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0daylighthours0 · 8 months ago

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A Deep Dive into Milkvan and Byler's Development: If Milkvan Was Endgame All Along, Why Was it Written Like This???

SO. I've been rewatching st with my mother, who's never seen it before. And she was a fan of milkvan throughout seasons 1 and 2. Viewing those seasons again I could see why, they're cute. However, come season 3 and INSTANT distaste. And, listen, my mother is not the consciously shipping gal. She simply routes for main character pairings as writers intend, doesn't read between the lines, doesn't nothing. And she does NOT know my own opinions on the pairing. In other words, completely unbiased, uninternet drama influenced eyes. We've now reached season 3 and, after getting through a chunk of it, I asked her,

"so what do you think of Mike and El?"

and she expressed to me that they seem to be, quote:

"not very good together."

She said El's character doesn't suit the way she's acting now (in the first few episodes, concerning Mike), that Mike is more likeable and interesting when he's away from her. She doesn't like the way they ditched the party, and when it comes to their 'making out' the scenes are seen by her from Hopper's perspective (in other words, distasteful). She claimed that they'd be much better characters as friends.

And ya know what, she's right. And I mean like - duh, that's what we've been saying all this time, I'm not stating anything new here. But guys, wouldn't it be strange if the central couple of the show, pivotal that it is liked by audiences and is rooted for by them as they are THE pair, would be so dislikable like this? So uninteresting, so cliche.

I mean, okay, let's do a little mental experiment I like to do to test if I'm not just acting delulu. Let's play a game. In this game, milkvan ARE meant to be endgame. They are in love, they were all along, and they're here to draw in viewers and appease all El stans. Now, seasons 1 and 2 their relationship is honestly fine. Surface level, yeah, people will watch and appreciate them. They perfectly blend in with all the other neat pairings of the seasons, and have their own unique character traits to stand out as a main couple.

Just pretending our mate Will doesn't exist, we now get into season 3. Now, writers have nothing to lose here. If you've finished season 2, you probably like milkvan already. The issue is that they're already together now, so what's the conflict going to be? The arc? And every central couple needs that conflict to stay juicy.

Just take a look:

Jancy: quarrels, struggle to understand one another

Jopper: not yet together, one sided? will they won't they

Lumax: ...

Lumax? Lumax. Huh, guess they were simply together. Some loveable bickering, maintained a friendly dynamic while clearly in closer proximity. Well then, writers can do the same for milkvan right? Well, yes easily. But one might argue that since they are supposed to be THE pairing they need more going on between them than that. So what'll it be? Well, it seems that writers thought,

"hey, why not break them up?"

ok so.. that's a bit risky. I mean you want people to like this ship, if you break them up then that threats: 1. there being a disliking to one or both characters, 2. coming off generic if done incorrectly, 3. the break up might make no sense considering how in love they came off as just a season ago. But hey.. it could work, if done right. Some kind of misunderstanding, similar to Jancy. Maybe an argument leading to a sudden parting. I mean, yeah, Yeah! I can see that. Perhaps Mike is being too overprotective whilst El's trying to sacrifice herself for something, so she NEEDS to separate herself from him attempting to hurt him less. Or, I dunno, something akin. What's crucial is that us, AS THE AUDIENCE, still know them to be deeply in love. I mean, we have to still want them to be together. And we've seen couple trouble before. Just take a look at Lumax season 4 - did you or did you not want the best for both of them as a pair? You most likely did. See, it's doable. So did people like milkvan season 3 the same way, even after a separation plot? No.

Okay well, there are obviously those who'll always love milkvan no matter but, see, season 3 tainted it. "We need to write them like this cause it's more realistic to teenager behavior" my ars. You can make it messy without making it icky. Not only did it sour their unique dynamic, it flabbergastingly stomped on Mike as a character.

Honestly, I feel Mike has always been a mild struggle to write. Season 1 his motivations were 'find Will' (who still doesn't exist in our mind game yet shh) and 'protect El'. This worked well for him. Afterwards though, El and Will became more separate plots to him. But as a main character it remained integral that he be closely linked to them somehow. This sets him apart from Lucas and Dustin, who can easily be given any arc any season as their plots have the flexibility of a side quest nature. Since what Mike does is meant to matter more - with there probably being a better way of phrasing that but you know what I mean - it's harder knowing what he'll do when El and Will (who we'll GET to sh.) are their own separate people. And Mike is just a boy, he doesn't have super powers and he isn't a cop, which leaves there even less for him to do which is of significance. Season 2 writers decided upon having him support Will's arc, making himself of enough relevance by being able to take credit for some Will development in the story, and the plots that surrounded that, and then Mike was thrown a little bone by being the one to come up with the idea of burning those vines in the finale.

Truthfully, you don't really remember Mike's deeds much when reminiscing the series. It isn't like Dustin who's bond with Dart sticks to everyone, or Nancy and Jonathan responsible for kicking out Hawkins Lab. This is due to them, again, being able to traverse all sorts of adventures without limits. But my guy Mike can't do dat. Sadly, this kind of leads to him coming of as a little.. well... insignificant. And I know I know, the Mike truthers are gonna come at my throat. And hey! I love him too. I only want the best for my boy.

This makes season 3 a unique case cause it seems that, for the plot they decided they wanted, writers actually had to almost entirely change his character. I mean mate s2 Mike and s3 Mike are two different peoples, don't even. And I don't believe that the Duffers had their story and character turnouts completely drawn out from the very start at all. If I was to guess, I'd assume they have vague ideas of little plots they plan to include in future, but there is definitely a lot that has come unpredicted or changed throughout st's runtime. And one of those phenomenons are Michael Wheeler. So they decided to make this guy a di-

So they decided to make him more douchy, more movie typical teenage guy. It's not as if he wholly sucked, he didn't, but he didn't really do much. Whined about his girlfriend, separated the party. I mean what even was his arc? (UnLESS–)

You see, if milkvan is written to be loved, then season 3 was strike one. All of its charm was stripped away. It seems they had some cute scenes after their reconciliation, but it's not enough. It's just sort of

"oh, ok, so they're happy with eachother now. yayy."

and Stranger Things should want to be anything but boring. Sure they often enjoy indulging in tropes, but they always do something different with them. Something standoutish. And from this point on milkvan just got dull. Either writers ran out of ideas or lost interest, honestly (still with our mind game of telling ourselves they're meant to be).

But it's okay. Look, so season 3 was a bit rocky, maybe lost a couple of fans for the guys, but it is salvageable. Easily, easily. Looks like we want a plot of Mike struggling to tell El he loves her. Great! Much to work with.

So let's get into it. Season 4! Choices were... made. And, okay, now we can't go any further without bringing in our boy Will.

Mike is intrinsically tied to Will and El and has been from the start. Maybe Will was more of an accident. Maybe s1 Will was just a plot device for Mike, then s2 Will was a plot device again and Mike needed to be there as the main boy character. Come season 3 and it seems their relationship still matters. Will was sidelined - hard - so most of Mike's moments revolved around El. But as his bond with Mike is the only that's been properly built up, that's the only friend we'll get him interacting with in a way that matters. So the Mike and Will tie continues!

But that does not have to be the case for season 4. Now the writers have a chance.

They made Will gay.

Ok so.. ok so yeah that's fine. Yeah! I mean they didn't have to do that, might put them in hot water with the bylers since milkvan is their golden beauty but.. you know what no no that's okay. He's been hinted at being queer since episode 1, why not make it canon! Cool that works. Explore that, especially since we now have Vecna who can easily target Will for this. Give him a boyfriend! Or a guy crush. He's at a new school now? That's cool. Maybe we can explore some new male character Will's taken interest in. Hey maybe he meets someone who interests him which rises to surface his whole sexuality plot and-

he's in love with Mike.

Ok. No. No. What are you doing? What do you mean?? You didn't have to do that. Strike- strike EFING TWO mates! Strike. 👏 efing. 👏 2!

This was part 1. I am tired and gots to get my ars in bed. But ohohoh, do not worry. I am just getting started.

#anti milkvan #anti mileven #byler #byeler #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #byler is real #byler is endgame #byler analysis #byler nation #byler proof #byler is canon #byler endgame #byler tumblr #stranger things 4

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rivalsforlife · 3 months ago

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pardon me if you’re tired of discussing this but. we know aa7 is on capcom’s radar on some level. and now they’ve rereleased every game right?? they’ve finally run out of backlog material after almost yearly releases since 2019…. Not to put the clown wig and nose back on too early but do you think we’ll actually get news about, or get to see, aa7 next year?

Never tired of discussing this!! This is right around the time of year where I'd be preparing to make my yearly AA7 Speculation Post anyway so this is great timing. (TGS, my enemy, is approaching.)

So just to make sure everyone's on the same page, here's a quick recap of where we're currently at:

In November 2020 we got internal Capcom leaks which included a calendar from 2019 with the roadmap for the AA series the next couple of years. This included:

DGS1&2 collection, which I did not think was going to happen ever, releasing April-June 2021

AA7, releasing around October-December 2021, right around the 20th anniversary.

Through late 2019-mid 2022, reconsider porting 456

We got DGS1&2 (a bit later than in the plan, but by like a month), we got the 456 ports, we got bonus AAI ports, we have nothing for AA7 nearly three years after it was supposed to come out. The pandemic is an obvious feature that could contribute to its delay, but at this point with 456 ports out I think we can safely say that this was not the only cause.

Some other things that may or may not be contributing to AA7's delay include:

Yamazaki, the previous main writer for 5&6 and the AAIs, left Capcom in 2020. If he was involved in AA7 at all, that could throw a wrench into things, but I recall hearing he intended AA6 to be his last AA game (I AM STRUGGLING TO FIND THE SOURCE THOUGH SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME), so I don't think this contributed very much. It does, however, mean that we're unsure about who the next main writer is - depending on what Takumi's up to or if they had to bring someone new on, there could be complications related to that.

I think TGAA did way better than anyone expected, which I covered in this post. It's possible that this could have shifted Capcom's priorities to porting more old games / porting to all modern consoles. It may have made people at Capcom think "damn everyone loves Takumi" so they tried to lure him back to AA7, and I have no idea how well that would have gone or if Takumi is even interested in continuing mainline AA right now. (I do think this at least contributed to the Ghost Trick ports.)

In my first ever AA7 speculation post I talked about how the ending of AA6 kind of wrote them into a corner re: how to continue with the series and which protagonist to use. I still stand by that argument even if a lot of that post aged badly.

Console ports! Previously new AA games were for whichever Nintendo handheld is out now (GBA, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS). But now that the series is doing really well on all consoles, they may have decided to try to make their next mainline entry on all consoles, which would take more development time. Adding to this is that the Switch is near the end of its lifecycle with the Switch 2 (or whatever the successor will be) being announced soon - meaning that, if AA7 is coming out soon, Capcom is in the position of "do we try to squeeze this into the end of the Switch's lifecycle" (which, I'll need to find sources for this, is speculated to be some of the reasons behind why AAI2 and DGS2 sold badly when they were first released, and they can't make the same mistake thrice... right...?) or "do we try to time it with the release of the Switch 2"?

Also, a lot of this depends on how far AA7 was into development whenever it was derailed. If it was derailed from the pandemic, then according to the calendar, it would likely have still been in the prototype stage. It may be early enough that they would have had to start from scratch whenever they picked it up again. I don't work in the gaming industry so I have no idea how long it takes them to make a game or how easy it would be from what stage they're in.

One thing we can compare to is some of the comments about the recent AAI ports: in this interview, Shunsuke Nishida, the producer of the AAI collection, says that development on the collection began in 2022. He also mentions that this began once development on 456 was concluded. This leads me to believe that (contrary to my previous assumptions) 456 and AAIC were not developed concurrently (or if so, had very minimal overlap), and that the process of upscaling graphics, porting, and localization took them... about a year, maybe? So that takes time, even without taking into consideration how long it would take to come up with a new idea + write the script + the bulk of the programming that would have to be done that isn't considered with porting + probably way more than I can think of because again I do not work in the gaming industry.

There's also the question of why 456 and AAIC weren't developed concurrently. The calendar from 2020 shows that TGAA and AA7 were meant to be developed at least somewhat concurrently, and the staff from TGAA would eventually merge into working on AA7. Once again, we don't know what happened to the staff that were supposed to be working on AA7. It's possible pandemic complications meant they got shuffled onto other projects. It's possible the AA-related team is smaller now than it was in 2020, so they only have enough people to work on one project at a time. It's also possible that there's a team that was working on ports, and a team that was working on a new game, and now the "port team" is freed up to work on the "new game team".

Either way though, pretty much every interview with the staff for the 456 or AAI ports are all saying "look forward to the future of the series", which is definitely Corporate Speak, but unless they're bringing the ports of the Layton crossover (fingers crossed) that can only mean one thing. (AAI anime?) Plus, like I've discussed in this post, AA is having fantastic sales in general. They've seemingly either hired a new social media manager or changed the strategy so there is much more engagement on twitter. And AA is getting on bigger and bigger announcements - though AA trilogy ports were announced at TGS (at an AA-specific panel), TGAA duology ports were announced unceremoniously on twitter. Afterwards, 456 ports got announced at the Capcom Showcase during Summer Game Fest. And now AAI collection got announced at a Nintendo Direct, which I imagine is even more expensive, so the series must be going in a good direction for them to think that's worth it!

That's a lot of rambling for me to say I definitely think it's coming.

When are we going to see it though!!

Coming up in September is my eternal enemy Tokyo Game Show. Since AAI collection is being released at the beginning of September... it might be a bit too soon to announce a new game, but who knows. They might think it's profitable to ride the hype they're building now for AAI collection to announce a new game. Or they might let it sit for a while.

