#all those views are from me when i first got fixated on this game lol

[steakout-05]

it's 11 pm where i live and i'm tired,,, here's Barry stimming :)

i've never properly drawn him starting to rip his sleeves off before (shockingly) so here is the he :)

also bonus drawing:

[mikaze-discord]

Quartet Night: Love letters

Annnnnd these are the love letters written for Quartet Night!!!

Please enjoy under the cut~

REIJI KOTOBUKI

From Anon:

I've always been drawn to characters with complex (and fairly dark) personalities, so liking Rei-chan was honestly inevitable for me.

He looks like a very bright and cheerful character at first, which he is, but sometimes that part of him is a little misleading because, in actuality, he's a character that holds a lot of negative feelings about himself due to a past that he can't seem to move on from. He holds a lot of those feelings to himself because he doesn't want to burden anyone else with them. He's a reliable, cunning, and ultimately selfless character that chooses to shoulder a lot on his own out of his infinite care for others, and perhaps a secret sense of atonement, all hidden behind his bright demeanor and goofy smile, and it's endlessly interesting to me.

Besides the duality of his personality, he has a lot of other endearing quirks to love about him. He loves his mom a lot and is a mama's boy. His old-man jargon and catchphrases never fail to amuse (I still can't get over the way he says "my girl"). His obsession with anything even remotely British is something my APH England phase can relate to. His style of music brings a lot of pleasant feelings of nostalgia for me, and his pretty voice suits them a lot. And most of all he's just a very good boy overall. I rate 99999 out of 10 would love and support him and also maybe pay for his therapy because god knows he needs it. Happy anniversary!!

From another anon: 

Would you like to hear a story? You do? Very well then, may this story be one you enjoy.

What do I like about Reiji kotobuki? A Lot of things actually!

Well, I've always really liked Reiji as a character as he seemed to be one of the more interesting characters to me, due to how complex he is with his backstory and general just personality.

I have always really enjoyed how Reiji just solves problems too? Like he is just such an outgoing person who deserves all the support!!!

Like the best word I can use for Reiji is just, unique. Everything about him is just so Reiji. From the way he talks, to his nicknames or even his texting style. Like have you seen how many people use emoticons when texting as Reiji? It's just so him.

I like his way of thinking too! I feel like some of the interactions in the games are just so interesting, just seeing Reiji’s point of view. How he deals with a sort of survivor’s guilt and all of that.

Personally, some of my most memorable roleplaying moments were watching a Reiji rper in action, like just seeing them interact and flow so seamlessly with the other characters was just so fascinating to wee baby rper me. Such a large part of playing Reiji is just how you flow with the people around you and comedic timing. I have so many funny moments where Reiji was just interacting with people and it was just so inspirational (?) like I couldn't stop the smile on my face. I had learnt alot from them. I still consider them my roleplaying senpai almost! I don't talk to them anymore but I really had an amazing time just seeing their spin on the character.

I don't find him to be a romantic partner towards me nor do I see any of the characters in that light, but I've always found Reiji as such a personal character. Not even just towards me, like even with other utapri stans. The most relatable character always seems to be Reiji.

I've always been pretty similar in many aspects to him and I often find myself relating to him in numerous ways like his vibe is just relatable! I have often found myself trying to make other people laugh and have fun that many times I'm spreading myself thin and feel unappreciated...Reiji really helped with that.

This is where i start getting into the really personal stuff LOL feel free to skip if you dont wanna hear the angsty backstory.

I had really come to love Reiji when I had just...hit a low. I had a group of friends who I enjoyed hanging out with and just talking to, but they weren't very good friends per say. I often had to schedule every activity we did and I spent days and nights trying to think of concepts that might be fun. They took it for granted.. I had spent 4 months trying to make a game for them, and they had constantly pushed back times that we would play it. Using excuses to not play it, without telling me out right what they did not like or even why. The site I used was later taken down without notice and thus I had lost all my progress. Later, they had mentioned how they would like to play it except that later ended up being two years later. I really wish I could've solved things with that friend group like Quartet Night did but that didn't happen. That is when I started seeing things Reiji’s way? Not to say that it was the same or similar scenario to Reiji but I had just associated it with him.

RANMARU KUROSAKI

From Anon:

Ran is such a fun character! He sounds like a "rough outside, soft inside" kind of character, but his roughness is more like an integral part of him and it's through it that he shows he cares rather than setting it aside. That's what made me want to rp him. I also like how he is such a strong guy who's always determined to do his best in everything he does despite so much having gone wrong in his past. And it's very satisfying to see him form bonds and start to trust people.

From @mikaze-san:

Originally, my favourite Utapri boy was Ai, and it had been the robot boy for several years upon entering the fandom. In fact, it only switched to Ranmaru sometime late last year but regardless, I would still die for this man. Part of the reason why I switched is because I’ve always been a fan of Suzuki Tatsuhisa and I have a huge bias towards any man who wears nail polish without fearing being “feminine” because fuck gender roles.

As someone who studies fashion, I think Ranmaru is very coordinated and confident when it comes to portraying himself that way. He knows he’s not very good at expressing his emotions and utilises his passion for rock and playing the bass to portray those feelings through his songs. It’s also incredibly inspiring to know that he bounces back from pretty much anything considering his backstory and the stuff he deals with in the game/anime.

But my main reason for loving Ranmaru so much stems from the fact that I admire him a lot and want to be more like him. For a long time last year, I got to roleplay as Ranmaru in a few Utapri groups and through those experiences, I gained a better understanding and appreciation of the characters that I wrote for. In some weird way, by highlighting his flaws, character progression and how he dealt with different emotions, I ended up providing insight into how I dealt with similar issues by looking at them from a 3rd person perspective.

I used to be very shy and was very shut off from friends and family, and due to this I’ve always admired people in my life or fictional characters that are so confident in being who they are. Ranmaru particularly struck that chord in me because his bluntness knows no end. He’s very opinionated and doesn’t fear confrontation, in most cases being the one to provoke it. He speaks his mind openly without being overly anxious of the consequences. This is something that I feel is especially relevant today with being your authentic/unapologetic self is such a trend.

It’s something I’ve also noticed with having met people in or outside of this fandom, the notion of idolising a fictional character containing traits that we want to see in ourselves. Which made me think about a lot of my favourite kinds of characters which at the end of the day all boil down to sharing one similar trait: Being a bitch.

And in Utapri, Ranmaru embodies that. So naturally it’s very easy for me to idolise him.

(Tldr: I like his bitchy attitude.)

AI MIKAZE 

From Arashi:

It's hard to put into words why I love Ai Mikaze, perhaps it's because I'm subconsciously drawn to him, maybe it's because his hair and eyes are my favorite color, maybe it's because his voice is that of an angels, there are many reasons why I love him. I couldn't tell you a definite, "These one or two reasons are the entire reason I love him", but I'll try to sum it up.

I grew to love him by admiring his personality, his smile, his determination to reach his goals, everything about him made me happy. He's strict and a little scary at times, but when he sees people caring for him, he becomes happy and in a way, sentimental. He's not sure how to explain the way he feels, but he tries. I think I admire how he holds all the little things precious to his heart as he learns about them, and he wants to understand how to care for others and how they care for them in return. Even after six years, he still remains the most dear to me. I think that he now has a sentimental value to me, because even if I 'loved' another character more for a while, I will always come back to Ai. Ai deserves the world, and I'd give it to him if I could. He'll always be special to me, and I think that he very much deserves that.

From Maronda: 

My love for Ai started after I found Shining Live by chance and started to play. At first I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters and decided to go back and watch the anime to maybe remember some context other than who Starish was. When I got to the episode focused on Ai and his "secret" I was absolutely thrown off by it all. I ended up feeling like I had so many questions and I knew that the anime would give me little to no answers, so I frequently turned to rambling on the internet about it. Eventually, this fixation on weird things about him seemed to turn into a clear fondness for him, and friends made me realize just how much I liked him. Knowing the cold and often strange aspects of his personality was due to something out of his control was something I resonated with as someone on the autism spectrum. He reminded me of some of the ways I used to think and behave.

I also began to notice other things I loved about him. Things like how soothing I found his voice, the pleasant shade of light blue in his hair and eyes, how ridiculously pretty he is... but the best things are the endearing parts of his personality. Though he's somewhat harsh, he's still entirely genuine. His curiosity is absolutely precious and his occasional awkwardness in expressing emotion or understanding the emotions of others made me empathize with him. And if you look at the Ai in Shining Live and compare it to the Ai in the anime and games... he really has changed a lot and grown as a person. He now seems so much gentler and understanding, and he clearly values the friendships he has now too! I think he's a wonderful character and ever since friends of mine encouraged me to selfship I've essentially been in love with him, but it also makes me happy to see other people appreciate him for other reasons as well. He's just so lovable!

CAMUS

From @uta-no-fakku-sama:

At the very beginning of my UtaPri interest, Camus never really caught my attention. That is until he became my first My Only Prince UR. I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more ever since, and now he’s become my favorite QUARTET NIGHT member! Along the way, I learned more about him and realized he’s one of the more complicated characters to understand. Nonetheless, I absolutely adore him. I tend to tease and make fun of him a lot, but deep down I truly do like him a whole bunch!

From @/waddamaloooon on twt: 

A little Camus appreciation post

(alternatively known as; how this guy managed to harshly take my heart and step on it like the gumin I am.)

Hello, this is Suikamaru, here to share a tiny story of why I, and eventually you, love Camus Rondo Cryzard.

At first glance, his looks appealed to me, but not his behavior (and ironically enough, his voice) so I didn't bat an eye on him. I've always been on a neutral leaning to dislike opinion on Camus, which is quite understandable because have you SEEN the way he acts. Unfathomable.

…..To a Young Suikamaru, that is.

I've grown, so naturally I've changed preferences regarding characters, ikemen, and who to stan and who to avoid like the plague. I will lie if I said that I expected to like that blonde confectionery devouring machine at any point of my life.

But it did happen so who are we fooling here.

It dawned on me that Camus is the type of character that you cannot appreciate unless you go in depth into his lore, backstory, and see him for who he really is. Because then everything else will make sense. And that never happened in my case until I started roleplaying as him.

I realized that he's not just a two faced, sweet toothed mean man. He's a perfectionist, someone who's always been raised since his childhood days to be nothing less than complete, who has locked on his heart and emotions to devote himself completely to the purpose given to him. He has the looks and brains for what though? He should be a little stupid honestly.

But his intelligence gave him the complexity that he just needed for his characteristics. Because as aforementioned, he's not someone to easily like or fall in love with. And I think that's quite rare in characters, and very much appreciated due to the fact it gives the fans a chance to not actually stay on a flat level of knowledge regarding their favorite characters.

I've slowly started to see myself in some aspects of him, which was the number one factor of liking him. Then came the Maeno magic when I realized Camus shares the same VA as another character that I love as well. (Hamelin, from SinoAlice.) From then, everything went downhill.

In a good way. I think..

Well, that is all from me, please read about this handsome man and appreciate his hard work both as an individual and as an idol. There is SO much to him that's p much overlooked and I'm getting broke from spending my money on his living expenses rent free in my head. Take him off my head.

[krosaceae]

For the fanfic writing ask: 🏅👨‍👧‍👧⏰ 👀

Heck yeah!!! More asks!!! Thank you!! :D

We gots:

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic?

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about

Answering under the cut because I'm unfamiliar with brevity, and the last question inevitably is going to get a little nsfw lmao.

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

I hate that my first instinct was to be like "oh getting x number of kudos/views/subs/etc." because I'm trying to move away from using external motivators when it comes to writing. Its hard though, since I'm such a numbers/data gal.

So I've been thinking about it more. And recently, I've just been super fucking proud of myself for sticking with and growing with my fic. Its almost been a year since I decided to rewrite Barriers!

And its a BFD because I may or may not have this super bad habit of viciously giving up anything that I don't immediately excel at. And I struggle with a lot of aspects of writing. But I've stuck with it—not to mention the same story—for much longer than I thought I would (which sounds so bad to say, I know, lmao but its true) Like when I started rewriting Barriers I think I had originally posted 7 chapters on FFN? And the idea of having to write beyond the original chapters I had terrified me. Now I've written more than I started with, plus I like it MORE than what I started with, and am super eager to continue telling the story. So I guess I'm just proud of that growth :)

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic?

