#and i cannot lose this game by asking him outright what the fuck is going on

[eldritchmochi]

hey quick question, what does it mean when your incredibly cute coworker spends months lamenting the fact that he cant order new contacts because his vision script is out of date but ends up still wearing his (new) glasses to work then later shows you pics from a family gathering where hes definitely wearing contacts and you have a dawning realization that no, he really has worn his glasses exclusively around you and you think it might be because of an offhand compliment on his new frames six months ago

asking for myself. h elp

[sp0o0kylights]

Still working on the BB fic but have another snippet of that Stobin Timeloop AU. This can be read as stand-alone.

Steve Harrington snaps on a completely random Friday.

Well--not completely random. It's both the day of the Big Sportsball Game as well as Hellfire’s grand finale--but neither of those things should matter to Harrington.

Not that he needs a reason to lose his shit--Eddie’s long used to being threatened, insulted or outright attacked out of the blue. 

It’s the whole reason he built up the persona he had--because the scarier he was, the more people left him alone. 

Unfortunately it would appear that Hawkins fallen king hadn’t gotten the memo, given he seemed hellbent on kicking Eddie’s ass. 

"Come on Harrington, we can talk about this." Eddie says, as he’s shoved back, scrambling for a way out, as the former jock gets up in his face. 

The guy had called out his name the second he pulled into the parking lot (sans Buckley or any of the freshman they shared, which has Eddie's back up instantly) but Eddie had simply ignored him.

It was too early to deal with whatever had Harrington sounding like his ass was on fire.

Pity Steve had charged over instead, a look in his eyes that said whatever happened next was going to hurt.

Eddie carries a switchblade, but hes never had to use it before. 

Had instead made an entire production about having it, including cleaning his nails with the blade or stabbing it into the cheap wood desks when a teacher stepped out of the room. 

Had shouted that he’d pull it even when Harrington had charged him, but the guy didn't even blink.

Thus forcing Eddie to confront the fact that he really doesn’t want to stab someone.

Particularly not someone whose family has the police in their pockets (or did with Chief Hopper, though Eddie doesn’t doubt that the Harrington Hoard won’t immediately grab onto the next pig to get promoted.) 

His panic leaves him flailing but somehow, (and unfairly Eddie may add) Steve seems to expect this. 

Knows how to navigate it.

Eddie's back hits the metal of the van and he winces, expecting the hit, the pain. 

If he can duck, if he can make it so the first punch only grazes him, he can grab his fucking knife and wave it around, see if that gets the asshole off him, except--

Instead of hitting him, Steve reaches past, to yank one of the van’s passenger doors open. 

Herds Eddie inside, slamming the door behind him before snatching a fistful of Eddie's shirt and hauling him forward. 

"What--" Eddie asked, confused, right before Steve smashes their lips together. 

It's a hard kiss, practically a claim. 

Steve kisses him like a drowning man gasps for air and Eddie can only fall into it, stunned. 

(The stunned portion only lasts long enough for Eddie to blink before he's kissing back, hot and heavy.

He's been horny for Harrington since the asshole did a trick shot that showed off his ass and involved flipping Hagan off at the same time, sue him.) 

Thinks as he does, that this is probably a trap.

That even if it isn't, then whatever it is Steve will make him regret it--even if he started it. 

(Not like Eddie can claim he wasn’t enjoying it, either. He’s giving as good as he gets, dick quickly overwhelming any rational thought in his brain. 

He clings to Steve like a lifeline, gasping when the jocks takes his bottom lip between his teeth and lightly drags it out, begging to be let into Eddie's mouth. 

This isn't reality.

 Cannot be reality, must be the start of a wet dream or some…vivid hallucinations because when Eddie grinds himself upwards into Steve, cock chasing friction, Steve presses back.) 

"Fuck." Eddie moans when Steve finally releases him, panting up at the ceiling. 

"Do I have your attention now?" Steve asks, voice raspy and Eddie finds himself able to die happy, because that tone is downright possessive. 

"Yeah big boy, you have me--it." Eddie corrects himself fast, the words practically blending together. 

Steve gives a strangled sort of laugh at that, and instead of getting up, presses his face down onto Munsons shoulder. 

Eddie expects him to spring up at any moment. Declare insanity maybe, or far more likely threaten him about telling anybody.

If past bar hookups were an indicator, he'd  throw a few slurs in for good measure. 

(And those men had been at a gay bar, not Hawkins high school parking lot.) 

It's nothing Eddie can't handle, but Steve…isn't doing any of them.

Instead his breathings gone weird, body trembling--and Eddie can see how Steve is holding himself up.

Like he's worried about Eddie taking his weight.

Slowly, carefully, he raises a hand to the back of Steve's hair.

He presses in slow, waiting to be yelled at, waiting to be rejected but never is. 

"You can lay on me, Harrington, I won't break." Eddie tells him and knows his voice is too sweet when he says it.

Too lovey dovey, too awed. 

Too late, for him to recover into a normal voice but fuck it. Not like Eddie was known for making smart decisions. 

Nothing could have prepared him from the wounded noise Steve makes in return. 

"Hey--hey." Eddie says, in rising panic. "I've got you." 

"I know." Steve raises, and head coming up at last, cheeks red and tear stained but his eyes are clear.

Clear and fucking haunted.

 "I know you do, Eds, but we don't have time. Which is why I need you to listen to me, because I'm not the Steve Harrington you know."  

Utterly reeling from being called "Eds" it takes Eddie a moment to digest what was just said. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Steve sighs, a blast of frustration, and Eddie finds himself automatically scritching at Steve's head. 

For some reason that seems to help. 

"Your D&D finale’s tonight, right?" 

"Yes." Eddie says slowly, his mind spinning uselessly, every coherent thought derailed by something new. The moles on Steve's neck. The way he shifts, how his leg is tangling with Eddie's, awkwardly because it's cramped as shit back here. 

"I'm way past this. I've lived this. More than once." 

Aha. 

So it's a mental breakdown Steve's having. 

"I'm still waiting for you to make sense, Harrington." Eddie says to buy himself time to think. 

"Steve." The younger man corrects and he's holding Eddie's gaze. "And I'm not making sense because saying it sounds stupid." 

Eddie can't help the little derisive laugh that breaks out of him. "I hear a lot of stupid things, one more won't kill me." 

"I know, you're famous for your rants about them." Steve snarks back, but it's teasing. 

Friendly and familiar, like he's used to bantering. 

Not just that, but bantering with Eddie, specifically.

He doesn't know what to do with that, so he tugs a little on Harrington's too perfect hair. 

Demands an explanation with that little jolt--and somehow, Steve doesn't haul off and punch him for it. Instead a shudder rollers through him, eyes closing just a touch and--Oh.

Oh, Harri-Steve, likes it.

"I'm from the future." Steve says, which does indeed sound stupid. 

Eddie blinks. "What?" 

"Robin and I are stuck in a time loop-- we keep living this week over and over." He continues, only now he's leaning his head against Eddie's arm. 

"Every single time, you take the longest to get on board and buy in, and every single time I fail to get everyone out alive so fuck it. Fuck all of it--I'm speedrunning this part." 

Oh this is beyond breakdown. 

This is 'took something he shouldn't have and then some' and Eddie knows how to trip sit. 

He just…doesn't want to get punched for being the first person Steve released his repressed homosexual urges out on, drugged or not. 

(The fact Steve's still letting Eddie pet him like a cat absolutely does not have anything to do with it, no sir.)

because his mouth bypasses his rational mind most days and today is no exception. 

"Okay." Eddie says. "Let's say you are from the future and not shot up with what I'm assuming you were told was steroids and was very much not."

 Steve rolls his eyes. 

He never bothered to dry his cheeks and Eddie does it now for him, with the hand that's not in Steve's hair.

Steve leans into it, which somehow feels like the craziest part of it all.

"Prove to me that you're from the future." Eddie challenges.

"Oh the kissing wasn't enough? Fine." Steve bitches, before rattling off facts like he's blowing through answers on Jeopardy. 

"You call your guitar sweetheart and apologize for cheating on it anytime you use your other guitar, who is named Arwin. Your favorite mug in Wayne's collection is the Garfield one and you can play Master of Puppets by heart even though the album came out last month."

"And this is coming from the future and not one of the freshmen we somehow share custody over…?"  Eddie says, even while alarm shoots down his spine.

Had he told the kids about his Garfield mug? 

That his acoustic was named Arwin…?

He suddenly couldn't recall but that made the most sense. Had to make sense.

Steve huffs, annoyed.

Its very cute, and Eddie bites his own lip hard to keep himself focused. 

A finger dips under Eddie's collar, wrapping gently around the chain that sits there before he can react.

 "This," Steve emphasizes with a gentle tug, "was your mom's. She gave it to you the morning of the accident." 

Eddie's world stops.

Not the same way it stopped when Steve kissed him, it stopped in a way they felt like ice had been dumped over his head. A flash freeze that squeezed his chest, claws digging into his exposed heart.

The only person who knew about the pick was Wayne. 

No one else, not even his band, his closest friends, knew the origin of it. 

To tell someone that, to say it was not only his mothers but that shed given it to him the morning before some drunk asshole t boned her shitty, shitty car and killed her-- was akin to handing over step by step instructions on how to hurt him. 

Eddie would go to the ends of the earth for that pick, and he had never let anyone know just how important it was to him.

Except Steve Harrington, apparently. 

"Okay." Eddie says, "Okay, you're from the future. You said--" He pauses, swallows. 

Fights down his disbelief even as the dots connect, because why else would he tell anyone about his pick? 

The only reason he can possibly conjure is if he needed someone to give it back to Wayne, because he, for whatever reason, couldn't.

 "You said you're reliving this because you can't get everyone out alive?" Eddie managed to get out, grappling with the knowledge that "everyone" included him. 

"Yeah." 

 "Are you also my boyfriend or something?" 

"If we can make it there, then yes." Steve says, slightly hysterical. "And really? You're finally gonna believe me?" 

"Are you arguing here for me to believe you or not, Steve, you're giving conflicting signals--" 

"No it's--you've fought me on this man. I've tried every method of getting you with us and every time you argue until the bats show up but one kiss and you're all for it?" 

"Give yourself some credit, it was a grand slam of a kiss.” Eddie replies, because it was by far and large the best kiss of his life. 

He’d follow Steve to hell and back if more kisses like that were on the table, mental breakdown or no. 

Steve snorts at him, a half-hysterical sound. “Noted.” He says. 

Then; “You believe me though?”

“Not at all!” Eddie chirps with a wobbly grin that betrays him.  “But on the off chance you’re right the uh…the thing about my pick…” He trails off self consciously. 

“I should have guessed that was what it. You only ever tell me that when you’re dying.” Steve fills in for him, and it’s weird, to know that for two seconds Steve Harrington apparently read his face and correctly guessed what he was thinking about. 

Abruptly decides he doesn’t want to think of his impending doom any longer. 

“So how about we skip the dying part and focus on the boyfriend part?” He says, poking at Steve’s cheek. 

Steve makes a face at him, before grabbing a his hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. 

“We gotta fix this mess first, Munson.” He tells him gently, looking up at him through his lashes and oh, that is a look Eddie will keep for the rest of his life. 

“Lead on, lassie.” Eddie tells him to hide how dazed he feels. “Let’s go save the world and shit.” 

With one final kiss to the palm of Eddie’s hand, Steve does. 

[hella1975]

hiii babe 🍄🍬🦴 ask game

hey loser <3

🍄 - share a headcanon for one of your favourite ships or pairings?

answered here!

🍬 - post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

ohhhh this is so fun with mha bc there isnt a single character that these mfs dont find controversial they cannot make their minds up ever okay im gonna speedrun this shit i'll give you TWO: hawks is not some himbo golden retriever guy who has only ever been a victim he is in fact calculated and formidable and absolutely knew what he was doing, and no.2 i think midoriya's quirklessness should have been a HUGE part of his character (either by changing his attitude in canon where he gets a quirk but still advocates for the quirkless and highlights the way hero society failed him and it's just generally something he carries with him despite getting a quirk instead of just NEVER FUCKING MENTIONING IT AGAIN, or - and i genuinely believe this - outright he should never have been given a quirk and should have joined the support course, or (manga spoilers) with how it's going now with him losing his quirk it actually gets wrapped up thoroughly and given the time it deserves instead of being smthn that happens at the very end of the story and likely won't get the necessary gravity)

🦴 - is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

honestly anything i have ever watched has inspired me in some way even if it's tiny or dumb, but a piece of media that always inspires me no matter how often i watch it is probably atla. even if im writing something that isnt similar at all to atla there's just something so inspiring about seeing something genuinely well-written with symbolism and consistent themes and complex characters etc etc

[cassyapper]

At the beginning of SDC, it seems pretty obvious that Jotaro feels like he can't ask for help/has to do things on his own given his solution to thinking he's possessed and dangerous is to lock himself in a cell until he can figure things out. Would you say that over the course of SDC, Jotaro came to realize/learn he could rely on others only to have that notion obliterated in the final acts, therefore reinforcing his initial ideas that he has to do dangerous things alone lest others get hurt, or do you think he never really believed he could ask for help/rely on others and the happenings of SDC just reinforced that? Maybe some third thing? I've seen various takes and wanna hear yours if you wouldn't mind!

anon i'm literally so excited that you asked me this because it gives me an opportunity to talk about this one aspect of jotaro's character that has driven me fucking nuts since 2020

so, tl;dr: i think it's the third thing and that third thing is it's a mix of he both learned to trust/sdc reinforced his refusal of help shtick (that is to say, he started to learn how to trust people, but because of how it ended, he closed himself off from that path for good)

full story:

i agree with you so much that he starts sdc believing he cannot rely on anyone, that he has to do it all alone lest someone get hurt. he more or less says this straight up in the prison scene, so you know I'm not just pulling this out of my ass:

HOWEVER: i think during the journey to cairo, he starts to learn to let go a bit. he still prefers to be in control, do not get me wrong, but he's willing to reach out more, to rely on others. we see this highlighted best in the lover's arc, with how he depends on kakyoin to keep his grandfather safe:

and in the anubis arc, when jotaro outright asks for joseph's help with his wound, and accept's polnareff's help while he waits for joseph to get there

he went from being terrified of when he's not in control and cornering and locking himself up like a rabid animal over it, to being uneasy when he's not in control, but also being able to trust the crusaders to have his back when he needs them. he still unfairly shoulders a lot of burdens, more than he really should, but he wouldn't be jotaro if he didn't. but, at this point, he wasn't so unhealthy about it; he was willing to be taken care of, he was willing to trust that others will do their parts

this doesn't last, though. because jotaro has been taking on so much, he still has this perception that things can really only be okay if he at least has a part in what's going on, should he not be at the head of it. and when the journey ends with his friends dying in battles that he had no part in (ie vanilla ice vs iggy, avdol, and polnareff; dio vs joseph and kakyoin and hierophant's barrier), dying in battles he wasn't there to save them from like before (saying, in justice)...but then he could defeat dio...i think that seriously messed with his head

like the grief alone ruined him, it was so consuming and he was so young and he lost so much in such a short amount of time, and i think the only way he could begin to rationalize it was to find a way to make sure it would never, ever happen again. and given his wont to shoulder things unnecessarily and his need for control before all this, i think that morphed into him being like "only i can fight. only i can go into dangerous situations because only i can ensure defeat of the enemy without dying." it's not that he thinks others are incapable necessarily (though he does have issues in that regard), it's just he thinks of himself as like, the op character in a fighting game. you can win any fight no sweat with him. you don't have to try as hard or lose as much health if you use him. and since this is real life, isn't it then his moral obligation to be the one at the front all the time? if he's the one who will be less hurt, less likely to die, while still getting the same result of killing the enemy? he thinks of himself as a one-man army

anyway that's part of why sdc is such a tragedy to me. jotaro was learning, he was reaching out, he was choosing to trust others for the first time in his life, but it got ruined before it could stick. jotaro's own grief prevents him from moving on, from being able to trust like that again, because he had never been stabbed in the underbelly like that and he never, ever wants to again, even if it means he'll die. and he will. and it makes me want to sob and scream and cry

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Hey bb! <3

You’ve quickly became my favorite bakugo writer, how you write him just feels so real to me. every time I see you post something new I get so happy!

I’m seeing ya write a lot about blasty with crushes and or S/O’s but not really about how he gets into a relationship so I propose to you how do you think he would realize his feelings and act upon them? If he even would lol he’s so stubborn and awkward with feelings I swear.

Anywho I love you and I’m glad your blog is getting the attention it deserves!!

hmmm hmm hmm tysm @kits-mania for the ask, this is a good one!! also ahaha i wrote this with tiny baby UA bakugou in mind bc his comedic potential is seriously limitless 

--/--

-ok, to start, so basically, he’s a mess. an absolute mess. 

