#sorry to the one person on my tumblr who's also in my tabletop group who's gonna see this twice

[seventhdoctor]

Reincarnation and Promises

ITP a lot of thoughts related to Soulshipping as I work on this fic, as yelled to my tabletop group who basically know nothing but what I’ve told them about GX but a lot about my love for reincarnation junk.

Just how does Judai relate to his past life? How does that affect his relationship with Yubel?

In their original lives Judai promised Yubel he'd only love them, after Yubel had already voluntarily become a monster dedicated to protecting him. In the present Judai remembers their past lives while Yubel is trying to destroy the universe, tortured into insanity by a combination of his mistake and the Light of Destruction’s corruption, and he instantly flips from "you're evil and deluded and I will stop you at any cost" to "I accept your love (by choosing Super Fusion), you need healing and I will risk my entire existence to help you."

What is he thinking at that moment when he flips? The decision to fuse with Yubel is about taking responsibility, growing up, and redemption as well as - or even more than - a matter of love. But also, there's so many angles to what he’s feeling about those two things, and how much of each factors into exactly why he chooses to metaphorically return Yubel’s love and fuse their souls.

The flashback to their past lives is brief, less than three minutes of episode most of which is exposition, and you don't really get a full sense of just how much Judai connects with his past life beyond the line "I remember... They're me and Yubel in our past lives" before he watches his past self make that defining promise.

How much does he remember? Does he feel like a continuation of his past life in that moment, or like the next version of the young prince? I feel the answer to that question changes the meaning of his decision to fuse their souls together, in essence ensuring they can't be separated again as a gesture of love and/or to take responsibility for how they’ve hurt Yubel. If he feels a sense of continuity with his past self then that decision is a continuation of that promise to love Yubel, and an as-it-should-be reunion between guardian and guarded. If he views his past self as someone connected to but separate from himself, then continuing that promise is more of a decision he takes upon himself to stay connected to someone he still feels tied to - or maybe not. Maybe it’s simply a sense of duty to someone he’s hurt, someone he promised to love in another life and feels obligated to love in the present.

How much responsibility does he feel to uphold the vows of his past self? How much responsibility does he feel to heal someone who's been hurt badly because of his mistakes (which were made because Yubel was attacking his neighbors to begin with)? Is loving Yubel his obligation, his nature, or his choice? Can it be multiple of these things, or even all three?

And on the other end Yubel made their choice long ago, without all those questions about their relation to a past life because their past is their present in ways Judai's is not. If Judai really wanted, he could probably reject everything about his past life and destroy Yubel to save the world. That's the least likely choice (and again, one he implicitly rejects when he chooses Super Fusion immediately after remembering), but he could probably do it. Yubel doesn't have that choice to reject the past or they barely have it, because they were remade entirely for him and both their existence and sense of self still kinda revolve around him.

The exact feelings Judai has about Yubel and the fusion are a matter of interpretation and/or headcanon, and trying to figure out what I think for fic purposes has brought up a lot of fascinating questions about how their past bears upon the present and the unevenness of Judai’s reincarnation combined with Yubel’s more constant nature. It’s definitely making some scenes both really fun, and also hard to finish before I settle my own thoughts here.

[shinydelirium]

MLQC Season 2 Chapter 12 (Kiro) Part 6 [Weary Beast] Translation [CN]

***SPOILERS*** THIS POST CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR CONTENT NOT YET RELEASED ON EN SERVER!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!***

For previous translations of Season 2 Chapter 12: Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3/ Part 4/ Part 5

Enjoy~

[Weary Beast]

MC: Ki…!

Helios: Why are you here?

He spat out those unwelcoming words. The edge of the knife reflected in the cold light and he interrupted me suddenly.

I looked at the person in front of me with a sullen anger in my heart.

….Relax, take it easy. Don’t get carried away. ***Changed some wording***

Helios: Don’t waste my time asking the same question again.

MC: ….I’m here to find someone.

After hearing my answer, Helios unknowingly tilted his head to the left. His eyes were alert and he glanced at the note in his hand, gripping it hard.

Helios: There is no one here for you to find.

MC: But I want to know….

Helios: I’m not interested in your nonsense.

***I don’t say this enough. Helios is ABSOLUTELY FINE in this outfit. All those belts and buckles, those rips in his pants, those, black gloves...I’ll never get enough of this outfit.***

The knife’s edge that was gradually pressing on my neck was wrapped in an icy breath and the smell of disinfectant. Something like an earpiece in his right ear caught my attention.

Helios came closer, condescendingly suppressing me in the cramped space. His body was coiled tightly, like a weary beast.

Looking at him like this, I didn’t have a trace of fear. Only sadness and anger.

He hid his wounds and concealed himself in the darkness. He hid “Kiro” and from me.

He made himself into Helios.

My eyes stung. I couldn’t help lowering my head, looking at the rough and invisible line between us, unable to say anything.

Helios: Don’t show up in front of me again.

Helios: Otherwise, you won’t be so lucky next time.

After saying this, he backed away coldly, turned and left.

MC: Wait a minute, Helios. I think you are very similar to the person I am looking for.

MC: …Right, Kiro.

I gently called his name, expecting him to turn around with a smile and make a funny face at me in the next moment.

Even if he didn’t, there would still be some small changes in his expression from seeing me.

But Helios only turned sideways faintly, with a mocking look on his face.

Helios: Sorry to disappoint you. I am not that person.

Helios: I heard that Nox is not capable enough and it seems that the eyes are not good enough either.

MC: Kiro, I’m actually stronger and braver than you think.

I don’t want his deliberate harsh words to get to me, so I’ll just face him frankly and directly.

MC: Maybe you think I’m weak and can’t do much.

MC: But I’m really….not that useless. I’m not someone who can only stand by and wait for your protection.

MC: You know, don’t you?

Those clear eyes narrowed, and Helios looked at me quietly, without saying a word for a long time.

This is like a silent confrontation. The two of us holding that tight thread and neither one letting go.

Slowly, Helios smiled.

Helios: Who do you think you are and what does it have to do with me?

Helios: Don’t be too self-righteous.

I closed my eyes sadly, as if I heard the sound of the taut thread in my heart being severed.

You really are there, Kiro.

He made up his mind to disappear and acted as Helios. Treating Kiro like this, I can’t be the same.

I slowly opened my eyes and tried to force myself to smile.

MC: Okay, I think I am.

MC: But I want to know, Helios, why are you here?

Helios: Since when do I need to report to you, Nox?

MC: Of course there’s no need for you to.

MC: But you found something from me, so am I not allowed to ask?

His eyes closed in an instant, and his face changed color.

MC: Don’t think you can hide it by erasing the memory. I know you went to the B.S. Secret Research Institute.

MC: What are you looking for?

Before I could say any more, I was pressed against wall once again and an unbearable anger filled Helios’ wide-open eyes.

Seeing him like this, I knew I was right.

MC: Are you also investigating lesions and Evol….

While I was still talking, Helios’ knife immediately struck the wall next to my ear, his face threatening.

Helios: If you don’t want to die, stay away from this matter.

He gritted his teeth fiercely, holding the knife tightly with restraint, and spat out each word.

MC: I’m already involved, and I will definitely investigate it.

MC: You….Helios, can’t control me.

Both of us seemed to be holding double-edged knives, although we would bleed when we clearly stabbed each other.

But he still slashed the knife fiercely.

Helios: It seems that you are not afraid of death.

MC: Of course I’m afraid of death. Death and sacrifice will not solve any problems.

MC: I will find the truth.

MC: Or you can work with me and tell me why you want to look into this and…

Why are you leaving?

I didn’t say the last few words. I still didn’t give up and wanted to talk to him more.

Helios: I have nothing to tell you.

Helios: Stay away from this. If you get in my way…

Helios: I will let you know the consequences.

I couldn’t help but sneer. It seems that this person is not going to give in.

MC: Helios, let me tell you directly.

MC: Originally, I didn’t want to take care of this matter, but now I am, and I’ve made my decision.

MC: If you think I’m an eyesore, then just let me leave here, unless you say that I’m hindering you in the future.

MC: Or, are you actually worried about me?

Helios: Do I look so kind?

He smirked and took a half step back.

Helios: The name Nox doesn’t suit you. You should be called Narcissus.

I was so angry that I was about to explode and I raised my head in annoyance.

MC: I don’t care if you think I’m an eyesore or that you’re worried about me.

MC: If you’re capable, you can tie me up and keep me hostage every day. Otherwise….we rely on each other’s abilities. ***It’s getting really heated and I’m not talking about the confrontation happening between MC and Helios. I really wish I was in MC’s place right now!!!***

Helios’ attitude made me more certain that what happened to him was definitely related to Evol’s disease, and perhaps this incident involved many things.

If Kiro wants to hide, then I won’t chase.

I want him to come to me himself.

When I was done talking, I turned and left, grunting deliberately as I walked.

MC: I’m going to go investigate now!

My steps were purposely slow so he could catch up. But Helios stood there as if he didn’t hear me.

It wasn’t until I walked out of the B.S. that I secretly turned my head back and found that no one was following me.

I clenched my teeth and left irritably.

Helios hit the wall hard with his hand and the hearing aid in his right ear helped him to provide an echo of this blank world.

Just now, he thought it was another attack so he subconsciously struck his knife out.

Fortunately, he stopped his hand ahead of time and kept himself from shaking too much.

Because of his rush, he only brought one hearing aid. It made him a little sad when he missed some parts to what she said. ***Changed some wording***

MC: Kiro, I’m actually stronger and braver than you think.

Of course he knows.

It was never her problem.

He lifted his eyes and looked at the face in the mirror. The cold hearing aid in his ear was particularly bright under the dim light.

Kiro: “I command you….keep getting stronger….”

The distant echo kept coming, like a blessing.

It was like a heavy shackle.

I knew what I said was out of anger. When I returned home, I saw the messy tabletop and felt extremely frustrated.

But I don’t have time to hesitate. I must get myself together and think about what I can do for Kiro.

I once again pulled out the hunter game information and looked at each photo thoroughly.

In the densely wooded tropical rainforest, a huge group of stones was especially eye-catching.

I looked at the photo carefully and suddenly found that at the corner of the group of stones, there was a vaguely carved “8” symbol on it.

I froze for a moment as if something seemed to flash in my mind.

I immediately turned on the computer and zoomed in on each photo, one by one to find it. Finally, I found three of the same symbols in the stack of photos.

This symbol is the same as the one I saw in the game I participated in with Kiro.

MC: Is it a “small syringe” production plant within the hunter game?

