#Please I really want to read it all and Google keeps giving so many conflicting results and it's tying brain in knots

[running-on-coffee-and-anxiety]

Where do I even start with the comics?

So I'm trying to read all the DC comics, and I do mean all of them, from the originals up to the present. Because the ADHD brain has decided 'This shall be my desire for all the months and maybe the year'.

The question is, I don't know what order to read the series in (by release date because Google won't give me a straight answer). If anyone could give advice and maybe places I could read them, that'd be fantastic! Except for Hellblazer, those comics are relatively simple to find and read.

Specifically, I'd like the Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Batman comics since they seem the most confusing.

I see people mention 'Martian Manhunter' and 'Booster Gold' a lot when talking about DC and have zero clue on where to find them so help there would be appreciated as well. I just- I want to read about all the individual members of the Justice League, then read about Justice League as a whole.

Any and all comic orders is appreciated, I just want this so bad.

[charmingsoa]

■ Bring it On Home to Me (one) ■ John Egan x OC ■ ■ Multi chapter story ■

⚠ Chapter warning ⚠ Sexual content, physical and verbal abuse, mention of sexual assault, cursing, sexism. Please be advised when reading.

🚨 A/N: Hello and welcome to the first real chapter of Bring it on Home to Me! So, this will start at the very beginning of Vanessa and John's journey and I found it important to focus the first chapter on Vanessa's life before John. It will feature some moments that are tough to read and the warnings have been posted above. It will also feature German and British words - Google was my friend for this chapter! I hope you all enjoy the update and I would love to hear your thoughts, opinions, anything really! My DM is open and ready!!

📣 If you would like to be tagged, please let me know 📣

The atmosphere in the room was thick with a mixture of desire, desperation, and a touch of melancholy. The women moved gracefully among the patrons, their painted smiles hiding a myriad of emotions – from weariness to resignation to a flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, tonight would bring a reprieve from the harsh realities of war.

The soldiers, their uniforms worn and dusty, bore the weight of the battlefield on their shoulders. For a moment in time, they sought solace in the arms of these women who offered fleeting moments of respite from the chaos and carnage that awaited them outside.

The women, too, carried their own burdens – stories of loss, of shattered dreams, of lives upended by forces beyond their control. Yet in the dimly lit room, they transformed into sirens of solace, offering comfort and companionship to those who sought it amid turmoil.

For these girls, the prospect of spending the night with a soldier meant more than just a temporary escape from the harsh realities of war. A chance to rest their weary bodies and minds in the comfort of a warm bed. The opportunity to freshen up and tend to their basic needs was a luxury in a world where survival often took precedence over self-care.

I was one of the fortunate ones with relatives who still resided in the small town where many of us had sought refuge. My aunt’s house giving me shelter when the night was over. There were times when I would accept the gentleman’s offer to stay until morning, most of the time sneaking out before the rooster had time to crow.

My home in London, once a bustling metropolis teeming with life and energy, now lay in ruins – a somber reminder of the indiscriminate nature of conflict. The streets I had once walked with purpose and pride were now buried beneath layers of concrete and ashes, the echoes of past laughter and conversations drowned out by the deafening silence of destruction.

My family – or what was left of family now only consisted of my aunt – my earned money keeping the bank from taking the house from under her feet. She didn’t agree with what I was doing to make the money, but that didn’t stop her from pushing me to leave every evening, making sure that I wore the dresses that would get the most attention.

“Slow night, huh?”

The bartender smiled as he poured the glass full of the brown liquid that kept my courage high enough to get through to the next day. “Seems that way.” I gave a nod as I nursed the glass.

My last client was over an hour ago – a poor RAF soldier – married to his secondary school love. I could tell he was a nervous wreck, his hands shaking like a leave in a thunderstorm. He explained to me that his CO had sent him to us – to take the edge off before he was sent off into the air. He didn’t want to do much – just talked about Lucille and his hope to finally get back to her once the war was through. Like many of the soldiers that had crossed my path, I wished them the best, saying a silent prayer as they walked out the door, back to a hell that no one could escape.

"Nessa – you're up!"

The words pierced through the subdued ambiance of the room, a sense of purpose stirred within me, pulling me from the comfortable numbness that had settled over my thoughts. With a quick glance in the direction of the older man who requested my service, I took in his features – a strong jawline, broad shoulders – devoid of any telltale signs of military service.

Finishing the last remnants of my drink in a single smooth motion, I slid off the stool with a practiced grace, the fabric of my dress whispering softly against my skin as I straightened it with deliberate care. The air around me seemed to crackle with anticipation, a silent energy that hummed beneath the surface of the room.

Louella, the madame of the establishment, offered me a brief nod of approval before turning her attention to the other patrons. With measured steps, I made my way towards the man, my movements a delicate balance of confidence and allure, honed through years of navigating the intricacies of this world.

"Hello," I greeted him, my voice dipping an octave lower, the cadence laced with a hint of sultriness that mingled with the lilting notes of my native accent. In that moment, as our eyes met, I stepped into the role that had become second nature to me – a performer on the stage of desire, where masks were worn, and truths were whispered in the shadows.

He chose to stay silent, simply nodding his head, his hands in his pockets in a defensive manner. There had been men like him that stayed silent for most of the evening, only speaking when asked what they would like to do. This man felt different – his demeanor feeling like that of an ice block.

I hesitated for a moment, pushing away my gut feeling that this was going to end badly if I continued. I – Aunt Beatrice needed the money. I could do anything for a short amount of time, whether standing up or flat on my back.

Walking into the back bedroom, I stepped inside the dimly lit room, jumping slightly as he slammed the door shut behind us. His eyes boring into my soul. I cleared my throat, breaking the suffocating silence that enveloped us. "So, um, what exactly did you have in mind?" My voice sounded small and insignificant against the backdrop of his brooding presence.

He just stood there, never breaking eye contact as he evaluated me – searching for any cracks that he could fully break. "Take off your dress," he commanded, his German accent adding an edge to his words even though they were barely audible.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly reached up to the neck of the dress, my fingers pulling at the knot as the two pieces of fabric fell. The humid air hitting against my bare skin as the man’s eyes devoured my exposed chest. My hands pushed the remaining portion of the dress down to the floor, carefully stepping out of the ruched fabric as I now stood in nothing but a pair of heels in front of the stranger.

His long, slender finger pointed towards the bed, the dim light casting eerie shadows across the room. Silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by the soft rustle of fabric as I followed his gesture, my heart pounding in my chest. I approached the bed, feeling a sudden wave of self-consciousness wash over me as I carefully took a seat on the crisp linen.

“Lie down and touch yourself.”

My eyes furrowed in confusion at his demand. "Excuse me?" I stammered, taken aback by the unexpected request.

His throat cleared in an annoyed manner, the sound cutting through the tense silence like a knife. I could sense his impatience, his frustration simmering just beneath the surface. The atmosphere in the room shifted, the air suddenly charged with a palpable tension.

“I told you to lie down and touch yourself like the whore you are.”

As I held his gaze, I could see the hatred coursing through his piercing blue eyes like a raging river. The intensity of his emotions was almost tangible, a seething anger simmering just beneath the surface. It was as if a storm brewed behind those icy eyes, ready to unleash its fury at any given moment.

Gulping nervously, I gradually positioned myself on the bed, the creak of the mattress beneath me breaking through the hot air. With a trembling hand, I reached up to fan my hair out around me as I laid flat on my back, the cool touch of the sheets a stark contrast to the heat of the moment.

As I stared up at the moldy ceiling above me, a wave of despair washed over me, mingling with the fear and uncertainty that churned in my gut. The damp patches on the ceiling seemed to mock me, their distorted shapes dancing before my tear-filled eyes. Each droplet of water that dripped down felt like a painful reminder of the situation I found myself in.

“I told you to touch yourself, you stupid slut.” His anger spilled over, a palpable force that filled the room and washed over me like a wave. "Are you deaf?" I flinched at the harshness of his tone, the venom in his words striking a nerve deep within me.

I suddenly felt dizzy as I took a few deep breaths, my eyes tightly closed as I tried to compose myself. My hand shook violently as it moved down my body, resting atop my pussy as the first tear rolled off the side of my face.

“Mach es jetzt!” The german words crashing through the room like a loud clap of thunder. “Dumme hure!”

A stifled sob escaped through my quivering lips as my trembling fingers found my clit. The air growing heavy, the silence broken only by the ragged sound of my uneven breaths. I kept my head turned away from preying eyes of the man, my eyes tightly closed as the panic of the situation and the sensual feeling of my own touch conflicted my thoughts.

Soft moans formed in the depths of my constricted throat. Each heartbeat drummed a frantic rhythm in my chest, a desperate plea for escape echoing in the confines of my mind. The rustle of fabric filled the room, amplified by the deafening silence that hung between us, as the man’s hand slowly pulled at his trousers. The metallic rasp of the zipper being pulled down cut through the air like a blade, its sharp sound reverberating in my eardrums with a chilling finality. With each article of his clothing hitting the floor, every nerve in my body screamed in protest, a primal instinct urging me to flee from the impending unknown that lay before me. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I heard him step closer to where I laid, each passing moment stretching into an eternity of fear and uncertainty.

With a trembling breath, I braced myself for whatever fate awaited me, already resigned to the harsh reality that my body would bear the brunt of this twisted exchange – the finale being a crumpled up 10 note thrown on my bruised body like I was a piece of rubbish on the street…

“Holy shit-“As Aunt Beatrice took a drag from her cigarette Her gravelly voice cut through the tense silence like a knife. “What in the heavens happened to you?” Her eyes narrowing as they assessed the bruises that adorned my face like a grotesque mask.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, acutely aware of the judgment that seemed to emanate from her every word. The memories of the horrific night flashed before my eyes – the yelling, the shoving, the pain. I clenched my fists, trying to push back the rising tide of emotions threatening to engulf me.

Louella's callous words echoed in my mind as well, her nonchalant attitude towards my suffering sending a chill down my spine. "It's the name of the game, dear. Just make him happier next time," she had said, as if my pain was a mere inconvenience to be brushed aside.

The image of the newsstand attendant’s horrified expression haunted me, his eyes widening in shock as they took in the extent of my injuries. I had muttered a barely audible thank you, my gaze fixed on the ground as I hurried away, desperate to escape the prying eyes of strangers.

And now, facing Aunt Beatrice's mocking laughter, I felt the last shreds of my composure slip away. The weight of her words – dripping with disdain and superiority – crashed down on me like a ton of bricks.

"Here's the money from tonight," I said, tossing the notes onto the table in a messy wad. They fluttered down haphazardly, some landing askew. "I think there's close to 30 there or should be at least."

She reached out to straighten the crumpled bills, her brow furrowing as she quickly counted them. “Looks like you’re four pounds short, sweet child.” The use of adoring nicknames not masking the shortness of her tone. “Four pounds short and the bank wants to collect today – are you trying to make me lose my precious home?”

Glancing between her and the money on the table, confusion was etched on my face as I knew there was enough when I counted this morning. "That can't be –" My voice wavered, uncertainty creeping in. "I could've sworn there was 30 there this morning."

Beatrice's head lulled to the side, her dismissive tone cutting through the tension. "You were never the best at counting money, sweetheart," she quipped, a puff of smoke from her cigarette swirling lazily in the air before being exhaled right in my face. The sharp scent momentarily overwhelming my senses.

"I think it's best you get out there and get the money – wouldn't want you to be back on the streets again," she added, her words carrying a hint of warning.

She slowly pushed herself up from the table, the notes disappearing into the depths of her worn nightgown. Her dirty housecoat dragged along the floor as she shuffled towards her rotting chair, the frayed fabric whispering against the dusty floorboards. I stood dumbfounded, my mind racing as I tried to piece together where the cash could have disappeared to.

"Best get going, darling Vanessa," her raspy voice reverberated off the newspaper-covered walls, "Make sure to powder up before you leave – don't need those soldiers looking at you like a punching bag."

My shoulders slumped in defeat as I started walking towards the small room that held all my earthly possessions. Everything I could salvage from the rubble of my London home was now crammed into a space resembling a broom closet. The dresses I had collected through the years hung in a row, most too conservative for the line of work I found myself in.

Among the clothes were photos of my childhood – snapshots of my mother and father, frozen in time, their smiles forever preserved. In those images, there was no evidence of the sadness and despair that would later come to define my life. The young girl in the photographs had no inkling that in just a few short years, her father would be gone, leaving her at the mercy of an ungrateful aunt who would exploit her for the sake of paying the house notes.

“Chop chop, Vanessa – time's not stopping," Beatrice's voice called out. I rolled my eyes at her words, a mix of irritation and resignation washing over me as I reluctantly acknowledged the urgency of the situation.

As I made my way over to the vanity, my heart sank into my stomach at the sight that greeted me. The reflection in the mirror revealed the extent of the damage inflicted by the German's hand. My once carefully painted lips were now split at the top, a deep purple bruise spreading under my left eye. His fingerprints were scattered like dark constellations across my skin, leaving behind dancing indentations that served as a painful reminder of his violent touch. The marks on my neck and upper chest bore witness to the brutality of his actions, his decaying teeth leaving behind their mark.

With trembling hands, I reached for the makeup on the vanity, determined to conceal the physical reminders of the night's brutality. As I applied layer upon layer of foundation and concealer, I pushed the events in the back of my mine, determined to put on the facade that everything is fine and get the money that Aunt Beatrice needed. I readjusted the dress that I had worn through the night – giving myself a small smile in the mirror – the bruises faintly showing through the mask.

My heels clicked against the wooden floor with each step I took back to the main room. Beatrice's gaze trailed down my body as she took in my appearance, her eyes assessing and judging. "It's a real shame," she spoke, her voice cutting through the air as her eyes met mine.

"Pardon?" I replied, a sense of unease creeping into my voice at the ominous tone of her words.

A sickening smirk twisted on her wrinkled face as she continued, her words like venom dripping from her lips. "It's a real shame that American soldier never came back to fetch you." Her words landed like a heavy blow, my heart sinking at the cruel reminder of a past hope that had long since faded. "He was quite a looker – could've gotten you out of this hellhole and away from the hands of all those men," she continued, her tone laced with a bitter edge. As she lit another cigarette, the smoke curling lazily around her, her words hung heavy in the air. “Guess you’ll just have to be another whore on the street who has nothing to show for her life.”

My eyes moved towards the ceiling as I fought back the tears that pricked against my lower lids. "You're gonna ruin all that work if you start crying," her voice gruff and devoid of any trace of empathy. "These men aren't gonna pay for ya if they see those bruises,” The harsh reality of her words cut through me like a knife, leaving a trail of raw emotions in its wake.

"Wouldn't that be a shame," I sarcastically chuckled, the bitterness of my words hanging in the air like a heavy fog. The tension in the room crackled with unspoken resentment and suppressed fury. "I guess no money means no house, right?"

Her eyes shot daggers at me, a silent promise of retribution simmering beneath the surface. "Guess you'll have to join me on the streets, Auntie Beatrice," I continued, my tone cutting and cold. The same sickening smile that she'd give me mirrored on my face, a twisted reflection of the familial bond that had long since fractured beyond repair. "Get those hoses washed and ready,"

This time she chose to stay silent, her rigid posture and clenched jaw betraying the storm of emotions brewing beneath the surface. I could sense the turmoil festering inside of her, the knowledge that kicking me out of the house would sever her only source of income. There was no way she would go and find a job. No one was gonna hire a crippled old woman, especially with a war raging on like it was.

"Don't come back without my money," she finally spoke, her voice cold and distant. I rolled my eyes in response, a gesture of defiance and resignation mingled into one. I stormed out of the house, the door slamming shut behind me with a finality that echoed in the empty hallway…

I grimaced as he pulled out of me – his sweaty body collapsing off to the side as his large stomach rose and fell in a fast pace. The whiskey that I had consumed earlier now wearing off, the image of the man lying next to me making me groan internally – the way of his touch making my stomach churn. “Goddamn girl –“ His American accent thick. “Where’d you learn to fuck like that?”

I stayed silent, trying to play off like I was sleeping. The rustling of his head turning on the pillow as he looked over at me, making my heartbeat faster, the prayer that he would just leave repeating in my brain. The feeling of the thin sheet being pulled away from my body caused a shiver to run down my spine as his fingers lightly danced across my breast.

 “My oh my –“His smoker laced voice whispered as his mouth closed over my nipple – his teeth tugging on the sensitive skin causing a moan to slip past my lips. "I knew that would wake you up," he chuckled, his rotting teeth revealed a mischievous smile before finding the bud again.

I kept my hands pressed tightly against my side as his callused hands, weathered by countless months of war, pulled me closer to his body. The lingering scent of the day's heat clung to his skin, the smell causing my stomach to roll with nausea. Just as his hands reached between us, a sudden commotion outside the room shattered the moment. The sharp sound of hurried footsteps echoing on the wooden floors jolted him back to reality, breaking the seal that he had on me. His body moved to a sitting position, muscles tensing as his gaze fixated on the wooden door The commotion outside persisted, casting a shadow of unease over the room.

Feeling uneasy, I too rose slowly from the bed, hastily pulling the sheet tightly around me Thoughts raced through my mind, fueled by fear and the chilling rumors that circulated through the town. Whispers of German soldiers raiding taverns, killing the men and taking the women prisoners.

“I'm getting the hell out of here," the man muttered urgently, his movements swift as he practically threw himself to the floor in a rush to gather his clothes and make his escape.

As he frantically gathered his belongings, my concern shifted to a more practical matter. "What about my money?" I blurted out, stumbling out of the bed with the sheet trailing behind me like a makeshift gown. Determined not to be left empty-handed after our transaction, I followed him around the room, my finger jabbing into his shoulder to emphasize my point. "This wasn't free, mister."

His stocky body pushed past me, a look of fear etched on his face, his eyes darting around the dimly lit room. As he reached for his jacket hanging on the back of the chair, I saw my opportunity to grab what I came for – the money that was rightfully mine. After everything I had been through with this man, the betrayals, the lies, the deception, I wasn't about to leave empty-handed.

With determination fueling my actions, I lunged forward and seized the other end of his jacket, my hands frantically searching the pockets, desperate to find any trace of cash. The fabric crumpled beneath my fingers as I dug deeper, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Get your fucking hands off my jacket, slag!” His voice boomed through the room, a mixture of rage and panic, as his grip tightened on my arms, his nails digging into my skin.

Pain shot through me, but I refused to let go, driven by a mix of anger and desperation. The struggle escalated, our bodies twisting and turning in a chaotic dance of conflict. With a sudden burst of strength, he pushed me to the ground, the impact reverberating through my bones. Gasping for breath, I watched as he made a hasty escape, his heavy footsteps fading into the distance.

I ran out of the room, the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my heart racing with a mix of exhilaration and apprehension. The curious gazes of onlookers met mine as I scanned the hallway, searching for any sign of the man who had just slipped away from my grasp.

As I stood there, trying to catch my breath, Louella appeared at my side, her presence always bringing me a sense of dread.

"Well, at least there's some good news in all of this," Louella remarked casually, her tone tinged with a hint of mischief.

I turned to face her, my eyes meeting hers in a moment of silent communication. "And what might that be?" I inquired, my voice hinting with skepticism.

With a nonchalant gesture, Louella reached into the pocket of her nightgown, producing several crumpled notes. I watched intently as she smoothed them out and began to count, the sound of rustling paper filling the tense silence between us. Finally, she held up four bills, neatly arranged between her fingers.

"Germany has surrendered," Louella announced matter-of-factly, her words carrying a weight of significance that resonated in the air. "And there's a gentleman asking specifically for you down in the lobby."

She slipped the bills into the top of the sheet, patting the area lightly before she started walking away. The crisp sound of the bills sliding into place seemed oddly loud in the hushed room. I watched as she started walking away – her signature cane leading the way.

“Oh –” Her voice was soft yet carried a hint of playful suggestion. She paused, slowly turning to face me once more. “I would suggest leaving the sheet on – I don’t think you’ll be wearing it for very long.”

With a coy smile, she sauntered out of the room, my mind racing with thoughts of who could be waiting and her suggestion of keeping my body covered only in the thin, white sheet. Usually, Loella wanted her girls dressed to the nines – giving the man something to fantasize about before they seen what we were hiding underneath.

I snatched the money out of the cloth, feeling a rush of adrenaline as I walked back towards the bedroom. The crisp notes rustled as I stuffed them deep into my purse. Taking a deep breath, I was somewhat relieved that I had gotten the money for Beatrice. The weight lifting from my bare shoulders as I took a seat at the vanity. Checking out my tousled appearance, I did my short routine, giving my face a quick powder and running my fingers through my tangled hair. I needed to compose myself, to present an air of confidence in myself.

Once satisfied with my appearance, I took a deep breath and gathered the bottom of the sheet, preparing to descend to the bottom floor where the mystery man awaited. Each timid step down the staircase seemed to echo in the hushed space, heightening my sense of anticipation. The soft fabric of the sheet whispered against my skin, a reminder of my daring choice to leave behind the trappings of modesty. As I reached the lobby, a rush of emotions washed over me – excitement, curiosity, a touch of fear.

As I entered the room, the crackling fire cast a warm and inviting glow, despite the balmy weather outside. The man, with his back turned towards me, seemed completely engrossed in the dancing flames. His worn brown leather jacket, weathered by time and use, exuded a sense of comfort and familiarity.

I couldn't help but notice the way his short brown hair fell against the nape of his neck. A ruggedness exuding from his stance. His broad shoulders, tense with an unseen burden, hinted at a strength that belied his gentle demeanor. The dark slacks he wore hugged his hips perfectly, emphasizing his sturdy frame.

My bare feet made no sound as they padded softly against the floor, bringing me just inches away from the man. With a silent resolve, I took a breath and extended my hand towards him, the cool leather of his jacket meeting the warmth of my palm. His muscle tenses under my touch, my body backing away slightly as he began to turn to face me.

John Egan

My heart nearly shattered into hundreds of pieces as the face that invaded my dreams nightly stared back at me – the same blue eyes that caused me to melt in the back of that bar all those years ago now stared back at me. Memories flooded my mind like a relentless tide, carrying me back to that fateful night when our paths first crossed. The fear that he had died on the frontlines haunted me daily as I would picture us together. His promise to come back for me and take me away from this world was something I held onto – praying to the Lord above that he would be the one to fulfill that promise.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and still, there was no sign of him. The war raged on, claiming the lives of so many brave souls, and I was left to wonder if he had become just another casualty of the brutal conflict. But deep down, a flicker of hope remained, a tiny flame that refused to be extinguished.