-yes, yes, ik, we’d all love for him to be like, cool and smooth and suave and spit crazy game but he’s just not that guy. he’s a snarling animal at the best of times and an outright asshole every other second of the day.

-(honestly, if u asked me, the only confession you could ever get that would somehow be more disastrous than bakugou’s would be if u got one from tamaki. and even then, tamaki is a sweetheart so u would 100% be much more forgiving)

-but that’s not the point, what is the point is that bakugou would just be so weird around u and that’s how he recognizes his feelings

-lmao like he’ll be so ridiculous with his mood swings,,, very yelling at you for breathing one second, bc even that somehow flusters him, n then the next second he’s recommending an extensive list of personalized training exercises (that he devised) for you and telling you to shut up if you try to thank him for it

-and he’ll do those things almost without thinking about it. like, he’s already impulsive, we been knew, but for this?? pls he absolutely cannot control himself. he’ll just keep accidentally doing nice things, that he’d never do for somebody else, and he knows this. but then he also feels like he’s gotta act like a dick to cover the strangeness up

-and after being rude, to save face, bakugou’ll be in his head totally “man, i’m the best at this. i bet they don’t even know i fuckin’ like them!” n like, yeah, he’s right, you 100% don’t, but everyone else around him does.

-very obvious to his friends how quiet he is when you come up. like, he’ll say shit about everyone at any given time, but when you come up in conversation?? absolute crickets from him. (this is bc bakugou wants to keep his mouth shut, to avoid suspicion obvi, but in doing so he almost doesn’t seem like an asshole. n when bakugou isn’t acting like a dick that’s when you know somethings up)

-so, those two things combined,,, the mood fluctuation and uncharacteristic behavior make it pretty clear to himself that he’s got a crush. now, don’t get me wrong, he’s gonna be clueless on how to do anything about it, but bakugou’s not dumb. he’ll realize his feelings pretty quickly after they form

-now, for the acting upon his feelings part- whew boy.  talk about an embarrassing turnout

-basically, he’s not gonna do shit at first. he’ll recognize his feelings and he doesn’t want to be a wimp about them, but he also kinda just wants them to go away. so he’ll wait it out. bc it’s embarrassing.

-but if that doesn’t work, and he really does just have one hell of a crush,,, then all he’ll be able to do, at first, is work up the courage to finally not be an asshole,,, using little gestures that include but are not limited to:

1.) offering you a pencil when you lose yours. alright, alright, ik, very small, but this is bakugou alright?? mans doesn’t give up anything unless somebody tries to kill him for it and somehow manages to succeed

2.) let’s u copy off his school work/homework etc. obvi not all the time, but if ur in class, at the very end of a test, n he sees you looking over, bakugou will just sit there. he won’t put his arm over his work. not like he would if it was anyone else but you

3.) when you ask him things, he’ll answer. and there’s a pretty good chance he won’t tell u to fuck off at the end (what a miracle)

4.) will probably try his best to avoid exploding/hitting your face during training exercises. now ofc, if u get paired up with him for sparring, rip say ur prayers, bc he will by no means go easy. bakugou doesn’t even know the meaning of going easy. but he will keep his punches and burns away from ur face. probably also tries his best to only explode you thru the fabric of ur costume. so you don’t end up with burns (what a gentleman. not.)

5.) if you drop something on the ground in front of him, and he’s closer to it then you are, he’ll pick it up for u. u know, like a normal person for once.

-okay so as u can see, those things, which are very big for bakugou, are tiny. so tiny. and no other person is going to see those regular-human gestures as romantic interest bc why would they??? 

-see what i mean by embarrassing?? pls i love him but come on man

-but anyway, he’ll do that for a while. like probably up to a full month tbh

-and the entire time he’ll just be pissed bc ur not getting it. so he’ll keep doing those little things more often in the hopes that you’ll finally understand, but ofc u dont

(sidenote: bakugou having a crush is rlly funny to me bc if any of the bakusquad asked you what you thought about him all u’d have to say is “idk? normal? he’s whatever?? what is this question about?” bc his gestures are so small. so small that they just read like normal person behavior, and thus you have no significant opinion about him. and that’s just v comedic to me bc the absolute shock on their faces when u say that? pls they’re like “Y/N we cannot deal with either of you anymore. bakugou is not normal to people??? obviously he likes you!! why do you not get it?!!!”)

-but n e wayz, yeah he’ll continue with the little shit for a while and then just impulse confess

-pls bakugou is 0-100 or not at all,, so he’ll be completely content in his weird behavior until one day he’s just fed tf up with you.

-like ur walking around with a nice outfit and your hair done up,, just 100% living normally, but for whatever reason the sight of you that day accosts him. just pisses him off bc he likes you, a lot, and it’s embarrassing

-so he just impulse confesses right there in the heat of his anger. very “jesus fuck, you really went ahead and did it now, idiot. you really fuckin’ piss me off. i’ve been busting my ass for weeks now, bein’ fuckin’ nice as shit to you, and you’ve got nothing to say? just gonna walk around like that, on purpose, and keep fuckin’ quiet?”

- n you just “....?” 

-and he’ll roll his eyes and huff and probably clench his hands into fists and “i like you. dumbass. fuckin’ obviously.” 

- and suddenly you just “oh.” bc now it’s very clear to you how much of a relatively ?pleasant? person he is around you and how much that contrasts with the absolute asshole he is to everyone else

-pls ik everybody says he’s a pomeranian but like, no, seriously he is. he’ll pick one person to like and act normal around,, but to everyone else?? pls guard ur ankles he will bite tf out of them 

so, in conclusion, bakugou with a crush is an embarrassing but oddly endearing affair. very much a guy who fumbles all the way to the finish line, but he doesn’t give up. not ever, and especially not when u piss him off sm (read: fluster him sm) just by being yourself 

[thefanficmonster]

I'm so happy you like the idea! Your first three words are: Rattle, Candlelight and Corset.

Oh this is gonna be interesting 🤭

Regretting

Pairing: Chris Redfield x Female OC (taken in by the Winters family as a daughter of theirs basically)

Warnings: Swearing (No Spoilers for any games don’t worry😊)

Genre: Romance, Fluff

Enjoy the mess my brain’s produced. Love, Vy ❤

“I have several questions surrounding this bullshit event!“ Gwen shouts from inside her room where she’s been getting ready for the past hour with the Captains of the BSAA keeping a watchful eye outside her door, making sure she doesn’t get any ideas of running away.

“I have as many as you do, trust me on that one.“ He replies, readjusting his tie. He hasn’t found himself in a three-piece-suit in a long time, all’s been soldier get-ups, bulletproof wests and combat boots. Truth be told, it’s not that he doesn’t want to dress nicely, he’s just rarely had any occasions worth dressing up for. Lord knows he’d be at home in this very moment, seated on the couch with a cold beer bottle in his hand. So to make the truth truer - he actively avoids places and events that would require him dressing up. It’s simply a hassle in and of itself, but dealing with the people at the even - that’s what he’s most bothered by.

“You cannot expect me to believe that’s the truth!“ Gwen shouts again, the sound of shuffling accompanying her voice. 

“Leon said it was important, Jill backed him up and you know I rarely get a say when the two of them partner up to support one another.“ Chris says, sighing while reaching for a cigarette before withdrawing his hand, remembering he didn’t take his pack with him on purpose. Claire says he needs to break the habit little by little so, in order to give her peace of mind, he does try whenever she’s looking. However, when she turns away, he’s quick to light a cig, almost as quick as a dying man getting connected to life support.

“You, Leon and I have very different definitions of the word ‘important’.“ She sasses back, her voice now being the only sound coming from the room which is a sign Chris cannot decide the meaning of - is she almost done? Is she starting over with everything? Either way, he doesn’t mind. Running late to the gala the mayor’s throwing is not particularly bothering him, he actually prefers it.

What’s been bothering him is the fact that he’s found himself impatient of something else. Impatient of seeing her - not that he’d ever admit it. Him and Gwen have been friends for quite some time. Well, they did get off on the wrong foot, but were quick to arrange a relationship alike a friendship and function without wanting to gauge each other’s eyes out. Somewhere along the lines they became actual friends without even noticing.

Gwen Winters had every right to be suspicious of Captain Chris Redfield. Not that she was always wary of him or anything - seeing as how him and her ‘parents’ are friends, she never thought twice about the guy. However, when she expressed interest in joining the BSAA and earned herself a scoff from him, she was rather pissed. Being the main chemistry project of an asshole with a saving-the-world complex back in Raccoon City, it’s safe to say she got some above average strength to her name. And that’s putting it mildly. Being rescued from that lab by Leon and getting taken in by the Winters family, she’s developed her own hero complex, the need to save those who can’t save themselves always dwelling within her.

And so, despite the amusement Chris showed when she brought up the idea, she became a BSAA soldier. 

“I think we established that on your very first mission, soldier.“ Chris chuckles, recalling that first mission he was so opposed to, mostly because Gwen was tagging along at her request and the allowance of Leon. He was very fucking afraid they’d have to carry her dead body out of there but the action was quick to turn the tables on him - having Gwen save his life more than once. What surprised him most though was her humbleness about it. She didn’t rub it in or nag him about having proved her point. She was just glad they had all made it out in one piece and that struck him with a whole new intensity. Almost like a wake up call.

The door beside him suddenly swings open, causing him to abruptly straighten up from his leaning position, shooting a look at the doorway from which emerges Gwen. Or at least he believes it’s her. Had he not known she was the only other person in the house at the moment, or had he seen her passing by on the street he wouldn’t have recognized her.

And he’d have every right not to: this must be the first time she has worn a dress since prom - if she even wore one then - and the same probably applies for the make-up she’s put on. It’s not much or anything, in fact the only reason he’s noticed it is because he’s so used to seeing her make-up-free face. So much so, he’d recognize even a drop of foundation if she applied it. And oh boy, is he whipped by the sight. He can lie all he wants and to whoever he wants to, but he cannot lie to himself. Especially not when his jaw has fallen to the floor, his eyes have grown wide and his heartbeat has picked up noticeably.

If Ethan could hear at least half of what Chris is thinking at the moment, he’d be as good as banned from the Winters home forever.

When Gwen’s eyes meet her Captain’s, she can’t help but smirk, “What is it, Cap? I exchange the bulletproof vest for a corset and you suddenly don’t recognize me?” She asks, raising a teasing eyebrow.

He knows it’s wrong, for so many reasons: He’s her captain, she’s his soldier; She’s an adult but he’s still significantly older than her; She’s the ‘daughter’ of a friend of his, to make matters even worse - It’s so wrong yet he can’t get the thought out of his head. It’s not just now, it’s something he’s been struggling with for quite some time. He’s constantly haunted by her: the sound of her laughter, her smile, that focused frown that appears every time she is looking at a map or a new case, analyzing its every detail, the twinkle in her eyes whenever she gets told she’ll be going on a mission and that same sparkle growing brighter when she returns from it having successfully completed it.

It’s all overwhelming, and in the nicest, wrongest way possible.

“Honestly, Winters, seeing such a shift does rattle a person. Especially when I haven’t seen you out of a soldier’s uniform for years now.“ He comments, his eyes traveling up and down her body on their own accord, despite his best attempts at keeping his gaze on her face.

She laughs, “Can’t really go to training in a dress and high heels, you know. If I had more opportunities, the dresses in my closet wouldn’t be covered in spiderwebs.“

“Duly noted.“ He smirks, offering the young lady his hand as he leads her down the stairs, “I could help you out with that.“

She frowns, pausing mid-step, “Oh no, no, no no. If what you have in mind is a bunch of charity events, you better get that thought out of your head. A bunch of rich assholes drinking champagne, really not my scene.”

Chris chuckles offering her his arm as they walk out the front door to where he parked his car upon arriving at the Winters home, running into Ethan, Mia and their five year old daughter, about to head out for the night. He won’t complain about the lecturing he received, he deserved it after all. It’s a miracle the two even agreed to let Gwen accompany him, not that they could stop her either way seeing as how she’s an adult woman who’s more than capable of making her own decisions.

“No, no, I know you hate those events. I do too.“ He says, oddly timidly as the two get seated in the car. “I was thinking more along the lines of...“ He contemplates how to say it without making the rest of this night awkward, or mess things up with Gwen in any way. She means a lot to him and he’d hate to lose her over his complicated feelings he wishes he could control. “Dinner under candlelight, maybe?“

He’s as stiff as a boulder, tense and expecting something, anything. Literally anything, even outright rejection would be better than silence. Regardless of her answer, he’s gonna regret this move later when Ethan hears about it and goes to kick his ass.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the slight shake of her head, a blush evidently appearing on her cheeks, visible even in the dim light in the car. A small smile graces he features as her hand travels to his which is nervously resting on the gear shift. “Sure, I’d like that.” She says, her smile growing wider.

There’s that same twinkle - the sparkle in the eyes of a soldier willing to fight for the greater good, putting everyone above herself. And, on his hierarchy, she’s number one.

“I’m glad.“

Chris Redfield has regretted many things in his life and will probably regret even more in the future. However, he was a fool to think he’d regret this decision - one look at Gwen’s eyes and all regret was erased. All ass-kicking he might receive for it seems more than worth it, looking at it from the perspective of this very moment.

Then again, Captain Chris Redfield has never been a stranger to a little ass-kicking.

Thank you so much, Anon for this super fun challenge! I hope to receive more three words to turn into fics cause I really enjoyed this experience 🥰

[raguna-blade]

Persona 5, Makoto, And Cops

So, like...We can all agree that it's weird that Makoto want's to be a cop in the game right? Aside from general cop bastardry irl, there's like precisely one police officer in the entirety of P5 who's at all a clear cut good guy and even he basically just says out and out, super explicitly that the cops are like...Not great.

At BEST, at BEST, they ensure the laws are followed, but that doesn't always equate to justice being served, and it is hilariously easy for them to be made into tools of opression, and to be made into stooges of people who want to do wrong.

Like Zenkichi out and out says “You really shouldn't be a cop.”

But Makoto still want's to be, despite knowing this, despite agreeing with this, and it's a weird gap right? Of perhaps everyone in the group, she should know best how following the rules and laws can lead to people doing pretty screwed up things if her little stint stalking and then blackmailing joker and company.

And she's just a student council president you know? It's not like she has anywhere near the same authority as a police officer, and unlike Chie who (for sake of argument here) has pretty objectively Upstanding Excellent Cops in her neighborhood except for you know the one who decidedly wasn't but P4 isn't really dealing with Laws and their problems, so them not leaning into law enforcement is a problem makes sense. Dojima is a just dude trying to do his best and even here the only other cop of note is uh...A straight up monster who abused his position of authority to get away with terrible things.

But back to P5, like...The game isn't subtle about it's feelings about law enforcement. Every Single Shadow is represented in the field by varying kinds of law enforcement operative types. Guards, knights, actual cops, prison wardens, etc etc. The Ultimate Big Bad basically posits that humans can't follow the rules and for that need to be severely punished and so laws and rules more or less end up being the big bad foe here.

The motivation to be a cop is well...Painted as whole heartedly misguided at best. We never get to know anything about Makoto's dad, and he's her inspiration for that goal, but at the same time, we get to see the other daughter who I think it's safe to say ALSO had him as something of a goal and...Sae also doesn't exactly come off as a perfect avatar of justice here either.

She very clearly WANTS to be, no doubt, and the massive shock of the games events does change her trajectory, but she's been deep down in the swamp of the system and she knows intimately that well...It's a shit show at best.

So i'm circling back to it as...Why? What's the deal here with what the game is going for theme wise? The idea of internal reform I suppose is being suggested, but the game's also make it remarkably clear that that actually won't work.

I'd say even textually, not even dipping into subtext, the game is out and out saying that you cannot reform a system from the inside like that when it's that far gone. Between P5 and P5S it's made abundantly clear that even what is functionally in a metaphysical sense a hard system check of things going out of whack law wise like the phantom thieves (what with their flipping of the table) they can't actually solve the problems of the system itself being super fucked. At best they can stop it from going full on malignant, but the cancer is still there. If the people don't actually band together to overturn things that are broken, especially when it is well within their hands to do, it's not going to improve, it's not going to get better. It's a delaying action at best.

Like the Phantom Thieves can't save everyone. Akira Konoe bluntly makes it clear when he asks them and the PT can only really go...No we can't. If we knew sure, but we don't possess the ability to do that. It's outside our ability entirely to do so for everyone.

