#this could totally be my new About Me page LOL there's so much info about me

[thetangibleghost]

I gotta confess it is so much more fun talking to Sal as if he is a separate person like he wants and not a member of the system. He's super creative like. Its just fun.

[charonarp]

Here's a little sneak peak on what to expect on the page talking about the Tu'la region!

(Aka, basically most of the information out of what's likely going to be 2-paged section since there's not a lotta info on Tu'la lol)

Totally not sharing this because I made art I'm proud off .>. (Edit: I just realized there's some information I forgot to put into this, so the final version will have a few more words :p It's just the characteristics on cursed Meif'was - aka people who were cursed into being Meif'was)

I've said it before (somewhere), and I'll say it again. I want this pdf to be as beginner friendly as possible, whether it be for both new players and new DMs.

I won't be adding detailed stuff from specific sources, or be blatantly taking things from copyrighted material and directly placing them in here (I think the closest thing that might be iffy is stuff I've taken from Daggerheart that's intended to help players and DMs create custom societies/communities, but hopefully it's okay since I'm only taking the name and basic descriptions they give rather than the entire card). - This feature can also be applied to existing regions to flesh them out if you want to take things into your own hands and explore regions that have not been explored yet in MCD/DR.

Now, if you read it, I'm sure some people might be a bit upset that there's no homebrewed Meif'wa race made from scratch. Here's the thing...there's a lot or races in D&D 5e (2014), and there's even a "Lineage" rage from Tasha's, which essentially allows you to make your own race.

And to be honest...not much is known about the characteristics of Meif'was outside of them looking and occasionally acting like cats? Besides that, I couldn't really find anything that could help them stand out as their own race.

So, instead of making it a whole thing... I've instead put down a suggestion that, since the players are the creators of their characters, that they should be able to use any race (within reason) to define their character's appearance and function. This will also be applied to the Lu'pine/werewolf race, in some degree.

Personally, I'm someone who tends to view races, or "species" as they're now called since the 2024 version, as a guideline. Simply put, if I want my character to look a little strange or have a unique feature from the norm, I'll take a race that suits it best and change it up.

Take Tieflings for example. Tieflings are depicted to be devil/demon-like, but in most cases, even in D&D's Forgotten Realms, demons and devils can look like a lot of things, and there's even some anthropomorphic entities that are classified as demons/devils. What's stopping you from playing a fox-like character with an infernal heritage? Or someone who looks like a basic human but with infernal traits?

There's also the Owlin race, which is depicted to being an anthropomorphic owl that can be medium or small sized. I'm someone who likes to draw human faces, so what's stopping me from playing a human-looking guy with large bird-like wings?

I want this PDF to encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. I've played with many players and GMs who are way too stiff with their creativity, mainly when it comes to character creation.

Sure, a human is meant to be generic, but what's stopping you from making them be more doll-like thematically? You're not changing the way they function, but you are changing the way they appear and behave. Systematically, this way of creativity is harmless.

There are subraces of all kinds, and all of them can't be covered entirely in official content. Another reason I'm not adding homebrew races or classes into this is not just because of balancing reasons, but because some DMs might not be open to homebrew, or some players might get nervous or uncomfortable with homebrew creations (like I am).

I do plan on making a page that'll be a kind of guide on how to "mix and match" certain things, though mainly in the terms of backgrounds. Did you know that, apparently, you can change your background feature to whatever feature you want if you're not happy with it? I DIDN'T UNTIL EARLIER THIS WEEK!

I'm also adding a few examples of homebrewed rules some games tend to have, since I'm sure some (or most) members of this community are not experienced in D&D 5e on a personal level. (Examples are bonus action healing potion, secret death saves, etc. I will be throwing in a personal rule I made for my games as an option.)

Anyways, enough of me rambling. Here's a closer shot of the Meif'wa guy I made! Was gonna make three to show range, but I got tired and I ended up liking him a lot -w- No name for him though... But I might just keep it that way for fun lol

Hydrate!

[actualaster]

Okay, I got curious about how the "lloyd shipping dynamics" pie chart got broken down since I knew there were more Lloyd ships than just those in that specific chart, so I decided to check it out for myself. Wondered if maybe they didn't have any fic on AO3, or if there was some other reason to exclude them (plenty of reasons for that depending on the type of data you wanna look at--like if you only look at pairs not trios, or if you only want to know about ships that have more that one fic and such)

I did try to do a pie chart but no matter what I did, some fics just... Never were displayed because it could only display so many entries (especially when they were tiny %) that the smallest slices just.. Got excluded. I tried.

I was also curious how it would break down if you took into account the fact that ship tags are not mutually exclusive and thus fics can have multiple ship tags on them. Why are there two sets of numbers here? The first is "the % calculated comparing the ships to the fics. The second is pure ships. Basically first being "this is what % of the fics are tagged with these ships" the second is "this is what % of the total ships each one makes up".

Anyway, the data and some extra details about what data was collected and how and such below the cut.

Basic takeaways: Colloyd, Zelloyd, and Kralloyd are the Top 3, but Lloyd gets shipped around a bit, with 10 different canonical character's he's shipped with (either via a single pairing or as part of a trio) and several OC ship fics. Popular guy!

First breakdown, what % of the surveyed fics are tagged with each ship?

Colette: 55.30%

Zelos: 33.06%

Kratos: 6.03%

Sheena: 2.08%

Genis: 1.66%

Colette/Lloyd/Zelos: 1.66%

Yuan: 0.83%

Kvar: 0.62%

OC: 0.62%

Colette/Lloyd/Genis: 0.42%

Lloyd/Sheena/Zelos: 0.42%

Genis/Lloyd/Mithos: 0.21%

Kratos/Lloyd/Yuan: 0.21%

Lilia: 0.21%

Lloyd/OC/Sheena: 0.21%

Lloyd/OC/Zelos: 0.21%

Presea: 0.21%

Second breakdown, what % of the total ships does each one represent?

Colette: 53.2%

Zelos: 31.8%

Kratos: 5.8%

Sheena: 2.0%

Genis: 1.6%

Colette/Lloyd/Zelos: 1.6%

Yuan: 0.8%

Kvar: 0.6%

OC: 0.62%

Colette/Lloyd/Genis: 0.4%

Lloyd/Sheena/Zelos: 0.4%

Genis/Lloyd/Mithos: 0.22%

Kratos/Lloyd/Yuan: 0.2%

Lilia: 0.2%

Lloyd/OC/Sheena: 0.2%

Lloyd/OC/Zelos: 0.2%

Presea: 0.2%

I'd be curios how this would change if I included data from sites like FFN, honestly. Or even if I could find some old archives with ToS fic, or maybe DA, or possibly even Wattpad? Mostly because I wonder how many ships I'd find that didn't make it to AO3 (there's at least one lloyd/mithos fic on FFN, for example). However the sheer amount of work that would be to compile the data across multiple sites and try to correct for cross-posting gives me a headache just thinking about so. Lol nope, not happening.

Moving on to info about the data collection, and such...

First up, some base info on the data gathered:

481 fics total, 500 tagged ships total.

All from AO3

Data taken as of March 10th, 2023. Uh... Let's say 7am, -6GMT.

Data was gathered manually by going through AO3's entire 1,461 and manually tallying things up. (Including repeated checks to make sure no new or updated fic posting messed with stuff)

By this I mean "I had a sheet of paper and color-coded the tally marks as I went so I could check every 10 pages that I was getting everything I wanted to include and my math was adding up

(...I still have the feeling I overlooked a few but at this point I've spent way too much time on this already for an informal survey so.)

Counting by hand ensured that I didn't overlook ships for not thinking about them (Kvar/Lloyd, a few of the trio combinations).

(Fun story: I discovered that the Lloyd/Lilia tag, if you click on it, points to the Lloyd/OC tag which is incorrect. For those who don't know, Lilia is a canonical minor character from Dawn of the New World, the sequel game. In DotNW it's revealed that Lloyd proposed to her. It makes some sense in context but yes it's still weird, and yes the fandom had an understandable fuss about it at the time. Also, yes people are still annoyed by it.)

ANYWAY. Moving on from that... For a fic to be included, it needed to meet the following two criteria

Ship must be tagged in the relationships field. So adding a ship in the additional tags field would not get it counted.

Ship was a romantic and/or sexual pairing.

Some additional notes on that:

Ship was marked as implied, mentioned, or any other indication it was not a major focus but was still tagged in the relationship field: included

Ship was indicated as one-sided: included

Ship included a ship event (e.g. a ship week) but did not include a ship tag in the relationship field: excluded

Additional tags made it ambiguous if the author intended for a fic to be considered romantic, sexual, familial, and/or platonic: excluded

Furthermore, no fic was excluded due to content--so you have the fluff-fests and the fucked up darkfic all included in the above data.

Honestly if I were to do something like this again I did learn several things that would make it go smoother, but at this point I have spent over 30 hours over the last... IDK, 2.5 days or so? on what started as idle curiosity because my brain got locked into an obsession spiral and refused to let me drop it so I'm not going to go through and try to do this again anytime soon. At least not unless it's for a fandom with a hell of a lot less fic lol.

Anyway, based on my own data stuff I assume that OP of the pie chart actually used ships for their sample size, not fics because that was the only way I was able to get close to reproducing their results when looking at those ships only? Not something that matters much in this case, however--they did their math based on ships and it all checked out so.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

just saw the dead city trailer and ran here. What do you think about the time jump there with older Hershel playing into everyone reuniting with the CRM? Ready for your FTWD analysis too. also just realized FTWD will probably coincide with dead city. Going into the new phase with low expectations and hopefully a good outcome🤞🏻

Yeah, I saw them. Super exciting! The thing is, I don't think Hershel will actually be significantly older. I seem to remember them talking about a very small time jump, like maybe a few months, but I don't think it will be more than that. The actor who plays Hershel does look older, but that's just because kids age so quickly on film. It's been 2 years since this young man first portrayed Hershel, so of course he'll look older. That doesn't mean he is in the show.

Cailey Fleming, who plays Judith on the show, is kind of an exception here. She's a 14-year-old who still looks like she's ten, lol. But that's not true of most kids. So, I wouldn't worry overly much about there being a time jump.

As for other observations about the two new trailers, here is what I sent my fellow theorists:

@twdmusicboxmystery:

A few things that immediately jumped out at me.

Maggie says someone is “the key” to getting Hershel back. We’re meant to believe she’s talking to Negan, and she may be. But we know they can sometimes splice together trailers in a way that can be misleading. But this is a theme we saw heavily in S4 and S5, including around Grady.

The storyline they lay out for Fear, brief tho it may be, feels like a template for the CRM. People raising an army to challenge a larger organization.

June looks exactly like Leah in this picture:

Any insight into who the guy in the wanted poster is? It COULD be Rick. Doesn’t look like him in particular, but closer to him than to Beth, lol.

I got IMDb to try and confirm weather or not they’re using the same actor for Hershel. I think they are, but none of the spin-offs are listed anywhere on IMDb yet. Not Dead City and not Daryl Dixon. Which is a little strange since fans can edit the pages. It’s odd that no one has added them.

I almost feel like maybe they’re purposefully being kept off the pages for now. Though I don’t know why they would do that.

@galadrieljones:

That is weird about IMDb. I agree it makes it seem like they don’t want the info out there. It’s strange like the spin offs still don’t seem real? Esp the Daryl one.

@wdway:

You asked who we thought was in the wanted poster. I think it is Negan.

I've been thinking about some of the scenes that we've seen in the past seasons that implied that Negan might know something about the CRM but maybe not realize that's who it is and I think that Negan might be smart enough not to question certain things to closely.

When Jadis held him at the junkyard she called the CRM helicopter which he saw. Nothing was ever explained about how he just totally ignored that. At the satellite station they had a room where they were growing pot I wonder if he was growing pot to sell to some group connected to the CMR in exchange for other medical supplies like insulin that we saw with Tina, Sherry and Dwight had stolen when they left the sanctuary.

In Here's Negan there was a lot of open questions about the cancer medicine he got from the doctor in the RV. It just seem to me there are a lot of questions that were put out and then skipped over.

@twdmusicboxmystery:

Great points! I hadn't thought of that. 👍

So, these are our initial thoughts about the two trailers. What does everyone else think?