Like yes and no. I don't outwardly yell from the rooftops like "WHAT'S UP EVERYBODY I WRITE FANFICTION AND I'M PROUD!!!" But I don't actively hide it from the people I'm close to.

Like my fiance is super supportive, even though he doesn't really read or know much about the fandom (he is def my muse for Gray, though, and he is well aware lmao). My best friend used to write and read fanfiction in another fandom, so like she gets it, but my fic isn't really her cup of tea. The rest of my friends are so sweet but like v normie and are just like "cool keeks!!! <3 whatever makes you happy!!!" because they have no idea what the fuck fandom, fanfiction, or bokumono games are anyway, so I basically just tell them that I write now to save explaining it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

I used to spend a lot more time reading than I did writing. But I also spent a lot more time daydreaming than writing during that time as well. Now I definitely spend more time writing than I do reading, mainly because instead of giving in to the daydreams as often as I did, I try to turn that into writing time, if that makes sense? So I'm not really reading any less than I was, I’m just writing WAY more than I used to.

Probs like 70% writing, 30% reading. I've also just been in non-stop writer mode, trying to get as much done before the school year picks up again, so that contributes too lol.

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about

Do I ever lmao. Phew. Let's start with the more tame one.

I have a Graire (SURPRISE!) like fantasy/medieval AU that I dream about all the time. I sometimes chip away at if I get Graire ideas that don't exactly fit into Barriers, but the amount of world building that would have to go into it to make it a viable fic is just way too daunting rn. I've talked @practicado 's ear off about it but like the basic premise is our poor blacksmith boi gets accidentally wrapped up in all the royal drama as Claire (obviously a princess) is promised to her family's enemy as a truce. Claire being Claire plans to assassinate her newly betrothed, avenge her father, and rightfully rule over the land herself, but Gray basically stumbles into her plan and both use that situation to their advantage until they're both basically working for the same goal and fall in love. Basically lots of fighting, drinking, sex, revelries, taverns, etc. Overall a good time and I'd love to actually finish writing it but probs never will.

Another WIP of sorts I have involve the scenes I mention that happen "off camera" in Barriers aka one that Gray isn't a part of. I write all of those out in a separate document—So imagine, times like the fireworks festival when Ann came and found Claire, Claire and Kai being left at the snack shack alone, Claire going to 'apologize' to Mary—I've written all of those scenes (and will continue to do so). I just will probs never post them because I have no idea how I'd even logically compile them lol. But they're fun and I wish I could just post them in Barriers lmao.

I do have a WIP that recounts Gray and Claire's drunken adventures that fateful night (its porn with a plot), but I will probably end up posting that one eventually so I will talk about the others lol. On the topic of Graire smut, I do have like a dump of all of my 1st Person POV attempts using Gray. And those will likely never see the light of day even if I do end up putting smut in Barriers lmao.

Two WIPS I am not particularly proud of and will definitely never see the light of day are the smutty continuation of The Next Best Thing (PopurixKaren) and then my MaryxClaire library fixation. I just... who doesn't want to have sex in a library? Just me? Ok. I’m done.

Haha alrighty, as always I went in. I appreciate the ask! <3

[ziggyzagreus]

Active Listening

[Pairing: Charon/Hermes - Fandom: Hades (Video Game)]

[Rating: No Rating Applied]

[Important Tags: Fluff, Getting Together (Kinda), Hermes is Nervous and I love him for that]

[Fic Type: SFW Drabble]

[AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365528 ]

[Summary: Hermes contemplates the growth of companionship between himself and his Professional Business Associate.]