But Shaw said before that this symbol was related to some kind of ruins.

Could this be a coincidence?

I looked at the symbols in the photos and fell into deep thought.

-End of Part 6-

***I don’t think I put enough screenshots of Helios but then again I don’t think Tumblr would be able to handle so much Helios in one post XD***

[rpbetter]

Hey there, check out this pinned post first!

Thanks for visiting Roleplay Better, where I believe that you can fucking do better! That kind of language, however, is why it is important for you to read this post before proceeding.

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I have that rule because this blog can/will/does address topics inappropriate for a younger audience. Those can include, but are not limited to:

not safe for work - violence, injury, sexual language, smut, substance use

“dark topics” and themes like violence, unhealthy relationships, mental illness, trauma, graphic injury, dubious consent, substance use, and so forth addressed realistically

foul, sexual, and otherwise “Adult” language

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“negativity” since literally anything can be, and my whole point here isn’t about holding back; it is likely that, at some point, in some post or another, a shoe will fit you-you need to be mature enough to handle that without taking it as a personal attack on you

images and links that may contain things inappropriate for a younger audience

this blog is founded upon the idea that fiction has reflections in reality, but that fiction does not utterly equate to reality. You should write with realism, your characters should be people in their own right, and you should absolutely be addressing many popular topics responsibly, which is to say realistically. I do not support or otherwise condone purity culture, so while realism is a big deal here, fiction = reality arguments are a no

seriously, you have no idea how fucking salty I am! I try to be fair, reasonable, and mellow with everyone, but it can and does come out.

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Don’t tumblr message me. Use the inbox or submit.

Due to recent events, I am changing this rule. It’s hard for me to receive messages unexpectedly, and I hate to imply that I’ll be able to get to these quicker because it isn’t the truth. Quicker, better responses come from the inbox. However, there have been too many incidents lately in which people needed to speak privately and had to make that a request. If you’re having a problem and need to vent, request sensitive advice, etc.? It’s alright, go ahead and drop me a PM, y’all. I’ll get back to you as soon as I am able. Please, do not be angry with me if I respond to inbox things or my queue is running! You’re important to me, I just might not have the requisite social cognition and energy you deserve at that time.

Aggressive inbox messages will be responded to in kind. I don’t care if you are on anon or not, if you haven’t an ounce of polite communication skills, I won’t have them either. This is not a “we don’t publish anon hate” blog.

I highly encourage asks and submissions on any and all RP topics, and it’s perfectly alright to be salty as fuck in them, you can totally vent here, but don’t take out your frustration on me or be demanding of me. I am always happy to help with information, advice, or just a response to your venting-it’s important to know someone is listening. However, it may take me a few days to a week to get to you, be patient. 

If you are going to vent, leave out usernames. This isn’t a callout or burnbook blog. It’s fine to state characters and fandoms, but if this becomes a problem, it’ll have to change. I don’t want this becoming a salt blog for one or two fandoms I very likely can’t even stand. Practice the fine art of alluding to things, its good experience for your writing! Besides, RPC problems are RPC problems, I promise. It might feel like it’s just your fandom, but there is something relatable in all corners.

I will not overly police comments. Keep the slurs and shit out of it, though. If there is an issue going on pertaining to a serious instance of hate speech, or behavior I, personally, deem as too inappropriate and/or immature to be taking place on my post, I will step in. Otherwise, I expect everyone to be adults in the comments and reblogs too. If you want to argue with each other, that’s your business. If you want to argue with me, I’m not sorry in advance.

Addition to the above: this is not a blog in which it will be tolerated that commentators or those submitting with the URLS are targeted for callouts, shaming, or other instances of bullying. No, I cannot make those people stop bothering you by blocking them, but the least I can do is address that by shutting down their access to this blog and it’s posts by blocking on the URLs I have for them. And I will. Fuck that “we can’t be responsible for” shit. It’s my blog, it’s my content I’m putting out there, I’m not going to just ignore shit like what went down over on COAR, thanks. Not. Cool.

This is definitely not a place for:

people who think giving muses labels, including top/bottom “dynamics,” is a good substitute for character traits, personality, and development

those with no reading comprehension skills

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people who are going to tack onto my posts shit like, “it’s okay, OP, you can say x character.” Trust me, if I were talking about one character, I fucking would name drop them, don’t bring me into your fandom drama, I doubt I know or want to know who that anime guy is who looks like 12 other anime guys to me.

About Vespertine

You can call me that, Vespertine. I’d rather you didn’t go with Vesper, but as it is unfortunately so likely to happen, I won’t feed you to the dogs over it either. RPB Mun is also acceptable.

I’m alright with either she/her or he/him, they/them is also fine. Apparently, that was big enough clue-in for the poor reading comp crowd, so while I feel it is not of importance, I’m nonbinary, yes.

Late 30′s, chronically ill but still working adult with neurodivergence. I’m both busy and Busy, and always sick. This limits my brain power and ability to be here. I have an active RP blog that I won’t be sharing to keep responsible distance. That is always going to be my priority, it is my primary hobby.

Please, don’t tumblr message me totally random things if we don’t have that kind of relationship! I’m too ill and busy, and it really fucks my nerves to have a bunch of messages/have to suddenly interact socially with people. Don’t do it. Use my inbox, use the submit, comment on posts. I cannot do random messages of “hey” and so forth.

I only do written RP, don’t expect me to understand much of anything from tabletop. I’ve RPed for the last 23 years consistently, on every platform from AOL chats to forums to messengers and here. I also don’t do RP in discord, so I’m sorry, but I can’t advise you much on anything with a word count, except to stop it for serious RP. Other than that, I promise you that I’ve seen the trends, the drama, the fandoms. I can give a lot of advice and perspective on a wide range of topics, situations, and characters! When I don’t have a clue at all, I’ll try to do enough research to give you an answer.

Do I come off as a horrible, strict asshole? I do! I’m not going to say that I am just a shy bean who is more scared of you than you are me. I’m not. I’m honestly feral, but have common decency, compassion, and sense. All of which are lacking in the general RPC. So, if you can inbox/common/otherwise interact with anyone else on this site, you can totally handle me!

Honesty and openness are policies.

And in the spirit of that, I repeat; you can fucking do better, tumblr RPC!

[hihoneyimdead]

Storytime because I’m procrastinating writing fic yet again!

Under the read-more because this is kinda more rambling about toxic internet bullshit (sorry if you’re on mobile or whatever)

So I only got into po/yg0n in April of last year because a then-friend told me, hey, these two dudes are in a relationship!

And I was like :0 and immediately latched on

Cue like two days of watching gng and realizing, wait, no

Huh

Wait a minute

This ain’t. The hell?

So I was like “Hey what the fuck Jimothy”

And Jimothy was like “Oh yeah I meant sarcastically man”

And my autism-having ass was like “Ah so I was a dumbass!”

And Jimothy was like “Yeah man but imagine-”

And so I got roped into writing fic. At first I was like yeah sure. Then, later on, I was like. Wait a damn minute-

Meanwhile, I got detached from previous internet friends, as is what happens with hyperfixations. So I haven’t spoken to any of them in like a year, which sucks, but that’s whatever. And these new fandom friends were like. Very sex-driven, which is fine if you’re like that! I may be ace, but I’m not an ass. 

Until they got into Gross Shit. Which is about when I met a new internet friend, who scared the ever-loving shit out of me. They’re a punk, told me I couldn’t be punk. Even though punk, tbh, just means that you’re badass as hell. And I’m badass despite not listening to punk bands and looking absolutely terrifying. I’m soft. I’m a soft punk. I protest via emails to senators and by not burning down fucking buildings (and that shit’s fine if it’s very much deserved.)

Their friend group terrified me, but this person gave me praise for a fic I got roped into writing. Which is 50k and is not good at all and the only reason I haven’t taken it off my ao3 yet is cause I’m still somehow proud of it. So I was like. Bffs. 

So I dumped that original friend and joined up with this new group (we were drifting apart anyway). Meanwhile, those sexual bros of mine were getting gross and tearing me apart for saying that porn should be in its own place and not in the general public. Which, admittedly, was kinda a dick move on my part. I didn’t consider their side of the situation at the time. But that punk friend and their friends backed me up and told me I did nothing wrong.

So I then lost the friends I had made during that fandom phase. 

But I still had the punk friends! Which, admittedly, were punk friend, punk friend’s friend, and a friend who I’m still on good terms with. I was fucking miserable. Like, there had gone most of my friends for half a fucking year and almost my entire support network. 

And then, slowly, I dropped the fandom. The content wasn’t exciting and it just brought up bad memories. I stopped writing for it, thankfully, because like. That stuff can be toxic. 

So I was adrift for a good moment, depressed, and then that one new friend told me to listen to a certain british horror podcast, and I realized. Huh. I fucking love podcasts, and especially this one. 

Y’all know this podcast by now, it’s certainly blown up enough, and it’s badass as hell and I will never shut up about it.

After finishing that podcast, I started another, and then I deleted my po/yg0n blog and my old r0o$ter t33tH one and my old bfu one. And then tumblr brought up that weird groupchat thing and I joined the first tma one I found and met a whole new group of friends!

So I dumped punk friend and punk friend’s friend, got vagueposted about (yeah, I’m a fucking hypocrite, I did it to them too). Blocked punk friend on everything, left the discord servers I was too scared to leave, and finally stopped seeing everything so negatively, just for a while. 

I haven’t been in healthy online friendships in, like, ever. I joined too young. 2018, the sp7 friends I had all dumped me for something toxic someone else did. 2019, I dumped an rp friend, then I dumped the other rp friend (who was my only friend for a good bit). I dumped an entire fandom that used to bring me joy (tbh i couldn’t even watch pat streams by the end and anyone who’s been following me for a while really knows i have an undying internet crush on that man despite him being like human ginger beer). 

And then I made new friends, and, yeah, it’s fucking hard sometimes. I feel bad about dumping a lot of relationships since April because punk friend told me they were toxic even though, looking back on it, they were just fine! They were toxic to that person, not to me and my friends/so (to my ex: i’m sorry, if you see this, which you won’t, but i’m so sorry and i’m glad you’re having a good time at college). But I have new friends! I have great rl friends, I’m in a motw campaign with some of these new internet friends, and I can be creative again! I have so many ocs now! Someone, if you see this, ask about my tma avatar-sonas! They’re all great and I love them!