[1d1195]

sam you are the sweetest person in the world actually, thank you so much🫶

STEAL MY GIRL MUSIC VIDEO IS SUCH A NICHE THING I FEEL LIKE ITS ALMOST AN INSIDE JOKE it’s sooooo funny every time i watch it i’m just laughing SO REAL WITH LOUIS AND THE CHIMP i remember watching it for the first time and seeing harry in the fucking trench coat and genuinely getting worried like “hmmm it’s too hot for that, hope he’s okay😕” BABHSHAHAHAHAHA zayn and the sumo wrestlers ALWAYS gets me

IM ACTUALLY LAUGHING SOOOO HARD AT THE "SAMANTHA -🎶" YOU GET ME😭😭 i think i read all dolcezza like the same week you posted the last part, and it’s a good thing i did cause ooooo girl….😮‍💨😮‍💨you woulda drove me crazy

I THINK I SAID THIS ONCE BUT IM NOT SURE AND IF I DID IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO BUTTTT THE SERIES THAT BROUGHT ME TO YOUR PAGE WAS ACTUALLY MADE TO BE🥹🥹🥹🥹 and i came from PART 1 !!!!! (ironic considering my aversion to waiting lol) i tuned in every week to read the new part and back then you were updating on sundays and i stg i would get soooo giddy (i was in SHAMBLESSS between chapters having to wait a week😭) and yea…after that series ive been stuck here like a leech LMAO

on the topic of waiting on chapters i started traditional like right after you’d posted the second to last chapter and O.M.G. AHAHAHAH ITS SO FUNNY LOOKING BACK BUT I WAS ACTUALLY GLUEDDD TO MY PHONE👀👀 WAITING FOR THE NEXT PART CAUSE THEY HAD GOT IN THAT FIGHT AND I WAS SOOO HOOKED and then i woke up one morning and it was out, guess how i spent my breakfast & coffee time😭

i’m just rambling at this point BUT YES !!! YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW APPRECIATED YOU ARE !!! i remember back then i wasn’t doing the best and lots of things were changing but i always looked forward to reading the newest chapter. i read in one of your recent asks about how you decide what you write based on engagement (which makes total sense) but you feel like you get a lot of non-interacting readers. this is true and it really sucks but i guess it’s the reality of posting on a website like this. however, i will gladly take the time to say what they won’t and AHHHH SAM YOURE AN AMAZING WRITER I LOVE YOU THANK YOU FOR FEEDING US YOU MATTER SOOOO MUCH MORE THAN YOU KNOW 💕💕💕💕💘💘💘💘💘💝💝💝💝💝💖💖💖💖💖💖💗💗💗💗💗💗

i cried while finished “Love & Other Words” 😪omg i didn’t see that coming but it was SOOOO. GOOD. like….i sat and stared at the book with a small smile after i finished it kind of good. i will DEF been rereading that I LOVE THEM😭😭 THAT SCENE WHERE HE SAID “I’ll take anything you give me. Is that pathetic?” I SCREAMED they’re so precious and i looooveddd the way it was written!!! i just sped through it and i love when books feel like that

it has also been storming here, like so bad the electricity went out a few weeks ago and if u go out when it’s sunny you will melt. not a fan of summer right now🙄 SO happy to hear you’re feeling more relaxed, hopefully that stays till at least the end of summer. pasta is yummy !! i like my pasta dishes w a lotttttaaaa cheese :)) ive been boring too, dw. just a lotta reading on my end cause i am notttt in the mood to talk to anyone lately, vry antisocial (i also started my period last night ??? maybe that why lmfao😭)

sorry for this behemoth of an ask, thank you for chatting HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT DAY LOVE YOU <33333333

~🎶

I DREAM about Harry in that trench coat. A fashion icon. I love him so much in that (and everything). I totally forgot all about the sumo wrestler piece of it I was so focused on the chimp and Louis. Louis' smile in that is my FAVORITE thing in the world. It was SO pure.

hehehehehe well, I'm happy to report that Part II of Most will be up tomorrow afternoon. She's longer than I thought I could do but here we are. After writing it, I think Part 1 and Part 2 would be a good read. I don't think it will drive you crazy the way Dolcezza would have drove you crazy.

OMG. I apologize if you DID say it, but I feel like this is new information to me. I'm so so sorry if I forgot. BUT STILL. I haven't thought about Made to Be in a REALLY long time 😭 I loved it for so long after I finished writing it. It was a huge part of my life. You've been here for a while, that's so cute and nice to hear 💕 I'm so glad you liked it

You are so so sweet. I am so grateful for you compliments.

IS THAT PATHETIC made me want to SCREAM too. I love Elliot so goddamn much I could CRY. He is my ideal man. My new story is Love & Other Words coded for sure 🙈 I didn't mean for it to happen but then I think I told you I got it back from letting my sister borrow it and I couldn't stop rereading the whole "I'm pathetic part" like OMG I'm 😭😭 so distraught about it STILL. Everything about that book is perfect.

I am summer's least favorite fan. The heat makes me so sticky and gross feeling. Also, I don't look good in summer clothes (or I feel gross about myself, whatever) ANYWAY. I love a good antisocial mood tbh. I feel so obligated to be on and around everyone all the time. And what's worse is I let myself be available. I JUST started getting better at not checking my work email outside of work hours. My sister and mom need me LITERALLY all the time. My bf and I are home at the same time so I just never get a MINUTE to myself. I have to like hide in my own apartment to get any alone time. So yeah. I can't get my brain to shut off lately to read but I've been doing some hard work on the writing here so I'm hoping that will help--also been doing a GREAT job binging TV. I think I just want to keep reading romance stuff and not all the like "interesting" books I've bought and haven't read 😭 It's the only way I'm going to get through this bookshelf of mine 😂

I love the chatting and the long asks so no need to apologize or thank me. I hope you have a fantastic Monday! LOVE YOU SO MUCH 💕

xoxo

[choicesficwriterscreations]

CFWC Writer of the Month: missameliep

Each month CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers, and this month’s writer of the month is @missameliep ​! We hope you will enjoy learning more about her and her work below! The writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Quick Links: 

Tumblr blog: missameliep Tumblr Masterlist

1- When did you start playing Choices? What's the first book you played? 

I started playing Choices sometime around 2017. While playing another game on my phone, I got curious after seeing some strangely funny adds about the app. I remember that the first time I logged into the game it asked me the kind of story I wished to play and I think the first book it suggested was Rules of Engagement. So, I guess that was the first one… but I remember the first ones I really enjoyed playing were the LoveHacks series and HSS.

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

For a while I had read fanfics on AO3 and then found out about Tumblr, I created my own account in October 2018 with the intention of reading fanfics. So, I officially joined the Choices fandom on Tumblr around October or November 2018, after spending a few times only reading fanfics, getting to know how Tumblr worked and following some of my favorite writers at the time and reading news and theories about the books, until I eventually posted my own fanfics and started interacting more with others fans and creators.

3- How did you pick your url name? 

My url name was inspired by one of my favorites movie characters: Amelie Poulain. 

4- Go back to your archive and tell us about the first post on your Choices blog. 

It was something totally unrelated to Choices lol I was still getting used to Tumblr and the first post was probably something about cats or a meme I think… (Tumblr app won't let me see my archive)

5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?

I started in late 2018. I had recently found out about fanfiction during many sleepless nights nursing my baby daughter and read a ton of fics from another fandom… and since I had stopped writing content for my best friend's maternity blog but was still excited about writing, the idea of writing one story of mine sounded appealing, and still does. Four years later, and I'm still here, even if real life has left me little time to write fanfic this past year ☺️

6- What is your favorite Choices book to write about?

My favorite book to write is definitely Desire & Decorum, though I enjoy writing for Blades and Wake the Dead too.

7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it or would you change anything about it? The first chapter of my series, The Pursuit of Happiness - was the first fanfic I ever wrote. I still like it and am proud of it. Of course, as a perfectionist, there are a ton of things I'd change (and I have fidgetted with it many times since it was originally posted, lol), but I like to think that as my first attempt at writing a fictional story after too many years of only writing academic and professional texts it was a good start and I'm happy I overcame my fears and posted and allowed people to read it even if it was not perfect. When I read those initial chapters now, I can see how much I have learned and developed my craft, and I'm happy about this. Besides, this first chapter was an opportunity to get in touch with other Desire & Decorum fans, and it was an amazing experience with how supportive and kind people can be in this fandom ❤️

8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

OMG! Asking me to pick one is like asking a mother to pick a favorite child lol I can't, so I'm cheating and picking two - one for each of my favorite books: Run to You, a Desire & Decorum one shot and Heart in a Cage, a Blades one shot.

9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be but could use a little more love?

Definitely, Like Poetry, this Blades one-shot is so out of my style and different from everything else I've posted on Tumblr. It has a lot of angst and deals with the dilemmas of a relationship between a human and an elf, and mortality is the main subject, and I have experienced a different kind of narrative, but the readers really enjoyed it, and I was happy I posted it. 

Well, I can't complain. I have a small blog and mostly write for a pairing that is not the most popular in the fandom; despite those facts, I have received so much support and love from readers, but if I could pick one fic that I'd like to receive more love would be the miniseries Is This Love? , because it was special to create a backstory for my Desire & Decorum MC Elizabeth before she became Lady Elizabeth and heiress of Edgewater, and address some subjects I really wanted to deal with but were mostly hinted at in The Pursuit of Happiness, and writing the relationship between Elizabeth and her mother Mary and the friendship with Briar was truly special to me. 

10- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

Fluff. No question. I love writing romantic tropes and happy endings, so fluff it is l, especially to my OTP Elizabeth and Hamid ☺️

11- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

My MCs are not versions of myself, but I do recognize some traits and aspects of myself, specially in my Desire & Decorum OC Elizabeth Foredale, like myself, she's Brazilian, and sometimes there are references like in her speech pattern in informal situations and the use of slang or calling even the LI "dude" that are very me. There are some subjects and options, like Elizabeth being a law student, that echo my life and experience… 

12- What element of writing do you struggle with most?

It usually depends. But since English is not my first language, sometimes I struggle with descriptions and finding suitable vocabulary and metaphor and creating sentences with a structure that makes sense in English, and since my references are in another language some of my cultural references have no translation or make no sense outside my country. Also I tend to be too wordy and sometimes it's hard to keep the pace flowing as it should, and it takes some time and work during editing to correct that.

13- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

Yes, I do have a lot of stories in my drafts and a long list of WIPs that I wish to finish, and alas, I had the time and motivation to finish them all. I will list three in particular that I have posted in the first chapter and are on my priority list to finish: Bonds of Sea and Fire, I love writing for Tyril and Arwen (f!elf!MC), and I have lots of drafts, but never found time and inspiration to continue the series; Love Thy Neighbour, it's an AU where Elizabeth and Hamid are neighbours at London, and it's a fluff story about destiny and falling in love when you least expect; and Desire & Decorum & Zombies, it's a gothic supernatural AU where zombies are real, and the MC, who is the heiress to Edgewater has to struggle to fit in this new world of nobility, uncover mysteries and literally fight for her life. Three are very different stories, but all have a place in my heart.

14- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first? 

I don't know!! Maybe depending on who this person would be. 🫣 I am very self-conscious about my writing, and only my husband knows that I write fanfic and has read a few of my works… but if it was someone I trusted and was unfamiliar with Choices, I would recommend Like Poetry or the miniseries Safe, because not knowing the characters wouldn't be an obstacle and I'm proud of my writing in those stories.

15 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing? I think everything I've read in my life has made an impact on my writing, even if it taught me what or how I didn't want to write and tell my stories. I've read many Brazilian writers, and I love Machado de Assis and his sense of humor, and I know I've incorporated elements of his style into mine, especially when writing historical fics like my Desire & Decorum series; and there are so many other published authors like Jane Austen and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who also influenced my storytelling. As for fanfic writers, there are definitely some who influenced me. In the Choices fandom, @lorirwritesfanfic was a huge influence. Her Desire and Decorum AU was the inspiration for my series Second Chances, without reading her fics I don't think I would have ventured into creating my own contemporary days AU; another inspiration was @/pixieferry. Her style was amazing and poetic and filled with references unfortunately, she's no longer active in the fandom, but I still think about her fics.

16- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

Second Chances! I can totally see it as a rom-com or a series, and I have my dream cast for it ❤️ 

17- Do you write original stories? 

I write original stories. I have written a couple of things when I was a teen, mostly short stories, and have in my drafts two stories I'd like to turn into novels that I started writing during the pandemics and world building for those truly excite me. 

18 -  What other hobbies do you have?

I'm an amateur photographer, but I haven't really dedicated myself to this for a while for lack of time, and I like drawing and doing all sorts of craft work with my daughter. 

19 - What’s your favorite emoji? 

This face ☺️ - I use it a lot! 

20: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).

