#and then the player is unapologetically making them be nice and goofy and caring and giving them a healthy life

[veveisveryuncool]

misc deltarune doodles at 3 am

[ahkaahshi]

how to earn their trust [scenarios]

pairings: miya atsumu; sakusa kiyoomi; akaashi keiji x fem reader

genre: fluff

warning(s): n/a

to earn miya atsumu’s trust, SHOW UP FOR HIM

Atsumu is an incredibly devoted guy who will never make you question his love for you. While he’s known by his brother and a few others close to him for being a liar and has a bad reputation for being selfish, he cares much more about people he’s close to than he lets on. He’ll never let you or his teammates down and, because of this, he needs a s/o who will be there for him, too.

When he asks you to come to his games, it often comes off in a facetious way, since he’s a total showboat and has an air of haughtiness to him. But, in actuality, he craves your support and seriously wants you there because volleyball means a lot to him, and so do you.

Just knowing that you’re there, watching him and cheering for him, gives him a sense of peace and calmness that’s important when he’s playing, since volleyball is such a fast-paced game that makes it nearly impossible for players to have a chance to slow down. Since he shows up for you, he wants you to do the same, which is completely fair.

If you have plans, he’s totally okay with it. You’re a busy student with a lot of stuff on your plate and a life of your own, so if you can’t come due to prior commitments, let him know and he’ll understand. Of course, he’ll tease and whine about it, but that’s just his way of being goofy with you because he knows he’ll be seriously missin’ you.

“Hey, ya comin’ to watch my game on Friday, (f/n)?” he asks, his honey-colored eyes full of hope.

Your heart sinks into your stomach as you answer, “I’m sorry, I’m tutoring all day after school and it’s really important for me to get some extra money, ‘Tsumu.”

Dejection flashes across his face, but he’s quick to hide his disappointment out of fear of upsetting you and out of his own pride. When he notices the creases of worry appear in your forehead from your furrowed brows, he’s quick to throw his arm around your shoulders and announce jokingly, “Ah, ditchin’ me again? I get it! If you don’t wanna spend time with me, jus’ say so ‘n I'll stop invitin’ ya to do fun things, like watch a kick-ass game of volleyball!”

Though he purposely made his comment loud enough for everyone in the gym to hear, his teammates didn’t bother with him, and, instead, continued putting all the equipment away. In spite of this, your face still burned with embarrassment at being teased, making you give Atsumu’s toned chest a light smack.

“I’m jus’ kiddin’! C’mere,” he reassures you, pulling you into a sweaty hug that you initially resist before placing your hands on the back of his soaked t-shirt and reciprocating his sign of affection. “Do whatcha gotta do, smartypants. I’ll see ya at next week’s game, though, right?”

“Of course.”

His grip around you tightens and he nestles his head in the crook of your neck. You can feel him grinning against your skin as he says, “Great! Wear that warm-up sweater of mine you’ve been holdin’ onto, why don’tcha? Looks good on ya.”

However, if you constantly flake on him or keep making excuses not to hang out with him or go to his games, he’ll quickly become disillusioned with you. Your lack of interest that’s apparent to him in the way you always think up reasons not to support or spend time with him will break his heart. As a result, he’ll stop asking you altogether, and his lack of trust in you will surely put your relationship on the rocks. He’s busy but always wants to make time for you, so if you can’t do the same for him, he’s ending the relationship.

to earn sakusa kiyoomi’s trust, RESPECT HIS BOUNDARIES

As we’ve seen, Omi doesn’t like crowds or germs, and, thus, is very strict and serious about the boundaries he sets. Because of this, it is crucial for his s/o to respect his limits and be aware of them. For him, this not only shows that you’re patient, but it also shows that you care deeply about him, which, in turn, will foster a relationship of trust between the two of you.

If he says he’s uncomfortable with doing something or going somewhere, don’t push him; especially early on in your relationship. If he needs space, let him have his space. He’ll come to you when he’s ready. It’s important to know that even if he doesn’t let you into his bubble right away or turns down your signs of affection because he’s worried about germs, he still cares about you. He’s just a bit anxious.

