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catxsnow · 3 years

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FLIRTING GETS YOU NOWHERE J.T.

Request: Hey, can you please write a Jason Todd, Titans, where the reader is a badass fighter, a vigilante by the name of Spitfire that joins the Titans because Dick is like her older brother and she immediately builds this flirting relationship with Jason? He likes her a LOT and so does she and he feels like he doesn't deserve her and then after he and Dick have a fight the reader goes to console Jason and he tells her he loves her? With a little bit of smut?

Warning: implied smut, swearing, flashbacks of injury and near death, lil angst, lil fluff

A/N: My favourite thing about writing for Titans Jason is he’s still pre-trauma 😩😭

Word count: 4.1k

Dick had no intentions of bringing you into his life. He met you back when he was a Titan, before Jericho - before everything. Just a kid with no home and no future. Dick gave you a future, he gave you something worth living for. A purpose. The team adored you, Dawn pulled you in just as close as Dick had.

They trained you, brought you up to speed on the skills they had been working on for years. Sure, they were mad for brining a kid into this life - but what other choice did he have? Dick couldn't just leave you to fend for yourself, not when there was something that he could do about it.

You picked up on it all rather quickly. Joining them in fights, getting your own suit and name. It wasn't a life that you thought you would ever be a part of... but damn did you love it. It was a thrill, all of it. Being a completely new person when wearing the mask and getting lost in it all.

And then Jericho happened. All of you using him to get closer to Slade. Failing more than you ever thought possible. Losing Garth, losing Jericho, nearly losing you. It broke everyone apart - literally. Donna went her own way, Hank and Dawn together. Dick so desperately tried to leave you to live a better life.

You couldn't leave him, not after everything he's done for you. Dick tried to leave you - he really did. You knew him better than that, following him wasn't hard and once you were knocking on his door in Detroit he couldn't say no. Everyone blamed him for Jericho - for you - but you couldn't. Dick felt guilt every time he looked at you.

Five years passed with him. Five long years of working yourself back up to the same person that you once were. Five years of surgeries, therapy, anything so you could go back to being a hero. Dick was with you through it all, supporting you every step of the way and apologizing even more.

And when Rachel found Dick, everything changed. Your whole five years of starting a new life away from the Titans and your past was snatched away before your eyes. Travelling the country with Dick and Rachel, finding Kori and Gar. Seeing your old friends for the first time since that night in the hospital.

New people, new name, new suit. Same old place that reminded you of the night Slade nearly killed you.

"You're gonna have to do better than that, Jay."

Jason Todd. Second Robin. Dick didn't like him, not a first. Maybe because he was still mad at Bruce - maybe because Jason took an instant liking towards you. How could he not? Jason flirted his way into your life and Dick hated that you flirted right back. Over your time together, you had truly become his little sister.

He didn't trust Jason - not with you.

You were too good for someone like Jason. A heart of gold and a smile to match. Dick failed to see the similarities in you, not because he couldn't see them but because he refused to accept it. You and Jason both took this whole vigilante life as a game. Something to do because you could do whatever you wanted under that mask.

With Slade, you learned quickly that this wasn't a game. People got hurt, they died. Being a hero was real and it was dangerous. After meeting Jason, how lively he was, you hoped he never had to meet the same fate as you - or worse. Years of knee braces and crutches. It was horrible - all because you took it as a game.

"I can show you better elsewhere, babe," Jason threw another punch towards you, a coy smile on his face as you both bounced around on the mats. He started his training with Bruce a couple years after you started with Dick. However, he had all the years in between to keep his training up - you had just stated again less than a year ago. He was well in advantage.

You tried to throw a cross at him but Jason seemed to already be expecting your move. He grabbed your wrist and in a split second pulled you so your back was flat against his chest. His breathing was heavy from your spar. Jason's breath caught in his throat as your fingers grazed over his thigh.

"Promise?" You teased. Before he could answer, you elbow jutted into his abs. He released his hold on you and was distracted long enough that you could easily bring him down. Before Jason could even realize what had happened, he was on the ground in a leg lock. "I thought you were better than this? The great Robin taken down so quickly."

"You got lucky this time, Spitfire."

You released Jason from your hold, popping up and giving him a hand. "I think I kicked you ass enough for one day." Sweat drenched your body and your muscles were already aching. It had been far longer than you thought that you were in the ring with Jason - time seemed to fly with him.

"Wanna join me in the shower?" Jason raised an eyebrow. He asked that nearly every time you trained with him. Most of the time he was only joking, the others you were sure that he was hoping you would actually say yes. He loved to flirt with you, he liked to flirt with everyone, but you? You were his favourite.

It came so easy to him when he was with you. Words of adoration and praise always filled his mind when thinking of you. Since the moment he met you it was easy.

"Is this a bad time?" Gar's green hair peaked through the entrance of the training room. He looked between you and Jason, only inches apart from on another. Your flirtatious relationship with Jason didn't go unknown to everyone else on the team. Dick hated it, Kori thought it was adorable, your old team members couldn't bother looking you in the eye long enough to have an opinion.

"We were just leaving," you looked back to Jason. The grin on his face widened as he thought that you agreed to his offer. It fell as you spoke again, "to our separate rooms, to shower separately."

"You'll say yes one day, babe."

Dick loved to tell you how much he didn't like you hanging out with Jason. He didn't like your late nights of sharing music in his room. Your hours of sparring that were a little too personal for the ring. He didn't like walking in to the living room of the tower to see you and Jason half-cuddled up on the couch watching a movie.

He tried to get Kori to agree with him, though she stayed out of it. Dick was several years older than you, but he still saw you as nothing but that little kid he picked up all those years ago. Jason was everything that he didn't want to see in you. He didn't want him to taint your life, not that he could stop it.

It lead to it's fights. Dick trying to control you life just like he always had. You being stubborn, yelling at him. There were a lot of times that you wondered if it would have been easier if you never met him, he was too much of a pain in the ass to bare sometimes. Yet you owed him everything.

Jason found you in the med bay. He'd been looking around for you all evening and couldn't find you anywhere. This was the last place he expected to see you. He stood at the door, watching you pull off the knee brace he saw you wear sometimes. It was obvious that you tried to hide it from everyone.

"What do you need, Jason?" You asked, back towards him but not needing to turn to see that it was him. Jason pushed himself off the frame of the door and leaned on the table across from you. His arms were crossed over his chest but he didn't hold his usual cocky smile. He looked concerned. "You can ask."

"Does it still hurt?" It wasn't the question that you were expecting. Dick never told anyone the full story about what happened between you and Slade. He felt it to be your story to tell, not his. Jason knew the bits and pieces, but he didn't know everything. If you wanted to tell him, you would.

"Only when I breathe," you tried to joke. Jason didn't laugh, instead he sat down on the bed next to you. "It's not a big deal, I've been living with it for nearly six years." It only occurred to him in that moment how young you were when this happened - you were just a kid who nearly couldn't get back up ever again.

He watched your eyes seal shut, trying to hide any noise of pain when standing up. Without a word, Jason swooped you up and carried you back to your room so you didn't have to put pressure back on your knee. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, but I wanted to," Jason half smiled. He sprawled out on the end of your bed, staring up at your ceiling. Your legs rested across his, but you mimicked his position. "Do you think he's really dead?"

"If he's not, he will be if I ever see him again," you spoke. Jason leaned up on his elbows to look at you. He was shocked to hear you speak of such harsh words. However, he couldn't blame you for that. Slade took away years of your life - if you ever saw him again revenge almost felt necessary. "I'm not that same kid anymore."

"I know," Jason stated. "You need me, I'm there."

"I'll hold you too that," You finally peaked up at him. A smile rode his face and you couldn't help but join. Things were easier with Jason. He was always so easy to talk to. After everything that the both of you had been through, you got a new level understanding - one that you didn't get with Dick.

"I'll hold you against anything if you ask nicely," Jason winked. He laughed at your poor attempt to kick him off your bed. The movement struck pain through you and he quickly noticed your wince. His laughter diminished instantly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just... just not a good day apparently," you grimaced. Jason carefully propped your knee up on his laps. Ugly scars laid thick on your skin, your knee was visibly swollen. Training the day before you had gone harder than you should have. Jason's fingers were cold as he traced over the lines.

The pads of his thumbs pressed into your sore muscles, massaging them as if he had known pain like yours his whole life. Your head tilted back, eyes closed shut at the release of pain. His hands were like ice against your skin but god did it feel so good. The aching pain that never went away simmered with his motions.

"Feel good?" Jason asked. You nodded, enjoying the feeling of relaxation that hadn't seemed to come to you for a long time. "Can make you feel even better later if you want."

"You never stop, do you?" You chuckled.

"Not when it comes to you babe," Jason winked again as you peaked your eyes open. This time, you couldn't stop your smile. He was cute, you had to give him that. Just as he was about to speak again, a clearing of a throat caught your attention. Dick was standing at your door, arms crossed, lips pursed.

He saw the brace out again, he wanted to ask how you were feeling - but seeing you wish Jason only frustrated him. Luckily, he hadn't heard the comment that Jason had just made to you. He cleared his throat, catching both of your guys attention. "Came to check how you were feeling," He forced out. "Jason, a word?"

"He's fine, Dick," you looked up at him. You knew the look - the 'protective brother mode' look. It was the most annoying face he seemed to make - and he had a lot of those. Jason retracted his hands from your knee, though you missed his touch instantly. "I'm fine. Same as I am every day. Jason was just giving me a hand."

Dick’s eyes narrowed and he was evidently frustrated. Jason quickly picked up on the tension in the room and cleared his throat. He stood up from the bed, careful not to touch your knee at all. "I told Gar and Rachel I would teach them stuff anyways, it's fine," he assured you.

Dick stared Jason down as he left your room. His glanced flashed over to you before looking down at your knee. Guilt filled him, just as it always did.

"Rest up."

Whatever Dick talked to Jason about it must have stuck with him. Jason stopped being his usual flirty self. He lost his smile when he was around you, he changed. It had been weeks since you had your 'flirt battle' as Gar liked to call them and you missed it. Whatever was going on inside his head, it wasn't good.

Whenever you tried to bring it up with him, he promised he was okay. 'I'm tired' 'I'm just sore from yesterday' any excuse that tried to make up for his behavior. You knew him well enough to know it was a lie and that Dick had to have said something to him to make him this way. When you asked Dick, he promised that he said nothing to Jason to make him this way.

As much as he annoyed you, Dick didn't lie - not to you. Whatever Jason was thinking, it was completely on him. Which made you even more worried - when he got lost in his thoughts he was gone.

So, as days, weeks passed, you kept on by yourself. Jason kept his distance from you and by extension, the whole team. You were his biggest link to staying connected with everyone and now that was severed. Everyone noticed the shift in dynamic between the both of you and were left just as confused.

It wasn't just Jason's distance that everyone was noticing - it was his aggression. Jason going out on patrol just like he used to. You were at his side, though silence over took the both of you. He would ask if your knee was up to the task that night before leaving and after that he said nothing.

He was aggressive out there. Throwing punches that were harder and longer than needed. Relentless against some asshole that probably deserved it - but wasn't necessary. You were worried about him. So worried that you finally had to cave and go tell Dick the truth of what was going on when you were there with him.

As badly as you didn't want to make Jason even more upset at you, this path he was going down wasn't a good one. If there was something that you could do to help, then it was worth the risk. Unfortunately for you, Jason reacted exactly like you expected him to when Dick confronted him.

He was rash, harsh - yelling at Dick that he was fine and that you and him both should mind your own business. Neither of you wanted to get Bruce involved but if it needed to happen, you would go to that extent. Jason rushed off back to his room, slamming his door shut as he did so.

You peaked your head out from your own room. Dick was standing in the middle of the hall, defeat on his face from how poorly the conversation went. He looked at you, hoping that you'd have a solution to this growing problem. Neither of you wanted to see Jason like this - especially when you didn't know where it came from.

With a sigh, you stood in front of Jason's door and knocked. There was no answer, even so when you tried a second time. You looked over at Dick a final time before twisting the handle to let yourself in. To your surprise, the door wasn't locked. With final 'good luck' nod from Dick, you slipped into the room.

Jason was standing at his window, staring out of it and completely unaware of your presence. His shoulders were tense; he held himself as if the whole world was trying to tear him down piece by piece. As if everyone and everything were against him every second of the day without an escape.

You saw the same in Dick. They were more similar than either of them would ever like to admit. Both trying to fight against the world one handed while holding everyone up with the other. They didn't want help - not because they didn't think they needed it - but because sharing a burden like that was too painful.

"Jason."

He tensed at the sound of your voice. Refusing to look at you as if you were the last person he wanted to see. As if your time together these past several months meant absolutely nothing to him. God you hoped it wasn't true. Jason was everything to you, and these past few weeks without him made it so easy to realize that.

"Jay, please. You've been shutting me out for weeks," You stepped closer to him. "I just want to help, I want to know what's going on." Your fingers ghosted over his, debating whether or not to enclose his hand in yours. He answered it for you, retracting away from your touch like you were poison.

"You deserve someone better than me," Jason finally whispered out. You could barely hear him, the pain in his voice was so evident it hurt you. "I don't deserve to be around someone like you."

"Jason where did this come from?" You asked. Was this why he was so distant to you? Jason tricked himself into believe that he didn't deserve you at all. Dick hadn't meant to spark the thought within him, but it had happened. An offside comment about how good of a person you were and Jason realized just how right he was.

Jason was nothing but a darkness that tainted your light. He wanted to believe that, make it easier to push himself away from you so you could be better off in the grand scheme of things. It was far from the truth. Jason showed you a real happiness that you hadn't experienced since your time with the original Titans.

He showed you what it meant to live again without being held back by fear or pain. Jason showed you what it was like to feel loved for who you were, not who you used to be. He was there through the pain of your old wounds and ready to catch before you got new ones. You were the one who didn't deserve someone like him.

"Dick-"

"Doesn't know what he's talking about," you cut him off before he could try to reiterate what Dick had said to him. You didn't want to hear it because none of it was true. Dick always thought he knew what was best for you and he didn't. "I care about you, Jason. I've never cared for someone so much in such a short amount of time and it scares the hell out of me. But if there's one thing I'm certain about - it's that you're going to be by my side through it all."

Jason didn't say anything. You were scared that your words spooked him and that maybe he didn't care about you in the same way. Maybe all of his flirts were truly just harmless. You sighed, worried that all this was for null. Jason didn't want to be saved, he never did.

"I love you," he quietly muttered out as if he was scared to say it, scared to see what you had to say about it. Jason was scared that you were going to leave him just as everyone else in his life did. He was scared that he was going to disappoint you - or even worse - ruin you. He cleared his throat and spoke louder, "I'm in love with you."

"Then why walk away from me?" You grabbed his hands, forcing him to look at you fully since you had walked into his room. "Why assume that I never felt the same way? Or let Dick choose your path for you?"

"I thought you'd be better off."

"I'm better off with you."

Your hands trailed up his arms, his chest, until reaching his cheeks. He held a strong façade, but you knew what hid behind it. Fear, trauma, desperation for acceptance. Jason was a wall when he wanted to be, but with you, he felt like it could all crumble down and he would be better off in the end.

In less than a moment, Jason had grasped the back of your neck, pulling you so close towards him that no air could fir between. His lips rashly pushed against yours, desperate for you touch. The months worth of buildup to this moment were worth every second of waiting. This was what he needed.

The pounding in his chest was so profound you swore you could feel it against your own. You couldn't focus on the small breaths of air that you desperately needed between movements, only how addictive he was. The shaking in your knees at how divine he felt completely pressed against you was nothing compared to the unsteadiness of his hands.

Scared that this was a dream, scared that you would think this only to be a mistake because of a build up of guilt that she had. Jason couldn't let this be a one time thing, he couldn't.

"Is this what you want?" He asked, lips grazing over yours. His hand at the back of your neck fell to your waist.

"I want you Jason. I want to be with you," you assured. It was enough, those few words were enough for him to give himself up to you completely. His fingers squeezed into your waist, tugging you up so you'd jump into him. Legs wrapped around his waist as he walked you both to his bed.

He encased you on his bed, arms on either side of you. Jason's kisses became deeper as he grew more confident. A shudder went down his spine as your fingers trailed down his chest until reaching the him of his t-shirt. He pulled away for only a second to pull off the material before going straight back to your lips.

Your hips lifted off his bed, desperate to meet his. Jason groaned at the slightest brush of your jeans. His head fell into the crook of your neck as he pressed down to meet you. The tightness of his jeans was so evident. His lips planted along your neck, wet kisses left in his wake until reaching a small spot that made you breath hitch.

You could feel his grin against your skin before he paid more attention there. His hips ground into yours as he nipped and sucked. You reached for his buckle, needing more of this delicious sensation that he was providing you. Jason cried out as you grasped him through his underwear.

He helped you pull away his jeans as well as your own top. Clothes scattered across his floor, no longer caring about anything else besides you. "You're so damn beautiful," Jason trailed up with kisses as he undid your jeans.

"I thought you learned by now that flirting gets you nowhere," you teased. Your finger tipped his chin up, encouraging him to pull himself up to kiss you. His body fit so perfectly against yours, as if your curves were pieces of the same puzzle and he was the link you had always been missing. "Pretty boy."

"Flirting gets you nowhere," he mocked you.

