#i thought all the romance options were super boring before the game came out

[panic-flavored]

I tripped and accidentally romanced the space cowboy

#starfield #sam coe #cora coe #bethesda #i wasnt expecting!!! to like him!!! #i thought all the romance options were super boring before the game came out #but sam is so sweet??? and complex??? and a dilf??? #and i love cora too ToT like how could i resist #anyway him and my character Quinn are already married whoops #ill probably be posting some art of quinn soon too cause i love him

[mrslittletall]

Time for my Ghost of Tsushima Review: Graphics To make it short, the game looks absolutely GORGEOUS. It goes with a realistic style. I didn’t had trouble with the character models, they looked good and unique and the facial expressions were well done. What got me, though, is the scenery. Tsushima is lush with nature and there were trees, flowers, pampas grass. You clearly could see what was a japanese settlement and what was a mongol camp, though I have to argue that they resuded a lot of assets for the buildings, like if you you knew one of them, you knew all of them, but that is nitpicking.  The water looked great, the fire effects looked great, the foxes were cute, the flowers were gorgeous. It was a joy to look at and I made some scenery screenshots which I all forgot to upload, oh well...  The last area was a bit duller though, because it was full of snow, but I like snow and we got footprints in the snow, so I was fine with it ^^ Sound/Music Sadly this game suffers from western Triple A problems... the music is generic and doesn’t stand out. I think I remember one song of the entire OST and that was in Yarikawa, when you unlock the Ghost Stance.  The music is generally played with japanese instruments which was a very nice touch though. It wasn’t there all the time also, leaving you room to listen to the atmosphere, which was nicely done. It never really was quiet in Tsushima, but it made me feel at ease. I am also amazed at the voice acting. The voice acting was really really good, though both me and my husband had one gripe with it... Ok, so I put them on english, but they are still talking japanese with each other, it’s just dubbed for our listening comfort, so why... why did so many VA’s speak with a fake japanese accent?! That didn’t make any sense at all!  It got even more hilarious when I read the names of the credits and Jin, one of the few who doesn’t sport a fake japanese accent was spoken by a japanese man! That was the only gripe I had with the voice acting though.  Gameplay  The game feels like a classic Open World game. I heard a lot of people got tired by it, but they probably have played like a hundred Open World titles already. I only played Breath of the Wild and Death Stranding (and Death Stranding is not a typical Open World title), so it felt all fresh and new enough for me. I am a person who really likes to see progress in games, so it always felt great for me when I found one of the locations in Tsushima that would give me some extra and make my Jin stronger. I loved the exploration part of the game.  The quests of the games? They were a bit generic, at least the optional quests. Lots of the same to do. The story quests were more interesting, for they sometimes forced a certain playstyle on you or gave you certain weapons to use. Like, sinking the ships with the hwacha was really cool and having to sneak out of the shogun’s castle was nerve wracking. I wasn’t bored with them though, for I liked the little stories behind the quests.  The combat was really fluid and played well, though the standoffs at Act 3 got ridiculously hard. I thought it was my problem, but I wasn’t the only one failing the standoffs in Act 3, the game really just made them super hard, apparently to encourage stealth? Yeah, but I don’t want to stealth the mongol patrols...  The boss battles in the game... they kinda felt like a dance. You had to find out what your opponent does and react accordingly and if you did it right, it felt like a beautiful rythm of a sword battle. I was pretty impressed by how fluid it felt when I didn’t mess up. The stealth mechanics were good. I hate stealth in games where you normally don’t do stealth, but here the stealth was a big part of the game. You had a lot of options for stealth, you could hide in grass or behind walls, you could assassinate the foes one by one, you could hide on a roof and shoot them with your bow, you get access to poison later in the game (shooting a brute with hallucination dart was always fun) and and and. It really hammers home that your character took up the practices of a shinobi to save his home.  The early game hell was pretty bad though... you start with not much of course, and that made me almost give up on the game because I did nothing but die... only when I found out that I can run up to archers and hit them with my sword instead of having an archer battle, I had fun again. Like, the game starts you out with low health and resolve and then gets you into missions with five archers shooting at you at once? You are dead before you could even aim!  Overall, I had fun with the gameplay.  Story/Characters Ok, that will be complicated, because I like the story and I dislike the story at the same time... But let’s talk about the characters first. I loved most of them, especially Jin, Yuna, Kenji and Norio. Every main character got their own questline which you could follow and it showed a lot about them, also that none of them a honourable hero or anything, but they all had their flaws and troubles... Especially Lady Masako’s quest made me thinking... for it was extreme that her family got slaughtered like that, but after hearing that she left her sister in an abusive marriage I couldn’t hate Lady Hana for it... she must have tremendously suffered and sadly all her negative energy got channeled at innocent people... Their stories went through the whole game and were a good thing to deepen them, because in the main story they felt a bit side lined in favour of Yuna’s and Jin’s friendship as well as the storyline about Ryuzo and the relationship between Jin and Shimura.  Ok, let’s talk about the story now.  The story is set on the 13th century of the island of Tsushima with the mongol invasion. Because the mongols fight not fair, the honourable Samurai lose the battle... almost all of them. Jito Shimura gets captured and Jin gets dragged away by thief Yuna who nurses him back to health. Of course he makes the decision to save Shimura, who is his uncle, but now he hasn’t an army in his back, he’s only one man. So Yuna teaches him the tactics of stealth and dirty fighting. More and more over the span of the game, Jin takes up the practices of a shinobi, with a lot of Ghost Weapons that get unlocked and a stealth based game play.  Jin, who has been raised as honourable samurai, has trouble with this and can’t accept his new role at first. He tells himself he stops doing it once the mongols are driven out, but...  A legend is getting spun. The Legend of the Ghost. I really like how this happens, for Jin does nothing supernatural to get the mongols down, he simply changes his tactics. But the people hear about it and they rumour and soon after they call him “The Ghost” and everything gets exxegerated a LOT. That is pretty much how legends must have started, so I loved this aspect.  And I loved how we see Jin’s inner struggle and how he thinks about the land first and his honour second and that there is a friendship with Yuna which never turns into romance, which is a plus as well. Act 2 was really epic and I loved the whole Yarikawa moment, when like everything screamed “For the Ghost”, that was POWERFUL. What I dislike is the story since the end of Act 2 and in the start of Act 3.   See, there’s Ryuzo. Ryuzo is Jin’s boyfriend childhood friend and he is a ronin. Jin asked him to join his forces, but Ryuzo betrays him and joins the mongols for his men hunger and the Khan did promise him food.  And during the second act, Ryuzo and his strawhat ronin act like secondary villains... and I was very much hoping for a redemption arc for Ryuzo, but instead the story lets Ryuzo pathetically cry for his life and Jin has to kill him. Um, what was that?! You missed a GREAT opportunity for a redemption arc here and it feels like you didn’t use the potential of Ryuzo at all...  And then Act 3 happened... see in Act 2 there is a mission where Jin gets poison and it is a powerful weapon, most players will probably use it. But there is a scene where Jin uses it without player control and his uncle is like “WTF Jin?”  The issue comes when we enter act 3 and now the mongols use the poison that Jin used on them... And the story turns into a “Oh Jin used poison, how horrible that is! Now the mongols have poison! Why did you use poison, Jin? You are clearly the villain now.” Which I am like... “No? What the fuck? This guy saved thousands of people because he decided that life was more imporant than honour and the narration wants to tell us that poison is bad? What?”  In the end, I liked that Lord Shimura came to help though and the ending tale... had some very powerful lines “You have no honour.” “And you are a slave to it.” Beautifully delivered those lines. My decision in the end was to let Lord Shimura leave, but not for the reason Jin had, for he said he wouldn’t kill family. My reason was the following: “Live! See the pain and suffering of your people and help them. Live with your shame and survive, because that is what Jin does. You don’t get an easy way out, old man.” Yeah, my reason was lot more spite...  Anyway, I wish the story in the later acts would have been better... it started so strong... Overall This isn’t a perfect game of course. But I had my fun with it and I wanted to explore the map and see the end of Jin’s story. Characters were adorable and fun, gameplay is smooth once early game hell is over. I would totally rec this game if you aren’t fatigued of open world titles.

#ghost of tsushima #ghost of tsushima spoilers #ghost of tsushima review

[rubyredsundae]

Mass Effect Trilogy Tag!

I was not tagged by anyone, I just really wanted to join in. If you see this and want to as well, please do! I've been loving reading through everyone's :)

I am a fan since… 2011ish? Definitely at least a year before ME3 came out. I remember watching my brother play ME2 and thinking it was so cool. While he was away it was a huge comfort for me to play it in his room, kind of like a bonding or cathartic experience for someone who wasn't there at the time.

When ME3 came out, me and him went to the midnight release at a gamestop like 40 minutes away or something, wearing clothes we threw together to kind of fit the N7 color scheme. Even though we don't talk anymore, those memories are still really precious to me. Also, the nostalgia of playing ME1 after-school or on the weekend, running to get my easy mac from the microwave during a cutscene, stuffing too hot mouthfuls while speeding the Mako towards the conduit on Ilos.

Favorite game of the series: It's a tough call between ME1 and ME2, but I'd say ME2. It's the game I get the urge to replay the most.

MaleShep or FemShep? Femshep all the way. I only play MShep when I want to do his exclusive romances. No offense to BroShep, but ME was the first game I ever played that let me not just be a girl, but customizable. Not just to be the already generated token girl character in a pack of boys. And not only can you play Femshep, but every game you are surrounded by smart, funny, tough women as squadmates. It was such a huge deal to me, and still is. Femshep represents so much. As Jennifer Hale put it, FemShep was a military grade boot to the video game industry glass ceiling.

Earthborn, Colonist or Spacer? I personally tend to lean spacer in-game, but I tend to use Earthborn when I'm writing fics.

Paragon or Renegade? Usually Paragon, but Renegade playthroughs can be really interesting, especially if I have a detailed background about why Shep is the way they are. My first Renegade, Krystle, is pretty bigoted and anti-alien until she meets Liara. Krystle is naturally guarded and quick to anger, so meeting someone who seemed to accept her and listen to her without judgment really opens her mind.

By the 2nd game, she wakes up in the cerberus lab with new biotic powers, having previously been a regular foot soldier. This makes her seeth, having someone completely take her agency, agreeing with the illusive man on the surface but plotting against him the entire time. She starts to lean more Paragon, if only to piss him off. She has the biggest smirk on her face when she blows up the collector base.

Biotics or Tech? Oooh, this is hard. Maybe biotics just the tiniest smidge because of Jack/Samara biotic bubble throw during the suicide mission. I don't know if we'll ever get a screen adaptation but THAT is a moment I would pay to see done with a big SFX budget behind it.

Favorite class: Sentinel! I don't know how much this reflects on my class preference in gaming in general, but I love the 'jack of all trades'ness of it. By the time I get an assault rifle, I don't really feel the need for anyone else to make up for something I lack. Also, tech armor in ME2? Where your shields regenerate automatically when it breaks, and the cool down is when you initially active it, instead of when you detonate it? Chef's kiss. I understand why it was nerfed in 3 but I'm still mad.

Favorite companion: Ho boy. This is obviously very difficult to choose but I'm gonna say Miranda. I've always loved and identified with her character, I love the accent, and she's always useful on missions. I was so happy when I learned she could be a squadmate in the armax arena.

Honorable mention to Ashley in ME1. Her character is rarely used to exposition lore, so she just gets to have her personality fleshed out. I don't always agree with her but she does seem genuinely willing to listen. ME3 tosses her out the airlock though; partially because her content was bugged and never restored, leaving her inclusion feel half-baked, and partly because Ash and Kaidan have to be able to serve the same plot function as each other and it negatively affects her character more than his. This could also be intentional on bioware's part, to try to flesh out kaidan's personality and tone down Ashley's as a response to criticisms of them from ME1.

Least favorite companion: Also difficult, because I don't really hate anyone as much as I am just less interested in some. I didn't like Zaeed for a long time, but I think he's much better and really funny in ME3. James was pushed on me too much at the beginning and it made me really dislike him, but I think he's greatly improved and also pretty funny in Citadel DLC. I'm also pretty indifferent to Jacob; I don't think he's a bad character, just disappointing because there was a lot of potential.

Not that every character has to go on and do some grand quest to be interesting, but I don't feel like Jacob every really got a big hero moment like everyone else. He is a very calm and introverted person (imo) who doesn't really share his feelings, so it's always been hard for to to connect with him on anything.

My squad selection: Depends on the game, but it usually involves Garrus lol. Typically it's Liara/Garrus in ME1, Miranda/Garrus for ME2, and Liara/Garrus again in ME3. I am very boring and predictable! If you have any suggestions for me to try out and mix things up, let me know!

Favorite in-game romance: Also depends on the game. ME1 it's Liara, hands down. It was the first game, really the first piece of media, where I was told two women could fall in love and be happy and that was okay. The amount of enlightenment and comfort in figuring out that I was bi these games brought me is kind of wild to look back on.

ME2 is a toss-up between Garrus and Thane. They are both wonderful but in completely different ways. I tend to now romance Thane on characters I don't plan on importing to ME3, or if I do, to just have a really depressed fucking Shepard lol. I hate how much Thane was brushed off, especially if you romanced him.

Other pairings I like: l love Miranda so much, but I'm a gay girl so I ship her and Femshep. Same goes for Tali, Jack, Ashley... damn I'm just really gay for straight girls huh :/

I don't really have any other ships for non-Shep related pairings.

Favorite NPC: Shiala is really cool to me, I wish we got to see her in 3. Emily Wong is also cool, also wish we saw her in 3. There's probably a lot more that when I come across them next I'll be like, "you! I love you! You're my favorite."

Oh also Joker! And EDI! But not together. Idk I feel like ME3 threw a curveball at me with "do you support organic/non-organic relationships?" Like m'am please don't ask me, I accidentally drank turian liquor last year, I'm not qualified to be an expert on this.

Favorite antagonist: Tbh I really dig Saren. I think his reasoning is super fascinating, both to set up how someone who's indoctrinated can rationalize to themselves that they are still in control; and as a foil to Shepard, to show what can happen when you become too isolated and the ends justify the means. I think his VA does a great job of walking the line between desperate survivor and madman. He's also the only antagonist in the trilogy that we ever fight 1 on 1 (ignoring squadmates) and it feels more personal. I think he's such a fantastic foe for the first entry in a trilogy and I don't think he gets enough credit.

Favorite mission: Is it cliche to say the suicide mission? It's honestly close to perfect. The stakes, the sequencing, the cinematics, the score. Everything works so well.

Favorite loyalty mission: Kasumi's and Tali's are really cool, as we all know. Samara's is also cool because it is entirely non-combat based. Shepard has to prove they can accomplish what seems impossible without a gun or biotics.

The confrontation at the end with Morinth always haunts me a little, because they are both right in their own way. Morinth's final line, "and they say I'm the monster", as you let Samara kill her, watch her scrambling backwards in fear... I know that she's a remorseless killer, but it gets me every time.

