#couldve used some other quote of his but people

[p0ffstarz]

ALMOND COOKIE HEADCANONS!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

His coat has many coffee stains, he tries to wash them off but some of the stains still remain.

He’d definitely be that one person to wear like a summer fit when it’s literally freezing outside.

Almond would be a ticklish guy, he’d try to hide it but like that’s the easiest way you could make him laugh if you can manage to tickle him.

If almond ever had a social media I feel like half of his dms would be random people sending him dumb things specifically images like the uh “you obviously don’t own an air fryer” or they’d do that thing where they message him everyday with a request like those “day 1 of asking almond to ____”

Almond is very hard on himself, often feeling very disappointed or frustrated if he isn’t able to do something right or how it was needed. Like trying to chase down a criminal, if he’s unable to catch them he’ll go back home feeling ashamed that he wasn’t able to catch them. Usually taking the huge fault at something if it doesn’t go right.

Almond definitely has a sweet tooth but he denies it all the time, if you have any bowl or candy left unintended you’ll probably find that some of it is missing sooner or later. (he would definitely snag a few candies from walnut’s candy basket after Halloween..)

Almond has been caught in the act of trying to act as the tooth fairy, halfway trying to swap out a tooth from walnut she woke up and saw him.

Almond would have to be extra careful on April Fools day because of a certain two cookies,,,(Roguefort and Walnut but mostly Roguefort) they would be pranking Almond all day. Walnut would try to pull classic harmless pranks on Almond half of them would be obvious pranks but almond would still pretend to fall for them just to see Walnut happy. Honestly Almond would probably be the target of many on April Fools Day,,

Batman enjoyer as a kid and still enjoys it now in present time, he’d probably use some quotes from Batman and like say them infront of walnut just for fun. Also a Robin enjoyer too.

Almond probably gets asked very often why his sweater is so big, I don’t think he knows why..

Almond seems like the type of dad to not want a pet but then literally when they finally do he’s like bestest friends with the pet, literally Inseparable.

He is a sleepwalker, he’ll randomly wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and find himself in a whole new spot.

Cat Babytalker forsure, Walnut walked in on him doing this once and he begged for her to just keep it between the two of them. NOBODY KNOWS EXECPT WALNUT, NOBODYYYYY. Some people have their suspicions though.

Almond would randomly say something you’d hear from a detective movie, if the time was right ofcourse. People would definitely laugh at him for this because he’d usually say it in the most serious tone ever. I also think Walnut and Almond would have a small inside joke on this, where randomly they’d both say something of that sort and just go along with it.

I feel like almond could have the most sweetest smile but have the most coldest stare also, like despite him being more serious most of the time he’d never be like cruel or whatever. His face expression would usually just look like serious or just typical but he could have like a super cold expression if he wanted too, there’d definitely be a difference

This dude definitely snores, his nose has to be messed up or something. Probably from falling so many times onto his face or some other things, MANY THINGS COULDVE CAUSED THIS.

He has one of those mugs that are like “Worlds #1 Dad” or “Worlds #1 Dadtective” he would atleast have ONE of these mugs from a Fathers Day Present (Walnut gave it to him and it’s his favorite mug, he always uses it)

He has dressed up as Batman for Halloween once when he was a kid, it was his favorite costume when he was younger. But now looking back at the photo almond can’t believe that he walked around in that costume (it was bad) He has a photo of it and only a few people have seen it, or so that’s what Almond thinks (many people have seen it)

I’d say there’s like a good handful or more of people (most likely being any co-workers he has or friends) that just don’t take him seriously at all. I can imagine almond being in the middle of explaining something and someone just goes “Okay Dragon Arrester” (nobody is ever letting that go)

Nail biter (this one is short I KNOW)

He would be able to do the most randomest things but also not be able to do the most randomest things if that makes sense,,,like for example ‘ya Ik how to bake a cake but I can’t make eggs’

//I’ve never done this before I had fun writing these Headcanons lol!! Ty for reading! (*^▽^*) <3//

#P0ff art #almond cookie #headcanons #THE SILLY!!! #SQUEEZES ALMOND INTO A SMALL LITTLE RECTANGLE #Cookie run #silly #P0ff cr hcs

[spiteless-xo]

Im so sorry this ramble is so long but here u go🙁

The absolute terror that came over me when i saw the email notification for the new chapter😭😭😭ok before i read im gonna put my final insights here,, ive literally been scrambling around my house procrastinating reading it bc im TERRIFIED and honestly im so sad its ending,, ive been reading since like february??? I think???Idk atp but i cannot express how much ive loved this story i wish it couldve just continued forever🥲🥲

Ok my predictions are that this will not be a one way path ik tiff is evil and likes to fuck w our feelings😞 i think smt twisted like reader picking eren but eren not picking reader could happen BC HE REALISED HIS SELF WORTH MAYBE😭😭but im not intricate enough to actually use that to decide but i honestly am at a loss i have no clue,, its an honest gamble but i do think eren is endgame??? Help i have no clue😭 but i do remember someone analysing the smells? Vanilla is more home and comfort so like a foundation? And citrus was for summer and things but i was thinking how summer is a temporary thing where people live out crazy activities for the sake of it but the whole thing abt it is that its temporary like we always have to go back HOME to our foundation aka vanilla aka eren????

Thing is ive been eren for endgame since DAYY ONEE i only almost switched up once during the arc with erens confession (idky😞) but other than that ive stayed loyal LMAO idk if im just being delusional tho convincing myself I think she'll end up with eren but

ALSO my other point right

I wanna take this back to tiff bc she IS the author😋 from what ive seen in her tumblr,, a lot of the reader owns resemblance to tiff?? She's mentioned a lot how the readers job is based off her irl experience in an office and some of the readers habits shes claimed to have herself i remember she was saying how people bashing the reader made her think like 'wait thats kind of me tho’ i remember it too vaguely to quote but ANYWAY off the basis that the reader is in some aspects (not all) a projection in some ways?? Its gonna influence,, we ALL know tiff is a strong jean girl😭 we love that and so u'd think jean would be picked BUT in between chapters i saw a few tumblr posts abt her growing liking for eren? I wont deny that she is DEFINITELY still a jean girl but i think for some form of variation in her work bc i think as far as i know she only has one other eren story on her ao3 and so i think her growing crush ok eren may be enough to win her over for just this fic even if jean remains her favourite?? I have like ten million other theories but i need to read the chapter now i will be back😋😋 (im so scared im shitting my pants)

-

Im back!! its been like 6 days since i read it but i just didnt have time to write out my reaction after bc i was so fucking immersed i lost track of time and was late to meet up w my friends💀💀💀anyway it was such rollercoaster omd😭 the letters from jean we’re honestly so cute and i think the year time skip made everything all the more realistic in her choice bc she frl needed that break😭 OMD AND THE WAY I WAS PANICKING when that girl came out the elevator istg i thought it was mikasa,, with all generic eren fanfics if theres ever a third party to make the reader jealous theres some unspoken rule to never use mikasa for some reason and i was dying thinking it was gonna be her😭😭 commonly people use historia so when even a mention of eren having a new gf came up my mind shot to historia i swear i was worrying just as much as the reader💀 anyway back to jeans letters i was honestly like getting a bit swayed that i wouldnt even be upset if reader ended up w jean and especially considering how offstandish eren was when reader went to see him at first he was like not following up on anything like he was rushing to see his stupid gf (it was armin🎉🎉🥳) AND THE READER WAS SO CUTE FOR THAT GUNDAM (tysm tiff its such a silly headcanon that eren collects those and builds them i can see it HELP) and i think it was so cute seeing the reader and sasha as bsfs more bc i think there was long periods of time that that relationship w sasha wasnt as strongly shown so its so nice AND OMGOGMOGM LEVI????? U made the dynamic w them so well how he has that small bit of warmth telling her she can work there whenever she needs its the cutest thing ever i love it more than ever and the way levi talks abt petra UGH u made everything so endearing, and istg the reader has never been real until this chapter bc she is so right saying that a bunch of paper doesnt change him bc I KNEW AS SOON AS HE SAID HE NEVER LEFT TITAN AND BECAME BASICALLY HIS DAD that he was not gonna be endgame,, i always had the theory that titan and the kirstein status is a metaphor for the status jean has from the reader bc shes loved him for so long thinking hes someone that hes really not,, jean was painfully aware how he could make any mistake at work and have no punishment similarly to how even if he hurts the reader she will always forgive him so if he couldnt avoid reaping the benefits of his kirstein status then it means he’d continue to take advantage of the reader but thing is this status dissolved when she took that year away from him which is why I appreciate how realistic it all is logic wise,, Eren evidently changed and omg i wanna know abt the pictures on his wall bc when reader was first there there was mention how there were no family pictures or any sign of him really living there but when she came back there were pictures,, i was trying to figure out the meaning but i cant get my finger on it😭 my guess is that he found more purpose in life?? Idk bc that seems so vague and farfetched i was wondering what ur intentions were with that🙆‍♀️ and i had a theory AGES AGO that piecks ‘bad bf’ before jean or smt was zeke?? Bc knowing how zeke was in that gc and stuff like that it sounded like smt was gonna link together? I just think the added details abt piecks past was left unfinished so i was also wondering abt that😋 anyway ugh the ending was also so cute usually i hate when characters dance in fanfics but it was so cute and fitting for the moment like THEM AT THE POINT omg i loved it i love u thank you SO MUCH tiff for an amazing story i hope u have a good day bb❤️❤️❤️

omg thank you for a such a lovely message 🥰💗🥰💗 i’ll hide my response under a cut here because it’s long

reading since february!! omg that’s like the beginning! i think i dropped the first chapter on valentine’s day

“tiff is evil and likes to fuck with our feelings” 💀💀💀 yes.

ugh the smells!!!!! that was my biggest slip up frfr 🙈 i said way too much when i responded to that ask because i was so excited someone asked!! and you guys were all right of course. eren was home and jean was just temporary (like the summer season)

lmao ok literally. i was still a hardcore jean girlie when i started writing tbaw and even after i decided it was gonna end w eren. so throughout writing tbaw….. i literally fell in love w eren jaeger 🙈 and i almost fell out of love w jean!!! tbaw!jean is so awful he almost ruined jean completely for me

hehehe yes yes you’re 100% right w jean. he’s so used to taking advantage and never getting punished (w reader and titan) that he doesn’t really see a point in changing because tbh his life is pretty good?? but then when reader spent time away from him, her blind infatuation w him wore off and then when he tried to pull that same shit again, she’s like nah bro.

ok this is probably not clear at all, but the deal w eren’s apartment is that in the beginning it’s very sanitized and show-homey because he feels distant and detached from his friends/family after the death of his mom and becoming close w zeke. he’s like internally ashamed of the way he’s acting because he knows he’s in the wrong so he’s almost punishing himself by distancing himself from everyone.

and then after a year when he’s changed and the pictures are on the wall, its because hes worked his way out of that hole of self loathing and is happy with the person he is now. so he’s able to feel more comfortable, even in the privacy of his own home, and having his mom “watch over him” in a sense, and cherishing his previous relationship w jean and his ongoing friendship w armin, etc etc.

yes!! pieck’s bad bf was zeke! i was originally going to have her have a bigger role in tbaw to show like how eren’s past behaviour can affect people, since she was a victim of that treatment when she dated zeke. but i scrapped it because it would’ve extended the story so much and also i didn’t really like writing pieck lol

so there are like lil bits and pieces about the pieck/zeke relationship and how the way he treated her makes her seek validation in men, but it’s super underdeveloped in tbaw.

thank you again for such a lovely comment!! i’m glad you enjoyed it 🥰💗

#tiff.ask #tbaw.fic #aot #usuibu

[justices-blade]

💥👪☀️

ask meme - emoji asks

💥 COLLISON - what emotions do they have trouble dealing with?

// i've touched on this already, but edward has a really hard time coming to grips with sadness and grief — he sort of saw them as slippery slopes towards despair for too long, which was completely at odds with his primary survival tactic (unrelenting optimism) that he refused to entertain them altogether beyond skimming their surfaces. guilt and regret is another one, because he's afraid that he won't find either upon closer inspection of himself. (reminds me of one other quote i couldve used: "serve, save, slay; i've sins aplenty, but regrets? not so much.")

// he doesn't cry enough to let it out, doesn't give himself time to stop and think... it just kind of. rots. comes back to haunt him when he has his guard down. his guard's been getting worse after the end of the war, too. i think between that weakened guard and the lack of needing it in peacetime, he's at least finally at a point where he can try to start looking these emotions in the eye and come to terms with them. it's not healthy in the long term, and due to actually having really good anger management, some part of him knows it.

// he really, really doesn't want to though.

👪 FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings?

// edward doesn't know jack shit about his mom barring the fact that she's the one who gave him his birth name. which he doesn't use. lmfao. he and his brother finch started out from an orphanage that kind of couldn't support itself, and after it went to ruin, they were just left to their own devices.

// finch was the only family he had for the longest time; a scrawny, sicklier kid, softer-spoken than edward but curious and imaginative. he wasn't as hardy, but he was sharp for his age. they looked similar, were close in outlook but opposite in constitution. edward never thought of him as a burden, just someone to support and guarantee some kind of future for. evidently, that didn't work. edward refuses to believe finch is dead, but, well. hm. let's not get too into that.

// blood family aside, he does consider the dawn brigade his actual family above anything else; not a nuclear arrangement by any means, but they're a group bound not by blood given, but blood spilled (though, that's given in a different way, right?), time shared, tears shed. edward wouldn't be able to label them by specific familial terms by any means, but it doesn't matter; he knows how much he cherishes them, and how much he's cherished in turn, and wouldn't trade any of them for the world.

☀️ SUN - are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning?

// edward loves getting up bright and early as much as he loves sleeping in; though the former's probably habit from helping all the early bird grannies with their errands all the time. there's nothing quite like getting your work done in the morning and loafing around for a bit in the afternoon. ideal nap setup. old people made points by using those early hours. he also loves watching the sun rise, so that's an added bonus.

// he's as chipper when woken up early as when he sleeps in, at any rate. the off chance of him sleeping in is usually a result from him cracking an eye open at six to seven, assessing whether he has to get up, and then deciding on "nahhhh". smash cut to him blinking awake at any time between ten and one.

// when he gets up, he usually starts with a drink of water, does a few stretches to get himself going for everything else that follows.

#;answered #artificidel #;ooc #;now there's an idea! | hc

[triedpklove]

Happy XBlaze week!!! Out of the characters we know exist in XBlaze but don't have designs for (Mei's parents, the other Ten Sages, etc) who would you most like to see??? Do you have any design ideas for them yourself???

YESSS i wouldve killed to see a design for sui. i think its funny that the one time they had a chance to show like the bare minimum of a design they just used mei's sprite? which made me laugh during my first playthrough lol.

however there is a cg that i feel like gave us a very slim lead into what she might look like afterall however there are some nitpicks i have about it. the cg is here:

the people on the left and right are very obviously unomaru and ryouko, however i think it would be kind of funny if they randomly just added some guy in the middle? it's a stretch to assume its sui, considering the short hair (i dont think sui was an exception to the amanohokosaka long hair) and also the masculine build of the silhouette, but i have no clue who else it would be lol. meis dad wouldve been cool too considering hes the only male amanohokosaka we know of. maybe that couldve been him in the cg...? shrug ANOTHER THING im curious about is what kuon's mom looked like as well. we know what lord stroheim looked like, but im delightfully curious about what her mom looked like especially since all 3 stroheims look nothing alike (given sechs and kuons moms are different)

(i also included babby sechs for fun but like. there is 0 trace of stroheim in sechs. maybe he looked more similar before his original body died? who knows)

i think what makes me even more curious about it is the fact that kuon is mixed race, with her mom being japanese:

What I like? Well, maybe curry with rice. My mother was Japanese and often made Japanese curry with rice.

(quote from bbdw)

kuon looks very european so i really wouldve loved to know what her mom looked like! same goes for sechs, who gave him the goth gene

i guess a last thing isnt too important but i wouldve loved to get an older mei design in bloodedge experience but all i have is how other older amanohokosakas looked to kind of frankenstein together a design.

#xblaze #thank you for the ask btw! #ALSO I JUST SAW THE SECOND HALF OF YOUR QUESTION i dont have any designs in mind atm but maybe in the future ill doodle smth

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Okay, I just finished season 3, it took me a bit longer than usual but thats mainly because a bunch of youtubers I liked uploaded as I was watching, I wouldnt say this season was that much harder to watch than the others although it is without a doubt the one I like the least

Its mostly just seasons 1 and 2 again except all of its worst aspects have been exazerbated, the love square is still lacking in development but now all sides of it feel very obnoxious and thats not to mention the fact that they basically dedicated an entire episode to the fact that the world will end if they ever find out about their identities and get together, theres character bloat or more accurately Miraculous bloat, pretty much all of the episodes still have the same basic structure and little continuity in a way that matters, which was forgivable in season 1 but is just incredibly frustrating at this point, not to mention the fact that they backtracked on all the best 'developments' of season 2

I put 'developments' in quotes because to me, that word implies a gradual change but its really more like the writers went "New season, new status quo". Now, I wouldnt have an issue with that if season 3's status quo was a natural shift from the status quo of season 2, the way it was with the first and second seasons, but in a lot of ways we're just back to season 1's bullshit; Marinette is still a bumbling fool around Adrien except shes actually even worse and not endearing in the slightest like she was in season 1, Chloe is back to just being a Mean Girl Caricature with her redemption arc completely undone and Cat Noir stopped being annoying towards Ladybug, which is the only change I approve of because I really didnt like the Ladynoir side of the love square last season. But also, I felt like Ladybug was a lot meaner to him ? Ive seen someone else describe it like "It used to be that Ladybug was the serious one who was focused on their mission and didnt want to actively entertain Cat Noirs jokes, but now shes just mean to him" and yeah, I agree. But also also, while Cat Noir thankfully stopped burdening her with his unrequited crush, I still thought he was pretty annoying because I felt like he really wasnt serious at all whenever they fighting the villains, like I feel like he used to be at,east a little more serious than this

The issues that were carried over from season 2 are mostly just the hero-bloat. I get what theyre trying to do but they rarely focus on anyone in the Miracuclass unless theyre being akumatized or they influence Marinette and Adriens relationship in some way so it doesnt feel earned at all. I already made a whole long post about how I think focusing more on friendships and class dynamics would only help this series so I wont repeat myself too much, but it would definitely help to show us why certain Miraculous were given to certain people rather than just "they were there" which is basically the reasoning behind Kim and Max getting their Miraculous, atleast Kagami and Luka had some kind of deeper reasoning behind it (although it does feel like a bit of a stretch to say that about Luka tbh)

Speaking of which, I like Kagami as a character and I like that she and Marinette are friends now and I wish we couldve actually seen that but no, this show would rather have them fight over Adrien, who also lost most of the endearing personality he had in season 2 and Origins btw, how very feminist of you, Mr Astruc. Luka barely did anything tbh, the only episode of his that really stands out to me is Desperada because I liked the way he and Adrien interacted

The designs of the new heroes were fine, if generic, the only ones that were truly bad were Aspik and Snake Noir someone tell my guy Adrien that he would NOT look good if he was bald. Also, I thought Dragonbug's design was legitimately great, Ive already seen Bug Noire and I think she looks just awful, they shouldve channeled some of Dragonbug's energy when coming up with her design

Thats about it, I feel like this post is shorter than my other ones but I already expressed a lot of my grievances in other posts I made as I was watching so I think this tracks. Im about to watch the fourth and fifth season for the first time, Ive already watched the first three a few times so I was going into it with a level of hindsight, but Ive never watched season 4 and 5 so this should be exciting. Although I will say that Ive been spoiled for most of the upcoming big reveals and episodes like the Sentiandrien and Sentigami reveals, Ephemeral and the finale. I will be watching the specials as well, according to the list I found on reddit the New York one comes after season 3, so I'll probably make a seperate post about it after Ive watched it

Thats about it, thanks for reading :D

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #miraculous ladybug crit

[meili-sheep]

Barbara and Diluc are my two favorite characters in the whole game that arent the otherworldly siblings. Definitely not because of the projection and too deep understanding--

But like fr tho-- Barbara and Jean's relationship is like a worse genderswapped version of Diluc and Kaeya’s. Like that one anon said, Jean barely even acknowledges her as her sister and to me it just feels like the "Bad Ending" for what couldve happened to K and D. Even after The Incident, they still managed to scrape together some kind of friendly amicable relationship but Jean and Barbara have none of that.

