#Comic writers take notes

[notrobinsomethingworse]

Batman being Gordon Ramsey figure in the lead.

Batman yelling at all the adults who should know better because “What the HELL we’re you thinking Hal. You were supposed to keep watch not wonder off god-knows-where doing god-knows-what.”

Batman hugging all the younger hero’s after a mission gone wrong. Giving them food, blankets, hot drinks, and settling them in for the night. Being a figure who provides them advice and comfort and whenever they need. Pulling out lollipops and capri suns from his belt whenever he patrols with them.

[martyrbat]

if you could have a limited comic run (batgirl 2000-esque) for ANY minor character, who would you choose?

[drbatsponge]

I love that this is a fight where Cass uses her strategic skills, we don't get to see that often, usually just her punching someone, which is cool and all, but I love that they got creative this time around because they KNEW Cass was out of her game.

Which by the way, this is how you show Cass fighting someone she knows would wreck her 1 on 1, she ALWAYS knows how she could potentially win a fight.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

Rogue/Magneto was something Marvel really seemed prepared to go all in on back in the day. It looked like something Claremont was toying with before he left, and might've got more focus if he'd stayed, but once he was gone and Jim Lee took full control the focus quickly shifted to Rogue/Gambit.

Age of Apocalypse then gave it new life, giving us a Magneto and Rogue who were happily married and with a son. The massive success of that arc no doubt encouraged the writers to keep the Rogue/Magneto dance going, which is how we ended up with Joseph, a character originally introduced as an amnesiac, younger looking Magneto. Very quickly he was pulled into a love triangle with Rogue and Gambit, only for the writers to then reveal he was a clone of Magneto and then died.

I'm fairly sure that was never the original plan, I believe Joseph was meant to be the real Magneto, but the editor insisted Magneto be a villain rather than a redeemed hero and that was the best idea the writers came up with. By that point, though, Rogue/Gambit had become more popular thanks to X-Men: The Animated Series, and Rogue/Magneto soon faded away accept in an Age of Apocalypse revisits.

[insertdisc5]

🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

[liedownquisition]

Oh boy. You know, I really love how you've cut some of those panels out. Here's a little more context on Oliver very clearly laying a solid chunk of what's wrong with Jason at Bruce's feet:

And you know what, you're right! No one's ever obligated to forgive everyone or anyone ever! But also guess what! You're also ignoring like... a lot of stuff actually. You think the batarang is the only thing people have an issue with.... as if it exists in a vacuum as the only thing Bruce has ever done wrong to Jason ever? Because most people aren't so much mad over a single incident as we are over it happening again and again and again.

RHATO Rebirth v2 #25

Batman and Robin uhhh Issue 6 I think? Going off the omnibus, sorry

Batman #138* *yes I'm aware that Bruce is being influenced by "Zur-En-Arr" in this, but honestly? I've always felt that this & the Batman & Robin one were some of the more in-character examples of Bruce's flaws manifesting in abusive ways

Or maybe some of these are too recent. Let's talk my personal favorite little beef that I like to contrast with Ollie:

Batman #424-425 The Diplomat's Son & Consequences

Ollie, on the other hand, when his charge commits a murder that Ollie thought could be prevented:

Now there's something to be said for how the writers for these stories had very different opinions of the sidekicks that were responsible, Starlin, for example, fucking hated Jason (Well, Robin in general) and wanted him dead, and it's deliberately set up to be a question of whether or not Jason actually did. Regardless, Bruce pretty cleanly absolves himself of any wrongdoing in his upbringing of Jason, whereas Ollie takes responsibility for Mia being in the position that she even could/would make that kind of call. And at this point, Oliver had Mia with him for a lot less time than Bruce had had Jason.

If it was Just the batarang, then, frankly, I think it's be a lot less controversial. This isn't even everything OR the worst panels from those incidents!!! I'm just cherrypicking, just like you were. And you know what, let me add this:

According to Bruce, Ollie's a pretty forgiving guy, it looks like. And if we're taking more Rebirth into account, Oliver was pretty chill about Cheshire hanging out with his family, and she's definitely caused her fair share of problems for the family and world at large on scales Jason has yet to even touch*, regardless of if she's Lian's mom. *some of Jade's crimes are dubiously canon, but with the reality mashing from Convergence in a way all of it is.

Ollie is a lot of hot air. I love the man, and he'll rip anyone and everyone a new one at the drop of a hat for any godsdamned reason. Pretty sure he's called Bruce and Barry and Hal all fascists before, so he has no hesitation in saying the absolute worst about people while... still having a relatively decent relationship with them in the long run, actually. Hal even used to be a villain for a while and Oliver was forced to kill him and now they're buds again. An alternate version of Hal that is STILL that villain continues to torment Oliver and his family.

Would Jason need to actually work to earn forgiveness from the Arrows? Probably. But he's still friends with Roy now (yes, CURRENTLY. AS HE HAS BEEN FOR OVER A DECADE he hasn't even been features in much w/ Roy lately but it has been REFERENCED), and even if it was small that olive branch of helping Roy and Lian reunite (and their general friendship, actually) isn't something that Ollie would just brush off, just as he wouldn't just brush off the events of Seeing Red.

But, in the grand scheme of things, kidnapping her, sending him on a wild goose chase across town, "having a talk" (mia's words) then letting her leave unharmed, and blowing up a building behind her is honestly small potatoes in comparison to the Repeated incidents of textbook abusive relationships that goes on between Bruce and Jason. (And I cannot overemphasize how little Mia was injured by this incident.)

Of course Olie was talking shit about Jason in the interim, Red Hood is incredibly dangerous, and he's scared for her safety. You can SEE how stumped he is by her coming out of this completely unharmed. Plus! This is hot on the heels of her return after the Dr Light Incident, and Ollie has every right to be scared out of his fucking mind.

But when it comes down to it, Mia Was Not Harmed. I will not stop saying that. Because in the world of villains and superheroes and red Hood doing significantly worse shit to other characters, this is NOTHING. Even actually within Arrow comics???? This WAS NOTHING.

And oh my god "He did the same thing Joker did" okay so where do I start with this

a) that was the point, obviously.

b) he didn't, actually.

c) that was the worst description of both incidents I've ever read in my entire life. Joker didn't "take a kid from his father and torture him and make him doubt his place in his family" unless you're talking about the fucking Arkham 'verse!

c2) actually let's break down that description: "took a kid from their father figure" Joker didn't take Jason, he was sold out by his mom. "Beat them up" understatement, but go off. "Tortured them mentally about their place in their family" not really. Joker just beat him nearly to death laughing for the most part, Jason's doubts about it came after he came back to life and saw news that Joker was still alive.

d) hmmm I wonder who said it was just Jason messing with Bruce...

Hm. Yeah. Bruce is definitely the most reliable source for Jason's intentions. I mean, was it generally to spite Bruce? Probably, yeah. But Jason's very good at multitasking and layering his intentions.

e) once again, Mia was not harmed. Jason spent most of their sparring match on the defensive, And only hit Her, physically, like, four times? and all of them in retaliation to her getting in close and hitting him first*? (And, trust me, if Jason can pull the hypercompetent bullshit that is "Seemingly shooting wildly but managing to hit nothing but THE STRING OF MIA'S BOW while also accounting for how she'd dodge" he could do sooooo much worse.) Notably, he briefly had her pinned to the floor with his hands around her throat... and then let up just after he held it long enough to make his point *Note: this is not a justification, she had every reason to fight back with everything she had and what Jason does is very fucked up on like...a normalscale. But it's worth noting he was Very Visibly and outright explicitly "teaching" her throughout it and it's soooo much less than any other villain has done to her.

This doesn't read to me "Making her doubt her place in her family" so much as "Emphasizing their similarities" this is the kind of speech the villain gives when he's trying to recruit the hero. (something which, hilariously, he mocked the idea of in UTH) But you know, all interpretations of canon are valid, although...

Funny enough, this also is very much not what Joker Did, actually. I mean, I don't recall Joker letting Jason have ANY agency at all, really. Just started breaking bones.

Now, I didn't post all of them because if I kept going it'd just be the whole comic, but yeah he does very much air out his daddy issues and compare them to her relationship with Ollie. It's clear that while he does know a lot about Mia... he also doesn't know much about Ollie. At least, not personality wise. Not how much genuinely better he is at this whole parenting gig.

This is so, so much easier to forgive, conceptually, than everything that goes on in the Batfam both from and to Jason and from and to OTHER MEMBERS OF THE BATFAM without involving Jason at all!!! (Birthdays, amirite?)

And, honestly, I'm probably seeing a lot of the posts that you are, and the ones making the Jason & Ollie bonding posts? Aren't really the same ones going on about the Batarang Incident. We've moved on to the rest of the, gestures above, Patterns of Abuse. If we discuss anything past post-crisis at all. (Speaking of post crisis, I actually remember Jason doing a pretty big solid for one of Oliver's close friends... hmmmmmm. Oh, yeah, he helped out when Black Lightning was framed for murder by Slade so good that even HE thought he did it! Granted, that was pre-Mia. So he's not going to stop being wary, but it's not like Jason hasn't done good things that affected people close to Ollie either.)

And if Jason's emotions aren't an excuse, than, well, Bruce's aren't really an excuse either, are they?

Jason's not even the only one who gets abusive treatment from Bruce. And regardless of your personal interpretations of whether or not it's a valid Batman characterization, after multiple writers have written this kind of thing across multiple continuities, there comes a point when you have to accept that this is a genuine flaw that Bruce carries and find a way to reconcile it with everything else.

And if we're going off of canon-gospel, Jason's own behavior has steadily trended towards more and more fangless, more palatable, in a way that given exposure Oliver would probably tolerate, considering all the others that he tends to tolerate. He still seems to regard the Batclan in general as a dumpster fire, "None of my kids would take a shot at me" he says, completely correct, while Batman's kids wouldn't even hesitate. He rolled up with unsolicited advice about Batman's relationships multiple times, all correct, and gotten shot down or ignored as if his significantly fewer incidents of being a shitty parent that he's very self-aware about somehow make him unqualified to speak at all!

Sometimes the reason that people are writing this, is because they like Ollie more than Bruce, because he knows how to actually apologize and actually do better. And trying to ignore canon in favor of making "good dad" Bruce stories, can wear you down when you just keep seeing Bruce depicted worse and worse and worse, and so maybe you want to start seeing the people trapped in Bruce's vortex move away from that.

And among those in that vortex, Jason has it the worst. Like, this isn't a competition. Some of the shitty stuff that Bruce does to him could be argued to be just responses to what he does himself (victim-blamey, but you know what let's pretend it makes things okay) like uth, or RHATOv2#25 But... Batman & Robin? "Oh Bruce was upset about Damian."

What was it you said? Oh, that's right: "Your feelings being valid don't excuse the harm you do, guys."

Gotham War? I'm sure you'll make excuses for Bruce there. I mean, maybe implementing it was Zur, but, frankly, that "Failsafe"? That has "Bruce genuinely thought this" written all over it. Hypocrite. Considering what his response was to the last time someone messed with his mind.

Oliver... kind of is the canon version of fanon's "good dad Bruce" tbh. And sometimes people make that connection, see those parallels, and want to play with that. It's just a what if.

You know that thing about tragedies about how if anything happened any differently it could have been prevented, that someone could have been saved? Ollie fucks up, but, fundamentally, if Ollie had been in Bruce's position, he would have saved Jason, not by doing the impossible of making it there in time, but by putting Jason first and having healthy communication lmao. Because Bruce very explicitly didn't! He didn't want to talk about it because he was scared of the truth! Or, he was scared of what he believed to be the truth, which would be that Jason had killed. And that it wasn't Bruce's fault. Because it's never Bruce's fault if he failed to raise Jason in that way that took that instinct out. It's not his responsibility to have realized, as the adult in the situation, that Jason maybe shouldn't have been exposed to so much rape and murder at an impressionable age. It's not his responsibility to keep better track of his barely teenaged son who's going through severe trauma right in front of him because they failed to enact justice on someone.

And Bruce had a lot to say about what he thought about Jason that varied and, honestly, rang more as projecting his own issues onto Jason than matching up what was actually happening on the page. Better meta-writers than I have discussed how rarely we get Jason's POV in these situations, that we're TOLD a lot about Jason by everyone else who has an agenda to frame Jason in a certain way.

If you hate Jason Todd, or hate jayroy, then block the damn tags & add it to a content filter bcs generally the latter is always marked. if it's someone on your dash reblogging them and it's not tagged/hiding it then ask them to tag it so you can filter it or stop following them idc. Don't pretend your cherry picking of canon and willful out-of-context misinterpretations is any better than anyone else's.

I have seen many posts and fanfics who are going "Oliver works with Jason to annoy Bruce!", "Oliver protecting Jason from Bruce!", "Oliver deciding to annoy Bruce by being like a father figure to Jason!", "Oliver being so happy for Roy and Jason being together!", and etc, but in canon, Oliver HATES his guts.

Here is a compilation of Oliver thinking or talking about Jason from Seeing Red, which is the first Red Hood's story after Under The Red Hood, and the one time Oliver and Jason interracted in canon (if I'm not mistaken, they never did since):

For the last one, he is talking to Bruce and Jason is one of the "every damned manner of sociopathic fruit fly".

And like, Oliver and the Arrowfam are 100% justified in their dislike or hate. He literally pulled the same shit Joker did on them: took a teenager away from her father figure, beat her up, torture her mentally about her place in her new family and her usefulness, make her and her guardian think he was going to kill her, explode the building she was in in front of her father figure to make him believe he was too late... And all of that to get to Batman. He doesn't give a shit about Oliver or Mia, it's about Batman, it's about Bruce. Just like when the Joker killed him, it wasn't about him, it was about Batman.

And it doesn't matter that Jason changed, because others aren't obligated to forgive someone because they redeemed themselves. I do not believe that Oliver is fine with Jason, he is probably not very happy he hangs around Roy, and does NOT want him near Mia ever again, and certainly not his granddaughter, Liam. That's the man that kidnapped his daughter because he was mad at his own father, nope. He knows how it is to be annoyed with the Bat, and it doesn't justify this.