[Note: This was inspired by replies to a post by @deathonholiday where people were just basically sharing their Charon/Hermes headcanons soooo here we go, lol.]

~~~

Hermes did not know at which point he started being able to understand Charon. Or rather, when something had shifted significantly enough for his own mind to slow down adequately for the boatman to worm his way inside, for that somehow soothing voice contrary to the audible sound it had to sound in the Olympian god’s mind and respond to his own ramblings. It certainly had taken a long time, for the messenger additionally could not recall hearing the low drawls of Charon’s scraping voice for the first while of their association.

A shift in character, perhaps it had taken, or something much more interpersonal, between the two of them rather than Hermes’ attention alone.

At the start of it all, quick trips down to the Underworld often left Hermes more wound up than usual, a strange unease always settling over him when things got darker and more claustrophobic. Sometimes the upper regions were quite alright, nice even, but despite the expanse of Elysium and all its chill air, there was a sense of unwelcome that made Hermes’ pulse antsy. A pressure, like the feeling of watchful eyes on his back – even if it were just innocent shades, Hermes felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up practically the entire trip down. So, he’d search for the boatman, quite literally dashing in to dump his wares and the soul identifications on the polished albeit ancient boat, prattle off on their uses and what messages to be delivered, and be on his way.

Charon would always watch him as well, burning violet gaze just visible under the brim of his wide boater hat, and Hermes would use an old salesmanship trick – staring right at the bridge of the nose, well, should the individual possess one, which Charon did not – to finish his delivery in record time. Charon would nod, weight leaning heavily on the oar, and that same searing gaze would bore into the back of the Olympian as he darted off to leave this wretched place behind.

Those hollow eyes, teeming with a deep energy, were always on him, and initially they had carried that same feeling of watchful unease that Hermes shivered off once finding his way back home.

Then, it came that Charon would begin meeting Hermes closer and closer to the surface; how the boatman came to expect his arrival was unbeknownst to the messenger god, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. It was as if Charon could tell how jumpy Hermes got, the way he couldn’t even hover still and the slight tremor to his rapid speech. The boatman awaited his arrival closer to the surface, and in his company, Hermes found himself speaking more, the tiniest bit more slowly, and biding their time. The more at ease he became, the easier it was to fall to his dispositional pattern of chatter.

Hermes filled most silences. In Olympus he was well known for it, rather rudely to be perfectly square, and especially now when the only companion in this dreary place seemed to have no words of his own. Figuring he was mute, with little to no intention to speak, Hermes had no issue prattling on about anything and everything.

Eventually, Hermes felt sorry, too, for being so fleeting in the past; and now, he allowed the realization of a sort of warm safety from being in the presence of the Chthonic minor god, aware that nothing dare cross the planks of his Narrowboat lest they be lost shades with little will stored in their spirits. Nothing could truly come to harm Hermes down here, and so, relaxation came to follow with the pleasure of Charon’s company.

Of course, though, as time went on, he wondered if the boatman even understood a word he spoke while they were together.

He received nods, and Charon followed directions, but that seemed to be the extent of it all. He never uttered even a sound in return, and while Hermes was often the one to interrupt things, a strange thought occurred that he himself wished to be interrupted, if only for once. Prompting place for it, asking questions, and waiting a beat for a response all seemed futile. Plus, Hermes himself often answered the question allowed, or rushed off to speak before he could stop himself.

And so, it came to pass in such a shock when one day, Charon spoke.

Hermes adjusted the strap of his bag, keeping what wares inside from tumbling out, and skidded to a halt at the ledge in Elysium where Charon often arrived to pick him up and spare him from a solitary trek down through Asphodel or Tartarus.

To the god’s surprise, the boat was already there at a standstill, its proprietor waiting to the side calmly, dark aura instead the most welcoming feature of the Underworld as far as Hermes was concerned. One of Charon’s arms crossed his chest, slender hand hidden within the folds of billowing robes, and that same penetrating violet gaze fixated as if he knew precisely where the god would appear.

Hermes opened his mouth to speak, a grin tugging at his lips, already sucking in a breath for the tumultuous expulsion of words sure to come: stories of where he’d been and the functions of the goods he had to deliver to his dear associate. But the words fell flat when Charon instead drew his hand out into view, a palm-sized bottle of golden nectar held delicately in his grasp.

“Charon, chap, is this…? Erm, well, of course I know what it is, but are you gifting this to me?”

And for the first time, Charon spoke. He had a voice like no other; and while to many that would be derogatory, speaking volumes of negativity towards the scratching, garbled whispers like a foul blizzard wind or the gargling of shards of something broken – to Hermes, it sounded simply, cozy and clear in his mind. It sounded as much the comfort and safety he felt in the boatman’s presence, and that was… Striking.

“Indeed, something simple, but a gift for you, nonetheless. Should you desire to take it.”

Hermes’ mind felt fuzzy, something blooming from his chest, warm and light like the comings-on of the wines from Dionysus’ feasts, but this was delightful. A new, exciting thrill shot through the messenger and caused his feathered heels to lift an additional foot or so off the ground where he hovered. He stared, at a loss for words, at the nectar in Charon’s hand.

“How can I hear you so clearly?” He instead asked, words dumping out slowly, at least for the pace of the quick-tongued god.

“You at long last cared to listen. Perhaps you are comfortable… in my presence. Take it, I insist, good Hermes.”

Without further hesitation, Hermes reached for the nectar and held the delicate glass close, admiring the subtle craftsmanship forged likely from fires here in hell itself. “I… thank you. I – oh, I didn’t exactly bring anything special for you, nothing aside from the usual wares and the few soul identifications but – oh, next time, next time I will, alright Charon? We are business partners for sure, there’s no doubt about that now, alright? Considering you’ve put up with me for this long, and you’ve followed everything I’ve said! Why, you’ve understood it all, haven’t you? I am terribly sorry for doubting so, I suppose I should have – I should have listened closer last time…”

“You are forgiven, for neither of us were ready. Now, shall we depart?” Charon gestured to the boat that awaited them.

A jolt of glee shot through Hermes, and for the first time since his work began, an excitement to venture into the Underworld met him. It was startling, surely, for when the fear had dissipated as companionship with Charon grew, for once… Well, this would be rather enjoyable.

“Certainly! Let’s get right to it, friend! And do I have stories to tell you, now there was this incident that I faced up on the surface when acquiring the name of that fellow right there…”

[selfmadesuperhero]

i’m very much not okay 

and i’ll probably take very long for me to explain why

i don’t know how to write this. i don’t know where to even start. i’m here because i just don’t have anywhere else to go. i can’t afford therapy. i no longer have any close friends other than Mabu (gf).

it’s getting pretty bad inside my head

i know most people’s lives are hell this year and i’m not special. i know that. to me, this year is feeling like the last nail in my coffin because 2019 had already chewed me up and spit me out. 

i kept my last job for eight years. after my first year there, another developer came in, and we became friends. we worked side by side less than 4 feet apart for six years. our hours were flexible but we always agreed upon our schedule just so work would be more bearable, because we both hated it and often had to team up against our boss’ downright abuse. it was a very small company (at its biggest we were only 7 employees). we were also going to graduate at the same time from the same school (different majors), so we had a bit of a pact to leave our shitty boss once we’d graduated and start developing our own, way less shitty games.

at the start of 2019, he got an excellent job offer. i was thrilled for him and told him to of course get out of that hellhole we hated so much, we were only there because the pay was decent and the hours were flexible so we could get our degree, you know? it stung, but i was happy for him. on the last day i gave him a ride home (which is also something i did almost daily), he surprised me by hugging me and telling me i was like a brother to him and our plans weren’t going to change. 

i believed him, and went back to work. he was soon replaced, obviously, by a junior developer because that’s how capitalism works. but suddenly, i no longer had someone to take a stand with me against my boss - there was no one left that i knew, everyone had resigned or been fired and i was the oldest employee. you’d think that’d earn me something, after eight years being dedicated to the same company, right? 

(shortly after, my grandma passed, after years and years of agonizing in a wheelchair. we lived together)

fuck that

the first months were fine. i was being the senior developer and teaching the junior constantly, so my boss stayed out of my way. but see, this is where he started to get ansty. the more the junior stopped being a junior and was actually useful for something, the more that piece of gigantic ass just started thinking only about our salaries. i started in that company in 2012 making little more than 3 bucks/hour (remember i live in a third world country, but it was still specialized work), but by 2019, my salary was pretty much double of what the junior was making, and every penny extra i got during those years was a CONQUEST. i also worked six hours while he worked eight, so.

my boss basically started treating me even more like shit. he wasn’t nice to be around before, but he was bearable in small amounts. suddenly it was obvious to everyone that he was really fixating on me and my performance, and to me it was obvious he just wanted me to walk away too so he could replace me with TWO junior developers instead of just one measly charlie. 

then, the nationals elections began. oh boy.

this probably wouldn’t read as news to anyone, but i’m a huge leftie, obviously. if you’re at all interested in politics, read about what socialist policies have done for uruguay during the past 15 years and how they turned us into AT LEAST a developing country, but i digress. 

the people that sat in my office even shared my political views or whatever, but my boss is actually part of the conservative party and started actively campaigning. every time something involving politics happened, he made a point to come barging in the office and telling me and specifically me about it like i was personally running against his party. i actually recorded him once to have proof of him at least screaming at me, so i could check if i was crazy for thinking he had something against me. he frequently called me communist and just mocked my views. if you’re wondering, yes, this is illegal, but nothing happened. 

then, two big things happened at once: we lost the election, and my recently adopted puppy was diagnosed with distemper. yes, it happened on the same that and it’s a day i’ll never forget. 

my girlfriend and i had talked about getting a puppy once we moved in together. we’d named him like two years before it actually happened. we moved in together on may 2019 and on september i found the most precious boy for adoption on facebook and i was innocently all like “oh i’ve had to put rescue dogs for adoption before, let’s give back!”. 

on october 27th, he had a seizure and the vet told us it was likely we’d have to put him down because only 20% of dogs survived, and it was even less for puppies. 

when i went to work, i had to put up with my boss laughing and mocking me for winning the election “against me”. i guess i missed my running for anything?

this post is already too long for me to get into details about my dog’s disease. for months, every day we looked after him constantly. i read everything there was to BE READ about distemper online, spent thousands of pesos on medicine and treatments just in case he had a chance. good news is he did! this is the only positive note in this post. 

it still wasn’t easy. he made us cry at least three times a day. we really thought he was dying, and we’d made the mistake of naming him 2 years before he was even born. we’d taken PERFECT care of him while he was unvaccinated, but the vet told us it was most likely he was already infected before he came home to us. i’d never seen such a small puppy so sick. he hallucinated constantly. if you don’t know, distemper is a neuro/digestive/skin/bone/HELL disease that’s really nasty. he’d have seizures almost daily and poop and pee himself. he stopped being able to control his body other than his two front legs, which he didn’t even have full control of. when he stopped being able to walk, he started crying constantly, it really tore the heart out of my chest

we called another vet, a dog physical therapist, so she’d tell us how we could help him. she told us to make him stand as long as possible, so every time he had a meal, i’d bend down with him and hold his hips - so he’d be able to stand, and slowly gain back some muscle mobility. every day we massaged his legs and flexed his joints, even his tiny toes, so he’d avoid atrophy. and we did it!! as i’m writing this, he’s one year old now, he’s no longer sick even if he’ll carry with him plenty of lifelong sequels, and he walks and runs and barks like the best of them ♥ i wasn’t going to plug anything but if you wanna see his progress, it’s on instagram @hamiltonthefighter

okay, i guess i ended up talking at length about his disease in the end, sorry. his walking again had a price to pay for me: my own back. for two or three months i was bent over this dog, you know? i still can’t get out of bed without help sometimes lol around december it got really bad but i just kept popping pills because joy oh joy, i was doing my thesis and i didn’t really have time or money for anything else. my job was basically paying for our rent, my university classes including the thesis course which was ridiculously expensive, and our dog had given me credit card debt out of desperation (we even had to buy those rubber things used for yoga to place on our floors so he’d have something to use his nails against instead of constantly slipping on the floor, we tried every medication that might help, we gave him CBD oils, all kinds of vitamins, constant vet visits where during the first two weeks he got like three different shots every day, etc)

i’m rambling, and i’m sorry, but i don’t really think anyone will read this. i started this post crying my eyes out and writing about my dog at least has been calming, because even if he’s a drooling mess now, he’s still the same he ever was and i love him very much and he’s sleeping soundly next to me and he’s finally close to fine. 

remember the friend i talked about like half an hour ago? the one that worked with me for six years? nothing changed between us during the first months. for my thesis, i was going to develop a videogame with Mabu, but we were allowed to have external coding help because it was about GameDev, not the actual coding. i knew how to code, obviously, but Nico (the friend, guess we’ll give him a name) was also part of our project so he was gonna help us code so i had more time to focus on art and 3D modelling. the idea was kill two birds with one stone, make something we all liked, mabu and I were going to graduate with it and then we’d keep working on it during 2020 as we’d always always talked about.

