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youkaigakkou-tl · 1 year

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Chapter 100 translator's notes thoughts

Would be pretty bold of me to call this tl notes considering how long and rambly it got lol

First off, some news: JP volume 15 will release on June 27! It’ll likely contain ch 94 to 100 (based on pagecount). Vol 2 of yoseito also releases the same day, probably containing ch 16 to 32 (and i’ll finally be able to tl ch 16)

Also, vol 13 in english comes out July 18

Chapter Name

Honestly I could have translated it as “Hundred Demons’ Night Parade of Hyakki Academy Island” but that’s really long and doesn’t have the double “hyakki”s and also everyone knows what “hyakki yakou” is right? Right?

Anyway, the part I’m pointing out is the way it’s numbered. In Chinese and Japanese, there’s an alternate system for numbering things in a set if there’s only 2 or 3: 上-中-下 or 前-中-完结 (or 后)

上-中-下 means literally “upper - middle - lower”, 前-中-完结 means “start - middle - end” (if there’s only 2, it skips the middle)

So the fact that this is used tells that this is a 2 or 3 part arc, instead of simply “part 1” which tells you nothing about how many parts there are total. Unfortunately, simply “part 1” is also the most natural way to number things in English so it is what it is. Also I don’t know if it’s 2 or 3 parts so it’s not like I can confidently put “part 1 of 2”.

While we’re on the color spread, did you notice Seimei in the back? (With the JP he’s way more covered by the text)

At first I thought it was “gods / teachers etc / class 2-3 / family” but then I realised Principal was on the left so its actually “senior citizens / teachers etc (relative youngsters) / class 2-3 / family” (and then later noticed Seimei and karasutengu troupe behind Ranmaru)

Also Ame on the color page again!! Ame nation (population: me) being fed this year amen

Autumn Festival

The autumn festival, or aki matsuri. As the name sounds, it’s kinda vague, and from what I could find, while a lot of shrines and temples celebrate it, there’s not one nationwide date, and it happens anytime from early October to late November, most commonly around late October to early November.

(Really? Is canada really focusing on dates again? For real? Again?)

Late October/early November is probably right, given the most recent confirmed date we have (ch97, October 18th), and it’s still within 2 weeks of ch95. (And also because time travel stuff hasn’t happened yet, which also has to be within these 2 weeks where he has bandaged arms. its me, ceo of time travel truthing)

What Is Sensei Cooking

First of all, the bandaged arms, Hatanaka time travel etc etc I’ve said this a million times.

The mystery of why Ibara likes Hatanaka in the first place gets brought up again! It’s GOTTA happen it HAS TO.

That aside, this is the second time it’s brought up that the baby may be a shutendouji (the other time is ch 81) and I’m starting to think this is going to be like… real plot or something…? Eyebrow raise?

If we do the maths, ch11 (the first senseis’ sunday chapter, where we learn Ibara is pregnant) happens on May 26th (assuming my timeline is right), and it’s currently October/November, so she’s at least 5 months pregnant. It also mentions she was feeling ill, which was why Hatanaka took her to the hospital, so she may have already been a few months pregnant at that point (assuming the pregnancy is a similar length to humans’)

Well. This doesn’t really mean anything but I like putting things into perspective.

Also, I’m just realising that both senseis’ sunday chapters (11 and 81), besides being “the teachers hang out on a sunday”, are actually caused by Ibara being pregnant. What the hell why is this manga so smart (I may just be stupid)

Random misc TL notes

Late Edo period would be around 1850s/60s. For reference, Takahashi was in school 120 to 130 years ago, and the main story takes place sometime in the 2010s, so that would have been the 1890s, plus minus 10 years.

I’ve mentioned this before and it’s not really an important detail, but “temple” is for Buddhism and “shrine” is for Shinto.

“Shintai”, literally translated, means “god’s body”, is the object of worship at shrines that stands in for the god itself. It could be something small and held in the shrine like this mirror, or like the whole of Mount Fuji. The tree at the shrine Genbu recommends in ch 94 is also a shintai. I could have translated it more but if they’re going to talk about it a whole lot may as well keep it as it is.

Now “shinsen” is evidently such a rare word that sensei had to put that note there, and also my phone couldn’t type the “sen” kanji. If it weren’t for that note I totally would have just gone with “food offering” and been done with it!! (shakes fist)

The stuff on the shelf is probably what clued Principal in that Ranmaru didn’t have prizes other than candy (besides knowing what he’s like ofc). There is no way this guy owns A5 wagyu. Or onsen trip tickets. Also irrelevant but that game console says “sailor” lmao

This thing… well… the screenshots speak for themselves

Marodo Shrine

Marodo shrine has actually been shown before, in chapter 27. It wasn’t even brought up by name in any dialogue but it stuck out to me because I remember finding it weird there’s a shrine on the island and googling it to get no real answers. The name itself is pretty vague, “客人 marodo” just means guest, in this case “guest deity” (so it's not the name of any god).

But looking at it now with the knowledge of, yknow, turtle island, it’s fairly interesting.

There are a few shrines called “Marodo shrine” but the common trend seems to be an association with Itsukushima island (also known as Miyajima) or the sea. The most famous one probably being the one in Itsukushima shrine (the shrine with the giant torii on the ocean), and the island itself is said to be the god and the object of worship. There’s a pond called “Kagamiike” (mirror pond) in the shrine, and the Marodo shrine itself worships the 5 sons of Amaterasu, which tangentially connects it to the Yata no Kagami mirror of the three sacred treasures of Japan. None of this really means anything it’s probably just happenstance. For one, Itsukushima is in Hiroshima, nowhere near the location off the coast of Tokyo that the manga shows multiple times.

But it’s not like I’m pointing this out because it’s a 1 to 1 comparison, rather it’s an interesting coincidence (probably). By the way, I think this is where the shrine is on the island (since it’s on the mountain and has steps leading up to it)

Turtle Island

Anyway. Speaking of turtle island. Wow turtle island am I right. I still have not recovered from turtle island this page is insane. I’m pretty sure this is also the first time we get a good look at the island from above. You can see the train station they’re at in ch 58 at the bottom there.

Like how principal face reveal recontextualizes every previous time we see him, this is the same thing to me.

It specifically points out that it's from Chinese mythology, which is interesting, and I wonder if there's anything more to that than just being trivia. In Chinese mythology, the spirit turtle, or just turtles in general, are a part of a set of 4 sacred/illuminated/intelligent beasts, being: dragon, phoenix, kirin and turtle. This is distinct from the other set of 4 animals that are Seiryuu (dragon), Suzaku (bird), Byakko (tiger) and Genbu (turtle + snake). But these two share a lot of concepts because they’re the sort of animals that show up everywhere in Chinese mythology anyway.

Mount Penglai (Horai in JP) is said to be an island where immortals reside and is carried on the back of a spirit turtle in the ocean to the east of China. (This will be relevant?)

Turtle Tangent

A commenter on Bilibili (the chinese tl site) pointed out, and I’ve noticed personally, that the spirit turtle of China is typically a land tortoise or freshwater softshell turtle, and almost never depicted as a sea turtle, even in the context of “carrying an island in the ocean”.

This is very irrelevant, but I haven’t seen anyone make the connection, so my hypothesis is that “sea turtles” just weren’t a known thing in ancient China. There are 5 species of sea turtles native to the seas around China, but all known nesting locations are far in the south, whereas most of the population centers throughout history have been in the north, and most importantly, inland. On the other hand, tortoise shells have been used for writing and divination since writing developed, and softshell turtles are used in chinese medicine.

Of course, that wouldn’t be the reason in the modern day, but perhaps that specific image of the “spirit turtle” has become encoded into the mythology and become a fictional creature as much as dragons or kirin.

Honestly I’ve Just Been Chasing Tangents For This Part

Another story that comes to mind when hearing “turtle” and “mythology” is probably Urashima Taro, a fisherman who saves a turtle and is carried on its back to the dragon’s underwater palace, but when he returns to land he finds that hundreds of years have passed. In an older version of the story, instead of the dragon’s palace, he is taken to Horai (aka Mount Penglai).

There’s some kind of connection here with Itsukushima shrine I think, which is said to be built on the ocean in the image of the dragon’s palace, located on and worshipping an island mountain.

None of this means anything, probably. I just want to see what sensei cooks up really

One last thing though, about Ranmaru. We get 2 pieces of somewhat-conflicting info directly from him: “this god owes me a favor so they gave me this island” and “this island IS the god, and they’ve been asleep in a mirror this whole time”. You see how this doesn’t sound good for Ranmaru right. I don’t necessarily think he’s lying about any of it since he looks too serious for that, but he’s definitely leaving out some important details on purpose.

Thing is, if the mirror has to stay in the shrine to keep the god asleep, telling the principal to make offerings to it every 3 years a pretty good way to make sure the shrine is maintained and the mirror isn’t lost to time, as well as sidestepping the problem of curiosity if he outright said “the condition is you keep that mirror in that shrine”. Actually, did the shrine and mirror already exist on the island before Ranmaru gave it to the principal? And if it didn’t, how was Reiki being kept asleep before, and who made the mirror?

In any case. Ranmaru I love you but you are going to have to explain everything. Anyway this has been 1800 words and I need to end it so I can close the 50 wikipedia tabs I have open.

#rambles #a terrified teacher at ghoul school #youkai gakkou no sensei hajimemashita #time travel truthing yet again. when will i talk about anything else #reusing the color spread clean for this post too. it took so long

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carnelianwings · 1 year

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Harvestella Review

For a game I meant to just spend the afternoon on, I ended up playing all afternoon, followed it up with a 4 hour impromptu stream, and now it’s 1 am. So to me, it’s been a fantastic game so far. Definitely not a game you want to rush, as I discovered after dying no less than 4 times in the first 2 chapters alone, but if you take it at a casual pace and don’t actually push your character harder than the game wants you to, you’ll be fine. (I’ll come back to this point later.) Also I should note that I jumped into this game blind knowing that it’s a full game and a farm sim/rpg hybrid and zero knowledge of the staff credits (especially the composer rofl).

Doing a proper detailed review based on the 8 hours I’ve spent playing this today, tucking this behind a cut because good god this got long lol.

tl;dr: Unexpectedly fun, worth trying at least the demo if you’ve played (and enjoyed) Sakuna of Rice and Ruin (it’s very similar in concept and execution except you’re growing more than just rice and it’s a full fledged 3D action RPG instead of 2D beat ‘em up), OST is amazing, it’s just that $60 price tag that’s a little YMMV. Based on the 8 hours I’ve played today, easily an 8/10

Starting with the cons - the biggest one here is the price tag. For the type of game it is, I’m not entirely sure it’s worth the $60 release day price tag. Definitely get it on sale when it happens; it’s definitely worth it at a lower price. At its current price, though, it’s a massive YMMV. I’ll give it some more time to see how the story pans out to decide whether or not it’s worth the price tag - I’ve spent enough years of my life playing Tales to know just because the opening plays all the tropes straight doesn’t mean the rest of the story will too.

Speaking of Tales - despite this being a SqEnix title complete with the Final Fantasy style character designs and look, there’s definitely a few things that scream Tales and Star Ocean in here. Time will tell whether or not how much of those “Hmmmm this doesn’t feel like FF but definitely feels like Tales/SO” vibes pan out.

The biggest win (actually there’s 2) for the game is definitely the OST though. If you loved any of Go Shiina’s contributions to Tales OSTs over the years (especially his contributions to Zestiria/Berseria’s) definitely give the OST a listen. It’s fantastic, it’s amazing, even though it’s not a Tales OST I actually want a copy of it. If this is what we get from Go Shiina parting ways with Bamco Tales Studio, then I’m not going to complain too hard.

The other big win (which I think has been spread around the internet at this point), is the fact you can choose to play as a male, female, or non-binary character. I’m honestly impressed they included this as an option, now all I’m wondering is if the post-game romance options also let me romance any character of any gender, because 8 hours in and I have to say - I kind of have a crush on Aria, and I would be very sad if I can’t romance her post-game just because I opted to play as the female MC. Also just saying I made my female MC with blue hair and eyes before I even saw Aria, so I swear we’re red/blue compatible and just ... let me date her and make her happy *sobs*

Combat is a little “meh” for now, but there’s signs it’ll get better as you unlock new Jobs and gain levels. Despite people saying there’s no dodge/evasion in combat, there is, but it’s a skill you have to learn off of melee classes ... which, if you’ve been around Tales long enough, will sound really familiar. I can definitely say if you’ve played Tales those same skills will help you get pretty far, and being able to equip 3 Jobs with you when you go out exploring and swap between them gives you a lot of flexibility ... kinda like Ludger actually. My biggest gripe is that there’s no healer for now, so you’re really reliant on early foraging for food and whatever you can farm for HP recovery - but at least you can eat food while you’re in combat and whatever you use on yourself also applies to your other party members so you’re not burning through all of your food stores before you get around to renovating the kitchen and you can cook food for better buffs/HP recovery instead of stuffing your face with whatever random herbs/veggies/fruits you’ve foraged/grown. The AI is decent, but you can’t really adjust what they do in combat or their strategy but at least they won’t go half-cocked on what’s essentially a Giganto Monster and get one-shot. It’s a little annoying though if you’re playing as a Mage because this means you have to be the one to open combat and the monsters aggro on you once you get into (casting) range so it’s a little annoying.

As for the farming sim part, it’s pretty standard farm sim, straight out of the f2p microtransaction mobile game playbook. That said, this is a full game so you don’t have to wait for onerous timers to grow your crops, the farming itself is more plant/water/wander off and do your questing/monster smacking/materials gathering and come back to harvest the next day kind of deal. Having played Sakuna of Rice and Ruin (and loved it) I was hoping this would be how it got implemented so I’m satisfied with how that turned out - plus this also scratches that “I want to play a farm sim” itch I get once in a while that leads me to downloading some terrible f2p microtransaction mobile game to play for all of a month before I hit the paywall of “wait 1+ day(s) for thing” and get fed up with it.

As for the general side quests - I highly recommend you do them as they pop up, as they really help you with earning money and gaining exp for leveling. They also show up at the right time for your level/story progress, so it’s definitely a good way to supplement you with what you need to tackle the main story. Plus you get to learn more about the NPCs in the town, and everything seems to point in the general direction of “You really should get to know everyone in town Because This Might Be Plot Important Later”. Oh, and that’s also where I’m getting a lot of the Tales/SO vibes - for all that the overall game world looks bright and shiny and happy, there’s definitely undercurrents of “This is actually a Crapsack World” that wouldn’t be out of place at all in a Tales game, with a few NPCs you encounter that wouldn’t be out of place in an SO game for both aesthetic and world building information they’re dropping. Also they encourage you to enter the various dungeons multiple times, which is a good thing, since that also helps break up the leveling monotony and it doesn’t feel like you’re just grinding monsters for exp.

Overall, it’s a pretty fun game, the characters are engaging, the plot is interesting thus far (even if it’s pretty standard JRPG storytelling) and as a casual-ish game it’s fun. Maybe not worth the $60, but definitely worth getting if you see it on sale.

#anzu says a thing #harvestella #review #no really don't rush the beginning unless you want to end up broke with no money

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peter-author · 1 year

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Bigger, More Powerful, Cars

When Henry Ford was asked about the Model T, one of the first things he spoke of was how far it drove on a tank of gas: up to 500 miles at 31 miles per gallon! It was small, light, go-anywhere, carried 1000 pounds and, most of all, was affordable. How far we’ve come. In the search for a faster, bigger, more bulletproof car, it’s a case of “Beat the Joneses,” especially America’s love affair with trucks. Some of these so-called personal vehicles have exceeded the axle limit for trucks in the 50’s. I remember the size and weight of some of the cars back then, when gas was 35 cents a gallon: Big fins, big engines (always a V8 under the long hood), exemplified by the Cadillac of 1959 with the pop up taillights to reveal the gas cap.

Have we come very far since then? In fact, gas is cheaper, if you compare the dollar value and the price of bread and meat, then and now. The big car makers, especially in the USA, know this, that’s why they make engines that, just 35+ years ago in the last energy crisis, were unthinkable: 6.9 liters and up! New huge SUVs make a ‘60s Corvette seem to accelerate like a pedal car. I watched an Expedition SUV the other day alongside a Dodge Ram Truck, revving up and then squealing tires off the line. Two three-ton behemoths, drag racing, in town!

And what do they do with all this power? They set the cruise control at 65 on the highway and turn on the in-car DVD for the kids, complete with headsets. The front seats have their own stereo with more buttons than a Jumbo Jet. Note that more gadgets means more buttons which means more distraction crashes. When that 3-ton personal vehicle crashes, whoever is in the way in a smaller car is toast.

The environment is toast too; it’s not just the gas they guzzle but the cost of making a 3-ton vehicle of plastic and steel instead of two smaller SUVs for the same weight of material. This is short-term thinking. The profit in making these huge SUVs and flatbeds (without actual car safety regulations except light truck rules which date, mostly, from 1948) is actually higher per pound than your average sedan. Yes, higher. So why do they cost so much? It looks bigger, feels bigger, and if you believe the marketing, you are getting more too. Yeah, non-monocoque safety, more steel, less engineering, less drive-ability, less handling safety. But don’t check those things out, check out the big fat manly tires!

