Okay, I get that Europe actually got the sequel so I guess it’s only fair that now they get the name in the remake and everything but can we all just take a second to all agree that Trace Memory is a way cooler name than Another Code?
the way i see it, colin has three options for handling the repercussions of kissing michael on the pitch in front of everyone:
gatekeep: by some miracle no one caught the kiss on camera so colin's sexuality is kept between him and any fans who happened to be on the pitch near him. the safest option.
girlboss: keeley gets the pr challenge of a lifetime handling the story of the first active premier league player to come out as gay. rebecca is tall and powerful and intimidating in the press room making it clear that richmond stands behind colin one thousand percent. the most realistic option.
gaslight: straight-up blatantly lying. not because he's ashamed or because he thinks he can actually convince anyone that the kiss didn't happen, but just because he refuses to let it be a big deal. acts like he has no idea what anyone is talking about if asked anything related to his sexuality. he doesn't claim to be straight, mind you, he just pretends to be extremely confused about why they're asking because he never kissed anyone in the middle of a football pitch at the end of an internationally-televised game? when presented with photo and video proof of the kiss he says that was some other richmond player named hughes who wears a number 12 jersey. you don't know him, he goes to another school. the funniest option.
They had a bit of a chance encounter on a day where Blueblood was dealing with something that was very difficult and was so caught up in his emotions he didn’t even care that he was in the garden getting grass stans on his coat and Ditzy, with her natural impulse to cheer ponies up, didn’t even notice or care that she was flying into the palace gardens when she saw someone sat in the rain.
At first he was definitely going to call the castle guards to come apprehend this strange filly with the odd eyes who was intruding when this was the last moment he’d want to entertain any desperate debutantes, however she surprised him by not fawning or anything, not even caring about his status, just putting one of her fluffy wings up and asking if he needed somepony to lend an ear.
“Don’t let my eyes fool you, my ears work just fine!”
She was incredibly disarming and while he didn’t reveal everything about why he was upset, he found himself talking about his feelings to her. And she made such cheerful remarks, and was very comforting. In the end, he felt better and she came to check on him the next day, even sharing a blueberry muffin with him. He remarked that he’d never seen her around before, and that he wouldn’t mind terribly seeing her more often.
happy anniversary to explorers of sky!! i wanted to finally finish up this old wip to celebrate.
it’s based off a little headcanon i have where the partner remembers where they came across the relic fragment (rather than the extent of their memory being that they “happened to pick it up” somewhere they can’t recall)– it had washed up to them at the very same beach they met the hero on. the fragment/hidden land seem to have a strong connection to the ocean sooo it made sense to me. the rock that began it all
Quackity: I just didn't know you guys were tight like that, ok?
Pac: Very tight, super tight, like the most tight thing you can ever imagine. If you want, I can give you some really good examples, you know?
Quackity: Guess what– I don't think you guys are as tight as you say you are, and to me? That's a challenge. I'm gonna do a big QSMP event called "The Homewrecking challenge" just to see how many relationships I can fck up in just one day. The same way you guys organized Murder Mystery, I'm doing the Homewrecker challenge.
on twitter here and here, forayuarchive has been talking about how LLH & FDB really act like an old married couple, and i couldn't stop thinking about it too. as a native chinese speaker, the level of informality, familiarity and bickering, in how FDB and LLH speak to one another (especially in the later episodes) are reminiscent of how bickering old married chinese couples are often depicted.
when FDB is angry/upset at LLH, he calls him "死莲花" - "Damn Lotus/Damn Lianhua". the way FDB says it is in a manner where you might imagine old spouses scolding one another when nagging/bickering (to clarify, it's not romantic per se, but it's extremely informal & familiar).
for example, in ep 35, FDB calls him Damn Lotus in the note he left LLH when he went to look for the styx flower. CN fanghua fans on weibo managed to painstakingly transcribe the note (see forayuarchive's tweet about it here with the eng translation) - it's extremely informal and reads like a short note a spouse/partner would write when leaving their shared home in a hurry.
i also still can't believe LLH calls FDB "xiaobao", it speaks for itself. 小宝 Xiao Bao (literal meaning is "little treasure") is usually something you call literal babies/children AND is FDB's family nickname for him so if you're calling a grown man that in front of his parents and his colleagues and strangers and literally everyone, then he's either your biological family or he's your bf/partner. (it's a level of intimacy that would make me feel embarrassed as a third party hearing LLH call FDB that in front of everyone😭)
and not to mention the deleted line of FDB calling a sick/unconscious LLH "xiaohua'er". (see video & meta of the deleted line by forayuarchive here, translation of the deleted line by ttiesanjiao here). xiaohua'er is so intimate, definitely something one might call a lover 😭
(*for more name meta, see forayuarchive's twitter thread meta about all the names that FDB and LLH call one another, and in what situations each particular name is used)
in any case these are NOT what a disciple calls his shifu or a son calls his dad. these nicknames are far too informal and familiar - no son talks to his father like that and no disciple talks to his shifu like that. (now, an angry spouse however...)
(there's also the fact that FDB explicitly rejects their relationship as being anything other than that between 2 adult equals - when LLH jokes that FDB should bow to him as disciple, FDB immediately rejects the idea, saying that he was only joking about wanting to be LLH's disciple, that FDB is too old now. he firmly sees himself as an adult equal to LLH.)
tl;dr within months of knowing each other, LLH & FDB act as familiar as an old couple 10 years married, skipping the entire courtship stage 😭
The weirdest thing in totk so far has been finding out that there was an intended method of finding mineru where you were supposed to get hints steadily on who the fifth sage was and you weren't supposed to just force your way through zero visibility thunderstorms for the sake of exploring and then getting jumpscared by a talking construct head and realizing you just triggered a major plot centric quest early to mid game with only two other sages