 His callused thumb reached up, wiping away the tears that had fallen. His towering figure loomed over me, his eyes filled with a mix of weariness and determination.

"I told ya I'd come back for ya,"

[with-love-from-hell]

An update.

(Created June 9th, 2024)

Hello my lovely readers (both old and new). It has been a very hot minute since I have posted anything and I recognize that. I just wanted to give a short little update on some asks/comments I've been getting recently about my very low activity outside of reblogs.

A lot of stuff has happened personally over the past year or so that has left my thirst for writing completely dried up. I won't go into a lot of details, but there have been a lot of changes in friendships, amongst me training to be a supervisor at work (and completely changing my location of practice and working through a company merger), some more internal conflicts about whether me and my partner are having/adopting kids, amongst many other things. The time I would usually spend writing was during downtime at work, where I had no charting and many cancelations, and that has not been the trend lately- plus there is now a security blocker on my computer that completely blocks Tumblr from use, as well as Google Doc, which were previously the only two places I would draft my writings.

This is not me saying goodbye to writing all together. I still really love and enjoy it, but am needing to find some more free time and get back up the motivation to continue writing, which I have been hoping for over the past 9 or so months, but never happened. Because of this, I haven't moved my blog into "Hiatus", which I'm thinking I'm going to do now to avoid shame over having it open reciecing requests, and feeling too overwhelmed to even respond to them.

So for now, I am putting my blog into Hiatus.

Tips on Kofi are still accepted, but I will absolutely not be asking for any since I know I haven't been giving my all to writing lately, plus there are much more important things your money can be going to rn, like victims of the genocide in Palestine and Palestinian liberation.

In regards to my ongoing series:

I will eventually return to Melancholia, I really just don't know when. I likely will need to do a re-read of everything I've done with it and the parent series before that happens though, which is a lot to go through. I'm not making any promises, but my goal is to finish the series- I will say that much.

As for 5-sides: I completely stopped writing this one for now because I am going through a re-write of the series. Mostly because of the friendship shifts which resulted in 1 individual in the series being removed from my life, plus some shifts in other dynamics in that group. In addition, there were some things I felt I rushed and I could have done better at writing or incorporating devilgrams into the story, so I want to go back and comb through that one as well. I know this one didn't get much engagement because it's OC/my insert content, but it means a lot to me and I will be taking time to re-do it.

As for requests: I am going to put a pause on them until Melancholia is finished (which, like I said, doesn't have a clear timeline). I will also remind folks who do send in requests once they do open back up:

I am not your therapist, so please don't ask me for specific help with a problem you're having. I'm professionally trained and licensed as a therapist, but it is unethical (and illegal) for me to provide services without any agreements, HIPPA compliant technology, or respect for licensing laws that vary state to state, and even if it was, it is not something I want to do in this space. If you need help, please utilize Google or Psychology Today to find any services in your area.

Please keep requests somewhat simple and generalizable to a wider audience. I'm don't necessarily like writing for an mc with a Laundry list of diagnoses/problems occurring at once that seem *very* personal to the individual requesting, as I have many content enjoyers who want to relate to the writing I produce for free. This also takes up a lot more of my time researching to ensure I'm depicting everything correctly. This type of request is much better suited for a commission, given how much time and personalization goes into it. That doesn't mean you can't request writing for a specific diagnosis or problem (such as an eating disorder, self harm, or trauma) though. That I do encourage!

I am a person with a life outside of Tumblr. I have a full time job, an elder pet who needs significant attention, and a decent sized chunk of family and fiends that I am engaged with regularly off of the internet. Please don't harass me about your requests unless I have given you a clear timeline and am not providing updates. If you're just checking in that I have recieved them, I will reply to that and inform you that status of your request. However, you DO NOT need to send me a ton of messages asking the same thing when I had clearly indicated I was/am going to be working on it or that I'm not quite in the space to work on it, but would inform you when I was or tag you in it when its completed. This makes me far less likely to want to write your request. While it doesn't happen often, I've gotten it about commission requests a few times over the past few months and I just wanted this to serve as a gentle reminder.

I do look forward to getting the motivation to write again, and I appreciate all my readers who have supported me (not just with comments, likes, reblogs, and engagement, but financially as well when times were tough). I am so grateful for all of you and I appreciate so much that you all enjoy my writing enough to want to see more. I hope you all understand where I'm at, and can respect that while I take the time that I need ❤️

[raincitygirl76]

I have a question. My neighbour, whose front door is only 2 metres (6 feet) from my own front door, had cancer surgery 2 weeks ago. Once she's recovered, she will be starting chemotherapy. She is a lovely neighbour, and it is cold and flu season here in the Northern Hemisphere. I have promised her I will wear a mask whenever I am in the common areas, because I know she's immune-suppressed as fuck right now, and I really don't want to give her any bugs that could land her in hospital, and/or delay the chemo she needs.

Plus, I've been walking her dogs occasionally and taking out her garbage and recycling when she's too wiped. She can just leave the recycling on the mat outside her apartment door and text me that it's there. But with the dogs, she needs to hand me the leashes, so I need to get fairly close, even masked.

So here's my question (I finally got through all the explanatory blather. It only took 2 paragraphs). How many times can you reuse those paper masks before they stop being effective at keeping any germs on the inside of the mask? Particularly if I'm just wearing the mask for 5-10 minutes at a time, to check my mailbox in the lobby, or take out the garbage/recycling, or go down to the basement to do laundry. I'm pretty sure you don't need to discard the mask after a single use if you only used it for 5-10 minutes.

So I've been looping a paper mask over the inside doorknob of my front door to re-use. But now I'm worried I'll reuse the masks too often, they'll stop working, and I'll kill an extremely sweet neighbour. Did I mention her dogs are both rescues (who have their own Instagram account)? Or that she has a toddler grandson? Also, that she's on the strata council (Canadian-ese for the owners' council in a condominium building) and has been a prime source of gossip for me for the past 7 years as to what's going on in the building? Actually, she's on a leave of absence from the strata council right now, due to the cancer. But the point is, I actively LIKE this neighbour. I buy her vegan chocolate every Christmas because she's a vegan. I do not want to kill her.

I've also heard that the paper masks you have to discard are significantly better at blocking germs than the washable cloth masks that started showing up all over Etsy in March 2020 when even hospitals couldn't get medical grade PPE and the paper masks were nowhere to be bought. Is that true? That's why I've been using the paper masks, because I read that somewhere, but I can't remember if it was from a reliable source.

Sometimes I really wish I'd studied hard sciences at university instead of social sciences. That would've been much more useful in cases like this. Then I remember the reason I went into social science: my dreadful marks in high school math and chemistry. So I'm outsourcing this question to people who have expertise because they're actually good at this shit.

And yes, I tried DuckDuckGoing the answer before I turned to Tumblr (I don't google stuff anymore because Google is evil). The search results were wildly conflicting. If you don't know the answer either, please feel free to signal boost by reblogging. I really, really don't want to kill this very nice lady and leave her rescue dogs homeless.

[damistrolls]

Ancient Matters

(google doc link)

these 2 have been on my brain lately, so i wanted to write a little smthn smthn 2 show off their dynamic a little

cause honestly u probably wouldnt get to see how soft noboru is for yahiro otherwise lmao

anyways ummm thank u for reading and i rlly hope u enjoy, i had fun writing them

—

The only glance Noboru spared when Yahiro entered was one to check whether or not he was holding something. 

That little box in the teal’s hand meant so much, yet said so little. If only Yahiro brought one color box for good news, and a different one for bad news… 

“Mizu yokan?” 

“Neri,” the lawyer corrected with a smile, setting his ass right on the papers he had been looking over, causing Noboru to lean back in his seat with a slow, tired exhale. He always did this. Noboru really ought to just clear his desk as soon as Dayena mentions he’s coming. 

Yahiro held the box out to him. The cutesy little bear logo on the side did nothing to settle him. Why did he always wait so long to say whether it’s good or bad news? He probably got a kick out of it.

“They’re basically the same thing…” Noboru took the box and opened it, glancing in. 

“There’s also a chocolate cream puff.” 

“Ugh, fuck me.” Noboru near-immediately plucks the sweet from the box, unable to resist taking a bite. He shakes his head, and puts the rest back in, closing the box lid to leave the rest of the cream puff and the neri yokan for later. “Gods. It’s like you’re trying to make Fansia pissed at me.” 

“She’s too uptight, and I’m saying that to you of all trolls.” Yahiro laughs, watching as Noboru wipes a bit of chocolate from the corner of his mouth, setting the box aside. “Why’s she so concerned about your figure, anyways?”

“She’s just particular.” 

“You make too many excuses for her.” 

“Hiro…” 

“I’m just saying, you’d still be hot as fuck even if you got a little soft in the tummy,” he teases lightly, reaching down towards Noboru’s stomach as if he’s about to tickle him, before his hand is lightly slapped. 

“Yahiro.”

“Shit, it might even make you hotter. Like I’m seeing it in my brain now, and I really think you could rock th—“

“Yahiro, please. What are you here for?” 

“Oh! Right!”

He could kill this man. And he would, if he didn’t also love him. 

Yahiro hops off of the desk, scattering the pages he had been sitting on. Noboru sighs and begins to gather them back into a neat pile, watching out of the corner of his eye as the teal moves up to the window and stares out. You could see everything from that window. The city seemed small from all the way up here. It always did. Noboru sometimes wondered if Yahiro envied him for getting to see this view every day. 

“I think you should meet my kismesis.”

“So that’s what this is about? You had me worried you killed someone.” 

Yahiro turns his head to look at him, and flashes an amused smile. He must think it’s funny, but with the way that man lives, Noboru can never be too sure. The company he keeps isn’t always the best, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t worry about the audacious little attorney. 

“Why the sudden change? I thought you said I probably shouldn’t meet the other people in your life,” Noboru sighs out, already tired by his moirail’s antics. 

“I know what I said. But I dunno. This situation’s a bit more complicated than I originally wanted to admit.”

Noboru raised a brow curiously.

“How so?”

Yahiro paused at that, looking out the window again. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his bright, gaudy pants, and despite the smile on his face, Noboru could tell he was feeling conflicted. So, the violet stood, and joined his old friend by the window. He stared out to look at the cityscape with him, deciding to just give Yahiro a moment to collect his thoughts. Eventually, the man did indeed speak up again. 

“You wouldn’t feel weird if I said I was kinda pale for him too, right?”

“Honestly, Hiro, I’d be more weirded out if you weren’t, with the way you spoke about him. Honestly, if I didn’t know you so well, I would have thought you’ve been planning to break up with me. It almost felt like some kind of power play to have you fawning over him to me.” 

“Good thing you know me, then, huh?” 

Noboru took a glance at his moirail, who smiled up at him, flashing those big, adorable teeth of his. The violet couldn’t help but soften his gaze a bit.

“Yes, indeed. Good thing.” He looked out the window again, pausing a moment, before continuing. “So, you really want me to meet him, then?”

“Yeah. I think, you know… It’s a good idea for you two to know each other, in case the pale feelings get a little hard to ignore.” 

“I agree. I’d rather know the man personally, if there’s a chance we could share the same quad with you.” 

“… How do you feel about that, by the way?” 

Noboru hesitates, eyes falling shut as he thinks. 

“Honestly… I’m glad. A little relieved, even. I sometimes feel as though I’m a terrible choice for a moirail, or any quad for that matter, simply because of all of the constraints I have to operate under. Regardless of whether or not it becomes anything, I’m just glad you have other people looking after you, Yahiro, to make up for the times that I can’t be with you. I love you, and it would only make me happy for you to find more people to take care of you.” 

There’s a few moments of silence, before Noboru finds himself getting pulled down by his jacket, feeling the familiar mix of lip and tooth against him. He returns Yahiro’s eager kiss with a soft exhale, fins giving pleased little flicks. When the kiss breaks, he’s immediately pulled in by his lapels again, the teal now kissing at his cheek affectionately, causing Noboru to give a soft, amused chuckle. 

“I hardly said anything, Hiro…”

But instead of a proper response, all he gets in return is a hum, a purr, more kisses peppered along his face, and scattered ‘I love you’s between said kisses. Noboru couldn’t stop a little purr from rumbling in his own chest as well as he allows the shorter man to shower him in affection. 

… He wonders if it’s too late to cancel his next appointment.

[lunarblazes]

i made a desertduo playlist and then decided to be a nerd and write explanations for all the songs! like a nerd!

playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZGylutQpyTbgX7MY7Lrzz?si=t8_kBwBHSYG5kxTvZoIrTQ&dl_branch=1

QUICK DISCLAIMER: i am aware that a lot of these songs may have or imply romantic connotation! i would really really like it if these were not read as though those romantic connotations carry over to scar and grian. even if we’re just talking about the third life characters, i would prefer not to ship them or imply romance between them on this post. thank you so much and keep reading if you’d like to see the playlist analysis!

and now that that’s out of the way, PLAYLIST TIME!

•

passerine- the oh hellos

“you were the song that i’d always sing/you were the light that the fire would bring/but i can’t shake this feeling that i/was only pushing the spear into your side again”

this song really just... firstly, it’s one of my favorite songs, and the line i chose there pushes home the sort of terrified devotion i think the desert has. plus there’s a fun line about the cold wind blowing in from the north in the ending bits that i think very much fits their conflict with the red army, and a lot of legally obligated flight imagery that i need to have in every possible song because i’m a fuckin nerd.

•

no children- the mountain goats

“i hope that our few remaining friends/give up on trying to save us/i hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us”

i will admit that no children isn’t a perfect fit, but the general vibe of sort of defiant pessimism and betrayal fits very well with them! it’s very triumphant in its death, and i think that is very desertcore, because what’s more triumphantly dead than being the last duo left alive?

•

skulls- bastille

“when all of our friends are dead and just a memory/it’s always been just you and me/for all to see”

okay like this entire song is SO MUCH DESERT VIBES? LIKE SO MUCH. if i were to ever make an animatic for them i’d do it with this song. “a match is our only light, it’s day of the dead i’m indiana jones, yeah,” “i hope you can make me laugh six feet under when we’re bored of each other,” “i don’t want to rest in peace, i’d rather be the ghost that annoys you,” IT JUST KEEPS GOING. i think this song would work well with any third life duo, honestly, but these two in PARTICULAR just because of how it ended with them literally ‘buried’ next to each other, and again, the chaotic death vibes.

•

freaking out- mystery skulls

“i just keep out of my tongue/til all you want is done/and you just wanna leave me, oh yeah”

this song is a very third life grian song to me in particular! it could be my bias because of my little headcanon of grian burning on his red life, but seriously, this song is very reminiscent of the back and forth of loyalty that grian has with scar. the above line is sort of representative of the betrayal on red, and of course grian’s life debt.

•

night running- shin sakiura

(this song is in japanese! these lyrics are the rough english translation i found on google.) “someday we will stand at this place once again/for sure we will stand up again and again/we will watch it will the end/i want you to live freely”

this song is actually the ending theme for the anime bna, which i adore, and i just added it on a whim before looking at the translated lyrics. but um. holy hell the lyrics hurt me because they’re about running in search of someone, running for no reason, looking for something, and it just really hit, because the desert never really had a goal! they didn’t expect to survive, they were trying to survive, but what was their longterm goals? nothing. so that sort of endless search felt fitting for this. plus the song is a parallel for the two estranged best friends of the show so! perfect.

•

summer nights- siames

“it’s summertime/singing al green in your car/heading to a party/and the night air feels alive”

okay again, i will admit this song is mainly on here because i absolutely love it, but i also do think it fits well. it’s also about healing/estranged friendships, with a very distinct feeling of nostalgia for a happier time. maybe for a time when this was all a game, when there was no blood or betrayals on their hands. little canon divergent, but it’s fun for me, so into the playlist it goes!

allies or enemies- the crane wives

“are we allies or enemies/this will be the death of me, this will be the death of me/all’s fair in love and war but i can’t fight with you anymore”

. i just. points to that lyric. it literally led to both of their deaths. are they allies or enemies? it also fits with scar still wanting grian to be his friend even after he’s no longer indebted with the line “what happens now? do we have another go, do we bow out?” another very good animatic song that i’ve considered heavily. i listen to this playlist a lot

•

burn him down- kitsch club

“you must destroy, oh you must destroy, beyond all recognition/you gotta burn him down, you gotta burn him down, beyond all recognition”

this song just has a lot of fire and arson and high energy vibes. my little war criminals look at them go

•

rose- the oh hellos

“what's true is like a sickle/it'll cut you to the middle/your rose is without a thorn/but no, my mouth don't taste of metal/from the pot here to the kettle/i think we got a lot we gotta learn”

this one is like the exact opposite vibe of burn him down. the oh hellos are so poetic and this song just... feels like the healing potions after a battle. many of the metaphors here fit, i think

•

lone digger- caravan palace

“hey, brother, what you thinking/that good ol' sound is ringing/they don't know what they're missing/(they call it lonely diggin')”

okay this song is straight up just a dance song. i added it because i like it and also for some reason it feels ominous to me? i’ve got no idea why, it’s seriously just a club song, but it’s a banger and it’s in this playlist because i said so

•

feed the machine- poor man’s poison (suggested by my friend argonaughtkeene!)

“somethin’s goin” on, just look around/fear is on the rise, and there’s blood all over the ground/let’s all just blindfold the poor, we all know what’s in store/ we got ‘em now, just break ‘em down a little bit more”

this song is a VIBE for both desertduo members. there’s parts for both of them. it’s ruthless, gritty, very maniacal, perfect. listen to it and you’ll immediately understand why i added it.

•

sweet tooth- scott helman

“i hold hands with cosmic entities/i’ll take this two-ride if i please/i got this sweet tooth baby, yeah i got this sweet tooth baby/i exploit my opportunities/some broken hearts, some cavities”

sweet tooth is super upbeat and bright with these strangely dark lyrics? like i’m pretty sure it’s about addiction. in any case, i thought the “i hold hands with cosmic entities” very funnily fitting for both of the desert boys. it’s a banger!

•

necromancin’ dancin’- bear ghost

“when i’m necromancin’, everyone’s dancin’/nobody can stop me, i dare you to try/the dead are infused with insatiable groove and they’re coming for you, there’s nowhere to hide”

necromancin’ dancin’ just. bastard vibes. there’s not much more to say it’s just huge villain song vibes. i adore it.

•

crazy = genius- panic! at the disco

“if crazy equals genius/then i’m a fucking arsonist/i’m a rocket scientist/if crazy equals genius/you can set yourself on fire/but you’re never gonna burn, burn, burn”

i. yeah. y. yeah. more bastard vibes. also shoutout to an artist i saw (i think it was strifesolution?) who made a desertduo piece to this song because i have not stopped thinking about it ever

•

sweet bod- lemon demon

“i’m diggin’ up your coffin/and pouring out the contents/your sexy, sweet solution/is ripe for distribution”

you know how i said freaking out was a grian song? this one is a scar song. it’s my favorite lemon demon song and also it has the total macabre capitalism vibe that third life scar NAILED. more bastard vibes good for him <3

•

drunk- the living tombstone

“feel so much better than usual/i feel indisputable, oh/but now i’m feeling so beautiful/don’t wake me up from this spell i’m under, if i’m still breathing/i know that i will be ugly when i feel like myself again, oh/but right now i’m feelin’ so beautiful”

the descent of this song, starting off with a polite gathering and ending with a gasping drunk in the parking lot gazing at the stars that he can barely see? yes. yeah. mhm. i used a line from this song for a fic, actually, it fit so well.

•

oh no!- marina

“one track mind, one track heart/if i fail, i’ll fall apart/maybe it is all a test/cos i feel like i’m the worst so i always act like i’m the best”

bubbly pop track about false confidence, the ruthlessness of the pop industry, and the influence of the media? you know why this is here. it vibes. it rocks.

•

do it all the time- i don’t know how but they found me

“we’re taking over the world/a little victimless crime/and when i’m taking your innocence/i’ll be corrupting your mind/no need to cry i’m only doing everything i want to do because i do it all the time”

EVEN MORE BASTARD VIBES! SOMEHOW THERE IS MORE! this playlist is half villain songs and half heart-wrenching ballads and that’s the real desert experience i think.

•

the phoenix- fall out boy

“i’m gonna change you/like a remix/then i’ll raise you/like the phoenix”

BATTLE SONG BATTLE SONG! i’ll be honest i partially chose this song because i am a huge sucker for phoenix grian imagery in particular, but it’s also just a very good war song for them. villain song no 18372948 except this one originally had a hero vibe and now it’s changed specifically for them?? wild. their power

•

the other side- the greatest showman

“right here, right now/i’ll put the offer out/i don’t wanna chase you down, i know you see it/you run with me/and i can cut you free/out of the treachery/and all you keep in”

scar and grian’s desert monopoly conversation went exactly like this canonically because i said so fuck you <3

•

icicles- the scary jokes (suggested by my friend demizorua!)

“icicles don’t soften when they die/so why should i, why should i?/oh, icicles don’t soften when they die/they sharpen into sabers and they stab you in the eye”

this song actually has specific parts for both grian and scar! my cool epic friend mx demizorua pointed both of them out to me and i adored it so much. it’s a very spiteful song, just like the desert boys. also it feels vaguely murderous. perfect

•

problems- mother mother (suggested by my friend demizorua!)

“i’m a loser, a disgrace/you’re a beauty, a luminary, in my face”

literally this entire song fits them. particularly their relationship with the flower husbands, to me, honestly— the whole “when we meet at the pearly gates/you’ll get the green light/and i’ll get the boot in the face” reminds me a lot of them hdksjdks

•

tongues and teeth- the crane wives

“i know that you mean so well/but i am not a vessel for your good intent/i will only break your pretty things/i will only wring you dry of everything”

h. yeah. this song is literally gaslight gatekeep girlboss and i attribute it to the desert for that reason alone. songs to commit murder to!

•

you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead- saint motel

“you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead/and the list, it grows, and grows, and grows/it grows, and grows, and grows/and grows, and grows, and grows/until it’s everyone you’ve ever known”

this one is very self-explanatory. enemies pogchamp

•

curses- the crane wives

“there’s a fire in my brain and i’m burning, love/oh my, oh my/keep running to the sink, but the well is dry/oh my, oh my/every word i say is kindling/but the smoke clears when you’re around”

okay again! this one has two very specific parts for both of them. grian’s the first verse, which is above, and scar’s the second verse!! i really do like my fire imagery for these two don’t i? well, i blame them for having a fuck ton of tnt on them at all times and literally burning their enemy’s banners as a final act of defiance.

