#So now you all have to deal with the consequences

[sonrium]

That second point yanked Batman instantly and unwillingly by the throat to Phantom's side.

He couldn't speak out knowing the rest of the League wouldn't approve, so he let the discussion run its course, and Phantom was naturally denied.

But Batman is nothing if not thorough, and compiling DNA profiles would also help with contingencies. So Batman discretely reaches out after the meeting to give Phantom his personal permission as long as he provides the DNA samples and that Phantom understands that Batman cannot publicly defend him, but he will mitigate the consequences behind the scenes.

After another biting incident when Phantom is getting lectured by Superman:

"Phantom, you can't keep doing this. This is your last warning. Criminals or not, it's never okay to bite people just because you want to. Control yourself, or you might have to rethink your place in the Justice League."

Phantom staring at his feet and genuinely worried that he might get kicked out. He didn't think it was that big a deal.

Batman walks up and simply states. "He is controlling himself."

"Batman, you call that control? I'm trying to be understanding, but Phantom is biting criminals more than ever."

"Are they still breathing?"

"I don't see how-"

"Are their limbs still attached?"

"What are you-?"

Batman gives Superman a hard look to stop him mid question. "Acording to Constantine, ghosts from the Infinite Realms are creatures that should be avoided at all costs due to their extremely volatile nature. Generally, it's a death sentence to ever encounter one."

Superman turned to the child he'd been scolding, shocked that any of that could possibly be true about his colleague. The same colleague, who was so gentle he almost cried when he accidently killed a spider in the dining hall. "Is that true?"

Danny, glancing up but unable to meet Superman's eyes, "Yea-yeah. Intense violence is actually how most ghosts socialize. Regrowing limbs isn't a big deal for ghosts, so they tend to forget how fragile humans are."

Batman continues with his explanation, "In the Infinite Realms, ghosts have evolved to attack anything that moves as a defense due to how hostile the environment is. Everything from the plants to the very ground could attack at any moment. Their version of compassion is controlling their instincts before the killing blow. The fact that Phantom rarely attacks anybody is a testament to his constant and vigillent self-control."

Danny finally meets Superman's eyes and they are nothing but pools of liquid innocence and shame about his very being. "I'm sorry... I'm doing my best, but my ghost instincts are really hard to control, especially when emotions are high and we are carching bad guys, and I can't help but bite. But I promise, I will never let it go any farther than that."

Intense guilt washes over Superman. He knew how seriously Phantom took his promises. He had no idea he was asking Phantom to go against his very nature. Did Phantom have to hold himself back right now? Superman knew a thing or two about how scarily fragile human bodies were to someone like him. He couldn't imagine having instincts that screamed at him to attack anything that moved on top of that.

Batman turned to his old friend with a disapproving stare. "Maybe learn a thing or two before you judge our nonhuman members. I expected better from you."

Superman placed his hands on Phantom's shoulders. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea. Do the best you can. We can figure out the rest together. Please forget everything I said earlier."

Danny with hope sparking in his eyes, "Are you sure? I know im not perfect, but I want to stay. I really like it here, and I really like helping people."

"Of course. I'll let the others know." Superman walks away down the hall, and out of sight.

Danny grinned, lifted his eyebrows, and nodded toward where Superman ran off to convey his thanks for the save.

Batman gave a quick nod and a tiny, barely there smile of his own. He spoke aloud for the one with superhearing that was definitely still listening, "I apologize for any offense you may have taken. Know that the sentiments of Superman are not shared by the rest of us."

Danny pulled the zip lock baggie out of his pocket and silently handed it to Batman with a grin. It had a napkin smeared with the blood of Danny's most recent biting victim labeled in Sharpie. Danny responded in a wobbly voice that did not match his mischivous grin, "Thanks." He added a sniffle for effect. "I needed to hear that. I'm really doing the best I can, but i guess people dont see it that way."

After this incident, Superman became Danny's biggest defender against the biting accusations.

Danny Phantom, who as far as the Justice League knew was a normal ghost, was presenting a pointpoint in front of the rest of the League. The presentation says, "Why I should be allowed to bite criminals: 1, because I am not human and cannot catch any of your filthy human diseases. 2, because it would allow us to compile DNA samples from the criminals of the world to compare with during crime scene investigation. 3, Fuck you."

[clown-bimbo]

Sugar Daddy Leona

Definitely a gender neutral reader because he is rood in this and we already know Leona is canonically more respectful to women, so you are yuugender in this

You’re down on your luck and need cash. Maybe you’re even in debt to azul, who knows. But you need money.

Fortunately for you, a certain royal lion who throws money at problems he’s too lazy to deal with (which is most of them) currently has a problem that you can solve.

Leona needs a date.

Some stupid ball thing he has to attend. And for most of his life he’s been able to get away going alone, but this year his family is really pestering him to bring someone. He doesn’t think much of it, he’ll just find someone not too annoying to drag along with him. He’ll even pay them for their time. Win win. (He ends up offering you a stupid amount of money but you take the Ruggie route and just accept it from him)

And that’s how the transactional relationship between you and Leona starts. Innocent enough, right?

but then you and Leona get tipsy. Then you and Leona get handsy. And then you and Leona get in bed.

You wake up the next morning with the usual headache, but also a sleepy lion clinging onto you like a pillow.

Also you’re both naked.

And bruised.

And DAMN did you fuck up Leona’s back—

Tho it was probably deserved, especially now that you can really process how fucking sore you are down there.

Leona stirs, complaining about his headache. If he's surprised to see you in bed with him, you'll never know, because his face remains passive. He mumbles something about upping your pay, then falls back to sleep.

You don't even know where your underwear is.

You eventually do find it, you clean up and get dressed. At some point Leona finally gets up, pulling his boxers on but nothing else. His tail waves lazily behind him.

You try to bring up last night, but he starts digging through his pile of clothes and tosses a wallet at you.

"There'd be trouble if word got out, so I'm counting you to keep your mouth shut, got it, Herbivore?"

You just nod and try to leave as subtly as possible.

Below the cut is 18+ content. Tread with caution.

For my afab readers out there, the extra money is also for you to find last minute contraceptives. He wouldn't know the first thing about buying them himself, but figures you should, right? All he knows is that he came in you. A lot. And he definitely can't afford the consequences, and he doesn't want you to either.

You both expect to brush it all off, put it all behind you.

But uh

Leona finds him thinking about you more. Specifically when he's horny. And it's fucking annoying. So, once again, he decides to go about his tried and true method of throwing money at someone to deal with it.

He contacts you again and says (in the blunt Leona way) that he will pay you to keep going to events with him and also fuck him.

So now you've got the lil sugar daddy transaction going on. You join him to socials and events with his family, then he takes you to bed and fucks all his frustrations out on you.

Typically has you on all fours or bouncing on his cock. Man's has two modes: pillow princess or beast mode. Typically one followed by the other.

He'll be lounging on bed while you ride him. You'll get yourself off on his cock. And while your panting, he's shifting to grab you. He'll whisper in your ear I'm not done yet, herbivore, and suddenly he's pounding into you like a jackhammer.

Or it'll be a session of relentless pounding, but one of you wants more, so he'll lay back and have you ride him.

There are times where you'll both be exhausted (or in his case, where he doesn't want to exert as much effort) but he still insists that you keep going. Really, he just likes being inside you. Don't be surprised when you wake up sleeping on his chest, dick still inside you.

And he refuses to use condoms, he wants to cum inside you, and he fucking will. And he fucking does. A lot.

And if you're afab he absolutely makes sure you're on the best contraceptive plan possible.

He may tear any condoms he sees to pieces, but he still tries to be a safe sex king. Just don't make him wear the fucking rubber, unless you really wanna get fUCKED up that night. They make him so irrationally angry.

Or maybe there is some rationality to it. Maybe it's an instinct thing.

Over the course of the transactional relationship you really become his herbivore. He actively seeks you out for company. Like to the point Ruggie has not only noticed it, but become accustomed to it. Which also means he has teased Leona about it, though not often and a lot, because Leona seems oddly touchy about it...

Speaking of touchy, mans is so handsy with you, always has to be holding you in some way. Later on in the relationship, he started getting cheeky with it, and there have been a few times where you'd swat him and he'd just shoot you that wry smile. He will always move his hand, though, when you express discomfort or discontent. He only does it because he can tell you don't really hate it. You're mostly just embarrassed. And he likes the way you blush.

Will prob do a part 2 because I have more ideas but they're not nsfw and I want to make them available. Sooooooo... yeah.

[stuckyslut8]

I'm so very tamed now .part 2

Part 1. Masterlist.

A/N : don't know what took me so long to make a part 2 ( just life I guess)but her you go lovelies, sorry for the delay.

Pairing: mafia stucky x spy reader.(poly)

Summary: Bucky finally gets the information our of you, but you both manage piss steve off even more, so you have to deal with the consequences .

Warnning :poly stucky dom steve, bratty Bucky, sub reader , self proclaimed brat tamer Bucky,edging, spanking, angy steve 😡, a few tears. No beta reader. 18+ under the cut. Minors dni.

Bucky has you all spread out on his bed, hands cuffed to the bed, completely naked , completely at his mercy.

"are you gonna do something barnes or are you just gonna stare at me all day " you ask him mockingly.

"oh you'll see sweets." He says with a wicked grin, as he pulls out your favourite vibrator and before he pushes it into you , turning it up to the highest setting.

"ughh Bucky." You moan not being able to control your pleasure.

"see pretty girl, I don't have much time , steve is already annoyed so you better tell me everything." He asks as he tries not to palm himself at the sight of your but he couldn't resist he takee out his already hard cock and starts jerking off in front of you, adding to your pleasure.

"or -ughh - or what barnes?" You manage to say in between moans.

"or I'm gonna keep making ya cum until you can't." Your eyes widen at that.

"you see last time I edged ya ,it didn't turn out well so now I'm gonna make try something different." You came instantly as he said that.

"see that's my good girlz we'll see how long you can keep going before giving in." He said as hmm.

Five orgasms later , you still wouldn't budge.

"see I'm almost getting bored ,just spit it out already, the vibrator's battery is gonna die"

"that's all you got?" You challenged him

"fine , I'll do this my way." Bucky said as he pulled the vibrator away from you, looking at your wet pussy.

"see my poor pussy can't take it , she's exhausted.." he cooed as he collected some of your cum with his fingers and sucked them.

"don't tell me what I can take barnes."

"if you insist sweets." Bucky suddenly fills you up with his cock and starts pounding into you, lifting your legs and throwing them over his shoulders. You both moan, and grunt.

"now you better tell me sweets , who do you work for?" He asks as he fucks you into oblivion.

"ughh Bucky ... I'm gonna ." You said as you reached your high.

"me too angel, me too, now why don't you tell me ,so we can both come together ." You were about to give in Bucky knew, you just needed a little push.

"you know steve is gonna be very mad at me, if I don't get the information Outta you after all this trouble...so please tell me sweets,I swear I'll stay right by you whatever it is."

"fine fine...i ughh work for stark, stark sent me " you finally spit out the truth.

Just then steve came barging in the door, " steve i found the information, she works for..." Bucky was about to say .

"stark i know" steve finished his sentence" i just met him. " Not impressed by Bucky.

"well I just got the information Outta her, see i told you my tactics never fail." Steve rolled his eyes at Bucky's answers, although he was certainly aroused by the scene in front of him,you begging Bucky to let you cum.

"well of course I'll let you cum sweets, daddy is having a conversation right now wait a minute" the brunette man told you.

"stop being such a whore buck" steve yelled at him.

"you know you damn well love it steve, infact i know you're enjoying our doll begging to cum right now" while you were still whimpering begging Bucky to cum.

Steve was definitely aroused by the sight in front of him but tried to keep his composure.

"shut up Bucky, she's being a brat and you're only defending her." Steve said.

"she is brat and I'm not defending her , I'm punishing her can't you see?" Bucky asks

"damn well you are, look at her not one ounce of regret in her face,you're not making her relaise anything,you're just giving in to her bratiness."

"daddy please lemme cum" you beg him with doe eyes, Bucky is still in you , you try to fuck yourself on him, lifting your hips. "Just a minute sweets" Bucky says.

"no get off of her" steve says angrily.

"what the hell steve" but steve pushes Bucky aside before he could finish his sentence.

"I'm gonna show her what real punishment is and make her realise what she has really done to us, how much she's hurt us, so stop coddling her and move buck" steve says as he takes off his clothes.

