#Even that was because was world-building reasons for my stories lmao

[br1ghtestlight]

this is so funny to me actually bcuz this is 100% how i talk abt my characters ages. i know what YEAR they were born and i know what rheir ages are supposed to be at the start of the story but i dont actually know when it takes place?? im really bad at math. There was a moment where rainbow was supposed to be 23 and i somehow accidentally made her 17 lmfao

[trippinsorrows]

10 things + r. reigns

authors note: so, a lot of this stems from convos with the lovely @fearlesschimera where one tree hill was brought up. and i loved me some nathan and haley. plus, i'm loving everything about this otc era and needed to write something about it now vs having to wait with my other stories cause we ain't there yet lmao

might be a part two. idk if this even makes sense tbh

words: 3.1k

warnings: none, really? some language? kayfabe story.

There are exactly two sides to Roman Reigns.

The good side and the bad side. 

And Nova Reigns has experienced them both with an unfortunate increase in the latter versus the former. 

She can pinpoint exactly when it started, too. 

When things started to get difficult again.

2020. COVID. While the world was an absolute mess, chaos and death occurring globally every day, her husband of over ten years wasn’t much better. He’d decided to stay home, not wanting to risk bringing home anything that could put her pregnancy with their first daughter, Arabella, Bella as they affectionately called her, at risk. 

It was also so he could figure out just what the hell he was doing with his career. Roman was frustrated. Tired of going along with what was always told of him instead of doing it his way. And it’s why when he returned back to work that summer, he came back a completely changed man. Bigger, stronger, meaner.

This was a different Roman Reigns. The likes of which the WWE had never seen.

And it’s been a ride ever since.

Up and downs along the way. 

A lot of ups up until WrestleMania 40 where after 1,316 days as the undisputed universal champion and unable to let go of a betrayal from so many years ago, Roman lost. He lost his title and something so much deeper that night.

His sense of self.

Nova did the best she could in the months he’d been off to keep his spirits lifted, to support him, often encouraging Bella to ask her dad to do stuff with her even when Nova technically could. Asked him to care for their two year old daughter, Camillia, Cami, as she worked from home, something she’s done for almost the entirety of her post college career. 

But most importantly, Nova worked to help Roman repair the relationship with their oldest son, Roman Jr., RJ, as they’ve called him since the day he was born.

To say the relationship is awful would be an exaggeration. No, it’s just…..fragile.

A fragility that Nova has tried so hard over the past couple of years to strengthen to no avail. A large part of the issue being the fact that her twenty year old son is just as stubborn as his father. Twins, she often calls them. Similar heights, build, personalities, etc. 

Great when they want to be. A pain in the ass when they don’t need to be.

A painful situation all around though, especially when she thinks back to how this all started, to how someone like Nova ended up with someone like Roman.

And it’s a simple answer, really.

He was an idiot.

Well, when it came to English, that was.

Once upon a time ago, Roman wasn’t the massive WWE superstar that he is now. He was just Roman Reigns. The typical, popular jock of their high school. A football player with the stereotypical ego to match. And she was just Nova, the geeky underclassmen who always had a secret crush on the boy she never thought in a million years would look her way.

And truth be told, if not for the fact his coach threatened to bench him if he didn’t raise his English grade, he probably never would have. Hell, she’s certain the only reason he knew she existed was because she was the best and smartest kid in class, so of course their teacher would recommend her for a tutor. 

The answer was initially no. Not necessarily because she was opposed, but more because her crush on him was too big to not get distracted. Even though his jerkish tendencies should have done just that. 

But Roman has always been charismatic and persistent, and before she knew it, she’d agreed. And that agreement changed everything because it showed her for the first time the nice side of Roman, the side that secretly loved music and was surprisingly good at math. The side that struggled with feeling like he’d never be good enough or live up to his family’s athletic reputation both in football and wrestling.

It made her realize and see that Roman was just as human as everyone else. 

It made her fall in love with him.

And that was rocky, too. Navigating his constant struggle of wanting to admit his feelings for her while also being embarrassed about her and wanting to hide their relationship. It created a fair set of conflict, and Nova shed her fair share of tears.

Especially as she sat on the floor of her bathroom, plush, purple rug cushioning her bottom but not the blow that was the two lines on the pregnancy test in her hands. But, seven months later, with her mom on one side and Roman on the other, she shed a different set of tears. Different kinds of tears.

Happiness.

Happiness at welcoming her first child into the world, Roman Reigns Jr. 

RJ

Being teen parents, especially at the tender ages of 16 and 18 was most definitely nothing like it was depicted on the reality shows. It was rough, especially as Roman started college, opting to stay local to help her raise their child as she finished her senior year. They fought, they argued, they disagreed, but at the end of the day, they still loved.

And it was that love that carried them through the rocky years of Roman trying to figure out just what he wanted to do with his life as Nova worked a job and raised their son while pursuing her degree in software engineering. She also stayed local to benefit from the help of her family while chasing her dream. It was rough, it was hard, but they did it.

Even with having to be on food stamps and financial assistance at times to take care of their child, Nova struggling to enter the male dominated workforce of tech and Roman not always having consistent income, they did it. 

And they were happy.

They still are. Just….not like it used to be. 

Nova still loves her husband with all of her heart and soul. They’ve been through too much together for her to ever really leave him, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t cross her mind from time to time. Especially over the past four years, watching him almost revert back to that bully from high school as he manipulated and mentally abused his family, his cousins, his lifetime best friends so much so that the Bloodline he worked so hard to create crumbled right before him.

And it’s only deteriorated since he lost the title to Cody Rhodes. Solo had turned on Roman, brutally kicked Jimmy out of the Bloodline and invited in non-family. Week after week, taking shot after shot at her husband, his cousin, his flesh and blood. 

Going so far as to take the sacred ula fala and declare himself the tribal chief. An honor that was bestowed upon Roman by the elders of his family. It finally reached a point where Roman had enough, making his grand return at SummerSlam and preventing his once enforcer from taking the very title Roman still believes is rightfully is. 

He’s made intermittent returns since then, each one proving just why Roman Reigns is being considered one of the greatest of all time, even while still in the middle of his career. His aura is unmatched. The sales don’t lie. The numbers don’t lie. 

The OTC is WWE. 

But, Roman has been a bit on edge since he was unexpectedly jumped by his other cousin, Jacob, Solo’s latest dangerous addition to the Bloodline.

Nova especially knows he was even more pissed because she’d taken the girls to his show that night, at his request.

He hates looking ‘weak’ in front of him, despite the fact that both were too consumed in kids' devices to pay attention. But, she was. And if anything, it was hard for her to see him be attacked like that, all alone. 

No one in his corner.

Jey’s moved to Raw.

Jimmy is still trying to figure out if he even wants to come back.

Solo has lost his damn mind. 

Sami…..no comment.

And Paul is still recovering from his brutal assault by the new Bloodline. 

The island of relevancy has a population of one. And while that one is formidable as all outdoors, he’s still just a man.

Granted, as much as it pains her to see Roman go at this alone, it’s hard for her to feel all the way bad for him. He did this. His actions drove his family away. 

Well, not all of them.

“Game!” Bella’s soft voice pulls Nova from reflecting on memory lane as she redirects her attention to where her son sits on the sofa in Roman’s locker room, Cami on his lap, grabbing his phone.

RJ chuckles, unlocking the iPhone and asking, “what you wanna play?”

Cami gasps and claps her hands. “Cookie!”

“Cookie Kingdom?” RJ asks, clicking around on his phone and handing it to her. “There ya go, lil’ bit.”

Nova’s smile is warm as she reflects on what feels like so long ago. “I remember when you were that little.”

RJ looks up at her, and it never ceases to amaze her how much he looks like his father. Complexion a little deeper, melanin he inherited from her, but outside of that, Roman could never deny paternity. 

He sucks his teeth. “Mama, don’t start that.”

“What?” Nova pouts, leaning back into the sofa, Bella tuned out of the conversation as she watches Bluey on her tablet. It’s always a bit funny to her how uninterested these kids just are when it comes to seeing Roman at work.

At least, not until he’s actually in their line of vision.

“You’ll always be my baby.” Because he will. Twenty and over 6ft tall or not, he’s her baby boy. “And speaking of baby, what’s going on with you and that girl you been dating?”

RJ rolls his eyes and adjusts Cami on his lap. He’s so good with his little sisters. “Nothing.”

Nova smirks knowingly, picking up on the faint hit of redness on his cheeks. “Sure don’t seem like nothing.”

“Mama, she’s just a friend.”

“So ya’ll aren’t sexually active?”

RJ turns up his nose, clearly disgusted. “Ma, how you just gon’ ask me that?”

“Because I’m your mama and not ready to be a grandma, and your daddy would kill you if you were to get a girl pregnant halfway through college.”

It’s not missed upon Nova how the mention of Roman seems to completely dampen his mood. RJ rolls his eyes. “Like he cares at all.”

His comment hurts her. Deeply. “RJ….”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to upset you.”

She ignores that apology, wanting to focus on the initial comment that has her stomach knotting for all the wrong reasons. “Your dad loves you, Junior. You have to know that.”

There’s a slight delay in his answer, and that alone is enough to make Nova know she needs to talk to Roman again tonight about actually talking with his son. A below the surface level conversation. A heart to heart.

“I know that, mama. I do. It’s just….” RJ blows out a breath and shakes his head. “You know how he is.”

She does. Very well. “You can say it. He’s an ass sometimes.” She’s so grateful for the headphones on Bella’s ears and the deep infatuation Cami has with her brother’s phone.

“You said it. Not me.” Mother and son share a laugh, RJ admitting, “I know he means well.”

“He does,” she agrees. “But, that doesn’t mean he can’t do better. I’ll talk to him again.”

RJ immediately looks like he feels bad, which only makes Nova’s chest ache more. “You don’t have to—”

She lifts her finger to silence him. “You’re my son. He’s my husband. I love you both, and it kills me to see ya’ll like this. I’m gonna do what I can.” And that’s a vow. The three of them have been through too much shit over the years for her to just allow the relationship between the two most important men to fall apart. She won’t let that happen. 

She can’t.

And speaking of, the door to Roman’s locker room opens, her husband walking in looking every bit as strong, powerful, and determined as he looked when he interfered yet again with Solo’s match and especially as he closed the door of that cage and challenged Jacob. 

Nova shifts in her seat, the memory bringing up other kinds of feelings which are entirely inappropriate given the presence of her children.

Cami is the first girl to notice him, lifting up her little arms and reaching for him, nearly dropping RJ’s phone in the process if not for his quick reflexes.

He most definitely got that from Roman as well, because Nova has not an athletic bone in her body.

Roman walks over and takes her from RJ, kissing her cheek, gaze almost reluctantly falling on RJ. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Nova starts to scold Roman for such a cold introduction to their son they haven’t seen since he left for his sophomore year of college over a month ago. “Mom asked me to.”

She’s good at reading between the lines, picking up on the fact that he’s essentially saying he’s only here because of Nova.

Not Roman.

Roman notices this, she’s sure. He’s a perceptive bastard. But, he says nothing. “How’s school?”

“Fine.” 

“RJ.” And her son can be a petty bastard. Like father, like son. She directs her statement to Roman, “I was thinking we could go to his game tomorrow—”

RJ, however, is quick to dismiss this. “You don’t have to.”

Nova’s gaze on Roman allows her to see the hurt that flashes in his eyes at the rejection. But as has been the case lately, he pushes it aside, replacing it with indifference. “You heard what he said. He doesn’t want us there, so we wo—”

“That’s not what I said.” RJ leans back against the chair and shrugs his shoulders, shaking his head, clearly frustrated. “You always do this. Always hear what you want to hear.” He scoffs, head turned, muttering, “I see why everybody left you.”

Nova gasps. “RJ!” She sees it, the hurt that��s just tripled and is about to be expressed in anger, leading to another big blowout between the two of them. Thankfully, this is the moment Bella finally becomes aware of Roman’s presence.

“Daddy!” She pulls off her headphones, climbs off the sofa and runs over to him, hugging his legs. 

Roman doesn’t hesitate to pick her up, both daughters in his arms as Nova leans over, running her hand through her fresh silk press. This. This is what she wanted to avoid. These are the kinds of situations that leave her in tears as she vents to her therapist about her ever growing stress levels, how torn she feels in what to do in moments like this. 

Roman is her husband, but RJ is her son. Neither is fully right, but neither is fully wrong either. How does one handle that?

Thankfully, it’s not long after that Roman is being called to prepare to get back out in the ring. This means a probably needed separation from the two titans in her life. Nova holds Cami this time, while Bella hangs onto RJ as they’re escorted ringside. 

It takes a bit of persuasion to get RJ to agree to come with her. She can see he’s ready to just leave.

But, reminding him of how big a help he is with the girls seems to win him over because while he’s certainly not in the best of places with his dad, RJ is a mama’s boy through and through. He loves him some Nova and would do anything to help her. 

Even if it means helping her with the two siblings that came as a complete shock to him.

It still makes Nova laugh a little as she recalls the horrified and almost disgusted expression on his face as she and Roman broke the pregnancy news to him.

“I didn’t even know ya’ll still did that.” And if his statement wasn’t bad enough, he just had to add insult to injury as the blunt almost 16 year-old he was at the time. “Ain’t ya’ll kinda old to still be freaking?”

No. 

Never that.

“Daddy!” This time it’s Cami who’s calling out to Roman, recognizing his new music before he even emerges from the back looking as badass as he always does. Nova is temporarily in a state of awe, overhearing Bella asking RJ to hold her so she can see better. 