[masterhandss]

Hamefura♪ Idol AU! (part 3)

Thank you so much to the people who have voiced their interest for this AU! I honestly wouldn’t have planned on writing any of this and just planned to keep it all in my head if no one asked :’’DD Special thanks to @ineedglassesalways​​ for the song reqs for this one! please check her out she has amazing art!

Please bare in mind that my thoughts are an absolute mess and that what i’m talking about switches between Fortune Lover and Hamefura at the snap of a finger. Most info is the same, so just try to understand which i’m talking about while reading fjhgsdjhfg

(Also i’m gonna start calling this “My Next Life as an Idol?! All Routes lead to Doom!!!” or HameFura♪ now hgfjsdgf)

Directory: Hamefura♪ Part 1 - Fortune Lover ||  Hamefura♪ Part 2 - hamefura

Edit: I added a cut bc i’m starting to sympathize with the people who has to scroll passed all this gjshgf

Random Plot and World-building stuff

Sorcier Entertainment is the biggest entertainment business for the past 2 decades, bringing out and producing the best quality of idols, actors, models, composers, musicians, DJs etc. It is a parent company to a lot of branches and agencies. 

Sorcier Pro. is the main sub-branch of SorEn, being the most popular agency for producing the current hit in the market, which are idols. There a few other agencies within SorEn, but they wont be important until later. Geoffrey Stuart is the president of Sorcier Entertainment, and is the overseer of the main idol branch (no one knows why though, probably bc his lil bros are there). Entertainment is such an important and prevalent part of Society that the combination of the Stuarts holding power of the the entertainment industry, as well as Mr. Stuart being the prime minister, they are truly considered to be the most influential family in the country, which is added by the fact that every member of the family is an outstanding and well-respect individual. 

Sorcier Pro. has a variety of high quality facilities for their idols, and even had a dormitory where they can stay in. This was done for the sake of maximizing the idol’s work hours while giving them a comfortable and accessible place of rest. Not all idols are living in the dormitories, and is usually just housing the popular ones at the time. 

All of the main characters (except Sirius, and Villainess!Katarina) are living in the dormitory during the events of the “game”. Nicol and Sophia has rooms there, but they usually return to their home because they are more comfortable there. Katarina and Keith also regularly visit their parents whenever they are free, so their stay is a 50/50. Maria doesn’t visit her mother often (as her house is too far from her private school and work) so she’s always at the dorms. 

A lot of the well known powerful, political and celebrity families (that are the equivalent to “nobles” in this world) are collaborators and sponsors of the company, one of the main sponsors being the Claes Family.

I thought of just making the setting an “Idol Academy” like in Aikatsu! and EnStars!, but I though nah, that’s just too easy. Industry idols are much more interesting to me, and that plot works better for a “idol rhythm game/producer simulator”, specifically for what M.C. gets to do in the game (plus I was listening to IM@S when writing the first part so hgfsdjhfdgsj)

Most prestigious families has their kids be home-schooled, especially ones that are involved in the entertainment industry. This is so that they can focus on their career while they are still young. The exception to this was Maria, until she became an idol and had to take a hiatus from school as Sorcier Pro. expects her to focus on expanding her career. She takes supplementary classes on the weekends.

Katarina’s solo unit name in Fortune Lover is Nobelia (a combination of “nobilis or noble” and “lobelia”, the blue flower of malevolence or evil). She sometimes gets temporary teammates to join for tournaments and projects, but she is a solo idol. 

So the units are Fortuna (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol), Amour (Maria, Sophia, and Mary), Nobelia (Katarina solo), Picotee (Sophia solo), Marigold (Mary solo), Alcea (Maria solo), Regalis (Gerald and Alan), Edel Herz (Keith and Nicol). 

The name’s origins being: Fortuna as the greek of ‘Fortune’, Amour as the french of ‘Love’, Picotee as the dual colored flower (that can be white and red), Marigold (bc obviously) as the flower of passion, Alcea from alcea rosea (the pink hollyhock, which almost means strength and healing), Regalis as a root word/synonym to royal/royalty, Edel Herz being just a google translate of “noble heart” in german teehee (pls appreciate all the googling I had to do dhfgsjhfdg yes it’s mostly flower names bc I have no originality)

yes i changed the names form my original post, don’t call me out asdfgh

Idols don’t really need a stage name if they are a solo idol, but most popular idols are associated with one so it just became a trend to have both stage names and unit names. 

In the original game, Maria’s default stage name is “Cinderella”, which you can then change into the username or player name. This is so that Maria can keep her name while still giving the players a custom name. 

Maria’s original stage name is a nod to a lot of things: the “Cindrella syndrome” that her character is based on, The name of Fortuna’s fans/fanbase (as most players really are a fan of the boys), and is also a reference to how you are the main love interest for the boys (as you are their true Cinderella)

Katarina doesn’t retain the same stage name “Nobelia” as Villainess!Katarina does, in fear that it might her more similar to her, leading her to a doom end. She doesn’t have a stage name, unlike her friends. Her fans would call her “Bakarina” online though, but she never finds out about it jhagjsfg

Fortuna is an all-around male idol unit, one that can take on different images and genres with ease. The image of the unit changes depending on which boy is the center/lead of the song:

With Gerald, the music focuses on the instrumentals or the orchestra, giving a royal or heavenly vibe. The songs have an emphasis on righteousness, the beauty of life and a prosperous future. The songs for the fans usually has a theme of “reminiscent love” or “looking forward to a future with their partner”. A good example of a unit center song for his is Genuine Revelation from EnStars, and Flower as a solo song from his VA

With Keith, the music becomes more mature. The songs have more seductive lyrics, and has an emphasis on “forbidden love” or “having a secret relationship” with the fans. The lyrics are usually innocent in nature, until you read in-between the lines. Sometimes, his center songs throw a curveball and becomes about a “pure and innocent love” or “longing to be loved”. A good example for his solo song is Gekkoujou no Aria from A3 (please listen to it, it’s by Keith’s VA and the lyrics screams “Keith”)

With Alan, the guitar, violin and piano take the center stage.The music usually has more instrumentals than lyrics. The songs are primarily about being one’s true self, loving who you are and looking back at the past. Friendship and Identity are common themes in his songs. Sometimes, his center songs would throw a curve ball and be about something like “not acknowledging one’s feelings until it is too late”. A good song that represents his usually themes is Bokura no Kizuna from A3

With Nicol, the music is more slow and deep. The songs are usually about self-conflict, self-development and change. His songs sometimes have a theme of having an extreme adoration for the fans, a love so strong that time nor age can make it falter. “Being the only one for him” is the theme of his more popular songs. A good example for his solo song is Sword and Soul from his very own VA!

Yeah, basically the image of the center idol is reflected in the performance.

I don’t have a full list of idol song recommendations yet, but my friend who i mentioned above already recommended a bunch of good duo songs for the boys!: (feel free to suggest stuff if you guys have any :DD)

Gerald/Keith - Es No Yutsu from A3

Keith/Nicol- Plastic Poker from A3

Alan/Nicol - Don't Cry from A3

In the original game, all four boys we’re scouted while the girls all auditioned to become idols. Now, since they are all close friends, Gerald was able to market the talents of his friends and was able to get them all scouted into Sorcier Production. 

Fortuna has a producer before Maria, but by the beginning of the game, he had to leave due to health reasons, leading to the sudden application for a new producer. While many producers offered to take care of the boys alongside their other idols, Fortuna insisted that they want a new producer who would focus solely on them. 

Mary and Sophia also have their own producers, but they are barely present because they are busy handing other idols (and eventually, will let go of Mary and Sophia once they decide that they want Maria to produce them)

While Fortuna, Mary and Sophia’s careers were able to skyrocket quickly do to their appeals and talents, Katarina’s career grew slowly compared to her friends. This is because, despite to protests of her Producer Anne, she usually takes smaller gigs in far away towns, malls and small live houses. This is because Katarina wanted to perform in front of people who can’t easily access or attend live performances outside of the internet, just like her own small town in her previous life. She knew how happy she’d feel if there was an idol performance near her area, so she wanted to share that joy to other people. 

Katarina doesn’t join her friends in doing acting and modeling jobs until much later, when Maria joins their group. 

Anne Shelley acts as Katarina’s fitness instructor, personal health manager, and producer. She was brought into Katarina’s life even before she regained her memories, only exclusively as a health manager recommended to the Claes Family. She ended up taking on more jobs that involves watching over Katarina as the years pass by, as the young girl started gaining more and more interests and hobbies. Katarina wonders how Anne is able to be qualified for so many jobs, but she just sums it up as Anne being amazing! (Katarina: I guess she’s kind of like a maid!... or a babysitter...) Anne was (somehow) able to become a producer in Sorcier Productions and was easily recommended for Katarina due to their history. Anne cares a lot about Katarina in her happiness, and will do anything to support her (both version of her, in fact), so much that she is willing to juggle so many careers in order to stay by her side. 

Katarina has a small farm that she tends to in her free time (since she doesn’t get a lot of job offers in the first place) that is located in the garden grounds near the main office of Sorcier Pro. Her visitors/helpers differ each day, depending on who is available (and who intentionally made themselves available to make sure they can spend as much time as they can with Katarina)

While her friends constantly get fan mail, the delivery man is always wondering why Katarina always specifically gets a small light box. In reality, it’s packages sent by Tom the gardener, from the Claes Mansion, showing her all his new prototypes for the snake toy. While Katarina first started out as making them out of paper before deciding on buying them online, she knew her family would be suspicious and question why she’s making such a purchase, so she was surprised when Tom started joining her in making fake snakes, until the snakes started to look even more realistic than the plastic ones online!

Maria Campbell: A Girl Chosen by Destiny

Since “Maria” is an involved protagonist, she gets to keep her name in the game, with her idol alias being the “username”of the player

Just like in HameFura, the game doesn’t give much on Maria’s actual history. 

The game does have an implied personality for her, being a kind and hardworking girl who puts all her focus on the task at hand. The game implies that she is also a bit introverted, with her personality becoming more open and outgoing as the game progresses (implied through the slight changes in dialogue choices).

She’s a bit of a country bumpkin who moved into the big city in order to experience the world outside her town. She was able to gain a scholarship to a school in the city, and moved alone to stay with her aunt from her father’s side.

Due to her father leaving the family when she was young to due to rumors that she might be the daughter of a different man, Maria’s relationship with her mother is still very strayed. Thanks to these rumors, her father left her and her mother when she was young, and her town heavily criticized the two for the adultery that her mother apparently committed. These rumors stemmed form the fact that even as a child, Maria was beautiful (with clear blue eyes and bright blonde hair, that are in contrast to her mother’s dull eyes and dull hair). While her mother was fare-faced, the appearance that Maria had was usually associated with celebrities or artists, making people believe that Maria didn’t come from her father. Despite Maria’s mother claiming that none of it was true, the rumors got so out of hand that Maria’s father became ashamed of his family, leading him to leave without a word.

In the beginning of the game, she stayed with an Aunt from her father’s side, on the condition that she somehow pays the bills by herself, leading her to want to get a job. 

Maria saw the announcement of Sorcier Production being in need of new staff, so she applied quickly in order to start saving money. Thanks to a set of misunderstandings, she accidentally got the role as a producer, despite her lack of credentials (not knowing that she was the beginning of a big project of SorEn)

Maria is an extremely hardworking person, believing that if she worked hard enough, she will be one day rewarded with the love that she’s always dreamed of receiving.  Fortune Lover makes you think that Maria is naturally able to produce 7 idols, but in reality, it’s at the expense of Maria overworking herself to the bone, with almost no time for herself at all. Sometimes she sleeps in her small desk office instead of the household that she’s paying the bills of, in order to maximize her work hours. She dedicates every second that she has on the four boys, so when they shower her with love and attention, she was able to easily fall in love with them as well (and sadly becomes dependent on their validation as a personal reward for her efforts). 

A month before one of Fortuna’s biggest live performance (or a little bit after Maria joins them as their producer), Maria oversaw the training of another idol who came to her and ask for help (not knowing that she was just trying to get close to Maria to get close with the Fortuna boys). Maria helped her train her dancing and singing, and even memorized her choreography in order to critique her steps. She became too dedicated in helping that idol improve, thinking that the girl wanted to be friends with her. When the event happened, the female idol was hit with bad karma and injured her leg just as the live started, leaving her unable to perform. This causes an uproar among the staff, as the set list was too complicated to change in such short notice. Gerald, who is aware that Maria has been helping their colleague, encourages Maria to take her place since she knew the lyrics and the dance. Thanks to the encouragement of the boys, Maria debuts in front of a huge crowd, gaining instant popularity as the cinderella idol that saved the live event. 

Most of Maria’s job as a producer in arranging the schedules of the boys, staying in contact with their costume designer, staying in contact with their personal composers and lyricists, sorting through job offers, keeping watch of their health, watching them while they practice and accompanying them in their jobs. When she isn’t there to accompany any of them, another producer temporarily takes her place. 

As Maria’s popularity increases, she is given job offers that prevents her from focusing on being a producer. Since the boys are very fond of Maria, they are very encouraging of her desire to become an idol too, and offers to help support her and themselves moving forward. 

The game itself doesn’t make the changes in Maria’s occupation obvious, since Maria’s idol life is only prevalent in the Idol Rhythm Game Mode, but in reality the increase in workload is slowly eating her up (not that she’d let anyone know that)

Maria, as an idol, gets constantly harassed by her peers (especially Katarina) for being a nobody idol who took the spotlight away from them, as well as for being a close ally to Fortuna. A lot of scenes in the story mode is the boys saving her from the harassment (leading to a lot of good CG art that are sold as posters :P)

Depending on whose romance route you are on, Mary and Sophia start out as very hostile towards Maria, as her existence takes away the attention that their loved ones were supposed to give to them. Sophia warms up the fastest, as Maria’s lack of hostility towards her makes both her and Nicol easily attached. Even after the three starts as unit as Amour, Mary’s relationship with maria is mostly professional, before she slowly warms up to her somewhere near the end of the Alan Romance Route. The three can be considered friends, but they still seemed more like colleagues in the eyes of other people. 

When Katarina meets Maria, she was very surprised to know that the Maria she played as in the game was a more humane person than the game shows up (somehow who isn’t perfect in every way, and works hard and long to be able to provide for both herself and the four boys)

Their meeting and friendship bloomed in the same way as the Otome Game version (because i’m too lazy to jot down every minor difference hgfjsdgf), surprising Katarina that baking hobby that was just mentioned in text or used as a plot device is actually real and flourishing, and is something she actively supported Maria. 

Due to Katarina’s slow popularity gain, and Maria being a novice idol, they usually took and accepted jobs together since they both needed a boost. Instead of the quick burst of popularity that Maria has in the game, this time she wants to take each step slowly with Katarina, with the desire for them to grow at the same time.

Since Katarina is now aware of the hardships that Maria must be facing as both a producer and an idol, this time Katarina and Anne often help Maria with her paperwork and organization. Whenever Maria isn’t there to follow Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol, Anne now takes over if she’s available or she’d recommend a colleague that she knows would assist the boys like a pro. 

Katarina insists that Maria doesn’t have to shoulder all her burden alone, and that she has all their friends around to help her and support her as they do with each other. Katarina tells her that it’s okay to ask for help and even offers her hand constantly (wow, Katarina can easily carry all these boxes of documents? My hero~) and Maria takes this lesson to heart.

Even though Maria felt nervous about joining Katarina’s friend group so suddenly, which even includes the very idols that she’s meant to watch over, Katarina was very insistent that Maria’s wonderful and warming presence would let her blend in so easily (Katarina isn’t aware of how the relationships of the characters were like in the original game since she never finished). Maria is eventually able to become friends with everyone, and is easily able to hold conversations with Mary and Sophia without Katarina around. Maria is there to act as a straight man to Mary’s exaggerated attempts at hindering the boy’s time with Katarina, and Maria often acts as an ear to Mary’s gossips about other idols. Maria, while not an avid fan of novels as Sophia and Katarina, can still join conversations about books by asking details, recommendations and insights on books she’s already read. Maria can easily get along with the boys as well, since they are in each other’s presence most of the time due to her role. They don’t hesitate to help Maria whenever they can (despite her resistance), and she’s usually the one who stops the arguments between Gerald and Keith whenever they are in the middle of a job. 

Since Katarina ended p being so attached to Maria, the boys sometimes takes advantage of Maria’s role as a producer to have her work instead of attending to the woman of their affections (of course they feel somewhat bad about it, but it’s better than watching them look so love-struck with each other!) but it ends up backfiring when Katarina lets go of all her activities in favor of assisting Maria with her job as a producer.

Whenever Maria is free, she insists on borrowing the small kitchen in the Office in order to use the small over to bake some pastries and treats for her friends. Katarina constantly endorses the amazingness of Maria’s sweets, and they are both happy whenever their friends compliments the results of Maria’s hard work.

Compared to her work schedule in the game, Maria can now work comfortably as both an idol and a producer, thanks to the support and help of her friends. 

Sirius Dieke: The 5th Love Interest

Sirius Dieke is a non-payable character in Fortune Lover, who usually appears in Gerald and Nicol’s stories and side story events to explain things about the world and the past relationship of the characters.

He is another idol in Sorcier Pro, and is an old friend to Nicol.

In reality, he’s actually a hidden character within the game that can only be playable if you get a Friendship Ending in the first playthrough. Getting a neural ending is already super hard, so Sirius being playable wasn’t revealed until two months after the game initial release. The game is so good at hiding this fact that not even the dataminers were able to find evidence of his existence outside of being an NPC. 

Getting a Sirius Route is only possible in the New Game+ Mode, with story events and side story events dedicated to him alone. He only comes with only one new song though, so people in forums usually don’t recommend going to the Sirius Route in the second playthrough (unless you’re a completionist dgjfd)

There’s also the fact that Sirius’ Route has a completely different tone than the rest of the game. The developers of the game planned on removing his route in their game update, but due to the outcry of his fans, they kept it in, and even included a payed DLC where you can instantly unlock his route on your first playthrough. 

In Sirius’ Route, it’s revealed that he was the son of a former celebrity and one of his maids, and that his real name is Raphael Wolt. His mother quited her job just before he was born. They were ultimately hunted down by Mrs. Dieke, who refused to believe that her husband had a mistress.

Raphael and his mother were kidnapped by people payed by Mrs. Dieke, and as his mother begged for her to spare their lives, Mrs. Dieke’s plans were revealed: Her own son is ill and was slowly dying from an illness, and in her jealousy of Raphael’s strong physique and health, she has decided to take Raphael as her own son, as both him and her original son both looked like their fathers more than their mothers. 

In front of his eyes, Raphael’s mother was murdered in cold blood and Raphael was left to suffer from various degrees of shock therapy and blunt forces to the head in order to forcefully induce amnesia without killing him. He wakes up in the hospital bed with no memories of who he is, and Mrs. Dieke graciously plays the part of a concerned mother who is visiting her own son in order to sell the idea that Raphael is her own. 

In the background, a news headline states that a mother and son was found dead in an abandoned warehouse.

The doctor tells Mrs. Dieke that her son “Sirius” might not recover his memories, and despite the glee in her voice, Mrs. Dieke acts and pretends to be devastated by the news. Unbeknownst to both of them, Sirius did eventually regain his lost memories over time and realizes that the woman claiming to be his mother is in fact the very person who had killed his only family. 

Sirius learns that the reason Mrs. Dieke is so insistent on having a son was to be able to nurture and create a new star that would dazzle the entertainment world, with hopes of being able to live vicariously through her son’s career and success. Feeling disgust and hatred towards the woman that he is now forced to call “mother”, he plans to enact his revenge by destroying the entertainment world from the inside, exposing its ugliness to the world.

Sirius ends up becoming an idol because of the encouragement of his “mother”, leading him to be affiliated with Nicol and Gerald. He had already met them when they were all young, and he even planned to have them as allies in his quest to destroy the entertainment industry, only to find them as disappointingly bright eyed teens when they reunited.  

When Sirius finds out that it was the effect of Maria Campbell, their new producer, he decided to wage war against her for acting as a thorn to his perfect plans. It’s revealed that a lot of the bullying scenarios in the story mode was orchestrated by Sirius himself, in an attempt to get maria to lose her reputation and her job. 

Maria was able to trace back all the incidents to him, and confront him alone in the Office at night, before he left to go home. Sirius laughed and admitted to all of his past and crimes, and mocked Maria for having no proof against him. Instead of condemning him, Maria hugs him while telling him to change his ways. Despite the violent ways that he tries to get Maria off him, she doesn’t let go, trying to convince him that his way of acting in correspondence to his grief is wrong. Sirius cries as Maria spoke sense into him and dissected the flaws in his grand plan, until only the sound of his crying is left in the cold and empty office that day. 

In Hamefura, When Sirius finds out that this was the effect of the “saint” Katarina Claes, he had orchestrated various events that could lead Katarina to being condemned by the public through her supposed “bullying” of the public darling Maria. This plans fails, so he plans on using Maria as a form of blackmail to get Katarina to leave the entertainment world in exchange for her friend’s safety. Maria disappears for a few days, causing her friends to be very worried for her, especially Katarina who is somewhat aware of the events that were occurring. During the search, she was able to find Sirius and tried to engage in some small talk, until she remembered a detail that her old friend Acchan said about a dark and secret love interest. Without any thought, Katarina questioned Sirius about Maria’s disappearance, surprising him with her sudden awareness.

Sirius admits to his crimes, and before Katarina can escape, Sirius hit her on the head so she can lose consciousness, but not before screaming about how he hates her ignorant enthusiasm, how she changed his pawns and made them better people, and how he wont let her take his heart and change him as well before he could enact his revenge, with tears in his eyes. This act leads to Katarina going unconscious for a few days. In this come state, Katarina was able to gain information from her old friend Acchan that she can use to save Sirius and Maria. 

In the abandoned warehouse where “he” and his mother supposedly died, Sirius has Maria locked up, with no plans of letting her escape until he can guarantee that Katarina is out of the picture. He is shocked to find out that Katarina and her friends were able to find both of them; he goes on a rampage about how he wants to destroy the Dieke family and everyone associated with them and the cruel world they have created, before the feeling of despair and fear for his future leads him to almost taking his own life as a final escape. 