"Got me here, didn't it?"

#jason todd #jason todd imagine #jason todd oneshot #jason todd x reader #dc titans #titans #titans one shot #titans imagine #titans!jason #dc imagine #dc one shot #dc #red hood #red hood imagine #red hood oneshot #robin #robin imagine

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daddychims · 4 years

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Offside Pt 13

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13

Series Masterlist!

Genre: Smut, Soccer AU, College AU

Pairings: Soccer Player! Jungkook X Sports Trainer! Reader

Word Count: 2k

Other BTS members all make a cameo as well because I’m an OT7 Trash!

You work as a sports trainer, providing basic first aid and injury management for the Hanguk University’s soccer team. Going with your mundane life of caring for the dozen of guys hurting themselves in the soccer game takes a turn when one of the guys catches your eyes. It’s not his breathtakingly good looks or his muscular athletic body usually seducing girls at the campus that catches your eyes. But the action plan in your kit, indicating he is diagnosed with Asthma is what draws your eyes time and time again to the Golden Boy of Hanguk University.

Warning: Slow burn, eventual smut, Taehyung being a freaking tease the whole time, Also Jimin not letting the female MC live for one day, Fuckboy!Jungkook, Asthmatic! Jungkook , mentions of episodes of Asthma, Take your Ventolin kids, Take your medications kids!

“Look Jeon, I’m saying this as your Hyung and your senior, you need to learn to save your energy if you wanna play for long,”

You lift one of the boxes of tapes and reach for the cabinet shelf at the top to settle the heavy box there as you listen to the captain’s calm but intimidating voice

“I’m grateful you’re giving it your all, but as the captain I can’t watch you exert yourself to the half time and tap out the second half on my watch.”

You bite the corner of your lips, heart beating rapidly at the warning behind the words that leaves Hoseok’s voice. The captain is often calm and collected, but he doesn’t hesitate to scold his teammates as their leader.

“I had a chat with Seokjin Hyung after our meeting last week,” Hoseok continues with a hesitant tone “In the past two years I’ve never allowed any special considerations for you just because of you condition- “

“Hyung, just do as you always do,” Jungkook finally speaks up “I’m fine, Seokjin Hyung is just blowing it out of proportion.”

“If he didn’t, I would have brought it,” Hoseok interjects the younger’s argument “I’ve been watching you play since day one, I can tell when you’re tired or when you’re in a slump because of your condition. And this is definitely more than just a pre-seasonal fatigue …”

A long silence follows the captain’s words and you wish you would have left the changing room earlier tonight so you wouldn’t have to now eavesdrop on yet another conversation on Jeon's asthma that somehow worries you more than your own final exams and undone assignments.

“You need to learn to pace yourself through the game,” Hoseok suggests “Let’s talk about this before the next game, we’ll have to talk to a couple of midfielder guys to back you up. You’re our striker wild card, you get what I mean right?”

“Yes captain,” Jungkook finally speaks up “I’ll talk to the guys and we’ll figure it out.”

“Alright, go home and get some rest.” Hoseok pats the younger’s shoulder before heading out of the changing room

You quickly turn around and keep yourself busy to make it less obvious that you were listening to every single word across the wall.

“Thank you for tonight Y/N.” Hoseok calls for you and you turn to face him

“Anytime captain,” you salute the guy “How’s your ankle?”

“Pretty good,” he nods as he twirls his shin around “I can do with a bit of tape on the next game.”

“You know where to find me, Cap!” You nod reassuringly

“Thank, Oh and …” he smiles “I was meant to buy you a dinner for a while now. I still owe you for Jiwoo's party.”

“Lets keep that after the finals,” you offer “You can buy me dinner to celebrate Hanguk’s win as well!”

“Of course,” he laughs, his face lighting up at the prospects of his team winning “I should probably tell Namjoon we’ve got you on our side then.”

Your smile immediately fade and you furrow your eyebrows “Don’t you dare-“

“I’m just joking,” he laughs watching your reaction “your secret is safe with me” he turns around and opens the door as he waves “Goodnight.”

You chuckle at the guy’s childish remark, before getting back to the boxes that are waiting in the corner of the room for you to finish up. You grab another heavy box and groan as you reach at the top cupboard to place it in when someone hovers over your body and grabs the box and easily places them where you were intending to place them.

“So, you’re on our side huh?”

Your suspicion turns certain as you hear the guy’s familiar voice and you turn around, gulping as you realise the guy’s body is pressed against yours

“I didn’t say that,” you quickly interject “I’m with anyone who shoots the winning goal. And if that’s SNU then I’m siding with them.”

“Mhmm, So you wanna tell me you’ll be siding with Park Jimin,” He scoffs, as his tongue pokes to the corner of his cheek, “I doubt you’d prefer SNU’s 3 inch shooting his shots?”

“Jeon-“ you immediately speak up to interrupt his lewd words when he presses his index on your lips

“Once you get a taste of Hanguk's big boy shots, you’ll change your mind …” he hesitates as a playful smirk tingles on the corner of his lips “I don’t know if you’ve heard but we know how to play with big balls here."

“Of course, you do!” you roll your eyes mockingly

“Do you want me to show you?” He raises an eyebrow, taking on the challenge “The ball is on the table, babe” he chuckles, playfully placing an intonation on the words “you just gotta decide to play.”

“Jeon, I’m on duty!” you sigh pointing your eyebrows at the boxes across the room "I dont have time to play with balls!"

“Fine!” His face immediately drops and he loosens his body’s cage around you to allow you to move away with an annoyed expression but you don’t stay back to watch as you quickly walk to the rest of boxes.

“Shouldn’t you be home already?” you look back at him as you lift another box “why are you still here?”

“I’m sure you heard Hoseok hyung scolding me,” Jungkook sighs as he rest his weight on the shelf and grabs the box as you stop before him to place them on the top “Why do you act like you didn’t eavesdrop on us?”

“I d-didn’t,” you stutter as you quickly turn around to grab another box “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Of course, you did,” He chuckles watching you struggles with the box in your hand “Aren’t you always waist deep in my business?”

“Fine,” you pout as you hand him the box, “I heard the conversation, but its not because I wanted to,” you sigh “Captain’s voice is now chronically loud after screaming at you guys on the field.”

“That …” he suddenly burst out laughing and you unconsciously smile along “is true, I can’t really fault you on that.”

You watch the guy’s genuine smile, spreading from his lips all the way to his cheek and then his deer-like eyes. You realize it’s the first time you see this smile adorning his lips, different to his usual cocky smirk he loves to throw your way.

“So are you just gonna stand there and watch me?” His lips curve on one side as he stands with his arms crossed

“What do you mean?” you ask in confusion

“I’m waiting for your two cents on my life,” He says in a mocking tone "dont be shy, Y/N!"

“I’m not that nosy okay?” You complain as you turn around, only then realising his sarcasm

“Oh you’re not?” He chuckles in amusement “You have more opinion on my life than my parents.”

“That is not true-” you respond defensively but immediately stop mid-sentence seeing his unimpressed expression “Fine, maybe I’ve been a bit nosy in the past. But I’m a changed woman now …” you say in a determined tone “I’m not doing that anymore.”

“Not doing what?” he steps forward, filling the space between the two of you “Hmm?”

“sticking myself into your life.” you respond nervously looking into his eyes

“That’s unfortunate,” he squints looking into your eyes “Because I decided to stick myself into yours …” he smirks “or shall I say into YOU?”

“Jeon-“ you warn and he immediately throw his hands up in surrender

“Fine, no more messing around!” he declares as he points at the boxes at top shelf “you’re done here right? Lets go!”

“Where?” you stop him and ask with a confused tone

“My place,” he furrows his eyebrows “You don’t wanna check my meds?” He asks suspiciously “If not then-“ his face immediately lights up in a teasing way

“No,” you immediately interrupt “lets go.” You say as you quickly grab your bag and walk ahead of him, hearing him chuckle behind you

You stare at the guy who walks to his mini fridge across the room and grabs a bottle of beer and waves it to you “Want some?”

“I’m good,” you quickly shake your head, knowing the last thing you’d want is being drunk in the guy’s room

“Alright!” he shrugs as he snaps the beer open and takes a sip, capturing your attention to his adam’s apple that wiggles between the toned muscles of his neck

Your eyes immediately drift around the room nervously trying to unsee the unintentionally lewd scene as you mutter “Where are your meds?”

“In the first draw,” he points at his nightstand beside his bed and you nod before reaching and opening the first dra

“OH,” you gasp, as you stare at the shiny packets of condom for a few seconds before looking up and making a momentary eye contact with him

“Like what you see?” He smirks watching you get all flustered

“You mean another reminder of your Golden reputation?” you mock as you scan through the shiny packets for his medication “can’t get enough!”

“you know now that you’re here …” he leans closer, his warm breath hitting your neck “We can put these and my golden reputation to some good use tonight!” he suggest wiggling his eyebrows

“Your medication,” you scold patting his shoulder “Can you put yourself to some use and find them?”

“Of course!” he nods with a chuckle as he fishes through the drawer and finally finds the ziplock bag

You sigh as you grab the ziplock bag and take out the device to check them as the guy climbs his bed and plops himself beside you on the soft mattress.

“Wow, you really haven’t even opened these!”

“Was waiting for you to pop the pandora’s box open for me,” he laughs as he raises an eyebrow “and maybe I can pop your pandora’s box open after!”

“In your dreams,” you flash a fake smile before taking out one of the devices “Have you used a DPI before?”

“if by DPI you mean dick pic invitations, of course!” he beams with a naughty smile “I always use DPIs to set the mood.”

“Dry Powdered Inhaler,” you pronounce each loud and clear for the guy “It’s the same medications but instead its in powder form.” You explain as you watch the guy in front of you yawn

“In other words It’s the same shit as the other one and I need to take it,” he nods “lets get this over and done with, I’m tired-“

“No,” you quickly wiggle the device away and hide it behind you “you need to know the difference so you can use it properly. Since this is powder you should take it differently.”

“Its not that deep, Y/N,” Jungkook deadpans “I chug it up my lungs and we can finally on more important stuff,” he pauses before smiling "like your pandora's box!"

“ I’ll just explain it very simple and quick," you state with a stern tone "just listen to me once”

“You see listening hasn't always been my strong point!” He shrugs

“Jeon! Please just once!” you ask with a frustrated tone

“Mhm let me think,” his pupils twirl around before stopping on you “why don’t you try teaching me like you did earlier today,” he smirks as he shift himself up on the bed, back resting on the bedpost as he man spreads his thighs “Coming close does help me listen better.”

You furrow your eyebrows, eyes travelling from his face to his thighs “If you pull one of your stupid game-“

“Don’t worry,” he throws his hands up “I’ll just be a good student, full attention on you and will listen like a good boy.”

“fine,” you murmur as you shift closer and settle on the guy’s thighs “after you put the inhaler on your lips, you see this button here,” you show him, without looking up “You need to press this so you can prime the device,”

“Uh huh,” he murmurs as he leans closer on your face trying to get a good view of the device “I press the button and then …” he says as his hand wraps around your waist, resting just above your hip

“A-And then you press again to release the powder,” you explain, trying to keep your composure as you feel his hands softly massaging the side of your waist “Since this is powder, you should take a fast deep breath in,” and you gasp as his hand wiggles under your shirt almost In unison with your instruction

“Uh huh …” he nods with a smirk, fully aware of the effect his sinful hands make on you “I take a fast breath in and?”

“then you need to hold your breath for 10 seconds,” you release the breath your holding, almost sighing as his cold hand soothes your skin “to allow the powder to settle in your lungs.”

“Mhmm,” he nods, continuing to touch you under your shirt as he murmurs “I think I got it,” he smirks as he leans closer to you, and you finally break your eyes from the device and look into his eyes “So I press the button,” he says and as the words leaves his lips his hands travel under the waistband of your pants, aiming for your core “to prime the device,” you gulp as his hand rest on your hip bone, dangerously close to your crotch “Then I press the button again,” he smirks as he reaches further down, thumb touching your clit and a small moan leaves your lips “and take a fast breath in right?”

He waits for your response with a pause as he continues to rub against your clit, slender fingers now reaching lower to spread your wetness around “then I just hold my breath for 10 seconds,” he suggests, watching you perform the exact instructions as you hold your breath under his touch “Right?”

“J-Jungkook …”

“Ssshhh,” he hushes your voice as he presses his forehead against yours “See how wet you are for me,” he smiles in satisfaction as he rubs your juices on your core "You want this as much as I do babe!"

“F-Fuck,” you gasp as he pushes a finger in your folds and your body tenses on his lap “Jungkook please …” you whine as you press your forehead against his collarbone

“Tell me what you want, babe” he instructs in a gentle tone “Remember, you just need to tell me!”

“Jungkook,” you gasp as your part your hooded lids, distancing your face from his shoulder and looking at his face, a playful smile dancing on his lips as he stares back at you with his darkened gaze, waiting for your response.

It takes you exactly 5 seconds to register what he’s doing and you immediately jolt away from him, forgetting about your awaiting climax

“fuck!” you quickly distance your body, settling back on his bed staring at him in a state of panic

“Hey, relax!” he says in an authoritative tone

“we shouldn’t do this- “

“why?” He raises an eyebrow looking at you “You don’t like it?” he asks with confidence all over his expression as if he’s challenging you to say you don’t.

You look at him, parting your lips to say something but nothing comes out. You can’t possibly lie through your teeth and say you didn’t like him knuckles deep in your pussy so you just blush and look away to his response.

“I-I’m sorry Jeon, let’s do the medication check another day,” you brave through the words as you quickly fix your shirt “I should probably go home-“

“No wait,” he immediately interjects, shifting on the bed to lock your body between himself and the mattress “Do you really wanna leave?” He asks, as he presses himself on your body, his hardened cock pressing against your thighs as he asks, “Even if I tell you I’m this hard just for you?”

“For m-me?” you ask, pupil dilating as you digest his words

“Can’t you see,” His eyes shine with lust as he tilts his head “That you’re the only medication I’d ever need?”

Your eyes widen as he leans closer and presses his lips on yours ...

#jeon jungkook #jeon jungkook smut #jeon jungkook x female reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x you #jungkook x reader #jungkook scenario #jungkook x female reader #jungkook soccer au #bts soccer au #offside #daddychims #jungkook #jungkook smut #bts jungkook x reader

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starchildsteven · 4 years

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My Steven Universe buds, guess who used concrete, as is, stated in the canon of the show, information to figure out what year Steven was born?

...by which I mean the 2 most reasonable possibilities. (Which also means I figured out when Connie was born... or again the 2 most reasonable possibilities.)

Tl;dr: It’s 1999 or 2000.

Get comfortable... It’s a lot.

So first off Channel Frederator's timeline is close, if not right on the money, based on my own calculations. With that said I am going to lay out why I agree that Steven was born in 2000.

To get Steven's birth year though we actually have to center the timeline around Greg with key information regarding Sour Cream, Buck Dewey and the Dondai.

As stated in "Steven's Birthday" by Greg himself he was 22 when he met Rose and the Gems. He had playing music gigs and was recording his album for about 2-4 years before this since he also said he dropped out of community college to pursue a music career and moved out of his home around this time. Assuming that Greg was, like most people, 18 when he graduated and community college is 2 years that means he left home between 18 and 20.

In "Gem Harvest" Greg says to Andy he left home “like 2 decades ago.” Let’s not split hairs and just say he left 20 years ago to make the math easier that puts Greg anywhere from 38 to 40. We can confirm the youngest possible age Greg could be when Steven was born (which is ridiculous but possible) would be 23 making Greg 37 which means he left home 19 years ago at most because again we know that he left home when he was at least 18. However that is NOT actually possible. Because Greg remember was 22 when he met the Gems and Sour Cream, who we know is significantly older than Steven, was born when Greg was around 23. Which means we need to add however many years older Sour Cream is than Steven to Greg’s age.

This is where Buck Dewey comes into play.

As stated in "Little Graduation" Buck is going to med school to become a doctor. This means he needs to have his bachelor's degree in Pre-med which takes 4 years to complete. Steven is 16 meaning the Cool Kids, Sour Cream included, are 22 for Buck to have completed 4 years of college after finishing high school since once again most teenagers graduate at 18. Sour Cream had to be 6 when Steven was born (5 if you want to say maybe they graduated at 17 and are 21). That adds 5 or 6 years to Greg’s 23 making him 28 or 29.

That means when Steven was 14, Greg was 42 or 43 when he told Andy he left like 2 decades ago. In this case the word like is being used to indicate estimation not an exact amount. Example: If I say I left work like 20 minutes ago I could mean any number close to 20. 18, 21, etc.) If he left at 18 it would be 24 or 25 years ago, if he left at 19 it would be 23 or 24 years ago, if he left at 20 it would be 22 or 23 years ago. While some of those are a stretch, 22 and 23 are both close enough to warrant being estimated to 2 decades ago.

I know what you are all thinking “Oh my God, StarChildSteven, why did you put so much thought into this? How many hours did you waste?” (The answer to that is... embarrassing.) But the other thing you are thinking is “How does Greg’s age get us to the year Steven was born.

This is where the Dondai comes in!