"stevie.." i whimper as Bucky's thick cock is removed from your heat.

"shh shut up you brat ,you only call me sir from now, understood?" Steve said giving a hard spank to your dripping pussy making me moan.

"yes sir" steve flips you onto your stomach, you were waiting nervously as to what he was gonna do.

"now I'm gonna spank you properly you brat and you're gonna take it like a good slut and thank me alright " he says

"yes sir." All while Bucky watched the scene unfold in front of him, he knew you were in big trouble now but he enjoyed it at the same time.

"good girl do what daddy steve says " Bucky said .

Steve gave his first spank it was real, unlike the playful ones Bucky gave you, it stung almost leaving an impression.

"thank you sir." I say. *He spanks again.

"thank you sir"

*spank

*th thank you sir."

After 10 spanks , Steve stops leaving your bottom so red and your pussy dripping.

"you did so good doll taking your punishment like a good girl" Bucky said patting your head.

"thanks daddy" you manage to whimper.

"your punishment is not over yet brat." Steve says with a stern look.

"but.."

"no buts get on your knees .."

You do as he says, steve roughly grabs your hips and thrusts his hard cock in you, making you moan. "Ahh daddy.." steve pulled out immediately,and spanked you again." What do I tell you to calle me you brat.."

"sir?"

"yes and you'll only call me sir from now, no stevie, no daddy understood?" He said slapping my ass again.

"yes sir"

Bucky thought he was being a little too harsh on you. "Oh come on steve she just called you daddy she -" Bucky started to reason .

"you shut up punk or youre gonna be punished next." Steve said and went to sinking his cock back into your dripping cunt in one swift motion.

"ohh yess sir please-" you moaned

"please what you little slut?" Steve asked pounding into you ,making the bed shake, Bucky was happily jerking off to it at this point, knowing trying to defend you was pointless and that would only get you into more trouble, plus he knew steve would never hurt you,no matter how mad he was , he was only doing this because he was deeply hurt by your betrayal.

"please sir, fuck me, please don't stop." You pleaded .

"and why would I listen to you?" The blonde said.

"because...because..."

"because what ?" He said slamming his hips into you.

"because I love you and ...Bucky i uh-" tears we're streaming down your face at this point, both from the pleasure and the guilt of the whole situation,you knew you hurt steve and pushed him to this point.

Steve laughed mockingly. "Really you love- you love us? Don't lie you little slut" steve was about to cum but he contained himself not giving you the satisfaction.

"I'm not lying...i really, really love you both. I'm sorry about everything." A million things were going on Steve's mind.

Just then Steve's phone rang, he picked it up from the night stand while still in you.

"hmm alright I'll be there-" he spoke into the phone. He pulled out of you, leaving you whimpering.

"what happened baby?" Bucky asked , knowing something was wrong.

"nothing it's uh- take her to the safehouse right now, I'll go take care of some things."

Bucky knew better than to argue with steve at times like these so he only nodded.

Steve left the room, Bucky gently cleaned you up, while you were still getting out of the haze. "Pack your things baby." He said as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

"what's going on?" You finally decide to ask

"stevie's orders ,don't ask any questions for a while." He said .

And you complied, going on to pack some of your stuff ,but you had a pretty good idea of what's going on, you took your pistol from the hidden cabinet in your bathroom just in case .

[azdesertwillow]

Minrathous versus Treviso

I keep seeing posts from both sides of this about how it feels like it's unfairly stacked, particularly in terms of how your companions react to this choice.

But here's the thing, the choices are not a 1:1 parallel so it makes sense that the consequences are not a 1:1 split between Neve or Lucanis.

If you choose to not save Minrathous, the consequences are more intimate. The biggest hit, from a game play perspective while not factoring in companions reactions, is which merchant you have available to you. In the short time I had them during my first playthrough, I was far more attached to the Shadow Dragon's shop keep and her look-out than I ever got in the entirety of my Crows playthrough. You get to hear her story of how she survived the Fifth Blight. And she's not the only backstory you get like this. Much of the early game play in Minrathous is meeting individuals, Neve's contacts, her friends, past clients. It's a person to person connection.

But when you don't come to save them, the Shadow Dragons as an organization are dead. The Viper is blighted, those individuals you've met are either dead, dying, or have gone to ground. I teared up when I found out the merchant's fate. Neve's says her apartment is gone. The Threads move in. Mass hanging. But for the city itself, while it certainly needs restoration and repair, the core of the crisis affecting it is that it's now, essentially, under Venatori occupation, something that Treviso has already been dealing with. There is Blight, and it for sure affects the poor disproportionately, but it's not a universal constant for everyone.

Whereas, if you choose not to save Treviso, it doesn't feel as if you take as big of a hit in terms of beloved NPC's. Viago, Teia, Jacobus are all still alive and as I said, I personally never felt a strong connection to the Crows merchant. And as an organization, the Crows will survive this. Treviso is but one branch of the Crows and they'll recover from this. The intimate, person to person connections loss doesn't feel as large in terms of how they effect your story beats.

But Treviso is dead. They blighted the water of a city that's mainly on water. This will hit everyone, regardless of their station. It will not discriminate, it will kill everyone still there eventually. This is a case of a city full of the walking dead who just haven't fallen over yet. The health and mortality rate will plummet. The birth rate will plummet. They were used to occupation, but how do you fight an occupation within your own body?

Now, in terms of your companions reactions, I'm not factoring in the long term outcomes of the cities post-game or even mid-game as you work to help them. This is just to look at their immediate reactions and the game play mechanics as a result of this decision branch.

To me it makes sense that you get locked out of Lucanis' romance and not Neve's because of the long term realities they are facing. What is directly affecting Neve is raw grief. Those were the people she knew and they're gone now. But ultimately, she knows that those deaths are not on your hands and while it takes a while before she can trust you again, she heals from the grief and pain from the loss of life. Versus Lucanis who just sees the long branching consequences of what has happened to Treviso and knows that he warned you. He warned you that Antiva had no standing military and now his city is dead. And this isn't even factoring in all his personal stuff which canonically he tries to keep you away from him if you do fully romance him. The loss of his city is just the last straw needed to fully shut him down. There's just too much to deal with.

(As for Neve/Lucanis, I think that choice plays more into Lucanis' personal hang ups rather than the Minrathous vs. Treviso choice and this post is very specifically about the cities, not Lucanis' issues).

Now, it's fine if you wish to have that perfect 1:1 consequences comparison when choosing between one or the other. I personally don't like that approach when it comes to things like this because it feels like the writers didn't put deep thought into how this would affect the characters and instead were looking at just how to make it match perfectly and hand wave any characterization that doesn't fit their game mechanics.

But it is my personal opinion that I think it's unfair to say that it feels like a bug or lazy writing or unfinished when to me it feels like the opposite. It feels like they actually looked at the characters, looked at the big picture, and put thought into how this would play out, even if it meant it might tip one way or another. That's a sign of writing staying true to the characters rather than cave in the name of game mechanics.

[lemonlyre]

I'd argue, in the context of the show and other characters this makes sense. Now, hear me out pls I spent a long time on this. :3

There's a larger core message in the show that is invariably accepting of disability, race, etc. and totally against eugenicist thinking. Viktor's whole deal, as a journey to accepting human difference and literally searching for a 'glorious final evolution' where the human race itself is replaced by robots without disability, without 'flaws', only to have his realization be that that mindset is so wrong and has caused so much pain over the course of the show.

Also, I noticed the show celebrates diversity and especially props up discriminated groups as rich in character and value as a person. Most characters attain or have some disability - seen or unseen - which doesn't denote them but is framed as a natural physical consequence to war or just a part of them. Jinx's mental health, losing a finger, Sevika's arm, Viktor's illness, etc; the show celebrates the use of mobility aids, prosthetics etc and claims in the climax "you aren't broken, your imperfections make you who you are" to the eugenicist/disabled and impoverished character. I'd argue the show is pretty fundamentally against eugenecism, esp. given the core principle of unity and acceptance.

Some misc. Examples: Zaun deserves to be equal to Piltover, Jinx finding acceptance helps her heal, shimmer and corruption blamed for addiction in the under city, never some intrinsic part of this group of people. Eg; Bush administrations' push that black communities are intrinsically criminal and drug-afflicted to justify racism, while at the same time fueling the war on drugs through opium deals in America. Not to mention the vast array of identities of all the characters are given spotlight, their own stories, flaws and strengths, etc. CaitxVi isn't originally canon to the game, yet here their queerness is celebrated, not shunned as disgusting or making them lesser than. Same with Lest and her transness; Mel, Ekko, Ambessa with their blackness. Multiculturalism and acceptance of identities is celebrated as a core Principle of Arcane.

Especially like with Viktor's arc, this show is alll about duality; "two sides of the same coin" and I believe Singed reaching a "happy ending" is sadly par for the course in life. Bad people win, Viktor still killed all those people, Caitlyn still used police brutality for her personal revenge scheme, Singed still won after everything he's done. He's made to be a foil (contrasting character) to Viktor, highlighting how eugenicist beliefs can be adopted as a manipulation of insecurity and how Singed is his mentor and a piece of shit.

I believe his surviving is pretty plot relevant, as his daughter seems like she'll be important in future media (idk if she's a legend in-game?) yet Ambessa, Jayce adn Viktor are pretty evidently gone so idk this show plays with lore to suit a comprehensive, layered and complex story but Singed is an open plot point. Who knows, maybe he'll get brutally and thematically murdered by his own creations in the next installment, I'd like that.

The more I think about it, the more I question Arcane S2's politics and themes, which were so foundational to S1. Like, a tiny example [SPOILERS AHEAD]:

Singed wins. He gets exactly what he wants in the end. All his "efforts" are rewarded. What does that say about people who share his ideology of eugenics? He is the source of nearly every horrible thing and conflict that happened (Shimmer, the factory deaths, Jinx, Vander as Warwick, the corruption of Viktor), and he gets a happier ending than any other character. Not even a 'he got what he wanted but he has become completely unrecognizable/monstrous to his daughter' tag at the end. You can say they're setting him up and need to open his daughter to future shows, but the way you end a character's story says something about what you think about that character. What does it say when the eugenicist war criminal gets the happy ending he doesn't deserve?

[silentscrying]

🎸 out of my mind ! 💿 track two: kowalski, status report

guitarist!ino x drummer!reader

summary: it's the annual battle of the bands at the fix, your college campus's iconic live music bar, and this year you're taking the stage as the drummer for indie rock group cursed technique. you know the competition is strong, but no part of you is ready for lead singer and guitarist takuma ino. you lock eyes at the edge of the stage, and something starts—something that might make you feel alive even more than the beat of the drums.

warnings: language, alcohol, mentions of drugs/drug dealing, toge bullying, unbearably cute dogs. || sfw. 9k words.

"I SHOULDN'T CUSS in this, right?"

It’s the day before the other four artists premiere their sets at Battle of the Bands, and you haven’t been home since six in the morning. You’re running on caffeine and spite and the pursuit of the story, parked on a high stool across the bar from the one and only Ieiri Shoko.

Toge leans on the counter beside you, opting to stand. He’s agreed to pay for the next snack run in return for you letting him be your partner. You both know you’re going to end up doing most of the writing, but you don’t really mind. Toge would if you asked him to, but you love this kind of thing in a way he just doesn’t. Plus, he’s better with a camera than you, and he’s taking photos tomorrow night.

You laugh, pulling out your phone to record. “You can say whatever you want as long as it’s honest. Be candid.”

“You might regret saying that!” Gojo calls from the back, and Shoko silences him with a glare.

“Are you coming or not?”

Gojo grins and finishes up whatever he’s putting away in the storage room, then strides out and leans his elbows on the counter.

“Do you mind if I record?” You point to the open voice memo app. “Makes it easier to quote you correctly.” You also just hate running interviews when you’re scribbling hand-written notes the whole time. You’d much rather have a genuine conversation and worry about the details later.

Shoko waves a hand airily. “No problem.”

“Absolutely,” Gojo says. “You can probably sell that for thousands.”

You set the phone on the counter, next to one of the tiny pumpkins scattered across it in celebration of the beginning of October. You and Toge bounce back and forth as you run through the standard start-of-interview checklist, having them spell out their names, getting their ages, hometowns, degrees, all that jazz. And then you launch into the stuff you really care about.

“So, you opened The Fix about ten years ago now, correct?”