Katarina stops him, and tells him that both of them has no future, as a secret love interest and as a villainess, and how she can’t save him the way Maria can. But that if anything else, she can a least stay by his side and take some of the weight off his shoulders, like what her friends have been doing for her since the beginning. Katarina calls him by his real name, Raphael Wolt, leading him to unlocking the final memory that he had lost from his temporary amnesia:

A memory of his mother, in her final moments, telling Raphael that she will always be by his side, and that she wishes for him to have a happy future, even if it wouldn’t have her in it. Katarina’s words made him realize that this wasn’t what his mother would wanted for him, leading him to see the error of his ways. 

In both versions, it ends with Sirius turning himself in and confessing to the crimes of both him and Mrs. Dieke, leading to both of their arrest and the return/resurface of the Wolt Family murder case investigation. Sirius’ contract with Sorcier Entertainment gets terminated, and heavy manipulation of the media was used in order to prevent the story from coming into light. 

Since Raphael lacked any crimes that would have him arrested, he was set free and left the Dieke family as it slowly fell apart from the controversy. He announced that he wants to spend his freedom as himself, but will one day come back to all of them as a better person. 

Without Katarina realizing it, Raphael confesses that his rampage was caused by his fear of his desires for her and her company, and that he was scared that if she continued to open her arms to him in such an easy-going and warm fashion, he would lose all his will to have his revenge on the entertainment industry. Much to the annoyance of Katarina and Raphael’s friends, he takes her hand and promises to come back, to stay by her side, like she had promised to him. 

In the Raphael Ending, Maria and Raphael meets again years later as both were on the way to work. Maria has already left the entertainment business and had no plans of returning, while Raphael became a changed man with a good heart and a steady job. Eventually, Maria was able to fall in love with the good man that Raphael was always meant to be/has become, and Raphael was able to rekindle the love and affection that he felt for Maria when they were still idols together.

Raphael had declared that he will back, better than ever! As an idol? who knows :3c But where will he go from here...?

Fortune Lover 2/Fortune Lover Re:Dive

Spoilers for Volume 3 of Hamefura and beyond, since this is about FL2

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I’d like for Fortune Lover 2, but I’m not really sure if I want to put it out there because it seems too fanfiction-y in a way?

I feel like my ideas are straying far away from the original version, which disappoints me in a way, but then again, My Idol Game version of Fortune Lover is nothing like the Otome Game counterpart, so I’ll still write about it. 

If you like the premise for an Idol Game style Fortune Lover, then feel free to just absorb the content above because for (my version of) Fortune Lover 2 to happen, Katarina will still get her bad end: Public Humiliation and Self-Banishment. I’ll save how it happens in part 4 

In Fortune Lover 2, there would be 3 new produce-able idols, but in My Next Life as an Idol, there will be 5 new idols:

this is what i meant when I said the plot is gonna feel like a fanfiction :DD

Fortune Lover 2 isn’t really a sequel, as it is like a bulkier and softly rewritten version of FL, like how Persona 3/4/5 remakes are to their original games.

FL2 introduces a new Idol Agency that is affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment: Mahouka Production (also known as MahoPro), a recently established talent agency created by a mysterious Director. Despite being new, they were able to quickly gain a following through the eccentric idols in their line-up.

With a longer story, halfway through the game you start being introduced to three new male idols: Sora Smith, Cyrus Lanchester and Dewey Percy. They are idols that are under MahoPro, who dislikes the idols of SorPro and claims to be their rivals.

They start out as rival characters in the game, taunting you (Maria) and the idols of Fortuna constantly for a few chapters. Some time after your initial introduction, you slowly get to know the boys, until you’re finally able to gain their trust. You can then start to secretly “produce” them without their Director knowing (just like Shika from IM@S Stella Stage), which leads to gaining events, scenes, idol clothes, songs and CGs of the three new boys.

As the new character gets introduced later into the story mode, they are more of an optional route, as the game still prioritizes the original 4 boys over the new cast. You can still “romance” the 3 new characters, but since they are introduced late, it can only be done at the expense of focusing on them almost exclusively during story events and side stories so that you can quickly gain Relationship Points for them.

So basically, halfway through the game, you have the option to produce 11 idols: Yourself (Maria), Gerald, Alan, Keith, Nicol, Mary, Sophia, Raphael, Sora, Dewey and Cyrus. The first 5 being obligatory, while the last 6 are optional

Rufus Smith (or “Sora”, as he reveals to you his real name during the story) is new idol in MahoPro who was able to quickly gain a female following due to his attractive figure and maxed-out sex appeal. Many compare him to Nicol Ascart due to the fact that he is slowly taking a lot of his jobs (or works alongside him at times) due to his handsome face. While both of them are handsome models, the public is aware that there is no point in pining the two against each other since their beauty works in different ways.

In the story (and as hinted in a few side story events), he was a slum rat who didn’t have much for himself. One day, he met a man who had join him and his fellow slum dwellers into their territory, a man by the name of David. The man was able to give Sora a new perspective on life, his new name, as well as how to sing. After David died, he wandered around the country, doing dirty jobs for shady adults for money. A few years later, we was caught singing in the streets by a man who offered to take care of him and cultivate him as an idol at the age of 13, complimenting him for his beauty and his singing. While Sora rejected the offer, the man’s words never left his mind. He started out by singing in the street for change, then getting singing jobs at cafes/live houses/restaurants for money, until he suddenly got a small following as an underground idol. The Director of MahoPro offers a place for Sora, alongside with giving him jobs as a full-fledged idol that can help him provide for himself, leading him to be affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment. 

Sora starts out having a rather sarcastic relationship with Maria, thinking that she is one of the many women who throws themselves at him to get his attention. He always gives her back handed compliments as always has a vicious tone when speaking. As the story progresses, Sora realizes that Maria isn’t disgusted by his history, and realized that Maria is truly a good and kind person. Sora starts to unconsciously seek her out, trying to reverse the bad impression that he must have left on her and to be with someone who doesn’t look at him lowly, like the other adults and idols of SorEn who dislikes people that aren’t of celebrity-upbringing.

Dewey Percy is a young idol that auditioned for Sorcier Pro. and won, but was rejected at the last minute in favor of a less talented wannabe-idol who was related to a famous actor. The Director of MahoPro came to Dewey with an offer as an idol, acknowledging his talents in music and dancing that he evidently have been polishing for years. In his town, Dewey was known as a Music Prodigy, as he was talented in singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments, though that’s not to say that those weren’t the effects of his own hard work. Because his family wasn’t the absolute best financially, he decided to audition as an idol in order to get jobs despite being young.

Dewey is revealed to be somewhat of a childhood friend to Maria, as he lived in the same town as her. Despite this, he is very wary of her due to the bad impressions left on his by Sorcier Pro. after he almost lost his chance at becoming an idol. Dewey absolutely hated asking for help, even when it was draining him down. He is very desperate to keep his title as a music prodigy, even though he knows it’ll be drowned once he’s in a battlefield of idols. (Also he tries very desperately to be seen as a mature and hot idol, despite his youth and appearance giving him a cute one instead lol) 

Maria realizes how hard Dewey is pushing himself, and convinces him over multiple instances that he doesn’t need to be hard on himself and suffer alone. Maria offers herself as a shoulder to lean on, making Dewey embarrassed but happy at the idea that he can finally have someone to rely on, and that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. They were also able to bond about their similar upbringing, making Dewey feel at home in the arms of Maria despite being miles away from their town. 

Cyrus Lanchester is an idol from a different agency, who was transferred to MahoPro by the time the events of the game began. He has a very strict personality, and is an overall perfectionist as an idol. He was let go from his original Agency because his strictness and tendency to scold his fellow idols caused his peers (who are a bunch of lazy and stuck up children of celebrities) to take him out because they didn’t vibe with his attitude. Before his original producer was able to tell him that he was done as an idol, the Director of MahoPro offered a place for him in their new agency. 

While being grateful to the Director for taking him in, he does not hold back in letting everyone know about his distaste for their odd Director. While is he very talented as an idol, he is just using it as a chance to learn more about the industry and gain connections that he can use to be a part of it in the near future. 

While he doesn’t start as wary of Maria as his fellow male idols, he insist on keeping distance with her due to the fact that they are of different agencies, as well as the fact that he is not good at dealing with women.

Notes

(I’ll have to rewrite Cyrus and Dewey’s descriptions after Volume 7 comes out, since I don’t have much to work with. I’ll add the Sora, Cyrus and Dewey endings in the edit as well.)

I know some part of Maria and Sirius’ backstory doesn’t make any sense but just use your imagination lol hgjgfjsfgd

More about Katarina, the silhouettes, the Director, and how it affects the story on the next part :DD my fingers really hurt from all this typing hgjsdgfjs

If ever i’m dissatisfied with what I have here and end up changing things, don’t be surprised jhfjshdgfs

Next Part is gonna be plot points that I want for this AU and a bit of FL2, so sorry if the next one might not be that exciting fsjhgfjsd

feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated! Thank you to the few people who are interested in this AU :DD

[sixeyesgojo]

Hey! How are you? Sorry to bother you but i have a question, is it narcissistic to say that you love yourself? Because my friends keep telling me this and I feel conflicted. I think it's self confidence but they're saying otherwise.

Hey hey hey! I'm doing fine, thanks for asking! How are you? Hope you’re still somewhat okay, despite your own friends saying such things about you.

First of all, I wanna say that I am no therapist & I don’t know the whole story, you merely provided me a detail that could mean a thousand things. Since I do not know you at all, I’d rather not assume stuff about you, so take all this with a grain of salt. By no means do I mean any of this in a condescending way or anything, so I apologize in advance if it comes off rude. This is just me being blunt as usual and what I, personally, think.

Generally speaking, the act of saying that you love yourself is not narcissistic. If anything, I believe it stems from self-confidence and self-love, which I deem very important aspects of life. It’s not a bad thing at all, but there are people who just take it too far. Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of being involved with a narcissist (toxic gamer boys uwu <3). But (!!) I also have friends who say they love themselves, mostly in a joking tone. And that’s definitely not narcissism. There are many factors to consider in this. It’s fine to love yourself, as long as it doesn’t make others uncomfortable or unseen/unheard by you.

However, as I said, I don’t know the whole story here. (And this is not an order to tell me about yourself, but feel free to provide more details if you feel like there is need for that after reading this longass post.)

On the one hand, I’d say your friends know you better than me.

On the other hand I know too well that people, doesn’t matter if friends or not, can and will misinterpret words/actions. Or they will use big words they don’t entirely understand, such as narcissism, instead of alternatives.

Here’s my advice:

take some time off from social activities: I’m not saying to completely stop interacting or anything but putting in some distance may help you get a clearer headspace, which is important for the next step.

self-reflection: think thoroughly whether any past behavior has shown any narcissist tendencies. Making a list with two columns may help you: “+” (pro arguments) and “-” (contra arguments).

research: You may want to research narcissism in order to help you self-reflect, to understand the topic better. That does NOT mean to self-diagnose (that shit is dangerous).

confront your friends about it: I know this one is very hard but if you don’t do it, you will never be certain. Ask them to provide you examples when you were narcissist, and I don’t only mean times when you’ve said “you love yourself”.

I mean behavior like:

Expecting people to see you as superior (even without any legit reason)

Do you require constant admiration? Excessive admiration?

Do you constantly take advantage of someone to get what you want?

Do you need to always hear how great you are? Do you get angry when you don’t?

Do you believe others envy you?

Do you want everything to be about you?

etc.

These are just some behaviors that I listed from the top of my head. Most of them probably can be found when you google narcissism.

Again, I am not a therapist. If you think you may fall into the narcissist category, please consider seeking out a trusted doctor to confirm.

Something to keep in mind: I already mentioned people will use big words they don’t entirely understand, so confronting your friends is the most crucial (but also most uncomfortable) step you have to take. There’s a fat chance they meant you’re cocky or something like that. In that case, it would be highly inappropriate of them to accuse you of being narcissist because that’s a serious condition that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Another thing to consider is the tone of voice they used while telling you that. Was it lighthearted? Was it dull? Was it annoyed? Was it joking?

Finally, I don’t think merely stating you love yourself is a toxic act. However, I do lack details, so I can’t really make a judgement here. All I did was give advice. Also, I wanna say that I’m sorry that this happened to you. Must be hard to hear that. If you choose to follow my advice, then I wish you best of luck.

Stay strong, anon!

[marewriteblr]

Traits And Quirks For Characters In Fantasy (list)

idk if I’m the only one, but when creating characters for my wips, I like to google lists of traits and quirks to give a bit more depth to them. and since I mostly write fantasy, I thought my characters deserved some more fantasy-related traits and quirks, so here’s a list of 150+ traits and quirks for characters in a fantasy setting!! hope it helps some of you too

has tattoos that keep changing

bad vision—takes magical potion to see clearly

addicted to magical food or drink

weird things happen when they laugh, sneeze, cough…

sees things that aren‘t there—or are they?

speaks in rhymes

has a wandering scar

has a wound that never stops bleeding

shows symptoms of a curse but pretends to not know how they got it

physical signs when lying, eg hair growing unnaturally fast

can summon any mythical creature easily

has a mythical creature for a pet

brings a slight breeze with them whenever they enter a room

was dead once

refuses to eat certain type of food for no specific reason as though it were amoral or inethical

obsession with a particular period in history

obsession with a magical creature/species

doesn‘t dance or make music because weird things happen

haunted by a ghost, their best companion

always has a candle lit (eg for their ghost companion)

can speak a mystery language only very few people understand

can turn the light of single stars on and off as they please

used to be part of a secret society

wears shoes with wings, no one knows if they actually work

can predict the future correctly for a ridiculous/bizarre reason

lives at court, no one knows why or where they came from but they let them stay

can only talk in questions or riddles

always seen reading spell books though they can‘t do magic

always seen reading books though they can‘t read. bonus if the reason for this is magical

tells everyone about the time they did something they‘ve certainly never done

tells everyone they used to be a dragon, is obviously lying

is actually blind, no one has noticed

never speaks, only talks to people telepathically, they’re used to it by now

has blood of unnatural colour, tells the weirdest stories of why that is—story changes every time

sacrificed 7 years of their life to magical creature who might claim them any minute

sacrificed a body part, determined to get it back

sacrificed their good looks

always learning spells by heart and seen using them the next day as though they’d prepared it for the occasion

has a secret identity, eg can do a certain type of magic and sneaks out to commit crimes/perform on stage/meet their companions…

keeps getting into trouble because people are convinced they have magic, but they don’t

belongs to a human/non-magical species but was kidnapped years ago and never went back

is actually a ghost

is immortal but doesn‘t know anything about history—can tell you all about the migration of dwarf antelopes on their continent throughout the centuries though

always corrects people on history/mythology facts with things they can‘t possibly know if they weren‘t there themselves

allergic to magic. bonus if they‘re a powerful wizard or deity

obsessed with knives and swords. you can fight them but they‘re more interested in the crafting of your blade

allergic to a certain spell and only that spell for no apparent reason

always has a certain item or food in their pocket in case they need to bribe a magical creature today

miscorrects others‘ pronunciation of spells and pronounces them wrong themselves (eg emphasis on wrong syllable)

talks in a fake elf accent to piss off elves

pretends to be a species they clearly aren’t judging by their appearance, and gets defensive when told so, calling people racist

gets themselves into trouble by trying to seduce nymphs when drunk. also an alcoholic

is cursed to never remember any names—has forgotten their real name a long time ago so no one can ever have that power over them

introduces themselves with a different name every time they meet someone

heavily worships an evil trickster god

ominously refers to themselves in third person

doesn‘t walk but jumps from roof to roof instead

predicts the future but is always horribly wrong

challenges people to a quest all the time

seems to know every person in the entire kingdom

seems to be enemies with every person in the entire kingdom

spends a lot of time in dimly-lit taverns seeking opponents for a strange board game

likes to look for bizarre monsters deep in the forest

talks to their dagger

talks too much during sword fights

gets involved in sword fights but only ever carries a paper sword with them

makes up crazy and hardly believable stories when asked about their past to hide their guilt

collects a particular type of item that can only be found on adventurous quests to dangerous places

has large horns on their head despite their species having no such thing, refuses to tell anyone why

never seen eating

never seen sleeping

takes every time anyone mentions something being hard or dangerous to do as a challenge to try it

wears an eyepatch solely for the looks of it

collects dangerous enchanted jewellery

random hissing

an excellent storyteller, like unnaturally excellent

politically involved and fights for giants‘ rights

has a finger that‘s mysteriously shorter than the others

is best friends with a demon

is nocturnal but loves sunlight

pretends to be completely resistant to pain

always sneaking around

has a tattoo that keeps dis- and reappearing

enchants people with their acting

has a wooden prosthesis

doesn‘t wear shoes

changes eye colour every day

wears gloves all the time and tells people it‘s for their safety

hears the trees talk to them

believes the apocalypse is near

pretends to be immortal

breaks into people‘s homes to steal food. no jewellery. only food

pins pressed flowers to their walls

believes that flowers grant wishes

has random visions of other people‘s pasts that aren‘t necessarily true but always get them into trouble

strongly believes in reincarnation

talks in a different accent every day

is convinced they are cursed

sees every minor conflict as a challenge to a sword fight

fights their battles using nothing but darts

is an archer and also blind or missing an arm

accidentally stabs themselves. a lot.

always carrying poison around „just in case“

is at fault for the fall of a mighty god

knows all about mythology

always up to date regarding drama and gossip between the gods

immediately scared they’re about to be cursed whenever someone raises their voice

still mourns over the death of a friend

whatever they touch breaks instantly

chews on their wand (definitely not a good idea)

always wears their hair tied up into a bun, is longer than rapunzel‘s when worn loose

brags they were good at picking locks but actually just hit it really hard until it breaks

accidental shapeshifting

still waiting for an ominous prophecy to foretell their destiny

makes weird/seemingly unnecessary bargains with strangers

has something slightly off about their appearance that makes people stop in their tracks to watch them

unhealthy obsession with cloaks

is a great fan of wizards. collects wands and hats like action figures

horses don‘t like them, they ride a wolf instead

sings the spells they use

constantly mumbling to themselves or someone others can‘t see

can duplicate themselves but can‘t do math so they‘re always a bit confused

has a leaf sticking to the back of their hand. don‘t ask them why

is a painter, travels very far to obtain a particular kind of paint

sketches their dreams in a book after they come to them at night

always seems to be charged with electricity

freckles on their cheeks dance when laughing or when light hits them

makes up prophecies and tells strangers about them

grows wings when high up due to fear of falling

gets arrested regularly for pranking nature spirits and deities

sneezes when using magic

insomniac, needs a particular spell or magical food/herb to fall asleep

magic makes them fall asleep (when they use it or when others use it nearby)

mixes the weirdest potions all day

can‘t eat spicy food, literally breathes fire

necromancy but only to revive their dead cat

turns the same colour of any food they eat

dreams of becoming a knight

horrible short term memory but can easily recite anything they read two centuries ago

makes their eye colour look white just to mess with people

can‘t remember spells for shit. says them incorrectly which always goes horribly wrong

terrible handwriting. bonus if they’re a messenger who has to send important letters on a daily, causing things to go very wrong

can correctly guess anyone‘s magical power on a scale from 1-10. is stupid enough to point it out aloud, too

wears cloaks that are way too long

carries a fake sword on their hip

carries way more weapons on them than necessary

uses their dagger as a toothpick

plays with dagger when thinking

supernaturally heavy sleeper

gets the different species mixed up a lot

tells everyone how many people they‘ve killed in their life

a die hard fan of a well-known assassin

a die hard fan of shakespeare‘s puck

desperately wants to be abducted by the fae

heavily affected by the phase of the moon

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Masquerade Kiss: Yuzuru Shiba Season 2

Expectations:

I just want to start off by saying that the prologue is absolutely outrageous. There are probably so many targets that hang around the EAC headquarters, especially since HQ is presumably 3 miles within the UN Headquarters and let’s not pretend that there isn’t at least one target going to work there everyday. I actually spent 30 mins on google maps street view trying to find exactly where this location is supposed to be modelled after so I could find all the companies and buildings that have potential targets and then just gave up lol. BUT either way, I refuse to believe that a top international intelligence agency would just go WARNING WARNING and go into emergency lockdown because a target entered a 3 mile radius of HQ. Ridiculous. Also, the letter from the EAC even in the Yuzuru prologue also calls her Arisa Mifune which is her Kazuomi alias lol.

EDIT: I found the location of that background which implies that EAC HQ is modelled after 2 Hammarskjold Plaza or somewhere near (which is right next to the British Consulate btw, how did MC not see that on her way to the building. Also conveniently near something called Japan Society.). Note the octagonal-roofed thing on the bottom left, the general shape of the building, the covered part of the building lobby, the blue sign (afaik street signs in NYC are green) and the position and shape of the building down the road. And I know I’m taking this whole thing way too seriously, but Jeffrey Epstein had a mansion about 2 miles away from here so this whole 3 mile emergency alert thing is just ridiculous. Sure, Epstein probably never existed in the world of Masquerade Kiss but come on, it is highly unlikely that not a single target lives, works or passes by for a kebab within a 3 mile radius of the EAC HQ.

With that out of the way, let’s talk Yuzuru. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even play Masquerade Kiss ever again. I like most things about the game but Love Choice is honestly just a turn off and the only LC game that I am genuinely drawn to is actually Destind. But then I had 287 unused hearts because I bought a bunch of hearts with the intent of playing Kyogoku’s route in Romance MD (and then I didn’t because I actually just don’t like that game) so I decided to give it a shot. I actually (surprisingly?) prefer Kazuomi to Yuzuru as a character, but I like Yuzuru’s MC more than Kazuomi’s MC and I was intrigued that Voltage would push this whole love quadrangle thing. We’ve seen hyper-jealous Yuzuru before in a substory so I think I went into this route more interested in the plot aspect and to see how they would develop the kind of strange relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. I genuinely enjoyed Yuzuru’s S1 MS a lot and wanted to see how he and his MC would grow as a couple. Also I wanted to play it in order to write a review to bring some traffic back to my semi-hiatus stagnant blog lol. Please give this a like/reblog please I’m begging you please :’(

Keep reading to the walkthrough and review. I’ve calculated a way for you to get to EE with all CGs (50 hearts saved), SHE with CGs (83 hearts saved), or a cheapest overall option to SHE (107 hearts saved).