Roman has come so far, done so well for himself, even with things with his family being a hot ass mess, there’s still no denying he is it. That he has it. It’s undeniable. She almost feels bad for Cody.

He’ll always be stuck in Roman’s shadow. 

The thought makes her suddenly curious about what could be one of the reasons behind the strife between her firstborn and husband. Nova tucks this in the back of her mind, planning to discuss it further in therapy.

As Roman moves into the ring, Nova stands on the sidelines, holding her baby girl on her hip, smiling back and forth between the two. She watches Roman move around the ring on their commercial break

And when his gaze falls on the set of them, her heart swells as he mouths ‘I love you’ before seamlessly transitioning back into that hardened, determined expression.

And this is why there’s two sides to Roman Reigns. The good side being the one that she sees in that brief, vulnerable exchange. The one that used to kiss her pregnant stomach as he confided in her his fears about not being a good dad, about feeling not ready, about worrying about failing in life. 

Failing her. 

Failing himself.

Failing their child.

The man who worked so hard and gave everything his all to prove he was someone, becoming that someone, yet somehow losing something in the process.

Nova knows it’s still in there though, knows that he is still the boy he fell in love with many moons ago. She knows that as frustrated as he makes her, as cold he can be, as disconnected he can seem, that love is still there and just as strong. 

And she’ll fight for it. 

For him. 

For their son.

For their family. 

She has to.

[ayyy-pee]

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝟤 - 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝐻𝒶𝒹 𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒

Discord 18+ - Twitter - Series Masterlist - Previous Chapter

Pairing: Hotel Heir Satoru Gojo x Club Heiress Female Reader Genre: Fake Dating/Arranged Marriage AU/Rivals to Lovers

WC: 7.4k

Story Summary: One unforgettable night out leads to a lifetime tethered to the one man you absolutely can't fucking stand. The feeling's mutual, but now you both have to find a way to make it work in your favor.

or

You and Satoru's parents give you an ultimate that you both quite literally cannot afford to refuse.

Story Warning: Fake Dating, Arranged Marriage, Profantity DUH, Gojo and Reader being fucking bratty and annoying, Slow Burn, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior. Smut Maybe? (probably), No Y/N usage here, Gojo is such a shithead here fr LMAO

Art by: nameissiyo on X

A/N: I have been having so much fun writing this little shit LMAOOOO

You slowly enter your apartment in a daze, dragging your feet along before slipping your shoes off at the door. You’ve just had a bomb dropped on you, metaphorically blowing up your entire world and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to wrap your head around it. Your mind replays the conversation – well, the demand from your father. There was no actual conversation to be had. You were doing what was asked of you. 

Point blank period. 

------

“Daddy, please don’t do this to me,” you begged, knowing your pleas were falling on deaf ears. “I’ll clean up my act, I swear.”

“It’s far too late. I’ve given you multiple chances to get it together. I’ve let you do whatever you wanted for too long. This is the push you need to grow up, to take this seriously. Starting with you taking on a position within the company and learning the inner workings. And you will let Satoru court you, and you will marry him.”

Your head was spinning. “Daddy…you don’t understand. I can’t marry Satoru.” Even his name on your tongue tastes vile. But that may also be all your emotions working their way out of your gut.

“Why is that?” Your father asked.

‘I just don’t like him!’ It’s what you wanted to scream. Or even ‘He’s insufferable and fucking annoying!’, you already knew it wasn’t a valid enough reason for your father.

“I just…” you racked your brain for reasons that you think your father would accept. None come to mind, because to him, you didn’t need to like your partner to make things work.

Your father scoffed, shaking his head. “This marriage will go through,” he told you. “And so will this merger, because it is contingent on your marriage to Satoru.”

The trembling in your lips returned with a vigor and you plead once more. “But why? Why do we have to get married in order for the merger to go through? I’ll learn about the company, I’ll take on a formal position, I’ll party less and do more, that’s fine! But marrying Satoru? Why does that make a difference?!”

“They have their reasons,” your father states. “and honestly, I can’t say I disagree with them. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

You were back to begging for your father to take pity on you, to let you get away with just this one last thing and you swore you’d never fuck up again, never make the company look bad. But he didn’t budge. He didn’t even look in your direction. He simply turned away from you, ignored the fat tears and black mascara that ran down your cheeks and onto his pristine, white marble floors and went back to his desk. He sat down and went about his day like you weren’t standing to the side muttering that you didn’t want to do this, that you’d do anything else but this. He picked up his phone and dialed his secretary. 

“Nitta, please patch me through to CEO Gojo. Thank you.” You stood, rooted to your spot as you listened to your father practically sell you off to the Gojo family in exchange for a chance to continue his quest to build his empire. You were simply a pawn here.

------

This is unbelievable, a nightmare! You even pinch yourself, hoping that this is all just a very bad dream and you’ll wake up in your bed, but you’re still standing in your living room and feeling the weight of the situation on you.

One night. One stupid night out after you let dumbass Utahime and Shoko convince you to do something that you’re now going to have to spend your entire life paying for. 

Your father spent a good hour on the phone with CEO Gojo working out the details of this arrangement. You’re to meet with the Gojo family sometime within the next few weeks for dinner at their estate. You’ll hear from CEO Gojo’s secretary so they can pencil you in for some time with your future in-laws. The thought makes your stomach churn.

Why do you have to marry Satoru Gojo? He’s one of the most obnoxious and annoying men you’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. The two of you have only ever had maybe a handful of interactions and each one was a disaster.

There was your first meeting as teenagers…

------

Your families and many others of the upper elite had gathered together to honor the late Chairman and CEO at the time, Satoru’s grandfather. While the elder Gojo had not been involved in company matters for some time, he hadn’t stepped down as Chairman and CEO officially until now. His son, the current Chairman and CEO had been acting as the interim for years before they finally announced it. Tonight, they were setting things in stone, making a statement to the public that the line will be continuing and Satoru will now be next to inherit the position as head of the company.

“Thank you all for joining us,” the elder Gojo says. “If you’ve been invited here, it’s because we hold you in close regard and want you to be here to witness this transition - me finally being able to pass the torch on to my son.”

At this, Satoru’s father stands from his seat on stage and comes forward to join his father. You didn’t miss the way his eyes seem to scan the room, likely searching for someone. The older Gojos drone on, and you tune out. You’ve always found these things to be boring. Of course, at sixteen years old, you would have loved to be anywhere else in the world than at some stuffy corporate party full of old people, but your father was out of town trying to close a deal and your mother went with him. 

The invitation specifically requested the families of these companies, and so you were stuck acting as the company representative in your father’s stead.

“I hate these things,” a soft voice whispers from across the table, and your eyes rise from the intricate patterns on the fancy tablecloth you’ve been staring at the last several minutes to meet kind, violet orbs and a mischievous feline smile staring at you. “I’m Suguru…Geto.”

He tacks on his last name like he’s reluctant to say so, but mainly like it means something to you. You don’t really care who’s who here, but like you, it seems Suguru’s been practically trained since birth to network and make connections, to know every face you come across. You rack your brain for the last name Geto, and when nothing seems to come to mind, he fills in the blank for you.

“Geto Holdings.”

Right, the real estate conglomerate. If you remember correctly, Suguru is an only child, just like you, so he’s also meant to take over if his parents deem it so.

You give Suguru your name and watch his brows rise, impressed with the family you hail from.

“Well…” he sighs, leaning back in his chair and taking you in. “Pleasure to meet you. We should exchange info after this.”

You nod, the tiniest smile curling at the corners of your mouth. “Yeah…yeah, I’ll get your number after.”

You two leave it at that, turning your attention back to CEO Gojo. He talks on and on about how honored he is to be taking over the company. How he’s been raised to do this and it’s all he’s known, that he can’t wait to make his father proud. He also shares some of his plans for the company going forward, which means absolutely nothing to you. Gojo Hospitality exists in a whole different world than your father’s company. Whatever plans CEO Gojo had in store, you couldn’t care less about.

It’s when he’s about to wrap his boring speech up that a loud ruckus at the entrance of the ballroom grabs everyone’s attention. The new CEO Gojo’s jaw clenches, watching long legs carry a young man across the room.

“Sorry I’m late!” The intruder practically yells, buttoning his wrinkled dress shirt sloppily. His white hair is messy, almost like he just woke up from a nap. But you doubt it with the way he’s struggling to get through to the front of the ballroom.

You’ve been to enough rich kid teenage parties to know he’s wasted.

“Shit,” you hear Suguru hiss, standing from his seat and watching the boy make his way across the room.

The boy stumbles up the steps of the stage, joining the Gojo family, and you think he must be the son. Satoru, you believe his name is. He makes his way to the older Gojo who wears a tight smile on his lips, as he reaches for the boy once he’s closer. He leans away from the mic, wrapping his arms around the boy, lips beside his ear, whispering. And whatever he says to the young man works, the glassy look in his eyes vanishing and replaced by hardly concealed disdain.

It’s all awkward and suddenly tense in the room, the atmosphere thick as molasses. You hadn’t even noticed that Suguru had left his seat and went to grab the boy, hauling him back to your table where he plops him down in the seat right in front of you.

The party resumes, the new CEO Gojo continuing with his speech, not even bothering to address what just took place.

Suguru says your name, smooth and already familiar. “This Satoru Gojo. Satoru, this is ___.” Suguru takes a seat beside him, not even giving you a chance to truly introduce yourself because he instructs Satoru to “just shut the fuck up and they can leave after his dad’s speech.”

You’re just sitting there, thinking that you’ve just been casually introduced to the son and heir of one of - if not the largest - hospitality companies in the world. If your father were here, he would be thrilled. This is your chance to act like you give a little bit of a damn about the company and get to know Satoru.

But as you watch him, all scrunched brows and pouts, you feel a little bad for him.

He looks visibly deflated after receiving what you think was one hell of a scolding from his father, cheeks red and blue eyes downcast, staring into his lap. This is the first time you’ve seen this guy. Most large gatherings of the upper class that you had been to, he wasn’t present for. Or maybe you just hadn’t noticed him, which you think would be rather difficult given his unique appearance; striking azure eyes, snowy tresses and freakishly long legs. Yeah, he’d be hard to miss.

You don’t realize that you’ve spaced out yet again, staring at the boy who has just made quite a scene, and seems to be in the mood for another.

He’s grinning at you, all crooked and goofy looking. “Like what you see, Princess?” He teases, elbow on the table with his head resting in his palm, and it’s enough to snap you out of your trance. You sneer at his lack of manners.

“Pardon?”

Satoru chuckles, nudging Suguru with his elbow and his friend doesn’t seem to find anything amusing.

“Pardonnnn?” He mocks you in a sweet voice, followed by him snorting. “So cute when you all play dumb.”

Beside him, Suguru mutters quietly, “Satoru, that’s enough.”

You’re still in shock, can’t seem to wrap your head about this boy practically calling you stupid. How dare he? When he’s late, drunk at his own family’s party and has his elbows on the table!

If your mother were here, she’d have a conniption seeing this.

“Aww, come on, Suguru,” Satoru slurs, gaze piercing into you as he looks you up and down, assessing you. “I mean, she’s not really my type - new money and all,” he waves his hand in your general direction, laughing when he does so. 

New money. That’s what those who want to insult your family say. It’s referring to the fact that your father only came into his wealth about 30 years ago, when he took a chance on some rundown shitty building in Shinjuku and opened the first Club Echo that ended up skyrocketing in popularity and launching your father into the same playing field as those who had been in possession of extreme wealth for far longer than him.

Whereas Satoru's grandfather's grandfather had started Gojo Hospitality from the ground up, slowly building it into the empire it is today. They’re the definition of old money, richer than rich. You’re not even on the same playing field.

It doesn’t seem like the boy in front of you wants to let you forget that.

“Stop it, Satoru,” Suguru chides, gripping onto his friend's arm who snatches it back. 

“Why? You want her?” He asks, and your eyes widen which only makes Satoru laugh. “I mean you did see her first…but wow, she's got a cute face, so maybe I’ll make an exception and take her for myself.”

‘You’re here to represent your family, your father,’ you have to remind yourself. You are to be on your best behavior, or it won’t bode well for you when your father gets home. You’ve made it through a good majority of this snoozefest tonight and you only need Satoru’s father to hurry and finish his speech so that his son can get the hell away from you.

But with the way Satoru continues to grin at you teasingly, leaning his gross arms on the table, you feel your patience begin to wear thin. You try to ignore him, no longer giving him your attention like he wants and instead focusing on his father and the words coming from his mouth, hoping his speech ends soon, but it’s to no avail. 

Especially when Satoru’s long legs stretch beneath the table and stomp right on the toe of your Manolo Blahnik’s and you feel any semblance of restraint snap.

Satoru peeks beneath the table, always so crude, it seems, and you snap your legs shut because you’re wearing a damn dress! Does he have no manners at all? Apparently not, because Satoru only offers a hum when he sits back up, shrugging. “My bad, Princess.”

Your dad will surely understand that you’ve killed the Gojo heir, right?

You close your eyes, inhaling sharply as you slip your foot out of your shoe. Reaching for the heel, you hold it in your hand to see the large scrape of Satoru’s big ass Louboutin oxfords sitting right on the tip. You’re trembling with rage, glaring at the man on the other side of your table as your fingers wrap around your shoe, purposely leaving the heel part exposed. 

In the fifteen minutes since you’ve met Satoru, he’s continuously added into the reasons you’ve decided that you don’t like him. He’s insulted your intelligence, spoke about you like you were a piece of meat to be torn apart between him and Suguru, insulted your family and now, he’s committed the worst crime of all in your book - scuffed your brand new shoes that you bought just for this stupid event.