To build his trust, you'll have to work in a gradual manner towards pushing his boundaries and showing him that it’s okay for him to step a bit outside of his comfort zone. If you’re more excitable, touchy, or clingy, you can still be yourself, but you will need to slow down a bit for him. He needs time and love to get comfortable, so patience and commitment to him are important.

He will fall for you so hard if you show him that you want him to feel safe. Examples of this may be wearing the face mask he bought for you when you’re out in public together, bringing extra hand sanitizer or disinfecting wipes on dates for the two of you to use, or changing your bedsheets before he comes over. If you accommodate him, he will 100% do the same for you to make you feel safe and secure.

After you open the front door of your house for him, Sakusa shuffles out of the coldness of the brisk evening air and slides off his shoes. When he looks down at his sneakers sitting amongst the rest of your family’s shoes, he realizes that there’s an extra pair of slippers sitting along with the rest that are considerably larger and differently colored.

“Oh, Kiyo!” you pipe up when you see his charcoal gaze fixate on them, “I got you some slippers of your own since you come over so often! Everyone knows they’re yours so they haven’t been used, or anything.”

Though you can’t see it because he’s still wearing his mask, his lips curl up into the smallest of smiles. When he slides it off, he presses a gentle kiss against your forehead as thanks for the house shoes he slides his feet into before making his way to the kitchen to wash his hands. Once he's finished, you lead him into your room so he can set down his duffel bag and the two of you can settle in for a Netflix marathon, as promised.

Upon entering your room, his olfactory senses are delighted by the clean scent of fresh laundry, which he soon realizes is wafting from your bed. The look of contentment on his face as he takes a deep inhale makes you smile.

“Since you’re staying over, I washed everything,” you announce, “And, also, you left your shirt here by accident yesterday, so I washed that too.” His eyes follow where your finger points to his warm-up shirt laid on the edge of the comforter, neatly folded by your careful hands.

Wordlessly, he makes his way over to you and wraps his arms around you, pulling your body flush against his. With his head hanging by the side of yours, he can smell the shampoo you used on your slightly damp, (h/c) hair. “Thank you,” he murmurs before moving his face down towards yours so he can give you an appreciative kiss.

When you release one another, he rifles through his duffel bag to retrieve a bag of your favorite sweets that he then plops into your hands.

“I stopped by the store on the way to get you some, since you wouldn’t stop complaining about badly you wanted them yesterday.” Turning his gaze to the laptop on your bed, he adds, “We can watch whatever you want.”

“Really?!” you bubble, eyes glowing with excitement, since he always put up a fight about your choice of movie or television show.

He furrows his dark eyebrows at you, making the two distinctive moles above one of them twitch. “Yes. Don’t make me regret this.”

He will not tolerate a s/o who chastises or berates his habits, since they’re ways he creates feelings of security and peace of mind for himself. If you insist on constantly pushing his boundaries, or forcing him to do anything before he’s ready, he’ll ultimately pull away from you. At the end of the day, if he thinks you don’t have much consideration for him and how he feels, he will end the relationship since mutual respect is important to him.

to earn akaashi keiji’s trust, BE YOURSELF AND BE HONEST

Akaashi is the king of delivering the truth, albeit bluntly--but knows how to exercise tact. Because of his commitment to being straightforward and unapologetically Akaashi so that everyone around him can also be themselves, he wants a s/o who will be real with him.

If he does something you don’t like, tell him! If you want to watch a different movie than the one he put on, tell him! If you don’t want Bokuto crashing your date with him for the ten millionth time, tell him. Even if you’re worried about upsetting him! He can handle the truth and will work to remedy the situation, but he won’t stand for lies and dishonesty. Also, if you’re not comfortable with talking about something, just let him know and he’ll be respectful of your wishes.

No matter what you think of yourself, just be you. While he’s attracted to looks, of course, he’s also a huge personality guy. Therefore, he really appreciates people who are just themselves and don’t try to change for the sake of others. I mean, look at how much he loves and trusts Bokuto, and what does that mf do? Be himself!