Jean and Barbara's relationship to me barely even seem strained because theyve grown so distant to the point that theyre basically strangers to each other. Or at least its only strained at Barbara's end, as she still wants to be loved or at least acknowledged by Jean. Jean who at this point, cares for little else but Mondstat and making sure it stays safe. Heck-- even her death quote in game is "Mondstat...". Barbara's death quote is Jean's name. And we all know that cliche of "the last thing you say is the thing you love most" thing.

Jean, despite being the (temporary) overseer of the City of Freedom is shackled to her work station and duty. Barbara meanwhile, despite being incredibly devoted to her god, manages to set some sort of a balance between her work life and personal/private life. Sure, the balance might be incredibly uneven but its leagues better than what Jean has-- devotion to the point of using everything she can to ensure and pursue her desire. Yes, the desire is noble but it shouldn't be all consuming, it shouldn't be your whole ass life.

Okay mightve strayed a little from my point there oops-- what im trying to say with the above essay is that Diluc and Kaeya could've ended up like that, Diluc not acknowledging Kaeya as family and both of them losing themselves in their work or beliefs.

Im not one to compare characters to each other-- i believe that each character can and and should stand on their own and should be acknowledged, treated and respected as such. I dont like just using a character to raise another character up and only doing that, it seems like a disservice to me. But I understand that characters can be used as foils and you cant deny the few parallels these siblings have.

Diluc and Barbara to me are such wonderful and interesting characters because of their dynamics with the people closest to them and are still wonderful characters standing alone. They are both incredibly flawed and imperfect people but they're still doing whatever they can to be the best version of themselves they can be. I had a point somewhere in here but I think this just devolved into "i think barbara is a great character, heres my tedtalk on it" and im not even mad. I'd elaborate on my things more and a little more coherently but it is currently 1 am as of writing this and dear lordy id probably have to send you a multiple page essay or something AHAHA

TLDR-- i love Barbara and Diluc, theyre great characters i can relate to on a personal level and also because their own personal story is wonderful

Here is what I find relatable about Diluc and Barbara.

They are trying to be better people.

Diluc is trying to come to terms with his experience. And trying to learn to trust people again.

Barbara is trying to find the balance of being a positive role model and support while still trying to take care of herself.

Both are aware of their flaws and are trying their best to improve themselves.

And that's where Kaeya and Jean falter for me. They don't seem to have that same drive to try and improve. They are both much more comfortable keeping things as they are. And aren't really looking within themselves.

#diluc ragnvindr #diluc #diluc headcanons #barbara #barbara pegg #barbara headcanons

[ajdrawshq]

So.... What the fuck! ( Any thoughts? VLR is wild )

if i put the Junpei what the hell compilation here does that count as an answer

ok i do actually have thoughts yes. so many thoughts. might take me a sec to form words out of em bc of the sheer.. something. whatever just happened and im also lowkey sleep deprived rn i have shrimp emotions and i also cant feel anything

hmm ok one of the things i wanted to mention was that earlier i almost thought Quark couldve been some kinda abondoned Left clone but they have different eye colors so thats crossed off the list. that Does make it kinda weird that Quark mentions freeing his soul during that one scene, but i guess we're supposed to assume he just picked it up from somewhere? like he heard abt it on earth at some point? i doubt Dio wouldve said anything to him abt it in the pod, and even then i dont think hed quote him during That if he did. but how well known were the Myrmidons for him to hear that?? or was it from Junpei/what Junpei was talking abt when he said he was involved during the mars expiriment thing??? idk i just thought that was a weird connection that they didnt directly address.. i think. i couldve missed smth there

im not even gonna try to understand the entirety of the time jumping stuff when it comes to switching bodies and all that. youd think id be prepared for this kinda thing considering all the stuff ive played so far! i am not. looking at the picture they used to show how Sigma's been jumping all over the place legit gave me motivation to do my homework bc that would be easier to comprehend

on that note im like. how do i put this. i was actually super interested in where all this stuff was going for a long while bc the ideas being used were cool even if the execution was a lil wonky. like im so down for time shenanigins (with memory fuckery!! come on!!) and clones and humanlike robots and a lot of other stuff they had going on. i actually like what they were doing when they expanded the morphogenetic field stuff, although i Do wanna think of that as completely seperate from how it is in 999 bc of the retconned stuff :/ other than that what they had going on was pretty cool but. the ending just. i ,,, i dont even know the way it all came together feels so weird???? like it technically makes sense and i get what they were going for. its. ???? i wanna say what im looking for is "anticlimactic" but idk if thats right. its just..... Weird.

however i also wanna say that i am at least glad they touched on the different views of people being stuck in the "worse" timeline? Junpei being glad to have Quark despite everything while Clover and Alice have to deal with leaving behind half a century along with their friends and family. even tho they just kinda went jk lol at that part immediately afterwards???????? but whatever i guess

the characters in general were pretty fun tbh? not quite as real-feeling as 999 but still enough to be enjoyable. it was nice seeing Junpei reference a bunch of stuff from 999 and retain some pieces of himself all these years later, especially when he quoted Light ("fake, a replica, not the real thing...") its horrifying to think abt all hes been thru at this point tho ,,, Clover seemed a lot more outgoing than before but a year can change u so i cant say much abt that, it was cool to see her again regardless. Alice is an interesting one and i liked her even if she was kind of frustrating to go against in the AB games lmao. Luna has lowkey been one of my favorites thru the whole thing but i had a hard time fully trusting her for so long bc of how suspiciously innocent she was lol which wasnt entirely baseless either but yknow. Dio is admittedly funny and ridiculously good at acting like hes a normal person its actually scary. also whered he hide the bombs before planting them bc they didnt seem That small. anyway uhh Quark is a funny little guy and its nice that he straight up doesnt die (usually?? i cant remember if theres a route where he does. other than the bombs) and!!! i actually really enjoyed Kyle. no idea why. wish he didnt abandon me so many times but it fuckin be like that i guess. accidental revenge for absent fatherism. and.. Sigma. when u said u do not like him i think im with u now. not necessarily strong feelings but. yeah. but PHI.. god i wish they actually said where she came from shes just HERE and they never fuckin elaborated man who is she. she is so cool tho i love when she goes on her tangents abt stuff <3

AL OF THAT SAID u were very right when u said the puzzles in this game are fun. even tho i had to check a guide a few times bc i was genuinely clueless for some of em (u have no idea how stumped i got in the darts part of the white room puzzle. i should never do mental math this late i cant live that one down) theyre mostly really good and i did enjoy those sections especially

#OH AND I FOUND OUT PART OF WHY VLR FELT SO WEIRD AFTER PLAYING 999. its the lack of prose #anddd this is all i can come up with atm i gotta sleep like Right Now #im starting to see things xkbskcbs #man. im gonna have some weird dreams after this #might watch ztd later. just to see how much worse things can get supposedly #zero escape #ask #mortellanarts

[ink-vax]

Traitor Tommyinnit Theory.

but listen, it kinda lines up. and yes I'v only watched Wilburs pov.

Tommy's smart. but not the same smart as say Wilbur or Tubbo. I can see him being the tratior due to when has he stated his plans in full details? Like yeah theres times where Tommy isnt the smartest of the bunch..but he has gotten better at things..hes playing this like he does Among us.

He's only told Wilbur not to blow it up and that there is a way to get L'manburg back, but what logical other way than war can you get that nation back?

The festival, What happened to "Lets not blow this up, its just not worth it" (not the correct quote). Because Tommy threw that out the second Tubbo got harmed, THE SECOND he got harmed Tommy dropped it and when to look for the button himself. He then whent after Techno once Techno fired the shot to kill Tubbo..not to mention the pit. Any time Tubbo gets insulted or harmed Tommy is there to fight the person who did it.

He's constantly ontop of everyone when they make up or come up with plans, but yet..he just says theres another way of getting the nation back.

Now, I don't think it would be Techno, but I can see why it would be. ..but isnt that what everyone wants? for him to be the tratior? While Tommy hasnt set grounding rules for anything hes doing. It seems as if he's just trying to keep him and Tubbo safe..but he wants to convince Wilbur, and we all know Wilbur just wants distruction.

But Tommy...hes so quick to jump on others and take the blame off of him the second its put onto him.. Not gonna lie the second Dream mentioned that there might be a tratior my first thought was Tommyinnit.Once Tommy realized just how many people were on their team...he gave Wilbur the benefit of the doubt of blowing up Manburg and taking out Schlatt since he is alone.

not to mention how he acted around BBH.

"I don't like you"

"where did you come from?"

"maybe if I swear at you, you'll go away".

BBH is a wild card, he's silent and observant during this. yes some of the other SMP members are a bit weary of Bad, and Techno is scared of him.

..Why would Tommy be so hateful and secrative around BBH if all Tommy was doing was for the sake of Pogtopia and Manburg and getting it back. Not to mention he's playing it kinda like he does when he puts effort in Amoung Us. He doesn't want to be caught by silly loose ends ..or a silent but deadly BBH.

I could kind of tell Tommy was uncomfy having BBH in their base, even if it was just because of the buttons. He really wanted him to leave. ..almost like he knows if BBH catches on he's done for ...Hes more Fearful of BBH then anything and thats not even going back and watching Tommy's pov or reviewing older stuff from the past month.not to mention and this got brought to my attention again

when Tommy said it wasn't him once it was brought up. And how quickly he did. He shot it down instantly and he looked guilty when he stated it. Its proving the theory a bit morethere also the idea that Dream couldve just said it to cause tension and trust issues with everyone. But theres a lot of signs pointing to Tommy...

Not to mention, the only way this could or might work..is if Dream convinces Tommy to be on the side of Manburg. Either by minuplating him to join, or whatever Dream had Schlatt sigh could be something to help Tommy get L'manburg back.

That's Tubbo...Tommy will do nothing to hurt Tubbo. You've seen it in the MCCs. Youve seen how pissed off he got when Techno hurt Tubbo. You've seen how mad he got at Wilbur of mentioning that Tuboo wasnt on their side. ...so if Dream were to mintuplate the situation to where Tubbo would be hurt unless Tommy joined his side...Tommy wouldn't hesitate to join if it keeps Tubbo alive.

Now, this isn't my entirely full reason on why I think its Tommy, but the writing that Tommy. The protagonist that thinks their doing the right thing ..wanting to prevent destruction and chaos. Only to become the traitor with the intent of protecting the person he cares about the most. ...he would drop everything. Hed drop Quackity. Wilbur. Nikki. Fundy. Techno. He would drop them all the second Tubbo is in danger or gets harmed...

It's all linked to Tubbo.

#rambles #my theory #cw jschlatt #Tommyinnit #tommy #wilbur #wilbur soot #dream #dream smp #theory #minecraft theory #minecraft #traitor tommyinnit

[icecreamkink]

so i watched cobra kai all in two days and i have so many -

this show has so many cool and smart angles to it, but the same time.... its so stupid oh my god everyone is so dumb literally mr miyagi held all of the braincells in this whole universe 

like i am but at the same time i am not surprised it was made like this, bc in hindsight of course there were hordes of ppl simping over johnny lawrence ....  but it still amuses me that this is like... an Actual Official Thing

ok this will get long so cut it is

how much fun this cast has is super visible and i love it

i rly enjoy how the world was expanded ! i did grow up watching the karate kid movies, so watching how they progressed the world of the movies so organically was pretty cool. it rly feels like its the same universe

i fucking LOVE stories that are largely about a Thing. dancing ,skating, sports its just so thrilling to experience this all consuming relationship people can have with this type of activity? and martial arts are just that much more intense, so yeah, grown ass men kicking each other around at the lightest provocation and a war veteran caring so much abt teen karate is Ridiculous.... but i love it all because thats the intensity i find so thrilling

was kinda surprised with how much im missing mr. miyagi. first because, like everyone is so unhinged jesus christo, it just really throws into relief how much his character grounded the narrative of the movies. but also hes just a really great character

and on that note it rly Gets Me that the show itself aknowledges that and plays that into daniels angst and all the little ways they sorta weave myiagisms into the whole show........ im not getting emotional over this dumb karate dads show OK

related - i really miss hearing ‘daniel-san’ 🥺🥺

ACE DEGENERATE oh god oh no

they really went down the down and out johnny lawrence route huh. like i was always kinda bummed we see kreese choking him and then we never see him again in the movies, and while i love dumpster fire problematic trash himbo ck johnny, its like......................... actually really sad that his life turned out like this fjngn

everytime i hear ‘babes’ and ‘pussy’ i die a little inside. i know thats the point but i am a v cringe easy person, have mercy (ehe)

loved the way they are constantly drawing parallels between johnny and mr. myiagi of all people. hes the handy man of his building that has a bullied kid asking for help and eventually steps up to teach them karate, beats up a bunch of bullies for him, creates a friendship with said kid, estranged from family, drinks his sorrows away, surprisingly one of the least quick to anger characters (which says more about everyone else really but.... Well.), no schemes or ulterior motives hes just tryna vibe here.... oh and ofc magically heals miguel of is asthma apparently. the true disciple.. meanwhile daniel is his usual messy petty self even tho he wants to be mr myiagi so bad 

also interesting about that is how miguels character is a parallel of both johnny and daniel at the same time

overall the parallels in ck are done really well, drawing comparisons and also subverting them constantly. theyre well thought out

THE PARALELOGRAMS

fr tho, the angle being explicitly the cycle of trauma and its effects and how trumatized adults in turn traumatize kids, maliciously or not, is so interesting

but! on the flip side of that, it feels like the writers are getting in their own way @ letting the characters grow. especially this last season. theres only so many times you can do "johnny and daniel are getting along but 5mins later they are (literally) fighting over some dumbass random issue" or "johnny puts in 20% of effort with robby and then gives up" before it gets on your nerves yknow?

i see daniel no longer talks like macchio ingested 15 shots of espresso before every take and idk how to feel about that tbh

interesting tension in daniel, as in, in tkk mr miyagi was there and daniel was frankly, kind of a lil shit, this messy petty spitfire hot tempered sassy kid,(johnny lawrence voice: just... stop being so annoying) but now hes the adult, and he wants to be mr. miyagi... but hes just not, and never will be to his very core and it shakes him and in a way hes trying to find who he is now that he sees himself in a position to be a not! cobra kai figure. i kinda really like that 

plus how that relates to his cobra kai trauma. idk if the writers thought abt it Like That, i think so, but in any case, its interesting bc it seems like daniel has told everyone whod listen about johnny lawrence his Pretty Boy Karate Rival and high school and 84 cobra kai... But. no one seems to know what went on in 85 (or 86? idk) which was just so much worse

like ye og cobras were shitheads, but tkk iii is just two hours of daniel being emotionally and physically tortured. 

like, the third movie is.............chaotic, to put it nicely, and many people ignore it, but the writers clearly didnt. daniels actions are, in a way, responding so much more to the events of tkk iii than to the first movie ie. johnny himself, AND. daniel doesnt rly seem to have dealt with that trauma? he never told sam? doesnt feel like hes ever told amanda? he doesnt even say terrys name out loud? freaks Out over kreese ? the way he reacts to robbys deceit? his FACE when he walks past the new "fear does not exist in this dojo" paint or kreeses photo? hmMm i sense Pain

his fashion tho........... disappointing. where are the flower shirts daniel huh we had one (1) shirt what a tragedy STOP WEARING SUITS ALL THE TIME . also the band ts/grunge bi are a look for johnny but part of me longs for the preppy lovable 80s bully chic johnny lawrence getups

weird that they never used that last moment of karate kid where johnny kinda... snaps out of his anger and hands daniel the trophy almost in tears. like “youre alright larusso, good match” “thanks a lot”  that being their last direct interection seems like itd be perfect fruit for cobra kai but... they just dont. weird. 

especially when, the FIRST SCENE they see each other, suposedly in 30+ years, the first thing to come out of daniels mouth is QUOTE "u still got those golden locks huh?" WHO SAYS SHIT LIKE THAT DANIEL FUCKING SAN 

also amandas immediate reaction "your pretty boy rival?" like. can we talk about the fact that daniel had to have imparted to his wife the very important information that his high school bully/karate rival was like Really Cute and Fucking Hot Actually

 the writers Knew exactly what they were doing and honestly.............. power to them

tkk director voice: and billy was just so cute  

also I was thinking that daniel sounded strangely fond in that first scene, and i wonder if he developed a weird affection for johnny on the grounds that of all of his Karate Rivals johnny was actually the only one who didn’t actively tried to literally kill him

i was actually delightedly surprised with how great the chemistry between them is, like from the get go i am Invested. their rl friendship totally bleeds through and its fantastic

. granted, idiots enemies to lovers friends is my Thing so i am biased  

johnny lawrence: i am down in the dumps, i fucked up my whole life and my sons probably, largely in light of the trauma that the father figure sensei and the philosophy of my karate inflicted on me and all my friends. u know what i should do, as a traumatized, unreliable mess of an adult? teach that same philosophy to some other kids! what could go wrong! 

but really i enjoy the setup of it. i kinda like that i watched it late because, season 1 was johnny setting himself up for failure in a way and it was exciting to watch it all go to shit sjfn