Wide eyed, Satoru chuckles nervously, forcing a smile to his face. “Come on, it’s not that big a deal. I’ll replace them!” He offers, no apology anywhere to be found.

Rude – another thing to add to the long list.

Fuming, your teeth grind together as you murmur, “They’re vintage.”

Satoru rolls his eyes, pretending to yawn. “They’re just shoes.”

Uncultured – another thing.

Satoru sighs, reaching into his pockets and pulling his wallet out, pulling his black card out and holding it out to you. “Vintage or not, I’ll replace them. If you can’t afford it, you can just say so.”

Fucking asshole – and it’s the last reason you need.

“I’m going to gouge your eyes out and wear them as earrings,” you promise him, and the bastard leans forward, amused again.

Satoru smirks up at you, fluttering his lashes. “They’re pretty, right?” He winks, head tilting when he asks, “Wanna wrestle for ‘em?”

You quickly rise to your feet, chair falling back and slamming onto the floor loudly as you reach across the table for Satoru, only managing to snatch a clump of hair from his scalp and he howls in pain. The sound is so satisfying, you can’t help the obnoxious laugh that escapes you.

“What the fuck?! Over some shoes?!” He screeches, hand pressed to the sore spot on his head.

You ignore the gasps and wide eyes that stare, the hard gaze of Satoru’s family on the back of your head as you try to get to their son. Satoru leans back in his seat, scowling briefly at you before it’s replaced with another smile, only fueling your anger. 

Does he take anything seriously? There’s no apology, no remorse, just an asshole sitting in front of you probably thinking he can flash his pearly white teeth at you and you’ll fall to your knees even if he does insult you and your family.

You couldn’t be less interested in Satoru Gojo, and after meeting him, you’re absolutely certain that there’s zero chance you’ll ever care about him. 

“Satoru…” Suguru chides. “You need to apologize.”

At this, Satoru scoffs. “No. She’s fucking insane! Trying to kill me over some ugly old shoes, and I should apologize?”

No, you’ll never give a single damn about Satoru Gojo. But you are interested in knocking his head off his shoulders.

“They’re vintage!” You shriek in response, lunging for Satoru again, but this time Suguru is there to intercept, grabbing a hold of your wrist and pulling you across the table into his arms.

You stare up at him, all anger melting away when you meet his violet eyes. He leans down, lips grazing your ear as he urges, “Stop. In about ten seconds, security is going to barge in here and drag you out and I don’t think your family would like that image plastered across the blogs.”

His words feel like ice cold water, dousing the flames raging inside you. He’s right. Your family would certainly not appreciate opening their phones and seeing pictures of you scalping the Gojo boy on front page news.

“If you walk out with me now, you can leave with your dignity still in tact. I’ll offer an apology to the Gojo’s on your behalf–”

You make a disgusted face, and Suguru shakes his head.

“Trust me, it’s in your best interest if I do.” He glances up, seeing the security team entering the room. The Gojo’s assistant points in your direction and Suguru holds a hand up, effectively stopping them for a moment. “Walk out with me, and let me handle everything else after.”

So you inhale deeply, let Suguru slink his arm around your shoulders and bow, apologizing to everyone for what just transpired. Of course, Satoru remains seated. His face is already checked out, scrolling on his phone instead of offering an apology to you in return, let alone to his own family. You’re tempted to snatch a few more strands from his head, but when Suguru brings you closer to his body in an attempt to calm you again (which works), you decide it’s better to just take your leave.

------

That was your very first time meeting Satoru Gojo. And every run in after went just as well.

Satoru spilling a drink all over your new dress “on accident” that you just know will stain at an art gallery event that your parents had insisted you attend, and you digging your stiletto heel right into his foot, earning an echoing yowl. Suguru was kind enough to offer you his suit jacket. The gesture made Satoru roll his eyes, and the blogs couldn’t wait to fuel rumors of you and Suguru dating when a picture dropped from the event showing him giving you the clothing.

There was also the time Satoru reserved all the VIP tables at your families club, and you had to party amongst the commoners when he refused to give a table to you and your friends. “Sorry, got a super important thing happening here tonight. Need every seat,” he had told you with a mocking pout on his face, only for you to find out later that it was just him and about four other people the entire night! And you couldn’t do anything about it because of course, according to your father, the customer always comes first and there are plenty of other places for you to hang out.

And you’ll never forget running into Satoru while you were on a date and him telling the man that you “have quite the temper” and then proceeding to take a seat and tell him of all the negative interactions you two had had. All of it made your date look at you differently, the image of the sweet and kind girl he was getting to know now skewed thanks to Satoru’s words. He ended up ending your very short lived relationship only a few days later.

You hate Satoru Gojo. It’s not an exaggeration. You truly, absolutely hate him.

It’s been so long since you’ve seen him, and you like it better that way. You stay in your little bubble, and he stays in his, and any time your bubbles threaten to meet, you’re quick to change paths. Satoru obviously doesn’t like you either, and you weren’t too proud to say that you were happy the feeling was mutual.

It’s starting to sink in now. The fact that soon you’ll have to see Satoru again when you haven’t had to be in the same room in years. Worse, you’ll have to see Satoru everyday for the rest of your damn life. Your hold on your purse handle tightens until you’re shaking. And then your purse is flying across your living room, smacking against the wall and falling to the floor along with all the contents of your purse. A piercing shriek erupts from you as you finally let your rage out.

This is hell.

------

“You're what?!” Suguru practically shrieks on the other end of the phone. 

“I'm getting married apparently,” Satoru repeats, boredly as he slips off his shoes in the foyer. 

“...To ___?…The Heiress…of Club Echo…”

“Yeah, I said that already.”

Suguru clears his throat. “I just wanted to make sure I was hearing you right.”

Satoru’s brows rise in amusement. “You jealous? You guys used to hook up, didn’t you?”

There’s a brief beat of silence before Suguru mutters, “That’s what the tabloids say.” He sighs, and Satoru knows he’s doing that thing where he frantically runs his fingers through his hair. “And no. Not jealous. Just…shocked she agreed to this.” 

Satoru frowns. “Why wouldn't she? She gets to marry into my family, which is like…the biggest sell here. Not to mention she gets to be with me. Other girls would kill to be in her position.” 

“Yeah, sure. You're such a catch,” Suguru deadpans. “But ___ fucking hates you.”

Satoru snorts, shaking his head as he fiddles with the buttons of his shirt. He slips it off, only just noticing the smudged pink lipstick on the collar. He rolls his eyes and tosses it aside. “Nah, she’s had a crush on me for the longest. Trust me. That’s why she’s so mean to me. It’ll just suck for her I guess, since I don’t like her like…at all.”

At this, Suguru bursts into laughter, making Satoru’s frown deepen the longer this goes on. “You’re such a child,” he says. “No, Satoru. She actually fucking hates you. Like, if she hears you’re showing up somewhere she’s at, she will leave because she can’t stand to look at you.”

Satoru falls back onto his sofa, scowling. “You guys really were hooking up, weren’t you? I feel like that’s the only way you’d even know that.”

“You jealous?” Suguru teases him back. But Satoru shrugs off his friend’s words. 

“No. I don’t need her to like me to marry me. It’s a business contract essentially. If this wedding goes through, my dad will get the hell off my back, at least for a while. She doesn’t need to love me, because it’s not like I’m gonna love her either.”

Suguru hums. “And if that changes?”

Satoru scoffs. There’s no way that’ll happen. You guys don’t really know each other, don’t care about each other in the least, truly can’t stand each other. It’s a marriage of convenience for your parents and their companies. Love has nothing to do with it. Satoru isn’t interested in loving you, or even learning to love you. And if Suguru is correct in saying that you really do hate him, then you probably feel the same way.

But Suguru’s question hangs in the air. What if it does change? What if you do fall in love with him? Or worse, he falls in love with you? Unlikely given your off putting personality and your vapid interests. Seriously, you almost killed him over a shoe at one point. Even still…

He can’t risk it.

“No chance of that happening. I’ll make sure of that.”

Suguru changes the subject, droning on and on about the multiple business trips he’s set to take this month. He’ll be leaving for Singapore in about four days, on Monday and from there he’ll head to Jeju Island, and then to America for a week. He takes his meetings seriously, works hard and actually makes his family proud.

In an ideal world, Suguru would have been born the heir of Gojo Hospitality. He actually enjoys the inner workings of the business world and was eager and ready to begin his apprenticeship with his parents and learn what it would take to run his family's company. Even as teenagers, Suguru was like this. He knew exactly what he wanted out of life. His family didn’t pressure him to take over, it was the path he chose for himself. 

Satoru, on the other hand, never cared much to know about how business worked. He liked living life the way he saw fit and doing what he wanted. And his father and grandfather had let Satoru do whatever he felt up until now. Suddenly, he had no choice in the matter. But he supposes he never actually had a choice in the first place. It was all a dream they let him have until they were ready for him to wake up. 

He was the only child, only son of his parents. He was always meant to take over the company. He just doesn’t understand why he has to marry someone – marry you – to do so.

“Did you hear me, Satoru?” Suguru calls for his friend.

“Huh?”

Suguru says your name, and Satoru rolls his eyes.

“What about her?”

“You should reach out. She’s probably not happy about this, either. It may help to meet up and see if you can at least be on the same page about this whole arrangement, at least get on good terms. Maybe apologize for being a dick every time you’ve seen her. I’m sure it’ll make things easier for the both of you.”

Again, Satoru rolls his eyes. Of course Suguru is worried about making things less of a headache for him. He’s a good friend, always has been. But it seems he’s always been a good friend to you as well, if the way he’s looking out for you is any indication. Satoru isn’t sure what to make of Suguru’s concern for you. But all of that can be handled later. Suguru is right. He needs to meet up with his fiancée. 

It’s been a long time since Satoru has seen you, in person at least. Sure, he’s seen you on your mutual friends' social media posts (he’s blocked on your actual page), or when you make rare appearances for your family’s business and it gets posted online. He’s even seen you on the blogs in passing when he’s scrolling through to see what’s been written about himself. Though he’ll never admit that last part. 

“Yeah, okay. Fine. Send me ___’s number – I know you have it – and I’ll text her.”

Shortly after ending his call with Suguru, Satoru reminisces on the day’s events.

------

Soft moans, and wet kisses can be heard through the door of room 601.

“Satoru, we shouldn’t…” a woman whines into his ear, though she kisses along his neck the way she knows he likes. “I could get fired…”

Satoru chuckles, nudging against the woman’s face so he can switch places with her, now nipping and sucking along her neck, surely leaving marks along the way. His hand skirts up her thigh, hiking her leg up and wrapping it around his waist. He rolls his hips forward, pressing the evidence of his arousal against her core, and pulling a whimper from the woman.

“I’ll never let them fire you,” Satoru swears against her skin, popping open her uniform blouse’s buttons until he can see the swell of her breasts. “You’re my favorite maid here. They can fire anyone else, but not you.”

The woman moans, hands tangling in Satoru’s hair as he leans down to plant kisses between her breasts. He groans at the feeling of her nails on his scalp and just as he’s about to dip a finger into the cup of her bra to expose her nipples, the irritating sound of beeping, followed by a door opening halts his movements.

With a sigh between the woman’s bosom, Satoru stands straight, his nimble fingers fixing her shirt as she hurriedly makes herself look presentable. When she’s set, she gets back to her tasks just in time for another woman to enter the space.

The other woman sighs, eyes roaming the scene – Satoru leaning seemingly innocently against the wall while the maid pretends she’s been cleaning the entire time. But for Satoru, this is normal, so she clears her throat and proceeds.

“Your father would like to see you,” she states simply. His father sent his assistant after him, it seems.

“Why?” Satoru moves from the wall, not sparing a glance back as he moves past his father’s assistant and out the door. “And don’t lie, Manami.”

Manami shakes her head, hurrying to catch up to Satoru. “I honestly don’t know. He just asked me to find you.”

“And let me guess…” Satoru taps the elevator button to go down, maybe a little harder than he means to, but the idea of meeting with his father is already an unwelcome one. “He had every hotel management team on the lookout for me so they could report back to him where I was.”

The doors to the elevator open and Manami follows Satoru inside. She wraps her arms around the tablet that seems to be practically glued to her arms these days and taps the screen a few times before turning the screen to him. There’s a map pulled up, a little blue dot blinking on the screen. “You shared your location with me when I first started and you tried to get in my pants.”

Manami hits Satoru with a sly grin, giggling to herself while Satoru stares down at her with wide eyes. “Don’t you remember? You told me, so you can find me when you get off, and I'll show you a good time.”

She imitates Satoru’s voice, making him cringe. That was so long ago. He couldn’t imagine hitting on Manami now, viewing her more as an annoying older sister than anyone he’d want to be intimate with.

“Is that how dad always knows where I am?”

Manami hums. “Makes my life so much easier,” she brags. She turns to Satoru, holding up a finger with an angry face behind it. “Don’t unshare it.”

When they reach the lobby, Satoru’s security team is already waiting for him. They escort him to his car where he climbs into the backseat with Manami, who manages to dodge every question Satoru has regarding what this meeting his father wants is about.

When he realizes he’ll get nowhere with his interrogation, Satoru finally settles for silence, scrolling through his timeline and absentmindedly liking his friends posts. 

They arrive at headquarters, the elevator ride a straight shot up to the corporate department. Outside of his father’s office, Manami wishes Satoru good luck, and he knows this isn’t going to be good. He enters his father’s office, taking a seat in front of his desk as he waits to be acknowledged, which unsurprisingly, takes forever. His father doesn’t even bother to look up from his computer as he speaks.

