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#and so last night I did a fucking speedrun of the game in less than 5 hours for the sake of my lesbianism HXBDHXBEH
shepgarrus · 7 months
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10 mutuals I’d like to know better
tagged by @misseffect, doing it right away so that i actually fucking DO a tag game for once lmao
below a cut because i RAMBLED:
Last song I listened to: when i saw this it was Eye To Eye by Limelight
Favourite content to watch: oh god. i've never had to think about this let alone put it into words. i like to watch kpop stuff, mostly dance practises (for seeing the choreography) or performances, or just jamming out late at night to old favorite songs. i also watch too much MBTI stuff the eternal fruitless search to determine if i'm intp or intj. in particular this girl is an AMAZING actress so my hours spent watching her double as acting research at least, lmao. other than that i like random interesting educational documentaries or whatever. i have the algorithm so set on kpop on my main gmail account though that i rarely see them lol
Favourite games: MARIOKART. mass effect is okay too ;) i just suck at shooters rip OH I COULD TALK ABOUT NON-VIDEO GAME GAMES. bridge is my favorite card game, i loved president/janitor in school too. for board games i love monopoly (i've recently started to play against myself with various 'strategy profiles' for the 'other players' and a spreadsheet to keep track of the money)
Favourite colour: purple
Favourite animal: SNAKES. in fact i have a purple snake plushie beside me right now
Favourite food: pemmican - fully dehydrated meat (not jerky, which still has moisture and is also usually flavored with spices) that's ground up into powder or near-powder and then mixed with rendered animal fat. or what i usually do because i'm lazy, 'lazy-man's pemmican' - the dehydrated meat strips dipped in the fat manually (with salt) (and when it's with salt and the beef fat batch has some factor in its making that i have yet to discern the source of, it straight up tastes just like McDonalds french fries)
Sweet, spicy or savoury: savoury
Current obsessions: oh my god i don't currently have any all-consuming ones..................maybe that's why i feel off xD
Last book I read: The Last Man by Mary Shelley and when i tell you it was the BIGGEST slog of a book. like it was good but i have NEVER read a book so slowly holy shit, at one point i did ten pages in thirty minutes? my dude?????
Last thing I Googled: “korean surnames” because i knew the wikipedia page would have a particular chinese character i wanted to check the definition of
Relationship: single from the womb, single to the tomb B)
Fun fact: god does this even count but. i'm feeling like going unhinged (for me) and going on a trip alone to south korea for however long my money lasts or until i'm not having fun. i've never been overseas or properly travelled let alone travelled alone, i know less than 100 words of the language (i'm speedrunning rosetta stone but it's not gonna be enough if the trip happens in the less than a month my unhinged-ness is leaning towards for irl reasons), i've never even had korean food i just know their stuff is healthy (and spicy. so i may just die on day 1 who knows lol)
Tagging @venividivictorious @comp-lady @wingsy-keeper-of-songs @heat-sink uuuuuuuh i'll stop there because i haven't been around much recently and i can't think of anyone else that i know hasn't been tagged yet xD but if you want to do it consider yourself tagged! a reward for reading my rambles
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axther · 4 years
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where the lord does not look
todoroki shoto/female!traitor!reader 
In which Todoroki Shoto blackmails a classmate and pays the price. 
warnings: blackmail, violence, questionable kiss
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It felt wrong. It always did. 
YN L/N watched Aizawa Shouta talk about the importance of pack thinking, of teamwork, of loyalty, and it felt cruel. The sun was shining through the door window, Sero and Denki were passing notes about something, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ochako casually glancing at Midoriya. There was the smell of spring in the air and the taste of hope on the tip of everyone’s tongues. 
And YN wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. 
She didn’t know how she got involved with the League of Villains in the first place. Her quirk, while powerful, wasn’t necessarily villainous. She was never teased, never abused for anything in her life except for insignificant bullies. She had no obstacle or hindrance. She just remembered asking for power to a man with no face. 
And here she was. Helping plot the downfall of the pillar of the hero youth. 
She knew it would crush so many. Midoriya was the first to come to mind, with how hard he worked to enter if the rumours were true. But everyone else who decided to throw their lives on the line for a job that fatal at worst and exhausting at best would be forced to relocate, reconsider. 
YN held her head up a little bit higher when she realised that she was slouching. The last thing she needed was for anyone to ask her if something was wrong. She knew that she would burst like an overfilled dam. 
The bell rang and YN almost shakily rose to her feet. Her bag was in her hand when Mina and Tooru grabbed her arms on either side, tugging her away. 
“Hey, hey, hey!” Mina yapped, poking a finger into YN’s cheek. “What’s got you so upset?” 
YN felt panic rise in her chest but masked it with a concerned look. “What are you talking about?” 
“You were all wimpy during class. What’s up with that?” Tooru chirped. 
“I was thinking.” YN raised an eyebrow. “That’s you’re supposed to do in class. Though, I suppose you wouldn’t know that.” 
“Hey!” Mina let a mock frown grace her cheeks. “That’s mean!” 
“It’s true.” YN smirked, letting the panic start to flow away. 
“Well, what were you thinking about?” Tooru began, a teasing tone on her voice. “Was it...Todoroki?” 
YN jumped, nearly stopping the two in their tracks. “What? That’s-!” 
“Ha! We were right!” Mina howled, puffing up her chest and thumping her fist against it. “Ah, young love~!” 
“Mina, we’re the same age-” 
“Doesn’t matter! So, where are you gonna confess?” Tooru pitched in. 
They had a point, of course. YN had a crush (albeit a small one) on Todoroki Shoto. It was bred out of unspoken respect; he had every right to be a villain if what YN had heard was right. He had a terrifyingly powerful quirk, a terrible childhood, and little social skills. And yet, he did the one thing that YN could not. He prevailed and walked on the path of light. 
YN sighed. “I’m not going to. I don’t stand a chance.” 
“No way! He was staring at you all throughout class today!” Tooru giggled. “He couldn’t look away.” 
“What?” YN stared wide-eyed at the space where she guessed Tooru was at. “Bullshit.” 
“Nope! I even got a pic!” She pulled out her phone (with a cute Mount Lady charm on it) and showed a picture of Todoroki that was clearly taken underneath her desk. He indeed was staring at YN’s back, but it was more the look of glaring daggers than anything.   
“That...doesn’t look positive.” YN murmured. 
“He’s emotionally constipated! He’s probably head over heels!” Mina said, entering the cafeteria. 
“Uh-huh…” YN was about to break off when she felt a tap on her shoulder. All three girls turned only to see the young man they had just been talking about. 
“T-Todoroki!” YN yelped, literally jumping when she saw him standing there. He looked neutral, watching her intently.
“May I have a word with you, LN? There is something I’d like to discuss.” 
Both Mina and Tooru squealed as YN nodded, clasping hands and jumping. Though they didn’t say anything otherwise, the message was obvious. 
YN followed Todoroki through a side hall, keeping a bit of distance between herself and the student. Though she hated to admit it, she felt hope grow. All the talk of him liking her back was getting to her, and she just hoped that Mina and Tooru were right. 
He stopped just outside, where no one was around, and YN nearly ran into his back. She stumbled as he turned. 
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 
“I’ve been watching you.” 
YN stopped talking, blinking up at him with wide eyes and a blush rising on her cheeks. “Pardon?” 
“You take a lot of calls, late at night. And you send letters.” 
YN froze. “I’m sorry?” 
“One of the letters fell out, and I planned on putting it back in the mailbox for you. But there was no address on it.” Todoroki looked deathly serious like he would try to kill YN if she tried to move. His bangs made his face shadowed, and it was enough to make YN’s heart stop. 
She felt bile and panic rising. The letters were shipped to the League, through someone they had in the post office. And the calls were given to Toga, who would change into someone else every time so that if anyone heard, there would be no vocal leads. 
“During the USJ attack, you and I were placed in the same division. While, yes, the villains attacked you, they put in noticeably less effort, and you never made any attempt to actually hurt them. With your quirk, you could have easily put them all to sleep. But you made it hard.” 
YN started hyperventilating, eyes flicking left and right in hopes of looking for an escape without having to hurt Todoroki. “What are you trying to say?” 
“You’re the traitor.” Todoroki put it bluntly, and yet, YN felt as though he hadn’t said nearly enough. It felt like the world froze, with YN’s eyes glazing over in terror. Her breathing was laboured and she even felt a little faint. Her world was collapsing, she wasn’t ready to go to jail, she was terrified. There was a white-hot rushing in her veins, and she fell to her knees. 
“I won’t sell you out.” Todoroki looked down at her like one would look at roadkill-intrigued, but disgusted. “For a price.” 
YN looked up, tears ruining her vision. “What is it? I’ll do it.” 
“I have favours. First, I don’t really feel like doing this week’s homework. I already know of all it.” He paused, looking neutrally cruel. “Actually, this entire semester. I don’t feel like doing it. Understand?” 
YN mutely nodded. 
“Good. If any one of the assignments fails, then it’s over.” 
Todoroki left, purposing hitting her shoulder with his knee so she would fall over. She couldn’t get up, nor did she even move, until Mina and Tooru came rushing out. 
“Oh my god!” Mina knelt, grabbing YN’s face with care. “Are you alright?”
“We saw Todoroki leave, and he didn’t look...happy…” Tooru started but trailed off when a fresh wave of tears overcame YN. “Oh, no...sweetie…” 
All three girls stayed huddled together, the two cooing at YN until Mina paused.