Today we’re faced with concerns, fiscal and civic, directly related to these road hogs. Drivers have no training in driving a 3-ton moving lump of steel (as opposed to semi truck drivers, who do). The price of gas is edging up and the more gas we buy at the pump, the more vulnerable we become to foreign pressure. And not least, our accident health and car insurance rates will be going up continually, in part because of the severity of the damage done by these road warriors when they hit something or someone.

In this race to beat the Jones, we’re now committed to roadways jammed with huge, gas-guzzling, less safe (for everyone) road tanks. Someday, hopefully, common sense will prevail.

#suv #road safety #gas consumption

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terrizi · 2 years

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Product hunt revenue

#Product hunt revenue how to#

#Product hunt revenue free#

Know the number of new followers you gained. This will help you understand whether your Product Hunt campaign was a one-time splash or if it’s generating real traction. It’s important to keep tracking to see if there will be an increase in the days and weeks afterward. How many visits did the Product Hunt campaign bring you? Most likely, your activities on the launch day will result in a traffic spike. So measure referral traffic received from Product Hunt, newly acquired clients, number of comments, and more. For example, you can get comments on your prototype from community members and make your product better. Product Hunt isn’t just about introducing your product to the audience. So create a great product, post it, and keep your fingers crossed. But it’s not clear how exactly they choose which products to feature. You can also get mentioned in the Product Hunt newsletter, which will give you an additional spike.

Join communities where makers support each other and post there.

Send a note to your clients and past leads.

Announce the launch on your social pages.

Immediately ask your friends and acquaintances to support.

Step 5: LaunchĪfter you launch your product, do the following: But during both launches, we made it to the top eight of the featured list. Both times, our product wasn’t featured on the first page from the start. And the second time, we posted the product ourselves. The first time we asked a friend to hunt us. Consider giving a little reward for their effort.ĭon’t be upset if you can’t find the hunter.

#Product hunt revenue free#

Offer early or free access to the product so the hunter can get a feel for it. Reach out to top hunters and ask them to help you launch your product. To find out whether the community trusts a hunter, check their last 10 submissions. Furthermore, it’s always good for the audience to know that the product is coming from a credible and trustworthy source. The major benefit of having an influential community member post your product is that the platform will notify all of the hunter’s followers of the launch. To appear on the first page, you have to get your product submitted by a trusted hunter or get promoted by Product Hunt moderators. But the second time, we decided to make donations to a charity of their choice on behalf of our clients instead of giving them a physical discount. The Product Hunt community loves special deals on the launch day.ĭuring our first campaign, we offered a big discount on our services. Step 3: Create an offer for the Product Hunt community Tell people why you created this product, who it’s for, and more. This is a more detailed explanation of your product and the unique value it provides. Write a short description of your product in 60 characters or less. This will get them commenting rights, which is vital for engaging in conversation with the Product Hunt community. But you can create personal accounts for every team member as well and make sure everyone is marked as a maker of the product. This helps Product Hunt build a high-quality community free of bots. The platform suggests setting up a personal account – meaning no companies, logos, or branding. This is the essential thing you need to do to be able to launch on Product Hunt. To help you make the most out of your first Product Hunt launch, we’re going to walk you through the process step by step. On top of that, we started getting more proposals about partnerships and possible acquisitions. In summer of 2020, we launched our new brand and got: We offered a big discount for the first 60 days of work with our developers for startups that had been affected by the pandemic. In spring of 2020, we launched our first initiative on Product Hunt. What gains we earned from launching on Product Huntīefore you post your product on the platform, let’s explore what we earned after two launches.

#Product hunt revenue how to#

We’ll teach you how to get featured on Product Hunt and how you can benefit from it, too. If you successfully launch on Product Hunt, you can get new subscribers, partners, and customers. The platform curates a list of the best products and startups that people haven’t heard of yet. This happened largely thanks to our launches on Product Hunt, a community to share and discover the next “big things” in tech. Luckily, we recovered pretty quickly and started to get significant spikes in traffic and sales. Just like others, our business was hit hard by COVID-19.Īs a result, we lost 40% in GMV since March 2020, which translates into $85,000 in monthly payments.

#Product hunt revenue

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kerasines · 3 years

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GIF Tutorial for Beginners

People keep asking me to teach them how to make gifs and I end up writing them long confusing messages, so I figured maybe it’s time to just write up an actual clean tutorial instead! This is supposed to be for total beginners! (Or people who want to switch to a new process that I’ve curated and streamlined over 8 years of making gifs.) I’ll try to keep this as barebones as possible, and won’t include all the advanced stuff I usually add. I hope it’s easy enough to follow, and I’ll include some links at the end for more stuff. I really do think it’s better to make a few simple gifs before doing more complicated stuff though, just to get used to it!

There will be three sections in this tutorial: #1 Basics - How to make a gif in PS at all #2 Sharpen - How to use sharpen/denoise filters in an easy way #3 Colouring - Just a few very basic adjustment layers

What you need:

A video (most common formats should work, although .mkv doesn’t always)

Photoshop (I use PS CC 2018 - this one because I'm morally opposed to Adobe’s subscription model - but versions aren’t super different from each other)

In the end, you should hopefully be able to make something like this:

This is gonna be so long. Sorry. You can make a gif with just part #1! The rest is just to make it look better.

#1 Basics

If any of the tools/functions aren’t where they should be for you, your best bet is googling it, you might need to change something in your preferences!

Make sure to save your PS file... often. PS has a tendency to crash, especially on laptops.

First, you need to get the video file. I recommend a shorter video, a few minutes long, if it’s longer you might want to cut it into shorter parts beforehand. This is just because PS’s video import tool sucks.

I chose the Butter MV, specifically Jungkook’s body roll at 1:24 because that’s what I want to look at for the duration of this tutorial. No further questions, thanks.

1. Open PS, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers

2. In the little pop-up, choose the part of the video that you want to gif. This will import every frame of the video into PS as a layer, so it has to be a relatively short part, or it’ll take ages (and gifs can’t be that big anyway). Now you can also see why it’s almost impossible to select the correct part if the video is too long.

The little controls at the bottom are for trimming, the one in the middle just for the preview. Make sure “Make Frame Animation” is selected! Then click OK.

3. Now you have your layers, and you have a frame animation! On the right are your layers, that’s where we’ll apply the colouring etc. later on. On the bottom, that’s your timeline or frame animation - that’s what the gif will be in the end! So if you delete frames, the layers will still be there, but they won’t show up in the gif. If you click on a frame, you can see the little eye checkmark on the layer that’s currently visible.

4. The timeline controls at the bottom that are relevant right now: set to “forever” so the gif will loop, you can play the animation with the play button, and you can delete the selected frame(s). The number on each frame is the speed of the gif, depending on the video I usually set it to 0.05 or 0.06 (photoshop lies to you when you play the animation, the only way to test this is to open the finished gif, preferably on tumblr or wherever you want to upload it).

5. As you can see, the animation starts a bit before the actual part that I want, so go ahead and delete all the frames in the animation that you don’t want! You can delete the corresponding layers too if you want, to make the PS file smaller, but it has no influence on the gif. (Hold Shift to select multiple frames as usual)

6. Next, we’re gonna crop the gif however we want! You can do this with the crop tool in the left sidebar, but with gifs like this where there’s a lot of moving parts, I sometimes just use the selection tool in the left sidebar, like so:

When you click on different frames, the selection stays, and you can check to make sure Jungkook doesn’t suddenly go out of frame if you crop it like that!

At this point, make sure the selection/crop isn’t smaller than you want the gif to be! For tumblr, what matters is the width (in pixels) of gifs. In the end, the width dimensions on tumblr should be 540px (1 gif per row), 268px (2 gifs per row), or 177/178px (3 gifs per row). Anything else will lead to very shitty resizing!

For this gif I’m going full sized, meaning 540px wide, so I made sure my selection isn’t smaller than that.

Then just go to Image > Crop, and it’s done!

7. Check to see if this is what you want, then resize: go to Image > Image Size to resize the picture. Make sure the little “link” between Width and Height is active (to keep the same aspect ratio), then set the width to 540px or whatever you chose. I always set the resample option to Bicubic.

Once that’s done, set the zoom to 100% right above the timeline, to see what it really looks like.

Almost done! A little note about the sizing: width is the important part for tumblr, but if you want to make a whole gif set (especially with more than 1 gif per row!!!) make sure to make all the gifs the same height, otherwise they won’t line up and tumblr will do whatever it wants.

I ended up making mine 540 x 400 and ended up with this:

8. Time to save the gif!! Go to File > Export > Save for Web (OR just use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S) (or whatever it is on Mac).

In the pop-up, you can change things about the gif, but most things should already be the way you want it (Image size, Looping option forever). Selective should be the default, just like the rest.

You can choose between Pattern and Diffusion, some gif makers swear on one or the other, I go back and forth.

On the bottom left, you can see the size of your gif. Keep an eye on that! I believe Tumblr allows every single gif to be up to 10mb, but I try to keep mine under 5mb or close to it, because I think tumblr adds compression if it gets closer to 10mb?? Anyway back in my day you couldn’t upload anything over 1mb. You’ll never know our struggles.

Then just save it, and that’s it, you made a gif! Well done!! Here’s the end result:

#2 Sharpen

There are countless ways out there to make gifs as smooth and clean as possible! Here I’ll show you the easiest way, but it also provides a good basis for other methods. The main difficulty is that you you need to sharpen the layers, but you don’t want to 100 layers one by one. So what we’re gonna do is convert the layers into a Smart Object, which functions as one layer!

1. Convert the frame animation timeline to a video timeline with the little button right underneath on the left:

It should look like this, and I’m sorry but I can’t explain this one because I’m not an expert here, but you can just ignore it:

2. Select all layers: Select > All Layers, or just manually.

Then right click on the layers > Convert to Smart Object. Now there’s only one layer left, but don’t worry, the frames are still there!

3. De-noise! It reduces noise, takes away some of that grain. More necessary in some videos. It also makes it less sharp, so I do this one first. Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise

My default settings are, Strength: 6, Preserve Details: 60, Reduce Color Noise: 45, Sharpen Details: 25, Remove JPEG Artifact: No. But you can play around, especially with the strength, and see how the little preview looks. Don’t apply too much of it! Or it will look weirdly smooth with no details in the end.

4. File > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen.

Settings: I usually have mine at Amount: 500, Reduce Noise: 5, and Radius at either 0.2 or 0.3, depending on the video. I’ll actually do 0.3 here, because I find it a bit blurry otherwise. If you sharpen more, it can quickly get grainy.

The difference isn’t huge, but here’s a little before and after denoise & sharpen:

5. Technically you can just save it as a gif (save for web) as shown above now, or you can convert it back to a frame animation, which I’d recommend especially if you use certain other sharpening methods (I’ll show you how to convert it back at the end of the colouring part), but for now, let’s go straight to the next part:

#3 Colouring

Now, you CAN do this part right after part #1, still in frame animation, without a smart object. I prefer it like this because sometimes PS acts weird, but if you want to skip the smart object stuff: select all frames, and add the adjustment layers at the very top, above all the other layers. (It only affects selected frames; and it only affects the layers under it.)

The adjustment layers should be above the layer tray, and these are the ones we’ll use today: Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Vibrance, Color Balance, Selective Color.

All of these are optional! You can do one, or all, or any combination. This is just the very most basic for me to get a gif to a point that I like. I’d recommend sticking to these for a start, but once you get the hang of it, definitely feel free to play around! It’s fun! Every gif maker has different preferences here, too, so there’s tutorials for everything.

1. Curves: Just click Auto, tbh. You can play around, but Auto works fine for me as a start, just to brighten or darken some parts as a base.

2. Brightness/Contrast: Usually videos are a bit dark, and contrast can help to make it seem sharper AND cut down on gif size, so I usually just up both of them a bit (but not too much! Or it’ll look cheap). Here I put them at B: 19, C: 23

3. Vibrance: I love very vibrant and colourful gifs, so I usually up the vibrance (and sometimes the saturation). This one is already very vibrant, so I only put +5, but if you try to colour, say, a very moody tv show, this can help wonders, especially if you want to work with the colours more later.

If you prefer less vibrant gifs, you can also lower the values here!

4. Color Balance: getting a bit more complicated now. Often, videos will have a slight yellow or green or blue tint, and this is where you can correct that. This video is a bit yellow, so I added +17 Blue. It was still too warm, so i added -11 Cyan as well. This neutralized the yellow tint, but I wanted some of the reddish tone back, so I added -5 Magenta. I usually do a similar process like that, depending on the tone.

Instead of Midtones, you can also do this for Shadows and Highlights individually.

5. Selective Color: now this is the most complicated, but also the most fun to play around in my opinion! Be careful here, if you do something too extreme it’ll look like shit or make the gif super grainy. I some rough goals in mind here: make the blue hair as blue as possible, make their skin tone a bit less pale, and enhance the black and white (which I always do).

You choose a colour at the top, and then add or subtract cyan/magenta/yellow/black values for that colour.

Skin tone: yellow and red. For this gif, I just added black to both, making them darker. Sometimes, if you change one or both those colours for a different part of the gif (for example, if I wanted to make the background less yellow, I’d subtract yellow from the yellows - but then I’d add yellow to the reds, to make the skin tone natural again.)

Blue hair: Just ramp up the cyan for the blues. Be careful with putting anything to +100, but here it’s already so bright that it should be fine. His roots are more purple, so I changed the magentas by adding cyan and black, and subtracting magenta and yellow. It’s not super clean, but fine for our purposes.

Black/white: depending on the gif, I often either add or subtract black to the whites. Adding makes the highlights less blinding, a bit darker, and flatter (I like to do that if one side of the face is bright white in the sunlight, for example). Subtracting creates contrast, makes it brighter, can wash it out. It can also lessen the gif size, and here it’s mostly just the tracksuit instead of important details, so I subtracted black. For the blacks, I almost always just add a bit of black, to make it more intense. Just like adding contrast, this can make the gif seem sharper and less grainy.

And done!

6. You could just save it as gif now, but as I said, I prefer to convert it back to frame animation timeline first, if only because I like to let it play through before I save it, and it works better for me there than in the video timeline.

Select all frames, then click the little menu on the top right of the video timeline > Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips

7. When you scroll down to the bottom of the layers now, the old smart object + adjustment layers should be at the bottom, under all the new layers. Delete the old ones, we don’t need them anymore.

8. Convert the timeline back to frame animation, by clicking the little button at the bottom left of the video timeline:

9. Click on the menu top right of the timeline again > Make Frames from Layers

10. Now, just some potential cleaning left to do. Sometimes, there’s a doubled or empty frame or layer at the beginning or end, just delete those as necessary. The timing of the frames is probably off, too, just select all frames and set the delay time to 0.05 (or whatever).

Now your done! Save as gif, and you should get this:

I included some bonus links and tips after this but tumblr ate that whole part so I guess it’s going into a separate post. (Here is is)

Anyway, I tried to make this as easy to follow as possible for beginners, but feel free to send me an ask for clarification anytime. Hope this helps, now go make gifs and have fun!!

#photoshop #tutorial #gif tutorial #ps tutorial #btsgif #*#*tutorial #this took so much longer than i expected i'm not giffing for at least a week now

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the-insomniac-emporium · 3 years

Text

Bound Blood (Cassandra Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 4

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village Rating: T+ for language, nudity (but, like, for art), and violence Warnings: Unhealthy dynamics, including violence between the shipped pair, leaning heavily into the "enemies" part of "enemies to friends to lovers" Summary: Local vampire discusses art, depictions of certain anatomy, and enjoys the company of her feral soulmate for 4.5 minutes. Then it goes to shit (as things tend to do). 0-60 Real goddamn quick. Previous Chapters: 1: Sharing Is (Not) Caring; 2: Bloodbath, Baby!, 3: Haunt Me Dearly

4: Portraits For Ghosts

“Am I really supposed to just… stay here? Did she honestly think that I, of all people, would behave? The universe gave me two good hands, and by God, I intend to make that someone else’s problem,” you mutter to yourself as you get dressed. It’s not that you necessarily had anything in mind, rather that you hated the idea of waiting around for who knows how long for Cassandra to return. Especially considering what she had done prior to leaving. Sure, you had laughed, but that hadn’t meant much in the end. At this point, you hadn’t even been out of the dungeon for a full day yet, and the memories of what happened there were fresh in your mind. Nightmares, too, even if you had pushed them aside to deal with Cassandra’s. Why did I bother? You wonder, frowning. There was hardly any point to comforting a monster, no matter the way they trembled.

Or at least that’s the lie you sold yourself.

Soon enough, a knock at the door brings you out of your head. Daphne, maybe, you think, remembering the maiden from yesterday. When you open the door, however, you’re met with an unfamiliar woman. She’s a few years your senior, at the very least, and appears surprised to see you. In her hands is a very enticing tray of food.