Akaashi wants to love you for who you are, so let him!

“Hey, Keiji?”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lower lip with hesitation as your (e/c) eyes travel up and down your form in the mirror resting against the wall in your bedroom. The dress you’re wearing is one your doting boyfriend diligently selected for you, but it just doesn’t quite suit you--in terms of both style and fit. “Uh...” you mumble shakily, trying to find a way to reject his gift without being harsh, “this dress is really nice...”

"I sense a but coming,” Akaashi responds, his voice muffled by the door separating the two of you.

You sigh, “But, it’s not really me and it doesn’t really fit that great. I'm sorry. I know you went out of your way to get this for me.”

After opening the door for him so he can inspect how his gift looks on you for himself, he purses his lips before they form a gentle smile. “It’s okay,” he assures you, taking one of your hands in his and meeting your gaze with his gunmetal blue one, “Thanks for being honest with me. I still have the receipt, so I can return it.”

Giving his hand a light squeeze, you reiterate, “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head at you and plants a kiss against your temple, filling your body with warmth. “Don’t be. If anything, I should be the one apologizing for not getting your style or size right even after being with you for, what, three months now?”

His comment makes you giggle, and he relishes in the delightful sounds echoing from your mouth. As he tucks a stray strand of your (h/l), (h/c) hair behind your ear, he offers, “How about you come with me to the mall when I return it so you can help me pick something you actually like?”

A smile graces your lips that makes his heart skip a beat. “Thank you, baby.”

Since he values honesty and authenticity so much, he’ll lose his trust in a s/o who is a habitual liar or who constantly tries to change to fit in. He gets seriously irked by people who are fake, so if he sees you take on an entirely different persona just to gain the favor of other people, or treat him differently based on who you’re around, he’ll be very turned off. And don’t even think about lying to him. Little, white lies he can work with, but keeping secrets from him and not being straightforward with him will break his heart. He’s very forgiving, and will wrack his brain for reasons as to why his s/o might be lying to him, but if he draws a blank or if you cheat on him, he’s done.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Hey guys, I was having thoughts on the meta-side of the Dream SMP. Okay, so we know that Technoblade has done much of the scripting for this present arc, Tommy, Dream and Quackity have also done some in collaboration, presumably doing each of their own characters and motivations, and Tubbo and Fundy have also been involved too. Uh, this will be rambly as it’s a lot of unsorted observations.

Obviously these are my thoughts, and ideas purely based on my observations as a viewer but you can definitely tell that they’re all very aware of the fanbase and are likely very influenced by them. I could see this even in the Pogtopia arc where Tommy started reusing phrases before when debating ethics with Wilbur, eg ‘let’s lose as winners, not win as losers.’ or something along those lines and how Techno made a callback to his only universal language is violence speech in his wither monologue. 

But wow, the scripting is definitely becoming a lot more obvious in this new season of the SMP. Not a bad thing at all, by the way, it’s just a difference. Clearly they’ve gotten more detailed plans and are more ambitious with what they convey in minecraft, with more players taking inspiration from Wilbur after how well he executed it. It’s also the difference in how the various people write, I’m sure. 

Tommy and Tubbo have streamed the SMP for the longest and have very gradually evolved into the roleplaying and their respective approaches to it are very interesting. Tubbo’s streams are typically chill and usually involve him working on some sort of project - he’s very chaotic when with other people but is usually very reactionary when it comes to the roleplaying - doing most of his best stuff when bouncing off Tommy, or occasionally Quackity. On his own he doesn’t like to lead bits but is among the best at making other people’s bits work. Same with the RP! His character’s in a weird spot right now as the other writer’s seem to be writing him in quite an unflattering way and he doesn’t do solo, emotional performances all that much meaning he’s less sympathetic right now then he really should be. Like, Tommy garnered loads of sympathy during his exile as he gave a very expressive performance where Tubbo’s character also presumably feels very isolated and alone and he’s being manipulated by the people around him but he gives a lot less. This has made it easier for the audience to start siding more with Technoblade, the literal mass-murderer, over the traumatised kid who was manipulated into exiling his best friend and continues to face terrible choices with no good options.

