#there is zero reason for the stress levels i have about this

[betrayedbycinnamon]

Seven Sentence Sunday

@oldfangirl81 tagged me. I don't know what I'm doing.

“Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream,” he crooned.  He hadn’t sung anything in so long, probably not since the fall, his voice felt rusty. Maybe he wasn’t made for something so gentle anymore. He made a face at that thought and bullheadedly sang more, trying to warm up his unpracticed vocal cords. There was a point to prove, even if he couldn’t exactly put a name on what that might be.

“Make him the cutest that I've ever seen.”  He paused again as he caught the words he had sung.  Usually he was better about changing the words to not give himself away, but he supposed it didn’t matter.  There was no one here to listen to him. No one left who cared.

[oflgtfol]

it is really unfortunate the way suicidality is talked about nowadays because it’s either all a joke so it’s hard to discuss in a serious capacity or it’s so upsettingly serious that you can’t even discuss it without fear of like being institutionalized

[hotyanderedaddies]

Yandere Nerd Blackmails "Mean Girl" You into Being His

[Yandere! Nerd x Popular! GN! Reader]

·゜·:.。..。.:·☆·゜·:.。..。.:·☆

You're one of the popular people in school: surrounded by tons of friends, always going out on dates every weekend, and always invited to every party.

To say the least, you loved you life.

However, while your social life was on an upward trajectory, you struggled a little bit with your classes. And with an upcoming physics midterm giving you anxiety, you knew that you had to do something.

"H-hey, Y/N," some random nerd (Nate?) who sat beside you in class said. He wore a really large smile and his eyes seemed to shine with adoration the more he stared at you.

"Yeah?" you asked, anger seeping into your tone due to your stress levels.

"If you want a tutor, I can help you out?" Nate cheerily smiled, almost begging you to accept his offer.

He wanted you to accept so badly! He loves you so desperately!

You vaguely recalled this nerdy guy as the one who kept following you around like a lovesick puppy. However, given your high social status, you didn't pay him too much attention.

"Eww," you scoffed, oblivious to his frown. Ugh, what would your friends say if they saw you with him?

You didn't like the idea of owing anyone, plus, Nate would most likely just drool all over you as you attempted to study.

*Sigh, it's just the price to pay for being pretty.

After school, you were making your way down the hall when you noticed that the door to your physics class was slightly ajar, and there was zero sign of the teacher. And on the desk was a little, tantalizing manilla folder.

You knew it was wrong, that you could get in some serious trouble (even risking expulsion), yet you couldn't resist rushing inside and snatching the folder off the desk to peek at its contents.

And voilà!

The answers to the midterm were in your clutches. Thinking quickly, you took a quick picture of the answers with your phone and placed them back into the folder, setting it on the desk and rushing out of the classroom.

·゜·:.。..。.:·☆·゜·:.。..。.:·☆

You got an A+ on your physics midterm.

"Good work, Y/N," the teacher even said as she handed you back your exam. "I can tell you studied a lot."

"Sure did," you confidently said, a wide smile on your face. You were on top of the world, having passed the hard test with absolutely zero negative consequences.

You were riding high for most of the school day, already planning out your weekend that was supposed to be full of partying and flirting with the quarterback of the football team (he has muscles for days), when Nate approached you at your locker.

"Hey there, Y/N," he smirked, his eyes narrowing for some reason.

"Whaaaat?" you sighed, already fed up with this loser who seemed to just want to waste your precious time.

"I heard you got a perfect score on the midterm," Nate knowingly grinned, something in his tone making you wince. "That's pretty impressive, seeing as how you were a little worried before."

You rolled your eyes, slamming your locker shut as you readied yourself to storm off. "Are you trying to say that I'm not smart?" you deflected. "That's not nice." You spun around on your heels.

"Neither is cheating," Nate muttered, making you freeze.

Slowly, you turn around to stare Nate down. Despite your face going pale at the thought of being found out, you saw that Nate had a big smirk on his... did... did he know? No, there was no way.

You were careful, right?

"What are you talking about?" you asked, trying to act all cool, but your heart was racing like crazy in your chest.

The knowing smirk on Nate's face, the way he narrowed his cold calculating eyes at you, and the way he chuckled let you know that something was wrong. Plus, Nate was WAY taller than you, and the way he towered over you, leaning threateningly over you, was enough to make you shiver.

Something was definitely wrong.

Nate snatched his phone out of his pocket and held it up to your stunned face. On the screen was something horrible:

A video recording of you sneaking into the physics room, and taking a picture of the midterm answers.

How?

How could Nate have recorded you cheating? You were so careful to not get caught?

...and worse...

...w-was Nate following you? Why else would he record you?

The blood drained from your face as you watched the video play over and over on Nate's phone.

Out of instinct, you tried to snatch it away from the nerd, but he was too fast for you. He held it up in his grasp, way out of your reach.

Nate mock-frowned at you. "That's not very nice, Y/N," he teased. "Now let's think about this real quick."

You huffed and fought with all of your might to not roll your eyes (again).

"If I were to show this copy to the school board," Nate continued, his voice slow and smooth, "and yes, I said 'Copy'-- then you'd be expelled. And then what would happen to you?"

If you were expelled, it'd be the end of the world for you, no exaggeration. Your parents are super strict, and if they found out you'd cheated on a midterm, they'd blister your ass. And if they found out you'd been expelled for cheating on a midterm, then you'd might as well dig your own grave.

And Nate inferred that he had more than one copy of the video of you cheating.

No matter how much you wanted to deny it, the stupid nerd had you cornered.

Hangin your head in defeat, you tried to hide your reddening face. "You can't show that video," you whispered. "...please."

Nate snorted as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Oh?" he questioned, challenging you. "And what's stopping me?"

Fuck.

Your stomach was tied in knots, and the more you stared up at the smirking nerd, the more you realized that you had you cornered; both literally and figuratively.

"Well," you frowned, feeling as if you'd projectile vomit all over his cocky face, "what do you want?"

Nate's smirk grew and stretched out the confines of his face, the shadows crossing over it in an eerie manner. He leaned in closer to you, making your back press tightly against the cold locker that you were trapped against, especially when he pressed both of his arms on either side of your trembling frame.

"You," he answered flatly.

"...huh?" you asked.

Nate snorted and leaned down even closer, his nose brushing up against yours. "I want you," he said.

At first, a look of pure disgust crossed over your face. You were popular, the top fo the top! There was absolutely no way in the world that you'd be caught dead with someone as lowly as Nate!

But when his smirk transformed into a scowl, your face melted into a look of fear.

"Look, Y/N," Nate spat, "either you be mine, and only mine; or, I tell the school board that you're nothing but a filthy, lying cheater, and you get expelled."

Your heart fell the floor.

Nate continued to smile down at you. "The choice is yours, Y/N."

To be continued...? (depending on if people like Nate)

[hannie-dul-set]

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CEO PARK?

p — PARK SUNGHOON x gn! reader. g — ceo! sunghoon and secretary! reader, humor, romance. w — swearing, sunghoon being a weirdo, a misplaced marriage proposal. 1.3k words.

requested by — anon: menace to everyone but you x the opposite of that.

note — i hate the cold angsty male ceo trope. so instead i turned ceo hoon into a weirdo that's a little bit too in love and doesn’t understand the concept of workplace boundaries which stresses you the fuck out!!

when you got promoted from being assistant secretary thanks to your ceo’s former secretary resigning, your co-workers did not throw you a celebration.

“you called for me, mr. park?”

instead, they threw you an advanced farewell party. it was nice working with you, said the cake dusted with stray confetti on the day of your promotion. they’re celebrating your inevitable resignation. they’re sure you’re going to follow suit after you predecessor within three months max because according to them—

“yes.”

your boss, park sunghoon, is the nastiest fucker in the planet.

“take a seat.”

you gulp, making cautious steps into your ceo’s office. he’s signing a stack of documents while you take your sweet time delaying having to sit in front of his paper-stacked desk, setting them aside the moment you sit down, sharp eyes immediately zeroing into your soul, and you start sweating.

there’s a bet on the line on when you’d eventually quit. today marks your fourth month here, and you’re pretty sure heeseung is going to win because you are in fact this close to sliding your pre-written resignation letter over his desk, adding onto his pile.

not because he’s terrible, like they all say. not because he’s temperamental.

“sunoo told me you were sick,” sunghoon starts. “why did you come to work today?”

but because you fear your boss might be a little bit in love with you.

“is...is that the only reason you asked for me?” you hesitantly say, picking on your cuticles and trying to avoid eye contact because the concern drowning your boss’s expression is just enough to drown you as well.

“you don’t look well,” he avoids your question. of course you don’t look well. you’re very, very uncomfortable right now and the main cause of that discomfort is him. “you should go home. i’ll tell jay to drive you.”

you’re pretty sure jay isn’t going to be happy with that. 

“mr. park—”

“i thought i asked you to call me sunghoon.”

your mouth is left hanging open. you’re flabbergasted. you take a second to recollect your thoughts. “...mr. park. sir,” you emphasize. you should at least be the one reminding him of your hierarchical roles at the moment. sunghoon looks upset that you’re not abiding by his request, but says nothing in protest so you continue. “i ran out of sick leaves. and there’s still so much work to do, i can’t just go home.”