by december, even if nico and i still talked regularly, i could tell he had just moved on with his life. he’d said he’d help us, but he was doing his own thesis, so i told him not to worry at that time, our final due date was in february. he asked us to forgive him during december and promised us he’d come back in january to DEVOTE himself to the project. i started coding the project besides working on the art and i was thankfully able to meet all the deadlines, so it was really fine, of course i understood where he was coming from. 

then, on january 7th, Mabu’s grandma passed away. she was scheduled for a heart surgery that supposedly only had 1% risk, and she passed on the table because of a doctor’s mistake. the surgery was here in the capital, but Mabu’s family lives five hours away. she comes from a very big, very loving family, and her grandma (being the mother of five children) was very much the center of it. i also loved her. she’d replaced my grandma the second she passed and every time i saw her she hugged me like i was a lost grandson. 

when my girlfriend called me during her surgery, i immediately left work because i just knew she would be crying if things were okay. this was a nightmare come alive for a family of 20+ people, and most of them were 5 hours away from their own house. my mother in law was (and still is) devastated by the lost of her mother because she was the one to encourage the surgery and she still thinks she killed her. i drove my her, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend on my mother’s in law van for five hours while they all cried or slept and i had to really, really pinch myself because i was EXHAUSTED but what else could i do? 

logically i missed work the next day. LOGICALLY. i had the service to attend and i was 5 hours away from the office and i didn’t even have my own car with me. i told my boss to discount the day, since i wasn’t entitled to the mourning day by law because it wasn’t my grandma. he didn’t even reply - he almost never talked to me by this point unless it was to berate me for something. i went back to work the day after the service.

now, remember we were doing our thesis and it was due in february? it really wasn’t great timing for anyone to die, but i was trusting Nico’s promise that he’d have more free time and he’d make up for not helping us code sooner. i told him the news about Mabu’s grandma, and then basically had to tell him to say something to her for her loss because he was supposed to be her friend, what the fuck, why aren’t you at least sending her a text.

let’s just say, january wasn’t a great month for Mabu and myself. two weeks after the passing, we still hadn’t had news from Nico. Mabu didn’t even have time to properly mourn because we had to turn our thesis in like, little over a month. i wrote to nico just downright ASKING if he was gonna be able to help us or WHAT, to which he said to me...

he’d never promised anything because he was really busy with his own stuff and he didn’t want to bring it up sooner because he knew Mabu was mourning and things were hard for us at the moment? 

like that’s great pal, thanks for telling me at the last POSSIBLE second you were just dropping out altogether, what the actual fuck? it still baffles me that someone can be so thick headed, but he kept saying he had made no promises and both Mabu and I knew that was a lie and i honestly just couldn’t deal with someone so selfish he couldn’t at least give a heads up sooner

the icing on the cake during the beginning of this year is someone i haven’t even mentined: MY PIECE OF SHIT BROTHER. talking about him may deserve another post, because this is already so long and convoluted and i haven’t even talked about his involvement in my misery during 2019-2020. i’ll try to make the story short if anyone’s still reading this far: 

a lot of years ago, our maternal grandmother moved to uruguay from russia and bought a tiny shitty house here next to my mother’s. my mother still hasn’t talked to me since 2013 because i’m trans, but that’s neither here nor there. i tried to keep in touch with my brother (we don’t share dads so he was no relation with my side of the family), and around 2017 i finally succeeded in making friends with him. or so i thought, clearly. 

that grandmother passed... sometime. i don’t really know because they cut me off. she didn’t speak to me either, she was literally a crazy old nasty woman and i didn’t even care when i heard she’d died, to be honest. she was such a nasty woman, she’d put her tiny shitty house to my and my brother’s name just to keep her own daughter out of the inheritance when she bought it. 

that also meant i was inheriting something for the first time ever, even if it was shitty. BUT my brother had his own fake grandma (the woman who looked after him his whole life instead of our mother) who was very old and frail and asked me if he could house her there. i said yes because again, i didn’t give a shit about the inheritance or the house or anything regarding my mother’s side of the family (other than him obviously), so for years this woman occupied the house. my brother basically took all existing furniture and appliances because he was moving in with a girlfriend and i even loaded up my shitty car with his stuff. all i wanted to inherit was the couch set, which had come all the way from russia and everyone had promised me since i was a wee lad, but he started whining about his fake-grandma not having a living room set and nowhere to sit and i didn’t even live by myself yet so i let them have the fucking couches, too. 

oh boy this is already too long but now i’m too lazy to make a separate post

anyway, sometime during 2019, the woman moved out to an old folks home because she could no longer take care of herself. i immediately asked about the couch set with hope in my heart that it could finally be mine, but my brother told me our mother didn’t want me to have it. 

he wanted to rent the house to make a profit, which sounded good to me because of that dog related credit card debt i talked about. and here’s where you might think i’m not that there in the head, but all my life i didn’t want anything to do with that house until my mother was in the ground - not out of hate but because i thought it was a shitty thing her own mother had done to her, and the inheritance should have been hers. she doesn’t have a degree or a stable job because she’s a russian translator so hey, whatever, they needed it more than i did. but then my brother starting getting ideas about improving the house so we’d make more money, and how we should do it together, and... i think i might have mentioned already why i didn’t exactly have time to redo a house? i was doing my thesis? about to graduate? my boss was constantly on my case? my dog was about to die? 

i helped as much as i could at first, but then december came, and then january, and my brother just kept nagging me about the house like i was purposefuly sitting on my ass doing nothing, because oh every day it’s not rented it’s money lost. no amount of explaining how stretched thin i was seemed to suffice, not even when mabu’s grandma died and nico left us hanging with the thesis and i had less than a month left to code the whole project by myself while ALSO taking care of the art. 

by the end of january, i was so stressed, i called a doctor after a panic attack. he gave me a weeks rest because of my back, because i wasn’t even able to get up without help at that time. it wasn’t much of a rest because i still used that time to sit at the computer and code 15 hours a day at LEAST, but hey. 

it was the first time in 8 years i’d taken medical leave of ANY kind. i didn’t even get medical leave when i got my chest surgery. it happened on a friday and i was back to work the next monday. i’d never skipped more than 2 days of work at best when i had a bad case of the flu or something, but that was it. 

when i went back to work, my boss immediatelly called me to his office. he started berating me about my performance again, bringing graphs comparing the amount of lines of code i’d written next to my coworkers. i didn’t mention this, but the graphic designer had also quit during 2019, so i was also covering that workload and no, that didn’t exactly translate to lines of code. i also had to spend HOURS every day tutoring the junior because he was too much of a cheap shit (didn’t use those words) to hire an experienced developer. i’d even WORKED AS A GRAPHIC DESIGNER FOR MEDIA CONTENT FOR HIS POLITICAL CAREER, EVEN IF IT WAS AGAINST MY BELIEFS AND NOT AT ALL RELATED TO MY JOB. he denied everything. EVERYTHING. he stuck to the narrative that i was just lazy and the proof was i’d just taken AN ENTIRE WEEK because “my back just hurt a little” and i had the audacity to skip work for someone else’s grandmother dying

i’m not exaggerating, i swear to anyone who might be reading this. that day was brutal and i’m still not over it half a year later, i don’t care if that makes me sound like a wuss. i worked eight years of my life in this fucking place. 

this argument lasted for hours, but i kept my head down because i couldn’t afford to lose the job, specially not then. i even apologized for any loss in performance and tried to explain my point of view and what i was going through (which i’d already done to another superior weeks ago anyway). but just when i thought i’d MAYBE be able to keep my head above water, he told me he was denying my the request i’d made to take two weeks of holiday days before the thesis final due date. 

i had already explained everything to him. everything, even nico dropping the team and my having to do everything by myself. i broke down and i told him he was forcing me to leave my job, i’d just have been certified by a doctor and i was asking for leave for SCHOOL (all things that are protected by law here), but he just kept repeating i could either walk away from my job or show up during those two weeks. he just wanted me gone, but he couldn’t fire me right away without having to pay me THOUSANDS because of my seniority (by law). he knew what he was doing to me and he didn’t care about it. he didn’t even let me TOUCH MY COMPUTER, he told me he wasn’t the one pushing me away, that i was doing this to myself, and he’d ask for a lawyer to check my computer for any “inconsistencies in my activity”, even. i really have a hard time just thinking about that day and how utterly humilliating it was. i lost a lot of personal files, because i sat at that desk for eight years and of course i had personal files because sometimes i stayed after hours before going to class. 

imagine for a second a sixty year old man, rich as shit, political candidate, standing in front of a computer, disconnecting the mouse and keyboard so i couldn’t touch it, yelling at me i was doing this to myself and i was losing my job because i had the audacity to ask for two weeks leave to finish my fucking school thesis. 

and yeah, i lawyered up. i didn’t have actual money to AFFORD a lawyer, but mabu’s cousin’s girlfriend was a lawyer and lived one block away and i immediatelly told her everything there was to tell. she brought me to the firm she worked in and they guaranteed me i had a pretty strong case and i was at least gonna be able to walk away with something.

that put things in hold for a while because the “trial” or whatever wasn’t gonna be held until after the thesis, so i tried to forget about it. my boss even owed me my untaken paid vacation days, which i told the lawyers because i was pretty sure he’d just forgot, but i wanted to know if it made a better case against him. they agreed, and i left it at that. 

but you know who was still making my life miserable even when february began and i had less than three weeks to finish our project right? MY SWEET BABY BRO. he was constantly nagging me about having to do all the work himself, like I’D ASKED ANYTHING FROM THAT HOUSE TO BEGIN WITH. but see, the nastier he started getting, the more apparent his lies began to appear. he got nasty to the level where ON THE DAY I WAS TURNING THE PROJECT IN he kept calling me demanding MONEY for stuff he’d paid for the house without checking in with me. i was honestly baffled by his level of selfishness, i was already sleeping three hours a day tops and he expected me to what, paint walls? he was FIERCELY against having to wait for my project to be done even if it was two weeks away and he was asking and asking for money when i’d just told him i’d lost my job without a penny to show for it. nice guy, really. 

suddenly, the following lies became clear: 

 my mother didn’t care if i took the couch set, he told me that because he was moving again and he was planning on taking the couches himself. (he ended up doing just so, too). he lied to me with the thing that hurts me most in the world: my mother hating me. he had even made a joke about it, because my mother had bought a new couch not long ago, and he didn’t “get” why she “didn’t want me to have anything”

 years ago he’d told me he had refinanced a tax debt the house had, and i gave him money for it. now that the house was about to be put up for rent, he pretended that had never happened and suddenly started talking about how we needed to take care of that

 he wasn’t planning on splitting the rent three ways between him, our mother and i. he was gonna keep two thirds, and i later even found out my own mother had given him the idea. 

 then poor mabu confessed to me once, two years ago, she’d wore a skirt one time visiting my brother and his then girlfriend, and he had told her nasty stuff to her year upon saying goodbye and she had never said anything because didn’t want to hurt our sibling relationship 

talk about final nail huh? 

i confronted him and he denied everything, obviously, he instantly played the victim card, how dare i think that way about him, how dare i break his dreams of reuniting the family again. he said things to me i’ll also never forget like, apparently, it shows that i’m a shit person because i have no friends and no one wants me around, unlike him that has so many. he told me i thought the world owed me when i was shit and i believed anything anyone told me before believing him. no one told me any of his lies, i caught them all by myself, but whatever. he cursed me and told me he never wanted anything to do with me because i was rotten and i only cared about money and i was so so selfish. this must have been around march and i still don’t know anything from him, or care.

what do i have to do for that side of the family to leave me alone, i wonder? all i ever wanted to do was be his friend

the “trial” against my boss came and suddenly every lawyer that worked at that firm was taking a fucking holiday except for the one that was supposedly leading my case - except suddenly, i didn’t have much of a case at all. i walked away with less than 2 thousand dollars and that was WITH the vacation days i hadn’t taken. the agreement was the lawyers were gonna keep 25% of however much i made but THAT vacation money wasn’t supposed to count because it didn’t come out of the “trial” thing, you know? 

well, it did. the lawyer screwed me over too. but hey, at least he’d gotten me unemployment for a couple of months (you only apply for unemployment if you’re fired, not if you walk away from a job, and my having been fired or not was what was being contested), i still tried to be optimistic, i had a few months to figure things out while i looked for another job, and at least i was able to finish paying for school with that money.

yeah, this was late february, beginning of march. joke’s on me for being optimistic at all

my own brother plotting with my own mother against me has done a number for my mental health. i already had baggage aplenty, like every trans dude or girl whose parents would rather see them dead than be a dyke/fag (my mother’s own words, ladies and gents)

my boss of eight years kicking me to the curve at the worst moment in my life in the most humilliating of ways while blaming me for it has left me feeling so worthless to people in general. i’m getting better with time, i think, but i’m still all not there. i have a really hard time thinking my work is worth anything at all.

i keep thinking my brother was right, and i’m a shitty friend, and i don’t deserve anyone around. my only real friend at the moment is my girlfriend, which makes it really hard to have any arguments because i start feeling like my life is ending because she’s pretty much all i have left and she’s the most important thing in the world to me because i wouldn’t have survived all this shit i’m writing without her by my side. i would walk to hell and back for her. but nico also left me behind without a second thought, after telling me i was like a brother to him, no matter how many times i invited him to hang out or anything to keep in touch. i’ve been a shitty friend to a lot of people, but not him, and he still didn’t care about me at all, so i just stopped trying. 