Ronaldo in the episode “Beach City Drift” calls it a '96 Supremo and cars are branded either after the year they are made or the following year. So the Dondai was first on sale and new in 1995 or 1996. We can infer through the evidence in the show, Greg was older than 18 but younger than 23 when the picture of him with the Dondai was taken. Greg's character design in the photo he shows to Connie and Steven is the same he has in “Story for Steven” before switching to plain shirts and stopped wearing his star shirt at the end of "Greg the babysitter" when he he starts working at the car wash. Again we can infer he doesn’t switch back to the star shirt after this as the implication is Greg somewhat gave up on his music career. At this time we already figured out he was 23. So the picture was taken when Greg was 23 or younger. Meaning the earliest it could be in “Greg the Babysitter” is 1995. Sour Cream is about a year old in this episode based on his limited speech and motor skills (he can’t walk or form words yet but can climb well) which means it is 4 or 5 years before Steven was born.

This makes our complete timeline: Greg meets the Gems at 22, Sour Cream is born when he is 23 in the year 1995, 4 or 5 years later Rose has Steven making Greg 28 or 29 and the year is either 1999 or 2000. Considering the show first aired in 2013 and Steven was 13 we can reasonably assume it is meant to be the current year within the show. That means the year Steven was most likely born is the year 2000!

*This next section is about Connie*

Now by extension this means we can also figure out when Connie was born based on her age relevant to Steven’s age as mentioned in “Steven’s Birthday.” In that episode Steven turn 14 to which Connie replies “I’m only 12 and 3/4!” Meaning Connie will be 13 in 3 months. (12 months in a year. 3/4 of 12 months is 9 months making Connie 12 years and 9 months. So in 3 months she will turn another year old.) A year after Steven’s birthday he would be 1 and the year would be either 2000 or 2001, 3 month later in November (because 3 months after August, Steven’s birth month, is November) Connie would be born in that same year. So Connie would be born in 2000 or 2001. Though as Steven as most likely born in 2000, Connie was most likely born in 2001.

As far as the SU x GF crossover: Dipper and Mabel turned 13 in 2012 the same year Steven turned either 12 or 13 meaning the twins they are anywhere from 16 days older than Steven to a year older and 16 days older than Steven. Just in case anyone was interested. I’m certainly not saying that the fans who like the crossover have to change their headcanons.

Preemptive rebuttals:

“But Steven doesn’t age like a normal human.” He doesn’t however Greg has obviously been keeping track of Steven’s age based on the passage of time not his son’s physical age or appearance. Steven didn’t look 13 yet he and Greg still celebrated his 13th birthday. It doesn’t matter if Steven doesn’t physically age, he could still be a baby but he would still have been alive for 13 years.

“We don’t know how old Greg was when he took the picture with the Dondai? For all we know he was 26!” While that IS possible it doesn’t line up with the design he has when he and Rose record the video for Steven or his design in “Three Gems and A Baby.” Remember Steven has to be born at least 5 years after Sour Cream who was conceived when Greg was 22. So at Steven’s birth Greg has to be at least 28. He has lost a significant amount of hair. While I will concede it’s possible he lost that much hair in a year it’s not likely. Greg is also wearing the star shirt in the photo with the car. He presumably stopped wearing the star shirt at 23 at the end of “Greg the Babysitter” as we see him no longer wearing it at the end of the episode when he now wears the car wash shirt and every design of him after that has him in either plain white or black shirts.

“Why do you care what year people think Steven is born? Can’t you let people have their headcanons?” Where did I say you have to take my word for this and couldn’t headcanon Steven born in a different year? Please point to the place where I said everyone must now take it as canon that Steven was born in either of the years I mentioned. Show me where I said this information negates all the opinions of other fans. Tell me where I even implied that people absolutely had to conform the conclusion I came to. If you can’t then shut up.

“Why would you waste so much time on this? It’s not that deep.” Because I enjoy doing stuff like this. I had fun doing this. This was an activity that brought me joy. Analyzing, theorizing and compiling fandom data is something that I like doing. It’s something I enjoy taking part in and sometimes I get excited to share the results of all my hard work with other people who might be interested or care.

“What if the Crewniverse gives us a different year eventually?” Then I’m still taking this as canon. The same way I take Steven as 18 at the end of the series as canon because I always prefer in canon evidence over Word of God. To me Word of God only matters for things we can’t figure out by watching the show. One day when everyone who worked on the show is dead there will be no more Word of God, all that will be left is the text (in this case the show) so anything not in the show will become irrelevant. I chose to implement that even when creators are still alive. Obviously I will no longer claim it as definitive canon (though I am not doing that now) but I will accept it as an alternative interpretation so long as nothing in the text contradicts it. Word of God is not text.

#steven universe #steven universe future #steven quartz Universe #connie maheswaran #long post #No one is gonna read this

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meeko-mar · 3 years

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Ok I just thought of this.

This is a further, further thought about my Kidnapped Deku Theory, about the captivity of Izuku, as well as the FUNCTION such an event would serve in his story. Surprise influence from a different Anime(movie) plays into my thought on this.

Now. Imma just preface this with: Part of me hopes I'm wrong about this, cause I like Compress and I don't want him to die yet.

But here we go.

So, Deku gets kidnapped, and somehow, the whole group, (probably minus Machia) escapes.

They bunker down in some hidden location. Shigaraki is way too depleted to physically do anything about stealing OFA at this particular point, so for now they just restrain Izuku where they can keep a close eye on him until shiggy gains enough strength . Izuku is desperately tired as well and cannot even hope of fighting back yet. So sit in captivity he does. And he observes.

And now here's where the whole thing of "Izuku needs to realize that the villains need saving too" thing comes into play,

Compress is SUPER injured. And unless one of them has some pretty adept med skills, it's unlikely that he'll get proper medical treatment for his wounds. So...barring anyone coming up with sudden healing Quirks, be it Shigaraki Or Izuku, it's likely that Compress will die.

Izuku is going to have a front row seat to the league as they lose, and mourn the loss of their friend.

Like I said I kinda don't want compress to die, but if his death has a purpose, aside from the escape of Shigaraki, maybe it's a step towards humanizing the League to Izuku. Up until this point, to him, they have been a nefarious, one-dimensional entity who has done nothing but terrorize his class and caused mayhem and death.

And nooo, this definitely ain't gonna erase any of that terrible shit they’ve done, or want to do, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna become their friend, but seeing some more relatable moments and seeing that even these guys are a found family and mourn each other's losses and that they sacrifice for one another too. It's gonna give him something more to think about in the big picture(and maybe make him realize some of the flaws in their Hero Society)

And, even though Izuku has chosen the profession of Hero, it doesn’t mean that he’d witness Compress’s death and be happy about it. He’s not the type to sit there and say “GOOD, you all deserve it, one less villain in the world!” (that’s Bakugou’s thing, after all) Izuku is a naturally kind and empathetic person. He can understand death and loss, and even though he cannot agree with their methods of rage, murder and destruction, he could come to understand some of the more nuanced roots of it. He wants Villains to face justice for their crimes, but he’s never been the type to actually wish death upon them (even when he’s trash-talking them while emulating Bakugou’s style).

((not to diverge too far, but I think the same goes for his understanding of Touya, he can grasp that Enji Todoroki was an absolute shit-heel to his kids/wife. He has a concept of abuse and how that had affected Shoto, and has in fact snapped back at Enji himself back at the sports fest when he really didn’t have to or even have the place for it, BUT It still doesn’t change the fact that Dabi was so far out of line in trying to murder his own brother that yes, Izuku is still super justified in what he said to Dabi instead of stopping mid-battle and trying to work it out with him. Like I said before, this ain’t that type of Talk-no-Jutsu anime. BUT I DIGRESS, BACK TO OUR TOPIC))

Like I said before and will say again til I’m blue in the face, Izuku’s understanding and developing vision of this world is more nuanced than that, and this is basically a slow-burn. He’s still young and learning, and he just needs those perspectives and experiences to edge in to his pre-conceived and admittedly exclusionary notions of heroism and society.

Secondly, Toga is also going to be mourning the death of Twice, who was killed at the hands of a hero that Izuku has worked with/admired himself. She’s going to have her own issues with Izuku and she may get the chance to have a more extended conversation with him, not like how the convo with Ochako was so stunted because Ochako was trying to apprehend Toga and was full of anger and adrenaline...Izuku in this situation will probably have no other option than to hear her out entirely. Assuming she’s not trying to stab him or suck his blood while she’s doing so.

The third thing that could affect him and his outlook, is that Izuku has already seen AFO’s manipulative tendencies over Tomura in the Quirk “dimension”, so he even has that to think about as well...potentially more, if Shiggy gets to try stealing OFA again. So there’s also that, which I think Hori is going to expand on later no matter what, arguably there was that one panel already that showed Izuku try to run towards Tomura as if to save him(not sure if that was what was happening, but we shall see).

Izuku may find himself in the den with villains, but he may see more pieces to the puzzle, and it might be the perspective he needs to truly become the world's next symbol of hope.

OKAY ADDED CONTEXT TIME. I suddenly realized where I think I got this particular vision.

If you have seen the Studio Trigger movie, PROMARE, there is a scene where the plucky protagonist, Galo, finds where a group of the Burnish are hiding, and the Deuteragonist, and Burnish leader, Lio knocks him out and ties him up. (without being too spoilery, the Burnish are people who have sometimes uncontrolled bursts of flames that have a habit of causing much destruction and death)

From here, Galo witnesses how they take care of each other even when the public image of the Burnish is a harsh and fearful one of rigid oppressionand dehumanization. He sees that they need to eat to survive, and most importantly, he witnesses one of their number perish after being a victim of many human experiments, and he sees them try to save that person, and then mourn, before they all leave. Additionally, Lio explains to him what the Burnish experience is actually like, as opposed to the narrative that is out there surrounding them, that Galo knows.

Now, Galo wasn’t exactly hateful against the Burnish people to begin with, but due to his job being a firefighter(an occupation in this world that is super Hype, kind of like Heroes in BNHA), his lot in life runs opposed to them by nature. He serves to protect others from the chaos that the Burnish people (mostly unintentionally) bring about...(also a bit like the Hero society.)

But this scene, set in a cave, with him restrained and with no option but to observe, serves to humanize the Burnish people, which obviously serves as the catalyst to the rest of Galo’s development and his choices later to stand up and help Lio.

BTW, PROMARE is an absolutely EXCELLENT movie and I highly recommend it...my hubby and I only just now got to watch it one of the first nights we were stuck at home sick. We slept on this the first year or two it was out, but it’s really good.

And as I was typing this and looking at a Meta video on YT about PROMARE it clicked that I must have gotten a little brain worm from this scene. Sorry if this got too far out of BNHA, and I didn’t share anything very spoilery.

So, RETURNING TO DEKU, and long story short: what would be the point of Deku getting kidnapped, especially at this time when the Villains have faced loss with Twice, and are quite likely to face it again if Compress dies from his wounds??

I think it’d be very very similar to this Promare scene, and would serve...almost the same function. Again, he’s not gonna become friends with the villains, and they are not going to turn to the Hero side, either. And it bears stressing, it doesn’t erase or condone or change Deku’s opinion on any of their criminal actions. Of which, there are many.

But it’d force Izuku into a different perspective, and he might learn a bit about at least some of their past, and their reasons for villainy... If they feel like explaining any of that to Izuku. It’s going to build on that foundation that his fight with Gentle and La Brava built. (Y’all, I love Gentle and his fight with Deku was important, if I’m reading these breadcrumbs right)

Anyway, this was super long, hopefully wasn’t too hard to follow, But my Kidnapped Deku Theory just keeps growing-- H E L P.

#kidnapped deku theory #meta #using some inspo from PROMARE #Kinda hope I'm wrong but it'd be interesting to see Deku learn this way #it'd create some interesting dynamics if he had to interact with nobody but villains for a while #my theory expands #oh no #mr. compress #bnha spoilers #post-war arc

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adammilligan · 4 years

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so i’m about to go on a long rant about psychology because i was reading about the effects of loneliness on children + the effects of isolation on people, and i think this is something that can easily connect back to adam.

ADAM: You see, it was me and it was my mom. That's it. She worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. I cooked my own dinners. I put myself to bed.

based on the fact that adam uses the words “i put myself to bed” i think we can assume that he’d been doing it himself since he was a child, because teenagers normally are the ones to put themselves to bed but a parent is typically the one to put a child to bed. since kate was constantly working the graveyard shift, you essentially have a little kid that’s extremely used to a dark, empty house (think about kids and, let’s say, the kind of nightmares they experience—if adam had suffered nightmares, there would only be himself to turn to at night for comfort), which is where the loneliness factor kicks in—children with parents that are generally absent (whether the absence is caused by a need to work or by just not being involved in the child’s life) have a tendency to grow up more anxious and stressed, as well as being more likely to indulge in imaginary friends and suffer feelings of alienation (additionally, children living in absent houses have also been noted to be more likely to engage in unhealthy activity (drugs, drinking, etc), but this is largely the result of the influence from their peers. good friend group = better habits, bad friend group = worse habits. given that adam’s grades didn’t suffer + he became an eagle scout + he was pre-med biology at university, it’s pretty safe to place him in the “good friend group” pile). my point is, adam was very used to being on his own. he was most likely able to better cherish the time spent with his mother than most kids his age when she wasn’t working because he knew what loneliness felt like and it probably made him more receptive to people in general—i.e. having a greater degree of empathy, kindness, etc., especially since i’m sure kate encouraged these traits in him. she was probably the one who put aside money for and encouraged him to join the boy scouts in the first place; to promote more social interaction, maybe?

now, to go on to adam’s time in the cage: i’m wondering if adam’s exposure to loneliness from the time he was little might’ve worked to his advantage in the early years, before he and michael struck up a friendship with each other. this advantage would only last so long, since i’m assuming he was residing in near-complete isolation versus when he was on earth and could look forward to going to school and seeing his mother when he got home, and near-complete isolation quickly leaves detrimental effects on the human mind, including hypersensitivity to external stimuli, hallucinations, panic attacks, paranoia, loss of impulse control, memory deficiencies and more. i’m assuming that it’s impossible to sleep in the cage, too, seeing as it’s outside of the scape of what is perceived as “normal” by the human body and probably exists in a dimension where things are constantly at a standstill (does that make sense? think like how vessels don’t age when angels are inside of them, i think that describes it better). so his temporary advantage isn’t there for long, because it’s a prison that he literally couldn’t escape from. the symptoms above probably drove him to near-insanity and if i had to make a guess i think that he probably would’ve been the one to first reach out to michael in a desperate attempt for any sort of companionship as a result of the lack of impulse control that develops over time (obviously, archangels don’t experience things the same way humans do, but given that lucifer was scared of being trapped again + gabriel’s behavior after being freed from asmodeus i think it’s pretty safe to assume that similar symptoms do develop in them, which is probably what led michael to accept adam’s offer of a tentative friendship).

it’s a bit hard to imagine if you’ve never experienced any sort of solitary confinement before, but when adam says that they were all they had, they were literally all they had. it was sticking together and learning to be friends with someone from a wildly different species or dealing with a constant overflow of paranoia and hallucinations and hysteria from themselves. what’s even more up in the air is the amount of damage inflicted on their mentalities before they turned to each other for help. they could've both broken, at least somewhat, and then rebuilt themselves from the ground up. they grew and learned from each other, something evident in the quiet, angry way adam stared at lilith like he'd never done to anyone before and the way that michael was relatively calmer, more grounded, and less likely to lash out.

i know it's more...i don't know, fun to people, i guess? to believe that michael was the sole reason that adam turned out alright, because he protected him, or whatever. but the truth is that they both protected each other, in their own ways. even if michael "protected" adam from hell, even if he altered the perception of time in adam's mind or whatever theories i've seen get passed around (mostly to try and paint adam out to be someone who "had it easier" which is just rooted in the sentiment of people trying to paint the winchesters in a better light), there is no denying the fact that confinement is confinement and will ultimately have severe effects on those who are social creatures. there is no "protection" from the reality that one has been abandoned and left to rot in a box for seemingly eternity. there is no "protection" from the fact that there was no one down there but themselves and lucifer, who probably doesn't even count because adam was never once mentioned by him during any chance he had to gloat. really, the only thing that michael could protect adam from down there was lucifer. the rest was up to them. given the fact that their relationship has been shown to be one where they consider each other as equals, it's very hard to believe that michael was the only one doing any sort of "protecting" especially since if that were the case, michael never would've been so open to listening to adam's words in the bunker⁠—adam would've been treated as less of a friend and more of a pet, which isn't the case. if michael was protecting adam from lucifer, then adam was protecting michael from fear and distress and mental instability. they didn't just have one or the other, they had each other.

i'm sort of just rambling on at this point (if you made it this far, congrats! lmao), but i think one of the points i'm trying to make is that adam was already accustomed to loneliness (at least a little bit) and dealing with that loneliness long before he went in the cage, ever since he was a kid, which might just be one of the reasons he came out of it as okay as he did. he might've taken little techniques he used to make himself calm down when he was a kid and altered them to fit the cage, using them as well as he could and for as long as he could before it proved to be too much. given that adam grew up fairly independent, it must've taken quite a bit of time before he reached out to michael (whether that be from pride or stubbornness, who knows). he adapted to the shitty environment he was in and, eventually, he made the best of it. the amount of changes that must've been made to his body (constantly dealing with the pressure of a foreign, unearthly place + having a giant battery inhabiting his body) and his mind (having been under an enormous amount of stress and anxiety and probably depression from being confined) must be absolutely unreal. but he made it out. he proved himself to be of the ability to adapt and change, even under extreme duress (in the archaic meaning of the word, lol).

it's just super interesting to think about, in my opinion, and adam is a super cool character, especially when being able to survive like that and still being able come out of it with a goddamn heart of gold.