Stop scrolling after the walkthrough and guide if you haven’t yet played and don’t want the route to be spoiled.

Walkthrough:

Story 1:

Yes, we should keep an eye on him.

No, it’s not necessary

Story 2:

“You came to be with me.” (Love Meter +1) (6 hearts)

I can’t say.

Story 3:

I sign without hesitating.

I hesitate for a moment.

Story 4:

Text Yuzuru.

Don’t text him.

Story 5:

I’ll sign it. (Love Meter +1, CG) (13 hearts)

I’m not going to sign a New York contract.

 Story 6:

Casually intervene. (Love Meter +2) (11 hearts)

Pretend not to notice.

Story 7:

See him out without asking what’s wrong.

Ask what’s going on.

Story 8:

It’s payback time. (Love Meter +1, CG) (16 hearts)

Don’t do anything.

Story 9:

Start touching him. (Love Meter +2) (12 hearts)

I can’t interrupt.

Story 10:

Seduce the info out of him. (Love Meter +1) (8 hearts)

Try to force it out of him.

Story 11: (second chance)

Gently ask about it. (Love Meter +3) (18 hearts)

Now is not the time.

Story 12:

“I’m thinking about you.” (Love Meter +3) (13 hearts)

“Nothin’.”

Story 13:

“It was fun.”

“It was relaxing.”

 Story 14:

Apologize and keep talking. (Love Meter +1) (7 hearts)

Ouch. I have nothing to say for myself…

Story 15:

Play dumb: “What are you talking about?”

Ask: “What if I am?”

Story 16:

Find out if he’s jealous. (Love Meter +2) (18 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 17:

“I’ll stay ten more minutes.” (Love Meter +2) (14 hearts)

I have nothing to say.

Story 18:

Ask about his Texas accent.

Don’t ask about it now.

Story 19:

Call out to Yuzuru.

Let him go.

Story 20:

Put up a strong front: “I’m okay.”

Tell the truth: “I’m not okay.”

Story 21: (second chance)

Ask Yuzuru why he did it. (Love Meter +3, CG) (25 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 22:

“Not as stubborn as you.”

“You already knew that.”

Story 23 (useless):

Trust Yuzuru and don’t go. (Love Meter +1) (13 hearts)

Right now, I have to go to Jeremy.

Story 24: (second chance but she saves him either way)

Rush over to protect Yuzuru. (Love Meter +3) (19 hearts)

I can’t get there quickly enough.

Guides:

I calculated the cheapest ways to get to Eden End and Super Happy End with CGs and without CGs. Just opt for the heart scenes that I’ve highlighted in each guide below.

Click the read more below for my review. Stop here if you haven’t yet read the route because there are spoilers galore.

Review:

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this route. As I read through, I thought the pacing was excellent and I was really drawn in by everything about it, especially the relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. It has definitely been a while since a LC route really captured my full attention. However, upon rereading my notes and writing this review, I do have quite a few issues with it, particularly the plot. I’ll go through the things I enjoyed about the route first and then discuss what I find to be its limitations.  

So Yuzuru is great in this route. We get a far more expressive and soft Yuzuru. We get to see the most charming side of Yuzuru again, his childlike passion for engineering and innovation. This, in my opinion, is Yuzuru at his softest and most appealing, when he is genuinely passionate and not just doing the hyper-organised scheduling thing (although naturally most of this is hidden behind a heart scene). Sometimes it’s nice to remember that Yuzuru is human.

He’s definitely more playful with his MC in this route, even going as far as to blur the lines between work and personal life a little bit in a way that I found quite unexpected. There’s a lot of flirty banter between them, as well as just little suggestions of flirtations here and there in their body language – in front of people too! Scandalous. It almost reminds me a bit of Kazuomi and his MC, which is definitely a pleasant surprise. A lot of these scenes are hidden behind heart scenes, which I’ll get into later, but I will say that these cute and suggestive moments between the two are probably some of the best moments of the route, and part of the reason why it was so easy to keep reading.

I’ve mentioned this before but Yuzuru’s MC is my favourite version of the Masquerade Kiss MC. She’s great in this route too – cool, calm, great at her job. I also love that she likes Night at the Museum? Lmao me too girl. She has such trashy taste in movies and it’s a cute quirk that definitely makes her more relatable within the sensational premise of the game. Personality-wise, I think they did a good job at bridging the professional and personal aspects of her personality too, making her read like someone who has different personas that are different aspects of the same person. You definitely get a sense of the conflict within the MC when she has to extract information by using her sExUaLiTy when her boyfriend is watching on lol, even when they kind of make it out like a game. It is interesting and quite novel to see a Voltage MC successfully pull off a honey trap on a guy who kind of repulses her. We get snippets of it in other games such as Her Love in the Force but HLITF MC is always careful to keep boundaries so we never get to explore the full potential of the jealousy that can crop up in such situations. MK MC goes above and beyond to give us (and Yuzuru) a show. With that being said, I do feel like they kind of drew back from it a little by having Jeremy be super forward with his affection so the MC just has to respond, keep him on the hook and pull back every now and again, rather than actively needing to pursue someone to obtain information.

I also really enjoyed that moment when Yuzuru tells her to shower before going to his bed to wash off “Mia.” It solidifies that he’s really in love with her and not her charismatic, flirtatious hostess alias. Throughout the route, the blurring of the personal and the professional is definitely a theme that we see cropping up in the lives of both the MC and Yuzuru. It’s something that I find particularly interesting and I’m glad they picked this developmental direction since both Yuzuru and his MC are notoriously bad at mixing those two worlds, with both of them consistently and repeatedly picking work over love. We also get to see Yuruzu and his MC almost working together at times, which I adored. At times, they feel like a team. As always, they have tons of sexual and physical chemistry but they are slowly building up on the emotional chemistry and communication issues which is so crucial for character and relationship development. 

The SHE and EE in particular has some incredibly cute moments. Yuzu’s MC describing them as part of a machine is *chefs kiss* incredible. Their sex scenes are intimate, loving and incredibly romantic. Yuzu preparing his NYC home for MC? Adorable. And, most importantly, him not only tolerating but welcoming his MC’s “bugs” in their relationship? That’s character growth babey. 

With super long LC routes, I always get tired about 7 chapters in and give up and then have to come back and finish it later. However, this route sped along. The pacing of this route is pretty quick and snappy – in fact, I wouldn’t have minded if it was actually longer? Developments tend to happen pretty quickly, there are plenty of moments between Yuzuru and the MC that keep the story moving, and there’s basically very little, if any, ‘downtime’ in this route. Because they are constantly in the club or at Yuzuru’s place lol.

The writing/language quality is great. I felt genuinely tense every time Yuzuru and the MC almost got caught in the club and even more so when the MC went to Jeremy’s home. I couldn’t spot any significant typos or coding errors. The readability of this route is definitely top quality.

Moving onto my gripes with this route, I would say that they have to do mostly with flimsy plot, characters being reduced to plot devices, and lack of relationship conflict.

Firstly, something that I always find a bit off about the premise of EAC is how public their relationships sometimes are and how the MC’s private life even works. Yuzuru literally gets swarmed with people in the prologue asking for autographs and photos and yet later in the route can somehow go on a public date to busy tourist spots in central NYC with a spy? (That being said, I refuse to take that prologue as canon because of how sensationally ridiculous it is.) Let’s not pretend the EAC isn’t watching them lol (they even imply multiple times that this is the case). Is she not worried that Jeremy or Grace or any SHIBA or Space Crystal employees or any of the numerous powerful and dangerous people who frequent Freja will spot them together? There is no way she looks significantly different as Mia than as herself unless she’s wearing prosthetics or can turn off her star aura like Britney Spears can.  Also, is the MC supposed to be mixed? No one has any questions about how a native Japanese woman can get away with being called Mia Knightley?

They also set up this tension of something happening to the MC without Yuzuru ever knowing which never really plays out. There’s a brief callback to it but it’s more about the MC finding an excuse to see Yuzu. I thought the drama would have more to do with the MC having to keep secrets from Yuzu and disappearing but that never happens and so the repeated mentions of this particular source of anxiety don’t really amount to anything. I also wish they made better use of the stun bracelet! I think it would have been cool if that was what took Jeremy out. Symbolically, it could have worked as a physical manifestation of Yuzu’s trust and support of his MC and her job helping to protect her against the Big Bad.

Okay so my main issue is about the villains and the flimsy plot. Jeremy and Grace were such wasted villains!! If this guy went crazy and murdered 3 people… how did he manage to not only reinvent himself but in fact become a very high profile tech executive with more or less the same name? Imagine if Elon Musk was actually a crazy murderer who used to be called Elon Avrevic… there’s no way that he would be able to bury this, especially if he came from nothing and had no connections during the time in his life when he committed these murders. If there are actual criminal reports about his crimes that can be accessed by the EAC and SHIBA, how did he not get taken in for life after murdering 3 people? Why is he even free in the world? It’s such a big plot hole to me… doesn’t have the same fingerprints? Did he get such extensive plastic surgery that he’s not recognisable and also burn off his fingerprints? Evidently not, since the MC can recognise both him and Grace from childhood photos!

I also didn’t think his motivations were really that convincing. We get a throwaway line about his alcoholic father killing his mother because she tried to leave him, but in general they set Jeremy up with so much potential as this psychopath who hunts a very specific type of woman but then they just kind of throw it away with him just going crazy and shooting people because he just wants “girls and money”. Nooo Jeremy they did you so dirty!!!

I just think they built him up as this incredibly dangerous and manipulative predator but then just made him a standard alcoholic incel. He could have been such a good villain. He could have maybe drawn the MC in with sob stories about his mother and actually made her doubt her instincts with his charisma and vulnerability, with it turning out that the whole time he was just luring her in, instead of just relentlessly hitting on her and then getting carelessly drunk and going crazy. He spends so much of the route attempting to play and get with the MC and then just throws it all away by getting pissed and letting her basically have free reign of his apartment? I just don’t buy that a co-founder of Space Crystal would get to the top without being more clever, suspicious and manipulative – especially since he murdered 3 women and still is somehow a free man, ‘disguised’ as a very successful CEO?  Also, if he really just wanted girls and money, there were a thousand other ways of doing it. He could have been so clever and instead they just made him have occasional psychotic breaks with no discernible trigger. Disappointing.

(On a side note, they made his house look weirdly similar to Epstein’s manor. Or maybe all Upper East Side homes look like this, I have no idea. I did look around on Google Maps and I guess a lot of the homes in this area are kind of similar.)

Grace is also a wasted character. She kind of feels like a MacGuffin just to have this love quadrangle in order to play out the jealousy plot but ultimately plays no significant role. Actually, both Grace and Jeremy basically just act as jealousy plot devices, only the jealousy plot isn’t strong enough to actually threaten Yuzu and his MC’s relationship (except for one moment which to be honest doesn’t even play out like that because of jealousy and rather because Yuzu is trying to protect his girl).

Speaking of that moment, I thought that Yuzuru’s “push the MC away plan” could have been stronger. I feel like it’s not like him to do make such a basic attempt at fooling his MC. It might have worked in a different game but all of the MK guys usually know that they can’t trick their MC with cheap Harry and the Hendersons plots and they tend to not disrespect her enough to try. I know that as readers, we enjoy not knowing what the love interest is up to because it ups the tension and drama but I feel like there was a way of having that insecurity and conflict play out while keeping everything a mystery and making better use of the characters. Like maybe it could seem like Yuzuru is running into Grace’s arms after finding his MC in a compromising position with Jeremy when he’s actually doing his own covert investigations and making plans to foil their ultimate plans. Or maybe even working with Grace to take Jeremy’s wild country-bombing plans out. That way, we would prolong the jealousy/love quadrangle plot with the MC stressing about Yuzuru and Grace’s relationship, especially when she already doesn’t trust Grace. It would also make better use of Grace as a character and her position as both someone with a ginormous crush on Yuzuru and as Jeremy’s ‘partner’. If Grace also ended up betraying Jeremy to help Yuzuru and the MC, we could also have had some extra heartbreak about Grace having to betray the one person she has always had in her life (and maybe some extra backstory about Jeremy going nuts as part of having to protect himself and Grace from their parents and the world). #voltagehireme lol. I also find it highly unlikely that Jeremy managed to set up this whole missile-launching phone app business under Grace’s nose, especially when Yuzuru knew about it. Also, the idea of an American attempting to launch a missile to destroy the whole of Japan is a bit… on the nose lol.

The season isn’t really driven by relationship conflict even though they were pushing the whole jealousy line in the marketing. In the end, I don’t think the route is as much about jealousy as it is about trust – but then again, Yuzuru has always placed ultimate trust in his MC even in S1. I can see this being an issue for people who went into this route wanting genuine conflict in their relationship so that they can overcome and work through it to develop. There’s only a little bit of conflict towards the end when the MC goes to Jeremy’s home, and then that kind of gets discarded pretty quickly anyway. They just happen to be better at communication this season, and a lot of that is because of Yuzuru going out of his way to keep tabs on his MC. This is probably what makes the route so easy to read, because Yuzu is more open. However, because of this, while it is great that their communication as a couple improves, it may not necessarily feel that earned? With that said, credit to the writers for making Yuzu more open without making it feel jarring or like he’s had a sudden personality change.

And on another note entirely, I wish there was a bit more detail about the three “S”es and more involvement from Kazu and Kei, who basically just make gratuitous appearances in this route. Learning about them making Takoyaki together at Oxford is such a cute detail and also such an international student in the UK thing to do. Find me one Asian student studying abroad in the UK who hasn’t collectively cooked home food in halls with friends from their country (it’s always hotpot for me lol). I wish there were more moment with them actively involved in helping the MC.

Finally, I have my usual issues about the Love Choice system. If you play the route for free, you get very few cute scenes between Yuzu and his MC, miss out on some major character development moments (esp that planetarium scene) and you get a fade to black ending in the Normal End. Personally, I started playing Voltage in the early 2010s so I don’t mind fade to black endings, but I think the mature/sex scenes are what a lot of MK readers are here for, so it’s a shame that there isn’t even a kiss scene in the NE.

Overall, I would say that the chemistry between Yuzuru and his MC is what keeps this route going and flowing. I would recommend it if you just adore Yuzuru, want to maximise time with him and don’t really care much about plot. Otherwise, while their relationship is brought to new levels, it does not happen because of the plot as much as Yuzu’s response to events we don’t necessarily see, and it does not necessarily feel that earned because the plot doesn’t really put their relationship in that much jeopardy.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really enjoyed reading this route – I found it super easy to keep reading, and Yuzu kept me hooked. I also love Yuzu more than ever. I think it’s a similar situation to Takane’s route, where the route made me love the love interest more, but has an average/flimsy plot. I imagine that his PoV will reveal more about those events that make him go out of his way to keep an eye on his MC, but as a standalone route, I wish there was more actual relationship conflict leading to more development.

[stevesnailbat]

fear of the (un)known | steve harrington

chapter five : reading between the lines

summary: Grace, or 007 as she had been called, finally escaped Hawkins Lab after seventeen long years. But, freedom is a lot harder than she thought it would be to maintain.

warnings: once again, angst! use of mind manipulation

word count: 2.3K

a/n: gif isn’t mine!! it’s from google, once again!

read the rest HERE!

Steve made his way over to the cabin almost every single morning, bringing along all of the books he could remember reading in school from elementary school and on. Grace and Steve started every day by reading something new, each day she learned new words and Steve helped her work through problems she had with them. She was a little embarrassed at first, to say the least; it’s not the coolest thing to be learning how to read at the age of seventeen, almost eighteen, years old. It felt weird to her, like she was a child again. There were many times when she wanted to give up, but Steve never let her.

“This is impossible, Steve. I don’t like this book.” Grace groaned, throwing the copy of A Wrinkle in Time onto the desk in front of her after having him correct her for the third time on one page.

“It’s not impossible! You’ve been doing so good, some of these words are just harder than the ones before. This one’s from two years after I read the last one.” Steve remarked, pointing to his copy of Where the Red Fern Grows that sat across the table.”You’re already so far! You can’t give up now, Grace.”

She shook her head quickly once he shoved the book back in her direction. Steve let out a sigh of frustration, narrowing his eyes at her frustration.

“Okay, how about you just read this one sentence? Just try this one, if you don’t get it, we can stop for the day.” he encouraged, sliding it to her again while pointing to the middle of the page absentmindedly.

“Fine. ‘I don’t think I want anybody else to see what—what gorgeous eyes you have’?” she quoted questionably, looking up at Steve once she finished.

He was staring down at her longingly as she spoke. Her brow was furrowed as she read, trying a little too hard to focus on the words in front of her. She wanted it to be perfect when she spoke. Steve barely noticed when she looked up at him, he could only think about what she just read as he stared into her ocean eyes. Her breath hitched in her throat when she noticed his stare, a rush of feelings running through her stomach.

“Yeah, good! That was—That was really good.” he said with a small smile, blushing deeply as he finally looked away from her. “We can stop if you want, or do you wanna keep going?”

She stared up at him for a moment, seeing the conflicted look in his eyes. A frown formed across her lips as she watched him fumble with the edge of the pages, a familiar feeling of guilt and temptation growing through her chest and throat. She wanted to know what he was thinking so badly, but she already had a hunch. Grace had told herself that she wouldn’t use her powers, she’d only try to drive him away through her frustrations and fake complaints, but it didn’t seem to be working. He still had that same look in his eyes, the same adoring look that he had given her when they were out in the snow with the party. She felt like she had to do something about it.

“We—We can stop for the day.” she said bluntly, the walls she’d built up and torn down for Steve were up once more.

“Are you sure? We could keep going, just until the end of the chapter?” Steve insisted, his eyebrows quirking up hopefully as he counted the pages.

Truthfully, he just wanted to spend more time with her, and she knew it. She looked up at him with a weak smile, shaking her head. She needed him out of the house for the day, she didn’t want to dig herself deeper into the hole that was made by her feelings for him.

“I just don’t wanna read anything else today, Steve.” Grace said simply, shutting the book while dog-earing the page. “We can finish it another day.”

“Okay, you don’t wanna read! We can just—I can read to you?” he questioned, sounding a little worried by her sudden change of attitude.

“No, not today.” she replied, narrowing her eyes at his insistence.

The look on Steve’s face was desperate, he felt like she was slipping away from him again. He’d just gotten through to her, he’d just dug deep enough to have a real conversation with her, and it was slipping away. The look on his face was what tempted her, really. She wanted his feelings to go away, she wanted them to be gone. Grace knew he deserved something much better than what she could give him.

“I—I just—“

“Grace, c’mon! We were really making progress today, weren’t we?” he implored, making her frown even deeper.

At this point, her brain was telling her two different things. The reasonable portion was telling her to tell him to leave, but the experimental portion was telling her to hurt him, make him want to leave her alone. She knew she—without her manipulative, self-destructive side—could never hurt Steve, not even if he did her wrong. But, she was halfway tempted by the little voice in her head, the voice telling her to read into him, the voice telling her to make him think differently of her. The temptation had been there for weeks now, ever since she agreed to let him be a tutor for her. It was getting to be too much.

The two of them locked eyes for a moment and Steve’s harsh expression went soft. She had tears in her eyes, but she looked a little more than upset, there was anger in her eyes. Grace looked at him and shook her head, as if to tell him to leave. Steve reached for her hand as his brow furrowed with confusion. The touch was enough to send the experimental part of her brain into a frenzy. She had deprived her mind of her powers for so long once more, and they jumped at the first opportunity to get to work.

“She’s not worth it.” she thought, the contact with his fingers enabling her to make Steve think he’d thought the words up himself. “You deserve better.”

If it hadn’t been for the drop of blood that dripped from her nose and the tear that slipped from her eye, Steve would have never known that she was in his mind. She couldn’t control what happened until she’d already slipped into his thoughts, something took over her mind and that something that was buried deep within her from that damned lab. Steve pulled away from her hand almost immediately, a look of betrayal crossing his face as he did. The fact that he caught on so quickly was surprising to her, honestly. But Steve had seen El use her powers too many times to just brush another nosebleed off like it was nothing.

“Is that really what you think?” Steve questioned, a bit of anger growing inside of him as he mulled the situation over. “You really think that you aren’t worth anything, don’t you?”

“Please, Steve—“

“No, Grace! You can’t—you can’t just make me feel what you want me to! That’s not how this works!” he argued, his words sounding a little more spiteful that he’d expected. “You’re playing dirty, that’s not how life works, Grace.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s not how life works. That’s how monsters and lab test subjects work, Steve.” she snapped back, narrowing her eyes at him as he grew angry with her. “I’m a monster, I need you to stop whatever you’re trying to do with me. It’s gonna end miserably and you’ll end up getting hurt.”

“Is this Grace talking, or is this the so-called monster talking?” Steve said in an almost mocking tone, making her flinch at his words. “You can’t tell me what’s good for me, only I can do that.”

“You don’t know what’s good for you, I know that.” she said with a water voice, her words falling softly on her lips to contrast his booming words. “You just want someone to comfort you right now, you’ll hate me soon, anyways. I do know what’s good for you, and it’s not me.”

“You can’t—“

“But I can! I just did, didn’t I?” she challenged, a bitter laugh escaping her lips as she shook her head.

“Grace, this isn’t you. You’re acting—“ he began, but cut himself off with a small, struggled sigh before he could say anything too detrimental.

“I’m what, Steve? What? Finish that sentence.” she dared while tears pooled in her eyes once more and he went silent, she could only think of a few things that he’d stopped himself from saying. “What were you gonna say? That I’m acting crazy? That I’m acting like a monster?”

Steve couldn’t look up at her as she drilled into him with her words, he didn’t want to hurt her. The words she’d slipped into his mind were stronger than he’d expected, he was fighting a strong feeling of artificial dislike with an even stronger feeling of something like love. He knew she was the strongest Hawkins Lab had trained, but he didn’t expect her powers to be this strong and self-destructive. Her mind was telling her to push him away so she could destroy herself too.

“Get out, Steve.” she whispered while staring at the table in front of her, her voice wavering as she spoke.

“No, I’m not leaving you here alone, Grace—“

“Monsters can take care of themselves, right?” she nearly growled, pointing to the front door. “Hopper will be home soon, I’m sure. You don’t need to pity me anymore, you’ve done enough.”