“Lady Cassandra wanted me to bring this to you. I am… I am glad to see you are feeling better already,” she says, voice shaking. What was with these maidens and assuming you were anything like your soulmate? Though that last part did catch your interest. Something told you that she wasn’t at all referring to your time in the dungeon. If you had learned anything from Daphne, it was that the best way to get information was to be indirect. So you graciously accepted the food, before speaking, dodging your way around your ignorance.

“Yes, it’s amazing what a bit of meditating can do for the soul- and body, that is,” you start, watching closely for any veiled reactions. Even within the first few words you can tell that this stranger wasn’t expecting you to be pleasant. “Out of curiosity, what did my Lady say about my condition? There are, uh, a few details that I hope she did not share. I’m sure you understand.” As soon as the words leave your mouth, the maiden is nodding, appearing eager to satisfy you. Maybe a hint of fear can be useful, after all.

“No worries, Lady Cassandra did well to respect your privacy, and we would not dare question her further. She simply explained, to her family, that you were dealing with a migraine. I only heard this because I was helping serve breakfast,” she explained, smiling softly. You’re quick to nod, mimicking her expression for maximum empathy. “Do you require anything else? I am here to serve, you must only ask.” Ah, perfect. Would she have offered this even if you hadn’t attempted to be charming? Probably, but your politeness certainly didn't hurt.

“Well, there is one thing… as long as it’s no trouble.”

---------------------------

It had been a risk, asking the servant to take you to a room you weren’t sure existed, but one that had paid off brilliantly. Even if said room was nothing like you had anticipated. Who would have thought that Cassandra, you think, would be an artist? What’s far less surprising is the fact that the studio (or ‘study’, as you had called it) is a disorganized disaster. Discarded papers lie scattered around an overflowing trash can, a cabinet with an attached tool rack is missing pieces, and in one corner there are literally random shards of broken glass lying about. What is this, performance art? Part of you feels tempted to clean up the mess, if only to occupy your time. Instead, you decide to examine some of the pieces within the room. Maybe somehow they’d tell you something noteworthy about your soulmate.

First, you move to your left, where a workbench houses strange sculptures. For the most part they’re abstract, jagged edges contrasting with gentle curves, but there is one you think you understand. It’s very clearly a bust… of someone’s ‘bust’. Guess that solves the age old question of ‘boobs or ass’, you think, stifling a giggle. Moving on, you shift your attention to the exposed section of the cabinet. One row is dedicated to small vials, each labeled with a concerning ‘blood’, despite the fact that it’s clearly not refrigerated. Still, you have heard of artists painting with blood before, but you seem to recall them mixing it with something else. Perhaps Cassandra had done the same? Though you did wonder if she had any difficulty resisting the urge to drink the blood, at least prior to mixing it.

Shrugging, you continue to the other side of the studio, squatting to get a closer look at the broken glass. As expected, there’s no discernable pattern or purpose. Huh, you think, wonder why she doesn’t clean up. Maybe she’s waiting for a servant to do it? Guessing her reasoning was rather difficult, especially considering your lack of context, such as how long the mess had been here. Deciding that this was a pointless distraction, you move on to the only other thing of note in the room: An easel, in the center, with a canvas nearly as tall as yourself. So far, there’s little on it other than pencil lines, a sketch marking where to paint certain details. Only the (start of) the background has been colored. Understandably, it’s hard to make out what exactly the finished project would end up representing. Based on what you know of Cassandra and her family, however, you infer that this- with four figures, one larger than the others, protective- is a painting of the castle residents.

“Family means something to you, hmm?... I hope that mine does not miss me much, for I will never see them again,” you say to yourself, instinctively reaching out towards the art. Before you can touch it, or think better of it, the door to the studio is flying open. In storms Cassandra, fists clenched at her sides. As soon as she sees you, she’s rushing forward, pulling you away from the easel. “Hello, darling. Glad to see me feeling better, yes?” You teased, smiling wide at her. Feeling a bit emboldened by your earlier success, you go a step further, leaning in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I swear to fuck, if you touched any of my stuff-” Cassandra starts to say, intentionally ignoring the kiss, even though her cheeks get flush at the contact.

“Nope, not a single thing. Not even the broken glass. Nice touch, by the way, makes the whole space feel a helluva lot cozier,” you interject. For a few moments she holds you by your shirt collar, staring you in the eyes as if determining whether or not to believe you. Somehow, some way, she declares you innocent, releasing you with an irritated sigh. After pretending to dust yourself off, you return your attention to the central canvas. “Do you do a lot of art of your family? I passed by several pieces on my way here, though they were certainly in a different style.” Another pause, with Cassandra waiting for you to spring a verbal trap.

“Some of those are mother’s work,” she answers, tentatively, eying you closely. When you merely nod in reply, expecting her to elaborate, she starts to relax, little by little. “I doubt you passed any of mine. Mother tends to keep those closer to her quarters, or near the main entrance.” Interesting, you think, why hasn’t she addressed my original question?

“It sounds like she’s very proud of you,” you muse, still facing away from your soulmate. There’s a slight shakiness to your voice, as your mind starts to dwell on memories of your own family. Perhaps noticing this, Cassandra takes a few steps closer, one hand hovering over your shoulder, not quite sure if you needed (or perhaps deserved) any comfort. In this moment, you feel far more vulnerable than you had the day before. Taking a deep breath, you try to center yourself, before perfectly ruining whatever trust you had just established with Cassandra. “Something tells me she doesn’t know about the titty sculpture though, right? Can’t quite imagine that one being displayed where everyone can see it.”

To your immense surprise, Cassandra gives you a blank stare.

“You… you really don’t know anything about my mother, do you?” She says, after several awkward seconds. It feels strange to think that she had been furious, merely a handful of minutes ago. “If you actually behave for a while, I can show you some of her favorite pieces around the castle. Then maybe you’ll understand.” Intrigued, you debate how exactly to respond. On one hand, you did want to see the art, but on the other hand… misbehaving was your goal of the day.

“Sounds like a nice date to me. Why not start the tour right now?” You suggest, hoping to meet your ‘politeness quota’ earlier rather than later. Still, it is in your very nature to be chaotic, and you find yourself giving Cassandra an affectionate shoulder touch. It’s not at all genuine, but the two of you blush nonetheless. How could you not, when your blood was bound together, hearts made to race in sync?

“Don’t get friendly with me,” Cassandra stammers, unadjusted to the way her pulse pounded. “This isn’t a date. We’re just- it doesn’t matter, actually. As long as it means getting you out of my studio, I don’t care.” With that said, she takes your hand in her own, pulling you towards the exit. If she has any feelings about the soft touch, she hides them well… unlike yourself. Cheeks flushed, you’re half tempted to yank yourself out of her grip, hating the way your heart skips a few beats. Would I still feel this way if I didn’t know we were soulmates? You wonder, biting your lower lip to prevent any unwanted comments from slipping out. Soon enough you’d have art aplenty to distract yourself with. Hopefully.

---------------------------

“My God, you were not kidding. I don’t- I can’t even think of anything clever to say,” you chime, staring dumbfounded at the several statuettes of naked women. They seemed to fulfill some other purpose, one you couldn’t parse at the moment, but you could hardly think about the details right now. “I mean, good for your mother, for sticking to a theme, I suppose,” you continue, tripping over your own tongue, uncharacteristically quiet. Clearly amused by your flustered display, Cassandra lets out a hearty laugh.

“Good to know some things can shut you up. I’ll have to keep this in mind for next time you bother me,” she teases, light-heartedly. Her words only fluster you more, though they quickly give you room to counter, much to your joy.

“Is that so? Planning on carrying around a busty bust for the rest of your life, or thinking of going the more au naturel route?” You asked, briefly sticking your tongue out at Cassandra. It takes her a moment to understand what you’re getting at, but as soon as she does she’s smacking your arm with an offended huff. Despite her irritation, the blow is relatively soft, and you swear you can see her fighting to hide a smile. “Starting to go soft on me, are you? I hardly even felt that one.”

“So you’d prefer I hit you harder? And to think you called me kinky,” Cassandra fires back, without a hint of hesitation. Now both of you are laughing, softly, like old friends sharing fond memories. It’s… weirdly nice. A warmth fills your chest, even as you try to remind yourself that you shouldn’t be happy right now. Damn it, you think, suddenly frowning, hands clenching. We shouldn’t be having fun banter, back and forth like a real couple. Not when I’ve still got wounds from her hands on my skin. Instinctively you reach up to your face, thumb running over the marks Cassandra’s nails had left behind. The touch stings, bad, no matter how gentle you try to be. Noticing your shift in expression, your soulmate inches closer. “If your wounds are bothering you, I can have one of the servants get more ointment or whatever it is we have around. I don’t want you to-... There’s no reason for you to suffer more than you need to, besides, I don’t want you complaining all day.” Of course she couldn’t bring herself to imply that she cared. Of course. It wasn’t like the two of you were actually capable of being soft for each other, obviously. All of your confusion melts down, boiled by the warmth in your chest, turning to a familiar, albeit painful, rage.

“Right, right! Because you care so fucking much, yeah? What the fuck am I doing? Why am I-” you jab a finger towards her chest, accusatory- “talking to you? Why am I pretending you're not the one who did this to me? You’re the fucking reason my face hurts, my shoulder hurts, my brain-... I can’t stop thinking about everything that happened down there. I can’t get those goddamn images out of my head, every time I close my eyes, every time I look at you. I…” You trail off, chest heaving a little, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. Cassandra’s standing tall, unflinching, but there’s a noticeable regret in her expression.

“What. Are. You… going to do about it?” She asks, through clenched teeth, fighting back the full force of her emotions. You can’t tell what exactly she’s feeling, but you know that you want her to show you. Every part of you is itching for a fist fight, regardless of how stupid you know the idea is.

“Depends, dickwad, on whether or not these statuettes are properly secured,” you snap, already moving, fully abandoning all impulse control. By the time your hand grips the first sculpture, Cassandra has put you in a headlock, forcefully tugging you backwards. Panic sets in, making you try to jam your elbows into her stomach. Before long both of you are tumbling to the floor, bodies already aching, limbs flailing wildly in an attempt to hit a target, any target. In the end the air is knocked from your lungs as your head smacks against the ground. “Shit, shit, shit,” you grumble, coughing, finally processing just how much of a dumbass you were. It’s clear that at least one of the previous day’s wounds has reopened, and you feel something wet and sticky on your shirt.

“Finished, asshole?” Cassandra wheezes, sounding dazed, roughly pulling you up by your shirt collar. You nod, refusing to meet her gaze. Then she’s sighing in relief, letting you lean on her for support, holding you surprisingly close, considering the circumstances. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Again…”

#cassandra dimitrescu x reader #cassandra dimitrescu #resident evil: village #re8 village #enemies to friends to lovers #blunt teeth sharp tongue #got some fun banter in this one!#followed immediately by heartbreak #they want to be soft so bad #but they do not know how #i promise they will eventually be soft #you have to remember that this is still less than 24 hours after part 1 #the reader is traumatized

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raibebe · 3 years

Text

Sugar and Spice

Genre: Fluff? Words: 4.390 Warnings: none for this chapter

Chapters: | 1 | 2 | 3 | masterlist

A/N: Sugar and Spice is a series now, I know you all probably wanted more smut but I chose to write a prequel about how Jeno ended up being a sugar baby in the first place. Since this is going to be a longer story, I wanted to try to do it in chapters instead of writing one giant thing. Later on I will switch the POV but I felt like it was needed to start off with Jeno’s. Do not worry, there will be smut in later chapters.

Taglist: @yutaalove, @byunniebaekhyunnie

Like all the bad decisions Lee Jeno had made in his life, this one started with none other than Lee Donghyuck. The two boys were sitting in the university’s cafeteria where Donghyuck watched Jeno eat the food they had served with a disgusted look on his face. “I don’t understand how you can even swallow that.” “It’s either this or instant ramen again and I am pretty sure my body consists of 60% ramen already,” Jeno whined, trying to wash down what must be the most dry piece of meat he had ever tasted his entire life with some water. “Dude you work like three jobs,” Donghyuck groaned, kicking his friend beneath the table. “Got fired from the library because they caught me sleeping,” Jeno sighed deeply. “You look like you’re ready to pass out right now.” “Hyuck, I am functioning on three hours of sleep and two redbull.” “Jeno,” Donghyuck sighed and Jeno hated it when he used that tone of voice. He didn’t need Donghyuck’s pity. He could do this. He was fine. Well mostly. Apart from the fact that he got an average amount of four hours of sleep, was barely passing his classes and got fired by one of his many part time jobs every few months his life was absolutely peachy. “I’m sure if you talk to your parents again-“ “No,” he cut Donghyuck off, “I won’t come begging at their door. I chose this path for myself and they simply don’t agree Hyuck.” “Your parents suck ass,” his friend sighed, leaning back in his chair, “Pretty sure my parents would throw a party each day for a week straight if I had told them I wanted to become a vet.” “Well mine aren’t,” Jeno sighed and raked a hand through his messy hair. It was getting too long again, his bangs hanging into his eyes. Could he ask Renjun to cut it again? Did he trust the furious Chinese man with something sharp that close to his eyes?

For a while it was quiet between the two friends while Jeno continued to stuff his face with the cafeteria food. He didn’t have much time before he had to go to his shift at a little record store not far from his dorm building. It wasn’t paying the best but the owner of the shop and no issues with him doing his readings there when no customers were around. “You know that we miss you, Jeno. Right?” Donghyuck cut the silence which made Jeno stop mid bite, “We haven’t done anything with all the boys in forever and I am not counting the times we were at the club while you were working and declining the tips we were trying to give you.” “I don’t need nor want your pity money, Hyuck,” Jeno groaned again and shoved the plate with his food away. His appetite had left him. Donghyuck and him had this conversation every other week always with the same outcome: Donghyuck explaining how he was worried about him and Jeno telling him that he was fine (which he most likely wasn’t but he managed). “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to make it to our meets ups, I really am,” Jeno tried to explain and Donghyuck’s eyes immediately went soft, “I just- I’m behind on my tuition again and haven’t paid the lease for the dorms for the last moth yet. I really need to take every minute and hour of overtime I can get and my grades aren’t getting any better either. This will all be for nothing if I fail my anatomy class again.” “Jeno,” Donghyuck tried again, “You can’t keep on like this for another three years.” “I have to Hyuck,” Jeno sighed, slouching back into his chair, “I have to.” His body had been screaming at him to stop whatever he was doing for weeks now and to be completely honest, he was aching for a full eight hours of sleep and not the usual four that were just disconnected naps throughout his day.

“I’m going to make a suggestion and I need you to promise me to not be mad at me, alright,” Donghyuck suddenly said, holding out his pinky finger. “Hyuck, I won’t take money from any of you. I don’t want Chenle to pay for my lease again. That was a one-time thing and I told him that I would pay him back,” Jeno immediately argued, shame running through him. He hated constantly being treated to meals and the thought that he had a debt with his younger friend even though the Chinese had told Jeno hundreds of times that he didn’t need to money back. “That’s not what I wanted to suggest. Now promise.” Jeno rolled his eyes before interlocking his pinky with one of his arguably best friends. “Actually this isn’t my idea. But Jaemin and Renjun brought it up last Friday at our movie night.” That alone made Jeno feel bad again. While his friends had been all cuddled up in Chenle’s apartment to watch some movies and eat popcorn while drinking cheap beer, he had been working in a sweaty club with horrible music that made his ears ring. “I’m sorry,” he muttered under his breath but Donghyuck didn’t seem to hear him. “But hear me out: Have you ever thought about becoming a sugar baby?” Jeno lost all control over his facial muscles and was pretty sure his brain had just short circuited, his open mouth free real estate for the fruit flies that were all over the cafeteria. “No, no, think about it Jeno,” Donghyuck immediately argued, “I did my research and you can get a monthly allowance for at least a thousand dollar if not more. You’d be able to quit that job at the shady bar.” “Hyuck,” Jeno cut in when his brain had successfully rebooted, “In case you haven’t noticed in all the years we’ve been friends: I’m not gay.” “So what?” “What do you mean so what? I’m not going to prostitute myself for some old man just because I need money,” Jeno hissed between his teeth. “Oh my god Jeno,” Donghyuck sighed, “You’re so 2010. There are plenty of wealthy woman out there looking for some arm candy to pass their time.” “You’re insane Donghyuck.” “Insanely brilliant that is,” his friend grinned, “This is literally the perfect solution for all your problems.” “How is fucking some old hag going to solve any of my problems?” “Oh come on, Jeno,” Donghyuck groaned, “There are plenty of sites that let you choose your preferred partner for this kind of arrangement. And don’t even try to deny that you’re into older girls.” At that Jeno flushed a deep red color. His preference about his partners was basically an open secret in their group of friends that he had confessed after a drunken round of truth or dare some time in highschool when Renjun had asked him why he had rejected the confession of a cute girl a year below them to keep crushing on the substitute teacher they had. Chenle had not let this thing die until Jeno had started to date a girl from Mark’s class and even then the boy had made some cruel comments about their age difference. “Here, Renjun found a site that seems very legit,” Donghyuck brought him back from his memories, scribbling down a link on a piece of paper, “Please just check it out.” “That’s a lot of promises I have to give today,” Jeno mused but took the paper to put it into his pocket. “We’re just trying to look out for you Jeno.” “I know,” he sighed, “And I appreciate that.” “You’re running thin Jeno.” “I know Hyuck!” He said, making his friend flinch at his outburst, “I fucking know, okay. I’m sorry I am making you all worry with how terrible my life currently is. It’s not like I am happy about it but you could really stop bitching about it.” Just when Donghyuck opened his mouth to reply something, Jeno’s eyes shot to the big clock on the wall. “Safe it Hyuck, I need to go to my shift.” With that he got up to hoist his bag that was barely holding together onto his shoulder and basically fled the cafeteria. Donghyuck could bring back his plate, that was the least he could do.

