#I often end up choosing the latter ´v`'

[canisalbus]

Sometimes i'm like, "canisalbus must surely get sick of everyone goofing around and memeing about their beautiful, serious OCs" and today I saw worm on a string Machete. I was wrong!!! Cheers lmao

.

[jolalibrary]

there's nothing blue about you

javier peña x f!reader | masterlist

summary: javier peña's dreams are haunted by shades of blue, blending his fears into nightmarish landscapes. only his lover's touch anchors him, transforming his dreams into hues of something else.

warnings: 18+ smut, p in v. overuse of the colour blue, like by a lot. this whole this is an angsty bitch, with hopeful/hea. leans close to gothic horror in some ways but not quite, honestly? unsure how to describe what in the hell I've written. third-person reader (she/her). no descriptions, no y/n. an: written for @studioghibelli's fic challenge. (the moodboard is at the end of the fic). i think i leaned very much into painting and blue, and I'm not sure if that at all was what was asked of me. thanks: i'd have likely scrapped this if not for @goodwithcheese who took my weird-poetic-ness and called it lyrical and somehow it made it worth how long I've agonised over this. i hope she knows i love her, and if not, i hope this very public declaration confirms it. shoutout @pedgito who urged me to do this. wc: 2.7k

Javier Peña dreams in blue.

Thick strokes of azure, cerulean, and navy smear the world, forcing it to twist around him. Smearing the world, forcing it to twist around him. Knocking it all on its axis—allowing the horrors to blend into fairytales and happiness to shift into nightmares.

Shifting, changing. His worst fears come alive with brushwork, forcing scenarios to swallow hopeful desires.

Each blot spreads out like tendrils, drawing their tales in wide, brisk strokes, in shades of melancholy and yellow. The latter is a beacon—a spark of hope in a sea of nothing; a beam that guides him back to reality. To being awake, where his heart squeezes tight. Eyes open, struggling for breath before the sun has even risen. Sometimes, even before the stars have stopped sparkling and glittering. Sweat beads at his temple, palm to his chest—gasping, struggling to breathe as he drags his hand down his face, swiping the hair above his lip.

Then, anxiousness embroils. That same hand patting, sliding, eyes blinking furiously as he banishes shadows and forces them to shift back to non-threatening inanimate objects.

He’s able to breathe when he feels her. Alive, asleep.

Blissfully unaware of his nightly torture as her chest rises and falls—soft breaths mingling with ragged ones. Curling close, inhaling her scent, listening to the steady way her heart forces blood around her veins.

Hoping, praying, that when he closes his eyes he dreams of nothing, but knows they’ll be worse now. They always are when he wakes and reaches for her. As though by touching her, they spill to her, ruining her too. Wrap their fingers around her, change her skin to deep shades of blue in his hands as he falls through landscapes and lands in hell.

Then she sobs, pleads; tight little balled-up fists hammering at his chest as she shakes everything in him until she rips like paper, leaving him alone, just like he envisions he should be.

But then, he’d choose those over the ones where his hands are stained in her crimson, blotched, unable to be washed, little beads on his clothes and then a rainfall. Her split in his hand, eyes fading from light to dark. Those haunt him for longer when he wakes and he sits opposite her over breakfast and tries to force a smile.

Sometimes, he worries that his dreams have become the thing she adores. Reminding him of the poster she’s framed in her place—the one with swirls of a night sky.

She stares at it often, loses herself in it—escapes. Javi envies her for it. For being able to lock away the things that plague her, evading them, not to be tormented by them in fields that shift and flutter around him. He thinks it’s because she carves out the parts that make bags appear under her eyes through painting. Inspired, thriving, transforming wicked things into light, taking something that weighs her to something that makes her smile. Each drag of her paintbrush was like a spell, like magic.

“It helps.”

“How so?” he replied, leaning against the wall, arms folded, admiring.

Shrugging, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand before dabbing the brush into the murky water. “Just does.”

He wishes she’d run the brush over him. Run the synthetic filaments over every part of his skin.

But then, if he was asked, Javi would choose not to have the dreams at all. Would rather not be lost in a labyrinth of blues, where a lantern flickers and tries to guide. Instead, they cast ochre-shaded shadows that appear like shape-shifting failures. Each of them dancing, whispering secrets, finding all he can do is follow. Trust in it, hopeful it takes him to her, like his real life.

An accidental meeting, a connection that soothed his bones. One that had him smiling when he sat back in his truck, had him thinking when the darkness smothered the backyard and had him wishing for second meetings.

But, unlike his reality, the path is never straight, always winding, always shifting.

Sometimes, he sees her in the distance, her figure bathed in moonlight, a silhouette against the swirling sky. Sheet falling, curves and all on show. He reaches out, only for her to fade, dissolving into the night, leaving him grasping at the air like he’s chasing a ghost. A thing conjured, never real.

But, she’s real now.

His arm is behind his head when he hears the faint groan as she stretches before a palm slides over the soft curve of his stomach. Her breath fans over his lips, a whispered morning before they press to his. Smooth, velvety, gentle—addled with sleep, yet dripping in need. His name is punctuation in the sentence when she says, want you.

He never squanders the chance to remind himself of actuality. Moving her until she’s on her back, until she’s as bare as she is in his dreams—nothing blue, nothing midnight, cobalt or sapphire. Feeling her, taking the time to as he kneads her breast and grazes his teeth over the bud that hardens against his tongue as her nails scrape red along the olive of his skin.

There’s no making up the way she feels between her thighs, warm, slick, and inviting—or the gasp she emits when he curls two fingers inside of her and her back arches at the intrusion.

A blessing. That’s how he’d describe her when he’d been caught smiling, wearing smitten like an accessory. Questioning on the second date if she could be the sun to his night. Bright, luminous, radiant. The type he’d somehow expect to find shopping in town in a movie, but not in Laredo.

Too perfect—

Made only more so when she’d slid her underwear into his pocket on their third date. Before the mains, after the starters. Too much of the meal to go before he could make an excuse that’d allow him to hear if she moaned as pretty as he had thought.

It’s too pretty the noises she makes. Another thing he yearns for. She emits them in varying shades, but they’re always cried with his name—whether he fucks her rough or gentle, whether he takes his time or bends her over the couch decorated in plush cushions and creased blankets.

She welcomes it, when he hikes her dress up or when he pushes her panties to the side; when his mouth is pressed to her spine or when it’s crashing to her lips. Use me, she says, suave, sultry—each letter wrapped in intoxication as she leaves dye only he can see on his skin and he leaves bruises that he’ll look to replace in a few days.

He remembers when she painted him.

When she made him beautiful on white canvas—saw him, immortalised him with finger marks and paint strokes.

Do you like it?

He answered only by sliding down onto his knees, by pulling the shorts she paints in down her glorious thighs and answering yes against her pussy. His tongue explained it better than words could. His fingers had dug into the flesh of her rear as his nose bordered her swollen clit, her thigh rested on his shoulder and her palms pressed into her workbench, leaning back, for leverage as he fucked her with his tongue, as he drank up every drop she’d give him—as though it healed him, fixed him.

When he can, Javi likes bending her over around her paints—taking her. Likes that sometimes an open can or a left-out brush stains him in a way he can see. Rich oranges and deep greens. He enjoys spreading her out on her workbench as he makes her whine his name which makes all other ways his name is spoken seem obsolete. That there’s more than her sweat on his skin, her scent digging into his bones—evidence, proof of existence.

He has all the evidence now as he slowly slides his cock inside of her. As he swallows her whine, her moan—a gasp tinged with thankfulness. Feeling her stretch around him, take him in one smooth movement as allows himself to glance down and see where they meet. Then, he drags his eyes up, and sees how she smiles, how her fingers are reaching for him, grabbing for him. Needing, desperate, wanting.

But not just for his body, for what lived inside of his jeans. But for him.

Not just the daytime, but the blue version that drapes over him when things get too quiet and his mind gets too loud. No question asked, but an offering of comfort. Like when she had slid across his lap, when she pulled his head to her chest, brushed fingers into his hair. And he wonders like he did then and only ever to himself, how cruel it is that he cannot be something more for her. How unfair it feels for such sunshine to be surrounded by a storm.

He had smiled, though. Half-assed and minimal. Pulled her closer, so she sat more comfortably across his thighs. The grin barely reached his cheeks, never mind his eyes. “How strange, to dream of you even when I am wide awake.”

Her snort loud had punched the air. “Poet now, are we?”

“For you, I’ll be anything.”

More words had surrounded it, not spoken, but there. I’ll do anything, be anything. I’ll try, I’ll—

Unsure how else he could keep such a thing, unsure how he can keep perfection curled up against him, who’ll remind him his demons are only self-inflicted.

“Maybe just be you. You, are plenty enough.”

He had sneered, chin dipped, shame blooming.

“Hey,” she says urgently, fingers hooking under his chin as she drags his eyes to hers. “You are, Javi. And I’ll be reminding you of that until I have no words left in my mouth.”

“Be a while then, with how much you talk.”

Even as she pinched him, he pressed how he didn’t deserve her against her lips, against her cheek, neck and collarbone. Not that she took them. Ripped them instead, shredded them.

“You don’t have to pretend with me.” Her fingers then glided across the back of his neck, head rested against his. “Because, you know, Javi, there’s nowhere or no one else I’d rather be sat on…”

A beat passed, one he waited for, fingers brushing over her skin. “…crushing.”

He laughed then. 

Because she always pulls laughs from him like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he’s a soul full of joy, happy. Like he wasn’t a man who had spent a decade around destruction, misery and streets filled with scarlet, weighed down by it. 

She makes it lighter. In the same way, she calms him at night and he thanks her for it in the morning.

Like he’s doing now. Licking his thumb before he presses it to her clit, swirling, forcing her pussy to draw around him, to hold his cock as tightly as he needs, sucking him in, gasping for more as her breasts bob with each thrust, and her mouth falls open in a silent moan—

“Close, m’close, Javi. Fuck, baby—”

He presses his mouth to the juncture of her neck, feeling her attempt at vocalisation. Letting it vibrate against his lips, tingle. Proof that he’s awake, that this is real, that in any moment things won’t turn—

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” he groans, pressing kisses, dotting them in a pattern like stars in the sky. “Feel so good around me...”

She whines. A noise he banks in his mind, a jar full now—one that sparkles and shimmers.

“You feel good too.”

“Yeah?”

Nodding, hands sliding around his neck, digging into the hair at the base of his neck. “Always make me feel good,” she slurs.

Javi hooks her leg over his waist. A new angle, one that drives him deeper, as she clenches and he snaps his hips to hers. Feeling her close to snapping, her thighs already shaking, trembling. His chest heaving, her ribs expanding, copious breaths to still the dizziness she inflicts on him—just by being, just by existing.

It’s building, that fire in his veins, the fever that spreads out of him when he releases inside of her and she tugs him close as she comes down from her high. His hips stuttering, his name a symphony that erodes all other noises from his dreams.

And, there’s nothing blue about this. Nothing despairing, melancholy about this, about her.

Not when she flutters and arches when she comes and uncoils. Her fingers dig into whatever part of him she can get to before he smears himself inside of her, groaning into her neck as he spills and thinks of nothing but how much he adores her.

How much he loves her. Because he does. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.

“I love you too,” she whispers from underneath him, his head pulling from her neck—elbows on either side of her face.

Finding seriousness staring back, her fingers skating over the sweat sliding down his forehead, wiping it on the sheets she lies on.

“Unless you hadn’t meant to say it. Then I take it back.”

He blinks. Thinking of the summer’s day when he’d first seen her; the first rainfall two months later when his arms had wrapped over her front, pressed her back to his chest and they felt the cooling air slide over their warm skin. He remembers the night he’d told her everything, and the new candles that had become stumps as she listened; the stormy afternoon turned night when he’d taken her out of town, and how her hand had slid over his and thanked him.

“I meant it.”

Her lips slide into her cheek, palm pressing to his chest. “Good.”

He wonders over morning coffee, when she glances at him and smiles if his dreams are merely a reflection of his fears—rather than anything that could come true. A manifestation of his fears of losing her, fearing the day when the blues will no longer be just dreams. Because good things don’t always, least of all to those who don’t deserve it.

He blinks them away when she tells him she has something to show him, hearing her bare feet on the floor until he doesn’t, counting, reaching twenty, before she appears, a new canvas in hand.

And when she turns it, letting it face him, his breath is stolen—feet forcing him to stand.

Her hand held it, the brightest shades that could ever be. Mixed brushstrokes into something that heals a crack in him, one that he’s never asked for. Because in every shade but blue is him and Pop outside the ranch, a place that had never felt like home, but now feels like the only place he could ever call such.

“Where are you?”

She blinks, the slightest frown in her brows. “What… what do you mean?”

“You belong there too, cariño.”

And if she hadn’t believed him in bed, in the things he’s not said, he thinks she believes them now. Leaning the canvas against the counter, feet padding towards him before her mouth is on his—different, more necessary, as his arms slip around her waist.

Something else slid back into place, able to fill his lungs a little easier.

Not a shade of blue in sight, not indigo, powder or sky.

And he worries it’s temporary—a thing that’ll change come nighttime. But he smiles all the same, right against her hairline when he presses a kiss there too. Feeling her hand sliding around his waist, becoming an anchor, a rock, a crutch.

He loves that about her too, that she does that for him. But he’ll tell her that tomorrow.

A silent promise, one beginning to stitch with a smile. And, then, when nightfall comes, and the painting rests against the wall of his room, Javier Peña finds—for the first night since he’s been back—that he doesn’t dream in blue.

Instead, he dreams in yellow. In honey, citrus and sunshine.

[notyourmajesty]

Henry's Dog David, and How RWRB (the Book and the Movie) Explore the Meaning of His Name.

(GIF by @andysapril)

CW: Mentions of deaths, murder attempts, mostly from Bible verses.

An Easter Egg from the book that the film managed to incorporate in an entirely different context.

Henry naming his dog David is one of the things Alex comments on both in the film and the book. He finds the name particularly odd for a pet, and when Henry tells him later that the inspiration was David Bowie, Alex remarks that he could have just used the surname instead.

This is basically just me overthinking the way the book and the film added "David and Jonathan" to two totally different scenes haha.

David Bowie

There has been a lot of debate over Bowie's sexuality since the 70s, and possibly conflicting statements from Bowie himself over the decades, but he did leave quite an impact on queer people in his time (ref: this article). Henry both in the book and in the film has often turned to literature and art for inspiration, and solace, when it came to exploring his own identity as a gay man. All kinds of historical queer identities - both debated and confirmed - show up in the tapestry of people and ideas that have influenced Henry's own thoughts and ideas (Alex's too). So it definitely makes sense that he would name his beloved pet dog after one of those inspirations.

(notably, during Henry's dramatic entrance when Alex comes down to the UK for damage control, the song playing is Bowie's "Up the Hill Backwards". You also see him choose a Queen song for karaoke, which makes me want to really headcanon him as a 70s prog rock fan 😄)

David and Jonathan

In the book, Alex goes over the details of Henry's fact sheet with Nora and his sister June. When he mentions the name of Henry's dog, he claims his dislike for the name is because it sounds more like a "tax attorney" than a beloved pet (Ch 2).

In the film, it's his SS detail Amy who quizzes him. She responds to his quip about Henry's choice of name for a pet by telling him what she's named her own dog. It's a tiny, fun detail with no lasting importance in the film, but I feel it does work within the larger framework of how the film incorporates queer readings and figures too.

I see this as a reference to a popular reading of the Hebrew/Biblical story of David and Jonathan from the 2 books of Samuel. David was a shepherd anointed by the prophet Samuel (through orders from God), to succeed King Saul, and Jonathan was Saul's son who was extremely devoted to David and even saved him from his father's wrath. They were known to have made a covenant to each other soon after they met, and the first Book of Samuel gives us a picture of an immensely close bond between the two:

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt. (1 Samuel 18, 1-4)

Interpretations of their relationship have ranged from close friendship to a romantic relationship, and there have been many, many queer readings on this pair.

In Casey McQuiston's RWRB too, Alex references both a saying from the Book of Proverbs (24:13), and the story of David and Jonathan in the same paragraph. This is in Ch 10, when Henry takes Alex to the V&A museum. This particular sequence is in the inner chamber of the museum, shortly after the couple dance to Elton John's "Your Song".

He compares himself and Henry to "a lost David and Jonathan", and it's pretty obvious why when you think of their devotion, and the tragic end of the relationship of the latter. Like Jonathan, Henry is a prince utterly devoted to one man, and sure that his family too will be against their bond. Like David, Alex is an outsider who the royal family may view as a threat to their stability, and therefore must be kept away. David's love for Jonathan is immense: he makes the covenant with Saul's son soon after they meet, and when he mourns Jonathan's death, he says "Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." (2 Samuel 1:26).

This amazing post from @elipheleh explores this metaphor more in detail (as well as St. Chiara, and a quote from Oscar Wilde, who is referenced both in the book and the film as a writer Henry is fond of). It also speaks about the verse from the Book of Proverbs that Alex remembers, partly in Spanish, partly in English - Eat honey, my son, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. (Proverbs 24:13-14)

(Jonathan in 1 Samuel also has his own reference to honey - there is a story that chronicles a tense moment between Jonathan and his father, King Saul, due to Jonathan eating wild honey on a day when the troops were bound by an oath to fast (he had not heard the oath himself). He almost faces death by Saul's hand for breaking the oath the latter had made, but is saved by the other people in the troops. (1 Samuel 14: 24-46). I've seen different ways of this passage being interpreted - as either Jonathan being judged for disobeying an oath even though he was not around when it was announced, or Saul being viewed as foolish for making such an oath in the first place. The main point is, Saul is ready to kill his son for breaching a certain protocol, and it is the people who save Jonathan.

Similarly IMO, Henry is prepared to live his whole life in the closet viewing his sexuality as something that would bring shame to his family, but eventually recognizes that he has support. Both within his family (in the form of his mother Catherine and his sister Bea), and in the public eye)

At this point in their lives, Alex and Henry see very little hope that things will get better soon enough for them to unite. It is more than likely that - in their minds - this one romantic visit will be their last for a long, long time. Of course David and Jonathan - who parted ways in the hope of being reunited after the battle with Jonathan's father, and whose friendship/love met a tragic end - would be considered a fitting parallel for the situation Alex and Henry find themselves in.

The book has the space and scope to explore many, many images and symbols that could fit Alex and Henry. Whether it's in the letters they send each other, the references Alex learns more about as he figures out his sexuality. The book can - at the V&A museum - describe the statues the two men linger at in loving detail, making us more aware how poignant their temporary separation will be and how bittersweet this last dance is.

The movie's focus is different - the V&A scene is a (presumably) final, deeply intimate moment that lets Alex see for real the weight of his role in Henry's environment, and how little he expects to see his dreams come true. It also lets Henry see how determined Alex is to make his every dream a reality.

Most moments of highlighting queer literature or history are pocketed away in smaller sequences in the film, as small references and Easter eggs (eg. the books they recommend each other), as the film focuses more on the relationship and it's effects both on the men and the world around them. The V&A is more a visual backdrop for that bittersweet last moment where the two can find equal ground and truly understand each other. I think mentioning the names of the statues would take away from that.

The movie didn't need to include David and Jonathan. Why is why I'm truly, truly grateful that they still did. Even as a tiny, cute Easter egg that is supposed to be banter about weirdly specific pet-naming protocol 💖

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

Beginner's Guide to Portraying Wigfrid

In 6k words or less

It's also got a Google Doc version if you don't want it formatted like ass

Dialect and Verbiage

Though appearing rather daunting from the outside looking in, Wigfrid’s dialect isn’t too hard to understand or imitate once you break it down into its basic elements. Though, really, more importantly than mimicking the unique modifiers to her voice and language, one must first understand what her voice even is.

Wigfrid has a very interesting manner of speaking that can be summarized as ‘formal, yet blunt’. She makes great use of verbal prose, and will often complicate the subject matter with the help of her large and outdated vocabulary, but if one were to condense her words down to their bare essentials, she often says exactly what she means. She rarely employs sarcasm, or disguises her feelings or intentions.

It is also important to note that stage terminology may occasionally be interspersed within her dialogue as well. In fact, it only seems that it becomes more and more common as the years go on, as is evident when comparing its frequency post Return of Them with its uses in Don’t Starve solo (DLCs included). However, though WIgfrid has been shown to be able to ‘break character’, and has proved that she remembers her past life to at least some capacity, she has never been canonically established to express these truths with those around her.