Favorite DLC: It's Citadel, obviously. Turns out what I really wanted was quality time and a party with all my friends. I love mass effect for many reasons, but simulating friends and affection when I had none has always made me bond to this series like other games don't. Is it sad? Sure! But I don't think love and affection for fictional characters should ever be shameful until it makes you hurt other people.

Control, Synthesis or Destroy? I'd say destroy. If the other options were presented earlier and we had time to stew with it, maybe I'd be more split. But all of this in 5 minutes? It's not like the collector base where the implications are obvious and the choice is just down to what Shepard believes. The 3 choices all seem like space magic out of nowhere, and none of them seem to really offer any insight on what Shepard should believe. So I say destroy, just because it's what Shep has intended and is most consistent with their character and their admiration of Anderson.

Favorite weapon: The spectre level assault rifle in ME1. Never have I felt more powerful.

Favorite place: Idk why but I just thought of the creepy lab with all the scientists during the leviathan DLC. I really love when Mass Effect leans into the Lovecraftian horror aspect of things. Talking to Sovereign and Vigil in ME1 gave me goosebumps my first few playthroughs.

A quote I like: I have hundreds, but the one off the top of my head is, "After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began." I have a poster of it up on my wall right now!

#mass effect #mass effect trilogy #mass effect trilogy tag

[edgarbright]

[ Initial Musings after Leonardo’s Route; Spoilers ]

Everyone else finishing up Leonardo's route: Tears, public breakdowns, ready to fight the sun

Me finishing up Leonardo's route:

If I described his route in one word, I would perhaps use underwhelming.

He's a wonderful and super attractive man, don't get me wrong! If you want therapeutic support, he's definitely your guy! He loves MC, he cares about MC, he exists for MC. (Although for a man who is also kind of horny, his spice leaves a lot to be desired and that's with premium attire lol)

But if they had changed his name from Leonardo to Sergio, I would never have thought he was an artist, an inventor, a man in love with learning and exploring, a forward thinker with a galaxy brain who is the poster child for the Renaissance, which is a time when beauty and love and science rose up. There was nothing to show that he had a procrastination problem, that for such a brilliant creator he only finished a handful of works in his lifetime, that he prioritized the pursuit of discovery and art for art’s sake, and that paid commissions were dragged out for years while he jumped between personal pet projects.

What we did get was a smoker with an incredibly kind heart and a touch of sadness who lives in a horrendously messy room. He is so disinterested in creative pursuits that he didn’t even name the cat he has had for like 2 years.

And if his route wasn't in a game with the word vampire in the title, I would have entirely thought him human. I would have thought EVERYONE in that mansion was human. There is absolutely nothing that hints at vampires in this route except at the beginning when Arthur drinks the rouge, but that could have been a practical joke at the MC’s expense.

There is, however, a scene at the end where Leonardo gets seriously injured and survives, but it wouldn't be the first Ikemen game to critically wreck a suitor only for him to walk it off a week later. It’s only at the very end of the route that we’re told Leonardo thinks himself a monster, and this idea is given no preface. We are not given evidence or hints as to show us why he thinks this way, either, when his life, by all means, is incredibly normal despite him living in a house brimming with handsome men and outliving everyone he’s ever known.

Then there is a throw-out about him attempting alchemy, but we aren’t given the time to settle into the idea. All the interesting bits about Leonardo are saved for around the 24th chapter mark of a 26 chapter route. It felt like the writer realized they had spent too much time coddling the MC and realized they needed to make Leonardo more interesting in his own right, which is bizarre because he’s supposed to be the Leonardo da Vinci.

As for the MC, she is one of the least favorites I have encountered. She is the epitome of acting like a child so her suitor can act like a man. Thankfully Leonardo comes across as a mature, attractive, and capable person all on his own, but that makes her look even worse for her immaturity.

The MC is sat down (with Saint-Germain, dreamy sigh goes here), is propositioned with a request, is provided options with explanations so she can make an education decision, makes her choice, and then proceeds to act like a child for what felt like half the route. It is incredibly unromantic, to me, that Leonardo has to literally drag her out of hiding so they can proceed with their Fake Dating. What a waste of a great trope! No one was forcing her to be with Leonardo. Even he was surprised when she agreed to play along. Honestly, they should have just put us all out of our misery and cancelled the deal. Maybe have the MC realize her mistake on her own.

(Easy concept to fix this I came up with just now: MC and Leonardo cancel the deal because the MC is so obviously uncomfortable despite agreeing, and then have another vampire or two come at her when they realize she doesn’t have Leonardo’s ~protection. MC realizes she is responsible for own safety, has to use her one brain cell to the best of its ability, and we get to see vampires being vampires. Nice!)

Instead, it took her around 9 to 10 chapters before she acknowledged Leonardo wasn’t really that bad a guy -- which is extra bizarre because he’s never presented as a bad guy ever? everyone respects him? the townspeople love him?? I don’t recall exactly how long she’s been in the manor by this point, a week most likely, which leaves approximately two weeks for her to fall head-over-heels in love with him before the climax.

Two. Weeks.

And then they are proclaiming their undying love for each other by the end?? Is this Romeo x Juliet? I know Shakespeare is a character in this game but did he write this route!?

It should be said that Shakespeare was a perfect GENTLEMAN in this route, btw. I assume his darkness is shown elsewhere. But the scene with him at the ball was great and informative and mysterious and I love him. Also Saint-Germain, when finding out what went down between Shakespeare and a particular acting trope, continued to show his support and admiration for Shakespeare and his writing. We all stan a proactive and dedicated playwright in this house.

Speaking of Saint-Germain, in his minor supporting role, he SHONE in this route, which is why my love for him is especially bursting and we super stan him! You can tell he cares about the MC, from her comfort to her happiness to her safety. When Leonardo and Saint-Germain came to save her, Saint-Germain honestly stole the show because his anger and passion felt real and plausible and inflamed. I got the real sense that Saint-Germain would literally tear apart everyone in that room. (Those are his guests and you do not touch his guests...) Meanwhile Leonardo goes to rescue her by proclaiming that he has never loved or will ever love another woman except her (you’ve known her for, like, 3 weeks at this point, my guy), and it’s just so over the top and weirdly focused (obsessive?) it felt fake and forced to me.

To be honest, if it wasn’t because of Saint-Germain, Shakespeare, and having friends who are promoting their faves (I’m listening!!!), I might have been inclined to call the game boring and drop it. This was a lackluster route that did not live up to the famous name of Leonardo da Vinci, provide any supernatural elements, create an endearing romance, or offer historical resonance or insight.

There were still several heartwarming and entertaining moments, from seeing Leonardo in town to meeting the watch-maker to the bathing house scene with Theo and Vincent (LOL) that I do remember fondly! Wonderful smaller set pieces, but sadly none of them large enough to bridge the gap.

#my ikevamp #ikevamp leonardo #leonardo's route #leonardo route spoilers #when i say rambling i mean rambling #my first route didn't go as well as i hoped...

[fooled-around-and-fell]

The Spy (1)

Summary: Steve is taking a break, he’s having a nice small vacation by himself and runs into a unique person, who has their own secrets.

Genre: romance, fluff, angst

Pairing: ? ? ?

(gif is not mine)

Steve hadn’t felt so free in his life. Well, he’s not really free, but at least he has the next few weeks to himself. He hid himself in a small town, there were less people but enough crowd.

He’s been in this town for three days now, he stayed at a local motel, a place decent enough to live in and lay low. He’s still having trouble sleeping most of the time, casually going on a stroll late at night, having a nice conversation with the old man next door - who must be a good twenty years younger than him, he talked about his father who went to the second world war a lot. He cried sometimes, reminiscing the day he came home from school to find two officers on his front door, his mother on the ground crying her eyes out.

Steve could only listen. He too, lost his loved ones in the world war. His best friend, his best girl...his life ended when he crashed himself in that ice, and now...he’s not sure how to fit in anymore. Of course he had friends, the Avengers, Bucky, and perhaps many other super people, but he kept asking himself;

When will it all end?

--

Steve looked at the peculiar building in front of him, then back at his sketchbook. Four days in and his sketchbook was almost full. He just couldn’t stop drawing. He drew buildings, flowers, kids playing, anything he could find. And he was getting bored of drawing the same things all over again. Steve sighed and dropped his pencil.

“Ran out of things to draw?” Eileen chuckled, pouring him another cup of coffee.

“It’s getting too easy.” Steve said smugly. “Thanks for the coffee, Eileen.”

Eileen snorted, “how about you go to the carnival? They’re opening tomorrow.”

“Carnival?” Steve frowned, “Where is it?”

“Just by the square,” She pointed across the street, “But there are going to be a lot of people there.”

Steve gave her a light smile. Eileen was a woman in her forties, she owned the local diner that everyone knows and goes to every Sunday after church. And Steve trusted her because he thought she was the only person who knew he was Captain America. How naive.

After finishing his coffee, Steve collected his things and went back to the motel, greeting some of the people who passed by, played with a few kids who passed him a baseball. He could imagine himself staying here for the rest of his life, enjoying the fresh wind and the beautiful sunset.

But as the sun sets and the night falls, he soon realized that staying wasn’t an option. One day or the other, the world was going to need him. He couldn’t stay.

Just as Steve was about to turn right, he saw the Carnival being set up. There was a Ferris Wheel, a big red and white striped tent, various stands - it was as if he was back in the 40s. Smiling at the thought, he might actually go tomorrow.

--

The Carnival was crowded, just as the Eileen said it would be. Steve came to the Carnival at around 12 PM, and everyone was crowding the place. Kids were running around chasing each other, old couples were sitting on the benches, as they ate their lunch, couples were playing the dart game to win their loved ones a prize - something he wished to have since long ago.

Steve sat on an empty bench. He bought a weird looking fried potato earlier and after eating, he took his sketchbook out. Eileen was right, there were a lot of things he could draw here. Steve usually drew people without their faces, because it would seem so creepy and weird to draw someone without consent so he left them blank.

As he was drawing this kid who was playing a kite, he suddenly remembered the times he had spent with Bucky before the war. They were both just kids trying to get by, reach their dreams to be in the army. And somehow they did achieve that dream, but it also brought them suffering. Steve no longer recognized the little kid from Brooklyn - he couldn’t go back to who he was even if he tried, and Bucky... he wasn’t the same. Steve didn’t blame him of course, war changes people whether you like it or not.

When Steve looked up to get another look at the kid, he was gone. Steve was halfway finished with his drawing and looked left and right for the kid with the kite, and he found him. He found the kid right next to him, looking at his drawing with a pout on his face.

“Uh...hi.” Steve didn’t know what to say.

“Mommy always said it’s bad to take a picture without permission..” The little boy sulked, “But I don’t know if this counts..” He motioned at the unfinished drawing of himself in the striped tee, navy hat and dark shorts, and his now missing kite.

Steve quirked an awkward smile. “How about I’ll give it to you when I’m finished?”

The boy shrugged and sat next to Steve.

Steve noticed the kid’s sulking face and his missing kite. “So why aren’t you playing the kite anymore?”

“It’s gone. I’m waiting for my auntie to pick me up.. She’s probably going to get mad.” He sulked even more.

Feeling sorry for the poor kid, Steve put away his book in his pocket and stood up, “why don’t we go look for it then? I’m sure it didn’t fly away very far and maybe we’ll run into your aunt too.”

Seeing Steve’s kind smile and determination, the kid gave a firm nod and stormed along with Steve’s big steps, determined to find his kite.

But of course the kite was never found, and they ended up playing and exploring the Carnival. Steve won the little boy a toy train named Thomas, bought him a cotton candy and himself an ice cream.

“Andrew!!”

They both suddenly heard a shrill cry coming towards them. It was a woman who looked very angry and worried at the same time, and Steve just remembered the kid was supposed to wait for his aunt. Was she his aunt?

“I told you to wait for me, remember? Where have you been? I’ve been so worried.”

The little boy, Andrew, looked down with a pout as he stopped playing with his toy as he mumbled. “Sorry, Y/N..”

Steve cleared his throat, “uh, sorry, miss. I was with your nephew. We were looking for his lost kite a while ago and lost track of time. I should’ve noticed, I’m sorry.”

Y/N looked at Steve and she nodded. “It’s fine, he’s okay so you don’t need to apologize. Thank you for accompanying him, uh..”

“S- Mike. My name’s Mike.” Steve lied and bit his tongue.

Y/N smiled, “thank you, Mike. I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

“Well I’m sorry, but we have to get going now..” Y/N offered Andrew a hand and he took it, “I’ll see you around...Mike.”

--

The moment Y/N saw Steve, she immediately knew who he was. How could she not? He’s Captain America. She bet the entire town knew who he was too, but they just didn’t care. But this made her aware. Captain America is in her town, what could this possibly mean?

Did SHIELD put him up for this? Were they trying to get to her?

No, impossible. She’s been careful all her life, nobody knew about her except her sister. Y/N chewed on her lip as thoughts of panic ran through her head.

Her phone suddenly rang - it was her sister.

“Rebecca,” Y/N’s voice was filled with worry, “Where are you?”

“Eileen’s.” She said, “You won’t believe who’s here.”

“I know who’s in this town, Becca, but why? How? Is he here for me? Did they find out-”

“Hey, calm down. That’s not possible. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“We thought so too last time.” Y/N sighed, “...But you’re right. I’m probably just overthinking this, sorry.”

Rebecca chuckled, “It’s fine. But I called just in case, okay?”

“Okay.” Y/N answered, “And just in case anything happens, it’s probably best if I don’t babysit Andrew for a while.”

“...You’re not gonna-”

“I won’t, I promise.” Y/N assured her, “I won’t run anymore.”

“Good.” Rebecca sighed on the other line, “Okay, I gotta go. Love you, sis.”

“Okay, love you too. Take care.” Y/N hung up and covered her face with her hands.

Y/N wasn’t a normal person. She didn’t have the white-picket-fence life when growing up, unlike her sister. Her sister wasn’t even her sister until 5 years ago, when Y/N just came to town and met Rebecca. Rebecca was the first person to know Y/N’s history and she decided to take her in as if Y/N was her adopted sister.

For 5 years Y/N’s been living in this small town, she’s only encountered danger once. That was 4 years ago, when Russian spies found her location and tried to kill her and her loved ones. She tried to run away, she thought it would be easier if she disappeared, but Rebecca begged her to stay. Y/N was the closest she ever had to family, being an orphan as well, and Rebecca was Y/N’s. So she decided to stay.

Sighing again, Y/N grabbed her jacket and decided to take a walk. She needed the fresh air, and she needed to know just what Captain America was trying to do.

--

It’s been a while since Steve saw that Y/N. Ever since their encounter in the carnival, Steve’s been trying to search for her. Not like he’s stalking her or anything, he just wanted to ask her out. She was beautiful, had a great smile, and he’s on vacation! Asking a girl out wouldn’t hurt, right?

Though it’s a shame that his vacation was ending today. Something came up in Wakanda and T’Challa needed help. He’s back at Eileen’s again, this time with a stack of pancakes and ice coffee for the hot day.

“Looks like someone is having their cheat day.” Eileen commented.

