#would anyone be interested in watching streams of me gaming? been thinking of starting a new save file for that…

[looney-mooney-studio]

Been playing a lot of Cult of the Lamb lately, here’s an art of my in-game polyamorous genderfucky Butch Wife, Witness Bathin 💜

[aventurineswife]

hey so how do you think the obey me brothers would deal with a mc reader who has a very relaxing aura about them.. They’re not very expressive, but are honest with their thoughts. Like the boys texting over the phone about all the stuff they gonna do when they hang out and readers like “You’re very cute when you’re excited :)”. Has said in person they like having the boys around like it’s a normal laid back thing to say to someone. Mammon being defensive at the beginning about not obeying everything mc says and mc is just like “…you need to relax. I’m not gonna boss you around”?

Oh, that kind of MC would be dangerously soothing for these chaotic demon boys. A chill, lowkey, emotionally honest MC who doesn’t get riled up easily and casually drops affectionate honesty like it’s just part of conversation? That’s like emotional catnip for all of them.

Lucifer

He is suspicious. Like, deeply suspicious at first. You’re not loud, not manipulative, you’re not even trying to get anything out of him? You just exist calmly and tell the truth??

He’s unnerved when you say something like

“You being around is comforting.”

with no hidden agenda. But once he realizes you mean it? He genuinely starts to let his guard down around you more than anyone else.

You’re the one person he can just sit in silence with, sipping tea or reading a book, and feel totally at peace. He respects your honesty, and over time, he starts seeking it out whenever he feels overwhelmed.

He might never say it directly, but the way he starts carving out quiet moments with you? That’s how you know.

Mammon

At first? So defensive. You say something calm like, “You don’t have to do what I say. Relax.”

and he’s immediately like, “Wha—YEAH! I won’t! I ain’t some dog you can just—wait… you don’t wanna boss me around?”

Confused Pikachu face.

He’s never met someone who doesn’t push him around, and now you’re just… vibing? Not judging? Being nice?

When you tell him over text

“You’re very cute when you’re excited :)”

he drops his phone, screams into a pillow, and then proceeds to stare at the message for an hour while pacing like a kicked puppy who just got praised.

Eventually, he starts seeking your company just to feel that calm. He doesn’t know why he feels safe around you, but he does.

Leviathan

Panics. Constantly. You’re too calm. Too kind. You’re not reacting the way normies do!

You tell him, “It’s nice having you around.”

and his brain short-circuits. He’s like: “W-what do you mean?! Is that sarcasm?! Is this some kind of mind game?!”

But you’re just chilling there, sitting criss-cross applesauce with a controller, nodding like,

“No. I just like spending time with you.”

It destroys him—in the best way. Once he realizes you’re genuine, he starts melting around you. You’re his safe zone. If you sit next to him during a stream and just quietly watch or hum? He’s never been more at peace.

Satan

He is fascinated by you. Your calm nature is like the opposite of his rage, and your honesty? He finds it intoxicating. When you say something like, “You’re more interesting when you talk about things you love.”

he just stares at you like he’s trying to read the subtext—only to find there isn’t any.

You're straightforward, and that makes his brain go “oh no wait I like this.”

He might start testing the waters by trying to rile you up, just to see if you ever get mad. But when you stay steady and kind? That’s when he starts opening up, slowly but surely.

Asmodeus

He loves it. You’re like a warm bath to him. Your chill vibe makes him feel safe to drop the act—he doesn’t have to be fabulous or perfect around you.

You tell him, “I like being near you. You’re comforting.”

and he legit gets emotional. Like, real quiet emotional. Because most people want to take from him. You? You just like him. As he is.

He’ll drape himself all over you like a blanket and say

“You’re the most relaxing skincare routine I’ve ever experienced~”

And he’ll never stop saying he loves you, but now it’s different—more real.

Beelzebub

Instantly bonded. You’re calm. You’re honest. You’re good company. He doesn’t need more.

You two will sit together eating snacks or working out and there won’t be a lot of talking—but then you’ll say something like, “You make me feel safe.”

and he just nods, like:

“You do too.”

He never questions your sincerity. He just accepts it, and in return, he protects you like it’s his life mission.

Belphegor

At first, he’s like “are you for real?” because your peaceful energy is eerily similar to his own lazy aura. But when he sees you’re genuinely that chill, and when you say things like, “You being around helps me rest better.”

he’s surprised at how much he wants to be around you.

You’re the only one he’ll actively stay awake for just to enjoy the quiet. When you’re around, he sleeps easier, laughs a little more, and drops the snark.

Eventually, he’ll mumble into your shoulder, “You’re like a dream I don’t wanna wake up from…”

And fall asleep right there.

[na0koz]

To off set the happiness I wanted to ask what would happen if reader got together with someone else, or showed more interest in them than Jinx. Even with Jinx trying to stop it

Or another thought would be what if reader liked Vi more than Jinx 🏃

wait ur lowk a genius nonnie. reader liking vi more than her would actually like set her off to 10000%. kinda stole that scene from season 1 episode 9 with jinx’s tea party lol.

toxic!jinx masterlist

VERY DARK!! just block me if you don’t like it.

cw: jinx breaking in, implied kidnapping, use of guns, jinx is just insane, f!reader

since you met jinx’s family, you’ve been round the family home for dinner a couple more times. in one of those times, vi managed to get your instagram. probably while jinx was out of the room to save her ripping vi’s arms off.

ever since that day, you’ve been messaging vi a lot on instagram. however, you were very careful not to have jinx find out. you knew she wouldn’t like it, but you can’t help it when vi just gets you.

a month or two passes, and you’ve grown close to vi. it’s probably not the best idea you’ve had, given how jinx acts about you getting close to people she doesn’t know. somehow you think she’d be even worse if she found out how close you had gotten to her sister.

one day, you’re not answering the stream of texts jinx has sent you. she may have only sent them a few minutes ago but over time you’ve become the fastest replier in the game. something was up. she instinctively checks your location. a bar? you don’t drink, what could you possibly be doing there? cheating, jinx thinks.

it’s not that she doesn’t trust you, she’s just paranoid. she needs you all to herself, completely.

she grabs a jacket and starts to head to the bar almost immediately.

she glances around once she’s inside, looking for any sign of you. it was simple. she just had to grab you and act like there was some sort of emergency and you had to leave, while simultaneously taking note of whoever you were with.

she finally notices you, and to jinx’s absolute horror, you’re standing suspiciously close to her dickhead of a sister. she knew vi was a piece of shit, a sleaze at best, especially after her and her ex broke things off, but this really takes the cake.

a surprise to everyone, you especially if you knew she was there, jinx leaves. she’s too angry to think straight but she knows one thing, she needs to be alone when she’s like this. for the benefit of anyone who might cross her.

the night lingers on and you continue having fun with vi, unbeknownst to both of you, jinx was crafting her cruelest plan yet.

-

jinx manages to act normal for the following couple of weeks, despite her literally wanting to kill her sister and have you watch.

until finally, it was time to make the both of you suffer the consequences of your actions.

the first step was breaking into your apartment, that was easy. she had the key she made herself a few months into your relationship and she was no stranger to popping by when you were asleep to check on you. she didn’t really class it as ‘breaking in’ though, since she has a key that unlocks the door. sometimes jinx wonders to herself if she is actually sick in the head, but she chalks up her actions to her love for you.

next, jinx had to set up for her plan. she dragged a chair from your dining table into the middle of your apartment, the open space between the kitchen and the living room. she laid out a couple of other items by the chair, but she’ll get to those later.

what’s left was done in a haze of anger. of revenge. now all she had to do was wait for you to come home.

she was sat on the counter, swinging her legs when she hears the lock click in your front door. here goes.

you see jinx first, setting your bag down and kicking off your shoes. “oh, hey baby.” you notice the glint in her eye, the one you see when she’s angry.

“are.. you okay?”

jinx says nothing, just glancing behind her to the chair she had setup earlier. you follow her gaze and gasp when you finally see what she’s done.

vi bound to the chair by the same turquoise rope jinx had used on you so many times, in situations you could say were the complete opposite to the one you had just got into.

instinctively, you start to rush towards vi, until you feel something cold on your arm stopping you. you look to jinx and see her arm outstretched in front of you. clutched in her hand was a gun.

your eyes widened. you knew she had knives but not a gun. when you thought about it though, it wasn’t too surprising. you realise how you’ve kind of just ignored how fucked up she is.

“jinx. it’s.. you need to calm down,” you try your best to hide the tremble in your voice. anything to try and spare your, vi’s, all of your lives.

jinx lowers her arm and hops off the counter. she paces slowly between you, rooted to the spot, and vi, breathing heavily in the chair she was tied to.

“i am calm. you guys are the ones that need to calm down.” she definitely does not sound calm. her eyes are wide and hands trembling, she’s manic.

vi makes eye contact with you, you can see she’s just as surprised as you. i mean, it’s probably a good thing this hasn’t happened before, right?

jinx stops in front of you and gently takes her hand. her hands are warm, soft. feels strange given the situation. she pulls you closer to vi, closer, closer, until the three of you can feel each other’s breath on your faces.

you see the glint of the gun in between your faces. your breath shakes as it sways towards you, to vi, to jinx.

“i wonder.. who deserves this the most?” jinx mused, as if she was talking to herself.

“you see, there’s one bullet in here, and i don’t know who’s gonna get it.”

tears fall from your eyes now. you regret dismissing how crazy jinx is, and roping vi, her own sister, into this mess.

the gun swings back to you and you hear jinx click off the safety, the metal grinding. her hands are trembling, from adrenaline no doubt. she’s enjoying this. her finger crawls its way to the trigger, and she pulls back, agonisingly slow.

your eyes squeeze shut, tears streaming down your cheeks as you sob. after what feels like hours, the trigger ticks. silence. are you dead? you can’t even hear vi’s breathing.

