#which makes actually writing them really difficult

[emptymanuscript]

I admit I'm on the fence about AI in general... well, on the I have never used it and am not sure if I ever should but I've got the deep fear of missing out side.

But in the context of learning, it strikes me as falling in the same landscape as a calculator or Excel. I use a calculator or (actually more commonly) Excel to do any math because I'm not particularly good at math and never really have been.

BUT

When I was growing up, you did NOT get to use a calculator until you knew how to calculate. This was not a thing to make us suffer or just make life more difficult.

I also had stupid tests where I had to solve 100 math problems in 3 minutes, and I'm not about to argue that was good for me, helped me, or should be inflicted on subsequent generations.

I had to learn how to calculate BECAUSE of the above. If YOU don't know how to calculate, then it is impossible to tell if the calculator gave you the correct answer or not.

Back when I used to post to r/excel, I used to get flack for not showing the "EFFICIENT" way to solve problems but instead would show things step by step. But this is the same thing. If you do things in a big complicated group, you either get the right answer or the wrong answer. If you do things step by step you can CHECK your answer step by step and see if they make sense.

Do I need to know how to do 87^2 in my head in 30 seconds or less? No. I really don't. But I do need to know what is going on and why it is happening.

87^2 = 7,569 is great for a calculator to do. The calculator absolutely can do it faster than most people can. But if I just plug in 87^2 and get 689, how do I verify it? How do I check? Can I even realize, hmmm, that doesn't look quite right. Are my functions all right?

Knowing what is going on is the insurance for that. I can probably catch that, oh, I was trying to use a clever trick and forgot some steps.

The answer isn't all that is important.

And yes, it absolutely can make you dumber. Like I got to hear a discussion between two lecturers I really liked. And one just went off on a tangent and the other was clearly wondering why the hell she was there, this isn't science. BUT because I knew the details of how they were both dealing with the basic problem they were talking about - current science not being able to successfully predict certain phenomenon without numbers to fudge the situation that represent things that can't be proven independently of the need to fudge the numbers - I was able to follow the miscommunication while they, themselves, could not. His tangent made perfect sense in the context of his field of interest and made zero sense in hers. And if all you have the answers with no information of how you got to them, there's zero way to connect "I think the Sun might be conscious" and "I think half of the standard model is based on incorrect assumptions." They were in fact talking about the same things and differing solutions but there's no way to align that without talking about the assumptions, which needs to be laid out in order to UNDERSTAND the answer.

And struggling with my FOMO on writing, there's the basic truth that the reason I fear like I'm missing out is in part because I AM an expert. I have a graduate degree in TEACHING creative writing. I know my shit. So if I ask ChatGPT or whatever to spit out a scene for me, I not only can tell if it is good or bad, I can explain WHY it is good or bad and what needs to be done to improve it. I have zero fear of amateurs asking ChatGPT to spit out a novel for them and getting a novel of quality that I will be competing with. I am scared of people with enough knowledge of how writing works and knowledge of how ChatGPT creating the equivalent situation of me doing long division on paper while they're plugging the equations into a calculator.

A calculator, used as a tool, by someone who understands what they're doing, can do calculations faster and with less errors than someone who also understands what they're doing but isn't using a calculator. But it's not the difference of one being able to do it and another not. It's a difference of speed and accuracy.

It's an entirely different set up when it's someone who understands what they're doing versus someone who doesn't. You can give someone who doesn't know what they're doing all the tools in the world and it will still take them longer and produce an inferior product because they can't understand what they're doing.

And that's the basic problem with using ChatGPT for education. Yes, it can give you an answer. But because you don't know how, you simply have to trust that it is the correct answer. With no way to double check, no way to gauge, and no way to adjust the workflow to better suit your needs.

It absolutely is shooting themselves in the foot. Because school is the point where access to help with process and WHY things work the way to do is easiest to get. It does simply get harder to find the farther away from educational opportunities you get. And when you need it to work isn't the best time to be trying to figure out what you're really doing instead of already having that education and skill under your belt.

It's also relying on the fatal assumption that tomorrow is going to look like yesterday. My earliest datable memory is June 1st 1982. The world is so profoundly different in February 13th 2025, that I am very comfortable promising you that the idea that you can depend on the world looking the same for your entire life WILL get you into trouble because that's simply not the way the world works. Certainly not now. The assumption that it is safe to use ChatGPT now because you will always be able to use ChatGPT is a set up for failure. Will there always be tools? Yes. Will you know how to get future tools to work the same way as ChatGPT? Probably not. I grew up using Dos and then Window's machines. These days, the programs are so different, I find it easier to use a Mac instead of learning the new way that Windows does things.

If you rely on a particular tool solving a problem for you in a way you don't understand beyond that tool giving you the answer, you will be relearning the tool every large iteration. And eventually it will be different enough that it will set you back. That you will essentially be starting from nearly scratch. And then what? If you don't know what kind of answer you should get, how are you going to know if you're using that new tool correctly because some engineer decided that it is more efficient to move in a different direction?

Even novels have changed over the course of my life. Every book I've read that was published in the last 15 years breaks fundamental rules I was taught back in the early 90's. The conventions that I would have insisted that ChatGPT follow have changed. But if I didn't know WHY those conventions existed how would I even know? How would I adjust? Why would it even occur to me that I needed to adjust? ChatGPT sure doesn't know.

That's probably fine if it's just something you're doing for fun.

But if it is your job? Getting things wrong can be the difference between keeping that job and going hungry. It is not a good idea to be utterly dependent on your tools. Tools are to make what you're doing easier, not to do the task for you all together.

Yeah, just don't. The grades are not as important as what you will be able to do (or not be able to do) later in life. And sometimes that later can be a LOT sooner than you anticipate. I watched a LOT of people wash out or nearly wash out of college because they didn't know the whys and hows of what they were doing academically. I saw straight A students flunk out because they just learned the cheat or because their schools were crap and only taught one way to do things or taught nothing at all and just let the cards fall. I had a good friend who came in with a 4.2 GPA and nearly flunk out because she wasn't taught basic skills I had gotten in middle school.

Which was intentional.

Because she was black and poor and I wasn't.

Her schooling was designed to fail her because the best way to make sure someone as smart as her STAYED black and poor was to let her fly without ever teaching her the skills to do better when she needed to. And she was damned smart. And she worked damned hard. And she pulled through and got a master's before I did. But she was in the extreme minority and had a lot of help and still slid through by the skin of her teeth. Most people in her position crashed and burned and ended up WORSE off than they started. Which is great for the powers that be because it makes them a demonstration of why you shouldn't even try. It shows that society is stacked against you. Because it is. Because it is designed to fail.

Understand that ChatGPT is the same set up. It will make things easier. For now. It will give you the answers. It will work. Until it hits the level it can't anymore. And that WILL happen. It is inevitable. And then you have no supports and you ARE going to crash and burn.

There is a reason that ChatGPT is cheap and being forced on everyone. It is controlled by the people who are being served by the current societal structure.

Are you being served? Are you sure? Because if there is ANYTHING about you they can benefit by crushing, washing you out, setting you out to sacrifice, they're going to do it. Anything that is free in our society is a tool to make YOU the product. And they're damn good at doing it. So think long and hard about using that tool when they have so much history and investment in making you crap out for their benefit. Don't rely on them to save you.

I just started grad school this fall after a few years away from school and man I did not realize how dire the AI/LLM situation is in universities now. In the past few weeks:

I chatted with a classmate about how it was going to be a tight timeline on a project for a programming class. He responded "Yeah, at least if we run short on time, we can just ask chatGPT to finish it for us"

One of my professors pulled up chatGPT on the screen to show us how it can sometimes do our homework problems for us and showed how she thanks it after asking it questions "in case it takes over some day."

I asked one of my TAs in a math class to explain how a piece of code he had written worked in an assignment. He looked at it for about 15 seconds then went "I don't know, ask chatGPT"

A student in my math group insisted he was right on an answer to a problem. When I asked where he got that info, he sent me a screenshot of Google gemini giving just blatantly wrong info. He still insisted he was right when I pointed this out and refused to click into any of the actual web pages.

A different student in my math class told me he pays $20 per month for the "computational" version of chatGPT, which he uses for all of his classes and PhD research. The computational version is worth it, he says, because it is wrong "less often". He uses chatGPT for all his homework and can't figure out why he's struggling on exams.

There's a lot more, but it's really making me feel crazy. Even if it was right 100% of the time, why are you paying thousands of dollars to go to school and learn if you're just going to plug everything into a computer whenever you're asked to think??

[thydungeongal]

Actually, when I think about it, in the context of most traditional challenge-based TTRPGs (your Calls of Cthulhu, Dungeonses & Dragonses, and Rolesmaster) "no consequences for failure" doesn't really track as a system criticism but more as an adventure design issue. Okay, it's also a bit of a system issue, but I digress.

In most official Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green scenarios I've read the authors seem to consider their story a bit too precious not to have it happen, so they build a bunch of fail-safes to make sure that the investigators get funneled towards some kind of satisfying outcome, which comes off as feeling very inorganic. And I don't necessarily mean fail-safes like "multiple paths of clues to follow," instead I mean "if the investigators are struggling with finding information let them make IDEA or LUCK rolls!"