I can hear y'all seeing disregarding canon is fine, and yes, sure. But also, folks, you are such hypocrites if you want to keep in that Bruce threw a batarang at Jason's neck, and erase how it was an accident ("Batman doesn't make mistakes!" Firstly, he does, canonically, make huge mistakes sometimes. Secondly, the man was an emotional wreck, his son had come back to life and had been killing people and his other son, Dick, was maybe dead because his city just exploded. He is human, not a machine! Thirdly, it is simply fucking stupid for a character who is against killing to willingly inflict such a mortal wound.), but Jason being a huge asshole to others is either erased or excusable (your feelings being valid don't excuse the harm you do, guys). Talk about favoritism.

[gothlcsan]

SWEETEST TASTE ›› 희승

Tipsy bold confessions lead to more than what typical best friends would do together. You learn more about one another, more than you’ve ever imagined before, maybe more than you’re able to handle.

pairing ⸝⸝ lee heeseung 𝑥 fem!reader ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𓄵 feat ⸝⸝ other enhypen members - non sexually

genre ⋆ 📓 ⸝⸝ smut, idol!heeseung, some fluff, lots of smut..

warnings ⸝⸝ lost of hee’s virginity, drinking, tipsy sex and confessions, teasing, pet names, crying, soft and rough sex, cursing, hee likes to be called sir, messy kissing, so. much. kissing, cum eating, facials, breeding

I apologize if I miss any warnings !

𝒮torm’s note ⸝⸝ six months later and i finally finished this fic.. ㅜㅜ writers block had me in a head lock.. but i’m glad to finally get this published and out of my drafts! this is slightly all over the place (my apologies) but i hope you can enjoy nonetheless ~ xx

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ﴾ 6.3k ﴿ ╱ ﴾ m. list ﴿

𓂃⋆.˚ all feedback and reblogs are welcomed 𓏲𝄢

“Drink up!” Sunoo excitedly shouted at you, all while dramatically throwing your head back with a groan as you hand your glass towards him to refill.

“This is so unfair you know I'm absolutely horrible with these types of games. When’s the last time I've even won?”

Sunoo only shrugs at you with a smug smile, watching as you wait for them to finish counting back from ten before taking your shot, tipping your head back to ensure none spills down yourself. The soju thankfully goes down smoothly (or maybe that’s only possible due to you already beginning to feel a bit tipsy by this point), inhaling sharply between your teeth with squinted eyes. You hated drinking games not because they weren’t fun, you always had a great time, you just absolutely sucked at winning.

“You ok?”

Turning your head you face Heeseung, taking note of his own face starting to form a faint shade of red from drinking, his lips curled up into a soft smile that makes your stomach twist. Nodding in response to his question, he mouths “good” whilst patting the back of your head with his hand a few times before you come to reality, sheepishly turning your head to face away from him. Growing thankful for the tipsy glow on your cheeks masking the blush that was without a doubt starting to blossom in its place. Sitting beside Heeseung had meant you were directly next to your longtime best friend and lifelong crush, internally groaning at the fact you were a victim of the cliche best friend to crush trope, anxiously picking at your tights trying your absolute best to focus on the drunken conversation taking place. Jake was taking love shots with Jay, a dare most likely mischievously curated and requested by no other than Sunoo, the two grown men screaming comically as they pulled away from each other like school children.

Lifting up from your chair at the table, you lean forward just enough to grab a piece of fried chicken with your chopsticks, successfully completing your mission and going to sit back down. The difference in your seat makes you stand back up surprised, looking over behind your shoulder to see that you’ve completely missed your chair altogether and had sat down directly onto Heeseung’s lap. Embarrassment struck you to the core instantly, feeling your face grow hot as you began profusely apologizing quickly trying to explain yourself. Heeseung looked at you with a raised brow, you could easily tell he wasn’t upset or truthfully even close to being bothered, Heeseung shifting in his chair as he not so subtly looked you up and down.

“It’s ok, baby, sit where you’d like.”

Heeseung said that so casually yet still with a clear hint of teasing laced at the end, guiding you back down onto his lap with two hands placed on either side of your hips. The other guys groan begging for the two of you not to be gross, Heeseung quickly tells them to shut up as he returns all of his focus back onto you. He asks if you’re enjoying your night, his randomly timed small talk makes you giggle, nodding. Telling him that it’s nice to be able to come visit at the dorm since they’re not working and overly busy. He smiles huge at that, better securing you onto his lap with his arms wrapped around your waist. Having you now facing him, your legs over to the side, your mouth going dry, Heeseung’s looks being something you’d never be able to familiarize yourself with properly. He was beyond more than handsome.

“You mean that?”

“Why wouldn’t I,” you questioned Heeseung, placing your hands onto his brightly flushed cheeks, your cold hands bringing him comfort.

“Mm,” he hummed. “It’s nice to hear that you miss me.”

You blush again, trying what you can to look away, anywhere but his face, however he brings you back with a finger under your chin, your breath catching in your throat. Drunk Heeseung was bold and it was making you want more, asking him exactly what he was doing.

“Looking at you, you’re really pretty.”

“You’re such a bully, it’s not funny to make fun like this, you know.”

Heeseung gives you a puzzled look as if you said something unimaginable to him. “Making fun of you?”

“You know,” you paused to carefully collect your thoughts to the best of your abilities whilst being this tipsy, “jokingly flirting with me in front of everyone?”

Heeseung raises an eyebrow yet says nothing audible, simply removing you quietly from his lap as he goes to stand up. Worry pricks at your stomach thinking that you’ve accidentally offended him by what’ve you said to him, opening your mouth to apologize but you’re cut off before being able to properly do so.

“Hee,” you squealed as he lifted you up, praying your dress hadn't ridden up and given everyone a glimpse of what was underneath. The other members' drunken cries of playful disgust and teasing are ignored by Heeseung (doing your best to ignore them yourself by burying your face into his chest) as he carries you to his bedroom, pushing the door closed with his foot before turning to make his way to the bed. Gently he drops you onto the mattress, a tiny gasp leaving from your lips as you make contact, pulling the hem of your dress down to protect your modesty.

He stared at you in silence for a moment, an embarrassed smile paired with an awkward laugh escaping from you.

“What, Hee?”

Once again he doesn’t say anything, making his way closer to you, knee bent so that it sits perfectly in place between your legs against the mattress. Pulling you to sit up, he brushes the few strands of hair out of your face. His face was a mere centimeters away from yours by this point, your breath hitched as you became frozen still, anticipating what Heeseung was planning. This was unlike Heeseung, who’s always never purposely crossed any lines over the best friend relationship you two shared, your stomach turning into knots out of confusion but mostly excitement mixed with curiosity. He moves which makes you gasp, his mouth so close to your ear that his breath fanned your neck, your mind thinking what his lips would feel like against your neck, causing you to squeeze your thighs together around his knee - that action not going unnoticed by Heeseung who chuckles amused but pleased.

“I really want to touch you, may I?”

The request floats around your head before you nod, letting out a whine as you give Heeseung audible permission to do so.

“Please, please touch me.”

Heeseung doesn’t hesitate longer than he has to, his large hands wrapping around the plush flesh of your thighs while his mouth crashes into yours. It’s messy, the alcohol bitter against your tongue as his tongue slips alongside yours. He seems eager, hungry even, which only excited you more than anything wondering how long you both had painfully waited for this very moment to happen. The sound of ripping fabric brings your attention away from the kiss, pulling back to look down, seeing Heeseung has ripped apart your tights leaving your thighs exposed to him.

“Sorry,” he said softly, his smile evident he was in fact not sorry, but you couldn’t get out a response as he looked down then back up at you.

“Although it doesn’t seem to bother you, hm?”

You turn red with embarrassment knowing the wet patch on your panties grew from that question laced with taunting. The dress has failed to stay down, the fabric bunched up around your hips, unable to close your thighs with how he was positioned. He repeated his question, looking into his eyes, gasping as he rips the tights further, your panties becoming his main view. Your mind goes fuzzy, whimpering in response when he pressed his fingers up against the very evident wet patch. Need pricked every nerve in the entirety of your body, subtly shaking as Heeseung removed himself away from under your dress.

“Heeseung, please this is cruel,” you whined, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to pull him closer. He chuckles at your desperation finding it amusing how quickly you grew impatient, kissing at your neck. The way his lips brushed and kissed your neck felt better than anything you could have imagined. Sighing contentedly as you mumbled his name under your breath, his grip on you tightening in response. Nevertheless Heeseung had no intention of furthering this just yet, teasing you to what seemed that had no clear end. Every subtle brush of his lips moving down your throat made you clench around nothing, drawing in your breath simultaneously as he pressed the pad of his thumb hard flushed against your clit over your panties, instinctively moving your hand up to curl your fingers into the baby hairs that adorned the back of his neck.

“Fuck,” he trailed off as you tugged at his hair, Heeseung dipping his face back into the crook of your neck leaving wet open mouth kisses in it’s wake. Trailing down your throat he makes his way down to your collarbones, delving his tongue into your clavicle as he kisses the area leaving small red hickeys. He guides you to lay down on your back, his knee pushing into your pussy causing you to moan from the added pressure, pulling him away from your chest and back into a kiss. It’s not as messy as the previous kiss, this one more heated as the two of you grew handsy. Heeseung lets out a strained moan that brings a smirk to your lips, breaking the kiss to peek down at your hand that was palming him through his pants. His erection grew (a fact that made your head dizzy with just finding out he was already sizeable while soft) Heeseung guiding you back to regain eye contact, his eyes hooded with need. You weren’t much better, wanting or more so needing him, giving him a few slow strokes over his pants, trying your hardest to form a coherent sentence.

“Do you have a condom,” you asked breathlessly between a few shared kisses. Heeseung nods, leaning over away from you to reach over to his nightstand, opening the top drawer to his bedside table, pulling a small box of condoms out. He cutely fumbled with the box as he opened it, picking one from out the box. You watch as he begins ripping it open carefully, moving back to you. Heat runs over you in massive waves watching Heeseung intensely as he strips himself down until he’s wearing nothing. He teases you as he pulls off your dress, your panties not lasting much long after that, the thin fabric torn and discarded absent-mindedly somewhere onto the bedroom floor. Sitting up to rest on his knees, you watch as Heeseung rolls the condom on, visibly shaking from the sensation, rolling his head to the side as he tucks his bottom lip in between his teeth. The sight makes your stomach burn with lust, looking up at him. He grabs a pillow guiding it to be tucked under your hips, maneuvering your legs so that he can fit between them easier. A shudder runs down your spine as he rubs himself against your pussy, pushing the head of his dick through your folds but not giving either of you the satisfaction of easing himself in, this drawing a needy whimper from deep within you. Heeseung takes his time with you, continuing his slow pace of rubbing against you whilst filling out the bedroom with the lewd sounds of your pussy growing wetter for him alongside your desperate noises.

“Hee,” you cut yourself off to gather both yourself and your thoughts, swallowing hard before continuing, “please, I need more. I need you.” The last bit of your sentence is trailed off from your head lulling to the side, whining growing desperate by the millisecond not knowing how much more teasing you could put up with by this point.

At first Heeseung seems to hesitate but it’s clear as day that he’s equally as desperate, although not saying anything as he begins repositioning himself so that he can kiss up your neck to your cheeks. Whimpering softly with scrunched eyes as he lines himself back up before ultimately slipping into you, your fingers curling around his biceps asking him to wait, needing a moment shocked once again by the sheer size of his dick.

“Sorry, fuck, wow,” Heeseung rambles, his voice shaky as he halts his movements to allow you a moment to grow comfortable. Giving him a few squeezes around him in an attempt to familiarize yourself to his size, you take a final deep breath and nod, giving him the go ahead to continue. Pulling back his hips he groans loudly when he pushes back in, feeling your walls clench so beautifully around him with each slow thrust. It didn’t take much more than a few minutes before the impatientness grew in your limbs, begging Heeseung to fuck you, needy whines ripping out of you until he picked up speed. His thrusts were messy and ever so slightly uncoordinated as his thighs slammed into yours, the skin reddening with impact but you loved every second of it making sure to vocalize your thoughts. Heeseung leans down and assaults your throat with his mouth, his lips kissing it whilst his teeth mark you as his. Heeseung’s possessiveness being exposed by his need to mark you, mumbling under his breath that you were his. The slightest change of position deepens his thrusts making your eyes squeeze shut tight, swearing under your breath, reaching up so that your nails dig into his arm. Mumbling something into your neck that you’re unable to make out, the two of you in an impatient frenzy not caring to stop and repeat yourselves. You questioned if the members could hear the two of you, slightly embarrassed by how loud you were being but your thoughts were casted aside as Heeseung pulled completely out of you. It makes you whine in annoyance, frantically searching for his thigh with your hands, digging your nails into the soft skin wondering why he removed himself from you in the first place.

“Why, please,” you pant feverishly between each word, Heeseung seemingly finding it amusing how desperate you were whilst questioning him. He roughly pushes himself back into you, your head tipped back with wide eyes, back lifted up into an arch. You were completely under his command by this point, allowing him to bring your legs together and over to the side so that his thrusts could reach much deeper. The pleasure is slightly unbearable, unsure what to do, burying your face into one of the other pillows on Heeseung’s bed, moans being muffled. Having you on your side, Heeseung lands a rather firm slap across your ass, making you yelp in surprise, removing yourself from the pillow and glaring at him.

“Don’t hide your pretty face from me.”

You stare at him in silence, your mind fuzzing around the edges growing dumb, receiving another slap that lands directly in the same spot, clenching your teeth in an odd mixture of pain and satisfaction.