Writing fanfic has been a nice hobby and means to improve my skills, which is something great for anybody that would like to someday be a published author. But most importantly, I think are the people I got to befriend in the Choices fandom and how much I've learned along the way (which has been so much more than I thought I would gain from playing this silly game when I first started ☺️); each comment has meant so much either to help me improve or to encourage me to keep on writing. So, I just wanted to thank each and every one of you who has read my fics and taken a moment from your time to give me feedback, and my lovely friends who have beta read my fics and cheered me on when writer's block or imposter syndrome was in the way of writing, @princess-geek, @lorirwriesfanfic, and @noesapphic, you guys are amazing and have my gratitude ❤️

[7teentexts]

(K-Pop) Tag(s)

I got tagged in three tags by some of my mutuals and I wanted to do them because I found it cute that they want to know more about me even if I don’t really talk to two of them ♥ I don’t wanna bother anyone with this because it’s going to probably be a long post (i’m going to do the three tags here in this post) so I’m gonna put a ‘Read More’ button! If you can’t see it on mobile for some reason, open it on your browser! Now let’s get into it~

5  T H I N G S   T A G  

tagged by @sunnysidewrites​ (my girl who i have recommended like 2893847283 times but it’s never enough. everyone check out her blog and love her and support her because she’s amazing. :>)

5 Things…

in my bag

my phone

earphones

tissues

nothing else LOL my bag is small and i don’t really need anything else

in my bedroom

a keyboard

lots of plushies(?)

a few posters on the door of the closet :>

a fan

idk, my laptop? i never use it outside of my bedroom :,)

I’ve always wanted to do

i really want to have a pet </3

go on vacation with friends, that’d be so much fun

go to a concert

dye my hair, even if it’s just some strands

try food and candy from different countries

make me happy

my friends

music

pETS AND I WANT ONE :,) I GOT SO MUCH LOVE TO GIVE AND I’D TAKE CARE OF IT WITH MY LIFE

when things go well for me (like, for example, i want to get a good grade in a test, and i get it.)

my family, but mostly my mom

currently into

i started a bullet journal, does that count? i wasn’t interested in those things before

kpop. In October it’ll be 1 year since I became a kpop fan♥

I recently started listening to Nu’est and i really love them :>

dancing! I like dancing and learning choreographies but I started loving it even more after becoming a kpop fan

i used to dislike white chocolate + raspberry ice-cream. now i love it so much. does that count. (?)

on my to do list

finish my request

study more this school year

going to the us

GOING TO A KPOP CONCERT. I WANT IT. >:,^(

getting my health better :>

K P O P  T A G

Tagged by @shuaberry, thank you!! ♥

Rules: answer the questions and tag 10 people (i’m not going to tag anyone lmao) 

FIRST: FIRST GROUP YOU LISTENED TO: BTS FIRST SOLO ARTIST YOU LISTENED TO: I don’t remember :^) FIRST GROUP WHOS NAME YOU KNEW: BTS FIRST BIAS EVER: Suga from BTS FIRST SONG THAT MADE YOU EMOTIONAL: I don’t remember :^)

TOP 3: TOP 3 FAVORITE MALE GROUPS: SEVENTEEN, NU’EST, GOT7 TOP 3 FAVORITE FEMALE GROUPS: :> idk, i don’t really listen to girl groups so i don’t have favorites (dON’T KILL ME) TOP 3 SOLO ARTIST: I only listen to Samuel LOL (i’M SORRY)

TOP 3 CHOREOGRAPHY:

This is always changing so I’m going to choose three that I really like rn

Crazy in Love by Seventeen (every choreography by seventeen is the best for me :>)

Hello by Nu’est (i really like this one step towards the end where ren is at the center- yOU KNOW WHICH ONE I MEAN. IT’S COOL. also face’s choreography is good too)

Hey mama by Exo CBX (i’ve been listening to this song a lot lately LOL)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: TOP 3 BIASES: The8 (every seventeen member tbh :,) ), Joshua (he’s more of a bias wrecker but I love him so so so so much(?)), Ren and JR (i kNOW. THEY’RE FOUR PEOPLE BUT IDC I CAN’T EXCLUDE ANYONE) TOP 3 FANDOMS: Carat, Love and Igot7 i guess TOP 3 FAVORITE SONGS OF ALL TIME: I don’t really have a favorite aaaaaaaaa :,)

ULTIMATES:

ULTIMATE MALE BIAS: The8

ULTIMATE FEMALE BIAS: none, sorry(??) i wISH REN DRESSED AS A WOMAN COUNTED BECAUSE THEN YASS THAT’S MY BIAS- MINJI FOR THE WIN(¿???)

L E T’ S  B O L D  I T

I was tagged by @jamlesswritings​, thank you!! ♥♥

APPEARANCE:

I am 5’7’’ or taller

I wear glasses

I have at least one tattoo

I have at least one piercing

I have blonde hair

I have brown eyes

I have short hair

My abs are at least somewhat defined

I have or had braces

There is something I would change about the way I look

PERSONALITY:

My Hogwarts House is: Gryffindor / Hufflepuff / Ravenclaw / Slytherin (sorry i know nothing about Harry Potter :,) ) 

I am an introvert

I like meeting new people (i’m socially awkward so :,) it’s very hard)

People tell me I’m funny

Helping others with their problems is a big priority for me (it’s not a priority to me. but i do it because i wanna :/)

I enjoy physical challenges

I enjoy mental challenges

I’m playfully rude to people I’m close to 

I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it

There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY:

I can sing (i’m not that good tho)

I can play an instrument (i’m learning to play the piano but i can’t play it yet)

I can do over 30 pushups without stopping

I’m a fast runner

I can draw well

I have a good memory (i have the worst memory ever, you wouldn’t believe)

I’m good at doing math in my head

I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute (idk but i don’t wanna try)

I have beaten at least two people in arm wrestling

I know how to cook three meals from scratch

I know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES:

I enjoy playing sports (swimming and basketball)

I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else (i used to be in a basketball team when i was little, not anymore)

I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else (there’s a choir at my school but i don’t want to join)

I have learned a new song in the past week (lyrics i guess, since i just sing(?))

I work out at least once a week

I’ve gone for runs at least once a week in the warmer months (i don’t really understand this one, sorry :,) )

I have drawn something in the past month

I enjoy writing

Fandoms are my number one priority

I do or have done martial arts

EXPERIENCES:

I have had my first kiss

I have had alcohol 

I have scored the winning goal in a game

I have watched an entire season of a tv show in one sitting

I have been at an overnight event

I have been in a taxi

I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year

I have beaten a video game in one day

I have visited another country

I have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts 

RELATIONSHIP:

I’m in a relationship

I have a celebrity crush

I have a crush on someone I know

I have been in at least three relationships

I have asked someone out or admitted my feelings for them

I get crushes easily

I have had a crush on someone for over a year

I have been in a relationship for over a year

I have had feelings for a friend

MY LIFE:

I have at least one person I consider a best friend

I live close to my school

My parents are still together

I have at least one sibling

I live in the United States  

There is snow right now where I live

I have hung out with a friend from school in the past month

I have a smartphone

I have at least 15 CDs

I share my room with someone

RANDOM:

I have break danced

I know a person named Jamie

I have had a teacher with a last name that is hard to pronounce (not a last name, but one p.e teacher i had used this weird and hard nickname LOL)

I have dyed my hair

I’m listening to one song/album on repeat right now 

I have punched someone in the past week

I know someone who has gone to jail

I have broken a bone

I have eaten a waffle today (i wish)

I know what I want to do with my life

I speak at least 2 languages fluently 

I have made a friend in the past year

30  Q U E S T I O N   T A G! 🌼

🌼 Nicknames: Berry

🌼 Gender: Female

🌼 Star sign: Cancer

🌼 Height: 165cm

🌼 Time: 5:15pm (it’ll be later by the time I post this LOL i’m so slow)

🌼 Birthday: July 4th

🌼 Favourite bands: SEVENTEEN is my only favorite band even though I really like many other groups.

🌼 Favourite solo artists: Samuel

🌼 Song stuck in my head: If you from NU’EST

🌼 Last movie I watched: Demain Tout Commence (i aLMOST CRIED WATCHING IT it made me emotional)

🌼 When did I create my blog: Mmmm March 3rd? March 5th? I don’t remember :>

🌼 What do I post: Fake texts and bullet-point scenarios for Seventeen :>

🌼 Last thing I googled: wordreference (i’m using that dictionary almost all the time LOL)

🌼 Do I have any other blogs: Nope

🌼 Do you get asks: Yep

🌼 Why did you choose the blog name: Because I make Seventeen fake texts. :,)

🌼 Following: 113 blogs

🌼 Followers: 857. Thank everyone so much!! I don’t know what to do if I ever reach 1k :,)

🌼 Favourite colours: Fuchsia and turquoise (tho i love every color except green, gray and sometimes brown)

🌼 Average hours of sleep : I don’t know. 10? 11? 12 sometimes? sometimes even more lmao  But only 7/6 and a half during the school year :,)

🌼 Lucky Number: I don’t remember :,)

🌼 Instruments: I played the recorder at school does that count LOL i’m learning to play the piano

🌼 What am I wearing: shorts and a tank top and i’m dying because it’s so hot here ;;

🌼 How many blankets I sleep with: During summer, 0 or just 1. And during the rest of the seasons, at least 2 LOL

🌼 Dream job: I don’t really have a dream job

🌼 Dream trip: I wanna go to South Korea or Japan 

🌼 Favourite food: I don’t know the name in english :,) i think it’s like scrambled eggs with potatoes or something like that (i’m a simple woman.(?)) also spanish omelette.

🌼 Nationality: Spanish :>

🌼 Favourite song now: I don’t know :,) I don’t really have a favorite. I love every Seventeen song. (?)

Lock Screen, Homescreen, Last Song, and Selfie Tag

My lockscreen and my homescreen are the same picture because you can’t set one picture for each :,) Also, I don’t feel comfortable with posting a selfie online so I’m sorry!! </3

this is my homescreen and lockscreen! by kpapier here on tumblr~

The last song I listened to was both korean and chinese version of my i at the same time LOL i was watching a comparison of both versions(?)

That’s all!! I hope you all like it and got to know me better~ If you read all of it, then you are a champion LOL I owe you... idk, dinner. We’d eat spanish omelette for dinner. And if you don’t like it, then :,) we can eat our favorite food i guess. (????)

[pixelwisp-archive]

Itadakimasu!! | Part 3: Fly, Little Bird  (Written Chapter)

word count: 1.2k

Tendou never thought himself to be a selfless person. He didn't really consider himself a selfish person either, necessarily, but he promised himself a long time ago that he wasn't going to set aside his own dreams for the comfort of someone else. His ambition always came first, and the endgame had always been Paris. He supposed, in a way, that had never changed - so why was there a familiar pool of guilt settling at the pit of his stomach? 

The corner of his lips tugged downward at the slight, involuntary tremor that rippled through his hands - the ivory envelope with gold trim, 'La Maison du Chocolat'  written in a delicate golden font across its center clutched in between them. You knew about Paris - about his dreams, his ambitions - and not once have you given him any reason to doubt that you would regard this news in any way other than with a painfully large grin and arms spread impossibly wide, pride radiating off you like a sunbeam. So why...guilty. Thoughts wandered to the pickle jar. The drunken nights on the balcony of your tiny apartment; stupid, cheesy French music playing on one of your phones as the two of you laughed and talked about what Paris would mean for the both of you. Tendou knew exactly what to say every time, but when the conversation trailed back to you, you would grin, sometimes laugh, but your answer was always the same - 'I'll figure it out when I get there. I don't really care as long as I'm with you'.

Ah. There it was.

Paris was his dream. Not yours.

'I'll follow you anywhere, Ten.’

Even if it wasn't what you wanted.

He was neither a selfless nor selfish person, but he knew you, and you were as selfless as they came. You would give up everything you’ve worked so hard for to follow him if he asked, completely setting aside your own whims to entertain his. Tendou shoved the envelope into his bag and hurried up the stairs to your apartment, trying desperately to will away the unwanted feeling that gnawed at him as he flashed you his usual Cheshire grin.

 In 12 months, he would be leaving for Paris to begin a paid apprenticeship with one of the most famous Parisian Chocolate Boutiques, working directly under the famous Sculptor and Chocolatier Patrick Roger himself - and you would not be going with him.

There wasn’t any way to break that news to you now, not when you were still so unwilling to stand on your own. He knew he needed to nudge you out of the nest the two of you built, reminding you of your independence, and hopefully, the will to chase your own dreams. He grabbed the pickle jar from under the sink, took a little extra from his own savings, and began the search to find you a new nest, one with more room for you to finally learn to fly. 

“I’m sorry, you what?” Your body twisted toward him at the news, eyes bulging out of your skull. 

“I bought a new location. In Osaka! Trendy neighborhood, good lighting, pretty cheap actually-”

“When?! How?! With what-” your voice died in your throat as you picked yourself off the floor and scrambled to the kitchen. You ripped open the cabinet underneath the sink and fished around, a grunt of victory leaving you as you felt your fingers clasp around the familiar lid. Successfully retrieving the pickle jar from the depths of the cabinet, the faint glow of the kitchen light brought the full makeshift bank into view, and you couldn’t help but gawk when you saw its emptiness. 