Shoko nods. “Yeah, a little over two years after we graduated.”

You look at Gojo, whose eyes are even more alarmingly blue in the daylight. “And you were hired right away?”

“Utahime first, then me,” he nods. “Best for last, y’know.”

Shoko snorts. “We knew each other in school. I just took pity on him.” She smirks as Gojo’s jaw drops. “You can quote that.”

“Right, so all of you were friends in college. And you came together to start this place—what was the idea behind it?” Toge chimes in. “You said you studied nursing, Shoko?”

And you sit and listen as Shoko explains. Back in college, she was at the top of her class. By graduation, she’d been accepted to basically all the best med schools. She had her pick. She could do whatever she wanted. But she realized that what she wanted wasn’t that at all.

The medical field is brutal, she tells you. It’s all late nights and emotional burnout. People yelling at you, misplaced anger when you give them the bad news. Getting attached to people only to watch them waste away.

“I needed to get out before I got too far in. Maybe it was selfish,” she admits. “But I wasn’t cut out for it. I have so much admiration for medical professionals, but I couldn’t be one of them. A few clinicals and I was already feeling the consequences of giving too much of myself and getting nothing back.” She shrugs. “So I named it The Fix, as some kind of homage to the medical background. And I figured I’d just make sure it’s safe.”

Something sits heavy in her gaze as she stares at something behind you, middle distance, like she’s remembering.

“Why a college bar?” you ask, nudging the phone across the counter to pick up her voice better. “I mean, the extra security, thinking about underage drinking, dealing with a bunch of broke university kids. You could’ve just as easily opened a different bar in a more lucrative area. What was the appeal?”

She smiles crookedly. “Appeal. Well. My senior year, I was working in the local ER. And I saw… god. So many kids came in there needing their stomachs pumped, or kids who’d done laced drugs, gotten roofied, harassed, it was… I mean, it was a city university club scene. They weren’t safe. And I just felt like I needed to give them that. I couldn’t stay there as a nurse or a doctor. But I could do this.” She shrugs. “Sorry. That was probably way too much.”

“No,” you say quickly, smiling at her. “That was—that’s what we came here for. Shoko, that’s amazing. And it’s not selfish, taking care of yourself. You’re still here taking care of others.”

You don’t know Gojo well. Most of your stories about him come secondhand from Nobara, who knows him through Megumi. She paints the picture of a flamboyant, obnoxious bartender who’s more like a weird uncle to her than anything. From what you’ve seen of him at The Fix, you know this to be mostly accurate—he’s rarely serious, always taking flack from the students and giving it right back, ragging on Utahime, begging Shoko to play his playlist instead of Geto’s and knowing she’ll never cave. But now, as he listens intently to Shoko, you think you’re seeing another side of him.

There’s something troubled on his face as she speaks, like he wishes he could reach into the past and help. Like he regrets it.

The bar’s not the only thing that has a different side in the daylight.

“She’s right,” Gojo tells Shoko. It’s not much, but she looks up at him a bit surprised, something in her expression softening. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, not quite there but not quite not. “You’ve got a pretty big heart under all that RBF.” Shoko rolls her eyes, the moment over.

“What about you?” You turn to Gojo, nudging the phone his way. “Why a college bar?”

Shoko turns toward him, leaning a hip against the bar, just as curious as you are. “I think kids deserve to be kids,” he shrugs. “And if I—if we—can create a space where it’s actually safe for them to do that, it feels important.” His gaze shifts from you and Toge to the empty bar, the stage and floor and high-top tables that tomorrow will be full of music and laughter and students knowing they’re allowed to let loose here.

“There aren’t a lot of places out there that are exclusively for students,” he continues. “It’s this weird phase, college, where you’re figuring out who you are, trying to take risks without losing too much. It’s a lot. And you look at the crime rates, date rape drugs, theft, DUIs, in the city, and it’s just—this place gives them the room to learn and grow and mess around and have a good time without the danger of the… I don’t know. The outside world. Does that make sense?”

He drums his fingers on the countertop, then seems to abruptly remember the recording and stops. “I think it’s just… well, no one’s allowed to take youth away from young people. So that’s why I’m here.”

You wonder what Gojo was like in school. He majored in gender studies, which you’re pretty sure is what Todo is at least minoring in, too—you’re not sure how it’s applicable to anything, but Nobara says he likes to pull his diploma out from behind the bar and say he’s an expert in women. It seems a far cry from this rare, more subdued version of Gojo you’re seeing right now. You’d guess he’s grown quite a bit in the time he’s been here. And Shoko’s been here to witness it.

He’s not a business owner, like Shoko or Geto. And according to Nobara, he definitely doesn’t need this gig to make a living. He’s here because he wants to be.

“These last few years have been nice, in particular,” he offers. “Just ‘cause some of us have kids going here. I mean, you know the Fushiguros. Suguru’s got the twins. And I know Ino’s not Nanami’s kid, but they’re tight.”

“Wait, what?” Nanami is the bar’s primary security guy, a bouncer who never lets a fake ID fool him. He’s part of the reason this place is so safe. Toge spins to look at you as you blurt out the question, caught off guard. “Uh, sorry. I just didn’t—I didn’t know they knew each other.”

Shoko studies you with tired, intelligent eyes, and you can’t help but feel the tables have been entirely flipped. You’re the one being interrogated, wordlessly, by the woman across the counter. You feel like every thought in your head is scrawled across your face for her to read.

“Yeah,” Gojo says, unaffected. “Ino looks up to him a lot, I think. Even though he’s an old man who reads the newspaper for fun.” He snorts. “He’s a good guy, though. And Ino’s a good kid.” He finally clocks the way Shoko’s looking at you and cocks his head, appraising.

Thankfully, Toge cuts in with another question. “So, we’ll be around tomorrow for the bands and to take some photos and observe,” he explains, glancing at you to make sure he’s got the information right. “Will Geto be around?” You’d wanted both owners’ perspectives, and now that Gojo’s reminded you of the twins, you’re even more curious.

“Yeah, Suguru and Utahime will be here tomorrow night,” Shoko says. “And Nanami. Geto would totally be down to talk to you some other time, too, when it’s a bit quieter.”

“Amazing,” you say, pulling the phone back toward you. You’ll need details, follow-ups, but you need to process this first, write some things down while they’re fresh in your mind. ‘Thank you so much for this. We appreciate it.”

“Anytime, kid,” Shoko says, waving you off. “See you tomorrow.”

As you turn off the recording, Gojo and Toge have already devolved into conversation about the bands and predictions about tomorrow night. A few posters are scattered across a low table near the door, and you pick one up, smiling at the blocky lettering advertising Black Flash. There are posters advertising all of the artists, and they look amazing, straight out of one of the alt rock venues in the wider city.

“They’re sick, right?” Gojo calls, nodding to the posters. “I gotta hang those up, actually. Thanks for the reminder.”

You wave goodbye to Shoko and Gojo and lead the way out, Toge just behind you.

“Man,” he says, and you brace yourself, recognizing his teasing tone for what it is. “They said Ino’s name and you look like scared Bambi or some shit.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, elbowing him.

He holds his hands up. “I’m just living in pursuit of the truth! Like Kusakabe would want.”

“Is your camera battery charged for tomorrow?” you say in a blatant attempt at a topic change.

“Who do you think I am?”

“Toge Inumaki, chronically irresponsible student and—”

“Okay, sorry I asked, holy shit.” He sticks his tongue out at you. Then he hesitates, frowning, and then he’s pulling out his phone and calling someone in his favorites list before you can see who it is. “Hey,” he greets. “What? No, she didn’t kick me out. Hey. Hey.” You snicker and Toge glares at you, pressing the phone closer to his ear. “Yutaaa,” he whines. “Do you know where my camera battery is?”

—

Even when you’re not the one on stage, you live for Fridays at The Fix. Tonight you’re doing double duty—because of the dual elimination at the end of the round, all of the competing artists are here. It’s not a requirement, but you want to see what you’re up against, and the sentiment seems to have carried. You and Toge are also in reporting mode for your project story.

The band on stage right now is… well, you can’t say new wave metal is really your thing, but it’s definitely theirs, and the audience is loving it. The Cull, you write in your notes. Look up names.

You couldn’t make out the lyrics if your life depended on it. It’s three guys and a girl, vaguely familiar, but you’re fairly certain they’re seniors and absolutely certain they’re baked right now.

“God, this is loud.” Yuta winces, turning to face you, and then his eyes flicker to something over your shoulder. You divert your attention from the stage and just catch the brief commotion in your periphery. Nanami has a kid by the elbow, and he’s escorting him out the side door, expressionless. The kid’s obviously drunk out of his mind, tripping over himself, shouting something that Nanami doesn’t bother to respond to.

Maki follows your gaze and wrinkles her nose up in distaste.

“Who’s that?”

“My cousin,” she says flatly. You glance quizzically at Megumi, who is definitely standing five feet away and not being escorted out of the bar.

“Dude, how much family do you have at this school?”

She sighs. “Just Mai and Megumi and him. Naoya. He’s a piece of shit.”

“Clearly,” Toge says. “He broke the M theme. No respect for the family alliteration.” Maki kicks him in the shin.

“One last round for The Cull!” Panda calls from the stage, and your ears slowly, very gradually stop ringing with the raging new wave music. The stage techs get to work behind Panda as he introduces the next group.

“Up next, making their debut, we’ve got a sophomore girl pop trio. Give it up for MOTION CAPTURE!”

There’s a big cheer from the bar, and you turn to see Geto grinning. Three girls take the stage, the blonde one grabbing the mic and adding, “All caps!” The girl beside her is very obviously her twin sister, though her hair is straight and dark while the blonde’s is tugged into pigtails. Light and dark. The girl on keys has a long, black bubble braid that she pushes out of the way as she settles in to play.

The blonde plugs in her electric and calls out, “Alright, I’m Nanako.” She tests out a chord, the sound reverberating, filling the bar all the way up to its high ceilings. “That’s Mimiko, that’s Remi, and we’re just here to have a good time.”

“Hey,” a voice says behind you, and you jump. You turn to find Takuma holding two drinks, offering one to you.

“Oh! Aw, thanks, you didn’t have to do that. How much do I owe you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Nothing.”

“Takuma—”

“Nothing,” he reiterates. “Anyway, The Cull. Thoughts?”

You take the drink and try it while you think on your answer—it’s the same thing Nobara got you last week. How did he know?

“I didn’t really understand any of the lyrics,” you admit, shrugging. “They weren’t bad. Not really my genre. Do you know them?”

Takuma shakes his head. “I had a gen ed once with that Rin kid, but I don’t know the other ones. These girls aren’t bad, though.” He’s right—they’ve launched into an Olivia Rodrigo cover that’s actually decent. They could work on their voice control, but they’re young and fun and having a good time and working the crowd, and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

You sing along, alternating between your drink and exchanging quips with Toge and talking with Takuma. You like this new balance between your band and his, the easy camaraderie.

When the girls wrap up their set, you whoop and cheer and Kirara shamelessly watches Hakari move things off the stage, arms bare in his cut-off tank.

“You’re subtle,” Takuma tells her, and she tugs his beanie down over his face.

“Hey!”

You grab his drink before he can spill it and grin as he yanks his hat off and readjusts it. His hair is a fluffy mess underneath, and it’s kind of endearing.

When the girl pop trio is done, two guys take the stage, one in white and one in black. They’re clearly related, dark hair and pale skin and piercing eyes, and Panda introduces them as the Kamos. You don’t know if they’re brothers or cousins or what. But they’re good—they sing a few alt rock covers, play guitar.

“Damn,” Nobara sighs, a little longingly, her gaze settling on Choso as he takes over the chorus. “They’re…”

Beside her, Yuji wrinkles his nose. “Dude. That’s my half-brother.”

Nobara hums noncommittally. “And?”

He groans, tipping his head back and staring at the exposed beams of the ceiling, run through with colored lights. “Why does this always happen?”

Toge is taking more photos of them than is strictly necessary, considering your story is about the bar and not the band, but you let him have this. Scattered throughout the crowd are more kids with cameras, freshmen from the entry-level reporting classes with big underage stamps on the backs of their hands. Somebody mistook Toge for one of them earlier, and Maki hasn’t let it go all night.

You jot down atmospheric notes on your phone, little things that’ll help set the scene for your project lede, keeping an eye on the bar as much as you can. Geto has jumped in at the bar, which he usually does when the place gets busy, and Gojo is terrorizing Utahime again.