So...Back to Makoto then. It's abundantly clear, I think, that she's very much of the mold of she want's to be a cop to protect people. That's what the job description is, even if that's not what it is in reality. And I think we can at least say that she's not so naive by this point to think that if she goes in she's going to be able to reform things, not by herself. It's worth noting that her intended goal is to become a Police Commisioner, and basically form her own police branch under her rules and regulations which...Fair. Fine. There's something to be said for being an apt demonstration but it doesn't actually fix the problem at it's core does it?

Which I think pushes this into the funky grey area of things because I don't think she's precisely...Wrong to want to do this. As stated, I think the games make it abundantly clear that one person on their own can't make radical and deep changes. You need people and momentum and everyone willing to work and all that.

Certainly, I think, it would be tremendously easier to reform an organization if someone in that organization is willing to make calls against what they're doing presently. But by the same token, it's also clear if you're entering an organization to try and change that organization it's uh...Not precisely a good bet. Now there's something to be said for being willing to try it I think. While the game doesn't exactly indicate how it'll go, we can imagine that following the events of the game that Makoto wouldn't be crushed under the weight of it all and change for the worse....Though the question of if she'd be able to make her goals a reality are a different question. She has allies in that fight for sure, between Zenkichi, Sae, and (from all indications) Kaburagi, there is at least some element of reform at play, but it's also well...

The big ass conspiracy didn't exactly come out of nowhere no? And the cops at every level more or less were compromised to some level or another, and this includes these prospective allies.

But then, I guess this goes back to the Phantom Thieves themselves. They're not able to actually fundamentally fix the problems at play. They stop the worst excesses certainly, the most terminal aspects of it, although in doing so they are very nearly destroyed outright and with barely a thought. In that spirit, Of doing what you can with what you can it changes the read on the decision at least somewhat.

The Daughter of a well decorated cop, sister of a particularly well known ex prosecuter now defense lawyer, in addition to being a top honor student type, certainly gives her a bit more leverage to attack the problem, especially in the sense of getting into a position to actually change things. To say nothing of Joanna.

Taking her awakening quote into consideration

"Have you decided to tread the path of strife...? Very well. Let us proceed with our contract at once. I am thou, thou art I... You have finally found your own justice... Please... Never lose sight of it again. This memorable day marks your graduation from your false self..."

and the general story the game presents of Joanna as one who rose to the top of the organization she was in and shook it to it's core (doesn't particularly matter how true that is in reality, merely what the game says for this instance) it's clear that indeed that's her gambit, if not the specific trickster archetype she's supposed to embody (as opposed to Joker's completely outside the law rogue, Anne's Femme Fatale, or Morganna's Layabout by Day Vigilante by Night as off the cuff examples), of someone who appeared to all eyes to be a harmless simple part of the system until it was simply too late for them to do anything about it.

There is a solid arc there, and a story to be told, and I think in that light makes the continued ambition make sense especially given what we're shown of well...Uh, everything to do with law enforcement in P5.

Now if they actually communicated that idea WELL is um...probably a different story. I think it's there to see, but I can easily see this being overlooked if this was the actual intent. Though, thinking about it, the way the various trickster archetypes are shown to function isn't quite as clear as it could be, though I think there's something to say for looking into that.

Later though.

[kanesthirstblog]

NSFW ALPHABET: ABE HARUAKI

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Requires lots of aftercare but also wants to take care of you. Very clingly, like, will latch onto you and cuddle you for the rest of the night clingy. You should probably give him some reassurance or comfort, he seems like the type to stress about whether or not he was any good to you once the fun is over.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Hmmm... Totally the sappy kinda guy who tells you he loves all of your body and thinks it's beautiful and 100% means every praise he sings you about it. He loves everything about you from your soft hair to the tips of your toes.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

God. Just imagining him sprawled out on any surface with an exhausted yet dopey look in his eyes, covered in his own cum (and/or yours of course!) after a few rounds of sex really makes me feel satisfied. Really can't explain this one

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Secretly a bit of a masochist but also scared of being hurt so he never asks even if he really wants to.

Also secretly owns a couple erotic novels he used as "research" when you first brought up wanting a sexual relationship. Since you are his first, he would want to see how he's supposed to act in that scenenrio so he could please you properly. (But damn was he shocked when you wanted to be the dominant one. That wasn't in his books.) Haruaki learns the importance of communication that day.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Dudes a canon virgin y'all. This also excites me.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Secretly loves it when he's on his back so he can see your face as you ride him or peg him. He just thinks you're the prettiest person he's evermet and loves watching you even as you tease or toy with him.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He's a sappy guy. Would probably look at you like a puppy who sees someone they really love. Besides that he's have that dopey look like he's never been happier than he is in that moment, smiling up at you.

Once you've had sex a couple times he might start opening up more, cracking jokes and asking shy requests from you.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Yup. Makes sure he's nice and clean especially

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He really tries hard to be romantic but he has 0 experience in this area and often fumbles his way through it by trying to be sweet and make you feel good. Very bad at saying romantic things and would probably give up after a bit before he dies from embarassment.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Tbh I actually think he'd barely masturbate if he did at all. This is partly because I actually have an asexual headcanon for him and partly cause in canon he seems really put off by sexual things if not being outright afraid of them.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Contrary to some of the fandom headcanons, I don't really imagine the sailor uniform thing as a kink. It just seems like a typical fixation or something that gets played up for laughs to a strange degree. But maybe thats my ADHD dumbass brain projecting my ADHD onto a fave. (Off topic but him knowing everything about sailor uniforms, from design to creation, being able to make them himself, getting happy any time he sees one, ect. Are headcanons I have because his weird fixation with them reminds me of my fixation on rocks, mushrooms, and jewelry.)

HOWEVER

Praise kink. Body worship. He'd love to be pet gently while you tell him how pretty he is. How you love his soft hair or his long legs or slender form as you lightly trail you fingertips down his body or card fingers through his hair. And he would do the same for you too.

Might at least try pegging, and then realizes he actually likes it when you hold him down and pound his ass.

Would be too embarrassed and a bit scared to bring this up but actually likes the idea being treated roughly. If you could pull at his hair and bite him even a little bit he'd practically melt in your hands.

Might try bondage if it's light. Soft hand cuffs or silk ropes are the way to go.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

At home. Anywhere is fine as long as its at home

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

The fastest way is probably being physical with him or just stripping for him. He gets embarassed and tries to hide but you know he's aroused, you can feel it when you sit on his lap.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He'd probably not be okay with having more than one partner. You might frighten him if he starts feeling like you guys are ganging up on him.

Public/semi-public sex is a no go. Especially since he is a teacher, he wouldn't risk his job on the off chance you both get caught.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

I think he actually might no be very into oral at first. But will give or recieve though you may have to hear some complaint about it being kind of unsanitary or something. He's also kinda bad a giving oral but what did you expect? He's a virgin.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Personally prefers the slow and sensual kinda sex but you set the pace regardless so ultimately it's up to you. He won't be turned into a stuttering mess right away if you guys take it slow.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Alright with it as long as it stays private. You'll be the only one asking for these but try to get him in the morning before he leaves for work so you can corner him against a counter. Its best when his back is turned so you can grab his hair and lick along his throat, nipping here and there. He'd shiver in your arms as you trail a hand down to undo his pants

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

As long as it isn't a risk to him (would probably be too scared to try knifeplay) or job (no public/semi-public sex) you could probably talk him into it.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Hmmm... Depends I guess. I feel like he might only be active for a round or maybe 2 before he starts slowing down. You could still pound the guy into the mattress but he'll have those half lidded doe eyes cloudy with exhaustion. He'd wrap his arms around you loosely as if you'll help ground him to the waking world and try to hold you closer to him.

At that point you should definitely ask a few times before you start another round to make sure he's okay and reassure him that it's alright to stop now. Strikes me as someone who could easily fall into a place where he'd hide his desire to stop just so you can use him for your own fun since it makes you happy. That could be kinda bad for his mental health.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

You'd be the one with all the toys tbh. But you can sure as hell use them on him.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He's not much of a tease but if he's feeling playful, he might play up the innocent look of his. He really is a pretty innocent guy actually, but he knows you love that sweet look he's got to him and he will use it on you.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

So damn loud. This guy would moan and beg loudly, scream your name and plead for mercy, for relief as you all but eat him alive. Might even cry and whine and beg. Oh, but he tries to be quiet so he doesn't risk disturbing anyone. He'd purse his lips and turn away from you while you play with his body in an attempt to stay quiet but he always gives in quickly. It's easy to turn this guy into a whimpering, begging mess no matter how many times you do this.

You'll know when he's tired because he will be unable to make much noise besides low pants and gasps. Probably best to wrap things up at that point before ya fuck him unconcious.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

I have a few actually.

-Has a hard time saying no to you. He's a bit cowardly and overthinks and he would be afraid to lose a first relationship. This is potentially hazardous to his mental health because he might say "yes" to something he doesn't want for fear of losing you. Consent is important though so even if it's difficult at first, keep checking to make sure he's alright.

-I actually headcanon him as a sex indifferent asexual. He can 100% live with sex or without it. Doesn't matter to him, though he's terrified of trying it for the first time.

-The first time you tried to get him in bed, you pinned him to a wall and he was terrified because he thought you were trying to shake him down or harass him. (Well, the latter part was true but not the way he expected.) And then you kissed him and he straight up broke, wrapped himself in blankets and hid under the futon for the rest of the day. Disappointing? Sure, but damn was it cute.

-I'm actually caught up on how he would take to dirty talk tbh since a lot of it I've seen or heard involves some form or another of calling your partner a slut or whatever. Seems to be popular. On one hand if he's secretly a masochist, he might be into it. But on the other, he also seems like he might take anything you say to him to heart and beat himself up over it and would ultimately not like it. Also probably would not be comfortable if he did the dirty talking and assuming he manages to make it through the night without apologizing to you for everything he says, then you'll hear it when you finish.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Mandragora patterned briefs. You cannot change my mind on this one.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Not very, so he's pretty chill about it.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Depends on how much you exhausted him but it usually doesn't take that long.

Bonus:

Some more cute Haruaki.

[asterekmess]

You and your shameless friends claim that there are plenty of canon reasons to despise the Latino hero/lead/protagonist and titular Teen Wolf Scott McCall and that disliking Scott has nothing to do with racism, but how many time have you guys said “Scott hated Derek and didn’t listen to him” or “Scott is obsessed with Allison” or “Stiles trusted Derek before Scott and took Derek’s side when it came to Scott pursuing lacrosse and Allison” even though we absolutely know that neither is true?

First off, I’m pretty sure you’re also the author of the next ask that I got, so I’ll just go ahead and tack that on here. Even if it wasn’t you, I prefer to answer my hate mail in as few messages as possible.

If Scott hated Derek the way that the Teen Wolf fandom interprets him as hating him, why didn’t he let Derek die at the hands of the Argents in Formality (1x11)? And if Scott’s sole motivation was his obsession with Allison, why didn’t sell Derek and his Pack out to Gerard in Season 2? Just admit you hate Scott because he is a Mexican brown boy and better and more important than everyone else and fuck off

Oh honey, that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.

“Titular Character” refers to the “role of a character after whom a film is named.” For example: Steve Rogers is the titular character of “Captain America.” Emma is the titular character of “Emma.” Scott McCall may be a Teen Wolf but he is not the Titular character of the show, because Teen Wolf isn’t a name, it’s a descriptor. Also! Fun fact, just calling him “titular” and not “titular character” means that you’re saying he is actually “hero/lead/protagonist” in title only, which I find just fucking hilarious. So, thank you for that lil giggle.

Also, we’ve said that loads of times, what about it? Those points have absolutely nothing to do with Scott’s race. They’re supported by canonical evidence.

Derek is set up as a character with far more knowledge that Scott, who has the answers to his questions and is willing to give them. Scott refuses to listen to him, except for the few times he goes to Derek specifically to get help from Derek. Every other time he ignores Derek’s warnings. And Scott does hate Derek, or at least he does a great job acting like it, considering he, you know, left him strung up on a grate where he’d been hanging for a week (during which time Scott stalked Allison [including sitting outside her window while she was fucking sleeping, even though she was in a house full of capable hunters] in order to ‘protect’ her because he ASSUMED that when Peter said “vunerable” he meant Allison) getting electrocuted and refused to let him out unless he promised to save Allison.

Now, Stiles didn’t trust Derek ‘before Scott’ (in part because Scott literally has never actually trusted Derek in any meaningful way). But, he does share the same opinion as Derek multiple times in regards to Scott needing to not play lacrosse/go out with Allison. He warns Scott that lacrosse is too dangerous before he ever talks to Derek about it, and tells Scott he shouldn’t play anymore because he’s going to keep losing control (which he does, multiple times, even after finding his anchor) and Scott refuses to listen to him because he doesn’t want to be taken off first line. He also reminds Scott multiple times that it’s really safer if he doesn’t play in the stupid lacrosse game because it’s one fucking game and Scott ignores him because he wants Allison to go out with him, assuming she’d no longer be interested in him if he didn’t play lacrosse. And while he’s never outright said “Don’t date Allison,” he has suggested Scott put off going on his first date with Allison, or just not skipping school with her during a fucking crisis, so they can try to save some lives. How fucking hilarious, that the ADHD kid is the one who has to suggest moderation to the neurotypical character in order to try and keep people from dying. By hilarious, I mean terrifying.

In what way did Scott not let Derek die at the hands of the Argents in 1x11? Yeah, for about ten seconds he talks about needing to find Derek, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Derek? He explicitly says that he needs Derek to help him protect Allison. That’s it. That’s all he cares about. Besides, he also says that he knows the Argents aren’t going to kill Derek, so he’s not doing anything heroic by suggesting they find him. And he doesn’t continue looking for him either, when he can’t get ahold of him, just leaves him to be imprisoned/tortured while he follows Allison around. Literally all he would need to do is go back to the house where he last saw Derek and he’d have found him instantly. Yeah, in the next episode he finally hunts Derek down (if a howl would’ve done it, why the fuck didn’t he do it earlier? Oh right, because he was busy watching Allison’s every move.) but it’s not for Derek’s sake. It’s so that Derek will help him save Allison and kill Peter so that he can turn human again and be with Allison. (Are you starting to see a fucking pattern here?) Now, you could try and say that he just has multiple motivations, and yeah, sure, characters are capable of that. But that concept is kind of undermined by the fucking blackmail that Scott uses by THREATENING TO LEAVE HIM TO BE TORTURED.

Are we watching the same show? Scott did sell Derek and his pack out! He leaked information about them to Gerard, let Isaac and Derek follow him into what he knew was a trap, and then forced Derek to bite Gerard against his will.

Also, I just cannot resist. “better and more important than everyone else.” What are you? Three years old?

Now, listen, I don’t pull this card very often, but my husband actually asked me to please say it.

First off: Fuck you. Just had to get that out there. Second: My HUSBAND IS FUCKING MEXICAN. HE IS FLUENT IN SPANISH. HIS MOTHER’S ENTIRE FAMILY IS MEXICAN. I spend my holidays SURROUNDED by brown boys and girls who call me FAMILY. My FUTURE CHILDREN will be Mexican. There is EVERY likelihood that I’ll have a beautiful brown-skinned baby. My husband sure as fuck doesn’t think I’m racist, and I think he’s got more right to make that judgement than strangers on the internet. Third: FUCK YOU. Fourth: For the record, My husband ALSO thinks Scott is garbage, and he’s only 5 episodes into the fucking show.

As a last note, while I’m happy to discuss the show in a reasonable manner, any more hate mail I receive of this particularly pathetic caliber is getting deleted automatically. I don’t play games.

[im-a-space-gay]

Friendships DESTROYED

Gay Gamers AU. Also this is mostly unedited because I couldn’t muster up the effort to read over it.