Once outside, the student quickly plugged in his earphones into his phone and played his favorite playlist on his way to the record store, inwardly scolding himself for being so proud and not leeching off of Jaemin’s spotify anymore when what felt like the third ad in ten minutes interrupted his vibing. At the record store, he quickly unlocked the front door and put on a random record to play over the speakers before he got situated behind the counter to try to revise his notes from today that were unreadable at best. He had fallen asleep at least twice in his morning class and had to be shaken awake by one of his classmates once the lecture was over. Great. So self-study it was.

Over the course of his shift, he was only interrupted twice from reading the chapter in the book that he was pretty sure he should have brought back to the library last week. But since he really didn’t have any money to spare for the fine, he had decided to keep it a little longer until he was at a financially better place which was nowhere near in close sight now that he was fired from his job at said library. Which brought him back to what Donghyuck had said to him. But him becoming a sugar baby? Jeno really couldn’t think of himself in such a position. Sure, he wasn’t bad looking but when he thought of the word sugar baby he thought of beautiful and petite boys like Renjun or maybe even Jaemin but him? Even though he had lost quite some muscle mass since this shitshow had begun, he was still built quiet broad and had more of a masculine, handsome feel than sweet and beautiful. And wasn’t that was sugar mommies would look for? If they wanted a man, they wouldn’t search for a someone younger. Jeno sighed loudly and let his head hit his book. This was a hopeless situation.

But he guessed having a look at the site wouldn’t hurt and so Jeno ended up typing in the address of the sugar baby site into the computer at work, praying the owner didn’t know how to check which sites he had opened once he’d delete the browser history. The site itself looked clean, mainly consisting of muted pastel colors and black font and accents. If you weren’t signed in, you didn’t get much information on what exactly was going on but the site claimed that keeping their clients data safe was their main concern since very influential people were using their site. Jeno completely blamed Donghyuck and the two redbulls he had already had for clicking on the pastel blue ‘sign up’ button. He then had to fill out basic data about himself: His gender, age, profession and interests along with his sexual orientation. He hesitated for a second when the site asked if he was okay to be partnered with someone of the same sex for a strictly platonic relationship but denied it in the end. Next he was asked to choose a nickname to chat with potential benefactors as the site called the sugar mommies and daddies. Was this where he should choose something cute to attract people to his profile? Whacking his brain for any cute plays on his actual name, he came up with exactly nothing other than the No-Jam nickname he had earned in highschool which really wasn’t cute at all. The only other thing that came to mind was when Jaemin jokingly called himself Nana and Jeno Nono in that god-awful aegyo voice which never failed to make Jeno cringe. Why did he have to choose a nickname anyways? It was to protect the benefactors; he really didn’t have anything else to lose than his dignity. Sighing, Jeno quickly typed in: ‘Jenonono’ as his nickname, only cringing slightly when choosing a password and entering his email address to confirm everything. Once he had activated his account with the link he was sent, Jeno only had to choose a couple of pictures for his profile to complete it. Well this was a problem. Jeno couldn’t even remember the last time he took a selfie where he wasn’t looking like death on two legs to send them to his friends. He quickly scrolled through his camera roll in search for at least one decently attractive photo. He only stopped scrolling when he found photos from almost a year ago before he had changed his field of study and had the fall-out with his parents. His hair was bleached a bright blonde color and the sides were shaved but he was looking good, more toned than he was now and like he actually slept at night. Not even close to how he was looking right now but it was still him, so did this count as catfishing? He quickly chose two photos with his blonde hair styled up and one with his natural haircolor from before he and Jaemin had the great idea to bleach each other’s hair and send them to himself via mail so he could upload them onto the website.

When Jeno pressed the ‘complete’ button, the site showed him on overview of what his profile would look like and it wasn’t even half bad if he did say so himself. He still felt a little uneasy about the whole thing and the fact that he was basically catfishing people into thinking he still looked so bulky and put together like he had looked last year didn’t help. “Come on Jeno, you have nothing to lose,” he grumbled and pressed the ‘confirm’ button one last time. His profile disappeared and the site instead showed Jeno their actual layout for the matching. Unlike other dating sites, he couldn’t swipe through potential benefactors himself; he had to wait until someone actually message him. Great. So he had to hope that his pictures and his honestly not great profile would lure someone in who was at least mildly attractive. Maybe no one would ever contact him and he could just throw it back into Donghyuck’s face how this had been a shitty idea to begin with. Sighing, he closed the site for now and deleted the browser history just to be safe as well.

The rest of his shift went by in a blur of trying to make sense of his scribbly notes and whatever the authors of the book he was reading were trying to teach him about the anatomy of different species and Jeno didn’t even think twice about the site he had signed up for when he closed down the shop and went home to his shitty dorm. The short trip to the convenience store only made him more aware of how poor he was when he had to choose between an actual meal and food for the cat he had recently (very much illegally) saved from the streets and taken in. He’d be more than damned if the kitten he had named Bongsik would have to suffer, so it would be a delicious meal for her and more instant ramen for Jeno.

Back at his dorm room - a single one that could barely fit his bed, wardrobe and desk - the little cat immediately rubbed its tiny head against his pant leg and Jeno couldn’t help but smile and bend down to pet the little creature. He felt a little bit of tension immediately seep from his tired muscles and indulged the kitten in a little cuddle session until he felt his eyes starting to itch. His allergies be damned! Sighing the boy got up to actually shed his jacket and shoes and opened the fresh can of delicious cat food for Bongsik who immediately devoured it. If she thought it was delicious, would it taste good for Jeno as well? Chuckling he turned back to prepare his own food, all this instant ramen might have started to take a toll on his psyche. He ate his meal in silence before throwing both containers in the trash. Jeno knew he had to work on his essay for one of his classes but for a moment he just felt the need to relax for a bit, especially now that he didn’t have to rush over to his job at the library. Taking out his phone, he quickly replied to the group chat of his friends where they were animatedly planning a trip to the cinema on Friday which Jeno had to decline. Not only did he have a shift at the bar but he also didn’t really have the money for it. Sighing he locked his phone again. Well that went great, now he was stressed again. “Bongsik you love me right?” He asked and turned towards his cat again who was lounging next to him on the floor, her belly full with delicious food. Oh to be a cat...

Jeno sighed again when his cat of course didn’t answer. He really was going insane. But it was going to be worth it, he reminded himself again. Once this was all over he would be a vet and able to help all kinds of animals. He would make good money and could pay off his tuition slowly and maybe a couple of years later he could even have his own medical practice. But to have all that, he really needed to up his grades. Especially this godawful anatomy grade. Groaning Jeno got up from the floor to plop down on his desk and start his laptop that made an awful lot of noise while booting up. Knowing that it took the device a good two minutes give or take to completely be ready, he started to go through his notes again before typing them into the document where he compiled all his notes just to have them all nice and neat in one place.

By some ungodly hour in the morning, Jeno’s eyes started to close more and more often on their own accord and the letters on the screen started to blur together despite wearing his glasses. “We should probably call it a night, Bongsik,” he spoke into the silent room, his cat already fast asleep at the foot of his bed. Fondly smiling at her, he saved his progress on both his notes and his essay and shut down his laptop. Jeno didn’t really dare to look at the time, so he just quickly grabbed his stuff for the bathroom and got himself ready for bed in the vacant bathroom he shared with a couple of other students. But at this time it was almost guaranteed to be empty.

Once back in his dorm, Jeno quickly climbed under the covers and plugged his phone in to make sure his alarm would actually go off in about 4 hours. Even though he was dead tired now that his body was surrounded by the warmth of his bed, a notification caught his attention. Leeching off of the free wifi at the record store, he had downloaded the app that came with the sugar baby site praying it would work on his outdated phone which it luckily did. Maybe the programmers had actually thought about broke students with shitty phones just like him for once. Taking a deep breath, Jeno clicked on the notification that had told him that a potential benefactor wanted to text him. Well that was quick. A lot quicker than he had anticipated. When the app had finally loaded with the shitty wifi he definitely not stole from his dorm neighbor (he had set his password as 1234, he was begging to have it stolen), a profile of a woman showed up. She smiled warmly in the picture she had chosen and it seemed to be taken at some tropical place judging by the palm trees in the background. Jeno quickly skimmed through the rest of her profile that only said that she wasn’t that much older than him. Well she was but not to the extent where she could have been his mother - ew. As her job she just had just listed estate agent. Did that pay well? Jeno didn’t know. His thumb hovered over the pastel button that said ‘accept’. If he would press this, this wasn’t just a ‘I’ll take a look at this app for Donghyuck’s sake’ then he was actually invested. But even if he accepted, he was not entitled to the woman. He could still say no if she turned out to be a creep. Hell, he didn’t even have to meet her ever if he didn’t like chatting with her. Before his courage could leave him, Jeno quickly accepted the offer and a new page opened that looked just like every other messenger.

To: Jenonono You’re up late.

What a weird way to open up a conversation. But it certainly was better than perverted innuendos or a ‘hi’ like Jaemin was continuously whining over whenever he had reinstalled tinder. But what was he supposed to reply? Should he try to act cute and coy? Was that what she would be looking for? But before he could even type anything, she had sent another message.

To: Jenonono You don’t seem like the typical boy you find on here.

What was that supposed to mean?

From: Jenonono I’m not? what are those like then?

To: Jenonono They’re not as handsome as you.

At that Jeno flushed a deep red color. He wasn’t used to such blatant flirting.

To: Jenonono I really like the blonde on you but the darker color is cute as well.

From: Jenonono it’s dark right now

As soon as he hit send, Jeno wanted to hit himself. What was she supposed to answer to that message? God he was such an idiot.

To: Jenonono Cute. Are you nervous?

From: Jenonono I have never done this before and didn’t think someone would message someone like me

To: Jenonono I haven’t been doing this for long either. And what do you mean by ‘someone like me’?

From: Jenonono you said yourself that I’m not the typical boy you would find on here...

To: Jenonono Well occasionally there is a diamond between all the rocks.

Jeno wasn’t sure if this was even an actual saying but it made him feel warm nevertheless.

From: Jenonono you’re pretty forward with your flirting

To: Jenonono Am I making you shy, baby?

As if to prove her point, Jeno almost choked on his own saliva, coughing loudly which ultimately woke up Bongsik who threw him a very much not amused gaze. He hadn’t known that just reading the word baby would have such an effect on him. A voice in the back of his head that sounded a little too much like Donghyuck called him a ‘bottom bitch’. Biting his lip he contemplated whether he should flirt back. Up until now it was fun talking to her. And he still had nothing to lose.

From: Jenonono What if I maybe blushed just the smallest bit?

To: Jenonono You’re so cute. I’m glad I found you. But you should go sleep, baby. It’s late already.

From: Jenonono shouldn’t you be asleep as well then?

To: Jenonono I just came back from a long flight and my bed seems a little lonely.

Was this his chance to get a little flirtatious himself? Was she testing him?

From: Jenonono would you want me there with you? so it’s not as lonely?

To: Jenonono That does sound very tempting, baby boy. Let me take you out for a meal before I take you to bed.

Jeno’s breath caught in his throat for a little before he broke out in little giggles. He had completely forgotten how good it felt to feel wanted between all the stress that his life currently was. Maybe but just maybe Donghyuck had been right and this truly could be the solution for many of his problems.

From: Jenonono is that an invitation?

To: Jenonono How does lunch tomorrow sound like baby? I’ll treat you to something delicious.

Gnawing at his thumb, Jeno read the message over and over. He didn’t even know the woman. Meeting up with her might be a risk. For all he knew she could be a serial killer.

To: Jenonono I know this is sudden. But I want to get to know you better. Face to face. Not just over a stupid text box.

Taking a deep breath, Jeno took all his courage and replied with shaking fingers.

From: Jenonono I have a little break between my last class of the day and before I have to go to my part time job.

To: Jenonono There is a cute little bistro not too far from where I remember the main dorm buildings were. [link attached]

Clicking on the link, a website opened and showed him a French-style bistro that judging by the address was right between his dorm and the record shop. He should be able to do it. Curiously he clicked on the menu and immediately regretted it. The prices were ridiculous. For the price of a simple piece of bread, he could easily feed Bongsik and himself for two days.

From: Jenonono isn’t this a little too much?

To: Jenonono Let me spoil you, baby. Just tell me the time and I’ll make sure that I can be there.

From: Jenonono would around one work for you?

To: Jenonono I’ll be there. I’m looking forward to meeting you. Now sleep tight and have sweet dreams, baby.

From: Jenonono maybe I’ll even dream of you

Screaming into his pillow, Jeno threw his phone away. He couldn’t believe that he just send that. Quickly grabbing his kitten, he pressed his face into her soft fur while she struggled in his hold. “Bongsik I have a date,” he whispered, “An actual date. With a potentially very rich woman. I can’t believe I actually did that.”

#jeno #nct #lee jeno #kafenetwork #neosmutcollective #nct dream #jeno fluff #jeno smut #nct fluff #nct smut #jeno imagines #jeno scenarios #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #nct dream scenarios #nct dream fluff

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ghost-wonder · 3 years

Text

Why Oliver March is My Current Top Suspect for the Leader (Even though I love him)

Buckle your seatbelts kids and get ready for my hot mess of a PH theory. I wasn’t sure where to put this and I just wanted to get my thoughts out. I’m in the last year of my media studies and production degree so I’m putting my 3 years of tears to use and have been brewing this theory since reading 85. Now let me clarify: I adore March, but the more we see, the more suspicious I become (especially with ep. 82 & 85), and while many think this may mean death or something tragic, I’ve been thinking of the possibility it’s something much bigger (Note: lots of speculation here so prepare for a lot of what if’s and I’m only using content up to ep. 85).

My thought process regarding the leader:

The leader is a rather dehumanized villainous entity. With them being anonymous and the reader not having a face to place with the actions, it’s easier for us to take the leader’s actions at face value. We are provided no means of sympathizing or empathizing with their actions and instead, our story follows characters who have been traumatized by said actions.

Therefore, to provide readers with the greatest impact, the leader would likely be a character who up until the discovery of them being the leader, the reader viewed them positively. A character already humanized. Already trusted. And this would be both in terms of how the reader views that character, as well as other characters in the story. It would leave the reader reeling, trying to figure out why such a character would be the leader.

And keep in mind: PH has used this approach with Harvey; the audience liked him for the short time he appeared before being caprisunned and we were shocked to discover his involvement in the PS. Additionally, we’ve had characters dehumanizing and humanizing with Kieran. He’s introduced as this deadly assassin who kills brutally, with the greatest death toll in the PS. But he becomes humanized through his interactions with Lauren, so much so that both the reader and Lauren forget his occupation and are provided a chilling reminder in ep. 43. However, even after those horrible events, as we learn more regarding his character in season 2, we begin to empathize with his actions and reactions (though we don’t condone them). It demonstrates a duality, a mix of light and dark, seemingly contradicting one another. Because people are complicated.

This is also why I can’t buy into the idea that Tristan or Stefan is the leader, in fact, I don’t think either one is even involved with the PS. For Tristan I think he comes off suspicious because A) he’s meant to be a red herring but B) LAUREN’S PARENTS WERE APOSTLES AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME HE DID NOT KNOW. THEY LEFT AT ODD HOURS OF THE NIGHT ALL THE TIME AND LIKELY GAVE LAUREN TO TRISTAN TO PROTECT HER FROM THAT LIFE. HE PROBABLY THINKS LAUREN IS PS. But anywho. As for Stefan, he’s already been villainized through his treatment of William. The audience doesn’t like him for this reason and is then inherently suspicious of him because they dislike him. So for me, it feels too obvious. (I have an additional theory that he was involved with the print shop shooting, assisting Lizbeth (from what’s alluded in 64 with Lauren’s parents and 68) as chief of police but that’s for another place another time.)

What we know about the leader:

- It’s a he

- Has to be part of the older generation (would have needed to be an adult about 15 years ago)

- Was a member of SD

- Knew Lauren’s parents

- According to Hecate, he is closer and more similar to Lauren than she thinks

So why March? (It’s not just the villain scar)

- His speech to Kym and Will in 60 had me SUS. It felt very contradicting (he acknowledges the flaws in the system while saying they must continue their jobs, which is valid, but his phrasing was still off to me) and generally in any mystery drama if I see a character go on a moral rant of sorts, my sus radar is dialed up to 11. Unfortunately, we don’t know how much of it was true and lies because Lauren wasn’t around but if he is the leader I’d find it so fascinating if everything he said is the truth. The idea that this terrorist does have sound morals would be SO INTERESTING and kind of fitting? The leader having a strong sense of justice or strong morals would make him more similar to Lauren as Hecate said. But more on Hecate later.