but now social distancing has got me all fucked up. i can’t trust people. i can’t go outside. everything is scary to me, i have at least two or three panic attacks per WEEK and they get nastier and longer every time. i know i need help, but i can’t even afford rent, let alone therapy. Uruguay has the worst unemployment rates since 2006 now thanks to our baby-Trump right now. i look for jobs daily even if the notion of having a job even SIMILAR to the one i had before gives me the shakes. programming isn’t as hard as some people may think, but the workplaces are usually VERY toxic because you’re valued by the amount of lines of code you write, and i’m so so tired. i’m still looking because I NEED. TO. PAY. RENT. but not because it’s something i want in life, at all. i’d much rather be poor and just do freelance work instead, but i’m failing.

i thank the people that have helped me or commissioned me these past few months from the bottom of my heart. i’m sorry i’m not more active, i’m sorry i’m still rusty and can’t draw faster, i’m sorry i sometimes spend half a day crying my eyes out because i just don’t know how to move forward. i have a week left, i still haven’t made enough for rent, let alone the bills or food. mabu used to get plenty of art commissions on etsy, but she hasn’t sold anything since march either and she’s younger than me so our financial struggles have an even deeper impact on her

i’m just so, so tired. i’m lucky to have mabu, and that is about it. i honestly don’t think i could have survived this year without her. for months the future has looked like a black screen to me. i can’t even trust the vegetable market in front of my fucking house because some piece of shit spread the rumor that i’m trans and now i can’t even open the door to my front house without getting stares sometimes, it’s ridiculous. i wish i could trust more than one person in the world so that everything wasn’t on her shoulders.

i’m not okay. we’re not okay.

that’s about it. i’m sorry i can’t end this on a more positive note. at least we graduated with an excellent score. not that we had a graduation, obviously. thanks corona.

thank you for reading if you read this far ♥

[jenivi]

Top 5 Persona Characters?

oh i’m so glad you sent this ask!! for this, i’ll try not to include any of the protagonists because they technically don’t have a canon personality; their personalities are mostly widely known fan inferences rooting from their dialogue options and overall attitude (which i also believe as well,, but yeah we’ll just not include them in. plus let’s just have the other characters shine!). keep in mind, i really am not the best with putting my thoughts into words, so some sentences might seem kinda funky lol. and everything here is my opinion :]

1) yosuke hanamura (persona 4)

sometimes, it saddens me that people view his character from the surface level and are quick to renounce him as homophobic and pervy. to add fuel to the flame, atlus kind of flanderizes yosuke’s character in golden and the animation (trust me, i love the animation and they did add some parts for yosuke that i love, but you gotta admit they could’ve done his character a bit more justice). of course yosuke’s flaws should be recognized and be critiqued, but honestly, these flaws are what make yosuke yosuke. removing those things, in ways, takes away from the 3 dimensional-ness of his character.

i feel that it was made clear what his “stereotypical role” was going to be in the story from his easily perceived surface personality traits. some of these traits were his recklessness, competitiveness and the fact that he was constantly being dunked on by the other characters, making him seem like just the comic relief. but throughout the story, you find out he’s more than that (which i will talk more in detail a little later). most prominently known by fans, there is the “bro” aspect to him. in this game, yu is the one who has to walk up to people and ask them to hang out, but yosuke is the only one of all the characters who takes the initiative to get to know yu. he nicknames you partner, constantly calls you on the phone at night, and always kind of asks you questions and says things to get a reaction out of you. from this, a natural friendship between blossoms and you feel like you get know really know yosuke personally. you learn that he’s actually very strategic and intelligent, incredibly loyal and cares deeply about his friends, and is overwhelmingly insecure and repressed. okay, we have to talk about this part. he seems closeted, and that can be the reasoning on why he sometimes makes homophobic remarks. i do think it’s a shame that his romance route was scrapped when it obviously was far in development. for some, the bro aspect can super fixated on and might be one of the only reasons why someone likes yosuke. this sadly kind of subconsciously fetishizes their relationship. of course that’s not the case all the time! but it’s something to be mindful of. even looking past the souyo ship (which i love deeply!), they are such great friends platonically, and yosuke himself is such a great character. throughout the story, he matures and develops into someone more humble, thoughtful and appreciative. from the moment he first showed up on screen, i kind of had a feeling he was going to be my favorite. and it’s kind of crazy how much i grew fond of him over time and realized the impact his character made on me.

2) elizabeth (persona 3)

elizabeth is so underrated, and i speak that from the bottom of my heart. she is so hilariously naive and funky, while also being one of the most powerful and intelligent persona characters. the way you are first introduced to her are through fulfilling her requests in the velvet room. as you fulfill her requests, you’re kind like, “you want me to do that,, really?” she tells you to bring her oil?? for some reason? and to feed a cat so it can prosper forever and ever? those are just some things i can think of at the top of my head. from these requests, you kind of get a peak at her funny weirdness and you’re just like “okay you’re weird but i like you.” and when you get to take her on dates (but i just see them as hangouts :]), you are essentially helping her make new experiences of the world outside of the velvet room and get into a lot of wacky hijinks. with this, her endearing weirdness and naivety really starts to shine, making you fall in love with the character. so now you’re like “wow, you’re really weird i love you lol.” her funny weirdness also translates to her dance style in persona 3 dancing, which i absolutely  love. it really encapsulates that side of her character accurately (and you gotta admit she’s got some cool funky moves).

beyond the funny side of her, you find out how truly powerful she is as a being. she can wield thanatos, which was only previously held by someone with the universe arcana), and is unfathomably strong as she is one of the harder boss fights in the entire series. it is also important to note that she is also very determined and i found it bittersweetly heartwarming that she is still mourning over makoto/minato(i nicknamed him virgin walk)’s death years afterward (as seen in persona 4 arena) and that she is dedicating herself to free his soul that is bound to the door of death. she misses her dear friend, and i just really love that she threw caution to the wind and went on this journey to try to find a way to resolve something that is seemingly impossible. and she is still doing it to this day, into the persona 5 timeline (because persona 5 royal shows that minato/makoto/virginwalk is still bound to the door). persona 3 happens in 2009 and persona 5 happens in 20XX (which is assumed to be 2016). it has almost been a decade. i truly think it’s in her character to keep searching for a way to free him no matter how long it takes. with all aspects of her personality in mind, i love her character with my whole heart. 

3) yukiko amagi (persona 4)

if i’m completely honest, yukiko was not one of my favorite characters at the time i played persona 4. i was one of the many people who overlooked her character because the others pretty much outshine her. because she is introduced in the beginning as the first dungeon, you start to put her towards the background once kanji, rise and naoto are introduced. from the surface, the first impression of her is “okay, i guess her quirk is that she laughs a lot?” i initially thought this too, but thinking more about it, i began liking that about her, and with more thought, i realized that i liked other things about her character as well. her sense of humor is so dumb? she laughs at lame stuff and fixates on things in conversation that just make you go “uhh okay,,, yukiko??” i think i opened my eyes to this when i was playing her story in persona 4 arena. i found it so hilarious that she fixated on the quality of the box lunch she prepared for everyone out of all the things happening, and that her whole arc in that game revolved around how bad it was (putting it into simpler terms). i also really think its funny how blunt she is too. she’s ready to shoot people down, and most of the time, it’s unintentional. 

and other than her quirks, i kind of like how her arc developed in the game. i know that many people saw that the end of her arc as “wrong” because they were expecting the usual resolution to problems similar to hers. they expected her to “follow her heart and pick freedom” if she feels trapped in her role as an innkeeper when she inherits her family’s inn in the future. but that wasn’t the point. i actually kind of like that she ultimately chooses to stay. in her social link, she decides to stay in inaba and to run the inn because it’s her own choice. she chose this out of her own will and that’s the only thing that mattered; no one else is forcing her to inherit the business and she decides that’s what she wants. i also really like that the animation showed the responsibilities and hard work she has to go through at the inn; it was a nice touch and really displayed how responsible she was and how much she prioritizes and dedicates her time at the inn. although she is responsible, she is not necessarily the “mom-friend” of the group. she can be a bit crazy like everyone else too. honestly the whole investigation team runs rabid because there is no mom-friend to keep them in check (persona 3 has mitsuru and persona 5 has makoto). anyway, really taking the time to think about yukiko’s character made me love her.

4) yusuke kitagawa (persona 5) 

okay, this is going to be very straightforward, but i think that yusuke was one of the most enjoyable parts of persona 5. i loved whenever he was on screen,, he’s super eccentric and i find it so funny to see the whole starving-artist thing taken literally. he’s definitely awkward but is trying his best! he definitely has the most stage presence compared to the other phantom thieves. the other members are pushed to the background whenever he speaks. he’s dramatic and over the top, but somehow this hilarious absurdity is relatable. 

other than the tendency to steal the show, his social link is more focused on his own development and his own personal growth. whereas, with the other characters, it kind of focuses on the character and the people they associate with outside the phantom thieves. for yusuke, in comparison, it’s much more personal. you travel around with him to help him to figure out what the aspects of the human heart are and to help him get out of his artistic slump after opening his eyes to the abuse he went through with madarame. he originally had a narrow perspective but overtime he learns to broaden it. i just really like how the social link plays out, it was really satisfying. and i just love how genuine and sincere he is as he is always doing things out of pure intentions. it’s also so admirable to see how much passion he has for the things he loves. yusuke, with certainty, is one of my favorite phantom theives. 

5) yuuki mishima (persona 5)

mishima is such an important and underrated character in persona 5. mishima throughout the whole game has been nothing but nice to you, even with akira/ren’s reputation. sure, he can be awkward and can be seen as overbearing to some, but he’s always had his heart in the right place. i’ve kind of always liked his dumb awkwardness and seeing how he’s trying hard to be our friend (it’s a shame our dialogue options toward him are always kinda mean but hopefully he sees it as teasing). he is so crucial to the story because honestly, he’s the one who got the ball rolling by creating the phansite, and that phansite actually helped so many people. he, himself, doesn’t even get recognition for making the site, he just really believed in the phantom thieves and wanted to help them in the ways he could. he did have an arc to humble himself after getting hungry for fame, but in the end he changed his own heart with his own will (and is the only character to do that!) which is pretty powerful. 

i also love that he’s always been a supporter of the phantom thieves no matter what happens and what other people think. when the phantom thieves were being trashed on, he still held onto hope and believed they were doing the right thing (plus him supporting them in those times just proves he wasn’t just doing the phansite for fame!!). another moment that screams this most is toward the end, when everything was in destruction and people were forgetting about the phantom theives in the time literally needed someone to believe in them most. mishima was the only one who still had faith in them and knocked some sense into everyone else. without him there, things could have turned out pretty badly. and i know i’ve heard that some fans wanting him to be a phantom thief himself, but it would just mess with a major part of his character. there’s something about him not completely knowing who the members of the phantom thieves are and him deciding to help with the phansite despite this, you know? yeah i like mishima a lot :))

some honorable mentions are kanji tatsumi (persona 4) and aigis (persona 3)! some of the honorable mentions are characters i like over some others that are on the list but i wanted to make sure i included people from persona 3, 4, 5 (because honestly this list would be persona 4 dominated if i didnt lol).

[bigskydreaming]

Height discourse confuses me so much, because I, a 4'9 21-year-old Asian perceives anyone taller as tall. But reading international posts saying 5'6 is small makes me double-take, like, "Wut?"

LOL, ahh yes, the infamous “How Tall IS Dick Grayson Actually” discourse. I feel you. And I can definitely see how it would be bemusing as hell given your perspective, lmao.

And I mean, its definitely up there on the list of “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” buuuuuut I’m not really judging because I know damn well there’s a fuckton of shit I’ve Discoursed about on pretty much everyone else’s “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” list. 

*Shrugs* But I also do get why it exists, if you scratch beneath the surface - as is often true of a lot of seemingly inane discourses. Its not really about height so much as it is about the why’s of writers specifying certain heights for him, and stereotypes associated with height.

On the one hand, you’ve got the fans who look at writers who make a point of writing Dick as particularly short, or the shortest of the Batfam once all of them are adults, and think: this is because of fandom’s fixation with writing Dick as effeminate or the least ‘manly’ of the Batfam, and thus I dislike it and do not trust this writer’s take on him.

Then on the other hand, you have the fans who look at objections like this and think: this is because of bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism that’s so present in society, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that there’s anything TO object about there, that a man being effeminate or less ‘manly’ than his brothers is some kind of insult or slight against him in the first place.

But then go back to the first hand.....

And on the one hand, of those fans, you’ve got the fans that don’t actually think there’s anything insulting about a man being effeminate or less manly themselves, but given that the bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism in society is so everpresent, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that ‘shorter = weaker’ etc, etc.......its not him being written as short that’s objectionable to them, its what they believe the writer is implying by making that distinction that they’re objecting to, like that it reads to them as though its being used as a smokescreen to create associations in readers’ minds, with the idea of him being weaker or softer or whatever the fuck compared to his brothers, without those writers actually having to SAY what they’re getting at there and spell it out. Plausible deniability kinda thing.