Steve chuckled, “it’s my last meal here. I gotta go back to Wa- Washington. Got some paperwork piled up, you know. Haha.”

“I thought you’re from New York?” Eileen raised an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah, yeah. I just uh...have another office in Washington.” Steve smiled nervously.

Eileen nodded awkwardly, “Uh-huh. Well, none of my business. Enjoy your last meal, Mike. I’ll get you free coffee for the road and some fries. How ‘bout that?”

“That sounds great. Thank you, Eileen.”

“You’re welcome.” Eileen smiled before going back to her kitchen.

“That was close.” Steve mumbled before drinking his coffee. He’s getting good at this laying low thing.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a foreigner come in the diner with a rolled up newspaper who looked around the room first before sitting down. To any other people, it would seem normal. But this man wore a terribly long, thick coat with boots and gloves. It was as if he were in an 80s movie playing a detective who would smoke Cuban cigarettes.

Just then, another foreigner came in the diner with similar looking clothes. He shared a look with the first man and sat far away from him, somewhere behind Steve. Steve immediately knew what this was. Steve couldn’t finish his pancakes now and put a few dollar bills on the table before leaving the diner.

Of course, the two men followed him. Who could they be? HYDRA? Steve turned to the right too fast and bumped into someone.

“Ca- Mike!”

“What- Y/N!”

Steve glanced behind him and couldn’t see the men. He sighed in relief. “Hey, uh.. how are you?”

Y/N looked behind her and saw the two Russians who were following her. “Uh, I’m good! Yeah. Listen, I have to go-” She was about to go past Steve when she saw two other Russians behind him. “Shit.”

Steve frowned, “What, what is it-” He saw two other agents jogging towards their way, “Fuck.”

Steve and Y/N shared a look of realization. “Wait, are you-”

“Cap, watch out!” Y/N pulled him to the side when the Russians behind him pulled out guns and started firing.

“Did you just-”

“Oh shut up!” Y/N shouted and pulled him with her to the small alley. Four men fired at them as they ran.

Steve ran behind her, a lot of thoughts running through his head. “Who the hell are you?!”

“Can we please not do this right now??!” Y/N exclaimed as she jumped over the fence. She couldn’t believe she called him Cap! Of all times!

After running for a while, they finally stopped behind Al’s Hardware Store. “Did we lose them?” Y/N asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Steve panted and finally looked at her. “So, who are you?”

Y/N looked at him and sighed. “I’m Y/N-”

“Don’t lie to me-”

“Would you let me talk? Jesus.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m Y/N Viktorovna. I was a Russian spy-.”

“You’re a Russian spy?”

“Was!” Y/N hissed. “Those Russian men were chasing me because I escaped 5 years ago.”

“Why did you escape?”

“None of your business.”

Steve frowned. “I don’t trust you.”

“I never told you to.” She scoffed, “What the hell is Captain America doing in this small town anyway?”

“Vacation.”

“What a load of crap.”

Steve scoffed, “I was on vacation. Until those men showed up and followed me.”

“No, they were following me.”

“No, I’m pretty sure-”

“Там они! (There they are!)”

Both Y/N and Steve looked behind them and saw a huge group of Russians, and started running again. “Well I guess they’re following both of us!” Steve yelled.

“You think?!” Y/N grumbled and grabbed the gun she kept behind her.

“You’ve had a gun all this time and didn’t use it?!”

She scoffed and shot a few of the Russians. “Be glad I didn’t use it on you!”

“I don’t think there are enough bullets!” Steve said as he ducked behind the car.

“Oh at least I’m doing something!” Y/N said and ducked next to him. “I’m out.”

Steve rolled his eyes and looked at his watch. “Okay, in a few minutes now- Hey, what are you doing- Hey!”

Y/N jumped over the car to the nearest man and took his gun. Steve grumbled and followed. They took out the men one by one until they’re all down on the ground and Steve took out the guy strangling Y/N.

“You’re welcome.”

“I was handling that.” She coughed.

A few moments later, a big jet flew over them and landed nearby. Y/N was about to put her gun up when someone placed a spear next to her neck. “Raise that gun and you will never see another day.”

Gulping, Y/N put the gun down and let the woman cuff her.

“Okoye, she’s with me.”

“Sorry, Captain. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just as Russian as they are.” Okoye motioned to the bodies on the ground.

Y/N gritted her teeth when she realized she couldn’t get out of the cuffs. She saw Andrew on the side of the road, hiding behind a trash can and her eyes widened. She shook her head to Andrew to tell him to run, and Andrew ran. To her.

“No, Andrew, no!”

Andrew was held back by the Dora Milaje and Steve prevented them from stabbing the boy, “You can’t take Y/N away! No! She’s my favorite aunt in the whole world, you can’t take her away!”

The poor boy was sobbing his eyes out and Y/N softened. “Andrew, go back home, now. I’ll be fine, I promise. Tell your mommy I’ll call her as soon as I can.”

Andrew shook his head. “Y/N promised you’d stay!”

Y/N approached Andrew with Steve’s permission to the Dora Milaje and Andrew kept crying.

“Andrew, look at me.” She said. “Andrew, what did I say about me leaving?”

Andrew stopped crying slowly and wiped his tears away. “...That you’ll always come back... because we’re family.”

“Exactly.” Y/N said, “now come here.” She motioned him to hug her.

Andrew hugged Y/N tightly and she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I promise I’ll be okay. And I always keep my promises, right?”

The little boy nodded and let go of Y/N. “I promise I will take care of our family.”

“That’s a good boy.” Y/N smiled, “Okay, you go home now. It’s getting dark. Tell your mommy I’m fine.”

Andrew got on his bike and looked at Y/N one more time before going home.

Steve felt guilty on what’s happening and took Y/N to the jet. As much as he felt like Y/N didn’t deserve this treatment, there were still so many questions to ask. Just who the hell is she?

--

tell me if you want to be tagged :D

#reader #steve rogers #female reader #ofc #black widow #natasha romanoff #romance #fluff #angst #avengers #marvel #mcu #endgame #avengers endgame #avengers aou #avengers au #steve rogers au #steve rogers angst #ironman #iron man #tony stark #rdj #chris evans #reader insert #rhodey #bucky #winter soldier #thor #spiderman #hulk

[lyriumrain]

cliche viddy idea

tl;dr: i just want ONE “typical” medieval-setting fantasy RPG to make us the big bad by the end of the game. But with feeling and angst and shit.

disclaimer: I know it’s been done before, in a lot of games. But there is a very specific feel I want the game to have. 

Think of gameplay like it is in Dragon Age/The Witcher/Skyrim/etc. You spend the whole game working from the ground up, the whole zero-to-hero story. Only to find that the “chosen one of prophecy” (the player) is actually destined to be the one who ends it all. This in itself is kiiinda cliche but, like most cliche ideas, I just wanna see it done well. Cliches executed well can be amazing to play with, especially if it’s nuanced and intertwined with other concepts. 

(Jade Empire kinda came close, but the “bad/evil” endings were a choice in that. I don’t want this to be a choice. Which means the devs/writers would have to make being the hero the most appealing option, make it feel good to help people. I know that doesn’t sound too difficult, but in a lot of games the “good” options are super boring. A satisfying progression system helps with this; actually seeing the changes you bring about, as opposed to just hearing about them.)

Anyway. Just imagine the ending scene. You’ve got your final battle, all your companions are there. You’ve maxed out friendship with them, maybe romanced one of ‘em. You’re the Big Damn Hero and you’ve defeated what you thought was the Big Bad... everyone gathers around for the congratulations...

And then you being to change. Energy swirls around you as the life force of the creature you just defeated is absorbed by you, through no choice of your own. You see flashbacks of various quests throughout the game where you chose to do good, even when it was more difficult or costly and you ask why. And the fates that control the story tell you: they aren’t pleased with your decisions, you were their “chosen one”, their arbiter of destruction. They gave you a tragic childhood and arduous teen years. You’re supposed to be bitter and resentful of mankind... and while it would’ve been nice for you to play into their hands, they sure as hell aren’t gonna just let you win. No, the final boss was their failsafe. If you don’t defeat it, it destroys the world, if you do defeat it, you take its place. Every dark aspect of your personality takes control, while the “hero” is pushed into the background. 

Now, you could have a sequel with the player as the leader of the “evil forces”, slowly regaining control of yourself, rejecting the destiny given to you. Of course, all the “good guys” hate you now, except your closest companions who know something went wrong. That doesn’t mean they trust you though, just that they’re willing to give you a chance when you find them. Like Shepard’s journey in ME2, only more drawn out. Idk what compelled me to type this up. I guess I’m just tired of cliches being used a crutch, when really they’re a great opportunity to explore certain themes and character development. Cliches to me are like fanfiction. The audience already kinda knows the premise, so why not have fun with it?  

#lyrium talks #something set this off but i cant remember what it was sdbf #🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ #yt script #long post

[skeletonscribbles]

Everything Stays

as promised, an Adventure Time AU! I’ve loved doing this so much.

Pairing: Reddie (as Bubbline/GumLee, for AT folk)

Rating: T

Warnings: breakup discussion, Stan as the Lumpy Space Prince

Other: this is, again, an Adventure Time AU, so if something doesn’t make sense, it’s probably on purpose.

Songs Included: I’m Just Your Problem Slow Dance With You Everything Stays (referenced, but not sung)

Read on Ao3

Tag List: @imrichie​ @mirandonsky​ @lilgeorgie​ @aizeninlefox​ @astronauticallygay​ @callme-eds​ @reddie-boi​  (image from AT comics - Spooktacular 2017)

Being undead was boring as shit.

Richie Tozier had been a vampire for a solid millenium - and heir to the vampire throne, at that; a king of the domain, and as such, he thought it was pretty safe to say that he’d done just about everything there was to do at this point.

In fact, most of the stuff that was happening around him he’d already seen happen, once upon a time. Kingdoms fell what felt like every damn day, adventures came and went. Human travelers passed through the land of Ooo thinking they’d be heroes, and some of them were. Bowers stayed up to his Ice King tricks, and his penguin Patrick, nee Orgalorg, pretended to give a shit. The Candy Kingdom continued to grow, and Lumpy Space continued to be the most bizarre realm in a world full of bizarre realms, and Richie’s father came and went from the Nightosphere intermittently, and for the most part, Richie was left alone to play music in his little cottage and reflect on the fact that his day-to-day felt like a series of re-runs rather than new episodes.

It was...lonely as shit, if Richie was being really honest with himself (not that he was in the business of doing that, but still) and he really had no fucking idea how to make do - especially given that he was overly aware of the fact that everyone he talked to was going to die before he was.

(Well. There were exceptions to that, but…that didn’t bear thinking about.)

(Most of the exceptions left after a while, too - just...differently, in a way that hurt more because it was a choice.)

(But again - that didn’t bear thinking about.)

In spite of all that, he’d managed to connect pretty well with the human hero of the moment. The kid’s name was Bill, and Richie liked his hair, and his tenacity, and how scared of Richie he was sometimes. It was good when the heroes were a little scared of him. The ones that weren’t were usually stupid.

He’d blown down around to Bill’s treehouse on this particular day because he didn’t have anywhere else to be, like most days, and because he was kind of trying to avoid thinking about his dad, like most days...but mostly because he had somewhere else to potentially be that night that was making him a little nervous. (That part wasn’t like most days, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before so he could pretend to pass it off as mundane.) He’d quietly been hoping that Bill would be planning some great adventure that Richie could hitch on to, because that was what Bill was usually doing, but today, Bill was inside on the couch playing video games with his magical dog, Ben. Ben’s Rainicorn girlfriend, Beverly, was coiled at the foot of the couch, and their game system MiKE (Richie assumed that was an acronym of some kind, but he really didn’t care enough to find out what the letters stood for) was patiently leaning up against the television with two controllers plugged in where his arms usually were.

It would be easy for Richie to leave; to fuck off and jam with some of the nastier creatures out on the outskirts of Ooo, or cause trouble for some Princess or Kingdom or something. It would be easy to leave these mortal kids alone - to not get attached to them and instead laugh from a distance as they tripped their way through video game levels and quests and idiot romances until they died.

Unfortunately, he’d outgrown easy centuries ago.

“Hey dudes,” he greeted, floating in through a window that Bill had carelessly left half-open. “Suh Bevvie.”

Bill and Ben jumped, obviously caught off guard by Richie’s sudden entrance. It was a miracle that no monster had crept up on them and killed them yet - they had little by way of sensory instincts. Bev, on the other hand, knew that Richie was coming - she lifted her head slightly and made unimpressed eye contact with him, which meant that she was the first one he approached.

“Missed you, baby,” he said, and found that he meant it. Bev was a pretty unique little Rainicorn, and she and Richie had known each other for long enough that they’d seen each other through some pretty tough shit. The two of them had a similar way of going about things, which was cool - except that now she’d gone and done the whole relationship thing and he was...not about that life, anymore.

She responded with a cheeky joke about his mother in her native Rainicorn language, and he chuckled, settling down on the couch next to Ben.

“Tell me what it m-means,” he could hear Bill hissing - the idiot kid still hadn’t picked up any Rainicorn, in spite of the fact that Bev was always around.

“I will not,” Ben whispered back gleefully.

“So is this what we’re doing today?” Richie interrupted, gesturing to MiKE, who was wiggling the controller wires around. They were getting crazy tangled, which was kind of awesome.

“I mean,” Bill shrugged, scooting forward on the couch so he could look at Richie properly. His hat had slid down and was almost covering his eyes - Richie could see a little bit of his red hair falling out of the back of it, near the nape of his neck. “No one’s c-called for help, and all the Princes and P-p-princesses seem fine, so. I think the Ice K-king isn’t due to strike until like, tuh-two days from now. Usually takes him about that l-l-long to put together a stupid p-plan.”

“Yeah, that does seem about right.” Richie stretched himself out on the couch so that his legs were over Ben’s lap. Ben shoved at him uselessly, and Richie thought about moving, but the only other option for his legs was to stick them on top of Beverly or levitate them, and he wasn’t keen on either of those options so...Ben was going to have to deal. “Still pretty lame, though.”

Richie had expected Bill to react to that - to jump up and declare that he wasn’t lame, and instigate some quest or whatever, but instead, Bill slumped further down into the couch. “L-lame, huh?”

“Yeah. Lame.” Richie crossed his arms over his chest incredulously. “What the fuck is going on with you, man?”

Robotically, Bill slid off of the couch and stood up, abandoning his controller on the floor. MiKE immediately started banging it against the wall. “Do any of you wuh-want ice c-cream? Rich, I don’t think we have stuh-strawberry, but I can ch-ch-check.”

Richie rolled his eyes. No way a little pint of strawberry ice cream could quell even a little bit of his hunger - he’d have to suck the red out of something way bigger than that for it to be noticeable to his body. Luckily, he’d eaten before he came.

“I’m good, don’t worry.”

Bill gave a semi-satisfied little nod and headed towards the kitchen.

Ben turned himself on the couch to face Richie. His expression was skeptical. “Are you good, though? You’re weird today, dude.”