This is all to say:

I’m procrastinating writing fluff for a podcast fandom, I’m planning on deleting my po/yg0n fics off ao3 (or orphaning them), I’m kinda happy for the first time in a while. Sure I got a bit of an eating disorder last semester, but I’m in counseling. I have an original novel concept I’m slowly working on. I’m in two tabletop games, and I’m loving it! Punk friend and punk friend’s friends, if you see this and are like >:( stop vagueing our friend/me!

Well

Sorry my dudes, stop being fucking buzzkills and let me be a soft bitch that cries over the mechs and gets sad when anyone thinks about being mean to me

Also live your lives and stop being petty

[nationallark]

Blood From the Stone, an adaptation of Onision’s Stones to Abbigale, Chapter One [EDIT: now complete] 3k words

(AN: hi friends! I decided to go ahead and align chapter one of my rework with chapter one of STA, so here it is for you guys! from now on, I’ll be posting the full chapters on Tumblr and I’ll put links to my Wattpad and Ao3 in my About page!!)

I hope you enjoy :)

The moment I opened my eyes, I was blinded by my freshly wallpapered room. Several days into my latest drastic redecoration, even the cast iron bed frame was now painted white. Light peeking through a narrow opening in the curtains bounced off the walls, making me clamp my eyes shut. Clearly, changing my room back to wall-to-wall white was another in a long line of self-inflicted psychological tortures.

My family could tell that the black had depressed me. I found comfort in the darkness, but neither extreme was without fault. I didn’t mind waffling between light and dark bedrooms, as I had ample spray paint and plenty of time to kill, but for a moment the intense light show pouring through the bay window felt like it was burning clear through to my brain.

Mom, having switched to the overnight shift by mid June, didn’t wake me up like she used to. Then again, neither did my alarm clock. I rolled away from the window and squinted into its plastic face only to see a cheaply backlit 8:17 AM staring back at me.

Great, I was going to be late again.

Not taking the time to grab my usual handful of cereal, I scribbled an excuse note and pulled a sweater over my sleep shirt before hopping on my scooter and pointing it in the direction of the school. As soon as the cold wind began to sting my cheeks, I realized that I in my haste had forgotten a scarf. Oh well.

I narrowly missed crashing into a giggly Lauren and Raymond who, hand in hand, were heading away from the school and towards the old church, no doubt to smoke or make out or any number of activities Lakewood students tended to use the place for.

Mr. Hanson, my heavyset history teacher, gave me a withering look as I ducked into his room with only fifteen minutes left in first period.

“James, talk to me after class,” he said mildly from his perch in the back of the room. I dropped my note on his desk on my way over to one of the few empty seats, electing to try and absorb some of the day’s lesson from the ongoing group activity rather than sit outside and count ceiling tiles.

It didn’t take long, however, for my mind to wander from British colonialism to the fascinating small scale history being made around me. I watched as Calvin, one of the honor students who was gunning for valedictorian, explained the reasoning behind his answers while Jaime nodded along and Miranda half paid attention to him while also monitoring Mr. Hanson to know when it was safe to chew her gum. It was too early in the school year for anyone to be too stressed out over grades, so there was only a sense of resigned monotony among the students.

That is, until the bell rang.

Over the ensuing bustle, Mr. Hanson glanced up from his work and looked at me expectantly, but I could only smile and shrug as I allowed myself to be pushed into the hallway with everyone else. Sorry, Mr. Hanson; I had a more important class to get to.

My second period was all the way across campus, relegated to one of the ancient trailers that also held the ESL students, sign language class, and music appreciation. Sculpture I, being one of the easier options for making the required fine arts credit, was naturally full of slackers and people who, like me, weren’t talented enough in music or theater to take anything else.

My cross-campus trek was interrupted by dozens of students circled around what I could only assume to be a fight. Unfortunately, the fight just happened to be in the center of the hallway that was my only path to art class. I hunched my shoulders and slipped through the growing crowd, breaking into a jog as the minute bell rang. I normally wouldn’t bother with getting to class on time, but I made an exception for sculpture; sculpture was the class I had with Abbi.

Ever since I’d seen Abbi in second period on the first day of senior year, she was all I could think about. Every day she would sit at the left side of a shared desk, drop her bag on the left side of her chair, and, resting her elbows on the tabletop, pick at the fake wood grain desk cover with her pencil.

As I ascended the creaking steps into the trailer, there were more seats open than I expected, probably because their usual occupants were still observing the fight I’d managed to squeeze past. There Abbi was, however, in the same getup as usual: her dark, wavy hair bunching on top of the desk as she bent over it, her deep purple eyeshadow and tinted brows still visible through the fringe. She had on the army jacket I’d never seen her without, even during messier art projects that showed in the cuffs of its sleeves. Even in the harsh light of the trailer’s fluorescent bulbs, she looked fantastic.

I tried not to make it too obvious that I was rushing to sit next to her, so I forced myself to slow down and take a casual approach to the desk. Step. Wave to Mrs. Stanley. Step. Check out the newest student-made hangings above her seat. Three steps. Gently drop my bag onto the desk.

Finally, I pulled the metal desk chair out and plopped into it with a grin ready for Abbi to turn and look at me...which happened to be at the exact same moment my thighs registered how ungodly cold the A/C had made the chair. I hissed in shock and stood up to save myself from mild frostbite, pushing the chair away from me and tipping it backwards and onto the floor with a metallic crash. Having looked up from her handiwork in time to see everything go down, Abbi glanced mildly at the chair, then at me, and went back to work without even laughing at me. Freaking smooth, James.

I picked up the chair amid the laughter of the other sculpture students and the quiet concern of Mrs. Stanley and sat down once again, this time being careful to pull the stretchy fabric of my shorts down long enough to cover the metal seat. I aimed my smile back at Abbi, who, this time, didn’t look up.

I barely had time to be disappointed before the stragglers arrived clearly invigorated by the hallway fight, whooping and hollering before Mrs. Stanley told them to quiet down or she’d mark them as tardy. Once again I looked at Abbi, whose attention was held steadfast by the desk cover. Well, at least it wasn’t just me that couldn’t get her attention. At this, I felt a wave of relief.

The relief was cut short, however, when one of the stragglers named Jason joined us at the shared desk, taking the seat directly across from Abbi. His arrival and unceremonious dumping of his bag on the desktop earned him a brief look and a practiced readjustment of Abbi’s position so that he wouldn’t accidentally bump into her, and once again the relief flooded my system.

Now that everyone was in their seats, Mrs. Stanley, looking for all the world like a walking retirement party, officially began class by going over the previous day’s finished assignment, which itself was the culmination of our unit on color and texture. I myself had modeled my project after my then-black room with soft black silk and smooth painted wood and was given an A for my trouble.

The main topic of discussion, however, wasn’t our grades. It was the introductory project for the next unit: symbolism and storytelling. Mrs. Stanley began to hand out the rubrics for the project while she gave us the bad news: we were going to be working with partners.

No, no, no. Not okay, because with my luck, I’d be paired with bonehead Jason or asshole Alex who’d just gotten back from a stint in alternative school for exposing himself in the cafeteria last year. I struggled to pay attention as she continued to outline the project.

“To simplify things,” she said, still handing out papers, “you’re going to be paired with the person across from you.”

That rule meant I was paired with….oh, God. While I wasn’t looking, Alex had apparently drifted into class and sat in the one remaining seat, which just so happened to be next to Jason and across from me. This wasn’t happening.

I’d been there in the cafeteria last year when Alex exposed himself. I’d even seen it. I can’t say I was particularly impressed, but I guess I didn’t have very much data with which to compare. Regardless, I was uninterested in being stuck with this kid for God knows how long while trying to work with whatever drivel he’d come up with and pass of as ideas.

My musing was interrupted by a voice that said “Can I be paired with James?”

Hearing the rare appearance of Abbi’s somber voice made me smile despite myself, and I took a moment to apprecia--wait. That was my name that had come out of her mouth. She’d asked to be paired with me. I couldn’t blame her, really, as her other option was Jason, who was barely a notch above Alex in terms of competence.

Despite her annoyance at Abbi’s resistance of her rules, Mrs. Stanley appeared to take pity on the both of us and rearranged our partnerships to put Abbi and I together and sic Jason and Alex upon each other. Looking only a little hurt, Jason huffed and looked Alex up and down before shrugging and choosing not to make a stink about the arrangement.

As Mrs. Stanley continued, I tried to remind myself that Abbi was only working with me to avoid the more offensive option that was Jason. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy at the thought that Abbi would be talking directly to me and nobody else in second period for the next several days.

“For this project, you will each take something you own, and together, you will create something that brings new meaning to your possessions. In case you can’t tell, this is a project that’s going to render the items you bring useless for the future, so I wouldn’t suggest bringing a favorite shirt or expensive electronic. Today, you’ll work on deciding what you’ll bring and sketching out the final product.”

My mind was racing with ideas about what I could bring when I stopped to consider what Abbi might have to offer. What would she consider useful but okay to part with? Surely she had a spare makeup brush or two, with all the work she clearly put into doing her face day after day.

“What are you going to bring?”

I wished she’d say my name again. I’d always thought my name was so boring, but coming from Abbi, it was beautiful. Shit, gotta answer before I look like a weirdo.

“Uh, I don’t know…” Great.

“You could bring something to go in my hamster cage,” said Abbi.

“Did he die or something?” I winced, mentally berating myself. Great, just great. Bring up her dead hamster. That’ll make her have the hots for you.

“Never had one. Dad got the cage and forgot the hamster.”

“How do you forget a hamster? Was he high?” Abbi shrugged and looked away, and I took the opportunity to feel like a complete ass, first for bringing up her nonexistent dead hamster and then for asking about her maybe-stoned father. I wondered, briefly, how the species ever managed to repopulate if there were men like me walking around and completely turning women off.

Instead of shutting my mouth, I decided to try one more time to lift her spirits.

“Maybe I could, uh, bring that weird thing my mom keeps in her bedside table?”

Abbi snorted and, for a fleeting moment, gave me the most perfectly little crooked smile I’d ever seen on those plum-painted lips. And, by God, I was the one who put it there. I let slip an eye-crinklingly wide smile before composing myself into what I hoped was a sly grin. Abbi got ahold of herself too and opened her mouth, hopefully not to be too grossed out with me.

“Tell me you didn’t actually touch your mom’s--”

“Of course not!” I interrupted her. I didn’t know if I could stand to hear that combination of words aimed at me and not die from the resulting embarrassment. I laced my fingers together and stared down at my desk, willing my reddening cheeks to calm down.

Soon, the bell rang and dismissed us to third period, and I quickly stood up, grabbing my things and getting ready to run away from the social situation my big mouth had put me in. I was in such a hurry, in fact, that I almost missed Abbi calling my name from our desk.