“We’re going to be merging with Club Echo,” he declares.

“...okay? You called me here for that?” 

His father glances up just briefly, then resumes his tasks. “This merger is very important, Satoru.”

“We’ve merged with companies before. What’s this one gotta do with me?”

His father’s fingers still on the keyboard, eyes as blue as Satoru’s meeting his gaze. “This merger is arguably the most important we’ve ever had. We need it to go through at all costs.”

Satoru thinks he gets it now. His father needs him to go shmooze up some old bag of bones to make sure they’re happy with the direction this merger is headed. He supposes it’s his way of trusting Satoru, giving him a chance to prove that he’s capable of doing something useful for the company. It wouldn’t be the first time. When Satoru wants to, he’s able to talk up whoever he wants, get his way and close deals. It’s just that most of the time…he doesn’t want to. But this is a big opportunity for him, so he supposes he’ll do it.

It’s almost like a transaction. Satoru does something right, his dad leaves him alone for awhile until he needs him again.

“Okay? So what? You need me to travel somewhere? There’s what? Like thirty Club Echo locations? Which branch am I meeting with? What location are we merging with?”

“All of them.”

“Oh…the entire company?”

Even for a company as large as Gojo Hospitality, this is a big move. Satoru knows this.

“Alright…what do you need from me?”

Satoru’s father leans forward, folding his hands together as he stares his son down. And there’s this sudden dread that washes over Satoru. He has a feeling this isn’t going to go the way he expected. The confirmation comes a second later, when his father speaks.

“I need you to get married.”

------

There was a lot of yelling, and admittedly throwing of items, mainly from Satoru, reminding his father that you’d once tried to kill him over a shoe and threatened to poke his eyes out and use them for jewelry. But it didn’t matter to his father, who just typed away on his computer as Satoru went ballistic. 

“That was a long time ago,” was all he offered to Satoru’s concerns. “Move on.”

And when all was said and done, Satoru still finds himself where he is now – on his sofa, staring at your number that he’s now saved in his phone under ????💍 after Suguru sent your contact information to him.

He knows he should follow Suguru’s advice and just call you, ask if you’d like to grab dinner later this week and iron out the details of this arrangement. It would make sense really since this is an arrangement set up by your parents, not one that either of you opted for. Because, let's be real, if given the option, neither of you would have chosen each other to get married to. 

Hell, even Satoru’s father admittedly would have chosen someone else for him. But Club Echo was growing and only getting bigger, and the idea of merging the companies and building clubs within hotel locations to create a powerhouse unit among hospitality and nightlife was just way too good of an opportunity for his father to pass up, his son’s happiness be damned. But when had he ever given a shit about that?

Now, he’s here, struggling to decide on whether or not to text his future wife who he doesn’t really care for, and who absolutely despises him.

Suguru’s earlier question rings through Satoru’s mind, asking what he’ll do if the fact that you don’t love each other changes. And Satoru realizes that he has to do everything in his power to make sure that doesn’t happen. He enjoys his freedom, likes being able to do what he wants whenever he wants and with whomever he wants. Having a wife will surely ruin that. But from what he’s seen of you in the blogs, you seem to live a similar lifestyle. He doubts you want to be weighed down by a wedding ring either. It gives him an idea. Perhaps you’ll be more willing to meet up if he has something worth meeting for.

So Satoru hits the text button, writing out a message – because honestly, he doesn’t have the courage to dial your number and hear the hatred out in your voice just yet – and he quickly hits send…multiple times.

SATORU: hey wifey ;) it’s satoru

SATORU: DONT BLOCK ME PLS 

SATORU: SAVE MY NUMBER

SATORU: wanna grab dinner next Monday?

SATORU: u kno…talk marriage and stuff

He waits for a response. And waits. And waits.

About forty minutes pass before his phone vibrates, and he doesn’t notice the tiny smirk curling on his lips when he sees your response.

????💍: Could you possibly send more texts?

‘Still snarky as ever,’ Satoru thinks, and more little dots pop up at the bottom of the screen. 

????💍: I’m traveling next week. We can have dinner the Monday after to talk over everything. Might as well figure out how we’re going to make this work. 6pm. Don’t be late. See you in two weeks.

Your text is final, not leaving an opening for a response from him. He’s tempted to message you again, just to annoy you, but decides against it. The point of meeting up is to ease the tension before the marriage, not cause more. He’ll just send you a text on Monday of where to meet.

So he puts his phone away, mind going a million miles a second as he thinks of all the ways he could possibly make a marriage work between two people who can’t stand each other.

------

The next two weeks go by much faster than Satoru anticipated, and now he finds himself sitting alone in a rooftop lounge - of your choice, of course - as he waits for you. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling this strange sensation in the pit of his stomach, the idea of seeing you in person after so many years making him feel like he should run. Aside from what’s online, he doesn’t know much about you. 

You like shopping, which he could have guessed back when you were sixteen. Given how you reacted when he accidentally stepped on your shoe, he’d say you’re quite passionate about your little hobby. You’re also quite the party girl from what he’s seen online, with rumors always swirling about who you’re dating. 

One of them being his best friend. Multiple times, he’s noticed. No matter, though. Suguru was quick to deny the rumors, so there’s nothing to worry about there. Though, Suguru does seem to be pretty aware of your hatred of Satoru. He wonders just how close you two really are. But only for a moment, because it won’t matter in the long run.

Another thing Satoru has noticed about you is that much like him, it doesn’t seem like you’ve ever been interested in the family business. Yes, you occasionally show up to represent your family at certain events, but you have no actual position within the company from what he’s been able to gather. At least Satoru is listed as the Chief Marketing Officer, though he doesn’t do shit. It’s all for show until he hopefully comes to his senses and decides he wants to do something for the company. That’s not happening if he has any say in it, which his father has seemed to pick up on, so it looks like he’s using his son to further his business and keep Satoru tethered to it as well. A bullshit play, but he’s spent the weekend going over what could be done about it.

But you? Your father doesn’t seem to care that you don’t want to be involved, hence all the partying and freedom, so he wonders what it was that got you roped into this mess. It’s something he can try to pry out of you when you get here. 

For a second, he lets himself ponder what you’re like in person now. You have somehow managed to avoid any and all events that would have you two in the same room over the last couple of years, so this being the first time you’ve been together and without anyone running interference?…well, Satoru is worried he may be leaving here with yet another bald spot. The one you left him with a decade ago still hasn’t grown back quite the same.

He checks his watch, the clock hitting 6pm exactly, and he glances up to see you strolling towards the table right on time.

Of course, you’re decked out in all the finest that money can buy. He spots the designer heels, expensive gems that cover your ears, neck and wrist. The little dress you sport (which you fill out quite nicely, he lets himself think) looks like something straight off of a runway, and Satoru wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

His eyes take in your features. Your face has changed a bit as well, more mature and he can’t deny, very pretty. But as you meet his curious gaze, he sees those even prettier lips of yours twist in disgust and he remembers then that aside from being rich, the only thing you two have in common is the fact that your parents are basically forcing you to get married.

You stand beside your seat, glaring down at Satoru and he leans back, not daring to look away. Your eyes narrow, darting to your seat and back to him quickly. But you don’t say anything, don’t simply speak up and say what you’re wanting, so Satoru says nothing as well. 

It’s a standoff between you two, and he’s not backing down. He could sit here for days, staring up at you with the same smirk that he’s sure gets on your nerves the same way your uppity attitude irks him. He’s not sure what it is about you that makes him want to get under your skin so badly. You’re an annoying heiress just like most of the women Satoru surrounds himself with that just wants to drink and have fun, the same way he does. He doesn’t typically care about any of them, but he’s always found this weird satisfaction in annoying you.

You finally break eye contact, Satoru cheering internally when you figure out he’s not standing up to pull your seat out for you like a true gentleman would. You politely wave the waiter over, ordering a glass of wine for yourself, a brow raising when Satoru doesn’t order anything for himself.

“I don’t drink anymore. Haven’t in years,” he answers the question you don’t ask.

You’re staring at him again, but with less ferocity than when you first arrived. You inhale deeply before you ask, “So…why did you want to meet?”

At this, Satoru points to the stack of papers he has sitting in front of him. “To do business.”

“Business?”

Satoru nods. “I want to propose…” He pauses, having to hold back the laugh bubbling in his chest when your eyes nearly pop out of your head at his words. “...a deal,” he finishes, and you scowl. He doesn’t miss the sigh of relief that leaves you before you slip your businesswoman mask on, a look he’s never seen before.

“What did you have in mind?”

[demigod-shenanigans]

Some more of my and @queenjunothegreat’s Sofía Valdez thoughts (this time specifically focused on her relationship with her dads when she’s little):

-Jason is the kind of dad who has more baby pictures than money in his wallet and you cannot convince me otherwise.

-The same would be true for Leo, except he doesn’t really have a wallet because he tends to lose those a lot. Instead, he just puts stuff into his tool belt and hopefully one day it’ll reappear lmao. He’s got lots of pictures of her up in his workshop, though.

-Leo makes her the most ridiculously elaborate baby mobile ever. He works on it for days. There are so many moving parts and she’s obsessed with it.

-Toddler Sofía loves sleeping on her papá’s chest because he’s always warm. She’s like a cat curling up in a sunbeam. Will also take her gloves off in the winter to take his hand instead. 10/10 would recommend having a dad who also doubles as a heat lamp.

-Leo and Jason take turns telling her bedtime stories. Leo’s are often grand adventures that somehow manage to be both cool and almost completely nonsensical. He also does goofy voices for all the characters. Jason’s are heartfelt ones about found family and love, which tend to be… a lot more coherent than Leo’s. Sofía loves them an equal amount.

-Her dads are the most sickeningly in love people Sofía has ever met and she finds it so so annoying (she loves them dearly and they’ve been her go-to proof true love is real since she first encountered the concept in a movie). They’re holding hands grocery shopping and when they split up to go into different isles they’ll greet each other with a kiss like long-lost lovers returning from a voyage upon being reunited. They will constantly hit on each other in the cringiest way possible for absolutely no reason. It’s unbearable.

-Sofía gets told so many stories about her abuela. She thinks Esperanza was the absolutely coolest person ever and loves sharing a name with her. There’s a six month period when she’s little where she won’t respond to anything other than Espi.

-The only family member on Jason’s side of the family Sofía actually meets/knows about is Thalia. She has no idea who Beryl Grace is. She’s never even heard the last name Grace before (Thalia stopped using it a long time ago and obviously Jason took Leo’s last name when they got married.) The only thing she knows about Jupiter is that her family doesn’t like him.

-Because Jason never talks about his mom, and because Piper makes so many jokes about wolf genes, Sofía was genuinely convinced her abuela on her dad’s side was a wolf for the first several years of her life.

-Sofía and Leo build the fanciest pillow forts together that anyone has ever seen. The Waystation thankfully has lots of space for it. Sometimes when Jason comes back from work, exhausted, he’ll just collapse into the pillow fort and nap there, which inevitably results in him waking up in a Valdez family cuddle pile.

-Leo gets very invested in some of the cartoons Sofía watches. Will this whacky found family of animated cartoon princesses save the world again this week? Probably. But he needs to know for sure. They always have a great time.

-When Sofía is around eight, she gets really into puzzles. When she can’t sleep after a nightmare, doing puzzles in the middle of the night is Jason’s go-to way to make her feel better.

[dittobtch]

I'd like to hear about leatin

ah yes my favourite topic:

leah, just a lonely girl living in a lonely world. a girl who falls in love with an older disgusting man only to get her heart broken later on.

then there's fatin: bold, gifted, and tired. so fucking tired of being held back by her busy schedule that she doesn't even want.

both of them fear love for different reasons. fatin thinks she's incapable of it and even if she was, all it brings is pain and heartbreak and she's had enough of that. besides, she doesn't have the time for anything like that: not romantic love nor platonic. familial love for fatin is... well... complicated...

leah on the other hand is familiar with the sting an intense, burning love leaves behind. she's suddenly left alone and has to deal with the consequences on her own. despite everything, all she wants is that toxic love back. to her, it's the only thing that can cure the emptiness she feels.

even on the island all she can think about is jeff. she gets into a literal fight with fatin over him (and fatin's "laziness" and lack of cooperation, but anyways).

then shit gets real. specifically, fatin goes missing. (cue the beginning of a beautiful, complex, sometimes toxic relationship).

only after Leah's confronted with the thought that holy shit someone could die - Fatin could die, does she finally burn his fuck ass book and metaphorically let him go (for now, anyways).

things are good for a bit, then they're bad. the ups and downs of the island. sometimes they get along, like when they think they're going to get rescued. other times they still have trouble getting along and that's okay too; they're learning and they're there for each other and that's all that matters.

well, they're there for each other until they're not. leah's mental health goes into a decline as season 2 begins. fatin tries to hold it together for the both of them, but she can't help but (homoerotically) argue with leah (for the second time) to defend her grieving friend.

eventually they make up because of course they do. afterall, fatin "was starting to like her" and knew that she could never really stop caring about leah.

in fact, the opposite starts happening. she cares about leah so much that she begins to look for the truth for leah. she devotes herself to the very thing that nearly drove leah insane. because she believes leah, for real this time.

and it's good but it's makes her feel so guilty because holy shit leah was right and fatin let her believe that she was insane. she unknowingly helped in gaslighting leah, but she can't give up now. she has to prove that leah was right; it's the only thing that can make up for it.

so, fatin attempts to pick up what leah left behind. fatin, who less than two months ago was unwillingly to help in building a simple shelter, puts in so much of her time and energy in figuring out the truth for leah. she'll let herself go insane the way leah did, do all the ethically questionable things, as long as leah doesn't have to do it anymore.

because fatin loves her:

and even though leah doesn't know fatin does all of this for her, leah loves her back:

(i could not for the life of me find a "the voices you love" gif, sorry)

ultimately, i love leatin because it's a story of these two complex teenagers who heal and break together. neither of them are fond of the idea of love when they meet, especially not with each other but together, they form a unique bond. their love doesn't fix each other but instead, they do things out of love for one another that helps them both.

they relearn how to love together. it's not perfect, but it works for them.

in the words of basically everyone left in this fandom: THEY COULD HAVE BEEN EVERYTHING but also they kind of already were everything and i don't think i'll ever get over it.

anyways if you liked this you should read my new fic too lmao

[mixelation]

it is always dangerous to be like "i don't think this was explained well in canon" because someone will immediately pop up and explain it to you and how it actually IS explained in canon (or, if you're in the star wars fandom, in a random book or comic). but really i'm not necessarily criticizing the presence or absence of an explanation so much as (these do NOT all apply to JJK. i also just had this conversation about Naruto lmao):

Did your fighting manga stop for a long ass time mid-fight to explain something? Might have been a bad pacing move, even if the explanation does exist!