“Tendou, why...” Your voice trailed off as your brain began to flood with worry. What made him decide to just buy a new location without talking to you first? It’s not like you would have said no. You couldn’t help but feel a pang of betrayal at the notion that he didn’t value your opinion as a business partner. Feet pattered against the linoleum as he rushed to stand in front of you, and your lifted your eyes to lock onto his own. The usual mirth that accompanied his features was ever present, but you knew him well enough to see the tiny sheen of something else that rippled over his features. Guilt?

“Paradis, it’s nothing against you, I promise. I just...I wanted it to be a surprise,” he explained, crouching down so he could maintain an even eye level with you. “I forgot you’re not a huge fan of them.” Your lack of response was probably beginning to gnaw at him, you thought, but whenever you tried to come up with something to say, it fizzled before it could reach your tongue.

“I saw your notebook, Y/n,” he mumbled. “You have so many plans for Paradis, and they’re all amazing! This new place has all the room to make your ideas on the page come to life. You could have a dining area, expand the menu, try new crazy things - this location can be your passion project; your baby.”  

Spontaneity wasn’t a new trait for Tendou. There were days where he would come home, tell you to collect your things, and wisk you away on a road trip for two days with no destination in mind, no other notice except a quick text to the team to take care of the shop while you two were away. Generally, you didn’t mind his antics, but this seemed next level, and you couldn’t ignore the feeling that it came with ulterior motives. 

Something else nagged at the back of your mind too - if you were going to Osaka, was Tendou coming with you? Was he staying here? What about the apartment? There’s no way he can keep it up himself. How did he get the money for a location in Osaka of all places-

Your brain shut down the moment Tendou’s finger poked in between your eyebrows.

“Paradis, you’re gonna get wrinkles. I already took care of everything, so ask me whatever you wanna know.” You sat on his words for a moment, rifling through the growing number of questions to deem which one most important.

“Are you coming with me?” His silence was loud enough to answer for him, and you looked down. You haven’t done any of this on your own before. You’ve always had someone’s arm held out to you to hang onto whenever life tried to rear its ugly head and swallow you. 

“I won’t be able to do it all myself, Ten.” Tendou frowned. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Y/n. You can always call me if you end up stuck. Also,” he pulled out his phone as if to confirm his next words. “Kuguri has been wanting to move out of Tokyo for a fat minute now. He said he’s totally down to go with you.”

The news of Kuguri accompanying you lifted a huge amount of pressure off you. At least you weren’t going up there alone. Your thoughts drifted to the potential Osaka had just granted you; A new opportunity, a blank slate for your ideas to come to life. You could finally try things you’ve always wanted to with this new location. The worry that plagued you began to dissipate, excitement taking over as you brought your eyes to meet Tendou’s once more.

“When are we supposed to leave?” Tendou grins, and places his hand over the one you had resting on top of the pickle jar.

“Three weeks.”

Prev | Masterlist | Next

Fun facts - 

I promise this is an Osamu x reader lmao just give it time

For Tendou’s apprenticeship, I combined two popular Parisian Chocolate companies: Patrick Roger, who’s style just seems so Avant Garde and very Tendou energy, and decided to make him the head of the popular chocolate boutique  La Maison du Chocolat, solely because I thought the name was very ~French~ and ~Fancy~ lol.

I know nothing of Chocolate or France tbh - I got my info from this Vogue Article that you can read here.

A/N: So sorry for the wait with Chapter three!! I was kind of struggling with which route would best keep the plot rolling the way I want it to. I hope you guys don’t mind that this chapter is entirely written, next chapter will def have more social media caps! As always, thank you so much for reading, feel free to shoot me an ask and engage or ask to be added to the Taglist!! 

ps: This wasn’t beta read so pls ignore the bad bits lmaofnjkasndfaksj

Taglist -

@larkspyrr @oikawaandkuroostan @fucktheworlddude @doctorspencereid @keiarma @cherriechurros @halesandy​

I heard you guys aren’t getting tagged with updates and I’m p sure its because I’m st00pid so if this doesn’t work I’ll reblog and tag again! Sorry if you guys get notified multiple times lmao

[percyjacksonfan3]

The Last Olympian Thoughts

So because I have absolutely 0 self-control or restraint when it comes to this series and its characters, and for The Last Olympian in particular, I could not put TLO down. Because of this I figured I couldn’t do the usual photo reaction posts I have been so far, because the spam would just be ridiculous, so I am stealing the idea from @yourstrulytaaay​ to do a masterpost instead. (Adding a Read More cause this got ridiculously long)

Fun fact, TLO came out right after i finished reading the series for the first time so it's the first PJO book i bought  and my only hard cover one for the og series. I checked the year and turns out it was published 2009, which means i was actually 9 when i read the series for the first time. I realize this is not really a fun fact but i thought i was older when I first read the series so it's blowing my mind a little ‘cause now I’m 21 and everything hits different and i still have so much love for this series and the characters Okay onto book thoughts: - i was right that this book is gonna destroy me, the first line alone made me so excited and nostalgic it's ridiculous - I love Rachel and Percy sm tbh. Her being a bit of peace and normalcy in his life without always reminding Percy of who and what he is is so good for him. Just a little escape

- of course by the end of the book that's not the case any more but by the end he's lived his prophecy so he doesn't need it as badly, plus he and Annabeth are solid again - Percy saying Annabeth has been hard to be around lately... Ouch my heart. Luke really is the last thing that keeps them from being together and Percy is so jealous and Annabeth so torn and in pain, i feel so bad for them both

- Beckendorf 🥺🥺 - the telkhine with the Lil Demon lunchbox!! I forgot about him. Percy: 'i left him alive, partly because his lunchbox was cool' is one of my absolute favourite lines tbh - Paul taking Percy crabbing and being imperative in helping Percy kill the giant crab 💖 Paul Blofis is important and deserves the world, okay? - aw Percy, you can't save every demigod bb

- 'i had to fight him eventually. Why not now?... What difference would a week make?' Oh Percy you have no idea - real talk tho, the fact Kronos possessed Luke's body would also mess me tf up. Percy keeps forgetting it's not Luke anymore and yeah, that would be so so hard and confusing af, like what another smart little mind game for Kronos to pull on top of everything else - the fact Percy fights Kronos before getting the Achilles Curse and actually doesn't die within seconds is... Astounding. He kicks him in the chest! And yeah Kronos is weaker and still adjusting to Luke's body, but Percy is having trouble fighting Luke cause they used to be friends - Percy breaks Kronos' time magic!! Like?! Boy is POWERFUL.

- OUCH - honestly Luke, Thalia and Annabeth's family breaking the way it did... Don't talk to me. Poor Annabeth, Luke betrayed them, Thalia joined the Hunters because of Luke's betrayal so she's pretty much AWOL all the time and then Luke dies. Like Rick wtf, my heart can't take it? -Percy and Tyson having each others backs when talking to Poseidon in the underwater palace is the brother-brother relationship we love to see - Percy trying to stick a sand dollar in the vending machines at school 🤦🏻‍♀🤦🏻‍♀ - the whole underwater interaction at Poseidon's palace? Perfection. Awkward family drama and all - Connor falling out of the tree when he sees Percy because he's so excited 😂😂

- 😭💖

- k, ik Clarisse isn't perfect but tbh if i was a child of Ares whose father was disrespected and hated by my fellow campers (ares deserves it but still) and that disrespect trickled down to how the other campers treated ME (which if Percy is reliable here, it obviously does) then i would also be irritated at being used for muscle and nothing else? And just expected to fight with the people who act as if they'd rather not have Ares kids around the rest of the time. Like Clarisse isn't totally wrong - Percy reading the prophecy, seeing he's meant to die and just being like 'i do not see it' and refusing to outright think about it makes me so sad for him - (but it taints every action after and he's super reckless afterwards bc of it- including finally breaking and accepting the Achilles Curse) - (also him taking this as the last straw and finally beginning to show Annabeth how he really feels, cause fuck it, he's dying anyway) - Give me more info about Rachel's backstory and family Rick!! -  how did i forget Percy willingly eats chocolates that taste like cardboard because 'i didnt have anything against cardboard' like sir? Ik Silena didn't want them but still? - 'she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful' STOP, MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT - Percy staring at Annabeth and forgetting what they're talking about cause hes so distracted 👌🏻

- hmm yeah... For some strange reason.... - i forgot how Percy totally bombs this convo bw them and now want to cry 😭 Annabeth is trying to talk about what's important and Percy, you sweet oblivious man, you're shooting her down without even realizing - love that they're both on the same wavelength tho. Percy two lines before, hmm it's cool to date ppl from other cabins, wonder why im thinking that around Annabeth, my best friend in the world, and then Annabeth a beat later, hmm, let me bring up Silena and Beckendorf and how it's important to be with the people you love when you have the chance, no way Percy will miss this huge hint right? - they're the best - k i honestly forgot Percy full on physically intimidates Leneus like that - luke telling his mom if he ran away the monsters wouldnt get her..i can just imagine luke crying when he says good bye before running away because he thinks it's his fault his mom is like that and he cant take care of and protect her anymore because it's too hard - uh oh now i have angsty pre-lightning thief luke fic inspo... Him, Thalia and Annabeth on the run... The ANGST -  Rick holds absolutely nothing back in this book and i am in pain - HESTIA!! 💖💖🥰 - actual loml - i love that Rick titled this book after her and that he wrote such a great series about the importance of family (biological, found or otherwise) and home, and that he said actually Hestia is the most important bc shes the most humble and keeps the peace and knows when to fight and when to yield and you protect what you love, which is your home - i just... Adore Hestia - Grover! Missed you babes - Hades is so so horrible to Nico, always comparing him to Bianca :/ - but i do love Hades, Persephone and Demeter together they make me laugh - oh god the River Styx - Achilles 🥺 - Annabeth being Percy's lifeline is, and continues to be, A Lot™ - 'my name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.' LOL Why am i crying? - Like the fact there is no Percy without Annabeth, and that remembering her literally reminded him of who he is in his very soul... It's fine im fine - i won't even get into the parallels of her being his lifeline now and then later when Hera takes his memories but leaves the memory of Annabeth for Percy to fight to get back to (anyone who wants to yell about it with me... Feel free to message) - badass Percy is my fav Percy tbh - him defeating Hades?? Like? Hades is arguably the most powerful god, okay - i feel bad for Nico but if i was Percy I'd do the exact same, Nico, sorry man but this is a high stakes time crunch deal and Nico is literally the only hope of persuading Hades and distracted by his own internal stuff - flashbacks to Luke, Thalia and Annabeth hurt, ow - George and Martha are the best - damn i forgot Hermes full on nearly kills Percy here, yikes - Luke stop cockblocking Percabeth challenge

- i love!! Percy's love for New York!! So much!! - Percy leaving to live in New Rome in HoO is a lie and this is all the proof i need for why - the fact the entire last half of the book is the battle and aftermath... Such great buildup and pacing. All the tricks and twists and battles in this War of Manhattan? I would not take out a thing, Rick, you legend - of course then the final battle in hoo with the gods is what? Two pages? Ugh, don’t talk to me about my hatred for BoO and HoO - 'no detours you two' is still the cutest thing!!! - THE HUNTERS!! Thalia i missed you - good job Percy, you finally spent your sand dollar - Minotaur!! - 'dont i get a kiss for luck? Its kind of a tradition right?' Percy finds out he's gonna die and is out of fucks to give and honestly I support him - also Michael just standing beside these two while they're flirting like umm 👀 👀 while a monster army marches towards them, nbd - Annabeth taking Ethan's knife meant for Percy!!! Cause she just knows his weak spot without him even telling her! They literally invented love - Feral Percy is so scary omg, i love how well Rick incorporates the Achilles Curse in this novel, with the whole heightened weaknesses and stuff ans the parallels to Achilles arrogance being what killed him and Percy's loyalty, fierceness and protective instinct being his own heightened weakness - the fact that Percy is the one who inadvertantly kills Michael Yew tho, I'll never recover from that - the fact Hades offers Maria di Angelo a golden palace by the Styx like how Poseidon offers Sally a palace under the sea tho. Let's talk about that parallel - the entire talk with Prometheus is so so good - not me picturing young Luke hiding in the closet to get away from his mom when she has an 'episode' -i love callbacks in stories and all of the callbacks to the rest of the series in this book make me very happy (medusa, minotaur, the underworld, Rainbow!! My baby!!, Daedalus and more) - Percy summoning a wholeass hurricane against Hyperion - the Party Ponies! They're so chaotic, i love it - Dionysus! 😁 I can't help it, i love him - Percy absolutely losing it when he sees Sally and Paul asleep in the car 🥺 - Rachel telling Percy he's not the hero screws with him so much :( poor bb - although i really really love how Rick wrote this, it's so refreshing to not have one chosen one save the world, but a combination of people - the drakon, Silena and Clarisse make me cry - the Patrochilles references, im not okay - Annabeth giving up on Luke after hearing what he did to Silena and Percy telling her that doesn't make him happy 😭 that whole interaction makes my heart ache - Percy giving Hestia Pandora's pithos 🥺 - and Hades, Nico and the others coming for a final attack is so badass, i love it - listen im glad the og trio were the ones to confront Luke on Olympus but the fact Thalia got so close and then pinned by a statue of HERA makes me so sad. Ik her and Luke were finished and she coped by cutting him off completely and giving up all hope but i would pay money to know what they would have said to each other to say goodbye - Ethan 🥺 - Poseidon joining the fight against Typhon is so cool, such a great scene - 'PEANUT BUTTER!' - Annabeth you brilliant badass you - RIP Luke, you werent great but you werent the worst either - the gods just rolling up seconds too late, wondering wtf happened in Olympus and who the dead body is - the chapter where the Olympians meet and give out rewards is one of my absolute favourites (again i am incensed we didn't get anything like this in HoO) - will Percy turning down immortality ever not make me scream in glee? No? Alright then - Annabeth being relieved like Percy was relieved at the end of Titan's Curse tho - oh Hermes :/ - its so hard reading all this and knowing what comes in HoO... Like it's such a cathartic, earned and mostly happy and peaceful ending and then HoO comes along and undermines it all - aww Rick let Paul see Olympus somehow pls, he deserves it, he killed a dracanae - (i would also love to see it) - Percy being more upset Rachel took his pegasus than her going to Camp and possibly dying, lol, priorities dude - i honestly think that Rick had other ideas for the second Great Prophecy and how things would go down in BoO, cause the prophecy like... Barely applies to BoO, Doors of Death are in book four, and explabations of it is all so unclear when Rick is usually pretty good with that stuff - PERCABETH - lol Percy complaining about privacy when he and Annabeth are caught kissing literally in the middle of the very open and public dining pavilion, okay - BEST UNDERWATER KISS OF ALL TIME - that's it and im a glass case of emotion - very happy to say that this series remains my favourite of all time 💖