I stopped short of the door and sidestepped the other students rushing back to the main school building. Having successfully grabbed my attention, Abbi reached into the scrap paper box and pulled out a white and gold speckled scrap of tissue paper.

“Here,” she said, scribbling something down on it. “gotta run; gym class.”

I felt for her; to get to the stadium for girls’ gym, she was going to have to cross the whole campus and wait for the crosswalk. But more importantly, she gave me a note! I scrambled to open it as I walked to class and discovered she’d written down a phone number. Her phone number? My eyes snapped upwards to the hallway, but Abbi was long gone.

For the rest of the school day, I was floating on air. Abbi had never once given me a second look, but now that we’d spoken some she wanted me to have her phone number! Did she want me to call her? I decided to play it safe and wait until I was home to do anything. I moved my phone case and gently pushed the note inside for safekeeping.

The final bell couldn’t have come soon enough. I picked up my scooter and ran to the bus in hopes of getting home as soon as possible, and Davis waved me over from a seat near the back. I joined him.

“Blow me off again this morning? I’m starting to get lonely,” Davis said with a theatrical sigh. I gave him my best eye roll in return while artfully cramming my scooter in one of the overhead storage areas. I sat down next to Davis and held my backpack in my lap.

“Alarm didn’t go off,” I said, gazing out the window at all the people milling around in the bus circle. Why wouldn’t they get out of the way? Didn’t they know I had something important to do?

“Whatcha’ looking at?” said Davis.

“Oh, nothing. Just wish these assholes would mo--”

And suddenly through the throng of students and teachers I saw Abbi perched on the hood of an old Sedan in the parking lot, looking bored out of her mind and utterly, utterly perfect. Without looking away I grabbed Davis’ sleeve and pulled him towards the window.

“See that girl? That’s Abbi.” I said.

Davis squinted at the parking lot. “The emo chick with the crappy car? That’s your dream girl?”

I smacked him on the shoulder and spoke, still unable to look away.

“She’s amazing. She’s artistic and good at carving, she always does her eyebrows perfectly, and she matches her makeup to the paint stains on her jacket cuffs.”

“Uh, okay. Why not wash the jacket?”

I was getting ready to reply when an unwelcome figure entered my field of vision. Seth, one of the assholes in my history class who liked to talk back to Mr. Hanson, walked up to Abbi and hugged her while she sat on the hood. And sure enough, those paint speckled cuffs wrapped around his waist and hugged right back.

I sat back in my seat and tried not to look as devastated I felt. Of course she had a boyfriend. How could a girl like that not have a boyfriend already? Besides, I didn’t have any right to be upset. Before today, I’d barely said ten words to her altogether. I opened my phone case and pulled out Abbi’s note. Why had she given me this, then?

When my stop came I rode my scooter the rest of the way home and dumped my backpack on the floor before flopping onto my bed. So, Abbi wasn’t trying to get me to ask her out. And she wasn’t asking me out, either. So...what gives? I sent her a text, trying my best to seem casual. Abbi? It’s James.

She replied a few minutes later, Cool. Was wondering when you’d text. So, what are you bringing? And don’t say your mom’s vibrator.

Oh, so that’s why she gave me her number. Of course. We hadn’t started on the sketch for our project, and we hadn’t even figured out what we were bringing. Scanning the room, I came up with the first thing I saw and texted her back. A stuffed animal?

This time, her response was almost instantaneous. What if I bring one of mine and we do like a zombie animal?

I couldn’t help sighing dreamily at her idea. I did tell Davis she was artistic, after all. Sounds cool! :)

Sweet.

As much as I wanted to keep talking to Abbi, I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I set my phone down and picked a stuffed animal I was willing to part with--a brown bear with a red ribbon--and put it in my backpack for tomorrow before hopping in the shower. I lowered myself to the floor of the tub and distantly felt the warm water hitting my chest.

[notanorangepeel]

people are beautiful: a very long pt. 1 (about college students)

One of my friends makes her music playlists based off of every individual name of her friends, and then when she runs out of friends, based off all her favorite book and movie characters and idols. In low caps and ends each with a little period, like “ anna. ” She looks you in the eyes intensely and has ten thousand facial expressions with hand motions to match. She listens to heavy cycles of NCT next to twenty one pilots and the randomest guitar hits. She only sees the personalities of people she knows in the snyopses of books at Barnes and Nobles, eats frozen yogurt while worrying about drama while sitting crisscrossed in public, pulls a shower of compliments from a never-ending well of aggressive care and concern, and doubles over making the xD face when she laughs. She’s probably broken the volume knob on the radio in her car and is scarily very chill with abandoning the GPS on interstate highways.

Another girl smiles softly and talks in the highest, cutest voice and it sounds exhausting to be THAT sugary sweet all the time, but she is the literal personification of a mix between Fluttershy and PinkiePie, and she gifted me with one of those kawaii brand baby lamb lamps from Daiso the Japanese store for Christmas when I barely knew her, and it feels like she stepped out of the softest anime. She has at least fifty stuffed animals piled on her college dorm bed, and one of those sad-eyed kitten posters, and reads advanced theology and social justice pamphlets. She’s the pro-life club street activism officer. She’s also in pre-med and wants to be an obstetrician, so she pulls who knows how many all-nighters cramming information into her sweet sweet brain. Her dad’s retired but not done working yet and lives in Africa. She’s visiting him this summer and promised to send pictures of giraffes.

Another girl has THE frizziest hair, is the definition of short and filled with silent rage, could kill a man with her heels and I wouldn’t doubt it if I heard that she had. She’s been known to type FUCK in all caps 50 pt font on her laptop’s PowerPoint while suffering through hard lectures. She has the sharpest wings and most unbelievable makeup skills ever known to womankind and wears dresses with steep slits up the side. Every girl was on her waitlist for winter prom style prep. but she has a laugh like small wind chimes and her soul blossoms like a sunflower in front of her three closest friends, and she takes them out to get cheeseburgers at 3 in the morning if they feel like it. She confides jokes quietly and makes the best chemistry study guides.

There’s a “super senior” dude who is one of High Heel Terror Girl’s best friends. Since she approves of him, it’s fine, although while he doesn’t smell fishy, there’s still something hard to grasp about him, like a slippery eel. He hangs out in the freshman girls’ dorm lounge past 2 AM, and at first everybody thinks he’s a creep because he’s the only male in there past 2 AM, but turns out he just has a hard-to-read personality and his study group is always in there and he’s too suave for his own good. He responds immediately to tumblr humor and is too direct with his observances. I still can’t read him all the way, and I don’t think anyone can yet and it’s very likely no one will be able to. He’s kinda small sized and we thought he was gay for a bit, but he just likes hair gel. Actually, no, given this description, I think he might actually be gay. But if he is then it’s a far back in the shady shadows of the closet gay. He’s a Pandora’s box and we all kind of leave it that way, and he likes it that way. Maybe I should be scared. But he platonically brought my best friend flowers on her birthday because he knows she likes to braid them into her hair and he’s so fast to offer his help to anyone who needs it, he just lets people use him, walk all over him really, with a one-sided smile the whole time, and he’s known across campus as that “there in an emergency” guy. He wears suits on the nice days and will be off, wild in the workforce, come this fall.

Another girl is so absorbed in her love for logic and words and story and debate that you can see it in her walk and the creases in her dirty red hair. She watches buzzfeed unsolved and has origami hanging in staggered patterns above her desk and a Toothless statue crammed between empty bottles and toothpaste stains, and she has very niche knowledge about drinking no-no’s and dating know-how from her older sisters and the ordering of the soul according to Aquinas vs Plato from herself. She’s quick to throw fists at the first sight of injustice and shifts her weight eagerly when she’s sitting on her small feet on the couch and immediately has a solution or plan for everything. She’s always working on a new OC or binging a new Webtoon or practicing for DND. She has a bit of an instep and likes old sci-fi movies and classic rom coms and is, oh my Lord, the BEST baker ever. Stress seems nonexistent to her. Every Thursday night she makes croissants or cinnamon rolls or twists or giant cookies and leaves them on the kitchen counter for the taking. How she salvages orange rinds and entire cartons of eggs from the cafeteria is a mystery.

She’s dating an equally kind of short guy who has an endearingly cheesy smile like Midoriya’s from My Hero Academy, and who adores emo music played on the old jangly piano in the lobby. He’s part of the martial arts and fencing clubs and has been known to jump tabletop to tabletop in mock duels with his girlfriend. He’s the reason for the first time I watched Monty python and he handmakes his birthday gifts and blushes when he gives them to the chosen person and is a regular contributor to the conglomerate friend group chat. His mophead is often swiveling around searching for and keeping tabs of his friends who are 94% of them mischief makers.

Then there’s this girl down the hall who is taller than the green giant himself and has a shoe size that matches her massive love for concert-going. She took a gap year to teach children in Guatemala and rocks her spot on the pro volleyball team even though she’s only played for a few short years. It’s not her passion, but she cares about the members and likes the exercise. She cracks up over stupid economic projects, her laughter piercing through the dorm walls at random times, and upon me showing her them, thinks the sarcastic summaries on YouTube are a godsend. She sits quietly when she’s a guest and says she distracts herself from stress by “listening to other people vent instead.” She is the friend who corrales all the different friends into one, massive, Last Supper-esque convention meeting of friend tables. She somehow is “one of the guys” but also very definitely “one of the girls” and comes back at 12 AM exhilarated from a campus-wide capture the flag.

So @ my sorry self: don’t tell your depressed head that you don’t want to go back to college again. That you feel alone. People are around you and are beautiful, even if it seems they’re that way only in hindsight.

[ardentlythieving]

HEWWO EVERYBODY IT’S END OF YEAR RECAP TIME WITH ME: UR PAL ARDO

First of all if ur reading this, merry christmas if u celebrate it and happy holidays if u don’t!!! Y’all are amazing people and I hope this time of year is a good one for you, and if it’s not I hope you find the time to do smth nice for urself!!

Dam this year has been crazy tho. I mean if ur dash is anything like mine you’ve prob seen all those posts talking about how long this year has felt re: the sheer amount of stuff happening. But on a more individual level there’s some stuff I wanna say I guess so in no particular order here is my Thoughts™ coz there’s been some good, some bad, and some weird this year. 