“Grace—“

“Steve. Leave, now.” she insisted, her voice was more sharp and threatening than before, the voices in her head were angry now.

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it. She was angrier now than he’d ever seen, he didn’t want to make it worse. He was conflicted, he didn’t want her to be all alone and have something happen like last time. A truck roared down the drive as if on queue when Steve stood from the kitchen table, Hop and El were back. Grace watched as he stormed from the house, he was still trying to process what had just happened as he slammed the door shut behind him. He wasn’t sure why he was angry, but he was. He wasn’t sure if it was with himself for leaving her, or if it was with her for trying to manipulate his thoughts.

Grace let out a small sob as the door slammed, her heart seeming to shatter at the sound. She rushed towards her bedroom, to make sure El and Hop didn’t see her tears, and closed the door behind her. There was a little bit of weight lifted off her shoulders by the fact that Steve was gone, but not enough to make her feel like he was safe from her anymore. The voices in her head seemed satisfied, like the anger she had towards Steve had satiated them. She buried her face into her pillow and let out another small sob, but was interrupted by a knock on her bedroom door right after.

“Hey, kid. You alright in there?” Hopper’s voice came from the other side of the door, his words laced with genuine concern. “Just saw Harrington storming’ outta here.”

“Yeah, I’m fine!” she lied through sniffles, hoping it was convincing enough to make him go away.

“Can I come in?” he implored, hand on the doorknob as he asked.

Hopper wasn’t very good at parenting teenage girls yet, but at least he was trying. She let out a small sigh of defeat, feeling guilty for shutting him out like usual. She couldn’t leave him and El both in the dark, especially after what had just happened. Grace rose from the bed and opened the bedroom door, looking up at the rough man in uniform with a somber frown. El was sitting on the couch, trying to look occupied with a book, but was eavesdropping on their conversation. Hop gave her an incredulous look, obviously not believing that she was fine, like she’d said she was. He noticed the smudge of blood that she’d missed right above her lip and let out a frustrated sigh; parenting two superhuman teen girls was tough.

“You wanna—uh—talk about it?” he offered, a sad smile tugged across his lips like a peace offering.

“I hurt him. I got into his mind, told him what to think of me,” she admitted quickly, shaking her head shamefully. “I couldn’t help it. It—It just happened. He thinks I’m a monster.”

“I don’t think the boy thinks you’re a monster.” he sighed, making his way to her desk chair as she sat on the edge of her bed. “He’s just angry. Hell, I’d be pissed if someone tried to change my mind. Anyone would.”

“I am a monster.” she said softly, a blush of embarrassment blooming on her cheeks.

“You’re not. Neither is El, you’re both humans, just a little out of the ordinary, that’s all.” he suggested, making her smile up at him weakly. “I think Harrington really likes you, y’know.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t part of the plan.” Grace sighed, staring down at her fingers as a sign that she didn’t want to have the conversation.

“I’ll leave you be, if you promise you’re not going to do anything stupid to yourself.” he responded with a knowing look, she nodded quickly.

Hopper was gone from the bedroom as quickly as he’d came and she was alone with her thoughts once again. She tried to think over what had just happened, to think over what she’d just done to Steve. She thought about how she should’ve felt satisfied, how she should’ve been happy now. She’d driven Steve away, just like she’d planned. He didn’t seem to want anything to do with her—or she thought he didn’t at least—but at what cost?

tags: @sourapplebaby @harringtown @jxnehxpper @charmed-asylum @daddystevee @queenofthehairharrington @heart-eye-harrington @hystericalmedicine @a-magey @lemonypink @karasong @batbatsupermanme @used-avocado @letscici @igotmadskills @mikariell95 @anerroroccurrrrred @blueberrylemontea-fanfic

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Japan Girl’s Fest 3 - Hakuoki Drama “Screen Door Encounter” Translation

First  post of the month, so I’ll start by asking you to please support me if you can either on ko-fi, through paypal or through patreon which gives early access to my stuff and blog translations…. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that i can share...

Also, Happy Canada Day~!

Anyway, when I decided I’d try my hand at translating Hakuoki content, this was one of the very first live dramas that I really wanted to have translated (for the record the 2011 otomate party reimeiroku drama was 2nd tho i only found tl for that recently)... and while I did have translations for the drama itself, I am missing CH TL for some of the introductory dialogue that occurs before it... and the JP>ENG translations (not done by me) that I’ve included on this are from people who don’t really really Japanese (they both weren’t certain), which are for the two sets of words on pink backgrounds (first 2 images attached under the cut). If anyone can translate that text better, please send me a message since i’ll be cutting the intro off what i post to youtube otherwise [will include credit and can provide clean video +srt file if helping].

On top of that, I also didn’t have the drama’s name for the longest time (hence why i referred to this as ‘Unknown Drama’). Thankfully, the TL help I received from my friends was enough for that tho... 

The format for this post has been done a bit oddly due to how i had to copy the subtitles for this line by line (it was off a video), and I never bothered to properly put the text into paragraphs and sentences due to how this was done off of community created subtitles (basically viewers contributed to the translation via the text barrage) on bilibi that showed up on the video at odd and not exactly precise timings.... 

As always, final edits will be done on the video... will have it done for this month.

link of the video i used for CH TL at the very bottom if interested in watching. 

Enjoy~ this month is all non-game translations!

Japan Girl’s Fest 3 - Hakuoki Drama “Screen Door Encounter”

Translation by KumoriYami

^???? one of my friends says this should be something like:  “The dark battle of the Shinsengumi begins quietly in the shadows of the Shogunate's conflict" while other says “The dark Battle of the Shinsengumi opens quietly in the shadow of the Battle of the shogunate.”

Narrator:  [is this a time of] A time of repelling foreigners or the opening of a country?

All kinds of sweeping change occur [during the] country's age of unrest.

Bakumatsu. 

In order to look for your father who is a Western doctor,

you've left home to live with the Shinsengumi,

Experience these turbulent times with the members of the Shinsengumi

^ also have no tl for this or what is narrated here, though google mtl says the text’s pronunciation kinda matches the audio here

TL is something among the lines of: “what begins here is the determined story of men thrown around by the voices of deception.” (TLN: I don't really know how to accurately translate 閉ざされた先, but it essentially means a predetermined destination) or “It starts with the story of a man who is at the mercy of a closed-off, untruthful voice.” so I’d guess something is among the lines of “What begins here is the fateful story that begins with being at the mercy of a man with a cold and uncaring voice.” or something or other?

Hakuoki

“Sliding Door (Fusuma) Encounter” [well should be anyway. i don’t have formal CH tl for this tho... also Fusumu can mean room dividers but i don’t think that sounds or looks as good.]

(Kazama enters)

Kazama: My wife, I have kept you waiting!

(crowd screams)

Kazama: My wife, I have kept you waiting!

(crowd screams again)

Kazama You must be filled with a deep sense of loneliness during the time we were separated by the hateful Shogunate's dogs [either that or hateful dogs]. 

but since I have arrived, you don't need to worry about anything. Just close your eyes, listen to my words and entrust yourself to me. That's it.

Today, you'll become mine. 

Kazama: hahahahaha!! The love letter I wrote is truly wonderful. [this laugh count may or may not be accurate lol]

My wife will surely become infatuated with me once she reads it

But I am rarely able to avoid the eyes of the Shogunate's hunting dogs.

I went straight to her room but she's not here right now.

Really, to make her husband wait.

I can't just leave my love letter here then head back.

(footsteps)

ah, footsteps! I've been waiting for you, my wi—

Saito: Yukimura? It's me. Saito. 

Kazama: Ugh....

Saito: it looks like you're in your room. I have something to say [tell you], can i come in? 

Kazama: Don't come in!

Saito: Uoh? What’s wrong, Yukimura? Did something happen?

your voice sounds so low which is very strange

ah! is it....

Kazama: che! found out already/discovered already—

Saito: Are you sick?

Kazama: Mmhm......

Saito: Mm. that being the case, I will not come in.

Souji: Areh? Hajime-kun? What are you doing here?

Saito: ah, souji.

Souji: Sorry, but can you move aside? I have something to tell that child.

Hey, is that alright? i'm coming in.

Kazama: I said that you can't come in [I didn't say that you could come in]!

Souji: Hey, Hajime-kun, that voice just now came from behind this door.

Saito: Ah, it seems that Yukimura is sick. 

Souji: Sick?

Saito: yes. I wasn't allowed in.

She's probably worried about passing it to us.

Souji: Hm...? (begins trying to open the door)

......Wah! It won't open. Is it blocked from the inside?

Saito: Souji, stop it. Don't forcefully enter a girl's room.

If something happens, how will you respond/react/take responsibility?

Souji: What happened [What do you mean]? What do you need to say [What are you trying to say]?

Saito: Ah... That's.... for example, if you went in and she was wiping her body down...

Souji: You're so embarrassed while talking that I'm feeling embarrassed.

Saito: This isn't something that can bee spoken aloud!

souji: Well, if she's not coming out of her room, that's easier for me.

Saito: What's going on [What do you mean by that]?

Souji: Just stay on the other side of the door and listen to what I have to say.

Just now one of the soldiers reported seeing Kazama near headquarters.

Saito: Kazama Chikage? In other words, his goal/target is to obviously...

Souji: That's right. That's why I came over to tell you [her] to stay inside your  [her] room and not come outside.

Saito: So it's like that. I understand.

However it's Kazama again.

Souji: Indeed.

He really must be bored to be coming over here so many times.

Kazama:...mrgh....

Saito: The person herself has clearly said several times that she didn't want to go with him.

Kazama: Rgh...

Souji:  How about saying "I hate you the most" to Kazama next time?

Kazama: How could that possibly be!

(silence)

Souji: Hey, Hajime-kun, where did that voice/sound come from just now?

Saito: The sound echoed everywhere, so I'm not entirely sure.

It might have come from inside headquarters

Souji: I think it sounded like it came from inside here.  

(souji struggles with the door again while Saito tries stopping him and Kazama works to keep the door closed)

Souji: Sure enough, it's not opening.

Saito: What are you doing Souji. Kazama might already be inside headquarters.

We can't delay and must go and increase the watch/strengthen the guard.

Souji: mah, fortunately the First and Third Division are all here today.

They have plenty of combat power.

Saito: Then I’ll go tell the members of Third Division— (VA fumbles)

Saito: Then I'll go and tell the members of the Third Division to be on high alert [reword later. more literally it says raise vigilance]. 

Souji, what will you be doing?

Souji: I'll stay here.

The other person's target is on the other side of this door, it can't be left unguarded.

Saito: understood.

I'll leave protecting Yukimura to you then.

(Saito exits)

Souji: Well then, Hajime-kun's gone now.

hey, are you listening? I heard you were sick, [so] it's probably because of that.

That time when you and I went out alone together that night.

Kazama: Two people together?

Souji: Do you remember/You remember, right?

Although the wind was cold, the starts were quite beautiful that night.

You hands turned red from the cold, so I held them in mine.

"How is it, is this warm?"

I didn't hold your hand like that since it was cold, [rather] it was because your cheeks became very red.

Really, although I only did that as a prank,

seeing such a cute expression, it makes me wonder what will happen if I get serious

Or is it, that you want me to be serious?

I'm just making fun of you right now. You don't need to answer now.

So next time there's an opportunity, let's go on a walk together with just the two of us at night.

Kazama: You bastard! What did you do to my wife!

Souji: Ah? Sure enough it is Kazama. such a savage voice, [might have] deceived Hajime-kun, but not me

Kazama: Heh. I didn't intend to lie, it was you guys who misunderstood.

(sword gets drawn) Anyway, you bastard, is what you said true?

If even a fraction of what you said happened...!

Saito: Wait Kazama Chikage, stop this at once!

Souji:  Hajime-kun? Could it be that you simply pretended to get tricked, and you were in fact already aware of Kazama?

Saito: Hm? hm.....of course!

Souji: Really?

Saito: Mm.....

Souji: Re~(poke)~al~(poke)~ly (poke)?

Saito: To tell you the truth, I bumped into Yukimura herself while looking for the other members. After thinking about which locations were suspicious, I came back here.

Anyway/Putting that aside [?]. Kazama! Prepare yourself!

Kazama: Che, Shut up, I'll cut you down later.

I must first cut down the man who put/laid his hand on my wife!

Saito: Put his hand—? Souji, what did you do to Yukimura?

Souji: Then, let's move to somewhere with more space. I'll cut you down today, it'll give me a peace of mind.

Kazama: You talk big! I'm going to/ I'll kill you first!

Saito: Eh? ah, wait, (they exit) Souji! Kazama!

Saito: I'll have to ask Souji what he did later...  

end~

------

video will be done later this month.... tho not sure when since juggling a bit too many srt files right now (you’d know if you saw my patreon’s latest post and extrapolated from that lol). 

link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1dx41177dj?from=search&seid=13990360835510964870

also i can’t believe that takeda is actually on one of the hakuoki shinkai drama cds. and on the sakamoto/nakoa one at that.... which makes miki the only shinkai char i know of who doesn’t appear on a drama cd.

oh and for the record, i only have translations for 2 of the 3 Japan girl’s fest hakuoki dramas (this being one of the 2).

[park-thatasshere]

With A Face Not Even A Mother Could Love

Facials was by all means             

                                                                       the last thing you had in mind

Featuring: Jungkook Genre: Smut (facials) Word Count: 2.6k

m.list

A/N: Just dropping in to say hi. Thank you so much to @chimmysdick for being a pillar of support with my craft and just life in general. This fic is of course nc-17 so read at your own risk but please enjoy.

Should you really be thinking this with him so close to you? Fuck, should you be thinking about this at all?

It was a nice gesture for him to take time out of his Friday night to come help you do some last minute cramming, but how did he expect you to focus when he’s wearing that Tommy Hilfiger cologne he knows drives you crazy? 

Okay, he doesn’t know it drives you crazy...but he should by now with all the squirming and squi-

“___, is something wrong?”

“...No why do you ask?” Your face heats up, further succumbing to the guilt of being a complete horndog.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Oh I’m sorry what was the question?”

“I asked which bone marrow is considered to be life saving.” At this point Jungkook doesn’t seem amused in the slightest.

You rack your brain trying to skim through your memory of which one your professor emphasized on multiple occasions only to draw a blank. “Leukocytes?”

Jungkook visibly deflates, “That’s not even an option.”

You give him a comical smile topped off by a lazy shrug of your shoulders. “Look ___, I really want to help you but if you’re not feeling up to it we can try this again some other time.”

“No, I’m sorry I’ve just been...distracted is all.” You close your eyes in resignation flinging yourself onto the floor.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

You keep your face buried into your arms debating on whether or not you should profess your frenzied desire to have his cock beat your pussy black and blue. “Not really,” is what you settle on.

He gently shuts the textbook and places it on the table, muscles rippling underneath his white T-shirt with the action. “How about we take a break and order something to eat or something.”

He doesn’t know what’s bothering you but one thing is for sure, whatever it is, food will most certainly take your mind off of it.

You nod in agreement, whipping your phone out to order take

While Jungkook heads for the bathroom, you take a moment to think back to how the both of you got to this moment on your couch.

You knew of the whimsical Jeon Jungkook for quite some time before you were formally introduced to him. Every mention of him is filled with nothing less of pure adoration, admiration, and lust. He is very successful in his academic career. In order to keep him, and his high test scores, eager to learn, his high school had to bump him up two grade levels, or so the tale goes. 

You’d be a fool not to believe it though,you are two years his senior and you’re learning more from him than he ever could from you, other than how to be a functioning alcoholic.

You never thought much of the snot nosed kid in the beginning other than what you’d heard. But he’s shown his worth on many of your shit faced nights stranded at parties, as well as cramming sessions. Much like the one you’re having now, hours before a really big final. 

He was alright to you, you soon concluded.

More than alright even, but that makes you wonder. What is such a clean cut wonder boy hiding behind all those manners and gentlemanly gestures? 

You peek over your shoulder for any signs of movement coming from the bathroom door. Assuming Jungkook is hosting D-day in your toilet, you commence to sneak a peek at what lies within his laptop.

You open up the browser and click on history. Skimming through the list only finding a seemingly endless list of research material and obscure google searches. After a minute more of snooping through the list, a light bulb goes off. 

P r i v a t e browser

Your fingers hurriedly brush over the mouse pad, opening up the obscure browser only to see a screen filled with a plethora of open tabs

PORNAGRAPHIC tabs.

You click on random ones frantically loading up each web page to take a gander at what Jungkook spends late nights beating off to.

Cumshot facial compilation. Cheating gf takes biggest facial of her life. Premium bukkake. Sloppy face fucking. Bukkake gangbang.

The list is very telling on his foreplay preferences, but facials? Facials are by all means the last thing you had in mind. Actually, you don't know what you had in mind. Maybe something on the more purer spectrum, like mild nipple play. You did not expect Jungkook to be into such a degrading kink.

You’re stuck in a reverie of conflicting emotions. A part of you wishes that Jungkook is the sweet innocent boy he portrayed around school, having never been kissed and what not. A pure virgin. While the other half of you was silently relieved that maybe he wasn’t so prudish after all. In fact, a straight freak. 

You’re pulled out of your thoughts with the clicking of the bathroom’s door lock and a hushed chorus of swear words. You slam the laptop shut completely mortified at being caught snooping.

You’re both left speechless, but then again what can really be said under these circumstances. You weren’t sure exactly what he saw but you damn sure knew you were not sticking around for the fallout.

“Actually I think I’m going to hit the hay, I’m not feeling too well.” He gave an apologetic smile.

“Oh! Is it a fever?” He’s reaching a palm for your forehead before you even have time to step away and your reflexes cause you to smack his hand away. Way to make the situation a lot more shitty.

“Uh, yeah well goodnight. I’ll let myself ou-” you don’t even give him a chance to finish his statement before you head to your room, slamming the door behind you.

He ponders over the post bathroom break exchange before he’s back to packing away his things. “I wonder why she was in such a hurry to shut my laptop.” 

Upon opening his laptop, his entire face flushes at the contents he’s faced with. Pornhub, wide open and anything but discreet. After putting the pieces together he becomes completely mortified, moreso because he was sporting a half chub in spite of all that had transpired. He wastes no time in leaving your apartment in complete shame at what you must think of him.

Little does he know that you’re pressed up against your bedroom door entirely enthralled with salacious thoughts of his cock drilling your throat.

There are no texts. No calls. No messenger birds being sent two and fro. Absolutely nothing over the span for a week and a half. 

You yourself vowed to stay away from the boy, in hopes your lust for him would fizzle out.

It didn’t.

You wish you were better at defusing situations and being the bigger person. That’d make it a lot easier to march right up to the onyx haired bow and flick him in his perfectly proportionate forehead for not texting you andohmygodjungkookisstandingrightfuckingthere. 

Of course he’d be here, you coerced him to volunteer to present a booth with you to keep you company. For extra credit, of course, not that he needed it but you sure did. You remember when your professor eagerly spoke about the Convention, droning on and on about how we would greatly benefit from attending. Then slapping down a clipboard down onto her podium with a sign up roster on it. You pleaded and begged Jungkook to sign up with you, even using the cheap “there’s gonna be free food and booze” line.

He’s looking sharp, and you want to dissipate into water vapor because you comparatively look and feel like a dirty napkin.

He’s wearing a dark button up, sleeves rolled in a relaxed manner, with semi-tight slacks to match. His belt cinches to his waste, only emphasizing his cute ass. His hair haphazardly drapes over his forehead and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look this damn sexy.

Clearly you’re staring for too long because the burn of your eyes pulls his attention from the conversation presented to him and directly towards you. The eye contact is brief before he whips his head around redirecting his attention to the couple seemingly immersed in the stimulating discussion before them. You watch him exchange a few pleasantries with them before he sets his drink to the side and walks off.

Your feet are frantically speed walking through the cigar smoke and stench of hard liquor before you can even register or piece together what you’ll say once you catch up to him.

You find him slumped down on some god awful read pleather couch in one of the spare conference rooms, head in hands.

“Who said you could just waltz away whenever you pleased. You still have an hour and a half on your shift.” You chastise all in good fun.

His head jumps up at the sound of your voice and he visibly starts to clam up. “I wasn’t- I didn’t-”

You flop down next to him, a bold move on your part, before speaking up. “About last Friday…” You trail off.

“I know. You must think I’m disgusting.” He’s back to sulking.

“Nooo, why would I think you’re disgusting?”

“Because...of what you found on my computer.”

Now it's time for you to go flush. He knew this whole time!?

You’re actually hot from the sheer mortification that he knew you knew.

“You must think I’m a complete pervert.”

“Being a pervert isn’t always a bad thing, I like perverts.” First attempt and consoling was a fail.

“You what?” His brows furrow at your strange statement.

“I like perverts? Besides, have you ever even tried giving a facial?”

“I mean no, I’ve only ever been with one girl but she was pretty much a one sided lover. I never really got to experiment other than missionary and painful blowjobs.”

“Do you want to? Right now?”

His eyes grow to the size of saucers. This was definitely a proposition. Something seemingly straight from one of his porno’s. Wait! He needs to humble himself, he can’t just use his close friend like some kind of gloryhole can he?

“I don’t think this is a good idea ___-”

“Shut up kid, I’ve been craving your cock for a week and a half and I refuse to practice self control any longer.” And with that you drop to your knees before him and spread apart his legs to make room for yourself. You stare at him expectantly for a few moments until he gets the hint and hurriedly unzipped his pants and slips both his pants and boxers seamlessly down the length of his thighs.

Your eye to eye with his weeping red tip. The first thing that comes to mind is big, you were excited to finally get a hearty helping of his dick.

It jumps toward you, an invitation to welcome him into your silky throat. You haven’t tasted cock in a while and the scent alone sends your senses into a frenzy. 

“I like you!” He rushes out in a hurried exhale. You flick your eyes up to see his visage marred in a scarlet hue. It tickles your ego to know that the ripened Jungkook feels so small in your presence, even with his hefty cock in your view.

Awkward silence fills the space between the both of you before you realize he’s probably expecting an answer.

“...I like you too Jungkook”, another awkward pause “I’m sorry I’m not used to explicitly expressing my feelings. This,” you worry your lower lip and gesture to the current situation, “usually suffices.”

You don’t spend time dwelling on the formalities. 

His cock is anchored with a tight grip, you poke your tongue out to administer skittish licks along the ridges and veins of his member. Jungkook let’s out a needy whimper, one that has you shivering.