- As confirmed by 85, he knew Lauren’s parents. He even says they worked together on cases. Through their work together, did they start to realize the flaws in their system? Was there a case that was just too much? SD formed?

- The death of his daughter does kind of fit the SD timeline. (She died in xx11 the pamphlets are dated xx14 but SD was likely formed slightly before the release of the pamphlets but that's not yet really confirmed). We don’t know how her illness killed her (could be class-related. Like because of their class status perhaps they didn’t have access to the resources that could have saved his daughter? Who knows. He said they did all they could. March is likely middle class similar to Kym but we don’t know for sure. And even if he is middle class we don’t know if this was always the case, like if he was middle class at the time of his daughter’s death.)

- Additionally the death of his wife. The date is blocked and as others have theorized I find it very possible it could have been SD related. But this sentence is chilling: “She fell into the bloody hands of criminals that have been plaguing Ardhalis for too long.” March doesn’t specify these criminals as the PS. So could he mean the royals? (Literally everything he says to Lauren in ep. 85 could have a double meaning and it bugs me so much like he never specifies the criminals he’s referring to. And everything he says sounds like the monologue of a villain who sees themselves as a hero because they haven’t realized how far gone they are. But that’s just me. ) If she died in the print shop shooting could this have been the catalyst to drive March to become the leader and start the PS? Losing your daughter and wife is a lot to take and could drive anyone over the edge. Point is: if any of this speculation is true, it would give March motive for becoming the leader.

- Also March mentioned how Lauren reminds him of his daughter which could then explain why Lauren hasn’t been touched by the PS cause at this point the girl should have been caprisunned a while ago if she wasn’t being protected from the inside.

- To build on that as well, if March is the leader then he has kept an eye on Lauren since she joined the force aka since she would have become problematic for the PS (cause you can argue being the daughter of apostles may not automatically make her a threat since she was a child at the time. But being the daughter of apostles and joining the police force to take down the PS? Now that’s an issue). March says in ep. 60 that Lauren was one of his recruits meaning the leader could have had his eye on her the entirety of her time in the APD. Just something to consider.

- And going back to Hecate's words, he’s more similar to you than you think. March and Lauren share (seemingly) similar morals and additionally he is close to her just as Hecate claimed. Also if any of my speculation regarding the deaths of his wife and daughter are correct it would have put him in a similar position to Lauren, the difference being her enemy is PS and his being the royals (but also as we’re starting to see with Lauren learning more information, I think the royals are starting to become an enemy in her eyes the same way PS is. Again if any of this is correct it just furthers similarities between the two).

- This could then also be the betrayal alluded to in the cards; one of Lauren's mentors has been the leader this whole time. The betrayal is either past or future but March being the leader could count as both. He betrayed her in the past by ordering the death of her parents and may betray her again in the future as he continues to play the role of leader

- Plus this would also mean the leader has been present in the story FROM THE VERY BEGINNING MARCH WAS IN EP 2 HOW WILD WOULD IT BE IF WE’VE KNOWN THE LEADER THIS WHOLE TIME

- AND IMPORTANT NOTE: WHY IS MARCH NOT ONE OF THE PEOPLE LAUREN SUSPECTS DURING EP. 82 YET HE HAS HER BACK SIMILAR TO WILL AND KYM. "LAUREN OPEN YOUR EYES" BLINDEST OF THEM ALL TYPE STUFF. (Also with Lauren being the blindest of all, it led me to believe anyone Lauren is suspicious of, is not the one to betray her. I feel like it would have to be someone so unsuspicious, Lauren doesn’t even think of them. Which can be said of March; we literally have a whole scene in ep. 82 demonstrating how close they are and how a level of trust exists. Yet panels later, it doesn’t even cross her mind that he could betray her).

Now possible flaws in this theory (there are more I’m sure but here’s a few):

-Why voice support for lune and their actions: Lune’s actions have yet to affect the leader (at least to our knowledge) and have technically been helping the leader. The leader views Apostle 7 as an issue so obviously whoever the leader is, they won’t take issue with Lune taking down this problem for them. When first telling Lauren about McTrevor, Kieran said he was surprised he hadn’t been sent by the leader to kill him off yet. And when the 11th precinct received that first Lune letter about him, March was the one to voice that they should follow Lune’s orders. If he’s the leader, this could explain why he wanted to follow Lune’s orders and dispose of McTrevor without PS means. This is a possible explanation anyway.

- Why send moles into the 11th precinct if the leader himself is already there: I boil this down to a matter of seeming less suspicious. Like why possibly risk the exposure of your identity if your organization consists of hundreds of potential puppets who are easily disposable?

-Why place the PH in the 11th precinct if the leader is there: Okay this plays into another theory I have regarding Kieran. We know there are boatloads of parallels between Lauren and Kieran which left me thinking Kieran has had a similar Tim Sake type incident. What I mean by this is that Lauren’s whole deal with Tim Sake was heavily guided by her personal anger and resulted in distrust from her superior, Hermann. I think Kieran had a similar incident with killing that one person without orders, in which his actions were guided by his personal anger and resulted in distrust from his superior, the Leader. So we know from 83 Kierans been overseas for a while (Why? Was there a mission or did the leader need Kieran out of Ardhalis? Both?) and his comment in 64 (“I wonder how much longer his patience will last”), as well as the comments made by Bella and the messenger at various points regarding Kieran following and not following orders (ep 5 and 72-73?), further my thinking that the leader may be SUS of his best player. So what do you do with someone you’re suspicious of: you keep them right where you can see them.

- The one flaw I have yet to work out an explanation for is why order the death of lune? Regardless of who the leader is, this is a question I’ve mulled over since the end of season 1. J’en sais rien mes amis mais on verra.

Closing Thoughts:

Hopefully, this didn’t sound like the ramblings of a sleep-deprived senior (even though that’s exactly what this is haha) and hopefully, it gave you some stuff to consider. Up until this point, I never spent much time contemplating the leader, partly because I didn’t feel like we were far enough in the story to have enough evidence against one person. While much of this is speculation, I still think it’s the soundest case I have for any PH character we’ve met thus far being the leader.

#purple hyacinth #ph webtoon #lauren sinclair #oliver march #kieran white #webtoon #purple hyacinth webtoon #this is a lot #dont hate me i just cant accept nice things

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katytheinspiredworkaholic · 3 years

Text

Wip Wednesday

Untitled fic (Correspondence)

Summary/Story so far: HotchReid, slow burn, AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. We are now months into this... tentative thing that is beyond friendship, beyond flirtatious, they still don't know much about each other on paper... but this feels a lot like dating. And then one day, Hotch abruptly stops answering his phone.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

(Set in season 6, unbeta'd, still the first draft, text/email templates are temporary)

((Notes: Spencer's POV this time, he is 29 and working at CalTech, Hotch still doesn't know how old he is though he does know that he's at least younger than 45 now. Hotch has been MIA now for about 18 hours.))

Spencer spends way too long online that morning, searching for anything about the case Hotch is working. There's nothing about a raid, or a shooting, or even an arrest -- which could all just be apart of the ongoing media blackout -- but it also does nothing to stop him from panicking.

With a drafted email pulled up to Ms. Penelope Garcia, the BAU's personal tech analyst, he ponders how to... even word this without it sounding too personal. Too much like he and Hotch have more than just a working relationship.

Because they do. They have... something.

Something that gives him fluttering sensations in his stomach, makes him check his phone constantly, and react to even the slightest chime similar to his text tone. Makes him smile when he sees Hotch's name on his notifications, in his email inbox, makes him message the man in the middle of the day at the most random thoughts. Just because he wants to make him laugh.

[]You're going to get me in trouble.

[][]Did I make you smile?

[]I'm at a crime scene. There's a dead body in front of me.

[][]Then why are you checking your phone?

[]You know why.

But that’s not something that is shared with the rest of the team, he’s sure. So he should be careful how he words his email, lest Ms. Garcia realize that Spencer isn’t asking purely as a colleague.

Surely they know he has friends, though?

Chewing his lip, Spencer types out a brief email asking if Agent Hotchner is feeling well since he missed an appointment the night before and hasn’t been returning his calls. It’s a phrase he’s used often, so it comes naturally to Spencer as he types it out, and he realizes… he hasn’t called. He’s sent a dozen text messages, but not a phone call. Never a phone call. That was against the rules.

He looks to his phone beside him on his desk, and tries to fight back the dueling forms of panic clawing at his chest. Panic that Hotch might not answer, panic what that means for the man he’s been… becoming more and more inclined to than any other person he’s met in so long. Panic if he does answer, breaking that barrier of written words to spoken, and the opportunity to hear Hotch’s voice. But he would also hear Spencer’s, and then there would be no hiding just how… how young he really is.

But his phone is in his hand before he can stop himself, and Hotch’s contact pulled up and his thumb hovering over the phone number with baited breath.

Was he really going to do this?

He presses the touch screen and can hear the line connecting, the dial tone ring even before he gets the phone up to his ear and waits. It rings, and rings, and rings a fourth time -- before clicking over to voicemail. And Spencer’s hyper-fast thought processes realize he’s going to hear Hotch’s voice for the first time. Frozen in a panic, unsure if he wants to or if that had been something he wanted them to do together that the seconds slip by and suddenly it’s too late.

“You’ve reached the voicemail box of -- (703)-567-8790 -- this caller is not available. Please leave a message after the tone--”

It’s an automated, female voice that rattles off the numbers and generic call back message, and Spencer hangs up before it can begin recording him. Exhaling a shaky breath, that nothing had been ruined between him and Hotch thanks to an ill-timed phone call.

He keeps the momentum going without much thought, and adjusts his email to Ms. Garcia before sending it.

It feels so understated, and yet over dramatic the more he thinks about it. The more he reads it.

Please let me know of his well-being.

God, no wonder Hotch thought he was in his 60’s.

But Spencer has to keep the façade up, not give away anything he doesn’t want to just because the emotional part of his brain is running rampant over the rational one. There are… many explanations as to why Hotch isn’t answering him. His gut feeling aside, he doesn’t need to be panicking like this. The world is still turning, he still has work to do, so Spencer tries to gather himself into some semblance of order and preps to talk to his doctoral students within the hour.

His morning routine progresses as usual, to start. Dr. Reid has his mandatory round up with his doctoral candidates going over thesis and dissertation parameters, class lecture schedules, updates, the works. Like morning announcements, but he requires them all to be there and to listen, and they all show up. Everyone knows of Spencer’s eidetic memory. He will certainly not forget a single date or schedule change, and he expects his students to not forget as well.

But this morning Spencer is fully distracted, his mind elsewhere, somewhere in the state of Delaware with an agent who may or may not be in danger. Because Spencer cannot shake the feeling that something is wrong. It almost seems more like a fact than a feeling.

He becomes even more distracted when his email pings, a response from Ms. Garcia of Quantico, VA flashing across his laptop screen, right in the middle of his department announcements. Spencer’s eyes skim the preview sentence in the pop-up box, and his voice trails off as his mind… whirls.

Dr. Reid, I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know when Hotch will be available again. There was an incident, and he’s still in surg-

Surgery.

That vice-like grip of worry that has taken hold of him since last night tightens further, to the point Spencer can’t breathe. Hotch is hurt, he’s in surgery, and if he hasn’t been answering his phone since last night -- or even late yesterday afternoon -- it was not a minor thing.

Hotch is hurt.

“Dr. Reid? Are you okay?”

“I--” he’s still looking at the email pop-up box, and is clicking on it before he can stop himself. Immediately disconnecting his laptop from the projector as his email loads there. It takes him a faction of a second to read the email. “I’m sorry, an emergency just came up. Kimmy, finish reading off the schedule for me?” He doesn’t even wait until she answers him, just picks up his laptop and retreats to his office as fast as his long legs will carry him.

--surgery and we’re still waiting on word. I know you 2 talk on the reg so I’ll keep you posted.

Fret not, genius professor, our fearless leader has been through much worse than this.

She’s using informal speech patterns, which she has never done before. It bleeds her nervousness, and worries Spencer even more. Ms. Garcia also revealed she knows he and Hotch talk, but surprisingly that doesn’t have the effect he thought it would on his already rattled nerves. Instead, any and all reservations fall away as he types out a response much in the same way he and Hotch had started their friendship all those months ago.

Please, is there anything you are allowed to tell me about the case or his condition? We --

Spencer pauses, bites his lip as he considers crossing this boundary into the uncomfortable unknown, and then thinks about Hotch on a hospital operating table three thousand miles away.

“Screw it,” he mutters and continues to type.

--We’ve become good friends and I’m very worried.

The reply is almost immediate.

That makes 2 of us, boy wonder, but I’m already hacked into the hospital records database and Prentiss is in the waiting room.

I’m sending you the case files and the incident report from last night. Maybe you can see some shiz we can’t b/c the bossman is tough but he’s been in surgery a long time.

Of course, whatever he can do to help. Spencer’s heavy heart-beat triples in his chest as pulls up the files and immediately prints them out so he can read through them faster. But then his mind sticks on something from the email.

Boy Wonder.

Ms. Garcia knows how young he is.

She must have done a background check on him, that would make sense since he’s been consulting so much lately. But why would Garcia know his age, and not Hotch?

Ms. Garcia, did you update my dossier with the bureau after you ran my background check?

If you’re referring to why Hotch seems to think you’re rocking the senior discount at restaurants and not still getting carded for beer, then no I didn’t update it. I’m very anti-gov files having every detail of our lives in them, that’s what I’m for, and I figured there was a reason he didn’t know. Your secret is safe with me, sugar bean.

The real reason is Agent Anderson of the LA field office is a dick, with a bully streak he never outgrew after high school, and didn’t bother filling out a full file on him the first time Spencer consulted for the FBI. Then, he couldn’t be bothered to update it when his consultations became more than a one time thing.

But that was all in the past now, and Spencer can’t even be upset about it. Because now he has Hotch.

Thank you, Ms. Garcia. I’ll let you know my findings soon.

He skims the file quickly, pulling information out at lightning speed. It appears a very straight-forward case. As straight-forward as a murderous sociopath can be, anyway. Very anti-establishment, specified targets that devolved to anyone in a uniform. Anyone who appears too official, or lables as official.

It’s easy to see, now why the unsub attacked Hotch instead of running from him. He practically served himself up on a silver platter. But there’s something about the kills that’s bothering Spencer. The knife wounds, bludgeoning, even the gunshots during the first murders -- it’s all overkill. Rage. Every single target has died from massive internal bleeding, M.E. reports all label the knife wounds and beatings as the cause. But the amount of blood left over, measured during autopsy, doesn’t add up. They bled too much. No wounds indicating intentional bleeding occurred, and the tox screens are all clean.

Except, every victim has elevated potassium rates.

“Oh, God,” Spencer whispers, quiet and horrified. “Hotch.”

There’s no time for email.

He picks up his phone, goes to an older email that has full contact details in the footer, and dials Ms. Garcia’s direct line in Quantico.

“Speak, and behold greatness.”

“Ms. Garcia, it’s Dr. Reid,” Spencer says, and his tone and quickened speech patterns gives way to his panic.

“Dr-- Dr. Reid?”

“Yes, quick there’s no time. Do you have Hotch’s hospital records in front of you still?”

“Yes,” Garcia says, her voice a musical thing even in it’s breathless reaction to his heightened state of haste. “Updated every two minutes.”

“Is his potassium elevated?”

Some quick typing of keys that move faster than even he could ever hope to type. “... Yes.”

God. “Okay, okay I need you to call the hospital right now,” Spencer says in a spiel that all sounds like one word. “Whatever you have to do, he needs Sodium Polystyrene Sulfonate as soon as possible, to counteract the chemical imbalance or he’s going to go into kidney failure and bleed out.”

tbc...

#THIS IS JUST A SNIPPET #I s2g it is but it is also long af #legit this ended up being 1900 words i just didn't feel like stopping you know?#so yall get like... 25% of the entire chapter basically #sorry not sorry #expect a wip every week now #wip wednesday #HotchReid #Heid #katyswriting #don't ask about the dots tumblr and I are in a formatting fight and aren't on speaking terms rn

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dontjudgemeimawriter · 3 years

Text

Excerpt/Sketch Scene: Ardisci

I shared lines from this recently but in looking it over I remembered how much I love it so I decided to share. From Ardisci’s POV, Ardisci is the god of knowledge and is living sort of in-hiding on Earth.