This same is true of D&D adventure design starting already in the early eighties but really coming to fore in the AD&D 2e era. Some of AD&D 2e's adventure modules are the absolute dregs in this regard, with the player characters literally as spectators to a linear succession of events that have a great effect on the metaplot, and with combat encounters sprinkled in. It's not even that without the player characters the story won't happen, it's that without the player characters there will be no one to watch the actual story happen. (This is a good campaign design question by the way: are you writing a campaign where the player characters are always reacting, always running after the bad guys who have already done a bad deed, always rushing to prevent a bad thing from being done, or are the player characters actual agents causing things to happen in the world?)

But anyway, that's not great. The mystery that has to be solved or the player characters won't get to see the exciting climax or the caravan moving through a series of plot points will make failure feel bad, because within that kind of adventure design failure can only ever feel like "the player characters must take a scenic route to victory."

But it actually is possible to have an adventure which accommodates for failure even when mechanically failure itself only means "the character didn't do the thing." It's the character-driven challenge game, best exemplified by the dungeon crawl.

"How do I make sure the characters find all the clues" becomes a non-issue once you accept that they might not find all the clues and the consequences of that can be as interesting as finding all the clues. "What if this fight is too hard" well then the characters can choose not to engage, and if they do engage and find it too difficult they can retreat.

[pepshee]

Push & Pull

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅

Pairing - toxic!heeseung x fem!reader

Summary - When Lee Heeseung, the campus it boy decides to take on a new girl expecting to just hookup and move on, but he didn't know that it would be more than a one night stand.

Warnings - idk how to write fics erm, my first fic, making out, drinking, frat parties, heeseung is a player, mentions of the other enha members, mentions of other idols no written smut but sex is implied (it didnt really fit the story to write smut sorry </3), fwb/situationship dynamic, lmk if i missed something !

Word count - 7.3k

A/N: hii so this is my first time writing fanfiction like ever.. I've been using tumblr for not that long but I have been reading fics for years on other platforms! idk if anyone actually reads these but i'm really sorry for any errors or especially grammar issues that occur in this fic. I tried my best, i'm aware it's not great but please leave me recommendations! also this fic is based off of a c.ai bot I wrote, the bot is a bit different tho, my c.ai is @/hee2eung if you want to check it out! Have fun reading! also I used Grammarly for half of this fic for some assistance but then I stopped bc it was starting to look like it was ai generated and I wanted it to seem more authentic yk

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

Being in your second year of college hasn’t been particularly difficult, although stressful; you’ve managed to balance your social life and school. Throughout your life, you’ve loved the ocean and marine animals, so you decided to major in marine biology. The university you go to is very expensive and prestigious—so imagine high school, senior year, getting a letter in the mail offering you a full ride to Kyung Hee University—you love this university due to the fact they had recently funded new majors. 

Originally they hadn’t offered marine biology, but luckily they had added it while you were still a junior in high school, which is why you decided to apply the following year. They even had funded hands-on programs to engage students and help them learn better than just using pen and paper, or in today's world, keyboard and mouse. Implementing an on-campus aquarium was by far the most beneficial to them; although expensive, they somehow managed it. Is it ethical? Who knows. What matters is the fact it’s there, and they do have on-site professionals to properly take care of the animals.

Managing the aquarium is by far your favorite part; hell, they even let you name one of the three seals. Being still a bit immature, you went with bubbles. Anyone on campus was able to visit the aquarium during the daytime. 

On this particular day, it was your day to take care of the seals and manage the aquarium. You had just finished feeding the small fish and the jellyfish. The only semi-large animal at the aquarium is the seal; everything else consists of small fish, jellyfish, and coral. You had gotten to the seals, grabbing a bucket of fish before walking through the staff door and going over to the seal pool. However, you hadn’t expected the campus it boy Lee Heeseung and his goons, who follow his every move, to show up.

Lee Heeseung.. Where do you even start? Everyone loves him. He's a part of the schools’ basketball team although, surprisingly enough, he’s actually a music major. You hadn’t had the chance to hear him sing, but from what you've heard it's angelic like he was heaven-sent. You wished that was all there was to him, but like many others, that wish quickly died. His reputation is mixed. It's never really clear if he's a good guy, or if he's like the boys from your high school.

As for his minions—Yang Jungwon, Park Jongseong AKA Jay, Sim Jaeyun AKA Jake, Park Sunghoon, Kim Sunoo, and Nishimura Riki—They're pretty much Heeseung, but with their own little twist. They love to follow his every move. It's not like he's using them, not at all, those are his best friends. They never say it but you can tell they'd kill for each other. Heeseung is the oldest among them.

Occasionally you’ve seen the seven of them behind the school smoking some cigarettes, weed, or drinking alcohol. They're all 21-23, so they're all of age except they know with your university strict rules because it's a private school if they got caught they'd be in mass amounts of trouble with the dean. 

They’re all rich, matter of fact, 90% of the student body is rich. Which makes sense when you take into account the obvious extreme tuition. You, on the other hand, are not rich. Your middle-class family didn't even want you applying to Kyung Hee because they knew if you had gotten accepted without a scholarship you wouldn't be able to go. They didn't want you to be disappointed, but luckily that disappointment never came.

The seven boys knew smoking and drinking while on campus was a heavy risk, but they didn't care. They figured since their families are rich they could just pay off the dean like they've done time and time again.

You're brought out of your thoughts when you get splashed a little by bubbles. But now you're once again wondering why Heeseung and his six friends had come to the aquarium.

They had never come to the aquarium, they never even appeared at school events that weren’t sports-related. You decide to ignore it for now and proceed to feed the seals. There were a few lingering visitors that weren’t Heeseung. You made the seals do a couple of tricks sometimes.

Except while doing this, you noticed Heeseung’s lingering gaze on you, his expression stone cold. You had no clue what he was thinking… That is until you overhear him talking to his friends. 

 “This is what they spent so much money on?” He asked his friend, Jake, in a more neutral tone. He was so hard to read, it ate you up inside. “Yeah, I think it’s kind of nice actually,” Jake responded; he thankfully is easy to read, unlike his best friend. 

“Hey, say, who’s the girl feeding the seals?” His expressionless face now gained a slight smirk; it seemed like he was planning something.

“Why? Are you interested?” Sunghoon responds clearly, teasing him; you can tell by the grin he’s wearing. 

“Just look at her; she seems innocent,” Heeseung's smirk growing even larger now.

After the first couple of seconds of their conversation, you stopped listening; instead, you focused on finishing feeding the seals. 

After the bucket was emptied, you put it back and left the seal pool. You wash your hands, trying your best to rid them of the fishy smell—though not very successfully, at least your hands are clean and no longer slimy—you go into the back and grab your things. You head out of the staff area, and you’re about to leave; that is until… 

“Princess” You stop in your tracks as your heart immediately starts speeding up. The voice is one you know all too well, one everyone on campus knows. Did Lee Heeseung just call you princess? Slowly you turn your head to look at him.

“Do you need something?” You try your best to hide the shakiness in your voice, to which you fail.

“What's your name?” There's an unmistakable almost mocking expression in his voice. You never thought you'd be face-to-face with Heeseung and his 6 minions.

“It's Kim Y/N” You managed to keep your voice steady even though you were quite nervous.

“Haven't really seen you around before, you must like the seals don't you?” He asked you, you can tell he doesn't care about what your answer will be, but you fall deeper into his alluring facade.

You've heard all the rumors flying around campus, how Heeseung is a player, but then one that immediately contradicts that one saying he’s an angel and he can genuinely hold a relationship. 

It's so hard to tell what's real and what's not anymore when it comes to Heeseung. 

“Uhh, yeah I do like the seals, they’re really cute aren't they?” Usually, you'd be really excited to talk about the seals you adore so much, and your usual bubbly personality always makes people love you. This time however, your excitement is on pause.

“They are quite cute, now, Y/N; have you been to a frat party before?” He leans down getting closer to you.

“I went to one last year when I was a freshman and I hated it so I never went back.” Thinking of the first and last time you went to a frat party is like a nightmare.. You thought it would've been somewhat like the movies, but it was much, much worse. Nobody told you the amount of dirt, vomit, and unidentifiable substances you'd come across. Not to mention the fact a guy was all over you and wouldn't leave you alone until your best friend Julie threatened him. Where would you be without Julie? You have no clue, but you know it's nowhere pleasant. 

“Aww how disappointing, well good thing none of us are in a frat, so the party my boy Riki is throwing at his place isn't a frat party. He has a big ass house, you should come princess. I’ll make sure whatever happened at that frat party doesn't happen again, trust me,” Surprisingly, this time, it was said softly, different from the way he spoke before. 

“How can you guarantee that? You don't even know what happened last time,��� 

“I don't have to know, all I know is that it won't happen again. Be there, meet at the fountain on Saturday, 6 PM. We’ll take you to Riki's house,” You thought about his offer. What if it’s different this time? Heeseung wouldn’t make an empty promise would he? Should I ask my friends for advice? Before you could even get an answer to any of those inner thoughts, you even surprise yourself with the answer you shot out. “Sure, I guess I’ll go.”

“Perfect,” he muttered, now standing back up and no longer leaning toward you. 

“We’ll see you there,” you didn’t expect Jake to say something, or any of his friends to say something to you. Before you can even comprehend the interaction fully, the seven are already walking off.

You sigh and check your phone seeing the time 2:37 displayed on the small screen in your device. Shit. You forgot you were supposed to meet up with your friends Julie, Karina, and Jennie at the campus café—which is student-run—to study and of course, gossip. You all had agreed to me at 2:30, meaning you're 7 minutes late. Now you have to rush across campus… god that damn Lee Heeseung. 