Did you use a ton of words and airtime to explain something but the explanation still didn't super make sense? Might be a writing issue, even if some fans understand you!

Do you have to keep coming back to explain things over and over? Sometimes necessary in a long-running manga/show, but also might be a symptom that readers are having a hard time following along, or that you're wasting time that could go to moving the story forward instead!

Do you keep revealing more and more motivations and random actions of your character without actually fulfilling any sort of overarching theme or character arc? You might be having characterization problem, even if someone can physically write out the listed motivations!

Do you keep retroactively inserting details to "explain" things which don't actually need further explaining? Unless you can clearly verbalize a reason this was necessary for the story, then maybe leave that to the fans!

Is your main character the only one of fixing any problem, at the cost of other characters suddenly becoming incompetent at things they were previously good at? You might have another writing/characterization issue, even if there's an in-universe explanation!

Did you just stop the entire plot so one character can explain to another some facet of the world building, even if it's not particularly in character or setting appropriate for either character to have this conversation? Congrats, you might be in a ratfic!

To be clear, not all of these scenarios are AUTOMATICALLY bad. I actually kind of like the shounen anime trope of some guy just thinking to themselves about what just happened in the fight, and I know the format of ratfic I just teased about is enjoyed by many people. My point is that "but this IS explained!" doesn't mean the explanation was good or well-executed, and depending on your genre, might frustrate some readers.

[clare-with-no-i]

theogony part 1 behind the scenes

**SPOILERS ahead for theogony and mild spoilers for Outlander!**

this is just going to be a long infodump of all of the things I pondered while writing theog (specifically part 1, part 2 will come later) but never talked about! I'll try to go chapter by chapter, and maybe I'll end up adding more later on, but for now I just think it'd be fun to chitchat and reminisce on some of my favorite tidbits. this story is really my baby idk :")

Prologue - Alalá

one thing that I wanted to establish in the prologue, other than the obvious James-Sirius dynamic, is the presence of otherworldly or spiritual premonitions in this universe. it was always important to me that the first person who actually made any sort of prophetic declaration was James.

so much of the story relies on Lily's status as an oracle, but this little tidbit here helped build the world for me so much; we can't be sure if James's various dreams and premonitions are wishful thinking, or really the Gods speaking to him, or something else entirely. of course, this story deals with time travel, so there's an inherent supernatural element. but Lily and James's conflicting – and sometimes competing – conceptions of God felt like such a necessary tension for me to explore. it was such an incredible shorthand for the tension between modern and ancient sensibilities. and we never get a definitive answer to those looming questions, which I knew I wanted to do from the outset. did the Gods bring Lily back to the past? did James? did she do it herself? does God/the Gods even exist?

also: there are probably moments where I failed to do this, but I tried to capitalize Gods in all of the James chapters but not in Lily's, unless she was referring to the Abrahamic Capital G God. that is, until the last chapter, which I'll elaborate upon later :)

also: i wrote the prologue first, then the epilogue, and then i posted the prologue pretty immediately after. I had the entire story roughly outlined but I absolutely jumped the gun when it came to posting the prologue LMAO I didn't even really announce the story, I just joked about writing it and then posted the prologue, which you can see from the beginning note. i remember Suze was about to go to sleep and she started messaging me like wtf Clare what do you MEAN?

and the rest was history (pun completely intended)!

Chapter One: Ouroboros

the narrative brushes past the other statues in this section pretty quickly, but I always imagined that the first bust is Philoctetes, James's father. I think the consensus on this one tends to oscillate between Philoctetes and Aristides, which is another great interpretation.

The reason I wrote it this way and imagined it to be Philoctetes is because I thought it would have been nice to let Lily 'meet' James's father (in a sense), even before she 'meets' him. when I read this chapter back after I first finished the story, I had a very soft moment where I close-read my own fic (lol) and thought that maybe it was Philoctetes who sent Lily back to the past. maybe he sensed something about her and knew she'd be right for James and for antiquity.

sooo many people forgot about this! which i was hoping for!!!!! I was hoping everyone would forget about James's statue holding something until the Big Reveal. fun fact is I wrote the reveal right after this. I liked the idea that, no, he was never going to actually be holding anything. he'd be reaching for Lily. the choice to accept his hand was always going to be hers.

a fun fact about this chapter is that I had to pull from a bit more Outlander lore than I originally thought. and no I don't mean the 'Jesus H Roosevelt Christ' part lol. It was always hilarious to me how Outlander set up Claire to be the objectively perfect person to go back in time. she was a combat nurse who happened to develop an interest in medicinal botany and Scottish-English history. she also happened to spend her formative years with her adventurous archaeologist uncle after her only living relatives died. like girl. lol.

so I had to really toss up which traits I thought it would be appropriate for Lily to have as she traveled back in time. the biggest one, obviously, is her field of study, which was necessary given the language barrier and the completely foreign nature of social norms in Classical Athens. I toyed around with the idea of making her mum a nurse so as to give her some base medical knowledge, but that felt a) unnecessary given the circumstances of the story, and b) far-fetched that she would have gleaned enough transferable skills to apply in 479 BCE.

it was also fun to give her more reason to go back to the future; she has a sister who, while they aren't in contact, is a significant emotional attachment; she has academic goals; she has a best friend (however toxic we know him to be). it added a layer of conflict that I enjoyed playing up, even if I definitely could have explored her modern life more fully.

Chapter Two: Kinesis

soooo much exposition and worldbuilding in this chapter. oml. it was so much fun to play around with the reasons why James would be in Tatoi in the first place; I can't remember quite how I landed on the Persian auxiliary soldier thing, it might have been from my initial (admittedly extensive) research on the months leading up to Plataea; it may have just been the fact that I KID YOU NOT this story used to take up all of my fucking brainspace. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd be doing work for my research fellowship and just daydream about theogony. the initial idea came to me AS A JOKE!!!!! when i was idly pondering before going to sleep (as one does), and then it just wouldn't leave me alone. i kept imagining what it might look like. I thought about how the time travel might work. I thought about James's Greek equivalent. I ranted to my sister and her dog (he did not care) about what the statue might look like and mean (sorry bestie love u).

one narrative decision that has given me a bit of strife was the Dimitrios-James name change. I've had a number of people ask me if I'd ever try to pubilsh theog – and this is one of the (many) reasons why that would be pretty categorically impossible. using James's English name in his internal narration, instead of the name I give him as a Greek man, is something that only translates to fic. it makes pretty much no sense at all if you consider these original characters lol.

honestly putting the word 'practicum' in here caused me SO much pain. in James's chapters I tried really hard to use words which had Greek roots and not Latin roots, even if they're in modern English today. in most of his chapters, I'd try and find synonyms for big/complex words so I could use ones that came from Greek. it just helped me stick to his narrative voice a bit more.

I forgot how much STUFF went on in this chapter. oh my god SO much happens?? we get the lack of the Parthenon as the time marker (felt very clever doing that), Lily processing the fact that she's time traveled (lazy writing on my part to not have this happen in a Lily POV chapter but I'll take that on the chin), the Plataea reveal. OML. tired just thinking about it. lily sweetie i am so sorry

guys, the amount of time I spent wondering if I should Greek-ify Sirius's name is insane. For so long I thought about making him Seirios, which is the original Greek version of Sirius. But I felt like I had already messed with their names too much, and so I left it. but honestly I'm still torn. looking back, maybe it would have been the right move to make him Seirios and have Lily give him the name Sirius, but I guess we'll never know!

one of my favorite Sirius moments, and something that, essentially, sets up the rest of the story. but I wanted there to be a little ambiguity throughout the story about how much of this Sirius actually believes.

we know that James has just confessed to Sirius and Pétros that he was hoping they'd desert the Athenian army. we know that he thinks he's going to die, and he's adopted this sort of fatalist view of his future. and then here you have Sirius, who could never abide such a thing, pretty much leaning into the idea that Lily can tell the future – which would allow him to challenge James's prediction. I always wanted to leave it up to interpretation, and I know it comes up in later chapters (at the komos especially), Sirius's skepticism about Lily's origins. but it's such a fun question to ask: does he really believe that she's the Oracle that James prayed for, or does he just need that to be true so he can try and influence the future himself?

Chapter Three: Peribolos

omg. lol. the chapter three opening academic argument scene. this is a favorite of mine, and something I had so much fun writing. it's actually based on an argument/"spirited discussion" I had with my dad a few years ago about moral absolutism versus moral relativism which forced me to interrogate and expand my knowledge on the subject. I thought it was such a fun way to get into Lily's politics and her character without doing crazy exposition in the ancient world.

it also touches upon one of the touchstone themes of the story: that to study something is, in a way, to detach yourself from it. academia is routintely completely disconnected from its subject matter, and it creates this weird disdain for lived experience versus book knowledge. Lily has spent upwards of ten years studying (in some capacity) the ancient world, but she is so utterly out of her depth when she experiences it herself. as such, she espouses these very revolutionary politics when examining historical conflicts, but she has a blindness to what the real-world realities may have been for the people living in those conditions at the time.

alsooooo, The Return of Martin Guerre is one of my favorite books I read in college, and the easter egg here is that it's about a person of dubious origin entering a community and the politics of how the community might accept or reject them. ha ha!

^^based on something I said in an argument with a Poli Sci major in college and I have to say one of my better moments. was an absolute haymaker. this was very 'author gives main character a zinger' of me and I will not be ashamed of it

this! ladies and gentlemen! this was basically a declaration of love!!!! to be loved is to be remembered!!!

in a very romantic way, the study of history can be such an act of love to those who lived before us. i just adore the idea that, even before Lily developed real romantic feelings for James, she had this itching sort of feeling; AKA, when someone has made such an impression on you, and you know (or in her case, you think) that you'll be leaving them at some point, and you just want to be interesting enough, be impressive enough, that they remember you, that they think of you randomly as time goes on. that is such a giddy hallmark feeling of having a crush, in my book. I liken it to making eye contact with someone or having a brief conversation on a night out, maybe at 3am on your way back from a bar when things are sleepy and dizzy, and you just have this sense that you're being seen in that moment as anyone you want to be. i love this moment so much I feel like I could give it its own meta LMAO

Chapter Four: Hamartia

this chapter really put the pedal to to the metal lol. at the time of writing the story, I generally didn't (and still don't) love fake dating that much as a trope; I don't typically love plotlines predicated on (even harmless) deceptions, it's just a sensitivity of mine that I don't expect anyone to relate to or share. but when I was considering how to structure theog, it just made so much sense for James and Lily's arcs to have them get 'married.' there was no way that Lily was going to be able to navigate Classical Athens as an unsupervised woman alone, and even with the Oracle title offering her some protection, there was nothing really tying her to James. much like Outlander, it really did feel like the last possible resort, which softened me to the idea of using the trope.

fun fact, i got a snarky comment a few months ago complaining that i was trying to pass the story off as historically accurate (lol to the fifteen disclaimers I embedded throughout which addressed that) and one thing they took issue with was that lily wouldn't have been able to own property and the only thing that would have kept her from being a slave would have been marriage.

which! yknow! none of which contradict the story! but anyway I digress.

I was initially nervous about how early on the fake marriage happens; we don't really know the characters that well yet, we're not sure who James is as a potential partner to Lily, or how Lily's feelings for him are starting to bump up against her very rightful and justified desire to get the hell out of dodge. but – we only really see James in canon as a husband and as the father to the main character, so it felt pretty true to the source material to throw him into being a husband pretty early.