Quotes that refer back to her prior life do not address survivors directly, and she will only bring them up in the contexts of speaking to herself (and even then has been shown to occasionally stifle these remarks, despite seemingly no one being able to overhear). With this in mind, it’s highly likely that her stage life is a more personal ordeal, and comments about or referring to such should be used sparingly around others, if at all. 

As is obvious to anyone who has heard her speak, Wigfrid frequently employs a lot of Shakespearean language in her dialogue. For personal reference, below is a chart of her most commonly used words that fit this trend.

As well as these examples, Wigfrid also has a habit of adding the suffix -eth to the end of words for occasional flavor (ex. requireth, taketh, hangeth, climbeth). There seems to be nothing that determines when she chooses to employ this specific rule, but seeing as how it is a semi-rare occurrence for her to choose to do so, I would also advise to use it sparingly.

It should also be noted that Wigfrid will never directly translate everything she says into Shakespearean English. She will frequently leave some words alone, while translating others in the same sentence. It isn’t an exact science. Really, the best course of action is just to write what feels natural, and don’t worry about trying too hard to make it ‘perfectly Shakespearean’. Wigfrid’s dialogue is a lot like poetry, in the sense that the way it sounds ebbing and flowing can oftentimes be more important than the usage of the words themselves. 

Though speaking of words and their uses, Wigfrid will often refer to herself with very specific terms. The three she uses most frequently are ‘warrior’, ‘Viking’, and ‘Valkyrie’. While there’s little to say about the first one that could not be gleaned from its direct meaning alone, the latter two is where the most interest lies.

When referring to Wigfrid directly, all survivors- including Wigfrid herself- will capitalize the V in ‘Viking’. While Viking does not necessarily have to be a proper noun, the use of a non-capitalized ‘viking’ is usually used to refer to something generally pirate-like in nature. By capitalizing Viking, one is directly referring to Norse seafarers, instead of its more generalized and modern definition. Though all survivors default to using its proper noun equivalent, there is little harm in using it as a common noun in writing.

The same, however, can not be said about the term ‘Valkyrie’. To not get too deep into definitions of Nordic culture, Valkyries are spiritual, almost angelic entities who specialize in ferrying worthy souls to Valhalla. Being rather important figures within Norse mythos, and originally being used as a proper noun, it’s important to keep it punctuated when addressing Wigfrid by it, or in instances where she self addresses (which are quite frequent, mind you).

Combat and its Ethics

It isn’t very difficult to garner the fact that Wigfrid is quite fond of combat. Not only does fighting feed directly back into her health and sanity, but the mere concept of a fight promotes excitement out of her. Battle hardly often leaves her mind. Though, since it is such a cornerstone of her lifestyle, it is important to know the sorts of things she prioritizes about it. A quality of Wigfrid that often goes overlooked is that she has a strict set of rules and standards for combat that she seems highly uninclined to break.

Killing Conditions

When it comes to particular conditions about what it is she’ll kill, Wigfrid- much like other survivors- doesn’t seem to have much of an issue attacking the more NPC-like monsters of The Constant. However, she isn’t naturally opposed to being amicable with them, and shares good relations with them even despite her carnivorous nature, as displayed through her standard pig quote (“Will you fight alongside me, pig?”), pig ally quote (“We ride to battle!”), and even her dead pig quote (“He died with honor.”), which will always trigger, whether previously allied or not.

While she proves to be far less amicable with entities such as bunnymen (“I will eat you.” You can’t exactly get much blunter than that), her quote for fishermerms, Shipwreck’s exclusive merm variant, sheds some insight to her thought process in regards to speaking beasts (“I quarrel not with fisherfolk, so long as they do not take up arms.”). The implication here is that Wigfrid is more willing to be amicable with those who are less likely to strike first. Considering bunnymen and their intolerance to carnivores, it can be easily understood why she is so swift to abandon the pleasantries displayed to other, neutral beasts.

In regards to other survivors, Wigfrid will only threaten the life of another after they’ve proven to be dangerous to the group, through either attacking or murder. However, when it comes to such matters, she is far less likely to threaten the life of a child than she would an adult. Compare, for instance, her murderer Wanda quote (“Thou shall answer for this betrayal, [player]! Meet my spear!”) and her murderer Wurt quote (“I will not be defeated so easily, beastie!”). Though ultimately serving a similar purpose, her threats towards children are far less direct, and tends to stray from the implication of murder that she directs towards the rest of the adult cast.

Fighting with Honor

When it comes to combat with anyone- be it man, giant, or beast- Wigfrid puts heavy emphasis on keeping the fight honorable in nature. While this is a relatively ambiguous desire in a vacuum, luckily, she is incredibly vocal on what is considered honorable vs dishonorable in combat. According to her, an honorable fight does NOT include…

Ranged weaponry, as shown by her electric blowdart and eyeshot quotes, among others (“A-face-to-face fight would be more honorable.”, “A coward’s weapon, dropped by a pitiful, sneaking creature.”)

The use of poison, or toxins that function similarly to it, as shown by her quotes for poison mosquitos, firenettles, and the stupefying lure, among others (“Poison! The work of a coward!”, “Accursed plant with your fiery barbs! Fight me properly!”, “It doth feel a bit like cheating…”)

Ambushing, or attacking while your enemy is blinded, as shown by her general flup quote and attacker Charlie quote (“You cowardly mudlurker!”, “Coward!”)

Retreating or hiding away from battle, as shown by her quotes for a retreating Eye of Terror, suspicious moonrock werepigs, and Battlemaster Pugna, among others (“You would flee this fight? Asgard does not honor cowards!”, “Do not cower behind your carapace of rock! Fight!”, “Tis a coward who watches the fight.”)

Striking while the enemy is asleep, as shown through various quotes for sleeping mobs (“It is cowardly to attack a sleeping enemy.”, “I will allow it a fair fight and wait til it awakes.”)

It can be inferred that Wigfrid not only expects these standards to be met by her enemies, but holds herself to the same standards as well. We will go into further confirmation of this later.

One final thing important to note about these rules and standards Wigfrid holds for herself is that the quickest way to gain her ire is by breaking them. This can be very easily identified through Wigfrid’s relations with snakes. Being cunning, sneaking beasts by nature- most of them venomous from birth- they really can’t help but break multiple of her thoroughly upheld rules.

It is very easy to see the effect that has on her perception of them, as shown by her general snake and poison snake quotes, as well as her commentary on their den (“Never trust those who slither.”, “Keep your foul fangs from my hide!”, “You skulking wretch!”). Not even depictions of snakes, such as the toy cobra trinket aren’t safe from her wrath (“Tis no foe worthy of I.”), and her quote for snakeskin flooring (“My enemy’s hide feels good beneath my feet!”) reveals how easily she would consider such a ‘dishonorable’ foe to be an enemy of her, a term previously only used to refer to Maxwell (and even then, only in Don’t Starve solo). 

Religion 

Though Wigfrid frequently will make mentions and references to Norse mythology, this section is meant to focus more on Wigfrid’s own personal connection to religion. Fascinatingly enough, though the nature of her acting might imply otherwise, the connection she holds to her gods seems remarkably genuine.

Being an actress by trade, it may not come as a surprise to hear that Wigfrid seems to highly prioritize other people’s praise and approval. Though what is interesting is that this motivation also seems to extend to the gods she worships. The concept of ‘worthiness’ tends to creep up in a lot of her dialogue that revolves around religion, and it isn’t uncommon for her to consider positive or negative circumstances as proof of her worthiness (or lack thereof) in the eyes of her gods.

Consider her quotes for the ancient chest (known within the code as the “sacred_chest”), and her reaction to answering the puzzle incorrectly vs her reaction to solving it (“Alas! I am unworthy!”, “I have gained the gods’ favor!”). In a similar vein, consider her reaction to receiving an electric attack buff from Warly’s Volt Goat Chaud-Froid, and her subsequent quote for losing it (“I’ve been granted the power of Thor!”, “I… suppose I was unworthy.”). Not only is there a similar verbal motif, but there is also a trend of fault and blame placed upon herself, even in situations devoid of any blame.

It also is quite clear of Wigfrid’s loyalty towards her gods, or what she believes them to manifest as. As a more pertinent example, she has a very interesting relation with the Celestial Altar and their individual components, believing them to be fragments through which she and her god of moon can commune with (“Make thy will known to me, idol!”, “The gods commune to me through thee.”). This bond she has falsely created is only further emphasized through the Celestial Sanctum pieces (“It calls out to me, I must take heed.”, “It has chosen me to safeguard its passage home.”), where again this metric of worth is highlighted through use of the word ‘chosen’.

Of course, the gestalts and all associated with them have been proven to manipulate the desires and loyalties of survivors to convince them to do their will, so it isn’t exactly a surprise that Wigfrid would obey them under such circumstances. As a result, her actions themselves are not as important as her willingness to actually obey them. This seemingly unquestioning desire to conform to the desire of her gods, even to an unscrupulous or dangerous seeming end, says a lot about how far the limits of her loyalties will stretch.

Another interesting thing to note in regards to religion is Wigfrid’s reaction to gods that have nothing to do with her own. Though not a factor of how she perceives her own religion, it is still interesting to study how she behaves around the religions of others. The easiest example of this comes from the Gnaw in the Gorge, which Wigfrid (perhaps aptly) labels as a god of that domain. Despite not belonging to her own religion, she treats the beast with a respect not unlike that which her own gods receive. Offerings to the Gnaw are relevant in nature (“Accept my offering, oh mighty gods.”), and when examining pebble crab meat she will muse about the sacrifice of the creature’s flesh (“T’would be an honor to be fed to the sky god, beast.”). Though she may not extend her loyalties to gods beyond her own, she seems to hold a unanimous respect for deities of all origins, even despite their potential lethality.

Entry to Valhalla

Perhaps one of the most notable parts of Wigfrid’s religious-based commentary is her interest in Valhalla, an afterlife for the greatest warriors, and where Valkyries such as herself must ferry noble souls after being slain in battle. Wigfrid seems quite adamant that this is the location she’ll arrive in after her death, despite the fact that death within the borders of The Constant seems completely impossible. Not only does this instill a brazen lack of death within her- as shown by her war saddle and lifejacket quotes, among many others (“I ride to victory or death!”, “Adventure offers no true safety!”)- but it also gives more insight into how she perceives battles.

A very telling comparison of quotes is the difference between her sharkitten and Tigershark quotes. The former are pacifistic infants, incapable of harming the player even if engaged in combat. When it comes to fighting, Wigfrid holds little interest in causing any harm to them (“It is your momma I want…”). What it is she ‘wants’ could be easily assumed to be nothing more than an enthralling fight. Though, if one were to check her quotes for the Tigershark in question, she couldn’t spell out her true intent any clearer (“Take me to Valhalla, devil of the sea!”).

There is a unique allure that comes with honorable fights, because with them brings the chance (perhaps even the faintest sliver, as far as she’s concerned) of reward. Of heavenly rapture. And this ties back not only to her efforts to appear worthy in the eyes of her deities, but also to the moral standards she maintains in combat. It all intertwines together for exactly one cause: Valhalla, and acceptance beyond its gates. Not only does dishonorable combat ruin the gods’ perceptions of her, but it also drastically affects her chances of acquiring heavenly peace. To the point where upon breaking any of her rules- as explored in her poison blowdart quote (“To weaken from a distance. Oden forgive me…”)- she will feel a shame drastic enough to seek divine forgiveness.

Much like her interaction with the Tigershark, Wigfrid will seek out many of The Constant’s beasts in search of battles worthy of a warrior’s death. In fact, ‘worthy’ is the term she uses to refer to these beasts, as is plainly shown in her Deerclops approach and second phase Celestial Guardian quotes (“A worthy foe approaches.”, “It seems you are a worthy foe indeed…”). Seeing as how she still thinks highly of these creatures despite her willingness to fight them, as confirmed by the description of her Hallowed Nights headpiece (“Wigfrid chose to be one of her favorite foes to battle for Hallowed Nights.”), it can be assumed that ‘worthy’ in this context is a complement. And seemingly, quite a high one. 

Virtues and Vices

Most of Wigfrid’s virtues have already been touched upon throughout this entire guide so far; just to recap, though, her most notable positive traits are her honor and loyalty, both in regards to her social life with her friends, as well as the spiritual life she shares with herself and her religion. However, as all of the best characters are, Wigfrid is not a flawless individual.

Pride is a recurring theme within the grander story of Don’t Starve. Much like many other characters, she too suffers from a surplus of it. Though not as bad or obvious as Maxwell, or even Wilson, Wigfrid’s own conceit is notable enough to be an important element to her character.

One of the main ways this manifests itself is through what some would call Main Character/Protagonist Syndrome. Though, to give her some credit, when she is embodying the mind of a main character- turning her life into a performance, making the world her stage- something such as this was bound to be inevitable.

Though many quotes can help suggest this point, one of the more prominent ones is her quote for Maxwell’s statues back in Don’t Starve solo (“Arrg! Is that the antagonist to my saga?!”). Though this quote has since been replaced in Don’t Starve Together, it says most anything one would need to know about the thought process Wigfrid spent most of her time in The Constant withholding. Maxwell as her antagonist. The Constant being nothing more than a set piece for her adventure, and hers alone. After who knows how many years of such an idea floating around in her head, to claim it wouldn’t have an effect on her perception of the world now- even with new allies at her back- seems a bit of a stretch. 

Even beyond this protagonistic complex, Wigfrid’s pride still frequently gets the better of her. She’ll frequently overstate and overestimate the extent of her abilities in combat, as shown by her reactions to the Antlion’s sand spikes, or the Celestial Guardian’s traps (“The earth itself dares to fight me!”, “You think I’m trapped here with you? Ha! It is you who are trapped with me!”), but such self bolstering will persist even to the most benign of tasks, as shown with her bark for failing any generic action (“If I can’t do it, it can’t be done!”). And, of course, there’s the more harmless example of pride in one's appearance, as seen from a self examination (“Who is that incredible warrior in the mirror?”).

Though pride is the more obvious example of one of Wigfrid’s vices, a lesser obvious- yet still notable one- is her semi-frequent impatience. While there are some matters she can bring herself to wait for, such as rowing her own ship, or waiting for her friends to finish their own tasks (“Patience is a warrior’s friend.”, “True warriors wait their turn.”), there are certain situations she will not display the same grace towards… More specifically, fishing and gardening, activities she does not favor. In her occasional barks she makes this abundantly clear (“I tire of waiting!”, “I’m tempted to simply wade in with my spear…”, “It’s not befitting of a warrior to just stand about waiting!”). It seems as a general rule of thumb, the less Wigfrid enjoys the task (or individual the task revolves around), the less willing she is to display patience to begin with. 

Relationships

When it comes to other survivors, Wigfrid is very vocal about her opinions on them- the majority of said opinions being positive. Wigfrid delights in being a part of the fold, using both ‘allies’ and ‘friends’ interchangeably as terms of endearment. As can be easily seen in her feasting bark and gift wrapping quotes (“My friends, let us celebrate this great bounty!”, “I must show my allies how much they are valued!”), she places heavy emphasis on their bond, and makes an effort to show them as much.

Furthermore, something else Wigfrid places emphasis on is the safety and fighting powesse of her allies. As is easily discoverable through her ball and cup, coat hanger, and notorious backscratcher commentary (“ No time for games! I must train my new allies!”, “This weak, flimsy wire reminds me… I must toughen Maxwell up!”, “Finally, a safe weapon with which to spar with my new allies.”), Wigfrid seems to consider it her personal responsibility to ensure the others know how to battle with the same competence and strength as she. Yet even so, she seems to keep mindful of her interactions with them, and does not wish for them to come to any legitimate harm by her own hands.

Due to the surplus of survivors within The Constant, to go over each one of them in detail would be an arduous feat. Instead, the following chart provides a general overview of Wigfrid’s connections to each of her allies.

It is important to note that a ‘neutral’ relationship doesn’t inherently mean Wigfrid does not find herself friends with that survivor. In this context, it is used to refer to a perfectly acceptable friendship. ‘Positive’ friendships are relationships that go a bit beyond what is typical for Wigfrid’s usual friendships. Beyond the material of this chart, a few examples of notable exchanges between characters are as follows:

Though Wigfrid can not be confirmed to have any ire towards any of the survivors, the closest she gets to such is through her dialogue with Wortox. More specifically, her response to him attacking another survivor (“Back! Back beast!”). Though the use of the word ‘beast’ isn’t as notable as one might think, the most interesting part of this interaction is her lack of a proper threat. As previously discussed, Wigfrid isn’t opposed to attacking survivors should the matter come down to it… But she seems to have little to say to Wortox, other than barking commands that vaguely resemble something close to fear. It can be assumed that this may be due to Wortox’s diet as a soul eater, souls (and the preservation of them) being very important to Valkyries. Seeing as how Valkyries are also oft referred to as ‘spirits’, the imp’s appetite may have a darker meaning to her specifically, depending on whether she perceives herself spiritual in nature. 

Maxwell is the only survivor Wigfrid will actively refer to as an ally, as seen in her generic greeting line (“Greetings, [player], my ally!”). Though never directly confirmed or contextualized, it can be assumed that this is in an effort to either throw him a bone (where other survivors usually wouldn’t), or simply to remind him that he is welcomed among the group. At the very least, welcome among herself.

In multiple quotes- her generic greeting quote, for instance- Wigfrid will refer to Wurt as a ‘beastie’ (“Hail, [player], small beastie of the marshlands!”). While this means nothing in a vacuum, ‘beastie’ is a term Wigfrid uses as endearment to refer to animals she shares a connection with, like a tamed beefalo (“Rise, beastie! We ride!”), or the lovable kitcoons (“A wee beastie that’s particularly excellent at hiding.”). It can thus be concluded that Wigfrid may find Wurt to be loveable or cute.

Acting and The Actress

One of the most interesting parts of Wigfrid’s character is the fact that Wigfrid truly is a character… A persona that she dons, and a mask she wears. And while there are occasional slips out of character, the person underneath (who we will refer to here as The Actress) is a true anomaly, as interesting as they are anonymous. However, there are still a lot of interesting notes we can glean from what little we know of her character… And the ways the past self has affected the present are equally as curious to see.

Wigfrid’s section of the compendium is very notable in comparison to the others’, seeing as how it touches on the person she was before Wigfrid. While the passages use her name, they speak of someone she no longer claims to be, and no longer desires to associate with. The compendium claims that “Wigfrid always knew she was meant for the stage”, and that “her debut performance was an instant sensation”. It’s been canonically established that the persona of the Valkyrie is the role that granted Wigfrid her first tastes of stardom and success. However, as the paragraph continues, the retelling of her past begins to take a darker turn. 

“Fans delighted in her portrayal of a noble and fearsome Valkyrie warrior, and she in turn took great pains to fully embody the role. She was perfect for it… perhaps too perfect. Every part she played afterward seemed to fall flat”. This statement alone has major implications for The Actress and her thought process: 

The use of the phrase ‘in turn’ when used to describe the way The Actress fully threw herself into her role implies that her doing so wasn’t entirely out of self fulfillment. Rather, it was something about the audience- a desire to further capture their approval, or repayment for their generosity, or perhaps something else all together- that encouraged her to continue delving deeper into the persona.

The way the compendium describes this act is ‘great pains’. Though it does not specify what these pains happen to be, it is clear that the road to becoming Wigfrid was not only arduous, but seemingly adverse for her health (though whether more physically or mentally remains canonically unclear).

Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this statement is the fact that The Actress took up other acts- seemingly of her own volition. She did not stay in the body of Wigfrid indefinitely, but rather it seemed she was denied the right by her audience to play any role after ‘Wigfrid’ had been truly perfected.

Where we have no direct confirmation of what roles The Actress attempted, nor how well or poorly she portrayed them on stage, the description of her Victorian headpiece skin is the closest thing we have as a hint for what a potential act may have been (“This actress fought tooth and nail for this prestigious Shakesperean role.”). If we assume this quote to be genuine in the information it presents, it becomes rather obvious that the persona of the Valkyrie wasn’t always The Actress’ only love, but rather just the role she was most practiced in.

The Actress’ behaviors and body language in Wigfrid’s refresh short, The Curtain Calls, make it expressly obvious her own pride gets in the way of properly handling criticism. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, this is a trait that she and Wigfrid share. While it is rather rare for the concept of criticism to become relevant in The Constant, the presence of Charlie’s mockingbirds will sour Wigfrid’s mood even before they’ve said anything hostile (“Begone, critics!”).

