#and lots of people will want to skip part 1 which is details of awful childhood trauma

[faggotisaacfloofs]

ID: screenshot from the book mentioned. It reads: "The term "grounded" started making sense. Being utterly and completely present allowed me to focus on the immense, full- body pleasure of simply being alive. I was surprised to find tears streaming off the sides of my face. This pleasure-- as intense as staring into the sun- didn't have to cost anything- It was available to me anytime. I was overwhelmed by my discovery of a rapturous new drug that also happened to be free and legal and noncaloric!

But at the same time, I was crying because a small part of me was sad: How had I not known, until this moment, the pleasure of breathing? How had I not known that feeling air on my palms could be so comforting? How much pleasure had I missed because I was too in my head to pay attention? How often had I longed to leave all of this, to die, because I hadn't understood how satisfying it could be?" End description.

Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

[elumish]

keeping in mind the strategic/operational/tactical failures discussed in your earlier post, what would be the major failure point of the worldbuilding in iron flame? feel free to spoiler tag. is it the nature of the enemy and the common public narrative about that?

Okay so even though I finished Iron Flame fairly recently, I have also read a lot of books in the interim, so this may be a little general and may not get every detail totally correct. I'll stick all of my thoughts under a Read More, so if you don't want Fourth Wing/Iron Flame spoilers, just skip this post.

Strategic: To be totally honest, I didn't have a huge issue with the strategic-level worldbuilding of the Empyrean. I think the question of why dragons take part in this whole thing and also why dragons vs. griffins are totally neatly divided by country borders that are relatively new is not clear and sort of a problem, but I could mostly suspend disbelief there.

It definitely is not the most well built out/robust strategic worldbuilding, but I was basically fine with it. My feeling basically boiled down to "it didn't make me actively annoyed so I lived with it and can't currently think of a major issue." Also I like dragons.

Operational: Okay! So!

I found the entire organizational structure/setup of this entire world absolutely baffling to the point of being incomprehensible.

This probably doesn't need to be said, but I will anyway: a major goal of a military is to have as many trained fighters as you can. Attrition is one of the biggest issues faced by militaries (other than logistics) and the more people you are starting with, 1) the more you can do in general and 2) the more people you can afford to lose.

This means that you really want as close to 100% of your potential fighting force to survive training. Even if you only view people as cannon fodder, literally the point of cannon fodder is to put them in front of the cannons, not kill them in training.

I know the argument presented in the series by Violet is that it inures them to death so they can keep going when their teammates die, but that is terrible for a military. Yes, people need to be able to keep going when their teammate dies, but the training system has them killing each other. They are incentivized to kill each other! And so this school is literally training them to commit friendly fire incidents. Do you know what happens in a military that trains its soldiers to commit friendly fire incidents? They all kill each other and can't work effectively as a team. And being inured to that? That's just PTSD! You are just fucked up!

So having this military school system where they need to kill each other to win makes for a dramatic story but is an absolutely awful military training setup.

But also these are (or should be, if they had a non-awful system) highly trained members of the military, which makes them extremely valuable and also extremely expensive. People who fail out should just get stuck in a different part of the military instead of basically being killed.

And actually to that point, this whole setup would make much more sense if they had the equivalent of basic training and then had people specialize, the way they do in the real military. You absolutely want your military forces to be interoperable, and they are not even a little bit in this world.

Also why the hell don't these people use more ground forces? The number of dragon riders is limited to the number of dragons, but you can just have as many infantry as you can logistically sustain. Set up an effective border defense.

If you look at the traitor people (I can't remember what they're called right now), sticking them in the elite fighting force school also doesn't make any sense. I know they gave some in-universe reason for it, but especially because of the incomprehensible "if more than three of them are near each other then we can't magically surveil them" system if they were actually viewed as a security risk, they shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the military, much less in the dragon forces.

They're a literal flight risk! There is absolutely nothing keeping them from defecting en masse. They can't be surveilled when they're together! Also they could commit friendly fire attacks! None of it makes any sense!

I also never really understood why they were keeping the real enemy a secret and why there was such a concerted effort. It didn't seem like the military leadership/king got any real benefit from maintaining a massive conspiracy to...kneecap their own military force.

The funny thing is that since finishing Iron Flame I've read basically all of Rebecca Yarros's other books, which are basically all contemporary romance, and she writes a lot of military-adjacent books, and they generally don't have this problem. Her husband was (is?) in the military, and she seems to have a decent understanding of it, so I'm not sure why she threw that all away for this.

Tactical: Okay so this is a lot related to the issue of "why are the trainees incentivized to kill each other" but Violet's ability to poison her way through her sparring didn't make any real sense if they was any point to the sparring. She should have just been made to spar with some instructors. And also they should have had some real fighting training. Though again that's more an operational issue.

Violet definitely had a lot of Plot Strings (the plot "coincidentally" moving her to the right place at the right time to do something only she could do): especially, that she (the person who happened to have the father who knew all of the plot-relevant things for some reason) happened to get magically soul-bonded to Xaden (the person leading the group that happens to know the truth about everything). I understand the whole situation with her mother, but her mother didn't control the soul bonding.

Overall the issue on a character level was more of a "wow this person just happens to have/be exactly what we need at this time" (the prince! who was just there! until he was extremely plot relevant coincidentally just when we needed him!) but each character was mostly believable taken in isolation.

[ginovasims]

GI'S DISNEY PRINCESS CHALLENGE

A twelve generation legacy challenge based on the current thirteen Disney Princesses. Each generation will have a different set of goals and requirements before the new heir takes over.  Disclosure: I know there are other Disney Princess Challenges out there, but I wanted to create my own which I feel fit the films more and flowed nicely between each princess and generation. I've tried my best to add as many game features as I can to match their stories, but a lot of it may be down to your own storytelling. Some details have been left out because I don't want the challenge to be too strict, or all our games would be the exact same! Feel free to adjust any rules as you see fit for your stories, it's supposed to be fun. Tell your own stories and add your own elements, but my rules should hopefully help guide you. 

As you may know with a lot of the older princess films, the mothers often die when the princess is quite young. I know a lot of people hate the idea of their sims dying, so if you would like to forgo this rule, that is fine! I would instead recommend moving the mother out of the household and having no contact with them again.

Every generation has a prologue and then a set of rules. The prologues are there to establish the generations, and typically require more storytelling and gameplay with family members. You can use the prologues in any way you would like to set up your princesses' stories. The requirements are for when the main part of their stories would begin.

Rules:

Aging must be turned on, but you can have it at any length you wish.

Each goal must be met before the new heir takes over, unless specified in the rules.

Despite being 'princesses', the heirs don't have to be female. You can have any gender follow the requirements. Same goes for sexuality and romantic partners. You don't have to strictly follow the films in this sense unless you want to.

The Princesses can look as much or as little like their film-selves as you would like. Same for their names.

Mods and custom content can be used to help the story and gameplay.

The generations will offer three traits, you do not need the heir to have all three traits, but they MUST have at least TWO of them.

If you do not have all of the packs required to complete the requirements for each generation, either find a similar alternative or skip that rule.

If you do this challenge, please credit me (@ginovasims).

(OPTIONAL) Use the hashtag #GiPrincessChallenge on tweets, posts, and videos.

Thank yous:

Once again there are some lovely simmers I would like to thank for helping me with this challenge!

@SimBexBlue - you inspired me to start writing my own version of the challenge after I started watching your LP on YouTube! You have been there in DMs from the start and giving me feedback and ideas, and you’ve always been so enthusiastic and keen.

@Jackiester626 - your notes and feedback for each generation were so detailed and helpful and honestly really inspiring! You put in a lot of effort to help me out and it’s very appreciated.

@nicolesulsul - you sent me some excellent additions for the challenge which helped pad out the generations and make them more like the films. Your interest in the challenge has always been so encouraging! WATCH HERE: https://youtu.be/-jSmoQYqHZk I posted a video talking about this new challenge and created all thirteen princesses based on their original animation film-selves! You can also download my versions of the Disney Princesses for FREE on my patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/sims-4-disney-84319256

THE GENERATIONS

Generation 1 - Snow White

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow's mother dies when Snow is a child. Her father should remarry a jealous/evil woman. When Snow becomes a teenager, her father must die so that Snow is left with only her stepmother to raise her.

Requirements:

Have an awful relationship with your stepmother who makes you do all the cooking and housework.

Never leave your home neighbourhood. 

Meet a teen sim in your neighbourhood who you build a friendship and romance with, but never kiss/woohoo.

Move into a cottage as a YA, and have no social interaction with anyone (including no contact with stepmother or boyfriend/girlfriend). This includes never answering the door to strangers.

Adopt seven toddlers (dwarves) in one go.

Give the children traits that match their dwarf persona (i.e. happy = cheerful, sleepy = lazy etc.).

Never eat apples or anything to do with apples.

When the dwarves are teens, you can finally meet your partner again. (If you would like, you can have them rescue you from your stepmother who visited your cottage)

Get married and move into your lover's castle.

Have one daughter (Cinderella).

Master parenting and baking skills.

Complete Big Happy Family aspiration.

Traits: Cheerful, Loves Outdoors, Good Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Generation 2 - Cinderella

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow White dies when Cinderella is a child. Cinderella's father should remarry an older lady who already has two daughters. Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters hate her and are always mean to her when her father isn't around. As if history repeats itself, Cinderella's father must die when she is a teenager, leaving Cinderella to be raised by her stepmother who hates her.

Requirements: 

Must live in the attic and do all the housework and care for the animals.

Have completely negative relationships with your stepmother and stepsisters.

Knit and wear your own clothes.

Never leave the home lot.

As a YA, you must sneak off to the magic realm in the middle of the night and meet all the sages and another powerful (but evil) spellcaster.

Befriend all four spellcasters - this is important for the next generation.

Attend a party off your home lot, disguised so your family doesn't recognise you - they must also be guests.

Meet and fall in love with someone at the party, but you must be home before midnight.

You must wait for the person you met at the party to knock on your door at home before you can run away from your family.

Get married and have one daughter (Aurora).

Master cooking, knitting and cross-stitch skills before being rescued by your lover.

Complete Soulmate aspiration.

Traits: Romantic, Neat, Animal Enthusiast  Aspiration: Soulmate

Generation 3 - Aurora

Optional Prologue (infant): Cinderella must throw a baby shower when Aurora is born, inviting the three sages, but not the fourth 'evil' spellcaster. Cinderella and the spellcaster must lose all relationship. Cinderella must send infant Aurora to live with the three sages in Glimmerbrook to protect her from the other spellcaster.

Requirements: 

Have no contact or relationship with anyone except the three sages. This includes your parents.

Meet a mersim as a teen in the Glimmerbrook forest. Fall in love with them but never kiss/woohoo, and they can never visit your home.

Never leave Glimmerbrook until your YA birthday.

As a YA, meet with the 'evil' spellcaster. She drains you of all energy and traps you in the attic of your family home. (Aurora is now unplayable until the curse is lifted)

Each spellcaster must defeat the spellcaster in a duel, and at least two of them must win.

Sages must find your lover naturally and they are the only one who can break the curse. Aurora is playable again. (The lover must either be found by searching the worlds/neighbourhoods, or they can arrive without being invited. You cannot call them over, or directly visit their home lot)

Marry your lover and move to Sulani.

Become a mermaid.

Have seven mermaid daughters, close in age, the last one being Ariel. (You may need to live separately from your lover as the household limit will be maxed with seven children)

Master singing and dancing skills.

Complete Beach Life aspiration, but you can only start working on it when you become a mermaid.

Traits: Loner, Family-oriented, Lazy Aspiration: Beach Life

Generation 4 - Ariel

Optional Prologue (infant): Aurora must die when Ariel becomes an infant, leaving Ariel's father to raise his daughters alone. He must befriend another mermaid who will help with all the children. When Ariel becomes a child, her father must cut ties with this mermaid and not allow the children any contact with her.

  Requirements:

Live on the small island in Sulani.

Only have friendships with mermaids on your island.

Befriend a dolphin.

As a teen, sneak out every night to visit the mainland and mingle with regular sims.

Meet a regular teen sim who you introduce yourself to, but do not build any friendship or relationship. Leave immediately after you meet them.

Return home and lose friendship with your father - don't enter the red, but have no green left.

Runaway from home and meet the mermaid from your childhood.

This mermaid will help you become a regular sim and find the teen you met before.

Only use romantic interactions with your crush, no friendly/funny interactions.

Discover the mermaid who helped you flirting with your love interest. Lose all friendship with them.

When you have a full romance bar with your love interest, only then can you kiss them, and after this, you can start using friendly interactions. 

Rebuild a relationship with your father.

Stay human, get married and have one daughter (Belle).

Complete at least two collections - ideally at least one from Island Living.

Master singing skill while still a mermaid.

Master fitness skill but only ever by swimming.

Complete The Curator aspiration.

Traits: Socially Awkward, Child of the Ocean, Clumsy Aspiration: The Curator

Generation 5 - Belle

Optional Prologue (child): Ariel must die when Belle is a child. Belle and her father move to a small town and he must focus on robotics. Belle mustn't have any friends growing up. She should spend her time with her father and reading books. There is an attractive teen, Gaston, in the small town who has a crush on Belle, but she has no interest in him and she always rejects his advances.

  Requirements: 

On your YA birthday, your father unintentionally runs into a rampaging werewolf.

You must move in with the werewolf in their castle, leaving your father alone.

Have a fully negative (-100) relationship with the werewolf.

You can never leave the castle.

Befriend the maid and butler, and have no friendships outside of the castle.

Slowly build a friendship with the werewolf.

Only when the friendship bar is in the green can you start looking for a cure for the werewolf.

Start romancing when you are friends, but do not kiss or woohoo.

When you and the werewolf are lovebirds, Gaston visits and he must fight the werewolf.

Only after the werewolf beats Gaston in a fight can they take the cure and become a regular sim.

Have your first kiss with your lover now they aren't a werewolf anymore.

Marry your lover, have one daughter (Jasmine), and have your father move into the castle with you all.

Have a perfect quality rose bush.

Write books either as a freelance author or as a hobby, but do not join the writer career.

Master writing and research and debate skills.

Complete Bestselling Author aspiration.

Traits: Bookworm, Loyal, Genius Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Generation 6 - Jasmine

Optional Prologue (child):  Belle must die when Jasmine is a child. Jasmine's father is still scared of the outside world because of his past, so should keep Jasmine locked in the castle for her safety. When Jasmine's elderly grandfather dies, Jasmine's father is left alone to raise her. He must enlist the help of an adult spellcaster, Jafar, to help him look after Jasmine.

Requirements:

Have no friendships outside of your family. Your best friend is your ginger tabby cat.

Go on blind dates that your father arranges, and always end them by making the other sim angry.

Sneak out in a disguise to a community lot and befriend a poor sim with the kleptomaniac trait.

Go on a date with them the next day, who is now dressed entirely differently in fancy clothes.

End the date with a kiss.

Jafar finds you the next day and traps you in a room with your father. (Jasmine is now temporarily unplayable)

Your lover arrives with a friend who is a spellcaster, who must duel and defeat Jafar. (When Jafar is defeated, Jasmine is playable again)

Marry your lover as a YA and stop living as royalty. Move to the forest and live off the grid with at least two other YAs who have one baby.

Have one daughter (Pocahontas).

Master charisma and mischief skills.

Complete Chief of Mischief aspiration.

Traits: Hot-Headed, Self-Assured, High Maintenance Aspiration: Chief of Mischief 

Generation 7 - Pocahontas

Optional Prologue (infant): Jasmine must die when Pocahontas is an infant. Pocahontas should be raised by her father and the tribe they all live with. There is a young boy who is a similar age to Pocahontas. The two must grow up as best friends.  

Requirements:

As a teen, get engaged to your childhood best friend, but never kiss or woohoo them, and have zero romance - you can cheat this up to get engaged, but then remove all romance after.

Befriend a stranger in the forest who is completely opposite to you, in  both appearance and personality.

Quickly build a friendship and romance with the stranger, but do not kiss or woohoo.

Your tribe must hate the stranger's family, so continue your relationship in secret.

Get caught with the stranger, so your fiance fights them.

End your romantic relationship with the stranger and never have contact with them again.

Break off your engagement with your childhood friend

As a YA, fall in love with an adult sim who is a retired soldier.

Move in with them and their mother.

Get married and have one daughter (Mulan).

Live off the grid your whole life until you move out and get married.

Master painting, gardening and fishing skills.

Complete Angling Ace aspiration.

Traits: Love the Outdoors, Ambitious, Green Fiend Aspiration: Angling Ace

Generation 8 - Mulan

Optional Prologue (child): Mulan never has any interest in tradition or expectations. She grows up very active and playful, and never has any romantic relationships as a teen. Mulan has a strict relationship with her mother, who wants her to be more 'normal', but has a stronger and closer relationship with her father.

Requirements: 

As a YA, completely change your appearance and move out of your family world.

Move in with a group of men, who are all in the military, and join the military yourself.