“Yes, Sir,” you whine, falling back into the pillows, staring at his proud expression knowing that he had you completely under his control. The nickname snapping something in Heeseung, arching your back as his fingers press fingertip sized bruises into your soft skin. His movements grew intense, more coordinated, his nails moving to dig into your ankle. The lewd sounds of your skin connecting with his made you wetter, gasping as Heeseung threw your legs open, manhandling you to lay flat onto your back. With an arm on either side of your head, he leans forward so that his face hovers over yours, his hair sticking to his forehead from sweat. He looked gorgeous, part of his bangs hanging down, his lips swollen red, eyes knitted together as he focused on solely making you feel good. Heeseung groaned when he leaned even closer, finding himself kissing your chest then slowly back up to reconnect with your lips. He was growing feverish which was evident from how he couldn’t seem to focus on just one area of your body to kiss, his speech slurred as he grew drunk from the prior alcohol he consumed and now from you.

“Fuck, feels so good, I’m going to die,” Heeseung rambled near incoherently into the crook of your neck. Feeling as his wet hot tongue lap at your skin made your toes curl, instinctively reaching a hand over to pull at his hair. Your mind was growing fuzzier, no longer in control of your own body nor even your own actions as you pulled him impossibly closer to yourself, fingers tangled tightly in Heeseung’s hair to lock him into a kiss. The way in his tongue worked alongside your own made you feel savage, insane, locking your shaky legs around his torso. His thrusts were now growing faster as his thighs tightened and convulsed, tightening the grip around your waist with his large hands.

A loud groan erupted from Heeseung’s throat, muffled by your heated kiss as he cummed into the condom. His eyes are closely knit together as he continues to fuck into you despite having reaching his orgasm, determined to have you cum around him. The fire in your stomach was growing unbearable, your body lifting into an arch but ensuring your legs kept tight around his body as you cum hard around Heeseung, your eyes blown open as you became flush with the bed. He doesn’t pull out just yet, holding himself up weakly by his forearms to not crush you, the both of you trying to catch your breath before looking at each other.

“I always wanted to do this,” Heeseung said with a smirk, taking a deep breath as he swore, pulling out slowly. With shaky hands he carefully pulls and ties off the condom, discarding it into the trash can then returning back to bed with you. He seems a bit lost at first but he quickly recovers coming to help you out of bed so you’re able to use the bathroom, Heeseung spewing about utis to which you ignored, telling him to please stop talking so you could focus.

Placing your head against his stomach as you used the bathroom, you told him he talked too much, Heeseung giving you a little laugh in return.

“Harsh words coming from the person who took my virginity.”

Your eyes widened, shooting to sit up straight ignoring the slight pain in your lower back as you looked at him in pure shock and disbelief, making him flinch slightly in surprise.

“Heeseung. Do not joke like that with me.”

“I’m not joking, I mean, you did just take my virginity.”

Your hand slaps against your mouth, eyes shaking as you shake your head still in disbelief from this new found information. Heeseung nods with a smirk that you knew meant he was telling the truth (as well as being cocky, he knew he did you good - definitely had you convinced he wasn’t a virgin). You had just taken his virginity, a fact you simply couldn’t begin to wrap your head around. You suddenly felt sober, too sober, tears pricking your eyes as you tilted your head down feeling immensely shameful. Confused and equally as concerned, Heeseung crouches down and places a hand under your chin to raise your head up.

“Why are you crying?” He asked softly, doing his best to sound calm despite feeling utterly confused.

Shaking your head in an attempt for him to leave your side, Heeseung stands firmly in his position, asking you once more. Lifting your head up to look at him, your bottom lip trembles as you speak, more tears threatening to fall given if you spoke too much more.

“I didn’t know you were still a virgin, I wouldn’t have come onto you like I had.”

Heeseung looks hurt, then softens his expression, petting the side of your head until his thumb is able to comfortably brush away the tears that had stained your cheeks.

“How can you feel sorry for something I initiated, hm?”

You tried to open your mouth to reply but it only made the urge to cry worse, shaking your head once more as you buried your face into his chest as he crouched down to comfort you better. There wasn’t a good way for you to explain to Heeseung why you felt guilty taking his virginity, not wanting to come off the wrong way and causing an even bigger misunderstanding. He allows you to cry until you can’t anymore, wiping the tears off your face with his fingers, before asking again why you felt apologetic for something he had so clearly orchestrated in the first place.

“Had I known you were a virgin I would’ve made it special for you, I can’t believe I ruined your first time the way I have.” You trail off into word vomit, Heeseung cutting you off successfully with a kiss, his hand holding you still by the back of your neck. Heeseung didn’t want you overthinking (or thinking at all at this point - which was more than successful) due to him not sharing the status of his virginity, pulling away watching as the weak strand of saliva that connected the two of you broke.

“I wanted this, more than you’re prepared to know, ok? I don’t need cliche first time with flowers and you whispering sweet things into my ear,” Heeseung said, tucking some loose hair behind your ear. His voice was calming as equally as it was convincing, he made you feel less guilty about the situation that you blew up in your head, giving him a faint “ok” alongside a head nod. He plants one last kiss onto the crown of your head before heading to walk back to the bedroom, telling you to finish up and he will meet you back there with warm clothes and a movie. Smiling as he closes the bathroom door behind him, you lift yourself onto shaky legs (a byproduct from sex and sitting on the toilet for an ungodly amount of time) you bite your knuckle as you work on cleaning yourself up, overly sensitive from earlier. The overstimulation unlocks something in your brain, allowing a breathy moan to escape from the depths of your throat, any innocent or guilt ridden thought being put onto the back burner. Washing and drying your hands with a clean towel you open the bathroom door to walk back into the bedroom, seeing a now clothed Heeseung sitting in bed with his back against the headboard. He lights up when he sees you, offering an oversized pair of shorts and one of his shirts that you already knew you’d be swimming in. Ignoring his offer (much to his confusion) you climb into bed, crawling the short distance until you’re practically on his lap, kissing his neck.

“What are you doing,” he questioned with an amused tone, his hand sneaking its way to your backside, swatting his hand away which surprises him. Sitting up you smugly smile at him, messing with the band to his shorts but not doing anything beyond that. It was thrilling watching as he hitched his breath just to sigh in annoyance when you teased with your silence and the possibility of furthering your flirty touches. Your hand makes its way back to his shorts, this time exceeding past the band. Heeseung’s breath catches in his throat in surprise, watching your hand travel down the entirety of his dick before traveling back up in painfully slow strokes. His bangs hang in his face, tilted forward too focused on how your hand felt around him to think much of anything else, growing needier in every aspect. Twisting your wrist, Heeseung's eyes blow wide, a strangled moan erupting from him that took the both of you by surprise.

“You liked that, hm?” You taunted, giving the head of his dick another firm squeeze. Heeseung doesn’t respond with coherent sentences, reduced to whines and tiny pathetic mumbling begging for more. It’s not what you're looking for, removing your hand from him, ignoring his defeated sounds asking what you were doing. With a snap of your fingers you demand him to take off his shorts, he seems to hesitate for a mere millisecond but frantically moves to remove them. A triumphant smile reaches your lips telling him he’s a good boy for obeying you without a fight. The praise rushes from his ears down to his exposed dick an erection now in full view for you to tease him with. Taking it back into your hand, you push your thumb pad into the soft slit of his dick, watching him twitch under your hand.

“I’ll take that as a clear yes then.”

Heeseung’s mind felt fuzzy, this new sensation growing almost unbearable as he let his head fall back against the headboard.

“Please,” he groaned, a bubble in his throat popping as he tried to keep himself grounded. His face is flushed a bright rosy red, sweat starting to form on his brow, mumbling over himself. Your thumb moving back and forth is in a lazy, unfocused, movement wanting to continue listening to Heeseung’s desperation.

“Fuck, please, baby,” Heeseung groans, his voice deep and raspy, wrapping a shaky hand around the wrist that was torturing his dick. His eyes shook whilst the corners collected overwhelmed tears, desperately seeking more. Still, you wanted to test his patience a hint more, repositioning yourself so you laid flat on your stomach. Locking in eye contact, you have Heeseung gasping from a few kittenish licks against the head of his dick. He mumbles something along the lines of this being pure torture smirking to yourself before you break eye contact, wrapping your lips around the tip, tongue swirling around just directly underneath the head. Heeseung makes a humming sound in the back of his throat, his fingers finding their way to your hair, raking through it once before curling the digits near the back of your head. Keeping his grip firm, you groan deep in your throat as his hold on you causes a few tugs if you lean forward too much. Pulling back so Heeseung was no longer in your mouth leaves Heeseung swearing under his breath. He knew you were purposely torturing him. Heat flooding his senses.

“Please,” Heeseung’s voice is raspy, barely above a whisper but the clear desperation and need dripping off his lips brings heat flooding to your stomach. With a click of your tongue you lean back down to where his dick laid heavy on his lower abdomen, wrapping a hand around the base to guide it to your mouth - coating it with a generous amount of spit using your hand to stroke the base. Moving to take the tip of Heeseung’s dick back into your mouth, swirling your tongue, taking more little by little. Once you’ve fully taken what you can, you swallow around Heeseung who tightens their grip on your hair, a loud moan erupting from their chest.

“Such a good girl for me, made to simply take my dick.”

His filthy words make you pool in between your legs, clenching around nothing in hopes of helping with how badly your clit ached. Heeseung used the hand gripping your hair to help guide you

with bobbing on his dick, calling you a messy eater once drool and saliva dripped from your sloppy lips. Initially you had wanted to be the one in control but that plan had been long forgotten, eyes rolled back into your skull with Heeseung losing any prior restrants now fully fucking up into your mouth with messy thrusts. It was overwhelmingly harsh breathing through your nose, tears starting to roll down mixing with the spit on your cheeks and lips.

“Fuck, yeah just like that baby, keep making me feel good.” Heeseung moans, a chuckle of disbelief rolling off his lips. He couldn’t believe how the two of you had gotten to this moment, the girl of his dreams a drooly dumb mess on his dick. A fire built in the pit of Heeseung’s stomach grew uncontrollable, his head tipping forward with furrowed brows, a sharp moan from him as he cums hard. The grip on your hair makes it impossible for you to pull away having to swallow Heeseung’s load to ensure you don’t choke, eyebrows scrunched together at the warm cum soaking your throat. With the hand still wrapped tight around your hair, Heeseung pulls you off, a wet mixture of spit and cum dripping down your chin, the thin strings of saliva connecting you to his dick breaking and coating you both. It was gross but Heeseung twitched at the sight, letting your hair go to use his fingers to swipe a bit of the mixture off your lips before then having you suck the digits clean, praising you for being so obedient.

Your mind is nothing but mush by this point, drunkenly smiling up at Heeseung who pets your hair to lay back flat out of your face, bringing you up by your arm to initiate a kiss. It’s wet, grossly sticky, as he tastes himself off your tongue. Something about it makes him moan against your lips, guiding you to straddle his lap, snaking a hand down to hold your hip. Your tongues work in perfect harmony, a gasp being swallowed by Heeseung as he lands a harsh slap against your bare ass. He leaves no time for you to collect yourself as his fingers are teasing your wet pussy, spreading the folds apart allowing his middle finger to tease and prod at your eager hole. You’re greedy trying to lean back so that it’ll slip in but Heeseung is stronger keeping you in place with the hand on the back of your neck, whining into his mouth about wanting him. A blush across your face when he asked you to repeat yourself, to beg if you wanted it that badly. To which you do, leaning into his chest, licking and nipping his ear lobe.

“Fuck me, please? Want you to fill me up, make me yours.”

“Unless,” you leave a pause, smirking as you whisper into his ear. “I should ask one of your friends to come fuck me for you.”

That's more than enough for Heeseung to angrily stuff his fingers into your wet pussy, the hand on the back of your neck tightening leaving you gasping. Heeseung wasn’t no longer the sweet man from earlier, his fingers scissoring you open as he demanded you to tell him who you belonged to, rough slaps against your ass when you took too long to respond. You were his. Squealing as he corrected your behavior by removing his fingers, manhandling you so that you were on your stomach, legs tucked underneath you. There’s no build up, Heeseung pushing himself into you harshly, mounting you until he has you into a mating press. He was going to ensure you never thought about another man again, his thrust making you come in contact with the headboard, tears forming in your eyes making your vision blur.

“Hee,” you cry out, nails digging into the sheets, tears starting to fall and roll down your flushed cheeks.

Heeseung leans forward so that his body weight traps you underneath him, he pushes your hair out of his way, biting roughly into your shoulder. It makes you scream, begging him to slow down, Heeseung responding with a laugh.

“Going to remind you that you’re mine, train this pussy to only cum if I am the reason. You understand?”

“Yes-,” you let out an animalistic whine, Heeseung pulling you into a headlock, forcing you to stare at the mirror directly to your right.

“Try again.”

“Sir, yes Sir,” you whimper when he calls you his good girl earning a kiss on your cheek as he continues to fuck into you with growing speed. Your pussy was red, bruised, hungrily swallowing Heeseung like the greedy whore you were for him. Your second orgasm was dangerously near, something snapping in you as Heeseung added the slightest bit of pressure in the chokehold, squeezing around him in response. Heat flooded into your abdomen and inner thighs, begging him to let you go, saying you needed to use the bathroom. He ignores your pleas, sobbing uncontrollably now as your body gives out, squirting around Heeseung’s dick with a shrill scream being fucked out of you. He doesn’t slow down as he chases his own orgasm, your sensitive walls being abused by your best friend, whimpering nonsense into the sheets as you watch yourself in the mirror.

Feeling Heeseung’s thighs start to shake and convulse, your eyes roll sweetly back into your skull as he cums hard into you, body going limp having to catch himself with a shaky arm to not crush you. He doesn’t pull out just yet, guiding you along with him so that he’s next to you, both of you trying to catch your breath. Neither of you say anything for a while until Heeseung presses small kisses into your shoulder blade, shakily gasping as he pulls out, having you turn over to face him. He calls you pretty which earns a laugh, humming happily when he cups your face into his hand, pulling you into a slower kiss. It’s sweet, romantic, butterflies erupting in the pit of your stomach as Heeseung pulls away, playing with the ends of your hair.