────୨ৎ────

Finally arriving at the café, you spot your friends sitting at a table and quickly go to join them.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Karina teased

“Jesus did you run here?” Julie laughs out, You take a moment to catch your breath before responding “I mean.. Maybe a little? I’m so sorry I got caught up talking with someone I just—”

“Y/N, it's fine we were only joking! Go order your drink and have a seat. Lucky for you we were waiting for you to get here before we started gossiping,” Jennie interrupts, letting out a small chuckle at your out-of-breath look.

“Right..” You breathe out, setting down your bag walking up to the front counter to order a drink. There's so many drink options but you always seem to order the same thing every time.

“Hi, what can I get you?” The barista asks politely ready to take your order. 

“Hi, can I get a large frozen hot chocolate with caramel sauce, and two pumps of the caramel syrup please?”

“Of course! We’ll make that right away!”

After waiting about 5-7 minutes you got your drink, you loved this drink so much. Even though there wasn't any caffeine, you loved it. You take a sip, it's pure bliss to you, although that same bliss isn't exactly shared for everyone. You walk back to your friends and sit down, you grab your books and laptop situating yourself before speaking. “So… is it gossip time now?” you ask, clearly giddy with the idea of sharing dirty rumors, insights and leaked secrets. 

Each one of you shares your own little pieces, the minutes ticking by and the studying completely forgotten. However, you perk up at the name of a boy.. A boy who was always a topic in these gossip sessions, but now, suddenly it feels a bit more… Intriguing? Why? Was it because the boy was Heeseung? The one who invited you to a party, called you princess, and spoke to you in a way that made your heart flutter in a way it never did for him.

“I heard Heeseung was making out with Wony behind the bleachers of the basketball court,” Julie leans forward while speaking knowing the topic of Lee Heeseung is quite hot and if anyone overheard would probably spread it further. Although her action is quite hypocritical cause she's currently spreading rumors that she heard from someone else, you let it slide.

“Really? Heeseung and the cheer captain? I saw it coming from the start, is it true tho?” Karina chiming in with her own input “I think so, someone said they got pretty heated, rumor has it they went to the locker room,” Julie responds back, it's clear she loves gossip. She somehow knows everything.

“Isn't this his third girl this week?” The unamused tone in Jennie's voice is prominent, obviously not his first time doing this. 

“What's weird is when he does get girlfriends he's always loyal, treats them like queens, and he can hold a relationship. I don't understand him. It's like this constant push and pull.” Karina chimes in. You've been quiet throughout this whole exchange since Heeseung became the topic. By this point you stopped listening after Karina's line. That is until you're pulled out of your thoughts by a familiar low voice.

“Talking about me with your friends Y/N?” 

Fuck.

All four of you whip your heads around to see Heeseung standing by the café entrance. He lets out a chuckle and starts approaching the table you and friends are sat at.

“I hope you're not talking any shit over here ladies,” Heeseungs huge smirk giving away the meaning of his words

“Y/N you know him? When were you gonna tell us you’ve spoken to Heeseung?” Julie's voice raised slightly due to her surprise.

You’re about to say something to reply to her but Heeseung does before you can, “Oh we’ve talked, haven’t we Y/N? She’s coming with me to Riki’s party on Saturday.” His smirk grew wider, and his tone dropped slightly.

“She’s what!?” Your three friends whipped their heads back to you looking at you with wide eyes. 

“I was gonna tell you…” You say, all the attention making you a bit timid.

“You didn’t bother to come talk to us first?” Karina explains her disappointment.

“I’m sorry.. It was an in-the-moment type thing..” You then check the time seeing its almost 3:35, you have a class at 3:40. As much as you’d hate to leave the conversation like this, you had to. “Um.. I have to go, I’ll see you guys later. I’m sorry..” You put your books and laptop away, getting up and putting on your bag. You give everyone one last glance, including Heeseung before exiting the cafe. 

────୨ৎ────

It’s now Saturday. 

You had resolved the situation with your friends and now they’re kind of cheering for you. They know you hate parties and the fact you’re coming out of your shell makes them happy for you. Currently you’re getting dressed, it’s 5:22 PM. You had just picks out a dress. A black, tight-fitted dress. The fabric has sparkles on it, and the straps of the dress are laced, and it drops into a slight ‘V’ in the chest area. It’s a bit scandalous, but maybe you like it that way. You’re not used to wearing fancy dresses. 

Finally arriving at the fountain after finishing your hair and make up you see Heeseung, Jake, and Sunghoon waiting there, waiting for you. 

You walk over to them, and they turn their heads to you. Once Heeseung sees you he starts to smirk before speaking, his voice low. “Didn’t think you’d make it princess. You look nice. Come on let’s go,” He makes a gesture with his hand before walking towards a car with his friends following beside him. You start following, having to speed walk to catch up due to all of them being tall. Once you make it to the car you all get in, Jake and Sunghoon in the back, Heeseung driving, and you in the passenger seat. It all seemed suspiciously calculated but you didn’t say anything because it was probably just your mind playing tricks on you. 

The car ride was seemingly normal, with Jake and Sunghoon being rowdy in the back, and you and Heeseung being completely silent with occasional glances here and there. You were texting your friends when Heeseung suddenly hands you his phone while driving. You look up from your phone to look at him confused before he finally says “You’re on aux pretty,” You don't know why but your heart felt like it was doing tricks in your chest. 

After a pretty silent car ride besides Jake’s yelling, Sunghoon’s babbling, and the music you had put on you arrive at Riki’s huge mansion. It’s crazy how a middle-class girl like you is even in the presence of these rich people. The four of you walk into the mansion, the music loud, rainbow lights all over the place, and the living room acting as a make-shift dance floor. Immediately you can smell all the alcohol and weed. 

You wander off on your own to get a look at the mansion, it looked so nice and you really wanted to see all the things the mysterious Nishimura had around his place. It was beautiful really, nothing you’d ever seen before. Not that you’d seen the interior of mansions before anyways.. You made your way to the kitchen only to find many, many alcohol bottles. You pick one up inspecting it before hearing a voice behind you, 

“I didn’t take you for a drinker Y/N.” The voice is so familiar to you that you don’t even need to look behind you to know it was Heeseung. 

“I’m not, Lee”

“Why don’t you try some then princess?” He starts pouring some alcohol into a cup not even awaiting a response.

“I mean I guess I can..” You were a bit nervous, never in your life had you drank alcohol. Not even at the frat party you went to years ago. He hands you the cup and you take a small sip, you feel the liquid go down your throat with a burn. You cough a small amount and make a face at the bitterness of the drink. 

“What do you think?” Once again he has that same old smirk on his.. Gorgeous face. “It’s so bitter.. How do people drink this shit?” Your face contorting into a look of disgust, it was a serious question to you. 

“Well.. I don’t know but I enjoy it. Just wait till you start to get drunk.” He pours himself a cup of the same alcohol before immediately downing it in one go. You look at him in shock, “seriously? How and why?” 

“Makes it kick in faster,” He shrugs. 

“Woah the room is spinning” You say whilst taking another sip of the alcohol. You were starting to get used to it. 

“That means it’s working,” He smirks, leaning down to get closer to you. “Come on, why don’t we go dance?” You nod and he holds out his hand for you to take, which you do. He leads you to Riki’s living room where there’s a bunch of people dancing. Heeseung leads you to the middle before releasing your hand, and placing his hands on your waist instead. Your back is against his chest, you both dance together. You’re having so much fun you don’t notice his hands travelling down to your hips gripping them before pulling them to make your ass press against his clothed crotch. You let out a small gasp at the feeling, the alcohol had completely taken over your system at this point. You begin to grind your ass against him making his grip on your hips get tighter.

He leans down burying his face in your neck letting out a groan. “Princess, what do you think you’re doing?” He says breathlessly.

“Having fun.” 

“Why don’t we go somewhere else darling?” He whispers into your ear, his voice low and seductive. You nod and turn around so now you’re facing him. He takes your hand taking you around the house to find an empty bedroom. You two finally find one and enter it, as soon as you’re both inside he closes and locks the door before immediately pinning you to it. He takes a glance at your lips, and then back into your eyes. “Can I?” He asked. You nod, and he immediately crashes his lips onto yours. 

You kiss him back moving your hands onto his shoulders gripping his shirt tightly like he’ll disappear. Your lips move passionately against each other. His hands roam your body before finally landing on your ass grabbing handfuls of it. He slips his tongue into your mouth moving it against yours as you two make-out. You can feel saliva running down your chin from the messy kisses but you don’t pay attention to it, too focused on kissing him. 

You both start running out of breath, he finally pulls away, a string of saliva still connecting your lips before breaking. You look into each other's eyes in a comfortable silence. However, it doesn't last long as Heeseung breaks it, “Bed. Now.” without hesitation you follow his command and make your way to the bed.

That night, you had the best sex of you life. You had heard Heeseung was good in bed, but you didn't think he was THAT good.. Turns out you had thought wrong. You'd only had sex two or three times before with an ex-boyfriend, but Heeseung was definitely so much better. 

That morning you found yourself waking up in a bed that wasn't yours. However, it also wasn't the room you had fallen asleep in. After having sex, you had fallen asleep in the bedroom in Riki's house, but now you're in a dorm room and it's not your own. You connect some dots and realize it's probably Heeseungs. Despite the college being extremely wealthy they still cheaped out on the dorm rooms. The rooms are thankfully spacious unlike public universities, however, they still have roommate systems so they don't have to build as many. Fortunately, Heeseungs wasn't home. You smell bacon coming from the other room and get out of bed noticing the clothes you're in clearly aren't yours. 