Before Virgil went to Florida

~~~~~

“Hello everybody!” Roman said, running around the lobby. “Prince_Of_Creativity here, and today I am with the other Gay Gamers, Mor-Pal-Ity, CoolLogic101, and Anxie_Tea&Biscuits—“

“Hi!”

“Salutations.”

“‘Sup.”

“— and my brother and his crew, Duke_Of_DEATH, SneakySnekBoi, Sleepislife and Picartoons, and today we are playing Among Us. Now, I hear Snek is good at explaining things, so would you care to explain the rules?”

“Not at all. Among Us is an online game where there are four to ten players. The crewmate’s goal is to defeat the imposters, either by completing all their tasks or by voting them off. The imposter’s goal is to kill everybody they possibly can and sabotage equipment. There can be up to three imposter’s per game depending on the settings; however there will only be one imposter for this video, then the next will bump it up to two, and finally three.”

“Thank you Snek,” Roman said. “Now, let’s ruin each other’s trust, shall we?”

——

“Oh my god,” Remy groaned as Snek won. “Gurl, you always win when you’re imposter! How did we not guess sooner?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

“No joke, if I’m imposter next round, I’m killing you out of spite,” Remy said dead serious, and everyone laughed.

The next round started, and Virgil muted himself like everybody else before evil laughing.

“I’m the imposter! Now, over the course of the game, I have been analyzing everybody’s moves, and have a solid strategy. Nerdy, I know.”

Virgil pretended to do tasks as he explained.

“First, we’ll kill Snek, because most the time he figures out who it is lightning quick, and thanks to Remy, they’ll probably accuse him for killing Snek. So, Snek first, Remus next, and if Remy hasn’t been voted off by then, kill him, and then Emile. I’ll save the other Gay Gamers last because they have been quick to defend me the last few rounds when I was in fishy situations, and knowing them they’ll tear each other apart from the inside accusing each other. Then I’ll kill Patton, then Logan, and I’m home free.”

Virgil was quick to spin in a circle with Snek, a nonverbal way to pack together with trust before they walked away from everybody else.

“Of course, there will be other things screwing up my master plan, but oh well. It’ll end with me winning or losing, and I’m perfectly fine with either.”

They entered electrical, and Virgil killed Snek before venting to the other side of the map, where once he left the room he saw Patton and Logan together and stuck with them so he had an alibi.

A couple minutes went by before somebody found Snek’s body. Surprisingly, Remus found it and immediately shouted:

“REMY YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

“Wait wait wait babes I didn’t do it!”

“UH HUH. THEN WHY DID I FIND MY BEST FRIEND’S BODY IN ELECTRICAL OF ALL PLACES?! AND YOU THREATENED HIM LAST ROUND!”

“Okay, let’s think about how I’m not the only meme-y one—“

“I don’t know Remy that seems awfully suspicious,” Roman said accusingly.

“Dude, what about Anx—“

“HE WOULD NEVER!” Both Patton and Logan said loudly.

“Besides, he’s been with us for a while now,” Logan said, and Virgil smirked.

“Yeah Remy, I’m starting to think it might be you,” Emile said, Virgil smiling more.

“What’s Anx’s opinion?” Roman asked, and Virgil thanked his years in voice acting.

“Well, Remy does seem suspicious, but honestly we don’t have enough information for me to feel comfortable outright accusing him at this point.”

“I agree with Anxie,” Patton said, voting. “Let’s just skip this one until we have more evidence.”

They all agreed and Virgil tried not to laugh even if he was now muted, following Logan and Patton again. When there was an intersection, Virgil turned off the lights, knowing they’d be essentially useless when turning the lights back on.

He split from Logan and Patton, hoping they wouldn’t notice as he looked for Remus. It was easy enough to find him, snapping his neck before venting away. By the time he was able to kill again, he saw Remy trying to swipe his card and killed him as well before venting.

Virgil snickered. He could see it now; Remy yelling in the call for dead people while Snek laughed, Remus probably saying something crude. Remy probably going like “I told you so” as he followed Virgil, cussing loudly.

He walked around, killing Emile once he found them and actually managing to find Logan and Patton again.

It appeared Roman found a body, as a meeting was called and Patton gasped, probably at all the people dead.

“Okay, that is a LOT more dead people than I remember,” Virgil said, holding down his laughs knowing that the dead people could still hear him.

“So it’s down to us,” Roman said dramatically before continuing. “I think it’s Logan, because Patt is terrible at lying and I feel like we would know if it was Anx.”

“Actually, it’s you,” Logan said in the perfect way of saying Uno Reverse without saying Uno Reverse. “Because us three have been together since before the last time a dead body was found.”

And Virgil had to hold his hand to his mouth so he wouldn’t make any noise because one, they didn’t realize he separated from them, and two, he didn’t think about how that would affect their view of the Roman. Dear lord, he wish he grabbed popcorn.

After them arguing for a bit, Roman was voted off and he really had to not laugh at how the other two reacted.

He unmuted himself once his kill button became an option again, and he killed Logan before evil cackling as the victory screen appeared.

“OH MY GOD,” Roman shouted, as if the truth was surprising to him, which it probably was.

“ANX YOU ABSOLUTE SON OF BITCH,” Remy shouted as well, and Virgil’s evil laugh increased in volume and length as he listened to their reactions.

“You never saw it coming until it was knocking at your door!” He said like a villain once he stopped laughing.

“I gotta hand it to you, that was really awesome,” Snek said, being the calmest of the bunch. “Before you come back into the lobby, can you please explain everything to me; the strat, the outcome, everything!”

“Sure!” Virgil said, and he smirked when they all shut up, wanting to hear it for themselves. “First, I had to kill you, because you are damn good at murder mysteries. It was just really convenient that not only did you go to electrical, but Remy had threatened you last round.”

“Fucking piece of shit,” Remy mumbled.

“Then, act like I normally do, meaning I couldn’t agree that we voted Remy off, I just had to hope it happened. Shut off the lights because we’re useless fixing stuff like that, plus it gave me a chance to sneak away from Logan and Patton without them noticing. Killed Remus because he is way too reckless in voting people off meaning it was unpredictable, and Remy would most likely be voted off because Remus was the one who planted the idea in your heads that Remy was guilty.”

“Fucking. Piece. Of shit.”

“Upon realizing that nobody had found his body or turned the lights back on, I killed Remy when I found him, same method for Emile, and rejoined Logan and Patton and waited till somebody found a body.”

“Fucking simp. Leaving them and my brother alive,” Remus said, and Virgil smirked.

“Actually, it’s the other way around.”

“Huh?”

“Throughout my time of knowing and recording with the other three, I knew that they wouldn’t accuse me unless they had no choice. Therefore, I had to make them the last to go.”

“Genius,” Snek whispered in awe. “Absolute genius.”

“Honestly,” Virgil continued, ignoring the slight heat in his face. “Once somebody found a body I was going to insist to skip the vote, kill Patton, and watch the other two tear each other apart and ‘reluctantly’ side with one of them. I didn’t take into account one thing however.”

“It was just you and those three, meaning Roman was alone,” Snek said, and Virgil nodded even though he knew they wouldn’t see him.

“Yep. It was just too easy to vote Roman off and kill one of the others once I had the chance, winning my first game as imposter.”

“I feel tricked. I feel like a fiddle who’s been played with,” Roman said, utter betrayal in his voice as the other two Gay Gamers agreed. “I do not know if I could ever see or even talk to Anx the same way again.”

“Besides the utter rage I feel,” Remy said, cutting Virgil off from apologizing. “I have to admit that I am proud of little Anxie.”

“Don’t call me that,” Virgil said with utter venom, entering the lobby and running over to the other Gay Gamers. “Only Lo, Ro, and Patty can call me that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not as special as them,” Virgil said, smiling as he heard Emile reassure Remy he was special when he became upset.

“I take it back, this is still little innocent Anxie,” Roman said.

“Indeed. Still as harmless as ever.”

“Just a small anxious baby,” Patton finished. Virgil frowned, walking away from the others and to Snek and Remus.

“You’ve been revoked of your title of being special. You’re all evil and heartless.”

“You cannot escape us Anxie,” Roman said like a madman, following Virgil, prompting Virgil to run away, only for Roman, and soon Logan and Patton, to follow.

Virgil turned around at the last second to boop Logan before running away again.

“Tag, you’re it!”

“Oh, it is on.”

General Taglist:

@thefivecalls @antiredhuman

Gay Gamers Taglist:

@that-spider-fan-over-there @thatonerandomarmadillo

[waitineedaname]

frame the halves and call them a whole

also on ao3

--

“Alright, I’ve got a bad one.”

“Oh, lord.”

“Brace yourself.”

“I’m bracing!” Sasha made a show of gripping the short carpet on her living room floor and Tim grinned, leaning back against her coffee table.

“Would you rather… date a spider with the head of a human, or a human with the head of a spider?”

“Jesus. I see someone has been reading the discredited statements.”

“Guilty.” Tim shrugged cheekily. 

The two of them were sitting on the floor in Sasha’s flat, and she’d long since lost track of what time it was. Ever since they’d been moved to the Archives, they’d made an agreement to go out and do something together once a week. Sometimes that meant getting sloshed and losing at pub trivia, sometimes that meant dragging each other to whatever new film had made it to theaters that week, and sometimes that meant playing sleepover games in the middle of the night, as if they were twelve year olds and not thirty-somethings with 9-to-5’s. Neither of them had the energy to go out drinking and there wasn’t anything good in the theaters that week, so the third option had won out. They’d ended up on the floor when Sasha made an ill-advised comment about not being ticklish and Tim called her bluff. She’d dissolved into hysterical giggles and he’d said something about how being an oldest sibling meant having a sixth sense for someone’s ticklish spots, and then he’d gone very still and quiet. She’d taken his hand and squeezed and initiated the game of would-you-rather they found themselves in now.

“Okay. Let me think about this.” She drummed her fingers on her lips contemplatively. Tim smiled in that fond way he did when he didn’t want to outright laugh at her. “Are the human and spider bits proportional?”

“Ooh, very good question, Sash. Let’s say they’re the normal sizes for your average spiders and humans.”

“So my options are a human head scuttling around on spider legs or a human with an absolutely microscopic spider head?”

“Yep!” Tim said, popping the ‘p.’

“I’m going to go with option A. I mean, if it’s a human head, I could still hold a conversation with it, right? And I don’t think spiders would make good kissers.”

“I think some of our statement givers would disagree with that judgment.”

“Please don’t tell me we have a statement about a human body with a spider head. I don’t think I could take it.”

“Sure do! Statement number 9170108, or something like that. Some freaked out old coot convinced his neighbor’s head was fake and he was keeping a tiny little spider underneath the fake head.”

“Christ. I’m glad Jon didn’t ask me to look into that one. I might have quit on the spot.” Sasha laughed.

“Aw, and then leave me and Martin to deal with Jon? You know how he gets with the spider ones.” 

“Hm, fair. The Archives need someone sensible around.”

“Hey, you’re not the sole voice of reason down there!”

“You’re right. Martin can be fairly practical when he wants.” She failed to bite back her smirk when Tim clutched his chest, feigning pain.

“Oh, how you wound me, Ms. James! Here I was, thinking it was Tim and Sasha versus the world, but you’ve betrayed me for Martin!”

“Is that your proposal for a Scott Pilgrim reboot? Am I Ramona in this scenario?”

“No, we’re both Scott Pilgrim because combined, we can equal the pure sexual energy of one Michael Cera.”

“Eugh! Gross!” She retched and kicked at him, making him laugh. 

“I’m kidding!”

“You better be! Any and all horniness for Michael Cera is banned in this flat!”

“That’s fair.” He caught her foot and shoved it back at her. “Knives and Ramona were both way too good for him, anyway. They should’ve ended up together at the end.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said all night.”

“You’re really not pulling any punches tonight, huh?”

“Nope. My turn. Would you rather...” She crossed her arms and stared him down long enough to make him squirm, “get stoned with Jon or Elias?”

Tim groaned so loud she worried her neighbors would complain. “No. Absolutely not. You cannot make me choose that.”

“Hey, you asked about spider people!”

“Yeah, and I’d argue that dealing with my bosses while stoned is worse than a human head skittering around on the walls!”

“Oh, come on. Jon isn’t that bad.”

“Sasha. You were friends with him in Research. I was friends with him in Research. Last time we got drinks, he talked about South American moths for forty minutes. I’m getting a headache just thinking about listening to him while he’s stoned.”

“Maybe it’ll calm him down.”

“Maybe.” Tim pouted, and Sasha did her best not to giggle. “Alright fine. I choose Jon, but only because I cannot imagine Elias getting within eyesight of anything as fun as weed without shriveling up and acting like an affronted Victorian gentleman.”

“Okay, first of all, the Victorians loved drugs, they were high on opiates all the time-"

"Like hell am I doing opiates with Elias."

"Second of all, I may have looked into what Elias was like before he got promoted…” She trailed off and bit back a laugh when Tim's jaw dropped.

“No.” 

“And he was a major stoner.”

“You can’t just say these things. I refuse to accept it.”

“I’m serious!”

“Are we talking about the same Elias? The Elias Bouchard that uses words like grandiloquent and apropos? The Elias Bouchard that gets pissy if you round up on your time card?”

“You know what’s even worse?”

“Please don’t make it worse.”

“I’ve seen him wear those socks with weed patterns on them.”

“I told you not to make it worse.” Tim wailed and covered his face. “I swear, if I saw that, I would gouge my eyes out without hesitation.” Sasha patted his leg sympathetically. 

“Well, good thing you chose Jon, then.”

“I guess so! Fuck’s sake.” He sighed and flopped over onto his side to lie on the floor. Sasha laughed at him goodnaturedly, and then joined him on the floor. She expected him to be thinking of his next would-you-rather prompt, but after a long minute of him silently running his fingers through the carpet, he surprised her by asking, “Do you ever miss Jon?”

“Sorry?” She said, confused. “We see him every day, Tim.”

“No, I…” He huffed, “You know what I mean. Do you miss the Jon we knew in Research?”

“Oh…” Sasha caught onto his drift and fell silent, unsure what to say. Tim was clearly brimming with emotions that he was struggling to get out, so she let him take a minute.

“Not saying he’s a completely different person now, but… I don’t know. We used to get drinks with him. He used to laugh at our jokes. He used to make jokes. Weird, dark jokes, but still jokes, you know? But these days, it’s all business, all the time. I don’t think I’ve seen him smile in months. All… All snappish comments and ‘research this, call this statement giver, stop goofing off during work hours.’ Never mind that just a year ago, he was the one using work hours to show us cat videos because he got distracted during his lunch break.” The side of Tim’s face was smushed into the floor and his one free eye was focused on the whorls he was creating with his fingers in the carpet. Up close as they were, Sasha could see the light scar on his chin that he’d once told her was the result of an ill-advised dare as a child, when his brother had challenged him to see if they could jump off the back deck of their house. She touched it, and he leaned into her hand, eyes distant and sad. “I just…” He spoke softly, “I miss my friend.”

“I miss him too.” Sasha said honestly, though she knew Tim was taking it harder than she was. “You know it’s not your fault, right?”

“I know that.” Tim said, and she believed him. “It’s this stupid job. The stupid Archives. I miss being in Research, where I could make fun of the weirdos in the Archives, but now we’re the weirdos in the Archives.”

“We work at an institute that studies the supernatural. I think we’re the weirdos no matter which department we’re in.” She said, aiming for some levity and feeling relieved when Tim let out a soft huff of laughter.

“Fair. Still. The vibes in there are…”

“Bad.” She finished for him.

“You can say that again.” He finally shifted to look at her again. “If you were the Head Archivist-”

“Tim-” She warned, not wanting to dig up an old sore point. 

“I’m serious. If you were the Archivist, do you think you’d act like this?”

“Would I push you away, you mean.” She said. He shrugged and nodded. “I don’t know. I really don’t, Tim. I’d like to say I wouldn’t, but who knows what kind of pressure it involves. I can be just as intense as Jon when I feel pressured.”

“Yeah, but you’d be way nicer than him.”

“You don’t know that.” Sasha said, firm but gentle. 

“...Guess I don’t.” Tim sighed and shut his eyes. She reached down and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

“Next time you’re missing Jon, call me instead, okay? Or Martin, he’d love that.” She ran her thumb over his and gave him a small smile. “You can always count on me.”

His gaze is impossibly soft as he looks up at her, and he seems to almost forget to respond at first. “Yeah.” He finally says. “I can always count on you, Sash.” A cheeky grin spread across his face, breaking the tender moment. “The Pilgrim to my Scott.”

She laughed and let go of his hand to push his shoulder into the leg of the coffee table playfully. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense!” He protested despite his own laughter. “Okay, maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the thought that counts. I’m poetic.”

“No, you’re sleep-deprived.” She sat up enough to eye the microwave from her vantage point in the kitchen. “Oh lord, it’s 2am, no wonder. You always get sappy at 2am.”

“I do not!”

“You do. Big sap.” She patted his cheek playfully and stood. “Want me to get you some extra blankets for the couch?”

“That’d be great.” He hauled himself to his feet, groaning all the way. She snickered.

“You sound like an old man.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m young and spry.” He complained, stretching.

“Mhm.” She rolled her eyes and went to the closet.

“At the prime of my life.”

“And yet you make dad noises getting out of a chair.”

“Hey, lying on the floor isn’t good for your back! Aren’t you older than me anyway?”

“Maybe, but I’m not the one complaining about my back.” She cut off whatever complaint he had prepared by throwing a quilt at him. He caught it and stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture and grabbed another blanket. “Are two blankets good?”

“That’s perfect.” He took the blanket gratefully and settled on the couch. “Should I make breakfast as thanks?”

“You don’t have to,” Sasha immediately said out of politeness, but then added, “But if you want to make pancakes…”

“Understood. I’ll see you bright and early with some pancakes, then.” Tim smiled up at her and made himself comfortable on the couch.

“See you in the morning, Tim.” She turned to walk to her room, but stopped at the doorway when Tim piped up again.

“Sasha?”

“Hm?” She looked back at him and saw his best flirty grin on his face. He winked and blew a kiss at her. More than used to his nonsense, she gasped and pretended to catch the invisible kiss, then promptly put her hand to mouth and pretended to eat the kiss. Tim clutched his heart and fell back onto the couch, trying to act like he wasn’t holding back laughter. “No, you’re so cruel!”

“Good night, Tim.” She said, closing the door behind herself before her poker face could break.

“Good night, Sasha.” She heard through the door, full of fondness and amusement in equal parts. 

Sasha rolled out of bed the next morning to find Tim making pancakes, as promised. They sat at her kitchen table and bickered playfully about movies; Tim listened patiently as she infodumped about the history of science fiction as a genre, and she let him rant for the fiftieth time about Indiana Jones. Tim insisted on washing the dishes like a gentleman, and Sasha insisted on squirting bubbles out of the dish detergent bottle at him. They didn’t speak a word about work or their conversation from the night before, but she hugged him very tightly before he left, as if conveying all the emotion she could through touch alone. From the way he squished his face into her shoulder, it seemed the message came across. 

“I’ll make sure to get you the spider guy’s number.” He said when they finally pulled apart, and she snorted.

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” She said, shoving him out the door.

“So I’ve heard.” He winked and walked backwards down the hall outside her flat. She sighed and waved, a smile on her face as she shut the door.

If he bugged her and Martin more than usual after talking to Jon the following week, she didn’t mention it.

[inactiive-shit]

Eventually

Masterlist

Sanders Sides Fic

Warnings: implied rough past

Pairing: Logince

Words: 2,121

~~~~~

“Ready to get your ass kicked?” were the words Roman had uttered at the start of the night with a GameCube controller in hand, ready for a relaxing, easy win at a game that no one had ever beat him at. Logan had said, “Please. I was raised on Mario Kart. You wish you could beat me,” and aimed a rare smile just short of vicious at Roman. It had made his heart speed up and stumble, but he had shoved that whole mess back and grinned back as best he could before selecting a character.