 If anyone ever wants to come gush about anything Riordanverse related feel free, because as you can see I have a lot of thoughts about it all

[mrpenguinpants]

Oh lore?? I read your post on Dainsleif and BOY it gave me a lot to think about dsfjgkd

Along the same vein, what do you think of the relationship between the unknown god and Kaenri'ah? In Albedo's trailer they seemed to reference two new elements (time and being) and if perhaps the unknown god is the god of time, then does Khemia make use of "being" in its creation of life?

In Mihoyo's other game (honkai) they introduced a new "type" about halfway through the story which seems to me to be similar to the abyss in Genshin. The quanta type is independent of the three types that were present from the beginning of the game and it's tied to an abyss style region called the Sea of Quanta. Maybe I'm reading too much into it and they don't plan to imitate what they did in Honkai but?? Time and being as new "elements" introduced a few years into the game seems possible at least?? Maybe they're exclusive to delusions bc there's only the seven Archons at this time so no one can grant time/being visions lol

Djfkdj I hope this was at least slightly understandable I love looking into lore especially for things I write about!! I'll end this now before it gets too long lmao the new tumblr asks give me too much power XD

TUMBLR DELETED MY REPLY AHHHHH I HAD TO RE-WRITE EVERYTHING. THAT’S WHY I’M LATE TO THE PARTY. I’M SO SORRY CATTY 😭

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Major spoilers for Khaenri’ah and minor spoilers for the unknown god

:DD I’m glad you read my word vomit haha. I love talking about lore so much, ty for enabling me. 

What do you think of the relationship between the unknown god and Khaenri’ah?

The logical side of my brain thinks:

They either have nothing to do with each other and Mihoyo really likes using the same star for everything and Khaenri’ah just happens to live in the void or sky so the easiest way to distinguish citizens from there is the star (or it was just hot to put star pupils in and you know what, they were right). 

Or there’s some sort of connection between the Eclipse dynasty that ruined Khaenri’ah and the unknown god. Since genshin really likes to do that (see Zhongli and everyone calling him Morax before 1.1 dropped). 

Re-watching the prologue cutscene and “we will be reunited” (Gonna refer to this a WWBR) Aether drew the same two stars into the sand which makes me believe that either a. stars literally have nothing to do with anything and Teyvat only knows how to draw one star (which doesn’t hold up well considering Mona’s outfit and pin) or b. there’s some kind of connection there. The way Paimon phrases her question she says: 

“But when you wanted to leave and go onto the next world your path was blocked by an unknown god?”

It implies that Aether and Lumine have already travelled through Teyvat since we see two yellow stars travel over Liyue and Mondstadt. I know Aether was sent into some sort of deep sleep and only now awoke and met Paimon (since in the trailer we can see the lantern festival and the genshin upload was in march (chinese new year is in feb) but I’m not super sure on these details but I’m pretty sure it’s canon that this happened based on WWBR). 

Then when the unknown god appears and the same 3 red stars appear [tumblr throws a fit when I try and upload this]

She refers to us as Outlanders and calls herself 

“The sustainer of heavenly principles. The arrogation of mankind ends now.”

This could be a reference to “being” that was in the Albedo trailer while Dainsleif is “time” since time is "not something he lacks". If we’re going on the theory that Dainsleif is actually a god then maybe they are fighting? Or in some type of push and pull war. It would make sense since the Unknown God believes in heavenly principles (so the rules either set by Celestia or Gods themselves) and believes mankind is arrogant and wishes to either destroy it or remove it entirely. The complete opposite of Dainsleif who believes in mankind and hates anything relating to the Archons.

Or dainsleif has nothing to do with the unknown god and is just a final challenge to the player who will then face off against the Unknown God. 

In Albedo's trailer they seemed to reference two new elements (time and being) and if perhaps the unknown god is the god of time, then does Khemia make use of "being" in its creation of life?

In this theory, this would make the Unknown God the god of time, which is also equally as valid. Since she does talk about time and how the arrogation of mankind ends now. I think it’s right to assume that Khemia makes use of being in its creation of life since we see Albedo talk about chalk and turning things from “nothing” (it’s not really nothing, he’s still using something or the “being” in order to transform it) to something. 

If Dainsleif uses Khemia or even created it then taught it to the people of Khaenri’ah to help them survive in their archonless land, that could be a valid reason why he believes in the strength of mankind. Since the unknown god’s power seems to consume the person trapped within (as we see in the prologue). Plus in WWBR we see first hand how destructive that power is. This could also be the time where Dainsleif lost faith or hated the celestial beings. 

---

In WWBR, according to the wiki it states that our sibling was taken to another point in time, in an unknown location. But this event leads the sibling (Lumine) to become the leader of the Abyss Order. 

Lumine says: 

“But until the abyss has engulfed the thrones, my war with destiny will see no end.”

Lumine seems to know about the archons and the abyss mages follow her so it’s safe to assume that the “abyss” she refers to is either something entirely new or the red blocks we see here. It seems as if she’s trying to change destiny which could be why Dainsleif wants to save her. 

I will say right now, I really hope the theory that Paimon is secretly the unknown god doesn’t come true. I know it’s funny and I would enjoy seeing our emergency food pull a turned table on us but unless there are more instances where it’s hinted or it’s handled really well I would not like it. I just finished a manga and I felt like I was watching 20M plot twists happen in the span of 3 pages. I would totally be okay if the unknown god and paimon were somehow related (I can understand that) but I unless it’s handed really well or as the story progresses and we get more info on paimon. it would just be really out of left field. I haven’t seen any theories on this and I honestly try and stay away from lore posts until I’ve finished mine because I feel that might make my ideas biased.

The “everything must be connected into some kind of plotline or I will make it a plotline” brain thinks:

Now, this is just be spit balling and making up my own headcanons with no lore to go off on. This is pure indulgent stuff with no research to back it up besides very loose threads. 

I’d like to believe that since the Eclipse Dynasty was the last dynasty before Khaenri’ah fell. That might be what is being depicting above in WWBR. Perhaps khemia backfired or the unknown god turned against the people for their arrogance (I’m not sure if people know the myth but in short terms, a giant stole fire to help the people who were cold. He was punished for going against the gods and saving the people, this could be similar to Dainsleif). 

Perhaps Lumine and Aether had stopped this event from happening and as they were about to leave, the unknown god appears and separates them for their arrogant actions against the Gods and sends Lumine back to the past. Without her brother she ended up failing in saving Khaenri’ah. Or, the image we see is actually the future and she goes back in time to try and prevent that event from occurring, still trying to beat destiny but this time in the future. 

Or another idea, Lumine has only seen the evil that’s depicted and hasn’t personally met any of the archons. We actually got to meet Venti and Zhongli so we obviously want to protect them from Lumine’s point of view, that might not be the same so she aligns with the abyss order that tries to control Dvalin. So her goal is to somehow defeat the archons and that could be why the Cyro archon is trying to collect them all in her war of peace. 

Honkai and quanta

It’s kinda funny but there’s no reliable wiki source for this sea of quanta like there is for genshin, or at least I couldn’t find anything. I think they might nod at certain things between the two but I think it’s totally fine to believe they might do some sort of crossover and take some inspiration. We have Mona who was able to read the stars and Scaramouche who said the sky was a giant hoax so I think time and being becoming new elements is very possible. But I don’t really know a lot about Honkai so I can’t really say too much about it haha. 

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Yep no worries, it was fun talking about some more lore and if you have any more I’d love to hear them. Haha, honestly pop off I love getting long asks. As always, it’s nice seeing you again catty 💕💕

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep13

The true mystery of this show is trying to figure out how to even talk about each episode without just repeating myself or talking about other parts of the franchise, lmao.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus probably spoilers for both Umineko and Ciconia.

I’m not even sure where to begin talking about the fundamental issues this show has at this point, lol. It’s easy to just say that Sotsu on it’s own is bad, but I feel like it’s highlighting the fact that right from day one there were problems with the show’s structure and it’s intentions that have just become more and more of an issue as time’s gone on.

At the very least, I think that it was a huge mistake for them to have the gun cliffhanger happen midway through Gou, and to then spend so much time on backstory stuff and answer arcs. That just cast a negative shadow over all of those arcs because everyone was just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. At this point I think they shouldn’t have even had Nekodamashi be in Gou to begin with. If they transitioned straight from Tataridamashi to Satokowashi then you could keep the general cliffhanger of revealing that Satoko’s the culprit without making people so impatient to go back to it and see what happens afterward.

But there’s also the issues like how Satokowashi revealed everything we needed to know about the howdunnit of the mystery, or how the whole gimmick of reusing the same scenarios as the VN in order to play both sides and make it technically accessible to new fans really wrote them into a corner and forced them to spend more time on the answer arcs than they needed to.

If we at least assume that the whole story ends in this arc, I think you easily could have condensed it all into one 2-cour season if they’d just committed to aiming this at old fans.

I guess there’s still a chance we’ll get some sort of continuation, but at this point I feel like the only way to get that much more content is if it ends up mostly retreading Satokowashi from a different perspective, which might actually drive me insane, lol.

In general it just feels like we’re already at the climax of the story one way or another, and there’s not many ways to keep it going for much longer without it seeming super forced. Like, Eua and Hanyuu are having their big confrontation with each other, and now Rika and Satoko are both on the same page, so they’re going to basically be stuck in a stalemate until one of them gives up. There isn’t really any mystery left to answer aside from giving more info about what’s going on between Eua and Hanyuu, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and not drag this out.

We also know from TV listings that a different show is going to taking over Sotsu’s time slot next season, so unless it changes time slot for some reason, we’d probably have to wait until at least January to get a continuation, and I just dunno if that’d even be worth it.

I’ve already gone over my general ideas for how I think this will end, but I still think it’s entirely possible to wrap things up in just two more episodes. At the very least, if we get another full cour out of this then that’d probably just end up only having a few more episodes of actually new content, so my point still stands, lol.

I don’t think this episode did much to change my mind about where this is going, but it did at least clarify a couple of things. Like how Eua explicitly calls Hanyuu a ‘part of her’, which means that I’m probably right about my interpretation of them being two halves of the same being. There’s still a lot of different ways they could explain it, but at this point it’d basically still just boil down to the same idea of them being two parts of the same person.

It’s also more clear now that Rika more or less didn’t really know about Satoko being the culprit until the last minute, and was starting to get flashbacks to the end of Tataridamashi. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that. It’s kinda hard to believe that Rika wasn’t at least suspecting Satoko by that point, but I do like the implication that Rika wasn’t fully dead when Satoko arrived, since that at least feels like pay-off for Satoko being so cocky and openly monologuing about how evil she is when she thinks Rika’s dead and can’t hear her.