“How do you feel?”

“Sore,” you chuckle, giving him a kiss. “Otherwise, really, really good.”

His free hand is massaging your hip, fingers digging into your skin making soft content hums come from you.

“Let’s get a shower and head to bed, yeah?”

Stealing a peek at the time it was well past six in the morning now, your eyes widening is disbelief. Heeseung laughs at your shocked expression, helping you off the bed and towards the bathroom on shaky legs. Landing a playful slap across your ass, you stumble, the two of you laughing as Heeseung grabs you in a panic to help stabilize you.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, kissing your cheek as he opened the bathroom door.

“Slapping me when I already can’t walk? You’re shameless.”

“It’s not my fault that I have a pretty girlfriend.”

Heeseung had said it so casually you nearly didn’t catch it, the two of you freezing before looking at one another. His cheeks were bright red, you could feel yours warming up as well, but not to the extreme degree he currently was. At first he goes to open his mouth, apologize for calling you his girlfriend when you weren’t, but something in him stopped him. He wasn’t sorry for calling you that, he wanted you to be his girlfriend, wrapping his hands around the base of your jaw, kissing you. The two of you didn’t need words to know what that kiss meant, Heeseung guiding you towards the sink, lifting you to sit on the cool marble. The contrast of the cool sink against your warm skin causes you to jump, giggling into Heeseung’s mouth who giggled along with you. His hands slowly slide down to comfortably rest on your waist, Heeseung pulling back to look at you, the held eye contact and comfortable silence making the butterflies in your stomach dance.

“So, is it okay to assume you’re my girlfriend?”

Heeseung asked this while tucking your hair behind your ear, a smile on his lips.

“Wow, not even going to ask me out? After I took your virginity and all.”

A laugh bellows out of Heeseung, who nods, stepping away to open the bathroom door, peering into the bedroom watching as Heeseung goes to the bedroom’s door now. He sticks his head out just enough so he wouldn’t accidentally flash either of you.

“Just so everyone knows, she’s my girlfriend now!” Heeseung yells into the hallway, hearing the sound of bottles clinking together and a rather loud, “fucking finally!” Assuming it was Jay. Slamming the door behind him, you laugh watching Heeseung walk back into the bathroom, humming happily when he stops in front of you, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“You’re insane,” you laughed, a clear smile across your face expressing how you felt perfectly. Heeseung nods, a smile on his own face, giving you several small pecks agaisnt your lips.

“Yeah but you like it. My, pretty, girlfriend.”

“I do, I really do. I love you.”

Those three words bring a blush to creep up your neck to your face, giggling watching Heeseung’s expressions. He brings you into another romantic kiss, his actions soft and full of passion. He goes to slip his fingers into you but you stop him, telling him you were sore and desperately wanting a shower. He makes a joke about using the shower for another round calling him a feral beast, Heeseung laughing hard as he helps you off the sink and into the shower. He’s respectfully helping you shower without making it an excuse to initiate another round, helping dry your hair afterwards so you don’t catch a cold.

Once the both of you are ready to climb into bed, thankfully with clean sheets and comforters, you nuzzle your face into Heeseung’s chest. He smells like ocean air and sandalwood, the warmth radiating off him blanketing you in sleepy comfort. His hands fall into a repetitive rhythm of rubbing your back, your eyes starting to struggle to stay open.

“Hee,” you softly whispered, Heeseung giving you a quiet, “hm?”

You lift your head up, your eyes moving from his eyes to his lips, back up, before moving your head back to its previous position.

“I love you.”

“I love you most,” Heeseung said, wrapping you closer to him if that was even humanly possible.

The two of you fall into a comfortable silence. Not taking very long for you two to fall asleep, curled up in each other's arms. Happily content and thankful for your inability to win drinking games.

[missconchshell]

I loved this new episode of Miraculous! Oh my gosh, I didn't even realize it was coming out, but I'm so happy it did!

I've never been too too attached to either Marc or Nathaniel, but this episode really won me over! It was neat getting to see both of their parents, and show just how much of a difference unconditional support can make. It really reminded of just how lucky I am that my own parents are so accepting.

I also love the contrast in the setting as well, with Nathaniel's family physically further apart, while Marc and his parents are all bunched together on the same couch. I feel like the show has been putting in a lot more care into framing and the setup of scenes this season, and I'm all for it!

Also, this is one of the first times I've seen their new designs up close, and I'm a huge fan! Love all the little details, like Marc's eye makeup, Nathaniel's self-painted shoes and his wavy little hairclip. Just look at the happy boy!

Now, onto the meat of the episode. Nathaniel's passions (and by association himself) being rejected by his parents did get me to tear up. It hurt and felt so real, I'm amazed to see this sorta thing in a show like Miraculous.

I felt so bad watching him destroy his work and try and force himself to conform to his parents' expectations. It was a very realistic picture of this type of struggle, and is definitely something I and I'm sure many others have struggled with before. And I was shocked at how blunt the writers got with the implied homophobia with lines from his mom about making Nathaniel "go straight."

Then once it got onto the mom being named Ruler, I just kinda started laughing, like, oh, they weren't gonna be subtle at all!

And dang Lila, willing to even use homophobia to get those miraculous. Tsk tsk.

The Akuma's power was definitely pretty creepy, like I hate these eyes so much, but Lila got really dang close to getting those miraculous this time, far more than any of Gabe's minion-based akumas! And despite this being the billionth time Chat Noir's been controlled, the physicality of the animation and voice acting did a decent job of making it funny.

It was also neat that the Akuma's powers got to be used against them, with Nathaniel finally stepping forth and taking back control from his mother (side note: I loved his transformation literally having him come out of the closet, the animators knew exactly what they were doing).

I know I've ignored them most of the episode, but I will say that Marinette and Adrien were adorable as usual! And I love that he feels comfortable enough with her to tease!

Then there was the ending. I'm so glad Nathaniel's parents came to accept his love of comics (and Marc). It was a sweet moment of acceptance that not everyone is lucky enough to have, so I'm glad we at least got a happy ending here.

I also really appreciate that little serious moment at the very end. I was expecting more Lila dialogue when the ominous music started playing, but having a serious moment where they discuss how they're attacked simply living their lives was a sad but pleasant surprise. It's cool that they're acknowledging a reality that so many people face every day. But I'm so glad these boys have each other in this!

And even if I know for a fact that the identity reveal is going to blow up in their faces one day based on the show's history, it still was so adorable and I loved the scene! Just the joy on each of their faces, knowing they're not alone, was so sweet!

Overall, I'm just really impressed with the writers this season! They're tackling a lot more serious topics in these one-off episodes, and honestly doing it far better than I ever expected from this silly love-square show. So many of these stories have resonated with me, and it's been really neat getting to see so much representation of different struggles. And it's especially cool to think about how these episodes could meaningfully impact the show's younger audience as well! These are the sorts of things I wish I saw more of growing up, it would have changed little miss shell's world for the better. So, keep up the good work Miraculous Team!

[ponett]

I went digging and couldn't turn up anything, substantial or otherwise, about Matt Moylan. I need to know how low to place my expectations for my second favorite mega men, because it sounds like "pretty damn low"

Matt Moylan is the Director of Publishing over at Udon. He's been there for ages. He's also a total reactionary.

To give full context, this is gonna get a little long.

Moylan is perhaps best known for the Transformers fancomic Lil Formers, which was popular in the '00s. This isn't super important here, but allow me to go on a tangent because it's where a lot of people know the guy from, and it's mildly more entertaining than just screencapping his tweets. The comic was basically just an excuse for him to draw a bunch of chibi Transformers that people would then use in forum signatures and whatnot. Sometimes he would attach his cranky old geewunner opinions and complain about art style changes or new female characters in the dialogue, if he wasn't just making a generic joke about Wheelie being annoying or Seaspray having a silly voice or whatever.

Comedy gold, I know.

Lil Formers was well known within the fandom. Geewunners and kids who didn't know any better and just liked the chibi Transformers (guilty) loved it. Other fans grew more annoyed by Moylan's schtick. As far back as 2009 TFWiki contributor David Willis mocked it in a strip from his own webcomic, Shortpacked:

His wiki page on TFWiki also recounts a bizarre old bit of fandom drama. Moylan had previously worked for the defunct comic publisher Dreamwave, who published the Transformers comics in the early '00s, and in 2006 he went on popular Transformers forum TFW2005 to make several claims about behind the scenes conflicts and unfulfilled story plans. Most bizarre was a claim that Autobot Sunstreaker was supposed to be gay in the Dreamwave comics, which was written off as a childish attempt to rile up the fandom. His claims were all vehemently disputed by the Dreamwave writers he was shit talking, who would also accuse Moylan of anonymously slandering them and sending them threatening emails. Swell guy!

Anyway, hopefully this isn't surprising to literally anyone who's been on a forum in the last decade, but this nerd who won't shut up about the Good Ol' Days of the '80s is now a reactionary conservative who complains about how they're making everything "woke." And unfortunately he's no longer just some guy drawing dumb little one-panel comics about Transformers, he's now overseeing all of the output at Capcom's go-to comic and art book publisher in North America.

Here's some of his tweets to illustrate what he's like these days.

Yes, that's a reply to Mark "Grummz" Kern. He's also chatted up accounts like Libs of Tiktok and Comicsgate ringleader Ethan Van Sciver. Also note the reply in which he tries to tell Greg Weisman himself that Gargoyles had "not an ounce of woke." This guy's brain is fucking cooked.

Here's a take he posted about The Boys, too, just because it's really fucking funny to me:

After I and several other people posted about his behavior over on Bluesky and expressed disinterest in buying anything from Udon (such as the new Mega Man comics), he deleted his Twitter for like a week. He's since restored it, the tweets in question now long gone. Clearly it wasn't a good look for him to be making statements about his employer's values like this, sometimes in the same breath as announcements about new comics. That being said, he's issued no actual apology for his statements, and Udon hasn't acknowledged it at all. There's no reason to believe he's had a change of heart. They're just gonna pretend he never said any of this. And as of a few days ago, he's been announced as the writer for the one-shot Mega Man ZX comic that Udon is putting out later this year. Yaaaayyyy

I know there are a lot of cool people working on stuff for Udon, but Moylan being in a position of power there means I have zero interest in giving that company money. When your Director of Publishing is over on Twitter trying to court an audience of reactionary nerds and proudly proclaiming that Udon is "anti-woke, anti-DEI," and then you go to their website and the first image you see is this...

...Look, I love huge boobs as much as the next bisexual furry pervert, but this particular image in conjunction with his tweets paints a pretty clear picture of what sort of values Moylan is pushing at Udon. He wants to cater to nerds who will buy softcore Street Fighter hentai thinking it'll own the libs.

So hey, if he doesn't want my dirty woke money, fine by me. I'm not touching anything Udon publishes as long as Matt Moylan still works there.

[opencharacters]

Public Domain Day 2024

Once again its the day we all wait for, public domain day. the day some thing get ripped out of the clasps of the claws of corporations. This year is notable for many things becoming public domain but specifically a certain mouse in the united states. Here's an example of some of the things but note that this is only a sampling of what's become public domain

In Europe and other life of author + 70 years areas:

The Wind Has Risen by Tatsuo Hori

The polish Koziołek Matołek comics by Kornel Makuszyński

Mr. Weston's Good Wine by T.F Powys

In New Zealand and other life of author + 50 years areas:

J.R.R Tolkien's work, but only the ones published during his lifetime. Things published by his son Christopher are not public domain

Margaret Wilson's The Able McLaughlins

The works of crime writer Lucy Beatrice Malleson (Anthony Gilbert)

In the US:

All things published in 1928

The big one of course, Steamboat Willie and the earliest incarnation of Mickey Mouse. Disney still owns trademarks so be careful and theres some things like his gloves that didnt appear until later and im sure the Mouse's lawyers are watching like hawks

The House at Pooh Corner, first appearance of Tigger

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

Theres much more. Take a peek over at Project Gutenberg or The Internet Archive

[aaronsrpgs]

The Tight 90

(This is a continuation or a fractal reviewing of what I've written about in The Worksheet Manifesto and The Quickstart, The Home Game.)

THE TIGHT 90 is a 90-minute RPG session. It riffs on the perfect length/density of a movie, and I think it's a term I learned/stole from will jobst.

WHY RUN SHORT GAMES?

Short games are easier to fit in a schedule. (We're all so fucking busy.)

Short games are easier to pay attention to. (We're all so fucking mentally ill.)

Short games focus on the good stuff and discard the bad stuff. (We're all so fucking tired.)

HOW RUN SHORT GAMES?

Tell everyone, "We're only going to play for 90 minutes. Because of that, I'm going to focus on the things that are most interesting and exciting for everyone at table, and I'm going to skip over everything else. I would appreciate it if you would do the same. If there's something you're really excited to do, tell the table! And if things are dragging, offer an alternative that moves the game along."

But then we actually have to do that. :( How?

SET SCENES AND STAKES

Don't start in a place where nothing is happening and ask your players "What do you?" Give them something to latch onto! Give them an immediate problem! Here are the first four pages of an issue of Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, et al:

In four pages we get a fatal problem, introductions, flashbacks on how they got here, and spotlights on everyone's powers. Awesome!

And while you don't have to have your players' characters falling out of the sky, at least start them at the dungeon entrance with a couple clear things to DO.

(For more on setting scenes and stakes, check out Primetime Adventures by Matt Wilson, which Sam Dunnewold was kind enough to run for me.)

Of course, if they're falling out of the sky or standing at a foreboding dungeon entrance, some player is bound to ask, "What do I have with me?" To which I say:

CUT THE BORING SHIT

Shopping? Don't do it! If someone would logically have something, they can have it. And if they try to exploit that, they're no fun to play with! Tell them no. (More on that later.)

Conversations on meandering horseback? Don't do it! Comic writer Chuck Dixon said that if Batman and Robin needed to have a heart-to-heart, they should never just stand around talking. They should have a heart-to-heart while training on top of a speeding train.