With AAIC getting announced at a Direct, I'm thinking they'll want to make AA7's announcement a) big and b) global. AA6 was announced in Famitsu, but the problem with that is that it's a mostly Japanese audience, and some interviews have been talking about how AA's global audience is particularly contributing to how big it is right now. So I'm expecting AA's next announcement to be at something major and something that will get attention from overseas audiences.

If they have been working on AA7 concurrently -- and honestly I do think there has at least been some progress on it since 2019 -- we could definitely see an announcement within the next year. I was also saying this in 2020, though, so don't take my word for it. There's been two year gaps between ports up until the AAI collection, and they seemed pretty proud about releasing 456 and AAI in the same year, so... maybe they'll want to keep it going and announce AA7 within the next year, especially if they'll have a longer announcement -> release period than they normally would for ports.

Potential candidates include:

Tokyo Game Show: As previously stated, it's very close to the AAIC release, so I don't think it's the best timing for it. I would not want my favorite AA game overshadowed by whatever the hell they're going to do with AA7. Likelihood: depends on how fast they want to follow up on the hype.

The Game Awards: is the next major gaming event, but that's already massive in terms of the type of games that get announced there, and it's expensive! Nintendo Direct is one thing since AA has always been a Nintendo-first series, but I don't think it's big enough to justify putting in a Game Awards ad. and I already have my clown wig on for persona 6 there. Likelihood: pretty low tbh

Next Year's Summer Game Fest-related Shows: I think this is the most likely, considering both the 456 collection and the AAI collection were announced around this time. For AA7 I'd say a Nintendo Direct to get lots of eyes on it, especially if AAIC sales pay off. Likelihood: pretty high!

Which leads me into my wildcard answer:

Switch 2 Announcement Stream: If Capcom decides to go in and make AA7 one of the first games for whatever the switch successor would be, it could be announced here. I regret to admit that I am a very bad gamer and only like two things, and therefore have not ever been present for one of these things to know how many games get announced as launch games for a new console, but, like, it's possible.

In the above scenario, I'm not necessarily saying that AA7 would be a Switch 2 exclusive - because I think that would be stupid after so much of the support they've gotten from the ports has been from playstation and steam - but I am definitely the kind of person who would buy a console for one video game. Shoutout to me buying a switch in part anticipating that aa7 would come out on it and that is not looking likely

Anyways, that's my speculation!! Reminder that this is mostly uninformed and that I have no knowledge of anything related to sales or marketing or video game development, and as a result of that, I have been wrong (aside from the one time I accurately predicted AAI ports as a joke) for four consecutive years.

#I hope this makes sense. it's kinda all over the place #asks #aa7 speculation #ace attorney #i am. so scared.

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absolutebl · 11 months ago

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Because your opinion means a lot: Any chance you feel like sharing 5 upcoming BLs you're most excited about and why? And maybe as a bonus, something you think many BL watchers will love but that you will hate?

Ooooo, how exciting what a fun one. You sure you want this from me? I have very odd taste.

The 5 Upcoming BLs I'm Most Excited About

(this forced me to put together the 2024 Announced BLs list which is coming soon)

1 Spare Me Your Mercy

Increased rates of deaths in terminal patients has a police captain investigating the palliative care doctor with whom he's fallen in love. Their relationship deepens but the mystery persists, driven by mistrust.

Why? It's adapted from the novel Euthanasia by Sammon (Triage, Manner of Death) but more important, it stars some old guard BL actors: Tor Thanapob from Hormones as the doctor and (fuck me YES) Jaylerr from Great Men Academy and goddamn Grean Fictions as the captain!

youtube

2 Wandee Godday

GMMTV and AllThis Entertainment producing a very pulp offering with new pair, GreatInn doing high heat, boxer meets surgeon. It features a one night stand, fake relationship, and all the cheesiest of tropes. Also features Drake, Podd, and Thor+ pretty boy (be still my heart).

Why? This is totally my kind of BL even if it isn't GMMTV's style of BL, and it's GREAT, so I'm in.

youtube

3 The Next Prince (ZeeNew)

Domundi brings us more ZeeNew in a fantasy/historical set in a palace where Zee plays a knight and Nu a prince - YES PLEASE.

Why? I did not expect this pair to stick so I really hope this happens. Give us the Little Pink Riding Milk BL we deserve!

youtube

4 Lover Merman

Fantasy BL about a man who falls in love with a merman.

Why? I don't think it will be good but I LOVE merfolk.

5 Me and Who

Domundi for WeTV brings this adaptation of Wickedwish’s novel of the same name. It depicts a young man who dies and is reborn into the body of a billionaire heir. The heir happens to be engaged to a handsome man.

Why? I flipping LOVE this trope but I never expected to see it drive a BL.

10 I am cautious of but VERY intrigued

JAPAN'S Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka

From YTV releasing 1/11 about Soga, who, after a divorce and relocation to Osaka, seeks solace in dining at 26-year-old Sakae's restaurant. Unbeknownst to Soga, Sakae sees him as more than just a regular customer.

TAIWAN's Love For Love's Sake

Based on the Manhwa Love Supremacy Zone by Hwacha, this will star actors Lee Tae Vin, Cha Jun Wan, Oh Min Su and Cha Woon Ki. The plot of the drama is based on Tae Myung Ha, a young man who is dropped into a game based off of a novel that he knows. His mission is to make another player, Cha Yeo Woon happy. Cha Yeo Woon is Myung-Has favourite character in the novel. But then the game starts going completely different from the novel.

City of Stars AKA Fueangnakorn

Star Hunter started filming this 12/23 about an actor falls in love with a programmer and the narrative intends to “explore the ramifications of being public figure in the social network era who must endure critics, bullying, and defamation.” Looks like another Lovely Writer, Call It What You Want sort of thing.

My Stand-In AKA My Stand In

Chinese IP ALERT! Adapted from the novel Professional Body Double (职业替身) by Shui Qiang Cheng (水千丞) stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please).

OMG Vampire AKA OMG! Vampire (LeeFrank)

Frank and Lee Long Shi are back only vampires now. So many vampires.

The Rebound (MeenPing)

VIU Basketball based romance staring Meen (a national basketball player, so yay for that).

We Are (PondPhuwin)

GMMTV's university friendship Bl featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawin - basically ALL in the good kind of messy friendship group (so more My Engineer and less Only Friends). Looks a bit like the Kiss series but everyone is gay. I'm IN! Trailer here.

Love Upon a Time (NetJames)

Domundi announced for 6/7/2023 then delayed to 2024. NetJames in a historical BL! Also feat Tonnam (Dr Sing from Triage).

Jack & Joker (YinWar)

DeHup brings us be gay, do crimes. Yin, War, Mark and a few other familiar faces doing Leverage but gayer. Yes, thank you, I will have that.

My Love Mix-Up Thai Remake (GemniForth)

GMMTV. Hum, well I do love this pair and I did like the original and maybe this time these characters will actually kiss? I'm actually fine with this pick-up. I kind of enjoy seeing different countries remake the same IP. Especially if it's IP I'm mostly unfazed by.

#asked and answered #2023 BL #most anticipated BL #my top picks for 2024 #thai bl #Spare Me Your Mercy #Wandee Godday #GMMTV #The Next Prince #zeenunew #Lover Merman #Me and Who #domundi #Although I Love You and You #Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka #Love For Love's Sake #City of Stars #My Stand-In #OMG Vampire

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de-fanzine-cpr-pale · 4 months ago

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SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN!

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#disco elysium #disco elysium fanzine #disco elysium zine #disco elysium fanart #disco elysium writing #zine #fanzine #zine promo #submissions open #long post #asdjkhffgg i hope this is legible and clear

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hextechmaturgy · 12 days ago

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lucanis' romance is disappointing because like many other aspects of this game you can practically smell all the wasted potential

spoilers below!

we know from the stories that came before veilguard that cousins lucanis and illario grow up knowing caterina has a favorite grandson she intends to make first talon one day. it's implied and sometimes outwardly said that lucanis is indeed a better assassin than illario, and being a better assassin in a FAMILY OF ASSASSINS is a big deal. at the same time, we find out that illario is the more personable between the two. lucanis says he can charm just about anyone and zara calls him 'amatus' right before illario fucking kills her, so we know that's true. we find out through banter that lucanis had a crush on viago and failed miserably to show him because his only idea was to get him a knife, and, should you have an active romance with him, he will also admit to your companions that you are his first relationship

lucanis spends his entire romance backing away from you. he barely reacts to your flirting, he ducks away from a first kiss to 'clear his head', he won't shut up about coffee, and the moment you commit to him is just a quick scene where he SAYS he made you dessert, meanwhile, pretty much every other character is kissing you and declaring how much they care for you, emmerich's first kiss happens relatively early into the second act and it's such a sweet scene.

all this tells me is the writers were going for 'fail boy's first romance', packed with the slow burn of someone who has no idea how to show you how much he cares for you. it's sweet! i romance alistair every time for pretty much the same reasons. there's something very disarming about a strong, capable man who turns to mush around you because you're just that precious to him, because he's afraid you'll cringe and run away at his inexperience/awkwardness/eagerness.

but while i think that idea was perfectly executed with alistair, i think what we got for lucanis is extremely weak, to a point where i started wondering if my game was bugged and i had missed a romance flag somehow, or soft locked myself into someone else's romance. that's when it becomes a problem for me. when i flirt with him and he DOESN'T REPLY, it's not even him looking awkward, it's him not looking interested. he certainly sounds cute and awkward around neve, why does he show her that side and not rook? it felt like they were meant to be together, especially with the whole 'pick between treviso and minrathous' storyline, but i checked out neve's romance and that one is really good, one of my favorites in fact, SO WHAT GIVES? it's not that lucanis is reserved as a character, it's more like the game wasn't programmed with his reserved nature in mind. so he shows you he's committed by making you desert... couldn't we have had a scene where we watch him baking, instead of hearing him say he did it? we run into him preparing a surprise and he's out of sorts, or he asks us to go on another grocery run and you piece together what he's planning from peeping the ingredients. SHOW DON'T TELL IS THE MOST BASIC OF WRITING ADVICE, SO PLEASE ???? they did it with kaiden in ME3, he cooks for you and burns the garlic because you're just so distracting. there were multiple opportunities for cute and unsure, neve's romance is surprisingly tender and this one could've been too.

as it is right now, lucanis' romantic interactions feel like game bugs, his pet demon seems to be far more entertaining than him/is generally mega underutilized (can you imagine a scene of spite getting done with lucanis' bullshit and sleep walking some more to tell you he's smitten), and if you are planning to have lucanis as your romance, you should go into it knowing that after your first good, dare i say EXCELLENT first romantic chat at that coffee shop ("like a kiss goodbye" charmed me there and then) you'll be waiting until literally the end of the game for any sort of pay off. there's a good romance to explore here, the complete opposite of zevran as far as crow romances go, but sadly these fun dynamics will only get decently explored in fanfiction i fear

#dragon age #lucanis #lucanis dellamorte

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sophswritingthings · 11 months ago

Note

You are evil, sososososo evil because now Mizu calling reader princess is stuck in MY head too! 😭😭Also I didn’t know about that ab hydrangeas and I think their symbolism is quite fitting for that Drabble!!!

So what if mizu and noblewoman!reader were playing a game of Go (the board game we saw seki and akemi play), with lots of smart quips and teasing (SUCH AS MIZU CALLING READER PRINCESS AAAAAA) on each end. But little does reader know, she’s actually abysmal at playing and Mizu has been purposefully keeping the game going for as long as possible by losing pieces

But then reader teases mizu/says something that genuinely distracts her and because mizu was making sure they were on par with eachother, the reader actually wins the game because of how distracted mizu got imagining what reader just said

But because mizu is defensive as hell she quickly snaps out of it and says how she intended to keep the game going because of how reader is so bad, and if reader really wanted to beat Mizu, maybe mizu could “tutor” her in private 👀

pairing: mizu x fem!noblewoman!reader

warning(s): light swearing, god the flirting is palpable and they are idiots

a/n: EVIL????? LMAO. as a writer it is my job to get you invested so you leave more work for me to do!! I do what must be done!!

summary: playing a game of go with mizu, the tension is palpable. the samurai keeps strong, but it’s quick before you break her.

word count: 425 words / 2,257 characters

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“mizu,” you began, moving your white piece to the spot before it. “I am starting to wonder if you actually know how to play.”

you arch an eyebrow at her.

“of course I know how to play,” she hisses, moving her piece to a spot she probably shouldn’t have.

mizu did know how to play. In fact, she wasn’t half bad at it, either it.

she was truly trying to keep the game going for as long as she could.

“I used to play with my sword-father.” she kept her gaze focused on the board, trying to know where you (and she) should place your pieces.

“ah, I see,” you nod your head. “so he taught you, then?”

“yes he did,” mizu murmured.

“well—“ you chuckled, placing your piece directly atop of hers, circling it. “he wasn’t a very good player.”

she scoffed, “I will have you know, princess, he was a fine player.”

“just not good enough,” you giggle as you slid her white piece of the board.

she took in a sharp inhale, moving to also capture one of your pieces.

despite all of your teasing and confidence, she knew you were actually shit at the game.

she’d seen you play with a friend of yours, before. a few times, actually.

never had you won one game.

“hmm, maybe I’m a bit too distracting for your own good, mizu?” you smirked at her, giggling as you saw her face light up.

mizu was stunned, by your words. she didn’t know what to make of them, she truly didn’t.