Richie made a show of rolling his eyes. “I’m always weird. It runs in my family.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ben swatted at Richie’s leg. At Richie’s feet, Bev had turned herself around, and was watching the two of them with interest. “Blah blah blah Nightosphere, blah blah Wentworth Tozier. Is he why you’re trying to get us to do something crazy?”

“Nah. Went’s not gonna be around for a while. Nightosphere’s a pretty crazy place to be in charge of. Got his hands way full.”

In fact, Richie had been approached by his father rather recently to potentially take over the Nightosphere biz, but Richie’d shut that down pretty immediately. Ooo was his home - it always had been, and it always would be. The Nightosphere sucked. Demons were dumb and super shitty.

“Did Ashlee come back?” Bev asked in Rainicorn, eyes wide with concern.

“NO. Glob, no. Ashlee knows better than to show her dumb face around here,” Richie scoffed, shuddering a little bit at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. He’d made a metric fuckton of mistakes over the course of his life - he was 1000 years old, after all - and Ashlee still qualified as one of the worst. Fucking bitch.

“Did you not get invited to the ball at the Candy Kingdom tonight?” Ben asked quietly.

If any of them noticed the way that Richie tensed at that, none of them said anything.

“Yeah, no, I got invited,” Richie finally said, tugging at the hem of his plaid flannel. “I’m fine. What’s up with Bill, though? He’s all up in his ice cream sads, huh?”

Bev and Ben let out simultaneous loud groans, and Mike giggled chirpily, wiggling his wire arms as best he could given how tangled they now were.

“You know Audra Phillips?” Bev asked, the natural cheeriness of the Rainicorn language undercut with annoyance. “Flame Princess?”

“Yeah, and you also know how Bill’s a sucker for royalty? Like, major heart-eyes?” Ben added, voice flat. “Well. Fill in the blanks.”

Richie was very capable of connecting the dots with this one, namely that Bill had probably asked Audra to the Candy Kingdom Ball and been rejected (and even if she did like him, he shouldn’t have expected her to go to that, given the relatively low melting points for most types of candy), but that wasn’t the part of Ben’s series of questions that stuck with him.

“Bill’s never had heart-eyes for me,” Richie pointed out sourly. “I’m the Vampire King, remember? Fuck all those useless Princesses.”

“And Princes,” Bev reminded him pointedly.

Richie sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “And...Princes. Whatever. What gives, Ben?”

Ben’s horrified expression was nothing short of hilarious. “Do you….do you like Bill?”

Richie’s howling laugh at that could probably be heard from kingdoms away. Surprisingly (or really...not, knowing Bill), Bill didn’t so much as pop his head back in from the kitchen.

“Oh my fucking glob. NO, Ben, that’s the craziest idea you’ve ever had.” Richie shook his head vigorously, entirely bemused. His curls were in his eyes, now, but he didn’t really care. “Nah, I’m not about that...I just felt left out of Bill’s whole schtick, ya know? You know me - dramatic as shit, as per usual.”

Ben stared at him for another long moment, and after a while, Richie felt rather than saw Bev’s head turn towards him too. He swallowed hard and looked at MiKE...and was not heartened to see that Mike was facing his general direction. Not that there was any way to tell if MiKE was really actually looking at you, but facing front was bad enough.

“Listen--” Richie began, but Ben cut him off.

“Have you ever been in love, Richie?” Ben asked, eyes searching Richie’s face in a way that felt borderline invasive.

The question was enough to get Richie up and out of his seat. He levitated away from the couch a little bit, reeling - where did that come from?

“Why?” Richie asked, defensive.

“Just thinking about it,” Ben said, shrugging. “You talk a big game, but I’ve never seen you with anyone. Meanwhile, Bill’s got like...his royal family member significant other of the week.”

Richie flipped himself a little bit in the air, shielding his face so he wouldn’t give himself away as he thought about whether or not to actually tell Ben the truth.

On the one hand, what of the truth could Ben possibly understand? Ben was a savvy creature, but mortals didn’t know dip about what it meant to see important people rise and fall and die and die and die, and even the savviest creatures were, ultimately, mortal. Ben also wasn’t half demon, hadn’t been bitten by a Vampire King, hadn’t survived nuclear craziness, didn’t have the people around him leaving or losing their goddamn minds all the frigging time. No part of Richie’s story was relatable to Ben at all.

Well. Well, actually.

If Richie went with the simplest possible answer...that would probably be relatable to Ben.

“Once,” Richie said slowly, turning lazily over so that he was completely upside-down. “I was in love once.”

The answer seemed to surprise Ben. It didn’t surprise Bev at all - and Richie had a feeling it wouldn’t, given all of the things that Bev knew about him. MiKE remained neutral, as far as Richie could tell.

“Oh,” Ben finally said. “Dude. What happened? Did she die?”

“Nah.” Richie slid his hands into his pockets and concentrated on keeping a straight face.”I just wasn’t good enough for ‘em, I think, when all was said and done.”

Ben’s expression darkened. “Richie, no--”

“That sounds like how Bill used to feel sometimes,” Bev chimed in. There was a dark, knowing look in her eyes, and Richie narrowed his eyes in immediate distrust. “About the Candy Prince.”

The last two words of Bev’s sentence echoed around in Richie’s brain like bells, and he ran his tongue over his fangs in an attempt to stave off the ugly feeling curling up in his chest. Candy Prince, Candy Prince, Candy Prince….

“Bill and the Candy Prince, huh?” he choked out, forcing a smile on to his face. “Eds did always have terrible taste in men.”

Richie regretted his giant mouth immediately after finishing his sentence. He knew what word Ben would zero in on. That one syllable had some eight hundred years of history jam packed into it, there was no way that no one was going to say anything--

“Eds?” Ben asked, realization lighting up his face, and it was all Richie could do not to groan.

“I’m not going to the Ball tonight,” Richie said loudly, glaring pointedly between Bev and Ben. “He invites me every time, but I never go. I can’t go.”

“Richie,” Ben began sadly, at the same time that Bev sighed out a “Honey, it’s been three hundred years, for Glob’s sake.” Both of them were cut off, however, by Bill’s abrupt return to the room. He was holding two ice cream bowls in front of him and looking more than a little lost.

“Oh. Uh. Wh-what’s up, f-f-folks?” he asked warily, looking between all of them. Only MiKE smiled back up at him.

To Richie’s relief, Ben didn’t seem to be in the business of tattling or telling stories. “Is that for me?” Ben asked without missing a beat, pointing to the second bowl of ice cream in Bill’s hand.

“Oh. Yeah.” Bill offered him the ice cream absently. “And for Bev too, if she wants.”

“Thanks, bud.” Ben grabbed his bowl appreciatively and slid down to sit next to Bev. Bill had forgotten to give them two spoons, but that didn’t seem to be a problem - Bev immediately began licking at the bowl.

They sat in silence for a moment. MiKE began trying to disentangle his controller wire arms, but he was clearly only making the problem worse.

“So Flame Kingdom,” Richie tried, but fortunately, he didn’t have to continue down that weak conversational path. He was interrupted by a loud knock at the door.

“Who is it?” Bill called loudly, setting his ice cream down on an end table and picking up his sword from where it lay sheathed by the door.

“It’s me,” a voice outside snapped, and there was no mistaking that cadence. Richie brightened and floated towards the door. “Open the flip up, I need to ask you something.”

Bill sighed and reached for the doorknob, but Richie beat him to it. He flung open the door, and was delighted to find that he’d smacked poor Prince Stanley right in the face with it.

“If it isn’t the Prince of Lumpy Space,” Richie greeted, cackling quietly as Stan muttered curses whilst dusting himself off. “What’s good, Stanny?”

“Nothing,” Stan spat. “I came here to show you all my outfit and now it’s DIRTY.”

“You came all the way from Lumpy Space to show us the same outfit that you always wear to parties?” Richie asked, feeling light for the first time since he’d gotten the invitation to that stupid ball in the mail. “Nerd.”

Stan yelled something incomprehensible back at him - Richie was pretty sure he heard the words “glob” and “flip” at least five times each and the phrase “your mom” at least once - and Richie gave one final shrieking laugh before folding himself up into his bat form and taking off into the trees.

It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said goodbye. He wasn’t good at that...and they were just mortals, anyway, it was no big thing whether they were mad at him or not.

Besides, he’d been left by choice before. He’d bled all of the hurt out of that particular Bad Thing, hadn’t he?

...hadn’t he?

---

Richie hadn’t had a heartbeat in centuries, but he could have sworn that he felt phantom pressure in his ears and chest and arms when he got home. His whole house felt too big, somehow, like it was gonna swallow him whole.

He knew why. He knew why and he was pissed.

Why had he said all that shit to Ben and Bev?

He let out a frustrated groan and kicked open the door to his little cottage, floating straight across the front room to where he’d tossed his bass the night before after a long and ultimately fruitless jam session with himself. It was always fruitless when he was by himself. He just got stuck on the same words and chords over and over...and wasn’t that just his life?

Frowning, he strummed loosely at the strings. His E string was a little bit out of tune, but he wasn’t in the mood to fuss around and fix it. It seemed fitting that everything would be a little bit off today, anyway.

His hands began to move of their own accord - muscle memory was strong, and Richie’s hands had wanted to play the same damn love song for the past three hundred years or so. It wasn’t the song that Richie’s brain wanted to play, but that had never stopped his traitor hands - no, they slipped back into the same stupid sappy chord progression every time.

Cursing under his breath, Richie adjusted and tried to put the muscle memory song out of mind. He chose harsher, angrier chords, and began to play.

“Well I shouldn’t have to justify things I do,” he sang loudly, spiteful as he flipped over and around erratically, “and I shouldn’t have to prove anything to you…”

If he showed up to the ball tonight, the whole Candy Kingdom would probably have a fucking heart attack. The goddamn Banana Guards would be on his ass in seconds, kicking him right the fuck out, even though he was technically invited because royalty or politeness or whatever lame-ass excuse Eds was using this time.

Well...no. Not Eds, but rather - His Majesty Prince Edward K. Bubblegum. Eds was someone else’s name - the name of someone Richie had loved a long time ago.

Edward K. Bubblegum was a stranger.

Heck, Bubblegum would probably be leading the mob against him if he showed at the party, all things considered. The Candy Prince hated when things got out of control, and Richie was the epitome of wild and free. Never mind that there was no precedent - never mind that Richie hadn’t wrecked a Candy Kingdom ball before because he knew how important they were to the Prince, never mind any of that. Bubblegum would be on the warpath the minute Richie materialized, no matter what.

“I’m sorry that I exist, I forget what landed me on your blacklist…” Richie continued, scowling as he spiraled further and further into his thoughts. It was true - he didn’t know what he had done to make Bubblegum so hostile. He didn’t remember doing anything at all.

Most of what he remembered from the drawn out period in which it all fell apart was the feeling of it - the despair, the return to crushing loneliness. He’d been left before at that point, but everyone else that had ditched him had reasons that Richie could understand: Bowers had lost his mind, his dad had always been more attached to the Nightosphere than to anything in Ooo, Richie included, and all his mortal friends were, well...mortal.

Eds was different. He never gave a reason for drifting away, and there was no obvious answer to why things were changing so rapidly. It felt like one day, Richie had gone to bed with his Eds - his brave, smart, funny, caring Eds, and the next, he awoke to find Bubblegum, who he didn’t know and didn’t care for. It was Bubblegum that bid Richie adieu, finally, with a brisk sweep of his arm and an excuse or twelve about the kingdom; it was Bubblegum that now sent Richie invitations to events because the two of them were supposedly “amicable” and then balked when Richie actually showed up.

Richie had his suspicions about what had happened to transform Eddie. Virtually all of said suspicions involved Richie being at fault or lacking in some way. Needless to say, the whole thing - the whole relationship process, the whole breakup -  hadn’t been awesome for his ego.

“And I shouldn’t have to be the one that makes up with you,” Richie sang angrily, closing his eyes and sinking to the ground. The breakup hadn’t been awesome for his ego, it hadn’t been awesome for any part of him at all, it had sucked, sucked, sucked - and it STILL sucked, right up to this very minute. Just because his heart didn’t beat didn’t mean that it didn’t work, on some fucked up level.

And yet…

“So why do I want to?” Richie’s hands were back to those soft, shitty muscle memory chords, and his voice was almost a whisper.

Glob, he hated feelings.

“Why do I want to…”

The pathetic post-breakup song his hands had been itching to play was bursting out of him, now. He gave up on his anger and let the sadness pour out. It was a day for moping. Bill was moping - Richie could mope, too.

“Slow dance with you, I just wanna--”

He was interrupted by a brisk knock on his door. Frowning, he set his bass down and floated over to a window, trying to parse out who it was. Had Bill and Ben come after him? Had Stan followed him to yell some more? Or maybe it was some groupie that had hunted down his house after last night’s show. He hoped it was the last option. He wasn’t above draining red from groupies, and he could use a snack - it had been a couple of hours since his last meal.

He couldn’t tell who it was from the window. They were too small, or possibly standing too close to the door, or both. Sighing, he reluctantly made his way over to open the door.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked glumly, swinging the door open and fully expecting to be greeted with Ben, Bill, and Bev’s exasperated faces.

Instead, he found himself staring blankly out at the Candy Prince himself.

“Oh,” Richie said, “it’s you.”

Bubblegum was looking very...Bubblegum on this particular outing. He was decked head to toe in royal formal wear (all pink, of course, save for his small golden crown) and his mouth was drawn into a tight little line. His soft hair was slicked fiercely back into a little pompadour, and the overall effect was very princely - not very Eds.

The stranger with Eddie’s eyes held out a pint of strawberry ice cream towards Richie.

“Bill and Ben asked me to deliver this to you,” he said flatly, looking at the item without any interest. “They said you’d forgotten it at their treehouse, and that it was urgent.”

Richie couldn’t help but roll his eyes. This was absolutely Ben’s idea. Ben loved to meddle.

“And you agreed to do it?” Richie couldn’t help but bait the Prince a little bit. He was so easy to piss off - and that had been true even before he was Bubblegum, back when he had been Eds and able to laugh at himself a little. “What are you, their messenger boy? Don’t you have a ball to prepare for?”

Bubblegum flushed pink. “I always have time to do a favor for a friend.”

“Oh, and you and Bill are really good friends now, huh?” Richie knew he was toeing the line with his next set of comments, but it was all just kind of falling out of his mouth - Glob only knew where his filter had gone, or if he’d ever really had a filter at all. “You’d have to be, in order for him to convince you to come find me. You wouldn’t be caught dead here otherwise.”

“That’s not true,” Bubblegum lied, eyes narrowing. “Don’t assume things about me, Richie. There’s a lot you don’t know now.”

“And whose fault is that?” Richie asked cooly, crossing his arms over his chest and hovering a little bit so that Bubblegum would have to crane his neck to look up at him. He had quite a bit of height on the Prince as it was, so the extra few inches he gave himself by floating meant that he pretty literally had the upper hand on the situation, so to speak.

Bubblegum didn’t seem to have an answer to that question. In fact, his shoulders deflated a little bit, and he looked down at his shiny pink boots instead of up at Richie’s face.