And then on the other hand, you have those fans who object to writing Dick as short because they actually DO buy into that bullshit and they ARE simply objecting to the idea itself because of toxic masculinity and sexism and etc etc.

But then go back to the original second hand.....

And on the one hand THERE, you have the fans whose responses to people objecting about writing Dick as short are based on exactly what they say they are......pointing out that its only objectionable if its viewed as insulting and the only reasons its viewed as insulting are toxic masculinity and sexism which they’re calling out as being perpetuated here.

And on the other hand there, you have those fans who DO buy into the associations between ‘shorter = weaker’ and actually ARE writing things that way with the intent of hoping to form that association in the minds of any readers who similarly buy into those lines of thought or are susceptible to it......and are simply using ‘arent you the REAL misogynist here for thinking shorter equals more feminine which equals weaker or frail or whatever’ arguments that are simply typical flipping the script tactics and hiding behind buzzwords they don’t actually believe in themselves but know are effective in getting people to back down, etc, etc. The plausible deniability thing.

And I’ve been out of hands here for awhile now, obviously, but you get what I mean. Round and round and round it goes, with the true point always hidden juuuuuuust beneath the surface, and more than a little tedious to have all unpacked and catalogued like here, which is a major factor in why so many people rarely dig beneath the surface of a seemingly inane discourse to get at what people are REALLY arguing about but nobody wants to ‘lose ground on’ by being the first to admit to.

As for me, again, this really isn’t a dicourse that I spend much time on because I’d rather cut straight to the point of an argument in general, and this isn’t an discourse that’s particularly amenable to people doing that, obviously. 

And also, I honestly just don’t care that much. LOL. Yeah, I often read works where Dick is singled out as being distinctively shorter and feel an author is trying to ‘imply’ something and its the implications of that which are the source of any ‘Not Good, Scoob’ feelings rather than because I agree with what’s trying to be implied. But y’know......when an author IS playing that game and they actually do buy into toxic and sexist stereotypes.....I mean, there’s literally always other indications of this in their work, giving them away all over the place. So there’s honestly never really a time when his height itself is actually what that hinges upon, y’know?

So my big takeaway from all of this is: headcanon and write Dick as whatever damn height you feel like and if you want to imply something about him just fucking say it directly and if you want to accuse someone of something just fucking call it out directly.

*points to the above unpacking of this particular discourse and how fucking tedious and unnecessary so much of it is and all just because people won’t just say what they actually came to say or lay claim to what they actually said*

ANYWAY.

Personally, regardless of how Dick is written in a fic, I will always headcanon him as somewhere between 5′10″ and 6′1″ for reasons that are entirely irrelevant and meaningless to anyone but me, pretty much. LOL.

In my head, Dick obviously has to be that height because he’s walked a runway as a model before. That’s it. That’s the whole reason my mind automatically goes to that span when picturing him or reading something about him.

(As most people who have followed me for a bit know, I spent a number of years working in the TV industry. There were a couple years there where I did a little bit of print modeling too, nothing major at all, but enough to know that the fashion industry has a Very Definitive Thing about male runway models and height: If you are a male runway model, you are between 5′10″ and 6′1″. If you are not between 5′10″ and 6′1″, you are not a male runway model and you never will be. Its a Thing. And not one the industry is shy about. 

Because of the fact that the fashion industry is mostly centered around women models with name recognition, and very few men who model have star power specifically in terms of modeling, rather than because of crossover/overlap with acting, there’s a major difference in how designers tend to approach designing for models. Most designers designing runway looks for women do so with specific models already in mind. Most designers designing runway looks for men do so without specific models in mind because there simply aren’t enough male models with the kind of branding/name recognition that does a designer any good. 

So designers literally JUST design runway looks for men in that height range, and anyone outside that range would require tailoring that could feasibly throw off an entire runway look. So they just don’t do it, to the point that an agent or manager sending them someone outside that height range to consider for a job means that agent’s not getting called back, because they just gave themselves away as a clear amateur by not knowing better.

Of course, keep in mind that my experiences with modeling are based on the industry re: ten years ago, so it could be that things have changed in this regard since. But that was the status quo then.)

So yeah. Dick Grayson walked a runway for Cheyenne Freemont, thus in my mind he’s obviously between 5′10″ and 6′1″ lolol, because any up and coming designer trying to make a name for herself would absolutely know better than to send out someone shorter than that and still think anyone in the industry would take her seriously.

LOL. I told you it was inane. But in my defense, plenty of people headcanon that Dick HAS to be small because he’s a gymnast, and uh.....that is not how that works. Anyone can be an amazing gymnast, its just that smaller body types lend themselves to gymnastics better than bigger, bulkier bodies. And thus the competition oriented gymnastics SPORT heavily favors cultivating and training gymnasts on the smaller side, because coaches and endorsers are looking for literally any advantage possible.

(Being shorter means you have a lower center of gravity which is a help when balancing, or stabilizing yourself. Its easier for a shorter gymnast to keep their balance or to stick a landing. But it doesn’t become impossible just because someone’s hit six feet tall. It HELPS to be shorter. It doesn’t determine whether or not you can do a trick at all, much like being short and having a lower center of gravity by no means GUARANTEES you have good balance.)

And of course, though Dick excels at a ton of gymnastics, he is not and never has been a gymnast per se....he’s an acrobat. From a family of acrobats. Who have been doing this as a family business generationally, thus.....why would they have future height requirements when training their son in the family business? And being from a family of acrobats doesn’t ensure you’re going to be short, if your family members are not already short to begin with. Evolution does not give a fuck about future employment opportunities when selecting which gene sequences to flip on while in utero.

The correlation is ‘most gymnasts who excel at gymnastics feats are small,’ not ‘to excel at gymastic feats, you must be small.’

I am absolutely and completely just rambling now and have been for awhile so I’m gonna go beat up my insomnia until it caves and lets me go the fuck to sleep.

[hackedmotionsensors]

Hey!! I don't know if you've ever answered this before but how did u discover Tony? Why do you like him so much? Which is your favorite marvel verse? (Also your art is literally heartbreakingly beautiful)

Thank you so much for saying such nice things about my art!!

I don’t think I’ve answered this fully before but I don’t mind answering again!

I always kind of vaguely knew who Iron Man was peripherally because I had a few marvel stuff (comics, posters, watching the cartoons on tv) growing up because I loved the X-men. In the 90s if you were into Marvel dollars to donuts you probably were more into the X-men than any other series. Like I had a poster of random marvel heroes that I bought because it had Wolverine and Storm on it. But it also had Sue Storm and Iron Man. (I think the Thing was on it too or maybe spider-man. Probably spider-man honestly lol)

But I didn’t really get into Iron Man exactly until I started being a fan of RDJ. I was SUPER into Sherlock Holmes (I read all of the collective works in a month and I retained almost none of it bc of ADHD lol) and then the first Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie came out and it had RDJ in it so I was like hell yes. Like a lot of people I only knew Downey from his infamous history and being convicted of drug abuse. And my dad liked Ally McBeal so I used to watch him on that show and on SNL and he was ....BAD on SNL lmfao ....errr anyway  

I liked SH a lot and started looking into his other movies. And I missed when Iron Man 1 came out because I was living in Japan but when I moved back the second one came out after SH so it sorta spiraled from there. I’m a capricorn!! When I fixate I fixate HARD lmfao

I like Tony because he is at his core a different kind of hero in a lot of respects. He started out as what would normally be considered a villain. A rich guy who makes weapons. He hasn’t got any actual super powers, like batman, but he’s also not like.....relying on his body (he can’t) to be a power fantasy. His armor gives him that so it was something he built. (He’s still a power fantasy in terms of money but that’s a whole US cultural thing that’s too much to get into right now). He has a weakness and its not something like Kryptonite or being obsessed with his parents dying. His weakness is alcoholism which is something real people have. He has other weaknesses that can be viewed as mental illnesses, PTSD, trauma, never feeling like he’s good enough, being extremely stubborn in thinking that he’s the ONLY ONE who can do something (armor wars/MCU) etc. And when written correctly he can be really moving and tender. Which when comic books are a male dominated viewpoint and written by a lot of straight white dudes that’s not something you see all the time. And in some cases he’s a real punching bag. Like oh my god Vol 3 of Iron man is just him getting the crap beat out of him all the time. Kurt Busiek was like I’m gonna write a great story but Tony’s gonna have broken bones, broken heart, broken head. Get wrecked Iron Man.

And because its Marvel he also has that cheeky “I’m making a joke while punching bad guys thing” which FOR ME is always charming. 

And in terms of MCU ....he smol lol. And Downey is so good at playing those vulnerable points. The MCU is still ultimately fairly vapid bc its still popcorn movies at its core and I love and dislike that in the same breath. But Downey does a really good job of getting those emotional points across even if sometimes you don’t notice them right away. (The sunglasses to hide behind is something I literally only just noticed last night lol)

My favorite marvel universe is Avengers Academy lol I will hold onto that awful game for the rest of my life because its so cute, its so fun, it takes a lot of characters from all over the Marvel Universe, even some no one really thinks about (Union Jack?, Werewolf by Night, Man Thing?? That guy who looks like Manthing but is like a red rocky turd?? I forgot his name) and makes them fun college students. And it was very open about making fun of things like Thanos’s MO in the MCU as being completely nonsensical which it WAS.

And then probably after AvAc I’d say 616 is my favorite bc its the OG. Then maybe....Avengers Assemble bc its a cute cartoon. Then maybe MCU and then Ults which I kinda throw hand in hand since the MCU took a lot of inspo from Ults.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

I CANNOT DECIDE which fic i want headcanons and/or trivia about, so would you please pick one or two of your ODaaT fics that you want to talk about, and do those? :D Thanks!

you know, i can’t blame you for having trouble! i have 47 fics just for odaat and i know you’ve read some of my others too. i had a hard time choosing, myself. also thank you for sending this!! i was hoping to get some for this game.

ETA: i forgot the game was ‘five facts/headcanons’ and also i couldn’t sleep, so instead you got way more commentary than that...

We Hide Within Our Veins The Things That Keep Us Bound To One Another

i have to talk about this one, because this is the fic that started it all. if i hadn’t decided to be brave and do what seemed crazy and write this story, i would never have written all the others, and i wouldn’t have made graphics and fought for renewal and become such an involved part of the fandom and met friends like you. :)

so the story behind this fic started with how quickly i fell into the ship. basically in the time it took me to rewatch s1 the night before s2 came out: i realized i shipped it during the quinces, realized that s2 made me feel validated in shipping it, realized that i had a lot of feelings about how both penelope and schneider were damaged but in different ways, and dipped my toe in the water by posting here about how i was thinking of writing fic for them.

in addition to fandom enabler (and the official ship name inventor) @outfieldlove encouraging me to write it, a couple of total strangers found my post in the tags and cheered me on. (they both later became friends of mine which is awesome.) i was sure i was crazy, even trying to write fanfic for odaat, because it was a sitcom and i’d barely seen it and wasn’t it better to stick with the otps i had gotten really great at writing because i wrote them all the time? but i went for it.

and what’s most important about this story is that i posted the fic on january 27, 2018. 

season 2 of odaat came out on january 26, 2018.

which means (and i didn’t actually remember this until i started on this ask) that i rewatched s1 of the show right up until midnight when s2 dropped, then i watched all of s2, possibly without sleeping until i finished it, and before the following day was over, i wrote, edited AND posted this fic, based off characters i had never even imagined ficcing before s2 came out. 

fun fact: i frequently get some specifics of this fic and my forehead kisses fic mixed up in my head because that was my other big fic for them that i wrote when i was just starting out…so i was planning to tell the dwayne story in this post but hey, wrong fic, lol. 

the whole reason why this fic unfolds the way it does is because i was obsessed with 2.09 and everything we learn about penelope, schneider, and their relationship in that episode. i was especially fixated on pen’s line that i quote at the beginning, because if odaat were a different kind of show, penelope going to him in the middle of the night and trading serious moments the way they do would make ‘there’s got to be another way to feel happy’ a lead into romance, or sex. 

obviously it wouldn’t make sense for that to happen in the canon we have, but i couldn’t get it out of my head, and it got me thinking about the differences between how penelope sees schneider and who he proves himself to be, and the way that that episode shows us that on some level, schneider understands her better than anybody, whether she’s comfortable with that fact or not. 

a headcanon for this one: penelope is so not ready to deal with the gravity of their friendship turning into more when it starts this way, so she tries to focus on the fun makeout sessions and put off the serious conversation…but lydia walks into schneider’s living room unannounced halfway through makeout number two.

Like Sun On The Rise

this is the longest one-shot i’ve ever written at just over 10k, and i’m really proud of that but also it means it was much more of an experience to write! i learned things for this fic and i put more of myself into it than i usually do. the plot bunny for it seemed simple at first–a sleepover that started out platonic. fluff! fun! but i was incapable of writing it quickly and making it brief, because….sleepover.

i was a kid who looooooved sleepovers, and had such a wild childhood that my friends stayed over unsupervised a lot. even now, i’m the kind of adult who would still totally have sleepovers with my other adult friends, if that was a thing people did. i love talking for hours and junk food and not sleeping, i was made for sleepovers. 