Walking into the kitchen you see Heeseung cooking breakfast for the two of you. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns. You could never go wrong with a simple breakfast like that one. Heeseung hears your footsteps and looks up from the pan to look at you. “Morning sleepyhead,” he teases.

“Shut up, Lee,” you spit back, he can tell you didn't actually mean it but it made him let out a chuckle. 

He finishes cooking and plates the food and grabbing drinks and places them at the table. You both sit down across from one another. You glance at him for a brief moment feeling your heart flutter as you remember last night. Every touch, every caress, every orgasm, it all felt so real. Or did it?

After eating you get up to place your cup and plate in the sink. You check the time realizing you had a class in 45 minutes. “Heeseung, I have to go to class. I’ll see you later okay?” He nodded, getting up and approaching you. He gives you a quick gentle peck on your lips and gives you a sweet smile. You grab your things and give him a wave goodbye leaving his dorm secretly committing his dorm number to memory. You exit the dorm building, it was the West building, you live in the North building. That’s all the way across campus, you sigh before starting to speed walk to your dorm building so you could get ready for class. 

After a long way you make it and enter your dorm to find your roommate Natty already gone. You quickly change into your own clothes, do your hair and quickly do your makeup. You grab your bookbag and exit the dorm heading to your class.

Class was boring as usual, the only class you care about is the ones that pertain to your major. Speaking of, today is your day for the aquarium again. Suddenly your day is much better and you quickly make your way to the aquarium. On your way you look at the scenery which is always really pretty. The cherry blossom trees make it seem so aesthetic. You zone out while walking thinking of various topics like K-Pop, your friends, imaginary scenarios until they're interrupted when you catch sight of something. 

Lee Heeseung, and Jang Wonyoung. Julie had mentioned they were probably hooking up or

dating, but you didn't expect to see him touching her.. caressing her.. flirting with her.. You had figured it was a rumor, but seeing him in front of you touching and flirting with another girl made you upset. Did last night mean nothing? Did those tender touches in the morning mean nothing? What about the aftercare? 

He has his hands on her waist as they're talking, under a cherry blossom nonetheless, god how icky can this get. You storm off even tho you know he wouldn't notice. You keep going towards the aquarium. If all else fails at least there's bubbles right?

Your favorite part of your day, feeding the fish, and the jellies but most importantly the three seals. The others don't have names yet but you're working on it. Your professor said once all the freshmen can actually tell the seals apart then you can name the other two, but for now Bubbles is the only named one.

You started feeding the seals until there was no more fish in the bucket. You wait till they were done before doing a hand gesture. Bubbles is the only one who knows it since you had taught it to him. He swims up to lay on the edge of the seal pool. You then go to to pet him.

Fuck Heeseung when you have bubbles right? It's not common to use petting a seal as a comfort method, but to you it is. Why would Heeseung hookup with you, do aftercare, and make you food if he didn't like you? 

You pull out your phone and take a photo of you with Bubbles. This is your favorite thing to do to pass the time. Bubbles is just a seal but to you he’s one of the only people that will listen as corny as it sounds. 

That day went as normal, you went to your classes, hung out with your friends in between them, and visited the seals every now and then.

You're getting ready for bed when your phone screen lights up, you pick it up and see a text from an unknown number.

From: 010-6200-0000

| hey y/n

| it's heeseung 

| Julie gave me your number 

| oh hey hee what's up?

| do you need something?

| ‘hee’ ?? I like it

| anyways

| can you come over to my dorm?

| jay isn't here

| your dorm? 

| yk we're not allowed in 

the other buildings after 8:30 and it's 10

| idc figure it out

| it’ll be fine

| i can pay off the dean if you get caught

| wtv

| im omw 

You put your phone down and put on a hoodie, a phone charger, your school ID, and your phone and head out the door. Your roommate Natty is already asleep so you quietly slip out. Walking down the halls of the dorm building to the elevator.

Managing to sneak past the security, you make your way to the west dorm building having to sneak past the front desk where there's security. After successfully sneaking past you scan your ID at the elevator, luckily the security measures aren't that advanced. 

After the elevator ride to the 5th floor you walk down the hall to find the door with the number 15169.

You let out a small giggle, of course the campus’ alleged “sex god” would have 69 in his dorm number.

You knock on the door and wait for him to answer the door.

It only took a couple seconds for him to answer, the door opened and revealed him. He was in a simple black T-shirt and grey sweatpants.

 Shit. Grey sweatpants. Everyone knows what happens when guys wear grey sweatpants.

You took a glance down before quickly averting your eyes to his face. Your action doesn't go unnoticed as he internally smirks before looking you up and down. “Come in”

You walk into his dorm and he closes the door after you come in. “Must be good at sneaking around, hm?” You can practically hear the smirk on his face if that was even physically possible.

“Maybe, what's it to you Lee?” He laughs lowly at your clap back, “Relax princess it was a joke, no need to get defensive,” he moves closer to you now practically in your face. You can feel his breath on your skin. Wasting no time he presses his lips to yours in a slow passionate kiss, and you waste no time kissing him back slipping your tongue in his mouth to dance with his.

One of his hands is on your waist and the other is playing with the hem of your shirt. He breaks the kiss to get your shirt off giving him a view of your lacy white bra with a pink bow, “This is quite cute, it suits you baby,” he then takes your hand and drags you to his bedroom. 

Waking up after some hardcore sex is not for the weak at all. You wake up in his bed but he’s not next to you. You sit silently waiting to possibly hear any noise but you don’t hear any. He must’ve left.. 

You get up from his bed feeling a slight sting between your legs. God.. Did you two really fuck THAT hard? You remember it but didn’t think you were going at it that hard. Is it possible you were so loud the neighboring rooms heard? God you hope not, 

You grab your things getting ready to leave his dorm before making exit, Heeseung nowhere to be found. You leave the dorm building, not having to sneak this time since it's daytime. Arriving at your own dorm building and your own dorm you put on fresh clothes. After brushing your hair and doing your makeup you grab your backpack and laptop to get ready for your class in 20 minutes. You head out of your dorm and walk to class, fortunately, you liked this class because of the research paper you were doing currently. You had to do a paper and a presentation on a marine animal of your choice, obviously, you chose seals. The only good part was the paper, you hate presentations, you get so anxious but that’s a problem for another day. You don't have to worry about that currently. 

It’s now lunchtime, and still no word from Heeseung. You see him sitting with his friends in the cafeteria and decide to go and talk to him. After walking over all seven of them look at you curiously wondering why you’re there.They know you have some sort of connection with Heeseung but they didn’t know to what extent it went. “Hee, why didn’t you wait for me to wake up? And why haven’t you texted me?”

“What’re you talking about Y/N? Why would I text you, I’d only text you if I need something. You didn’t spend the night last night what’re you even on about Y/N?”

His words shock you, is he denying last night? Is he denying the fact he knew you in any way but a friend? You don't have the energy to deal with it right now. “Oh.. right, I guess I just got mixed up or something. You look down in defeat, unable to even look him in the eyes before walking away. Suddenly, you don’t feel hungry anymore having lost your appetite. 

Even worse, is that today it wasn’t your day to feed the animals in the aquarium. You avoid your friends for the rest of the day deciding to just go to the library to do some classwork and study. You’re there until you have to go to your next class.

After finishing your classes for the day you start to head back to your dorm 

Building until you see Heeseung with Winter. Seriously? Wasn’t he just all over Wonyoung? Then you, then Wony again, and now Winter? He was being pretty touchy feely with her, and whispering into her ear while she giggles. You feel sick to your stomach and rush back to your dorm. 

After entering your dorm you put your stuff down and change into comfy clothes, shorts, and a tank top. Before you can lie down your phone lights up with a text message. 

From: Heeseung !

| come over y/n

| pls

Does he have no shame at all? You had thought for a moment to yourself. You had thought that maybe he wanted to talk about the stunt he pulled earlier. Maybe he wanted to apologize. 

You get to his dorm and he opens the door. He smirks slightly when he sees your outfit and opens the door wider to let you in. You walk in and head for his couch. You don’t even bother to ask where Jay is. Heeseung sits next to you on the couch and swings his arm around you, bringing you closer to his side. You two cuddled on the couch for hours before it escalated to making out and sex. 

This routine went on for multiple nights for months. You’d have sex, or cuddle all night, sometimes both, you’d share tender and soft kisses as if you were both a couple. Then the very next morning you’d see him all over another girl, he’d pretend he didn’t know you in front of his friends, but be all lovey dovey in private. You were so fed up with it, but the pull Heeseung had on you was irresistible. 

He’d push you away;

Just to pull you back in. 

Every morning after you two had cuddled all night or had sex he never stayed, you'd always wake up to an empty bed just to leave and find him all over another girl. The girls usually changed all the time, but one remained constant. You. Even when he noticed you watching he wouldn't back away from the girls. He’d ignore you and your texts all day, would pretend you were nothing but acquaintances but at night he’d treat you like you were the sun to his moon and occasionally even took you to fancy restaurants. 

In fact now that you thought about it, he did say he'd text you if he needed something from you. Clearly he just “needed” to have sex with you. You’d also noticed how you two actually barely knew each other, the most you could recite was surface level things about each other like his favorite color, or movie and he knew about you and Bubbles and you even showed him pictures of you with Bubbles,. Most importantly, neither of you ever confessed feelings, you had just assumed this was exclusive with a side of fan-service? 

Tonight you two are cuddled on his couch, at this point you'd become a mast at sneaking past the campus security. While you're both cuddling on the couch Heeseung is watching tiktok's and you're watching his screen as well. He occasionally would place kisses on your forehead, the top of your head, your lips, your cheek or your hand. 