“Ben said that you’d asked for me, that you had something to tell me,” Bubblegum said, and even his voice was lacking in Bubblegum quality now. It was quiet, and had fallen out of its usual princely cadence. “That’s why I’m here. You’re right. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it was just to give you this stupid ice cream that I know you don’t even want.”

Richie slowly sank back down to the ground - not because he was ceding anything to the Prince, but rather to make sure that he was firmly attached to something, because if he wasn’t, even he wasn’t sure what he might do or say.

“I like strawberry,” he offered carefully.

“Yeah, I know. It’s your favorite. ‘Just enough red’, you used to say.”

When the Prince finally lifted his eyes to meet Richie’s, there was so little of Bubblegum in them that Richie almost felt nauseous. It had been so many years since he’d seen Eddie’s face for real that he’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

“Yeah, you never forget anything, do you,” Richie said, twisting his mouth halfway up into a smile he wasn’t sure he wanted to give. “Eds.”

Eddie flinched, but to his credit, maintained eye contact.

“That was never my name, Richie, and you know it.”

They stood in abject silence for a solid minute and a half, just looking at each other. Richie wasn’t big on silence, usually, but he had nothing with which to break this one. He did and didn’t want Eddie to leave in equal parts, which meant that no matter what he said or what option Eddie chose to take, Richie was going to lose.

Finally, Eddie spoke back up - or Bubblegum, maybe, Richie couldn’t tell exactly which personality the Prince was choosing to adopt in that moment.

“Well, if you don’t actually have anything to tell me, I’ll just put this in the freezer and go. Can I come in for a second? You didn’t move the fridge, right?” Eddie peered around Richie and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Glob, you haven’t moved anything since the last time I was here, have you? Not even your old clothes! It’s been….how long has it been?”

“Three hundred and twenty three years, four-ish hours and some-odd minutes,” Richie responded neatly. “Also, you’re supposed to wait until I invite you in, your Majesty.”

“Majesty is for Kings, Highness is for Princes, Richie, you are the only one in all of Ooo that forgets that, I swear to Glob. And I’m not a vampire, not all of us are vampires, so…” Eddie (he was pretty sure it was still Eddie) pushed past Richie and into his front room, hunting for the fridge. “It is disgusting as fuck in here, Richie, seriously.”

Richie rolled his eyes and situated himself on the couch to watch Eddie’s frantic search. “Language, Bubblegum Boy. You talk to your subjects with that mouth?”

“Where the fuck is your fridge, Richie?” Eddie snapped, glaring at him with all the venom he could muster (which had never been much).

“It’s not here,” Richie admitted, “you’re wasting your time. I donated it to Bill and Ben’s treehouse. Didn’t really need it for myself, so.”

Eddie responded by throwing the pint of ice cream directly at him. It was melted enough that the lid came off midway through its airborne arc, and as such, most of the ice cream ended up spilling down Richie’s front.

Richie knew that he should be mad about that, but instead, he just felt...tired.

Eddie, for his part, looked like he’d frozen solid. His eyes were glued to the ice cream dripping down Richie’s red flannel, and his horrified expression seemed to be etched in stone across his face.

“I’m so sorry,” Eddie said, and his voice was small and Bubblegum-less again.

It’s whatever, Richie wanted to say, it’s fine, it’s not like we haven’t made a mess before, it’s not like we aren’t a mess now, no matter how much you’ve been trying to pretend that you have no messes there’s always gonna be me--

“What did you think I was gonna tell you?” he heard himself ask instead. “When Ben said I wanted to say something to you...what did you think I had in mind? Obviously you were hoping for something in coming over here. You’d have skipped out if you thought I was gonna be a dick.”

“You’re always a dick,” Eddie countered, and the banter was so familiar it just about stung, but then Eddie’s shoulders were slumping again, and he was crossing over to sit next to Richie on the couch. “But. I….dunno. Something about the Ball, maybe.”

Richie made a face at Eddie and reached for a nearby article of clothing to begin wiping the ice cream off of himself. It was a little bit embarrassing that it so happened that he’d picked up his black bat boxers, but that was the way this day was gonna go, it seemed.

“You don’t want me at your stupid Ball.”

Eddie turned quickly towards Richie, and Richie almost laughed at the genuine surprise on Eddie’s face. It was equal parts hilarious and adorable, and -

No, no. Adorable was a dangerous path. Best not to start with that.

“Why would I invite you if I didn’t want you to come?”

“Politeness,” Richie guessed, counting off different excuses on his fingers. “Propriety, or whatever the fuck. Some misplaced sense of duty, maybe.”

Eddie shook his head in amazement. “No. I invite you to things because I want to see you. That’s all.”

Richie knew that Eddie was trying to make him feel better, but the whole thing felt forced, and Richie wasn’t falling for it. “You don’t want to see me, Kid Kaspbrak. If you wanted to see me, you wouldn’t have left.”

Eddie groaned softly and curled up on himself on the couch. “The citizens of the Candy Kingdom still don’t know what the K. in Edward K. Bubblegum stands for. They’d be so disappointed to find out that it’s just a bizarro jumble of letters. Most of them think it stands for ‘king’ or ‘cupcake’ or something.”

“Cupcake starts with a ‘c’,” Richie pointed out.

Eddie smiled thinly. “The Candy citizens aren’t always the brightest bunch. I can’t complain, though. I made ‘em.”

“Your mom made them,” Richie corrected, re-examining his shirt for remaining ice cream globs. “Miss her, by the way. She’ll always be my number one gal.”

The mention of his mom had shaken Eddie a little bit. When Richie looked back over, he was sitting ramrod straight on the couch - more Bubblegum than Eddie once again.

“I don’t rule the way my mom did,” Eddie said stiffly.

“I know,” Richie assured him. “You’re a great ruler, idiot. It’s the only thing you love, so I guess you have to be.”

The word ‘love’ brought Eddie back down into himself.

“What?”

Richie shrugged, trying to feign disinterest. He’d been waiting so fucking long to have this conversation - he didn’t want to blow it by losing his temper, even though he was so sorely tempted to yell that he could...well, yell. Instead, he focused his energy on getting up from the couch and trying to locate a shirt to change into. The flannel was going to stink of sour dairy sooner rather than later.

“I said that ruling’s what you love, sweetheart. It’s what you do best - it’s literally what you were formed to do, what your mom made you for. It’s a good fucking thing she made you to be better than her, too - best thing she ever did, in my humble opinion-”

“My mom made me to rule, yeah,” Eddie said, and he was doing a way worse job of keeping his cool than Richie was; his face was hot pink and his fists were clenched. Richie kind of wanted to gloat about that, but the moment wasn’t right, so he kept his mouth shut. “But I’m not just the thing she created, Richie, you know that. Or...I thought you knew that. That’s why I…”

He ducked his head back down into his chest, unable to finish the sentence. For an awful moment, Richie was absolutely sure that he was going to go full Bubblegum, march out, and not speak to Richie again for another three hundred years, but he didn’t move. He just stayed that way - folded over on the couch.

“That’s why you snuck me into your room when your mom wasn’t looking, yeah?” Richie asked, taking pains to keep malice out of his voice for once in his damn life. He located a clean-ish t-shirt and slowly lifted it up into his hands. “That’s why you used me to rebel against her, because you knew I saw you differently, right? And then you left once you got what you needed.”

“I didn’t want you because I was rebelling,” Eddie said into his hands. “I was rebelling because I wanted you.”

For once, Richie found himself without a snappy retort. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing would come out - he had honestly not ever expected to hear Eddie say those words.

“I left you,” Eddie continued, stretching out his words like they were immensely difficult to say, “because my mom was dying, and I needed to be a better ruler than she was, and I couldn’t do that when the whole kingdom was sore over my mom’s dealings with the Nightosphere and I was in love with the son of the guy that ran the damn place.”

Richie found himself grateful that his heart didn’t beat any more, because if it were still ticking, he was sure it would have stopped and killed him outright upon hearing the word ‘love’ pass through Eddie Kaspbrak Bubblegum’s lips.

“You loved that dumbass, huh?” he asked, floating over to where Eddie was sitting on the couch. Eddie didn’t look at Richie’s face right away, but instead settled his eyes on the t-shirt in his hands.

Richie was surprised to see a little smile make its way into the corners of Eddie’s mouth.

“I love that dumbass,” Eddie corrected softly, reaching out to touch the t-shirt. “I’ve tried to stop loving that dumbass, but I can’t, because he does stuff like...he sings love songs at his concerts and takes good care of Bill and keeps the shirts I got him and….” Eddie finally met Richie’s gaze, and his eyes were softer than they’d been in centuries. “You see what I’m saying.”

Richie looked down at the shirt and noticed for the first time that it was a concert tee from one of his early dates with Eddie. He’d snuck Eddie away from his mother and out to the forest, where they’d danced and shouted and swayed to the music of some knockoff demon band with the rest of the woodland spirits.

That Eddie was back in front of him now, but it didn’t seem right to ignore what had happened in between.

“Why haven’t we talked about this before now?” Richie asked slowly, sliding a hand up to cover Eddie’s on top of the shirt. “Why didn’t you explain this shit to me instead of just peacing out? It’s been a garbage couple of centuries trying to deal with the aftermath of all our stuff, and now I’m finding out that you could have just explained the situation right away? I mean, fuck, Eds, I thought there was a problem with me.”

“Yeah I, um,” Eddie laughed nervously, twisting the shirt a little in his hand. “I don’t have a good excuse for that. I really don’t. I thought...I don’t know what I thought you’d do. Undermine me or something, maybe. My mom was still so in my head, then...and I was hurting, too, and maybe I thought it would be easier to just...go? I don’t know. I made up a lot of stuff in that time. I still don’t know how much of it is real.”

“The Prince Bubblegum thing,” Richie told him, “that’s not real at all.”

Eddie nodded. “I know.”

“So why have you been pulling that fake shit with me?” Richie was full of questions, apparently - and Eddie was not being good about providing answers. Glob, he could have had things so nice and neat and tidy - Eddie had literally told him that he still loved him, for fuck’s sake -  and here he was, fucking around and ruining the whole thing. This was the kind of behavior that had kept his dad away all of those years, he was sure of it--

“You mean being mean to you when we’re with Bill and Ben?” Eddie was asking, and Richie was only half cognizant of his own responding nod. “I don’t really know about that either, Rich. It’s been my method of self-defense for a really long time. I just...I don’t...I’m really surprised you haven’t kicked me out yet. I’m so stupid. I should go.”

And just like that, Eddie was up off of the couch, brushing past Richie and rolling his shoulders back into their Bubblegum position.

“Probably don’t come tonight,” Eddie said, audibly burying the hurt in his own voice. “Sorry again about the ice cream.”

“Please don’t go again,” Richie cut in. He hadn’t meant to sound desperate, but he supposed that it wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that had happened to him that day. “Eddie, I...I don’t forgive you, not yet, anyway, and I know that’s probably a dick thing to say, but I mean it, so there it is. But. I also still love you, so.” Richie turned his eyes up towards the ceiling, mortified at his own bluntness and general stupidity. “Can I at least maybe go to your party tonight.”

Eddie stared back at him. “I won’t be allowed to dance with you in front of people.”

“It’s allowed if you say it’s allowed,” Richie said, silently begging Eddie to really, really hear him. “You know that, right?”

He could see that Eddie was fighting back the impulse to close off again, and he floated over to him, gripping him by the shoulders.

“Eds.”

“It starts at eight,” Eddie whispered, and then he was backing through the door and disappearing into the forest until he was just a dot of pink against blacks and blues.

Richie took a deep breath and looked again at the shirt in his hands.

He hoped he still owned formal wear.

----

It was a little weird for Richie to be feeling like he was doing something for the first time, but as he approached the ball, he found that he had no memory of ever doing something quite like this. In his whole thousand year existence, he’d never accepted an invitation from a Prince to a ball...let alone accepted an invitation from a Prince with whom he had romantic history.

It was kind of cool, all things considered. Sneaking into Stan’s parties in Lumpy Space had nothing on this. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so...not bored.

Maybe he still had some shit to experience, after all. Even if it was kind of also the same shit for a second time.

“Some things never change,” Bev had sighed when Richie had met her at the palace gates and filled her in on the day’s excitement.

“They change,” Richie had countered, fidgeting with the collar of the stuffy shirt he’d managed to dig out of his floor pile. “But they also stay the same, you know? Like when you leave something somewhere and it’s still there when you go back, but like - it’s melted or faded or something. Things can be both.”

They’d walked inside at that moment, and their presence was informally announced by the slam of the gigantic wooden palace doors behind them.

When the inhabitants of the Candy Kingdom got their first good look at Richie, they didn’t panic, much to Richie’s surprise. They just stood there, limp and wary, waiting for some crazy catastrophe to befall them. They were used to it, probably - Ooo had a new catastrophe every fucking day.

Eddie must have had his hands super full, Richie thought. Would there have been a place for me with him while he dealt with all that shit? Or would I have just gotten bored?

He could so easily imagine himself drifting away from the early Candy Kingdom - there had been so many problems and so much paperwork back then.

He found himself a little less angry about Eddie’s decision upon realizing that.

“It’s chill,” Richie called out to the Candy citizens, raising his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t talk to my dad and I don’t vibe with demons. I just play music and crush on your Prince, that’s all. Carry on.”

Surprisingly, they did. As soon as Richie had finished his announcement, the Candy citizens were shrugging and mumbling and laughing to each other, and then the music was back on, and then it was like he wasn’t there at all - like he was just a normal dude that came to these parties all the time.

“So they’re okay with me having a crush on their Prince?” Richie asked Bev incredulously.

Bev laughed. “Yeah, because they all have a crush on him, too.”

“And they don’t care about the--” Richie began, and bared his fangs to indicate that he was referring to his father.

Bev clicked her tongue thoughtfully. “I think most of them have forgotten about how shitty things used to be with Sonia, honestly. Eddie’s paranoid about it still, but these guys aren’t exactly known for their terrific memories or brains in general. No one’s afraid of the Nightosphere anymore.”

Richie let out a long, obnoxious groan.

“Eddie,” he called, kicking himself off the ground and floating as fast as he could through the mazelike palace. “Eds, are you serious? We could have been - fuck, Eds, you have to be here, right, where--”

“I don’t know if he’ll come,” Richie heard Eddie’s voice - not Bubblegum’s voice, much to his delight, but Eddie’s -  say from around a corner, and he abruptly stopped in his tracks, wanting to hear out the rest of whatever this conversation was.

“Why w-wouldn’t he c-c-come?” The next voice that spoke was unmistakably Bill’s. There was no stutter quite like his anywhere else in Ooo.

Somebody sighed - Eddie, probably, or Ben if he was there, and then Eddie was mumbling. Richie thought he caught the words “complicated” and “history”, but he couldn’t be sure…

“They were in love, Bill,” Ben said loudly, and Eddie let out a loud shriek. Richie cackled quietly to himself, and decided to get a closer look at the situation. He screwed his eyes shut and concentrated, and was soon rewarded with a familiar cold water-esque sensation - he was turning invisible.