Like. his heart might be in the right place, but theres just.... not a way to teach something like ‘strike hard, no mercy’ and not have it fuck up a kid 

case and point: aisha, miguel and hawk become annoying as all hell over that bullshit in the end of s1, even before shit gets truly fucked up

billys subtle panicked eyes when he sees hawk and miguel fighting dirty in the all valley was SO GOOD especially in parallel with the panic that is so visible in his face in the movie when kreese tells bobby to injure daniel and in the sweep the leg scene 

seen people question wether kreese should have returned and i absolutely think he needed to. johnny needed to realize that cobra kais fundamentals are flawed, at the root, beyond kreese himself being a toxic piece of shit 

also who are we kidding? we are here to see the tkk characters play on new playgrounds!

i get what they're doing abt kreeses backstory, ( also. cobra kai. pq eles caem nas cobras djjs sorry) but did it need to take up that much time? feels like they couldve  done it in half the run time and developed some other stories better 

martin kove has such an evil eye. i love it

love that we get a good follow up to kreese breaks johnnys trophy and tries to CHOKE HIM in the parking lot, which happened in the movie and then....................... was never mentioned again

“the gang is all back together again” aaaa u piece of SHIT 

also. terry silver is definetely appearing ha ha ha PAIN i cant wait

seen ppl say kreese was too much of a cartoon villain like..........................oh......... sweetie........... u dont even Know

interested how johnny will fit into that bc kreese was simping rly hard for johnny here. like i did not expect him to be so adamant to have him with cobra kai ... under his control, sure, but he really wants johnny by his side despite already having control of the dojo and how will terry silver self appointed jon kreeses forever simp going to feel abt that? 

like bitchs dropping by every episode like ‘joooooohnny ..... come bacc to me joooonny......... this ur last warning! for real this time johnny! i wont say it again! watch me ! im leaving johnny! im rly leaving ! im dragging a chair” and johnny is just like. dont let the door hit ya bitch it was so funny pls

and on that subject oof, johnny! doesnt! Know! he doesnt get that side of daniels cobra kai trauma. and i kind of.............. cannot wait for ck 2021 johnny lawrence to meet terry silver like. what a shit show i need a front row seat and popcorn (imagine terry tries some greasy charm and johnny just roundhouse kicks him in the teeth bc he just doest Not Have the Patience for This. glorious)

feels like we, as a society, should acknowledge that cobra kai will never die................ bc their sense of design is just chefs kiss. their name is COBRA KAI. they have sexie sleeveless black gis. theyve sneks. colorful leather jackets with embroided naja insignia, the get ppl thru the aesthetics. evil geniuses

the flashback cuts : masterpiece behavior

the other takes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the differente angles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of the FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE CLOSE UP ON JOHNNYS FACE AT THE KICK 

that scene of daniel and johnny vibing to 80s music in the car. just. oh my god. the fan wish fullfilment. no thoughts head empty.

the new characters! theyre .... good. but. idk. i really like miguel (save for the annoying phase mid s1 - end s2) and amanda, who is a damn riot and has some functioning braincells, but everyone else is       

like dont get me wrong, i dont hate anyone,its not a jane and rafael from jtv situation,  and i am interested and invested in their arcs, but i wouldnt say i like   Like them, as in, personality wise 

like, sams grappling with ptsd was rly gutting and i enjoyed that plus her slight rage issues, 

which nicely parallel torys rage issues. torys background is all over the place tho so im pretty on the fence abt her so far

robby deserves better in every way, and i like how smart and cunning and surprisingly sweet he is

hawk............... is there i guess,

 demetri is annoying in the best way possible,

 carmen is sweet but. i just feel like her character is blunted to make the johnny relationship easier. like when shes furious with him after miguels injury but then forgives him like an episode later? and then convinces him to fight for the tournament bc she had a karate epiphany off screen even tho she was always against it? meh. feels like with the plot thiccening she was swallowed and now shes like a crutch for johnny mora than anything, which is disappointing.

aisha was cool and im kinda mad she wasnt in s3, especially bc a storyline with her tory and sam was like RIGHT THERE , but also... cant say i was super super fond of her... doesnt feel like we ever spent enough time on her

moon the bi icon, 

overall its a good cast but the main draw for me remains the og cast 

the tory/sam miguel/robby Thing. enjoy how theyre Narrative Foils and i like how their stories were so dramatically entangled but oh god give me a break with the teenage love square for the love of god. if u gonna put us through that at least have the decency to not make it so straight

and honestly some sam/tory        miguel/robby romantic tension would even make more sense. just saying! 

also im not sure how i feel abt the cobra kai: red miyagi do: blue theyre going with since some of daniels most iconic looks in tkk are also red. like it was a color they (johnny and him) sorta shared. i get it, opposite but complementary but idk... a little too fire nation and water tribe for me .

 and like the cobra kai kids are so funny abt it bc their outifts grow progressively more ridiculously coordinated. its like do they group chat every morning before leaving their houses? 

robby still sticks out like that tho. he went thru an athleisure/daniel san tsleeves phase and now hes back in the bandts grunge, but his color scheme doesnt fully blend with the other cobra kais. hmmmm.

LOVED LOVED LOVED both the okinawa episode and the cobra kais easy rider episode just such good good heart aching fun

bobby is an icon. he was in tkk and he is now ck hope appears more and more

 tommy is like the most iconic background character. all his lines, freaking gold then and now. sigh :( 

the framing in the okinawa trip was so good everything was so good

i stand by the fact that kumiko was the love interest daniel had the most chemistry with and shes is overall such a joy to watch, loved to see her again, idola, fashion icon

also tkk ii is good u guys are just mean

also really enjoyed chozens role in the episode, his evolution; i love that they introduced the pressure points (ty lee the blueprint) and! the honk + karate! cousins! absolutely iconic

when kumiko reads mr miyagis letters........ oh my god, my eyes FILLED with tears, it was so heart wrenching :(( tamlyns delivery was so emotional and lovely and its so obvious everyone involved in ck has so much love and respect for pat morita and mr miyagi as character, and i adore that it exists like this electric current through the show

when we were watching i told my sister i thought that ali would be miguels big shot surgeon and ngl i am so disappointed that didnt happen. hire me cobra kai writers

also the johnny ali daniel amanda chemistry? off the charts

AND the sassy retconning of daniel and alis breakup! LMAO ‘I HOPE U DIDNT TELL MR MIYAGI IT WAS MY FAULT’ HFDJJGNKFKSD

i am preeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure back injuries dont work like that    but oke

daniel and johnny are so good together whenever, like they never actually help the kids or get shit done and end up fighting anyway but its just so much fun when theyre hanging

JOHNNY LAWRENCE AND DANIEL LARUSSO FIGHTING TOGETHER

daniels “plan” on how to get robby to juvie was so stupid. literally were u TRYING to make him hate you. dumbass

parents at those hearing rly brave for ppl that did not do ANYTHING as their kids got involved in a karate gang war until now

“bullshit i heard u were the real bully!” i mightve screeched

this s3 ending was SO DRAMATIC omg

everyone is such a MESS go to THERAPY u unhinged motherfckers

also im sorry but uh. a richass neighborhood in california doesnt have some type of neighborhood watch? the larussos rly dont have any security at all? neighbors wont hear the sound of a damn karate brawl happening next door??? also wasnt tory all like ooo i cant go to juvie, my mom yada yada yet shes always running around town getting into fights even at the rich girls house she was kicked out of school for fighting??   ?  ??    ??        ?                ?    ?          ??                  ?    ? girl??

stop destroying the larussos house, its so pretty :((((

sam finding her center looking at mr miyagis picture...  uwu maybe

robby yelling ‘U ARE WEAAK’@  johnny \as he is easily blocking him is like.... so funny and so sad to me. sweetheart. 

also i know it was meant as ‘oh johnny pushes him and HURTS HIM’ but it just looks like robby runs himself into the lockers and IM SO SORRY I FEEL SO BAD BUT IT WAS SO FUNNY 

i like that he and tory are the cobra kai kids now. we need ppl we care abt there to not revert to a good vs evil schtick, and this is the most engaging it could be... tho it hurts that these kids cant catch a break

ah yes "lets bet some real shit on the result of this teen karate tournament bc that is always a great idea" is BACK

so daniel saves johnny from kreese..... maybe johnny will save him from terry 🧐

and dojos unite ohohoho. lets SEE how that’ll work out 

miguels face of Despair when the ck defectors and the md kids are bickering like 'this is never gonna work' : gold

also. Johnny Lawrence is gonna learn some myiagi-do karate AHAAHSJAKDFH

 ive been waiting for this moment all my lifeeee oh lawrd 

final thoughts! there are def things i hope the writers will improve on the next season, but i am very excited for it either way AND i feel like it has made me enjoy the movies even more and that is a win for a reboot/sequel to me!!

#m. #did i procrastinate watching this since it came out and only watched it now bc my sister nagged me to when i said we should #watch karate kid over the holidays? #and then binged the whole thing in two days?? #mayhaps and what abt it #cobra kai #the karate kid #its funn #y bc like karate kid is a Childhood movie but i wouldnt say #it was like particularly special for me? #like i wasnt in a fandom or anything #but now. #i might be invested #maybe #talvez

[loserdudes]

Hi sorry I’m new and sorry if this is a stupid question but why does everyone constantly talk about what happened with Debrusk? I know there was an article with a bad name but that’s a bout it lol. Sorry if you posted things about this before or got asks about it.

alright so you sent this the other night during the canucks game and it seems like this somehow has become a topic of conversation again which. dont know why people who dont care about the bruins think they know anything (not you specifically anon) but ill break it down. this is very long and will have a tl;dr at the end

so this started in about mid may when a bruins reporter for the athletic posted an article about how the bruins like to chirp jake debrusk. this became a huge thing like bigger than anyone couldve thought it would be mostly because the language used in the article made it seem a lot worse than it really is in order to get attention. the original title of the article (changed fairly quickly after a lot of correct backlash) was “the bruins’ dressing room whipping boy: why everyone abuses jake debrusk” this title is awful for a number of reasons and the timing of the article was also awful given that it was fairly soon after akim aliu posted his article titled “hockey is not for everyone” about the racism he faced in the nhl and detailed much worse abuse that happened to him by teammates.

important things to note here: jake debrusk is white, his dad was an nhler, contrary to what became a popular tweet when this article came out said his first language is english, and he came into the nhl in 2017 at around the same time as sean kuraly, matt grzelcyk, charlie mcavoy, and anders bjork

here are some quotes that i think are some of the most important from the article, grouped by who said them and not necessarily in the order the article puts them in

sean kuraly: “every group of friends has that. you just hope it’s a healthy way about it. in his case, it is. he can handle it. he likes it.” “but at the same time, still one of the best teammates i’ve ever had.”

matt grzelcyk: “honesty, we rib him for anything. he senses that. he does a good job of making fun of himself before you can make fun of him. he probably deflects a lot that way.”

chris wagner: “i don’t know if he thinks before he speaks. and i wouldn’t say he’s the brightest bulb. he means well. so that’s why we give it to him.” 

anders bjork: “on all-star break, he got sunburned. he’s asking where he can get some aveeoli. stuff like that where you’re like, what?!’ sometimes they stick on and we keep saying them. tons of stuff, words and phrases like that, where he ends up saying them.”

brandon carlo: “i think it’s just his quirkiness and his personality. he’s not a shy kid, by any means. his outgoingness enables that. the way he’ll react to certain stuff. if he didn’t give you a reaction, maybe it wouldn’t be as prominent. but you know there’s going to be a funny reaction when you chirp him.”

jake debrusk: “it seems like people are always chirping me. i don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. it seems like they miss me. i’ll take credit for that. i’ll say it’s a good thing.” “i feel i’m just an easy target. i’m a nice guy. make some rivalries here and there. but i definitely do get a lot of abuse, yes. i always have. i always have, ever since junior, even. especially as a 16-year-old rookie. even when i was a veteran.” “there’s certain guys you can’t really chirp back. like if bergy gives you a good chirp, it’s almost like you’ve got to accept it. because bergy’s god.” “you can see it after practice. guys come and jump me. they’re starting to team up on me because of my one-liners. they’re trying to get through. but they just can’t. that’s what pisses them off the most and makes me the most happy. they’ve tried my hair. they’ve tried my shoes, my style. they’re trying different areas.” “it’s funny. guys will give me a hard time about it. they’ll be like, ‘we don’t know what you’re saying. we don’t understand.’ then, you know, the months go by. they start saying it. now it’s kind of a thing. that’s when you know. slang words that i’ve brought up, because i know that it’s me because no one else says stuff like that, they come up around the room. that’s really rewarding.” “it is fun. it kind of spices it up too. guys will have good chirps. if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?”

i tried to include all of jake’s quotes that i thought were relevant so that’s why his section is so long but one i didn’t include is about charlie mcavoy: “charlie mcavoy takes it a little too personally sometimes. he doesn’t know if i’m kidding or not, even though he’s giving it to me. sometimes i bring up certain things with him, he gets a little fishy.” this quote is really key to me because it shows that jake, and the rest of the bruins, know when to hold back and aren’t just needlessly being cruel to their teammates

the bolded quote by jake is also an important one for me because it shows that friend group dynamic where someone says something dumb and then gets made fun of before everyone else starts using it too which is pretty much the case for the bruins

finally for my knowledge of the bruins friend group dynamic: i have watched almost every episode of behind the b that jake and most of the bruins mentioned/quoted have been on. the bruins are my number one team. i watch everything they put out and keep track of most of the guys on social media. these guys, especially the young ones, are all really close and are frequently seen interacting with each other inside and outside of team settings and even going on vacations together. its pretty easy to guess that jake has many of the bruins instagram notifications on as last summer former bruins teammate danton heinen got hacked and jake commented on the post almost immediately. you don’t do that for people you can’t stand being around and you definitely don’t spend your one week of vacation time during the season with them if you’re really that miserable.

if you are not a bruins fan it’s pretty easy to look at cherry picked quotes from a poorly written article (that would have been written in an entirely different tone had this actually been a problem) by an author that a number of bruins fans have problems with and think that jake debrusk is being bullied and needs to be “saved” from the bruins. none of that is the case. he enjoys playing in boston and being with his teammates. if he isn’t signed in boston for next season it isn’t because he needed to escape his teammates or whatever it’s because the team can’t afford him. that’s it.

the bruins have said many times that they’re a close team. after rask opted out yesterday in the middle of a playoff series every guy had nothing but good things to say. they constantly say things about how much they love each other and how close they are as a team. the bruins really genuinely love being bruins and its one of the things that makes them such a fun team to watch. you can infer all you want about guys that left the team, their circumstances, and jakes but nothing will change the facts

tl;dr: the bruins chirp jake debrusk, a legacy nhler, but he doesn’t have a problem with it and enjoys when they actually end up things they say even if they chirp him for it initially. the bruins love jake and jake loves the bruins and the entire situation is basically just *john mulaney voice* oh you mean like having friends? even if people without knowledge of the bruins want to blow it out of proportion

#jake debrusk #asks #anonymous

[gothamdad]

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS PART ONE: CINEMATIC WRONGS AND ANALYSIS COMMENTARY

DO NOT REBLOG.

This is going to be a bullet point list of incidents that occur in the movie, and will either have my general commentary or an analysis of what makes the scene terrible (or in some rare cases, good). TRIGGERS FOR SUICIDE, MENTAL HEALTH, AND DYSMORPHIA 

-bruce trying to kill himself in the beginning of the movie. 

Hes reckless, and willing to risk his life, but not suicidal. But he just purposefully gets into a wreck at 2 minutes into the movie?? for no reason??? theres literally no reason for it other than it being angsty bc they COULDVE started the movie with the mutants doing crime, as the next scene cuts right into it and the following news reports 

-"This reporter hopes that wherever he is, hes enjoying a toast with good friends" said when its the anniversary of batman’s disappearance 

this is stupid I hate this movie. You're telling me Gotham forgives Batman for just disappearing on them? DID THAT NOT HAPPEN IN NML AND EVERYONE GOT PISSED??? Like everyone in this movie seems to have forgot he abandoned the city. Not to mention, and I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, bruce will be batman for as long as he lives. He calls himself batman in his mind even when hes retired. He believes that Bruce wayne is the mask. His whole identity is batman. Saying that hed quit because of jason is not only stupid because it implies Jason's death isnt just as important as his parents, but shows that any tragedy is enough to permanently knock him down. And as if the league, or the family, would have let him give up. Anyway the whole reason the retirement in batman beyond works is because it shows bruce was going to fight until he literally died on the spot, but instead he pointed a gun, didn't even use it, just pointed it, and he realized he wasnt fit to HONOR batman anymore. He broke the rule. And he doesnt deserve to wear the mantle. This is so good because 1) bruce still wants to be batman and 2) it doesnt imply that he gave up at all, and at this point with his decreasing wellness his family WOULD be telling him to stop

-Gordon toasts with Bruce on the anniversary

FBKSBSOANSISSB OH MY GOD IT JUST SHOWED HIM SHARING A TOAST WITH GORDON. this is the anniversary of the last time batman is sighted and gordon. JIM FUCKING GORDON. Is celebrating. When they were literally partners and hed shine the batsignal each night TELL ME WHERE THE LOGIC IS!!! I CANT FIND THE LOGIC!!!!! I'm literally 3 minutes into this movie..... and already this is how its going...

-Gordon and Bruce talk

"You're not worried about me, are you?" Asked when hes in clear danger of being attacked by mutants "noT MorE tHAn i aM tHe ReST oF tHis CItY" ah yes. I forgot that Bruce hated gotham and jim Gordon. My mistake. Common misconception.

-the mutants are introduced

Ugh and it's the worst kind of villains too, jim just described the mutants as "the worst kind of criminals. They are only after violence, with no humanity at all" GIVE! VILLAINS! REASONING! I hate these joker wannabes Joker was already enough we dont need a million more "lol I'm just evil deal with it" villains

"Talk to Dick lately?"asks Gordon "You know I havent" Bruce responds

THIS CONVERSATION IS GETTING W O R S E BC I KNOW HOW THIS MOVIE GOES AND HE JUST INSTANTLY HAS CARRIE BE THE NEW ROBIN- WHICH, IS N O T BRUCE'S TO GIVE. ITS ALWAYS BEEN DICK'S MANTLE TO PASS DOWN- WHEN HE HASNT BEEN SPEAKING TO DICK????

-tangent on how it’s overlooked that Dick Grayson was the one to make Robin, not Batman

This is a sin that not just the movie, but the batman franchise in general seems to always make. Robin was made as a tribute to the flying graysons, and is meant to be colorful and aerodynamic for acrobatic tricks. it should always be dick’s to pass down, or the next robin after. 