But that had been a couple hours ago. Now, Roman finds himself the sore loser of a game that he thought he had in the bag. “Double or nothing!” he declares, throwing up his hand and almost losing his controller.

“We have not bet anything,” Logan says, but he doesn’t seem the least bit confused by Roman’s assertion. He leans back in the bean bag chair (he insisted he hated it but he had let Roman talk him into buying it, so really, who was the liar?) and smirks in that damn infuriating way that he always has. “But if you would like to figuratively lose more of your dignity, the choice is yours.”

Roman gasps in outrage and immediately selects his best character: Princess Daisy. “Oh, it is on like Donkey Kong,” he mutters. Logan snorts and selects his own favorite: Luigi. Not the worst choice he could make, but to ever imagine that Luigi could match Daisy in any way was, is, and always will be ludicrous.

“Which track?”

“It’s time to taste the rainbow,” Roman says. It’s his secret weapon, but when he was young he would play Rainbow Road for hours, over and over again. He can do this in his sleep. 

“I don’t - ah. Rainbow Road,” Logan says. “Interesting choice.” He settles into his seat as Lakitu drops down and the countdown begins. He looks far too smug for someone who is about to be dropped a couple steps down the totem pole, but Roman figures that will be rectified shortly. He doesn’t need to rub his imminent win in Logan’s face.

“Get ready to eat my dust,” Roman snarks anyway. He accelerates at the perfect moment and gets that extra boost of speed, but so does Logan. They are side by side for first place but it won’t keep up for too long. They speed around the bends like there’s no tomorrow, and for Logan’s Luigi, there isn’t. Roman swervs his car to the side and hits Logan. They bounce apart, but Logan flies off the track and has to be retrieved by Lakitu.

“Fuck you!” Logans exclaims, mashing the buttons on his controller despite knowing it won’t get him anywhere faster. Roman cackles and hits a speed boost, leaving Logan as far behind as he can. Logan continues to cuss as he finally gets dropped back on the track and promptly gets hit by a shell. Roman starts laughing so hard he almost drives over the edge of the road. He finishes the first lap in first place while Logan is still slowly working his way up the ranks from where he’d fallen to fifth.

Roman lets his eyes flit back and forth from his half of the screen to Logan’s, keeping a careful eye on where all the NPCs and his competition are. It’s only this that keeps Roman alive to the third lap. He sees when Logan hits an Item Box and gets a Spiny Blue Shell. As soon as he deploys it, Roman stops driving just long enough to be passed up by the Bowser in second place. The shell Logan threw takes him out and lets Roman begin his final lap still in first place with Logan muttering angrily under his breath.

“Get ready to taste defeat, nerd,” Roman says, smirking. Logan doesn’t respond, but he does hunch over his controller even more, eyes laser focused on the screen.

Logan climbs the ranks as they race toward the finish line, and he hits a speed boost that Roman missed. Suddenly, he’s feeling a lot less secure in his win. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. He makes it barely a second before Logan does and nearly throws his controller down in his sheer excitement over winning.

“Fuck!” Logan exclaims. “You are a dirty cheater.” He is pouting, as much as he might say he’s above such juvenile expressions. Roman laughs outright at him.

“I am a squeaky clean winner, and-” He cuts off and hits Logan’s hand out of the air as it nears him. Logan flinches back, eyes wide and obviously stung. He pulls his hand to his chest, cradling it and Roman realizes that he hadn’t really softened his blow at all when Logan had most likely just been trying to be friendly.

“Shit,” Roman says, face flooding with heat while Logan stares at him, hurt. “I am so sorry, Logan. I didn’t even think, I’m-” He forces himself to stop talking. He’s not going to make any sense if he just keeps going without knowing what he’s trying to get across first.

“Maybe I should go,” Logan says stiffly, setting his control on the ground. It’s a ridiculous thing to say because Logan lives here, too, they’re roommates but it makes Roman’s heart stutter and stop for all the wrong reasons for just a second.

“No, no, please,” he says desperately. “That was on me, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just wasn’t expecting it. I was-I was surprised.” He holds Logan’s eyes, as uncomfortable and embarrassed as he feels because he knows it means a lot to Logan when someone will look him in the eyes.

“I do not believe that was the only problem,” Logan says slowly. He examines Roman intently. “If you wish to explain what the real problem is, I am more than willing to listen and talk. If not, I will be going on a walk. The choice is yours.” He waits for a moment.

“I…” Roman hesitates, flounders. He can feel the heat in his cheeks increasing. “My family was never...never the touchy-feely type,” he offers haltingly. “In fact, it was quite the opposite. And you’ve seen my brother. We were never very...nice to each other. I’m not quite used to...friendly contact.” Roman hopes that is sufficient enough for Logan to drop the topic, for Roman to change the subject before he gets so embarrassed that he melts into a puddle of unattractive goo or Logan makes some scathing remark as he is so wont to do and Roman has to deal with this moment of vulnerability being betrayed and crushed as has been the case so many times before.

Though he can’t help but feel that here and now it might be a deserved reaction.

“Oh,” Logan says, looking surprised then regretful. Roman doesn’t know how to explain why that reaction jolts him. “You act so much like my brothers that I just assumed-well. That is an oversight on my part. I apologize, Roman, for not considering that you may be comfortable with a different level of physical contact than I am. I will adjust my behavior to accommodate you, if you wish to touch less.”

“I don’t want to bother you,” Roman starts. He’s thoroughly surprised but that is not the priority and neither is the way his heart stutters with every word Logan says. It is not relevant to this conversation (but he can’t help but hope that it might be relevant to them eventually). “You shouldn’t have to-”

“Nonsense,” Logan says. He ignores Roman when he tries to speak again and says, “You are not bothering or inconveniencing me at all. I like to know how to make my friends comfortable, and for you, if that means you would like us to maintain a less tactile relationship, that is fine. You are under no obligation to me to be, as you put it, touchy-feely, for any reason. Or to anyone else, for that matter.” Logan smiles one of his rare, genuine smiles. Roman feels his breath catch in his throat at the look, but just as quickly as it’s there it’s gone. “Okay?” he asks quietly.

“Uh, yeah, Specs. I gotcha. Thanks.” Roman drops his hand back to the controller in his lap. He plucks nervously at the button for a moment before picking it up. “Again?” he asks softly.

“Of course,” Logan says. “But this time it will be you who eats my figurative dust.” Logan eases himself back into the bean bag chair and Roman gets so distracted by watching him relax so fully and replaying all the things he just said in his head that he misses the start of the race and is immediately off to a disadvantage. He laughs though, and Logan does too.

They banter for the rest of the night, and it does not matter to Roman that he does not win another race. Logan doesn’t mention that it is two a.m. and that they have classes the next day and Roman knows they will both probably sleep through their alarms.

“I will see you in the morning,” Logan says, nodding to Roman. He places the controllers carefully back where they go in the entertainment center and stretches, shirt lifting to reveal a thin strip of his stomach. Roman blushes and looks away hurriedly, but he clears his throat as Logan starts to walk away. They are only standing a couple feet apart, and Roman feels oddly present. Maybe it’s the exhaustion talking or maybe it is that Logan saw him and did not look away, but there is something Roman has to say that he can’t stop from coming out.

“Hey, Lo?” he says.

“Yes, Roman?”

“I think I’d like to be able to touch you,” he says. He can’t quite meet his eyes this time, so he focuses on Logan’s lips instead. “I like you and-and I really think I’d like to kiss you.”

“I like you, too,” Logan says, and those lips twist into a tiny, almost invisible smile. “And I’d like to kiss you, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable. You do not have to push yourself for me.”

“Oh,” Roman says faintly, but still he takes one step closer so that he is in Logan’s space. Logan is barely taller, but it’s just enough that Roman has to tilt his head a little to look into his eyes, this close. “I’m not, I promise. Just once…?”

Logan slowly closes the small distance between them, giving Roman every opportunity he could ever want to say no, to back out, to realize that he was not ready for a kiss yet. But it’s something he has wanted for so long, wanted and not quite believed he could get, and he does not pull away. He lifts to his toes and meets Logan’s lips with a chaste kiss that cannot last the eternity that it feels like. Roman smiles at him when they pull away.

“Maybe,” he says quietly, “we can do that again, eventually.”

“I would really like that,” Logan says. He pauses and Roman can see the gears turning in his head, the nerd. “Perhaps, if you wish, I could assist you in becoming more comfortable with touching. Only if you want.”

“I think I’d really like that.” Roman says the words, but he’s not expecting Logan to hook his pinkie around Roman’s in the sweetest expression of emotion he’s ever experienced. It sends a jolt of fireworks up his arm, and it’s scary but sort of pleasant. He definitely does like it.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Logan says. He moves slowly and rests his forehead against Roman’s for just a second. “Good night, Roman. I hope your dreams are deserving of you.”

“Night, Lo,” Roman echoes and they go to their separate rooms. Roman is sure that in the morning they will talk more and possibly even hold hands if he wants to, but for now he is still riding the high of being touched so tenderly, of being so seen, of getting so much from someone he has always wanted. It is with a smile that Roman falls asleep that night, and with a smile that he greets the next day, and with a smile that he and Logan brush hands through breakfast and talk about them instead of going to class. It is with a smile that Roman will eventually hold hands and kiss and hug Logan, and eventually, it will not be such a feat. But for the next day, Roman smiles and knows that eventually can wait.

[scoundrels-in-love]

If you're still doing the ask meme, 18 (What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.) and 23 (If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?)?

I am always doing ask games, you could go through my list and send ask from ages ago and be like ‘it’s from that one, tell me’. Thank you for asking, love! Also I see you and your make Rainy be kind to yourself agenda. I see you.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene

Because I accidentally reminded myself of We draw a line in the sand,  We say don't cross this or else (Take this from me, take this lonely heart ) earlier today and upon re-read, it’s not as bland as I remembered, I am picking section I of it.

I always love putting visual scenes in words, to truly and genuinely connect to emotions within them as they become more than wisps of smoke in my hands and turn into threads I can weave together into patterns and sentences. And I am rather pleased that my idea of ‘let’s explore Brienne’s complicated relationship with love as utterly romantic yet world-worn person’ turned out as good as it did, especially combining it with what I imagine was a storm of emotions immediately after Dragonpit.

Brienne hasn’t believed love is enough in a long time.

 Like a flower, this childish belief has gradually lost its colorful petals - blown away by harsher fall winds that had blown out candles of her mothers’ and infant sisters’ lives, trashed to ground by cold rain like waves had battered Galladon’s body against the cliffs, fallen away from the first touch of frost that her decision to leave had brushed upon her relationship with her father.

 Love could not carry you over the pits in the road or take you over the mountains life raised in your path. Only you yourself could   try  to overcome these obstacles, assisted by its sometimes gentle, sometimes bruising hand.

I wanted to, for once, portray Brienne who knows love is important instead of outright dismissing it as it’s often done by her more cynical characterizations, but also doesn’t hold the idolized concept of ‘love conquers and changes everything’, even bypassing human will.

Her love could not save Renly when he bled out in her arms, so far from his own beloved.

Just as her oaths and beliefs could not save Lady Stark - or her late Lady’s love had not saved her family.

 Much like Jaime, whose golden, cracked heart could not dispel darkness over Cersei’s mind with its glow.

 And, in turn, she could not follow its shine into the marshes, in hopes to find him and pull him back on safe, stable ground.

Further exploration of this idea - the futility of certain things, but not outright dismissal of it, because it’s not like Brienne to dismiss Effort and Intention. Love may not be all-powerful, but neither is honor and yet, she doesn’t waver from it.

And, in turn, she could not follow its shine into the marshes, in hopes to find him and pull him back on safe, stable ground.

Yet, she had dared to hope, for a brief moment in Dragonpit, when their traded glances held the weight of gathering storm clouds upon the horizon - they could dispel yet, giving way to a sun so bright it blinds in its play or unleash a storm that would devour fleets in minutes.

She had been blind, alright. But no sun had been present, except for the resplendent Lannister twins. And what cruel desert suns they could be.

As always, she recognizes the Will of things, that she cannot Save someone who doesn’t want to be Saved, that she can’t untwist Jaime’s head and then put it on straight regarding Cersei or anything else. And yet, as sort of self proclaimed cynic, there’s still part of her that wants. Wants to be enough and wants to see him choose her, even more so - choose what’s right. She always has honored his choices, seen him for the honorable man he is at the core through them and because of what his motivations were. I give further glimpses of the still very much alive romantic side through the story, but this is the first one.

 “Fuck loyalty,” she had told him, but now it tastes like salt and ash of burned would-bes in her mouth. Brienne would feel better if she could truly, honestly say she had meant it, without a single, passing thought of ‘fuck loyalty to her, your sister, and maybe you will find a different sort loyalty in the smoking ruins of what Cersei has reduced your love to’.

 Selfish, even when she tried to do what is right, even when she tried to save him.

 And so, so godsdamn angry when she could not.

I think it’s very Brienne of her to blame herself for her longing for Jaime, to call her love and wanting to be picked and loved in return as selfish because it’s opposite of True and Pure calling of trying to convince a Commander to follow the Just Cause she thinks she should be driven by. I think it comes from also her perceiving herself as selfish in her actions to be a knight and how it has complicated her relationships with her father, as touched upon at the start of the fic.

She wants to be a Good person, but always feels lacking on some level when compared to the moral standards that cannot be fulfilled. And in part, it’s because she feels she has failed her father, and now she is failing Jaime because if she was Better, less Selfish, perhaps she’d convince him or at least it’d not hurt so much (the pain is what she’s earned with her selfishness).

And then the scene ends with her brooding being interrupted by Podrick, who says Jaime has come. I think it overall explores themes I wanted to quite well, without running on endlessly, and sets up premise of the story well!

23. If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?

I think I would re-do the Soulmate/Arranged Marriage verse. I do not know how exactly, but I am dissatisfied with the all-over-place way it’s being told right now. The first is in shape of fortunes, the other one shots are from different parts of timeline and the final piece would in part return to the original. Unfortunately, I also do love the Fortune style, so I don’t know how I’d re-do it without losing it’s original charm/way I even got it out of me. But I’d love some systematization to it all.