He floated out into the hallway and perched himself a little ways behind Eddie, who was clustered up against the wall with Ben, Bill, and MiKE (who looked very cute in a small, ill-fitting tuxedo), and clearly trying to keep things low profile.

“How did thuh-that happen?” Bill asked, bewildered. Eddie blushed a deep pink and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Richie’s dad and my mom used to do business, back in the day. Whenever Went Tozier was around, Richie would always be hovering somewhere, hoping that Went would come talk to him. Went never did...but I wanted to, I really wanted to, so one day…”

“One day I decided to pity the kid with the puppy dog eyes that was following me around and say hey to him. The rest of it, as they say, is ancient Ooo history.” Richie swooped in behind Eddie and materialized to tell his part of the story. Ben and Bill both almost fell backwards at his sudden appearance. Eddie didn’t flinch, but his shoulders were drawn tight.

“Ancient indeed,” he agreed, not turning to look at Richie at all. “I was what, four hundred? And you were five hundred?”

“Six hundred,” Richie corrected. “Had that radical age advantage.”

“Anyways,” Eddie continued, “I seem to remember you being really excited to meet me because, and I quote, ‘there aren’t that many people that don’t die around here, let alone cute people that don’t die’.”

“Like I said, ancient Ooo history,” Richie told Ben and Bill, who were listening with wide eyes. “But tonight is a new era, isn’t it, Eds?”

Eddie turned his head slowly up to look at Richie’s face, as if he needed to determine whether Richie was speaking in earnest. “You’ve seen the Candy People? They’re not afraid of you?”

“They don’t give a single shit,” Richie confirmed. “They trust that you’re gonna keep them safe, and, well, you invited me. So.”

“So,” Eddie repeated, jerking his head back down and twisting his lurid pink cape in his fingers.

“So we dance!” MiKE suggested, and Richie could have sworn that little guy hadn’t been paying attention at all, but he was all there now, and all smiles.

Who were they to begrudge him?

“So we dance,” Richie agreed, shooting Eddie a soft little smile. Eddie returned it gratefully, and Richie felt his chest twist a little at how new it was and also how familiar it was. Things had changed, but they were also the same.

“Dance with me?” Eddie asked, holding out his hand to Richie.

There was still a lot the two of them needed to talk about, but…

“Let’s tear it up, sweet thing,” Richie replied, feeling less dead than he had in a long, long time.

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #ben hanscom #beverly marsh #mike hanlon #stanley uris #adventure time au #reddie fanfic #it fanfic #GumLee AU #it 2017 #it 2019 #stephen king's IT #adventure time

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Reading Log - January 2019

A summary of all the light novel volumes I read this month - along with my thoughts on them. I bought all of these volumes from BookWalker. Most of these series will not be available in English but I’ll try to point it out when I know if one of this series has received an official translation.

Note that, obviously, the following text is just my own opinion so please respect that and if you see anything that I got completely wrong (i.e. I accidentally refer to a character with incorrect pronouns), let me know. I will avoid posting spoilers as much as possible but let me know if I accidentally slip up.

Gamers! 1 by Sekina Aoi (Light Novel):

It was a fairly enjoyable read for the most part but, by the time I had reached the second half, I had lost interest and just wanted it to end. The chapters felt so long and dull and I think shorter chapters would have worked better. The other thing that stuck out to me is that the art is very simplistic and sometimes did not match the text for the scene it was for. I didn’t feel like the art added anything to the volume though I suppose it would have been jarring without it, given the genre of the story. That being said, I liked the characters a lot, including the protagonist and I enjoyed it enough that I’ll probably check out the second volume in the future though I’ll probably watch the anime beforehand to make sure that the story doesn’t go in a direction I don’t like.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 1 by Fumiaki Maruto (Light Novel):

After finishing the Koisuru Metronome spin-off manga last month (which I loved, btw), I finally had motivation to read the light novel. It is really good. The pacing is excellent, there are a lot of funny moments and I love Maruto’s writing style. I do think that this series really needs to give the reader more insight on Katou. I get that part of the charm of the first volume is reliant on Tomoya having no interest in Katou but I want to know about her family and friends (because she must have some that she hung out with before meeting Tomoya) and I want to know what she’s like with them. I watched the anime alongside reading this and I think the events flow smoother in that and there is a lot of really interestingly directed parts (I love the café scene in episode 2) but it loses a bit of funny dialogue which is a shame. I have volume 2 already but I’ll probably wait a bit to read it so that I don’t get burnt out on the series.

Monku no Tsukeyou ga Nai Love Comedy 3 by Daisuke Suzuki (Light Novel):

In my mind, this series has two main charm points: the fun dialogue and the relationship between its’ two leads and it’s the latter that is on full display in this volume. Outside of that, it’s a pretty unremarkable yet enjoyable volume from a pretty unremarkable yet enjoyable series. I have to say that the side story that came with the volume on BookWalker is adorable though. As an aside, I recommend this series for people who are learning Japanese. It’s pretty easy since most of it is just dialogue and there aren’t many places that can trip you up.

Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei Shiteshimatta... 2 by Satoru Yamaguchi (light Novel):

This volume is just as entertaining and hilarious as the first but it also surprised me. While the first volume could’ve been described as ‘predictable yet fun’, this volume had quite a few events that I didn’t see coming and, more than that, it was interesting. When I got to the main chapter, I couldn’t stop reading. It was that good. Katarina continues to be an amazing protagonist and the rest of the characters are just as enjoyable. In particular, this volume introduces to new characters and I won’t talk much about the second because spoilers but I loved Maria and I ship her with Katarina so much. I will warn that this series suffers from originally being a web novel will little editing been done during the conversion to being a light novel series in that most of the chapters are  episodic so, when you get to the main chapter, it feels disconnected from the rest of the volume and is way longer than any of the other chapters.

J-Novel Club is currently releasing the volumes in English under the title of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! so please pick it up if the series interests you.

Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei Shiteshimatta... 3 by Satoru Yamaguchi (light Novel):

Welp, I suppose it was about time that this series had a volume that I didn’t love. The first chapter was pretty good but there wasn’t a whole lot in the later chapters that I liked. The new characters introduced this volume were interesting enough but I’d have rather have spent time with the characters I already love. Plus, I would’ve been fine with this series ending in the previous volume though admittedly the series probably wouldn’t have been as popular if it had and I might not have read it in the first place. I’m not really a fan of romance series and I feel like this volume is trying to steer the series into becoming more of one and I hope that the following volumes bring back the things that make me enjoy this series and I love the cover for vol. 4 so I’m sure it will (Katarina, charging while Jeord and Sora are all ‘slow down, dumbass!’).

Thinking about, if Katarina ends up with anyone, I want it to be Maria. They definitely have the sweetest and cutest interactions but, if I’m being realistic because it almost impossible for this series to go the yuri route, I’d prefer Nicole over the other guys. He won me over in the first volume when he gave Katarina a necklace modelled after one that a character in a book had and he’s been consistently good since then. He really cares for Katarina and I think she’d be happiest with him. Keith and Alan are also good options but I don’t get the appeal of Jeord.

Monku no Tsukeyou ga Nai Love Comedy 4 by Daisuke Suzuki (light Novel):

Sekai doesn’t actually have a whole lot of scenes in this volume which made is boring since her relationship with Yuuki really is the stand-out of the series and Kurumi and Haruko are pretty dull. The last chapter was interesting though.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 2 by Fumiaki Maruto (Light Novel):

This volume seemed to drag on longer than the first but I did really enjoy the climactic scenes with Utaha and I loved the short dialogue-only interaction between Katou and Eriri. There’s a lot that I want to say about this series but I’m waiting and hoping that the series will prove me wrong before I do so. For now, I’m just wanting for this series to show more interactions between the characters without Tomoya. I will say that I think the anime is slightly better than the light novel series so far. It has it’s problems, like it has a lot of times where a male gaze-y perspective is used and it’s unpleasant but I think it succeeds in the most important way: it makes me forget about Katou’s existence. It’s hard to make Katou forgettable in a dialouge-focused text-based series and the manga doesn’t even try to do it but the anime takes advantage of it’s format and successfully uses certain camera angles to make Katou less noticeable.

Monku no Tsukeyou ga Nai Love Comedy 5 by Daisuke Suzuki (light Novel)

Easily the most entertaining volume of the series so far, to the point where I wanted to immediately buy vol. 6 when I finished it (I didn’t because I like to wait for sales but the temptation was there). I can’t talk about this series a lot because the first volume has a twist that most readers won’t see coming so I don’t want to spoil it for them but I will say that I usually find the characters who aren’t Sekai or Yuuji to be boring but I actually liked them in this volume, probably because they interacted with Sekai while usually they just interact with Yuuji. I will also say that I think the structure of this series would have worked better in a eroge or galge. The structure actually reminds me of Asairo’s structure more than anything else and it kind of works in light novel format but it feels like it was meant for a route structure.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 3 by Fumiaki Maruto (Light Novel):

My favorite thing about this volume is that Tomoya was never insulted or shamed for liking otome games. He also gets to cry a bit near the end of the volume and male protagonists showing emotions other than anger is always nice (note that the anime down-playes this and I’m super bitter about it. He hardly cries in the anime but in the light novel, he full on bawls to the point where he has trouble speaking) . Eriri got the bulk of development this time around and I think it was well done. I really liked the scene with her and Tomoya at the end. A new heroine, Izumi, is introduced in this volume and I think she has the potential to be an interesting character. She’s, unfortunately, used to generate boob physics in the anime and the manga (to be clear, the manga is much worse than the anime in this regard) and she’s a middle schooler so that’s… uncomfortable, to say the least. I hope she uses her earnings from Comiket to buy a decent bra... I didn’t care much for Iori in the volume but I thought he was hilarious in the anime adaptation and I kinda ship him with Tomoya tbh.

#Saekano #Monrabu #Gamers #Light Novels #Reading log #Reviews #Not sure how I should tag that one series #I guess... #Death Flag Otome #Bakarina #My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom #Otome Game no Hametsu Flag Shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei Shiteshimatta #Why does this series not have a popular shortened name yet? #Dash Ex Bunko #Daisuke Suzuki #Fumiaki Maruto #Fujimi Fantasia Bunko #Satoru Yamaguchi #Sekina Aoi #Ichijinsha Bunko Iris

[heavenslastcrush]

The Legend of Joan

I recently had an incredible opportunity to travel to Antarctica over the New Year’s holiday on the National Geographic Orion. The trip was an unbelievable experience full of adventure, excitement, inspiration, self-discovery… even a little bit of romance.

Traveling and beginning a New Year in a new country has become quite the ritual of mine. It began in 2015 when I went to Australia with my boyfriend. We celebrated New Year’s 2016 on a yacht on the Sydney Harbor, right between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.

By the time the end of 2016 came around that boyfriend had become an ex-boyfriend, but I was determined to have just as amazing of a time despite being newly single. I thought about the last time that I was single and really happy, and it occurred to me that it was when I was living in London. So naturally, I needed to return. That year, I went to France & England with a friend I had lived and studied abroad with while in South Kensington. Said friend was also recently single, and also needed to get away. We counted down to midnight and welcomed the beginning of 2017 on a yacht on the Thames.

For New Year 2018, I needed to one-up myself again and venture to Asia – so I traveled to Thailand and Cambodia and rang in the holiday on the Marriott rooftop in Bangkok, overlooking the city while literally being on top of the world.

Since my traveling tradition also seemed to include being on a different continent, my initial New Year 2019 plan was to travel to Brazil & Argentina. I had an entire itinerary all mapped out – I would first spend a couple of days in Salvador, then venture over to Rio. Next I would travel down to Buenos Aires to actually celebrate New Year’s, and then spend a few more days at Iguazu Falls. I would bookend my trip with about 4 days in Patagonia.

I thought I was so clever, planning out such a great vacation.

Funny how life happens while you are busy making plans.

It turns out that I couldn’t find anyone to go with me on this adventure. I asked my parents, siblings, old friends, new friends… I even put a message on Facebook to see if I could get any random connections to join me. But alas, my efforts were fruitless.

It was critical that I still go somewhere, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to venture to Brazil solo. I typically have no issues traveling alone, but everyone that I have ever talked to about Brazil was in agreement that it is not super safe for anyone to travel to, let alone by one’s lonesome, and especially as a single female.

Where could I go that would be safe? That would still put me on a new continent? That I could travel to alone?

I googled a map of the world. I revisited the list of countries I’ve already explored on my “Been” app. And, as I was sitting there (admittedly at the office, being distracted by this sometime in early-October, which is super late in the game to be planning an international excursion, by the way), I glanced at the very bottom of this Google map image at a thin strip of white with a small area jutting out.

Antarctica?

Hmm…

Well, it was on my bucket list to visit all 7 continents before I died. I guess it would make sense to try to go to Antarctica now while I’m still young and could tolerate small amounts of cold.

I started Googling more about the continent.

Population?: 4K.

Yeah, that seems pretty safe.

Photos?

Oh, well these look pretty cool. Lots of penguins. Penguins are legit.

“Alright”, I thought, “I guess I could do Antarctica”. Next I needed to figure out how to get there.

Initially, I wanted to visit the tip and see things like Deception Island. But, I also wanted to go to the South Pole. Just to say I’ve been there.

Turns out, you can’t really fly into Antarctica. (Well, I suppose you can, if you are a billionaire and really bored). It also turns out, that there isn’t all that much in the middle of the continent, and that the most interesting animals and sights are actually on the edges. Cruises were recommended galore.

As with any other Google search I always begin with “Best [insert whatever it is I want to do/explore/see/etc.]”.

So, I type in “Best Antarctica Cruises” and scroll down until I find a link where some company isn’t trying to sell me something.

I found a Conde Nast Traveller article that gave me all kinds of details on what to look for in an Antarctica Cruise. (Here’s the link if you are interested: https://www.cntraveller.com/article/best-antarctica-cruises). In this article, they recommend either the National Geographic Orion or the Silver Explorer.

“I can be on a National Geographic ship?!” SOLD. HERE’S ALL OF MY MONEY.

I’m totally kidding, I did a little more research first.

I found that National Geographic actually had two ships at the recommended size, with reputable crews, Zodiac boats on board, etc. One was the National Geographic Orion. The other was the National Geographic Explorer.

Both were fully booked.

But, I sent an inquiry to Lindblad Expeditions anyway (Lindblad & Nat Geo are in a partnership together for these expeditions) to see if these were actually fully booked, or what my chances would be to get on this ship in two months. I also wanted to know more about pricing.

The short version of this part is that a single cabin costs a small fortune. But, there was an option to share a cabin if I were willing, at a reduced rate. There weren’t any shared cabins available, but they would put me on a waiting list.

I like money, so I asked them to put me on the waiting list. And also, to please let me know if there was any way to obtain more of a discount.

A couple of weeks later, a shared cabin became available. However, when I got this notification, I was in San Jose at Twitch Con 2018. I was pretty distracted by how awesome that experience was, and I didn’t pay the cabin fee (which they require you to pay the full fare within 24 hours) in time and lost out on that cabin.