“So...did you get...you know…?” 
“Rejected?” Tooru finished. YN sniffled loudly, before nodding. After all, there was no way in hell that Todoroki would love someone like her, now. 
“Oh my god...I am so sorry…” Mina wrapped YN in a hug, while Tooru was fuming. 
“What a jackass! He should’ve accepted you! He has no taste!” She stood up, crossing her sleeves. “I’m gonna have a talk with him!” 
“Tooru!” Mina called out. “Don’t. Not right now.” 
Tooru relaxed, watching YN break down even more. “...You’re right. Sorry.” 
“And we’re sorry...for telling you that…” Mina fell silent. “We’re sorry.” 
“It’s not-” YN managed to get out, trying to talk past her sore throat and sobs. “It’s not your fault.” 
And there they stayed, even with Midnight offering condolences for a rejection that never happened and offering the rest of the day off. 
The sun set low, and Mina and Tooru had to leave as the stars came out. The cold came creeping up YN’s arms, and yet, she stayed. 
And in the distance, a young man watched. 
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YN paced the length of her dorm, holding the phone to her ear. 
“Himi...Himi, please, it’s me.” 
“Oh? YN-chan? What’s wrong?” The voice was initially a deep baritone, a man’s voice, but it dripped into a sweet honey tone, that of a schoolgirl’s. “Were you crying?” 
“Himi, they know. Someone knows. They...he isn’t telling right now, but…” 
“What?!” She heard from the other side. “Someone knows?!” 
There was more shouting from past the phone, some from Shigaraki, others from Twice. They were talking before Toga went back on the phone. 
“How long can you shut him up? Who is it?” 
“T-Todoroki Shoto. He...he’s blackmailing me into doing stuff for him in exchange for him keeping quiet.” 
“Stuff?” Toga yelped. “What stuff is making you do? It’s nothing creepy, right?” 
“Creepy?” YN heard Twice yell. “We can’t even let him touch her! If he tries anything then-” 
“Oh, would you shut up?” Shigaraki sounded strained. “She slipped up. She has to pay.” 
“The little bitch just exposed the whole operation! Fucking kill her!” Twice hissed. “She needs to be pulled out and saved!” 
“YN-chan, what stuff is he making you do? It’s not talkin’ about us, right?” Toga said. She sounded worried, but coming from her, it wasn’t comforting. 
“No...homework is what he’s starting off with, but I have a feeling he’ll go further. He won’t be satisfied. I know that I’ve already exposed the breach, so if there’s any way to hurry up the operation…” YN glanced at her door when she saw a shadow pass by, and lowered her voice to a whisper. 
“Ughhh. This is trying to do a speedrun! This is unacceptable!” 
“Shigaraki, it is only a matter of time…” Kurogiri said. “It is almost complete.” 
“What, we rush the whole thing and fuck it up? No, no, no, no, no…” 
“YN! We’ll come and get you and we can play a game together!” Twice yelled. “I hope you fucking rot, you slimy-!” 
“How did they find out?” Kurogiri’s voice came clearly over the phone. YN took a deep breath. 
“He said that one of the letters...the postman dropped it and saw there was no address. He…” YN stopped. She was already lying to save her own skin on both ends, so what was another lie in the wall that of half-truths and deceit that would save her?  “He opened it and read some before accidentally burning it in anger.” 
Kurogiri sighed. “Then I suppose it couldn’t be helped on your end.” 
“Fucking useless piece of shit!” Shirgiraki bit. “I knew he’d fuck up!” 
“Shigaraki, please.” Kurogiri’s voice had turned away from the phone before turning back. “We will try to speed up the operation. Can you give us two weeks?” 
“I’ll try.” YN whispered. “Thank you.” 
“Stay safe. Do not disappoint us.” 
“Love ya’, YN-chan! Make sure to come back to us!” Toga yelled, probably from over Kurogiri’s shoulder before the line went dead. YN let out a shaky sigh before deleting the call log and moving to her desk. Both her homework and Todoroki’s was out, and that meant that she had to forge his writing in order to make it work. 
She was writing away, late into the night, taking no pause out of fear that Todoroki would find some flaw and alert the whole school. She worked and she worked until the clock hit two A.M. She looked up, feeling almost woozy when there was a knock at the door. YN jumped in her seat before walking over and answering it. 
On the other side was a wide-awake Todoroki, who glared at her through the crack in the door. 
“The homework. Hand it over, while everyone else is asleep.” 
YN nodded, sulking over and grabbing the sheets of work. He snatched them out of her hands, reading it over and checking that it was all done. 
“Alright. Today, I want you to be the one to tell my father that I will not be seeing him this week, but instead doing such things as hanging out with friends and attending parties.” 
“But...but how do I contact your father?” YN felt her head pound. Todoroki met her eyes with a raised eyebrow. 
“Figure it out.” 
He turned and left, and YN gave a heaping sigh. She turned to her bed, her own homework only half-finished. She was exhausted, rightfully so, and collapsed into the pillows. Regret pooled in her gut. Some part of her still loved Todoroki, but it was quickly dying. 
It was dying, along with the rest of her. 
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The next five days were hellish. 
She supposed the second day, where she had to approach Endeavour, was kind. While he was upset about his son not even bothering to talk to him, he didn’t lash out onto YN, nor send a message back. It could’ve gone much worse, she was well aware. The next day she was forced to make his meals, though it wasn’t that hard. And after, she was to do his laundry. All were relatively easy deeds. 
But the day after that Todoroki ordered her to clean his room. And when she entered, it was so torn apart that she was sure he ripped everything out of the drawers on purpose. And the day after, she was told to take up all of his chores for the dorm, confusing both Sato and Midoriya. 
Mina and Tooru took notice of YN’s behaviour but didn’t ask. Mina was still beating herself up for hyping up YN, and Tooru was still furious at Todoroki’s supposed rejection.  
And for YN’s feelings for Todoroki, they were absolutely and completely quashed. 
She had no idea he could be as heartless as he was acting. Anything positive that she had for him was gone, replaced with deep scorn. 
And the only lifeline she had was calling the League every night. Toga, while crazy, did provide some comfort, with the promise of doing each other’s nails and hair when the attack arrived and YN was taken to the home base. The regret and fear she had of being a villain before was slowly disappearing with every night that she fell asleep to the sound of Toga and Twice babbling about video games. 
On the sixth night, YN called to Toga specifically, venting left and right about the things that Todoroki was making her do. 
“And then, he told me that I had missed a spot, and when I went to look, he went and picked up a tissue that definitely wasn’t there before!” YN hissed into the phone receiver. 
“No way!” Toga barked. “What an asshole!” 
“I know, right? He just wants to make my life hell. I can’t wait for you guys to get here.” 
“Ugh! Same! Me ‘n’ Twice have been stocking up on the goods so that way when you get here, we can have loads of fun!” Toga laughed loudly, and YN heard Twice laughing, too. “We’re getting excited! It’s only a week away!” 
“Yeah,” YN murmured, a soft smile on her face. “Thanks. I’m gonna go and get some sleep. You guys make sure to rest up, too.” 
“Maybe~! Love ya’!” Toga hung up and YN felt the silence of the night draw in. She felt oddly content, and she let out a soft sigh. 
There was a feeling of content that she hadn’t felt in days. With all the work that Todoroki had piled on and the stress of keeping it all under wraps, she could feel her eyebags during the day and wish for the sweet release of sleep during the night. 
YN rested her arm on her forehead, letting the darkness consume her eyes and try to soothe the headache that was coming on from even thinking about Todoroki. 
“Yikes,” She sighed, rubbing her temple with her spare hand. “I’m screwed.” 
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Meanwhile, Todoroki was no better off. 
While he had no headache, he was staring at his ceiling with the covers of his bed pulled up to his chest. His arms were folded, but his eyes were narrowed in thought. 
Before he had learned about YN being the traitor, he hadn’t thought much of her. She seemed like a meek girl, with a terrifyingly powerful PSI quirk. She stuck to her friends and stayed in her lane. 
‘The perfect candidate for traitor,’ Todoroki thought. As far as he knew, she had no terrible history or actual motivations to become a villain. So when he found the letter and put and two and two together, he was shocked. He wanted her to vehemently deny it, to say that it was maybe a love letter or a secret note to somebody else. 
But all she did was cry, and Todoroki had his answer. 
He didn’t know why he chose to blackmail her, of all things. He should’ve turned her in, as a hero would have. But he didn’t. And at first, he didn’t know why he wanted to spare her so. Was in how miserable she looked while she was crying? Was it how she didn’t even look angry, but just scared? He didn’t have an answer. 
Until he made her clean his room. 
To be honest, he tore it apart just to see what her reaction was. He wasn’t a messy person but he wanted to make it tough for her. So, periodically throughout her cleaning, he would check up on her. At first, it was to make sure she didn’t throw away anything important, but once he realised that she was doing something so domestic, it made him feel warm on both sides. She had a broom and trash bags, and a bandanna to hold back her hair. She worked ferociously, determined to finish quickly. The hair came loose at times, and sweat grew over her as she lost herself in the cleaning and her thoughts. 
He realised that it was exactly what she would look like if she was a housewife. 
He realised that the entire time, he had her doing things a lover would do-calling the parents, helping with work, cleaning, cooking. None of them were dangerous, and she had them all done in three hours at most. And as Todoroki laid there, he started thinking less on the favours than it was YN herself. 