“How’d your interview go?” Takuma asks, nodding at your notes. It shouldn’t faze you so much that he remembers what you told him about your story, but you can’t help the little kick of your heart in your chest at the reminder.

“Good! Really good.” And then you catch sight of Nanami, back at the door after calling a cab for Maki’s asshat cousin. “Actually, Gojo mentioned you.”

Takuma’s brows shoot up. “Gojo? Why?”

Nanami has always seemed incredibly reserved, stony and silent in a way Takuma has never been. You don’t want to pry, but you’re also curious about the relationship between them, how they met, what they are to each other. The journalist in you wants to know.

And then there’s the part of you that just wants to know Takuma.

“Well, he was talking about the twins and the Fushiguros, and he kind of mentioned something about you knowing Nanami?” You try to sound casual, jerking your chin toward the door where Nanami is posted, like a tall, blond guard dog.

“Oh,” he says, surprised, but he shrugs, not seeming too alarmed by the question. “Yeah, I’ve known Nanami for… a long time. He’s kind of a mentor. He’s the reason I met Fushiguro in the first place, actually, ‘cause of him knowing Gojo.”

You’re considering asking how exactly they did meet when the Kamos wrap up, Nobara staring up at them dreamily, and the stage clears out for the final artist.

Whatever questions you had are thrown out the window, because you know who this is. Everyone knows who this is.

Fifth-year student and resident SoundCloud rapper, Ryomen Sukuna. Or D!SH0NORED1, according to the posters.

“Oh, here we go,” Megumi groans.

Despite his reputation on campus, you don’t know anyone who’s actually close to Sukuna, except Uruame. You mostly know that he deals at the skate park and that he’s clean about it.

And that his raps are truly, genuinely horrible.

He lets Panda give a stilted introduction and launches into a verse, mic too close to his mouth, making hand gestures or stepping to the beat of his backing track. His tattoos are even more stark and bold under the stage lights.

“My blood type’s B, your type is me, my zodiac Caprisun, it might be controversial but you’re still lookin’ at me, son!”

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Kirara mutters. “I’m gonna bleach my eardrums.”

“Caprisun?” Nobara whispers. “Oh, dude.”

You might be a terrible person for thinking it, but watching this guy’s performance makes you feel infinitely better about your odds of advancing in the tournament.

His final song is a new one he introduces as Frosted Flexin’, and Maki looks like she’s about ready to keel over dead.

“Frosted flexin’, I'm the cereal king, pourin' oat milk in the mix, yeah, I'm doin' my thing,” Sukuna spits in his low voice, swaggering up to the front of the stage. You are trying so hard not to lose it.

“Sukuna being an oat milk truther wasn’t on my bingo card,” Toge says.

“Got the swag of a squirrel and the brain of a dove, call me trash, but you're still showin' me love.”

“Thoughts on the amount of swag a given squirrel possesses?” you ask Takuma. He laughs, loud and bright, and then seems to very seriously consider the question.

“I don’t know if campus squirrels have swag. They live in luxury. They probably eat better than we do,” he says. You can’t argue that—you did once see a squirrel outside your sociology class run by with a full bagel in its mouth. “The wilderness squirrels, though, I think they got a scrappy kind of swag. Like, I wouldn’t cross them.”

You nod sagely. “I want them on my team in the apocalypse.”

He nudges you with a shoulder. “Am I on your team?”

You glance at him, make a show of looking him up and down. Maybe you’re imagining it, but you think he’s blushing a little. “I don’t know. How fast can you climb a tree?”

Sukuna is nearing the end of his song, now, saying, “Off-tune, out of sync, yeah, I know it's a sin, but you'll play it back twice 'cause I still might win.”

He actually, physically drops the mic and Hakari swoops in and catches it, clearing his throat and saying into it, “Yep, friendly reminder that equipment’s expensive! Everyone give our last artist of the night a hand, yeah?”

There’s scattered applause and more than a few confused faces as Sukuna lopes off stage, and Panda hops back up to explain the voting system for anyone who wasn’t here last week. “QR codes to the Google form are posted around the bar,” he says.

Out of all eight artists, the bottom two will be eliminated. You’re nervous. But voting was open last week too. You can’t vote as a member of the band, and it’s all done through school Google accounts to avoid double votes or the link getting sent out to non-students.

“Open until tomorrow morning,” Panda reminds the audience. “Results and second round schedules will be posted on the Instagram at some point tomorrow! That’s it for this Friday at The Fix. Have a great night, folks. Get home safe.”

Gojo whoops dramatically from the bar, and Panda gives him a weird look before getting off stage.

Your friends start heading toward the door, and you grab Toge and excuse yourself to catch Geto at the bar. Gojo sees you first. “The newsies!” he calls.

“Like the musical?” you say in lieu of a greeting. “Banger soundtrack.”

“I could dance on newspapers,” Toge says.

“Geto!” The Fix’s other owner smiles at you, soft and genuine. Part of his dark hair is pulled back and the rest hangs loose over his shoulders, a stark contrast to Gojo—like the Kamos, you think, or like Nanako and Mimiko. Light and dark. “We were wondering if you’d be down to set up a time to talk. Has Gojo told you about our story at all?”

Geto smiles, drying a glass and leaning against the bar. “He told me he’s gonna be the front page of every paper in the city, which I assume is a horrid exaggeration,” he says. Gojo looks affronted. “Shoko mentioned you’re doing a feature for class, though. I’d be happy to.”

“We have our Monday night class time open for field reporting the week after this one,” Toge offers. “Will you be around?”

“I will indeed. Utahime, too, if you want to speak to both of us. And Gojo won’t be here, which might be beneficial for you.”

“Suguru,” Gojo gasps, pretending to stagger back. “You wound me.”

“Mhm,” he says, unaffected. “What time works best for you two?”

You set up a time to interview Geto and Utahime, then say goodbye to him and Gojo and run to catch up to your friends. It’s a nice night, and since you didn’t have to deal with instruments, you all decided to walk.

“How goes the… journalisming? Journaling?” Takuma asks when you fall into step beside him.

“Good, all good. Reporting is maybe a better word, but valiant effort.”

“I like journalisming. Can you just submit words to the official dictionary? I’m gonna do it.”

“No,” Toge says, and you blink. He shrugs. “What? I tried once. But the only submission form I could find was for the Bureau of Linguistical Reality and it wasn’t like, a legitimate dictionary form. There’s all these requirements, it’s horrible.”

“What word did you try to submit?” you ask warily, not sure if you actually want to know.

“Some things,” Toge says solemnly, “are better kept secret.”

The night is hazy, only small rays of moonlight piercing through the cloud cover, and you make your way through the campus roads guided only by the streetlamps and Maki’s reliable sense of direction.

Part of you wants to ask Takuma to come over, or Yuji to insist the band come over to his place again, just so you can keep talking. But you have work to do, things to write and transcribe, lists of follow-up questions to make, and that’s only your workload for this one class. You still have exams this week, and you need to study now so you can balance it with rehearsals. Assuming you actually advanced to round two, that is.

And part of you worries you might be taking this too fast, too. You don’t typically integrate people into your life so quickly. You like spending time with Takuma and Kirara and Yuji and even Megumi, though he’s pretty quiet. You just don’t want to jump in too far too fast.

At your place, you say your goodbyes and head up to your room to get some work done. Toge uploads his photos and puts them in your project folder on Drive. And you spend the night doing what you do best, aside from drumming—writing.

Youth for the young: JU alumni run safest live music bar in city limits

You don’t even notice the time until it’s past one in the morning, and you’re nearly asleep at your desk. The dark has crept across your room, the only source of light the desk lamp and your laptop screen. Finally, you push the computer shut and flick off the light, flopping into your bed. A few missed messages pop up when you hold your phone up, wincing at the bright screen.

takuma: just letting you know i made the treacherous journey home safely takuma: many miles of hardship takuma: thought i was gonna die halfway there

You smirk and type out a reply.

you: did kirara have to save you takuma: i resent that takuma: (yes) takuma: wait why are you up it’s so late you: journalisming you: why are YOU up takuma: travel adrenaline takuma: (coding project due monday that i just started) you: TAKUMA

The next text to come through is a voice note, and you can’t help smiling as you hit play and his voice fills the open air of your bedroom.

“Okay, in my defense, I thought it was due next Monday. Which maybe isn’t my defense because it means I just can’t read due dates, or maybe I just can’t read, but I thought I had a lot more time and then one of my classmates texted me asking for help on this block of code and I told him I hadn’t started and he was like oh my god, Ino, it’s due in three days, and I was like no it’s not, we have so much time—turns out we don’t have so much time, so I’m over here staring at my screen until the vessels in my eyes pop—”

He yawns, and it makes you yawn too, despite the screen separating you. “Sorry, agh. Anyway, I have to write this program that uses some kind of randomized generator…”

You find your eyelids fighting gravity, exhaustion washing over you as he explains the project and all the reasons he’s not that worried about getting it done by Monday because actually he’s on a roll and it turns out the code isn’t that different from a similar project he did last year so he can just lift the main blocks over and wow, he’s tired, and you stifle a laugh as the voice memo comes to an end and he says, “Okay, gosh, I should go to bed. You should go to bed. Stop journalisming, Skip, get some sleep. G’night.”

You grin, plugging your phone in and sending him a voice memo of your own.

“I’m done journalisming. Still haven’t written that story on you, though. Night, Takuma.”

The last thing you see before you fall asleep is his reaction to your text. It’s a thumbs up, but after a few seconds, it disappears, replaced with a heart.

—

“I’m gonna die,” Nobara groans.

You’ve been checking Instagram every hour on the hour for the bracket results, but to no avail. The five of you are sprawled out in the living room, a Fleetwood Mac record spinning in the corner, cups of coffee and tea and scattered remnants of breakfast dotting the table and the floor and the windowsill.

You have post notifications on for the Battle of the Bands Instagram page, but you check anyway, as if you somehow missed it.

“Okay,” Maki says. ���Cut it out. No phones.”

“Maki,” Toge groans. “How do we live with the suspense?”

“Go around and give a rundown of your week?” Yuta suggests.

“Aw, highs and lows, it’s like elementary school,” Nobara says happily. “I’ll go first! High: annoying slacker guy in my marketing class got a shit grade on the group project and the rest of us got As. Low: Skipper won’t give me Ino lore.”

“Lore,” you mimic. “I don’t have any lore. We’ve known each other for like, two weeks.”

“That’s enough time for lore,” she insists. “What’s your high? Ino?”

“Okay, jeez,” you say. “Maybe it’s that Toge and I had a really good first interview for our project story.”

Toge blinks at you.

“Fine, maybe it’s Takuma.”

Nobara grins in a way you can only describe as malicious. “Okay,” you say, pointing at her. “Low: whatever that is.” She sticks her tongue out at you.

“My low is Skipper bullying me in class,” Toge says. “And my high is she said she’d be my partner, so I’m not gonna fail.”

Yuta nods sagely. “Maki?”

“Uhh,” she says eloquently. “My parents won’t stop pestering me about fall break. But I aced a test on Thursday in anthro, so there’s that.”

“You’re not going home, right?” you ask. She shakes her head resolutely. Maki doesn’t go home unless she absolutely has to—one thing she and Mai actually have in common.

All of your phones go off at once, a mix of buzzes and beeps and Apple watchfaces lighting up, and Nobara screams. “I can’t look!” she cries. “Someone tell me!”

You click on the notification and pull up the post, heart racing.

The first slide is a generic Battle of the Bands announcement with the cool ass graphics you’ve been seeing on the posters. Whoever designs those needs a raise. The second image is the bracket for next Friday, with the first knockout round of three—only one group will move on to the finals. “Who is it?” Nobara asks anxiously, pacing the room. “Oh god, I’m gonna die.”

“Shibuya Incident,” you read off, unable to keep the smile from your face. “Angel.” Nobara groans overdramatically. “And the Kamos.”

You swipe to the next screen, heart in your throat. OCTOBER 18, it reads. THE CULL. CURSED TECHNIQUE. BLACK FLASH.

“Oh my god!” you scream. “Oh my god, we made it!”

Toge yanks you to your feet and starts hopping around the living room, and Nobara shrieks with joy as you pull her into the celebration. Even Maki and Yuta are sporting wide smiles as they watch the three of you bounce around like kids on a sugar rush.