“you ran out? well i’ll just give you more.” sir, that’s not how it works. “and jungwon can take care of your work. you should go home and rest.”

jungwon wouldn’t be too happy with that either. you feel your stress levels rising, headache incoming, because he’s just not listening to you. this crazy bastard, you think to yourself.

but maybe you were thinking a little too loudly.

“can you say that again?”

you slap a hand over your mouth with a gasp.

“say it again.”

you’re fucked. you just called your boss a bastard right to his face. “i’m—i’m so sorry, mr. park, i didn’t mean to—” but maybe that’s a good thing because that means you wouldn’t need to debate about resigning if he’s gonna fire you. “i apologize. i’ll accept any punishment you’ll give me.”

“no, say it again,” he hums, sounding a little too happy after being called crazy and a bastard, and you get a bad feeling. a really bad feeling. “i felt like we just got closer because of that. swear at me again.”

there’s a smile playing on your boss’s face. 

“i— i don’t think that’s appropriate, sir.”

jesus christ, he’s a bit more in love with you than you thought.

“why not?” when sunghoon gets up from behind his seat, circling out from behind his desk to lean back against it right in front of you instead, you start fearing for your life. he looks at you, arms crossed in disappointment, and he looks a little too good with rolled up sleeves and slim-fit slacks. 

crap, were you just checking out your boss?

his crazy is rubbing off on you.

“you have no trouble with swearing at and laughing around with the others,” he says. “why can’t you do the same with me?”

he is not normal, you think. thankfully not out loud this time. “sir, you’re my boss. i’m just your secretary. there’s a big gap there. i can’t just treat you the same way as i do with my co-workers.”

your boss takes in your words. he remains quiet with a stoic face for a few moments, and with each passing second of silence, you feel half a year of your life being shaved off. “ah,” he finally makes a sound after a good minute and a half. “should i give you a promotion, then?”

oh my fucking god, he’s nuts.

“boss, there’s an urgent thing you need to—”

“did i permit you to enter my office?”

your eyes widen, slapped in the face by a whiplash when your fellow secretary jake suddenly pops into the office, only to be cut off by the sharp glare and icy tone of your boss. jake’s hand doesn’t leave the doorknob when he nearly stumbles in shock with a stack of papers pressed to his chest. you see the look on his face. it’s the face of someone who’s about to get royally fucked over.

“n—no, sir. but these documents are—”

“then why are you in my office?” holy shit. so this is what they meant when they said ceo park is a bitchy demon from hell. jake looks like he’s about to piss himself. you’ve never been on the brunt of his temper— likely because he’s biased and has feelings for you, which has always felt burdensome. but now you’re a little thankful because you’d probably cry if he snapped at you like that.

“i’m sorry, i’ll leave now. i apologize.”

with that, jake makes his hasty retreat, and you’re once more left alone with your crazy boss. 

“where were we?” he says. “oh, right. your promotion.”

you’re starting to feel dizzy. 

“i’ve never liked how seojoo handled things. you can take his spot as the sales department head.” you have to stop him. you have to stop him before he actually fires a competent employee and gives you their spot as a courtship gift. “wait. i think you’d prefer working in HR actually. it’s a shame ms. kim is going to lose her position, but i can just—”

“mr. park—”

“sunghoon,” he cuts you off. “call me sunghoon.”

you look at him, exasperated. “sir,” you say. “i don’t think this is right.”

sunghoon raises a brow. “you don’t like HR? which department would you prefer then?”

you can’t. you can’t do this anymore. you make the mistake of letting your eyes wander out of stress, because they inadvertently land on the shiny gold glint of his nameplate, which is a terribly bad move following after his question because sunghoon notices, and sunghoon gets the very, very wrong idea.

oh, no. oh, no no no no no—

“i see.”

he doesn’t! he doesn’t see! you aren’t coveting his seat! you just want to go back to work and stop dealing with your insane and far too in love with you boss!

“i’m afraid i can’t give away my position as ceo,” he tells you. you swallow, shutting your eyes because you don’t want to acknowledge the mess you’ve just accidentally made, but your lack of vision definitely doesn’t interfere with your sense of hearing.

what you hear next sounds clearer than you’d like it to be.

“how about the position of being the ceo’s fiancé instead?”

that’s it.

“i will be getting back to work now, mr. park.”

there is something very wrong with your boss. it’s not in your job description to fix him.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH CEO PARK? © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

[vigilskeep]

Did you read the ign article about which choices will matter in Veilguard? What are your thoughts?

i’ve come to the realisation i simply don’t care very much. personally

i’m not really a person who cares a lot about having endings tied up by the official writers. a few months ago the characters and plot points i already love might have been what i was hoping for, but right now what i’m excited to play is veilguard, itself, and i’d rather they spent their time and focus on the game they want to make and that i’ll get to play, rather than on throwing in details about cool stories that they promise are happening offscreen, and finding increasingly desperate excuses for why an alive HOF is somewhere else. and in a way i find the fact that they are outright deciding to treat the games as their own complete stories encouraging for the writing of veilguard itself, implying the consequences of your choices will be felt within the game and planned for, rather than vaguely promised for some future episode that is never coming, like they often have been

i understand why other people are upset and i think it’s completely reasonable that they are, i have zero interest in trying to convince anyone they should feel one way or the other, but i’m also not going to pretend i feel strongly any particular way about this when i don’t. i admit to being a little baffled about how they’re going to handle it, especially with the inquisitor being in the game. but i’m not attached enough to inquisition or any of my inquisitors for that to be something i feel strongly about. if anything on a personal level it wipes out a lot of my weird stress about inputting the “right” worldstate that often stops me actually enjoying the games

to be clear: would i have loved to think zevran would appear or at least be referenced? is it deeply fucking annoying that only a handful of (white) characters seem to get that VIP, always-returning status? sure of course! but i think i consider not being able to input my own specific worldstate details a separate issue and one that is not going to change whether veilguard is good or bad, for me

[genericpuff]

no stop this article is too funny

this is from 2020 and while it talks about webtoons in general as a platform and medium, there's an excerpt from Rachel that's ironically and hilariously telling on herself when it comes to her priorities as a creator and how her work has aged incredibly poorly in the past 4 years:

She may as well just be saying, "I like Webtoon because they don't have any quality control" and "the trad publishing market had standards that I couldn't live up to, so instead of actually trying to live up to them, I went with a platform that has zero standards and was willing to make me into the standard regardless of my own qualifications and lack thereof."

Like y'all, take this as advice from someone who's had their fair share of rejection letters... the print industry dumping your unsolicited portfolio in the bin isn't gatekeeping, it's the nature of the business. The way Rachel describes it here - albeit I'm sure it's simplified for the sake of being an interview answer, but still - makes it sound like she was just expecting to walk right into the trad publishing market without an agent, without a completed manuscript or pitch, without any professional representation, and just slam her portfolio of mid-2000's art on the desk expecting them to hire her on the spot.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of barriers that prevent people from getting into the trad market, hurdles that can often be outright unfair (lacking the funds, lacking the connections, etc.) but... there's also a reason many of those barriers are there in practice.

First of all, fun fact: the reason why many publishers don't take unsolicited manuscripts isn't just to help them filter out the spam and low-effort submissions and prevent an overload of submissions (because if they took submissions from anyone and everyone, the overviewing system would break entirely), but it's also for legal purposes so that they don't get sued. Because if Joe Chucklefuck sends in an unsolicited manuscript that just so happens to include a plot point about the multiverse, and then a new book series or movie comes out that is about the multiverse, Joe Chucklefuck might get the sense they're being stolen from and attempt to sue them for plagiarism. This is why it's stressed so much by publishers that any unsolicited manuscripts will not just go unread, but will be thrown straight into the bin.

But second, many publishers simply don't want to take the financial risks on random start-up creators whose only experience is running their own personal projects on Tumblr, much less personal projects like Rachel's, half of which are fetish-content and all of which are unfinished. Of course they weren't gonna take Rachel seriously back then, she hadn't done anything to build up her presence in the industry.

In that sense, yes, self-publishing or pursuing a platform gig like Webtoons probably was Rachel's next best option which would be perfectly acceptable on its own, but it's just so, so telling that she thinks it's a "perk" for Webtoons to lack so much in the way of quality control, and we would ironically see the glaring evidence of that "perk" 3-4 years later in LO's final season when every single element of it as a "professional" piece of work turned to shit. It's no wonder she liked Webtoons in 2020 for letting her do anything she wanted, because what she wanted absolutely would not fly with an actual editor and publishing agency that cared about putting out a polished piece of work. The only way she was able to get "in" with a professional publisher was through Del Rey after Webtoons brokered a deal for her to have LO put into print, and even that level of prestige can't hide the fact that LO sucks ass in print. It's almost like under normal circumstances and without Webtoons carrying her on their shoulders above every other creator on the platform - many of whom actually do have experience in both tradpub and self-publishing - Del Rey wouldn't have paid her any attention. Without Webtoons, no one would take her seriously because she doesn't take what she does seriously, and it shows in her priorities as a creator who simply wants to just do whatever she wants without any sort of reasonable oversight like research or editing which are, again, necessary expectations within the tradpub industry, because it's not just about being a free-thinking self-expressive artist anymore in that industry - it's a business.