“ah.” jinx’s voice pierces your eardrums. you’re alive.

your knees buckle, but jinx doesn’t let you fall. she catches you and holds you up with surprising force. you glance at her and through the blur of your tears, she’s smiling.

“looks like it’s either me or you, sis,” she laughs while tapping vi on the chest with the barrel.

she turns to you. “who should go first? whoever you like the most, up to you.”

so that’s what this is about. jinx has got jealous before, never to this extent though.

you beg her to stop over and over, barely able to get your words out as tears fall down your cheeks. pleading, you reach up to jinx’s face with violently shaking hands, trying anything to get her to stop.

she swats your hand away with the gun, causing you to gasp and cry harder. you have to use every cell in your body not to scream.

“choose one of us,” she orders.

you literally cannot speak now, you’re hyperventilating while looking between the two sisters. vi looks equally as scared as you do. she hasn’t said a word.

“mkay. we’ll go with violet here since you like her so much.” the gun moves to vi’s jaw. jinx’s finger flexes on the trigger. she flashes a grin at you, she’s not done yet though.

the sound of the trigger being pulled rings through your apartment. nothing. vi is alive, letting out a loud breath and she slumps down in the chair, as much as the rope restraining her will allow.

“uh ohh..” jinx practically sings. “my turn. we all know what that means.”

she brings the gun under her own jaw. the truth is, there aren’t any bullets in the gun. she knows that. she just needs to scare both of you as much as she can. of course she doesn’t actually want to hurt you.

she pulls the trigger faster than expected. you cry out, this time jinx lets you fall to your knees.

again, nothing.

jinx lets her head flop down, looking between you and vi with low eyes.

“i was just messin’ with you guys! there ain’t any bullets in here. wouldn’t actually kill ya,” she’s laughing. after all this she’s laughing.

“you,” she prods vi in the chest with one pale finger. “you can stay away from her.”

she crouches to your level on the floor. “and you can stop givin’ me reasons to do shit like this. mkay baby?”

you weakly nod. you just need this to be over.

“great! see you later, love ya.” she pecks your forehead before skipping out of your apartment.

she leaves everything behind. the gun, vi still in the chair, you sobbing.

what. the. fuck.

[duexnuts]

twitch streamer inumaki, viewer y/n

fanon inumaki, HE TALKS!

you had recently started watching twitch streams again. there was this one guy, you couldn't stop watching his streams-- maybe him being faceless subconsciously reminded you of the days you would watch CorpseHusband play among us– his name was sawcondeez– his entire stream was themed after mcdonald’s.

after a very invigorating valorant stream, you decided to join his discord server.

“welcome to our server, y/n! #36th member”

he had a small, but loyal community so they instantly noticed that a new faced had joined. people instantly started welcoming you, and you quickly felt how tight knit of a community they were.

y/n: hii ^_^ i just started watching these streams and thought it would be nice to join

sawcondeez: welcom

that’s the only message you got from the streamer for a month while you got to know the other people in the server. over time, you got to learn more about him indirectly. he didn’t talk a lot in his own server, but you do know how about how much he owns a lot of shirts with wolves on them..? and how he collects pokemon cards, but specifically only weezing cards. he has three binders full of them— he even paid $200 for a card once.

you really liked being apart of the server. you started donating to him sometimes, too, just a few dollars here and there to show your support. his reaction to your money was kind of cute, so there was more than one plus to donating.

“y/n has donated $5: can u play ow next :3”

“thanks for the $5 y/n! i really appreciate it,” he said, “i’ll play ow just for you, okay?”

it was nice getting to know him— yeah, you did feel a bit parasocial at times, but at the end of the day, you were close to him in some way.

then, he messaged you, privately. at first, you just stared at the message, thinking he got hacked. so you had to confirm, obviously.

sawcondeez: hi

y/n: oh my god sawcondeez

u got hacked someone stole ur account

wair only the hacker can read this

sawcondeez: no its me lol

do u wanna duo w me on val rq

and that’s how you ended up on a 2 hour call with him, playing valorant. you don’t even find valorant fun, but you made an exception for him. somehow, he made it fun, too. he didn’t really talk in the call— it was mostly you telling him about random interests that you had and him replying with one or two word responses, but it was sweet. you liked his listening skills.

this ended up becoming a daily habit— he would message you after his streams and you would tell him about your day as you two played a random game. your minecraft world got very complex at one point, until he died and lost all his stuff. the world was never touched again after that. eventually, he started talking more, too. you got to know the real him— inumaki toge— not sawcondeez.

“you have to promise not to tell anyone about my identity, y/n,” he told you, “i will literally quit twitch and delete all my sawcondeez accounts.”

so, you promised not to tell anyone. as his trust in you built up, you got the classic edater face reveal and moving off of discord onto imessage. it was silly, you felt like you got transported back into 2020 when you would mess around on discord servers to get nitro, but this time it wasn’t just playful flirting. it felt real.

“hey inumaki are we ever gonna meet up?” you asked.

he paused for a moment before answering, “we’re only like a 20 minute drive from each other, lol. i was waiting for you to ask.”

“wait so you’ve been making me feel like a stupid edater when we could’ve been seeing each other irl this entire time.”

“i had to build up the tension, y’know?”

he got a scolding that night. but you also made plans to meet up at a cafe nearby as well.

a/n: been thinking abt this for awhile… i think i just have smth for nerdy discord gamer guys woops…

[kentobb]

hiromi higuruma x female secretary (AU).

chapter 16 > chapter 18

warnings: kidnapping. gun mentions. suggestive content.

chapter 17

The dimly lit basement reeks of dampness, and the faint sound of dripping water echoes in the background. Your heart races as you struggle against the ropes biting into your wrists and ankles. The muffler tightly wrapped around your mouth makes it hard to breathe, and the tears falling from your eyes blur your vision.

The sound of footsteps sends a chill down your spine. You turn your head to see him—Toji Fushiguro. He’s leaning casually against the doorway, spinning his gun lazily around his finger, his expression disturbingly calm, as if this were just another Tuesday for him.

“Awake already?” he drawls, his voice low and mocking. “That sedative usually knocks people out a little longer. Guess you’re tougher than you look.”

You whimper, trying to form words through the muffler, but all that comes out is a muffled, panicked cry.

Toji smirks and walks closer, crouching in front of you, his sharp eyes scanning your tear-streaked face. “Go on,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “Scream all you want. Nobody’s gonna hear you down here. Soundproofing does wonders.”

Your eyes widen, your fear intensifying. You shake your head frantically, trying to scream, but the muffler stifles every sound.

Toji tilts his head, his smirk growing. “Come on, don’t look at me like that. I’m actually doing you a favor, you know. Teaching you a little lesson about trust.” He leans in closer, his face inches from yours. “Never trust a man with a gun and no morals.”

Tears stream down your cheeks as you try to push yourself back into the sofa, desperate to create even a little distance between you and him.

“Aw, don’t cry,” he says mockingly, feigning concern. He reaches out and wipes a tear from your cheek with his thumb, his touch cold and unfeeling. “You’re gonna make me feel bad.”

You flinch at his touch, your body trembling.

Toji chuckles, standing up and walking a few steps away, casually spinning the gun again. “You’re probably wondering where you are, how long you’ve been out, all those fun questions. Well, let me save you the trouble: you’re nowhere anyone would think to look, and you’ve been out for, oh, let’s say… a few hours. Enough time for your boyfriend to start losing his mind.”

The mention of Higuruma sends a pang through your chest. You want to scream his name, to beg Toji to let you go, but the muffler keeps your words trapped.

Toji sits down on a nearby chair, watching you intently. “You know,” he muses, “you’ve got some fight in you. I like that. Makes this more interesting.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But let me be clear: you’re not leaving here until I say so. So get comfortable, sweetheart.”

You feel utterly powerless, every ounce of control stripped away. The tears won’t stop, and Toji watches them fall with an almost amused expression.

“Let’s see how long you last,” he murmurs, his voice dripping with menace. Then he leans back, spinning the gun one more time as if this were just another game to him, while you’re left to fight against the fear consuming you.

Higuruma’s penthouse is filled with an eerie silence, broken only by the faint hum of security chatter on the radios. Higuruma sits at his desk, staring at the laptop screen. His jaw is clenched so tightly it aches, but he doesn’t notice. The grainy video playing in a loop feels like a personal torment—a reminder of how he failed to protect you.

In the footage, Toji Fushiguro carries you effortlessly over his shoulder, your body limp, your head bobbing lifelessly. Higuruma’s sharp eyes catch the way your arm dangles unnaturally, and it sends a chill down his spine.

Were you unconscious? Drugged?

Toji walks down the hallway with casual confidence, stopping only to shoot out the security cameras with a silenced pistol. Each flash of the muzzle feels like a jab to Higuruma’s gut. He rewinds the footage for the fifth time, his mind racing.

“This doesn’t make sense,” he mutters to himself. “How did no one see him coming or leaving?”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to suppress the wave of frustration threatening to overwhelm him. You were right there—so close—and now you’re gone.

Suddenly, a commotion outside snaps him out of his thoughts. Raised voices echo from the hallway, growing louder by the second. Higuruma glances at Gojo and Nanami, who are seated nearby. Both men stand as the noise escalates.

“What now?” Higuruma mutters, rising to his feet.

They step into the hallway to find Utahime in a heated argument with two of Higuruma’s guards. She’s livid, her face flushed with anger as she waves her arms dramatically.

“Let me through!” she yells, her voice carrying down the corridor. “You think I’m just going to stand by while she’s missing?”