“What, no Sukuna?” Maki teases when you’ve calmed down. Toge clears his throat and does his best impression, going as far as to make his pants sag a little around his waist.

“Frosted flexin’, I’m the cereal king, pourin’… uh, duh nuh nuh, something doin’ my thing,” he says in a deep voice. “Uh… squirrel? Somethin’ fuego, that’s Spanish, uhhh…”

“Oh my god, let me look it up,” Nobara cackles, pulling up SoundCloud. “It’s I’m the king of bad decisions, got a throne made of Legos, took a bite of my mic and said these bars are fuego.”

Yuta physically winces. “Does he really sag his pants like that?”

Toge shrugs. “It felt right in the moment.”

“Wait, who’s the other one eliminated, then?” you ask, running through the bands in your head. Yours, Takuma’s, Black Flash, the Kamos…

“Motion Capture,” Maki says.

“No, it’s all caps. You have to shout it. MOTION CAPTURE!” Toge hollers. Nobara snorts.

You aren’t entirely surprised, but you have a feeling the girls aren’t too put out about it. They’re young, too—they’ll have their time to shine eventually.

You grin, flopping back onto the couch. “Okay, rehearsal when? Tonight?”

“Yeah, I have to go to a friend’s to figure some stuff out for a project, but I’ll be back at like… five?” Yuta says.

“Oh, fuck, I gotta go too!” Nobara says, darting toward the stairs.

“Group project?” Maki asks.

“Shopping! I gotta pick Miwa up in like, ten minutes!”

Maki rolls her eyes fondly. Yuta stands up and grabs his bag, heading toward the entryway, and the rest of you gravitate instinctually to the kitchen. Nobara is out the door moments later with a wave and a shout, and Toge grins.

“What,” Maki deadpans, not a question.

“I printed memes to hide on her Polaroid wall. Be right back.”

You snort, turning your attention to the window to watch Nobara cruise down the block. The view of her sleek, small car is interrupted by Yuta’s jungle of plants.

“I hope they’re not too cold,” he says, frowning as he tugs a jacket on over his white hoodie. “Do they look okay to you?”

“Yeah,” you say, pointing to the one in the white, ovular pot. “Especially this one, it’s getting so big! What’s his name, Snorlax?” Yuta had a phase where he named at least six plants in a row after Pokèmon.

“No, that one’s Rika, after that TV show,” Maki corrects, not looking up. Yuta blinks, looks between her and the plant, whose vines have started to creep up the window. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. Both of your eyes on her have her looking up from her phone, expression flat and unaffected. “What?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I didn’t know… anyone paid attention.”

Maki shrugs. “You talk to them out loud.”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Yuta laughs and waves one last time before he walks out, closing the door behind him. You count to five in your head and then whirl on Maki, entirely unable to keep the shit-eating grin off your face.

“Kowalski, status report.”

She blinks at you. “What?”

“I said—”

“No, I know, just—on what? What happened?”

You groan, dragging the heels of your hands down your face. “Maki. Please.” You gesture wildly between her and the door, wondering if she’s genuinely this oblivious or if she’s just as good a liar as Mai. “Are you—did we not just witness the same interaction? Jesus, Maki, put the boy out of his misery!”

Seeing Maki frazzled is not a common occurrence. The most agitated you ever see her is talking about her family or trading passive aggressive jabs with Mai. This is an entirely new sort of disarray—she’s flustered.

“I—what?! I can’t do that! And he’s not miserable. He’s that nice to everyone.”

You groan, burying your face in your hands with your elbows on the counter. “Maki! He likes you. And your face is telling me you like him back.”

She scoffs, turning her head down and crossing her arms defensively. “I’m not messing things up by dating my bandmate. We live together, Skip, he’s my best friend, if things got messy—”

You hold up a hand. “First of all, offensive. I’m your best friend. Second of all, I hear no denial. Also, it won’t get messy. You are the two most mature people in this house and you know how to separate personal from practical. If anything, it’s gonna kill the vibes of the band and the house if you just keep stewing in the sexual tension.”

“Oh my god,” Maki groans. “There. Is. No. Sexual. Tension.”

“There’s always sexual tension,” Toge announces, walking in and jumping up onto the countertop, legs swinging. He looks between the two of you innocently. “What are we talking about?”

“You might be of some help, actually,” you say, turning to Toge with your hands clasped.

“Uh, actually? Not oh, Toge, you’re always so helpful, thank god you live with me and keep my life interesting—”

“Nevermind.”

“No, pleeease,” Toge insists, sticking out his lower lip. “What?” His gaze shifts to Maki, who’s blushing a furious red. His mouth turns into a small O. “This is about Yuta?”

You didn’t think she could get any more scarlet, but here she is.

“Does everyone think that?” she groans, throwing her head back in exasperation.

Toge shrugs. “I thought we were all just quietly skirting around it until you both snapped.”

“Nobara doesn’t skirt around anything,” Maki says.

“Well, there’s no way she doesn’t know,” you point out. “Maybe she just respects both of you enough to leave it alone.”

“Hah!” Toge snorts, poking you in the ribs. “That means she doesn’t respect you. She wants the Ino lore.”

“I’m gonna tell Nobara about the memes.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Abruptly, you realize you never got around to Yuta for highs and lows, what with the chaos of the brackets dropping. “Ah, guys,” you say. “We missed Yuta.” You pull up the house group chat.

you: YUTA DROP YOUR HIGH AND LOW IN THE CHAT you: YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN freak no. 1: yes you are utah: haha aw that’s nice utah disliked a message from freak no. 1 utah: uhh low is maybe that toge keeps leaving memes all over our room. like i keep finding them tucked in my notebooks and everything freak no. 1: SLANDER freak no. 1: LIBEL you: not the same thing freak no. 1: SHUT UP utah: high is someone remembers the names of my plants!! :) nobara: Sorry, using voice text while I drive. Who knows the names of your plants? You and God? utah: maki! :)

“Okay, well, respond,” Toge says, poking Maki in the side. She glares at him and likes Yuta’s message.

“Guys,” she says exasperatedly. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Does he know?”

And you’re not sure, honestly. You don’t know that Yuta is even aware of his own feelings, let alone aware that Maki reciprocates them. You shrug helplessly. “How about… ask?”

“Jesus,” Maki says.

“Not him, Yuta.”

Maki socks Toge in the shoulder and levels him with a disdainful look. “You are the bane of my existence.”

“And the object of all your desires,” Toge proclaims in a horrendous Bridgerton accent. He made you watch all of it with him in two days. Maki refused.

Now, she just shoves him, and he squeals as he falls off the kitchen counter.

“Children,” you sigh. “Do you need to be separated?”

“Yes!”

—

“Why is this so hard?” You stand with your feet planted on Takuma’s skateboard, which is confoundingly, entirely different than balancing atop your longboard. “Oh my god.” You lurch forward as the board rolls a bit to the left, unable to stifle the squeal that comes out of your mouth.

Takuma stops it with one foot.

“Your center of balance is lower on a longboard,” he laughs. “Like, here.” His hands wrap around your waist and you tense under his grip, and he immediately freezes, jerking his arms back. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

“No! No, it’s okay,” you blurt, sheepish. “I just wasn’t expecting it, I—here.” You try to fight the blush furiously rising in your cheeks as you take his wrists in both hands, putting them back where they were. You clear your throat, suddenly too warm. “Um. Okay, so—do you turn the same way?”

“Pretty much. You just lean,” Takuma says, and you shift your weight to your heels, letting him steady you. “It’s a bit harsher than you would on a longboard, though. Unless you want me to send you right into kickturns?” His tone is teasing and you pretend to consider, tapping a finger against your chin.

“Mm. Maybe later.”

You’ve been at the skate park for a while now, and you’ve only recently ditched your longboard for the skateboard. Takuma brought the extra board you saw hanging on his wall the other day, and he uses it to demonstrate while you practice riding back and forth, getting a hold on your balance. After you feel like you can make it a good distance without pinwheeling your arms, you come to a staggered stop beside him.

A flash of blue-green hair grabs your attention, and you watch a kid in a lightning bolt hoodie slip under the ramps. The park has been pretty deserted today aside from a few guys doing tricks in the pit, a chilly Sunday with the sunlight muted by the clouds.

“Ooh, drug deal in action.” You poke Takuma in the side.

“Ah, probably Sukuna. He deals here all the time.” Sukuna’s business is one of those things everyone’s aware of but nobody talks about. He’s consistent and pretty safe, as far as drug dealers go, but he’ll deny any involvement while smoking a joint if he has to.

“Who’s space buns?”

“Uhh…” Takuma narrows his eyes, and the guy slips out again. “Damn, that was fast. Oh, that’s Hajime. Another senior, I think. They hate each other. Fastest deals I’ve ever seen.”

“I wonder how much of his songwriting is just… while he’s really, really high,” you muse. Swag of a squirrel doesn’t strike you as a particularly levelheaded thought, but hey, it’s certainly memorable.

Takuma leans in and says conspiratorially, “I’m pretty sure I heard him dropping bars here the other day when I was with Yuji.”

You snort and look up at one of the smallest ramps, one you think you could handle without falling on your face, and point to it with a raised brow.

“Oh, moving up in the world?” Takuma kicks his board up and starts walking over, and you do the same. Before you put the board down at the top of the ramp, though, you hold it up to the light, noticing a few short, white hairs caught on the surface.

“Is this… fur?” Maybe there was a cat hiding out somewhere when you were over. Kirara seems like she’d have a cat.

Takuma sighs. “Yeah, the dogs shed like crazy. It gets everywhere. I don’t think I even left that on the ground.”

Your jaw drops, and you stare at him until he looks back at you. “Dogs?”

“What? Yeah, Fushiguro’s—”

“Fushiguro has dogs? Dogs plural? In the house?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No!” you cry. “What? Oh my god! Where were they on Wednesday? How many? What are their names?”

Takuma leans back on the rail next to the ramp, grinning. “I can’t believe you didn’t know. Oh my god. They’re so cute. Tsumiki had them Wednesday, I think. Mandated auntie time. Do you wanna meet ‘em?”

“Do I want to meet them?” you repeat, practically bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Uh, yeah. Are they home? Oh my god. I love dogs.”

“I couldn’t tell,” he deadpans, but he’s smiling still. “Yeah, they’re home. And you can meet them if you go down this ramp without dying.”

“You’re cruel,” you say, situating yourself on the board. “But I will. And then I’ll meet the dogs and become their best friend and they’ll love me more than you and Megumi combined.”

“Confident.” He comes up beside you, checking your stance. The ramp didn’t look steep or long at all from your vantage point across the park, but now that you’re atop the board, it feels suddenly very steep and very long. “You got it. Just don’t panic, keep your stance.” He drops his own board and cruises down the ramp, hardly even trying.

“Okay, go!” he calls from the bottom. “C’mon, Skip, the dogs are waiting.”

“Oh, god,” you murmur, the wind catching your words and whisking them away. You ball your hands into fists and push off, planting your foot back on the board and trying to keep your knees bent, but not too stiff, as you careen down the ramp. Don’t panic, keep your stance. You’re at the bottom in what feels like nanoseconds, and the sudden shift from ramp to flat ground has you stumbling off the board with an embarrassingly high-pitched squeak of alarm.

“Nice!” Takuma laughs as he catches you, the board rolling a few more feet ahead. His arm is wrapped around your front, the other holding you up by the shoulder, and this time you don’t tense under his hands.

“Thanks,” you say a little breathlessly, grinning, the tiny spike of adrenaline making you almost lightheaded. He lets his hands drop when you’re steady on your feet, and part of you mourns the warmth a little. But there are more pressing matters at hand. “So, about those dogs?”

You opt for your longboard on the way back down your street, cruising along beside Takuma, who has his extra board tucked under his arm. You’ve got a lot to do tonight, all the last-minute preparation for another crazy week, but you can and will drop everything to pet a puppy. Or two. Always.

And they’re actual angels. Big, fluffy angels on earth, one white and one black, and they’re all over you the second you open the door.

“Hi!” you say happily, sinking down to their level. The white one immediately tries to burrow into your lap. “Oh, hello! You’re so nice, aren’t you?” You glance up at Takuma. “Where’s Megumi?” You grab the white one’s collar and check the tag—Shiro.

“Shiro thinks she’s a tiny dog,” he says, bending down to ruffle the fur behind her ears. “Uh, Fushiguro’s at the animal clinic. He works there Sundays. And Tuesdays, I think.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, he’s a vet student. You didn’t know?”