However, something unique to note about critics within the refresh short, within The Actress’ fantasy, their printed words mutate, and take the form of a towering beast. A towering snake, a motif we’ve discussed once before, as well as Wigfrid’s detest of them. Whether this is meant to imply that Wigfrid’s hatred of snakes comes from her hatred of critics, or if it’s the other way around (or, perhaps, that both are true) is unknown. However, this pattern seems incredibly intentional, and it's highly likely that Wigfrid’s sour attitude towards serpents gives an equal (or roughly equal) insight into the ire she holds for judgment towards her.

Though not every instance of The Actress slipping out is an inherently negative one. As aforementioned, Wigfrid will occasionally bring up her old stage life, or terminology that revolves around it. While some of them are nothing more than passive slips of the tongue, many of them carry with them a sense of what appears to be nostalgia. This can be seen in a variety of places, including examining a Year of the Beefalo stage, Charlie’s stage, and Winona’s spotlight (“Preparing for the stage is nearly as exhilarating as preparing for battle!”, “The stage beckons!”, “It can’t get enough of me!”). Though perhaps determined to stick with one persona (for presumably forever), it seems clear that Wigfrid still enjoys and misses the act of performing and acting. ‘Playing’ Wigfrid- where it once may have satisfied her- nowadays seems to leave something missing that only a genuine performance could provide. Though, really, that much is spelled out in just the name of her refresh short alone. The curtain calls. 

Assorted Curiosities

Like many other great characters, not all elements of Wigfrid can be neatly sorted into perfectly categorized boxes. Here are a couple more small, but interesting parts of her character that didn’t exactly fit into the categories above. 

Connections with Fauna

Being carnivorous by (what is essentially) choice, many people incorrectly assume that Wigfrid’s relationships with animals are naturally cold or selfish, when in fact that couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite the fact she must live off of animals to survive, Wigfrid tends to hold little ire for the animals around her, whether or not they’re passive in nature. There’s many instances where she can have a tame and ‘casual’ interaction with an animal, her quotes for interacting with Woby, no eyed deer, and sleeping caged birds being only a few examples (“Wouldst thou like a skritch behind thine ears?”, “The beauty of Freya dwells in all creatures!”, “Sweet dreams, raven friend.”).

However, even outside of animals Wigfrid doesn’t consider prey, she keeps a respectful- if not very unusual- connection with them. One of the more pertinent examples of such being catcoons, and a glance at her quote for an inhabited catcoon den can easily show you why (“Cute meat lives there.”). While Wigfrid does not refer to every animal as meat, it is admittedly a habit she’ll do for multiple creatures she comes across. However, she does not say this to display superiority, or even to threaten animals that she comes across. This is made apparent by her examinings of an empty catcoon den, as well as the cat cap, to keep with the catcoon theme (“She fought bravely. Alas, she is gone.”, “A furry cap! Blessings to you, cute meat.”).

She values the presence of the creature, and remarks about its absence with slight sorrow. Even despite considering it a source of food, she blesses and respects the life it gave to provide her with the resources she now has. In fact, respecting the resources of dead creatures is a motif she carries with her throughout multiple animal-based products, from the moggles, to the piggyback, to even the magic seal (“It’s best to use every part of the animal.”, “The pig died with honor, then gave to me this pack.”, “I shall wield this with proper respect for the mighty warrior wizard that left it.”).

Connections with Flora

Ironically enough, though most people do not consider Wigfrid’s relationship with plants, in actuality it is very similar to what others falsely assume her connection to animals is. Though Wigfrid can appreciate the natural beauty of some flora, such as common flowers, roses, or the Forge’s healing flowers (“A flower from Freya.”, “Were that I smelled half as sweet.”, “A blessing from Freya is contained within.”), flowers are just about where her compliments towards plants end. Her barks when talking to budding farms are nothing but aggravated (“Perhaps someone more weak and feeble might talk to the plants, while I hunt.”, “I care naught for these plants or the veggies they produce.”, “Grow, or do not.”), and her reaction to garnering more research about gardening isn’t any better (“My head hath been filled with useless knowledge about non-meat!”).

Though truly, one of the best examples of her blatant displeasure around plants stems from some of her dialogue from the Year of the Rat races. Though she can hold her temper well enough through the entirety of the carrat training process, a poorly trained carrat on the race track will bring out just about the worst of her (“Foolish vegetable, the race is that way!”, “Thou cannot trust a vegetable to do anything right.”, “Quicken thine step, rodent!” “By Oden, wake up!”). While her reactions to typical plants and farms could be explained somewhat by her own pride (not wanting to be seen as ‘weak’ by doing something that would conflict with her persona), there is little that could explain the carrats other than a fury that stems from the concept of vegetables themselves. 

Sense of Style

While The Constant doesn’t truly grant survivors the freedom to explore their own clothing styles and preferences, skinsets allow a slightly deeper look at their preferences than their classic clothing would otherwise allow. While Wigfrid doesn’t seem to mind revealing her arms, only 6 out of her 16 skins are stylized in this way. While many are indecisive on whether or not Wigfrid’s original set of clothing features either shorts or a skirt, factoring that skin out of the equation leaves only 6 out of 15 clothing sets that feature a dress, skirt, or skirt-like features; and even then, half of them include pants, or some sort of pants-equivalent that covers the remainder of her legs.

In regards to material, Wigfrid is canonically fond of fur, and mentions it multiple times, including her announcement to the cold, examination of slurper pelts, and her wardrobe quote (“Brrr! Where are my furs!”, “I do love furs.”, “That’s where I keep my furs and cloaks.”).

Verbal Contradictions

Since Wigfrid is written not by one individual, but (presumably) by rotating members of the Klei team, occasionally some of her quotes will override established parts of her character, leading to contradictory sentences. While most are harmless enough, here are some examples of some quotes that may prove confusing to anyone attempting to grasp a deeper understanding of Wigfrid’s character.

Poop, “If only I could use it as camouflage from predators.”, Torch, “Perfect for a nighttime assault.”

As was already explained in regards to Wigfrid’s morals and combat, hiding from enemies and ambushing in the dark are fighting strategies that Wigfrid has explicitly considered cowardly. It would be unusual for her to stoop to such levels on a whim.

Dripple pipes, “I have no rhythm…”

A completely unfounded statement. Wigfrid was an overnight success, a talented and beloved actress, a ‘spellbinding’ singer (as proclaimed by news articles written about her), and canonically has perfect pitch. Nothing about her career, talents, or hobbies would imply she has no sense of rhythm. In fact, quite the opposite! A good singer can not have bad rhythm!

Cut reeds, “I cleaned all the bugs out! Then I ate them.”

While not in classic Don’t Starve solo or Don’t Starve Together, the Hamlet DLC introduced a unique food group referred to as ‘bugs’. To this day, it only contains four items, two raw bugs, and two cooked bugs. However, Wigfrid will refuse to eat either. While technically she does eat bugs if you consider the fact she’ll eat the meat of spiders, not only are those spiders larger than common bugs- dropping a lot more meat than a regular spider- she also hunts spiders with her own hands, as opposed to turning over a rock and eating what lies underneath. Despite the cut reeds quote coming first, Wigfrid has been shown to canonically refuse eating smaller bugs, thus making this quote contradictory

[saintofdaggers]

Top 5 Saw characters and Top 5 horror films.

oh man. you're really making me choose lmao. let's see. (I apologize in advance for the wall o'text this reply is about to turn into)

top 5 Saw characters

5. Hoffman. yeah he's inconsistently written as hell and the way he was handled in Saw 3D makes me want to eat drywall, but I love an absolute irredeemable bastard of a villain and he's just fun except when he's not. also I told my two cousins about "epic bad luck" and "we're all the same color on the inside" and they both lost their shit laughing, which was beautiful to me. they truly gave my man some of the worst lines in the entire Saw canon and I kind of love that <3

4. Perez. no explanation needed I think but she's gorgeous, she's smart, she's a badass, she's the only one who sees through Hoffman, she needed so much more screentime!! and she was/is one of my favorite characters to write in fanfics.

3. Adam! my boy. I adore his sense of humor, his empathy, his strong emotions, his shady morality but kind heart despite the shitty circumstances he's having to live in. his fate makes my heart hurt. it's devastating and it's our first indication of what John's "philosophy" really amounts to. the way he haunts both Amanda and Lawrence is just. chef's kiss even if the latter was more just... implied than explored. he and Amanda need to be BFFs in Saw fics more often.

2. Strahm. he's such a dick and for what. I ADORE obsessive and messy and impulsive and flawed characters who fuck up repeatedly, and I love it when they're tragic because they fully doomed themselves with their choices, but their choices were inevitable because of who they are as a person. I also love both the water cube scene and the ending of Saw V, they're such fun traps and such iconic scenes. and I may or may not have noticed his eyelashes a few times. sue me.

and 1. AMANDA. she's the beating heart of this whole franchise and I will die on that hill. she's such an incredibly complex and tragic and beautifully written character and I will throw hands with anyone who insults her. and she is THE horror lesbian to me. love the toxic yuri with Lynn, and her vulnerability and messy emotions and empathy for the trap victims, and the way she struggles with the weight of her own actions. she's such an icon. if I ever write Saw fic again (unlikely at this point but hey! no telling the future!) it will be either about her or about Perez.

top 5 horror films, and I'll try not to ramble this time:

Saw <3

The Descent

Scream

Blade

Hellraiser

[ladyseidr]

Changing the post into an Information About Atre.us/Lo.ki Post! A lot is going to be added on beneath the original post.

Some notes about Atre.us/Lo.ki on here:

by default, he's 14-15 (as per the most recent game), but I'm willing to write him older/as an adult (but with absolutely no ns.fw content of course)

i'm willing to write the mutual crush between him and Angr.boda, but i'm not comfortable writing actual romance with him under the age of 18

crossovers, especially with other mythology-based muses, v welcome, esp considering they canonly all exist in GO.W

yes this includes Greek muses. it'll just be an AU (because him connecting to his father's homeland is <3 <;3 <3)

depending on how we choose to handle it, your Greek muses are absolutely allowed to hate the fact that his father is Kra.tos if/when they find out

as of right now, I'm not willing to write with Mar.vel-based portrayals of the Nor.se gods

i retain the right to give him new powers, esp in verses where he's older fkjhdsjfsdkfda

(aka. significantly more control over his shapeshifting, shapeshifting in his god/humanlike form, FIRE—)

older/adult!Atr.eus has long hair of course

given the nature of the game's ending, i write him as being a traveler (but ultimately Midg.ard is his home that he always will return to). he will almost always introduce himself as Lo.ki if he's beyond the Nor.se realms, but he'll mention either name if it comes up

as of right now, i probably won't be using icons with him. this is subject to change

Atre.us has powers, some attributed to his godhood and some to being a giant. These abilities are:

canon: he can shapeshift into animals. in game he shifts into both a bear and a wolf. this is initially an expression of rage, uncontrollable and dangerous. by the end of the game, he has gained control of his rage in these forms. he can only hold these forms for a limited amount of time.

headcanon: atr.eus hones these skills post-Ragn.arök, including during his travels. by 16 he can maintain shifting into an animal for quite a long time. he can also shapeshift into most animals (although the larger the animal, the harder to maintain). he defaults to a wolf, just like in-game, however.

headcanon: by adulthood, atr.eus has mastered shifting his appearance and is able to take on different characteristics and even take on the appearance of others. the latter makes him uncomfortable and is reserved for worst-case scenarios. he can hold appearance changes for a significant amount of time. he may begin exploring gender identity here, as he is Lo.ki.

canon: atr.eus has the ability to understand languages at an inhuman speed. given a cipher, he can memorize it with eidetic memory and be able to read the language pretty much instantly. without a cipher, he is capable of still figuring out most languages. he is shown canonly being able to read and/or speak: dead languages (ex. the World Serpent's language), more than one Norse language, ancient Greek (possibly taught some by Kra.tos), Japanese (no cipher, no teaching), and Egyptian (no cipher, no teaching).

headcanon: atre.us's language abilities only strengthen with age. he can speak almost like a native in most languages. he often seems to simply "know" what something means.

canon: atre.us has the ability to feel animals' emotions and, sometimes, hear their thoughts. this sometimes extends to other beings as well. he is capable of communicating with many types of animals and is seen canonly carrying on conversations with wolves.

headcanon: with age, this ability fully transcends animals. he can always feel someone's emotions and can sometimes hear their thoughts. he has to do this intentionally and consciously, however (and, under most circumstances) wouldn't.

canon. atr.eus is a god. he has superior strength, stamina, and speed. he is immortal, but can, of course, be killed. he can withstand far more damage than a mortal.

headcanon: by adulthood, atr.eus is significantly faster than his father. on the contrary, he never quite reaches his father's strength, but he is still immensely more powerful than a mortal. as he is both a god and giant, he winds up being as tall as his father (aka. taller than an average mortal, but shorter than many of the Ae.sir gods + other giants).

canon: atr.eus is able to use magic. his arrows are enchanted with different types of magic. his tattoos + eyes light up the corresponding color when he uses them. he is also able to pull the soul from a living being and manipulate it, change its host, etc.

headcanon: atr.eus learns more and more Van.ir magic from Fr.eya over the years. he is able to perform different spells and gains a good grasp on healing with herbs.

canon: the game shows no (current) signs of tying in Lo.ki's potential connection to fire with atr.eus.

headcanon: at an indeterminate time (may happen within a thread, may happen outside of that), atre.us discovers his ability to create and/or control fire.

A few more notes:

Ate.us's post-game verse(s) all run on a few assumptions. These assumptions are: (1) the next Go.d of War game will feature Lo.ki as the protag, (2) Lo.ki will remain the new protag of the series, as Kra.tos has earned his happy ending, (3). Lo.ki is ultimately headed toward the home of the Cel.tic gods to find the giants, & (4) Lo.ki will continue to consider Midg.ard his true home, and consistently return to it.

More to be added.

[freyayuki]

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia Costumes Part 2

The Ally Costume Token Exchange shop just became available in the Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia (DFFOO) mobile game.

This shop contains all the costumes that have been released in the English or Global version of DFFOO.

Normally, you need to pay real money in order to get and be able to equip these costumes. But the game is planning to give players 2 Ally Costume Tokens for free. You can use this Token to exchange for a costume from the shop.

Sadly, the reason why we’re getting these Tokens for free is because DFFOO just announced that it will discontinue or end its service on February 29, 2024.

I talk more about that in another post, but that announcement came as a shock. Really wish that news wasn’t true. Wish the game wasn’t ending at all.

Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia Costumes List

Anyway, I talk more about this in another post but I already picked and got my 1st costume. Ended up choosing the 1st costume of Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII (#ad). Now I need to figure out which costume to pick with my 2nd Ally Costume Token.

Unfortunately, at the moment, I still have no idea which costume to pick. There are a lot of choices, and there are lots of costumes that I’d love to be able to have. I talk more about this in another post, but it’s really too bad that we can’t get them all even with the game ending soon.

So now gonna have to go through all the available costumes then try to decide which one to pick. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make a decision soon. Want to be able to make use of these costumes as much as possible before the game ends.

Anyway, below is a list of all the costumes that are available in the Global or English version of DFFOO.

Aeris or Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII

Aeris or Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII has 2 costumes - Aerith's Extra Costume 1 and Aerith's Extra Costume 2.

I like Aerith's costumes better than her default outfit. If I have to choose between her 2 costumes, then I'll go with her 2nd one. That red dress looks really nice.

So Aerith's 1st costume is out but her 2nd one is in.

Here are some more screenshots of Aerith's costumes:

Cloud of Darkness from Final Fantasy III

Cloud of Darkness from Final Fantasy III has 1 costume.

Don't really use the Cloud of Darkness all that much so this costume's out.

Dark Knight Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV

Dark Knight Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV has 1 costume.

Not really all that fond of this costume and I don't use Dark Knight Cecil all that much either so this one's out too.

Paladin Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV

Paladin Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV has 1 costume.

The costume and his default outfit look pretty similar but I think I actually prefer the latter so this one's out.

Edge Geraldine from Final Fantasy IV

Edge Geraldine from Final Fantasy IV has 1 costume.

Not that fond of this costume and don't use Edge much at all so this one's out.

Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV

Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV has 2 costumes.

What I like about Kain's costumes is that they let you see his face.

But not all that fond of the outfits themselves so both are out.

Rosa Joanna Farrell from Final Fantasy IV

Rosa Joanna Farrell from Final Fantasy IV has 2 costumes.

The 1st one looks kinda similar to her default outfit, but if I have to choose between those 2, then I'd pick her default outfit.

Rosa's 2nd costume looks way better than either of her other outfits though.

I do like Rosa well enough, and she's fully built so I also use her often enough, so I guess for now her 2nd costume is in but her 1st one is out.

Here are some more screenshots of Rosa's 2nd costume:

Ceodore Harvey from Final Fantasy IV

Ceodore Harvey from Final Fantasy IV has 1 costume.

Not really fond of this costume and I don't use Ceodore much so this one's out.

Faris Scherwiz (Sarisa Scherwil Tycoon) from Final Fantasy V

Faris Scherwiz (Sarisa Scherwil Tycoon) from Final Fantasy V has 1 costume.

I like Faris's costume but unfortunately, she doesn't have her own Burst or BT weapon in the English or Global version of the game so won't be able to use her much, which is why this one's out.

And that’s it for now. There are a lot more costumes to go through but have to continue in another post because already nearing the max limit of 30 pics per post in this one.

Conclusion

So what about you? What do you think about the news that DFFOO is ending its service on February 29, 2024? What do you think about the costumes in this game? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below or by reblogging or replying to this post.

Notes:

screenshots are from my Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia game account

[jerry618]

Which is Better for LED Video Walls: DisplayPort or HDMI?

Email: sale05@xygledscreen.com

WhatsApp & wechat: +86 18038197291

www.xygledscreen.com

From home theater enthusiasts to computer gurus, you won’t find many electronics buffs who don’t applaud the advent of HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) connectors. In the days of analog audio and video, the end user was forced to send these signals separately to video displays and audio equipment, with video typically transferred via component connections and audio sent through multiple RCA cables. When digital audio and video arrived, hobbyists and professionals alike were able to connect devices in different ways, including through DVI, SPIDIF, coaxial and, finally, HDMI, the latter of which promised a new era of connection flexibility and installation ease.

And, make good on that promise HDMI did – indeed, finally there was a connection type that could pass all manner of audio and video signals over one cable, rendering home theater and commercial installation projects a proverbial cinch to complete while eliminating the proverbial rat’s nest of wiring previously associated with large installs. From A/V receivers and satellite/cable boxes to Ultra HD televisions, projectors and beyond, HDMI was often dubbed the best thing to happen to the connection cable world.

Yet as the HDMI spec evolved, so did its application blueprint, to the point that we’re now looking at which is better DP or HDMI for LED video walls, which is the topic of discussion for this article. We’ll be focusing on understanding both these choices, how to choose the right one for different applications, the difference between resolution and refresh rate and more.

I. Understanding DisplayPort and HDMI

HDMI and DisplayPort are two standards for connecting devices such as computers, laptops and game consoles to televisions, monitors and projection systems, and each come with advantages and disadvantages. While HDMI, as we suggested above, is the reigning king of compatibility and convenience, power users often cite things that are more appealing about DisplayPort.

These competing display connection standards transmit – as we also hinted at in the introduction portion – both video and audio signals over a single male/male cable to respective female ports on the source device/display, albeit with different “pin” patterns. They’re both physically sturdy and easy to connect, boasting backward and forward compatibility; HDMI uses standard and mini-connectors while DisplayPort uses DisplayPort, Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort and USB 3 connections.

DisplayPort wins the spec war over HDMI, even though not all ports and cables are the same for both, given that they have several version revisions. Let’s now take a brief look at some technical details for these connectors.

HDMI boasts four revision groups as of 2021:

• 1.0-1.2: 4.95 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p at 60 Hz

• 1.3-1.4: 10.2 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p up to 144 Hz and 4K at 30 Hz

• 2.0: 18.0 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p at 240 Hz, 4K at 60 Hz and HDR

• 2.1: 48 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 4K at 144 Hz and 8K at 30Hz

DisplayPort boasts five revision groups as of 2021:

• 1.0-1.1: 10.8 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p at 144 Hz and 4K at 30 Hz

• 1.2: 21.6 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p at 240 Hz, 4K at 75 Hz, and 5K at 30 Hz

• 1.3: 32.4 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports 1080p at 360 Hz, 4K at 120 Hz, 5K at 60 Hz and 8K at 30 Hz

• 1.4: 32.4 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports up to 8K at 60 Hz and HDR

• 2: 80.0 Gbps of data bandwidth that supports up to 16K at 60 Hz with HDR on and up to 10K with HDR off at 80 Hz

Another important factor to note before we move on is that an HDMI port can only connect to one screen, while DisplayPort features Multi-Stream Transport (MST) for multiple screens and daisy-chaining. Further, DisplayPort can connect to four screens at once – though because DisplayPort splits bandwidth between the displays, results will vary depending on the setup.