so basically, this fic exists because i wanted to cheer up a friend with fic, and because once i started writing a sleepover, it had to be a sleepover FULL OF THINGS. which is why i watched videos to learn hula hooping technique (i’ve never done it, but i needed penelope to seem like she had) and researched horror movies that had come out around that time. 

the one i chose for them to watch was hereditary with toni collette, and i read such a detailed synopsis (in order to hint at their viewing without being too obvious about it) that i will never ever watch hereditary now. nope nope.

i don’t think my original plan was for them to end up together at the end of the night, honestly. i think my first idea was just fluffy fun with some flirting, but as the fun and games intensified along with the feelings, them sliding into more made sense to me. 

i’m sure i got the idea of lime-sugar popcorn from research, presumably looking up cuban-american food trends? or something like that. i don’t remember specifically anymore, but i know i found it somewhere because i myself only like butter and salt on my popcorn (or very rarely caramel corn as a treat).

little bits of me in this story: 

the ben and jerrys flavor schneider went to target just to get penelope was brewed to matter, which is a coffee ice cream with fudge and brownie swirl mixed in. whenever we make a rare target run and they don’t have any in stock it makes me very sad. it’s really good.

i have never tried to make microwave popcorn blindfolded, but like schneider, i wear glasses, and i have since i was ten so i’m used to dealing with the very fuzzy world that lives more than two inches away from my face. it was fun for me to mentally walk through how i COULD make popcorn with my eyes closed.

i definitely tried to summon bloody mary at a slumber party or two in my youth.

send me one of my fic titles and i’ll share secrets or trivia about it

[mskinkyafro]

At Last (Aubrey x MC) NSFW

A/N: This is my first NSFW fic. I’m actually embarrassed and scared. If this is trash I apologize in advance because I have no history with writing smut, but I felt like trying for once. This was inspired by this latest chapter, when it gets to the part where MC is talking with June that it introduces that MC can not only read thoughts but get the images a person thinks. Now I imagine/assume MC gets like clips or shots of images as if she can see it through her eyes or she was thinking off these things vividly herself. Which lead me to write this bad boy. I just wanted some action between these two so here’s my attempt at writing it lol.

Summary: Feeling down, Viola goes to Aubrey’s place to watch a movie where things heat up and their intimate relationship is taken to the next level.

Rating: NSFW 18+ Very smutty, if not into smut avoid this fic.

Note: Apparently Ellen can be either fired or suspended depending on the choice you choose with Alec. In my game she is suspended. Once again, this is my first time writing smut and posting it. I’m sorry if its trash, go easy on me lol.

*Thoughts of Viola are italicized and those of Aubrey’s are bold and italicized with parenthesis.

PB owns the rights to these characters, I’m just borrowing them.

Tagging : @cora-nova @rain18rain @lady-dianelewis @hellomynameisdevi

In the pitch-black dark bedroom except for the glowing red numbers on the alarm clock laid Viola wide awake in bed. Despite her pep talk with Jaime and cuddle session with her sassy kitten Fauna and precious puppy Underoos, she couldn’t help but still feel awful about what happened to Ellen. Apart of herself doesn’t feel remorse over Alec’s decision because that choice was partially sealed by Ellen’s unprofessional behavior earlier that day, but the other side of herself didn’t want her rise to lead anchor to be the result of Ellen’s suspension.

In addition, no matter how hard she tries to brush them aside, Ellen’s ominous parting words echoes in the back of her mind. She sighs to herself as she rubs her hand over her face through her curly blonde tresses in frustration. She turns her head to look at her alarm clock.

“Man it’s 11:00 pm but I cannot go to sleep. Ugh!” she says.

She fumbles through her sheets as she sits up and turns on her bed lamp and the room is flooded with light as she pulls the covers off her chest. After sifting through the sheets and grabbing her cell phone Viola unlocks it and begins to scroll. As she does she notices a missed text from Aubrey. She smiles immediately seeing his name pop up on her screen. Without even hesitating she dials and the line begins to ring. She presses the speaker and awaits for an answer. It rings and rings and begins to worry.

“This is a bad idea. He’s probably asleep already.”

Right as she moves her finger to end the call, a persistent beep cuts through and as she presses to answer the facetime icon. Soon she’s on her phone she’s met with the image of Aubrey standing few feet away from the phone screen with a small towel wrapped around his waist. With her view of him angled up she sees his built figure, her eyes fixated on his smooth lean chest and four pack abs. His skin is slightly damp besides the droplets that slide from his thighs down to his calves. She watches as he moves out of the frame for a moment and calls out.

“Just one second!”

 She feels her pulse quicken as she sees his towel once on his hips thrown back in view landing on his bed. Her cheeks tinge red realizing this man she’s crazy about is standing nude as day a few steps away from her prying eyes. As he walks back into frame again with pajama pants on to reach for his towel, she notices his hair clearly wet pressed against his forehead. His hand runs through it to push back his rogue curl before throwing the towel around his neck and picking up the phone so his torso and up shows.

“Hello? Viola?” he says softly, his voice breathless.

His voice seemed distant as her eyes were glued to his figure, her eyes followed each waterdrop that trailed his body.

“Sorry Viola. You caught me as I got out the shower. Viola...you okay?

She subconsciously bites her thick lips as these words fell out her mouth involuntarily.

“You’re so fine….I mean I am! I’m fine! I am fine.

She shakes her head and coughs lightly, her eyes avoid his due to her embarrassment. She glances up and notices Aubrey neck flush red as his hand scratches the back of his head.

“Hehe. Thank you by the way. You’re not so bad either. By the way eherm... you do noticed that you’re umm…” he speaks nervously.

Viola with a confused expression watches as his eyes leave her face and trail down her body.

“That I’m what…” Viola voice trails off as she looks down and realize her cleavage heavily showing as she sits in her lacy powder blue bra. She forgot she was too tired earlier to remove it.

“Oh shit! I didn’t but--”

“No! It’s my fault I didn’t mean to stare--”  both Aubrey and Viola speak at the same time. There words trampling on the other’s.

Then Viola raises her hand to stop him and speaks .

“It’s fine. I mean I guess it’s payback for me earlier ogling you.”

“Well no complaints from me.

“Is that so?” Viola smiles.

“Scouts honor. Aubrey smiles softly. The two let a comfortable silence fall between them as they shoot each other shy glances. Aubrey coughs lightly.

“Ahem. Anyway not that this isn’t a lovely surprise but what brings you to call me at this time at night?’

Viola toys with a part of her comforter, her eyes stray away from the phone as she speaks.

”I was unable to sleep and I noticed your text from earlier...I’m sorry. I know it’s late and--”

“Hey don’t apologize. I love talking to you. I wouldn’t mind even if it was 3:ooam. Your voice is something that I’ll never tire of.”

Viola feels her cheeks flush.

“You’re too sweet. How is it whenever I’m feeling down you make me smile?”

“I’d love to say but I can’t give all my secrets away.”

“I suppose you’re right.” she says between giggles.

“I have an idea. Since you’re up why don’t you swing by my place and we’ll watch a movie. Your choice.”

“I don’t want to impose. I’m already making enough trouble by keeping you awake.”

“It’s not a problem at all. I was already up. And Viola, you’re worth the trouble.”

“Aubrey…” she whispers softly. She watches as he smiles back shyly.

“Did I mention I have kettle corn?”

“ You had me hello...but I’ll even drive faster because you have kettle corn.”

“A woman after my heart, but don’t ever say I promoted reckless driving.”

“Promise. I’ll see you in 15 minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It isn’t long before Viola finds herself standing outside Aubrey’s door. She didn’t bother with her appearance since it was so late and a simple cozy night in so; she tossed on her ratted gray shorts and white over-sized sweater that hangs off her shoulders with her hair tied up in a messy bun. She pushes a few curled strands away from her eyes. She quickly types on the phone her arrival and a few seconds later Aubrey opens the door beckoning her to come.

As she enters and he closes the door behind her she notices he had a t-shirt on and his hair askew from a quick dry from a towel. She sits down on the couch and tucks her feet under her legs as he sits down beside her.

“I see you put a shirt on.” she says with a smirk on her face.

Aubrey smiles shyly as he reaches for the remote and turns on the popular streaming services, CinemaNet.

“So did you.”

“Only because I didn’t want to be arrested for public indecency and I really wanted kettle corn.”

His arms moves to wrap around her body and she leans into his touch, sitting closer.

“Is that the only reason you’re here? Just using me for my special popcorn” he teases.

Laying her head on his chest while her finger moves in a small circular patterns as she teases back.

“Of course not. How can I miss out on a movie of my choice....and also hanging with a very caring and handsome guy.”

“Good answer. So what do you want to watch?”

“Is Pretty Woman okay? It’s my favorite.”

Aubrey hits the remote and begins to play the movie pulling her even tighter in his arms. Viola feels all her anxious energy evaporate as she feels Aubrey’s taut muscles squeeze her in a comforting way.

“Pretty Woman for a pretty woman…” He says as he grins down at her before continuing.

“...Well now that I have you where I want you, want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

With her eyes still closed, basking in his warmth she slowly speaks.

“I don’t know if you heard but right now in your arms, you’re holding Northbridge’s newest leading anchor.”

Aubrey sits up at an angling which moves Viola as well.

“Oh my gosh! Viola that’s amazing! Isn’t this what you always wanted?”

“It was--is...it’s complicated.”

Viola removes herself from Aubrey’s arms and sits up. He follows suit and places his hand on her back and rubs soothingly.

“After Ellen and I’s fiasco on the air, she was suspended and I got promoted. I’m ecstatic but it still feels undeserving to elevate because her downfall. I mean just being junior reporter has been a dream come true. I expected in a few years time I’d be a leading anchor, but  I didn’t expect it so soon nor this way.”

Aubrey leans forward so that his hand reaches under her chin to move her face to look at him.

“Viola listen, you are the most kindest, funniest, wittiest, most intelligent woman, and beautiful woman I’ve ever known. Everything you’ve accomplished is because you worked so hard and so long for. It’s unfortunate what happened with Ellen, but her attitude was eventually going to circle back to bite her. That’s something Ellen will have to realize and be better about and nothing to do with you.

His hand drops from her chin and runs adoringly along her cheek.

“You deserve this. And just know I’m always on your side.”

Viola with her hand grabs Aubrey’s that’s resting on her cheek and leans forward to kiss him on the lips. Soon the kiss grows from soft to insistent before she breaks away.

“Thank you. I feel much better now.”

“Good. Now should we join Vivian & Edward?”

“We shall.”

Settling in their previous cuddle position and snacking on popcorn, they watch the film. Most of the movie passes before Viola props herself in Aubrey’s arms when her favorite scene begins.

“This my absolute favorite part of the movie.”

“Really? A sex scene? ” He questions.

Viola rolls her eyes and faces him.

“It’s more than just any sex scene. It’s the moment they made love for the first time. Ohhh, the passion and chemistry is just undeniable!  You can feel the nervousness Vivian had as she dared to press her lips to Edwards, to silently and secretly admit that she’s fallen in love. And for him we can feel his desire and longingness of wanting her fully. Not just her body, but having her complete trust intimately. Plus in this scene they’re finally able give their hearts and souls to each other, at least for a moment let one another have this love instead of reason why it wouldn’t work for both of them.The simplicity of their love was something I always admired.” She finishes saying as she stared back at the on-screen couple.

“I didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

“I’ve always dreamed of finding a love that was surreal, like it was magic.”

They haven’t taken their relationship to the next level yet, it’s been make-out sessions and some heavy petting here and there but never sex. Not that Viola didn’t want to and thanks to her abilities, she’s aware Aubrey feels the same. It just never seemed to be the right time, but she hopes sooner or later that would change.

Viola snuggles deeper into his chest and couldn’t help but feel slightly aroused as the love scene came to a close especially being pressed up against Aubrey. Just being surrounded by his sandalwood scent, the way his breath ghosted over her skin, and enjoying how his fingertips glided over her hands was enough to drive her wild.  Most of the night she didn’t receive any of his thoughts until this moment when a soft spoken voice almost inaudible is heard.

(“God I forgot how erotic that scene is, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to watch this. All I can think of is…”)

Before she could even prepare she was hit with what seem like a barrel of images. The first one was of him delicately biting on her neck as his hands massaged her breasts, his fingers pinching softly at her nipples.  She was mesmerized by the images that seemed to play like a movie in her head as she watched his mouth trail slowly over her dark skin, her head was thrown back and her face was etched with ecstasy. Then it quickly shifted to their figures only illuminated by the moonlight that flooded through his window rolling on top of the other, grinding slowly with their hands gnawing at the other’s skin in desperation, and the final one was her only wearing her bra from earlier. 

Viola could vividly see herself seductively kissing down his chest reaching his nether region, leaving him a stuttering mess with his hips bucking upward to where the imaginary Viola disappeared. Viola raises her hand to her chest to calm her heartbeat that seemed to thump erratically. As she does Aubrey voice rings clear in her mind.

(“Oh jeez I need to calm down...I need to think unsexy thoughts before Viola notices my urm my latest project. Okay think umm...Alec making out with an Emu! Okay, I don’t know why that immediately came to mind but it’s working.”)

Viola feels him maneuver around so that she’s no longer directly in between his legs but rest beside his thighs. Suddenly feeling daring, with her eyes trained on the screen Viola let’s her hand rub up and down Aubrey’s thigh. Everytime she reaches close to his lap she squeezes briefly before continuing the pattern.  

She can hear his breathing slow down and his breaths come out heavier. She smirks to herself knowing she has the affect on him. Next she lets her hand wander up under his shirt caressing his abs. Almost like a bullet his thoughts come at her.

(“Holy shit! This feels so...is she doing this on purpose? She is! I saw that smirk! If she continues at this rate I don’t know if I can hold back. I  really should say something.”)

Viola tears her eyes from the screen and throws a sultry look at Aubrey and asks him with feign innocence as she hears a small groan escape his lips.

“Is everything okay Aubrey?”

She notices his blue eyes darken with desire and the way he licks his lips as he stops her hand, trapping it between the crossroad of his abs and his bottom half.

“I think you already know the answer to that Viola.”

She grins deviously at him and positions herself  so her body is pressed against his, her lips reaching to whisper in his ears as she slips her hand out his grasp to sink lower beneath his pants to slowly palm his growing erection, stroking it painstakingly slow.