Of course, Rachel is probably now laughing from her soapbox over the fact that she now technically helps run an imprint, so haha "poo on the meanie trad market", but considering that imprint has still not launched and has been put on the same "coming soon" track that the LO television show has been on for the past 4+ years on a loop, I'm not holding my breath that it's actually going to amount to anything substantial.

(gotta love how they asked if Rachel was gonna create any more stories and her answer was RSP, which will help other creators bring their stories to life. so at best she didn't answer the question which is nothing new for her, at worst she gave away the fact that she's gonna be acting as some kind of producer who will be given all the credit and praise for other creator's works and efforts lmao no thankssss)

And god knows what the quality control of this imprint is gonna be like if Rachel's attitude toward the trad market overall is, "Nooo they won't let me do what I wantttt :((((" when she admittedly never even broke into the trad market to begin with and had zero experience working within that industry prior to LO.

And even then, Webtoons still doesn't give her as much freedom of choice as she claims to have. I mean ffs, this is the same person whose moderators stated that the Swarovski crystal dress from the finale was done as a "fuck you" to Webtoons for not letting her draw Persephone nude all the time.

She's obviously still being prevented from doing what she wants to do, when a lot of what she wants to do is better off not passing the vibe check and making it into the comic.

Quality control exists for a reason, Rachel. And "letting you do what you want" isn't necessarily a "flex" that Webtoons can claim over trad publishing when that "flex" is forgoing the traditional barriers that would usually prevent someone like you from failing upwards into manufactured fame the way that you have.

And that's my big bag of cents on that.

[blythings]

Tom blyth birthday smut if you can?

it's the 2nd of feb in australia so hbd to the loml!! thank you for sending me this req anon, perfect timing with this one 💞 this is super self-indulgent since the reader is a corporate girlie like me. also this is unedited and super rushed but hope you enjoy anyway!!!

CAKE | TOM BLYTH

— pairing: tom blyth x fem!reader — summary: when the birthday cake you had planned to make for your boyfriend doesn't go according to plan, he comes up with an alternative gift to salvage the celeberation. — content: mdni, smut, cunnilingus, fingering, very minimal dirty talk —word count: 958 words

requests are open for tom and his characters!~

As Tom steps into your shared apartment, he’s greeted by the inviting aroma of rich chocolate, tinged with the simultaneous smell of something burning, which only intensifies with each step he takes.

He calls out your name as he leans against the entry into the kitchen. It’s two pm on a Friday afternoon — normally, you would still be at your office during this time, fending off the mid-afternoon fatigue by drinking too many cans of Coke Zero and texting him some of the ridiculous items that would land in your inbox. 

That said, it doesn’t take two seconds for him to know why you would be home so early. You had been apologetic all week about not having enough time to plan something more elaborate for his birthday and while he had tried to reassure you, he still sensed the faint trace of guilt behind your expression.

At the sound of his voice, you look up from the mixing bowl, filled with a chocolatey concoction. “You’re home early,” you say — ironically — before you return to mixing, your frustrations from the week seemingly being beaten into the side of the bowl. You had rolled up the sleeves of your blouse though powdered sugar still dusts the fabric. There is a brown lump by the sink that Tom can only assume had been your first attempt at baking a cake, and the reason why his kitchen smells like a hazard site at that moment.

He pads over and wraps his arms around your frame. He asks, ��Shouldn’t you be at work?”

You sigh, your shoulders sagging. “I had to at least get you a cake,” you answer, “and I didn’t want to just grab one after work. I’m gonna make you a cake even if it kills me.”

“It looks like it might.” Tom mumbles under his breath, kissing the side of your head.

It isn’t like you didn’t have plans for his birthday during the weekend. But between Tom’s acting career taking off and your own job picking back up after the holiday break, the chaos that had followed is enough to eat away at your time and energy. You had been too caught up in work to plan anything special. You recall Tom’s words, his easy-going reassurance that he didn’t mind if you had a more lowkey celebration that year. Even so, guilt had been gnawing at your insides all week, fueled by the knowledge that you haven’t been as attentive since you had returned to work. 

But as the two of you stand in your cluttered kitchen, it is obvious that you might’ve miscalculated your own culinary ineptitude.

“I even got this stupid cake mold for this.” You huff, lifting the heart shaped cake mold that you had picked up on your way home. “But even when I try to read the recipe, I’m not getting it right. It’s stressing me out.”

He kisses your cheek. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want you stressing over this. We can just buy a cake from the bakery. I assume you don’t have to go back and finish any work, right?”

You shake your head. “I said there was an emergency.”

“Tell your work that something was burning. That way, you wouldn’t be lying.”

“Clever.”

“I have my moments.” He says, trailing his lips down the side of your neck. A hand trails lower and you drop the spatula into the mixing bowl as he turns you around, his mouth slotting against yours. 

You’re prepared for his kiss, the years you’ve been together bringing about a level of ease that you’ve never had with any of your previous partners. He moves the mixing bowl to the side, lifting you up to rest on top of the counter. You scrunch your nose at the thought of having to do a deep clean of the kitchen later in the afternoon.

But your thoughts don’t stray from Tom for too long as he licks into your mouth. His hand moves down to your knee, tugging your legs open as sinks to the floor between your spread thighs.

“Still wanna give me something sweet?” He murmurs, pushing the hem of your skirt up. You can only offer a nod as he loops his fingers around the sides of your underwear, pulling it down your legs.

“I should be the one who — ” You start to say but he shakes his head, running two fingers up your throbbing core. 

“Couldn’t even get me a proper cake,” He cuts you off, teasing, “let me taste you instead.”

You’re about to reply before he’s burying his mouth between your thighs, your mouth releasing a string of whimpers and gasps as he mouths over your clit. You cry out in pleasure as he begins nudging your bud around his tongue, his eyes watching your reactions intently. He pulls away with a lewd pop, leaning back. “This cunt is mine, isn’t it?” He asks, placing a kiss on your inner thigh. You want to bask in his touches, but the drag of his fingers and the feel of his lips sets your body ablaze.

His fingers trail down your slit before he slips two digits deep into you. You cry out when he shoves his fingers deeper inside, a warning for you. “Yours,” you manage to choke out.

Your thighs quiver around him as you cry out his name, the tightness in your belly snapping apart as your body spasms from your orgasm. 

“That was fast.” He teases you, chuckling as you push him off your thighs. “Want me to help you clean all of this up?” He asks as he gestures around the kitchen, and you shake your head.

“Later. We’ve got a birthday to celebrate.”

[crazycookies73307]

It's amazing just how much you're willing to do for someone when you like them.

In the romantic sense, I mean.

When you platonically like someone you'd do anything for them, as long as you're able to handle it.

When you romantically like someone, though? That's a whole different level we're talking about.

When you romantically like someone, you'd do anything for them, even if it's sometimes beyond your capabilities.

You might be drowning in your own sorrows, but their suffering always feels like a greater loss. So much so that you feel as though you'd bear their pains on top of your own, just so that they wouldn't have to.

You might find yourself terribly busy, but you always manage to make time for them. You might not know anything related to their interests, so despite being behind on just about everything else, you still somehow manage to learn about them.

Granted, all this is applicable to platonic love as well, but somehow, you felt that romantic love had a certain magical feel to it.

Maybe it was the influence of too many Disney movies, but who cares.

But in the same way, it was also amazing just how much you're not willing to do for someone who you don't like.

Again, in the romantic sense.

See, this is what you meant about the difference between platonic and romantic love. As far as life has worked out for you, when you romantically like someone, you'd find a way to give them the moon and when you just platonically like someone, you'd barely be willing to give them a polished pebble.

Or maybe, you just have shitty friends.

Correction, shitty friend.

You'd do anything for him, even it meant your own doom, but God forbid if the same applied to you.

Their messages were read as soon as they were delivered. Yours was left on delivered for a while.

They ask him for a favour, he'd do it. Granted, it would take a bit of convincing. But for you? Yeah, dream on.

Situations arose where you'd be partnered together. And more than half the time, you know he'd rather be paired with someone else. A certain someone else.

Unless your help was necessary, that is.

Somehow, you had the solutions for everyone's problems.

The advisor, the helper, the mother, the tutor, the therapist, the mentor.

It also sucked that you were an enigma for the rest. You somehow managed to stay on the top of your game despite taking on more and more.

But few knew of your disastrous tendency to procrastinate. Pair it with your perfectionistic attitude and it was a recipe for a disaster, the result being an extremely stressed, sleep deprived and caffeine high you.

You still pushed through, though.

Out of sheer spite and willpower, but still.

The fact was, that you were a busy person. And it's a universal truth that busy people are always stressed.

When you were a busy person with a stupid crush on a guy you know you've got zero chance with, it made your stress ten times worse.

It was as though the universe was against you.

The perfect guy, one who actually wasn't your type, but ended up redefining your idea of your ideal type to fit himself in.

The one guy who you knew, was not necessarily a bad match for you, personality wise anyways. Lord knows if there's anything else lurking beneath.

The one guy who managed to make your tough attitude melt into absolute nothing.