(The example was actually Nightwing and Robin, but I didn't want people to click away and look up who Nightwing was. Also, Dixon is a shitty guy! But at least in this, he was right.)

Basically, almost anything you can get out of a shopping scene or a campfire chat, you can get from everyone falling out of the sky or trying to escape a wildfire. ALL SCENES SHOULD PULL DOUBLE DUTY AS PLOT AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

BE GENEROUS WITH INFORMATION

Imagine a scene at a gaming table. The characters walk into a house in an empty town and ask what they see. The GM tells them to roll perception. The highest result is middling at best. The GM says, "You think you can see some blood." Someone else asks if they can roll investigation. They get a middle high result. The GM says, "There are some bullet casings on the floor and claw marks on the walls." Are the claw marks big? Roll perception again. Do they look like any local animals? Roll nature.

THIS SHIT SUCKS. It's a way to take 30 minutes to poorly tell the players that something interesting happened, and it doesn't give them anything to do after.

Instead, try this: the walls are splattered with blood and empty shell casings lie cold on the floor. The blood doesn't line up with what you know about bullet wounds, though; it lines up with the huge claw marks that tear the walls and floor. And blood drops continue in a line outside...

AND THEN if a player has a cool ability or is an investigator or druid or whatever, you get to write them a cool note that says, "These claw marks are bigger than any animal from around here. Maybe bigger than any animal you've ever seen."

Other examples:

The prince says he doesn't feel threatened by the king. He's clearly lying.

Moving stealthily, you make it to the general's bedroom, but it's clear that he has some sort of sensors or security system set up there.

As a wizard, you know they're casting some sort of summoning spell, and if at least half of the cultists aren't hurt or incapacitated in five minutes, the spell will succeed.

GIVE THE SESSION AN ENDING

It could be an exciting cliffhanger if you think everyone will be there next session to pick it up. But if you're not sure, end with a calm moment where the players have a clear next step. That way you can start next session with, "Last time you'd promised the Cult of Mirrors that you would lead them in war against the Skeleton Army. They're ready to go and ask you what your plan is."

FURTHER HOMEWORK

"How To End Things" by Jason Morningstar. On cutting scenes. Don't be fooled by the Patron link; it's free.

"Grand Experiments: West Marches" by Ben Robbins. The ur-text of running player-motivated sessions that don't require everyone to be there.

BUT WHAT IF!!!

What if rolling investigation rolls are vital to building tension in my mystery game? What if knowing the exact inventory and distance are vital to my high-stress dungeon game? What if campfire stories are my favorite part of our cozy travel game?

COOL! There are lots of resources out there for you, so this isn't for you. But maybe I could tempt you into considering a different style of game sometimes?

(Special thanks to @ladytabletop for supporting my Tight 90 obsession.)

[pi-creates]

I can’t stop being upset about Veilguard’s writing, and apparently the only way I can get it out of my thoughts is to put it down in words, so here we go…

I’m frustrated, I’m upset, and the longer I think about the way this game was written, the more problems present themselves… and I bloody hate that. It feels like a first draft writing effort, and every time I’m reminded that this game was in development for so many years, I cannot fathom this being the end result. Dragon Age 2 had 16 months of development, and it feels more cohesive and put together writing-wise. I can see the years of polish in the visuals, but the spectacle of the game doesn’t blind me to all the problems in the writing.

Naturally, these are personal opinions, I am genuinely thrilled for people who have played the game and enjoyed it – I wish I could be there enjoying it with you – but clearly these things get under my skin more and spoil the experience for me when they aren’t problems for you. And I also acknowledge there are genuine good parts of the game which I enjoy, but those moments aren’t enough to overshadow the negative experiences that irk me.

And because this post has apparently gotten away from me… I’m gonna put some headings to summarise the problems I’m having, because otherwise this is just a massive rant with no structure.

Show me things, stop just telling it to me.

So much of the game feels like writer’s notes where they put “what the player should take away from this scene” and instead of being creative with how they do that, they just say it verbatim. My immersion in this game was being broken by the game reminding me it’s a video game – which yes, I know it is, but I want to be invested in this world and feel like I’m part of it.

Varric and the game’s own pop-up system is the main problem that’s consistent through the whole game – constantly dropping narration or mission summary where they have zero problem dropping exposition on us and/or spoiling future content. Forget letting me explore these things and reach my own conclusions, the game is going to make sure I know exactly the interpretation I’m meant to have for every moment.

And it’s so damn frequent, I feel like they don’t think I’m paying attention and therefore need to constantly poke me with reminders instead of trusting me to reach my own conclusions. Do they not trust me to have an attention span long enough to go on a walk with Davrin without reminding me at the end of the walk that I did that?

To add to that problem, I absolutely hate how the writing just has people know things – they shouldn’t know this, they shouldn’t be talking to us about this, all evidence points to them not being able to know or be ok discussing this, but for some reason they do.

The Veil Jumpers suddenly just know how to translate and interact with ancient elven artifacts, ignore how the Dalish have been trying to do that since the fall of the Dales (and realistically, even before that) and their efforts over those hundreds of years were a scrap, a pittance of what could be known. But I guess the Veil Jumpers are just better than those hundreds of years in the few years they’ve been active.

Oh, and the scary reputation of the Dalish is just gone? These people just go to the elves they have deemed “savages” because they simply know these ones have good intentions? This world has been established as very untrusting of the intentions of other groups, but that’s simply gone now for this one – I wish I was shown how this started in some way instead of just being told it’s chill now.

And don’t get me started on Strife and Irelin and their seemingly endless knowledge that they shouldn’t have. I read the comics, I get that they’d probably know about the Dreadwolf and have a vested interest in learning more once that particular bit of information was revealed to them – but they somehow also just know about the mask Cyrian is wearing? They know it will influence him but not control his will? Why do you know this with no doubt whatsoever?

Why can’t these things just be presented as theories? Or give us something to find and reference where that information comes from? I want to learn things without just having characters tell me things they know.

And overall, I hate how this game decides to just exposition dump information on us, then we sit around and talk about the exposition dump – it’s overwhelming in magnitude. It feels like such a passive way to have us engage with everything, and this is supposed to be an interactive experience. Instead of being force-fed exposition in big chunks, drip feed details, let us put the puzzle together, let us gather and discuss what we learn with multiple interpretations like the RPG this is meant to be.

And this exposition problem also ruins the stakes in the game for me. Personal interpretation, probably, but the stakes in this game feel artificially inflated to me via having characters constantly tell Rook they are going up against the biggest threat ever. We bring in past heroes of the series to reiterate that, how they think we’re up against worse things than they faced… and I don’t feel that. Telling me constantly how hopeless things are, but every obstacle ends up being overcome relatively easily and without great losses… no, I don’t feel the stakes are real.

Oh, and hearing the talk of how all of Thedas is in trouble, there is so much destruction and only Rook can save them… why don’t you find a way to show me that? Because I’m not feeling that, I’m not seeing it, and I’m starting to think the Inquisitor is making stuff up so Rook doesn’t ask them to get involved again when they’re so busy.

This is a lore problem in the series…

Plot holes and wonky lore can happen, it’s not surprising… especially when there are three games prior to this as well as several books, comics, and other branches of the universe. There have been inconsistencies since the start, and a lot of it doesn’t matter – I don’t care if the second moon is forgotten about, the moon not being there isn’t going to make a problem with the way the story is told since that moon is never something elaborated upon in the plot.

This game though… it has problem that are both related to information in this game not being consistent with previous games, and information within its own contained plot contradicting itself.

I’m not going to beat the dead horse of “this isn’t how the previous games did it/explained it”, people who played the previous games are aware, I don’t see a point of elaborating in detail all the instances of this. Just take some dot points of the one’s I noticed:

The Crows are a horrifying organisation that are suddenly presented wholesome

The Qun offering to rehabilitate Karash is horrifying and it’s presented wholesome

Slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter, but we don’t see that

Racism is supposed to be rampant in Tevinter (and other nations, but particularly here for any non-human), and we also don’t see that

Handling pure lyrium is fine now (unless you’re Harding)

Adult Dalish without vallaslin (Elgar’nan’s captives)

Fenharel’s agents are just gone now – as are all signs of mass elven exodus from cities

Solas’ opinion on blood magic is suddenly negative instead of neutral

Spirits dying is given the same weight as people dying

Flemeth…….just everything about Flemeth and Morrigan

Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction

Isabela’s attitude towards Shathann sending Taash away without their knowledge (the comics make me doubt she’d be cool with this)

Non-Dalish elves knowing things about ancient elves and elven language

Blight sickness and how darkspawn are “born” (some leeway for this one since the blight is overall just different in this one, but it does feel less interesting this way)

Morrigan naming the Crossroads in lieu of the true name being lost to time, but everyone uses the term now

Crossroads looking different through elven eyes

You can’t just make people be magic/not magic (me side-eyeing Illario and his random ability to do magic now)

This is a contained problem in this game…

What troubles me more is the inconsistencies within the same game… that isn’t just deciding “this is how it works now in this iteration”, this is a problem that they wrote into existing, then either didn’t notice or didn’t resolve appropriately. And granted, some of these things aren’t inherently plot holes, but when you put certain aspects under inspection, it doesn’t make things look good.

For starters… I have to talk about Varric. Or more accurately, not-Varric.

I’m under the impression that not-Varric is simply Rook’s memory of Varric being projected for them. I personally don’t think there’s some extra level of Solas interference in what Rook is seeing moment to moment… and I feel the need to state that because Rook’s memory cannot conjure up information that Rook doesn’t know.

So why does not-Varric point out that the ritual dagger is the dagger from DA2?

Rook could not recognise it, there is absolutely no reason for Rook to even theorise that – so not-Varric should not be able to impart this knowledge to Rook. And what makes this worse for me, aside from being an impossible situation as the plot presents it, is that this observation doesn’t matter in the slightest. They put this backstory to the McGuffin Dagger and I don’t know why since all it does is create a plot hole. The only purpose I can see for this moment existing at all is to bolster the illusion that not-Varric is real and trying to help with the cause in whatever way possible.

Then there are other issues with Varric not being alive which makes other character’s lack of talking about him feel awful. Like, it’s not natural the way people avoid mentioning him when it would be very appropriate to do so – and I understand that to an extent, the game’s gotta game – they want to surprise us and therefore the characters aren’t going to blatantly give the surprise away early. But the Inquisitor doesn’t ask after him at all? Doesn’t mention how Kirkwall is coping now that the viscount is dead? Dorian doesn’t say anything after learning Varric found Solas in his city and then died? Isabela has nothing to say about Varric until after the illusion is broken for Rook?

It makes it feel like Varric’s friends (aside from Harding, the only person who seems to actively mourn him at the start of the game) don’t give two shits that he’s gone.

That’s not even accounting for how characters don’t bother to check in with Rook who is constantly talking with the companions about their various issues of mourning, hearing voices or apparitions, and just checking in with them overall – but none of that is seemingly reciprocated.

Frankly, this makes me feel awful. I feel awful for Varric being seen as so disposable that his friends don’t mention him or his absence. I feel awful for Rook who is apparently not worth the direct effort that they offer others.

And I try to think of how a new player to this series would feel about all of this – because Varric was just some guy who walked us through a tutorial in this game. Most of our time with him is fake, any connection I saw form between Rook and Varric in this game isn’t real – but then Rook mourns Varric more than he mourns the companions we have spent most of the game with.

I don’t like it.

And I don’t like the utilisation of returning characters. Morrigan, or as she’s utilised in this game deus-ex-Morrigan, has a new view of Flemeth and therefore she will take on Mythal’s soul fragment so she can again swoop in and save the day by handing us the means to get a reconciliation type ending… it couldn’t be something that characters in this game figure out, just have a returning character provide us with the magic solution. Also ignore how the whole reason Morrigan was afraid of her mother in the DAO and DAI was that her body would get taken over by her spirit… but I guess that doesn’t happen now. We can just create new rules for this iteration because it’s easier to tell the story this way.

Solas is also just… I’m so upset by what was done with him. He was a character in DAI who told half-truths or lied by omission, leaving others to assume false information without him actually saying it – it was never just blatant lies to take advantage of others. And his motivations were about restoration of something he felt he had robbed the world, it was about righting what he viewed as a mistake which lead to such a cascade of problems that he needed to somehow rectify it. Whether you agree with his point of view or his desires doesn’t matter, his principles remain the same in terms of what motivates him.

Then this game happens and he’s just a liar constantly, and not even a clever one if you can apparently just trick him up with a “woopsie, this isn’t the real dagger”, and he also apparently has no insight into the idea that Rook would anticipate that.

They make him act like the worst interpretation someone could have of him, the thing he actively was trying to tell us was a false interpretation in DAI and the comics. But history was written and remembered by those who experienced the negative outcomes of his choices, and they remembered that as the greatest evil in comparison to what else could have been. But apparently in this game, that’s the truth now. His motivation is about his desires and he cares nothing for the people who has hurt or will be hurt. But it’s ok, because just as easily as his motivation changed between DAI and Veilguard, it will be changed again at end game if you listen to deus-ex-Morrigan.

Then there are smaller things, but things that really would have been caught if someone was just paying a little bit of attention…

Like Harding and Emmrich going camping in Fereldan… which if we’re to believe the things the Inquisitor was saying about Southern Thedas, I don’t think you’re going to have a fun trip. But I’m glad they’re able to find some time for a vacation while the refugees are getting blighted all over.

Or Rook actively saying “I should talk to Varric” directly in front of characters in the lead up to end-game, and those characters choosing to completely ignore that.

Or in Neve’s companion story, Aelia deciding to interrogate the witness to the red lyrium deal right next to where it happened. She didn’t need to be in the area, she was puppetting the smuggler, and she clearly has insight into what the person is seeing and doing while puppetting them. So I guess she’s just there so we can figure out she was involved.