Befriend all of the men, and develop a crush on the leader of the group.

Constantly try and prove yourself by pushing the limits and becoming the strongest soldier in your household.

Fight your enemy who is in a rival household and win. After this fight, you must change your appearance back to how it was before.

Have an argument with the leader, who kicks you out of the household. You must return home to your family.

Sneak out one night to see your friends, and find them with the rival group. Fight and defeat all of the rivals, ending with your enemy.

Move back into the household with your soldier friends, who have accepted you back for saving them.

Fall in love with the leader and both quit your jobs in the military.

Marry your lover and have one daughter (Tiana).

Max your body muscles using the training bot machine.

Master fitness and wellness skills.

Complete Bodybuilder aspiration.

Traits: Active, Loyal, Bro Aspiration: Bodybuilder

Generation 9 - Tiana

Optional Prologue (child): Tiana should have a very close relationship with her father growing up. After leaving the military, he wants to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant, so he should join the culinary career. Before he can reach level 5 of this career, he must quit and instead join the military again and die. Tiana should be left to be raised by her mother, Mulan, who is poor since she and her husband left the military.

Requirements:

Cook with your father as often as possible before he dies.

As a teen, join the barista part-time career.

Have a childhood best friend who is rich and very different to you, but stay close your whole life.

At a costume party dressed as a princess, meet a royal sim who has been cursed with the curse of repulsiveness. You are now also cursed.

Befriend an old female spellcaster and a musician in a bayou/forest.

Befriend and romance the other cursed sim.

Visit Selvadorada with the cursed sim and explore the jungle.

Only when your romance and friendship is full can both of your curses be lifted.

The spellcaster officiates your wedding.

Open a restaurant using your new partner's wealth.

Have your restaurant reach at least four stars.

Become royal and move into your partner's castle and have one daughter (Rapunzel).

Master cooking and gourmet cooking skills.

Complete Master Chef aspiration.

Traits: Foodie, Ambitious, Overachiever Aspiration: Master Chef

Generation 10 - Rapunzel 

Optional Prologue (infant): Because of her parents' curse and connection to magic, Rapunzel is born with powers and long golden hair. An old lady kidnaps Rapunzel when she is an infant, running away to a locked tower, hidden away from Tiana's castle. The old lady, Gothel, is immediately young again, and will always stay this way when she is around Rapunzel.

Requirements:

Never go to school or work, and never leave the confines of the tower.

Have no relationships with anyone except Gothel, and this must be negative.

Have long blonde hair your whole life.

Spend your time playing guitar, painting, baking, singing, gardening, playing chess - anything to pass the time!

On your YA birthday, when Gothel is at work, a stranger makes their way into your tower. Quickly befriend the stranger and escape with them to the woods and eventually the town.

Make lots of friends along the way, and slowly build a romance with the stranger, but not kissing or woohooing.

Get found by Gothel, and both of you are trapped back in the tower.

Gothel kills your lover, but you are able to bring them back with a death flower which you have grown.

When your lover is brought back to life, you must immediately change your appearance to have short brown hair.

Gothel instantly becomes an elder and dies of old age - you will probably want to cheat this!

Move back to your family castle with your lover, meeting your parents again for the first time.

Marry your lover and have two daughters, close in age (Elsa and Anna).

Master guitar, painting, baking and singing skills.

Complete Renaissance Sim aspiration.

Traits: Creative, Paranoid, Cheerful Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Generation 11 - Elsa and Anna

Optional Prologue (children):

Elsa inherits her mother's magical abilities and is born a spellcaster. Anna has no abilities, but the girls still have a strong relationship. The girls' parents are worried about Elsa's abilities after Anna gets hurt one day. They lock Elsa in her bedroom and Anna isn't allowed in. When the girls are teenagers, their parents both die.

Requirements: 

Elsa (E) and Anna (A) must never have any friends or relationships growing up. They have zero relationship with each other. Neither girl can attend school.

(A) when you become a YA, meet a stranger and instantly become friends and start romancing. Get engaged on the same day.

(E) throw a party honouring your new job and invite Anna's new fiance.

(E) argue with Anna about her engagement and run away to the mountains in Mt. Komorebi.

(A) befriend a stranger in Mt. Komorebi while looking for your sister.

(E) freeze your sister when she finds you (chillio spell). While Anna is frozen, her fiance arrives and argues with Elsa. Elsa is trapped in a basement by Anna's fiance.

(A) return home after thawing and let Elsa out. Rebuild your friendship and become best friends.

(A) breakup and fight with your fiance. Start romancing the stranger from Mt. Komorebi.

(E) stay living in the castle and make friends with people in the world.

(A) marry your new lover and move in with their elderly mother and family in Sulani.

(A) have one daughter (Moana).

(E) master singing skill and learn all the untamed spells.

(E) complete Inner Peace aspiration, but only after becoming best friends with your sister.

(A) master charisma and comedy skills.

(A) complete Friend of the World aspiration.

Traits (Elsa): Loner, Proper, Erratic Aspiration (Elsa): Inner Peace Traits (Anna): Goofball, Outgoing, Family-Oriented Aspiration (Anna): Friend of the World

Generation 12 - Moana

Optional Prologue (toddler):  Moana grows up in Sulani with her whole family. She loves the water and is closest to her grandmother, more than her own parents. The island is filthy and destroyed by environmental changes. Moana vows to make a change when she is older, but her parents think she should focus on the family and the land they live on. Moana's grandmother agrees that she should go off and follow her dream, but she dies when Moana is a teen.

Requirements: 

As a teen, leave your family to clean Sulani. Have no contact with them until the island is saved.

Meet a YA man on the island, but have a negative relationship to begin with. 

Work together with the man to clean Sulani, and turn your negative relationship into a completely positive one.

Join the conservationist career.

Become best friends with the man.

Find The Heart of Sulani (treasure collectible).

When the island is clean and you are at level 5 of your career, return home to your family and live off the grid.

When you reach level 5 of the conservationist career, quit and join the civil designer career (green tech branch).

Influence your neighbours to always vote and live in a green neighbourhood.

Master logic and fitness skills.

Complete Eco Innovator aspiration.

Traits: Child of the Islands, Child of the Ocean, Adventurous Aspiration: Eco Innovator

[jjaybrown4-blog]

Disney Princess challenge by GinovaSims

A twelve generation legacy challenge based on the current thirteen Disney Princesses. Each generation will have a different set of goals and requirements before the new heir takes over.  Disclosure: I know there are other Disney Princess Challenges out there, but I wanted to create my own which I feel fit the films more and flowed nicely between each princess and generation. I’ve tried my best to add as many game features as I can to match their stories, but a lot of it may be down to your own storytelling. Some details have been left out because I don’t want the challenge to be too strict, or all our games would be the exact same! Feel free to adjust any rules as you see fit for your stories, it’s supposed to be fun. Tell your own stories and add your own elements, but my rules should hopefully help guide you. 

As you may know with a lot of the older princess films, the mothers often die when the princess is quite young. I know a lot of people hate the idea of their sims dying, so if you would like to forgo this rule, that is fine! I would instead recommend moving the mother out of the household and having no contact with them again.

Every generation has a prologue and then a set of rules. The prologues are there to establish the generations, and typically require more storytelling and gameplay with family members. You can use the prologues in any way you would like to set up your princesses’ stories. The requirements are for when the main part of their stories would begin.  

Rules:

Aging must be turned on, but you can have it at any length you wish.

Each goal must be met before the new heir takes over, unless specified in the rules.

Despite being ‘princesses’, the heirs don’t have to be female. You can have any gender follow the requirements. Same goes for sexuality and romantic partners. You don’t have to strictly follow the films in this sense unless you want to.

The Princesses can look as much or as little like their film-selves as you would like. Same for their names.

Mods and custom content can be used to help the story and gameplay.

The generations will offer three traits, you do not need the heir to have all three traits, but they MUST have at least TWO of them.

If you do not have all of the packs required to complete the requirements for each generation, either find a similar alternative or skip that rule.

If you do this challenge, please credit me (@ginovasims).

(OPTIONAL) Use the hashtag #GiPrincessChallenge on tweets, posts, and videos.

Thank yous:

Once again there are some lovely simmers I would like to thank for helping me with this challenge!

@SimBexBlue - you inspired me to start writing my own version of the challenge after I started watching your LP on YouTube! You have been there in DMs from the start and giving me feedback and ideas, and you’ve always been so enthusiastic and keen.

@Jackiester626 - your notes and feedback for each generation were so detailed and helpful and honestly really inspiring! You put in a lot of effort to help me out and it’s very appreciated.

@nicolesulsul - you sent me some excellent additions for the challenge which helped pad out the generations and make them more like the films. Your interest in the challenge has always been so encouraging! WATCH HERE I posted a video talking about this new challenge and created all thirteen princesses based on their original animation film-selves! You can also download my versions of the Disney Princesses for FREE on my patreon HERE.

——————————————————————————————————— THE GENERATIONS

Generation 1 - Snow White

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow’s mother dies when Snow is a child. Her father should remarry a jealous/evil woman. When Snow becomes a teenager, her father must die so that Snow is left with only her stepmother to raise her.

Requirements:

Have an awful relationship with your stepmother who makes you do all the cooking and housework.

Never leave your home neighbourhood. 

Meet a teen sim in your neighbourhood who you build a friendship and romance with, but never kiss/woohoo.

Move into a cottage as a YA, and have no social interaction with anyone (including no contact with stepmother or boyfriend/girlfriend). This includes never answering the door to strangers.

Adopt seven toddlers (dwarves) in one go.

Give the children traits that match their dwarf persona (i.e. happy = cheerful, sleepy = lazy etc.).

Never eat apples or anything to do with apples.

When the dwarves are teens, you can finally meet your partner again. (If you would like, you can have them rescue you from your stepmother who visited your cottage)

Get married and move into your lover’s castle.

Have one daughter (Cinderella).

Master parenting and baking skills.

Complete Big Happy Family aspiration.

Traits: Cheerful, Loves Outdoors, Good

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Generation 2 - Cinderella

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow White dies when Cinderella is a child. Cinderella’s father should remarry an older lady who already has two daughters. Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters hate her and are always mean to her when her father isn’t around. As if history repeats itself, Cinderella’s father must die when she is a teenager, leaving Cinderella to be raised by her stepmother who hates her.

Requirements: 

Must live in the attic and do all the housework and care for the animals.

Have completely negative relationships with your stepmother and stepsisters.

Knit and wear your own clothes.

Never leave the home lot.

As a YA, you must sneak off to the magic realm in the middle of the night and meet all the sages and another powerful (but evil) spellcaster.

Befriend all four spellcasters - this is important for the next generation.

Attend a party off your home lot, disguised so your family doesn’t recognise you - they must also be guests.

Meet and fall in love with someone at the party, but you must be home before midnight.

You must wait for the person you met at the party to knock on your door at home before you can run away from your family.

Get married and have one daughter (Aurora).

Master cooking, knitting and cross-stitch skills before being rescued by your lover.

Complete Soulmate aspiration.

Traits: Romantic, Neat, Animal Enthusiast  Aspiration: Soulmate

Generation 3 - Aurora

Optional Prologue (infant): Cinderella must throw a baby shower when Aurora is born, inviting the three sages, but not the fourth ‘evil’ spellcaster. Cinderella and the spellcaster must lose all relationship. Cinderella must send infant Aurora to live with the three sages in Glimmerbrook to protect her from the other spellcaster.

Requirements: 

Have no contact or relationship with anyone except the three sages. This includes your parents.

Meet a mersim as a teen in the Glimmerbrook forest. Fall in love with them but never kiss/woohoo, and they can never visit your home.

Never leave Glimmerbrook until your YA birthday.

As a YA, meet with the ‘evil’ spellcaster. She drains you of all energy and traps you in the attic of your family home. (Aurora is now unplayable until the curse is lifted)

Each spellcaster must defeat the spellcaster in a duel, and at least two of them must win.

Sages must find your lover naturally and they are the only one who can break the curse. Aurora is playable again. (The lover must either be found by searching the worlds/neighbourhoods, or they can arrive without being invited. You cannot call them over, or directly visit their home lot)

Marry your lover and move to Sulani.

Become a mermaid.

Have seven mermaid daughters, close in age, the last one being Ariel. (You may need to live separately from your lover as the household limit will be maxed with seven children)

Master singing and dancing skills.

Complete Beach Life aspiration, but you can only start working on it when you become a mermaid.

Traits: Loner, Family-oriented, Lazy Aspiration: Beach Life

Generation 4 - Ariel

Optional Prologue (infant): Aurora must die when Ariel becomes an infant, leaving Ariel’s father to raise his daughters alone. He must befriend another mermaid who will help with all the children. When Ariel becomes a child, her father must cut ties with this mermaid and not allow the children any contact with her.

  Requirements:

Live on the small island in Sulani.

Only have friendships with mermaids on your island.

Befriend a dolphin.

As a teen, sneak out every night to visit the mainland and mingle with regular sims.

Meet a regular teen sim who you introduce yourself to, but do not build any friendship or relationship. Leave immediately after you meet them.

Return home and lose friendship with your father - don’t enter the red, but have no green left.

Runaway from home and meet the mermaid from your childhood.

This mermaid will help you become a regular sim and find the teen you met before.

Only use romantic interactions with your crush, no friendly/funny interactions.

Discover the mermaid who helped you flirting with your love interest. Lose all friendship with them.

When you have a full romance bar with your love interest, only then can you kiss them, and after this, you can start using friendly interactions. 

Rebuild a relationship with your father.

Stay human, get married and have one daughter (Belle).

Complete at least two collections - ideally at least one from Island Living.

Master singing skill while still a mermaid.

Master fitness skill but only ever by swimming.

Complete The Curator aspiration.

Traits: Socially Awkward, Child of the Ocean, Clumsy

Aspiration: The Curator

Generation 5 - Belle

Optional Prologue (child): Ariel must die when Belle is a child. Belle and her father move to a small town and he must focus on robotics. Belle mustn’t have any friends growing up. She should spend her time with her father and reading books. There is an attractive teen, Gaston, in the small town who has a crush on Belle, but she has no interest in him and she always rejects his advances.

  Requirements: 

On your YA birthday, your father unintentionally runs into a rampaging werewolf.

You must move in with the werewolf in their castle, leaving your father alone.

Have a fully negative (-100) relationship with the werewolf.

You can never leave the castle.

Befriend the maid and butler, and have no friendships outside of the castle.

Slowly build a friendship with the werewolf.

Only when the friendship bar is in the green can you start looking for a cure for the werewolf.

Start romancing when you are friends, but do not kiss or woohoo.

When you and the werewolf are lovebirds, Gaston visits and he must fight the werewolf.

Only after the werewolf beats Gaston in a fight can they take the cure and become a regular sim.

Have your first kiss with your lover now they aren’t a werewolf anymore.

Marry your lover, have one daughter (Jasmine), and have your father move into the castle with you all.

Have a perfect quality rose bush.

Write books either as a freelance author or as a hobby, but do not join the writer career.

Master writing and research and debate skills.

Complete Bestselling Author aspiration.

Traits: Bookworm, Loyal, Genius

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Generation 6 - Jasmine

Optional Prologue (child):  Belle must die when Jasmine is a child. Jasmine’s father is still scared of the outside world because of his past, so should keep Jasmine locked in the castle for her safety. When Jasmine’s elderly grandfather dies, Jasmine’s father is left alone to raise her. He must enlist the help of an adult spellcaster, Jafar, to help him look after Jasmine.  

Requirements:

Have no friendships outside of your family. Your best friend is your ginger tabby cat.

Go on blind dates that your father arranges, and always end them by making the other sim angry.

Sneak out in a disguise to a community lot and befriend a poor sim with the kleptomaniac trait.

Go on a date with them the next day, who is now dressed entirely differently in fancy clothes.

End the date with a kiss.

Jafar finds you the next day and traps you in a room with your father. (Jasmine is now temporarily unplayable)

Your lover arrives with a friend who is a spellcaster, who must duel and defeat Jafar. (When Jafar is defeated, Jasmine is playable again)

Marry your lover as a YA and stop living as royalty. Move to the forest and live off the grid with at least two other YAs who have one baby.

Have one daughter (Pocahontas).

Master charisma and mischief skills.

Complete Chief of Mischief aspiration.

Traits: Hot-Headed, Self-Assured, High Maintenance

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief 

Generation 7 - Pocahontas

Optional Prologue (infant): Jasmine must die when Pocahontas is an infant. Pocahontas should be raised by her father and the tribe they all live with. There is a young boy who is a similar age to Pocahontas. The two must grow up as best friends.  

Requirements:

As a teen, get engaged to your childhood best friend, but never kiss or woohoo them, and have zero romance - you can cheat this up to get engaged, but then remove all romance after.

Befriend a stranger in the forest who is completely opposite to you, in  both appearance and personality.

Quickly build a friendship and romance with the stranger, but do not kiss or woohoo.

Your tribe must hate the stranger’s family, so continue your relationship in secret.