The one guy who managed to make you, who dreamt of lazy rainy evenings and warm tea , end up dreaming about the mushy stuff. Stuff you wouldn't normally dream about, not with a clear cut idea anyway, like your dates, hugs, talks, and even your marriage.

Especially your marriage.

The one guy who managed to break down a lot of your walls, the one guy you felt safe with, the one guy you knew you could trust openly, and you couldn't have him.

For reasons out of your control, you just weren't what he was looking for.

You were good enough to help him.

You were good enough to listen to his troubles.

You were good enough to be used as an excuse for when crap went sideways, because after all, you were trusted.

You were kind, after all. His words, not yours.

It's kind of embarassing, just how much you were willing to do for his sake, and just how little you expected him to do for you.

What you wanted were your thoughts, emotions and actions returned. What you received, was an entirely different matter.

He cared about her,worried about her, and for better or for worse, cried for her. To the extent that you sometimes wished you could stab yourself rather than to witness the scenes unfold.

If he was so capable of such emotions, so capable of freely expressing them, then why was it that he never even gave an ounce of it your way?

Were you worthy of the bare minimum effort? The bare minimum care?

Were you worth so little?

Was that it?

Was that why you were always, always one of the lowest of his priorities?

Maybe it was a you problem, maybe it had nothing to do with him.

But was it really?

Was it really your fault that he chose her over you, every single time?

Was it really your fault, when he made the choice to prioritise her needs over his own, and then come crying to you?

Was it really your fault, when he decided to play a dangerous game of chase with her, willingly allowing you to be the first hand witness to their game?

Was it really your fault, when despite you being there to help him out of his messes, especially regarding hers, he still went running to her for comfort?

They created the messes that you had to clean up.

They were the ones who made bad life choices and come running to you for advice.

They were the ones who were involved in the god forsaken game of cat and mouse, somehow dragging you into the middle of the mess.

They were the ones who forced you into a corner sometimes, with you being needed to cover for them, in the face of a lot of people.

They were the ones who had to be careful in their so-called games, but you were the one forced to enforce the said caution.

In their point of view, you were the villain in their story.

Always poking around, ruining a part of their fun.

But they also know that they were the ones who forced you into the role. That someone was needed to possess the common sense that they lacked. Of course, whether they listened to the said common sense was another matter entirely.

Granted, sometimes you enjoyed putting them in their places a bit too much.

Despite his devil may care attitude when it came to anyone other than her, you knew that he did care for you. You knew that he did consider you to be a friend. After all, you did spend a lot of time together for you to just be named an acquaintance.

It was just that his efforts towards you paled in comparison to those directed towards her.

It also didn't help that he trusted you enough that he knew you'd not betray him, or his feelings that even he himself was kind of oblivious about. It was obvious to you both that he had certain questionable feelings, definitely not of the platonic type, towards her but you knew him well enough to know he'd rather ignore them for the sake of his sanity. At the cost of your own, you admit.

You were the one he cried to about things related to her, you were the one who knew that he was actually completely whipped for her. Not that he was good at hiding it, just about everyone could see it. It was just that you were the only one who was aware of the extent of it.

Sometimes you were sick of playing the adult. Sometimes you wanted to shake him out of this stupid mess he called his feelings. Sometimes you wanted to scream at him, of how you wanted out.

Out of everything that you never wanted to get yourself into.

Sometimes, you wanted him to just get over himself and confess, after all, atleast then you didn't have to see him pine around for someone else.

The rest of the time you were content about being there for him, regardless of the toll it took on your emotions.

Something is better than nothing, right?

And while you were torturing yourself with their roundabout pining, you'd rather be the first to find out if they ever decided to commit. At least you could get the time to prepare your poor, poor heart for when you'd have to break the reality to it.

The same heart, that despite the torturous wait, still hoped that he'd look your way. That he'd find that what he was looking for all this while, was actually right next to him.

That your efforts would be rewarded.

They had to be, right?

No deity was cruel enough to let all those efforts, those feelings, those thoughts, those tears, be for nothing, right?

Your mind said otherwise, but your foolish heart stubbornly kept on believing.

You knew, heartbreak was the only outcome of this stupid situation that you'd gotten yourself into.

You just hoped that when the time came, they would be kind enough to break it cleanly into two, rather than shatter it completely into tiny pieces.

At least it would be easier to put it back together.

Hopefully, anyways.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

I would love to hear your thoughts about the fucked-up turtle (Terapagos)

"Now let's talk about the turtle. Can we talk about the turtle please, Mac? I've been dying to talk about the turtle with you all day."

Ok so. Short Answer Re: Thoughts About Terapagos:

WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY DID IT DO THAT. WHY DID THEY [GAMEFREAK] DO THAT.

Long Answer Re: Thoughts About Terapagos [SPOILERS FOR THE SCARVIO DLC naturally. i havent seen Horizons so i dont rly know whats goin on with this little guy in the anime, just what we've got in the games]:

When the last little batch of new Pokemon in Indigo Disk leaked, about 12 hours or so-ish before the DLC dropped, I was at dinner with my bestie and we were looking at our phones like we were reading breaking world news. And I was looking at this tiny ass png of Terapagos's full Tera (Stellar) form.

And I immediately blurted out "holy SHIT it's turtles all the way down."

If you're not familiar with the phrase, check out its wikipedia page; here it's most relevant as a saying thrown around with regards to the philosophical concept of infinite regress, i.e. a series of elements (or questions begging an explanation) that that goes on infinitely with each member producing the next. So let's say the world rests on the back of a giant turtle--well, then, what does that turtle stand on to keep it from falling into the void? Why, another, bigger turtle, of course! But what about that turtle? Well, you're not gonna believe this, but it's turtles all the way down.

And here's the other thing about infinite regress: it's a logical fallacy, it's circular reasoning--honestly it's a little bit of a cousin to the "which came first?" chicken and egg argument. The question in these cases never truly gets answered, it just goes on and on forever. Bigger turtles on top of even bigger turtles.

It's a paradox. :)

So Stellar Terapagos, just look at that thing. Even its dex entries talk about how it looks like a planet, how it resembles "the world as the ancients saw it"--it's very much not only trying to evoke the World Turtle concept, but the symbolism of a classic paradoxical saying. So we've already got that going on with it, that already makes me bonkers. AND THAT'S JUST THE SURFACE LEVEL.

Cuz when we look at how Terapagos behaves, things start to go from "well isnt this guy a little weird" to "oh. oh this thing is kind of fucked up and terrifying, hello, what the hell is wrong with it" REAL FAST. Its two most stressed features we see in Indigo Disk are A.) its crystalline nature and how its the progenitor of Terastalization, but also B.) it is ferociously powerful and borderline uncontrollable. It's violent. It bursts out of a Master Ball and almost kills Kieran for daring to try and control it. Heath's illustration of its Stellar form in the Scarlet/Violet Book looks so otherworldly and almost cosmically horrifying. It has Weird Fucking Powers the game does NOT elaborate on (but I will; see more below.)

And also, hey, yeah, its Stellar Form looks like a stack of world turtles, but why the FUCK does its Terastal form also look like a goddamn dream catcher.

Personally I've been a big fan of the 'imagination theory' re: the Professors and the Paradox Pokemon and Area Zero, and folks have been arguing that Indigo Disk debunks that, but honestly I feel like we're loitering around some untold explanation that's even more bizarre. Terapagos is at least on some level tied to dreams and existentialism, and I really feel like there's more to Tera Crystals and Terapagos's relationship with them than what we've been told. Hell, its cry is even the noise we hear all game when we Terastalize our Pokemon, which produces its own myriad of questions (Are the Crystals some degree of alive? The Tera Crowns all do have Terapago's little turtle head at their base, too--does Terapagos physically or spiritually connect with a Terastalizing Pokemon? And what about that weird crystalizing the AI Professor does during its big boss fight? MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.)

Oh, speaking of Crystals--yeah. I can't NOT talk about the Indigo Disk Crystal Pool Postgame Secret when talking about Terapagos. ONE MORE SPOILER WARNING FOR THAT--SERIOUSLY GO TO THE CRYSTAL POOL AFTER GETTING THE DLC CREDITS. IT WILL BLAST YOU TO BITS. anyway.

Yeah so that's what I mean with Why Did It [Terapagos] Do That. The fact that you dont even need to have it in your party for the postgame Crystal Pool cutscene to trigger and for Terapagos to just pop out of the PC boxes on its own accord and warp space and time (and maybe even reality itself) to irreversible consequence, implying once again some great and uncontrollable power within this beast. Crazy Ass Moments in Pokemon History for CERTAIN.

And the thing that makes me most insane, thinking about Terapagos twisting time to allow you to meet the Professor, the Real Live Professor, to swap notes with them so to speak, the way it facilitates all of that, is the position it now puts the player and Scarvio itself in. If the Professor's research rests on the back of a white book given to them by a child, then what does the research of that white book rest upon? Ah, well, the expedition of Area Zero spurred forth by the fallout of the Professor's research. And what did THAT research rest upon, again...?

Turtles. The whole way down. Chickens and eggs and a paradox you're now responsible for. At the hands of a Normal Type Pokemon that tried to kill a 14 year old.

Terapagos scares the shit out of me. I love it so much. Why Did They Make It Like That <3

[theweirdwideweb]

we want the work blowout deets

I'll give you the tea but it will be lengthy and I'm going to cry.