When I got back to New Jersey, I was crushed that I missed out on the opportunity. I called the company to see if they could put me back on the waiting list again, spoke to a lovely woman named Catalina, and as luck would have it another shared cabin had just become available.

BUT, this cabin cost 10% more than the previous one.

“So, Ms. Horner, would you like the cabin?”, she asked me.

I tried to see if there was any possible way to get it at a discounted rate, or if she thought another cabin at the lower rate would become available again.

“I really don’t think so, this expedition is departing in less than six weeks. It’s unlikely that passengers will cancel as they are out of the time period where they would receive any sort of refund. So, would you like the cabin?”, Catalina pressed again.

After the deepest breath of my life, I responded “Yes, I would, please.”, scurried over to get my wallet, and made the largest single transaction I’ve ever completed in my life. (Seriously, I could have bought a car for less).

“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Ms. Horner?”, Catalina asked.

“Actually, I know you can’t tell me the exact demographics of passengers on the ship. But, are you able to tell me if there are any solo travelers around my age that will be on board?”

“Actually”, she began, “because this expedition is taking place over the holiday there are many families going. We expect more of a diverse age range than usual.”

I thanked Catalina and got off the phone with her.

I was going to Antarctica.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I had assumed that my roommate would be geriatric and feeble. I knew it would be a female, but I thought it would be some little old lady, maybe on the edge of death, that wouldn’t be able to use her camera or a computer and that would be up all hours of the evening doing whatever the elderly do in the middle of the night.

Fast forward to December 26, 2018. I’ve made it to Santiago, have already spent a few days exploring the area, and am now at Hotel Santiago which is the National Geographic-commissioned hotel where all of the passengers are staying before leaving the next morning to Ushuaia on the charter flight.

When I arrived, there was a small reception of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres taking place for the passengers. I met a few folks including Mack, a lawyer from Baton Rouge, LA (who would later ultimately be my next-door cabin neighbor); Peter, a Scottish man who was part of the staff on the expedition and one of the divers on-board; and Tia, a beautiful entrepreneur from England.

I thought this would be as good of a time as any to try to meet my roommate, but alas, she was no where to be found.

After the reception, I needed to rearrange my luggage so I went to the hotel room. At this point I hadn’t streamed in a few days and knew I would have a stable internet connection so I decided to stream a bit.

Right in the middle of the stream, that’s when I met Joan.

Joan.

What can I even say about Joan?

Well, she was definitely old. 81 in fact. But, from the second I met her, I could tell this was no ordinary lady. And while she may have been “old” in age, she was anything but old in spirit or energy.

Joan is fearless.

Joan is a badass.

Joan is my spirit animal.

Joan is my role model.

Joan is my adopted grandmother.

Joan is one of my best friends.

Throughout my trip, I spent a lot of time with Joan. Not only were we roommates, but we also shared several meals and several drinks together. Here’s some of what I learned about her:

·         She lives in California.

·         She got married when she was 21 years old, and had a long 49 year marriage.

·         She has two daughters, and one grandson.

·         She was formerly an accountant.

·         Her husband passed away several years ago.

·         She takes college classes! (Over 7 per term in fact, which is more than most college kids!)

·         She has traveled to over 70+ countries.

But of all the things I learned about Joan, it all pales in comparison to what I learned from Joan.

Joan was one of the brightest lights on the ship. By the time we were leaving Ushuaia, she knew just about everyone on board, and everyone new her. I feel like she and I had this in common, but it was a great reminder, that no matter how old you get, or how successful you become, you should never be above saying “hello” and seeking out genuine connections with those around you. Relationships make the world go-round.

I mentioned this already before, but it���s worth reiterating: Joan was a fearless badass. Her attitude towards life was incredible. There was one point on the trip where we had the opportunity to jump into the Southern Ocean. (In case you are wondering, the water was a balmy 34*F.) There were people of all ages on this trip, but only about half of the people on the trip actually leapt in. Joan was of them. While I heard countless people talking about how “crazy” jumping in was, or their fear of “freezing up”, “losing their breath”, “going into shock”, etc. I heard Joan overwhelming with enthusiasm about the opportunity. At one point, another lady on the trip, probably in her late 30’s or early 40’s asked Joan if she was concerned about getting hurt by jumping in. Joan’s calm response was “Well, if that happens, then my kids can have an early inheritance, but I’m going in”. Badass.

This woman then proceeded to try to talk Joan out of it a bit, and Joan just shook that notion off and headed to the stern where we were all jumping.

Believe it or not, Joan actually jumped in before I did. I wanted her to go first, because I wanted to be able to watch it happen. (And by this point I was so enamored with her, that if heaven-forbid something did happen, I would have dived in after her). I started a cheer before she dove, and 100 passengers all chanted along in unison with me “JOAN! JOAN! JOAN!”.

Right before she dove in our expedition leader, Doug, pulled her aside and said “If you can’t pull yourself out, don’t jump in.”

I saw her hesitate, just for a second. I could see the wheels turning in her head. Thinking about whether or not she would have the strength to climb up the ladder afterwards. A second was all that look lasted for.

“I can do it. I’m going to do it.”

And then she jumped.

81 year old badass, all the way in the Southern Ocean.

You know that feeling you might get when your favorite sports team wins the Super Bowl? Or the World Cup? That’s how I felt watching Joan pull herself out of the ocean. I was so floored by her. Badass, I’m telling you.

In that singular instance, I learned so much from Joan. I learned that you are never too old to be fearless. That you must always believe in yourself. And, that sometimes, you just have to take a leap, even when other people doubt your abilities. Because taking those risky leaps, lead to great experiences, and even better stories.

As Joan and I spent more time together, she became one of my best girlfriends. We would come back to the room in between lectures, or after dinner, and just gossip about guys on the ship, crazy stories from the day, or how ridiculous people are.

I swear Joan got more action and romance on the ship than just about anyone that ever sailed on the National Geographic Orion.

One evening, I made it back from dinner before Joan did and was in the bathroom when she came in yelling (rather loudly for a little old lady, might I add), “HEATHER, I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!”

Now, there was this guy on the ship, and I thought he was pretty attractive or whatever, so I thought she was going to tell me something about him, but was a little bit puzzled as to why she was this excited about whatever it was.

I came out of the bathroom in a hurry. “What?”, I said, “What happened?! What’s going on?!”

“I just got proposed to!”

“Wait… WHAT?!”

Joan just stood there staring at me, eyes wide, with a big smile. This was the look of a perfect blend of shock, amusement, and hysteria.

“By who?”, I questioned.

“ROD!!”

“Who’s Rod?!”, I questioned again.

“That old man!”

Ahh. I knew the one she was referring to. There was an old man on the ship who was business partners with Tia. He was 76, from England and wildly successful in his career.

“Wait, was he serious?”, I asked.

“Well, I don’t know. He sounded serious.”, Joan replied.

“Did he like get down on one knee or anything?”

“No, he just asked me from the far side of the dining room table.”

“Well, what did you say?!”, I asked. I really couldn’t tell if her tone was excitement from being newly engaged or shock at how ridiculous and preposterous such an inquiry was from someone she had only met a few days prior.

You know those times when you ask someone a question, and their reply is a firm indicator that your question was utterly absurd because they reply not only with their voice, but their full entity? This was one of those times.

“I said ‘NO!’, OF COURSE!!”

I couldn’t help but hysterically laugh. Here was my roommate, 81 years old, shining gem of the Orion, fearless badass, of course she would be getting proposed to.

“Well, I don’t know, Joan! Maybe this could be your second chance at love or something. But, that wasn’t a very good proposal.”, I managed to say in between gasping for air between chuckles.

“Listen, I am too old to be training another man. I don’t have time for all that.”

I erupted again.

Oh, Joan. You slay.

In that moment, I learned from Joan that independence is ageless, and no matter how old you get: you don’t need no man. (**triple snap, z-formation**) Sometimes I wish those trolls in Twitch chat egging me on about a boyfriend could spend 5 minutes with Joan. I think she could whip them into shape.

At the very end of the trip, once we started to head back to Ushuaia from Antarctica, Joan had booked a massage in the Wellness Center. We had a pretty chill day full of lectures, parsing through photos, and just enjoying the company of each other and all of our new friends on the ship.

The following day Joan’s back was bothering her a little bit. We wondered if it was because of a rather rocky Drake Passage the prior evening, all the hiking during the trip, or something else entirely.

After lunchtime, Joan found me in the room as I was swapping out my camera memory cards. “I got a massage.”, she told me.

Now, Joan is pretty sharp. I had never had to tell her anything twice, and she always remembered everything I told her. So, I was a bit puzzled as to why she was telling me again about her massage.

“I know”, I replied. “Yesterday morning… or, did you get another one?”

“I got a massage from Ian.”, Joan said with a sly smile.

Ahh, yes, Ian. Ian was the hotel manager on the ship. A tall, handsome, proper gentleman from South Africa.

Joan continued, “Now, if he proposed, that might be something to consider.”

Cracking me up again.

Even then, I learned from Joan, that while independence is ageless, so is romance. You can have either, or you can have both. But, the beauty in it is that you get to choose.

I was with Joan for 12 days. In those 12 days, we grew a deep and very special bond.

Joan taught me many things, but probably the greatest lesson that she taught me, or at least reminded me of, was that there is SO MUCH to live for, no matter your age or status in life, and that you can find friendship and family anywhere you go. So, always be kind to those around you, because you just might meet someone that touches your soul and that will remain a treasured part of you forever.

Joan, I love you, chica.

#travel #antarctica #national geographic #orion #inspiration #new year #new year 2019

[shy-peacock]

So I finally beat P3, P4 and P5

Overall...I’m so glad I started with P5. That game grabbed my attention SO FAST, it was actually quite a shock since I don’t usually enjoy take-turn games like that. Now that I’ve played them all it feels like I can finally analyze how I felt about them all individually. I started with P5 and then made my way backwards from P4 to P3.  I really thought I would struggle going from P5 to P4 and then to P3 in regards of graphics and story but I was really wrong. I loved all three games for different reasons, none really coming out as my favorite in the end...just all three of them equally good.

P5, again, hooked me so fast. I was in love with the animation, the story, the characters and the concept that it led me to the other two games. Out of the three games, I struggled with this one the most when it came to choosing a romance option and I could see myself playing this game again just to choose a different girl the second time around. I really hate that none of the Persona games have romance options for the guys (or that P5 doesn’t have an option to be a girl). There were a lot of other problematic stuff in it, like past Persona games, that I had an issue with but is not anything new in the anime field...moving on though...I truly felt like my first go round with this game really sucked...I kept dying different times at the end and I was super underleveled when it came to the final boss (I really didn’t know what I was doing! hahah). I beat it all the same, but it took me an entire afternoon of cursing and staring at the screen before finally switching the difficulty to easy and  (by fucking chance) managing to finish it. I was disappointed with myself for not beating it on normal so there will always be that sour note with this game but, considering I get more of the twists and turns of this game now, I feel like I could easily beat normal setting knowing all that I know now. (TL,DR- I loved the entire game, I hated how difficult it was for me to beat and how you can’t play a girl or have a romantic interest with the guys)

P4 was so hard for me to get into at first. I loved P5 so much that it took me forever to give P4 a go. I started it, played for a day or two, then left it be for months before coming back again. I was freaked out by the t.v noise and the midnight channel and I didn’t like playing it alone in the house. I knew my childhood fear of that stuff really played into it (damn you, the ring!) so when I finally got over it and just played it on weekends when my wife and I were both home, I ended up loving the game. It is definitely creepier than both P5 and P3 ....at least to me! Maybe because of the whole sociopath killing people just because he could or a deranged man who kidnaps people because he thinks he’s helping them just feels more like real terror to me than the shit that went down in P3 and P5. I also loved the group of friends I built in P4. Its difficult to describe but, I just enjoyed their humor and the way they all clearly love one another. It reminds me of the scooby doo gang, solving mysteries, each of them with their own unique talent/personality. I appreciated the twists and the end, but holy shit...going through them was a bit annoying when I really wanted to beat the game. This is the bad guy, NO, THIS is the bad guy, NOOO, THIS IS THE BAD GUY!! Unlike P5, I really hated dungeon and boss fighting in this game. It wasn’t that I was underleveled or that my persona’s sucked, it was that I honestly just hated playing through them. Every dungeon had me wishing it would end, every battle felt so tedious and boring, and I had more issues fighting bosses here than in any other game. In P5 I had problems with the end of all ends boss, in P4 I felt that it was always tough even when I put in the extra effort to level up, mainly because I was so bored of the dungeons/bosses (TL,DR- I loved the murder/mystery story and the character’s family-like love for one another, probably my favorite out of the series. I hated the boss battles/dungeons)

P3 was the last and most recent game I played. I started it immediately after playing P4. To my surprise, I was the most successful at this game. I maxed out more friendships in this game than prior, I was the highest level I’d ever been in this game than any other, and I had the best type of personas. I was really shocked by it, considering I was really startled to not have any control over my partners moves and such..but I actually did really well with the battling regardless..go figure! I did like the story, though it did confuse me more than once. I definitely enjoyed the difference in scenery between P3, P4, and P5 by this point and I did enjoy the whole ‘feeling tired’ mood setting that let you pace out the days naturally. I also loved the dungeons/bosses in this game more than any others, it was very simple to defeat all of them and, from the beginning, I enjoyed battling and leveling up. Truly, I think I enjoyed these dungeons because there was no threat to the well-being or lives of others to get to the top as quickly as you could. At times there were important events like finding fuuka but it wasn’t like P4 where you HAD to find someone by a certain time or they would literally be murdered or P5 where you HAD to reach a certain point or you’d be arrested. It was like the dark hour stayed...in the dark hour? It was just exploring, it was just trying to defeat shadows and make it to the top. I know there was the whole ‘get there before the full moon’ but it seemed a lot less daunting than someone’s life being affected. What I did not enjoy from this game...like AT ALL...was the relationships. I was so mad at the fact that you could not be friends with any of the girls without insinuating a relationship. That really sucked...which ruined me wanting to romance any girl at all. I did, don’t get me wrong, but I was still annoyed by it. I also didn’t like that you couldn’t have a social link with any of the guys in your group and that literally (SPOILER ALERT) your character dies at the end. Yah..yah..he saved the world and all..it just wasn’t really that..great. I was super bummed by the ending and, even though it was beautiful, it just felt ridiculous that I spent all this time with a girl (yuko) who was meant to be my girlfriend and the game so obviously pair you with Aigis and, at times, Yukari. It just felt weird...then it all to be thrown away at the end like that, just sad. (nothing like P4 with your friends waving goodbye and smiling at you, geeze!) But again...it’s beautiful and messed up and all but it was still a good game to play through. It was a darker game, I just didn’t appreciate all of the darkness. (TL,DR- I loved the battling and tower exploration. I hated the social links and the very sad ending!)