II. Comparison Chart of DP and HDMI

DisplayPort

HDMI

Release Date

November 2017

March 2016

Audio Support

Up to 23 Audio Channels

Up to 23 Audio Channels

Maximum Bandwidth

48 Gbps

32.4 Gbps

HDR Support

Dynamic

Static/Standard

Number of Supported Displays

One

Up to Four

Audio Return Channel

Equipped with Enhanced ARC

No

Gaming

Ideal for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5

Ideal for PC/Casual Gaming

Availability

Widely Available 

Gaming and Workstations

Use Cases

-Computer Gaming

-Laptop Docking with Multiple Monitors (for two or more external screens)

-Workstation with Three or More Displays

-Apple Monitors (these devices don’t support HDMI) 

-Console Gaming

-Connecting Laptop to Projector/TV

-Laptop Docking for Single Screen

III. Choosing the Right Option Based on Application

The market availability of HDMI 2.1 – the latest spec – compared to DisplayPort 1.4 is a statement of its use case, market share and how likely you are to find it in retail stores. DisplayPort is readily obtainable in the market, but is limited to workstations and gaming for the most part; this is why it has been the ideal data transmission cable among gamers for years.

On the other hand, HDMI 2.1 can be leveraged for different use cases and settings, though it is also popular amongst gamers, workers and individuals running high-resolution monitors and televisions – including LED video walls.

III-A. Resolution and Refresh Rate

Knowing the type of resolution your preferred cable supports is an important factor that needs to be considered before purchasing any, especially if you already have a display technology you intend to utilize. To put it more succinctly, DisplayPort 1.4 supports 4K resolution at 120Hz and 8K resolution at 60Hz, while HDMI 2.1 supports these resolutions at better refresh rates with a maximum resolution of 10K.

When we speak of “refresh rate,” we’re referring to how often a display device shows an image within a time frame of one second. This figure is measured in “hertz” (Hz) and determines whether there will be lag and increased latency in a video output or not; for example, if a transmission tech boasts a refresh rate of 60Hz, it means it draws or displays 60 images every second. In the HDMI vs. DisplayPort debate, both have impressive rates, but as the resolution under consideration increases, the refresh rates drop significantly. DisplayPort max refresh rates exist in 1080p resolution, and as the resolution gets higher to 1440p, the refresh rate drops to 144Hz and to 120Hz for 2K; conversely, this is quite different from HDMI 2.1, which boasts an overall maximum refresh rate of 240Hz. The difference here is that HDMI 1440p max refresh rate is the same as 1080p and 2K, which is 240Hz, yet the HDMI 4K max refresh rate stands at 120Hz.

III-B. Content Source and Cable Length

The DisplayPort standard pegs optimum data transmission at approximately three (3) meters of cable length, however, the cable can be extended up to 20 meters while allowing, at the very least, a high-definition resolution. The HDMI standard does not specify exact dimensions and capabilities in terms of cable length, though generally they’re shorter than DisplayPort cables and normally come in two (2)-meter lengths for optimum performance.

DisplayPort may not be commonly found on mainstream devices such as gaming consoles, monitors, graphics cards and televisions, but its connectors are common in devices priced higher than average, such as gaming monitors and high-end graphics cards. HDMI connectors come in four sizes – standard, mini, micro and automotive – with each serving a unique purpose; standard HDMI connectors or Type A HDMI connectors are typically used by corporations and personal users. They connect source devices such as gaming consoles and Blu-ray/Ultra HD Blu-ray players to monitors, televisions and projectors.

III-C. Additional Features

DisplayPort connectors have 20 pins, with two sizes available, the standard DisplayPort and a smaller alternative made by Apple called Mini DisplayPort; the latter is the same port as the Thunderbolt variant. While HDMI connectors are typically comprised of 19 pins, the lesser-known Type B variant boasts 29 pins and is used for dual-link applications, whereas the Type E has a locking tab to keep the cable from vibrating loose in automotive applications.

III-D. Compatibility

A question we often hear is: “Can I connect a DisplayPort to an HDMI monitor?” and our answer is always the same – yes and no.

For the record, a DisplayPort signal is not compatible with HDMI, but if the DisplayPort output is a dual mode variant, it has the ability to recognize and adjust the signal to HDMI when a passive adapter cable is connected. From our experience, sometimes this will work and sometimes it won’t; if the DisplayPort graphics card is only a single mode variant, then you must use an active adapter or converter.

Both HDMI and DisplayPort technologies have improved dramatically in recent years, and that shows no signs of slowing down. Between HDMI 2.1 nearly tripling the data rate and bandwidth of version 2.0 – and doubling the capabilities of DisplayPort 1.4 – and expanding support for other visual enhancements like dynamic forms of HDR (Dolby Vision/HDR10+) for richer colors, variable refresh rates for smoother gaming, reduced latency for gaming, faster source media switching and enhanced audio, the future is definitely in the hands of these pin-oriented connectors.

[hajimesh]

𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩 — olympic team / fem reader

[ atsumu, sakusa, suna, kageyama, gao, bokuto, hinata, iwaizumi, oikawa ]

the stress of the first match seems to be taking a toll on the team's spirit, and you refuse to sit and watch them fail when you know you can be of help. but can you really handle all of them?

(or, where you end up having a gang bang with 8 professional volleyball players, and 1 athletic trainer)

⥅ word c. 7,928

⥅ warnings. sub reader, gang bang, foursomes, voyeurism?, fellatio, cum play, vaginal penetration, anal, unprotected sex, creampie, facial, size + stomach bulging kink, praise kink, mild degradation, double penetration, pussy job (for like, one second), double vaginal penetration, fingering, squirting, overstimulation, someone passes out, aftercare

⥅author n. brought to u thanks to this tweet + @kmorgzz​ who suggested adding iwaoi to the mix

special mention to my wife and love of my life, runa. @tsumue​ u had me laughing at 4am as i read ur comments in the google doc. i don't know what i'd do without u, tysm for beta and putting up with me for the past week ♡ 

ps. im v sorry if ur fave didn't make the cut (╥_╥) i added the ones im more familiar with, in terms of writing

if someone had told you you’d be attending the olympic games not as a spectator but as part of japan’s team, you’d have never believed them. but here you are, sitting in the same room with the most skilled players in the country as none other than their personal assistant.

“iwaizumi-san! do you think kageyama and i could pull off a quick attack right at the beginning of the set?”

“shoyo-kun, if there’s someone you’ll be doing the quick attack with it’s me,” atsumu’s eyes land on kageyama, smirking at the other setter from across the room, “right, tobio-kun?”

“you’re a disgrace.”

sakusa’s statement earns an offended scoff from the blond setter, the rest of the team rolling their eyes and sighing at the all-too-familiar scene.

“oi! we don’t have time for petty fights!”

after iwaizumi gets everyone’s attention back on him, he barely finishes explaining tomorrow’s match opponents and their plays without losing the team’s attention. he might be there to train them and make sure they’re on top of their game, but he knows when the team is lacking morale and, sadly, today’s one of those days.

the meeting is over and all of you go to the dining hall, fetching your dinner and sitting on your respective table with you right next to iwaizumi.

since you took that part-time job at the msby jackals, you quickly caught onto their small tics and tell-tale signs when something isn’t right. atsumu becomes a complete asshole which makes sakusa lose his temper sooner than usual. meanwhile, bokuto and hinata become very fidgety, often causing a bit of chaos around them as clumsiness radiates off of them.

when the national team was announced, you were offered the job as the trainer’s assistant—all thanks to the jackals who recommended you to their superiors for said position. your pay-check might say you’re just iwaizumi’s assistant, but you’re basically there to cover the needs of the entire team—all of them.

“iwa-chan!”

your head snaps to the side as a good-looking man takes the last free seat next to iwaizumi.

“aren’t you supposed to be sitting with your team?” iwaizumi asks him, taking a bite of his food while waiting for an answer.

the unknown man huffs exaggeratedly, rolling his eyes as he too starts to eat, “thought you’d miss your best friend.”

“hanamaki isn’t here.”

the stranger opens his mouth to reply, clearly offended by iwizumi’s words, when he notices you peeping at him.

“oh? hi! i think we haven’t met,” he shoots you a charming smile, bringing out his remarkably handsome features, “oikawa tooru, it’s nice to meet you.”

you introduce yourself, bowing at him and focusing back on your food.

both friends start to discuss tomorrow’s events, which inevitably brings out iwaizumi’s concern for his players.

“they seem off,” he’s playing around with the food as he stares at the players sitting in the table in front of yours, “i don’t know if i should talk to them or let them be.”

he’s clearly concerned for them, you can see it in his eyes—the doubt, wondering if he has been doing a good job with the team.

“iwaizumi-san, i-i… perhaps i could aid them this time?”

his head snaps in your direction, a mix of surprise and worry taking over his face, “no way, that’d be too much for you.”

oikawa’s eyebrows scrunch up as he observes you two but says nothing, choosing to listen attentively at you trying to convince iwaizumi while the latter sighs and reminds you that it’s not just the jackals this time.

it takes a while for iwaizumi to accept your offer, pondering the pros and cons, but he ends up accepting it; for everyone’s sakes.

“i’m lost.”

oikawa’s words make your insides flare-up, looking down at your hands in order to avoid looking at him, his curious eyes switching between his best friend and you.

iwaizumi ignores him, standing up from his seat and walking to the table in front of you with you and oikawa watching closely. the team turns to look at him, waiting for him to speak since it’s obvious it has to be something important by the severe look on his face.

“seeing as some of you are clearly out of it, our assistant here has very kindly volunteered to help you guys for tonight.”

a few heads immediately perk up, looking at you with bright eyes once you answer their silent question with a smile.

“please, be good to her. i’ll be there supervising anyways, so don’t think of trying anything funny.”

“oikawa-san! you’re coming with us, right?” hinata looks expectantly at said male, excitement clear in the redhead’s eyes, “she’s the best!”

both iwaizumi and you freeze on the spot, gauging oikawa’s reaction who only looks more confused.

“you’re welcome to join us, if you so desire,” it’s you who’s offering it this time, surprising iwaizumi and earning a worried glance from him.

oikawa can’t deny he’s dying to know what everyone’s so excited about, and after thinking about it for a few more seconds, he has made up his mind.

“shall we go, then?”

—

“alright, ground rules.”

just a handful of the team sits in the room, the ones who know what’s happening waiting eagerly for the green light while the rest wonders what the fuss is about. as much as you want to help them all, it’d be impossible; which is why iwaizumi picked the ones he thought needed the morale boost the most.

with a nod in your direction, he lets you know you’re free to speak.

“the jackals already know this,” you say and atsumu snickers from his seat, winking at you as hinata and bokuto nod excitedly, “but i’m not too strict about the entire thing.”

you can feel the pairs of curious eyes burning holes in you—trying to decipher what’s going on. so, after taking a deep breath and getting an awkward, encouraging smile from iwaizumi, you start voicing out the rules.

“please, be patient. there are so many of you and only one of me. i promise you’ll get your turn,” you give atsumu a pointed look, and this time it's sakusa who snorts while the blond setter rolls his eyes, “which brings me to the next rule, no seconds.”

a hand raises in the air, making you advert your attention to its owner. 

“i still don’t get what’s happening,” suna’s eyes narrow down at you, noticing the embarrassment and hesitation in your posture.          

“don’t worry, suna. we’ll show ya.”

“shut it, miya.”

clearing up your throat, you smile coyly at the middle blocker, “it’ll make sense once i finish explaining, suna-san.”

he shrugs but stays quiet. taking into account the jackals’ reactions plus the cryptic rules, an idea has already formed in his mind. but it couldn’t be that. right?

“uh, again, only one round. all entrances are fine,” you pause, going through the rules in your head to see if there’s anything you might be forgetting, “oh! and you’ll be paired up in teams of three to make things faster.”

“one more thing,” iwaizumi speaks up, this time looking at you instead of the awaiting men, “don’t forget to let us know how you’re doing.”

two loud claps break the tense atmosphere, “well, we should get started then,” atsumu raises from his spot and walks towards you. his hands cradle your face between them and lift it so you can face him properly, “what do ya say, princess?”

his lips land on yours before you can reply to him, a small squeal getting stuck in your throat when his hands travel down your body until he’s squeezing your ass.

you’re too caught up in the kiss to notice the new presence looming behind you.

“i’ll take your pussy before anyone can taint it with their dick.”

sakusa’s words make you shudder. you break apart from atsumu’s mouth to turn around and face him, his dark eyes alluring and drawing you towards him.

“oi, newbie,” atsumu calls out to suna who scoffs in return, “c’mere and join us.”

meanwhile, sakusa guides you to the bed, making you sit on his lap as you wait for the other two to show up. once they do, atsumu immediately settles behind you while suna stands awkwardly at the foot of the bed. it’s hard for you to read his expression since you’re not too familiar with him, so you offer him a reassuring smile and pat the spot next to you. 

the rest of the team watches from their seats as the four of you get started. 

suna lifts your chin, his eyes staring down at you before leaning down and kissing the corner of your mouth. he trails down your neck until he reaches your chest, sucking on the skin gently before running his tongue over the delicate area. in the meantime, atsumu unbuttons your blouse, taking it off and playing with your breasts while sakusa busies himself with taking your pants off.

“i get the hype, now,” suna whispers in your ear, blowing air on it and then biting down on your earlobe, making the hairs of your body rise.

his lips capture yours in a slow kiss —savoring your taste— and one of his hands goes to the back of your neck to keep you in place. his teeth play with your bottom lip, biting it softly and pulling away, his hooded eyes calculating your reaction.

“don’t get too excited, suna,” atsumu says from his spot behind you, pinching your nipples between his fingers and prompting a whine to escape your lips, “you’ll only get her mouth.”

“mhm, is that so?” suna’s question is directed towards you rather than atsumu, tilting your chin up and smirking at the dazed look in your eyes, “can’t wait to see that pretty mouth bulging with my cock, then.”

his lewd words earn a few coughs and clearing throats from the rest, which he chooses to ignore when your hand cups his growing bulge.

“enough you two, let the poor woman have a bit of pleasure too,” sakusa’s dark eyes look at you questioningly, silently asking if you’re ready to continue.

in return, you cup his face with your free hand and kiss his cheek—knowing he wouldn’t appreciate a kiss on the mouth when you just finished making out with another man.

they finish getting you out of your clothes until your bare cunt is hovering over sakusa’s lap. he’s quick to undress and ease his cock into you, suna and atsumu observing as they get rid of their clothes as well.

“fuck,” sakusa groans in your ear, the position allowing you to hide your face in his neck and wrap your arms around his shoulders, “always so tight.”

“scoot over, i need to prep her ass.”

suna snorts at atsumu’s words, pumping his cock twice before kneeling on the mattress—right next to you. he pats your cheek with the swollen head, looking down at you with a faint smirk.

“open up.”

your eyes immediately focus on his length, your mouth watering at the sight. you open your mouth and stick your tongue out, looking up at him and observing as he rests the tip on your tongue. 

“looking so pretty with a cock in your mouth,” he slowly slides in, guiding your head down until half of him is inside, “so warm.” 

a cold liquid dribbles on your backside, making you flinch forward and causing suna’s cock to slide in even more.

“relax, baby. it’s just me,” atsumu rubs the liquid on your asshole, playing with it with his finger before finally sliding it in.

your muscles contract involuntarily, making sakusa groan as he keeps still inside your pussy, waiting for you to grow used to the multiple things going on around you.

“hurry up before i start fucking her.”

a second finger slides in and you moan around suna’s cock, spit running at the corners of your mouth which reminds you to swallow. you hollow your cheeks and retract your mouth until only the tip remains inside, running your tongue over the slit and making the middle blocker shudder.

“someone’s hungry,” he muses.

you hum around him, bobbing your head back and forth and pumping the rest of his length with one hand.

“i’m gonna try get in now, okay?” atsumu taps your ass with his cock, lining it up with your asshole and thrusting in. he watches as the head of his cock finally slips in, groaning when the familiar tightness engulfs him, “that’s it, baby. doin’ so good for me.”

you have to remove your mouth from suna’s cock to avoid biting down on him, the stretch slightly more painful than pleasurable which eventually leads to you tensing up even more. 

“you gotta relax,” atsumu says under his breath, strained by the way you feel around his dick.

it takes you around a minute to calm down, taking deep breaths until you feel yourself loosen up and, with one last push, he’s finally inside.

“omi?” you say against his neck, “could you move a bit, please?”

said man grunts as he starts to move his hips, your slick helping his cock glide in, “color.”

it takes you a few seconds to understand what he meant.

“oh! uhh, green.”

atsumu’s thrusts are slow —testing the waters— since the last thing he wants is to get yelled at for being too rough, too soon. but you’re growing impatient, moving your hips backwards and trying to get more of him inside of you.

“m-more, ‘tsumu. i can take it,” you say and he immediately complies, his muscular thighs now slapping against your ass.

suna remains kneeling next to you, cock in his hand as he waits for you to bring your attention back to him. but he doesn’t have to wait too long, your hand wrapping around his cock and guiding it back into your mouth once you’ve set a steady pace with the other two men.

“thought you had forgotten about me.”

he pushes your hair out of your face, watching your lips wrap around his girth. it’s taking all of his willpower to not hold your head and fuck your face until you’re gagging around him, afraid it might be a big ‘no’ from you. and since it’s the first time he’s getting to experience this, he decides to take whatever’s given to him.

“you’re so wet,” sakusa points out as he looks down at where you two are connected, observing his cock slide in and out of your cunt, covered with your slick.

“‘course she is, she’s being stuffed by three cocks.”

“feels good…” your manage to say after releasing suna with a pop, pumping his shaft with your hand, “a-am i making you feel better?”

a hand lands on your ass, causing you to yelp and tighten your hold on suna’s cock. 

“what do ya think, hm? we’re getting our dicks wet in none other but our slutty little assistant's holes,” atsumu plays with your ass, squeezing it and humming when the imprint of his hands appears on the soft flesh.

“mhm, quite the slut you are,” sakusa whispers in your ear, kissing your neck afterwards, “as long as i get to make a mess out of that cunt of yours before anyone else, i will always enjoy these little sessions of ours.”

your eyes land on suna, waiting for him to say his thoughts on the matter.

his gaze drops to your hand, covered in his pre-cum and your spit which sends a jolt to his cock, making it throb in your hand.

“can’t say i hate it.”

you smile at his words, recognizing the challenge hidden behind them. your mouth wraps around the flushed tip, eyes closing when both sakusa and atsumu thrust up into your holes at the same time. you try to keep your hand steady as you suck suna off, but the lewd grunts and moans coming from them, plus their cocks filling you so nicely make your rhythm falter every once in a while.

a hand starts toying with your clit, causing you to moan around suna’s cock. the vibrations make him shudder, scowling at himself when he realizes his orgasm is approaching faster than he expected.

“fuck, fuck– princess? do you mind if i cum inside?” atsumu grunts.

your muscles clench at the thought of being filled with his cum, imagining the thick liquid oozing out of your sensitive holes only to stuff it back in with your fingers.

“y-yes, ‘tsumu. cum inside me,” you pant as your hands squeeze suna’s cock, pumping it faster as you notice his hips jerking towards you. you turn your face to look at sakusa, who has his eyebrows drawn upwards and his mouth open slightly as he too feels overwhelmed by the pleasure, “omi, you can cum inside as well.”

and he doesn’t need to be told twice, his large hands holding you by your hips so he can thrust his cock into your drenched cunt faster.

moans and squelching noises echo around the room. atsumu picks up his pace as he feels his orgasm approaching, his deep grunts fanning over your neck and taking over your hearing. the drag of sakusa’s pubic bone against your clit has you cumming shortly after. your head rolls forward as both men keep thrusting in and out of you, only stopping once their cum fill your clenching holes.

“shit– look at me,” suna orders you, and you barely have time to process what’s happening.

his cum lands on your face, his hand helping you pump his throbbing cock as the ropes of cum cover your skin. he exhales heavily once he’s done, brushing the flushed head of his cock over your swollen lips, and smearing the white liquid around them.

it’s silent for a few seconds, save for the heavy breathing and pants coming from your mouths.

“holy shit,” oikawa’s voice breaks the silence. his cock strains almost painfully against his pants at the sight of what awaits him.