 While I can of course make less meta theories on why Tubbo should be appreciated more and what it says he’s got no real support and is compartmentalising his problems, in the end it’s how his streams work. Tubbo does plot related streams, and he does streams where he simply vibes - and even in the serious streams, he can joke around and cheerfully lampshade the goofiness by doing things like joking about wanting a good review from Techno while kidnapping him - that stuff is priceless and does not fit into the melodramtic scripts but it adds so much to the SMP and why it is so much fun to watch. Tubbo’s really good at making content better! He’s not afraid to look ridiculous, he will also unapologetically avoid engaging in too much melodrama himself when he doesn’t feel like it. I consider his character highly underrated in the plot right now.

Tommy knows what he’s doing. Even before the roleplaying really took off, Tommy liked to play a character and lead bits and the SMP shifting in a more scripted direction suited him exceptionally well. Tommy focuses heavily on streams with lots of content, only rarely doing more chill stuff - especially more recently. He has always approached streams with a plan - but usually their extremely loose and he has said that he’d sometimes just come up with an idea 10 minutes before the stream and improvise from there. Tommy’s good at improvising and seems to work best with a very loose plan. Where I think Techno likely came up with the plan for Tommy to get exiled from L’Manburg and then join forces with him, Tommy likely filled in how to play his character and - wow.

Tommy’s writing seems to be incredibly simple - each exile stream had no major plot points or anything and the plans that are there don’t even make logical sense (let’s throw a party in one day and let’s invite everyone but have Dream not send out the invitations so no one shows up - and I’m going to do this even with Philza and Fundy literally in the call.) but Tommy pulled every one of them off very well and proved to be compelling enough that no one cared at all whether the plot made sense nor did Tommy make much effort to justify that sort of thing - ‘cause he knows how the SMP works and how much the audience will go along with it. And instead, Tommy focused entirely on his characterisation and spent all his time exploring it. That’s how Tommy works - very simple plans, then improv in character into an engaging bit. He’s managed to pull off the most ridiculous things like that, and has confidence that the other streamers will support it - that’s how he’s prepared to try insane things like pretending to be Clarencio the llama. And, like Tubbo, he’s always willing to throw for content. 

Then there’s Technoblade. He’s streamed the SMP a lot less - though he’s done so much more recently - but he’s spent a lot more time playing on the SMP, doing tons of grinding. He here for the RP but is also committed to playing the game itself very optimally. He seems to have a much larger view, taking in the bigger picture, of the story where Tommy has a very personal view. His approach to content is all about the fanservice. 

He’s always trying to create big epic, moments, that both look and sound awesome. Like the butcher’s army plotline which let him both seem like an underdog, a victim against a mean group, and also an incredible badass figure who outplayed them all and came out as victorious. The butcher’s army were really given an antagonists role there, and were really made to seem unlikeable. Then he met up with fan-favourite Tommy and suggested a team-up with him. (This is also leading to the ultimate fanservice that is the Sleepybois team-up.) Techno’s got a very, dry self-aware sens of humour too and he’ll often make simple meta observations about the SMP - like noting that the pacing’s fast or teasing in the chat in the middle of wars. He’s also made himself into a bit of a meme what with logging just to say his name and leave. 

I don’t know how much it’s just Techno of course, but the plot really seems to be heading in a direction that suggesting that Technoblade was Right. L’Manburg’s seeming corrupt, and Tommy is being seen as Theseus. At the time Techno first made the Theseus speech, I felt like the comparison seemed unfair - but now it’s like the plot itself has bent over to make the comparison make sense, and Techno’s one of the writers of the script. Techno also of course, prepared a vault to show Tommy so he could say ‘welcome home Theseus dramatically - total fanservice as fans were indeed talking about how cool saying a line would be, and then he absolutely did. The way Techno calls his viewers chatting as the voices in his head is also fanservice. It’s not like actually true, as Techno ignores the chat if they tell him information his character doesn’t know and meanwhile all the streamers interact with their chat too - so all chats have always been a part of the story and calling them canon is absolutely meaningless. Not a bad thing though - it is nice and makes the fans happy and makes them feel included. I don’t know if this sounds critical by the way - it’s not meant as such at all - all the streamers love engaging with the fandom, and Techno’s approach to giving lots of fanservice by providing so many epic moments is great. I just wanted to highlight it. 