-Bruce begins having trouble with holding back his urge to be Batman

His whole wanting to be batman again thing started because of a newspaper with a family's death and pearls being sold. On the same front cover. I'm. THATS WHEN HE REMEMBERS HIS PARENTS? NOT EVERY FUCKING TIME HE HEARS A GUNSHOT? OR CLOSES HIS EYES? OR SEES BLOOD? HE READS A NEWSPAPER THATS FLOATING IN THE WIND??????NOT EVERY TIME HE LOOKS AT JASONS COSTUME? OR THE OTHER CRIMES COMMITTED??????LOGIC!!!!!!!!!! I NEED !!!! TO KNOW!!!!! WHERE IT IS!!!!!!!! ARE U KIDDING ME NOW THE MARK OF ZORRO, WHICH IS WHO THE FUCK KNOWS HOW OLD NOW, IS ON TV??????????? AND HE JUST HAPPENS TO FLIP TO THE CHANNEL.. Batman telling bruce "you've tried to hold me back. But you're weak. Ypu know it in your soul. You're nothing but a hollow shell." Is so STUPID!! WHY HAS HE BEEN FIGHTING BEING BATMAN!!!!!!!!!! BRUCE SHOULD WANT TO BE BATMAN!!!! AND HATE HAVING TO NOT BE!!!! AND A BAT FLYING INTO HIS WINDOW AGAIN???? STOP THE FUCKING CLICHES IM SICK OF THIS . UR NOT BEING NEXT LEVEL, MOVIE. ITS JUST DUMB. ITS DUMB!!!

-Carrie Kelly

her first ??? Appearance??? Is her going into KNOWN MUTANT GANG TERRITORY instead of going through the rain. And scolding her friend for not having backbone WHEN THEY COULD LITERALLY DIE and saying, and I quote, "its better than out there." then when interviewed about the incident her friend says  "It was a flying monster! With wings and fangs!" and she replies with "Reality check, Michelle, it was definitely a man, but he had to be like 12 feet tall" OH YEAH THATS VERY REALISTIC CARRIE. Shes an asshole to her friend and we're supposed to like her.  Oh and Carrie's reason for wanting to be robin? She saw the bat signal while her parents were talking about public marches. That's it. That's her reason. Not because she was attacked by mutants and almost died.

-Giving the movie credit

Okay but if theres another thing I'll give credit for, and I'm sure its unintentional, is that Harvey is the first criminal he wants to take down. Because Harvey is always going to be Bruce's priority. He didnt go after the mutants, but Two-Face. And the way that confrontation goes when it’s revealed harvey thinks both sides of his face are scarred. the Arkham staff fixed his scars before he was ready for treatment, and his mental health wasn’t priority. he was going to have dysmorphia either way, but not treating mental illness worsened it.  kinda? good writing? But I think it was unintentional to have the idea that Arkham didnt know what they were doing and the belief that scars are important before trauma, and how trauma has to be helped first. I dont believe for an instant that's what's meant. 

-Carrie Kelly part two

She gets a Robin costume and goes out onto the roof and is like.... almost dies. THEN THE NEXT SCENE WE SEE HER SHES LIKE COMPLETELY ACROBATIC? WHY IS SHE SO ACROBATIC NOW!!! THIS TAKES PRACTICE!!!

-Batman confronting the man who supplied the mutant gang with guns

Oh, this scene...He hands a guy a gun, knowing full well that he was depressed because his wife was dying and he had to make more money to save her by supplying the mutants with weapons, and just walks away as he kills himself. (input from a friend which i like:  think about everything bruce did to help mr freeze and his wife now think about this scene )

Batman vs Mutants 

oh, and the "batmobile". Aka his tank. Rubber bullets. Ok fine, whatever, but RUNNING THEM OVER AND SHOOTING MISSCLES ISNT LETHAL? AND HOW IS CARRIE KELLY GOOD AT FIGHTING ALL OF THEM WHEN SHE COULDNT HANDLE HERSELF WITH ONE LIKE A WEEK AGO.  hate that the mutant leader is just a ripoff of bane with long pointed nipples I hate this. I hate that batman cant take him down, but carrie kelly can. AND THE MUTANT LEADRER TOTALLY DIED WHEN BRUCE THREW ADHESIVE ON HIS FACE AND HE WAS SUFFOCATED BUT LATER ON IT SHOWS HE LIVES ??

Bruce talks to Carrie 

"What is this thing?" -carrie "Dick called it the batmobile" -bruce "SIR!!" -alfred over the radio There are no words. Then she pops his arm into place and creates a makeshift cast And he says "where'd you learn to do that?” and because she’s a mary sue she says nothing, because miller doesnt know why she should, so he cuts to "what's your name?" and she says "Carrie. Carrie Kelly. robin" and HE FUCKING GOES "MINES BRUCE." and then immediately tells Alfred hes bringing "robin" to the cave. I hate it here I hate that he forgets what happened to Jason aFTER ITS HIS LITERAL REASON FOR QUITTING. WHAT IS THE POINT IF HE’S GOING TO ACCEPT THIS GIRL HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW AS ROBIN?

-Bruce talks about Jason

OH BRUCE'S FUCKING LINE. HIS LINE. IM FURIOUS Alfred asks "have you forgotten what happened to Jason?" And he says "I'll never forget. he was a good soldier. He honored me" I AM !!!! SHAKING!!!! WITH HOW MAD !!!! I AM!!! Bruce would NOT say that shit. Implying that jason wasnt his son, or that jason was only a casualty in a war, or that HE FUCKING HONORED HIM AND NOT THE CITY, OR THE TITLE OF ROBIN "He honored me" shut the fuck up I hate this and dont even get me started on the misconceptions of Robin in the first place. i dont want to go into the debate on whether or not they’re soldiers, which I personally don’t believe. but its just stupid because Jason considered being Robin the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he was THE BEST. it wasnt his fault he was killed, either. 

-The ending

So the mutant escapes his cell by going through a VENT. A . V E N T. AND ENDS UP IN THE SEWER. I hate that these mutants are just an army of evil people and have no motivation and the leader is just a brute I fucking hate Bruce calling him "son" And the mutants become the sons of batman who fight crime......??? because their leader is gone?? werent they supposed to be evil criminals with no humanity in them?

-Joker

Okay but Joker being absent the entire first part , only to show up in the end hearing news reports about batman, and then smiling as he stands up and just fucking creepily says "darling" holy shit that gave me goosebumps. another credit i have to give. 

#long post / #theres still a part two but i am TIRED #i cannot today...... mayhaps if yall like this ill do the second part #ᴜɴᴍᴀsᴋᴇᴅ : OUT OF CHARACTER

[the-ss-zemyx]

PVP(umpkin Spice Lattes)

Zexion and Arpeggio are Discord friends. They chat in private messages, raid in Verum Rex together, and may or may not have feelings for each other.

Ienzo and Demyx are college roommates. They hate each other, for the most part. At least they can both agree on pumpkin spice lattes.

Happy 2nd Zemyx Day of 2020!!

Specifically for today, the S.S. Zemyx Discord Server hosted a collaborative fic-writing event! Over the course of the past five days, four of our writing members teamed up on a Google Doc in one glorious, inspirational, chaotic, frankenstein-esque fic-writing bonanza! That's right, the fic you're about to read is the product of -four- people's efforts!  Enjoy!! :D

(A HUGE thanks to my co-writers: Aliceslantern, Ennarcia, and Carbonpixel. This was a hell of a lot of fun to do and I'm immensely proud of us!! - Mod Arxsia)

Also available on AO3!

__________

      Demyx hated his roommate. Okay, no, hate was a strong word, and Demyx did his best to be a friendly, outgoing sort of guy, so ‘hate’ was definitely too strong a word. He liked to make friends. Having friends was nice. Having friends was very nice, and so, he tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But his roommate was a different story, and Demyx did not like his roommate very much at all.

At least he was easy on the eyes, because everything else about him got on Demyx’s last nerve. His name was Ienzo, but his name might as well have been "Jerk," with a capital J. When he wasn't hogging the Internet bandwidth doing God-knows-what on a chunky Alienware laptop, he was lecturing Demyx on the virtues of keeping the floor free from dirty clothes and giving empty soda cans a proper burial in the plastic wastebasket by the door. Lame. Also, he was a little condescending. That jerk . 

One day, Ienzo burst into their dorm room with the gusto of a hurricane aiming to speak to a manager about a botched coffee order. He swung his laptop bag onto his mattress. It bounced when it landed. "Out," he commanded.

Demyx looked up from his phone. He sat with his legs crossed on his own bed, his Discord app open to a private message thread on his phone. In a few minutes, one of his server friends, a guy with the display name "The Cloaked Schemer" but going by his Discord handle, Zexion#1309, would be starting a voice call with him. It was kind of a big deal--they had been chatting in their shared server for almost a year, and in private messages for almost as long, but they had yet to actually speak to each other. "I'm actually busy," Demyx said.

"I don't care. Out."

It turned into an argument, of course, neither yielding and probably disturbing their neighbors with the yelling. Yep, Demyx didn’t like his roommate one bit. 

He ended up in the lounge by the kitchen, utterly fuming, cursing his idea to “go rando” with a roommate all the while. It’s the best way to make friends, Demyx , his mother had told him. What better friend than a roommate?

Very funny.

At least he’d been able to grab his phone. Of course, Zexion was wondering where the hell he was. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Do you need to reschedule?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: roommate’s being a dick and kicked me out. Sorry!

The Cloaked Schemer: Ah, I too am having roommate troubles. I can sympathize. I know too well what it’s like when one’s privacy is denied.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: he’s driving me NUTS! 

The Cloaked Schemer: Have you tried talking to him about it?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: He didn’t exactly uh seem receptive to talking

The Cloaked Schemer: It’s always a good idea to try for maturity first.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I did! Not my fault the guy wasn’t having it.

Anyway. Id hate to let that guy take up any more time.

Hru?

The Cloaked Schemer: Doing as well as I can, I suppose. I’m enjoying my classes so far. It seems a little easy, but then again, it is only one of the first weeks. Things should pick up more by midterms.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ure too smart zexy. And didnt you skip a grade?

The Cloaked Schemer: A year, yes. I don’t think they call them grades in college.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Considering some of the people ive met, couldve fooled me.

The Cloaked Schemer: If I’m hoping to have a grad degree within five years, I have to fast track it. I’d rather not spend much more time in undergrad than necessary.

Though I am especially resentful that, despite the fact that I am technically a sophomore, I’m considered enough of a freshman to still be required to dorm.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: That blows

But dude, ure here. Might as well try to enjoy the journey, yaknow?

The Cloaked Schemer: Oh, Arpeggio. Your naivete is too obvious sometimes. It’s sweet, I think.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: har har

The Cloaked Schemer: I am disappointed though. I was looking forward to meeting you--in a manner of speaking. You’re probably one of the most sane people from our Verum Rex server.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Issa game, bro. Some of them, idk, take it a little too seriously

The Cloaked Schemer: Well, aspects of it are worth being taken seriously, but I understand what you mean.

Though the ship wars are grating.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ha! Yeah.

The Cloaked Schemer: We’ll have to find some other time, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Mann i was hoping to see if you sound as smart as you type

The Cloaked Schemer: You flatter me.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Do you think if we lived near each other we would hang out?

The Cloaked Schemer: If it’s all the same, I’d prefer to keep my location anonymous.

At least for now.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I know. Just a hypothetical question

The Cloaked Schemer: I’d like to say yes.

But for all I know, you’re actually a forty year old serial killer who lives in his mother’s basement.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: harsh

You listen to 2 many true crime podcasts 

Anyway, I g2g. See if the roomie will let me back in. Got homework.

The Cloaked Schemer: Enjoy your night, Arpeggio.

Hopefully one of us has a good one.

Demyx closed the app and repocketed his phone. He flopped back on the lounge couch, eyes squinting at the fluorescent lights above and his limbs ragdolling in uncomfortable directions. A good night, huh? It’d be better if he could spend time in his own room without having to engage in guerilla combat whenever he wanted to exist in his own space. Wishful thinking, he thought.

__________

      Ienzo stared at the chatlog open on his computer screen. The circle next to Arpeggio’s icon turned a dull gray, and the remaining bits of Ienzo’s hope for decent conversation dulled with it. He had finally caught up enough with his classwork to have some free time to spend, finally arranged to voice chat with Arpeggio, finally gotten Demyx to leave the god-forsaken room so he could have the one conversation he’d been looking forward to for weeks , and now… nothing. All that planning, gone to waste. Another wave of irritation hit him, and suddenly he was out of bed and grabbing his keys. He needed some tea.

Ienzo didn’t get tea at the coffee shop, despite his plans. The alluring, hipster scent of pumpkin spice hit his nose instead, and he caved before he could stop himself.

The college employed students as baristas in the campus coffee shop, as part of the work-study financial aid, so it wasn’t uncommon to see one’s peers at the shop. “Hey, Ienzo,” Riku said. It was getting late; chairs were already on top of all the tables. They’d met in Ienzo’s anthropology class.

“I’m not too late, am I?”

“I can bend the rules for you.” He went back behind the counter. “What’ll it be? Your usual?”

He blushed guiltily. “Pumpkin spice. Please.” Curse that glorious, wonderful scent.

He smirked. “Coming right up.”

“I know it’s dreadfully popular.”

“Yeah, cause it’s good ,” Riku said. “As long as you’re not one of those “half-caff, no whip, vanilla and almond, five shots” type of people.”

“Why complicate coffee so much?”

Riku handed him the paper cup. “At that point, just drink coffee-flavored syrup.” There was a pleasant lull for a moment. Riku began cleaning the espresso machine. “So why are you out so late? Don’t you have an early class tomorrow?”

Ienzo grimaced. “My roommate and I got into a fight.”

“...Again?”

“We are not well suited for each other.” A sigh. “I went to the Residence Life office to try and apply for another room, but the period for that is over. I was told, and I quote, “unless he’s hurting you, tough it out.””

Riku chuckled. 

“He is simply-- obnoxious ,” Ienzo continued, the pressing need to vent taking over. “Slobby, loud, and always around at precisely the most inopportune times. I was supposed to have a call with a good friend of mine, and it took some doing just to get him out.”

“Right, your Discord friend.”

“You have a good memory.” Ienzo swished the coffee around a little; it was slightly too hot to drink.

“The one you have a crush on,” Riku said with a grin.

Ienzo flushed painfully. “I do not have feelings for him,” he said.

“Dunno. You managed to bring that call up in almost every conversation we’ve had. If he was really just your friend, would you be that excited? Enough to hype about it for weeks?”

Ienzo shrugged. “I do not know where he’s from, I don’t know his real name, I don’t even know what he looks like. For all I know, he only uses he/him pronouns online.”

“And?”

“I just… see no reason to desire something I cannot have.”

Riku wiped at the counter. “Oh, don’t be so doom and gloom,” he said. “If the call matters so much, it’s going to happen eventually.”

“I know.” He smiled. “Well, thanks for the tea and sympathy. Er, coffee and sympathy.” 

“Any time.”

“Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You too. Play nice.” 

“Just promise to bail me out if things go awry, will you?”

“Ha, on my salary?” Riku winked.

Ienzo left the coffee shop. He didn’t want to return to the dorms yet, but the fall night was calm and quiet. He checked his phone (maybe Arpeggio was free? Though he did say he had homework…).

As a stroke of luck, he had a message waiting for him.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I have a room again! \o/ 

the jerk was gone when I got back!

The Cloaked Schemer: How fortunate for you. I assume you’re flying through your homework now?

Mel0d10us N0cturn3: nope! :p 

this science paper is kicking my ass!

Im really no good at this sort of thing

The Cloaked Schemer: Do you have any tutors available? Ordinarily I’d love to help but it might be easier and more private to go there instead.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: \o/

We actually do have one of those tutoring centers I think! Thanks for the idea!

Don't want you to waste your special brain-powers on little ol’ me lol

The Cloaked Schemer: I’d hardly call helping you a waste of my “special brain powers.”

It’s not a bad idea to check your local resources though.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: o7

Don’t think I’m gonna make any progress on this paper tonight tho lol

The Cloaked Schemer: Giving up already? I didn’t have you pegged for a quitter.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Awww, come on! Don’t guilt meeee

My poor brain!

It’s mush!

;-; will you not spare some mercy for my poor mushy brain?

The Cloaked Schemer: I suppose just this once, provided you use your resources and go to the tutoring center.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: o7 Yes sir !

First thing in the morning!

My mushy brain thanks you for your mercy and endless kindness!

Ienzo’s cheeks grew warm, but whether it was from the message on the screen or the sip of pumpkin spice coffee currently running down his throat, he neither knew nor was willing to explore.

Despite the late hour, there were plenty of students milling about campus, taking up their little spaces. It had taken him some time to find an empty bench to sit on, but one eventually caught his eye and he claimed it immediately, sitting down with his coffee in one hand and phone in the other.

The sky was inky black, dotted with stars, the sun long gone by now. Nights were starting to grow just a tad chilly, the beginnings of autumn seeping into the atmosphere. It was Ienzo’s favorite season and the aroma of pumpkin spice wafting past his nose was just what he needed to make up for the disappointment of having his voice call with Arpeggio abruptly cancelled.

Well, maybe not entirely. He’d been really looking forward to hearing Arpeggio’s voice for the first time, but this did nicely enough, he supposed. It was better than sitting around stewing in annoyance over his damned roommate anyway.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: so what are you up to right now?

The Cloaked Schemer: It’s a lovely night out. I needed some tea. Got coffee instead.

What is it about pumpkin spice that’s so irresistible? 

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Never wouldve pictured YOU as a devotee of the PSL.

The Cloaked Schemer: Guilty pleasure. 

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: theyre so good. I can’t have that many of them cause caffeine makes me SLEEPY

The Cloaked Schemer: Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me at all.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: whats that supposed to mean?

The Cloaked Schemer: Nothing derogatory, I assure you.

Though the idea of you being hopped up on caffeine amuses me.

You seem like one of those people who has energy all the time.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: i wish

The Cloaked Schemer: I should--begrudgingly--head back to my room.

You should try working on that paper.

I mean it about the tutor.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: yeah, yeah. I hear ya

Hopefully your roommates not being a dick anymore

The Cloaked Schemer: Fat chance. M3l0d10us N0cturn3: enjoy your coffee~~

__________

      Demyx sat for a long time looking at that exchange. He could’ve heard Zexion say those words. He was just so painfully smart, but Demyx could listen to him say anything. About anything. For hours.

He showered and got ready for bed, hoping that Ienzo would stay gone. But as it was, he was back. Ienzo scowled in greeting.

“Nice to see you too,” Demyx muttered. He noticed the coffee cup Ienzo had set down. Ienzo seemed to live on caffeine and spite. 

“I needed to clear my head, as I do not have the luxury of privacy.”