So, this year has been a kind of wild one for me in terms of things changing. The big one being that I started university and kinda lost contact with most of my pals from high school. All goods tho, coz I met some amazing new people thru tabletop gaming who idk if I’m at the friends point with yet, but I defo wanna try and get there coz they’re cool as heck. It’s true what people say that starting university is a big change coz DAM things have been wild and hopefully are gonna keep being wild next year espc coz one of my online friends is moving down to start at my university and I’m super excited to meet her in person!! Speaking of meeting people in person I finally got to hang out with @chipmunkwithwings at her place and that was one of the highlights of my year for sure! She’s a super cool person and that week was just utterly brilliant.

Anyways while we’re on the topic of friends this year sure has been exciting for that as well. I’ve made some amazing new ones, gotten closer with some older ones, had some drift apart and thru it all I’ve learnt something important. Namely that, there’s nothing wrong with the friends I had before, but I’ve felt so much better and it’s just been so much healthier for me now I’ve also started pursuing and focusing on friendships with people around my age. It sounds weird to say, but despite having a good collection of close friends there was a part of me that was lonely, and that part has kinda stopped being so much now not all my friends are 10ish years older than me. 

That’s one thing I’ve discovered, but this year has been a big one for discovery for me. I tried a bunch of different papers and found out that I hate international relations and love philosophy. I’ve started learning Swedish!! And probably the biggest and most important discovery: thanks to my friends telling me “dude you really need to do this” I’ve gotten on anti-depressants!!! Which have really been helping me so much. That’s probably.... my biggest regret is that I didn’t get on them a few years ago. Still, I’m on them now and my head is just working so much better. Also, and I’ve talked about this in an earlier post so if you wanna kno deets you can go read it, I properly I guess remembered? stopped repressing? how a friend abused me a few years ago and started working thru the issues I have because of that.  

At this point I’m gonna put things under a cut coz this is where shit is gonna get long. 

Some letters, to the people I’ve known this year. I know a LOT of people so I’m prob gonna not mention anyone so if I don’t mention you: I love y’all. Ur so so fucking brilliant all of u and I’m honored to know you and to have had this chance to be in contact with y’all. I’m deeply sorry for any way I might have wronged you over this year, and if any of you wronged ME I forgive you entirely. If any of you haven’t really talked to me, but want to; or if we’ve drifted outta contact and you wanna pick things back up or ANYTHING at all feel free to msg me anytime. My discord is ardentlyThieving#4893 and this is an open invitation to anyone reading this coz there’s a ton of cool ppl on here who I haven’t talked to as much as I’d like. Anyways onto the individual stuff.

To the afternoon gang. You guys all mean so so fucking much to me, more than probably anyone else. Ur my best support network, my greatest pals. Being friends with you all is a fucking delight. I know I’m not always active in our server, but trust me that it’s nothing on you. I’ve enjoyed every moment hanging out with you guys. Or well, most of them at least :P. We have the wildest conversations and trust me, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know some of you guys have had a hard time this year and I’m so sorry that you guys are going thru that shit coz y’all deserve so much better. It’s my deepest hope that next year is a good one for all of you and if there’s every anything I can do you guys know where to find me. I love you so so so so so much and I hope these last few days of 2018 are as good for you as they can possibly be.

To the people of Eff’s servers. You guys are super duper cool. Being salty with y’all is so much fun and also so deeply annoying that people keep pulling this shit that we gotta be salty about. I love the fact that we can go from shitty meme posting (usually my fault) to having in depth n thoughtful conversations about just about anything (hopefully usually not my fault). Y’all are amazing people and it feels like you’ve all found urselves a bit more this year, which I’m so happy for you about.

To Sakshi. That’s right, u get an individual one. Ur like, my hero. Srsly dude the fact that ur so fucking patient with the utter dumbasses msging you and that u started this whole deep conversation that ur not backing down from? I’m so proud of you, I admire you so much, and you have my utmost support. Hmu if you ever need me to drag someone for you. Also i’m sorry to out you as a gamer to the fine people of tumblr dot com (actually I’m not that sorry) but it’s been so much fun playing swtor with you. And salt watching things with you. I love how fun our friendship is and also how we can have proper deep conversations like 10/10 A+ content. 

To Hammi. Dude you are awesomesauce. My fave lesbian pal. I love memeing with you and gaming with you and chatting with you. Here’s to another great year broski!

To Clare. We’ve only just met at the very end of this year and I’m so glad we did. Ur super cool and funny and I love ur art n posts.

To my swtor guild. Another group of wonderful people who I’ve only just met. i’m so fucking excited to get to know all of you better coz y’all have such great swtor opinions and are so much fun to play with. Sorry about what I did to the Gizka flagship bridge lmao.

To Sofa. DUDE HI! becoming friends with you this year has been one of the highlights. Thank you for all the support you’ve given me and for all the fun times we’ve had. I adore playing video games with you and I fucking love ur swtor ocs. You’ve been there for me so much, and I hope I’ve been there for you as well. Thank you for everything.

To Marie. Yet another person I met later on this year and haven’t had the chance to get so close with. Defo my bad there I need to msg you more often. Thanks for being there for me, even though I was kind of a shitty friend to you at one point. I didn’t deserve ur patience but you gave it to me anyway and I’m so fuckin grateful for that. I hope to make that up to you in the coming year. <3

To Jason. We were tight at the start of the year and kinda drifted apart which I regret. Msg me anytime dude and if you ever reinstall swtor you should totally hmu coz playing it with you was a ton of fun!! 

To Traya. I know we’ve only talked on and off this year, but I’m so excited for you to be at my university and to hang out in person!! Hang in there dude, coz there’s so many cool people for you to meet and take it from me that university really is so much better than college.

Ok this is where the happy positivity ends!! Again I love y’all so much and I hope that next year is better for all of you then this one was!!! Thanks for being pals with me, I appreciate it so much even when I’m not great at showing it.

Coz there’s one more letter I gotta write coz after however many years I want closure. This is where it ends.

To Teri. Wow. I never thought I’d be saying ur name again. Well typing, but w/e. That first year we were friends was so fucking good and I’m glad we had that, coz you were a pretty cool person. I dunno why you decided to change all that and start hurting me and I’m probably never gonna understand but you know what? That’s ok. I don’t need to. You hurt me, I got out. I’m not sure, but I think you were being hurt by people as well and I hope you got out like I did. No matter how badly you treated me you still don’t deserve to be abused urself. Nobody deserves that. I don’t know if I forgive you, and I don’t know if I ever will, but I hope things are better for you now. I’m sorry for the times I wronged you while we were friends. This isn’t me saying I deserved to be abused by you, because I sure as hell didn’t, but well. Two wrongs don’t make a right and ur abuse doesn’t magically erase the times I wasn’t the greatest friend. I thought ignoring the things you did to me would make things better, but instead I let it all fester inside me and change my behaviour without realizing that’s what happened. So this is me letting go of it all. Coz you don’t get to fuckin take anything else away from me. I’m better now than I was then despite everything you did to me. This is me, making a conscious choice to heal and move on and grow. It’s not gonna be easy, but imma do it and it’s gonna be so fucking wonderful. This is Arden signing out because you don’t GET to have any control over my life anymore. Never ever again.

[villainship]

[15 Questions - R]

Are you named after someone? A Bible character. Lol.

When was the last time you cried? oh, um :( reading this poem, I think. Or this other one w/ the song playing. (yeah sorry! That got real v. fast)

Do you have kids? Not interested. I just wanna raise my fictional children.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Not a huge amount? Depends what “a lot” is relative to.

What’s the first thing you notice about people?  In person: their hair. I’m terrible at faces & am more likely to remember someone’s hair/clothes & their voice. (And then Good luck remembering WHERE I know them from most of the time. . . ) On tumblr: I’m usually looking for info in their intro line/bio about whether they’re in my age group. Elsewhere online: any use of loaded terms that affiliate them with political positions tends to really pop. And their user pic obviously.

What’s your eye color? A bluey greeny that’s not quite what I would call “aqua.”

Scary Movies or Happy Endings? Happy endings!

Any special talents? I mostly focus on drawing. In terms of unusual stuff: I can do a circus-style walk on top of a large rolling object. I know this b/c in elementary school we used to have a giant plastic tube we played on (and inside) every day.

Where were you born? A city a couple hours west of Toronto. It was the area my dad grew up.

What are your hobbies? Watching movies and children’s cartoons (I was both an art student & a film student in university), roleplaying (these days mostly tabletop), drawing & writing, internet chatting (thank u Discord), playing SWTOR, reading & making blog posts about SWTOR, playing Pokemon GO (lol), organizing/decorating my house, and -- the last few years (not including this summer where I was too busy) -- I’ve had a backyard veggie garden in June-september. I also hope to get back into sewing one of these days!! In the past I've made simple clothes, simple costumes, various simple bag/pillow things, and some basic plushies.

Do you have any pets? I will co-parent Dani’s 2 weird, beautiful cats any time I’m visiting her.

How tall are you? 5′6″ or 5′7″

What sports do you play/have you played? I loathe team sports. . . idk. . . I always found it really embarrassing to have people pay attention to my doing things WHILE I try to do them. However I loved to run & run as a kid, and I still very much enjoy swimming around. I would dance if I could have a teacher who didn’t freak me right out (seems unlikely). . . but also I have kindof bad knees. . . and I had a herniated disc in my back even though I’m only 33. Depression did a number on me!

Favourite subject at school? Art!!! Drama was really great too (people paying attention to me AFTER I learned my part was something I liked. In our highschool play I took the narrator role and tried to inject some character into it. But I didn’t technically have to practice my lines back&forth WITH anyone else, which would have been the stressful/anxiety-triggering part.)

Dream job? I’m not suited to jobs as they currently exist. Lmao. However, if I WERE more able to accomplish things in an orderly fashion, then my dream would be to draw comics of my ideaaaas.

[vor-haekkadi]

Fuck™: Texts from Hope Peak's Shitposting Teachers

Chapter 1: The Start of Something Potentially Terrible

A/N: First DR fanfic! Not 100% sure how to post a chatfic on tumblr, nor how the spacing should be. Usernames are bolded simply for aesthetic purposes.

Anyway, here’s another DR chatfic except it’s with them as teachers with drama and not really talking about their students. Usernames will be mentioned in the beginning and explained in a later post

Usernames:

It’s a Unix System - Chihiro

Poirot - Kyoko

Bloody Mary - Junko

Saitama - Makoto

Strike Three - Leon

Biker Kink/Kurosaki - Mondo

Killer Barbie Doll - Mukuro

Burn the Witch - Celeste

It's a Unix System created a new group.

It's a Unix System added Poirot, Bloody Mary, Killer Barbie Doll, Saitama, Biker Kink, Strike Three and Burn the Witch to the group.