“yeah, holy shit,” atsumu laughs off, brushing his hair out of his face with one hand as he massages the flesh of your ass with the other, “ya never disappoint, princess.”

with a grunt, the blond setter removes his softening cock from you, his honey eyes —plus a few curious ones— observing the way his cum dribbles out from your stretched hole. the same thing happens with sakusa, who lifts your hips off of him, his cock falling on his stomach and the mix of your slick and his cum dripping down on his length.

atsumu’s fingers immediately go to your cunt, pumping the juices back into you, “god, you love this. don’t you, baby?”

all you can do is whine, your hands clenching the sheets until he removes his fingers from your sensitive pussy, and stuffs them inside your mouth. 

“we all get a turn?” kageyama whispers not so discreetly to hinata, who only nods eagerly in return.

you lick atsumu’s fingers clean which earns you a radiant smile from him.

“here.”

suna has his arm outstretched, handing you a tissue so you can clean your face.

“thank you,” you take it from his hands as you climb off of sakusa’s lap.

you’re cleaning the residues of cum on your face when a hand falls on top of your head. 

“drink some water before you start the next round,” sakusa’s dark eyes suddenly seem warmer and kinder to you, patting your head before disappearing into the bathroom.

after tossing the used tissue away, you turn to iwaizumi and give him a firm nod.

“who’s next?”

your dazzling smile has the rest of the men in awe, silently praying it’s them who get to feel your body with their hands next.

“bokuto,” the wing spiker’s immediately perks up at the sound of his name, “you, kageyama, and hakuba are next.”

the three men raise from their seats and make their way towards the bed—towards you.

“hey, bo,” you offer a loving smile to him, “you ready?”

his strong arms wrap around you, kissing your cheek loudly and making you giggle, “it feels as if i’ve been waiting forever. of course, i’m ready!”

meanwhile, kageyama and gao stand at the foot of the bed, waiting for any instructions or a signal from you that could tell them when to start. luckily, you’re quick to notice their hesitation.

”is there a particular place where you want to be?” you ask them, looking specifically at kageyama and gao, since you want to make sure they feel included.

“dibs on your mouth!”

you blush at bokuto’s enthusiasm but accept his request, stroking his cheek as you wait for the other two to answer.  

“i’ll take whatever,” kageyama says and scratches the back of his neck.

“me too,” gao smiles and takes a few steps towards you, making bokuto move away from you. his large hand tucks one piece of your hair away, his eyes staring at yours before dropping to your lips, “although, i think i’d like it better if i had your pussy gripping my cock. wouldn’t you like that?”

he presses his front against yours, his erection poking at your belly which earns a small gasp from you. you have to stop yourself from taking a look at the tent in his sweatpants, trying to figure out how much of him there is hidden inside the fabric.

“o-okay.”

the middle blocker smiles at you before diving down to your lips. his hands grab your waist, lifting you up from the ground and making you wrap your legs around his torso. he gently places you down on the bed and kisses his way down your neck until his mouth is right above your erect nipple.

“hey! i want to kiss her too,” bokuto complains, “you can’t hog her like that.”

“s’okay bo, come here.”

he doesn’t have to be told twice, immediately climbing onto the bed and leaning down to kiss your lips.

you grab the back of his head and run your fingers through his soft hair, pulling on it gently which causes a groan to rumble in his chest.

a pair of hands slide over your legs, pushing them apart until your bare cunt is spread wide open for everyone to see.

“you’re dripping, babe,” gao murmurs over your nipple, giving it a light tug before flicking his tongue over it, “do you want my cock that badly?”

you can only moan and nod, your lips still busy with bokuto’s.

but there’s someone who still has yet to join you.

“tobio-chan, if you’re not going to do anything then let me take your place instead.”

oikawa’s words snap you out of your daze. you pat bokuto’s cheek signaling him to let go of you, and the same thing happens with gao as you try to sit up. your eyes fall on kageyama who stands at the same spot with a conflicted look and an obvious erection in his pants. 

“hey,” you crawl your way towards him and sit on your knees, “are you uncomfortable?”

his mouth opens but nothing comes out of it. he can feel the weight of everyone’s stare on him, making him look away from you. 

a few seconds pass and there’s still no answer.

“you don’t have to do this, you know?” you say in a small tone, slightly confused as to why he’s rejecting you, “i just thought… i could help you relax.”

he nods, still avoiding your gaze.

you take a look at iwaizumi –who looks as equally as puzzled as you– before looking back at the setter.

“do you want to leave?”

at this, his head finally snaps towards you, “no, i-” he pauses. his eyes are immediately drawn to your mouth, making him involuntarily wet his lips, “i want to stay.”

relief washes over you, a timid smile spreading on your lips which is quickly mirrored by him. you take his hand in yours and guide him to the other side of the bed, urging him to join the rest of you. there’s a hunger in his eyes that has your pussy dripping with your slick, a sigh leaving your lips when your back hits the pillows as you watch him take gao’s previous spot.

“kiss me, tobio.”

and he does. it starts slow, hesitant, but it soon turns desperate. his tongue strokes yours before sucking on it, spit coating your lips thanks to the messiness of the kiss. the strain of his cock inside his pants becomes too uncomfortable to his liking, causing him to start humping against you, trying to relieve himself.

noticing his predicament, you move your hand between your bodies and palm his hard-on. he groans against your lips, his hips jerking forward seeking more of your touch.

in the meantime, both bokuto and gao pump their cocks with their hands, having taken their clothes off while you talked to kageyama.

gao squeezes the head of his cock between his hands, pre-cum oozing from the slit as he imagines the way your cunt is going to grip him, “babe, you’re making us suffer.”

“get in line!”

“atsumu, shut the fuck up.”

“baby?” bokuto asks from where he stands, his own cock stiff and ready to be inside your mouth, “we don’t mean to be pushy, but do you think you could get to us soon?”

“bokuto-san, you’re going to break a rule!” hinata says, clearly concerned for his teammate, “be patient, remember?”

the rest of the team laughs and you can’t help but join them.

at this, bokuto pouts playfully at you, “you’re just teasing me, baby.”

“then come here,” you gasp when kageyama’s mouth sucks at the base of your neck, “y-you wanted my mouth, right?”

bokuto kneels next to your face, patting the leaking tip on your lips.

“i’m going to fuck that pretty mouth of yours and you’re going to take it like a good girl,” he says, his tone leaving no room for questions, “open.”

you comply immediately, lolling out your tongue and waiting for him to rest his heavy cock on top of it. 

the lewd sight in front of him makes bokuto shudder. his hands grasp your head, pushing you down his length until he feels your throat constricting around him.

“fuck– baby,” he grunts and gives a shallow thrust, “i know you can do better than that.”     

you try to relax your jaw so you can fit more of him inside of your mouth. but as you are about to graze your nose against his pubic bone, a finger runs between your folds causing you to flinch.

“i’m still here.”

gao’s tone sounds stern, even if a playful smile tugs his lips upwards, you can see the seriousness swirling in his eyes.

kageyama sighs and leaves your side, stepping away momentarily to take his pants off. 

the middle blocker takes it as his chance to settle between your legs as bokuto keeps your mouth busy.

“you’re drenched, sweetheart,” he muses, running his digits over your slit, “don’t worry, i’ll fill this pussy with my cock so well that you’ll be cumming in no time.”

your eyes travel to his shaft, watching as he pumps it twice before running it between your folds. your brows furrow when you notice how heavy it feels, making you wonder if it will fit in.

he lines himself up with your hole, pushing the head inside which is enough to have you whining around bokuto’s cock.

“you look so sexy,” bokuto groans, pushing your head away from him and watching your spit run down your mouth. he looks at kageyama who stands awkwardly with his cock in hand, “i guess we’re sharing her mouth.”

the setter’s eyes widen slightly before nodding, mimicking bokuto’s position and nudging his cock on your lips, “suck.”

your breath hitches at his order, caught off guard by his demanding tone. you grab his cock from the base and guide it into your mouth, pumping bokuto’s length with your other hand. you hum around kageyama, running your tongue over the head of his cock before hollowing your cheeks and sucking harshly on it. 

but your attention on them doesn’t last too long, the sudden feel of your pussy getting split open by gao’s cock taking it away.

“so tight,” he grunts, one of his hands running over the skin of your inner thigh until he reaches your soaking cunt. he pulls your folds apart, watching you struggle to take his cock inside you—no matter how wet you are, “i bet those jackals haven’t been fucking you like you deserve.”

“oi!” “not true!”

you free your mouth from kageyama and use both hands to pump his and bokuto’s cock, “s-so big, ugh-”

gao pushes more of him in, half of his cock already inserted in you. but he’s just so thick, so big, that you can’t help but clamp down your walls around him. his thumb starts rubbing circles on your clit, trying to relax your walls, as his other hand settles on your abdomen.

“you’re going to be so full of my cock that you’ll be able to see it,” he gives a gentle pat to your belly, “right here.”

your grip on the other two men tightens as gao finally bottoms out, a whine breaking through your lips at the stretch.

“if only you could see yourself,” his thrusts are lazy, mesmerized by the way your belly bulges when he pushes his cock inside you, “so fucking sexy with my fat cock inside your cunt.”

your lips wrap around the tip of bokuto’s cock once more, closing your eyes as pleasure clouds your head. he thrusts in, hitting the back of your throat and making you gag.

“good girl,” bokuto exhales, “taking my cock so well.”

you quicken the pace of your other hand, looking at kageyama as you obscenely suck bokuto.

the setter’s eyes refuse to leave yours, “who would’ve thought our assistant could be so naughty.”

“as if you’re complaining,” gao says, lifting your leg over his shoulder. the new angle allowing him to press his hips closer to yours.

“i never said i was.”

bokuto curses under his breath when you start sucking his balls, pumping the rest of his length with your hand and squeezing the head of kageyama’s cock with the other.

“you’re going to make me cum,” bokuto groans.

giggling, you lick your way up and run your tongue over the slit, “cum in my mouth.”

the sound of collective groans echoes in the room, a fair amount of players finding your words arousing.

“what a slut, let’s see if you keep talking when you’re covered in our cum.”

gao’s threat goes straight to your pussy, making you cream around his girth. the pace of his thumb on your clit quickens once he notices your walls spasming around him.

“ngh, fuck!” you’re breathing heavily by now, barely managing to keep the pace of your hands consistent, “i-i’m gonna… i’m gonna cum.”

“let go, baby.”

one of gao’s hands travels up your body until he’s pinching your nipple between his fingers.

“shit, shit, shit,” you’re thrashing underneath him, your cunt fluttering around his cock thanks to your orgasm.

kageyama’s way too focused on the way your face contorts in pleasure to notice how his hips have started to jerk faster. that is until the familiar coil suddenly snaps and his cum lands on your chin and part of your chest. 

“h-how did you get even tighter- hah!”

warm spurts of cum fill your cunt, the sense of fullness intensifying as gao frees his load inside of you.

“i’m cumming, baby. fuck, fuck–” bokuto chants your name as he too reaches his orgasm, quickly shoving his cock into your mouth and releasing his thick cum inside of it.   

you make sure to keep sucking him, milking his cock dry. once you remove your mouth from him, you bring his and kageyama’s cock closer to your face and pucker your lips, letting the mix of cum and spit fall on their cocks before giving a few kitten licks to the flushed heads.

gao starts to remove his cock from your insides, cursing at the state of your pussy once he’s finally out.

“holy fuck, she’s tightening around nothing.”

you let out a low moan when his fingers spread your lower lips, “t-too sensitive.”

“i think that’s enough,” iwaizumi intervenes, pushing him away, “color?”

“yellow,” but you continue as soon as you see his face become stern, “relax, i just need to calm down a bit.”

kageyama offers you a towel before awkwardly thanking you for your help. and after receiving a kiss on the forehead from bokuto, the three of them leave to go clean themselves.

“iwa-chan, why don’t you give her a massage?”

you let your body fall on the mattress, extending your arms above your head and moaning at the stretch.

“mm, that’d be nice.”

iwaizumi rolls his eyes playfully when he sees you pouting at him, “get on your stomach, i’ll be right back.”

in the meantime, oikawa and hinata take the spots next to you, eager to finally have their turn with you.

“you’re so pretty,” oikawa runs his hands over the skin of your shoulders, “those idiots are lucky to have you.”

your eyes start closing up, focusing on the feel of his fingers on your skin and making goosebumps appear all over your body.

“shoyo, we should help her relax too. don’t you think?”

you catch the suggestive tone in his voice, but his touch feels so good that you choose to ignore it.

both men start caressing your body, hinata’s hands paying special attention to your shoulders while oikawa pets your hair, murmuring sweet nothings. 

“you ready?” iwaizumi pops back into the room, a bottle of oil and a clean towel in his hands.

“mhm.”

the towel rests on your ass, iwaizumi’s warm hands spreading the oil on your back and rubbing at the sore muscles.

“does that feel good, princess?” oikawa asks when he hears you sigh. you are about to reply when iwaizumi hits a sore spot, a groan slipping past your lips and making the setter chuckle, “can you tell me your color now?”

“green.”

oikawa looks at iwaizumi and both men seem to communicate through their eyes, the latter smirking before going back to work.

at first, you don’t pay too much attention to his movements, choosing to focus on the pleasure. but then you notice how his hands seem to ghost lower and lower until he’s kneading your ass, the towel long forgotten.

before you can comment on it, he moves them to your thighs, massaging the soft flesh. it all goes back to normal –or so you think– until his hands reach higher and his digits start grazing your slit.

“hajime…”

“shh,” oikawa coos in your ear, pushing your hair out of your face and kissing your temple, “let him take care of you.”

iwaizumi inserts one finger inside your pussy, curling it until he’s teasing the spongy walls.

whines escape your mouth, your hands gripping the bedsheets which are quickly replaced by hinata’s hands.

“so cute.”

another finger slips in and makes you open your eyes, looking at oikawa helplessly, “o-oikawa-san-”

“tooru,” he interrupts you.

“tooru,” you try his name and he hums, letting you know he’s listening, “could you… uh, k-kiss me?”

“of course, princess.”

he leans down to capture your lips, swallowing your moans when iwaizumi curls both fingers and massages your spot. 

you open your legs, allowing iwaizumi to finger you better as you rut your hips on the mattress, rubbing your clit against the fabric of the sheets and chasing after your orgasm.

“iwa– faster, please.”

he complies immediately, causing wetness to gush out of your cunt and making the distinctive squelching sounds fill the room.

“i’m gonna– ah! i’m c-cumming!” 

“cum for me,” he encourages you, and that’s all you need.

you gush around his fingers, your slick coating them as you squirm under the gaze of the three men.

hinata tugs at your hand, pulling you underneath him and kissing you sloppily. you gasp on his mouth, caught off guard by the sudden movement but quickly melting into the kiss.

he blushes once he pulls away, “s-sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

“it’s okay, shoyo,” you breathe out, caressing his cheek, “want me to help you?”

he beams at your offer, nodding eagerly as he watches you climb on top of him. you straddle his hips and run your cunt over his cock, shivering when his length grazes your clit.

“do you want me to ride you?” you whisper, playing with his hair. 

“wait- i think i have a better idea.”

hinata lifts you from his lap and moves until he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress. he pushes your hips with his hands, turning you around so you’re facing away from him. 

“you can sit on my lap now.”

your ass rests right on top of his cock, but he hooks his arms on your knees, spreading you open, as he lets himself fall back on the mattress.

“what are you–”

“oikawa-san, doesn’t this remind you of something?”

said man laughs, “how could i forget? we had quite some fun back in brazil, huh?”

you’re visibly confused, looking at oikawa with furrowed brows, “what do you want to do?”

“say, princess,” his tone suddenly sounds too sweet for your liking, “have you ever had two cocks in one hole?”

your eyes widen, looking back and forth between oikawa and iwaizumi—who has ridden himself of his clothes and sits next to you, his thick cock in his hand.

“i’ll take that as a no.”

“can we do that?” hinata asks from behind you, his breath fanning on your ear, “we’ll be gentle.”

“there’s literally another free hole for you to use!” someone yells, clearly annoyed they didn’t get the chance to do it.

oikawa clicks his tongue, “where’s the fun in that?”

after taking a minute to think it through, you agree to their offer, “okay… uh- iwa?” you turn to look at him, “what about you?”

seeing as there’s no room for him to take your ass, his eyes land on your mouth. and with two taps of his finger on your cheek, he lets you know his decision.

“think you can suck me off?”

they’re all given the green light when you answer his question. hinata raises you from his lap, aligning his cock with your entrance before letting your weight fall on top of it. you groan at the familiar thickness stretching you nicely, missing the flash of hunger in the setter’s eyes.  

“my turn.”

oikawa presses the tip on your entrance, pushing forward and making room for his own cock.

the burn of having two cocks in one hole is new to you, but it’s surprisingly more pleasurable than you thought it’d be. you lift your eyes to look at oikawa, his gaze already locked on you, and you feel your pussy cream around their cocks at the lust in his eyes.

“enjoying yourself, princess?”

you moan when he bottoms out, watching the muscles of his abdomen contract and feeling his cock pulsing inside of you.

the thrill of being stretched by two cocks, at the same time, has your head spinning; your thoughts becoming lewd as you picture both men cumming inside you and globs of cum dripping from your abused hole.

“oikawa-san, did you feel that?” hinata asks. half-amused, half excited, “she’s squeezing us so well.”

“naughty, princess,” the setter grunts, “don’t forget about iwa-chan.”

you turn your head to face him, catching the irritated look he sends oikawa before looking down at you.

iwaizumi’s eyes immediately soften, but a smirk slowly tugs at the corners of his lips, “you seem busy.”

“there’s always room for japan’s national team athletic trainer.”

he can’t help but laugh, shaking his head at the silly title. he raises from his seat and settles himself above you, his cock hovering on your face and making your mouth water.

“whenever you’re ready.”

you don’t need to be told twice. grasping his thick cock with your hand, you lean forward and flick your tongue on the head, looking at him through your lashes with faux innocence.

“start moving,” iwaizumi hisses, the words directed at the other two men, “seems like she needs a little reminder of who’s in charge right now.”

oikawa and hinata look at each other with smirks on their lips. as hinata said earlier, they’ve been in this position before, so there’s no need for words between them since they both know what’s coming next.

hinata moves his head slightly to the side, allowing you to rest your head on his shoulder and, at the same time, granting him the view of your cunt being filled with their cocks.

“look at her, oikawa-san” his eyes are locked on your pussy, captivated by the way you suck them in, “she looks so pretty with two cocks splitting her open.”

hinata’s lewd words prompt you to involuntarily moan, the vibrations landing on iwaizumi’s cock.  

“hmm, you like it when you’re reduced to nothing but a slut. don’t you?”

you blink up at iwaizumi as you keep bobbing your head up and down his shaft, opting to hum to let him know you’re not ignoring him.

but his words catch someone else’s attention.

“is that true?” oikawa asks, amusement clear in his voice, “you like being reminded you’re a whore? how much of a greedy slut you are by fucking an entire volleyball team?”

you’re speechless, his words –matched with his and hinata’s harsh thrusts– causing your eyes to roll to the back of your head.

“answer me.”

oikawa’s hand wraps around your throat, barely applying any pleasure but it’s enough to send your mind into a frenzy.

after releasing iwaizumi’s cock from your mouth, you take a second to swallow down your spit before answering him.

“y-yes, tooru. i like being treated like a slut.”

his eyes sparkle with mischief, pleased by your words.

“good, because that’s how you’re going to be treated from now on.”

a hand travels to your throbbing clit, rubbing circles on the sensitive nub.

“s-shoyo!”

“shh, it’ll make you feel good.”

something wet slaps against your cheek, “don’t get distracted.”

you nod and go back to sucking iwaizumi off, moaning every time hinata or oikawa hit a spot inside your cunt. you dare take a look at where your body connects with both men, and you catch yourself becoming entranced by the way their cocks slide in and out of your pussy so easily.

you are familiar with hinata’s cock, but it’s nice to see the contrast between the two of them. while hinata’s length is thick and veiny, oikawa’s leans towards the slimmer side—but still with a considerable length. either way, both men manage to hit those sweet spots inside you and make you see stars. 

“shit– princess,” oikawa falters a bit when he feels your walls fluttering around him.

“we can cum inside you, right?” hinata asks, sensing his orgasm approaching. after all, he had been waiting for his turn for around an hour.

you pull away from iwaizumi, a string of spit connecting your lips with his cock and causing it to twitch at the sight.

“you can cum wherever you want.”

