so much weight that makes it more fun than other FPS games and I think the movie replicated that well.