Thank you for asking anon. To be honest with you I've been crying in bed about it for the past couple hours. I stood up just now and went to the bathroom and saw two big wet patches on my smiley face tshirt and it sucks so much. I'm so sad.

I could really use some feedback on this situation to be honest. OK. So the long story short is that I got a new supervisor a year ago and my work life has been hell ever since. First off, she doesn't understand what I do. She's never done my job. And she is THE micromanager from hell. For the first 7 months of the year she had me turning in a time card every week showing everything I did down to 5 minute increments. I turn the spreadsheet in on Friday, then every Monday we'd have a meeting where she'd tell me she just doesn't understand how I use my time. Why did it take so long to do X amount of invoices? She estimates it should take 2 minutes per invoice, but it took me 4 minutes per invoice. Like I said she knows nothing about my job and as many times as I've explained it she still "doesn't get it." It was demoralizing, nerve wracking, and frankly so insulting to my competence that I went to her boss (my old supervisor who I love). When she did nothing I went to HR with serious concerns about discrimination----it's no coincidence that I was granted some medical leave at the beginning of the year to address mental health concerns.

Yada yada yada, we made some changes and I don't have to turn in the spreadsheet anymore, but she is still making me email her every week with a list of tasks I didn't complete from the week before. It's still insulting but at least she agreed I'd only have to do it for another 3 months. Actually she said 1 month, but she's such a bitch that by the next HR meeting she claimed she never said 1 month and switched it to 3 months. She's a fucking moron, reader. She's dead fucking stupid. I really can't stress that enough. Dumb. It took her 15 years to get the position I got within 3 years of starting. The only reason she's where she is is seniority, personal relationships with management, and being a fucking bully. A dumb bully! Telling you how to prioritize your work! She's accused me recently of being unprepared for a meeting---a meeting that I hosted, provided all the material for, wrote all the notes on, fleshing out a new process she told me to start implementing but had zero idea how. She just tosses ideas at me and I'm left to figure out any kind of practical way to do it because---AGAIN---she doesn't know how to do my job. There've been other things too. She's a sneak humiliator. She's a button pusher. She's a moron. A big fat ugly moron who looks like Roz from Monster's Inc.

So on Thursday at 4:30pm, end of the day, suddenly a meeting with HR and this cunt appears on my calendar for 10am Friday (yesterday). I'm like---well here we go. She's either going to fire me or put me on a formal PIP. I'll be honest with you, I'd already decided to quit but I was holding out for my bonus in December. I entered the meeting feeling tranquil. I thought, "Do it. Pull the trigger. I'm ready for the end. Just fire me. Let me go. Release me."

But when the meeting starts it's just a touch base with our HR rep to see how everything is going. Are YOU fucking KIDDING me. Anyone would have thought the same thing I did. Of all the things my supervisor sucks dicks at, communication is the worst of all. She can't even spell. She can't string a sentence together. I mean it's shocking she writes at like a 6th grade level. I've seen emails she sent that are so garbled they are literally incomprehensible.

So I'm PISSED. I express how nerve-wracking the previous evening and all morning had been. We're off to a great start. She lets me know she's going to try to end the email process early. OK good. She tells me she's concerned because I haven't been providing personal feedback to her when prompted. Easy enough to explain: I hate your fucking guts, I'm trying to be a grey rock until I can quit. But I can't say that so I'm just like Alright.

Now here comes the bullshit! 1) She now wants me to ask permission in advance to work on weekends. I'm so overworked and stressed out I work like every weekend and now she wants me to ask her permission for the privilege of working on my day off. Guess who's never working a weekend for this company again. 2) The emails that just contain a list of tasks, right? Was 1 month, now 3 months, etc. She also changed the rules so that I have to provide a count of all the claims I processed across multiple platforms. And well---she just doesn't understand how I processed X number of claims and it took this long. In fact, she said, she counts 8 hours reported on my timecard she can't account for last week.

I lost it. I was openly hostile and belligerent. Fuck this fucking bitch. I cannot work for this vile idiot anymore. I actually used my IRL voice to poke holes in what she was saying and pointing out how fucking stupid it all is. Then she comes at me for not respecting her authority. As a reminder, just minutes before she'd complained about me having no feedback for her.

I left the meeting by refusing offers for additional time with the HR rep. I was in no place. I barely worked the rest of the day I was so upset and I didn't send my email, didn't complete my tasks, and didn't ask her permission to finish it up on the weekend (lol). I don't have another job lined up but this is the last time she's going to question whether I'm just straight up lying on my timecard or some kind of moron. That's it. This is her 100th strike for me.

Now here's why I'm so conflicted. 1) My previous supervisor (now my boss's boss) is going on a leave of absence like THIS WEEK for about a month and a half to treat her cancer. I care about her very much. I don't want to stress her out at the last second like this. 2) My bitch boss is also having a sudden serious health problem requiring her to be at the hospital multiple times a week. 3) On top of that, this stupid fucking cow has to take over my boss's boss's work while she's out for cancer. 4) They are absolutely fucked without me. For me to leave right now is a disaster. Add to that---the one person I manage and have a 100% rock solid relationship straight up told me that she's going to quit at some point and that if I quit she's walking out right behind me. She said this to me unprompted and I discouraged her from quitting. 5) I have a heart. The boss and the boss's boss are both having life problems that are more important than work. I think it's immoral to leave them in the lurch right now. They have serious health problems. As much as I hate my boss, at one point we were friends. My heart is breaking.

So I'm crying in bed. I can't live this way anymore. Toxic work stress has taken over my life. I get so miserable, but then some days it's just a job. It's a job I know how to do. I've been here 6 years. The health insurance is spectacular. I've got nothing lined up. I have adequate savings to get through a couple months of unemployment, but it's no guarantee I'll find a position that suits me in that timeframe. I have all these personal relationships at work (a mistake I will not repeat). I've let this job become part of my identity. I'm getting older. I'm 37 and I'm tired and I'm crazy and I just want peace. This position is fully remote---what if the next guy makes me work in person? My whole life will change. I just want this job to work like it has been for the 5 years before she took over. I'm so sad. I've felt this way so many times.

I want to quit first thing Monday. But I want to offer them the option of staying on until good boss gets back from cancer leave, so long as I don't have to work with illiterate cunt boss any more than is absolutely critical in the meantime. What do you think guys? My heart is breaking.

[shygirl4991]

Chapter 1 Unexpected Meeting

All art belongs to @b-r-i-n-g-x no reposting art! Idea from @itsajjanea Note: im still on break but with how stressful life is i decided to work only on this fic so keep stress levels down! (gotta get the angst out somehow lol)

Next Chapter

Summary: SMG4 world gets shaken when he learns that SMG3 is dating someone, with this news SMG4 starts to learn what these new strange emotions he is feeling are. With a love rival now appearing in the showgrounds can Four win Three heart or will he lose the battle to a mysterious new person?  Tags: Angst, Romance, Action Adventure, jealously, love confessions, SMG4 discovers he is bi, fluff

SMG3 slaps on his cap excited for the day, he got news from Gary that a rare type of powder was on sale. Exactly what he needed to make a new type of bomb for his cafe, he gives Eggdog a kiss before snapping his fingers for the darkweb. The best part of him learning his meme powers is free travel to the dark web, he walks out humming excitedly to grab the powder when someone bumped into him. He fixes his hat and glares at the person that bumped into him, his eyes then go wide seeing a tall male blinking at him “Oh shit sorry, i didn't see you there!” He watches the person move their blonde hair from their face. 

They flash him a charming smile before offering their hand “Names Aster, and you are?” SMG3 checks out the person in front of him, he notices the orange plaid shirt with a pin of the nonbinary flag by the collar of the shirt. He rolls his eyes walking away “Watch where you're walking next time, i have something important to get!” Aster chuckles following “Oh yeah? So important, I can't have your name?” Three rolls his eyes “How about you earn it then we'll talk,” He turns, making sure to walk far away from Aster in order to get his prize. 

Aster hums as they watch SMG3 walk away, he looks around and sees the shopping center with the live auction. He smirks running over to the crowd, he has been saving money for the day the legendary star powder would be up to purchase.  He was confident no one could outbid him after all Three made sure not to spend his cafe and twitch money on things that weren't needed. He walks into the crowd excitedly watching each item go up for sale then taken by the highest bidder, he chuckles watching the losers cry at the fact they lost their prize. That’s when the last item went up “For our last item, Star powder! It's extremely rare that someone is able to crush a star into an explosive material! After all, Stars can be unpredictable and now it can be yours!! ” 

SMG3 smiles brightly holding his sign tightly ready to begin betting, once it starts he lifts his sign “I'M STARTING BIG BABY!” He bets five hundred to scare off the other bidders. He smirks when he sees the crowd slowly leaving only for his eyes to lock with purple ones “Aster?!” They chuckle, lifting their own sign “Cute numbers purple, but I can beat that.” SMG3 glared at the man as he picked up his sign raising the price. They go at this for a while before Three notices he has started to run out of gold, he breaks into a sweat as he watches Aster walking closer to him not breaking eye contact as they hold their sign “What's wrong purple, running a little low?” 