Wow, this was a lot. Don’t mind my rambling! I just had to put my thoughts down..I may even change how I feel given more time to dwell now that I’ve finished P3 literally a day ago. It was just too hard to rank them, and I was going to!, as I just like these games so indivudually for different reasons. Even though P5 was, in my mind, the best, I still feel like I loved P4 more and then on the opposite I feel like I was less annoyed by P3 than P4 in battling but relationship wise I hated P3 so much and adored P5. Gosh, so many thoughts!!!

I just really loved these games XD

#end of rambling! #had to get that out man.. #p3 #p4 #p5 #persona #persona 5 #persona 3 #persona 4

[tumblunni]

OKAY WOW I just started reading a lets play of Tales of Graces and HOLY SHIT I love Sophia! I think I was amoung the majority of people who got umm.. Really Put Off by her character design prior to actually learning more about the game. Cos seriously, prelease stuff was like a fuckin minefield of ‘loli’ trope red flags, it looked like she was gonna somehow be pushed into a romance route with the protagonist despite being 14. And her design is just kinda boring and doesnt really say anything about her ACTUAL plot role and personality which were HOLY SHIT so unexpected and amazing and life affirming and jesus christ she is already my favourite tales character in all of history and I’m barely two hours into the damn game!! seriously I had to go look up spoils just to be ABSOLUTELY SURE I wasnt gonna be surprised with creepy fanservice of a young child, like in some of the older goddamn games in this series, and instead i found FUCKING AMAZING EVERYTHING FOREVER and like.. ACTIVE SUBVERSION OF LOLI TROPES but lol i cant really talk about it without kinda spoilering?? So UMM YEAH rest of my thoughts under the cut:

okay seriously its LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE ALL EXPECTED, HOLY FUCK nobody had ANY CLUE before the game came out that she’d be introduced as the twice-your-age figure to the protagonist instead of the other way around! getting to play a flashback prologue of everyone as kids was a really unique awesome feature that I wish we could get in other tales games its SO COOL to see the design and personality changes for everyone between their flashback selves and the ones you actually play as later on plus its a playable flashback! very short section of getting to see the kiddos actually have unique battle animations even! also it is REALLY EMOTIONALLY DESTRUCTIVE HOLY SHIT it explains everything about everyone’s personality forever why did these poor children have to suffer AAAAA

so umm yeah ANYWAY BACK ON TOPIC Sophie is introduced as this mysterious older teen while everyone is tiny babies, and takes on a kind of simultaneous big sis lil sis role cos of her amnesia and unfamiliarity with the world and like THANK YOU we dont get any weird fetishization of that as a concept! (look up the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope for how this kind of plot tends to go down... yikes...) And like, even tho she’s comically oblivious about basic emotion concepts and stuff, she’s also A MASSIVE BADASS who’d have thought that such a cliche pinky pretty loli design would have a stoic badass superweapon personality??? THANK YOU. I feel so bad for assuming things, but seriously THANK YOU for being like THE ONE GAME where that kind of character appearance isnt given just One Same Plot Again And Again And It Is Gross and seriously man I WILL NOT STOP BEING HAPPY THAT THERE IS NO LOLICON HERE HOLY FUCKIN SHIT (well.. except some of her dlc costumes seem to be the actual lolicon characters from earlier games, which is Annoying.) but yeah seriously she’s fuckin like CONSTANTLY PUNCHING DOWN DOORS AND SHIT and I’M LOVE HER and like her earliest establishing moment is her oblivious of human culture norms actually leading to her being like.. the wise one in the conversation her cutting off asbel’s ‘wah but I should be the one protecting you cos I’m a boy, even though you’re like eight years older than me and i can barely lift my sword’ and her making this declaration of protection to him is the moment that shapes her entire character and becomes like the emotional core of the whole plot and she gets THE MOST BADASS scene of (seemingly) sacrificing herself to save his life, ending this cute kiddie flashback on a super somber note and then Asbel dedicates his goddamn life to becoming a knight in her memory after she fuckin SUPLEXED A GODDAMN DRAGON WOLF THING WITH ITS CLAW STABBED THROUGH HER STOMACH and just... I REALLY LOVE SOPHIE!!! seriously kid asbel literally said ‘i’m embarassed to be protected by you cos you’re a girl’, like HOLY SHIT DUDE and this is ACTUALLY SHOWN AS WRONG and he CHARACTER DEVELOPS OUT OF IT and HER PROTECTING HIM IS LIKE THE WHOLE FUCKIN GAME and just THANK YOU seriously tales of beseria had a bunch of weird sexism issues despite being the most recent game, its so annoying how the series has such inconsistant quality on this stuff, so im just REALLLLLLL FUCKIN GLAD to see this, thankz

oh and like... they even do... LITERALLY the ‘but she’s really 700 years old’ excuse for ‘loli’ characters BUT NOT AS AN EXCUSE FOR LOLI CHARACTERS she’s a thousands of years old magic soldier homunculus thing that will forever look like a young girl, but NOBODY USES THAT AS AN EXCUSE TO FUCK A YOUNG GIRL THANK YOU GEEZUS CHRIST cos like.. goddd... being super immortal and eternally a child is A COOL PLOT that has SO MANY OTHER DIRECTIONS it could be developed in, instead of just fuckin pervy lazyness and this game ACTUALLY DOES THOSE DEVELOPMENTS aaaaaUUUUAUAAAUUUUA god its SUCH A RELIEF we start the game off with the intriguing wonder of how everyone changed post time skip yet she still looks the same age (plus of course ‘how on earth did she survive that apparant death’) And it just keeps having even more cool meta discussion of being so ageless?? and really sad philosophicalness about outliving all your friends?? and all the plots these dumb loli excuse things always ignore and just SERIOUSLY THANK YOU

hell she doesnt even ever really have any romantic plot with anyone ever, except kinda Pascal? tho that’s just a weird ‘lol gay as joke’ thing where its supposed to be funny that Pascal doesnt take no for an answer and like.. seriously why is Sophie even instantly repulsed by Pascal anyway? ‘hey i have no concept of any human social norms except heterosexuality apparantly’. It Is Weird. So yeah lol the game isnt absolutely flawless but I mean geez AT LEAST THEY DIDNT SHIP THE FUCKIN KID WITH ADULTS seriously she has NO ROMANCE PLOT and protagonist man ends up with someone completely different and its just NEVER EVEN DISCUSSED AS AN OPTION like fuckin CHRIST thank yooooou god, just, HOW TERRIFYING it was to see her listed as ‘the heroine’ of this game next to a guy way older than her usually whichever female character has the biggest plot role is automatically the love interest I cant believe i fuckin DIDNT PLAY THE GAME FOR ALL THIS TIME because of that!!!

oh and OH AND the endgame!! the endgame final relationship of her and protagonist? DAD. He not only doesn’t romance her, he ends up adopting her as his daughter by the end of the story its so surreal and interesting tho, cos she was like an older sister to him when he was younger, and now they’ve met again they ended up having such a vastly different relationship and like... well, they’re still like family, just in a different way! i’m so happy seriously DEAR GOD for once a ‘immortal child’ plot actually ended well and no grossness ever and ALSO SHE IS A REALLY ENDEARING BADASS HOMUNCULUS WARRIOR PERSON and aaaa

ok this has been bunni’s rambling post ok back to watchin lets play im SO HAPPY i got spoiled for that thing of the ending like seriously HOW RARE is that???

[makoparkingonly]

MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDAAAAAAAA

This is gonna be a rambly mess of feelings because I played end game last night and have a lot of thoughts. I’m using a cut but if you’re reading on mobile just scroll really fast past this post.

Okay first of all, I played Sara Shepard, kept the default name (you get to hear it in dialogue!!!!) and default appearance (during the preview I was hesitant to waste even a second of play time on altering my appearance). I romanced Jaal because I really loved his emotional dialogue. I saved the salarian pathfinder instead of the krogan (I thought Drack was gonna kill me). I put colonies on every world, got everything up to 100% viability, and had a planet named after me. I saved Sloane but I couldn’t shoot Reyes in the back.

I got everyone but Peebee loyal because no where on the description box does it tell you how important getting remtech out of the vaults is. By the time I realized I needed it to trigger her mission, I had already cleared the vault and couldn’t go back in. So if you’re reading this and you haven’t cleared all the vaults yet, GET THE REMTECH. 

This is going to be so rambly and out of order but I just found the Jaal sex scene on youtube so let’s start with that. I try really hard not to judge other people’s player creations but this one is . . . not great. Please pay no attention to that. 

It’s like they tried to recreate Amy Schumer and could only work with what Bioware gave them. It’s uncanny valley for sure. 

I actually really like that the romances are so different??? That it’s not “and here you’ll get a romance scene and of course before endgame you’ll have the sex” and the formula from the first three games. I like that this was just a random date on Aya that ended up being, like, the ultimate romance moment of the game. It’s frickin great. 

I’ve since watched the Suvi romance just for some contrast and because she’s the one I’m least likely to want to romance on my own playthrough. Though Ryder has some HILARIOUSLY awkward dialogue (“I like you you’re pretty I like seeing you on the bridge.” Kallo: “kill. me. now.”) that romance doesn’t do nearly as much for me and lacks any semblance of the scorching alien sex scene you get with Jaal. No one takes their clothes off, for starters, and you definitely don’t get boobs and alien oral sex.  

So anyway: romance in this game is great. I’m pretty sure I could have romanced Vetra as a lady, because she was responsive and didn’t shut me down, and I really want to try that. Obviously Liam. Cora shot me down, and so did Lexi. Kallo and Drack weren’t even options, though I’d only romance Drack for the novelty of it. Gil’s only an option for dudes. 

Okay let’s talk about ENDGAME because I just played it and it’s still fresh in my mind. The endgame of Andromeda is what Mass Effect 3 should have been. YOUR WHOLE SQUAD SHOWS UP. ALL OF THEM ARE THERE IN THE FINAL BATTLE and since you can’t direct anyone it doesn’t matter that you can’t direct them either. As you’re charging through the forest in the Nomad all of the various fleets show up. I literally cried when Sloane showed up to make sure that everyone knew that Kadara had helped. 

SPEAKING OF KADARA let’s talk about open world. I’m really grateful that I spent the week before this playing Dragon Age because the maps in Andromeda are basically identical, only space age. It also employed the same method of highlighting loot (only they call it crates). So it’s nice that in the vaults where you need a path, you get the path of previous Mass Effect missions, but you still get open world exploring. 

THE VAULT PUZZLES lol so many videos on youtube of people bitterly complaining about the vault puzzles, I thought they were going to be murderously hard. One guy spent literally two hours trying to figure out a puzzle that you couldn’t use the vault key on. I finished it in under two minutes. It’s basically sudoku with shapes instead of numbers and oddly shaped boxes but it’s still sudoku. I got that. I did not have nearly as much luck with knowing which console to interact with at which time, but you know whaaaatever.

BACK TO FEELINGS also I had a lot of siblings feelings about Scott, and a ton of feelings about the fact that I, the sister, saved him, the brother. It was like Jill of the Jungle all over again. I want to play as male Ryder but I also don’t want to lose that feeling ever. 

I was playing on easy and the endgame was actually super easy. I mean yeah and architect showed up AND nullifiers AND observers AND whatever the ones that make other ones are called, but honestly with your whole squad there it barely mattered? By the time I figured out what Scott was doing and actually paid attention to the architect they’d already mostly taken it down themselves. 

It was just nice to feel like all of the work I’d put into the galaxy paid off. That all the other pathfinders showed up and had all their moments. That you fought beside salarians and turians and also the angara. 

WHICH ALSO OKAY so when you get to choose a representative to the Nexus you can choose the Moshae??? Love that that’s an option. 

AND back to combat I really miss the power wheel, even though this made combat go a lot faster. I didn’t like that I couldn’t direct my squad powers, so combos largely happened by accident, or I made my own with my powers. I never could figure out the mechanics of the favorite profiles, let alone how to switch on the fly like they showed in the combat video. Nor could I find any guide online. 60 hours of game play and I couldn’t figure it out. So much for that being intuitive, Bioware. BUT, I like that there’s finally a reason that Shepard I mean Ryder has so many extra powers and abilities, and Sara teaching Sam how to be a real boy was really cute. ALSO CUTE: THE SPACE HAMSTER. 

And idk I just started thinking about the throwbacks to ME3, the fact that you meet ex-Cerberus scientists in the wilds of Kadara and Conrad Verner’s sister in the port. That Zaeed Massani’s son is in the desert of Eos. That fallout from the Overlord Project follows you to Andromeda. There are so many interesting easter eggs for those who played the original trilogy but this also was really accessible for anyone who’s never played the originals. 

Not related: I had some HILARIOUS bugs in later stages. My ship wouldn’t load sometimes and I found this out because I went up the stairs to the conference center and literally fell out of the spaceship into space because the floor hadn’t loaded. Related: I like that falling off shit doesn’t get you the dreaded death music, that you just pop back up right next to whatever you fell off. 

I like some of the social issues it touched on. The trans woman you meet in the colony on Eos who came to Andromeda to start her new life as a woman. Gil deciding to have a baby with his friend Jill. 

COLONIZATION BABIES. Y’all I want to read (or write) the fic where plural marriages are a thing, and Sara proposes to everyone (including Drack) on the Tempest to make sure they always get to stay together and also because they’re all pretty conveniently in love with each other in various ways because what they really love and want to keep doing is exploring and pathfinding. I want one of them thinking maybe I want to colonize and farming for a bit and being okay at it but ultimately finding it boring as shit so they come back and they’re given a bit of shit for it but it’s okay. I want Sara having Liam’s baby but sleeping in Jaal’s bed most nights while Liam hangs out in Peebee’s escape pod. I want Cora having Gil’s second baby and letting him name it whatever he wants, which is how she ends up with a child named after a drive coil. I want them having petty fights about who left crumbs on the counter in the galley that Lexi tries to mediate. I want them to go to port thinking they want nothing more than to not see each other for a few days and then to end up back in each others presence in an hour because they had a thought they couldn’t wait to share. This may or may not have been influenced by the latest book in the Expansion series, but that’s a different post. 

Because, finally, I LOVE THIS CREW. I started this game off just so unsure of Cora and her talking about what a poooowerful biotic she is and how she scared everyone in the Milky Way and blah blah blah but by the time I finished her loyalty mission I was literally crying about how much I loved her. Last night after endgame I finally finished all of the piddly requests and requirements to make movie night happen and it honestly was the best fucking thing to end a game on. Next play through I’m waiting to do that the very last thing, because it felt like the end of the party at the Citadel DLC, everyone sitting around on a couch and laughing and just being their perfect selves. 

In conclusion: 

Detractors: no power wheel, no squad powers, actually wonky facial animation, some game glitches (I could never complete a mission on the Nexus because I’d already scanned a thing and it kept telling me I hadn’t.) (previously mentioned falling through the floor of my ship)

Positive: heavy on feelings, so many feelings, all of the feelings, my crew, INTERESTING AS FUCK stories, choices that matter, endgame appearances by everyone, twin feelings, open world exploring

EDITED TO ADD: OMFG THE QUARIANS. WE GONNA GET QUARIANS IN ANDROMEDA 2. 

#mass effect andromeda #spoilers #so many spoilers #me4