---

Alright. So we’re here: Kaitlyn is lying on the couch, reading chapter 3 of her textbook on cultural anthropology. Netalia is lying on the floor, her book— a thick book with thin pages that’s a survey English literature— open above her. It’s open to Lines Written in Early Spring by William Wordsworth, but I’m not sure if she’s reading it— Buttercup, her golden retriever, is licking her face, and she’s laughing and pushing her away. I’m taking notes in my notebook. My reading, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, is open as a pdf on my laptop, though that’s mostly for show, since Netalia is here. My notebook, which Kaitlyn insists is technically a journal (but it’s not my place to say it is or isn’t— language and labels aren’t my responsibility to determine), lies in front of me, and I’m scribbling in it with a recycled water bottle pen that I got at freshman orientation that Netalia always marvels that I haven’t lost and Kait and I then share a knowing look about. If Kait (and the collective’s) definition of “journal” is a place for writing out one’s own thoughts, rather than simply noting facts for studying purposes, then yes, it is a journal. I don’t have much need for notetaking— even without the constant stream of direct-and-all-encompassing knowledge, simple information—what’s part of the collective knowledge—is provided to me automatically. But that’s why I love philosophy classes. In the science class I took I did find it interesting what aspects they taught or what they knew, but still, so much of it was known information, simply a method by which to integrate that knowledge. It didn’t excite me the same way. But philosophy? No answer came to me automatically. I know how others have answered the question before, yes, but there’s no collective answer, and I can listen to classmate’s opinions and thoughts and I actually feel like I’m learning.

Focusing. I’m journaling on the allegory of the cave. I won’t be able to bring what I write up in class, but thoughts—my thoughts, my own!—are coming tumbling out. Because I know the outside world, the sun, all of it, I am the regular people in this metaphor when everyone around me are the prisoners who know only shadows and can but squint at the sun. Because not knowing and a limited perspective isn't something I was ever able to to really have. Because not that long ago I didn’t even have an “I” through which to narrate. Google doesn't have an “I” and never has a choice in knowing that these are shadows, not the extent of human existence, but maybe I could know only that. And who would feel jealousy of prisoners chained up in a cave with only a fire casting shadows to quantify as real— and since when has jealousy been a thing I feel?

Kaitlyn had been the one to suggest I write, to journal. She’d given me a look that she told me later was frustration (which I don’t feel bad about not recognizing— psychologically speaking, most people don’t recognize the facial expression “frustrated” as they do “happy” or “sad”—it’s not a basic emotion) and said in a very calm voice that as much as she loved listening to my rants, not everyone had the collective knowledge at their disposal—she actually had to study. And she later suggested writing out my thoughts, telling me that writing could be helpful in self-discovery, which got a green-light from the collective knowledge, so I agreed to try it.

Netalia pushes Buttercup’s nose away. “Buttercup, go-lie-down. I gotta read this.” Buttercup harumphs and trots over to me, pushing her nose into the space between my arm and my waist. That’s something I never got to appreciate—the simple joy of an animal burrowing into you. Of loving you. I suspect that’s something few gods get to experience—at least, outside of the Nature domain. And to have that physical form in which an animal can burrow into.

I can’t write with Buttercup there, so I finish the sentence, put my pen down, and turn to Buttercup, taking her face in my hands and scratching behind her ears. Buttercup starts panting, her tail wagging loud enough to slam against the carpet.

“Did the good doggie get snubbed?” I coo to Buttercup. It’s lucky humans developed a way to communicate thoughts, or I may never have had access to even the concept of thoughts and emotions, just behavior and knowledge of consciousness. At least a person can tell me what they’re thinking and feeling, even if it’s not always true— or all I’d have is what I can tell about animals, what their behaviors indicate.

“It was not a snub,” Netalia said. “I have to read this.”

I quiet, just smiling at Buttercup and scratching behind her ears. Kaitlyn’s looking at me. I know what face she’s making without looking up, but I look up anyway because sometimes using the human eyes helps me interpret it better. There’s a slight smile. I think it’s in reference to “Some of us need to actually read the assignment.” Just because that’s usually what Kaitlyn likes to tease me about.

Kaitlyn closes her textbook and sets it down on the table. “Talia, can we take Buttercup outside and play with her a bit? I think Addie’s getting antsy.”

Addie’s not really my name—my god name is Ardisci, and before going into hiding, Kaitlyn called me Ardi, which I love—never had I been close enough with someone for them to need a shortened way to refer to me. It felt affectionate. But going into hiding I needed a name-name, something not quite my god name. Kaitlyn had actually said that Adelaide felt too close to Ardisci to her, but once I’d picked it it had felt comfortable and I couldn’t pick another one, so we went with it. Plus, “Addie” and “Ardi” sounded similar, which made the transition easier.

“Sure,” Netalia sits up, folding the book over her finger for a moment. “Her toys are in the basket next to the porch.” She stood and sat down on the couch Kait had been lying on.

I stood, giving Buttercup a tug towards the door. Buttercup lept, realizing what we were doing, and ran to the door, barking when it didn’t open for her.

“Hold on, girl.” Kaitlyn followed us over to the front entrance and grabbed her jacket off the hook, then handed me mine. Now out of earshot from Netalia, she said to me, “The rest of us need to actually read the assignment.”

“I know,” I said. My jacket was thick, zippered, and knit, with cables curling up the sleeves. I wanted to try knitting sometime, to see if it was as easy as the information of “how to purl” came into my mind. Kaitlyn had said she’d knit when she was younger, had described how she’d learned to spot the difference between a knit stitch and a purl stitch and how to make a cable or bauble. When I look at it I know, but I have a feeling that that knowledge is different from recognizing it.

Kaitlyn takes a moment to adjust the collar of my jacket, which wasn’t folded properly. “I know you know,” she smiles—me saying “I know” is ironic, she’s said, just as anyone saying “do you know?” is to me. But “know” doesn’t, in my case, always mean knowing, it means understanding, and that (I know) is a different thing.

Buttercup bolts out the door as soon as I turn the handle to leave—it’s into Netalia’s family’s backyard, where Buttercup has previously been allowed to roam freely, so I’m not concerned—and Kaitlyn shouts to Netalia’s mom that we’re taking Buttercup out. Her mom, Lynette, tells us alright, and that she’s heating up some hot apple cider for us. Lynette was horrified my first year living as a human that I’d never had hot apple cider, and had filled me up on it ever since. I’d told Kaitlyn how I knew what apple was used, the origins of the drink, different versions, what was considered the best mixture.

“Alright,” Kaitlyn had said. “But the drink you’re drinking right now. Do you like it?”

I’d been confused at first. I’d taken another sip— not really familiar with the concept of myself liking things. I knew it was generally accepted as good, but then I really absorbed the flavor, the heat, the spice, the sweetness. “Yes,” I’d said finally. “I like it.”

I bound outside, running to the basket under the porch and grabbing a frisbee. “Wanna catch?” I ask Buttercup. Buttercup jumps side to side, ready. I swing my arm, try to snap my wrist, and let go. Buttercup runs after it, but the frisbee curves, making about a 60° angle away from where I thought I’d aimed. I laugh, and Buttercup, who started running straight, looks around in confusion.

“I gotta get better at that!” I shout to Kait, and run over to where the frisbee landed. Running is nice, a feeling I’ve gotten used to. The exertion, adrenaline, my lungs pulling in air, my heart beating, lactic acid starting to flow through my muscles (which’ll make them sore later). One of the things I can’t know, I have to feel. I get to feel. I scoop up the frisbee and toss it again. This time Buttercup knows to watch it, and runs after the very curved path it follows. I run back over to Kait, meeting Buttercup halfway as she trots back with it. Kait takes the frisbee.

“Here,” she holds it out, but instead of letting me take it, guides my hand to hold it. She takes me through the motion of throwing it, of the flick of the wrist. “And here you let go. Eyes on your target.” she says.

I know how to on an instructional level, but when Kait releases my hand for me to try, this time I pay attention not to the collective knowledge, but her instruction. I follow through, and this time it goes straighter, only curving a bit at the end. Buttercup races after it, then picks it up from the ground.

“Better,” Kait observes. She’s staring at Buttercup at first, but her eyes don’t follow the return, so she seems to have spaced on the trees. “Russell never quite figured out how to throw one,” she said.

I take the frisbee from Buttercup, spinning it in my hand for a moment. I don't look at her, knowing she won’t notice me averting my eyes.

I still haven't told her. I should tell her. It’s my obligation really, to our friendship and to my role as god. But really, just because I am the god of knowledge, did that mean I have to tell her? I’m trying to escape that role.

She’ll find out eventually. And maybe I can say I just hadn’t thought of it— I’d been shutting down the constant stream of information, and one person's death isn’t collective knowledge. If I hadn’t wondered, I still wouldn’t know, not actively.

But I do know actively. I’d checked in and realized. And decided not to tell her.

Her brother had died two years ago. That’s why he’d never found her, never shown up. I hadn’t known him, not really, but I knew him somewhat through Kait, though her memories and relationship.

Maybe it’s a bit selfish, too. I don’t know how she’d react, but I have a feeling (that was new too, having a feeling) that knowing might change things. It might lead her back to her family, and yes perhaps I can stay in hiding without her, but I don’t want to.

A part of me has always longed to do this. Live as a person, learn, experience. Not be the source of all knowledge for once. And part of why I finally had was the pressure had gotten worse—but really, a large part of it was meeting Kaitlyn. Kait, who never used me, who never asked questions I wouldn’t know if I wasn’t god of knowledge. Who actually got to know who I was, with enough patience to handle me. Who’d believed I even got the chance to be an I.

I throw the frisbee again. It arcs a bit, but Buttercup jumps up and catches it midair. “Whoo!” Kait cheers.

I bend down, clapping and then petting Buttercup. “Good job!” I tell her.

“Good job to you,” Kait says, tousling my hair the same way I’m tousling Buttercup’s ears. I grin.

#ardisci #second chance #crossed lines #Again need a series name #Been thinking about the overaching theme and like ik what it is I just don't know a way to cover it #I know I want an actual series name and not just 'Second Chance 2: Crossed Lines'#Because Second Chance is only significant in that it's where we start and the route in it's not inherently more important than the others #Like Chrys is hardly in the later books #/will be #Anyway. meet my favorite character wo write who probably will ever be a main #who*#Kait might. maybe #*gasp* just remembered picrews exist. Gotta make Ardi's human form

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prettywordsyouleft · 4 years

Text

Labelling Love | Part 1 (Collab)

Summary: Meeting you changed the way Eunwoo viewed romance and love entirely.

Pairing: Cha Eunwoo x female reader

Genre: university au / romance / fluff

Warnings: none

A/N: Welcome to the second series in the monthly Love In Fours Ways collab with @jackiejacks923 @noona-clock & @this-song-thats-only-for-you . In the final week of each month during this collab, we’ll be each sharing a mini-series using 4 of the pictures/concepts illustrated in the book that inspired our series that I’ve credited below.

Credit to: Puuung - Love Is In The Small Things // #76 , #60 , #4 , #33

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 // Collab Masterlist

Part 1 - Not Being Able To Concentrate Because She's There

Cha Eunwoo didn’t believe in love at first sight. Or upon a second or even a third look. He was certain that it was nothing but a phenomenon of the hopeless romantic. A guise that someone who wanted to fall in love badly held over the top of feelings that could be more easily described as attractive or interesting. Eunwoo had met many people in his lifetime that he could easily commit to saying he was attracted to or interested in upon first sight. Such was the nature of being human, so he thought.

However, love was something that came with time. A feeling that grew with experiences shared together, not something you felt straight away. He was a firm believer of this.

So what exactly could he call the feeling that was making his heart beat erratically in his chest as he watched you right now?

Blinking forcibly in attempts to regain control over his physical reaction, Eunwoo licked at his lips, realising his breath was heightened. Now clamping his lips together, he did everything he could to tear his eyes away from your direction and back to the guide in front of him.

“This is the campus library. I hope you took down notes on how to get here because you’ll be spending a lot of your time cramming here. There are eleven floors and this place houses pretty much every book about absolutely everything you could ask a question about. This area here is known as the main study lobby. Most students find the second-floor study area pretty noisy though so if you’re…”

Eunwoo lost his focus again on the tour and slipped back to you at one of the tables quietly reading a book. Sliding your hand onto your neck to better support your head as you continued perusing the pages before you, Eunwoo gulped as his skin began to tingle.

“Its attraction,” he breathed out slowly, trying to claim the feeling overwhelming him as that. It didn’t feel like enough to say it was mere attraction though and Eunwoo frowned. “I’m interested too.”

“And I’m intrigued,” another voice announced, nudging Eunwoo playfully. Glancing at the fellow freshman at his side, Eunwoo cringed at his high school buddy Harvey overhearing his outspoken thoughts. “Who are you attracted to? The tour guide? She’s like forty, dude.”

“No, but if you are, by all means ask her out when we’re done.”

“So then who? The rest of us are guys. But hey, if you’re unsure and want to experiment-”

“Could you stop yourself from talking instead?” Eunwoo replied dryly, dragging his feet reluctantly as the group started to move along. He glanced over his shoulder back in your direction, blinking when he found the table you had been reading at now empty. Spinning around, he thought he saw the end of your ponytail descending the stairs at the front of the building but he couldn’t be too sure.

Harvey jostled him around. “Whoever she is, maybe you imagined her. She could be the girl of your college dreams.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I would be better off imagining up a new friend than having you around, Harvey,” Eunwoo commented before letting out a sigh.

Perhaps you were just a fleeting moment of temptation, after all.

Eunwoo was simultaneously relieved and horrified to find that you existed the following day at his first lecture. Harvey’s teasing had simmered down somewhat when the tour moved out of the library and Eunwoo began to believe maybe his friend was right and he conjured you up.

Seeing you in the flesh again solved the puzzle of whether you existed or not.

However, as the hairs stood up on his arms and his eyes fixated on the side of your head as you moved across the front of the lecture hall to the staircase, Eunwoo was troubled by seeing you in person again.

His physical reaction only felt greater this time as well.

Not this row, he begged internally as you came closer to where he was set up, closing his eyes when you diverted towards him. Of course, the universe was testing him right now. Still, he didn’t understand why you of all the people in this world had to cause his insides to implode with nervous excitement like this.

“Hello,” you greeted softly and pointed at the seat you had stopped before. “Can I sit next to you?”

“Oh uh um well uh-”

You grinned. “It’s just the centre of the room and the row, so...”

“That’s exactly why I chose this spot,” he admitted and you bit your lip to control your delight before sitting down.

“I’ve always been the only one who chooses by the environment on where to sit that I’ve known of.”

“Well it makes the most sense to,” he managed to comment and you nodded along eagerly. “You have to be comfortable in order to learn.”

“Precisely! I’m so glad to finally meet someone who thinks the same. I’m Y/N and you are?”

“Eunwoo,” he replied, taking the hand you held outstretched towards him.

He had to clamp his mouth shut before the squeak building up in his throat was expelled, his cheeks feeling hot with his efforts. You mirrored the flushed expression before letting go.

“It’s nice to meet you, Eunwoo. I hope this semester will be productive for the pair of us.”

The first lecture was anything but productive. Eunwoo couldn’t concentrate for the first time in a learning environment in years. And when he hadn’t been as focused in the past, it was due to being unwell and needing to be resting at home, not because a gorgeous girl had sat down beside him. He was well versed in ignoring others around him when learning.

It threw him completely to be unable to focus at all with you next to him.

Eunwoo chalked it up to first day nerves. Or anything else he could kid himself of. But after a second lecture with no true coherency of what was being spoken about in the class and then on the third being called upon and blanking over an answer he knew in great detail from previous study, Eunwoo knew it was due to you.

The problem was he liked you too much to try and avoid you. It wasn’t just the physical reaction now either. Every time you arrived early for class and you chatted over topics before the professor arrived. He was enamoured by the way you thought. Conversation was all too easy between you.

Which was why you didn’t hesitate to gesture to his empty page. “Another day of not taking down notes?”

“Hah, yeah.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those geniuses who don’t need to write down information to remember and ace all your tests,” you breathed, leaning towards him.

Eunwoo wished right now he was one of those types. He was immensely grateful that all lectures were recorded so he could cram in note-taking later when he was back home. Staring down at his blank page, he let out a nervous laugh. “Nope, that’s not me.”

“Then? Is the content too hard? I could help you during lunch today to get your head around it?” you offered, blinking softly.

He should have been honest with you then, however, the offer to have a meal with you seemed more desirable than anything else and he found himself nodding along. “Could you?”

“It’ll be my pleasure! I can’t have you falling behind so soon into the semester.” Eunwoo groaned out loud as you giggled. Glancing at you with a brief pout, he then grinned. “I’ll buy lunch then for your help.”

“Ooh, deal!”

It was evident even to you after twenty minutes of attempting to explain the situation that Eunwoo was distracted. You didn’t know why, however. At first, he was determined to make his way through the entirety of lunch fully invested in what you had to say. And for that matter, he had been invested enough to hear each word you spoke, they just didn’t make enough sense. Was it because of the perfume you had on today? It had been fragrant in class earlier on, but now squeezed into a tiny table at the back of one of the bustling campus cafes, it washed over him completely. Was it the way you brushed your hair away from your neck and placed it all to one side of your head, exposing your delicate skin? Honestly, Eunwoo couldn’t tell why he was being like this, and admittedly he was growing quite concerned for his sanity.

You were driving him down a path he had never wandered before.

Harvey’s remark about university being known as an experimental time in a young person’s life came to the forefront of his brain. Was his physical attraction to you that out of control that he couldn’t focus in your company? Or was it just you as a whole?