You finally open your mouth just wide enough to slip the head of his cock in. You suckle on it as if it held life's secrets. While one hand gripped his thick cock, the other reached down to cup his balls. Your teasing ministrations never halted as you dribbled all over the tip whilst gently rolling his balls. You could feel his testicles tighten and that was just the beginning of his end.

His head is thrown back, thighs flexing with every particularly hard suck. 

“P-put it in please, your mouth.” His eyes are glossy, voice coated in a whine.

Without further adieu you take the whole of him into your slick mouth. The initial stretch is a bitch to get used to as he fills you fully but once your saliva starts to pool on his cock you’re able to slip him in even further.

You bob your head up and down to the sound of soft melodic moans, periodically stopping to gargle his balls into your mouth. His jaw is clenched in uninterrupted ecstasy and your pussy throbs at the sight alone.

Jungkook gets adventurous, reaching over to grip your hair before shoving you down on his cock once again. He was encased in a warm frenzied haze of lust, wanting nothing more than to coat your pretty little face in his emission. 

He abruptly stood to his full length, never leaving your mouth as he walks you over to an open space within the room. His fingers tug at your soft tresses even tighter as he starts face fucking you. Slick sloppy tell tale signs of the pummeling your throat was getting resounded around you.

He’s thrown all caution to the wind as he thrusts his hips forward at a steady pace. “F-fuck ___, you’re good at this.” You press your tongue against his shaft, to garner another response.

You eyes water at the ache in your jaw at the sudden intrusion, trying to alleviate the discomfort by breathing through your nose. In this moment the only thing you’re both focused on is getting him to his release and it shows with the way you start bobbing your head in time with his thrusts, allowing him to bottom out in your tiny little throat each time.

His fingers falter around the strands of hair so tightly wrapped around his knuckles, betraying him.

“I’m so-“ Jungkook breathed raggedly, “So...close.”

He casts his gaze down to you, eyes dropping with pleasure and mouth left agape for many labored breaths and moans to be escape.

His pace quickens, grunts becoming more apparent. Not even a second later he’s pulling your hair to release you from his dick.

One hand tugging on a fistful of your hair while the other is rapidly jerking him to his orgasm. Your eyes are closed while you give him a brilliant smile. Soon enough you feel the spurt of hot, sticky cum land on your face.

You open your eyes to see Jungkook completely captivated by his handiwork. Your mouth is wet with saliva, a mixture of spit and cum coating your lips and dripping down your face and cheek.

“How do I look?” 

“Like a fucking goddess.” 

He helps you up, ushering you over to the couch before he’s pressing up against your back suckling on the side of your neck. You lose your footing and trip onto the couch, on all fours mind you.

“I’m gonna fuck you right here, just like this... okay?” It was really a question but the concern on his face said otherwise. 

You nod your head and just as he's about to lift your dress there is a loud knock on the door.

“Jungkook? Are you in there? Some of our guests would like to speak with you.” A muffled voice who you believe to be your professor spoke on the other side of the door.

“Better get going wonder boy.” You catch the giggle that threatens to spill from your mouth.

He waves your comment off, begrudgingly stepping out of the door and you can’t believe just how nice his ass looks in those pants.

[vroenis]

Lost Legacy Exemplifies Naughty Dog’s Cultural Crisis

There’s a discussion about Ocean’s 8 that positions its existence around whether or not it's necessary as a counterpoint to the Ocean’s reboot - the Ocean’s Cinematic Universe - if you will (what a world we live in) - that it was only made as a gender flip of the reboot that spawned two sequels, three films in total cast almost entirely with men.

My perspective is that as much as I generally enjoyed the Ocean’s reboots for what they were, Ocean’s Eleven should have been a cast entirely with women in the first place.

The heroes we both need and deserve.

Massive spoilers for the original 1960 Lewis Milestone version and the Steven Soderbergh one in 2001 of Ocean’s Eleven - Soderbergh’s flip is of-course that they get to keep the money at the end so that they have to potentially give it back in the sequel he knew he’d be able to make, whereas I doubt Milestone knew he’d ever get a sequel back in the early 60′s so the rub for film-making back then is to burn the money at the end. Nevertheless even for the early 2000′s, the boldest of moves would have been to cast it with women, not to be progressive but also to be progressive, tho that’s still an absurd thought that to cast women is progressive - but to be smart. Ocean’s 8 is a fantastic film, deftly written, paced, acted, shot and edited. Would the world have responded to it in like-kind? I know how *I* would have responded to it, I think you can answer for yourself how societal cultures may have responded at any point from 2001 thru to now. In any case, I have Ocean’s 8 on blu-ray. I love it.

A reader asked me whether I’d played Uncharted: The Lost Legacy after kindly reading through my bludgeoning of Uncharted 4, and seeing as they were patient enough to endure that blood-letting, I felt I owed them and probably Naughty Dog the time of day to give Uncharted-And-A-Half a chance, and I’m really glad I did. Fair warning, there’s a lot I didn’t like about Lost Legacy, and there’s going to be some more pain - a lot of pain. I don’t think any of my tumblr audience is quite on the rest of my socials, but anyone who’s connected to me anywhere else on the Wire was subject to my frustrations as I played thru the game on Saturday, including the blurred image of my Google Keep notes I took while playing the game in preparation for this journal. I keep notes now.

Nevertheless, I can say that on the assumption that the Uncharted series is wrapped, or at least in the narrative arc with these characters as we know them, that Lost Legacy is easily without question my favourite Uncharted game by far.

On that assumption that Uncharted is more or less done, now’s as good a time as any to take a top-down look at the franchise as a whole. I know I already did a fair bit of that in the last piece, but some broader thoughts on what the series does and says have solidified while playing Lost Legacy, and I’ll discuss them as a lead-in to my thoughts on the game.

Again - this is going to be riddled with spoilers for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and most likely the entire Uncharted series, so if you’ve not played them and are interested in doing so, or don’t want to see them heavily critiqued, please stop here.

The first game was released in 2007 and was apparently in development for roughly three years. What was happening up to and around 2004 to 2007? September 11 had happened in 2001, the world was at war in the Middle East in Afghanistan and second invasion of Iraq had begun in 2003, Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005 - the same year the IRA ended armed conflict in Northern Ireland, 2005 saw the outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu - topical right now. There are so many more, I can’t list them all here - lots of momentous events that in some way or another highlight community awareness in some way - that’s probably a bit of an obtuse statement but hopefully it’ll string together in a sec. What struck me and a bunch of my friends odd about the first, then the second and then somehow every Uncharted game since, is that Naughty Dog seem to choose an ethnicity for their antagonists and scratch the surface of “what if this element of their cultural violence is bad”, but then leave it so shallow that it remains a caricature and comes off as casually and carelessly racist. The first game frames the theme around Nazis, but the actual enemies are anything but. Yes, they’re intended to be mercenaries, but they’re hardly nondescript, they’re absolutely of very specific ethnicity.

From the second game onward, Naughty Dog seem to want to make use of real world settings and do some nuanced research on actual sociopolitical conflict and I always feel uneasy about how its presented. Lost Legacy begins much the same way and I worried about the tone going in. An active war-zone in India as gravitas to your setting that is then almost completely abandoned until the very end? This is my problem with how the writers treat setting in Uncharted. They use very real conflicts that have real-world consequences for people in which actual lives are lost to inject gravity into their narrative and then quickly discard it for the sake of shenanigans once the wise-cracking starts when the tone shifts gear and the characters themselves take centre-stage in the foreground.

Here’s the thing.

The character’s are enough. I *love* these characters. Their story is fantastic. Nadine’s and Chloe’s story was the best and most cohesive of the entire series. Also it only took me roughly six hours to play thru and I only feel like half of that was wasted! That’s still probably being too generous but I’m grasping for positives, here. Still - I don’t know why the senior production team has never had confidence in the core of their product which is the charm of their characters and the play dynamic - Uncharted is primarily about *seeing* and *doing* - for the most part, unfortunately, separately.

The dialogue between Chloe and Nadine is extremely interesting, it is absolutely the best thing in the game, yet it keeps getting interrupted by stupid gameplay beats due to poor timing of rolling up on level locations. Uncharted 4 was supposed to have locations hidden around levels where you could engage in dialogue between characters but I barely found them - why hide such interesting content in your game?? It’s completely absurd. Then the only few I did find were between Elena and Nathan altho I really don’t think those were meant to be hidden, and they were so poorly written and I hated them so much, I didn’t care to discover any more. Again - no disrespect at all to Nolan North and Troy Baker whom I absolutely adore and respect, but I didn’t find anything engaging or interesting *at all* about the brother narrative. I didn’t care one bit what that nonsense was about. What about Sully? Where’s Sully’s story?? I’m just so - so glad we got a story for Chloe, and that at least Nadine got some great screen time too as a part of it and that it all presented so well.

Before I continue to praise what went well, there are a few things I can’t let pass. While the driving has thankfully improved and controls quite well now, the exclusion of a minimap or GPS HUD element is interesting. I’m fairly certain it’s intentional as to not detract from the game’s clean, cinematic look, to not break immersion, but this just generates a horrific breakdown in actual player experience for me. Without any navigational assists, I constantly got lost and stopped every 20 meters to check the map, frequently driving into dead-ends, off cliffs and past where I wanted or needed to go. The game isn’t a 30 hour open-world experience with distinct and varied landmarks the player will familiarise themselves with and learn to navigate by, for the most part the level is fairly homogeneous in object geometry.

Some of the puzzles take far too long to mechanically execute, in particular the smashy-slashy statue block jumpy stupid whatever it’s called one and the sliding shadow motif. It doesn’t matter that neither actually takes too long once you know the solution, it’s that they feel long and then are actually over-long and also not interesting to mechanically execute. This is due mostly to clunky character animation and animation smoothing, and part of Naughty Dog’s overall obsession with being cinematic which is something I’ll return to towards the end of this piece, something which has been a strength but will ultimately be to their detriment. While cinematic visuals might be a benefit for traversal, it’s something that absolutely does not suit puzzle-solving. In the example of the statue-block puzzle, the hard reset each time the player is hit means laboriously jogging all the way back to the beginning and starting again - it’s just poor puzzle design having to begin again from a full reset. There’s no satisfaction in having to remember the whole thing and while I didn’t look up the solution online, I’m willing to bet many people will have just dialled up a clip on YouTube and copied it without figuring it out themselves. This is a failure of connecting what’s satisfying about moving in your game and what’s satisfying about solving puzzles, something Crystal Dynamics understood far better in the Tomb Raider reboots, in particular the second outing (Rise of) with their much more environment-centric puzzling.

The sliding shadow puzzle just simply takes way too long to jog around the space, then clip onto the hot-zone for each lever, wait for the animation to lift it, wait for the animation for the pieces to slide, rinse, repeat. Once you know what you have to do, it’s overly frustrating actually having to do it.

It brings me to a weird quirk of design where the puzzle designers perhaps don’t understand something that the environmental designers do. Maybe they didn’t get the same little notes in the Slack channel, or Trello board or Teams pin or whatever. Uncharted level-design has almost no back-tracking, less in each successive game, and it’s almost entirely absent from Lost Legacy - you’d have to look closely to realise you’re navigating the same area you came in thru and almost always moving over it in a different way that’s been modified - now it’s flooded, now there’s a bridge, now you’re swinging or leaping or climbing where you weren’t etc. I feel like this is the Hidetaka Miyazaki Souls/Borne effect of level design in which environments are designed to be both realistic and practical.

Great! Good for the level designers. Did the puzzle designers not get that note? Maybe they did. I need to stop thinking that every poor optimisation is a symptom of ignorance - that’s bad form on my part. What’s more likely is it’s a symptom of either bad leadership, poor tool implementation, lack of time or too narrow or strict an observation of representative vision - by which I mean - they can’t change the way the characters move or animate just for puzzles, because it has to be consistent with the cinematic representation of the game as a whole - and that sucks lemons. It means the overall play experience suffers for the sake of the overall cinematic experience except executing a puzzle isn’t cinematic unless it’s expansive...

Like the positive example I’ll give of the light reflector room. Shoplifted from Uncharted 2′s giant knife that has Nathan climb all over a giant knife, Lost Legacy’s light reflector room has slightly less climbing but is a much larger space, more impressive and a much better example of good puzzling in Uncharted. It’s not difficult to solve but again (I think again?) I’ll argue that you don’t come to Uncharted for difficult puzzles - you don’t come to Tomb Raider for difficult puzzles, either. 

The puzzles in these games should be mostly environmental because they feel good solving them, and solving them should be more about the doing - the playing - and the playing should be moving - running, jumping, climbing etc.

Both the giant knife and the reflector room are a joy to execute because they’re fantastically realised - large cavernous environments that aren’t annoying to navigate, that give you time to appreciate both the scale of the spaces and the details the designers and artists have put into them. Lost Legacy’s is more impressive because you do a lot more puzzling and spend much more time in its vastly larger space, culminating in combat that usually I would be ho-hum about, but I guess exhibits more animation and destruction tech which while scripted, is still impressive nonetheless given how extremely difficult it is to have interactivity still occurring.

I have a few things I want to mention before I begin to wrap up, given it’s going to be a very long wrap - I’d say I’m taking cues from Joseph Anderson but I’ve always been this verbose.

The medallion puzzles were excellent, in part perhaps because they felt like the closest thing to the Tomb Raider reboots’ challenge tombs. Some of them were silly and lazily implemented, the worst offender being you just had to shoot mans and get the medallion from the lock-box that the mans had put it in (pfft), but the best ones were integrated into the environment such that you may well have walked past or thru areas that were puzzles before you knew what they were. This brings up one of the most interesting things I’ve been turning over for quite some time now. Ben Croshaw aka Yahtzee aka Zero Punctuation may have first mentioned “chest high walls” in his first Gears of War video, but it may well have been an Uncharted game. I don’t remember but he will have thrown in mentions of all the generic cover-shooters as a catch-all for how the environments immediately telegraph that Combat™ will happen. It’s a particularly astute remark and speaks volumes of video game design - developers always seem to have very specific design language to separate traversal, combat and puzzling. While I clearly don’t care for combat most days, and yes - I do acknowledge there are some practical concerns for combat that can’t be avoided, I always envisaged design that blurred the lines between puzzle and environment so that you never quite knew what was and wasn’t a puzzle. Everything should be the puzzle. In some senses, Cyan’s old Myst games were a bit like this but in a very rudimentary and crude way - sure, they’re quite old now, but even those had very clear not puzzle areas. It’s a complex and subtle subject, but something of a study of games like Fireproof Games’ The Room would be in order. Understandably smaller scale, but the thinking behind it is definitely adjacent.

Final notes - the young Indian girl in the prologue has amazing animations that you’ll miss entirely unless you swing the camera yourself. A whole team of people or a single animator has spent hours on those animations - that a director or team leader hasn’t forced the player to see and appreciate them is a disservice.

Every section where you have to do something under pressure like run from mans shooting at you or dash through a lengthy section of crumbling cave network etc. is a horrible play experience of not knowing where to go. They’re trying to inject excitement by applying pressure but there’s no clear guidance and no dependence on player skill, so you end in bizarre fail-states due to going in completely the wrong direction that glitches cameras or scene time-outs resulting in check-points and the whole thing just doesn’t scan as a cinematic experience. I hate hate hate them - you’re subject to the same musical swell that’s supposed to be like a movie only to fail again and it comes off as b-grade and pathetic. Every game has had this problem and it is just straight bad design.

Three? Four? Games in a row, Naughty Dog have recycled; 

being pursued on foot by an armoured vehicle crashing through level geometry while you have to run and occasionally shoot/fight mans, 

driving down a shanty-town on a hill pursued by an armoured vehicle - perhaps the same one as previous scene

a big chase scene of lots of vehicles jumping from vehicle to vehicle shooting and/or punching mans that may or may not include...

a train combat sequence where you start at the back of the train and work your way to the front of it shooting mans as you go

This lacks creativity at this point. I think duplicating these once each - so you do them twice total across the franchise is fine, but they hit the same beats in the same way - exactly - every time they appear. It just strikes me as Naughty Dog just not knowing what else to do. At one point, I think it was in Uncharted 4, when driving down the shanty-town on the hill, I literally had a brain-fart not knowing which game I was playing because I swear we did it in 2 and 3. Did we do it in 3?? Look, I don’t know. But it’s getting old. At least we didn’t do it in Lost Legacy, but we did the train and I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of doing the same things in the same way. It could have been a train but it should have been in a way that just wasn’t just another Uncharted train. It hasn’t worn thin, it’s worn out.

Overall, the games look great... but playing them feels like they’re stuck in PS2 and early PS3 era philosophies, like Naughty Dog haven’t evolved and don’t realise that people’s brains function much quicker and can process more, or that the media we consume, the games we play function at a higher level and we can digest more, we’re capable of processing higher functions. I’ve been playing Ubisoft’s The Division 2 and enjoying it more the more I play, much to my surprise. I understand the intent behind the gameplay is extremely different to the single-player experience of Uncharted, however there are some parallels in what it achieves animation wise;

The Division is also a cover shooter but of-course as a multiplayer, open-world live-service game, its intent is to telegraph to the player that the entire environment is a permanent play-space in which to always be playing. It utilises an information-rich GUI that is an always-on system with button icons telling the player what button to press over what surfaces to snap to, vault over, climb up, run to (and snap to cover), open and loot, interact with etc. I don’t know if these can be turned off but I like them on. It’s a pretty amazing feat that almost every environmental object has been mapped as a snap-to-cover and/or climbable object. For this reason, the character movement in Division is pretty quick and snappy, however it still manages to have a decent degree of natural human kinetics in the character rigging which is amazing. This means if you move-off from standing still, there’s a slight delay as your “weight” shifts, same if you change direction. When I say “snap” to cover, it’s not actually instantaneous, your character makes a movement and takes time to do so, yet it’s still not sluggish. Somehow the developers have worked at fine-tuning a balance between not-instant, but not too slow.

This is something that even in Lost Legacy, I feel Naughty Dog simply can’t do. The animations are decent during play - they’re outstanding during cutscenes (we’re getting there), but character models have a really awkward relationship with the environment. They clip awkwardly with ladders and buttons and wheels - with puzzles and levers - getting the grappling hook to prompt is again better than Uncharted 4 but still not ideal. I had far fewer glitch-outs than 4 too, which was a significant improvement, but I still had to animate back and forth a few times to get into hot-zones appropriately and with character kinetics not quite right, it wasn’t exactly easy.

And again to be fair, this stuff is suuuuuper difficult. I don’t mean to talk about this stuff like it’s cooking instant ramen. It’s so freaking tough. Rigging and mapping interactive character models has to be one of the most stupendously difficult things a developer has to do - making it work with all that scripting, getting it to play nice with all those assets and lines and lines of coding for the full experience. I have so much respect for game developers and what an astronomical task it is. So when I say I prefer one development team’s product over another’s, I don’t mean to say that the other team is absolute garbage - there are so many things that might contribute to that final product and we have no idea what’s been going on at Naughty Dog. If the team leaders and producers say they’re happy or even if they don’t, and the decision is made to ship, there’s nothing more they can say or do.

If there was one thing I absolutely loved about this game, it was the two main characters and the story that was told about them. I can excuse the main text as the catalyst that brought them together - even to the point that it’s a story about Chloe ultimately deciding what’s important to her. My issue with this comes full circle with the setting being in a real world conflict. There’s a bit of white savour complex in there in that Asav might be the narrative’s antagonist, but he at least is local. It’s not clear exactly what Chloe’s ethnicity is and I’m not here to judge what her stakes are in it because clearly her character has a sense of home and place in India, but she certainly also has a complex sense of being an outsider. So the point is not to judge, but the game also is unclear on its positioning other than she’s the heroic vehicle of deliverance. See what I mean about theme? This is what I mean by you could have just as easily written almost an identical story about Nadine and Chloe, with very similar interactions, tension, redemption and resolve - even with an antagonist, conflict and a happy ending, but either treated real sociopolitical issues with better care or not set your game in them at all. I’m all for setting games in the real world, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. I’m not the person to ask.

I need to be careful not to direct that criticism at the base-level developers nor at Claudia Black who is the manifestation of Chloe’s voice because she does an amazing job of bringing her to life. The casting of Laura Bailey voicing a black South African Nadine was much more awkward given Nadine’s ethnicity wasn’t decided when she was cast - again that’s on Naughty Dog’s leadership, but I won’t knock Laura Bailey for it. It’s easy to say she should have resigned, perhaps she should have, that’s an economical question only Laura can answer and I’m sure it’s not an easy one. Suffice to say, VO work isn’t lucrative.

What a side-track.

I don’t think I ever cared about Nathan. I think I always cared about Elena, and not because WAIFU and also not because WHITE KNIGHT or whatever other bullshit reasons stupid alphagamerz will spit from their frontheads. Elena’s just more interesting, probably because Nathan is written like a design document and Elena’s written like a human being. Naughty Dog want to create a game about adventuring with lush expansive environments, shooty mcshooting and light puzzling. They want it to be cinematic and unrivalled in its quality and they have the smarts to build the tech around it, with Sony’s help. Backed by Sony money, they take VO seriously and do a great job at creating that cinematic experience, coupled with some above-par for video games narrative writing. The problem this introduces for me is Nathan’s raison d'être has to justify everything - action, tension, stupidity...

Nathan Drake really is the design document.

I feel like he’s just the unfortunate side-effect of being central to the game, and it���s typical of my character to just not dig the focus of things and get into subtexts a whole lot more. Often I get into things in the periphery, things adjacent - I don’t love or hate Shakespeare or for that matter Baz Luhrmann but Romeo + Juliet ‘96 is an amazing film and not at all because of the eponymous Romeo and Juliet and again, not for Leonardo di Caprio (spit!) or for Claire Danes (she can stay) but the absolutely divine cast of supporting characters (John Leguizamo will live in my heart forever oh baby).