“Well I gotta sleep somewhere,” Demyx said. He crawled into bed. Ienzo rolled his eyes. Demyx saw him grab his own shower caddy and head out to the communal bathroom. He thought he smelled--he blinked. Slowly, ever so slowly, he got up, crossed over to the cup, and sniffed it.

Of course he likes pumpkin spice lattes, Demyx thought bitterly. Ugh.

He went back to bed and fell asleep listening to music.

__________

      The universe thought it was just so funny. Demyx had taken Zexion’s advice and the tutor he’d met with was his jerk of a roommate. At least Ienzo was unhappy too, if the scowl on his insufferably nerdy face was anything to go by.

“What are you doing here?” Demyx blurted before he could stop himself.

“I work here,” his jerk of a roommate answered in response, “as a tutor, for my work study. I take it your procrastinating finally caught up to you and you need some last-minute help?” Did he really have to be so damn condescending though?

Demyx hiked his backpack strap a bit higher on his shoulder and rapped his fingers on the tutoring center's reception desk. Ienzo could glare daggers at him all he wanted from his seat at the computer behind the desk, but the curious eyes of the other tutors and students around meant that he would have to maintain decorum. They both would, lest Ienzo lose his job and Demyx lose his tutoring privileges. He took a deep breath. "I need help with a biology paper."

Ienzo's expression tightened. "Would you like to make an appointment?"

"No? You said it yourself: this is last-minute." Demyx tapped on the desk. "I need to talk to the science tutor on duty, please."

"It seems like we're both out of luck tonight, then," Ienzo replied dryly, absently clicking at something on the computer monitor. "I'm the science tutor on duty at the moment."

"You? Gross." 

"I'm not particularly happy about it right now, either."

Demyx considered his options, and cringed at his conclusions. His paper was due in two days, and it was only half-drafted. Without a passing grade on the assignment, he would set himself up to fail the class. Petty squabbles were not worth the hit to his GPA. He sighed. "Well, can you help? I'm kind of desperate, here."

Ienzo returned the sigh. "Fine. Follow me."

Demyx followed Ienzo around the reception desk to a square table in the far corner, a plastic chair on each side. Ienzo alighted onto the seat closest to the wall. "This better not be a waste of time."

Demyx pulled his laptop out of his backpack before sitting down across from Ienzo. "Has anyone ever told you that you have excellent people skills? Because if they did, they lied to you."

Ienzo rolled his eyes. Yep , Demyx thought, amazing people skills. They were off to a great start. Getting through this paper was going to be agony. "I'm paid to tutor, not practice social niceties."

The laptop screen lit up as Demyx swiped one finger over the trackpad. A screenshot from one of his more memorable raids in Verum Rex guarded the rest of his files behind his login password. Demyx typed his password as quickly as he could, shooing the image of his and Zexion's avatars away before Ienzo could ask any unwanted questions. Evidently, he did not type fast enough. 

“Verum Rex? You're familiar with it?” 

Demyx nearly jumped, shoulders tensing. He knew Ienzo was there; that shouldn’t have startled him as badly as it had.

“Duh? It's only the best MMO on the market right now. Not that you would know, since you're so committed to the whole 'smug asshole' thing,” He snarked on reflex, feeling slightly guilty about it afterwards. Ienzo was being friendly for once, or was at least making something of an attempt at it. Yikes. Demyx wasn't usually one to make low blows like that. He opened the Biology folder on his computer and selected the draft of his paper, making an effort to get along with Ienzo while they were forced to sit together. "Please help me with this? If you would be so kind, please?" Demyx made praying-hands in Ienzo's direction in apology.

Eyebrow rising - was it just one, or both? - Ienzo shot him a look, obviously unamused in the slightest. “If you’re trying to be cute, it’s not going to work.”

Demyx pouted and opened up his biology paper, turning the laptop toward Ienzo. “Fine, fine, just help me?”

Rolling his eyes yet again, Ienzo was just about to lean in to read what Demyx had so far, when the familiar sound of a Discord ping had Demyx scrambling to turn the laptop back toward himself. Shit. He’d forgotten to close his Discord window before showing up at the tutoring center.

While Demyx closed the Discord app, Ienzo watched him carefully, contemplative. “You use Discord?”

Turning the laptop back, Demyx gave him a look, half in disbelief because surely Ienzo was too much of a nerd, but not in the cool way, to know what Discord was, and yet he did. Shit, it would be really awkward to end up in a server together. “Yeah, who doesn’t use Discord these days? I mean, especially if you play games or are into, I dunno, any fan community stuff.”

For a moment, Ienzo said nothing, slowly turning to look at Demyx’s biology paper on the screen. “Alright, let’s see what we have to work with so far, if anything.”

Demyx sighed. Asshole.

__________

      Was this some kind of joke? Ienzo was being pranked, wasn’t he? Any moment now Demyx would start laughing about wasting his time and walk out, like the lazy slacker he was. Halfway through, he half collapsed on the table.

“This is impossible,” Demyx whined. “You don’t really understand this stuff, do you? You’ve gotta be lying.”

Ienzo felt his eye twitch. “Not all of us are lazy fools who give up after 15 minutes. Why are you even here?”

“Because my friend said I should, and I trust his advice. He never leads me wrong, so even if I have to spend time with you , I’m gonna do this.” 

"Your friend sounds like he has the sense that you very much lack," Ienzo deadpanned, scrolling through Demyx's paper. He took stock of the misformatted section headings, missing in-text citations, and the off-center data table in the middle of the mess. The topic of the paper did not appear in any of Demyx's written work. "Can you tell me what this assignment is supposed to be? I can't tell from what you've given me."

"It's…" Demyx shrank back in his seat. "I don't know what it's supposed to be. My professor gave us all a table of data-results-things and told us to organize and analyze them. I don't know what he wants, exactly."

Ienzo huffed, and almost slammed Demyx's computer closed on the spot. Thankfully, his better faculties kept him from breaking Demyx's laptop. "There's your problem. You can't complete an assignment if you don't know what the assignment is . Email your professor for clarification and request an extension. If you do it early enough, they might grant you leniency."

"Really? That's your advice? Beg my way out of it?"

"Not begging. Requesting. It shows forethought, self-awareness, and emotional maturity, even if you don't actually possess any of those things. The adage of faking proficiency to gain proficiency has some truth to it." Ienzo pushed the laptop over to Demyx. "Is there anything else I can help with?"

Demyx's arms crossed, and his expression took on the quality of a betrayed toddler. "You didn't even help me with what I came in for, asshole."

Ienzo waved away Demyx's indignation with a dismissive hand. "There's only so much I, or any tutor, can do without having a good idea of what your professor expects. Emailing is the best advice I can give right now."

"So if I email my professor, you’ll help me?” 

“I give you my word.” A promise made in haste, if only to appease the barest responsibilities of his job. Hopefully Demyx wouldn’t make him live to regret it.

Not long after Demyx was gone, Ienzo checked his Discord app, surreptitiously on his phone behind the reception desk, to find a message from Arpeggio.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Zexy, this worst thing ever just happened!

My roommate is my tutor!

Save meeeeeee

The Cloaked Schemer: That is peculiar. Though colleges are small worlds, so I hear.

What did he have to say re: the paper?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Ugh he couldn’t even help

Because I had licherally no idea what the professor wants

I mean, the dude has an F on ratemyprofessor so

He said to email and beg for clarity and an extension

The Cloaked Schemer: ...That is sound advice, actually.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Youre taking his side???

The Cloaked Schemer: Not exactly.

But in academic situations, it always looks good on you to take the initiative and seek help when you need it.

I guarantee the professor will work with you, and perhaps be able to refine that same assignment in the future.

If he’s worth his salt, he’s seeking to improve himself the way you are.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I GUESS

You wanna do a raid tonite? 

The Cloaked Schemer: Alas, I, too, am a college student with coursework.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: RUDE

Ienzo leaned back in his chair in the campus library. How coincidental, he thought. He’d just given Demyx the same advice. Then again, college papers--especially in the sciences--were not always diverse on the gen ed level. He recalled Demyx’s paper; he should’ve asked him to see the email, or post, or handout with the assignment on it. Chances are the moron had merely misunderstood.

Demyx liked Verum Rex. Perhaps they could have this to talk about. Ienzo wondered who he mained. Probably Yozora, he thought with a sneer. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Actually, I can do one raid.

ONE. Brief. Raid.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Thats more like it! \o/

One raid turned into two, then Ienzo ended up staying in the library, at the tutoring center, until it closed.

__________

      Demyx begrudgingly took Ienzo’s advice. After his marathon raid session with Zexion, he sent a brief email--agonizing over the wording--to his professor, who responded almost instantly with an apology. Several students had already asked him about the assignment, it turned out, so he was going to extend the entire class’s deadline. But if Demyx needed a few days after that, he could have it.

“You were right,” Demyx murmured out loud, as he read the email the next morning. 

“Of course I was,” Ienzo said, not looking up from his desk. “See? All it takes is a little maturity.”

The irony. Demyx grimaced. He looked over at him. “So you’ll help me?”

“When--and only when--I am on duty,” he said. “I have a life outside of work, you know.”

Demyx wondered how true that was. Ienzo spent a lot of the time in the room if he were not in class or in the library. Did he have friends? Did he go to societies? He nearly asked. Then he looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks. He had bags under his eyes, and was washed out, books spread in a circle around him. “Outside of studying, too?”

Ienzo opened his mouth, then shut it. “I am not here to socialize. I am here for a degree.”

“But don’t you… have any friends?”

“Of course I do,” Ienzo said, just a little too quickly. 

Like he would honestly tell Demyx. “Sure,” he said, shutting his laptop and tucking it into his bag. “Well. I got class. I’ll see you at the center later?”

“Much to my chagrin,” Ienzo responded evenly.

Demyx’s day was ordinary other than that. After the professor clarified what he wanted in class (and, to Demyx’s immense relief, it was much less daunting than what he’d thought), he stopped by the library to check out some books which might point him in a vague direction. Ienzo could tell him if they were any good. He stopped by the coffee shop to grab a croissant and a coffee, and, on impulse, got one for Ienzo as well. The idea of it made him nervous. Maybe I’ll say they made an extra by mistake, he thought. He already knew Ienzo drank them.

There Ienzo was, sitting in the office. “It’s you,” he said in an unreadable tone.

“It’s me.” He cleared his throat. “Um…” He thrust out the coffee without saying anything else.

“Is this for me?”

“Uh, yeah.” He felt his face heat--though why? 

Ienzo took it, looking confused, and sniffed the small hole in the lid. “Oh,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t sure if you liked--”

“No. I do. That was kind of you.” He blinked, his expression odd, slackened; Demyx realized it was without malice. “Let’s get to work, shall we? I don’t want this to take any longer than it has to.”

Ienzo helped him structure the paper, and reviewed proper citations with him. It would take a little work, but seeing it outlined, Demyx felt a lot less overwhelmed. Something he thought was a mammoth project would maybe take an hour or two to write.

“Once you have it written, come back and I can help you with grammar and syntax,” Ienzo said.

“Awesome.” He took a deep breath. “I feel… a lot better now.”

“One typically does when one stops procrastinating,” Ienzo said. He leaned back in his seat. For a second--but just one--he sounded like Zexion, all firm and proper, genteel without being rigid.

__________

      "You got your grade back already?"

Demyx beamed as he held his laptop screen-out, his browser logged into the university's online grading system. One score was listed under BIO 101, labelled "Paper 1." The percentage displayed next to the assignment name was higher than Ienzo expected from Demyx. "I didn't completely fail!" he practically cheered.

"So you didn't," Ienzo agreed, nodding slightly at the number from his desk. "It's amazing what a bit of work will do."

Demyx dropped himself onto his bed and turned his laptop. He bounced on the mattress a few times while he looked at the number. "This is the best news I've gotten all semester and it's the best feeling. Is this what it's like to be a genius and get good grades all the time?"

Ienzo returned his attention to his own laptop, where a half-drafted essay mocked him with its blinking text cursor and nonsensical thesis statement. He clacked another line of bullshit into the document. It was for English class, he reminded himself. Any answer was correct if it could be argued well. "No, not really. You get used to it."

"I… I should thank you," Demyx said, after a beat of silence. "For your help. I wouldn't have had anything to turn in at all if you hadn't told me to email my professor."

Another line of bullshit trailed across the screen. Ienzo squinted at it, unsure of what he had typed. "Don't mention it. It's my job."

"But still. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Ienzo could hear Demyx shuffling on his bed. "So… you play Verum Rex?"

"Fairly regularly, yes."

"Do you do raids or multiplayer at all?"

Ienzo shot Demyx a warning glance. "I already have a raiding group. I'm not looking for another one."

Across the room, Demyx had tucked himself into bed, his Star Wars sheets pulled all the way up to his chin. He blinked at Ienzo unceremoniously. "Jeez, forget I asked. No need to be snippy about it."

Demyx's head disappeared under the covers, and Ienzo returned his attention to his essay. At least, he tried. The Discord notifications in the corner of his screen kept distracting him.

Eventually, Ienzo admitted defeat and opened Discord. All of the messages were from Arpeggio.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: hey, do we have an opening on our raiding party?

Zexion?

Oh nvm he said no

What are you up to?

I'm taking a victory nap after getting a good grade on that paper I had to 

write a while back

My roommate is typing something and he's so loud

What is he writing that makes him so angy

The Cloaked Schemer: I am also typing angrily at something

It is a universal collegiate experience

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: still so angy tho

Are you angy atm?

The Cloaked Schemer: I am… frustrated

I'm meant to be dissecting the themes in a short story but I feel like I'm only spewing garbage on the page

Perhaps if I present the garbage with enough conviction, I will be able to maneuver through this class

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: if youre writing it, it's definitely not garbage :P

you need to have more confidence in yourself, Zexy

The Cloaked Schemer: Ha. I think my roommate would disagree

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: well then he's a bum

Tell him that

Arpeggio says so

Ienzo looked back at Demyx, cocooned in spaceship bed sheets and doing who-knows-what under the cover of bed linens. He thought he saw the flash of a phone screen through the fabric, but the light disappeared as quickly as he caught it.

The Cloaked Schemer: I'll pass. He seems busy.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Busy doing what? Bum things?

The Cloaked Schemer: I certainly hope not. We're in the same room right now.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: oh. Awkward

The Cloaked Schemer: I’ll say.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: so you know ive been thinking

The Cloaked Schemer: Have you? What a concept.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: ha ha.

Its been a while since we tried voice chatting

Maybe we could try again?

The Cloaked Schemer: You would want that?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I want to hear your voice. To see if youre actually as smart as you write

Maybe youve got, like, a transatlantic accent, or something. Thatd be cool

Ienzo blinked, staring hard at the screen. His heart beat a little faster. It was so hard to determine tone through text. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Maybe I’m not as cool as I seem.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: highly, HIGHLY doubt it

Youve kept me sane

I really appreciate our

Ienzo saw him type “thing” and then frenetically edit to “friendship.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

The Cloaked Schemer: The feeling is mutual.

A long, long pause. Ienzo did not know what else to say. His face was burning.

The Cloaked Schemer: Normally I’d rather be caught dead than admit this.

But it does get somewhat lonely here.

It’s nice to have someone to talk to.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: I know what u mean

Sometimes i feel like i dont really know who i am

And like college is supposed to be about finding that

But its hard.

The Cloaked Schemer: You don’t have to tell me twice.

Part of why it’s so easy to exist in online spaces, in games. Appearance doesn’t matter. It’s like being a more concentrated version of oneself.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Do u feel like a more concentrated version of yourself?

The Cloaked Schemer: When I talk to you.

Ienzo’s heart was pounding. He thought he heard Demyx sigh across the room. Was he typing too hard?

Arpeggio started and stopped typing several times, just making Ienzo more nervous. What is he going to say? Did I push it too hard? Was I too forward?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Me too, Zexion

I wish we knew each other. Like, irl

Getting to do raids in person

That would be so fun

And i dunno, maybe do other things

Go out to eat. Go to the movies. Maybe go dancing.

Do u like clubs?

The Cloaked Schemer: I’ve never been.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: it takes some getting used to

But the energy of a crowd is electric

Especially with people you know

Oh god oh god oh god , Ienzo thought. His hands were trembling. 

The Cloaked Schemer: Where would we go to eat?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: anywhere you want

Well. on a college students budget anyway

-laughs in poor

The Cloaked Schemer: Ah, so, five star cuisine, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Just dont order the lobster

In all seriousness. We need to vc sometime

The Cloaked Schemer: Yes.

There’s going to be a raid event on Saturday. Perhaps then?

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Depends on if i have the room :/ 

Wanna say yes so bad

The Cloaked Schemer: I know the feeling.

I suppose if I get desperate enough I can rent out a study cubicle in the library.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Awww you’d do that for little ol’ me?

The Cloaked Schemer: Yes, I

His finger slipped, hitting the enter key a moment too soon before he could even finish the thought in his head. His hands felt almost clammy, the inner mechanizations of his mind working on overdrive, as if trying to race against the pitter-patter beat of his heart. Shit. Perhaps… Riku was right after all? Had Ienzo, usually so level-headed, actually developed a crush on Arpeggio? It was utterly nonsensical, and yet he couldn’t deny that he felt a comfort with Arpeggio that he didn’t feel with anyone else he knew, online or offline. Was it possible to fall- ...to develop a smattering of feelings for someone based on typed text alone?

Well, wasn’t that a theme in literature? Two people falling in love over written letters? For all Ienzo knew, there could very well have been instances of it happening in real life, in the days of old, long, long before the age of technology and the internet. A pair of penpals, miles and miles of distance between them, communicating through the written word; it could happen, couldn’t it?

Hold on. When the hell did he turn into a sap ? Frowning, Ienzo ran a hand over his face, feeling like a lovestruck fool.

No. No, this couldn’t be a crush. Just because it was so easy to talk to him, just because they’d been talking for a year or so by now, it didn’t mean-

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Zexy?

You ok?

Shit, how long had he zoned out for? 

The Cloaked Schemer: Sorry. Got distracted.

But regardless, I think we should aim for Saturday.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Great!

Hoping we don’t get interrupted by our dick roomies

The Cloaked Schemer: Quite. It’s a date, then.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Yes :3

Ienzo took a deep breath. Regardless as to whether or not this was practical, it seemed that Arpeggio reciprocated his flirting.

Wait. Ienzo looked at the screen, cheeks heating up as he realized he’d typed the word ‘date,’ and Arpeggio said ‘yes .’ He couldn’t deny the little flutter of his stomach in that moment.

__________

      Demyx set his phone aside, his heart beating heavily in his chest, his face bright red. He swallowed. There was no way sleep would come easily now, and it probably wouldn’t be until Saturday.

He thought about the nature of crushes. He’d never seen Zexy’s face, or heard his voice, but he was so adept at weaving words in the way Demyx wanted to be with music. He tried to imagine him, what he might be like.