And those were some meta thoughts on the SMP right now and its writing. I don’t really think I had a point or argument. I just wanting to make some observations and my impressions. If you’re curious I am course a Tommy fan first. I love how he’s evolved with the SMP most of all and I appreciate his character-driven storytelling. His main weakness is probably getting too into bits and going too far and it’s so nice that the SMP is a place where even his weaker ideas are supported rather than shut down. I like how he’s able to improv so well and simply how he streams. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I love Tubbo best when he’s with Tommy as they bring the best performances out of each other. I find Techno interesting as a contrast to both of them, as he approaches so many things in such a different way. 

[yasuda-yoshiya]

I haven't delved much into KH lore, but I think there's something wrong when the main character is shoehorned into a plot that's essentially the same from the previous arcs repetitively along with a character that seems to be the love interest, while several others you never got to play as (or very temporarily playable), gets much further characterization and their new resolutions. The only ones that are interesting in Sora's party is Donald and Goofy btw. Anything about Riku and Mickey though?

Hmm, well, strictly from a storytelling perspective, I think I basically agree with you! Pretty much all the really interesting plot developments and character moments in KH3 are completely divorced from the person whose PoV you’re stuck inhabiting for most of the game, and Sora pretty much spends the whole game doing absolutely nothing of any importance while all the actual plot progression happens away from him. And in terms of what makes a good story, yeah, that’s basically terrible, but I honestly feel like I can basically understand why they did it because frankly, Kingdom Hearts as a series is in a very weird position at this point. The main appeal of the series to the vast majority of the casual audience is its supposed “Disney magic” and getting to explore the worlds from various Disney movies, but the actual main plot of the series at this point is an absolutely impenetrable and convoluted mess of original characters and plot threads that’s about as far away from any kind of “Disney magic” as you could possibly get.

With that in mind, it pretty much makes sense to me that they’d want to just shove the main plot out of the way entirely for most of the game and just focus on Sora’s random adventures in Disney worlds, because it’s honestly gotten to the point where the presence of the main plot actively detracts from the supposed central appeal of the game for most people. It allows KH3 to be enjoyable as a stand-alone experience to the average person who doesn’t give a crap about the overarching mess of the Kingdom Hearts plot and just wants to enjoy some Disney fanservice (and let’s be real, this probably describes at least 80% of the people who actually bought the game). Games like KH1, Days and BBS could manage to do a passable job of integrating some characterisation and plot development into the Disney stuff without being too jarring to the casual audience, because those games told basically self-contained stories. You don’t need to be a KH Lore Maniac to follow, say, Ven’s character arc through BBS. But KH3? KH3′s plot is all about tying up loose ends and resolving the stories of various characters from other games. Nothing about KH3′s plot makes any sense or has any real impact as a standalone, and it would probably be a fool’s errand to even try to make it work as one, because it just has way too much baggage from the ongoing series-wide plot that it has to resolve. So rather than trying to give Sora a quest that actually ties into the main plot in some way, they just decided to put the plot to one side and lean into unapologetic filler instead. I can sort of respect that.

The way I see it is… well, let’s put it this way. As a Kingdom Hearts fan, I could totally draw up an alternative outline for KH3 that has Sora making more of a meaningful journey and progress throughout the game, and integrates the main plot into the Disney stuff better. The focus of KH3 is about Sora saving the hearts and healing the pain of the people connected to him, the people whose pain was forgotten until now. So why not make the plots of the Disney worlds focus more on having him come to understand these people better, to get more of a focus on why it’s so important to bring them back? Let’s have the Olympus Coliseum chapter involve a subplot where, say, Sora finds out from Phil about the time Roxas spent training there in Days, and Phil talks about how much potential he showed and how he really misses the kid. Let’s spend more time explicitly drawing a connection between the toys having hearts in Toy Story and the way Xion developed her own heart despite being an artificially created puppet. Let’s parallel Rapunzel’s situation in Tangled with Namine’s in CoM, and make the plot of that world about Sora regaining the memories he lost from CoM (heck, Marluxia’s even right there and briefly brings this up in the actual game already!), reminding him of just how much Namine suffered and how much she deserves to be saved. And so on, and so on.