She was a girl. That was the first thing that came to Todoroki’s mind. Even though no one was around, he nodded with confirmation. It was a safe thought. It was a fact. 
She trained well, sometimes even out of school time. He had come across her in more than one situation where she would be using her quirk to make Bakugou levitate, with him howling the entire time. Her eyes would glow too, like changing lights in a pool. Todoroki always thought it was pretty. 
That, too, was a fact. Her eyes were pretty. 
Todoroki’s eyes snapped open. Yes, it was a fact, but it was not a safe thought. He imagined shoving it into a box and kicking it far away, into the depths of his mind. 
He closed his eyes again, sighing. 
She was strong. That was a safe thought. 
She had nice arms. That was not a safe thought. 
She did her best to take care of her skin, judging from the occasional skincare products he’d find lying around. Was that a safe thought? He wasn’t sure. 
She was smart, but not terribly so. That was a safe thought. 
She looked nice in her tights. That definitely wasn’t a safe thought. 
And as Todoroki thought more and more about YN, he began realising that he thought most things she did were good, technically speaking. She helped Denki with school sometimes, was positively receptive when Midoriya wanted to write about her quirk in his notebooks, and always supported the girls in any of their endeavours. She was kind and pretty, and smart and strong and sweet. 
And then, with wide eyes and a quelled feeling of horror, Todoroki thought, ’Oh my god,’ 
’I’m in love with the traitor.’ 
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“What now?” 
Todoroki stood in front of YN’s door, hands in front of him and looking strangely innocent. His hair was combed, which was weird, and if YN took a deep breath, then she would smell some sort of cologne. 
“There is a girl in the General Course. Ai Suzuki. I want you to reject her for me.” He said it was a completely straight face, as though he was telling Aizawa that he couldn’t come into class the next day. YN blinked, processing the order, before jutting her head out in shock and recoiling again. 
“What? That’s terrible! You need to reject her yourself, for her sake!” She looked appalled and was about to slam the door shut when he put his arm and foot in. 
“Remember...YN.” 
From behind the door, YN stopped, before groaning and opening the door again. 
“Fine. And when the poor girl is miserable and goes around slandering you, don’t come after me. And we’re not friends. Don’t call me YN.”  
She shoved past him and locked her door, storming down the hallway and making tracks for the General Education dorms. 
“What floor, jackass?” 
“She’ll be in the greens,” Todoroki called back, sounding ready to laugh. YN turned and walked through the doors, keeping an eye out for a girl standing alone. 
Sure enough, a student who reminded YN of a doe stood with her hands in front of her, looking side to side. It broke YN’s heart that Ai would have to be rejected in such a cruel way, but it was her or YN’s entire wellbeing. 
“Hey, are you Ai Suzuki?” YN approached the young woman, who jumped. Ai’s brow furrowed. 
“Y-Yes. Where’s Shoto?” 
YN sighed. “There’s no easy way about this, especially since he’s such a coward.” 
Ai’s entire body seemed to slump, her eyes watering and hands shaking. YN felt the guilt bubbling in her stomach, but she continued.  
“But he wanted me to tell you that he’s not interested. I’m really sorry that it had to be this way, but-” 
Abruptly, Ai reached forward and slapped YN across the cheek. Tears were streaming down the young lady’s face.
“You-! You-! I…!” Ai seemed to be grasping for words while YN nursed her stinging cheek with her hand. YN didn’t retaliate but tried to help Ai sort out her emotions. 
“I know it’s terrible, and if you want, I take you to him so that way you can work out what you need. I get that-” 
“Just shut up!” Ai snapped, before flushing. “Please. I…” Fresh tears made their way to Ai’s face before she ran off. YN turned to head back, only to see Ai run headfirst into Todoroki. He seemed surprised, glancing up at YN before looking down at Ai. Ai stared at him, eyes wide before sobbing again and running to the General Education dorms. Todoroki watched her run with curiosity, while YN watched with pity. 
“I see it went well.” Todoroki turned back to YN, about to say more when he realised the red mark on her cheek. “Did she hurt you?” 
“Why would you care?” YN snapped, glaring at him. “You’re fucking terrible, and that’s bad, coming from me.” 
She stormed off, letting Todoroki watch her leave. He seemed stunned, standing and blinking dumbly at her retreating figure. 
“...”
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YN held an ice pack to her cheek, staring at her ceiling, watching the blades of the fan spin. She wished that her mind was empty and aimless, but concerns surrounding Todoroki arose. 
He had become more casual than he ever was, something that didn’t happen even before he found out about her ties to the League. It was as though he was trying to seem pleasant, but it all seemed like a trap. 
“Fucking ice-for-brains.” YN pouted. “Bitchboy.” 
YN’s phone abruptly rang and she jumped. It was several hours earlier than the League usually called, so when she picked it up and saw the contact ’L’, her brow furrowed. 
“Hey, everything okay?” She asked, worry lacing her tone. She heard broad laughter, and then Toga giggling. 
“More than okay! We can come sooner!!” 
“Wh...what?” YN blinked, flabbergasted, before rushing to her door and locking it. She held the phone to her shoulder while stuffing towels along the bottom so no one could eavesdrop. “What’s going on?” 
“Shiggy found a way to mass-produce the Nomu so we can get to you in, like, two days!” Someone spoke, but it was too distant to hear who before Toga started talking again. “Tomorrow! We can get to you tomorrow!”  Toga was audibly jumping, and YN felt her shoulders go slack. 
“No way.” She breathed. It was like the world was on her shoulders, and that it had been slowly lifted. “Are you serious?” 
“Yup! I wouldn’t joke with you on this,” Toga said. “Probably.” 
“Probably?” YN laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. “You have no idea how happy this makes me.” 
“Well, we’ve got a bonus for you! For hangin’ on!” 
“Yeah? What is it?” YN fell onto her bed with a grin. 
“Well, according to Shiggy,” (Shigaraki, in the back, howled ‘Don’t call me that!’) “Had everyone accounted for except for one! And, well, he just so happens to have been doing some no-no stuff lately…” 
“I get to kick Todoroki’s ass?” YN sat up from her bed, excitement on her face. A deep part of her felt disgusted at the glee in getting revenge, but it was quickly put down at the thought of Todoroki begging for forgiveness. 
“Yup!” Toga tittered. “And then Kurogiri can take you back with us and we can do whatever! It’s not like we’ve got any parents to regulate us there, anyway.” 
“That was a twenty-five cent word, Himi. I’m glad. What’s the time of the attack? I wanna set an alarm.” 
“Hey!” Toga yelled over the phone, and YN winced. “Shiggy! When are we gonna see YN-chan and Deku and Ochako?” 
“If everything doesn’t get fucked up, then we should get there by six in the afternoon. Don’t fuck it up.” The phone was clearly pointed in Shigaraki’s direction, but he still sounded a bit distant. 
“Yessir,” Though he couldn’t see it, YN saluted. “You got it.” 
“We’ll see you soon, YN! I looove you!” 
“See ya, Himi.” 
YN hung up, laying back down on the bed with a giddy smile. She rolled left and right, hugging the phone to her chest as she laughed. She knew she was being loud, and if Todoroki heard, then he would be suspicious, but she didn’t care anymore. She was so close to freedom, so close that she could taste it. 
So close. 
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Classes were unbearable. 
YN felt like a kid on the last day of middle school, right before they go to Disney or some other amusement park. The day trudged on, and no matter what Mina and Tooru did to try and get YN’s attention, her thoughts always returned to the League and the attack. 
Sure, she was nervous. It was entirely possible that everything could go wrong and it all fail. She could be arrested for treason, Todoroki could decide to expose her, and the League could choose to leave her behind. It could end in absolutely disaster for her. 
But YN had hope. 
And that hope remained after classes had finished. YN was near skipping, waltzing past Todoroki on her way to her dorms. 
She knew she needed to pack her things. It was all simple stuff; clothes, her toothbrush and toothpaste. She had to leave her phone behind, which was regrettable, but it had a tracker in it that her parents and select friends could see. 
And speaking of friends, YN needed to get Tooru and Mina out of U.A. before the attack, and have them be gone for long enough that they would remain safe. There were ways, but YN knew she needed to keep discreet. 
So, when she walked to her dorm, she eyed the clock. It was five fourty-three, which mean that she could have them take a relatively short trip and still be kept in the clear. YN caught Mina and Tooru on her way. Mina near jumped, nervously grinning. 
“Hey, are you okay? You’ve been weird all day!” 
“Yeah, yeah. Um, I have a favour to ask you two.” YN pulled them aside, taking out her wallet. 
“What is it? Is something wrong?” Tooru presumably tilted her head. 
“Ehh, sorta?” YN faked a grimace. “I, uh...my period started.” 
Mina blanched, and Tooru placed a hand on YN’s shoulder. 
“What’dya need?” 
“Yeah! We’ll go get it!” 
“God bless, you two. Uh, you know that mart that we came across that had the best f/s? It’s like, fifteen minutes by the train?” YN shelled out the cash, making sure there was extra. “I’m craving that, to be honest. And you guys can get something else, of course.” 
“Sure!” Mina took the money and shoved it into her pocket. “Let’s go, Tooru! We’ll see you later!” 
YN waved as the two dashed out, knocking Todoroki on their way to the doors. Mina shot him a half-hearted apology before they were gone. YN gave a languid wave back, feeling almost sad. She wouldn’t see them again. It pulled against her heartstrings, but she knew that she was too far in to back out. 