“ha!” your yelp snapped her out of her thoughts, “I win!”

her eyes widened, big as the sun, staring down at the board.

you were right. you had won.

her eyes narrowed, directing her gaze back up at you.

“bullshit—I was trying to keep the game going so we could talk.” she grumbled.

“hm, yes? Is that true?” you laughed, “are you sure about that?”

“yes, princess, I’ve seen you play before.” she chuckled herself, “I know you can’t play for shit.”

“hm,” you crossed your arms across your chest, that smirk plastered on your face never dipping, “why don’t you teach me, then.”

the proposition sounded.. interesting, to say the least.

sure, she’d taught you things before—a bit with her sword, how to shoot a bow and arrow.

but getting to spend long periods of one-on-one time with you?

that sounded like music to her ears.

“alright,” she conceded. “I’ll tutor you.”

you nod, gathering your feet and bowing to her.

“tomorrow. same time.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#mizu x you #mizu x reader #mizu #mizu blue eye samurai #blue eyed samurai #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #ask #asked and answered #request #fic request #x reader

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mylittleredgirl · 2 years ago

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i always sing the praises of having a beta reader if you want that sort of thing, but actually there are two separate fic-editor types:

alpha reader: just fucking uncritically loves your work. #1 fan. fully obsessed with the pairing you're writing to the exclusion of all good sense. might correct a comma or two but they are there to tell you that you are amazing and that you have never done anything wrong in your life and you should post that shit immediately. you ask them "does this part work?" and they say yes before the question is fully out of your mouth. the golden retriever of writing friends. every writer 100% needs one of these in their back pocket.

pros: THE best preemptive defense against the gaping chasm of self-doubt between "post work" and the first kudos.

cons: this is the reason why sometimes you see a fic that has eight beta readers thanked in the author's notes and the main character's name spelled wrong.

beta reader™️: these friends also fucking love your work, but the way they want to love it is to stick their fingers in your fic like a fruit bin at the grocery store and gently squeeze your characters (and commas) to see if they're ripe.

a good beta reader will copy edit your fic, notice if you've used the same sentence three times, and let you know if your sex scenes seem to contain the intended number of dicks per person.

a great one will highlight for you what's unique and wonderful about your writing, will help you problem-solve and plot through long fic, and will lovingly bug the shit out of you with how did she get here? and would he really say that? and is this what you meant? and when you say "oh shit no it isn't" their eyes light up and they go OKAY! let's figure this out!!!

more of a border collie kind of situation.

pros: the best way to polish your fic and grow as a fic writer. in my experience, it's also an incredible way to work through impostor syndrome. knowing someone you respect has been all up in your fic's junk and still says "it's great and you're great, now post it!" is a game-changer.

cons: if they show you what's not working, you're probably going to have to take time to fix it :/

caveats: not everyone who wants to give constructive feedback can deliver it in a way that works for everyone, so if the experience ends up making you feel bad, this is not a good match! it's also VERY helpful to tell your beta reader what level of editing you're looking for. if someone asks "can you give this a quick once-over before i post?" i know they want me to look for obvious mistakes and reassure them that it's post-worthy. if you ask me to "rip it apart" i'm going in there with a fine tooth comb.

(the primary motivation of both of these editor breeds is, of course, that they want you to write more and they want to read it before everyone else.)

bonus mode:

specialty reader: sensitivity readers and subject matter experts! if you are lucky enough to find and motivated enough to use one of these, their job is not to look at commas or to tell you that you're great, but to give advice on something specific in your fic.

edit: check the reblogs for a correction! turns out “alpha reader” is a pre-existing term in some circles for someone who helps you during the process, a lot like the great beta-reader i described above. taking suggestions for renaming my version of the alpha reader above. i’m thinking “hype man.”

#obviously this is your fic and your free time so none of this is required!#if you want to jack kerouak* it up in an ao3 draft and post without a second thought that is your god given right #fortunately or unfortunately for you i think i have a few posts in me on this subject so i’m going to tag it #beta readers #on fanfic #*jack kerouak actually spent years painstakingly editing on the road so it would look like he didn’t edit it at all #but never let facts get in the way of a good turn of phrase you know

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artisticwizard · 2 months ago

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Morgott for the ask meme

Favorite thing about them

I'm gonna try and keep rehashing of what has already been said about him to a minimum so I'll get it out of the way here. I love that he's big and soft and I love that he's a mean as shit crotchety old bastard with both a self-hating attitude and an ego. I did not get into elden ring intending to like him. He was a surprise blorbo for me. I love how Morgott is a proud creature and a scorned one all in the same time. To be honest, look around at any of the posts I've reblogged from people for this ask and I probably agree with 90% of their points. I think my favorite thing is the art people make around him. Every time someone draws him being soft and tender....He's so large next to their small tarnished and yet he holds them like glass....I'm gonna DIE

Least favorite thing about them

Hard to draw :( Also hard to roleplay :( Also I wish he was utilized more. hunting us in game alongside the nights cavalry. Wish his fight was a bit tougher too.

Favorite line

"Have it writ upon thy meagre grave:

"'Felled by King Morgott! Last of all kings." ARE YOU KIDDING ME THAT LINE IS THE COOLEST FUCKING THING EVER. In one sentence he disparages you as insignificant and elevates him as king. Not just King THE LAST. This lineage will die with him, this he states. And I think he's actually giving you credit here. This lineage will die with him, whether you are the one to kill him or you fail.

brOTP

I gotta go with his actual bro. I like the dichotomy between him and Mohg so much it makes me ill. I love how Mohg went full self love and Morgott went the other direction. This is one of the instances where I think fandom rather than canon has elevated their relationship so much for me. Especially fic writers. Elden ring fic writers write these two so goddamn well.

OTP

Morgott and the Tarnished. Everyone's Tarnished. People write and draw and create so many wonderful things around this old man. I also have a soft spot from him and Oleg. My Tarnished Wulfwyn and him is my brainrot OC x Canon ship that I think about CONSTANTLY.

nOTP

Him and Mohg. Even in a setting like this where incest is more normalized, it's just never gonna be my thing. No hate.

Random headcanon

You also get a Mohg headcanon built in. I've always loved the idea that Omen can take on traits of different animals, not just the horns. In my head Morgott took on more mammalian traits like ram-like horns, a long tail, and fur. Though I will not deny him his tiny baby wings. Mohg on the other hand took in more reptilian and avian traits like pebbled skin or scales and feathers and wings.

Unpopular opinion

Some people have this kind of....kicked puppy attitude about him that I don't agree with. He's soooo shitty and bitter as a character and he enjoys hunting Tarnished like he does. I'm not saying he's the cruelest demigod in the story, because he isn't by far, but I wish people didn't ignore his mean streak as much because it's soooo interesting.

Favorite picture of them Oh Dude So Many. This one by bora-in-tamriel makes me laugh whenever I see it, though.

#morgott #elden ring #i absolutely did not get all of my thoughts out here #but as i have said in the past #i suck at writing meta thoughts like this #there are people out there much better at this #BUT I LOVE HIM

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spaceorphan18 · 5 months ago

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The Rogue and Gambit Project: The Basketball Game (X-Men #4)

Alright! Here we are! That pivotal moment we've all been waiting for! The introduction of Omega Red.... Wait, no, that's not why you guys are here? You don't want me to dissect another Wolverine story that digs into the seemingly never ending well of his past? You aren't really interested in the creepy twins that make up Fenris? And you don't really care all that much about what's going on with Moira?

I mean, fine, if you'd rather I get into all the other boring stuff going on in the issue... ;)

Today we're going to test the limits of how much of an issue Marvel will let me repost without getting in some kind of trouble....

X-Men #4 Ladies and Gentlemen....

I believe I said this previously, but one of the best parts of X-Men comics is really the soap opera shenanigans that go on in-between all the big villains. The inner personal relationships that happen among the X-Men are really the best, and often the most delicious part of the comics. I honestly think fans would be entirely happy if we got full issues of them just playing basketball, or baseball, or hanging out at Harry's Hideaway, or getting therapy.... Because these personalities are so much fun and play off each other so well that sometimes they are far better than the endless 'save the world' story lines we often get because - apparently - all published fiction needs a plot to hang on.

But I digress. It's a post-Claremont world now, and all bets are off. It's kind of interesting that - despite Gambit and Storm's initial friendship, the two X-Men Gambit has been spending the most time with lately are Wolverine and Jubilee. There's no surprise, really, that Wolverine and Gambit have an antagonistic relationship. Jubilee, however, due to her relationship with Wolverine, has been somewhat of a sass master towards Gambit as well. Except now we have Jubilee on the same team as Gambit, which, turns the dynamic a little on its head. And it's a delight.

And then we throw Rogue into the mix. How did this game even get started anyway? My guess - Jubilee wanted to play and taunting and teasing of some sort got the four of them paired off as they are. I kind of love that not only is Gambit goading Wolverine about relaxing, but Jubilee is, too.

Remember when I said Gambit spends most of his non-uniform time half naked? Continuity! ;)

Wolverine is not the only one who needs to relax. Rogue is wound tight - and I really doubt it's about wanting to adhere to a non-powered game of basketball.

All that skin and sweat? The girl's got some pent up needs that haven't been met during the entire previous decade. Probably time to rectify that.

I love Jubilee's commentary, she is so obnoxiously sassy, and I love it. Also, I kind of love that they are taking the time to set up Gambit's athletic skill.

Btw, I love the kind of smirk he gives Rogue as he easily tosses the ball over her head. He's having fun. Is she having fun? Hard to say - mostly she just wants to win. And Gambit is most definitely getting under her skin. The hilarity coming from Jubilee isn't helping.

Is this a good time to bring up the whole -- he's playing games and messing around with her and she takes things seriously part of their whole story? Is this entire game just a metaphor for the early part of their relationship?

I mean - you can read into it as deeply as you like! I have a feeling the writers didn't think think that hard about it - and this is merely just a way to show off all of their skills. But it definitely can be interpreted that way. I mean, what are we even doing here if we can't extrapolate intended and non-intended things from the text?

Of course, this is an X-Men story, so we can't go too long without the usage of powers. Everything is going to get thrown up a notch. Is Gambit using his powers of agility? Well, idk how he couldn't be using them since it's a natural thing.

But man, does Rogue hate losing or what? The escalation of this whole thing goes from 0 to 100 like that.

Jubilee lowering her glasses kills me every time.

I do think Gambit was just taking it easy and playing around at the beginning of this. I think he liked getting Jubilee on his side and cheering him on. He liked driving Wolverine crazy. And more than anything, getting under Rogue's skin is a challenge he really seems to take pleasure in.

But Rogue did take it up a notch, so Gambit does what he always does - and ups the ante.

It's interesting - I think if we hadn't had the little bit of flirting in X-Men #3, this whole thing may read a little differently (up until this point). But I think we're at the point where it's clear that they physical one-upmanship is masking the sexual tension.

I mean, their screwing around literally blows a hole through the mansion wall. Idk why, but this always has me dying, too. There's some very serious stuff going on with Moira - meanwhile Rogue and Gambit are at the playground throwing dirt at each other because they like each other.

No, but here's one of the things I like about them. It was all fun and games, and then Rogue did throw the first punch. And then Gambit pushed back. There's going to be a lot of shifts in power dynamics as we go through this, but the thing is, they don't really back down from each other. For better or for worse.

Ah, the infamous panel!

You saw how angry Rogue was just a second before, and then Gambit scoops her up in his arms and starts spouting all this romantic stuff she's longed to hear and for a moment, she's just kind of gone.

Btw, I love the details of this panel. The mansion is in ruins. Cyclops is like, uh, dude, you may want to throw some cold water on yourself. Jubilee, child that she still is, is like - ew bleck, they're gonna kiss now.

I love it!

I love that Gambit does not care that there is an audience (in fact - he may thrive on it), he's getting under Rogue's skin and it's worth all the fooling around. Meanwhile, Rogue maybe not really realize it yet - but she's getting someone who is not running the other direction due to her powers.

Plus, look, they're both just attracted to each other. And sometimes that fact is just fact.

I realize the above panel is the more famous one, but these ones. Man, they get me every time.

The first panel - Rogue just lets herself go with it. The second panel, though. That's a smirk. Rogue is 100% smirking because in that moment she is happy she is in the exact position she's in. And for that half second, she's enjoying it.

Which leads to an interesting thought experiment -- what if Rogue didn't have the powers she has. Would this whole thing end in a real kiss? (The answer is yes - some fucking around would have surely been had!) Would their relationship be as deep and real if they could act on their physical attraction? Would they have developed the good friendship they get over the years if there wasn't that initial barrier there?

Hard to say, but I think the story becomes richer having to work around her powers.

And.... we're back to the status quo as Rogue does have a skin condition that sucks the life out of everyone she touches. It's no longer a game, but the reality she has to face every day.

Also - I do kind of love she knocks him sideways. He does deserve being knocked down a peg every once and a while. Good for his humility.

The basketball game is now over, but I do think this is the real beginning of Gambit trying to win over Rogue's heart -- and yes, I think at first, it's merely for the sake of the challenge of it. I don't think he takes in account that he's going to change his own heart as we go along.

Just for completion's sake -- here's the last little bit of this part of the subplot. I do roll my eyes at the fact that Wolverine always has to come out looking the coolest. But it works for a nice tag to this particular scene.

So.... later...

Now, how did we get from the basketball game to what looks like a date? Especially since when last we saw Rogue was knocking him sideways? SHAMELESS PLUG TIME - I WROTE A FIC ABOUT IT. Or, you know, come up with your own headcanons. ;)

Of course Gambit rides a motorcycle - because this is the 90s, and this is the height of cool, lol.