“I did not.” The black one is licking your face, and you giggle and check his tag, too. Kuro. “Hi, Kuro. You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

“He’s got such a soft spot for animals,” Takuma says as he kicks off his shoes. “You should see when they both try to sleep in his little twin bed. It’s ridiculous.”

“I love them,” you say, burying your face in Kuro’s scruff. “Hi, doggies. You’re awful cute, you know that? Mhm. Yes you are.”

When you finally look up again, Kuro’s cold nose nudging insistently at your palm, Takuma is leaning against the wall, looking down at you with his phone discreetly angled your way. “Takuma!”

He laughs, not bothering to hide it anymore, very clearly taking photos of you with the dogs. “It’s cute!” he insists. “I’ll send them to you. Proof for Fushiguro of your master plan to make them like you more than him.”

“And you,” you remind him.

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

You gesture pointedly to the two dogs, who are all over you and not him. It’ll be a nightmare trying to get all of Shiro’s white fur off your black jacket later, but it’s worth it.

“You’re new,” he says. “New scent. It’s the novelty factor. I am their favorite.”

“You sure? I’m pretty hard to compete with.”

He smiles, looking from you to the photos he took of you and the dogs. “Yeah,” he says. “You are.”

—

The first half of the new week goes by in a rushed routine of classes, homework, and rehearsals, each night ending with you collapsing into bed, new and old lyrics fighting for dominance in the back of your mind. Sticks re-taped and drum heads re-tuned, assignments turned in and drafts edited. Your classes are ramping up as midterms approach, and Yuta bounces between his own work and poking his head into everyone’s rooms, making sure they don’t forget about dinner.

Toge follows through on his snack run promise, and the two of you spend hours on Tuesday afternoon trading two different flavored bags of Doritos back and forth, Toge writing photo captions while you edit your story lede.

Takuma, Hakari, and Kirara have offered to help Cursed Technique record a single on Wednesday night, and the five of you have been drilling the new song you wrote up, down, and sideways.

Finally, Wednesday arrives, and you’re all crammed into the recording studio space, instruments set up and headsets tuned in.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Nobara says to Hakari on the other side of the glass. She taps a finger on the mic in demonstration, and you hear it in your own headphones.

“Great,” he says. “Skipper?”

“Skipper? I hardly know her,” Toge says, earning a harmless smack upside the head from Yuta and a not harmless smack upside the head from Maki.

“I will throw these at you,” you tell him, holding up your sticks. Toge sticks his bottom lip out, pouting.

A snicker from beside you draws your attention back to Takuma, kneeling just beside the throne as he adjusts the kick mic. He has you hit it a few times while Hakari monitors the levels. You feel oddly self-conscious like this, him looking up at you, but then he smiles and it’s not strange at all. It’s stupid how fast he can put you at ease with a look.

“Nice,” he says. “Okay, that should work, yeah, Hakari?”

It’s Kirara who answers, “Yeah, you’re good.”

Takuma stands up, claps his hands together once, and looks at you. “Okay. Kill it, Skip.”

“Yessir.” You salute him with a stick and he makes his way to the other room, closing the door behind him.

“All good?” Yuta asks, glancing at each of you in turn before giving Hakari a thumbs up. It’s strange to be on this side of the glass, to think about your music being played back, to think about it on Spotify, out in the world.

“Next Fix,” Takuma says into the mic, locking eyes with you through the window. “Take one in three, two…”

The song starts out simple. You click your sticks together near the mic, on two and four, while Maki lays down a four-bar loop.

Yuta keeps glancing at Maki while she plays, utterly unaware, and the look on his face is so soft you want to shake Maki by the shoulders until she does something about it.

Nobara’s got her eyes closed with the headset over her ears and her hands around the mic, entirely engrossed in the song.

“It’s comin’ on, comin’ strong, spinnin’ up out of the blue, mmm,” she sings, stretching out the vowels. “And I’m on the ground, bleedin’ out, until my next fix of you, ooh.”

Now you start up with a light rock beat, closed hat and a bit of a dragging buzz on the snare hits. Just as you transition into the beat, Toge comes in with some low chords and Yuta moves down the line in syncopated sixteenths.

Hakari is nodding approvingly and Takuma has a wide grin on his face, and you can’t help smiling back.

“I need it like a lung,” Nobara sings, swaying a bit. “I need it like a light. It’s got me twisted up. I need you here tonight, tonight, tonight, oh, oh, I wanna—”

And this part is your favorite—Nobara sings each two-syllable phrase while you pound on the toms twice, emphasizing it with the kick, and then the backup vocals echo her. Get my (get my) next fix (next fix) of you (of you, of you, of you.)

Kirara pumps her fist in the air twice, in time with the beat, and your bandmates can’t keep the smiles off their faces. You’ve got something here, you really do. This might be your best one yet.

When the song’s over, Nobara whoops and tugs off the headphones, jumping around the cramped studio space with a grin on her face. “That was so cool! Oh my god. Guys, we sound good. We actually sound good.”

“Damn,” Kirara calls. “Okay, girl drummer. Good shit.”

“Not bad for a first run,” Maki admits, adjusting her bass strap over her shoulder. “Do we wanna try recording backups separately at all?”

“Good call.” Takuma nods. “Let’s run that again without the backups and record them over, see what happens.” He’s in full producer mode, flipping switches, colored lights reflecting in his eyes as he and Hakari talk shop away from the mic. He’s good at this, you realize, running sessions like this, making sure things go where they need to go, that everyone’s heard, that things get done. It’s a little bit like watching him skateboard, or seeing him on stage. There’s a confidence to him here, a smooth, easy energy. He’s in his element.

“Alright,” he says after a minute. “Let’s hear that again.”

And you play it again. And again. And again. And you are so in love with this moment, with your band, with a couple rowdy kids on the other side of the window, the rasp in Nobara’s voice and the expression on Yuta’s face and Maki’s obliviousness and Toge’s consistent, head-banging keys, and your drums and your words and the music, and the lyrics feel right to you.

You need this like a lung.

directory | prev. |

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32

a/n: GUYS. loml @shutuppeter is so downbad for soundcloud rapper sukuna that she's writing fanfic of my fanfic😭 credits for frosted flexin' are all hers LMFAO so go check that out (MDNI for that one though).

yutamaki nation rise. also, i kinda love this fic. there may be spinoffs for other characters in the works...

[deathanniversary]

in all honesty, higuruma’s job was hard. fighting for the innocent, the wrongly accused and those people had done nothing wrong yet were locked away from no reason, was hard. well, at the end of the day — that’s his job and there’s not much he can do about it so he’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it. but hey, justice for all those people, at least that helps a little.

and obviously as his wife, you were patient with him, always ran him hot baths after a shit ton of stressful ass work was on his plate, cook him lavish and delicious dinners. anythin’ to make him de-stress and feel at peace after work — that’s the best type of dopamine one could ask for, honestly ( your tight cunt around his stiff hard cock is equivalent to that as well ). and of course he appreciated you for that. he always does ! each granted time. what more could he ask for in a wife? and plus, it was super super worth it coming home to your praise about his nose — not gonna lie. he’d been a little insecure about it until he met you, though.

but lately at work, he’s kindaa been slacking… just a tiny bit. always thinking about you ( lustfully ) at work, the pure thought of you pops up randomly in his head every single second of the day — no matter what the occasion or situation may be. you’re on his mind 25 / 8 .

he might be a hot n tired lawyer, but fuck you make him act up crazy. how the hell can he go up to the stand with a boner ? a painful boner. i mean, yeah, no one can see it, but still ! that’s directly embarrassing… like… what the hell is the judge gonna think ? “is mr.hiromi hard over a divorce case..?” weird shit.

and as soon as he finished the trial ( of course he did win ), he left and went straight home to you. it kinda hit him like a slap in the face: your guy’s sex life wasnt sexing… you know ? he’s been busy with a shit ton of work, so it makes sense. but he’s so desperate for you right now, the tension is almost palpable .

as soon as he enters the house, shoes kicked off, briefcase set down, stormed upstairs immediately. “you-“ he’s taken aback by your finger booping his nose and immediate praise of his hard work nd nose, too. “yes.. thank you,” he hugs you, his boner rubbing against your clothed cunt. He feels so lovesick int his moment, kinda dizzy ‘nd drunk without the booze or whatever.. that high sensation of euphoria and dopamine rushing through his body like a crack fein. why do you make him feel like this? what kinda effect, spell — fucking curse do you put on him to make him feel this way? but in other words, he’s gonna make you deal with the consequences anyways because of that. >:(

“‘m gonna go reall slow, princess.” higuruma’s hands stayed put onto your hips, completely ignoring the fact that you were a blabbering nd drooling flushed-face mess in his hands. his tongue thrusted in and out of your soaking cunt excruciatingly slow and teasing. “‘m not gonna die, don’t be shy,” his nose accidentally nuzzles into your pussy, and the most vocal moan comes out of your mouth. oops.

your hands were scratching at his chest while you choked the man with your pussy. it fucking hit him right then ‘n there; he wanted to fucking live in your pussy. breathe her, eat her— all that shit. pussy so good, it could fucking kill someone. “yeahh, needy f’me, aint’cha?” he moaned into your pretty pink folds, eyes damn near rolling into the back of his skull. “ssshitt, b-baby…” he spits into your cum ‘n saliva filled cunt and nuzzles his nose into the warmth of your womb. you just really love his nose that much, huh?

[honourablejester]

I am having a severe flavour problem with the new 5.5e warlocks. And I kinda saw it coming, but I also thought that maybe they’d do something about it before we got here. But, well. Apparently not.

My problem is this: taking up the warlock subclass at level 3 instead of level 1 has turned all warlocks, flavour-wise, into absolute idiots.

“Through occult ceremony, you have formed a pact with a mysterious entity to gain magical powers. The entity is a voice in the shadows—its identity unclear—but its boon to you is concrete: the ability to cast spells.” (PHB 2024)

You have explicitly and purposefully made a deal with something you don’t know the identity of.

Now. You could always play the warlock as having done that, if you wanted to play someone a bit reckless. But. It was an option, not baked into the class. You could also have met your patron any number of ways and decided how to deal with it, going into the pact knowingly and with foreknowledge of the potential consequences. Because you choose your subclass at level 1, your patron and your relationship with them was essentially your first decision as a warlock. So if you were in a pact with a devil, you had the chance to be knowingly in a pact with a devil. It was a choice you might have knowingly made.  

Here, though, your warlock put a phone call out into the void and won’t know for two more levels what exactly picked up on the other side. Which bakes a considerable amount of recklessness and frankly outright stupidity into the class concept.

Weirdly, both sorcerers and even clerics come out of this shift better, of the classes that used to get their subclasses at level 1. Sorcerer, it kind of makes sense, when the magic is in your blood regardless, that it just might take a while for the nature of the magic to become fully apparent. Sorcerers, by the nature of their lore, never had a choice what magic they possessed. It was always luck of the draw and the potential idiocy of their ancestors. And clerics, their subclass is a choice of domain, not patron, so they can still be devoted to their particular god from level 1, and just choose which aspect of them to exemplify at level 3. So clerics, even with the shift of timing, are still making more or less the same choices. Their god is still a conscious choice from the start.

But warlocks are now explicitly stated to be gambling on the nature of their patron for power.

Of course, you can just ignore that. You can say that your warlock fully knows what patron they’ve made a bargain with from the beginning, and it’s only at level 3 that the patron considers them valuable enough to start giving them identifiable, tailored abilities, or some similar justification. Before that, it’s something like a trial period, where they decide if you’re worth keeping on and having abilities that could link back to them. Ignoring the text and telling your own story is still (and always) an option.

I’m just faintly annoyed that they built the idiocy into the text. That the new Pact Magic feature outright states that you were dumb enough to make deals with mysterious voices from the beyond without the first clue who that voice might be.

I mean, warlocks are rather implied to be not the most sensible people from a standing start. But I'd like to have the option of my dumbass having made calculated risks, instead of just gambling blind, you know?

[yannisdesk]

Issues With Act 3: A Tier List

I couldn't find the gif of teen Vi making her angry face, but this will suffice. Anyways I have some bones to pick with act 3.

Tier 1: "Oh, the misery!" - Major Problems

I'll be fuming about these decisions for the foreseeable future.