The guards stand firm, blocking her path despite her attempts to shove past them. Behind her, Geto stands awkwardly, his hands in his pockets, clearly trying to remain calm.

“Ma’am, we can’t let you in without clearance,” one guard says, his tone strained.

“I don’t give a damn about clearance!” Utahime snaps. “She’s my best friend, and I need to see Higuruma now!”

Higuruma steps forward, raising a hand to signal the guards to let her through. “It’s fine. Let her in,” he says, his voice low but commanding.

The guards exchange uncertain glances before reluctantly stepping aside. Utahime storms past them, her fiery gaze locking onto Higuruma the moment she sees him. Without hesitation, she strides up to him and slaps him hard across the face.

The sharp crack of the slap reverberates through the hallway, and everyone freezes. Gojo’s eyebrows raise slightly, but he doesn’t intervene. Nanami watches stoically, his expression unreadable.

Higuruma doesn’t flinch. He stands still, his cheek stinging, but he doesn’t make a move to defend himself.

“How dare you?” Utahime’s voice shakes with emotion, her hands trembling at her sides. “You were supposed to protect her! She trusted you, and now look where we are!”

“Utahime—” Higuruma begins, but she cuts him off.

“Don’t you dare try to explain yourself!” she yells, her eyes filling with tears. “Do you have any idea what she’s going through right now? She’s out there, alone, scared—because of you!”

Higuruma’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. He knows she’s right. He deserves every word.

Geto steps forward, placing a hand on Utahime’s shoulder in an attempt to pull her back. “That’s enough,” he says softly, his tone gentle but firm. “This isn’t helping.”

“No, it’s not enough!” Utahime snaps, shrugging off his hand. She glares at Higuruma, her voice breaking. “You think saying you’re sorry is going to fix this? You think promising to find her is enough? You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you care about!”

Higuruma’s eyes darken at her words, but he still doesn’t respond.

Geto gently but firmly pulls Utahime back, guiding her toward the hallway. “Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s take a moment to breathe.”

As she’s led away, Utahime shoots one last glare at Higuruma. “If anything happens to her, it’s on you,” she says, her voice trembling.

Geto glances at Gojo as they pass, murmuring a quiet, “Sorry about this.”

Gojo nods, his expression uncharacteristically serious.

Higuruma exhales sharply, rubbing his temples. The weight of the situation feels heavier than ever.

Nanami steps forward, his tone calm but firm. “We don’t have time to lose our heads. Let’s focus on what matters—finding her.”

Higuruma nods, straightening his posture. “You’re right,” he says, his voice steady despite the storm raging inside him. “We focus. No distractions.”

Gojo smirks faintly. “Good. Because if we don’t find her soon, Utahime might just come back to finish what she started.”

The attempt at humor doesn’t land, but it breaks the tension slightly. Higuruma takes a deep breath and turns to his security team. “What’s the latest?”

One guard steps forward, holding a tablet. “We’ve reviewed the footage from the complex. Toji Fushiguro left no trail. He disabled the cameras after leaving her apartment.”

Higuruma’s fists clench. “Then look harder. We don’t stop until we have something.”

The guard nods and retreats, leaving the three men standing in heavy silence. Higuruma glances at Gojo and Nanami, determination burning in his eyes.

“We’ll find her,” Nanami says with quiet confidence.

“We have to,” Higuruma replies, his voice low but resolute. “I won’t lose her.”

Toji leans back in his chair, spinning the gun idly in his fingers as he watches you squirm on the sofa. Your muffled cries and frantic attempts to plead for mercy seem to amuse him. His sharp eyes gleam in the dim light, and a small, crooked grin plays at his lips.

“You’re really trying, huh?” he mutters, shaking his head. “I can’t understand a damn word you’re saying, but keep going. Might as well get it all out.”

You stare at him with wide, terrified eyes, tears streaming down your face. The cold metal binds around your wrists and ankles dig into your skin, and the gag in your mouth muffles your sobs.

Toji sighs, reaching into his pocket. “You know,” he begins, pulling out a folded photograph, “this wasn’t always my life. I wasn’t always this guy.”

He unfolds the photo carefully, smoothing out the creases with an unexpected tenderness. He holds it up so you can see—a picture of a woman. Her smile is radiant, her eyes warm and full of life.

“This,” he says, his voice softening slightly, “is my wife. Was my wife.”

Your tear-filled gaze shifts to the photograph, and despite your fear, you notice the genuine fondness in his tone.

“She was…,” he continues, his eyes fixed on the picture. “She was the light in my life. Made me feel like I was more than just a guy with blood on his hands. She was… everything.”

For a moment, his expression is almost serene. But then, it hardens. He lowers the photograph and looks at you, his smile vanishing.

“She was murdered,” he says bluntly, his voice flat but laced with an undercurrent of rage.

You flinch at his words, your heart racing even faster.

Toji leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he clasps the photo tightly. “You know what the justice system did? Gave her killer fifteen years. Fifteen,” he repeats, his voice dripping with venom.

He locks eyes with you, and you see the pain buried beneath his steely exterior. “Guess who represented that scumbag in court?” he asks, tilting his head.

Your mind races, but you already know the answer.

“Higuruma,” Toji says, his lips curling into a bitter smile. “Your golden boy. He’s the one who got that bastard a slap on the wrist. Said he deserved a second chance.”

Your breath hitches as Toji’s gaze pierces through you.

“Do you think that’s fair?” he asks, his tone deceptively calm. “Fifteen years for taking someone’s life. For taking her life.”

You don’t respond, frozen in place. Even if you weren’t gagged, you wouldn’t know what to say.

Toji chuckles, a hollow, bitter sound. “Yeah, I thought so. Even if you could answer, what would it change?”

He sits back again, his hand resting on the gun in his lap. “The system failed me,” he says simply. “It failed her. So now, I’m taking matters into my own hands. If the courts won’t give me justice, I’ll get it my way.”

The weight of his words hangs heavy in the air. You see the raw pain in his eyes, the grief and rage that have consumed him. But there’s also a chilling certainty in his voice—a conviction that makes your blood run cold.

“I’m not the monster here,” Toji says, his voice low and firm. “I’m just cleaning up the mess your boyfriend helped make.”

You try to shake your head, try to plead with him, but Toji raises a hand, silencing you.

“Save it,” he says. “You’re just a piece of leverage in this game. Nothing personal.”

He leans back, watching you with a detached curiosity. “Cry all you want,” he adds with a smirk. “Scream if you feel like it. No one’s gonna hear you down here anyway.”

And with that, he gets up, leaving you trembling and alone in the dimly lit basement.

The night drags on, heavy and silent, except for the occasional clink of glass as Higuruma downs another drink. The burner phone sits on the coffee table in front of him, taunting him with its stillness. His bloodshot eyes remain fixed on it, waiting, hoping it will ring and give him something—anything.

Gojo leans against the wall nearby, arms crossed, his usually playful demeanor replaced with concern. He exchanges a glance with Nanami, who looks equally worried.

“Higuruma,” Gojo says softly, breaking the silence. “You need to get some rest.”

Higuruma doesn’t even look up, swirling the amber liquid in his glass before taking another long sip. “I can’t,” he mutters, his voice hoarse. “Not when she’s out there. Not when I haven’t found her.”

Gojo pushes himself off the wall, walking closer. “You’re running on fumes. If you burn out, how are you supposed to help her? Let me take over for a few hours. Just rest.”

Higuruma glares at him, the exhaustion and anger in his eyes almost palpable. “Rest? While she’s tied up somewhere? Terrified? I can’t, Gojo.”

Before the conversation can escalate, Nanami steps in. His calm, authoritative voice cuts through the tension. “Gojo’s right. You need to rest, even if it’s just for a couple of hours. You’re no good to anyone like this.”

Higuruma opens his mouth to argue, but Nanami places a firm hand on his shoulder, guiding him toward the spare room in the penthouse. “Come on,” Nanami insists. “If she knew you were tearing yourself apart like this, do you think she’d want that?”

The mention of you softens Higuruma’s resistance, and he lets Nanami lead him away, though the tension in his shoulders doesn’t ease.

As the door to the room closes, Gojo sighs and sinks onto the couch. “He’s going to break himself if we don’t find her soon.”

Geto walks over, his presence calm and grounding. He places a hand on Gojo’s shoulder, his touch light but reassuring. “How are you holding up?” he asks quietly.

Gojo looks up at him, his usually vibrant eyes dull with worry. “I’m worried about him. He’s blaming himself for everything. I’ve seen him stressed before, but this… this is different.”

Geto nods, his expression understanding. “He’s in love. That kind of fear eats you alive.”

Gojo leans into Geto’s touch, his shoulders slumping slightly. “I just wish there was more I could do. Watching him like this—it’s brutal.”

Nanami walks back into the room, catching the tail end of their conversation. His sharp eyes immediately notice the way Geto’s fingers linger on Gojo’s shoulder and the way Gojo looks up at him, soft and vulnerable.

Nanami stops in his tracks, blinking once, twice, and then it clicks. Oh. They’re definitely fucking.

He exhales through his nose, rolling his eyes. “Of course,” he mutters under his breath, choosing to ignore it entirely as he joins them by the coffee table.

“What’s the status?” Nanami asks, his tone all business again.

“The security team is still combing through camera footage from around the city,” Gojo replies, leaning forward. “They’re casting a wider net now, looking for any trace of her or Toji’s car. It’s slow, but we’ll find something.”

Nanami nods, his jaw tight. “We don’t have time for slow,” he says, his voice edged with frustration.

Geto steps in, his voice calm. “We’ll find her, Nanami. But we need to keep a level head. Panicking won’t help anyone.”