I love Rogue in this moment. I love that she's owning him here. She knows she looks good. She knows she wants to go out and have a good time. She may even know she wants to have a good time with /him/ but won't think too much about that -- and instead enjoy the possibility of her own happiness first. Having an attractive man at her side is just a bonus. Go get it, girl!

This is why I love X-Men. Because they are such a family dynamic. Everyone is getting into everyone else's business. Jubilee is the younger sister just wanting to hang out with her ridiculous, cool older brother. Wolverine is that watchful, old uncle. Beast is the next door neighbor who doesn't care that he's butting in, he's just there for a good time. I love all of it! And I do love that there is a tad bit of protectiveness for Rogue. Gambit is still new to this dynamic (not that Rogue and Beast have spent any time together, lol).

The point is that they all love each other like family, and I adore that.

I love that Gambit just is not here for that family dynamic. This is almost a sitcommy moment, and it's delicious. I also love that Rogue is completely on board with this whole date aspect. Sure, her friends will be there, too. But she's not opposed to Gambit whisking her away for who knows what. Maybe she'll get that candlelight dinner and champagne and a little lite romance he's promised her.

I love Jubilee pouting! It also makes me wonder if he's already taken Jubilee out for a spin for the fun of it. He would.

So, her line is fascinating because there are different ways you can read it. Skeptical that he could actually out maneuver Beast. Or hopeful that he will. Read it any way you like! But the smile on her face says she won't be unhappy to lose her friends.

And BAM! Hit by the plot!

Stupid plot.

It's funny, because his first thought is to see if she's okay. Of course she is, she's invulnerable and she can take the hit. But I honestly think that in that moment, he is concerned for her. There is a bit of genuine care there -- even if she is quick to dismiss it.

And... as Omega Red inserts himself into our fun loving drama, the issue ends, with Rogue and Gambit tied up (and eventually in chains) which is going to become the norm for them, so get used to it. ;)

Honestly, I love this issue - and it's such a fun way to start their story. And I had forgotten that at least half of the issue is comprised of Rogue and Gambit development.

Shame we have to stop the development to get into the Omega Red arc that will take up the next few issues...

#xmen #x men #rogue #gambit #anna marie lebeau #remy lebeau #romy #rogue and gambit #the rg project #marvel meta #marvel #marvel comics

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dontforgetoctober3rd · 1 year ago

Text

Come Go With Me

A Michael Gavey fic.

EDIT: Now with art! (just a sketch tho)

Summary: It's the spring of 2007 and Michael Gavey has so far kept to the vow he made to never socialize again after Oliver ditched him. Then he meets a cute girl at a coffee shop. Will the vow stand strong or immediately go down the drain?

Word Count: 3986

Rating: T (plenty of swearing, instances of misogyny, objectification of the female body, atrociously incorrect bagel eating, New York City slander, etc.)

Author's Note: yes, the title is the song by Expose. Also, I'm a corny writer.

Divider by @cafekitsune

“I don’t know or care what Oliver Quick is doing this summer,” Michael said, continuing to type on his laptop, not even making eye contact with whoever asked the question. The guy who asked left without saying anything further.

Some random guy in the library asked Michael if it was true that Oliver was going to be spending the summer with Felix on his family’s estate. It was more about prying into Felix’s business than him wanting to know anything about Oliver, Michael thought. Oliver was not on the same level of being interesting (in the eyes of the general student populace) that the Cattons were.

Michael didn’t give a shit that Oliver was going to fancy fucking Saltburn with his new, snobby, loser, nepo baby friends for the summer. Really, he didn’t. When Oliver humiliated him at the bar, he made the decision then to swear off any further socializing at the university. It was the best thing he ever did.

Already, he felt less anxious. He had more time to focus on his coursework. More time to read new books, attend off campus lectures. Walks in the park by himself were quite relaxing when he didn’t have to think about topics to keep a stilted, dying conversation going. He even went so far as to set aside time to play video games again. Every weekend, for one hour and a half, he lost himself in Fable on his Xbox.

Michael still felt the sting of the bar betrayal from time to time, as he thought he had finally found a true friend in Oliver (or at least, the potential for him to become one). The new, lone path taken had helped him realize that he was not the problem. Oliver was just an asshole, like the majority of those who went to Oxford.

Sometimes Michael wondered why people didn’t like him. Must be how smart he was. There was nothing weird about being good at math. What was so awful about being good at math, anyway? He guessed that most peoples’ biggest issue with his smarts was that it reminded them they were stupid. Oh well! Plenty of time for activities by himself now.

One of those activities was fast became his favorite, after only his fourth visit. Visiting a little coffee shop he had discovered near the river, he was able to “mingle” among people without having to talk to anyone. No one would bother him here and he would still get his dose of human contact which, after all, was vital to the psychological constitution of a person. As rigid as he intended on being with his new No Socializing At Oxford vows, Michael did not intend on becoming a psychopath. Besides, the baristas never got his order wrong. They never talked to him beyond the perfunctory taking of his order but after the third time, when he walked in, instead of asking what he would like the person at the register had asked “The usual?” and Michael would just say yes, thank you, and then pay.

Michael packed up his laptop, shoving it and the charger into his reusable Tescoe bag along with his notebooks. He stood and adjusted his sweater, checked all his pant pockets were buttoned up and zipped closed. He kept his visits only to every other day so as to not have the monotony grate on his nerves. The coffee shop made fresh bagels every day, however, and he had been looking forward to enjoying one all morning (his favorite was blueberry). He liked to eat his a certain way, scooping out the insides of each slice before finally eating the hollowed out crusts. Someone at school would surely have an opinion about his bagel-eating method (not that he cared) but at the coffee shop, Michael was left in peace.

Walking briskly through the library doors and outside in the crisp spring air, he didn’t even look in direction of Oliver walking up the steps into the library with Felix. They were laughing about something but Michael didn’t even breathe in their direction.

—---------

The delicious smell of bread baking hit him in a wave as he stepped into the coffee shop. It looked like a rush had just hit, the baristas busy cleaning and restocking various items.

“Hi! I’ll take your order right over here.” came the chipper voice. Michael turned.

Oh god, a new hire. An American one (he was pretty sure the accent he heard was American) Maybe he wasn’t entitled to feel irritated about changes in the store, it's not like he owned the damn thing, but Michael felt irritated just the same. This was HIS spot and someone new had just invaded it.

The new girl had long hair parted in the middle, tied back in a bun. The hair was turquoise. A very bright turquoise, almost neon, he would say. It pissed him off even more. Dyed hair was so fucking tacky.

He trudged to the register, hating every second of anticipating having to deal with someone new, someone chatty, even for something as impersonal as coffee.

The girl was almost as tall as he was, eye-level to him, smiling the fakest fucking smile he had ever seen. I mean, it had to be fake. Who looked this happy to be taking a stranger’s order? He didn’t even bother attempting to smile back. Whatever. Get my coffee, bitch Michael though.

“I’ll have a large vanilla coffee, sugar free, with a blueberry bagel.”

“Ah, so just cutting back on the sugar but can’t quite quit it altogether, eh?” the girl said with a wink and another smile, totally unperturbed by his attitude.

Michael pursed his lips and said nothing. The girl, still unbothered, looked down and clacked away on the touch screen. He quickly looked over her in the few seconds she imputed his order.

She had long, acrylic nails, painted a pastel kind of purple. Her name tag said Cat, which he guessed was short for Catherine. Maybe. Also her boobs were big. Not normal big, but stripper big. Not that he would know, but still. Too big for the word “boobs”, for sure. Tits seemed like a more appropriate word. If he had ever been to a strip club he was pretty damn sure stripper tits would look exactly like hers. And she had tattoos covering the entirety of her left arm. Classy, he thought condescendingly. No wonder she was working here instead of somewhere like a bank.

Michael wondered if she had tattoos on her chest as well…he was so sure he could avert his gaze before she noticed but suddenly her fingers snapped and her head lowered into his line of vision, a smug look on her face. Small wisps of hair hung in front of her ears, he noticed.

“You lose something. buddy?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean-I was just looking at your name tag.” he sputtered, fidgeting with a cuff of his sweater.

“Look, it's fine. They’re tits.”

Michael flinched slightly at her casual use of the word. It was one thing to talk like that with other guys, but girls? What was she trying to prove? Tits tits tits. He made a point to stare straight into her eyes and not look away while she continued to speak. “Its not a big deal, I promise,” she said, finishing up his order on the register and offering her hand to take payment.

Choosing not to respond, Michael set his Tesco bag on the counter so he could unzip one of his pockets to get at his credit card. The pocket it was in was hard to open and the zipper always caught, so two hands were needed.

“You can look, you know, just don’t be creepy about it.” she continued, as he struggled slightly with the pocket.

Michael did not look at her as he handed over the card.

Being branded a “creep” was the last thing Michael needed. He was already the Lonely Nerd at university, he really did not want to become the Creepy Lonely Nerd (that ogles stranger’s tits). Not that he would give a shit what people thought, but one less socially crippling label was better than one more.

“I mean, it’s not like I can leave them at home, right? I don’t mind a little look here and there!” she said with a laugh, handing back his card. Unbelievable. She was still talking about her tits!

“Can I get that to go?” Michael answered more than asked.

“Sure thing. Uh, what’s your name?”

“I’m Michael.” He was not staying here. He was not going to stay and become the Creepy Tit Guy. Given her outgoing nature, Cat would probably have something to say about the way he ate his bagel, too, he was sure of it. He would become Creepy Tit And Weirdo Bagel Eating Method Guy if he stayed. Maybe dealing with this at university would have been easier but this was supposed to be his relaxation spot. The coffee shop was ruined for him now, he would never come back. Ever. Fuck this place and fuck her.

“Alrighty, dude. Be right back!”

“My name is not…dude..” Michael stepped away from the register, his voice fading away to nothing as Cat got his order ready, unable to hear him. There was no one else coming in right now, it seemed he came during a lull. The other employees were still cleaning and restocking.

“Here you go!” Cat said with a smile, handing him his bagel in a paper wrap and his coffee.

Still not looking at her, he took his bagel and his coffee and got the fuck out of there, practically powerwalking away.

It was only until he made it to a nearby park bench that he finally saw what Cat had written on the other side of his bagel wrapper. A whole paragraph, practically. Michael, sorry for making you feel uncomfortable. I was just trying to be funny, I swear. Enjoy your coffee. Hope you come back!

Michael felt relief for a moment, before loudly groaning and spilling some of his coffee as he made to slap his forehead with that same hand. He had left his fucking Tescoe bag at the coffee shop. His bag that had his computer, his notebooks, his finished papers for a couple of classes.

He had to go back. Fuck.

“Yeah, sorry, but she said she knew you.”

Michael swore. The cashier informed him that Cat had just left, her shift was over. She had taken the bag with her to the Oxford library. Apparently, she was a student there? Who fucking knew!?

“You need me to call the police?”

“No, that’s all right, I do know her.” Michael lied. “I told her earlier I’d be headed to the library later. She probably figures she can catch me there.” Without a single, civil ‘thank you’, Michael practically fled the shop.

He didn’t care how dumb it looked that he was frantically looking everywhere in the library for the familiar, turquoise hair. People always looked at him funny. It’s not like he could go to each of them individually and ask them hey could you please stop snidely whispering every time you look in my direction? Old Michael would go back to his dorm, have a cry, wonder why no one liked him and then quickly finish his homework in his dungeon of a bedroom before crying some more and then going to sleep.

New Michael didn’t give a shit. New Michael was focused 100 percent on his academics and self-care, and right now his academics were in jeopardy because that Tesco bag held papers he had yet to type (Michael liked to hand write his work first, he felt it was more thorough). Also, maybe New Michael should better remember to not forget his shit at random shops. Old Michael wouldn’t have forgotten. Whatever.

After scanning the entire first floor of the library, he stomped to the second floor. If she was a student here, how had he never seen her? The hair would have been hard to miss. Of course, it's not like he made it a habit to people watch anymore, especially in the library.

Suddenly, he saw her. Way in the corner, at a table right under a huge window, he saw her returning with her nose in a book from the shelves. On the table, his bag.

“Give it here.” Michael said, approaching the table. Cat looked up from her book.

God, she was pretty. He felt like a troll next to her. It was so fucking unfair. More importantly though…why was he telling her to hand the bag back? It was HIS. He should just take it and go, without a word. She had basically stolen it. The girl was a thief and took it to give him a hard time because she was a bitch, like every other pretty girl he had ever interacted with and been cut down by. Maybe he could like her if he gave it a try…but the days of trying to get people to think he was cool or amazing were over. She was a bitch and he knew it.

Mmm not what the note on your bagel showed, an annoying voice in his head began. That note could only have been written if she liked you because who would write that for a random customer? You should talk to her an-

Oh, fucking christ. Old Michael. Desperate-to-be-liked-by-someone-ANYONE Michael. Shut the fuck up, Old Michael. You are dead.

“Yeah, no problem, I mean it is your bag!” Cat said cheerfully, closing her book and holding the bag out to him. “Sorry you had to run all this way to get it, Michael.”

“Um, it’s ok. I run fast.” Michael said, immediately regretting it. God, that sounded so fucking stupid. He reached out for his bag.

Oh, so we’re no longer on that socializing ban, huh, Mr. Comedian? I mean, what was THAT?! Old Michael thought slyly. Shut up shut up shut up shut up!!!!! And, look! She remembers your name! SHUT UP.

“-couldn’t just leave it there, you know?” Cat had finished saying.

Michael froze. “Huh?”

What had she been talking about? Shit. “Uh, why not?” Please let that be the right response. Please let that be relevant to what she was fucking saying, Michael thought desperately.