#this got ridiculously long i know but i started and i could NOT shut up #me: it's time to PSYCHOANALYZE CHARACTERS #nobody even cares but also this is my blog and neither do i so this is y'all's post of the hour #kate rambles #adam milligan #i don't think i made a clear point throughout ANY of this but like. whatever #michael

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #342

“in this farewell, there’s no blood, there’s no alibi / ‘cuz i’ve drawn regret from the truth of a thousand lies”

What’s your all-time favourite cartoon? Does anime count? In which case I'd say Fullmetal Alchemist, or the original Pokemon. If we're not including anime, then uhhhh Avatar: The Last Airbender, even though I have much more to go in the series. Have you ever taken dance lessons? What kind? Yeah, I've done a few for many years: jazz, clogging, modern, and hip hop. When did you last run and why? I literally couldn't tell you. I don't even know if I can run with the current state of my legs. My knees would probably crumple. Does your house/flat/whatever the hell you live in need cleaning? Not necessarily cleaning, but sorting. I still have boxes outside and inside my room of my stuff I need to put up somewhere... but whenever I prepare to do it, I just get so overwhelmed and shy away from it. Then there's the spare room, that's a total mess loaded with boxes and the like. Mom and I have just avoided it like the plague. Was your last relationship with a man or a woman? Woman. What do you think your next achievement will be? HOPEFULLY getting a job... Do you like mushrooms? NOOOOOOO. What dream do you remember most vividly? I'm not talking about it. Favorite kind of bread? Pumpernickel. Rabbits or hamsters? Rabbits. I've never met a nice hamster, and I just think rabbits are cuter. A movie you’ve never seen that it seems like every one else has? Harry Potter films. Favorite dog breed? I'm biased towards beagles. When was the last time you climbed a tree? Never, actually. Where I live, there aren't really many weighty trees with low branches. Just pine trees. Most common lie you tell? That I'm "fine" when I'm not. Ever seen your parents make out? Jc no, I'll take a hard pass there. Do you put your hair up a lot or down? It's too short to put up. Most of the time do you straighten or curl your hair? Neither. What piercing do you hate? I'm not a fan of cheek dermals at all, but you do you 100%. Were you raised in a religious house? Yes; I was raised Roman Catholic. Do your parents get mad when you're on the computer for hours? Mom used to for many years until I became an adult and she just realized it was in vain. I haven't lived with Dad since I was a teenager, but when my parents were together, he usually didn't say anything. Have you ever been asked for a nude picture? No, thankfully. I'd stop talking to the person immediately. What would you do if your parent hit you? I honestly feel like I'd slap them back and get the fuck out. Or just freeze in shock and cry. What's your most common mood? Stressed but distracted. Do you like poems? Yeah, usually. Ever kissed someone half-naked? Uh yeah. Have you ever been in a parade? No. Do you still play Pokémon? I play Pokemon GO, and I've actually been tempted to get out my DS and play one of the games I have (I can't remember which). I do find Pokemon games to be VERY grind-ey, though, so I can't play them for too long without getting bored. What is your favorite Pokémon? Ninetales. I also really love Espeon, though, and Charmander will always have my heart. Is there an animal you like that most people don't? Bats! :') Is there an animal that you think is overrated in terms of how it's liked? No animal is overrated. Have you ever "quit" a site and came back to it more than once? Uhhhh I don't think so. Do you have an "odd" fascination with anything? Most would probably consider "vulture culture" to be pretty weird, being drawn to dead animals and all... What's the hardest thing you've been through, & what did you learn from it? The breakup with Jason. I learned that some people make promises they aren't afraid to break, that someone can promise "forever" and not mean it, that the most unexpected can just snap their fingers and forget about you... I learned a lot. And most things, not positive. What are three "unrealistic" things you want most? 1.) To be able to financially support myself by just freelance nature photography; 2.) sooo many different kinds of pets; and 3.) to be totally rid of my mental illnesses. Do you take any daily vitamins? No, but I would if I was the one who bought groceries and stuff. I do however take Vitamin D once a week for my legs. Who are three of your favorite fictional characters of all time? JUST THREE??????? FUCK MAN idk. Uhhh well there's of course Darkiplier and Wilford Warfstache, then uhhh probably Pyramid Head. If you had to give the world a pre-existing mythological/fictional being, what would it be? Idk, I'd really need to be more educated on their lore before I made that decision. Do you have any desire to learn (a) foreign language(s)? Which? I both do and don't want to resume learning German. I got very good at it and could have basic conversations, but lack of application has slaughtered my vocabulary. Now it's like, it'd be nice to try again, but for what purpose? I don't think I'll ever actually apply it to my life, so it just seems like it'd be a load of wasted effort. But then on the other hand, I also feel that doing something you simply want to do isn't a waste of time. Idk. What is one of your firmest beliefs? Equality for all. No race, religion, whatthefuckever makes you more or less valuable than someone else. Do you have anything that keeps you from doing something you'd truly enjoy? Oh yes. Depression and anxiety, mostly. Do you work to fix your faults? Or at least, admit to them? I definitely try, and I'll certainly admit to them. How do you hope the world will change, if at all? I just want more compassion, less violence, more understanding... What is/are your view(s) on god, religion, spirituality, or relations to? In short, I believe that something sentient created the universe, and it/they/he/she/what-have-you just... let life play out from there, I think. I like to believe there's a plane of consciousness like an afterlife that exists, but if not, I don't really care. I hope the evil get what was coming to them, and the good get back what they gave, but maybe we're all better off without life after death. We'll all find out one day. Are you arachnophobic or scared of spiders in the least? Some, yes; others, not so much. This is very situational. Do you play WoW? What do you think of it either way? Haha, you're asking an avid player. I enjoy it, but not as much as I used to. At one point I was a Heroic raider, sometimes dabbling in Mythic, but now I'm just mostly a casual mount collector that likes chatting with my guildies and just doing dailies 'n shit. I owe a lot to the game, honestly; it helped me stay occupied throughout the breakup, and still today gives me something to do. What kind of computer do you have? Windows 7/Vista/XP/Other? I have an Acer Nitro with Windows 10. Are you taking any interesting classes in school/do you not attend? I'm no longer in school. If you don't attend, are you taking any "lessons" for anything? No, but I would like to join a photography course somewhere. A book/piece that has had an exceptional impact on your life? Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo just made me hate war more than I innately did. What genres of music are your favorite? Just metal as an umbrella term. Some heavy stuff, some less, some in the middle, some leaning towards other genres... but I just like metal. Do you think that fate plays a part in people's lives? No. Wouldn't "fate" just make it all... worthless? Like we're just storybook characters with a predetermined ending? What are your opinions on the media? One word: manipulative. What's a piece of technology you'd like to own? I REALLY want a PS4, especially lately. There's just a lot of games I REALLY want to play. Are you afraid of technology developing to where we're too reliant on it? We're already *too* reliant on it, which I do believe is a bad thing. I know, absolutely hysterical for me to be talking. What's your favorite odd ice cream flavor? I don't think I've ever had a truly odd ice cream flavor. There's this local place though that makes a kind that tastes JUST like s'mores, and I can fucking murder a cup of that. What's your opinion on stereotypes/labels? They're limiting and devalue uniqueness, imo. I know very, very few people who totally fit a certain stereotype, so why even bother. Like I don't care if you use them as adjectives to some extent, just don't put too much weight on them. Just be you. Do you believe that history repeats itself? It's not necessarily doomed to, but it happens sometimes, obviously. Would you rather learn from your mistakes or just undo them? Depends on the mistake. What was the most interesting class you had in school? Probably Mythology in high school. Do you write? If so, what? Yeah, meerkat role-play. And every now and again, poetry. Do you have a favorite culture? No; I'm not educated on nearly enough to pick one. Do you believe in global warming? Have you researched it? Lol no shit I do. I don't exactly think it takes much research to see with your own two eyes that it's factual. Do you prefer piercings or tattoos? Tattoos, if I had to pick. What comedy movie is your favorite? White Chicks. Have you ever meditated? Yes. Doesn't work for me. What comes to mind when you think of a great moment in your life? Realizing it was my choice to liberate myself and my happiness from my ex. He didn't and never should've carried it, because that's my right. What do you like about springtime? Aaaaall the flowers. <3 How have you handled having to stay in? It's not really different from my average day, so... How would your friends describe you? Quiet and overthinks literally everything. Have you ever hallucinated? When I was coming off a certain med in middle school, I saw black moving shadows. What (or who) is the best thing that ever happened to you? The partial hospitalization program I attended for two months following my suicide attempt. It's where I met my psychiatrist, who set my medication straight. Medicine besides though, I learned so many coping techniques and just how to deconstruct my trauma. As well as possible, anyway. What is the worst decision you ever made? Handing over the ability to make happiness for myself to another person. What is your favorite arcade game? Don't have one. Do you feel neglected? No. What school subject(s) are/were your best? English, Arts, Science. Are you allergic to pollen? Yep. What style of wedding dress do you like best? Probably ballgown. Are you over your first love? I probably never will be in complete totality. Do you always answer your phone? No. I only ever do if I recognize the number. Who was the last person you know to have a birthday? Today is actually my sister's birthday. What song is currently stuck in your head? I have Halocene's cover of "What I've Done" on a loop right now. It has me absolutely covered in goosebumps. Do you ever use coloring books? Not really anymore. Do you personally know anyone who is an author? Not to my knowledge, no. What’s your favorite kind of salsa/dip to go with tortilla chips? Just your normal, mildly hot salsa. Do you wash your car by hand or drive through a car wash? Mom's car hasn't been washed in... well, years, given its bumper. Mom worries that in a car wash, it'll be broken off (it is literally held on with a lot of zip ties and duct tape), and we ourselves don't want to wash it, so... Do you have any uncommon kitchen appliances, such as espresso machines, waffle irons, etc? I know we have one or two, but idk what they're called. What did your parents major/minor in in college, if they went? Dad never went to college. Mom changed her major a few times, but her latest was social work, I believe. Has either of their careers influenced what career you chose or want to pursue? Not at all. What kind of natural disaster is most common where you live? Hurricanes. Why is your least favorite season your least favorite? Because it's hot as fuck and humid. Have you ever had an animal get into your attic? No. When was the last time you started a “new chapter” of your life? I don't know. Hopefully I'll start one soon when I leave PHP and pursue a job... What room in your home do you spend the least amount of time in? I'm always in my room. Do you do anything to reduce the amount of electricity you use? I feel awful admitting I do quite the opposite... Being in the dark during the day affects my depression, so I'll have my lamp (or both) on even if it's just sort of shaded inside. Are you usually open to trying a new food that you aren’t familiar with? Eh, it depends on the food. I'm not very adventurous with foods though. Do you listen to Panic! At The Disco? I do. Have you ever had a kinky dream about a celebrity? ... It wasn't "kinky," but it was a dream lmao. Has anyone ever told you that they loved you, and you couldn’t say it back? That's how I ended the whole Joel childishness. Which friend do you confide in most? My mom. Do you wear a cross? No. What is your favorite doughnut? That's so hard. :( Krispy Kreme's normal glazed though probably takes the cake. I also love chocolate frosted and just totally plain, though. Do you have a hot tub? If so, where is it located? No. Did you read the Twilight series, or jump on the bandwagon after the movie? Neither. Do you or your parents rake your yard? Dad did growing up. Now nobody does or needs to. Who did you last go to the movies with? Dad, I think? What color was the last vehicle you were in? White. Do you have any family members in the military right now? No. Is there a ceiling fan in the room you’re in? Yeah. Have you ever heard voices? No. If you’re not straight, who was the first person you came out to? Sara. Do you remember the first time your first crush ever said hi to you? No. Do you ever go places with wet hair? Yeah, idc. Who is your favorite little girl? My nieces. What do you want the most in life? To feel like I made a difference, even a tiny one. If you could have anyone’s singing voice, whose would you choose? OBVIOUSLY Amy Lee's. What’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought that turned out to be a waste of money? *shrug* What’s something you’ve bought that turned out to be way more useful than you anticipated? Hm. Have you ever been on a ship? No. Would you ever date a disabled person? (Be honest) Yes. Would you rather adopt or have your own child? IF I wanted kids, which I absolutely do not, I'd rather have my own. I know I'd feel a deeper connection. What would you class as cheating on someone? As soon as you do/say something you don't want your s/o to know about, you're cheating. As far as earrings go, would you rather wear hoops or studs? Studs. Do you recycle? Yes. If someone dislikes you, what is most likely to be the reason? People have thought I don't try hard enough before. Do you put a line through your "7"s? Yes. ^ What about your "Z"s? Yes. What are you most known for? My art "skill," at least irl. How do you feel about shameless self-promoting? Depends on when, where, and how. As someone who's trying to be a freelance photographer, I get that it's sadly necessary, but there are some places it's just uncalled for.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''what i've done'' by linkin park

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nightmaresorpromises · 3 years

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Thanks for the tag @amethyst-shift ! I’m not gonna tag anyone for this rn but if any of y’all wanna do it feel free!

Survey me-

1. Put your music on shuffle and give me the first 6 songs

Perfect world -Ryan caraveo

The beautiful and the damned G-eazy

King of anything- beartooth

If I can’t have you- Shawn mendes

5 shots -Gianni & Kyle

Sweater weather- the neighborhood

2. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

My internet friends!

3. What is something you’re terrible at but wish you could do well?

Sing

4. What do you think about most?

Fuck... life? My body? Anxiety things basically

5. What modern innovation are you grateful for the most?

Internet

6. Do you have any strange phobias

Spiders, heights, ocean not strange I suppose

7. What’s your religion?

I’m not religious and don’t really believe in god, I guess technically that makes me an atheist?

8. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Outside outside? Probably hanging out with a friend

9. What’s the one thing you hope never changes?

Idk... there’s nothing in my life I want to stay the same rn honestly.

10. What was the last concert you saw before the pandemic?

Kfest either 2018 or 2019 I think

11. Do you believe in karma?

Yes and no... I think if someone’s a dick itll bite them in the ass eventually, but I don’t necesrilly think it’s an always thing or that the universe will dish karma out for balance.

12. What is one childhood memory that you remember especially well?

Running away from a dragon fly and tripping and falling down the stairs into the basement, I blacked out so idk what happened after that just have a scar as a reminder

13. What’s your greatest weakness; Your greatest strength?

Weakness? My insecurity maybe, like lack of self confidence and clinginess.

Strength? My stubbornness sometimes, it drives me to prove myself or others wrong and helps me grow sometimes

14. Who is your celebrity crush?

MGK

15. How do you vent your anger?

Poetry or unhealthy coping mechanisms lol

16. Do you have a collection of anything?

I have some mugs and mini back packs I like to collect :)

17. Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

Eh, I’m getting better but I have a ways to go

18. What’s the sound you hate and a doing you love?

I HATE WHEN PEOPLE CHEW WITH THEIR MOUTHS OPEN NEAR ME

Maybe just music sounds?

19. What’s your biggest “What if?”

What if I’m stuck like this forever? What if nothing ever changes? What if it all gets worse?

20. Do you believe in Ghosts? How about aliens?

Nope, and yea

21. What are some core principles you have that you’ll never give up or change?

Honestly nothing really comes to mind but my sleep meds are kicking in-

I think not letting mental health become an excuse to mistreat other people because I know a lot of people who’ve done that.

I think also a big one if not the biggest is like, even if I don’t agree with or understand something peoples values, way of living or identity is okay and not wrong, so long as someone doesn’t cause any harm to someone else, why should I be against it? Like It’s not always that simple I guess but that’s the best way I can describe it I’m about to fall asleep lol

22. What’s one thing that instantly makes your day?

when people I’m close to show me they care

23. What’s the worst place you’ve ever been to?

No place really comes to mind

24. What trait do you admire in others but don’t possess yourself?

Confidence 😂 charisma

25. To you, what’s the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is what you make it, for me that’s pursuing art and creativity and maybe love too. Self growth

26. Are you ticklish? If so, where?

Yes and yes >.<

27. What was the last movie you saw?

Made in abyss I think third movie

28. What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

I bent my foot all the way on a rock in sophomore year of highschool and was in a boot and on crutches for 3 months and then crutches on and off for the rest of the year. I still get some pain sometimes.

29. Do you have any obsessions right now?

Nope

30. Ever had a rumor spread about you?

Yeah in middle school people spread rumors I was a whore and liked people and all that dumb pre-teen bullshit🙄

31. Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

It depends on the level of wrong. Like there is a very large scale, typically no not for stupid petty shit but if someone comes for me with stuff they know will trigger me or tries to manipulate me then like yeah.

32. What’s your astrological sign?

Gemini

33. What’s the last thing you purchased?

Joggers/sweat pants they’re are super cute and cozy so I’m happy w them :)

34. Love or lust?

Both please 😂 but in reality love definitely over list. Balance of two would be lovely though

35. In a relationship?

Nope single Pringle

36. How many relationships have you had?

6-7?