Nanami sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I know. I just—” He cuts himself off, glancing toward the closed door where Higuruma is supposed to be resting. “He’s not going to survive this if something happens to her.”

The three of them fall into a heavy silence, the weight of the situation pressing down on them. In the background, the security team continues their work, reviewing footage frame by frame, their determination matching the desperation of everyone in the room.

As the hours drag on, the tension remains thick, but the unspoken bond between them keeps them moving forward. They will find you. They have to.

[isolaradiale]

"Solaris, I have an idea that you're going to love!" Mimosa chimes, hands excitedly gripping the papers of what half-baked plan she'd come up with now. It isn't often that she's allowed to do as she pleases, on account of her ideas being much too chaotic and uncompromising, but the curious look on her colleague's face is enough to tell her that she may have decent odds this time around.

"Fine. Tell me of this elaborate plan you have. At the very least, it ought to be interesting." Chin in hand, Solaris sets aside the paperwork that he had been filling out, and the two of them proceed to have a very enthusiastic chat about the former's plans.

The night starts as any other in Spirale City, with citizens tucking themselves into bed and bidding good night to their loved ones. Sleep takes them, some more peacefully than others, but all experience the distinct feeling of falling as they lie on the cusp between awake and asleep. It's an odd feeling, one that almost makes it hard to breathe, but it's soon replaced with the lighthearted warmth of floating gently, gently down until they're back in their bed and the familiar streaks of morning light find their way across the bedroom. Eyes open to what seemed to be yet another peaceful morning only to be met with a strange, low wail coming from outside the windows of their home.

Curious and somewhat concerned, an investigation is surely necessary and so investigate our inhabitants do; what they find surprises some of them, but for others it's business as usual. A large, astral whale makes its way across the sky, filled with stars and planets that seem much closer than usual. The sun hangs high in the sky despite the stars being in full view, a smiling face painted on its surface. The streets are lined with various trees of differing species--some even edible--along with a light stream flowing down the roads, where some citizens are in their bathing suits with cups in hand. And some may even find that their homes have also been made fantastical in varying ways.

And somewhere far, far away sit two scientists. One looks bored whilst the other can hardly manage to stay in her seat. At Solaris's discontentment, Mimosa is intent on getting his approval, so another idea is born. "And what if they can affect the dream, too!? That'd be interesting, wouldn't it?" Her idea is met with a wave of a hand as if saying to do what she pleases. With the flip of a switch, the city's inhabitants would now find that their imaginative thoughts were made manifest but hard to control at first.

"Now, let's see how it all plays out, hm? I promise it'll be worth it. Just watch it all unfold!" Mimosa's hand slaps the top of the haphazard giant cube of a machine that now sat in front of her and Solaris. It vibrates intensely as though it's fit to burst from the seams at any moment. Truly a delicate masterpiece that holds the current dream environment all together. "Don't worry, it'll be fine…maybe!" One look at Solaris can tell anyone though that he has his reservations.

-- Welcome to our 2024 summer event, Phantasm Amalgam! As a recap, we'd like to thank our members for sticking by us this long, and here's to another anniversary event for the books! So what's going on? In short, you're all in a shared dream of fantastical and untold proportion!

Secondly, what's the TLDR read of the situation? Well, here's a couple of bullet points to catch you up to speed!

Upon going to sleep, everyone in the city was transported into a replica of Spirale, only it's entirely made up from the shared memory of it that everyone has! So, there are bound to be a few differences here and there but not anything too large.

Essentially if you can dream it, then it can happen. Anything is fair game. Whatever thoughts your characters have can become reality, all they need to do is think it into existence and it'll become real! It can even be changed by other characters as well. You can also change other characters with mun permission, of course!

Powers will be uncapped within the dream world, but someone else could simply dream themselves invulnerable to them too.

Please keep in mind that if you're interfering with what is being dreamed by another character, you'll need mun permission first!

There is no limit as to what a character can create or change. Whether it be a singular object (a lamp post, a tree, a car, and other objects large or small), an NPC, or even changes to player characters themselves. You can even change entire wards if you want to, but someone else can change it just as quickly! Take the chance to do something exciting and unexpected, the scientists are waiting for some interesting results!

As always please feel free to send any questions you may have to the masterlist!

There will be two parts to this event, with our first kicking off today and the second running from August 9th to August 16th 11:59:59 PM! As always, you'll still be able to do part 1 during part 2!

[nyewclear]

So I’m going to start off my showering you with all the love because I discovered your game when Espyklion played the first part and I got too impatient to wait for the next upload. I’m absolutely in love with your game and the fact that you’re a BIPOC has been such an inspiration for me! Especially as a black woman who’s currently going to school for Comp Sci. I love your games and your writing thank you for feeding my endless love for dating sims and Cryptid! never stop what you’re doing! 🫶🏾💕

With that said, I just discovered recently that you’re active on Tumblr and I got a question for one of my top 3! (Artemis, Kixis, and Jaxeon (I think that’s his name lol))

For Kixis, what’s his type? Like what does he go for and what would make him develop a crush on someone? (Also maybe some nsfw facts if you feeling generous 👀👉🏽👈🏽)

Anyways thank you for time! Wishing for your successes and sending lots of love!

aww this is so kind of you to say!! dude, i remember when that video came out like two years ago... i couldn't believe that people were actually playing the game lol. i really only made this game for myself, so i always get surprised that there are so many people out there that play the game, love it, and want to share it with others. i used to lurk in a lot of twitch streams of the game and watch lots of vods and stuff just because i was so astonished by the fact that people enjoyed the game so much :’) it’s quite sweet and i appreciate everyone who’s ever played cryptid coffeehouse. there’s something so beautiful about having a passion project that’s so close to my heart become so close to the hearts of others as well! i truly am so grateful TT_TT i know the cryptid coffeehouse community is quite small still, but i treasure each and every one of you that play and let me know your genuine feelings about my work. it means so much to me and keeps me going every day!!!

as for your other question! i would like to say that kixis’ type is pretty elusive to many, considering the fact that he basically hits on anything that moves and considering the fact that he tries so hard to genuinely not develop romantic feelings for anyone. however, i would say that he tends to develop crushes on people who are very different from him, kind of like an opposites attract situation. i always like to say that kixis would only be able to successfully pull kurou or odina from the people in his friend group, and i think you can see how different he is both in personality & appearance from the two of them! he’s fascinated by lifestyles and appearances that are different than his own because it just makes him so curious about what kind of person someone is. he likes to learn more about others and learn more about the world through that as well! i’m not sure if this is going to thrill you or put you off (lmfao sorry!!), but he canonically gets engaged to aine, the lead singer of system five, later down the line in the game’s timeline. i think they’re a very cute couple merely because they are sooo different! he’s drawn to her because they live such different lives.

kixis is just curious by nature. even though his chronic flirting problem is caused mostly by insecurity, it also serves as a way for him to learn about a lot of people and a lot of different things. by being so outgoing, he can see so much of life! that’s very exciting to him. i think he starts to develop a crush when someone he’s interested in in this way shows that same interest in him as well. he finds himself to be quite unremarkable and unaccomplished (this is a whole other story), so when people are curious about him and genuinely want to know who he is and what things he likes, he can’t help but fall a little. after that, his “falling a little” becomes “falling A LOT” and then he starts to tumble towards the humiliating state that is having a really bad and debilitating crush on someone.

as for nsfw facts… i would like to think that he’s a virgin, mostly because he’s terrified of actually letting himself like people romantically and intentionally prevents himself from indulging in romantic relationships despite the fact that he flirts with everyone. he lacks sexual confidence, so if he was ever found in a sexual situation with someone, he would need a lot of reassurance. he’s the type to be silly & playful during sex though. he leans submissive, but not as submissive as artemis. he’s not self-assured enough to be dominant in any way that would inspire submission in his partner, but if guided into it, he could do a really good job. because of his inexperience, he’s very vanilla in his desires, but if introduced to new things, he would be interested as long as you promised to be patient with him. i think he would be the type to really enjoy foreplay, especially foreplay of the sweet and tender flavor. he’d want to memorize the shape of your body, the feeling of your skin under his hands. i also think he would be really into seeing you in lingerie! especially if you’d been wearing it all day under your clothes :P

[spraxinoscope]

video game shit, probably not of interest to anyone except possibly @apisashla

thoughts a week after returning to Elite

The french philosopher you bring up in the Angelburger post, that's Baudrillard, right? I like that guy. That's a fun piece of writing. I really enjoyed it.

Elite is a nice looking game! i have a pc now that's better than the budget rig i was playing it on, 7-8 years ago, so it looks substantially better than i remember it, but also it looks pretty good for a ten year old game, period.

spent a while relearning the controls and a LOT of time customizing the hud colors, that was fun

made my way over to Boonta space and did missions for a while, which was nice, but it seemed like a very slow grind. So i started using third-party-tool-based credit grinding schemes for exploration and trading, made like 30mil credits which is a lot more than i've ever had, traded in my old diamondback for a Type 7 so now I can move stuff around, and became an ally of Boonta. easy peasy.

i have a new goal, which is to get a Krait that's kitted out for combat because the combat is fun and i think that's the coolest looking ship, which is the most important thing to me. a Krait plus all the relevant upgrades costs like, what, around 80mil credits? i could get it through grinding in a few weeks but i'd also be sick of the game by then. the tool-assisted grinding is 10x faster than anything else i know how to do but it's getting boring fast. i'm not built for an mmo grind.