Cat rolled her eyes, but still sounded…not like a bitch? “The laptop would definitely have been long gone if I hadn’t taken the bag. I couldn’t just leave it there.”

Oh. That was it. That had been all she had said. Michael nodded and mumbled his thanks, ready to go…except Cat still held onto the bag. And stopped him with her next words.

“You play Fable a lot?”she asked.

It’s a trap. She is going to make fun of you, he thought to himself. Just get your shit and go. His hand was also still on HIS bag. That she was not letting go of, for some reason.

“Yeah, I like it a lot.”

Oh, how riveting. That will make her swoon! Old Michael chimed in.

“Really?” Cat responded. Her tone wasn’t mocking. It was…interested? “I like it too but it feels unfinished, somehow. I wish they would release Fallout 3 for these new consoles already, I bet it would be 1000 times better than this crap that Lionhead put out.”

Michael nodded. She liked Fallout? She was impatient for the release?? Ask her to go with you to the midnight release next year!!! Ask her ask her ask her ask- No. Shut up. Be normal, for once in your life, be normal and chill about something.

“-able doesn’t feel like it’s TRULY a good rpg, where you can do whatever you want, you know? You can only go in one direction and can’t put off the main quest at all.”

She was still talking about Fable. She was still talking about video games, something they both liked, something they had in common.

This is your chance, you know. Old Michael piped in. Did any of those other people ever show even the slightest interest in the stuff you were into? Ever? Ask her out!

“Ok,” Michael began. “I see your point, but the mechanics of the game aren’t the star so much as the incredible story and character designs-”

While he continued to go on a tangent of Fable’s good qualities to Cat, trying his best not to sound too rant-y, Michael frantically gave the idea of asking her out some thought…

What if she said no? Hm what if she says yes?

It’s stupid. The release for Fallout 3 is next year. No, not even. It’s October of that year, so…over a year away! Almost two fucking years! What kind of weirdo would ask someone on a date almost two years from now?! Plus, she isn’t even into me. She just likes video games, like any other person.

Why is she still holding onto your bag, then? Old Michael thought smugly. Why did she write that little note on your bagel? Why did she remember your name? Why-

All right, all right.

“Right, so…want to come? To the midnight release for it? For Fallout 3?” Michael asked, throwing all caution to the wind and swallowing his preemptive rejection rage that already was bubbling up.

“For Fallout?” Cat said, still holding onto the bag. “Which store you going to?”

“Target.” Please say yes. I don’t even know you and I know it’s weird to ask you somewhere practically two years from now but PLEASE SAy YES, Michael thought.

“Mm, nah.” Cat, said, letting go of the bag to dig in her bookbag.

Shit.

Michael’s chest began to hurt, the hand holding his bag falling limply to his side. He could feel his eyes begin to water. She was just like the rest of them. Pathetic. So pathe-

“You should come with me to Game on Queen Street, they always price cut!” Cat said, whipping out her blackberry. “Whatever price we show them for the game, they’ll shave 5 off it! I mean, it’s not much but I’ll take what I can get! Here, put your number in.”

On sheer autopilot, Michael put his number in. He felt ashamed the entire time, having choked back a scathing insult at the last minute before Cat had shoved her phone at him.

“Are you ok?” Cat took her phone back, eyeing him with a concerned look.

“I’m fine! It’s just-probably something I caught the other day, I can already feel the sniffles coming on and whatnot. It’s nothing!” Michael babbled.

It cannot be this easy, Michael thought. It’s been this easy the entire time? Hanging out with a girl? Talking to her? Making plans? Why did Oliver never like him when they had so much in common?

Holy shit, forget about fucking Oliver! You have a date with your future wife! Old Michael practically screeched. Jesus fucking Christ, you are desperate. Shut the fuck up!! Be Normal!

“You wanna go back to the shop and get another bagel?” Cat asked, putting her books away and sliding on her bookbag. “ We could use my discount, that way-”

“Yeah, let's go.” Michael cut in. Grabbing her wrist and not waiting for her answer, he turned and began to swiftly move through the library. He tried not to get excited as Cat uttered a quick ‘cool’ and kept pace with him.

He also tried not to think about how awkwardly he was holding her hand. Everyone in the library was staring, he saw it in his peripheral. It had looked so cool in his brain but now everyone could see how his stupid hand around her wrist slightly resembled him holding his limp-no no no no noooo shut up shut up SHUT UP.

“Blueberry runs out quick.” Michael said, as they both briskly walked. “I went one time at around this hour instead of my usual time and I had to settle for onion, which is gross as shit.” You’re rambling, Old Michael chided. She fucking works there, she doesn’t need a play-by-play of bagel supply issues. Let her say something, idiot! The reason he never noticed her before, it turned out, was that she hadn’t dyed her hair yet. Cat also began to tell him about her history degree. Something about the American Gilded age and how she was deep into research of the British Astors or something. Michael surprisingly found himself not bored. Were her eyes fucking green? Oh, fuck, they were green!

They finally saw the shop in the distance. Right after his anti-onion bagel tirade and her talk of her studies, he set straight into a long-winded verbal onslaught on the statistics of how rare green eyes were. Micheal thought his heart would fall out of his asshole when Cat adjusted their hands so her fingers were laced with his. About halfway through the distance, he had cut in when she mentioned her favorite bagel flavor (pineapple) and talked her ear off the rest of the way about his bagel eating method, insisting on its practicality but really prepping her so that she wouldn’t be horrified when she saw him do it and ditch him like fucking Oliver. She laughed.

“That’s so L.A. of you. New York would hate your fucking guts, though.” she said, with a grin. “Good thing I’m a California girl! I’d rather deal with horrible traffic and scooped bagels than having to fight rats for sidewalk space.”

Right before they got to the doors, Michael went for it. “I’m telling people that you’re my girlfriend.”, he said seriously. She hadn’t run off when he had taken her hand (wrist). She had noticed the Fable stickers on his computer. She had remembered his name after one interaction. The American thing was a slight issue but hey, no one was perfect!

“Cool, because I already told the staff that you were my boyfriend when I took your bag!” Cat responded. “I told them you like to pretend you don’t know me when you get mad and I just play along to pacify you. It was the only way they were comfortable letting me take your bag!”

Be cool! Do not fucking freak out! Act fucking normal! Do NOT scare her away! Say something a fucking weirdo would never in a million years say! Old Michael reminded him.

“Let’s go back to my place after and study some calculus. Your grades in that sound horrendous.” Fucccccck. You just got yourself a girlfriend and this is the shit you respond with?! Old Michael panicked.

Cat smirked. “Only if you promise to fuck me into your mattress after.”

Michael stared at her, almost daring her to say she was kidding. When she didn’t and her gaze briefly dropped to his lips, he abandoned any doubts he had and turned to walk away from the shop, practically dragging Cat with him.

Cat giggled and adjusted herself to clutch at his arm with both hands, her legs and his in perfect sync as they made their way to Michael’s room.

—------------

“What the fuck?” Felix said to Oliver, pointing. Both were sitting on a bench, relaxing a bit before their next class.

“Didn’t he go fucking mental at you the first day? Not to be a dick or anything but is she safe with that guy?”

Oliver followed Felix’s finger and froze.

He gaped at what he saw:

Michael fucking Gavey, math genius slash freak of nature, walking happily with the pretty American girl who had said no to their bar hopping invite just last week. It was definitely surprising, but Oliver was now more determined than ever. If a fucking social reject like Gavey could get what he was after, then someone like himself was sure to have the same luck if he continued to put in the effort.

THE END

#Michael Gavey #Michael Gavey fic #ewanverse #Michael Gavey X Bimbo gf #Michael Gavey fanfiction #fanfiction #I DID IT I FINISHED IT #*jeb bush voice* please clap #I WAS going to put smut in it but despite some excellent advice i still couldn't do it!#I need to practice more! i really want to write a good fuck one day!#curse my catholic upbringing ugrrrrhhhh #yes this is corny but have you taken into consideration the fact that I DO NOT CARE???#i live life on the cob baby #and if the only way to improve my writing is by embarrassing myself on this hellsite then so fucking BE IT

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swampgallows · 6 months ago

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(fyi you are under no obligation to answer this at all. thought i'd ask bc youre THE garrosh person (iconic!) and i dont recall seeing anything related to this? or mobile is being dumb) me + a friend on twitter were talking about garrosh and the stonetalon mountains questline and how blizz came out and said that apparently that whole questline was a mistake, yadda yadda. i was wondering if you did have any thoughts on that, even in general or like specifically @ blizzard or about garrosh's characterization during that zone.

hi, thank you so much for the question! I always like talking and answering questions about he. as such, this will be quite long...

here is the interview where alex afrasiabi declares stonetalon's creation as "miscommunication". personally, it's very hard to believe that among all the different teams necessary in a zone's completion—quest designers, quest writers, environment designers, prop designers, voice actors, QA, and so on—absolutely no one stopped at any point and went "hey, uh, what exactly is this that we're building here?" unless it's Marvel-levels of secretive where they filmed fake scenes or prohibited actors from reading the full script to allegedly prevent spoilers, or Oblivion-levels of convoluted where they compiled voice lines in alphabetical order, i figure that eventually someone somewhere down the line MUST have pieced together that all the blind mice had discovered an elephant.

that elephant in the room however, now in 2024, is afrasiabi himself. in the wake of all that had been revealed in the activision-blizzard lawsuit of which afrasiabi is a main offender, i think we now have more context for why cataclysm might have been a "pretty crazy time". i don't have any concrete evidence for this of course, but considering afrasiabi's track record a la sylvanas torching teldrassil, one has to assume that he simply took the reins on what he, personally, wanted for garrosh—"Garrosh was my guy"—and brute-forced it to make it happen. just as entire teams were beholden to sylvanas burning the tree—engineering quests, designing gear, animating and storyboarding and scripting and voice acting the Warbringers cinematic, not to mention the entirety of the following 2 expansions that hinged on that action—the labor for a throwaway zone like stonetalon is a drop in the bucket in comparison. stonetalon was probably finished in a handful of weeks. recording garrosh's voice lines probably happened in an afternoon.

i don't have any text-based evidence for this either as it occurred in an open Q&A session over discord, but ex-wow dev john staats also remarked that in the early days of wow's development, individual teams were kind of left to their own devices. it was really easy for devs to simply publish whatever they wanted into the game (innocuous things like the happy face under karazhan intended to be seen only by map designers, or the karazhan crypts with the infamous upside-down sinners). for instance, one employee was adamant about ogres becoming the fourth playable race for the horde until they decided on trolls, hence why ogres have several unique animations as well as a dance, all animated by the same one guy who was passionate about it. sometimes events and items were completed in single weekends; staats said a couple of dungeons (iirc stockades and rfc) were implemented this way. these topics might be touched on in staats' book The WoW Diary, but i dont have it.

i think cataclysm as a whole is a monument to blizzard's growing pains and to afrasiabi in particular bucking against the corporate restraints of wow's astronomical success. cataclysm is tonally abhorrent in a number of different ways and it's not always easy to point fingers at who is responsible for what, but it's undeniable the amount of leverage afrasiabi had. even if it wasn't him specifically, it's evidenced by both the details of the lawsuit and the game itself that certain elements of what was prominent in 00s gamer culture and the general "boy's club" wolf of wall street atmosphere at blizzard heavily influenced cataclysm's execution. the boys were resting on their laurels from the skyrocketing popularity and success of wrath, getting tv spots, mtn dew collabs, and so on, and felt empowered to infuse even more of their indulgences into their unstoppable juggernaut. wow had enough power in the industry to dictate what made a successful mmo and and who these games were "For", leading to a circuitous perpetuation of toxic masculinity by creating a game that catered to that kind of audience and thus propagating that mindset within it. no one could challenge WoW nor the people at its helm, be they industry competitors or blizz employees themselves.

at the same time, however, bobby kotick had just recently become CEO, simultaneously tightening the ship and imposing new structure as decorum slipped and hedonism flourished. the old guard lost some freedom to the demand for an overall throughline and schedule of what content to expect and commit to and when to release rather than the loose "jam sessions" of previous patches. as such, afrasiabi couldn't just drag and drop his blorbo wherever he wanted into their digital playground. he says others didn't get the memo, but he is probably the one who got the memo of "our fanbase of millions of players hates your idiot character and we would like to phase him out please" and disregarded it. he admits to wanting to turn garrosh around, and in his mind might view stonetalon as a last stand to prove the worth of his character, but it was in opposition of what was most likely decided upon at an executive level, a cog in a number of different turning cranks to get cataclysm done on time and off of shelves.

afrasiabi says "there was a little bit of miscommunication on my part that kind of led to Garrosh going down another, darker path. So there's an interesting tidbit for you." i imagine this "miscommunication" to be along the lines of 'fine, people can hate him, but he stays'. i feel this is also why the team instantly leapt at the chance to permanently eradicate garrosh—along with anything else tainted by afrasiabi—after he was quietly fired in 2020. i would not be surprised if the team was essentially forced by contract or social pressure or otherwise to keep garrosh in the game as long as afrasiabi held the whip. again, this is all conjecture. i don't actually know what went on behind the scenes at blizzard.

unfortunately the end result is that, yes, thanks to stonetalon we DID end up seeing a garrosh that could have changed for the better, just as afrasiabi wanted, but ultimately would have been—"from a story character development perspective" (well said, alex. lol)—banal and redundant for wow. i assume afrasiabi just wanted his self-insert alongside metzen's (thrall), which is a level of meta that i do not feel like unpacking tonight. so while it does add a little more glimmer to the theory of garrosh as "the horde's arthas", stonetalon's impact mostly serves as fodder to stoke endless Garrosh Did Nothing Wrong ragebait on twitter.

