#because it's fun

[sunshinehunter]

Unrestrained summer fun

[abzania]

Chapter 5 is complete, but I'm gonna let it sit overnight and give it one more quick edit in the morning. For now, I'm headed to bed.

[theyaregayyourhonor]

2 more hours and then I can try to finish one of my short fics 😤

[curiousorigins]

It's probably my inner villian or whatever, but the sense of joy when I utterly cream some person at something they're proud of how well they do is unrivaled. Like a million years ago, I played the former captain of our school's chess team, in chess obviously. (He was dedicated enough to haul around a travel chess/checkers set everywhere.) for the first time.

I won't say I play chess with any sort of strategy, and honestly that works well with the kind of folks who memorize games or whatever like this kid. (For the record, he wasn't an overly douchy dude and actually was one of the most selfless people I've ever known... at this point we were approaching becoming good friends.) We're like 19ish maybe 20. And literally this kid breathed Chess for a minute there. We went to middle school and high school together and while our friend groups overlapped we really didn't get to know each other until college because college is weird. Anyways my first memory of this kid was when we were both pipsqueaks and he was on the morning announcements requesting people to join chess club in middle school. He also was part of a group at our local public library. (Support your local library by using it! Your use actually helps them justify need and the budget. That goes for most social and welfare programs as well as charities fyi.) And like I said he carries this travel chess set around. (Yeah I'm fond of that little weirdo I'll admit. He's a good dude.)

And I'm doing my usual thing just picking and placing pieces vaguely at random until things get interesting and then instead of planning things out just reacting to how he's playing. (I might not play chess enough at this point to remember all the pieces rules perfectly at thus point... but y'know no long term plan besides trying to keep my queen safe (You can win any game if you have that piece long term and avoiding checkmate.) With each piece moved (with some reminders about y'know the knight (horse) and rook (castle) and I wanna say paladin? But you know the piece that has limitless diagonals moved by this awesome friend I'll call Bee, because he doesn't mind teaching beginners if he gets someone to play with.) he's slightly muttering to himself things like... oh you;re that kind of player..l oh I know this game he might've even named a specific game opening... anyways probably just giving me utterly more credit [particularly about understanding the depth of chess and strategy and how much brain power I'm utilising at this point. Because we're a good match intelligence wise and he's that kind of dude.] When really I'm just enjoying myself as an agent of chaos who enjoys slightly messing with someone who is taking a thing very seriously. (Not due to lack of respect honest... things just are more fun when it isn't too serious.)

And he's piling up my dead and my side of the match is looking a little barren, and graveyard like... but at least I've taken a few of his pieces too... and the game is really stretching out... I don't remember the details because this was like a decade plus ago, anyways, Bee has slight time constraints, maybe he had lab work to do or had a class or homework. It's college plenty of deadline driven options... but he's getting torn between finishing the game or doing whatever. So I start working harder towards a conclusion. (I guess I can be a decent enough person sometimes.) I stop lollygagging during my turn and taking immediate moves and yeah..l think he beat me, but like by a razor thin margin. (I think he was the type to actually add up your dead and score them if that even is a thing tournament style chess.) Like I think he had 3 pieces to my 1 piece or something dramatically close to that. And yeah it was all luck not strategy. (Can't even call it beginners luck because my Dad played a lot of chess with us growing up, he just also stopped because busy life stuff and so I'm rusty enough that I'm not really doing it enough to remember rule specifics.)

And despite whatever Bee is running late for, and the fact that our match concluded with just enough time to spare that if he sprints across campus, he's looking at the board and I can see him thinking through the board trying to figure out how that match closed like that. And he's a good dude, he's upset with it. Not angry upset, just that kind of needled annoyance when someone has inevitably creamed you despite being a beginner or having believed you were much better than apparently you thought at something and you've been proven that you have much more to learn... or like when you think you remember something detailed exactly right and you swear you can read the prime source of that information in your head because you believe that memory is clear... but then someone pulls out that primary source snd flips to the you're picturing and not only was the information pages away... but you were also dead wrong about the specifics... when the universe gives you a slap on your derriere and makes it clear that even what you believe yourself about knowing everything there is know about something... you just know nothing even in that subject in the grand scheme of things... that feeling?

Well Bee clearly is feeling like that in spades but at the time he was a responsible enough young adult that even that bothered, he carefully stuffs our dead back into the board, packs up and heads for class or whatever.. anyways. I don't know how many times we played after that... but long enough for him to ask specifics about my strategy, and I'm like I never plan the first moves, they're always random... which as it turns out his working theory at the time had been that he could usually tell how the entire game would play out by the first few moves... snd so my lack of specfic strategy behind my moves literally destroyed his strategy. I think we play a few more times after that where he observes how I play with thar knowledge but unfortunately routine is the mother of duldrums for me... so eventually regardless of how I did when we played (I feel like he won way more than me... but sometimes by thin margins and sometimes by thick ones...and I know I out and out won every once in a while. But always by thin margins because I'm a dramatic mofo sometimes and will do things like that just to make all the things seem more dangerous and have more weight. Sacrificing pawns not for love of the game but for the love of the drama. Like your standard hollywood sword fight where things look grim for a moment for our hero, but then some sort of distraction.. slight of hand... cunning and our hero is no longer in danger of dying but now has the upper hand. How it makes their victory thst much more trumphant... so yeah it's getting s little boring and I request not to play chess so often anymore. (It's funny because in retrospect, I think sometimes he pushed me to play chess in front of some of his associates because of how I play... but this is the first I'm really realizing that. I beat him in front of our close mutual college friend, Christopher Bendy (befriended by different means oddly enough... our conversations (Chris and I's) never sound like Bee's and Chris's... because we're just different friends bonded in different ways.) And not only did he maybe invite that dude down to watch the our game but was glad someone else witnessed that ridiculous game. Sometimes he'd oush me to olay his other friends sometimes... and sometimes I didn't have enough reason to care to say no... so I did. And yeah that might've been out of his desire to understand why/how I played like that... he was a curious dude, I am curious... we bonded over chasing down knowledge many a time at thus point. And see if he could glean useful approaches to chess with it... but who knows? This was not a thing that I thought to ask him at the time... so who knows and given the length of time since... I doubt he'd know either. Who can remember their reasoning behind specific actions with no memorable buts and discern theur reasoning about said actions... most people can't.

Anyways good times. I still get a lot of glee even thinking about how it ruffled his festhers ...

[darkopsiian]

very scratchy, very swirly...

[windfall-prophet]

i was reading through this line ! and !

realized that if kevin is sixteen , that puts Dean at roughly 26 .

they're all at slightly different ages than canon , so i found pictures of how they would all approximately appear in " kansas is for lovers " !

y'know , for fun

can i be real and say that i have no idea who the last guy is . . . . . . that's the monster of the week everyone . . . . . . .thank you Pinterest . . . . . . ..

[diino8081]

and what if i said i have a gem dema au

what then