Get caught with the stranger, so your fiance fights them.

End your romantic relationship with the stranger and never have contact with them again.

Break off your engagement with your childhood friend

As a YA, fall in love with an adult sim who is a retired soldier.

Move in with them and their mother.

Get married and have one daughter (Mulan).

Live off the grid your whole life until you move out and get married.

Master painting, gardening and fishing skills.

Complete Angling Ace aspiration.

Traits: Love the Outdoors, Ambitious, Green Fiend

Aspiration: Angling Ace

Generation 8 - Mulan

Optional Prologue (child): Mulan never has any interest in tradition or expectations. She grows up very active and playful, and never has any romantic relationships as a teen. Mulan has a strict relationship with her mother, who wants her to be more ‘normal’,  but has a stronger and closer relationship with her father.  

Requirements: 

As a YA, completely change your appearance and move out of your family world.

Move in with a group of men, who are all in the military, and join the military yourself.

Befriend all of the men, and develop a crush on the leader of the group.

Constantly try and prove yourself by pushing the limits and becoming the strongest soldier in your household.

Fight your enemy who is in a rival household and win. After this fight, you must change your appearance back to how it was before.

Have an argument with the leader, who kicks you out of the household. You must return home to your family.

Sneak out one night to see your friends, and find them with the rival group. Fight and defeat all of the rivals, ending with your enemy.

Move back into the household with your soldier friends, who have accepted you back for saving them.

Fall in love with the leader and both quit your jobs in the military.

Marry your lover and have one daughter (Tiana).

Max your body muscles using the training bot machine.

Master fitness and wellness skills.

Complete Bodybuilder aspiration.

Traits: Active, Loyal, BroAspiration: Bodybuilder

Generation 9 - Tiana

Optional Prologue (child): Tiana should have a very close relationship with her father growing up. After leaving the military, he wants to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant, so he should join the culinary career. Before he can reach level 5 of this career, he must quit and instead join the military again and die. Tiana should be left to be raised by her mother, Mulan, who is poor since she and her husband left the military.  

Requirements:

Cook with your father as often as possible before he dies.

As a teen, join the barista part-time career.

Have a childhood best friend who is rich and very different to you, but stay close your whole life.

At a costume party dressed as a princess, meet a royal sim who has been cursed with the curse of repulsiveness. You are now also cursed.

Befriend an old female spellcaster and a musician in a bayou/forest.

Befriend and romance the other cursed sim.

Visit Selvadorada with the cursed sim and explore the jungle.

Only when your romance and friendship is full can both of your curses be lifted.

The spellcaster officiates your wedding.

Open a restaurant using your new partner’s wealth.

Have your restaurant reach at least four stars.

Become royal and move into your partner’s castle and have one daughter (Rapunzel).

Master cooking and gourmet cooking skills.

Complete Master Chef aspiration.

Traits: Foodie, Ambitious, Overachiever

Aspiration: Master Chef

Generation 10 - Rapunzel 

Optional Prologue (infant): Because of her parents’ curse and connection to magic, Rapunzel is born with powers and long golden hair. An old lady kidnaps Rapunzel when she is an infant, running away to a locked tower, hidden away from Tiana’s castle. The old lady, Gothel, is immediately young again, and will always stay this way when she is around Rapunzel.  

Requirements:

Never go to school or work, and never leave the confines of the tower.

Have no relationships with anyone except Gothel, and this must be negative.

Have long blonde hair your whole life.

Spend your time playing guitar, painting, baking, singing, gardening, playing chess - anything to pass the time!

On your YA birthday, when Gothel is at work, a stranger makes their way into your tower. Quickly befriend the stranger and escape with them to the woods and eventually the town.

Make lots of friends along the way, and slowly build a romance with the stranger, but not kissing or woohooing.

Get found by Gothel, and both of you are trapped back in the tower.

Gothel kills your lover, but you are able to bring them back with a death flower which you have grown.

When your lover is brought back to life, you must immediately change your appearance to have short brown hair.

Gothel instantly becomes an elder and dies of old age - you will probably want to cheat this!

Move back to your family castle with your lover, meeting your parents again for the first time.

Marry your lover and have two daughters, close in age (Elsa and Anna).

Master guitar, painting, baking and singing skills.

Complete Renaissance Sim aspiration.

Traits: Creative, Paranoid, Cheerful

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Generation 11 - Elsa and Anna

Optional Prologue (children):

Elsa inherits her mother’s magical abilities and is born a spellcaster. Anna has no abilities, but the girls still have a strong relationship. The girls’ parents are worried about Elsa’s abilities after Anna gets hurt one day. They lock Elsa in her bedroom and Anna isn’t allowed in. When the girls are teenagers, their parents both die.   

Requirements: 

Elsa (E) and Anna (A) must never have any friends or relationships growing up. They have zero relationship with each other. Neither girl can attend school.

(A) when you become a YA, meet a stranger and instantly become friends and start romancing. Get engaged on the same day.

(E) throw a party honouring your new job and invite Anna’s new fiance.

(E) argue with Anna about her engagement and run away to the mountains in Mt. Komorebi.

(A) befriend a stranger in Mt. Komorebi while looking for your sister.

(E) freeze your sister when she finds you (chillio spell). While Anna is frozen, her fiance arrives and argues with Elsa. Elsa is trapped in a basement by Anna’s fiance.

(A) return home after thawing and let Elsa out. Rebuild your friendship and become best friends.

(A) breakup and fight with your fiance. Start romancing the stranger from Mt. Komorebi.

(E) stay living in the castle and make friends with people in the world.

(A) marry your new lover and move in with their elderly mother and family in Sulani.

(A) have one daughter (Moana).

(E) master singing skill and learn all the untamed spells.

(E) complete Inner Peace aspiration, but only after becoming best friends with your sister.

(A) master charisma and comedy skills.

(A) complete Friend of the World aspiration.

Traits (Elsa): Loner, Proper, Erratic

Aspiration (Elsa): Inner Peace

Traits (Anna): Goofball, Outgoing, Family-Oriented

Aspiration (Anna): Friend of the World

Generation 12 - Moana

Optional Prologue (toddler):  Moana grows up in Sulani with her whole family. She loves the water and is closest to her grandmother, more than her own parents. The island is filthy and destroyed by environmental changes. Moana vows to make a change when she is older, but her parents think she should focus on the family and the land they live on. Moana’s grandmother agrees that she should go off and follow her dream, but she dies when Moana is a teen.

Requirements: 

As a teen, leave your family to clean Sulani. Have no contact with them until the island is saved.

Meet a YA man on the island, but have a negative relationship to begin with. 

Work together with the man to clean Sulani, and turn your negative relationship into a completely positive one.

Join the conservationist career.

Become best friends with the man.

Find The Heart of Sulani (treasure collectible).

When the island is clean and you are at level 5 of your career, return home to your family and live off the grid.

When you reach level 5 of the conservationist career, quit and join the civil designer career (green tech branch).

Influence your neighbours to always vote and live in a green neighbourhood.

Master logic and fitness skills.

Complete Eco Innovator aspiration.

Traits: Child of the Islands, Child of the Ocean, Adventurous

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

[tastydregs]

Prompt-Based Automated Data Labeling and Annotation

Generate your large training dataset in just less than an hour!

What is the problem statement?

80% of the time goes in data preparation ……blah blah….

garbage in garbage out for AI model accuracy…..blah blah……..

In short, the whole data preparation workflow is a pain, with different parts managed or owned by different teams or people distributed across different geographies depending upon the company size and data compliances required.

If you have landed here, I assume you already know the problem. if you still haven’t understood the problem, you can read the below section otherwise, feel free to skip the below section

More detailing on the problem

Most of the teams are collecting and just dumping the data into their cloud without even a plan to analyze it due to various obvious and unobvious reasons. They are not aware of what is in the data and do not have strategies in place for what to do with it. Data can reveal insights into what your customers want!

Even if they know what's in the data on a high level, it is not enough to identify a business use case or a monetization opportunity. A very strong leadership intent is required to invest time in such an effort as it takes weeks to months just to uncover basic patterns in the data, which is potentially at least a few 1000 US dollars… and that too for a version 1 analysis.

Once a list of potential use cases is identified, it takes months to just finalize what use case to pursue. for e.g., if a manufacturing or logistics company is collecting recording data from CCTV across its manufacturing hubs and warehouses, there could be a potentially a good number of use cases ranging from workforce safety, visual inspection automation, etc. Because you need to invest in building a POC or hire a very, very expensive expert who has already done that, but still, the experience might not suffice. 99% of consultants will rather ask you to actually execute these POCs.

By this time, it's already months or years of efforts that have gone by without concrete results where AI is working at scale with its impact driving the bottom or top line. Management or leadership becomes impatient, and it becomes harder to convince for more budgets since time is running out.

Let's assume you finally pick 1–3 use cases to pursue further on a large scale. The first challenge is to prepare the data as in selecting it out of a huge pile of redundant data such that highly accurate models can be trained while ensuring selecting only the data that matters to the model accuracy improvement. Because selecting it judicially reduces the data movement, data processing computation, and data labeling costs downstream

Then once the data is collected, synchronized, and selected, it needs to be labeled, which, again, no one from the AI team wants to do. Nothing in the world motivates a team of ML engineers and scientists to spend the required amount of time in data annotation and labeling. There are a lot more complexities at this stage. if it needs to be outsourced, it will take its own time trying and managing different vendors, managing tasks and collating the data, reading the progress and ensuring data annotation quality, etc. You can read a very famous publication by the Google research team titled “Everyone wants to do the model work, not the data work”.

Even post, this data needs to be collated in such a way that it is easy to consume inside the AI ML training engine such as AWS Sagemaker, GCP vertex AI, Azure ML, or even Jupyter Notebook on your VMs, etc.

There are a lot more, and I can go on and on …… I would be happy to connect with you about what sets of challenges you experienced in your workflow for your problem statements.

Now if you see, it's a complete workflow optimization challenge centered around the ability to execute data-related operations 10x faster.

Within this data, annotation and its quality is the messiest part of the problem. and this article is focused on discussion around the same below.

You must have heard about the recent disruptions around GPT and ChatGPT, where users can interact with the system in the form of prompts. for eg, I can ask DALLE-2 to generate new images for me with some simple text prompts. for this, you can read the famous article by one of my friends, Ritika

Understand the tech: Stable diffusion vs GPT-3 vs Dall-E

There is another foundation model SAM by Meta AI, where I can send a cursor prompt on an image, and the model will segment that area of the object. etc. You can read this article mentioned below.

SAM from Meta AI — the chatGPT moment for computer vision AI

In a way, prompt-based interfaces are the new generation of interfaces. It's a new need now. We asked ourselves, what if we leverage the zero-shot capability of LLMs, or large foundation models and our own proprietary algorithms fine-tuning auto labeling layer?

By putting this in a mixture and we end up creating a Simple interface as below where

You just connect your thousands of images and videos, provide a set of labels as prompts that you want to label or annotate, and just hit Submit button.

Within a few moments, the system will generate the results for you. Now in the case of Chatgpt, it even gives you wrong facts very confidently, which is the very limitation. But here system will flag the results for you where the system is confident and where it needs your attention.

Finally, as a user, you can select the confident images and other not-confident but accurate ones to feed to your model in the format required with just a click. Or you can choose to fine-tune your labels with your model or our label-tuning premium capability or still at last, you can choose to outsource the last bit of very rigid subjective images and labels, which are still hard for automation sort of very unknown edgy subjective edge cases.

So what’s the benefit you got with this finally?

You don’t need to outsource all and only outsource the very subjective edgy cases etc.

Your time spent is hardly hours and not months, i.e., 90%+ lesser time.

1 single team member could run the labeling workflow instead of a team, and so it reduces the costs and complexity, making team members' life easier through a very simple interface

We cut through the noise and hype around large foundation models and abstracted that out to you with a click and prompt-based interface. you could make the true max potential of this hype.

Most importantly, you don't need to do all of the data-related workflows in Jupyter Notebooks or write API integrations.

My final question to you!

Do you feel that data preparation and AI development will be 11x more fun with the prompt-based interfaces?

Isn’t it a direction of Jarvis like capabilities for data preparation!

I would like to share what I think of it. Let’s connect over Linkedin as I write interesting and new aspects in computer vision data preparation, data ops, data pipelines, etc., and I am happy to chat on the same. Only technical deep dive!

Prompt-Based Automated Data Labeling and Annotation was originally published in Towards AI on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

[insertdisc5]

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

[jschlattsbabydoll]

Ocean Away Part 2 (Chishiya Shuntaro x Reader)

A/N: Hi! How are you? 

Sorry for the delays for part 2. But here you are 😊

I’m sorry if the story felt rushed, but I would be editing the story once it has been finished for a more detailed version of the story.

Thank you so much for the support for part 1. The notes on this one is amazing currently at 119 notes…. Thank you so much! Hopefully part 2 won’t disappoint.

And I want to tag @eggbutnotyolk and @kaiorik​ , Thank you for commenting and the support! <3

I won’t take so much of the space here.

Please enjoy part 2! :)

 -----+------

“Far away, an ocean away. Where I won’t let you hurt me again.” – Loreen, Ocean Away.

------+-------

 “Don’t leave me.”

 “I won’t.”, You lied.

  Around 12 noon, you awoke from your bed. You around your room to see a note on the bedside cabinet,

“I will be meeting up with Kuina for just a bit.” – Chishiya. 

Then suddenly memories of last night came rushing back on your mind…

You’ll be leaving Chishiya.

Suddenly tears fell down your body, with the memories of last night, your talk with your uncles and after that with him… It was so fucked up on how much you doubt your plan right now. Is this how he can easily manipulate you into thinking things? 

Every night that you two have been together, his body is so warm that you love being with him, but the feelings he portrays, they lack emotions, it was so cold that she would give so much time and space. She would always wait for him to come to her instead.

The game that he plays is dangerous. He is willing to give up everything, even her.

*Flashback*

“Chishiya! Help me! I’m drowning!” you looked at the man you loved the most, he looked back with the coldest eyes that you have ever seen, then he took off.

You screamed loudly for his name, but he didn’t come back.

“Y/N!!!” you heard someone scream your name, hoping that it was Chishiya that he might just went and took some back up.

As you slowly went down, you felt someone pull you from the water, as you were place on land, you coughed hard and tears started to form from your eyes, it suddenly hurt to breathe in and out, but you needed to breathe.

You quickly look at the person who saved you. It was Arisu.

“Arisu…” You said as you slowly started to cry, you couldn’t even form any sentence right now with the outburst of feelings that you have inside, “I.. I thought… I… No…Chishiya… Why?” you tried to speak, as you looked into Arisu’s eyes for answers. You suddenly grabbed Arisu’s sleeves for support. You saw in his eyes that he was worried and pained with the panicked and crying form that you are in.

“Why?! Arisu… Arisu….? Chishiya… left me….”  You continue to break down, you let go of Arisu’s sleeve and you placed both hands on your face.

Arisu suddenly hugged you, “I’m sorry… This is all I could offer you.”

The sadness, dread, disappointment, and the pain are now mixing all in together. Now all you could think of is wishing that you died than suffering under Chishiya’s side.

 “why?” you said through tears with the only answer is pure silence.

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 “HATTER! HATTER! HATTER!” Everyone screamed and cheered their leader, who was leaving for a game with Aguni and you. Your uncle waved from the back seat and smiled at everybody for their immense support, 

While your Uncle Aguni drove the car, you sat on the passenger seat. While the car is slowly leaving the Beach’s premises. You through the crowd and saw him. 

He looked at you eye to eye, but you removed you eyes from his gaze. You didn’t want to leave him, but staying with him hurt a lot more. 

As your uncle Aguni drove off, you uncle Hatter looked at you, “don’t be sad, my child. I know that the beach has everything you need and can ever ask for this world. But, remember, if you need some space from the people within my walls, you can always go a different location.”

You nodded your head, “Thank you Uncle Hatter and Uncle Aguni.”

“Just a bit of wait. We’ll be out of this country and we can have our lives back.” Aguni said as he took a turn to the arena, a school building. 

“After this game, we will be driving you off to your hiding spot. It would be from the other side of Tokyo near Shibuya… We will keep track of you now and then. You will be joining games from the other side, just let us know what is going on, what games you played and what card you have received.” Hatter has explained, “And just to completely hide your identity from other players, you might need to change your hair color or maybe let you wear a mask.” 

“Anyways, the place that we have chosen is near a mall, but we would still be providing for you as promised once we visit you again.” Aguni added,

“Noted.” You answered, as you got out of the car. You opened the car door for you uncle and helped him out, “Uncle Hatter, having a hard time getting out of the car?”

“I’m almost at my 30’s dear. I’m getting old.” He joked, “Wish I could go back to the simpler days.”

You smiled, “30 is not old uncle. Besides, you are still so full of life.”

As your Uncle Aguni got out of the car, “By the way… I followed your plan.” He said while looking at Hatter, “As dangerous as it sounds, but I told Niragi about the plan.”