Or the game telling us that Anaris need Cyrian to perform rituals for him since Anaris doesn’t have a physical body to do them himself… except he apparently doesn’t because he can kill Cyrian when he disobeys. I still would like to know if Cyrian ever died originally, by the way, and if so how he’s back and seemingly normal – this game likes to answer big lore questions like it’s nothing, but they just gloss over details like this.

Or how in Emmrich’s missions, Manfred’s spirit dies and can just be brought back to life… so I guess spirits dying means nothing if they can be brought back with their memory and personality intact. So that Solas flashback where we were supposed to be appalled that spirits died? Apparently there was nothing lost there, someone just needs to revive them and they can carry on as normal.

Or how the rewrite of DAI’s ending cutscene implies that Solas killed Flemeth/Mythal… before he had the power to do so since the whole reason he has been able to do anything in this game is because he absorbed her amassed power. So Flemeth/Mythal would have to let her power go willingly since Solas should not be able to forcibly take it, but clearly, she didn’t since the dialogue we’re given is her being reluctant. Solas apparently has the power he needs to do things when the plot demands it, but also no power when the plot demands it (aka, when Rook needs to prove they’re better than him).

Or the crew making a fake Ritual dagger near end game. For no reason whatsoever. They just decided to do that knowing it would only be a prop, but they had no plans that even involved a prop at that point – so they just did this because the plot told them they had to.

And speaking of that Ritual dagger… all the old elves want that dagger for one reason of another, but they never seem to try to get it when they can, or they don’t seem too concerned when it’s not in their grip anymore. Solas doesn’t try to hold onto it after Varric gets stabbed. Elgar’nan doesn’t try to pick it up after it kills Ghilan’nain, in spite of him knowing it’s the one thing that can kill him… nope, just leave it there and peace out.

Or my personal most hated thing – Isseya and her stupid motivation making no sense.

I cannot fathom the logic of having Isseya, a warden who was forced to blight griffons, who came to resent this order as she watched the griffons go mad, made it her mission to safeguard a clutch of eggs, takes the blight from the eggs into herself while using magic to put the eggs into status, then goes off to her calling which doesn’t actually end in her death… and somehow, 400 years later, she’s decided that since those eggs have hatched and the griffons are healthy and unblighted, the thing she wanted, but they’re in the hands of wardens which she doesn’t really like, so now she’s gonna go get those griffons to blight them.

Literally doing the thing that made her so mad at the wardens. Because she wants to save the griffons from the wardens and their cruelty… by repeating it… I just… this is nonsense.

If she’s capable of articulating that she’s mad at the wardens for their cruelty to the griffons, then she shouldn’t be repeating it thinking she’s saving the griffons. If she was just keeping the griffons captive to keep them away from the wardens, then I could buy that, but adding the element of her wanting to blight them just makes this nonsensical.

Oh and never talk the First Warden down – it will make the final scenes with Isseya even worse if he tells you about the feather from her griffon and show it to her. Because I don’t even think Isseya dies in that variant of the cutscene, she just says sorry and rolls on the floor while I guess Rook and Davrin let the griffons out…

Who is Rook?

Usually, in a game like this, choices are what make us feel like an active participant in the world. It helps us build up our own character and determine how/why they behave the way they do, and also how the world around them is shaped by the consequences of those moments.

But this game feels so stripped of choice, especially choice which is any way related to morality or priorities that aren’t standard ‘Hero traits’. Rook will always do the right thing, they can’t be motivated by personal desires, excitement, monetary gain, fame, etc…. and when Rook is forced to make a choice, there is no option which would be looked at as unreasonable by companions. They might give us an approval/disapproval pop up, but it never really feels like Rook is capable of being incompatible with anyone, they will always be seen as justified in companion’s eyes. And to me, this makes Rook as the game presents them incredibly bland.

Most of Rook’s unique characterisation happens in the character creator – the game gives us minimal chances to expand or form a personality for Rook that is significantly different from any other person who plays the game. We do the heavy lifting here, we transpose qualities on Rook because the game won’t give us meaningful opportunities to do that.

And not only do I feel like the game lacks choices that would help us define Rook, it lacks decisions that make me feel like I’m having any impact on the world overall. I can defend Minrathous or I can defend Treviso… this is the one choice we make which seems to actually shape the world we play in.

And it doesn’t even come up as something Rook can regret in the sequence about regrets… Rook apparently is faced with only regrets that are the result of other people’s decisions to volunteer to do something. But the one thing where Rook actually has to actively choose something, something they are actually responsible for the suffering on the side they don’t defend… that isn’t something they can regret.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Surely, if Rook should regret anything it should be the thing they feel direct responsibility for, no? But Rook doesn’t. Because Rook doesn’t regret anything they do, because they aren’t written with choices that they can regret since they aren’t seen as responsible for negative outcomes.

Honestly, that sequence might as well have been about mourning or sadness rather than regret, because Rook has to be upset at the loss of companions, we don’t get to influence that. But Rook isn’t regretful – that’s how they get out – but I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t then make us able to actively regret the legitimate choices we make, rather than feeling regret for our companions deciding to risk themselves.

Rook feels like an outside observer to everything that happens around them. They are the mediator, the sounding board, the magic-8-ball for decision making when companions need a push because they’re stuck. Sure, they do things, but for an RPG the way they go about things feels so linear.

And on another note… why is Rook seen as important? They start championing Varric’s cause in his absence, they want to stop the veil coming down and that starts with stopping Solas, then stopping Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. But to the outside observer, Rook is just some guy who says they are on an important missions, and they really need to speak with all these important leaders of factions – just trust them, I’m sure the First Warden is happy to make time for a meeting. And also the First Talon of the Crows, I’m sure they are fine with just some foreign person saying they need to meet your leader.

What I’m trying to get at is that Rook has no title, your group isn’t given any proper title or status which these people can look at and assume Rook is being truthful, trustworthy, or even worth their time. No one has any reason to hear Rook out, but in this game, they either just do, or they don’t and it’s because they’re actually a bad guy.

But Rook is no one special. They realistically shouldn’t be trusted like they are, they should absolutely be struggling to be taken seriously by others but it’s portrayed as unfair when that does happen. But they’re the protagonist, and it’s like everyone in the world simply knows that. I want Rook to struggle, I want them to grow and prove themselves, but it feels like we skip passed that to get straight to the fantasy of being in charge and considered fit for that role. 

Pacing and feeling like something was missing…

The start and ending throw a lot at us and expect us to keep on running – but then the middle portion of the game suffers due to the companions putting a stop sign on the plot so you can do their companion quests. And they aren’t shy about telling you “you need to stop and do our quests or we’ll be distracted at end game”… and again, thank you game for explaining game mechanics to me.

I was going to complete character quests, because if I care about the characters of course I’m going to do that. Having to actually pause the plot and have the characters explain to you that you have to care… I don’t know how to explain this, but it immediately took me out of the fragile immersion I was trying to get into. It makes me upset with the companions for reasons I can’t put into words. Maybe it’s because in one fell swoop it made me see them as checklists to be completed instead of people I wanted to know? I’m not sure, if someone had a similar reaction to this moment and has a better explanation, I would love to be enlightened on what it is that makes me so uncomfortable about this.

But I digress, the problem here is that the plot grinds to a halt. We stop doing things which feel like we’re advancing our plan of stopping the big baddies, we just kind of patter around and make sure our companions feel ok. And most of those missions to help our companions aren’t connected to the enemy we’re facing… Aelia, Anaris, Hezenkoss, Illario, The Dragon King, Isseya – they aren’t agents of the big baddies, they are just enemies that pop up at the same time as the big baddies are around, and are therefore making the situation worse.

So yes, we’re still doing stuff, but it feels like fluff. It feels like a detour while we just hope the world doesn’t burn while we stop to go on another picnic.

This is something that happens in a lot of games, the urgency isn’t real because you can stop progressing plot to go for a long walk if you want to – but in none of the other games did it feel so blatant to me. I still felt like most of the little tasks in the interim of plot advancement were at least advancing the cause in little ways… I don’t feel that with a lot of the things that happen in the middle of the game. It just becomes about companion missions; the bad guys will wait until we sort that out, the blight will stop advancing so we can have family dinners and go for walks.

And I really don’t know how to explain this, but it feels like something is missing in how the story progresses. Like extra things were meant to be happening and they are just not there. Maybe this is another part of how the game often just tells me things that happen in scene transitions, or it’s me really wishing there were more actual plot advancing missions in the middle of the game.

This problem I think also is most evident in the romances. Veilguard seems to take its romance pacing more from the Mass Effect games than the previous Dragon Age games – and while it was acceptable in Mass Effect to have very few romance scenes, and predominantly only having one big scene which culminates at end game, but suddenly introducing it in this series makes it feel like a huge downgrade from previous instalments.

It feels like we’re missing things, we’re given banters by companions commenting on the progress of our relationship and our partner can talk about how close they feel to our Rook – we’re given the impression our relationship is strong and established midway through the game. But with how strong the characters talk, it feels like we should have experienced so many more interactions with our partner to substantiate that.

For comparisons sake, in DAI if you enter a romance prior to going to the Winter Palace, you get romantic dialogue with your partner if they’re present, you get a dance, you get to feel like you’re in a relationship as it’s developing into something deeper. You get more interactions as the game goes on, moving from spoken interest, kisses, and intimacy (in most cases). It’s a slow build, and let’s you feel the build up by giving you glimpses of each step as the relationship develops, and then letting you just experience being in the relationship.

This game feels like it gives us the bare minimum in actual content, but has characters talk about how established the relationship is. The heavy lifting is again left to us to interpret all these blank spaces and fill in how this relationship is developing. The problem isn’t inherently with what the game gives us, it's what it doesn’t.

It lets us choose a relationship in the middle of the game, then it doesn’t give us all the progression – rather it gives us the minimal amount of snippets to meet the checklist of “they express interest, they mutually agree to be in a relationship, the relationship is consummated physically”. Sure, we can continue to pick flirt/love based dialogues, but it doesn’t feel nearly as strong as the banters seem to be telling us it is. And over all, we can go a very long time between each progression point.

I love this franchise, and I so desperately wanted to like this instalment… and instead I feel hollow.

[martyrbat]

help the mutuals and dash were taking about gotham war and i just realized we weren't all (rightfully) shitting on war games again

[lej222]

Supernatural Involvement and Ominous Signs in ASLFUA

For a while, many readers have theorized that there is some kind of a higher power/higher being in ASLFUA, and looking at the latest episodes it seems to have been confirmed. With this post, I've tried to gather every instance of the higher power's implied presence and all the ominous scenes in the story. I also included foreshadowing scenes that could have made Miae aware of certain things if she had paid attention because coincidences are important in the story, and certain moments that were defining in the plot. The list contains spoilers for the newest KR episodes and it keeps being updated.

Episode 2 :

Miae is reading a book in the library about how the last day of 1999 will be the end of the world: "'1999, a terrifying overlord is coming...the end of the human race.." -> this might be a reference to the famous prophecy of Nostradamus in which in the 7th month of 1999 a great king of terror would descend from the skies (which makes me think...is it July in the story right now?)

The Hwang family's phone stops working

Miae's dresser breaks and therefore she has to take out the trash, where she sees Cheol crying

"This boy is about to be this girl's most special person, someone whom she will never be able to forget."

Episode 3

Miae and her mother visit the Buddha statue and Miae's wish is not to be in the same class with Cheol - it doesn't come true.

Miae, Cheol and Jisu all become classmates in their last year. Miae and Cheol become deskmates by coincidence.

Episode 4

Cheol's furniture becomes Miae's, along with the contents of his dresser, something only he knows about

Episode 5

Yunhui calls Miae on their new cordless phone, the line is interrupted by another conversation, "Did you get the present I sent you?" - it sounds like a message to Miae from the higher power about Cheol

Episode 8

Miae ruins her bangs, her mother says she should do something about her hair - the first time we are told Miae should go to a hairdresser to fix it

Hwanggeum Academy uses corporal punishment - might be relevant later on?

Miae has to go to karaoke so she gives up on going to the hair salon (this foreshadowing is super crazy btw)

Episode 9

Cheol is compared to the protagonist of the comic Miae reads, 'My First Love Next Door Is Number 1' - gets into trouble and transfers, fights the school bully and wins, nicknamed Lucifer, has a facial scar, lives next door

As Miae is thinking about Cheol, her thoughts are interrupted by a cockroach in the classroom

Episode 11

Miae notes how strange it is that she keeps seeing Cheol while they didn't bump into each other the previous year (just like how Jisu later keeps commenting how strange he keeps meeting Miae) - Miae acknowledges the higher power

Yunhui's pager says "between friends goodbye"

Episode 12

Miae has a weird feeling when she's talking to Cheol's shoe as if it understands what she's saying

Episode 15

In her dream, Miae remembers Cheol crying and her making a wish with a stone tower about how she wants to be his friend. The phone suddenly rings, the TV becomes static and there's a storm outside despite the weather forecast not saying anything about it. The other end of the phone is silent and the lights go out.

Episode 17

Cheol's shoe gets smudged with ink so Miae cannot give it back to him. She cannot concentrate on her practice test, foreshadowing her involvement with Cheol's academy.

Episode 21

Miae again remembers some memories about Cheol saying he doesn't want to be her friend while she's sleeping

Side note: while Soonkki is a great writer, there's some inconsistency about Jisu's seating arrangement. I think she always meant him to sit in Block 1, that's why we got limited panels of that area of the classroom, but his position kept changing until his official introduction. Here, he should have been sitting in front of Seonghan, but there's another boy in that seat. In episode 23, we get a panel of Block1 again, and there's a boy who looks like Jisu from behind in that.

She again remembers her time with Cheol while sleeping on the bus

Episode 24

Daebak Academy notebook says "The teacher is spoon-feeding you, so why can't you pass" -> the higher power is giving hints to Miae, why can't she understand them?

Episode 29

Miae thinks about how she doesn't bump into Cheol as much as before, we get a close-up of the shoe and the Daebak Academy notebook

Episode 37

Miae falls on Cheol while playing soccer

Episode 39

Miae and Cheol are arguing but still bump into each other because of their parents

While Miae thinks about how Cheol should smile at people, she almost gets hit by a ball but Cheol saves her.