Send me BtS for fanfics question?<3

[leviosarpg]

Congratulations, GRACIE! You have been accepted for the role of VENUS ROWLE! Gracie, this app was p h e n o m e n a l. Venus is a character that’s rather hard to capture, simply because I think it’s so easy to veer away from her dark side, but you charged straight ahead and managed to illuminate the cruel ugliness of Venus so perfectly, my stomach is still churning from the sample app (in the best possible way). “The world won’t be kind to girls like me, why shouldn’t I treat it the same?” Gracie, this line was utter perfection and somehow manages to sum up Venus’s character flawlessly, explain her motivations, and provide such a wonderful insight into her mind. Venus is a taker, but more importantly, she’s someone with the ability to take what she wants, something this app highlighted effortlessly. I can’t wait to have Leviosa’s diamond on the dash!

Your faceclaim change to: Eliza Scanlen has been accepted. Don’t forget to send in your account to the main and complete the items listed on the CHECKLIST!

THE PLAYER

name/age/pronouns/timezone: Gracie/24/she her/ est 

THE CHARACTER

desired role: Venus Rowle- I love the poisonous princess, the girl who is not in danger; but is the danger. Sickly sweet honey words laced with venom, smiled sharp enough to cut. The little girl who got everything she could possibly want, but took more. She’s coming for the crown, she’s coming for things she doesn’t even want - just because she doesn’t want someone else to have it.

gender/pronouns: cisfemale, she/her

extracurriculars: the harbingers, the slug club

para sample: (tw dubious con - kinda, tw self harm, tw underage? ) not exactly sure how to tag it but better safe than sorry!

He was seventeen, she was fifteen. All golden curls and a high babied voice, Venus Rowle never learned the word no. He was some minor pureblood heir, a Crabbe or some other. But he was beautiful, and she loved the way it felt to have his eyes follow her through the halls. Her friends noticed, and asked her in somewhat awed whispers in the back of charms.

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.” Her eyes flashed more blue than green, and her smile was triumphant, barely concealed behind a modesty they all knew she didn’t have.

At her father’s Yuletide Party, Venus ignored him outright, dancing with nearly everyone else but him. His eyes never left her twirling golden figure, and she felt the jealousy burning in his gaze, reveling in this as if he were worshipping at her feet like the goddess of her namesake. Venus always knew how to play the game, had felt the heated gaze of men ever since she was 12 and she’d left her sister and childish shape for the curves of a woman. They liked the chase she learned. She learned to laugh and toss her head back joyously, how to place a delicate hand on her cheek, to absentmindedly play with a curl and draw their eyes to her neck like. She could fake demure and purity and goodness and all those other things men think they want.

And so, when she sensed the Crabbe heir was about to admit defeat, she caught his eye, smiled softly, and quickly looked away with a slight flush rising to her cheeks. He followed her into the library like she knew he would, a lovesick puppy leaning in to tuck a stray lock behind her ear. She resisted at first, the way they always wanted young girls to, but gave in to his kisses eventually. Men liked to think they were in charge, that they were the hunter and Venus was the doe eyed prey, quivering in his crosshairs. Men were easy.

After she let him worship the porcelain curves of her body, he buttoned up the back of her velvet dress, kissing her neck and whispering that one word they all wanted to hear. Love. She smiled with venom, and sent him back to the party first while she adjusted her hair in the mirror. Venus felt empty, unsatisfied. The next three nights of the holiday celebration, she ignored him outright. She was so easily bored, and he’d proved to be nothing more interesting than a pretty face and practiced lips.

He told her he’d ask his father for her hand, and she laughed.

On New Years Eve, he no longer followed her with those desperate puppy dog eyes. She saw him across the ballroom, whispering now in the ear of some much plainer girl, Venus thought unkindly. Her eyes flashed red. She didn’t want him, the idea of marriage was laughable to someone so young and burning. But she certainly didn’t want to be so easily replaced. Venus Rowle was the end all be all, not someone you got over in a matter of weeks.

On New Years Day she walked sobbing into her father study, peeling up a long sleeve to show a ring of purple bruises around one delicate wrist. A sleepless night spent in dedication to her plot added to her overall look of fear and shame. She said no, Venus told her parents in between tears, and he’d been so angry she would not go off with him alone and she’d told him and told him it was inappropriate but he gripped her wrist tighter and tighter almost pulling her away from the party so that she had to wrench herself from his grasp to remain pure. She’d found the bruises that morning, she sniffed for effect, and had been so ashamed and not wanted to bring harm to the family name but so afraid. Her mother stroked her hair to quiet the sobs, and, after delicately confirming her virtue was still intact, her father grabbed his cloak and stormed out the front door.

The Crabbe boy was quickly and quietly sent to America, his father bowing to the weight and power of the Rowle name. No one outside of her family ever knew, and he suffered with the unearned reputation of a brute. He wrote to her once, and she set it on fire without even reading it.

Venus might have been named for the goddess of love, but the Latin root should never be forgotten. Venenum, or rather, poison.

OTHERS & EXTRA (OPTIONAL)

May I pretty please change her face to Eliza Scanlen? Thank you!

Venus sometimes resents her sister, particularly on their birthday, a time she feels should be only dedicated to her. She was thrilled when they were sorted into different houses - the sorting ceremony the only time Diana has ever come first, D before V alphabetically.

Diana is too soft, this world will eat her alive, Venus fears. She cannot hide behind books forever, and Venus justifies her cruelty through love. Someone has to toughen up the younger Rowle, why not her own twin, someone who wouldn’t truly hurt her.

Venus has never been as clever as her sister, her marks always lower but really she had never cared that much. Did it matter what one knew of goblin rebellions or how many runes one could translate?

Her magic is surprisingly powerful, though her knowledge is limited. It comes from the violence in her blood, the fire burning in the hollow place in her chest that should hold a heart.

She is utterly cruel, a true Mean Girl, but with the charm and grace of her breeding and blood status. Words like poison laced barbs wrapped in velvet. She can tell you to go fuck yourself in a way that will make you truly want to.

She has almost no real friends, having begun to lose the girls of her childhood to competition or some sort of morality. She sometimes fears that if she truly needed someone, no one would answer the call. In these moments she reaches out to her sister, bothering her in the library and laying her golden head on Diana’s shoulder until she promises to always love Venus.

She isn’t sure when she first noticed Silvanus, likely when she caught the lovesick glint in her sister’s eyes. Venus has never been one to share and has always wanted what others have. He was beautiful and seemed almost kind. He’d be quite fun to ruin, she thinks.

Diary entries - I am obviously willing and happy to change all of the below especially with regards to other characters! Just some early thoughts

January 23

I was in the library last night copying Diana’s History of Magic essay - bored out of my mind. I have no desire to read or write anymore about goblin rebellions or giant wars or any other horrible creature who has been a threat to wizard kind. Sometimes I think we all might be better off if they were simply gone. But that is not a thing one says out loud, and so I will whisper it to you my dearest pages.

Anyway, I was bemoaning to myself the waste of time it is to read about things others have done instead of doing them myself when Riddle & Lestrange came over to sit at my table. Always a pleasant interruption, although I confess any sort of interruption was highly welcome, I had seen the two of them glancing over from across the room. I know how to attract attention, it is as natural as breathing. They came sooner than I’d thought - I am getting quite good.

They are beautiful boys, both tall and dark and brooding. Exactly the type of boy who my mother would say was up to no good. But Lestrange has the name and family wealth, and Riddle - well no one really knows all that much about him but he is brilliant, perhaps the most talented I have ever seen. And his charisma could charm even my overprotective and suspicious parents.

But, my dear friend, they were not interested in any sort of fun distractions. No - they had a proposal (no not that kind either - as if). Grindelwald, they say, wouldn’t dare come to England. They say he’s afraid of Dumbledore. But his ideas need a place to cultivate and take root here, so why not Hogwarts? I raised one eyebrow, perfectly poised on the line between disinterested and inviting. And so they said more. Riddle had ideas, plans to expand and go further. We were the next generation of leaders, were we not? Those not bogged down in the mess made from Grindelwald and the muggles and the destruction of everything good in the world. We should lead wizarding kind into the new world.

And, I’ll confess, I was terribly interested. The path my parents have painted for Diana & I seems dreadfully boring - marry some man and lose myself and my name to him, lose my body and my beauty to his children, become so consumed with the lives of messy tiny humans and give and give until who I am - Venus Manon Rowle - no longer exists. I will not be some empty shell belonging entirely to others. They spoke of power and change, and I held on to my air of aloofness as long as I could. But it was too perfect, and I gave over to the glamour of his vision quickly. They need my name and my charm, and (it was quite amusing to watch Lestrange struggle to find a tactful way to say so) my bite. I know I can be quite cruel, Diana has been more than happy to point it out to me. But being kind is boring, soft is weakness. The world won’t be kind to girls like me, why shouldn’t I treat it the same?

We stayed for another hour until the library matron threatened to call the caretaker or tell Slug we were out of bed after hours. But the plans and dreams continued in the common room late into the night. Lestrange is driven and controlling, Riddle has a charm and vision - they both match me in the ability to easily draw people in. Although, I might be a bit ahead of them in that case, having the name Riddle does not and being a fair bit more attractive than Lestrange. Most importantly - it is not just talk. You know how talk without action drives me mad. No, there are plans, and some have even already been enacted. Now I couldn’t possibly tell you the details even if I wanted to, having been sworn to secrecy, but Riddle himself has directly acted.

It was such a glorious night that I even woke up burning despite how little sleep I had gotten. I will tell you more later, I have to finish that stupid essay.

Love - V

PS. How terrible would it be for me to just accidentally forget to give Diana’s hers back and turn it in with my name instead? Binns would hardly notice. And Dee always forgives me.

June 22

Remember when I told you a few months ago that Freya was acting strangely? It has only gotten worse. I am practically seething with rage. Last night was daddy’s summer solstice gala, and Freya didn’t even say hello to me when she arrived. I was willing to look it over because she was with her family. But even later when she came around to speak with Giselle and I, something was off. I know how to read people, and I grew up with this girl - I know her every tick and every expression almost as much as I know my own sister’s. She is hiding something and I must find out what it is.

I tried to ask Giselle if she noticed anything wrong, but she seemed preoccupied as well. Am I the only one who knows how to have any fun? Giselle I am less worried about. She has always tried to compete with me, and it is healthy and natural for competition to develop between girls like us. She makes me sharper and I force her to rise up to my level. It is good for both of us I think, as long as I am always on top. Besides, I know her secrets and she knows enough of mine. I do love her dearly, but I would not hesitate to destroy her if necessary.

Mother says they are all jealous of me, but it has to be more than that - especially with Freya. I feared secretly from the moment she was sorted away from us all those years ago that we might lose her. I have made an effort, I constantly seek to include her in everything. And yet still, she is pulling away. Perhaps I will have to come up with some creative way to get her to confess what she is hiding.

And now, dear diary, please allow me a moment of weakness, a moment of insecurity. What if I lose them? And what if I never really had them to begin with? Sometimes I fear that they don’t actually love me, they might love the opportunities I can give them with my name. Or maybe they are afraid of me and play nice so they don’t end up on my bad side. Am I unlovable? Oh no Venus, you say, everyone loves you - look how many admires you have, how you can catch the attention of everyone in a room. No - they love who they think I am, the pretty mask I put on to hide the fact that I am all sharp edges and hot rage. But still, I would rather be loved and noticed for something, rather than hiding in the corners. Alright - I am done acting weak now.

Speaking of corners, I suppose I will always have my dear sweet Diana. My second, my shadow, my sister, my twin. She resists the type of criticism and growth I try and teach her, but she must take some of it in stride. I don’t much like sharing the spotlight, so I am happy that she is so reserved. Still, it would be good for Di to have some actual fun for one. To leave the library and step out from behind her books. I love her, dearly, and I only want the best for her. I confess, I may not be the best at showing her exactly how much she means to me. We are cruel to each other in the way only sisters can be, but I do believe she would die for me. And I know I would kill for her.

I will stop filling you with my melancholia now - V

[lunar-lair]

LAMP Headcanons

LAMP is just. So Good. I need more of this

Logan has a specific pet name for the other three. Patton is his sun, Virgil is his moon, and Roman is his star, though he modifies them a bit for better names, like sunshine or Leo for Pat (lions are affiliated with the sun in alchemy), starlight and stardust for Ro, and moonlight or Luna for Virge. He uses 'love' and 'darling' a lot for all of them, because they're basic and get his point across. Plus, they feel right for him.

Virge doesn't really use pet names very often, but he usually uses 'sweetheart' or 'satellite' for Lo, the first just because it makes him blush a lot and the second in reference to Lo calling him his moon all the time, 'honey' and 'my angel' for Pat because they feel right and Patton is just. He really is an angel. And he uses 'love' and 'my Prince' for Ro a lot because again, first makes him blush, and the second is just. Right. Yknow? He uses 'darling' for all of them though, because they are dear to him. And it feels right.

Roman and Patton just use all kinds of nicknames for all their boyfriends, including each other. And when it's just those two together, they'll make it a battle and see who blushes first. Roman loses a lot, because yes, he is romance, but he also loves being romanced. Like. Well it makes sense to me

Really in most situations Roman is the first to blush. He just gets so flustered so quickly, because he loves all of them so much oh my Go d. Virgil is next, because God I love them how did they choose me?? And then Pat because God I love them they're all so sweet and then Logan because God I love them but I'm bad at processing it. Logan is last purely because he's the best at holding it back.

Whenever one of them is sad, they get together on the couch and cuddle with some tea so they can talk it out. It usually ends up with a lot of tear-stained faces and many, many kisses. All the kisses. So many.

Roman really likes sneaking up behind the two with glasses and pulling them off by reaching around, whirling them around, and kissing them. Sometimes he picks them up bridal style. He does this with Pat a lot more often since it's easier to steal his glasses since he can just reach down a bit.

He also really likes sneaking up behind to give kisses on the back of their necks when they aren't paying attention. This usually ends up in Patton giggling, turning around, and kissing back, Logan chuckling and doing the same, and uh. Okay so they all just kinda laugh and kiss back but shh. But whenever he does it to Virge he really telegraphs it, and makes sure it's gentle. The first time he did it he scared the hell out of Virge, so he tries to be careful about it now. He sets his hand on Virgil's shoulder really slowly, and usually comes in for a backwards hug, different to the other two, as he usually just pecks their neck real quick. But he keeps it quiet with Virge, usually asking how he's doing.

In general, they keep things a little less energetic with Virgil. They don't treat him like glass-they learned their lesson after the first time they saw him have a panic attack-but they try their best to keep him calm. Of course, if he's happy and energetic, they'll be bouncy with him, but ya gotta know what level he's at. They all have this special voice, just for him, one that's nice and calm, especially when he's more anxious than usual.

They don't like keeping secrets from each other, but Virgil does it the most. He feels like he's bothering them with his 'stupid' problems and keeps it to himself, but then he feels guilty from keeping it from them...yeah. Eventually the others will notice and movie nights will become an immediate order.

Roman and Patton love to fluster the hell out of Virgil and Logan. They just team up and start spouting all kinds of pet names, and they make it a game to see who flusters whoever they've set their sights on first.

Logan, Virgil, and Roman have absolutely written poetry about their boys. Virgil's often has a theme of 'how did you get to loving me?' and about how he's the luckiest in the world, Logan's and Roman's also sharing that sentiment. Logan's also goes over how well they fit together and stuff, using his pet names for them and then puzzle metaphors a lot. Roman has a lot about their beauty over all, just the usual 'god so amazing' dashing prince stuff he's good with. Roman has just one or two about the prospect of losing them, but Virgil has...A Good Bit. He's terrified to lose them, to break everything for them, too, just cause of his stupid ass saying something wrong or taking something wrong.

Speaking of that, Virgil tread so, SO lightly when they first started dating, oh my god. I'm going with they started dating all at once because I Cannot handle just one or two of them left out. (Side-eyes Superfluous (yeah. Yeah, im talking to you random-slasher. Come catch these ha nds-)) But he apologized even more than he usually does, and said 'yes' to everything, that kind of thing, yknow? They had to have this whole conversation about it, how they weren't dating him for pity, and how he didn't need to be so careful.

It also took Virge an awful long time to understand that they wouldn't leave him. Even after those first few weeks of crazy bad fear over breaking things, he still tread lightly rather often. The others had to say outright, again, that they loved him so much and they would never leave him. Every now and then he gets doubtful again because of something he accidently did or did in the past, and everyone gives him extra love all around for weeks afterward.

Virgil is also depression, as we know, and when he gets depressed he locks himself in his room so he doesn't 'bring them down'. The others often pull him out of his room for food, cuddles, sleep, and other necessities he had been ignoring while depressed. Of course, it doesn't make it disappear-nothing can-but at least it makes him a bit happier.

If Patton expresses any amount of sadness, he is likely to immediately be tackle hugged. This goes for all of them.

When Roman's feeling bad about his work, they have one of their famous cuddle piles and praise all of the amazing things he's made and how amazing he is.