He watches as Aster lifts the sign, Three felt everything freeze as he realizes he lost. He looks at the bid and the countdown in shock, everything he worked for was for nothing as the timer hit zero making Aster the owner of the powder. They take the powder and smile at Three only to get a glare in return, they sigh showing him the bag “You know i find you cute, you seem to really want this powder for some reason so lets make a deal!” Three takes a step back, suspicious of the person in front of him. They chuckle as they take out a slip of paper “My phone number, all i ask is a date with the cute mystery guy i met here. That's all I ask, one date and I give you the powder, think on it will ya?” 

Three stares at the number surprised, he takes it and looks up seeing Aster give him a flirtatious wink. SMG3 felt himself blushing as he held the slip of paper tight watching the mysterious person walk away from him. He looked at the paper and to his surprise there really was a number written on it, this had to be some kind of dream. He snaps his fingers returning to the showgrounds confused about the events that happen, some person came out of nowhere hit on him and gave him their number. How long had it been that anyone showed interest in him, he thought back on all the people he dated. He frowns remembering how they all ended with them meeting SMG4 and leaving him to try and win over the other man's heart. 

He takes a deep breath holding back his anger from those people that lied to his face, telling him they loved him only to leave him the moment a better model walks along. He looked at SMG4 picture and felt his heart flutter “Stupid, this whole thing is stupid!” He deletes the photo from his phone and sighs, why was he putting himself through this? 

He looked at the slip of paper and slowly entered the number, he was sure that it was some pizza place. As he waits he walks over to the counter to start brewing coffee for the day, he jumps when he hears a familiar voice on the other line “Hello?” panicked, he hangs up in shock. They really did give him their number, the phone rings and in a panic threw it across the cafe breathing heavily. The phone keeps ringing until he hears a beep letting him know the song has ended, slowly he walks to his phone and picks it up to see a text “Hello, i got a call from this number who is this?” 

He stood there staring at his phone before putting it away, he had to think over this deal. He grabs his cup of coffee lost in thought about Aster, He didn't notice Four walk in with Mario. Four smiles as he taps the counter “My usual if you don't mind Three?” he frowns seeing the man not moving as he looks into his coffee, he exchanges looks with Mario “HEY SMG3!” he waves his arms still not getting the man's attention. Mario starts to scream next “S M G 3!”

Still seeing the man was lost in thought Four was getting worried he walks up to three and gently touches him. The touch broke him out of his thoughts, startled from the contact he tosses the coffee. Three frowns at his coffee now being on the floor “What the hell SMG4!?” surprised by the anger Four glares at him “I didn't do anything you were spaced out i just wanted my coffee!” Three groans handing Four a mop “Fine, clean the mess you made while I get you the drink!”

SMG4 was about to argue why he had to clean the mess when an alert from Three’s phone gets his attention, he turns to see an unknown number text SMG3. He then notices Three tense up at the sound before grabbing the phone and shoving it in his pocket, Four starts to clean up the mess watching Three. “Hey is everything okay?” SMG3 nods, finishing up the coffee and shoving it at Four “Everything is fine, i don't know why you would even care.” SMG4 grabs his coffee and walks over to Mario who swallowed a painted dynamite that Three gave him to shut him up, Four sighs then smiles softly at him causing those flutters to return “you just seemed out of it so i was worried…if you need help you can come to us after all we are friends now!”

The word friend should make him happy to hear, instead he felt pain “Yeah yeah whatever you done or you want to talk my ear off?” SMG4 shakes his head as he pays for his drink and leaves with Mario behind him demanding more spaghetti. SMG3 takes out his phone and calls the number “It's purple, i will take the deal.”

Moments later SMG3 was waiting outside the restaurant nervously, he had to remind himself that he only accepted at that moment because he really wanted to make bombs and not because of how SMG4 made him feel. Aster smiles brightly at Three “Hey you really did show up!” They take out a bag from their pocket and hand it to SMG3. Confused he takes the bag and looks inside, it was the powder. He looks up confused as his date gives him a smug look “I'm a person of my word, i find you cute and want to know you more nothing wrong with that right?” 

SMG3 blushes as he puts the bag under his hat “uh no nothing wrong with that…its SMG3 by the way.”  Aster purple eyes flashes as he gets the man's name.  Three started to feel strange before he noticed Aster offering their hand “Shall we? The food here is to die for!” They chatted during the dinner getting to know each other, it was strange for Three the more they talked the more he felt drawn to Aster. As the date ended Aster offered to walk him back to the cafe, they held hands as they kept talking “Yeah i am pretty good at building things, back when i was all about killing my neighbor i built all kinds of weapons to kill him.” Aster hums as they listen to Three taking notes on every word said. 

Why was he even telling this person all this, his mind was a mess at the moment, sure Aster was attractive but did Three truly want more with this person? They arrive at the cafe, he knew he had to say goodbye to Aster and end the night, that's when he felt his stomach flip. He didn't want to say goodbye, he turns to ask if Aster wanted to stay but freezes when he notices how close they were. The words wouldn't come out as he watches them take his hand and kiss it causing his heart to speed up and his face go red.  “I had a lovely time, you have my number hope we can do this again cutie~” 

SMG3 was at a loss of words as Aster walked away, slowly touching his face trying to relax. What was going on with him? it was almost as if he was falling for Aster, he shakes his head laughing at the thought as he walks into the cafe. He takes out his phone looking at Aster's number, slowly he shoots them a text before getting the cafe ready for the next day.  Aster chuckles seeing the text “I told you I had this in the bag,” they turn towards a black star “Soon Aster revenge will be ours!” the star laughs as Aster replies to the message “Soon your end will arrive SMG3.” Aster's eyes glow as he puts his phone away.

[ashleyloob]

Hi!

From someone who is disorganized and discouraged, I would love advice on weight-lifting/building muscle. Would you share your understanding of building muscle and the breakdown of diet?

If possible, could you share how you apply what you know to yourself? If you use any tools to help you?

Struggled with working out, gaining weight, and eating my whole life. Thanks!

prefacing this with some important info for fellow disorganized scatterbrains!!!!

the main reason why ppl have trouble sticking to a lifestyle change is because they try to make very drastic changes too quick, and you get overwhelmed and it becomes unsustainable. this is especially an issue for neurodivergent folks, and since it's Tumblr I assume a good chunk of y'all are (me too dw)

DON'T immediately overhaul ur diet and hit the gym 5x a week from day 1!!! hitting tiny goals consistently is also more rewarding than working towards one very large arbitrary goal that you might not reach, esp when it comes to working out. start veeery small if u need to, such as only 10 bodyweight squats per day like i did and go from there. you wanna program ur brain into feeling accomplished to keep you motivated. patience is key!!!!

ok!! now onto the more detailed info below

Disclaimer: I'm still a newbie myself!! only consistently lifting heavy for about 3 months as of this post. I did a good deal of excessive info diving on lifting using the power of Sheer Autism, and my main gym buddy is very experienced & taught me a good chunk of this shit so shout-out to my pal for making all this possible xoxo

so good news!! "building muscle" is very easy for beginners starting from zero. newbie gainz are absolutely real. at this stage you can do just about anything at the gym and get stronger bc u can only go up. BUT!! if you structure it, you can make the process enjoyable and much more efficient. if you're goal oriented (lookin at u ADHD menaces), you'll love the concept progressive overload.

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD & SETS/REPS

wikipedia defines progressive overload as: a method of strength training and hypertrophy training that advocates for the gradual increase of the stress placed upon the musculoskeletal and nervous system. in layman's terms, it just means gradually adding more weight as you work out to increase the difficulty as you get stronger. progress is VERY easy to track because of this, and you'll be hitting PRs pretty much every week for the first couple of months and that shit feels fantastic because you physically feel yourself getting stronger so rapidly. I use the app Strong to track my workouts. so, how do we structure progressive overload? that's through sets/reps. A rep is a single execution of an exercise. 1 squat is one rep. 2 squat is 2 reps. and so on. A set is a collection of reps. The format is Sets x Reps, for example: 3x5 means 3 sets of 5 reps. You will rest between sets, and it's typically anywhere from 1 minute all the way up to 5 minutes depending on the level of exertion/type of training you are doing. Heavier weights mean longer rest periods and vice versa.

WHERE DO I EVEN START??

For those interested in barbell training: the r/fitness beginner routine is pretty good! I also recommend 5x5 stronglifts. both are very straightforward, but also note the typical olympic barbell is 45lbs. If this is a weight you struggle with, you can begin with bodyweight exercises, dumbbells, or machines at the gym which are all very BEGINNER beginner friendly. especially when it comes to legs you're probably much stronger than you think. Most people can squat 45lbs first try. don't be afraid -- you're standing on those things all day, they can support hella weight. Like I mentioned earlier, don't be afraid to start veeeery small and work your way up from there. I started at home with doing only bodyweight squats without the barbell, then added on benching with light 7lb dumbbells after a week, then impulse signed up for a gym membership a month later and began to go there to use equipment and now i'm deadlifting over 100lbs as a tiny girl that previously was too weak to even lift a 40lb dog. it snowballs quicker than you think once you gain confidence in your own body and its abilities!