I loved writing this scene with Aristides. I've always been partial to his appearances throughout the story, and this one is just so special to me. I think of him as a driving force in humanizing the ancient world in theog, sometimes even more so than the main cast of characters. to elaborate a bit on that: with the Marauders and Lily and the other transplanted HP characters, I think there's this inherent sense that they are already fleshed out people (to some degree) even before they hit the page of the story, because they appear in canon and across Marauder fic verses. no matter how much I make James into Dimitrios and Peter into Pétros and Fleamont into Philoctetes, people know them and love them outside of theogony verse. but not Aristides. he doesn't have a one-to-one HP character. there is some version of him that really existed in 479 BCE (my complex and largely negative feelings on RPF are setting off alarms at this but we proceed) and that's it.

it would have been easy to just give him this very gruff and surly character, to make him a military general who didn't care about anything other than the war. I think that's how we conceptualize historical people sometimes, often without meaning to. but he was a person, and he had likes and dislikes, he probably had a family and maybe he'd fallen in love, and it was such an honor to give him such dimension. not to say that I'm putting that personality upon the actual historical person; but just to really take my time with a character outside of the Marauder canon. in this scene he has this human moment where he reminds James that, yes, love is a worthy pursuit, even to those in positions of incredible power. even when the discussion isn't about romantic love but about James's love for his closest friends. it's this permission that James didn't even know he was seeking but ultimately that changes the course of his and Lily's lives. Aristides is who James might become, in many ways. in the actual Plataea chapter this becomes more and more prevalent. (more on this later!)

overall, I am forever hoping that people come out of reading this story with an appreciation for the humanity of those that came before us. I did a poor job with other characters in this story, and I own that, but I'm proud of how I wrote Aristides.

oh my godddddd I fucking love this part. i am so fucking proud of it. LMAO. achieving wordplay in an ancient language that i have never studied should be on my fucking CV I swear. like this was just perfect I'm sorry I am BUZZING that I pulled this off.

also, a cute way to introduce a phrase to the narrative which will become very important: se filo!

I remember that I wrote this passage, which many people commented on and which I loved writing, in a coffee shop on a sunny day when my cousin was visiting me to introduce me to his girlfriend. there wasn't any wifi in the coffee shop so I was blessedly devoid of distractions and could only focus on the doc, and i was LOCKED IN let me tell you.

when my cousin and his girlfriend arrived I told them I was sending an important email and edited the last sentence of that paragraph about four different times while they sat in silence and waited for me to finish LMAOOO

Chapter Five: Ascesis

a profoundly insane moment in my personal history was reading excerpts from Eudemian Ethics, Nichomachean Ethics, and Memorabilia just to passively mention them in a flashback in a fic. relied heavily on Foucault for this, I will be so honest. why did i do that tho. like girl take a breath...

but in all seriousness this was just a joy to write. i miss being a history student and having these discussions – law school is great, but history classes will forever hold my heart ngl! also, this passage is in some ways an homage to my grandfather, who is one of my favorite people ever. he taught himself Classical Greek and Latin when he was in his 20s, before he went to medical school (and get his pilot's license for fun, he's seriously the most interesting guy alive). he gifted me his leatherbound Great Books printings of Aristotle's works and of the Iliad and the Odyssey shortly after I started theogony, and I cherish them so much. he spurred my interest in ancient greece when i was young. so this is for him :)

one of the hardest things for me to articulate (and maybe something I could have done better) was the war and the balance between James's inherent goodness and his growing feelings for Lily. i wanted her to have plausible reason to think that he doesn't at all feel romantically towards her, even as she's growing to admire him more and more. I hoped, as I wrote the story, that these little interactions where the reader clues into his feelings (this protective 'peninsula' moment being one of them) still walked that line. as in, i wanted lily to reasonably believe that he's just that good of a guy that he would take issue with anyone being taken advantage of, not just her. she's so destabilized in this moment as well, I think that worked to my advantage. or I hoped it did LOL.

from what I remember of writing this chapter, it just came really quickly and naturally. much more than the later ones. this early period of writing was just an outpouring of the ABSOLUTE BRAINROT I was going through after conjuring up the idea for the story. it just flew. the ending scene where they have their little almost-moment was probably about an hour's worth of writing. it's like I couldn't type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. not sure i've experienced that since!

also, the now, here, alive line reappears in the last chapter, which is one of my favorite callbacks:

:) :) :)

Chapter Six: Kleos

one thing I used to worry about CONSTANTLY is that I was losing the classic (and necessary!) Marauder goofiness to the more somber setting. so it was a jaunt and a boon to write scenes like the opening one here, where it honestly could be copy-pasted into the Gryffindor Common Room and it'd look a lot like my canon stories.

he's just a dude being hungover and embarrassed about the previous night with his bros!

the first time we get a hint of Pétros disappearing to dubious locations!

this chapter was one of the most research-heavy. it was a new setting, filled with new characters, and predicated entirely upon planning the Greek front at Plataea. so if I couldn't nail that down (at least to some degree), I was going to have trouble. of course I took liberties, but I spent a lot longer combing through sources for this chapter than some other ones, I'll tell you that for free. it took ages to find any treatises on ancient athenian sword combat, sigh.

yeah I mean i remember thinking that the subtitle for this chapter could have been 'I am going to create an environment that is so toxically masculine' because that's pretty much the whole vibe. James is not immune to that, either, and that was intentional. he feeds off of the violence and the anger of the men surrounding him, and he exhibits some behaviors in this chapter (rushing off to kill Anaxagoras after he grabs Lily's arm, for instance) which are not ideal! but I do think that there's meaningful conversation to be had about Lily's cultural assimilation into an ancient, misogynistic society, and how there was absolutely no way I was going to get out of this story without giving James some sort of period-typical attitude. now again, I took the liberties I deem necessary, because I have no desire to make my main romantic lead into an asshole. that's not my James Potter. not that that's news [gets taken out by a sniper]

i got CLOWNEDDD for referring to this dude as Dion son of Dion but idk what to tell you!! that's how the old documents referred to him!!! i didn't make that shit up I swear to god!!!!

also - that's the actual text of the Oath of Plataea, except (as Lily points out) it should read Athena Areia. is it likey that she'd remember this off the dome? no. is it possible that she just recognized the missing descriptor from context clues? yes. did i care enough to explain this either way? no, no i did not.

the Big Ticket Item of this chapter, though, is the oh.

and it wasn't just an oh, it was an oh followed by this innocuous conclusion that isn't even about Lily. i made myself laugh so hard with that. he's just like 'oh god my friend is going to wave this over my head FOREVER' and you know what? he's right!

as for the previous paragraph in that passage, I pulled a bit of a bait and switch, but not as badly as you might think! it was a risk to even bring up the idea that James could leave Athens, because I know it spurred some people into thinking that he'd go to the future with Lily (sorry babies that was not on the table). but what I intended for this passage (however successful it may or may not have been) was to just…allow him a moment of real, visceral empathy for the sensation of displacement that Lily's experiencing, and as well, introduce the idea that he might leave the life he's cultivated in Athens. his entire upbringing has been himself, the consummate Athenian man, surrounding himself with people from outside of Athens and drawing from their experiences, but never venturing outside of his little realm. in so many ways, the story questions what Lily's relationship with 'home' is (especially later on), but it always felt necessary to me to reckon with how 'home' may change for James as well.

finally:

yeah honestly i just remember the exact moment i thought of this passage. i had been reading the secret history (shoutout Donna Tartt i idolize and fear you) and i was lying down in my local park in the summer. I just thought about the Greek myths I knew, and the kind of cosmic horror that it is to really admit you're falling in love with someone, that they have this power over you that you didn't anticipate. and that closing line of the scene really struck me out of nowhere – I wrote it down in my notebook and just stared at it for a good few minutes. it's still one of my favs of the story :)

ok! if you made it this far, you are just amazing. this has to be a few thousand words at least. TYSM!!!!

see you all later for the part 2 BTS ❤️

[shinesurge]

I think it's a side effect of having a slightly bigger audience than before, but this year I've been getting a LOT of questions about offering digital editions of the KC books so I wanted to talk about it out loud for a bit.

There are a bunch of complicated reasons I've never offered the volumes as digital downloads, and I think they mostly boil down to concerns about the pretty embarrassing lack of significant internet presence Kidd Commander has accumulated over the 11 years it's been running. The audience I DO have is very enthusiastic, and let me be clear that I appreciate how unique and cool that is, especially in the era we're in where I really have no business running things the way I do lmao

The problem is, in refusing to do any of the predatory social media bullshit that tricks people into doing advertising for my comic while pretending it's a fandom, and by taking initiative to build fandom spaces for people to hang out in myself, I've created an extremely insular community where folks don't really feel any need to help it grow. "If you build it they'll come" is true, but the other half of that is people going "hey neat this thing builds itself!" and you end up with dozens of fandom posts, hours of discussion, and even fanwork locked away in inaccessible spaces while the pages on the site consistently get no comments or interaction and the public tags are empty.

WHAT does this have to do with digital editions lol

The idea was, a thing that helps set KC apart is the webcomic thing where you're not only checking a site regularly as a routine, but you're building some impression of the author as well. My little news posts are bundled with the pages, the site gives a sense of Environment in way static editions don't. In return for offering nearly a thousand pages of completely free content the reader has to Encounter Me at some point, and be made aware that this is an operation being run by a single person, and that its survival is entirely dependent on other people reading it and supporting it. Going to the site ALSO at least lets people know a comment section /exists/, and there COULD be a community to participate in. You don't get that with the books as much, but the books are almost exclusively going to folks who already read the comic, I don't think they're floating around out there to many people who didn't buy them directly from me after reading it online.

It is objectively easier for people to binge an archive they can carry around offline with them, I completely get it. But I've watched SO many new readers fall in love with this thing in real time as they leave comments behind them through the archive, and even just forming the habit of checking the site regularly really goes a long way towards forming enough of a connection with a reader for them to stick around for the long haul. If you just read it all isolated on your phone, it stops there; it's easy to forget it's an independent operation that desperately needs your support, /I/ have no idea whether you liked it or if people are even reading, and when you're finished you'll move on to something else because there's no visible fandom to engage with.

I don't WANT to think this is what will happen, but it's already been happening here for years even without proper channels. I sort of feel like this would just be facilitating my own demise lmao. All the comics who run the way I do were ALREADY popular back before the landscape shifted to fast-fashion sensibilities, so Girl Genius offering digital editions doesn't really harm them, you know? By the time forums died their community was already so stable and self-sufficient they could quit updating the main story for a whole year and not even feel it. Gunnerkrigg is signed on with fuckin Dark Horse now. People doing the things KC does got in early and stabilized before I even got started, fandom is a different world now and I'm already barely keeping this train running on my own as it is.

But on the other hand: accessibility!! HOW many times have I wanted to engage with something but they WONT LET ME PAY THEM FOR THE THING I WANT so I just leave!! The alternative here isn't "oh if i FORCE THEM to read it online they'll stick around" it's "if i can't read it how i want then i'm skipping it". That makes total sense, /I/ do that! What about people who want the extra content in the books but can't pay international fucking shipping!! It's also an Archival issue, which absolutely kills me, but that's a whole other post lmao. There are extremely good reasons to offer another option for reading my work, but I am so anxious this would just be putting a nail in this stupid coffin I've been building already.

I've been having this conversation a lot, mostly with Lee, but it came up again this morning in an email and regardless of my own feelings: this is a thing people want, a very reasonable thing, and if I fail to provide it that's just bad business. Do y'all here have any thoughts about all this? I would like to give the people what they want and y'all are The People.

Anyway buried way down here so far I'll make another post about it: I /am/ going to offer the specials as digital downloads, permanently in the shop. They're old books by now, I'm having issues keeping them in stock anyway, and they DON'T exist online anywhere, so this isn't technically any skin off my back outside of piracy issues, which. would be a stupid thing to fret about lmao

thanks for reading all this! I'm gonna go sort through pdfs for a while

[ddlcbrainrot]

I love how your mind works so much everything you say is canon now bc I said so.

Since you've done Monisuri, Moniyuri and Natsuri thoughts, do you plan on doing any other ships? Sayonika would be cool/nf

my mind is a cat, a red panda and a raccoon in a trench coat pretending to be human, or so i’ve been told so thank you

if people ask me to, then sure!

sayonika makes my brain go brrrrr and i stop thinking proper thoughts bc i love them so much every time i see them i just go hehehe so this is going to take a while bear with me

m…monika and sayori,… kithes…

ok but srsly, i think the reason i like sayonika so much is bc its a very versatile ship. You want cute best friends to lovers? Side stories are right there. You want angst fest, hurt no comfort with no happy ending? Base game is right there

If we are talking about base game, a lot of questions pop up. Like how did they even get together? (probably some time after the ending, maybe since both have gone through the epiphany they bond over that) Can they even be in a functioning relationship after the events of ddlc? (a functioning one? no lol, but maybe after a lot of work they make something special) Does Sayori ever forgive Monika? (surprisingly, yes after a long time. I actually can see her "forgiving" Monika right away, only for her to build up resentment over time and snap and so she realises that she needs to actually feel and process her feelings of anger and betrayal before she can forgive Monika) Does Monika forgive herself and lets herself be loved? (THERE IS NO WAY LMAO). So yeah, the main headcanon i have for them in base game is that Monika never fully forgives herself, no matter how much Sayori insists she forgives her. Because i love suffering.

Anyway lets step away from the sad sad world of base game and get to the happy stuff of side stories :D

So yeah, bffs that slowly realise they like eachother

I think ive mentioned this before, but they give off first sapphic crush/relationship vibes. if you know you know

Both had a hard time accepting they like each other bc both were like "shes too good for me..." (dumbasses)

Acting like a couple before even being together, im talking hand holding (how lewd...), cuddling, compliments, you name it

And when Natsuki would be like "you guys act so gay for eachother" they'd be like nnNnNoOoOo We're just gals being pals (dumbasses p2)

Who would confess? Probably Sayori. But only in a last resort situation. She'd be expecting to be rejected too. Surprise surprise being the kindest person alive gets people to like you who would have thought

PDA couple.

