#Darwin`s Game | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lfc21 · 1 year

Note

Hii!! love ur fics ❤️ could you maybe write something where the reader is let’s say Trent or Ox’s sister or something, who also happens to be a football player, and she meets Darwin in one of his very first Anfield games. Maybe he’s lost or needs help in anything, I’ll let you decide that; but basically she helps him out in something and he tells her “hey i know you, you’re *player*’s sister and you also play, right?” and stuff yk and then he asks her out on a date later? Thanks!

A date?

TW: fluff

Summary: when you start your new job as a sky sports presenter the last thing you wanted was to fall head over heels for a Uruguayan striker.

"Y/n!" Trent shouted as he made his way back into the training rooms. You had just started your job in media for sky sports, which meant more football talk, more cold evenings standing at random stadiums and a whole lot more flirty footballers.

"Trent!" You shouted back in the same manner as you noticed your brother run back into the tunnel. You stood inside Anfield with yourself and Jamie Carragher as you waited for your queue to go outside. You still couldn't get used to the idea of having to spend way more time with your brother, as much as you loved him he did still seem to get on your nerves.

"You alright?" He asked with a smile as he swung his arm around your small shoulders. You pulled your face at the act of the already sweaty body attached to your side.

"Trent you are so sweaty" You explained trying to push your way from him without gagging. He simply laughed at your dramatics and went on his way into the changing room.

"Brother and sister love ey?" Jamie asked with a laugh as you simply shuck your head in annoyance at his question. You both got the heads up to go out onto the pitch. As you both wandered out you noticed a tall confused-looking man standing at the end of the tunnel. "Darwin!" Jamie called with a smile as he noticed the new uragyuan signing. His head snapped up at the announcement of his name.

"Jamie?" Darwin said as in a question as he wasn't completely sure if his brain was correct as to who it was in front of him. The striker had recognised the man from many champions league nights at Anfield and many interviews stood outside in the cold English weather.

"Are you alright? The lads have just come inside" Jamie pointed out as he pointed to the changing room where the lads were racing into. You stood silently next to the ex Liverpool player as you both tried to make sense of the strikers actions.

"Klopp told me to wait for him!" He said with a smile as he also started to make sense of his own doing. "I guess he has forgotten" He added with a laugh as his hand glided across his slick back bun.

"Y/n you wait with him for a second whilst I grab Klopp he is only down there" Jamie explained as he ran off to find the german manager standing on the pitch talking to his assistant manager. You nervously stood next to the man not knowing what words were best in this situation.

"So do you like it here?" You asked with a smile as you looked up at the 6-foot-2 player. You had never noticed how perfectly placed his eyes were and how his lips turned up into the warmest and most inviting smile. The feeling of butterflies was the only emotion taking over you right now. Every action of his own sent your legs into jelly and your mouth watering.

"Yes I do very much," He said back with a small giggle as he messed with the shin pads placed in his hands. His eyes were attached to you as if he was trying to make something clear in his mind. "Your Trent's sister right?" He quickly asked with relief as his mind finally clicked into place.

"Oh yes, I am," You said carefully, slightly taken back at his level of knowledge about you. "I work for sky sports now with Jamie" You added trying to stay clear of the point of being Trent Alexander Arnolds' sister. As much as you loved your brother being a footballer, you also loved the idea of making a name for yourself and not being someone's relative.

"Wow that's cool" He replied with those sparkling dark orbs. Your eyes were attached to his delicately sculpted face and his perfect sun-kissed glow.

"Darwin! Let's get you inside, your going to start tonight Bobby has picked up an injury" Klopp explained with hushed tones from the tunnel as he ushered the man inside. Klopp shot you a wide grin at the familiar sighting of you. "I have an interview with you after the game don't I?" Klopp added as he pushed open the changing room door for darwin.

"Yes! me and Jamie" You explained as your eyes where magnets to the large body going through the door. Darwin sent you a signature smirk as he passed through and you could of sworn your legs where about to buckle in. You had never seen the man in this light before but you couldn't help but want more from him.

As the minutes went by and you were sat hoping and waiting in the extra time your eyes yet again wandered over to the striker running for his dear life. You couldn't help but admire the way his hand came to his forehead pushing away the beads of sweat which ran down his face and the way he shouted to his teammates for the ball. He was adapting so quickly and as were you, you were adapting to his appearance more and more. You urged him to speak to him again. The final whistle blew and the sound of the Kop was the one thing to be heard. You jumped up out of your seats in the media room with glee as the celebrations were among you. Darwin had managed a hattrick causing a wave of proud emotions to come through your body.

As soon as you arrived on the pitch to interview some of the chosen players your eyes immediately met Darwins. He was standing answering a million and one questions from someone until his eyes captured yours, he shot you a cheeky wink before continuing with his interview.

"I think someone fancies you" Jamie pointed out as he nudged your arm with a laugh. You rolled your eyes at the man beside you as you moved your head away quickly to avoid any attention on your blushing cheeks.

"Oh shut up its just cocky footballers" You explained with a laugh as you lied straight through your teeth. Jamie knew you were lying yet the idea of him broadcasting it across the world whilst the man in question and your brother were around didn't seem to appealing. As you shuck the words that Jamie said off of you, you noticed the familiar man walking towards you, clearly finished with the press.

"Have you got a second?" Darwin asked you as he stood next to Jamie opposite you.

"Actually I am supposed to do an inte-"

"She has more than a second" Jamie said cutting you off and pushing you towards the man. You gave him a stern look before following Darwin down the tunnel. You could have killed Jamie at that very moment but you were also thankful. Your nerves were the one thing that was going to stop you in this whole situation.

"Is everything ok?" You softly asked as he took you both to one side.

"Yeah, everything is great actually" He started with his sweet Uragyuan accent running through your ears. "I was just wondering if you wanted to go out with me tonight. you know for some drinks?" He asked with a soft smile and sparkly eyes. Your heart stopped in your body at his ask, you thought the idea of equal attraction was far from the truth but it was not.

"I finish work late" You started as you watched his face turn low and his expression becomes somewhat of a sour view. "So it would have to be a late drink, around nine?" You added with a smile as you watched his face light up at the added news and question. You hoped this was the start of something so much more, rather than just a cocky footballer. You were thanking God for your brothers' great football skills and your skills at being an incredible media member.