The longer you two sit here cuddling, his arm around you, the more your mind starts to wander to everything that's happened with Heeseung recently. You finally decided to ask him a serious question.

“Heeseung, what are we?”

He freezes for a moment seemingly surprised by your question, but it also looks like he had almost expected you to ask this at some point. 

“We? Y/N, you're one of my best friends of course,” he didn't even really seem to bat an eye at his hurtful response. Your heart drops to your stomach at this answer, it’s clearly not what you wanted. Your eyes start to gloss over but he doesn't notice it, you manage to keep your voice steady, “That's it? Don't you think we're more?”

“Why would you think that?” 

What's his problem? Is he serious? Surely it's a cruel cruel prank right?

“Heeseung you treat me like I’m your girlfriend already, are you leading me on? Toying with me?” You can't stop the tears from flowing now, and your voice raises slightly as you clap back. “No, it's just all in good fun. it's not my fault you took it the wrong way.”

You couldn't even fight back anymore. You just got up, grabbed your things and left with tears in your eyes. Were you a fool? Did you really interpret his actions wrong? Is this your fault? Or his? There were so many questions going through your head, you knew Heeseung was in the wrong, but why was your brain telling you otherwise? 

Upon arriving back to your own dorm quietly you see Natty sleeping in her bed, and you quietly go to your bed and climb in it to go to bed. Your tears eventually subsided as you couldn't cry anymore, you were too tired. You close your eyes before finally drifting off to sleep. 

The next morning you wake up in your bed with sore eyes. It was a Saturday so you didn't have any classes today luckily. You get dressed, and grab your phone to head to the café with your friends. You walk across campus to the café seeing your friends at a table and you sit down. “Hey, Y/N what's wrong? You look like a wreck,” Julie was always concerned about you she could always tell when something was up. “It’s nothing Julie don't worry about it, okay?” You really weren't looking forward to having to explain everything but you knew your friends wouldn't back down.

“No, tell us, there's clearly something wrong,” in that moment you wished Karina wasn't good at reading people. Somehow all your friends could read you like an open book. “Fine.. I’ll tell you,” you explained the whole situation with Heeseung to them and tell them what happened last night. You hadn’t been talking to them because they were all really busy so they had no idea about any of this. “Y/N.. I’m so sorry that happened to you.. I thought you knew he wasn't a good person though?” Je nnie's question makes you think for a few moments trying to come up with a response. The truth is that you did know he was a player and not a good person, but the fact he could hold a relationship when he was in one was what influenced your decisions to get closer to him.

“I know but, I don't know, I thought it'd be different. He was so sweet to me, and you know whenever he gets a girlfriend he’s the sweetest to her and he's loyal.”

“Y/N you can’t just base your trust off of that alone. He’s known for flirting with a new girl everyday. He never even told you he liked you Y/N,” Jennie's disappointment was clear. She knew it wasn't fully your fault, and Heeseung is a dick but you still fell for his tricks. 

“You're right:. I’m an idiot, but I can't let him go. I really like him, should I just talk to him?” You were optimistic that there was something between the two of you even though the others believe he made it clear that there was nothing., “That’s up to you Y/N, but we don’t know if the outcome will be the one you want,” Julie chimed in, and that's all it took for you to get up and go look for him. 

After walking around campus for a bit you found him with his friends at the basketball court. You hesitate for a moment before walking over to them almost getting hit with a ball in the process. His friend Jake notices and goes over to Heeseung to talk to him.

“Yo Heeseung, Y/N is walking over here.” Heeseung immediately looks over to see that you are, indeed, walking over to them. He starts to smirk as he remembers what happened between the two of you last night. He walks away from his friends and starts approaching you, meeting you halfway now face to face with you. He doesn't say anything waiting for you to speak first. “Heeseung we should talk,” He nods and walks over to a tree that's near the basketball court but where nobody passersby could hear you two. 

“Look, I really don't appreciate what you’ve been doing to me, Heeseung. I feel like you've been toying with me, I feel like you've been just using me for sex. You treat me so well in private but ignore me in public. I really have feelings for you Hee. I’m an idiot for thinking we had something, I knew about the rumors yet I still would sneak into your dorm whenever you asked me to. I really like you, and it's okay if you don't feel the same, I know you don't actually,” You pour your heart out to him expressing every thought and feeling you've felt over these few months that you two have been in this ‘friends with benefits’ type dynamic. 

You hear him let out a sigh before he cups your face with his hands making you look up at him. “Y/N. Look.. I’m really sorry. Yesterday a lot of shit went down and I got drunk and took my anger out on you when you asked that ‘what are we’ question. The details aren’t important but I’m really sorry. I really like you too, I’m just not used to feeling this way. I know I've had previous girlfriends but those were from high school, I was different back then. Please forgive me Y/N,” this response was probably the last one you were expecting. Had Heeseung really revealed his feelings to you, and he reciprocated?

This is like a complete 180 to what he was like before. Is this really the same Heeseung from last night? Did he really like you? “Do you really?” You were in disbelief almost at his words. “Yes Y/N. I’m really sorry. I really like you. I’m not good with my feelings ever since college,” you really didn’t expect him to actually have feelings for you. “I forgive you Heeseung,” the words slipped from your mouth before you could even think about it. “You do?” He wasn’t expecting you to forgive him that easily. 

“I thought I didn’t want a girlfriend after my high school girlfriends fucked me over which is why I slept around so much, but when I met you that all changed. It’s been a while since I had felt this way and I didn’t know how to express it. Y/N. I really want you to be mine.. Please?” You nod immediately and he wraps his arms around you to pull you into a hug, and you hug him back. 

After a minute he pulls back and kisses you passionately. The kiss is full of emotion, and feelings. Just as the kiss starts to become heated you both start to hear cheers coming from the basketball court. Heeseung pulls away and looks over, he had completely forgotten that although they couldn't hear you, they could still see. They had just watched the tender moment and are now cheering about it. You’re a little embarrassed at first but then you laugh a little. 

Heeseung takes your hand and takes you back over to the basketball court where his friends are. 

“So..” Heeseung starts, “Obviously you know this is Y/N, but now she's also…” he hesitates for a moment, the words seeming foreign on his tongue.

“My girlfriend.” His words felt so good to hear, finally ending his game of push and pull.

[yimpysdiner]

Ridiculously long analysis of Jimmy's dialogue (PART 2)

PART 1 HERE Continuing with the next section,

Mimicking?

The whole ordeal of Jimmy copying Curly's "yeah?" in speech has already been pointed out, but there's something else I wanted to look into. This section is gonna be relatively short but this interaction still sticks with me. It's fairly easy to miss as you can brush it off but given Jimmy often repeats words or phrases from those around him I find it interesting.

This interaction was so awkward that it has me thinking about it over and over so honestly this may be one big nothing burger and more so headcanon territory but hear me out.

Jimmy gets quiet here as either 1, he expects them all to die on that ship as he said before crashing it or 2, he's terrified of any sort of attention their whole ordeal may get if they survive. The awkward silence is only filled by him commenting on ladies. Daisuke is no stranger to talking about "beach babes" and as Swansea puts it, "thinking with his downstairs long-nose." Honestly, Jimmy is a scumbag and gross around women, but I don't think this is the sort of situation where he cares to be impressing any ladies. This reads to me as him trying to "fit in" with Daisuke in a way. The way he often mimics people and says things they'd relate to defuse situations and get on their good sides feels like a form of masking. I'm no professional, no idea what in specific this would be, but Jimmy strikes me as the kind of guy who finds it really difficult to positively navigate a lot of social situations, especially if he feels uneasy like he was here. This parts super rambly sorry, this is just something interesting about him to me, how he'll latch on to other people's personality traits and mirror them.

Lashing out

We all already know Jimmy's not a very stable guy, very small things irritate him, he has levels to his anger however.

His base line irritation is just little remarks like this, things that you would scratch your head at but they're small so you can't quite bring them up. It's not completely aggressive, but it's definitely not very friendly either

I won't shove all the same screenshots of him lashing out during the birthday party here, but there he only lashes out in front of everyone else when he's able to make it seem like he's in the right. He insults everyone to their faces, but he's able to pin all the blame on Curly, letting out his anger while also in some sort of way getting people on his "side." Here he's *already* sewing seeds of doubt about Curly into the other's mind, so his little plan to blame Curly for the crash later on only works out all the more in his favor.

Then there's moments like when he's giving Curly his pills. He isn't exactly yelling, more so going on with his angry, paranoid rambles. This of course is followed by the implication he beats Curly while feeding him his painkillers, physically taking out his anger on someone who can't fight back. Side note, the only times he ever gets physical is when they're in a position of being unable to fight back (drugging Swansea, the implied drugging of Anya, and of course when Curly is left defenseless.)

I believe this is the first instance of Jimmy actually full on yelling while having one of his tantrums, which is why I say his anger is written in levels. It's not all one flat base of him cussing like a sailor and screaming his head off, remembering this and *what* exactly makes him tick helps me when deciding how I should write him reacting to certain situations. There's other instances where he's clearly panicked and flustered, stuttering and rambling because of high stress situations such as when Daisuke is on the brink of death and it's all his fault, which we'll get to later.

Hopelessness

Something I noticed when going back through everything is Jimmy seems completely and utterly hopeless about everything in his life. It starts out in the cockpit scene, one of the very few times he's genuinely vulnerable.