“They’re certainly energetic.” Todoroki walked up to YN, eyeing the doors with his hands in his pockets. 
“Yeah. Whatever.” YN’s peacefully happy demeanour changed. She glared at him before walking away. Before she could successfully escape, though, Todoroki put a hand on her shoulder. 
“I want to talk to you.” 
YN glanced at the clock. It was ten before six, and she felt nervous. “Not right now. I’m busy.” 
“Please, it’ll just take a second. I’ll come with you.” He took his hand off of her shoulder, and she rolled her eyes. 
“Fine. But make it quick.” YN began speed walking to her dorms, not caring if she looks suspicious. “I have shit to do.” 
“I wanted to actually ask you in private. It’s something...a bit personal.” 
YN stopped walking, eyes wide. “You’re not going to…?” 
Todoroki recoiled, shaken. “No! No, it’s not. It’s an emotional matter.” 
“Oh, joy.” YN rolled her eyes again before almost jogging to her dorm. She eyed a different clock, and it showed five fifty-two. 
“I’ve been thinking about it. About you,” Todoroki began as they walked into her dorm. YN grabbed a backpack off of her wall and began throwing whatever she could find in there that she would deem necessary. Todoroki shut the door, but stood by it as YN spun around. 
“I know that I’ve been...complicated towards you.” Todoroki said, rolling his hands to help elaborate. 
“Uh, yeah. That’s a nice way of putting it.” YN threw eyeliner and mascara into the front pocket of her bag. Todoroki huffed, upset that it backfired. 
“I think you’re pretty,” He tried again, leaning a bit towards her and sounded hopeful. “And smart.” YN said nothing, but paused and gave him a look that was a mix of confusion, disgust, and ‘duh’. “And I know that I’ve been making you work because of circumstances that were out of your control.” 
“What’s your point, Todoroki?” YN threw the last of her underwear in the bag and zipped it, spinning around with her hands on her hips and the bag over her shoulder. “Get to it.” 
Todoroki faltered, eyeing the bag. “What are you packing for?” 
“None of your goddamn business. Speak, or else I’m ignoring you.” 
This snapped Todoroki out of his staring contest with a video game pin on your bag, and he swallowed. He was stiff, and anxious, and hid his face with a ninety-degree bow. 
“Please be my girlfriend.” 
YN froze, shock on her face. “What?” 
“Please date me.” YN shook her head, snapping out of it, before her jaw dropped and mixed emotions came over her face. “You’re fucking…” She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. 
“I know that you must hate me. But I’m sure that you’re not the traitor by choice. If you choose to date me, my father and I can help you leave the League. We can protect you, and we can-” 
“Protect me from what? Wait, wait, wait. You’re saying that they guy that fucking blackmailed me wants to protect me from people that have done nothing to me?” 
“Done nothing?” Todoroki rose from the bow, looking both confused and hurt. “They’re villains, YN. They are absolutely going to hurt you!” 
“Bullshit. They...they’re the only ones that gave a damn the whole time!” YN threw her bag on the ground, throwing her hands up in the air. “I fucking-! I can’t believe-!” 
“And what about Mina? And Tooru? And I could have sold you out at any point!” 
“Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna go?” YN felt heat rise to her cheeks and her stomach turn in rage. “Yeah, okay. Mina and Tooru were great. And that’s why they’re not here right now! But you wanna fucking hold it above my head that you could have had me fucking arrested?” 
“That’s not what I was trying to say!” Todoroki’s voice lowered from the shout, desperation in his tone. “No, I..! I was trying to say that I love you! And that I didn’t want you to get hurt. Please. We can get you out of this.” 
Todoroki grabbed her shoulders, not forcefully, but intimately. He could feel her breath on his face, and the tears beginning to show in his eyes. 
“You...unbelievable!” If Todoroki looked close enough, he could see traces of betrayal. “I have no idea what you think asking someone out is. You can’t just walk in an-and expect love!” YN voice rose with every word, until Todoroki leaned forward and placed a kiss firmly on her lips. She let out a muffled yelp, frozen, but Todoroki didn’t move. 
He savoured it, because for just a moment, when he closed his eyes, he could imagine you loving him back. 
But then a blaring alarm from YN’s phone went off. 
YN shoved Todoroki off, coughing and rubbing at her mouth furiously. Todoroki stood still, a blush on his cheeks. YN licked her top teeth as the alarm sounded, hearing the constant, stinging ring, taking a moment before a sick joy rose in her.
“YN, please...We can work this out together. We can get you into the witness protection program, or something-” 
“Too late,” YN hissed. Todoroki faltered, taking a step back. 
“What?” 
“I said, you fucking reject,” She muttered lowly, looking up at him with her head hung. “Too. Late.” 
“W-What? Why?” Todoroki began to puff his chest in some indiscriminate mix of rage and sorrow when he felt something close around his throat. It was as though he was being choked, but no one was touching him. His hands flew to try and relieve the pressure only to be able to claw at his own neck. There was the sound of glass breaking outside, and people screaming. He could hear Present Mic calling for help. 
“You really thought...” YN began as furniture began floating, along with Todoroki himself. He kicked his feet and struggled, but he was thrown back through the dorm door and into the hallway wall. YN was sweating, the alarm still going off on her levitating desk, and she looked thrilled, with her eyes pulsing out of her skull and her hair flying in front of her face. Her bag levitated towards her, and her jacket fit itself onto her shoulders before the backpack followed. Todoroki could only watch in pain as she approached. 
“You thought you could control me forever?” YN wheezed. Todoroki turned to see Midoriya and Bakugou running towards them before a smoky, inky black portal consumed them both. His eyes went wide when he realised what was happening. 
“I thought heroes were supposed to do the right thing, Todoroki.” YN spat, grabbing his chin so he could stare her in the eyes. They had begun sparking all sorts of colours, even ones that he had never seen before. More furniture in the living room and open dorms were floating and Todoroki felt his heart in his throat. 
“You…” He choked, one eye closing from the pain in his spine. “You bid your time…” 
“Abso-fuckin-lutely.” She grinned, eyes crazed, before using her quirk to pick him up again. This time, he wasn’t choking, but he couldn’t move. “And now, you must suffer the consequences.” 
She waltzed from the dorms to outside, dragging Todoroki behind her. When he passed the doors, he had to look away from the heat and the light, but when he opened his eyes, he felt tears swell. 
The main building of U.A. was up in crystal blue flames, with students and staff alike running out screaming and crying. Someone fell out of the windows, on fire and wailing the entire way down, and there was a sickening crack when they landed. The heat scorched his cheeks, and embers flew into his eyes and hair. When he opened his mouth to yell, he could taste the copper of blood on his tongue. He could see Midoriya and Ochako trying to fend off Toga, and Kirishima and Sero trying to restrain a Nomu, only to fail. 
He knew that even if he could make any noise, if he could move, if he could use his quirk, he wouldn’t be able to. The shock set in his bones, and he felt the weight of the world.  
“You know, they were supposed to come about a week from now.” YN waltzed across the burning grass, putting it out before she could burn her shoes. “But when they heard you were blackmailing me, they sped it up. Isn’t that sweet?” 
“How could you?” Todoroki managed to spit out. He saw the gentle smile on YN’s face, and he felt his heart snap. “They were...our friends…” 
“No. I mean, at first I was guilty. Actually, I really was guilty right up to when you found out. Then I realised that they didn’t really notice me.” She hummed, clearly in a good mood, with the terror and chaos around her. “Mina and Tooru kinda noticed. But they bought whatever I told them. They’re still good people, but they didn’t care that I clearly had something on my mind. Least of all you?” YN turned her head to look at Todoroki. “Did you know I used to have a crush on you? You didn’t so much as glance at me for the entire time before you found out.” 
She looked back forward, making her way to the swirling black mass. Kurogiri and Shigaraki stepped out, and when Shigaraki saw YN, he took to scratching his neck. “You didn’t fuck up.” He sounded surprised. 
“Nope!” YN chirped. “I’m ready to roll once this place is dust.” 
Shigaraki let out a dry laugh at her choice of words before looking over at Todoroki, who was trying to struggle. “You already had him?” 
“He was trying to ask me out.” YN crossed her arms. “So I just took advantage of the opportunity.” 
“Cool. Dabi’s already gotten the main school-” 
“Clearly.” YN piped in. 
“So the damage has been dealt. I just need to recall everyone.” Shigaraki gestured at Kurogiri, waving a lackadaisical hand. “Originally, I was just gonna leave you, actually.” 
“Wait, seriously?” YN grimaced, completely ignoring Todoroki’s squirming. 
“Yeah. But then he found you out.” He turned to Todoroki, who froze and glared at Shigaraki. “When are you gonna fight him?” 
“I dunno. I kinda wanted everyone to be here, but if we can’t make that work…” 
“Get it over with.” 
“You’re the boss.” YN shrugged, giving Todoroki only a moment to be afraid before crushing him against the nearest wall. His eyes were overshadowed by his hair for a moment when his entire body curled in pain, both against his will and YN’s quirk. He felt bile crawl up his throat, and spit came out when he coughed. 
“Y...YN...please…” He looked up at her, tears flowing down his cheeks and crushing sorrow on his face. “I know there’s good in you…you’re not a villain…” 
YN winced, and for a moment, she looked conflicted. Todoroki felt hope, his eyes widening, until the conflict was abruptly gone. In its place was rock-hard disgust and he was picked up again, before being smashed into the dirt. YN began throwing him violently, increasing the strength and rate of the hits. She didn’t stop until his head hung and he was panting. Blood was everywhere, and when he looked up at her, it was flowing into his eyes. 