And that would probably make for a much more solid and cohesive game, and give the overall plot a lot more weight… but could you actually realistically present that kind of plot in a way that wasn’t totally alienating to the casual audience? Are you really going to be able to give enough emotional context for the average uninitiated player to grasp and care about all these different plotlines just through flashbacks and exposition? Are there really that many people who actually want to see the plot of Tangled used as a vehicle to revisit the plot of a 2004 GBA game, or are people just going to be frustrated at these hugely popular Disney movies being taken over by weird anime OCs they don’t care about? Professional reviewers are quite understandably panning the game already just for the very minimal intrusions of the convoluted main plot into the Disney stuff “breaking the magic” as it is, so it’s hard for me to imagine that any more of that would really be well-received by and large, however much the story might technically benefit from it. This is the sort of problem we run into when a game has to try and simultaneously appease two distinct audiences with entirely different priorities. Giving the main plot a very minimal presence for most of the game and then shoving the entire resolution into the last few hours is an imperfect solution, but I’m also not really sure what else they could realistically have done, given the setup KH3 had to work with.

In the end, I’m basically content with the compromise. I think they did a decent job of making a game that stays mostly enjoyable and accessible as a wacky Disney adventure for the casual audience, while still tying up most of the big overall plot threads that needed to be tied up in a reasonably satisfying way (a few very questionable writing choices aside… but it’s Kingdom Hearts, what else is new). It would have been nice to have had more build-up and substance to these characters’ resolutions, and to actively focus more of the game on them, as you suggest - but the more time the game spends pandering to overall series fans, the more time it also spends alienating everyone else. I think in the end we just have to accept that the build-up and context for their resolutions was in the previous games, that the people who really care about the series’ story will have played those games already, and for the people who haven’t, it just probably wasn’t worth devoting too much effort to trying to make them care within KH3 itself. That’s my take on it, at least.

On Riku and Mickey... hm, well, aside from them obviously being OTP material as always, neither of them really got to do much in this game? So I don’t really have much to say about them in particular. I thought the idea of Riku feeling a personal connection to Aqua’s plight as someone trapped in the darkness was sweet, but then they didn’t really do anything with that or let them actually interact at all in the end, so it felt like wasted potential. The BBS characters in this game were just a big disappointment in general, really! They could easily have done much more with them than they did, without even changing the structure of the story much... but, uh, I’m talking about Riku, sorry. I feel like Riku’s never really done much for me as a character, beyond like, KH1 and maybe CoM. I can see the outline of his arc on paper, and it seems fine and potentially interesting, but the execution has always felt pretty by-the-book and lacking in nuance to me. They talk very generally about him “falling to darkness” and such, but they don’t ever get beyond that into actually having him wrestle with his guilt over specific things, like his time working with DiZ or kidnapping the princesses or contributing to Roxas and Xion’s sacrifices, so it all feels a bit too broad to particularly connect with - and it’s sort of hard for me to really give weight to things like “I wore a blindfold for a whole year because I couldn’t stand looking at myself”, when that’s juxtaposed with him flipping right back to being a perfectly functional and confident hero without much apparent struggle or lasting difficulty after just a few platitudes from Sora. It’s sort of like they flip between being broadly melodramatic about his issues and shrugging them off completely? So he’s never really clicked with me, personally.

Meanwhile, Mickey is kind of hard for me to take all that seriously as a character beyond the memes, since... I mean, he’s Mickey Mouse, so there’s a big mental block there, lol. But even if I put that aside and look at his writing in KH in isolation, he never really felt like a particularly deep or interesting character or anything, I think? His relationship with Riku is very sweet, though!