Niragi wasn’t a good person. You’ve had some issues with Niragi and his awful behavior. Your uncle Aguni has explained and made it very clear with Niragi that you cannot be touched by him in anyway. You two had a very civil talk once after a game where you saved him from being mauled by a tiger, because he lost bullets from his riffle.

He became honest with his feelings that he didn’t thought that someone would save him.

Later he opened up being bullied in class, being thrown by rocks and there is a point system in it. You would always remember his glasses were 50 points and his crotch area is 100 points. He didn’t have any friends at all and even if people would see him being beaten up, no one came to his aid.

 “I know that you don’t see me as your friend. But hiding from a sadistic silhouette won’t give you happiness. Yes, people are afraid of you, but that doesn’t ease the pain. I know, what they have done in the real world is wrong and un humane. But in the end of the day, you’re just human. We all have scars. And if you keep that inside, you’ll go insane… Actually, you are already. But, don’t go down further, Niragi. If you want someone to let out your outburst inside, I’m here.” 

“Why do you…. Why are you so nice?” he asked,

“I don’t know. But it’s all I can give right now. You deserve it, even if you think you don’t.”

 You kept his secrets, he’s still a douchebag with others after your encounter with him, but he became nice to you ever since. 

Chishiya didn’t like the closeness between you and Niragi. Sometimes, he would interrupt a conversation between you and Niragi.

“Y/n… “ Chishiya said, intervening the conversation you have with Niragi, “Let’s go.” Extending his hands to hold your hand, 

“Interrupting again? You make me angry, Chishiya. “, Niragi said with full annoyance, “Jealous, because your girlfriend is so fond of me?”

“hm….” Chishiya smirked, “I trust her that she won’t fall for someone who’s dumb witted as you.”

Things escalated very quickly, with Niragi pointing his riffle towards Chishiya’s head and Chishiya with his knife on Niragi’s neck,

“I’ll blow your head up, you fucker!” Niragi angrily said,

“Not if I slit your fucking throat.”

“STOP! STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING!” You screamed, “Stop acting so fucking childish!”

They came to their senses and placed down their weapons, Niragi huffed with annoyance, he would have killed Chishiya if you didn’t stop him.

“I’ll go with Chishiya.” You looked towards Niragi, “I’m sorry Niragi. But I’ll talk again with you, okay? “

“Okay.” Niragi said in defeat. You touched his cheeks as a form of goodbye and then you left with Chishiya.

“Niragi knows about the plan?” you asked, looking through your uncle Hatter’s eyes,

“Yes. He’s like a back up that we have. He seems so fond of you, If ever that we can’t go towards your location due to meetings or maybe emergencies, we can secretly asked Niragi’s help.”

“Oh, at least… I have someone to talk to…” you said within you mind,

You started to walk with uncle to face the game that you will be all joining.

Hopefully, no one dies during this game.

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~Time Skip~

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 You three finished the game and was granted 6 days of visa. You all drove off near Shibuya, and they have sent you to your new location. It was a hotel, it was two blocks away from a mall, which can give you supplies for your stay here. 

You Uncle Aguni has handed you a walkie talkie, and tested it with his, Hatter and one of the Walkie for Niragi.

“You sure, you’ll be okay without us, dear?” Hatter asked once more,

You smiled, “Yes… I will be. I can talk to you any time with these walkie talkies. And If ever I’ll just give you a beep.” Then you hugged your uncle Hatter and then your Uncle Aguni.

“I know that you’re just keeping quiet, but you’ll miss me too, Uncle Aguni.” You teased, he smirked,

“Don’t get too cocky…” He said, but then he patted you gently on the head, “I would miss you…Just be careful here kid.”

“I will.” You smiled, after a few minutes, they were gone… Leaving you all alone.

Tears started to fall from your eyes, “I’m sorry, Chishiya…”

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 Everyone cheered on as Hatter and Aguni arrived, they chanted their names.

They went to the balcony and then Hatter raised his hands to stop the noise from the crowd below him.

He removed his sunglasses and he acted devastated���with tears on his eyes, he opened his mouth to speak.

“Thank you… Thank you for being happy that Aguni and I have come safe and sound from the war that we have joined tonight…” he said then stopped, he was now hearing whispers asking on where you are.

“You might have noticed that when we left, we have brought our precious y/n… We have a terrible news to tell… A death of an executive has happened… the death of our sweet child, y/n…”

Everybody went silent shocked to hear that one of the best players have died.

“She sacrificed her life for us… But…” Hatter wiped his fake tears on his face, “We will not let her death go in vain… We promised that we would complete the cards and in the end; we will survive this country and get out of this soon on her behalf. We need you all to fulfill this promise for her not just for her but also for yourselves…”

Unknown to everybody, a person on the floor above the balcony has been watching the whole scene, Chishiya, who has heard the news, ran towards your room. Thinking that this might me a sick joke that Hatter has brought to everybody.

But he was greeted by an empty room.

He tried to search everywhere, but you were gone. 

He stopped looking for you and he went in front of your room door again.

He has mixed feeling about everything, he placed his hand to his chest. He felt a different kind of loneliness inside his chest.

“What would you do If I suddenly got lost or disappeared?” He remembers your question last night.

“This might be some sick joke…” he whispered to himself, “It’s impossible for you to die… not now.” As he was about to leave your door step, he saw Aguni walking towards him,

“Interesting.” He heard Aguni said while walking towards him, “what are you doing here?”

“I was just passing by.” Chishiya kept a straight face, “why did you let her die?”

Aguni smirked, “Caring now, Cheshire? It doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Hm.” Chishiya didn’t speak, but instead let Aguni walk by past him.

When Aguni was already 1 feet away from Chishiya, “Don’t fake it too much…  Isn’t this what you wanted? To see her dead? That’s why you left her in one of the games?”

Chishiya turned around to answer his question, but Aguni was gone.

 “Don’t leave me…”

 “Why?” Chishiya asked to nobody as he remembers you..

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[TBC]

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: May 15th Part 1

It’s been longer than usual since our last answer session, so I’m answering a ton of questions today! It’s so big I split it into two parts. Thank you for the patience on getting a response to these.

Thanks for reaching out to us with your questions and kind words ^^!

Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't something you can say but is there anyway for Cove to confess in step 4? I wanted him to confess in step 3 and followed all the steps to make him do it but ended up texting my family instead of Cove at the end.

Yeah, Cove can confess in Step 4!

Hello! I heard that Cove is on the spectrum, albeit undiagnosed. As someone who is ND, this makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. I literally was brought to tears! Thank you for that!

Out of curiosity, will Cove be diagnosed in Step 4? I have a strong feeling y’all won’t make it a HUGE deal/make it out to be negative, so I’m not worried about that whatsoever! I’m just curious just he’ll off handedly mention it? Or will it just not be touched upon at all (which is ok!)?

Either way is ok, I’m just curious!

I’m happy it made you happy! Admittedly, Cove simply being someone with autism that grew up not being diagnosed was something I included for myself. I didn’t really think anyone would notice or ask about it, aha. But players did start to have questions about his traits, so I started to talk about it outside of the game. It’s great to see it get such a positive response and now I do feel like having it be a non-topic may have been the wrong choice and bringing it up would’ve been good in terms of having positive representation for that. I don’t know if I’ll find a way to mention it in Step 4 now, with how far along the game is, but I am at least thinking about it when originally it wasn’t something I really even considered.

Hey!  Just wanted to say thank you for Our Life.  It's been a bright spot and a needed escape in what's otherwise been a crummy year.  I know you just did a Q&A post but I figured I'd ask anyway.  Was just curious about Step 4.  Will it be similar to the other Steps in that it consists of several different moments or will it just be one long sequence?

Step 4 is shorter than the prior Steps because it’s just an epilogue rather than a full arc of a story. It’ll consist of scenes that all happen in a set row one after the other. There won’t be a collection of Moments to choose from. But it’ll still be very sweet and fun.

¡hola!, you see, first I want to say that I love Our Life! (°◡°♡) and I have 2 important questions, would Cove cry watching titanic? and what is the saddest part according to him? (sorry for my english) 

Titanic would make him cry. He’d probably think the parts showing people who aren’t able to make it to the life boats/are choosing to stay and go down with the ship were the saddest.

Hello, I wanted to ask how much you earn with creating games? Like is it possible to make a living? Thank you >< <3 

How much I earn varies a lot month to month based on Steam sales, Patreon backers, and how many projects are in full production at the time. It’s also hard to say how much I make historically, since that also changes dramatically year by year. But I do earn enough to work on these games full time! I really appreciate all the support that allows me to do that.

Hey!! I was wondering for the 18+ Our Life moment, will there be an emphasis on safety/comfort for all involved? I feel like there  would be just going off of what the rest of the game is like, but I wanted to ask 

Yes! Cove is a nervous boy himself and also super cautious about doing anything the MC doesn’t like, so clear consent from both is absolutely needed for anything to happen. It’s a conversational sexy times Moment with stops/starts so the two can talk about how they’re feeling, rather than a heat of the moment just going for it kind of thing.

Hey!! I was wondering how long the wedding dlc would be? Will it be broken up into moments, or just one big event? 

It’s one long series of scenes all in a row rather than a collection of Moments to pick from. It’s the shortest and the least expensive of all the DLCs. It’s not super crucial to get and those who aren’t into big weddings can totally skip it without worry.

HELLO AMAZING DEVS 👋 i am hopelessly in love with the worst guy ever (jeremy king) and because of this i have a really stupid question: does he really hate people who are nice to him? TvT he’s too cute to be mean to istg it’s a miracle JB held the urge to be consistently nice to him bc just look at his FACE he is so cute! thank you for jeremy’s route it’s so lovely (and awful bc he’s scum 11/10) it gave me so much laughs LMAO i hope you guys have a good day!! 

Haha, thank you. He doesn’t hate them but he’s certainly not pleased with them. Jeremy is either uncomfortable with or annoyed by people being sweet on him, depending on how they approach it. He’s far more comfortable with jerkiness. It lets him relax and he can be himself without it being a problem, since he’s also a jerk. He feels a level of guilt being such a little punk to kind people, not enough to be a better person but still.

Has Cove dated or been interested in someone other than MC? 

Nope! He stays single over the course of the game if he’s not with the MC.

Is Step 4 more mature? Or it's gonna be set in similar atmosphere as Step 3? 

Step 4 is a similar atmosphere as Step 3. Though, it’s actually kind of less mature-topic heavy than Step 3 since it’s just a ‘hey, let’s check in on the gang to see what they’re up to’ style epilogue rather than a story arc with serious issues.

will there be new music for now and forever?? or will the old our life music be reused? 

It’s gonna be a brand new soundtrack. We’ll be opening up a job position for that soon.

Hi, is it okay if we use the assets in Our Life (like the sprites) for fanworks or fan content content, like edits? 

Sure! Just as long as you don’t use the assets made by those artists to make money.

Quick clarification on Step 3 choices: I hope I didn't come off rude (because I LOVE the game, really!!), I was just curious because the intro threw me off at times. For example, you could choose how you felt about Elizabeth in Step 2 (Dinner), but during the Step 3 intro, it says that you got closer to Liz and I didn't get a choice in it. 

For the example, it can’t be helped that you’re closer to Liz in Step 3 than you were in Step 2 because she’s inherently closer to the MC regardless of whether you liked her or not in Step 2. Her feelings are out of your control and the game isn’t so dramatic that you can push her affection away and not let her bond with you, haha. But ‘being closer’ can still be relative. For some people maybe that means you’re best buds now and for others it might just mean you’re not fighting all the time any more. If there’s other parts you want to mention, feel free to let us know.

Did the illustrator for Our Life change? 

We have many OL artists! The main artists who set the game’s style haven’t changed, but there’s multiple other artists who help finish assets.

So Miranda's type is confident and outgoing, huh? So...does that mean Terri's her type?? 👀 

Haha, sorry for the late reply on this. As you might’ve seen in our post yesterday- yeah that is her type.

Hey! First, I just want to say I've really enjoyed how detailed OL got with gender identity and sexuality and how respectful the topics were handled! It's been so wonderful to play since the experiences could be close to my own (I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up at parts). Second, I was wondering, would future games explore the topic of polyamory? I'd love to see more visual novels allow room for that and I saw you've explored the topic before.

Keep up the amazing work! ♡

Thank you! We do want to include polyamory in at least some of our future projects. Floret Bond, which might be what you’re referring to when mentioning how we’ve explored the topic before, is on hold unfortunately. So right now I’m not sure when something might release or what will be the first game of ours to come out with poly relationships (we might do something else before FB is done). We’ll have see how things ends up coming together.

Hey um. I feel like im not allowed to ask this on the private discord cuz people will yell at me but why is there so much focus on OL2 and not finishing OL1 stuff? I like the new people but i kind of want to finish cove's story and get derek and baxter stuff first. didn't people pay for it? 

I’m sorry, I don’t understand entirely what’s making that situation a concern. There’s a channel in the discord for critique where no one is allowed to comment back. People can voice things they’re worried about without any way for others to push back on it. And the two teams working on the OL games are different. We try to post pretty often about how we’re hiring brand new people to start on Our Life: Now & Forever. The OL1 team is all still working on OL1 like normal. There’s only more updates on the Patreon for OL2 because the expansions to the first game are mostly script-based at this point while OL2 is just starting to get all its art, which means there’s a lot more to show off as previews.

Also, there was a Kickstarter for the first Our Life, if that’s what you mean by people paying for it. But one of the stretch goals was to start Our Life 2 early, before fully completing Our Life 1, so that the new game could be out sooner. It wouldn’t make sense to stop doing OL2 work because that would be going against what backers were promised. Maybe you didn’t get the full story before and hopefully this clears it up!

Hello! I know it's up to every player but.. What is your recommendation for playing order? Did you ever had any timeline  events planned? 

I didn’t make the events with a planned timeline. The events got made simply as I had ideas for them and then I just kind of organized them from left to right on the screen in an order to space out more dramatic ones between more lighthearted ones. Any order the player wants to go with is totally valid!

Hi! It's Step 4 a paid dlc or update? And how long it's planned to be? Ps. Love the game! 

The Step 4 epilogue is free! The Cove Wedding DLC does cost money, though. Those are planned to be shorter than the usual Steps/DLCs.

Will we have options for what sort of job the MC might have by the time step 4 takes place? 

Yeah, you can. It’s not super exact or detailed, but there are options about it.

Is there a pandemic in Our Life world, or is it just in a better timeline with no pestilence? 

Our Life is pandemic-free! That didn’t exist when we began working on the project and it’s not something we’d like to feature in this story now that it has unfortunately come along, aha.

Hi, you said that you can play tic-tac-toe or hangman with Cove in Boating if you're sick/scared but I keep getting tic-tac-toe. Am I doing something wrong?

After being sick/scared you have to continue to be upset/unwell. If you calm down and decide to just chill you’ll end up playing tic-tac-toe.

Hi, GB Patch! Since Lee was initially commissioned to only appear in two Steps does this mean she won't appear in the Wedding DLC? I really like her character so it'll be a little weird to not have our cousin at our wedding, aha.

She is gonna be in Step 4/the wedding DLC after all! We’re still working with her creator to make sure it fits with what they wanted.

Is Sunset Bird based on a real place? Asking for a friend, not trying to move there or anything. 👀

It’s based on small beach towns in So-Cal, but not one specific town you could go see in real life, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if it was real, though.

—– —– —– —–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[shoichee]

teiko manager anon back ~ my juicy part 2 will disappoint bc guess what: we're skipping two years into the future. akashi never found out what happened, and by third year the gom were the epitome of cruelty. so reader picks a fight with them after meiko game, only to collapse out of stress after. they graduate, she follows kuroko to seirin and they train to defeat gom. but why is she so insecure and easily sad when gom is mentioned? they get their answer when they catch her overworking

oh teiko anon, so so bold.... really out here stirring the pot of chaos with this part 2 huh KEK alright folks BUCKLE IN YOUR SEATBELTS IT”S TIME FOR PART 2 and part 1 is right here ! part 3 will be here ! update: part 4 is here !

Akashi x Reader

Part 2

[Teiko!manager Headcanons]

remember how I said in part 1 how Akashi would find out sooner or later? this would normally be the case, but in this exception…

you came back to school pretty quickly and restored, only to be in shock when Akashi himself confronts you about where you’ve been… like hello? YOUR CRUSH?? is? talking? to you? about your wellbeing?

here’s the thing, Akashi can easily detect lies through body language because he has an extraordinary sense of kinetic vision and critical thinking, but he’s still a human, not to mention… a middle schooler, and he’s not a true mind reader as some teammates would wholeheartedly believe

still, after some easy sleuthing he easily drew out confessions from some teammates who badmouthed you, although every single one were some type of half-truths and inconsistent testimonies that didn’t really make sense in painting a big picture

instead of incorrectly assuming things, he wanted to hear what’s been going on from your own mouth (keep in mind, this is still Oreshi, the guy who’s still cordial and wants to confirm this with you out of respect)

when he asks you some questions, he doesn’t detect any physical signs of lying from you, which only makes him believe that there wasn’t anything wrong to begin with other than you being under the weather and the other teammates saying utter nonsense either out of fear in his presence or using you as a scapegoat to cover up other delinquencies that he may have yet to discover

“(l/n)-san, I take it that you’ve been resting well? I heard from Kuroko that you were absent due to the seasonal flu.”