“It’s not about good or evil anymore.” YN whispered. It was potent, even amongst all the chaos and noise. “There is no good or bad anymore. Just power.” 
YN looked almost deranged, eyes blown wide and panting heavily. Her hair had fallen into her face, and Shigaraki looked surprised, again. 
“Wow. Didn’t expect you to go loose.” 
“I hope it’s okay, sir.” YN let Todoroki fall, blowing the hair out of her face and composing herself. 
“Yeah, sure, whatever. I don’t care.” 
YN nodded and Kurogiri placed a hand on her shoulder. 
“You did well. Welcome to the League.” He watched YN give a huge smile, as though she didn’t just help slaughter an entire school, and rather had just been given a star spot in a play. 
“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it!” 
“I’m sure we won’t.” Kurogiri nodded, looking sagely at the destruction and the approaching forms of Toga, Dabi, Spinner, and Twice. 
“I’m sure we won’t.” 
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a/n: hi this took WAY too fucking long i am so sorry 🥴 i sabotage myself but anyway!! this was interesting to do bc i never really did a traitor!mc but i am a sucker for angst 🥴🥴
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8/17/19 1:47am SU 10/? - Olivia, aka Why I Quit Tinder
After I finally gave up on Rachel coming back to me I decided to launch right back into the swiping game. It’s the beginning of April still, so Rachel had only freshly started ghosting me for good. So I moved along pretty quick, I suppose.
I was still determined to quit melee, and playing more guitar, and speedrunning mega man, and watching a bunch of anime. But now I felt a little spoiled by Rachel. She was incredible, so if I was going to find a suitable girl to replace her from Tinder of all places, I wasn’t going to find her by putting out some homogeneous slosh of a profile and weeding through vanilla girls.
No, this time I figured I’d try to turn away as many as possible by creating the most nerdy avant-garde tinder profile I’d ever created and attract only the weirdos. I’m pretty sure I even put that I was a furry in there, because I definitely remember girls asking about it. I put that my interests were anime, video games, drinking, smoking, Pokemon, I don’t even remember. It was definitely a mess. and I didn’t get very many matches. Which is what I wanted, ofc.
But there is one person I DID match with. Olivia. Cute little asian girl, short, not really skinny but not overweight by any means (which is better off than most girls I’ve gone out with from Tinder), and had great taste in anime and nerdy shit. We talked about video games and shit, she was really into CoD at the time I think, and we were pretty quick to escalate things to sending nudes and sexting lmfao. I was out of town visiting Darlin for the week because I needed to recuperate from the Rachel fallout, and was pretty pumped to chill and play some Earth Defense Force (SNES), binge on mint chocolate chip ice cream and smoke cigarettes by the river out back. 
She was into video games so we were talking about childhood favorites and stuff, and made plans for her to come over for the weekend when I got back and spend a couple days together. She was bragging a lot about her ability to make edibles, and I told her she had a high bar to pass since I made some great ones myself, and the ones that Kailey used to make for us were even better. But she was confident. And also very excited to suck me off. 
SooooooOOoOOoOooOoo she convinced me to leave a day early from Darlin’s, take off in practically the middle of the night (I think I left about 11pm) and pick her up to meet up with her earlier so we’d have an extra day. 
She was staying at her friend’s place in a trailer park that night, and it was kind of on the way back home to Greensboro. So I swung by a bit out of the way, and we instantly started making out in the car. We decided we couldn’t wait to get home and decided to pull over into this field to the left of the trailer park so we could fuck real quick. It was cold and dewy and the grass was patchy, so I started trying to dig around for a towel and she said what the fuck do you need that for? So we had sex right then and there on the ground. Not ideal, but definitely fun lol. We got in the back seat to dry off, smoke a cigarette, and chit chat for a while now that we were finally talking face to face. She told me about how she was a squirter, and one thing led to another and we started fucking again in my back seat. SHE WAS NOT KIDDING THOUGH. When she said she was a squirter, I mean
-continued 8/23/19 1:57am-
I mean she SOAKED my backseat. Like the seats were drenched to capacity. Like there was practically a layer of fluid resting on top of the seats. It was almost unsettling, definitely made me raise an eyebrow lol. Like a lot of times squirting is pretty hot but when it’s that.. voluminous I’m pretty tentative as to the nature of fluids being excreted, to say the least.
Anyway, that’s all fine, it’s fine. Doesn’t matter had sex, right? It’s absolutely more amusing than disgusting in my opinion. 
We make it home to my place and had a cigarette on my porch and started talking about some shit on the stoop. We started talking about some fucked up shit like how she got abused and how she had a new baby. And I was like woah what the fuck why didn’t you mention you had a kid, and she tells me that her family’s helping take care of her but she doesn’t know what to do with it because the dad left because they were addicted to meth when they conceived and I was like WHAT. and she was like yeah and I can’t give this one away to my aunt and uncle like the last one. and I was like WHATT.
So then I had a moment of like “Tyler what have you gotten yourself into this time? Is this really where we’re at now? We’re in for a couple days of this yknow.”  and then I thought “well thank god I’ve already got my vasectomy LOL.”
We also talked about a bunch of less serious stuff like pokemon and the castlevania anime and she showed me some of that before we passed out. Must’ve been like 4 in the morning at least. 
The next day we woke up hellllllla late and were on a quest to test out how great her edibles actually were. We fucked that morning (well really late afternoon), went off to my buddy’s place to pick up an eighth, hung out there for a bit, then went to the grocery store to get spaghetti and meatball and cookie stuff. The closest grocery store is like 12 minutes away from my house for some damn reason. I swear everything in Greensboro was always a 15 minute drive away.  We got back to my place, got some weed simmering in butter, started making meatballs and stuff, and we realized we didn’t actually get the cookie dough to make the edibles with. We were like ahhhh whatever we’ll cross that bridge later. Left the weed on the pot, had some delicious spaghetti and meatballs, watched one of her favorite anime movies while we ate in the living room. God the meatballs she made were actually sick, I remember I ate like 5 plates of spaghetti. She only had like 1, drank like 12 beers, and I had like 6.  So we decided to go out to boxcar for a while and play some games. It’s pretty late like 12 or 1? I walk in, uncomfortably full of spaghetti, and ask her what she wants to play. She says Dance Dance Revolution. I’m like oh shit let’s fucking go then. We played through a song and a half (i’m on standard she’s on light), at which point she FALLS ONTO THE FUCKING FLOOR. I’m like holy shit are you okay and jump down to check on her, and she’s just like “yeah, i’m fine. Let’s get another drink.” I’m like holy shit lol what but really i’m like “haha okay.” So on the way over to the bar she asks me what are you drinking? and I say “oh I don’t know, some cheap beer or something.” We sit down at the bar and she’s like “two glasses of scotch, please.” and I’m like fuhuuuuuuuck me hahahaha. Really fucking courteous of her, but I’m literally stuffed to the brim with spaghetti and meatballs and beer, and now it’s all jostled up from playing DDR, but whatever. We cheers, she gulps her down and I gulp down... half of mine before it starts feeling like it’s going to come back up. I try to save it like I pull it up to my nose and swirl it around like “ahhh yes, quite, indeed. That’s some good stuff.” and she just says “uhh.. aren’t you gonna finish it?” and in my head I’m like god damn man yeah just give me a fucking second lmao. But really I’m like “yeah of course.” Gulp down the second half of the glass, and it does NOT sit. I start puking, spew puke into the glass til it’s almost full to the brim, then manage to regain my constitution to stop and sprint off to the bathroom, puking frothed spaghetti sauce all over some poor toilet. 
I get out of the bathroom, we play another game or two, and it’s time to go. Like it’s 2 at this point, the bar’s about closed. We get to my car and she realizes she forgot her purse, so I say don’t worry I’ll go get it. Meet the bartender, who has pure hatred in her eyes and starts to hand over the purse, but before she will she says to me “the next time you puke in a fucking glass, you throw that shit away yourself. Got it?” and I’m like OHHH FUCK I FORGOT I LEFT IT ON THE BAR WHEN I RAN TO THE BATHROOM SHIT. But I just tell her I’m really sorry and get the fuck out of there. Laid low and didn’t go back for a couple of weeks after that one hahahaha.
Anyway, we get home, I’ve had like negative drinks now since going to the bar, and we still have that weed simmering and need to get the cookie dough. So we drive the 15 minutes out to the 24hr grocery store, get some cookie dough, come back, and it’s nowhere to be found. I was like “what? I handed it to you before we left, where did it go?” and she said “no you definitely had it.” and I was like whaaaaaat the fuckkkk. I say “whatever, this is at least as much my fault as it is yours, it’s no big deal,” and we drive BACK to the grocery store. I’m checking the self checkout area to see where we might have set it down, when a security guard who watched us leave asked if anything was the matter. I say yeah, I’m just trying to find the cookie dough we bought, and he says “oh she walked out with it.”  🤦 So I scan around the parking lot, maybe it fell off the car or something? Finally give up and tell her I can’t find it, start checking inside my car and we find it underneath her seat lol. 