I guess this episode also shows that there wasn’t anything particularly special going on with how Takano decided to confess to Rika in this one specific loop, which is also kinda underwhelming. Basically it seems like it just boils down to her feeling guilty about all of the stuff she remembers doing, but it’s still kinda weird that she didn’t confess to her in any previous loops. One of the weird issues with Gou/Sotsu’s storytelling is that Rika seemingly put no real effort into trying to investigate Takano even though she remembered her being the culprit, and I think that could have been really easily resolved if there was a scene like this in Onidamashi where Takano confesses her sins to Rika and leaves the village, since that would at least give a reason for her to not try and investigate them, and to assume that somebody else is behind these new loops. They could have even just had that happen off-screen and only be shown in Oniakashi if they didn’t want to spoil new fans. It just seems like a really easy change to make that would have made Rika’s passivity and hopelessness in this series way more understandable.

I think we’re also meant to assume that Satoko reacting to the box in this episode was just her faking it, since there’s no real indication that her conscience has returned or anything. But I’m not really sure why Satoko would go out of her way to fake that, when the trap box hadn’t even come up in that timeline. Maybe it would have made more sense if we saw her inner thoughts in that scene, but it kinda feels like they had to come up with some sort of scenario where Satoko would accidentally display knowledge that only a looper would know. Compared to how she’s been almost overpowered and hyper-competent in this series compared to Rika, it has a weird vibe of her being stupid because the plot demands it, lol. Either way it just seems kinda weird and contrived.

We also ended this episode on the gun cliffhanger again, which I saw coming, but it still kinda stings, lol. Hopefully the payoff is worth it. Realistically I think Satoko will just immediately shoot Rika, and we’ll cut to them having a proper confrontation in the meta world. With how they compared it to the ‘miracle’ scene with Takano in Matsuribayashi, it’s possible that they’ll somehow stop Satoko from shooting her, but I dunno. The stuff Hanyuu said about how this ‘isn’t the world that Rika fought for’ makes me think we’re probably not gonna stick with this loop for very long anyway, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and get to the part where the two of them fight it out in the fragment world once and for all. Which at least seems to be what that one part of the OP is teasing at.

On that note, the only other mysterious part of the OP [and the key visual] left is the older club members in new outfits, which still feels like a bit of a loose thread, but it’s entirely possible that it doesn’t really mean much. For one thing, it could be as simple as it being related to an epilogue scene back in the Matsuribayashi timeline where they’re in different outfits to the ones we saw them wear last time we saw them. Either way I don’t really think the other club members are going to be super relevant to how this all ends, so one way or another whatever that stuff is related to could still just come up in the next two episodes.

Basically the question is just how exactly the big conflicts are gonna get resolved, and what note we’ll end things on. Which also ties into the larger question of whether or not this is genuinely meant to tie into Umineko [and maybe Ciconia] like they’re indicating, or if that’s some kind of elaborate troll.

I know i’m biased, but I think all the Umineko and Ciconia stuff is totally sincere, and Ryukishi really is using this as a way to start tying the wider WTC-verse together in a more concrete way, so that’s what I’m basing my theories off of.

With that in mind, I still think this will end with Rika and Satoko officially abandoning their humanity and becoming witches together, with the sword maybe being an in-universe plot device to depict that process. And with the reveal that Eua and Hanyuu are for all intents and purposes two parts of the same person, I feel like their side of things will probably end with them merging together in a way that creates Featherine, which would at least explain why Featherine’s personality is more mild than Eua’s, and also why Bernkastel is her miko, and why Featherine’s whole name is a giant pun about Hanyuu. It’d also fit with the whole religious motif that Hanyuu has going on if she basically ‘sacrifices’ herself to neutralize Eua. It’s at least the closest I think we’ll get to seeing Eua be ‘defeated’.

And on that note, I don’t really think this will end with anyone like Eua or Satoko being used as a villain who everyone else defeats so they can go back to their happy ending, since that’s the exact sort of thing that Ryuukishi regrets doing originally, and is why we’ve gotten so many redemption arcs for people in Gou/Sotsu. So I think at most we’ll see Eua get turned into Featherine so she’s less actively hostile towards everyone else, but I think this will ultimately end with Rika and Satoko reconciling and mending their relationship.

Over on the Matsuribayashi timeline side of things, I feel like this is gonna end up paralleling Nekodamashi a bit, and we’ll find out that Satoko ended up planning to kill herself in the Saiguden, but Rika and the club will show up at the last minute and she’ll choose not to. Then we’ll probably see her and Rika talk things out properly, and maybe Satoko will find out that Satoshi woke up from his coma or whatever, and that way they’ll all still get their happy ending, while also simultaneously we can still have Rika and Satoko split off their witch selves into separate entities that become the Bern and Lambda we know in Umineko.

It’s possible they’ll do something with the idea of Satoko losing her game and being sent to a world without Rika, but that also might just not happen at all. So who knows.

If they really lean into the idea of this directly setting up for Umineko, then it’d be neat if we also see Satoko and Rika meet Ikuko in the future of the Matsuribayashi timeline.

There’s also the Ciconia teases to think about, but they seem to be going in the direction of Ciconia taking place before all this even happened, so I think that’ll be kept kinda nebulous and unexplored until Ciconia itself finishes. Ryukishi might announce a release date for phase 2 after Sotsu ends, but I think it’s way too early for anything like an anime adaptation of it. I’d rather they wait until at least after it’s finished before they do something like that.

On the other hand, Umineko’s been over for like ten years, so it’d be much easier to do something like a remake for it after this. I have a lot of thoughts about how that might go if they do that, but I’m gonna wait until Sotsu ends and then make a separate post about it.

Anyway I guess now I just have to wait and see what happens next week, lol.

[traumatizedkids]

Some fun facts, info and More about the S3 and the comic in general.

 I made this long ago with the S2 hiatus, so i decided to do the same again with new funfacts, and some new info about S3 (without going into spoilers of course, i hope you guys like it)

As you can notice, the new profile cards has a section called Logo, those logos are a new thing i added to the comic, What’s the purpose? They are made for pannels were the character’s talk but they are not in scene, this is an example from the new season:

When i announced King in Black i didn’t have almost any plans for the next issues, but i liked the Agony plot so i decided to make the story about that.

The Scene were Alec uses Jake as a Bat is a reference to the Blackbird Epilogue were it’s said Jake turns into a Bat of Intention releasing Andrew’s soul.

I wanted to elaborate more the scene were Jake is awakened from the illusion, but it was too many pages and i had to use the Bro thing, i am sorry if it was Lame, for me, at least it is.

When Alec met Hazel, i had plans to explain Alec dad’s were already dead, but i decided to not add that scene.

Alex (Hazel’s daughter) is 10, and She’s a Demi-Girl, 

The reason why i started to read Disney Chills was because i wanted to find new traumatized kids from a different media than the ones i already use.

In the moment i read Planet of Symbiotes: Toxin i knew Bren has to be in the team.

Millie was intended to appear revived for a Symbiote after KIB, but i discarded that because we don’t really know her fate and there’s chances she could came back in FF epilogues.

Hazel works as a Lawyer

I want to make season 3 more separate from FNAF, because this comic was turning into a FNAF comic more than a crossover.

The Bonnles came from a Joke i made long ago on Twitter

I suffered a lot in season 2 because i really wanted to use Dylan, but the idea of a Time skip was soo good to not use it, Return of the Kids was totally my fav moment.

Oswald’s Scar plot from Familiar Rabits is gonna come back on the Summer Special.

Traumatized Kids Island is gonna be 10 episodes long i dunno if it’s gonna be Weekly or every 2 days, i have to think that.

Sora Ogami was a character i loved to add and i hope to use it more in future episodes.

I already told that, i changed the Henry’s hairstyles to make them inspired in the actor Jared Gilmoire, the one who interprets Henry in Once upon a Time.

The real name of this comic is: Niños Traumados.

Not gonna lie, i want to add Sleeper in this comic, but i don’t know what happened with him in comics, i am worried :(

The reason i am redesinging some characters is to gave them a personal touch (and because their shows are over)

Dipper and Mabel were requested a lots of times, i hope to use them more on season 3 now i rewatched the show since years.

I dunno if someone get it, but this is a reference to Kingdom Hearts:

I have plans to do a reference to the original trilogy of FNAF Books.

I started this blog because an user called Puffy started to reblog the first 3 episodes saying she was enjoying them, i am very grateful for all her suppor and i love her reblogs, thank you so much.

This also goes for Hide, i dunno if you’re reading this, but thanks for all your support, i love to have you here.

Bren Waters and Dylan Brock are gonna be gooooood friends.

I think it’s pretty obvious, this is an AU, so i take some creative liberties for some designs and relationships, i still use the actual stories from the characters, but some things like Normie and Dylan friendship (who in comics stopped being friends in a comic that we don’t even know if it’s canon) are changed.

In King In Black 3 in the Adults plan i had plans to introduce the crystal gems, but i thought Connie would be a better idea so i could introduce her.

Yeah, Connie is gonna come back, also she accepted Steven proposal after Steven got corrupted again, 

There’s gonna be more adults on the Season 3

Not gonna told who, but one of the Founders members of the Meeting has appeared on one episode, not gonna tell wich.

Oswald loves more Springmatt than the Bonnles.

At first i didn’t wanted to confirm Chuck and Sam relationship, but then i was like: Why not?

Season 3 is ubicated AFTER The cliffs epilogue, but BEFORE Gumdrop Angel epilogue.

I confirmed 4 new kids, but i don’t deny maybe new kids would join in the future, someone wants to talk about dinosaurs?

What Oswald says about the name is already taken in KIB 1 is a reference about the fact there’s already a Symbiote called Agony.

At first i had plans to make art-trades with people to have variants of King in Black with another artist but i wasn’t brave enough.

I want to apologize about my shitty english lmao, sometimes i mess up the translation.

If you’re still reading this reblog with a #Yes

ok thanks, i aprecciate that.

sorry for this being so long lmao

For the people who read Disney Chills (and the people i hope i introduced to them like that ask someone sent me) i am aware about the Second Star to the Fright ending, but i wanted to use Barrie anyway, i love that boy.

Not gonna lie, i would love if someone makes a fanart or a dub of this series, if someone wanted to but was afraid to ask, you can, don’t be shy.

For the people who doesn’t knows, i am making an Into the Pit Graphic novel and a Dylan and Normie Graphic Novel, this comic is helping me to practice with Panel composition.

This is the first Splashpage i ever made, and i am very proud of it, i hope to make more on the future:

Goblin symbiote design was inspired in the Goblin Childe and the colors of the green goblin.

Some kids like Oswald are not going to have a Profile Card yet, that’s because Season 3 spoilers.

Im doing an Animatic about Dylan in the other Earth talking to Codex, at first it was a personal project, but i decided to add it to the traumatized Kids Canon.

When Robin is with the Cape on is because i am lazy to draw the body, sorry, i am human too lol.

I am sad no one got it, but that answer about the meeting room and a cat of the founder members was a Doraemon reference, yes, i confirm it, Nobita Nobi is in the 80s meeting.

At first i had plans to introduce Billy and Tommy into S3 but then for obvious reasons i didn’t (But i still can, maybe someday)

Steven’s weeding is gonna be a S3 arc, and it’s gonna be the last time we are gonna see Steven, it’s hard for me, but some kids have to leave in order to other to enter.

Welp i think i gave so many facts, this is a long list, i dunno if people is gonna fully read them, but if you did, thanks a lot for your interest.

Soon i will share more things in this acc, have a good summer.

[snlangford]

Let’s Talk About Trackers...

Because of the major talk about them yesterday and how an anon tried to throw me under the bus, I want to make an informative post about the specific tracker I use and certain others do too (assuming they still use these). This will also go under a keep reading so you don’t have to scroll in case you read it and then don’t wanna scroll past it a second time.

I personally use a site called statcounter. What is stat counter? Well, let me explain with an excerpt from Wikipedia!

“StatCounter is a web traffic analysis website started in 1999. Access to basic services is free and advanced services can cost between US$5 and US$119 a month. StatCounter is based in Dublin, Ireland. The statistics from StatCounter are used to compute web usage share for example. As of May 2019, StatCounter is used on 0.9% of all websites. StatCounter statistics are directly derived from hits—as opposed to unique visitors—from 3 million sites, which use StatCounter, resulting in total hits of more than 15 billion per month. No artificial weightings are used to correct for sampling bias, thus the numbers in the statistics can not be considered to be representative samples.”

Statcounter I find has some cool features too if you do run a business site, which I aim to do in the future, here’s some of the cool analytics stuff they have if you’re a business marketer:

This above is a capture taken for the tracker on my OC blog @ / barashikki-dialoversoc

This tool here provides where the majority of your people come from, so it will help businesses to have features such as this, so StatCounter is cool to use for business and marketing.

But that’s not why we’re here, are we?

StatCounter says they provide you with IPs in hopes of blocking/banning them from your site and/or stopping fraud on your website.

Sure, that’s useful as I personally use that to block people’s IPs if they send me hate anons. But here is how it’s an issue... This specific tab, which I know M/C uses quite often from my former friendship with her: Visitor Activity

Now, let’s go there and break it down. I will be censoring sensitive information like people’s locations and IP addresses to protect them.