“oh? the team’s cocksleeve,” oikawa adds, “i see.”

iwaizumi chuckles, combing your hair out of your face and pushing his cock back into the warmth of your mouth, “you like that nickname, sweetheart?”

with his length still in your mouth, you manage to hum in affirmation.

hinata’s pace on your clit quickens as his hips jerk faster, your cunt squeezing their cocks even more in return, “i’m cumming, ah– i-i’m gonna cum!”

he manages to say before you feel him twitch inside you, pumping his cum into your walls. the fullness plus his rapid movements on your clit cause the familiar warmth to take over your body. but it’s your fourth orgasm of the night, and before you can warn anyone, liquid spurts out of your cunt.

you squirm on top of hinata, gushing around his and oikawa’s cock while your mouth remains occupied with iwaizumi’s.

“holy shit.”

both oikawa and iwaizumi cum at the sight of you squirting before them, observing the wetness soaking oikawa’s abdomen and running all the way down onto the bedsheets. they groan as they feel their load releasing into you, oikawa filling your tender cunt while iwaizumi fills your mouth.

you try to swallow a bit of iwaizumi’s cum but it’s useless. your chest heaves in exhaustion, your eyes closing involuntarily as you’re being hit with wave after wave of fatigue.

“hey,” oikawa winces when he removes his cock from you. he shoots a worried glance at iwaizumi before he’s leaning forward so he can take a closer look at you, “princess? how are you feeling?”

iwaizumi nudges hinata with his knee, wordlessly telling him to let go of you.

the following moments become a foggy mess, your mind barely registering the pair of arms wrapping around you and carrying you somewhere else.

all you can feel is tiredness, and the dampness between your thighs, before you finally pass out.

—

consciousness slowly makes its way to you, replacing the sleepiness and making you aware of your surroundings as a familiar soreness sits heavy on your body.

in an instant, flashbacks from the previous night run through your mind.

you grip the duvet and push it away from you, only to notice the set of clothes you’re wearing: an oversized hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that clearly don’t belong to you. but you don’t have time to dwell on it, the sound of your ringtone blasting all over the room and making you scramble around the bed so you can answer the call.

but it’s of no use when it goes to voicemail—you were a bit too late.

when you manage to find your phone, you tap on the screen to see whose call you just missed.

‘hajime’

your fingertips hover on the contact name, debating between returning the call or wait for him to call you again. but a few notifications pop up at the top of the screen signaling you have three text messages from him.

hey, i guess you’re still asleep. don’t freak out when you wake up, you deserve the rest so it’s okay if you stay in bed. i left your breakfast on the nightstand and you can always call me if you need anything else.

and i thought you’d like to see this.

there’s a link attached at the end of the message.

you click on it and wait for the page to load, tapping your nails on the back of your phone anxiously. a headline in big bold letters takes over the screen and you have to stop yourself from squealing.

‘japan men’s volleyball team makes it past the first round.’

you start scrolling down the article, reading how spectacular the match was and how the entire team seemed to be in their best shape. you feel your face heat up when you read the argentinian team won their match too, with multiple comments praising oikawa’s performance.

with a smile on your lips, you go back to your messages to type a quick reply to iwaizumi. only to notice you have one more text from him.

it’s our turn to take care of you.

[glitch-zero]

Brahms Heelshire Nsfw Alphabet

A: Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Oh, he’ll let you clean up, usually. But keep in mind that sex always will end in cuddles. No doubt about it. Even if you get up to shower, Brahms willl go and follow you in eventually, demanding as usual.

B: Bodypart (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Brahms loves his chest. His broad shoulders too. Makes him look all mighty and strong, which isn’t a lie.

Brahms also really likes it when you lay on said chest and shoulders.

His partner?... he can’t decide. Whatever he can hold and/or fondle is fair game in his eyes.

…

Though he does like a nice rack. And love handles.

C: Cum (anything to do with cum)

Even if he’s caught up in the heat of the moment, Brahms still somewhat of a gentleman and will warn you when he’s about to bust one so you can avoid it; or direct it away from your face.

Though if given permission, this man will nut in you every chance he gets. He much prefers to fill you.

D: Dirty Secret (Pretty self-explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Oh. Oh, this man is into watching you do everything. He’ll jerk off into your underwear while watching you shower. He’s a stinky man that can get away with jerking off behind a wall.

E: Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Not experienced at all, but all that lack of sex in his earlier years makes it seem like he’s real good.

All that awkwardness dissolves once you get him going. If he’s on top, he can take the reigns.

F: Favorite Position (This goes without saying)

If you asked Brahms, (with the knowledge that he’ll freeze up and blush so hard his mask turns all hot), he would say he wouldn’t know. Whatever gets the job done.

But he does enjoy holding his partner’s hands. He’s adamant about that.

G: Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Brahms takes it pretty seriously. And even if he’s making a silly face during, it’s not going to stop him from drilling into you till you scream bloody murder.

H: Hair (How well-groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Have you seen this man. Do you think this man, having an ungroomed head of hair, a thick ass beard, chest hair so thick it makes him sweat, has perfectly hairless junk.

He’s swamped down there.

I: Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Very intimate. Brahms loves proving how much he adores you. How much he wants to make sweet love to you. Now, he isn’t as poetic as that, but he loves to make sure you’re appreciated every second you’re screwing.

This man cannot fuck. He makes love that just happens to also include fucking your brains out.

J: Jack/Jill Off (Masturbation headcanon)

This man has the whole inner walls of the house to himself. He can drop trou and crank one out whenever he wishes, moaning as loud as he wants.

Then again, if you’re in the same room (expanded on letter K), he’ll pipe down and won’t be as vigorous.

K: Kink (One or more of their kinks)

MAJOR VOYEUR. As I’ve said, this man can watch anyone and anything at all times behind the walls. He loves to watch you masturbate, hear you moan, hear you at your most private. Double points if you moan his name. (He actually might barrel out of the wall and spice things up, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

As much hype Brahms gives watching others, he doesn’t like to be watched. He likes to be in control, and he just doesn’t want to be spectated. Give this poor man some head.

Brahms’s other kinks include mild choking and clothing fetishism. He does like biting, but you’re going to have to fish that kink out of him. He’ll kill a man but there’s no way he’ll bite his beloved without consent.

L: Location (Favorite places to do the do)

You’re alone in this giant mansion. You’re getting that Brahms cock everywhere.

But his favorite place? His room. He loves it, makes him feel good. Surrounded by his territory. You both are safe here, no one’s getting caught, even if it were possible.

M: Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

He’s so easy to turn on. Brahms is so touched starved it’s not even funny at this point. Just tell him he looks ‘kinda hot’ and you’ve earned yourself a clingy, horny Brahms for the rest of the day.

N: NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs)

Please don’t degrade him, oh my god he’s going to cry. He needs to be praised, he needs to be reinforced, tell what he’s doing is good. It’s more rewarding anyway for both parties.

Don’t light candles/use candle wax either, that should be a given. You can probably get away with incense, but even still.

O: Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Brahms enjoys head as much as the next guy, but the moment you show him some new trick or maneuver he’ll enjoy it a whole lot more. He’s a very dramatic receiver and will not stop looking at you. Hope you like eyes being burned into the crown of your head.

Don’t underestimate his giving skills though. He’s not well versed in oral, but the moment he hits your sweet spot he’s going to absolutely pounce on it. He can feign skill pretty well.

P: Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

It all depends on how he’s feeling; Brahms doesn’t choose one over the other. His sweet innocent voice makes it seem like the latter, but don’t be surprised when you get the pounding of your life. It’s just how he is, be ready for both (unless you explicitly ask)!

Q: Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He doesn’t mind a quickie! He’ll bend you over the dining table or pin you to the laundry room wall. Brahms is a big pushover though, and if you want to take it to the bedroom, he’ll carry you right over!

Brahms also enjoys quickies for the sake of how many positions can he get you in! All depends on the room.

R: Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Not much to risk, unfortunately. Living in a big empty house, far away from the big city. He could fuck you on that tiny balcony as much as he wants, but there’s no risk of you both getting caught (plus it’s England and cold, don’t do it outside hello).

If there was a chance, even, he’s game. He’s been jerking off in the walls for years now without so much as a peep, he knows he can shush.

S: Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

He’s always satisfied with a single round, but you better be in for the long haul if you want to wear him out for good. He loves your enthusiasm! But don’t be surprised if on round four you’re exhausted. Your determination is funny to Brahms, but he’s a horny man!

T: Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Brahms totally would have a fleshlight, wouldn’t he. He’d be a creep and fix your underwear on it. But I don’t think he’d own one; he prefers to not leave the house and his parents would never buy such a crude item.

I think vibrators would be too overwhelming. He’d be happy to try, though. He’ll always humor you!

U: Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Fuck yes, Brahms loves to tease. He’ll grab your waist, tickle your neck with his beard. He won’t take his mask off, but you can feel his hot breath emanating from inside.

He haaates being teased though. He gets all huffy, he immediately thinks that you want sex now, but when you step away to make lunch is the moment he gets cranky. How can you leave him like this!!! You know how easily worked up he gets!!!

V: Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Very. Sure, you’d think Brahms prefers to be quiet during his life in the walls, but he’s just a ball of loud moans, ranging in severity. His voice gets all loud and squeaky, begging and whining, you’d wonder if he’s crying at this point.

W: Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Hugs are the only thing that doesn’t rile him up. He recognizes that hold as something sweet, something to treasure, something he’s never felt in so long. Brahms loves to be doted on.

Unless you buck on his hips. Oho, don’t get him started.

X: X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants)

Bushy man. Decently thick. Perfectly rounded tip that has a slight curve. Cut. Seven inches when hard. Sports a noticeable thick vein trailing on the side.

Y: Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Everything gets him hard. It’s not difficult to turn him on, just looking at his junk can make a night different.

Z: ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

Most of the time, he’ll park himself on the nearest nappable surface and pass out with you.

[amysteriousmessenger]

‘When The Clock Strikes Twelve’ RFA (+ Saeran and V) x Reader, New Years Headcanons

Just a little something extra to celebrate the end of 2020, it’s been rough and I truly hope that 2021 is better for all of us. The RFA believes in you and hopes for a better year too!

(Mix of SFW and NSFW implied)

Zen/Hyun Ryu x Reader New Years Headcanons

Zen usually enjoyed going to parties on new years, but this year was different. He was spending it curled up on the sofa with you, and he was thankful for it. It was just you, him, some delicious food and plenty of beers.

The two of you would be watching a film together, and because he’s a gentleman, he let you pick. You settle on a musical, surprisingly not one he stars in, but that doesn’t stop him from knowing all of the lyrics to every song and serenading you with them.

By the time it’s 11.45pm, you’re both almost entirely out of alcohol and he’s somehow wiggled you into straddling his lap, not that you minded in the slightest.

The film continued playing but was long forgotten as you peppered lipstick filled kisses down his jar and neck. For a moment, you had both honestly forgotten that you were waiting for midnight, and only realised when you heard the sudden boom of fireworks that it was the new year.

Zen and you both scramble to lift your drinks up to toast the new year and resume kissing, almost aggressively.

‘Jagiya~ How about we continue this in the bedroom so we can Christen the new year properly?’ He’d whisper as he kissed up to your ear, before promptly lifting you bridal style off of his lap and carrying you into the next room.

Jaehee Kang x Reader New Years Headcanons

Jaehee was very tired by the nighttime, but it wasn’t often she got a paid holiday off so she wanted to take the full advantage of being able to spend it with you. The two of you spent the day baking, having fun, watching various musicals of Zen’s, relaxing and just enjoying one another’s company.

When it came to five to midnight, you would both be standing outside on her balcony ready to watch the fireworks and call the count down. The live News countdown would playing on the TV. Jaehee didn’t particularly care for New Years usually as she typically spent it alone, but she was enjoying making a memory of it with you.

You heard the countdown begin on the TV and felt Jaehee hold you a little closer against the chill air, a glimmer of excitement flashing in her honey eyes. ‘Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!’ you chant in unison as she turns with a smile, bringing your lips together. She had never had a new years kiss before, and it felt so magical with the fireworks illuminating the sky in colourful flowers behind you.

‘Happy New Year, ____. I hope we get another year of happiness together.’

Yoosung Kim x Reader New Years Headcanons

It was too far to travel to either of your homes, so you decided to just have a nice New Years together in his dorm. The two of you spent some time with his flatmates, made food together, played some LOLOL and settled onto his bed for a movie and a cuddle.

Yoosung was a little worried that maybe you weren’t having enough fun and that he wished you could have done something more exciting, but you assured him that you were more than happy to just spend the time with him.

You suddenly woke up when you heard his flatmates start yelling the countdown outside your room and shook Yoosung awake too. You hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but Yoosung was just so warm and cosy! Everything was happening so fast that by the time Yoosung was conscious, the countdown was already on four.

There was a slight confusion and panic evident across both of your faces as you suddenly, and probably with a bit too much eagerness, smashed your lips together at ‘one!’ so you both still got your new years kiss. 

After the moment of urgency had passed, you both looked at eachother, and down towards eachothers lips in a flustered embarrassment. Yoosung’s face had gone a little red, so you pressed another less time-sensitive kiss to his warm cheek.  - ‘Happy New Year, Yoosung.’ ‘Happy New Year, ____.’

Jumin Han x Reader New Years Headcanons

Jumin had the chef prepare a special evening meal for the two of you and had an extra special bottle of wine brought up from the wine cellar to accompany it. He usually spent New Years alone doing work since he didn’t feel like he cared enough about the holiday to prioritise it over getting ahead of his work schedule, but this year was different because you were with him.

He would have let you take the lead on how you wanted the two of you to spend the evening after the meal, and was delighted to find out that you just wanted to spend the time enjoying each others company and sharing some wine by his fire.

The countdown would have also been playing on Jumin’s huge television. He didn’t usually put it on because he never had time for such leisure, but you had wanted to watch the countdown and he would do anything to indulge you for it.

When it was two minutes to midnight, you both went out into his rooftop gardens to enjoy the view from his skyline. You heard the chants as the last ten seconds loomed and Jumin wrapped his arm around your waist, staring lovingly at you. 

When the clock struck twelve, Jumin dipped you into a long, sweet kiss before pulling you back up and wishing you a happy new year.

As a surprise, he had prepared a special fireworks show for you, featuring all your favourite colours in extravagant displays. It was like nothing you had ever seen before and you dare not think how much it cost him. It was such a sweet gesture that you couldn’t help but pull him towards you and kiss him again. He barely even watched the fireworks, he just watched you watching them.

After the fireworks had ended, like Zen, he also would have suggested ‘christening’ the new year and led you away to the bedroom for some extra celebrations. 

Saeyoung Choi x Reader New Years Headcanons

Seven had never celebrated a New Years, and he felt somewhat guilty being able to now, but he was at least thankful that he now had you and Saeran to share it with. He would have been determined to make it as special as possible.

You two would have watched a film together, eating the snacks that Saeran had baked and then prank called Yoosung and Zen. Seven watched to try prank calling Jumin but you reminded him that he didn’t want to go to federal prison.

He’d set off some very small fireworks in his garden for you all to enjoy, and would have chased you with a sparkler in hand. You saw Seven briefly consider chasing Saeran too, but one threatening look from this brother told him otherwise.

Saeran would have gotten too cold and went inside to watch the fireworks from his bedroom window, leaving you and Seven alone on the blanket on the garden floor.

Seven had set an alarm on his phone to warn him when there was a minute beforehand, and when it went off he pulled you extra close to him - so that your head was resting on his chest. 

You whispered the countdown together and you propped yourself up onto your arms to place a long kiss onto your boyfriends lips before returning to watch the firework display with him.

‘Happy New Year, ____. It’s been rough but I hope you put up with me for another one.’

Bonus: He tried to chase Saeran to give him a New Years kiss on the head and only stopped when he was threatened with getting tased.

Saeran Choi x Reader New Years Headcanons

Saeran didn’t... know what New Years was. He had always been the one to see it at a distance, or hear about it vaguely from other people. To him, it was just the day the calendar changed. He didn’t really know how to celebrate it, but he was open to learning if you were the one showing him.

You’d spend the day doing things that made him happy, namely starting with lots of baking and cooking because you knew how much joy it brought him to see you eating the snacks he made.

He wanted to watch films with ice-cream, and you were more than ready to oblige him in that. 

Seven had bought some sparklers for you to share because he didn’t know if Saeran would like the loud bangs of the fireworks at such close contact. But when it was night time, Saeran was absolutely captivated by the sparklers. He thought they were so pretty and adored the way they sparkled in your eyes, like tiny fireworks just for the two of you.

Speaking of fireworks, Seven stayed for a bit in the garden with the two of you before he decided he should probably go back to work and leave the two of you to enjoy some privacy. 

Saeran had never seen fireworks before, he already thought the sky was breathtaking regardless, but he had no idea that all these colours could be added to it. He felt like a child witnessing ti for the first time, and could barely take his eyes off it. His brother was right, he wasn’t a fan of the loud noises but he was willing to look over it in order to get to enjoy the fireworks. 

At midnight, you explained the concept of a new years kiss and asked if Saeran would like one, which of course he did. He was more than happy for one, actually. The both of you sat up for a moment and kissed by the light of the rainbow fireworks as you heard the final countdown indicating that the new year had begun. 

That, and the fact that Seven had come running outside banging pots and pans together and shouting Happy New Year! 

Jihyun Kim/V x reader New Years Headcanons

V had done both versions of New years, both at art exhibition parties and relaxing at home. He very much preferred the latter. He savoured the quiet time he had with you, the warm fire and a glass of wine- talking about everything, nothing, and whatever else you wanted to. 

It wasn’t a particularly special occasion for him, so like Jumin, he would let you choose how you wanted to spend the evening. 

He would, however, chosen the wine for you especially and wanted to cook for you - to show you his appreciation for all the love, time and patience you had given him over the last year. He would state that he could never encapsulate how he feels about you, but this is just a fraction of  start. 

When it was midnight, he would have taken his camera out with him to take pictures of you watching the fireworks, he wanted to capture a sense of innocence at the wonder but was slightly concerned that the fireworks would have been too far away. Even if that was the case, he still wanted picture of you to commemorate the new year.

The two of you would be standing on his back porch as the radio in the background called the countdown. When there were ten seconds left, V would turn to you and cup your face with once hand and pull you at the waist with the other; he wanted to remember how you looked in this moment. He could never capture such a thing with his camera, so he had to burn it to memory. 

The kiss was chaste, but with emotion behind it. You wanted to collapse into him under the kiss, but to do that you would have had to have broken it first, which you absolutely didn’t want to do either. 

[shihalyfie]

"Canon” and “not canon” in the Adventure/02 universe

This is something I want to talk about, because it has a certain degree of relevance to the question of what I choose to take into account in my analyses and what I don’t. I write a lot about Adventure and 02 because both series are ridiculously consistent over their 104-episode runtime, but there are times when things contradict or don’t quite track together, and I have to figure out how to best rationalize them -- which means I need to make arbitrary decisions on what to count and not count, and when one does make those kinds of decisions, you’re very liable to get the complaint: “but that’s not canon!”

Which always makes me think: who decided that? And in the end, this is something that I think extends beyond just Digimon; every fanbase for everything always wants to believe there’s a clear-cut answer to things that everyone’s supposed to follow in a canonical timeline, and things that fall outside it. And sometimes, for some franchises, that is doable, because official staff will actually say outright that “this counts, and this doesn’t.” But that’s not how Toei and Bandai work, and their modus operandi has always been to toss a bunch of often-contradictory stuff at everyone and go “figure it out yourself,” and I think at some point the fanbase really needs to acknowledge that this so-called clear-cut boundary of “canon” and “not canon” doesn’t actually exist at all. Or in other words, any assertion of something being “canon” or “not canon” in the Adventure and 02 universe is purely something arbitrarily defined by fans, and was never determined by official - which, conversely, has actually encouraged you to take as much as you want and figure out the rest yourself.

Before we begin, I do want to make clear that this is not about one’s personal canon based on one’s own preferences -- that is to say, if you’re going “I don’t consider this canon because I don’t like this/don’t want to work with this,” then that’s entirely your right, especially if you’re doing creative work and need to decide what to apply and to not to apply. (Although, as always, one must be conscientious and respectful of those who do like it and consider it canon, because everyone’s going to differ on this.) What I am talking about is when people take a substantial part of the franchise that they otherwise like, such as a movie or drama CD, see one detail that’s contradictory in terms of the timeline or lore, and take that as evidence of “yep, the entire thing’s not canon. We’ll just throw the entire thing out, then.” It just makes me think -- you threw out a perfectly good work for that?! That’s such a waste!