He rolled onto his back. Ienzo’s frenetic, noisy typing had stopped. Demyx sat up, rubbed his eyes, and pretended he’d been napping the whole time. “You good?”

Ienzo shut his computer quickly, like he’d been doing something questionable. “Yes. Fine.” He was a little out of breath. What the hell had he been writing?

Demyx blinked. “I’m gonna go get a coffee,” he said instead. “Want me to bring you one back?”

“Sure,” Ienzo said, his face flushed.

Demyx shook his head. Well. If Ienzo needed to take care of that he had at least a few minutes now. “Cool.”

The whole time he was at the coffee shop, he kept thinking about Zexion, all their little conversations. It was evolving, and evolving fast. Demyx knew from brief experimentation with dating apps that just because a person sent you some flirty words didn’t mean anything would come of it. For all he knew, Zexion lived in New Zealand, or something.

That didn’t stop him from wanting it.

He drew a deep breath, exhaled. Well. Saturday he would find out.

Demyx wasn’t going to let Ienzo ruin his chances of meeting Zexion. He decided to strike preemptively, pausing at the door of their dorm room and sucking in a breath, steeling himself. He could do this. He could ask his roommate for the room for one night, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Hey, so, I have a thing Saturday,” he said vaguely. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t coming off as strongly as he intended, but he could still try. “Mind if I hang here alone for a few hours?”

Ienzo glanced up. The flush was gone, and he seemed much more composed. “Yes, that’s fine. I was going to go study anyway.”

“Study? Don’t you ever have any fun?”

“Perhaps I find studying fun,” Ienzo said.

“Suit yourself.” As he passed on his way back to the bed, he saw out of the corner of his eye that Ienzo had Discord open.

__________

     Friday night, Demyx barely slept. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous. Crushes didn’t usually… hit him this hard. It’s dumb. It’s so dumb. His loneliness was getting to him. Even Saturday morning, there were some hours until the events started. He looked at his DM history with Zexion. They’d spoken briefly, only to confirm a time and place for their characters to meet and chat. He sat at his desk, his hands trembling, as the game booted up.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: You ready?

The Cloaked Schemer: Of course.

M3l0d10us N0cturn3: Cool.

My mic isnt like great

But you can still hear me

He was shaking. He was shaking. “Get it together,” he muttered to himself.

The Cloaked Schemer: You’re a broke college student. I’m not expecting a professional setup here.

Though I will say my booth is pleasantly soundproofed.

Let me connect.

And Demyx thought his heart might stop. I’m so gay, he thought. A second later he heard that familiar call connection. He twitched a little, and his mic clattered loudly on the floor. Shit!

“Arpeggio? Are you alright?”

“I just dropped the--”

A long, long pause.

He knew that voice.

“Zexion?” He picked up the mic and set it down.

“Arpeggio?”

“I dropped the mic.” Demyx swallowed.

“You…” Zexion fumbled for words. “Speak a little more, please.”

“Is that really you?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re in a library right now.”

“And you had an event… Saturday.” 

“Ohh my god,” Demyx mumbled. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, just that he was feeling a lot of it. “Ienzo. You’re Zexion?”

“It’s an anagram,” he said, his tone numb.

“Seriously, this whole time--”

“Evidently.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but at the same time, there was something warm in his chest.

Wait, no. No. This was Ienzo, and they hated each other--

Demyx realized he was panicking. He also, vaguely, in the back of his mind, realized the call had disconnected.

Demyx spent the next few minutes desperately trying to control his breathing, trying to not focus on how Zexion- No, Ienzo- was so disgusted it was him that he’d immediately dropped the call.

Of course. Of fucking course. The universe hated him. The universe had it out for him, surely. Why else would this have happened? He finally meets this sweet, smart, wonderful guy who takes him seriously and actually likes talking to him, on a regular basis , and then… And then… It turns out to be the very same roommate who hates him. That would just be his damned luck, wouldn’t it?

Grabbing his pillow, Demyx face-planted into it, pressing it furiously against his eyes to stop them from burning, to stop the tears that threatened to spill. Of all the people it could’ve been. Why Ienzo ? 

Demyx had been nervous enough as it was, afraid the person on the other end would think him annoying - his voice, his tone, the way he just couldn’t fucking shut up sometimes when he got excited about something. Alternatively, the filter between his brain and his mouth was immensely weaker than the filter between his brain and his fingers, and he could’ve said the wrong thing, unable to stop himself in the same way his hand can catch itself on the enter key before hitting it, or quickly delete the message before Zexion could read it.

But this was so much worse, because Ienzo already knew him, already had an impression of him, and that impression was far from good. It’s no wonder he disconnected the call so suddenly. He likely couldn’t stand hearing the truth any longer, stomach churning with disgust, head filled to bursting with regret, and not just regret over the voice call, but everything .

An almost entire year’s worth of conversations, soiled now, because Demyx was, well, Demyx . A slob. A slacker. An idiot. He wasn’t worth Ienzo’s time, and now he knew he wasn’t worth Zexion’s.

A sharp ache spread over his chest, cold and numbing, all of him tense with it. He… liked Zexion. He very genuinely liked him, so excited to get to talk to him, his bristling nerves aside. All week he’d thought about it, daydreaming, wondering what the person on the other end would sound like, if he’d love that voice as much as he loved the text on his Discord screen.

It no longer mattered, not when it was now clear that Zexion - no, Ienzo , was utterly disgusted with him.

It was over. It was all over - their friendship, a year’s worth of personal conversations, these budding feelings he was beginning to have, or that he’s been having for a while now…

On the flipside, was Demyx disappointed that it turned out to be Ienzo? He… didn’t know the answer to that, still reeling in the fact that Zexion, his dear friend and crush, hated him. The pillow was starting to suffocate him and he instinctively pulled it away from his face, eyes still burning. He sucked in some deep breaths and just when he was finally on the cusp of calming down, his door swung open so fast Demyx feared it’d break off the hinges. 

Ienzo leveled him with a determined stare. “You.”

__________

      Ienzo sat.

And sat.

And stared, and sat some more.

He was dizzy. Slowly, so slowly, all the pieces clicked together. The coffee. The references to Verum Rex. How they were always just missing each other. The whole tutoring scenario. Good god . So this person he’d been harboring feelings for this whole time was--

He pressed a hand to his forehead. And yet, a small part of him… was relieved?

It could be…

No, it couldn’t be anything! They hated each other! They’d complained to each other about each other more times than Ienzo could count. They had--

Ienzo felt the walls of the study booth begin to close in around him, pushing the breathable air out of the room. His ribcage constricted around his lungs, and his heartbeat pounded at his temples. He gathered his laptop and microphone in his arms and burst out of the room, chest heaving.

He braced himself against the outer wall of the study booth and willed himself to breathe normally, his head tilted all the way back to rest on the door. This was real life, and he was fine. He would be fine, anyway, with a bit of finessing. Okay, perhaps a little more than a bit.

Ienzo retrieved his backpack and stowed his equipment inside as he analyzed the situation. Arpeggio and Demyx were the same person. A strange revelation, but not world-ending. He could find another raiding party. He could join another server. There was more than one person with whom to play Verum Rex.

But--

Ienzo caught himself zipping and unzipping the top pocket of his backpack, more forcefully than necessary each time. A new server didn't sound appealing. A new raiding party, even less so. He would have to chat with new people, learn their idiosyncrasies and fighting styles, learn their pseudonyms and remember how they differed from their usernames. It all sounded so… hard, and boring, and unnecessary. 

He zipped his backpack closed for the last time and held it at his side by its tiny top handle. Its back straps kicked at his calves as he raced out of the study area, through the main lobby, and into the courtyard. His mind was set. His choice was clear. The only thing to do was follow through.

Ienzo made a beeline back to the room. He found Demyx sitting cross-legged on his own bed, his computer accessorized with a small budget microphone and his face awash with something that looked like guilt. His eyes widened when Ienzo crossed the threshold. 

"You." Ienzo's statement rang out like a gong.

Demyx swallowed. "Yeah?"

"We need to talk." Ienzo shut the door behind himself. It slammed closed, though Ienzo had not intended for that. 

"...yeah." Demyx turned back to his computer, fiddling at the USB port where his microphone connected to the rest of the machine. "Ienzo, I--"

"Shut up." Ienzo stalked into the room, single-minded. He stopped at the edge of Demyx's bed. "Shut up and listen, for once."

Demyx's shoulders rose to his ears. He stayed quiet.

Ienzo dropped his backpack to the floor. Though his fingers trembled, his resolve held firm. The moment of reckoning was upon him. "Did you know?"

Demyx shook his head.

"Did you want to know?"

He responded in a whisper, pained and hushed. "I wanted to meet Zexion."

Ienzo's hands trembled faster. He balled them into fists to compensate. "And now that you know," he said, "do you regret it? Wanting to know? Learning the truth?"

A tear trailed down Demyx's downcast cheek. "No."

Something deep inside Ienzo wanted to reach out and wipe away the tears that followed, while Demyx's breath caught in gasps over his laptop keyboard. Ienzo steeled himself. "I… don't regret it, either."

"You don't?" Demyx looked up and met Ienzo's gaze with caution. Aside from the red tinge at their edges, his eyes looked almost hopeful. 

Ienzo softened, relaxed his fists. "I don't want to find a new server, or a new raiding party."

Sniffling, Demyx nodded. "I don't, either."

"I don't want to stop talking to Arpeggio," Ienzo continued, his heart playing timpanis in his chest. "He is a close friend of mine."

"He's also your lazy roommate." Another tear escaped, this time going down the side of Demyx's nose. Demyx wiped at it with the heel of his hand. "Ienzo, I--"

"We've had differences. We've also had commonalities, albeit in virtual space. There's no reason we cannot bring the two together."

"Ienzo--"

"There's no reason we should be at each other's throats. We--"

"Ienzo!" 

He blinked. The drum performance in his chest missed a beat, then started from the top at full speed. "Yes?"

Demyx unplugged the microphone from his computer, sighed, and tossed it to the far edge of his bed. "I don't think that will work."

Ienzo frowned and crossed his arms. He was beginning to remember why he and Demyx didn't get along in meatspace. "Why, pray tell, is that?" he asked.

Demyx swallowed again, more conspicuously than before. "It's just… I…"

Ienzo leaned forward, his head cocked to the side. "You what?"

"I, um, I…"

"Go on. I don't have all night."

Demyx pushed his computer aside and drew his knees into his chest. "I… shit. I had a thing for Zexion." His shoulders hitched with sardonic laughter. "Shit. Fuck. This sucks." He reached behind himself for his pillow and buried his face in it. "This is so embarrassing," he whined, his voice muffled.

Ienzo's budding anger deflated. "You… you did?"

Demyx nodded into his pillow. "Uh-huh. And now you know, too."

Ienzo opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't make the words in his head form coherent phrases. His throat sputtered with half-formed consonants instead. Words. For fuck’s sake, wasn’t he good at words? Why was this suddenly so damn hard?

"This is the worst," Demyx groaned. "Just kill me now. Make it look like an accident. Tell my family I loved them. Don't let my sister take my bedroom at home."

Ienzo's faculties returned in the bumbling, clumsy way that drunkards stumbled home from dank local pubs. "I... don't think that will be necessary," Ienzo managed, through his own confusion.

"No?" Demyx put his pillow back in its place, and faced Ienzo with dried saline clumping in his eyelashes. "What, are you gonna torture me instead? Make me regret being born? Because you're a little late on that front, buddy, I already do."

Ienzo took a deep breath. His crossed arms dropped to his side, then held each other at the elbows. "I may have developed… similar feelings. For Arpeggio." Ienzo's mouth went dry. The drum performance upgraded itself to a full marching band drumline, twenty-five snare drums pounding paradiddles and rolls in synchronized sweeps. 

A silence consumed the space between them, interrupted only by Demyx's sniffling and Ienzo's heartbeat. It stretched into the abyss and the stratosphere in equal measure, and stung more acutely than the idea of never speaking to Arpeggio again.

Demyx broke the silence by clearing his throat. "So…"

Ienzo coughed. "So..."

"Are we…" Demyx unfolded his legs and swung them over the side of his bed. His hands grasped at his mattress, and his head hung from his shoulders  "Are we, y'know… do we still, like…"

"Do you want to be?" Ienzo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Friends, cohorts, party members, server mutuals? Or…"

"Or what?" 

"Or…" Ienzo trailed off. Or what, indeed? Friends with benefits? Significant others? Boyfriends? The mere thought made Ienzo's palms sweat. "Or…"

In the moment between Ienzo's efforts to name his emotions and act on them, Demyx had sprung up from the bed and slipped his hands around the sides of Ienzo's face, his thumbs resting just below the apples of Ienzo's cheeks. His breath tickled at Ienzo's nose and lips. "Or… this?"

Heat seared at every inch of Ienzo's face. If he could feel Demyx's breath, Demyx could feel his as well. "...I suppose, yes."

"In that case," Demyx murmured, somehow purring and wavering at the same time, "tell me no." He rested his forehead on Ienzo's. "Tell me no, and we won't. I promise. Things can go back to normal."

A whimper, wholly undignified and unbidden, escaped from Ienzo's higher register. "I can't," he whispered.

Demyx leaned forward, and Ienzo followed. At some point, they met in the middle, and the world's axis shifted two degrees to the left. It was a tentative press of lips, but Demyx’s hands on his face kept him anchored. It didn’t feel like Ienzo thought it would, and self-consciousness invaded. Suddenly Ienzo felt very young and immature; vulnerable .

But… after a moment or so, not so much. Demyx was so warm against him, and Ienzo realized it was a learning curve, one he was picking up with his usual speed. He was shaking a little in disbelief. It was so-- nice.

Demyx pulled away and brushed his fingers across his cheek. "You're trembling."

"Forgive me. I--" He swallowed.

"No, it's cool." Demyx pulled away and smiled, brighter than Ienzo had ever seen someone smile before. "Do you… want to go again?"

Ienzo did, very much so. "I'm not opposed, per se, but I think we should… explore our relationship a bit. Perhaps starting with our mutual interest in pumpkin spice flavors." 

“Sounds like a plan to me, Zexy,” Demyx grinned.

__________

      Riku set the pair of pumpkin spice lattes down on the little square table in the back corner of the coffeeshop, glancing at Ienzo, then Demyx, then back at Ienzo, one eyebrow shooting up into his hair. “Is the world ending? Did I miss a memo on the corkboard in the back room?”

Ienzo coughed. He was vaguely aware of the heat rising in his cheeks. Damn it all to hell. Of course Riku was here, why would it have been anyone else? Sighing, he gestured to Demyx, bracing himself for the inevitable bit of humiliation, courtesy of the one friend who knew about his very apparent crush on his Discord friend. “Riku, meet Arpeggio.”

Riku’s other eyebrow shot up into his hair. “You’re shitting me.”

Demyx looked across the table at Zexion, clearly trying to fight the incoming of a shit-eating grin. “You talked about me to people?”

"Only the unimportant ones," Ienzo said, picking up his cup and sipping loudly.

“Psh,” Riku spat with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, and every damn minute of the day. If I had a dollar for every time you made heart eyes at the ceiling while talking about him, I could quit this job and pay off my tuition.”

Ienzo balked at that, nearly choking on his latte. “It was not that often.”

Waving a hand, Riku corrected himself, looking pointedly at Demyx. “Wait, no, he’s right. I’m forgetting that half the time, he’d be complaining about his horrible room-”

“Shouldn’t you be behind the counter?” Ienzo hissed, glaring at Riku. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Demyx’s gaze flicking between him, like he was watching a game of ping-pong. “Or should I text Sora and Kairi about all those little hearts you like to draw around their names on the garbage receipts every time they come in?”

"Go ahead. I'm ninety percent sure they're both into me, anyway."

Ienzo pulled his phone from his pocket and brandished it at Riku. "Are you willing to test that theory?"

"Make sure you write it down," Demyx chirped, blowing into the hole in his drink's lid. "If you write it down, it's science. I learned that in Biology this semester."

"I'll do more than that," Ienzo said, tapping on his phone screen with both hands. After his phone played a short 'whoosh' sound, he placed it face-down on the table. "Images sent. Now we wait for our results."

Riku scoffed, then balked, then turned beet-red. "You're an asshole," he hissed through his teeth.

"Relax. I was just kidding,” Ienzo said with a glint in his eye that Demyx barely caught.

"Forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical." Riku scowled for a moment, but eventually softened into a smirk. "Whatever. Enjoy your Discord date, Casanova." He knocked on the table once before returning to the checkout counter.

"Discord date?" Demyx asked, taking a swig of his pumpkin spice latte. "I thought we were hanging out in real life."

"Let's not split hairs. We're about to see a show." Ienzo jutted his chin in the direction of the cafe's front door. As if on cue, Sora and Kairi burst through it like a duo on a mission.

“Oh Riiiiiiiiku!” they chorused in sing-song at the top of their lungs.

"Sometimes," Ienzo said, turning back to Demyx, "I like to watch the world burn."

“Yeah, I know. That’s actually kind of hot,” Demyx admitted, taking another sip of his latte. "Remind me not to piss you off again, though."

#Zemyx #Demyx #Ienzo #Zexion #Kingdom Hearts #fanfiction #Zemyx Day #Zemyx Day 2020

[rqs902]

.

watching xikan on the 娱乐新鲜派,  一起爬墙吧 , and sina 娛情实验室 interviews just made me appreciate him even more. his snarky, playful side contrasts well with his caring, protective side. and i feel like we saw more of the former during ip and we’re seeing more of the latter during snzm. both are nice to see, but i miss his silly fun side and im grateful he still has it in him to act cocky in a non-snobby, but rather joking way but also speak like a true friend about how he feels about his friends who have found success post ip.

aw my child is on the front page :’)

ugh im surprised only xikan was so determined to use this opportunity to save people who need saving.... but i guess that shows how much he really values the opportunity and his friends who are not popular 

aw im glad linjie immediately corrected the interviewer who said that he has 3 geges in CTO to 6.... at first ngl i was wondering if had moved on from being friends with them, but im glad he hasnt forgotten. even zixin was so surprised zlj called him lol

aw i like that the team 7 group is all together still :’) rip enyu and linkai’s popularity tho. enyu always coming through with the realest quotes every ep. yes this is basically a test of how social you’ve been with the popular kids :\

AW WENXUAN PICKING XUE EN was such a good move on his part, i approve. but also i didnt realize they were close? LOL but like considering where they are, who xue en is, and who else in the group already? a good move.

hHAHAHAH I DONT THINK IVE EVER SEEN LIN MO THIS HAPPY awwww so first i didnt realize kou cong was doing so well, #11 good for him!!! but also this makes more sense as to why jin fan is the only tyger who didnt get picked into this group.... lin mo picked akey and kou cong picked zhan yu, which both make sense as individual decisions but then leaves out jin fan, unfortunately. but MAN they have a well-rounded group.... but seeing jin fan as the only tyger in the lower half votes area and also as the only one who didnt get picked to be in this group? a group that has a song style that he should try to pursue rather than being cast as a vocal AGAIN? hurts. the tygers are the ones who are most likely to save him and theyre all in a different group from him? ouch. i hope hes made enough friends so someone else will save him then... 

wow i didnt realize chaowen was close with shiwei, the cto kids are close with all the popular kids LOL but also im heavily surprised chaowen didnt pick ylq?? when i saw cyc and chaowen on one side and ylq on the other, i felt sad but thought theyd pick him for sure, because he needs saving. // oh i guess it makes sense ycw says he doesnt want to pick between ylq and cyc but still... ylq needs your help more, i feel like itd make sense? but its okay im happy he picked shiwei to help demonstrate further how much the cto kids are helping these popular kids!!! 

i appreciate sxl for choosing to save mxy over choosing a song he wanted most. ugh sad it didnt work out. but he couldve tried harder to pick a song mxy wouldve wanted, if he was gonna switch his choice anyway?? hmm i feel like mxy probably shouldve gone with sxl though... at least he could be saved next round and possibly get more screentime by being associated with someone whos more popular

oof ybz being salty about liu cong and relating it to cxh being salty over xzx.... as someone whos been on the other side of that, i think people should be able to have a best friend but still hang out with other people and make other friends? I dont think it should be restricted like that :\ hes so salty omg.... idk i dont think its a good look for him but maybe thats bc i disagree with his viewpoint about friendship. 