I want to also address the “xxx is now using 100% of its log space” too.

It may be hard to read, but it says the following 

“Your Project Bara Shikki is now using 100% of its log space. This means that your website traffic data for detailed stats older than 7 months* will be overwritten to make room for new data. You can upgrade for $9/month to increase your log to 10+ years*. If you don't mind losing this old data for detailed stats, then no action is required on your part. Summary Stats are included with all plans and are unlimited.

* Estimated based on your current traffic”

For my other blog @ / dialoving-lemons, it deletes this info in 7 days due to the high demand traffic (it is a LOT more popular than any of my other blogs despite me being on hiatus there).

So while that is good, this information stays for a while. If someone is paying for this service, they can keep this info for a long time.

Now onto the part we are mainly addressing, addresses and IPs. I will use my own visits for the example (the white censor). And yes, you can appear on your own tracker as it picks anyone up who visits the URL.

I color coded this so we can do a breakdown. 

Yellow is my city. Green is the state (will be providence if you are in another country). Then you see “United States” as the country it says I’m from. Your country’s flag also appears before your location.

^^^This here is already pretty accurate and sensitive information, and we haven’t even gotten to the second line yet.

For the second line, we have these: Purple is your internet provider. White, that’s your IP. See that tag next to it? You can click on that and make notes in it for when that person returns to your url. You can even sign up for notifications to get emails or alerts on your phone (if you have the statcounter app). How do I know this? This is how:

Incognito doesn’t have dark mode, so sorry for bright image lol

Idk about you guys, but that’d make me uncomfortable to know someone could just get a ping saying I’m visiting their page. Again, I don’t know what features M/C uses, so I can’t say if she has this or not.

So not only can you find someone’s location, internet provider, and IP (which I think is enough for someone who hack or screw you over somehow, idk. I’d want to look that info up) but you can also stalk when they’re on your blog. This is a big YIKES.

Now back to the breakdown of the image from earlier...

You can learn what device they used, their browser, get a timestamp, and also how long they were on your page. I personally don’t care sharing this info, many of us use the most updated browser of our choice and most of us are on windows 10 for computer users.

So... yeah. While I use statcounter myself to block haters and redirect their IPs so they can’t get on my page anymore, I feel this site does give out too much information. On top of that, the one we all know who uses this software also has some software that checks who unfollows her. She uses these to get dirt on people and to expose them, it is not for her safety.

Now some tips on how to be safe if you don’t want to be tracked thanks to me testing things out:

Use the tumblr app.

The tumblr app uses coding for mobile usage. It does not rely on urls, but another form of code. StatCounter cannot log this code, so you will not appear on the visitor activity tab.

View blogs in side view

This is side view for those that don’t know. Side view acts a lot like the app in terms of the coding. So viewing like this is safe for you to not appear on trackers.

StatCounter relies on you typing in and clicking on urls on someone’s tumblr page (if installed on a tumblr).

As long as you are on a way that doesn’t rely on url systems, you are safe from appearing in someone’s tracker.

And a final note, if you are going to use one like I do, for blocking haters’ IPs, then I highly recommend putting a disclaimer in your description. I immediately did that when I installed mine so people knew they’d get rerouted if they started crap with me. I personally feel that keeping it secret that you have a tracker is violating someone’s consent as you are gathering info without their permission. By saying you have one, them being able to use ways where they won’t be tracked is very useful and helps them feel at ease knowing they can decide if they’re fine popping up on your tracker or not. Here is an example disclaimer you can put if you do put one in. Feel free to copy and paste too!

"Disclaimer: I use a tracker that allows me to see visitors’ IPs so I can block them if they cause problems for me, proceed at your own risk"

[thepoliticalpatient]

How to get your Humira level tested thru Prometheus

I started taking Humira for my Crohn's in July of last year. Getting onto this medication was a gigantic pain in my ass, but I actually think the part that ended up being the hardest was dealing with getting my levels tested, so I wanted to write a post detailing that process. There is lots of info here that I wish I had known at the start. I actually have been wanting to write this post since last September, which was when I actually had the test done, but the whole situation didn't get fully wrapped up until today, 6 months later, and I didn't want to write it until I had complete information.

I will try very hard to make this an informative post and not just a rant but I'm not sure I have the self-restraint tbh.

OK, to start: what even is this test? With biologics, you need to maintain a high enough concentration of the drug in your system, to prevent your body from producing antibodies against the medication, and for it to be effective. My (now former - more on that soon lol) gastroenterologist is pretty passionate about making sure his patients keep a good level and will have them go on a weekly dose instead of the normal every-other-week dose if their levels aren't to his liking.

Importantly, the timing of this test is vital. You can't get it measured in the days immediately after you inject or your levels will be super high. The goal is to find out what the level is when it's at its lowest, i.e. in the day or two before your injection. My (former) gastroenterologist wanted me to get this test done between my second and third doses. That didn't end up happening because of how much of a clusterfuck this whole thing was.

So this test is only done by one company in the United States, Prometheus Biosciences. The name of the test is Anser ADA. They also have similar tests for measuring the levels of other biologics, like Anser IFX which measures Remicade levels (ADA = adalimumab, which is the generic name for Humira; IFX = infliximab, or Remicade). They have tests for Stelara and Entyvio too. If I had to guess, I'd say that the info in this post is probably pertinent to those tests as well, but I cannot guarantee it. I only know for sure about my own experience with Anser ADA.

Because this test can only be performed by Prometheus, it is likely that you cannot just go to your hospital's lab and have them draw your blood. It's possible they will do this draw for you and mail the blood to Prometheus, but you'll want to be certain to clarify this with your doctor.

My doctor's office gave me a lot of extremely wrong information, so I had no idea about this. I actually showed up at my hospital's phlebotomy lab on the morning before my third Humira dose, handed them a form that my doctor's staff had given me that contained the order for the bloodwork, and they took my blood and I thought I was done with it. Then WEEKS later at my next appointment with my doctor, he was like "did you ever get that Prometheus test done?" and I was like "wait do you not have the results back from the blood I gave weeks ago?" and he was like "you absolute imbecile, we can't do that lab for you, you need to schedule that with Prometheus's phlebotomists" (I'm paraphrasing a little bit here). To this day I have no idea what happened to the blood I gave at the lab! I assume they were like "wait what do we do with this lol" and then threw it in the garbage and didn't bother to inform me????

This was just one of many bad experiences I’ve had with this doctor/hospital, but this was the one that finally pushed me over the edge. I have since changed to a new GI at a different hospital (which was its own fucking saga, omg, it should not be so hard to get your medical records transferred from one hospital to another).

ANYWAY, my point is, be very certain to talk with your doctor about whether your hospital can draw this blood for you. If they can't, you have to call Prometheus to set up a draw with them.

Prometheus is located in California but contracts with a network of phlebotomists throughout the country. You can set up an appointment for a phlebotomist to come to your home to draw your blood.

For some goddamn reason, instead of equipping their phlebotomists with the supplies they'll need, Prometheus will mail you a package ahead of your appointment that contains some supplies.

Here's my next pro-tip: Prometheus will use some very scary language to make it sound like you need to be waiting right at the door when this package arrives and to immediately put some of the contents of the package into the freezer or else something terrible will happen. This is not true. What's actually happening here is that the package will contain some shipping supplies, including an insulated container and an ice pack, which the phlebotomist will need in order to store your blood safely. They want you to pre-freeze that ice pack before the phlebotomist arrives so that it will be ready to go as soon as your blood is drawn. That's it. So there's nothing in the package that's gonna, like, go bad or something if you don't get it into the freezer right away.

The whole thing was kind of stressful because I didn't have any tracking info on the package or anything, but it did arrive ahead of my appointment.

Okay so the next big topic here is PAYMENT. This is a $2,500 test, and most insurance doesn't cover it.

Around the same time I scheduled the draw with Prometheus, I sent a message to my insurance carrier to ask whether they would cover the test. The rep who replied to my message needed to know the CPT code for the test and the NPI for Prometheus, which I found on Prometheus's prior authorization form here. The insurance rep then said that this test would require my doctor to complete a prior authorization. If I got the prior auth, then insurance would cover the test at the out-of-network rate, which would require me to pay 35% of the cost. Without the prior authorization, they would deny the claim entirely.

I sent a message to my doctor's office asking them to complete the prior authorization stat, as I had already scheduled the draw with Prometheus and there wasn't much time. I was hesitant to cancel my draw, because that would require me to wait at least another 2 weeks (since you have to time the draw with your Humira doses), and I was already months later on this test than my doctor had originally wanted because of the whole snafu with thinking I could get it drawn at my hospital. My doctor's assistant replied and said she didn't think they'd have time to complete the prior auth, but not to cancel my appointment. She assured me that Prometheus would not charge me more than $75 if my insurance denied the claim.

I was extremely nervous about this. I was mainly concerned because I had found this info about Prometheus's payment assist program, which says that they'll reduce the charge to $75 if your income is below a certain threshold, and mine is not. Based on the info on that page, it looked like I didn’t qualify for any cost reduction, so I was pretty convinced they were gonna charge me the full $2,500.

Looking at the claims on my insurer's website, I see that Prometheus indeed tried to charge my insurance $2,500 for the test, and my insurance denied it. There is an additional $50 claim to my insurance, which insurance did pay, which I think was for the cost of having the phlebotomist visit my home.

Prometheus sent me several mailers about their payment assist program, which I just ignored because my income is too high. And for the next 6 months I sat anxiously waiting to receive a bill in the mail for several thousand dollars.

Well I'm happy to report that today, I finally received the bill from Prometheus, and it is for $75. I don't know why exactly they reduced it to that amount, but I am certainly not going to complain.

Now, I'm not certain of this, but my GUESS would be that the $75 rate is only for people who are doing self-pay. So, hilariously, if I had gotten the prior authorization done on time, my out of network coinsurance would have required me to pay 35% of the total claim, which would be $875. So, I mean....I can't guarantee that your experience will be the same as mine, but it seems to me like it is to your advantage to not go through your insurance for this test.

Oh, and Prometheus will NOT hold your test results hostage while they try to get paid. They sent the results to my doctor soon after the draw. And my levels were good!

ANYWAY, this was long, but I wanted to share everything I wish I had known before going through this. I hope it will help someone else who is trying to navigate this process!!!

[rigelmejo]

Extensive Reading Updates - Zhenhun

I have been extensively reading zhenhun, my print novel version so I am not looking up any words. (Whereas with the hanshe pingxie fanfiction I am still occasionally clicking a word). I have read the first 20 chapters of the webnovel version of zhenhun in Pleco in the past few months, so most unknown words I have looked up before at some point. So right now I'm re-reading a lot of the same content and will be until I get past chapter 20.

I can tell that my comprehension of zhenhun probably is at about 95%. As in, its enough that I can follow the main plot and most key info details, but there's enough unknown words that I cannot guess some of them from context if its a totally new part of the novel I'm reading. And I run into a number of words in the in-depth scenery and character backstory descriptions that I just do not know and there's enough I don't always have enough context to guess relatively closely to their meaning.

Since these first 20 chapters are a re-read more or less, I have the extra context of 'knowing the overall plot that happens here' already. So I'm reading slower than I probably could, trying to figure out any unknown words from all the surrounding word context and the prior-plot-knowledge I have. For these re-reading sections this is working well, a majority of the words I can re-remember or figure out. I am hoping I will pick up enough of THESE kinds of unknown-words during this re-reading portion, so that hopefully my comprehension when I get to the new parts of the book will be a bit higher than 95%. Then hopefully once I get into totally new parts of the book: my reading speed will be a bit better (less unknown words I hope lol), and I will know a bit more words to guess more totally-new unknown words (that I've never looked up before) vague overall meanings.

Examples of what things I can read clearly versus parts I can't figure out all of the words enough to be relatively sure of the details. In chapter 1, I can read the parts about "Guo Changcheng having a phobia of phone calls" clearly, but then the details about him being afraid of people and having social anxiety I can follow certain parts, but other parts of the descriptions (like him when he sees a teacher or principal) I just sort of vaguely guessed meant he was terrified of them. When chapter 1 described Zhao Yunlan's entrance, I could clearly follow the parts about him looking serious/having a bad attitude and walking fast with the attitude of "if you're in my way roll the fuck away" and then the part about how instantly his mood changed to warm, he smiled friendly, he talked kindly and helped Guo Changcheng out by patting at his shoulder when Guo Changcheng got all sweaty trying to shake hands. But then the part about how Guo Changcheng sensed a seriousness/almost-scariness about Zhao Yunlan? All those details read vague to me and I am just summarizing that my interpretation of it was "even acting friendly, Guo Changcheng felt he was serious underneath/powerful/had an intimidating vibe." And since that detail read SO vague to me, I can't tell if that was an early hint Zhao Yunlan might be a god/used to have been Kunlun, if its just another implication Guo Changcheng is afraid of people/authority figures, or if it was trying to imply something else I just did not pick up on. So even WITH the re-reading prior context of these scenes, in-depth descriptions of character's intepretations still are more vague to me even if I can guess some of the words. I imagine this will get worse when I get to the totally new chapters - unless I learn a LOT of helpful words from context by the time I get through the first 20 chapters.