Hey guys 👋🏻 I know this isn't exactly the request but I thought this could be a nicer idea 😄 I hope you still enjoyed this piece 😊 please leave feedback and requests 👏 have a great day 🥰 2022 masterlist ❤️ 2023 masterlist ❤️

@prettylittletrent @cornertakenquicklyyyy @trentalexanderarnold @robbo38 @robbothegoat @kostasstsimikass @chelseamount @chloereddy @tsimikasfamily @avenirdelight @blueathens @jordanhendersunshine @mrs-henderson @thatonesexycancerian @hendersons1truelover @nyctophilic0vitnir @peekapeaches @tsimikxs @tsimikostas @trentalexarnofan @leddows @moneymasnn @superkittywonderland @virgilvansike @virgilvandickmedown @hopefulromantic1 @robbo-trent-fanfiction26

#lfc imagines #lfc masterlist #liverpool imagines #lfc imagine #lfc x reader #darwin nunez imagine #darwin núñez x reader #darwin nunez x reader #darwin nunez imagines #darwin núñez #footballer x reader #footballer imagines #football fanfic #fanfic #writing

160 notes · View notes

thatliminal-wanderer · 22 days

Text

Squiggles (Generation Loss) ID Pack

Requested by Anon

Names

Ace, Adam, Albert, Aldan, Alden, Aldon, Aldwin, Alexandria, Alfred, Alice, Alpha, Alvin, Alvis, Alvy, Alwyn, Amit, Amity, Andrew, Angelica, Anissa, Ann, Anna, Anne, Anthony, Archie, Arthur, Arwin, Ash, Ashna, Audrey, Austar, Baldwin, Barney, Bartholomew, Bellamy, Ben, Billy, Bit, Bob, Bruno, Buddy, Buzz, Cad, Caden, Cass, Ced, Cederick, Cedrick, Cedrik, Charlie, Chester, Clarissa, Dakota, Dakotah, Damien, Darwin, Darwyn, David, Edwin, Einstein, Elliot, Elwin, Ernie, Ferris, Frank, Gamba, Graham, Harold, Hedley, Horatio, Irwin, Jordan, Kadeen, Kahil, Kaira, Kaleel, Kalid, Karah, Khalee, Khaleel, Khalil, Khalilah, Lefty, Lewis, Liz, Lucky, Maitreya, Marble, Margaret, Marty, Marx, Mary, Meet, Mitra, Mitul, Noddy, Patrick, Pete, Quicky, Rafee, Rafiki, Rob, Rosemary, Ruth, Ruthie, Samara, Sedric, Sidney, Snap, Soumil, Stephen, Takoda, Wade, Wayne, Willow, Yadira, Yara, Zach, Zamil

Pronouns

ar/archive/archives, camera/cameras, cassette/cassetes, dark/darks, distort/distorts, file/files, footage/footages, fourth/fourths, fun/funs, game/games, glee/glees, goober/goobers, laugh/laughs, lost/losts, luck/lucks, mascot/mascots, radio/radios, record/records, rewind/rewinds, scare/scares, show/shows, signal/signals, silly/sillys, spook/spooks, stalk/stalks, static/statics, talk/talks, tape/tapes, wall/walls, watch/watchs, 🌐/🌐s, 🎞️/🎞️s, 🎭/🎭s, 🎮/🎮s, 🎰/🎰s, 👁️/👁️s, 👤/👤s, 📞/📞s, 📺/📺s, 🦝/🦝s, 🪡/🪡s

Titles

Showfall’s Little Face of Joy, The False Joy, The Joyful Watcher, The Judge of Life or Death, The Mascot That Loves The Viewers, The One Who Knows About The Show, The One Who Let’s The Viewers Choose, The One Who May Write The Script, The Show’s Mascot, [prn] Who Speaks to The Audience, [prns] The One Who Watches

Genders

Analogender, Analoghorrorgender, Foundfootagehorroric, G!squigglesgender, Genderlog, Horroraveil, Humornoxic, Oldinternetfriendic, Redroomic, Sweetnsillygender, Videourawarec, Vitciwatchic, Webhorroric

Other mogai

Alderanalora, Chat Omninoun, Error Omninoun, Horrorvior

11 notes · View notes

paulagnewart · 11 days

Text

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 4/12: Knux Readux!

Knuckles the Echidna Volume 2 issue 1 AU Publication Date: 14th April 1997 Price: $2.70

Spinoffs. No self-respecting media can live with them. No self-aggrandising media can live without them. And for those of us who lived through the space year that was 1997, corporations were chomping at the bit for a slice of those sweet spinoff dollarydoos.

Best place to start and witness such influence would be, arguably, the cinema. After Baz Luhrmann's blockbuster remake Romeo + Juliet spent weeks atop the box office, the majority of March was a bitter struggle between Wes Craven's thriller Scream and Cameron Crowe's football drama Jerry Maguire. A fascinating if ultimately pointless grudge match between two distinct genres. For all their efforts, neither claimed victory when by month's end, a film 20 years their senior blasted both off the map. The Star Wars Special Editions had arrived.

The promotion (and merchandise deals) was huge. A New Hope proved an instant hit, swiftly followed on 10th April by The Empire Strikes Back. Everything old was new again, and the re-hits just kept coming. Audiences pounded the pavements, eager to revisit Jurassic Park when its sequel The Lost World saw release on 29th May (only a week after its US premiere, a then-impressive feat). Superhero buffs ignored the winter freeze to watch Batman and Robin on 26th June, a film often lauded yet pulled respectable numbers and local reviews at the time.

Speaking of space, following a successful campaign through latter 1996, the Oddbodz were back. Smith's Chips and Glow Zone launched their second series of 61 collectable glow-in-the-dark cards featuring a myriad of wacky, wicked and occasionally controversial space-themed characters. If gross-out humour wasn't your speed, ripping into packs of Thins, Ruffles, Cheetos or Doritos chips instead offered adventures in a galaxy far far away with official Star Wars 3D Magic Motion and Techno Tazos.

After the toyline's initial launch in January, Beast Wars had successfully put Transformers back on the map, though kids would have to wait at least three more months to see their favourite characters in animated action. To Channel 7's credit, they at least gave the program a decent timeslot. More than can be said for Channel 9's decision that April to broadcast the all-new Star Trek: Voyager season 2 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 4 at the ghastly time of 11pm weeknights.

In spite of the former losing 30 minutes off its timeslot, the rivalry between weekday morning children's entertainment continued between Agro's Cartoon Connection and Cheez TV. Both were banking on the spinoff craze, and viewers waking up 14th April could choose between the premiere of Power Rangers Zeo episode 'Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise', or the premiere of Earthworm Jim episode 'Darwin's Nightmare'. For the musically inclined, American rockers No Doubt had enjoyed 8 weeks atop the music charts with the third single on their third album, 'Don't Speak'. At least until April saw them bumped off by Aussie pop prodigy Savage Garden and their third single 'Truly Madly Deeply'.

But of all the spinoffs to arise and bedazzle locals, after three years of development and an exclusive preview party the night prior, SEGA World Sydney opened its doors at 4pm on Saturday 22nd March 1997. Touted in print and on TV as "Australia's Largest Indoor Theme Park!", it offered hours of unrivalled entertainment and programs for Sydneysiders and visitors alike. Anyone who could afford its hefty entry fee lost themselves in all the games and rides they could handle (except Mortal Kombat, which was pulled last-minute). An escape into pixilated fantasy guaranteed to forget their real-world troubles for several hours. Mundane adult things like Victoria and Western Australia's brief yet brutal summer bushfire seasons where 3 lives and some 59 homes were lost. Or how after one year into the top job, captain conservative John Howard faced international anger over comments at the United Nations General Assembly, and local anger over casual dismissing threats by extreme right-wing rival Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.