(i would just put on some junk tv while i'm cruising around, but watching any kind of streaming video while i'm in game puts enough strain on my internet connection that it takes like 10x longer to jump between systems T_T)

the questions i'm thinking about now:

i need some other way to use a Type 7 to make real money, preferably something that gets into the political/economic sim elements of the game because i haven't messed with those yet and they seem interesting. smuggling? salvage? that loss trading strategy you mentioned? i don't have much startup capital left, though.

also i have basically been a law abiding citizen of the galaxy this whole time, and that's getting old. i mean. they put a bunch of horrible governments in the game, so clearly i need to stop fucking around and become an outlaw already. at least in Imperial space. but maybe this has to wait until i get another ship that's not a dump truck?

should i be prioritizing the engineering grind? i haven't touched any of those systems yet. seems important. but also complicated.

anyway. it was a fun thing to do for a week! it was a nice surprise to learn that this game is still good!

[northwest-cryptid]

Before anyone says I'm being some kind of weeb for saying the NA Marketing Team of Mabinogi sucks and the Korean team is so much better I need to make this abundantly clear to you... the difference is night and day and I get way too ADHD special interest about this so here I'll save your dash from this post unless you're specifically interested.

This is the advertisement/commercial/announcement for G27 for Korean players on the official Korean Mabinogi Channel, it's literally about a minute and a half long and I urge you to watch it for the sake of comparison.

Some things I quickly want to point out for people who don't play.

You might notice that a lot of the tech in this video looks old, and you might think the game graphics being shown look really old school. That's because this:

Is literally showing a scene from the first main storyline quest; this is showing what the game was like for players like myself who played this back in the early days of it's life. This is literally supposed to be showing the game back in 2004 / 2008 (4 for KR 8 for NA release)

A big reason for this is that one thing about the Korean marketing side of things is that they love to show/remind players how far we've come in the years this game has been alive and kicking.

Even the aspect ratio here is emulating that old square PC monitor look:

Though funny enough, I know this isn't supposed to be directly after release because there's literally a giant in the party who didn't exist during the original initial launch. Only being released alongside elves during the Iria update. The point here is that yes, this is MEANT to be old.

Also it's really cute that the opening scene of this ad is taking place in real life, because the plot of Mabinogi specifically states that you as the Milletian are essentially the soul of the player. The player being called to the world of Erinn through the soul stream, and of course owls are used to communicate over long distances and are typically the ones who drop off quests and such. So seeing a real life dude who sees an owl and then ends up finding fellow gamers who are playing Mabinogi? That's a really nice touch actually.

Literally don't even get me started on all the old tech shown in this video though I would be here all day and that's not the point, like look at this though

I'm almost positive that's an old flip phone that had one of those rotating screens, however I could be wrong.

My point with all of this, is that this is the quality we get from the Korean side of things; and that's no shock considering it's literally a Korean MMORPG. The Korean youtube channel loves to upload lengthy playlists for the music present in the game and regularly releases updates and videos on events they hold in Korea for players to do content seemingly before it comes out publicly. It's cool to see how much the Korean branch really does care about this game,

Furthermore let's look at how they show these public events.

This was the video released for the Mabinogi Cafe again, a minute and a half; and we see even the game developers and lead figures coming out to interact with players. It's all very professional but lighthearted and fun. I would kill to go to a cafe like this as a lifelong fan of this game.

Lastly I want you to see how Mabinogi's Korean youtube account shows off their music, because this is huge to me. Now THIS video is about 2 hours long but you only need to see a few minutes or even a few seconds to understand precisely what I'm talking about...

The things I would do to be at that live show, I shall not say.

This is FFXIV levels of like, professional live music. I would fucking cry dude.

Okay so we're all on the same page now right? We have some kind of understanding of what the KR youtube channel is like? This is important because I want you to think about the fact that for some people if they look up Mabinogi in Korea this is the sort of stuff they're going to find from the OFFICIAL channel.

So then what's the NA branch working with? I mean come on they could probably do just as well right? No I get it they don't have all the same material to work with but they could certainly do something similar. Let's check out their content advertisements, I mean the commercial for G27 was stellar in Korea surely the NA branch has something for that right?

Huh, actually they don't... they have a few content updates; and advertisements that show off gacha stuff... But hey there's a G26 trailer! Surely that's at least something to compare, and Eternity!

Well let's start with the G26 trailer shall we? It's literally only 36 seconds long this won't take too long to watch.

Why didn't they even dub it in English?

Am I bring nitpicky? Kind of, but like... again look at the quality Korea put into a video 3 times as long and then look at what was probably literally handed to NA from KR and maybe edited to have the English text. I don't know this feels kinda lazy and kind of boring.

In fact, I know for a fact that Korea probably made the original clips for this and that's PROBABLY why it's dubbed over in Korean because Korea does the same style of trailers; but they have MANY more videos that actually show more than just 30 seconds of still images. I mean yea this is ALSO a Korean trailer for a G27 update.

However this isn't solely the only thing Koreans get to see, so I can honestly look past this so much easier because THIS video is surrounded by:

Otherwise quality videos, playlists, and trailers that adequately show off the game to new and active players alike.

I understand that Korea showed VERY old gameplay in the STAR trailer but there was at least gameplay, no it's not showing gameplay that represents what the game looks like with modern updates I get that, but at least we got to see the game.

Now I'm not saying NA doesn't do videos that show gameplay they do. In fact if we're being fair, and I do want to be fair here; NA released videos for the Astro update that were actually quite good. Nowhere near the quality or production value of what Korea does but hey they weren't trash. So let's give them a fair shake and look at the Eternity trailer, for those unaware; Eternity is a big overhaul for the graphics of Mabinogi. They're going back and remaking the game in Unreal to align it more with the original concept art and it looks fantastic, let's see how much of that comes across in the trailer!

Okay so I'm really mixed on this one because on one hand, this is actually not AWFUL. In fact I think if you already know the context for it all, and already know Mabinogi; and already enjoy the game, this trailer is good. Because you see the hair physics and the clothes physics and you know what all of that means. You have a comparison, so you get hyped about how cool seeing the game in this way actually is. It's cool to see something so authentically Mabinogi with a new coat of paint and updated graphics.

As much as I do ADORE the classic Mabinogi graphics I do think that Eternity is going to bring in new players, because the biggest hurdle for a LOT of people is actually that they think the game looks bad. So hey that's cool! However if I didn't know jack shit about Mabinogi, this trailer isn't for me. This trailer is for people who are already into the game. Because otherwise it makes the game look like a fashion game.

Okay full stop. I get it.

Every Mabinogi player in existence just pulled a gun on me like John Wick style for saying "it makes this look like a Fashion Game" because we all know Fashionogi is the end game. I'm not saying that it's not nor am I in any way trying to downplay the importance of fashion in this game.

However.

However!

We need to remember that this is one of the few videos that people looking up Mabinogi on the OFFICIAL NA MABINOGI YOUTUBE CHANNEL are going to see. It's a video catered greatly towards people who already play the game, I would rather it show the current graphics and then swap to the new graphics. Because that's not what happens; all that happens is that we see the graphics go from grayscale to color. It could have shown how things currently look, and how they'll look post update rather than simply adding color to already updated graphics. It could have even shown how stiff things like hair and clothing are currently and how the physics will effect that. It could have been more of an actual commercial/ad/trailer for an update to an audience both currently playing the game AND who are just seeing it for the first time.

Look you might think I'm just being hard on NA, that I must not like NA because they're not as cool or whatever.

No I dislike NA because THIS; THIS is how they handle their event meet ups and such.

I will spare you from having to watch the full 4 minute video but we really do go from like... mature professional cafe meet up to like... whatever the fuck this is.

Now listen I understand if you think "wow dude it's not that bad have a sense of humor" okay but I cannot stress that for a good while this was the face of NA Mabinogi

like it was so clear what was coming straight from KR vs what NA thought was silly funny marketing.

I'm all for a silly meme or a proper joke or something but come on man just... I'm tired. I mean no disrespect to the Soulstreamers or anyone else who worked on this stuff I understand it probably wasn't their idea and they had far less funding and support to work with.

I am not naive to these things. I understand that they can't just fly the devs out to do a meet up at a convention, I understand that they don't have a cafe or whatever. I get that, believe me I get that because if there was a Mabinogi cafe in NA's region I'd have gone to it by now.

However this is embarrassing.

And hear me out for just a second here, when I say I don't mean any disrespect to the people involved I mean it. I DO actually see NA getting better; for example THIS is from NA's official account too, and I feel that what we see here is handled SO much better. Again a quick minute and a half but pay attention to who's like... actually handling the video.

Yea it's the KR team. However if the NA team keeps going in this direction I genuinely think it would be healthier for Mabinogi's NA reputation.

All in all I'm not trying to be some hater, but there is a LOT about Mabinogi's NA team that I personally just don't agree with. The way they handle things comparably to the KR team is embarrassing to me as someone who enjoys the game, and as someone who recommends it to people. Because every time someone looks up the game and goes "so wait is this like... a game for children?" I have to go "no that's just NA... listen..." and then send them a bunch of KR videos.

AND I CANNOT STRESS HOW QUICKLY THEIR OPINION ON THE GAME CHANGES.

The thing about it isn't that I have no sense of humor or that I somehow dislike the people involved (I literally don't have any strong opinions about the people involved, I just disagree with how they're choosing to market the game because I think it does a noticeably poor job.) I just get annoyed at how I've told people for ages now that the NA marketing team is kinda bad at what they do, and you can see this when you look at how people who don't play Mabinogi react to the marketing and videos.

It's the same thing as when I say Mabinogi's NA servers have a big issue with the community being fairly toxic (not to say there aren't good players) and people act like I'm literally calling everyone a slur or something, and prove my point by deciding I'm the scum of the earth for saying "people on this game can be rude as hell sometimes and very clique-y and that can be off putting to new players." However I digress because that's a point for an entirely different post on the matter.