So whatever, we finally have all our ingredients for edibles and the butter is ready as fuck and we’re ready to go. So she’s like here take the ingredients and mix them together. And in my head I’m like alright fine if you’re making these cookies I might as well contribute a little bit. So I mix them up, and she’s just having me do step by step, until she’s finally like “okay now make them into cookies and put them onto the tray and cook them for like 15 minutes” and I’m like “wait what part of these fucking cookies are You making?” So I convince her to do the actual baking part, so I can finally relax and have a beer, my stomach is still feeling kind of uncomfortably full, and I’ve been driving around for an hour and I’m kinda over it by this point.
The cookies are finished at 4:20 in the morning. Hilariously perfect. She pulls them out, and they’re slightly burnt. Ugh. At least they’re not so burnt that they’re not inedible, just a little stiff. I start munching on one. It tastes very weedy. Like the chocolate chips are the only part that don’t just taste like weed. and it’s not soft at all, it’s like a cracker. So I’m chomping through it, kinda cracking my way through it really, when she says to me “so? how is it??” She looks pretty excited. I say “ah, they’re pretty good! Aren’t you gonna have one?”
She says “no, I don’t smoke.” 
🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦 🤦 
[in my head] I’m like what in the hell did we do all of this for then? We didn’t need to do ANY of that. Jesus. whatever.
Then she says to me “hey do you want to rail some xanax?” and I’m like “what? It’s 4:30 in the morning. If I rail some xanax now I’m just going to pass out.” She says “that doesn’t make any sense, xanax is a party time drug, not a sleepy time drug.” So I was like “alright fine then lol.” She spilled some beer on some of it and we had to set it out to dry, but we got two lines laid out and railed them. We laid down in bed and she was asleep no shit 5 minutes later. 
The next day we mostly hung around and fucked til she had to leave, she had some job interview I think. We did some kinky handcuff shit since I had my toys back from Mary’s at this point. And she is the one girl who’s asked me to switch to anal out of nowhere. I obliged, but it’s not really my thing now that I can cum in any orifice without worrying about it. Still, pretty neat lol, she’s definitely unique for that. 
As soon as she walked out of the door, Ash was like “good. Wash your sheets, your room smells like piss.” Did I mention? Every time we fucked she would squirt like she did in the car and it kind of amounted to me having a soaked bed. Absolutely filthy :3 hahaha
She wanted to hang out more, but I had to  broke things off as gently as I could. She had to come by to pick up some stuff she forgot, gave me a little pikachu figurine that I’ve got on my dresser now, and I was just like yeah we’re not really gonna do this again. 
All in all I thought she was a really nice person, and we had a lot of fun shit in common. But being confronted with that level of degeneracy was incredibly unnerving. I was like “man is this what I look like to people? Probably. Wow. Huh.” 
I decided I was over it for a bit. I was gonna focus on speedrunning and karaoke and guitar and chilling, and determined that if girls happened to land in my lap at karaoke that’d be just fine, but that I was totally over seeking them out. It was just too much, I needed to straighten myself out a little bit more or something. Or at least just give up on Tinder because it was not a good look for me anymore. I’ve redownloaded it a few times for various reasons, but not for very long and have never met up with anyone online since. RIP
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littlehungrywarrior · 7 years
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there’s a lot of things about me that are fucking absurd and really cool, so when ppl ask me to tell them about myself, i break em out immediately (”my family heirloom is a severed head named oswald,” “I can see disney studios from my house,” etc) 
but just bc im bored and I feel like it, here’s some stuff about me that I dont think I’ve ever really talked about? not secrets, but just...mundane things that I don’t really ever say in favor of Ice Breaker™-type things 
I have a profound respect for mail services. When I was 7-8 years old, we watched a documentary in class about how the postal system works, its history, and about the various jobs involved. It was an extremely formative experience for me. I don’t send a lot of things over snailmail and so I’m not really sure how to express my respect and support but it’s definitely there. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to play the FallOut game where you’re a mail carrier, but I wanna... I wanna. 
Though I’ll claim to the ends of the earth that sports confuse me, I am a huge speed-running enthusiast. One hobby/interest/self-esteem exercise I have is that I really like to learn jargon/lingo involved with...anything, really. So I started watching speedruns to pick up the lingo and I just...became infatuated. I’m no expert but I’m %100 into it for more than the lingo at this point; I’ve long since got that covered. One of my favorite parts is golf-clapping along with other fans when something cool/impressive happens. 
I can’t sleep without a hat on. A beanie, specifically. When I was, like...5 or something, I was terrified of vampires, and for some reason I thought vampires bit the skull and not the neck. So I pulled my blankets up over my head at night. My parents thought this was dangerous (I might suffocate) so they gave me a hat to protect myself with. I’ve long since outgrown my fear of vampires (and learnt that they don’t typically bite skulls) but I’ve associated hats with nighttime safety for so long that I can’t fall asleep without one. In the event that I don’t have one, I can wear underwear on my head to suffice...and I think I wore a stuffed animal once somehow but idk. 
I’ve had my SPiN in genetics for so long that 5-year-old me used to infodump strangers at the grocery store. When I asked where babies come from, my dad got me a picture book written for kids specifically to answer that question. We still have it; my brothers used it, too. It starts by explaining pollination and then extends the same concepts to dogs and then humans. Most of the information is on pregnancy and fetuses rather than sex, and cell development immediately caught my fascination. I asked my parents for more information about this and they gave me some more microbiology stuff. Combine that with my animal obsession + budding interest in heredity and you’ve got a tiny obnoxious geneticist who wouldn’t stop telling random people in line at the grocery store about how chromosomes are passed on through haploid cells. Dad got real smug about it, it was fantastic. 
On a similar note (and I have no memory of how this actually happened), I more or less learnt to read spontaneously? All at once? Again, I have no clear memory of this until the part where I can read... My parents read to me every night but I never was able to do it myself. I had a huge library built into the wall at perfect me-height for reading. One morning, the summer I turned 5, I (according to legend) walked up to my parents, got their attention, said “I’m going to read now,” and then (this part I do remember) sat down and read every single book in that library over the course of two or three days. Super rough estimate, but it was somewhere between 70-200 books, with a variety of target ages ranging from 3 to 10-11. No chapter books, all pictures, but the second I was finished I wanted more books. My mom took me to the store to buy more and insisted I get a chapter book since I’d burnt through the picture books so fast. And that’s where I got my first Warriors book. 
That was not the last time I read an entire library. In 7th grade, a friend of mine and I both had sex ed previously and so were allowed to skip that year’s sex ed on the condition that we spent that class in the school library. And together, we read the entire thing. Only what was on the shelves, though; nothing in the back. Actually, at one point on the last day, we’d already read every book in the place and we were bored, so we pulled some books out of the back to look at and none of them caught our interest. One of them was the first Hunger Games book WAY before it got popular. We’d never heard of it, both read the first 2 pages, didn’t like it at all, and put it back. You should’ve seen our faces when it suddenly blew up into a huge thing. The sad thing is, I remember a lot of books that I enjoyed but can’t find now because I can’t remember any specific titles or characters. We sped through everything to finish it all and didn’t really take a lot of time to absorb details so a lot of them are lost to the vague, hazy back of my memory. Still looking for that manga where the ninja kid...stops an evil scientist from...some kind of virtual world machine. There’s a piranha tank? And then the bad guy...gets sniped by a helicopter and falls off the roof, or something? Also there was a manga version of Maximum Ride, which I only remember by name because 2 chapters in it suddenly hit me that this was a comic version of a text-novel my mom was reading at the same time. I bought a handful of books from that library at the end of the year and still have them. 
I’ve only been in one play but something fucking sweet happened during production. I was Malvolio in Twelfth Night because, and I quote my drama teacher (who had known me for 8-ish years at that point and also who was smirking her ass off when she said this), “You’ll see why when you read the play.” She was not wrong and to this day that smug fuckin grin gives me life. Anyway, I was Malvolio, and you know that “Some have greatness thrust upon them” speech that everyone’s so inspired by? That speech is a fucking prank pulled on this asshole and it’s about bangin’. So the scene is that I dramatically read this “””love letter””” I’ve received and then run off to go embarrass myself. The speech is LONG and so I asked if I can just...actually have it written on the letter. And she said yes! So I wrote it down with intent of reading it off the letter. But opening night, the actress who was to place the letter grabbed the wrong paper and so I got just a blank sheet. Guess fucking what? We’d re-choreographed that scene so many times the night before that I slammed that shit anyway, word-for-fucking-word. And I was never mad at my friend for grabbing the wrong paper, so I say this in jest, but her punishment for grabbing the wrong paper is that the entire cast/production team did not hear the end of my pride for the entire week. For a timeframe reference, I was 12. 
When I was a kid I had a horse named Emmy. She was a rental horse. Actually, I think she was a pony? The way the rental worked was that she lived in a barn with a bunch of other horses. Her owners were a small business who gave riding lessons, but instead of just riding each session, one of the horses was “yours” (assigned by age, height, and temperament, not picked by the kid) to take care of while you were there and ride consistently every session. Essentially, she was only my pet when I was on the property. I can still ride but I’ve gotten rusty and I can’t do anything above a trot for more than a few seconds. Both times I’ve jumped have been accidents, once on Emmy and once on mom’s current horse, Meteor. I’ve fallen only once, and it was off Emmy. Mom’s going to be getting a gigantic thoroughbred soon and I’m both terrified and excited to ride this very large boy. 