It’s a Unix System renamed the chat to “Hope Peak’s Shitposts for Teachers”

Saitama: Taka is going to kill us if he sees the chat name

Saitama: Wait why is my name Saitama

It’s a Unix System: Because Mondo called you Eggi and I’ve been binging One Punch Man lately

Saitama: Okay really

It's Unix System: Yes really

Biker Kink: I SAID I WAS SORRY MAKOTO

Biker Kink: Wait

Biker Kink: CHIHIRO

Biker Kink: WHY THE FUCK IS MY NAME BIKER KINK

Biker Kink: I THOUGHT THAT IT SAID BIKER KID

It’s a Unix System: Because clearly Taka has a biker kink

Biker Kink: fndskfhds

Biker Kink: Chihiro if you weren’t my friend I’d strangle you

It’s a Unix System: Le gasp

It’s Unix System: Not me, one of your best friends!!!!

Strike Three: Oh come on Chi

Strike Three: How come I'm Strike Three?

Strike Three: Third base is much better

It's a Unix System: I don't know baseball that well Leon

It's a Unix System: And

It's a Unix System: I'd rather not think about you sex life

Biker Kink: His nonexistent one, you mean

Biker Kink: Can't remember the last girlfriend he's had

Strike Three: I will stab you both in our Starfinder campaign

Saitama: Good luck with that Leon

Saitama: You have a gun and a cursed d20

Saitama: Because you yeeted your swords to the side for a giant bazooka and a baseball bat

Strike Three: SHUT UP EGG

Poirot: Yeah we can’t ever let Taka find out about this chat

Poirot: It wouldn't be in our best interest for Taka to see us shitpost

Poirot: And pretending to kill each other in tabletop games

Poirot: Also I approve of this name, Chihiro

Poirot: Sherlock is overrated anyway

Bloody Mary: YOU TAKE THAT BACK CELESTE

Poirot: I’m Kyoko you piece of shit

Bloody Mary: Well excuse me

Burn the Witch: I am Celeste you overrated Juliet. Just because we look sinister doesn't mean we're the same person you lovesick fool

Bloody Mary: You take that back

Bloody Mary: I played Lady Macbeth in College you luxurious mountain goat

Bloody Mary: Who is much classier

Poirot: (and hella evil)

Saitama: I’m going to Mikan’s office and stealing her tub of aloe vera to treat Celeste’s burn

Biker Kink: haha very funny Makoto

Saitama: no she really does have a tub full of aloe vera

Biker Kink: What the actual fuck

Strike Three: I read that as lube

It's a Unix System: Leon w h y

Strike Three: Errrr

Poirot: Analysis: Because he is a pervert

Strike Three: Shut up up KyoKyo no one asked

Poirot: Does it look like I give a damn

Poirot: And because you called me KyoKyo I might go kill you and pin the evidence on Junko

Biker Kink: That sound petty as fuck and I love it

Saitama: That sounds horrifying as hell and I am concerned

Burn the Witch: That sounds boring and I frankly don't give a damn.

It's a Unix System: So to break the pattern but....

It's a Unix System changed Biker Kink's nickname to Kurosaki

It's a Unix System: I think this fits Mondo better

Saitama: It's cool Chi don't worry about it

Mondo: Hell yeah it does fit better

Mondo: Especially because I'm as fit as him

Bloody Mary: Hate to break it to you ye blinded jester

Bloody Mary: But

Bloody Mary: Thou art as fat as butter

Kurosaki: I am going to scatter you intestines all over this fucking school

Killer Barbie Doll: Um guys wtf

Bloody Mary: MUKURO SAVE ME FROM THIS THREE-INCH FOOL

Killer Barbie Doll: No

Bloody Mary: Well fuck you too sis

Kurosaki: MY DICK IS NOT THREE INCHES YOU DICK CHEESE

Kurosaki: MAKOTO WHY

Poirot: ?

Kurosaki: Makoto just dumped aloe vera all over me because of Junko's insult

Strike Three: Slather Slather

Kurosaki: LEON WHAT THE FUCK

Burn the Witch: A body has been discovered

It's a Unix System: Mondo hasn't killed Leon yet

Saitama: Yet

Burn the Witch: I cannot believe that we are condoning murder

It’s a Unix System: I mean technically we aren’t

Killer Barbie Doll: If we did commit murder Kyoko’s dad and Kiyotaka would be on our case

Third Base: And life would really be dull tbh if you all died on me

Killer Barbie Doll: Very comforting words Kuwata

Killer Barbier Doll: Very

Killer Barbie Doll: Love to stay and chat but

Killer Barbie Doll: My phone is about to die on me rip

Bloody Mary: That’s what you get for not charging your phone you knock off GI Joe

Killer Barbie Doll: Fight me

It’s a Unix System: Mukuro technically has a point….

It’s a Unix System: I mean the students are going to come in soon and Kiyotaka might get on our cases if we’re still texting

Bloody Mary: Boooo why do you guys all have first period classes I’m bored

Poirot: You can always chill in my room Enoshima

Poirot: I don’t have class first period

Bloody Mary: Sweet

Bloody Mary: I’ll bring my lesson planner so that Kiyotaka can’t bother me

Third Base: Do you guys hate Kiyotaka or something

Saitama: No

Saitama: We just hate seeing him angry

Bloody Mary: Because he is a precious baby cinnamon roll angel

Burn the Witch: Junko what the fuck

Kurosaki: JUNKO WHAT THE FUCK

Third Base: And that’s our cue to leave

Saitama: I thought that was Chihiro’s role…?

Saitama: You know, being a precious baby cinnamon roll angel

It's a Unix System: Yeah ;~;

Bloody Mary: I just say that to mess with Taka lol

Kurosaki: GDI Junko

Saitama: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It's a Unix System: Okay that's good because I almost challenged Taka to a fist fight to see who is more precious

Kurosaki: What the fuck Chihiro

Burn the Witch: You can barely lift my classroom's textbooks so how can you fight Taka?

It's a Unix System: I was going to get tips from Ryoma on how to destroy his kneecaps

Kurosaki: CHIHIRO NO

Killer Barbie Doll: CHIHIRO YES FUCKING DO IT

Strike Three: Thank you for those images, Chi

Saitama: Is it me or is Chihiro the scariest of us all?

Poirot: phones off, now

Killer Barbie Doll: Okay bye

-------------------------------------------

And so begins a cycling bouts of drama, chaos, and despair. Chapter 2 should be written soon, but I am an irregular poster, so who knows

This will be crossposted on Archive of Our Own later, and hopefully edited better.

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

I think Tumblr ate my ask but idk so sorry if your seeing this twice? But any good Sterek with Nerd!derek (like wearing glasses and blushing all the time Nerd)? Thank you! You guys are amazing

AND

Anonymous said:I just finished reading stilinskisparkles’ Losers fic and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it *^* so I was hoping if you could recommend me some popular jock!Stiles and shy, awkward, nerd!Derek? Thank youuuuuuuuu

AND

Anonymous said: Hi, can I ask for a Sterek fic recommendation wherein Stiles is the popular kid at school and Derek is the shy/nerd/quite kid at school who has a secret crush on Stiles? We have so many popular/jock Derek and I want to switch it up a bit for a change xD Also, totally a plus if Stiles has a not-so-secret crush on Lydia at the beginning and then develop feelings for Derek,

I do love nerdy!Derek. It’s a nice change. Here’s the tag.  - Anastasia

Losers by stilinskisparkles

(1/1 I 34,234 I Explicit)

Where Derek is new to college, eager to spend his time learning, and Stiles is everything he didn’t want in a room mate. He’s loud, he’s into sports, and he keeps trying to make Derek do things.

Or, the one where Derek falls for a jock, Erica will cut you if you disturb her studying, and Jackson is a closeted romantic who pretends to hate everything.

***

[podfic] you in that dress (my thoughts I confess) by reena_jenkins

(1/1 I General)

Derek Hale is the hot guy in color guard. (He’s the only guy in color guard.) 

A Thing of Chemistry by auroreanrave

(1/1 I 638 I Explicit)

Because nothing says ‘I love you’ like screwing on your chem lab table.

Te Amo, Je T'aime, I Love You, Ich Liebe Dich, Etc by AnonymousActions

(1/1 I 1,084 I General)

Derek is a nerd and likes to tell Stiles he loves him as much as possible in as many languages as possible. Stiles seems oblivious.

True Love by anglophilia

(1/1 I 1,409 I Not Rated)

Stiles is at a party and falls in love with Derek’s butt.

Action and Reaction by orphan_account

(1/1 I 2,299 I General)

“Stiles intrigued Derek, and because Derek thought everything had a formula, that everything was action and reaction, he wanted to know what Stiles was reacting to.

The whole punk thing? It was a social commentary. It was someone standing up for something, and Derek wanted to know why Stiles thought he had the right to stand up for when everyone else was just trying to get through the day.”

Have Yourself A Nerdy Little Christmas by AsagiStilinski

(1/1 I 2,858 I General)

He was on his fourth weird cucumber-cracker… thing…. and generally wishing Lydia would just serve desserts and pizza bites like a normal college student, when he happened to glance up at just the right moment

And all of a sudden, his entire night turned around

“PUG!”

The guy in the ugly Pug themed Christmas sweater jumped, turning to Stiles with what could only be described as a look of utter fear in his eyes

Here We Lie, Outstretched by redeyedwrath

(1/1 I 3,455 I Teen)

“I couldn’t sleep,” Stiles says, and he shrugs, twiddling with his thumbs. The moonlight catches in the hollows of his cheekbones.

Derek snorts. “So you thought that if you couldn’t sleep, neither should I?”

Or, in which Derek and Stiles are neighbors and they’re Make Out Buddies

Strut into Your Heart by Brittanica2015

(3/3 I 4,059 I Not Rated)

Derek is a college freshman who’s working as a barista in order to get enough money to satisfy his book addiction. Everything is fine until one day his favorite model, Stiles Stilinski walks in and completely changes his life.

all i want for christmas is you by haleofStilesheart

(1/1 I 4,140 I General)

The annual Christmas office party at Hale and Associates Law Firm was one of Stiles’ favorite times of the year.

flawless by bibliosexual

(1/1 I 4,919 I Teen)

“I know you and I are, like, werewolf-married, but dude, if I ever met Lydia Martin in person … All bets are off, is all I’m saying.“

It’s not like Stiles really means it (does he?), but it still makes Derek’s hands clench into claws on the steering wheel.

“Yeah, if,” he says, and keeps his eyes on the road.