You can actually see concrete evidence of both these things in the user numbers and who the hell actually plays this game. The community in this game is so small that even players with absolutely 0 online internet presence become regularly known figures by just... existing. It's like a small town, you know who people are because you've seen them the last 500 days in a row you've played this damn game.

When people say "why isn't anyone new playing this game?" I often give one of two reasons.

The marketing around this game is awful in the NA region and primarily focuses on pandering to people who ALREADY play the game rather than showing new players what's actually good about the game. They focus on all the wrong talking points and try to be funny and it just doesn't work.

When a new player DOES join the game they're hit with this brick wall of a community who demand a lot of you. I've literally been told to quit playing if I "don't plan to play religiously every single day." Which you might think is some rare extremist view, but considering the fact guilds still expect you in the year 2025, to literally go through an interview process? Yea, listen this game's community is something... I've literally been successful in finding chill and fun people to play with by simply saying as much and seeing how they react. It's really easy to tell because 99% of sane individuals will understand where you're coming from and agree with you to some capacity that overall the community is kind of off-putting but judging people on a person to person basis is the way to go because there's a lot of cool and chill people out there (which is true!) Whereas the alternative is that they know they fit into the category of those kind of problematic players and get pissy with you for having a "bad and wrong opinion" or whatever. I've literally been told I need therapy because I mentioned that I didn't like openly talking to random people in this game after someone called me arrogant for... standing near one of their friends while I was AFK because said friend was also my friend... yeaaaah okay.

For the sake of this post, that first point is actually the important one, but the two go hand in hand. NA's marketing is so bad that what few players do manage to find the game and decide to play it never stick either because they don't know what they're getting into and the game makes no sense; or because they get scared off by the larger community of the game.

For the record I literally saw someone streaming the game who was new to it; and a guild was literally pressuring them into joining to the point the streamer said "I feel like I'm being recruited into a cult..." and was audibly uncomfortable.

So why do I even bother bringing that up? Why does anything about the community matter when we're talking about the marketing?

Because if the NA marketing was actually GOOD and enough new players actually began playing the game we'd see far less of this clique behavior. Because we'd actually have smaller sub-groups and players would be able to find more likeminded people without being literally preyed on by guilds looking to amass bigger and bigger numbers for the sake of popularity because that makes them feel powerful or something I don't know man I just play with my friends.

Mabinogi's current community lives and dies by drama and a big part of that is that they're basically one relatively small collective fandom of players. It's been like that for a long time and we've seen people drop like flies over the years, but you know what's interesting about the people I've seen stick around? They don't participate in that childish bullshit.

New players get picked up by big guilds that aggressively pressure them into joining and demand their time and activity; then those players get brought into the fold about the drama and bullshit that said big guilds perpetuate for the sake of relevancy and social clout and what you're left with is twitter. Not everyone wants to turn a fun MMORPG into another 9 - 5 job at the drama factory so they stop playing.

We NEED good marketing to bring in ENOUGH new players that we don't see this kind of clique-y fandom drama behavior as the norm and THEN I genuinely and firmly believe that we'll see a healthier Mabinogi for it.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, I cannot tell you how sure I am that at least one person is going to get mad at me for saying this shit even though it's purely my own opinion based off my experiences.

[lovesickeros]

Hello! Since this blog doesn't see much activity nowadays, I wanted to say two things: 1. How are you? You were one of the people who inspired me to dive into SAGAU in 2022 and captivated me endlessly with your writing style. Your writing immersed me in what felt like a fantasy world in the best way—rife with possibilities, danger, love, and so much more. It propelled me to new heights and made me wonder what it would be like to be more than the reader, to wield a pen and use it as the brushstroke to paint all kinds of worlds, creatures, and characters.

On that note, I'll follow with the second thing: 2. You are one of my biggest inspirations as a writer. Because of you and others, I've spent the last two years writing and creating like never before in a way I didn't think I was capable of. I have an AO3 and a Tumblr blog, mainly dedicated to posting my musings in a "stream-of-consciousness" format for narrative purposes. Because of you, I've grown—as a person, friend, and writer. Because of you, I made countless memories I'll cherish for years: sharing and building stories with my friends' group chat, roleplaying, making AUs, etc. Because of you, I did everything I thought I couldn't: I fostered my creativity and cultivated it to plant what is now a thriving garden regularly visited by my friends. It has helped us bond immensely and provided me solace in my darkest hours.

Because of you, I wrote my first book on Wattpad. I hopped onto a wild, emotional, and unforgettable rollercoaster that saw my interest in watching movies and reading literature be re-ignited for the sake of inspiration, have a taste of fandom culture via Steven Universe, Genshin Impact, Murder Drones, and several other games and shows that have undoubtedly and irreversibly changed my life. Because of you, I made OCs, I discovered YouTube movie recaps, and now I can write a pretty good summary myself!

That is to say that I'm wholly grateful to you, Eros, and everyone else who led me down the path of the writer, supported me throughout with their comments, memes, stars, and kudos, and generally showed enthusiastic interest in my work. I wouldn't be here if not for you all. I hope your ship of life continues sailing smoothly, as has mine, after years of turbulent weather and unpredictable storms that threatened to throw us overboard if I hadn't held on to others (and myself) for support.

May the new year bring you joy and prosperity, and hey, what do you know? Maybe I'll write something for SAGAU someday. The only reason I haven't taken the plunge yet is because of how inactive (for lack of a better word) the community there has become, and I don't know what I would write. Ideas, anyone?

Anyway, I've talked for long enough. Keep up the good work, Eros, and remember that in someone's (my) heart, you are still held dearly as an inspiration. Even if the golden age has long faded, we will always have our memories to keep us company: "Don't cry because it ended. Smile because it happened."

it is unfortunate that the collective sagau fandom has kind of died out, honestly. its what got me really into writing as well (which i feel like i have to mention @/nicebonescomrade for being the writer to get me to make my first sagau blog. one of the other og's and also a phenomenal writer). im glad it had such a large impact on you though!! that makes me really happy bc ive always been self conscious about my writing and writing style ngl, though i never grew out of it bc it worked for me. i can't imagine stories like books as a movie in my head like some people (literally head empty) so i lean more on actually putting more feeling and description into my work to compensate. it gets a bit wordy but it helps me write bc i do not plan anything i just start writing based on vibes.

sagau downfall was definitely inevitable (and a part of why im super inactive) but im happy with how it turned out anyway bc of how big the fandom is and how many people turned to creative hobbies bc of it. its nice to know i at least had some kind of impact myself KJHKDH i wouldnt consider myself one of the "big" sagau accounts by any means so its a bit of a surprise ngl um. looks around.

i genuinely just spend most of my time these days printing out random fics when i get the urge (once in a blue moon, 99% of which are in my draft vault), playing whatever game caught my fancy this week and playing genshin because it's still a black hole i will never escape from! honestly maybe one day ill come back to this account for real instead of sporadic posting but uhhh. probably not unless a new big au pops up again.

[inamindfarfaraway]

1, 2, 4, and 12 for the fic ask game! <3

Fanfic ask game

1: if you could sit down and finish any one of your wips without anything stopping you (time, tiredness, etc), which fic would you choose? tell us about it if you want!

My PJO fanfic that you have so graciously been beta reading, (Always the) Problem (Never a Child). A deep dive into the incredibly fucked-up backstory of Luke Castellan, and how you could possibly go from an innocent child to (gestures to the flaming crying bloody war criminal mess of his canon self). I love this fic so much. I like my writing, I like my plans and I think when it’s done it could be absolutely amazing.

But. It’s SO long. I’m not even halfway through. And the chapters are always so much longer than I expect, and I have only the vaguest outlines of some middle-to-late chapters, so I can’t even conceive of how long and complicated it’s going to get. It’s definitely the most ambitious fanfic I’ve ever started. I’m procrastinating on it because, other than more manageable WIPs, after the next chapter or two I have really very little idea what I’m doing at the moment and I don’t want to watch my faith to finishing this saga be torn apart by hellhounds in front of me. I don’t want this to become a lesson in the peril of hubris. And because I’ve written all the happiest parts and it’s all downhill from here. Well, for Luke. Not for Thalia.

So if I could just bang the whole wonderful tragedy out now and let the emotionally wounded comments (hopefully) stream in? Yes. Good. That would be a great relief and a great accomplishment.

2: if you could sit down and finish any completely new fic without anything stopping you (time, tiredness, etc), what would you write? tell us about it if you want!

That’s a tough one! I have way more concepts than I do WIP documents! But since you reminded me of it by bringing up Harry Osborn in my DMs, I’ll say my AU where he gets bitten by the radioactive spider instead and everyone has to deal with him being Spider-Man, for better and for worse. Yes, I like tragic villains with daddy issues. And exploring them as something other than villains! The Spider-Harry timeline has quite a long, complex outline, as you know, so realistically it would be broken down into a series of many fics, and again, that scale is one reason I don’t think I’ll ever transfer it into all the fics it deserves. But I guess I could try. Or just talk about it more.

Everyone else… I’m not sure how much to explain about this AU, with how much it has in it. Norman still becomes the Green Goblin and still dies. It is tough on Harry. You know how every version of Harry ends up hating Spider-Man? Yeah. No exception here. Gwen Stacy lives though! And so does Harry’s actual love interest Liv Allen! I do not like fridging. Maybe I should post the timeline? Would anyone be interested in that? Does anyone want to ask me for more details? My inbox is now open!

4: is there an au or trope that you haven't written before, but would want to try?

Some kind of time travel could be fun, especially the fix-it kind for all the damn tragedy in the stories I like. Confusing, maybe, but fun. And cathartic. And a nice break from the canon-compliant angst I often write. Actually, I… don’t really have AU fics, do I? Massive intricate AU outlines in my Google Docs, yeah, but fanfics, not so much. Huh.