WOAH I DON'T KNOW HOW TO SQUAT/DEADLIFT/BENCH/THIS IS SCARY AND IM FUCKING UP

If you can, i highly recommend getting a personal trainer to assist you, or tag along with a gymrat pal to show you the ropes. This page is also a good resource to learn specific lifts. otherwise, youtube is your best friend. you can record your sets and compare your form to form tutorials on youtube, and actively take notes on what to change the next time you work out. Be an active learner!!! be aware of what muscles are engaged when you lift and how your body feels. almost NOBODY gets it right the first time, esp with barbells. we've all made fools out of ourselves at the gym as beginners it's chill. i find people at the gym are very nice and willing to help you out if you're struggling, and people don't judge at all-- it's very easy to get in your own head in these spaces but most humans there are supportive and want you to succeed, especially since it's a hobby they are also passionate about. the more you do it, the less anxious you get. exposure therapy is very effective!! Also, almost all the barbell exercises can be replaced with smaller dumbbells, and you can do them at home if you get your own set + a workout bench (pretty cheap if u get secondhand, check facebook marketplace/craigslist). i got mad social anxiety myself so i understand sometimes you just can't, and this is an option for those that find public spaces overwhelming.

DIET

I personally don't think specialized diets/precise macro tracking is super duper important for newbies/casuals, only moderately important (spicy take for some but whatever). but you probably naturally will take an interest in diet once you realize it'll help you perform significantly better in the gym. the only macro i track is protein. You can use a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator to roughly estimate the amount of protein you need for maximum gainz. it's usually around .7-1g of protein for every pound of lean body mass (weight that isn't fat mass). Imma be real it's pretty hard for me to hit the recommended protein goal and most days I don't because my appetite just can't kick in for the amount it demands, and protein is super filling. I found that if i decreased the amount of carbs i eat, i am able to consume more protein bc i guess there's more room in my stomach lol. i eat a fuck ton of greek yogurt, chicken, fish, and tofu. when i started working out, i begin cooking a lot more and found i naturally craved less processed junk foods and snacks because the protein was keeping me full all day which is a plus! Even when im not regularly hitting my protein goal my gym progress is still going well and I think it's simply because my diet is A LOT better than what it used to be in my gremlin days. I also eat a lot more now that i've gained a bit of muscle, so do be prepared for food costs to go up as your metabolism increases and demands more energy to upkeep your gainz.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR ME TO LOOK LIKE A MUSCLE MOMMY????

a whileeee. over a year, probably, unless if you're on anabolic steroids (dont ever do that u will quite literally die). and physique is mostly from diet since it's dependent on your body fat percentage, the saying "abs are made in the kitchen" is true. its why you see hyper skinny terminally indoors gamer dudes with abs, even if they'd snap in half if you farted in their general direction. those mfs barely eat they too busy being gamers i am no longer interested in lifting for aesthetics personally since i get more joy from hitting PRs and i'm pretty content with my body image, but ik physique is the reason why most people get into lifting so i'll touch on it. Weightlifting on its own will not make you lose weight or fat. Again, it needs to be supplemented with a healthy sustainable diet (DO NOT DO CRASH DIETS THAT SHIT IS GARBAGE) and a form of cardio. I actually gained 8lbs since I began lifting from water retention & new muscle mass (muscle is more dense than fat, your body retains water when repairing muscle after a gym sesh) but my measurements and pants size have remained the same. I'm short, so something as small as a 5lb increase usually bumped me up a pants size but it didn't this time bc im gettin swole :') if you want to track physique changes, measuring your waistline & progress pics is a better way to do so than the scale. If you want bigger muscles, look into hypertrophy training. it's a tad different from strength training, mainly because you do higher reps at a lower weight.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Traditional Chinese Translation of Homestuck Analysis-Beta Troll Typing Quirks

That's right, there's a full traditional Chinese translation of Homestuck. You can find it, along with links to other translations, here. If you want to jump to Hivebent when all the beta trolls are officially introduced so you can see this for yourself, here's a link to the first page.

But first, I'll give as succinct of a rundown of the elements of the Chinese language that are relevant as I can. The Chinese writing system doesn't have an alphabet, instead words all have unique characters. So a lot of the trolls' quirks just can't be 'transliterated', because they have something to do with spelling. Similarly, Chinese characters don't have upper or lower cases.

There are multiple ways to type Chinese on an electronic device, but the most common is using a Latin script keyboard. You type out the pinyin of a Chinese character (which is the system mostly commonly used to romanize Mandarin Chinese nowadays) and some suggestions for characters with pinyin romanizations spelled that way pop up in a little window, and then you pick the one that you want.

Chinese also has A LOT of homophones because instead of making a wider variety of noises like English, Chinese opted to differentiate words partially based on the tone they're spoken in. This is absolutely fantastic for puns and wordplay, English could never hope to be anywhere near Chinese's level in that regard. This comes into play with some of the trolls' typing quirks.

And just to clarify, sometimes I say 'Chinese' and sometimes I say 'Mandarin', that's because Mandarin is the official dialect in both mainland China and Taiwan and now the mostly widely spoken one in the world. It isn't mutually intelligible with most other Chinese dialects (this is part of why some people argue that Chinese isn't a single language but a language family). However, written Chinese can generally be understood regardless of the dialect you speak, even if people speaking in different dialects often have different ways of saying the same thing, like greetings and whatnot. When I say Chinese I mean things that broadly apply to written Chinese or the Chinese language/language family as a whole, when I say Mandarin I mean things specific to the Mandarin dialect. I think that about covers it. This post is already getting a bit long so I'll put everything else under a cut. Here's the breakdown:

Aradia: Replaces characters with the Arabic numeral for zero 0. I looked it up and apparently the Chinese character for zero also carry connotations of negation or mean things like 'nought' or 'no', which seems to fit with at least most of the instances she uses it in. Apparently this character can also have some link to death and dead spirits, which would fit given how she's a ghost at the beginning of the story.

Tavros: Uses the character 呃 a lot, which can be used like 'uh' or 'eh'. Uses 嗯 which can be used like 'hmm' or 'uh' as well, or like a general mumbling/light groaning sound, but with less frequency. Still, types haltingly, and uses commas, a lot, like in English, without any periods, Since Chinese doesn't have upper or lower cases, Tavros cANT DO THAT THING HE DOES IN ENGLISH, WHERE HE TYPES IN ALL CAPS OTHER THAN, THE FIRST LETTER OF SENTENCES, sO UNFORTUNATELY, there isn't a lot else to say here.

Sollux: Still refers to the others by their nicknames like KK and AA. He uses reduplication more often than most of the others, which is when you repeat part of a word or even a whole word for various reasons, often to stress your point. He also replaces characters that are pronounced as 'shi' in Mandarin with the Chinese character for 4, which is pronounced as 'si' and written as 四. I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be reminiscent of his lisp. EDIT: AS @autumntides reminded me, in at least Mandarin and Cantonese four is a homophone with death, and thus it carries the stigma of death and unluckiness. This fits in well with Sollux's mage of doom class and everything related to it, like Vriska mind controlling him to kill Aradia and him dying during the vast glub because he didn't make it into the game in time before Feferi revived him. I still think it's also the lisp, though.

Karkat: He doesn't type in a larger font size then the others so he doesn't really have any typing quirks, at least none I've been able to ascertain, but he's just as imaginative with his cursing. It can be pretty rough for me to parse and equally rough to translate into English in a way that doesn't sound really awkward, but one of my favorites is 'Rotten bloated corpse of God Almighty! Goddammit, what the fuck does your pockmarked think stem want?'

Nepeta: Uses onomatopoeias that equate to 'cat sounds' like meow and roar, as well as a good bit of reduplication. Still uses asterisk marks and speaks in the third person to indicate when she's role-playing.

Kanaya: Doesn't use punctuation. That's it, since she can't capitalize things like she does in English. I really wish I could say more but that's all I can see. She's still verbose, though.

Terezi: Replaces words that are homophones or near homophones with the numbers 1, 3, and 4 in Mandarin with their Arabic numerals, presumably to resemble how she types in leetspeak in English.

Vriska: Still types out characters 8 times occasionally, but rather than letters (since the Chinese writing system doesn't have an alphabet) it's the whole 'word' like 月月月月月月月月. Replaces words that are homophones (or almost homophones) with 'eight' in Mandarin with the Chinese character for 8 八. I'm pretty sure it's meant to signify that she's dragging the word out rather than repeating it, like when she does thiiiiiiiis in English.

Equius: Still uses % like X's, but he just types it and then types out the word. Again, I don't know exactly what kind of keyboard he's using, but if he's using a Latin script keyboard, he's just typing things like %xuan but when he's finished typing it looks like this %選.

Gamzee: Types out every other character in a slightly smaller font size then the default, he's the only one that changes his font size to resemble his English typing quirk. I'm guessing/hoping they have a set up where he can just as easily change font size as Latin script keyboards can change between lower and uppercase by hitting a certain button, but who knows. He uses ta ma de 他媽的 a lot, which is pretty much the Chinese equivalent of 'motherfucker/motherfucking', and cao 操, which is just 'fuck' but the verb.