“Ah, y-yes! I’ve actually gotten plenty of rest and proper meals, so I’m back on my feet quicker than expected.”

“I actually also wanted to ask you something, if you don’t mind?”

“What is it?”

“Has anything odd happening to you lately? Anyone who has given you trouble or has been uncooperative with you as head manager as of late?”

at the question, you only frown in genuine confusion before you answer no; you genuinely believed that these teammates weren’t in the wrong for “speaking their mind” and if anything, you felt like you were the problem in not being capable enough in managing your own job and your health in the process (despite being knowledgeable in health yourself)

because Akashi saw that you weren’t lying, he dropped it completely out of respect and asked you that if there was anything troubling you that you could reach out to him

oh how he was so, so close to finding out the truth

this wouldn’t be brought up ever again because you and Akashi only continued to grow busier and busier with your own duties; eventually, your fears came true when the Generation of Miracles had in fact “left” you behind when their talents blossomed too fast and left unchecked

honestly, you developed a horrible habit of overworking despite Kuroko’s and Kise’s constant checks on you

what do you know? of course the coaches and faculty members would ignore your opposition against putting the GoMs in every game; after all some of them had been quite dismissive of you already

it’s kind of ironic because if Bokukashi was the one interrogating you back then, he would’ve either easily (correctly) assume based off of the teammates’ testimonies alone, or he’d be a lot more insistent in discerning the truth of the situation and nipping it right in the bud to stop the “nonsense”

but at the same time, Bokukashi has a lot more pressing priorities than a few poor-attitude teammates when he has the entire reputation of Tekio’s legacy on his shoulders; anything pertaining to you never crossed his mind ever since his domineering side emerged

you were really excited for Kuroko since he was gushing about playing against his old friend, since his friend couldn’t make it to finals the first time // needless to say, you were also Kuroko’s mental support when he felt really down at that time

after Kuroko sustained an injury in the game before Meiko, you immediately accompanied him to the infirmary

there, Kuroko requests you to go watch the game and you only reluctantly agree because you wanted to see the game just to relay back to Kuroko just in case if he couldn’t make it, and you were still a manager with a job to fulfill; you’d figure leaving Momoi to watch over was sufficient enough

when you walk out the door though… you bump into Akashi, which is the first time in a while where you two were face-to-face like this; your heart sank when you realize that you had to accept the fact that he’s changed and allowed the distance to grow between you two

but a small part of denial makes you quickly turn and flee out the hallway, but you really begin to evaluate your crush on him as you scurry away; Akashi just stares at you for a moment before he enters into the infirmary where Kuroko is

you’ve distanced yourself from other people (GoMs in particular) in basketball out of denial of the fact you were really left behind (plus, you already dread attending to their games because it’s always a cruel reminder that you’re not working hard enough to achieve results of the same level), which is why reality slapped you in the face after the aftermath of the Meiko game… when you witnessed the full extent of their cruelty on the court

you were really hurt—in fact, you looked more distraught than the Meiko teammates themselves

especially, since the fact that Kise himself, who you thought of him as someone you can trust in, partook in this as well (this is actually your first time in seeing his cruel side in action, since he’s always been very sweet and helpful to you because he respects you)

you first confronted Kise when he was alone for a bit, sounding absolutely heartbroken and on the verge of tears; you shocked him out of his cold side and he immediately becomes a mother hen and asking if you needed water or a seat to calm down before you overexert yourself

after telling him your feelings about the game and your growing distance in the friendship, he sincerely apologizes for making you feel in such an awful way and tells you to let him know next time before a game, so that he wouldn’t suggest this type of entertainment for the game again.

you were in complete disbelief… the fact that your best friend suggested this himself? You dumbly asked for his reason, and he only says that you wouldn’t understand it because no one ever gives the GoM a proper challenge

even though he didn’t intend anything bad when he said this, it just made you feel worse, but you still accepted the apology to get it over with

the other GoMs come and you immediately become angry again and tension just skyrockets; Midorima simply looks away and says nothing, and Murasakibara and Aomine do most of the talking back/arguing… and Akashi only impassively stares at you

later, when Kuroko himself confronts them while everyone was walking in the hallway, you completely lagged behind on the group, tearfully staring at the backs of the GoMs and how you felt really alienated and unmotivated to continue being a manager for a team you don’t even recognize anymore

you grew dizzy again, and you knew your body was dealing with too much at once but you willed your body to at least last the trip

at least you gave a warning when you assumed that you were away from the GoMs at Teiko before you went unconscious; Kise happens to catch you before he brings you to the school infirmary

he does stay with you the entire time, knowing the reason for your collapse was all the extreme emotional and mental toll accumulated in such a short time; he feels absolutely guilty, and when you were about to stir awake, he simply leaves a lighthearted note and a cutely shaped bread before he leaves, knowing that you’d be stressed again if you saw him (around this time is when Kuroko confronts Akashi to quit the team, which is why he was nowhere near you at the time of your collapse/rest)

you felt better that at least Kise still sees you as a close friend when you see what he left behind

you still feel awful, to say the least

it felt wrong of you to quit mid-season, since you felt that you were simply giving up and further perpetuating the fact that you weren’t doing the most that you could

but you didn’t feel like staying for the rest of the season, so you decided to overwork yourself again to get the rest of the paperwork and training plans out of the way for the remainder of the games; you even left detailed instructions to Momoi in how to relieve certain pressure points and muscles for instant relief in case someone hurts themselves

a little timeskip where you decided to tag along Kuroko in attending Seirin High, but you were more reluctant in joining basketball again because you didn’t want to re-experience the stress and burdens in Teiko

well, until you made friends with Riko, and her story in how she was skeptical about basketball at first too inspires you to give it a try again

Kuroko feels really happy that you’re at ease again for the first time, but he definitely notices how you grow gloomy when the Seirin teammates praise the GoMs

you slowly relapse into the habit of overworking to “compensate” for your lack of contributions to Seirin’s team, but this time, every member DROPKICKS you to stop working and relax sometimes (Riko and Hyuuga are the main culprits)

even though you never tell them the reason for your poor habits, the Seirin team members just SENSE and KNOW what to say to make you feel like you’re doing more than enough to support the team in their own unique ways (Mitobe giving really cute shoulder pats and thumbs-ups… Koganei giving you slaps on the back and high-fives… Riko bluntly telling you to relax and giving you encouraging winks… Hyuuga being a roundabout in his praises… Teppei openly praising you… and Kagami telling you that you were doing too much LOL)

Kuroko gives you the SOFTEST SMILES (everyone freaks out every time he does that, it’s hilarious)

however, wounds slowly reopen more once again every time Seirin goes against schools that the respective GoM plays for

after every win Seirin achieves against the GoM’s respective school, each GoM would eventually learn a little tidbits here and there about your tendency to overwork and collapse and possible speculations of why, but you never confirm anything with them

even though you easily forgive Kise after the Seirin vs. Kaijo match (seeing how he interacted with Kagami and Kuroko in the park), for the others… you weren’t so ready to confront…

… particularly with Akashi

[wits-writing]

What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[theheightofdishonor]

Teen Wolf triads are something that can be so personal, so here’s a list of my faves 

Scott/Stiles/Allison

The OG trio. The gang that dies together might not stay together, but they’re still iconic.

Scott/Stiles/Lydia

Any Scott/Stiles/X dynamic is brilliant, but few more than this one. These three have been there since the beginning and they’ve gone through so much together. There’s no Teen Wolf without them. 

Scott/Stiles/Derek

They were the driving force in S1&2 and had some absolutely iconic moments together. Hate that there wasn’t more of them after that. 

Scott/Derek/Isaac 

Mostly based on S2/3. I was very invested in Isaac’s struggle to pick between these two. 

Scott/Stiles/Isaac

This triad’s dynamic completely changes between S2 and 3. In Season 2, Isaac, as part of Derek’s pack is a slightly antagonistic figure and it’s very much Scott&Stiles vs Isaac but in S3, Scott and Isaac grow closer while Isaac and Stiles erm, don’t. It’s very fun to watch. 

Scott/Isaac/Allison

My ot3 and the only trio on this list that I 100% ship. 

Isaac/Erica/Boyd

Ayy, it’s the OG Hale Pack aka 3 teens bonding over being thrown headfirst into something they weren’t prepared for and Derek’s horrible leadership. Isaac should’ve ran away with Erica and Boyd for solidarity’s sake. 

Chris/Allison/Isaac

Chris’s struggle between hating Isaac for dating his daughter and wanting to adopt him is hilarious. One of my favourites. 

Scott/Melissa/Isaac

 Who didn’t completely melt at Isaac joining the McCall fam? The scene where they’re ‘guarding’ Melissa was so cute. As a bonus, it made Stiles’s animosity towards Isaac that much stronger. Will forever hate that this trio was more or less non-existent in 3b even though I love Chris/Allison/Isaac. 

Derek/Cora/Peter

The non-dead Hales. Why oh why did Cora have to leave? Their family dynamic was great. 

Allison/Lydia/Cora

I know they only had a couple scenes as a triad, but there was so potential. We love antagonism with underlying sexual tension. And ofc, the only thing better than 1 terrifying badass that can secretly be super sweet is 3 terrifying badasses. 

Derek/Isaac/Boyd

At one point, the only non-dead members of the Hale Pack (TW quickly amended that). I always think of the S3a Loft scene where Boyd and Isaac skip school to protect Derek. Despite how awful of an alpha Derek’s been, they still care about him and he cares about them (as actual people and not just betas that he needs for power like he did originally)

Derek/Allison/Lydia. 

Yes it’s my 5th s3 based trio in a row, but can you blame me? This is 100% based off the classroom scene in 3x02. 

Allison/Lydia/Jackson

Although Lydia and Jackson were both awful in S1, their friendship with Allison and their immediately taking her under their wing was beyond precious. Additionally, it combines both the asshole-who’s-soft-towards-1-person- dynamic (jydia w/ allison) and assholes-who-secretly-care-about-each-other (jydia) And ofc, the underlying tension due to Jydia’s disdain towards Scott and later, Jackson and Allison’s experiences/knowledge of the supernatural. 

Malia/Kira/Lydia

Comedy gold. Their scenes speak for themselves and we needed more. 

Liam/Mason/Corey

Their S6a dynamic is sooo underrated and should’ve been given more screen time. I loved watching Liam and Corey struggle to get along for Mason’s sake because they want him to be happy. It was all very wholesome and one of the few things that made 6a worth watching. 

Stiles/Scott/Liam

Aka the best part of S4.Their dynamic is so fun and well-balanced and infinitely better because they’re a triad. You’ve got Scott and Liam figuring out their mentor/mentee relationship with Stiles co-parenting and preventing the Scott/Liam dynamic from turning unhealthy. (Liam and Scott’s S6 dynamic veered way too close to parent/child for my taste. They need Stiles to balance it out) It’s also hilarious how quickly Liam accepts being aggressively adopted by two idiots who are barely older than him. And Stiles takes so easily to playing older brother/co-parent. It’s adorable. They’re adorable. 

Erica/Allison/Lydia 

Very similar dynamic to Allison/Lydia/Cora due to Cora and Erica’s similar personalities but also not, which has a lot to do with Allison and Lydia’s reactions to Erica’s weaponized feminity. Also, there’s a lot more history between these girls and I want to know everything about what Erica thinks of Lydia after going to school with her for years. 

Sherriff/Melissa/Chris 

Of the top of my head, I can only remember that time where they were trapped under the Nemeton and that’s simply unacceptable. 

Sheriff/Noshiko/Melissa. 

It’s a crime that this triad never got scenes. Especially after the Sheriff tried to arrest Kira. I know Melissa bitch slapped him but I wanted to watch these two badasses gang up on the Sheriff together. ( the Noshiko/Melissa dynamic would be so iconic.) 

Victoria/Noshiko/Melissa

Another triad that never shared scenes (obviously because Vic is dead) but their power would’ve been off the charts. I want to make a joke about milfs, but I’ll refrain. 

The Yukimura fam

Seemed appropriate since my last two also included. Noshiko.I love family dynamics and the Yukimuras are no exception. The attraction of this triad, for me, is mostly the dynamic between Kira and Noshiko and how Ken navigates between them. They’re also a trio that we didn’t see nearly enough of in S4 and 5. Like seriously, where were they? Noshiko’s on the dead pool, but she’s barely mentioned. (on a mostly unrelated note, how is the 900 yr old Kitsune worth less than a girl that just found about her kitsune powers?)

Derek/Allison/Scott

I don’t need to explain this one. The angst, the drama, Derek projecting Kate onto Allison and Allison trying to murder Derek and their evolution to reluctant allies with a good dash of Scallison and Scott navigating his own difficult relationship with Derek. Aka the complicated, tension fraught trio we all loved/should love. ( ok, I kind of explained it)

Derek/Scott/Liam 

And here we have a two for one deal; two mentor/mentee dynamics in 1 triad. People much smarter than me have written about this trio in extensive detail, so all I’m saying is that Derek’s that one uncle who occasionally comes around and gives somewhat helpful advice. 

Braeden/Malia/Scott 

Braeden and Scott were great in S4. Braeden and Malia were great in S5. Scott and Malia are pretty great when they’re not in a relationship. Combine, and you get what had to be a kick-ass triad that’s sadly never canonly shown together (I think)

Melissa/Chris/Isaac

Not actually featured in the show, but Isaac deserves all the parental figures and I want to witness the surely epic custody battle between Chris and Melissa. 

Malia/Scott/Peter

That this trio is on here is actually pretty funny because I hate both Scalia and the forced Peter/Malia bonding in S6. But I loved the scene where Peter warned Malia not to fall in love with Scott because a) he has absolutely 0 right to advise her on anything and b) because of the history between Scott and Peter. In a way, a relationship with Malia is just another thing tying Scott to someone that’s repeatedly caused harm to him and his friends and was the initial cause for all the pain he’s suffered in the last couple years. I just find this dynamic worth exploring. 

Malia/Derek/Peter

The Hales 2.0. Derek and Malia deserve to bond over unwillingly being related to Peter, that scumbag. 

Malia/Stiles/Peter

Stiles and Peter are so fun together and Stalia is my jam. Throw in an antagonistic Malia and Peter relationship and they’re entertaining as hell. Much more lighthearted than Malia/Scott/Peter.  

Stiles/Malia/Lydia 

To clarify, this has nothing to do with a love triangle and everything to do with how their personalities play off each other. It’s one of those trios where together, they’re either terrifying or absolute morons. 

Stiles/Cora/Derek

Admittedly, my version of this is very Sterek+Cora and the hilarity of Stiles and his attraction to Hales but it’s also 3x snark and you really can’t go wrong. 

Scott/Stiles/Melissa 

It’s Melissa and her boys 1.0. This woman is by far the best parent on this show, and I love the specific dynamic among these three. Melissa might not always like Stiles, but she cares about him and there’s the mutual understanding that they both adore Scott and would do anything for him. Also, Mel being exasperated by the dumbass duo is always funny.  

Kate/Allison/Chris

Lowkey another custody battle because Kate and Chris do fight to be the bigger influence on Allison This is such a tragic trio to me, and the lesson here is basically that sometimes love isn’t enough. Chris and Kate both genuinely love Allison and she loves them too but can’t have both and at some point, she has neither. Kate and Chris care about each other, but that’s not enough either. In the end, they all lose each other. There’s no happy ending for them, at least not with each other. 

Derek/Stiles/Peter

Stiles just has chemistry (not necessarily romantic) with all Hales and this trio really shines through in 3x01 and in S3 in general. “Chess is Stiles’s game” asgdhfjgh. I wanted more of that very specific dynamic. 

That was a hell lot longer than I thought it would be, but what can you do. Feel free to tell me your own opinions in the tags/comments.  

[dizzydancingdreamer]

Men who I think would be soft for their baby for no other reasons than because I want them to be, in no particular order but still numbered ten to one because I like countdowns...