Sayori's physical affection and Monika's words of affection? You can't be around them without getting diabetes

Im not kidding when i say they would be the worst couple to be around. But like in a sweet way

Sayori steals Monika's clothes

They paint their nails the eye colour of the other person, so like Sayori paints them green and Monika blue

When one is having a bad day, the other gives little notes filled with cheezy puns throughout the school day to cheer them up, and they talk about whats bothering them after (sayori started this and it has become kind of a tradition)

I can keep going but if I do this will end up longer than the declaration of independence

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[autisticandroids]

are u a down to agincourt guy at all? i notice it’s not on any of ur rec lists (which is valid even if u do like it lmao it’s everywhere so there’s no need to let the people know about it) any chance ur a hater and want to let loose a little 👀

i mean, i'm not really a hater? i'm more an ambivalent.

first of all, to be clear, i've only read map of the world. i tapped out after that, partly because i just wasn't that into it but mostly because there was some unspeakably stupid stuff about godstiel at the end and i was in my sensitive era about godstiel things.

i also tapped out because i had heard some rather withering reviews from two friends who both tried it and had the same reaction, which is that the narrative of dta lacks tension and forward-movement. i, having only read map of the world, agreed with this, because that's certainly true of map of the world. most notably, it's true that dta actively removes tension by taking the basic premise of the story - that cas' dean and dean's cas are both gone - and just.... removing as much friction from that as possible. endverse cas and endverse dean, in dta, had so little positive relationship that seperis had to invent a way of being soulmates (also. cinemasins ding. i hate soulmates. partly for exactly this reason: they're a copout in terms of the messy and therefore narratively interesting work of relationship building) in order to justify why cas was attached to dean. dean seems perfectly happy to stay where he is and is not panicking about losing his sammy at all, samlucifer haunting him in the white suit doesn't even bother him that much! and he's actively happy to start over with a different cas, because he comes from a post-godstiel time and doesn't like his cas anymore.

personally i really disliked the whole dean and godstiel element for obvious reasons, not least because it annoys me that seperis chose to portray dean as *afraid* of godstiel and not just. enraged at him. however i think the much bigger problem, narratively, is the lack of love lost between endverse cas and endverse dean.

the first reason for this is pretty simple. dta dean is not my little guy and he has no relation to my little guy. he's a nice dude for cas to glom onto. and this isn't a crime, generally speaking fics will do this to one or the other of the dudes, and i'm happy to see it done to dean instead of cas for a change. but it means that dean's characterization doesn't matter as much.

the second reason is that dean didn't just lose cas, he lost literally his whole world. his entire timeline. and he should be upset about that, not cas in specific. i would still say he's insufficiently upset, but it's not as specific and personal.

but like.... if dta is about anything, it's about dta cas. and that means the tensions at the heart of cas' character matter. and he should have WAY more trouble slotting new dean into his life!!! like, the reason for thing #2 on this list is basically just me vagueing dta. in canon, the point of divergence for endverse is ftbyam. when cas and dean already have an intense, close, and sweet relationship. it's soured by the time endverse rolls around, but there was something to sour, inititally! and like to me it's also an excuse to like. use the classic deancas trope of having dean give cas a bunch of mundane firsts that he receives with childlike wonder. like in dta dean teaches cas to enjoy food. and like, that's against the spirit! of endverse cas! the point is that he's already HAD all those experiences with another dean but then things went sour!!!! AUGH.

anyway. making endverse dean Just A Bastard With No Redeeming qualities is like. a serious copout. imo. and it's symptomatic of a broader aversion to conflict and therefore a broader aversion to tension and movement and change. and so what you end up with, (again in map of the world at least, but from other people's reviews i suspect the rest remains the same), is a hundred thousand words of portraiture. it's beautiful, and it's lovingly painted. but it's not a story, because nothing happens in it or is being set up to happen.

but also, i wanna be clear. i REALLY liked elements of the portraiture. i think generally speaking people in fandom get their heads easily turned by pretty prose. like if the story is poetic at a paragraph level, they will give it wildly undue credit. but dta's prose really worked for me in a way a lot of other celebrated poetic fics' prose doesn't. like the density of it really adds something meaningful to the story i think. as a character portrait for cas, it really pulls you in.

and the cas characterization is so..... like it's so powerful, to me. for me i think it's more a characterization for canon cas than for endverse cas but also endverse cas is just canon cas with a few different experiences so like it still completely works. like i love the cas stuff.

the magic worldbuilding is like awesome to me. the thing about me is i love a magic system. i will risk it all for a good magic system. one time i was like, to my friend who liked dta, hey is seperis a programmer? and they were like yeah. and i was like yeah i figured. anyway. magic system <3.

and then also i like that endverse cas Lives In A Society. i like all the ocs and the relationships and the history. i wish that was more consistent, like i wish the endverse cas on the page felt more like he was situated in his history, rather than a new man born into his circumstances (so for example, i like that dta cas Quit Every Drug immediately at the start because endverse fic is so weird about drugs so not touching them is a nice choice imo, but it's also a symptom of this disconnect: cas is not weighed down by old habits and old wounds the way he should be. he's not stuck in place. and like that's the POINT of endverse cas: that he has history. and dta cas feels disconnected from that. and this is also wrapped in with my main criticism of how endverse dean and endverse deancas is handled). but i still like that he lives in a society and i think over the course of map of the world seperis becomes a little better at situating cas in a history in small ways instead of disconnecting him.

anyway in the end, dta is simply not my bag, and this is why. but i also get why people like it, because i also like parts of it.

[another-lost-mc]

thoughts on obey me as an actual game? anything u wan a change if given the chance?

it honestly makes me mad everytime i think about the obvious lack of effort for world building but specifically for the nobility plotline... sooooo underutilized it's upsetting. like i've read isekai manhwas with better use/grasp of the nobility and political climate... also (can't remember if it's from swd or nb) the fact that lucifer and the brothers' are basically living off an allowance/salary set for them by diavolo is just... ugh. they couldn't have given them actual positions with titles ??? they couldn't have brought their title as princes/lords of the underworld into play ??? like i get they did it for the game, for shits and giggles and idk maybe it's just me lawl

sorry for ranting lmao i've sent asks a couple times and i quite like your insights and takes on things. was wondering if you'd have anything to say 🫡

I love talking about this stuff! I know it's a dating game and the lore/world building is basically an afterthought because the game's focus is on MC's relationships with the characters now, and not necessarily on the world/characters before MC existed or became involved.

I've mentioned before that the world feels really empty to me at times because they don't really talk about characters that exist (in a meaningful way) unless they're the established dateables (or soon-to-be dateables) for MC. Many of them are nameless demons/angels (the demon lords, the owner of The Fall that's been mentioned more than once by his title but not name), generic sorcerers and angels we know exist in the other realms. (For some reason, Uriel has been name-dropped twice with very little info besides that.)

Part of my motivation for developing the angel/demon OCs is to give more context and depth to the world that MC interacts with, even if they don't necessarily interact with MC in their own day to day lives. There are countless Devildom businesses that keep the realm running – who owns them? Who are the demons that develop their technology and vehicles? Who are the demons that acquire the raw materials used to build these items, or design/build the Devildom's architecture and homes? Who are the professsors at RAD and the other students? They're probably not all demons born from nobility, so where did they come from? What do the parts of hell outside the Devildom metropolis look like? Do they live on other levels? Rings? How easy can you travel between them, or why would you want to (or not want to)? Who are the demons that make up the demon armies and where do they live? Also, how in the world did Solomon end up in pacts with so many powerful demon lords, and now that he's not a power-hungry king, how do those pacts serve him (and the demons he's bound to)?

So yeah, maybe I think about the game world a lot because there's so much potential that goes ignored. I understand that the game isn't meant to be an in-depth look at the Devildom or Celestial Realm outside of what's relevant for character development or plot purposes, but it would be nice to have answers for some of the obvious questions that come up over time. Some of the information we're given in Nightbringer feels incomplete or doesn't match the tone/characterization we were presented with in the OG game either which makes me worry about continuity issues and retconning going forward.

(This got long so the rest is going behind a read-more link. lol)

When I started developing/outlining The Fall, it was meant to be a personal interpretation of the game's lore and my own creative spin on filling in all the gaps. At the heart of it, it's a love story between two angels-turned-demons. But the worlds they live in change over time, and there's a lot of nuance and deeper insights to explain how and why those things happen.

Some of the topics I wanted to explore in this project include:

Rank/power structures in the Celestial Realm. Basically, how do the various ranks of angels interact with each other, and how do they view angels with ranks higher or lower than their own?

Xenophobia. How angels and demons interact and perceive the other races/species. Metatron is an angel that was originally born as a human and ascended to the Celestial Realm after being chosen by Father to do so. Knowing that, how does his former human life impact what other angels think of him, if it does at all? (Spoiler: It does.) There's also significant issues that come up with the arrival of fallen angels, although Meta and Azra falling has very different reactions compared to Lucifer and the others later.

The role of the Seraphim. This story begins before the Celestial War with Lucifer, so he and Michael are still the two primary beacons of power in the Celestial Realm. How often do they agree or disagree on handling disputes, and how do they resolve their differences of opinion? I also wanted to explain the role of other Seraphim – basically, it's not just Michael or Lucifer calling the shots, and the other Seraphim are expected to lend their voices to discussions/debates about serious matters and it's treated almost like a council where majority vote wins if they can't all agree on something.

Side note: I really don't like the idea that Michael (or any of the other Seraphs) are free to do whatever they want without any sort of accountability or repercussions. I think the things Michael might want to do (ex. sneaking into the Devildom in disguise) and what he should do (literally anything but that) are two completely different things, and being emotional/grief-stricken isn't a good excuse for a leader that wants to YOLO his way through his problems when he has an entire realm of citizens he is responsible for. Gabriel is my solution to some of Michael's emotional impulses and rash decision making. He's the angel OC that acts as Michael's voice of reason when he struggles to separate logic and reason from emotions. He keeps Michael in-check when he wants to do things that are too erratic or personal, but he whole-heartedly supports Michael's plans or ideas that benefit the Celestial Realm. I like to imagine Gabriel and Barbatos are similar in that way and have the potential to be good friends as they bond and commiserate over their loyalties to leaders that sometimes act like spoiled children.

Fallen angels in general. There are a lot of fallen angels besides Lucifer and his brothers. Meta and Azra are two angels that go through the process of falling together and I had a lot of ideas about how I think that looks on a physical and spiritual level. There are differences for angels that are cast out by the Seraphim for breaking the rules/putting the Celestial Realm at risk vs. angels that choose to fall vs. angels that are punished by Father for defying him regardless of what the Seraphim choose. Azra and Meta's motivations and reasons for how/why they fall are slightly different, and how that plays out (and the impact on the angels left behind) are different too. They don't have a pre-existing relationship with Diavolo to pave the way for their new lives in the Devildom either, so how do they cope? Who helps them start their new lives, and how do they navigate being strangers in a foreign land while undergoing the physical and emotional changes of becoming demons? Diavolo's father is still the Demon King when they fall and it's only Belial's involvement that keeps things from completely going off the rails after their arrival. The fact that Belial himself is a former angel has its own significance. There isn't a manual or one-size-fits-all approach to this either, and Azra and Meta demonstrate how the Devildom's negligence of their newest citizens can lead to disastrous results sooner or later.

Navigating tension and conflict between the Celestial Realm and Devildom. There is violence that breaks out between the two realms, so how does the Celestial Realm respond to that sort of crisis? Once in the Devildom, there's a glimpse of how the Demon King (Diavolo's father) handles these developments and why the conflict happened at all. (Spoiler alert: Belial is an antagonist in this part of the story for a reason.)

What is Solomon up to? He has all these pacts with powerful demons and he's no stranger to the Devildom, so of course he's going to be interested to meet some new fallen angels – especially one with as much power and common interests as Metatron. Solomon is very human in this story too. He has his own selfish motivations for getting involved, but he also shows genuine care and concern for those he considers friends. He gets involved maybe more than he should, but for good reasons. He's a useful bridge to help the demons understand some of the obvious implications of having ex-angels living in their world. He also manipulates things a bit behind the scenes because of his connection to Barbatos (and therefore Diavolo) but there's no immature feud souring their relationship in this story. (Gonna be honest, I do not think Barbatos's problem with Solomon had anything to do with his place on Solomon's list of demons.)

Lesser demons and the nobility. I wanted to explore the lives of lesser demons versus the lives of noble demons. Where they live, what they do for a living, how they view demons of higher/lower ranks than themselves and other races. Zee's an example of a lesser demon who does whatever he needs to do to earn a living for himself, and Azra doesn't have much clout behind him so they almost meet each other as equals. It's an interesting look at their friendship and the way connections to more powerful demons (like Belial) help them both make better lives for themselves in the central Devildom where they eventually grow their business and social reputations. Meta, despite being a fallen Seraph, has practically no motivation or reputation to speak of and this has its own consequences later. But Zee's not the only lesser demons in this story, and if you thought the nobility in Nightbringer had problems with fallen angels, the lesser demons are far more hostile towards them – they're the ones on the front lines whenever war with the Celestial Realm breaks out, so its understandable they might not be very welcoming. For the demon nobility, the ones that aren't actively criticising fallen angels are mostly indifferent to them, but that's not such a great thing either.

There are other areas I wonder about that I don't explore in The Fall, but I hope to do so for the various OCs and their stories. The Devildom's power hierarchy/use of titles is one of them. The demons of the Ars Goetia all of their own armies at their disposal, and some are dukes while others are kings. That doesn't seem to have any meaning or impact in the game world, but surely there are ways that can affect how the demon nobility interacts with each other? It certainly made a difference to Solomon, I doubt he would've wanted so many pacts if the demons didn't have anything to offer him at the time. The how and why of Solomon's pacts is it's own area of exploration, which I hope to do with Belial and Bathin.