Be it stage shows, costumed cameos and all types of merchandise featuring their antics, fans of Sonic, Tails, Sally and Robotnik were in paradise. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for a fifth member of the cast. For someone who enjoyed strong popularity and a species originating right there, SEGA World put the bare minimum effort into giving Knuckles the Echidna his own time to shine. A remarkable oversight undoubtedly leaving young fans wondering where that embattled echidna was hiding. As luck would soon have it, they needn't look far.

Nestled comfortably among the shelves between Sonic issues 45 and 46 came Knuckles: The Dark Legion. Sales had proven strong enough (or at least stronger than Tails and Sally's comics) to warrant the development of a second miniseries. Exciting in its own right, only amplified when exclusively announced through AOL in January 1997 it would evolve to a fully-fledged ongoing spinoff. No longer was trotting off to the newsagents exclusively a Friday end-of-month treat. Knuckles' arrival meant a mandatory Monday mid-month booster for us deprived of Mobian adventures.

Over the course of its 32 issue run, Knuckles the Echidna was, much like Endgame two months later, once praised as a pinnacle of Archie Sonic. Fans adored the series, giving ol' Rad Red his own unique mythos and adventures. While Sonic naffed around aimlessly in a post-Robotnik world, we saw Knuckles as the cool, 'mature' comic. He had stakes. He had drama. Quite a turnaround after the heavy criticism its writer took in late 1996 over Sally's leaked demise. Within months he was described as "a kewl writer!", or "one of the ONLY "good" and "balanced" writers Archie has", or how they're "so much better then sonic comics now its not funny." with "all the good villains and family members." Fans swarmed en mass to his WWWBoard, creating their own stories, characters and entire websites tied to the Brotherhood and Dark Legion. Not everyone agreed on the book's mission statement "Why does everybody liek it so much? All it is really is a bunch of Penders' characters running around with slight appearacnes by Chaotix and occasionally knuckles himself.", but it made a lot of other people happy. Enough for both The Dark Legion and Lost Paradise reissued as 'back catalogue' orders to selected comic book stores in late 2004.

And just like Endgame, those nostalgic memories have since dissipated when adults reflected on his tales with matured, scrutinous eyes. We grow. We learn. We reevaluate on what was once adored as adolescents, realising perhaps those good times weren't all that good. Maybe the series and characters were fine in concept but lacked competent execution. Maybe our childish expectations meant they were never good to begin with and the critics were right all along.

The youthful, creative glory days from the late-90's to mid-2000's of Knuckles of an Echidna, Kragok Comics, Echidna Gals, Dark Legion HQ, Echidnapolis, Knux Redux, Tisha-Li's Dark Legion Camp, Kensuke Aida's Julie-Su Shrine, Echidnoyle, Shattered Moonlight, Knuckles 9000, Kiri Megami's Chaotix Hideout, Darkest Mysteries, and of course True Red's mighty Knuckles Haven have long passed.

It's from learning said past our futures are forged, but do any of these characters have a future? Do they even deserve a future?

Or maybe it's just best they're all forever banished to the Twilight Zone of cultural irrelevance.

Next Time: For years I said it wouldn't be done. Yet promises, like the hearts and cheekbones of fictitious rodents, were made to be broken. Will May's hedgie rectrospect-y truly be worthy of such hate? Or have revisionists painted a far worse picture over the past two decades?

< Previous \ Index / Next >

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Archie Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog Comics #Archie Comics #Comic Books #Ken Penders #Manny Galan #Andrew Pepoy #Jeff Powell #Karl Bollers #Justin Gabrie #Knuckles the Echidna #Echidna #Dark Legion #Australia #1997 #Musings

10 notes · View notes

socially-awkward-skeleton · 11 months

Text

American Beasts

Chapter 34: In Righteousness Shall You Judge Your Neighbour

Fandom: Far Cry 5, Far Cry (Video Games) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Female Deputy | Judge/John Seed, Female Deputy | Judge/Jacob Seed Characters: Female Deputy | Judge (Far Cry), Joseph Seed, Cameron Burke, Earl Whitehorse, Mary May Fairgrave, Nick Rye, Kim Rye, Boomer (Far Cry), Grace Armstrong, Jerome Jeffries, John Seed, Faith Seed, Tracey Lader, Virgil Minkler, Hurk Drubman Jr., Sharky Boshaw, Adelaide Drubman, Joey Hudson, Peaches (Far Cry), Jacob Seed, Staci Pratt, Eli Palmer, Wheaty (Far Cry), Jess Black, Original Male Character(s), Project at Eden's Gate | Peggies, Tammy Barnes, Dutch Roosevelt Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Religious Cults, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Swearing, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Animal Attack, Threats, Threats of Violence, Stabbing, Knives, Guns, Shooting, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Hallucinations, Sexual Humor, Sexually Suggestive Dialogue, Kidnapping, Blood and Violence, More Biblical References to Lions Than You Can Shake a Stick at, Trauma, Suicidal Thoughts, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Social Darwinism, Obsession, Flashbacks, Enemies to Lovers, Physical Abuse, Hand Feeding, Smut, Internalized Misogyny, Hurt/Comfort, arrow wounds, Menstruation, Coercion, Manipulation, Bloodplay, Strangulation, Disembowelment, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Cannibalism, Stockholm Syndrome

Summary:

In which Kit goes through it again...

She should have learned her lesson by now that her and Bliss don’t mix, but as part of her plan with Jacob to keep the Resistance’s eyes off Faith’s bunker as it’s reconstructed for the Baptist’s purpose, she’s been taking outposts in the Henbane, and alas the GFH at her side suffers the punishment of the cult’s new executioner

#far cry 5 #fan fiction #jess black #dutch roosevelt #oc: kit cross

28 notes · View notes

ollieflopkins · 16 days

Note

8, 11, 15 for the football game !!

Sarah ❤️🫂 thank you darling!

8. Who is your favorite European player?

Virgil 😋 I really gravitate toward defenders and I will never underestimate the transformative impact Virgil had on Liverpool (as someone who was around for plenty of the pre-Virgil days lol). One of the only posts I’ve ever made on here that I got anon hate for was saying people don’t respect Virgil enough and saying streets will remember late 2010s Virgil best defender itw. And people had the nerve to say I was full of shit hahaha cackling.