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Part two —> part one here

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This one’s for you @activist-af​, no Finn and Kol erasure here Lottie

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10. Raleigh Becket

A really good man who is a little too impulsive at times and has pretty much no sense of self preservation and always seems to get himself into worsening situations

Is so fucking soft for his baby that it’s insanity

His baby is in no way the same kind of super soldier he is, she’s literally the softest baby in the world, and he’s just so careful with her

Like he follows her around the compound and just makes sure she’s okay

Eats every meal with her, shares a room with her, literally does pretty much everything with her just in awe

So many cuddles before and after a mission, lots of reassurance, kisses her entire face everywhere at least twice and has to get practically dragged away

Endures so much teasing from his partner

I don’t care if his character is suited for a dominant female you can’t change my mind on this one this man is soft as fuck

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9. Ambrose Spellman

A reformed radical warlock who has been locked in one house for a hundred years and is itching to go on a self-destructive bender after cleaning up his family’s messes for years

In absolutely no position to be in a committed relationship but I don’t give a single fuck

He would follow his baby around like a damn puppy when finally free of the Spellman residence 

Oh she wants to go to witch school? He’s tagging along

She wants to go travel? Lead the way

The park, carnival, movie theatre, cafe, literally endless places he would follow her

Would read to her as she falls asleep and tell her all his little bits of knowledge on things that he collected during his time stuck in the house

A soft man that is final

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8. Richard O’Connell

Cannot survive a normal, mundane life because it’s “too boring” for a man like him and would risk it all for a mummy invasion even if it means that he dies in the process

But by god he is so fucking soft I just know it

Keeps her safe at all costs even when she pouts at him and makes him take her with him when he travels

Refuses to leave her side when they go abroad because his track record with ancient curses is not great and there’s no way he’s letting some gross ass mummy hurt her

*dramatic gasp* HE ACTUALLY REFUSES SOME DANGEROUS MISSIONS FOR HER??? 

Does the thing where he leans into her hand when she touches his face and like kisses her palm

Definitely sleeps curled around his baby and wakes up at the slightest noise ready to hurt any intruders

I would literally do anything for this level of soft

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7. Finn Mikaelson

A one thousand year+ original vampire who has absolutely zero sense of self preservation and actively seeks death because of how much he hates himself and would gladly bring his family down with him because mommy said so

Doesn’t quite fit the full dominant image but I don’t care he fits the soft part 1000%

Would bring her with him when he goes to see his family and is always wrapped around her the whole time

Endures all the teasing that would come with that for her because she’s?? Just?? So?? Cute and perfect???

Literally a thousand years old and would still absolutely crumple for his baby in SECONDS

If she cried it would literally be game over

There would be two people crying 

He would be crying MORE than her

Epic date night planner, meticulously detailed, would pay so much attention to the things she likes and picks up on even the smallest clues

God he’s so soft I want one

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6. Clint Barton

Largely pushed aside Avenger who has been evil in the past and appears at times to miss the evil a little too much

This one doesn’t even need an explanation, I’m literally right and this one has proved himself countless times

This man is the love of my life so yes: I am biased

Badass, sarcastic, cold archer Avenger by day; soft, caring, gentle man by night 

Goes home, soaked with blood and sweat, and pulls his baby into the shower and just sags into her arms 

Lives for her fingers in his hair after a long day

And bubble baths with her 

Has gotten in trouble countless times for skipping important meetings but does not give a single fuck about it 

Teaches her archery and doesn’t yell once (which is a feat pointing to his softness because once he tried to teach Nat and they yelled at each other the entire time)

HE IS SOFT, CASE CLOSED

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5. Bellamy Blake

Incited a radical uprising in a highly dangerous and sensitive situation for really no reason at all other than the fact that he wanted to be the de facto leader of something

As per usual, I don’t care about canon characteristics this is my world I can do whatever I want

Every bone in this man’s body is a protective one 

Yes, every single one (No, I’m not sorry about this)

Does not take shit from anyone about her, has definitely shut an entire group of people up for talking about her badly

Gets so nervous when she does anything even remotely dangerous and when she does he’s stuck to her side like glue

He’s so touchy and talks so quietly to her, not because he doesn’t want anyone to hear him call her his baby but because he just literally can’t bring himself to raise his voice he’s that soft for her

Does everything in his power to make sure she’s comfortable which is by no means easy in the slightest

So many forehead kisses that it’s almost barf worthy but he doesn’t care because she loves it and that’s all that matters

The radical leader is a fucking puddle of softness for his baby and that’s final

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4. Loki

A trickster god who always teeters precariously on the edge of good and evil and no one ever knows which side he’ll favour at any given moment

Except when it comes to his baby then he’s good duh

Tiptoes around her because he would definitely be the type to go for a baby who jumps easily and he’s loud and kind of clunky so he’s always just slow and gentle 

So much gentle teasing and giggling like oh god it’s tooth rotting sweetness

He takes her hands and just puts them on him, like his chest and cheeks and jaw and arms

Anywhere he just wants her touching him all the time 

He rests his chin on her shoulder or head and reads whatever she’s reading or watches her go about her hobbies, kissing her cheek in between 

This girl would never work a day in her life she would be ridiculously well taken care of

Would burn down a city for her with little provoking 

As soft as butter for his baby

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3. Kai Parker

Bringing back the “needs a therapist, not a girl” but sprinkle in a touch of volatile daddy issues that has created a man so hyper reactive to every negative situation whose only solution is to lash out because he figures no one loves him anyway 

But sweep all that aside because fuck it, I don’t like it 

He would worship his baby 110%

Is the type of man to let her do his nails and put as many face masks as she wants on him

Can’t sleep without her literally on top of him 

He so clingy and touchy, loves when she grabs his hand, internally screams whenever it happens

Has for sure killed for her that isn’t even a question it’s just a fact 

“He didn’t do anything” “he looked at you” “but Kai” “but baby” 

Would do it again

I DON’T CARE: HE’S SOFT FOR HIS BABY

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2. Jasper Hale

A literal once upon a time confederate soldier who made child soldiers for his dom-vamp girlfriend because he was “in love”

This man has ripped so many heads off so many bodies but I don’t give a single fuck I know he goes home to his baby and just picks her up and does not put her down 

Face it, his family is rich, he doesn’t have to do anything, naps are definitely a big part of his routine and he’s always just snoozing with her on the couch, pulling her onto his lap and pulling a blanket off the back and they’re just asleep

Goes out for dinner with her, makes it through maybe twenty minutes, the entire time he’s waiting for it and then boom, the puppy eyes, game over, they’re home in minutes

Has skipped so many family functions 

Will make any excuse to just go the fuck home 

Sometimes he doesn’t even make an excuse he just fucking leaves

He’s touchy too I just know it look at that face the man lives for contact

The verdict is in-- 100/10 SOFT

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1. Kol Mikaelson

Perhaps the angriest, most volatile, I-hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, thousand year old+ original vampire who has been stomped on so much and died so many times that he has no true sense of the world, trust, and love left

Oh GOD this man, this FUCKING MAN 

THE SOFTEST MAN HOLY SHIT

I don’t even care what y’all think about this one Kol is so damn soft

This man is the inventor of cuddling 

And he doesn’t give one single fuck about where and when I just know it

Family dinner? The witch market? CHURCH?? 

It doesn’t matter, he’s pressed against her 

Oh god this man is protective 

Maybe a little possessive too

I don’t care

His family calls him unpredictable so hey he may as well live up to it and burn down a bar or two or twenty for his baby

Shows her all of his witch things and rambles about them all

Is always pulling one of his shirts or hoodies over her head 

AGAIN BUBBLE BATHS I JUST KNOW IT 

He likes washing her back and just getting to be alone with her 

He likes it even more when she washes his hair like he just sinks to his knees and closes his eyes and gives into it

GOD MY HEART IS BEATING SO FAST FOR HOW SOFT KOL IS

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[mymelodyheart]

Miles Between Us Chapter 1 ~Stories She Wrote~

PICTURE SOURCE

PART 2 OF  WONDERWALL SERIES

Hey guys, I'm back and thrilled to give you part 2 of WONDERWALL series, Miles Between Us. It is a continuation from my holiday ficlet, All I Want For Christmas Is You. If you haven't read the first part, I suggest you do if you wish to get an insight into Jamie and Claire’s history (Here is the link) Otherwise, this ficlet can also be read as a stand-alone.

I know All I Want For Christmas Is You ending was bittersweet, but it had to be done. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a Part 2 in this series. I had to leave the story open to possibilities if it is to have a chance of growing. And besides, making this into a series allows me to take breaks from writing and refresh my brain in-between ficlets. So I hope this next part of the story will make up for leaving you hanging all these weeks.

Anyway, before you continue, I'd like to thank you for reading, commenting and giving feedback to my stories. They're all very appreciated even if I sometimes don't comment back. As a hobby writer, I always look forward to your response, and they spur me to continue writing. Without the readers, I wouldn't be here. So thank you for being part of my writing journey.

If you wish to read this on AO3, here is the link.

So now everything is said, without further ado, I wish you all happy reading. ❤️

 Previously ...

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp and James Fraser met and fell in love during the Holiday Seasons. Unfortunately for their budding relationship, after two weeks of a whirlwind romance, Claire has to return to London to finish some work commitment that could take a year to fulfil. It doesn't help matters that Jamie's PTSD condition prevents him from visiting her as loud city noises can trigger panic attacks. They are both in love with each other and are willing to find out where their relationship will head to. But can they find a compromise to bridge the gap of hundreds of miles to give their love a chance?

    After sitting on her bed most of Saturday working on her laptop, Claire Beauchamp rolled her neck and stretched her back, her arms extending above her head. She flinched when her joints cracked. 

Over the past few days, her boss, John Grey, forwarded manuscripts and drafts from the author she was working with. She hadn't eaten anything all day, and her stomach was beginning to grumble, and her eyes blurry from reading.

She'd read so much in the past hours, she was practically cross-eyed, and the bridge of her nose hurt where her specs rested. Words upon words had sifted through her brain, but now the lines were beginning to blur together.

She glanced back down on her laptop and opened a file in her document folder, her eyes scanning through lines she knew by heart. She'd been going through her own work lately wondering if she had what it takes to be a writer. Someone who would give her an honest opinion ought to read it before contemplating getting herself a literary agent if she was to start a new chapter of her life and take that leap of faith in her dream career.

A sudden urgency took over, and she needed Annalise to read her work, like right now. Which reminded Claire, her friend was away with Willie, shopping and sight-seeing. He was staying over their place for the weekend for the first time since she and Annalise left Lallybroch. After declining their invitation to join them earlier, the loved-up couple left her to her work with the promise of dinner when they returned.

She was about to reach out for her cold coffee from the bedside table when Raiders of the Lost Ark's theme song blared from her phone. At the same time, a picture of her uncle Lamb appeared on the screen. He was wearing a high-crowned, wide-brimmed, weather-beaten fedora hat and had a lopsided grin plastered to his thickly stubbled face. Rugged, she thought, just like her favourite pair of distressed leather boots, and very Indiana Jones.

Smiling, she tapped the answer button and put the phone on speaker. "Uncle Lamb! Long time no speak!" 

"Sweetheart," he started in a deep familiar voice, "how are you?"

She frowned and pushed her laptop aside. Something was off. "Oh you know, same old ...just finishing work and ..." 

"On a Saturday?" he asked, cutting her off.

"Look who's talking."

He chuckled. "You're young. You should be out. There are so many things to do in London ...especially on a Saturday. "

Claire rolled her eyes but opted to change the subject instead. She wasn't ready to give her reason for working overtime nor share her future plans nor talk about the handsome Scot she met during her holidays. Not just yet, anyway. "So ...to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice, dear uncle?"

"What?" he said gruffly, pretending to sound offended. "Can't I call my favourite girl in the world and check up on her?" 

She mentally sighed. Something must be up since her uncle never called. It was always she who usually phoned, and when he did call on a rare occasion, it was either because something had happened or he was in London. She dismissed the latter since she knew he was in Papua New Guinea. The next conclusion she landed on was his health but thought it absurd. Her uncle was strong as an ox, ate healthily, only smoked the occasional cigar and regularly went for doctor's check-up, a requirement in his job as an archaeologist travelling to remote places.

Unless. "You sound suspiciously chipper. Let me guess ...you met someone. There's a woman in your life." 

He coughed like he was choking on a drink. "No! Why would you say that?" 

Alright, he sounded repulsed by the idea enough. Or was that denial? "I don't know. You seem so ...how shall I say it ...unlike yourself. You normally skip the niceties and get to the point." 

He lets out an impatient breath. "Claire, darling, am I really that awful?"

"No," she replied, ignoring the ache in her throat. She missed their time together but tried not to make it apparent in her tone. He was a busy man, and the last thing she wanted was her uncle worrying. "You don't seem like you're rushing off to anywhere. It's rare you sound this relax."

"It's way past my bedtime already," he sighed. "And besides, work is on stand-by at the moment until we get the license to start digging on site. People here are so damn laid back, and nobody seems to be in a hurry to process the paperwork. I'm not about to hand out cash to speed things along even if bribery is rampant here."

"I see. So you're in Port Moresby then?"

"Yes. As soon as we have the license sorted out, we'll be flying to Lae first thing tomorrow. Hopefully, anyway." He cleared his throat. "Speaking of paperwork, I received an email from my lawyer. Your trust fund has matured, dear. I'll send you the details where to go to and who to contact, and maybe you can start planning your life. Perhaps take a sabbatical and travel with me if you wish."

Ah yes, the trust fund. 

After her parents died, everything they had owned was put into her trust fund by her uncle to secure her future. She'd already received a small lump sum when she turned eighteen, and the money had afforded her, though small and cramped, a decent rental two-bedroom apartment in London with high windows, which was premium in this expensive city. And Annalise, her best friend and roommate made enough money to help pay the ridiculous expensive utility bills. Her own wage just about covered the other expenses with almost nought left for savings, but she hadn't worried knowing there was money in place in her name. She was counting on it to support herself when she pursued her dreams of writing.

"About that, I think I'll let that sit in the bank for a while. It's not like I need the money right now, nor do I have the time to spend it."

"As you wish," her uncle replied. "And another thing I need to discuss with you ...South Lodge ..."

"What about South Lodge?" South Lodge should have been her family home if her parents hadn't died, and she knew it was a highly coveted property because of its historical significance. It was never put into the market for sale since her uncle thought it wasn't his place to decide. It was put on a twenty-year lease to a high profile politician, its payments going towards her trust fund.

"The lease is up, and the occupants will be moving out soon. Unfortunately for you, that information made it to the local news and you were mentioned as the legatee. So don't be surprised if you're bombarded with offers now that your name is out. I'm willing to bet, property investors and developers will be itching to get their hands on it."

Claire took off her specs and pinched the bridge of her nose. God, she hated adulting, paperwork and dealings with lawyers. Maybe she should just sell South Lodge and be done with it, so she could concentrate on her future plans. What do I need a five-bedroom house with one acre of garden in Oxford for? "I'll think about it, uncle. I just have a lot of things going on at the moment. I'm quite sure those things can wait."

"Of course dear."

"Thank you for letting me know." She thought of Jamie, and the Highlands and how much life was a lot simpler there. She really needed to double her effort to tie up loose ends in London and have a heart to heart talk with Annalise. Is her relationship with Willie serious? If not, her friend would have to eventually find a new roommate. After quickly glancing at her bedside clock, she realised they would be here soon and hopefully with a takeaway. Annalise did mention something about sorting dinner out tonight.

"And Claire?"

"Yes?"

"Your upbringing hasn't been the most ideal. Enjoy the money and treat yourself. Don't spend your life doing things that don't bring you joy."

She smiled. Her uncle must have had a rude awakening of some sort to sound so philosophical. Or probably, he did meet someone special. Either way, she wasn't going to push for any answers for now. She really needed to get out of bed, do a few stretches and have a shower before Annalise, and Willie arrived. "I'll try," she finally said.

"Good. I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing."

"Sadly, yes." She shut her laptop and got out of bed. "Take care of yourself, alright? And I'll phone you sometime next week after I've figured out our time differences." 

"Absolutely, sweetheart. Talk soon." 

"Love you, uncle Lamb." 

"Love you, too." 

She terminated the call with a swipe on her screen and rubbed her eyes. She'd been working for seven hours straight, and her eyeballs felt like they're made of sandpaper. Glancing at the corner table, she smiled when she saw Jamie's gifts. Willie had brought them with him when he arrived last night from Inverness. She knew Jamie was making up for his absence, but it couldn't be helped when there's the danger of his PTSD condition worsening in the city. To her delight and surprise, he'd sent her a leather-bound journal, a framed selfie photo of them together, driftwood bookends he made and a box of her favourite Lindt chocolate.

With a contented sigh, she made a mental note to call Jamie after dinner. And to ask her boss first thing Monday morning if she could take her work to Scotland the following weekend to surprise her boyfriend. After all, she was just taking her uncle's advice, and after the work, she'd put in the last couple of weeks, and the extra hours she planned to do the next few days, she deserved a little joy in her life.

..........

Claire leaned forward, and nervously examined her best friend's face. Annalise was hunched down, scrolling her laptop, tongue darting out as she read the paragraphs on the screen. 

What's that look for? Doesn't she like it? She couldn't tell. It was the first time she's showing her work to anyone, one of the stories she had written during her spare time before embarking a career as an editorial assistant for Dreamcatcher Publishing Company. She needed to hear her friend's opinion to know if she even had a small chance of becoming a writer.

Annalise took her sweet time, and Claire wasn't sure if her inscrutable expression was a deliberate act to prolong the suspense, or if she genuinely had no reaction to what she's reading. If it was the latter, Claire would definitely kiss her dream of being a writer goodbye. If it's the former, she's going to strangle her friend for making her suffer. 