12: what's a song or two you associate with [insert fic]?

Well, Robins: The Musical is just a copout. My current WIP, Different Wavelengths, is associated with a lot of the Next to Normal soundtrack, such as “Everything Else”, “Who’s Crazy?” (that’s Duke visiting his parents, okay? “The one who’s half-gone or maybe the one who holds on?”), “Maybe”, “Hey 3/Perfect for You (Reprise)” and “Light”.

Thanks for the ask!

[locallygrowndaikon]

Hi!! How do you meet and make genuine friends on Sky? I’ve been playing for a few years now, but whenever I get a chance to chat with other players they either speak a different language or ask me a bunch of personal questions 😵‍💫. There seems to be so many funny and interesting people online but I never meet them in person!

I had to think about this one for a bit since im not good at making friends either JGGHFJ

I think it’s definitely easier to find people to connect with online rather than in game. A lot of the people I’m closer with in sky are usually people I find through online platforms rather than in game (though not saying its impossible to find good ingame friends, just might be harder) . A general thing would be to find those who have similar interests or humour, and as well as to spend time with the friends every once in a while, whether it be candlerunning or just hanging out to talk.

If you want a more in depth rambling of me going on about everything I know about making friends, then:

Ok well this is kinda for anyone reading this JGHJDJ

A general thing about friends is to find a common interest to talk about like OCs, art, sky in general, other games, anything basically, especially if you’re like me and bad at conversations. Even after you find the initial spark, it can get hard to keep up with regular conversations afterwards and it’s easy to drift apart. If you want to get closer with someone it’s definitely good to start conversations every once in a while. This can go from telling them things you think will be funny or showing them things to just things about your day. A lot of people appreciate this kind of thing and usually get comfortable to reciprocate it (unless you’re like me and really bad at stating conversations HFBSIC)

In sky, this can also be asking the other if they want to cr together or eden, even oobing if you’re into that. It gives the chance to hang out and talk to each other.

Of course, if the other person doesn’t respond with a lot of enthusiasm or doesnt seem to put effort into the friendship, it might be time to back off to give them space. They could either be tired and need a break or they arent interested in the friendship anymore. An exception would be if the person is already socially awkward or isn’t good at starting conversations. It can be hard to tell sometimes.

If you wanna find friends

For finding friends online, its usually finding a community and finding people within it or becoming a part of the community. if you’re social enough you can join discord servers and talk to people. Even if you arent as social, discord server can still help find people to interact with, like cr partners, heart trade, needing help people/finding help, that could lead to friendship. There’s also being on social media, though it might be harder if you dont post things or if you arent really noticed or something, though it’s not like you need to be famous to be able to find people. You can also find others on social media who are already asking for friends. Ive seen quite a few on tumblr and sometimes on other platforms where people asks if anyone wants to be sky friends. Twitch, the streaming platform yeah, also has quite a few sky creators that are willing to friend pretty much anyone, which could be another way to find a community (since quite a few people on sky twitch know each other).

For in game in sky: Moths are definitely easier to become friends with since you know guiding them and everything and watching them grow up, except moths are wild cards and some are euaheh weird and others never show up again. A lot of older players already have their own friends and friend groups and then other people play inconsistently or have different timezones/playtimes, so theres a lot more luck when making friends on sky. Best bet would just be keep talking to people and when you do find someone you bond with, continue to join and check in on them every once in a while to keep up the friendship.

Joining friends in game can be scary for many (me included), but it usually ends up not as bad as you think, of course respecting dnd spells (or cape codes if they have those). Even if you do join at an inconvenient time, its a simple “oh, sorry/mb” and you head out, leaving minimal damage and awkwardness.

Of course since this is the internet and people can be bad, if people cross boundaries even after being warned once or multiple times, or you just dont enjoy hanging out with, its okay to block and cut people off. No one is obligated to hang out with anyone nor responsible for the happiness of someone else. Having self worth and internet safety is important folks

Anyways people are complicated and theres a lot of ifs and possibilities and other stuff what not so take whatever advice i spit out mindlessly for granted JFHDO i dont know what im doing

[callison07]

Jewels was a female jellyfish character that was supposed to be the fourth member of the three other characters within Frankie Parkour Palace. Acting as the more laid back one unlike Frankie, being more chill as she was meant to be working as a lifeguard seen from lost drawings online of her with even potentially being Frankie's love interest.

Though as they were about ready to bring her finally into the spotlight, till everything was shut down due to money and the park closed.

...

Though the park would eventually soon be used for a killing game, with "real" Frankie as the host of the show As the lost character seems to be never seen in the daylight..

till one day,

while he was passing by some areas till he found a hidden room. It had been filled with the jellyfish character herself, jewels. From cardboard cut outs to posters, masks and boxes of plushies all hidden away after the park closed. Though there was something that caught Frankie's attention.

While he went through the boxes, he found a half built robot in the corner of the small room, like him. As it had looked to have meant to be jewels by the lava lamp-like body and dirty swimsuit, though it was never finished.

Frankie couldn't help but feel something in him click, though not understanding what but what he knew...was that maybe he could finish the job and have her help him host, playing as his "love interest". Though morally acting as a couple as much as he thought he wouldn't have feelings for her, as he himself as a robot couldn't feel or not allowed to especially while hosting a killing game.

Plus, it'll bring in a LOT more viewers if they act like a couple and if be bring her along and so, with a gamble, he finishes building her. Once she was finally built, she would go on to co-host with Frankie along with play as his "wife" and help with setting everything out. She even helped with re-fixing the other robots after they've been killed each seasons, plus the viewers LOVED her as fans thought she was a lost character and would come watch for her or for her and Frankie while they played as a married couple.

With thinking Frankie saved her from being forgotten and rotted in a dark room alone, she owed him her life as she helped him with hosting and continued to play his "wife", even though she didn't know how to act like one...but none the less, all was perfect as Frankie had someone else to talk to that was like him who wasn't all messed up

(at least not as much).

Though over time, that power they both had slowly grew one sided as Frankie focuses more on the viewers while Jewels stood behind him. Not getting any say anymore while he just took over the wheel, making her a bit upset at the unfair balance. Plus the game has gotten boring too as Frankie starts to kill off all contestants earlier before they barely start the game just for the viewers which she thought was no fun, so she eventually left him. Though no one has seen her since then, while she hides underneath the park, hidden away ....

till she started her own little live streams. Where people can pay money for her to either help anyone of the picked contestants cheat or miss up one of the games, as she would do both as a pay back to Frankie and also to have more power over him.

(Plus it was fun to mess with him. )

Basically how it went:

Real frankie: we're not doing so hot with money so I'ma take a gamble and rebuild my "girlfriend" again to bring in more views and help me out with hosting even though I'm not going to have any real feelings for her but just for show.

Jewels: I'm alive for what reason I don't know but Frankie saved me from being in the dark so now I work with him and be his girlfriend like in the show. I think I know love and think our relationship is love till Frankie becomes more controlling later seasons.

Later on...

Jewels: This game has really gotten boring and Frankie has been taking more control lately, leaving me on my own with rebuilding and counting money but then I realized that I can function without him and that I like having more power over him so I'ma leave him and start my own live stream/show Oh and I'ma help the player in the next season cheat so I can piss Frankie off on purpose for fun.

Real Frankie after jewels left:

"She'll come around again, for sure."

20 years later

"...sigh, I miss my wife, contestant, I miss her a lot .... I'll be back.."

Once Jewels is gone, it makes him realize how much he misses having her around...

The player would just be a couples therapist with helping between the two and making up.

"Leaving him was the best decision I've ever made besides messing up his own show." 🪼

"You're lucky there's cameras around or so help me, I will throw you into that fire pit myself."🐇

"Well it wouldn't have gone this way if you actually talked with me."🪼

"We were both busy. I had my show to run and you-"🐇

"So you admit that it's your show. Not ours."🪼

"Yeah who's the one hosting the damn show in the first place? Money doesn't make itself, jewels. You out of everyone in this God forsaken place should know that."🐇

"see this- this is why I left. You've become so boring since you've decided to kill contestants before they even get to the training arena just for the viewers."🪼

"That's what the viewers come to see. For the gore, jewels. You ungrateful little-"🐇

"Uhh guys... I'm still here .." 🍀

...