11. Who is my favorite South/North/Central American player?

It’s Darwin haha is it boring that my answers are just Liverpool players. Although in a previous ask I did respond that Alexis is my current favorite player so…I’ll also use this space to s/o my babies at Tigres, Diego Lainez and Marcelo Flores, both Mexican internationals at my fave Liga MX team 🐅💛💙

15. What is my favorite La Liga team?

Used to be Barca! I was a really big Barca fan in the earlier days of my soccer fandom - actually got to see Messi play at the Camp Nou which I’ll forever be grateful for. But I don’t care as much about them anymore. Most I just root for whoever is playing Real lmfao. I do like Bilbao though

#thank you Sarah babe ❤️#asks #ask game #football asks

3 notes · View notes

standardquip · 3 months

Text

youtube

Dysphoria

A video representation of my experience with dysphoria. Made in 2020.

Video:Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari, Vision of Escaflowne, Escaflowne (movie), Revolutionary Girl Utena (movie), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Devil May Cry (anime), Fullmetal Alchemist, Noragami, Steins;Gate, Blue Exorcist, Guilty Crown, K (TV), Death Note, Death Parade, Akira (movie), Demon Slayer, KARAS, Children of the Sea, Dorohedoro, Psycho Pass, Nisemonogatari, Your Name, Paprika, Perfect Blue, Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters per Second, Charlotte, Attack on Titan, Black Clover, Bleach, Erased, Darwin's Game, Deadman Wonderland, Drifters, Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, Free!, Sunday Without God, Blood Blockade Battlefront, My Hero Academia, Owari no Seraph, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, Re: Zero, Rozen Maiden, Strike The Blood Third, Sword Art Online, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Macross Frontier Audio:JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk Premiere Date:2020 Status:Downloadable, Streamable Genre(s):Horror, LGBT+, Other, Artistic Cons/Awards: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2020 PRO Contest: won “Best Technical”, finalist in “Artistic” Agamacon 2021 – Honorable mention “Endless Nightmare” YoumaCon 2021 – “Now in Technicolor!” Award Outside Links:.org

Dysphoria AKA Skeptic’s Hypothesis AKA Multicultural Panic Attack

Started: 12 dec 2019 Finished: 11 aug 2020 Work time: 47hr 58min in premiere 26hr 16min After Effects

General Comments I started out wanting to make a weird/creepy glitch video. But as I started making it it became something way more personal.

The part where I over-explain everything

I joined AWA PRO in 2019 with a video that was completely forgettable (Exposure). I came away from that feeling very weirdly defensive of my editing skills so I set out to make something to prove I could edit. That was the AMV Esoterra, which was largely a shallow, showy piece. Aside from the technicals, it’s also just a type of video I don’t generally make because nostalgia/vibe things don’t interest me much.

While that video was coming along I got the urge to do something edgy, and I have always wanted to do text and glitch effects in a video. I’ve had a love affair with JT Bruce’s “Hypnic Jerk” for several years so worked on cutting it down to something usable (the track is ~10 minutes long). Once that was done I set it aside to make after Esoterra was done, to make sure I finished it before the pro deadline. I didn’t intend to finish Dysphoria for PRO, but I figured if I finished it in time (a big IF) I would submit it in addition to Esoterra.

Once I started on Dysphoria, the time went by so quick. I wanted something that would separate the viewer from reality and just focusing on the song would have been enough. But I got this idea to attach it to something real. And eventually decided to roll with it. It’s weird, because when you look at these 2 videos (Esoterra and Dysphoria) You’d probably think Dysphoria was the gimmicky one, but it’s much closer to my brain than Esoterra is.

I’m not super open about it, but I’m transgender. I also have clinical/major Depression. I wanted Dysphoria to be about the fight you have in your head with yourself on whether or not you want to change, or if what you’re dreaming is really something you want.

During my time in the Navy (2009 – 2012) I was constantly fighting with myself on what I wanted more– transition or to stay in the navy? DADT was repealed shortly after I enlisted, but trans people were still largely unknown and had to be closeted. This video helped me work through some of that, I think. I had a pretty good idea I was trans when I joined, but I wasn’t sure until after boot camp. And once I went on my first deployment things sort of snowballed, and I was constantly weighing the pros and cons of staying in or getting out to transition (Obama’s trans inclusion thing didn’t happen to shortly after I was discharged).

I wanted this video to be relatable to anyone imagining what a mental crisis was like. It was very important to me that it was still “gender dysphoria” but it didn’t beat you over the head with it. I wanted it to be subtle. Something that maybe trans people would get but cis people could still appreciate without feeling like the vid has a specific message. Gender dysphoria can be fairly insiduous. I don’t think many people realize how much it can affect things. It is also easily attributable to other factors, so can be very hard to identify as an issue if you aren’t already 100% sure you’re trans. I guess this video is just relaying feelings, and the general steps/phases/stages you try to work through during a mental crisis or psychological break.

For the text, I watched a lot of AMVs with text in them and I learned that text seemed to work better when you weren’t concerned with reading it. So I made the text hard to read and I used it more as an artistic framing device. Any time the character was feeling the text, I tried to put the text on the character, especially over their face. There are two “worlds” in this vid, one being reality (which is almost always starring a female character), and one being the dream/fantasy. Reality is dim, has washed out colors and hard to read text. Fantasy has easier to read text but it’s usually in another language. It’s also way more raw and emotional, and not the lyrics of the song/track.

And, as especially the case for the first minute, I started out the text being fairly legible but then got more screwed up and harder to read as time progressed. Because in the beginning you think you’ve got things figured out, but the more you think about stuff, the harder it becomes to decide, and the more frustrated you get. Especially true for ~0:28 – 0:34ish, screwing with the text in such a way to be artistic but also to purposefully frustrate you that you cannot read it.

Which introduced an ongoing problem into my video: How do you make things specifically frustrating (especially the later glitches) without it being so frustrating that the video is no longer “good”? That was an ongoing conversation I had with at least 3 different beta testers. Much more about the glitches than the text, because I had very specific visions for the text. In the end, I think I figured it out okay so there is a good balance between “messy” and “not done well”. But that took several tries to get right.

People suffering with mental crises generally feel alone. So I wanted the characters in reality to be relatable but have a barrier between them and the viewer. That being the text, blurs, VHS overlays, etc. I especially tried to pick scenes where the real characters were not looking right at you.

Dream world is brighter, vibrant, hopeful. The characters you see yourself as (the boys) are looking at you, and they’re for the most part cool, badass characters.

The glitches were predominantly hand-made using the very scenes they’re on top of. I did have some presets, but I’d say 80% – 90% of glitches were made from scratch. The presets mostly got used during the elevator scene around 2:13 – 2:17and 2:31 – 2:35. The only other help I had making this were VHS overlays which got peppered in throughout the video.

Despite Esoterra taking more time, I’d consider Dysphoria to be much more technical and difficult to edit. In Esoterra I was playing with, and learning about, flow, composition, and overlays. The time it took to effectively learn and apply those things was immediately used in Dysphoria which surprisingly has a lot of the same core concepts, just utilized differently. Despite them being nearly ideological opposites, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make Dysphoria as good as it is without having the experience of making Esoterra first.