She heard the door to the apartment open and close, followed by the sound of keys jangling and heavy footfalls, announcing the arrival of Willie. He'd stopped by to order some food at a local Indian takeaway while Annalise headed straight home to prepare the table for dinner. Instead of calling out to him, she held her breath for Annalise's response. 

Just when Claire was starting to accept her hope of being a writer would never amount to anything other than a pipe dream, she saw the reaction she impatiently waited for. Annalise's mouth formed a comical O, followed by her eyes' widening and random shallow sighs. 

Yessssssss! 

This was massive. Despite Annalise having seen works from established authors Claire had edited for, she'd never witnessed her friend looked this excited. Annalise simply couldn't hide her gobsmacked expression, even if she tried.

"Oh, dear Lord," she whispered, her gaze flicking to Claire and then back to the screen. "Why didn't you tell me you had this? I knew you wanted to be a writer, but this ..."

"So?" 

Annalise took a massive deep breath, her fingers almost shaking. "Oh my God, Claire." 

"Oh my God, wot? Oh my God good or oh my God, bad?" Claire asked, even though she already knew deep in her bones, what the answer was. But she desperately needed to hear the words.

"This is bloody good," she said, as she went back to a previous page, and reread it all over again. After a couple of minutes more, a slow smile started to spread across her face, as she stole a few cheeky glances over at Claire.

Claire knew she could rely on her friend to tell her the truth. If her work had been bad, friend or not, Annalise would have been forthright and told her the hard facts. Nevertheless, she tamped down her own growing excitement. "The question is though ...is it good enough for the mass?" 

Without hesitation, Annalise nodded vigorously, her blue eyes big as saucers. "Oh, Claire, are you kidding me? You really have no idea, have you? Of course, it is! I need to read the rest. Please tell me it's finished." 

Claire relaxed for the first time and slumped back against the headboard of her bed, relief soothing her wild heartbeat. "It's finished."

Annalise let out a whoop as she gripped the laptop tightly. "Oh my God! Give me everything ...I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't read at least one more chapter of this story." 

"I've got ten more finished materials."

"Oh my God, oh my God! You're killing me. I want it all."

Willie poked his head by the frame of the doorway to her bedroom and eyed them suspiciously. She wasn't sure what he expected to find, but his eyes narrowed when he saw Annalise's flushed face. 

"What are ye both up to?" he asked, frowning. "Ye sound like ye're looking at porn on the internet." 

Annalise grinned and motioned him over. "Sort of." 

Willie hesitantly entered the room. "Sorry?"

"In actual fact, much better than porn ..." Annalise announced, smirking at Claire.

"Annalise!" Claire wheezed when it dawned on her, her friend must have been reading the sex scene part.

Annalise reached out and reassuringly squeezed Claire's hand whilst looking at Willie. "Take a look at this. Claire wrote it."

Annalise handed the laptop to Willie, and both of them earnestly watched his face to gauge his reaction. As he sat down on the edge of the bed and read, Claire knew he would be the real test. Willie being a bloke, she didn't expect him to have the same reaction as Annalise, but she hoped he would appreciate the storyline and plot. Claire already understood, if her story was going to be good enough to be published, its success would be based on women's purchasing power. If he liked her style of writing even a smidgen, then she would be laughing. 

Claire held her breath in anxious anticipation, and approximately a minute and a half later, she got her response. 

His eyes bulged out, and then the tips of his ears glowed with red. In all sort of ways, he was so similar to Jamie but yet so different. But there's no mistaking how vibrantly their ears always lit up when they're embarrassed. Or moved. 

"Kind of explicit," he commented hoarsely, before tucking a tongue into his cheek as if trying to find the right words to say. "But it is an intriguing story with great flow and interesting characters. It's no' the genre I would typically read, but the first few paragraphs of what I've seen so far are riveting. It makes me want to read more."

Annalise, enthusiastically nodded in agreement and waved a hand in the air. "There it is." 

"Ye have a gift, Claire," Willie added, eyes still fixed on the screen and working overtime as his focus became more intense. "The dose of mystery ye've woven into the lines is remarkable and intelligent."

She felt herself beaming in vindication. "Thank you." 

He briefly glanced up at her. "Now that I remember, Jamie did vaguely mention ye wanted to be a writer."

"That's the plan," she beamed.

"Good. Because if ye can produce something like this, then yer talent is wasted on editing other people's work."

"She's got ten more finished stories," Annalise piped in.

Willie arched an eyebrow at Claire and continued reading, and when he finished, he shook his head and let out a low whistle. "Is Jamie the inspiration for this story?"

Her face heated. "I ...ah ...wrote that years ago. And ...um, I've revised and edited it a million times in the past. I wanted Annalise to read it first and find out if it's good enough to be published."

Annalise grinned at Willie, still looking a little flush like she was having a physical reaction to the few lines she'd read earlier. "So what do you think?"

Willie didn't miss Annalise's excited reaction to the story. "It's verra good but I didnae realised graphic scenes affected ye so much. Ye're beet red!" 

"Only when it's very well written," Annalise smirked, taking the laptop from his hands and moving towards him to sit on his lap. 

Willie pulled Annalise closer and kissed her, and Claire sighed. It's both beautiful and terrible being in the presence of people, so in love. While she's ecstatic to see her best friend smitten and happy, it made her sad that Jamie couldn't be here with her. She missed him terribly, and it's only been a fortnight since she had last seen him.

After a few seconds of watching them unashamedly snogged in front of her, Claire clapped her hands, and they both immediately pulled away. "Right, that's enough you two. So, where's the dinner I was promised?"

Suddenly looking self-conscious, Willie promptly lifted Annalise from his lap, plonked her down onto the bed and jumped up, and Claire couldn't help but grin at him.

"Right on it," he muttered, before disappearing from her bedroom.

Annalise laughed and playfully shoved her shoulder. "Passion killer."

Claire ignored the jest. "So you really think I should publish my story?"

Her friend nodded excitedly. "Absolutely! You should have let me read it sooner. From what I've seen so far, you have good, solid material, and I'm convinced, when I read the rest, it will not disappoint." She stood up and smiled. "Come on, in as much as I'm all fired up after reading your story, I'm famished." She got up and left the room.

Instead of moving from her position, Claire stared at her work for a few seconds and just breathed. Although Willie and Annalise were sincere with their praises, she couldn't help but still feel nervous. This next step in her life could either turn out to be huge, or it could get her mocked out of a dream career she loved. 

Pushing aside her doubts and thinking of Jamie, she quickly compressed a copy of her story's file and sent it to him via email to read, hoping he would like her written work too. Who knew, maybe, after reading it, he would be as fired up as Willie and Annalise. 

After hearing the whoosh of the email sent, Claire launched herself off the bed to join her friends, looking forward to Jamie's reaction later and daydreaming of a future in Scotland with her love.

[bluefirewrites]

Hc - Luke gets in trouble at school and forced to join the drama club latest production and try out , where he ends up getting the lead along with Julie (who they know of each other through there moms friendship. But the more they spend time together even outside school the more they fall for each other. And finally get together (sorry for the rambling sometimes have trouble writing what i want to say )

I had this whole response typed out before my computer crashed and it got lost in the void. 

I’m gonna mince some details just in case it happens again, but I love this concept. 

Luke’s a bad boy on campus. It’s hard to get him engaged in anything school-related, but the teachers just know that he’s got untapped potential, especially Ms. Harrison, the theater teacher. 

The band is on Luke’s mind all day every day. And he gets in trouble at school a lot because of it- borrowing the instruments from the music room for a quick jam session, pasting their gig posters over Carrie Wilson’s student body president ones, parking their band van in the teacher’s lot (it’s a lot closer!). 

But Luke’s latest scheme lands him in hot water with the principal. 

He thought it was a great idea to hijack lunchtime and turn it into an impromptu Sunset Curve concert. He and the boys hid on the stage over looking the cafeteria and they even bribed the sound tech to help them out. 

And in the middle of lunch, they burst through the curtains and started jamming out for everyone. 

And Luke may have gotten carried away. 

He may have jumped onto the nearest lunch table, treating it like his own personal runway, hopping and skipping over people’s lunches.

He may have miscalculated the space and so when he slid into a power stance, he may have spilled orange juice onto some poor girl’s homework.

He didn’t have time to apologize to the fuming girl before he’s up and running, inciting the now crowd of students into a riot with his music. 

Let’s just say that tables were tipped over, food was everywhere, and Principal Lessa was not happy. 

It was a success in Luke’s eyes. 

But then Lessa pulls him into the office and oddly enough, for Luke, Ms. Harrison is present. That’s where they give him the ultimatum: they suspend him and the boys for their little stunt, or they have to audition/ partake in Ms. Harrison’s spring musical. 

And Luke bawks at the idea. Because they’re a rock band! They don’t do show tunes!

But he takes the deal, mainly so his parents don’t get any more pissed at him. 

The boys all show up to auditions, and apart from Alex, the rest of them aren’t super into it. 

He sits down in the auditorium, waiting of his turn, when he notices the next person up for audition- Julie Molina.

He sorta knows her. Their moms are in book club together. When she auditions, Luke notices two things- 1) her voice is killer and 2) the script she’s holding is stained with orange juice. 

Whoops. 

She hops down the stage and catches his eye and she glares at him. And given the round of applause and Ms. Harrisons’s praise- Julie Molina seems to be the queen of the theater department. And Luke managed to have pissed her off. 

Great...

Then he goes up to audition, all ready to half-ass it because really doesn’t want to be a part of the play. So when it’s his turn, Luke doesn’t take it seriously- he purposefully flubs the words, he doesn’t act from the script- instead reciting a monologue from the Simpsons that made everyone, but Julie, laugh. 

Ms. Harrison only nods, and notifies him that the cast list would be put up at the end of the day. 

Luke, thinking he tanked it, doesn’t bother to stop in front of the cast list posted like everyone else does at the end of the school day. But when he tries to pass, everyone’s eyes are on him, including his friends’. 

“Um... Luke,” Alex says from his spot in front of the bulletin board, “You might wanna see this,” 

He pushes past the crowd until he can read the cast list. 

Oh no. 

He made the lead. 

Luke’s confused. He thought he put on the worst audition ever?

“Congratulations,” he hears from beside him and he sees Julie, arms crossed, not the least bit happy. 

And that’s when he reads the rest of the cast list- Julie’s the other lead. 

They’re going to be love interests. 

When it’s time for rehearsals, it’s an utter disaster. Luke’s never been in any production ever, so being part of a team, that’s not just him and the boys, is throwing him off. 

He can sing yeah- but he dancing? Acting? Not his forte. And Julie knows this, and gets so frustrated with him whenever they rehearse a scene together. 

But when it comes time to the duet- oddly enough, they sound great together. Amazing even. Luke wants to say that ever since hearing how their voices complimented each other’s, Julie eases up on him a little. 

Some weeks go by, and slowly but surely, Luke and the boys are warming up to theater culture. Alex, Reggie, and Bobby seem to be having a good time learning their parts and making new friends with the cast and crew, and pretty soon Luke and Julie form a tentative truce. 

One day, Luke closes his locker and gets spooked by Julie leaning beside him. 

“Hey,” 

“Hi?” They don’t talk during school. Only at rehearsal. So this is new. 

“How much of the songs have you memorized?” Okay, right down to it, Luke thinks. But it’s Julie- theater is her life. 

“All of them, don’t worry,” 

“And your lines?” 

“...” 

“I thought so. You called my character by Kayla’s character’s name. Do you even know what this play is about?” 

“Of course I do,” 

“We’ll see about that,” Julie then scribbles something on a piece of paper and hands it to him, “My place. After school. We will be running lines,” 

Luke starts going to Julie’s almost every other day to go through lines, and also because he needs all the help he can get when it comes to acting. 

Some days are good, others- well, are left to be desired, but Luke tries to get Julie to loosen up and he coaxes her into taking breaks and going out to eat during their one-on-one sessions. And he starts to find himself actually enjoying her company, and she with him- even if she’s reluctant to admit it. 

But over time, Luke starts to get a schedule down, now invested in the musical, he makes sure he gets to school on time, gets through his classes, rehearse, and days when he’s not rehearsing- he’s with Julie, working on their stuff. 

Luke’s mom notices a change in him, and even though it’s more music stuff that he seems to be getting up to, she doesn’t mind. And when Luke sees that his mom smiles every time he mentions that he’s off to see Julie, he knows their moms have definitely been talking to each other. 

When he would get to the Molina’s, he would pass Rose, greet her, and say that he’s going to be running lines with Julie. 

“Right,” 

“We are,” he insists, one time, after catching Rose smirking. 

“It’s just, I’ve been in theater myself when I was younger. I know what ‘running lines’ mean,” 

And to say that Luke shows up blushing to the garage where Julie was waiting was an understatement. 

But as much as Luke and Julie are killing it in their performances, there’s one part that trips Luke up. 

There’s a scene where their two characters confess their love for each other, following a group musical number, but Luke can’t get into it. 

He throws the script in frustration at the couch, “This is hopeless.”

“No, you’re doing good. It’s just missing something,” Julie says, pulling him closer to her, “You’re reading the lines. You’re not saying them,” 

“What does that mean?” 

“You need to channel the character. His thoughts and feelings in the moment, and you embody that. You show the audience that,” 

“So what do I need to do?” 

“You need to look like you’re in love with me, okay?” 

“Okay,” 

They run it a couple of times before they do it at rehearsal the next day. And after he and Julie go over their love confession, Luke inwardly curses himself because he couldn’t focus and he was worried he messed up in front of everyone during such an intimate scene. 

But once he concluded, Julie is looking up at him with an expression he’s never seen before, in surprised awe, and he could see a faint blush on her cheeks. And she ends up stammering into her part- something the Julie Molina never did. 

Everyone in the production applauds them- Reggie, Alex, and Bobby look at Luke, wide-eyed. 

Flynn comes up to them to show them the footage she captured of their rehearsal and Luke is stunned to see that his acting isn’t as terrible as he thought. In that moment, he really looked like he was in love with Julie as he said his lines. 

And then it hit him. 

The reason he couldn’t focus is because he had been too busy staring into Julie’s beautiful brown eyes, relishing the touch of her warm hand in his- and he didn’t even try to act, he said the lines as he normally would if he was talking. 

He didn’t look like he was in love with Julie. 

He was in love with Julie. 

It gets awkward between them since then, and they haven’t been able to recapture that same spark as their previous performance. And now that they have gotten their parts down, there’s no need for Luke to keep visiting Julie any more, and they only see each other at rehearsals. 

And then it comes- opening night. 

They run through it without a hitch earlier before and everyone’s all excited for how it’s gonna play out. 

Luke sees his parents out in the audience, chilling with the Molinas, and he stomachs his nerves before walking out and to perform. 

The production is successful, only minor mishaps occur (aka Reggie’s props keep falling apart, so he had to make due with invisible ones for the time being). 

And then it comes to the finale, the big scene. Luke goes in and delivers his lines, staring into Julie’s eyes and tries to channel the same feelings as before.

But when it’s Julie’s turn, she starts ad-libbing. She says her lines, but then she’s throwing in references that certainly aren’t relevant within the time period in which the musical takes place (”when you gave me your last strawberry for my frozen yogurt... I knew... I knew you were the one for me”), it makes the audience laugh but the heart was still there. 

Luke’s confused until he realizes. It’s not Julie’s character confessing her feelings for Luke’s anymore. 

It’s Julie confessing her feelings for Luke. Right there on stage. In front of everyone. 

She went off-script for him...

After curtain call, and everyone is riding that post-opening night high, Luke catches Julie before she could go meet her family out in the hallway. 

“Hey,” 

“Hi,” 

Luke pulls out his script, “Run it with me one last time?” 

“Luke, what-”

“Humor me, please,” 

Julie scans the script he hands to her. He’s circled their love confession scene, and when she reaches the bottom of the page, her eye catches a new, messily scribbled in stage direction. 

“’And they kiss...” Julie reads, a smile slowly growing on her face, “...hopefully??”

They both laugh at the latter words, and Luke looks at her sheepishly. 

“I mean... if it’s in the script, we gotta do it, right?” 

“You’re such a dork,” Julie says before pulling him in for a kiss. 

They pull away, and Luke has the audacity to smirk, “I believe this is what you call a ‘showmance’,” 

Julie quirks an eyebrow at the new vocabulary, “Someone’s been paying attention.” 

“I’ve learned a few things,” He nuzzles her nose against hers, “I had a pretty good teacher.” 

“I have plenty more to teach you,” 

“Oh really?”

“Like, for instance, how the warp party at Denny’s is a must,” She takes him by the hand and leads him out of the theater, giggling “Come on!” 

They dash through the hallways until they come up on their friends and family, who were proud of their performances. Luke looks up from hugging his mom in time to see Ms. Harrison grinning at him and giving him a thumbs up. 

‘Thank you,’ he mouths to the teacher. 