First of all, Toei and Bandai don’t work that way

In general, a lot of the contradictions in the series have a “right hand is not talking to left hand” problem, because as much as we would like to believe that a Digimon series is written by a single consistent entity, the franchise itself is a huge trade-off between Toei and Bandai, and a lot of things from Bandai -- spinoffs, crossover material, games, what have you -- don’t exactly have a stellar track record of being vetted by Toei anime staff. It’s pretty well-known that game portrayals of certain characters can be really off or have misleading info, and even V-Tamer’s somewhat guilty of it. So this is going to happen no matter whether you like it or not, and it happens with any long-running kids’ series that involves a collaboration between multiple companies like this.

Moreover, the traditional custom for Toei “side movies” (in this case, meaning things like the original movie, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Diablomon Strikes Back) is that they’re produced with minimal involvement from the original series’s core staff -- at most, the producer is lightly involved -- and are sometimes even worked on simultaneously with the start of the original series, so you often end up with a movie that’s impossible to fit anywhere in the series timeline because there wasn’t any communication with the two sides. And for that, it’s all too easy to dismiss those movies as “non-canon”, with the fanbase arbitrarily deciding that canon ones are canon because they fit -- but Toei itself has never taken this stance.

The other thing is that, given that Adventure/02 is famous for its ridiculous level of worldbuilding consistency thanks to its director Kakudou’s conscientious efforts on it, it means that as a result, anything not made by him was prone to running afoul on it, and it’s not like the stance back then was to just reject all of it wholesale. “Doesn’t comply with the lore” is so often equated with “not canon”, but Kakudou, the author of that lore, not only made no indication of invalidating or disliking those non-compliant things, but also conversely made an active effort to make those things relevant in spite of that! (See: Our War Game! below.) The official stance is to not deny those works for being noncompliant -- it’s just that Kakudou seems to be the detail-oriented kind of person who personally prefers to work with things that have a high level of consistency (he’s very quick to say “I wasn’t involved on that” whenever someone brings up something from said external materials, not in any condescending way, just “I wasn’t involved, so don’t attribute that to me”). In fact, one of the reasons there wasn’t initially a third Adventure series was that he had difficulty finding a way to adhere to the higher-ups’ pressure to keep all of these contradictions consistent -- so the official stance itself is to try and maintain all of those side works, and that it would be better to end the series itself than to have to do something like deny them.

Which makes things very frustrating for the fans, of course, but nevertheless, that’s how it is -- even back in 2000, the right-hand-not-talking-to-left-hand phenomenon was this significant! And it would have been easy for official to step in and go “okay, we’ll put a statement out here that these don’t apply,” but no, the stance was be that it would be better to stop dragging it out longer and cancel a whole series than to deny those works, which leads us to the current situation. (Plus, think how insulting it would feel from a PR perspective if someone got attached to one of those “non-canon” materials only for official to come out and outright say “yeah this doesn’t count anymore”; we can name examples of this happening in other franchises that have understandably gotten a lot of people upset, and it would be especially offensive to do this right after said material had been released.)

Bolstering the concept of official staff’s very loose opinion of “canon” are the Adventure novels, which were supervised by Kakudou himself and written by Digimon episode screenwriter Masaki Hiro, and are non-compliant with Adventure timeline by design, because it’d be bad for the format to try and depict every single detail in the anime in the form of three novels. Several events are condensed or shuffled out of order, or even sometimes completely different (Koushirou’s incident with Vadermon goes very differently from the anime version). Despite that, this is said directly to be intended as a series of novels to help people understand Adventure and 02 better, and several details in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and Spring 2003 are incredibly consistent with it (namely in the sense of details meant to retroactively connect Adventure to 02, and other background details like Daisuke’s backstory). So you are supposed to do some kind of mental leap where you don’t take the contradictions around the actual events too seriously, but still accept the spirit and the background information you learn from it and retroactively apply it to Adventure and 02 -- and, presumably, that’s probably what you’re expected to do with everything else, too.

And this isn’t even getting into the fact that the anime itself has occasional contradictions and errors due to things like animator error or simply different writers writing different episodes -- the Adventure and 02 staff were certainly very detail-oriented, but they are human and of course inevitably slipped up here and there. How seriously do you take honorifics shifting from episode to episode in ways that don’t seem intentional, or the fact every background material refers to Osamu and Ken having a bunk bed and yet the actual episode with both of them fails to depict it? How do you deal with the fact that the Animation Chronicle is one of the most extensively useful post-02 reference materials with tons of production background info not revealed in the anime, and yet is infamously full of suspected typos that would cause some pretty massive implications if true, or all of those other Bandai and Shueisha-commissioned “side books” and other pieces of media meant to entertain the kids while the series was airing but clearly had no input from Toei staff whatsoever? 

In the end, frustrating as it is, the answer seems to be the same as ever: figure it out yourself.

The standards for what’s “canon” and “not canon” are way too arbitrary

Let’s look at a handful of things that have been historically dismissed as “non-canon” by the fanbase:

The Adventure mini dramas and Armor Evolution to the Unknown: Drama CDs that were generally dismissed as non-canon because they’re “too crack” to be canon (their writing style is of the “it’s okay to push the boundaries of characterization for the sake of comedy” sort, and it wouldn’t be until later when we finally got some more serious drama CDs). The latter is full of honorific inconsistencies, most prominently Daisuke and Ken still being on surname basis at a time they’re not supposed to be (due to the fact that it was released while the series was still being produced). But official word is that you’re still supposed to consider them canon -- and yes, that’s Kakudou himself giving official sanction to a drama CD that involved a massive amount of fourth wall breaking and a completely unexplained reunion between the Adventure kids and their Digimon sometime between 1999 and 2002 (apparently this wasn’t the only one, either). How is this supposed to work? Figure it out yourself.

Hurricane Touchdown: The funny part is that up until Kizuna validated Wallace’s existence, there was no actual consistent agreement on why this movie shouldn’t be canon (the Western side being “evolutionary form timeline violations”, the Japanese side being Wallace’s status as a Chosen Child prior to 1995), which really goes to show you how arbitrary all of this is. It also has a sequel drama CD in the form of The Door to Summer, which is also contradictory with Hurricane Touchdown’s ending, so we’ve got two layers of “it can’t be canon because...” -- and yet it has a lot of interesting Daisuke characterization, and, heck, the whole character of Wallace himself, that would all be rejected if you throw this out wholesale. Then Kizuna came along, and there’s a general sense of hesitation against easily denying officially-sanctioned “main” entries like that, which retroactively forced people to somehow skip past all that and accept it, just for the sake of Kizuna’s notability.

Diablomon Strikes Back: Similar to the above, it used to be constantly dismissed as “a non-canon fun movie” because of the evolutionary forms that appear in it, despite the fact that 02 itself established that it wasn’t that hard to restore evolutionary forms if you figured something out. Somehow, a ton of people treated it as such an impossibility that “they figured it out in the first three months of 2003″ would be a viable explanation, and yet official word is that of the second through fourth movies, this is the one that had the most amount of initial consultation with the TV anime staff! And then tri. and Kizuna came along and clearly had high-level evolutions in play too, and dismissing DSB on these grounds meant dismissing those by proxy, and a lot of people were too intimidated to do that and decided to retroactively validate DSB instead, after years of having dismissed it for this reason. Again: look how arbitrary this all is.

The tri. stage play: Mainly because its timeline of events doesn’t fit tri. at all (in regards to the reboot and part 5). This is a fair assessment to make in light of the fact that it doesn’t seem to work very hard to be compliant with the very series it’s branded with, but, funnily enough, it’s actually more lore-compliant with the original Adventure and 02 than the tri. anime series is, and yet the few minor contradictions it makes with the tri. anime series are sufficient to consider it completely kicked out of canon, yet those same people who declare it so aren’t as willing to hold the anime to that same standard just because it holds a more prominent “main” position.

On the other hand, let’s look at some of the things that have been more likely to be accepted than the above:

Our War Game!: Reading this is probably going to make everyone go “whaaaaaat?”, but yep: according to Kakudou, the second through fourth movies were all made without his supervision or involvement and thus have lore contradictions (although he also made sure to say that they’re very fine movies, too). We still haven’t figured out what the lore contradiction is, and so the fanbase considers it canon, and even 02 itself makes multiple references to “the Diablomon incident” in 2000, so you can’t consider this non-canon in the slightest...but yes, according to the official side, it’s actually got a contradictory incursion somewhere in there. There is one hypothesis as to what it is, and it’s such a minor thing that no fan or even official member of staff would dare deny the movie for it, but it still contributes to how arbitrary this entire concept is: Kakudou didn’t want to give anyone (except Miyako, who’s based off a real person) canonical birthdays or blood types for the sake of preventing horoscoping, but Sora’s birthday is portrayed as being around March in the movie. And yes, Kakudou himself refers to this as being something that only happened because he wasn’t involved. (Remember what I said about him historically being quick to disclaim involvement on anything he wasn’t involved on, regardless of how much of a minor detail it is, yet doesn’t necessarily intend to deny the work entirely due to it?)

Tag Tamers: A very vital part of Ken’s backstory that establishes a lot of context behind the Dark Seed and the elusive Akiyama Ryou, which also does not make sense with 02′s timeline and characterization at all, presumably because Bandai and Toei weren’t properly communicating on what kind of details they needed to iron out for this. But of course, all of us would like some explanation to Ken’s backstory, and we have to apply some kind of logic as to how that makes sense, and I’ve yet to see people declare Tag Tamers (or any of the other WonderSwan games) as entirely non-canon as a result.

tri.: For obvious reasons, it’s a “major entry in the franchise”, so people are generally more averse to dismissing it so easily (or, at least, for reasons that aren’t related to pure preference), but I find it rather ironic that Kizuna’s the one that got all the attention for apparently being lore non-compliant, when the exact same lore points mentioned in Kakudou’s reasoning as to why it’s non-compliant (along with a ton of things that actually were in Adventure and 02′s text) are gone against even more regularly and prominently in tri., whereas Kizuna still goes out of its way to adhere to most of these and only seems to have incurred a contradiction in terms of originally intended ideology, and, possibly, its extensive use of the aforementioned movies. (Recall that this got brought up for Kizuna specifically because Kakudou was initially consulted for it; he wasn’t involved in tri. to begin with at all.) See above on how people’s unwillingness to write this one off so easily despite everything ended up retroactively dragging DSB into “accepted canon” territory; that’s how arbitrary this entire thing is.

Then, tied to all of this and making it even more confusing is Kizuna, which, again, putting all issues of personal preference aside, is basically being torn back and forth between all of these whenever you try to apply one of the above arbitrary standards. It’s allegedly lore-noncompliant with Kakudou’s lore and thus lacks his involvement, but it does have the involvement of original series producer Seki Hiromi who was known to be responsible for the series’s original human drama themes (including the premise of 02 itself) and personally vetted the scripts so that everyone could be properly in-character and the original themes still intact; it’s supposedly a “main” entry to the point where people will stop denying older works’ canonicity because of it (see Hurricane Touchdown above), but, legally speaking, is actually classified in the same “gekijouban” category that the first four movies and things like the Tamers through Savers movies are; the staff will say to hell and back that the 02 epilogue still holds (and the movie makes abundant retroactive references in both worldbuilding and themes to it), but many people out there will still insist that the movie ending that way means that (like with DSB above) “they figured it out” between the movie’s ending and the epilogue is apparently some kind of impossibility, and either the movie is non-canon or the 02 epilogue is invalidated now. (My personal stance on this is that the epilogue itself provides the answer to how they figure it out if you look closely at the movie’s themes, but that’s a tangent.)

The point I’m trying to make is that regardless of whatever stance you take on all of the above points, this is all extremely arbitrary, and these fanbase rationalizations on why this and that isn’t canon are constantly contradicting each other, shifting, and occasionally based on really meaningless things. And, again, it’s fine if you’re saying that you don’t consider this or that canon because you personally dislike it or where it went, or you find it difficult to work with, or between two contradictory things you prefer one or the other (I certainly have my fair share of strong opinions in this regard) -- but it would be better if we all admitted this and went “I just don’t consider this canon” instead of acting like there were ever some universal consensus or official backing.

"It didn’t happen this exact way, but something resembling it still happened”

So, we’re in this uncomfortable situation where we’ve been handed a ball of knots and have to work with it (a very frustrating situation especially for fanfic writers), and I have to personally say that I think all of this comes from people having far too inflexible of a concept of “canon” and “not canon”, especially to the point of rejecting a full-on perfectly fine entry just because of one timeline issue. I honestly think it’d be better if we could rather take a certain stance close to the Pixiv dictionary wiki’s view of how Wallace can appear in Kizuna: “(some version of) Wallace exists in the timeline of the main story.”

Right, so: Hurricane Touchdown is contradictory. The evolutions don’t work at that point in timeline, and Wallace shouldn’t be able to be a Chosen Child from before 1995. Those things don’t work with Adventure and 02′s timeline and lore. However, let’s look at the following story: let’s say that, between 02 episodes 14 and 15 (when the movie first screened), while school was on break, Daisuke and his friends went on a summer adventure to the US and met a boy named Wallace, who had a struggle regarding one of his partners losing his sanity, and bonded with him and helped put his partner to rest. No part of this contradicts 02 at all. There we go! So we can safely say that some story that mostly resembled Hurricane Touchdown happened in the canon timeline. Some of its details weren’t exactly the way they happened in “the movie we, as the audience, saw” -- but something that substantially resembled the movie still happened in the universe of Daisuke and his friends. And you can apply that same logic to Tag Tamers, or any other vital canonical but ostensibly contradictory material -- the media that we as the audience got may not accurately reflect the events in universe, but there’s absolutely nothing saying that some more timeline and lore-consistent alternate version didn’t happen in canon instead.

Moreover, even Adventure/02 itself gives you a bit of precedent for this concept -- namely, the fact that the final episode of 02 reveals that the entirety of Adventure and 02 is part of Takeru’s novels. It’s a pretty common theory that there might be differences in the way “the story we got” was presented, versus how they actually happened in the world Takeru lived in -- of course, Takeru certainly went out of his way to remove as much bias from the situation as he could, but you can hardly say that he, as a human, would be completely free from it, and he himself even admits that everyone he consulted had differing opinions on the events in question. And not every single piece of Digimon media has the Hirata-Hiroaki-as-Takeru narrator, which means that perhaps it’s not entirely out of the question that the different takes on the stories that the Tokyo Chosen Children went through in their youth would not be entirely consistent with each other, depending on who’s telling it. But that doesn’t mean that those events necessarily didn’t happen at all, just that some of the details were different from what we as the audience saw.

In the end, I leave the rest to everyone else to figure out -- as I said, I think this is a decision everyone will have to make for themselves, whether they’re a fanfic writer picking and choosing what to include for the sake of a coherent fic, or whether they’re just expressing a preference to not have to think too hard about or work with something they’re turned off by. (And in the case that there is someone who expresses their dislike of working with something and doesn’t want to consider it canon, I think it’s very rude to give them grief for that, and conversely, if you don’t want to consider something canon but encounter someone who doesn’t have as much of a problem with it, it’s very rude to try and expect them to change their opinion to yours.) But I do think it would do well for all of us to have a bit more of an open mind and a creative attitude towards these kinds of things before trying to shove everything into a “fully canon” and “fully not canon” binary.

[merryhelps]

                  plotting etiquette : a players guide

                                            [ coming soon / an admins guide ] 

plotting is an essential part to writing together; whether you’re in a group, an indie blog or even a 1x1, you need to be able to communicate with your peers in order to build a story. and that’s why we’re all here, right? to create worlds, no matter what the context, and most importantly, to do this with others. roleplaying is a team effort - no matter what universe you’re writing in.  below the cut are some helpful tips, tricks and advice to remember when attempting to plot with others. if you’ve found this guide useful, please like and/or reblog to spread the word - and hopefully help out others along the way.                               ***a part two will be out next week for admins on how to promote and help your group with plotting. 

                             i. ‘i’m scared of bothering people!’

this is a statement i’ve seen the most often around the rpc - whether it’s from a various text post people reblog, or as an admin who’s been on the receiving end of messages like this. 

it’s important to remember that most of us get a little nervous about reaching out. while writing original pieces or fanfiction can give you some distance between the creating portion and the feedback process, there’s no real space for roleplaying. it’s an instantaneous thing - we put our words out there on the screen, and someone else has to reply to that in some capacity.

whether you’re an extrovert, an introvert or something in between, this can often be the beginning of the end for a lot of roleplayers. maybe  you’ve joined an established group, and it seems like everyone has set dynamics and you don’t want to shake things up. or maybe you’re an indie blog, but you’re too scared to talk to someone you’ve idolized and want to write with. 

the thing is, you can’t expect people to know what you want if you can’t verbalize it yourself. let them know you’re a little nervous ! chances are, they are too. we’re all on this platform trying to do the same thing, and everyone gets nervous about exposing themselves to strangers now and again. ultimately, we put a little piece of ourselves in every character we create, and that can be terrifying to show to people and expect them to accept. but a little effort goes a long way - making the first move can often help build a bridge to someone you might not have otherwise gotten the chance to write with.  you’re going to have to take a risk sometimes. while not everyone is going to be receptive, most people will be. and chances are, if you start with something as simple as “hi, i’d love the chance to write / plot with you,” you’ll be met with an extraordinarily excited new partner. understand that if they don’t, it’s not a bad thing ! some writing styles don’t mesh together, some people have a harder time talking freely than others, and so many of us regularly forget to reply to a message. know that if you’ve put yourself out there, that’s a huge step in the right direction, no matter what comes of it, and next time it’ll be even easier. 

                            ii. come prepared.

this is ultimately where a lot of players fall short. it’s one thing to say ‘let’s plot’, and another thing to do it altogether. you need to have some sort of jumping off point. 

some ideas include: 

a prompt / plot idea. 

this is especially important if it’s a new person you’re trying to interact with. it’s difficult to come up with things on the spot, and if you’re reaching out, you need to have something to reach out with. 

in a group you’ll want to take the time to read their biography / about / wanted connections if they have them listed. it’s a quick way to ensure you have a basis of what they want, and how you and your characters can then fill those needs. 

as an indie / 1x1 see if they have any ‘wanted plots’ or ‘prompts’ tags. check out their ask memes tags. ensure you’ve read their guidelines on both of these, and follow them. while most people have similar rules, you can’t know that for sure unless you’ve read through them. 

questions about their character(s).

everyone adores talking about their own characters - give them an opportunity to let them tell you about theirs! even if they’re playing a canon character, they’ll have their own take on them, with headcanons and quirks and hobbies that might not show up in the specific canon the character comes from. 

use ask memes if you need help coming up with questions - ask memes are extraordinarily helpful when it comes to fleshing out muses for developmental purposes as it is, and while they’re usually made for general tumblr interaction, they can be a great jumping off point for talking specifics. 

don’t be afraid to point out things in their bio / about / etc. this shows that you’ve gone through and read their pages, which shows that you care about them as a person and a character, and not merely another faceclaim. 

talk about your character(s).

it’s always good, especially in a group, to have a small statement of facts about your character. in business, this is called an ‘elevator pitch’ - a few concise sentences that can get someone else interested.

for example, merrick wood is a former cheerleader who would do absolutely anything for her sister, holly, has no real ambitions and loves the weird and supernatural. you can find her swimming, or listening to mix cd’s she makes for her own amusement, or even on the hunt for big foot. this now gives the other player a few things to pick through - what kind of music is she listening to? why is her sister so important to her? is cheerleading still important enough for her to mention it to someone?

                           iii. plotting is a two way street.

the above two points work on the basis that you’ve made the first move - but say you’re the one who’s gotten the message of someone eager to plot with you ! takes a little stress off of your plate, but adds to their own. no matter what, remember that there is a real person on the other side of the screen. be kind, and treat them how you’d want to be treated - even if you’re not interested in writing with them, let them know ! a simple thanks for the message! i’m honored you’re interested in my characters, but at the moment i don’t think we’d be a good fit is enough of a response that most people should leave it at that. if you get a message saying they’re not interested, simply say ‘thank you for replying!’ and move on. as stated above, not everyone will always click - respect people’s boundaries, and understand that you’ll find a new partner in due time. 

responding to plotting messages is as important as creating them; if someone says they want to plot and gives you ideas, play off of them. don’t simply say ‘okay!’ or ‘cool!’ - a habit a lot of people have had over the years. 

                example. if jenny says “i think it would be great if robert could surprise them with flowers,” reply wth “oh how cute!!!” and end there - expand on it, adding your own input - “that’s so cute! denise adores lilacs, and would be flustered to get them from someone she admires so much!”                     the latter sentence gives your partner something to respond to, something to work with, and may just end up being in the thread you write together! 