This line initially just seems like Jimmy is some power tripping guy who likes being the right hand man to the Captain, which is entirely possible (and true, given how quick he is to assume the Captains role himself), but it leads me to suspect something else as well.

These are out of order, but I think like this is better demonstrates Jimmy has never really felt the sense of control over his life like he has until he got this gig with Curly. He feels comfortable like this, which is why Curly wanting to "throw it all away" in his eyes baffles him. I really wish the devs gave some insight to what Jimmy's life on Earth was, why *he* ran from it all to assume a position where he felt he was finally in the drivers seat.

When Jimmy is faced with the reality of what he's done, his first worry is when he gets back home, he'll be caged in the same position he was, back at square one with no control over his life, rotting in a prison. Even if he did get out, as he said, none of it will matter, not with an assault on his permanent record. Maybe he held onto hope that he and Curly would find something new to do, but because he made the choice to force himself on Anya, that'll never happen. His knee jerk reaction to that? Kill himself. Kill himself and take everyone down with him, because if he's not in control, he may as well be dead. "The Tulpar crew was never found."

Remorse

Jimmy isn't entirely uncaring for what he's done. He suffers delusions for each and every one of the people he fucked over, all except Anya. Instead, he sees visions of the child he created, the ever looming reminder of what he did, no matter how hard he tried to block out Anya from his mind, it will always, always haunt him. Him crying to Curly and pleading forgiveness from someone who can't properly give it to him anymore is already a sort of in your face scene, that and the scenes with the horse delusions.

I want to talk about Daisuke and Swansea actually, as he had a much more direct role in their ends. In his mind he can say, oh, Curly ran in and did that to himself, oh, Anya swallowed those pills and did that to herself. It's Daisuke and Swansea who show up more broadly as themselves in his delusions as he was the sole reason for their passing. As Daisuke is dying, he is incredibly distressed the entire time.

Daisuke being so prominent in his mind has always struck me as interesting, seeing him in the vent, a grave, in the graveyard, all the flowers, the real genuine panic when trying to fix what he did. He never wanted him to die, he obviously feels immense guilt in making him crawl through that vent.

As for Swansea, Swansea can read him like a book, and he lets Jimmy know exactly what he thinks of him before he's shot and killed. He appears in the graveyard with Jimmy, also leaving a lasting impact on Jimmy's psyche.

To say Jimmy feels nothing over what he's done, or that he wouldn't care about people dying or anything like that is wrong on so many levels when the entire last half of the game focuses on him having to literally fight his own demons. It all culminates into him saying he fixed everything, deluding himself into being a hero as some sort of final comfort to his broken mind before he offs himself, "saving" Curly after dismembering him as if that makes up for all his wrongdoings. Jimmy is so layered and interesting and human, and that's what makes him a fantastically written character. It's what allows you to see yourself in him and reflect, see those insecurities he harbors, those toxic traits he exhibits, every little ugly part of him meant to be a mirror to your own actions. Denying him his humanity and making him an emotionless, aggressive, constantly angry person strips him of everything he's meant to be.

Sorry for the huuuuge yapsesh, but I thought going over these would be fun, it also helps me keep my characterization of him as accurate as I can possibly make it. If you have any thoughts let me know!!! I am very very invested in him and I love to hear what others think of him, even if I may agree or disagree.

[studyinglogic]

[Continued from above]

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

Language Apps Suck, Now What?: A Guide to Actually Becoming "Fluent"

The much requested sequel to my DL post that was promised almost a year ago.

I'm going to address all of the techniques that have helped me in my language learning journeys. Since 95% of these came from the fact that in a past language learning mistake, they are titled as my mistakes (and how I would/did things differently going forward). For those that read to the bottom there is a "best universal resources" list.

Disclaimers:

"Fluency" is hard to define and everyone has their own goals. So for the purpose of this post, "fluency" will be defined as "your personal mastery target of the language".

If you just want to pick up a bit of a language to not sound like a total foreigner on vacation or just exchange a few words in a friend's native language, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply, but maybe something here could help make it a little easier.

This is based on my own personal experience and (some) research.

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

[captain-huggy-bear]

The New Guy

Pairing: Kiefer Sherwood x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Sexual innuendo

Summary: You have an interesting first interaction with the new Canuck, Kiefer Sherwood.

Notes: Request from @toasttt11: I went with a close friend of Quinn rather than sister because that way more people can relate but I hope this is the kinda vibe you were after for this :)

A short little one, but hopefully funny/silly

Totally happy to take requests/ideas/prompts at the moment in my ask box :)

Writing Masterlist

You've seen more trades than you can possibly comprehend in your time as Quinn's best friend. Witnessed the way everyone grew solemn as a friend and teammate had to leave suddenly to somewhere else, sometimes right before a game, sometimes in the off season. Saw how difficult it was when they were opponents, rivals rather than teammates for the first time in years. But, also the excitement when someone new came in and no one was more excited for this particular acquisition than Quinn.

Your best friend had pushed so hard, so much for the team to get Kiefer Sherwood and it meant that the day of his official signing, official joining, Quinn was abuzz, or at least as abuzz as Quinn can get, which meant slightly less haunted than usual. Some of the usual stress of being captain having been lifted from his shoulders with the prospect of a new teammate to help them win the Stanley Cup.

"He's going to be so good for the team, Y/N. We need a solid enforcer, someone to make big hits." He'd been ranting on and rambling all day about how good Sherwood would be for the team and it was starting to dull the shine, just a little. You couldn't help but roll your eyes as the two of you walked through the corridors of the arena.

"You've only said about a thousand times." You're happy for Quinn and the team, of course you are. The excitement palpable as you stop outside the locker room. You can't even deny that you are a little excited yourself to meet the 6ft tall forward, a new teammate for Quinn usually meant a new friend for you...it helped that he was handsome and that meant another face to ogle at when you were in the stands watching the games. You liked having a little bit of eye candy in your day, not that you'd tell Quinn that. He'd probably complain that you were a HR incident waiting to happen.

"Hey! I mean it. This is our year!" Quinn smiles at you in such a genuinely hopeful way that you really hope he's right. Being captain has meant he takes every error, every loss onto his own shoulders. You really hope Sherwood and the team prove Quinn right, for Quinn's sake more than anything else.

"He better be nice, that's all I'm saying, if he treats me like a coffee girl I'm going to enforce him." You cross your arms over your chest as if you might fight someone, quite hilarious when you consider the sorts of men you're surrounded by on the daily. Still, you're determined not to be undermined or treated like just a pretty face, casual workplace sexism was not something you were going to allow. You hoped this new guy wasn't one of those hockey players. You'd dealt with your fair share in your life and couldn't stand them.

"What does that even mean?" Quinn huffs out a laugh at you, shaking his head at you because he loves you, but fuck, you can be so weird sometimes. You remind him a little of Luke. A little weird, a little strange but in the best sort of way. Endearingly bizarre.

"It means he'll get shoved into the boards." He might be 6ft and 200lbs but you're pretty sure that with the element of surprise you could get Kiefer Sherwood into the boards if he annoyed you enough. Maybe even onto his back on the ice with a well aimed stick to the ankles.

"Y/N." Quinn seems to disagree, it's quite insulting actually, the way he looks at you like you're mad. Like your smaller stature makes it impossible.

"You don't think I can do it? I've shoved Luke into the lake before."

"Lukey is a bean pole and loves you, so he let you." You're actually quite hurt that Quinn is convinced the Luke let you shove him into the lake when you know that you did so on your own merit and skill.

"You think I can't shove Kiefer Sherwood into some boards? You think I'm weak!"

"Y/N." Quinn's gaze shifts behind you, just over your shoulder but you don't take much notice of it. He's probably looking at one of the arena workers.

"This...you're supposed to be my best friend. I could take him! I could definitely take Kiefer Sherwood!" You're actually a little hurt that Quinn doesn't seem to think you're capable of taking Kiefer Sherwood in a fight. Even if he's probably right. Sherwood could probably toss you like you're a doll...an appealing thought depending on the circumstances behind it.

"Y/N!" It's the urgency behind Quinn yelling your name and the way his stare is directed above your head, mixed with the hint of a laugh that tells you you're about to be terribly embarrassed.

There's a beat of silence, your shoulders tensing, mouth pursing in realisation.

"...He's right behind me, isn't he?" Quinn nods in confirmation, holding back a laugh as you briefly close your eyes, trying to swallow the embarrassment that you can feel rising in you like a wave. Not the best first impression you've ever made.

You turn to look behind you once you've composed yourself. Kiefer Sherwood is there, leaning against the wall with one shoulder, arms crossed and smirking at you. He looks frustratingly handsome, perfectly rugged and dishevelled from the dimples around his smirk to the dark curls that seemed to fall perfectly around his face. He looks...big too. The only accurate way to describe him, broad shouldered, solid, like he's immovable and perhaps you'd overestimated your ability to fight the man. Perhaps Quinn was right. But, you're certain you could take him...just maybe not in a fight.

"You can shove me into the boards any time you want, princess." The way he looks at you, all dark half lidded eyes and long lashes, makes warmth flood through your entire body, but mostly ending in your face. You're certain your cheeks are on fire with how warm they are.

"Kief, don't flirt with my best friend." You want to tell Quinn off because Kiefer Sherwood can certainly flirt with you if he wants, especially if he looks at you like that. You did not need the overprotective best friend act right now.

"But, she's cute." His eyes don't leave you even as he responds to Quinn, like he's still talking to you.

"Kief."