He whimpered with the lack of an answer.

Glancing away from your book, you placed down your pen and sighed. “This isn’t helping, is it?”

“No.”

“And it’s not the professor that’s the problem, is it?” you continued and Eunwoo shook his head sadly. “I bet the content isn’t that hard for you-”

“It’s you.”

“Excuse me?” you asked slowly, brows knitting together. “I’m the problem?”

Eunwoo opened his mouth, only for embarrassment to flare up within his stomach. How could he tell you that it was because of boyish feelings that he couldn’t concentrate in your company? He’d barely known you for a week now. It would haunt him for the rest of his semester if he confessed this early into things.

However, his lack of response had done enough damage, your hands hastily grabbing for your belongings scattered over the table in between lunch. “I’m sorry I’m such a problem. You should have told me earlier, Eunwoo.”

“No, it’s nothing like that!”

“I’ll sit somewhere else on Monday so you can concentrate on the lecture. Good luck with your semester.”

“Y/N!” he called out hopelessly, reaching out for your lower arm. You halted all movement and stared at his gentle grip over your arm.

He knew he had no other option.

“I can’t concentrate because ever since I met you, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

_________________

Part 2

[ASTRO Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

#kwritersworldnet #cha eunwoo #eunwoo fiction #eunwoo fanfic #eunwoo romance #eunwoo fluff #eunwoo au #astro #astro fiction #astro fanfic #astro fluff #astro romance #astro au #pwyl; labelling love #love in four ways collab #kpop fiction #kpop fanfic #kpop romance #kpop fluff

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highwaydiamonds · 3 years

Note

Um. Excuse me. You had cancer??

Yeah... I mean I guess I really haven't discussed it much on tumblr. I have a little bit, but only in vague ways, or rarely made veiled references in tags.

SO, get a drink, get a snack, because this is a bit of a saga, and you already know I am longwinded at the best of times. I'm going to do like Vizzini said, and go back to the beginning. I hope you're ok I'm making this public Shells, it seems easier to? And I'll put this behind a cut because I really do wax on ( and on).

It's the end of August 2018 and i appear to have gotten some kind cold/respiratory infection. I'm at work the first day of it and it feels like a cold. No big deal. (Also this is all pre-COVID so no I didn't have COVID). The next day I feel really awful, so I call off work, and figure all I need to do is rest and I'll be ok. Turns out, NOPE. The next day I feel worse- now I can tell I have a bit of a fever, my appetite was basically, " eat one baby carrot and my appetite is exhausted." Finally, I get to the point that I am having trouble lying down - as in I am becoming short of breath when I try to lie flat (sorry if I am using the wrong word - lay/lie was always a grammar issue that eluded me.) So, I decide, ok, i will be sensible girl and go get medical attention. But I am stubborn and feel the ER is overreacting, so I go to urgent care. i park in the front row of urgent car parking, but by the time I reach the intake desk I have to put my head down because I am so winded and a bit lightheaded.

They take one look at me and tell me, point blank, "we're getting a squad for you to take you to the ER." I say, " what? no, I don't need that, this is not that big a deal." They counter, " you could barely walk in the door and you you are having significant trouble breathing. We don't have the ability to see you here." So, for the first time in my life I have to go via ambulance from urgent care to a free standing ER.

I get to the ER - where they decide, OK, lady, you're a mess. Let's get some chest x-rays and we're gonna slap some IV fluids and I can't even recall if they immediately put me on IV antibiotics or not. But after two hours there they informed me, " hey.... So, we think you need to go to the hospital-hospital not the freestanding ER." I tell them well you better hand me my laptop ( I'm that bitch who takes the laptop with her juuuuust in case I am stuck in the hospital. you never know.) Because i am not going to a hospital until I figure out if they're in my health plan. I do so and then for the second time in my life, all in one night because sometimes I am an over achiever i guess, I go via ambulance to the hospital.

They admitted me and over the next few/couple/ hours ( it was hard to tell) I progressively felt worse. I had trouble breathing if I didn't sit absolutely straight up, and at that point I hadn't gotten good sleep for around 60 hours or so. Me being me I started to get teary and panicky, because I was so tired and wasn't sure what to do. I called for the nurse and she came in and then within the next half hour your girl got taken down to the ICU. By the time we arrived down in the ICU I was really getting panicky. My mom died in the ICU ( different hospital but still) and I knew the fact they took me down there was no laughing matter. I started to think about, " ok is this what death is like? this isn't what i thought it was going to be - this is panicky and scary and not all white lights and peace."

The next thing I knew - it was two days later, and I woke up intubated. Did you know that you can be conscious and intubated? I did not. I'll speed things up a bit here. I spent a total of 8 days in the ICU - I had one hell of a case of pneumonia, and there were a couple of other diagnoses thrown in ( nope, not cancer. promise, we will get there.) . The nurses I had were AMAZING. I was intubated for about 6 of those 8 days. Then I got weaned off of it. Funniest moment on the ventilator: Physical therapist comes around and says, " Hey let's get you up and walking, you think you can?" I nodded and shrugged my shoulders to try and communicate, " sure, ok!" It went totally fine, but there were nursing students, residents, other doctors and who knows who else looking out of rooms and over desks at the two of us just y'know... *walking down the hall*. I gestured to the people because it was just flipping weird. I had an audience at the exact time NOBODY wants an audience and it confused the hell out of me. PT advised me, " there aren't too many times ventilated patients are ambulatory. You're a bit of a curiosity so people want to see."

Once I got out of the ICU and was put back on a regular floor, I got to meet with other doctors re those other diagnoses I mentioned ( chronic things I just have to manage) I also mentioned that it had been a really long time since I had been to a GYN and as had been noted in the ICU I spotted quite frequently ( I have never, ever in my life been regular period-wise and it just got weirder over time, but I just didn't really consider it. So I asked while they were setting me up with new practitioners ( my previous doctor had retired) too please set me top with a gynecologist.

So I'm out of the hospital by September 10th, 2018. The gyro appointment occurs i want to say by mid- to late September. I go in and meet her and she's lovely. While I'm up on the table she says, " hey let's do all the things and get a uterine biopsy!" I say, " excellent, do the things!" We agree it's likely going to be nothing but hey we're smart people and we will play it safe. Huzzah Gyno visit accomplished! (if I were a gamer I'd make some kind of ladybits achievement unlocked now, but I'm not a gamer.)

Two or so weeks go by - or however long it takes to get those test results back (some of these spans are lost in the mists of time). Dr Boyle calls me and apologizes that the test results that she was sure would be nothing... they are not nothing. Turns out, it's endometrial cancer.

At that point you could have knocked me over with a feather. Shells, I wanted my mom to be there so badly, I can't even express it. She would have understood how I felt - she'd been there with her breast cancer. But at the same time, I was glad she wasn't there? I remember how heartsick my mom was to tell Grandmommy when Mom got cancer. I didn't want my mom to have to hear that news, to worry about that. Dr Boyle advised me that she would be referring me to a good oncologist and i should hear from them in a week or two.

Thus began MRIS and PET scans and ultrasounds, and blood work etc. The oncologist diagnosed that he figured I might be stage three, but it depended on my lymph involvement. It brought back memories of when Mom was diagnosed and when she told me she was stage three. I asked my Dad later, "what does that mean?" He told me, " there are only four stages, so what do you think?" This time around I knew what it meant. So, we put me down for surgery November 9th, 2018. That's two days before my birthday - so I joked that I was getting my cancer out for my birthday - hooray! My best friend actually flew in from texas for my surgery ( my best friend is a SAINT, and I love her more than pearls and rubies.)

Best surgery story from this experience: For my total hysterectomy (uterus and ovaries go sayonara and then also two signal lymph nodes in the chain of nodes on either side of the pelvis to se if there is any lymph complication.) I had to be tilted back - so with my head down to move as many organs away from the uterus etc during the laparoscopic procedure. I knew this going in, However, when I woke up back in my hospital room I looked at Bestie and said, " I hurt in places I didn't expect to hurt. Oh wait. My shoulders hurt because they're not used to being weight bearing, but the procedure was laproscopic - so why the heck does my vagina hurt?" Bestie in one of her best moments ever says, " I know why." I replied, " wait, YOU know why MY vagina hurts?!" She said, " yep. So your surgery was supposed to take 3-3.5 hours ended up taking 5 hours instead. Your uterus was really big. The oncologist told us they need up having to cut it in half to pull it out of you." bestie admitted she joked with the oncologist that it was like I had just birthed a baby, he looked back at her (NOT laughing) and said, " yes, that's basically what she did." I laughed so much at that ( i mean i was also well medicated, but still) I told Bestie, " I had a Uterus! Let's call it George!" ( In retrospect I am disappointed in myself that I misgendered my own uterus, I should have called it Georgina.)

So, after healing from the surgery, by about January of 2019 I started two courses (each with a few rounds) of chemo. First came what the doctors and I called "low-pro" chemo - that we did along with radiation. Honestly, though i was making a heck of a lot more bathroom trips, you wouldn't have generally known I was sick. Most of my coworkers had no idea. I just was a bit more tired than usual. After the low pro rounds - then we moved to the bigger guns. Radiation was done but I moved to more significant chemo drugs, This wasn't because things were bad - this was the plan all along :) But I knew the "high-pro" chemo was going to make me lose my hair. THAT was a psychic struggle. I cried so much knowing that was going to happen. I got hats and caps and I even got a very nice wig. I mean, I planned as much as a girl can plan when she hears that news. I even preemptively cut my long hair. It was about half way down my back at that point. So I went in and asked the stylist please braid it and put it in between two hair ties - and then cut it - so i could keep my braid. I couldn't do locks of love anyway as it was colored, and I know it's selfish, but I wanted my hair. So, the hair went from half down my back to a face framing bob. then I just waited. And then in a few weeks it happened. I could put my hands through my hair and easily, painlessly pull it out. I am not a cute bald girl. That's when people KNOW you have something going on.

I was very lucky though, there ended up NOT being lymph involvement, and even the high pro chemo didn't make me nauseous or lose appetite. I did have HORRIBLE bone pain usually the first week after chemo ( i'd get it every three weeks). I learned a hell of a lot from that. I also was able to get some meds to help alleviate it a bit, and I took time from work when the pain was at its worst. But I have never experienced pain like that - where no matter what I did - no position changes helped. Even ice packs or heat pads didn't help or do much. It was just a waiting game, a painful waiting game. Oh also - I learned that IV benadryl is nothing like oral benadryl. IV benadryl is like walking right into a brick wall made of sleep. That stuff knocked me the hell out right quick - amazing.

Right before COVID started and the world shut down I got the flu because my immune system was in the toilet- and so I spent another week in the hospital and except for the bone pain that comes with chemo, you know what is worse than chemo injections? POTASSIUM injections. Among other things, my potassium levels were low and so I got those injections with other meds. Those suckers HURT. they BURN, and so i spent a week in the hospital only to eventually come out and find out the world was starting to shut down from COVID. Not my job at that point, but my oncologist told me, " GO HOME - YOU KNOW YOU ARE IMMUNO COMPROMISED - DON'T STAY AT WORK." So, I went home until about a month after I finished chemo.

Since finishing chemo it's been about scans, which have gone ok so far... I'm not willing to talk about the R word. I just think I'll have to be careful the rest of my life - My mom always said, "once you've gotten cancer, you always have cancer." So, maybe it's the anxiety talking, but it's kind of like waiting for the other cancer shoe to drop. In the mean time though, it's business as usual - try to find good stuff in the midst of the hot mess. Cancer has been a crisis but not a reason to lose my sense of humor. I've needed it more than ever :)

So, sorry for the SERIOUSLY LONG ASS answer, but sometimes it's just better to lay it bare. I'm not ashamed of this stuff. It's been a lot. It's been a journey... It still is... it's part of the rest of my journey, which i hope isn't over by a long shot yet. I don't believe things happen for reasons - the world is WAY too absurd for that in my opinion, BUT good gravy have i been able to learn so much from this whole three ring circus. I'm not grateful for cancer, but I am grateful for the lessons.

Thanks for checking in, Shells. You're a complete sweetheart.

#the r word is remission #cancer funtimes #i really didn't let many people know tbh #not just online #i didn't tell one of my two remaining family members for months #i have very good friends who knew and friends who are like family that supported me #i know it's crazy to say i'm lucky - but i am. i so am.#and if anyone read all of this - you definitely deserve a hug and several cookies. if i had cookies to give i would but i just have hugs

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gingerbreadart1 · 3 years

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Really loving the latest artwork and lore! You are so creative! Can't wait to see what's next! No rush though, I know the good stuff takes time.

Oh my gosh thank you!!!!! I'm having a bit of a writer's block when it comes to the actual story, so I've been kinda messing around and doing research about different things. Idk if it's obvious yet, but I'm a huge nerd. I especially love science and sci-fi(duh) as well as biology! I actually wanted to be a doctor with some kind of focus on congenital disorders when I was a kid. Weird kid, I know. Anyway, I love thinking about lore and nerdy shit, so I'm gonna take this opportunity to do just that! Beware under the cut is a very long essay about space, civilizations, rambles, and math. Lots of math.

So, I have no idea where I want to start, but I know what I want to talk about so I'm gonna pick something and roll with it. First thing's first, the Kardashev scale.

Because this isn't an English class and I don't have to re-word shit, I'm gonna copy and paste from wikipedia for this one: "The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964." Cool? Cool.

So yeah, basically it's an easy way to say how advanced a civilization is, and it's broken up into three types.

A Type I civilization, also called a planetary civilization—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.

A Type II civilization, also called a stellar civilization—can use and control energy at the scale of its planetary system.

A Type III civilization, also called a galactic civilization—can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy.

Just to give you a grasp of what that means relative to us, humans are estimated to be a type 0.73 civilization. We're expected to get to type 1 in a few hundred years or so. Here's where math comes in. Note: I hate, and am not good at math. So, take all of this with a grain of salt.

So, a Type 1 civ. is usually defined as one that can harness all the energy that falls on a planet from its parent star (for Earth–Sun system, this value is close to 1.74×10^17 watts), which is about four orders of magnitude higher than the amount presently attained on Earth, with energy consumption at ≈2×10^13 watts.

Before I go any further, I want to ramble a bit about their star

For my own personal headcanon that the Irken planet is slightly dimmer than earth, I'm gonna make the Irken star a K0 type star. For reference, the sun is a G2V star, meaning it's a yellow dwarf. A K0 star is kind of inbetween red dwarfs and yellow dwarfs. Quick explanation on the letter-number thing, (as best as I understand it, disclaimer I am not an expert) The letter is the classification of a star based on heat and luminosity, going O, B, A, F, G, K, M, L. O being the brightest and hottest (and largest typically) and L being the opposite. The number is size. A higer positive number means a smaller star. A G2 yellow dwarf is smaller than a G-3 yellow dwarf.

Make sense? God I hope so. Anyway, I picked a K0 star for a couple reasons.

They live longer. Our sun has a lifespan of about 10 billion years, but a K type star has a lifespan of 18-34 billion years. Because of this some scientists think they're a prime place to look for life because of their long stability.

They emit less ultraviolet radiation, which can damage DNA, making the developement of life less likely to be hindered by this star

They're 3-4 times more common that G type stars, so it's literally more likely that the irken sun is a K type anyway

They're dimmer and cooler (but not by much) than G type, which fits into my own personal HC about a dimmer sun.

ANYWAY now to get back into the first topic, the Kardashev scale. The irken sun has a temperature of 5,240° Kelvin (8,900° F/4970° C), a radius of .85 (367,445 m/591,345km), a mass of .78 (3.42^30lbs/1.551^30kg), and a luminosity of .40 or 1.531^26 watts.

Compare all this to our sun (Temp of 5,780°K, radius 1, mass 1, and luminosity of 1, being 3.827^26 watts), basically the Irken sun is smaller and less powerful.

Back to the Kardashev scale. Modern day earth is .73, right? I imagine that Irkens are somewhere in the high 1's, like 1.7. The reason I'm not placing them in two is because I don't headcanon that they've built a dyson sphere or a matrioshka brain.

For those who don't know, a Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. These bad boys are imagined to look kindof like this

Cool as hell right? Also not something I think Irkens would be focused on. they're more about outward and conquering expansion rather than efficiant energy consumption and useage.

With that in mind, I'm going to say on the civilization range Kardashev scale Irkens are 2.000279. The reason for that tiny decimal amount is because a level 2 civ is one that has full control over their solar system, and a level 3 is one that has full control over their galaxy.

Galaxies are huge. Really huge. The Milky Way galaxy (In W&C Irkens are in the Milky Way as well) is on the smaller side, but it still has 100 billion stars, and 100-400 billion planets. Of those planets, an estimated 300 million to 50 billion may contain life, but most people stick it down at the low end of 300 million. So I'm going to use that number as well.

To figure out where they are on the scale, I have to figure out how large the Irken Empire actually is, so I looked at some other fictional empires.

In Star Wars, there are 1.5 million planets under the galactic empire, and an additional 60 million colonies (which can be as small as a space station or something idk)

But in Star Trek, there are only 150 planets in the federation.