much like arthas, what makes garrosh so compelling to the majority of (non-fascist) people who like him is his fall from grace. despite his efforts to free himself from the shackles of his lineage, garrosh steps in it over and over to a point where he is instead encouraged to deliberately emulate the legacy he had spurned and embrace his rage. knowing that a character has the capacity to be honorable and good and instead chooses with full conscience to be evil makes for a much more interesting character than a clueless crying fawn that clumsily ambles its way into becoming prince of gumdrop forest. of course it's more satisfying for afrasiabi to have his self-insert get both a rags-to-riches story AND 2.5 expansions' worth of gary stu headpats; for everyone else, gristle mcthornbody uncritically absolving the sins of the father and dunking on the cursed prophecy while flexing and spouting edgy one-liners as he overpowers and outsmarts everyone is downright cartoonish. it's the lecherous tiefling bard who wants to remain in the tavern to hit on npcs instead of engaging with the campaign your dungeonmaster created: fun for him, and an interminable bore to everyone else deprived of the adventure.

in afrasiabi's hands, there is no greater narrative to garrosh hellscream. he's a big buff warrior because afrasiabi wishes he were a big buff warrior. garrosh is a racist, sexist scumbag because afrasiabi is a racist, sexist scumbag. garrosh has tattoos of no specific shape or meaning because afrasiabi only has a superficial appreciation for tattoos as something badass and cool. he kills people and blows stuff up because that's alpha sigma tiropita and badass and cool. the history of the orcs and fel was retconned so that garrosh could be a Shiny. grom and thrall had a special bond all throughout warcraft 3, but here comes grom's secret son to usurp the title of #1 favorite orc!! and he's just like grom but actually he's even MORE cool and badass??? this is 'playing power rangers at recess'-tier character development. it is transparently afrasiabi's wish fulfillment independent of the ongoing storyline, which at minimum is not befitting of a multi-million dollar AAA gaming franchise.

the inverse to garrosh's story being a fall from grace is that it is a story of unmet potential which is, both in a doylist and watsonian sense, exactly the oedipal kind of destiny afrasiabi ushered in for his doomed character. garrosh was doomed from the start to be a lackluster simulacrum of grom, both in azeroth and at blizzard, grasping for nostalgia for the RTS days while actively refusing to engage with the culture and landscape of modern day WoW. the more afrasiabi meddled, the more it illuminated just how hollow his vision of this character was and the failure to reach the potential of the kind of character garrosh could be. afrasiabi says "Garrosh was my guy" but his own ego will forever prevent him from understanding all of the dimensionality to his character that he threw away. and this, too, in true afrasiabi fashion, is reflected in garrosh's character. his ego overshadows his ability to listen to the people around him and results in his inevitable, shameless downfall... because that's exactly what afrasiabi would do. did.

so, no, alex. garrosh is not your guy. he's mine. he's all of ours. because world of warcraft belongs to all of us. and because i engage with the character of garrosh hellscream within his narrative, i can look at the beginning and end of his story and say that stonetalon is canon. because despite the years of frustration and confusion, there is so much closure for me in knowing that the reason he sucks so bad is because his creator—grom, afrasiabi—abandoned him, his story, his soul. trying to pare him down and sand his edges and curdle him into something he was never meant to be. he was never meant to exist, and he shouldn't exist, and that's what makes him so irresistibly, infuriatingly compelling, and why i love him so. garrosh hellscream is the only character in the entire story, both within the narrative and without, from beginning to end, in any timeline or on any planet, who is acutely aware that he is not meant to exist.

#maybe not the answer youre looking for but it's the one you're getting #thank you for the question! this was cathartic haha #ask #divinewretched #metacraft #yamyell #long post

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saccharinescorpion · 1 year ago

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oh christ i typed up way too many thoughts about the Teal Mask story

spoilers of course

TO BEGIN WITH literally everything here has a big ol’ asterisk with “subject to change” attached to it, i was surprised at how much of a “to be continued” ending the main story had and i’m trying not to get my hopes too high for Indigo Disk, but wowzers

Carmine’s line about tourism… i have a lot of feelings, but the one looming over my head like a fucking sword of Damocles is “did the writers not intend this to have as much weight as i am ascribing to it lmao” because it’s only the one line and GOD i don’t want to be the “reading too much into stories for babies” person all the time but!! But!!!!

(recalls the scene where Nemona talks to you about feeling isolated because of her talent and recalls my feeling of “why was this only in one scene where she flatout looks at the camera and says this”)

well even if it’s not supposed to be “that” important-

1) sure makes the TCG Tournament in Hawaii feel even more bitterly ironic lmao (obligatory yes i know the game writers are not responsible for most stuff that happens in the wider franchise i’m just SAYING it’s ironic)

2) GOSH it sure does make those ugly jokes people kept making about Carmine even grosser than they already were (if you don’t know what i’m talking about, Don’t Worry About It)

As someone on twitter said it feels weird to have this sort of plot point after not exploring it at all in the game with the Hawaii analogue. at the same time i do have to wonder if it was a response to working on those games and doing some thinking. Who can say

God ALL of that was for one line

KIERAN!! Okay, i know i’ve been giving Kieran a lot of shit but his plot progression is genuinely very compelling. recent games have been exploring the “rival who feels inadequate” type of character but this is the first time one has gone off the deep end like this, and i really hope they push it into interesting places

Cutesy shy “oh gosh oh wowzers” pre-development Kieran… in the end i did feel a bit charmed by how sincere he is for the record!

but also i’m genuinely so glad he ended up having Inner Darkness lol

Sorry Kieran i just don’t like it when it feels like the writer is trying way too hard to make me say “i want to protect you”

By extension sorry Wally lmao because he really was the ancestor of this type in the Pokemon franchise

I tried not to take the fact that i really didn’t want the damn Ogerpon too personally lol, this is one of those moments where i really had to force myself to step back and remember that these games are not for me, they are for tiny children who often really do buy into the Gotta Catch Em All thing and probably felt some genuine inner turmoil at this

But god like, please. I have my giant puppy lizard who makes vroom vroom noises. Ogerpon you are so cute but we can never have the bond i have with my bike

Kieran falling to his knees after the last battle genuinely got me, so did him punching the shrine even with the dumb “owie ><” gag afterwards

OKAY talking about the battles damn Kieran and Carmine were tough opponents i had to try Kieran’s last fight like three times (admittedly because i was using my weaker Kitakami team but STILL)

Kieran feeling bad for the ogre was projecting “THIS CHARACTER FEELS LIKE AN OUTCAST” and i picked that up loud and clear, and that was good, but i wish they actually… made him seem like an outcast?

Don’t get me wrong, Kieran definitely has self-confidence issues, issues with talking to others, anxiety issues (possibly), and that can easily make someone feel like an outcast

But i feel like there’s a big difference between that and someone (Ogerpon and her trainer) who is actively shunned and mistreated by the people around them, and i was really hoping for that from Kieran

It’s just the Pokemon thing of finding it hard to depict people really being actively malicious (see Penny and Team Star’s bullies and their enablers all doing their thing off-screen and then leaving off-screen)

But it’s doubly weird because they didn’t have much issue with showing characters in this story being terrible (Carmine)

Carmine!!! Her terribleness was genuinely so entertaining, a lot of the time i was simultaneously laughing and thinking “oh people are going to be SO mad”

But real talk for all my love of Girls Who Suck i do actually kind of get where some people are coming from, she is genuinely very abrasive and unpleasant at times, and though i don’t agree at least i can tell where the character hate is stemming from (unlike some of the absolute batshit stuff i saw about Geeta and Nemona, don’t get me staaaarted)

And speaking of… okay i feel like i’m pushing it even talking about this but i feel it would be dishonest to pretend that i’m not thinking about it

SOOOO the “it’s not like i hit him” line… another case of “did the writers intend this to be as big as it is in my mind,” combined with uhhh writers from a different generation than me, let’s say

For now i will interpret that at face value, but like… damn, i don’t think that reads as you want it to especially in a Pokemon game

Carmine pleaseeeeeee say you’re sorry to Kieran in Indigo Disk please please please i know she apologized for leaving him in the dark but my dearest dream is for her to apologize for being so mean to him all the time. she needs to just treat him better in general. please i will forgive Kieran having to apologize for taking the mask if we can do this please

I know i know cultural differences but we already had Clavell apologize for the failures of the school system, this isn’t THAT big of a stretch

I am genuinely curious if Indigo Disk will pull a reverse plot twist and reveal Ogerpon’s trainer to be a bad person or reveal that he was the one to attack the Loyal Three first because if not DAMN we’re just going to have some flat out evil Pokemon? that we can potentially put on a team with Ogerpon?????

Ogerpon is a silly lil girl :)

I still haven’t done Perrin’s plot lol

#pokemon scarlet and violet #teal mask #carmine pokemon #kieran pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet spoilers #teal mask spoilers #pokemon dlc #ogerpon #kieran #carmine

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suchalonelysunflower · 1 year ago

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I Hear a Symphony (c.h)

You, Again Spin Off

Pairing: Soulmate! Calum Hood x Soulmate! Fem! Reader

Summary: it’s the most important day of Luke’s life, and, even if Calum doesn’t know it yet, it would be his as well

Warnings: Fluff, kinda angsty but not Sunny’s type of angst. Language. Some grammatical errors (English is not my first language, I’m sorry)

Word Count: 4.2 K

Authors Note: OKAY, this does not mean I’m back posting every week like I used to, but it’s something. Thank you for the 2K 🥹🩷 more things are coming, I promise. But like give me time cause I’m moving continents this month. Please remember to REBLOG the works you like, that’s super important to keep writers (me) going, as well as COMMENTS LIKES AND REACTIONS. PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR WRITERS. Hope you like it and happy reading 🥰🦋🌻

My masterlist // tag list in bio!

He could hear the sound of nervous pacing echo through his head as he rubbed the tip of his thumbs over his eyes. It was a normal occurrence as lately, they’ve all grown accustomed to Luke’s endless worrying. But everyone has their limits, and Calum’s all but reaching it at this point.

“Mate, sit the fuck down!” He said, a bit more harshly than he intended in the first place.

“Yeah!” Michael seconded without paying much attention to them, sitting across the room on the couch, with no pants and a bowl of Cheetos sitting next to him as he played yet another game of FIFA “You’re gonna run out your shoes before you walk down the aisle”

Calum glared at him for that comment.

“What?! That can happen?!” Luke shouted as he immediately jumped to the bed and took off his shoes to inspect them.

“Of course not” Calum sighed, going up to Michael and flicking him on the forehead, ignoring his complaint “But you do need to calm down”

Luke’s been erratic these past few weeks as the big day approached. They’ve all had their fair share of laughs at the “bridezilla’s” post on Reddit every once in a while. But they never thought that their best friend would ever turn into a “groomzilla” Calling them in the middle of the night for their opinions about ties and eyeliner color; overhearing phone calls in the office with vendors about how “teal” was not the same thing as “cerulian”; almost having an aneurysm when Ashton said he was going to shave his head… to name a few.

Although - Calum thought - that term was not fair to Luke at all. He could understand the man being nervous about his own wedding and wanting everything to be perfect. Especially as his best man - aka the man who made sure everything was not in shambles after Luke ended up crying on the office kitchen floor at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday - What he did not get was his underlying fear of his soulmate running away at the last minute.

“I’m sorry!” Luke moaned, hiding his face in his hands as he lay down on the bed “It’s just- what if she just decides she doesn’t want this anymore?”

“You’re joking, right?” Calum sighed as he sat next to Luke.

Calum knew the whole story of their love. When he first met Luke on his first day at the company, the first thing he noticed was the mark on his skin. He remembers a blushing Luke smiling shyly at him while he rubbed his fingers unconsciously over the mark as he told them the story of how he met his soulmate. It was the first time Calum met someone so young and so in love, at least until Michael met his soulmate, but that is a whole other story - and albeit a more dramatic one.

When Luke told them he was going to propose, no one took it as a surprise. It was just how it was supposed to be for them. At least that’s what Calum thought. If he was being honest, all the idea of soulmates and having one person to love for the rest of your life seemed… weird.

He knows he should not have those thoughts out loud, and he probably agrees with Ashton’s theory that maybe it was just because he hadn’t found his yet. But, what was he supposed to think? That magically, somewhere around the world, there was someone destined to be with him? And that they would love him back? It just doesn’t seem real.

But then… He turns toward Luke, who’s now observing his mark, touching it so delicately as if it were to fall. He noticed how his lips moved to say his lover’s name as he sighed. Then, he looks over at Michael, whose mark got him a novella out of that story, and how he smiles at the text his soulmate probably sent. He thinks about how their smiles change when they’re around their loved ones; how they talk about them, as if they were the most interesting people in the world and no one could compare to them. And Calum knows. He just knows that’s how love is supposed to be.

And, he knows he’s never felt that before. Not in the receiving or giving end of the bargain.

He has had partners before. Someone to take the loneliness away from his hands and put them to good use. A distraction, maybe, from feeling so empty. But those relationships never lasted more than a season. His lips never uttered the word “love” to someone before.

Maybe he’s not supposed to.

“Ayooooo!” Ashton shouted as he came barging into their hotel suite, letting the door hit the wall and making Michael drop the bowl of Cheetos on the floor “Who’s ready to party!”

Immediately, Luke got up from the bed with erratic eyes.