37. What’s a song that always makes you happy to hear it?

Usually if anything on my playlist comes on the radio I get a little excited, no specific song comes to mind

38. In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Honesty, communication, trust

39. Basic question, what’s your favorite color?

Black, blue, or purple

40. What half hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Hmmm idk. Maybe 30 minutes in Florida again from my time there a year or two ago.

#survey #tagged things #about me #random #tired bitch responses

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beingdreeyore · 4 years

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Stuff & Things...

I did a dance class this morning. She made me practice my stripping (though still fully clothed for those that are freaked out). It was confronting. It’s something I will need to practice if I’m going to feel comfortable doing it with the group. Then she made me film myself dancing the routine. Somehow, I survived.

I’m sore. It was a ‘train like an athlete’ week. This used to be the norm for me. Pre-med school, that is. Five years since doing this. I felt more myself this week than I have in forever. But my body is sore. Slow. Needing time to adjust.

There’s a male nurse at work who is nice to me. He flirts a little. I like him. He treats me with respect and smiles at me like he’s genuinely happy to see me. So I baby flirted back. Just a little. Not to lead him on or give him the wrong idea, but to remind myself that this is okay now. It’s okay when people flirt with me. It’s okay to smile back. It will feel sad and wrong for awhile, but then it will be okay. It will pass. It was a big step. Even though he has a million more years of experience working in mental health than I do, and even though he knows I’m a baby doctor, he acts like he trusts my opinion and judgement. He lets me make mistakes and say dumb things; he smiles and encourages me. Each time he does I kind of want to know him a little more. So I smile back. And I leave it at that. Then he brushes past me super close and I feel this little jump inside me. I fight the urge to run. Because he’s nice. And I can be his friend. It doesn’t need to be anything more or anything less.

I accepted it will probably be a long time till I meet someone new, if at all. I can feel it with every inch of my being that I am not ready and after giving myself so completely to the boy, maybe I never will be again. And that’s okay. I don’t need to fortune tell, I just need to accept that right now isn’t the time. So I don’t go looking, I just get comfortable with me. Even when ‘just me’ feels so lonely it causes physical pain. I make myself feel it in its entirety and I don’t pick up the phone.

I felt like I let him go this week. Like I finally accepted that this is life now and I can't change it. I still love him with everything that I am, but I am equally disappointed in him for throwing us away after everything that we have been. I love him AND I let him go. That is what he wants.. And it’s the thing that causes me the most pain. I did it anyway. Dialectics in action.

Baby steps. Always the way with me. Never giant strides or leaps. Always with the baby steps.

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echoesofstardust · 4 years

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Tagged by @reignandco and @wedontdeservebeyonce - thank you!

(also sorry that this is ridiculously late, uni swung and hit hard the past few days)

1. When you were little, what did you think you’d be when you grew up? Did your reality (or your future plans) come close to that?

In pre-school, when we had to draw what you wanted to be when you grow up, I remember drawing a teacher, because I thought my teacher was awesome. (I still think all teachers are awesome!! You guys are amazing)

I started to think that I wanted to pursue medicine around Year 9 or Year 10 but because it’s what everyone expected me to do I was terrified that I wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. But then I had the revelation that if I chose not to pursue med because it’s what’s expected, then I was still letting other people’s opinions decide my future and that’s just as damaging as doing what you’re told you should do.

So after thinking and reflecting about how much I wanted it for me, I chose to stick with it. And I’m currently studying the pre-med equivalent at my uni, and it’s been hard but good overall. (I also know I’m only in my second year and it’s only going to get harder, haha. But it’s all so very worth it, which is what matters most to me.)

2. Do you think of yourself as an urban, suburban, or rural person?

Suburban.

3. Do you decorate with carefully matched pieces, or are you eclectic?

I still live at home with my family and our aesthetic is very much a Mess™ (I say that with the most affection). With my personal spaces, I like matching colours but it’s otherwise decorated with various knick-knacks people have gifted me with over the years.

4. Are you the photographer of your group/family, or do you always want to be in the photos?

I usually end up being both. Whenever there’s parties with family friends, we tend to take at least two sets of photos so that whoever’s missing has a chance to be in the photo. I tend to get asked to be one of the people to take photos.

5. Do your thoughts come to you in words (like conversations with yourself) or pictures (abstract, ideas, visions)?

I love this question! In my day-to-day, it’s pretty much conversations with myself but if I’m mentally writing fics (often in uni lectures lol) then I tend to visualise and see things like a movie.

6. Do you have changing weather seasons where you live, or a relatively continuous climate? Do you wish you lived in the opposite?

My corner of the world technically has seasons, but not extreme enough to get snow or anything like that. I’m not sure I could live in a place that has anything more extreme than where I currently live.

7. When you don’t have obligations, what is your ideal, natural time to get up? To go to bed?

I’m very uncool and I’m not good at staying up late, haha, so my ideal bedtime is 10 pm. Getting more than eight hours sleep is an unthinkable luxury so *counts on fingers because she can’t math* waking up 6 am at the earliest.

8. Do you cook? Bake? Or do you prefer to have someone else to that?

No to either (my mum is very disappointed in me) but I want to be able to do both! I know it’s just a matter of actually cooking and baking to get better at it.

9. Which way do you put your toilet paper? Up and over so it hangs in front? Or dangling below? Does it bother you if it’s done the other way?

UP AND OVER FOR LIFE. How do people have it the other way??

10. If you had a lot of money, what would be the first selfish, frivolous thing you would do with it? (Not for other people, not for practical purposes, but fun and just because you want to.)

Buy a baby grand! (it’s maybe the one thing I miss from high school) Also, I want my own library with gorgeous architecture and spiralling staircases and all the books I could read (plus all my favourite fics printed and bound and autographed in this ideal world). And just travel everywhere and see the world.

many thanks to @saucylittlesmile for the questions!

I don’t know who to tag because it’s been a while and I’m not sure whose done it already, but please feel free to join if you want to! 💕

#thanks for the tag!

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kekekentyuh · 4 years

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LIFE NUGGET: Don’t Miss Out On The Little Things

Another ugly but necessary note: I've always wanted to post about the simple things I learn whenever I achieve a milestone in my life, because I feel like we could all pick something up from every experience we get. In an effort to do so, I decided to make LIFE NUGGETS, which will be a series of life lessons (or nuggets, if you please) that we can pick up and apply to our day to day lives! This is so we can utilize all of our days as chances to learn and grow in improvement! I hope you give this much love! Thank you!

I recently turned twenty last July and, to keep it simple, I’ve never minded my age more so in the life I’ve lived so far than then. And it wasn’t even intentional. Turning a year older, for some, isn’t that big of a deal; in fact, for a lot of us, our birthdays are the special days of the year we get to feel more special about ourselves and celebrate the years we’ve accumulated as we know them, like it truly is for me. But, apart from that, our birthdays are also an intimate and personal time to look back and reflect on how your journey has been so far navigating this world as a small speck of a human being like everybody else, and then, if you’re anything like me, let the realization that you’ve been alive for two decades now, and that you’ve already wasted that much time being an idiot in this world, hit you like a bus.

And I realized, up to the darkest crevices of my soul, that I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I was an adult, of mature (sort of) age, and it was so weird, because I’d been used to the fact that I was still in my teens for quite some time waiting for my life to start that the minute my age said otherwise, it was seriously disorienting.

That’s the funniest thing about life and our general, insanely human concept of time: they’re nothing more than a whimsy breeze that prances by so quickly that the moment it all ends stands out so much more to you than when it actually was there. Now that I’m in college, where nothing almost ever stays constant, whether it be the schedules I attend for my classes or the faces I see on campus, I’m finding out that life for a budding adult (especially a budding adult that strives to be academically competent in their tertiary education) is a cycle of keeping one’s head above water, a repetitive scheme of waking up, eating, studying, and going to sleep in various patterns throughout the weeks. And if I hadn’t realized it sooner, I wouldn’t have known that this was consuming my attention for more than I had bargained for, and I was actually caught up in the waiting game that is expecting when to expect my life to actually begin, whatever that truly meant. It hit me quite hard that I had spent the eight years I was a teenager, in the words of Trixie Mattel, queen of quotations, waiting for the life I wanted to begin in my teen years, so I could celebrate it with balloons and cake and maybe a small pint of booze as it came, but now that I’ve just entered my twenties in glorious quarantine, I think I may have missed it. And if I didn’t stop to think about how old I was getting, I would have realized all of this by the time I was thirty, after I’d thrown my roaring twenties away.

Life is a whirlwind of amazing things that move so fast, one after the other, that if you don’t stop to look, you just might miss your chance at enjoying the life you’ve always wanted.

At our age, we’re all caught up in what we all want to achieve in the future, simply because we want a better life for ourselves and the people we truly care about. And I understand; I have pretty much the same goals, like many of you, and working towards those goals, especially given the fierce circumstances in today’s modern day and age, isn’t necessarily easy. Pre-med students like me have to work hard to prove ourselves worthy of even entering the med school of our dreams through our grades and scholastic records, and the work only starts when we do get in. And I’m pretty sure, no matter what career path we strive to take one day, we all have the same current, troubling struggles, because we want to be the best we can be in the line of profession we have chosen, and our college education will open the doors for us that will lead us to the way we have yearned, the ways we know we’ll do better and keep improving. It may not matter now, but it will soon enough, which is why we have to keep pushing ourselves to do our best. This is a mantra that I’m pretty sure a lot of us are familiar with, because it applies to almost every aspect of our lives, especially in the lives in the future we wish to establish for ourselves.

But in the process of working towards these goals, we sometimes voluntarily forget about something much more valuable than the future ⁠— the present. Much of the colors of life happen in the now, and your life will never stay the same way as it was in the very moment you’re in right now, so it’s all the more regretful when you move on and they all become things of the past, things that you never even experienced in your lifetime.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you let go of the goals that will define your future, if that’s what you’re thinking; these types of goals are the most major thing in our lives, the cornucopia we’re all working towards that keeps our lives in balance and keeps our work in check. Achieving our main goals keep the lines of our lives moving forward, allowing us to set our priorities straight enough that we can work towards a set goal. But that doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to step out of that line every now and then. One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned recently, one that my lolo has taught me, is to never be afraid of living in the now, because life is shorter than how we all think it is, and it only gets shorter if we don’t take the time to stop and live a little. Sure, we have things to take care of that may or may not define how we are in the future, but then again, nothing is ever certain, and you still have the power in your own hands to change how everything is going to turn out. Life isn’t always about the bigger picture — sometimes it’s about the little things that make it more worth living, the small things that keep you smiling that you never even expected would come your way, but you ought to keep forever. And that, in my opinion, will be a bigger loss when we do start working again to working towards our usual goals, because it’ll be a missed chance by the time we do look back from where we would be by then, and it’ll slowly shift into nothing but a regret.

And the last thing we want is to regret our way into those goals, now wouldn’t we?

Take it from me: nothing is wrong with letting go every once in a while. Whether you’re in college, still waiting for the best time to break out of your shell, or starting at a university and still quite new to the whole setup, still testing the waters and estimating your moves, or maybe still in secondary school trying to figure out who you’re going to be a few good years from now, let me tell you something: live your best life while you still have time. I know I’m a little too young to technically be giving you advice like this, and I’m not even halfway through college to be well-equipped enough to say this at all, but trust me, I know how it feels to miss a chance or opportunity to have fun or cool down. At this age, we can't afford to waste our time, because it comes and goes so quickly and at most times we don't even get the chance to grasp it before it zooms away. Never take your time for granted, do the things and go to places you know you’ll never go to again and attend things that are once in a lifetime. Take this as a sign to finally take a break from all the constant work that can be almost too jarring and discover yourself outside of academics, let loose and do the the things you’ve always planned on doing while you still have time. Join that club or organization. Learn that song or that particular dance choreography you’ve always yearned to know. Audition for that play. Read that book or go to that party. Let loose for the time being and get yourself an ice cream without ever thinking that it’s a distraction.

And something just as important would be to take the time to do things that you’ve always wanted to do with the people that you love. Check up on your families, and have a nice, relaxing meal with them. Go out with your friends to a fast-food joint or treat yourselves to a karaoke night on some Fridays, and maybe have a drink or two every once in a while. I can list a hundred thousand more things for you to do, and it’ll all be worth trying, because all of them will help you discover the part of yourself outside of your work, and time spent discovering yourself is nothing more than time well-spent. We should never worry about our time running out, but instead, figure out when the right time would be to take that first step, because we don’t get chances at everything in life, and a missed opportunity in time will be lost forever.

Ask yourself, "If you’re not going to do it now, when? And if so, will there be another shot at it in the future?"

There’s so much to life than what we know of it. But a lot of the time we don’t see how much more worth it it is to live our best lives because we’re all too afraid of making mistakes and how these mistakes will affect us and our own goals, hence branding taking to the sidelines and sitting everything out as the safer option. Mistakes are just regrets waiting to happen, and that’s solely why we should never leave room for any errors. But I think that’s wrong on so many levels, because not only are mistakes the bumps along the road that help us learn what it means to grow, they’re also all part of the plan. You don’t learn how to ride a bike by mounting on it like a pro the first time and zooming on it easily like a champ, riding for miles and miles at a time. You don’t improve your dancing by sitting every performance out and watching from out back. And you most certainly do not learn how to swim without conquering your fear of drowning.

Mistakes are not meant to be regretted, but instead, are meant to be hounding sources of growth and improvement.

The negative repercussions or a decision play a big part in our decisions, and for sure, a higher chance of a setback just equates to a greater amount of fear that causes us to step back. We don’t fear the decisions themselves, fear the bad things that may happen when we take our first steps in things, and base our previous experiences on how it may all end up in our heads. But to be able to take a chance for yourself, for a thing that you know in your own will be so much more worth it when it comes your way, you must be willing to take risks. Life is nothing less than risks waiting to be taken, because if you’re willing to take a leap of faith to see what you want to see, or do what you want to do, there’s no stopping you from doing anything, and there’s no telling how far you’ll be able to go. Grab every chance you can by learning to take risks and letting go of the fear that comes with it. Give it a try, find your way, and make tons of mistakes, then learn a lesson from all of them.

And most importantly, never regret anything, and never look back.

You don’t live the highway that is life by sitting by your own in a park bench by the side of the road as everything runs by in front of you; you mount your own vehicle and find your own way, go as fast as you’d like, and reach as many destinations as you’d want. Don’t wait for some kind of sign from the heavens that ensures you that it’s just now okay to start doing the things you know in yourself that you were meant to do, but instead, start finding your way as early as you can. Don’t wait for someone else to write your own life for you — make it happen for yourself. Because trust me, the biggest regret you may ever have is to have what probably would have been the best thing to ever have happened to you happen in front of your very eyes while they were glued in front of a textbook.

And in this house, we don’t do regrets, and we live life the best way we possibly can.

It feels so nice to be back writing! How has everyone been? I apologize for posting a day late, it's so hot to work during the day that I end up working at night! And what are your biggest fears and qualms about life? Let me know by reaching me through the Inquiries page, or through my social media here I'd love to hear from anybody!

And, as usual, I wish everyone utter safety and security and good health! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves by santiizing and garnering a healthy lifestyle! It means a lot to me that you're here reading. Thanks for staying, and I’ll see you on the next one!

#hacking through life #hacking #through #life #nuggets #life nuggets #don't miss out on the little things #don't #miss #out #on #the #little #things #off the beat #off #beat #lesson

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schalaasha · 4 years

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Top 20 Games of the Decade

Hi, I felt like writing about my top 20 games of the decade because I kept thinking about it. This is a semi-ranked list, but I decided not to throw numbers into the mix since, really, outside of the top 2, I can’t think of how to rank the games prior to them. I also commissioned hyiroaerak (@/HRAK__S2 on twitter, https://hyiroaerak.weebly.com/work.html) for art to commemorate this occasion. Our characters are cosplaying as characters from our games of the decade!

Mega Man 10

I actually like Mega Man 10 more than Mega Man 9 out of the two platformer revival games in this series. Though a bit of background on this: Mega Man 4 is my favourite, and I prefer the games that are not 2, 6, 7, or 11, so I suppose that contextualises this for others. Either way, despite it not having weapons that were as useful as Mega Man 9’s, I felt like 10’s level design and pacing worked more for me in my favour. Though I’m saying that as someone who liked the double fortress design in earlier games so that might invalidate how I feel.

Time Attack mode from Mega Man 9 returns as well as Proto Man (but he’s unlockable right off the bat). It also has a proper Challenge Mode compared to Mega Man 9’s challenges, whereby challenges for certain levels or bosses are unlocked when you actually do it in the main game. Being able to play as Proto Man off the bat allows for the fluidity Mega Man had in 3 and beyond by letting you slide and use charged shots. I personally liked being able to play as Proto Man off the bat as while he has the 3 and beyond advantages for his moveset, he is a glass cannon and you still have to watch where you’re going.

I feel like the levels were a little better designed and if I needed more of a challenge, Hard Mode was still there to cut my teeth on. I liked the colour schemes throughout the level maps a lot more than 9’s as well. The bosses felt particularly gripping and trading blows with them fit into a nice rhythm.

It has more content than Mega Man 9 and I had a lot more fun with 10 than I did with either 9 or 11. The formula itself is pretty static compared to other Mega Man games, but I like simple things. Why fix what isn’t broken? It’s just a nice piece of cake at the end of the day and that’s all I really want.