“So you don’t mind if we stop watching the movie? I found something much more interesting for us to do, that is if you want to.”

She pulls away to the side of him and bites down on her lips suggestively  as sits on her knees  and continues to stroke him through his pants, her eyes focused at her task at hand.  She stops stroking briefly and pulls his dick out of his pants. Viola lets her fingers trail alongside the thick base of his cock to the tip before lubing her hand with spit. She then delicately squeezes his pulsing shaft. Her hand goes up and down smoothly before letting it slide further to fondle his balls gently. Aubrey stares at her and nods weakly, unable to answer at the moment because of the pleasure and throws his head back into the couch. The only sounds that leave his mouth were muttered expletives and moans. More of this thoughts coming at her lightning fast.

(Holy fuck...I can’t believe she’s--That we’re about to--Fuck, this feels amazing! It’s better than I imagined...I feel so dizzy. Viola is just stunning...so incredibly sexy.)

Viola suddenly stops and pulls her hand away. Aubrey’s eyes open wide and he whips his head forward.

“That’s not answer, Mr. Watson. I need a verbal answer…” She  stands up from the couch to peel off her shorts then removes her sweater, leaving herself in her matching lacy powder blue lingerie set. She climbs onto his lap and drapes her arms around his neck.

“Do. you. want. More?”

Before she can register what happens next, Viola feels his arms instinctively wrap around her waist, his hands gripping her hips. He widens his legs so that she lands directly on his growing erection. His hands roam from her hips down to squeezing her ass, smacking each cheek lightly. He begins grinding his cock against Viola’s moist panties. He gruffly whispers as his deep blue eyes bore into Viola’s hazel-green ones, clouded with lust.

“Does this answer your question, Ms. Porchia?”

He reaches with one hand to move her panties to side so that the tip of his cock brushes against her increasing arousal, causing her to moan loudly.

“Seems like the tables have turned Viola. Do you like how I feel against you? Tell me how much you love it, or I will stop.”

Viola tries to gain more friction by moving her hips but Aubrey firmly holds her hips in place. In retaliation of her not answering he slips a single finger inside her, slowly moving it in and out. She tries to bite her tongue but a moan slips out.

“Ohhhhh...mhmmm...Aubrey please…”

She barely can concentrate on the thoughts that flew at her from his ministrations.

( Fuck...the way she moans my name almost sent me over the edge.)

“You’re on the right track, but I need to tell me how it feels. Do you want more? He throws her words spoke earlier back in her face, He inserts another finger inside her, both working even slower, trailing her sensitive nub.

“Mhmmm, Aubrey. God, yes it feels so good! You felt so good, baby. I need more!”

Without anymore prompting, Aubrey picks Viola easily from her thighs and carries her towards his bedroom.  He places her on his bed and steps out his pants leaving him fully exposed. He kneels in front of Viola.

“Let’s get these pesky panties out the way…” he kisses from her inner thighs all the way down her tone legs as he removes her undergarments.

As he travels lower his hands go the opposite direction up Viola’s body to her breasts and fondles them over her bra. Viola feels as if her body is on fire. She never imagined feeling this way with anyone before. She props herself on her elbows briefly so she could remove her bra leaving herself completely nude in front of him.

“You’re breathtaking.” he whispers.

He stands up and leans over to kiss her lips passionately yet softly as his hands knead her large breasts, his fingertips pinching at her nipples. Viola let’s her hands advance as well as one wanders through his blonde hair while the other pays attention to his hard cock that seems to grow every second. They continue to kiss, tongues meeting before Aubrey pulls away to leave tantalizing kisses that seemed to scorch her skin all the way down. From her neck he gently bites, enough to leave marks and pepper light kisses afterwards until her reaches her right breast. His mouth attaches to her nipple and he bites down as he sucks hard causing Viola to cry out. He then moves to her other breast, applying the same pressure. Her arms find themselves tracing his back, her nails digging into his skin. He lets his tongue swirl around her nipple before he travels south her navel where in a moment of clarity Viola says

“Aubrey please...I don’t think I can take much teasing. Just fuck me, I want to feel you.”

He pauses but continues to press kisses until he’s back at her inner thighs.

“Not yet. I want to savor making love to you Viola. I want to taste you.”

Instantly Viola feels her eyes roll in the back of her head and loud moans escape her lips as Aubrey’s tongue dives deep into her soaking pussy. She writhes in pleasure as she feels his mouth working her close to her release. Soon she feels familiar tension in her abdomen build as her fingers bury into his head. With her breath heavy she warns

“I’m so close…”

But he doesn’t stop but continues, his tongue working faster. It didn’t take long before Viola arches her back and feels her legs shake as she cums hard and rides out the wave of pleasure.

Aubrey extracts himself between her legs and presses a hard kiss to her plump lips.

“You taste amazing Viola. I love to make you cum baby, just watching you was the sexiest thing.”

Viola  smiles and feels herself grow even wetter at his words. Despite feeling slightly weak from her orgasm, she manages to flip their positions so that she’s on top. She smiles down and as she gazes at his surprised expression.

“Now it’s my turn to taste you.”

“Viola, you don’t have--”she places her fingers on his lips.

“This moment is about both of us. I want to do this. You know how long I wanted to do this? How many times I’ve imagined having your thick cock in my mouth and swallowing your load?

(I lied. Hearing her talk dirty is the most sexiest thing.)

“Jesus Viola.”

She grins mischievously at him and dives lower until she reaches his dick and presses small kiss on the tip.

“Ohhh fuck…”

She continues to steadily kiss along the base of the shaft the lick her way back to the head before she takes him fully in her mouth. She bobs up and down slowly as she moans. Her tongue swirls all around his dick as she feels his hips buck, forcing his cock down further. She feels the pressure of his hand tangled in her hair that makes her continue to engulf him in her mouth, motivated to go faster and faster.

“Mhhmm Viola, wait I’m close…”

She ignores him and continues to suck more and more in hopes to bring him to the same release he did moments ago. She removes her mouth to catch her breath and suddenly feels a rough tug  on her hair, forcing her away and back up.  She licks some drops of his pre-cum from her lips as she stares deep in his eyes..

His blue eyes are now dark as he heavily breathes

“It felt too good, I almost couldn’t contain myself. I need to feel you.”

He then flips them once more so he’s on top. His body laying on top of hers. His eyes asking her the silent question. She smiles and lovingly runs her hand on his cheek.

“I’m ready.” she says softly.

Aubrey kisses her on the lips sweetly as he spreads her legs open and inserts himself slowly into her. He waits to let her adjust to him and after a couple seconds he begins to enter in and out. Soon both find a rhythm as they make love. Aubrey strokes are deep and long driving Viola crazy. She claws at his bed sheets and writhes from how good it feels, desperate for more.

“You feel amazing. So tight and wet.”

“Good Aubrey, you’re killing me. Go faster baby. Please make love to me harder and faster, I can’t take it anymore.”

He picks up his pace and buries his cock deeper, harder, and faster into her pussy making her moan louder and louder. Viola leans up and bits into his shoulders causing Aubrey to groan and continue to push her to the edge. As she nears her release, he stops and pulls out. Before she can question him, he flips her own her stomach and sets her on her knees.

She feels his body press into her back as he kisses down her shoulder and enters her from behind continuing the same pace as before. His hands reach under to grasp her breasts tightly as he fucks her from behind, the room is filled with the sounds of slick skin slapping and their moans. It doesn’t take long until they both cry out each others name as the both reach the peak. They collapsed onto the bed and hold each other as they bask in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

Laying her head on his chest and feeling his fingers toy with her hair, Viola struggles to keep her eyes open. She speaks softly

“That was amazing.”

“It was. Hmm, get some rest, beautiful. We have work tomorrow.”

With her eyes closed she responds

“Okay. Good night.”

Viola feels him press a sweet kiss to her forehead.

“Goodnight Viola.”

Right before she loses consciousness she hears a final thought before sounds of soft breathing takes over.

(I’m falling for you.)

And in her mind she says

“I am too.”

*Any other Aubrey stans  or readers in general that enjoyed this fic and want a tag, just let me know!

[galadrieljones]

11 Questions

tagged by @buttsonthebeach. thanks so much!! ^_^

1. What image or images do you come back to over and over again in your writing?

Birds, orchards, night sky.

2. Which character’s point of view do you most enjoy writing? (OC or canon)

Not sure? I have really grown fond of writing men. I like writing the male POV. I think it’s an interesting study and use of empathy. 

3. What is the first piece of inspiration that led to the project you are working on now?

For that he may hold me by the hand, which is my BRAND new project--I have always liked the Arthur/Albert ship. I’ve always liked the bisexual Arthur headcanon. Rockstar has written a bisexual male protagonist before, so this headcanon is very arguable. Arthur, as a character, seems very emotionally unavailable throughout most of the game. I feel like all the times he comes closest to *actually* flirting with any character in-game, the times he seems most open and easy-going, most confident and in-control of his own domain, are spent with Albert. With Albert, Arthur comes alive a little bit, like he’s got some blood flowing through his veins. I guess I wanted to explore that further, and of course it’s mostly planned out, and it is looking like probably the most straight-up romantic love story I’ve ever written. I mean, Arthur offers to protect Albert multiple times. He uses those literal words: “I’ll protect you.” Albert flails. He calls Arthur a gentleman. “You, sir, are a gentleman,” he says. “You don’t know me very well,” says Arthur. “Well, you’re a gentleman to me,” says Albert. Arthur legit is blushing. Arthur carries his bag for him. ???? Arthur worries about him. Albert is genuinely in awe of Arthur’s relationship to and knowledge of nature. To me, Arthur feels genuinely under-appreciated by nearly every member of the gang. There are really no other characters who fawn over and admire Arthur the way Albert does. I think...I think Arthur could get into that.

4. What is one fic you have always wanted to write but haven’t gotten a chance to yet?

My Arlathan AU! I always talked about going back and writing the story of my Arlathan and the Great War--Solas and Mythal’s love story, what happened with Solas’s mother Leanathy, the love triangle with Solas, Ghilan’nain, and Mythal, Ghil’s betrayal, Solas smoking elfroot in the kitchens with Abelas and flirting with the servant girls, etc. etc. I want to write it! But I don’t! Think! I ever will! Wah.

5. What project has been the toughest for you to work on?

Probably my art! Ugh. With the new baby, it’s really fallen away. I still draw, but definitely not every day. With drawing, I really have to like, focus and try so hard. It’s not easy, and I get very fixated and it’s hard for me to move in and out of the space at a moment’s notice, which I sort of need to be able to do right now. But writing for me is easy. I can be writing while doing anything. I can be writing one minute and then tending to my kids in the next, and vice versa. It’s just an experience thing. So I’ve just been writing a lot. That’s been my main creative outlet, which is okay. It’s normal for me. But I miss drawing!! Of course starting another chapter fic probably isn’t going to help with that much lmfao.

6. Do you have any routines or habits for writing?

Probably just my new need to have my phone drafts. I so rarely just sit down to an empty page without prepared material anymore. I write so many scenes on my phone before I start typing in word. It’s like the lynchpin of my writing process lately.

7. How do you get to know more about each of your characters? Do their personalities and backstories tend to come to you immediately, or do you have to “spend some time” with them to figure that out?

Hmm. I think I need to spend some time with them. There are certain things that come to me immediately, and a lot of the time, it’s because those things just fit my aesthetic tendencies. So like, Arthur being able to count cards and cheat at blackjack, and his ability to do sleight of hand at the poker table--these things came to me immediately, just like they did with Solas (who also does sleight of hand and magic tricks and is very good at cards). That stuff all just comes from my husband, who is a good mathematician and super good at games like poker and blackjack. So like, most of my male characters are...that way lol.

Other things, like backstory-wise, it’s usually a mixture of spur of the moment and then well-thought-out stories. So for Mary Beth, she just seems like she’d be from Kansas. So, she’s from Kansas. Then I go searching for a good town for her to be from in like the 1870s when she would have been born. And I find a good town, and then that leads to something else about the backstory of the entire gang, etc. With Sene Lavellan, it took me a long time to invent her whole backstory and to realize she was a rich Dalish elf, and that this was central to her identity. BUT, I knew she was a loner and a hothead right away. So. Yeah. It’s a mix.

8. If you could only write one for the rest of your life - smut, angst, or fluff - what would you choose?

Probably fluff? I need joy.

9. What trope do you love to include in your writing?

I like characters who are protective of each other (it’s not a gendered thing--I like protective women as well as protective men). I like hurt/comfort a LOT. I like touch-starved characters easing themselves back into the throes of intimacy with partners who are patient. I like secret relationships. Fake relationships. Sorry this is multiple tropes I just realized the question didn’t include the plural lmfao

10. Do you write original works in additional to fandom works?

Yes? Theoretically? Lol. I have original stories that I work on from time to time. It used to be all I wrote. I wrote and published original stories before I got here. I miss it sometimes, but to be honest, the transition from fanfiction to original work is not simple. It’s very complicated. That’s not because fanfiction is easier. It’s because it’s a different genre. It’s an entirely different rhetorical situation. The conventions do not match up. Despite the common purpose of “storytelling,” the way you get there is another animal and it takes time and focus to make the change. If I make the change it will most likely be a longterm change.

11. What author’s style do you admire the most?

Probably Hemingway. I love a lot of different styles, but his particular brand of minimalism is, I think, the most taut and the most stylistically interesting to me.

I’ll tag @morgan-arthur @pikapeppa @a-shakespearean-in-paris @ellstersmash @idrelle-miocovani @thevikingwoman @bearly-tolerable @gentle-outlaw @goldenentertainment @jarbaje and @nyoom-bum. Your questions are under the cut <3

What is your favorite character from a video game and why?

When you look back at your middle/junior high school years, what is the first album, band, or musical act that comes to mind?

What makes you nostalgic?

What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to tumblr, fandom, and/or publishing at AO3?

Describe the place where you are from in three sentences.

Which fandom(s) are you most active in right now? What is your current favorite ship from that fandom?

Where/to whom do you turn when you seek wisdom? 

Do you like sports? If you do, what’s your favorite sport to watch and/or play?

Have you ever been to Las Vegas?

What is your guilty pleasure TV show and why?

Do you believe in ghosts?