Episode 40

Cheol goes to Miae's house to do their homework. Miae's mother says she wonders if it will rain before she leaves. Cheol tries to change the lightbulb in Miae's room, but the lights go out because of the storm. Miae thinks "again?" and they fall on each other. She tells Cheol they should be friends.

Episode 41

Cheol agrees to be Miae's friend and we see a flashback of young Miae wishing they would be friends. While they are doing their homework the rain stops. Miae says planes even fly in the rain and Cheol replies that airplanes fly above the clouds.

Episode 42

Miae answers their phone and the line is interrupted again. Someone thanks their boss for the present and says they will do well on their own from now. -> is it a sign Miae should do well on her own after the hints?

Interesting to note that every time Miae might be involved with the higher power, certain objects in her room are highlighted - Cheol's shoe, the lamp, the notebooks. They all give signs to Miae that she keeps ignoring.

Episode 43

Cheol and Yonghui point out that Miae should get a haircut. Miae ends up cutting it herself instead of going to a salon.

Episode 45

Miae wishes upon a star instead of a plane so that the presentation in class will go okay. This actually comes true, as also noted by the narrator in ep 46.

Episode 46

Daebak Academy booklet says "nothing comes easy"

Episode 47

Something I've noticed is that throughout the story Miae keeps thinking she forgot something, and there's usually a situation that seems like the answer to it. Here, it turns out she forgot about Jinseop's homework. And Taekwang's song is about how someone cannot do both things at the same time. It was the same when she forgot about her homework while playing soccer. Forgetting about things is a recurring plot point for Miae, which culminates in the Jisu subplot where we learn Miae completely forgot about his existence even though she didn't have many friends who were boys.

Episode 50

Cheol's father wants to take a picture of Cheol and Miae, but Cheol refuses

Episode 51

Miae again cuts her own hair and wonders if she cut it too straight

Episode 55

Cheol kicks Miae's pencil into Jisu's chair (side note: you can see here again how Jisu's seating arrangement was inconsistent, he should have been closer to the window)

Episode 56

Miae gets sent out to the corridor with Jisu

Miae's friends talk about handsome boys and someone mentions the number1 student (Jisu)

Episode 60

Jisu becomes Miae's folk dance partner - the first time Cheol and Miae are not doing something together

Episode 61

Hwanggeum Academy booklet says "there's nothing you can't do if you put the work in, do not expect a miracle" when Miae is struggling with the dance

Episode 65

Cheol's father takes a picture of Cheol and Miae after the sports festival

Episode 66

In Miae's dream, Cheol's sister says for a while means 5-6 yrs, Miae counts she will be in middle school by then. There's also a memory of Miae running after Cheol, saying "wait for me".

Miae's mother tells her to get a haircut but Miae replies she needs a bigger allowance for it.

The narrator says Miae should watch where she's walking after she bumps into Cheol.

Episode 67

Miae loses her name tag and Jisu finds it

Episode 70

Miae wonders how her wishes never come true, but remembers she also made one with the stone tower as a kid, but cannot recall what it was about.

Episode 71

Miae's mom notes their phone keeps ringing since yesterday. That day Miae wanted to tease Cheol with how she heard him saying he "loved her" in the shop and she saw him shirtless the same night.

Miae doesn't realize it was Jisu who called her a pervert

Episode 72

Miae notices someone wearing her name tag (Jisu), but doesn't find the culprit

Episode 75

Cheol wants to ask Miae something, but the homeroom teacher interrupts. Miae and Jisu get called to the teachers' room and have to do cleaning duty together for a week.

Episode 76

We see Miae's mom at a hair salon - could the lady in orange be Jisu's mother? who knows

Episode 77

Cheol stands up for Miae, but when Honggyu asks if they are dating, they both vehemently deny it. It suddenly starts raining.

Episode 78

Miae and cheol promise to be friends for real, forever. The narration comments, "But will they end up regretting their promise?". The rain stops. "1999, the final year of the century is half over" -> Miae's story is half over at this point. I have pointed out this before, but the series seems to be about the transition period between childhood and young adulthood, symbolized by the last year before the new millennium. Hence the title, 'green apple academy'

In her dream, Miae remembers asking Cheol if they are friends. She is awoken by their phone. the Daebak Academy notebook says "you are in danger if you are relaxed" and we see a girl talking to Cheol.

Episode 81

Cheol and Miae fall on each other and almost kiss, but the phone rings. Later, they do end up in the same position with an accidental kiss.

Episode 82

Miae wants to confront Cheol about the kiss and gets embarrassed, but her actions are interrupted when the trash bag she gave Jisu splits open, spilling its contents. Miae runs to him to collect it.

Episode 83

While Miae talks to her friends, she thinks back on her memories with Cheol and the narration says "I always liked.." and Miae looks surprised by it.

Episode 86

Interesting detail that Cheol doesn't know why Miae keeps looking at airplanes. If we assume she has a reason for doing it from the past, it's likely not related to Cheol.

Episode 87

Miae uses the trashbag as an excuse to run away from Cheol, repeating how she has to throw it out. All of a sudden, Jisu appears and takes it out of her hand, giving her a chance to run. It's just my personal theory that the trashbag here symbolizes Miae's vulnerability and reluctance to face her feelings, and Jisu takes it from her hand. It makes sense when we remember how his words made her think about her actions when she wanted to interrupt the confession. It's a great early foreshadowing that Jisu might play an important role in Miae's growth story as her voice of reason.

Episode 89

Cheol and Miae take photos together in a photo booth, first with Jinseop and Song-I, then the two of them alone. We don't know if Miae still has her pictures, but we can assume she somehow lost them during running around from the bullies because we never see them again. Cheol gives her a new name tag in the next episode.

Episode 95

Cheol gifts Miae an airplane model for her birthday. I personally believe this episode marks the end of the first part of the story and it's a turning point, but more about this under ep96.

While Miae leaves for school, their phone suddenly rings and her mom answers it. Miae sees posters about love on her way to school. For the first time, Jisu arives early for cleaning duty.

Episode 96

The series has had 2 symbolic illustrations at the end of 2 episodes. The first one was at the end of ep2, when Cheol and Miae's story started in the present:

Miae is offering a green apple to Cheol - a biblical allusion, here, the green apple probably signifies how Miae helps Cheol in the first part of the story to mature and grow as a person with her own knowledge.

This illustration comes at the end of ep96. Like I mentioned, I believe this marks the start of the second half of the story which focuses on Miae's growth as a person. Space is an important concept in the series, Miae also has planet stickers on the wall of her room,has a charm on her bag, etc.

"16 years old. An age much like the universe." "16 years old. An age where it's like you're thrown into space." - highlights the narration.

But why is it compared to space? We have the illustration right after Jisu splashes water on Miae's face and Cheol wakes up from his dream. In my opinion, it's because this is where these kids' limited worlds start to expand. In part 1, Cheol and Miae were mainly together, but as you grow up you start to feel like you're just one insignificant part of a greater whole. You might feel like you're the center of the universe when you're a teenager, and that the world is ending when you experience negative emotions, but as the illustration shows us, it's not just Miae and Cheol standing alone in the universe. There are other people, facing different directions, but they are all interconnected by an invisible force. Miae is looking at Cheol, but Jisu is standing in her shadow- because even though she was not aware of him, Jisu had his own life happening parallel to what we saw in part1, and this is where he starts to have an intersection with Miae. If there is a higher power in the story, it is aware of all these connections and talks about youth in a nostalgic way. The sense that these moments are fleeting is always present in the story, however, connections formed between individuals will always have a lasting impact, just like how the universe will continue to exist. Being thrown into space might feel like losing your footing, but here it's the personal relationships that ground these teenagers and make them stay close to Earth.

Episode 98

The teacher tells Miae to cut her hair after Jisu takes the blame for ruining the plant.

Cheol is acting strange because of his dream, and while Jisu looks at Miae the narration box says: "16 years old. An age riddled with the unknown, just like the universe."

Episode 99

Miae's hair gets stuck in the zipper of Cheol's bag and he pulls it out, ruining her bangs in the process. They go to the infirmary after Miae gets scratched by the zipper.

Episode 100

At the countryside, while Miae picked a flower she thought how nice it would be if Cheol came to her school - and it became true. She thinks how it was so strange -> Miae again unknowingly acknowledges the higher power when it comes to Cheol

Episode 101

It's raining and the TV is not working in Cheol's home. He remembers taking a picture with Miae in the countryside. He asks his father about the picture on the sports day -> the data was lost. Miae gets grounded by her mother and she wants her to quit the academy.

Episode 102

I've mentioned symbolic objects in the story, but this one was noted by other readers as well: in ep 101, Miae accidentally drops the chalkboard eraser out of the window and Jisu fails to catch it - but Cheol does. However, in this episode Miae tosses it back to Jisu before saying she hopes they'll never see each other again (it's the first, but not the last time she declares it).

Cheol fails to convince Miae's mom about the academy -> Miae's mom points out Miae's grades have been dropping since last year. She makes her stance clear - she wants Miae to study.

Episode 103

It's raining and Miae cannot open Cheol's drawer in her room.

She tries to cut her hair, but the phone rings. On the other line, Miae hears someone saying "I only did what I did because you wanted it so bad, but you screwed up that chance! You don't deserve that project, I'm going to hand it to someone else." -> the first time the higher power tries to directly say Miae is late

Miae's mom cuts her hair instead of sending her to a salon...

Miae loses the name tag Cheol gave her

Episode 104

Jisu says "see you again" to Miae (and will keep saying for a while lol). Miae points out she never wanted to see him again.

Episode 106

After the teacher discovers their conversations in class, Miae and Cheol get separated and Miae becomes Jisu's deskmate. Miae and Cheol are not allowed to interact until the final exams are over.

Hwanggeum Academy's notebook remarks "Do you regret it now?"

Episode 107

Miae dreams about the flower from the countryside and a voice says she should hurry up and do what she wants about her wish if she remembers. She doesn't remember and the voice gets angry, Cheol appears and crushes the flower, telling her if she doesn't remember she should just forget it. The voice remarks Cheol is angry because Miae is late.

Episode 111

Jisu, who has also become aware of the coincidences, tells Cheol he's not the only one having something special with Miae.

When Miae calls Jisu her friend from the same class and tells him he should learn for himself, Jisu tries to say something, but he is interrupted by Cheol.

Episode 112

Miae thinks about their bet and how she should ask something serious, something more than friends do from Cheol, and we get a bunch of error messages. Cheol's dream is all fuzzy.

Jisu wins the bet, but we never get to know his wish because Miae gets angry at him.

Episode 115

The narration points out Cheol has changed and matured a lot, is it Miae's turn?

Episode 116

We see some posters about a summer festival, the forest in Midsummer Night's Dream and how everything is the product of coincidence.

The forest in Shakespeare's play is dominated by the supernatural - what we have in common with this story is the forest Miae and Cheol played together as kids, and obviously the involvement of a higher power. The coincidences poster is possibly a reference to Carl Jung's Synchronicity, a concept that states that seemingly meaningful coincidences have a deeper meaning, they don't have a rational explanation - almost like destiny, a deeper order in the universe. It's a connection between one's psyche and the material world (so you have to notice and acknowledge the deeper meaning of these coincidences in order to experience synchronicity). Jung used this to argue for the existence of the paranormal. For example, if you cannot decide something, you might come across a book on the topic. What a coincidence, right? In this interpretation, everything is interconnected in the universe, and we are a part of this web of connections. So those coincidences...were actually not coincidences. -> Hmmmmm.....I wonder.....meaningful coincidences, the universe, connections...why do they sound familiar??? BECAUSE OUR STORY IS EXACTLY ABOUT THIS NOTION! Who notices these coincidences? Miae about Cheol, Jisu about Miae....One has to be open to the possibility of the connection between our inner world and the outside world, only then they can start to notice the signs the universe is sending them. Soonkki, you deserve my applause! Because it was exactly what I said about the art at the end of ep 96 and the placement of the characters. Mind? Blown!

Miae thinks that she feels something is wrong

Yunhui's pager says friends goodbye

Jisu gets involved in the Yonghui-Yunhui storyline by coincidence

Episode 117

We see all the coincidences from Jisu's perspective and how he became aware of them. And what does he say about them? That they are fascinating and kind of funny! My boy Jisu got the synchronicity message.

This is the 3rd time Miae and Jisu didn't hold hands. The first time Miae pretended to help him up, only for him to fall back. Then Jisu held out his hand after the exam, but she didn't take it. Here, he again reaches out and Miae doesn't take his hand. Remember this later!

Episode 118

Someone steps on Cheol's bag, and he's worried it might be Taeuk

Jisu wants to join in another bet in exchange for his help

Episode 119

Jisu gets involved in the Shim storyline, and as we know from later he picks up the cigarettes to get revenge on him

Episode 122

Miae learns that Cheol rejected Seonyeong and the lights flicker in her room

She cannot remember her dream. The narration says that she should have realized that something changed.

Episode 123

Miae notes that she experienced the kiss in the comic book with Cheol

Jisu almost catches her, but Cheol pushes him away

Episode 126

The parents are having dinner together at a pig feet restaurant and toast for the future of their children. The TV is not working, and a boy who looks like Jisu tries to fix it.

Miae kisses Cheol

Episode 127

Miae has a dream again in the white dress. As she realizes she might like Cheol, the voice says she's too late and there's no use regretting it.

Episode 129

Miae remembers that they took a picture in the countryside together and wants to take one now. She makes a wish to an airplane about how she just wants one photo, and remarks that the planes never granted her wish before. Spoiler, they won't this time, either.

Miae chooses to take the picture with Cheol. The narration box says "she's always done whatever she sets her mind to. That has always been one of her better attributes. But Mi-ae, it seems as though you keep forgetting something. I told you, you're too late."