Trauma Team / HOSPITAL: 6人の医師

When I started university for the first time in 2006, I was pre-med. I eventually got sick and tired of the politics and people in the program (ie: folks saying they only wanted to go to med school so they can get rich or make friends with pharma reps who might give them perks), and I left the program to pursue program majors and a minor to prepare me for speech-language pathology instead.

We had a Wii in our student lounge. My main university campus wasn’t exactly big and a lot of the people who hung out in the student center were kind of cliquey. I think I had the benefit of being really good friends with one of the guys who was the biggest social butterflies at the school so I got to meet a lot of people or get involved with stuff if I felt like it. So that meant I got to play with other students in games or wi-fi sessions during classes or after classes if I didn’t have to commute home right away.

Because almost everyone I knew at my school wanted to go into medicine, everyone played the Trauma series. Some kids played Under the Knife during class. Some kids played Second Opinion on the Wii in the student lounge. Some kids played New Blood. This was before like… Farmville took over everyone’s computers at the time.

Trauma Team came out way after that, and some of us were either graduating or staying in school an extra year because we didn’t know what to do after the recession or knew what to do but needed extra courses for graduate school. So the Wii was free to use. I don’t think people hooked it up as often anymore anyway. By 2010, a lot of us who had met each other in first year decided to go our separate ways, not even in the same majors or programs anymore. A lot of us either branched out into research, psychology, neurology (like me), kinesiology, epidemiology, forensics, genetics, etc. So Trauma Team for the rest of us who were still there was a good fit.

Trauma Team took some influences from the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic considering that was when the development phase occurred. Now, I live in Canada, and Canada was one of the focal points for the 2003 SARS outbreak. This was when health bodies in the country decided to make some changes to how they respond to potential pandemics. A lot of things they tell medical students or any students studying health policy (like I was at the time) emphasized how different parts of the hospital or medical or health care staff need to work together in order to care for a patient. I actually find the different professions involved in Trauma Team useful and a reflection of what my class of 2010/2011 became later on (a lot of us graduated in 2011 and took an extra year).

Diagnostics and Forensics were what I was really interested in since they don’t play the same as surgery/emergency medicine since they played out like a point-and-click. Later on in life, I had to look at so many medical reports and radiology reports and file them but by then I realised what my patients had but I can’t tell them myself since I’m not a doctor. But Trauma Team gave me a chance to do so and practice my terminology as a student. A friend of mine, who ended up becoming a doctor at a hospital in Toronto, really enjoyed endoscopy since it merely involved using the Wiimote as an endoscope and the nunchuk to steer. A lot of us played co-op too.

The difficulty in Trauma Team, I felt, was decreased from previous games. But that doesn’t really spoil it. It was a varied game and it looks fantastic. It’s a shame that the game style hasn’t been replicated or given a sequel in later years, because while I’m older and my classmates are doing completely different things and I haven’t seen some of them in years, I’d love to take a stab at these types of games with a well-practiced laboratory technologist’s hand.

Sonic Colours

I think it goes without saying. My first community when I joined the old forum was the Sonic community. Just a bunch of people who were interested in talking about Sonic so much in almost every thread that we ended up making a community thread together. I don’t post in the new forum everyone is at but I still talk to mostly everyone via different social mediums.

I wasn’t around when Sonic Colours came out but I think I remember reading the joy everyone felt when nearly universally everyone in that thread seemed to really like Sonic Colours. I remember the thread title still. I preordered Sonic Colours because apparently previews were saying it was… good? I didn’t bother playing Sonic Unleashed until after I’d joined the forum, but hearing Sonic Colours would be a return to form since I was one of those people who didn’t adjust well to the 3D games made me interested.

Sonic Colours is everything I wanted from a 3D Sonic game. Or rather, a 3D version of a platformer. I didn’t really like where 3D platformers were going because they were hard to look at, hard for me to pay attention to, and to be honest I got dizzy while playing a lot of them since you’re expected to work in a 3D space as opposed to a 2D space so it was really hard for me to process. I really like the hybrid nature of the level designs that’s where Sonic Colours got me.

Sonic Colours isn’t without its hangups: some of the levels are really short; existing mostly for ranking/getting red rings. Sonic’s jump is pretty floaty. The script is fairly short even if the jokes can be funny. Bosses are reused. Sonic Colours is not a perfect game, but the attempts it made were fantastic enough in its own right.

The music continues to be great, but the areas are visual spectacles. Whatever you think of the series, it’s fairly undeniable that the games try to have style. From the lighting, to posing, to setpieces, to colours used in assets in the level design – Sonic has always had really great ideas. Sonic Colours is no exception – areas like Aquarium Park, Planet Wisp, and Sweet Mountain have a variety of neat level ideas and they look good trying to execute it. From popcorn on the floor to one of the best darned water levels in all of video games due to the drill wisp, to a fresh take on a grassy knoll with beautiful music, Sonic Colours can bring tears to your eyes because of what it attempts. Terminal Velocity Act 2 is also one of my favourite parts of the Uncolourations games partially because it’s a well-executed setpiece, but it also showed me that maybe those 3D racing bits aren’t that bad.

The bosses may be really easy, and the final boss ends far sooner than it should before it could perfectly execute its Kamen Rider reference, but I think the point was to fully enjoy the theme park that Sonic Team threw at you this time.

In 2020 I like to say that out of all of the Uncolourations games, Sonic Unleashed is my favourite due to the balance it struck and its presentation/artstyle, and basically having one of the best soundtracks of the previous decade. But I recognise everything that Sonic Colours brought to the table. If it wasn’t for Sonic Colours, I wouldn’t be friends or acquaintances with so many people that I am with now.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Have you ever played a game that made you feel warm and toasty? Canadian winters can be really cold, you know.

When I lived at my old run-down house, my old room didn’t have good insulation. Whenever it got cold, my room got really cold. I had my own personal heater because we didn’t really have a good heating system in my room either. So I only wore flannel pyjamas, wrapped myself in faux-wool blankets all the time, and went to sleep covered in at least four quilts or comforters (which is something I still do out of habit sorry). I used to make hot choco every day because it was just so cold in my room.

I love Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Kirby’s Epic Yarn makes me feel warm and toasty inside because I think of being wrapped up in yarn and sheets and scarves and I just feel so happy. There are so many pastels used in KEY’s earlier stages that I can’t help but to feel toasty and happy when I’m playing it. It’s not the most challenging game. The game is really easy and all you mostly do is collect furniture, music, beads, and parts of the results wheel in every level, but I don’t think that’s the point of it. The point is just to have fun. Watching Kirby turn into a car to sprint, watching him turn into a little parachute or transform during those vehicle bits, you just can’t help but to feel so enveloped by the cute.

Being able to interact with cloth by pulling a loose button and releasing something, taking off tags, pulling on stray thread, spin balls of yarn… it feels so fulfilling because it’s a clever use of the medium. It’s exactly what you’d do if you’re stitching or knitting. Placing furniture around Kirby’s little apartment makes the Animal Crossing fan in me so happy.

I appreciate the lengths Good-Feel went to producing the level designs. They took photos of the fabric they bought and created the graphics that way. The music is calm and relaxing, with lots of woodwind and piano and lighter sounding instruments. The entire game feels so soft and sweet. It’s a visually-impressive game since everything animates incredibly fluidly.

Cuphead

Like anyone my age or older, I grew up watching a lot of older cartoons by Max Fleischer with watercolour backgrounds, hand-drawn characters with a lot of focus on expressions, rotoscoping, etc Lots of slapstick and musical scores out of that decade. I would have never believed I’d play a video game that looks like that but here we are playing Cuphead this decade.

Cuphead is a blend of that artstyle with older run and gun style games. It combines a gunning experience with puzzles, reflexive actions, and dying… and dying a lot. And learning. Underneath it’s cartoony and child-friendly veneer lies a game that is unrelentingly difficult. There aren’t really any checkpoints in the game save for one. You can’t regain lost health. It’s just you versus the game. You may spend hours on one single level learning everything about it. And you can’t beat the game until you finish off every other level on regular difficulty.

Different levels have different forms: they can be run and guns á la Contra, which are actually, oddly enough, breathing room levels. They’re probably the “easiest” levels in the game. Other types of levels can be straight up shmup-like boss fights where you’re flying in a plane. They can be hard as a regular shmup.

The best crafted types of levels are the ones that include platforming as part of their boss battles because they use the artstyle and ideas involved in the art piece as interesting platforming mechanics. You have a more limited control scheme but the scenario you’re involved in is really interesting and unique. You fight a woman in a play and the setpieces in the play change according to how far you are in the boss fight, for example. The game also has a parry mechanic whereby you can double-jump off of anything that’s coloured pink and fill your super meter in order to kill bosses faster. The parry cues change per boss so it’s really cool to see what they look like every time you encounter something new.

I think while Cuphead can be utterly unforgiving, I think it should be experienced at least once for how much work was put into making things look so fluid and how creative every boss and level can be. It’s what I wanted the UBIart framework to eventually evolve into. I think the game’s aesthetics and sound are its own reward in addition to that feeling when you finally conquer That One Boss.

Asura’s Wrath

Asura’s Wrath was a game I was incredibly iffy on even buying at all. I heard about how the ending was part of paid DLC, that the game didn’t have a lot of gameplay, and that it was incredibly unremarkable. I don’t think I had a remarkably low bar or anything for this, but I decided to purchase it on the cheap.

Asura’s Wrath definitely isn’t a game for everyone, and I feel as though it’s an acquired taste. The main character’s art might not jive well with everyone, the lack of ‘play’ will probably deter some folks, and its episodic nature/final chapter unlock sequence would probably get on people’s nerves. With that said, at first, it seems to be an action-cinematic game without necessarily expanding on the “action” part. A lot of it at first seems to be a bunch of QTEs to move the narrative along, with the narrative not necessarily being that strong in the first place. I think that’s due in part to the game’s structure initially. The first few chapters and the first act truly don’t seem very remarkable. The Buddhist and Hindu aspects of the game are very obvious and very central to the game’s plot, but at the same time, they don’t seem to be specifically mentioned whenever someone talks about the game to me. The Asuras were not one singular character or a god, but a race of warlike beings exhibiting wrath and pride. They were incorporated into Hinduism and Buddhism through their mention in The Rigveda. With that said, I was continually impressed by how many references—whether it was mere mention of regular terms/concepts/people, the artstyle and inclusions of things like lacquer skin, mandorlas, Vajras and Pretas, and also Siddham script—was included in this game. Asura’s Wrath ended up feeling incredibly natural and a nice way of shedding some light on non-Judeo-Christian religions.

Anyway, I genuinely liked that the game felt like a playable anime. I don’t feel like the game would be as effective if it were put into another genre, or were less cinematic. It ends up getting its message across with its carefully-researched artstyle, great scene direction, well-composed music, and penchant for feeling like it was a fantastic shounen anime. I also feel like the game has more combo-based gameplay than people give it credit for. A lot of the complexities come to the forefront on Hard mode, and going for S-ranks and finding ways to do that quickly and effectively on higher difficulty modes is always an interesting affair.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

I finished marathoning all of the Ace Attorney games in 2010. I don’t recall if I was doing it before Ghost Trick but I think what enticed me to get the game was its amazing animation. I hadn’t seen 2D sprites move that fluidly in a very long time. Characters have exaggerated movements, exaggerated dances (ie: the panic dance), and they have big flashy gestures to show off the game’s animation engine.

You’re introduced to all sorts of eccentric characters, many of whom don’t overstay their welcome (Circus case from AA2, I’m looking at you). You have a desk lamp, a doggo, a dancing detective, a little girl who’s the focal point for one episode, etc. Everyone’s dialogue is relatively snappy, their expressions and animations make them stand out from others, and due to how everything is presented right down to the character art portraits, everything just jumps off the screen.

Because you’re a spirit with amnesia, you’re given the ability to go through time, and also the ability to through environments by hopping from object to object and possessing them in order to influence what happens in the past to save people in the present. This is just a path to trying to figure out who you really are or to find who or what killed you. A lot of the gameplay revolves around trying to figure out which objects to manipulate and when in order to influence an outcome. It makes the game partially point and click, but also partially a physics puzzler. I don’t think I remember a single object in the puzzle segments that was wasted. In other circumstances, you must manipulate time in order to save someone in their last four minutes.

If anything, I feel like Ghost Trick is a necessary inclusion simply because of its style and attention to detail, as well as its sort but sweet story where nothing overstays its welcome. Its soundtrack also feels similar. The game is fairly consistent and nothing really changes in terms of progression over most of the game. But I see that as a plus as opposed to a minus for the most part. It helps to bring the game to a compelling and surprising conclusion.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

I marathoned all of the Assassin’s Creed games in one year prior to Assassin’s Creed III since I wanted to see what the deal was with the series because the first game wasn’t that great from a play perspective for me. The thing that resonates the most with respect to Assassin’s Creed for me is marshmallow-flavoured birthday cake and a bag of regular Bugles. I started this marathon on one of my birthdays that decade.

Assassin’s Creed II is one of my favourite games out there, but Brotherhood adds so much to the formula despite its middling storyline compared to its predecessor. But that’s because most of Ezio’s growth happened in the previous game. He is a middle-aged man searching for the Apple of Eden, and while the story does not carry as much emotional impact, that isn’t exactly what I’m looking for with respect to the earlier AC games.

One of the things I absolutely love about the earlier AC games is its attention to detail even if it isn’t necessarily completely accurate. At first I missed the fact that I could explore many different towns like I could in AC2. But then I realised how big Rome and its surrounding area is. Rome is gigantic, and it has so much attention to detail with historical buildings everywhere (which you need to pay to rebuild), old tapestries from the era, citizens dancing in the streets, lovers flirting with each other behind pillars, etc. There are more roofs and buildings to parkour over and between. The game adds towards that require you to take over them before you can use them to gain access to vendors and things to renovate. You can also find the glyphs (much like the ones from the previous game) to solve puzzles in order to gain access to more lore.

I genuinely love the renovation aspect of this game. It’s more involved and a lot better than what the previous game tried to do with its economy. You renovate in order to gain access to shops, which in-turn generates income for you, and then you can renovate other stuff based on the income that you generate. It’s something that I’ve come to miss in later AC games. It felt a lot like a Suikoden game in some aspects.

Platforming missions return in the form of finding parts of a cult and cutting the beginnings of a conspiracy off by its limbs. They’re faster paced than AC2’s tombs and there is more variety in terms of what you platform through. I like both types equally since one allows you to marvel at the beauty of a cathedral, while the other allows you to clock a few folks while making your way through a lair.

In addition to the lairs, there are different types of missions for each faction that you forge alliances with, there are Da Vinci missions that involve new war toys and blowing things up in a scripted way. Assassin missions can vary in terms of how you carry out the assassins (albeit still scripted; improvisation was not a thing until ACUnity).

The crux of AC: Brotherhood is being able to recruit assassins to your cause. Random citizens throughout Rome may be under attack by Borgia soldiers, and once you save them, they are recruited to join your cause. You level them up, send them out on missions, improve their gear, and ask for their help when you can and when they’re available. This feature gets expanded upon in later AC games but it gets a very good start here.

Brotherhood is so full of content and a lot of little things that playing it for me makes it feel like comfort food for me. It may not have the best story and it certainly isn’t as memorable in that sense as its predecessor. But it’s so fun that I can’t help but to feel satisfied every time I turn it on.

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

I played the original Pac-Man CE on 360 years ago at my cousin’s house, where they added a timer and a morphing maze to the base original game. I thought it was a neat novel thing at the time but didn’t think further.

Pac-Man CE DX adds more mazes and more mechanics and more modes to the championship edition base. It added sleeping ghosts where, if Pac-Man moves near them, they wake up and they chase him around the maze in a line until you can finally eat them all and rack up a huge score. You can also elect to use a bomb at a small expense in order to save yourself and send ghosts to the middle of the maze again. These changes assist in maintaining the game’s flow and it never makes a score attack daunting or boring.

Devouring big long conga lines of ghosts following you is so satisfying while you’re listening to a bumpin’ soundtrack and chilling out looking at the cool lights on the maze. Really and truly, while at its core, PMCEDX is a score attack game, it makes for a beautiful loving chill sensory experience and I couldn’t ask anything more from it.

Deadly Premonition / レッドシーズプロファイル

I think I, like a lot of people, was introduced to this game via the GB series. I didn’t have an Xbox 360 so I eventually imported the Japanese version for the PS3. The game’s dub was already in English; the text was in Japanese and it was pretty easy and reasonable to get through. Deadly Premonition actually the Guinness World Record winner for most critically polarizing horror video game since the reviews at the time were so all over the place. And yes, I will contend that Deadly Premonition is definitely not for everyone.

I am not the type of person to play shooters. I actually hate them a lot. I don’t like gushing blood in video games, and I don’t really like the act of murdering someone in a game. I used to play a lot of survival horror games when I was younger on the PS1 and PS2, but a lot of the time you’re dealing with the undead or oddball things going on around you so it’s not nearly as bad I think. It’s funny; I deal with people’s bodily fluids and body parts all the time in real life as part of my job (ie: I’ve had to help dissect someone’s stomach before fresh out of the operating room), and it doesn’t bother me. But the mere act of seeing it done or doing it, makes me feel squeamish. I don’t like it. I don’t even like watching blood being drawn from me or needles being stuck into me, even though I’ve done it to other people as part of my work.