Eridan: Still refers to the others by their nicknames like Fef and Kan. A lot of reduplication. A LOT of it, way more than Sollux or Nepeta even. I think this is supposed to be reminiscent of how he doubles his Vs and Ws in English rather then symbolizing true grammatical reduplication, though. It also seems to be that his specific flavor of reduplication is like Vriska's, it's meant to signify he's dragging the sound of a word out rather than repeating it. He also types ~ right after reduplication, seemingly to resemble the waves on the ocean and that he's sort of saying it in a 'wavy' manner, like how in English the comic remarks that he has a 'really weird kinda wavy sounding accent'. Honestly it's annoying to look at, and other Chinese speakers have told me the same thing when they saw how he types. Maybe that was intentional?...

Feferi: She does the same thing as Equius does with X but uses ) ( in front of words whose pinyin romanization starts with H. Uses 'gulu' in the place of 'glub' as transliteration. Replaces characters like those for 'is' 是 and 'have' 有 for characters that have that character in it but also have the character for fish 魚 like 鯷 and 鮪. Also occasionally uses ------ before characters, I think it's meant to symbolize that she's saying something excitedly.

And there you have it. This was rough and took a lot of time, but it was fun if at times deeply frustrating. I may do more of these posts comparing the Chinese translation to the original English, I'm particularly interested in the alpha trolls, but who knows. If you enjoyed this I'd greatly appreciate you sharing it :)

[evilbihan]

reading through your page. do you have any random headcanons of mk characters that aren't bi-han?? i'd love to hear them.

Thank you for sending me this ask. I won't lie, it was a difficult one to answer since Bi-Han is the only character I care about in the entire franchise. (Him being back as Sub-Zero was the only selling point of MK1 for me and his fate in the dlc is the reason why I stopped playing the game by now.) You could say, Bi-Han is MK to me.

I dislike most of the characters on the MK1 roster and I'm indifferent towards the rest of them, so I never bothered coming up with headcanons for any of them or trying to understand and analyse them on a deeper level. However, I still wanted to properly answer this ask, so here are some headcanons I came up with on the spot. I also posted a Kuai Liang headcanon a few days ago that you can read here if you want.

MK1 random headcanons:

Kitana and Mileena:

Being twin sisters, Kitana and Mileena used to often wear matching outfits when they were younger. They even wore the same hairstyle until Mileena entered her rebellious phase and shaved her hair. While Mileena's outfits became bolder, Kitana maintained a more conservative and traditional style. Sometimes it makes her sad that Mileena and her drifted apart so much, but she's still determined to support her sister wherever she can.

Li Mei:

Li Mei loves flowers, specifically lilies, but she has a soft spot for all kinds of plants. Her home in Sun Do is filled with potted plants in all shapes and sizes. Caring for them helps her unwind after a stressful day at work and she loves coming home to her own little garden too. She spends a lot of her free time there, tending to her plants or meditating.

Liu Kang:

Liu Kang is very lonely deep down. He misses his old friends, especially Kung Lao, and it pains him that he can no longer be a part of their lives in the same way he used to be before he became a god. Of course, he's happy to see his former companions thrive in the new era he created, but he can't deny that it hurts to no longer fit in. The people he once shared playful banter with look up to him for guidance now. He doesn't speak to anyone about his loneliness, only Geras knows since he became Liu Kang's best friend as well as his closest confidant over time.

Ashrah:

Ashrah adjusted to her new life as an Earthrealmer pretty quickly. She's grateful to have been offered a home and she's determined to prove worthy of it. She knows she still has much to learn, but she enjoys studying Earthrealm customs and traditions. She hopes that Earthrealm can become a home to Sareena as well, but she's also aware of how Sareena's nature as a demon still draws her to the Netherrealm. Her biggest fear is losing her last remaining sister to evil too. Despite her dedication to her search for absolution, Ashrah is unsure if she could ever bring herself to kill Sareena if it came down to it.

Sareena:

Sareena still hasn't fully forgiven Ashrah for the deaths of Kia and Jataaka. A part of her wishes the four of them were still together in the Netherrealm. She doesn't know if she will ever be able to call Earthrealm her home in the way Ashrah does and she's afraid of inevitably disappointing her sister by returning to her old ways.

Johnny:

Johnny still keeps a couple of handwritten letters to Cris that he never had the courage to send buried somewhere in one of his desk drawers. No matter how badly he misses her and how much he regrets that so much was left unsaid between them, for once in his life he doesn't want to be selfish, so he respects her decision to move on. It takes him a while to get over the divorce since he really loved Cris and although he continues to be his usual flirty and playful self, he's not sure if he's ready for a new relationship yet.

Tomas:

As a former hunter, there is a part of Tomas that enjoys the thrill of hunting and killing. To him, it's almost like a game, which is unusual for a Lin Kuei since they only fight for duty and to protect the realm. That side of Tomas is possibly owed to the Enenra and it's also the reason why Bi-Han is wary of him and doesn't consider him a true Lin Kuei.

Kenshi:

While he wouldn't necessarily call himself a sports fan, Kenshi has developed somewhat of a fondness for football since he became friends with Jax. Whenever Jax goes to watch a football game, Kenshi is happy to tag along. He enjoys the stadium atmosphere and finds it interesting to listen to his friend ramble about the teams and their strategies.

I hope you like these! I did my best, but you can tell I'm awful at writing anything non-Bi-Han related. Regardless, this was fun to write.

[luvrbug]

Hello Harley, I can officially say I fell in love with your writing… I was wondering if I could make a request 👉👈

Basically Law, Kidd, Smoker, and Law with an S/O who’s a menace to society. I’m talking full on crackhead energy. If that’s okay

this is SUCH a good combo for all of them... im so excited to write this !! also, for some reason, my dividers look REALLY janky on mobile, so i had to shorten them a little ...

«────────«⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅»────────

Kidd

THE BEST DUO . EVER !!!!!!!! Kidd likes to FUCK SHIT UP ! and when his partner is just as destructive and wild as he is ???? its a match made in hell heaven.

Burning navy bases for fun, roasting marshmallows with the fires of a burning town... normal, cute date stuff, y'know!

Kidd loves to have someone to match his energy. Sure, someone to calm him down would work too- but someone who is actually on his level??? It sparks his competitive nature.

Little competitions spark over "who can punt a navy soldier farther" "who can get the BEST gift for [holiday]" keep things livley.

Killer ... has his hands full, to say the least.

Law + Smoker are under the cut!

Law

please.. dont give Law something else to stress about. Please. Poor guy has ANOTHER luffy on his hands???? He won't survive.

Jokes aside, Its good Law has someone to balance out his Serious, calculated nature. Everyone needs to let loose!!

Some conflict may arise because he thinks you're being TOO careless. He's a mother hen when it comes to the people he loves and no matter how powerful you are he's still going to worry about you :[.

Law just wants you to be safe. He couldn't live with himself if another person he put his entire heart and soul into dies.

Smoker

In a SBS Oda talks about Smoker being .. a really wild kid/recruit that didn't listen, almost got discharged multiple times, etc. So the life of constantly throwing yourself into dangerous situations with zero regard for anything isn't exactly new to him.

He won't indulge you, but won't explicitly tell you "no" if you want to go and do something chaotic and destructive. He tries to keep you out of TOO much trouble, but you play by your own rules.

If youre a pirate, Smoker probably knew + loved you in his younger days. Maybe some mid-battle flirting and star-crossed lovers moments that cause some conflict... But i definitely see him having an easier time with a fellow captian/etc thats just.... a little more destructive than average.

Tashigi is not pleased when she has to keep two navy captians from completely wrecking a town.

[dumvixerum]

Just finished watching the deleted scene, and I thought about smth

Why don't Alice get mad and throw a tantrum ? She's a little girl, constantly stressing about not dying and stuff, and she's just standing there, saying "I'm cold Kara" repeatedly and overall being just a little doll you need to take care of. Girl, kids ugly cry for no reason, why wouldn't she ? She could scream at Ralph, scream at Kara, scream at Zlatko, scream at Luther, but she's just there.

That would've made a huge difference in the scenarios, and possibly the most heartbreaking scenes. I mean, picture this : Kara and Luther are shot, and Alice starts screaming, sobbing, shouting pleads or straight up cursing the killer(s) with hiccups in her voice, just to get cut off by a bullet in the head. Reminds me of Gavroche's death smh.

But honestly, I don't even know how they would have a little girl play that. It's really hard to get a child to pretend strong emotions like that, and that's probably why Alice isn't a very developed character. But I'm SURE they could've done it. With a good kick in the ass, I'm sure this would've been a piece of cake for the animators.

Bc when Alice dies, you're sorry for Kara. Not for Alice. That's the problem, we're given zero attachment to her, not the slightest thing that could make her a good, emotional character. Like, give us a reason to not kill Kara immediately other than Kara herself.

Luther too, he's just the big fella that wants to protect his found family. Give us angst material Cage, make Luther have impostor syndrome about Kara and Alice's trust, make him more than a big guy with a so-called "big heart". Cause I don't see any "big heart", just an emergency solution.

And let Kara be angry god damnit. I wanna see the rage to live, the rage to protect. Here I got nothing but empty levels, except the first ones. In them, Kara and Alice can't really be angry, they're just lost. But, like, let them blow up at Zlatko's level, and after. Adam's being a little teen asshole, be agressive ?? He's literally treating y'all's right to live like shit and you're just there, feeling sorry for yourself ? Bruh