LOL THE VOCALIST ROOM OF LI HAO, RENYU, LI CHENXU, JUNRONG, XU ZHAOHAO SINGING TONG HUA HAHAHAHHAHAH

HAHAHAH SU ER IS SO EXTRA like omgomg you picked me you picked me! and oscar’s just like... well.... hHAHAHHhah but id like to think that oscar remembered su er’s tears from ep 1 and kept his sadness to heart. maybe :) 

AYYYY RENYU being the highest ranked vocal in that room of vocalists :’) AHHH AND ENYU IS JOINING THEIR GROUP YESSSSS THIS IS GONNA BE THE BEST VOCAL PERFORMANCE EVER 

man its just like what youd expect, the rest of the group choosing gets like fast forwarded to the end lol but yay for cyc and ylq being able to pick the same group tho... even tho it doesnt seem like the type of style theyve done before? i guess that could possibly be a good thing? but man i wish sbh got to do another cool stage :\

OSCAR ATTACKING HONG WEIHAO WITH A BACK HUG I LOVE FRIENDSHIP

wait so the lower rank kids dont get to pick people, its just individual choice at that point? well at least jin fan got to pick a song he wanted :’) at least he’ll get to actually dance this time... (pls let him do some bboying pls let him do some bboying) 

oh rip this mxy hyj group :( feels bad to be the leftover kids.... mxy probably shouldve just gone with sxl....... i saw a post where someone said ofc its a star master trainee keeping this group together and leading their practice - loll..................

lol these closeups at the end are so obviously biased they dont even bother showing the faces of half the group members :( 

AW JIN FAN HOLDING THE TYGER SIGN 

even if jin fan is sad at least he has a good attitude about it ><

im crying they literally only included this group’s intros bc youku enjoys watching hyb get personally attacked LOL not that im complaining AT ALL HAHHAHAHAH i love this group already and i love how all the kids have hopped on the lin mua train :’) im cheng xiao laughing my butt off watching them HAHAH but also im 99% sure jin fan is the one who taught zhan yu to sing that line in cantonese 1) bc its cantonese but 2) bc jin fan ALWAYS sang that song in past interviews when asked to do a personal talent LOL my best brooos

real talk tho when will we ever get a zhan yu and jin fan stage? :( 

well everyones super shook that this was 1.5 hrs of song selection and we didnt get any stages... idk if theyre gonna stuff 8 stages into tomorrow’s ep but if they dont i will be worried about skewed voting yet again so hopefully they figured it out somehow.... 

#rants

[formless-monkeys]

1 So Otto being autistic is something I've accepted as canon (haha yeah sorry Ciro, no takin' that from me now) and you've made me kind of fond of Antauri being autistic too. MAY I PRESENT, HOWEVER: Mandarin being somewhere on the spectrum, too.

2 This is potentially why he considered Otto HIS "closest ally," but Otto didn't consider him to be his. Mandy could've felt Otto was the only person he didn't have to stifle himself around (since Otto clearly wouldn't have been taught to do so like I suspect Mandy and Tauri were by the Verans, and would never judge him anyway), whereas Otto just saw him as another pal.

3 ALSO, some of Skelemandarin's behavior when he was really happy in I, Chiro could almost be taken as like. Monkey-flapping. (This entire idea is 100% your fault by the way; your post describing your antics when you cosplayed Skelemandy made me THINK, the nerve of you.)

Haha. Haha.

May have thought about this during class.

Mandarin would've spent a good chunk of his time trying to live up to neurotypical standards. Knowing him, he might have taken "I shouldn't act/think like this" down to the core. He'd have to brute force his way through training, repeating lessons not made for people who think like him until he eventually got it. He had to be perfect or else he wasn't good enough for the Verons. He'd come out of training a master of the power primate, with perfect form and perfect precision... but all that repression would lead to a lot of but up energy. He wouldn't allow himself to stim to get rid of it, he wouldn't leave stressful situations because 'normal monkeys can put up with this', so he'd attempt to bottle up the feelings, or use then during battle. It would likely manifest in lashing out at others and a need for control.

Antauri was probably already quiet, so would probably have less trouble conforming to the standards. He wouldn't need to take the conformity to heart, so he would take the lessons and reinterpret them in a way he could understand. He would still be a master of the power primate, but his form would be of his own creation. Using your hands to manipulate the power could've been seen as a sign of someone lesser skilled, but in reality, he was equally matched with Mandarin. He was still raised in an environment where his behaviors were discouraged, so he likely had shame associated with his stims, only allowing himself to do it in private. You cant be reprimanded if they dont see you doing it. Meditation would be the best way for him to recharge from all the sensory hell that he has to deal with every day. He was quiet before, and might've been encouraged to speak more, so he began using quotes from the readings of the Verons. He thinks they make him sound wise (and they do). One must show their best selves to the world, but your best self isnt what the world wants. You put together scripts and predetermined responses to make a best self to show the world what they want. (Aka how I've survived 16 years, haha fake it till you make it!)

Mandarin and Antauri could be on opposite ends of the 'empathy' part of the autism spectrum. Mandarin may need to work hard to read other people's feelings, and may make assumptions that aren't true, "I brute force my way through new sensations, Nova can do that too, by being in the elements to learn to face them!" "Surely the rest of the team thinks we should have more control over everything, right?" "Otto doesn't mind some of the things I'm incredibly shameful about, we must be BESTIES" he probably comes across as rude, when really he just has no idea the impact of what he's saying, it just sounds really cool.

Wheras Antauri seems to be good at reading people, and follows the extreme empath person trend of "I must become therapist/parent figure/support to make them feel better, even if it hurts me." Bottling up your feelings isn't healthy my dude.

Otto, on the COMPLETE other end of things, was just bound by Gibson and Sprx. He could flap his hands and climb around and use his feet for stuff and the other two monkeys would just be like "aight, sure". The worst he'd get is a bit of dismissal if they think he's being annoying... which. It kinda sounds like he's gotten from Gibson, even during the show. (Kinda blanking on if Sparx did this, and I could probably make a whole other post on just Otto). He thinks along the same logic as Mandarin and Antauri, but without the shame being drilled into him. He's a perfect engineer, finding creative solutions and quickly too!

He's probably SUPER empathetic, but not the best at showing it. He makes gadgets and gifts for his friends but really doesnt know how to help on the emotional side of things. He cares just as much but shows it a little differently.

After training with the Verons and working with the team, Mandarin would've latched onto Otto like a fly to sugar. He would've been drowning in shame and self-hatred and Otto would've been the closest thing to a life raft. (Even though antauri would understand just as much. Mandarin might not trust him to not judge because they both had the same training and Antauri doesn't display as openly as otto. Or maybe he misinterpreted something Antauri said as 'oh, he hates these tendencies too!') He was probably so starved for positive affirmation, that he latched on to every source of it he could. (Probably a reason the Chiro clones were Like That to Mandarin) Otto naturally wants to help him, but Mandarin's issues are a giant pile of dirt and Otto has a spoon. If he was more open and honest with the team, they couldve helped him, or worked with him... but he wasn't. He kept as much of it inside as he could, until it manifested in into trying to medicate the feeling of being out of crlontrol. With trying to control the entire city...

Fun thing about certain types of autism, is that being kept in one place, not allowed to move, not allowed to speak, with only your mind to occupy you. It's hell. It is actually hell. Understimulation is a special type of hell.

So glad that after the Verons were destroyed Skelemandarin was able to stim during I, Chiro. Probably was the best moment of his life before being thrown into the OTHER type of sensory hell, overstimulation. The walls are 29394 neon colors and the floor is sticky and squishy and you're actually starving and you're alone and its loud and you keep getting attacked by sticky squirmy monsters.

I'm so glad my cosplaying shenanigans sparked this. This headcanon is... v important to me.

Also, based on this massive ramble; Otto loves mint and Antauri hates mint.

#monkey based ramblings #funny that this hc is for Mandy and his two biggest monkey team ships #by this logic we're coming for Valeena and Sakko next #srmthfg

[kitsunebishake]

Why Hríd is such an amazing character who just got done wrong during his “character arc” (SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK II AND FORGING BONDS)

WARMING: THIS IS JUST ONE LONG ASS LOVEMAIL POST FOR HRÍD

this was originally written as a thread on twitter but i’ll try my best to put it all here because someone asked for it some time ago

I’m putting it here because @chascah suggested i uploaded it here as well for those people who actually appreciate the icy boy

this is basically an analysis to most if not every quote from hríd, also adding some translations and little details from the japanese quotes (and some lore behind the whole idea of hríd’s new year alt)

let’s start then!

lemme start with the fact that hríd only appeared in 3 out of 13 chapters, yet is the character that caught my interest the most (funny because i already had a crush on alfonse, then i saw hríd and was like "oh, hello there")

hríd arrived like a half-dead yet somehow composed prince who somehow (x2) survived by himself in múspell for weeks (maybe even months, there's no exact timeline but it is canon that alfonse and the others spent some weeks in nifl, it probably also took them a while to navigate through múspell until loki arrived as ylgr)

he served as some kind of excuse to not put bruno too much with the main characters, practically a messenger only despite this guy being alive with burns and a broken sword (the crack on gjöll's blade hurts bc he couldve actually lost his sword and ended up defenseless in battle oof)

so, there was no really much use of his character other than being a magical solution for everything

he even helped unmask loki (though they never explain why hríd suspected of ylgr, we only know loki's own take)

btw, can we talk about the fact he probably outsmarted loki while the others weren't yet in múspell? he terrorized surtr's army and even outsmarted laegjarn and laevatein

and since he survived for so long i believe most of his wounds were made by surtr himself

they never really say whether he actually managed to kill surtr or not, but let's say yes just to add up on all of the things hríd does just in the story

at first glance it looks like he's doing nothing, but reading further into it and applying some logic

hríd's... he's pretty impressive for a prince so young

gotta also add how hríd appears less impulsive in japanese than in english

when "alfonse" blames him for being a traitor, hríd gets to the defensive immediately in english

in japanese, he's more in shock, probably because after all he's tried, he's being doubted by his allies (which shows a lot how much he cares about being perceived as perfect, something i'll get on to later if i have enough time)

I added this part in the middle of the whole thing because it was a different thread so excuse the sudden change of topic, kinda. It’s supposed to be from the last conversation in Book 2, where Fjorm tells Hríd she’s going to stay in Askr despite her “condition”.

"I understand your feelings, Sister. By all means, go. I will pray for your safety."

this is one of the quotes i'd like to put in that one hríd character thread i want to make

the feeling behind this quote got completely lost in translation, as there's no way to translate it properly

in japanese, hríd uses a pecular way of speech to refer to his sister here he says "... I get it. If that is what you wish, it's alright to go. I'll pray for your safety." the peculiar part, aside from hríds "..." is where he refers to fjorm, the "you"

hríd normally uses "kimi" to refer to people, which is like a more... gentle? way of speaking? men usually use it towards women bc they want to treat them nicely, and jps in general use it with people they don't know (it's that, or "anata" or "[name]-san")

yet here, hríd decides to use "omae" to refer to fjorm, which is more informal and even rude (specially for someone who normally uses "kimi", it means he wanted to express some kind of anger or frustration about fjorm's decision without saying it directly,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is very japanese to do so,,,,,, *looks into the distant "most japanese people i've known don't directly say 'no' and instead go 'hmmmmmm' '*very indirectly rejects*' and it's probably a fact*)

it feels like instead of being supportive, hríd just understood there was no way of convincing fjorm to stay with them

so he gave up and felt hurt by that

please protect hríd

Back to the rest of the analysis.

now let's talk about forging bonds, in the wiki there's only the opening part transcribed in japanese, the rest is only on english (i curse not having started playing 3 months earlier orz)

the first thing you can notice in the japanese version is how informal hríd is when he's stressed

while he speaks in an usually softer manner, here, he doesn't even greet ylgr and gunnthrá, he goes directly to "gunnthrá... ah, ylgr is here too" (he kinda does the same in the mainstory, where he just says “ah, fjorm, you’re okay... ylgr too :)”)

AND IMMEDIATELY, HIS NEXT TEXT IS HIM CALLING GUNNTHRÁ WITH "OMAE”

ALREADY DEEP INTO THE STRESS OF MÚSPELL INVADING THEM

this shows how easily stressed hríd gets and how much he lets his emotions dirve his attitude and actions (which makes sense with the part where he tells fjorm she should be the one wielding leiptr and not him, he's too emotional despite how much he tries not to be)

in these parts we also see some level of deattachment from gunnthrá, on english he goes "sister..." by the end of the opening conversation

in the jp, however, he stays silent, he doesn't even call her name

idk if it's just me overanalyzing it, but from my experience with animoo and vidya, it feels a little weird that he says nothing there, like he's thinking (this is probably foreshadowing hríd's inner feelings oof)

something that i particularily like about this event is that hríd seems so at ease when he's on the dreams, even in the english translation it seems like that he mentions it might be because he feels at ease with kiran but i feel like it also has to do with the fact they're just a dream, it's not the real world, there's nothing to worry in a world where there's no war

at least, that's the feeling his dialogues give me

the closest thing to that hríd is his lvl40 speech and ny hríd (who's happier)

the only quote where hríd mentions some type of concern for his mother btw

from here on it only gets worse when it comes to hríd, though

he speaks about the invasion and such he talks in a way that implies he's probably taking the role of a commander (same as how it is implied he trains the soldier, or that he trains with them, though since he's been training alone with fjorm for so long, it's most likely the former) aside from that, he's weighting on himself the responsibility of what happens to nifl and what happens to his family

and since he's doing so, here's when it comes the part of hríd not being able to care about himself

this young man is carrying a heavy weight, the hopes and dreams and lives of many innocent and PEACEFUL people who barely even know how to fight, on top of those of his loved ones

it doesn't seem like anyone asked him to, not even his mother or sisters

he just decided it on his own that he needed to be "the perfect prince/king" in order to "protect" them

/even if it costs him his life/

he prepared his sisters for that moment (which, might give an insight that hríd knew more than he says, but let's leave my conspiracy theories aside lol)

and to THAT PART, we can add this from the mainstory

in english, when he's rescued, he thanks them for doing so

but in the jp text he actually apologizes for it

not sure how to exactly translate it, but it's something along the lines of "my apologies...for having to be saved..."

idk you guys, but it sounds like what someone who just failed to commit suicide would say, instead of someone who's grateful to be alive

and it makes sense, with how obsessed hríd seems to be about "dying for his loved ones" despite it not being entirely necessary

i mean, look at that, he survived surtr and was aided by bruno as he escaped (probably? they never say what exactly happened, but since they're looking for hríd and not for bruno, it's most likely that they just found each other by accident)

and yes, even though he seems to calm down with those thoughts during the sequence, it is only a dream and we know he has no recolection of them

he forgets completely about that motivation to keep living, which leads him into further down the path of death  (whichinnorsemythologymightbecalledhríd,,,,,,orgjöll,,,ykow?)

im still not done, havent even gotten to his unit quotes lmao

hríd still did his best to survive for as long as he could, but it feels more like his strategic "i'm making time for fjorm and the askrans to make their moves" purely, out of the fact he didn't seem too happy to survive until he saw fjorm and ylgr

hat's all of hríd's quotes from that event, i can finally move on to his unit quotes

let's start with this one, luckily it is practically the same quote in both languages

this immediatelly counters any "hríd is boring" comment

though that is subjective, in my case what drove me even further into loving hríd was how different he was from usual characters related to ice

he might come off as cold sometimes, but it's purely because he's actually really dense/has a really bad sense of humor

in jp he tries to make an ice joke, but says "it's not suitable for him" (which is funny because in english he does have ice puns and i hate it)

1. he doesn't mention his mother 2. hríd blaming himself and being kinda gloomy part 1 

"I should have protected my people and sisters, I couldn't play that role... I can never forget that." 

this part hurts a lot (it's a little more poetic than the og one, i like it lol)

he could be talking about himself, about his sisters, his people, or all together, since the four of them have expressed desire for peace, and all four ended hurt by such thing

this part is scary, though it's not as much in english

NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSLATION, but because of his battle lines in eng (i'll get to that first and then come back to this one)

the most shockingly different skill trigger is the second one

the first one is exactly the same the third one in jp is "this is the last blow" (or smth like that) the fourth one is a little weird to translate (ice upon you works, but "freeze your life" sounds a little scary??)