Scene selection was incredibly intentional for every single part, and caused a lot of headache at times due to not finding what I wanted. Because my specific theme was gender dysphoria (and even more specifically, female to male) girls only show up at specific times: – the real world – the very first time the character goes into the dream world “at first it is a plunge into hyper reality” – when the character is actively fighting with themself (the yes / no sections) – after an implied suicide attempt at 1:32, when dream/fantasy start become one.

In the “Yes / no” parts of the video, the boy is always yes, and the girl is always no. That is specific to gender dysphoria, and to FTMs. When you visualize yourself? Is it as a girl or a boy? It was always a boy. But some trans people (myself included) will go through phases where they dream as their real-world (non-transitioned) self. For me, I went through a long period of denial, so would try to force being ok with myself, even though it brought me pain.

So all the scenes with girls in them are painful. The scenes of boys start out cool and confident, but then become trapped and locked away. They get angry and kill the girl around 1:20, which then results in the mental breakdown that follows. The suicide attempt, the male self saving the female self, the overall anger and confusion, and the “crisis” part of the video. The crisis is: Now you know you have to do something. Will you finally accept this part of yourself? Will you finally transition? The overlays at 1:53 signify the decision. Glass breaking, hands parting, and scissors cutting an umbilical cord.

The next section is “Help”. The character finally recognizes that they need help, because they are finally accepting that there is a problem. But just because you recognize there’s a problem doesn’t mean you’re any good at solving it. Therein goes the brief period of survival in the dream with the super clear picture of the man saving the woman. It works in two ways, one at surface gender dysphoria level because it’s a dude being cool, the secondary being that the masculine side is saving the feminine side. “Hey. You don’t have to die. You’re still a part of me. You might be transitioning to male but that doesn’t mean my feminine side disappears.”

The elevator section of the video was one of the first sections I edited, and so it is predominantly just a glitch fest as a way to transition from living in escapism to getting back to reality. It ends at the scene of the girl in bed. For me this symbolizes depression more than anything else. You know you need help, you are constantly thinking about how to get it, but sometimes you just can’t fucking do anything. So we have that scene and then shinji (the boy) appears as a reflection beneath. The video ends with shinji waking up in the hospital and the question “Are you awake?” It’s a throwback to the original video’s premise of a skeptic’s hypothesis… Can never know if you’re dreaming or not. But also a sort of ambiguous ending of never knowing if the character got the help they needed or not. Are they still living in their dream of being a boy? Or did they actually transition and this is reality now?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway that’s my over-explanation of this video. I put it off for so long, partly because I don’t like revealing this part of myself, and partly because I don’t think it’s right to force my interpretation/message on anyone. But overall decided the pros in putting this essay out there outweighed the cons.

Since I finished this video in August 2019, released it publicly in December, and only now just wrote this explanation at the end of February the following year, I forgot a lot of things maybe I wanted to touch on in between that time. But this is long enough as it is. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up I guess. Contact info in my profile.

Some things I want to point out just because As mentioned previously, all scene selection was super intentional. But a lot of it goes by so fast and seems kind of random so here’s some things I want to bring attention to lol.

0:02 – there’s an overlay here of more rain (dropping on the camera) and also some faint glowing eyes. I wanted to bring some paranoia into this video but this is the only part that panned out.

Beginning to 0:21 – Your Name was amazing to work with because it had the perfect amount of scenes of girls looking at boys and being sad about it. This establishes the character’s life up to this point as being unhappy with who she is. The scene of her staring in the mirror at the boy and then crying really sets up the whole gender dysphoria framing device without being obvious about it.

0:24 – anthy is a fragmented, bare, vulnerable individual with a trapped and tortured boy prince inside :)

1:20 – metaphor for self injury. Also foreshadowing of some other chest-based scenes. 1:23 – the result of the previous scene. This was the best anime representation I could find for ftm chest surgery. Obviously the scar is all wrong but it was the only chest scar scene I could find that looked kind of believable for what I was going for.

1:24 – 1:32 I synced the tracking dot to the beat lol. Also the text on the bed moves when she lays down on it.

1:57 – 1:59 is all scenes with barriers because the characters are all trapped. The last scene is a first person shot of looking down at boobs, which in context of all the suffering scenes leaning up to it are meant to imply that boobs are bad. Character has massive chest-related dysphoria. It’s a quick callback to the other 2 chest scenes.

2:01 – 2:05 is dilandau!! From Vision of Escaflowne. I won’t explain the scene because it’s a huge spoiler but if you know the anime/character you’ll know why I used it here. :)

Note: the (uncredited) live action footage is a recording of myself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my beta testers and our discussions about the intricacies of glitches: Ash, Dr. Derpface, TheLazyDaze

Thank you to Synaethesia for helping me with the VHS overlays.

Thank you to Kriegher for the help with including Hindi as a language.

I also must mention ProstrateConstantly/ZaneWins, whose DESTRUCT vid and making of vid heavily inspired me to make my own glitch vid. And to CrackTheSky’s blog for mentioning DESTRUCT, as I otherwise never would’ve seen it. D E S T R U C T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878jSaMBtxw Making of DESTRUCT: CTS’s blog: https://crakthesky.wordpress.com/

Original track of JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk: https://www.jamendo.com/track/24044/hypnic-jerk?language=en https://open.spotify.com/track/0e3aRWcOl7XqYNWP1ss5AO

I did a large amount of work to the song to make it work- here’s a screencap of my Premiere timeline for the song:

In (approximately) September 2021, JT Bruce commented on the youtube video!

3 notes · View notes

do-not-try-looking · 27 days

Text

Un-Watched Anime:

Please give in more recommendations (even manga), and we'll add it! And if you want us to tag you in our post about it, we gladly will.

A centaurs life

A certain scientific accelerator (Toaru Kagaku no accelerator)

Am I actually the strongest?

Bem

Baki

Battle game in 5 seconds

Black cat

Blade of the emortal

Black clover

Blue lock

Concrete resolution

Concrete resolution: The last song (Choujin Gensou - The Last Song)

Death march to the parallel world

Dance with devils

Darwin game

Demon Lord, retry!

Dororo

Dust maiden of amnesia

Drifters

Endride

Fairy gone

Fire emblem

Gate

Goblin slayer

Gilgamesh

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash (Hai to Gensou no Grimgar)

Hitori no Shita: The Outcast

Highschool of the dead

In the land of leadale

In/spectra

I'm quitting heroing

Isekai de Mofumofu Nadenade suru Tame ni Ganbattemasu

Isekai Shoukan wa Nidome desu "sub found"

Joker Gamer

Kabaneri of the iron fortress

KamiKetsu: Working for God in a Godless world [Kaminaki Sekai

Katsugeki Touken Ranbu

Kemono Jihen

Lord of Vermilion - The Crimson King (lord of vermillion: Guren no Ou)

Link click

Lord marksman and Vanadis (Madan no Ou to Vanadis)

Lost song

Loveless

Made in abyss

Magatsu warhrheit

Magi: adventure of Sinbad

Magi:

Magical warefare

Midnight Occult club service

Mysteria friends

...