Approximation by inatshej

(1/1 I 6,638 I Explicit)

Derek’s type is a self-confident, blonde girl. Her grin is almost dangerous, her laugh’s loud, and she may seem arrogant – but if anyone has a reason to be arrogant, it’s her.Stiles’ type is a genius, strawberry blonde girl. She looks perfect no matter the time of a day, her taste’s impeccable, she’s popular as well as respected – but taken.They turn to each other, struggling with the choices and people around them.

atom to atom by jadore_hale

(2/2 I 8,983 I Teen)

“So, you’re telling me that you hate Derek so much that you wouldn’t leap at the chance to jump his bones?”

“That’s different!” Stiles cried.

“How exactly?”

“Because unfortunately for me, Derek’s hotter than the Earth’s mantle. All we need is one rough hate-fuck— Preferably in the chem lab, role-playing sexy chemist while he bends me over one of the tables—and I’ll get him out of my system. That’s as far as our relationship will ever go.”

Stiles glanced across the cafeteria to where Derek was still fail-eating his lunch and sighed so put out.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make fun of Derek eating organic baby carrots.”

Bid on Me by Stereksale7

(2/2 I 9,471 I Explicit)

“Don’t celebrate yet. I’m only bidding on him if no one else does. Which will never happen because everyone wants him.” Derek said, smirk turning triumphant at Erica’s exasperated expression.

“Oh come on Der-” Erica started to whine, but quickly cut herself off when the auctioneer (Derek was pretty sure he was the frat’s president) called out “And one of our last auctions of the day, Stiles Stilinski!”

Derek’s heart dropped to his stomach in anticipation, waiting for the moment where some hot busty blonde or some Calvin Klein model guy bid on Stiles and won.

Except. It never happened.

“Shit Der, are you magic or something? Does everything you predict turn out to be wrong? Quick, say ‘Erica will not suddenly be handed a million dollars’ out loud for me”. Derek rolled his eyes and waved Erica off, watching as the auctioneer listed off qualities of Stiles, dropping the starting bid from $50 to $30 to $25, all the way down to $5.

Derek was drowning in secondhand embarrassment. And judging by Stiles’s badly concealed hurt expression and pink cheeks, he was suffering from a whole lot of first hand embarrassment.

These Stars Will Guide Us Home by anodyneer

(1/1 I 9,937 I Teen)

Derek fell for Stiles from the first time he saw him in a crowded planetarium, and the feeling was definitely mutual. For as well as they got to know each other over the weeks that followed, Derek still couldn’t help feeling like a piece of the puzzle was missing - namely, the piece involving Stiles’ home life. When Stiles disappears just before Thanksgiving break, Derek learns the truth about his boyfriend - and it’s crazier than anything he could have imagined.

A Love Like Religion by alisvolatpropiis

(1/1 I 10,696 I Explicit)

“Derek, my man, you missed an epic party on Saturday. Seriously, dude, I know morning Mass is like, your thing, but come on. You’re missing on out so much life has to offer, bro.”

Big hands land on shoulders with a thump and a squeeze while Derek stands at his locker, loading his gigantic calculus book into his backpack. He gives his best friend a practiced sidelong glare, which of course just encourages him. “You’ll change your mind when I tell you who sucked me off in Lydia Martin’s bedroom,” Stiles snickers into his ear.

Despite himself, Derek is curious. He tries to hide it by focusing on his books, but he knows the heat in his cheeks betrays him. “Who,” he asks, giving in, knowing he will eventually.

Falling in Love is a Free Action by rainproof

(1/1 I 37,252 I Teen)

Derek had a gaming group. A gaming group! After long months of playing the quiet outlier in BHHS’s nerdiest clique he considered a tabletop game to be a serious step up the social ladder.

So the game wasn’t a system he was familiar with… that was alright. Derek had played Traveler and GURPS, White Wolf and Star Wars with his group back in New York, but never straight-up Dungeons and Dragons. He could make it work. And sure, his character was a little ridiculous – a snarky, badass, leather-wearing werewolf version of himself…but that was okay too.

Because he had a gaming group, and it was being headed up by Stiles Stilinski, undisputed nerd-king of Beacon Hills High School.

If You Wanna Be My Roomie (Lover) by Stereksale7

(23/23 I 65,056 I Explicit)

Realistically, Stiles knew that the local University’s popularity and commonality meant that many members of his graduating high school class would be starting the Fall 2016 semester alongside him, but he never expected his longtime crush to be one of them. Even more so, he never expected said crush to be assigned as his roommate…oh boy.

Put Down in Words by paintedrecs

(31/31 I 203,776 I Mature)

“Oh,” Stiles said, his voice coming out low and breathy, “fuck me.”

“I don’t think that’s on the syllabus, but we can check to see if there’s a spot open in any of his classes,” Scott said, grinning.

“This isn’t an actual professor, though,” Stiles insisted, unable to resist brushing his thumb over the sharp line of the man’s bearded jaw. He was laughing at something off-camera, the shot taken in three-quarters view, his coat collar casually rumpled and opened to reveal a sliver of a simple grey t-shirt. The whole thing was deliberately calculated to lend him a more accessible feel, and god help him, Stiles was falling for it.

*

When Stiles signed up for Dr. Hale’s intro to history class, he had two goals: knock out the credits his advisor was bugging him to complete before he graduated, and spend a few hours a week daydreaming about his sexy professor’s salt and pepper beard.

Derek, a few months away from turning forty and not sure when his life had started feeling so damn lonely, had never encountered someone like Stiles before. Bright-eyed, sharp-tongued, determined to throw Derek’s carefully cultivated world into disarray…and absolutely the last person Derek should be falling in love with.

[finstergrayson]

💐 - Answer all of these!

Flower Munday Meme

🌺 - How much do you draw on personal experiences when roleplaying?

Hmm, I think I draw more on personal experience when I’m making a character than actually RPing. Or maybe not experience, but things I’d like to explore? With Finster in particular, as much as I adore him he doesn’t feel as much projection of themes from my life as some of my other characters have. I think a lot of my characters probably emote or process emotions in a similar way to me, I guess. I tend to react to things emotionally first, and very intensely, so in that sense their emotional landscapes are usually the easiest place for me to engage with them. I don’t know if that really answers the question. I hope a little.

🍀 - How much do you think you have achieved with your blog?

Achieved? I don’t know really know how to quantify that. I’m really enjoying getting to play Finster again, and it’s definitely a different experience on tumblr than in the D&D tabletop context in which he was created, so I’m getting a lot out of it on several levels. Have I achieved anything? I don’t know. I think I’m getting to help tell some interesting stories, which counts as a pretty good achievement in my eyes. I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop and how he grows over the course of those different arcs.

🌼 - Do you think you could ever stop roleplaying now?

No way. If I had the opportunity to play in more tabletop games, I might focus my efforts there and less on tumblr, but I don’t think I could just leave roleplaying completely. I love writing and storytelling, and the stories that result from roleplaying are so different from the ones I tell on my own. I can’t imagine ever getting bored with that. With Finster in particular, he’s essentially the first character I ever really ropleplayed (technically the second, but it was a oneshot and there wasn’t a lot of development, so) and I love him so much that I tend to miss him after a while. If I weren’t RPing him, I would be writing little random things about him, so.

🌻 - What do you do between replies? 

Depends. I read, watch a lot of things, snack, drink tea. Sometimes I crochet, write. Go to work, ha. Memes, of course. Right now I’m supposed to be NaNoing, but I kind of don’t have the brain for it.

🌸 - Have you ever been in a group? Would you do it again?

I’ve only been in one group RP, with a different muse, and it hasn’t been going on that long, so I’m not really sure how I feel about it. But I would probably do it again with the right group of muns/muses. (Slightly longer answer over here.)

🌹  - Have you met true friends through roleplaying?

I think so? It hasn’t really been that long, so I can’t say any of the friendships I’ve made have withstood any real tests of friendship yet. Which in a lot of ways is a good thing? I’ve definitely met some people that I’m truly glad to have in my life and to be getting to know, and people that I want to know better. Tabletop roleplaying was a huge part of my core friend-group’s dynamic, and I think it takes a lot of trust to RP with someone. So I think roleplaying is a great way to connect with people, and I associate it with my strongest friendships. But I’ve also learned through painful experience that the friendships that seem strongest are sometimes the ones that crumble at the first hurdle, so...I am cautiously optimistic?

🍄 - What’s one bad habit you know you have in writing? 

Argh, so many. I have a tendency to do...that

🍁 - How do you want to explore your muse further? Is there a wishlist?

I want to explore Finster in ALL THE WAYS. I love him so much and unfortunately for him that means I just want to toss him into an alligator pit of scenarios and see what he does in all of them. In some ways, my conception of him is so clear and strong you would think it would be inflexible. Turns out not to be as true as I thought? But I think my true Finster wishlist would involve his original setting and plot points that I can’t recreate or play out with anyone else. I mean, I could, but without the involvement of the DM who was directing the plot originally it wouldn’t feel canon, so it would still remain a question mark. If that makes any sense. Outside of the original plot and character dynamics, I’m honestly just so pleased to play him again that I haven’t really thought about specific things I’d like to do. I see plot and AU ideas floating around and a lot of them seem cool, but there isn’t currently anything that I’m burning to do. Or rather, in general the sort of goal with him as always been to find someone who is as loyal to him as he is to them, and that still holds true. In some ways it’s both liberating and super weird to me to have him going around doing things without the party he was created to be part of, and without that context he’s sort of...not incomplete, but it gives him a flexibility that he didn’t have before, plot-wise. I’m still kind of figuring out what I can do with that, and how much of his backstory or past RP plot stuff is relevant and what I can or am willing to discard. I think as I figure that out, I’ll probably think of more specific things I’d like to do.

[I feel as though those all ended up being kind of long answers. Sorry! I hope they were illuminating, though?]