[skaruresonic]

TBH I refuse to play SXS Gens out of pure principle until the option to restore the original Generations dialogues and animations are avaible, fuck the rewrites

I just finished the Shadow portion lol. Overall I feel like you're not missing much. Like, yeah, it's supposed to be an anniversary game and all that, but there's honestly not much in the way of story. You would unironically be better off playing the older games before this one.

I really feel like the "SxS Gens is necessary to catch new players up to Shadow's history" argument is looking a lot weaker now. If anything, you wouldn't understand the emotional resonances behind many of the allusions unless you've played previous games; they don't provide exposition or context within the narrative itself. You wouldn't know that the ARK raid happened because nobody implies as much. The narrative is written as though it expects you to know why Black Doom's threats to possess Shadow are such a big deal.

This game's narrative is about as patchwork as Gens; characters are in nonsensical spots (why do we find Metal Overlord in Kingdom Valley's boss area, but Mephiles in some random cave on the side of Chaos Island's? what purpose did Metal Overlord's presence serve? or Mephiles', for that matter?) and the plot is just "stop giant monster before it destroys the world" sans Eggman. Much peak, many wow.

There's literally no plot progression from point to point; there are six levels in total, and you will only see most of the "plot" unfold at the 3/4ths mark. Until then, you're just running around without much rhyme or reason.

Maria and Gerald are simply there for moral support. They don't really do anything besides that. Gerald justifies this by claiming he doesn't want to mess with the timeline by changing anything.

I went around talking to various characters. Conversations with Big and Maria were the most enjoyable, and I felt like they were the highlight of the game. Rouge gets a bit on-the-nose by comparing herself to Amy when saying she'd support Shadow. Some of Omega's lines strike me as a little acanonical. For some reason, Orbot and Cubot are also there, and you can help them build a rocket by collecting 80 machine pieces. From what I've heard, however, there's no reward for collecting them all, so I was like "lol bye" and left.

I was also disappointed by the lack of a Sonic boss fight. I would have loved a reprise of the original ARK race from Gens; it would have been a nice callback to how you get to see the race from both perspectives in SA2 as well, but we can't have nice things ig :v

Mephiles appears. Lol. Lmao, even. Rofl, if you will. It feels like ST included him solely to riff on the fact that he'll never be canon. He's such a nothingburger of a character and is so negligible as a plot point that he might as well not have been there. He's only there because fans wanted to see him again.

For one thing, you find him in an out-of-the-way cave under Chaos Island. For another, my guy literally says "I just want to exist" and Shadow goes "no. perish." Based, but also, way to waste my time lmao.

Black Doom wants to consume the world as well as possess Shadow. It's not explained how he returned; Gerald handwaves it as "he rebuilt his body through timey-wimey shenanigans."

The gameplay is serviceable for the most part but also incredibly tedious; I found I only enjoyed Radical Highway Act One, and that was because the design was unencumbered by the use of Doom Powers.

Chaos Control and Chaos Spear are your standard abilities, nothing to write home about.

Doom Missile has limited application since only enemies or targets can be shot down, and thus isn't used much.

Doom Surf controls like a friggin' surfing Blooper.

Doom Morph is okay, I guess. Shadow turns into a giant squid and is able to traverse pools of Black Arms juice.

I hate how the Doom Wings control so much omfg. And they say the Homing Attack is a crapshoot. >.>

tl;dr It's okay. Not terrible, but I honestly don't think I'd play it again.

[wehavekookies]

How are you finding Baldur's Gate 3? Turn based games aren't really my thing but I've been watching clips and reviews of it, and I really, really want it for the story and the companions.

Hooo boi. I'm not even halfway through (even tho i have over 100 hrs on the counter already, someone help me lmao XD), but I will write some (spoilerless) words.

So, my opinion is heavily biased because: • i was extremely invested in BG1 and BG2 back in the days and have tons of fond memories from these two games, so revisiting this world (and meeting some characters again even) has a big sentimental aspect for me on top of everything new;

• i've played campaigns set on the Sword Coast (including Baldur's Gate) and in Avernus, so seeing some locations and characters I recognize either from earlier computer games or from tabletop is super fun;

• i really enjoy 5e mechanics so this is also a big fun factor for me. I recreated a build from my current Curse of Strahd campaign (Cleric of Knowledge Domain / Divination wizard) and having this comparison - I am super satisfied with how the mechanics have been translated (and in some very minor aspects - changed) into a computer game, fantastic work on this;

But all these personal things aside - I think it is objectively a fantastic crpg. I haven't been so invested in a story and in characters from a computer game in a loooong while, i both laughed and cried, I feel my decisions matter, every detail (and there is A LOT of details) feels like it's there for a reason, there is something intriguing / exciting / surprising literally around every corner, zero (0) repetitive quests, and you can feel tons of love and care put into this monster of a game.

As a fan of turn based games and board games and 5e fights and all that I also have to also say- the design of battle encounters is fantastic, and the further you go the more fun / surprising they get.

Also the music is excellent.

Also also this game is extremely horny.

To sum it up: I think it is an excellent thing, beautiful, engaging, fun, made with care and respect for player's time, and I already feel I will be doing another playthrough after i'm (one day) done with this one.

If you are worried about the battle aspect: there is a game mode that allows you to focus more on the story and presents less challenging encounters - haven't tried it but maybe something to look into, I'm sure some reviews cover it.

All that said: I'm done with work for today so back to the game lol.

[errorwarblesrr]

do you like totk or botw better?

In short: Yes, I like botw better.

Here are my reasons, though!

I know a lot of people view it as the better experience, which is completely subjective and valid if you do and like it better, but I just view botw as being better in almost every way.

I will give it to totk. The dungeons have a lot better atmosphere. The game has some extremely high highs with the build-up to the wind temple, the whole great sky island segment, and the final boss is a much better fight (though dark beast ganon has a better theme song imo).

Other than that, I prefer botw. Totk has a much grander story, but it's completely mishandled. You can argue that totk has a great story but has poor execution, and to me, execution plays a big role in what makes a story good. You can have good ideas bit it all falls apart if they aren't executed well which ends up making the story bad. It's not that totk has a good story with poor execution, it has good ideas but the bad execution leads to a poorly told story. (I hope that makes sense). Botw has less of a story and is more like a set of events. Botw has history and backstory that is told more organically. Link has amnesia so he slowly regains some of his memories of the past with some people trying to help fill him in. It feels more real...in a weird fantasy way. I guess totk is similar with how we see Zelda's memories, but not really? It's weird to explain. Everything 100 years ago is felt in present day botw while in totk most of those things don't really matter as it happened so long ago. Things only start to resurge because Zelda wanted to investigate under the castle. Totk also has twists like a story. Idk if this is making sense but that's how I feel on their stories. There was just not much botw could mess up on story wise as the way it was presented.

Gameplay wise I can not lie totk is technical marvel with the zonai tech. That's the most impressive thing about it. Tbh building contraptions isn't my thing though, it takes too long to make and experiment with a machine when I can just do whatever that machine was gonna do much faster. I see why people have a lot of fun with it though, it just isn't my thing. One thing I HATE in totk though is the amount of menuing I have to do. Elemental arrows had a serious downgrade. Yeah it's cool to fuse stuff to arrows, but not when I have to do it to ever single individual arrow and if I want to try something new I have to scroll past 50 other items in a single line. It's just tedious. If I want to use a good weapon I have to go to the menu, drop an item, and menu again to fuse it to a weapon that will still break. Item breaking is still an issue but it's more annoying and the weapons no longer look cool. Totk has some cool abilities, but idk I'd trade them all for remote bombs lmao. I hate going through caves, especially early game, and having to deal with the rock walls where they want me to fuse a rock to a stick 10 times to get through one cave. There's just a lot of little things gameplay wise that bug me. They doubled down on botws gameplay issues and added some more annoying ones. I don't even have to mention the sages abilities, that's a whole mess.

On the topic of gameplay, botw just has the better world. Idc, exploring that world for the first time is an unforgettable experience. Totks main world is too similar so the magic is gone. The sky and depths are also unimpressive and repetitive. Botw also has the benefit on how the word felt so lonely yet alive. Everything had a purpose or a story. The world has a history. And totk just doesn't have that. Outside of the upheaval, totk doesn't really build on botws world that much. I was hoping to see if they would've added new towns or see how they'd rebuild hyrule, but they really didn't do that. We only got lookout landing, which doesn't really count as a town, and a bunch of building stuff lying around which is cool I guess. Hateno has a school and Terry Town expanded a little, but with the estimate of about 5 years since botw it makes you wonder...what have these people been doing? We can theoretically build Terry Town in one day. There could be new towns.

Totk is a sequel that doesn't really acknowledge it's predecessor which is so odd. Botw stands on its own and is an overall more cohesive experience. Everything in the world feels purposefully crafted for that world while totk just slaps things on top of it with not much thought. Botw has some amazing world building while for totk it's either "the Zonai did it" or has some contradictory world building. For example, the old sages lifted up the sky islands so that Link would be protected from Ganondorf shenanigans, but then other sky islands suggest how they've been around long before Rauru since young Zonai used to train in them or something. There is also how Zelda says Link never leaves her side, but people she interacts with on an almost daily basis do not recognize him and how even treat as if he doesn't know some facts about her. So either she is overexaggerating by a lot and/or lying in her own diary or that people in hyrule have the collective memory of a rock. There's also Zelda supposedly never giving Link the champions leathers yet as a gift, but we see him wearing it in the beginning. Idk there's more contradictories, but I haven't experienced this for botw??? Totk is so disconnected and disjointed in comparison.

I'm trying to be vague but there's a lot to say, I'm sorry. I really was enjoying this game at the beginning but the more I played the more I noticed or saw things that bugged me and just kept adding up and up on each other. Botw was never like this for me. It's just more cohesive and I like that. There are so many other things I haven't brought up like the repetitive cutscenes, or missing characters/characters that SHOULD know Link but don't (namely Bolson and Hestu). But this post is long. I can't keep complaining about this game. Botw really is that one of a kind experience, and totk tries to replicate it but worse. Botw had a vine that totk lacks. You feel so alone, but you meet knew people and make friends. You build connections as you learn about the past and help those around you. There is no story, you're just a person going through the motions and exploring the vast world around you. Totk can't replace that for me. I'm the main character playing a side role in a disjointed world where not much makes sense. Everything is similar in all the wrong ways.

And most important of all, they took away Link's fun dialogue and personality now he really is bland asf and used to defend that he wasn't.

[lord--of--trash]

So I have started Veilguard. I am a huge fan of the series and am reserving judgement for when i'm am much further in, but so far, I have a few ✨️ opinions ✨️ that I need to get off my chest. These are just my thoughts, and I'm sure other people have very different takes, which is incredibly valid! There are no spoilers for the story, just my gripes so far. I am very happy with lots of things to be clear, and it is clearly a well-made game with some serious thought having gone into it.

1. I am sad by the lack of influence from the other games. I have been reading lots of takes on this, and I really didn't want to have an opinion until i'd played it. It makes complete sense given that it's set in Tevinter not to have choices from origins and 2 have a hugely significant impact. That's fine! I understand why they didn't want throwaway lines and letters but I really miss the throwaway lines and letters🤣 Those are the little things that flesh the world out and build the world that we have been loving creating and shaping for 3 games. I live in the United Kingdom but I still very much keep up to date with American politics and discuss it. It would make sense for who is on the throne in Fereldon to come up in conversation at least once (even by background characters). My Hawke is alive and would 100 percent be chatting to Varric unless there is a damn good reason why she can't (which we haven't been given). A letter from her to Varric would have made my week. I think the little things matter a lot when you get the the 4th game in a series and whilst I understand the effort these things take and the desire to avoid little bits that don't impact the story- for me they make my game experience from a story telling perspective. Just a few letters or throwaway lines would have done wonders to help the game feel connected to its predecessors and help the player feel it is still the world they have built.

2. Mage combat is kicking my ass. Admittedly, this may be a skill issue lmao. I miss tactics and being able to pause the game when I'm getting my ass kicked to reevaluate. As a controller user, there are so many buttons and things I have to press without time to think - especially because I have so little health (or maybe the enemies just hit harder). I get the impression the combat is a lot easier and more user friendly in melee so maybe it's my fault for being a mage lover but I am struggling in ways I haven't in the previous games. The combat feels like the biggest change and massively ramped up in difficulty (even in story mode!!! Send help!!). I may have to try playing as a rogue or a warrior, but it's such a shame as someone who historically LOVES being a mage that the combat is less enjoyable. The abilities take all of my mana to use, so I use an ability, and i'm like, welp time to spam x and y and pray. There are some great elements to the combat, but on the whole, I'm finding it stressful and difficult to play as a ranged character. I miss my beloved hotbar with all my options there for easy access lmao.

3. WTF has happened to darkspawn. I get that they are supposed to look different for [redacted] story reasons, but man, the glowing red eyes are really cartoony and terrible - in my opinion. They don't feel nearly as sinister and real as they did in the previous games. This is just stylistic differences I personally really don't like the way they've cartooned them up.

So yeah, just some takes I needed to vent about. Again, these are my opinions, and I'm sure plenty of people love the combat and are fine with the style differences and lack of impact from previous games. I certainly wouldn't want to insult all the work that's clearly gone into the game - which, on the whole, is stunning. I may change I opinions the longer I play! I am reserving judgement for the game as a whole because I am still very early on, and it's likely it will grow on me the longer I play and get used to it being a different game to it's previous installments.