"Alright, alright..." He pushes off of the wall, practically sauntering over to you, stopping a few feet short, respectable enough to give you space, but there's nothing respectable about the smirk he's still sporting. "Still think you could take me?"

"Oh, definitely." There's absolutely no mistaking the way you lower your voice, the coy tone to it, the fact that you most certainly don't mean in a fight. It has Kiefer throwing his head back with a loud, rumbling laugh while Quinn all but hisses at you like a scolding parent.

"Y/N!"

Yeah, you think you might like the new guy...maybe more than you should.

[lazilybeinglassie]

It's flawed, and I hate it (Beast Yeast Ep 7&8)

I think it's fair to say when it comes to the writing of Cookie Run Kingdom, it is not perfect. Nothing in life is. However, it's definitely been discussed in the circles I'm in that the best way to enjoy the story of the game is to just not think about it too hard and watch the fun and colorful commentary just sweep you off your feet.

Bless you localization people.

When the Third Anniversary introduced the beasts, there was quite a lot of hype around it. Especially around Shadow Milk. No surprise there though, considering this is the Discord/Bill Cipher of the cookie run franchise. Everyone loves those characters. And having him get his update on the Fourth Anniversary, before we met the rest of the beasts, was by all means really cool to have happen.

Yet this post I make here is not to discourage people from playing the game or saying they can't like this update. It's still a fun time. But the story in the latest episodes sadly left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I wanna at least touch on why it did. So be warned, this is probably gonna be the biggest hot take in recent days of the fandom.

Part 1: Manipulation 101

Mind games are difficult to write in general. Especially when you are writing a story that meant for a younger audience. Not only do you have to make sure the kids are following along with the tricks and lies, it also has to be entertaining enough that they can keep watching.

Cookie Run Kingdom definitely has had some decent moments of proper manipulation in it's previous stories before. Mozzarella in the Golden Cheese arc stands out the most right now. But it definitely did not shine for whoever wrote the Shadow Milk arc here. And it mainly has to do with how they made the characters stupid for no logical reason.

Like, White Lily literally follows the gang all the way to the front doors of the Spire, just to decide to turn back and not be in the rest of the episode because she felt like it. If you didn't want her in this adventure, you should have just had them give goodbyes back at the Faerie Kingdom at the start of the journey. It's nothing more than just pointless padding that could have been cut out. I'm honestly not sure why she was added here, it feels super pointless. And you can't call this Shdaow Milk tricking them into departing, cause there was barely an effort of manipulation that actually could be credited to him in that whole exchange with the old man.

I should be fair though, cause the rest of the main characters are just as stupid as she is when they start their journey. And yes, that is a proper complaint to make when it's established in story they know who they are facing. They verbalize many times that they know Shadow Milk is gonna be there, and they are well aware he is a manipulative bitch. They are aware. But they are all written to just . . . fall for the simplest of tricks. Inviting strangers to journey with them. Splitting up the party. SLEEPING IN ENEMY TERRITORY!

The issue remains that a lot of the manipulation doesn't feel rewarding because our heroes have been reduced unnaturally to fall for these tricks. Instead it gives off this artificial villain victory where it's never earned but handed on a silver platter. And it carries on into episode 8 as well, not just 7. And that episode is just a dragged on series of how many times can Shadow Milk use the same threat over and over again on Pure Vanilla Cookie.

Speaking of which-

Part 2: Dragging On Pointlessly

While episode 7 was a poor set up, episode 8 was like an unfinished draft they never completed. The pieces are there, and I adore what they did, but they each fell short in their respective areas.

I think I would specifically describe it all as anticlimactic.

The river being the prime example of this. Looking at how it was designed to be used to force Pure Vanilla to become Shadow Milk's servant/deciple, it really is shocking that it doesn't hold any importance to the story at all. Perhaps if PV's transformation into Truthless Recluse was tied into it, then it would have more weight, but that's just one idea I thought of.

They make it sound like it's this big event when it really doesn't change anything. PV doesn't even appear to be more loyal to Shadow Milk, he just still remains passively annoyed and resistant. Which is disappointing how they could have had more stakes to it to feel more intense.

Chess was a bit more satisfying with how it concludes itself with forcing Pure Vanilla to cheat the game and rely on tricks to beat Shadow Milk. It's a fine moment, golf clap.

That being said, it does start to wear thin that we have to watch Shadow Milk repeat his threats over and over again. By the time the final ultimatum is offered, the weight of it is no longer there. You can't expect different results from the same action like this. It's just not at all motivating or engaging as you keep doing it.

However, that wasn't really the lowest point for the whole update. I can forgive most of that. I can live with it. Cause out of everything I disliked in this update, there was one thing I hated more than all of that.

Part 3: . . . Friend? NEVER!

I had to sit with this one the most. Cause I understand it is there for a reason. Pure Vanilla Cookie's most famous character defining line is after all "any conflict can be resolved through conversation". For him to reach out to Shadow Milk is fully understandable and in character for him.

HOWEVER!

I do not like how the scene played out, even if it ended with Shadow Milk not redeemed.

Yes, I can agree on the idea he wanted to have someone suffer with him. I'm fine with that concept. Honestly, I like that angle. It's fun!

Yet as I look at the scene everytime, all I see is a moment of Devsis telling me "hey, he could be redeemed later on"

And I fucking hate it.

Redemption for a villain for me has two rules to it. First, it must make sense either in theme, character, or story. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it at least needs to feel fitting from what's been established so far. And of it contradicts any of those, then it will stick out like an uneven puzzle piece.

The second being that the chatacter being redeemed must express these traits-

1. Recognizing their wrong doings as bad.

2. Regret doing those wrong doings.

3. Desire a change within themselves.

Each of these are essential in that redemption arc. If they don't, then they are either still a villain, or just pacified (example Red Son from Lego Monkie Kid).

Shadow Milk Cookie fails these two rules. His character is a creature who finds enjoyment in the suffering of others. There's never been exceptions to his rules other than the other beasts. Even amongst his own minions, he is willing to harm them to ensure they won't fail again.

The conversation between Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk, while sweet, is the most jarring moment ever. Not once does it at all feel built up to it, and most of it is designed for you to feel bad about this jester. In which I feel like the steps they took to get to this point were the wrong steps to take.

Granted, he does reject his proposal, but now that seed has been planted into the audience, and if they choose to nurture it, they will not have time to make it work. Because once they get to the last beast member, we will be seeing their arc ending in 2026. We won't get another year to flesh them out, there will be no more beast focused story telling.

I will not pretend to know what the end goal is. No one can. But I am all the more concerned if I will enjoy it. And it may be that I won't. Still, I know I will still give it a shot. Even as I sit in my corner and make my fanfics of what if scenarios. Cause I do still enjoy the spectacle of it all. And it's still always fun to see how the characters get even more quirky than before.

And with that, I end this hot take on a mid outro. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

[kosmicdream]

the biggest problem with my writing

it would be really difficult to explain the writing process chronologically for FFAK because its like. oh yeah mop was made as a concept in 2017 and he was made specifically to interact with dr slate after rock's death. i wanted to make a creepy janitor (a weed), former convict, that had some weird personal history with spoon. he would be determined to try to work with slate to get revenge.. i didnt know what had happened yet but at this point in the comic, im only just starting to draw scenes of them interacting. mop/nail essentially started as a side character for slate's perspective, obviously didnt stay like that but.. i mean, nail did not start as fork's fork. that just fit together somehow in a way where its impossible for me to think it otherwise, it might as well always have been that way. but nail didn't exist for the first three years of the comic and when i did actually decide on his character i basically put the spoon/rock fight on hold (again) to just draw nail/spoon scenes.

i can't say this was the smart choice or whatever its just what ended up happening. i think a lot of arc1 was built on impulsive choices like that, which comes with good and bad of course.. i dont write the same way anymore, but it still happens sometimes. gaueko/kamila were not meant to be a ship but their chemistry felt so natural to explore i decided to dive into it and let that happen as part of the comic. now in 2025, not only am i actually drawing scenes i wrote for 2017 in FFAK, but also finally drawing scenes in NRD that i also wrote in 2017. Not sure how it happened where i'd be doing that for both of them at the same time in 2025, but that's how it ended up. Its just strange how it did because its also so likely for me to end up going with a new idea impulsively (like making nail) that i put aside something else planned for the new idea (the rock/spoon fight.) Even if i eventually do return to the older scene, the order of events are totally changed. Granted, in the end i AM happy i waited to draw the spoon/rock scene, but not exactly for the narrative reasons - i just know in ch12 i was kind of like.. over-rendering everything in a way that i think would have made drawing that action scene a nightmare. by the time i got back to it in chapter 14, i had figured out how to dial things back and not over work my pages as much anymore. not that over-rendering made everything worse, but overall the experience of making pages was not as effective and draining. 