I talk about this in person but not online because...why would it ever come up online?? I have worn the same style of red jacket every single time I leave the house since I was a pre-teen. It’s to the point where people will only recognize me if I’m wearing it. I had a friend in high school who was/is a really cool guy, we were seniors and we’d been close friends since freshman year. I had my jacket tied around my waist because of the heat. The school had two campuses a block apart and I was walking from one to the other to get something. Friend was walking from the other to the one, so we passed each other. Wordlessly. No wave, nothing. I was tired, it was hot, I didn’t really think anything of it. Then suddenly, a foot behind me, he freezes dead in his tracks and says my name with some kind of stricken shock. He had no idea it was me. At all. Keep in mind: my jacket? Tied around my waist. Not even off, just around my waist. Since then I’ve used this jacket thing to my advantage. Sparingly, I can take it off to sneak around. It’s like I’m invisible to people I know unless I say something and they hear my voice. It’s incredible. 
Going back to speed running, way before I knew that it was a thing at all, I taught myself to speedrun two games: The Lion King (PS2, not the impossibly hard one) and Putt Putt Saves The Zoo. As they were unofficial speedruns that I didn’t really call anything and just kinda did when I was bored, I never timed the latter, and I only timed the former once using my mom’s kitchen timer. It was a rough estimate since sometimes I paused and forgot to hit play for a few seconds, or I needed to pause but didn’t for a few seconds, and the timer only counted full minutes anyway, but I still remember the time: 35 minutes. I keep meaning to go back and re-teach myself to speedrun it, perhaps more professionally, and time it with more accuracy. I still remember all the strats but I can’t pull them off with as much fluidity as I could when I was still in practice. I also can, when watching both Lion King 1 and 2, still point out with frame-perfect accuracy exactly when a scene starts that was a cutscene in that game. 
wow writing this was fun and I kinda wanna do it again. ok 
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antialiasis · 7 years
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FAR TOO EARLY THOUGHTS ON GROUNDHOG DAY THE MUSICAL
Because I am, ahem, a little actually full-on obsessed with this thing right now. Damn you Tim Minchin and your delicious deliciously dark serious humour.
(Far too early because I have not seen it and have no idea what I’m talking about and am trying to judge exclusively from listening to the soundtrack a lot, ahaha clearly I am Qualified to comment on it)
So in lieu of being able to actually see the musical, I rewatched the movie the other day, and along with some repeat listens to the soundtrack, it gave me Thoughts.
The movie is a fairly straight comedy. There is an element of existential horror to the premise, but it’s pretty much entirely played for laughs. Phil accepts the bizarre situation he’s in without much fuss aside from comical confusion and annoyance. There is, yes, the suicide montage (the most memorable part of the movie by far for me, because I am me). But it’s kicked off by the absurd, hilarious sequence where Phil kidnaps the groundhog, steals a car and then dramatically drives it off a cliff. “He might be okay,” Larry comments before the car explodes, then, “Well, no, probably not now.” Definitely played for laughs, and while the following montage isn’t comical in the same way until after the end (”I really, really liked him. A lot.”), it’s too short to actually whip back from comedy to any kind of serious emotional impact.
The premise of Groundhog Day interestingly invites the viewer to consider how the people around them are also people living their own lives, whose lives might be positively or negatively impacted by one’s own actions - Phil gets to know the life story of practically everyone in Punxsutawney, and eventually his character growth comes in the form of deciding to be a positive force in the lives of all these people - at least for this one day. But it is a bit of a shame that despite this premise, the supporting characters in the movie are pretty one-note and not very fleshed out - Rita gets to be a real, developed person who reacts to Phil in organic and fairly believable ways, but characters like Ned Ryerson are just standard exaggerated comedy people, who we get to see being exaggerated comedy people in a few different variations. It’s hard to truly get a sense that Phil has come to care about these people, because the movie doesn’t make them seem like actual people, just obstacles in his path that he eventually learns his way around. (Or, if you appreciate video game analogies, they are pretty much just NPCs with little sidequests that he’s learned to speedrun). As a result, I actually find his character development less convincing than it could be - there are really good moments that strengthen it (when he realizes on the day that he’s honest with Rita about what’s happening that she’s an infinitely better person than he is, and when he tries to save the homeless man), but the actual bit with him trying to help everyone in town falls flat in comparison, becomes a mere comedy routine rather than giving a real sense that he’s changed as a person.
So, what I’ve noticed from the soundtrack of the musical version is that it takes the premise a lot more seriously than the movie ever did, which is pretty exciting. Phil’s suicidal despair is actually dwelt on a bit and gets a pretty serious song exploring his tortured mental state as he tries to kill himself repeatedly - I also gather that his first suicide attempt involves him shooting the groundhog and himself with a gun, which definitely sounds a lot less comical than the version in the movie, although I can’t confirm that myself (God I want to see this show). And the second act appears to go to pains to spotlight at least two of the supporting characters (Nancy and Ned) as real people with their own rich inner lives, not simply props in Phil’s personal universe, which I imagine probably makes it a lot more genuine and rewarding when Phil starts to truly treat them that way. I really dig that; I hope that’s what they were going for and that it’s doing more of that (although obviously they wouldn’t have time to give a spotlight to every bit character).
ANYWAY. The soundtrack. I have listened to it enough to start to really appreciate the songs. Here are my favorites, not in much of a particular order.
Hope
Obviously. This song was written for me specifically, thank you Tim. Even if it weren’t about suicide, it’s a beautiful song and I love Andy Karl’s voice.
Favorite lyrics:
After acid and gas and guns and razors and rope, you may want to live but baby, don’t give up hope - I have buttons okay. In fact I’m pretty sure I have a special button just for characters listing off suicide methods, in pretty much any context; I seem to recall this just always gets me. Why? Who knows, but either way, FFFF
And in your head that leaden dread, the fucking roads have all been trod and there’s no way and there’s no God and God, oh God, this goddamn weather will last forever - leave it to Tim Minchin to punch me in the gut with precision F-strikes and repeated invocations of God.
Day Three
I just like listening to his mounting incoherent desperation. It makes me grin helplessly. Again, I have buttons. Also, the actual music is glorious, taking Day One and twisting it around and making it sound hellish and sinister. It’s great.
Favorite lyrics:
No. No. No! No! Come on! Don’t ring! Do not ring! Do not-- God, this--the hell’s happening? This--goddamn! God... damn! Somebody! Okay. I can figure this out. Figure it out, come on! Christ! Come on! Oh, damn it! Oh, God! What the hell! Help me! - yes, good, this is exactly what I wanted from this musical, A++
Day One
This one’s just really catchy. I have had it stuck in my head for days (specifically the first half, what I think people refer to as “Small Town, U.S.A.”, although on the track listing it’s just Day One).
Favorite lyrics:
And I’ve no qualm at all with your small-town people, I admire their balls getting out of bed at all to face another day in a shithole this small - just look what a gloriously condescending dick he is.
If I Had My Time Again
I really love this song musically, but the lyrics are even better; Rita with all her dreams and ambitions and desire to do things better is such a fantastic contrast to exactly how inane and self-centered Phil’s activities have been. I’m assuming this is played as the trigger for his character development, and it’s exactly spot-on. In the movie he just says that she’s such a much better person than he is; the musical shows it, in a way so achingly clear that there’s just no way for Phil to not see it himself.
Favorite lyrics:
Rita’s I always dreamt of learning how to dance / it’s so exciting / a new beginning every morning / to have the time to strive for more, interlaced with Phil’s Sometimes I go out without pants / I slept with 90% of women in Punxsutawney between 18 and 84 / and one dude when I was bored - Phil, striving for more.
Similarly, Rita’s I always fancied learning how to climb / I’d study math / and search for meaning / and run up hills / and learn to paint / just to know I can simultaneous with Phil’s I once masturbated seven times / in the bath / in one evening / it wasn’t fun but still / a man my age / it’s nice to know I can / it’s nice to know I can - w o w. Who wouldn’t slink back and rethink their entire life after this. (Also, it’s hilarious.)
And if you knew the endless nights that I have wasted getting wasted contemplating different ways to suicide - never mind me, just me and my buttons again.
One Day
I actually mostly love this one musically, but it’s also just a great ramble from Rita developing her character, and alongside its humour it establishes she has a bit of a romantic fantasy going on beneath a lot of layers of cynicism, setting up why she might nonetheless end up falling for a guy in the space of a day.
Favorite lyrics:
And I’d rather be alone if the only other option is succumb and settle down with some condescending clown with a great rating from some dating service, some self-professing Mr. Perfect, another narcissistic legend made a million out of hedge funds, another sexually ineffectual self-obsessing metrosexual pseudo-intellectual getting drunk and existential every time the Steelers lose a game - Tim Minchin in full form.
ANYWAY, I am a little obsessed, hopefully I can think a little less about this now that I’ve gotten some of it out of my system.
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ilvatu · 7 years
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PS2 and the Aging problem
I would like to start off by saying that this post is about Planetside 2 and not the Playstation 2. Many may assume I’m talking about the console, and get halfway through the first paragraph and start to feel like something is off. These people are console gamers. Like the zoo, it’s fun to visit consoles every once in awhile but you wouldn’t want to have to live with them. 
Planetside 2, unlike the PS2, is still a fairly good. I think the quality of this game is centered more around the people you are playing with as much as the game itself. Which may be part of the problem why these antisocial nerds have such adversarial opinions on certain online games. 5 Years after release the game is still the way you remember it. Just a meatgrinder with some basic RPG elements. Like experience that you use to earn “Certs” which is the de facto currency used to buy things like new weapons and upgrades. 