The pager's message means idiot, cancelled and it suddenly starts raining. Maie and Cheol cannot take their photo and Cheol cannot give her back the hairpin she dropped a few eps ago.

Episode 132

Graduation photos were postponed until the second semester

In Miae's dream, the voice says she's all over the place and cannot decide what she wants from Cheol. In her memory, Miae wishes at the stone tower that Cheol would like her back. The voice angrily remarks how it must not mean much to her.

Episode 133

While Cheol and Miae are looking at each other, Miae is smacked in the face by a flyer. Later while they are riding the bike, Cheol almost says she looks pretty but he is hit in the face with a flyer that belonged to Jisu.

Episode 134

Miae takes the cigarettes from Jisu and puts them in her backpack

While Jisu and Miae look at each other, the narration box says "Well. this is what we would call fate. What do you think?" Miae can sense the voice and dismisses it.

Jisu again says "see you later" and Miae answers let's not, but Jisu replies they never know and it would be fun.

On the radio in Miae's room there's a voice speaking, asking if it was a success and how there is something you can't stop thinking about. "A friend? The fact that you weren't wrong? Whatever it is, I don't think it's such a bad thing to obsess over it a little bit. I hope you have no regrets about it."

Episode 135

Miae's eyebrow and bangs are so ruined she has to finally go to a hair salon. Yunhui gives her money and says there's a cheap place where she can go. It turns out Jisu's mother is a hairdresser and after realizing she is Jisu's friend, she doesn't ask for money. So if anyone ever wondered why Miae kept ruining her hair in the story, here's the answer....

a little bit of strange wording here:

The narration says "Now that I think about it, this was about the time..wait,no, it was a little bit earlier that things started to go wrong, little by little. You two were completely oblivious, though. Just you two."

Miae's mother goes to the academy. One theory I can give on this is that Miae's family might be moving. She wished for it at the start of the story, mentions it in a later episode as well. Who knows ~

Episode 138

Miae doesn't tell Cheol her feelings because of her pride as she feels like she would lose first

Miae has a feeling as if something is trying to make her look bad in front of Cheol and her gun suddenly starts working

Everybody forgot to buy the picture they took together in ep 139

Episode 140

After conveying their feelings indirectly to each other, Miae tells Cheol they cannot date right now because her mom wouldn't allow it. She plans to go to the same high school, university, everything and thinks there's no one to stop them so nothing can go wrong.

Episode 141

Cheol imagines high school together with Miae and their friends

Every time Cheol is flustered, he accidentally drinks his sister's coffee and he cannot sleep at night..in a story where dreams are relevant I'm sure this is just a coincidence, right???🧐🙃😏

Miae says they should not be obvious before the entrance exam and they start to think of it as a competition

Someone watches them from the street

Episode 144-145

We get everything from Cheol's POV

Cheol got his scar because he wanted to give Miae the romance book she liked before they left and he fell on the stone tower

The picture his dad took of them is about a young Cheol accidentally kneeling with flowers in his hands, the same flowers from Miae's dream, in front of Miae. This picture was in the book Cheol and his family kept.

Cheol realized the book was in his dresser that is now in Miae's room, the one she couldn't open before

Episode 146

Miae sees two flyers in the newspaper, one is about how a student still didn't give it up, the other is about changing one's car

On the street, the same car ads keep flying after her in the wind

Miae goes with Yonghui to wait in a line and the same flyers are all over the place

Episode 147

Miae wants to call Cheol, but Jisu stops her. Miae notices how often they have met during vacation, and Jisu says these coincidences are fun. He remarks it's almost like as if some higher power is involved (!!). Miae is standing on the car ad, they look down on it with Jisu, then she kicks it away. Jisu tells her he has a feeling they will meet again, but Miae hopes they won't.

The academy is also full of the car ads and Miae falls on them

Miae thinks that for a while she's had a feeling as if something wants to get between her and Cheol, but brushes it off

Miae ends up with a bubble gum in her hair and goes to Jisu's house to fix it. Jisu tells her she should stay because he is bored, and there is a car ad on a stool.

Episode 148

We see some of Jisu's childhood memories and he was called a magpie by Miae which was a symbolic choice (I also made a post about it). Jisu in this story is the grateful magpie.

Miae and Jisu "touch hands" for the first time when they high-five (I wrote about how their hand hold never happened before)

After spotting some men smoking, Jisu tells Miae to go inside (one of them might be his father?)

Episode 149

Miae finally remembers Jisu

the narration boxs keeps saying how Jisu is cool and showing heart-thumping sounds and Miae is confused about these strange things

Miae not remembering Jisu was an important plot point considering she recalled everyone else from her past. As I theorized, memories and fate seem to be intertwined, the synchronicity theory also supports this. Synchronicity happens when seemingly unrelated events coincide and they become significant to you. It's easy to see why Jisu was aware of this notion, but Miae was not - because Miae had no idea about those coincidences other than meeting Jisu randomly. Him being her classmate, being the one who found her pencil, who helped her in the crowd, found her name tag, etc. - only Jisu knew about these. But right now, Miae was made aware that they knew each other in the past - a pretty big coincidence.

So now that Miae might have kickstarted her own fate, the question is whether she will be able to fight it or if there are certain things bound to happen no matter what. Is the narrator omnipotent and omniscient? So many questions that will hopefully get answered.

Episode 150

For the first time, Miae says she and Jisu will see each other again sometime. Before this, it was always Jisu who said it and Miae would reply that she didn't want to meet him again.

Miae remembers Jisu transferring, but doesn't know why he singled her out (so she will probably recall more memories later)

As Miae leaves Jisu's house, the car ads are flying in the air around her

Jisu enrolls at the academy and for the first time he says it's not a coincidence

Episode 155

Hwani tells her mother it would be great if they could keep being neighbours with Miae because she's fun. After a pause, Cheol's mother agrees.

Jisu keeps telling Miae she's a "traitor" or "bat" (depending on the translation, meaning she keeps secrets from others like the Yonghui Yunhui situation and the fact that she went to Jisu's house) and she might get into trouble because of that

Episode 156

The narrator directly communicates with Miae again, and informs us about Miae's thoughts. It makes heart-thumping sounds when she's with Jisu just like in previous episodes, but Miae ignores them.

Jisu again says how the coincidences are so fun. He counts to three until the teacher interrupts Miae and Cheol's bickering (similarly to Taekwang in ep 158)

When Jisu tells Miae he'll go out of the room to let her talk with Cheol, Miae thinks she'll talk to him regardless of anyone's interference and we get a close-up of an academy notebook saying 'NO' and a plane flying in the sky.

Episode 158

Flashforward in the episode to a scene with Cheol leaving Miae at the academy while a storm is coming and Miae looks like she's about to cry

An hour earlier in the story the dark clouds are already gathering (I mentioned how rainy weather is always connected to the change in Miae and Cheol's relationship, and how it's usually an ominous sign). After seeing Jisu's flustered face, Cheol tells Miae that he wants to change the lightbulb in her house before she gets hurt. The lights at the academy are highlighted as they keep vibrating. (I also noted how the lights are signs of the supposed higher power, they get their own panels in Miae's room, and they went out 2 times when Miae and Cheol's relationship changed)

After Jisu reveals that Miae was in his house and Cheol gets angry, Miae's pager starts buzzing (again, the pager messages always appear when the higher power wants to communicate with Miae).

Taekwang is an interesting character because the things he says are sometimes connected to the greater theme of the story. Like when he listened to his music and said how Miae cannot choose two things at the same time (come on, it was the foreshadowing for the current conflicts!), he smelled Jisu on Miae (???), Jisu even said he's the one he cannot deal with, and now he was counting the seconds until Miae got another sign. Is he used as a medium? (who knows lol)

Miae wants to check the pager message but the fluorescent lamp(?) breaks. Jisu shields Miae from the shards while they fall on the ground, making it his first successful attempt to save Miae in the story. The pager lands in the corner of the room.

Episode 159

Miae goes to a phone booth to check her messages and it's filled with the car ads so she kicks them away

The first message is a loud noise of a song recording. I personally think if there's a higher power in the story, this message came from it. The other is about Miae's friends telling her they'll visit her at her academy which gives Miae a sense of panic knowing Yonghui and Yunhui might meet.

Miae sees an airplane in the sky and the narration says Miae has a feeling that something is interfering with her and the panels get fuzzy with flashbacks to phone calls earlier in the story (omg this is actually crazy)

It starts raining and we get a glimpse of the last countryside memory we haven't seen yet about Miae running after Cheol at night. In the present, Miae trips just as she did as a kid, but instead of Cheol she meets Tae Uk.

[naomifranq]

Marmalade (2024): making art for set dressing

Two years ago, I got an email from Kiwi Smith (the writer of the comic series, MISFIT CITY, that I illustrated for BOOM!). She introduced me to the actor, writer, and director Keir O'Donnell who was in need of some sketches for an upcoming film of his. The request? Sketchbook pages from the hand of Otis (Aldis Hodge) as he sketches and takes notes on the mysterious Marmalade, the bank-robber and love interest of his prison cell-mate Baron (Joe Keery).

I'd never done something like this before, but his prop master was pretty straight-forward with what they needed. Ultimately, I only had to draw two pages of new sketches specifically of Marmalade-specific content. The rest of it consists of old sketches I'd already worked up over time (some of which you may recognize from past sketch dumps).

The goal was to make them look like real pen, ink, and pencil so I had to get creative in Clip Studio. I gave them the sketches mostly separated so they could cut, paste, and arrange them in the prop as they needed. They merged some, omitted others, and the end result looks amazing to me. Never thought I'd get to see Joe Keery tenderly brushing his fingers against my art, but here we are.

What's funnier is how many of the extra sketches I included were sketches of my OCs and D&D characters. Since Aldis Hodge had to pretend to be the one drawing these, I hope he liked the material!

Either way, it was so fun watching this movie with my friends and cheering like it was a contact sport whenever my art showed up LOL. Always grateful to have pals who are excited to gas me up.

For more sketches, check out my Patreon where I've shared these and more for free, open access!

[invincibies]

Mark Grayon — SFW headcanons.

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—— author's notes. ⟢ . . . . . // // -- ok hi guys... i dont have much to rlly say but. haaayy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pretty pls enjoy my peak little headcanons :P . . . . . . . . . . . .

mark and reader are in a established relationship. season 3 mentions || enjoy . . . . .

— Mark Grayson is unsurprisingly a really easy guy to please. {{ whilst you're trying to buy him small things; mark is bringing you home a cake from france if he's somehow gotten there during his superhero stuff... as long as its reasonably priced of course. college students don't get paid all that much... especially him. he doesn't even go to college anymore. But every small thing you give him, he cherishes it, whether it be with his stomach (meaning food) or simply putting it up next to his prized 'Seance Dog' comics and collectables. — Mark Grayson's love language is physical touch and words. {{ (as well as gifts if you squint) he is always quite the attention giver, whether it be curled up next to you whilst you're on your laptop, he is somehow always expressing his endless bounds of affection to you, hugs, kisses, subtle hand holding, the whole lot! his favourite place to kiss you is either your cheek or on the lips. he countlessly apologizes and says that he loves you when he's late to dates with you, kisses on the forehead from him to you for an extra apology are a MUST! and taking you out to burger mart whilst you eat the very few leftover pennies he had from his own mother. — Mark Grayson doesn't actually listen to music that much. {{ (self explanatory but you know...) mark was never that much into music. more of a writer/reader type of guy. of course he listened to music sometimes but not religiously like other people... but he will admit - he doesn't actually mind 'The Cranberries' that much, his favourite is 'Zombie'.

— Mark Grayson's alter ego — Invincible. {{ mark was very nervous about telling you his secret identity but he didn't want a repeat of Amber so he had told you as soon as he thought you were ready for it... which was surprisingly quick. He really thinks your the one. he planned it for weeks, should he just knock on your window one day in his Invincible suit and scare the shit out of you or does he tell you like a normal person. he told you like a normal person, no matter how fun the first option seemed. honestly, he was very surprised when you said you'd stay with him, even after he warned you of the dangers... like anissa and how she threatened to kill amber. — Mark Grayson's stress and how he deals with it. {{ honestly, mark doesn't really have the time to notice how stressed out he is until after an excruciatingly long fight — especially after Conquest. another time he noticed how stressed out he was; his eyes caught sight of an already gray hair by the age of twenty... yikes. not to mention the slight eye bags as well. he's ashamed to admit it but he tries to hide it with concealer sometimes. if mark feels a type of stress that has to be dealt with effective immediately; he usually comes to you for help or goes out on an actual walk instead of flying through the sky like he usually does. if unable to do those things; he quietly recites quotes from 'Seance Dog' to himself to relax him a bit. — Mark Grayson's brother, oliver. {{ you were the first he came to for oliver, he honestly had no idea if his mother would take oliver in especially since it was Omni-Man's kid from another planet. he voiced his struggles and you ended up helping him to tell Debbie. thank god she actually took him in. oliver asks you and mark embarrassing questions like "when are you guys getting married?" just to see you both get flushed and laugh nervously. this kid was 2 months old a week ago and suddenly he's a 12 year old actually knowing how the world worked... to an extent. later in private, mark tells oliver that he'd marry you soon... as a joke. oliver taddled on him to you a few days later. — Mark Grayson and Seance Dog. {{ he loves 'Seance Dog'. we all know this. you know this piece of literature probably as good as he does with how much he talks about it with you. he loves comic books, the comic store was like a second home to him now, he didn't even have to ask the lady at the counter for the latest issue of 'Seance Dog' once a month, she already had it out waiting for his greedy little hands. if there's a new 'Seance Dog' action figure, he's losing his mind and saving up the money to go and buy it. if he doesn't end up having enough money for it, he's looking at you like you're his little ATM. you buy it for him anyway, always. tht precious smile is irreplaceable and you needed to see it every chance you ever got with him.

ok im sorry i wanna write more desperately but its like 4 in the morning and i have school its actually ggs... i hope you enjoyed ts tho!!!! reqs open ^_^