Over lord

Phantom Quest Corp.

...

Ragna Crimson

Reincarnated as a sword

Saikyou Tank no Maikyuu Kouraku: Tairyoku 9999 no Rare Skill-mochi Tank, Yuusha Party wo Tsuihou

Sinbad

Shironeko project ZERO CHRONICLE

Sword Gai

Skeleton knight in another world

Sorcerous stabber orphen

Sword Oratoria: is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon

The genius princes guide to raise a nation out of debt

The ancient magus's bride

The emince in shadow

The raising of the shield hero

The great cleric

The honor at magic high school

The strongest mage with the weakest crest

The twelve kingdoms

The witch and the beast

Tomodachi game

...

Wolf's rain

...

#made by:#mod: 🩸#mod x #mod:#anime #anime list #edit 1 on 30 march 2024: by mod✨️#◇

2 notes · View notes

aita-blorbos · 9 months

Note

AITA for thinking my friends shouldn't release invasive species onto an alien planet?

So for context, I [20s F] have been living on an alien planet with two other people, my friend [20s M], who we'll call D, and my recently-girlfriend [20's robot], who we'll call R, for the past two years. When we arrived, there were no signs of animal life anywhere on the planet, only plants, and we were supposedly destined to help populate it with fantastical fauna, and D and R have even been working on breeding sapient species. At first I was kinda on board, but I spent more time wandering around sniffing the plants than really helping. Just recently, D decided to initiate a mass extinction event by killing all of the animals they've made so far, and I was sad about that until I noticed all the plants regrowing much, much healthier than before.

D and R have now started making new animals again, and I'm starting to notice a lot of things that were off that I didn't before. You know how grass smells when it's freshly cut to warn nearby grass about grazing animals? The native grass doesn't do that, and I thought it seemed to be regrowing too slowly. I found a book about botany that I think might have belonged to another friend who's still back home [I believe D might have robbed her house before we left for the alien planet], and the more I smelled the words the more I realized that none of the plants here have any defenses against animals eating them. No thorns, no toxins, slow growth, and all their leaves are soft and fleshy. The only kind of chemical I got a whiff of came from those weird walking savannah trees, and I don't think it was for defense. On our respective home planets, grass is completely indigestible, so on a hunch I ate some of the native grass and the was no sign of it in my poop afterwards. All of this confirms to me that metaphorically, the native plants are the helpless flightless island birds that we're unleashing a hoard of invasive cats upon.

I asked R what she thought, but she said that I'd have to talk to D about it since the entire project was his idea. When I did, he got mad at me for trying to spoil the fun and ruin the game, and he asked me if I thought the sapient species he and R were trying to breed didn't deserve to exist. I don't know how to answer that, not that I could before he went off on a lengthy tangent about evolutionary progress and survival of the fittest that I'm pretty sure is a complete misunderstanding of Charles Darwin's work. To make matters worse, R actually agreed with him. Does that mean I'm the asshole?

#aita #am i the asshole #unreality

7 notes · View notes

anamariamauricia · 11 months

Text

turning by Alexandra Dowling

when will we heed the warnings of a goddess in distress?

the scars of her abuse run deep she will no longer be oppressed

body plundered beauty squandered let this time be our test

maybe she feels rage

the same way humans do

a lack of love where love was due

we binged she gave we just kept right on it

still more we crave and now we’re hooked on our own vomit

like my friends bent over toilets with fingers down their gullets

to eject the fear and loathing that hides inside in a frantic bid to self correct

because they too believe the lie to which we’re still complying

that we aren’t enough

so we keep on trying

desperate for comfort we’re grabbing and grasping and taking and raping and using and clasping to the next rung on the ladder

and hey life is tough so why not numb out when waters get rough?

world leaders hang heads but refuse to be led by the science

or youth who are begging for truth

too overwhelmed by what lies ahead they shake hands or shake fists instead

‘cause how do you reverse a runaway train if you’re invested in keeping the game just the same?

if perpetual growth is our ultimate goal i feel stuck in a nightmare that deadens the soul of the mother that birthed us sustains all we do

we belong to that soul

we are nature

it’s true

and like wounded children that never grew up we’ve rejected our mother and now our times up

times up

on the lying and climate denying

times up

on excuses these times call for muses

because this guiding myth of more dictates one thing

that gdp growth is the cause that will win and all other missions just get in the way of this game that the top one percent love to play

and yes i confess

i belong the tribe of capitalist consumers brought up to thrive on socially sanctioned ecocide billed as wealth creation and enterprise

centuries of exploitation labelled development and progress

the mass manipulation of a colonial education and the corporate press

the problematic proposition that ‘the market knows best’

i won’t deny i’ve benefitted

i know that i’m complicit

but if i run from the blame i’ll keep doing the same old shit i always did and just ignore my part in it ignore the knocking at my ribs that says

i’ve had enough of this

if every earthly heart is broken

why not let yours crack wide open?

your fallibility - it’s human

we’re all caught in these stories that perpetuate distress by enshrining competition as the route to success but survival of the fittest only tells a partial truth

the better part of darwin’s theory is that we evolve not lose

through our empathy and care and collaboration too

a fact oppressive systems appear to refuse

we’ve been cycling these white lies inside our minds for our whole lives

and conditioning’s a powerful force to override

but I know that we’re here to do more than just survive

now it’s ‘too late’ to keep the dream of 1.5 degrees alive

but there’s a route through this crisis where we find another way

co-create a future in which children can play on our streets instead of protest

one that honours life

honours freedom wisdom love

honours beauty truth and mystery below and above

one that reunites us with our desecrated mother

helps us look at our divisions and relate to each other

not as winners or losers but sisters and brothers

fucked up, failing, flawed but capable of more

than we ever imagined

we just need the support

a revolution is here

it lives in our hearts

excuse me for being naive but it’s never too late to start

i’m sure we all feel it what i’m saying isn’t new

the only thing that’s left to ask is ‘what is mine to do?’

do i have the courage to stand for what i know?

do i have the humility to say that i can’t do this on my own?

find communities of care to upend the status quo proving economies that dare to put love first will grow strong enough to uproot the weeds it’s time to overthrow

can we empower each other to take a step that counts?

and keep taking small but hopeful steps until our time runs out?

can we keep an open mind and be kind

while we’re learning how best to turn up

in this time of great turning?

#alexandra dowling #poetry #if you click on the link you can listen to her read it #she also has a substack you can subscribe to #environmentalism #environmental activism #climate change #ed mention #*seagull voice* mine

7 notes · View notes

whovian223 · 10 months

Text

New to Me - June 2023

New to Me #boardgames - June 2023 @tgryphgames @gmtgames @AllplayHQ @oinkgms @ArcaneWonders

June has been a busy month, and not seemingly conducive to getting new board games played. We missed a Sunday game day (Father’s Day) and for two of the other three Sundays, our main “new games” guy wasn’t able to come. However, we maximized that one date to get three games in and we had another day where another guy brought a game that I had been wanting to try for a while. Add a new solo…

View On WordPress

0 notes

sunset-a-story · 1 year

Text

WIP Drinking Game

Rules—make a drinking game that could theoretically be played while reading your WIP.