[minscellaneous]

hi there! I’ve seen you mention posts about d&d campaigns your in/making and I’ve always wanted to play d&d but don’t know where to start or how to find people to play with that are my age/are ok w having a beginner. Do you have any tips for how to get started with d&d for someone new and how to find a group (do you play with groups online or do they have to be in person???) thanks for all ur help!! :)

hi!! sorry to get to your question so late! i’ve been especially busy this week with so much due and also a dnd campaign i’m dming at the end of it! 

and oh jeez, i don’t know if i really have any good advice for beginner players and how to find a game lol. i got really lucky bc my closest friends were interested in playing dnd and we were all beginners, including our dm who was a beginner at dming. so i didn’t have to go out and look for a dnd group in my area or online (and no, dnd groups do not have to be played in person). BUT, in my experience i’ve been in dnd discord servers where people talk about dnd and other tabletop rpgs and have people there looking for games to play or are looking for players. in fact, i’m starting my first online Monster of the Week game (which is like dnd? but much simpler) as a player over discord next monday! 

but i mostly play dnd with my friend group in person, so i don’t have much experience looking for a group online or just in general unfortunately :( my general tips for beginners are to just not be daunted by the amount of rules in the players handbook. when i first played, i never even read the players handbook, my dm just helped me out along the way. a good dm is a helpful one. and i think a suggestion for finding a group would be to make a tumblr post saying you’re a beginner and searching for a game to play, and tag it appropriately for people to see. chances are a dm or player may contact you about joining their game. or just scour the tags yourself. i’ve been in the dnd tag before and have seen posts by dms looking for players. but umm other than that, i don’t really know any place else you could look for a game? if anyone reading this has any suggestions for this anon, feel free to reply c:   

[xaevryn]

Attn: Magical Girl Tabletop Gang!

@lykoi @coneyinacap @eclecticbookshelf @lurfybroch @perpetual-wip​

Hey guys!

After comparing folks’ availability, I wanted to see how y’all felt about a once monthly game convening on a Sunday afternoon, with a tentative plan to launch in late May or early June?

I’m still planning on using the Fate system for this game. The whole core book is available for FREE here (just input “0″ as the price), but it is also ENORMOUS and largely unnecessary for you to read to play. I can tutorial this a few ways, depending on what seems good to you. We can have a big group character creation/tutorial session; I can have one-on-one sessions to brainstorm characters and walk you through the basic mechanics (handy to schedule BEFORE game date!); or I can post some basic information here to my tumblr, going over the character sheet, basic actions, answer questions, etc. and leave you to experiment for a while yourselves.

I would really like to host this game using roll20 for dice rolls, character sheets, maps, etc. and Discord for text and voice chat. Both are free! \o/ A Discord account would also enable us to create a channel for this game and discuss possible ideas, backstories, character connections, etc. Connecting those to each other makes the game much more personal and enjoyable, in my experience.

Lastly, since I’m sticking with the idea of using the Major Arcana as a theme, I wanted to provide a “cheat sheet” of possible magic powers. You are totally welcome to research the cards and figure out a different power set, but for those of you who might not have time or interest, here are some possibilities:

The Fool: Acrobatics; Teleportation The Magician: Witchcraft? Telekinesis? The High Priestess: Psychic. Telepathy, pre/post-cognition. The Empress: Plant control. The Emperor: Tank. Defender. Brick Shithouse. The Hierophant: Bibliomancy of some kind??? (Genuinely not sure on this one) The Lovers: Psychic empathy; charm/compulsion. The Chariot: Directional magic. (this fight clip from Soul Eater is an example of some pretty neat application?) The Strength: Beastmaster or shapeshifter? Deals heavier damage the more hits she has taken. The Hermit: Ice? Psychic location spells? The Wheel of Fortune: Luck/Probability manipulation. Justice: Exceptional swordsmanship; probably a magic sword Lurfy The Hanged Man: Gravity manipulation. Death: Transfiguration/shapeshifting or necromancy?? Temperance: Alchemy. Transmutation. The Devil: Binding and reflection. The Tower: Lightning or seismic magic. TREMENDOUS DAMAGE with also EXCEPTIONALLY BAD LUCK. The Star: Healer The Moon: Illusions and Fear Magic. Coney The Sun: Fire and light Judgement: Spirit channeling The World: Time manipulation (not full on time travel; more like haste/slow/stop in a lot of video game rpgs)

...Oh, right, and we still need to figure out an age range for our characters.

ANYWAY HAHA SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT. Hit me up for my Discord ID or any other questions you might have. Thank you guys! I’m so excited to play with you!

[attract-mode-collective]

Dat Genesis Aesthetic

Welcome to the next level of the Attract Mode blog! As explained last time, every Monday or Tuesday (or Wednesday) I’ll be sharing all the wacky game culture goodness that crossed my path the previous week (mixed with bits and pieces that I’ve long wanted to share, but haven’t, cuz I didn’t think it worked as a stand alone post or some other reason).

And kicking things off is Studio SUPER’s “Lives & Times”, in which they created eight different animated scenes, all running in tandem on a CRT monitor (i actually discovered this in a post in a CRT enthusiasts group I belong to on Facebook, which is a private, so I’ll say no more), and all of which screams dat Genesis aesthetic. Each of the ten monitors displays a letter, spelling out “Lives & Time”; the above are actually animated gifs, but due to Tumblr’s technical constraints, they’re simply still images, hence why I’m not going to bother to share the individual monitors (so please check out the source to see everything in action).

But yeah, it once again warms this old school fan of Sega’s 16-bitter that the kids today are embracing the look and feel of the platform, whereas those used to be punching bags, primarily among Super Nintendo devotees. Though, to be honest, the above actually reminds me of 32X’s aesthetic; the other night was my yearly attempt at giving Knuckles Chaotix another shot, and dear God does it ever look like someone attempt at making a game based upon found internet art and vaporwave album art that’s all been inspired by the Genesis, which means I absolutely adore AV, but dear God is it unplayable or what.

Back to the Genesis/Mega Drive real quick; here’s your new desktop wallpaper, courtesy of @SEGAotaku; you’re welcome…

With the new way of doing things around here, bits of randomness that had been the basis of semi-regular gags will be folded into the new weekly format. Like the Please Enjoy entries. So, please enjoy this wonderful mash-up of Sonic and Totoro, with a dash of the Iron Maiden font… on a t-shirt (courtesy of twosatans)…

It’s that time again, in which I really wish I had a PC. And GDC has barely gotten under way! By the end, I’ll no doubt see some new game that I’m dying to play, but cannot, unless it gets ported to the PS4. Though in this instance, I’m talking about DESCENT, which Prosthetic Knowledge describes as “Part music video, part demoscene production, part art history remix”. At least I can enjoy this video in the meanwhile…

Sorry, can’t say I agree with this statement. As for my choice for top FF, you’ll have to see what I wrote on the wall of the men’s room at Grassroots Tavern (located on the sound side of St. Mark’s between 2nd and 3rd Ave) in person….

Yet another “feature” of this blog, one that was only recently proposed, are semi-arbitrary comparisons. And they too will be part of the package every week, starting with; which do you prefer, this old photo of a young boy, proudly showing off his newly unwrapped Galaxian tabletop arcade cab, courtesy of ausretrogamer…

Or this somewhat more recent pic of young girl, one who is to ecstatic to have gotten a Game Boy Advance SP, courtesy of 2000ish…

Classic Gaming Quarterly just posted another Let’s Read, its in-depth, page at a time analysis of a classic gaming mag. In this instance, it’s Electronic Gaming Monthly #6 from early 1990…

Among the more interesting questions asked and observations made…

- Yeah, what exactly was the deal behind Fester’s Quest? Why in the heck was there an Addams Family game in the year 1989 (and not 1990 as stated in the video) for the NES? Then again, the same could be asked of Midnight Mutants, which was based upon the Munsters for the Atari 7800 in 1990. Is there a connection between the two?

- Not only did I have no idea that there was an arcade board based upon the PC Engine, I also never made the assumption myself that the SuperGrafx was perhaps originally destined for the US, given that the name of the PC Engine follow-up is more closely tied to the name of the US version, the TurboGrafx!

- Though I do recall people not being all that impressed with Super Mario World’s visuals upon release, as well as how the original Game Boy was considered a disappointment for a long while there. In fact, in EGM’s end of the year assessment for gaming hardware, for many years there, the GB was constantly scoring super low numbers.

One can never understate how important Pokemon’s arrival was for the platform in the US, which is actually 21 years ago today BTW/FYI!

Speaking of Game Boys, yet again, I really wanna play Kimutaku vs Predator; according to obscurevideogames, Takuya Kimura is from the J-pop boy band SMAP, but I bet most of you knew that already…

And back to the subject of video games rags; which cover featuring a shmup do you prefer, the one with Xevious…

Or Radiant Silvergun? BTW, both were found over at the shmups Tumblr, naturally…

Remember my round up of classic video game music on vinyl? Well here’s a clip that I wanted to include but couldn’t cuz I hit the limit of YouTube embeds in a single Tumblr post, plus it’s of a re-release on CD; it’s the third disc of a trilogy box set, of classic Namco tunes, and perhaps the best of the bunch (since I realize straight up Xevious audio ain’t for everyone)…

Sticking with the subject of music, Kotaku actually posted a real oldie but goodie, and since it was on a Sunday, there’s a good chance many may have missed it, so…

And back to shmups, as well as something else that one of the major outlets recently posted that’s definitely worth a look for anyone who may have missed it, is The Verge pointing out a rather intriguing part of a Fast Company write-up on Atari head honcho Nolan Bushnell’s early 80s high-tech incubator. Which is how the triangle in virtually every GPS system out there is actually the ship from Asteroids!

Which do you prefer, this old pic of Mexican wrestlers from Lucha Underground playing Mortal Kombat X on the PS4….

Or this recently release image of the WWE’s John Cena playing... I dunno actually... on the Nintendo Switch….

Speaking of the Switch, my aforementioned personal fave angry video game nerd recently shared his thoughts on Nintendo’s forthcoming hybrid home console/handheld. The title pretty much says it all: “NINTENDO SWITCH CAN SUCK IT!!!” is pretty much all you need to know. Still worth watching though! As is his recent follow up…

Said it before, and I’ll say it again; I don’t have to agree with BitHead1000 to find him hilarious.

As you may have heard, a Dreamcast signed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst was recently up for grabs on eBay. The original auction ended without a winner, which means everyone out there still has a chance to be one! One of six; I want to know the circumstances that led to Durst signing a Dreamcast, let alone several. Though I have to wonder if the seller will actually go through them all, let alone the first…

This animated gif by mazeon really makes me wish that there was a video game based upon The Black Hole. Actually, it’s ripe for a LucasArts/Double Fine-esque adventure! What do you fellow fans of the movie think? All six of you…

And finally, one last comparison; which do you all prefer; this Virtual Girl, who I found via posthumanwanderings…

Or this Virtual Boy wearing and Mountain Graphics’s STAR SOLDIUS shirt, which you can nab in the Super Attractive Club shop, along other things…

Don’t forget: Attract Mode is now on Medium! There you can subscribe to keep up to date, as well as enjoy some “best of” content you might have missed the first time around, plus be spared of the technical issues that’s starting to overtake Tumblr.