Maybe theater wasn’t that bad of an idea after all...

[baoshan-sanren]

Chapter 27

of the wwx emperor au I’m thinking of calling Lan QiRen’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week oh god it’s only gonna get worse

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 Part 1 | Chapter 8 Part 2 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 Part 1 | Chapter 15 Part 2 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 Part 1 | Chapter 22 Part 2 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26

WangJi is not familiar with YiLing.

His first sight of the town had been marred by the stress of the six day travel, and all the unpleasantness that the trip had encompassed.  Their inability to find any accommodations for the Lan Sect escort had also contributed to the unfavorable impression. Overall, YiLing is not much smaller than Gusu, but significantly older, its streets and canals having sprouted wherever they were needed.

There is symmetry and regularity to Gusu that has always appealed to WangJi’s need for clearly discernible orderliness; it had been designed with care, roads proportionally wide to the demand, the street market restricted to specific areas built to accommodate the resulting foot traffic.

In contrast, YiLing had formed itself around a popular trade route both by land and by water, and had grown as the fame of the Immortal Mountain had grown, without any order or forethought. Some alleys are wider than the main roads, some are cobblestones and the others dirt, and in some, stubborn weeds and vines have taken root, choking the nearby walls and hedges. Some canals have so many bridges, that one could cross half of YiLing just hopping across them; some only have single, narrow bridge, and those are perpetually clogged by carts and carriages. Handsome mansions sit next to houses of ill repute, next to tanneries and farriers, the stench mixing heavily in the day’s heat. The street markets have taken root wherever there is space, and in many places where they clearly should not have, their stands and awnings blocking the thoroughfare. The result is haphazard at best, an overwhelming chaos made worse by the seven-day festival in honor of the Emperor’s birthday.

Wei WuXian loves it.

WangJi can hardly keep up with him. It is a relief to know that Nie MingJue has stationed multiple members of the Nie Sect throughout the town, because Wei WuXian seems to have entirely forgotten to worry about his own safety. Everything is fascinating to him; everything is new, and exciting, and worthy of exclaiming over. Not a single piece of cloth, or an ornament, or a children’s toy has been overlooked. Wei WuXian has to touch everything, ask about everything, haggle over everything. His smile is so wide and bright that WangJi is finding it hard to focus on anything else. Multiple times, he has found Wei WuXian’s hand wrapped around his wrist, tugging on his sleeve, pressing on his shoulder. He is like a child who needs to see everything, but also needs WangJi to see it as well, even if Wangji hardly has time to offer an opinion, before being tugged to the next stand, the next alley, the next bridge.

Wei WuXian has dressed to blend in. His robes are dark gray, lined in red, sleeves tightly tied off at the wrists. It is a uniform more suited to a rogue cultivator, or perhaps a second or third young master of a middling clan. But WangJi is certain that no set of dark, unadorned robes would ever prevent Wei WuXian from standing out. His smile is infectious; people smile back without meaning to, as if compelled by some invisible force. Those that do not, are still left looking dazed, blinking into the space where his smile had been moments ago. The red ribbon in Wei WuXian’s hair is perhaps the most conspicuous part of his outfit, fluttering as he darts from one corner of the street to another, a bright splash of color WangJi can easily follow even when left behind.

“Did you know you look an awful lot like the Emperor?” an old lady says to him, and Wei WuXian laughs loudly, turning to WangJi.

“Did you hear that Lan Zhan? What do you think? Am I as handsome as the Emperor?”

WangJi feels his face heat, but Wei WuXian is already skipping away, exclaiming over a row of grass butterflies. He buys three of them for A-Yuan, then dashes to the next colorful thing, a row of bright scarves embroidered with lotus flowers.

They have long lost sight of Nie MingJue and XiChen; WangJi knows they had not intended to stick closely to one another throughout the evening, as the sight of two Lan Sect members together may raise suspicion. They do not know if the assassin or their accomplices have eyes and ears in YiLing; the rumors in the Immortal Mountain City have placed the Young Masters of the Lan Sect in the Imperial Gardens, along with the Emperor, and Jiang WanYin had been quite insistent that they do nothing to compromise the plans set in motion. Both WangJi and XiChen had dressed simply enough to be mistaken for the Lan Sect escort still residing outside the YiLing proper, but once they are standing side by side, their resemblance is difficult to ignore. Still, WangJi knows his brother will worry, and wishes he could at least catch a glimpse of him in the crowded streets.

“Lan Zhan! Lan Zhan! Look at this!”

Wei WuXian had stumbled upon rows of paper lanterns, each one delicately painted with a different woodland creature in careful strokes. These are, by no means, the first paper lanterns they have seen on their trek across the market. Later in the evening, when the darkness fully sets, thousands of them will be released to the sky, as is tradition on every fifth day of the Emperor’s birthday festival. But these are the first lanterns WangJi has not found visually overwhelming, and he watches Wei WuXian haggle with the merchant for a little while, before simply stuffing the amount the man had wanted into his hands.

“Lan Zhan! He was going to sell it for less!”

The man shoots Wei WuXian a look that clearly says he was not going to do any such thing, but WangJi does not care either way.

“Which one?” he asks, and that is all it takes for Wei WuXian to become distracted again, exclaiming over hedgehogs and deer, until he settles on a lantern depicting a white rabbit.

“Do you like rabbits, Lan Zhan?”

WangJi nods. He has never before considered his feelings about rabbits in any detail, but now, he finds himself quite fond of them.

“Hm, I think we should eat. What do you think? After, we can find a peaceful spot to watch the lantern festival.”

Anything with a word peaceful in it is more than satisfactory to WangJi, and he nods again, letting Wei WuXian pull him to the nearest winehouse.

The common room is crowded and loud, the stench of alcohol mixing with the sharp scent of spices. Majority of the patrons seem to be merchants, but WangJi sees a few cultivator swords leaning against the table edges, despite the fact that their owners lack discernible sect uniforms. YiLing has always been a popular town for rogue cultivators. The Immortal Empress herself had belonged to no sect or clan, and each year, even the largest Sects see a number of disciples leave to strike out on their own, the idea of being anchorless and sectless doubtlessly more romantic in theory than it turns out being in truth. Still, WangJi is more focused on ascertaining if any of them are Sect members in disguise, than he is on Wei WuXian’s conversation with the serving girl.

Once the proprietor approaches however, he finally recognizes that there is an issue.

A single glance at the man’s face explains the situation fully, and WangJi steps closer to Wei WuXian, who is still visibly confused.

“We should leave,” WangJi says softly.

Wei WuXian does not listen. The common room is crowded, but there are clearly at least two unoccupied tables, and Wei WuXian does not understand why the serving girl would pretend otherwise.

The proprietor, unlike the serving girl, has no qualms about speaking plainly, “The Lan sect is not welcome here.”

WangJi had remained a few steps behind Wei WuXian, and cannot see the expression on his face, but he can perceive the telltale stiffening of his shoulders, the tightening of his grip on the sword. WangJi feels a moment of pity for XiChen, having to deal with his own eerily similar reaction in MoLing.

“Excuse me?” Wei WuXian says, his voice cold.

The exchange has drawn notice of the few nearby tables, most of them occupied by men who clearly know how to use their swords, and WangJi can see this situation escalating past the point where it can be managed peacefully.

He grabs Wei WuXian by the elbow and pulls him backwards, stepping in front of him.

“Forgive my friend,” he says, bowing to the proprietor, “he meant no offense. We are leaving.”

He has to physically push Wei WuXian outside. The line of his back is iron hard under WangJi’s hand, and his grip on the sword has not loosened.

“How dare he?” he bursts out, before they are even fully in the street, and WangJi pushes him harder, hoping to put some distance between them and the common room as quickly as possible.

“Do not be angry,” he says softly.

“Do not be angry?” Wei WuXian spits out, fury making his voice vibrate, “By the time I am done, he will be lucky to run a QiShan whorehouse!”

WangJi steers him down an empty alley, afraid that someone might decide to follow, “We are in disguise. The proprietor mistook you for a rogue cultivator. He did not know that he was insulting the Emperor.”

“He knew he was insulting you!” Wei WuXian whirls to face him, his expression outraged.

This is the second time WangJi has seen him angry in response to the mistreatment of the Lan Sect. It is just as overwhelming as the last time, and he is equally as incapable of formulating the correct response.

“This is YiLing,” he says, “the home of the Empress. The Lan Sect has never been welcome here.”

“Are you saying that they are all like this?” Wei WuXian’s voice is dangerous now, and WangJi does not know how to answer that question in a way that will deescalate the situation.

He should have known that this would happen. He should have steered Wei WuXian away from the places that he knows are likely to refuse to serve him.

It was stupid and thoughtless of him to forget. The evening had been going so well. Wei WuXian had been genuinely happy, and now he is furious, and WangJi does not know how to fix what he had broken.

Feeling agitated and unsure, he reaches for Wei WuXian’s hand, “Do not be angry. The street merchants will not care what sect I am from. We can buy food from them.”

He watches Wei WuXian’s anger bleed away in a rush, but it is replaced by frustration and grief, both nearly as crushing as the anger had been.

His fingers press into the back of WangJi’s hand, “Is it like that everywhere?”

“Sometimes,” WangJi says, “but it does not matter right now. You wanted to eat. We should do so before the festival starts, and the streets become crowded. Come on.”

He tugs Wei WuXian slightly, desperate that the subject be dropped, desperate for the return of the happy, smiling Wei WuXian, who seemed to not have a care in the world.  

Wei WuXian lets himself be led, but it is a long time before he smiles again.

[birdwonder]

headcanon the joestars on how they would react to an artist s/o like always painting, drawing and giving them like a painting of them they worked on?? thank u 💕

|| I don’t do part 5 or further requests yet, and I’m taking Joestars as in the Jojo’s, but I think I know Giorno somewhat enough to throw him in ! Also, cuuute request.

Part 1-5 Jojo’s | Artist S/O Headcanons 

Jonathan Joestar

- As one would expect, he is incredibly supportive of your talent! All of your family/couple portraits are hung up in the hallways and even a few landscape ones too to keep things looking lively. His favourite above all favourites would go above the fire place however, which is probably a painting of the two of you that you had gifted him on your anniversary.

- He cherishes it more than most possessions he owns, and when he’s warming up by the crackling flames, he can’t help but smile at it. That’s your hard work and your effort up there, and any house guests will know it as soon as he shows it to them. 

- Honestly, he doesn’t want to request anything from you as he feels as though anything that you gift him that comes from your mind and heart alone is far more valuable to him. Besides, he wouldn’t really know what to ask for aside from another portrait of you to hang somewhere that wasn’t taken up.

- During the spring and summer seasons, you take the time to set up an easel, canvas and paint set in the garden to have some fresh air and gather new inspiration. Even if you haven’t even gotten far into the piece, Jonathan will eventually come out the house with two cups of tea and stand behind you, bending down to lightly kiss your temple as he’s afraid anything more passionate would interrupt your creative process or cause your finger to slip. He would then ask for you to take a break and sit with him at a table to enjoy the view together, so the two of you can talk about your future painting plans and how his studies in archeology are going. Mutual respect for each other’s interests is an essential ingredient in any relationship.

- “Oh, look at your hands! No matter, we’ll just have to wash them once we’re inside,” is something he says before you realise that a tea cup you were holding had been smudged with a variety of green’s and blue’s from your fingertips. You apologise profusely in which he shakes his head at with a chuckle. “It’s alright, my love. I think it makes them look far more unique now! No china set in the world could look like this.”

- Skip 100 years into the future and your paintings may be in a gallery with a small “to Jonathan” written in the corner.

Joseph Joestar

- Definition of “Paint me like one of your french girls.~”

- Definitely suggests a nude painting of him. Or you. Or the two of you together, whether it be a joke or he’s somewhat serious.

- He’s amazed by your talent! Including your patience. He probably wouldn’t be able to sit still for long enough to even paint an abstract tree, so he has nothing but respect for your artistry. 

-If you were to ever gift him a drawing, he’d be stunned. Does he even deserve to own one of your pieces? Was this a declaration of love? Because he’s accepting it with a hard kiss to your lips and a string of ‘thank you’’s and compliments.

- One day, you had a serious artist block and had no idea what to paint leaving you stumped and staring at a blank canvas in despair. The lack of spark in your eyes that you usually had when painting hurt Joseph, so as a foolish attempt to help, he grabbed a bottle of one of your haunts and squirted it all over his hand.

- You gasped in response, about to scold him on the price of the paints when he suddenly slapped it smack middle of the canvas. “Joseph! Those cost a lot!”

- “Yeah but it’s fun! C’mon try it! Get your creative juices flowing or whatever you art folk say!” Taking your hand, he squirted a different colour onto it which made you giggle cutely as the cold sensation. He then guided it next to his bright hand print, pressing your palm down.

- It looked adorable and gave you an idea.

- With a smile, and a promise from Joseph that he’d buy you more paint later, the two of began to spread more paints onto your hands and continued to cover the canvas mindlessly with your prints.

- By the end of it, the two of who are laughing and even smearing paint on each other’s faces, leading to some squeals and hilarious facial features. 

- Sure, it wasn’t want you had initially wanted to go for, but with a carefully painted on “Joseph and [F/N]” written underneath the first two handprints that were made, you knew that the sentimental value of the piece was far greater than anything else you could have made.

Jotaro Kujo

- He has no reason to be against your talent and doesn’t have enough words and facial expressions to his name to show how impressed he is with you.

- Though that slightly changes when you hand him your sketch book one day, a bashful look on your face as you fear for the worst reaction from him.

- Inside are a multitude of sketches and even fine lined pieces of him, some with and without Star Platinum if you can see him, all carefully and accurately drawn in your own style. You even remembered to add the pin on his hat and his earrings...

- Jotaro could only blush brightly and cough into his hand to compose himself. “It’s good... I like it.” An understatement really, because if you let him keep even a page, he’ll be sure to keep it safe somewhere but no where obvious so his mother or grandfather don’t tease him for it. 

- If you ask him to pose for anything, he’ll want to decline and might even do so the first few times, though with some begging he may do some poses in your home, with the assurance that no one will barge in. Only casual ones though, so he doesn’t have to strain or embarrass himself.

- Buying presents for you is considerably easy as there’s always some sort of pen or paint set he can get to add to your wide range of media, all of which you are grateful for and gush over even though you tell him that buying them is unnecessary.

- “Have you considered doing an art major?” If you say yes, he supports you completely but warns you of the stresses and the harsh reality of the art world when it came to work.

Josuke Higashikata

- Ooh, is he going to show you off.

- “Yo Rohan Sensei! Sure you can draw that manga of your’s but can you draw THIS?”

- He might get killed or have his destiny rewritten by a certain stand user, but he knows it’s worth it when it comes to you. Have you seen your own art? It’s incredible !

- Most likely, he finds out by seeing you doodle in class and his jaw completely drops that your maths work sheet was instead covered in drawings of amazing bodies and plant life. If you insist that they’re nothing and “they’re just sketches,” he will personally shake you senseless and talk your ear off telling you that they are amazing. 

- Gifting him any kind of artistic media makes him overjoyed. Josuke shoves it in Okuyasu’s face, much to the delinquent’s dismay, and hugs you to death for the gift. “Aw babe, you really didn’t have to!”

- If you’re ever stressing over the quality of your work, he reminds you that you are amazing at what you do and that everyone has their own style, so that comparing yourself to others just wasn’t fair on you. 

- He plays a personal game where each day he tries to guess how much pen or paint you have your hand by the end of the day. Usually on weekends, it’s a lot more.

Giorno Giovanna 

- There’s a good chance that you met because of your work.

- You’re in a particularly beautiful Italian city, either sitting on a stool or ledge with a canvas or book in front of you, your hand working away at the landscape before you.

- While he was on a relaxing stroll, Giorno stopped behind you and peered over your shoulder, his breath taken away by how accurate your piece was to every exact detail.

- “Bellissimo...” He whispered, causing you to jolt a little and quickly turn around to look at him, a flushed or embarrassed look on your face. Oh, you’re cute.

- Right after he apologised for startling you and praises you for your work, which only flusters you more that such a handsome boy was complimenting you, you offered for him to sit next to you. Perhaps for you to even draw him?

- He doesn’t refuse.

- Once you’re dating, he takes you wherever you want whenever he can so you can draw the scenery, and shows you more gorgeous places to draw and even suggests what sort of people to draw. He also supports you doing something out of your comfort zone, for example if you typically liked to only sketch, he’d suggest for you to paint or use chalk in another style to see if it improves your skill as a whole.

- When he’s a don, he asks for you to paint or draw him so that he can hang it somewhere in an expensive frame to make his work place appear more serious and clear that he was the boss.

- If you do so, he thanks you a hundred times and buys you anything you want and as much as you want. Giorno also makes sure to repay you physically with a night out and kisses with a goodnight cuddle. 

- He might keep a small sketch of the two of you in his inside jacket pocket or draw so that every time he took it out during work, he’d be reminded of you and how you met, which motivated him to get the job done quick so he could go home to see you.