For the most part, inexplicably, in Deadly Premonition, you’re dealing with the undead anyhow. I’m not the best person at shooters, but I certainly know what’s a good one and what isn’t. Deadly Premonition is not a very good shooter. It’s really janky. Some of the weapons don’t make sense in terms of how balanced they are. The controls are also really janky. This is not really a surprise considering the game’s strength wasn’t supposed to be its shooter aspects. In fact, those parts weren’t even supposed to be there.

Deadly Premonition is often cited as an artistic piece or a good game simply because of its story and character writing. It has an excellent main character who was cast almost perfectly. It has a lot of eccentric characters filling the town of Greenvale to help you solve the murder mystery or help obstruct it. The end result of having an unreliable narrator works out in the game’s favour. It helped sprout pop culture references, weird humour, quirky dialogue and more. I have certainly never watched Twin Peaks but I got the allusions either way since the show was so big. Slowly uncovering how every cast member lives their lives throughout the town and every day makes you more emotionally connected with them.

Greenvale is more of a sandbox than just a place where a crime is committed. You can play darts. You can race cars. You can do a ton of sidequests somewhere that will reward you elsewhere. You can collect trading cards??? You can carry some lady holding a pot everywhere? You can taste-test for one of your coworkers? You can do a lot of stuff that makes zero sense but I still end up enjoying it all anyway.

It looks like a PS2 or Dreamcast game or something and I almost found that utterly endearing in the era in which it was released. The soundtrack itself is so dissonant and doesn’t always fit the situation. Sometimes the sound mixing is so all over the place that it often results in making a scene more hilarious than it should be. There’s a song that’s just… American Idiot… on the soundtrack for some reason. Along the way, you start wondering “is this game real? Am I real? Is this really happening right now?” and yes, yes it is.

In the end, because of its cult success and getting people talking, it allowed Swery 65 to make more games. Deadly Premonition was lightning in a bottle for him. He followed up with D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die (unfortunately in limbo). He cowrote Lord of Arcana and Lord of Apocalypse. He recently released The Missing. If anything, I’m more interested in what he makes. I’m eagerly looking forward to The Good Life.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Text/Puzzle-adventures, rather than pure visual novels, became a staple of some players’ libraries due in part of the popular Ace Attorney series, Professor Layton series, and whatever Mystery Case File games that were published by Nintendo. 999 is not a pure visual novel. It’s a puzzle adventure game with visual novel elements. With art by Kinu Nishimura and a story written by Kotaro Uchikoshi (who had a few visual novels under his belt), it was difficult for me to ignore this game. I was also at a point where I really wanted to get into a lot of the games that Aksys published so it was a natural choice to buy.

A lot of the localization and language in this game was edited so that while it stays true to the spirit of the original language, a lot of care was put into making the dialogue and writing sound natural in the English language versus going line by line exactly. It worked out in the game’s favour because the script was fairly large. Based on Uchikoshi’s past games, he likes to ask a question and generally incorporate some pseudoscience in his narratives. 999’s version of pseudoscience ended up being morphogenetic fields (see: Rupert Sheldrake). This theory ended up the basis for a few characters and it is the way the story unravels. He also took inspiration from another older game of Chunsoft’s: Banshee’s Last Cry where the player is put into an unsettling position right off the bat. Indeed, 999 starts the player in media res, but the player is already in trouble when you begin to control the main character.

The puzzles were added to the game so that it would be received well by a wider audience than just visual novel readers. They were naturally and seamlessly integrated into the experience that the game became almost wholly about the puzzle rooms and whatever flavour dialogue occurred during the puzzle rooms. A lot of inspiration seems to have been taken from browser-based escape games like the Crimson Room from 2004. Escape the Room games were a subgenre of point and click adventure games and it was nice seeing the concept integrated in a narrative experience that wasn’t Myst (see: http://www.fasco-cs.net/ for more information). Due to the puzzles being a fundamental part of the game’s story, with them getting more and more difficult, the final puzzle for the entire game at the end of the true route is both a relief and also incredibly impactful due to using both of the DS screens and also revealing a lot to the player about the narrative.

If I had criticism for the game, I feel like it would be having to play the game repeatedly, doing the same puzzles repeatedly in order to unlock another prerequisite ending for the true ending. I did not play the later port which rectifies this but I’m not entirely sure that being able to see the branches would be great for the game either. I also feel like, just like a lot of Uchikoshi’s writing and previous games, that when the characters start cracking jokes when they have to urgently do things to not die, the tone feels a little off.

With that said, 999 is one of the more compelling text/puzzle-adventures from last decade, and it uses its native platform to its advantage. There weren’t a lot of games that used the DS screens to convey a narrative properly but when you are faced with the revelation that the game was using the two screens for a remarkable reason, you feel like the game is a natural and powerful addition to any DS library and gives significance for the dual screens.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

The funniest thing about Metal Gear Rising was that I actually disliked it at the beginning when I first started playing it. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time, and I didn’t ‘get’ the parry mechanic. At first, I guess I was playing it for the sake of playing it? It definitely took me a while to even warm up to it. The camera was obnoxious (and still gets to be obnoxious in some places), and I felt incredibly nauseous while playing it sometimes.

It wasn’t until I got to the Mistral boss that I finally … found what I was looking for… I’m sorry. I’m serious, though. Metal Gear Rising truly shines during the boss battles. When I finished that particular boss battle, I’d reflected that I was smiling like an idiot the entire way through. I don’t think I’d fought satisfying boss battles in years prior to that. Returning to previous chapters told me that Platinum really likes to frame and teach players via trial by fire. Learn to parry yourself, here’s a test to see if you can parry well and you can get a trophy for it, here’s the final test to see if you can even parry (Monsoon). I loved that Metal Gear Rising threw a lot of what we knew about Metal Gear Solid out of the window, with a significantly interesting score, boss battles that centre around the climax of a battle (expertly done via excellent sound design as I noted in my SotY writeup this year), and a more interesting and personable version of Raiden. It relies far more on offense than defense and stealth, and that’s okay to me. It ends up separating Raiden even more from Snake.

The final boss is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of affair, and I ended up loving every single part of it. I felt like it was one of the best final bosses in years. Don’t know how to parry? You’re fucked. Don’t know how to use the game’s other offensive rush tactics like Defensive Offense and running? Good luck. The game makes sure you try to know how to do these things before even bothering to attempt the boss, with the major roadblock being Monsoon. And if you can’t parry by then, the game brutally tells you that you aren’t doing it right by making the boss battles ramp up to significantly require you to use one of the game’s core mechanics for elegant combat. This isn’t the most elegantly-designed game whatsoever. In fact, it can be really sloppy. With that said, it’s one of the better action games I played all decade.

Papers, Please!

Papers, Please is work. It feels like work because it is work. You can grant freedom and admittance to people, or you can just take their freedom away or not permit them to cross the border. Everything you do is controlled by the government, or by rules and regulations. If you do something wrong, you’re written up. Do enough wrong, and your pay is cut. Do enough wrong and your pay is cut multiple times, and you can’t provide enough for your family. Everything about the game just feels like work. Even right down to the end of the day when the whole thing feels like a budget calculation and spreadsheets. Everything about the game’s UI feels a lot like work. Where do you allocate space to do your job? How much money do you allocate to heat/food/medicine? It ends up feeling very tedious, but somehow fulfilling.

You are an immigration officer in a fictional Soviet state. The interesting part of the game is that it doesn’t only feel like a job, but it also feels like government and self-evaluation. You end up studying why the government keeps regulating the border the way they do, and thinking about how mundane the job can be. You know that people’s livelihood and family lives hinge on whether or not they cross the border, and sometimes your penchant for following the rules and disallowing people across the border may be called into question when people plead with you to go through. Do you accept docked pay so you can reunite people or save people from slavery, or do you do as you’re told and live with the consequences of your actions. In a small way, your ethics are called into question. It’s a nice reminder that a lot of things, despite people being people and having their own stories, generally seem to come down to bureaucracy and pieces of paper as opposed to a full understanding of humanity or extenuating circumstances.

I’d also like to add that Jorji is one of the best characters of 2013 to me. I think his glass half-full philosophy / if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again philosophy is something to look forward to whenever I encounter him in-game.

In many ways, Papers, Please feels a lot like the Milgram experiment. Are you going to make cruel judgement calls to separate a family, or keep people in slavery because the authorities and higher-ups essentially tell you to do your job so you can keep your family healthy? Papers, Please in many ways is written incredibly well. It doesn’t use reams of text to make you understand the overall premise of the game but through your actions, you’re also helping to tell the story. That’s the sort of weird and wonky player “agency” that I find interesting.

World of Final Fantasy

The Final Fantasy series had a better decade than the last decade, I feel, considering the quantity of releases increase from the previous decade. However, it had a lot of growing pains to deal with at the beginning of the decade. Final Fantasy games sell well all the time, and more people playing games than ever, it makes sense that sales numbers continuously increase. Attach rates aren’t as large. Final Fantasy XIV came out in 2010 and it was not a good game at all to the point of having to be structured for its 2013 re-release. Final Fantasy XIII had mixed reviews, as well as its subsequent direct sequels. Final Fantasy All the Bravest wasn’t exactly the best mobile debut for the series. The brand also suffered from dilution – the Final Fantasy name was attached to almost anything and everything for the sake of sales, and numerous spinoffs were released and the quality varied.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, originally planned to be part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis setting with Final Fantasy XIII were renamed and rebranded/redesigned to be their own titles: Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy Type-0. Both games also had mixed reviews and multiple delays. If anything, I can probably say that this decade was the most divisive for Final Fantasy fans.

World of Final Fantasy came out during the same year Final Fantasy XV. I think I’ve made my feelings about Final Fantasy XV fairly well-known. Perhaps my feelings about that game influenced how I felt about World of Final Fantasy but as someone who has played this series for decades (for reference: the first game is one year older than I am, and my first Final Fantasy was the first game), I felt like World of Final Fantasy was a love letter written to fans like me. I am a long-standing fan of the series over the course of decades and have been through its up and downs, and while I don’t like every game in the series (we all know how I feel about half of the games in the series, after all), I can still look at them for their influence on the rest of the series. I also like the newer games equally as the older games and dislike and like games from all of the eras, so I don’t really have issues with how the series is represented in general unless the games are really bad.

World of Final Fantasy feels like a Kingdom Hearts-esque exploration of the Final Fantasy games while throwing Pokemon into the mix. It involves a lot of older references as well as bringing new references in and throwing it into a presentation mode that fans of all ages can enjoy. The main characters are chibi which fits right into how the older games represented characters, but they can also grow taller to represent how the newer games are represented. You can create stacks of party members according to their height and balance well accordingly out of classic Final Fantasy enemies and characters in order to battle against other classic Final Fantasy characters, villains, and monsters.

The game is exactly what I wanted a mainline Final Fantasy to look. It retains a cartoony look, embracing stylization while adding so much detail to the areas’ setpieces so that they also stand out while the characters move around on the map. I also felt like the score was also a brilliant blend of old and new: with Masashi Hamauzu composing the score but also remixing older Uematsu themes to fit within the context of the score. The score was loftier compared to Hamauzu’s older works and the strings, synth, and piano works incredibly well to bring the game’s world to life.

The idea for WoFF was to try to bring younger fans into the fold, hence the Pokemon-like influence for using and rearing many classic FF enemies so that children could start to recognise them. The loftier script was also written in-mind taking into account both lighter storytelling from older FF titles and some darker bits taking into account newer Final Fantasy games. I’m not too sure that SE was very successful with bringing younger fans into the fold, but the way the game was written fit well with what I remember liking about FF for the first few games I had played. I also enjoyed that characters were chosen for their involvement to the plot versus them simply picking the most popular ones. This is why we got characters like Eiko and Shelke as well as regular FF mainstays. All of the characters were woven into the story well, as citizens of Grymoire as opposed to characters who just have their regular identities transported into Grymoire instead.

I felt like the Pokemon mechanic was handled well. I even loved it enough to have the idea commissioned in combination with our FFXIV characters. I liked that it changed up whatever skills you had access to, it influenced your stats, and it looked adorable to boot.

I would absolutely love to see a mainline game made by this team because I felt like the loose style of storytelling and worldbuilding made for a very good Final Fantasy game, and in essence, WoFF was the real Final Fantasy XV to me. It felt more “Final Fantasy” than a lot of the games released in the same decade, or even compared to ones released in the previous decade. It was a nice step and touch to demonstrating that there were staff members who remembered what Final Fantasy is to older fans.

Va-11 Hall-A

I’m too young to have a big attachment to older PC games like the ones on the MSX or the PC-88/98. But I’ve always had a fondness for their graphics and their music, like sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong time or something. It’s one of the reasons why I gravitated hard to the PC Engine—I felt like it was a way for me to finally experience stuff like that.

Valhalla is supposed to be a bartending simulator but in reality, mixing drinks is a bit of a break and distraction between the visual novel bits. Usually if you’re stuck in a futuristic landscape akin to Bubblegum Crisis or Blade Runner, you’re asked to investigate a mystery or explore it. But nope, you’re a bartender making drinks and making enough to scrape by and pay your rent. You hear a lot about the world from various clientele while you serve them drinks but you don’t necessarily have to do anything with the information they give you.

I worked as a medical administrator for a few years and over that time, I got to hear a lot of stories, meet some famous people (like been on TV people or youtubers or people who got paid to do things for celebrities), and just meet a lot of neat and interesting regular people. I got to hear stories about people’s health or their personal lives or witness people falling in or out of love. You don’t necessarily have to do anything with that information (in fact you can’t due to patient confidentiality), but the stories become sealed in your head. I can’t help but to think of some of these people I met for those few years or where they are now. I actually run into some of them at my current lab so I keep getting to see some of their stories. You eventually learn how quickly icebreak in situations like these to make people feel at ease or find a topic of conversation while they’re waiting. I even used my phone to gauge news because a lot of the time when I got home, I was too tired to do anything or getting news in the palm of my hand was incredibly easy to do.

In this sense, I understood Valhalla. It may look dull and it doesn’t look special but you’re the one who makes it so that it doesn’t have a dull moment in the bar. You’re the one who has to make it enjoyable even if your pay sucks. Because you don’t want to be miserable either. It’s through the conversations with others that you learn about Jill because she has to add commentary too. Everyone has a different way of requesting something and it’s up to you to figure out how to decipher it. It’s a lot of like practice in being in the service industry. You need to consistently gauge a conversation in order to actually give the client what they want to unlock more conversation.

The pacing in this game may be a little slow, but it doesn’t feel like a hindrance because the writing is really good. Something always happens to keep you interested or you have to mix drinks to keep yourself on your toes. The humour comes across well, and nothing really falls flat. Part of the reason why I feel like the writing is genuine is because the game’s developers wanted to write something that reflected how they live in Venezuela, akin to laughter in the middle of despair according to the developers. The writing is balanced well with the music and the visuals which makes the whole package a wonderful experience.

This game also has Rad Shiba so it belongs on the list by default.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

I had gone to Catholic Schools all my life. I was even in a nursery school operated by nuns when I was a toddler, and they always tried to get me to write with my right hand instead of my left (which left me ambidextrous for some things lol). Because of my experiences with religion growing up, I absolutely had questions and doubts and concerns with metaphysics, theology, and epistemology. Every Catholic, I think, as they grow up and have to take religion classes, and having to take what the province mandates as metaphysics are somehow inserted into math and biology syllabi without even being mentioned in the coursework at all, questions it. And that’s okay. You should. The best religion and philosophy teacher I ever had growing up always said we should question everything we learn including what he taught us.

Going through school, though, and reading the Bible and having Bible study, my friends and I always sorta wondered what it’d be like if a game was made about this stuff? I know it may be a little sacrilegious but there are so many stories in there that would fit a game. Throughout my life, as I became acquainted with others from different branches of Christianity or other western religions, I talked with others who played games who… surprisingly had the same ideas and desires? It probably won’t ever be done. El Shaddai is inspired by the Book of Enoch and while it is considered as non-canon in most Christian and Jewish sects, I guess it might come close to what some of us wanted.

El Shaddai was a game that I picked up mostly because I bought almost every niche game back then. I just looked at some of the trailers, thought it looked just okay, and picked it up because I felt like Ignition was going out of business and it would be a novelty item. Ignition did not have the best reputation among the people I talked to back then. I played Lux-Pain whose localization left a lot to be desired. Nostalgia was a middling RPG. Arc Rise Fantasia’s localization left a lot to be desired despite being a good game. Deadly Premonition had an English dub already but the text localization wasn’t that great. I felt like El Shaddai was the most polished game that Ignition released. They got incredibly great voice actors, including Jason Isaacs. They developed a score attack combo ranking system for replayability. They had a fantastic art director and background art. They made two bishounen that screamed for female audiences to pay attention.

All of it didn’t exactly work out for the time the game came out, and I always contended that the game was released before its time. Unfortunately, all the effort put into El Shaddai didn’t exactly save Ignition. I feel like if El Shaddai were released in the later half of the decade, it would have been accepted. However, I also feel like its marketing was mishandled. It doesn’t feel like a Devil May Cry successor. It shifts between genres continuously. It is very much like Nier in this regard: it is not for everyone and it has its own unique feel that sets it apart from other games. It is also a score attack action game, not a hard character action game.