That Nathan makes stupid decisions is already something that turns me off. That he makes poor decisions because... he’s an orphan? Because... he was bullied? Because... his brother left him? This is why he’s not transparent with his wife? Actually, he’s quite realistic. Except the people like him I’ve known in my life aren’t heroes - they’re pathetic or unreliable or abusive or dangerous. Elena is an adult. She’s not perfect either and that’s also great because neither am I. As a side character she has the conceit of being more nuanced, but as the contra to Nathan, she’s also mature versus his childishness. OOOOAAAAH EVERYONE LOVES A LOVEABLE MANBABY OOAAAH COMEON LIVE A LITTLE EVERYONE’S GOT A LITTLE CHILD STILL IN THEM SOMEWHERE yea fine, I get it, like I’ve said before, yes - he embodies the recklessness and playfulness in us, but that’s a confusing position for a game that frequently tries to ground itself in real world conflict to be taking. You’re reducing him to that but injecting complex and nuanced characters like Elena and now eventually both Chloe and Nadine? I’m telling you now - any male that doesn’t know when it’s appropriate to grow-up, when the time to set aside the playfulness and be TRUTHFUL AND TRANSPARENT WITH HIS PARTNER is a dangerous person and FUCK THAT NOISE. Nathan, as much as I do absolutely - make no mistake - adore Nolan North’s voicing - ends up being another Homer Simpson - as long as you laugh at his stupidity, you’ll excuse it, and you’ll excuse the hurt that’s done by it, and that shit doesn’t fly with me. His redemption was not earned. I say again - Elena should throw him into the sea.

Nadine ends up being a fantastic character, even if she’s given less narrative time, she’s a great example of her behaviour telling more story in contrast to Chloe getting to reveal her past and it’s nice to see them play off one another. I feel Nadine and Chloe as characters hit great story beats in ways Nathan didn’t get to with pretty much any of the other characters in four games - not Sully, not Elena, not his brother, not even Chloe - all told, we never actually get any back-story on Nathan and Chloe and I think we’re better off for it because I don’t care.

Having a quick squiz around tumblr reveals the obvious and rampant shipping of Nadine and Chloe and I couldn’t be happier. I think Naughty Dog knew what they were doing. There were so many moments. Those moments were for us. I think they were subtle enough that the fragile manbabies would have missed them but there’s no fooling us. Some of the babyboiz would have been seething thru their mouthbreething hairmouths and I’m sure probably took to the internet but that’s OK, they can remain unfucked incels for the rest of their lives or worse, serviced by whatever unwashed creatures want to dare fondle them in the dark. The elephant ride and that whole conversation was almost enough for me to forgive the absolute disaster that was Uncharted 4. It was given enough time to breathe, it was absolutely beautiful, and just when you thought they were going to terminate it and apologise for making things too awks, it concludes just perfectly and you get a phone picture that doesn’t have Nadine in frame, yet her presence in that picture is definite, pervasive and emotional. Again, some people may have completely missed it and maybe it chalks up to life experience, but as completely contrived as an artefact of complete fiction as that whole sequence might be, it was one of the most wonderfully tender moments ever created in a video game and I wonder if it makes the whole affair worth it.

In the Uncharted 4 piece, I threw in a few barbs about the most meaningful interactions, and in Lost Legacy, what I really loved was Chloe taking photos of things she thinks are beautiful and interesting on her phone, and feeding the elephant - these were the most meaningful interactions in the game. I love that the photos on the phone didn’t serve any gameplay utility at all, they were there because her character wanted to document her travels, because she thought what she was seeing was cool, and any time in the game, you could pull out your phone and look at what you’d seen. It was such a good and important decision to have the very first picture to be the Indian girl in the market, as that rather than the local conflict, does more to ground you and Chloe as a character in the setting. The game never forces you to look at it as a reminder, but you know it’s there.

I did steal these from the internet, sorry - so if they’re yours, let me know and I’ll be happy to take them down - this one in particular, seeing as it’s a photomode capture. I should have taken my own but I don’t do photomode caps on my first play-thru and there’s no-way I’m replaying this ever again.

It took five games for Naughty Dog to finally get some decent character writing, but a part of me still feels they couldn’t have existed without all the dross of the other games. There’s this immense amount of back-story and labour both the developers and the players had to slog thru to get to this point, and I feel as tho we get here and there’s just too little to show for it. I still really enjoyed the story that was told, the sense of character I felt, but a lot of that was contingent on the Uncharted universe in situ. Lost Legacy feels like a combining of all of Naughty Dog’s narrative motifs - the earnest redemption, the moment of tenderness and connection centred around peaceful animals - it’s a greatest hits of Naughty Dog in the best way possible because each narrative beat hits perfectly. I’m glad I played it with two characters who endeared themselves so much to me, that I truly cared about.

I’ve spend a lot of time praising the strengths of writing for at least Lost Legacy, but for each thing I’ve enjoyed about at least these two characters, there have been so many things I’ve been critical of. I feel like in order to get to the tiniest bit of enjoyment, I had to suffer thru so much. Honestly I don’t know if it really was worth it. It’s hard to know given that who I am now and where my tastes are and have developed as a consequence of my experiences, and I definitely would not replay any of those games again - so where does that leave me? I can’t go back and play The Last Of Us and I absolutely won’t play the second game, I just can’t do Naughty Dog games now, I don’t have it in me.

Naughty Dog have spent the better part of two decades developing tech for visual fidelity specifically for the Playstation hardware platforms (PS3 and 4). They’ve also been doing it by overworking their staff, many of which have left out of frustration or necessity. The problem they face is that as industry tools in general improve, there will no gap between games developed by Naughty Dog and any other contemporary studio from a visual perspective. Make no mistake - the Uncharted games are absolutely chock-full of objects, geometry and animation - somehow miraculously so on the Playstation platform in comparison to other games with the exception of other first-party and exclusive games receiving similar support from Sony such as Guerilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and Sucker Punch’s forthcoming Ghost of Tsushima. There are probably other similar examples for the previous generation on PS3.

Yes, there’s a certain style of game Naughty Dog create as far as narrative goes but because it’s becoming more cinematic, that style is judged more and more by cinematic standards and at best it’s barely semi-professional aside from the outstanding voice work. There are few striking visual motifs that set Naughty Dog games apart from a design perspective, and the gameplay and mechanical constructions that once distinguished them at least a little from others are ever diminishing at increasing rates - more-so as their work practices make the level of quality they set out to achieve ever more unsustainable.

Lost Legacy encapsulates a lot of what I feel about video games as a whole at the moment - as an industry and as a culture. It’s a snapshot of a culture that’s achieving wonderful, beautiful things that are in ways huge - immense, yet somehow can feel so small in comparison to some of the challenges it faces. It’s an industry and culture experiencing a period of great upheaval, where after years upon years of malpractice, terrible things somehow still endure. It’s a space where sometimes it feels like a battle to find the tiniest shred of beauty buried in the dirt and ash, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the frustration that working thru it brings about while grass-roots labourers continue to be burned.

Like many things in life, both at my age and at the level I guess a person gets to at the exposure rate of a thing, I’ve cut back a great deal on my engagement time with video games, so I’m a lot less patient with the functions and mechanisms of a game. There’s a labour element of video games that I feel developers might think is somehow necessary and there’s a component of that which is true, just not quite in the way they think it is, and it takes a unique frame of thinking to break out of traditional design to understand it. Again I’m not saying there’s anything special about how I understand games - there’s nothing at all original in my thoughts - I’ve shoplifted them wholesale from a hundred other people back from when I used to read Gamasutra and even now when I read designers and the people I follow and talk to on Twitter etc. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with traditions and the people that enjoy them - just because they’re not my thing any more doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means I’ve moved to something else and I shouldn’t engage with them.

That, I think, is what I’m waiting for. Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, a whole bunch of others - these are the games I feel are pushing past the boundaries of tradition. Then the moments Uncharted takes itself out of its traditions - Nadine and Chloe’s elephant ride, Chloe’s phone pictures, Elena and Nathan’s house tours especially as Cassie - that’s when I think now you’re running! Run with it! Look, I’m still playing The Division - I’m still moving and shooting and enjoying it.

But we can do so much more. Many developers are doing more. We as an audience need to play more All of us together need to do and play more.

(The epilogue is me figuring I talk a lot of shit about AAA games and nary a word about KRZ, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther and the rest and I get it, but oooooo howdy is it really difficult for me to talk pragmatically about games I actually love)

[kryptsune]

Hi you are an amazing writer i was wondering if you have any tips on salvaging a story that was derailed by a brain fart cause uh i was writing a short story that turned out to be longer and harder to read for anyone thats not myself and now i cant barely look at it... so can i have tips or advice please?

🌼Sorry for the late reply on this I wanted to be able to take the time to give you my own personal advice. First of all, thank you for the kind words :D I am so happy that you enjoy my writing. 

Tips tips tips. Well, there are a couple of things you can do and I have personally done myself. If you feel as though a story has gotten out of hand there is nothing wrong with that at all. I never planned to have either Felldritch or Wonderfell having their own fics in the first place but I enjoy writing for them so much that it was a logical progression. It is difficult for me to assess your personal investment in the project and from what I am reading it seems you no longer are passionate about it?  The truth of the matter is that writing has to be something you enjoy in order to do stories. Sure you can pump out chapter after chapter but it won’t have that spark and why would you put yourself through that suffering in the first place? Sometimes stories are hard to read for others just because of their personality. I have a lot of friends that enjoy my work but haven’t read the story because it is massive. That is something I am keenly aware of often. Welcome to the Underworld is not for the faint of heart or for casual readers and I understand that. It’s not for everyone. I appreciate it when people at least try, however, it is a good way for me to gauge interest at the very least. 

I will break this into 3 parts. The first will be revaluating your current story/project and the second will be things you can do that might make it easier for your readers if you still feel you want to continue it and lastly what you can do to possibly get that passion back if so you can “look at it again.” 1. Evaluating your project: As artists and creatives, we tend to latch onto our work because we put our own personal investment into it. I usually use the analogy that it is like our child and it can be difficult to care for sometimes and yet rewarding at others. This is the first thing you want to do if you are working on a project. Always evaluate. Do you enjoy it anymore?  Do you feel stuck? Is it just not going the way you want it to? Writer's block maybe? All of these can be factors into why you may not enjoy it any longer. 

I felt this with WTU for the longest time and now looking back on it...it was for the wrong reasons. I felt that no one wanted to read it after hours upon hours of writing and editing. It made me sad and I didn’t understand why. The thing is I have changed my mindset when it comes to this. It is hard for me to accurately gauge who reads my work without some kind of feedback but I have a goal. I set out to write an extensive and world built Fell verse and I am going to do it. It’s important to me and it is rewarding just to know that I can do a project as large as the three acts of WTU. Ask yourself why are you writing the story? What are your roadblocks? This will help you come to a decision. 

2. Easing the Readers: If you read my writing you will notice I have a tendency to write a fair bit. Every chapter of WTU ranges from about 15-20 pages of text 11 point font in google docs. That is a lot. I actually have not gone and calculated the word count on it but yeah, a lot. There are simple things you can do however to make the reading a little more digestible for people. 

a. Formating: I never had a problem with reading large blocks of text. That was how I was taught in middle and high school. That said others struggle with large blocks because it makes it difficult to read from a visual perspective (the irony that I am using block text right now). What you can do is break up your paragraphs more often. I have started to do this with older WTU chapters seeing as there are a lot of text blocks. It is a simple and relatively hassle-free way to make it easier. 

b. Pacing: I am by no means the expert of fics however there are some things that I notice in fics that tend to pop up quite frequently. I am not saying to change these things by any means but to evaluate and possibly adjust when needed. PACING. I can’t tell you how many stories I have read with poor or confusing pacing. What I mean by this is that the story is either holding too long in a certain scene or there is no breathing room. WTU and a lot of my fics have dark undertones to them which creates drama and emotional payoff, however, doing this constantly and throwing problem after problem into a story is hard to swallow. The readers need a break. This can be anything from levity to simple character interactions. Not everything is fights or angst. 

This also goes for fics that have none of the former as well. There are so many that are a slice of life and that is fine! Enjoy your cute fluffy fics that said if there is no conflict then what is the point of continuing to read the story? What is holding my investment? Sure the characters can be written well but the point of storytelling is connection. A perfect butterflies and rainbows story is all well and good but you can’t connect to it. That is not how life is. (I am pontificating a little bit but I am honestly really tired of having to explain to people that my fics are M for a reason. No NSFW stuff but rather real-life mental and psychological and emotional situations.)

c. Characters: This kind of also ties into what I was talking about before. A flawless character... is a boring one. Some of peoples favorite characters are the villains, why? Because unlike their heroic counterparts they feel real. They go through things and make their own path. If they just chose differently then things would be different. A lot of times (and no offense to fandom) I find that people make stereotypes of a character. It’s all surface-level stuff. Think about what makes you, you. What have you gone through that causes you to think a certain way or react to things? Our lives are made up of experiences and moments and characters are the exact same way. Most don’t realize this since I hint it throughout the story but everything tells a story. The character's costumes tell a story whether that be the place they live of their own personal style. Why does my Red wear a collar with a seemingly half-broken, fused, and burned chain link? I don’t know... you tell me. 

It’s a storytelling technique called breadcrumbing. This is used to hint to some sort of plot or payoff. A foreshadowing at times. It is an incredibly useful and engaging tool if done properly. I would use my “why does Red do what he does” example but its been beaten to death so I will use Boss as my example instead.   

Boss is the Head of Royal Guard having bested Undyne a long time ago but not everyone was happy with the change of the Guard and that is communicated in character dialogue. In fact, you can use this method to hint to character connections as well. Boss has claw marks in both his scarf and his left eye socket. So.... who could do that kind of damage? If you have read the story *mild Snowdin spoiler* Frisk meets Doggo. An Australian cattle dog-wolf mix that has no love for the current Captain. He was tossed out of the Royal Guard after altercation... maybe attacking a certain lanky skeleton perhaps? It’s not directly stated but certain visual ques could lead someone to that kind of assumption. 

Intertwine your characters, their relationships, their life events. All of this will create far more dynamic storytelling and investment.

d. Planning: Returning back to potential writers' block... I find that something that personally helps me is outlining. I have all of my stories planned out from beginning to end while the middle can be moved around accordingly. That said in every single chapter I outline the main points I want to communicate. It helps with the organization but also keeping your thoughts on track. If you feel you need an extra chapter for character development then you can totally plan that out. Don’t be afraid to change things. It’s your story do what you feel is best for it! 

e. Editors/betas/outside eyes: This is a huge one and can be a little challenging at first. It is helpful to have others look at the work. Those that you trust. Have them look for grammar or even pacing and character inconsistencies. It can be hard to get a critique on your work that you love so much however this makes you far better writer IF IT COMES FROM A REPUTABLE SOURCE. 

I need to clarify this as you cannot please everyone. I have rejected critiques from my beta readers in the past, not because I think I know better but because even they can’t account for your overall thought process. What they think is superfluous may come to have a payoff later on and it needs to be in there for that payoff. That can be anything from character development to plot.  You have to be strong in your conviction. Say yes and no when appropriate and always be kind to your readers. They are taking time out of their lives to help you with your work. The same goes for the betas. Be respectful and kind when giving CONSTRUCTIVE feedback and don’t be offended when the author does not agree. 

3. Breaking the Block: Breaking any kind of block is not easy. In fact, it is a constant nuisance in any creative field. That said there are some simple things that you can do to help. The best example I can give is taking a break. That can range from person to person but generally, sometimes you work on something for so long you need to set it aside and look at it with fresh and new eyes. It is ok to take breaks, hiatus, or just work on something else for your own mental well being. Here are a few things you can do to utilize your break effectively.  a. Don’t even look at it: Some people just need to get away from it all which is totally understandable. I would be farther along in my own fics if I did not break so much but I am determined to put my best foot forward even if it takes me longer. I am also an artist in the drawing and painting sense so I juggle that as well. If you notice my blog right now there has not been much going on in the way of writing because I’ve switched gears. There is nothing wrong with that but I pick my battles. 

b. Work on another project: There is nothing wrong with working on something else just for a change of pace. We are not machines and therefore monotony breeds complacency or burn out in this case. One of the reasons I have 2 other fics is because sometimes I hop from project to project. I know not everyone can mentally do that but it helps me recharge for the main project that I feel worn out on. 

People have also been wondering where TLC (Tender Love and Care) my Red X Frisk fic has been. The truth is that fic is my downtime fic. I do it when I am able to. In fact, as I work on my multiverse boys references lately I have been working on the second chapter of TLC because its a nice change of pace from doing something like Felldritch or the other two.

c. A little at a time:  Any type of project can be overwhelming so taking chunks of it at a time helps compartmentalize it a little easier. Try to write as much as you can a day. It’s not much but by the end of the week, boom, your chapter is done. 

You shouldn’t push yourself or beat yourself up either. I find that I always feel guilty about taking some leisure time because I could be creating more content but that’s unhealthy. Take the time you need and enjoy your games or books. I personally am enjoying the heck out of Animal Crossing right now. 

All in all, I hope some of these tips help a little. Since I do not know what you are working on or why you feel the way you do about it. It is hard for me to give direct advice. What I can say out of all of this is enjoy what you are making. Enjoy the journey and the process. At the end of the day, it is your investment and if you don’t enjoy it what is the point?

 It is nice to get feedback on things, trust me I know sometimes it feels like pulling teeth, and there are clear signs of burn out. We are not art machines, give it some time, reflect, evaluate, and you will find your way. If you really want me to dig deeper to give you specific con crit advice then you are free to DM me. My ask box is also always open! 

[acethetic-attraction]

An asexual reviews fifty shades of grey

Yes you read that right, I read the entirety, 356 pages, of fifty shades of grey by E.L. James, the first book in the fifty shades of grey trilogy.

Trigger warning: I will be discussing sex, toxic relationships, pedophilia and abuse so it you don't want to read that you can go read something a little more wholesome .

Now, for anyone that's ever thought "oh it can't be that bad, right?" I have an answer: Yes, yes it is really that bad. I wanted to die at just about every page. Not only is it filled with cringy sex scenes and toxic stalking and jealousy, the writing is just very very shit, I've read fanfiction with better grammar and vocabulary.

From here on out there will be spoilers, not that I hope that will matter to anyone, I'm serious please don't read this, I bore this burden so you don't have to.

So let's get started

The two main characters

Anastasia (Ana) Steele

Oh god where to start, she reads classics because she is quirky and not like other girls! Many guys flirt with her but she is so totally unattractive and boring, no one will ever notice her!! (Hint the sarcasm)

She has never felt sexual attraction to anyone, she has never kissed anyone or masturbated, but all that changes when she meets Christian, which is honestly so annoying because it so fits in with the "you haven't found the right one yet" stereotype.

Also she has two "characters" inside of her head, I don't really know how to explain them but they are called the inner goddess and the subconscious. The inner goddess is the voice that constantly tells her to fuck Christian and her subconscious is her commen sense basically. And I have no words for how infuriating it is, as a person that studies psychology, that she is CONSTANTLY TALKING WITH HER SUBCONSCIOUS. E.L. James didn't even bother to GOOGLE THE MEANING.

Christian Grey

So E.L. James asked herself "how could I made worlds worst love interest" and she fucking nailed it. I wanted to hit him every time he opened his mouth. He is possessive and jealous, he literally says multiple times that he wants to hurt Ana just because and he stalks her relentlessly (knows her address, her mothers name and her phone number and tracks it, knows which flights she's on, also turns up unannounced).

The reasoning for him being "fifty shades of fucked up" (yes his words) is that he was sexually abused when he was underaged, he entered a BDSM relationship with one of his mothers friends (again, while he was underaged) and calls this "the only true relationship he's ever had", he is also still good friends with her and doesn't see anything wrong with the situation, he calls her a "good family friend" and gets offended when Ana calls her a pedophile.

Quick summary

Ana lives with her best friend Kate (one of the only slightly likeable characters) and they are planning to graduate soon and move to Seattle and begin their grown up life.

Kate is in charge of the university newspaper, she has to interview someone but is sick the day of the interview and Ana stands in for her. This is where she meets Christian and basically crushes on him.

A bunch of boring shit happens and she goes out drinking with friends, one of those friends is Jose, she calls Christian while she is very drunk basically as a prank to annoy him. Later outside the club Jose tries to assault her when suddenly Christian turns up as the white knight and rescues her, how did he know where she was you might ask, well he tracks her phone.

For the next like 10 chapters he gives her crazy expensive gifts, they have sex about twice every chapter, and he tries to get her to sign a contract where she basically will be obligated to do whatever the fuck he wants, she luckily is quite on the fence about it. Also he makes her sign and NDA so she can't talk about the relationship and she signs it... WITHOUT EVEN READING IT.

Then there is a scene where Christian beats her, and then just fucks off, and later he is surprised that she cried after this happened... after just about every time they have sex she starts crying. He also stalks her some more by tracking her her turning up in random places. Also it is revealed that he has been sexually abused as a minor by one of his mothers friends, he sees nothing wrong with this and is still friends with her to this day....... I just..... I don't even know what to say to that.

Also Kate starts dating Christian's brother, Elliot, who is like a million times more likeable then Christian. Honestly this book should have been about Kate and Elliot because yes they have a lot of sex but also aren't completely toxic.

Ana eventually goes to her moms house to clear her head and contemplate if she really wants something with him, she takes love advise from her mother who is on her fourth marriage but everyone in this book still believes she is some sort of relationship expert, and surprise surprise, Christian turns up unannounced. They have some more sex, he keeps being a toxic fuck.

Eventually Ana is like "hey, I like you, but it's kinda weird that you always feel the need to hurt me, because uhm surprise surprise getting beaten doesn't make me super happy." And he is like "it's not that bad, letvne show you". So after Christian literally beats the fuck out of her Anna gets the sudden idea to leave him... FINALLY. So she basically runs away, but I fear that's just a cliffhanger, because sadly there are another two books.

A handy list of everything I hated

Just a handy dandy list to get my point across.

1. The vocabulary: she uses all these extremely fancy words without any reason, E.L. James really just picked up a thesaurus and went wild.

2. Christian stalking Ana and getting away with it every time because "he's just concerned and means well"

3. THE FACT THAT ANA TALKS TO HER SUBCONSCIOUS

4. honestly everything about that whole inner goddess subconscious crap, it's just a really lazy way to show inner conflict and made no sense

5. That whole Ana has never felt sexual attraction before she met Christian bullshit, honestly go take a long walk of a short pier E.L. James

6. Every guy except Elliot and her dad exists to flirt with Ana and remind her that it is Christian she really wants instead of a dude who is actually nice to her

7. All the sex scenes, but that was expected

8. Christian seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the fact that he was sexually abused as a kid, also the fact that Ana's first reaction upon hearing this is that she is jealous.

9. Honestly I could keep going on for ever, it was really bad.

So yeah that's all I have to say about that right now...... I hope you enjoyed my suffering