I saw @mariahwritesstuff 's open tag and this cracks me up so I have to jump onto this.

Take a sip whenever:

Reeve sighs (you may end up in the hospital)

A new character is introduced (same)

Hannah is naked (she's a nudist)

Gareth runs from his problems

Alex has some sarcastic comeback

Reeve puts his foot in his mouth

Take a shot whenever:

Marek is annoyed about being called "sir"

Alex insults Reeve

Gareth and Reeve get into a fight

Darwin gets flustered

Hannah has to do emotional labor

Misha says something unforgivably horrible

Fredericka drinks

Reeve lies

No pressure tagging @words-after-midnight (I fear what would be in this with J*ff) @hghrules @l-antre-des-merveilles and @writeintrees

#writeblr tag games #tag game #drinking games

7 notes · View notes

art-of-mathematics · 1 year

Text

Recursive brain noodle soup - Parody of paradoxes unrevels its transcending character - Uncoiling the contradictions in a dancing pattern

[This post is rather incomprehensible and incoherent gibberish, but I want to share these fragments of trains of thought nevertheless.]

Truth is neither day nor night. Truth is how day and night are like sine and cosine of the unit helix. Truth is a principle of interactions of all components in a data set. - Welcome to the analogy rollercoaster in the association weaving mill. - Enjoy the mental fuckery. And dont forget to have some fun along the way of getting your brain turned into semi-slimy noodle soup. Remember: "Creativity is intelligence having fun", as Carl Sagan once said it.

- - -- ---

Some days ago I bought this nice orange/yellow hoodie.

I like the "heterogeneous distribution" of the orange and yellow.

Today I attached some patches:

a patch with Euler"s identity/equation

a patch with an ironic dictionary-like explanation of the word Recursion (in german) [Recursion (Latin) see: Recursion]

a patch with the Fibonacci spiral, a patch with the flower of life pattern, a patch with a dodecahedron

AND - At the hood I attached a patch with some lyrics by the somewhat pagan-ish/shamanic-like band Heilung. [It is from their first live album LIFA (Opening ceremony) - Beware that the music by this band might have trance-inducing effects.] - This quote might appear like having a huge religious character. Yet, I don"t interpret it as such. It is an additional interesting plot twist to interpreting all the patches I have attached on that hoodie.

The lyrics on that patch:

"Remember that we all are brothers, All people, And beasts and trees, And stone and wind, We all descend from the one great being, That was always there, Before people lived and named it, Before the first seed sprouted."

How I interpret these lyrics: I ignore all details and think about the main principle(s) stated. According to that method, I translate these lyrics to:

"We all stem from the same. (->Darwin"s evolution ) We are all connected by the same rules of nature, and we all emerged by the same rules of nature. (This is difficult to explain and summarize... in short, I refer to interactions in dynamical systems and emergence. Rules of nature include laws of physics and all other sciences.

These laws of nature could be imagined as guiding principles for the metaphorical game of life, like a vague instruction how life should uncoil itself. )

These rules of nature already existed before we could discover them (alias "before we named them")"

13 notes · View notes

live-laugh-loverpool · 1 year

Text

I Dare You To…

What happens when Liverpool FC gather together to play Truth or Dare on Valentine's Day? Chaos...

Tags: @millythegoat, @alissonbecksfan234, @moomin279, @rubybecker-rb2, @rist-mlts

The week had started off well for Liverpool. A win vs. Everton, one of their sworn enemies, had been the perfect present for the team.

With a few days until their next game, the boss decided to give the Liverpudlians Tuesday off. That particular Tuesday also happened to host a holiday--Valentine's Day. So what better way to celebrate than a game of Truth or Dare?

Henderson had been the one to propose the game, and the others had wholeheartedly agreed. Of course, with the game having been played in Liverpool for decades, there were a few team-specific traditions.

First of all, the bottle had to specifically match the occasion or holiday. This rule had been created by Steven Gerrard after a player had brought a sky blue bottle the day before they played Man. City. He'd called it bad luck, smashing the bottle in front of a young Henderson.

Secondly, everybody had to play on the dinner table. This was less of a superstition and more of a practicality, as no other table in Kirkby would fit all of the players at once and it was rather inconvenient to sit on the floor.

Third of all, best friends couldn't sit next to each other. The rule seemed odd at first glance, but it had been established after the "Bottlegate" scandal of 2008. Two players who had been close friends used their proximity to cheat in the game, helping each other in dares and offering false truths to avoid telling real confessions. Nowadays, players were arranged in ascending order of their kit numbers to avoid controversies.

There were some other, minor rules that often got changed depending on the captain or manager. But these were the three core rules, and they were called the Truth or Dare Tripod.

"Lads and men!" Henderson hoisted the bottle of choice in the air. It was a red, heart-engraved glass bottle that had been traditionally used for Valentine's Day Truth or Dare. "I hereby announce the beginning of Truth or Dare, Reds style!"

A mild smattering of applause circled around the table.

"Now." Henderson handed the bottle to a surprised Gakpo with a flourish. "It is tradition for the latest new goalscorer to spin the bottle first. Whoever the mouth of the bottle points towards is the one you ask the questions to. The questions are not pre-written--they must come from your own imagination. Remember, it's Valentine's Day, so some of the cheekier prompts would be appreciated!"

Milner rolled his eyes at Henderson's latest comment. "I'll pass the cheekiness, thank you.”

Gakpo made quick work of the process, spinning the bottle with a deft flick of his wrist. The bottle spun round and round until it pointed to Nunez. “Truth or Dare, Darwin?”

“Um…dare, I guess,” Nunez faltered. He’d seen enough truth or dare competitions between the team to know how crazy they could get, and he didn’t feel like confessing anything.

Gakpo paused to think before his eyes lit up, a mischievous grin stretching across his features. “Say ‘I love you’ to one of your best friends in their native language.”

“If you say so, then…” Nunez grabbed a microphone out of nowhere, standing on top of his chair. “S 'agapó, Kostas.”

A collective jaw-dropping ensued, and about thirty heads whipped around to stare at Tsimikas. The Greek, normally boisterous and loud, was trying his best to fight the blush on his cheeks.

“Alright, since I succeeded, it’s time for Kostas to answer me.” Nunez spun the bottle, and coincidentally the heart on the cap directly faced Tsimikas. “Truth or dare, Kosty?”

“Truth.”

Robertson gasped in delight, bouncing in his seat like a young child. “Ooh, you’re a bold one now, ain’t he mates? From blushing at a simple ‘I love you’ to confessing a truth.”