OKAY BUT THE SECOND ONE ALONG WITH THE VOICE CLIP

IT KINDA SCARES ME A LITTLE FOR MY CUTE SWEET MOCHI BOY

it literally says "no mercy for the enemy"

IT'S LITERALLY SUGAR COATED, hríd went from a gentle giant to a merciless killer (who knows how many muspellians he's killed???) thanks to surtr and his fucking ass

hríd blaming himself and being gloomy part 2

the fact that he has not one, not two, not three, but about 5 to 6 lines that imply he's still dueling over everything that happened during the war is hurtful, he really can't forgive himself for that

he also sounds a little dead to me here (it’s one of the voiced quotes from his status page!)

which brings me back to the initial scary one

hríd is obsessed with earning his peace no matter what

and for that, he wants to get stronger

for that, he's willing to even perish, for everyone's sake

it's so sickening for me since i can kinda relate???? it reminds me a lot of the kind of wording they use for depression-themed japanese works, with the "peace" part and his willingness to just die anytime (which, is actually pretty normal for a warrior outside of FE. outside)

iT MAKES ME FEEL BAD BUT AT THE SAME TIME i kinda like he's written this way

AND EVEN WHEN HE'S LIKE THAT, hríd is still a gentle sweetheart who speaks so kindly you kinda forgets how merciless he is in the battlefield

like, the audio where he holds kiran's hands???? where he speaks about how the order of heroes saved nifl????? EVEN WHEN HE GETS STARTLED

he's always such a gentle and kind person

it makes me hate surtr even more because they didn't deserve this

hríd didn't deserve going through all of this fucking shit HE. DESERVED. HAPPINESS. AND PEACE.

then there's the ny hríd

he's an angel

a happy angel who makes me a little sad bc og hríd is not as happy

From here on everything was written like 2 weeks after the previous stuff :’) i’m sowwy

he's a resolute prince, he has the resolution of saving even at least one person,,,,,instead of being a "king", instead of being a "brother", or a "prince", he just wants to be "a hero",,,

hello, this is my opening statement of why ny hríd makes me cry with just existing

welcome

let us start with something that makes his quotes even better, particularily the previous quote and his lvl40 speech, which is the powerful meaning of this alt itself for a character such as hríd

in japan, new year used to be celebrated not at the end of the year, but at the end of winter, which is where geishun comes into the scheme, as it currently means "new years greetings" but in those old times, it was actually "welcoming spring" (or something along those lines i suck for precise translations)

and that's where our next quote comes into the picture

hríd speaks about nifl's winter, about how it practically symbolizes the nifleans' strength and will power

the alt itself is a more positive hríd, one who's willing to try his hardest for everyone, who doesn't regret his past, but looks into the future and has the purpose of being even better than before

of course, this hríd didn't suffer the same fate as the OG hríd, as he still has all 3 sisters (i want to believe ylgr was with them, just not shown bc of the lack of space for a sixth character) and now also 2 new allies to power their search for peace and strength to defend that peace

so, while our normal hríd is desparate to become stronger and suffers, this hríd is like his pole opposite, it's like the sun and the moon (too bad this hríd has no default special, sol would've fit him so well)

can we talk about how he feels so comfortable wearing the celebratory outfit?

the obi (the.....thing that acts as a belt) should be tied strongly enough so the hakama (the pants) doesnt fall down while he fights, yet he feels comfortable with it

i mean, it isn't as constrictive as a kimono as it doesn't prevent him from moving around freely, but he still shouldn't normally feel as comfortable with it as he is, he's never even worn something like that (it is implied, at least) yet he's loving it, isn't it adorable???

one time i joked about hríd being able to feel when winter is coming or when snow will start falling but

i think this quote pretty much confirmed it (YOU CAN'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE IT'S WARM, IT DOES SNOW IN ASKR WE'VE SEEN IT)

blessed boy munchs a whole fucking piece of mixed flour with FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF FUCKING SUGAR 

he's got a sweet tooth i know it, i know my people when i see them

it's just that he doesn't seem disgusted, and he also only mentions the mochi so we can assume he didn't drink sake or matcha with it

he ate the fucking thing alone and apparently liked it

we have a sweet angel, guys

i just think this quote is cute, he loves cold just as much as i love him

t HIS IS SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT FROM OUR NORMAL HRÍD HE'S SO POSITIVE AND DETERMINED I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

though in japanese, the last quote is a little more gloomy

im not entirely sure of how to properly translate it *looks at the jisho page of the kanji he cant understand* it's certainly a word

but it could be something like "to be in such a predicament from so early in the year... I'm unable to say it's pathetic..."

i???? imagine he says he "can't say it" because he's trying to be positive?????? or something along those lines, but saying it proves he's taking it way to the extreme

nasakenai can also be shameful or miserable, pitable, disgraceful stuff like that

i'm not sure how to describe this quote?

this time it's the english localisation that kinda throws me off, i don't understand what he's trying to say lmao

in japenese he's saying something about having been graced this early in the new year

7 years speaking english and i still can't break down complex phrases the only reason i've survived this long is through the power of deduction abilities

pray for me

u know hríd's damaged quotes in english are all grunts, right?

in japanese, this hríd has a peculiar quote i find adorable when he gets damaged

he says "as expected from you...!"

hE'S COMPLIMENTING HIS ENEMY, THIS IS THE SAME MAN WHO SAYS NO MERCY AS HE KILLS THE FOE

btw listening to his english quotes is so funny

he sounds so damn cool in japanese and in english he

he sounds like a fucking nerd

I THINK IM TAKING A LIKING TO HIS ENGLISH VOICE ACTING PURELY BECAUSE HE SOUNDS STUPID

compare this (JP) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/1/12/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2_jp.wav

to this (ENG) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/6/6a/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2.wav

it's the exact same quote by the two different VAs

HE SOUNDS LIKE A NERD IN THE ENGLISH VERSION I CAN'T

back to translations and analysis

i hate this one

his eng quote is more positive while the japanese one is something along the lines of "I was useless... I'm sorry..."

I

HATE

IT

look, say whatever you want, but hríd is such a sweet man

he cares for people and he tries his best to be the perfect prince everyone thinks he is

AND FOR HIS *MORE POSITIVE VERSION* TO SAY THIS AS HE IS DEFEATED IS JUST

WHAT DID HE DO TO U INTSYS TO MAKE HIM SUFFER THIS MUCH??

despite how "im so useless...!" his japanese version is

he way he says these two quotes sounds way more positive in japanese lmao it's the same translation, only that he's more "I'll repay you!!!!!!" in jp ( https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/3/34/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_MAP_3_jp.wav )

adorable

can’t use emojis on this pc so i’ll just leave the whole screenshot here

you see this quote here?

this is what it actually says

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY CHANGED IT BUT I THINK IT'S CUTE BECAUSE I THINK HE DIDN'T JUST SWALLOW THE WHOLE MOCHI

HE ATE IT NORMALLY AND THINKS HE'S GOT SOME ON HIS CLOTHES BC PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM LGHDSKLGSDFKS

why are u so cute aaaaaaa///////////

this is probably the translation of hríd's quotes i hate the most  in english it just...sounds so rude

in japanese it's more like "could you please tell me if i'm wearing these clothes wrong? i'll fix it fast"

he's trying to be respectful to the hoshidans sobs

THESE TWO QUOTES ARE SO DIFFERENT BUT SO EQUALLY ADORABLE AND POWERFUL

THIS 180~195CM OR SO MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PUTRID PLANET AND IM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY

first, this is my fave quote on english

he sounds so confused as to why people think the hoshidan clothes suit him

HE'S. NOT. AWARE. OF HOW FUCKING GOOD HE LOOKS.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE CUTEST SHIT EVER HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT

to make it more adorable, in japanese, the original quote is something like "I wonder what makes a type of clothing 'suit' you..."

HE'S GOING ALL PHYLOSOFICAL ON THAT SHIT probably because people keep telling him he looks good in that kind of clothing

this man's density is so powerful that he can't even begin to understand people find him attractive and that the attire literally makes him go from a 10 to a 1000000000000000000

he doesn't get it and he wants to know if it's really true so he goes out of his way TO ASK KIRAN

i love hríd so much he's so adorabl e

i want to give him a hug

with this i finish my thread for now

for now

hopefully we will get another alt for hríd and i can come back to spam about how adorable his quotes are

please stan hríd he's literally an angel

#analyzing #overanalyzing actually #i read his whole quote set like 30 times for this #it took me a full hour to put this on tumblr from twitter aaaaaaa #I DON'T EVEN HAVE HALF A YEAR IN THIS FANDOM AND SINCE I CAN'T BE UP TO DATE WITH ENSTARS I TOOK IT UPON MYSELF TO ACTUALLY ANALYZE HRÍD AS #A CHARACTER #HE'S AMAZING PLEASE LOVE HIM #HE'S ACTUALLY WELL WRITTE IN CAN'T BELIEVE THIS #could've added facts about his name origin and such as well but #anything to do with his name and gjöll is just theory #pretty sure they sadly just chose a cool name set for the nifleans #hríd #hrid #icy blade #prince of nifl #feh #heroes #fire emblem #fire emblem heroes

[fisherfurbearer]

fuck sam walmarts

and fuck management

I’ve had it. Left the store in tears tonight.

as some peoople probably/hopefully know. walmart closes at 6 pm on christmas eve. no one actually gets to leave at 6 becuase of shitty last minute customers. but it is what it is.

this. is really personal but im honestly SO close to just. killing myself? so who cares

basically. had a really really bad last few days. spent a lovely time with family (jessies family, his oma and opa and sister and parents and it was just a great time. theyre more family to me than most of my blood family) but it did make me Sad in Deep ways as we dont know if this is going to be our last christmas with his oma who isnt doing so good. and it just twisted me up a little but was othewrsiwse a great day. but then sunday i just...had a huge breakdown in the morning and decided to use my accomodation (i get 2 excused absenses a month) to cool down and gte myself together. slept a lot. woke up adn got a lot done, felt great, then i CRASHED really really bad, got really angry, lashed otu, took like...8-10 sleeping pills...theyre horrific things and im never doing that again...had to sleep for two days after that...felt horrifically sick, in pain, just awful. had repeating nightmares over and over. which has also been wearing me down recently. wasnt able to work monday either because i still couldnt stand and between the pills and the depression/anxiety and really just. felt like the world was ending.

decided sometime last night id just...try my best to make it in today, work my shift (really long 9-6, knowing i wouldnt leave on time nad htisis my first time working in 5 days now...which is rough...) and if i can get through this, i have another couple days off in a row after that (schedules fault, not mine...do feel awful i missed 3 days before that though...) and we can just. get back on track

today i DID go to work, jessie drove me in

i worked. a long time. im supposed to get a break every 2 hours and a 1 hour lunch

i gott my first break on timeish.

then i got my lunch 6 hours after i got in. at which time i got “locked out” for not taking my lunch and coudlnt do anything on the registers. i was supposed to get it 4 hours in. its christmas eve and excruciating and im still in pain and tired from my previous days breakdowns, but otherwise?? i did really good. i didnt mind at all that my lunch was so late. i was a little miffed, but its ok. i dont care, so long as i get it eventually. anyway they FINALLY noticed i was locked out and got me coverage and i ended my lunch at 4. things continued ok. worked on self checkout, met a lot of regulars i really like, prevented $200 of theft (HAHA WOW that was really really funny i love preventing petty theft. i prevent so much theft every week its my pride and joy) just did okay. then they had us close self checkout that took a little while. then at 5:00-5:10 or so i went to my Manager/Supervisor/”““People LEad” as walmart is now trying to call them, lets call her manager Y, and i told her i still need my break and will i get it before i leave. she said go to register 4. i asked again hey will i get my break though and she said yeah and i thought to mysel HAHA thats not going to happen but ok

really stupid that after bieng locked out the first time she couldnt give me my break before i openned a register with a line i cant get rid of

anywayy i did ok otherwise for a while

but at 5:25 or so i reminded a CSM “hey i need my break still can i get that?” and she just ssaid yeah well try to get someone and then more time passed so much time. i put through an ask on the register “assistance needed”. waited another 10 minutes. “assistance needed” again. starting to get anxious. its past 5:40. the line is so long. theres so MUCH NOISE. Its SO LOUD. the intercom keeps going off, no one is responding to me, i dont have a mat to stand on so my knees HURT,, im not doing okk

i switch my light to flashing/need assistance and start looking for someone to ask for help. its 5:45, i need my break NOW, i DESERVE IT for workng this long ass shift and they already missed several of my last breaks a week ago AND got me locked out today and im STARTING TO GET ANXIOUS PELASE I JUST WANT MY BREAK SO BAD

nnthgen a csm is passing by im about to lose it, so i tell her CSM J, please i really need my break now PLEASE and im starting to ccry and i try to tell her whats going on but she shushes me and goes and gets sometone

im full on tears at this point, im so strreesed out,,

manager Y and some other snooty manager come over andd. ffkcing. ask me whats wrong. im crying and i try to explain im really really stressed out, i havent had my last break, ive been trying to get someone for so long now, i just really need to leave im so sorry

and theyy just. fckkng

ffcking manager Y jjst ssays ok “ill give you your break” and “this is your last break” and i ssaid?? yeah i knoww?? andd she saidd “next time youre like this, just dont come in”

i quote that completeltyyy....i really lost it then...i cried som muchh

this isnt the first itme she said something like this to meee...

she asked me “why are you CRYING” When i had an anxiety attacki n the store once, when ic cloked in and couldnt get myself together,, she didnt give me time to calm down, she didnt listen as to why, she just said “why are you crying. this is a BUSINESS. you cant be CRYING Here.” and i just said ok ill go home bye and leftt

andd when i tried to get my availability changed from 7-9 to 7-6/7-7 because the random late shifts with 7 am shifts was messing me up really really bad and my doctor thinks i need to hcange it too, she just said “i cant do that. thisi sa BUSINESS.” and she wouldnt listen when i said i might have to quit because of this, this is for my health, im literally scheduled 7-2 every sunday in december, busiest day of the busiest month and you cant even chop TWO HOURS off my weekend availability????

andd i jjst

ive HAD IT with her

ive had ittt

im so ashamed and angry and anxious and i still havent stopped cryingg. she called me over to her again as i was leaving and she blamed me for it. she ssaid a customer was upset that i “Screamed” (ues i raised my voice a little but i wasnt screaming??? also the two customers i was attending to when this was going on and i cried were VERY KIND nad jjst said i was doing a good job and thanked me for being there) and called a manager over (but...csm J got them?? not a customer...??) and i cant be acitng like this, i cant do customer service when im stressed,, and d i should just STAY HOME If im going to be like that

then shee fufkcing toold me i DID IT WRONG, that i “shouldve called someone over” I TOLD HER I DID!!!!! I DID!!!!!!!!!! YOU NAIL INTO MY HEAD IM NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE REGISTER SO I DIDNT, I DID EVERYTHING ELSE I COULD THOUGH!!! I REQUESTED HELP TWICE!! I TURNED MY LIGHT TO FLASHING!!! I TRIED TO CATCH A MANAGER WALKING BY TO HELP ME!!! N OONE LISTENED UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE, I DID EVERYHTING I COULD!! yet she seriously told me to my face that “you didnt call anyone”, “you couldve turned your light to flashing” WHICH I DID and sshee jjst said that i made customers uncomfortable and i cant work like thatt and just stay hhome

ii stayed home sunday because i was having a mjor mental emergencyy.

i came in today because i was feeling better and i took it eaasy and ended up doing a wonderful job and mad eso many people smilea nd fixed so many problems that wouldve otherwise upset a lot of folks and i met my regulars and made old folks smile andd i prevented a lot of theft that no one else wouldve caughtt and i jjstt broke down after 9 hours and not getting a last break and all the chaos of register (WHICH BY THE WAY THEY KNOW I DONT LIKE REGISTER!!! I THRIVE ON SLE FCHECOUT!!! THATS MY JOB TITLE!! THATS WHAT I DO!!!! THEY KNOW THISS!!!!) and HER AVOIDING GIVING ME MY FUCKING BREAK and NOT RESPECTING MY FFUCKING METNAL DISABILITIES LJNASDKAJHDBASJSDNAJSNDKANSD

I JJST DONT KNOW WHAT TO DOO

i really want to die and i really want to never go back but i really loved my job i loved helpting people ii jjst hate her so muchhh and i feel GENUINE DREAD/SEVERE ANXIETY jjst SEEING her nnow

she doesnt CARE about anyone but herself shes a horrible peson i cant tell the store manager though cause she wont care either and manager Y has more clout than me so shell just twist my words and make me out as the bad guy as hte “CRAZY ONE” who cries and gets stressed (FOR COMPLETELY VALID REASONS AFTER BEING PUSHED OVER THE EDGE) even tthough i work SO FFRIKCING HARD and do SUCH A GOOD JOB and asdjanjsdhajshdas

i d ont know what to doo

i cant work another job because no where else pays as much or will let me do self checkout only, because being a cashier stresses me so muchh

ii...really wanntted to grow stuff and make preserves and sell bee products and work with folks raising heritage sheep and make more fiber art andd open a little stall at a local market and sell all that,, and offer more online and do customs andd stuff

i know i could mkae money that wa ybut i ccantt start it so sudenly and im too Broken to do it seriouslyy and i dont even want to HAVE to quit because of ONE PERSON But shes done this so many times now and this is the nfinfal streaww

i jjst dont know what to doo...

i cantt stop cryingg

i cant even enjoy christmas nnow. wanted to see my stepdad and give him his presernt and maybe be ok.

last christmas we had to move because our house was condemned after a fire. now im going to have to lose my job because of a horrible manager who doenst respect my metnal health or anything about me reallyy. and unfortunately im such a failure that i cant. do anything else and if i lose this job ill lse my animla sand i wotnt be able to do anyhtingg andd im jjust fucking trash

goddammit i dont know what to do. i really dont. hhahaaa. i just really want to end it. ive come so far and none of it fucking matters because of thiss fucking horrible manager.

#jjst...ffeels like shes violating somethingg #and treating me a LOT like how my abusive mother used to treat me #why are you CRYING? you cant be trying here. this is a BUSINESS. #is a lot like Why Do You look so MISERABLE all the time?? why are you CRYING?? #and shit like IGNORING ME when i try to change my hours #straight up ignoring me #she basically made it clear shed rather me QUIT than fuckingg chop 2 hours off my AVAILABILITY #ITS SO FRUSTRATING #AND SHES SUCH A HYPROCRITE #scheduled 7-2 every sunday!! #yet you cant change my availability to 7-7?? #you NEED ot keep it until 9??? #but working until 9 and getting home around 10 and getting no sleep because i need to take care of my pets and myself #and get up at 5:30 the next morning for work at 7 #WHEN THAT COULD EASILY BE ALTERED BY CHIPPING A COUPLE HOURS OFF MY AVAILABILITY #AND MY DOCTOR ALSO THINKS I NEED TO CHANGE IT TOO #BUT WHO FUCKING CARES RIGHT ITS A BU S I N E S S #SURE SURE BUT WHEN A CUSTOMER FLIPS THE SIGN ON A $7.94 SHIRT #TO SAY 0.94 CENTS #WITH THE CENTS SIGN!!!! #THEN I HA V E TO HONOR IT #THATS A+ BUSINESS RIGHT THERE #BITCH DOESNT EVEN KNOW HOW TO APPROVE A COUPON ON SLEF CHECKOUT!!!! #AND OUR FRICKING STORE MAANGER MAKES TRIPLE FIGURES!!! #BUT NO ONE FUCKINGG CARES #NO ONE FUCKING CARES #I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMOREE #id dont want to have to lose my job and stability over this one person #but this isntt...ok #i shouldnt have to go to work and deal with MORE emotional abuse