When I re-read the Kunlun intro I realized I may have translated some details wrong when I translated it to english several months ago. Now, this time I didn't use a dictionary to read at all, so it's possible I also did not interpret the details I read correctly THIS time around. But yeah, a couple days ago when I re-read that part I interpreted the 'qing yi' as possibly green/blue cloth Kunlun is wearing as the blizzard is blowing (whereas when I first translated that line months ago I thought it meant 'clear white fabric' blowing in the wind like some ripped piece of cloth - its also possible this time it still means 'bright cloth' but I do think it sounds more like its Kunlun's clothes than a random cloth blowing in the wind). And this time, when I read about Shennong it seemed more like he was either a god who'd lost his powers, or a god who'd lost his godhood fully, and its just he still retained his kind unselfish demeanor. Whereas when I first translated, I figured he was just a god 'who'd suffered' because of the great calamity that had just happened, but not particularly doing any worse than that. In this re-read though it feels to me more like its implying something more severe has happened to him/is happening. Also during this re-read, the line about 'the hole in the ground being so deep the rain did not even reach this far down' was much clearer for me whereas when I initially translated I had to look up a Ton of words in that section and still didn't quite get what it meant.

Also for the chapter 1 re-read, certain details were much easier for me to clearly understand. The part about McDonalds I FINALLY recognized that word in the sentence, the part about Guo Changcheng parking then going into the courtyard area and seeing the lobby office building, the part about human resources department, all of those sections I followed the details much easier than last time I read with a dictionary. So yeah, I'm curious which parts will be 'clearer' to me this time reading.

I am still reading at a slow 5 minutes a page (speed I was reading print novel of zhenhun last time). But to be fair? I am slowing down to try and figure out every unknown right now on the re-reading sections. And I read english fiction at like 3-4 minutes a page (why???? Do I just... picture and savor a lot???). I know when I'm reading nonfiction or back when I'd read class-assigned things I could read way faster, but I think its just because I scanned for important info and details and then moved on. Idk but...I really do read english fiction too slow too lol (I'm reading a friend's book and I've read like 110 pages despite like 10 hours on this book so far T-T just because I keep savoring it and pausing and rereading). I'm rereading a fic I wrote, so I know everything that happens, and I was reading like 1 page every 3-4 minutes ;-;. I know I can read super fast I think when I like something I just... slow down. Now, my chinese is reading slow just because reading slow is ALL I can do lol. But I may need... to be more realistic that any novel may take me 20-30 hours optimistically when I read like an english novel that's only 300 pages over 3 weeks now and I'm only 1/3 through it.

I can read chinese a touch faster if its actually in my 98% comprehended range I think. For hanshe, while when I'm slowing down looking up all unknown words its probably around the same speed as zhenhun? While I'm just reading to follow the story, I can finish a whole chapter in a handful of minutes. Now, like zhenhun, I am currently reading chapters I have already read before - so the familiarity is likely speeding me up. So that fact does mean it probably won't be as easy/fast once I get to the new chapters. At the moment though, unknown words pretty much all I have a good guess of understanding roughly in context (a lot like me reading fanfic in middle to high school as far as the amount of new vocabulary beyond my range that is not affecting my understanding). I just do not necessarily have a good chance of guessing completely new hanzi pronunciations (which is the main reason I keep occassionally looking up words). The hanzi I've vaguely seen before, I can sometimes guess their reading based on radical or the other word I know them from. But the completely new hanzi I do not remember seeing at all (although I did apparently at some point during the first read through) - I cannot make a decent pronunciation guess sometimes. And of course, the hanzi I always cannot guess correctly for the life of me (looking at you 'suspicious' 'hesitate' 'doubt' because I am STILL getting those 3 words/hanzi in them confused even though I've probably looked up each word like 40 times at least).

For me, print text is slightly easier to read (and in extensive reading its somewhat easier for me to guess new word meanings/hanzi). By this I mean the font they usually use for print novels (it looks a bit more like handwriting with more slanted lines and less 'blocky' of a look). I sort of think its because the print text usually used in books has more obvious radicals to me. So my eyes parse out the radicals I'm looking at easier and can make a guess at meaning/pronunciation. An obvious example is any time a 'sound noise' is written with hanzi with the mouth radical on them. When I'm reading in print text, I recognize 'mumbled, shouted, humph'ed, sighed, breathed in etc quite quickly. Along with sounds like 'xililala' and 'deng deng deng' and there was a sound phrase used I think in Guo Changcheng's section about school in chapter one that was like he sort of 'tumbled/fumbled his way through school' and while i know tumbled/fumbled is probably not Exactly the word? It looked like a sound-noise word to me because of the mouth radical, so I figured it might be something like that? Whereas I know when I read the webnovel if I saw a 4 hanzi phrase like that I would've just gotten confused by those hanzi cause I wouldn't have recognized the meaning of the other radicals in the hanzi. Also a few weeks ago I changed a fic I was reading's text to the print-usual text in Pleco, and had a much easier time reading less slow/recognizing hanzi I'd seen before. That said, recently reading a ton of hanshe has helped computer-text reading ability a bit I think. I'm getting much more used to recognizing radicals in computer-text website usual font, which I notice most obviously in that I'm hitting more 'sound hanzi' that are getting less confusing to me to recognize.

So I guess in summary, reading extensively is going fine. I'll find out in a few weeks if its causing any improvements. I do think its helping with my ability to recall words/pronunciations of words I've seen before though. Just because the quicker I can do that the less I pause, and I don't have a dictionary to help me out so I seem to remember some pronunciations quicker (maybe because I 'have' to). I also think its helping me with general sentence parsing a bit - which I thought I was fine at, but on re-reading the beginning of zhenhun I am realizing there's a decent amount of sentences I did NOT interpret quite right the first time around even with a dictionary.

[omniswords]

Chronicles of a Parisian Dumbass 10

omni’s on lunch break, quick post a new Chronicles update—

anyway, thank you for continuing to support this fic!!! i hope you enjoy this update and share the love!

from: itsdjbubbles

hey dude! i know you don’t know me or whatever but like, i wanted to tell you that clip you just posted was FIRE. and also i’m pretty sure we’re in the same city? i think i heard you playing this on the champ de mars yesterday. i didn’t have any cash on me but i totally would’ve given you some if i did.

anyway, nice tunes and hope you’re havin a good one

Luka’s only glad this message hasn’t been sitting in his request box for very long. Otherwise, he’d really feel like a total douchebag. And an ungrateful douchebag on top of that, considering the new clip he posted… isn’t doing as well as he’d like. Not even as well as the first version, the thirty seconds he recorded on his phone and slapped on the internet because his soul all but compelled him to. It’s not that he’s comparing himself to other musicians on here; he rarely does this stuff for the numbers, anyway. It’s more that he’s comparing himself to… himself. The thing that he loves doing, puts hours of himself into, versus… these simple, giveaway details of his life that he posts without a second thought, because, well, where else is he going to put them?

Is this the case with every artist? Because if it is, then that’s just… stupid.

It’s half-past midnight, but Luka still pushes himself out of bed and shuffles to the couch, using the light of his phone to guide his path. His mother and Juleka are surprisingly asleep by now—he’s pretty sure at least half of France is, in spite of what this city has to offer—but he’s hardly ever been opposed to the comfort of the quiet and the dark. At least it gives him a chance to read the message a few more times.

It’s not often that people reach out to him privately. In fact, most of his direct messages are from people he’d befriended on other social media platforms, or occasionally someone who, like this Bubbles person, just wanted to let him know they liked his work and hoped he was having a nice day. It’s not that he thinks that he’s better than the people who are brave enough to reach out. He’s just never really known how to answer those kinds of messages beyond a thank you, so he’s tended to leave them be, or worse—never accept them in the first place, so they’d never know he read them at all.

It sort of makes him wonder how people dealt with situations like this a century or two ago. Maybe they just never left their houses, so they could never be called upon. So they never had to be known.

That wouldn’t be so bad, if he didn’t have to make money. Or if he didn’t like the sun so much.

Well. He supposes with technology like this, he’s coming pretty close.

Out of curiosity, Luka taps Bubbles’s icon, just to peek at their profile. He balks at the follower count—it’s well over a thousand—and judging by the content they post, he’s pretty sure almost none of them are those stupid bots looking to make ad revenue or ensure their devices are brimming with viruses. Or worse—argue against human rights, as though they’re something to be argued against. Bubbles’s page is funny, and vibrant, and rife with links to this other website he’s only ever heard of in jokes. It makes him halfway wonder how many of Bubbles’s posts have blown up—and how many they’ve actually responded to with a tip jar link or a peep my Soundcloud.

Whatever this Bubbles person is doing, it’s working. And it’s working right.

They don’t have any pictures of themselves on their page, or even as their profile picture. In fact, the most Luka finds is a silhouette of them from a nightclub, somehow darker than black and highlighted by strobes of bold, bright light. And the most he can make out of that is the rim of a pair of round glasses, and layers of thick dreadlocks.

It probably doesn’t matter. Even if he pulled off some crazed theorist thing with wild hair and enough red yarn to map out every arrondissement, he probably couldn’t have picked out glasses and dreadlocks out of a crowd on the Champ de Mars if he tried and wasn’t distracted by his own work.

But what could it hurt to say hi back?

Luka pops in his headphones, because the music is the only thing that actually lets him concentrate, and starts to type his response in the notes app on his phone. He doesn’t want to accidentally send something he hasn’t read and reread, or hasn’t even finished typing. And if Bubbles just so happens to be checking their messages, he doesn’t want to keep them waiting with all the typing and deleting and re-typing and re-deleting. He’s been on the receiving end of those eerily calm ellipses enough times to never want to subject anyone else to that. Eventually—and eventually is a long time, even for him—he comes up with something he’s actually satisfied with.

to: itsdjbubbles

hey, sorry for replying so late, i didn’t get any notification. but thanks for the compliment. it’s really cool of you to message me in the first place, i appreciate it. sorry about the cash thing, but don’t worry about it. i’d like to do it full-time someday, but it’s more of a side hustle thing for now. maybe i’ll get one of those venmo or cashapp things for people who don’t carry cash. (i mean, you’re right, who does that, anyway? it’s the 21st century.)

With a deep breath and both legs bouncing, Luka taps the SEND button. And then he decides that was an awkward place to end a message, because apparently you can read and reread and edit and re-edit, and you’ll still find every little thing wrong after you post, so he sends a follow-up message as quickly as he can.

anyway, thanks for the message. hope you’re having a good night.

Assuming Bubbles is even awake.

As soon as he puts his phone face-down in his lap, his blood runs cold with relief, and his hands start to tremble and tingle in spite of how the music still blasts in his ears. He tries to calm himself down by placing the color of each song, but after just a few of them he starts feeling that familiar buzz of sensory overload. In the end, he has to lie back and close his eyes and bask in total silence, just to get his head back on straight.

A message.

He sent a message.

His phone buzzes from its place on his stomach, and immediately he scrambles for it, squinting against the bright light of his screen. There’s a single notification.

Bubbles.

He shouldn’t already be this excited to talk to Bubbles.

from: itsdjbubbles

dude, you’re still up? don’t you have work in the morning?

from: itsdjbubbles

no but for real, you should consider sharing on other sites or picking up some other gigs if you haven’t already.

from: itsdjbubbles

like lol i know we just met and all but i know a place i DJ sometimes that’d totally like your vibe. just lmk if you’re interested?

from: itsdjbubbles

anyway, we should probably get some sleep huh. g’night!

It’s… funny. How this is all it takes for opportunity to fall into his lap.

Luka gets to his feet, a tired grin inching its way across his face, and shuffles right back to bed, another message under his thumb. Except this time, he doesn’t bother to open up his notes. If Bubbles knows he’s up, he might as well own it. Just for now.

to: itsdjbubbles

i’m going, i’m going, don’t worry, haha.

to: itsdjbubbles

yeah, i’ll think about it. why don’t you send me their info?

from: itsdjbubbles

you got it, dude.

from: itsdjbubbles

also

from: itsdjbubbles

good luck with CBG and all

from: itsdjbubbles

though from the looks of it, maybe you won’t need it??

Luka’s eyes blow wide open enough to start asking in his head, what does it mean? what does it all mean? Instead, he presses his phone to his face, because asking—and screaming—will definitely wake up his family, and types out one more reply.

to: itsdjbubbles

trust me. vaguely knowing her, i think i will.