"Alright they're ignoring me...great.."🍀

[elliegoose]

got tagged by @annunakitty in a thing! yippee tag game!

now the tag game was to introduce yourself with:

one tv show

one movie

one album

one video game

however, i'm doing two for each category! why? because i'm cute and special and get to change the rules, of course! and also because i'm really enthusiastic about sharing my favorite things with people.

tv shows: adventure time & scavengers reign

not being able to pick between these two shows is the reason i'm doing two for each category. adventure time is my all-time favorite show hands down, but scavengers reign took second place (overtaking russian doll, which previously held that rank) when it absolutely blew me away earlier this year. i've watched it twice now and definitely plan on giving it a third watch sometime soon.

movies: i saw the tv glow (2024) & suspiria (2018)

as someone who repressed my gender really hard throughout most of college after flirting with transitioning in high school, this movie really spoke to me. i've seen it twice now and found a lot of value in the rewatch. i definitely want to watch it again at least one more time. this is an incredibly profound movie that has changed me as a person.

on the other hand, suspiria (2018) is an enduring favorite of mine for a very silly reason. it is a straight up good movie, but the actual reason it's my second pick for this post is that for like a year after first watching it, i kept seeing the mangled bodies of characters from it as sleep paralysis hallucinations. it was terrifying at the time but i find it incredibly funny to look back on, and think very fondly of this film in general. i got to rewatch parts of it for free irl! thanks, sleep paralysis demons!

albums: feather river canyon blues by pigeon pit & kudzu, devour everything! by levees

for two years now, feather river canyon blues has very unambiguously been my favorite album of all time. it's lomes oleander's bold, dense, imagery-filled lyricism at its best, backed by the full band that her voice deserves playing alt-country sounds that strike the perfect balance between gentle and energetic. it's simultaneously desperate and hopeful, joyous and melancholy, and at every moment filled to the brim with emotion and beauty. this album feels like watching every sunset at once surrounded by your best friends and loved ones. transgender folk music will save us. if you have to pick one song from this album to listen to, make it milk crates:

kudzu, devour everything! is the reason i started playing banjo. levees is a friend of a friend, and i was introduced to their music because said friend was praising this album in our friend group's discord server. i find levees' idiosyncratic manner of clawhammer playing--often very fast and full of non-traditional rhythms--to be absolutely magical. their songwriting is also excellent, full of vivid stories and characters sung about in prose that weaves effortlessly between the elegantly straightforward and beautifully dense. i also recommend listening to their album vultures, as well as quarantipilation volumes 1 & 2. it's actually not one of the songs that contains banjo, but if you have to pick one to listen to from this album, i recommend her/hymn/their, which won't embed for some reason but hey here's the link

(also, honorable mention to drink the sea by the glitch mob, which is the first album i ever really fell in love with, and which inspired little 13-year-old elise to grab a copy of ableton and learn how to make music myself. until feather river canyon blues came along, i would have probably picked drink the sea for this post.)

video games: signalis & mice tea

first off, i cried at the end of signalis! while streaming! it was really, really good!!! it has a delightfully dreadful atmosphere, great story, very interesting worldbuilding, phenomenal art style, and excellent character design. plus, it was great for practicing my german. i strongly recommend signalis to anyone who likes survival horror.

second off, yes, i am choosing mice tea, a transformation fetish visual novel, as my second pick here. judge me all you like. i stand by my choice. its story is fun! the characters are excellent! its humor and conceptual ridiculousness disarm you and make way for genuinely emotionally impactful storylines! it has a lot of interesting commentary on gender! it almost single-handedly turned me into furry! also, it's hot! go play mice tea!

now, finally, it is time to tag! don't feel pressured to pick multiple things or provide explanations like i did! i just enjoy doing more than is assigned lmao. tagging @rotten-spaceymage, @birras0, @citrusuprising, @roboticvenusian, @femboty2k, and anyone who sees this and wants to do it themselves!

[feathers-nest]

First fic I'm posting directly to this new separate blog.

I still need more practice writing for Prince and this is also my first time attempting to write Clavis, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a new suitor.

This will likely be the start of a series of fics, not exactly in chronological order and most of them able to sand alone, of a Magic/Fantasy AU with Water Dragon!Readerx Clavis, inspired by the following event and my slight obsession with magical or non-human characters (is the lack of it why I struggle a little with Prince although I want to write more for it?).

This part was written for:

By @violettduchess

Did I even finish it in time?

The event's prompt being Water and it turned to be the basis of the whole series more so than this specific fic as I didn't have the time to work on the first idea I had.

Series Maserlist // Main Masterlist // Read on AO3

“We could…” Clavis started to suggest, watching the streams of water in the air that dripped over the garden’s plants.

“No.” You interrupted your lover, trying to walk away, but he followed.

You were trying to water the plants that morning - gardening was a good hobby and a good use and training for your newfound powers - when he had approached you.

“What about…”

“No!”

“But it would be interesting, wouldn’t it? And it’s not like anyone would get hurt.”

By his tone of voice, he found your frustration as amusing as whatever ideas he had. Not that you were exactly frustrated, you just wanted him to believe you were.

You finally spun around, looking him in the eyes.

“Clavis, I love you, I go along with a lot of things” both because it was difficult not to let him drag you around and because you were willing to indulge him, “but I will not use my powers to help you on your pranks.” You kissed him, smiling softly.

Ever since you found out your family wasn’t completely human, and that you had water powers, Clavis had been trying to convince you to join him in his pranks. You had no plans to give in, but even you found it amusing to see him try.

“Is this a challenge, my dear?”

“Not at all. I wouldn’t dare challenge you. But you know I’m not comfortable using my powers in such a way, and I know that, although you insist, you wouldn’t force me to.”

“Not comfortable? What about what I saw yesterday with Emma and Linet?”

“It’s different between us. A ladies game. Why do you want me to help you so badly?”

“Is it that strange that I would like to share some fun moments with my lover? You already work so hard, I thought of making your training more interesting.”

In other words, he wanted more time with you. You were surprised, but so touched.

It was true that you had been busier since you discovered these powers, but it had been because of him, too.

“Thank you, Clavis.” You kissed his cheek and held his hand. “Sorry I have been busy, but you don’t need to go that far. I actually wanted to get better at controlling my powers to avoid an incident like last week.”

“So getting me all wet was an accident? I thought it was your way to come on to me.”

“And I was so torn between laughing and staring at how hot you looked all drenched that I just let you think so. But it was an incident. You surprised me and my powers burst out. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, but I wanted that to happen. A small sacrifice to cheer my lover up.”

“Sure.”

You chuckled and stepped closer to him again, but stopped when you felt water dripping into you, freezing when you realized you had gotten distracted when using your powers. The water streams had spread, creating a soft drizzle in the whole garden.

You panicked and tried to retreat them, but when Clavis touched you out of nowhere you nearly jumped and the water burst in all directions, drenching both of you, and by the cries you heard in the background, caught someone else too.

“Was that on purpose, too?”

“No. But it is a hot summer and you look cute with your hair all wet like this.” He pushed a strand of wet hair away from your face.

He really did it on purpose, but you just couldn’t be mad at him. You also reached to adjust his hair, laughing, while Clavis smiled at you.

You should get used to how things were going to be from now on and, sincerely, you didn’t mind much.

Series Maserlist // Main Masterlist

[snugglebug-92]

The One Where Things Come Crashing Down

After dinner on Friday night it didn’t take long for Matthew to show up at your place.

“I told you to drop it Matthew,” you look at him, tears streaming down your face. Matthew had never seen you cry. In your entire year of friendship, he had never seen it happen once so for him to be the cause of it felt like a million knives stabbing him everywhere.

“I’m sorry I just thought you were scared or embarrassed of liking a freshman. I didn’t think it was anything more than that,” Matthew shifts from foot to foot unsure of what to do.

“The reason I transferred her was because of my ex. The situation was bad. Really bad to the point where I almost died. It started out good, everything was sunshine and rainbows but soon things went bad. He got abusive and I tried to leave but he would threaten me, and I just couldn’t leave.”

“I’m so sorry I didn't know.”

“I know. But that’s why I haven’t dated anyone in the past year or taken interest in any guys. I just wasn’t ready yet but then well you know where we are right now.”

“I’ll fix this.”

“It’s okay Matthew. I’ll talk to him.”

“How about I tell him my part of how you had no idea he was going to be there and then you tell him whatever else you want to. Deal?”

“Deal.” You and Matthew spend most of the weekend together and when Monday comes around you go and talk to Jimmy after practice. You had watched how he avoided Matthew most of practice and you knew it wasn’t a good sign but when you get the text from Knies says Jimmy told him that what happened was in the past you took it as a good sign. You went up to talk to Jimmy and were quickly brushed off as if you didn’t exist. You blink back the tears and smile at Matthew when he comes out of the locker room. He comes over and you tell him that everything is okay even though it isn't. The same thing continues for the next month. Every time you see Jimmy after practice or a game, he pretends you are invisible and it’s killing you. Eventually you have to enlist his roommate. As you knock on Jimmy’s door you hear shuffling.

“Did you forget your key again?” Jimmy asked before opening the door.

“Look I’m sorry about the date I-” you start but then Jimmy cuts you off.

“Save it. I get the guys pranking me but I didn’t think you would stoop that low,” he slams the door and you slide down the wall next to his door breaking down in sobs. You didn’t understand how this boy who was so sweet to everyone was breaking your heart like this and he didn’t even know how you felt about him. You don’t know how long you are like that but soon Matthew is coming and you have never been more grateful to see him in your life.

“What happened? I got a call you were here. I thought everything was back to normal and you guys were, okay?” Matthew looks at you. You shake your head and grab his hand to stand up.

“I lied because I didn’t want you to worry. But I came here and he thinks the whole thing was a prank. He hates me Matty,” you whisper as the tears start to pile up. You look at the light and quickly blink so you don’t start crying before Matthew wraps his arms around you.

“We’ll figure it out. Okay?”

“I don’t know what there is to figure out Matty. He hates me.”

“I’ll talk to him or I don’t know.”

“It’s useless. I’ll just figure something out. I’ll be okay.” You smile and Matthew knows it’s a load of crap but he drops it. The two of you walk to get ice cream before he has to leave for a date with Abby leaving you alone with your thoughts. You sit in your empty apartment and can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever forgive you. That’s when you get the email. One other secret you had been keeping is that you had applied to be a photographer for the world juniors hockey tournament. You know it was a bit of a stretch but you had always been into photography and you had done a lot of sports photography. This was the email saying the position was yours. You were officially team USA’s photographer. Your rather shitty day had gotten a lot better. 

That night you go to bed with a smile on your face. You were happy and things were starting to look up. The rest of your week went by rather fast and soon it was game day. You went to the boy's game and they won. You congratulated Matthew and Brock before smiling at Jimmy as you left. You had decided you didn’t care if he was going to be a dick to you. You could be the bigger person and just ignore it and be nice to him anyways. It didn’t matter anymore. You were done caring.