Without realizing it, I think PS2 is the bar I use to compare new multiplayer FPS games to. Why PUBG is a natural upgrade for the FPS genre. I may go into why I am both fascinated by PUBG and repulsed at the same time. 
PS2 has an interesting progression system. Eventually you could buy everything in the game, have all the upgrades, etc. Though most of that doesn’t really offer much advantage other than  maybe Optics? I don’t know. It’s kinda like MWO. Are the paid mechs better than the standard ones you can buy for free? Sure they offer a c-bill bonus, but they still die as easily as the standard variants when you shoot them. Some of the hardpoints are different from other mechs. So that may offer an advantage or variety not offered to non-paying customers.
I feel like it’s similar in PS2 and MWO. The people who have cashed in for thousands of dollars still die to the default base guns and vehicles when you shoot them. These games feel less pay-to-win than other games in the free to play categories. Are there games that are pay to win? Absolutely. 
I feel like it’s the same people who bitch about Pay-to-Win and subscription fees. I get that you don’t want to be nickel and dimed to hell and back for playing a game you like. I also get that you don’t want to be charged a monthly fee. But game development is expensive, and these people have families to feed. In other words: I don’t understand how you expect them to pay for the game’s development and then continue to support the servers that online games function on if you won’t allow them to sell players something. At least not until server farms and ISPs offer unlimited hosting and bandwith and developers offer up thousands of hours and years of their time without needing to pay things like mortgages, property taxes, and car payments. And electricity is as free as the air you breathe. 
And don’t confuse pay-to-not-grind with pay-to-win. If you see an option that allows free players to get a gun, and along side it see a price tag for real money, you can’t say it’s pay to win. Sure, if you don’t want to give them money it will take you a fucking eternity to get it. But then again the person who is paying for that gun is paying for the hampsters that keep the server running that your entitled ass isn’t. They are just asking you what is more important to you. Your money or your time? 
In any case, 5 years later and a real adult job, I have a rig that can run PS2 at 60 FPS. No performance issues. I guess the 1070 I have was worth the price. I think how the game ran on my moderate rig back in 2012 was the biggest turn-off to me for PS2. After awhile the game was also just boring. It seemed like an unchanging meat grinder. It’s true to this day. The difference for me now is that I had a rather large group to play it with, and those people were extremely fun. 
You could make the case for the last part with any game. Any game is fun if you have a group of people to play it with. At least, any online game, And as far as the single player games are concerned the speedrunning community would like to have a word with you. Every game is better with a good group. It might be why Yachtzee hasn’t found a memorporger he likes yet. Because he always chooses to play inherently social games as a single player experience. 
I guess this post has been more about F2P games than PS2, but I think those conversations are one and the same these days. PS2 is still alive and well, and has proven that their game is without a doubt still successful 5 years later. It doesn’t seem like I am at any real disadvantage logging back in after all this time. Still fun in the same sense. I feel like most other games need to out do it’s design for me to give a shit about them. 
Let’s compare it to Destiny 2. Is it an MMO? Maybe by the vaguest of definitions. Very limited number of players in one game. Is it open world? No? So it’s an arena shooter. How’s the PvP? 5v5? We did better than that back in the Counter Strike days. It has a loot progression system based on experience and loot tables. Fun. It’s basically WoW with guns. Probably why Blizzard agreed to publish it. It’s also a shitty fucking console port. Awesome. 
Also why does everything need god damn experience. I swear if we gave you an experience bar on your toilet these spergs would just see how much they could shit and brag about what their cornhole put out last night.
I think the “is it better than Planetside 2″ question should be asked of every modern FPS game. Just like the “is it the same better than WoW” is asked when someone talks about MMORPGs. Maybe it’s not always a fair question to ask. I have already mentioned comparing Eve to WoW isn’t really fair because although people think they are both MMOs, the actual game for both have entirely different focuses. Maybe you couldn’t, for example, compare Star Citizen or Borderlands to PS2. One is so beyond the scope of Planetside it’s impossible to know where to start, the other is a dedicated single player or co-op experience with a story. 
Also, the last thing that really bugs me about PS2 over PS1 is the class system. Armor levels had different movement speeds and inventory tetris was interesting. I could equip myself however I wanted. Now we’re put into specific class constraints and given very very limited freedom within those classes. Any time you’re giving less freedom to players is a big no-no in my book. Even in the name of “balance” it’s usually a bad idea. Surely they could have found a better way. Alas, its CoD leaking into every nook and crannie of FPS. 
Class and experience I can do without in skill-based games. PS2′s system is irrelevant enough that I can bear with it. Buy a new gun with the experience money you’ve earned. Fine. But don’t give me a minimum level to do something. That’s just stupid. 
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8/16/19 2:35am SU 7/? How Rachel Ended My Melee Career
After valentine’s day my work schedule changed.
I convinced my manager to let me do some days in Cary, because we weren’t getting enough patients in Burlington. So I would work mon,tues,weds in cary, then thurs,fri,sat nights in burlington, and then I’d have a full 8 days off in a row to do whatever the fuck I wanted.
Me and Rachel had been talking about speedruns and stuff, so at the time I was toying with the idea of speedrunning a silly version of Melee adventure mode, like it would make me better at the game or something lol.
I only mention that because I remember one of the first things I did with my new freedom schedule was take a nice long trip to Richmond to hang out with Tony and play some with my buddy Redd. We won a doubles tournament pretty handily, but he’s so good that it was a given. I remember fucking around with the adventure mode stuff on Tony’s couch for a while, working on setting up stream stuff and whatnot. I went out to a bunch of bars with Tony too, but he was also working a lot so I was mostly chilling and smoking with Carlyn and hanging out during the day. Great trip, wish I hadn’t spent so much time fucking around with melee shit though lol.
Of course Rachel knew about all the tournaments and stuff I was going to, and she still wanted to come along to one one day. Especially because she had talked to her ex-bf about Leffen joining the DBFZ community and so he finally had a little respect for Melee lmao. The week I was off again I made plans with her to pregame walkers and have a sleepover, but I forgot I also made plans with Weilin to play doubles. I didn’t want to bail out on her so I asked if she’d want to just come along and watch, since she loves to watch games. She said she didn’t think it’d be weird at all and that she’d love to come.
So during the tournament Rachel mostly sat off to the side reading some Lord of the Rings. She’d check out what was going on once in a while, but when I’d check on her she wasn’t usually hanging over my shoulder or even watching, really. She’d just be hanging out reading her book. I played my ass off in doubles. Me and weilin won the tournament and I won a fistful of cash for the night. I don’t think she even watched lmao, but she congratulated me later when we talked about me winning. 
Honestly that day really changed something for me. I don’t even remember what I did in singles. Did I even enter? That might have been the day I bombed out to Chi and Dash. Maybe not though since I had plans with Rachel too. None of it really felt like it mattered after I realized she wasn’t watching me win. I had been grinding melee again for months, hoping that this time would be the time I finally got good at it. And in some ways I was. I had won 3 doubles tournaments that month alone (one with weilin on the 6th and that one with Redd on the 23rd) so I was clearly good enough to make money at some events, maybe even to be proud of myself.  But that day made me realize that melee is just not an interesting thing. It’s not going to attract the attention of a stranger. It’s not usually going to impress someone who doesn’t play it, much less my friends or family. And it kind of hurt to realize I was investing so much in something that was so uninteresting. 
I had spent so much time after Kailey waiting for a girl to come around who was actually willing to go to a tournament with me and actually excited to watch me play. Like I thought that when I finally found that I’d find someone who was actually real or it would actually make me happy. When it finally happened it was a true catharsis, I think, because it wasn’t pleasing. I was ecstatic about how I played with Weilin because I love that man more than anything, but it was also a hollow victory for what I thought I was actually accomplishing that day. But it was also relieving to realize I no longer had the pressure of finding that anymore. It made me realize I needed to change and figure something else to do for a while. I’ve never been as into melee after that. It’s not a sad thing or a bad thing. Just another chapter closed, I think. A growing point, I suppose.
Instead Rachel got me more interested to explore speedrunning as a hobby.
I said I always loved the Mega Man games and figured if I started speedrunning I’d want it to be one of those. She said “If you start speedrunning Mega Man I’ll fuck you forever.”
[rachel pic of quote]
So I did. I made it part of my to do list, started watching vods, taking notes. It was a fun project to do at work, and I could play on an emulator on my laptop so I had so much time to invest in it.
And it also got me more interested in streaming! February 18 is when I started streaming for the first time thanks to Rachel, and even though I don’t much any more, it was a nice little passion project that still makes me a bit of money here and there lol. I still don’t really think I’m good enough to merit being worth watching, but it’s there.
Too bad I didn’t save any of the good vods I had. Ash% runs, or my Undertale playthrough, or man... I’ll talk more about that later.
But yeah she basically made me realize I should start doing other shit with my time than melee. It was the first time someone had been Supportive of me playing melee 100%, which is what made me realize it. Not negging it at all really made me look at it from a non-combative light I think, and so I finally realized it was time to try new games and play more guitar. Playing guitar was definitely a great call, I wish I had kept going the entire past year and a half. 
Anyway to put a tl;dr on this, I stopped going to melee tournaments after that. I’ve basically only entered the last two arcadians for singles and she’s the reason why. I’m just not into it anymore. It doesn’t really excite me like I used to, even though I still play with my roommates a lot. They just don’t really do anything else lol. 
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