Jinx death/the implications of her being dead (I personally believe a lot of evidence points to her being alive, but for the sake of this post and intentions - we'll talk strictly about what's on screen). Stop killing off mentally ill characters like this, please. To say it's deserved because she's committed acts of violence is stupid. Every character, with the exception of Ekko, has committed acts of violence that had brutal, unfair, or unwanted outcomes - and Jinx is among the ones where her violence is more understandable.

Caitlyn never apologizing for what she did in act 1. Vi calls her out on it and I thought we'd get somewhere, but no. Everyone else just kind of glosses over that she gassed people in act 1 which definitely led to some deaths. No apology to Vi either for gun-butting her. You can argue that it happened off screen, but seeing that ON screen, especially when Vi & Jinx having to verbally voice theirs, is just shitty. What's the point of having her scene in the opening credits be so stressful and guilt-ridden if she's not allowed to express that guilt beyond a word and expression or two? It also cheapens the theme of forgiveness this season because they first step to receiving forgiveness is apologizing. Act 2 understood this better than Act 3, given that in Vander's letter to Silco, the first thing he does is apologize.

Do we need to go over the implications/optics of the wealthy, privileged girl who gets to act out not really facing any consequences for her actions and getting to redeem herself in defending her city, but Jinx, disenfranchised and poor, needs to be fatally punished? Here's a hint IT'S BAD.

The whole Zaun and Piltover plot being dropped in general. We see Sevika join the council in the end, but that's it? Was independence off the table now? WHAT CONVERSATIONS HAPPENED OFF SCREEN THAT LED TO THIS BEING THE SOLUTION? Is anything worth a damn actually going to come from this arrangement? Also Piltover getting all of them councilors while Zaun gets one representative? *deep sigh*

Corruption with the enforcers being dropped like a hot potato. I guess that just stopped being something people cared about despite it being thoroughly critiqued by the narrative from the beginning of season 1 until now.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRELIGHTS TREE???? No one talks about it anymore. Did it die while Ekko and Heimerdinger were in the alt-timeline, did it hold out, was it healed once the hexcore was destroyed????????????? WE NEED ANSWERS.

Tier 2: "Spare the sympathy" - Middle-of-the-Road

These problems aren't necessarily deal-breakers, but irked me none the less.

No one can no longer call Viktor "Zaunite Jesus" because that was clearly 15 year-old Vi lol. What do you mean in an alternate universe she dies during the heist in S1E1 and then all of a sudden there's peace between Zaun and Piltover??????? All I can think of, is that after seeing how this poor kid was killed while trying to provide that set off some sort of chain reaction where Piltover and Zaun agreed to make peace to stop this sort of thing. I could actually buy that, however, just, why????? Vi already blames herself for everything so why validate that?! Also, I'm not saying it's impossible for alt-timeline Jinx to turn out healthy and well-adjusted, but, she had to cradle her older sister's corpse in her hands...there's a fair chance she'd still become Jinx.

No one finding out that they were all within centimeters of each other during the day of the heist. Arcane loves to do full-circle moments and endings, but somehow in the midst of stuffing the season with everything they could, they somehow couldn't do this which was on a damn platter sitting for them.

Tier 3: "I'll never be a saint" - Minor Problems

Had only these problems existed in act 3, I would've considered it perfect.

Not seeing the conversation that led to Ekko convincing Jinx to join the battle. Kind of minor because we see him convincing her out of ending her life, and we can gather that conversation from episode 7, but still, I feel like, given how down we see Jinx, that's something that should've been shown.

Having Caitvi bone in a prison cell. I'm split 50/50 on this, because on one hand - that's a place rife with Vi's trauma. On the other, it's symbolic for other things (no, I'm not talking about the fact that it's where they first met) that I kind of give it a pass.

[taebaelee]

Posted this on a small subreddit, but wanted to post here as well. For the new game, while part of me enjoyed playing some of it, I do really think it's such a disservice to be able to really call it a Dragon Age game when the writers stripped away any nuances by trying to make everything black or white; everything feels very basic and borderline cartoonish at points.

Anything morally gray is non-existent and you have no real influence in the game. No matter what you do, you are forced as the player to play a super friendly (or chaotic-good) at best protagonist with no opinions on the world of Thedas. This is what makes this not feel like a Dragon Age game to me.

This isn't super long, but there are spoilers under the cut as to why I feel this way. I do speak very critically about the new game, so please do not read if you think it may offend you as that is not my intention; this is more of a therapeutic rant for me and fellow DA lovers who feel disappointed about the writing.

While people can argue on how the previous games handle the situations involving anti/pro mages, templars, elves, the chantry, etc-- you can't even talk/argue about literally ANYTHING in the world with anyone as these ideas simply do not exist in the game OR are introduced but with a narrative already framed around it by the writers ideals.

- Factions/groups you work with are too virtuous. We could have had such deep and complex dynamics with the factions and how their backgrounds change your relationship with the characters in the world, or how the party members interacted with each other. Instead, none of it really matters as the game sanitizes the world around the groups to make the party members and factions palatable to the masses. A literal criminal organization, the Threads, is shown in a more positive light because while they commit other crimes, they don't deal in slavery? The Lords of Fortune (who are mainly mercenaries) would return cultural artifacts to the ethnic group they belong to-- they loot and steal, but are morally conscious enough to not steal from other cultures? The Antivan Crows who canonly bought and enslaved children, who made said children prove themselves through gruesome tests that sometimes included killing their own peers, are now played out like they're justice fighters. The the closet the game gets to showing any of the truth is small party banter you may miss with Lucanis saying his training was like torture, but it is to never be discussed again.

- The characters all get along way too well. Rook can't ask a character's opinion on the other factions, races, classes, religions, etc-- let alone reply back with their own thoughts that may go against the members views as we don’t really even get to see their opinions on them. Whenever the disapproval bubble pops up, which it rarely does, it does not change anything and it is not brought up again. There seems to be no consequences with your party members based on your choices, which makes the characters likeness towards you feel unearned as they seem to have no agency of their own. In DAI, if Cassandra has low approval then you can get a scene where you call her pathetic as she's stumbling over drunk and yells at you for ‘coddling mages’ or in high approval she can have a scene where she says something along the line 'while she doesn’t agree with everything you have done, she admires you.’ or in DAO Zevran can either betray you and go back with Taliesen/Crows or he can tell Taliesen he is not going back. Even something as small as the characters greetings change based on approval status when you visit them at skyhold. There are tons of examples I could give from previous games, but not a single cut scene seems to change with your companions outside of the final decision you make for them at the end of their companion quests. And to add on top of this, the party members all get along perfectly. If they disagree it is quickly resolved and moved on. Where are my Fenris and Anders fights or Vivienne and Solas sassy quips towards one another?

- No religious themes in the new game feels so out of place as this game literally changes the fundamentals of religious beliefs in the world of Thedas and could cause for a complete uproar with those that believe in the Maker and Chantry. The first game opens with an excerpt from the Chant of Light explaining the origins of the Blight and the Chantrys version of the truth and the whole mage/templar battle which is such a major theme (especially in DA2) in this series is due to the Chantry and this new info shows that the Chantry is wrong (or partially) and this can actually be completely missed behind a side-quest? Also, are we supposed to believe that all the Dalish just know Solas is better than Elgar'nan now? Strife say something along the lines that while Solas may be a bastard he is better than the other Evunaris" WHEN WAS THIS ESTABLISHED? Solas directly talks about how when he tried to tell the Dalish his identity they either didn't believe him or attacked him for being the God of Lies and Trickery. Yes, it has been a few years, and more may know the truth now... but how many as according to the old games the Dalish WORSHIPPED the ground Elgar'nan walked. If so many like Solas now from knowing the truth suddenly, where are all the followers for the Dreadwolf? Not only do we not have any missions regarding the agents of Fen'harel, we don't run into any at all.

- This sounds bad out of context, but where is the slavery/racism? I know a lot of people wanted them to tone some of it down, but for it to be completely removed just does no feel right when Tevinter is canonly known to be the worst place for slavery when it is openly practiced and legal... Also, playing as an elf feels very out of place during an undercover quest with the Venatori, but they already had them working for Elgar'nan which doesn't really add up either; so I guess they are just fine with Evles now after thousands of years...

- None of the previous games matter. While fundamentally, each game has their own story, I liked seeing the cameos of characters reflect past choices. One, of many examples, would be that we got to see Alistair either become a drunk in DA2 and forgotten by the narrative; or have him become a King or Grey Warden in DAI where you can even ask him about the Hero of Ferelden and his answers are different depending on how you played the game! Now we have some characters return but as a blank slate as the writers did not want to invalidate previous choices, but essentially let the characters' cameos fall flat because of this. What is the point of a character returning if they don’t reflect the character I know and helped them become what they are today through my choices?

I know I have a lot of negatives even when I said I liked part of the game, but it is a huge disappointment as the reasons above are what made me LOVE the series with it being so enriched with its environment and now it feels like a hollow shell of itself.

[pepprs]

hi, everyone. i hope you all are doing well. i’ve been meaning and wanting to check in here for many months but i have also been too afraid to. but i want to do it now because im potentially at a turning point and i want you all (especially close friends and mutuals who i haven’t talked to in a long time) to know what’s going on because unfortunately i do not have the strength to reach out individually right now, as much as i desperately want to.

when i left this place a year ago my depression was extremely bad. i didn’t know how long i was going to be gone or whether i was leaving for good, but i knew i needed to make some changes in my life before i could be here healthily again. well… 2024 has been a year of IMMENSE change for me! a lot of it has been for the good. i made some progress in my life by moving out, and i’ve had a lot of joy and healing in (very slowly) building a home for myself and figuring out what kind of life i want to live and how i want to live it. (im learning how to drive! i have string lights and stuffed animals and a wii! i am capable of solo travel!)

but… a lot of the changes that have happened this year have been for the worse. in almost every respect 2024 has been one of the most difficult and painful years of my life (and that is saying something!). this year a couple of traumatic things have happened to me and around me, and it has been extremely hard to live my life despite and beyond them. i have been dealing with physical and mental health issues that have greatly impacted my quality of life and make it unbearably difficult for me to get through every day. i am constantly running on negative spoons. one of the most damaging outcomes of this is that i have almost completely withdrawn from society both online and off and that is not an exaggeration. ive stopped talking to all of my friends and family except for people i see every day at work. i impulsively isolate myself when im in pain / distress despite knowing both emotionally and logically that it makes literally everything worse and i don’t know how to (and often can’t muster the mental strength to) work through the shame and grief and anxiety to seek connection and support. and im struggling to take care of myself including physically and its having severe consequences in every aspect of my life and in the lives of people who care about me. i live alone and i still think that was the good and right choice for me to make, but i am profoundly and agonizingly lonely. my depression was extremely bad when i left here, but i think despite everything it might be even worse now.

all of this is to say: this week i finally decided i can’t suffer like this anymore, and i began the process of seeking a formal diagnosis for my depression and other mental health issues and exploring additional treatment beyond talk therapy (most likely meds but there may be other things too / instead; still at the very beginning stages of figuring it all out). i am extremely anxious about many dimensions of this but also hopeful that it will help me hurt less because when i tell you at this point my brain and heart physically ache from depression like 85% of every day…. lol. im really hoping that once i get my mental / emotional pain under control i’ll be able to start tending to the parts of my life that have withered while ive suffered and repair the damage of my neglect as best i can. (which is to say… if you’re my friend and you’re reading this please know i love you and i miss you terribly and i am so sorry we haven’t spoken and i am so sorry im telling you this in a tumblr post you may not even read instead of a reply or a call back. i still love you and i want you to know it is not you specifically i am ghosting, its everyone. i am trying to build the strength and im scared i can’t but i hope i can.)

that said… i have decided i am not going to be coming back to this blog. i miss this place and the community i felt connected to here, but the way i was using this website as a public diary was extremely unhealthy, and as much as i miss it and still crave the instant comfort/validation i see clearly now with months of distance how damaging it was. (i truly cannot believe i was oversharing like that lol i am so private now (yes due largely to mental illness but still!)) i am so grateful to everyone who reassured me when i was struggling and celebrated my successes. this was the first place, online or off, where i (misguidedly but it’s true!) could actually be honest and candid about things happening in my life and my reactions to them instead of communicating it all through metaphors in my art and poetry, and it truly mattered that i had that experience here so that i could seek out more spaces like it in my offline life. i know i already said thank you in a previous update but really… thank you. 💗🫂

im not planning on deleting this blog. i may come back here and share updates like this one from time to time, but otherwise i will leave it as it is. but… i do want to get back to using a few of my fandom-centered sideblogs because looking at and compiling art of things i like is a low-energy thing that makes me happy! so you may see activity there every once in a while (tbh during this hiatus i have opened tumblr from time to time to look at art and save a bunch of posts that i wanted to reblog eventually lol). but… if i notice myself slipping back into bad habits i may private the sideblogs or abandon them completely.

i don’t know how to end this post. actually wait yes i do. one of my all time favorite artists is anna-laura sullivan (@/annalaura_art on instagram) and this is one of my all time favorite drawings of hers (so much so that i made it my lock screen so i can look at it every day!). this saying has brought me a lot of comfort and i hope it (and her other art) will bring you comfort too if you’re also in a dark place.

one more thing: not to be kind of a freak but in writing this post i discovered a longer version of my goodbye post from last year in my drafts. i don’t remember why i didn’t post it and obviously it’s outdated now but i want to share the draft because i went into more detail about tumblr having been helpful for me specifically when it comes to my mutuals + info / disclaimers about how to reach me and i want you guys to hear that in my past self’s voice lol! i put it under the cut if you want to read it!