“Where the fuck have you been?!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Ashton faked innocence. Calum rolled his eyes

“Give it up, Ash,” He said, getting up from the bed as well “It’s getting late and Luke hasn’t killed anyone, yet. And I have no problem letting him start with you”

“You,” Ashton pointed at him “Are no fun. I just went to grab my tux! I left it at home so that I couldn’t damage it as other people did”

Michael raised his hands “In my defense, no one should’ve brought orange soda into the tux fitting!”

Luke ran a hand through his face. Calum thought it was fortunate that he didn’t do his makeup yet.

“Just tell me you got them”

“Got what?”

“The wha- THE RINGS?!”

“What rings?”

“Okay,” Calum said, putting himself between a very confused Ashton and a bull-raging-looking Luke “This ain’t funny anymore, Ash”

“I’m not trying to be funny, 'cause you know I’ll be hilarious. But I seriously have no idea what you two are on about”

At that moment, Calum could see everything in slow motion.

He noticed the way Luke’s neck vein nearly exploded. He heard the slow whistle from Michael as he got out of the way completely. And he watched Ashton’s eyes go from joyful to meet the angel of death in Luke’s stare as he started to run across the room while the soon-to-be groom chased him.

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Calum yelled just in time for Ashton to trip on Michael’s shoes, taking Luke by surprise and making him stop on his steps “Let’s take a damn moment and figure this out, okay?! Ashton, you don’t have the wedding rings?”

“No.” He said from the floor “Why on Earth would I have them?! You’re the best man!”

“Because I gave them to you, you ass!” Luke shouted, nearly on the brink of tears.

“No you fucking didn’t, mate!” Ashton groaned as he sat down “Believe me, I would’ve known!”

“Yes, I did! At the rehearsal dinner two nights ago, I told you to guard them with your life!”

“No, Luke-” Ashton frowned and got up and went to pick something from his bag “You gave me these. Which at the time I thought it was weird, but no questioning the groom I guess”

What he showed the rest of them was a little black velvet box that contained… nothing. It was completely empty.

Luke’s demeanor completely changed from angry to defeated. Calum swore he could see the five stages of grief run through his friend’s eyes as he sat back down on the bed.

“That’s not- those aren’t-” He stammered “That’s the engagement ring box. I- I don’t know-”

In an instant, his baby blue eyes filled with tears that could not stop running down his face. A chain of curse words mixed with painful whimpers and sobs ran through him and echoed into the empty room. The remaining three friends just looked at each other in shock, not knowing how to approach or how to comprehend anything that was happening.

“Oh my god!” Luke cried “She’s going to leave me! She’ll know I lost the rings and she’ll walk out in an instant. I fucked up! Oh for god’s sake, I ruined everything!”

“Luke-”

“What am I going to even say to her?! Oh god, she’s probably thinking of ways to escape this!”

“Luke!”

“I’m going to end up alone and- and - and- and my mark will disappear! I- I don’t wanna be markless again?!”

“For fuck’s- LUKE!” Calum shouted, grabbing the sobbing groom by the shoulders and shaking him out of his state “Calm the fuck down! We’re going to figure this out and you’re getting married today!”

“But how?!”

“Just-” And then Calum realized he had no idea how to actually fix this, but he had to come up with a plan. Fast “You gave Ash the wrong box, we know that and it was an accident. But, is there any way the box with the rings just got mixed up? Maybe the rings are in the other box and-”

“And they’re exactly where you left them,” Michael chimed in. Nodding at Calum and Ash “We can go find them”

“But I don’t know where they are! They could be anywhere!” Luke whined, “Our house, with the bridal party, at the office…”

“Why would they be in the office?”

“I don’t know! I took them everywhere just to make sure I didn’t lose them”

Calum sighed and stood back. It’s game time.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” He said, seriously “Luke, you stay here. Try to compose yourself, I’ll call Jack to help you get ready and to help you look through your luggage. Ash, you’re going to their house. Look into every drawer that you can find, even the bathroom and kitchen. Michael, obviously you’re going to the office.”

“Duh”

“And I’ll go to where the bridal party is, if it’s not there I’ll go with Ash”

“Wait,” Luke said, drying his tears “I don’t want her to know that I lost them. If you go there and tell her-”

Calum just put up his hand and smirked “You’re talking to an expert here, mate. She won’t even know I’m there” He then nodded and put his hand on Luke’s shoulder “Let’s get you to that altar”

The bridal party was getting ready at the penthouse on the top floor of the hotel, which later would become the marital suite for both Luke and his new bride. Calum went up to the door, ready to knock. But then he would chicken out and do a few laps along the corridor to gain some sort of courage.

“It’s okay,” He told himself “You’re gonna do great, not embarrass Luke and save his wedding. Yeah. You’re a good friend, Calum. Good friend. Great friend, even. Maybe I should ask for a complimentary gift from their honeymoon-”

“Are you seriously giving yourself a pep talk out loud?”

Calum shrieked and jumped at the sound of the stranger’s voice. Turning around to see a lady smiling at him with her eyebrow raised. She was wearing one of the hotel’s complimentary robes with sandals and had her hair and makeup done, as well as a bucket of ice in her hands.

“I- I-” Calum cleared his throat as he composed himself “I’m just… trying to-”

He blinked a couple of times, wondering the reason as to why he seemed out of words when he looked at her waiting for an answer. With that smile and those beautiful eyes looking straight at him… She was pretty. Gorgeous even.

Calum had seen his fair share of pretty people around and about, but this stranger was just as if she were casting a spell on him the moment he set eyes on her. Like Medusa freezing him over with her beautiful stare.

Soon, he returned to his senses enough to extend a hand to her.

“Sorry,” He smiled “I’m Calum, Luke’s best man”

The girl smiled, shaking his hand “Oh, I thought I recognized you from somewhere! I’m Luke’s cousin, Y/N”

Alarm bells started shouting the words “OFF LIMITS” inside Calum’s head the moment she uttered those words.

“Cousin?”

“Yeah,” She smiled, and oh, how Calum wished she didn’t.

“But- but I haven’t seen you? I mean, at the rehearsal dinner and stuff”

Y/N sighed “Yeah, working out of state can be a pain in the ass sometimes. My flight got delayed a good 24 hours. I arrived last night and I’m already spent” She laughed “Anyway, I’m sure you have something important to do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Being the best man and all”

Then Calum remembered his task.

“Oh shit! Right. Uhm… I’m gonna need your help” He stepped closer to her and whispered “You see, I’m on a mission”

“Like a secret mission?” She whispered back.

“Exactly. Here’s the deal…”

After he explained the situation and pretended not to notice the way in which Y/N’s eyes set on him with such brightness in them or the way her perfume seemed to hold his thoughts captive at her proximity. They both came up with a plan.

“And the bride cannot know, right?”

“For the sake of Luke’s nerves… yeah, better not”

Y/N giggled, making Calum take a moment just to wish it could happen again. And another to wonder why that was.

“Okay, follow me”

Calum walked behind her, careful not to get into her space as she used her key to open up the door. Luckily, the rest of the party was getting ready at the other side of the room, just as she told him they were. So all Calum had to do was sneak up the other side into the room and rummage through Luke’s bags. Easy enough.

But when have things ever been easy for any of them?

“Hey, Y/N!” A voice ran through the room, making them both panic as Y/N pushed Calum outside of the room again, holding the door with one hand behind her “There you are!”

Calum, still in shock from the abrupt shove, couldn’t hear most of the conversation the girl was having with another bridesmaid. He just noticed her hand out to hold the door so that he wouldn’t be shut out. And then, he noticed her mark.

It was as if a bucket filled with cold water had been dumped on him when he looked at the little dove tattooed on her skin. His face morphed into the disappointment his heart was bleeding out. Feeling the way his lungs stopped breathing as a warm, dreaded sensation ran through his body.

He didn’t know, nor could he comprehend that sudden sadness that took over him just by looking at her mark. Why did it matter so much to him? He literally just met her out in the hall. He should’ve known or even expected her to have someone already, how could she not? In the brief minutes that he’d known her, he already knew she was special. Just… just not special for him.

“Calum!” He heard her hiss through the door.

“I’m here!” He whispered back, trying to tint his voice with something other than disappointment.

Y/N then grabbed his hand blindly and pulled him into the room, making them crash their bodies as she closed the door behind him. Her strength was a bit misplaced as she ended up backtracking into the wall and taking Calum with her, pushing them together against the wall.

She looked back at him, and Calum could barely breathe. His eyes went straight to her lips, parting and waiting for words to come out. So close to him that her eyelashes could blow winds into the brown forest of his eyes. Just one more, little push and he could have his lips drinking from the secret poison of her mouth.

But he couldn’t. Not when she already belonged to someone else.

So he stood back, giving her a little nod as he made his way toward the room. Y/N followed him, making sure to stand guard at the door in case any other person wanted to come in.

“His bags are on the right side,” She whispered through the other side of the door.

“Great, it shouldn’t take me lo-oh. Oh shit”

“What?!”

“Luke’s got like six bags here!” Calum whispered-shouted, already wanting to cry “How on Earth could a person own so many clothes?!”

Y/N stifled a laugh “That sure sounds like my cousin. But don’t worry, his bride got like eight. No wonder they’re amazing together”

“Yeah,” Calum agreed as he started to go through the first bag “Can you believe that he’s scared shitless she’s going to run off?”

“What?! She’s totally head over heels for him. I’ve known them my whole life, there aren’t more deserving people of that kind of love. They truly are made for each other, real soulmates”

Calum gave her a small smile even though she couldn’t see it.

“You know?” She said, with a sigh “I have to admit that I never truly believed that could be possible.”

“What?”

“Loving someone like that”

Calum stopped for a moment looking through bag number three, that same tug on his heart appearing that he chose to ignore. Y/N continued.

“I knew soulmates were real. But I always got that feeling that it couldn’t just be that perfect, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it” He answered, opening bag number four.

“The thought of loving someone like that for the rest of your life, it’s scary. So I understand why Luke might feel like that. Like it’s just such a perfect dream you might wake up from one day. But seeing him with his girl, and seeing the rest of my friends live their lives with their happy endings. They are all living in symphonies and I’m just here trying to figure out the tempo” She laughed

Calum looked back at the door, smiling sadly at her words that mirrored his thoughts so perfectly. His hand went through the fifth bag blindly, finally touching a velvety surface. His eyes widened.

“I know one day I’ll-”

“Holy shit I’ve-”

“Find it”

“Found it!”

Both of them kept quiet for a few seconds after that.

“Wait- you found them?”

“What?” Calum turned, taking the small box from the bag and walking up to the door “But- you have a mark”

“I don’t-”

Silence again. Time stopped. The beats of Calum’s heart could echo in those moments. He knows what he saw. He knows the dove is right there.

Then, the door opens. Y/N stood there with teary eyes. Her hand was delicately touching the mark she now noticed. But she wasn’t looking at it, no. Instead, her attention was solely on Calum, who was standing right in front of her, confused.

She took his hand, he offered no fight. She opened the button of his shirt and lowered the sleeve. Finally, the two of them could breathe.

“Cal…” She said, lips forming a smile.

“Oh my god,”

There it was, drawn on his delicate skin: A dove.

“Hey, has anyone seen Y/N?” A voice could be heard saying from the other side of the suite.

Calum looked up, and in a second he had her by the waist as he hurried them over to the closet and closed the door. He put a hand over her mouth and waited as footsteps came closer.

“I don’t think she’s here,” One of the bridesmaids said as they entered the room “Maybe she went to get some more ice”

They heard the person walk back out and exhale the breath they were holding. Calum looked back at Y/N, and she was already looking at him. He took his hand from her mouth but neither of them could form a sentence.

“Hi,” He said, breathing out a laugh. She smiled.

“Hi,” Her hand found his “This is-”

“Weird?”

“I was going to say “right” This feels right” She giggled “But yeah, it’s kinda weird. We have a lot to talk about”

“I know, I-”

“But not right now” Y/N put her other hand on his chest, feeling the way his heart nearly drummed its way out of his chest “It’s Luke’s wedding, there’s a lot of things to do, and I don’t want to take the moment from them”

Calum sighed “You’re right. But when?”

“I’ll find you,” She said, placing a kiss on his cheek “Now, you have to go, best man. Or the groom might collapse”

And so Calum walked back to Luke’s room, smiling ear to ear as he still felt her lips on his cheek. A smile that did not fade until he entered the suite and found Luke in his underwear with an ice pack on top of his groin; Michael with the zipper of his pants broken; and, Ash with dog paws imprinted onto his shirt.

“What the hell happened?”

Ashton sighed “Dude, you don’t want to know”

The ceremony went without a hitch. Luke and his new bride could not take their eyes off each other since she walked into the room, the smile on both of their faces was enough to convince even the proudest non-believer that love truly exists. Their vows made everyone in the room cry or close to, at least. But as they spoke, Calum could only think of one thing: Y/N.

When he saw her walk down the aisle, holding onto one of Luke’s other cousins, he could not help but imagine that one day he would see her walk in white to him waiting at the altar. The looks that they exchanged were a secret to everyone but them. He looked for her throughout the ceremony, almost missing his cue to give the newlyweds their rings - that Luke nearly kissed him in thanks for finding them - And he knew. He just knew that the part of him that he didn’t even think was missing was finally whole.

“... And, I have to admit, soulmates and stuff? I didn’t get them. Not until I met these two. When Luke first told us about the way his bride smiled and how she always got the coffee to taste just right in the mornings, even when their coffee machine broke down, I knew what true love was supposed to look like. Most people search for a love like that, some stop believing halfway through their happy endings. I always thought that love was just something that happened. Now I’m certain that love is something you live through. Something so inexplicably beautiful that’s hard to describe. It doesn’t happen instantly, but it builds and builds until you’ve created a home out of it. I know I cannot wait to start building mine” He said, looking straight at Y/N who sat there smiling widely with teary eyes “Today, the new Mr. and Mrs. Hemmings have invited us to their home, to their love story. And I’m just so thankful to be here sharing this love with them. To the bride and groom!”