One thing I really enjoyed about El Shaddai was that all of the setpieces aren’t exactly the same. It ranges from a watercolour painting to abstraction to 2D children art to more abstraction to Final Fantasy VII and keep going like that. It references rhythm games, 2D Platformers, racing games, action games, Devil May Cry (with its own brand of Devil Trigger to boot), and other genres to create something that syncs up very well with the rest of the game due to lore reasons: different enemies prefer different things so that’s why each environment looks different or the gameplay styles may be a little different. I’m okay with this because it shakes things up per chapter and the game doesn’t feel stale at all. You’re expected to adjust to new mechanics per area.

The combat is a lot like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where certain weapons beat other weapons, or some bosses change which weapons they’re weak against (and the game gives you other weapons so you can adjust accordingly during fights). The weapon you wield also modify your platforming abilities (ex: one allows Enoch to dash, one weighs him down, etc), and they also vary in terms of character strength. In order to obtain G-rankings for each stage, the player needs to analyse which weapon would be the most useful for certain enemies and combo while guarding, guard-breaking, and stealing enemies’ weapons.

I am putting El Shaddai on this list because I really enjoyed it for what it was. It’s a brilliant score attack action game with a fantastic soundtrack and fantastic art design. It made for a pleasant sensory experience and made some religious figures fairly compelling with good character designs. It’s definitely one of the most rewarding and prettiest score attack games I’ve played this decade.

To the Moon

Everyone goes through life with regrets. I’m in my thirties now and I think I’ve done things I’ve regretted, or I didn’t other to do something and I’ve regretted that. Kan Gao was inspired by his grandfather’s illness when he was writing and making To the Moon, he’s noted that when he gets old and when his time would come, he might end up regretting some decision he’d made throughout his entire life. Everyone goes through that when faced with introspection. You can have the courage to love, you can feel pain, you can live your life fully, or not live it enough. To the Moon explores this, and while the writing isn’t the best and can be a little messy (this gets improved on in Gao’s later sequels to this game: A Bird Story and Finding Paradise), I understand what To the Moon was trying to accomplish. To the Moon is an exploration of everything that life throws at us, and the results of the decisions made throughout our lives that touches everyone and everything around us until our time passes.

Eventually you build up so many wishes and have a big bucket list but eventually there will come a time where you won’t remember why half of those things are on those lists. To the Moon relates the story of Johnny Wyles, an elderly man on his deathbed with one wish: to go to the moon. The problem is that he could not remember why. The general flow of Gao’s games have involved two scientists from Sigmund Corp, specialising in wish fulfillment at the end of someone’s life, creating memories for people in their final moments to generate comfort for the patient. How ever you may feel about the moral implications of generating false memories for someone prior to their end of life, this is merely a set up for traveling through time to understand what the patient had wanted and what they’d accomplished.

Johnny’s character revolves around another character with an ASD. I will also note that my brother has autism (compounded with a multisystem syndrome). While the central focus was on Asperger’s Syndrome (Tony Attwood books being mentioned in the game), I’m a little happy that ASDs are being brought up in games and the game truly hit home for me. The writing may not be stellar, but I felt that the theme of the impact of medical disorders was communicated well. Particularly the theme of why communication and connections with others is so difficult for those with ASDs and those who take care of those who have ASDs. It’s easy to sympathize with the characters trying to express what they mean to each other.

The game itself is relatively short. Regardless of its length, players must confront some uncomfortable situations and emotions that people struggle with daily or even at different points in our lives. I’m older now and I appreciate this game a little more since I’ve come to experience more of what the game had been trying to tell me a decade ago. The writing may not be the best, and it can be a little messy at times with respect to how it’s presented and written, but a lot of its messages come across as utterly genuine. Slowly unraveling the reasoning behind Johnny’s desire to go to the moon is beautiful. This game is quite human and I appreciate all three games that are a part of this subseries that came out this decade. I am looking forward to more.

Nier Gestalt

If you’ve played a Drakengard game or the first Nier game at all, you kind of know what you’re getting into. Not the best graphics of the decade, plays pretty janky, having bosses that can be difficult to manage, etc. So going into Nier Gestalt in 2010, I knew what I was getting into. Not a lot of people bothered playing this game since I don’t think it got as much promotion considering it came out during the same year a mainline Final Fantasy game got localized. Nier also got a little scrutiny since the west got a different protagonist from the Japanese version. I will say that this worked out in its favour, since the protagonist being one of the central character’s father versus her brother makes for a better, more interesting story than having yet another shounen protagonist.

I will support the case that, like the Drakengard games before it, Nier Gestalt was difficult to get into. The gameplay is jank. Easy is too easy. Normal doesn’t drop enough stuff to warrant playing on the mode. Hard can be a little hard but eventually it evens out. I generally used spears for the charge portion of the combo but in the end it doesn’t necessarily matter what weapon type you use. It doesn’t even matter if you use magic or not unless the game prompts you to do so. It’s either broken or not and the game doesn’t have a set balance for anything. Combos are boring and you’re essentially mashing a button. Even playing through the Nightmare DLC for extra drops, it continues being like this. I was used to playing shmups so it wasn’t necessarily revolutionary that AoE attacks looked as though they were spat out from a shmup either.

I wasn’t quite understanding why game started acquiring a cult following, because what I’d played of it was pretty boring and standard. “It’s just a regular ARPG starring an older character versus a young protagonist,” I said to myself. I guess that was the reason. I didn’t quite understand why, even past acquiring Kaine, because I guess I accepted that there weren’t a lot of NPCs and certain towns were the way they were due to, what I surmised were, RPG conventions. It wasn’t until I finished the questline for the brothers, where their mother tried to run away with a man and abandon her children, that I finally started to understand.

Within every substory, there was something that resonated with someone. I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to abandon their responsibilities, and at the same time I understood. Sometimes you just want to take care of yourself. With the way the older brother sort of understood why even through his anger and disappointment, it resonated with me. I finally ‘got’ the story, so I wanted to play more. This became one of those rare games where I played only for the story and lore and abandoned any hopes of the gameplay getting better. I fished, I upgraded weapons, I did enough sidequests for the trophies. I almost platinumed this game, but since the drop rates are so terrible for this game, I didn’t.

I started enjoying the game for what it was. It was genuinely a fun romp where it feels like everyone taking part in the game’s design contributed something unique and something they were fond of. If you read any interview from Emi Evans from this time period, you’d realise language is something she’s particularly fond of, so much of the composition and lyrical content of every song was a phoneme from any language that would make it sound like an evolved or a sort of Esperanto version of a current language. This came into play with the game’s lore, and many of the interviews were interesting to read from back then.

Many of the game’s stages borrowed from different genres of video games. There were the obvious shmup references, the rail shooter reference, the visual novel reference, the Resident Evil/fixed angle horror game reference, the Shadow of the Colossus references, the 2D platformer references, the Zelda references, the top-down puzzle game references, etc. For what the game lacked with respect to its combat, the game excelled at reliving genres and putting maps together in such a way that it felt like an ode to other games and genres that inspired it. The City of Façade’s language being a loose phoneme reconstruction of Japanese felt right at home with the dungeon’s Zelda references complete with Zelda fanfare for me. The Forest of Myth being one long visual novel was so hilarious and unique at the same time.

Playing more of the game and opening up the lore with every playthrough was neat. I don’t particularly like when games waste my time, but Nier made each new playthrough worth it. Killing bosses quickly for a trophy, redoing dungeons to see the enemies’ perspectives, and unlocking more of the story and learning more about the world that came from a Drakengard ending felt satisfying. As someone who was studying linguistics at the time, constructing nonsense words from drops out of different morphemes to act as accessories or armour was really amazing for me.

Much of Nier felt organically put together, from characters’ writing and what they wanted from each other, to the dungeon design, to maybe even the combat design… it felt like a truly special game made from the heart with as much lore as it could possibly include. I had purchased the Nightmare DLC primarily to get weapon drops and while it isn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the game, it has some implications for the lore. The music and resulting soundscape lends so much to the worldbuilding and includes many peoples’ languages from the area with French, Japanese, English, German, etc phonemes thrown around to sound utterly organic and special.

At the end of this, I have come to realise that despite saying to myself that I never played this game for the game… I’ve been lying to myself this entire time. I actually did play the game for its game parts. Those are the bits I remember the most about it, and they’re the reasons why I genuinely loved the game. It’s unforgettable for me and it’s why it’s one of my favourites in general.

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

I did not care about MMOs in my late 20s because I was far more focused on finishing school and actually working hard in my field. I think by the end of university, I barely played games because I literally didn’t have time for them. I probably stressed myself out a lot. I threw myself into a semester where I had what felt like 500 evaluations, had to study a lot, had to write papers, and I ended up breaking up with my ex-boyfriend amicably. I was on my own a lot and to be honest, I think I felt okay that way. I think maybe others thought I was unapproachable.

My best friend now turned fiancé had been begging me to start playing Final Fantasy XIV for a really long time, since he was in the beta prior to its 2.0 release. I made excuses and said I won’t play until a speedster class was implemented since nothing really stuck out at me. In reality, I was mostly busy. Well, Ninja got implemented late 2014, so I ran out of excuses. I got a copy of ARR but to be honest, I didn’t have time for it and I didn’t play it much so I didn’t bother to try harder since my focus was elsewhere.

Luckily, I got into a semester where I didn’t have that much coursework to think about so I ended up playing XIV more. I caught up during ARR and really my intention was to only play through ARR and finish the story and quit. But my fiancé’s friends were so nice and welcoming to me. When the servers shut down for Heavensward maintainance and I’d finished the ARR storyline literally that night, I made the conscious decision to buy Heavensward. By that time, I was falling a little too hard for my best friend and I really liked my newfound friends. I wasn’t ready to leave Eorzea yet.

Of course, I had some quests to finish up during Early Access so I didn’t get the opportunity to play with anyone I knew during the main storyline for Heavensward. Heavensward was leaps and bounds above anything I experienced in ARR. The story was well-written, the English voices were recast and given better direction, character deaths were meaningful, a smaller cast made for good character building, the environments were large and you could only assume things happened in each area eventually (they didn’t in the long run), each area was different, it reminded me of Canada… Heavensward made me feel at home.

Almost every job felt built on, since nothing was really truly culled. A lot of what you got felt like an extension of what you already did. The three new jobs didn’t start out too well or too balanced. Machinist was a mess. Astrologian felt weird. Dark Knight had some growing pains but probably performed the best out of the three once the Alexander raid was implemented given that its specialty at the time centered on magic defense. I was one of the five people who really liked bowmage since it required you to think before you cast but you still did a lot of damage if you thought before firing. I swapped to an omnihealer main officially halfway through the patches because my fiancé requested it.

Heavensward had a lot of growing pains. For all the team did for the base game, they took a six-month vacation to recharge. 3.1 wasn’t really worth the wait and a lot of people quit the game or stopped playing because nothing really meaningful was added to the game other than a faceroll raid, poorly-tuned exploration missions, and two dungeons. Gordias earlier in the expansion nearly killed the raiding community as a whole. 3.2 didn’t fare too much better, though it did add the best raid tier that has yet to be topped. 3.3 was when FFXIV solidified itself as an MMO with a grand story to tell, with one of the best conclusions a Final Fantasy game had seen in almost a decade. The sound design was near-perfect for this patch, and it was when a lot of us genuinely felt comfortable with the game and its future. Heavensward wasn’t perfect; it still had its missteps and balancing issues, but it was the most comfortable and profoundly skilled I’d ever felt with the game.

Final Fantasy XIV may not be what it used to be. I feel old and I feel like I’ve played the game for a really long time. Now while it’s riding the wave of success, currently having the best story Final Fantasy has seen in a very long time, I can’t help but to remember Heavensward when we finally felt assured about the game and it felt like a cohesive gift to players who were active at that time. I got to know so many people during Heavensward, and now I’m engaged to my best friend partially due to our experiences together playing at that time.

Undertale

The late half of 2015 was a really bad year for me. The first half was really great. I started playing FFXIV often, I finished the hardest year I’ve ever had of my 9 years of university so far with high grades and was going full-on hard into my residency year, I fell in love with my best friend. I was pretty happy since I finally felt very successful.

If anyone can recall (or this may be new to the person who is reading this), towards the end of 2015 my dad was falsely accused by our neighbour of possession of a weapon (it was a gardening tool), and he had a restraining order put against him so he couldn’t live with us anymore. My little brother is severely disabled so that’s why I still lived at home so I could help out. Without my dad around, it was so much harder. I came home from my days at the hospital every day after a 12-hour day, had to babysit my brother since my mom still cooked food to carry for my dad who had to live at my aunt’s, somehow had to find time to study for my licensing exam and do some work for school and my thesis, had to find time to socialise a tiny bit otherwise I’d go crazy, maybe had to take my brother to his appointments by coming home a little early, and then had to find whatever time I had left to sleep. I stopped posting on message boards because I literally had no time to do so and I wouldn’t have anything of value to contribute to discussions either.

I detached myself from a lot of people. It was actually kind of lonely. It was really hard. I lashed out at people when I shouldn’t have. I don’t look back on those days other than the bright spots with fondness at all.

Before that, everyone was telling me to play Undertale but I sort of didn’t want to? I felt like the fanbase was sort of making the game unapproachable around the time it came out. By the end of the year, I was so out of the loop about games that I didn’t give a hoot. A friend of mine, Shadow Hog, bought the game for me on Steam. I still have the e-mail message for it.

My now-fiancé got his own copy so we could play it together because at that point I didn’t want to do much of anything alone. I was actually sinking deeper into depression and verging on a mental breakdown. I was not mentally sound and every single week it felt like someone had to save me from doing something stupid.

I started Undertale and I didn’t really think much of it at the start. I can’t remember when it started clicking with me but maybe it was around the time I got into a battle with Tsunderplane and Vulkin and got to Hotland that I gave up and started having fun with it because it was just… silly. It was time to let down your hair and have some fun for once and not feel completely guilty about it.

The idea of having to win and achieving a certain ending by sparing your enemy isn’t necessarily new – SMT’s demon negotiation, Silent Hill 2’s morality system, and MGS3’s fight with the Sorrow have some sort of sparing mechanic. The hybrid of a turn-based battle system with enemy negotiation, as well as dodge system inspired by a shmup makes every encounter both strategic (ie: having to avoid bullets while also sparing enemies in a set order per battle) and consistently active. Unless you are going for a certain other ending, you cannot just sit there and hold down the attack button and expect to win. That said, this makes a lot of encounters a little longer than a standard RPG battle, but the flavour text for each uniquely-designed enemy makes many of the battle worth it. Undertale isn’t a hard game unless you’re playing on a certain route. But I don’t necessarily think the gameplay part of Undertale speaks properly for it. The dungeon maps are relatively simple. They all have their little gimmicks. The battle system is relatively easy to understand.

The reason why Undertale has such a prolific fanbase is primarily because of its character writing and ability to make and use memes properly enough that they catch on. Many of the characters are easily encountered early, are easy to draw (propels a lot of fanart), and understand due to the character writing. What also helps is that the game is 4-6 hours long, and it came out at the right time with the right kind of word of mouth. Undertale could have easily fallen into the sea like so many other RPGs before it but it didn’t. My fiancé and I were shopping for work clothes one day at a store that sells business clothing, construction clothing, and scrubs. He was wearing a shirt with the Delta Rune on it since he loves game shirts that are relatively subtle. Even then, one of the sales clerks pointed it out and was pretty excited to see it. It was pretty crazy to both of us how popular Undertale had gotten. I don’t think the popularity was unwarranted. I think it’s a fantastic game, helped by a considerably lengthy varied and catchy soundtrack. Granted, I was not as exposed to how explosive its popularity was when it came out. But I understood why so many people liked it. It wasn’t for its gameplay.

As I progressed through Undertale, instead of thinking of the lore (which was well-written), I was thinking of how the monsters treated your character with respect and love because you treated them that way. They didn’t go out of their way to fear you, and welcomed you as one of their own. In the end, they were hesitant to even kill you, and you were hesitant to kill them. Even then you still had the spare/save commands.

At the very end, you only had the Save command.

And that’s how I felt. When Hopes and Dreams started playing, I couldn’t help but to cry. When I was repeatedly nudged to press the Save command, I didn’t actually feel like the game nudged me to do so. That was something I wanted to do. Just remembering how depressed I was when I started playing this game and then progressing to its true end with Hopes and Dreams and SAVE the World playing, I couldn’t help but to feel like my hopes and dreams were still alive.

Even if I was going through a really hard time in my life, hope was still there as long as I had people around me that supported me all the way through. That was the time in my life that I realised who my real friends were. And in the end, I felt like Undertale told me my friends saved me and that my dreams weren’t crushed, now matter what threw at me.

And that’s why it’s my game of the decade. It may not be the most perfect game that came out this decade or the objectively best-crafted, but it did so much for me. When I was prompted for my game of the decade, Undertale was the first thing that popped into my head. I didn’t question it. I just knew. I don’t think we’ll get another Undertale again in my lifetime, but I’m glad to say that I gave it a shot and I love it for what it is.

#games of the decade #gotd

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