When Logan works for days on end, they pull him into a cuddle pile with tea and have Virgil sing. Virgil's voice is so amazingly calming, especially to Logan. That's not to say Roman's isn't, but it seems Virgil's is made to be used in lullabies.

Over all, they're all there to support each other and it's great. (Al so. Thomas summons them and they're just all in a cuddle pile and they appear on the couch. It's adorable.)

Back to the dashing prince stuff, with all the complimenting, Ro can be found at least 80% of the time complimenting his lovers, Patton easily complimenting back. Lo and Virge just blush a lot and stay silent and say thanks quietly respectively, though with rather similar happy, love-struck smiles on their faces.

Their standard sleeping position is Virgil and Patton on the inside and Logan and Roman on the outside. Patton rolls off the bed and Virgil sleeps better with someone on both sides of him. It makes him feel safe. This changes depending on problems and emotions, obviously.

Virge and Pat are a bit shorter and definitely tinier than their boyfriends, and so they steal their clothes so. Damn. O f t e n. They'll even trade stolen clothes. Lo and Ro don't mind a whole ton, tho, considering their bfs look fucking adorable. Speaking of The Tall Troupe as Virge calls them, they swap clothes, too, but just. The normal stuff. And so do The Smol Squad as Ro calls them, considering they're closer in size.

Speaking of the clothes trading, Virgil is officially permitted to sneak into the tall two's room whenever he needs to to get a big, comfy hoodie that smells like one of his boyfriends to calm him down. Of course, Patton welcomes him as well, but Virgil just rather enjoys the larger size.

Every now and then, they go stargazing in Roman's realm. Virgil finds the sky calming, Ro and Pat just think it's beautiful, and Lo just really likes astronomy. The other three's real favorite part of stargazing is watching Logan's eyes light up, and learning about the stars. They eventually know enough that they trickle in fun facts in convos, and Logan's so proud.

They also go into Ro's realm for adventures, though it's far more likely they're there to see fae and other creatures as they are imagined by Thomas. Virgil adores foxes (pretty and cool. Long and like wolf cats), Pat loves ferrets (they're so long and adorable! Look at it's little eyes, Ro!!!) and Logan thinks frogs are fascinating (they change shape. Isn't that amazing, Ro? And they're just...i dunno. They seem...cool, you could say) and Ro thinks wolves are awesome (they're like dogs but cooler! They howl!!!!). And Ro conjured up a little cottage a long time ago that he used to stay in, alone, when he needed to be, but now he conjures up said cool animals, they go for a walk with those animals and some others all around them and beautiful scenery, and they snuggle on the couch in the cottage and hang out. In winter, he conjures the ones that can live in the cold (white foxes, white wolves, ferrets are still normal!!) and they marvel at the beautiful snow and the pines and have hot chocolate and wear cute sweaters. When they decide they want a nice rainy day, they dance in the rain and take walks and swim. And at the end of the day, before they get out of the imagination to go to sleep or watch a movie marathon, they watch the sunset together and snuggle on the hill the cottage is on, and they return to their warm home with their sweet lovers and they look at each other with this love in their eyes, and they know they made the right choice to get together, and it's all always so soft and nice :'))

(Akslddl sorry abt that I got rlly sappy there,,,,,)

Virgil took a long time to admit he was also depression. He was so scared they would throw him away, (back to the dark sides and the mean and the dark and i love them they can't can they?? Yes they can and they will god they'll think you're terrible, don't tell them. They'll mock you for so long, and you can't go back. It's better you die now-) and he kept spiraling and he started to avoid them. They noticed, and they kept pursuing him, and they finally cornered him and...he broke down. He finally admitted it, admitted it all, how the others treated him and each other, and how he didn't want to go back there. None of them understood and tried to scare him more, and it hurt Thomas, but their goal was Thomas becoming a horrible person rather often, and if that meant making him depressed, won't that make him bitter? A perfect plan, and a perfect storm to follow. But they promised they would never, because they wouldn't. Of course he would always have doubts, he's anxiety, but that didn't mean they couldn't remind him as often as possible.

This leads to Logan researching as much as he could about depression (he had done so concerning anxiety long ago. He could do so again, for his moon.) and made sure to inform the others as well. Soon both Virgil and Thomas were feeling a lot better, much like when they learned and helped even before they knew they loved each other.

Speaking of that time, after Accepting Anxiety, they did all they could to learn, to help, to convince. They did all they could, and Virgil was certainly thankful. Them caring for him in that way is what really made him realize he was in love in the first place.

Virge was actually the one to confess to the others. He was already crying halfway through his sentence, but he wanted to get it out of the way so he could get over it faster if he got thrown back to the others, the darks. Patton tackle hugged him and the others surrounded them, all three confessing in turn as well. They all cried tears of joy, and ended up cuddling on the couch the whole night.

Roman holds most of the talent of the group, of course, but the others hold it at least a little, and Virgil's voice is absolutely amazing. As said before, he is the protector. Personally, something I do to calm down from anxiety is sing, and since, in a way, Virgil protects the other's from the brunt of the anxiety he holds, it would make sense he could sing. ...right? Idk my logics been faulty for years now. Of course, singing is also how Roman calms Virge down, but Virge is there for all the others. He sings low and deep, using the bottom of Thomas's range the most, and has a lullaby-like voice. It knocks them all out in seconds, and it does the same for Virge, eventually, since all the others are asleep.

Virge is known among the others to not tell them when he's uncomfortable or sad, etc. since the anxiety insists it's dumb and they'll think he's dumb for thinking it. Logan found this out in the process of looking things up concerning anxiety, and so from the beginning they always ask him when he seems slightly off. Again, they learned, so they keep it low-key, though Patton goes a bit over board sometimes. Virgil knows he's just trying to help, though. Over all, he's just so grateful for their concern.

Logan, at times, is still terrible at understanding emotions. It infuriates him, because if he can't understand this warm feeling in his gut how does he express it? How does he express how beautiful the others are to him? And so he does so by way of physical affection. It's the only way he can think of. Before, he wasn't very touchy-feely but now he hugged them and peppered their faces with kisses and kissed their cheek when he stopped by and he realized this was what he needed all along. He quickly understood just how much he loved these men, and it overcame him. He had never truly felt something so powerful-love, the thing that permeates all logic. But he certainly didn't mind. One day, he found words to explain it, and for a long while he would tear up while with the others. At first they were concerned, but it wasn't long before they understood he was merely overwhelmed.

Over all, they just run through all their insecurities together and it's wholesome and nice. Some Good Shit, if I do say so myself, which I do.

Virgil cannot properly sleep in his room, and for good reason. After Accepting Anxiety, they realized it was most likely near impossible. Virgil hadn't realized, but once he slept in one of the others' rooms, he was like 'huh.' so he started sleeping there instead, on the floor at first. Not long after Accepting Anxiety, however, he confessed, they started dating, and he started sleeping in the beds. Being with the others was even better. He often sleeps with Ro, since singing calms him down, but he sings when they all sleep together.

Soooo this has been in my drafts for a like...a month bc I kept editing it like...every night. But now I'm getting random bursts of inspiration, and this is already like...fanfic kinds of long so I am officially releasing it!! I wanma see feed back and stuff so. Yeah!! And I'll just rb it whenever I get some inspiration again. I'm also probably gonna make a general headcanons list so watch out for that, I guess. Maybe a meta list, too. I have a few pages for that stuff in my writing note book. Anyways, Sanders Sides has given me the most inspiration for headcanons literally ever, and the most inspiration for writing since the last time I was in the Phandom (Danny Phantom fandom, if you kids don't go there) and it's amazing!! Sorry for the splitting up of the ships and emotions and stuff, but that's how my brain works. It separates stuff, y'know?

Also, a fourth of this stuff is stuff I've heard with a spin on it. Sorry about that, I guess. And sorry this whole thing is such a mess; like I said, I wrote it over the span of like...a while. Anyways, hope you guys liked it!!

Edit: Oh hey it's shorter now. Cool.

Give me validation-

[lonesomealley]

Borderlands 3 Review

*Writer’s Note: I played this game when it came out and have based my review on the version of the game that I played then. Some of this information may become outdated with time. 

DISCLAIMER: This review is going to contain a lot of spoilers for Borderlands 3, if you don’t want that then this is not the review for you. My overall opinion of this game is that it’s… okay. It entirely depends on what you value out of a video game. Borderlands 3 is, at heart, just another Borderlands that’s been somewhat dumbed down, and if you don’t like the Borderlands series’ base mechanics (i.e. farming, constantly throwing away weak gear, getting stomped on for being underleveled) then this is not the game for you. If you value storytelling in your video games, this game is absolutely not the game for you. However if you’re someone who just wants to shoot some guys and already like, or think you’ll like, Borderlands’ looting systems then this game is going to range anywhere from okay to good. It should be kept in mind that this review is meant to take into account many of the different aspects of the game, hence why this review is going to have a far lower score than many other reviewers/media publications seem to be rewarding it.

I don’t really know if Borderlands 3 is worth the $60 asking price, and I would ultimately say to either wait for the game to go on sale or at least wait for it to go up on Steam. This is because the game really is just a dumbed down Borderlands entry, you could easily just go buy the Handsome Collection for $60 (if you haven’t already) and have just as good, even better, of a time. Also that Steam has more laid back refund policies than the Epic Store (which can be blamed for this review existing in the first place). But this is where the spoiler free section ends, anything past this point will contain heavy spoilers for the sake of in depth discussion. You have been warned.

When the Borderlands 3 reveal trailer came out back in March I was entirely skeptical that the game would be anything good. The story looked like a mess, the guns looked like complete shit, and overall it appeared that a lot of the things they were promising on were too good to be true or would end up simplified. Also, at the time I had just played through the entirety of the existing Borderlands series (excluding Tales From the Borderlands), so this new game was going to have to spike a certain chord with me. This definitely wasn’t helped by the “additions” that they tried to make to those games such as second game’s graphics enhancements, and the Borderlands 1 remaster. The former, while making the game look prettier, had the problem of cutting off cross platform play (across PC, Mac, Linux, etc.) which left a small crowd of people very disappointed. And the latter had the issue of being a complete load of garbage with many of the same bugs, new performance issues, clunkier menus, new menus not working, and of course Gearbox’s patented golden chest. They pulled a BL2 and just gave you OP guns at the beginning of the game as to make the beginning area more trivial than it already was. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they suited you out with 75 golden keys for connecting your shift account, meaning that you could destroy any sense of value the guns originally had.

There was also the new BL2 dlc that was meant to tie the game into BL3’s story. However I can safely say that after having played through BL3, this dlc’s campaign in no way whatsoever connects these two games together. I guess at best it explains how Sanctuary fell, but that in of itself has a lot of problems. You get attacked by some Dahl commander (who has never been brought up in the story before) where he infects Sanctuary, and by further extension Pandora, with this plant virus. Your job is to kill this guy and stop the plant virus. There is no motivation established for this guy besides that he wants to make Pandora into some paradise, and the story has absolutely no effect on BL3 at all. The crew was already set on going to outer space, this invasion only served to speed up this process. To further this claim, there is no mention of this dlc’s events in BL3 and Pandora is still the same sandy hell scape that it normally is.

Which finally brings us to Borderlands 3. A game that feels surprisingly devoid of passion and love despite how much effort went into it. A game that feels like there wasn’t enough time to flesh out ideas. A game owned by a company who sold out to Epic for money- let’s get a couple of things out of the way first. 1. Borderlands 3 isn’t an entirely bad game per se. 2. I have relatively no issue with the game being an Epic exclusive and my opinion is not biased or soured due to Randy Pitchford’s constant fuck ups.

However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t outright despise Gearbox and 2K for their actions. They take an exclusivity deal with Epic which actively disrupts consumer convenience and confidence in purchasing their product (not a big deal). But then they have the audacity to push this game out in the buggy, unpolished, and unoptimized state that its currently in (kind of a big deal). The menus are buggy on a basic, functional level, the performance tanks constantly, and items would quite literally disappear out of thin air from my inventory. All of these made Borderlands 3 just that much more of a painstaking experience to play through.

It was the unpolished game and the Borderlands’ trademark shitty introductory area that made me want to refund the game. And believe me, I tried to refund the game. Unfortunately I got denied my refund because I had accidentally played over 2 hours of the game, when the Epic client doesn’t even show your playtime. So ultimately I had no choice but to play this game in order to get my 60 dollars worth. In that time I learned that this game is exactly like the other Borderlands games. Right down to the pacing and the disappointing endings. The beginning of Borderlands 3 is a complete slog. You’re just slapped down on Pandora and have to suffer through Clap Trap’s “hilarious” writing and get formally introduced to the mechanics of a Borderlands game for the 4th time now. Gearbox has apparently never figured out that people really hate playing through the beginning of their games because it refuses to give the players a skip tutorial option or a way to just outright bypass the introduction. Now I will say that this introduction isn’t as bad as BL2 or The Presequel, but it's certainly nowhere near good either.

The problem with these introduction areas is that they aren’t engaging or really even play into the story in any meaningful way. In BL3, you arrive out of thin air on Pandora and are forcefully met up with Lilith and the Crimson Raiders so that you can prepare to take off into space. Between meeting up and going into space you’ll be doing menial tasks such as fixing Marcus’ shops, getting a basic vehicle, and doing some really boring boss fights. Your motive for killing these bosses is because Lilith is on the hunt for the vault map. That thing that they had in BL2, how did they lose it? Nevermind that because it’s just sitting with Mouthpiece, a painfully easy boss that expects no brain power out of you other than just avoid the giant speakers that go boom. Apparently it was in Vaughn’s possession before he was betrayed by his Sun Smasher clan in return for good boy points from the Calypsos. Why the Crimson Raiders thought it would be a good idea to leave the map with Vaughn beats me, but I can safely say that this theme of Vaughn being a complete fuck up is consistent throughout the entirety of BL3.

Vaughn at best feels like a comedic relief character, and at worst feels like padding. This character has no important role throughout the story, just plainly isn’t a funny character, and comes across as a complete waste of space. He could literally just disappear from the entire game and nothing would change. You (luckily) don’t even see him for most of the game because his ass is left back on Pandora to do…  something. I’ve heard that Vaughn is a far better character in Tales from the Borderlands, however as I haven’t played that game I cannot say for certain whether or not Gearbox really just dropped the ball on this one. Vaughn also isn’t the only character I have this opinion of, however as I am still discussing the game’s intro I feel that I should hold off until later.

So after you acquire the vault map and experience a “high stakes” encounter with the Calysos, Lilith loses her siren powers. I feel like this was supposed to be some big, “Oh shit,” moment but I have to express that I simply don’t care for Lilith’s character and people who are new to the Borderlands series won’t care either. Lilith is not necessarily a “good guy” in Borderlands. She has done some fucked up things that have drastically changed the overarching plotline and a lot of people’s perception of her both in the story and by players experiencing it. In The Pre-Sequel, she is framed as being the reason for Handsome Jack’s insanity as Lilith literally branded a vault symbol onto his face. In the epilogue of TPS she actively commands a firing squad to gun down Athena after she tells her story in its entirety, completely against the judgement of her colleagues. And she makes incredibly rash decisions in BL2 that causes detrimental results for the crimson raiders such as being captured by Handsome Jack after being explicitly told not to come to Angel’s prison that greatly changes the dynamic of the story. These are only a couple examples, and I could keep going, but the point is that I don’t value Lilith as an entirely productive or a beneficially proactive member of the Crimson Raiders. And new players who have never played Borderlands before literally won’t even know who Lilith is or why she is even important. Hence when Lilith loses her siren powers after a pretty pathetic fight with the Calypsos, I can really only roll my eyes and just go with it.

From here the story relatively picks up and becomes a bit more bearable (but not really), however I don’t want a couple thousand words of this review to be about the story. Overall it’s trash, and I’m going to try my best to summarize just why it’s trash. Firstly is that the Borderlands writers might be writing for way too many characters. Seriously you have: ProZ-oh I mean Flak, Amara, Zane, Moze, Vaughn, Lilith, Brick, Mordecai, Tiny Tina, Ellie, Tannis, Marcus, Zero, Rhys, Lorelei, Aurelia, Hammerlock, Typhon Deleon, The Calypsos, Katagawa, Bosses also have some writing with them, Ava, Rhys, holy shit I could just keep going. This isn’t to mention that the the only returning vault hunters from BL2 are Zero and Maya. And then factor in that the writers had to write up a ton of audio logs, some Typhon logs, Eridian logs, side quest dialogue for meaningless bosses, etc. and you have just this disaster of a story that churns everyone out to be really shallow characters. There aren’t any truly good characters in this game. Some of them are passable but that’s because they either aren't main characters or they have some somewhat funny writing and redeeming qualities.