The whole venue followed with applause and a few whistles from Ashton after the speech. Luke got up to hug him tightly and thank him for everything he’s done. His wife also got up and kissed him on the cheek, hitting his arm lightly and scolding him mockingly for making her cry again.

Calum just laughed and wished them the best once again. And, when he looked back, he noticed that his soulmate was no longer in her seat. He looked for her through the crown and found her at the door, nudging her head for him to follow.

Yet, when he got there, she was nowhere to be found. That was until he felt a pull on his sleeve and suddenly he was inside a closet once again.

“You really have a lot of upper strength” He laughed, putting an arm around her waist and bringing her closer to him “Hi,”

“Hi,” She said, closing her eyes and leaning forward until their foreheads touched “That was a great speech”

“Thank you, I’ve been practicing”

She hummed as she felt a small kiss on the top of her head, putting her arms around his neck “I already want to hear it again”

Calum held her close, hiding his face inside her neck as he softly placed kisses along it. Feeling like a swarm of butterflies just took flight inside his stomach.

“We have time. I could recite it to you each night”

“We’ve barely just met and you’re already thinking about tonight?” She teased.

“I’m thinking of getting to know you every night and day for as long as you let me,” He confessed, pulling back slightly to look at her “Would you let me?”

Y/N smiled and nodded. Calum took it upon himself to close the distance between them and finally let their lips touch. Kissing her like she wanted from the first time he saw her. Hungry. Passionately. Lovingly. Hopeful for the future they could now share.

But too busy to even hear the door of the closet opening.

“Hey, Cal! Are you there? Where ha- OH MY GOD! WITH MY COUSIN, CAL?!”

tags: @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @mystic-232 @talksoprettyjjx @theshyspy @hemmohoran @flaneurcth @hoodharlow @littledrummeraussie @bubblegum18 @irwin-fletcher-ash @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @1980holland @wiiildflowerrr @hoplessromantic727 @in-a-world-of-fandoms @another-lonely-heart @aabc5sauce @dudethisiswhyyoudonthavefriends @fakebetch9694 @5sos-imagine @SunflowerAngel2123 @perfectnouis @in-superbloom @lukeisstillapenguin @sadcupofcoffee

@superstarmarvel @personalmuyverypersonal @cnco.angels @vtte @himbohood @sofiaaraee @irwindoll @lolzkye @fairytrice @colourfulcal @nibin0912 @hfkait @savagejane1 @youneedtocalumdown @pvnkcloud @in-a-world-of-fandoms @The-Ghost-of-Cal @youneedtocalumdown @dasguccier @awritingtree @heyitskelseaj @dawwnya @calumance @writersdare @indianamgc11 @marshallowy

@ashtonsunflower @calumspupils @secretsicanthideanymore @alltimesos @wontlastimokwiththat @whywontyoulovemecami @perriexed @abiancajg @rewmuslupin @icelily13 @gracieboogirl @fastandtheformula1 @remusismyhousewife @emilyclairesimpson @romanjbittenbinder @bookthingz @voilavouz @gracieboogirl @valentinehrts

@fckingpernico @multistann @a-darneddarling @plaidshirtyears @ihavenoideawhattodowithyou @bittersweetb4by @aria-grace-scott @bvbygxrl @luisa180206 @flyingburrito123 @drugerlime

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lesbianmaxevans · 4 months ago

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meant to make a post months ago LOL but some heartbreak high jumbled thoughts (after watching thru a second time to refresh my memory LOL)

quinni is probably the best autistic rep I've ever seen. when she decided to stop masking her autism >>>>>> her speech during the debate >>>>>>>>>

ca$h is probably the best ace rep I've ever seen. ca$h and darren's relationship is literally everything I've ever wanted, I feel like ace characters are never allowed to date someone unless that person is also ace/celibate, so it means soooooooooooo much to me to see a relationship btwn someone who is very into sex and someone who is very uninterested in sex. and to see darren be so committed to their relationship even tho it's difficult just warms my heart so much

I think the way harper's trauma is depicted in s1 is really raw and beautiful. this show gives everyone the space to be messy and her spiraling after her bodily autonomy was taken away is very realistic and imo good to see. that being said I need girlie to get some therapy and form a healthier relationship with sex asap.

I am once again uncomfortable with a show about minors having so much explicit sexual content. whyyyyyyyy is this allowed

darren, quinni, malakai, and missy have never done anything wrong ever in their lives :) also missy and malakai are bisexual icons, I love them both so much

writers go to jail for the missy/spider plot. he spent all of s1 being such a vindictive asshole to amerie bc she rejected him and then he was publicly shaming missy (albeit thankfully w/o naming her) for the same reason. he's incessantly misogynistic and racist. he also had the idea of the fraudulent accusation of mrs obah sleeping with a student bc he wanted the slt classes cancelled!!! and fueled the reactionary bullshit that voss was trying to start. like whyyyyyyyy are the writers trying so hard to redeem him I'm sick of this (if he actually sticks to his speech in 2.08, I'll be thankful tho. I still won't like him lol but at least he won't be making everyone else miserable anymore)

ppl hate dusty too much. like yeah he undeniably was in the wrong for his part in starting the rumor about mrs obah and amerie. but imo he's put in more effort to altering his behavior (as seen by him being a safe person for darren to go to) than ant or spider and both of them were involved too and I don't see ppl at their throats like they are for dusty.

I live for chaos and drama so the malakai-amerie-rowan triangle was soooooo fun (altho I wish there hadn't been the extra drama with the rowan being "bird psycho". just stick to the love triangle messiness. also do not get me started on rowan threatening malakai WHAT WAS THAT why did the writers do that 😑 anyway I want rowan back in s3 and making amends w the ppl who were collateral damage in his revenge quest against amerie)

also re the love triangle mess, it seems like the writers are intending for amerie/malakai endgame and I do like them but I feel like the show did gloss over amerie's repeated boundary violations (which honestly was also a problem with her dynamic w harper in s1 too, like girl you have to let people come to you instead of badgering them into talking to you and trying to force them to confess things). like everyone repeatedly told her to give malakai space as he was processing that he was bi and she just kept hovering and trying to force him to open up. like.... girlie please he just needed some time to figure out his feelings.

sometimes the show wants to treat the women as #girlbosses when they actually do things that are really fucked. like I don't hate harper, but the speech she gave to embarrass dusty at the basketball game was really gross and the narrative treats it as epic and her standing up for herself when she and dusty took advantage of malakai not being sober and the fact that he was in a bad headspace after just being attacked by that cop. also the writers act like dusty deserved this just bc harper thought he was acting weird after the threesome like...... is he not allowed some time to process his feelings about a new experience??? like..... how did the narrative treat this as a #girlpower moment what the hell

the demonization of mental illness is pretty uncomfortable. we only really see the symptoms of harper's dad (and presumably rowan) when they are actively being a danger to people. like mental health issues that cause ppl to see delusions doesn't equal that person being violent but the show kind of ties their anger/violence to their mental illnesses... which is another reason as to why I hope rowan sticks around for s3. let's see more of him being soft while still acknowledging these symptoms.

amerie going back to save rowan is one of my fave moments. like she has come such a long way from the girl who aired out everyone's personal business :')

#Heartbreak High #Rachel's HBH thoughts #these are all my thoughts for now I think

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cirilla-fiona-riannon · 2 years ago

Text

Ikemen Villains - Part 1

These translations are not intended as a replacement for the game. Please support CYBIRD by buying their stories. Spoilers under the cut. Expect mistakes.

What is happiness?

It’s like the twilight sky that changes color as soon as it’s imprinted in your eyes.

It holds your heart forever, yet you can never have the same thing again.

(Yeah, I really don’t know what I’m doing. I need to get my shit together.)

Today, Victor invited me for some tea.

I thought he was going to end the day peacefully with a chat and laughter, but he eventually dropped one heck of a bomb.

------------Flashback------------

Victor: Oh, right. Regarding your first job as a fairy tale writer.

Kate: Yes, what is it?

Victor: I want you to choose one of the crown members and spend time with him as your lover.

Kate: Pardon?

(L-Lover?)

Kate: H-Hold on, even if you ask me to choose, I still don’t know anything about一

Victor: That’s right, Miss Kate!

Victor: I’ve been up all night trying to figure out how to get you to know them better, and I finally came up with this idea.

Victor: Well, what can I say? I’m a genius! It’s already late, so you better start tomorrow. I’m so excited.

---------Flashback Ends---------

(I ended up agreeing, though, thinking that if I didn’t get their trust in my first job, they would kill me.)

(But getting to know each other deeply as lovers? How can I even handle such a ridiculous job?)

(I almost got run over by a carriage just thinking about it.)

I looked down at my sprained ankle, trying to avoid the speeding carriage, and sighed.

(There’s no point in dwelling on it.)

(First, l need to talk to Roger and get him to lend me some bandages.)

As I was dragging my feet to the stairs leading to the entrance...

Ellis: What happened to your foot?

Kate: Whoa! Huh? Ellis?

Ellis: Does it hurt?

My heart skipped a beat when Ellis popped up, probably on his way home from somewhere.

Ellis: Did you hurt yourself?

That fateful night, Ellis was the very person who asked if he could kill me, but I managed to survive by becoming a fairy tale writer.

(Shortly after that, he proposed to make me happy.)

I couldn’t help but feel an unspeakable unease.

Ellis: Let me patch you up. Put your arm around my shoulder and hold on.

Kate: Kyaah!?

When he saw my swollen foot, he lightly lifted me into his arms without hesitation.

Kate: I-I’m fine! I can walk!

Ellis: We need to check it properly. Roger’s not at the castle tonight, so I’ll take a look at it.

He ran to the basement, ignoring my resistance.

(He’s used to it.)

He deftly bandaged my sprained ankle.

I was a little embarrassed when he exposed my bare feet, but he was very serious and did only what was necessary to patch me up.

Ellis: How did you get hurt?

Kate: I was spacing out, thinking, when I accidentally twisted myself avoiding the carriage.

Ellis: Carriage, huh? What are you thinking about?

(I don't know if I should tell him, but maybe he can give me some advice.)

Kate: Victor told me that my first job is to spend a day tomorrow with someone from the Crown as a lover.

Kate: With my foot like this, I think it'd be best if I don't move around too much so that I don't cause any trouble.

Kate: Ellis, do you know someone who might agree?

He finished fastening the end of the bandage and stared at me, then spoke up.

Ellis: I'd like to do that.

Kate: Huh?

Ellis: I'd like to act as your lover.

(He would?)

Kate: W-Why?

Ellis: Because I want to make you happy while you're here.

He repeated the same words he had said to me that night we met.

(Why would he even want to do that to someone he'd never met before? Someone he was willing to kill?)

Ellis: I don't want you to look sad after tomorrow. No?

(I have to admit it feels kinda weird, but...)

I couldn't just ignore the carefully wrapped bandage and the worried look in his eyes.

Kate: O-Okay.

Ellis: Yay.

He laughed happily and lifted me again.

Kate: I’m fine now that you patched me up!

Ellis: Nope. I already know that you’re the kind of person who cares about other people’s problems even when you’re hurt.

Ellis: I don’t believe you’re okay, so let me walk you to your room.

Kate: That’s too much.

I tried to protest, but Ellis had no intention of letting me down, so I was forced to stay in his arms.

Ellis: For tomorrow’s plans, can you tell me what makes you happy?

Kate: Um, eating good food?

Ellis: Hmm. So, let’s buy some good food and have a picnic.

Ellis: I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. I look forward to having you as my lover.

Kate: Sure. Likewise.

(I feel like my crazy first job just went by so fast.)

(It’s going too well. I should be more careful with him, but...)

I stared at the carefully wrapped bandages and knew that he treated them with care.

(I have a feeling I’ll be fine with him.)

Ellis: Morning, Kate.

Kate: Good morning. What’s that?

The next morning, he picked me up in my room as promised, carrying what looked like a wheelchair.

Ellis: It’s a wheelchair. It’s not easy to get it, so I made one.

Kate: You made it...? Wait, why?

Ellis: I don’t want to strain my lover’s body.

(Lover?)

Kate: Don’t tell me it’s for my sake!?

Ellis: Yeah. Hey, try sitting down.

I sat down fearfully as he urged me and found the chair was so comfortable.

When he pushed from behind, the wheels turned smoothly, and the chair moved forward.

Kate: This is so cool. You know all this useful stuff, and you can make it.

Ellis: I used to look it up and just remembered it.

Kate: Thank you. I’m happy, but you’re exaggerating. I didn’t break any bones. I can walk.

I lifted my hips to get off, but一

Ellis: I don’t want you to get worse and not be able to walk, so no.

Kate: !?

He suddenly hugged me tightly from behind the chair.

Ellis: I’ll take you wherever you want and lift you by the chair if there are stairs.

Ellis: So all you have to do today is sit here.

I couldn’t stand up or even move as he held me in his arms and whispered, confused by his gentleness.

(But maybe this is how he treats his “lover.”)

(Is it weird to ask him to stop when he’s helping me to spend time as a lover?)

Kate: Okay, thanks.

Ellis: Yeah. Since this is my first date with you, I’ll do my best to make it the happiest day of our lives.

Part 1╏Part 2╏Premium End╏Epilogue

#ikemen villains #ikemen villain #ikevil ellis #ellis twilight #ikevil #ikevil jp #ikevil victor #cybird #ikevil translations

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