2023 tess said it best: i hope you know how much it’s meant to me to be in your company. thank you for sharing and thank you for listening. i love you. happy [almost] new year. be well. good luck. shine bright. until we meet again ☕️🐈🫂💗

[thenationofzaun]

It's after 1:32:00. Here's what she says:

"For me personally it was a moment to be like, oh we can actually kind of reclaim this trauma for Vi. We can help her heal in a lot of ways because I think that was for us something that Vi's arc really did for her, like I've mentioned that we wanted Vi to be able to ask who she was if she had no one left to protect and that meant Vi saying what does Vi want instead of what does Vi do for other people, and sort of one way to do that was for me was getting to sort of process that trauma and reclaim it for herself and work through it and now be able to move forward from it in a healthier happy way."

Incredibly bizarre for a number of reasons. Firstly, the only trauma she talks about is Vi feeling like she has to protect and do things for other people. And the "reclamation" in question is Vi finally being able to choose something for herself, in this case, eating Caitlyn out in the prison cell. Not once does this writer mention the trauma of, you know, being jailed as a teenager then enduring almost a decade of abuse, beatings, solitary confinement, and the grief of thinking her whole family dead. It's like this massive and torturous part of Vi's life that should realistically have a huge impact on her character doesn't even cross her mind. You have a character who endured teenage years in a comically evil prison. And when it's time to write a scene with her in a prison cell, a sex scene at that, the only trauma you feel it pertinent to dissect is a nebulous feeling of obligation? And not the borderline child torture?

There is also no mention of Caitlyn assaulting Vi in S2 episode 3. A rich Piltovian cop beating Vi, who suffered physical abuse at the hands of cops her entire life. This is another trauma that is never mentioned by this writer. Does being in a prison cell stir up any nasty memories of being beaten by wardens as a teenager for Vi? Did getting beaten by Caitlyn stir up those memories? Why, in a scene where she stands with Caitlyn in a prison cell, is none of this brought up? Did this truly not even cross the writers' mind? Or did they think it wasn't that important or significant to Vi's character?

Second, she says that Vi in this moment chooses something for herself instead of doing something for other people because she feels she has no one left to protect. Is she forgetting that this scene takes place directly after her little sister confesses suicidal thoughts to her? Even if Vi didn't pick up on the blatant suicidal implications in Jinx's words (she's not the brightest character after all), she still feels like she doesn't have to protect her clearly grieving and mentally unstable sister who ran off barefoot, unarmed and alone, in a city teeming with armed enforcers? Okay fine, I guess Vi really doesn't care about Jinx nor does she think much of Isha's death.

But then there's the entire idea of this "protect people" trauma being such a big deal for Vi's character arc. So we're supposed to find it empowering when she stops protecting her family and chooses intimacy with Caitlyn. Yet in the show, does this really land? In Season 1 Act 1, Vi definitely tried her best to protect Powder, Mylo, and Claggor. A significant moment was the ending of episode 2, when Vi turns herself in to the enforcers to protect her loved ones and the undercity at large from Piltover's crackdown. A truly selfless, brave, and protective act. But post Act 1, her protective nature is focused entirely on Caitlyn.

In Season 1 Act 2, her stated goal is to save her sister from Silco. Yet she agrees to aid an enforcer to hunt down her sister and is actually very helpful the entire time. She never even tries to hinder or redirect Caitlyn from finding Jinx, even though her Act 1 self was constantly hindering enforcers from getting to Powder. She reveals the name "Jinx" to Caitlyn, then leads her directly to Jinx without considering the consequences. In Act 3, she leaves Ekko to fight Jinx to the death, choosing to protect Caitlyn instead of either of her little siblings. Later, she gives up the name Jinx to the Council. Then she goes on a rampage on Silco's soldiers without ever looking for Ekko or Jinx to see if they survived the bridge fight. So protecting them clearly wasn't on her list of priorities. The next time she protects someone in Season 1, it's again Caitlyn, during the dinner party. Post Act 1, there is never any significant moment of Vi protecting anyone other than Caitlyn in Season 1.

In Season 2 she joins the enforcers for Caitlyn, gasses Zaun with Caitlyn, lets Caitlyn take multiple kill shots at Jinx. Again, she never looks for or even thinks of Ekko. She doesn't do anything to protect the Firelights. She does protect Isha and by extension Jinx. But again, this is after allowing multiple kill shot attempts at Jinx and gassing Zaun. Sure, she states out loud that she thinks the Grey was protecting the people of Zaun, but the narrative itself calls her out via Jinx. So we're not supposed to agree with Vi's assessment that the Grey was protective, are we? In Act 2 we see her protective nature towards her family return when she protects Jinx and Isha from Warwick. (Fun fact: in the leaks she says "he's gonna kill us" before charging at Warwick. In the actual episode she says "he's gonna kill you." Presumably they changed the line to be a bit more selfless). Then she also protects Vander, and later when Isha explodes she protects Jinx from the blast.

But these moments pale in comparison to how much she protects and does things for Caitlyn throughout both seasons. If you keep track of every protective/selfless action Vi takes throughout her run on Arcane, Caitlyn takes the cake as the recipient. At times she either passively doesn't do anything to protect Jinx, Ekko, the Firelights, and Zaunites in general. At other times she is actively the one causing harm to Jinx and Zaunites. So this supposedly profound moment where she "breaks free" of the burden of protecting everyone and chooses to be intimate with Caitlyn........... just falls flat. Because it's just more of the same of what she's already been choosing to do for the last season and a half. This isn't a huge turning point for her character. She's doing the same thing she's been doing for most of her screentime. Choosing Caitlyn over her family.

It was just so baffling hearing this take from this writer because it's so incongruent with what's actually onscreen. There are many moments in the show where it really feels like the story in the writers' heads and the story we all watched don't add up. And many, many moments where it seems the writers don't really grasp the disturbing gravity of some of the things they wrote into the show. Like Vi's time in prison or her being hit by Caitlyn. It's like they sprinkled those things in for spicy drama with no thought to how they would impact Vi as a person. Very shallow and bizarre writing choices.

An Arcane writer saying Vi had sex with Caitlyn in a dank prison cell to "reclaim her trauma"

[1queasycrow]

EARLY THROUGH MID GAME VEILGUARD SPOILERS

AGAIN, SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE THE VEILGUARD (2024)

Your TLDR is: Rook is actually a very good protagonist if you do the light reading.

So some people say that Rook is out of place or badly written or that they have no reason for being the player character. And honestly sure you can say those things, but they should come with some heavy disclaimers.

Rook IS out of place but so is everyone when you’re rebelling against the end of the world. Is it weird that Rook is all of a sudden in charge? Not really, Varric named them leader if things didn’t go well (and they didn’t) and those two original team members trust the call that Varric made.

As for why the companions would follow this random person? Well, in the beginning, most of them aren’t really following Rook as much as what they stand for (putting together a team to stop power hungry tyrants from ending the world). As for why they follow Rook? Well the companions are (by design, I’ll admit) followers. There is little in their characters that makes them uniquely suitable for leadership of a team. Rook however, does have these qualities, you can see them in the backstories and a lot of dialogue options)

Perhaps the writing doesn’t explicitly give you a classic Chosen One narrative (imo this is refreshing, I enjoy a good ‘you’re not the only one for the job but you are what we got’ in fact, no shade to the inquisitor but Rook has more self made leadership qualities than ‘oops I walked into the wrong time wrong place’ but I digress).

This is not to say that chosen one narrative isn’t there (in a way). If you read ANY of the six Rook backstories (which is an unmissable screen in character creation) ALL of them paint the portrait of someone who will make the tough call in the moment with the information given to them and live with the consequences (marking themself as a chosen one if you will) and if that whole deal doesn’t sound like a dragon age game then I don’t know what games you’ve been playing for the past decade and a half. Now does this require a bit more reading than some people are willing to invest? Possibly, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Honestly, you can interpret Rook any way you wish but I always think it important to spend a little time considering why we may find something ‘badly done’ rather than jumping to ‘lazy creation’ or lack of skill.

[gaunt-and-hungry]

Let's eat god.

[roseofhybrids]

was gonna write this in the tags, but it got way too long for that, so

short answer: If we're going purely off of the cannon material we've seen in the series I have to say too ambiguous to answer

long answer:

on one hand she did a lot of bad things, abuse, murder, siding with robo-satan

but on the other, we never got the chance to see what she would choose to do when truly free to make her own choices through the series, she's either under control of the Elliots or the solver. Which severely limits just how in control she can be of her own choices. Would standing up for your "boss and coworkers" against people and entities bent on abusing and killing them be the right thing to do? Definitely, but it's also a fast way to get yourself and them killed this isn't meant as a justification of any of her actions, just an explanation of why she'd choose them

and we don't get the chance to see if she'd continue choosing to act the way she did in the series after the solver gets defeated

take N and V for example they also did a lot of murder of both humans and drones while working for the solver. While V didn't physically hurt N, as far as we know, she still did mistreat him. You can argue that it was to a lesser extent than what J did, but even if it wasn't as bad, it still wasn't good either All three of them were made to do horrific things while working under the absolute solver. But we only get to see how N and V change when free from that

N's change is pretty quick He didn't remember the solver at the time of the pilot, so he didn't have to consider the possible consequences of going against an eldritch space demon that has already eliminated at least 1 planet

V on the other hand did remember and as a result takes longer to change In episodes 2 and 3 we see she's still intent on killing the worker drones and tries to convince N to do the same. She asks him to stop looking into the solver and goes to the prom planning to kill everyone there. V can remember the deal she made with the solver, and she knows it's out there. She can't start slacking off just because J is gone, it could show up at any point and there would be consequences for both her and N In episode 4 we see this fear first hand. V sees Uzi is getting taken over by the solver and attempts to kill her. She justifies this to N by saying that if they do their jobs, that thing (the solver) will leave them alone. She is killing in order to protect herself and N from the solver

This is the exact same justification J gives to V in the finale. She justifies siding with the absolute solver because she believes there's no way to escape or defeat it. There's no escape even in death, so it's pointless to disobey it. Had J come back sooner and had a similar encounter with V in episode 2 or 3, maybe even 4. It's possible that V would have agreed with J back then

But when they do fight in episode 8, V now believes it's possible to overcome the solver and as a result rejects J's offer to join the "winning team". Cementing her evolution to a heroic character

J on the other hand has not had the chance to have that growth. While N and V had the chance to be free from the solver for a while. J spent that entire time by its side. J isn't free from it till CYN's core is destroyed

so, would J choose to better herself now that there's no obligation to please a violent master that will kill her for stepping out of line?

well we can't say for sure we can speculate, of course. There's certainly signs and evidence that she has the capacity for it, but we can't see if that change takes place. If it happens, it happens post canon

I personally believe she could if given enough time and the room to atone by the other drones.

But she could just as easily be rejected by the other drones and be left alone to stew and grow resentful

Maybe they try to let her in, but she ends up being unwilling to change and instead isolates herself. Be it because of ego or a fear of diverting from the life she's lived for so many years

How J turns out after the credits roll is left to interpretation. It's hard to call her bad when we take her situation into account and see the potential for growth. But it's also hard to call her good when we don't know for sure what happens

Rb and all that jazz

[yappacadaver]

Crazy wild shit man