In Dune, it's the whole Universe.

So there's a lot of variation here. Personally, I think under a thousand planets is a good number for a rapidly growing Empire that has unrealistic visions of grandeur, so I placed the amount of planets under their control to be 837 and called it a day.

Thus, 2.000279 on the scale.

Now with that number I'm gonna assign Irk a year. Physicist Michio Kaku suggested that it will take a few thousand years for humans to reach type two status, so I'm going to use that as a starting point to work on.

One might tack on a few thousand years to 2021 and call it a day, but I can't do that because the Gregorian calendar is religion based, and irkens probably don't have Jesus so it would be weird to base make a year for them based off of the Gregorian calendar. So instead I'm going to use the Holocene calendar. If you haven't heard of it, you're missing out! It's a very cool calendar that respresents and encompasses all of human history, and it's a very simple change: It adds 10,000 years to the current calendar, so for example, it is the year 12,021 on the holocene calendar. Cool right? The reason for this 10,000 year addition is 12,000 years ago is right around the time humans actually started settiling and building structures and beginning to farm. Thus, the birth of human civilization.

So I'm gonna be unrealistic and apply that 12,000 year first farm -> cell phone period to Irkens, and then tack on... idk let's say 2700 years. Cool beans, now we have a 15,700 year old Irken calendar. Except, 15,700 human years isn't equal to 15,700 Irken years. They're different planets, with different rotations, so they have different years. I have a previous post where I mention some basic statistics about the planet, go check it out! But for here, know that an irken year is 1.3 times longer than an earth year, so their calendar is actually going to be in the year 20,410 in the same amount of time. Let's say it's 20,417 just for funsies.

Hip hip hooray, Irk has a calendar! A year! Woohoo!

And with that, this post is long enough so I'm gonna end it here, but I plan on making a subsequent post that deals with evolution, speciation, and whatnot so stay tuned!

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dourpeep · 3 years

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Seeing people complaining about the lack of anniversary rewards is getting so tiring. The game's ratings dropped to like 2 on Google play, all comment sections of official accounts are full of complaints. I know and understand that people are upset but it's just so so tiring to the point where I unfollowed most accounts that aren't related to fanart or fanfiction because of all that negativity

I personally spent (a little) money on the game so I get where p2w players come from but idk. I saw that we didn't get anything and moved on pretty quickly. Maybe that's just me, idk

Maybe you have a different view on this and if so, I'd like to hear it

Sorry for ranting in your inbox

hehe no need to apologize because I have quite a bit to say myself nodnod

Read if you like, don't if you don't--this is just my opinions and stuff based off my experience knowing Eastern gatcha games as well as talking about using a 5* vs 4* of the same build + slot

This got kinda long ehe-

Like really long.

Anyway

My turn for a Hot Take (tm)

Yeah I understand this--I've been feeling so drained and my enjoyment of the game and writing has diminished immensely because all I see everywhere is just that.

I understand that the event rewards suck but at the same time? I realize how gacha aren't really popular here in the West--and I have seen a lot of comparison between Genshin and Cookie Run but they're also two entirely different genres despite both being gacha. Not to mention that Cookie Run is fast at first until you get to around uhh Kingdom lvl 37~~ and you're stuck and can't go forward because things cost too many materials or your cookies aren't strong enough even though you have several stars on your team consisting of epics built as optimally as possible-

So the maintenance rewards for Cookie Run have been the only significant amount of gems I've been getting for a few weeks now compared to when I first started and could do 10 roll after 10 roll.

Also also, Cookie Run is PvP (arena, guilds, etc). Being able to get more rolls is absolutely a gamechanger. If you can't get a good defense cookie or healer cookie, you're fucked.

So!! That's why Cookie Run is more generous with rolls. You're not going to want to keep fighting other people in the Arena or doing Guild stuff if they don't add in those generous rewards.

On the other hand, Genshin Impact is an open world rpg w/ co-op (note, co-op doesn't count as pvp because you're collaborating) where you can build pretty much any of the characters to be viable (dps/vampire Barbara is one major example, Noelle is a guarantee roll character for that beginner's banner and she can easily be built to be a tank/healer/dps to fill whatever slot you desire)

So they're not going to be incredibly generous w/ rewards because the characters you have--meta or not--don't really effect your ability to play the game (unless we're talking spiral abyss which really is considered endgame anyway) when you're able to get at least one character of each element for free I mean, you start out with traveler who can be anemo, geo, or electro once you get to the respective places, Amber, Kaeya, Lisa, Barbara (iirc, you need to get to rank 20?), Xiangling (complete spiral abyss floor 3), and Noelle (reduced cost 10roll w/ guaranteed Noelle).

Which would be one of each element and a variety of one of the 5 weapon types nodnod.

Time to talk about builds and why it's not necessary to have a 5* unlike in other gatcha games like Cookie Run (again, a kingdoms builder) before going back to the anniversary stuff

But continuing, like Eula is considered a fantastic 5* character who features a kit that is based around her being a physical damage character. My sibling, C, has her built and she does some insane damage.

On the other hand, I have Xinyan built as a physical dps and if you were to compare their damage?

With crit, C's Eula deals 9k to 14k with Skyward Pride (5* claymore w/ energy recharge substat). With crit, my Xinyan deals 8k to 13k with Song of Broken Pines (5* claymore w/ phys substat) OR 7k to 10k with Prototype Archaic (4* craftable claymore w/ attack substat).

Both C and I agree that they're pretty evenly-matched in the sense of damage output.

We have similar builds focusing on physical damage, however, C's Eula uses 4pc Pale Flame and my Xinyan uses 2pc Bloodstained, 2pc Pale Flame (both have the 25% phys damage bonus for the 2pc). It's also good to note that both their Eula and my Xinyan have a physical dmg % cup.

So just by stacking up more phys on Xinyan, you get a physical dps (with some elemental support capabilities due to her E and Q) you can easily make her deal consistent, reliable damage that is comparable to a fully built Eula. Ofc, I'm sacrificing Xinyan's shield, but since she's built to be a physical dps, it doesn't matter anyway.

Another thing is Zhongli is an incredible shield support. His shield?? Absolutely insane because it's based off his hps. Guess who else has a hp-based shield and heals??? Diona. Another incredibly good support 4* with a shield and healing would be Noelle!

But with Diona, specifically since I did kinda cover over Noelle already, she can easily be built along with her shield having over 100% uptime (like how Zhongli has over 100% uptime). The fact that Diona is also a healer definitely is a perk too.

Ofc the difference with this is that Zhongli can be built as a burst support/dps while Diona is not. But the point isn't that--the point is that you don't need a 5* shield support to have a good, reliable shield support.

But regardless of 4* or 5*, to get a viable character, you need to build them well. So if your character isn't doing satisfactory damage, you just have to take a quick peek at what artifacts they're running and fix as needed!

Another thing--

Talking about the rewards and stuff for the anniversary-

Generally, gatcha games aren't really that generous with rewards and instead usually have some sort of event. In this case, I'm pretty sure that Moonchase is considered a part of the anniversary which is why it's giving so many rewards- just the primos from the first day alone with the chests and quest was enough for two rolls (40 chests * 5 primos each + 60 from the quest and a few that I forgot where they come from but are from the event) as well as the 4* Luxurious Sea Lord claymore.

Before you say that it's shitty for them to make a festival into the anniversary event, I'm certain that people would complain if the anniversary rewards were just a little more than the 10x fates and stuff and that's it because it'd feel like they're skipping over the anniversary entirely. (keep in mind, festivals don't normally give this much stuff in terms of primogems from what we've experienced so far--they're mainly focused on the free event weapon you can get and build like with Festering Desire, Windborne Ode, Dodoco Tales)

Also companies love taking advantage of festivals to make an event bigger + more fleshed out. It'd be otherwise kinda boring to have to just log in every day for a week (not to mention, not everyone does that) and encourages players to play to get rewards.

yeah, that's supposed to work in their favor because they want to keep interest.

So the fact that there's a lot of backlash on everything going on is tiring and also?? I want to make the point that they'll only listen to so much. Getting heard is important, but there will be a point where Mihoyo will just stop listening to the players entirely because all they're getting is a constant barrage of "this event is the worst" "no one likes that character" "(insert character) when???" "okay but where's (blank) rerun?" pasted over the forums, discord, twitter, facebook, instagram--

You can't keep demanding more while also talking shit constantly about the new stuff added because then they'll just not add those new stuff because we (general) seem to never be satisfied.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up just cutting Genshin Impact as a loss entirely if this continues as it has and gets even worse.

But I digress.

Anyway, I agree that it sucks that the daily login rewards for the anniversary are just cut and pasted from the Lantern Rite, but as someone who's played a lot of gatcha games, it's pretty much the standard.

Have a daily sign in for rewards and a big event featuring a ton of stuff you can get instead of having an 'official' anniversary event.

I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing because it's not coming to mind, but yeah. These are my general thoughts on what's happening with the discourse.

#anon asks #discourse #anyway that being said--make sure to get some rest anon #stuff like this is incredibly draining so take care of yourself nodnod #I'm not sorry for this being so long I got carried away but at the same time this is something I'm pretty passionate about #And I'm not at all excusing the stuff going on but at the same time us (general as players) are also not really being the best

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jeannedarkterraguard · 2 years

Text

Ok, after nearly 60 hours in the game we finally finished Pokemon Legends Arceus yesterday. Originally i wasn't going to talk about it but now that I've seen quite a few reviews on the internet i kinda wanna... rant talk about it anyway

First of all i want to say: Lisa and I really fucking loved the game and we'll probably play quite a bit more in the future but i saw a few points that are brought up all the time by people who apparently didn't like the game

(and to be clear here. It's totally fine if you didn't like the game. In fact there are a few things i wasn't a fan of either and I'll get into those at the end but some of these points are just stupid...) so let's get to it...

(Oh right... SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT)

"The open world is empty / boring" I feel like these are the same people who say that the world in skyrim or fallout is empty...

it isn't.

It's full of wild pokemon, resources to gather, interesting landmarks...

sure there aren't a lot of NPCs all over the map but that wouldn't make sense. The galaxy team has just gotten to hisui and most of them are just civilians who are probably afraid they would just get killed by wild pokemon and the two clans logically stay mostly in their settlements too. I would do the same if i was living in this world...

"The graphics / framerate / artstyle is just bad" Okay, let's ignore that the thing about the artstyle is completely subjective, I personally really liked it.

I get the argument about the graphics actually...

of course there are PC/Console games that look way better. And yes, Pokemon is one of the biggest franchises out there...

but the Switch isn't a PC the Switch is barely even a console...

The Switch is a handheld that you can connect to your TV...

Gamefreak couldn't make the graphics (much) better...

well... they could but that would be like the witcher 3 on switch... looks good at fist but becomes a completely unplayable slideshow as soon as more than two characters are on screen...

and... well...

okay I guess there's no way around it...

the framerate...

I just don't get that point...

no really. I don't understand why people care so much about that. 60 fps, 120 fps, 240 FPS!!! WHAT THE FUCK?!? I mean movies usually have 24 fps and no one complains about that... the average human eye can't even tell the difference once we go over 45 fps (sure there are people who can but we're talking about the average here)

I personally always limit framerate at 30 fps on PC and crank up the resolution instead... runs just as smoothly but looks way better... anyway I ranted enough about framerates in the last 10 years at least and I'm honestly tired of it... on to the next point

"The wild Pokemon just stand there" This one obviously comes from people who haven't actually played the game. Because if you have played it you would know that it's simply not true.

Pokemon don't just stand there. Every pokemon reacts to the player in different ways... some run away as soon as they spot you, some are suspicious and will watch you but keep their distance and others just straight up try to murder you...

"The story is boring / predictable / otherwise bad" I really don't get this argument... in my opinion the story is by far the best any pokemon game had up until now (note: I haven't played many of the spin-offs like XD, Colosseum or ranger) the only one that even comes close was Black & White.

I mean at least in this game the climax of the story actually comes... you know... at the end of the fucking story not about two thirds of the way and then you go back to just fighting gyms again.

Also there were quite a few twists that I didn't see coming. like Volo being the antagonist. And over all the story really went in a very different direction than I thought. For example I thought that eventually the two clans would end up fighting each other and you would have to choose a side. Or that it would be revealed that there is a third clan that has infiltrated the others (that was mainly because of the way Arezu was framed at the beginning and the fact that giratina exists).

The predictable thing would have been if Cylene, Arezu, Coin and some ancestor of Jupiter would have been the bad guys and you and Volo worked together to stop them.

"There is no voice acting" I mean... true... but do we really need voice acting? Can't you read? Do we really want to repeat BotW? (Okay, this may not apply to the English localization but the German voice acting in that game was horrible)

"There are no gyms / online-battles / breeding / insert other feature here" Again... true... but SuMo didn't have gyms either and everyone seemed to love that. Online-battles were in no spin-off as far as I know. Abilities weren't in Let's Go... Breeding isn't really useful if there are no Online-battles (and shinys are obtained way easier by other means)... and that's all the removed features I can think of right now...

"The game is too easy" So this is the same argument that pops up with every pokemon game since gen 5 (or at least that was the first time i heard it) and also probably the only common argument that i usually agree with.

However... not in this case.

Yes, BDSP was way too fucking easy but that is a topic for another time.

Legends Arceus was not too easy... it wasn't unbeatable but there were several points in the game where we genuinely had to stop the main story and grind up our pokemon to catch up with the enemies. Sure if you want you could try catching one of the overpowered alphas and just sweep through the game but that's like saying 'you could just transfer a lvl 100 pokemon from pokemon bank and sweep through ORAS'

technically that's true but that is a conscious decision to make it easier for yourself while in BDSP even if you only fought the battles you couldn't avoid you wouldn't end up too under-leveled and thanks to the affection system you would probably still not have many problems until you reach the elite four, or more specifically Cynthia. In this game we were regularly ten or more levels below the opposing pokemon...

Ok, i think that's enough... i could keep defending this game for... probably until the next pokemon game comes out (i mean I'm probably the only person alive still regularly defending both mass effect 3 and andromeda) but that's not the point of this post... and as i said there are things i didn't like about it so let's talk about those.

NPCs: Ok, I admit this point is probably very specific to me and no one else but it kinda bothered me how many NPCs were ancestors of existing characters from other games...

it wouldn't have been so bad if it had been only a few key-NPCs or if it was all of them but this way every time a NPC showed up and wasn't obviously connected to another character I literally paused the game to think about which characters they could be ancestors of...

so far the only NPCs I haven't found to be connected to other characters are Irida, Iscan, Melli, Palina and Laventon. (I would also put Adaman here but bulbapedia says he is the brother of Mai so that would mean he's connected to Marley)

Side note: it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out Volo was supposed to resemble Cynthia and not Volkner

Fast Travel: this is a simple one... I would have liked it if I could fast-travel from one area to another without having to go to jubilife first...

EVs & IVs: Listen...

I know I just defended a lot of missing features from earlier games not being in this one... and if this “Legends”-thing becomes it's own spin-off series that's fine...

but I've seen a lot of people who were actually happy that the EV & IV system isn't there anymore and...

I just don't get that...

yeah in earlier games the IVs were often a pain in the ass but since SuMo and especially since SwSh it is incredibly easy to get competitive pokemon:

you just catch a pokemon, pump it full of vitamins, mints, EXP-candies, TMs/TRs and bottlecaps and you have a competitively viable pokemon (Ok you still might need to breed them for egg-moves or shinys but that's not the point) especially now that Hidden Power isn't dependent on specific IVs anymore you have no reason not to max them out...

Far away Pokemon: If I can see a Pokemon on my screen and hit them with a jet-ball I should be able to catch them with said jet-ball...

I have failed so many capture-attempts simply because the pokemon was hit but not caught

Lock-On: Lock-On should never require you to hold a button...

just let me tap the button and then keep the cursor locked to the pokemon...

I need both the L/R buttons to switch between items/pokemon but I can't use the L button if my finger has to hold the ZL button and if my satchel is full it takes way too long to completely circle through all my items using only R (this by the way is why I never used the stun-items)...

also it should work if I'm more than two meters away from the pokemon I want to catch...

Illusion of Choice: Look... If you want to tell a linear story that's great but please don't ask questions and then just repeat that question until I say yes... either give me the choice to say no or don't ask questions...

and that's all I can think of... like I said I overall liked the game and really hope that it turns into its own spin-off series but i'm not sure if I would want this to be the new direction for the main games... maybe that’s just me but i don’t like it when long runing franchises change their gameplay drastically...

that’s why i stopped playing metroid after fusion and only started again when dread came out...

i’m sure the prime games are great games but they are not metroid games... they are spin-offs...

and it’s the same with pokemon... i started playing pokemon with the blue edition... in fact that was the second video game i ever played (the first one was mario kart at a friends birthday) and the gameplay has stayed pretty much the same... that’s why i still like them

anyway this wasn't supposed to be such a long post I just really wanted to talk about the game.

regular posts will continue as soon as i find motivation...

#Jeanne plays #pokemon legends arceus #jeanne plays legends arceus

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