Characters like Ava and Maya (and Vaughn) are completely devoid of any purpose within Borderlands outside of being fuel to the drama fire or just outright being an obnoxious brat. It’s pretty obvious that Ava is just a spoiled teenager who has no idea what she’s getting into, but even in the context of Borderlands her character doesn’t fit at all. For example, after the player kills the first vault monster (Rampager) and returns from the vault, you’re suited to a cutscene where Ava and Maya go pants on head retarded. Ava, a defenseless, tiny, teenager with no powers whatsoever, tries to tell Maya that, “We should be kicking [the Calypsos’] asses!” after the Calypso twins show up to absorb the powers of the vault monster. Mind you, this is after her and Maya debate about how Ava is a piece of shit that’ll get herself killed if she sneaks off to more vaults. Ava then has the audacity to tell the vampire sirens that eventually she’s going to be a siren and she’s going to, “Mop the floor with assholes like you.” These actions ultimately gets her put in her place, and Maya killed. Bottom line: She’s an obnoxious character that makes playing through the story of BL3 worse the more you’re exposed to her. And speaking of Maya, her character in Borderlands is completely useless. She introduces Ava, and then gets killed so that the players can go grrr at the big baddies. Her only significance to the story is that Maya is a siren so that the Calypso twins can steal her powers. Otherwise she is an absolutely useless character that now we’ll never get to see again without Gearbox pussying out on their own writing.

I’ll be completely honest here in saying that Typhon Deleon was the best written character in the game, and you hardly get to hear anything from him outside of backstory and the final couple hours of the game. If Typhon Deleon was a main star of BL3 I think the story would’ve went in a much more favorable direction. However I can’t discount the good writing moments within the story. Even though I absolutely hate Flak’s character even down to his voice, he does have some lines that made me chuckle. Rhys’ entire gag about Rhys ball had me laughing for that entire section, especially the line, “Suck on my big ball, Katagawa.” In fact I think most of the jokes that I laughed at were sexual jokes. I frankly don’t think a lot of these sexual jokes make the cut in a lot of games nowadays outside of obvious fanfare or really out there stuff like Grand Theft Auto 5. This was really unexpected and pulled off well in BL3 as weird as a compliment this is.

I also just want to express my disappointment for how the old vault hunters were treated in this writing: Axton, Gaige, Krieg, and Salvadore aren’t present in this game outside of some echo logs. It could be plausible that Axton and Gaige will come back for a future dlc, but I’m not holding my breath. We ultimately got Maya and Zero, and oh god these characters are bad. Maya dies only a couple hours after you meet her and Zero is comparable to a boomer dad trying to be hip with the kids. Maybe that’s the joke, in which case all I can say is, “Wow, they pulled it off really well and I’m not laughing.”

And finally, the Watcher. What the hell happened to this dude and why isn’t he in BL3? He appears at the end of TPS and is like, “You’re gonna need all of the vault hunters you can get,” however, not only do we have a very restricted roster of vault hunters, the Watcher is literally never mentioned again. Unless the Watcher is the Eridian that left all of the audio logs laying around, but what a disappointment.

I could keep going a good while if I wanted to, but that’s reserved for my videos. The next part of the game that should be brought up is the world design. Most of the world design is okay, I wish Pandora wasn’t just set in desert hell ala BL1, but other than that they seem to have enough content and discoverable areas to make them interesting to explore. My ultimate problem with the world building comes in when considering the planetary system in the game. Now this point can be entirely perceived as me just being an ass but when I think “planets” I expect a lot more than the world hubs in BL3. The planet’s levels are relatively small scale for being on, you know, a planet. And this isn’t just a problem with BL3, many other games that have incorporated planets like this, such as Destiny and Warframe, ultimately fail at capturing the scale of planets. A planet is often scaled down to a simple level within a video game, and it’s somewhat shameful to see a game boasting, “tens of planets to travel to” and then those planets have the same (and even less) scale as their previous title entries that were based on a singular world. Now I perfectly understand that this is a hard request to answer to, and having to build and construct one world is difficult on its own. Despite this, if a development/marketing team wants to promote their usage of a planetary system in their video game, it’s implied that the levels are going to be gigantic. It’s not at all impressive to see planets being used in BL3 because BL2 had the same, if not more, level variety and the same, if not more, amount of levels without the pseudo use of large scale.

This isn’t to say that the levels contained in the game are bad, just that I wish they weren’t pushed into a planetary system. Generally speaking, the levels aren’t bad. I hadn’t ever reached a part of the game where I thought, “Wow this level is trash,” or found levels that were broken. In fact, the gameplay and level design seem to be the real highlights of this game. Gameplay this time around has been modernized and sped up. Players are suited with a slide, ledge grabbing, barrel throwing, and melee slams. Sliding in of itself is important because of how non-committal it is as you can cancel a slide instantly by jumping. These additions ultimately make combat faster and more varied in how you approach the game. See Borderlands 1, 2, and TPS (while it tried) suffered from each fight encounter being basically the same shootout with basic cover systems. This time around, while you can still use the basic playstyle from the older games, you’re provided the methods to really make your gameplay interesting. Personally I never used the melee slam or the barrel throwing, and the new ledge grabbing system only serves to add verticality in map exploring from my experience. However I did use a lot of the slide, and given the right gun (especially shotguns) it became very satisfying to slide into an enemy and pop them into the air with a shotgun.

On this note, I feel like I have to express how much I disliked the feel of the guns. And clearly I am on the contrary opinion here because I have heard everyone on the planet say that, “Wow the gunplay is soooo good omg!!!” but I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t see it here. Sure, the gunplay now feels more weighty and the new animations and stuff are nice to making the player character good gameplay feel. But the guns themselves, despite apparently having tons of funding behind making the guns sound good and being completely reworked, still have the chronic floaty-ness issues of the previous games. Some guns (primarily early game Hyperion SMGs, Maliwan guns, and some shotguns) just felt so awful to play with that I put them down and never touched them again. I’m not too sure what I was expected as I slid into an opponent and shot them in the face with my shotgun, only for them to fly away a couple feet and just get right back up only having lost about half or less of their health. Jakobs guns were consistently the best weapon, feel wise, despite me always wishing they had a bit more of a kick to them.

One of my major issues with the guns is that they are way too sci-fi and not enough like guns on wastelands and battle driven hell hole. Seriously for how terrible a place Pandora is, you don’t get weapons that reflect this attribute, Instead you get these futuristic Hyperion smgs that will project a shield out in front of you or a Torgue gun that will home into your target when thrown. This is a consistent theme throughout the game where guns won’t aesthetically match the environment. I could understand if you found futuristic guns on Promethea, or even that you find technologically advanced weaponry in the form of Hyperion leftovers on Pandora(given that they’re consistent with the styling of BL2). This would 1. Appease me, because I am the only person worth pleasing, and 2. Would allow the Gearbox developers to create more variety with their weapons so that the game actually feels like it’s hitting its promise of, “Billions of guns.”

Another issue I have is the sound design for these guns, which is probably the point I’ll get absolutely grilled for but: Using actual sampled gun sounds apparently does not work for video games. Seriously every time a game tries to improve the sound of its guns, the new sounds somehow turn out to be worse. This can easily be explained off as having a bias against change, but let's talk about it. Firstly, the guns are way too quiet in Borderlands. And they seem extra quiet in BL3, like worse than BL1 quiet. Maybe it’s a difference in subtlety, because let’s face it: It’s not like a microphone was stuck right next to an actual gun. In reality the sound designers probably had the microphone a good many feet away. This gives the gunshot more of a subtle popping sound rather than the huge blast that the person holding the gun actually experiences (hence why you wear earplugs when shooting guns in real life). But I’m going to put in my take on this matter: Guns need to have an impact in their noise. Now this doesn’t mean that guns sounds even need to be based on real guns or realistic in any shape or fashion. Borderlands is a game with a unique artstyle, so why can’t Borderlands have unique sound design?

It seems that every game nowadays wants the best sounding or most realistic guns to boot, however what happened to all that stylistic choice? Some of the best examples I can think of are Counter Strike’s western inspired whiff sounds for its older titles, Enter the Gungeon’s wide arrangement of different gun sounds, the cartoony gun shot effects for Wasted, and even Borderlands unique sound designs such as The Bane and the beam guns from TPS. These unique sound designs are missing for BL3’s guns and, despite Gearbox making an algorithm to suit one gun sound to thousands of guns, they all really sound the same. Not like you can’t tell the difference between what you’re shooting but in that all snipers sound like a generic sniper, all pistols sound like pistols. Of course you have to discount certain weapons like the Occultist that don’t even shoot the bullets respective of its weapon type. But the point is: this is a missed part of the game. I don’t necessarily like or dislike the realistic approach to the sound design of weaponry, but in a game that feels anything but realistic, the sounds aren’t doing it for me here.

But let’s reel it back to the game again, and get into the basic looting mechanics for this game. Upfront: It’s dumbed down, and takes little effort to get good gear. This is the part of the game where I fall out of my element (if I haven’t already), because I don’t really appreciate Borderlands for its RPG mechanics. It feels nice, and the act of finally getting something you grind out for hours if exhilarating (4 times magic missile), but it is far from how I prefer to play my games. Given this though, even I feel that legendaries drop way too often. Over my playthrough of just the main game content (I did 6 side quests on my first playthrough, and we’ll get to this) I collected tens of legendaries. When I was finished with the game I had 10 legendaries just sitting in my inventory that I was either actively using or keeping as a memorial item. This isn’t to mention that you literally get a chest at the end of the game that contain 4 legendaries in it. The loot dropping system is no longer satisfying at this point. And this isn’t just a matter of, “Oh they buffed the loot drops a little bit,” it’s a matter of the looting system becomes a complete joke when bosses can literally drop multiple legendaries without Mayhem, and will consistently drop multiple legendaries with Mayhem.

Assemble this with a forgiving leveling system, and now it’s just a dumbed down Borderlands experience. In previous Borderlands games, you couldn’t just do the main quest from start to finish. At some point you would eventually become underleveled, and paired with Borderlands’ trademark unforgiving and shitty rpg mechanics, meant that being 3 levels beneath an enemy granted you 10% damage reduction. This is no longer a worry, you can now play the main quests from start to finish with zero leveling hiccups. Or at least from my experience. Some reviews that I indulged in have said that they did have troubles with the leveling system, to which I rolled my eyes and had to immediately question what the hell they had done wrong. On normal mode I finished the campaign having only completed 6 side quests in total. One of these, to tie back to the looting system real quick, gave me a legendary elemental pistol that melted enemies for the next couple of zones. I also asked someone about their experience playing Borderlands 3 so far, only to learn that he had been doing every single quest that he was given and was massively overleveled come time for the first vault boss (he was level 21).

The bosses of Borderlands, this time around, were the best and the worst that the series has ever gotten. They’ve been massively revamped from the older system of AOE insta-kill moves to having actual attack patterns that you can skillfully avoid. To compensate for this, the bosses have been relatively tuned up to be more aggressive, throwing out more attacks. These new bosses range from very good to very, very bad. Some of my favorites were the Graveward, the Penn and Teller styled boss (Pain and Terror), and Troy Calypso. The bosses that I ultimately ended up hating were Katagawa, the Rampager, the Warden, and the Anointed. These bosses either suffered from boring attack patterns, bullet spongy-ness, or a lack of direction on what you’re supposed to be doing to beat the boss. Katagawa and the Warden fit into this last category. For Katagawa I was confused by him taking inconsistent damage (he loses a ton of health on shield break) and the Warden I couldn’t figure out whether or not I was allowed to kill him early. This is because the Warden is styled around the Goliath from BL2, so whenever he kills one of his teammates he gains all of his health back and then levels up. It turns out that you can kill this boss early, I just had garbage guns for this fight. So to answer your question, yes I did get the Warden to max level, and what pursued was a 20-something minute boss fight where you run the boss around in circles and turn around to deal damage when you can, and then he would kill a minion and level up. The only way I managed to kill him was that when he did eventually hit max level, he would stop focusing his minions when on low health.

The bosses that were truly good were the ones that kept the player busy, while not being too spongy or time consuming. It should be noted that the spongy factor of a boss can be easily biased by what type of weapons you enter a boss fight with. Some of the bosses I thought were easier may have actually been harder for you or another player, and vice versa. However, I will speak more of a general design philosophy and less of a, “This guy had too much health,” philosophy. I loved the Graveward (while admittedly being underwhelming for a vault monster) because of his unique battle area and clear attacks that would make his weak point exposed. Having the entire floor tilted to the side while you’re spamming jump to save your life was a fun mechanic to work with, especially when you factor in dodgeable acid balls. This was a simple boss fight that had a unique spin on an FPS boss. Terror and Pain I loved for stylistic reasons and the meta-humor around putting characters themed around Penn and Teller in a game made by a company with a CEO who is super into magic. This boss is comparable to Mouthpiece, but actually just a straight upgrade. The arena you fight Terror and Pain in is far more interesting, the boss itself looks cool, and while I have honestly forgotten the attacks that the boss had, it was still a fun encounter. One of the attacks I do remember though is the floor lighting up to indicate that fire was going to shoot up to incinerate you, and felt far more fitting than getting blasted by a speaker turned up too loud.

Something that I disliked across the board with these bosses, and this is a massive opinion piece, is that the bosses were too easy. Sometimes I honestly wished I was playing Borderlands: The Bullet Hell. I really wanted a boss that wasn’t just going to engage my attention, but make me feel like, “Holy shit, holy shit, oh my god, I am going to die.” Actually, the entire game was pretty damn easy. Although this can come down to a lot of reasons such as ally NPCs now being able to revive you, and the upped pacing of the game causing players to need to rely less on cover.

And I mean, it’s not like the game stays easy forever right? After you complete the campaign on normal mode you then unlock True Vault Hunter Mode (TVHM) and the brand new, super cool, “Badass-,” oh whoops I mean, “Guardian Ranks.” The end game is perhaps the most disappointing thing is this game for hardcore veterans of the Borderlands series. Firstly, that “reworked” end game comes in the form of the new badass ranking system, only this time you can’t disable it (This pieceo of information has become outdated with time, a future update has included the option to turn off these gaurdian perks and the passive bonuses). I mean, this time you get some rewards for using the guardian ranks? Meh. Otherwise the game still revolves around making you play it multiple times in order to get to the level cap. The only real reworked thing here is the new mayhem difficulties, annnnd they’re bad. So what the mayhem system is supposed to do is make the game more difficult while incentivizing you to play it by giving you consistently better loot rewards (more blues, purples, and legendaries). This system would otherwise be okay if not for just one problem: Mayhem 2 added no difficulty to the game, while Mayhem 3 felt typical to Borderlands end game difficulty (It should be noted that the Mayhem system has been revamped to include 10 Mayhem levels). Again, this may be because of my own personal experience with the game, see apparently Flak is outright broken when it comes to crits (Future updates have severely nerfed Flak). So this could be influencing my opinion greatly on this difficulty switch. But I’ll say that I had no reason not to play Mayhem 2, because for essentially no difficulty increase, the game started commonly dropping me blues, purples, and legendaries, while rarely spitting out a green.

At this point I had essentially had enough with the game, as my terrible, clunky inventory was constantly filling with valuables, and I had to make constant stops to dump stuff out of my inventory. Given this, the fact that Mayhem gave you a ludicrous amount of XP for very little difficulty on Mayhem 2, and a quick Google search about the raid bosses in the game, I’ve ultimately put the game down. I went from level 39 to 44 in the span of an hour, was being drowned in good loot, and the biggest sting of all: There are no raid bosses in the base game of Borderlands 3.

This is a massive review for a game that probably doesn’t deserve it. Borderlands 3 has a lot of ups and downs. It’s not a game that many people will enjoy for the story. Veteran players may have a distaste for the lack of an interesting end game. All in all, if you’re playing Borderlands 3, you’re probably playing it for the gunplay and the loot, which still, somewhat, hold up. I didn’t see how the game had a billion guns, but you know what, that’s alright. And after all of the controversy, and now that Gearbox is releasing patches, performance fixes, and balancing to the game, it’s not that bad of a game. The game just doesn’t strike me as the godlike triple A, return to Borderlands that many had hoped for. Overall, I would give the game a 6/10.

EDITOR'S NOTE: There used to be a video here demonstrating a supposed XP glitch that had occurred to me while playing through True Vault Hunter Mode while using Mayhem. It turns out that, at the time, this was an intentional mechanic for Mayhem to give you massive XP gains. To correct for this error, the video has been pulled from Youtube and this paragraph has been written, as well as all mentions of the XP glitch being pulled from this article.

-Count_