Not sure where im going with all these thoughts, but it is curious to me that I made nail/mop about 3 years into making FFAK.. which by the time FFAK was that old, a lot had happened in the story and development wise for the story. When i think about it now, its hard to conceptualize just how much I wrote/made during that time. Now i feel a lot more conservative with my ideas and plans, but thats also partly because i am always accommodating FFAK. When there wasn’t any FFAK.. that space to make a lot of things was totally open. I didn’t feel restrained. That was great! But im very different now in every aspect of the creative process. I am very restrained in many ways, of my time, my choices..ect.. I have to calculate it with everything else im already doing.. In a strange way though I think I prefer it. I make a lot better choices for the stories, but they don’t come easily or quickly which can be frustrating. Its just so different and i wonder if that differences are going to be seen and felt in this second arc as much as it is from my perspective? I don’t know.. I still havent drawn it yet, so that part is still a mystery on how it’ll be received LOL.. Just a lot i’ve been thinking about lately. My (unfinished) fairy comic is already 5 years old now and im like.. What..? but its true.. I started working on it in 2020. It does NOT feel 5 years old. Because when FFAK was 3, it already had changed so much in that time. 3 years was like a lifetime of experiences for FFAK. 5 was even more than that. Comparing comic experiences doesn’t ever really make sense logically though. They all have their own paths for growth.. And i see that more & more now especially with NRD, which I have never BEEN at a better place with creatively than I am now. Its like the love of my life since last year, which I would have never expected.. But that took me like 8 years to get to. Usually you expect the honeymoon period of a story is going to be in the early years ,when the idea is ripe and new and exciting.. And sure, NRD had that but its not like it is now. It has never felt more alive and interesting to me to work on. 

There’s been a lot of years of struggle with NRD too, where I almost felt like I was wading through the mud and not sure if it was even a story worth telling cuz it just felt like it was holding me back, reminding me too much of my life i was trying to move on and heal from. But last year i had a breakthru and now im in a sort of different struggle with it where I dont want the comic to end anymore. I will try to though, but as its getting closer to it its like a mourning process has started. It both feels impossible to end the comic because of how hard/long is to actually draw things LOL but also impossible like emotionally to let go of. I made NRD during the fallout of.. A LOT of things in my life but also specifically a break up of a long term relationship.. I’ve been single all this time and now the comic is like. My surrogate boyfriend almost? 

Im AWARE of this intense attachment to it and its like.. My comfort blanket that enables this loneliness in me to not do something different in my life to change that loneliness. Part of me feels like i CAN’T yet. I have to finish the story! But that’s not really it.. I think that if its gone, I won’t have a "reason" to enable my isolation, and by reason I mean purpose in a goal that I’m determined to accomplish that is significant to me.. Which of course, finishing a story will always be one of the biggest motivations in my life despite avoiding it so much, as much as possible in some ways to get to the point and moving on from it. Sometimes its hard being so aware, knowing myself through my own art and writing that my biggest problem is not being able to let go. 

[thecircularsystem]

Circ's Switching Advice

The number one thing to remember when it comes to switching and learning to control, in our opinion, is compromise. You have to work together to switch, and that can be difficult.

Tips and tricks I've learned:

Grounding and meditation have helped a lot. When we're triggered, it's a lot harder to sit with myself and say, "Who do I need to help me handle this?" If you need to switch, stay calm and breathe.

We have found it easier with various visualizations. For instance, when we switched today, Ve imagined herself flying out of the fronting circle -- but she was in too much pain from our headache to switch. So instead, she visualized me coming over and patting her shoulder, which I did. Then, I was close enough to take the control, and she could go lay down.

In connection with that above bullet, visualization helps in the outerworld too. We found it helped us a lot when we started writing our experiences through the lens of a robot with multiple "cores" who represented our alters. When the bot switched, the color of its UI switched as well to the colors we associate with. Now, when we switch IRL, we visualize our eyes changing color to the associated color, which helped to ground our switches more in reality.

We found it helped to have an accountability buddy for switching, in this case our spouse @circulars-singlet. They will remind us of how long we've been out, which in turn makes us think, "hey, you're right, I tend to get burned out if I'm out that long. How am I doing?" Those check ins are really helpful. They'll also remind us if we said we wanted to switch.

We sometimes have found it helps to focus on the feeling of our body while switching. For instance, Numb when he fronts tends to have a better posture than us, so if we want to switch to Numb, we often straighten our posture. It's kinda like... we make the house something the person would like to live in if we want them to come to the house, yknow?

We also used to use music to help switches along. Still works to this day. Roy's the only one who likes country, so hearing country music helps get him closer to front. Same with vocaloid for Tavi and swing for Numb.

Communication is vital, however you end up doing it. We've basically always been able to contact one another, but we have used journals before to do so. If you want someone to switch in soon, maybe writing them a note or calling out to them innerworld would be a good idea. Making them aware of that desire in any way is a great call.

Connected to that and compromise, it can sometimes be hard to suggest someone come and take the burden. We actually still are struggling with this concept. Asking someone to switch in is hard, because we understand how difficult life can be, and it's hard to ask someone to take that burden on. Our therapist has been working with us to view it more as "Thank you for your help" and less "Sorry for what I'm doing to you."

I'm starting to run out of steam, sadly, but please folks, feel free to chime in with your own ideas.

[lilacs-stars]

wait okay I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet (and I'm really sorry if this has been brought up before, to my knowledge it hasn't, but obviously I haven't seen every single post ever), during "perfect revenge" when they first go into the dead fish layer thing whatever, and around the time where uliana says "find that perfect, perfect revenge"

HADES LITERALLY GRABS ONTO MORGIE'S SHOULDERS AND DOES A LIL JUMP?? AND HE'S SMILING AND HE SEEMS SO HAPPY HE JUST DOES A JUMP LIKE

it's soo cute 😭 honestly in my opinion it feels super out of character for him, idk why it was even included but like maybe it shows a part of hades that's super bubbly, which he tries to mask with his apathetic, uninterested demeanor?

but the way he jumped on morgie's shoulders in particular, makes me wonder more about their dynamic? like is it because morgie's so bubbly that hades is like that around him too? and the way that morgie was quick to agree to hades's "yeah let's burn her to a crisp" makes me wish we got to see more of them. like imagine hades always acting so tough and unconcerned around maleficent, but finally letting loose and being super excited and happy when he hangs out with morgie.

anyways just a thought, I figured it would be nice to point it out and see what you guys think about it. that's all for now! :))

(also now I can't get the idea out of my head where hades is being all chill to maleficent like "yo imma go hang out with morgie" and she's like "okay whatever" and then cut to hades hanging out with morgie where they're both squealing and jumping up and down like a pair of teenage girls while one of them spills the tea 😭 I'm sorry I can't this is too funny 💀 I actually need a fic about this like this is some top-notch villain behavior fr)

[cozylittleartblog]

lil columbo sticker design i made for my etsy :) i'm not sure what the market is for columbo merch but if the demand is high enough i'd like to make an enamel pin in the future!

[buwheal]

BEACH OUTFIT 💥💥💥💥

He used to surf the web back in 98'.

[queerpdsys]

seeing disability awareness posts end with “TLDR; no, read it” is fucking WILD

[skitskatdacat63]

I don't know how I'd ever convey this in art but. Thinking very deeply about how in boy king au, a very crucial part of characterization is that Seb is a wolf in sheep(or lamb more specifically)'s clothing and Fernando is a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Seb is very unassuming, very delicate, seemingly very vulnerable and malleable. But, deep down, he can be very ruthless. It's in the the way he hesitantly declares war, with a spark in his eye and a suppressed smirk. In the way he challenges someone to a card game or a horse race, proclaiming that he's not great, but winning every round and prancing around the room and mentioning it ad infinitum. The way he's able to instantly turn the tide in a debate in one fell swoop. By showing all his cards constantly and letting himself be vulnerable, he's making himself invulnerable. No one would ever consider him to be able to make big moves, so he wins every single time, because no one even thinks to expect it from him.

Fernando on the other hand, is constantly committed to having a looming presence and harsh reputation, but deep down, he's soft. He knows what happens to people when they're vulnerable, and he's not going to let himself be taken advantage of. The way he keeps a brave face when being informed of the marriage proposal, but goes back to his room and cries. The way he proclaims that he was always going to be the rightful ruler of Spain, but confides to Flavio that he never thought there was any real chance of it ever happening. The way he takes himself so seriously in public, but inside feels so giddy whenever he can make someone laugh. Everything to him always feels unstable and ready to crumble at any moment, and he's not willing to contribute to that by letting himself relax.

I think thats why it's very difficult for them to get along at first, because they have completely different approaches to how they carry themselves and make their way through life. Seb is confused at Fernando because he feels that he's very bland and overly serious at first, but truthfully he's not really seeing the actual Fernando. And Fernando finds Seb to be naive and easily taken advantage of, but that's because he's never seen Seb at his most cruel. Seb really loves when he eventually gets to see Fernando being vulnerable, and Fernando really admires and respects Seb when he sees him being serious. I think it just takes a while for them to show the other their full and complete selves, even the parts they can sometimes be ashamed of. There's this very compelling dichotomy in Seb laying out all his cards, but still being very difficult to read, and Fernando keeping his cards to his chest, but his intentions often being easily seen through.

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[moe-broey]

WHY THEY DON'T FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT.

Peony: Thinks everything is all fixed now 🥰

Triandra: Too caught up in her self-loathing and agonizing guilt to even consider speaking with Sharena, the only reason she's on speaking terms with Peony IS because of their closer proximity to each other (being alfar/shared background) and Peony's persistence

Sharena: Talks to Peony, Doesn't talk to Triandra????? Sharena is. The Ignorer. Maybe she wants to reach out, but doesn't know how or even where to begin. But honestly I think she's repressing a bunch of shit too. To speak to Triandra would mean having to Unpack All That.

Alfonse: Speaks to Peony and Triandra on business only. Very professional. Very cordial. Yes there's also the harsh self-criticism and agonizing guilt and holding even his child self to impossible standards like this never should have happened. I should have stopped it. I should have fixed it. I should have been Enough to Prevent This. For my sister to have been in the realm of dreams, her peers being abused and left for dead, what does that say? What does that mean? What happened? How could it have happened? It should have never happened. I should have