                          iv. don’t make your admins do all the work.

this section is primarily for group roleplayers. 

your admin(s) already do so much. behind the scenes, there’s constantly updating the main pages, queueing ads, coming up with tasks and events and plot drops to keep players entertained and happy. at the same time, they’re trying to play in the group with you - create their own stories, write their own characters. they should not have to spoon feed you plots. these are things you need to develop on your own and with fellow players. 

               example. in a town rp, and you have a social butterfly character ? throw a birthday party for a character, giving the other characters something to participate in without an official Admin Sponsored Event.                    you should of course ensure the admin is okay with you having ‘events’ like the above for various players, and you need to ensure you’re inclusive in them - don’t ‘throw a party’ and not invite half the group because you don’t want to plot with them. take the time to message players of characters who might not normally show up and figure out something else with them, or a reason why they would be there or even why they wouldn’t! 

                         v. stop bubbling.

at the end of the day, plotting together is the best way to stop bubbling from happening in your group. no one wants to be the player left out of everything - make sure to try and reach out to the others, especially if you think other players may be ignoring them. writing together - in a group, on an indie, anywhere really - is supposed to be fun and challenging and a different experience every time.  before you go to your admins about being left out / ignored, ask yourself if you’ve done the above. have you messaged other players ? asked them about their characters, and given ideas of potential prompts for the two of you to write ? if you have, and you’re still getting ignored, then absolutely talk to your admin team! but try and be proactive instead of reactive and you’d be amazed at how far you can go. 

                                    hopefully this guide will help you - remember, your roleplay experience is ultimately cultivated by yourself. you choose which groups to apply to, which characters to bring, and your attitudes and behaviors can affect your gameplay. being in a group, specifically, is about being a part of a team. become a team player, and you and your characters can find the roleplay family of your dreams  ♡

[hitchell-mope]

Answering a fandom ask. Part two

N - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor. Again. I’m not the biggest reader of fanfiction. Though. Also again. I highly recommend the fanfic’s written by @rpsocsandcanonohmy. Their writing is incredible.

O - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of. 1000 years by KT Turnstall and Bleu for bal from descendants

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas). Star Trek supergirl au. Captain Kara Danvers. Her husband/security chief Mon El. Lena’s that slimy little bastard Harry Mudd.

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why? Rumbelle. I used to like it. But they always made Belle blameless in everything when she could be just as culpable as Rumple.

R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships? Samantha Arias and Winn Schott

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon. Search my Zendaya!Mal tag

T - If you mostly have homoships, do you have any heteroships. N//A

U - If you mostly have heteroships, do you have any homoships. Solangelo. Giljay. Among others

V - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping. Eh. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. It depends on the fandom really.

W - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms. Ben Florian. Donna Noble. Bart Simpson. Sunny Baudelaire Peter Parker

X - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms. Bal. Karamel. Dickori

Y - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from. Supernatural. The options are either. Dean with the walking corpse. Or the hbo route. Though the way the corpse fans act I may end up going with the latter purely out of spite. Or you know. The car seems to be an option as well. So we’ll see.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go. Fans don’t control the show. Sure they can sometimes help save it, thank you lucifans and 99er’s, but they don’t control it. The show runners don’t, and shouldn’t, care about some scraggly little ship that’s more often than not never gonna happen. Because they don’t intend for it to happen. So it won’t happen. And yelling about supposed queerbaiting or homophobia, because let’s face it 99% of these fans like to hide behind a very transparent smokescreen of inclusivity, won’t, and don’t, help matters. If anything. It just makes them sound like whiny and petulant toddlers in need of the naughty step. Keep to you’re fanfic and stop harassing the rest of us who want to enjoy the show as is.

[fresh-prince-of-denmark]

Interpretation of V’s Mikoshi Poem Pt1: Life is Murder

Cyberpunk spoilers ahead: 

Let’s talk about Cyberpunk’s literary references and what they mean for the story, coming from a former English professor/teacher.

Alt will read you one of two poems you cross the bridge to the Mikoshi depending on who is in control. Johnny is read an excerpt from Sailing to Byzantium by Yeats, while V is given an excerpt from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. For now, let’s focus on V’s poem:

“Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, 

The muttering retreats 

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels 

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: 

Streets that follow like a tedious argument 

Of insidious intent 

To lead you to an overwhelming question. . . . 

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" 

Let us go and make our visit.”

Cool. Some English majors (derogatory) work at project red. So why should I care?

Well I’ll tell you:

First, a summary: In this story, the narrator is on an evening stroll with a woman he most likely has a romantic relationship with although the vibes are far from a romantic love sonnet. Interestingly enough, the first few lines of this poem have been cut from Alt’s reading; including the epigraph from Dante’s inferno, which translates to the following:

 “If I but thought that my response were made

to one perhaps returning to the world,

this tongue of flame would cease to flicker.

But since, up from these depths, no one has yet

returned alive, if what I hear is true,

I answer without fear of being shamed.”

This missing piece from Alt’s poem can be read several ways; most of them drawing a parallel between the Blackwell and hell. In fact, Dante’s inferno has a lot of similarities to the story. One can make a comparison between Virgil and Alt, leaving a debate on who plays the roll of Beatrice (the one being saved) and Dante (the one doing the saving) between Johnny and V. I have to wonder at the writers choice to leave this portion out, as there’s a lot to be said here about who truly comes out alive: who’s flame will cease to flicker? V, for obvious reasons, does not return to the world of the living the same. She will not live much longer, and is dying despite being temporarily “saved.” However, if Johnny returns to the body, he is no longer the Johnny we know; arrogant, self-assured, and more than a little narcissistic. The will to fight seems to have died within him; he leaves Night City, presumably looking to start over. While V clearly changes him before Mikoshi, he is a broken and somber man after returning to life, a flickering flame of who he once was. There’s also a connection to be made about Johnny/V dying and returning to life, literally rising from hell. The next part of the missing introduction is as follows: 

“Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;” 

I can’t think of a better way to describe what is happening in Mikoshi aside from the line “Like a patient etherized upon a table.” Johnny and V, in this moment, are suspended in an almost dream-like state. In Eliot’s poem, the “treatment” this patient is awaiting is presumably an examination/reflection of the self, which will lead to the narrator making a major decision. In this scenario, V is being forced to make a very tough choice, one that will take a lot of reflection as they decide what (a few months) of their remaining life is worth. 

On to the actual portion of the poem that Alt reads:

“Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent.”

While Prufrock is taking his lover on a romantic stroll, they are hardly walking through rose gardens. They are traveling through the unpleasant parts of a city, and he is noticing all the unsavory parts of his world. Obvious references to night city include one-night hotels (such as the no-tell motel, the Pista Sofia, or the hotel that Johnny and V stay at after the parade, which Johnny gripes about and asks ‘what kind of losers stay in a place like this?), and ‘the sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells,’ which is possibly a reference to the fact that food in Night City is real sketchy (odd things like synth-milk, which Takemura complains about throughout the game). The streets like a tedious argument works on several levels here; both the crime of night city’s streets, which is relentless and quite literally never-ending (V can’t walk two blocks without an assault in progress task spawning), and the socio-economic ecosystem that threatens self-combust at any point. There will always be conflict between gangs, between corpos, between Arasaka and Militech, and between the nomads and the Raffins/Wraiths. In one mission with Padre, you find out that Arasaka and Militech are on the verge of waging another war. None of this conflict is positive, and always ends in bloodshed, often of the innocent. One can argue themselves in circles trying to find a solution to NC’s problems, there is no win-win situation. It’s a bit of a damnned if you do, damnned if you don’t situation. This comes up in conversation with Takemura on his career with Arasaka, as well as several other missions that involve those who choose to work for corporations to survive. This is also a point of conflict between V and Johnny a multiple times, one that never gets an answer. A literal tedious argument, tedious because there are no ‘happy endings for all involved’ in Night City. The final lines of Alt’s reading have more to do with V/Johnny’s final choice:

“To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.”

All the unsavory things V has to do to survive, all the people that have died to get to Mikoshi, lead up to one ‘overwhelming’ question: who will live on? There are so many other questions that should be answered: what is beyond the Blackwall? Are Johnny and Alt real, or is the soul truly dead, and are they just a copy of the people they once were? What happens to the idea of God and the afterlife when you introduce the idea of Soulkiller? But much like in the poem, we don’t get these answers. In fact, we are barely given time to contemplate the question as we fight for survival. A decision must be made, despite not knowing or even having time to dwell on these answers. Similarly Johnny, when presented with these questions in several side quests, refuses to even entertain the question, much like the poem’s narrator. 

The rest of the poem, which is not included in Alt’s reading, is full of allusions to the story. The “yellow fog,” which persists across the poem is full of cat-like imagery, conjuring the bakaneko, the spirit of misfortune that can bring people back to life that Takemura mentions (coincidence that V/Johnny can adopt a cat? Keeping death as a close companion? I think not). Prufrock spends the rest of the poem contemplating his question, talking himself in circles, and the only thing that changes is his age as time slips by. Just as he seems to be making progress, he talks himself back to square one and begins again. Much in the same way, Johnny and V go in the same circles. Their journey begins with their deaths, and to death they will both return no matter what. Nothing they did really mattered, the world remains the same, broken and unfair. As Prufrock later contemplates: “Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?…Would it have been worth while/ To have bitten off the matter with a smile,? To have squeezed the universe into a ball?” Johnny loses his life trying to strike against an unjust world, yet he is scarcely a memory to most residents of Night City, who do not have time to contemplate what is right and what is wrong; their focus must be on survival. 

Interestingly enough, both the poem and Cyberpunk reference similar secondary materials. Prufrock references Lazarus and Hamlet as he contemplates how he will never lead an exciting existence. Lazarus, much like V/Johnny, famously rose from the dead. Hamlet is a reoccurring theme in the storyline; Prufrock, V/Johnny, and Hamlet all are faced having to inevitably make a very difficult decision, the latter two involving tragedy for all no matter what. It’s also up for debate whether Hamlet is turning mad, similar to how we can’t be sure how much Johnny is driving V “mad” by taking over their mind. Despite this comparison, V/Johnny are no Hamlet/Lazarus. They are Prufrock; their lives, and their deaths, are meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Despite their efforts, they will simply fade away until they remain only in the memories of those they left behind. The play is further referenced as Jackie’s grave reads “Goodnight, sweet Prince,” and in a deleted audio file Johnny tells V “Sleep well prince/princess” before taking control if V chooses to attack Arasaka with Rogues help. What makes this more interesting is when you look at the line in which Hamlet is mentioned:

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.”

The Fool, which is mentioned several times by Misty, represents V and Johnny, in the journey that is told by the major arcane in tarot. The beginning of a journey — of a cycle — while the Death card symbolizes the ending of one phase and the beginning of another. An often painful transformation into something new. The main theme of Eliot’s poem is cycles; he  talks himself in circles, never making a choice, always ending up where he begins. Circles are mentioned once again by Kerry during his personal mission, when he talks about beginning a new cycle in his life. V/Johnny’s journey together begins with death, and so it must end that way for them; whether it is a physical death, or a death of the self. No matter what, V’s fate is inevitable; they will face death again head-on, just as they did at the beginning of their story. The chosen passages of this poem asserts this cycle — the first three words of Alt’s first and last sentence are the same: 

“Let us go.” 

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

ScottyMcGeester Plays Every Final Fantasy Game*

*Okay, all the main games except 11 and 14 since they are online only, and also no spinoffs or sequels.

THE INTRODUCTION

Years ago, I had a goal to finish every Final Fantasy game. As of December 30, 2020, I finally reached that goal. I originally started posting these reviews way back in 2017 on VGF(VIdeo Game Forums), and posted one review after another as I completed each game. I had already finished a few before I started reviewing the series, such as Final Fantasy I, II, VI, IX, and X.

Final Fantasy X was my very first Final Fantasy game, way back when it first came out on the PS2. It took me years to finish that game, mostly because I was still a novice at RPGs and I didn’t quite know what I was doing. Still, the world and concepts of Final Fantasy gripped me. As a sci-fi/fantasy writer, they inspired tons of elements in my stories. The series spans a multitude of genre-bending stories – sci-fi, fantasy, some steampunk, modern fantasy, space, traditional fantasy with knights in armor – and a whole lot of crystals. I wrote these reviews as if you have no idea what Final Fantasy is – whether you are a gamer or non-gamer. This first post is a general introduction to the series as a whole, but even if you are a die-hard fan already, there are some things that I explore that I hope you'll find interesting. What is Final Fantasy? Final Fantasy is a roleplay video game series that started back in 1987. The first game was reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons, where you could choose one of six roles for a team of four: White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Monk and Warrior. Square, now known as Square Enix, developed the game. A legendary rumor about the title “Final Fantasy” comes from the story that they were on the verge of bankruptcy. They only had money for one more game, a fantasy game. They dubbed it “Final Fantasy.” This apocryphal story is nowhere near true. Square had made video games before and they didn’t do well, but the company itself wasn’t on the verge of bankruptcy. What happened was that the developer, Hironobu Sakaguchi, had planned to retire. He didn’t see any foreseeable future in video gaming with Square’s mediocre performance. He wanted to make a fantasy game and dubbed it “Final Fantasy”, since it was to be his personal last work. He also wanted the game to be abbreviated as “FF” – they originally had “Fighting Fantasy” in mind but that name was already trademarked by a board game. Final Fantasy initially sold 400,000 copies in Japan and became and instant hit. Nintendo of America approached Square to release a localized version for the states. Final Fantasy became far from Sakaguchi’s last game. What’s Final Fantasy about? Every main Final Fantasy game has a new story with new characters and even new gameplay. Some games have direct sequels and are recognizable with a subtitle, or an additional number following a dash. For example, there is Final Fantasy VII, and the direct sequel to that Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. There's a direct sequel to Final Fantasy X titled Final Fantasy X-2. But even though each Final Fantasy game is different, there are still central elements that make them a Final Fantasy game. You can’t just write up a random fantasy story and slap the Final Fantasy name on it. The following elements are what make a Final Fantasy game. Some are obvious while others not so much. Chocobos:

Chocobos were first introduced in Final Fantasy II, but have been present ever since. They are cute, large birds that the characters often ride across fields or sometimes call into battle. They have practically become the mascot of the series. Moogles, Cactuars and Tonberries – oh my!

Moogles (pictured above) are telepathic creatures that help the players, or sometimes they can be a playable character. They debuted in Final Fantasy III.

Cactuars (right) and Tonberries (left) are cute, unassuming enemies that are actually highly dangerous, killing you in one shot if you are not careful or fast enough. The former debuted in Final Fantasy VI while the latter debuted in Final Fantasy V. Summons:

Sometimes they go by different names, like eidolons or espers. Summons are massive, fantastic beasts that you can call upon to aide you in battle to fight the enemy. Summons became a staple ever since Final Fantasy III. In some games, they are merely there to call into battle, while in other games they are central to the story. Airships:

Airships have been present since the first game. They are massive boat-looking airplanes. In the more recent games, airships look almost like spaceships.

Cid:

With the exception of the original Final Fantasy (except in later remakes), every game has a character named Cid. Cid is typically the character who owns an airship.

Items and Magic Spells:

Each game shares virtually all the same items and magic spells. Antidotes. Eye drops. Maiden's kiss. Holy water. Phoenix Down is well-known for reviving knocked-out characters in battle. The spells follow a hierarchy of levels. For example, Cure is the basic spell to heal somebody. The second level spell for healing is Cura. Then Curaga. Then finally Curaja. Most other spells follow the same format. The same high-level spells also frequently appear throughout the games, such as Holy and Flare.

Crystals:

With a few exceptions, crystals appear in nearly every game. They often serve as plot devices, whether they be the force that protects the planet or powerful objects coveted by the enemy. They also oftentimes have a consciousness of their own, communicating with the characters and calling them to their destiny.

Mythological References:

Final Fantasy is riddled with mythological references. Many summons and creatures take the names of mythological creatures or deities, such as Shiva, Bahamut, Leviathan, Behemoth, Odin, and Ifrit. Certain villains share the names of mythological figures or they are derived from certain mythological concepts, such as Gilgamesh and Sephiroth. Many of the games have legendary weapons you can find near the end of the journey. These are typically named after legendary Japanese figures, such as Masamune and Yoichi, or other world mythologies, such as Thor’s hammer Mjolnir. Saving the World:

Final Fantasy isn’t about saving a particular princess, or person for that matter. The ultimate goal is to save the entire world, or even the very fabric of reality. Evil spreads in many ways, such as a sealed darkness trying to break free, empires with ambitious goals, villainous subordinates who pull the strings of politics, or empires destroying the environment. Typically, the main cast consists of characters from all walks of life. They all have to learn to work together and get through their personal struggles to save the world. Existential Crisis (or Startling Revelation):

By the time you reach the third act of a Final Fantasy game, some startling revelation forces the characters to question their very existence. A villain is revealed to be a hero’s family member, a main character realizes they're a clone, another realizes that they cannot live without magic, etc. Typically, the main character questions the nature of their soul, if they die like regular beings and become part of some greater life force, or blink out into oblivion. Whatever the revelation may be – it serves as a final crisis that the characters have to overcome. The Descent into Hell:

Every third act of a Final Fantasy game ends with what I like to call a “descent into hell”. The final dungeon is always some kind of bizarre world. In Final Fantasy II, you literally descend into hell to fight the Emperor. Throughout the series, hell is more metaphorical. The final dungeons can be a massive, sprawling tower or dreadnought, or a strange dimension that appears to have no rhyme or reason. Sometimes I'm reminded of M.C. Escher’s work, “Relativity”, or sometimes it reminds me of some cosmic horror featured in the Cthulhu Mythos. These final dungeons can be inter-dimensional rifts between space and times, pockets in reality, subterranean depths, insane worlds that the villain created, and worlds of darkness. (Final Fantasy IX's Memoria)

(M.C. Escher's “Relativity”)

These stylistic approaches for the final dungeon represent the oncoming battle with the forces of chaos. Fighting God:

After venturing through the surreal and hellish final dungeon, you face the main villain. The main villain always achieves godlike status or the characters actually have to defeat a god in order to save the world from its oppressive reign. Many stories appear to throw in a last minute ultimate god who was pulling the strings of the plot the entire time. The purpose of dealing with gods and goddesses represents the characters’ desire to control their own fate and alter their destiny. Most of these bosses are strange and grotesque, definitely getting a Cthulhu vibe from them. I looked at them and thought, "Christ, what the hell is THAT supposed to be?"

It always feels like THE final fantasy:

Each game, no matter what happens or how it happens, feels like the be-all-end-all of its story – its fictional universe. Direct sequels were unheard of until Final Fantasy X-2, which while fun, was wildly different in tone from the original game, and critics pointed out that it ruined the finality of Final Fantasy X. This is one reason why I think direct sequels to Final Fantasy games fail – what else could the main characters possibly face that is more dangerous than the one they just encountered? Anything else would feel like child’s play to them. NOTABLE PEOPLE Aside from the characters, stories and games themselves, the people behind the series have achieved legendary status. Nobuo Uematsu:

The original composer of Final Fantasy. Uematsu single-handedly scored the first 9 Final Fantasy games. Uematsu surprisingly never had any formal training in music – a trait that would ostracize any composer, such as Danny Elfman. I find that the those who haven't had any formal training usually break the mold with music. Uematsu started working for Square at around 25 for the first Final Fantasy game, starting out with nothing and never suspecting his job would lead him where he is now. His music is unique for incorporating elements of classic and progressive rock, specifically in the battle themes. Uematsu’s themes for each game have achieved instant recognition in the gaming world, as recognizable as the theme to Star Wars or James Bond. Tetsuya Nomura:

Tetsuya Nomura is a video game designer and director who started at Square in 1990. He rose to prominence when he was given full control of designing the characters for Final Fantasy VII – arguably the most popular Final Fantasy game to date because of its characters: Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Vincent Valentine and Sephiroth. Nomura went on to create more legendary characters for Final Fantasy VIII, X and XIII. Yoshitaka Amano:

Amano is the artist whose work is most known now in Final Fantasy. He has done concept art and design for every game in the series. His style is instantly recognizable. He has also drawn for many anime shows, comics and mangas, such as Vampire Hunter D and Sandman: The Dream Hunters.

And last but certainly not least - THE MUSIC Final Fantasy has left its mark in the musical soundtrack of video games. Each game more or less shares three of the same memorable tracks.

The Prelude:

The Victory Fanfare:

The Final Fantasy Main Theme:

THE REVIEWS

Each review I post will critique major aspects of each Final Fantasy game, such as its gameplay, graphics, story, and music. Today is currently January 3, 2020 (technically the 4th when I post this because it’s past midnight), and I will be posting one review per day so as to not lose my sanity editing and formatting everything at once here. So look forward to the very first review tomorrow starting with the very first Final Fantasy game.