Tsimikas brushed Robertson’s observations aside with a scoff. “I’ll be fine.”

Nunez nodded, not revealing anything. “Then if you had to marry one person in here, who would it be?”

Tsimikas froze, all his previous confidence gone. “You’re seriously not going to make me propose?!”

“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you. Just name the guy.”

“Fine, fine, fine.” For once in his life, Tsimikas looked somewhere near embarrassed. “Thiago.”

“THIAGO?!”

“I know, I know, it’s weird.” Tsimikas sent a soft glance at Thiago. The Spaniard reciprocated with a warm, gentle smile. “But he’s been so nice since we both came. I write my rap lyrics while he’s in the kitchen with me and…he’s just a really good friend.”

Elliott smirked, holding a toothpick between his teeth as if it was a cigar. “So I guess we can call you Kostas Alcantara now? Or will it be Thiago Tsimikas?”

“I’m not marrying him! It was hypothetical!”

“Okay, okay. Truth or dare, Hendo?” Thiago asked the skipper, leaning on the table.

“Truth.”

“Who was your first crush ever?”

Henderson nearly sank under the table once the question was out. “Do we have to do that?”

“Yes,” everybody insisted. Probably with a little too much excitement.

The captain sighed in defeat, pulling a photograph out of his pocket. He’d kept it with him for what seemed like forever. “Well, it’s not really a crush. But when I came here I was obsessed with Stevie.”

“Stevie? As in Steven Gerrard?” Alexander-Arnold’s eyes were as wide as the aliens that he still believed in. “The captain?”

“I guess. I mean, I’m a young lad then, he’s proper big, proper fast.” Henderson was so embarrassed that he wanted to disappear, especially when he spotted Elliott and Carvalho videoing the whole thing with their phones. “I admired him, and when we’re in training every day I can’t help but see how…fit he was. Proper biceps and calves.”

“You had a crush on Stevie G!!!!”

“ROBBO, SHUT UP IN THE NAME OF RIBENA!”

“When Stevie chose me as his successor,” Henderson went on, tightly clutching the captain’s armband in one hand, “I felt there were some huge shoes to fill. So I started to imitate him by working in the gym. I’d overwork myself, until Milly came to the club and found out how much time I spent in the gym.”

Milner nodded, grasping Henderson’s hand from across the table. “And to make a long story short, we actually became good friends from there. Hendo focused on the brains, and I focused on the brawn.”

“What about your Adam?!” Robertson piped up, clearly not taking Milner’s hint about shutting up.

Henderson smiled wistfully, staring off into the distance. “He’s the heart. With us three keeping the ducks in a row, the boss could focus on other things a little more and worry about us as a team less.”

“Not like it ever worked,” Milner retorted. Elliott slapped the Yorkshireman, and Milner barely resisted the urge to throw the feisty youngster out of the room.

“Alright, alright, moving on!” Henderson turned to Bajcetic with a fond smile. The youngster had won the hearts of his older teammates, with his precocious footballing IQ and humility. “Truth or dare, Stefan?”

Bajcetic shrugged, running a hand through his dark curls. Like Gakpo, this was his first time playing Truth or Dare with the whole team. “Truth.”

“I’ll go easy on you, since you’re a youngster,” said Henderson, correctly interpreting the hesitant expression Bajcetic carried. “What’s the loveliest eye color for you?”

Bajcetic sighed a dreamy sigh, gazing at Carvalho. “Dark brown. Simple as that—they’re beautiful.”

Carvalho had the grace to blush, while Elliott glared at Bajcetic from across the table.

“Sorry, Stef, but nobody else is gonna replace my soul twin.” Carvalho spun the bottle, and just like he’d hoped, the bottleneck pointed towards Elliott. “Truth or dare, Harv?”

Elliott’s bright blue eyes glinted with mischief, and his blond curls bounced around, only attached at the scalp. “Dare, Fabio. I’m not going to answer a boring truth question like Hendo.”

Henderson glared at Elliott, insulted. “It was a deep dark secret of mine and you call it boring?!”

“I’ll let you know that I’m Senor Aventura!” Elliott proudly proclaimed. He thumped his chest with vigor, and released his attempt at a roar.

“Well, Senor Aventura, here’s your dare.” Carvalho leaned back against his chair, placing his feet on the table. “Kiss Milly on the cheek.”

Tsimikas gasped, Henderson nearly fainted and Thiago stuffed a shrimp muffin into his mouth.

“That’s it, I’m done with you two.” Diaz took his chair and bolted from the table. “I’m running on the pitch and off it too, hasta la vista baby!”

With that, the Colombian was out of the room. For a long while everybody just stared at the empty door frame in shock, then back at the empty place at the table.

“Remember Harvey, you still have your dare to complete!” Carvalho announced, leaning on the table. He adjusted the toothpick “cigar” in his mouth, perched upon his chair like an old style cowboy. “Go ahead! Give ol' Milner a smooch.”

Panicked, Elliott turned to Milner, praying that he would overrule the dare in some way. But Milner didn't, instead posing so that his cheek was turned towards Elliott.

“Kiss him! Kiss him!” Robertson chanted like a frenzied megafan. “Just one kiss is all it takes—”

“Falling in love with me, possibilities!” Alexander-Arnold and the younger Scots joined in with gusto. Ramsay even climbed onto the table, whipping a club scarf around while Robertson passed around champagne flutes of Irn Bru.

Carvalho watched the scenes with a broad grin, excited at all the chaos. Milner and Elliott had been feuding for months now, and he couldn't wait for Milner's reaction when Elliott kissed him on the cheek.

Only to feel a pair of lips planting themselves on his forehead.

“You—” Carvalho couldn’t see his reflection, but he knew his cheeks were a flaming, brilliant red. “You kissed me?!”

Elliott shrugged, taking his seat between Gakpo and Jota. Both were as shocked as the rest of the team. “Well, I wasn’t going to kiss Milner. Jeez, he’s nearly old enough to be my dad.”

Carvalho searched Elliott’s eyes for any hint that the Surrey native was just joking. There wasn’t even a single hint. “It was just supposed to be on the cheek!”

“Aww, somebody’s had his first kiss!” Robertson called out, draining his flute of Irn Bru. He quickly ducked Nunez’s swinging fist, still grinning like an idiot.

Meanwhile, Milner watched on, arms crossed as usual. “Well, Harvey failed the dare. That means he has to do the forfeit, which the oldest one of the group chooses.”

Just like that, Robertson’s grin vanished, replaced by what Elliott could only describe as hyperactive confusion. “Says who?”

“Says Stevie G in Rule 4 of the Truth and Dare Coda.” Henderson held up the former skipper’s manual, clutching it close to his chest. “What’s the forfeit, Milly?”

For once, Milner seemed to adopt Robertson’s mischievous grin. “Harvey’s gotta kiss Fabio again—while carrying him bridal-style.”

5 notes · View notes